In the precapstone course, CREA E-597 Precapstone: Building the World of the Book: Fiction, students explore generative revision strategies, consolidate their knowledge of the writing craft and structure the imaginative world of their fiction. Students draft the first chapter of their capstone novel or the first story in their capstone collection (15-20 pages). Students also write a plan for their projects (5-10 pages) in which they create a roadmap of their book, bringing the plot and key characters into focus and defining the audience for their stories.

This capstone course, CREA E-599 Capstone: Developing the Manuscript: Fiction, is meant to follow CREA E-597, in which students built the imaginative world of their books and produced the first story or chapter of them. In this workshop, students write two additional chapters or stories, or approximately 30 pages of new work. The capstone project in total should be about 50-60 pages—the equivalent of a thesis. Students submit the entire manuscript—the plan and the three chapters developed during both the precapstone and capstone courses—at the end of the second semester, but instructors read and comment on only the two new chapters.