Join highly acclaimed short fiction writer Ennis Ćehić in this deep dive into one of literature’s strangest, most compelling modes of storytelling.
This course is fully online and self-paced. Start and finish whenever is convenient to you!
Across philosophy, lineage, craft and practice, you’ll learn how absurdist fiction bends logic, disrupts expectation and makes meaning through contradiction. Through literary examples, guided exercises and real-world observation, you’ll come away with a new capacity to recognise absurdity in everyday life and transform this knowledge into sharp and engaging short fiction of your own—asking not just how absurdism works, but why it feels so right now.
By the end of this course, you will have:
- Produced drafts of several original stories through structured and playful exercises
- Developed new characters, dialogue and narrative voices
- Learned how to spot real-world absurdity in systems, bureaucracy and daily life
- Found new creative ways of responding to an increasingly absurd modern world
- Understood the philosophical roots of absurdism and how they can shape your own fiction
- A deeper understanding of the genre’s literary lineage and contemporary relevance
- Identified the core characteristics of absurdist writing and applied them to your own new work
Student Reviews of Writing Very Short Stories with Ennis Ćehić
‘This is a well-planned and presented course for anyone daring to foray into Very Short Stories. The course yielded much glorious information and not some few surprises. Engaging, informative, inspiring.’—KYD Student
‘I had never written a short story when I started this course, but I was able to generate six edited stories, and now I have a mechanism for future ideas.’—KYD Student
‘It’s the first KYD workshop I've done and I was impressed by the quality and organisation of the course.’—KYD Student
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Welcome to Writing Fiction in Absurd Times
A few words from your teacher, Ennis Ćehić
Meet Your Teacher: Ennis Ćehić
Ennis Ćehić is a writer of fiction and non-fiction whose work explores displacement, creativity and capitalism, often through satire, absurdism and meta-fiction.
His debut collection of stories, Sadvertising, published by Penguin Random House in 2022, has been hailed as an ‘electrifying and genre-defying new voice in Australian fiction’. The collection, optioned for a screen adaptation by See-Saw Films, showcases his skill of short-form and unconventional storytelling.
Meet Your School: Kill Your Darlings
Founded in 2010, Kill Your Darlings (KYD) is one of Australia’s most trusted independent literary organisations. As well as writing courses, KYD also runs several writing awards and provides professional editorial services such as mentorships and manuscript assessments. To take full advantage of all KYD's opportunities, services and generous discounts, please consider becoming a member today.
Visit killyourdarlings.com.au to find out more.
Save More With Bundle Courses
Courses to inspire a number of approaches to getting started in writing your very own short fiction.
Review the Curriculum:
- Characteristics of the Absurd
- Before You Jump In (0:49)
- Illogical Plots
- Exercise: Break the Plot
- Strange Dialogue
- Exercise: What’s Strange?
- Exercise: Disconnect the Conversation
- Alienated Characters
- Exercise: Analyse a Passage
- Exercise: Make Someone Out of Sync
- Meaningless & Futile Actions
- Exercise: Give a Character a Futile Task
- Deadpan Tone
- Exercise: Report the Impossible Calmly
- Senseless Humour
- Exercise: Laugh at the Wrong Time
- Conclusion to Part Three (1:32)