Creative Writing

Creative Writing

The course explores the techniques of writing fiction through examples, writing exercises and discussion. Students do not need to have work-in-progress but should be aspiring writers to get the most from class feedback.

Week 1: Why Write?
Why do we write? How do we write? Who do we write for? We'll think about why we tell stories, why society needs storytellers. We'll think about where inspiration comes from, and learn how to get started, with tips and tricks for facing a blank page (or screen).

Week 2: Finding your voice
How to write the story that only you can. How you can use your own experience, and points of view - and we'll look at other forms of narration, such as letters, diaries and email.

Week 3: Choices
From Once Upon A Time to Happily Ever After. Where and why to begin and end a story. Structure and pacing and plot, and matching - and mismatching - form and content.

Week 4: Character
What is character? What makes a memorable character? How do you make your characters live? We'll look at the tricks you can use to make us believe that a six-year-old, or a hundred-and-six year old, or a patchwork quilt or a dog, is narrating the story.

Week 5: Dialogue
Ladies and Gentlemen! Ladies aaaand Gentlemen! Roll up! For what you are about to hear, you will not believe. What you are about to hear is beyond belief. In the course of one evening - one humble evening! - you will learn the secret to writing convincing dialogue. You have my promise!

Week 6: Ways of seeing
We'll look at how to describe and make tangible the landscape of your imagination. Learn how to write description so that the reader's eye doesn't skim that solid paragraph and go on to more exciting parts of the story.

Week 7: Writing in the 21st century
New mediums - such as the Japanese craze for ‘text' novellas. Using the internet and blogs. The ways writers have written throughout the ages, and the impact this has had on their work. Genre fiction: writing Mills & Boon, fantasy, detective, erotic fiction.

Week 8: One-on-one sessions
Students will discuss their own work individually with the tutor - and will write a complete short story during the evening, which will be submitted for review by the tutor.

Week 9: Where next?
How to get published - and how not to get published. How to deal with agents, editors, publishers. Resources for writers - grants, awards, prizes, residencies, courses.
Q and A session with the tutor and an agent.

**Book: Short Story Writing (London School of Journalism 2009)
(cost included in course fees)