Creative Writing Drama

Overview

This creative writing drama module, focusing on writing for stage, screen and radio, will be structured around the students’ own written work. Two or three pieces of work by students will be submitted each week for detailed discussion in seminar. Extracts from other, published texts will also be provided to amplify more general points arising from the group discussion. In this way, in the course of the semester, students will look in depth at practical aspects of dramatic writing – characterisation, story structure and dramatic language – and at the evolution of the main dramatic forms.

Learning Objectives

Having completed this module, students should have gained a greater understanding of the rules and key techniques of writing for stage, screen and radio and of the processes involved in the creation of dramatic writing, and have learned how to use these tools in their own creative work. Objectivity about their own creative work will have been further fostered by the writing of a self-reflexive commentary to accompany their final submission. Students should have come some way towards developing their own creative voice.

Skills

Students will be encouraged throughout the module to write often and to a deadline, improving their capacities for both sustained creative production and time-management. The environment of the creative writing workshop will also enhance their ability to work as a team, and to successfully communicate constructive feedback on other students’ work. By learning how to engage critically with their own writing, to make informed decisions about structure and content, students should also have become better readers of the texts they will encounter in their other modules, as well as better critics of their own work.

Assessment

The assessment will be based on a final submission of a piece of dramatic writing for stage, screen or radio, some or all of which may already have been discussed in seminar, plus a commentary. This final piece should be 3,000 words and the commentary 1,000 words. Attendance at lectures, tutorial and or seminars at least 70%.