Creative Writing Prose

Overview

This creative writing prose module will be structured around the students’ own written work. Two or three pieces of work will be submitted each week for detailed discussion in seminar. Extracts from other, published texts will 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 fiction writing – characterisation, plot construction – and at the evolution of the main prose forms and genres.

Learning Objectives

Having completed this module, students should have gained a greater understanding of the different forms and genres of prose fiction and of the processes involved in the creation of works of fiction, and they will have learned how to use the techniques of established prose authors 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 approximately 3,000 words of fiction, some or all of which may already have been discussed in seminar, plus a commentary of approximately 1,000 words. The fiction should be a single, complete short story. Attendance at lectures, tutorials and or seminars at least 70%.