Creative writing. Express yourself with the written word.

Designed to give you the practical skills to approach your creative writing projects with confidence, this creative writing course is built around particular topics integral to the writing process such as: voice, place evocation, characterisation, structure, sentence-craft and editing. Using exercises to get started, we will look at the basic elements of creative writing (fiction, nonfiction and poetry) and at ways to develop your work. This creative writing course is an invaluable way to find your voice as a writer.

Outcomes

By the end of this course, you should be able to:

• write prose or poetry with more elegance
• express both self and place more authentically
• craft writing that tells your stories in your own voices
• avoid cliché and coin original turns of phrase and shapely sentences
• practise the rules of good style embodied in the best writing
• plan and structure memorable tales
• know the difference between your best writing and your second best
• edit and trim your writing for more impact and readability.

Content

What's writing for?

• Introduction
• How we will work together
• The nature of creative writing - how it happens, how it works on a reader
• How writing is talking, heightened by art, and set down on paper
• What works and what doesn't
• Fiction and non-fiction; poetry and prose
• Voice and self, music and place
• The art of indirection