Creative Writing Flying Start

Creative Writing (4 Week Course)

Next date: 14th May, 2012

Future Dates: 1st August 2012, 16th October 2012

Where is the story? The story is in the dark. Going into a narrative – into the narrative process – is a dark road. You can’t see your way ahead’. (Margaret Atwood.)

 Do you long to write but don’t know where to begin?  Don’t worry. If you long to write, you’re already halfway there. This is a course which aims to shed light, not just on narrative, but on the whole creative process. Our Creative Writing Flying Start course helps you get those words from head to heart and onto page or screen. The first few exercises are designed to stimulate creativity and to get you into the writing habit. Above all this is about having fun, about letting your imagination fly.

Course Syllabus

Introduction. Before the course starts, you'll be able to watch an introductory video from the course tutor and get to know your fellow students in a dedicated area of the Word Cloud site.

Week 1. Self. Where does writing begin? Staring at the blank page can be daunting. How do we keep the pen moving across the page? We’ll look at ways to silence the inner-critic and write through the scary part. We begin with ourselves: emotions, memories, experience. How can we feed this into our fiction writing?

Week 2. Other People. Writing is about people. As writers, we need to understand what makes others tick. A character with a problem or goal to pursue is the starting point of all fiction. How do we create characters readers can believe in? We’ll think about observation: how to watch others with a writer’s eye; the importance of dialogue as a tool of character. We make the imaginative leap from ourselves to others, and see how to blend the two together.

Week 3. Language - Making it sing. The English language is a rich one. How can we use it to make our writing shine? In short fiction especially, every word should count. We look at ways to avoid cliché and lazy writing. We’ll think about imagery. We’ll learn how we can evoke all the senses and bring our writing to life.

Week 4. Writing the Story. Here we look at how character makes plot. What is your character’s motivation? What does he/she want? What’s preventing him/her getting it? We see how this moves the story forward. We’ll also be thinking about story structures, and try writing our own short piece.     

Course Tutor

Your course tutor will be Susan Davis (left). Susan is a prizewinning author of many short stories for adults, which have been published widely in magazines and broadcast on BBC Radio 4. She has also completed a number of novels. Her debut novel, 'The Henry  Game' (Random House 2002, and an Ottakars Book of the Month) tells the story of three girls who accidentally summon up the spirit of Henry VIII. Susan is an Arvon tutor and literary mentor.