On this module students will develop their skills as an independent writer, critic and thinker, understanding and building their own unique writing practice through readings of exemplary texts, open seminar discussion, writing exercises and creative workshops. Students will learn to identify and apply central concepts like plot, narrative, form and structure, theme, voice and character, in both reading and writing practice, Experimentation, ingenuity, ambition and originality in the student's approach to her/his own writing will be encouraged. Workshops will develop close reading and editorial skills and invite students to offer and receive constructive criticism of their peers’ work.
Total Contact Hours: 20
Private Study Hours: 280
Total Study Hours: 300
This module is the core module for the MA in Creative Writing and will be made available to other students subject to places.
Autumn term only.
Original Fiction (5,000 words) – 100%
Indicative reading list:
Any edition of the following:
Thomas Bernhard, Cutting Timber (Quartet, 1988)
Elizabeth Bowen, The Mulberry Tree: Essays (Virago, 1986)
Mavis Gallant, Selected Stories
James Joyce, Dubliners (Cape, 1954)
Flannery O'Connor, The Complete Stories (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1971)
Muriel Spark, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (Penguin)
Leo Tolstoy, Tolstoy’s Short Fiction (Norton, 1991)
Amos Tutuola, The Palm-Wine Drinkard (Faber and Faber, 1952)
Banana Yoshimoto, Kitchen
See the library reading list for this module (Canterbury)
The intended subject specific learning outcomes.
On successfully completing the module students will be able to:
1 Demonstrate their writing and self-editing skills so as to generate and complete a sustained and fully-revised piece of fiction (one or two stories, or a coherent portion of an ongoing novel);
2 Experiment, at a high level, with writing techniques brought out in group discussions of selected texts;
3 Produce work of a publishable quality;
4 Demonstrate a thorough understanding of the craft of writing through class discussions and exercises related to the reading, as well as in response to the tutor's editorial feedback;
5 Receive creative sustenance from testing his/her ideas about literature and writing processes against those of other people (the tutor and fellow seminar students);
6 Demonstrate their sense of the relationship between their work and its audience.
The intended generic learning outcomes.
On successfully completing the module students will be able to:
1 Demonstrate a capacity for close reading from a writerly point of view;
2 Identify, critically evaluate, and interrogate the literary techniques displayed in short works of fiction, and make use of them in their own work;
3 Reflect on the wide range of stylistic choices open to the contemporary fiction writer, and develop an understanding of how these relate to his/her own practice of the craft of writing;
4 Confidently apply advanced techniques within their work;
5 Demonstrate understanding, through experience, the value of editing and revision.
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