Module Identifier WR10220  
Module Title WRITER'S ART 1: A BEGINNER'S GUIDE TO TECHNIQUE  
Academic Year 2002/2003  
Co-ordinator Dr Tiffany S Atkinson  
Semester Semester 1  
Assessment Semester Assessment   Students will present for assessment two portfolios of creative work, one mid-term and one at the end of the semester, each with a word count of approximately 2500-3000 words (or approx. 10 pages of text, where poetry is included), each demonstrating an engagement with at least two literary forms or genres. The portfolios will be accompanied by a critical commentary, reflecting on the writing and editing process, of approximately 500 words. The module materials will set out the requirement for each of these in detail.   100%  
  Supplementary Assessment   Resit any failed elements and/or make good any missing elements    

Learning outcomes

By the end of the module, successful students will be able to:

- Negotiate the techniques and styles of their chosen genre(s).
- Structure their work with the needs of genre, reader, content and economy in mind.
- Manipulate and control their (literary) language(s).
- Demonstrate the acquisition of professional presentational skills appropriate to the level of the module.
- Contextualize their own writing and to reflect critically on their own writing process in the accompanying critical commentary

Brief description

This module is a practical introduction to a range of techniques and styles in poetry and prose. It aims to give new writers a basic understanding of the craft of writing, and to work with confidence in a variety of forms and genres

Content

Workshops: 10x2 hours
Outline of Weekly Programme: each week students will undertake a writing exercise on which they will receive feedback the following week.

1 The King Died: The Queen Died of Grief: Basic plotting, causality and denouement.

2. No Ideas But in Things: Showing and telling (direct/indirect exposition), effective use of images, detail etc.

3. Conflict and Tension: Building a more complex tone; pacing; having 'something at stake'.

4. Secrets: 'Seducing' the reader; techniques of concealment and revelation

5. Everything Happens Somewhere: Developing context, setting and atmosphere.

6. Surprises: Metaphor and defamiliarisation, risk-taking, going beyond the obvious in language, imagery, plot, character, perspective, etc.

7. Shrink and Expand: 'Long shot' and 'close up' techniques; temporality and pacing.

8. Say Something: Monologue and dialogue, different conventions for employing voice in prose and poetry

9. Be Someone Else: Writing from unfamiliar subject positions, (eg. in age, gender, race, time, species); The limitations of 'actual experience' v. 'authentic' and well-observed imaginative writing.

10. Old Wine, New Bottles: Working from myth, legend, fairytale etc., 'writing back' using any of techniques practised throughout the module (preparation for 'Transpositions').

Select Bibliography: Workbooks (at least one will be recommended, and material provided in seminars)

Julia Casterton, Creative Writing: a Practical Guide, 2nd edition, Macmillian 1998
Paul Mills, Writing in Action, Routledge 1996
Jenny Newman et al, The Writer's Workbook, Arnold 2000
John Singleton and Mary Luckhurst, The Creative Writing Handbook, 2nd edition, Macmillan 2000