Writers' Space (Creative Writing)

This course offers a space for sharing and workshopping creative work-in-progress and developing an in-depth understanding of literary texts. It is addressed to students who already have some experience with creative writing and wish to enhance their creative and critical literary competencies, language and communication skills, analytical abilities, imaginative skills, and applied writing and editing skills. Classes will be mainly taught as workshops and are open to all genres. Students enrolling in this course are expected to share creative writing in class, comment on the work of their peers, and participate in class discussions. We will analyse the ”rules” of short story writing (and how to break them), discuss writing and narrative techniques, and investigate the drafting and editing process. We will work towards an understanding of form, structure, and content, a consistent, flexible, and detailed vocabulary of craft, and a language for discussing characterisation, dramatic arc, subtext, theme, signs and symbols, point of view, style, tone, setting, and imagery. For raw material, we will read and study a range of contemporary and modern short stories, novel extracts, poems, and personal essays.