Adventures in fiction writing

Aims of the course

• To give writers the opportunity to push their own creative boundaries in a structured way in a supportive environment.
• To help writers of all genres of fiction for whom the 'Introduction to...' courses may be less appropriate.
• To provide a community of writers with whom students can collaborate, co-operate and provide mutual support and peer review.

Course content overview

Each week has a theme which relates to an area of literary production which writers can tap as a resource for their own writing. Tutor videos will encourage students to explore the theme through structured reading, discussion and writing prompts. Students will be encouraged from the beginning to engage with classmates. There will be a wide range of writing exercises offered each week – students are completely free to engage with as many or as few as they wish, and are only required to self-select one of their own pieces of writing each week to post in the ‘Gallery’ forum. The tutor will respond to this piece. This is to encourage students to try a variety of approaches with no pressure and decide themselves which piece arrives at the most successful outcome, and which would most benefit from feedback. It also enables students with minimum time available to complete only one exercise a week if they wish, whereas those with more time/energy/motivation will have a rich array of opportunities to explore their creativity.

Target audience

• Writers past the Introductory course stage.
• Writers keen to upskill, to re-energise, refresh or re-engage with their craft.
• Writers seeking an online community of writers with whom to engage and collaborate.

Welcome week (Week 0)

Purpose:

• personal introductions
• introducing the course
• useful reading
• personal objectives

Learning outcomes:

By studying this week, the students should have: 

• become familiar with navigating around the Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) and from VLE to links and back
• test your ability to access files and the web conferencing software and sort out any problems with the help of the Technology Enhanced Learning team
• learn how to look for, assess and reference internet resources
• contribute to a discussion forum to introduce yourself to other students and discuss why you are interested in the course and what you hope to get out of your studies

Teaching week 1: Inspiration - what fiction writers can learn from non-fiction

Learning outcomes:

• to expand awareness of the resources available to participants - both in the world outside and around them, and in their own personal 'compost heap' (their own unique experience of everything they've experienced, felt, read, watched, etc)
• to encourage participants to look for inspiration everywhere and to view inspiration as coming from within, in their own unique response (their soul's 'answering echo' as Ray Bradbury puts it) to stimulus

Teaching week 2: Poetic license - what fiction writers can learn from poetry

Learning outcomes:

• to appreciate what a small amount of material a poem can start from, and hence any piece of writing
• to learn from the concision and compression poets use and to appreciate the precision of language as they deploy it
• to take any fear out of approaching poetry and to encourage students to see it as an arm of literary production related to their own practise and available to them both as a resource and as a means of expression
• to understand the porous nature of the boundary between poetry and fiction (particularly flash fiction)

Teaching week 3: Spoken words - what fiction writers can learn from script writing

Learning outcomes:

• to appreciate how writing for performance has influenced the writing of fiction
• to understand what we can learn from writing from performance about the role of images in storytelling
• to learn from playwrights and screenwriters about effective dialogue, both in character building and plot advancement

Teaching week 4: The art of persuasion - what fiction writers can learn from political rhetoric

Learning outcomes:

• to alert participants to language as a persuasive mechanism, as a tool for affecting perception
• to equip students with rhetorical skills

Teaching week 5: Multi-tasking - how writers combine aspects of writing to produce effective, efficient and economical prose

Learning outcomes:

• to develop an understanding of how the most successful writing is almost always doing more than one 'job'
• to develop the ability to combine a number of functions in one scene

Week 6: what next?

• assessment of student learning
• assessment of student satisfaction
• encouragement of further study

This course is open to everyone, and you don’t need any previous knowledge or experience of the subject to attend.  

Our short courses are designed especially for adult learners who want to advance their personal or professional development. They are taught by tutors who are expert in both their subjects and in teaching students of all ages and experiences. 

Please note that all teaching is in English. You should have near-native command of the English language to get the maximum benefit from the course. 

Each week of an online course is roughly equivalent to 2-3 hours of classroom time. On top of this, participants should expect to spend roughly 2-3 hours of self-study time, for example, reading materials, although this will vary from person to person. 

While they have a specific start and end date and will follow a weekly schedule (for example, week 1 will cover topic A, week 2 will cover topic B), our tutor-led online courses are designed to be flexible and as such would normally not require participants to be online for a specific day of the week or time of the day (although some tutors may try to schedule times where participants can be online together for web seminars, which will be recorded so that those who are unable to be online at certain times are able to access material). 

Unless otherwise stated, all course material will be posted on the VLE so that they can be accessed at any time throughout the duration of the course and interaction with your tutor and fellow participants will take place through a variety of different ways which will allow for both synchronous and asynchronous learning (using discussion boards etc).

Fees 

The course fee includes access to the course on our VLE, personal feedback on your work from an expert tutor, a certificate of participation (if you complete work and take part in discussions), and access to the class resources for two years after your course finishes. 

Concessions 

For more information, please see our concessions information page. 

Alison Fordham Bursary

University of Cambridge Professional and Continuing Education is proud to offer the Alison Fordham bursary, which is awarded to students who wish to study on one of our short online courses via our VLE, reducing the fee paid by 50%. The bursary is limited to a single award for each set of online courses. 

Application criteria:  

• applicants should set out their personal learning motivations since priority will be given to those who are returning to learning after an extended break, or have not previously engaged with fully online learning, or are seeking to use the online short course as a bridge towards undergraduate award-bearing study
• applicants who can demonstrate financial need 

For more information, please see our bursaries information page. 

A certificate of participation and a digital credential will be awarded to those who contribute constructively to weekly discussions, exercises and assignments for the duration of the course.