Course details
Academic team
Aims
This course aims to:
- introduce you to the techniques of writing fiction and enable you to use these skills to improve your own writing
- explore a variety of novels, stories and films – including fantasy, horror and historical fiction – and to experience with a variety of form and genre in your own writing
- develop your own writing style and find your “voice”
Course content
The aim of this unit is to introduce you to the challenges and delights of writing longer fiction. The novel will be the main focus, although examples from novellas, short stories, films and TV will also be employed. You will be invited to explore a range of works to employ the necessary techniques to enable you to write your own; both the ‘literary’ novel and the more ‘commercial’ variety. These will include: structuring a story; evoking time and place; inventing convincing and compelling characters; conveying point of view; using dialogue to convey emotion with particular emphasis on subtext; describing different geographical and historical settings; sustaining suspense and creating drama; writing arresting openings and providing satisfying conclusions. There will be an emphasis overall on ways of using language effectively, and on developing an individual writing style.
What to expect on this course
This week-long course will be taught through a series of informal seminars. You will use close reading, discussion and practical writing exercises to explore different approaches to long fiction in learning to write with ease and clarity of style. Each class is designed to expose you to new ideas or techniques and to encourage you to experiment in a relaxed, supportive and friendly atmosphere.
Course sessions
Day 1: Brilliant beginnings: how to hook the reader
We’ll study a variety of dramatic story openings – focusing on the “Five W’s” – and examine how you can best start a story to ensure that your reader will want to read on.
Day 2: The art of show and tell
We’ll look at how to write effective character description so that it won’t seem obviously “telling” as well as examine how to reveal character through examples of “showing”.
Day 3: Employing the five senses: taste, touch, scent, sound and sight
Novels need to employ the five senses in order to create a fiction that feels real. We’ll look at taste, touch, sound and smell – in addition to sight – to bring richness and depth to your fictional worlds.
Day 4: The beating heart of the novel
There are many key elements to writing a successful novel and finding a central conflict is perhaps the most essential. We will explore how to situate your protagonist within a compelling plot, giving them an external desire and internal need that will see them (and the reader) through from beginning to end.
Day 5: Writing to scare
Paying particular attention to films (and novels adapted into films) we will examine the three key elements to writing stories that will scare your readers.
Learning outcomes
As a result of the course, you will gain a greater understanding of the subject and you should be able to:
- identify key techniques in writing fiction
- demonstrate the ability to employ these techniques effectively in your own writing
- apply the strategies you have observed in action to your own fiction writing
Required reading
van Praag, Menna, The Sisters Grimm (London: Transworld, 2020)
van Praag, Menna, The House at the End of Hope Street (London: Allison & Busby, 2025)
Carter, Angela, The Bloody Chamber (London: Victor Gollancz, 1979)