Last modified: 22 May 2019 17:07
This course offers students the opportunity to develop their understanding of, and practical skills in, the writing of prose fiction. This skills-based course is structured around six wide-ranging and overlapping discussion areas: character; setting and the senses; point of view (voice, perspective and degrees of knowing); showing/telling; plot and structure; fact and fiction (life-writing, memory, and the use of scientific/medical/psychological detail).
| Study Type | Postgraduate | Level | 5 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Term | Second Term | Credit Points | 30 credits (15 ECTS credits) |
| Campus | Old Aberdeen | Sustained Study | No |
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The course offers students the opportunity to develop their understanding of, and practical skills in, the writing of prose fiction. By taking narratives of medicine and psychology as our focus, we enable a close consideration of strategies for representing the body, the mind, pain, and healing in fiction. This skills-based course is structured around six wide-ranging and overlapping discussion areas: character; setting and the senses; point of view (voice, perspective and degrees of knowing); showing/telling; plot and structure; fact and fiction (life-writing, memory, and the use of scientific/medical/psychological detail). These focus areas are not listed in chronological order: as on other modules, the exact sequence in which topics for discussion arise will be dictated by the progress and evolving needs of the particular group. Topics will be explored theoretically and with the aid of exemplars where appropriate, but the main focus of both class work and independent study will be the practical application of creative and aesthetic principles. Peer assessment and workshop methods will be central to the study of each topic area.
Works to be considered alongside students’ own writing may include Inga Clendinnen’s Tiger’s Eye (2000), J.M. Coetzee’s The Slow Man (2005), Helen Garner’s The Spare Room (2009), Siri Hustvedt's The Shaking Woman: Or A History of My Nerves (2010) and selected short stories such as Charlotte Perkins Gilman's 'The Yellow Wall-Paper' and Jean Stafford's 'The Interior Castle'.
Information on contact teaching time is available from the course guide.
First attempt: Prose fiction submission up to 4000 words (80%) and reflective essay of 1500 words (20%).
Resit: 5,000 word essay.
There are no assessments for this course.
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