Creative Writing

ONLINE STUDY in  CREATIVE WRITING

• Become a more confident, skilful, creative writer.
• Improve your writing skills and help stimulate ideas
• Learn to write for books, novels, short stories, plays, etc.
• Learn to place yourself in an unexpected situation
• Be guided by our international team of published, professional authors from both Australia and the UK 

Student Feedback -"I commenced the Creative Writing Course with the ACS having had no prior experience in this field whatsoever. Having always been in accounting or payroll jobs, I decided to give the course a go. The course demonstrated to me what I enjoyed writing about, the types of writing I was good at, and not so good at. It broadened my horizon to show me what was out there to write about. It gave me knowledge and confidence. I have continued to write, and in the future want to commence with the next course, but in the meantime, I have submitted various articles of mine to some magazines and have had nothing but positive feedback from all the editors and some of my work is to be published!! Which I personally feel is fantastic as I have only been doing this for a year or so. Thank you for opening up a whole new world of creativity to me which I can only enhance upon!!"
- Jo

Student Feedback:    Dan Read, a student in our Diploma in Journalism course has recently had an article published for publication.  He said of the course - "I feel that the course has given me the tools and confidence necessary to make this possible."

What are the different types of Creative Writing (Genres)?

Here are just some examples:

• poetry of all kinds
• short stories
• novels, including westerns, romances, science fiction, detective stories, mysteries, fantasy, etc.
• stage play scripts
• film and television screenplays
• music lyrics
• magazine articles
• newspaper feature stories
• essays
• biographies
• advertisements
• card greetings
• books or articles on science, history etc.
• letters and emails

Learn everything from establishing a theme to producing the completed work.

Every piece of writing, no matter whether it is a novel or a business letter, should have a dominant theme or underlying idea. In a business letter and in technical writing, the theme should be immediately obvious and clear and should be stated. In a piece of creating writing it might be gradually revealed through the development of the work and may only be fully apprehended by the reader at the very end. Nevertheless, the theme should be present from the beginning, and should exist as a unifying thread through every chapter or paragraph. Every piece of the writing should, in some way, relate to that theme. It is what unifies a piece of writing and lets it stand alone as a meaningful expression.

We can develop themes any means, and often through a variety of means, such as:

• thoughts and speech of characters
• actions of characters
• contrasting societies or generations within a society
• identifying shared values and experiences between groups or generations
• ways to dealing with and coping with the environment
• symbolic use of landscape and nature
• repetition of ideas in different forms
• repeated symbols or cultural items
• contrast of values.

Lesson Structure

There are 10 lessons in this course:

1. Introduction
   • What is creative writing, What’s different about creative writing, Information and creativity, Creative genres, Forms of Writing, Form, Structure, Purpose, Creative Writing resources, What is needed for success, The business of writing, Getting published, Self publishing, Vanity publishing, Terminology.
2. Basic Creative Writing Skills
   • Words and their proper use, Types of language, Informative language, Persuasive, Imaginative, Literal, Figurative, Formal, Colloquial language, Parts of language (nouns, pronouns, verbs, adverbs, prepositions, plurals, possessive nouns & pronouns, gender, adjectives, articles); Common grammatical errors (fragmented sentences, run on sentences, comma splices, dangling modifiers. Run on sentences, irregular verbs, Whom or who, Pronouns and Antecedents, Punctuation, Creating and critiquing, Generating ideas, Developing ideas, Narrative theory, Storyline, Narrative structure, Settings or scenes, Mood or atmosphere, Time, Voice, Point of view, Creative reading.
3. Concise and Clarity
   • Making things clear, Slice of life fiction, Conciseness and Succinctness, Understanding ambiguity, Causes of ambiguity, Doubt and ambiguity, Hinge points and ambiguity, Defamiliarisation.
4. Planning What You Write
   • Writing routine, Establishing a theme, Organising ideas, Paragraphing, Writing a synopsis, Titles, Developing objectives.
5. Writing Fiction
   • Elements, Clues, Signs, Common errors, Scope or Range, Theme problems, Authenticity problems, Tone problems.
6. Writing Non-fiction
   • Creative non fiction, scope, Developing ideas, Narration, Story line, Deduction, Induction, Classical Development, Chronological development, Analogy, Cause and effect, Classification, Comparison and contrast, Definition, Analysis, Developing a profile, Interviews.
7. Newspaper Writing
   • What to write, Scope, News values, Writing guidelines, Regular columns, Fillers.
8. Writing for Magazines
   • Scope of magazine writing, What publishers want, Magazine articles, Travel writing, Writing for public relations, Selling your work.
9. Writing Books
   • Themes, Consistency, Believability, Variety, Getting started, Getting a contract, Book publishing, Non fiction books, Fact finding.
10. Special Project
    • Organising a portfolio to sell yourself.

Each lesson culminates in an assignment which is submitted to the school, marked by the school's tutors and returned to you with any relevant suggestions, comments, and if necessary, extra reading.

Aims

• Describe elements and forms of creative writing.
• Develop skills that will help you generate, evaluate and communicate ideas. Discuss the functions of clear writing, and the art of revealing and concealing in writing.
• Establish theme and structure as planning tools.
• Identify and discuss various forms of fiction writing and publishing opportunities.
• Analyse different non-fiction genres to determine key elements and strategies.
• Analyse different forms of creative writing commonly found in newspapers.
• Analyse magazine articles to determine what makes a good feature article.
• Discuss the main elements of book writing, including theme, organisation, and weaving different narrative threads into a unified whole.
• Prepare a portfolio of creative writing ready for submission and of future ideas.

What You Will Do

• Getting Started
• A unique aspect of studying with ACS is that every student is given the opportunity to have their work published in our online Student Magazine.
• Getting your first piece of work published is often the hardest thing to do; and our school has implemented this and other initiatives to help you over your first hurdle.
• Use your expert tutors -they can help you know how to approach publishers, how to best present your work, and give you pointers on putting a C.V. together that has impact.
• What are the Assignments and Tasks like in this course?
• Here are some examples:
• SET TASK
• 1. Scan three (3) different books (fiction or non fiction), taking note of the way they have been structured.
• You are NOT required to read these books. You may not even need to read any more than chapter titles and an odd introductory paragraph.
• This task is all about identifying differences in structure.
• Consider the following questions as you scan these books:
• “What does the book include outside of the chapters (eg. Preface, Title page, Index, etc)
• “How has the author organised information (eg. Chronologically, Systematically according to importance, Cryptically, Artistically, etc).
• Spend only 1-2 hours at the most, doing this.
• 2. Consider how articles are structured for magazines and newspapers.
• a/ Write outlines for a possible newspaper article based on a recent event in national or international news.
• b/ Write another outline for a possible magazine article on a topic of your own choosing (eg. Gardening, Art, Interior Design, Craft, How to Write Poetry, etc)
• NOTE: These should be outlines, not articles. If the article is intended to be 1500 words, the outline may, for instance, be no more than a series of bullet points adding up to 100 words.
• 3 Write opening paragraphs to fit each of the articles you developed outlines for.
• ASSIGNMENT
• 1. Discuss the organisation of the texts you read. Consider why the authors might have organised their texts this way, and discuss how the structures contribute to the overall effectiveness of the text. (1/2 page each, maximum)
• 2. Briefly describe an important event or moment in your life, and what you gained or lost from it. Then, rewrite it this event or moment as a fiction from two completely different points of view – neither of them yours. Use voice, language, point of view, dialogue and events to suggest, rather than describe, the personalities and values of the different persons.
• 3. Write a first draft from at one (1) of your Set Task outlines (2-4 pages). Focus on creating and writing. Do not edit yet. Allow yourself no more than 2 hours to do this.
• 4. Edit the draft for structure, clarity, flow of ideas, content, mood, voice etc. Write your changes on the original document, so that your tutor can see them.
• 5. Submit your 4 resource files.
• Enrol in this course, and allow a professional writer guide you to move your capacity for creative writing onto the next level