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Qualification - Certificate in Creative Writing

Course CodeVWR004
Fee CodeCT
Duration (approx)600 hours
QualificationCertificate

  ONLINE COURSE CREATIVE WRITING

Nurture your Creativity, and Become a Successful Writer

To be successful as a creative writer, you need to develop not only writing skills; but also a technique and an ability to distill your ideas, focus on a project and follow that project trough to it's conclusion. Creative writing is stimulating, but also challenging, and not always completely what the student expects it to be. Then again... if it was what you expect; you would already know what this course sets out to teach you, and you would already probably be a successful writer.

If you want to be a successful, creative writer; and have the committment to follow that dream; this course could be the path you have been looking for.

Modules

Core ModulesThese modules provide foundation knowledge for the Qualification - Certificate in Creative Writing.
 Editing I WR106
 Childrens Writing BWR104
 Creative Writing BWR103
 Dramatic Writing BWR110
 Poetry BWR109
 Writing Fiction BWR105
 

Note that each module in the Qualification - Certificate in Creative Writing is a short course in its own right, and may be studied separately.

What is in the Modules

Module 1. Creative Writing

The nine lessons are as outlined below:

1. Introduction
2. Basic Writing Skills
3. Being Concise and Clear
4. Planning what you write
5. Fiction
6. Non Fiction
7. Newspaper Writing
8. Magazine Writing
9. Writing Books
10. Special Project

Module 2. Writing Fiction

There are eight lessons in this module as follows:

  1. Scope & Nature of Fiction
  2. Components of a Story – beginning, middle and end
  3. Technique…The Creative Process – conception, developing a plot, Writing a Draft, Editing and rewriting; Method Writing
  4. Conception and Research
  5. Drama
  6. Fantasy
  7. The Short Story
  8. The Novel

Module 3. Children's Writing

There are ten lessons in this unit, as follows:
  1. Introduction: Understanding Children, their thoughts, needs, development.
  2. Overview of Children’s Writing: Categories (fiction & non fiction), understanding the market place; analyse & understand what is needed for the different categories, etc.
  3. Conceptualisation: Conceiving a concept…where & how to find inspiration/influence. Developing a concept … how to plan.
  4. Children’s Writing for Periodicals: Children’s pages in magazines, newspapers, etc.
  5. Short Stories
  6. Non-Fiction: Texts (writing to satisfy curriculum. Other (eg. nature, history, biography, hobbies).
  7. Fiction: settings, characterisation, fantasy, science fiction, adventure.
  8. Picture Books and Story Books
  9. Editing your work: Grammar, spelling & punctuation. Improving clarity. Cleaning out clutter; expansions.
  10. Project - write a short story, picture book or kids page for a (hypothetical) periodical.

Module 4. Editing I

  1. Introduction to Editing
  2. The Mechanics of Clear Writing
  3. Assessing Manuscripts
  4. Copy Editing I
  5. Copy Editing II
  6. Preparing Copy for Printing
  7. Proof Reading
  8. The Final Stages

Module 5. Dramatic Writing (currently in development Available late 2009)
  1. Introduction.
  2. Characters –Developing the characters
  3. Theme & Genre
  4. Plot Development
  5. Weaving a Story
  6. Writing a Dramatic Short Story
  7. Developing Sub Plots
  8. Writing a Chapters for a Dramatic Novel

Module 6. Poetry (currently in development. Available late 2009)

There are nine lessons in this module as follows:
  1. Brief description of the many different types of poetry, poetry forms and terminology.
  2. Famous poets.
  3. Encouraging your creativity.
  4. Developing different styles of poetry a
  5. Developing different styles of poetry b
  6. Developing different styles of poetry c
  7. Developing different styles of poetry d
  8. Getting your work published – how and where
  9. The next phase – how to continue to improve
 

Learning Facilities

ACS follows the old fashioned idea that “the student comes first”. Our staff are told to treat every student as an individual and respond promptly to their enquiries; and the facilities we have developed and continue to develop, are all focused on that goal. Facilities include:

  • Offices in two time zones (UK and Australia) –which means an international team of academics are responding to students 5 days a week and 16 hours a day.
  • An online student room with unique resources that are only available to students studying our courses, including online library.
  • Bookshop offering quality downloadable e books
  • A data base of 20 million words of unique information written by our staff over 3 decades that can be drawn upon if needed by academics for use in supporting our students.
  • Systems that ensure assignments are tracked, marked and returned to students, fast -commonly within a round 1 week & rarely more than 2 weeks (note: many other colleges take longer).
  • The school is active in social networking and encourages students to connect with us and each other.
  • No automated handling of student phone enquiries. When you call you get a real person; or leave a message and a real person will call you back within a day, but more commonly within an hour or two.
  • No additional charges for extra tutor support over the phone or email.
  • Free careers advice for graduates –It is our policy to provide support and advice to our students even after they graduate. If a graduate needs help with getting a CV together, or advice on setting up a business or looking for work; they only need ask.
  • The quality of academic staff is higher than many other colleges.

 

 How our Courses Differ

  • Courses are continually improved –we invite feedback from all graduates and change courses immediately the need is detected.
  • Courses are relevant to the whole world –we try hard to teach make the learning transferable to any region or country because the world is increasingly a global economy
  • Courses written by our staff, teach different skills to standard courses; giving a unique mix of skills and knowledge to provide a career advantage. Do you want an accredited certificate and the same skills as 100 other job applicants; or one of our courses with skills that no other applicants have?
  • Certificates and diplomas are longer. They teach you more, and our qualifications have built a reputation amongst academics and industry as being a very high standard for this reason.
  • We are focused on helping you learn in a way that improves your capacity to understand your discipline, apply knowledge, and continue learning and developing your capabilities beyond your course.

These things cannot be always said of other colleges.

 

Career Opportunities

Study alone can never guarantee career success; but a good education is an important starting point.

Success in a career depends upon many things. A course like this is an excellent starting point because it provides a foundation for continued learning, and the means of understanding and dealing with issues you encounter in the workplace.

When you have completed an ACS course, you will have not only learnt about the subject, but you will have been prompted to start networking with experts in the discipline and shown how to approach problems that confront you in this field.

This and every other industry in today’s world is developing in unforeseen ways; and while that is unsettling for anyone who wants to be guaranteed a particular job at the end of a particular course; for others, this rapidly changing career environment is offering new and exciting opportunities almost every month.

If you want to do the best that you can in this industry, you need to recognise that the opportunities that confront you at the end of a course, are probably different to anything that has even been thought of when you commence a course.

 

 

BOOKS

Visit our School bookshop at www.acsebook.com

  • Downloadable ebooks that can be read on ipads, PC’s, Laptops, or readers like a Kindle.
  • Titles are written by our principal and staff.
  • Anyone can purchase books –ACS students are offered a student discount