Undergraduate

Advanced creative writing

On this page

• What you will study
• Entry
• If you have a disability or additional requirement
• Study materials
• Teaching and assessment
• Students also studied
• Future availability

Advanced creative writing develops your writing ability by widening your generic range and developing your knowledge of style. The course works on the forms introduced in the Level 2 course Creative writing (A215) – fiction, poetry and life writing – and supplements these with dramatic writing, showing you how to write for stage, radio and film. You’ll explore how these scriptwriting skills might enhance your prose style, improve your writing across the range of forms, and further develop your individual style and voice. The course offers guidance on professional layouts for the dramatic media, and is a natural progression from Creative writing (A215).

Course facts

Register for the course

This course is available for study in the countries shown. Fees and financial support may vary by country.

What you will study

This course is structured in four parts. At the core of the course is a handbook that takes you week-by-week through methods, readings and writing exercises. This handbook covers the first three parts of the course. The fourth part is a period of independent study.

Part 1 of the course, Ways of Writing, looks at different approaches to writing. In particular it focuses on the influence of genre, contrast, research, revision and drama on writing style. Work includes readings and writing exercises in fiction, poetry, and life writing.

Part 2, Writing Drama, explores writing techniques for three dramatic media: stage, film and radio. It examines the conventional layouts and illustrates the narrative strengths and constraints of each medium. It will deal with dramatic principles connected to dialogue, subtext, status and exposition, as well as media-specific elements such as sets for the stage, aural contrast in radio and montage in film.

Part 3, Developing Style, looks at how some of the methods used in dramatic writing can improve fiction writing, life writing and poetry. For example, it looks at the connection between dramatic monologues and fictional narrators; it examines the connection between film techniques such as montage and the way fiction might be structured. This section goes on to explore writing approaches in wide-ranging fashion, covering poetic form, rhetoric and the use of analogy. You’ll focus on improving your writing style and voice in all genres.

Part 4, Independent Study, involves working on a larger project, culminating in the presentation of an end-of-module assessment comprising a piece of creative writing of 4000 words together with a 1000-word commentary.

As in Creative writing (A215), the emphasis is very much on practice through guided activities, although as the course progresses you will increasingly be expected to generate and develop your own ideas without reliance on the study materials. In comparison to the Level 2 course the emphasis will be on working independently to enhance and improve your writing style and voice. You will generate slightly fewer projects but these will be of more substantial length and you will spend longer developing, editing and redrafting your work. You will write a dramatic adaptation and explore the influence of drama on your work.

A DVD and audio CDs will provide you with excerpts from films, stage and radio plays as well as interviews with novelists, poets and scriptwriters. 

Online tutor-group forums will enable peer-group discussion of some of your work. You  will be expected to engage in these activities, giving impersonal and informed evaluations of your own and others’ work through constructive criticism. One of the TMAs involves writing a critique of the work of your peers, as posted on the online forum.

Entry

Advanced creative writing (A363) builds on the explicit skills taught in Creative writing (A215) and you will be expected to have successfully completed A215 or equivalent study before embarking on this course.

If you have any doubt about the suitability of the course, please contact our Student Registration & Enquiry Service.

If you have a disability or additional requirement

Written transcripts of any audio components and Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) versions of printed material are available. Some Adobe PDF components may not be available or fully accessible using a screen reader. Other alternative formats of the study materials may be available in the future. Our Services for disabled students website has the latest information about availability.

If you are a new student, or new to courses using a computer or the internet, you will need to inform us of your particular needs as soon as possible, as some of our support services may take several weeks to arrange. Details of how to do this and our range of support services are described in our publication Meeting Your Needs.

You can also find information about accessible study materials, financial support and the Disabled Students' Allowance, equipment and other services, on our Services for disabled students website. It also includes our contact details for advice and support both before you register and while you are studying.

Study materials

What's included

Course book, study guide, audio CDs, DVD, online forums, website containing study planner, assessment materials, online exercises, audio recordings, further links and electronic versions of the study materials.

You will need

Audio CD player, DVD player

Computing requirements

This course includes online computer activities – you can access these using a web browser that can play Flash and Shockwave.

You will need internet access and a computer. If you have purchased a new computer since 2005 it should meet your course computing requirements. Check our Technical Requirements section if your computer is older than this or is otherwise unusual.

Teaching and assessment

Support from your tutor

You will have a tutor who will help you with the study material and mark and comment on your written work, and whom you can ask for advice and guidance both via online forum and by telephone or email. There will be two face-to-face tutorials that you are encouraged, but not obliged, to attend. Teaching will also be via an online forum.  Contact our Student Registration & Enquiry Service if you want to know more about study with The Open University before you register.

Assessment

The assessment details for this course can be found in the facts box above.

You will be expected to submit your tutor-marked assignments (TMAs) online through the eTMA system unless there are some difficulties which prevent you from doing so. In these circumstances, you must negotiate with your tutor to get their agreement to submit your assignment on paper.

The end-of-module assessment (EMA) can only be submitted on paper.

Students also studied

Students who studied this course also studied at some time:

• Creative writing (A215)
• The arts past and present (AA100)
• Children's literature (EA300)
• 20th century literature: texts and debates (A300)
• The art of English (E301)

Future availability

The details given here are for the course that starts in October 2012. We expect it to be available at the same time once a year.

Fees 2012

See fees and funding options for study from September 2012.

Study explained

Financial support

- find out if you qualify for support with your fees with our eligibility checker.

Study explained

- all you need to know about distance learning with the OU.

Student Reviews

Having studied A215, I was very keen to take the Advanced Creative Writing course and I am so glad that ...
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I thoroughly enjoyed this course. After A215 I wondered what was left to learn as the course had been so ...
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Or contact an adviser in our Student Registration & Enquiry Service Email or call +44(0) 845 300 60 90+44(0) 845 366 60 35

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