Writing Characters

If you are in receipt of a UK state benefit, you are a full-time student in the UK or a student on a low income, you may be eligible for a reduction of 50% of tuition fees. Please see the below link for full details:

Concessionary fees for short courses

To provide students with the skills they need to create and develop rich, fully formed and compelling characters for use in a variety of literary forms, primarily prose fiction. 

Course objectives:

• To foster students' ability to recognise what makes a compelling character in their own and other people's work.
• To demonstrate various techniques in building and writing characters and how these can be used in combination.
• To encourage the use of these techniques and the consideration of strong characterisation as part of a foundation for further fiction writing. 

In each session we will introduce an aspect of character creation or development, which we will discuss as a group. We will then put the learning into practice with short writing exercises and peer feedback, both in a group and pairs. There will always be opportunities to ask questions and clarify the learning, as well as to try out new techniques and approaches in a supportive and positive environment.

By the end of the course, students will be expected to:

• Write a short piece of prose fiction featuring a clearly presented and well-realised character.
• Explain the decisions they made in creating this character and the intended effect on the reader.
• Be able to give feedback on the effectiveness of the characterisation in a peer's writing.

This course will be assessed through one final piece of prose writing (1,500 words). There will also be the opportunity to share a 500-word piece of writing with the group, which will not be assessed. 

Coursework is an integral part of all weekly classes and everyone enrolled will be expected to do coursework in order to benefit fully from the course. Only those who have registered for credit will be awarded CATS points for completing work to the required standard.

Students must submit a completed Declaration of Authorship form at the end of term when submitting their final piece of work. CATS points cannot be awarded without the aforementioned form - Declaration of Authorship form

The Department's Weekly Classes are taught at FHEQ Level 4, i.e. first year undergraduate level, and you will be expected to engage in a significant amount of private study in preparation for the classes. This may take the form, for instance, of reading and analysing set texts, responding to questions or tasks, or preparing work to present in class.

Credit Accumulation and Transfer Scheme (CATS)

To earn credit (CATS points) you will need to register and pay an additional £30 fee per course. You can do this by ticking the relevant box at the bottom of the enrolment form or when enrolling online. Students who register for CATS points will receive a Record of CATS points on successful completion of their course assessment.

Students who do not register for CATS points during the enrolment process can either register for CATS points prior to the start of their course or retrospectively from January 1st after the current full academic year has been completed. If you are enrolled on the Certificate of Higher Education you need to indicate this on the enrolment form but there is no additional registration fee.