Writing Dialogue

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 an insight into writing dialogue by exploring the writing of others so that they can embark on writing effective dialogue in a variety of literary forms.

Course Objectives:

• To foster the ability to recognise the constituents of which dialogue is made.
• To demonstrate techniques by which these constituents can be utilised individually or in combination.
• To encourage the production of dialogue through exercises designed to further students’ ability to hone their skills progressively.

- Whole group discussion

- Pair work

- Close reading and analysis of a variety of exemplars

- Writing dialogue for a variety of literary forms and sharing

- Sharing creative work for discussion and feedback

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

• understand the different ways in which dialogue can be presented; 
• be expected to have gained and/or developed the following skills:

  - demonstrate such knowledge in their own work;

  - be able to use some of these aspects of technical expertise with increased skill and confidence.

Two pieces of work:

1.  Write a creative piece in which there is dialogue between two characters. The dialogue must be part of a piece of fiction, stage play, radio play or screenplay. Present the work in the appropriate format for the form chosen. (500 words approx.).

2. Write a dialogue with two or more characters for fiction, stage, radio or screen, generated by exercises undertaken on the course (1500 words approx).   

The dialogue will follow conventions appropriate for the particular form chosen i.e. fiction, stage play, radio script, screenplay. 

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

Students who register for CATS points will receive a Record of CATS points on successful completion of their course assessment.

To earn credit (CATS points) you will need to register and pay an additional £10 fee per course. You can do this by ticking the relevant box at the bottom of the enrolment form or when enrolling online.

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 at the required standard.

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 the 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.

Most of the Department's weekly classes have 10 or 20 CATS points assigned to them. 10 CATS points at FHEQ Level 4 usually consist of ten 2-hour sessions. 20 CATS points at FHEQ Level 4 usually consist of twenty 2-hour sessions. It is expected that, for every 2 hours of tuition you are given, you will engage in eight hours of private study.

Credit Accumulation and Transfer Scheme (CATS)