Unit 1: Essential preliminary demystification
- I could never do that
- The demon in your head
Unit 2: Getting the idea
- The joys of recombining
- Mind-mapping
- Idea starters
Unit 3: Character I
- The raw materials
- Presentation
- Dialogue
- Too much detail and the myth of pictoriality
- Dialogue as poetry
Unit 4: Character II
- Flat and round characters
- The human heart, simplified
- Achieving growth
- Backstory
- Inner turmoil
Unit 5: Plot
- Coincidence and causality
- Metaplots and three-act structure
- Turning up the heat
Unit 6: Good old-fashioned story-telling
- Don’t be boring
- Science fiction and fantasy
- Switching genres
- Flamboyance
Unit 7: The Fictive Dream I - The Big Picture
- Your heart in your mouth
- Picture the scene
Unit 8: the Fictive Dream II - The Small Picture
- Some principles
- Particularity and ‘thisness’
- Defamiliarisation
- Write like Emmeline Pankhurst
Unit 9: Traditional storytelling techniques
- Tips from a pro: Scheherazade
- How to be a good coquette
- Mystery
- Suspense
Unit 10: All writing is re-writing
- Setting your expectations
- Famous lost manuscripts
- You never stop learning to write
- Getting published
We strongly recommend that you try to find a little time each week to engage in the online conversations (at times that are convenient to you) as the forums are an integral, and very rewarding, part of the course and the online learning experience.