Writing Fiction (Online)

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.

To participate in the course you will need to have regular access to the Internet and you will need to buy the following books:

• Lodge, D., The Art of Fiction (London: Penguin, 1992)
• Mullan, J., How Novels Work (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006)
• Wood, J., How Fiction Works (London: Vintage, 2009)

To earn credit (CATS points) for your course you will need to register and pay an additional £10 fee for each course you enrol on. You can do this by ticking the relevant box at the bottom of the enrolment form or when enrolling online. If you do not register when you enrol, you have up until the course start date to register and pay the £10 fee.

See more information on CATS point

Coursework is an integral part of all online courses and everyone enrolled will be expected to do coursework, but only those who have registered for credit will be awarded CATS points for completing work at the required standard. 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.

Assignments are not graded but are marked either pass or fail.

All students who successfully complete this course, whether registered for credit or not, are eligible for a Certificate of Completion. Completion consists of submitting the final course assignment. Certificates will be available, online, for those who qualify after the course finishes.

This course aims to:

• Debunk the misconception that you have to be someone special to write.
• Show how important it is to cultivate the right mind-set first.
• Take broad overview of the topography - from the blank page to revision and polishing, and what comes after.
• Break the process of writing down into constituent parts and reveal the art and craft at work.
• Give students the opportunity to roll up their sleeves and 'have a go.'
• Give students the opportunity to put it all together and create a short piece of fiction.

• Guided reading of texts.
• Guided use of existing websites.
• Discussions of particular issues and responses to reading in the unit forums.
• Written non-assessed exercises discussed by the group.

By the end of this course students will understand:

• How real writers work as opposed to the myth.
• How many effects in fiction are more the result of hard work than magic.
• That all writers differ and there is no right or wrong way of doing it.
• The fundamental nature of the fictive dream and how to use this understanding to write better fiction.
• That good writing is a process of distillation.

By the end of this course students will have gained the following skills:

• The ability to sail past doubt and dismiss misconceived notions of 'not being worthy'.
• The ability to actively generate ideas rather than passively await their arrival.
• The ability to practise writing like pilots learning flying in a flight simulator: by breaking it down into individual steps and practising them.
• The ability to deploy time-honoured story-telling tricks & techniques to improve their fiction.

You will be set two pieces of work for the course. The first of 500 words is due halfway through your course. This does not count towards your final outcome but preparing for it, and the feedback you are given, will help you prepare for your assessed piece of work of 1,500 words due at the end of the course. The assessed work is marked pass or fail.

English Language Requirements

We do not insist that applicants hold an English language certification, but warn that they may be at a disadvantage if their language skills are not of a comparable level to those qualifications listed on our website. If you are confident in your proficiency, please feel free to enrol. For more information regarding English language requirements please follow this link: https://www.conted.ox.ac.uk/about/english-language-requirements

FHEQ level 4, 10 weeks, approx 10 hours per week, therefore a total of about 100 study hours.