Using Stories

Module code: EN2070

Module convenor: Dr. Jonathan Taylor

Aims

This creative writing module explores some of the ways in which writers can discover, recover, and explore materials, ideas, and narratives in the wider world, and use and reshape them into effective creative pieces. It encourages students to develop their own creative writing research methods, and then to employ those methods in the construction of original writing in multiple forms and genres. In this way, it aims to enhance both the students’ research and writing skills.

Topics covered

This module covers several topics, all of which concern the relationship between the workshop and materials, ideas, and narratives in the wider world.

• Using historical stories
• Using place-based subject-matter
• Using other art-forms
• Using scientific concepts
• Using libraries and museums

Forms and genres covered in the creative exploration of these topics may include:

• Fiction and historical fiction
• Creative nonfiction
• Scriptwriting
• Poetry (including ekphrastic and found)
• Site-specific writing
• Speculative fiction

As well as practical creative writing exercises, students will be encouraged to think critically and reflectively about the topics covered.

Learning

The module will be delivered in ten weekly lectures and ten weekly seminars. Lectures may include discussions of relevant craft issues, techniques, genres, and research methods; talks by established writers in the School of English discussing their own practice in using research to construct creative work; presentations on particular research topics by invited experts; screenings; and readings and discussions by visiting writers. Seminars may consist of creative writing workshop exercises, feedback sessions, exploration of particular subjects relating to writing craft and research topics, mini-lectures on particular research topics, and discussions of reflective and critical work.

All students will be assigned into an Autonomous Learning Group (ALG). Each small group of students will decide on the location for a field visit (vetted by the tutor), undertake the visit (as a group or individually), and meet to discuss the material gathered before individually using that material to construct a creative work in their chosen form. Students will also keep a writing journal.

After completing this module, students will be able to: 

• Effectively formulate creative ideas from research conducted in the wider world
• Evaluate and select which genre will prove most effective to realise the creative idea
• Construct creative work in a variety of different genres using that research
• Apply craft skills learned on previous modules and this one in the construction of that creative work
• Critically and constructively evaluate the success of such research in creative practice
• Write in different forms, genres, and contexts
• Effectively communicate ideas through different kinds of narratives
• Reflect critically on their work

Assessment

There are two elements to the assessment.

• Creative work: 3,000 words or equivalent, depending on form, using a particular piece of specified research in any accepted creative writing form (poetry, prose, narrative nonfiction, script, or drama); this will form 70% of the module mark.

• Reflective commentary: 1,000 words explaining how the research was used and the technical/craft issues raised in doing so; this will form 30% of the module mark.