‘Exploring Short Fiction: Style and Storycraft’ Course Descriptor

Course Overview

This course will help students uncover the short stories hiding inside of them and give them the tools to transfer them from their imagination to the page. Students will develop their practical knowledge of key elements of this dynamic form, including characterisation, narrative structure, and the redrafting process, by studying short stories by authors from diverse backgrounds. They will consider how the form has evolved over time, across different cultures, and has been influenced by sociological factors including the onset of the Internet Age.They will also learn to read as a writer: to discern how writers achieve specific effects through craft, which they can apply in their own writing. This course will emphasise community and collaboration: students will engage in new ways with other writers, published texts and the world around them, participate in enjoyable writing challenges, and receive supportive feedback in creative writing workshops. In doing so, students will develop a deeper understanding of the creative writing process and the ability to contextualise their learning within contemporary culture.

Learning Outcomes

On successful completion of the course, students will be able to:

Knowledge and Understanding

Subject Specific Skills

Transferable and Employability Skills

Teaching and Learning

This course has a dedicated Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) page with a syllabus and range of additional resources (e.g. readings, question prompts, tasks, assignment briefs, discussion boards) to orientate and engage you in your studies.

The scheduled teaching and learning activities for this course are:

Lectures and Workshops 

40 scheduled hours – typically including induction, consolidation or revision, and assessment activity hours.

• Version 1:all sessions in the same sized group

OR 

• Version 2: most of the sessions in larger groups; some of the sessions in smaller groups

OR

Directed study 

4-12 scheduled hours, the exact number varying according to the balance of 1:1s, 2:1s, or small groups. The plan will be confirmed by the start of the course, taking into account student numbers and the proposed topics, readings, and specific tasks.

Faculty hold regular ‘office hours’, which are opportunities for students to drop in or sign up to explore ideas, raise questions, or seek targeted guidance or feedback, individually or in small groups. 

Students are to attend and participate in all the scheduled teaching and learning activities for this course and to manage their directed learning and independent study.

Indicative total learning hours for this course: 150

Assessment

Both formative and summative assessment are used as part of this course, with purely formative opportunities typically embedded within interactive teaching sessions, office hours, and/or the VLE. 

The summative assessment gives students the opportunity to produce their own original short fiction, and also situate their creative practice within a historical and contemporary cultural framework, and demonstrate the development of prose composition and editorial skills, in a reflective commentary.

Summative Assessments

Further information about the assessments can be found in the Course Syllabus.

Feedback

Students will receive formative and summative feedback in a variety of ways, written (e.g. marked up on assignments, through email or the VLE) or oral (e.g. as part of interactive teaching sessions or in office hours). 

Indicative Reading

Note: Comprehensive and current reading lists are produced annually in the Course Syllabus or other documentation provided to students; the indicative reading list provided below is for a general guide and part of the approval/modification process only.

• Burroway, Janet; Stuckey-French, Elizabeth & Stuckey-French, Ned, Writing Fiction: A Guide to Narrative Craft, 10th edn (London, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2019)
• Cowan, Andrew, The Art of Writing Fiction (New York: Routledge, 2013)
• Kane, Thomas, The New Oxford Guide to Writing (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994)
• LaPlante, Alice, The Making of a Story: a Norton Guide to Creative Writing (New York: Norton, 2007)
• Lodge, David, The Art of Fiction (London: Vintage Books, 2011)
• Morley, David, The Cambridge Introduction to Creative Writing (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007)

Indicative Topics

Note: Comprehensive and current topics for courses are produced annually in the Course Syllabus or other documentation provided to students; the indicative topics provided below are used as a general guide and part of the approval/modification process only.

• Effective prose composition
• Craft elements of short fiction
• Historical cultures in short fiction
• Contemporary cultures in short fiction
• Reading as a writer
• Redrafting and editorial skills