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EL55B6: CREATIVE WRITING: NARRATIVE, MEDICINE, PSYCHOLOGY (2016-2017)

Last modified: 28 Jun 2018 10:27


Course Overview

This course offers students the opportunity to develop their understanding of, and practical skills in, the writing of prose fiction. This skills-based course is structured around six wide-ranging and overlapping discussion areas: character; setting and the senses; point of view (voice, perspective and degrees of knowing); showing/telling; plot and structure; fact and fiction (life-writing, memory, and the use of scientific/medical/psychological detail).

Course Details

Study Type Postgraduate Level 5
Session Second Sub Session Credit Points 30 credits (15 ECTS credits)
Campus Old Aberdeen Sustained Study No
Co-ordinators
  • Dr Alexandra Lewis

Qualification Prerequisites

None.

What courses & programmes must have been taken before this course?

  • Any Postgraduate Programme (Studied)
  • One of Master of Letters in English Literary Studies (Studied) or Master of Letters in the Novel (Studied) or M Litt in Creative Writing (Studied) or Master of Letters in Literature, Science and Medicine (Studied)

What other courses must be taken with this course?

None.

What courses cannot be taken with this course?

None.

Are there a limited number of places available?

No

Course Description

The course offers students the opportunity to develop their understanding of, and practical skills in, the writing of prose fiction. By taking narratives of medicine and psychology as our focus, we enable a close consideration of strategies for representing the body, the mind, pain, and healing in fiction. This skills-based course is structured around six wide-ranging and overlapping discussion areas: character; setting and the senses; point of view (voice, perspective and degrees of knowing); showing/telling; plot and structure; fact and fiction (life-writing, memory, and the use of scientific/medical/psychological detail). These focus areas are not listed in chronological order: as on other modules, the exact sequence in which topics for discussion arise will be dictated by the progress and evolving needs of the particular group. Topics will be explored theoretically and with the aid of exemplars where appropriate, but the main focus of both class work and independent study will be the practical application of creative and aesthetic principles. Peer assessment and workshop methods will be central to the study of each topic area.

 Works to be considered alongside students’ own writing may include Inga Clendinnen’s Tiger’s Eye (2000), J.M. Coetzee’s The Slow Man (2005), Helen Garner’s The Spare Room (2009), Siri Hustvedt's The Shaking Woman: Or A History of My Nerves (2010) and selected short stories such as Charlotte Perkins Gilman's 'The Yellow Wall-Paper' and Jean Stafford's 'The Interior Castle'.


Contact Teaching Time

Information on contact teaching time is available from the course guide.

Teaching Breakdown

More Information about Week Numbers


Details, including assessments, may be subject to change until 31 August 2023 for 1st half-session courses and 22 December 2023 for 2nd half-session courses.

Summative Assessments

First attempt: Prose fiction submission up to 4000 words (80%) and reflective essay of 1500 words (20%).

Resit: 
5,000 word essay.

Formative Assessment

There are no assessments for this course.

Feedback

None.

Course Learning Outcomes

None.

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