Creative Writing, _{MLitt or PgDip}

Available Programmes of Study

Creative Writing

Qualification Duration Learning Mode Study Mode Start Month Location  

MLitt 12 months or 24 months On Campus Learning Full Time or Part Time January View

Programme Information

Semester 1

Semester 1

Those starting the degree in January should be advised that they will complete the dissertation over the summer and finish the programme with the Semester 3 selection of courses. Taught courses do not run in the summer. Students wishing to do their dissertation at the end of the programme should consider starting their study in September.

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Optional Courses

Select 60 credit points from available level 5 courses:

EL5590 - Locations and Dislocations: The Role of Place in Literature (30 credit points)

Creative Writing II (EL5567)

30 Credit Points

Taught by experienced, award-winning writers, this course will engage students in a variety of activities designed to develop their creativity and originality, as well as in specific tasks to test and extend their technical skill in the writing of prose fiction. Students will be encouraged to develop an awareness of the centrality of narrative voice, to experiment with a variety of different narrative styles and to develop and revise their work in the context of workshop discussion and individually targeted feedback from course tutors.

View detailed information about this course

Writing Prose Fiction: the Journey. (EL55C4)

30 Credit Points

This course will concentrate on the often protean process of writing fiction in longer forms, simultaneously exploring the potential of expanding, extending or even transforming students’ work. While creating prose, students will develop their understanding of fiction writing and storytelling but always in relation to exploring the potential of plot and character development. Students will arrive at satisfying samples of work with reasoned potential for expansion. Through supportive sessions, students will conclude the course with a completed, rounded segment of work but with clear ideas of plotting and where their story can journey on forward to.

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Writing the Self (EL55C2)

30 Credit Points

What is at stake in writing autobiographical texts? What are the forms writers have used to write themselves? Is autobiography simply, as Oscar Wilde states, the lowest form of criticism? Looking at a range of texts from the Medieval period to the present, with a special focus on women’s writing, this course examines the formal, ethical, political, and aesthetic choices writers make when writing themselves.

View detailed information about this course

Semester 2

Semester 2

Compulsory Courses

Dissertation: Creative Writing Portfolio (EL5906)

60 Credit Points

This course will provide students with the opportunity to write an extended folio of creative work in either poetry or prose. It will provide students with the opportunity to explore and extend their creative ambitions in writing and, through the reflective commentary element, enable them to contextualise their own creative achievements in relation to works by established writers. Throughout the evolution of the folio, the student will develop a thorough practical awareness of some of the key stylistic, formal and expressive possibilities available to the skilled creative writer.

View detailed information about this course

Semester 3

Semester 3

Optional Courses

Select 60 credit points from available level 5 courses:

EL5096 - Public Engagement for Arts (30 credit points)

EL50C2 - Irish and Scottish Romanticism, 1760 – 1830 (30 credit points)

Creative Writing i (EL5072)

30 Credit Points

The course engages students in a variety of activities designed to develop their creativity and originality, as well as in specific tasks to test and extend their skill in the writing of poetry. Students will attempt imitations of a variety of different poetic styles, will be provided with a number of specific 'stimulus' exercises and will develop and revise their poems both independently and in regular workshop sessions.

View detailed information about this course

Creative Writing III: Non - Fiction (EL5095)

30 Credit Points

This course is devoted to the development of non-fiction creative prose. Among the themes and genres engaged with will be: travel writing, psychogeography, non-academic critical writing, prose poetry, diary, memoir, and the fragment. Students will study examples across the genre and build up a portfolio of work, discussion of which will form the basis of weekly workshops.

View detailed information about this course

The Novel: Environments and Encounters (EL50C5)

30 Credit Points

This module explores how the evolution of the novel form has allowed, and required, authors to find new ways of depicting spaces, places and interactions (between characters in particular environments, but also between characters and their environment). This chronologically wide-ranging course moves from the early days of the novel form through to contemporary fiction, allowing for an opportunity to study the many literary tactics that authors have employed to create the settings for their works – from vast historical backdrops, to natural spaces, to urban environments, to smaller domestic and private places. It also us to consider how different cultural moments have prompted authors to rethink how they represent characters’ encounters with the world around them, and with the other cultures, races, species and genders that inhabit that world. As well as narrative theories, students will have the chance to study canonical and less well-known texts from angles informed by current critical approaches such as ecocriticism, animal studies, postcolonial and queer theory.

View detailed information about this course

Placing the Romantic (EL50C8)

30 Credit Points

From Wordsworth’s lakes to Walter Scott’s Scottish Highlands, the concept of literary Romanticism is irrevocably tied to ideas of place and locale. During the Romantic era colonisation, urbanisation, agricultural reform and conflict all redefined how writers thought and wrote about their place within the world. This course will explore how Romantic texts have engaged with and defined place, looking not just at canonical examples of the romantic English landscape, but also exploring Romanticism’s global reach and Victorian and modern legacies.

View detailed information about this course

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Programme Fees

Fee information

Fee category	Cost
EU / International students	£19,400
Tuition Fees for 2021/22 Academic Year
Home / RUK	£9,200
Tuition Fees for 2021/22 Academic Year

MLitt 12 months or 24 months On Campus Learning Full Time or Part Time September View

Programme Information

Semester 1

Semester 1

Compulsory Courses

Select ONE or BOTH of the following options:

Creative Writing i (EL5072)

30 Credit Points

The course engages students in a variety of activities designed to develop their creativity and originality, as well as in specific tasks to test and extend their skill in the writing of poetry. Students will attempt imitations of a variety of different poetic styles, will be provided with a number of specific 'stimulus' exercises and will develop and revise their poems both independently and in regular workshop sessions.

View detailed information about this course

Creative Writing III: Non - Fiction (EL5095)

30 Credit Points

This course is devoted to the development of non-fiction creative prose. Among the themes and genres engaged with will be: travel writing, psychogeography, non-academic critical writing, prose poetry, diary, memoir, and the fragment. Students will study examples across the genre and build up a portfolio of work, discussion of which will form the basis of weekly workshops.

View detailed information about this course

Optional Courses

Plus one 30 credit course from the options below if only one of the above Creative Writing options is chosen:

EL5092 - Approaching Literature (30 credit points)

EL50C2 - Irish and Scottish Romanticism [1760 - 1830] (30 credit points)

EL5096 - Public Engagement for Arts (30 credit points)

The Novel: Environments and Encounters (EL50C5)

30 Credit Points

This module explores how the evolution of the novel form has allowed, and required, authors to find new ways of depicting spaces, places and interactions (between characters in particular environments, but also between characters and their environment). This chronologically wide-ranging course moves from the early days of the novel form through to contemporary fiction, allowing for an opportunity to study the many literary tactics that authors have employed to create the settings for their works – from vast historical backdrops, to natural spaces, to urban environments, to smaller domestic and private places. It also us to consider how different cultural moments have prompted authors to rethink how they represent characters’ encounters with the world around them, and with the other cultures, races, species and genders that inhabit that world. As well as narrative theories, students will have the chance to study canonical and less well-known texts from angles informed by current critical approaches such as ecocriticism, animal studies, postcolonial and queer theory.

View detailed information about this course

Semester 2

Semester 2

Compulsory Courses

Creative Writing II (EL5567)

30 Credit Points

Taught by experienced, award-winning writers, this course will engage students in a variety of activities designed to develop their creativity and originality, as well as in specific tasks to test and extend their technical skill in the writing of prose fiction. Students will be encouraged to develop an awareness of the centrality of narrative voice, to experiment with a variety of different narrative styles and to develop and revise their work in the context of workshop discussion and individually targeted feedback from course tutors.

View detailed information about this course

Optional Courses

Select 60 credit points from the following options:

EL5590 - Locations and Dislocations: The Role of Place in Literature

EL5598 - Approaching Literature 2

Writing the Self (EL55C2)

30 Credit Points

What is at stake in writing autobiographical texts? What are the forms writers have used to write themselves? Is autobiography simply, as Oscar Wilde states, the lowest form of criticism? Looking at a range of texts from the Medieval period to the present, with a special focus on women’s writing, this course examines the formal, ethical, political, and aesthetic choices writers make when writing themselves.

View detailed information about this course

Semester 3

Semester 3

Compulsory Courses

Dissertation: Creative Writing Portfolio (EL5906)

60 Credit Points

This course will provide students with the opportunity to write an extended folio of creative work in either poetry or prose. It will provide students with the opportunity to explore and extend their creative ambitions in writing and, through the reflective commentary element, enable them to contextualise their own creative achievements in relation to works by established writers. Throughout the evolution of the folio, the student will develop a thorough practical awareness of some of the key stylistic, formal and expressive possibilities available to the skilled creative writer.

View detailed information about this course

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Programme Fees

Fee information

Fee category	Cost
EU / International students	£19,400
Tuition Fees for 2021/22 Academic Year
Home / RUK	£9,200
Tuition Fees for 2021/22 Academic Year

PgDip 9 months or 21 months On Campus Learning Full Time or Part Time January View

Programme Information

Please contact study@abdn.ac.uk for more information about this programme.