Creative Writing: How to Write for Publication

Diploma in creative writing

• The Key Elements of Story

  An overview of the core concepts of story – research, setting, character and dialogue – a basic exploration of The Hero's Journey and its main character archetypes, as well as an overview of the essential tools of the trade needed to write professionally.

• Research

  A look at the essential concepts to consider before researching your work, a crucial look at the types of sources writers will interact with, and an exploration of how to integrate research into fiction – considering the concepts of research storage, balance, and poetic license.

• The three act structure

  A crucial examination of fiction's most popular narrative structure, getting into the specifics of how the three acts function, how to plot narrative within this framework, and a demystifying discussion of the importance of narrative causality.

• Character development

  A look at the core concepts to consider when constructing characters – with particular focus on the public/private disparity as well as the need for character motivation. We also look at more key character archetypes and learn handy writing tips for writing characters for a modern audience.

• Character, Conflict & Humanity

  A deeper look at character development, with particular focus on the crucial nature of conflict as well as the subcategories thereof. We then look at how to draw up a character bio and, also, how to design a cohesive cast.

• Writing Dialogue

  An important look at what distinguishes dialogue from real-life speech, a deep dive into how levels of human intimacy guides dialogue, as well as a more technical look at how to make decisions regarding the use of slang/regionalisms/jargon in fiction.

• Genres of Fiction

  We look at the original Ancient Greek genres, how they grew and now present in the modern age, and also take an important look at the most up-to-date approaches to the concept – with particular focus placed on mixing genres, the alleged 'post-genre' age of writing, as well as how to choose your own.

• Publication

  A step-by-step guide to the process of publication. We look at the pre-publication phases of beta-reading and criticism, learn how to assemble necessary auxiliary documentation, as well as how to handle the process of actual submission and the potential feedback the writer will receive at this point in the process.