MLitt Module
EN52030: Planning Writing
Module Organiser: Aliki Varvogli
Credits: 40
The Programme is delivered in a combination of Workshops, Seminars and Literary Salons. Workshops are practice-led and based around a number of key exercises to help establish genre writing skills. Seminars teach students about the contemporary novel – paying particular attention to the crime novel as an example of genre fiction – so that students can learn by example and set their own work in a popular context.
Students should be able to:
- Show an informed evaluation of their own writing and reading practices
- Show benefit from intensive teaching that involves practical workshops and critical seminars
- Demonstrate an ability to work on a longer piece of genre writing
- Show an understanding of individual writing strengths in plot, character, pacing etc
- Understand editing/redrafting practices
- Show confident and informed evaluation of their own and others’ work in group sessions and seminars - including Literary Salons
- Demonstrate the ability to study independently, set goals, manage workloads and meet deadlines
Students also have access to and participate in our literary life at Dundee – from Literary Salons to the Writers Read series to taking part in the content and delivery of student led literary publications. In all, this creates a feeling of loyalty and “ownership” of the distinct nature of the programme.
- Week 1: Workshop: Starting Up (LW)
- Week 2: Seminar: Understanding Plot (AV)
- Week 3: Workshop: Crime and Punishment (LW)
- Literary Salon
- Week 4: Seminar: Character and Motivation in "The Cutting Room" (AV)
- Week 5: Iowa-style "Workshopping" Session: Student Work Appraisal (ES)
- Week 6: Seminar: Consequence and Effect (AV)
- Week 7: Workshop: The Power of Plot (LW)
- Literary Salon
- Week 8: Seminar: The Story of Postmodernism (AV)
- Week 9: Independent Writing Time
- Week 10: Workshop: What Next? Turning stories into novels (LW)
- Literary Salon
- Week 11: Final Seminar (AV)