The focus of English 381: Creative Writing in Prose is your work and its development. Progress depends on engagement, patience, and perseverance, as well as a desire to do things well. You bring the desire, talent, and creativity. This course does its best to encourage those values, but its main role is to expand your sense of technical understanding as you shape the material that arises for you within the various assignment prompts and parameters.
To get the most from this course, you need to believe that your writing can be improved by study, dedication, and feedback. It is equally important to remember that writing should be fun and inspiring. Compelling fiction results from both work and inspiration; you cannot have one without the other.
Students are expected to have a sound background in literature and proven essay-writing ability. Before contacting the professor with your request for approval to register, please read Readiness for ENGL 381. This document also provides further information about the course.
Lesson 2: Scene Dynamics, Narrative Summary, and Prose Forms
Lesson 3: Setting, Character, Point of View, and Voice
Lesson 4: Representing Thought and Speech
Unit 2: The Very Short Story
Lesson 5: Setting, Character, Point of View, and Voice
Lesson 6: Structure and Style
Lesson 7: More on Structure and Style
Unit 3: Added Complexity
Lesson 8: Aspects of Complexity
Lesson 9: Plot
Lesson 10: Objective Correlative
Unit 4: One More Revision
Lesson 11: More Guidelines for Revision
Evaluation
To receive credit for ENGL 381, You may fail only one of the creative writing assignments (1, 4, 6, 8, and 9) and still receive a pass for the course. A fail is any mark below 50 percent. You may fail only one response to a peer draft (Assignments 2 and 7) and only one craft study (Assignments 3 and 5) and still receive a pass for the course. A fail is any mark below 50 percent.
Activity
Weight
Assignment 1: Scene or Narrative Summary Draft
Pass/Fail
Assignment 2: First Peer Response
5%
Assignment 3: First Craft Study
5%
Assignment 4: Revised Scene or Narrative Summary
10%
Assignment 5: Second Craft Study
5%
Assignment 6: Very Short Story
20%
Assignment 7: Second Peer Response
5%
Assignment 8: Complex Story or Narrative Opening
25%
Assignment 9: Further Development of a Previous Fiction Submission
25%
Total
100%
To learn more about assignments and examinations, please refer to Athabasca University’s online Calendar.
Materials
Mills, Mark. Crafting the Very Short Story: An Anthology of 100 Masterpieces. Upper Saddle River: Pearson, 2003. (Print)
Richards, David Adams. Nights Below Station Street. Toronto: Newmac Amusement Inc., 1988. (Print)
Athabasca University reserves the right to amend course outlines occasionally and without notice. Courses offered by other delivery methods may vary from their individualized study counterparts.