Topics covered include:
- Unit 1: Writing Skills
- Unit 2: Characterisation
- Unit 3: Structure and Plot Development
- Unit 4: Setting and Atmosphere
- Unit 5: Getting published.
Learners who successfully complete this module will:
- Develop their creative voice through writing
- Produce a range of confident writing, which will include the opening section of a novel or two complete short stories
- Have utilised key aspects of writing for a novel or short story
- Understand the process of publication in Ireland
- Be able to submit work for publication.
Specific Learning Outcomes:
Unit 1: Writing Skills
Learners should be able to:
- Keep a track of ideas in a notebook
- Research their ideas using a variety of sources
- Produce a variety of written pieces of work, which range in content and length
- Use grammar to alter the narrative
- Understand the concept of showing not telling in writing
- Be constructively self-critical and provide critical analysis to others
- Revise and edit work.
Unit 2: Characterisation
Learners should be able to:
- Produce different characters
- Make characters that are believable
- Show feelings and emotions through words and actions
- Understand the character’s Language and Idioms.
- Create dialogue that comes from the character
- Understand the purpose of a character
- Determine the history of a character
- Write in the first, second, third person
- Identify if the narrator is present or omnipresent.
Unit 3: Structure and Plot Development
Learners should be able to:
- Understand different possibilities for plotting a story
- Understand timelines in relation to the narrative
- Understand Point of View
- Show different ways of telling the same story
- Flash forward and flash back
- Create intrigue for the reader.
Unit 4: Setting and Atmosphere
Learners should be able to:
- Create a strong sense of place through language
- Use real locations as the source for fiction
- Create clothes and costumes that are unique to the story
- Use language to set the tone of the narrative
- Decide on events which are determined by their environment
- Understand the limitations of the world they create
- Understand different genres.
Unit 5: Getting Published
Learners should be able to:
- Know the process of getting work Published in Ireland and abroad
- Source a variety Agents and Publishers in Ireland
- Present work for an agent or publisher which is correctly laid out according to industry practice
- Understand the role of an Agent.
- Understand the role of a Publisher
- Submit work for competition and/or publication
- Understand self-publishing.
