Scholarships
Introduction
Get started with your own fiction writing, focusing on the central skill of creating characters, with this hands-on course.
Discover the rituals and approaches that successful fiction writers use
On this online course, established writers – including Louis de Bernières, Patricia Duncker, Alex Garland, Abdulrazak Gurnah, Tim Pears, Michèle Roberts and Monique Roffey – will talk about how they started writing.
You’ll consider the rituals of writing and keeping a journal; learn how to develop your ideas; reflect on your own writing and editing; hear writers talk about their approach to research, and start turning events into the plot.
You’ll also have the opportunity to review the work of fellow writers and receive comments on your own, learning to read as a writer and respond to feedback.
When would you like to start?
Most FutureLearn courses run multiple times. Every run of a course has a set start date but you can join it and work through it after it starts.
- Available now
- 4 October 2021
What will you achieve?
By the end of the course, you‘ll be able to:
- Apply and learn to write fiction and generate stories by creating characters.
- Investigate notions of writing from your experience and from research.
- Explore using a writer’s notebook to develop ideas and increase observational awareness.
- Identify and realise the importance of other authors and works to develop your skills in reading as a writer.
- Develop your awareness of editing, in developing your vocabulary of style and presentation.
- Identify and realise the importance of exchanging work and critical comments with fellow writers.
Who will you learn with?
Derek Neale
A novelist and short-story writer – his latest novel is The Book of Guardians - Derek has recorded many interviews with novelists, playwrights and biographers about their approach to writing.
Who developed the course?
The Open University
The Open University (OU) is the largest academic institution in the UK and a world leader in flexible distance learning, with a mission to be open to people, places, methods and ideas.