Shaping a course

Chuchote

I'm going to be running a couple of new creative writing courses next year - one basic and very craft-based course, the other more advanced.

I'd love some suggestions - if you'd be so kind - for things people would like to be covered if they were to take such a course.

Das Kitty

I've done a few courses over the years. The one that sticks with me though, is an advanced one I attended during a writing festival. No one in the class wrote a word during it. The facilitator/teacher brought in sections of prose for close reading and we studied the different techniques the authors used to achieve the desired effect. We'd have 3-4 segments on a particular subject (say death) and from the close reading we'd build an understanding of different approaches.

It was excellent. I think it probably took a heck of a lot of preparation though.

echo beach

I'd agree with DK. We all want to write but first we have to learn to read, which honestly isn't much fun and might not be what potential recruits want to sign up for.
A friend who is a professional sportswoman told me that at first for months she didn't get to play or even practice her sport much as she had to do loads of fitness work, running and weights, which she hated. Many of her very talented team mates dropped out and returned to amateur competition and what she described as 'the grafters' were left to make up the team.
I thinks that sums up the difference between the professionals and the amateurs in any activity but you would need to decide who your course is aimed at. A football summer school that didn't involve kicking a ball wouldn't have many takers.

Chuchote

echo beach wrote: »

I'd agree with DK. We all want to write but first we have to learn to read, which honestly isn't much fun and might not be what potential recruits want to sign up for.

Depends on what you think of as fun!

But I do find it odd how little people read - people who come to courses wanting to write.

Hrududu

I did a course once where a lot of time was spent writing in class, and most of the time they paired us up with others. Total waste of time. It felt like busy work to lessen the amount of work the teacher had to do. So my tip would be to have them do writing exercises in their own time. Not during class time.

Chuchote

Hrududu wrote: »

I did a course once where a lot of time was spent writing in class, and most of the time they paired us up with others. Total waste of time. It felt like busy work to lessen the amount of work the teacher had to do. So my tip would be to have them do writing exercises in their own time. Not during class time.

I do that for part of the class, in fact - students have told me they like it. It's also a great way of sparking difference in the way you write, listening to others rather than diving straight in with your own opinions. (Students also send in work, which I circulate, and it's then read in the class.)

Not busywork at all, but an exercise that can pull people out of a staid way of thinking.

One of the biggest hurdles for many students is learning not to write the same story with the same characters over and over.

echo beach

Chuchote wrote: »

Depends on what you think of as fun!

But I do find it odd how little people read - people who come to courses wanting to write.

Reading is fun but close reading is hard, hard work and that is why so many (including myself at times) avoid it.:)
I agree about people at writing courses who read little. Nobody can keep up with everything that is published but often participants will admit that they have never even heard of well known authors much less have read anything they wrote.