Introduction
What issues explored in module A still have relevance today?
- The layers of power - what makes humans want to continually pursuing it
- The ambitions and desires of inherent human nature, despite knowing the unfulfilling and
fleeting nature of power and pursuits like this
- What is the within every individual inherently - is there evil in everyone and if there is, why is
it that some people are ‘more evil’ than others
- Ongoing gender discrimination - why is there such a big gap between the roles of females and
males?
- Performative nature of humans - why are we so susceptible to manipulation by performance?
What makes performance so compelling?
Discursive
Most preferred discursive topic: The ambitions and desires of inherent human nature, despite
knowing the unfulfilling and fleeting nature of power and pursuits like this
- Buckingham’s speech that illuminates the fleeting nature of power and the shallowness of this
pursuit
Persuasive
Topic: Human nature is satisfied with the process/act of chasing something (whether valuable or
fleeting) to prove to themselves/ say they achieved something, for the purpose of seeking validation.
- Buckingham’s speech despite in the middle of the play, Richard is shown to continuing to
pursue this power, showing how humans are field by the process of chasing things that are
regarded to be ‘satisfactory’ even if it is fleeting
Taking a Meta-moment to think about where my head is at with Creative Writing
Creative Writing
How do you respond mentally, physically and emotionally to creative writing and the creative
writing process?
- Don’t enjoy creative writing, unable to get a flow of idea when under the pressure of time
- My best expression of creativity is when I am able to sit alone in my own space to get my
flow of ideas
Draw pictures or write words to represent your responses. Can you explain the causes of these
responses?
- I am a very structured, black and white academic thinker, I learn and do things through tried
and true ways that systematically make sense. Hence my ability to adapt and think creatively
and abstractly is not as strong as if I was told to write a persuasive or essay
- Linear thinker
- System based
- Evidence base thinker - not much of a go with the flow
If any of the responses are negative or unhelpful, how might you turn them into a strength or
what strategies could you use to alleviate them?
, - Make a structured brainstorm of idea
- Write a storyline/ plan one through a flow chart. Then go back and add elements of
creativeness (essentially start with the raw skeleton and build from there)
The Creative Writing Process
Imagine yourself sitting down, about to start a creative task. What are the steps in your process
from start to submission?
1. Break down the question (highlight, underline) - by asking the question, questions.
2. Draw a mindmap of possible general ideas and topics of discussion in my piece
3. Create another mindmap of my best, favourite idea (this could look like a flowchart)
4. Start word blurting and attempting to write the piece (in a space where there is no pressure or
weight) - just start writing
5. Get a rough draft
6. Edit it over a couple of days
7. Get peer feedback
8. Edit again
9. Submit
Are there any parts of the process that you struggle with. Why do you think you struggle with
them?
- Finding the time and the space as well as giving myself the space to think creatively with no
pressure
Characteristics of Creative People
- Creative people are curious and willing to ask and generate questions
- Creative people are able to generate a lot of ideas and then manipulate them by changing,
elaborating and adapting them.
,SHORT STORY STRUCTURE
The power of an opening sentence
Types of Opening Scenes for Your Imaginative Writing
Here are some tried and true methods:
Autobiographic Your protagonist starts the book reflecting on themselves or talking about a past
event. They share internal dialogue or are looking back in time to communicate an
important piece of information with the reader.
● F. Scott Fitzgerald in 'The Great Gatsby'
In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice
that I've been turning over in my mind ever since. Whenever you feel like
criticising any one, he told me, just remember that all the people in this
world haven’t had the advantages that you have had.
● Jack Kurouac in 'On the Road':
I first met Dean not long after my wife and I split up. I had just gotten over a
serious illness that I won't bother to talk about, except that it had something
to do with the miserably weary split-up and my feeling that everything was
dead. With the coming of Dean Moriarty began the part of my life you could
call my life on the road.
● Haruki Murakami in 'Norwegian Wood':
I was 37 then, strapped in my seat as the huge 747 plunged through dense
cloud cover on approach to Hamburg Airport.
, ● Fyodor Dostoyevsky in 'Notes from Underground'
I am a sick man… I am a spiteful man.
In Media Res (in A problem has arisen for the protagonist and a sense of urgency is established.
the middle of the ● Iain Banks in 'The Crow Road'
conflict) It was the day my grandmother exploded.
● Franz Kafka in 'Metamorphisis':
As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself
transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect. He was lying on his hard, as it
were armor-plated, back and when he lifted his head a little he could see his
dome-like brown belly divided into stiff arched segments on top of which the
bed quilt could hardly keep in position and was about to slide off completely.
His numerous legs, which were pitifully thin compared to the rest of his bulk,
waved helplessly before his eyes.
● Franz Kafka in 'The Trial'
Someone must have slandered Josef K., for one morning, without having
done anything truly wrong, he was arrested.
Mystery The reader is introduced to something peculiar that raises questions in their mind.
Their curiosity will keep them reading.
● Kurt Vonnegut in 'Slaughterhouse-Five'
All this happened, more or less.
● Stephen King in 'The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger':
The man in black fled across the desert and the gunslinger followed.
● H.G. Wells in 'The Invisible Man'
The stranger came early in February, one wintry day, through a biting wind
and a driving snow, the last snowfall of the year, over the down, walking as it
seemed from Bramblehurst railway station, and carrying a little black
portmanteau in his thickly gloved hand.
Scene-setting The most common opening: focus on introducing the setting and the characters in it
before anything else.
● Ernest Hemingway in 'A Farewell to Arms':
In the late summer of that year we lived in a house in a village that looked
across the river and the plain to the mountains. In the bed of the river there
were pebbles and boulders, dry and white in the sun, and the water was clear
and swiftly moving and blue in the channels. Troops went by the house and
down the road and the dust they raised powdered the leaves of the trees. The
trunks of the trees were too dusty and the leaves fell early that year and we
saw the troops marching along the road and the dust rising and leaves,
stirred by the breeze, falling and the soldiers marching and afterward the
road bare and white except for the leaves.
The questioner The protagonist is questioning something.
● William gaddis in 'A Frolic of His Own'
Justice? You get justice in the next world, in this world you have the law.
What issues explored in module A still have relevance today?
- The layers of power - what makes humans want to continually pursuing it
- The ambitions and desires of inherent human nature, despite knowing the unfulfilling and
fleeting nature of power and pursuits like this
- What is the within every individual inherently - is there evil in everyone and if there is, why is
it that some people are ‘more evil’ than others
- Ongoing gender discrimination - why is there such a big gap between the roles of females and
males?
- Performative nature of humans - why are we so susceptible to manipulation by performance?
What makes performance so compelling?
Discursive
Most preferred discursive topic: The ambitions and desires of inherent human nature, despite
knowing the unfulfilling and fleeting nature of power and pursuits like this
- Buckingham’s speech that illuminates the fleeting nature of power and the shallowness of this
pursuit
Persuasive
Topic: Human nature is satisfied with the process/act of chasing something (whether valuable or
fleeting) to prove to themselves/ say they achieved something, for the purpose of seeking validation.
- Buckingham’s speech despite in the middle of the play, Richard is shown to continuing to
pursue this power, showing how humans are field by the process of chasing things that are
regarded to be ‘satisfactory’ even if it is fleeting
Taking a Meta-moment to think about where my head is at with Creative Writing
Creative Writing
How do you respond mentally, physically and emotionally to creative writing and the creative
writing process?
- Don’t enjoy creative writing, unable to get a flow of idea when under the pressure of time
- My best expression of creativity is when I am able to sit alone in my own space to get my
flow of ideas
Draw pictures or write words to represent your responses. Can you explain the causes of these
responses?
- I am a very structured, black and white academic thinker, I learn and do things through tried
and true ways that systematically make sense. Hence my ability to adapt and think creatively
and abstractly is not as strong as if I was told to write a persuasive or essay
- Linear thinker
- System based
- Evidence base thinker - not much of a go with the flow
If any of the responses are negative or unhelpful, how might you turn them into a strength or
what strategies could you use to alleviate them?
, - Make a structured brainstorm of idea
- Write a storyline/ plan one through a flow chart. Then go back and add elements of
creativeness (essentially start with the raw skeleton and build from there)
The Creative Writing Process
Imagine yourself sitting down, about to start a creative task. What are the steps in your process
from start to submission?
1. Break down the question (highlight, underline) - by asking the question, questions.
2. Draw a mindmap of possible general ideas and topics of discussion in my piece
3. Create another mindmap of my best, favourite idea (this could look like a flowchart)
4. Start word blurting and attempting to write the piece (in a space where there is no pressure or
weight) - just start writing
5. Get a rough draft
6. Edit it over a couple of days
7. Get peer feedback
8. Edit again
9. Submit
Are there any parts of the process that you struggle with. Why do you think you struggle with
them?
- Finding the time and the space as well as giving myself the space to think creatively with no
pressure
Characteristics of Creative People
- Creative people are curious and willing to ask and generate questions
- Creative people are able to generate a lot of ideas and then manipulate them by changing,
elaborating and adapting them.
,SHORT STORY STRUCTURE
The power of an opening sentence
Types of Opening Scenes for Your Imaginative Writing
Here are some tried and true methods:
Autobiographic Your protagonist starts the book reflecting on themselves or talking about a past
event. They share internal dialogue or are looking back in time to communicate an
important piece of information with the reader.
● F. Scott Fitzgerald in 'The Great Gatsby'
In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice
that I've been turning over in my mind ever since. Whenever you feel like
criticising any one, he told me, just remember that all the people in this
world haven’t had the advantages that you have had.
● Jack Kurouac in 'On the Road':
I first met Dean not long after my wife and I split up. I had just gotten over a
serious illness that I won't bother to talk about, except that it had something
to do with the miserably weary split-up and my feeling that everything was
dead. With the coming of Dean Moriarty began the part of my life you could
call my life on the road.
● Haruki Murakami in 'Norwegian Wood':
I was 37 then, strapped in my seat as the huge 747 plunged through dense
cloud cover on approach to Hamburg Airport.
, ● Fyodor Dostoyevsky in 'Notes from Underground'
I am a sick man… I am a spiteful man.
In Media Res (in A problem has arisen for the protagonist and a sense of urgency is established.
the middle of the ● Iain Banks in 'The Crow Road'
conflict) It was the day my grandmother exploded.
● Franz Kafka in 'Metamorphisis':
As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself
transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect. He was lying on his hard, as it
were armor-plated, back and when he lifted his head a little he could see his
dome-like brown belly divided into stiff arched segments on top of which the
bed quilt could hardly keep in position and was about to slide off completely.
His numerous legs, which were pitifully thin compared to the rest of his bulk,
waved helplessly before his eyes.
● Franz Kafka in 'The Trial'
Someone must have slandered Josef K., for one morning, without having
done anything truly wrong, he was arrested.
Mystery The reader is introduced to something peculiar that raises questions in their mind.
Their curiosity will keep them reading.
● Kurt Vonnegut in 'Slaughterhouse-Five'
All this happened, more or less.
● Stephen King in 'The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger':
The man in black fled across the desert and the gunslinger followed.
● H.G. Wells in 'The Invisible Man'
The stranger came early in February, one wintry day, through a biting wind
and a driving snow, the last snowfall of the year, over the down, walking as it
seemed from Bramblehurst railway station, and carrying a little black
portmanteau in his thickly gloved hand.
Scene-setting The most common opening: focus on introducing the setting and the characters in it
before anything else.
● Ernest Hemingway in 'A Farewell to Arms':
In the late summer of that year we lived in a house in a village that looked
across the river and the plain to the mountains. In the bed of the river there
were pebbles and boulders, dry and white in the sun, and the water was clear
and swiftly moving and blue in the channels. Troops went by the house and
down the road and the dust they raised powdered the leaves of the trees. The
trunks of the trees were too dusty and the leaves fell early that year and we
saw the troops marching along the road and the dust rising and leaves,
stirred by the breeze, falling and the soldiers marching and afterward the
road bare and white except for the leaves.
The questioner The protagonist is questioning something.
● William gaddis in 'A Frolic of His Own'
Justice? You get justice in the next world, in this world you have the law.
