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Creative Non-Fiction: An Introduction (Spring 2024)
Module Zero: Getting started
Housekeeping
Set up your Gravatar
Technical queries
Code of Conduct
Discussion Zones and Feedback
About the Course
A guide to setting out your writing
Enjoy the course!
Module One: Introduction – Why Write Non-Fiction?
Welcome
Why write a book?
Who?
Let’s think about how to open your narrative
Read: Andrew Smith's Moondust
Read: Jumpin' Jack Flash and The Tall Man
A few thoughts on structure
Show, don't tell
Assignment One: So, how do you begin finding stories?
Module Two: Research I
Beginning your research
Be systematic
Study
Exercise: Planning and brainstorming your book
Archives
Exercise: Sources
Facts, conclusions and sources
How else can you pursue your research?
Exercise: Footstepping
Module Three: Research II
Interviews
Exercise: What to ask in an interview
Speaking and listening
Dialogue
Memory
Exercise: Your own memory
After an interview
Ethics of interviewing
Legal stuff
'In Cold Blood'
Assignment Three: Interviewing
Module Four: Place
Locations as character
What is ‘place’?
Exercise: Noticing
Read: The Old Ways
Place and character
Five texts on place in America
Individuality and place
Three texts on place in Asia
Exercise: Perception
Assignment Four: Biography and place
Module Five: Writing About People (and Nature)
People give books their stories
Exercise: nature observations
From real life to the page
Read: The Scientific Anglian
Meeting new people
Character through dialogue
The author
Our ever-changing moods
Margaret Cavendish and Virginia Woolf
Exercise: Writing people
Module Six: Finding your voice and telling your story
Creating a manuscript
Taking the leap
Finding your voice
Read: 'The Living Stones' and 'Mezzrow'
Read: Lichtenstein and Sinclair
First-person and third-person narration
Exercise
Read: 'The Quest for Corvo'
Landmark texts
Endings and beginnings
Pitching to an agent
Editing
Read: 'Stet'
Just walk away, Renée…
Final thoughts
Final assessment
Thank You and Next Steps
Your Feedback
What's Next?
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From real life to the page
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