Life Writing: Telling Your Story

About this course

Participants develop original life-writing pieces while exploring ways to find ideas in personal experience, build a portfolio and engage readers. Sessions cover story structure, character development, descriptive writing, dialogue, memoir ethics and research methods. Teaching combines group discussion, debates, sharing work, individual feedback and weekly assignments. The course also considers routes to publication and introduces writing tools that can be applied to participants’ own projects.

What you'll learn

• Develop a portfolio of original creative writing
• Apply story-structure techniques to shape narratives
• Use characterisation, scenery and dialogue in life writing
• Examine ethical considerations involved in memoir writing
• Research and compare possible routes to publication

Is this course right for you?

The course is designed for complete beginners and inexperienced writers. Participation includes sharing work, group discussion and individual writing, alongside weekly assignments and one-to-one feedback. Competence in spoken and written English is stated as a requirement.

• Suitable for learners starting without previous writing experience
• Includes regular writing assignments to complete as part of the course
• Requires participation in discussions and feedback activities

Before you go

• Bring something to write with, such as pencil and paper, a laptop or an electronic notebook.