Creative Writing in a Nutshell

About This Course

The basics of creative writing: journals, fairy tales, short films, poetry

   Most writing textbooks nowadays emphasize the process of writing. That is, they teach students how to brainstorm for ideas, create an outline, free-write a first draft, edit their work, and format a finished essay for submission. This is all well and good, but does everyone follow the same process when writing? Probably not. The process of writing is highly individualized; it cannot and should not be the main subject of a university level course. Therefore the focus of Creative Writing in a Nutshell is upon the expression of the individual, rather than on the writing process. 

   The goal of Creative Writing in a Nutshell is to enable students to express themselves in a creative manner. When we are called upon to describe our cat, for example, we usually say that it has four legs, a tail, whiskers, and says “meow.” Why not tell it like it is? “My cat has a super-short tail so it will not break the vase when it jumps up on the shelf.” Creative Writing in a Nutshell helps the student step out of the dull, everyday world, stretching the imagination to come up with truly innovative language. Different areas of interest include Journals, Fairy Tales, Advertising, Short Films, and Poems. A full review is given at the end, making Creative Writing in a Nutshell an ideal course for use among college-level adults.

   After a brief introduction, we start out with "A penny for your thoughts." This gets you started with creative thinking, an absolute must for creative writing. After this, we enter "The wild blue yonder," followed by "Waterfalls" and "Merrily merrily merrily." Are you feeling creative yet? The following section concerns writing for the media. After this we will delve into the worlds of film, poetry, and writing reviews of books, films or products.

P.S.: You should bring a well-developed philosophy of Caps and Puncts with you to this course. If you are a die-hard fan of ee cummings, for example, more power to you! This is a course in CREATIVE writing. You can study the MECHANICS of writing elsewhere.

• You'll understand the key elements of creative writing;

• You'll discover new ways to think about writing;

• You'll enjoy a boost in creativity;