My creative writing university course is going well, and I finished unit one of the second year in the summer of 2022. I want to share the process of how I completed it, as well as the pathways I chose for my second year. As I am one of the first students going through the second year of the course with the Open College of the Arts, I thought others would want to know what it is like.
Creative Writing University Course: my chosen pathways
We had applied for me to start my course in September, only to find it wouldn’t be ready until November! As such, I had to find other things to do in the meantime. I watched creative writing videos and worked on writing prompts during that time. When I finally got my course, I had to choose two pathways that I would work on during the rest of the year.
I could choose between Moving on with Scriptwriting (which would mean you have to do Scriptwriting in the first year), Narrative Journalism, Poetry, Form and Experience (which means you must do Poetry in the first year), Starting Your Novel, Writing for Children, Writing for Teens and Young Adults, and Writing Short Fiction. I already wrote a blog post about Scriptwriting, explaining why I didn’t enjoy it, so I knew I wouldn’t return to it. I also couldn’t do Poetry, and I did Starting Your Novel in the first year.
I already knew I wanted to do Writing for Teens and Young Adults and selected Writing for Children since the other pathways didn’t interest me.
Creative Writing University Course: Writing for Children
Writing for Children was the first pathway I started on. While I was writing, I kept my mind open since I had no idea what I wanted to write. I had at first thought about writing a modern fairy tale and was inspired by the Twelve Dancing Princesses. I used the exercises from the first two parts to work towards that and developed the characters as much as possible.
Of course, as it is writing for children, I couldn’t develop my characters as much as I do for my fanfictions. I also had to keep my target audience in mind throughout. I focused so much on the characters and setting everything up that I did not include the inciting incident when I came to write the first assignment.
When I came toward writing the second assignment, I just came from writing the first assignment for writing for teens and young adults. Since I found rewriting fairy tales wasn’t working, I decided to change what I was writing. So, I wrote the beginning of a fantasy story. I included an inciting incident and developed my character. I felt happier with the second assignment than the first, but I still didn’t feel comfortable writing fantasy. I do not know what I will do for the second unit yet, and I am considering my options.
Creative Writing University Course: Writing for Teens and Young Adults
I feel more comfortable writing for teens and young adults as I usually write with that audience in mind with my fanfictions on fanfiction.net, Wattpad, and A03. I wanted to write a dystopian story for the pathway since I haven’t written something like that yet. I worked with the same characters and plot for both assignments, and I loved it. The characters seemed to come alive, and I would love to work with them more in the future. Maybe I will release a story featuring them on Wattpad. Keep an eye out for that in case I decide to do that.
However, I will try writing something different for the second unit. So far, my idea is to write supernatural stories, so I will give that a go. I’ve also written a blog post about my interest in The Twilight Saga, which you can find here.
Assessment for the new units
I am currently preparing for the assessment, and a few days ago, I got an email. When writing this, I expected the GDrive folder, where all the students submit their work, to be open. However, this email explains that the GDrive folder will now be available on the 30th of September rather than the 15th. As such, the results could be released later. The number of assessments to submit is also different. Instead of submitting three creatives like in the previous units, I now must submit all four and update them. I’m yet to update my first Writing for Children assignment since I’m unhappy with it and have no idea how to improve it.
I had another email about the assessment for the creative writing university course. Now, instead of submitting the best three assignments for the tutors to read through and assess, you must update and submit all four. I wasn’t expecting it and was going to update the first writing for children assignment. However, I looked in the folder I saved it in and found I already updated it. Now it is during the assessment time and I have submitted everything, and I am happy with what I have submitted. It will be around the week beginning on the 12th December that I will get my results for the first unit of the second year of my creative writing university course.
If you want to discover more about my journey through the Open College of the Arts and what I am doing at University, click here.
If you want to see the website about the Open College of the Arts, click here.