The Creative Writing major offers you the opportunity to explore your creative potential and to extend your work to avant-garde, cross-genre and experimental forms of writing.
You will be encouraged to critically test the creative potential and the influence of contemporary theoretical and philosophical schools of thought in all forms of writing. Areas of specialisation include fiction, poetry, poetics, non-fiction, performance and writing for theatre, and autobiography.
Careers
- Author
- Corporate communications
- Editor
- Marketing
- Professional writer
- Publisher
Subjects you could take in this major
This subject focuses on the creative process of shorter literary work, from the first idea through the development, editing and presentation, including the identification of sources, and choice of style and form. Students will be encouraged to attempt a variety of forms including poetry, monologue, fiction and creative non-fiction. They will also be encouraged to read and discuss a wide range of contemporary literature as part of their understanding and articulation of their own and others' creative work.
This subject asks students to develop their own non-fiction writing, short or longer, through the study of course materials, through class discussions and workshop sessions. The topics dealt with in this subject will include sport, science, political and autobiographical writing. The subject enables students to develop and draft a number of related or unrelated essays and other creative non-fictions, and to gain an understanding of the writing workshop process.
This subject is an introduction to a range of poetic forms. Students will read poetry from various periods and cultures, with an emphasis on 20th century and contemporary poetry.
This subject is an introduction to the principles and techniques of scriptwriting for the theatre. A selection of theatre scripts in various styles will be studied, in conjunction with relevant critical material, to enhance the production of an original script. Students will each view a current Melbourne theatre production and review the scriptwriting concept and techniques through blog-posts on a class forum, as well as participating in workshopping of their classmates’ scripts throughout semester. This subject is compulsory for students planning to take Writing Radical Performance in the 3rd year of their studies.
In this subject students will explore principles of the craft and theory of writing short fiction including graphic narrative. Students will read a variety of fiction texts from the beginning of the modernist era to contemporary fiction, ranging from Gogol to Chekhov, Hemingway, Faulkner, Munro, Garner, Keret and others.
In this subject students will be introduced to the history of screenwriting and the principles of the craft of writing scripts for screen. Students will read and respond to a variety of scripts written for screen. Students will also be required to write a short original screenplay. This subject is highly recommended for students intending to take Advanced Screenwriting and/or Writing for Theatre in their 3rd year studies.
Advanced Screenwriting focuses on the creation of an original script for screen. This subject builds upon skills learnt in the second year Creative Writing subject Writing for Screen. Students will enhance, through practical workshops, their screenwriting techniques in three areas: Film, TV and New Media forms. Students will develop a creative project comprising a concept and script excerpts from either: a short film, a feature length film, a TV pilot, or a new media project: such as a web series or video game. Advanced Screenwriting draws upon a wide range of examples and contemporary applications of screenwriting, including a range of genres, along with contemporary media innovations. As a result students should have, on completion of the subject, an understanding of how screenwriting history, common techniques and new advances in the form relate to current practice.
Students will survey historical and contemporary pieces of autobiography and biography, reading critically for both narrative techniques such as structure, voice, point of view, and style, and cultural/theoretical views on ideas such as subjectivity and othering. Students will read essays on memory, writing the self, and writing the other alongside creative writing. Research practices such as interviewing skills, archival research and genealogical research will be investigated in the production of a folio of original autobiographical and biographical writing.
This subject will take up questions of creativity, professional practice and critical theory as they relate to creative writing, with a view to students engaging with contemporary Australian and global writing culture. The subject will be lecture and tutorial-based, with a series of lectures followed by student-devised group projects leading to presentations at lectures. There will be, in addition, individual creative projects.
This subject is designed to help students conceive, research and begin the writing of a novel, and to articulate an understanding of contemporary novels. It will introduce students to theoretical and historical approaches to the understanding and practice of extended narrative or novel writing. Students will read a variety of narrative-based and theoretical texts with emphasis on contemporary works. The focus of this subject is on the production of the student’s own extended work of fiction, the major assessment being on an extract, preferably the opening part of that work.
Students in this subject will inquire into a wide range of traditional and contemporary stylistic practices in poetry and poetics. Students will analyse and present discussions on a variety of poetic texts and recent works on poetics, before applying central poetic styles in their own writing. The subject will also involve intensive workshopping of students' own poetry with a focus on extending poetic technique and developing and articulating a personal poetic.
This subject engages with the theoretical, practical and technical aspects of script writing for performance. Through a rigorous examination of the work of key artists and writing from the 1960s onwards, students will devise concepts for radical performance and enhance their scriptwriting practice. Student will produce a critical essay and two scripts for performance: a solo piece or monologue; and a script for a collective; as well as workshopping their ideas in class.
Entry requirements & Prerequisites
This major is available through more than one course, both of which have their own separate entry requirements.
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Bachelor of Arts&Bachelor of Arts (Extended)