Profwriting

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Mar 10th
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Home Courses


Why Choose A Course?

Classroom

These progressive online courses have been devised by lecturers from MA Professional Writing at University College Falmouth to guide you through the essential skills every writer needs to develop.


Each course offers an online lecture from a Professional Writing tutor, tips from well-known authors, practical writing exercises and an opportunity to assess your work. If you are a beginner, we advise that you progress through the levels; if you have some experience, dip in as seems appropriate.



Five Level 1 courses will be available from late January 2009. We will be rolling out the courses for Levels 2 and 3 from spring onwards.


Cost: £25 per course; fee includes entry to the members room.


Level 1: Writing Basics

Finding inspiration: where ideas come from and how to stimulate them.

Storytelling: the building blocks you need to tell compelling tales.

Sentence structure: the dos and don'ts of good grammar.

Critiquing your work: how to review, self-edit and respond to others.

Assessing commercial viability: the advantage of knowing your market and ways to get started.


Level 2: Essential Tools

How to write a synopsis: includes sample synopses for various genres and forms.

Developing character: the art of creating credible and effective characters.

How to write dialogue: for novelists and screenwriters.

Research for writers: where to go and how to start.

Writing press releases: a key tool for business writers – and for selling ideas.

 

Level 3: Getting Published

Fiction: what to send and who to send it to.

Non-fiction: pitching ideas, including a template for a book proposal.

Radio: the standard expected and places to pitch.

Television: who's in charge and what they like you to show.

Film: the art of pitching.

 

Writing Basics

Finding Inspiration

..It’s not even an urge to tell people. It’s like a saucepan overflowing, it bubbles over and you’ve got to do something with it, because it seems too big to contain in oneself, the vessel isn’t big enough...
Philip Marsden, travel writer and novelist
Summer Schools

Report and Proposal Writing

This hands-on one-day course is designed for busy professionals to help you write better marketing copy. Run by MA Professional Writing at University College Falmouth, in conjunction with HERDA’s Higher Skills Creative Industries Project, the course has been  created with solo practitioners, small and medium business, and business support organisations in mind.

Writing Basics

Sentence Structure

Decide what sort of writing you like best, and what it is you like best about this sort of writing: is it the structure, the style, or the subject?
Philip Marsden, travel writer and novelist
Summer Schools

Writing Creative Marketing Copy

This hands-on one-day course is designed for busy professionals to help you write better marketing copy. Run by MA Professional Writing at University College Falmouth, in conjunction with HERDA’s Higher Skills Creative Industries Project, the course has been  created with solo practitioners, small and medium business, and business support organisations in mind.

Writing Basics

Storytelling

...in a nutshell, a story is what a character does to achieve something, and drama comes out of conflict.
Jeremy Mortimer, BBC Radio Drama Executive Producer
Summer Schools

Writing Creatively for the Web

This hands-on one-day course is designed for busy professionals to help you write better website text. Run by MA Professional Writing at University College Falmouth, in conjunction with HERDA’s Higher Skills Creative Industries Project, the course has been  created with solo practitioners, small and medium business, and business support organisations in mind.

 

Summer Schools

Last few places

Last few places

We are still recruiting for the full-time MA in Professional Writing at University College Falmouth, starting this autumn, but places are going fast. To find out more, follow these links:

MA Professional Writing Course (full-time and part-time)
MA Professional Writing Portal

 

Writing Basics

Critiquing your Work

... writing prose is not a process of magical inspiration so much as fanatical polishing. Hemingway wrote 63 versions of the final chapter of Farewell to Arms and it’s one of the most perfect endings of any book I know…
William Dalrymple, historian and travel writer
Writing Basics

Assessing Commercial Viability

People who are very successful have a good idea of what they want.
Lynne Truss, bestselling author

Professional Advice

The gleam in the author’s eye is what quickens an agent’s pulse.

Mark Lucas, Literary Agent


Hot Topics

 

Improve your writing

MA Professional Writing at University College Falmouth, in conjunction with HERDA’s Higher Skills Creative Industries Project, is offering a range of one day courses for people who’d like to improve their writing skills for business.

 

Writing in recession: Sophie Parkin

Sophie Parkin tells Phil Williams how the recession of the early 90s prompted her to switch career – and how she started earning a living from writing.

 

Claim your cash

Have you filed a claim with the ALCS? If you've ever had anything published, they may be holding money for you. Click here to find out more.  

 

Robert Goddard

"It is important not to be disheartened."

 

Writing for teens

Meg Rosoff talked about writing for teens at the 2009 London Book Fair. Profwriting student Fiona Egglestone reports back.

Learn to write by the sea

 

Report and Proposal Writing

This hands-on one-day course is designed for busy professionals to help you write better marketing copy. Run by MA Professional Writing at University College Falmouth, in conjunction with HERDA’s Higher Skills Creative Industries Project, the course has been  created with solo practitioners, small and medium business, and business support organisations in mind.

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