Editing and Shaping your Work

Overview

This skills-based module aims to equip you with the tools and strategies to edit and shape your work with a view to submitting for publication, self-publishing and/or entering competitions. You may also wish to revise and redraft your work for private use.   
  
The course will cover primarily fiction, as in short stories and novels as well as poetry. Some of the advice will also help with creative non-fiction, as in memoirs and autobiographical accounts.   
  
Students will learn how to effectively evaluate and assess areas of their own work which need attention, whether punctuation, grammar, look on the page, to more in depth editing decisions such as plot, character development and future destination of the work and its readership. Skills such as patience, adaptability, attention to detail and critical assessment will be considered and developed.   

Programme 

Activities and tasks will be embedded into each unit so students can practise the techniques they have learned and develop their skills. Students will be encouraged to share their own work and participate in discussions on Blackboard. Alongside the learning materials on Blackboard the tutor will be on hand via email to answer any queries and provide guidance throughout the course. They will also participate in the online discussions.    

• Unit 1 - Presenting your work, careful re-reading.  
• Unit 2 - What are you writing and for whom?  
• Unit 3 - A look at poetry editing .
  
• Unit 4 - Plotting- who knows what when, how your characters enhance your piece of writing.  
• Unit 5 - Summary- be patient and kind to yourself.   
• The tutor will give private feedback on your final pieces before submission (up to 500 words).  

Learning Outcomes 

On completion of this module, students should be able to:   

1. Evaluate and analyse their own work, but also the work of others, not only in terms of content and style, but also giving consideration to consistency of presentation, grammar and punctuation, and with a view to the ultimate destination of the work and potential readership.   
2. Demonstrate an understanding for close and patient re-reading of work, revising and redrafting, employing adaptability and willingness to challenge themselves.   
3. Identify areas in their work requiring extra research, cutting, new writing, voice, plot and character considerations, writing to length and external requirements.   
4. Discuss with sensitivity the work of others on the course, and writers/poets presented, maintaining a positive and creative approach.  

Assessments 

1. A fiction excerpt from longer work showing; An unedited section, and same edited section showing clearly changes to e.g.: grammar, dialogue, description, point of view OR; A short poem of up to 20 lines showing a process of re-drafts to give a final finished poem, which is shown. (300 words; 30% of the overall mark).
   
2. Critical portfolio. Reflections on the editing process of either prose or poetry, of which assessment one is a brief example. Students should reflect on decisions made, awareness of their own writing and areas for improvement, whether in presentation, or content and style, themes emerging and possible publishing outlets. Students will have revised and re-read a significant piece of their own writing overall. ( for e.g.: 3 chapters of a novel or 3 poems or 2 short stories) (500 words; 70% of the overall mark).  

Reading Suggestions

Reading suggestions will be offered throughout the course.

Entry Requirements 

This course is for everyone. No previous experience is needed and there are no formal entry requirements. 

What Do I Need? 

As this is an online course, you would need the following: 

• Internet access.
• Access to a laptop or computer with a web camera and microphone; the use of headphones might also be of benefit.
• Use of the Chrome web-browser where possible.