CRWR1001 Ideas: Imitation and Originality

Where do you get your ideas from? This is the most common question asked of writers and the hardest to answer (and the most yawn). Ideas are everywhere. And cheap. The trick isn't having one, it's grabbing hold of it, making it better, and turning it into something. This first-year creative writing topic is designed around a series of weekly two-hour lecture/workshops. We will explore creative ideation through engaging with existing texts (and their worlds, characters, and plots) and through the generation of original writing. By considering novels, stories, films, and a range of other fictional texts, we will look at questions of imitation as artistic process and the ways imitation leads to original artistic expression.

This topic aims to:

• Identify creative thinking and creative practices
• Articulate generic conventions
• Explore writing techniques and processes
• Engage with existing creative writing
• Practice reading and writing reflexively
• Produce creative writing

1. Practice creative thinking
2. Employ critical reading practices
3. Categorise popular genres
4. Participate productively in class discussion
5. Produce a piece of creative writing
6. Create an example of scholarly prose