Course Catalogue

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How do novelists refine their work? What can beginners learn from the redrafting methods of novelists and editors? Join us on this course to examine how the first drafts of novels are re-worked and improved through multiple edits and how these lessons can be applied to your own writing. This course also offers the opportunity to share extracts of your own writing that you have edited for group feedback and to reflect on your own personal editing practice. Overall, students will gain valuable editing techniques that will enhance any novel manuscript under development.

2 hours per week for 10 weeks

For timetable details, please see our web pages University of Glasgow - Study - Short courses

None, though it would be beneficial to have some prior experience of creative writing (such as starting to write a novel, a novel idea in development or in draft form) either in your own practice or as can be found on the following courses

- ADED11337 Introduction to Creative Writing

- ADED11452 Creative writing workshop

- Introduction to Fiction Writing: novel and short story

- Introduction to novel writing: getting started

- Introduction to novel writing: keeping going.

None.

None.

To assess ILOs 1 and 2:

Portfolio (1,500 words) of an extensively revised original novel extract in the form of several shorter pieces, extract(s) from a longer work or one singular complete piece that has been edited using guidance from the course (75%).

Note: students opting to submit a revised version of work that has already submitted for credit on another course must clearly highlight any passages from that work and they should not exceed 10% of the entire wordcount to avoid auto or self-plagiarism as per the University of Glasgow's plagiarism statement 32.2

To assess ILO 3:

Self-reflective essay (500 words): evaluating the impact of a piece of feedback gained on this course on their portfolio and explaining their editorial decision making during the redrafting process. An earlier draft or portion of the portfolio (up to 1,000 words) should be included in an appendix for comparison (25%).

The aims of the course are to:

■ Introduce students to the process of redrafting and editing an in-development novel through examination of textual examples and techniques at various stages of revision

■ Encourage students to develop individual, creative approaches to editing a novel through practical exercises that enable them to apply key techniques to their own writing

■ Build students' confidence in submitting their creative writing for peer and tutor feedback and develop their own editorial skills by evaluating incoming feedback, offering it to others and/or setting out a revision plan for their novel

By the end of the course students should be able to:

■ Identify some of the key redrafting and editing techniques to apply at each stage of a novel's development

■ Compose, redraft and/or edit persuasive, artistically coherent and technically competent written work that demonstrates the application of these editorial techniques

■ Reflect upon their own editorial process, such as how they evaluate and apply incoming feedback and/or how they plan to revise their novel through drafts in the future

Students must submit at least 75% by weight of the components (including examinations) of the course's summative assessment.