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The Open University

Writing what you know

The Open University via OpenLearn

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Overview

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Do you want to improve your descriptive writing? This free course, Writing what you know, will help you to develop your perception of the world about you and enable you to see the familiar things in everyday life in a new light. You will also learn how authors use their own personal histories to form the basis of their work.

Syllabus

  • Introduction
  • Learning outcomes
  • 1 Writing what you know
  • 1 Writing what you know
  • 1.1 Using life experiences in your fiction
  • 2 The everyday
  • 2 The everyday
  • 2.1 Building a believable world
  • 2.2 Collecting and selecting
  • 2.3 Using your observations
  • 3 The senses
  • 3 The senses
  • 3.1 Involving all of the senses
  • 3.2 Contexts
  • 4 Memory and narrative
  • 4 Memory and narrative
  • 4.1 Using memories to order narrative
  • 4.2 Raiding your past
  • Conclusion
  • References
  • Acknowledgements

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Reviews

5.0 rating, based on 1 Class Central review

4.5 rating at OpenLearn based on 46 ratings

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  • Profile image for Katie Eden McCall
    Katie Eden McCall
    1
    A short but insightful course that made me look at using my memories as a new source material for my writing.
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