Creative Writing BA(Hons)

The first year of the degree gives you a grounding in the basics of creative writing, english literature and publishing – all key areas for aspiring writers to be familiar with. But along with the introduction you need, this Creative Writing BA also challenges and breaks the norms of most creative writing degrees with modules like Exploding the Canon: Writing Then and Now and Breaking the Rules: Remix and Writing Back. Each week, you'll have a mix of lectures, workshops and tutorials.

Modules

Writing: Craft and Contexts

Writing: Craft and Contexts explores the practice of writing as a discipline and a craft and asks you to debate ideas about writing, authorship, genre, creativity and audience.

Breaking the Rules: Remix and Writing Back

A challenging, radical and 'breaking the rules' creative writing module, which covers remix and writing back in theory and practice.

Exploding the Canon: Writing Then & Now

How do the literatures of the past infuse the fictions of the present and what do these literatures reveal about us as we are now and us as we once were?

Literatures of Revolution

From the revolutionary ideas of Darwin's theories of evolution to postcolonial revelations, LGBTQI+ movements and the #MeToo phenomena, literature and other textual forms reflect and create society. How do contemporary notions revolutionise texts and how do texts inform revolutionary ideas?

Publishing Cultures

In this module, you'll encounter publishing as a literary and cultural tradition that is dynamic and in a constant state of flux. You will consider the role of technology on the production and dissemination of written texts in the contemporary world.

Publishing Studio: Technologizing the Word

A practical and intermedia publishing module, which might include book design, zine making, performance and exhibition as publication and screen-based media.

Your second year is all about narrowing down to your specialisation, building on two core modules on working as a writer and a collaborative project. You’ll then be able to branch out into different creative writing types to hone your skills in your optional modules. 

Your core modules will explore how to plan a project, pitch it and creating your professional writing profile, alongside delivering a dynamic collaborative project with your peers. 

The optional modules in year two will give you the opportunity to grow your writing abilities in different specialisms including: writing for games, screenwriting, poetry, creative non-fiction and writing for radio or theatre. You’ll then hone your creative, analytical, critiquing and writing skills and learn how to research, plan, pitch and build a professional profile. 

Modules

Writing Project: Making Your Voice Heard

Cut through the noise: get the skills you need in researching, planning, pitching, building a profile or performing resistant alternatives to work as a writer.

Collaborative Project

In this module you'll consider the writer's role as part of a creative eco-system, and/or literature's role in the creative economy through working on a live collaborative project. The project can be a placement in the writing-related industries, a case study or live brief with a business (for example, literary festivals, creative agencies, publishing houses, the heritage sector), or a collaborative project with peers culminating in an event performance or piece of creative practice.

Optional modules

Screenwriting
Poetry
Games
Satire & Scandal
Fiction
Creative Non-Fiction
Radio & Theatre
Magic and the Impossible

You can choose to take an optional professional placement after your second year on a three-year programme.

You’ll be responsible for finding your own placement, with support from the employability team. 

Choosing this option will enhance your industry experience and skills while studying. 

How you’ll study during your professional placement 

You’ll spend time working in a professional context, as part of a business or organisation. This can be in one role, or up to three, and must be for a minimum of 24 weeks. 

You’ll develop in-demand workplace skills, deepen your insight into industry and grow your network of contacts, all of which could help you get ahead in your career after graduation. 

Throughout this year, you’ll develop a portfolio of work that includes critical self-reflection on what has been learned from the experience. You’ll be required to evidence your experiences, the skills you’ve learned and your professional growth. 

Harnessing the knowledge and skills you’ve honed throughout your Creative Writing degree, in your final year you’ll work on a dissertation and portfolio, allowing you to create a critical and sustained piece of work. For these projects, you’ll have weekly tutorials with your supervisor, giving you a close focus on your own writing. You’ll work on live briefs that cover a range of post digital writing, preparing you for working as a writer after graduation.  

You’ll also choose from optional modules during the year, and you’ll study a module in experimentation and adaptation.  

Modules

Portfolio

You'll write an independent extended piece of creative writing or collection of creative pieces in a genre, form, topic of your choosing.

Experiment and Adaption

Engage with some of the limits of textuality, testing the boundaries of understanding, meaning and communication. By looking at how texts can be remediated, how they morph and repeat, you'll analyse how texts sit within the time and place of their production, but also how they can innovate and shift.

Post-Digital Content

Working closely with live, department-based digital media projects such as FalWriting, you'll get to experience what it's like to be an industry-quality practitioner.

Optional modules

Beyond Humans: Writing in the Anthropocene

Crime & Dark Fiction

Children & Young Adult

Innovations

On this Creative Writing degree, you'll work on live briefs set by creative industry partners, and learn from lectures and workshops with our guest speakers and Writers in Residence.

On top of your regular lectures, seminars, workshops and self-directed learning, you'll get plenty of time with our staff and the chance for frequent one-to-one tutorials. You'll also have the opportunity to contribute to our student writing journal.

At Falmouth, we use a 'digitally enhanced learning & teaching' approach. Your experience will always be predominantly in-person, including seminars, tutorials and studio teaching, with some, more targeted elements, being online either live (synchronous) or pre-recorded (asynchronous). You can read more here.

100% of your assessment will be coursework. 

Assessment methods

• Coursework and e-learning exercises.
• Live creative industry briefs.
• Final-year creative writing portfolio.