Creative Writing: Skills, Techniques and Practice

This course provides a grounding in the skills, techniques and tricks a writer needs to transform ideas and material into art. Guided exercises will develop students’ creative practice of observation, play and experiment; the study of selected poetry, short prose and dramatic texts will introduce diverse forms and approaches. Students will also develop a feedback and revision practice at the weekly workshops; closely and sensitively engage with both published and peer texts.

15 points

Screenwriting: research and story development

Students focus on the work of screening that takes place before the actual drafting of a script, including: initial concept or story idea, research, character exploration, dialogue, scene structure and plot development. Written work includes character profiles, plot outlines, a treatment and initial draft. An important feature of the course is feedback, whereby student’s critique and support each other’s projects. Finally, students will learn the essential elements of the screenplay format.

15 points

DISC102

Feature Screenwriting: The first act

The primary purpose of this class is to facilitate and develop a fiction screenplay with emphasis on Act I. Structured as a workshop, students develop a flexible model of a feature script that draws upon the widely used "W" approached developed by Sid Field (see below). While the W approach is flexible and applies to many mainstream and independent movie narratives, it is not the only way of structuring a feature film and should not be taken as such. Students will be expected to learn, master and adapt this model to their own ideas, pitching those ideas, and writing Act I of a script to industry-standard format.

15 points

DISC101

Maori Storytelling

This course introduces students to a wide range of Maori writing in English, and situates these works within a vast and vibrant whakapapa of Maori creative production in Aotearoa and beyond. Key themes within the course include: purakau and their contemporary retellings, Maori futurism(s), representations of kai and palate politics, the relationship between birds, writers, and the written word, and narrative sovereignty.

15 points

ENGL110, MAOR130

Indigilit - Indigenous Literature in Aotearoa and Beyond

This course is a survey of Indigenous literature which presents Indigenous creative production in Aotearoa in relation to Indigenous literatures around the globe. Students are encouraged to consider various forms of narrative which constitute "literature" in Indigenous contexts, to critically engage with representations of and ideas about Indigenous peoples within a range of texts, and to read Indigenous texts comparatively.

15 points

60 points at 100 level any subject

Feature screenwriting project 1

This class is a writing workshop focused on conceptualising, constructing and composing long form, 100 to 120-page, screenplays. In most cases students will turn Act I of the script they wrote in DISC222 into a fully developed feature-length, three-act screenplay.

30 points

DISC101, DISC222

Creative Writing: Storymaking and the Short Story

This course explores short-form prose storytelling with a focus on the short story. Students will be introduced to a wide range of short story forms and structures, and writing exercises will guide students towards expanding their writing practice and examining their own developing voice and style. This is a workshop process course where discussion, critical attentiveness, supportive insight and diverse ways of thinking will contribute to considered craft and creative exchange.

15 points

Any 15 points at 100 level from ENGL, or any 60 points at 100 level from the Schedule V of the BA.

Creating story worlds

This class focuses on the development of creative intellectual properties for screenwriting and other media to produce deep, coherent and flexible story worlds that can generate successful narratives across platforms.

15 points

DISC101 and DISC212