A215 Creative Writing

Assessment Guide
Contents
Introduction

Assessment strategy

The purpose of assessment

Tutor advice

Learning outcomes

Planning and writing your assignments

A note on powerful material

Writing for children

Publishing work you have written for TMAs

Plagiarism and creative writing

Writing a commentary

Presenting your work

Text layout
Word and line counts
Guidance notes

10

11

TMA 01 guidance

11

TMA 02 guidance

14

TMA 03 guidance

16

TMA 04 guidance

18

TMA 05 guidance

21

EMA guidance

26

Assessment scale

29

Copyright 2012 The Open University

Printed in the United Kingdom

SUP 03169 0
1.1

*SUP031690*

Introduction
This booklet provides advice on your assessed work for A215. The five tutor
marked assignments (TMAs) and the end-of-module assessment (EMA) can be
found under Assessment resources on the module website. You should read this
booklet in conjunction with them.
This booklet explains the assessment strategy for the module and addresses the
questions that are likely to arise as you approach your assessed work. You should
make time to read this booklet in full before embarking on the first TMA, and to
check the relevant sections again as you tackle each new assignment. You will
find invaluable help here with the different kinds of writing task you will
encounter on your journey through the module, as well as with understanding
whats required for the EMA.
You should also make sure that you are familiar with the Assessment
information for Arts modules and the Assessment Handbook, both of which can
be found under Assessment resources on the module website.

Assessment strategy
The assessment for A215 consists of two components: the continuous assessment
component, comprising of five TMAs, and an examinable component, the EMA.
Your final result will depend on your achievements in each component
independently. To be sure of a pass you will need to score at least 40 % overall in
the TMAs and, separately, at least 40 % in the EMA. The grade of pass will be
determined as described in the online Assessment Handbook, available within the
Assessment resources section of the A215 website.
It is important to note that, to be sure of being awarded a particular grade,
both your final overall scores must fall within the specified boundaries for
that grade.
The general rules on resubmissions, in cases where the EMA grade falls below
the 40% threshold, are described in the Assessment Handbook.

The purpose of assessment

A215 has five TMAs, one in each part of the module. Each TMA task is
described in full in the Assessment resources section of the module website.
Substitution is not permitted for any of the TMAs. Therefore, it is very important
to alert your tutor if unexpected circumstances, for example illness or serious
family crisis, disrupt your ability to complete any of them. Please refer to the
Assessment Handbook for details of the appropriate documentation to submit for
special circumstances to be taken into consideration.
Each A215 assignment may be seen as the culmination of a particular part of the
module, but in a significant respect the module is seamless because you will bring
what you learn from preceding parts to the next part. The comments and marks
you get back from your tutor have two functions. The one that tends to be
uppermost in most students minds is that they are a measure of your
performance and contribute to your final mark. But the second function is just as
important: they should continue to help you to expand and refine your writing
skills. Great importance is attached to the process of drafting, revising and
improving work in response to feedback.

We hope that, in preparing and writing each assignment, you might teach yourself
something you will, for example, realise that you are not sure of an area or a
method and go back over it before writing the assignment. In turn, tutors will use
their comments to point out both the strengths and flaws in your writing and how
better to tackle future assignments.
A215 gives you the opportunity to try your hand at three of the most popular
forms of writing: fiction, poetry and life writing. While each of these forms has
its specific techniques and approaches, the practice of each one feeds in to the
others. For example, if you were to decide that poetry isnt ultimately for you, the
experience of finding metaphors, seeking economy of expression or paying
attention to rhythm will still feed into and enhance your prose writing. Similarly,
if you decided finally that you prefer biographical writing to fiction, everything
that you put into your practice of fiction will pay dividends when it comes to life
writing.
For your EMA, you will produce new work in one or two of the taught forms.
Full details of the EMA are in the Assessment resources section of the module
website. Please read the information there as soon as possible as you will need to
focus on planning and preparing your EMA from an early stage in your studies.
Please note that you should not submit material which you have previously
submitted for an OU creative writing module, or for any other accredited
university course, unless the material has been very significantly changed or
developed.
New work is also required in each TMA and the EMA, i.e. there should be
no recycling of material between assignments; no continuations, sequences,
or reuse of material even if substantially reframed. We would like you to
build up a sense of wide resources in terms of your possible subjects and
themes.

Tutor advice
It is important to remember that tutors work on a part-time basis for the OU and
they cannot give extensive individual advice about TMAs in preparation. Your
tutor cannot vet or give feedback on full drafts of TMAs or your EMA prior to
submission.
There are three ways in which tutors can help your development:

Feedback on your TMAs will indicate areas you could improve on to enhance
future submissions.

Tutors may set up TMA/EMA discussion forums where students may give
each other feedback on work in progress.

Tutors support your developing work through online and face-to-face

tutorials in which they will lead practice in the techniques taught in the
module. If you come up with good subjects or ideas during any of these
sessions, you may develop them for a TMA or for your EMA. Even if the
tutor has seen or commented on such seed-bed work, there is no prohibition
on your subsequent development of it for a TMA or for the EMA. However,
tutors will not read or comment on whole submissions, and it is not their role
to proof-read your work.

The EMA has the status of an independent project and tutors may give slightly
more individual advice on its development and/or arrangement. For example,
tutors may:

counsel you about which two of the taught forms you ought to choose or
whether you should focus on one;

indicate particular pieces of work that could be developed into good

inclusions for the EMA;

give specific feedback on a particular piece or pieces that appear in tutorials.

Remember, this doesnt mean that you are entitled to send tutors drafts of your
EMA material for checking.

Learning outcomes
By the end of your study of A215 you should be able to:

stimulate your creativity and imagination through a range of techniques;

observe astutely and collect data and descriptions in journals and notebooks
as seed-beds of ideas;

exercise a disciplined practice including willingness to revise and redraft;

use appropriate narrative, poetic and biographical writing skills in your

writing;

carry out background research for your writing including the use of
information technology;

empathise with character and enter into places and periods;

present manuscripts to a professional standard;

give impersonal evaluations of your own and others work through

constructive criticism.

Many of the skills you will acquire are transferable to other contexts and
therefore will be useful to you more broadly, for example in other studies or in
employment.
The main transferable skills are:

the ability to analyse and appraise emerging texts and contribute to their
development;

the ability to appreciate and criticise existing literary texts;

reader awareness: the ability to imagine yourself in the place of potential

readers or listeners in order to anticipate the effect of your writing;

skills in the professional presentation of work;

the ability to write with clarity, precision and liveliness;

facility in researching including the use of information technology;

the ability to think critically and independently;

the ability to contribute to group discussions and work as part of a team.

Planning and writing your assignments

Consult your Study Guide for week-by-week advice and help with time
management, ways to identify your subject matter, and so on. This will help you
to focus in good time for each TMA. The Study Guide will also remind you
regularly about planning and producing work for your EMA. Writing weeks (i.e.

weeks free from other study) are provided at intervals to enable you to finalise
some of your assignments. Check the Study Planner to see when these are.
You will notice that the Study Guide invites you to read Chapters 25 and 26, on
editing and presentation, out of sequence. This is because they provide a
valuable reference resource from TMA02 onwards. The activities in those
chapters are built into your work for Part 2 of the module, to remind you to
familiarise yourself with them and consult them in order to refine and hone your
editing skills. We advise you to consult these chapters while preparing each
assignment, dipping into them as needed. The achievement of a high standard of
presentation is one of the learning outcomes of the module. It takes time and that
is the reason for foregrounding this material.

A note on powerful material

In this module you are encouraged to make use of your memory and experience
in transformative ways. You will also have the option in the Life Writing part of
the module to write directly autobiographical pieces if you wish. It can be
exhilarating to delve into personal history but also sometimes uncomfortable
when painful memories are resurrected. To write about painful memories can
have a healing force for the writer. Such writings can also be moving and
solacing for readers. But remember that the welfare of the writer is always more
important than the wonderfulness of the writing! So, if you feel that certain
episodes in your life are too harrowing to re-enact in writing at this point, you
should turn to another subject. It would also be sensible not to share writings that
are deeply personal in the forum unless you are certain that you will not mind
them being discussed impersonally and evaluated as artistic products rather than
primarily as slices of your life.
Another form of powerful material is audacious subject matter, usually
involving sex, disease or violence. If you use graphic content of a sexual or
violent nature in any of your work, make sure it isnt gratuitous, i.e. not there just
for sensationalist reasons but as a legitimate part of the work. Seek the guidance
of your tutor if you are ever in doubt about the appropriateness of posting any
particular piece of work on the forum. If your writing contains graphic material,
you should post it as a new discussion item, and put a content warning in brackets
after your subject heading (i.e. explicit content) so that people can choose
whether or not they want to read it.
It is important to make sure that any explicit and graphic content in your TMAs
and EMA isnt gratuitous. It must earn its place and be an integrated and essential
part of the writing. You can lose marks by including strong or explicit material
which isnt warranted, which is badly thought through, which is malicious in
intent or which is just there for shock value. In the latter instance, you may fall
foul of university regulations. If in doubt consult your tutor.

Writing for children

Writing for children is not a taught genre on A215, so you are strongly advised to
avoid this unless you are able to achieve the kind of crossover writing that may
also appeal to adults. Crossover stories are ones that avoid a clear demarcation
as childrens literature. There are many classic examples, including Alices
Adventures in Wonderland, The Lord of the Rings, Oliver Twist, The Catcher in
the Rye and To Kill a Mockingbird.
Contemporary examples include the works of Philip Pullman and J.K. Rowling:
their popularity with readers of all ages has led to a resurgence of interest in the
crossover. Meg Rosoffs novel for young adults, How I Live Now, won the

Guardian Childrens Fiction Prize in 2004 and was acclaimed as the best
crossover novel since Mark Haddons The Curious Incident of the Dog in the
Night-Time, which has a 15-year-old narrator with Aspergers syndrome.
Crossovers include fantasy and realism. They often tackle big issues. They create
a young protagonist with whom both adults and young readers can identify. It is
difficult to achieve writing with appeal to all ages, so you should attempt this
genre only if you are a well-read fan. If you are contemplating this kind of
fiction, seek the advice of your tutor.

References
Carroll, Lewis (2003 [1865]) Alices Adventures in Wonderland, London:
Penguin Classics.
Dickens, Charles (2003 [1838]) Oliver Twist, London: Penguin Classics.
Haddon, Mark (2004 [2003]) The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time,
London: Vintage.
Lee, Harper (2005 [1960]) To Kill a Mockingbird, London: Vintage Future
Classics.
Rosoff, Meg (2005 [2004]) How I Live Now, London: Puffin.
Salinger, J.D. (1994 [1951]) The Catcher in the Rye, London: Penguin Books.
Tolkien, J.R.R. (2001 [1954]) The Lord of the Rings, London: HarperCollins.

Publishing work you have written for TMAs

You retain copyright of your own work and so may go on to publish it, although
we ask you to wait until it has been assessed and you have received your
feedback before you submit anything for publication. Please note that all OU
materials, including the assessment tasks, your grade and any tutor comments,
remain the property of the OU and must not be shared or published.

Plagiarism and creative writing

Plagiarism means passing off someone elses work as your own. The Open
University takes plagiarism very seriously. For further clarification of your
responsibilities as a student and for links to the OUs policy on this, you should
check the Assessment information for Arts modules on the module website.
Creative writing courses are no different from other academic courses in this
respect. Copying an established writers work or that of a fellow student is a
serious matter. Whats more, it can be easily spotted by tutors, who are tuned in
to erratic changes of style or content. Also, with modern computer search
capabilities, key phrases can easily be picked out and checked. In academic
courses, accusations of plagiarism can be avoided by use of appropriate
referencing and by the acknowledgement of sources. With creative writing, the
matter is more difficult.
Studying any creative writing course will involve you in a process of
assimilation. You will read established writers and learn how they have done
certain things, and you will often try to emulate their methods. Similarly, from
seeing the work of other students, you will learn from their successes and failures
and you will spot techniques that you might want to try yourself. Sometimes this
emulation will be fully conscious, sometimes it might be less so. Either way this
is not copying or plagiarism, but rather one of the major benefits of such courses.
In most cases when you try out an element of another writers technique, that

element becomes uniquely your own you change it subtly or even dramatically.
Your tutor will be well aware of the need to try things out, so dont let the fear
of plagiarism inhibit you.
If youre ever in any doubt, especially about work for your TMAs, consult your
tutor.

Writing a commentary
Many aspects of writing are instinctive. This seems especially true when gauging
the texture of language, the rhythm and modulation of sentences, the shape of
phrases, and the force of particular words. You need to intuit the way your
characters might behave in certain situations, what they might think and say, and
then sense which language best fits those subtle nuances of human behaviour.
Yet all writing requires more than just instinct. As suggested in the Workbook, in
all writers there is both a wild man and an academic (John Fowles, p.65). The
process of writing is both instinctual and analytical. The writer needs an
understanding of the elements of craft and technique, and often this more rational
and thoughtful aspect of writing works hand in hand with the instinctive. The
writer needs to be aware of how words might be sculpted and carved, how they
might be arranged and rearranged to cause different effects. Thorough knowledge
of these elements can come to inform instinct. The writer needs to be capable of
sometimes meticulous redrafting and editing, and needs to be alert to the lessons
available in other writing. Skilful writing comes from skilful reading readings
of your own work, readings of published works and readings of the writing of
fellow students.
The commentary should reflect all of this. It might give glimpses of the
instinctual or even apparently accidental parts of your writing, and it also
provides a venue for discussion of the analytical side of your writing. The
commentary provides you with an opportunity to consider the various
contributing factors in your creative process. For instance, you might:

offer an analysis of your creative process;

account for the ways in which your reading has informed your writing, in
terms of both content and craft (remember, as well as other stories, novels,
memoirs, biographies and poetry, this reading can include the Workbook and
other writing on writing that you come across, or indeed what you hear,
such as the recorded CD interviews with writers);

comment on the technical obstacles you have encountered and the tactics you
have employed to overcome them;

attempt to place your creative work in the context of any wider literature or
humanities studies;

discuss your approach to editing and redrafting.

The commentary can also be reflective. You might ask certain questions of your
work:

What did you aim to achieve, and did the finished product match or frustrate
your ambitions?

What have you learned in producing this work, both as a writer and as a
reader?

Your writers notebook is an essential tool in helping with your commentary. If

you use your notebook well, you will be able to refer back to it and spot crucial
points in the production of any piece of writing: you will be able to trace the

journey from conception to completion. You can use it to jot down initial ideas,
early versions of sentences, observations and contributory, but ultimately
rejected, ideas. Your notebook can also be the repository of your responses to
Workbook exercises, as well as being a potentially detailed log of your reading.
Of course, you cannot submit your notebook for assessment but you can refer to
it and quote from it when writing your commentary. Similarly, the tutor group
forum can be very useful when writing your commentary. You can look back
over responses to your work, even quoting from the forum when such
commentary seems important. You can also refer to comments made about
another piece of work on the forum, or comments about a published text under
discussion, if such comments seem pertinent to the decision-making in your own
writing. Be careful of over-quoting though make sure that you provide a
narrative which makes sense of your illustrations.
You should not submit earlier drafts of your poems or stories with your
commentary but you can discuss and quote from these earlier drafts to illustrate a
point, as long as the quote is not just padding and does contribute to a considered
account of how you think your idea developed.
Remember that each of the commentaries will have different demands. There
are instructions for each of them in the guidance notes for the individual TMA
tasks, and some sample extracts in the next section of this booklet. Always refer
to these; they can give you more refined guidance, specific to the commentary
you are writing at any one time. For instance, in the commentary for the EMA
you should provide more detail about your development as a writer (while still
focusing on the submitted work), whereas the commentary for TMA 01 will be
more focused on the specific pieces of work produced for it. The commentary for
TMA 05 will be different again, being focused almost entirely on the publication
research undertaken for it.
Your commentary should never be a literary essay, offering a theoretical or
review-type critique of the end product as if you had nothing to do with it. That
might be an interesting exercise but is not what is required. Compared with
your stories and poems the commentary is more of an academic piece of writing,
so you should make sure you use the conventions of academic referencing when
referring to, or quoting from, other texts, or even when quoting comments made
on the forum. (To check how to go about this, see the Assessment information
for Arts modules on the module website.) Similarly, when referring to the study
materials a particular section of the Workbook perhaps, or a track on one of the
CDs always remember to reference these using the recommended methods. You
may lose marks if you omit a bibliography at the end of your commentary. (Note:
bibliographies at the end of any commentary are not part of the word count.)
It is useful to engage explicitly with some of the notions about writing introduced
in A215 and use some of the vocabulary (showing and telling, point of view, line,
stanza, etc.) in your commentaries as you proceed through the module. Using this
vocabulary will reveal how well you have grasped some of the methods and ideas
advocated, and will develop sophistication in the way you think and write about
your work. While the commentary might be a more academic form of writing,
you should still try to achieve an individual voice and a personal approach to
what you are writing about.
The idea is to start using a vocabulary appropriate to this level of study, a
vocabulary which reveals that you are reading as a writer and developing a
writers voice in talking about your writing. Remember, a good story or set of
poems doesnt necessarily guarantee a good commentary: you still have to pay

attention to the different demands of this specific form of writing in order to

achieve a good mark.

Presenting your work

Head each page with your name and personal identifier number. You should be
able to place page numbers, names etc. in the header of your word-processed
document.
Give each of your creative pieces a title, and indicate clearly with a heading when
your commentary begins.
Set your margins on each side to at least 3 cm (in most cases, this is the standard
word-processor default setting). Do not justify lines to the right-hand margin.
You are not required to follow the advice about margins or title pages given on
p.398 of the Workbook.
Use a 12-point serif font (e.g. Times New Roman rather than Arial). Besides
helping you to produce readable, uncluttered manuscripts, this will get you into
the habit of presenting your work as conventionally required by publishers.

Text layout
Prose TMAs and EMA
For prose TMAs (and for prose submissions in your EMA), use the standard
professional text layout. This means that you should use double spacing.
Here are the basic guidelines regarding paragraphing, taken from Part 5, Chapter
26 of the Workbook, where you will study editing processes in a lot of detail.

The first line of every paragraph should be indented, with the exception of
the first in each chapter or section.

There should usually be no space between paragraphs.

A line space between paragraphs indicates a section break a change of

scene, of viewpoint or that some time has passed. In a commentary it can
signify a shift to a new section in the discussion.

Asterisks can be used to draw attention to a section break that falls at the end
of a page and might therefore be missed by the reader.

Here is a brief example of how the prose in your assignments should look:

This is the opening of the piece of fiction or life writing you are
undertaking, and has therefore used the left-hand margin. You can see
it uses double line spacing but the first paragraph isnt indented.
This is the opening of the second paragraph. It has been clearly
indented from the margin, and there is no space between the first
paragraph and the second paragraph. This pattern should continue
throughout a prose piece, until there is a section break, as indicated
above.

Please remember to number your pages, which will make it easier for your tutor
to refer to particular points when giving feedback.

Presentation of dialogue (in prose fiction or life writing)

The general rule is that each persons speech should begin a new paragraph
indented, of course. Use single quotation marks for all speech and quoted words
within your text. Use double quotation marks only when they occur within
another pair. For example:

I cant explain it, she said. Ive just gone off you.
So youre not going to give me an explanation, Stephen
said. Just that youve gone off me.
Poetry TMAs and EMA
For poetry TMAs, follow the advice supplied in Part 3 of your Workbook about
line- and stanza-formation.
Stanza breaks and the gap between the title and first line of the poem should be
indicated by spaces. Poems should be single-spaced within stanzas. Do not
centre your poems on the page: they should be positioned on the left of the page
with a consistent margin. Starting each new line with a capital letter should not
be a default option: think about whether this device is appropriate for the style of
your poems.
Please note that none of the above advice rules out innovative approaches that
deliberately explore the page as a visual or typographical space.

Word and line counts

Writing to a stipulated length is an important skill and you should aim to comply
with the stated word counts for your TMAs and EMA. Put an accurate word
count at the end of each part of the TMA. Put a line count at the end of poetry
submissions. Note that titles, footnotes and epigraphs are not included in word or
line counts for your creative work but that embedded quotations are. Footnotes
will be included in the word count for commentaries and cannot therefore be used
to expand your commentary beyond the permitted word limit.
Of course, it would be absurd to ruin a piece of writing by padding it out or
shortening it simply to get a certain number of words or lines. Aesthetics are
always more important than arithmetic. So long as the word count or line count is
within the limits specified in the Assessment information for Arts modules
(available on the module website) your work will not be penalised. If your work
is significantly under length, you are unlikely to have demonstrated all the skills
required to obtain a good grade.

10

Guidance notes
TMA 01 guidance
The instructions for this assignment can be found under Assessment resources
on the A215 website.

Part 1
Before attempting your prompted freewrite, you might like to do a cluster on your
chosen prompt. Dont use this as a plan for your freewrite, though; and its not
necessary to submit the cluster as part of the TMA. You might also like to look
back over the section covering freewriting and clusters in Chapter 1 of the
Workbook.
This is an exercise in free association calling on the spontaneous methods
developed in Chapter 1, but also the elements discussed in Chapters 3 and 4. It is
an attempt to free less conscious ideas, involving your own personal memories,
but also your sensory perceptions, associations that once suggested are likely to
lead you completely away from the original prompt. In this respect it is not
important to keep the prompt as a central feature or at the start of your freewrite.
The prompts are not titles or themes that you must stick to for the pieces that you
will subsequently write in Part 2 of the TMA.
Your prompted freewrite will be assessed purely as a demonstration of
freewriting technique and not for any literary quality. It is source material, rather
like the initial sketch an artist might make. It will also have an impact on the
mark you achieve for your commentary, where you will chart your creative
process from initial ideas to finished piece.
It is in the nature of freewrites that they can bring up uncomfortable material. If
you produce a freewrite that is too personal for use in a TMA, use a different
prompt and write another one. You can do your initial freewrite in your notebook,
on loose paper or even on a computer whichever suits you, before finalising it
for submission.
When submitting your freewrite, you may present it exactly as it emerged or you
may edit and correct it slightly to make it more readable. If you choose to edit it,
be careful not to reshape it radically. You will need to retain the fluidity and leaps
and jumps that characterise a freewrite. Whether you decide to edit your freewrite
or reproduce it without minor alterations will not affect your marks. The tutor
will be looking for authenticity, not polish. Make sure you put a word count on
the bottom of this section and your chosen prompt at the top.

Part 2
After you have done the first part of the assignment and found your direction for
Part 2, you must choose whether to write autobiographically, biographically or to
write fiction. You may build on the emerging idea by using appropriate factual
and imagined, remembered and observed elements from your notebook. You
might also like to do some research for the piece.
Remember that the initial prompt is not your title or theme for the piece, just your
starting point. Where there is no evident connection between Parts 1 and 2 of
your assignment, you will need to illuminate the link in your commentary,
showing how your freewrite sparked the piece of writing, however tangentially or
personally.

11

Whatever your chosen form, remember some of the approaches that have been
advocated during this initial part of the module. You should make use of the
everyday; make use of associations and your memory (even if writing fiction);
you should use your imagination (even if writing autobiographically or
biographically); try to use sensory perceptions; and use your notebook as a
resource not just the notes specific to this TMA but other pieces and jottings
too. Something you have written for a previous activity might prove useful;
something you have written down about a daily occurrence might be relevant.
Because this second part of the TMA is a step up from freewriting you should
attempt to give it a shape, though shaping your writing hasnt yet been dealt with
in any detail (this will follow in subsequent parts of the module). You might also
like to try some of the techniques seen in some of the extracts youve read in
these chapters. For instance, you might write in the present tense as Glaister does,
or in the past tense as Lee does.
You should follow the layout advice given in this booklet. Give your piece a title,
and remember to number your pages and put a word count at the end.

Part 3
In your reflection you can comment on some of the methods used in the module
so far and how effective they have been for you in getting you started and in
developing your writing. You are evaluating process and methods rather than the
finished product. You can quote from your notebook and maybe comment on the
evolution of your TMA idea through the spontaneous techniques (the cluster and
freewrite) into a more recognisable form. You might like to comment too on your
chosen form for Part 2 of the TMA, and how you arrived at that choice.
Remember to put a word count at the end of this section too. Check through your
work for Parts 2 and 3 carefully to eliminate any spelling or grammar errors. This
is a crucial aspect of good presentation. Here are some example paragraphs of
reflection.

Sample commentaries

Example 1 (prompt: a beach in winter)

In the focused freewrite (based on a beach in winter) I came up with

a couple of characters, a man and a woman who were lovers, walking
along a shore, and I decided to develop this image by asking some
what if questions about the characters, as suggested in the
Workbook (Barker, 2006, pp.43441). When I posted a section about
them on the forum (for an unrelated activity) someone noted that the
characters didnt seem to like each other. This made me think of a
story based around an argument what caused it, the climax, and the
outcome. Deciding on this framework was helpful, but I became more
and more interested in the characters history. I decided to keep the
initial idea of a beach in winter in the story because the empty and
spacious landscape added to the intensity of the exchanges between
the couple. I found it difficult to contain events in 750 words, and

12

struggled when going back into the past, while trying to write in the
present tense.
Bibliography
Barker, P. (2006) Reading 8: from Backtalk: women writers speak
out, in Linda Anderson (ed.) Creative Writing: A workbook with
readings, Abingdon, Routledge / Milton Keynes, The Open
University.

Example 2 (prompt: the house opposite)

The most interesting idea that came out of my freewrite on the house
opposite was to do with the impact of time on houses and the people
who live in them. This led me to the memory of an accidental meeting
I had with an old school friend, who looked both recognisable and
very different. She seemed to have acquired a different personality
too. At school she was aloof and mysterious and now, just a few years
later, she had turned into a chattering, eager person. At the time, I
wondered what changes she saw in me. This is what I explored in my
story. At first I wrote it in a straightforward way but then decided to
write it as two scenes, then and now. I got that idea from an Alice
Munro story, Jakarta, where she moves between the past and the
present in an unfussy way that gives a shocking sense of the impact of
time passing. My dialogue is mostly made up and more weighty
than what we actually said, although it feels true in another way.
Writing this piece has made me more interested in trawling through
my memories for raw material and in finding ways to craft it.
Bibliography
Munro, A. (1998) Love of a Good Woman, London, Vintage.

13

TMA 02 guidance
The instructions for this assignment can be found under Assessment resources
on the A215 website.

Part 1
Your story must be complete, so think carefully about its structure in order to
demonstrate that you can create a finished, satisfying narrative within the given
word limit. Pay particular attention to your beginning and ending, the rise and fall
of dramatic action or tension, and to the balance of showing and telling
throughout. Choose the point of view carefully, keeping in mind that alternating
points of view can be difficult to accommodate in a short story.
Katherine Mansfields story The Black Cap (Reading 24, pp.496501) is
discussed in Chapter 9 of the Workbook as an experiment in dispensing with
telling altogether. As such, it resembles a play script. You are advised not to
model your TMA assignment on this story, as its almost exclusive focus on
dialogue would give you no opportunity to demonstrate the range of your skills.

A checklist for writing fiction

Remember to make considered choices about all of the components of your
narrative. For example, make sure that your main characters have enough
complexity contradictions, strengths, weaknesses and desires. Here are some
basic questions to ask yourself:

Does your main character change or achieve some important insight in the
course of the story?

Does your setting work in conjunction with the character(s) and plot?

From whose point of view is your story told? Could you tell it better from
another point of view?

Does your story begin and end at the right moment?

Does your dialogue sound natural?

Have you got the right balance of showing and telling? In general, the most
important actions and moments should be shown in scenes.

Refer to the relevant chapters to review specific advice where necessary. There is
also a revision checklist in the final week of the Part 2 section in the Study
Guide.
When you have drafted your fiction, read it aloud to yourself to test for clarity.
Unnatural-sounding dialogue, unwieldy sentences, or gaps in the story can
become obvious in this way. Try to factor in some waiting time before you
complete your final draft. Familiarise yourself with Chapters 25 and 26 of the
Workbook and consult them to help you edit and present your work to a high
standard. And ensure that youve followed the instructions for laying out
dialogue and other aspects of presentation in this booklet.

Part 2
Listening to how fiction writers talk about their work on CD1 will help you to
devise your own commentary. Remember to focus on revealing the creative
process involved in your work rather than on an evaluation of the finished
product. Quote from your writing and your reading, where relevant, in order to
support your statements. Check the general guidelines about writing
commentaries and the illustrative examples in this booklet. Your commentary is

14

an academic piece of writing, and should therefore use the academic apparatus of
referencing and bibliography where appropriate. Advice on this can be found in
the Assessment information for Arts modules (available on the module
website).

Sample commentary extracts

Example 1

I wrote the first draft in the third person but realised that it just didnt
work for the kind of story I wanted. I needed something very direct
and frightening which I was able to achieve better by making Matt,
the murderer, a first-person narrator. I was inspired to try this when I
read Camuss The Outsider and realised how disturbing it is to have a
narrator who expresses few of the usual emotions and values. But I
soon discovered that it wasnt just a matter of changing he to I
throughout my story. The shift into first person also helped me to get
rid of some excessively poetic phrases like: Sleep held him down
like a drugged lover and masses of roses in a white box like Snow
Whites coffin. I dislike these show-off similes now I think they
just push the reader away and slow down the story.
Bibliography
Camus, A. (2000 [1942]) The Outsider, J. Laredo (tr.),
Harmondsworth: Penguin.

Example 2

A couple of people read an early draft and said that my main

characters outburst against her mother seemed unconvincing or too
easy. I loved that scene but I finally realised that it was out of
character for Jen to reveal her feelings so freely. I changed the scene,
hinting at Jens emotions through her body language and some veiled
sarcasm in her speech. Ultimately, I believe that this strengthened the
story, forcing me to give the portrayal of the character and her
relationships more depth and the story itself more of a plot-line. In the
first draft I had used up all my fireworks too soon.

15

TMA 03 guidance
The instructions for this assignment can be found under Assessment resources
on the A215 website.

Part 1
If you choose to submit two or even three poems, they do not have to be equal in
length: one might be 14 lines and another 26, for example. The subject matter and
styles may be unrelated to one another or you may choose to produce a mini
sequence of related poems (for guidance on a sequence, see TMA 05 guidance
in this booklet). You may choose to write in free verse or discovered or selected
poetic forms: markers will not reward any one type of form over another. Poetry
aimed at children is not appropriate, since it is not likely to possess the right
degree of sophistication. Poems with a succession of very short lines may well be
unable to show what you are capable of.
Successful poems submitted for this TMA are likely to use some interesting or
even startling turns of phrase, or to use inventive vocabulary. A poem which is
able to describe an environment or feeling or action with an original choice of
adjective, noun, verb or adverb is likely to arrest the reader. At the same time, be
careful not to overdo the language to the extent that it clogs the poem. Make your
reader do some work, but dont challenge the reader with words at every turn. If
your poems contain too many self-conscious words, they may well become
confusing.
You should aim to keep the reader interested, but not too busy. If your vocabulary
is too complicated, using (for example) a succession of polysyllabic words, you
will probably shut down the channel of communication between you and the
reader. Polysyllabic words also have the effect of flattening the rhythm if they are
used too frequently a word like invigoratingly, for instance, is hard to use in a
poem.
Equally, a simple poem, using no interesting turns of phrase, is likely to be dull.
Poetry gives you a chance to play a little more freely with language. If your
language is reductive, it is liable to make the poem dull. A poem which is
practically monosyllabic is unlikely to make for interesting reading. Make the
language you use reasonably sophisticated.
Archaic language (contractions like oer; old forms like thy, methinks; words like
bedecked, vale, drear, wend, pent, eve, wondrous etc.) should be avoided they
will clash with the contemporary vocabulary you should be using. Of course, the
context of a word will determine whether or not it is archaic a word like (say)
pallor could work.
Think about word order. Does the order sound natural? Are you changing the
word order to make a rhyme work? To the seas he went, or To the beach went he
are likely to be caused by rhyming with (for instance) spent or sea respectively. A
particular problem is caused when a poem sometimes inverts word order, and
sometimes doesnt. A good poem is not likely to invert word order, and, in all
cases, the use of word order should be consistent.
Think, too, about using breaks in poems. They are not compulsory, but it is worth
asking yourself if the poem would improve with a little more white space.
Pausing to let the reader in is usually a good idea. Too much breathing space can
be caused by a succession of minimal lines. A forty-line poem in which all the
lines have (say) two words will need to be justified, and is not likely to give you
the chance to show what you can do.

16

See if you can avoid abstractions, such as anger, pain, determination, solitude.
They are likely to be a form of shorthand a form of telling rather than showing.
Remember that a poem certainly a poem of the specified length or lengths in
this TMA cannot do what a story can do. A poem needs to limit its scope. You
should aim to have a particular and well-defined focus. A poem about, or derived
from an incident or observation is going to work much better than a poem
attempting a colossal subject in a small space. Dont try to do too much with a
short poem.
Ending a poem does not necessarily mean finishing on a punchline. Bring the
poem to a close in a logical way, but leave the reader something to think about. It
is always worth going back to a poem and asking yourself whether you have
ended the poem more than once. Can you edit the last three lines?
Try also to keep the tone natural and conversational, whether the poem is rhymed
or unrhymed. There is of course no such thing as correct rhythm, but if the
rhythm is awkward or jagged, there should be a good reason for it.

A checklist for writing poetry

Remember to make considered choices about all of the elements of your poems.
For instance, consider carefully where you break your lines, how you use imagery
and how you use repetition.
Here are some key questions to ask yourself:

Have you shown the technical range of which you are capable in your use of
metre, rhyme, imagery, voice?

Is your poetry free of commonplace or hackneyed images? Have you used

unnecessary abstractions? Have you used unnecessary inversions?

Are the objects and emotions in your poem(s) described precisely, giving
clear details, and not overloading the description with too many adjectives?

Have you considered your poem(s) from the point of view of the reader to
establish how clear your writing is?

Does what you have written contain a degree of development in its central
idea(s)?

Does your poetry suit its chosen length, or could it do with editing?

Does your poetry work when you read it aloud?

Does your poetry sound too much like chopped-up prose?

Does your poetry hold the reader by using such devices as repetition,
metaphor or simile? Does any term or word need explaining further, and if
so, can this occur within the text or do you require a footnote?

Refer to the relevant chapters to review specific advice as necessary.

Part 2
Listening to how poets talk about their work on CD2 will help you to devise your
own commentary. You may also consider some of the questions posed above.
Remember that writing a poem is a process, not a single action (Workbook,
p.167). In your commentary, focus on revealing the creative process from first
idea to final version, rather than on an evaluation of the finished product. Quote
briefly from your writing and your reading perhaps of other poems outside the
Workbook where relevant, in order to support your statements. Your
commentary is an academic piece of writing, and should therefore use the

17

academic apparatus of referencing and bibliography where appropriate. Advice

on this can be found in theAssessment information for Arts modules (available
on the module website).

TMA 04 guidance
The instructions for this assignment can be found under Assessment resources
on the A215 website.

Option 1
For the first part of Option 1, you may write autobiographically or biographically.
Your work on life writing in Part 4 of the module should help you to make this
decision. Looking back through the Part 4 section of your notebook might also
provide some material that you can use or adapt here in relation to your chosen
subject or prompt.
Remember that you will need to employ fictional techniques, as covered in Part 2
of the module, in order to realise your narrative (such as point of view, setting,
structure and so on). You will be exploring the workings of your memory, and
then creatively transforming raw material into your response. Your life writing
will need a title. Keep in mind that autobiography does not have to be exclusively
about I, or written in the first person. Sometimes, it is hard to distinguish
between what is autobiographical or biographical. For instance, in writing about a
close member of your family, you may find that you are writing about your own
life as well. This kind of blend of biography and autobiography is entirely
acceptable.
If you are writing a biographical piece, be careful not to try to write a potted
life. In the space allocated to you for this TMA, be wary of including a series of
facts and figures and dates it is much more sensible to think of writing about an
incident, or about connected incidents.
You may wish to write a passage of prose biography about someone you know
very little, or not at all. (Perhaps an aunt went to live in Australia for a while and
youd like to write about her time there; or perhaps you have always felt an
imaginative link with a historical character whose life you would like to explore.)
As the kind of research you will do is mostly determined by this decision,
consider whether you would prefer to work with personal witnesses and
interviews or more book-based and internet research as you prepare to write.
Your work in Part 4 should help you to decide.
Again, you will also employ some fictional techniques, as covered in Part 2 of the
module, in order to realise your biographical narrative (such as point of view,
setting, structure and so on). In other words, whatever you choose to write about,
you will be working with the fruits of that research and reading, transforming
what you have found with the writers imagination and craft. Looking back
through your work in Part 4 may well also help you to decide how to structure
your piece: did you enjoy thinking about and experimenting with through-lines in
Chapter 21 for example?
Do not use any point of view which is inanimate or non-human. Although there
are historical examples of this the Workbook gives the example of Virginia
Woolf using Elizabeth Barrett Brownings dog to create biographical insights
the results are often twee, and at this length, the result is likely to become an
autobiography or biography of the inanimate or non-human speaker. Your life
writing must clearly be by a human being, about a human being or human
beings, past or present.

18

Finally, this TMA option gives you the opportunity to experiment with using
different voices in your writing, as you can include extracts or quotations from a
diary or letters.
Remember to identify your chosen prompt (if used) at the top of your TMA, and
to put a word count at the bottom of each part of your TMA.
Commentary

Your commentary for this option will explore the process of researching, and
then writing, the prose, including, perhaps, how you chose your subject or
prompt. You could detail the examples of prose biography or autobiography you
read as part of your research, consider how you dealt with the subject of memory,
and say something about how you worked on your raw material. Further subjects
for you to reflect on here might be the formal decisions you made (for instance,
whether extracts are included or not), and why you made them. Extracts from
your notebook may well be useful supporting material in this case.
Remember that your commentary is an academic piece of writing, and should
therefore use the academic apparatus of referencing and bibliography where
appropriate. Advice on this can be found in the Assessment information for Arts
modules (available on the module website).

Option 2
Your work in Part 3 of the module will support you should you choose to write
poetry for your life writing. As with prose life writing, it is common to blend
autobiography and biography in poetry, as in the examples in the Workbook by
Tony Harrison and Sharon Olds where the focus is the poets perspective on a
loved one, but where there is also a strong sense of the autobiographical.
Purely biographical poetry is more unusual, especially if you are writing about
someone you do not know, or about a historical figure. As with prose biography,
do not attempt to write a life think about writing about brief incident(s) in a
life. If (for example) you were to write about Napoleon on St Helena, where he
was imprisoned at the end of his life, you might find that the glimpse you give us
whether in the first or third person also tells the reader about your own
understanding of loneliness. Facts and figures and dates will not be important in
realising the figure about whom you are writing. A sense of place and a sense of
feeling will be far more important. Because this is life writing, you should not use
mythical figures as your biographical subjects.
It is acceptable to submit both autobiographical AND biographical poems for this
TMA. If you are writing biographically, you might like to think about the
potential of writing more than one poem about your chosen subject looking for
instance at different incidents in his or her life.
Remember to identify your chosen prompt(s) (if used) at the top of your TMA,
and to put a line count at the bottom of each separate poem, and at the end of
each part of your TMA so, if you were to write three poems of 10, 15 and 15
lines, you would put 40 lines at the end of part (a), and the total number of
words of the commentary at the end of part (b).
Commentary

In your commentary for this option, you might use some of the key questions
about poetry in the checklist for TMA 03 to discuss the making of your poems.
You might also discuss why you chose poetry for your life writing and how this
influenced your choice of subjects, incidents or moments. How did you select or
narrow down details into a more compressed form? What benefits do you
recognise in this process of selection or compression? You could also detail the

19

examples of life writing poetry you read as part of your research and what you
learned from them.
Remember that your commentary is an academic piece of writing, and should
therefore use the academic apparatus of referencing and bibliography where
appropriate. Advice on this can be found in the Assessment information for Arts
modules (available on the module website).

Some points of clarification for life writing

The following advice applies to TMA 04, and to Life Writing options in TMA05
and the EMA.

In Option 1, we ask for a passage of prose life writing in order to encourage

you to focus on a period or an incident or series of incidents rather than try to
cram too much in to the allocated word count. Your piece should be coherent,
well structured, and able to be understood without reference to an imagined
whole autobiography or biography.

If you opt for travel writing, avoid producing work that resembles tourist
information. Such work will score low marks or an outright fail.

Avoid writing a polemical essay which advances an argument and which

fails to write about lives.

Journalism is not taught on A215. A journalistic piece is one which deals

with a newsworthy event or person in the public eye, and which focuses
intently on the context rather than the characters and lives involved.

Another pitfall you need to avoid is straying too far towards fiction: whether
you are writing autobiography or biography, your main subject should be a
real person, not an invented character.

The intention is that you should write about human beings and from the
point of view of a human being.

If you quote from diary extracts or letters, make sure they are necessary and
well-integrated, and do not account for more than 10 per cent of your work.
Excessive use of such material to pad out your assignment will result in low
marks.

There are many sub-genres of contemporary writing food writing and

nature writing, for instance which are often effectively life writing. The
Workbook uses, for example, Nigel Slaters Toast. Make sure, if you are
attracted to these sub-genres, that you do not stray into writing about food or
landscape at the expense of your main focus which should be life
experience.

If you opt to write biography, ensure that you avoid producing academic
essay style work. Work which has the feel of an essay, however good on its
own terms, will risk failure. As shown in the Workbook examples, you
should aim to transform facts into narrative and to employ some fictional
techniques. These may include:

well-developed characters;

a clear story structure;

tension and revelation;

strong dialogue, written out in scenes or given as quotations embedded in

the narrative;

an appropriate balance of scenes and exposition;

20

a clear theme;

skilful use of imagery, symbolism, and metaphor.

There is a fine borderline between life writing and historical fiction. If you
choose to recreate a historical figure or someone unknown to you, remember that
you are still trying to write something valid in a non-fiction sense, something
based on fact. You will be able to render your researched facts imaginatively and
vividly by using narrative methods but dont go too far into conjecture or
speculation. In your commentary, you should discuss your strategies regarding
the balance of invention and verifiable fact with reference to the methods and
debates outlined in Part 4 and on CD3.
Please consult your tutor if you are in any doubt about the appropriateness of
your life writing topic or approach.

TMA 05 guidance
The instructions for this assignment can be found under Assessment resources
on the A215 website.

Part 1
This assignment will be marked according not only to the qualities of the work
itself, but also to its suitability for your chosen publication, and to the quality and
applicability of your research. Make sure you look at a wide range of possible
outlets (three or four magazines that specialise in short fiction of the kind you
want to write, for example). Pay attention to the following in particular:

Polish to a professional standard means following the advice on editing that

you received in Part 3 and/or Part 5 of the Workbook, and double-checking
your work for clarity and impact as well as grammar and spelling. For the
purposes of this assignment, it is not necessary to lay out the TMA with a
title page as specified on p.398 of the Workbook (After the title page, the
first page of your manuscript should begin halfway down. It too should bear
the title of your piece and have your name and contact details in the top right
hand corner.), although you will not be penalised if you do.

You might want to repeat some of the activities in Part 3 and/or Part 5, all of
which provide useful ways of self-editing. Make sure you refer to this editing
process in your report, commenting in particular on the changes you made
with your chosen magazine in mind.

Research your magazine thoroughly, checking wherever possible that you

have presented the work in a form that adheres to the magazines submission
guidelines. You might want to refer back to or even repeat Activities
27.127.3, bearing in mind that on this occasion and for this assignment you
are looking specifically for magazine publishers. If your magazine does not
provide downloadable or printer-friendly guidelines, research this aspect by
studying a few back issues, taking careful note of its usual content and
format. In this case you are not, of course, expected to submit work that looks
like the finished magazine, but you should adhere as far as possible to any
generic preferences such as length, subject matter and style, and explain in
your report how you have done so.

Ensure that the magazine you choose is one in which the editors select what
will and will not be published. Some online outlets automatically publish all
submissions received without any selection process. These will not be
appropriate destinations for the work you submit for TMA05.

21

You should try to choose a magazine whose requirements roughly match the
stipulated word/line count for this TMA. There are plenty of suitable options
in this regard. If you have a good reason for choosing a magazine whose
word/line counts differ by more than the permissible margin (perhaps
because you have produced a very specific type of writing for which the
range of publishers is limited), you should still comply with the TMA
requirements as to length, but mention the discrepancy in your commentary.
In these circumstances, you will not be penalised for submitting work which
does not meet the publishers length specifications.

If you are submitting short poems rather than one or two longer ones, make
sure that your submissions are equivalent in total to the 40-line TMA
requirement.

If your chosen magazine requires a synopsis and query letter first, you should
say so in your report. But this does not mean that you should write and
submit for assessment the synopsis and query letter instead of the creative
writing. The aim here is to get you to finish and polish your work to an
acceptable submission standard, as well as to demonstrate that you
understand a potential market for it.

Choosing your magazine or other publication outlet

A word of warning: choose carefully. Magazines or e-zines that require

salacious or offensive material are not acceptable choices for this assignment.
Neither are magazines dedicated to factual articles of journalism. If in doubt,
consult your tutor about your choice in good time, leaving room for a change of
plan if necessary. Writing competitions in which winning entries are published
qualify as suitable outlets, so long as the potential publishing date has not passed
at the time of the TMA deadline.
To get you started with your search, please find below the website addresses for a
range of useful free websites, with brief information about their strengths and
weaknesses. Its a good idea to search critically in this way and compile a list like
this yourself; many writers sites have good resources but list them unhelpfully,
or attempt to get you to join a society, or to buy one of their publications.
Try to remain focused during your search, with a list in front of you of exactly
what you are looking for, based on your knowledge of your own work (length,
genre, subject matter, any special qualities that make it stand out, etc.). The
following are suggested first steps only and should not be taken as sufficient in
themselves, or as a wholesale endorsement of the entire contents of a particular
website. It should be remembered also that internet sites are subject to frequent
changes. We have also included a list of printed publications which you may find
useful. The following information was correct at the time of going to press.
Internet sites
Jacqui Bennett Writers Bureau (http://www.jbwb.co.uk/)
Provides useful listings for competitions and UK markets for poetry, short stories
and non-fiction. Some gentle persuasion to join the Bureau is in evidence, but its
relatively easy with this website to find what you want without signing up for
anything.
Newpages.com (http://www.newpages.com/)
This is an excellent, regularly updated guide to literary magazines (online and
print), independent publishers and new publishing outlets. Be aware, though, that
this website only lists the magazines that sponsor it, most of them North

22

American, so it would be a good idea to use its listings in conjunction with

others.
The Poetry Library (http://www.poetrylibrary.org.uk/magazines/)
A useful list of both hard copy and e-zine outlets plus advice on submissions,
maintained by the Poetry Library at the South Bank Centre, London. A main
strength of this website apart from its stability is its emphasis on listing only
established magazines with high standards and clear editorial policies.
You can find more possibilities by typing Poetry magazines or Fiction
magazines into your search engine. These search terms should bring up both
print and internet publishing opportunities.
Hard copy publications
All of the following hard-copy resources are published annually:

Novel and Short Story Writers Market, New York: Writers Digest Books.

Poets Market, New York: Writers Digest Books.

The Writers Handbook, Basingstoke, Palgrave MacMillan

The Writers and Artists Yearbook, London, A & C Black

Writers Market, New York: Writers Digest Books

A themed poetry sequence

A themed sequence is a series of related poems, in which the relationship

between the poems is as important as the individual poems; the poems should be
seen not as separate, but as part of a whole. A sequence will be more than the
sum of its parts. In 40 lines, it is not advisable to submit more than five poems,
unless there is a particularly good reason. Two poems, however, are unlikely to
achieve the sense of sequence.
The poems may be of even or uneven length, although they might equally be in
the same form (three sonnets would, for instance, be acceptable). They might
explore a sequence of events, but they might equally look at a series of similar
occupations, experiences, places, or feelings. They might also look at the same
subject from different points of view. For example, you might look at times of the
day or year in the same location; or you might explore the stages of a relationship
at different points or from alternative different points of view; or you might write
about different aspects of identity, time or place. Some sequences might develop
an idea; some sequences might simply explore the same individuals or
experiences from a different angle. The most important quality of a sequence is
that the poems should be clearly interdependent. You are advised to consider
what it is possible to explore within the required number of lines.

Part 2
The report you will write for TMA 05 is not quite like the commentaries you
have become accustomed to writing for previous TMAs. While some reflection
on the development of your writing will be necessary, you should concentrate
more on the processes involved in finding a suitable outlet for it, and ensure that
mention of your drafts is focused on meeting that outlets requirements.
A report, by definition, is an exposition and analysis of your research. You might
decide that its best to construct it using headings (such as Initial research,
Requirements of my chosen magazine, Polishing my work to suit, etc.), but
this is by no means essential. The format is up to you.

23

What were looking for is evidence that you have spent some time searching for a
suitable outlet (which means you should indicate that you considered more than
one), that you fully explain why your chosen magazine is a good fit with your
work, and that you demonstrate any steps it has been necessary to take to ensure
that your work meets your magazines requirements and is presented in its
stipulated format. This could include stylistic elements such as word-choice
(perhaps as a result of reflecting on your magazines stated preferences you
strengthened certain themes or toned down others) as well as formal elements
such as layout.
The following is an example of the kind of report you might produce. You should
not, however, simply follow this format uncritically; your report should
demonstrate your own personal journey, specific to your own kind of writing.
Remember that your commentary is an academic piece of writing, and should
therefore use the academic apparatus of referencing and bibliography where
appropriate. Advice on this can be found in the Assessment information for Arts
modules (available on the module website).
Sample report

After repeating Activity 27.1 in the A215 Workbook, I decided to

research magazines specialising in writing for women, so I visited
W.H. Smith and bought copies of a couple (Womans Weekly and
Peoples Friend). Having read their contents, though, I realised that
the kinds of language their fiction uses and the kinds of topics it
typically covers didnt match my story. They require a sense of uplift,
and my story, Spring Cleaning, is darker and more ironic in tone.
My storys theme is the gradual breakdown of a long-term
relationship during a conversation about gardening. It has more of an
edge than the stories in these two magazines, and it uses slightly more
graphic language (e.g. When did you plant tulips? I hate bloody
tulips. Look at that one, lolling about like an invalid. That ones my
favourite, said Pam. Its called Claras Butt.). I didnt want to cut
this because I felt it was an integral part of my characters unfolding
antagonisms, and when I tried the story out on the A215 forum, the
feedback suggested that other people also felt this element worked
well. Spring Cleaning doesnt have a happy ending in the
conventional sense required by these magazines either: my main
character wins the argument (which neither character acknowledges
to be an argument) but there is no sense by the end that there has been
a neat conclusion. There is just a sense of an irrevocable downward
spiral. While writing the story I was influenced by Hemingways
Hills Like White Elephants (1987 [1927]) in which tension is

24

created without direct reference to its cause, and by the French writer
Colette (1982 [1920]), who depicts devastating relationship
breakdowns in the most civilised tones. I realised I needed a
magazine with a commitment to less formulaic writerly voices, so I
turned to the internet.
After searching a number of sites, I came across the magazine
Mslexia (http://www.mslexia.co.uk/) which states it aims to publish
some new voices in every copy, and that it is committed to furthering
womens writing. This seemed promising, so I browsed its archived
back-issues. Mslexia is issued four times a year, and often has a
famous guest editor (such as Carol Ann Duffy, Mslexia, issue no. 2).
Best of all, Mslexia regularly asks for stories on certain themes of
under 3,000 words which fitted well with the word count for this
assignment and the current issue was asking for stories about
Growing. My story seemed tailor-made. It is about growing apart as
well as growing plants, and I went through it again, making small
adjustments to emphasise the themed link (changing the part where
Pam turns her back on Jules because shes angry, for example, and
making her stoop to tie the tulip lovingly to a stake instead).
Mslexia doesnt provide layout guidance so I set out my story in
accordance with the advice provided on p.398 of the Workbook. They
do ask for an SAE and a daytime phone number though, and if I was
sending this story to them for real I would be certain to include those.
Mslexia comes across as a magazine that cares about new writers and
would let them know the result whether or not it was favourable.
Bibliography
Anderson, L. (2006) (ed) Creative Writing: a workbook with
readings, Abingdon, Routledge / Milton Keynes, The Open
University.
Colette, S.-G. (1982 [1920]) Chri, New York: Farrar, Straus and
Giroux.
Hemingway, E. (1987 [1927]) The Complete Short Stories of Ernest
Hemingway, New York: Simon & Schuster.

25

EMA guidance
The instructions for the EMA can be found under Assessment resources on the
A215 website.

Option 1
Fiction

If you choose to submit a story, you should attempt to demonstrate that you can
create a complete, satisfying narrative within the given word limit.
If you choose to submit an opening chapter, read the extra advice in the
paragraph below with care. And ensure that what you submit is something you
have worked on actively for this module.
Your chapter or chapters should form the opening of a novel. In the case of more
than one chapter, they must be consecutive. Selecting this option will require you
to demonstrate a different skill from the ability to create a whole short story. You
will need to create a convincing beginning of a longer narrative and make your
readers want to know more. Be careful not to pack everything in. You may know
how the story goes on and how it turns out but you need only establish what is
necessary for the start of your novel.
You should also provide a brief accompanying note of not more than 100 words
to indicate the way the plot might proceed. This note is not included in the word
count for your chapter(s) and it will not be assessed. It will provide your
examiners with some framework for understanding your aims in the opening
chapter or chapters.
Make a definite choice of either story or chapter(s). Anything that might be one
or the other is likely to be too indeterminate.
Poetry

If you choose to submit poetry, think carefully about where your strengths as a
poet lie. It would be useful to look back to TMA 03 and any other poetry
assignments you have submitted. You are allowed to submit a single poem, a
collection of poems of different lengths and on different subjects, or a sequence
of several poems on a related theme. (If you decide to write a sequence, look
back at the notes on this subject in the guidance for TMA 05).
It is not advisable to submit a large number of very short poems. Another
temptation to avoid is using the 100-line maximum to produce a poem or poems
which would be stronger if they were edited down. You should see the EMA as
an opportunity to show that you have reflected on, and have used, many of the
techniques in Part 3: Writing poetry.
Life writing

If you choose a biographical subject, take care to transform your facts into
narrative and to utilise narrative techniques of showing and telling, character,
point of view, setting and structure to recreate your subjects life imaginatively
rather than analytically.
Check the advice under Some points of clarification for life writing in the
guidance for TMA 04 and avoid proscribed genres and variations.
Reflective commentary

You should refer to any major draft revisions and/or quote from or refer to entries
in your writers notebook as evidence of this process. You may also include
mention of relevant feedback from your tutor or forum group. Remember that this
commentary also requires you to it include a reflection on your overall

26

development as a writer in relation to your chosen genre and methods for this
final creative task.
You should find it helpful to revisit the advice on writing commentaries in this
booklet. Your commentary is an academic piece of writing, and should therefore
use the academic apparatus of referencing and bibliography where appropriate.
Advice on this can be found in the Assessment information for Arts modules
(available on the module website)..

Option 2
Refer to the notes in Option 1 above for further guidance about working in each
of the forms (and about completing the reflective commentary). This guidance
also relates to the production of shorter work except in the case of fiction, where
it would be inadvisable to try to create a chapter or chapters within the shorter
word count. If you wish to write the start of a novel, you should select Option 1.
The two parts of your original writings must be distinct. Do not blend the two,
for example with poetry embedded within a prose piece. The rationale behind this
option is the chance to show your range and versatility.
The poetry and life writing option does not allow a double poetry submission.
Poetic life writing is categorised as poetry rather than as a sub-set of life writing
for the EMA. Students wishing to write an all-poetry EMA should choose Option
1.
Ensure that you pay equal attention to each form as they will have the same
weighting. You should adhere to the suggested word and line counts in the EMA
instructions.
Commentary

You should refer to any major draft revisions and/or quote from or refer to entries
in your writers notebook as evidence of this process. You may also include
mention of relevant feedback from your tutor or forum group. Remember that
this commentary also requires you to it include a reflection on your overall
development as a writer in relation to your chosen genres and methods for this
final creative task.
You should find it helpful to revisit the advice on writing commentaries in this
booklet. Your commentary is an academic piece of writing, and should therefore
use the academic apparatus of referencing and bibliography where appropriate.
Advice on this can be found in the Assessment information for Arts modules
(available on the module website).

EMA feedback
Throughout the module you receive detailed feedback on your TMAs from your
tutor this feedback is developmental, i.e. designed to enhance your
understanding and progress. Because of the tight timescale for assessing the
EMA, it is not possible to supply the same kind of feedback. Instead, markers are
asked to complete a tick-box form, scoring various key elements of each
students performance. This form will provide you with some basic feedback to
indicate the strengths and weaker areas in your creative writing and commentary
and will give you a way of interpreting your final marks.
Markers are asked to look at seven feedback criteria, five of which refer to the
creative writing pieces in one or two of the taught forms. The last two refer to the
commentary. The categories are necessarily broad as they have to accommodate
fiction, poetry and life writing. You will receive one feedback breakdown for

27

your creative writing, and one for your commentary. Here are some descriptions
of what markers are looking for in each category:
Creative writing

Language
This refers both to the clarity and precision of language and to its creative use:
adjectives, metaphors, stylistic flourishes and rhetorical devices.
Voice
Voice is not completely separate from language. It refers to the creation and
sustaining of an authorial style, which might be developed through a range of
methods, including tone, idiom, point of view, dialogue, or observation. It also
includes the range, depth and subtlety of characterisation in prose writings, and
the use of dialogue in character creation and development.
Structure
This refers to the effective organisation of the piece of writing. In fiction, this
might mean a balance of showing and telling or an appropriate and proportional
development of a story arc or plot. In poetry, it might mean an ability to deploy a
given form such as the sonnet or pantoum, or the shaping of an appropriately
patterned structure of free verse.
Ideas
This refers to the content or theme of a piece of writing. The idea might be to
write a story in a particular genre or to rewrite a known story in a subversive way.
It might be to write a biography from the point of view of a protagonists rival or
to write a poem incorporating texting language.
Presentation
This refers to correct spelling and grammar as well as to sound editing and
appropriate professional layout of prose and poetry. In some cases a writer may
deliberately use non-standard English or break the rules of grammar and spelling
to create a particular dialect. Those cases will be assessed on internal consistency
within the use of that dialect.
Commentary

Analysis
This refers to the quality of discussion in the commentary. Markers will look for
evidence of your ability to think critically about the processes of creation and
editing that have gone into your writing and the literary techniques you have
used.
Presentation
Commentaries will also be assessed for the clarity and accuracy of their
presentation, including any appropriate referencing and bibliographies.
Remember that the feedback on the creative writing and on the commentary is
basic and impressionistic, i.e. giving an overall impression of attainment in
particular aspects of your performance. Please note that there is no strict
relationship between various configurations of ticked criteria and particular
mathematical scores. All the criteria are important but they are not equal.
Language, voice and structure attract more marks than ideas and presentation.

28

Assessment scale
This module uses the 100-point marking scale set out below. Your tutor will
award a mark between 0 and 100 for each of the TMAs that you submit and this
will be notified to you as a grade on the summary form.
The information that follows is intended to give you an idea of the general
qualities that will influence your tutor in deciding the grades for your TMAs.
These guidelines can only be indicative of the requirements for achieving a
particular grade; the grade you receive will reflect above all how you have treated
issues specific to a given TMA. The same guidelines will be applied by EMA
script markers, and your overall performance standard for the module will depend
on your work for both the TMAs and the EMA.
In creative writing, there cannot be a rigid template or checklist of criteria but we
can give broad outlines of the kinds of qualities we will look for:

A strong feeling for words, including different tones, weights and registers.
Clarity and precision of language. Vivid or unusual imagery. Lively phrasing.
Avoidance of clich, hackneyed phrases, generalised abstraction.

The ability to realise characters, settings and events, bringing them to life
convincingly.

Structural awareness the ability to shape and pace a piece of writing

effectively.

Awareness and control of voice and viewpoint; ability to sustain a consistent

tone or range of tones, where appropriate.

Professional presentation, including correct spelling, grammar and syntax.

Correct formal layout, including demonstration of technical expertise in

poetry and understanding of appropriate sectioning and paragraphing in prose
texts.

Sound revision and editing.

Writing improves with practice and with the acquisition of techniques. Marks
awarded for the early TMAs, especially TMA 01, will take this into account. As
the module proceeds, fewer allowances will be made, particularly in the case of
persistent errors which your tutor has brought to your attention.
Each TMA requires some original writing and an accompanying reflective
commentary describing the processes involved in the making of the piece of
writing. Instructions about this are given in detail with the full requirements for
the TMAs. Both parts of the TMAs are required: 80 per cent of the marks are
allocated to the writing and 20 per cent to the commentary.
In the table below there are descriptions of the qualities to be found in both
writings and commentaries in each grade band. Inevitably, there will sometimes
be mismatches between the levels of accomplishment in the two parts of a TMA:
an excellent piece of writing might be accompanied by a slapdash commentary; a
satisfactory piece of writing might have an incisive and illuminating commentary.
In these cases, the mark for the commentary will have the effect of pulling up or
down the overall mark.
85100%
Excellent

Assignments in this category will be outstanding and show potential

for publication. There will be a sense of a distinctive writers voice
emerging. The writing will show a combination of strong imagination
and technical sophistication and control. Tone, style and structure will

29

be appropriate. There will be some degree of originality in the subject

matter or approach. The language will be alive and supple or otherwise
appropriate to the writers purpose. The level of achievement will be
sustained throughout. Assignments will be astutely edited and
professionally presented in terms of layout and correct grammar,
punctuation and spelling.
The commentaries in this band will be lucid and insightful, giving a
clear sense of the evolution of the piece of writing. They will deftly
weave commentary with supporting evidence from the writers
notebook and/or from tutor or peer feedback, as well as displaying a
clear and sophisticated understanding of A215 materials, further
reading and technical ideas and vocabulary, while appropriately
referencing any illustration.
7084%
Good Pass

These assignments will show a great deal of promise and technical

expertise. They will be a good read but the overall piece of writing
may be less consistent or fully achieved. The use of language will
show some flair and clarity but may falter sometimes. Good editing
and redrafting practice will be in evidence. The assignments will be
well presented with correct layout and a high level of accuracy in
grammar, punctuation and spelling.
The commentaries here will be astute, describing the creative process
in an interesting and relevant way. They will reflect the writers strong
engagement with the piece of writing, as well as an earnest and often
clear engagement with the ideas and methods suggested in the module.
They will often use appropriate language and illustration in the
discussion of the writing.

5569%
Clear Pass

These assignments will be competently conceived and written,

showing a grasp of relevant material, but they may be somewhat
unoriginal or underdeveloped. There may be gaps, omissions or
implausible elements. The language may sometimes be striking, but
sometimes also stale or unfocused. Some editing will have been
undertaken though this may not be complete. Presentation will attain a
general good standard, with some inconsistencies.
The commentaries in this band will be thorough and satisfactory. They
may sometimes show awareness of flaws in the piece of writing or
they may defend and explain the writers decisions well. But their
engagement with A215 materials and use of terms and vocabulary
introduced during the module may be flawed.

4054%
Bare Pass

Assignments in this band may show some attempts at using the

suggested methods, but there will be too many gaps and confusions.
Language and/or structure may be muddled. Some editing may be in
evidence, though parts may be seriously overwritten or
underdeveloped. Presentation will be variable, inaccurate at times in
layout or in basic grammar, punctuation and spelling.
The commentaries here will be superficial, attending to minor details
of phrasing or plot, for example, rather than larger elements such as
structure or tone. These commentaries will lack the necessary level of
analysis shown in the higher bands, though there may be some fleeting
engagement with the creative process, and they may use technical
vocabulary but in the wrong context.

3039%
Fail

There may be some evidence of familiarity with A215 materials but

quite a lot of confusion and misunderstanding, and few coherent
attempts at using the suggested methods. Parts will be in need of
greater development, redrafting and editing. Presentation will be
inconsistent.
Commentaries in this band will show a lack of coherence about the
aims of a piece of writing, as well as revealing a poor engagement
with A215 materials and a serious lack of analysis and comprehension
of key terms, as well as inappropriate use of such terms.

1529%
Fail

These assignments contain a negligible understanding of A215

materials. Rather, there will be a predominant incoherence and
confusion in the presentation and layout, and barely any evidence of
editing, redrafting or that the suggested methods have been tried.
Presentation will be poor.
Commentaries in this band will be scant and lacking in insight: they
may be under-length, incomplete and not fully engaged with either the
piece of writing under discussion or the relevant technical issues of the
module.

014%
Fail

Complete or nearly complete misunderstanding of the A215 materials

and little or no use of the suggested methods. Presentation will be
poor.
Commentaries in this band will be negligible and very poor in quality;
some might not even be recognisable as commentaries.

31