Creative Writing Modules

This entire month will be a deep dive into the analogical abilities of poetic language: similes, metaphors, epic similes, extended metaphors or conceits, metonymy, synecdoche, implicit metaphors, and more. We'll talk about cognitive and conceptual metaphors, the limits of literal language, and maybe even examine allegory. Through unpacking some famous and infamous examples of literary analogy, we'll learn how they work and why they sometimes fail. And of course, we'll try them out in our own writing, especially in poetry of various kinds.

What makes a good story? How can we make our characters feel like real people? In this module, we will closely read Aristotle's Poetics in full and discuss how we can employ his precepts on character, theme, and emotional catharsis can enrich our creative practice. This module will be a must for fiction authors, screenwriters and directors, RPG game masters, or anyone who wants to weave a dynamic tale!

This class takes creative writers deeper into a common form of 20th- and 21st-century poetry in English. According to the Poetry Foundation, the original "Confessional poets wrote in direct, colloquial speech rhythms and used images that reflected intense psychological experiences, often culled from childhood or battles with mental illness or breakdown." This type of verse is honest, raw, and immediate. We'll explore what techniques can lift such writing above the merely personal into the literary. By examining models, we'll learn to improve our own confessional verse.

What makes a piece of free verse different from prose broken into lines? What makes a free verse poem "good"? Are there any rules? How does a poet decide what techniques to use, the length of lines, the internal metrical elements, and more? In this class, we'll use everything we know about formal poetry to analyze some great works of short free verse, then we'll try writing some pieces of our own. Prior experience in Poetry in Forms is recommended but not required.

Learn the fundamentals of dialogue, action, and dramatic structure in this introduction to writing for performance. Working within the limits of one set, three actors, and ten minutes, participants in this class will learn the basic building blocks of script-writing by crafting short, stand-alone narratives for the stage. Though we will be looking at a few contemporary short plays as examples, the bulk of this class will focus on writing and workshopping your own original scripts.

Well-prepared writers enjoy more completion success! We will build worlds, plan character arcs, and try to define the bones of our stories during a month of glorious sub-creation! When you declare your intentions to the group, that act of bravery alone adds momentum to your writing efforts after the month is over. (This Module is great preparation before National Novel Writing Month)

In this course, we'll examine some great models of lyric poetry in English: short, tightly-crafted verses that pay close attention to the sounds of the words, may employ formal elements, and often express the narrator's (or poet's) internal psychological or emotional state. After analyzing some examples, we will compose our own lyric poems, revising them repeatedly throughout the month to achieve mastery of this demanding and rewarding approach to creative writing.

Over the course of this month, each student will work on planning, developing, drafting, and revising one longish narrative poem. We'll read some great examples, then help one another plan the stories we want to tell, the characters who will carry the action, and the world in which the tale takes place. We'll workshop drafts and revise our narrative verses until we have a final piece that satisfies.

We will walk through a complete project from pre-writing through writing, revising, editing, (revising, revising, revising), proofreading, and talking about publication options. Are you interested in finally getting down that memoir of your childhood? making a storybook for your grands? turning that daydream into a novelette? This adventure is for you! Whether your story is a draft, an outline, or a daydream, your project is welcome here in a place where we are aiming to finish it!

Storytelling might just be our oldest art, crossing time, cultures, and continents. Crafting a story suitable for telling demands a heightened awareness of audience, medium, and meaning. Telling a story requires fluidity in a register both intimate and stylized. We'll learn, create, and tell our short tales in a month of cooperative fun and work. We will use a collaborative and encouraging mode of feedback. You will end the month with two or three new stories to revise and practice and a toolkit for exploring this art.

You've written an epic book or an incredible screenplay, but what comes next? In this module, we will discuss how to make your story irresistible to potential buyers and entice readers to pick up your book! Examining successful examples combined with my experience in attracting publishers and an agent, we will workshop your query letter, synopsis and blurb, before finessing your verbal pitch. Whether you are looking to a traditional writing deal or an indie career, this module will help you sell the sizzle in your narrative.

This course is a creative writing intensive on the use of metrical patterns in English-language poetry. We'll study the most common meters that have traditionally been employed in English verse, learn to identify and scan them, then try using them in our own poetry. We'll play with patterns of sound and stress, listen to how meter work in words set to song, and maybe even dance a little, either metaphorically or literally, as we sway to the rhythms of words. Join me to learn how to set your words rockin'!

This class introduces students to some of the classic forms of European poetry, including sonnets, villanelles, sestinas, ballads, odes, and more. We’ll look at some noteworthy examples, then compose our own poetry following those structures, which we’ll then workshop together.

This class takes creative writers deeper into one of the most important approaches to English-language poetry: so-called "Free Verse." We’ll look at some noteworthy examples, discuss to what extent the verse is free (and from what), then compose our own poems responding to those ideas, which we will then workshop together. While this course belongs to a cycle of modules on Poetry in Forms, there are no prerequisites, and students can take one or many in any order they prefer. This module would have the greatest impact on poets who have spent a long time writing in meter, and will work best for those who are adept at scansion, but can be attempted by beginners, as well.

This is the Landing Page for Prof. Higgins' Poetry in Forms Series. After her introductory class, Creative Writing: Poetry in Forms, Prof. Higgins will survey the class to see which course the Class would like to take next in the Series.

This page will be updated to reflect which module in the series is being offered once the class decides.
•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
Creative Writing: Poetry in Forms Series:
• Creative Writing: Poetry in Forms: The Ballad > Link
• Creative Writing: Poetry in Forms: The Villanelle > Link
• Creative Writing: Poetry in Forms: The Sonnet > Link
• Creative Writing: Poetry in Forms: The Pantoum > Link
• Creative Writing: Poetry in Forms: The Sestina > Link
• Creative Writing: Poetry in Forms: The Ode > Link
• Creative Writing: Poetry in Forms: "Free Verse" > Link
•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
NOTE: Students can jump in at any month/part of the Series. There are no prerequisites.

This class takes creative writers deeper into one of the classic forms of European poetry: The Ballad. We’ll look at some noteworthy examples, learn the metrical and rhymes schemes, then compose our own ballads following those structures, which we will then workshop together. While this course belongs to a cycle of modules on Poetry in Forms, there are no prerequisites, and students can take one or many in any order they prefer.

This class takes creative writers deeper into one of the classic forms of European poetry: The Ode. We’ll look at some noteworthy examples, learn their rhetorical techniques, then compose our own odes following those models, which we will then workshop together. While this course belongs to a cycle of modules on Poetry in Forms, there are no prerequisites, and students can take one or many in any order they prefer.

This class takes creative writers deeper into one of the classic forms of European poetry: The Pantoum. We’ll look at some noteworthy examples, learn the metrical and rhyme schemes, then compose our own pantoums following those structures, which we will then workshop together. While this course belongs to a cycle of modules on Poetry in Forms, there are no prerequisites, and students can take one or many in any order they prefer.

This class takes creative writers deeper into one of the classic forms of European poetry: The Sestina. We’ll look at some noteworthy examples, learn the metrical and rhyme schemes, then compose our own sestinas following those structures, which we will then workshop together. While this course belongs to a cycle of modules on Poetry in Forms, there are no prerequisites, and students can take one or many in any order they prefer.

This class takes creative writers deeper into one of the greatest and most enduring classic forms of European poetry: The Sonnet. We’ll look at some noteworthy examples, learn the metrical and rhyme schemes, then compose our own sonnets following those structures, which we will then workshop together. While this course belongs to a cycle of modules on Poetry in Forms, there are no prerequisites, and students can take one or many in any order they prefer.

This class takes creative writers deeper into one of the classic forms of European poetry: The Villanelle. We’ll look at some noteworthy examples, learn the metrical and rhymes schemes, then compose our own villanelles following those structures, which we will then workshop together. While this course belongs to a cycle of modules on Poetry in Forms, there are no prerequisites, and students can take one or many in any order they prefer.

Join the amazing Jennie Starstuff: NASA Solar System Ambassador with Sparrow F. Alden to talk about the coolest, trippiest space physics to inspire our fiction! We’ll learn stuff on one day to use as writing prompts for peer-review on the second day. The plan is to explore star lore and archaeoastronomy; gravity and relativity (things get really weird); stars and cosmic life cycles; and life in the cosmos (alien contact? Heck, yes!). What about the amazing spaces between? We will have wonderful sonifications (sound pictures) of some of the most wonder-filled, hard to believe astro science out there—just imagine the stories we’ll create!

We will meet to discuss strategies for revising a piece of writing, including finding your own vision for your story, big-picture developmental editing, and crafting scenes. Writers are encouraged to apply revision strategies between sessions and discuss their work during class if they want to share. Writers will also have the opportunity to explore different editing strategies to help them shape their story into their own vision.

A New Story for a New Season!

On June 30th and July 1st & 2nd, we're going to celebrate creativity by attempting a complete story! Our format will include nine SPACE class sessions, WriterSpace focus time in excellent company, Bandersnatch Breakout rooms for craft talk and work encouragement, and an enthusiastic celebration of the season. We will plan, plan, plan on the 30th and you will get an amazing first draft on the 1st and 2nd ready for editing! This even dovetails beautifully with July Camp NaNoWriMo. So sharpen your quills, line up the inkpots, grill a BIG meal to last the weekend.

Here's the plan:
•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
Friday the 30th from 6:00 PM to 9:00 PM Eastern
6p - class session
7p - WriterSpace (we will attempt to do an entire Zero Draft)
8p - class session
•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
Saturday the 1st from 9:00 AM to 1:00 PM Eastern
9a - class session
10a - WriterSpace & Bandersnatch (that's "quiet space and talking space")
11a - WriterSpace & Bandersnatch
12noon - class session
•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
Saturday the 1st from 1:00 PM to 3:00 PM Eastern:
Nap time.
•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
Saturday the 1st from 3:00 PM to 9:05 PM Eastern:
3p - class session
4p - WriterSpace & Bandersnatch
5p - WriterSpace & Bandersnatch (completing our First Draft)
6p - class session
7p - WriterSpace & Bandersnatch
8p - class session
9p - Sparkler parade for those who can get their equipment outdoors to a safe spot.
•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
Sunday, the 2nd from 1:00 PM to 4:00 PM Eastern
1p - class session
2p - WriterSpace & Bandersnatch (envisioning our revisions plus machete editing!)
3p - class session & wrap up at 4p.
•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

Our goal is to create a ready-for-edit short work in one weekend! Prompts, planning, focus methods, peer encouragement, machete editing, character crucibles — we’ll do it all. Writers will write between sessions as well as during.

You are going to end this amazing experience with a complete first draft of your story. What a way to celebrate!

A Feast of Writing!

In one weekend, we're going to celebrate creativity by attempting a complete short story, novelette, or novella! Our format will include nine SPACE class sessions, WriterSpace focus time in excellent company, Bandersnatch Breakout room for talking about our craft and peer feedback, and an enthusiastic celebration of Story. So sharpen your quills, line up the inkpots, make a BIG casserole to last the weekend.

Here's the plan (it's a little bit flexible):
•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
Friday from 6:00 PM to 9:00 PM Eastern
6p - class session
7p - WriterSpace
8p - class session
•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
Saturday the 31st from 9:00 AM to 1:00 PM Eastern
9a - class session
10a - WriterSpace, Bandersnatch, & peer review
11a - WriterSpace, Bandersnatch, & peer review
12noon - class session
•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
Saturday from 1:00 PM to 3:00 PM Eastern:
Nap time.
•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
Saturdayfrom 3:00 PM to 9:05 PM Eastern:
3p - class session
4p - WriterSpace, Bandersnatch, & peer review
5p - WriterSpace, Bandersnatch, & peer review
6p - class session
7p - WriterSpace, Bandersnatch, & peer review
8p - class session
9p - Frivolity!
•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
Sunday from 1:00 PM to 4:00 PM Eastern
1p - class session
2p - WriterSpace, Bandersnatch, & peer review
3p - class session & wrap up at 4p.
•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

Our goal is to create a completed first draft in one weekend! Prompts, planning, focus methods, peer encouragement, machete editing, character crucibles — we’ll do it all. Writers will write between sessions as well as during.

You are going to end this amazing experience with a complete first draft of your story!

Write in the New Year!

On December 30th and 31st and January 1st, we're going to celebrate creativity by attempting a complete short story! Our format will include nine SPACE class sessions, WriterSpace focus time in excellent company, Bandersnatch Breakout room for talking about our craft, peer feedback through google doc commenting and breakout room conversations, and an enthusiastic ringing in of the new year. So sharpen your quills, line up the inkpots, make a BIG casserole to last the weekend.

Here's the plan:
•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
Friday the 30th from 6:00 PM to 9:00 PM Eastern
6p - class session
7p - WriterSpace
8p - class session
•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
Saturday the 31st from 9:00 AM to 1:00 PM Eastern
9a - class session
10a - WriterSpace, Bandersnatch, & peer review
11a - WriterSpace, Bandersnatch, & peer review
12noon - class session
•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
Saturday the 31st from 1:00 PM to 3:00 PM Eastern:
Nap time.
•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
Saturday the 31st from 3:00 PM to 9:05 PM Eastern:
3p - class session
4p - WriterSpace, Bandersnatch, & peer review
5p - WriterSpace, Bandersnatch, & peer review
6p - class session
7p - WriterSpace, Bandersnatch, & peer review
8p - class session
9p - ringing in the new year in Grytviken, King Edward Point, Sandwich Island (time zone UTC-2)
•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
Sunday, the 1st from 1:00 PM to 4:00 PM Eastern
1p - class session
2p - WriterSpace, Bandersnatch, & peer review
3p - class session & wrap up at 4p.
•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

Our goal is to create a completed short work in one weekend! Prompts, planning, focus methods, peer encouragement, machete editing, character crucibles — we’ll do it all. Writers will write between sessions as well as during.

You are going to end this amazing experience with a complete first draft of your story. What a way to begin 2023!

We will meet to blend learning, discussion, and playing games with reading, appreciating, and commenting on one another’s work as it is submitted for peer review. Writers are encouraged—but never required—to submit new pieces in any state of draftiness or readiness up to 2,000 words each week for peer reading and feedback. Our Collaborative Feedback method, developed here at Signum University, asks us to comment at the author's comfort level through a structured reader (not editor) response. We gather to encourage the story that the author wants to tell. Our philosophy of kindness first might just turn around your previous experience of writing groups.

••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
Note: A seat has been reserved in this module for a writer of traditionally marginalized identity. There is no form; simply write to [email protected] to identify yourself as someone who qualifies for and wishes to use this space in the writing group.
••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

How do you world-build without losing your reader? In this module, we will consider techniques on the scene level to embed world-building seamlessly into your narrative without bogging the reader down in exposition. Considering examples from J.R.R. Tolkien, Ursula K. Le Guin and Frank Herbert, we will learn from the masters to bring your world to vivid life. Focusing on viewpoint, characterization, word choice, and narrative conflict, we will workshop how to draw your reader in and make your universe feel like a real place. No matter your genre, this module will enrich your commercial fiction and help make your vision a reality.

What does a computer scientist wish that writers knew? That we are building aliens right here on Earth? That perception is not what we think it is? Join us for four weeks of learning, writing, and feedback. In "How Does Hacking Actually Work?" we'll learn to write far more complex and realistic scenes than Hollywood. In "Computer Perception" we'll talk about detecting the simple presence of volts and the most subtle patterns of the cosmos. In "Computer Interfaces" we're going to cook up stories about the Alien, the Understander, and the Quality of Misunderstanding. Finally in "Atemporal Decision Theory" we're going to ask enough questions about Truth, sentience, and honor to fill adventure after adventure with artificial and artisanal intelligences. Each week we'll have a learning and discussion day plus a day to reflect on "This idea made me ask 'what if?' and reach for my keyboard."

We need good tales of good people making heroic choices. Whether we write memoir, pure fiction, or a what-if-it-had-ended-well personal speculations, this module is about creating the characters whom we can admire, trust, emulate, and become. Writing these short scenes during difficult times balances our minds and hearts, and can be part of a personal path to hope. This module specifically allows us to write our inner heroes within a place of safety. When believing in heroes is hard, we need to write them anyway. Explore your own traumas, toils, and fears even if your bad situation is right now, and write your own next chapter, your terrified heroic first step.

Too many of today’s languages—natural or constructed—use the Roman writing system. While you listen to the shimmering notes of your con lang flow from your tongue or in your imagination, have you ever dreamed of a completely new way of writing? This course will guide you through factors to consider while designing a writing system for your created language by investigating real-life orthography development for living, unwritten languages.

Come explore Fairy Tales from the inside! In the first meeting each week Pilar Barrera will lift up a Fairy Tale technique, character archetype, or trope. We'll discuss the story at hand and how that story technique makes meaning. Then, students try their own hands at that technique! What do we learn when we push these ideas to their logical extremes? In the second meeting, Sparrow Alden will facilitate a workshop-style discussion of our original tale-telling work; we'll encourage one another as writers and appreciate one another as readers! Our goal is to complete the month with a deeper appreciation for the tales we all love and a folder with one to four good drafts of original tales.

Sharpen your knives and your pencils, for we're about to stir up the cauldron of stories! Want to whet your appetite while workshopping your writing? Where else can you taste the sweet flavor of inspiration in both the kitchen and the office? In this module, we'll combine cooking and creative writing: Each week, you'll (1) read literary works that revel in the gustatory delights of gastronomic adventure; (2) try out a new recipe; and (3) write a creative response of your own! As long as you don't eat your poems and write on your pastas, you'll delight in this most delicious of months.

Would you like to know how to write really awful prose? Boring stories? Flat novels? Poems that make readers yawn? Then you’ve come to the right place! In this class, we’ll find out how to fill our writing with useless fluff, use all abstract generalizations and avoid sensory descriptions, choose well-worn clichés, ignore stylistics, go for the most obvious ideas, introduce unimportant characters, avoid tidy paragraphs, and create a dull narrative. You won’t want to miss out on this superficial study of the mediocre, the mundane, and the soporific!

In each class, we’ll look at an example of writing that follows these rules and is, therefore, rather bad. Then we’ll do exercises in which we improve that aspect of this writing. Participants will be invited to work throughout this month on one piece of their own writing. It could be a short story, novel, poem, nonfiction work, or academic piece. At the end of each class, we’ll brainstorm how to apply that day’s real principle of good writing to our own work.

Have you wanted to write a story but didn't know how to get words onto a blank page? Once the words were there, did you wonder how to find out if those words affected your reader the way you meant them to?

In this SPACE module, we will look at where ideas for stories come from. We will take our ideas from our thoughts to the page. Then we will learn, in a supportive community using the Collaborative Feedback method, how to ask for and receive the feedback our stories need to thrive.

This module is for writers of all kinds, especially creative writers, who have built up a body of work and would like to start sending pieces out for publication. We'll start with discussing the periodical market and submission of shorter works (poetry, short stories, essays, articles). Then we'll move on to talking about longer projects, and we'll workshop the documents you'll need for sending those out, including resumes, pitches, queries, cover letters, and samples. We will talk about literary agents, contests, grants, unagented submissions, developmental editors, specialized markets, and more. You'll leave this module with something ready to send out for consideration.

Thanks to the success of streaming shows like Critical Role, D&D and other tabletop games are more popular than ever before. But according to surveys conducted by Wizards of the Coast, the average D&D campaign does not last more than six sessions, and players rarely advance farther than Levels 4-6. This series will address the short attention span of current TTRPG culture by equipping you with the tools you need to be a more "compleat" GM. In this first module, we will cover the true role of the GM (it might not be what you think!), the world-building assumptions implicit in various rulesets, how to design a setting which maximizes player agency, and how to write a gazetteer for your campaign setting. Participants will have the opportunity to produce their own 10-page setting gazetteer as part of this module.

What are the songs that stick in your memory? Are they catchy earworms that have you humming their melodies all day? Are they complicated jazz numbers, where lyrics give place to musical elaboration? Are they ballads, where the story is the thing?

The answer varies from listener to listener, but the great songs of whatever sort have some things in common. We're going to look for these things together, considering the conventions of different genres, poetic styles and their interaction with musical choices, a bit of music theory (that won't hurt a bit, I promise) and arrangement.

Each class session, we will listen to and talk about two or three songs. we'll discuss the choices the song writer(s) made, and how they affect your experience as a listener. We'll also look at how a single song might be interpreted differently by different artists, because performance is an inseparable element of how a song lands.

Students need have no grounding in music theory, or be musicians. All that is required is a love of music, and the desire to learn a little about the song writer's craft, whether that's in aid of becoming a more discerning listener, or because there's a song buried in your soul that you've not yet written.

If you are currently in the process of constructing a language, this module is for you. Bring all of your language data and together we will work to refine it, develop it, buff it, and expand it. We will look at what sounds you are currently using, how you are combining them, whether you want to incorporate more “exotic” sounds and how, etc. Then, we will dive into looking at ways to make your grammar more complex, natural, and unique. Finally, we will consider your language’s history. Your preceptor will share cool tools used for analyzing (this earth’s) understudied languages. At the end of this module, your language will have a richer life of its own and will sound and work even more extraordinarily with the life, energy, and uniqueness of any living, breathing language.

While building an entire world may seem like a daunting or divine task, thankfully there are many great writers who have gone before and left behind their advice, instructions, and encouragement for creating a secondary universe of your own. In this course, we'll look at what some smart and skillful folks have said about subcreation, then apply their ideas to your constructed storyworlds. We'll talk about how to choose and develop the properties of your land, what unique objects it contains, what level of technology its inhabitants have reached, who those inhabitants are, what language(s) they speak, what the physical nature of the world is, how its logic works, and--most importantly--its atmosphere and the philosophical implications of each of your creative choices. You should leave this course ready to set stories in your secondary universe.

It's a sometimes inconvenient fact that characters have bodies, and sometimes, those bodies directly affect the stories we write about them. Writing characters who live in bodies that do not perform according to the cultural standard is a skill like any other part of the writer's craft.

In this course, we will look at examples from literature of how authors have dealt with what we usually call disabilities. Some have done well, others have materially harmed people with their writing.

We will also work with one another to hone our craft as writers who are telling stories so that we can find the new and inspirational, while leaving behind the worn-out clichés that make the lives of people like your preceptor materially harder.

Note: Texts will be provided by the preceptor.

What makes a good children’s story? We’re going to address chapter books, cultural stories, and learning tales all through a lens of moral, cultural, and spiritual human development. Trying our hands at these forms should lead us to a nice folder full of works-in-progress at the end of the month. The December iteration of this module is designed to complete one treasured story gift for the holidays.

Your story is unique. Do you want to set it down on paper for yourself? For your family? No other person has accumulated your experiences; no other person has had your potential, learning, drive, disappointments, challenges, triumphs, and quiet joys. We'll explore a variety of media and forms for memoir writing, from picture books to blogs. We'll interview one another with kindness and encouragement and draw amazing stories out of each other—and ourselves.