A Creative Writing Handbook

by Bill Greenwell, Lindsay Anderson, Derek Neale

An inspiring range of approaches to enrich your writing skills. Packed with stimulating writing exercises, numerous quotes and over 30 extracts from literature across a wide variety of genres, the book can be followed as a complete course or dipped into throughout. Accessibly written by three published writers and experienced teachers from leading creative writing institutions, this is a rich sourcebook of techniques containing: challenging writing exercises to expand the writer's technique and 'voice'innovative ways of developing fiction and poetry stylesin-depth introductions to stage, radio and film writinginsights into the way different genres interact and how to adapt stories for performanceadvice on layout and professional presentation of work"What is beguiling about the writing is the style - these are not academic propositions: they are translations from experience and practice" David Morley, Professor in Creative Writing, Warwick Univeristy

Genres: Writing, Nonfiction

384 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 2009

Reviews

[Pippa · Rating 5 out of 5]

I haven't finished reading this book, as I'm working through slowly, but I am extremely impressed with it. I'm a professional writer wanting to develop my skills and I'm finding that it is teaching me a lot of things I don't know, over a wide range of different types of writing. Very useful indeed!

[Michael MacKian]

open university,creative writing,dramatic technique

[Becky · Rating 1 out of 5]

A Creative Writing Handbook by Derek Neale. Open University A363 module handbook.

This book felt incredibly repetitive. How many ways to overanalyse the same story? What a coincidence that Derek Neale wrote the story. 🤔 Violin Lessons wasn’t the most inspiring novel to base so many of the activities on.

The book is very, very outdated. One activity (3.4) suggested visiting your local library to view old newspapers on a microfiche. 🙄 In 2024, I think the only place you can use a microfiche is in a museum! The book and module both need some updating to the modern age.

I understand that we have great classic literature, but our tutors want us to use a modern approach to writing. So, the quotes that are 40+ years old are often more of a hindrance.

I only finished reading this book as it’s a requirement to reference Part 3 for TMA05. I wouldn’t have chosen to read to the end otherwise. I didn’t find it inspiring for my creative writing; in fact, the whole module stunts most of the creativity from our writing.

[Rebecca · Rating 3 out of 5]

FINALLY got round to finishing the last few exercises! (For context, I finished the actual course in June 2019, but didn't complete the whole book).

Overall, I found it useful - I like the fact that the drama section got me thinking about practical staging aspects as well as things like script formatting for different outlets. Equally, some of the writing exercises seemed more interested in promoting short stories by contributing authors. (Seriously, how many times *can* you analyse the same short story?) Poetry is also covered if that's more your area, and I liked that it went into detail about several different forms of poem. That's something I've often been sketchy on, but I feel a bit more confident now.

A decent coursebook with some interesting reading extracts and exercises, but overall, I preferred the big red book from the Level 2 module.

[Andrew McAuley · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the second OU course text focusing on creative writing which I've read. Unfortunately it doesn't (for me) measure up to the first.

I think part of the problem is that there are oy three contributors this time, with the editor seeming to have the lions share. That might be fine normally, buy I didn't feel that much of thr content was presented in an interesting way. I found it a bit of a chore to get through at times, and felt that I wasn't learning a great deal from the 400 or so pages.

That said, some of the reading extracts were good, and I feel tempted to seek out some of the works.

[M.K. Aston · Rating 4 out of 5]

Completed this book as part of my Open University studies. It's full of useful advice and practical exercises to improve one's writing skills and it will now live on my shelf and become a very useful reference book.

[Sharon Milligan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Focuses heavily on building skills you already have. It also introduces screenwriting, plays and radio plays. Quite enjoyed the challenge of trying to bring in film techniques to fiction and it’s something I would love to work on further.

[Dita Kelly · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an Open University standard textbook for the Advanced Creative Writing module. However, it could be of great use to anyone interested in writing techniques and could be read independently of studying with the O.U. It covers a wide range of standard writing skills for fiction, scriptwriting, life writing, and poetry. I learnt a lot of basic techniques, and I would recommend it.

[Neil]

Started Jan 2010 - dipping in and out of the section of the book I'm interested in - playscripting, although I've already read the section on several poetic structures and may well have a stab at writing a sestina and a villanelle.

[Richard Cubitt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read for my degree. Helpful.