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Writing Challenges

David Morley, Director of the Warwick Writing Programme, leads you through a series of creative writing challenges designed to help you develop your creativity and talent as a writer and reader.

Murdering your darlings

12:25 Mon 05 Jan 2009

All writing is rewriting. With fiction the best test is to read your story aloud, and read it to somebody.

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Conflict and Crisis

12:25 Mon 05 Jan 2009

When reading novels as a writer, you will immediately notice the importance of conflict as the engine of fiction.

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Beginning at the Beginning

12:25 Mon 05 Jan 2009

How do I begin?

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Points of view in fiction

12:25 Mon 05 Jan 2009

Where do you, the writer, stand in relation to your characters and readers?

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Character is Story

12:25 Mon 05 Jan 2009

Character is the heart and mind of your story - it is what makes it live.

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Dreaming a Fictional Continuum

12:25 Mon 05 Jan 2009

So, after all, it was a dream... A fiction writer depends on the dream or fantasy of scenes that are true to life or, at least, carry verisimilitude however fantastic the setting or story.

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The Palettes for Fiction

12:25 Mon 05 Jan 2009

Although the marketplace for short stories is difficult, many new writers choose to begin with writing them, almost as a right of passage, a place for honing language, testing their narrative nerve over a shortish distance, and organising a palette.

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The Truth About Pride and Prejudice

12:25 Mon 05 Jan 2009

Form in fiction is a specific and conscious decision, but your final decision may take several drafts and unsuccessful trials before you find that which suits the material best.

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The House of Fiction

12:25 Mon 05 Jan 2009

Should you be trying to achieve artistic truth in your fiction or writing the next commercial blockbuster?

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Language's Magic

12:25 Mon 05 Jan 2009

Natural magic informs every function of our bodies, our life span and the way we perceive.

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Shakespeare's Field Trip

12:25 Mon 05 Jan 2009

When we use words, we have to use the right words and the right words in the best order.

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The Campaign for Real Language

12:25 Mon 05 Jan 2009

Creative writing's capacity for the creation of illusion-as-truth can make it a dangerous tool.

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Music, Movement and Brain-Blocking

12:25 Mon 05 Jan 2009

Mess with your brain to get the best writing out of it.

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Fieldwork for Writers

12:25 Mon 05 Jan 2009

Everything is quarry, everyone is material, and everywhere is fieldwork.

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The Painless Headache

12:25 Mon 05 Jan 2009

The role of consciousness in writing and the creative process.

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A Mental Switch

12:25 Mon 05 Jan 2009

How to get into the writing 'zone'. How do you translate the desire to write into the will to write?

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The Character Called the Writer

12:25 Mon 05 Jan 2009

Finding your voice will stimulate your progress as a writer. This week's challenge focusses on your self and selves, helping you to get to know the dimensions of your voice.

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Adventures in reading

12:25 Mon 05 Jan 2009

The relationship between reading and writing and how being an 'original' reader can help with creativity.

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Play, Pleasure and Games

12:25 Mon 05 Jan 2009

Introducing the Writing Challenges podcast and setting challenge number 1 - The Word Hoard.

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