Creative Writing: The Craft of Style

The focus

This course turns attention from what a story says to how its sentences say it. Metaphor, imagery and word choice are examined as deliberate tools, with the aim of making prose clearer and more inventive. It is also a sensible next step for anyone who has already drafted a few pieces and is now looking to make their sentences do more of the work.

Who benefits

Anyone whose draft reads flat, even when the plot works, will find the revision focus useful. It is better suited to writers looking to refine a voice than to those who need the basics of sentence construction.

Takeaways

• Style treated as something a writer chooses and can develop
• Imagery and metaphor judged by their effect on a reader
• Revision as the main method for improving prose