Creative Writing and Screen Writing

Creative writing and screen writing is a degree for people who want to write fiction and for the screen with seriousness and skill. It is both a craft discipline and an intellectual one, concerned not just with the mechanics of storytelling but with the deeper questions of how narrative works on an audience, what makes a voice distinctive, how form and content interact, and what it means to write truthfully about human experience. Learning to write well in multiple forms, from the novel and the short story to the screenplay and creative non-fiction, makes you a more versatile and more aware writer in all of them.

At Chichester this three-year full-time programme gives you the opportunity to learn across a wide range of creative writing disciplines before choosing where to specialise, as the current description notes. You will write fiction, work on novel craft and structure, develop screenplays for film and television, and engage with creative non-fiction and the craft elements that underpin narrative writing in all its forms. Workshop-based teaching is central to the discipline, meaning you will write, share your work and respond to the writing of others in a sustained way throughout the programme.

You will also study published literature and screenwriting as a reader and analyst, developing the critical awareness that good writers bring to their reading. A typical entry tariff of 136 points reflects the programme's combination of selective admissions and creative ambition.

Graduates of creative writing and screen writing programmes work as novelists, short story writers, screenwriters, playwrights, journalists, editors, content writers, copywriters, script editors and creative writing teachers. Many pursue postgraduate study in creative writing at MA level, where the sustained workshop environment and focus on a major project allow the development of work to a professional standard. Others move into publishing, broadcasting, digital content and the literary world in roles that benefit from the combination of writing skill and critical reading that the degree develops.