Final Projects for Online Creative Writing Courses

This is the Final Project for CWN online creative writing courses in fiction.

(If you've arrived on this page by mistake, why not sign up for the free course?)

If you've already completed the Final Project, click here for the Final Project Evaluation Worksheet.

Congratulations -- you're almost there!

The final project and self-evaluation are the last steps in order to complete the CWN free online fiction course. If you've completed the coursework, then you've made a real commitment to your creative writing, you've covered the essential elements of fiction, and you've grown as a writer. These are great accomplishments!

Now it's time for the final project. Bookmark this page so that you can refer back to it easily.

Final Project for Online Creative Writing Courses

Your Final Project has both reading and writing components. I suggest alternating between them so that you can use what you learn from the reading when you work on your writing.

Final Project - Reading

For the reading assignment, you will use the short fiction anthologies you found for the online creative writing courses (if you haven't gotten hold of an anthology yet, do it now do it now). Choose short stories by five different authors written after 1950. Read the stories and then, for each one, make notes related to the Reading Questions below.

These are not "exam questions." The notes are just for yourself, to focus your attention to different points in the stories and learn from the techniques of the authors. So write the notes in any format that is comfortable for you and that will make it easy to return to the information if you want to study it later.

Reading Questions

• Who is/are the main character/s?
• What kind of person is the main character, or one of the main characters? What techniques does the author use to let you know? Did you care about what happened to this character? Think about why or why not?
• In one sentence -- what changes between the character's situation at the beginning of the story and the end? In one sentence -- what happens in the story that causes this change?
• In one sentence -- what is the main problem or conflict in the story?
• Look at the beginning of the story. In one sentence -- why do you think the author chose to begin the story in this way?
• Look at an example of dialogue in the story, if there are any. Do you think the author did a good job of expressing the different voices of different characters? (If you think the author didn't do something especially well, that's okay too. Learn from other writers' mistakes!)

Final Project - Writing

The writing assignment is to write a complete short story. How long should it be? Whatever length is most effective. Every story is different, so you'll have to decide the best length to get your job done.

Your Final Project story should:

• Show instead of telling wherever it improves your story.
• Have a main character with both good and bad qualities. Fill out a Character Profile questionnaire to get to know your character better.
• Have a conflict or problem that is affecting the main character. This problem should be very important to the character.
• Have an exciting plot structure that builds to a climax.
• Use first-person or third-person point of view in the most effective way.
• Use dialogue that expresses the character's individual voice.
• Use specific language, strong nouns and verbs as well as adjectives.

What to write about? That's up to you. If you need ideas, you can go back to any of your 10-minute writing assignments from the online creative writing courses and take it to the next level. Or you can visit the CWN Story Starters section for tons of creative writing topics you can use.

If you've already completed a short story during the online creative writing courses, great work! You've got a big head start. In that case, please do the Final Project reading assignment, then look at your story again and find a way to improve it. When you're ready, and you feel confident that you've covered all of the points above, then you can go on to the Final Project Evaluation.

Let's go!

Have you put your Evaluation date on your calendar? If not, please do it now.

Good luck, and remember: have fun.

When you're ready to evaluate your Final Project, click here.


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