This course offers the basics of creating compelling fiction. It addresses the way a story needs to be told so that it has the power to touch a deep emotional chord of its prospective readers. It comprises of three modules; The Story World, The Compelling Characters as well as The Layers of Plot and Theme. The course aims to get students to explore and build their own story world – the story’s setting – and creating characters who are real and interesting. It also probes into the layers of plot including story structure (the top layers), synopsis and scene (the middle layers), and action, dialogue, interior emotion, interior monologue, description, flashback, and narrative summary (the lowest layer), not forgetting, the icing on this course, with a closer look at how to think through theme.

Module 1 aims to enable students write compelling fiction through the creation of a story world. Important elements to construct the story world; setting up a natural world, establishing cultural norms and creating a world of conflict for suspense tension are exposed to ensure they have the ability to reveal strengths and weaknesses of their characters in the story world using Freytag's Pyramid. Module 2 targets students to create compelling characters who are real and interesting. Characters are the crux of the story. Even minor ones exist to build and support the main ones. Students will learn to develop the characters through their roles, back story and motivation. Students will also need to decide the point of view to enlighten the characters to their readers. Students will also review tenses as different tenses create different effects in fiction writing. Module 3 aims to get students to write compelling fiction through plot development. A compelling storyteller knows how to sequence events and use the event sequence to motivate their characters to affect the story. Thus, in this module, students will learn to develop the plots using a Three-Act Structure (i.e., topmost layer, middle layer and lowest layer), and seven core tools such as writing dialogues and using narrative as well as flashback techniques. Lastly, students should be able to identify the themes in their writing.