ENGL7516 Creative Writing Foundations: Fiction and Nonfiction
The Complete Study & Assessment Guide · ENGL7516 Overview
- The University of Hong Kong
- First Semester, 2026-27
- Postgraduate, MFA programme
- School of English
- Assessed entirely by coursework
What this course is asking you to do
This is a postgraduate course in the School of English, taken within the MFA programme, and it is one of two Creative Writing Foundations courses; its partner covers poetry and prose.
- Assessed by Two story drafts, an analysis of your own final draft, and participation in discussion and workshops.
- The skill being tested Making a piece of prose that works on a reader, then explaining which techniques produced which effects.
- Hardest step Revising the mid-term piece enough to show significant change while answering the instructor's specific critiques.
- Where to confirm Deadlines, assignment briefs and submission settings are controlled by the course Moodle page.
How ENGL7516 is assessed
| Component | Weight | Format |
|---|---|---|
| Participation and contribution | 15% | Participation in in-class activities and contributions to discussions and workshops |
| Mid-term creative draft submission | 20% | First draft of a story, 1,000-1,200 words, fiction, nonfiction or hybrid; due Wednesday 21 October, 11:59pm |
| Final creative draft submission | 40% | Final draft of a story, 2,000-2,200 words; may revise the mid-term piece with significant changes; due Thursday 3 December, 11:59pm |
| Final craft analysis | 25% | Analysis of your own final draft, 1000-1500 words; due Thursday 3 December, 11:59pm |
The course outline lists these four components and they total 100%, with the forms of assessment given as 100% coursework, so there is no examination. The mid-term deadline appears as Wednesday, 21 October in the current outline; the course site notes the outline was updated on 12 September because an earlier version showed that date as a Thursday, and the first-session slides still carry the earlier wording. Separate assignment briefs for each written component are released on the course site. The first-session slides also tell students to show up to class because each lecture is given only once. A numeric attendance threshold is not stated in the course materials, and they do not say whether attendance bears on whether you pass, so check the course Moodle page. Confirm deadlines and submission settings there too.
Assessment structure
Segment widths reproduce the published percentage weights and total 100%.
Current ENGL7516 dates
| Date | Item | Control |
|---|---|---|
| 21 September 2026 | Mid-term creative draft assignment brief released | Availability date shown on the course site for this offering. |
| 21 October 2026 | Mid-term creative draft submission | Wednesday, 11:59pm, as corrected in the course outline; the first-session slides still show Thursday. |
| 3 November 2026 | Final creative draft and craft analysis briefs released | Availability date shown on the course site for this offering. |
| 19 November 2026 | Close-read annotations on the set story | Listed in the teaching schedule for the tenth topic. |
| 3 December 2026 | Final creative draft and final craft analysis | Thursday, 11:59pm, stated in the course outline for both components. |
Dates are as published in the published course outline and the course site for this offering. Confirm exact deadlines and submission settings in the live LMS.
What ENGL7516 covers
Ten chapters follow the published teaching schedule, from why fiction exists through biography, point of view, memoir, setting, the personal essay, dialogue and letters to revision and autofiction.
Why Is Fiction? Craft Analysis and the Substance of Story
effect before meaning · three questions for every fiction reading · the gap between expectation and result · action against activityWhat the first two sessions set up
The course opens by drawing one line that governs every later week. The first-session slides describe the work as craft and aesthetic analysis and set it explicitly against literary analysis.
- Craft analysis, and why it is not literary analysis
- Three questions to bring to every fiction reading
- Language as the medium and the gap as the substance
- Action against activity, and the gap in progression
- Conscious desire, capacity and a chance of success
- Empathy against sympathy
Biography: Writing About Others
what nonfiction owes the reader and the subject · an author's note as contract · reconstruction against invention · context as a factual claimFrom invented people to real ones
The third week turns to biography, and the change is less about technique than about obligation.
- What changes when the character is a real person
- The author's note as a contract with the reader
- Reconstruction from interviews and records
- Composited documents and compressed chronology
- Dialect and the ethics of speech
- Opening on a dated scene and an absence
Point of View, Narrative Consciousness and Detail
observation, detail, description, information · why one detail persuades · four aspects of consciousness · first person with an adult voiceA method hidden in a topic title
The fourth session is titled point of view and narrative consciousness, followed by four words joined by arrows: observation, detail, description, information.
- Observation, detail, description and information as a sequence
- Choosing the detail a particular mind would notice
- Why details persuade a reader of truth
- The qualities of a well-chosen detail
- Accumulation as an alternative to the single detail
- Four aspects of consciousness a narrator can render
Memoir: Transforming Memories into Prose
the self who lived it and the self who writes it · a thesis sentence and a small trigger · memory as detail · summary turned into sceneTwo people called I
Memoir, the fifth topic on the schedule, turns memory into prose, and its central craft problem is that the writer knows too much.
- The lived self and the writing self
- Choosing one scene from many memories
- A thesis sentence that states the loss
- Large events narrated evenly, small triggers that break the voice
- Explaining a world to an outsider without condescension
- Controlling metaphors drawn from place and language
Setting and Narrative Distance
place as pressure on a want · a city built with the reader · tense and address as distance signals · a braided story set in a watchful landscapeTwo settings on one dial
The sixth topic pairs setting with narrative distance because the two are adjusted together. Setting is where the story happens; distance is where the reader is placed in relation to it.
- Setting and distance as two settings on one dial
- Place as pressure on a want rather than scenery
- A narrator who builds a city with the reader
- Moving closer through a change of tense
- The small, exact detail against the loose panorama
- Braided structure and a returning walk
The Personal Essay: Writing Beyond Ourselves
scene, pattern and question · the particular carrying the universal · a reader always in the room · the essay that changes its mindWhat the title asks for
The seventh topic is the personal essay, subtitled writing beyond ourselves. The subtitle is the instruction.
- Writing beyond ourselves as the essay's defining move
- Scene, pattern and question as three widening steps
- Returning to the opening scene
- The universal contained in the particular
- Keeping a reader in mind and answering objections
- Avoiding cliché on widely shared subjects
Dialogue and Things Left Unsaid
subtext under the waterline · pretext objects, repetition and slips · reading scripts to learn what to cut · the unsaid with a narrator presentWhy so many scripts
The eighth topic pairs dialogue with the things left unsaid, and most of its primary readings are screenplay or teleplay excerpts. The choice is practical.
- Why scripts teach subtext
- Pretext objects that let characters argue about something else
- Repetition under rising pressure
- The slip of the tongue as a turning point
- Answers that reveal what they conceal
- Hospitality and politeness as menace
Letters: Involving the You
three targets for the second person · a letter its addressee cannot read · fragments set side by side · conventions of address as craftThe form defined by a pronoun
The ninth topic is the letter, and the craft of the form is the craft of the word you. A letter is addressed to someone, so a reader is always overhearing, and that position changes how every sentence lands.
- The letter as a form defined by its pronoun
- Three targets for the second person
- Self-address and the accused narrator
- A letter to a younger self
- The open letter and the reader as witness
- An addressee who can never read the letter
Revision, Rewriting and Close Reading
distance, balance and order · a draft, its editor's notes and the published version · summary turned into scene · annotating for feeling and structureThe chapter that feeds the largest marks
The final creative draft may revise the mid-term piece if it shows significant changes, addresses the evaluating instructor's specific critiques and demonstrates strong evidence of revision, and the craft analysis then asks how the work evolved.
- Revision conditions for the final creative draft
- Distance and deliberate forgetting
- Balance of parts and the rushed big scene
- Sequence errors and invisible cuts
- The plot paragraph as a test for every passage
- Answering the problem a note identifies
Autofiction: Part Truth, Part Fiction
kept, altered and invented material · a novel in titled fragments · history carried as family logistics · why invention can feel truer than factClosing where the course began
The eleventh and final topic is autofiction, described in the schedule as part truth, part fiction, all story.
- Autofiction as the course's closing idea
- Kept, altered and invented material
- Choosing the contract with the reader
- Titled fragments and the white space between them
- An untranslated word explained through behaviour
- Handing the story to another family voice
Its published description sets out a diverse range of fiction and nonfiction forms, including the short story, novel, biography, memoir and personal essay, with emphasis on narrative structure and stylistic elements, and on how the two modes inform one another. Assessment is entirely coursework.
You write a story, revise it or write another, and then analyse your own choices, while contributing throughout to discussion and workshops. The first-session slides sum up the analytical stance in two lines: craft and aesthetic analysis, set against literary analysis.
Why Is Fiction?
Craft Analysis and the Substance of Story
The opening chapter fixes the distinction the whole course rests on: craft analysis explains how a text acts on a reader, while literary analysis explains what it means.
It then works through the second-week secondary reading, which locates the substance of story in the gap between what a character expects an action to produce and what the world returns, and reads a deliberately mixed list of primary texts, from Genesis to a teleplay, as different media doing the same job.
Biography: Writing About Others
Writing about real people changes the obligations of every technique.
The chapter reads the author's note that opens the week's reading as a contract with the reader, separates reconstruction from invention, and shows how disclosure of sources is what licenses a biographer to write scenes with the texture of fiction.
Point of View, Narrative Consciousness and Detail
The fourth-week topic title sets out a sequence from observation through detail and description to information, and the chapter teaches it as a method.
It draws on the reading on details for why one particular persuades, on a chapter about modes of consciousness for a vocabulary of point of view, and on three primary readings that use accumulation, an unreliable first person and a child narrator with an adult voice.
Memoir: Transforming Memories into Prose
Memoir depends on the distance between the self who lived an event and the self who writes it.
The chapter follows the week's readings in turning summary into scene, narrating large events evenly while letting small triggers break the voice, and building a controlling metaphor from place and language.
Setting and Narrative Distance
Setting and distance are adjusted together.
The chapter reads a story whose narrator builds a city with the reader before moving close to reveal its price, and a braided story whose landscape gives dread a location, and it offers a decision procedure for choosing distance scene by scene.
The Personal Essay: Writing Beyond Ourselves
The personal essay uses one life as evidence for a question others share.
The chapter sets out three widening moves from scene to pattern to question, explains why the particular carries the universal, and shows how an essay keeps a reader in mind in a way a diary never has to.
Dialogue and Things Left Unsaid
Most of the week's readings are scripts, which remove the narrator and expose how feeling travels beneath speech.
The chapter catalogues the devices they use, from pretext objects and repetition to slips and hospitality as menace, and follows the same techniques into three prose stories.
Letters: Involving the You
The letter is defined by its pronoun.
The chapter separates three targets for the second person, reads a novel written as a letter to a mother who cannot read it, and explains how address changes what a writer can say.
Revision, Rewriting and Close Reading
This chapter carries the most weight for the final submissions.
It works through handbook advice on distance, balance and order, compares a story's first draft and editor's notes with its published version, and teaches the annotation method the close-reading task asks for.
Autofiction: Part Truth, Part Fiction
The closing chapter treats autofiction as the deliberate version of a blending the course says fiction and nonfiction always share.
It reads a novel in titled fragments about a family divided by emigration and gives a kept, altered and invented ledger for planning a hybrid draft.
How to use this guide
Read the front matter first, then work one chapter at a time alongside the week's readings.
Each chapter ends with practice items and a worked answer; write your own attempt before reading ours, because recognising a good choice and making one are different abilities and only the second is assessed.
The practice chapter rehearses a complete mid-term draft and a craft-analysis paragraph on original material, and the closing chapter is a checklist for the two submission days.
Evidence and assessment control
Assessment labels, weights, word ranges and dates follow the published course outline for this offering.
Teaching explanations, worked examples and practice items are independently authored and are not University assessment material; any marks shown on them are an AskSia study allocation. The outline states that the teaching schedule may change, so confirm deadlines, briefs and submission settings on the course Moodle page. The first-session slides also tell students to show up to class because each lecture is given only once.
A numeric attendance threshold is not stated in the course materials, and they do not say whether attendance bears on whether you pass, so check the course Moodle page.
Worked example · free
Write one craft-analysis sentence that names effect, mechanism and change
- 2State the change between drafts and the feedback that prompted it.
- 2Name the technique and the effect it is meant to have on the reader.
- 2Point to the detail on the page that carries the effect.
Key terms
- Craft Analysis
- An explanation of how a piece of writing produces its effects on a reader, naming the moment, the feeling and the technique responsible. The course asks for it in place of literary analysis of meaning.
- Creative Draft
- A complete story submitted for assessment, which in this course may be fiction, nonfiction or a hybrid of the two.
- Hybrid Genre
- Writing that blends factual and imaginative elements, one of the three forms either creative draft may take.
- Workshop
- A class session in which writers discuss one another's drafts and give, receive and act on critique.
- Narrative Structure
- The arrangement of a story's events, scenes and turns, including where it begins, how pressure builds and where it ends.
- Point of View
- The consciousness through which a story is perceived and told, together with the distance at which the reader stands from it.
- Subtext
- Meaning carried beneath what characters say, which the reader infers from speech, silence and action.
- Revision
- Substantial rethinking and rewriting of a draft, as distinct from correcting it, including restructuring, cutting and turning summary into scene.
- Autofiction
- Writing that stays close to the author's own life while using the freedoms of fiction, the subject of the final teaching topic.
ENGL7516 FAQ
Is this course assessed by examination or by coursework?
By coursework only. The course outline gives the forms of assessment as entirely coursework, made up of participation and contribution, a mid-term creative draft, a final creative draft and a final craft analysis. Your preparation is therefore drafting, revising and keeping notes on your choices rather than revising for a paper.
How much is each piece of assessment worth?
Participation and contribution carry fifteen per cent, the mid-term creative draft twenty, the final creative draft forty and the final craft analysis twenty-five. The two final components are due on the same day, so together they account for nearly two thirds of the grade at a single deadline.
Can I revise my mid-term story for the final submission?
Yes, on stated conditions. The final version must show significant changes from the first draft, address the specific critiques given by the evaluating instructor, and demonstrate strong evidence of revision. A lightly edited copy would not meet those terms, so plan a structural revision and keep a record of each change.
What goes into the final craft analysis?
An account of how your final draft evolved and the key creative choices you made. The outline encourages reflection on your growth as a writer, the difficulty of turning ideas into prose and what you learned from the chosen form, and asks you to consider how peer or instructor feedback led to revisions.
Does my story have to be fiction?
No. Each creative draft may be fiction, nonfiction or a hybrid of the two, and the course covers forms including biography, memoir, the personal essay and autofiction. Choose the form that suits your material and be ready to explain that choice in the craft analysis.
Am I allowed to use AI tools on the written work?
The first-session slides require you to declare any and all use of AI in writing, specifying how and where it was used, and to keep a log of prompts and responses as screenshots. Failure to declare is stated to result in a failing grade and may lead to disciplinary action.
Is attendance required, and can it affect whether I pass?
Attendance is expected. The first-session slides tell students to show up to class because each lecture is given only once, and participation in class activities and workshops is worth fifteen per cent. A numeric attendance threshold is not stated in the course materials, and they do not say whether absence bears on whether you pass, so check the course Moodle page and treat attendance as a requirement rather than an option.
What are the word limits?
The mid-term creative draft is 1,000 to 1,200 words, the final creative draft 2,000 to 2,200 words, and the final craft analysis 1000 to 1500 words. Treat each range as guidance on scope: a draft well under its floor usually has a scene missing rather than a surplus of economy.
Questions students ask in each ENGL7516 chapter
- What does it mean that this course does craft analysis rather than literary analysis?
- It means you are asked to explain how a text works on a reader rather than what it means. Instead of arguing that an image symbolises a theme, you locate a moment where your response changed and identify the sentence length, point of view, withheld fact or repetition that caused the change. Chapter 01 · Why Is Fiction? Craft Analysis and the Substance of Story
- Can I invent dialogue in a biographical piece?
- Not if the piece presents itself as nonfiction. You can quote what was recorded or recounted to you, and you can deduce speech from documents if you say so. Lines that nobody reported belong either in a clearly signalled imagining or in a piece framed as hybrid, which both creative drafts are allowed to be. Chapter 02 · Biography: Writing About Others
- What does observation, detail, description and information mean in practice?
- It is a sequence of choices. The narrator observes a scene, selects one detail that this particular mind would notice, describes it in specific words, and the reader draws information from it, such as class, grief or time passed, that the sentence never states outright. Chapter 03 · Point of View, Narrative Consciousness and Detail
- What is the difference between memoir and autobiography?
- Autobiography usually attempts a whole life in sequence. Memoir selects a period, relationship or question and shapes memories around it, so it can leave out most of a life. For a short coursework piece this matters, because a draft of one to two thousand words can hold one subject but never a life story. Chapter 04 · Memoir: Transforming Memories into Prose
- How much description of setting is too much?
- Description becomes too much when it no longer presses on a character's want. The week's readings suggest the answer is less about length than contrast: a place sketched loosely and one object rendered exactly will usually do more than an even, full description of everything. Chapter 05 · Setting and Narrative Distance
- What is the difference between a personal essay and a memoir?
- Both draw on the writer's life, but memoir usually shapes experience into a story and lets its meaning emerge, while a personal essay explicitly thinks about a question through that experience. The essay turns outward to what the experience means for others; memoir can stay within the life it describes. Chapter 06 · The Personal Essay: Writing Beyond Ourselves
- What is subtext and how do I write it?
- Subtext is what a line carries beneath its literal meaning. Write it by deciding first what each speaker wants and cannot say, then giving them lines about something else: an object, a practical matter, a question that stands in for another. The reader infers the real subject because the pressure has to go somewhere. Chapter 07 · Dialogue and Things Left Unsaid
- What does involving the you mean in this course?
- It refers to writing that addresses someone directly, as a letter does. The pronoun you changes the reader's position from observer to someone overhearing speech meant for another, and the week explores how that shift affects intimacy, tone and what can be said. Chapter 08 · Letters: Involving the You
- Can my final creative draft be a revised version of my mid-term draft?
- Yes. The outline allows it, provided the final version shows significant changes from the first draft, addresses the specific critiques given by the evaluating instructor and demonstrates strong evidence of revision. Minor polishing of the same text would not meet those conditions, so plan substantial structural work. Chapter 09 · Revision, Rewriting and Close Reading
- What is autofiction, and how does it differ from memoir?
- Autofiction is writing that stays close to the author's own life while claiming the freedoms of fiction, such as inventing scenes, compressing time or merging people, which memoir presented as nonfiction cannot do. The schedule for this course describes it as part truth, part fiction, all story, and it is one of the hybrid forms both creative drafts may take. Chapter 10 · Autofiction: Part Truth, Part Fiction
How to prepare for the assessments
Keep three documents from the first week: a reading log with a line reference for every moment that moved you, a drafting notebook, and a revision log that pairs each piece of feedback with the change it prompted. The reading log feeds participation, the notebook feeds both drafts, and the revision log becomes the spine of the craft analysis, so no week's work is wasted on the final submission.
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