The Art of Voice in Fiction

University-level study and support

During your time on the Oxford University Summer School for Adults you will:

• Study in small seminar groups with no more than 12 students, guided by expert tutors
• Receive two one-to-one tutorials
• Have the opportunity to attend guest lectures and participate in social events
• Have access to the on-site Bodleian Library and IT facilities
• Gain experience of studying at university level
• Develop new skills
• Experience a friendly and supportive learning environment
• Connect with a global community of lifelong learners

Seminars

Participants are taught in small seminar groups of up to 12 students, and receive two one-on-one tutorials with their tutor.

Sunday

Seminar 1:

• Introductions and course overview.
• Discussion on Voice – what we seek as readers and aim for in our work. A breakdown of the layered elements within voice. 
• Warm up writing exercises in freeing the voice (Nat Goldberg).
• Developmental exercises in discovering authorial Third Rail (Lisa Cron).

Seminar 2: Authorial Voice

• We look at a wide variety of prose styles and identify what makes each voice distinctive and compelling. 
• Exercises in style: Imitation of our most and least admired authors and exaggeration of their vocal tics to discover where our own range lies.

Monday

Seminar 3: Character Voice. We explore how individual characters’ viewpoint inflect and layer the authorial voice.

Seminar 4: Workshopping our own writing with a focus on developing our authorial voices and distinguishing character voice.

Tuesday

Seminar 5: Narrative Distance (aka Psychic or Emotional Distance)

Like a camera zoom lens, we play around with degrees of proximity from omniscient to stream of consciousness, with a focus on what happens to the narrative voice. This session helps us understand the connection between authorial and character viewpoints.

Seminar 6: Workshopping our own writing with the emphasis on voice, distance, range and tone.

Wednesday 

Seminar 7: Vocal shifts between characters

Through extract analysis and discussion, we explore how even the told narrative subtly shifts depending on which character is driving the story at a given point. In writing exercises, we play with altering our own tone to differentiate between characters.

Seminar 8: Workshopping our own writing with an emphasis on tonal shift between characters.

Thursday 

Seminar 9: Experimenting with technique

Through experimental in-class writing exercises, we will explore how language choice, sentence length, punctuation, even white space, can create, alter and develop our authorial voice. We play with different ranges to explore how character is implied by them. 

Seminar 10: Workshopping our experimental writing.

Friday

Seminar 11: Revisiting our aims

• Through discussion, writing journals and small group exercises, we review our initial aims and adjust them to process what we have learned about our own voices and those of our characters or subjects. 
• Creative games: the group-written novel; and fairytale switch genre.

Seminar 12:

• Final opportunity to share work.
• Q&A to clarify or revisit any aspect of voice. 
• We end by making exciting and realistic schedules for developing our writerly voices when we are home.

Programme timetable

The daily timetable will normally be as follows:

Saturday

14.00–16.30: Registration

16.30–17.00: Orientation meeting

17.00–17.30: Classroom orientation for tutor and students

17.30–18.00: Drinks reception

18.00–20.00: Welcome dinner

Sunday – Friday

09.00–10.30: Seminar

10.30–11.00: Tea/coffee break

11.00–12.30: Seminar

12.30–13.30: Lunch

13.30–18.00: Afternoons are free for tutorials, individual study, course-related field trips or exploring the many places of interest in and around Oxford.

18.00–19.00: Dinner (there is a formal gala dinner every Friday to close each week of the programme).

Social programme

A range of optional social events will be offered throughout the summer school. These are likely to include a quiz night, a visit to historic pubs in Oxford, a visit to Christ Church for Evensong, and after-dinner talks and discussions.

Beyond the summer school, Oxford is a vibrant and cosmopolitan city with a busy cultural and social scene offering a wide variety of plays and shows, concerts, films and exhibitions.

Residential options are outlined below.

Please see the ‘how to enrol’ section below for guidance on how to book or request the right accommodation for you.

Residential option

This includes accommodation and all meals (breakfast, lunch and dinner).

Our central Oxford accommodation combines the character of an historic building with the convenience of a modern hotel. All rooms are located in Wellington Square, a short walk to Oxford city centre, and include tea and coffee making facilities and free Wi-Fi.

View full details of Rewley House accommodation.

Non-residential option

We also offer places on a non-residential basis whereby participants can take classes and have meals (lunch and dinner) at Rewley House, having arranged their own accommodation elsewhere.

Course aims

This course aims to:

• Explain what is meant by voice in literature and creative writing.
• Break voice down into its key components to examine how it works, through a writerly (not literary critical) lens.
• Encourage writers to find, identify and expand their own voices and those of their characters

Course objectives

The course aims to enable students to:

• Analyse literature as writers to appreciate how voice is created and sustained
• Identify which craft techniques are most helpful in creating the effect they seek
• Apply this knowledge to their own writing to develop their own voices
• Build the confidence to write with integrity and authority about matter matters to them in a genre that best fits their natural voice.

Learning outcomes

By the end of this course, students will have been given the opportunity to learn:

• How to access and expand their voice.
• How to edit it for balance, pace, authenticity.
• How to voice different characters and filter action through their limitations.
• How to replace cliché or flat writing with vigorous relevant language.
• How to analyse other writers’ voices for insight and inspiration.

Teaching methods

The teaching methods on this course may include:

• Short lectures/presentations
• Physical handouts
• Seminars/group discussions
• Student presentations

Participants will attend two one-on-one tutorials with their tutor during the week.

Pre-course assignment

Participants are required to undertake preparatory reading and complete a pre-course assignment of 1,500 words. Although this does not count towards credit, it is seen as an important way of developing your ideas and is mandatory. The pre-course assignment is typically due in the first week of June.

IT requirements

Students are encouraged to bring a laptop to Oxford to assist them with their studies.

For residential students, wireless internet access is available in all bedrooms; for all students, wireless access is available in communal spaces of the college.

All students will be eligible to use the computers and printer in the computer room at Rewley House.

Assessment methods

You will be assessed during the summer school by either a 1,000 word written assignment or a presentation supported by individual documentation. To successfully gain credit (10 CATS points) students should attend all classes and complete the on-course assignment.

Please see the ‘certification’ section for more details about CATS points.

Ms Susannah Rickards

Susannah Rickards is a widely published and anthologised short story writer, editor and creative writing tutor. Her Hot Kitchen Snow (Pub. Salt) won the International Scott Prize for a debut collection. Other awards include the HG Wells,  Alpine, Commonwealth Broadcasting, Carve USA, Society of Authors, Conan Doyle and shortlistings with Bridport, Mogford, BBC Opening Lines.  

Certificate of Attendance

All participants who complete the course will receive a physical Certificate of Attendance.

Academic credit

OUSSA is an accredited summer school taught at undergraduate level; each one-week course carries 10 CATS (Credit Accumulation and Transfer Scheme) points at FHEQ (Framework for Higher Education Qualification) Level 4.

CATS points will be awarded to students who attend all classes and complete the on-course assignment to the required standard. Please see the ‘assessment methods’ section below for more details.

Certificate of Higher Education

Credit (CATS points) earned from OUSSA can be transferred towards our flexible Certificate of Higher Education. This part-time, award-bearing course lets you decide what, how and where you study by gaining credit from short courses, including short online courses, in-person weekly classes and OUSSA.

For full details, including transfering credit gained from OUSSA to the programme, see our Certificate of Higher Education programme page.

English language requirements

As students are expected to participate fully in seminar discussions and are required to produce written work, it is important that applicants can demonstrate an appropriate level of proficiency in the four language skills: listening, reading, writing and speaking.

If English is not your first language, you must provide evidence of your proficiency in the form of an original certificate, or a certified copy, that is not more than two years old on the date the summer school starts. You must satisfy one of the following requirements:

• IELTS Academic: minimum overall score of 7.5, with not less than 7.0 in each of the four components
• TOEFL iBT: minimum overall score of 110, with not less than 22 for listening, 24 for reading, 25 for speaking and 24 for writing
• C1 Advanced, formerly known as Cambridge English: Advanced or CAE: minimum overall score of 191, with not less than 185 in each of the four components

For further information on English language qualifications:

• IELTS
• TOEFL
• Cambridge English

The requirement to provide English language test scores may be waived in either of the following circumstances:

• If you have completed a full-time degree-level programme at a recognised institution where teaching and assessment throughout the course was undertaken entirely in English, and the programme was completed with a gap of no more than two academic years to the course to which you are applying. If you studied this course in a country that is not majority English speaking, you will need to provide evidence that the course was taught in English. This can either take the form of a link to the appropriate page of the institution’s website or a statement from the institution confirming this.
• If you have worked for a minimum of two years in a majority English-speaking country where the main language for the role was English, and your role involved daily professional use of each of the four language components: reading, writing, listening and speaking.

Visa requirements

The Department welcomes international students on all its courses. However, it is the responsibility of successful applicants to ensure that they comply with UK immigration law.

If you are not a UK or Irish national, you might need to apply for a visa before coming to the UK, depending on which passport you hold. You can check if you need a visa before coming to the UK on the UK Government’s website. We strongly recommend that you establish whether you will require a visa before submitting your application.

If you do not require a visa to come to the UK for a short period of study, you will need to apply for an Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETA).

The Programme Administrator will provide non-UK/Irish nationals enrolled on the summer school with a standard-format PDF letter by email confirming enrolment and course details once their fees have been paid in full. These letters are issued on request only.

If you require a visa, you should ensure your summer school application is submitted as early as possible to allow yourself sufficient time to complete the visa application process. See current visa processing times.

For legal reasons, the Programme Administrator is not permitted to provide any visa advice to applicants; any queries should be addressed to student.immigration@admin.ox.ac.uk.

Information about visiting the UK to study is available on the UK Government’s website and Oxford University’s Student Immigration website.

It is your responsibility to ensure that you have taken the necessary steps to enable you to be admitted to the UK. The University takes no responsibility for a visa being denied at any point before or during a course.

Please note that the standard cancellation policy applies in all cases. See ‘Cancellations’ in the section below.

Fees

Payment

Payment terms:

• If enrolling online: full payment by credit/debit card at the time of booking
• If submitting an enrolment form: full payment online by credit/debit card or via bank transfer within 1 calendar month of invoice date. Where payment is made by bank transfer, enrolment is accepted once cleared funds have been received by the University.

If payment is not received within 1 calendar month of the invoice date, we cannot guarantee that your place will continue to be held. Where a course or accommodation option has a waiting list, the place may be offered to another applicant.

Funding

Concessionary rates are available on a non-residential basis for those that qualify.

The concessionary fee is for non-residential attendance only; participants will then be responsible for finding their own accommodation. For full details, including eligibility, see our OUSSA FAQ page.

Recommended reading

Please note there is no set reading list as we will draw on brief extracts from a very wide range of prose genres and styles.

In class, we are likely to look at Lorrie Moore, Ali Smith, Jhumpa Lahiri, George Saunders, Ernest Hemingway, Raymond Carver, Helen MacDonald, Alice Jolly, Elizabeth Strout, Dodie Smith, Khaled Hosseini, Essie Fox, Edward St Aubyn, Celeste Ng among others.

Copies will be available in class. Longer extracts will be made available in advance.

Module code: O26I208SSR

Most courses fill quickly so early registration is strongly recommended. If your preferred course is fully booked, you may wish to add yourself to the waiting list and the Programme Administrator will contact you should a place become available.

Please note, the programme is only open to those over the age of 18.

Online enrolment (single person accommodation and non-residential)

Single accommodation, double room for 1 person and non-residential places should be booked online by clicking on the ‘Book now’ button on this page.

Online enrolments require payment in full at the time of registering.

Enrolment form (multi-occupancy or accessible accommodation)

Those requiring twin, double or accessible accommodation (including ground/lower floor accommodation) should complete an enrolment form as these rooms cannot be booked or requested online.

Please send the completed enrolment form to the email address below. Both the PDF and Word option of the form below are editable, so you can complete them online before saving and sending to us as an email attachment. You do not need to print and scan them. (Please use these forms only if you are making a twin or double booking for two people.)

Enrolment form:

• PDF
• Microsoft Word

Please send your completed enrolment form to oussa@conted.ox.ac.uk.

Accessibility and disability support

Disabled students who have registered for, or are planning to attend, the OUSSA summer programme should contact the Programme Administrator by email at oussa@conted.ox.ac.uk to discuss any support needs.

Students with a mobility impairment can consult the University Access Guide and should contact the Programme Administrator at oussa@conted.ox.ac.uk to request any accommodation they need in this regard.

There is a special access ramp and a self-contained bedroom suite on the ground floor at Rewley House, equipped for use by people with mobility problems, with an adjoining room for carers. Two public disabled parking bays provided by Oxford City Council are situated on Wellington Square close to the Department. If you need this accessible room, please indicate this on your enrolment form, or contact the Programme Administrator prior to your arrival. Please also let us know of any support needs you may require.

If you need a room on a ground or lower floor, please indicate this on your enrolment form or contact the Programme Administrator prior to your arrival.

If you would like more information about support available to students with disabilities, please see our support page.

Terms and conditions

View our terms and conditions

Questions?

If you have any questions, please contact us at oussa@conted.ox.ac.uk.

You may also find our frequently asked questions help page useful.

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