Unleash your potential! The diploma will consolidate your understanding of genres and guide you to write for different audiences as you work on novels, scripts, collections, or non-fiction texts. You will also learn about writing for online outlets, how to hone your editing skills and how to self-publish.

NorthTec offers qualifications up to level 7 in applied writing:

• New Zealand Diploma in Writing for Creative Industries (Level 5)
• New Zealand Diploma in Creative Writing (Level 6)
• Diploma in Advanced Applied Writing (Level 7)

This diploma has a team of specialist tutors who cover a range of genres. The team includes: children’s writer Justine Baddeley; poet Dr Briar Wood (whose collection Rāwāhi was shortlisted for the 2018 Ockham NZ Book Awards); award-winning scriptwriter Lisette de Jong; IML graduate and short story writer Gerard O’Brien; prose writer, artist and poet Ruby Porter (2017 winner of the Wallace Foundation Short Fiction Award, and inaugural winner of the 2018 Michael Gifkins Prize); and leading freelance editor Lesley Marshall.

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What you will learn

Through studying this programme, you will learn a range of specialist writing skills and strategies that will enable you to apply professional principles and practices to produce original writing outputs that meet the specific requirements of creative industries. 

In this programme you will learn to:

• Apply theoretical and specialist knowledge of creative writing skills, strategies, and processes to develop and produce original outputs for a selected audience, platform or purpose.
• Analyse problems and generate solutions, as applicable to the creation of targeted outputs for the creative industries.
• Work independently or as part of a team to critically evaluate their own work and that of others.
• Leadership and professional business practice to manage projects/briefs and maintain currency of industry knowledge in order to work within the creative writing industry.

Courses in this programme

Compulsory courses

• 6001 Long Texts – looking at the elements of long fiction and non-fiction, and producing then recrafting a long-form manuscript of your own.
• 6002 Short Fiction – examining the techniques used in producing short stories, and practising writing and recrafting these during the semester.
• 6003 Short Nonfiction – analysing different forms of nonfiction writing, and practising writing nonfiction manuscripts for a target audience, then editing and recrafting them.
• 6005 Online Writing – this second-semester class builds on all the skills learned in the previous four papers, to culminate in the recrafting of one of or more manuscripts (with the help of the editing students), and then preparing them for publication as an ebook.  Students learn about good design, covers, ISBN numbers, editing and proofreading processes and more.
• 6006 Publishing – building professional skills, including looking at taxes, ethics, publishing methods, time-keeping, record-keeping, mentorships, competitions, agents, vanity publishers, and funding options.
• 6007 Editing – practising editing and critiquing manuscripts for the online writing students and other writers.  Students develop their editing skills as well as learning to give supportive, helpful feedback to other writers.
• 6008 Becoming Professional – students choose their own writing project, research study or presentation and work with it over the whole semester, from initial plans to the final first draft.  Projects often include interviews and in-depth research.

Electives- Choose ONE

• 6009 Poetry – an in-depth look at different poetry forms, and practising writing and recrafting your own poems.
• 6010 Short Scripts for the Screen – learn film structure and screenplay format, visual storytelling, arcs, characters, subtext, theme, dialogue, critique, and produce a 10-minute film script.