FOR WRITERS

Learn about the various elements of story craft in a small, trusting, well faciltated group.

Plotting narrative, creating characters, making scenes. If you don't see a course that will help craft your story, why not suggest a topic?

Lost the plot? Never had one? Fear not!

These two plotting workshops will sort your narrative in no time …

Plotting Backwards - Introduction

What's the best narrative arc?

To discover the best narrative arc for your story, I use the technique of starting with the end. It means the steps along the way make sense, according to the story you’re telling.

This full-day (and we mean full!) session covers the basics that ensure writers’ choices about structure are consistent with the story ideas. This saves time! Topics include:

• Choosing a story question
• Using the protagonist’s journey to devise the best climax
• Plotting backwards from the climax
• Checking in with the plot, according to the protagonist’s misbelief.

You will finish the day understanding the most credible driver of your story and use this to establish the spine.

Plotting Backwards – Introduction is good for writers with an undeveloped or not-at-all-developed idea and those who are stuck in their story so need to reimagine the best way to go.

*For early or emerging writers, or experienced writers starting a new project.

Plotting Backwards - Intensive

A foolproof way to write a pacey story

If you know the climax of your novel, short story or creative non-fiction project, by the end of this workshop you’ll have structured the rest of your story. Really!

In this big two-day session, we interrogate the stuffing out of your climax to come up with ideas to take the story there. Big, small, likely, unlikely, logical, lateral or outta the box, we explore all ideas and choose the best.

Using brainstorming and collaboration plus prompts and responsive activities, we build a narrative arc that fits the aims, themes and characters of your fiction or non-fiction work. If you’re writing great scenes, but can’t seem to piece them together, Plotting Backwards helps invent the best way to link them.

Please let me know if you’re interested and I’ll tell you when I plan the next one. (If you have a group of four already, I might arrange to come to you.)

*Plotting Backwards – Intensive is for emerging and experienced writers. For best results, places are limited to four participants.

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Making A Scene - Learn how to write a scene from scratch

Evoke emotion. Bring in the senses. Show, don’t tell.

All good writing advice. But if you’ve got thousands of words of summary and no scenes, most readers are going to turn away to watch the tellie (which is choc-a-block full of scenes).

In Making A Scene, I build your understanding of what a scene is and what a scene does. I explore examples, practice writing scenes and share our developing understanding in a safe, small group of writers at a similar stage to you. You'll leave the workshop with more scenes to play with.

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