2-Day Creative Writing Workshop

Making the Familiar Strange: So much good writing starts at home. To be a successful writer, we need to learn to see: to lean in to the ordinary, the overlooked, the marginalised. David Almond, who wrote the children's classic, Skellig, wrote in an essay about just that, about going home: ‘… I turned and looked again, and saw that my true imaginary world, the source of my joys, fears and obsessions, was the small place in which I'd grown and which had surrounded me for most of my life …'

Pigs in blankets: We'll talk about what writing is – Margaret Atwood describes it as ‘wrestling an oiled pig in the dark'! We'll talk about what stories can be, and what they absolutely don't have to be!

A short story is a glimpse from the corner of the eye in passing: you'll be writing some short pieces in response to different prompts and text excerpts and get some constructive and positive feedback.

I remember: We'll talk about how stories can start – should start – from the particularity of your own lives (Rose Tremain), and how mashing about in our memories can be a wonderful way in to story.

There'll be a little writing exercise as homework.

Hearing voices: here we'll build on what we did the day before and take a look at character. All good stories should start with character: the function of all storytelling is to reveal character (Robert McKee). We'll look at point of view, at voice and how to write in a way that honours feeling, feels truthful and authentic to your character.

Turning the Screw: we'll talk about conflict and what's at stake for your character, at conflict as a means for characters to show themselves.

Magical thinking: you'll do some writing from a child's eye view, and look at a series of short excerpts to inspire your writing and perhaps offer a way in.

The Kiss: you'll work on a longer piece which we'll workshop in class.