Saturday 13 October 10am-4pm.

We wanted to have a day of workshops from which you could leave with a blueprint for your own story. This could be one you’ve been working on for some time and need to kick start, or one where you have just the seed of an idea and need to nurture it. Either way, these workshops covering Concept, Character and Conflict will help you thrash out the story you need to tell.

Tickets are £8 for one workshop or a pass to all three for £20. If you have bought an All Day Panel Pass, you get a 25% discount on the workshops. Click here to get your tickets.

Workshop 1: 10am-11.45am Concept – What’s the big idea? Blank Page Storytelling

This workshop covers the beginning of writing a successful story whether you already have a story to tell or are literally starting out with nothing at all.

It will cover:

What makes a story?

How are they structured?

Finding the hero.

Finding the genre.

Establishing the setting.

Setting the tone.

Short examples and descriptions are interspersed with exercises to get the story on track from the start. The exercises are designed to challenge assumptions and explore the core elements of the story so what emerges is a solid basis for writing the narrative and developing the characters.

If you have an idea and want to know what to do with it, or want to write a story but can’t settle on the right one to tell, this workshop will lead you to think about the story as a flexible, compelling narrative and make a world in which your characters can emerge and grow.

There are no ‘right answers’ in writing, but there are a fair few wrong ones and if you make sure you have a strong concept to start with then it makes it much easier to avoid the pitfalls and dead-ends that can make it hard to finish a project or make the final draft feel erratic or confusing.

The workshop will help make sure the foundations are solid so the story can flow and satisfy. The approach is friendly, informal and filled with real-world examples to connect the theory with the practice.

With Ben Slythe and Graham Guy.

Workshop 2: 12noon-1.45pm Compelling Characters – Creating flawed heroes and charismatic villains

Humans are full of inconsistencies. Characters can be contradictory. They can be selfish and generous, lustful and prudish.

Using prompts and a variety of writing exercises in the supportive environment of the workshop, you will create flawed heroes and antagonists with redeeming qualities, and generate new writing that centres on these newly formed authentic characters.

Your tutor: Dorothy Lehane is a lecturer in Creative Writing (School of English) at the University of Kent. She is the author of three poetry publications: Umwelt (Leafe Press, 2016), Ephemeris (Nine Arches Press, 2014) and Places of Articulation (dancing girl press, 2014) and the founding editor of Litmus Publishing. Recent work has appeared in Blackbox Manifold, The Cordite Review, Tears in the Fence, and Journal of Poetics
Research to name a few.

Twitter: @DorothyLehane
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/dorothy.lehane

Workshop 3: 2pm-3.45pm Conflict – Interrogate your narrative and drive your plot

In our lives, we face daily conflicts; conflicts with ourselves and conflicts with each other. Such tensions build the rich drama and chaos of human existence and are necessary components of our fictionalised character’s lives also.  Interrogating these conflicts through a series of writing exercises, you will enhance your understanding of the various ways conflict can be used to intensify your writing and drive plot development.

Your tutor: Annwen Adams is an emerging artist who has published her debut art and poetry collection in her publication, How Human? (Burb, 2018) as part of her Bachelor’s Degree in English Literature and Creative Writing. Her work has also featured extensively in the University of Kent’s campus publications such as writing articles for the university newspaper, Inquire, and the Publishing Society’s prose and poetry publication, Figment. Passionate about creative writing in the community, she has worked with Canterbury’s Pilgrims Hospice as part of a student lead, memory writing class aimed at writing for wellbeing. Annwen has also worked alongside Leicester’s homeless charity Helping Hands, running poetry writing exercises as part of a fund-raising event. Passionate about social reform, her work deals with issues of environmental degradation and interactions between human and non-human actors
on the global stage.

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/annwenmagic/
Website: http://www.annwenadams.com