This highly practical one-day course will teach you how to weave elements of real life into a work of fiction. Led by author Steve Attridge, it is designed to help writers of any level access and utilise elements of their own experience to create dynamic prose.
You’ll learn how to use decision-making and transposing techniques, as well as how to question and organise your life experiences. You’ll also learn how to use prompts – such as photographs, letters and objects – to build plots and characters. Whether you want to write a novel or a short story, the course will help you to uncover rich seams of emotional and experiential detail to create truly imaginative stories.
This course is for you if...
- You’re a new writer planning to draw on your own experiences as material from which to create interesting fiction
- You’re a more experienced fiction writer keen to explore new territories of inspiration and realism
- You have experience writing in another field or genre and want to move into autobiographical fiction
Course description
This is an interactive course designed to help writers of any level of experience to utilise elements of their own lives within their fiction writing. Topics covered on the day include:
- How to create unusual maps of periods of our lives to help explore experiences and transpose them into fiction
- Using prompts: how photographs, letters, significant objects and newspapers can create context and trigger memories and story events
- Selecting the right material: basic storytelling and editing decisions, including how to join the dots between disparate events to create lively plots
- Practical exercises on how to make fictional sense of factual reality
- Q&A and discussion with Steve Attridge
Tutor profile
Steve Attridge’s work includes 17 books, a dozen TV series and seven feature films, as well as documentary dramas, TV films, stage plays and poetry. He also acts and directs – last year he performed his own show at the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust. Awards include an RTS for Best TV Drama Series, two BAFTA nominations, an Eric Gregory Award and two Writers Guild Awards. His latest novel, The Natural Law, came straight in at number one in the Kindle Singles Bestsellers. He has also written a recently published history of the Boer War. Steve writes for both adults and children. In another life he worked as a performance poet. Find out more about Steve on his website.
Details
Date: Tuesday 21 April 2015
Times: 10am-4pm
Location: The Guardian, Kings Place, 90 York Way, London N1 9GU
Price: £249 (includes VAT, booking fee, lunch and refreshments)
Event capacity: 18
To contact us, click here. Terms and conditions can be found here.
Returns policy
Tickets may be refunded if you contact us at least 14 days before the course start date. Please see our terms and conditions for more information on our refund policy.
