Character & Ideas
Thursday January 28, 2021
Tutorial 1 from Craft Tutorials for Fiction Writers
Novelist David Mitchell likens a novel to an end-of-the-pier horse-race game. The rickety horses are Character, Structure, Plot, Language and Ideas: as you write they move forward but sometimes one stalls, and sometimes another surges ahead. In this series of craft workshops, we will work with individual horses in ways which should help you to bring them all over the finishing line together. While you will get the most out of this series if you join all four, each workshop will offer a great deal as a one-off. Each workshop runs for two hours, with a break and plenty of time for questions at the end.
Tutorial 1 Character & Ideas
Everyone tells you that character is the foundation of storytelling, but what does that mean for how you build your characters? What do you do if it’s not people that excite your creativity but ideas? What if you’ve no idea what your idea might be?
In this practical workshop we’ll think about how characters can show you what your ideas and themes are, and conversely how you might create characters who embody those ideas. We’ll explore what that means for characterisation from the page-by-page scale to the arc of your novel, and try our hands with some short exercises; you should leave with a new understanding of what makes storytelling tick.
Assistance to writers on low incomes and/or from communities under represented in publishing
We are offering a free place on each of our online tutorials and Q & A sessions for UK based writers on low incomes and/or from under represented communities in publishing.
Writers may apply for a free place on one of the sessions by contacting BPA with a short bio and a summary of their writing career to date.
Please click here to Contact BPA with your application and in the case of writers on low incomes, proof of financial eligibility such as: Jobseeker’s Allowance; Disability Benefit; Income Support; Working Tax Credit; Child Tax Credit; Proof of being a full-time student; Housing benefit; Proof of being a full-time carer.
All details will be kept confidential. Decisions on who receives the free places rest with the BPA team not the tutors.
Voice & Prose – March 25
Voice & ProseThursday March 25, 2021 Tutorial 3 from Craft Tutorials for Fiction Writers Novelist David Mitchell likens a novel to an end-of-the-pier horse-race game. The rickety horses are Character, Structure, Plot, Language and Ideas: as you write they move forward but sometimes one stalls, and sometimes another surges ahead. In this series of craft…
First Line, Page, Chapter – February 16
First Line, first page, first chapter It’s not only agents and editors who judge a book by the first page: in an industry driven by ‘Look Inside the Book’, the opening of a novel or memoir is one of the keys which draws a reader in irresistibly – or lets them wander off. But none…
Plot & Structure – February 25
Plot & StructureThursday February 25, 2021 Tutorial 2 from Craft Tutorials for Fiction Writers Novelist David Mitchell likens a novel to an end-of-the-pier horse-race game. The rickety horses are Character, Structure, Plot, Language and Ideas: as you write they move forward but sometimes one stalls, and sometimes another surges ahead. In this series of craft…
