What is literary fiction?
Have you been told your fiction is “literary” or “literary-commercial crossover”?
Have you been told literary fiction doesn’t sell – or do you long to write the way the prize-winning fiction you most love is written?
In this tutorial we’ll look first at the different ways that literary fiction is defined, sold, read and rewarded. Then we’ll start to unpack some of the many different elements which make literary writing both exciting and challenging – from word and image to rhythm, story, structure and plot – and try our hands at a few of them.
You should take away a stronger sense of why literary fiction works when it does, and what goes wrong when it doesn’t, and a clearer idea of where your writing might ultimately sit on the literary-commercial spectrum.
Guest tutor:
Date:
Time:
Location:
Cost:
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…
Character & Ideas – January 28
Character & IdeasThursday 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…
