Turning Research into Storytelling

Whether you’re writing memoir and creative non-fiction, or a novel, you’ll almost certainly have to research out new things: facts, ideas, details and real people. All of these are important in bringing authenticity and vividness to your story. But their very real-ness can also cause the writer huge problems in anything from the dreaded info-dump and wooden dialogue, to complete creative paralysis.

In this two-hour tutorial, we will start by thinking about the relationship between imagination and research, and then dig into ways to make sure you root your story in real material without getting stuck in the mud. We will explore the research process, planning, writing process and writing techniques that will help your story come alive.

There will be time for questions, and by the end you should have much more confidence in working with real-world materials and bringing them to life in your fiction and creative non-fiction

November 28th – Revising and Editing.

All writers know that the most important stage of writing is actually the re-write. Most know that it’s about a whole lot more than tidying up the sentences – but what does that actually mean? What should you be looking for and what do you do about it?

In this two hour tutorial Emma will start with ways to think about your plot and structure, and then drill in to explore how to bring your characters to more vivid, story-driving life. The crucial issue of your narrative’s voices and dialogue comes next, then we’ll explore the power of psychic distance, before finishing with a close-up to look at how all this plays out at the sentence level.

There will be an opportunity to ask questions through the chat box and you should go away with plenty of tips for diagnosing problems, lots of tools for solving them, and a clear plan for how to set about the revising process. There will also be a handout available so that you can focus on the tutorial and not worry about having to make extensive notes.