Imaginary Worlds course

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February – March 2028

A live 8-week evening course to develop your fantasy world, future world, or imaginary spin on our world.

This course will next run in Spring 2028. Email me if you'd like a reminder closer to the time and join the newsletter to find out what else is happening.

If you want to connect with your creative side and get writing, in a friendly supportive environment, the Imaginary Worlds course will open up heaps of ideas and excitement. After all, these are the genres where anything’s possible!

In a fantasy world, a future world, or our world with an imaginary twist, you'll set your inventiveness free, make your wildest and most original ideas convincing, and create a rich unique world your readers can live inside.

Who is it for? You can be a dyed-in-the-wool fantasy and sci-fi fan, have a more literary bent towards real-world speculative fiction, or be a complete beginner to all of it. The main thing is that you want to imagine new possibilities and to write.

“Whether you're just starting out on your writing journey or you're more established, everyone will be able to take something useful away from the sessions.” – Robin

“I’m an avid reader of fantasy and science fiction, and had already completed writing a fantasy novel, so I was both surprised and delighted at how much it was able to expand on my existing knowledge.” – Hannah

“Megan got me writing ... stuff that I'd never imagined I could do ... in a way that I've never written before. As a beginner writer, it was great.” – Judy

Practical Details

Eight-week course for adults, one evening a week, 7pm–9:30pm.
In-person or online, on separate course evenings
Includes two rounds of individual written feedback on your writing, which can be work you create on the course or your own project.
All levels welcome: all my courses and workshops cater for a range of experience, from beginners to published writers.
Next running in Spring 2028

“The pricing is extremely reasonable – but personally, I feel like I have been thrown a creative lifeline that goes so far beyond ‘value for money’.” – Anja

What kind of stories will we create?

The Imaginary Worlds course covers all kinds of speculative fiction. Things you’d find shelved in General Fiction, like The Handmaid’s Tale and The Time-Traveller’s Wife. Things you’d find on the Fantasy & Science Fiction shelves, like Game of Thrones, Rivers of London, and Peter F Hamilton’s spaceship tomes.

They can be set in wholly imaginary worlds or in our world with a twist. They can use real-world logic of what could happen in society or with science; they can use magic or pure invention. You get to choose what kind of story you want to create. (You can see the full list of novels we’ll dip into here.)

What the course covers

Week 1: Genres and magic

Explore the range of genres and brainstorm heaps of story ideas in multiple genres, then create or develop an idea that uses magic, so it shapes your story and is easier to write.

Week 2: Unlikely stuff

A wildly imaginative world can keep your "silly" ideas and make them convincing. Create or develop an idea that uses real-world logic and turn the unfeasible into the stuff of story.

Over the next five weeks, you'll continue to build on either or both of these two story ideas.

Week 3: Your physical world

Flesh out your story's landscape, flora, and fauna, to create an immersive world you readers can live in.

Week 4: Why your world matters

Theme is the heart of imaginary worlds: when you invent a world, it works how you believe it would – or could – or should.

Week 5: Ripple-through effects

Small changes to a world have long shadows. Explore how moving away from obvious choices create somethings more unique and truer to your vision.

Week 6: Living in your world

The realities of money and power in your world shape your characters' daily lives and give you a rich story seam to tap.

Week 7: Playing with language

Explore ways to name characters and places, get linguistic insight into making up snatches of a language, and start inventing your world's idiom: the sayings, proverbs, and metaphors its inhabitants use.

Week 8: Writing in your world

Writing in a world your reader's never visited takes deft exposition. Learn how to orientate your reader in this wonderful new world while telling a story. Part Dark Art, part bagful of techniques!

“When I started Megan Kerr's wonderful Imaginary Worlds course my fantasy novel was little more than a seedling. Thanks in great part to Megan's inspiring and creative teaching, I finished the book and I am now writing a trilogy for a major publishing house.” – Anna Kemp, author of The Goblyn Wood Adventures trilogy

“The Imaginary Worlds course was a whirlwind in world creation, language exploration and skill development. It's a genre I had no prior experience in, and yet I've left feeling proficient enough to start world building two brand new novel ideas (and met some wonderful writers to boot).” – Rosie

Will the course work for me?

I’m already writing / publishing in these genres: will it still be useful? Absolutely: a number of past students have already published speculative fiction and have found the course invaluable.
I know nothing about these genres / I’m a total beginner: can I do the course? Yes! Complete beginners who haven’t written more than emails since school have left the course with burgeoning novels.
I’m not in the UK: can I join? Yes: the online course is open to bookings from anywhere in the world.
What if I miss a class? I send you DIY instructions so you can do the activities in your own time if you want to. You'll also get your weekly booklet summarising everything we've covered, so you don't miss out on the info.
How much homework do I need to do? As much or as little as you want. Each week, your booklet gives you ideas to play with it more and for writing. If you can use those during the course, great! If you can’t, they’ll still be there afterwards.
I’m dyslexic: can I do the course? Yes, and lots of writers are. The handouts are dyslexia-friendly and I can send you each week’s reading in advance.