Five one-day creative writing workshops for adults in Oxford on Saturdays in August

Saturday 2 August: The Art of Short Stories

Fully booked: join the waiting list

Explore strategies and techniques for creating powerful short stories of any genre.

Short stories are a fantastic play space for writers: a chance to experiment, try out new genres, test-drive a different creative process. But how do you create characters, emotional impact, and a strong plot in a few thousand words?

In this workshop, you’ll discover strategies and techniques for creating powerful short stories of any genre, the fundamentals of plotting and the experimental twists that short stories allow, and how to engage the reader immediately. You’ll explore extreme economy in storytelling – how to make every word count and every detail glow. You’ll also examine how to keep the prose sensory and rooted in real time, so the story feels fresh and happening, not a zoomed-out summary.

By the end of the workshop, you’ll have generated a range of story starting points, developed the shape of your short story, and written snippets 5+ snippets of concise, vivid storytelling.

Saturday 9 August: Planning A Novel

3 places left

Hands-on practical strategies to manage the process of planning a novel, whether you’re starting from scratch or reworking raw draft.

Planning a novel can feel like walking through fog or into a maze of brick walls – but much of that mystification or frustration can be solved with practical principles of how to approach it.

In this workshop, using your own story or story ideas I’ll give you, you’ll discover how to explore and capture your ideas so you don’t get stuck and nothing is lost. You’ll look at key aspects to consider in the planning, practical ways to approach those, and how to break the novel and process into manageable chunks. You’ll also cover what computer documents to start building early and handy tips for managing those.

By the end of the workshop, you’ll have tried out an array of novel-planning strategies, identified the organisation techniques that work for you, and created a clear pathway that leaves your mind free for the actual invention.

NOTE: This workshop doesn’t cover structuring the narrative itself: this is the practicalities of what to do before and after that.

Saturday 16 August: Unravelling Secrets

How to balance suspense, secrets, and clues in thrillers, mysteries, and crime fiction

Thrillers, mysteries, and crime fiction each have their distinct features and share a common thread: a plot structured around unravelling secrets. So how do you write a story when what’s happened is a secret?

In this workshop, we’ll explore the common requirements of all three, how they differ, and the essential ingredients for each. You’ll develop the secret at the heart of your story and flesh out the other elements it needs to make your secret and your story matter. We’ll look at practical principles for structuring your story and managing what you give away when. We’ll also explore how to bring the vast backstory into the present and weave in convincing red herrings.

By the end of the workshop, you’ll have a deeper understanding of all three genres and you’ll have created an outline for your story (a new story created in the workshop OR your own work in progress), unravelling its secrets to keep the reader eagerly guessing all the way to the final reveal.

Saturday 23 August: Living Characters

2 places left

Create characters that come to life on the page as complete people and live on in the reader’s mind.

What makes a character come alive for the reader and go beyond a cardboard plot-puppet to become someone realistic, memorable, and distinct?

In this workshop, you’ll explore how to create a fully fleshed-out character with a life beyond the page and a rich hinterland. You’ll develop your character’s internal coherence, and balance that with convincing complexity and out-of-character moments. You’ll also discover how to make them distinct, memorable, and vivid, without falling into “quirks” or wish-fulfilment.

By the end of the workshop, you’ll have created or enriched your character to someone who lives and breathes through the story, in all their complex fullness, and written 4+ excerpts bringing them to life.

Saturday 30 August: Non-human Characters

Fully booked: join the waiting list

Whether you write children’s books, literary fiction, fantasy, sci-fi, or poems, develop vivid non-human characters.

Living vegetables in children’s books, animal communication in fantasy, evolved fauna and floral in sci-fi, landscapes with opinions, The Little Red Hen and dozens more fables, robots, aliens, JM Coetzee’s dogs and the tiger in Life of Pi: non-human characters flourish across genres.

In this workshop, you’ll explore what non-human characters offer in different genres and choose a genre and character(s) to develop. You’ll examine the effect of anthropomorphising, or not, and the balance you want. You’ll develop your character(s)’ interests, absorptions, and society, in keeping with their nature. And you’ll discover ways of writing them that keeps their non-humanness vivid on the page.

By the end of the workshop, you’ll have a richly developed character / group of characters within your chosen genre, and a detailed sense of how that shows up in and shapes the story or poem. Plus 3+ excerpts of writing them through their distinct nature.