Warm up your autumn with an online weekend workshop. | Join from anywhere in the world.

Create convincing romantic relationships that matter to the plot and to the reader, in fiction of any genre.

Whether romance is your driving plot-line or a thread in your story, your characters’ love lives are a powerful source of emotional resonance, narrative conflict, and characterisation.

• Online, open to bookings from anywhere in the world
• Maximum 16 students
• All levels welcome: all my courses and workshops cater for a range of experience, from beginners to published writers
• Live workshop, with discussion, group work, and individual writing

Workshop overview

In this workshop, we’ll explore how to write genuine love rather than a “love interest”, how to integrate it in the plot, and which patterns you love or hate. We’ll also look at writing romantic scenes, and the different strategies for new / developing love versus established relationships.

By the end of the workshop, using new or existing characters, you’ll have drafted an outline of their love story’s pivotal moments, unique features, and pertinence to the plot. You’ll also have drafted 3+ pieces of new writing, deepening both a sense of their unique dynamic and the reader’s connection to them.

Practical questions

What's an online workshop like?

Very lively! It's held on Zoom, and packed with activities, games, discussion, and snippets of writing. For games and discussions, you're in small groups of 2–4. In the breaks and between the two days, I switch the groups around so you get a chance to work with and meet everyone.

Do I need to have a work in progress?

Not at all: I'll supply you with lovely story starters to develop. If you do have a work in progress, you can use the relationships and characters in that.

Do I need to be writing romance?

Nope: fiction of all genres can include romantic relationships. Romance centers that in the plot and tends towards happy endings; other genres might have them alongside another plot focus, with a variety of endings.

Do I have to share my writing?

Absolutely not. In the round-off discussions, you have the chance to say how you found a particular exercise or to share what you wrote, and you can choose whichever option you're comfortable with.

Will the workshop be recorded?

No. The online workshops are very interactive and hands-on, with live discussion, group work in breakout rooms, etc, rather than me filling the screen telling you stuff. So a recording a) wouldn't be very cohesive, especially when I'm jumping between breakout rooms to monitor discussions, and b) would also interfere with the students' privacy.

Will we get notes?

Yes: you'll get a booklet in the post, with everything we've covered in the workshop, and you'll also get a PDF copy of that by email immediately after the workshop.