Warm up your winter with a live online weekend workshop. | Join from anywhere in the world. | Saturday & Sunday 13–14 December 2025.

Live online workshop across two half-days to explore everything from creating distinctive lively dialogue to layout and seamless attribution.

Dialogue plays a central role in making a story come alive: it creates immediacy and intimacy, roots the story in real time, and builds strong characterisation, as well as carrying the story forward.

In this workshop, you'll explore how to make your characters' voices distinctive, give their conversations purpose on the page and in the plot, and include memorable lines. You'll also refine the nuts 'n bolts of layout, attributing speech, and keeping it natural.

You'll leave with several pieces of writing exploring three characters' voices (using new characters or ones from your work in progress), new dialogue, useful strategies for the writing process, and a clear grasp of the practicalities.

When, where, and what

• Live workshop, with discussion, group work, and individual writing
• 13–14 Dec 2025 10am–12:30pm UK time. (Jump to What time is that for me?)
• Online, open to bookings from anywhere in the world
• £100 total total for the weekend (Currency converter).
• Maximum 16 students
• All levels welcome: all my courses and workshops cater for a range of experience, from beginners to published writers
• Booking deadline: End of Thursday 11 December 2025.

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 or existing characters? No, but if you do have existing characters, you can develop their dialogue.

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 there be a replay? No: this is a live workshop only.

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.

What time does the workshop start for me?

Each half of the workshop is 2.5 hours long, with a break in the middle. Check for your time zone in the table below, for the start time.