WRITING WORKSHOPS

​ Yes, I do them, yes, I love them a lot, yes, please come join me.
It's all online for now, of course. There are two ways to take part: pre-recorded, and live

Psst... if you were looking for school and festival bookings or zoom write-ins, you're in the wrong place.

Pre-recorded workshops

I am in the process of uploading pre-recorded versions of my workshops to Skillshare, under the umbrella 'Practical Fiction Writing'. These are free for members to watch. If you don't have membership, you can get your first two weeks free (with no obligation to continue) and watch them all that way - please do sign up via one of my links as this is extra-bonus-snazzy-good for me!

• Characterisation
• Descriptive writing - coming soon!
  
• Humour for fiction writers - coming soon!
• Plot development - coming soon!
• Developing your children's book idea - coming soon!
  
• Settings in children's fiction - coming soon!​

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 Live workshops

​I currently offer three live, two-hour online workshops:

• Bringing characters to life
  We will look at using the concept of 'behaviour rules' to write vivid, memorable characters. Perfect for writers who find their characters are flat or 'sound the same'.
  
  
• Writing humour: the power of playing games
  Learn how the concept of game, developed in improv and sketch comedy, can help you write humorous fiction - without 'trying' to be funny.
  
  
• Junior fiction: settings that stick
  Why do some settings transport us so powerfully in middle childhood? How do children see the world? In this class you will remember how to see, and dream, like your childhood self. 

Tickets are £10. I will run an event as soon as I have enough people interested, so please do send me a message and I can put your name on the waiting list!

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​About my workshops

I run workshops on a range of topics, but always with three key principles in mind:

We're supposed to be having fun
I believe that for any goal in writing, there's a fun-and-playful way to get there, and a try-hard-and-headachey way to get there. I'm always on the look out for fun processes that achieve good results. Because look, this is your one-and-only astonishing life, and if you're going to spend it writing (hurray!) then I want you to keep the joy of it alive, even as you are working hard at it.

Your reader should be having fun too. I'm less interested in teaching you to write competently, and more interested in helping you to write zizzlingly, if you know what I mean. And I think you do.

Writers can benefit from all kinds of knowledge, not just literary theory
When preparing my workshops, I aim to pull things in from a range of fields. A lot of what I do is influenced by theory from comedy and improvisation; but I also bring in psychology, linguistics, geography... and whatever else I find. Like a magpie with a powerpoint presentation. Anyway, the point is, I don't teach the stuff in writing books (although you should absolutely read those too); I try to offer something different, to keep things fresh.

It's my job to give you clear tools
You should always leave a workshop with concrete things you can do next time you sit down to write. Spanners of the Mind, if you will. (And why wouldn't you?)

Past participants said...

​It was an excellent workshop... It had great pace, explained complicated concepts in simple ways, and was dotted with lots of activities where we could put the ideas ideas into practice in a fun and safe way. Thanks so much!

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​I really enjoyed it. Very professionally done without losing out on humour and playfulness. Really appreciated how much of relevant and useful content was packed in the short time frame.

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Loads of ideas and really packed a lot in. I was amazed at how much creativity could come out of looking at game 

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Sylvia is brilliant - the session was so helpful & clear

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Jam packed and immediately useful. Excellently taught.