Our short fiction course is for anyone who has a story to tell but isn’t quite sure what that story might be or how to express it! Over six weeks, experienced tutor and published writer Dr Claire Griffiths will help you uncover the short story hiding inside of you and give you the tools to start transferring it from your imagination to the page. Along the way, you’ll encounter fiction by a diverse range of writers, undertake enjoyable writing challenges, engage with a supportive writing community, and learn the essentials of great story-making.
 
What makes this course unique is its inspiring bookshop setting and small group size (max. 8 people).
By the end you will have:
Produced a worked-through and redrafted 500-word short story.
Developed your knowledge of the fundamentals of good storytelling.
Built your own writer’s toolbox – essential skills to enhance your future writing.
Learned to read more attentively, to discern how writers do what they do.
Increased your observational skills, enabling you to pick up on ‘storyable moments’.
Developed the confidence and ability to turn develop these moments into stories.
 
Each week we will focus on a different element of writing fiction:
What makes a good story?
Creating memorable characters
The point of point of view
Show don’t tell?
Writing dialogue
‘Failing better’: redrafting.
 
To get inside these ideas, we'll read stories by great writers including Sally Rooney, John Steinbeck, Annie Proulx, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Ernest Hemingway, Angela Carter, James Baldwin and Jean Rhys. You will be led through a series of useful writing exercises, and have the opportunity to share your ideas with the class and receive feedback from the tutor. The course will run from 7 - 9pm on Monday evenings from October 14th to November 18th, and will culminate with a celebratory reading event held at Ink@84 on Friday 22 November at 7pm where brave volunteers will read their work aloud to family, friends and interested passers-by! Cost for 7 sessions is £200.  Maximum number of 8.