Is 2021 the year you’re finally going to write your novel?
Or perhaps the demands of everyday life have scaled your resolutions down from 80,000+ words to something more like 4,000 and you just want to write, polish and submit a short story (or maybe two…)
If so, and you live in the Canberra region, AND you’re looking for some creative, writing craft-focused courses to help boot you along… look no further.
My writing buddy and I have four creative writing courses running in the first half of 2021 through CIT Recreational Short Courses. You could do a course on Amigurumi crochet or pizza and bread making*, but mmmm, why not also come to one of our delicious writing courses, which are chock-full of good advice, tips and tricks, and exercises to get your words flowing while you learn about vital aspects of storytelling and writing craft.
What aspects? Writing believable relationships and compelling characters, crafting scenes, and developing plots. The blurbs for each are in italics below:
Romance writing: love, lust and longing is on Saturday the 27th of February – 10am to 3:30pm:
Are you ready for romance? This one-day, writing intensive boot camp puts the best-selling genre under the spotlight. You’ll learn about the four pillars of romance, how to create tension (even when the reader is confident of a Happy Ever After) and how to write convincing relationships and compelling intimacy.
Creating convincing characters will be covered over three Tuesday nights in March – the 16th to the 30th – from 6pm to 8pm.
Are your characters working as hard as they can? Learn what readers connect with and why, and give your characters unique hooks, history and a heart. Workshop dialogue, strengths, flaws, backstory, relationships, goals and more, to make your characters unforgettable.
Scene snapshots: writing effective scenes is also on three Tuesday nights – the 4th to the 18th of May – from 6pm to 8pm:
Develop your writing skills using setting, set-up and action. Break down the nuts and bolts of what makes an effective scene so you can build any sort of story – short or novel length. Learn how to work your scenes to move the story forward, taking your readers with you.
Writing stories: plot, plan, and pillage is on Saturday the 5th of June, from 10am to 3:30pm:
One size does not fit all – this is as true for story structure as it is for clothes. This one-day course deconstructs successful stories to learn their patterns, discusses plotting for character, narrative and genre, and reveals how best to plan your writing.
We’ve run the first two courses before at CIT Bruce, and we got a lot of great feedback and requests for more. What people asked for was a way to take their fully realised characters, in all their emotional variety, and put them into a compelling narrative. So, we’re going to cover scenes, which are the building blocks of fiction, and plots, which provide the structure.
If you want to make the analogy that writing a story is like building a house, we’re covering vital aspects like the frame, bricks, furniture and decor. Or maybe your writing process is more of an extended Frankenstein moment – “Give my creation life!” – and we’re the Igors bringing you bones, muscles, flesh and heart.
In any case, why not come up to the lab and see what’s on the slab?
You know you want to. **
*As always, the range of courses is fabulous and inspiring and just perfect for discovering your new favourite thing.
**Just follow the links and sign up on the CIT Solutions website.
(Banner image cropped from a great photo by Allinoch on Pixabay.)
Still wondering what to give your writer friend or loved one for Christmas? Perhaps you’re planning to get serious about your own writing in 2019?