THE CRAFT OF STORYTELLING

17 August - 20 September, 2022

 

This 5 week workshop introduces the building blocks of storytelling. Suitable for both beginning as well as intermediate fiction and non-fiction writers, each week takes you through instructional videos, readings, writing exercises, and live Zoom calls.

 

COURSE OUTLINE

Over 5 weeks, this course will through the basic building blocks of good storytelling, almost all of which belong equally in fiction and non fiction-- as long as you're interested in narrative, these will see you through. You can use these elements to start new stories based on the prompts at the end of each video, or you can use them as revision tools for existing stories. You will also have the opportunity to receive in-depth peer and instructor feedback on one of your stories over the course of the workshop, along with having access to discussion boards and other spaces to share ongoing work.

The course material is organised as below:

Week 1: Conflict: The Heart of Your Story

Week 2: Story People: Writing Memorable characters

Week 3: Scenes and Summaries

Week 4: Writing Dialogue

Week 5: Tying it together with a story arc

By the end of the workshop, you will have a firm grasp of the basics of storytelling, the beginnings of at least a few new stories, and a writing community along which you can continue to grow beyond the workshop!

 

This Course is now full, and registrations are closed.
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COURSE FEATURES

Every Wednesday for the duration of the course, you get access to one new recorded video lesson and revision exercise. You work with these through the week and post to the closed discussion forums, where your classmates can read and offer feedback through the week. The course platform also allows you to questions and reflections in an easily accessible format, and otherwise stay engaged throughout the week with one another

Every Tuesday, from 6:30 - 8:00 PM IST, we meet for a video call, during which we unpack the week's lesson, clarify doubts and offer in-depth feedback on the work of two participants every week.
Additionally, all course participants also receive free access to optional “Create Together” coworking sessions held on the Committing to Your Writing Practice channel every Wednesday and Sunday.

The live version of this course is restricted to twelve participants so that there are plenty of opportunities for you to create a tight knit writing community. This also ensures that everyone's writing can get individual attention and feedback. The course platform has also specifically been chosen to make it easy for you to message with your classmates and get to know one another beyond the course material.

 
 

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

  • Absolutely! All the workshop exercises are designed to cut across a wide variety of skill levels, and you’re welcome to join even if you have never written before.

  • One video lesson, along with accompanying material will be released each week, and you will have access to all of them for an additional month after the course ends.

  • While I highly advise everyone to make it for all the Zoom calls, I understand that life sometimes gets in the way. Recordings of all our calls are uploaded weekly to the course page. All the other materials are online and available to you through the week anyway.

  • This course will help you become a better writer and editor of your work, which is, of course, a big part of getting published. I am also happy to point you to publishing opportunities that I know of, or to connect you with people I know. I do not, however, have contacts within the publishing industry, nor will we specifically edit manuscripts for publication.

  • Send me an email (through the "Contact" link above), telling me a little more about yourself, why you want to do this course, and your current circumstances. I offer up to 20% of my seats at a subsidised rate, based on financial need, and I will do my best to accommodate you.

  • Unfortunately, no. I have a limited number of seats for every workshop I teach, and I almost always turn away several people on the waiting list each time. I am therefore unable to offer refunds once a payment has been made and a seat confirmed. In case you have a major health or family emergency preventing you from completing the course, let me know, and I will do my best to accommodate you in a future group of the same workshop.

 

ABOUT THE FACILITATOR

As a writer, I’ve published two books and signed an agent for my first non-fiction book. I’ve published in many journals nationally and internationally, and I’ve won several awards, fellowships, and residencies in India and around the world, including the TFA Creative Writing award, the Srinivas Rayaprol Prize, the Muse India Young Writer Award, the Hedgebrook Residency, the Akademie Solitude Residency, and others. You can see a fuller list here.

As a workshop instructor for more than a decade, I’ve helped hundreds of people tell their stories, find their voices, and create meaningful writing communities at all stages in their writing journeys. They all came in for different reasons, and all those reasons are equally important to me. I am of course proud of the young woman in my workshop who went to publish a book and win a major poetry prize, and of the man whose novel that began in my workshop was turned into a feature film, and the woman who transitioned from an economist to a wonderful poet and went on to do a second masters degree, this time in creative writing. And I’m equally proud of the woman who wrote the story of a bad relationship over and over until she was able to break out of that story and become a prolific Marathi poet, and of the boy who had dropped out of college because of severe anxiety and wrote his way back to something like confidence and going back to college, and the lawyer in her sixties who came to workshop after workshop just to gather the courage to share her stories with her family.

I’m proud of the friendships I have seen grow out of this space, lasting for years beyond the workshop, and I’m proud of the ways in which participants have become better readers and more skilled writers. I can’t wait to welcome more of you into that fold!