Workshops
Every month we have a Zoom workshop focused on different aspects of writing short fiction. All of the workshops are taught by WestWord founder and publisher, Amanda Saint.
About Amanda: She’s the author of two novels, As If I Were A River (2016) and Remember Tomorrow (2019), and a novella-in-flash, Pressure Drop (2024). Her short fictions have been widely published, placed and listed in lots of international prizes, including the Mslexia Flash Fiction Prize and Fish Flash Fiction Prize, and nominated for Best Small Fictions 2023. She’s been working with writers to help them develop their craft for many years. In 2012, Amanda founded Retreat West (Winner Most Innovative Publisher 2020 Saboteur Awards), where she provides an online writing community, competitions, workshops and courses, and published 23 books between 2018 and 2023. In 2022, Amanda started the WestWord literary journal. She also writes The Mindful Writer newsletter here on Substack and in 2024, launched a new creative venture inspired by it. Find out more here.
These workshops are included with paid subscriptions to WestWord or you can pay as you go and book on whatever ones take your fancy. Replay links are sent afterwards too.
2024 Workshops
We have workshops scheduled up until the end of the year. More for 2025 will be added soon.
Experiments in Story Structure
26th October - 10.30-12.30 BST
The story arc we’ve all been reading and writing has been in place for a very long time, but what if we were to break out of that mould? What could our stories look like if they didn’t have the rising tension, mid-point, falling tension and resolution? How could our characters learn, change and grow, and how would we give our readers a feeling of satisfaction, if we don’t use that structure?
We’ll look at possible shapes our stories can take and how and why we would think of using them. Come have fun and experiment with me!
Creating Complex Characters in Short Stories
30th November - 11.00-13.00 GMT
Characters are who we connect to our stories through in order to write them, and they’re the element our readers remember if we create ones that crackle with life and make them feel something. Even if the narrator is unlikable, and/or unreliable, if we write them with nuance, understanding and compassion then the reader will have an emotional response.
For us to engender an emotional response in our readers, we have to feel those emotions too when we write our stories. So how do we get close enough to these characters that appear in our heads to really feel for them? We get to know them properly.
Bring a character in a story you are already working on to dive deep into who they are, what they desire, what they fear, and why they have come to you to tell their story for them.
Weaving Sensuous Spells
07th December - 11.00 - 12.00
Humans are sensory creatures. Everything we experience comes through our sight, touch, sound, taste and smell, yet often these elements are largely missing in short fiction, with sight and interiority leading the way. While both of these are important elements, this workshop will look at the ways we can weave the senses into our stories to make them fully immersive and reconnect our characters to the world they live in.
We’ll look at how you can bring fresh takes to writing the senses with lots of examples from writers who are weaving great sensuous spells.