Writing What We Don’t Know
Zoom workshop this weekend
Hi, this weekend I am running a workshop that goes against that mantra fiction writers get taught: Write what you know. But putting ourselves in the lives, minds and worlds of other people is what we do. I’ll be looking at the ways we can do that by trusting ourselves and our characters.
This workshop is included with a membership to WestWord, which starts at just £6 a month, or you can buy a ticket and come along.
Hope to see you there!
Writing What We Don't Know
Saturday 31 Aug 2024 / 11:00 AM - 12:30 PM BST
Wherever we are in the world, whatever ethnicity, gender, age we are, whatever era we live in, we are all going through the same things as humans. Trying to find our truth, love, happiness and peace of mind. And this is at the heart of all stories we tell. Our characters are doing those exact things too. And what I have come to believe in my 51 years of being a human, and 15 of being a fiction writer, is that how they, and we, achieve these things is all related to trust.
The journey our characters go on throughout our stories, whether they are novels or micro fictions and everything in-between, is driven by trust — in their own mind, abilities, judgement, beliefs, strength. Typically at the start they trust in something that no longer serves them and by the end, learn to let that go and place their trust in something more hopeful, healing and reliable.
So as writers, we can trust in our abilities as empathetic humans to be able to tell the stories of people vastly different to us. We can trust in the power of our imaginations to set our stories in places in the world we've never been, and in places that we completely make up. But to do any of it well, we need to be coming from a place of truth and we need to trust ourselves and our characters.
Why write with me?
I’m the author of two novels, As If I Were A River (2016) and Remember Tomorrow (2019), and a novella-in-flash, Pressure Drop (2024). My 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. I’ve been working with writers to help them develop their craft for many years. In 2012, I founded Retreat West (Winner Most Innovative Publisher 2020 Saboteur Awards), providing an online writing community, competitions and courses, and in 2022 started the WestWord literary journal. I also write The Mindful Writer and The Tao of Storytelling.
