Week 1: World Building – Here you’ll learn how to create a world for your characters to live in. This could be anything from fantasy or sci-fi to current day, past or future reality. In this session we’ll give you an exercise so you can start working on your world.
Week 2: Character Building – This week you’ll learn how to develop fully rounded, believable characters. You will then be given an exercise to help start creating the main character for your own story.
Week 3: The 3-Act Plot – Part One – The practice of breaking a story down (or building one up) into three distinctive ‘acts’ is as old as the hills. The first reference to it comes from Aristotle’s Poetics, written way back in the 4th century BC, but even he didn’t invent it. Modern day screen-writers, dramatists and novelists have refined the three act plot into a precise roadmap that can help any enthusiastic writer come up with a gripping, page-turning story. So, in this session, we’ll create a world and character and then start following the map’s twists and turns, working together as a group to develop the first part of a plot so you can see precisely how it works.
Week 4: The 3-Act Plot – Part Two – In this session we'll take our character through act two of our story.
Week 5: The 3-Act Plot – Part Three – Here we’ll carry on developing the group’s story plot through to the end.
Week 6: Start Your Story – Now you’re more familiar and comfortable with the structure of a 3-act plot, in this session you’ll use it to start developing your own storyline with the help of exercises and worksheets.
This workshop is run by Budding Writers in partnership with The Writers Bureau.