Our Course Programme

With the summer closure for building work of our long established base at Leicester Adult Education College, our series of eight 3-hour creative writing courses in the first week of August is generously hosted by BBC Leicester, Creative Leicestershire, Leicester City Libraries and De Montfort University.  We are grateful for the use of these venues and for ongoing support-in-kind from Leicester Adult Skills & Learning Service.
 

13:30 - 16:00 Setting Your Words to Music with.... Willow Songsmith

This course will give a gentle overview of the process of turning lyrics into songs.  Through exercises and example the workshop will include: creating melody (the tune), basics of harmony (the chords), rhythm, time signature (the beat) and writing it down (the dots).

You do not need any prior knowledge of music or ability to play music or sing.  There will be a keyboard available, and you will be welcome to use that or to bring along a guitar etc. as well as any work in progress that you may want to share.  Willow will help you turn your lyric into song and will even sing and play it for you, if you like!

MAGAZINE WRITING
Tuesday 5th August hosted by BBC Westcoates Library, Narborough Road, Leicester, LE3 0BQ

10:00 - 13:00       Writing Letters That Sell with Sue Moorcroft

Publications of all kinds pay cash or award valuable prizes for Readers’ Letters and Tips.  Earning-per-word, it’s a lucrative market but, as with all forms of writing, you can maximise your chances of success by learning the trade, learning how to study the market, select your publications, and know how to target.  A fun, informative, hands-on workshop.  Please bring one or two magazines that offer cash or prizes for readers’ letters.  During the session you will write your own contributions and receive feedback on these.  Expect to find opportunities you never knew existed.

14:00 -17:00     Writing Serials for Magazines with Sue Moorcroft

Serials are a neglected avenue into writing longer fiction.  Each magazine that publishes serials has its own approach to the writing of them.  Learn to study the market, write in style, write in episodes, and the function of writing marvellous ‘curtains’.  Find out when and how to pitch your idea to the editor and what comes next.  Expect hands-on exercises, class discussions and practical demonstrations of study and analysis with feedback.

9.30-12.30       Writing from Postcards with Bead Roberts

During this workshop writers will study a selection of old and new picture postcards.  From the messages on the back we will create a life for the characters that sent and received them.  Exercises and discussions around what is written, how it is written and what might have been omitted will help to build a plot.  By the end of the session, writers should have an outline of a short story based on one of the postcards.

13.30-16.30     Writing Holiday Fiction with Bead Roberts

Women’s magazines produce summer supplements and are always looking for stories to fill them.  Discussion and exercises will discover and develop stories suitable for the supplements.  We shall be looking at when to send in summer stories, when to write them, character development, eye-catching openings and how to avoid clichéd plots.  Handouts will provide marketing information and manuscript presentation.

CRIME WRITING DAY
Thursday 7th August hosted by De Montfort University in the Clephan Building, Leicester, LE1 9BH

9.30-12.30  Forensics and Police Procedure for Crime Writers with Jane Adams

How accurate are the prevalent media images regarding police procedure and investigation?  Does it really matter if you get it right?  By examining published work, television, the relevant parts of the Police & Criminal Evidence Act and actual crime scene procedures, we will attempt to disentangle the truth from the fiction…and decide at what point truth might get in the way of a good story.

13.30-16.30     Midsummer Murder with Rod Duncan

We will plan a crime novel together.  That means devising a crime and a cast of characters, deciding whose story it is and how we are going to tell it, fitting the story into a three-act structure and outlining some of the key scenes.  We will be doing some writing, but this class is mainly about story-craft itself, about what makes the narrative work in a novel or a movie.  And hopefully it should be a lot of fun.