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Shifting Between Scenes
£35
Fiction • 2 hours • 4 sections of 26–32 mins each
Shifting between scenes is an invisible skill: done well, no-one notices; done badly, readers flip back and forth through the book, baffled. The techniques to keep the reader orientated about characters, events, and time will keep your story running smoothly and hugely enrich it. And they all come together, with a few extras, to help you handle flashbacks like a pro.
What it will help with:
- Wrangling lots of characters or story threads? If you have a large cast or multiple story threads for the reader to keep track of, here’s a repertoire of techniques to spark their memory – and enrich your writing in the process.
- Struggling to jump backwards or forwards in time? If you’re writing through the seasons to move forward, or losing whole pages to reach the flashback you want, here’s how to leap boldly in time, without losing the reader.
- Frustrated with your feedback? When your writing group or beta readers forget your story’s characters or events, or don’t follow the plot, it can feel like they’re not even paying attention. But they’re probably your most diligent readers. So if they’re struggling, these are the tools you need to keep them – and all your future readers – up to speed.
All welcome:
- Start from scratch or use your own story: If you have a story you’re working on, you can try out the techniques with it during the course. If you don’t, or you’d rather practise on something else first, the course will give you all the material you need.
- All levels welcome: All my courses work for all levels: they've been tested with a wide range of students, from complete beginners to experienced and published writers.
- Spoonie-friendly: If you need to manage your energy, I’ve got you: the course is chunked into sections, so you can do it in bits when you have the 'spoons'. Plus there's no time limit on doing the course.
- Accessibility:If you’re hard of hearing or Deaf, visually impaired, use a screenreader, or use dictation software, all the activities and materials are fully accessible.
Your Writing Community
We need each other, as writers, for encouragement, feedback, and to share the experience. As part of the course, you get FREE membership of The Writers' Greenhouse Community:
- The Writers’ Greenhouse Community online, to meet other writers, chat about your writing, and ask any questions
- The monthly Writing Boost sessions on Zoom to meet other writers, reflect on the process, and ask any questions
Behind the Course
After the first Story Elements course in 2011, I ran an ongoing Novel Writing course for five years, designing lessons around whatever my students needed. Surprising themes began to emerge. One was how to keep readers from getting confused: about who characters were, what was happening before, how much time had passed, or how an idea worked. In 2014, I gathered those together into a full-day workshop for the Summer of Writing in Oxford: Orientating the Reader.
Over the next 10 years, it became one of the most regularly voted-in workshops. Every aspect was tested, refined, and retested, through in-person and virtual classes, with students of every level.
Throughout, my students and I have been constantly thrilled at how creative ‘orientating the reader’ is. It’s both a crucial tool for story-writing and a process of exciting discovery. Wherever you are in your writing, I hope you enjoy the new tools and discoveries it gives you.
Back to Top | Next: Sexy Scenes: Winter online weekend workshop | Write Your Bio: Quickie online workshop | New Course: Time To Write
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