Date/Time
Date(s) - Mon 13th Mar - Tue 4th Apr, 2023
7:00pm - 9:00pm
Join the Moniack Mhor experience online and access top-quality writing tuition, develop your craft and share your experiences with a community of writers – all from the comfort of your own sofa, desk or kitchen table. Each course will run over four or five weeks, bringing you a flavour of a residential course. There will be a welcome session, four workshops, one-to-one tutorials, an end of course drop in session and ceilidh to provide a chance to share your work.
In this course, award-winning writer Jenny Valentine will help a group of 12 participating writers explore how to write for and about young people | characters.
Whether your project is for children, teenagers or adults, writing about young people is a particular skill. This month-long online course on Zoom is designed to encourage, consider and hone your voice as you explore ways of representing and inhabiting young characters in their own stories.
The course will either guide you towards a confident beginning, or help you see your work in progress with clear eyes and renewed vigour. There will be plenty of room offline during the month for your own creative practice. The four 2-hour workshops will focus on voice, character, story and structure, and revision.
You will be invited to send a short sample of an ongoing project to inform your one-to-one tutorial session with Jenny. But if you’re coming to this with a blank page, that’s an excellent place to start and there is still plenty to talk about.
Writing can be a private and solitary enterprise. Reading and writing together is a very bonding experience. You will be welcome to share and exchange feedback in a constructive and considerate environment, but this is completely optional. Either way, the quality and confidence of your work will really benefit.
Moniack in a Month – Writing For and About Young People includes:
- A short introductory welcome session
- Four stimulating online workshops
- One 30-minute one-to-one tutorial (or 2 x 15-minute tutorials)
- A final Ceilidh session – optional sharing of work
- Contact and support from a community of writers, including via Google Classroom (optional)
- Support from a Moniack Mhor host
Jenny’s workshops will focus on the following:
It is vital that you sound like only you can sound when you write. Pare down your own writing voice through free prose, dialogue and a brief foray into memoir.
2. Character
Whether you are starting afresh or revisiting someone already familiar, there are many ways to explore character. Using instinct and intuition and letting go a little of the idea of control, watch the people in your stories bloom and grow.
3. Story and Structure
Every finished story has a beginning, a middle and an end. But how do you find them? And how do you get there? Work on the key stepping stones that get you from A to Z and come out with as much, or as little, of a plan as you need.
4. Revision
Editing is as important a part of writing as the creative flow. Practise some techniques to clean up your text. Prepare yourselves to be ruthless and agile.
Timetable
Week 1 Monday 13 Mar 6.30pm–9.00pm Welcome Session and Workshop 1
Week 2 Monday 20 Mar 7.00pm–9.00pm Workshop 2
Week 3 Monday 27 Mar 7.00pm–9.00pm Workshop 3
Week 4 Monday 3 Apr 7.00pm–9.00pm Workshop 4
Week 4 Tuesday 4 Apr 7.00pm–9.00pm Ceilidh
One-to-one tutorials with Jenny will be arranged when the course starts.
Jenny Valentine is an award-winning writer for children and Young Adults. Her first novel Finding Violet Park won the Guardian prize in 2007 and since then she has written several critically acclaimed books, including Broken Soup, The Ant Colony and Fire Colour One, as well as the young fiction series Iggy and Me and the middle grade trilogy A girl called Joy. Her work has been published in 19 countries. In 2017/18 she was the Hay Festival International Fellow, spending the year meeting and learning from young people all over the world. She tries to read slowly, never stops moving and has two daughters.
Fees
The full fee for this online course is £325. A deposit of £50 is required to secure your place, which is non-refundable after a 14-day cooling-off period. The balance payment of £275 is due two weeks before the course begins.
All workshops include a short break. Moniack Mhor staff will be on hand to support you during your course.
For more information please email: online@moniackmhor.org.uk
Bookings
This course is now fully booked. Please contact us on info@moniackmhor.org.uk or 01463 741 675 to be added to the waiting list.