2480 Online: Moniack in a Month – Short Story with Cynan Jones

Date/Time
Date(s) - Tue 4th Jun - Fri 28th Jun, 2024
7:00pm - 9:00pm

Short Story Step by Step

Inspired to write but not sure where to begin? Not sure how to get your idea on the page? Or perhaps you’ve lost momentum with a work-in-progress. Join award-winning writer Cynan Jones online for a month for a course which will give you the tools and motivation to tackle a story head on and develop your own piece of short fiction.

First, you’ll learn how to chase down an idea and unlock its potential. Then you’ll get to grips with essential narrative elements like structure, character, and setting. You’ll also work with techniques that will help you continually assess and improve the words you put on the page so that you can create a truly effective story of your own.

 

Moniack in a Month: Short Story – Step by Step includes: 

• a short introductory welcome session 
• four stimulating online workshops, preceded by optional drop-in social time to get to know your group 
• two one-to-one tutorials (15 mins and 30 mins)
• a final group drop-in session with Cynan
• a final ceilidh session – sharing of work (optional)
• Contact and support from your community of writers via Google Classroom (optional) 
• Support from your Moniack Mhor host

Workshop 1 – Find your Story

There are endless ideas, and endless stories to be written. But how do you connect with the one that you yourself should write? And when you do, how to you free yourself from the concern your words won’t be good enough? Right from the off, we’ll look at ways to start stories, get you writing, and turn the tables on the blank page.

Workshop 2 – See your Story – from the outside

Once you start to write, you’ll find your story has its own ideas. The words you’ve put on the page will surprise you, might frustrate you, could liberate the story or bury it in distraction. We’ll look beyond the text to make sure the words themselves don’t take charge, and at ways to make sure that the story always has the upper hand.

Workshop 3 – See your Story – from the inside

If you’re clear on its theme and intent, you can truly inhabit your story. Your characters and their choices. The events and emotions. Setting and tone. All these elements must work together to make your story its strongest self. We’ll ask questions of these things, already on the page, and unlock their potential to cast the spell that will draw your reader in.

Workshop 4 – Lift your Story

When you understand what your story is about, what happens to who, and where it happens, your task is to transmit those things the strongest way you can. Can sentences be stronger? Does each word earn its place? We’ll ask if more can be done to lift the story off the page so that it feels transporting, is that spell cast, is the finished thing.

 

Drop-in Sessions

A final chance to discuss and review your story before sharing with your fellow writers in the evening.

Ceilidh

Congratulations on completing your month, and progressing your short story/stories! We hope you’ve enjoyed the time and found some skills to help in your creative life. This closing ceilidh session allows you to celebrate your writing with a glass or cup of whatever you fancy. You will be invited to read a short extract from your own story, sharing with Cynan and your group what you’ve achieved during the course, as well as listening to the readings of other participants.

Week 1        Tuesday                      4 June       18:30–21:00      Welcome Session and Workshop 1

Week 2        Tuesday                    11 June      19:00–21:00      Workshop 2

Week 3        Tuesday                    18 June       19:00–21:00       Workshop 3

Week 4        Tuesday                    25 June       19:00–21:00      Workshop 4

Week 4        Friday                       28 June      10:30-12:00        Drop-in session (optional)

Week 4        Friday                       28 June      14:30-16:00        Drop-in session (optional)

Week 4        Friday                       28 June     19:00–21:00       Ceilidh

 

Tutorials

Your two one-to-one tutorials with Cynan will be scheduled when the course starts.

 

Tutor

Cynan Jones is an acclaimed fiction writer from the west coast of Wales. His work has appeared in over 20 countries, and in journals and magazines including  Granta, Freeman’s and the New Yorker. He has also written a screenplay for the hit crime drama Hinterland, a collection of tales for children, and a number of stories for BBC Radio. He has been longlisted and shortlisted for numerous awards, and won, among other prizes, the Wales Book of the Year Fiction Prize, a Jerwood Fiction Uncovered Award, and the BBC National Short Story Award.

Cynan worked for a number of years as the Royal Literary Fund Fellow at Aberystwyth University, was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2019, and has accumulated countless hours of tutoring and mentoring experience over the last 20 years.  

 

Fees

The full fee for this online course is £360.  A deposit of £100 is required to secure your place, which is non-refundable after a 14-day cooling-off period. The balance payment of £260 is due six weeks before the course begins.

Bursaries are available, and you also have the option to pay in instalments, please email online@moniackmhor.org.uk to enquire.

All activity takes place on Zoom, and 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.

Access

Please let us know in your booking form if you have any access requirements when working online so we can do our best to support you. For more information about access to our courses, please visit our Access page.

Terms and Conditions

Please read our Terms & Conditions before booking.

Bookings