Writing Fiction: Next Steps

18-week online writing course begins Monday 19 September 2022

Join Lynne Bryan for a six-month, in-depth online creative writing course. This intermediate course builds on the expertise acquired at introductory level, providing more depth and a wider range of reading and approaches to fiction. At this level you will acquire and experiment with more techniques, broaden the possibilities you’re ready to explore in your writing, and reconnect with finding a sense of play and adventure in your writing. By the end you will have a final draft of a short story.

Classes are capped at 15 places to ensure a high-quality experience. There is one bursary available for this course for a writer on a low income (details below).

This course is designed for writers aged 18+. If you’re looking for courses suitable for younger writers, check out these online workshops!

Find out about our other tutored online courses here.

‘I have much greater confidence in my creative work and have learned many new writing techniques and ways of working.’ – Maddie, course participant, Sep 2019

What the course covers

1. Getting started – meet your fellow students, get to know Megan and develop your writing habit – where to find inspiration, how to keep a notebook and how to open your story
2. Point of view – we consider how the perspective of your story shapes the narrative: who is telling the story? Is the narrator ‘unreliable’? How does it affect the reader, and how can it restrict the writer?
3. Character – how do we create believable, surprising characters? How can we make sure that characters drive the plot? How can conflict be used to explore characters?
4. Dialogue and setting – what makes for good and bad dialogue? We also look at how a sense of place can interweave with dialogue to give a sense of your characters’ lives
5. Plot and structure – there are no rules for writing a story, but it can help to understand common structures. We’ll learn about ‘Freytag’s triangle’ and use it to examine the structure of published stories as well as your own
6. Defamiliarisation – good fiction changes the way we see the world: we explore how different genres remove our sense of security, from supernatural and ghost stories, science fiction and satire
7. The unsaid – people often don’t quite say what they feel; silence can be more powerful than words. We will examine how omission and understatement can create greater impact and convey a character without relying on overt dialogue
8. Managing time – how does time work in a story? How do you make transitions between time periods? How can flashbacks and flash-forwards be used?
9. Revising and redrafting – examine how to improve your writing sentence by sentence. Learn techniques for re-reading your own work, and exchange work with fellow students.
10. Writing and planning – find out how to balance the imaginative exploration of writing with the need to interrogate and revise your early drafts
11. Being open to surprise – venture into the unknown and learn how to respond when your story takes an unexpected turn, as well as the possibilities of incorporating other elements into your work
12. Coming to an end – should you fulfil or subvert the expectation for a story to be concluded satisfactorily? Should every narrative be tied up neatly, or is it best to leave unanswered questions?

By the end of the course you will have

• Developed your creative practice
• Analysed and deconstructed devices and techniques used in literary narratives
• Developed observational skills, and how to use memory creatively
• Studied and considered different types of writing
• Practiced and enhanced your use of plot, character, dialogue, and description
• Revised and edited your writing, and advanced your work to a finished draft stage
• Enhanced your writer’s voice and begun to define the themes which most interest you

Feedback from students

‘I loved the way that the Fiction Next Steps course was structured. It was well designed, in manageable, bite-size pieces. The content was stimulating and imaginative. I felt it helped me to develop my fiction writing skills.’ — Jilly Shipway

Applying to the course

This is an intermediate level course. To apply, we ask that you submit:

• A 500-word sample of your work
• A one-paragraph introduction to yourself and your writing (max 250 words)

Applications are made by email to learning@nationalcentreforwriting.org.uk, and must be sent by 12noon BST on Wednesday 7 September.

Applications are considered and places allocated on a first come first served basis.

Committing to a 18-week course is a big decision for any writer. If you have any questions at all please do get in touch at learning@nationalcentreforwriting.org.uk.

About your tutor

Lynne Bryan received her MA in Creative Writing in 1985. Her first book was a collection of short stories, Envy At The Cheese Handout (Faber & Faber 1995), which was followed by two novels, Gorgeous (Sceptre 1999) and Like Rabbits (Sceptre 2002). She has co-edited six anthologies of short prose, and her work has been broadcast on BBC Radio 4 and her story – ‘A Regular Thing’ – was made into an award-winning Danish short film.

How it works

All you need is a computer and an internet connection. You can find out more about the requirements here.

The course is divided into twelve modules, each of which introduces a topic, points for discussion, exercises, and an assignment. Subjects include character, plot and structure, point of view, dialogue and setting, defamiliarisation, the unsaid, and how to plan, revise, and redraft your work towards a finished draft. The principal aim of the course is to encourage your progress as a writer, help you improve and refine your work, and to inspire you to build a sustained writing practice. By the end of the course, you will have gained valuable knowledge and insight into the process of writing fiction, through working with a published novelist on your own work.

There are two live Zoom sessions during this course. Dates are to be announced.

Click here to find out more about how our courses work and whether they’re right for you!

Designed by the University of East Anglia and the National Centre for Writing.