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.
Timetable
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.