Creative Thursday

The Deadline for this Course has Passed

Greg is teaching as part of the Creative Thursday at the Theakston's Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival at Harrogate.

Creative Thursday is called A Day in the Life of Writing Crime and takes place from 9h00 till 17h30 on Thursday 19 July 2007.

Contact the Festival office from this link for more information – or call 01423 562303 or email crime@harrogate-festival.org.uk for details of the full day and for editorial advice sessions.

Sessions offered as part of Creative Thursday include:

Simon Kernick
Using his experience as a writer of six critically acclaimed crime thrillers, and his discussions with other writers of the genre, Simon Kernick will be talking about what makes a successful plot, and examining the techniques required for creating one. He will give tips on how to avoid the many plotting pitfalls that beset the author (several of which he’s fallen into himself in the past); and look at some of the obvious, and less obvious, methods that crime writers use to grab the reader’s attention, and the harder task of then keeping it focused on the narrative until the very last page.

Greg Mosse
The plot of your story depends on character, but the way it plays out depends on the settings you choose. In a convincing plot, your protagonists engage your reader's imagination, and that can be gripping. But further layers of intrigue come from the way you circumscribe their actions with fascinating, vivid, unexpected settings. You deliberately bind them in the chains of circumstance so the reader can watch them struggle to be free.

Laura Wilson
Plot is character: events, both in life and in fiction, take on a far greater meaning when we know, understand and love (or hate) the people involved in them. In this session, award-winning novelist Laura Wilson will offer tips for creating credible characters who will hold the interest of the reader, including names, motivation, dialogue, points of view, heroes and villains, "real" vs. made-up characters, and human springboards.

Natasha Cooper
Using her experience as publisher, critic and novelist, Natasha Cooper will explain how to avoid two of the commonest mistakes made by new writers: trying too hard and rewriting the same passage too often. As she constructs a story about the cat who famously sat on the mat, she will show how to free your voice so that you can learn to write in a style that is both uniquely your own and appealing to the reader.

Jane Gregory & Hilary Hale
How do you get published? Do you approach a publisher direct? How do you attract the attention of an editor? What is the role of a literary agent? How do you get one? How do you get professional assessment of your novel? What are they looking for? Find out what you need to do and what NOT to do.