Specialist courses 2018
9:30-10:30 Sunday, Monday, Wednesday and Thursday
Our selection of specialist courses form the backbone of the Swanwick programme, running throughout the week. These in-depth courses provide the opportunity for you to learn more about your chosen subject and develop your skills over the four sessions.
Our selection of specialist courses form the backbone of the Swanwick programme, running throughout the week. These in-depth courses provide the opportunity for you to learn more about your chosen subject and develop your skills over the four sessions.
Making crime pay – Kate Bendelow & Graham Bartlett
Do you want to inject realism into your crime writing? Then join Kate and Graham as they take you behind the scenes and show you how crimes are really investigated.
In session one Kate takes you from scene to slab – helping writers to prepare their plot and avoid one of the most common pitfalls - poor scene preservation. It will also consider evidence types and the crime scene techniques used to recover them.
Session two will concentrate on stages of death. We will discuss how CSI’s prepare a body for the post mortem and the role of the pathologist. We will then discuss what happens at a post mortem and how to answer the all-important question - time of death.
In sessions three and four Graham, as a former senior murder detective, allows you to become a senior investigating officer, making those essential decisions upon which all murder investigations stand or fall. From the discovery of the body to the courtroom, you will put yourself in the shoes of your protagonist and learn the art of the possible, and impossible, when writing crime and police procedure.
As well as laying bare his top ten howlers, Graham will share his police experience and as principal advisor to Peter James, helping you create believable police officers whose realistic investigations will ooze an authenticity that will be the envy of many.
Do you want to inject realism into your crime writing? Then join Kate and Graham as they take you behind the scenes and show you how crimes are really investigated.
In session one Kate takes you from scene to slab – helping writers to prepare their plot and avoid one of the most common pitfalls - poor scene preservation. It will also consider evidence types and the crime scene techniques used to recover them.
Session two will concentrate on stages of death. We will discuss how CSI’s prepare a body for the post mortem and the role of the pathologist. We will then discuss what happens at a post mortem and how to answer the all-important question - time of death.
In sessions three and four Graham, as a former senior murder detective, allows you to become a senior investigating officer, making those essential decisions upon which all murder investigations stand or fall. From the discovery of the body to the courtroom, you will put yourself in the shoes of your protagonist and learn the art of the possible, and impossible, when writing crime and police procedure.
As well as laying bare his top ten howlers, Graham will share his police experience and as principal advisor to Peter James, helping you create believable police officers whose realistic investigations will ooze an authenticity that will be the envy of many.
Kate Bendelow is a writer, poet and author of The Real CSI: A Forensic Handbook for Crime Writers. She has been a serving CSI for over 15 years and has worked on hundreds of crime scenes including murders, rapes and robberies. She tweets @katiebumpz and also has a Facebook author page.
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Graham Bartlett, a former senior detective who became Brighton’s police commander is now a best-selling author and advisor to crime fiction writers, including Peter James. His and Peter’s true-life account, “Death Comes Knocking – Policing Roy Grace’s Brighton,” links the reality of policing one of the UK’s most cosmopolitan cities with the fictional world of Peter’s novels.
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Elements of poetry – Alison Chisholm This course will consider ways of creating, enhancing and energizing your poetry, using the four elements of earth, air, water and fire for inspiration. Poems will be written throughout the week, and we'll all leave with a wealth of tips and ideas for future writing. Session 1: Earth. We'll look at the roots of the poem and how they interact to form a strong foundation from which the poem springs, then develop an idea using mind mapping techniques. Session 2: Air. We'll consider how to let the poem breathe, to enrich and extend the ideas that fuelled it and enliven the content. A poem will be written based on scent imagery. Session 3: Water. This session concentrates on the fluency of the poem, and on its lifeblood, the detail that makes it compelling. We'll produce an original sea poem. Session 4: Fire. This meeting explores the passion in poetry, its intensity and flamboyance. We'll write taut, emotionally charged poems. |
Write your life - Paul Dodgson
Across the week we will investigate the nature of memory; establishing style and tone; creating a sense of time and place; and writing believable dialogue. We will test our storytelling skills as well as the peculiar relationship between truth and fiction. On this course we will be looking for the ingredients of individual stories that make them compelling for us all.
Participants will:
Across the week we will investigate the nature of memory; establishing style and tone; creating a sense of time and place; and writing believable dialogue. We will test our storytelling skills as well as the peculiar relationship between truth and fiction. On this course we will be looking for the ingredients of individual stories that make them compelling for us all.
Participants will:
- Learn techniques to recover memory of past events
- Take part in exercises to inspire creativity
- Look at examples of dynamic writing in published memoirs
- Write short pieces that are shared among the group in a mutually supportive environment
- Explore the ethics of writing down personal stories
- Discover how life writing can augment and inspire a creative writing portfolio.
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Paul is a writer, producer, musician and teacher who has written and produced extensively for BBC radio and television, including 3 acclaimed memoir plays for BBC Radio 4. Paul has mentored many writers in the development of plays and memoirs. You can find out more about him here at http://www.writinglife.co.uk |
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Scribe a short story at Swanwick - Della Galton
This is an interactive course – workshop based – during which we will aim to produce a publishable short story over the four sessions. You may have to do homework in between, but there will be opportunity to read out your work and get feedback within the sessions, as well as to write. Be prepared to work hard!
Choose an idea and write your opening paragraph
This is an interactive course – workshop based – during which we will aim to produce a publishable short story over the four sessions. You may have to do homework in between, but there will be opportunity to read out your work and get feedback within the sessions, as well as to write. Be prepared to work hard!
- Session one:
Choose an idea and write your opening paragraph
- Session two:
- Session three:
- Session four:
Della is a novelist, short story writer and journalist. She's had over 1500 short stories published in the UK alone and she's run out of fingers to count her books on. Find out more at http://www.dellagalton.co.uk/
A- Z of novel writing – Simon Hall.
A tour of everything you need to know to write a novel, with all the letters of the alphabet as your guide.
Whether it’s the adventure and action in your story, its zeitgeist, or its setting it in a zoo, Simon takes you through –
A tour of everything you need to know to write a novel, with all the letters of the alphabet as your guide.
Whether it’s the adventure and action in your story, its zeitgeist, or its setting it in a zoo, Simon takes you through –
- The importance of a strong opening to make your book unputdownable from the very first words.
- Creating fascinating fictional characters who rise from the page to lead real lives.
- The art of storytelling, complete with twists and turns, and the all important drum roll, trumpet fanfare of an ending.
- The tricks of creating vivid settings that sparkle or scare, using all the senses.
- The power and appeal of the writer’s unique voice, whether melodious or murderous.
- How to ensure you show not tell, for maximum impact with your words.
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Simon is a BBC Television and Radio News Correspondent, and an author of crime fiction. He has been a broadcaster for twenty five years, covering some of the biggest stories Britain has seen. His books - the tvdetective series - are about a television reporter who covers crimes and gets so involved in the cases he helps the police to solve them. Seven have been published. He lectures on careers in the media at Cambridge University, and in schools and colleges. For more on Simon, see his website – www.thetvdetective.com |
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"An opportunity to try new things out of your comfort zone. Too good to miss." Gill Garrett
