In a brand new addition to our Events programme, we are delighted to welcome back Jacob Ross, whose Fiction Masterclasses last year were a sell-out success. This year, we are pleased to announce a newly curated series of Lectures which aim to offer his teachings to a wider audience, combining theoretical and practical elements to look in-depth at three essential elements of fiction: narrative structure, voice, and character. The lectures are suited to fiction writers at all levels.
Saturday September 27 11am-2pm (Free Word Centre, Lecture Theatre)
Elements of Fiction: Narrative Structure
Narrative structure is essential in creating a sense of cohesion in your writing. Setting, and the way it interacts with plot, are central to strong, convincing storytelling.
In the first of the TLC Elements of Fiction Lectures, Jacob Ross will explain narrative structure, how it works and why it is a vital component of successful writing. The session will offer a comprehensive look at ways to ensure that your own narrative benefits from these elements of writing craft. Combining the theoretical with the practical, this session has been designed as a mini masterclass for writers who are interested in exploring and implementing ideas around structure, narrative, and general story development.
Saturday October 11 11am-2pm (Free Word Centre, Lecture Theatre)
Elements of Fiction: Voice
Often, novels and short stories succeed or fail on the strength of their ‘voice’. An effective narrative voice compels us to read on and makes the reader invest more readily in a storyline, character or setting
Through example texts from a variety of genres by leading contemporary writers, Jacob Ross will be exploring in the second of the TLC Elements of Fiction Lectures why voice is important in fiction and will offer techniques, practical exercises and approaches to harnessing the numerous possibilities of ‘voice’.
Saturday October 25 11am-2pm (Free Word Centre, Lecture Theatre)
Elements of Fiction: Character
Books are populated by characters that that are shown to have active lives and psychologies, whether hidden from or divulged to the reader. How does a writer make her/his characters come alive on the page? What makes a character memorable? In the third and final TLC Elements of Fiction Lectures for this season, Jacob Ross will be training a microscope on the essence of character in fiction, while honing in on the practical ways writers can develop believable characters.
Tutor bio
Jacob Ross has been hailed as a ‘genius’ workshop leader and ‘a writer of formidable technical range and emotional depth’. His novel Pynter Bender was published in September 2008 to much critical acclaim. It was shortlisted for the 2009 Commonwealth Writers Regional Prize and chosen as one of the British Authors Club’s top three Best First Novels (2009). Jacob is also the author of acclaimed short story collections, Song for Simone and A Way to Catch the Dust. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and has been a judge of the V.S. Pritchett Memorial Prize, the Olive Cook, Scott Moncrieff and Tom-Gallon Literary Awards. He has taught at Arvon and Goldsmiths.
£25 + VAT per lecture OR book all three at discounted rate of £65 + VAT
