Times: 5pm-7.30pm GMT+0
Duration: 8 Sessions on Tuesday nights starting 4th June, 11th June, 18th June;
2nd July, 9th July, 16th July;
10th August & 24th August 2024
Capacity: Max. 8 participants
Fee: £650
Has the fun gone out of your writing? Do you feel stuck, finding it hard to make a routine? Are you looking for new ways into storytelling?
This 8-week workshop with screenwriter Ellis Freeman aims to refresh and deliver an injection of creative energy into your writing process. A writer learns more from the experience of trying things out than from any instruction book or lecture. Here is a chance to experiment, have fun, engage your playfulness and stimulate story ideas.
Developed over twenty years of workshops, the Writers Gym' is a collection of games and exercises to stretch your writer's muscles and offer insights into the mechanisms of story. The approach is a practical one; solving creative problems, with practical tools to help the writer to find new writing habits.
Previous Writers' Gym participants have ranged from complete novices to experienced feature directors. Whatever the level, we all face the empty page and the Writers' Gym is there to help find new ways to fill it.
This workshop will also give you the chance to develop as writers and develop a piece of writing over eight weeks, getting feedback on a story treatment of up to 8 pages from Ellis and the group.
There will be also be opportunity for one-to-one interim Zoom with Ellis to discuss a project proposal during the course.
The class will provide a chance to connect to other writers, sympathetic to your work, who can provide a support network beyond the course.
Come with an open mind, ready to play. (Please note: this is an online workshop which takes place via Zoom.)
There will be modules on:
Creativity and inspiration
- Setting your mind into a creative state.
- Harnessing that creative energy.
- Journalling.
- Finding out what you want to write.
- How to keep improving as a writer.
Characters
- What makes for interesting characters?
- Tools for investigating character
- Empathetic characters
- Change
- From character to story.
- From relationships to story.
Plot
- Story mechanisms – what moves the story forward?
- Story questions; What is the audience asking themselves?
- Loglines – finding the core of an idea.
- Structuring an idea.
- Dramatic Irony.
- Tips for writing summaries.
- Using reference films.
- Watching films as a screenwriter
Theme
- What is Theme?
- Clashes of beliefs.
- Dilemmas.
- Brainstorming Theme.
- From Theme to Story.
Emotion
- Finding emotion into your work.
- Creating an emotional journey for the characters and the audience.
- Emotion and genre.
Scenewriting
- Tips for scene writing.
- Dialogue and subtext.
Feedback
- Giving good feedback
- How best to receive feedback
- Approaches to rewriting
Testimonials
"I feel like I got back my writer's power after long months of not being able to write my ideas down. I have created my routine and got extremely inspired."
- Participant, 2021
"Ellis is a fantastic tutor who shares his true joy for his craft and makes everything so inspiring and motivated. I've attended many scriptwriting courses with acclaimed scriptwriters but Ellis has a personal artistic approach which is really inspiring."
- Participant, 2023
"It allowed me to give structure to my ideas through the variety of suggestions made by the tutor to nurture and harness creativity such as artists day and writing ideas on cards to easily move around. It was fun, inclusive, supportive, creative. Very comfortable atmosphere to share."
- Participant, 2023
