Writing Horror Fiction

Back by popular demand author Kirsty Logan is returning to W&A in 2023 to deliver her five week online course dedicated to the craft of writing horror fiction. How to Write Horror Fiction is designed to take you through the steps essential to writing in this genre. Attendees will explore how to develop the seed of an unsettling idea, discover - through plotting and writing techniques - how much one can leave to the reader's imagination, and analyse what makes a good horror story for the 21st century. Through a combination of discussion, analysis and plenty of fun-but-challenging writing exercises, you'll leave each class with more ideas to pursue. Come ready to think, discuss, create and write! This course includes: - Five online sessions, 1.5 hours in length, for a maximum of 20 students - Practical workshops with takeaway exercises to be applied to your own work and put each session's learning into practice - In-depth analysis of the horror genre, using books, films and TV shows as reference - Course materials available to view ahead of each session, including stories and excerpts to read, plus catch-up recordings. A reading week will take place at the mid-point of the course to give students a chance to get familiar with these materials. - A private online forum, to share discussion and writing throughout the course - A copy of the Writers' & Artists' Yearbook 2023 - A horror fiction book bundle from Bloomsbury Publishing As an optional extra at a cost of £50, you can get bespoke feedback from Kirsty on up to 2,000 words of original writing (one-page synopsis can be included)    Schedule Week 1 - Wednesday 19th April Looking outwards: revisiting, reworking, reimagining We’ll hit the ground running by analysing extracts from horror books, leading us into a lively discussion about classic tropes such as monsters, slashers, and the gothic. Where did these stories come from, and why do we keep returning to them? And most importantly, how can we use them to produce our own unique, original and terrifying work? In analysing what’s been done before, we can choose what we want the next steps in horror fiction to be. Week 2 -  Wednesday 26th April Looking inwards: your psyche as story We’ll dig a little deeper in week 2, asking ourselves: what are we really afraid of? What are the real roots of common fears? And how can we use that knowledge to construct vivid, compelling, emotionally real stories that will connect with readers? We’ll play with a combination of universal human fears and your own unique viewpoint to construct brand new stories.   Reading Week - Wednesday 3rd May This is your opportunity to get familiar with the course materials, reading excerpts and watching the video resource. You will also be set a writing exercise to complete and encouraged to spend some time on your own project. Week 3 - Wednesday 10th May Making it worse: conflict is story Without conflict, there is no story. But how do we create conflict? The answer is that we don’t create conflict itself: instead we construct the characters, world and events in perfect opposition so that conflict is inevitable. We’ll explore how to move the sliders of the various elements of story to amp up tension, enrich the narrative world, and make characters live and breathe on the page. As always, we’ll do timed writing exercises to ensure you have a strong start to work on for the rest of the week. Week 4 - Wednesday 17th May What we really want to say: theme and meaning A story always says something, whether we mean it to or not - so it’s important that we’re always in control of our stories’ meaning. We’ll analyse books and films to discover what they’re about - not what happens, but the underlying meaning of the story. Then we’ll play with some timed writing exercises, exploring how altering small details can drastically change how a reader understands the meaning of a story. Week 5 - Wednesday 24th May The actual words: prose and syntax Now we know what we want to say - but how do we say it? We’ll discuss our favourite sentences and paragraphs, then explore words with our senses: sounding them in our mouths, forming them with our pens, looking at the use of blank space on the page. We’ll experiment with different writing styles to see what effect this brings to our stories. Finally, we’ll end by selecting our best idea from the many we’ve developed over the course, and discuss how to make it the strongest it can be. You’ll end the course inspired, prepared and raring to put the finishing touches on your brand new stories.