Writing Unusual Structures: Day One
Are you drawn to the unusual? Do you find yourself constructing narratives that exist outside of traditional literary structures? Do you want to experiment with form and structure within your writing? Join acclaimed novelist and short story writer Kirsty Logan for an online weekender that will focus on writing stories with unusual structures. What do we mean by unusual structures? To give you an idea, Kirsty’s own writing has included a story in the form of an auction catalogue, a questionnaire (only the questions, not the answers), a list of items bought in a shop, entirely in footnotes, a series of monologues, told in reverse chronological order, and containing no words. Over the course of a weekend, you will discover new writers, discuss their work and embed their approaches to unusual structures into your own work through regular writing exercises. Kirsty will also offer guidance on the story itself, and how to ensure your narrative and your characters don’t get lost in a structure, but find one that expands them. By the end of the course you will have a better understanding of ways to experiment with how you are telling your story and find the best structural fit for it, however unexpected it might be. Please note, this event page is for Day One of the weekender. You can find out about the full weekender here. Day One Benefits: - 3 hours of expert tutoring and advice from Kirsty - Practical sessions with hands-on exercises to support your writing development - Course materials available to view ahead of each session, plus catch-up audio recordings - Access to your course writing community beyond the weekend itself via our Slack channel Schedule Day One: A Bit Unusual Saturday 10th December, 10am - 1:30pm - Story as prose poems (eg. Citizen by Claudia Rankine) - Story as non-fiction prose poems (Sum by David Eagleman) - Story as a series of tiny stories (Trysting, Emmanuelle Pagano) - Story as a series of voices (Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders) Each of the four sections will include a short reading, discussion and a writing exercise for you to partake in.
