What to expect- part 3

Hi Everyone,

I’m on the very verge of going away for the weekend, but just wanted to put up a final post for this week about the workshop sessions taking place on next Saturday.

Those of you to have attended previously will know we’ve had some very good workshop sessions, but equally we’ve had a few problems with where exactly they should be held. The first year we tried cutting off a corner of the foyer area but we suffered a little too much with noise. We then had a similar issue last year with the Reception Suite Annexe, and both spaces also had some difficulty in accommodating a decent number of people.

However we hope this is the year we’ve cracked it with hosting the workshops in the ’45 Suite- those of you who attended last year may be familiar with this space, as it hosted the book launches. Having been for the site visit the room should comfortably hold about 30 for a workshop and also leave enough room to swing a cat (although I’d rather nobody did).

We have a couple of very career-oriented sessions book-ending the workshop sessions, opening with Christian Dunn’s workshop on editing your writing. Editing down is an essential skill for any writer, as first drafts are almost invariably overwritten and so trimming down the waste is key to having a string narrative with good direction and pace. We’re also focussing on careers with John Jarrold leading a session on an agent’s work, which will be exploring what agents do and of course don’t do. This kind of knowledge is really important for anyone hoping to break into writing and I expect this to be a very popular session- John knows the publishing trade inside out and I expect some great insights in this slot.

We also have three creative-based workshops with three more great authors. It’s a real treat for all the science-fiction writers out there as both Tony Ballantyne and Justina Robson will be running sessions. Tony’s session, entitled Show and Tell, will be exploring how you can effectively get across points in your story without spelling them out word for word, which is a great tool for any writer. Justina will be looking at ‘Trouble-shooting the novel’, looking at how to deal with some of the most common problems writers face in their novels. If you’re having a problem yourself, which not ask for some advice on how you might address it?

For those of you with darker inclinations (a category I tend to include myself in), Kim-Lakin Smith will be running a session on Dark Fantasy. This is a growing area of fiction and this should be an illuminating session for those of you already writing in the field, or looking to turn your hand to it.

Well, that’s all for today- I’ll be back next week exploring some of the panel discussions and reading sessions.

Many Thanks

Alex