The Craft of Storytelling: Structure, Plot and Narrative Momentum

Overview

This weekend will unravel the secrets of the storyteller’s craft and allow you to experiment with an array of key writing techniques to deepen your understanding of the stories you want to tell and how to tell them. 

Interactive, informative and fun, the weekend will look in detail at the four pillars on which all great stories rely: character, dialogue, description and narrative structure.

You will be encouraged throughout the weekend to think in new and dynamic ways about these four crucial elements of effective writing and the craft of storytelling they serve. You will leave equipped with a spring in your creative step and a range of practical tools with which to hone your own writing.

Please note: this event will close to enrolments at 23:59 BST on 11 October 2023.

Programme details

Saturday 28 October 2023

9.45am
Registration at Rewley House reception

10am
Creating compelling characters: part 1

11.15am
Tea/coffee

11.45am
Creating compelling characters: part 2

1pm
Lunch

2pm
Voice and dialogue: part 1

3.15pm
Tea/coffee

3.45pm
Voice and dialogue: part 2

5pm
End of day

7pm
Dinner (optional)

Sunday 29 October 2023

8am
Breakfast (residents only)

10am
The art of description: part 1

11.15am
Tea/coffee

11.45am
The art of description: part 2

1pm
Lunch

2pm
Plots and plot engines

3.15pm
Tea/coffee

3.45pm
Building your narrative arc

5pm
End of weekend

Fees

Description Costs
Course Fee (includes tea/coffee) £190.00
Saturday baguette lunch £6.50
Saturday dinner £26.00
Saturday hot lunch (three courses) £17.60
Single B&B (Saturday night) £101.40
Single room only (Saturday night) £87.20
Sunday baguette lunch £6.50
Sunday hot lunch (three courses) £17.60

Funding

If you are in receipt of a UK state benefit or are a full-time student in the UK you may be eligible for a reduction of 50% of tuition fees.

Concessionary fees for short courses

Tutor

Ms Rebecca Abrams

Rebecca Abrams is an award-winning writer, teacher and journalist. Her novel, Touching Distance (Picador, 2008) was highly praised by Hilary Mantel, won the MJA Award for Fiction and was shortlisted for a McKitterick Prize for Literature. She is also the author of several non-fiction titles, including The Jewish Journey: 4000 years in 22 objects (Ashmolean Museum), Woman in a Man’s World (Methuen) and When Parents Die (Taylor & Francis), and also writes for the stage. Her play, All of Us, premiered in New Zealand in May 2023.  Rebecca is a long-standing tutor on the MSt in Creative Writing at the University of Oxford and a writing mentor for the Oxford Centre for Life Writing at Wolfson College, Oxford.  She was the Royal Literary Fund Fellow at Brasenose College from 2017 –2020, Writer-in-Residence at Gladstone’s Library from 2014–2015, and First Story Writer-in-Residence at Larkmead School, Abingdon from 2011–2012. She is a regular literary critic for the Financial Times, a former columnist for the Daily Telegraph, and the recipient of an Amnesty International Press Award.

Application

Please use the 'Book' button on this page. Alternatively, please contact us to obtain an application form.

Accommodation

Accommodation for this weekend is at Rewley House for Saturday night only. If you would like to book a double or a twin room, please email ppdayweek@conted.ox.ac.uk.

Depending on availability it may also be possible to extend your stay: please enquire at the time of booking for availability and prices.

All bedrooms are modern, comfortably furnished and each room has tea and coffee making facilities, Freeview television, and Free WiFi and private bath or shower rooms.