Plot and character: Creative writing workshop with Greg Mosse and Kate Mosse

Learn how to develop stories with the potential to become fully-fledged novels, at this practical half-day workshop

You may have an incredible idea for a novel, but without characters to care about, readers will see your plot as just stuff that happens to imaginary strangers. Led by creative writing tutor Greg Mosse, this half-day course offers discussions, workshops and practical exercises that will expand the way you think about characters you think you already know intimately. You'll learn how their pasts drive their futures, how to keep their actions and reactions in character, and how to ensure their dialogue sounds natural without being pedestrian.

The course includes a session with Kate Mosse – author of the multi-million-selling novel Labyrinth and co-founder of the Orange Prize for Fiction – on how to combine creative imagination with editorial awareness. Greg will lead practical workshops based upon his new 60-Minute Masterclasses ebooks on plot and dialogue. In just three hours, you'll acquire a greater understanding of what makes a strong character, along with a plot outline with the potential to become – with much additional hard work, of course – a fully-fledged novel.

This course is for you if…

• You want to write dynamic, character-led stories
• You have already started writing a novel, but are unsure how to progress
• You have a fully realised concept for a novel, but feel your work needs more substance.

Course description

Expert tutors Greg Mosse and Kate Mosse provide a series of discussions and practical exercises which will help you look at characterisation in far more depth and detail than before. Topics covered during the event include:

• Characterisation: how did your characters become those people?
• Development: what happened to your characters in their history?
• Acting and reacting in character
• Character-driven plot: structuring a life story
• Plot development
• Working with a complete cast list
• Natural dialogue and the rhythm of direct speech
• Extensive audience Q&A

Tutor profiles

Greg Mosse's creative writing teaching is based around the development of craft skills – well-judged sentences, paragraphs, episodes and chapters are the building blocks of good novels. He was programme leader for creative writing at West Dean College where he taught his own MA degree, validated by University of Sussex, and a wide range of short courses. He curates and teaches the Southbank Centre Creative Writing School and works in story development and consultancy for stage and screen. His knowledge of his subject comes from more than 20 years' professional experience as teacher, editor, translator and writer.

Kate Mosse OBE is the multi-million, bestselling author of the Languedoc Trilogy – Labyrinth, Sepulchre & Citadel – as well as a collection of short stories, two other novels, four works of non-fiction and three plays. She is co-founder and chair of the Board of the Women's Prize for Fiction – previously the Orange Prize – and, from 2014, the Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction. She is on the Board of the National Theatre and on the Executive Board of Women of the World arts festival. Her new novel, The Taxidermist's Daughter, will be published in the autumn.

Full course and returns information on the Masterclasses website