Creative Writing Workshop: Deepen Your Characters

A fun and inspiring way to improve your writing, for experienced writers and beginners alike.

'A brilliant environment for learning and sharing'

Skills : Digging into genre : Workshops to make your writing gleam

'Loved it - loved it all!

8th November: Deepen Your Characters

This is a skills workshop. We will be finding some techniques for you to deepen your characters, make them more three dimensional, more nuanced, more human. We’ll make ‘em laugh and make ‘em cry, and make your readers do that all important thing – care about their fate.

This is the third workshop in Clare Reddaway's 2025 autumn block of writing workshops. Clare runs regular creative writing workshops online from her home in Bath. Clare keeps her workshops small, enabling all antendees to participate, share, receive feedback and advice.

The workshop will run for two and a half hours. We will meet online on zoom. Details of the zoom meeting will be emailed to you prior to the workshop, and are also available via Eventbrite after booking.

Clare is running three other workshops in Autumn 2025:

6th September: The Art of Noticing

Are you looking for inspiration and mindfulness after a long hot summer?

In this session we will open our eyes and observe the spectacle of the ordinary. We will practice, as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle put it, “the observation of trifles.” It's about staying eager, connecting and finding interest in the everyday and noticing what others overlook.

BOOK HERE

11th October: Poetry for the Petrified - with visiting tutor Mel Greenwood

A poetry workshop for the petrified….Or even mildly apprehensive. If you last looked at poetry when you were at school and felt put-off, weary, anxious at form, rhyme and meter, please look again. Let’s call poetry taking photographs with words. It doesn’t have to rhyme. It doesn’t have to be in verse. That can come later with editing or not at all. This is about how to communicate your personal experiences. Poetry is the language of the heart. Your heart.

We will experiment with form but the most important criteria is telling your truth as you see it; whether that is looking at nature, friendships, family, the way the sunset feels, loss and joy. This is your chance to colour your view of the world in your own words. To look at a moment in life and make it breathe.

Melanie Greenwood is a former regional and national journalist. Her novel, 'The Blue Hour' was published in 2022. She has had poetry published and teaches regularly.

BOOK HERE

13th December: Fact Into Fiction

As writers and readers, we are all searching for authenticity, particularly today, when truth appears so porous and open to interpretation. This is a workshop where we will be looking at the line between fact and fiction. We will explore how to use fact – whether from your own personal experience or the public realm - to root your fiction in reality.

BOOK HERE

About the workshops:

The workshop facilitator is Clare Reddaway, who has been running monthly writing workshops at her home in central Bath for years - and now in a very modern way, runs workshops online. All of the workshops aim to be supportive and encouraging to writers of prose, particularly short stories, at all levels. Clare provides exercises which are stimulating and inspiring (hopefully!) in a warm, friendly atmosphere.

What the writers thought:

Some feedback for Clare's workshops:

'If you're thinking about it, take the plunge!'

‘Loved it. Lovely environment and people, great triggers for ideas and inspiration.’

'Totally inspiring!' 'Fun!'

‘Very inspirational and productive’,

‘I loved the way questions triggered ideas that seemed to be close to the surface’.

'SO helpful',

'Friendly feedback',

'I liked the mixture of tips, facts and writing exercises',

'Brilliant. Well constructed. Interesting and informative. Well executed'

'Loved it - loved it all!'

Clare's credentials:

Clare is a creative writing tutor at Advanced Studies England in Bath. She has run writing workshops for many years: at festivals and arts centres with Bristol short story collective Heads and Tales, for Julian House homeless charity in Bath, for the Refugee Centre in Bristol, for the University of the Third Age in Bath. Pre-pandemic, she ran regular workshops at her home in Bath and at Clifton Library in Bristol. Her background as a script editor for BBC Drama and Granada TV and her MA in Creative Writing from Bath Spa gives her experience of working with a wide range of writers. Clare writes novels, short stories and plays. If you'd like to know more about Clare's writing please check out her website www.clarereddaway.co.uk.