Fiction Writing London

Fiction Feedback Workshop

In our regular feedback workshops, we have three writers sharing a sample of their writing for immediate feedback, advice and encouragement. Critique is led and moderated by your host. You learn more by listening to the writing of others and the feedback their piece receives on the night than you can imagine. We've been running these sessions since 2010 and there's a reason they fill up so fast! For reading samples, pieces must be **3,500 words or less** as you'll have about 45mins for reading and discussion on your excerpt from around the table. Most people bring an excerpt from their novel or a short story of all genres and styles. You must have booked your place before making a request to read. If you'd like to read, book your seat first and post a comment below with ***'I'd like to read'*** and I will confirm. It's a first request, first reading system so do check if there have been three requests made already. If this one has no reading spots left, you might like to book early for the next upcoming session. Reading spots go FAST but there are always more to come. That said, we don't allow the same people usually to share work in consecutive sessions. If you are reading, **please bring enough printed copies (at least 10)** of your pages so members can make additional feedback/editing notes for you during the reading. All copies will be returned to you after the feedback has concluded. New members are always welcome in these groups. Most people come along to a few sessions before offering feedback, commenting or requesting to read but it's up to you. If you want to read right away, great, but if you want to come along and see how we roll first, that makes sense too. Again, you'll be surprised by how much you can learn from others by listening to the pieces and their feedback. Most sessions have 50/50 split on new members vs regulars. After the workshop, most of us head to the bar for a social drink or two and extended conversation about the joys and woes of writing. **TICKETS:** £18.00 for venue arrangements, organising and hosting. Please follow the steps to pay via PayPal when you RSVP. **PLEASE NOTE:** **Refunds or credits will only be provided if the meetup is cancelled or rescheduled.** We cannot offer refunds or credit for another session if you decide not to attend on the day. Please change your RSVP if you no longer plan to attend. We often have people on the waiting list and we'd hate for others to miss out. Failing to show up means you'll be flagged as a 'no show' and potentially removed from the group if this happens frequently. It takes only a minute to change your RSVP before the meeting starts. Manners cost nothing, folks. Location: **Williamsons Tavern** is located in a tiny courtyard off Bow Lane in Cheapside, closest tube station is Bank. Address: 1 Groveland Ct, London EC4M 9EH. Grab a drink and come to the private room downstairs. We start promptly so please try and be on time. Try the official Meetup app to receive last-minute updates and notifications about our events as they happen to your phone. [Download it now](https://www.meetup.com/apps/). These workshops are hosted by me - Lisa Goll, Boss Lady at London Writers' Cafe - I'm a publishing professional with more than twenty years of working within the publishing industry. Added to that, I've been leading LWC workshops for writers since 2010 too. See more about [me on LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/lisagoll/) or Insta me @LisasShare @LondonWritersCafe Question? Post a comment below.

Write by the River (South Bank)

Fiction Feedback Workshop

In these regular writing workshops, we have three writers sharing a sample of their writing for immediate feedback, advice and encouragement. Critique is led and moderated by your host. You learn more by listening to the writing of others and the feedback their piece receives on the night than you can imagine. We've been running these sessions since 2010 and there's a reason they fill up so fast! Usually, we have a group of up to 20 writers attending. For people reading, pieces must be **3,500 words or less** as you'll have about 45mins for reading and discussion on your excerpt from around the table. Most people bring 3,500 words from their novel or a short story of all genres and styles. If you'd like to read, please **post a comment below**. ***You must have booked your place before making a request to read.*** If you are reading, **please bring enough printed copies (at least 10)** of your pages so members can make additional feedback/editing notes for you during the reading. All copies will be returned to you after the feedback has concluded. New members are always welcome in these groups. Most people come along to a few sessions before offering feedback, commenting or requesting to read but it's up to you. If you want to read right away, great, but if you want to come along and see how we roll first, that makes sense too. Again, you'll be surprised by how much you can learn from others by listening to the pieces and their feedback. After the workshop, most of us head to the bar for a social drink or two and extended conversation about the joys and woes of writing. **TICKETS:** £18.00 and please follow the steps to pay via PayPal when you RSVP. Williamson's have raised their hire fees and so ticket prices have to reflect that additional spend. It's also my role to organise and lead these sessions so ticket price incorporates my labour in hosting these sessions for you. Thanks for understanding. PLEASE NOTE: Refunds or credits will only be provided if the meetup is cancelled by us. We cannot offer refunds or credit for another session if you decide not to attend on the day. Please change your RSVP if you no longer plan to attend. We often have people on the waiting list and we'd hate for others to miss out. Location: **The Three Tuns,** 36 Jewry St, Aldgate, London EC3N 2ET. Closest stations are Aldgate, Aldgate East and Tower Hill. Try the official Meetup app to receive last-minute updates and notifications about our events as they happen to your phone. [Download it now](https://www.meetup.com/apps/). These workshops are hosted by me - Lisa Goll, Boss Lady at London Writers' Cafe - I'm a publishing professional with more than twenty years of working within the publishing industry. Added to that, I've been leading LWC feedback workshops for fiction writers since 2010 too. See more about [me on LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/lisagoll/) or Insta me @LisasShare @LondonWritersCafe Question? Post a comment below.

*Your Thoughts Pls* Weekday Afternoon Workshops (Old Street)

**Weekday afternoon workshop, anyone?** The wonderful team at Shoreditch Town Hall have a café space where they're inviting creative groups like ours to hold sessions. It is such a lovely room that I hope to run an afternoon workshop from 12-3pm on a Thursday or Friday once a month. If I did so, would you attend...? How many of you would be free to meet on a weekday afternoon is a guess so I'm putting this up to gather the level of interest. **If you would be interested in an afternoon workshop during the week, could you RSVP 'yes' to this session to show your interest?** The date is tentative for now. Once I see the level of interest I'll scrap the idea OR confirm a first session. Could you RSVP by Jan 30th if this would be of interest. **If possible, could you post a comment on this page as to which day would be best in your opinion out of Thursday or Friday or none of those?** I'm thinking later in the week is better but I'd love to read your thoughts. If you have other thoughts about the timing, location, format etc, please feel free to add that to your comment about your day preference. I expect these groups would be smaller with perhaps 6-12 people but prove me wrong. Thanks all! It is not easy planning events and feel as though sometimes you are guessing at what people really want to attend.

Torturing Your Characters with Internal and External Conflict

**Torture is a messy business but we writers must transform our characters by any means necessary.** Join a torturous seminar on how to surface core conflicts into cruel but useful tensions that will transform your main characters as the story unfolds. Character growth, development, transformation - call it what you will - is a fiction fundamental but not every story achieves the promise of the premise when it comes to delivering for readers. First though, you must understanding your story's capacity to 'torture'. This seminar will show how to create character transformations with practical writing techniques and you'll engineer more compelling stories for your readers, as a result. If a character doesn't grow, they die. How will your story inflict the appropriate level of emotional and psychological pain to produce change in your core characters? Sounds tough but it is not. I believe this is the stuff that keeps readers guessing, hypothesising, riven mad, turning pages frantically until 3am to find out what happens and every writer must aspire to be read with greed, no? In three hours (with a short break) we'll go through how to expand and apply internal and external conflicts for your protagonist, recognise which conflicts will drive your character forward, and pull that tension so tight it threatens to snap on any page. Brilliant. 'The only thing worth writing about is the human heart in conflict with itself ' - William Faulkner LEVEL: This session is designed for writers with a basic understanding of plotting, story structure and character development. If you're unsure if that's you, please message me and I'll be happy to advise. TIMING: Saturday, February 28th from 2:30pm to 5:30pm. LOCATION: The Artillery Arms, 102 Bunhill Row, London EC1Y 8ND. Nearest stations are Old Street, Barbican and Moorgate. We have hired the room but please don't bring your own food and drinks. The pub landlord will have my head! TICKETS: £20.00 to pay for content, preparation, venue hire and event organising. Please follow the steps to pay via PayPal when you RSVP. Refunds or credits will only be offered if the meetup is cancelled by admin. Please change your RSVP to 'Not Going' if you can no longer attend as we often have people waiting and we'd hate for them to miss out. Download the Meetup app to manage your RSVPs quickly. Please post below if you have questions above the above. Hope to see you there!

Write by the River (South Bank)

RESCHEDULED: Write-in at the Mitre: work on your own material in company

Apologies – this event has been rescheduled from 14th due to room booking issues. **We will be at The Mitre pub in central Greenwich.** This meetup is free and casual. We just sit around for a few hours and write together. Bring a laptop, or use a pen and paper or clay tablet and stylus if that's what works for you. The structure of the session is roughly: 2pm: chat 2:20–3:25: writing time 3:25: chat/coffee break 3:40–4:45 writing time 4:45: chat But our Saturdays are very casual, so feel free to drop in and out. **Our Saturday sessions sometimes rotate location. We're going to stick with the Mitre for now, but do check the location of the specific meetup before signing up. If you arrive later, you may need to ask the bar staff to show you through to the room.**

Write by the River (South Bank)

Evening critiquing session

Write-in at the Mitre: work on your own material in convivial company

**We will be at The Mitre pub in central Greenwich.** This meetup is free and casual. We just sit around for a few hours and write together. Bring a laptop, or use a pen and paper or clay tablet and stylus if that's what works for you. The structure of the session is roughly: 2pm: chat 2:20–3:25: writing time 3:25: chat/coffee break 3:40–4:45 writing time 4:45: chat But our Saturdays are very casual, so feel free to drop in and out. **Our Saturday sessions sometimes rotate location. We're going to stick with the Mitre for now, but do check the location of the specific meetup before signing up. If you arrive later, you may need to ask the bar staff to show you through to the room.**

Hackney Writing Circle Thursday 26th February

The MILDMAY CLUB, Newington Green Hackney based publisher, Indie Novella, are hosting a monthly in-person Writing Group in Stoke Newington, London. This is open for anyone working on a novel who is looking for a supportive group to provide advice and help to take it forward, be it if you’re struggling with writer’s block or you’re looking to submit to a literary agent and want to bounce around some ideas. The format will be in two parts. The first hour will be led by Indie Novella editor and author, Damien Mosley, focusing on a specific writing related topic. The first week at the Mildmay Club this will be the challenges of structuring our novel and we can discuss issues we face regarding plotting or where to begin or share examples which inspire us. The second hour each month will be dedicated to peer reviewing a sample of our writing. Authors Rose Diell and John McMenemie spoke of the importance of Writing Circles in helping writers develop at Stoke Newington Literary Festival and as such we hope this monthly space will allow writers to convene and share their experiences. Those interested please do come along. We do review one of the group's work each month and we can add you to the email list if you email [info@indienovella.co.uk](mailto:info@indienovella.co.uk).

Write by the River (South Bank)