About the course

The Nuts and Bolts of Editing: In this highly practical writing workshop, learn tips to make your prose sing.

We will look at ways in which you can edit your writing, tighten the prose, bring the text to life, chop down your wordcount, avoid common errors and, hopefully, catch the eye of a commissioning editor or agent. Editing takes many forms: line edits, sense edits, and structural edits. All can be worked on to make your writing sharper.

What will you do in the workshop?

This will be a hands-on session, with plenty of exercises with which to try out editing tips. Participants are also asked to share 500 words of their own writing two weeks in advance, ready to work on during the session. Please send this to [email protected] by 5 April.

What can participants expect?

Do you have crutch words? Fillers? Repetition? Passive sentences? Are you prone to “purple prose”? We’ll look at common mistakes and how to avoid them. We’ll also investigate how technology can help – Grammarly, ProWritingAid, and even humble Word.

What kind of writer is this opportunity for?

This session is for all writers, new or seasoned, whether you’re working on fiction, non-fiction, plays, essays, theses or poetry.

Who is it for?

This workshop is for all underrepresented writers – creatives who face barriers to opportunities due to mental health issues, physical health/disability, sensory impairment, learning disabilities, neurodivergence, substance misuse, survivors, working-class backgrounds, and those from the LGBTQIA+ community, Black, Asian, traveller, mixed heritage or other global majority backgrounds.

About the tutor

Iqbal Hussain‘s latest short stories appear in the anthologies “Lancashire Stories”, by Lancashire Libraries and “City of Stories: Home”, by Spread the Word. He won gold for prose in the Creative Future Writers’ Awards 2019 and is a recipient of the inaugural London Writers’ Awards 2018. Iqbal’s debut novel, “Northern Boy”, is out on submission. Twitter: @ihussainwriter Website: www.ihussainwriter.com

Date

Wednesday 19 April, online via Zoom.

Time

7 – 9 pm

Cost

£10/£5 concessions (5 spaces available at our concessionary rate)

In order to make our resources stretch further, we are requesting nominal fees for some workshops. The more people who book at full price, the more we’ll be able to offer. Lower price tickets are available for those on benefits, unemployed/underemployed or on low wages. We do not ask for proof that you qualify. We also have current/upcoming workshops at lower booking fees—please subscribe to our newsletter to keep up to date.

Please do not book if you’re already registered for one of our other online sessions. These are very popular but we have limited resources to run them, and want to ensure everyone has an opportunity to take part.

If the workshop is full, you can sign up for the waiting list by emailing us here.