Write and Submit a Short Story

This course is designed for short story lovers or writers who want to gain new skills and find a ‘home’ for their work.

It’s suitable if you:

• Are a short fiction writer who wants to hone or refresh your technique, writing or voice
• Have previously taken a beginners’ writing course or would like to continue developing your skills, and don’t feel ready to attempt a novel
• Are a novel writer wanting to try something different, or work on short fiction as a way to explore ideas and overcome blocks during the long haul of writing a novel
• Consider yourself an avid short story reader and listener who would like to try your hand at writing
• Want to broaden your palette of fiction craft skills
• Are preparing for a short story competition or journal submission
• Have already entered competitions and feel that your work is plateauing, and would like help to get to the next stage
• Enjoy the discipline of deadlines and peer feedback
• Can dedicate 5-7 hours per week for the duration of the course
• Want to join a friendly and supportive small group of learners

This course allows you to:

• Start exploring different types of short fiction
• Find inspiration and ways to attune yourself to details that can turn into stories
• Learn the importance of showing not telling, and other techniques to finesse short fiction
• Get your story ready to submit to competitions or journals
• Gain the confidence to send a story out into the world
• Trust your instinct when selecting and developing ideas
• Become a more effective writer, for recreation and at work
• Develop the transferable skills writers require (eg discipline, attention to detail, ability to work to deadlines)
• Practise giving feedback to other writers and receiving responses to your work
• Build greater independence, autonomy and judgement as you work on a final assignment

Session 1: Immerse Yourself

We’ll start by focusing on reading lots of different types of short stories, asking what kind of short fiction appeals to you and what makes you want to write. We’ll look at keeping a journal and a daily senses diary, working on one sense per day to attune yourself to the small details of everyday life that bring a story to life.

You’ll meet your group and tutor for a live session on Zoom.

Session 2: Finding Inspiration

What do you do with all the details you’ve noticed and read? We’ll explore story-starter prompts, including sounds, ways to play with stories at sentence level, working from themes and thinking about why stories work. On the craft technique side, you’ll practise show not tell and the art of reading a story aloud.

Session 3: The Nuts and Bolts

This week is all about character and setting in short fiction. You’ll experiment with character-building techniques, and take a look at a setting through a character’s eyes. We’ll look at stereotyping in character-creation and ways to think differently, especially around cultural appropriation. Have fun playing with Hollywood gender roles, and transporting a setting from your own experience into a story.

This week, there will be a group session with a guest writer to read and discuss one of their stories.

Session 4: Seeing Differently

Let’s talk about point of view and dialogue. We’ll experiment with different ways to present thoughts and speech on the page, and look at the role of dialogue and body language in making transitions in a story. You’ll write an exchange between two inanimate objects.

Session 5: Story Structure

Focus on openings and endings. We’ll look at masses of openings and ask what makes a good (and dull) start to a short story. You’ll explore life experience and how to develop a fictional structure from something that happened to you, and examine why ‘real’ structures don’t make a good story form. What makes a satisfying ending? Your tutor will give you feedback on the start of a story.

Session 6: Find Your Place

Demystifying the competition and journal submission process, and thinking about when you’re ready to go for it. We’ll offer lists of places to submit, with pointers, plus tips and advice from judges and writers.

This session lasts 2 weeks to allow you time to draft, peer critique, and complete a short story of up to 3,000 words. There will also be a Group Q&A on Zoom for tutor advice on your story and next steps.

At the end of the course we’ll run an open mic session to encourage participants to read their work to the group and develop the confidence needed to power a submission.

You will need to put in around 5-7 hours each week. The deadline for posting your final assignment each week is the end of Saturday. The deadline for giving feedback to others is the end of Sunday. Other than that, you can work through the course materials each week at your own pace.

There’s no need to log in at a set time to take part – sessions open to a timetable and you have until the end of each session to work through the materials in the online classroom.

So you can read the tutor notes and listen to the podcasts, watch the videos, analyse extracts, react to prompts and work through mini-exercises at any time of day or night that’s best for you. You can also contribute to discussions on our forums 24/7, so the online classroom feels like a rich and lively shared experience.

Most people on the course fit learning around their work and caring responsibilities, which is why we teach in this non-synchronous way. It also suits those studying in another language, and offers advantages in terms of accessibility and different learning styles. We ask that you submit your final exercise in each session by the deadline, then read and critique the work of some of your peers.

If there are live Zoom sessions in your course, your moderator will let you know the timing. If you can’t make it, you can send in questions in advance and catch up with the recording afterwards. Past sessions and any recordings remain available throughout the course – and in the alumni area afterwards – so you can revisit any of the learning, revise exercises and chart your progress at any point.

Join our alumni community 

After your course, you can join our online alumni community – a friendly group of writers supporting each other as they continue to explore and develop their writing. There’s no cost for this. It’s easy to access via the online classroom, where you can:

• Revisit all your courses materials, including tutor notes, feedback, videos, podcasts and forum posts
• Rejoin your classmates, and continue working together in a private space
• Meet alumni from other courses to find beta-readers and share work on our critiquing forum
• Network with other writers working in your genre or area of interest
• Take part in regular ‘sit and write’ Zoom sessions, to push forward with your work-in progress
• Join our monthly live alumni events with our expert tutors and industry guests, including agents, editors, publishers, competition and festival organisers, and prizewinning writers

Commission a report on your work
If you’d like to receive a personalised, detailed report on your final piece of writing from your course tutor, this is available at an extra cost. You’ll receive detailed written feedback assessing your ideas and writing, plus advice on what steps to take next.

If you are a writer based in North of Tyne, you may be eligible for a bursary discount through New Writing North.

You can submit your application through this site.

This course is open to writers all over the globe. If you are based anywhere else in the world, you can buy now here.