Worrying about plot, structure and storytelling isn’t only for writers who’ve been told they have a saggy middle. Some writers can’t get writing at all until they’ve got everything worked out; some writers can’t think about structure till they have a whole first draft down; and the successful authors who say they never plot may just be doing it intuitively. But to keep your reader reading, you need to keep them wanting to know what happens next, right to the end.

In this practical workshop we will look first at what makes a story, and what we mean by narrative drive, and then dig in to how that plays out in shaping the story of your novel, from whole-book-scale to sentence-level. We’ll get our hands on the clay with a few short exercises, and there will be the opportunity to ask questions.

You should leave with a clear idea of how plot, structure and story interrelate, and ideas for tackling these crucial issues. Click through to the Blue Pencil Agency find out more