Shaping Great Stories: from take-off to landing, with Dan Powell

Shaping Great Stories: from take-off to landing
A Hive Short Story Day with Dan Powell
All experience levels welcome | For young people aged 15-25
Saturday 15th April | 10.30 for 10.45 start to 4/4.15pm (refreshments & dinner break)
Cantor Building, Arundel Street, Sheffield (4 minutes from Sheffield train station)
Cost: £6 / £4.50 concessions | booking: [email protected]

 ‘You start writing the ending when you write the first word.’ Jerome Stern

How do we find the right beginning for a story? Or the right ending? And how do we navigate the space between beginning and ending to craft a story that carries a reader meaningfully from first line to last?

Join prize-winning writer, Dan Powell, for this playful short story writing workshop day, exploring all things narrative structure. You’ll look at a range of short fiction that uses story structure in weird and wonderful ways to get you thinking about how narratives ticks and encourage you to experiment with shaping your own stories.

Expect stimulating writing exercises and an easy-going and supportive atmosphere open to all levels and interests. Dan will also read from his own work and share tips and advice about other aspects of story writing and getting your work out there in the world.

You’ll leave the workshop with a greater understanding of how story can be shaped for maximum effect and how the ending of story should pulse right through the narrative, building like a powerful wave that sweeps the reader away with the final line.

Dan Powell is a prize-winning author of short fiction from the West Midlands. He recently completed his PhD in Creative Writing at the University of Leicester and his stories have appeared in The Salt Anthology of New Writing, New Short Stories, Unthology, The Lonely Crowd, The London Magazine, Carve, Being Dad, The End, and Best British Short Stories. His debut collection, Looking Out of Broken Windows, was shortlisted for the Scott Prize and longlisted for both the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award and the Edge Hill Prize. Most recently, his short story ‘Half-mown Lawn’ was performed as part of a Best British Short Stories Word Theatre event. Dan also runs writing workshops in festivals, schools and universities and is a First Story writer-in-residence in the East Midlands. He can be found online at danpowellfiction.com and on Twitter as @danpowfiction.