How to master multiple timelines, perspectives and time zones with confidence.

Some stories need more than one clock. Do you want to ensure that your timelines are guiding the reader in a compelling (rather than confusing) way?

A story told across decades, through multiple characters, or from different points of view can create extraordinary depth, but it can also quickly become confusing. This workshop looks at how to manage fractured chronology and shifting perspectives while keeping the reader firmly oriented and emotionally invested.

Drawing on screenwriting, playwriting and fiction techniques, we’ll explore why writers choose to move through time, when a change of perspective genuinely adds something, and how to make apparently separate strands of a story speak to one another.

We’ll look at parallel timelines, flashbacks, framing devices, multiple protagonists, unreliable perspectives and stories that reveal information out of chronological order. Most importantly, we’ll consider the difference between confusing the reader and deliberately making them curious.

You’ll work with your own project or an existing story idea and begin constructing its different strands into a coherent whole.

You’ll leave with a visual timeline and narrative map for your project - a way for you to see the whole story at once, even when the reader doesn’t.

The workshop is 2 hours long, but there will be an (optional) half an hour extra at the end to ask any questions, or get advice about any individual projects you're working on. Please be aware that places are limited, so we recommend that you don't delay booking your place.

Description supplied by the event organiser.