Matt Kendrick
Writer | Editor | Teacher
Write Beyond the Lightbulb:
Lyrical Writing
How do we craft writing that is so infused with musicality it deserves to be read out loud? This flash fiction course explores various tricks and techniques which can be used to lend a lyrical quality to your writing.
Dates: 4th - 17th November 2024
Price: Pay What You Can (Recommended £95)
Write Beyond the Lightbulb:
Glorious Words
How do we choose the right words to sharpen up our prose? Is the road to hell really paved with adverbs? This flash fiction course explores language in all its guts and glory, focussing on unique images, concision versus specificity and how to create original tone.
Dates: 7th-20th October 2024
Price: Pay What You Can (Recommended £95)
Write Beyond the Lightbulb:
Colourful Characters
How do we bring our characters to life? How do we get them to interact in their own unique fashion with the world around them? This flash fiction course explores body language, senses, dialogue, internal thought and perspective.
Dates: 5th-18th August 2024
Price: Pay What You Can (Recommended £95)
Write Beyond the Lightbulb:
Go With The Flow
How do we create flow in our writing, sentences that slip one into the next like a river of words? This flash fiction course explores sentence craft at a molecular level, thinking about the connection of ideas, rhythmic patterns and thematic cohesion.
Dates: 9th-22nd September 2024
Price: Pay What You Can (Recommended £95)
Book Matt for an Online Workshop
I am available to teach the following workshops to writers groups through Google Meet (or through Zoom if your group would prefer to host). Each workshop focuses on flash fiction and includes the exploration of one or several pieces of published flash. We'll look at tricks and techniques that writers can apply to their own writing, and I'll provide writing prompts for participants to play about with, hopefully creating some story seedlings to develop after the workshop.
*Please note that as someone with a chronic health condition, I am only able to take on a limited number of bookings and there is also the chance that I may have to pull out of the planned event at short notice (although I will obviously do everything in my power to avoid this).
**Payment will be required seven days before the planned event.
To enquire or to book a workshop, please contact Matt at matt@mattkendrick.co.uk
One-Sentence Stories
There are many flash fiction pieces written in the form of a single, looping sentence, rippling through their narrative without a solitary full stop. These one-sentence stories are often described as breathless. They can feel effortless; but often there is a clever architecture holding everything in place. In this mini workshop, we’ll look at some brilliant examples, considering the why, the where, the what and the how of this wonderful – but also wonderfully tricksy – narrative form.
Timing: 45 mins or 60 mins
Cost: £90 / £100
Beautiful Worlds:
Lyrical techniques for bringing place to life
Constrained by the need for concision that goes hand in hand with writing flash fiction, how do we paint a clear picture in a reader’s mind without using up too much of our precious word count? Some writers have a knack for the evocative and, in this workshop, we’ll be focusing on one brilliant example of place-writing, exploring the way it builds a beautiful world to enhance both character and story.
Timing: 60 mins or 75 mins
Cost: £100 / £125
A Sing in the Tail:
Hopeful stories
While so much flash fiction moves towards a gut-punch ending, it feels like there are far fewer pieces that do the opposite and leave the reader on a note of hope. However, it feels as though we need these stories more than ever. So, how do we create uplifting pieces that are still infused with impact and power? How do we explore the bleak but move back towards the light? In this workshop, we'll look at strategies for adding a 'sing' rather than a 'sting' to the tail of your stories.
Timing; 90 mins or 120 mins
Cost: £150 / £200