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, the senses, dialogue, internal thought and perspective.

Upcoming Course Dates

5th-18th August 2024 (**SOLD OUT**)

10th-23rd February 2025 (BOOKING WILL OPEN IN NOVEMBER 2024)

To be added to my priority list for future course dates, please send me an email at matt@mattkendrick.co.uk

Previous Course Dates

16th - 29th January 2023 (SOLD OUT); 13th - 26th March 2023 (SOLD OUT); 8th - 21st January 2024 (SOLD OUT); 8th - 21st April 2024 (SOLD OUT)

Price

This is a pay-what-you-can workshop. The recommended price is £95*. Where this is prohibitive, please pay what you feel you can afford**. As a workshop facilitator, I am committed to opening up writing opportunities to people from all backgrounds based on ability to write rather than ability to pay.

*For the sake of transparency, this recommended price is calculated to cover (a) 3.0 hours of course tutor input (per participant) in terms of feedback, discussion and admin; (b) the research / writing time of the course tutor in putting together the course notes (approximately 15,000 words, available to download following the course); and (c) miscellaneous fees (transaction charges, website charges etc.)

**Available price options: (A) £95, (B) £85, (C) £75, (D) £60, (E) £50. If you are a low-income writer and would be interested in hearing about free places, please enter your details here.

Testimonials

"The Colourful Character course is in-depth, inventive and full of brilliantly devised exercises that help the writer dig deep into their creative toolbox to produce vibrant and original work. Focussing on character physicality and perspective, this is so much more than just a prompt and write workshop. I strongly encourage anyone with an interest in honing their craft to sign up at once!"

Kathy Hoyle, Author of "Chasing the Dragon"

"Matt's vast knowledge of language and form, as well as attention to detail, come to the fore again in his new Write Beyond the Lightbulb course: Colourful Characters. I am always astounded by how much I learn on his courses – through reading the highlighted stories, learning new aspects of theory and experimenting with elements of language. Together, these become tools I can put in my writer’s toolbox to use again and again."

Laura Besley, Author of "100neHundred"

"Matt’s Write Beyond the Lightbulb courses are exceptional and his new Colourful Characters course is just as refreshing and invigorating. Beautifully researched and readily accessible, this course not only offers the writer new angles and approaches for writing vibrant characters, but will send you away yearning to get on with it."

Ruth Brandt, Author of "No One Has Any Intention Of Building A Wall"

Topics

1: Body Language (actions and gestures)

How to use body language to imply emotions and portray the relationships between characters.
Bringing a scene to life through slow action.
The interplay between character detail, physical description, personality traits and body language.
Show vs tell.
Transferred epithets.

2: Senses (perception and feelings)

The nine senses.
Evoking senses through imagery, creative verb choices and character-specific tone.
Mixing the palette and overlapping the senses.
Synaesthesia.

3: Voices (dialogue and thought)

The functions of dialogue.
Structuring dialogue through reaction and bridges.
The colourful spectrum of internal thought.

4: Perspective (our viewpoint on the world)

The ladder of psychic distance.
Filtering verbs.
Considering the world from the unique viewpoint of our characters.

In each topic, we'll use example texts to explore techniques we might incorporate into our own writing. These are presented alongside warm-up and preparatory writing exercises with everything leading towards a final flash fiction challenge at the end of the topic.

The reading list for this course includes pieces by Melissa Bernal Austin, K M Elkes, Kelsey Ipsen, John Jodzio, Angie Sijun Lou, Pamela Naaki Tetteh, Nuala O'Connor, Elisabeth Ingram Wallace, Abdulbaseet Yusuff, and Tara Isabel Zambrano.

Each topic is designed to be worked through in roughly three hours. The course is fully asynchronous (work-at-your-own-pace) and fully online to allow course participants to fit it in around their other commitments.

Course Structure

Week 0

Participants are given access to the course website seven days prior to the start date. This is to allow writers to make a headstart on reading and preparative exercises. If you would like access to the materials further in advance, this can normally be accommodated.

Week 1

Participants are encouraged to work through the reading materials and preparative exercises. The course forum is open for discussion of stories and craft techniques as well as for sharing micros created from the preparative exercises.

Week 2

Participants can continue working through the course materials at their own pace. The main workshop is open for sharing final challenge pieces and providing feedback on those created by other course participants.

After the course

Participants are sent full course notes in PDF format.

Learning Mode

Online (website and Google Classroom).

Asynchronous (work at your own pace / no set times / no Zoom elements).

Forum (opportunitiy to interact with course tutor and other course participants).

Workshop (opportunity to share work and swap feedback with other course participants).

Feedback from course tutor on four prepartory micros and detailed feedback (300-400 word structural summary plus in-line comments) on one "final challenge" piece.

Course Tutor

Matt Kendrick is a writer, editor and teacher based in the East Midlands, UK. His short fiction has appeared in various journals, and has been included on the Biffy 50 list for 2019-20, in Best Microfiction 2021, Best Small Fictions 2022 and the Wigleaf Top 50 2022.

He works as a freelance editor and creative writing tutor, drawing on his knowledge of languages and other art forms to inform his workshops on lyrical writing, glorious words, colourful characters and writing flow.

BookColourful

Other Information / Sign Up

The course is designed for writers of all levels but, to get the most out of the materials, it is suggested that you should have some prior familiarity with reading and writing flash fiction. While the course is geared towards the study and generation of flash, the techniques and skills acquired should also be useful for writing longer form and non-fiction pieces.

The course is hosted on a Google website using Google Classroom and Google Drive to enable the forum and workshop elements. To access materials, participants will need to have a Google account. If you don't already have one, you will be sent information on how you can set one up following sign up for the course.

The terms and conditions for the course can be found here.

Booking open in November

Stories written on the Write Beyond The Lightbulb courses

The prompts on the Write Beyond the Lightbulb courses aim to get participants practising technique and experimenting with new ideas rather than writing perfect stories, but even so many wonderful pieces have been crafted by course participants and subsequently made their way out into the world.

The stories have been placed in major writing competitions including Reflex Fiction and Bath Flash Fiction, and have also been published in a wide variety of literary journals. A selection of these stories can be read at the link below:

Read WBTL stories

Matt Kendrick