Writing Classes from Faber & Faber

A Mike Figgis Masterclass: Deconstruction of Film Narrative

Using the evolution of Timecode as a working example, internationally acclaimed director Mike Figgis will unpick the cinematic threads and explain what makes this film so utterly unique. Through close examination of versions one, eleven, fourteen and fifteen, Figgis will explore how the film evolved over a compressed time frame and through deconstruction, simultaneously shed light on how to construct a movie.

Paying special attention to space, light, sound, music composition, narrative, imagery, improvisation, drama, editing, direction, digital technology (including equipment and its uses), camera movement and framing, Figgis will present and explain the fundamental building blocks of modern digital film-making while offering a compelling and inspiring insight into his own experimental and groundbreaking aesthetic.

The course will take place at The Hospital Club from 2-4 February 2009 and there will be open Q & A throughout. Course price: £400.

http://www.faber.co.uk/article/2008/10/faber-academy-figgis-masterclass

Writing a Novel 2009 with novelist and MAN Booker Prize Judge Louise Doughty

This is a practical, workshop-based course which covers all aspects of novel writing from first ideas for a book through character development, plotting and structure, to re-writing.

Writing a Novel is the first six-month long course from the new Faber Academy. Beginning in February 2009, students will attend weekly evening workshops (2 hours) which will cover all aspects of novel writing from the first conception of an idea for a novel through to getting words on a page, narrative structure and style and re-writing. In addition, there will be six full-day sessions to take place on one Saturday each month. Most of the classes will be lead by the Course Director, novelist Louise Doughty, but there will also be guest seminars given by well-known writers, agents and publishers.

There are 16 places available on Writing a Novel 2009. One place on the course will be allocated free of charge. This place will be chosen at the discretion of the Course Director and the Faber Academy and will be based on merit and not financial circumstances.

Applications will be accepted until 28 November 2008. Course price: £3,500.
http://www.faber.co.uk/article/2008/10/faber-academy-writing-novel-course

The First Creative Writing Course at Bloomsbury House, the new home of Faber and Faber

Set over four days, Erica Wagner and Salley Vickers will rescue the words ‘traditional narrative’ from the dusty wardrobe full of faux-leather fringing and pseudo-ethnic costume where they’ve been stashed. This course will look at how to make it new in the way that human beings have always found best: by looking for the stories – of life and death, of love and loss – that have always meant the most to us and recreating them in original voice.

The course will take place from 5-8 February 2009 at Bloomsbury House, 74-77 Great Russell Street, London WC1. Course price: £500.
http://www.faber.co.uk/article/2008/10/faber-academy-london09

The Art of the Short Story with Gerard Donovan and Claire Keegan, Newman House, Dublin

Set over four days in the beautiful rooms of James Joyce’s former college, Gerard Donovan and Claire Keegan will explore how to transform everyday experience from statements into suggestion that is both intellectually and emotionally significant. Using discussions and exercises, the workshops will address the elements of the form – among them setting, characters, time, structure and how fiction forms a temporal arc - while pondering how short story writers use detail, and the lack of it, to cast the spell of that single effect.

The course will take place from 16-19 April 2009 at Newman House, St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin. Course price: £500
http://www.faber.co.uk/article/2008/10/faber-academy-dublin-course


The details of other Faber Academy courses in early 2009 will be available shortly on http://www.faber.co.uk/

For further information please contact Patrick Keogh at Faber and Faber on 020 7465 7682 or patrickk@faber.co.uk

Writing Movies, Gotham Writers' Workshop

It's taken me a little while to finish this one, purely because someone whom I won't name (someone else who reviews on this site) decided to pilfer it off me to read and I had to sneak it out of his bag, in order to finish it.

The thing about Writing Movies is: if you are a movie-fan, of any genre, or if you are interested in movies in any way, shape or form, or if you would one day like to be a successful screenwriter, then this is the book for you. It really helps you analyse movies that you've enjoyed and helps you concentrate on so many more things going on at the same time on the screen, that you as a layman might not notice the first time around. Another thing about Writing Movies: if you are a writer, across any genre, of novels or short stories, this is also the book for you.

I can see you thinking: yah, yah, Liz has eventually lost the plot. But I promise you, I haven't. I have probably learned more from Writing Movies about tightening up scenes and character exposition, than I have from some of the other How To writing books out there. It also shines this spotlight on your own work which leads you to examine your own writing in a very critical way and you realise there is a lot you can pare off and trim, something Mr. Stephen King is very clinical about in his "On Writing".

It makes you think, when looking at the screenplays they hold up as examples, or when you examine your own favourite flicks, that no matter how long the movie is, that the stories are told in scenes that are strong and vivid along with tight dialogue -not an ounce of fat to be had, no matter how languorous the shots are over the landscape - cue John Woo's Brokeback Mountain.

And carrying that with me and looking at books I've recently read, Two Pearls of Wisdom, The Painted Man and especially Young Samurai, the stories have been pared down to be lean and interesting, with strong characters and no unnecessary dialogue, whilst retaining their vividness at the same time. It is a skill, there's no kidding about that. And you don't necessarily have the luxury to rely on your editor or agent to do this for you. Especially if you are a newbie, just starting off in the business.

Writing Movies is a genuinely good read and very affordable, more so than some other books out there on writing screenplays and writing novels, and it is worth every penny. It focuses on plot structure and character development, it crucially points out how to show not tell and it provides an interesting insight into the topics of description, voice, tone and theme. It walks you through the different stages of your script and crucially, that dreaded Revision period. The cheat sheets at the back are really handy and will be of use to novelists and screenwriters when it comes to checking up on your various necessary points such as subplots, characters, premise, plot, dialogue and scene, etc.

I would really recommend the book to aspiring novelists and screenwriters, including people who like to know the "how is it done" behind it all. It is a comprehensively easy to read and dip into-book and ranks up there with his majesty Syd Field's body of work, but probably a bit better, purely because it has such cross-over appeal!

Writing Movies gives you access to the screenplays and templates for the exercises online and it also supplies strategies to break into the business. What, you think Diablo Cody got lucky? ;-)

The Gotham Writers workshop can be found online here. Writing Movies has been published by A&C Black here in the UK and can be bought directly from their website or from any online retailer or any good bookshop.