About

Join William Sutton, author of the Campbell Lawless Victorian mysteries, for a series of writing workshops held in the beautiful Dress Circle saloon space at the New Theatre Royal. All workshops are individually bookable.

Friday 13 September – Portsmouth Writers’ Social – Free entry but donations are appreciated!

A great free taster session before you get started on your writing journey. Go and meet some fellow writers and get inspired!

Friday 11 October – Writing for Procrastinators

Mañana, mañana. Do your writing projects linger in your drawer and hard drive? Hear useful tips for breaking through.

Turn your weaknesses into strengths. Develop characters, settings, plots, endings. Try methods to crash through blocks and get words on the page in a friendly, informal workshops.

Fridays 8, 15 and 22 November – Write Your Historical Novel

A short course in historical novel writing. There's no guaranteed polished novel and publishing deal at the end, but this course will get you to explore the thrill and adventure of historical writing, along with:
hints for drafting
tips for avoiding pitfalls of research and anachronisms
melding your experience with concerns and events of the time
creating a Bygonese language appropriate for your era, but readable

Go along and explore, whether it’s Ancient Greece or wartime Portsmouth, Elizabethan England or mediaeval Mesopotamia.

Friday 13 December – Edit Your Writing

The first rule of Edit Club: don’t trust spellcheck.

Tackle this crucial part of the writing process. Pick up specific tips on how to improve dialogue, layout, structure, character and more. Take along a section of your writing and discover how seriously writers take editing.

Since Portsmouth Bookfest 2021’s sold-out Take Your Novel Further and Write Your Novel courses, a group of writers local and far-flung have met regularly online to edit their work; reshaping, pruning, prodding and developing early drafts towards publishable standard - all in preparation for submitting to agents or publishers. Sutton shares tips, pitfalls and secrets of the dark arts of editing.

These workshops are appropriate for committed writers of all ages, writing fiction, drama, short stories or non-fiction.