Romance is the top-selling genre in fiction, with many sub-genres like literary, historical and contemporary and the hot romantasy space that is redefining audiences. Yet what does it take to write a love story that doesn’t just tickle the imagination of your readers but makes them pine for your characters to find love?
In this course, you’ll learn to: a) develop a sustainable and enjoyable writing practice, b) create convincing and heartfelt characters, c) develop dialogue and action that crackles with chemistry, d) delay gratification by creating convincing tension, and e) edit the work to push it to the next level.
What can you expect from taking part?
Literary authors like A.S. Byatt and Arundhati Roy, historical authors like Julia Quinn and Diana Gabaldon, short story writers like Carmen Maria Machado, and fantasy authors like Rebecca Yarros have written love stories that readers root for. In this course, at each stage, we’ll look at craft and practice, read love excerpts, some romantic, others spicy, and most importantly, we’ll practice our craft and develop skills that can be transferred across genres. We’ll learn how to connect with the hearts and not just the minds of our readers.
Who is this for?
This course is open to writers of all abilities. It will help beginners develop a writing practice and understand the basics of craft and it will challenge advanced writers to take another look at the complexities of love, chemistry, tension and editing.
Email dates
Email 1 – Thursday 31 October 2024
Email 2 – Thursday 7 November 2024
Email 3 – Thursday 14 November 2024
Email 4 – Thursday 21 November 2024
Email 5 – Thursday 28 November 2024
Access
This course is designed with creativity and accessibility at its heart; it is free to take part in, optimised for screen reading, and includes transcriptions.
If you know someone who would like to take part who doesn’t have a computer or internet access, please contact us at [email protected] and we can print and post the course to them (UK only).
About Amita Murray
Amita is a historical and contemporary novelist based in London. Her Unladylike series of Regency romance novels (HarperCollins UK and Avon USA) are about the Marleigh sisters, daughters of an East India Company earl and his Indian mistress. Cosmo calls her work ‘scintillating and scandalous’ and the Boston Globe calls it a ‘deeply romantic and politically astute exploration of love, race and class in Regency England.’ She has written for the Bookseller, Diva, The Big Issue, Red, The New Scientist, Writers Digest and others. Amita has won the SI Leeds Literary Prize and the Exeter Novel Prize. Her short stories appear in Wasafiri, Aesthetica, Brand, Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine and others. She has been writer-in-residence with the British Council, Spread the Word, Leverhulme, University College London and Plymouth University and has taught creative writing at the University of East Anglia.