During these practical Creative Writing Taster Classes, you will have the chance to start equipping your creative writing tool kit with the techniques needed to start formulating ideas, characters, plot lines and structures. Your tutor will guide you through exercises to help you discover fresh and imaginative approaches to prose.

Like all of our writing courses, you’ll receive friendly, constructive feedback from your tutor throughout. The opportunity to discuss and share your ideas with a group of fellow writers can be an incredibly useful part of the creative process, helping you develop the style and scope of your writing.

This taster class is a great introduction to how a full length Creative Writing-Beginners course will be taught, your potential tutor and venue.

Our Writing for Film courses explores the fundamentals of screenwriting from first idea to final draft. You will learn how to approach story, develop characters and dialogue, and to structure your ideas into a fully-fledged screenplay. Using film clips and practical writing exercises, the course also includes advice about next steps from writing treatments to pitching your work. For film buffs serious about screen writing, this crash course is essential. If you are new to writing please start by completing our Script Writing Beginners course.

WRITING FOR FILM COURSES CONTENT
- How to tell a story cinematically
- Exploring ways to build your narrative with structural analysis
- Comprehensive story breakdown using clips from existing films
- Developing your characters, dialogue and subtext
- Script doctoring for existing story ideas
- Formatting your screenplay and approaches to supporting material.

Do you have a great idea for a film, TV show, or stage play?

Maybe you’ve tried your hand at script writing before and want to hone your craft with an industry professional? Or are you completely new to writing and looking to get inspired?

Our Script Writing Courses for Beginners will help you to form and develop your ideas into a first-rate script. You’ll work on technique, boost creativity and confidence, and above all have fun in these exciting group classes.

One of our most popular writing courses, Creative Writing Courses for Beginners explore different techniques to develop your writing in fresh and dynamic ways

Perhaps you have ideas but don’t know what to do with them, or you struggle with descriptive prose. Perhaps you want a clearer understanding of plot, or to kick-start your work with regular deadlines.

Whether you want to write fiction or non-fiction, our creative writing class will help you find your individual voice – through practical exercises that boost your confidence and unlock your creative potential in a safe and supportive environment.

You’ll work practically to produce short pieces of content and develop a critical awareness of others’ writing styles. Creative Writing for Beginners is ideally suited to writers wishing to focus on long-form prose.

Have you ever wanted to write? This fun and interactive course will introduce various kinds of creative writing strategies to develop your passion for writing. We will explore techniques for sparking the imagination and tapping into your inner creativity, as well as developing skills and improving style.

Suitable for complete beginners and those who have already begun writing for fun, fame or fortune.

No formal entry requirements You must be aged 19+ the previous August Resident in the UK/EU for 3 years or longer.

A writing group for anyone aged 18+ who identifies as Black British, Black African or Caribbean.

Through fortnightly workshops the Black Writers Collective develop their own skills as writers through workshops, sharing of their own work with each other and public audiences, as well as hearing from invited industry guests. Previous guests have included Charlotte Bennett of Paines Plough, and writers and performers Nathan Bryon and Tyrell Williams.

“Thank you for giving us a space to explore, trust ourselves as writers and continued support!”

The Collective is free to join, although we may begin to operate a waiting list if there is a lot of interest.

We meet every other Monday from 7 – 8.30pm, both in person at Southwark Playhouse and online.

ProPortal is a brand-new and completely free online platform developed by Unity Theatre, Liverpool. The website has been created to diversify the UK touring circuit by bringing together artists and programmers who would normally struggle to connect.

At its simplest the ProPortal is a private, online library of performances available for tour and artists available for commission. Through ProPortal, programmers and producers at venues and festivals will be able to watch high-quality recordings of company work through this new YouTube-style platform.

Designed to make decision-making easier and more personalised, the portal allows productions to be filtered by genre, location, availability and staging, as well as features such as accessible performance options, community engagement packages and suitability for schools

The website is private and secure, meaning artists don’t need to worry about work being accessed by anybody they wouldn’t want to see it. Submission for artists is brief, saving endless cold-emailing or extensive travel costs.

Artistic Directors of the Future is the first membership organisation dedicated to increasing the number of Black, Asian and ethnically diverse leaders in the arts.

Membership is open to theatre & live performance professionals (emerging, mid-career, established and career changers) and organisations worldwide.

What we do:
- Provide leadership training, events, and programmes for Black, Asian or ethnically diverse (Global majority) theatre/live performance creatives and professional at any stage of their leadership career. To check if you are eligible click here
- We partner with leading theatre and live performance organisations to diversify their networks and diversify their senior staff and trustees.

Audiences are spoilt for choice right now with the availability of stories - on stage, screen, radio and in other forms of fiction. How do you strengthen your play idea - and make it stand out from all the rest?

In 2019, Associate Playwright Oliver Emanuel (Flight,The 306 Trilogy) ran a series of workshops across Scotland that aimed to:

- assist in improving your ideas
- guide your writing and redrafting
- increase your confidence when talking to directors, programmers or potential supporters about the story you want to tell
- assert why you are the only person who can tell it

In this short series of videos, Oliver talks you through the points covered in the workshop. A BSL version of the workshop by Bea Webster is available.

We encourage you to B-Scene and take part in creative activities.

The Blue Elephant runs a Writers Group.

Everyone interested in playwriting is welcome to join, whether you aspire to have work you're creating put on professionally or not. We also love to have people come who are interested in acting/critiquing as that's a massive part of the group too.

There's no charge to take part. Our Writers Group is currently on a break for the summer and will have its next meeting on Tuesday 28th September, meeting every fortnight after that. To join please email Niamh at niamh@blueelephanttheatre.co.uk. Sessions are a mixture of writing activities and readings from each other's work.