The Writing Squad

Script Mini Goals
2021-11-08 17:30 - 19:00 UTC | Online
Mini goals for script writers.
Email billie@writingsquad.com to receive the link.

Squad Assessment Centre: Storylining
2021-11-06 11:00 - 16:00 | York, York
OPEN TO ALL SQUADS, YORK – VENUE TBC
This workshop will introduce you to the story process within soap. You will gain a unique insight into the way in which continuing drama hires Storyliners. Storyliners are responsible for generating ideas and structuring the story into each episode. We will also talk about what is expected from Storyliners at Story Conference where producers, writers and commissioners all meet to discuss future blocks of content. This session will focus on Emmerdale, so please watch two weeks of the show beforehand. The workshop will be modelled on our experience of ITV’s Assessment Centre which is part of the hiring process. During the day, you will pitch, develop and structure storylines, both independently and in groups.

Rituals: How do you take your tea?
2021-11-04 19:30 - 21:00 | Online
ZOOM, OPEN ALL SQUADS
In this workshop we will look at rituals and how they appear in our own lives, what they reveal about us and how we can use them to strengthen our understanding of our characters.
We will also explore how disrupting these rituals can function as a plot device using examples from theatre/film as well as putting one of our characters on a bad date.
Finally, we will look at the big rituals, the religious holidays, the weddings, the funerals – what do they offer us? What have we not seen? And what, importantly is the best party game?

Poets Mini Goals
2021-11-04 17:30 - 19:00 | Online
Mini Goals for poets.
Email billie@writingsquad.com to receive the link.

Prose Mini Goals
2021-11-02 17:30 - 19:00, 2021-10-19 17:30 - 19:00, 2021-10-07 17:30 - 18:00, 2021-09-28 17:30 - 19:00, 2021-09-14 17:30 - 19:00 | Online
Prose Mini Goals.
Email billie@writingsquad.com for the link.

SFF Mini Goals
2021-11-01 18:00 - 19:30 | Online
Mini goals session for science fiction and fantasy writers.
Email billie@writingsquad.com to get the link.

Material and Materials
2021-10-30 11:00 - 16:00 | Leeds
SQUAD 10, LEEDS – VENUE TBC
A workshop in bookmaking, writing and play with Stevie Ronnie.
We will be discussing the materiality of books and what affect a book’s material aspects can have on the way the reader experiences our words. We’ll consider the benefits and drawbacks for writers of producing and distributing your own work in the form of handmade books, and explore the ways in which the practice of making can feed into our writing practice.

Poets Mini Goals
2021-10-27 17:30 - 19:00, 2021-10-20 17:30 - 19:00, 2021-10-13 17:30 - 19:00, 2021-09-29 17:30 - 19:00, 2021-09-22 17:30 - 19:00, 2021-09-15 17:30 - 19:00 | Online
Poets mini goals.
Email billie@writingsquad.com for the link.

Awesome Prose - The Road
2021-10-26 18:00 - 19:30 | Online
One of the squad’s 3 Awesome Reading groups – designed to think about how we can read as writers.
If you want to join us, then here’s what you need to know:
We will be reading Cormac McCarthy’s The Road. The text can be bought here.
The Road is the astonishing post-apocalyptic and Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Cormac McCarthy.
A father and his young son walk alone through burned America, heading slowly for the coast. Nothing moves in the ravaged landscape save the ash on the wind. They have nothing but a pistol to defend themselves against the men who stalk the road, the clothes they are wearing, a cart of scavenged food – and each other.

Script Mini Goals
2021-10-25 17:30 - 19:00, 2021-10-11 17:30 - 19:00, 2021-09-27 17:30 - 19:00 | Online
We are seeing how we have done with the mini-goals we set ourselves last week, and maybe renewing them or setting new ones.
This is open to Squad 1-9. If you haven’t been to a previous meeting, you are welcome to join, just let steve@writingsquad.com know you want to come.
You will be sent a link before the meeting and you can go on Zoom from your computer or phone.

10 Things Every Story Needs
2021-10-23 11:00 - 16:00 | Leeds
SQUAD 10, LEEDS – VENUE TBC
In this workshop, we take Mark’s ten questions and apply them to your favourite films, films you hated and some movie classics. Whatever your genre, the ten tests Mark takes you through can be applied to any form of writing – scripts, novels, short stories and even longer narrative poems. In our last Squad evaluation someone said, “I learned more in that workshop than I did in the whole of my MA.”

Squad 10 Mini Goals
2021-10-18 18:00 - 19:30, 2021-09-20 18:00 - 19:30 | Online
Squad 10 mini goals session.
Email billie@writingsquad.com to get the link.

Yes, Poetry Can Handle This - Writing the Unpoetic
2021-10-14 19:30 - 21:00 | Online
ZOOM, OPEN ALL SQUADS
This workshop looks at the thematic boundaries of poetry – the gnarly, uncomfortable edges – and asks how we can write about things that are inherently unpoetic. There’s a tension between being gratuitously unpleasant vs. making good art that says the unsaid. We’re going to think about where that line is and how we can navigate it.

Making Visible with Andrew McMillan
2021-10-09 11:00 - 16:00 | Manchester, Manchester
SQUAD 10, MANCHESTER – VENUE TBC
Andrew’s third and latest collection, pandemonium, is an extraordinary raw exploration of fracture and distance, of the mind and the body in trouble. Andrew says, “one of the things I realise pandemonium one is trying to do is discover how to make the internal, the emotional, visible in a poem.”
In a practical workshop of reading examples and writing exercises Andrew will lead us in exploring the personal and how unseen things can make themselves visible in poems.

SFF Mini Goals
2021-10-04 18:00 - 19:30 | Online
Mini goals session for Science Fiction and Fantasy writers.
Email bill

Awesome Script Club - Jojo Rabbit
2021-09-30 17:30 - 19:00 | Online
Hitler Youth cadet Jojo Betzler firmly believes in the ideals of Nazism manifested by his imaginary friend, Adolf Hitler. However, his foundations are shaken when he finds a Jewish girl in his house.
—
What to expect at Awesome P&SPR Club?
The zoom is informal and relaxed. No one is put on the spot. We tend to look at the text from 3 positions:
How did it make you feel / think as a reader?
What kind of themes/ideas is it exploring (so a kind of Eng Lit pov)?
What kind of ideas/tools does it give to you as a writer?
That’s it. If that sounds like your kind of thing, then Matt and Emma will be delighted to see you on the night.

Interactive Storytelling in the 21st Century
2021-09-23 19:30 - 21:00 | Online
ZOOM, OPEN ALL SQUADS
Interactive Storytelling in the 21st Century with Krishna Stott
In this workshop, you will test the concept of ‘interactivity’ through screenings, discussion and creating your own interactive sequences.
The workshop will give you a thorough grounding about how interactive storytelling fits into the world – for play and work. You will be equipped to think on your feet about this subject going forwards, and learn how to think differently about interactive storytelling as opposed to conventional linear storytelling – and also when it’s the same thing! You’ll also leave with links to resources and tools you can use.

Ripples of Hope: Jay Bernard 2
2021-09-13 18:00 - 19:30 | Online
For SQ10 poets. There are 2 workshops – one on Friday 10th Sept, one on Monday 13th Sept (both 6pm-7.30pm) and you must attend both.
An opportunity to reflect on and write in response to Article 28 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the right to a free and fair world which states that “everyone is entitled to a social and international order in which the rights and freedoms set forth in the Declaration can be fully realized.”
In the first workshop Jay will lead us in unpicking the article and we will begin to respond to it as poets. In the second workshop we will share and develop our initial responses. You will then have a week to finish your poem for distribution by the Ripples of Hope Festival which takes place in Manchester the following weekend (17th-19th September). All participants who deliver poems will receive a fee of £100.
