Character and Story Through Dialogue with Richard Yaxley

Add authenticity and power to your stories and the voices of your characters by crafting more effective dialogue.

Dialogue is a key element of prose narrative, both in terms of character establishment and plot development. Well-crafted dialogue can add energy, drive and conflict to your story, reveal the uniqueness of your characters, fill in crucial elements of backstory, and allow the reader to access inner lives and relationships. In this half-day workshop, you will focus on the creation of effective dialogue by analysing examples from a range of narrative forms, applying different ideas and techniques, and ‘testing’ new dialogue against the criteria of authenticity, purpose and power. Work actively with other writers to make your dialogue sing!

Learning outcomes

As part of this workshop, you will learn to:

• Understand the role of dialogue in narrative creation.

• Write more purposeful dialogue.

• Enhance the authenticity and power of your stories.

Format

This is an in-person workshop with a focus on writing craft; it will be held at State Library of Queensland. This workshop is suitable for fiction writers of all levels and backgrounds.

About Richard

Richard Yaxley lives in Brisbane. His novels include This Is My Song (winner of the Prime Minister’s Literary Award and the ACU Book of the Year), The Happiness Quest (CBCA Notable), A New Kind Of Everything, Harmony, Leonardo Forever and Something Somewhere.

Richard is a past winner of the Queensland Premier’s Literary Award and the QWC-Varuna Fellowship for Established Writers. He is a writing mentor who regularly presents workshops and has judged the Prime Minister’s Literary Awards and the Queensland Literary Awards.

For more information about Queensland Writers Centre’s Program of Events and answers to FAQs, please visit: www.queenslandwriters.org.au/program-info