MAKING PEOPLE

THE CHARACTERISATION MASTERCLASS

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ (see reviews)

TAKE THIS COURSE

£20/month. Access all courses.
First month half price!

Part of the WHQ membership

Five part course, rolling access

Join our kickass community

COURSE HOME

Create characters who are original, real and memorable, right down to that bit of dried cheese sauce on their trousers and their fear of flip-flops.

Imagine if Lizzie Bennett had no sense of humour, or if Offred just gave up, or if Matilda wasn’t fussed about books. Imagine if Frankenstein had even the tiniest ounce of empathy. Without great and believable characters, stories don’t fly, plots wilt, worlds end and, worse, manuscripts get thrown in the bin.

Our one week long characterisation masterclass will show you how to turn your characters into people, how to stop yourself falling back on tropes and stereotypes, and how to avoid hashing out two-dimensional cardboard cutout figures instead of sculpting living, breathing people.

Prepare your loins to CREATE LIFE!

CURRICULUM

UNIT 1: WHAT DO THEY WANT AND WHY CAN’T THEY HAVE IT?
Tap into your character’s deepest desires to ramp up the conflict

UNIT 2: THE MANY ARCS OF CHARLIE BAXTER
Just one problem to solve? Too easy! Chuck everything you’ve got at them.

UNIT 3: WHAT YOU DO IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN WHAT YOU ARE
Why action is more important than description

UNIT 4: HISTORY AND ALSO HERSTORY
Get down and dirty with your character’s backstory for a fuller front-story

UNIT 5: INCREMENTS OF BASTARDRY
Give ’em hell

HOW IT WORKS

1. Enrol
Once you’ve joined you’ll get an email confirming your place and explaining how you access the course. Spoiler: you click a link. Super simple.

2. Read, watch, do
The lessons are a mix of text, images, videos and exercises. To get the most out of the course, try to give yourself at least an hour a day to read or watch the material and do the exercises. We’ve made them as bite-size as possible but also if you wanna do the thing you gotta do the work.

3. No rush
This course is written to be done over a week but if you miss a day or something comes up, don’t panic! Go at your own pace. We’ll be waiting for you in the community forums when you’re ready to catch up.

4. No money? No problem
Periodically we run this course as a freebie so please make sure you’re on our newsletter list to get notifications of that. Alternatively, if you can’t wait and have no cash, have a look at our bursary scheme.

5. Milk no sugar
Drink plenty of tea, stock up on biscuits, gin for later. Enjoy it. It’s supposed to be fun. Love you. Mwa.

WHAT YOU GET

A range of different approaches to characterisation to help you get down and dirty with the psychology of your fictional peeps
Discover your character’s motivations and work out how they react in any given situation
Daily inspiration, whip-cracking, writing exercises and prompts
Access to our private forum full of super cool people
Techniques to tease out the inner workings of your characters
Tools to encourage ideas to grow and bloom

Learn how to craft unique, intriguing characters who have their very own agenda, opinions, phobias and dreams.

Write backstories and memories and find out how to thwart your poor protagonist’s desires at every turn to up the stakes and layer your story with conflict.

Join our lovely little online community to support you through the braining process and beyond, plus peer and WHQ feedback.

LOVE FOR WRITERS’ HQ

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Here’s to Writers’ HQ for encouraging us to take ourselves seriously as writers whilst still enabling us to have fun while we do it.

Elizabeth Haynes

Author of The Murder of Harriet Monckton

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
I took Plotstormers and used it to plot and write my fourth novel. HarperCollins bought it on proposal! Sent it to my editor two months before my deadline and she loved it. Thank you Jo and Sarah. Plotstormers is fabulous!

Hannah McKinnon

Author of Her Secret Son

Writers’ HQ are absolute legends ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
They have taken me from someone who writes and created a writer. They also making a cracking cuppa. The retreats are an oasis of writing calm and an inspirational treat. Meeting fellow writers is always a treat. The online courses are not only draw out the writer you know is inside but are incredibly fun to boot.

Vicki Sarteur

Membership

Writers’ HQ are amazing ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Their courses are easy to apply, fun to do and will improve all areas of your writer life. Plus they’re an absolute bargain. Get in now before they realise how much they could charge.

Clare Wade

Membership