Struggling to weave a coherent story from disparate threads? Join bestselling author and much-loved CBC tutor Laura Barnett for this four-week deep dive course. We’ll help you to work through all the important decisions you need to make to fully gain control of your unruly narrative.
Figure out what your story is really about and nail its central idea, question or concept. You’ll also discover some of the most useful theories of story structure and learn how to use them to shape your plot.
By the end of the course you’ll have distilled the essence of your story, figured out its temporal and emotional arcs and worked on a plan that has the right level of detail to suit your individual writing process.
Our online courses are designed for flexible learning. Allocate your own study time and take part from wherever you are in the world. Each week, we recommend spending at least four hours on the course.
All students will be given the option to purchase feedback on their final task from a CBC editor.
Encourage your writerly friend or loved one to get creative! We have £135 digital gift vouchers available, enabling you to buy any four-week online course as a present.
Laura’s first novel, The Versions of Us (2015) was a number-one bestseller, it has been translated into 24 languages, and was shortlisted for Debut of the Year at the British Book Awards. She’s had three further books out since then: Greatest Hits (2017), which features an accompanying musical soundtrack by Kathryn Williams; Gifts (2021), a novel in short stories; and This Beating Heart (2022). Her fifth novel, Births, Deaths and Marriages, will be published in 2025. She delivered a TedX talk on originality in fiction, and worked as a writing mentor for the charity Arts Emergency. She is a Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing at Manchester Metropolitan University’s Writing School. Laura has taught many novel-writing courses for CBC in London and online, and she currently mentors members of our alumni community.