Information About James - Muswell Hill teacher

Personal Description:

Hi, I'm James. I'm a London based writer with availability to tutor weekday evening and weekends. I am an experienced playwright having had many stage plays performed professionally, including my recent comedy success in 2023: The Play with Speeches. I've also written radio plays for Radio 4 and LBC, and my short stories have been published widely in the UK, including four in the longstanding arts magazine Ambit. I have been nominated and shortlisted for many writing awards. I am happy to offer the first lesson free as a taster.

My theatre and radio plays include:
The Play with Speeches
Empty in Angel
Jo and Sam find themselves in Woking
Chicken and Mushroom Pie
Kerton's Story (BBC radio drama starring Bill Nighy and Lesley Sharp)
Isle of the Departed
Hitting Home

I have had many short stories published, including the following - some of which can be read online:
Good Morning, Azar (Ambit)
McKenzie's Leap (Coffin Bell)
One Slightly Crazy Night on East 52nd Street (Ambit)
R v Sieger - additional documents disclosed by the Crown Prosecution Service (Spread the Word)
A Tale of Twelve Speeches (Storgy)
Contaminated (Storgy)

I recently wrote a blog about how I wrote a meta-theatre play for the internationally renowned website Save the Cat.

Teaching Experience:

I have worked as a writer in residence in a young offenders institution where I won arts council funding to record and produce radio plays written by the inmates.

I have taught creative writing online for various organisations and have been a guest tutor or speaker in schools.

I have tutored many writers 1-1 on creative writing, and have been instrumental in several novelists' journey to publication.

I ran a creative writing group at work for five years, providing dozens of colleagues with feedback on their work.

Teaching Approach:

My approach is to bring a range of approaches from quick-fire writing exercises, to writing prompts, to planning a more extensive piece of work. And for those who are ready - a deep dive into structure. It's so important to care deeply about your writing and to be passionate about it. Even better, if you can have great fun while you're writing your story! Great writing happens when you're totally absorbed and almost forget that you're doing it.

The creative journey involves many roles, and and requires multiple skills to navigate the ups and downs of writing compelling stories.
* When we are generating ideas, we need to allow the playful side of our personalities to be free and to allow our creativity to be unfettered.
* If we are planning (and not everyone does plan everything of course), we need to become experts in structure, in working out how our stories will develop, how stakes will be raised, and how a truly satisfying ending can be achieved.
* When we are writing, we need to avoid censoring ourselves and avoid being over-critical and to let the writing flow.
* When we are editing, we must learn to be objective about our work, and read with a critical eye. We must learn to be the dispassionate reader of our own work.
* We must also learn to evaluate the feedback of others. We don't always need to act on that feedback. But we must learn to take it on board when it's right to do so.

As a writer, I’m fond of breaking down traditional structures and finding new ways to engage audiences. In The Play with Speeches, a series of actors file into the theatre to audition. The play they’re being seen for (‘The Play with Speeches’) consists entirely of – wait for it – audition speeches. And those speeches tell a complete story when performed in the correct order.

Paradoxically, whilst I love telling stories in unexpected ways, I also consider myself to be something of a structure fetishist. I believe that story structure is something that many writers feel is too difficult to conquer. I would also argue that it is not adequately covered on many creative writing courses.