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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK

The art and craft of the edit: A creative-writing masterclass with Cathy Rentzenbrink

Portrait of Cathy Rentzenbrink, whose brother spent eight years in a vegetative state before the courts permitted him to have all food and water withdrawn, pictured in Falmouth, Cornwall, where she lives with her family. 9th December 2018.
Portrait of Cathy Rentzenbrink, whose brother spent eight years in a vegetative state before the courts permitted him to have all food and water withdrawn, pictured in Falmouth, Cornwall, where she lives with her family. 9th December 2018. Photograph: Peter Flude/The Guardian


The writing journey can be a solitary experience full of ups, downs and false turns. Getting to the end of a first draft should feel like you’ve reached your destination but paradoxically, it also forces you back to where you started. This can take a psychological toll on any writer - it’s no wonder that so many fledgling works never see the light of day.

In this masterclass, bestselling author Cathy Rentzenbrink will show you how the process of editing can be just as joyful as the initial writing itself – it’s your chance to shape your story and craft the words on the page. Drawing on her years of experience as a writer and mentor, through examples of her own writing, Cathy will take you through the process from first rough draft to final published work, helping you to understand the decisions she made along the way and why.

Whatever stage of the writing journey you’re on, this masterclass will illuminate the path ahead, so you can approach your edit with greater confidence. By the end of this workshop, you’ll be able to to identify the difference between a structural edit and a line edit, how and when to work through these two different edits, and how to apply these learnings to your own work.

This course is for …

  • Writers of all genres and formats at any stage of the process

  • Writers with a first draft or those with a desire to understand more about the road ahead

Course content

  • The different types of editing

  • How to look at your content and shape your book

  • What to do and when

  • When and if to involve an editor

  • When not to edit

  • Techniques for developing a writer’s mindset

  • Q&A

Tutor profile

Cathy Rentzenbrink is the author of the Sunday Times best-seller The Last Act of Love and of A Manual for Heartache and Dear Reader: The Comfort and Joy of Books. In 2021 she published her first novel, Everyone is Still Alive, and in January 2022 she will be publishing a guide to writing memoirs, called Write it all Down: How to Put Your Life on the Page. Cathy regularly chairs literary events, interviews authors, reviews books, runs creative writing courses where she welcomes anyone, no matter what their experience, education, background or story. She believes that everyone’s life would be improved by picking up a pen and is at her happiest when encouraging her students to have the courage to delve into themselves and see the magic that will start to happen on the page.

Details

Date: Monday 16 May 2022
Time: 6.30-8.30pm BST
Price: £49 (plus £2.83 booking fee); £60.99 with a copy of Cathy’s new writing guide Write it all Down: How to Put Your Life on the Page (UK only, plus £3.38 booking fee)

This masterclass is available globally. If you are joining us from outside the United Kingdom, please use this time zone converter to check your local live streaming time.

6.30pm BST | 7.30pm CEST | 10.30am PDT | 1.30pm EDT

You will be sent a link to the webinar 24 hours and 2 hours before the start time of 6.30pm (BST)

Information on Guardian Masterclasses

To contact us, click here. Terms and conditions can be found here.

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By enrolling on this masterclass, you’re helping to support the Guardian, and this allows us to keep our quality reporting open to all.

All Guardian Masterclasses are fully accessible - but please contact us if you have any queries or concerns.

Returns policy

Once a purchase is complete we will not be able to refund you where you do not attend or if you cancel your event booking. Please see our terms and conditions for more information on our refund policy.

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