Masterclass: Character, Body and Voice with Elske Rahill

Course Summary

This one-day Masterclass focusses on developing the voice of your character, with a specific emphasis on writing from the character’s perspective.

Through a series of exercises and discussions, participants will explore how their character experiences their physicality and how this feeds into their perception and voice.

We will discuss concept of ‘noticing’, as well as examining your character’s vocabulary and language, exploring how linguistic choices can be used to ‘show’ character and character development, as well as helping to shape our readers’ understanding of character.

Course Outline

This will be a workshop-based masterclass and is designed for those who are currently developing a piece of work written from the perspective of a character. It will feature a series of short talks, readings, and exercises. Students are expected to participate in the exercises and discussions, though they will not be forced to read their work.

Course Outcomes

This class should help participants to balance intellect and instinct when writing from a character’s perspective.

Elske Rahill is the author of the novels Between Dog and Wolf and An Unravelling and the short story collection In White Ink. Her debut was listed by the Irish Times as one of ‘The Best Books by Women of the 20^th Century’. Her work has appeared in many literary journals and anthologies including The Stinging Fly, Agni, The Dublin Review, The Tangerine, Winter Papers, and The Faber Anthology of New Irish Short Stories.  She teaches on the Writing and Literature programme at Atlantic Technology University in Sligo, where she lives with her husband and four children.