Session 1: Finding Your Story
In our first session, you will learn how to identify a story you can build on, thinking about what has legs and developing your journalistic eye. We’ll have a brief look at the history of long-form journalism, and ask how long is long-form, and what formats you might work in, focusing on reported and investigative pieces and other options including the personal essay, polemic and travel narrative, as well as long-form audio and book-length narrative non-fiction. You’ll ask, ‘Why do I want to develop a piece in long-form?’.
There will be a group Zoom session with your tutor.
Session 2: What’s Your Big Idea?
Session two focuses on what question you are setting out to answer. Why this, why now? And what makes a story worth telling long and deep? You will review your motives for telling this story – is it to be seen, to make sense, to shine a light, to mediate between past and present or conflicting perspectives? Learn to argue your ‘so what’: why others should care about this story. Make a case, challenge and champion, and craft a call to action.
You will receive feedback on an outline of your story idea.
Session 3: Pitching Your Idea
Learn the art of the pitch and how commissioning really works. Thinking about your portfolio, find out what makes an effective calling-card piece, and how to make decisions on length, approach and research methodology based on who you are pitching to. Who are you writing for and how well do you know your audience? We’ll look at how they read, and whether you are already talking to your reader. We’ll think also about delivery models, funding and what lies beyond publication.
You will pitch a story idea at a live session with a guest editor.
Session 4: Interviewing and People Management
Who do you need to tell this story, and how do you get to them? This session will help you use search engines and social media to find contacts, and think about effective ways to approach people and build trust. You’ll develop salient interviewing techniques and conduct first-person reporting on site, while looking at using lived experience, observational and immersive techniques. We will render speech into dialogue, consider the role of anecdote, and explore other ways to use people to power a story.
Session 5: Research and the Detail
In this session we dive into desk and archive research, working out how to keep tabs on your information and answering the question, ‘What’s the point of all this detail?’ There’s a focus on court and public records, visual research and artifacts, and interpreting data. When is it useful to use AI? We’ll talk about this and organising systems while developing skills for keeping on top of everything. You will submit a research plan for your story idea.
There will be a group Zoom session with your tutor.
Session 6: Sources and Ethics
Dive into accessing and cultivating sources. How do you negotiate access and manage relationships in a way that’s ethical? How do you maintain good boundaries if you are talking to a source over a period of time? Whose story is this? Session six will discuss representation, objectification and a sensitivity framework. What are the ethics of seeing? How do you work with the law? You’ll consider who you are responsible to – subject, witness, reader, publisher, the law, ‘truth’ – and ask, when does responsibility get in the way of good writing?
You will have a one-to-one Zoom tutorial.
RESEARCH BREAK
There will be a two-week research break to carry out practical research for the piece you will hand in at the end of the course.
Session 7: Structure and Shaping
Begin to organise your story, considering chronological options, causal connection, braided stories and chapter formats. Select your research to feed this story. We will also consider non-linear and boundary-defying shapes, lists and fractured content, exploring questions, absences and repetition. Too, you will analyse visual storytelling, including using maps, graphics and interactive digital modes. You will pin down your structure and begin visual planning as we think about ways to keep readers engaged in long-form. Study techniques including establishing empathy with a protagonist, delayed gratification, and allowing the reader to do some of the legwork.
You will receive feedback on a map of your story.
Session 8: Facts and the Truth
Session eight delves into the complicated relationship of facts (and photographic images) to the truth. What are ‘real’ facts versus remembered facts? What are the issues of memory and remembrance on the page? Whose versions of a story are you telling? When there are no facts, where do the techniques of the fiction writer and interiority become useful? We’ll consider speculative journalism and ways of rendering emotional truth as well as the ethics of representing real people on the page. What about composite characters, conflating events, and putting words in mouths? You will receive feedback on the first pages of your work in progress.
There will be a live Q&A with a guest writer.
Session 9: Where Are You in the Story?
Who is narrating this story? Session nine considers points of view and different modes of narrating past events. Who or what is at the centre of this narrative, and what is your role in relation to the subject and research? Learn about being present and narrative credibility. Engage with works that help you understand your voice on the page, thinking about ‘newsvoice’ versus personal voice versus literary voice. What about impartiality? What are the risks of being part of the story you’re telling?
You will receive feedback on the first 3,000 words of your work in progress.
Session 10: Drafting and Editing
The penultimate session will be spent drafting your final piece for submission and thinking like an editor. Learn to hook your reader in paragraph one. Set guideposts for your structure and techniques that help you steer an argument, make connections and transition from fact to opinion and conjecture. Will you admit gaps in your knowledge or showcase your process? We’ll think about the techniques of the film-editor and develop skills to help you stay succinct in the long-form and keep readers on-side till the (satisfying) end.
There will be a group Zoom session with your tutor.
Session 11: Quiet Writing Time
During this final month, there will be no formal exercises or extracts. The whole focus is on getting down to write and applying lessons studied over the course as you work on your final submission: 8-10,000 words of your long-form story plus a pitch document.
There will be a group Zoom with a Granta staff guest on editing and the submissions process.
At the end of the course, you will have a one-to-one exit tutorial to discuss your progress and where to take your work next, plus a tutor mark-up-of your final submission.
Publishing and Author Guests
Throughout the course, enjoy exclusive video interviews, podcasts and transcripts of conversations between editors and authors.
You will also be able to attend live Zoom Q&As with publishing industry guests.
