WRITING SALON: Love Actually

The Writing Salon is unlike any other event for writers.  It seeks to draw inspiration from unlikely places as it dissects genre and narrative, explores fiction and non-fiction, and dives into all forms of storytelling.  Through a mixture of video, audio, theory, practical exercises, interviews with guests, and a very social and engaged membership it will make you feel energised about your writing. Everyone is welcome, as well as all writing genres and formats. Some members have no previous writing experience – others write regularly for stage, page and screen.  Whatever your level, you’ll get a warm welcome.

February is full of stories that tell us love is soft, reassuring, and earned. This month at The Writing Salon, we’re interested in the opposite. Join host Mark Heywood on Tuesday 17^th February where we will explore love, actually.

Love rarely arrives politely. It turns up badly timed, morally inconvenient, and narratively disruptive. It breaks rules, rearranges loyalties, and costs something real. And yet it remains one of the most powerful forces a writer can put on the page. In this Valentine’s edition of The Writing Salon, we will explore how to write love without turning it into romance. We’ll look at weird meet-cutes, forbidden love that isn’t noble, and stories where desire behaves more like a threat than a promise. Drawing on film, television, literature, and theatre, we’ll examine love as a pressure system that exposes character, distorts ethics, and accelerates change.

Rather than treating love as a reward at the end of a story, we’ll ask how it can function as narrative engine. How do you make attraction feel specific rather than vague? How do you write desire without cliché or sentiment? How do you show love through action, risk, and behaviour instead of explanation? And what happens when love makes a character worse, not better?

There will be a practical section, so grab your pencil cases, and we’ll see you there.

The session starts at 7pm but please feel free to book a table at the Club from 6pm to enjoy a bite to eat, or arrive a little early in order grab a drink before we begin (you can also book a table for 9pm to have your supper afterwards!)

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