Writing & Storytelling Foundations

A story is just a series of choices, told in order.

About This Course

A comic isn't just a drawing with words on it. Every panel is a choice. What to show, what to leave out, how long to make a moment last. This course builds real storytelling craft through the most direct medium there is for it: panels, pacing, and character.

What You'll Create

  • A completed short comic, planned and drawn across the term.
  • Finished pages selected for the end of term exhibition.
  • A brief statement on the story and the choices made in telling it.

Course Details

Age Range
All Ages
Term
Term 1
Schedule
Fridays, 4:30pm
Duration
10 weeks
Price
$480
Spots Available
8 of 8
Book Now

What You'll Learn

  • You'll decide what a reader sees, and when, panel by panel.
  • You'll control how a story feels to read, through pacing.
  • You'll build a character readers actually care about.
  • You'll learn the basics of lettering and layout on a page.
  • You'll learn that finishing something imperfect teaches you more than restarting something perfect.

The Support You'll Get

You won't be handed the answer. You'll be shown how to find it.

Your practitioner has spent years making their own work, and their own mistakes. In the studio they work alongside you: asking the right questions, pointing out options you hadn't seen, helping you push through the moment you get stuck. The ideas stay yours. The decisions stay yours. They're there so you're never finding the way through alone.

Week by Week

Week 1: What makes a comic different from a picture book. Panels. How one box decides what a reader sees.

Week 2: Pacing. Slowing down or speeding up a moment.

Week 3: Character. Giving someone a reason to care.

Week 4: Dialogue and lettering. Making words part of the art.

Week 5: Page layout. Planning a short story, beginning to end.

Week 6: Drawing the story, page by page.

Week 7: Inking and finishing pages.

Week 8: Exhibition. Public showing, families attend.

Every course ends with an exhibition

Celebrate what you created with the people and our community. Every term concludes with a presentation or exhibition of your work: a chance to share your process, your ideas, and what you've made.

Your Instructor

Charlotte Lance

Charlotte Lance

Author & Illustrator

Charlotte has illustrated and written children's books published by Penguin, Pan Macmillan, Allen & Unwin and Scholastic. Her work includes A Really Super Hero, This Girl, That Girl, and Moth in a Fancy Cardigan. She builds worlds that hold stories within stories, working across traditional and digital media. She teaches the way she works: look closely, draw what's actually there, then make it yours.

Ready to start?