Writer’s Toolkit: Using Sound, Music and Graphic Scores to Create Your Own Structure with Yasmine Dankwah

This workshop is a playful challenge, which will encourage us to interrogate our relationship to ‘dramatic structure’ and ‘form’ through close listening exercises of sonic stories, reflection, discussion and curiosity. We will consider how we maximise the use of sound and music in our creative writing process and how it can inspire new thinking around building our own narrative structure, using graphic scores.

What will you do in the workshop? 

Yasmine Dankwah will be leading reflective discussions based on an audio-documentary and a Stevie Wonder song, which will be sent in advance of the session. We will use these to explore the concepts of sonic: image, extended metaphor and structure.

What can participants expect? 

By the end of the workshop, we will leave with a broader understanding of how different sonic forms of storytelling can inform our writing, the beginnings of a graphic score, and a banging playlist co-created by the participants involved in the session.

The handout will include definitions of concepts we will explore such as, dramatic structure, form, sonic fiction and sonic metaphor. These will include references to academic writers such as Kodwo Eshun, Holger Schulze and Elizabeth Ursic

Who is this opportunity for? 

Whether you’re at the beginning of your writing journey or redrafting, this workshop is for anyone who’s interested in the conversation that happens between sound, writing and play.

Bursary places

We have 5 free bursary places available for writers on a low income. We define this as either earning on or below the London Living Wage and/or in receipt of benefits (e.g. Universal Credit). If you would like to request a bursary place, please email [email protected] with details of your eligibility for a bursary by 18 February 2026.

Access

If you require BSL interpretation, and/or have other access needs please email [email protected] so we can accommodate you.