This deep-dive year-long experience is designed for people with some crime writing experience.

It’s suitable if you:

• Want to dig deep into police procedural and build your knowledge month by month
• Are committed to working on your craft as a crime writer
• Enjoy the company of fellow crime writers
• Would like to spend more time with Graham and his team of experts
• Are working towards a full draft or screenplay, editing a novel or planning a series
• Would benefit from constantly updating professional input from the publishing world
• Need the motivation of communal writing sessions and regular deadlines
• Are keen to give and receive peer feedback and find beta-readers
• Want to join a friendly and supportive group of crime fanatics

This bundle will suit screenwriters working on police shows and films as well as fiction writers.

Over the year you will gain in-depth knowledge of police procedure, in particular in:

• Forensics
• Covert policing
• Custody and interviewing
• Dynamic policing
• Police character and dialogue
• Murder investigations

Each month you will:

• Broaden your knowledge of police procedure and roles
• Increase your potential and practice as a crime novelist/screenwriter
• Employ greater technical proficiency in your writing
• Learn how to create credible drama out of flat and often bureaucratic procedures
• Think about keeping readers at the centre of the action
• Bring greater judgment in the selection, development and realisation of ideas
• Further develop the professional skills writers require (e.g. discipline, attention to detail, ability to work to deadlines)
• Practise giving effective feedback to other writers and receiving critical notes
• Build greater independence, autonomy and confidence as a writer. 

Over the year benefit from:

• 6 one-day workshops (worth £160 each)
• 1 four-week course (worth £495)
• Monthly live Zoom Q&As with Graham
• Additional live sessions with guest authors, police and crime experts, editors, agents and other publishing insiders
• Forums open 24/7 for chatting with fellow crime writers
• Weekly sit-and-write sessions and fortnightly networking socials
• Dedicated space to share work, give and receive feedback, and find beta-readers
• Monthly prize draw to win a 1-2-1 with Graham to discuss your writing
• A thriving community of dedicated writers.

One-day Workshops

Covert Policing – surveillance and undercover tactics. Starts 2 March 2024.

Happy Valley special – meet the creators and learn how to move from procedural to TV script. Starts 18 May 2024.

Forensics – DNA, trace evidence, crime scene management, gunshots and poisons. Starts 22 June 2024.

Custody & Interviewing – what happens after an arrest? Starts 21 September 2024.

Police Character & Dialogue – how do real police officers think and speak? Starts 18 October 2024.

Dynamic Policing – firearms, raids, police car pursuits violent arrests and riots. Starts 23 November 2024.

Four-week Course

Write a Murder – enter our virtual crime scene and solve a murder using all your police procedural knowledge. Starts 15 April and 28 October 2024.

You can access the community, forum discussions and learning materials whenever suits you, day or night, wherever you are in the world.

For the one-day workshops, you’ll attend live Zoom calls*, which include Q&As with Graham and his team of experts. In the final segment of the day, you’ll work on a writing assignment based on the day’s learning, which you’ll have time to complete over the next week and post to the forum for feedback from your peers and Graham. (*If you can’t join any of the workshops live you can watch the recording and join in with the discussions on the forums afterwards).

For our four-week course, your learning material is divided into weekly sessions, with new drops of information and assignments on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. There’s no need to log on at a set time. You can work through the learning materials whenever suits you. Just complete the assignments and join forum discussions by the session deadline. We’ll have three live Zoom calls with Graham and his expert team during the course (these usually take place on a weekday evening UK time). If you can’t make them live, you can post questions in advance and catch up with the recording.

Our teaching method is based on the science of active learning: you read/listen/watch, try out, share and reflect. It’s a social experience – you become part of a small group, feeding back on each other’s writing to build a supportive bunch of readers you trust. Find out more here.

Join our alumni community 

After your course, you can join our online alumni community – a friendly group of writers supporting each other as they continue to explore and develop their writing. There’s no cost for this. It’s easy to access via the online classroom, where you can:

• Revisit all your course materials, including tutor notes, feedback, videos, podcasts and forum posts
• Rejoin your classmates, and continue working together in a private space
• Meet alumni from other courses to find beta-readers and share work on our critiquing forum
• Network with other writers working in your genre or area of interest
• Take part in regular ‘sit and write’ Zoom sessions, to push forward with your work-in progress
• Join our monthly live alumni events with our expert tutors and industry guests, including agents, editors, publishers, competition and festival organisers, and prizewinning writers.

Feedback on your work

Graham’s other services. For more detailed or ongoing feedback on your work or consultancy for an extra fee, please email [email protected] for details.

Taking things further
If you’d like to continue to another Professional Writing Academy course, please get in touch for details.