FROM FACT TO FICTION: Spring from Headlines into Story with Nicky Torode
START DATE: Tuesday, January 13, 2026
END DATE: Tuesday, February 10, 2026
DURATION: 5 weeks
LOCATION: This is an asynchronous workshop located on a private forum that can be studied from anywhere, in any time zone.
SCHEDULE: The instructor sends out slides with an instructor video lesson and assignment.
FEEDBACK: Instructor feedback on five short stories; peer feedback on forum.
COURSE DESCRIPTION: This is the course to tickle your imagination, write wild and free from just a headline and photo from the news! This is an excellent writing practice, as you’re coming fresh each time to writing, pulling new situations and characters from your mind, to polish and submit. What’s more, over 5 weeks you’ll get to read where others take the story. Our sources are rich - headlines from various newspapers, news sites, and columns such as classifieds to Rush Hour Crush. You’ll explore what layers and context could be added to your stories to bring a more topical lens. You’ll gain techniques and features used by journalists to generate stories such as the Journalist Calendar, On This Day (History), Where are they Now (the Update), Birthday Headlines plus comedy writing techniques for making light of the news. In addition, you’ll have a weekly optional Flex Your Story Muscle exercise: short, spontaneous practices that help you loosen up, trust your imagination.
You’ll receive written feedback from the instructor and appreciative feedback from peers, celebrating invention and fresh perspectives. The stories that emerge might be comic, poignant, historical, or even social commentary—the direction is yours. Headlines become portals, opening up stories you never knew you had. Not only will you create new stories but you will also have a set of imaginative practices you can return to again and again, long after the course has finished.
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Those three hours on a Saturday morning were so incredibly inspiring, and so useful for my book project, I can’t thank you enough. Your approach, the pacing of exercises and theory/examples was great for me. That you gave us enough time to go to a deeper level, that was fascinating and so useful.
Thank you for another super course. Stimulating, encouraging and motivating! Thank you so much for your thought and effort in the content and delivery of this taster. The quotations and visual backdrops you put them with were thought provoking in the way I feel you meant them to be. I appreciated the effort you put into your presentation and it left me feeling ready to embrace 'the stretch to the possible' - thank you once again.
The tutor - Nicky Torode - was first-class at all the brilliant preparation she made to enable each week's session to be not only understood perfectly and easily, but to enable each student to have a "voice" in each session. We all found the sessions fun and interesting and the tutor more than filled each session with reading, sharing and also writing. We also were given the chance to critique each other's work and we were instructed how to do this in a fair and safe environment.
We also had homework to do - thus ensuring each student had some impetus and motivation to carry on writing even when they were not "in session".
Another diligent, enjoyable, challenging and very well managed and delivered course from Nicky Torode - with relaxed and efficient teaching style and detailed, helpful and comprehensive feedback. Great peer interaction as well.
A brilliant retreat - going away with all sorts of inspiration. Thank you, Nicky.
You are a great facilitator, I loved it so much.
I've learnt so much this week, inspired by words and images.
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WEEKS AT A GLANCE:
Week One: Read All About It!
Headlines and striking news photos are our starting point — not the political front-page stories of the day, but global headlines chosen for their curiosity, creativity, and human interest. You’ll jump into quick warm-up writing as well as learn potential ways to shape them into fiction. We’ll recap what makes a good story: friction, escalation, turning points.
- Formats: Headlines, Classifieds, Letters to the Editor
Assignment: Choose one headline or photo and write a 500-word response — either in a news-inspired format (classified, letter, etc.) or as a fictional scene spun from it.
Reflection: Where did I enjoy my own creativity in this story? Pinpoint a technique, a phrase, or a single word. (50-word reflection)
Week Two: Two Sides to Every Story
Headlines rarely tell the whole truth. This week we’ll explore how to stretch a news item into multiple directions, using the journalist’s 5Ws plus the fiction writer’s sixth W: What if…? By shifting sides, you’ll see how a single story can unfold in many ways.
- Formats: Obituaries, Advice Columns
Assignment: Pick one headline and sketch two contrasting takes. Then expand one into a 500-word response — in either news style or story style.
Reflection: Where did I enjoy my own creativity in this story? Pinpoint a technique, a phrase, or a single word.
Week Three: Through the Keyhole
Features and profiles let us step inside lives, homes, or even moments in history. This week we’ll use human-interest forms to imagine what lies behind closed doors, or how past events echo into the present.
- Formats: On This Day, One Day in the Life, 5 Minutes With...
Assignment: Recast a headline as a feature piece — profile, diary, or anniversary note — or as a fictionalised “behind the scenes” story (500 words).
Reflection: Where did I enjoy my own creativity in this story? Pinpoint a technique, a phrase, or a single word.
Week Four: You Couldn’t Make It Up
The funny pages remind us that news is often stranger than fiction. You’ll experiment with humour, irony, and parody, using formats that thrive on exaggeration and wordplay.
- Formats: Rush Hour Crush, Horoscopes, Quirky Classifieds
Assignment: Create a comic or satirical response— either a parody in news format (horoscope, Rush Hour Crush) or a comic fictional scene. (500 words)
Reflection: Where did I enjoy my own creativity in this story? Pinpoint a technique, a phrase, or a single word.
Week Five: On the Cutting Room Floor
Not every story makes it to print in its first form. Our final week focuses on revision as reinvention. You’ll explore “Plan B” formats, like alternative careers or short profiles, as fresh angles for reworking earlier drafts.
- Formats: Plan B (Alternative Careers), revisit one earlier format with a twist
Assignment: Revise and resubmit one piece from earlier in the course, rewritten through a new lens. (500 words).
Reflection: Where did my story shift? What was I especially pleased about the changes I made?
Materials needed: Computer with Internet and email.
ABOUT THE INSTRUCTOR:
Nicky Torode is a fiction and creative non-fiction writer, writing on motherhood, identity, belonging and luck. She is published in many literary journals and anthologies including Elsewhere, A Journal of Place, Panorama Journal of Travel, Place and Nature, Phare literary journal and The London Writers’ Salon anthologies, 2024 & 25. She has a forthcoming piece in the Birren Centre’s 2025 anthology and the journal on food writing, art and design, Amaranth. She teaches creative writing for the library services, adult educational institutes and literary development agencies. When she’s not writing, she’s a professionally certified coach, supporting writers, leaders and entrepreneurs. She lives in Hastings, UK. Coaching website: www.diamond-minds.co.uk.
COST: $220, which includes (example: five video slides and assignments, instructor feedback on five drafts, peer feedback on forum)
BUY NOW: FROM FACT TO FICTION with Nicky Torode (5 weeks, starting 1/13/2026) Limit: 15 students. Early registration is recommended.
This class is now closed. Please check out our current schedule here.
For Class Session Starting July 14, 2025
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Notes: Upon successful completion of payment, your name, email address, and contact info will be submitted to your instructor. Just before class begins, she will e-mail you with instructions on how to get started.
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Questions? Email Marcia & Angela at:
classroom[at]wow-womenonwriting[dot]com
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