Crafting Knockout Scenes with Brooke Robinson


Brooke Robinson

Scenes are the building blocks of fiction writing: plays, screenplays, novels, short stories, and even works of creative non-fiction, are the sum of these small units of drama, the way individual links come together to form a necklace. This 8-week program with Brooke Robinson will sharpen your writing to create truly powerful scenes.

Applications open July 2025

Dates: 28 October - 16 December, 2025. 6:00pm - 8:00pm AEDT on Tuesday evenings
See Program Outline below for the dates of all sessions in this program.
Fees: $1395 or $1300 for Varuna Alumni. Payment terms are negotiable if you cannot pay the whole fee upfront.
Applications close: 5pm, Tuesday 23 October 2025
Places: 8 participants will be selected
Delivery: Online


When you think of your favourite novel, TV show or film, it’s usually an unforgettable scene that immediately comes to mind, a key moment of heightened drama.  

Scenes are the building blocks of fiction writing: plays, screenplays, novels, short stories, and even works of creative non-fiction, are the sum of these small units of drama, the way individual links come together to form a necklace. Thinking of your writing project as a series of scenes also makes it more manageable. A 90,000 word novel doesn’t need to be daunting, because if you can write a strong scene, then you can write absolutely anything.

This course focuses on scene writing for writers composing novels, memoirs, and creative non-fiction projects. In this ‘peak TV’ era where readers are increasingly influenced by what they watch on screen, we will steal dramatic writing techniques from film, television and theatre, to make your manuscript stand out.

Participants will gain an understanding of the mechanisms that make scenes work, and learn how to structure their own stories. You’ll learn tricks and tools for enhancing scenes and how this is an effective way of re-redrafting your own work. Together we’ll analyse some of the very best scenes and dramatic moments in film, TV, plays and novels, and we’ll do weekly writing exercises to put what we learn into practice.

This is a small group program for 8 participants over 8 weeks. Each writer will also have a 40-minute one-on-one session with Brooke to discuss their work in progress. 


PROGRAM OUTLINE

28 October, Session 1:  The big bang

  • What’s the ‘surprising thing’ that starts your story?

  • Setting up reader expectations in the opening scene and making them gasp

  • How to craft a hooky beginning to your book, getting the attention of agents, publishers, and ultimately readers

 

4 November, Session 2. What goes next?

  • Moving things along with plot and evolving questions. The difference between plot and story

  • Writing beautiful, shocking, funny, gripping, moments of heightened drama

  • Keeping the reader engaged with propulsion techniques

11 November, Session 3. Who’s doing what to whom?

  • Developing characters through your scenes

  • Balancing plot and character. Objectives, obstacles, and the three levels of conflict in drama

  • Who’s serve is it? Point of view in the scene

 

18 November, Session 4. What’s in, what’s out

  • What goes next? Choosing what scenes to write, and what to leave out

  • Crafting effective ‘‘cuts’ between scenes

  • Utilising friction and tension, both within and between scenes

 

25 November, Session 5. Playing inside the box

  • Having fun with parameters and restrictions to make your scenes fresh

  • Dynamism. Using scenes to generate ideas when you’re stuck

  • Putting it all together: keeping multiple ‘balls in the air’ in your scenes

 

2 December, Session 6. The punch-up

  • ‘Punching up’ your scenes during the rewriting process

  • Redrafting with purpose and confidence

  • Diagnosing potential challenges and problems in your manuscript. How to resuscitate a flat scene

 

9 December, Session 7. The publishing scene

  • The publishing market and what to do when you’ve finished your manuscript

  • Do I need an agent? What do they do?

  • The practicalities of a career as an author

16 December, Session 8. Switching scenes: writing in different mediums

  • A deep dive into how scenes work on screen vs the page

  • Adapting your work

  • Guest speaker


ABOUT BROOKE ROBINSON

Brooke Robinson is playwright and novelist from Western Sydney. Her commercial thrillers, The Interpreter and The Negotiator are published internationally by Penguin Random House UK. The Interpreter is also published in the USA by HarperCollins and translated into Italian, German, Czech and Russian. Her third novel with Penguin publishes in 2026. 

She has taught courses on pitching and getting an agent, and ran creative and dramatic writing workshops with Faber Academy, Westwords, SA Writers and City of Melbourne Libraries. 

As a playwright, Brooke received a prestigious Yaddo fellowship in the USA and won the 2020 Lysicrates Prize for Drama. Her professionally commissioned and produced plays include Bad Machine (Campbelltown Arts Centre/Casula Powerhouse) and Good Cook. Friendly. Clean (Griffin Theatre Company). Brooke was the 2024 recipient of Varuna’s prestigious Cove Park International Exchange Fellowship

She has two projects currently in development in Hollywood.


HOW TO APPLY

Applications will open in July 2025

Entry to this course is by application. Writers will be selected based on the creative potential of their work, commitment to craft, openness to collaborating with your peers, and the balance in the group.

Course fees are $1395 or $1300 for Varuna alumni. Payment terms are negotiable if you cannot pay the whole fee upfront.

Applications close at 5pm (AEDT) on Tuesday 23 September 2025. All applicants will be notified of the outcome of their submission by 8 October.

Please refer to Varuna’s general submission guidelines for any questions on formatting your work.

Feel free to call 02 4782 5674 or email amy@varuna.com.au to discuss your application.


TESTIMONIALS

Brooke is a rare authentic communicator with an indomitable seriousness of purpose that I have seldom encountered. Anyone working with Brooke will benefit from her impressive international career, spanning playwriting and fiction, and her playful imagination.
— Lily Balatincz Actor, Theatre Director and Chief Operating Officer of the American Australian Association, New York City
You’ll leave Brooke’s workshop armed with fresh approaches to take to your writing and a brain full of new ideas to pursue!
— Emma Gibson, Playwright

 

UPCOMING COURSES, FELLOWSHIPS AND EVENTS

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2025 Blue Mountains Writers’ Festival