Developing narrative voice, creative confidence and original work through writing and comics.
Every story begins with a point of view: a character, a desire, a world and something that changes its direction. Learning to shape these elements does more than produce a finished story. It develops the confidence to generate ideas, make creative decisions and communicate meaning.
With support from the City of Stonnington’s 2026–27 Annual Community Grants Program, Kosmovision Foundation will deliver Creative Storytelling: Writing & Comics Lab, a free 12-session program for young people aged 16 to 25 at Grattan Gardens Community Centre in Prahran.
From first idea to developed work
Participants will follow a structured pathway from an early concept to a piece of work they can choose to share. The opening sessions will help them identify their interests, select a creative direction and begin developing a character and an ordinary world. Later sessions will introduce conflict, the call to adventure, relationships, challenges and turning points before moving into revision and presentation.
That sequence draws on the hero’s journey, one of the oldest and most widely used story structures. It is offered as a starting point rather than a formula: participants can use, question or reshape its stages according to the story they want to tell.
Rather than completing unrelated weekly activities, participants will return to their ideas, test possibilities and build continuity across the program. A first sketch, scene or fragment can gradually become a developed narrative, comic sequence or project combining words and images.
Building narrative and creative confidence
Creative confidence grows through action. Participants will practise beginning before every detail is resolved, making narrative and visual decisions, working through uncertainty, revising material and explaining the intention behind their choices.
Writing and comics offer different but connected ways of thinking. Words can develop voice, rhythm and point of view. Sequential images can develop composition, pacing and visual meaning. Participants may concentrate on one form or move between them as their project evolves.
Fiction also creates room to investigate identity, conflict, change and possible futures. Participants decide what is invented, what is drawn from life and what remains private.
Impact through storytelling
Across the twelve sessions, participants will build both a body of work and a set of skills that carry beyond the program: shaping an idea, structuring a narrative, revising it and presenting it to others.
The aim is not for everyone to produce the same polished outcome. It is for each participant to strengthen their storytelling skills, develop greater confidence in their creative decisions and leave with work they have shaped and can choose to take further.
We are grateful to the City of Stonnington for supporting a program where young people can develop stories, build creative capability and connect through the work of making.
Create the character. Shape the journey. Decide what comes next.
Proudly supported by the City of Stonnington.