writers

Incredible Italy Writing Retreat gang 2025 outside Terzo

Ever since Kerstin and I first saw photos of Terzo Di Danciano we felt drawn to hold a retreat there. The restored hilltop fortress looked like something out of a fairytale, filled with magic. Perfect for a writers’ retreat. But on our way, as we drove further and further into the remote forested hills of Tuscany bordering Umbria we wondered if perhaps we’d made the right decision. If it was too far from the crowds, if we’d be isolated, trapped like princesses in that tower.

Anna at her bedroom window - Incredible Italy Writing Retreat 2025

But as soon as we arrived and our delightful hosts, Krizsti and Luca, carried our bags up to our rooms and showed us around, we knew we’d found somewhere very special indeed. Every room is beautiful in its own way, some with Luca’s original artworks decorating the walls, some with restored frescoes, Anna’s door resplendent with angels. Sleek, modern, heated bathrooms, air-conditioning in every room, crisp ironed sheets and fresh flowers from the garden on the writing desks ticked every box. Magnificent views over the surrounding hills and valleys brought light and joy from every window.

The yoga shala, in the converted barn, is every yogin’s dream. The floor in the shala has wide weathered wooden floorboards, polished and worn from use. Huge arched windows let in the sun and views and newly installed heating ensured we were toasty warm even on the coldest mornings.

Yoga shala - Incredible Italy Writing Retreat 2025

Downstairs from the fully equipped yoga room is the sublime spa. I thought I didn’t like saunas. I probably hadn’t had one for a couple of decades, but the twin saunas here – one steamy, the other infrared – made a huge difference to my enjoyment of the retreat. Usually, I’m working so hard I forget to relax and enjoy myself, but every afternoon I headed to the saunas and bubbling spa bath and emerged refreshed and renewed. I don’t know the science behind saunas, but it certainly felt like my whole nervous system was being soothed and rebooted. I’m hooked!

Eclipse Spa - Terzo Di Danciano — Eclipse Spa – Terzo Di Danciano – LOVED IT!

The main teaching rooms and dining hall cover the main floor of the converted barn, a huge pine fire roaring in the fireplace far into the night. Comfy lounges in cosy corners were perfect for chatting with other writers. We had tables to work at and Sergio and Anne-Claire and the team in the kitchen serving us delicious meals every few hours. But the breakfast room tops the lot. A recent addition to the centre, this stunning glass-walled suntrap makes the most of the stunning location and every morning we tramped down from yoga to find a sumptuous buffet of fruit, cereals, smoked salmon, cheeses and ham, breads and just about everything imaginable on your dream breakfast menu.

Breakfast and workshop room Terzo Di Danciano

Most days when we woke, we looked out the windows to a sea of cloud below us, blanketing the valley as we princesses on the hill stretched and drank in the beauty as the sun came out and bathed us all in soft golden light. Yoga, breakfast, then a break before our daily workshops. With writers ranging from newbies to those with published books under their belts, we adjusted writing activities and content accordingly. Small feedback groups and genre buddies formed organically as writers met up in the afternoons to share work and run ideas by each other, if they weren’t writing up a storm on their own, that is. With only nine participants Kerstin and I had plenty of time to discuss projects with our guests, one on one, and I really enjoyed pulling tarot cards for everyone to help them grow, not only as writers but as people. I even pulled cards for our lovely hosts.

Highlights of the week include a fun excursion to Cortona, to St Francis’s hermitage, St Margarita’s spectacularly beautiful church and the long steep walk down the Roman roads into the ancient town, where some of us may have gone a bit art crazy and bought up big. Gelatos to top off the day, then home again. Lovely Bec had rented a car and led a smaller excursion to Assisi which was heartily enjoyed by those who went. Thank you Bec!

We had a ball at Sergio’s cooking class too, some more professional pasta makers than others, but all good eaters. However, when Sergio sang sad love songs on our live music night, he claimed a little of our hearts. The band was fantastic and before we knew it, we were all up dancing. What a ball we had! Patrizia showed us some fancy salsa moves, Anna swinging with her, the rest of us releasing our best disco moves (some unused for decades). Such fun! I’m just glad no footage survives of my shimmying. But boy, we had a good time.

This retreat was really something special. Even as facilitators, Kerstin and I emerged after our week of yoga, writing workshops, saunas, spas, massages and excursions feeling rested and replenished. I loved seeing people light up with epiphanies about their projects (and their lives), thousands of new words being written and new writing friendships developing.

As always, we finished retreat with collages to shine light on our ways forward, working with images instead of words, planting seeds for the futures and books we’d like to create.

With seven nights together, we really bonded as a group, and it was hard to say goodbye as everyone headed off on their own adventures (there were many!). For days after these retreats, people’s energies and writing projects stay with me. So from afar I send them bum glue, persistence, patience and creative epiphanies to bring their book dreams to life.

For a while Kerstin and I were so enamoured with Terzo Di Danciano we were determined to return in 2026 – until we regained our senses and realised we’re only human and need more time.

So instead, we’ve booked back in to Terzo Di Danciano for the next Incredible Italy Writing Retreat for October 1- 8, 2027. Details to be updated soon. If you’re super keen drop me a line and I’ll bags a spot for you before we even open for bookings!

That will give everyone enough time to save up, because let’s face it Europe is far and Euros expensive. BUT boy oh boy was it worth it? YES!! All the info HERE!

If you’ve always dreamed of your own Tuscan writing getaway, come and join us at this heavenly retreat centre in 2027. We’d love to share this magical place and all the inspiration and heart healing of retreat with you. Put yourself and your writing dreams into these pictures. I can’t wait to share it with you! More on the 2027 retreat HERE.

With special love to our wonderful retreaters who made this inaugural Italian retreat such a joy. Love you guys!

Lots of love

Edwina 🙂 xx

You’ve started your story with a bang, like you’re supposed to. You’ve got a great hook, a killer first scene and everything is coming up roses, but then you start explaining. And explaining. Filling the reader in on every little detail they need to know about your protagonist, right from when and where they were born and their parents troubled histories, and their schooling and how they were bullied as kids and were jealous of their sisters and then started work, but that first job just wasn’t a right fit and… Twenty pages later, your story comes back to your exciting hook. But your reader has already left the building.

What you’ve just done is an INFO DUMP! So easy to fall into, trickier to get out of.

Info dumps come in many forms, and most writers have done one, at least once! They’re a first draft hazard, when we’re still figuring out who our characters are. But don’t worry, they can be fixed.

BACKSTORY DUMPS

The first type of info dump that most writers fall into is the kind described above, a whole lot of information about the character, their formative years and family. This is important to know, as the writer. Not so much for the reader who’ll pick up key points about this background as they read the story that hooked them. Writers need to have a thorough knowledge of their characters, so we write about them and really get to know every detail in our first drafts. Info dumps also happen a lot in memoir, where perhaps the background information is more relevant. However, if you drop everything into one big pile, especially at the start of a story, the reader will turn away.

You’ve grabbed them with the hook, and they want to keep reading that story, not some long-winded explanation of why the character is the way they are.

REMEDY

Photo by Chokniti Khongchum on Pexels.com

All your work has not been wasted. Use that information to drip feed to your readers on a “need to know” basis. Keep secrets about the past and reveal them in phrases or sentences around key plot points in the story that hooked your readers in the first place. You need to know everything because that will help you shape your characters’ actions, but let the reader infer most of the backstory, dropping in snippets where relevant or important.

And keep that big traumatic secret for as long as you can, ready to reveal when your character is at their lowest point.

RESEARCH DUMPS

This dump occurs a lot in historical fiction or in memoirs where the author has gone down the rabbit hole of family history research right back to the 1600s! Now, it’s wonderful to have all this new knowledge, but when you dump it all on the reader in one big whammy, they’ll feel like they’re reading a textbook, not a narrative. So, even though you’re now the expert on a certain rare bee for example, don’t inflict the reader with page after page of everything you’ve learnt, no matter how interesting.

You’ve captured their attention with your great story hook, don’t let that fish wriggle off the line by expecting them to be as interested as you are in your pet research topic.

REMEDY

Your job now is to seamlessly interweave the most vital and relevant information through your plot, setting and characters, to make it seem as if the research isn’t even there, but that the world you’ve created is real and accurate. Your research must be revealed through characters, settings and plot points that demonstrate the knowledge you’ve gained. Not in one big ugly dump, but in every specific detail you share about the time and place, and through the way characters act and interact.

DIALOGUE INFO DUMPS

Take either of the dump categories above and insert all the information into someone’s very long section of dialogue and you have a Dialogue Dump. Don’t do it. Ever. Or your reader will end up looking like the poor fellow in the photo!

Dialogue is a stylised form of expression more akin to poetry than actual conversation. It is always best kept brief, except of course for the occasional monologue, but don’t let even them run on too long.

REMEDY

Remove all dumps from dialogue and find another way to include only the most important information. If you need to have your characters explain their pasts for the sake of the plot, then give them a potent line or two but paraphrase the rest and cut back as much as you can while retaining meaning. If you’ve dumped a whole lot of plot information into a character’s speech, cut right back and reveal anything extra in another way.

Photo by Mia Stein on Pexels.com BEWARE THE INFO DUMP DRAGON!

So beware the info dump! By all means, let yourself go in your first draft and write as much as you like about every character’s past or the specialness of that bee, or the shoes they wore in 16^th century Spain, just don’t let it slide into your second draft without serious consideration of how, where and why you insert it. If you’ve included over a paragraph or two of backstory or research details, you’ve gone too far. Cut back. Sometimes all you need is a phrase or a sentence or two.

I hope that helps you slay your Info Dump Dragons and write the very best book you can. Do let me know if you found this useful!

Write like the wind!

Lots of love,

Edwina xx