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Waterside Writers slowed during 2020 and 2021 due to the constraints of pandemic lockdowns. Zoom meetings kept members in touch with each other but were not as successful as ‘rea’ meetings.
Some found it a creative break, others had writers block.
We start the Autumn Term 2022 with our first session on 8 September at 9.30am. We meet at Marchwood Village Hall.
Useful pointers:
1) Writers bring along a DRAFT of their work – the assumption is that they are looking to improve it. So, your job is to offer constructive responses and suggestions to help them achieve this. Feedback is never a comment on their talent as writers. It is an opinion on the draft pages you have in front of you.
A child. You can sense his confidence has grown a week on. No inflatables around his arms today. You approach slowly, taking time with breath and stroke, working to establish a smooth rhythm; leg-kick, head-dip and body-stretch. No more than three years old and legs hardly long enough to scramble onto the starting block; he is fiercely independent. On the block now and straight off into the deep end, ignoring a mother’s nervous outstretched hand. He rises to the surface gurgling and kicking as you reach the end of your first length, curl up, feet on the wall, turn and push off for the return and avoid him. You grin at his bravado.
It all started in 2017 as an inspiration. A new series of short stories still going strong today and developing into a on-going story arc. An entity which roams the universe with no purpose in life (not yet anyway), has yet to be developed. A huge story is in development with, hopefully, original plots.
I always enjoy talking about my journey from being a writer who writes simply for pleasure to one who has books for sale on Amazon (and elsewhere). And sharing that journey with a group of other writers, as I did recently at Waterside Writers, was particularly rewarding. And that was because I felt they “got it”, more so than a general group of listeners, most of whom aren’t writers and don’t share my desire to see my “darlings” out in the world, physically or electronically or both . . .
When thinking about our characters, it’s important to consider the difference between Deep Character and Characterisation.
Characterisation is observable traits - everything we can tell about our character by looking at them. For example, age, IQ, gender, sexual orientation, style of speech, choices of lifestyle, education, occupation, personality, values, attitudes and so on.
Deep Character though is something we slowly reveal during our stories, using these revelations to hook the reader. A clash between Deep Character and Characterisation is one effective way to create a compelling character.
Bel Canto. Beautiful singing. It permeates this story set in a backward Latin American state. Hoping for investment, the government lures a Japanese CEO to the capital by holding a birthday party for him and inviting the CEO’s favourite singer, a world famous American diva, to perform. Terrorists storm the international gathering, aiming to kidnap the President and demand freedom for the people. But the President is at home watching his favourite soap on TV. Kidnappers and kidnapped alike are stuck. How will they react?
We looked at the book’s main theme of human commonality, people coming together. They appreciate the diva with her wondrous music, the translator with his command of languages, the governess with her sewing needle, the Red Cross man with his negotiations. The siege releases time for both learning and loving, despite orders that ban emotional ties.
We discussed how far the main characters change during the story. The diva, for instance, not the terrorists, begins to take charge, her singing shaping the day. Love of music brings her and the usually-restrained CEO together, emboldened by the threat of possible death. Likewise the translator agrees to teach a young terrorist languages and they fall for each other, while the French Ambassador now appreciates and adores his absent wife.
How has the writer approached her task? The omniscient viewpoint helps her enter the main characters’ heads, while she fills the novel with humour (the President’s absence due to a TV soap opera) and symbolism (the fog that imprisons the house but clears as love breaks out).
We examined the main story elements as demonstrated by Ed’s session. The opening and closing, for instance, are mirror images. At the beginning, terrorists storm the party; at the end, government forces massacre the terrorists.
Follow-up work was to write on one of three options:
1.The Kiss (description or poem)
2.The Song that Changed my Life (flash fiction)
3.Dialogue between 3 people of different backgrounds, one of whom has more power than the others.
A writer need never be bored. Whether waiting in a café, for a train, or stuck in traffic, you can always observe people or things. Sometimes this will give you an idea for a whole new piece of work, or maybe just some detail to enrich an existing piece. Can you read the expressions of people? Or dogs? Which trees colour first in autumn and which come into leaf last in spring. Pay extra attention to sound, smell and touch.
Blackberries of the thornless variety are growing at either end of the raspberry wires with extra support from two wooden arches, hastily built a couple of years ago in a, ‘Let’s build an arch’ moment. Of all the soft fruit they are the last to ripen, so that by the time you pick the leaves are already turning red round the edges and crisp as you move them aside to find a ripe berry.
In 2018 I became a Master of Philosophy in Creative Writing. As part of my thesis I was required to provide a collection of short stories linked by place. I chose the New Forest, in particular the area in and around Lyndhurst. Pure laziness on my part: I live there, so not too much on-the-ground research required.
I’m a newbie novelist. I’ve been writing my first book for about nine months and I’ve joined a writers group, but it still feels like this is a weird thing to be doing. I wouldn’t mention it at polite dinner parties, where people would be patronising or appalled. Winchester Writers’ Festival changed all that.
We had a lively and, at times, intense discussion of ‘The Temporary Gentleman,’ by Sebastian Barry. The structure of this story is fascinating, complex, and skilfully done. It has interweaving narrative sections on present events, as the protagonist, Jack McNulty, reflects on his life, but it’s the flashbacks that form the major part of the story.
As we know, compelling and believable characters are vital for any story. I wanted to get the group exploring some of the elements that help to breathe life into our imaginary friends.
We each developed a new character called Sam. The techniques used can work well for brand new inventions, but can of course also be applied to revise characters already in our writing.
Waterside Writers
