The Paisley book festival begins on the 18th Feb https://paisleybookfest.com/ with contributions from Dave, Margaret and Isobel this year. Ann also suggested checking out The Federation of Writers Scotland https://federationofwritersscotland.com/ who are looking for entries for their short story anthology.
Last night Isobel stepped into the covid breach with her excellent workshop on ‘Show not Tell’. Though Isobel proclaimed herself no expert she does however have a lifetime of reading at her disposal to draw upon for inspiration and insight into what makes a good writer. Her broad advice was to try and think in pictures and write what you see (not what you think). This will then invite the reader into your world and let them engage their own imagination with what you are showing them.
The workshop took the form of a series of exercises.
Exercise I was ‘Picturing an Emotion’ i.e. members wrote a few sentences about a character experiencing an emotion (but without mentioning it.) Tony featured decapitation, Jim was being chased and Grahame scored a goal – see if you can guess the emotions. NB For those interested in further reading check out the book ‘The Emotion Thesaurus’.
Exercise II was ‘Describing a Place’ (a large building with a foyer) members had to write a few sentances from the POV of a character with distinctive clothing – but without telling – and then members had to guess what the building was.
Exercise III involved describing the view from a block of flats. It was somewhere warm and sunny (hmmm nice….) But the trick was to describe it from the POV of a) an estate agent, b) an elderly person, c) a student or d) a young single parent with twins. Then we all had to guess who the character was. As Anne pointed out it never ceases to amaze the fantastic variety of scenarios that GWC members come up with. From Mary’s elderly Brit abroad Mildred to Grahame’s view of the Space Shuttle and Franziska’s feline perspective. We even had Paul’s character missing the cold and rain of Scotland. That last one might have been stretching my suspension of disbelief just a little too far.
Exercise IV was ‘Conflict’. Basically members had to write a short dialogue between two characters over an object. This resulted in Margaret’s skanky pants (very funny) and my favourite Jim’s magnolia man, determined to paint over the street art on his gable end
The Next GWC meeting on the 3rd March is a peer editing session. A story/poem will shortly be winging its way to you shortly so get your editing hats ready.
Ho Hum, onwards and upwards.