Tomorrow is the monthly meeting for my creative writing group; I think some of them just like to meet so they can read out their stories, which is great, but I would like to challenge them a little to think about what they are doing it, why they are doing it and how they do it. I’ve always written, its my passion, and now it is a major part of my life, the first thing I do in the morning and the last thing I do at night before I go to bed. However, for some people it is a hobby they enjoy and I think that is brilliant, but I would like them to try and move froward with their writing, and not write similar things all the time and in similar ways.
In the last meeting we talked about inspiration, and what inspires them to write and for their ‘assignment’ I gave out postcards of various things, scenes, paintings, pictures of people… and asked them to use the card they chose as a starting point for what they were going to write. I wanted them to be inspired by what they had and not just to describe it, but we’ll see what they produce…the important thing is to write!
Tomorrow we are going to think about characters… some of my group write stories in which the characters are a little stereotypical, so a small boy always has grubby knees and conkers in his pocket, a young man might be ‘a tear-away’, an old lady might be like a witch with a hooked nose,, warts and missing teeth… I want them to think about realistic people, and to try and be original in their characterisation.
For their assignment tomorrow, I’m going to give them a photo which I commented on in a post recently and ask them to write about it in whatever way they like, so they could write a story, or a scene, or a conversation between the characters, or take the faces to a different place and write about them in a different setting… I’ll be interested to see what they produce in January!
http://loiselden.com/2013/12/03/out-for-a-jolly/
Lois Elsden 