Stormy Weather

We've had some stormy weather lately, so let's use it in our writing.

Create a character - you could chose a name from the list we created a couple of sessions ago.

Now put them in danger. Imagine a situation from the recent storms. For example:

• You're on an unfamiliar road in a remote rural area, and you're caught in a blizzard. The car can't go any further. In the distance, you see lights...
• You're on our old friend the train. It's stopped - by a tree on the line, snow, floods - take your pick.
• You've just arrived for a stay in a village in the Welsh mountains. It's very pretty - but it rains heavily, and you see that the level of the river that runs through it is beginning to rise...

You might want to introduce another character - perhaps someone you don't know all that well. What does the crisis reveal about this person's character? Does it bring you closer together, or does it drive you apart?
 

Writing about an object

Here's a horseshoe. (Because that was the object I meant to bring to class on Thursday.)

Writing about an object

First of all, take a really good look at your object. Handle it - is it heavy, rough, smooth? Does it have a smell? (Unlikely, but you may have chosen a flower!)

Then, looking at it really closely, describe it in detail.

If there's already a story attached to it - a memory of when you acquired it, perhaps; or maybe it reminds you of a person or an occasion - then you could write about that.

If not, make it the focal point of a story. Make up a character. Was the object given to them? By whom? Was there some significance attached to it? Or was the object used in some significant way - perhaps someone was murdered with the horseshoe - or perhaps a florist saw it in a bric-a-brac shop, and was inspired to create a range of floral gifts centring on the horseshoe motif - which became so successful that they saved her shop from having to close...

Off you go!

 

Feeling bad, feeling better...

(This exercise is taken from 'Free-Range Writing', by Jenny Alexander.)

Someone is rocked by a difficult emotion. What is it? For example, jealousy, anger, boredom, fear.

Why are they feeling this way? What caused it?

Take a moment to imagine you are feeling this emotion. Notice the physical effects - where do you feel it in your body?

Stories are always about a protagonist who wants something. Your protagonist wants to stop feeling this way. what needs to happen in order for them to feel better? How can they make that happen?

Write the story of how they try to change their situation, ending in either success or failure. What do they learn? How does the journey change them?

Fiction tip: when you are writing stories, as well as the action of the plot, think about the psychological journey of the protagonist. How are they changed by what has happened?

(Non-fiction alternative

Write about a time when you've felt a difficult emotion. What was the context? How did you feel? What happened? How was the situation resolved?

If this feels a bit gloomy or negative, you could write about a time when you/your character felt happy, elated, hugely relieved. But it might be harder to make it into a story! SP)

Two pictures that tell a story?

 These are two pictures by Danish artist Vilhelm Hammershoi of the same woman, Ida. (I am indebted to Phyllis's son, Martin, for telling me about this artist - I hadn't come across him before.) How about having ago at filling in the gaps between the two pictures? The woman is called Ida. Start with asking some questions.

Who is this young woman?

What do you think you can tell about her character, about the sort of person she is, about her situation?

What do you imagine her feelings are in the first picture, where she's wearing a white dress?

What about in the second picture?

What has happened in between? 

(Or you could take them the other way round, with the picture of her in the dark dress coming first.)

If you are a bit wary about telling a story, just describe what you see in the two pictures - and see where it goes. Have fun!

Lucky Dip

This will be the last task of this strange term: at the beginning, I made a folder in my email inbox and called it Class During Corona, and I guess that's what it's been. It seems a long time since those sunny April days, when the lack of traffic noise made the birdsong sound louder. I don't know yet where or how we'll meet in September, but for now, we are going to have our usual summer break.

For the last task, an online version of the Lucky Dip story exercise, where normally I pass round a number of envelopes, each containing several possibilities - one for character, one for setting and so on. The challenge is to construct a story round these suggestions. A bit like a sort of literary rounders game.

Choose one from each list. I don't quite know how we can introduce the element of chance - if you want to do that, it's up to you to find a way. Otherwise, just choose a bit of what you fancy.

Constraints have an odd way of setting the imagination free. Usually, we get some intriguing results from this exercise, so I'll look forward to seeing what emerges from the depths!

A random pair of ruby shoes!

Character

A nurse

A dustman

An investment banker

A gardener

Setting

A park

A bridge

Beside the sea

A train station

Feeling

Joy

Anxiety

Fear

Amusement

Turning point

Selling/moving/losing house

An unexpected visitor/letter

An encounter with a stranger

A wedding/funeral/christening/retirement party.

Random element

A pair of shoes

A picture

An old saucepan

An expensive phone

Into the rose-garden...

Footfalls echo in the memory
Down the passage which we did not take
Towards the door we never opened
Into the rose-garden. My words echo
Thus, in your mind...
                                  Other echoes
Inhabit the garden. Shall we follow?

(From Four Quartets, by T S Eliot)

It's been a glorious spring, and for obvious reasons we've been confined to home for most of it; so those of us who are fortunate enough to have gardens have probably enjoyed them and observed them more closely than ever before.

Because of that, and because I'm happy to avail myself of any opportunity to quote the above lines (Eliot was write, his words do ech in the mind), I thought this week's task could centre around gardens.

First, read the lines through several times. Read them aloud. You may notice that intially, the poem is about choosing not to go into the garden, but don't let that distract you! For some reason, that choice was significant - what did it lead to? What did it avoid? And now, we are told, there are 'other echoes' - what might they be?

I'd like you to write something inspired, however loosely, by these lines.

• It can be a poem, a story, a memoir, or a piece of non-fiction writing. It could even be a letter, or a diary entry.
• It could be about your own garden or one you visited, or one that meant a great deal to you.
• It could be an imaginary garden.
• It certainly doesn't have to be a rose-garden!

Gather your ideas first in a mind-map or spider diagram - jot thoughts down, anywhere on a page, and then start to make connections and link relevant ones together. Gradually, an idea will emerge.

The rose garden at Villandry, in France.

Feelings

This week, our way into writing is going to be via our emotions

Think back to times when you felt very happy. Make notes on three of these times. Then decide on one which you will write about at greater length. Think about how you can get across the feeling; doesn't just have to be you, the narrator, telling us: show us, maybe through what you do, how you behave, what you wear - even through what the weather was like! (Fancy term alert coming up: when a writer makes the weather mirror the mood of the main character, it's called the pathetic fallacy.)

The piece can be memoir or, as ever, for those who prefer to write fiction, it can be a story.

Then, if you have time, it would be an interesting exercise to choose a very different emotion - sadness, say, or anger, or spite - and do the same with that.

The Scream, by Edward Munch

'Are we nearly there yet?'

Yes, in the words of the great Cliff Richard in a song from his seminal film Summer Holiday:

We're all going on a summer holiday,
Doing things we've always wanted to;
Fun and laughter on a summer holiday,
For me and you-ou-ou - for a week or two...

Except, of course, we're not. Thanks to you-know-what. But fear not - all is not lost...

Because now is the time for a virtual holiday!

Think back to a favourite holiday. Either write about it directly, or use it as a springboard for a story. But please - really take us there! I want to know what it looked like, what it smelt like, what it tasted like, what it sounded like. Villages of white buildings climbing up a Spanish mountainside? Tick. Buckets and spades on Weston beach? Tick. Mountain ranges in Outer Mongolia? Absolutely tick.

I'll look forward as ever to reading the Cheddar group's pieces. But other visitors to the page: why not pause for a minute or two, and write down a lovely memory in just a sentence or two in the comments? There could even be a prize in it for the most evocative description!

Good luck, and may the best holiday win!

Using an object

We have a guest! This is Jackie Marchant, who has made this lovely video about how to use an object as a starting point for a story. The video was originally made for children, but I think Jackie's suggestions will work for anybody. So do have a go - you can use the model of a train which Jackie talks about if you want, or choose an object of your own.

As Jackie suggests, there are all sorts of different ways you can go with this. You could write a story, or the object might trigger memories of a person or a place you might associate with it.

Anyway - over to Jackie!

Jackie's most recent book is a fantasy adventure, The Sword of Red. She has also written a series for younger children, about a character called Dougal Daley.

Dougal Daley

The Sword of Red

Stories in pictures

Some years ago, my mother-in-law was living in a care home. She had a lovely room, with French doors that opened onto the garden, so that she could watch the birds. All her life she had loved books, but recenly, she had lost the ability to read for any length of time: we never could quite work out whether this was becuse of her sight, or because she couldn't retain the memory of one page when she went on to the next.

Anyway, one day when I went to see her, she was gazing at a picture on the wall of a French town. "I've been looking at it for hours," she said serenely. "There's so much going on in it, isn't there?"

There's a lot going on in the three pictures below, too. Have a look at them all - a really good look. What is the setting? The people in them - what are they like? What are the relationships between them? What's happening in the picture?

Then you could go on to think about the artist's intention. What reasons were there for his/her choice of the objects/places in the background? Is his/her interest in the people alone, or is she/he trying to make some more general point?

Then choose one as a focus for your writing. You could:

• Simply describe what you see, and see what happens - it may develop into something else, it may not.
• Home in on one particular character, and imagine what they're thinking and feeling - describe that. (This is a monologue.) Is there something crucial about this moment in time? Does the character have a secret which is about to be revealed, something s/he wants to say?
• Find a story in the picture. What happened before the events of the picture? Or is the picture the beginning - does the real story happen afterwards?

The Dance, by Paula Rego

David Hockney's portrait of his parents

Home from the Pit, by Ron Gribbons. Gribbons was one of the Pitmen Painters. You can find out more about them here.