For last Tuesday’s Café Stories I put together a lesson that combined memoir writing and plot types. There are umpteen theories on the range of narrative structures, but to keep it simple I stuck to the one that holds there are only 7 Basic Plots, and that all creative texts – films; novels; short stories; […]
Tag Archives: writing workshop
Story-a-Week #8: The Art of Losing
Another hard won story which started in the Café Stories workshop on Tuesday. We did the art of writing about place. The setting for a story is more than merely a backdrop for the action, when done right it can tell your reader a great deal about your character, and help move the action on. […]
Story-A-Week #7: On a Dig
I’m a day late with this post for a stew of reasons, the culmination of which being I couldn’t get any purchase on this week’s story until I woke on Monday morning and realised what it was about. Then had to rewrite it. Stephen King is right, I think, writing is akin to excavation. The […]
Story-A-Week #6: Twenty-Eight Years Gone
In last Tuesday’s Café Stories workshop instead of starting with character I got participants to start with an object. I asked them to choose an object in the cafe and describe it. But first, I told them, or reminded them really, about the value of simile. I gave them a few, and asked them to […]
Resolve
Once you’ve won NaNoWriMo what do you do next?
Literature Ambassador: Wigtown Happenings
From my inbox: While the team at Wigtown Festival Company are busy working away on this year’s Book Festival, here are some other events happening in and around Wigtown in the coming weeks. Four Ball Golf at Turnberry We are offering you the chance to win a round of golf at the world famous Ailsa […]
Literature Ambassador: Mysteriously Yours
Crime writing seems to be big business these days, not just when it comes to selling books, but when it comes to writing them too. There are conventions, events, and crime writing workshops popping up all over, and two out of three debut book launches I hear about are in that genre. There’s even a […]
