I have been attending a "Creative Writing" course since yesterday that is quite interesting. I met people who are into writing and are familiar with the writing "culture" so to say. I ve only been writing for myself without bothering much with the writing scene but it is quite interesting to exchange ideas.
Just a quick summary of what the seminar has covered so far:
- The importance of the first page of a book
- Practical tips on characters, themes and plot
I would have to write very much to go into details here, the gist is that we learned some very very practical tips about starting and planing a book (synopsis). About plot driven and character driven books, how to sketch and link the bits of plot and the different characters in a complicated web but still keeping an overview.
We had to write 2 exersices today. The first one was to write a story of 250 words in 20 minutes that had a certain theme. We could choose among 5 of them. And the second one was a lesson in Scene Setting and descriptive writing. We had to keep the scene setting in the background but still strong enough, so that the reader absolutely knows where the hero is. We had to combine emotion and the five senses in relation to the scenery.
I ll spare you with the first exercise so here is what I wrote for the second one:
Scene Setting: A sleepy village
"Bobbin climbed down the hill and tried to orientate himself towards his village. He knew he had to pass through the cementary with the weeping willows to find himself at the gate of the village.
But the hour was late and he could barely see anything apart from the eyes of flying owls and black cats that lingered around.
As he was approaching, the awful smell of smoke from the baker's chimney reached his nostrils. A few fires were still burning secretely under those heaps of red and black coals he could make out from the distance.
When he finally reached the gate he was afraid to open it lest he would disturb the quietness of the night. The village was deeply asleep and not a sound could be heard apart from the very faint bark of a distant dog."
4 comments:
It rmeinds me of my writing class! In the first session we had 30 minutes to write a description / short story about meeting our dream girl/man. The stories turned out better than one might imagine. The stories I think most about turn out worse.
We also learned about books, not to plan too much in detail. Sometimes it can be brilliant to just start writing and see where the story takes you. If you are good, there will be more in the story than you intended. If you only follow a recipe, probably the story will not be as interesting. (That's just my prejudice - I would be interested in what all you learned).
The author who actually talked to us about planning the book has written a best seller, I think she gave a very nice metaphor about the way one can plan the book in advance. It is similar to your metaphor actually. Besides the practical tips she said
"Use a compass, not a map."
I think she meant that one needs to know where one is heading to, otherwise one will keep going in circles without ever reaching a destination. She analyzed it saying that a compass will give you the direction and you will get there without necessarily having to sketch a route on a map. The way you get there can be intuitive.
She lay a lot emphasis on having a plot and on planing the plot in the beginning. Although there are many succesful character-led novels, it is important to have a plot. She also said that men usually write plot-led novels, while women usually write character-led novels. What personally helped me a lot was her description about how she works out the ways all characters interact with each other through sketching a plan. This way one can have complicated relations among them and not loose the overview.
Today we talked about dialogues, which has been a challenging subject for me and I was very happy I could ask all the questions I had about dialogues. There are some technical stuff about them, which I was not aware of.
Another great thing I learned considering the first page, was through my first page exercise. The tutor cut the first few sentences and said "this is where you should begin your book, where all the real tension is. You dont have to waste what you wrote, you can fit in later. But keep the best parts for the first page, even the first paragraph."
That sounds very reasonable, what you are learning. I've found more and more that creativity has to be spontaneous. The more I plan, the less it works out.
Feel free to give me any tips about my writing, if there's something you notice. I don't always understand what works and what doesn't work.
YOur blogging is missed - I hope you are somewhere under a warm Grecian son, being creative.
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