Lavender's Blue.

Bobby Shaftoe, the old woman who lived in a shoe, Humpty Dumpty. They are all nursery rhyme characters that are so much part of many childhoods that they cease to have meaning. In the spirit of recycling, modernise these or other nursery characters. Put them in your town or city, in modern times, give them the modern equivalent of the roles they had in fairy tales. Bring their concerns up to date and set them off in a story and see where they go.

Popular and Literary Fiction - what's the difference?

I'm running a workshop next month on writing popular stories for women's magazines. There are distinct expectations from magazine editors for their stories. There are distinct expectations from all kinds of editors - for the various publications that exist on line and on paper.

Identify some of those differences. Look at anthologies of short stories and consider what the people who compiled them were aiming for.

Write a short story for a publication that is outside your comfort zone. You might be surprised by how liberating it is.

If you were designing a poster for a workshop for a particular style of short story, how would it look?

Words of wisdom as the first line of a story.

Inspiring advice often comes in the form of a saying or catch phrase. A colleague of mine always said 'always read what it says on the label'. By this she meant always follow instructions and guidance where it exists.

Think of a line of wisdom from a school teacher or parent or someone close to you. 

Write it down as though it were the first line of a new story.

 Now write whatever comes to mind.

BBC Initiatives

Once again a series of interesting initiatives available, mainly to new writers. Go to bbcwritersroom for information on opportunities.
 

Rosie Garland

Palace of Curiosities is Rosie Garland's debut novel. Without divulging too much of the plot, the events she writes about take place in and around a Victorian show of physically unusual people.  

The characters she has created are outsiders, different. They drive the story forward in unexpected ways and yet symbolise all people who find themselves on the margins of society.

Rosie Garland herself is an interesting person - a performer and poet and now novelist - have a look at her website  rosiegarland.com


How do writers create interesting characters? 
What constitutes an interesting character?

To start with they need purpose and motivation. A writer must decide what a character wants, and set them on the path of finding those desires - giving them flaws and situations that reveal how they behave when challenged, who they are, what they will and won't to to get what they want.

Think of memorable characters in books - Captain Ahab in Melville's Moby Dick - Miss Haversham in Dickens' Great Expectations. Both of them have strong reasons  for being as they are and behaving as they do.

It isn't enough to have a character. A plot and story and other characters are needed to make a piece of writing work. However, look through a piece of writing that you have completed but would like to improve. Could the characters be stronger?

Create a character based on someone you know. Give them a couple of dark characteristics that  aren't immediately apparent or that they usually manage to hide. See if the character you create inspires a story.
    

Large Cast Productions

I've been looking at the plays of Caryl Churchill, most of which have large casts - 16 parts being an average. In all cases these parts have been divided amongst 5 / 6 actors. This saves costs and it must be easier to co-ordinate 6 actors rather than 16. 

Large Casts enable multi viewpoints and brilliant challenges for actors. However, the costs involved with putting on productions often result in writers and producers opting for fewer roles.

There are some cases when a large cast is needed. My Story Quilt (The Horse's Quilt) has 20 characters. This figure could be swelled to include more people, in schools for example, by having stage crew and musicians. 

I'm thinking of writing another large cast drama piece for community settings and have looked at those produced by other companies and writers. They vary from the sublime to the banal.

What large cast plays have you seen. Who is known for writing plays with vast casts?

Have you any ideas for such a thing. Jot down some ideas and see if it inspires something you haven't thought of before.


Caryl Churchill

Ovid, Don Quixote and unfullfilled ambition.

I've mentioned translations before. Things lost as well as found when work is changed from one language to another. I'm reading Don Quixote by Miguel De Cervantes amongst other things at the moment and note that the translation by Edith Grossman took two years to complete and she was as nervous showing her work to the world as any author might be. 

Don Quixote is one of those books that you might read or you might decide, given its size, you won't bother with. I know parts of it that have been used to demonstrate points in writing classes. I'll see how  go on with reading all of it.

Speaking of translations, I have used In Summer's Heat In my classes over the past couple of weeks. This poem by Ovid, translated by Christopher Marlowe describes a sexy afternoon. Timeless and relevant in the time of Ovid as well as Marlowe and now. Do read it. 

Which brings me to my subject which is people who didn't shine as they might have done. Christpher Marlowe, clever, feisty peer of William Shakespeare was killed in an undignified fight. Who knows what amazing plays he might have penned or what other work he might have translated. Rupert Brooke, beautiful boy poet and soldier didn't live through WW1 and his war poems don't have the bite and bitter taste of reality contained in the poems of Owen, for example.

Imagine a character from any world, not just the arts, whose talent didn't materialize for any kind of reason. Write about them from the point of view of someone who knew them or still knows them. What talent did they have? Why didn't it materialize? 

A very interesting picture may emerge.