How is it going so far?

Week one of 2012 saw members of the Creative Writing Group discussing an anecdotal short story before having a go at writing one. An anecdotal story does not necessarily have a narrative structure that includes a conventional beginning, middle and end. The idea is to dive straight into the story, at the point where the event or anecdote you are telling us about begins, without background or lead up to that point.

Week two saw us writing short stories that revolved around misunderstandings, and began with some howlers and examples of ambiguity in published works!

Week three left us with a homework exercise: to continue a story from a synopsis and opening written in class. Our starting point was 'Positives and Negatives' and we looked at how good things can come from bad and/or vice versa.

Will Lyn's character find a way out of her mounting financial difficulties?
Will Helen's heroine, who risked her own life to save a child, make a full recovery?
Is Sandie's main character, facing redundancy going, to decide that this was a wakeup call and go off travelling before it is too late?
How is the child, in Marc's story, waiting nervously for his music exam going to fare?
What happens as Sue's characters start to blame each other for the multi-car pile up in a busy street?

If you think this sounds like fun you need to be there next week to join in and find out what happens.

Week four will focus on openings and first lines, our own and a few famous ones!

Don't forget we are working towards a short story competition within the group (200 - 500 words) and entries in the Telegraph Short Story Competition (up to 2,000 words and a £500 first prize).

In the next couple of weeks or so we need to be offering things to the group from our notebooks, ie things that we have seen, overheard, been told etc that we have jotted down as possibly providing a stimulus for a story idea.

Also look out for a picture or photograph of someone or something on the island of Lanzarote that you might like to write about.

Hope to see you there, Fridays 11.00 till 13.00 in Costa Teguise.