An exercise in dialogue

This week in class we were working on dialogue. Our task was to create a scene with as many characters as we wanted, using the prompt "I told you not to go in there". Our tutor told us to think about a tension between the characters that wasn't explicit and roll with it. This is what I came up with:

"I told you not to go in there." She was sympathetic, which made it worse.

"Shut up," he mumbled.

"But I did tell you."

"I said shut up," he said, clearer this time.

Neither of them spoke. She dug the toe of her shoe into the ground next to the ball, scuffing it further. He shivered, lip trembling. A bird cawed overhead, directing her attention upwards. She noticed the red tinge to his nose.

"It won't be that bad," she tried.

"Yes it will."

She knew he was right. "I'll tell her it was my fault."

He looked at her then. It was her fault and they both knew it. She was older, smarter, braver - she wouldn't be the one who got in trouble.

"She won't believe you. She'll say it was my fault, because I'm stupid and I always do stupid things."

"No she won't," she lied. "You're not always stupid, only sometimes." She grinned and he attempted to smile back. It was unsuccessful. She threw her arm around his shoulders, smearing the mud on to her skin. She gave the ball a nudge forward.

"Come on," she said, "let's go home.

I'm on my way

I'm officially halfway through Phase Two of editing my story. Yay! Phase One was me changing the point of view from first to third person, and now I'm going through the whole thing again, putting notes and pointing out my mistakes. Phase Three will involve me implementing the suggestions I make right now in Phase Two and then I'll be on to Phase Four: sending it to other people to have a look at.

Gulp.

Let's get metaphorical.

I have a few trusty people on hold (I'm looking at you, Sensei) but I've also been collecting business cards and making contacts with people I don't know that well. This was a strategic choice to make sure I have a good range of critics who aren't afraid to tell me how it is but who also have a passion for books and/or writing. Once they've had a look at a few chapters (some might even want the whole thing) then it's off to the industry I go!

But let's not get ahead of ourselves. I am still only halfway through my editing process, after all.

Life writing

I recently attended another class hosted by Ideas Tap, this one focusing on life writing. My first assignment for my creative writing module is a piece of life writing so I thought it would be useful for that. I was wrong.

Not to say the class wasn't useful at all! It was, very, just not for my assignment. So what did I learn about life writing?

• Life writing is an opportunity to connect and share directly with readers or audience
• If it's good, people will see themselves in it
• The personal is political
• If things are well-crafted, they will have artistic merit
• Free writing* let's you say what you want to but might be afraid to admit
• You are not genre bound, you can add layers which help build the feeling of the piece

*Free writing is simply writing whatever comes to your head, without thinking, without stopping, without second-guessing yourself. There's usually a time limit so you don't just go on forever. Ours was something like five minutes and we were told to think about our week. I know I just said free writing is writing without thinking, but that was the exercise we did. This is mine (censored because I wrote some pretty arsey things. But I kept the lack of punctuation, the spelling errors and everything else authentic):

I'm back (sort of)

Whoops, I seem to have taken a month's break from my blog.


Where have I been and what have I been doing? Well, my mind has been pretty preoccupied with life things. Third year requires a lot more brain power than I anticipated (I spend my days off in the library). It's stressful, but a good stressful because I really enjoy my classes. More so than the other two years so that's something at least.

But stress has been coming at me from all angles lately, making it harder to deal with, be it organising events (being sociable is something I'm still working on), looking out for my friends and family, or getting locked at work after everyone had gone home on Halloween. I'll tell you about it some day when it's funny.

I've also been to the GP for some anxiety-related issues. Who didn't see that one coming, huh?

The good news is, I'm going to work out a new update schedule so this blog doesn't get completely left behind to rot. I'll update every Sunday from now on (starting today, as it happens!) and will probably post more experimental things that happen in my creative writing class, because that's just easier.

I have been doing lots and lots of writing. Most of it academic but every Thursday in my creative writing class we're forced to encouraged to try out new things. And I've been squeezing out some fresh ideas when I can, as well as editing my WIP. I've only really been slacking in the poetry department, although I did manage to make it a poetry reading at my university the night before Halloween - they even had me open the session!

If I've learnt anything from my month away from blogging, it's that I need to read more. And not just the primary text for my classes; I mean secondary reading, contextual reading and (probably most importantly) wider 'just for fun' reading. We'll see how that goes.