Sex, Drugs and Fairytales (more from Arvon!)

Something that had concerned me before going on the Writing for Young Adults Arvon course was the fact it was subtitled “Playing On The Edge”.  My heart sunk when I noticed that (after I’d paid!) and I was convinced that we were gonna be made to write about sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll the whole time. 

However, in the Plot workshop, scary Melvin (who wasn’t scary at all, in truth, but a really lovely guy!) got us deconstructing Jack and the Beanstalk by examining the different characters and their roles in the story.  Looking at magic beans and geese that lay golden eggs with the writer of gritty books like “Junk” and “Doing It”?  Who would have ever predicted that!  So much for my concerns :-)

We then had to plot a contemporary story using the plot of another fairytale as its framework.  My group’s reworked version of Snow White meets the Brownlee brothers was surprisingly good and definitely writable.  I was almost tempted to give it a try, but sadly there are other ideas that are calling to me more loudly at the moment.  “Nick a plot!” was Melvin’s brilliant summary advice at the end of the session!

One of the YA stories I’m developing is loosely based on another story and I have ideas about other possibilities too.  It’s a fantastic way to brainstorm plot ideas, even if you don’t end up using them.  If you’re not confident about plotting then it can also ensure that your story has a good structure, with the necessary rise and falls, twists and turns.  Lots of writers do it!

The final workshop of the week on Setting, with Lucy, was probably the most hotly anticipated.  In no way does that belittle the great teaching that Melvin gave us, but setting is difficult.  Lucy is much lauded for her incredible skills at not only bringing settings to life, but even making them an integral part of the story.

Fascinatingly – especially for someone like me, who starts a story with plot or theme ideas – Lucy always starts from the setting and looks for the story in it.  Her first book “Stolen” is set in the Australian Outback, her second “Flyaway” is based on a RSPB nature reserve, and her third book “The Killing Woods” is inspired primarily by the Forest of Dean, near where she lives.

One of my biggest problems with adult literature is how slowly it often moves along, especially when getting bogged down with long-winded description of surroundings.  Consequently, I’d come to the opinion that if a story is full of pace and action then setting needs to be more or less ignored.

Not so!  Done properly, setting can add tremendous depth to the action of a story and not detract from its pace at all.  I’d started to realise this fact when reading Lucy’s books, but it became blindingly obvious during the exercises in this session.  I found the idea of doing sensory sheets before writing a scene particularly useful – thinking about how everything looks, feels, smells, sounds and tastes – to fully embed yourself and your reader in the place.

Some of my fellow writers produced incredible pieces of writing in that session!  I didn’t, although that was because I was still processing this revelation and getting my head around writing in what was a very foreign way for me (being much more into the big picture, rather than the small detail).  However, later that day I applied my newfound skills and awareness to a scene in the story I was working on and was really pleased with what I produced.  So much so, that I was happy to read it out that evening at our end of course celebration evening, rather than run away and get an early train home, which I had seriously been considering doing up until that point!!

This learning was consolidated a couple of days later when I was on a long car journey with my family and we were listening to an Alex Rider audiobook.  With everything I’d learnt still prominent in my mind, I was paying close attention to the writing, as well as the story.  Alex always has a tumultuous roller-coaster ride of a time in these books and so I’d naturally assumed that there’d be little in the way of setting and description, as that would slow down the pace.

To my mahoosive surprise, I was wrong again!  Anthony Horowitz is a master of setting and description!!  The amount of detail he includes is amazing, yet it doesn’t disconnect you from the action, like it so easily could do, but actually takes you deeper into it.  My ears were just sucking it all in and I learnt a huge amount more.

Now I just have to translate all that learning into my own writing!