Writers' Workshop Kicks Off

Joey guards his story from the camera's prying eye 

Nothing happens without Costis. 

Making stories

Reading 'Consequences'...

Thursday afternoon at the studio saw the first gathering of theWriters' Workshop, Words on Paper, led by local writer Rachael Pettus.  A small group ranging in age from seven (Joey) to 53 (Rachael's sister Ruth) gathered in the studio, talked a little about the essentials of story making, then began work -- and play.  The younger ones, who had had little formal learning in English, had some difficulty with spelling, but a nearby adult always helped out.

The first exercise was a round of the old party game Consequences, in which each player writes a man's name at the top of a page, folds the paper over, and hands the page to the player on the right -- who then writes the name of a woman, covers it in turn, and hands the paper on... until a story is created involving where the couple met, what they wore, what they said to each other, and what happened 'consequently'.  the game is a rigid form of story-telling, made fascinating and funny by the details provided by each player's imagination.

After a quick refreshment break, we moved on to another form of story creation, the composite story.  Unfortunately we didn't have time for a full round:  each player wrote a beginning on their page before passing it to the right, added a 'middle' to the paper that came to them, before passing that one on and  completing the new page that came from the player to the left.  This allowed a much freer form of writing as each writer built on the paragraphs written by the writer before.

Despite running out of time, we passed around lots of good ideas and Rachael left with the suggestion that participants take some of the images generated by the stories that we had begun, and develop them for next week.