Vikki is an author who has been a member of Erskine
Writers Group since the age of seventeen. Today Vikki led us through the
specialist field of writing for young adults. 
The definition “Young Adult” is not watertight. You may aim
for an audience of 12 to 18 year olds, but the actual readership could be younger
or much older and not necessarily match the gender of your main character/s.
Things to bear in mind are that teenagers are intelligent,
but may not be already life-experienced. Their reactions to given situations
may be emotional rather than logical. Their characters are allowed to make
mistakes.
The priority is to have an idea of the story first and then to put it into a teen setting.
Look towards giving the protagonist an authentic voice.
We then had to work, but it was an enjoyable and
interesting workshop. It was a methodology to overcome the ‘blank screen’ or
‘blank sheet of paper’ situation when starting a new novel.
We split into groups of three, each group tasked with
creating a character, a setting, a secret, a fear or an object.
It started to become a challenge for each group to offer up
with increasingly offbeat ideas.
In a collective session Vikki collected the various elements
and showed how a story could be created and ideas formed by linking the various
strands.
In this way of working, the plot became the last element to
emerge.
Members could try this methodology for their next novel.
Alternatively or additionally, do we have an idea that we can put into
practice by incorporating it into next year’s syllabus?
Each member could create a thumbnail sketch of a character,
setting, secret, fear and an object. These thumbnails could then be randomly
distributed for gluing together with a plot leading to a story.
Vikki compressed a lot into two hours and her work was much
appreciated by the group.
No comments:
Post a Comment