With grateful thanks again - to Fudge, in Hull

We had a great morning in Hull's #Fudge - the second of our recent 'tightening tension' workshops - where we explored revelations - such as the moment the hound appears in Conan Doyle's famous Baskervilles tale, and the exquisitely handled moment of entrapment in Susan Hill's #The Man in the Picture. Workshoppers wrote some great atmospheric descriptive pieces in response to our 'Park in the Dark' writing task.

After coffee and cake (naturally!) we delved into issues with dialogue - how to say a lot without saying a lot - and chewed over an illuminating extract from John Williams' novel, Stoner.

Our group of writers enjoyed the experience - thanks once more to Fudge. And talking of chewing... gotta say: the cakes were just luvverly!

With thanks to York Writers!

We recently had a splendid evening visiting York Writers at #Brigantes, Micklegate, York. A truly Gothic Evening where we explored how some of the best Gothic Great writers do their stuff - and had a try ourselves at eerie atmospherics in descriptive writing.

Interesting to take a look at domestic, contemporary Gothic as well as some of the loved traditionals - thanks, York Writers, for making Thoughttree feel so welcome - we'd love to come back another day!

Championing young writers

Our education system can fail to acknowledge or value true talent in our younger learners... Tom, early year 4, is struggling with primary literacy because his spelling is poor and his letters aren't joined. Or at least, that is how he is assessed in school.

But after working with us in a Thoughttree action writing session, his pen was flying across the paper! Tom wrote a whole page of an exciting chase scene in present tense, using short sentences. He instinctively used a light comic touch and patterning in his sentences. We say, Go Tom! Here's a snippet (spellings corrected by Ali, because frankly, we don't care much about that!)...

'Saturday morning. I am playing football in my street. Bob pushes me over. I run. He follows me. I run faster. I dash round a corner not knowing where to go next. I charge. I am surrounded by Bob's mates! 'Now what do I do?' I think...

...I run into my room. The window's open. Bob's seen me! I see a trampoline. I leap out of the window but Bob's after me. I land on the trampoline and Bob lands on me. I yell. Bob cups his hands over his ears. So I leg it!'

PS: Tom loved the idea of using 'leg it' as a synonym for 'run '!

Gay? Normal? WE think so!

Greetings bloggers... it's not often that we at Thoughttree step into the political or controversial arena to comment (and to be fair, this has nothing to do with writing!) BUT we just can't help ourselves:

#SimonJenkins, writing in the Guardian, has it right: as things stand, there is nothing sullying Edward Heath's name except unsubstantiated rumour. The guy is DEAD - he can't defend himself. But while those who make claims against him enjoy protection and the possibility of (naturally...) compensation, his character is defamed and there is nothing - apparently - that can be done to prevent this.

This has nothing to do with politics - it doesn't matter whether he was Tory or Labour. It has nothing to do with justice - because how can what is happening now - 'trial' by public gossip and paraonoia - be right? It has nothing to do with whatever outcome is reached. But it has everything to do with homophobia. 

Here's our view, for what it's worth: just because a person leads a private life; just because a person might - or might not - be gay; it does not make them a paedophile.

Know what, homophobes? You can be gay and NORMAL.

Phew! Glad we got that off our chests! Back to sit in the sunshine, guys!

Summer greetings from Thoughttree! We do hope you're enjoying the sunshine.

 

We've been busy planning future local workshops and events, commencing in September - and watch this space for details of our new venues in York!

 

We'll be offering our next workshop, Tightening the Tension, in South Cave and Pocklington (venues and dates to be confirmed) All good stories revolve around some kind of conflict - social, psychological, physical - so we'll focus on hooking the reader, building and sustaining tension and handling suspense. As always, we'll look at how some of the best authors do it, have a go at some enjoyable practical writing tasks - and share the results!

 

And to keep your creative juices flowing during the summer months, we're announcing our first Thoughttree Writing Competition! Write a short story(or a piece of memoir writing), maximum 1500 words, on a theme of your choice and submit it to us by email before 15th September. The winner will receive a book token, tutor feedback (which we are offering to all entrants) and public acclamation as Writer of the Month on our website. Further details on the Thoughttree website (thoughttree.co.uk) and do pass it on - anyone can enter! 

 

Good luck and happy holidays!

We're back!

Hi Bloggers... we're back after a rather intense spell marking exam papers (well we are teachers, after all!). So look out for details of our September courses and our short story writing competition - coming soon to a blog near you!

Woman in Black... a bit Grey!

At Thoughttree we're Susan Hill fans -  and so grabbed the chance last week to see the West End touring production of #The Woman in Black at the #Alhambra, Bradford. The production made good use of Hill's prose, and neat work of simple staging using stool, storage trunk and clothes rack (particularly liked the carriage and horse!)

But oh, the Woman in Black. She was perfect - horribly scary - in her 'unrealised' form, visible only as an indistinct shadow of black - hairs on my arms stood on end. Trouble was, when she burst through the stage curtain for the climactic moment of ghostly revenge, she resembled the Wicked Witch of the West a little too closely for serious theatre: the impulse was to laugh - and several in the audience did. Was it lighting, or was her face a Wizard of Oz green?

Two things:

1) Less is often more!
2) If you find yourself laughing when you know you should be immersed in a moment of serious theatre, the production has failed.

Take note, #StephenMallatratt!