13 January 2024

Posted by Sukie & Claire

Young Writers - Week 1 (The Art of Writing) - Character

Hi Writers,

Welcome back to Term 2 of Forest Arts Young Writers! We hope you’ve all had a restful time off, and an

inspiring New Year. While January can be a stressful and strenuous time for some of us, it’s also a great

time to get started on new paths and try our hands at new skills, so we’re looking forward to seeing more

of this term’s members next week and maybe even starting to work toward submitting some competition

pieces at the end of term (or perhaps even showcasing it?)

This term we’ll be focusing on The Art of Writing and doing some deep dives into the different elements

that create great writing. This week we were thinking about Character.

During our check-in we all described our weeks as an animal.

1. Claire - a bear, hibernating

2. Poppy M - a sloth, slow

3. Sukie - a beaver, busy

4. Berry - a panda, not doing much

5. Poppy C - a tiger, a crazy, wild week

And we talked about what we had been reading over the holiday period, with Poppy M telling us a bit

about the next in the mystery series with great names - ‘Spoonful of Murder’, Berry sharing ‘Jaguar

Trials’ and ‘The Lighthouse Intruder’ and Poppy C describing some of the nonfiction she’d been reading

recently, and expressing an interest in more history and historical fiction.

After setting the space and reconnecting with the three golden rules (have a go, no self-diss and have

fun!), we played a quick few rounds of Buzzy Bees: The Alliteration Version! When Claire gave a letter,

we all had to freeze as an alliterative pair of words (an adjective and a noun). We were treated to ‘Perfect

Poppy’, ‘Slithery Snake’, ‘Sorrowful Sadsack’ and ‘Long Lamppost’.

We spent a while discussing essential components of storytelling, including character, plot and pacing,

and Poppy M made the great point that a good blurb is really important when marketing a book, as it can

be easy to give too much away or leave the reader confused by not giving enough information.

We looked at three excerpts that exemplify character introduction, which are listed below:

‘A Christmas Carol’:

‘But he was a tight-fisted hand at the grindstone, Scrooge! a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping,

clutching, covetous, old sinner! Hard and sharp as flint, from which no steel had ever struck out generous

fire; secret, and self-contained, and solitary as an oyster. The cold within him froze his old features,

nipped his pointed nose, shrivelled his cheek, stiffened his gait; made his eyes red, his thin lips blue; and

spoke out shrewdly in his grating voice. A frosty rime was on his head, and on his eyebrows, and his wiry

chin. He carried his own low temperature always about with him; he iced his office in the dog-days; and

didn’t thaw it one degree at Christmas.

External heat and cold had little influence on Scrooge. No warmth could warm, no wintry weather chill

him. No wind that blew was bitterer than he, no falling snow was more intent upon its purpose, no pelting

rain less open to entreaty.’

‘The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe’:

‘Aslan stood in the centre of a crowd of creatures who had grouped themselves around him in the

shape of a half-moon. There were Tree-Women there and Well-Women (Dryads and Naiads as they used

to be called in our world) who had stringed instruments; it was they who had made the music. There were

four great centaurs. The horse part of them was like huge English farm horses, and the man part was like

stern but beautiful giants. There was also a unicorn, and a bull with the head of a man, and a pelican,

and an eagle, and a great dog. And next to Aslan stood two leopards of whom one carried his crown and

the other his standard.

But as for Aslan himself, the Beavers and the children didn't know what to do or say when they saw

him. People who have not been in Narnia sometimes think that a thing cannot be good and terrible at the

same time. If the children had ever thought so, they were cured of it now. For when they tried to look at

Aslan's face they just caught a glimpse of the golden mane and the great, royal, solemn, overwhelming

eyes; and then they found they couldn't look at him and went all trembly.’

‘The Northern Lights’:

‘She was a coarse and greedy little savage, for the most part. But she always had a dim sense that it

wasn’t her whole world; that part of her also belonged in the grandeur and ritual of Jordan College; and

that somewhere in her life there was a connection with the high world of politics represented by Lord

Asriel. All she did with that knowledge was to give herself airs and lord it over the other urchins. It had

never occurred to her to find out more.

So she had passed her childhood, like a half-wild cat. The only variation in her days came on those

irregular occasions when Lord Asriel visited the College. A rich and powerful uncle was all very well to

boast about, but the price of boasting was having to be caught by the most agile Scholar and brought to

the Housekeeper to be washed and dressed in a clean frock, following which she was escorted (with many

threats) to the Senior Common Room to have tea with Lord Asriel. A group of senior Scholars would be

invited as well. Lyra would slump mutinously in an armchair until the Master told her sharply to sit up,

and she’d glower at them all till even the Chaplain had to laugh.’

We talked about Scrooge being described entirely through a list of traits, and how quick and effective

that can be - we know he’s a horrible person right from the start! - and compared it with Aslan’s

introduction, where he is described in part through other characters who associate with him and the main

characters’ responses to him. We also talked about how a character’s strengths and weaknesses can be the

same thing in different situations, or different amounts - for example, stubbornness and perseverance.

We explored character creation through a game of Character Consequences, where everyone took a

sheet of paper and wrote the name of a character on it before folding it over and passing it to the right. We

described the characters one feature at a time before folding it over and passing it along and created Mr

Bubble, whose eyes were as twitchy as squirrels and whose voice was as scratchy as a record player; Sam,

whose ears were like the handles of a jug owned by a giant, and Mila who moved like an avalanche and

whose voice was as crunchy as frost.

Now that we’d settled into character creation mode, we use the Character Profile sheet to create our

own character profiles, considering what their family might be like, or their voice and eyes and laugh, and

what their strengths and weaknesses might be.

To close the session, we talked about the eight basic word types (verbs, nouns, adjectives, adverbs,

pronouns, prepositions, conjunctions and interjection) and used them to play a round of One Word Story,

creating a short, dramatic tale of love and betrayal:

‘Once there may have been a ally, disgusted creature called Bob, and his beautiful wife slaughtered

him in the most beautiful blue ocean. He ended the contract decisively because he couldn’t breathe.’

Next week we’ll be discussing setting and genre, and we may even have a try at creating a murder

mystery…

We’d love to see some more new faces this term, so if anyone knows a budding writer aged 11-14,

we’d love to hear from them! All of our Junior Writing sessions are free and bookable through the Forest

Arts Centre, so come along and have a go with us!

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Young Writers - Week 1 (The Art of Writing) - Character