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28 September 2024

Posted by Susan L. Edser

Sight

The Junior and Young Writers were invited to continue exploring the senses this week. Children’s author Ali Sparkes took them on an exploration of sight and asked them to question their perception. Sue Edser, an MA Creative Writing and Publishing graduate, was her assistant for the morning.


Optical illusion

The first exercise was with the Twirly Twirler, a black-and-white optical illusion that spun for 30 seconds as the writers stared at it. When it stopped, and they looked at Ali, her head changed size, shrinking and growing as if it were pulsating! She did it again to reverse the ‘hypnoses’, and her head appeared to shrink. Seeing is not always believing.


Inkblots

Ali showed the Young Writers a collection of inkblots, famously used in psychology to assess imagination, personalities and the unconscious mind. She asked the group to describe what they saw, highlighting how perceptions differ for each person. While one person saw sea horses, others saw elderly people and aliens. The group was tasked with writing about what it meant or imagining if someone posted it to them. The writing was excellent, and the genres ranged from sci-fi to horror and comedy.


Musical writing

The Junior Writers used the inkblots in a musical chairs exercise, swapping from one sheet of paper to the next as the music changed. Multiple writers created each story until the music ended, which included adventures in caves, forests, and plane crashes.


Story openers

Ali offered the first few sentences of several stories for the writers to continue in their chosen direction. For example, a captured fox could be trapped or saved, and one writer wrote from the fox's point of view, creating another perspective. The subjects ranged from a talk show to eating caterpillar sandwiches and broken friendships.


Statements

The final exercise involved changing the direction of a statement with a ‘but’. Ali started, and then others contributed with their statements, such as ‘I hate winter’, which changed to ‘But you can play in the snow.’ Other examples were:

‘I hate the sky…but maybe the sky hates you.’ 

‘I like eating children…but you can choke on their bones.’

‘It is always cold in Britain…but not during a nuclear war.’


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