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Regular news and insight from our many poets, writers, educators and facilitators

12 October 2024

Posted by Susan L. Edser

Empathy

Ali Sparkes is a children’s author who leads writing sessions for Junior and Young Writers every Saturday morning at MAST Mayflower Studios. To learn more about her, visit her website: https://www.alisparkes.com.

Sue Edser, MA graduate in Creative Writing and Publishing and winner of Bournemouth University’s Vice Chancellor Award 2024, is Ali’s assistant for the weekly sessions and writes the blog. 


This week, Ali led the group in exploring empathy, an important sense that is often forgotten. Every writer needs a good empathic understanding to create relatable characters and rich scenes that draw the reader in. 

We began with ‘Musical Frankenstein,’ which generated lots of energy in the group. They gathered in a circle, throwing a bean bag, a coloured ball, and a squidgy ball between them. When the music stopped, the writers went to the table corresponding to the item and contributed their part to the story. The Junior Writers created three fantastical (and grim!) stories, with one ending dramatically in a plane crash. The Young Writers also rose to the challenge, weaving a coherent narrative structure despite the challenge of multiple authors. 

Fill-in Fun is often used as a warm-up exercise, but today, it was used to help the writers explore another person’s perspective. The character Sam showed his friends a painting he had made of his dog, Olly. The writers had plenty of space to explore dialogue, and many wrote about the negative reactions Sam had from his friends. Ali gave new information to the Young Writers to induce empathy: Olly had died the week before. They continued the story based on this information, demonstrating kindness and compassion between the characters in the story. 

A further exercise also focused on understanding different points of view. Jack and the Beanstalk is usually told from Jack’s perspective. This time, the writers narrated the story from the perspective of the giant, the chicken, and the mother. One person even wrote on behalf of the stalk itself. The writers went to unique places, with one even including a fundraiser appeal for beanstalk research!

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