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

28 January 2025

Posted by Harley Truslove

Pace & Drama

We began with a frankenstory! Our writers each took a turn writing a sentence each of a story after the same opening prompt, and ended up with some wonderful work.


Today’s session was about pace and drama. Ali gave our writers a very boring scenario to start with and challenged them to find ways to improve the scene:


Sam walked into the station, bought a ticket, and got on the train.

He sat in his seat and watched the countryside go by. Then he got up and got off the train.


Here are some improvements our writers suggested:


  • Controversial figure from Sam’s past appears - then turns up dead on the platform

  • Something passed between pockets and someone not knowing

  • Man in suitcase

  • Bomb

  • Chase through the train

  • Someone has a cure to cancer, gov agents in pursuit

  • Crash danger

  • Railway works

  • Bomber in quiet carriage

  • Bystander


Ali discussed one way to add pace and drama was to switch between viewpoints in a high-octane scene. Everyone took a domino from the box of wonder with a role written on it, and they then had to write the scenario they had come up with from that person’s point of view. Our writers gave us:


  • Passenger - getting woken by an ITV helicopter in pursuit of the train and then finding someone bleeding.

  • Railway worker - surprised when a shrieking train goes by and seeing another one coming the wrong way down the track.

  • Sam - getting onto a train and being fell asleep on by an old lady who isn’t as innocent as she seems.

  • Guard - an old hand at the job aware that something is amiss.

  • The train watcher - a rail enthusiast and someone who fancies him watching a drone following a train where people were screaming. The train sets on fire and tears in half, leaving one of them to get battered by debris.


We switched points of view again for three minutes and wrote another scene from someone else’s POV before we finished for the evening!


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