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

08 November 2022

Red Riding Hood in a Greggs

Welcome back to the blog for ArtfulScribe’s
writing group for 15-18 year olds, Writing for Stage and Performance.

***

This Tuesday’s session began with the
following prompt to warm us up:

Decide what animal you are, based on
the day you’ve had.

Our responses included: a circus
seal balancing a beachball on its nose; a very small rabbit; a little fluffy
sparrow; a swallow from Wind in the Willows; and a floaty jellyfish.

Next, we went around the room each
making up a line of a story. We did this twice.

The first time, our story became
that of an unlikely pair of friends – a psychic and a penguin – in pursuit of their
favourite ice cream, which became dark when it was revealed the psychic had a taste
for sealife.

The second time, our setting was a
concert where a crowd member covets a mysterious music-activated device for
navigating rifts in time and space, but upon aquiring it learns it is impossible
to handle and gets lost.

Next, we were each given a post-it
note (put on our backs so we couldn’t see) with the name of a fictional
character on and had to guess who they were from the one-word clues given to us
by the group. The clues couldn’t include any of the words in the answer or the name
of the character’s author.

To follow along with the writing activities,
start by choosing any fictional character.

Ours were: Winnie the Pooh, Peter
Pan, Red Riding Hood, the BFG, and Tin-Tin.

Write for 10 minutes, choosing a
random setting (e.g: gym, park, hospital) to plonk your character into.

Reading back, our scenes included:
Peter Pan in a classroom; Red Riding Hood in a Greggs; Winnie the Pooh going
bowling; Tin-Tin in an Indian takeaway; and the BFG in an aircraft hanger.

Write a scene containing your
character and another (we did this in pairs, passing the paper back and forth,
writing a new line of dialogue each time). Choose a new location and a disaster
which occurs after the first 4 lines.

You can see our scenes below. They
included: the BFG saving Red Riding Hood from a tsunami by placing her in his
pocket and wading to safety; and Peter Pan messing about in a kitchen and
causing an ice cream flood, which Winnie the Pooh thinks is delicious.

***

Writing for Stage and Performance
will return next week!

If you’d like to join in, go to
‘Engage’ at mayflowerstudios.org.uk and book on for free.

Was this blog helpful to follow
along to? Let us know @artfulscribeuk

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