Humbled by an 11 year old!

[Mark Robson]

I thought you might be amused by this. I was in Cheltenham yesterday doing creative writing workshops with several groups of children from a Junior College. The theme of the workshop was 'How to start a story effectively'. I'm not going to post the entire workshop here, but suffice it to say that one of the things that I try to nail home is that when introducing a new character, a trap that many young writers fall into is to give a whole list of physical characteristics. eg. Joe Smith was a thirteen year old boy with blue eyes and short brown hair etc etc.

For the practical part of the workshop I get different members of the class to offer up 1 - The name of the lead character for a story. 2 - The location that the story begins. 3 - The time of day that the story begins. I then get the class to all begin stories, in whatever genre or style that they feel appropriate, armed with the knowledge that their aim is to work four elements into the first few paragraphs.

1. Introduce the main character.
2. Set the tone of the story.
3. Set the scene.
4. Introduce the main problem/goal/motivation of the main character.

As the sessions are relatively short, I generally only have time to pick out one or two to be read out for analysis by the class. One of the classes came up with the following parameters: Character - Germuntrude Jones! (Where do they think of their names?) Location - In a wood. Time - Dusk.

I will try to repeat the start given by the boy that I picked at random from the class. Please bear in mind that this is from rough memory, but it really was this good, and though the humour is childish, it certainly appealed to the class and was technically very well written. Worse, I had to backpedal hugely about the use of lists of physical attributes!


Germuntrude Jones: the fattest girl in the entire school. She had thin, straggly red hair, a bulbous nose, fat lips and spots. In short, she was ugly. Really ugly. And right now, she was crying, which made her face blotchy.

Germuntrude ran from the girls' changing rooms in a waddling sort of way, panting as she struggled across the sports field and into the wood on the far side. With her chest heaving, she flopped down on a pile of leaves in the deepening shadows under the trees. It would be dark soon. No sooner had her body settled than she heard a sound behind her. A small squirrel had fallen out of the tree and broken it's neck. It was dead. Hungry after her run, Germuntrude picked up the unfortunate creature and started chewing on it absently.

'Everyone hates me,' she thought. 'I can't help being fat. It's the way I am.'

Unfortunately, it was true. The boys made fun of her because of her obesity. The girls were disgusted by her because of her tendancy to let out long wet farts in the showers...


I think you probably get the picture. The boy's surname - Fleming. And yes, you guessed it - he's related to Ian Fleming. It seems the creative flair runs in the family!

[dwndrgn]

That is hilarious! Thanks for sharing.

[Mark Robson]

I should add that as I left the classroom, one of the other teachers from the school approached the teacher of Master Fleming's class and I with a big grin on her face and asked, 'Did you tell him about Fleming?'

The class teacher just laughed and said, 'I didn't have to. Mark chose to read his work out to the class and found out the hard way.'

How big do you think I felt?

[knivesout]

Heh, didn't you just feel like spanking him? An interesting incident, and an illustration that rules are to be broken - as long as you have a good idea why you're breaking them.

[I, Brian]

Mark, you have just talent scouted.

One to watch over the next 20 years, no doubt.

[Devillishgirl]

That was hilarious Mark!

[Rane Longfox]

Nayce...

Teachers can be cruel as hell sometimes, but I never realised they were cruel to other people as well as their students!

[Lacedaemonian]

Teachers are generally the worst people in society.

[Princess Ivy]

Ah babe, you have my sympathy!

[Mark Robson]

Thanks, Princess. I was in another school today - 300 eleven and twelve year olds... great fun!

[Silk]

That is a very cool story deffinatly one to re-tell at dinner parties or if you meet him accepting his booker prize later on in life!

[Rane Longfox]

Do you do a lot of these "creative workshops" then Mark?

[Mark Robson]

Originally Posted by caladanbrood

Do you do a lot of these "creative workshops" then Mark?

Yes, I try to visit as many schools as I can. At the moment I don't charge, as I'm already paid well by the RAF and I'm not out to pry money unnecessarily from school budgets. Once I go 'full time' after the summer holidays, I plan to visit at least one school per week during term time. My fees will be modest - £150 for a full day, £100 for a half day, plus something towards my travel expenses if the school is outside of a 15 mile radius from where I will be living.

I don't think I will struggle to find schools willing to pay this, as most authors charge a lot more and I have been told I am a very 'dynamic and charismatic speaker'. I do a variety of different types of talks to pupils depending on what schools want. I do run writing workshops for small groups, but for the last two days I have been giving talks on personal motivation and goal-setting to groups of up to 150 pupils at a time. I really enjoy doing it, and my enthusiasm and energy is catching. I always tell schools to make the most of my time and programme me for as many sessions as the day will allow. It is punishing on the voice, but I'm getting used to it.

[Space Monkey]

Originally Posted by Lacedaemonian

Teachers are generally the worst people in society.

Oh here we go again.
Generally, I thought the worst people in society were, umm, like, the criminals and stuff.
Where do you get these thoughts from?

By the way - great story Mark, that was really funny - sorry I didn't mean to deviate from the thread with my first remarks here!

[Leto]

Originally Posted by Mark Urpen

Yes, I try to visit as many schools as I can. At the moment I don't charge, as I'm already paid well by the RAF and I'm not out to pry money unnecessarily from school budgets. Once I go 'full time' after the summer holidays, I plan to visit at least one school per week during term time. My fees will be modest - £150 for a full day, £100 for a half day, plus something towards my travel expenses if the school is outside of a 15 mile radius from where I will be living.

Modest fees ? I've got to emigrate to UK then.
How much time does any of these trip need to be prepared ?