Book Club Guide for The Best of CaféLit 5

 

 

This is definitely a book for dipping into, rather than reading from cover to cover. Turn to page 112 and pick a drink you'd like right now. Read the story.  How well does it go with the drink? 

Maybe everyone in your group can do this.

Can you find stories like this?

• One that made you laugh.
• One that made you cry.
• One that shocked you.
• One that gave you hope.
• A very short story.
• A longer story.
• A story set somewhere you know.
• One set in summer.
• One set in winter
• One set in spring.
• One set in autumn.
• One that is set somewhere you would like to visit.

 

What is your favourite story in the collection and why?

Open the book at a random page. Read the whole of the story you see there. Can you analyse it? Say what it is about without giving away the title, the author or the drink. How well has the author developed the characters?  What about the setting?  What do you like about the story? What do you dislike? Can the others guess which story it is?

 Find your copy of the book here 

Book Club Guide for 140 x 140

1. Open the book randomly at three different places.  Which is your favourite of these three stories? Why?
2. Read through the stories for the month in which your birthday occurs. Can you find one story that makes you laugh, one that makes you think and one that disturbs?
3. Thumb through the book and find a story that includes: colour, politics or class distinction
4. Have you an overall favourite? Explain what you like about this story.
5. Random reading. Get your group to sit in a circle. The first person opens the book at a random page, reads the story out loud and passes it to the next person in the group. Continue until everyone has read a story.
6. Pick three stories randomly and analyse them. Is this a story, a vignette, a commentary, a mini-essay?
7. Identify themes in the book. Chose a favourite theme and comment on all of the stories that fit that theme.
8. Analyse one entry in depth. What is it? How is the content structured? How is language used to get the main points across? Can you find any poetic devices such as personification, metaphor, similes, alliteration etc.?
9. Use the contents page to identify three stories that appeal. Which of the three is your favourite and why?
10. Pick an entry randomly and try to work out which picture may have inspired it.        

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A Book Club Guide for 140 x 140

                                                

I enjoy the challenge of writing with restrictions. The challenge here was to write 140 pieces of short prose each 140 words long. The prompt was the first picture I saw on Twitter each day.

Construction

If you have mobile devices with you and Twitter accounts have a look at that now.  What’s the first picture you see? Does that tell a story? 

Themes

Various themes emerge in my collection:

• Anthropomorphism
• Criminality
• Finances
• Loneliness
• Relationships
• Sexuality
• Saving the planet
• Technology,
• The writer’s life
• Weather

And many more.  Can you suggest another couple of themes that are used?  Is there a predominant one in the whole collection? Do you have a favourite theme? 

 

Progression

The collection was started on 13 May 2014 and completed 11 March 2017. Do the pieces change in tone during that that time? In which way?

 

Shape

I always try to give my story shape. Can you pick three stories and find the shape in them.

I start with a hook, then have three or so growing complexities until we reach a crisis point, a point of no return.  The gap between that forms the climax. So we get:

Hook

Growing complexities

• I
• 2
• 3

Crisis point

            Climax

Resolution.

 

What do you like?

Pick three stories that you like and say why you like them.

 

Find the story  

Can you find the story?

1. A romance ends and roses are a comfort.
2. School doesn’t seem like a good option but there’s a nice surprise waiting for Toby
3. This item makes some males look like a particular animal
4. Writing a CV requires a lot of energy
5. Pink beads and pipes

 

1. Homecoming 11 July 2014
2. Breakfast Club 2 September 2014
3. Owly Eyes 6 April  2105  
4. Power Cut 3 December 2015
5. Colours 23 October 016

 

What was the picture?

Pick five of the stories and suggest what might have been the picture that prompted them.  Can you draw or paint? Have a go at making a picture to go with one of the stories?

 

Have a go

Go back to Twitter. Can you write a story prompted by the first picture you see? Try to put a shape into it. Write for ten minutes and polish for ten minutes.  Can you make it exactly 140 words long?

 

Scavenger hunt

Who will be the first to find stories with the following items in them?

1. A flat cap
2. Trees
3. Spectacles
4. Time
5. An inn
6. Story
7. Water
8. Breakfast
9. A sofa
10. Cooking