My Kind of Television

 

I’m going to a Society of Author’s meeting in Manchester this evening.

“What time will it finish?’ my husband asked.

“Well, I’ll be leaving about 8.00.”

“So, you’ll be home to watch some TV just after 9.00 then?”

We have a Sky box and several series recorded. We tend to binge watch them, starting with oldest first. We have less than 20% of the disk free. We don’t have Netflix.  Other half protests. I’d quite like to, but for sure we’d probably never get through it all.

Last night we finished Father Brown. Cosy crimes and English village life with a good dose of the Catholic Church.  Grantchester has parallels yet we have still to watch that; it is definitely C of E. Call the Midwife is there too.  Some find it too sentimental? It’s uplifting though there is some sadness. We need uplifting sometimes.  

Fun too are Death in Paradise and After Paradise. Amazing how the jolly music always comes after the murder had been committed.

Never go to Oxford or Midsommer –they too are full of murders.   

Well, we make up for that with some gritty Walter Presents crime / police procedurals / thrillers in other languages. Though that woman who keeps losing her keys and the baby that keeps threatening to cry get a little tedious after a while.

Then there are the more serious programme like the drama about the Post Office scandal and the documentary about the miners’ strike.

Casualty has been around forever, hasn’t it? Charlie arrived as a young man and now he is gone. Rumour has it that it has saved lives. I couldn’t quite bring myself to watch it just before a stay in hospital, though.

And what of soaps? I don’t know why quite – I think it may be to do with sunshine and a well-to-do environment - but my soap is Neighbours. And another one, if radio is allowed here, The Archers.

We mustn’t forget all of those excellent dramas on the terrestrial channels. They are usually British produced. I think we do drama rather well.  

Watching TV is an easy way of absorbing story. Could I ever write for it? I’d like to give it a go one day. But if nothing else, these programmes help further develop my sense of story.

There is a disadvantage, though, being a writer: I can usually work out what’s going to happen and whodunit.              

The Ministry of Stories and the Monster Supply Store

Occasionally I go and help out at the Ministry of Stories. The Ministry of Stories is in a secret location, hidden behind the Monster Supply Store, Hoxton, London. It may all sound a little odd for an academic but then when you remember that I write for children and young adults and that I do this as part of my job as a senior lecturer at the University of Salford and when you also remember that David Eggers kick-started the Ministry of Stories it all sounds a little more reasonable.

And thankfully, it remains whacky.

Overordering

Just over a week ago a missive came from the Ministry. It was along the lines of “Help, we’ve over-ordered milk tooth chocolate and need to shift it fast. We’re selling it at £1.00 a bar. Please buy.”

Who could resist?

I ordered five bars and a curse to boot. By the time I’d paid postage I was looking at about £8.00.  My curse was simply “Bad luck!” Ah well.

The Monster Supply store sells good quality goods repackaged. The milk tooth chocolate is actually luxury milk chocolate full of roasted nut chips. “Banshee balls” are aniseeds balls. “Salt made from sneezing” is a mixture of sea salt and ground black pepper. “Cubed earwax” is clotted cream fudge.

When school groups visit the Ministry, children will spend a little in the shop. The main customers however, are supportive adults who use the mail order facility and some of the adult visitors who come to the store and the Ministry.

Magic and practicality

It does heighten the mystery for the children who visit: having to sneak  in through the back door of the shop. However, it was originally an accident. When Eggers obtained the funding and the first set premises, he was told by the planners that the area was meant to be for retail.  The inside of the building he’d found reminded him of a ship so he decided to front the writing school with a pirate supply store.

What the Ministry does

The aim is to improve literacy skills in children who lack confidence, particularly in the writing skills. We all have a story we can tell and the ability to write it. Different children will need different sorts of and amounts of scaffolding. The Ministry has some unique features in relation to this.

USPs

• Mentors are carefully trained.
• Often there are just two or three children to one mentor.
• Mentors are carefully briefed before each session and debriefed afterwards. This can add up to an hour to each session – sometimes taking up on third of the total time.  This works very well and is worth the effort.

Most of the people who work for the shop and the Ministry are volunteers and are not paid. There are a few staff members, paid or by various grants. Writers and artists tend to offer their services for free. Creative practitioners have to be clear about why they do this but it is in the end always a good line on the CV.

Endnote

I’ve not volunteered for a while and must get round to doing it again. I’m always glad to support. By the way, the milk tooth chocolate was delicious.   

                              

Some more thoughts about school visits

I’m not shy about visiting schools. Even before I was established as a writer, whilst I was in a period of transition doing free-lance work and writing as well, I used to offer workshops in schools. I’d been a high school teacher for over twenty years so actually had some idea of how to behave in front of a group of children.    

I still do several school visits a year even though I have a full-time job as a Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing. I offer different types of visit, each one serving a different purpose.

 

The standard author visit

This is typically about an hour and a half long. I read some of my book, I answer questions, I may offer one simple creative writing exercise and I’ll possibly sell books and sign copies. This is easier for me than for some authors- I write for children and young adults, mainly the latter, so my main audience is in fact in schools.

 

Workshops on writing

These can be anything from a half day through to a whole week or one day a week over several weeks. One can build up a really strong relationship with students and teachers. Many teachers appreciate having a writer show children that they can write.  Sometimes, though, I feel a bit of a fraud. Surely they can teach this just as well as I can if not better? They know their own students better. Apparently not though. They are always grateful.

Sessions to do with the topic of the book

We explore the topic of a book through writing and role-play – just like I did when I wrote it. Topics that I can therefore cover include:

·         The Holocaust

·         World War II

·         Other religions

·         Relationships

·         Otherness

 

Other topics

• Creative writing in other languages
• Build a Book (students write and publish a book)
• Story-building
• Character-building    

 

Promotion visits

These I do on behalf of the university. We provide taster sessions of some of our courses to persuade students to come to us. I do have to represent all of our English courses, not just my own.   

 

Different energy

It is slightly different running a one-off session from teaching regularly in a school.  You’re more on the go but can mainly leave any discipline matters to the normal teachers. It’s different again as well from university teaching. The latter is much more intense – two hours in a seminar can be more exhausting than a whole day in a classroom though actually also less emotionally draining. Preparation is also more intense.

More often than not you are treated almost like royalty when you visit a school as a writer. However, not always and you should be prepared for anything to happen. Do make sure you know the way out. I was once left standing in a hall and didn’t know how to get back to reception.

Writers should be paid for visits

Of course they should. However, it is part of my remit at the university to visit schools – in part for promotional purposes and partly for the purpose of general community engagement. I limit this to twelve a year and do expect travel expenses to be paid. I also operate a system on my Build a Book Workshop where the visit pays for itself through book purchases.

There is also an argument that it’s fine and probably desirable to offer a few free or very cheap visits whilst you get used to working with schools and to help you pick up a few good endorsements.  

Two schools of thought amongst authors

1. A writer is different from a teacher and what they bring has value, even if it subverts the curriculum – or indeed perhaps because it does. Not every child will become a writer but they will probably become a fluent reader. So, the standard author visit should continue.    
2. A writer should bring some expertise on writing, not just talk about their books.

I actually think both views are valid and these arguments suggest that all sorts of different types of visits are desirable.     

Five top tips about school visits

1. Join NAWE – the National Association of Writers in Education. Plenty of support for writers who go into schools there and a chance to network with other writers.  
2. Always find out about car-parking and lunch arrangements.
3. Try not to arrive or leave at the same time as the students.
4. Craft some standard email info sheets and contracts.
5. Be very clear about what you expect on the day and how you expect to be paid.    

What if there were dragons hiding in the woods?

Visit to St Mark’s CE Junior School, Salisbury, Friday 28 February

I had a lovely time at St Mark’s on Friday. I was able to present some of my work. I read a little from Kiters and told the students about how I used to enjoy reading when I was their age and about how even then I knew I wanted to be a writer. I was so full of story.

I worked with one Year 5 and Year 6 group on Magic and Mystery and two groups of years 3 and 4 on Dragons.

I got to meet the resident dragon and to hear and see some of the work the students have been doing with other writers all week.

What is the point of reading and writing?

Once I could read fluently, reading became my default activity. There were frequent trips to the library, pocket money was spent on books and books were requested as birthday and Christmas presents. Once all the chores were completed there was time for reading. My grandmother, however, had other ideas.

How we form our stories

Premise, plot, synopsis – why not just write?

This has been on my mind a lot recently: I’ve been lecturing on writing fiction and on another module I teach at the University of Salford I’ve recently marked synopses of novels the students are working on. Naturally, in a twelve week module, when they’re studying two other modules as well, they’re probably not going to complete a whole novel. So writing a synopsis at this stage may seem a little false. In this submission, though, I’m looking for two things: evidence of a story that will work and a business-like, industry standard document that crystallizes that story neatly. Interestingly I ask for a 2500 word extract of the novel and the reworked synopsis in a subsequent assignment. This replicates what we might submit to publishers.   

The spirit of the synopsis

In my own practice I don’t write the synopsis until I’m ready to  submit but I’ve often got a bullet-pointed outline in my head. My eventual synopsis is a crystallization not just of a plot outline but of a whole process. Perhaps a default good synopsis will include:

A concrete premise (e.g. Jack stumbles across a pirate ship and manages to stop the pirates hurting his friends.)

Some character description

An outline of a story arc

A more abstract summary of the premise e.g. Jack finds his courage and saves his friends.

In order to have that in mind as I’ve write, I’ve come up with an initial idea, possibly putting it into words and taping them to the top of my computer screen to stop myself going off at a tangent. I’ve got to know my characters – so even if I haven’t answered a six-page questionnaire about them.  They have lived with me for a while and have come out rounded and believable, with a back-story and a future. In producing a text I’m using a balance of various writerly techniques using both art and craft.

Character or plot and is there a difference?  

Always story comes from a tension amongst the characters that people it and between them and their environment. But there are writers who claim to plot in detail, perhaps spreading story-boarding cards all over the floor and those who say they just put the characters together and step back and watch what happens. If these are actually two extremes I’d put myself almost exactly in the middle. I think, though, in fact we all understand the same about story. This is just a matter of different writers preferring different tools.    

I come back again, as I often do, to Stephen King who claims to write entirely from character yet produces stories with superbly crafted plots.                      

An Excuse to Travel

There has been something really great about this schools’ tour that I have been making recently: getting to see so many different parts of the country. Yesterday I was in Somerset. This time, I did manage to find a nice pub for a good lunch. I had just a Ploughman’s but it was a very filling one and I didn’t eat anything else for the rest of the day. More often, I pass lots of enticing pubs on the way. But because I’m usually on my way home or one my way up to Salford, I go back a different way and don’t see them again. Or it’s too early, and by the time it is the right time, I’m on the motorway.

Of course the journeys are mainly motorway. The last few miles are the interesting ones. Then you get to see the variety of countryside and the variety of architecture. Actually, one of the most beautiful parts of this country I’ve seen is the Peak District, and in particular High Peak. That was just forty minutes away from my flat in Salford. Thirty-five minutes was through Manchester traffic and just five in the most fantastic countryside. It was a wet, misty sort of day and it gave the Peaks an air of mystery.

The schools vary, too. Mainly the children are fine and the vast majority of them are interested. I’m amazed that the younger children find Old Fuzzy Locks hilarious, though the older ones just take him in their stride. The teachers do vary from place to place, though. I think it may be stress. Some don’t seem to engage. They are elsewhere. Others are totally with you, totally in the world of the story and as enthusiastic as the children about the writing process and the world of the imagination.

Travel is good, too. I always get ideas as I travel. In fact, the places and people, the atmospheres are fodder for my prose poetry. I wonder how long it will take me to get that collection together. It does need some work and I’m not finding it all that easy.