What Is Writers' Workout?

Good question.

Writers' Workout is a program we started on the Writers' Block. A way to practice different aspects of story writing. 

Week 1

We started out with a characterisation exercise a while back. It took us about a week. We submitted a character sheet and also looked at the chosen character through the eyes of one or two other characters in the story. All the participants in that week's workout worked together to write an article. We looked back on what we learned from the assignment, and it includes some excerpts from some of the exercises.

The thing that surprised me the most is that it not only helped me characterise the main character I did the exercise for, but that it also gave me some great insights on the two characters whose POV I used to portray her. 

Week 2

The next exercise was meant as a Deep POV practice. We decided on doing a rewrite of an old fairy tale or folk tale but we chose a character to do the POV on. Having a story to work with, and just tweaking it into Deep POV sounded like a good idea. It would mean we could focus on the POV and not have to worry about building a story. 

It didn't quite work out that way. What started out as a one week exercise has now turned into a four week frenzy of drafting, reviews, and editing. Part of this is due to the fact that most fairy tales don't really have a clearly defined story arc. Here and there you'll find a plot hole the size of Alaska. And most fairy tales were written with an omniscient POV in mind. Portraying them from a Deep POV turned out to be hard as entire peaces of the stories had to be left out.

Add to that the fact that we're all a bunch of nitpickers who cannot let a story go until they're satisfied it's as good as they can make it. Most of these fairy tales have gone through at least 6 rounds of reviews, edits and resubmissions for more peer review.

Week 3. Well, Sorta...

Meanwhile, we've slowly rolled into the next assignment. That one is about story openers. We're to write three story openers of about sixty five words. Out of all the story openers we submit, one will be chosen as the prompt for the next workout. 

I'll be sure to keep you posted on that. ;-)

Wait! What About that Fairy Tale?

Well, it kept trying to turn into a novelette. It grew and grew and grew. Instead of posting it in one piece, I had to serialise it as it was too long to fit into one Steemit post. 

I posted the first part on my Steem page yesterday. I have a few companion posts for each episode planned right here. I think I'll have plenty of things to talk about.

Other than the Deep POV, which will also provide me with material for a TinyTeaches post, I'll be telling you all a bit more about the original story, the struggles I went through in rewriting it and the symbolism it encorporates.  

For this piece, I decided to experiment with a Japanese form that combines prose and poetry. That's another thing I'll be telling you guys all about.

For now, I'll leave you with an open invitation to go and read the first part of The Land Down the Well.

Hugs

Jasmine