Bootcamp!

No, it wasn’t one of those things where you get yelled at by a muscle-bound exerciseaholic while subjecting your own body to torture. But it was probably just as tiring.

Yesterday I completed the final day of a four day fiction writing bootcamp held by the SA Writers’ Centre. I’d wanted to go ever since I saw it advertised a couple of months ago, but with finances thin I wasn’t sure I could justify the expense. But then, two weeks ago, I was randomly picked to win a $200 workshop voucher, so I didn’t hesitate to book in. And it came at a perfect time considering I’m just embarking on second draft purgatory.

The bootcamp involved two workshops a day for four days covering beginnings, dialogue, voice, imagery, self-editing, ‘irresistible fiction’, characters and point of view.

The first was beginnings with Gay Lynch, which explored some ways to create the perfect first sentence or paragraph for a story. While I am for the most part still happy with my beginning, it’s always useful to look at things from different perspectives. The next workshop for the day was dialogue with Lucy Clark. The content in this workshop was quite basic and seemed to be aimed primarily at beginner level, but again it does help to reinforce existing knowledge.

Saturday began with the voice workshop with Jennifer Mills, which gave us some great tips to give our stories and characters a voice of their own. There were a number of exercises, including writing a scene from the perspective of a different character, writing a scene using only dialogue, then rewriting the same scene from an outside perspective relying on nothing but body language. It was interesting that I initially baulked at these exercises, but doing them gave me a fuller picture of everything that makes up character and story.

Next up was imagery with Lia Weston, which I also really enjoyed. It covered all the different methods we can use to convey mood as well as the physical. It was challenging for me to realise how ingrained cliches still are in my psyche, even though I despise them. The exercises really stretched me as a writer and made me think about how to use more evocative prose.

Sunday began with a self-editing workshop with Patrick Allington. I did enjoy this, but as we were a really large group and we only had three hours, there was only the chance to look at three pieces, the second two of which were rushed through quite quickly. I also found a lot of time was wasted by people debating whether individual words or sentences worked in the piece, which was frustrating enough for me let alone the person who was no doubt hanging out for the expertise of the professional editor in the room! The afternoon session was irresistible fiction with Steve Evans, which I found difficult to focus on, particularly in the afternoon, as it was delivered as a lecture with only a couple of exercises. The day ended with a Q&A with the ever-enthusiastic and lovely Sean Williams, who described his career trajectory and gave us some tips on perseverance and always enjoying the writing process.

Day four was also a highlight for me, with the morning session on characters with Anna Solding. This workshop helped me to get to know my characters better through a range of exercises that I would never normally do when creating a story. I feel like I have a more rounded view of them as people now, which I hope will make them leap off the page once I’ve finished editing.

The final workshop of the bootcamp was point of view with Amy Matthews, and this was another of my favourites. It was packed with exercises, which mostly involved re-writing scenes from my novel from a different point of view. My first reaction to this was that it was a waste of time because I wasn’t going to change the point of view in the novel, but once I’d done them I again found that I knew so much more about the background of the characters and story, which will help with authenticity.

By the time it was all over I was drained and utterly exhausted, but ultimately inspired once again to bring what I’ve learnt to my next draft. It’s always so valuable to meet other writers at all levels, and even to go over old learning with new eyes. I’d love to do something like this again in the future.