Two more online events from my Writer in Residency for Sheffield Libraries’ Year of Reading – one for children and one for adults.
What’s been key to my writing for many, many years is the idea of having fun. That’s what writing should be, at its heart (until you get to the harder part of making something you’ve written into something good enough for other people to enjoy).
Every story – be that film, play, movie, poem (the list goes on) starts with an idea and, looking back over the history of story, we see how important it is that those initial ideas are interesting in some way. It might be that the story starts at a point where everything has gone wrong, or where some desperate tragedy casts its shadow over the world, like some meteor, as it speeds towards us. It might be something being lost.
Or it could be something that sounds ridiculous. Something impossible. Something we can’t, without reading on, understand.
And that’s the point. Because we like impossible things. We like to see how they work or how they’ll end up.
In my teaching I often talk about the books of Narnia, of The Life of Pi, of Doctor Who. Magic wardrobes. A boy stranded on a boat with a Tiger called Richard Parker. A box that’s actually a time machine space ship that’s bigger on the inside. And these are silly ideas. They’re ridiculous. Until we have context and characters. Then, they end up being among the best-loved, most endearing books there have ever been. And our job, as writers, is to explore these ideas and see where they take us. Usually, it’s to somewhere brilliant.
This year’s Summer Reading Challenge is all about The Silly Squad – ‘an adventurous team of animals who love to have a laugh and get stuck into all sorts of funny books!’ and I thought it’d be a fun thing to do something around that theme for the children who’ll be taking part in the challenge and also explore what that could mean to adults too – it’ll probably end up being the workshop that’s closest to my own way of working, and that’s a really exciting thing to share.
These events usually sell out super quickly – if you’re interested get yourself, or your young people, booked on. The details are…
For 7-11s
Learn how to come up with your own brilliant ideas and see how you can turn them into amazing stories and poems. Nik’ll show you how writing is exciting, easy, and fun!
This workshop will take place online over Crowdcast. Now download will be required, and for safeguarding no attendees will be on camera.
Suitable for ages 7-11 years. CLICK TO SIGN UP
And for the grown-ups…
Some of the best fiction starts with what seems like a silly idea. A girl falls down a rabbit hole; a boy is stranded on a boat with a tiger; one ring has the power to rule them all…
Join our Writer in Residence, Nik Perring, for an evening of writing where he’ll show you to trust your craziest ideas and give you the tools to turn those into stories worth sharing and celebrating.
The workshop will take place on Crowdcast so no need to download anything. All you’ll
need are your imaginations and something to write on. SIGN UP HERE.