Writing Theory
Background which involves Bury Council
Today, Irwell Writers did a bit of Writing Theory. It's something that's interested me a while but it was a curious chain of events that led me to (temporarily) take the helm.
Earlier this year, in March 2015, there wasn't the faintest hint of this. Irwell Writers met weekly, Tuesday mornings; and in addition to this they had one evening session a month. The latter was the only one I attended.
At the beginning of April, the boss man of Irwell Writers (okay, the chairman, who is also an ex-headmaster) mentioned to me that a representative of Bury Borough Council had recently offered to supply a teacher who would teach us how to write. The sessions would replace the normal weekly ones for the whole of May 2015, and would be under Ofsted's remit. I must admit to being puzzled by this as many of the group are have been published however, I resolved to make an effort and show my face on Tuesday mornings.
As is often the case for such things, it never came to be. Bury Council's remit was for beginner courses only. However, they never actually got round to telling us the course was cancelled. Any questions on the 'no show' teacher got non-committal replies so I (and others) turned up in hope.
Writing Theory
This brings me virtually up to date. Various group members have gone on holiday leaving the rest of us to keep things ticking over. My guiding principle for groups is do little, say less. On the other hand I could see that the group needed all hands to the pump. Group meetings involve leavening the reading out of our own work with reading favourite bits of other works, plus occasional visiting authors (who tend to read from their works), and workshops. I decided to offer something different.
Back in the heyday of ancient Greece, Aristotle had done something called Poetics
and Plato had opined his views in various dialogues. I decided to dig out what I could.
For this I went over my old notes on Aristotle's Poetics and ploughed the net a bit to get more insight into other stuff I'd read - mostly on The Republic
.
I came up with more than enough material to get us through one session - these are typically two hours, including a verrrrry lonnnng tea break,
...each plotting our next magnum opus, whilst eyeing each other suspiciously in case of idea thievery. While this goes on, we talk about inconsequential things like the recession, race hate, the impending gender war and of course the death of all life...
I digress. In the end I pruned things down to 12 pages of notes. We didn't get to Aristotle; heck we didn't even finish off on Plato. My talk dwelt on why Plato thought neither rhapsodes nor writers fit into his ideal state. The talk stimulated a good debate.
Today, Irwell Writers did a bit of Writing Theory. It's something that's interested me a while but it was a curious chain of events that led me to (temporarily) take the helm.
Earlier this year, in March 2015, there wasn't the faintest hint of this. Irwell Writers met weekly, Tuesday mornings; and in addition to this they had one evening session a month. The latter was the only one I attended.
At the beginning of April, the boss man of Irwell Writers (okay, the chairman, who is also an ex-headmaster) mentioned to me that a representative of Bury Borough Council had recently offered to supply a teacher who would teach us how to write. The sessions would replace the normal weekly ones for the whole of May 2015, and would be under Ofsted's remit. I must admit to being puzzled by this as many of the group are have been published however, I resolved to make an effort and show my face on Tuesday mornings.
As is often the case for such things, it never came to be. Bury Council's remit was for beginner courses only. However, they never actually got round to telling us the course was cancelled. Any questions on the 'no show' teacher got non-committal replies so I (and others) turned up in hope.
Writing Theory
This brings me virtually up to date. Various group members have gone on holiday leaving the rest of us to keep things ticking over. My guiding principle for groups is do little, say less. On the other hand I could see that the group needed all hands to the pump. Group meetings involve leavening the reading out of our own work with reading favourite bits of other works, plus occasional visiting authors (who tend to read from their works), and workshops. I decided to offer something different.
Back in the heyday of ancient Greece, Aristotle had done something called Poetics
and Plato had opined his views in various dialogues. I decided to dig out what I could.For this I went over my old notes on Aristotle's Poetics and ploughed the net a bit to get more insight into other stuff I'd read - mostly on The Republic
.I came up with more than enough material to get us through one session - these are typically two hours, including a verrrrry lonnnng tea break,
...each plotting our next magnum opus, whilst eyeing each other suspiciously in case of idea thievery. While this goes on, we talk about inconsequential things like the recession, race hate, the impending gender war and of course the death of all life...
I digress. In the end I pruned things down to 12 pages of notes. We didn't get to Aristotle; heck we didn't even finish off on Plato. My talk dwelt on why Plato thought neither rhapsodes nor writers fit into his ideal state. The talk stimulated a good debate.
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