Writing Workshop

Weekly Writing Workshop #14, Friday July 3, 2020: Create a Character Sketch (in writing)

An update from our fourteenth Weekly Writing Workshop! A summary of the workshop, plus some of the output published below The Stone Soup Weekly Writing Workshop is open to all Stone Soup contributors and subscribers. Every Friday, we meet for an hour-and-a-half via Zoom to respond to a new writing challenge, write together in our virtual room, and then share what we have written with one another. Our conversation on Friday July 3 was attended by young writers from the US, the UK, and France. Our discussion started with us looking at artist’s sketches, so that we could get a feel for their roughness, how the artist only draws the significant parts of their character, so that we could translate this into our writing. We also read a few excerpts from texts where a character was described, so that we could get an idea of the different ways to describe a character. We examined a few sketches and paintings to identify what the most important parts of the characters were, and then we wrote for ten minutes, creating a simple sketch for a character of our own design. Then, after we shared a few of our pieces, we went back to writing, this time, to create a new character and to place them in a story. This showed the contrast between the simple sketch that we wrote first, and the more complex one that we wrote second. Read on below to get a feeling for some of the powerful writing we were given a glimpse of in this session! The Writing Challenge: Write a character sketch (or two) that gives the reader a vivid image of your character. The Participants: Ever, Maddie, Sneha, Alice, Lena, Peri, Tilly, Hera, Lucy, Anya, James, Abi, Sophia, Enni, Kanav, Shaili, Janani, Gracie, Aditi, Kathy, Sara, Madeline, Rachel, Charlotte, Seraj, and more . . . Araliya, 11Sandy Hook, CT The Giant Man Araliya, 11 A giant of a man stood in the doorway. His face was almost completely hidden by a long shaggy mane of hair and a wild, tangled beard, but you could make out his eyes, glinting like black beetles under all the hair. His voice was a very loud grunt. Every time he stepped, the ground shook. He just stood there waiting for an invitation to come in. Five minutes later, he walked into the house and said, “where is Sabre Williams?” Sneha Arun, 10San Jose, CA Mourning Sneha Arun, 10 A long black veil covered her pretty face. She clutched a photograph of him smiling. She was mourning. The features of her face could be seen only when you approached her closely. Her wavy blonde hair curled softly at her shoulders. Her rosy red lips betrayed a sense of foreboding as they morphed into a sad smile. Her blue eyes seemed vacant. She seemed to look beyond the masses of people that tried to comfort her. Out of each eye, came a stream of tears, leaving her eyes red and puffy. She walked into the house, feeling her sadness drown her, while her delicate lace dress formed pools of water. She felt alone in this big world, her one solace was that her husband would always be in her heart. Heather Sierra, 10Mountain View, CA Shoes Heather Sierra, 10 The mother pulled her black hair into a ponytail. She sat on a rough, torn, gray airport seat with a tiny girl in her lap, crowded in by hundreds of others. The girl seemed much happier than the mother. She had a sweet smile on her face, and her big brown eyes were bright with curiosity. She looked around, her long, brown braid that hung down her back swiveling alongside her head. “Mama?” she whispered in a voice so low and quiet, yet so sharp and loud to her mother’s listening ears. “Yes, darling?” her mother replied, tucking her long, silky ponytail into the blackish-colored hood of her jacket. The little girl, who looked about five or six didn’t reply. She either had forgotten her question or no longer cared. The girl’s eyes were glued to an advertisement, something with bold letters and cheery images that her mother couldn’t quite see from the distance between them. The little girl was mesmerized by the illustration on the billboard. The little girl slowly slid off of her mother’s lap, leaving her solemn mother behind. Tucking her too-tight and fading purple shirt into her rainbow, flowing skirt, she began to walk toward the billboard, her tight, clicking, black shoes, tapping against the tile floor. “Come back!” her mother cried, although not nearly loud enough to be heard through the airport chaos. The girl toddled along, taking each step carefully, her black sneakers tap-tapping against the cold metal floor of the airport. Approaching the advertisement, she stopped. There was a brilliant drawing of a black-and-blue pair of shoes, blue on the heels, black laces, and an extraordinary paragraph of unreadable words. “Shoes.” the girl pronounced the word with ease and gentleness, an important word to her. She looked down at her own pair, battered and old yet still comfortable and soft. The laces were well-worn and appeared tired of being knotted so many times. The girl loved the billboard with all of her heart. How much she would give to have a pair of shoes like those. “Come back!” her mother called, finally speaking up again. The little girl looked up at her mother, toward the sign, and back to her mother, as if trying to decide which was more important. Pulling her braid tight in her little girl grip, she wandered back to her mother’s seat. Without a word, she smiled up at her mother, the big, happy smile that she’d started with, and said one word, just one word: “Shoes.” Anya Geist, 14Worcester, MA Two Characters Anya G., 14 1. Like the rest of his body, his face was small. Not smushed in any way, just petite. His features were slightly sharp, like a dulled

Weekly Writing Workshop #13, Friday June 26, 2020: Writing About Someone Reading

An update from our thirteenth Weekly Writing Workshop! A summary of the workshop, plus some of the output published below The Stone Soup Weekly Writing Workshop is open to all Stone Soup contributors and subscribers. Every Friday, we meet for an hour-and-a-half via Zoom to respond to a new writing challenge, write together in our virtual room, and then share what we have written with one another. Our conversation on Friday June 26 was attended by young writers from the US, the UK, and France. We started with a discussion of how to write about characters who are reading, and analyzed several different paintings to see how the artist portrayed the subject reading. We shared out our different ideas; is the character focused on the book? Does the character look annoyed at being interrupted? What type of person does the character look like? In addition to viewing these paintings, we read poems and excerpts of essays that reflected the painting’s message or another writer’s thoughts on reading and the role of the reader in the writing process. We then set to writing about a character who is reading, often inspired by the paintings we talked about. Read on below to get a feeling for some of the powerful writing we were given a glimpse of in this session! The Writing Challenge: Write about a character who is reading, inspired by a painting. The Participants: Ever, Tilly, Peri, Julia, Maddie, Georgia, Lorelei, Kanav, Rhian, Grégoire, Neve, Lena, Enni, Benjamin, James, Liam, and many more… Lena Aloise, 11Harvard, MA Familiar Words Lena Aloise, 11 Blowing specks of dust from a cover, bound in cherry leather that was engraved with letters of sparkling gold, brilliance fading along with the passing years of her life. Tentatively, she held the thing, awkward in her small hands, to her face, flipping through the pages, of which there were many, almost an overwhelming amount. Placing it on her lap and settling into a pile of cushions, she began. And the waters leaped, frothing, colliding with a nipping cool saltwater breeze, as the massive thing pushed them aside. They protest against their displacement, as do the wriggling fishes that dart away in a flash of silver, terrified. Oh how their anchor moaned in protest as it was lowered down, below ripping currents, metal links scraping against the rocks, lying on the sand dunes. Its inhabitants jumped from the deck and landed with a thudding that shook the strip of narrow dock upon which their boot-clad feet now rested. Their bodies were agile, possessing great strength from long days of lifting heavy things and navigating tempestuous seas. Seas that tested both physical and mental capabilities. She paused there, took a breath, uselessly straightened her wrinkled blouse and continued reading. Oh, and their captain made all the men look like mere children, with his snarling lips and looming presence. If his crew’s muscular capabilities had been great, his own were simply unhuman, and he was as tough as the ship he had built with his own weathered hands. When he crossed the cobblestone roads, women and men alike quickly looked away, fearful that this ravenous beast might be hungry. The girl remembered a time, late at night, when she had written those words in ink, thought they were beautiful, kissed the pages, then reconsidered and hurled them into the garbage can. A week later, she had changed her mind yet again and the crumpled papers had been retrieved. Now, relooking at it, her cheeks flushed a cherry pink and she regretted not letting them turn to ash in the incinerator. As an author, she supposed that they made her seem weak, fearful of this person who might not be as looming as she made him out to be. Did ship captains read this and think of the silly little girl who found them so frightening? Oh, how she regretted her foolish words now. But she continued, and soon reached the ending, a back page that listed words of praise for this book, the book that was hers and not hers at the same time. ‘Captivating’ one fellow writer had said. ‘American literature at its finest, destined to become a classic’ a magazine had complimented. ‘Earl has fully mastered the art of storytelling and this book should go down in classroom textbooks’ another had cheerily told reporters. All she could think, as she read these aimless thoughts, was ‘People actually read this?’ She shuddered as she imagined all those fellow humans, enjoying her book, feasting on a piece of her soul. Anya Geist, 14Worcester, MA At the Dinner Table Anya Geist, 14 The girl’s leg bounced up and down, jittery and uncalm. Right now, she was sitting straight up, rigid in her chair, but she figured in a few minutes she would be fidgeting around, squirming in her seat. She loved reading, honestly, she did. And she loved this book. But there was so much going on around her. Everyone was loud at the dinner table, laughing heartily as they traded stories, or clicking their tongues as they bemoaned whichever stock was going down. At any moment, they could call on her. They could say, “How was your day?” They could take her book away, and not give it back until much, much later. That risk was too great, and so she was on edge, half-listening to the conversation, half-absorbed in the story. It was like a game of tug of war in her head. The book was pulling on her, trying to sweep her away. And she wanted it to sweep her away. Yet she was forced to listen as Father addressed one of his brothers, just in case he directed his next question at her. The bouncing in her leg was uncontrollable now. She needed to calm it, to make it go away. It was distracting, so distracting. She flipped a page in her book. This was it. She was close to the end. And here she read, her

Weekly Writing Workshop #12, Friday June 19, 2020: Sense of Character

An update from our twelfth Weekly Writing Workshop! A summary of the workshop, plus some of the output published below The Stone Soup Weekly Writing Workshop is open to all Stone Soup contributors and subscribers. Every Friday, we meet for an hour-and-a-half via Zoom to respond to a new writing challenge, write together in our virtual room, and then share what we have written with one another. Our session on Friday June 19, attended by young writers in France, the UK and from across the United States, started with a discussion about shaping characters, and a question: How can we can create a sense of a character for our readers, without  simply writing a list-like description of their looks, personality, hobbies and so on? Some of the workshop members who had attended the week’s summer camp with Stone Soup & Young Inklings–all about working on characters–talked about their experiences, and after a short discussion on the ways we might develop the feeling of a character, like a sketch or outline, the group spent time working on their pieces and then read aloud. Read on below to get a feeling for some of the powerful personalities we were given a glimpse of in this session! The Writing Challenge: Write a short sketch that gives us a sense of the fictional character you are developing. The Participants: Lorelei, Shreya, Lena, Anya, Katie, Maddie, Gegoire, Peri, Kanav, Georgia, Hera, Enni, Ever, Eugenie, Christina, Chloe, Enya, Tilly, Madeline, Kara, Charlotte, Sophia, Aditi, Liam H, Emily, Benjamin, Louise, Ace, James, Heather, Vishnu, Clotilde, Melanie, Thomas, Seraj and more… Lena Aloise, 11Harvard, MA The One with the Empty Eyes Lena Aloise, 11 She was a small woman, shoulders hunched forward in their eternal brace, face expressionless, eyes empty pools of sunken darkness. Her lips were pursed tightly, corners of her mouth pointing downwards, as if she feared that something might slip out, that spoken words might make her more vulnerable. As if she was constantly fighting back tears, tears that brought back to much pain to let fall. The cornflower dress she wore was stunning, with a lace trimmed bodice and a skirt that fell to her ankles. But she, herself, was broken, shattered, despite once beautiful looks. A face that had once been the envy of every girl now was one that all shied away from. The soul was dead, although the heart still beat, and that drained the life from everything. Her sepia locks fell in waves down her back and every few minutes, a hand would reach up, grab a curl and finger it nervously. But those eyes stared straight ahead, not stopping for anything. Eyes that had seen horrors that no person should have to view. Eyes that were afraid of life itself, of seeing more, scared of the past. They called her Mit Leeren Augun. The one with the empty eyes. Peri Gordon, 10Sherman Oaks, CA The Duchess Peri Gordon, 10 In a mansion high atop a hill, there lived a refined duchess, with smooth and slightly tanned skin and crowned golden hair. Her name was Annabelle, and she wore only the finest clothing, made of satin with gold embellishments. She strutted around like a queen and was most always treated like one. She rarely left her soaring towers, but when she did ride her magnificent silver carriage into town, no one dared approach her, unless they were a dashing prince or strapping knight come to see her. If any commoner came within three feet of her, she would stare them down with her piercing blue eyes, and they would scurry off. Lady Annabelle was a fine young duchess, and no one dared mess with her. Enni Harlan, 13Los Angeles, CA A Child Enni Harlan, 13 A young girl crept down the carpeted stairs nimbly, as quiet as a mouse. Her face was stony and lacking any sign of childhood’s innocence, despite her youth. She was small, but possessed the sharpness of someone far beyond her age. Her clothing was ragged and filthy, but her short brown hair framed her face in a seemingly orderly manner. The girl stopped at the foot of the staircase, her dark eyes darting about the room. Not a soul was awake, and the house was deathly silent. With a trembling hand, the girl struck a match and lit a candle. The room was instantly illuminated by its flickering glow. The timber bookshelves lined with dusty books appeared ancient in the forlorn room. She tiptoed towards the bookshelf, and found herself removing the same book as always. It was the book of poetry she had treasured for years; the very one her mother had read to her as a child. The little girl opened her satchel and dropped the book in, grimacing as it clattered loudly against the silver candlesticks she had taken from the bedroom upstairs. A door creaked open loudly upstairs, followed by a sequence of footsteps. The girl froze instantly, then darted out the door without a further thought. All that was left was an empty space in the bookshelf. The child’s lean figure disappeared into the darkness of the night… And the house was silent once more. Anya Geist, 13Worcester, MA James Anya Geist, 14 James lifted his heavy backpack to sling it over his shoulder. It was navy blue, but covered in dirt and small stains, marks of a long time of use, and was ripped at the top from an unfortunate excursion into the uptight Mrs. Robin’s rose garden. “You’re wearing shorts again! Go change!” his mother called the doorway to their small kitchen. “It’s only 50 degrees.” James looked down at his thin legs and knobbly knees, at his skin which might have been as pale and fine as snow, but was instead engrained with endless amounts of mud and dirt. He shrugged. “I’m fine.” His mother took in her son’s naturally thin face and sighed. With that, the boy pulled open the front door, causing his thin muscles to tauten momentarily, and headed off to school. His walk every morning was about 15 minutes long to get to the city, with an extra 5 he spent dodging