Next Meeting: Thurs 8 December 2022

For our final session of the year, we'll be breaking out the mince pies for a Christmas-themed writing session on Thurs 8 December at Dalston CLR James Library, 6.00 to 7.30pm.

The Watson, Little x Indie Novella Prize

Our friends at Indie Novella have launched a brand new writing prize. Check out the details below, visit their website form more courses, advice and of, course, excellent new fiction releases.

 

Read Wes Viola in Bear Street Gazette

We're a bit late with this post, but friend of DWG Wes Viola got in touch to let us know that he's had a brilliant Halloween-themed piece published in the Bear Creek Gazette, which tantalisingly describes itself as 'home to art, creative writing and strangeness.' Read Yuck, Yuck, Yuck by Wes Viola here.

A Slightly Random Selection of Prompts Deployed at our November Meeting

We were delighted to welcome a few new faces to the group at our November meeting. Here, for those who couldn't make it, or for anyone who finds themselves delivered to our humble blog via a Google search involving the terms 'Dalston', 'creative' and 'writing', is what we got up to:

• November is National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo - https://nanowrimo.org/ ). Write the most attention-grabbing opening paragraph for a novel in the genre of your choice. Don’t worry if you have no idea who the characters are or where the story is going. Just launch on in there, as if you do!

• Kickstart a story with a passage that asks (and possibly answers) these three questions: i) whose house is Ethan leaving? ii) Why was he there? iii) Where is he going now?

• Think of the last piece of fiction you wrote that you were pleased with. Now interview the main character. Write this as either a straight Q&A, or as if it’s an in-depth profile in this weekend’s Sunday Times magazine.

• Write a piece of fiction that hinges on an argument.

• Write a piece that includes any or all of the following: a reunion, guilt, a funeral.

• Write a piece of fiction that includes any or all of the objects below. Feel free to take elements from each.

A) A dog, a bicycle, a briefcase.

B) An older brother, an unfair contest, and the skeleton of a bird.

C) A dress, a hair salon, and an amazing rumour that turns out to be true.

(See more ideas for stories that contain 3 objects here: )

• Award-winning sci-fi writer Damon Knight filled his book Creating Short Fiction with helpful exercises. One of these he designed as a way to create a setting or mood:

“Imagine a character who is sitting or standing, alone, in the room you are now in. See the room through his eyes; write a page or so of pure description of the room, without mentioning the character or referring to him in any way, but bearing in mind as you write that he has just had a phone call notifying him of a promotion and a raise.

Assume that the person lives here, if the room you are in is part of a house or apartment; if it isn’t, assume that the job has something to do with this room.
How does his emotional state colour his perceptions? Remember that you are not allowed to refer to the character, even by using a pronoun (“I looked at the furniture,” for instance). Tell only what he sees.”