Still Life Workshop Anthology
Living through the Covid-19 pandemic posed a particular problem for the writers of fiction, namely how to create work in a world which seemed to have risen ready made from the genre of dystopian fiction. Meeting in groups on Zoom broadened the scope of our workshops in so many ways but it also added an unreal element. For a time we were all characters in a fiction of someone else’s making. So how to react to such a life changing situation?
Some of the workshop writers avoided the subject like the plague while others grasped it by the throat. You’ll find it here in all its shades and variations. 26 writers, artists and photographers reacting in their own unique way to the threat of the unseen, the unknown. Available to buy on Amazon
“I was very familiar with Zoom but Roddy’s workshops really make the most of the format. Close reading other writer’s work onscreen is a revelation and I love watching videos of poets and plays. But one of the best things about the workshop is Roddy’s help with homework. Its like a magic wand has been waved over it.” Margaret Cooper – Zoom workshop writer.
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In this section we share a selection of our writers’ weekly homework pieces and timed exercises. Homework is normally 500 – 750 words maximum, the timed exercises are completed in the workshop within 20 minutes.
Its not uncommon for one of the workshop writers to develop and combine their homework pieces and craft them into a long form story, or even a novel. This new piece by Sue Hitchcock is just such a work, coming in at over 8600 words, The Disinformation Correspondent is a contemporary, murky thriller.
The Disinformation Correspondent by Sue Hitchcock
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September
STRONG VERBS
For this week’s timed exercise I gave our writers this line and a collection of Strong Verbs to use in their piece:
I know what they’d like, they’d like a blank they could fill in.
Batter Jostle Brood Ensnare Lurk Extract Fling Mimic Hail Grope Mystify Intertwine Scorch Peck Sizzle Prickle Smash Wrestle Transform Stretch Wreck Refine Oppress
This was a quote from Patricia Highsmith’s second novel ‘The Price of Salt’.
A strong verb is a verb that conveys more information than a simple action—strong verbs can convey emotion, speed, intention, direction, or significance. For example, walk is a weak verb. It simply conveys the idea that someone is moving their feet to take them from one place to another. It’s not a bad verb, but it is a weak verb because it doesn’t convey any other information other than what specific action is taking place.
Patricia Highsmith’s novels were often about characters circling each other with guarded circumspection. It was an appropriate dynamic for one of the most acclaimed crime fiction writers of the 20th century, but it also defines her quasi-autobiographical 1952 romance The Price of Salt. Focusing on an affair between a divorcing housewife and a young woman in New York, it was originally published under a nom de plume, as Highsmith didn’t want to be pigeonholed as a “lesbian-book writer”; it wasn’t published under her real name until a 1990 reprint, when it was rechristened Carol. She adopted a similarly elusive nature in her own life, departing the United States for Europe, much like her most famous creation, the conman/murderer Tom Ripley.
For the homework I asked our writers to use this quote from Highsmith in their piece and to pay close attention to strong verbs.
Obsessions are the only things that matter.
One Too Many by Jill Webb
On the Balcony by Fran Duffield
Revelations by Judith Horth
St Albans in the Rain by Ivor John
Obsession by Sue Hitchcock
Obsession by Sho Botham
Words Are To Be Taken Seriously by Juliet Robinson
The Full English by Lesley Dawson
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TONE
For this week’s timed exercise I asked you to use this line of dialogue anywhere in your piece:
“Don’t you take that tone of voice with me”
Like the tone you use when you talk to somebody, tone in writing determines how a reader responds. If the piece sounds angry, they get nervous. If it’s wry and knowing, they will settle in for an enjoyable read. If it’s dull, they leave it on the train, half read.
As an example of tone in writing I read from Toni Cade Bambara’s short story ‘The Lesson’. Here’s the opening line:
Back in the days when everyone was old and stupid or young and foolish and me and Sugar were the only ones just right, this lady moved on our block with nappy hair and proper speech and no makeup.
In one sentence, you know who everybody is. Not only do you want to read on, but you want to know what else she’s written so you can get that, too.
For the homework I asked our writers to pay particular attention to the tone of their piece and to use this line from Toni Cade Bambara:
Words are to be taken seriously.
Beauty and the Beast by Maureen Marsh
Words by Fran Duffield
Words Can Hurt by Judith Horth
Pink Neon Flamingo by Ivor John
Doctor Ajax by Sue Hitchcock
Words by Sho Botham
Words Are To Be Taken Seriously by Juliet Robinson
Making Sulha by Lesley Dawson
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August
CHARACTER BUILDING
For this week’s timed exercise I asked you to use this character profile in your piece:
Your character is a writer and a typical extrovert. Flamboyant, daring, and outgoing to a fault, they try to join in every activity and conversation. Their unstoppable imagination helps keep their life anything but ordinary. However they tend to brag about their exploits.
This was the character profile of ‘Snoopy’.
Plot, even in detective fiction, is a secondary matter. Strong characters are at the heart of all great literature and always will be. Not many readers could outline the plot of The Sign of the Four but no one has any difficulty bringing Holmes and Watson to mind.
When you first start creating a fictional character, your impulse might be to create a completely unique individual, with a background that’s new and different, or a person with a weird way of looking at the world, an unconventional mind.
But at our core, every human being is essentially a cliché. You’ll have a very hard time creating a character who meets absolutely none of the standard types, whether you’re writing conventional literature, fantasy or a mystery. As the saying goes, every story has been told a thousand times before. So has every character.
For the homework I asked everyone to pay close attention to the characters and to use this line anywhere in their piece:
It takes two to make an accident.
The Beautiful Accident by Maureen Marsh
Charmed Life by Fran Duffield
A Marriage is Arranged by Judith Horth
Accident Investigation by Ivor John
The Good Girl by Sue Hitchcock
Delic by Sho Botham
The Needy Neighbour – a timed exercise by Maureen Marsh
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GASLIGHT
Her thoughts, however, resembled those of a fish.
This was a quote from Twenty Thousand Streets Under The Sky by Patrick Hamilton.
Patrick Hamilton (1904-1962) was born in West Sussex. His father was a bullying alcoholic comedian and aspiring historical novelist; his mother, a sometime actress and singer. After his mother withdrew him from Westminster School at the age of fifteen, Hamilton worked in the theatre and then took up writing, publishing his first novel when he was nineteen and rapidly making a name for himself as an up-and-coming author.
His play Rope was lovingly transferred to the big screen by Hitchcock, but it was his play Gaslight that left a lasting impression. From this fascinating, gripping tale of greed and psychological manipulation we get the term ‘Gaslighting’.
For the homework I asked our writers to use this quote from Hamilton in their piece and to feature a manipulative character:
Too much thought is bad for the soul, for art, and for crime.
The Story Begins by Maureen Marsh
A Job For Life by Juliet Robinson
The Truth Will Out by Judith Horth
Dreaming by MaryPat Campbell
Margie Woke by Sue Hitchcock
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JULY
GASLIGHT
Her thoughts, however, resembled those of a fish.
This was a quote from Twenty Thousand Streets Under The Sky by Patrick Hamilton.
Patrick Hamilton (1904-1962) was born in West Sussex. His father was a bullying alcoholic comedian and aspiring historical novelist; his mother, a sometime actress and singer. After his mother withdrew him from Westminster School at the age of fifteen, Hamilton worked in the theatre and then took up writing, publishing his first novel when he was nineteen and rapidly making a name for himself as an up-and-coming author.
His play Rope was lovingly transferred to the big screen by Hitchcock, but it was his play Gaslight that left a lasting impression. From this fascinating, gripping tale of greed and psychological manipulation we get the term ‘Gaslighting’.
For the homework I asked our writers to use this quote from Hamilton in their piece and to feature a manipulative character:
Too much thought is bad for the soul, for art, and for crime.
Meadowfield Park by Juliet Robinson
Mumps by Chandra Fifield
Lost Time by Stuart Finegan
Towing the Adele by Sue Hitchcock
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HUMOUR
For this week’s timed exercise I asked our writers to open their piece with this line:
Something funny happened on the way to work this morning…
This was an exercise in using humour in your work. Humour is the pressure valve against excessive tension. When we ratchet up the tension without moments of release, the experience can overwhelm the reader — reducing the experience the writer intended. Our heart rates can only go so high. If we introduce too much tension without the occasional release, we get anxiety — the work then evokes a state of fight or flight. In walks humour.
For the homework I asked everyone to feature a little humour in their piece and to use this quote from Oscar Wilde:
Be yourself, everyone else is taken.
Cameraless, Terrified & Multitasking by Saffron Swansborough
Its Just Not Cricket by Jill Webb
Be Yourself by Judith Horth
Brett by Sue Hitchcock
Fancy That by Marion Umney
Wild Horses by Lesley Dawson
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FILTER WORDS
For this week’s timed exercise I asked our writers to use this lie anywhere in their piece:
Maria noticed James had gone silent and was staring past her out the coffee shop window.
This was an exercise in ‘filter words’.
Filter words are verbs that increase the narrative distance, reminding us that what we’re reading is being told by someone rather than experienced, or shown, through the eyes of the character.
As an example, in the sentence, “I hear the engine rumbling,” you could eliminate the filter words “I hear” and simply write, “The engine rumbles.” Filter words pop up in both third-person and first-person narratives, and they dilute the potency and immediacy that narration affords an author. Eliminating filter words can help you show instead of telling.
The filter word in the exercise was ‘noticed‘. The sentence is more effective like this:
James had gone silent and was staring past Maria out the coffee shop window.
For the homework I asked our writers to pay special attention to filter words and to use this line from Jane Eyre anywhere in their piece:
I would always rather be happy than dignified.
The Absentee Landlords by Saffron Swansborough
Trying Times by Judith Horth
I Would Rather be Happy by Sue Hitchcock
Indelible Lines by Chandra Fifield
Earthen Missiles by MaryPat Campbell
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JUNE
SECRETS
Your character keeps a secret diary.
Secrets are the engine that keep a story moving forward. Readers love being surprised by secrets in stories, as what was hidden is revealed. Although the revelation and its lead-up may seem mysterious to readers, authors, like good magicians, should know what they are doing.
Secrets can be powerful tools in fiction. When readers sense a secret is in play, their ears perk up, and they’re drawn into the story to ferret out that secret— and to watch the consequences. Almost all characters keep a secret. Your job as a writer is to know why the secret is being kept, to decide when and how to reveal it, how to conceal it beforehand, and what the consequences of revelation will be.
I read from The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank.
For the homework I asked everyone to use this line from the Diary and to feature a secret:
Because paper has more patience than people.
Patience by Fran Duffield
The Letter by Judith Horth
No One to Point the Finger at by Stuart Finegan
Because Paper Has More Patience than People by Sue Hitchcock
Too Old to be a Student by Lesley Dawson
Colour the Mandala by Ivor John
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ACTION
Everything was still, silent. My thoughts raced madly.
This is a quote from Joe Simpson’s book Touching the Void and an exercise in writing action.
The two keys to great action scenes are short, clean sentences and dynamic verbs. Short sentences keep the action flowing smoothly and quickly, and dynamic verbs make the action interesting. Writers can have the tendency to focus on movements and not what is going on in the character’s head, which can contribute to a reader’s boredom. In a story, as opposed to a film, you can portray what’s going on in a character’s mind, so use that ability to your advantage.
I read from Touching the Void, Joe Simpson’s account of his near-death experience in the Andes.
For the homework I asked everyone to feature action in their piece and to use this line from Touching the Void:
Fear seems to exist only in our imagination.
The Report by Judith Horth
Leopards by Juliet Robinson
The Soul Rots On by Mia Sundby
Nightmare by MaryPat Campbell
God You Can Let Go Now by Stuart Finegan
Going To Elaine’s by Sue Hitchcock
An Evening With Eric Clapton by Lesley Dawson
What Is He Doing In There? by Ivor John
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LOST THE PLOT
For this week’s timed exercise I gave our writers these three questions:
Who is Sara?
Why is she running down the street
What is she holding?
This was an exercise in plot building.
Essentially plot is the chain of connected events that make up a narrative. It refers to what actually occurs in a story and is one of storytelling’s major pillars. It is not a series of random incidents. Generally, there must be a cause-and-effect relationship between the events and the plot points. The king died and then the queen died, for instance, is not a plot, as E.M. Forster notes. But the king died and then the queen died out of grief is one because it reveals a causality in the sequence of scenes.
For the homework I asked everyone to use one of these plots:
The Riddle
Rivalry
Revenge
VIEWPOINT
For this week’s timed exercise I asked everyone to use this scenario in their piece:
Once upon a time there was a…
This was an exercise in viewpoint, I picked that line because fairy tales have a flat or zero viewpoint.
Set during the waning days of the Weimar Republic. The novel recounts Isherwood’s 1929–1932 sojourn as a pleasure-seeking British expatriate on the eve of Adolf Hitler’s ascension as Chancellor of Germany and consists of a “series of sketches of disintegrating Berlin, its slums and nightclubs and comfortable villas, its odd maladapted types and its complacent burghers.”
The novel’s plot recounts factual events in Isherwood’s life, and the novel’s characters were based upon actual persons. The insouciant flapper Sally Bowles was based on teenage cabaret singer Jean Ross.The novel was adapted by John Van Druten into a 1951 Broadway play called I Am a Camera. Which was made into a successful film before transforming into the well know musical, ‘Cabaret’.
For the homework I asked everyone to use this line from the Berlin Diary:
I am a camera with its shutter open, quite passive, recording, not thinking.
MAY
CONFLICT
For this week’s timed exercise I asked everyone to use this scenario in their piece:
Your character has been blamed for something they didn’t do.
Conflict, in good stories, is not about spectacular events or painful emotions. Good conflict is about values.
We looked at the conflict in values in Pride & Prejudice. Looming above the whole story is the value of marriage and love. Mrs. Bennet wants all her daughters to get married. The daughters want to get married too, but only if they’re in love… and preferably in love with someone wealthy (another central value in the story). Marriage, love, and wealth are all positive values. Their values most of us would agree with! However, figuring out how to adhere to all of those values at once is incredibly difficult, and in Pride & Prejudice, we get to watch the characters try, fail, and then finally succeed at achieving all of these good but conflicting values.
I was in the middle before I knew that I had begun.
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The Writing Room by Juliet Robinson
Daisy Chain by Judith Horth
Motives & Morals by Sho Botham
The Missing Peace by Chandra Fifield
Being Interviewed by Lesley Dawson
What If? by MaryPat Campbell
Find Ye a Necromancer by Mia Sundby
The Devil Always Sings the Best Tunes by Stuart Finegan
Benefit by Ivor John
Crime & Punishment by Fran Duffield
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SUSPENSE
For this week’s timed exercise I asked everyone to open their piece with this line:
Someone must have been telling lies about…
This is of course part of the opening of Kafka’s The Trial which immediately throws the reader into a world of mystery and suspense.
Building apprehension in the minds of your readers is one of the most effective ways to engage them in your work and keeping them flipping pages late into the night. Simply put, if you don’t hook your readers, they won’t get into the story. If you don’t drive the story forward by making readers worry about your main character, they won’t have a reason to keep reading.
“You have a scene with two characters in conversation. Surprise is when, suddenly, a bomb goes off. Suspense is when the reader knows there is a bomb that will explode at 1 o’clock, and is now sitting on the edge of their seat as the characters remain unaware of the bomb’s existence, while 1 o’clock is slowly approaching.” – Alfred Hitchcock
For the homework I asked our writers to use this line in their piece and to include suspense:
I like to make use of what I know.
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The Helping Hand by Judith Horth
Devil’s Gold by Chandra Fifield
Waiting by Lesley Dawson
A Warm Blaze by MaryPat Campbell
People Stay off the Heath by Mia Sundby
God Knows You Sin by Stuart Finegan
Pretty Meh! by Juliet Robinson
Amen to That by Jill Webb
Que Sera, Needn’t Be! – a timed exercise by Judith Horth
Trapdoor – a timed exercise by Fran Duffield
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APRIL
WAIT
For this week’s timed exercise I asked everyone to open their piece with just one word:
Wait
We looked at the American poet Galway Kinnell’s poem ‘Wait’
I also read from Katrin Schumann’s article When Being a Writer Means Playing the Waiting Game – which I’ve attached. Schumann’s debut novel ‘The Forgotten Hours’ was a bestseller. I read the prologue of Schumann’s second novel ‘This Terrible Beauty’.
On the windswept shores of an East German island, Bettina Heilstrom struggles to build a life from the ashes. World War II has ended, and her country is torn apart. Longing for a family, she marries Werner, an older bureaucrat who adores her. But after joining the fledgling secret police, he is drawn deep into its dark mission and becomes a dangerous man.
For the homework I asked everyone to use this line from the novel anywhere in their piece:
Silence isn’t always empty, is it?
I read my column ‘Lofty’ from my first collection of columns, ‘The Familiar’ Read it here
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Crocodile by Fran Duffield
Getting to the Bottom of Things by Jill Webb
Timeless by Sho Botham
Claustrophobia by Sue Hitchcock
Where is my Hand by Lesley Dawson
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TIME
For this week’s timed exercise I asked everyone to us this line in their piece:
But this is such a pleasant day: wouldn’t it be nice to have just a little more of it?
Look, / it’s time to rub cat Patsy’s belly again,” he writes. Read it here
I read Margaret Atwood on ‘time in fiction’ – Read it here
I read the opening of Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf. The original title for the novel was ‘The Hours’ and the work has a preoccupation with time, not just ‘clock time’ but ‘remembered time’.
All of the novel’s action, aside from the flashbacks, takes place on a day in “the middle of June” of 1923. It is an example of stream of consciousness storytelling: every scene closely tracks the momentary thoughts of a particular character. Woolf blurs the distinction between direct and indirect speech throughout the novel, freely alternating her mode of narration between omniscient description, indirect interior monologue, and soliloquy. The narration follows at least twenty characters in this way, but the bulk of the novel is spent with Clarissa Dalloway, Peter Walsh, and Septimus Smith.
I asked everyone to use this line from Mrs Dalloway anywhere in their homework and to consider time as a theme or a motif.
Rigid, the skeleton of habit alone upholds the human frame.
I read my column The Mystery Guest from my first collection of columns, ‘The Familiar’ Read it here
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Once by Ali Giles
Old Habits Never Die by Janie Reynolds
Pandora’s Box by Juliet Robinson
Wrong by Fran Duffield
Thirteen Days by Sho Botham
Is it Necessary by Lesley Dawson
Gerard Knows Best a timed exercise by Mia Sundby
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TRANSFORMATION
For this week’s timed exercise I asked everyone to open their piece with these two short sentences:
Ove is fifty-nine. He drives a Saab.
This is the opening of A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman. Fredrik Backman got tepid responses when he sent out the manuscript for his debut novel, A Man Called Ove. Most publishers ignored him, and several turned it down.
After a few months and a few more rejections, he began to think perhaps there wasn’t a market for a story about a cranky 59-year-old Swedish widower who tries and fails to kill himself. “It was rejected by one publisher with the line, ‘We like your novel, we think your writing has potential, but we see no commercial potential,” said Backman who lives outside Stockholm with his wife and two children. “That note I kept.”
In hindsight, that critique seems wildly, comically off base. Ince its publication in 2012 the novel has sold more than 3 million copies worldwide and has been made into films, most recently starring Tom Hanks in the title role.
The novel’s protagonist, Ove, is a lonely curmudgeon who screams at his neighbours for parking in the wrong place and punches a hospital clown whose magic tricks annoy him. Six months after his wife’s death, he’s planning to commit suicide and has turned off his radiators, cancelled his newspaper subscription and anchored a hook into the ceiling to hang himself. But he keeps getting interrupted by his clueless, prying neighbours. He strikes up a friendship with an Iranian immigrant and her two young daughters, who find Ove’s grumpiness endearing.
For the homework I asked everyone to use this line anywhere in their piece:
It is difficult to admit that one is wrong. Particularly when one has been wrong for a very long time.
I read my column The Fabulous Baker Boy from my first collection of columns, ‘The Familiar’ Read it here
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Glorious by Janie Reynolds
Saquin Point by Juliet Robinson
Who Are You? by Sho Botham
Lucifer’s Wish Disguised by Her White Collar by Stuart Finegan
Retirement Dream by Ivor John
Fairy Godmother or Wicked Stepmother by Sue Hitchcock
Drunken Safety Blanket – a timed exercise by Juliet Robinson
Gerard Knows Best a timed exercise by Mia Sundby
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ARTEFACT
For this week’s timed exercise I asked everyone to open their piece with this line:
After a winter of gluttony & grief I’m back on plan for good this time.
This is the opening line of Kiki Petrosino’s poem ‘Whole 30’.
Originally from Baltimore Kiki Petrosino is the author of White Blood: a Lyric of Virginia (2020) and three other poetry books, all from Sarabande. She holds graduate degrees from the University of Chicago and the University of Iowa Writer’s Workshop. Her memoir, Bright, was released from Sarabande in 2022. She directs the Creative Writing Program at the University of Virginia, where she is a Professor of Poetry.
Kiki Petrosino’s definition of poetry
“My definition of poetry is that a poem is the artifact or the trace that is left behind and created through the poet’s movement of mind over a problem or a situation.”
We discussed artifacts in fiction and in real life. As an example we watched a video clip of a 6 year old child prodigy Paul Petrescu playing Fur Elise by Beethoven. In 1867 Ludwig Nohl found an autographed piece of music by Beethoven among the papers of Therese Malfatti and published it – under the wrong title. Beethoven had a doomed love affair with Therese Malfatti. She was his 18 year old student, and he fell in love with her. He wrote a short but haunting piece for her – Bagatelle, but after she rejected him and his proposal of marriage the piece was shoved in a drawer. Ludwig Nohl misread Beethoven’s messy handwriting and so ‘Für Therese’ became one of the most famous piano pieces ever – ‘Für Elise’.
For this week’s homework I asked everyone to have their protagonist find an artefact from their past – an inciting artefact which could be something as personal as a photograph or journal. Or it could be a complimentary or derogatory note (or letter) that involves them that they had never seen before. Of course, you could also make it something fun like an old treasure map.
I read my column The Big Sucker from my first collection of columns, ‘The Familiar’ Read it here
Boxed by Janie Reynolds
I Wish I Hadn’t Told Ya by Jill Webb
All The Little Pieces, Inga by Juliet Robinson
Tea Towel by Sho Botham
Damascus by Rosalyn St Pierre
House Clearance by Ivor John
Grandfather’s Letter by Sue Hitchcock
I Kiss You – a timed exercise by Juliet Robinson
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NEW YEAR METAMORPHOSIS
For this week’s timed exercise I asked our writers to open their piece with this line:
These are the things I decided I would do this year.
This line comes from Bridget Jones Diary by Helen Fielding. New Year’s Day is often a time in novels in which tensions erupt or a new life is envisioned for a character facing a transformation, such as in Middlemarch by George Eliot, White Teeth by Zadie Smith, and Bridget Jones’s Diary by Helen Fielding. It is no surprise that literature has, for millennia, attempted to document our human fascination with metamorphosis. We could say, of course, that all literature is about change – about characters growing, developing, learning – but some transformations are more emphatic – changes of heart, changes of mind.
I read from Bridget Jones Diary.Zellweger famously gained 30 pounds to play the titular role in 2001’s Bridget Jones’s Diary, repeating the process again for the 2004 sequel, Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason. By the time she filmed Bridget Jones’s Baby, however, the Oscar winner was tired of talking about her weight.
For the homework I asked everyone to open their piece with this line from Bridget Jones Diary and to focus on change. What new life does your protagonist embark on? What changes, or doesn’t change, for them and their desires?
It is a truth universally acknowledged that when one part of your life starts going okay, another falls spectacularly to pieces.
I read my column The Hogmanay Coat from my first collection of columns, ‘The Familiar’ Read it here …………………………………………………………………………