One bright morning, a flying saucer crashes down on Planet Earth.
Not in gritty desert sand or blue ocean, the most statistically likely places. Instead, it screeches into an English-speaking city - London, Edinburgh, or Bath. Actually, no. Let’s have it skid across a field, startling some cows. Not far from an ivy-draped, sandstone building. Yes - a creative writing centre where, inside, aspiring authors are gazing deeply into their navels novels.
One writer, distracted by a noise outside, looks up and through the window.
Oh, what a wonderful imagination I have! she thinks as she squints into the sun. For out there in the field, fresh from the wreckage, steps a small, green chap. A bit like an ant. A Martian! she smiles and decides to write about him (it must be a ‘him’ - he’s from Mars!). [The workshop on stereotypes isn’t until the afternoon.]
As the writer resumes her writing, the alien transmits a rescue signal to his fleet. Knowing it will be a full day before his friends can reach him, he sets off to see what’s what. After a conversation with a cow ends in discord, the alien makes his way to the old building…
He peeps inside. It looks like a classroom, or a factory. Bent-over creatures wearing cardigans are hard at work: some sharpen small, pointed weapons while others tap into control panels. Though lost and in need of shelter, he is wary. Timid at the best of times [characters, you see, require three things: a goal, a motivation, a flaw], his confidence has been knocked by the incident with the unfriendly bovine. The safest thing for him to do is hang back and observe.
Below are some of his observations, which he gathers and transmits to his fleet next morning. Before doing so, he puts to practice one of the lessons he’s learnt - he adds the following (and essential) note: These observations are from my POV (Point of View) and entirely my own; they do not reflect the opinions of my employer/agent/publisher.
I have arrived in the middle of something called a Creative Writing Weekend Retreat. This one is tutored. A Tutor is a writer who gets paid to guide other writers in writing. The Tutor provides things called ‘warm-ups’ and ‘prompts’.
The instruments I first assumed to be weapons are actually a way to communicate stories, both real and imagined. Nevertheless, these instruments are powerful.
[This particular Tutor likes to remind everyone that the pen, as declared by Edward Bulwer-Lytton, is mightier than the sword.]
Writers are actually a subset of a species called humans. Humans have identities and rights, which writers talk about loftily and in reference to how valid and authentic these things make their stories. Even - and especially - if their stories are not real.
Writers appear friendly. At least, compared with the cow. These ones constantly extol the virtues of one another’s writing, even when (in my boggly eyes) the writing in question is not terribly good.
The fear that one’s writing is not terribly good is common and experienced most acutely by those whose writing is very good. When professional writers (like the Tutor) experience this fear, it may progress to a debilitating condition known as Imposter Syndrome.
The writers on this Retreat are here because they dream of becoming authors with ‘traditional’ publishers. Some already have deals or books out; most remain hopeful. They are all here to hone the craft of telling a good story.
Actually, the Tutor instructs them constantly not to tell stories: Show Over Tell.
During coffee breaks, everyone stops their writing work and gathers al fresco to drink hot liquid. It is important during breaks like this to exchange information about your teetering TBR (To Be Read), which is the term for a pile of unread books on a table by one’s bed.
In addition to drinking hot liquid, it is important to eat biscuits. Biscuits are part of an essential food group in the diet of writers, especially if their stories are for children. Many writers state their enjoyment of this food group on their ‘profile’. (E.g., ‘Children’s author. Winner of An Amazing Literary Prize. Loves cake.’)
To be a writer you must constantly say you are ‘Amazed’ and find things ‘Amazing’, even although writers are allegedly humans with wide vocabulary and there are over 300 synonyms for this word.
VERY IMPORTANT. To be a Serious Writer you must aspire to own a garden shed. A shed is an uninsulated or semi-insulated wooden shack. Writers want one because Serious Writers named Virginia Woolf and Roald Dahl had one.
(Side Note: in this language there is more than one meaning of ‘serious’. Roald Dahl was a Serious Writer but not always a serious writer.)
Yesterday evening, a kind of Serious Writer called a Mentor visited to read a bedtime story to the group while they all drank cold liquids. Everyone signed up for ‘one-to-ones’ with the Mentor. This is understandable: Mentors (we learned in the afternoon session) provide the MC (Main Character / Hero) with guidance, wisdom or even a gift!
ALSO IMPORTANT. As well as attending courses like this Weekend Retreat, writers should buy a set of ‘How To’ books. These are manuals that explain how to build a good story, how good stories operate, and how to fix a story if it is broken.
One of these books is called Save the Cat! [On screenwriting, by Blake Snyder.] The Tutor on this course admitted, after several helpings of cold liquid, that she has not, in fact, read this book. Or any other writing manual. She does not even have them on her TBR pile!
This admission, especially as it was in the presence of the Mentor, caused a flare-up of the Tutor’s Imposter Syndrome. As a result, before bed she looked in the mirror and told herself it is OK not to have read these books because she is qualified in other ways to do this work. For example, although she has not read Save the Cat!, she does have a cat.
It is EXTREMELY IMPORTANT for a writer to have a cat. Or a dog. Cats and dogs are familiars for writers. That is, they are spiritual creatures often providing comfort when other humans do not understand a writer’s pain.
It is after breakfast the next day and the alien has reached this point in his list when the Tutor (emboldened by circulating photographic evidence of her cat) announces the theme for the morning workshop. Coincidentally, it is the skill of listing. “Let’s think about lists,” she says. “Does your list advance plot, develop character, deepen emotional understanding, or add to setting and mood? Does it provide substance as well as style?”
The alien twitches his antennae. He is unsure his list has done any of these things.
But before he can review it, the signal he has been waiting for arrives: a rescue saucer from his fleet has landed safely in the cow field. Without hesitation, he turns and leaves this strange building (swiping a few Hobnobs on the out).
Zooming into space, he and his kin share crumbs and discuss his data. Are pens really that mighty, and what makes telling showing a story so hard? Have humans ever written about Mars, and does that mean they had to identify as Martians? And what is it that writers are trying to prove or say about themselves by showing off their TBRs, working alone in sheds, and eating so many baked goods? None of those things, after all, will make any of them stand out. Perhaps it helps them fit in?
If you have time, why not check out the other articles I’ve written this year?
Show not tell! Aah - that's the heart of the knot! It's so hard for an academic - who is told constantly to tell and tell again unambiguously - to learn what not to say. How much can you expect your reader to understand, if you don't tell her? If you hint, or make the point with an interaction between characters, or a metaphor, will she miss the point? I am slowly learning, when writing creatively, that the hardest thing for me is what to leave out, and if I can inch my way towards working that problem out I'll also be showing more than telling. Is that easy for an alien to understand? Or harder, do you think?
And, despite appreciating the humor, I also absolutely loved being on my retreat last week. It was really really special (and not in the Olympic sense)