Progress reports

This month, our writers have started or been accepted onto creative writing courses, have started writing a play, are writing of travels abroad and are continuing with the third book in their series.

Lots of successes!

Free writing

This month’s free-writing session was merged into the workshop session in the hope that we’d get through it all in time.

Workshop

This month, we looked at the through-line of our stories.

The through-line is the question that is thrown up at the beginning of the book and is answered at the end.

It is not the same thing as themes, which are more philosophical questions that aren’t necessarily answered in the story, but left for the reader to think about after finishing the book. Get the theme right, and the reader will have your book in their head for some time to come.

The through-line is typically a simple question, and underpins the plot, for example:

• Can Romeo and Juliet be together forever?
• How does the old lady survive the sinking of the Titanic?
• Will the archaeologist retrieve the important artefact?

The story then becomes how the protagonist deals with all the obstacles you, as the writer, put in their way. Feuds, lack of lifeboats and baddies all prevent the protagonist from reaching their goal.

We worked through Rosie Johnston’s post1 to find the through-lines in our own stories; everyone was successful with coming up with one. One person already had theirs: their story had arisen as a result of a question.

Once we’ve worked out the through-line of our story, we can apply it at every stage in the writing process, in the first draft, in each future revision, in each scene, each chapter. It’s what

Readings

Alas, we were so taken up by the joys of finding our through-lines that we had no time to hear any readings. Many apologies to those whose words we would have heard.

Next meeting

We’ll next meet on 5 April 2023, which will be our first anniversary in the current format. Time to celebrate!

References

1. Rosie Johnston 2018. Through-line – the single most vital trick in writing a novel. Rosie Johnston Writes