You're in luck
. I took down some detailed notes on the day.
Here's the gist of it...
I can only speak for the group lectured by Irini Savvides; I don't know who lectured the other group. Anyway, she's a novelist who's published about four books, directed at both younger and older readers. Here's what she had to say:
- the theme or basis of any story can be derived from something as simple as a Tim Tam biscuit. To demonstrate, a bunch of people went up there with a piece of chocolate and told the audience the kinds of emotions evoked when they did things such as smell it, touch it, lick it, chew it and swallow it.
- get it written first,
then get it right. Chances are you'll have to redo it anyway, no matter how great you initially thought it was. This holds particularly true for beginnings, which are almost always rewritten after the ending has been finalised. She stressed that putting pen to paper was the most important thing to do; getting stuck in the unending cycle of constant research without writing is stupid. Your research should be tailored to your writing, not the other way around.
- avoid cliches. She advised us to not talk about any of the following (and I quote): teenage love, suicide, death, angst and unrequited love. If you insist to cover something so banal, at the very least take a new spin on it, like an outsider to that world looking in.
- use the technique of showing instead of telling, which I'm sure you've been told to death about. Here's a quote from her: "In the silence, gaps and awkwardness, the reader empathises."
- on the following terminology of the assessment criteria...
Textual Integrity: this means "Does the story hold together? Will the audience stay interested? Is there fluid integration, and is it sustained?"
Quality of insights and concepts developed through independent investigation and the communication of developed ideas: this means "Is there subtle, complex and refined flair that is authentic?"
Manipulation of features that shape meaning and response, and quality of engagement: this means "Is it sophisticated, experimental and/or inventive? Does it immediately grab the attention of the readership and
do they care or are they craving for more when they've finished reading the story?"
Quality of reflection statement: Don't be critical of yourself, but be critical of the process
and product. Too many students simply focus on the product, ignoring the process.
She also went through some excerpts of books on writing. She stressed the importance of researching medium as much as, if not more than, form. I found a lot of these excerpts to be quite useful, so I'll list the books she got them from:
- Kevin Brophy,
Creativity (1998)
- Jack Heffron,
The Best Writing on Writing (1990)
- Kate Grenville,
The Writing Book (1990)
- Natalie Goldberg,
Wild Mind (1991)
- Annie Dillard,
The Writing Life (1989)
- Patti Miller,
Writing Your Life (2001)
- Christopher Vogler,
The Writer's Journey (1998)
She also went to great lengths to emphasise that the Extension 2 course should be one that pushes you to your limits - you should be constantly researching, writing, yada yada yada. We were all told to do some timed writing, and it was found that in about a minute we could write 50-80+ words. At that rate, reaching 6000-8000 should be a breeze, at least according to her.
There was a bunch more stuff she said, and unlike that first ETA seminar this one had some substance and wasn't just a recitation of the syllabus. She had a lot of handouts too, so I'd advise you to see if you could grab those off someone and photocopy them.
Whew...hope that helped.
