Fresh Insights from Writers Bobbie Cole and Paul Kerensa - by SC Skillman

For all those who attended the online Writers Day held by the Association of Christian Writers on Saturday 3rd October 2020, fresh insights, new ideas and imaginative approaches were on offer. 

If  we were to represent the day in terms of classic story structure I think it is true to say that most of us went on a journey, met our mentors, made contact with our allies, learned, grew, changed, and came back again to our everyday world with a gift.

From Bobbie Cole we received the opportunity to explore the  difference between satire and mockery, and to examine what lies behind "using" characters and events from scripture, and "exploiting" them; and this was followed by the chance to brainstorm several different elements in the story of Peter and Cornelius in the book of Acts. After that we were given ten minutes to produce a piece of written work inspired by just one of the characters in that story. I saw the story with new eyes afterwards, and also identified a number of additional characters I hadn't focused on before.

From Paul Kerensa we received an enlightening new way to look at classic story structure, which can be applied to any piece of  creative written work, be that a film screenplay, an episode of a TV sitcom, a novel, or indeed a work of creative non-fiction.

I for one felt inspired by Paul's Calendar Theory of Structure, characterising all the elements of a story through the months of the year. Simple headings for each month such as January: New Year; February: Valentine's; March: Spring; April: Fool; May: bloom and change; and so on throughout the year, help us to understand the key features.  Some may prefer other ways of understanding story structure (as in Paul Vogler's  journey of the hero), but I particularly enjoyed the way this new method could easily be visualised, and I intend to apply it to my own work-in-progress when I come to edit the manuscript. I regard an understanding of story structure as a very useful tool  at the editing stage, but not one to be applied consciously when you are in the acting of writing.

I loved listening to Paul's references to films and TV sitcoms, and the triad of characters, whose personality quirks must interact with each other to provide light and shade, rising and falling, punching up, and punching down.

Thank you both to Bobbie and Paul, and to all those in the Association of Christian Writers who worked so hard to put the day together on Zoom for us!