My Story: Crafting Personal Life into Art
Writing
The strongest stories are often personal ones because you have lived the experience and recount that experience from the heart. Yet, how can you transform mere biographical/anecdotal accounts and cringing naval-gazing material into thought-provoking and touching tales that will fascinate the audience of your choice? In My Story, you will gain valuable, and practical, tips on how to shape real-life experience into compelling works of fiction.
Areas Covered
Session #1: Crafting
• Why tell personal tales?
• When is telling a personal tale appropriate?
• Different types of personal tales
• How to crafting your personal story
Session #2: Polishing
• Review of the story that you have crafted
• Tips on how to polish the story
Upcoming Workshop/s:
| Date/Time: | 9 June 2012 (Sat), 2.00pm – 6.00pm |
|---|---|
| Venue: | BooksActually, 9 Yong Siak Street (Tiong Bahru) |
| Fee: | $100/participant (Student Discount:$90) |
| Registration: | booksellers@booksactually.com (+65 6222 9195) |
| Booking Information: | http://booksactually.com/workshops.html |
Pre-Workshop Preparation
For Participants
- Please bring pen/pencil and paper or laptop for the writing exercises.
- Please bring a personal object of sentimental value or that represents the aspect of your personal life that you would like to fictionalise.
For Organisers
Please make available a quiet, fair-sized room that allows participants to move about freely and provide sufficient chairs/writing surfaces for all the participants.
Feedback
Feedback (2011)
“Exercising my mind in story-telling. In particular, the need to have the ‘concrete’ bit; having an anchor. What can I say? It’s just right.”
Chew Lip Heng
“(a) Methodology. (b) Frame work. (c) Scenario. Great!!!”
Alvin Lee
“Practical steps in capturing and writing down all the pieces and nuggets of stories collected, for a walk towards completing a decent piece of work.”
Catherine Erica Cheok
“The sharing. The interaction with the other classmates & hearing their thoughts. Have more please!”
Jeanne Wong
“Understanding how ē ‘nugget’ works and leading questions to guide me in my writing. Wonderful setting.”
Brenda Tan
“Think it was really a great workshop. I never knew I could write stories!”
Umma
“The writing prompts & the sharing.”
Aster Goh
“The actual act of writing.”
Michelle Lim
“Group space and personal space / time to write! Just getting started is good.”
Melissa Kwee
“The workshop helped me start thinking and writing.”
Peh Hanying
“Getting given prompts to take my writing in a different direction.”
Annabel Drysdale
“The actual process of writing and the prompts Verena gave during the third & final round of writing. It is helpful to get someone else to prompt you to explore a direction/area you never would’ve considered.”
Jeanne
“The guided process of writing – that helped/forced me to just start writing something. And in doing so – just writing my thoughts – I found it quite cathartic.”
Jerry Ong
“I’ve always love to write but all I write is reports (and other work-related things). I loved the opportunity to write a bit of fiction (partial). I also really enjoyed hearing other people’s stories! A lot of fun. Verena gives great comments!”
Cheryl Chung
About the Facilitator
Verena Tay has spent more than 25 years acting, directing and writing for Singaporean English-language theatre. She has three published collections of plays and is now working on her debut novel and first volume of short stories. In addition, Verena is an active storyteller-cum-storytelling coach and a co-founder of MoonShadow Stories. Possessing an MA in Voice Studies (Central School of Speech and Drama, 2005) and an MA in English Literature (National University of Singapore, 1993), she has been helping people to improve their communication skills since 2001 and currently teaches voice, speech and presentation skills at various local institutions.