My Story: Crafting Personal Life into Art
Target Participants:
Open to both new and seasoned playwrights and/or prose writers who are fluent in English.
Duration:
2 sessions, two hours per session
No. of Participants:
Min: 6 people; Max: 12 people
Pre-Workshop Preparation:
- 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.
Notes 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.
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
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. For more information about Verena, please visit www.verenatay.com.
Participant’s Feedback:
Feedback from 1 Nov 2011 Workshop (BooksActually)
“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