If you are new here, hello and welcome! I am Mel Parks and I have been running creative writing workshops in Sussex, UK for ten years while being a freelance writer, researcher and editor. I began this Substack, Awen, in 2022 as a gathering place for my thoughts about the writing process and to share some stories and creative inspiration along the way. Awen is free to read and share.
If you can’t join me in Sussex, I have a weekly guided creative writing Zoom hour on a Tuesday afternoon (2-3pm UK time; pay what you can).
Dear all
At the close of a year all about memoir, life writing and journalling, as well as some family challenges, I have been feeling the pull of fiction. Playing with it, let’s say. After all, making things up, inventing characters and worlds is fun! And that is what drew me to creative writing in the first place. As a child, I lost myself in story after story for hours and days. And I love the escape of it, the ideas, the new beginnings, the expanded thinking.
Also, my Thursday morning group told me at the start of this set of five weeks that they wanted to be able to turn a spark into a story, that they struggled with plot, and with seeing things through to the end. So I dug out my story technique and story theory notes and we’ve spent the last few weeks playing story games and seeing how those could develop into something.
Yesterday, after using Ken Adams’ Story Spine in the round (Each person writes a line with the first prompt, then passes it round to the next person who reads what has already been written and adds another line with the second prompt and so on.), we took elements of the stories in front of us (or used longer projects we were working on) and added layers of conflict.
Ken Adams Story Spine Prompts
This is a storytelling technique that has been used by Pixar. Here are the prompts:
Once upon a time…
Every day…
Until one day…
And because of that…
And because of that…
And because of that…
Until finally…
And ever since then…
The moral of the story is…
This is such a funny collaborative game to play which teaches the fundamentals of storytelling - that we start with a situation and then there are things that happen that cause other things to happen and then there is a consequence which affects the rest of that character’s life.
Each person in the group ends up with an absurd story but there are always elements to develop further. For example, I had one with two sisters who represented opposite points of view and a locked box found on a beach.
So I then invited participants to add layers of conflict using a mind map, freewriting, list making, questioning or any other ideas generating technique they preferred. Popular films and bestselling books often include many layers of conflict, adding tension at every turn. You don’t have to tick all of the boxes, but if you feel your story is lacking something, maybe see if you can add a layer of conflict or two.
I used to think that there were only two types of conflict - internal and external, but have since found (and read) that these can be broken down further, for example:
Conflict with self - this can be a moral dilemma, something the character wants to do but is against their better judgment, or an internal wrangling with a big decision coming up.
Relationship conflict - this can be with a friend, neighbour, partner or other significant character in the story. Ideally, at some point (maybe about two thirds of the way in) the main character will feel all alone and need to figure things out by themselves.
Societal conflict - what is going on in the wider human society? How is this affecting what the character says, thinks, feels does?
Institutional conflict - this can be anything that brings your character up against a big corporation or government, some entity they feel powerless to challenge, let alone overthrow.
Environmental conflict - this can be extreme weather or anything in the wider natural world that affects your character’s life and adds tension to the story.
Spiritual, supernatural or mythic conflict - this is about something other than ourselves and the human world. What else is going on? What deeper ancestral layers and echoes are there? Or does your character experience a loss of faith somehow?
And to add to all of that (if that wasn’t enough!), I invited everyone to think of a race against time - what did the characters need to do before all was lost? How do we get the clock ticking and provide an immovable deadline? I gave the example of a rom com in which one of the main characters has to tell the other how they feel before they get on a plane or get married. There are, of course, many other examples.
So if you’ve got a situation you don’t know how to turn into a story or a story you’ve written that is a bit flat, dust it down and brainstorm some ideas for how you can add layers of conflict. Hope that helps :)
I am still reviewing my offer for next year, but what I do know for sure is that I will be carrying on with my Tuesday afternoon Zoom group (starts 9 January) and my Thursday morning in-person group in East Grinstead, Sussex (starts 11 January). These are both open for booking:
Thursday morning in-person Group
Until next time…
Mel
This newsletter was created by Mel Parks, a writer, researcher and workshop facilitator based in Sussex, UK. Mel runs writing workshops locally and on Zoom and researches creativity in midlife as well as her personal connection to nature. She has been widely published and is currently working on a series of moon and plant-inspired essays.
It is free to read and share, but if you value my work, please do stop by my virtual honesty box and leave a handful of loose change.