On Monday the 6th of November we were among the lucky English class that got a chance to partake in a Fighting Words workshop in town. Ms. Masterson and Mr. Brehony kindly gave up their time to accompany us.
We were greeted by the enthusiastic volunteers and workers at Fighting Words, and started our creative writing straight away.
Firstly, to get our creative juices flowing, two brave students volunteered to act out a short dialogue as an introduction to our story. Then, we all came together to shape it from a improvised conversation into the beginning of our short story.
After the interesting debates over characters’ names, personalities, and even how they said certain sentences, we finally created the perfect starting point for our own individual pieces.
We moved to a different area, where we sat at separate tables of around 3 students, with a helpful volunteer at every one. This was when we all got the chance to take the story in our own direction. Now things began to get interesting. Though our original inspiration was a dialogue about a concert, everybody had extremely different ideas about what our characters should get up to next. Some characters got their own private concert, others strayed down some darker paths, and some even came in contact with dinosaurs. And that’s only the tip of the iceberg.
There was something for everyone in that workshop, and our class really enjoyed the new experience of collaborating on a story in such a big group. Some people preferred working on their own, while others liked the comfort of their classmates’ help. Many students also appreciated the different environment for working, because even the best of us get tired of the same old classroom. We learned how to enhance our creative writing, even just by hearing other people’s stories and opinions. We recommend this workshop to anyone, and would like the chance to thank the school for organising this trip.
Report by Gemma Roche and Ella O’ Neill- Attenborough (2nd Year)