Thirty-three participants have completed my short story course, Finding My Voice - Short Story Writing. The course, funded by the National Arts Council, took place online during March and April 2022.
By all indications, and judging by participation levels, participants gained significantly from each session. Aside from the new knowledge and insights, they benefitted from peer and facilitator feedback pieces of writing generated during the classes.
The course covered areas such as crafting believable characters, the story arc, 'show don't tell', writing scenes, effective dialogue and 'place' as a character.
On the one hand, the course was grounded in techniques related to powerful story-telling in various genres (with examples from South African writers but also affirmed by writers and teachers more broadly). On the other hand, the course was steeped in an appreciation of African story-telling — how deeply storyelling is rooted in our culture and how this culture deepens our ways of telling the story.
At the end of the course, participants fed back that they had gained immensely through the coaching/instruction related to specific problem areas. They mentioned areas such as point of view (POV), developing effective plots and tips for avoiding flat or one-sided characters, There was also general appreciation of discussion of the Hero's Journey and how this concept (developed by Joseph Campbell) was relevant both to storylines as well as the deepening of characters. In each class, participants — who hailed from different corners of the country — engaged in writing exercises and received feedback on such writing exercises.
The classes for the first cohort took place from 14 March to 18 March 2022; the second cohort classes tan ran from 4 April to 8 April 2022
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