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Climate Champions 2024 FREE Creative Writing Workshops for Children

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Climate Champions 2024 FREE Creative Writing Project Welcome to the introductory post about our exciting new project for children aged 9-13 in the Liverpool City Region (LCR). This project is entirely funded by Arts Council England plus all six library services in the LCR. The theme for this writing project is about climate change and we are running courses in six local schools, six libraries as well as online. What will happen in the sessions We are working with national climate change charity, Hope for the Future, and they will be presenting information during some of the courses. In relation to climate change we will be looking at the causes, consequences and what can we do to try and limit it. This is a writing course and we will be helping the children get inspired to write a short story. During the sessions we will look at the following: Creating inspiring characters - climate champions - based on ourselves  Create a scene for our story Plotting and planning our stories Think...
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Write UP North 2024: Planning Stories

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  Planning your Story Literary Example: My Name is Mina by David Almond When I was at school – at St Bede’s Middle – I was told by my teacher Mrs Scullery that I should not write anything until I had planned what I would write. What nonsense! Do I plan a sentence before I speak it? Of course, I do not! Does a bird plan its song before it sings? Of course, it does not! It opens its beak, and it sings so I will sing. Contrary to Mina’s belief, writers should have a loose plan about what will happen in their story before it is written. Having a such a plan can help you see light at the end of tunnel if you become stuck. Even with a short story there is plenty of opportunity to get into a pickle and lose direction. Having an idea of what happens at the end will really help you. It does not have to be a strict plan; you can add or alter it as you write your story but it is good practice to have some sort of plan handy. I have personal experie...
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Write UP North 2024: Characters

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  In our last post we looked at how to start a story by thinking of where it should take place. When you introduce a new scene into your story, you should always take a little time to describe it so your reader can visualise, in their mind, where your main character is (and create their very own home film of the story). Bringing in characters can add to this. You only need one, but most stories will have at least two. Without a character, nothing of interest will happen in your story. Characters – usually people but it can also be animals, toys, robots or aliens - are the driving force of any story.   Their story can be told via their thoughts, memories and interactions with others. You are human and your readers are human too. Readers like to know what happens to another person, whether they be heroic and super brilliant or whether they are just a normal everyday person, who they can identify with or look up to. Perhaps this character is placed into an extraordinary pos...
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Write Up North: Setting Scenes

  In this post we look at how to set scenes in stories. Everyone’s story must start somewhere. Some start with a hook, some start straight into a bit of action – or at least – something exciting. All well and good. However you start your story, you must think about setting the scene as soon as you can to allow your readers to picture it and settle in before the main action starts (indeed, some stories simply start with a description of where the story begins). We need to remember that readers could be anywhere: a bus, in their home, on holiday or simply in a library. It could be sunny, rainy, warm, or freezing.   They could feel happy or sad, relaxed or worried. Setting the scene can take their imagination away from wherever they are, whatever their feelings and get them prepared for your story. When people read books they, through their imagination and memory, create a home film / movie of the story. Setting scenes can be an excellent way of starting this (and you want to...
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Write Up North 2024 Seeking Inspiration

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  Finding Inspiration for a Story Before we look at the writing process itself, we need to understand where we can find inspiration for our story. As authors we want our stories to connect to readers through our characters and what happens to them. We are all unique but, at the same time, we can share similar attributes with others. There is saying that we should write what we know about (which is probably only partly true). As an example,  Ian Fleming’s most famous character, James Bond, works for MI6 and was previously in the Royal Navy.  Fleming himself worked in Naval Intelligence during World War Two and used that experience to create the character of 007 and some of the stories in the books. Inspiration can come from your own life or from what you see in the world today and in its past. Reading factual and fiction books can also help a great deal. Below are examples of how writers find ideas for a story. Help from the Classics Some of these stories could have be...
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Write Up North 2024

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  Hi and welcome to the very first post of our Write Up North blog. We are so happy to be working again with Blackburn with Darwen Libraries, Blackpool Libraries and Lancashire Libraries to deliver a series of 6 week creative writing workshops for adult beginners all thanks to funding from Arts Council England with support from the three library services. In 2022 we ran a similar project which was exclusively delivered online. This year we are able to deliver sessions not only online but also in several venues: Blackpool, Blackburn, Accrington, Chorley and Skelmersdale and we have had a lot of interest and demand. As well as taking part in interactive workshops, everyone who attends these sessions, will have the opportunity to write a short story of around 1500 words which can be included into a published and e-book anthology. All three library services will add copies of these books to their catalogues so everyone will have the opportunity of reading everyone's stories. There will...
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