Farnham Literary Festival
March is the start of the literary festival season and the first in the calendar is Farnham.
Having co-ordinated last year’s festival (60 events across 11 days with more than 100 authors, presenters and performers), it was great this year to sit back and just be part of the bookish fun. And this year, I ran a sellout writer’s workshop along with writer and book editor, Sara Starbuck. Our subject was How to write a chilling ghost story.
Ted & Sara - waiting for our workshop participants to arrive
One thing we like to do as part of our workshops is write ‘in situ’, and our location was the stunning Garden Gallery at Farnham Museum - a great space for a gathering of writers. It is beautiful on a summer’s day, but the wild, wet and windy weather we had on Thursday evening was aboslutely perfect to inspire a ghost story.
It was almost as if we were playing a spooky horror-movie soundtrack as the wind whistled around the blackened windows.
And, as we waited for the first of the participants to arrive, the door to the gallery mysteriously opened several times. We almost decided to leave a table free for our invisible ghostly visitors!
Once everyone was settled, we put our writers through their paces over the course of two hours, beginning with exercises to generate ideas, then battling with the nitty gritty of how to structure a modern ghost story before settling down to the business of actually writing one.
Whether you were writing microflash fiction or an epic novel, there were activities to help find and develop your story. From omens to endings via personal fears and getting beyond ghost-story tropes, we looked at all angles of the genre, taking in examples from some of the master-writers along the way.
By the end of the workshop the atmosphere was electric with that fizz that comes from intense concentration and a creative burst of energy. I have no doubt that some brilliant stories will emerge from the high-quality work that was shared.
We’re planning plenty more workshops over the summer in locations across Surrey and Sussex, so if you’re interested in taking part, don’t hesitate to get in touch.