Workshop 4

Waterloo Station

Week 5:

Workshop 4

Group 2: Peer Reviews.
Group 2: stories returned, with corrections and provisional grades.
Distribute Group 3 stories.

Fiction Exercise 4: Travelling hopefully ...
(R. L. Stevenson)

James Joyce’s “Clay” is a fairytale, a parable, and a realistic story all rolled into one. It describes a character trying to make an appointment on time, then goes on to what happens to her after she arrives.

• Imagine a character hurrying to get somewhere. Why? What do they hope to find there?
• Put three obstacles in their way – not insurmountable problems, but little things that threaten to derail their schedule. One is a person, one some kind of machine, and the third is … something else.
• Write a paragraph describing what they find when they reach their destination. Would it have been better if they’d never got there after all?

(maximum: one page – minimum: one paragraph)

Next week:

• Group 4: Workshop Stories Due. Bring enough copies for the whole class
• Group 3: Peer Reviews