This is a fairly detailed breakdown of one of my 60-80 minute workshops, presented as an example of the kind of material I cover in a session. The main purpose of this presentation is to encourage students, through practical involvement, to understand that creative writing isn't beyond any of them. At the bottom of the page you can find some teacher/librarian feedback.

Workshop breakdown

1. The two reasons to even bother writing creatively, ie for yourself, or for others, and the personal emotional risks that come with sharing your work with others.

2. My views on story and the way strongly-drawn characters drive that story, based on my own experiences as a boy growing up in Fiji.

3. Keeping the story simple, so you don't distract the reader.

4. Writing from experience.

5. Showing rather than telling, through the six senses (the five usual ones plus emotional experience) and how dialogue and action can be used to show, thereby dramatically improving the reader's connection with the characters.

6. The different components of a story - character, setting, complication, and how a good complication is in fact custom-designed for the character you create, and how knowing that character will lead you to knowing what their complication should be.

7. From my own practice, the message that once the idea is found, some of the story can be written pre-planning, thereby establishing who the character is and the story's setting, and after that, the complication. Then the planning can start.

8. How to get great story stimuli from the most unexpected places, and how two or more seemingly unconnected words can freely associate to form a vivid place in which to start the story.

9. If time permits, some editing tips from my own practice.