The Emirates Airline Festival Of Literature is holding a series of workshops prior to the start of the festival which is taking place this March. These workshops will vary from fiction. script writing and Creative writing in Arabic and will take place during the period of 28 February and Saturday 1 March.
10 – lunch CHARACTER. Characters that engage are pivotal in the success of all forms of fiction. How do we find our characters, and how do we develop them? Sherry will take you through some exercises to help you invent characters that work for you and for the kind of fiction you hope to write. There will be time for some individual writing, and some group feedback.
Session One SETTING Prose fiction must always be grounded in a world that either is real or feels real. How can we achieve this? Sherry will provide more exercises and also look at the importance and use of research in the writing of fiction.
Session Two WRITING SURGERY Each of the participants will have a chance to discuss their own writing with Sherry, and map out a plan for development. Sherry will give an honest and helpful critique of the writing done so far.
Session One DIALOGUE How can we write dialogue that is easy on the ear? And how can we make it work for us in our fiction? There will be more tips and exercises.
Session Two PLOT Through collaborative writing, we will work on basic plot development and how to play around with this. There always needs to be a beginning, middle and end, but not necessarily in that order!
There will be time for more individual writing and feedback from Sherry. If there is time, there will also be a session on pitching and selling your work .
A celebration. All participants will get a chance to read to the rest of the group, and take the time to appreciate what they have achieved.
What are the challenges you have faced in script writing, what are you looking for from the workshops.
How To Get Started Workshop – creating ideas, developing the idea and film study.
Main character development, premise, theme and acts with exercises, feedback and writing time.
How To Keep Going Workshop – developing acts, writing key scenes, step outline.
Tips, hand outs and advice on what next after the workshops and feedback.
Read through of some scenes to celebrate and appreciate work produced.
Moroccan poet and novelist Mohammed Achaari has had a long and successful career in both genres. His literary works have been translated into French, Spanish, English, Italian, Russian and Portuguese and in 2011 he was declared joint winner (with Saudi writer Rajaa Alem) of the International Prize for Arabic Fiction for The Arch and the Butterfly. He has worked in journalism and politics, which led him to take up various government posts, including that of Minister of Culture from 2002 to 2007.
In 2013 Mohammed was a mentor on the IPAF Nadwa workshop programme in which writers explore new texts as they are created, and compare different styles and approaches. The writers read chapters from their novels or short stories, and hold wide-ranging group discussions on the art of writing. They examined the relationship between personal experiences and writing, structure and narrative techniques, and how human concerns are explored in their work.
In this 2-day Festival Prologue workshop in Arabic, The Art of the Novel, Mohammed Achaari will give participants the opportunity to develop their understanding of the elements of writing fiction, including narrative structure, creating character and effective use of language. There will be key time to practice their own writing, share their work and reflect on what others have written.