Last week would be the last couple of sessions we will have until the 5th June, which has left me feeling rather bereft! I suppose it's the half term or something (oh, how I miss those!) but what it does mean is that I have more time to write and polish my opening couple of chapters which are due in on the 5th so we can workshop them the week after on the 12th. Eeeep!

We started on Wednesday with another Visiting Speaker Session with:

. Katy Loftus (editor at Transworld - @katyloftus)
. Carrie Plitt (agent at Conville & Walsh - @PlittyC)
. Sarah Jasmon (author - @sarahontheboat)

What was truly lovely about this session was that each of these fabulous ladies are establishing their careers and therefore their passion and hunger for it was obvious to see. For instance, Sarah's first book, The Summer of Secrets is out next year with Transworld, so has been edited by Katy and she is also represented by Carrie; it was like a production line of how a book comes together. 
   Their interest in us was also very encouraging. I tweeted them a day or two before to say how much I was looking forward to the session and they responded by saying that they were too, and that absolutely came across. Near the end of the session, Carrie asked what our books were about, but because there are 15 of us and we'd run out of time, we weren't able to go in to it, but at the end of the course we are to submit our opening chapters to the agents at both Curtis Brown and Conville & Walsh to have a look at (though this is not a formal submission).
   What stood out as the most encouraging was that someone like Sheila Crowley a couple of weeks ago, who it's fair to say is at the top of her game, and Carrie, who is just getting started are equally as excited and passionate about their industry. There's no sense of disillusion, as with a lot of other professions - the joy their industry gives them was palpable.

Then came the workshop on Thursday with Erin. This week we worked on dialogue. I found this incredibly interesting because there was so much to think about and get my teeth in to. A lot of what we were told, when you hear it, is that thing things where you go "oh, of course!" because they're such obvious rules for good writing and yet they're broken all the time when drafting. I'm guilty for breaking every single rule and it's only now going back over it that I realise it. 
   For example, one big cardinal sin is to let the writer's voice come through your characters. So, if I'm writing dialogue for a character that is (first thing that came in to my head) a Cockney fishmonger, he wouldn't speak the way I speak or use some of the words I would use to describe something. Similarly, had I come up with the character of the Dowager Countess of Grantham in Downton Abbey (I frickin' wish), I would have had to adjust how I think and zone in to that character instead of just writing as I feel. TPB's main character is a girl in her twenties so I suppose I took the easy route there but I know I'll challenge myself in the future and write a character who is so far removed from me and force myself to do some real work!
   I also enjoy some "erm"s and "aah"s and really, you ought to have about three or four of those in the books tops - unless of course it's a crucial character point. 
   Dialogue is also a brilliant way of implying narrative so you don't spend pages and pages with big blocks of telling. This is something I've used while going back through the book and polishing. I noticed that I do love me a tangent or two, especially when it comes to exposition, so thank god for dialogue!

Our homework this week was to record a conversation that we hear (up to us whether or not we let the person we're recording in on this!), then go home, transcribe and turn it in to a scene. This is to establish the difference between how people actually talk and how we think they talk when writing. Should be an interesting one! So if you see me lurking around you, phone in hand, finger poised, be warned...! 

EG xx