Thursday 24 April 2014

Woman's Weekly Writing Workshop
On Friday 11th April, I left Cardiff on the 6.55 am train from Central Station to arrive at Paddington just before nine o'clock. This would allow me plenty of time to get to the workshop by coffee time...or so I thought! Now, I'd always prided myself on my map reading skills, having navigated all over France on annual family holidays in the days before SAT navs. No, what I hadn't mastered was the map app on my brand new iPhone! 'What!' I can hear my Geography lecturer daughter screaming in disbelief. Yes, Jo, I took the wrong turning out of the tube station, got totally confused by the little blue man 'walking' and got myself completely lost! To cut a very long story short, I eventually got to the Blue Fin Building in Southwark by flagging down a taxi driver who got me there just as Gaynor Davies, the Editor, was starting her welcome - apologies, embarrassment, flustered, hot and bothered! :-( 

The room was full of people like me hoping to find out what it takes to be a Woman's Weekly writer. We were all seated around a very long table that seemed to fill the room. I soon spotted my friend Helen at the other end and Glyn, another writing buddy who was attending, was seated a few seats away from me. Gaynor opened the proceedings with a warm welcome and introduced our tutor for the day, Della Galton. 

Gaynor began by talking about a typical Woman's Weekly reader and recommended that we try to see the reader not the age, a reader who may be interested in travel, an optimist, involved with family and homes and community minded. When reading the stories in Woman's Weekly you will find characters like this with whom the readers can relate and feel empathy. She then listed the sort of stories that would interest the editors:

  • there should be warmth, especially in the way the characters behave
  • stories that are character not plot driven where there is conflict or crisis, for the character to have a problem and the character has to change 
  • more humorous stories
  • stories that end on a note of optimism but the ending should not be 'tied up in a bow'.
On style, the editors do not want too many adjectives, adverbs or images. Keep to 'said' for dialogue. They do not want you to tell your readers everything. Respect them and let them work things out for themselves.

On the length of stories, she mentioned one pagers (900 - 1000 words) and two pagers (1800-2000). Apparently the awkward lengths are the 1200-1800 word stories as they can't do much with these from a lay-out point of view. At this point, I was trying to think how long was the last story I submitted to WW!

Della then led us on a timed writing exercise. We suggested characters, problems and settings for her 'random idea generator' and she then asked us to write an attention grabbing paragraph about a mother who was having marital problems and the setting was a station. It was good to see everyone busy writing away in complete silence but it soon became apparent that we had to read our efforts out. This didn't turn out to be as unnerving as I thought it would be because it was great to see how everyone had interpreted the scenario so differently. 

Before lunch, Della talked to us about ideas, plot and developing short story characters which was preparation for another writing exercise in the afternoon. 

Lunch time was a great opportunity to catch up with the other writers and admire the impressive Blue Fin Building. (It was a bit of a blur when I arrived!) The views from the roof top terrace canteen are amazing and the food is pretty good too!





The afternoon began with an exercise where we completed a chart for the main character of a story. Knowing everything about our characters will make them credible and explain why they behave in the way they do. Time was spent reading these out and explaining how the stories would develop and Della and Gaynor interjected with useful comments and advice.

The day ended with a session from Della about why stories are rejected. Here are some of the reasons she covered:
  • predictable endings
  • overused theme
  • underdeveloped characters
  • insufficient plot
  • too much plot
  • wrong market 
  • bad luck!
All we have to do now is finish the stories we started in the workshop and put into practice what we've learned. I wish! Seriously though, I highly recommend attending one of the workshops. The next ones are listed on the Woman's Weekly website as taking place on  August 15th and September 1st but I'd check to see if places are still available. For two excellent posts  about writing for Woman's Weekly, you may like to visit Della Galton's Blog, one posted on April 21st and a previous one on February 25th.

PS. The walk back to Southwark tube station on our way home took a matter of minutes so I asked Helen how she'd found her way to the workshop that morning. "Oh, I did it the old-fashioned way," she said. "I asked directions and the man said 'Just follow the orange lamp posts!'" Now, why didn't I think of that? Hee-hee!

Thanks for reading. Have you been given one of the reasons listed if you've had feed back about a rejected story? Please leave a comment.


PPS. If you'd like a light-hearted read, my short story Harriet's Easter Surprise has just been published by  Cafe Lit . Or, for something totally different, why not read Freed To Be Myself on Creative Frontiers ?


You may follow me on @JanBayLit

14 comments:

  1. Thanks for sharing your day Jan, sounds great. Your Easter story is lovely as well. I'll add it to http://www.writecritical.weebly.com

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    1. Thanks, Sue. I did enjoy the day and meeting Gaynor and Della. I did add my story to Write Critical last night once I heard from Debz that it had been published - or at least I thought I had! - so if you'd like to check for me that would be great. Just finding my way around it at the moment but I like the way it's evolving. Off to read your story on Creative Frontiers now. I had an email to say that there was a new story up. Congratulations, too, on having another story published on Alfie Dog yesterday! :-)

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  2. So that's all there is to it, Jan! Thanks for sharing this information.

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    1. If only, Julia! Although WW need more writers, I still think it's very tough to get a story accepted as it is for all the other magazines, I'm sure. I shall have to keep trying! Onwards and upwards as they say! :-)

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    2. Or onwards and sideways if your a writecritical-er:)

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  3. Thanks for sharing what you learned, Jan.

    I've had stories rejected from WW as 'well worn theme'. So then I try something really different and they say 'not quite us'. I'm working on getting more of them somewhere between the two.

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    1. No one really knows what 'the well worn theme' really is, though, do they Patsy? I only get a standard letter - thanks but no thanks. They did say they are looking for 'fresh and original' so you must be on the right track when you get your acceptances! :-)

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    2. BTW, we were given a 'sample' Fiction Special to look at in the workshop and your story 'Home Port' was in the one I had (Nov 2013)! Great to see it as it was one of the first I'd read when I joined Write Critical.

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  4. I've just read your fun Easter story. Can't think where you got the idea for someone bossy and critical called Patsy! ;-)

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    1. Ha, ha! I wrote it for a competition last Easter (2013) before I got to 'know' you....honest! ;-)

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  5. Oh - my worst fear - getting lost!! Really glad you made it there before it got under way! It sounds like it was a really great day, thanks so much for sharing all of this. I think you have spurred us all on now, WW may well be inundated soon :)

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    1. Embarrassment and wounded pride, especially having to admit it to the family, didn't come into it, Sam! :-( Glad to hear that this has spurred you on. Good luck with your writing.

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  6. Hi Jan,
    I've nominated you for the Liebster Award - congratulations! You'll find the details of how this works on my post today. Good luck!
    The workshop sounded as if it delivered everything you expected it to - brilliant!

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    1. Thank you so much, Teagan. I shall respond more fully in my blog post tomorrow and nominate some new bloggers for the award. Much appreciated! :-)

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