Narrative Workshop Blog Post (1)

The top three insights about writing I got from the workshop today were on imagery, character development and theme. Firstly, for imagery, we talked about how important it was to describe the setting using imagery, because it sets a visual picture in your reader's mind. In addition, imagery can also set the tone of your writing, because how you describe your setting could be indicative of your narrative's tone. Secondly, character development was talked about for both the narratives we workshoped in class. Especially if you are the main character and the narrator, it's important to choose your diction well. This is because how you talk about things can be attributed to your character's identity. For example, in Zeina's narrative, her as the child is the narrator. We talked about how you should try to imagine what a child would notice, especially when she (as a child) described her mother. We told Zeina to focus on colours and patterns instead of brand names because that's probably what a child would also focus on. Lastly, theme was a very important aspect in Cat's narrative, and we spent a long time discussing it. She had a running theme throughout 3 of her "mini stories," and it was very important for her to make that theme more evident to the reader. This way, it won't leave the reader confused at the end about how the different stories all connected. One thing I could do next time to make the workshop more meaningful for the person is point out what exactly they wanted feedback on. Since they themselves asked for specific feedback, I think it would be beneficial if my feedback was structured around what they wanted.