The Belated Return to Swanwick

 

It's that time of year again; my annual visit to the Swanwick Writers' Summer School, just delayed by a year thanks to some pandemic which probably has a personality that's even more unbearable than that of the Epideme virus in Red Dwarf. After the isolation of the last eighteen months, I was so glad to be back. Swanwick is normally my big summer social, and last year's cancellation hit me pretty hard, with the week when it was going to take place spent at home drinking. Anyway, with that cheeriness out of the way, let's talk about the week. With some apprehension which later passed as the week went on, I was once again able to head to the picturesque Derbyshire surroundings of the Hayes Conference Centre. With that in mind, let me share this year's cavalcade of take-homes and anecdotes.

A Milestone

This has been my fifth visit to Swanwick, and one big first for me was that I actually had something published which I could sell in The Book Room, thanks to the publication project in one of my third year university modules. I took advantage of a discount I had with a printing service to produce a batch of copies of my pirate novelette, Gentlemen of Fortune, specially for Swanwick. Granted, there'd been a little bit of a misadventure on the first night when I'd forgotten to fill in the paperwork for the book room, having arrived later than most after the coach had been delayed. While I was wrangling that, the Book Room closed while everyone was attending the chairperson's welcome. Then I was told I'd forgotten to put price tags in the books. However, I got that sorted out quickly, by which time the queue at the bar had died down. As the week went on, people were coming to me with the copies that they'd bought, asking me to sign them. It felt great, and by the end of the week I'd sold two thirds of my stock.

Not only did I have a book out, but I also ran a course this year. On Tuesday, commonly known as the "procrastination-free day", I ran an hour-long workshop on Character Motivations. This was an attempt to apply Shalom H. Schwartz's "Theory of Basic Human Values" to characters in fiction, and was originally written in my first year. It was thin on the ground - partly due to clashes with other courses such as Val Penny's workshop on Writing Suspense, which I would have gone to myself if I hadn't been teaching this one -  but that made things a little more comfortable for me, teaching to a smaller group. I probably could have explained some parts a little better, and maybe should have used some well-known examples, perhaps from the same work if possible. But some people did come up to me and say they enjoyed it, and those who weren't able to attend for one reason or another told me they'd heard good things. All in all, not bad for my first attempt at teaching a course.

Specialist Courses

As always, courses at Swanwick are divided into three categories: Specialist Courses, which comprise four hour-long sessions spread across the week; Short Courses, which comprise two sessions which take place on the same day, with lunch in-between; and Workshops, which comprise a single session.

My chosen specialist course this year was on Writing Historical Fiction, presented by Michael Jecks. I consider historical fiction to be one of my main genres, but with a rather pulpy tone. I suppose I'd call my work "action/adventure", but taking place in historical settings. I have used actual historical figures in some projects, but it's not always easy to get a feel of the characters of the individuals in question. The course looked at pointers for historical research, along with common pitfalls. He also discussed the markets and returns for the author in publishing. There was even a session in which he talked about how he drew influence from people from his past as inspiration for some characters. Even though my stories take place in the past, I sometimes draw influence from aspects of my own life. I quite like using the historical settings to distance myself from those events, especially those that can be painful for me.

Unfortunately, the last session was complicated by an incident that morning, in which an apparent bird strike on a transformer had resulted in a village-wide power cut. With a cold breakfast and a limited supply of coffee, I was sat in the dark conference hall wondering if the power would be back on before the morning break since none of the hot drink dispensers were functioning. Thankfully, the lights came back on midway through the session, and a disaster was averted.

Short Courses

There was a great array of short courses this year, often marred by the fact that there's always going to be two interesting ones happening on the same day.

Sunday's short course was on Show-Stopping Story Writing, hosted by Bettina von Cossel. I'm definitely one of those writers who falls into the "Show, don't tell" school of thought. As I mainly write shorter fiction, I find that I prefer to show, as it paints a more vivid picture. This course was all about that, through use of body language to convey characters' emotions (even getting asked to share a crib sheet I'd shared before), and the use of the senses to help establish settings. There was a fantastic exercise in which we were asked to put a character in a circus, thinking about what atmosphere would be provided by the setting, and perhaps showing the protagonist in the setting to establish their character. It had made me think about the visual storytelling in Who Framed Roger Rabbit, and how that kind of thing could be done in prose.

On Monday, I settled on Full Time Writers in the Gig Economy, with Anita Belli and Gerald Hornsby. After all, I've finished university and have moved out of my parents' house now. I'm going to need to find ways to earn a living through writing while adopting a bohemian lifestyle to compensate for losing out on the student experience thanks to this pandemic. The course discussed different types of publishing, along with ghostwriting (which I landed my first job in last month), editing and proofreading, and teaching. I'm certainly leaving my options open.

On Wednesday, I looked at Creating a Series with Diana Kimpton. I chose this one because I intended to make more stories featuring the adventures of Kestrel and Scar, both before and after the events of Gentlemen of Fortune. I'm definitely looking at doing them as a freestanding series, making each story self-contained. The course also looked at how to publish and market a series. There was even one exercise in which Diana asked the class to mind-map a series from one prompt. When she chose pirates, I noticed a few eyes turning towards me.

Thursday involved a visit to Simon Hall's Character Clarifier. I've attended previous courses on characters run by Simon Hall, and this one was familiar yet fresh. The workshop looked at ways to establish a character through their appearance and mannerisms, and writing scenes which involved them interacting with others through a date, a minor mishap (a waiter spilling a drink on them), and a more serious incident (a fire at the location of the date). Unfortunately, I was only able to attend the first session, because I needed to leave the afternoon free to write before the Annual General Meeting.

Evening Events

Swanwick had its usual array of evening events, including a "Birds of a Feather" event on the first night in which you could meet up with authors who wrote in the same genre as you and exchange advice or bounce ideas.

Unfortunately, I missed out on a fair bit this year. For example, I had to dedicate time to evening writing sessions to meet an upcoming deadline on a ghostwriting project. Other times, there were two events which I was interested in which took place at the same time. Case and point, the Monday night Poetry Open Mic and the General Knowledge Quiz. I was interested in both, but ultimately chose the quiz. Didn't win though.

Of course, there's always the fancy dress disco, with this year's theme being Roaring Twenties. I donned a Peaky Blinders-style flat cap with my trademark brown suit which miraculously still fits despite the lockdown kummerspeck, and even had my hair cut before heading out. It was a lot of fun, and the point in the week when a lot of people had been able to lighten up. I even ended up judging the best fancy dress costumes. My Charleston probably needs work though.

Of course, there's also the dregs party on the final night. I spent a portion of the night on the lawn by the new fire pits, and even lay back and watched the stars at one point.

I've truly missed being at Swanwick while this pandemic's been raging. I'd heard warnings that if it didn't go ahead this year, it wouldn't be going ahead at all. I love Swanwick, and I wanted to keep that ship sailing, so I decided to successfully run for next year's Committee. I'm looking forward to Swanwick 2022.

Happy writing.

I've missed you too.