The storyteller in all of us

Yesterday I conducted a writing workshop in Loughborough. The objective - to go through the process of planning a crime novel with a group of twenty-or-so participants. To do it all in a morning. And to do it led entirely from the input of the group - rather than making up the story myself.

(Perhaps I should explain at this point that this - novel writing and teaching creative writing - is what I do from day to day. This is my ordinary life. In terms of the eight-point-story-arc, this is my own personal 'stasis'. But more of stasis and eight-point-story-arcs in later posts. )

Here is the question that woke me up worrying early yesterday morning - would the group have sufficient story ideas to make the workshop work? Would the participants have that story-telling instinct? If they didn't have it, the workshop would fall flat indeed.

As it turned out, my only problem was keeping a lid on the stories that were pressing to flood out. The workshop zinged.

Yesterday wasn't the first time I've conducted this particular workshop, so I should have known not to worry. People - all people - seem to be story-tellers by instinct.