sallymurphy.com.au

Sally Murphy, Australian author

An Evening Behind the Walls

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If you are a children’s literature lover, or a poetry lover, or just ever wanted to have an evening behind the walls at the Fremantle Prison, you are in luck.

On June 15 The Literature Centre are hosting an in-conversation event where you can hear ME chatting to Steven Herrick, arguably Australia’s finest verse novelist.

I’m excited because I adore Steven’s work – and, in fact, he is one of the reasons I fell in love with the form before I started writing my own verse novels.

If you are keen, you will find all the details at this link, and you can book now! See you there.

Out and About in January

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One of the absolute joys of being an author is the chance to meet and engage with young people.

In January I have two such chances and am still smiling when I think of them.

First, I went up to Perth and, for the first time ever, presented in the Hay Street Mall, a part of Perth I have always loved, as it holds many memories, usually around shopping with first my mum, then my friends and, as an adult, with my husband, children, or by myself. But this visit was special – because in a previously vacant shop space, the Centre for Stories has set up a Story Lounge – and I was invited in, courtesy of the Literature Centre.

I ran a writing workshop for upper primary aged writers, and we had a lot of fun exploring the contents of a Writer’s Toolbox.  I didn’t get any photos, but the Lit Centre posted this lovely story about it, also showcasing the two other writers who were part of the line-up.

Then, just yesterday, I was lucky enough to be invited to a Teddy Bears’ Picnic, hosted by the City of Bunbury Libraries, and held at Maidens Park, not too far from where I live.

 

With Jono and Penny from the Bunbury Library

What fun! I took my trusty old teddy bear, Pandy, who I have had for as long as I can remember, and we read, sang, spoke and laughed to and with lots of children, parents and teddy bears.  The library staff had asked me to read  my first two picture books –  Floatingest Frog (which is still in print) and Pemberthy Bear (which, sadly, isn’t), and it was a real joy to bring these books out for a new audience.

You can see here just how much fun I have reading – I am reading the line “aaaaaaalll the way over here” while Penny and Tanya look on:

 

A park is always a lovely place to share – but this park was extra lovely, with towering gum trees, plenty of shade and – a bonus – a kookaburra laughing along to some of the lines. Pandy had a lovely outing too, and I have promised him he’ll be taken along again one day.

Now I’m back at my desk writing more, reading more, but looking forward to more lovely outings in 2023.

Setting the Scene

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During my recent spell at the Literature Centre in Fremantle, I really enjoyed talking about my book 1915 and about developing setting. One of the passages I read was from the opening pages. In this scene, Stanley (my main character) and his friends are climbing a pyramid to have a photograph taken. While Stanley is a fictional character, the photo he is posing for is very real. It is the famous photograph of the 11th Battalion AIF posing on the pyramid of Cheops, taken in January 1915.

Image result for 11th battalion cheops

When I was looking for a starting point for the novel, I realised that this photograph, which I had seen and marvelled at many times, was a perfect opening scene. Stanley, my character, is from WA and consequently a member of the 11th. If he were real, he would have been in that photo, in January 1915. A perfect starting point.

So Stanley climbs the pyramid and poses for the photograph. As he does, of course, he can survey the landscape, including the training camp where he is based. He can also give details about other elements of the setting – the sounds, the smells, physical sensations, emotions and more

I read this scene to seven different groups of students, and asked them what they learned about that setting from what I read. Here are some of the things they came up with:

  • The sight of the pyramid Stanley is on, and the others nearby
  • The view of landscape of the camp, with tents, Artillery Road, water reservoirs and more
  • The sounds of the camp – men training, food being prepared, animals moving, hawkers nearby
  • The smell of sweat on the men, who’d been training for months, and were busily climbing the pyramid
  • The tastes of the dusty pyramid and the desert sand.
  • The feel of the pyramid under Stanley’s hands and feet as he climbs
  • The feel of the heat of the sun and the sweat trickling down his back
  • The feeling of wonder in being n this place so far from home.

Every group found different things – because as well as what was in the words, their personal experiences made them imagine things which the words merely implied. For example, a student who had been to Egypt said she could taste and smell the food that the hawkers were selling.

The reading and discussion were precursors to a writing exercise in which the young writers wrote their own descriptions of favourite places. And what descriptions they were! Rich not just with visual description but with sensory detail which made me want to visit (or revisit) the places they described. (As an aside, these pieces, and those written by TYP participants from around the state will be displayed as part of WA Week Celebrations in June).

Think about your own writing. When you build a setting, are you evoking a range of senses? Remember your old science lessons where you learnt about the five senses (and then think beyond that to senses you may not have covered, including emotion, temperature and more). And how do you deliver this information? Is it all in a big block, or is the information gleaned from what the action?

Here are six tips for building setting:

  1. Give essential information, but don’t dump too much at once. Really think about which bits are essential to tell us, and which bits are implied (do we need to know the exact shade of green of the grass, or will we know the grass is green because it springs beneath the characters feet?).
  2. Trust your readers to build their own picture from key details (there is no mention of the smell of sweat, or of food, in the opening pages of 1915, but most readers said they were invoked).
  3. Try to activate senses other than sight, though visual details are still important. When discussing this opening scene I realised I missed an opportunity to focus on the sounds of the camp, although they were implied in what Stanley sees and thinks about.
  4. Consider the feelings the setting invokes in your character – and how to convey this to readers. I wanted them to feel Stanley’s sense of wonder at finding himself on a pyramid, in Egypt, such a long way from his life back home. I have attempted to do this by contrasting this photo sitting, with one he had back home the year before.
  5. Show don’t tell. While some description may be necessary, a lot of your setting will be built through action. Stanley is climbing a pyramid. His exertion, and the fact that he struggles to hear the sergeant’s orders down below, suggest the scale of the pyramid.
  6. Consider how much of your setting might be already familiar to your reader and hence not need a lot of description. When preparing these workshops on setting, I realised that my verse novels have very few descriptions of setting. When I thought about this, it was because the settings included family homes and school classrooms. A few key details were enough to invoke these settings for readers, whereas Egypt and Gallipoli, are likely to be unfamiliar to most readers, as well as the differences between the world of 1915 and of 2015.

One other thing I learnt from these workshops is that being the teacher doesn’t exclude you from learning things yourself. I am now busily thinking about setting in my work I progress.

Jail Bird

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So I’ve been quiet the past few weeks because I’ve been in prison.

No, in spite of the date, that’s not an April Fool’s joke – I really was prison. Or, to be more precise, I was in an ex-prison. The Literature Centre is an amazing children’s literature centre, situated in the old prison hospital at the Fremantle prison, which was decommissioned in 1991. How wonderful to have such a vibrant, exciting organisation hosted within such historic environs.

I was there to run full day workshops for talented young writers as part of the centre’s Young Writers programme, which sees keen readers and writers visit the centre four times a year (one day each term) to learn from authors from around Australia.

Last week I worked with students from years 7 and 8 from across the metropolitan area, and on Monday and Tuesday of this week I worked with year 6 students. Every day was different, with the interests of each group shaping the way the day unfolded. What was common was my delight in sharing a little of my own work with such keen readers, and then me being blown away by their keenness to write – and the quality of the work they produced in the activities we worked through.

Some highlights:

  1. Young people coming from such a wide variety of schools, all keen to get the most out of th experience.
  2. Reading and listening to the writing they produced – shared willingly and received appreciatively by the other participants.
  3. The amazing teachers and parents who managed to get their students there, recognising the value of the experience.
  4. The amazing Lit Centre staff, who looked after me, making me feel like a star – all the while keeping each day running smoothly.
  5. Signing lots of books for participants eager to read more of my work.
  6. Sleeping in a cell (fortunately not locked!) and getting to experience the amazing surrounds. Although the history is fairly sad, Fremantle Prison is an important piece of Western Australia’s history. And the old hospital is now a vibrant energetic place, which is a great way of perhaps shooing any negative energy away.

I’m back home now and back to work – writing, reading, and catching up on lots of things, as well as looking forward to a family Easter weekend. I’ll be back at the Lit Centre later in the year for the Celebrate Reading Conference.

sallymurphy.com.au