How to Pick Short Story Ideas Out of a Hat

It was a lovely idea. I had rocked up to Lisa Clifford's inaugural writing retreat - The Art of Writing - in the Tuscan hills to give a talk about 'Blogging from the Heart'. I gave my talk, accompanied by nerve-soothing white wine, and in the following days found myself swept up in writing lessons given by expert tutor/novelist Jim Friel ('The Posthumous Affair').

I was daunted. I've never taken part in a writing exercise in my life. I never show my work to anyone unless it's at submission stage. I never open up my ideas to anyone, toss things about, shake down my story line.

Perhaps I should. Do you?

One of the exercises that really had me rolling was this: Jim put a batch of different locations typed on slips on paper into a big colander. He put a batch of different characters into two empty fruit bowls. He then put a batch of different plot lines into another container. Then he barked: Get To It!

A group of writers stared at each other, some squirming, others already rising from their seats. You took one slip from each bowl and sat down for a matter of minutes - constructing a story sketch with your location, two characters and plot line. A recipe.

A field of bright strawberries
A gambler
An only child
A compass error

What would you make of that? Or,

A spaceship
A reluctant bride
A detective
A gift is returned

Astonishing, isn't it? Fun. Crazy. Belittling. A cusp.

Oh dear! My way of writing short stories is so gluey compared to this - I have to have a springboard of a sort, a nexus to head towards, or a jarring first line. Not so much characters as shadows to work with. Movement and action, direction. Then I like to let something magical take place. I can't say I will get great stories out of these hats - but it is good to have one's thinking upended, no?

F.Scott Fitzgerald by Carl van Vechten

One morning Jim read the most bewitching passage by F. Scott Fitzgerald and showed us a master a work. Deft description. Action. Dialogue. Ahhh! Another day he used a passage from Joyce's 'The Living and the Dead' to show words in motion: this time he asked those present to extract, understand and reshuffle the great writer's shimmering words, and create a poem. A poem - yes - but less of a poem than a new sensory way of reading words, of slipping them into place.

It all had this writer quite dumbstruck, enthused, keen to get back to work.

Have you ever been to writing workshop? And?