Creating a convincing ‘voice’ for your story is essential and perhaps the ‘tone’ of the voice generates the content because it captures the heart of the speaker? When we hear… Read More »GCSE/GCE English : Creating a narrative voice with Keats’ Lamia.
(This is an excellent prompt exercise courtesy of York University used on one of their very stimulating online Creative Writing Courses. It encourages us to be spontaneous and helps develop… Read More »English Tuition Bolton Manchester: Creative Writing- Prompt Exercise!
What sound was that? I turn away, into the shaking room. What was that sound that came in on the dark? What is this maze of light it leaves us… Read More »English Tutor Bolton Manchester : Harold Pinter A Poem for Antonia Fraser.
A few weeks ago, the Phoenix Writers in Horwich Bolton, enjoyed a very helpful session about the ’emotional arc’ of the story. We were encouraged by Anna Turner, our excellent visiting… Read More »GCSE English Creative Writing Bolton, Manchester TUITION: Phoenix Writers Talk.Count Mephisto
About His Person Five pounds fifty in change, exactly, a library card on its date of expiry. A postcard stamped, unwritten, but franked, a pocket size diary slashed with… Read More »Simon Armitage ‘About his person.’ Unseen poetry Analysis-METONYMY and STRANGENESS!
I met a traveller from an antique land Who said: “Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand, Half sunk, a shattered… Read More »Ozymandias by Shelley Analysis/Commentary : Why poetry matters? Reading Group Adlington and GCSE English literature.
Thankfully, Andrew Garfield’s Spider-Man is a Superhero who gets a rush out of his powers. After a flashback prologue, the film opens with a wonderful sequence, shot partly POV in… Read More »Spider-Man Film Review by Mark Wrigley English Tuition Bolton Manchester
Isn’t this poem immediately involving and doesn’t it grip at something almost physical or visceral when we read it? Does it connect us with what we acknowledge in private or… Read More »The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost: Reading Group example poem for Adlington Library.
Muppets Most Wanted Film Review. Beating up on the Muppets might seem the act of a curmudgeon, but what the hell – the new film isn’t very good. It’s… Read More »English Tuition Bolton Manchester: Muppets Most Wanted by Mark Wrigley.
p.s. He’s red Red ran through his blood, It could always be seen through his head and his heart, His language was not written by his hands, But his feet… Read More »Creative Writing Manchester Bolton: p.s. he’s red by Jamal-A Level Student and Manchester United Fan!
(In my previous post I talked a little about the role of the storytelling and its effect upon identity. The Keats’ poem Lamia was mentioned too as the inspiration for… Read More »English tuition Manchester Bolton: First Person Narrative-finding the voice with Keats’ Lamia?
Stories are more than mere asides to our lives. Imagine a day without stories, a day without the exchange of tales. How dull would the day seem, how much a… Read More »English tuition/Tutor Bolton Manchester: Inspiration from Keats’ Lamia poem.
Mr. Tulkinghorn takes out his papers, asks permission to place them on a golden talisman of a table at my Lady’s elbow, puts on his spectacles, and begins to… Read More »English tutor/tuition Bolton Manchester Revision : Bleak House and Lady Dedlock-unlocking a character?
I wouldn’t be surprised if Fred Vargas casts her eyes out of her window(not literally but there may be time in another novel) over porridge and lets her mind plant… Read More »English Tuition Bolton, Manchester: Creative Writing Master Class with Fred Vargas-the extraordinary image.
This AQA Anthology poem has been extensively analysed on Tusitala here. But looking at it a few days ago again I was struck by its subtle recognition of the way… Read More »Harmonium By Simon Armitage: AQA Relationships. The Art of the RESCUER?
“Well, I read the book you left last time.” “Oh, what do you think of it?” They were off and all was as usual. But was it? Weren’t… Read More »GCSE/GCE Creative Writing Tuition Manchester Bolton: Inner conflict in Katherine Mansfield’s Psychology Story
Perhaps one of the most limiting claims I get to hear as an English Tutor is the phrase ‘I don’t know’. ‘I don’t know.’ These words are often spoken when we arrive at… Read More »GCSE/GCE English Revision Manchester, Bolton: The Importance of your intuition !
Different stories may demand different voices or narrators. And here’s an easy or useful way to get you thinking about the problem of narrators. Think of something you OWN and… Read More »English Tuition/Tutoring Bolton, Manchester: How do you choose your narrator?
Je ne parle pas Francais After that I took Dick about with me everywhere, and he came to my flat, and sat in the armchair, very indolent, playing with the… Read More »English Tuition/Revision Bolton Manchester: Katherine Mansfield’s use of the sinister first person narrator?
THE week after was one of the busiest weeks of their lives. Even when they went to bed it was only their bodies that lay down and rested; their minds… Read More »Katherine Mansfield’s The Daughters of the Late Colonel: Analysis-English Tuition Bolton Manchester
A few weeks ago, the writer Char March gave a most insightful and lively guest workshop for the Phoenix Writers’ group in Horwich, Bolton. Our final exercise involved writing… Read More »Creative Writing Bolton, Manchester-Phoenix Writers Horwich: Dark School- a short tale. Janet Lewison
“Atticus was feeble: he was nearly fifty. When Jem and I asked him why he was so old, he said he got started late, which we felt reflected upon his… Read More »WJEC English Tuition Bolton Manchester: To Kill a Mocking Bird-Tips for the examination.
When Cleopatra contemplates the thoughts and situation of her absent lover Antony, the audience is gifted a glimpse of an imagination deeply human and fallible. For Cleopatra’s imagination transports her… Read More »English Tuition Bolton Manchester: Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra Act One, Scene V- Analysis
‘Throughout my examination by her, she has been scrupulously polite. This does not alter the fact that she frightens me, her unnatural composure, her air of knowing something infinitely useful… Read More »English Tuition Bolton Manchester: Apple Tree Yard-Louise Doughty’s Icy Game of Consequences?
Are you an English student living in the Southport, Formby or Liverpool areas? Perhaps you are facing English examinations this summer or you have to submit an extended project or… Read More »English/Media Studies Tuition/Tutoring Southport, Formby and Liverpool: Essay and Dissertation support and advice.
‘She didn’t answer. Angry and half in love with her and tremendously sorry, I turned away.’ And as I sat there brooding on the old , unknown world, I… Read More »GCE English Tuition Bolton, Manchester: The Great Gatsby- the rhythm of elegy?
Oh, wasn’t there anywhere where she could hide and keep herself to herself and stay as long as she liked, not disturbing anybody, and nobody worrying her? Wasn’t there… Read More »Katherine Mansfield Fragment: Inspired by her story The Life of Ma Parker.
Martin, I really enjoyed the first installment of your Cinderella tale: Cinderella’s not a fella! Could you please tell me something about the inspiration for this story and perhaps why you… Read More »Martin Thomasson’s Kindle Writing Interview: Cinderella, Inspector Calls and Under Milk Wood!
Our Perfume can elicit strong reactions from others! Virginia Woolf’s reaction to Katherine Mansfield ‘s French perfume must count as one of the most acerbic and psychologically revealing. The perfume in question may have been Guerlain’s… Read More »Katherine Mansfield and Virginia Woolf: Perfumed Intimacy-uneasy soul mates?
