On Monday 25th September, Stephenie (UV), Emma (UV), Millie (LVI), and myself, Norah (LVI), gathered in the Lumi Library for our first Writers' Guild meeting of the academic year.

The meeting commenced with icebreaker introductions, in which lively discussions were brought up about J.R.R Tolkien’s worldbuilding in The Hobbit, Haruki Murakami’s female characters, and Ocean Vuong’s poetic style of writing in On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous.

Then, we delved into the heart of the meeting – the topic of clichés in writing. Having discussed the wasted opportunity of overusing clichés such as ‘as cold as ice’ or ‘as hard as nails’, we all had a go at crafting our very own unconventional expressions to breathe fresh life into familiar ideas. Examples of the phrases we came up with include ‘as quiet as the reception of a joke made in poor taste’ and ‘as slow as the hour hand of a clock during a Maths lesson’. With that, we concluded a thoroughly enjoyable hour of thought-provoking questions, fervid literary discussions, and stimulating creative writing challenges.

Next week, we will discuss ideas for the Walter Scott Historical Fiction competition – do come along for inspiration and encouragement!

Norah, LVI