St Peter’s budding authors learn from the master

St Peter’s College Year Eight and Nine students who have special abilities in creative writing were recently treated to a morning workshop with popular New Zealand author David Hill.
All students arrived armed with samples of their own writing. Mr Hill led a discussion on the good writing techniques that he had observed, and shared some advice on how the writing could be further improved. The author even took time to share some secrets of the trade; such as why too many adjectives slow down the writing process; how direct speech brings the characters alive; and how to sneak good ideas from all kinds of sources.
Mr Hill read extracts from some of his own novels to demonstrate these ideas. Students were delighted with the extracts he chose and the discussion of his ideas. Of particular interest to some students was Mr Hill’s advice on how to get one’s work published, especially when he mentioned that students might be paid for good poems or stories!