Insights on Creative Writing from the PAWA 254 Creative Writing Workshop in Kisumu

• Guest Speaker – Mark Kaigwa (Founder at Nendo - Strategy & Storytelling for Digital Africa)

• Facilitated by Kitata Makau– Senior lecturer at University of Nairobi

Two weeks ago (Thursday, May 29), I attended a creative writing workshop convened by PAWA 254 at Royal City Hotel in Kisumu where participants were lectured by two guest speakers (Kitata Makau, lecturer at University of Nairobi and Digital Strategist Mark Kaigwa) on the fundamentals of creative writing and the state/future of journalism in the wake of wide spread stand alone journalism made possible by the internet and sporadic technological advancements that have challenged the place of the traditional journalist. The participants included students from top tertiary learning institutions in Kisumu County. It was the first time PAWA 254 convened a workshop in this part of the country and having attended some of their events in Nairobi, I knew exactly what kind of time I was going to have (MAD FUN!)  at the forum (as we’d later decide to call it after amending the title from ‘workshop’ in order to encourage more interaction and engagement with the participants).

Dr Kitata, the first to present, took the participants through two hours of questioning their rationale as writers and exploring fundamental questions as far as writing is concerned including how stand alone journalism is changing the face of  creative writing and journalism, writing as a vocation vs as an avocation, inspiration in writing and content generation, feelings vs objectivity and subjectivity in writing, rewriting your work before releasing it, the writer’s environment, use of proper diction, symbolisms and use of sophisticated language. He also explored how writers can enhance their productivity by first discovering their personal voice and realizing whether and how writing contributes to their personal development.

In summary, here are a few pointers in enhancing your skills as a creative writer (of any kind) according to Mr Kitata:

1.   Prepare an outline.

2.   Assess your readership.

3.   Know the place of jargon in your writing. Avoid ambiguity.

4.   Simplicity is the essence of profundity. Avoid using 3^rd degree words. Use first degree words.

5.   Brevity. Be brief and concise.

6.   Avoid wasting words (using windy phrases).

7.   Write in the active voice. Turn every passive into active voice where possible, for example, ‘The car was driven by Jane’ to ‘Jane drove the car’.

8.   When concluding, conclude.

9.   Avoid digression. Keep to the intended subject and keep to the principal line of argument, plot or study.

10.Cut your anecdotes. The short, amusing bits of your plot that were not initially planned for might come out as contradicting the initial flow of events or confusing the reader if they are not relevant.

11.Cut out negative sections as much as possible. A writer appeals better if he conveys positive messages as opposed to sharing your negativity.

During lunch break, Mark Kaigwa joined me and my colleagues from Maseno University on our table and listened to our heated debate about expecting metropolis towns and urban centres to develop using the same model as those of capital cities, in this case Kisumu vs Nairobi. I was on the receiving end of this debate antagonizing this notion that Kisumu had to emulate the development patterns seen in Nairobi. My colleagues insisted that Kisumu could only develop if it copy pasted the development model used by Nairobi. Mark reserved his views on this debate but asked all of us to justify our views as he listened, commented and asked questions. The break was quite short but while heading back to the conference hall, he agreed that emerging metropolis towns shouldn’t be expected to develop in the same manner that established metropolises had done. The environment and other factors differ and hence it is impossible to simply copy paste development strategies though he also made it clear that he did not encourage complacency in the part of leaders and development practitioners in these emerging metropolises. I agreed.

The group of students from Maseno University with guest speaker Mark Kaigwa after the forum.

After the break, he conducted an interactive two hour humor filled presentation titled Is Journalism Dead? And Other Short Stories that questioned the place of traditional reporter-in-the-field kind of journalism in a world taken over by social media and technological advancements that have eroded the importance of traditional journalism and publishing. Social media has revolutionized news reporting by making real-time news updates more available to everyone by anyone who can generate news content. He shared data on social media use in Kenya and Africa and challenged participants to take up blogging and other avenues of content generation for digital platforms.

Three days after this forum, I initiated a bloggers association in my university. We are twelve days old today! I am currently sourcing for content from the ten members who have shown interest so far and we have also agreed on tentative activities to carry out between now and end of July! Good stuff!