What's next?......... Watch this space for our latest projects!

Auction of Promises: Full details

PANTO TICKETS!

The prize everyone wants - priority booking and free programmes for next year’s LPA

Pantomime.The bidder will receive four tickets and programmes, and be able to reserve a further 2 tickets (which they will pay for as usual), giving them a maximum of 6 reserved seats at a pantomimeshowing of their choice.The bidder will have first choice of seating. [Reserve £80.00]

WINE TASTING!

A tutored fine wine tasting with Master of Wine Imran Zuberi (assisted by Nick Ford) for up to six people. You will taste six fine wines under the guidance of wine expert Imran in the comfort of your own home. A selection of canapés appropriate to the wines will be provided. Promise worth £600.[ Reserve £300]

ORIGINAL STORY STARRING YOUR CHILDREN!

An original story written by Steve Bachelor featuring the children of the winning bidder to be printed in book form. Promise worth - what price a child’s wonder?

WEBSITE CONTENT AUDIT!

A 5-page Website Content Audit donated by Home Interiors Writer, Rachael Hale, (site does not have to be on the subject of home interiors). If you have fallen out of love with your website or it’s not giving you the results you need, the chances are that your business has evolved, but your website copy hasn’t. That’s where a Website Content Audit comes in.Following a Zoom call where Rachael will discuss your goals, she will comb through five pages of your website with a sharp, professional eye, spotting what’s working, what’s outdated, and where you can dial things up. Then, you’ll receive a report packed with actionable tweaks and fresh ideas, so you know exactly what to change to attract the right people and turn more visitors into clients. No fluff, just straight upinsights to make your website work harder for you! Rachael Hale is an experienced freelance copywriter. (Clients include The Telegraph, The Independent, Tapi Carpets, Habitat, Argos, Architecture Vogue and Abode2 magazine) www.homeinteriorswriter.com

 Promise worth - £299

HAND CRAFTED SIDE TABLE!

A hand crafted oak and resin side table.

STRENGTH TRAINING!

3 Strength Training sessions with Body Mentors to be taken by 6th March 2026.

Becoming stronger makes everyday tasks easier. Our personal training will help you increase muscle mass, strengthen your bones, and even improve mental wellbeing. We’ve helped clientsfrom 16 to 80 years old build muscle, reduce fat, improve mobility, and become more resilient. We’re here to guide you on the same path towards achieving these results. Based at HildenPark Golf range and Gym in Hildenborough with plenty of free parking on-site. Promise worth -£165

GATEAU!

A beautiful bespoke gateau style cake baked by Louise 

GARDEN DESIGN/PLANTING PLAN!

A garden design or planting plan by local garden designer Paula Beresford up to the value of £200.

PAMPER HAMPER!

A Mystery Pamper Hamper, guaranteed to help you relax and feel good - value £100

VOCAL COACHING!

4 Vocal coaching sessions (to be taken by 6th March 2026) with Michele Restieux - Michele will help you understand how the voice works and how to strengthen it, so that your speaking/singing voice is the strongest, most natural and authentic sound you can make. These empowering and athletic vocal sessions will stretch and tone the muscles that are used in sound production and help you overcome any mental barriers to accessing your best sound. Whether you are looking to sound more confident in your speaking or singing voice, these sessions will unlock your true potential. Michèle has coached business professionals, actors and singers of all types of repertoire. She has also helped people who suffer from issues such as stage fright, panic attacks and asthma, by improving their breathing technique and helping

them develop their vocal strength.

Website: www.michelerestieux.com/vocal-coaching Promise value £160.00

WILLS!

A standard will or mirror wills prepared by Perry’s - this will include the writing of a will (or mirror wills for a couple). Value standard single will £365, mirror wills £575

MATHS TUTORING

3 hours of GCSE or A Level maths tuition from the Headteacher of Judd school, who has over 20 years of teaching experience. Worth £150

Bid now lpaboxoffice@gmail.com

Bidding will end at 9.30pm on Friday 12th December 

Fireside Tales Project: Tips and ideas for story writers                  24 September 20

Here are some of the things we discussed at last night’s open forum, plus some of the material from our June masterclass: “ inhabiting your character”. I hope they give you some inspiration to have a go at writing your story.

Getting started – a few ideas:

·       Try opening a book at random and then randomly picking a single word. Then, explore various possibilities for a story with this word as the title. We took the word “Grip” and considered that the story could be about:

o   A person hanging on to a bridge

o   A mountaineer

o   A hold-all and its contents

o   A trapeze artist

·       Try starting with the location of the action. This will then lead to ideas for who the characters in a story in a particular setting would be. For example, on a cruise ship, you could have a captain, a lady dripping with jewels at the roulette table etc. In a court of law, you could have a judge, barristers, a defendant etc. This will prompt you to think of ideas for the plot as well.

·       You could take a character we already know from a famous story or film, and write a story about them, taking them into unexpected places…

Story Elements:

We discussed the basic elements of a good story, whilst remembering that in this project there are no rules! The important thing is to give your imagination free rein and not to pre-judge your ideas. Here are some elements you can think about:

·       A location (a time and place where the action occurs)

·       Characters

o   Use the material from “inhabit your character” (see below)

o   Give your characters depth by considering the aspect of duality (how things are rarely as they even at face value)

·       An event which provokes one or more characters into action

·       A conflict which arises from that action (conflict can be either internally (within one or more characters), or between several characters.

·       A suspenseful moment or turning point

·       A conclusion if sorts – some stories have ambiguous endings which allow different readers to come to different conclusions.

Become an observer!

You are a writer now – remember that! You are authorised to explore your ideas any way you want to.

Write everything down!

Always have a notepad or dictaphone handy to capture ideas and observations as they happen. The smallest thing can spark the imagination:

·       A piece of music

·       A snatch of conversation

·       The weather

·       A personal experience

See your story as a movie:

Try to put yourself in the location of the action, as one of the characters, and then see how the scene might play out. You may have several options from one scenario. Take one option at a time and see if it leads you somewhere. If not, move on to the next idea. Coming up with vivid images for your story and setting will give you loads of detail to write about.

Characters:

Characters develop a life of their own and they may surprise you with their actions! You may start a story with a firm idea of what will happen, but then your character seems to decide to go in a different direction. This can be a really satisfying experience, so go with it!

Get help!

If you want to email some of your writing to Michèle for her thoughts, please do. You could also swap writing with someone else involved in the project, or let a friend give you their view. Whatever advice you get, you can choose to ignore it or go with it as you wish.

You can also review our own writing – and it’s vital to do this regularly to keep the story moving and ensure there are no inconsistencies (these can creep in without you realising!). If you keep your writing simple and plain, it will be easier to read and understand, so consider this when you review your work. If you actively want complexity and feel that works within the context of your story, that’s fine – so long as it’s a conscious choice with reasoning behind it.

Be ruthless!

When you review your wok, get rid of anything that doesn’t serve the story. Only keep what enhances your story and helps to keep it moving.

Keep going!

Most writers sit down to write every day. Even if it’s just for a few minutes, consider making a regular habit of writing, so it starts to come more naturally and fits into your daily life.

Stumped?

If you are really stumped for ideas, but want to have a go, please get in touch with Michèle – she’ll be happy to have a chat with you to help get the creative juices flowing.

Here are the notes from the June masterclass “Inhabit your character”. Remember this was created for actors trying to really get into their characters, but you should find a lot of it useful as a writer too.

LPA Masterclass, Wednesday 17 June, 8pm: How to inhabit a character.

You’re looking to build a detailed profile and backstory that enables you to really feel what it’s like to be this character. You need to know what makes this character tick, what motivates them, what it feels like to be them in everyday situations. Here are some of the things you can think about:

·       Their name

·       Age

·       Background:-

o   Hardships?

o   Traumas?

o   Money – do they have it or not

o   Education

·       Voice:-

o   Volume

o   Pitch

o   Speed

o   Vocabulary

·       How does the voice change in different situations?

o   When threatened

o   When trying to persuade someone of something – when Alan Rickman as Snape is frustrated with Harry he speaks quite fast, snapping sarcasm. When he’s trying to influence or scare the students, he speaks very much slower and quieter – but with such intention.

o   When something they really want is within reach

·       Character traits (see * below).

·       Handwriting

·       Belief system – what three rules does your character live their life by?

·       Motivation:

o   What does your character want most?

§  What/who stands in their way?

§  What are they prepared to do?

o   What does your character value most?

§  Why?

§  What would they do if this is threatened?

·       How would your character react in a given situation:-

o   Someone queue-jumping ahead of them

o   Winning the lottery – what would they spend it on?

·       Duality

o   Reasons for their behaviour that are routed in their past – if your character is a bully, find out why or create a backstory.

§  Secrets up they’re trying to keep?

§  Anything they’re ashamed of?

§  Fears?

·       Daily tasks:

o   Making/drinking a cup/mug of tea

o   Cleaning their teeth

o   Sneezing/blowing their nose

*Character Traits:

·       Physical traits:

o   How do you walk?

o   Elegant/clumsy?

o   Twitches and tics?

o   Mannerisms (eg winking, gestures)?

·       Emotional traits:

o   Easily tearful?

o   Cold?

o   Warm and sociable?

o   Introvert/extrovert?

o   Fearful/courageous?

o   OTT?

o   Provocative?

·       Body language:

o   Confident?

o   Awkward?

o   Threatening/provocative?

o   Compliant?

o   Proud?

o   Subservient/timid/weak?

·       Appearance:

o   Smart/casual/scruffy?

o   Regimented/careless?

o   Colourful/monochrome?

o   Eccentric/traditional?

o   Make up/Jewellery?

o   Tattoos?

o   Provocative?

·       Duality:

o   Reasons for any of the above which are routed in your past?:-

§  Secrets you’re trying to keep?

§  Anything you’re ashamed of?

§  Fears?

More Writing Tips!

Here are some inspiring writing tips from people who should know!

Write it ­honestly, and tell it as best you can. I’m not sure that there are any other rules. Not ones that matter.—Neil Gaiman

Fiction that isn’t an author’s personal adventure into the frightening or the unknown isn’t worth writing for anything but money. —Johnathan Franzen

Don’t sit down in the middle of the woods. If you’re lost in the plot or blocked, retrace your steps to where you went wrong. Then take the other road. And/or change the person. Change the tense. Change the opening page. —Margaret Atwood

Structure means knowing where you’re going; making sure you don’t meander about. … I’m a structure nut. I actually make charts. Where are the jokes? The thrills? The romance? Who knows what, and when? You need these things to happen at the right times, and that’s what you build your structure around: the way you want your audience to feel. —Joss Whedon

If you are using dialogue—say it aloud as you write it. Only then will it have the sound of speech. —John Steinbeck

Remember that two great masters of language, William Shakespeare and James Joyce, wrote sentences which were almost childlike when their subjects were most profound. ‘To be or not to be?’ asks Shakespeare’s Hamlet. The longest word is three letters long. Joyce, when he was frisky, could put together a sentence as intricate and as glittering as a necklace for Cleopatra, but my favourite sentence in his short story ‘Eveline’ is this one: ‘She was tired.’ At that point in the story, no other words could break the heart of a reader as those three words do. —Kurt Vonnegut

Pace is crucial. Fine writing isn’t enough. Writing students can be great at producing a single page of well-crafted prose; what they sometimes lack is the ability to take the reader on a journey, with all the changes of terrain, speed, and mood that a long journey involves. Again, I find that looking at films can help. Most novels will want to move close, linger, move back, move on, in pretty cinematic ways. —Sarah Waters

In writing. Don’t use adjectives which merely tell us how you want us to feel about the thing you are describing. I mean, instead of telling us a thing was ‘terrible,’ describe it so that we’ll be terrified. Don’t say it was ‘delightful’; make us say ‘delightful’ when we’ve read the description. You see, all those words (horrifying, wonderful, hideous, exquisite) are only like saying to your readers, ‘Please will you do my job for me.’ 

—C.S. Lewis

Cut (perhaps that should be CUT): only by having no ­inessential words can every essential word be made to count. —Diana Athill

“I took a master class with Billy Wilder once and he said that in the first act of a story you put your character up in a tree and the second act you set the tree on fire and then in the third you get him down.” – Gary Kurtz, producer of Star Wars Episode IV and V.

 “First, find out what your hero wants, then just follow him!” – Ray Bradbury, author of Fahrenheit 451

 “SHOW UP, SHOW UP, SHOW UP, AND AFTER A WHILE THE MUSE SHOWS UP, TOO.” - ISABEL ALLENDE

“IF IT SOUNDS LIKE WRITING, I REWRITE IT.” -ELMORE LEONARD

“SIMPLICITY IS THE ULTIMATE SOPHISTICATION."–LEONARDO DA VINCI

"THERE IS NOTHING TO WRITING. ALL YOU DO IS SIT DOWN AT A TYPEWRITER AND BLEED." - ERNEST HEMINGWAY

“YOU CAN’T WAIT FOR INSPIRATION, YOU HAVE TO GO AFTER IT WITH A CLUB.” -JACK LONDON