Eight people came to Brighthelm on Thursday. We sat in a loose circle in the Roof Room, which was the right size for it.
I opened with the fabula/syuzhet distinction, which turned out to be a useful way in. Most people in the room had broken chronology instinctively, without a name for what they were doing. Giving it a name didn’t change what they’d already built. It just made the decision legible.
Bakhtin took longer. The chronotope sounds abstract until someone maps it onto a novel they know. Mrs Dalloway came up before I mentioned it. So did The Trial.
The writing exercise asked for one missing coordinate: a scene where the reader doesn’t know where they are, or when, or where the scene fits in sequence. Several people removed time rather than place. The scenes that came out of it were quieter than expected, more interior. One piece had no setting at all and didn’t need one.
Discussion ran over. Nobody moved.
The next session will be announced in August. I’m leaving Brighton for a while.
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Daria Ryzhikova Writer