Behind the scenes from our current project Be Part of Things: we are the project. This particular blog is an unfinished draft published “as is”.
Introduction:
Hello and welcome to the Portal Recap edition of our very irregular blog! Portal was 1000 weeks ago and I’m certain by this point all of the wonderful little details we held onto probably fell between the cracks.
But we’ll give it a shot anyway!
Kirste Vandergiessen (Barmera):
Portal is an event that I produced to bring all the little pockets of fantasy lovers, readers, gamers, and writers in the community together under one roof. And it worked! This year’s Portal consisted of four workshops, all facilitated by local fantasy lovers and creators. The workshops covered world-building, clay sculpting, writing, and mapmaking, so by the end of the weekend our participants were able to tuck their own semi-developed worlds into their pockets and take them home.
People travelled from Port Lincoln, Mount Gambier, Adelaide and Broken Hill – as well as all throughout the Riverland – for approximately 30 people at each workshop. So warming to see my tiny hometown full of fantasy friends! Not only did Portal build our crafting, creating and writing skills, but also brought together a few different crowds of fantasy lovers into the same room together and connected community.
Pulling together a weekend-long event is a hell of a thing, but wow, what a pay off.
Thank you to everyone who travelled to Barmera, to my behind-the-scenes supporters, to everyone who left feedback, and those who offered a kind word to me and the Part of Things team.
Huge thanks and congrats to our fantastic facilitators, Stuart, Sam, Alysha and Riverland Tabletop Guild. Each of you have brought such a life to this festival.
Read about the first Portal here: https://writerssa.org.au/2022/portal-fantasy-workshop-festival-reflection/
Keep up to date with future Portals here: https://linktr.ee/portalfestival
Eliza Wuttke (Port Lincoln):
Portal 2.0 here I come! 8 hours to opening night party… yes, I was late leaving home but made it just in time!
To get myself into the Portal spirit and fill I asked my fantasy loving friends for audiobook recommendations to listen to on the drive. My question landed with Kirste while she was in the RYT office, with more brains on the job the suggestions came thick and fast but the most highly recommended was a story podcast, recommended by both Sam and Ro, The Magnis Archives. It had been a hectic week so for the first few hundred kilometres I opted for some chill tunes. After a stop in Whyalla for lunch I decided I was ready to dive into the archives… it was good… too good. I found myself get so caught up in the story that I would look down only to realise I was travelling well under (or slightly over) the speed limit, distracted by the story. I put the tunes back on and parked the archives for a task where distraction isn’t unsafe…
30 minutes to opening night! Ahh I made it, just in time for the opening party, after a quick bag drop I headed straight for Part of Things for the cozy celebration, it was so great to see friends old and new while enjoying some delicious soup (thanks Amy!).
Drive into the Portal! Two back to back days of brilliant workshops and big chats. The sort of stuff that makes you feel lighter but also more full at the same time. The magic of making, learning and being with other creative folk. I won’t recount blow by blow, you had to be there. In fact, if you’re reading this and you weren’t there I’d suggest putting the 2026 dates in your calendar… right now, before you forget.
I am so incredibly proud of my amazing friend Kirste and the work she put into creating such a welcoming, judgement free space, curating the perfect weekend of activities for fantasy lovers and newbies alike. Bring on Portal 2026!
Alysha Herrmann (Riverland/Mount Gambier/newly Peterborough):
I forgot to write my reflection at the time. Ooops. That’s one of the things I’ve been most reflecting on with this whole project – how slippery time is, and how easily things fall off the todo list as we juggle big and busy lives.
Kirste asked me to be one of the facilitators for Portal and because we’ve been talking a lot about Betwixt River and Stars and what happens next, I decided to use the world I’ve been creating as a jump-off point to talk about tropes, building characters, and story structure more broadly.
This is the workshop plan I made in the notes app of my phone:
Acknowledgment of Country
Pyramids
Fantasy stories to share important knowledge and make sense of the world
Set the tone
- What is Part of Things, photos & tell us what you thought of Portal
- Who am I, who is Kai
- Try new things, beginner mindset, sit somewhere new
- It’s okay not to know. It’s okay to ask questions. It’s okay to be uncomfortable.
- Be brave. Take care of yourselves and each other.
- Shit draft is a good draft
- We’re here to learn
- Fantasy is about imagining new ways of being and doing
Pick a character that speaks to you or resonates in some way.
(Little print outs from Sam’s illustrations)
Around the circle intro:
Your name and why you chose that character. Why are you here today?
Kai read intro to Lands of the River. Kai give out Betwixt Zines.
Drabble exercise using character they picked. Define drabble. Define story (something has to happen).
6minutes. (Read a couple to each other on your tables)
- We don’t need to know everything! (About our worlds or our characters)
Talk a bit more about Betwixt River and Stars – what it is and why it exists.
TALK about workshop deed (anything created in this workshop is “non-canon”).
Mention the zine opportunity. Show other zine examples.
Tropes Discussion (whole group)
Write on the whiteboard – brainstorm what tropes do we know. Ask some volunteers from the room to share their favourite tropes
Most people use the term trope to refer to common plot devices within various genres of writing. For instance, a popular trope in romance fiction is bringing together two people who despise each other and making them fall in love (ie. the enemies to lovers trope).
Example Tropes
- Found Family
- The Quest
- Wise Old Mentor
- Legendary Creature
- Magic schools
- Reluctant Hero
- Secret Hidden Worlds
- Training Sequence
- Good Guys Fighting Evil
- Taverns
- Side Quests
- Ancient and Powerful Artefacts
- Libraries filled with books
- Fantastical Creatures
- Antagonist turned ally
- Ally turned enemy
- All hope lost
- The cavalry arrives
- Price for winning
- Secret Heir
- Chosen One
- Evil Overlord
- The Lucky Novice
- The Waiting Evil
- The Ancients (lost civilisation)
- Romance
- False protagonist
- Team/Companions
- Animal Companions
- Badass and Child
Explain Story Core (print out for each table)
Using same character, or a different character pick one of the tropes and write a story core for the character you picked.
Plotting Techniques
- We all have different brains and need to take different pathways to get to where we’re going
- This isn’t a plotting workshop but I did want to touch on a couple of plotting techniques (story core is one)
- Main thing: what do you want your story to do? (And does your story do that?). Themes can be helpful, but what it does can also be “make people laugh”, teach me to write better dialogue, practice writing 1st person POV, etc. Many, many articles, listicles and blogs with different plotting techniques – try some out. As a writer it’s helpful to add things to our toolkit (even if we never use them again).
Betwixt River and Stars started with a list about the Riverland – things we loved and hated or had questions about.
POST IT NOTES
Let’s start with questions you have about the (real) world. These can drive the things you explore in fantasy.
Idea generator – ridiculous ideas list in table groups (responding to list of questions).
Alysha example question from thesis “how do we stay hopeful in the face of climate crisis?” Why don’t people put their trolley’s back after going shopping? Am I really a coward or would I be brave when it really counts?
Territory mapping?
Things you are passionate about
Things you know a lot about
Things you want to know more about
Combine those things. WRITING TIME – YOUR OWN WORLDS AND IDEAS
Betwixt River and Stars – GET INVOLVED – how to submit for zine publication (early next year).
Stop getting in our way as storytellers
- Question what gets in your way?
- Letter to self. What are you going to work on over the next 6months, 12months, 2 years? What do you want to remind your future self of?
How to stay in touch with me and contribute to future stages of Betwixt River and Stars.
Next Portal – reach out to Kirste. Leave your feedback.
“The speculative stories we tell in the present help us tell new stories of the future” (Tomin, 2023)
“We see a world alike but different from ours and, in turn, see our own world differently” (Tomin and Collis, 2023).
***
From memory, I think we got through less than half of the content but we had a fun time talking tropes, story ideas, characters and why we love fantasy.
My favourite parts of Portal though were watching everyone else get involved in all the other workshops. There was such a glorious sense of community, care, and enthusiasm all weekend and I loved the intergenerational mix of participants. Portal was so very special.
Here’s a lil guy I made during Sam’s claymaking workshop. It’s a space whale from my honours thesis. ❤
Be Part of Things: we are the project has been assisted by the Australian Government through Creative Australia, its arts funding and advisory body and the Regional Arts Fund, which supports the arts in regional and remote Australia.
#regionalarts #creativeregions #regionalartsaustralia #regionalstories
Part of Things 