Bridport Prize 2008

Fancy your chances much?

The Bridport Prize has been running now for 30+ years, with many thousands of entrants and two competitions open every year - the poetry and the short story prizes.

Obviously, I'm not one for the poetry. I'd be worse than old McGonagall. So, this year, for the first time in my amateur writing career (career? Ha!) I've entered two short stories - both of which I had critiqued and used on my NAW writing course last year.

In both cases my choices had confused the readers (when hasn't that happened?) and the pieces of work were a chronological nightmare - In the development of the first piece (the largest of the two - 5,000 words - and my entry for the Fiction module) had already undergone a vast change to its theme and subject matter. No longer the opening to a novel it had to change direction, background, and I performed a massive feat of shifting the time in which it takes place, back 55 years (yep, a major shift).

For the Bridport entry I had another mammoth task to carry out. Namely the resetting of the flashbacks. I had relied heavily on these and the story was still somewhat confusing since I had two moments in cars - which was happening when? It didn't matter that the tenses were different. So, I reset the order and had everything run smoothly from beginning to end, changing tense only for the last section. This meant, of course, revising certain elements of narrative development, but that is expected.

The second piece required far less work. Having already worked on it with Jim Crace during the Prose Stripping session at NAW, the biggest heft of the work was, again, the redesign of the narrative and the resetting of the time shifts - I'd confused the readers with my flashbacks (all of which were set within a boat) and which I washed back to time and again as my mind felt compelled.

There were minor necessary changes - namely my over use of sea and fishing terminology (still all largely present but altered for appropriateness and pov) - but nothing on the par with the first. It is a much smaller, easier read. Very light weight in fact (for me) at 1,600 words.

Here's hoping I at least place somewhere - though I find that doubtful. Yes, we can all hope. But I won't hold my breath. Lots more things to be getting on with.

Travel Writing Competition

So, it's past the 25th... I can now return this to the blog:

I recently came across a travel writing competition (through NAW) I thought I'd have a go at - by High Life magazine and judged by a panel that includes eminent traveller Michael Palin - which required a 500 word article on any aspect of travelling, and a 100 word review of somewhere I've stayed.

The competition closed 25th November, and the results won't be out till April 2008, so in the meantime I thought I'd share my endeavours. Since, writing is all about sharing.

But more importantly was how I approached the task? Firstly, I got a flavour of travel writing (I've not been a big fan of travel biographies or travel magazines - I've got too much else to be getting on with instead of reading about the joys someone else had in travelling). I borrowed a couple of magazines and Michael Palin's Sahara and read pages at random to get a flavour of the pieces and the styles.

First Person
Everyone writes in first person. These pieces are very personal to the writer (they went there and lived through their mini-adventures, or, in Palin's case, trek, and the reader wants to feel connected to the writer, to get their opinion, see, feel, smell, hear through them.

Present Tense
In order for the reader to feel a part of the action and to get them as close as possible to what is unfolding, the writer employs present tense. This gives a sense of immediacy. Were the writer to write in the past tense the reader is separated that bit more. Not only have the events already taken place and are part of memory, not the senses, but they've seemingly been written after the event, when memory has forgotten the colour and shape of things, and clouded the reality. Present tense is in the moment, and not as exhausting as one might expect (as per novels written first person, present tense).

Show
The old adage. Travel writing is all about observation and the senses; feeling what the writer felt at the time.

Naming and Description
An offshoot of showing; the writer must set everything properly, giving specific name to people and places where ever possible. The reader wants to know where they are at all times, they want that grounding. Similarly nice, concise descriptions of locations, equipment, furniture sets the place, and fitting these descriptions in with action/observation/movement serves multiple purposes.

Anecdotes
Much of travel writing is comprised of anecdotes - either things that happened to the writer on their journey, or to other people they meet, developed ideas of place and history, the people and what they've been through. These sifts reality to the surface and the reader feels as if they're learning of people, places and culture as they go

Humour
Unlike the works of say, WG Sebald, travel writing should be composed with a light style that has a humourous feel. It needs to be writ with humur, and the writer should make the most of their own immediate observations to certain situations they come across (and subsequently write), since these (and their reactions to them), are often amusing, and link in with the anecdotes. Extending from this is the choice of a humourous style. Since not all incidents are amusing/funny at the time they occur, they can still be written up with later observations that can set ironic/sarcastic tones, make witty contrasts to other situations/incidents, or simply choose to make light of the event in a light-hearted way.

Say what you mean - the Word Limit
As with other journalistic approaches, and the Litopia Short Story competition in particular, travel writing has a defined word limit. With that in mind, the writer must work as hard as they can to pair down their writing, to say exactly what they mean to say, and cull the extraneous information. In certain sections (for example, my 100 Word review) lists are preferable, and whilst there is room for one or two big words (ie: my choice of quiescient), the text should flow with an easy rhythm.

Let's see if I've succeeded, shall we?

Starting with a single idea - as all writing begins - I attacked at least three different aspects before settling on one focal point: the drive from JFK airport to Manhattan Island (May 2000). What was important was the drive itself, and I had to pick out elements that gave the story cohesion. I decided therefore to base the theme on young travellers being out of their comfort zone and not really having the balls to stand up for their fears. This gave me the opportunity for a flashback-like moment from which I could highlight my main point (lack of travel-savvy) - a nice show, and a comedic moment - which has a clearly defined open and end and which doesn't confuse the reader with the time change.

500-Word Feature

We can’t help wondering if our insurance covers this. For a start, we aren’t assured by our driver’s lack of uniform: a lanky, shirt and shorts guy with a shock of white hair and the brusque determination of a deliveryman. He squeezes us into his Dodge Ram; eight semi-compos mentis tourists on three rows of nylon seats, our Atlantic-addled minds urged along by his punchy Brooklyn manner. We scrabble around for seatbelts but, finding none, settle with embedding our nails in the seats in front as our luggage is heaved unceremoniously into the boot.

He slams the sliding door and seals us inside what we already fear will become our tomb, leaps behind the wheel with a toothy grin and gesticulates to the taxi tooting from behind. We lurch into rush hour…

It’s our first trip outside the UK without, what my fiancé and I might term, a responsible adult. At 21 our travel experience has been restricted to family jaunts to the Cornish coast and school led excursions to Ypres and Le Somme. We aren’t accustomed to the art of decision making when faced with a crisis. For example, our current fix: wading through the cheerless professionals at immigration only to discover our names missing from our tour rep’s list. We’ve been abandoned at the first hurdle. The rep is minutes from the end of her shift and we, over six hours and three thousand miles from London, are stranded on Long Island with no means of reaching Manhattan.

Our lack of wayfaring wit had already proven itself even before disembarking the plane: on our final descent into JFK airport we were struggling with one of the questions on our visas.

‘What state is New York in?’ I asked the American who’d lucked out with the aisle seat beside me.

‘New York,’ he inflected.

‘Yes,’ I said, and then, calling on the first rule of British touristing when floundering in foreign parts, I repeated myself – slowly, ‘Which state is it in?’

‘New. York. State,’ he drawled.

Right.

This is how we’ve arrived: hapless, helpless, and, by the looks on our faces as we tear along the Belt Parkway, humourless. Ahead, the sun is setting beyond Staten Island, and on our left, Raritan Bay opens into the hazy expanse of the Atlantic, but we’re too busy praying for our survival to memorise the view. To our dismay our driver divides his time between thrusting the Ram from lane to lane and jabbering at us about the districts and landmarks he points out on the horizon: Long Beach; Jersey City; Liberty, Ellis and Governor’s Islands; Brooklyn and finally the twin towers that mark Manhattan. All the while he thumps his horn to spur other drivers from our wild trajectory and scrawls our details on the clipboard resting in his lap. Us – fearless – Brits cling on for dear life, upholding that typically indomitable British spirit to put up and shut up.

Well, no one else is voicing their concern!

100-Word Review

Nestled five miles west of the M6, amongst the hilly farmland northwards of Ullswater Lake, 2 Rose Cottages, Dacre, is a prime location from which to attack the best of the Lake District. This delightful, self-catering lodge accommodates up to six fell walkers and includes off-road parking, a power shower strong enough to beat out the worst muscular dents, and a local pub boasting a literally gut-busting menu. Cost-effective and quiescent, with a large kitchen, separate dining area, coal fire and a cosy huddle of sofas, this is an ideal stay for the serious hiker and casual stroller alike.

Travel Writing Compo

Pulled till the 25th ;)

I didn't realise so many people would scooch on into the blog on the search for this travel compo - silly me.

60 Words - A Luncheon Unfinished

Wired magazine said:

Hemingway once wrote a story in just six words ("For sale: baby shoes, never worn.") and is said to have called it his best work.

We've all heard it. Short, sharp, and most importantly, poignant. At NAW some of the students have elected themselves to run a 60 word short story competition, and I, in my infinite wisdom, chose to enter, but rather than just scoot off an entry, I sat on it, and toyed with the idea (quite the way I don't normally toy with an idea before writing it). So, here's the brief:

Write a story with a 60 word limit and you can use the word 'lunch' as often as you like without it counting toward the word limit.

And here are the break downs of my entry from original version to final:

Title: A Luncheon Unfinished

Lunch, she thought, had done her in. Lunch, she forsook, half eaten; discarded like a Queen fearing poison. She struggled to the bathroom, tasting lunchtime’s heartburn. Her tablets, within reach – BANG – like an egg in a microwave! She crumpled in the hallway, a shrivelling soufflé… Still. Lunch was her last breath. Lunch, strewn upon the coffee table, waits on; a luncheon unfinished.

It didn't help my inspiration that Laura's nan had passed away recently - a shock that left the family reeling, God rest her - and as you can see my output is of the same ilk (though lunch had nothing to do with her death). I had this great sense of loss, and I couldn't help the thought of her having got up to go to the bathroom and simply collapsing there all alone at 4 in the morning, dead in a heartbeat, with no one to know until many hours later. In a way it feels like I'm sold out to use her as inspiration at all, preying on such a vulnerable subject, and certainly twisting the reality to include the sillyness of "lunch", but that's the nature of the beast of writing isn't it?

Anyhoo, I felt the need to work lunch into the frame of the story - since that was the theme (if you will) of the competition, and so decided that it would be lunch "what done her in"... or so she thought. Queens fearing poison, microwaved eggs and shrivelled souffles all came to me inspirationally. The death itself has its obvious origins.

I don't like the first line though - it's a waste of words - and though it's a nice contrast to the Queen reference, it's all implied by the remainder of the story. I could spread those words elsewhere to evoke some senses - gas and tightening. And though it has a poetic feel, "Lunch was her last breath" doesn't really work. So:

She forsook lunch, half eaten; discarded it like a Queen fearing poison and struggled to the bathroom. She could taste lunchtime’s heartburn in her throat, its gas on her breath. Everything was tightening. Her tablets, within reach – BANG – like an egg in a microwave! She crumpled in the hallway, a shrivelling soufflé… Still. Lunch, strewn upon the coffee table, waits on; a luncheon unfinished.

I continued to play with the Queen motive and the structure of that sentence, developed further the taste/smell of the gas (foul) - gas, egg, souffle all help to conjure this singular idea of eggs doesn't it (doesn't it?) - and made the microwaved egg and crumple and souffle into a single, run-on sentence to see how it sounds:

She forsook lunch, half eaten, like a Queen fearing poison. She struggled to the bathroom, tasting lunchtime’s heartburn in her throat; foul gas on her breath. Everything tightened. Her tablets, within reach – BANG! Her heart gave out like an egg in a microwave and she crumpled in the hallway, a shrivelling soufflé… Still. Lunch, strewn upon the coffee table, waits on; a luncheon unfinished.

"Everything tightened" isn't a great line. It's a waste really, and her heart "giving out" is woolly at best. It's interesting to see what lines I feel are the spinal cord of the piece and that I seem to refuse to change - Queen's poison, the actual fall, and the final sentence (for what I feel is it's poeticsm). But in particular I now have a new power word:

She forsook lunch, half eaten, like a Queen fearing poison. She struggled to the bathroom, lunchtime’s heartburn in her throat; foul gas on her breath. Her tablets, now within reach, would relieve lunch’s venom – BANG! Her heart blew like an egg in a microwave and she crumpled in the hallway, a shrivelling soufflé… Still. Lunch, strewn upon the coffee table, waits on; a luncheon unfinished.

"Venom" - isn't that better? Venom links in with the Poison. It gives the egg feel that definite sense of salmonella. What is still unnecessary however is the very last three words - it's the title for crying out loud (and the title has a free wordcount), so I shouldn't waste them, but utilise three words elsewhere. Also, we don't need to know that lunch is "half eaten" it's implied by being forsaken. Aha:

She forsook lunch like a Queen fearing poison. Lunchtime’s heartburn was in her throat; foul gas on her breath. She struggled to the bathroom, reaching for the tablets to relieve lunch’s venom – BANG! Her heart exploded like an egg in a microwave and she crumpled in the hallway; a shrivelling soufflé… expelling not just air… still. Lunch, strewn upon the coffee table, waits on.

I also played with the sentence structure and order there too. Did you see? And now we have "expelled air" which replaces the "lunch is her last breath" line from a couple of edits ago. But this still doesn't have the kind of punch I'd like. Time, I think to get some more power words in there:

She forsakes lunch like a philosopher fearing hemlock. Lunchtime’s heartburn is in her throat, its sulphurous reek on her breath. She flees to the bathroom, scrambling for tablets to relieve lunch’s poison – BANG! Like an egg in a microwave, her heart explodes. She crumples in the hallway; a shrivelling soufflé… evacuating more than mere gas… still. Lunch, strewn across the coffee table, waits on.

And so I reached my final version. I swapped Queen for philosopher because I could use a specific poison, and since hemlock has connotations of Socrates, therefore... philosopher works, right? Consolidating the egg leitmotif the foul gas becomes "sulpherous". I want her to be in a hurry, already in fear of her life, so she now "flees" to the bathroom. "Lunch's venom" is allowed to become "Lunch's poison" - previously I didn't want to repeat the word, but since the first instance has become "hemlock" I can throw out venom - which has the feel of specific intent to kill rather than the more naturey course feeling we get with poison (our bodies can poison us). To give a change to the structure I decided to explode the egg before the heart and from there, after the crumple it felt better to "evacuate" more than gas because it wouldn't just be gas heading out the door would it? And finally, to make it more immediate I changed it to the present.

And there we have it. My breakdown of changes. What would you have changed?

Paid Companion - Solvey's Question Breakdown

Question 1) What pov did you use?
First person, present.

Question 2) Describe your protag with three basic characteristics (e.g. male, late 50's, hates sponsored swimming events).
Male, mid-thirties, searching for reconciliation

Question 3) What is your protag's name?
Unknown, and I guess... irrelevant

Question 4) How many secondary characters did you use?
Three - Father, Mother, and the Gull

Question 5) What was your opening line? Why?
He eyes me from the yard, his chest gleaming white against the scudding clouds.

This was originally:
He eyes me from the yard, his dull grey-white plumage setting him out as the brightest object on the shifting horizon.

And then:
He eyes me from the yard, his white chest gleaming against the black underbelly of the clouds.

As you can see, it's always been about the Gull (funny, that's the name of the piece - to give the sense that the Gull shadows everything in the tale from above). It therefore seemed best to jump straight into the situation and move around that, either backwards or forwards in time. I just had to make the sentence work properly. I originally wanted to give time and place immediately but there was too much going on - "shifting horizon" is moved to the second sentence - opting on the second pass to off-set the white of the gull against the black of the clouds, but scudding works so much better, doesn't it?

Anyhoo, note how I've really pulled back on the description of the gull - everyone knows a bird has plummage, that they have grey feathers upon wings and back... but what's important is that first image, that the gull is white (chest) against the dark clouds. Everything else is unnecessary filler - brevity!

Question 6) How many names did you invent (e.g. place names, character names, shop names, etc.)?
None. I didn't even make up a name for the boat - how odd, me thinks. Actually, the only naming I do use is in relation to the shipping forecast designation areas - Plymouth, Fitzroy and Biscay.

Question 7) How many similes did you use?
Similes: 5
... the way a child keeps momentum on a swing... looks as if he’s master of all the sea... like the ferocious jaws of a shark... like a landing parachute... he dines like a captain, feasting on the finest crabmeat

Question 8) Did you use devices of sound (e.g. alliteration, assonance, consonance, onomatopoeia)?
The most alliterate line is:
But the sea has a cold heart, and though she may tranquilise the most turgid of tempests...

But the story makes very specific use of sailing and fishing terms, be they in describing the protagonist's face:
Father’s lineage has bestowed me with his waxy, chiselled features, a sailor’s skin rigged to withstand the constant saltwash

his hurried work:
... my body braced against the open-air cabin as I cast the last clove hitch between the port railing and my stash of pot traps... knock down the sails, secure all trappings and lay ahull...

Or in the anthropomorphic personification of the sea and her anger:
... listening to the sea’s rush along the keel... the glint of long black teeth gathered on either side. One after another they crashed over the gunwales like the ferocious jaws of a shark... as the sea began to circle, hissing and scolding me with her salty spit and slapping the hull with her angry fins.

Question 9) What primary/secondary theme/s did you use?
The primary theme is in the companionship between man and Gull, and the symbiotic relationship this specific two share - the partnership of man and nature.

Secondary to that and underlying the whole thing is the protagonist's relationship with his fisherman father and the life he's spurned in favour of a wife and a land bound life. Ultimately we have the return, but for what reason? I leave that up to the reader for the time being... I've said too much

Question 10) Which of these did you intentionally use?: violence, sex, profanity, death, birth, hatred, love.
The violence of the sea, death of a parent, and the attempted reconciliation between hatred and love a child has for a parent.

Seeded

So, I entered FeverPitch didn't I, and got turned down... boo! So, I'd put it into my head that I haven't learnt anything and am in fact a loser - thoughts which Agent Cox suggested might be detrimental to me actually getting anywhere. "Don't hold yourself back," he said at the beginning of the week.

So it was with shock and amazement - I had to leave my desk and take a toilet sabbatical before returning to the screen - that I received this e-mail from the FeverPitch team:

Hi,

As you are a finalist in the Fever Pitch competition, are you able to send me your most current cv/biog as Julian Friedmann, the pitching expert, would like to see them, if that is ok.

Yours,

K. M******d
Festival Co-ordinator
Screenwriters' Festival 2007

www.screenwritersfestival.com

Holy crackola! Top 10 out of 600! I was certain this was a mistake, so I phoned them... and sure enough I was right - they'd e-mailed me by mistake.

I'm guessing that they wanted to rub it in! With my heart still in my mouth I began to cry, but then the nice man somehow remembered me. What? Out of 600?

He said: "Yours was the one about the guy in the coma wasn't it?"
Me: "SOB. Yes, I've just started NAW this year, and it was a screenplay I'd developed for my screenwriting module."
Him: "Oh, yes I remember that. We sent that with the top 20 for the final selection of 10. I liked the idea and your pitch."
Me: "Say that again?"
Him: "You got into the top 20. We had to send them off for a final assessment before the top 10 were picked. So, chin up. Out of 600 applicants you came within the top 20."
Me: "Oh Christ!"

What the hell does this mean? Crikey, I'm starting to do something right. Now I just have to get my head round the fact that God is trying to tell me something rather than rub my face in it.

Yay for me!

FeverPitch

Ever get that feeling that the plot of the latest blockbuster or TV drama is pretty lame?

Well, that's what the subtitle asked of this year's FeverPitch, one of the competitions going on at this years Screenwriters' Festival over in Cheltenham next week. Just pop in your pitch and synopsis by... last Friday... and they'll pick out 10 people to go along to the festival and pitch to the crowd. Channel 4 were looking for sci-fi related stock this year (film and TV). I entered, but go nowhere (as usual) *SOB* Probably came 599 out of the 600 applicants, and only besting some poor sod who was applying for viagra online and simply e-mailed the wrong address.

At least they replied promptly - though I can't share the e-mail because I deleted it immediately before I had a chance to mope over it, wondering where I went wrong... maybe it actually said I'd been shortlisted!

Anyhoo, I pitched the screenplay series I'd been perfecting for my NAW module. It's interesting how having submitted my screenplay and analysis last week, all done and dusted, that I rewrote the 150 word synopsis a further 5 times for the competition!

Here it is... 25-word pitch:

What if the world’s coma victims shared a single consciousness that existed at the crossroads between life and death?

And the 150 word synopsis:

Edward Baker’s unaware he’s in a coma. He’s reliving the day of his car crash not realising he’s sharing his consciousness with the minds of other coma victims. Instead he’s focused upon being selfless; a trait that once endeared him to his pregnant wife, Claire, but now drives a wedge in their relationship. Edward blames himself for his parents' deaths. His guilt has driven his impulse to take on the concerns of others including his business partner, Mark’s, double-cross of a dangerous businessman. Suffering brief déjà vu-like visions of the future and haunted by a bloody reflection of his real-self, Edward struggles with his responsibilities, but he can’t be everything to everyone. When he tries to prevent the kidnapping of a Russian woman, Alisha, he is hurled into a life-threatening struggle to uncover Alisha’s secret about the crossroads between life and death and the true power of the Dark Machine.

The Reckoning - Solvey's Question Breakdown

Question 1) What pov did you use?
Third person limited omniscent. We stick with our protagonist, learning that which he already knows through his thoughts and the dialogue, and learning alongside him what it is he's dealing with. I wanted to keep this in his head, so that the reader is trapped inside him when we reach the climax - I didn't want the reader to learn anything that he doesn't know/find out.
Question 2) Describe your protag with three basic characteristics (e.g. male, late 50's, hates sponsored swimming events).
Male, late 50's, loves wealth but not celebrity.
Question 3) What is your protag's name?
We never learn it. I refer to him as He throughout, though, through the text we could associate him to the name Dives; Mr Dives.
Question 4) How many secondary characters did you use?
Two. His agent, whom we only know of as the voice on the other end of the phone, and the Capuan Venus, His Aphrodite; the marble statue he fell in love with and abandoned.
Question 5) What was your opening line? Why?
"He heaved the door closed, diminishing the throes of the party behind two inches of carved oak." - I wanted, right from the beginning to evoke a sense of grandness (which begins here; the door is made from oak, large and rather heavy) - obviously I don't have many words to devote to describing the look and feel of the room because of word limitations and my want to stick to the descriptions of the darkness, there're celebrations going on that our protagonist wants to be away from, and of course by 'heaving' the door closed, I am foreshadowing later weakness. I don't evoke character until the second line (which, I suppose, could have come attached to the first): "'Leeches'."
Question 6) How many names did you invent (e.g. place names, character names, shop names, etc.)?
None. No places are mentioned - just as with the previous competition. My work always seems to sit in a very tightly focused world, nothing on a grand scale, single, simple locations - as this is, the writing room. And the real people aren't named.
Question 7) How many similes did you use?
Similes: 10
... A circular room appeared before him like a developing photograph... as if the caller was trying to cross the rift between this sanctum and the rumbling revelry... party that beat like a headache... heavy and solid like shackles of steel... the shadows began to shift about him like oil on a tide... filling his lungs to the brim like a swimmer caught in a riptide... slipped from her slender legs like spun silk... moved slowly, deliberately, like a goddess... as if guiding creases from silken sheets... lips were as cold as stone.
Metaphors: 6
... dampening the throes of the party... when he’d composed at his desk... lifting rousing, singular moments from eternity’s bosom and lacing them into poetic verses upon the page... their talons knitted into Dive’s soul... adrift upon his vision... wheezed at the night-stream...

Now, that's a different flip from the last competition piece I did. Similies have trebled, and metaphors have dropped by a third.

Question 8) Did you use devices of sound (e.g. alliteration, assonance, consonance, onomatopoeia)?
There are a few interchangeable moments of alliteration, assoance and consonance.
Question 9) What primary/secondary theme/s did you use?
The primary theme is retribution for betrayal. Just as in the parable, Dives betrays Lazarus by not helping him and thusly, Lazarus goes to Heaven, and Dives to Hell. I wanted my protagonist "Dives" to have betrayed his muse, personified by Aphrodite's statue - the Venus of Capua (a different version of the Venus de Milo).

The secondary theme is wasted talent through narcissm and avarice. The muse has provided Dives with skills and abilities to create, manipulate and write, but it is clear from the text that he forsook that long ago, forsaking also his muse and buying into ghost writers to maintain his riches with no effort - clearly he's treated them badly, but we never learn how (it should be enough in the manner in which he talks to his agent, and his first words: "Leeches," about the party goers). And if you were a muse, wouldn't you be pissed off that you'd wasted all your effort and someone like him?

The third theme is unrequited love. Dives once shared with his muse, this room, their writing, their shallow love of their own images. Through him, his muse speaks on the page, but when he promised himself he'd give it all up, sign on some ghost writers and make money without effort, he chose to give her up completely, leaving her alone and loveless.
Question 10) Which of these did you intentionally use?: violence, sex, profanity, death, birth, hatred, love.
Death and love are clearly intentioned. Sex is intimated through the Venus' touching of herself. Technically she is ressurected, or reborn - the only link to the title (from the other, more well known parable of Lazarus), which I like to think relates the protagonist, Dives, to Jesus. He has power over the muse, power to create (his last words are: 'Every conquerer creates a muse') and so, just as Jesus arrived at Lazarus' tomb to reawaken him, so too does Dives return to his muse's tomb, and reawaken's her... only that power has become corrupted by the years, and his role as Jesus to her Lazarus is ironic. Of course this links immediately back to theme number one, and make the Capuan Venus, the muse, both Lazarus's. She is the one betrayed and the one ressurrected.
Extra words of note:
I have used two partial quotes at the end of the piece.
Dives says, "Every conqueror creates a muse", taken from Edmund Waller: “Illustrious acts high raptures do infuse, And every conqueror creates a muse.” Dives is reasserting his authority over her and yet, the Venus replies, "Cheat your landlord if you can and must, but do not try to short-change the muse. It cannot be done", taken from William S. Burroughs: "So cheat your landlord if you can and must, but do not try to shortchange the Muse. It cannot be done. You can't fake quality any more than you can fake a good meal." She knows that her will be done.

Of course this may all be read from not such a supernatural point of view. Dives is suffering weakness, shortness of breath, he's drunk, and then tightness and pains in his chest. Clearly he's having a heartattack, and is hallucinating. It is the good portion of his soul making him pay in these last minutes for the life he's led. From that viewpoint, the story is about guilt that we are never as good as the people we wish we were.

The Last Review

So, I've had a day or two away from my "perfect" short... and it's time to look at it one last time - it's the adverb/adjective, active/passive pass.

First off, as far as adverbs are concerned, I've got away scot free - I'm remembering somethings, I guess. On the adjective front, I've notched up a score of 50; that's 50 in 1,500. Is that bad? Analysing the winning story of Winter Kills I've found 53, and looking at the Language Log, I find that 50 or 53 is just over 3% of the whole text, well within the suggested 6% limit - if we can indeed believe in a strict taxonomy.

Well, needless to say I'm not going to get bent out of shape by 3% of adjectives.

Hopefully, if my eyes don't decieve me, I only found two occasions of passivity. I did discover this great reminder site on Active and Passive voices, and their uses, which didn't have much use in the context of the short, but nevertheless... I think what's important - now - to think about with active and passive voice is that with every break in the sentence, every new clause must be considered on its own, and actively/passively reorganised dependent upon who is then the new subject.

The Reckoning - Beta Responses

Phew, a quick call to arms and my beta readers responded in kind. Four responses in five were positive:

1. Thought it was good; good flow and structure. Nice story (though it was unfinished at the time).
2. Only read it because it was me. Thought it too high-brow and overwritten.
3. "Love what the story might become in the/my reader's mind, you're really good at building tension".
4. Story was good, well structured and flowed, though it wasn't a genre they'd choose to read.
5. Had to read it twice to understand. Great story, lots of questions, great structure. Brilliant.

I think I'm ready to submit now - and all that done in a week. Maybe I'm learning something. Perhaps I should have asked Solvey... oh, if I'd had more time. ;)

ISLAGIATT - Solvey's Question Breakdown

Question 1) What pov did you use?
First person, past tense, moving to present tense in the last few paragraphs – I wanted to bring the reader to the here and now as if our protag was reminiscing as she wandered her parents’ house, only to discover… well, I wouldn’t like to say at this point.
Question 2) Describe your protag with three basic characteristics (e.g. male, late 50's, hates sponsored swimming events).
Female, Early 30s, Hatred for her mother, adoration for her father
Question 3) What is your protag's name?
We only ever hear her father calling her Princess.
Question 4) How many secondary characters did you use?
Mother, Father, Dog, Mortician, and Girl on bed.
Question 5) What was your opening line? Why?
When I first wrote this (as a 1,000 word piece) for my NAW course, it began:
I used to look upon papa and her as love birds.
Rewriting the whole thing for the compo I changed it to this:
She’d steal me from the twilight world of my bedroom with dark eyes and hair like a nest of snakes.
I really needed to shore up the writing, give it some greater imagery than the “tell” of the first. I realised I didn’t need to tell the reader about the love between the parents. That would come through in the mother’s sorrow. What was important was the relationship between the daughter and her mother (She).
Question 6) How many names did you invent (e.g. place names, character names, shop names, etc.)?
None.
Question 7) How many similes did you use?
Similes: 3
… hair like a nest of snakes… suckle at the ends like a baby on a teat… a wraithlike wind-chime…
Metaphors: 9
She’d steal me… Papa’s voice sang… her perfume wreathed my head; the rainfall of her tears in my hair… The sky was forced to wear black too… It hung around the church spire, spitting angrily… She had masked herself in lavender… my lips tease the fleshy parts… bedroom materialises, dressed in dark-oaks and velvet velour
Question 8) Did you use devices of sound (e.g. alliteration, assonance, consonance, onomatopoeia)?
I end the piece with three sentences that begin: Here, as I…Onomatopoeia: squish, but nothing else.
Question 9) What primary/secondary theme/s did you use?
The subject of the piece, it seemed like a good idea at the time, actually comes last in the whole piece but has its nasty fingers threaded throughout. The whole concept began as one idea, based upon Terry Irwin being given the video of Steve Irwin’s death by Stingray. I wondered about the grief and angst associated not only with the loss but whether or not to watch the video. That all got turned on its head and what I wrote stemmed from Act two of Ingmar Bergman’s Fanny and Alexander – loss of a parent and infidelity – but I wanted to spin that around also. Finally, it was… well, I daren’t say because it ruins the ending.
Question 10) Which of these did you intentionally use?: violence, sex, profanity, death, birth, hatred, love.
Death, hatred and love.

The Reckoning

The closing date for Litopia's latest compo is soon upon us... and I was afraid with all my other wordy-tomfoolery that I wouldn't get it written... but I've done it, and in less than 4 days too - still doesn't beat Osci's 3 hour, drunken writing binge winner (for Litopia's It Seemed Like A Good Idea At The Time compo), but it's a hell of a change to the constant rewritals I did for Summer Of Love, Winter Kills and ISLAGIATT - each of which took me two plus months to whittle into something presentable.

This time I feel a kind of zenness towards it - and that's without anyone but my wife reading it (I just don't have time for beta-readers). I'm probably too close to it, but for once I like the feel of the prose. Oh yes, definitely hedging towards the wordy, but that's my natural way. What I need to do is level up the action and disperse that wordiness amongst the dialogue. But then, I feel I've done that this time.

Anyhoo, I was looking back over Solvey's thread from Litopia where he'd posted a few questions aimed at getting members to think about the tools they're using when they write. Now, I know that this isn't a prerequisite to winning but I thought I'd apply it here, to help breakdown my short story for The Reckoning - The Lazarus Phenomenon.

Question 1) What pov did you use?
Question 2) Describe your protag with three basic characteristics (e.g. male, late 50's, hates sponsored swimming events).
Question 3) What is your protag's name?
Question 4) How many secondary characters did you use?
Question 5) What was your opening line? Why?
Question 6) How many names did you invent (e.g. place names, character names, shop names, etc.)?
Question 7) How many similes did you use?
Question 8) Did you use devices of sound (e.g. alliteration, assonance, consonance, onomatopoeia)?
Question 9) What primary/secondary theme/s did you use?
Question 10) Which of these did you intentionally use?: violence, sex, profanity, death, birth, hatred, love.

Answers to follow after the competition has closed.

It Seemed Like A Good Idea At The Time

Always the bridesmaid, never the bride!

I was going to write my woes on here about failing to make another grade (Litopia's latest compo), but other than simply logging it here, I'm going to let this one slide.

I think it's fair to say that those of us who've been at Litopia longest, and those who have come with far more experience are now working on instinct and inspiration - take Osc's assertion he was one drunk skunk when he wrote his winning piece... hang on... DRUNK? It took me three solid weeks to write mine, he did it in a couple of hours... drunk?

Sheesh!

Anyhoo, with what I've just said, we now reach the realms of subjectivity - and I suppose that's why I don't want to bother with bigger compo's, such as the Bridport short story prize.

But then, what am I turning down here? Surely it's not just having to pay money to enter a compo... surely, it's turning down the opportunity to submit to an agent, with my next book, should I ever write it. All I require is inspiration now, and room to manoeuvre inside my own ability.

Zoiks! Just read your comment there Es! Where you been man? Thanks for the positives, and your nice thoughts. I hope you are well?

So, the next step is to move on. With this all in mind, it's time to pick up those books on Monologuing, finish reading Dramatica, write my screenplay, and redraft my shorts for the monologues, and get on with the rewrite of my novel... erm, all after Congo has finished on Film 4 - I wouldn't watch it, but for the fact I last saw it in the cinema, and I love to get all nostalgic. Here's to the future... now, where's my Malibu?

Perfume

I have just finished reading Patrick Suskind's Perfume, and though I found the ending somewhat at odds with what I wanted to happen, and ever so finally abrupt, I loved the style and the narration. Someone said that my recent short story (just entered to Litopia's "It Seemed Like A Good Idea At The Time" competition) reminded them of Perfume simply for the fact that I use several references to smell (I slid in a couple of tastes too - though smell was the key). They asked had I read Perfume before writing my short, to which I replied that I hadn't, but promptly snapped it up and read it over the weekend. Magnificent.

I could never invest myself so much into the greater portents of potions and perfumes as Suskind does because I just don't (yet) have an understanding of base notes and midtones, whether a scent is musky, thick, bitter, encroaching, whatever. I have to be more judicious, and could never think of making smells another character in my book. I'd need to invest heavily in a search for scents!

Perfume is of note for two other reasons. 1) Strangely, and out of keeping with the rest of the book, page 50 has a two page script of dialogue in it between Baldini (Perfumer) and Chenier (his Journeyman), with no direction, just speech.
2) The style has little in the way of dialogue (making the two page script stand out even more) but it has such a flow as I could only dream at this point in time.

However, I see now, that point 2 encapsulates my next stage of learning. Writers, such as Suskind, and Jim Crace (as I have recently discovered) are giving the reader two important things that I have missed because I still concentrate on where people are and what they are doing... with things as mundane as their hands.

Don't get me wrong, millions of other writers succeed in this manner, and have constructed tales in the same way for years and years. I'm not such a dullard that I've not read widely enough... I just haven't made the comparison, realised, that this is so. My eyes are opening.

Here's an extract from the extract on Crace's website: http://www.jim-crace.com

Down in Ferrytown, not sleeping, either, were two passengers from ten days west, a beauty boy – no beard – not twenty yet, and his slightly older wife. They’d found a berth in the lofts of the dormitories, against the guest house rules which naturally put the women behind locked doors in different quarters to the men, but two-a-bed nevertheless. It was less comfy and colder than those ground-floor beds where his parents and his sisters were, but more private and consoling. This couple didn’t have to share their air with anyone, except the devil. In bed the devil always is the third. So it was three-a-bed for these two newly weds. No wonder they’d been making love, as usual. Moving on each day and spending every night in some new space was oddly stimulating, they’d found, as was having sex as quietly as they could in sleeping company, against the rules. But now that lovemaking was concluded, they were quarrelling in whispers despite the likelihood that everything they said could be heard by strangers. The consolations of love-making don’t last long when you are fearful, regardless of the massive hope beyond the fears. How many days would it be before they reached the ocean and the ships? The beauty boy thought one more month. He’d not pretend that things were better than they were. The far side of the river was an odd, perplexing place, he’d heard, haunted, wrecked and hard underfoot, with prairies of rubble where people had once lived in bastions and towers. The way ahead would be hard beyond imagining. His wife, though, did not believe such stories. She was uncompromisingly optimistic, hopeful beyond reason. The rain that night had been more salty than she’d expected. When the rain tastes like tears, then the sea is close. She’d seen a white bird, (“That’s a sign”) and she’d heard another passenger say they’d reach the shore – the mighty river with one bank – in just three more days. Then the future could begin. So much for rubble, bastions and towers. Her husband was too easily impressed. She drifted off to thoughts of boarding ship in three days time, and no more quarrelling . . .

Backstory! Each character, and pay attention here - these two in the extract are introduced here and are about to die in the next couple of pages and yet they've been fleshed out by Crace. Why? Because he's invested in his characters and he's showing the reader and greater sense of this wider world. Why are they going to board a ship?

Then, here's an extract from later on in Perfume that really stopped me (CAREFUL now, possible SPOILER):

He did not want to regard him as a human being, but only as a victim to be slaughtered. He did not want to see him until the execution, when he would be laid on the cross and the twelve blows crashed down upon him - then he would want to see him, want to see him from up close, and he had had a place reserved for himself in the front row. And when the crowd had wandered off after a few hours, he wanted to climb up on to the bloody scaffold and crouch next to him, keeping watch, by night, by day, for however long he had to, and look into the eyes of this man ... and drop by drop to trickle the disgust within him into those eyes, to pour out his disgust like burning acid over the man in his death agonies - until the beast perished ...

Real inner thoughts of a character. Motivation through their feelings.

I'm ultimately both backstory (because I don't know my characters and my world well enough) and inner feelings (because I don't know my characters and my world well enough... whoah! Deja vu!)

So, how do I do this? Do I create intricate histories that slow my writing down and make me bored with a project? If I succeeded and carried on beyond the histories, where would I decide to sprinkle these backstories? Or, do I get in there, write one draft and then go back and flesh it out?

The point here has to be what is important... and what is important in any fiven scene? Ideally, only I should know, and yet I feel powerless compared to Suskind and Crace.

So, what next? Next I will read John Banville's The Sea.

Why that and not the Satanic Versus, the Constant Gardener, the Shadow of the Wind (all of which sit at my bedside)? Banville's is much smaller. I should get it read in a week. I think I need to be reading wider and wider, and now that I'm not writing (I just can't commit until I understand backstory and inner feelings) three projects are bustling at the inside of ears (trying to escape my head) spraying ideas against the inside of my skull like frenetic life-art painters as a way of marketing themselves to be the next thing I do.

Plus/Minus

+ Had yesterday off to do some DIY (got dad round)
- Took the whole day to fit one door
+ Managed to re-grout the shower
- The grout is too old, and I realised this morning that it refuses to dry.
+ I'm on the NAW course
- There's confusion over the times (no longer will I need the whole day off on a wednesday - it's 6-8pm... meaning I drive for 2 hours, stay for 2, drive home for 2) Knackering
+ Great reception about my short story for the Litopia competition:

I really like it Richard - I particularly like the evocative nature of the story through the use of smells (lavender, burnt toast, coffee, the sickly sweet smell that pervaded the mortuary. mothballs etc) and the close examination of human actions (stroked my fringe with his soft warm fingers, watched a tremor pass across her furrowed brow etc) and most of all, your use of language is brilliant (the rainfall of tears in my hair, it hung around the church spire spitting angrily, dribbled the rancid flesh back into the bowl, swinging from the bannister; a wraithlike wind chime etc). The final moments when you realise the truth about the father and the devastation the daughter must feel are very well written with just enough detail to evoke sadness shock and empathy in the reader.Have you been reading 'Perfume' by Patrick Suskind?


Love the story Richard. I LOVE "The sky was forced..................etc and
the "Swans" paragraph. Overall, I think the "surprise" at the end makes it a cracking short!

- Solvejg is entering the competition this time round
+ I've got chiro in two hours time
- My neck aches so much I'm certain I've been using my head to bash through walls.

Emotional Response

I'm feeling kind of happy this morning. My wife picked up my latest short story (on its way to Litopia's next competition - It seemed like a good idea at the time), and for the very first time she circled only one sentence. She had no spelling, grammar, word choice, abstractions, or confusing corrections.

Instead she questioned just one line... and why am I so happy about this?

We were sat at either end of the dining table eating strawberries. I’d pluck them from my bowl and suckle at the ends like a baby on a teat as she looked on.

She felt that for a six year old this was a too erotic. It made her uncomfortable! Uncomfortable! Excellent!

For the first time I've actually got someone feeling some emotion (expressed immediately back to me that feels tangible between us) over my prose. Obviously, she didn't feel it was right to stay in, but for that very specific reason I know it is right for the piece.

Can I keep this up?

My Return

Well, it's been some time since I was here last. The purpose of this blog was previously as a reflective log for my Counselling Skills course. That's now done and dusted: exams completed amidst my brother's tribunal - resulting in a pass and unfair dismissal. Followed by holidays in the Forest of Dean, the Lake District and Cornwall. Christmas has rushed by and now I'm on the cusp of beginning my new course in Birmingham at the UCE - National Academy of Writing - oooooh.

Am I nervous? I'd say. I've just spent the last two months writing and rewriting the same 2,500 word opening to my new novel in an attempt to get the style, substance and purpose right and ready to submit as my piece for crit when I start the course. (Up until the end of 2006 that 2,500 was a mind numbing 1,000 words).

Argh, self doubt, crippling poor vocabulary. I entered the Winter Kills competition and didn't win. Again I can appreciate why I didn't win, but it's still gauling - in the same kind of way that something out of your hands usually is. It's no one elses fault that I haven't won (or even come third), though the judge could have picked me (lol). It is my fault as far as I'm not that good - yet - and even then I can't afford blame to myself because if I'm just not up to scratch then I'm just not up to scratch. Must press on regardless. Learn and keep moving.

Anyhoo, I've got 500 words left to write on this opening before I submit it. Also, the new competition is up and I've got to start thinking about that - jeesh, I make it all sound like such a chore!