I have been heard to utter phrases like "I hate womag stories. I hate the trivial, clichéd plots, the crude, obvious characterisation, the awful twists in the tail, the banality…"
It's also true that I've said "I would like to drown all womag writers in a sack in the nearest canal." I have been accused of being extreme in this regard (though I don't know why.)
What has puzzled me for a long, LONG time is why these awful, awful stories are popular, and also why it should matter to me so much. Why can't I just forget about the womag market, the cheap and cheerful chick-lit novels, the button-pushers? Why do I care?
An easy response is an elitist one; something along the lines of "Well, I am intelligent, educated, worldly, and require depth and subtlety in the material I read, whereas ordinary people (he means not-very-bright) can be palmed off with any old crap."
The trouble is I know intelligent people who write womag stories, and I know intelligent people who would like to sell womag stories but cannot perfect the skill. (Phew, that was close, I nearly wrote "perfect the art.")
Finally, finally, I have begun to understand the cruel attractiveness of the simple, the cliché and the button-pusher. The answer is not intellect, it is sloth. The answer is not intelligence, it's lack of courage. The answer is not education, is lack of self-confidence.
I have been reading the excellent Ruth Padel on poetry. I am to poetry what the womag reader is to middling-serious literature, (not even "lit.")
Why is it so damn hard? this reader (moi) says. Why on earth should I want to work at understanding something?
It's interesting that I think this with poems (and plays?) and yet with short stories part of the pleasure is the layers, the allusions, the subtle metaphor and the implicit message. I like to read that, I like to write that, with short stories but throw in some line-breaks and I turn to a pathetic, gibbering idiot wanting a few rhymes and some easy-peasy instant-gratification.
Padel says: "Being difficult to understand does not make a poem good. But nor does being easy. Very often, what is easy to understand is simply flattering the reader, confirming what he or she thinks."
Bingo! Like the first metaphor I actually got (with a nudge from teacher) oh way cool, I'm a genius. (But keep the metaphor simple, have a ship plough the waves, I get that.)
Padel: "If people resent poetry they think is "difficult", they become vulnerable to what is instantly easy, what makes them feel safe."
T. S. Elliot pointed out that liking a bad poem and thinking it is good, was very different from enjoying a good poem. Someone who has not read many poems is "always liable to be taken in by fakes" and may "prefer the sham because fakes and kitsch are more easy to assimilate than the genuine article."
Padel asks: "But what is wrong with poems flattering me, confirming my beliefs, consoling my sorrows? What's wrong, for example, with Patience Strong."
Millions of people have turned to the simple "poetry" of Patience Strong, and, it seemed, gained solace from it. As Padel says: "At your peril do you despise what people hang on to in pain. No one who has not been in a position where they have to depend on Patience Strong has the right to knock her. If you want to call her verse 'sham' you better have good arguments."
I hear the same arguments over womag stories. Millions of people love them. They keep people happy. Women read them for light relief. They don't want death and disaster, they don't need doom and gloom, they just want to be entertained, taken out of it for five minutes. How dare you criticize that!"
In a famous set-to arranged by the Times, a modern poet (Simon Armitage) was pitted against a businessman who liked "traditional" verse. The business man (Padel says) wanted poetry to be entertaining and thus "played to the gallery" (give them what they want.) Here is an example:
When I was but a boy
The dark was full of dread
I trembled then as monsters filed
To loom beside my bed.
When the businessman looked at Armitage he wanted to: "Restructure it so a great many more people might enjoy it."
Before I continue, a small aside. I give a talk meant to puncture my own balloon. It's called, "Tries Hard, Could Do Better." And it lists my growth as a writer from a level that was truly pitiful:
Why don't you choo-choo, diesel train.
Why can't you puff and wheeze?
Why can't you be like the steam-trains were,
Oh won't you tell me please?
The audience is supposed to laugh, laugh with me and at me. It's OK, I say, I have improved. But after my talk I get a rush of excited buyers. They want to buy the stuff I have just used as an example of how shittily I once wrote.
Padel points out that the businessman was using the market approach to poetry. The instant appeal school. The-more-people-like-it-the-better-it-must-be school. I seemed to be experiencing something similar. But WHY? Why when I stand up and say, "Listen to this AWFUL 'poem' of mine (ha-ha) people love it. Why?"
Children love us to repeat fairy-tales. Not only do they not mind repetition but they actively seek out the exact same story (and don't make a mistake.) This condition is so strong that I have entertained children on cruise ships with the game, "Knickers!"
I tell a story. They have to shout "Knickers!" every time I make a mistake. "Twice upon a time..." KNICKERS! (and so on.)
In Padel's book she mentions MSG. Monosodium Glutamate, a probable carcinogenic artificially sharpens flavours. Because the tastes are more obvious, more people enjoy the dishes. The result? MSG in most of our Eastern restaurants. But, Padel points out, people who care about health and who have developed palates don't want MSG foods. They want real food, healthier food, more honest food.
Does the fact that more people prefer meals with MSG make them better?
Padel says that poetry's MSG is the cliché. When I read a cliché I groan. I hate the damn things (like I hate womag stories with their clichéd set-ups and stock and stereotyped characters) so why do so many people like them? Padel says: "Clichés appeal instantly and make people feel safe. They help society hang together." Stand in a bus queue and you might well swap clichés about the weather. It's non-threatening and superficial contact. It makes us cosy. "Worn words about silver linings, the darkness before dawn, pots that never boil, can make us feel we're together, part of a community. The words mean little; what is sustaining is the temporary contact."
Clichés are clichés precisely because they are over-used. They are second-hand ideas, second-hand writing, unfresh by definition. They are not your thoughts but a thought you borrowed. The reader isn't listening, the meaning doesn't impinge. They "know" what you mean, like the child knows what's coming in that fairy-story.
When I started writing short-stories I tried to reproduce what I imagined the reading public wanted, murder mysteries, twists, enigmatic horror with the answers held back, happy-endings after a misunderstanding was resolved.
What I wasn't doing was speaking from the heart, and definitely not the soul. I was giving them what they had always had, what I imagined they always wanted. On top of a lack of experience I was handicapped by a lack of honesty or integrity. I wasn't writing stories, I was concocting prose trying to get published.
My early short-stories were: a story of a spaceman with an unusual way of having sex (from an old joke)… a man and a woman on a train and he keeps missing the come-on (from another joke)… a twist in the tail about a man being interviewed for a job (it's to be the public executioner)… a man who doesn't know he's dead… an eternal triangle story where the female narrator knows the husband is wrong. There is no other man… that's because the wife's affair is with the narrator! Another story, opening with disembodied dialogue, relies on its "success" by the revelation in the last paragraph. It's called cheating folks.
My early successes were: a woman with a magic credit card, an old soldier having a heart-attack on a train, a widow talking to her husband's ghost, all fairly obviously plotted, all "comfortable" to read, nothing too challenging. One of those stories I quite like still and I remember the first-reader (at a large competition) seeking me out at the prize awards to thank me for writing it!
I got better. My stories came from deeper inside, became fresher, richer, more complex, a little more challenging (but not too much.) Now I was winning competitions all over the place. Yippee, I was a writer.
I got better. And found I didn't sell. The "market" wanted more-of-the-same and awarded its accolades to the shiniest pieces. I learned that what a boot-camper would one day say was true: "The best way to win short-story competitions is with womag stories, womag characters but with a little bit of language to open and close."
This writer wasn't advocating this as an approach. Instead it was a sad reality.
In the UK much of the market is aimed at the beginning and improving writer and the stories that win the competitions are rarely "challenging". Competition readers choose stories they believe they could write (on a good day, downhill, with a following wind)
Genuinely good stories, though, are too far off, too "above" so they are condemned as "pretentious" or "wilfully obscure" or "fancy for fancy's sake". The result is magazine stories that are more or less all the same, easy to read, even easier to forget.
Do this test. Think of some stories you read in February or March. Remember any?
Most winning stories, many magazine stories, are SAFE stories, stripped off most errors, MFA or MA polished, highly competent but lacking fire, balls, drama, guts.
So what does the new writer learn? Well, there are the pinnacles: £500 winner of this, $1,000 winner of that, published in:
So the new writers aspire to write the same bland, forgettable fiction that is winning and placing. Give them an opening type they'll be familiar with, don't be afraid of stock language or a few clichés, just keep that prose flowing. Push a button or two, just don't make it too obvious, and finish with a flourish, maybe a bigger moment. If you can use one or two sentences they might call "brave" then go for it, those editors and judges will love that.
Elementary writing, writing that's safe, stock, comfortable, like the stuff the readers are reading now, that writing makes them feel cosy, loved, respected. When Jackie and Jack read these stories, they are affirmed. See, they understand. They get that old-school metaphor, they recognise the headmaster. This writer connects.
Of course he does. He says your wife is pretty, your team is the best, your house is lovely, and you look good for your age. No challenge, nothing new, nothing that is "dangerous" or disconcerting. Hell, this is so good, you might have written it. Pass it on to the shortlist, all is well with the never-changing world.
Sunday, 8 April 2007
Two Small Holiday Hits
JJ gets in Pen-Pusher and Lee in "Delivered"
two small press print pubs
Our 47th and 48th this year
two small press print pubs
Our 47th and 48th this year
Gardening!
0,564 Words Flash Sunday
0,480 Words Flash Monday
0,403 Words Poem Monday
1,064 Words Article Monday
0,492 Words Poem Tuesday
0,362 Words Poem Tuesday/Wednesday
3,200 Words Article Thursday
1,596 Words Story Thursday
1,006 Words Story extended Friday & Flash
0,000 Words Saturday
0,682 Words Sunday (Two Poems)
9,746 Words Total April 8th 17:22
1,746 ahead of schedule
0,480 Words Flash Monday
0,403 Words Poem Monday
1,064 Words Article Monday
0,492 Words Poem Tuesday
0,362 Words Poem Tuesday/Wednesday
3,200 Words Article Thursday
1,596 Words Story Thursday
1,006 Words Story extended Friday & Flash
0,000 Words Saturday
0,682 Words Sunday (Two Poems)
9,746 Words Total April 8th 17:22
1,746 ahead of schedule
REMOVED!
I got the rough draft of a poem out... There's a line-length problem here but you can get the drift
NO YOU CAN'T... I REMOVED IT
When I woke up I was in a forest, walking, after
three thousand, two-hundred and seventy-two miles
NO YOU CAN'T... I REMOVED IT
When I woke up I was in a forest, walking, after
three thousand, two-hundred and seventy-two miles
Friday Night's Stories
One cleared (8 Crits) the rest, 7-5-5-5-4-4.
Not too bad for a holiday Sunday.
Not too bad for a holiday Sunday.
Special Prompt Set for Monday & Tuesday (Poetry & Prose)
Read these out loud, copy them, sort them a;phabetically, read them again, print them out and cut them up, read them again. Read them until some of the phrases feel like they are burning, then begin, but here's the deal.
You can keep a copy of these words but you have to (two consecutive days) WRITE WITHOUT** YOUR MONITOR OFF, write so you cannot see what you've written... (If you can't do that, set text to white so it's white on white)
(COUGH** that should read as "with", but you knew that right?)
Write RAW, fast, feeling sick and giddy, panicky, don't worry about the text, follow the gut... when eventually you finish, let it stew and while, then return and tidy.
There are TWO days here
PROMPTS
When I woke up I was in a forest
After 3,272 miles
I knew nothing, I could do nothing, but see
a 52-year-old Slovenian
And as I watched, all the lights of Heaven
a swim down the Amazon
faded to make a single thing, a fire
something he's already done
burning through the cool firs
the drive from Miami to Seattle
Then it wasn't possible any longer
despite having difficulty standing
to stare at Heaven and not be destroyed
ordered by the doctor not to swim
You could have been just another maggot
by telephone from the Amazon
squirming over hostory's roadkill
There will be a ceremony Sunday
instead a witch took pity on you
night swimming
you know neither the place or the hour
English by satellite phone
Hexed once and for all in her open hours
the closer he got to Belem
the evning slips you into it
a lot of influence
slowly the poison the whole blood fills
I think the animals have just accepted me
in signs that can't be helped, geese heading south
such pain in his arms
the woman once had danced at ebbing tide
he redirects my thinking to other things
there must be a place where the whole of it comes right
even though sometimes I fall asleep
the little boy buggered and strangled in the wood
a pillow-case for protection
is comforted by his parents and comforts his parents
his lips became blistered and scabs formed
and everything horrible is understood
the small town of Urucurituba
For at least six million reasons or else no light
Danube, Mississippi, Yangste
There must be somewhere it doesn't happen like this
maybe in a lake or an ocean
Where the drowned men rise, waklk back from the boats in the evening
I am not going to do the Nile, it's just a small creek
and the lost child sings on her new-made father's knee
You can keep a copy of these words but you have to (two consecutive days) WRITE WITHOUT** YOUR MONITOR OFF, write so you cannot see what you've written... (If you can't do that, set text to white so it's white on white)
(COUGH** that should read as "with", but you knew that right?)
Write RAW, fast, feeling sick and giddy, panicky, don't worry about the text, follow the gut... when eventually you finish, let it stew and while, then return and tidy.
There are TWO days here
PROMPTS
When I woke up I was in a forest
After 3,272 miles
I knew nothing, I could do nothing, but see
a 52-year-old Slovenian
And as I watched, all the lights of Heaven
a swim down the Amazon
faded to make a single thing, a fire
something he's already done
burning through the cool firs
the drive from Miami to Seattle
Then it wasn't possible any longer
despite having difficulty standing
to stare at Heaven and not be destroyed
ordered by the doctor not to swim
You could have been just another maggot
by telephone from the Amazon
squirming over hostory's roadkill
There will be a ceremony Sunday
instead a witch took pity on you
night swimming
you know neither the place or the hour
English by satellite phone
Hexed once and for all in her open hours
the closer he got to Belem
the evning slips you into it
a lot of influence
slowly the poison the whole blood fills
I think the animals have just accepted me
in signs that can't be helped, geese heading south
such pain in his arms
the woman once had danced at ebbing tide
he redirects my thinking to other things
there must be a place where the whole of it comes right
even though sometimes I fall asleep
the little boy buggered and strangled in the wood
a pillow-case for protection
is comforted by his parents and comforts his parents
his lips became blistered and scabs formed
and everything horrible is understood
the small town of Urucurituba
For at least six million reasons or else no light
Danube, Mississippi, Yangste
There must be somewhere it doesn't happen like this
maybe in a lake or an ocean
Where the drowned men rise, waklk back from the boats in the evening
I am not going to do the Nile, it's just a small creek
and the lost child sings on her new-made father's knee
Easter Sunday Flash Prompts
Someone beat me to it, today.
Hey that's a prompt!
Resurrection, Cork and Glue
Blue
This Joyful Eastertide
Black
Death to the Easter Bunny!
Khaki
Rabbits, Socks
Green
I'm looking for my man, but I don't know where they have taken him
Puce
Three days' dead
White
Chick-lit and Chocolate
Yellow
A Day in the life of Jill Egg
Red
What's Yellow and White and Scrambles?
Brown
She thought he was the gardener
Stripes
The woman who made love by cooking
Dots
The difference between a granddaughter and a Bratz doll
Check
Woken early by fucking church bells
Weave
He looked at her and said, "Mary".
Hey that's a prompt!
Resurrection, Cork and Glue
Blue
This Joyful Eastertide
Black
Death to the Easter Bunny!
Khaki
Rabbits, Socks
Green
I'm looking for my man, but I don't know where they have taken him
Puce
Three days' dead
White
Chick-lit and Chocolate
Yellow
A Day in the life of Jill Egg
Red
What's Yellow and White and Scrambles?
Brown
She thought he was the gardener
Stripes
The woman who made love by cooking
Dots
The difference between a granddaughter and a Bratz doll
Check
Woken early by fucking church bells
Weave
He looked at her and said, "Mary".
Saturday, 7 April 2007
JP: Entertainment in short fiction is not enough
Been corresponding with a friend who's in the States, writing a novel. He's a good (v good) short story writer with a Pushcart and several quality publishings on his CV. I asked him why he'd given up on the short story form recently:
"Well, when I'm writing a short I'm not writing the novel, y'know? The other thing is, I don't think short stories are really a form of popular entertainment anymore, and I'm all about pleasing the lizard-brains. I think a good story should have boobs and explosions in it, whereas the fiction editors at The New Yorker et al think a good story should have cancer and Russian immigrants. Whatever."
A valid point, to my mind. Where are the markets for short stories which seek to entertain? Have you read Glimmer Train or anything like that? It's this universal, bland, detached colourless MFA voice that is killing me. I'm sure it's hard to do, and I'm sure I'm missing something, but what's wrong with O. Henry? Twain? Barry Hannah? Flannery O'Connor? When did we sacrifice authorial involvement and voice in favour of controlled, glacial distance? Why did we do that? Who decided this is the way things should be? Why does everything have to make some kind of profound statement? Why is entertainment seemingly a dirty word?
It's baffling to me. As one of the lizard brains, anyway.
"Well, when I'm writing a short I'm not writing the novel, y'know? The other thing is, I don't think short stories are really a form of popular entertainment anymore, and I'm all about pleasing the lizard-brains. I think a good story should have boobs and explosions in it, whereas the fiction editors at The New Yorker et al think a good story should have cancer and Russian immigrants. Whatever."
A valid point, to my mind. Where are the markets for short stories which seek to entertain? Have you read Glimmer Train or anything like that? It's this universal, bland, detached colourless MFA voice that is killing me. I'm sure it's hard to do, and I'm sure I'm missing something, but what's wrong with O. Henry? Twain? Barry Hannah? Flannery O'Connor? When did we sacrifice authorial involvement and voice in favour of controlled, glacial distance? Why did we do that? Who decided this is the way things should be? Why does everything have to make some kind of profound statement? Why is entertainment seemingly a dirty word?
It's baffling to me. As one of the lizard brains, anyway.
11.45 am
Tom C writes: we're trying to run on a two-week cycle, with minor and major weekends alternately. In majors, everyone is expected to produce something weighty; in minors, not everyone will do something, and they may be shorter pieces.
This week is a minor week.
Seven stories, all over 2k words, with a preponderance of death/family values/the meaning of it all themes... Can't wait to see what next week's majors will bring.
Feeling a bit smug now because I've done all seven crits and it's only just gone 11.30. Time do do a bit of subbing before lunch.
Just wish there were a few more decent comps around.
This week is a minor week.
Seven stories, all over 2k words, with a preponderance of death/family values/the meaning of it all themes... Can't wait to see what next week's majors will bring.
Feeling a bit smug now because I've done all seven crits and it's only just gone 11.30. Time do do a bit of subbing before lunch.
Just wish there were a few more decent comps around.
Solid Saturday
Ten o'clock Saturday morning and I've finished my seven crits (not yet written anything)
Seven stories posted
06
05
03
02
02
01
01
critiques
42 posts discussing the stories
Seven stories posted
06
05
03
02
02
01
01
critiques
42 posts discussing the stories
Being rubbish
For the first time in about five weeks, I couldnt sub anything this Friday and now I feel really annoyed with myself.
I thought I'd pull one out of the bag during the afternoon, I've managed it for the last month, but I ended up writing a load of tosh and couldnt bear to sub it.
Really trying to write stories that say something. A couple of weeks ago José Saramago was in Helsinki and I heard him speak in one of the bookshops. Brilliant man, very wise.
One of the things he said was in answer to a question about why he started writing so late. His answer was that beforehand he simply didnt have anything to say. I have lots to say but often I dont know how to say it. I read somewhere on BC, on one of the craft threads, how your story should support your theme, that it's the proof behind your conviction.
My main problem is that its still not a natural part of my writing to have a very clearly defined theme in my head before I start. Now I've decided to sit down and write a list of all the things about the world that really annoy, and there are many, then write stories to justify my views.
In the meantime, to rid myself of my sense of failure, im going to binge on chocolate, write a flash, polish some of my stories and do some crits.
I thought I'd pull one out of the bag during the afternoon, I've managed it for the last month, but I ended up writing a load of tosh and couldnt bear to sub it.
Really trying to write stories that say something. A couple of weeks ago José Saramago was in Helsinki and I heard him speak in one of the bookshops. Brilliant man, very wise.
One of the things he said was in answer to a question about why he started writing so late. His answer was that beforehand he simply didnt have anything to say. I have lots to say but often I dont know how to say it. I read somewhere on BC, on one of the craft threads, how your story should support your theme, that it's the proof behind your conviction.
My main problem is that its still not a natural part of my writing to have a very clearly defined theme in my head before I start. Now I've decided to sit down and write a list of all the things about the world that really annoy, and there are many, then write stories to justify my views.
In the meantime, to rid myself of my sense of failure, im going to binge on chocolate, write a flash, polish some of my stories and do some crits.
als - minor deadline? yeah, right!
so we're running a schedule.
one friday is a minor deadline, the next a major one.
so if you wanted to write a story for yesterday, you could, but, hey, the MAJOR deadline is next week.
and it's easter, so family stuff, blah blah blah
well, there are seven stories up there, ready for critting.
minor deadline?
that means seven of us managed to write something (they're all over 2000 words, i think) for what is supposed to be a deadline that doesn't really matter.
i wrote in here the other day about the importance of writing all the time, not waiting to be inspired.
well, the story i wrote yesterday (the story i forced out yesterday, over a 12 hour period, intersperesed with having family fun, mowing the lawn - and blowing up the lawnmower - watching some footy, reading the novel i'm halfway through - bloody crime and punishment, would you believe? - seeing a friend, going to the park) is up there now, getting crits, and i know it's not great. it's based loosely (very loosely) on a memory, which sparked off an opening, which then led to characters, which then developed into a plodding kind of plot, with an ending that comes across as too thought about, too planned, not organic enough. and there are some bits of it - most of it, actually - that i know don't work.
to be frank, much of it sounds like stuff i was writing before i joined bc
(but not all of it)
so what was the point of forcing it out? maybe i should have just spent more time in the sunshine.
but there are some parts of it i like, really like, and then by writing it i made myself look at what i wrote in a critical way, and hopefully i learnt some stuff ( i know i did)
and it also means that i'm going to get eight other people's comments on it - detailed, comprehensive, usually very perceptive - all in the next three days.
so there was a real point to writing it.
i wasn't inspired when i sat down and started typing.
but i got inspired as i went on.
and the result isn't going to win any comps as-is, but that's not the point.
and i've read five of the other six stories up there - in the middle of typing up the crits now.
i read them last night. enjoyed them as stories, but the process of critting them has really made me think about some things.
i'm really looking forward to reading what others think of them.
so, for a minor deadline i've written an okish 2000 word story, i've read another five (one more to go) and critted them, thinking about story-writing, the craft of it, the skill behind.
oh yeah, and on the way back from town in the car i wrote a poem.
a bloody poem!
that only happened because i was thinking about writing a bloody story!
one minor deadline out of the way.
bring on next weekend...
one friday is a minor deadline, the next a major one.
so if you wanted to write a story for yesterday, you could, but, hey, the MAJOR deadline is next week.
and it's easter, so family stuff, blah blah blah
well, there are seven stories up there, ready for critting.
minor deadline?
that means seven of us managed to write something (they're all over 2000 words, i think) for what is supposed to be a deadline that doesn't really matter.
i wrote in here the other day about the importance of writing all the time, not waiting to be inspired.
well, the story i wrote yesterday (the story i forced out yesterday, over a 12 hour period, intersperesed with having family fun, mowing the lawn - and blowing up the lawnmower - watching some footy, reading the novel i'm halfway through - bloody crime and punishment, would you believe? - seeing a friend, going to the park) is up there now, getting crits, and i know it's not great. it's based loosely (very loosely) on a memory, which sparked off an opening, which then led to characters, which then developed into a plodding kind of plot, with an ending that comes across as too thought about, too planned, not organic enough. and there are some bits of it - most of it, actually - that i know don't work.
to be frank, much of it sounds like stuff i was writing before i joined bc
(but not all of it)
so what was the point of forcing it out? maybe i should have just spent more time in the sunshine.
but there are some parts of it i like, really like, and then by writing it i made myself look at what i wrote in a critical way, and hopefully i learnt some stuff ( i know i did)
and it also means that i'm going to get eight other people's comments on it - detailed, comprehensive, usually very perceptive - all in the next three days.
so there was a real point to writing it.
i wasn't inspired when i sat down and started typing.
but i got inspired as i went on.
and the result isn't going to win any comps as-is, but that's not the point.
and i've read five of the other six stories up there - in the middle of typing up the crits now.
i read them last night. enjoyed them as stories, but the process of critting them has really made me think about some things.
i'm really looking forward to reading what others think of them.
so, for a minor deadline i've written an okish 2000 word story, i've read another five (one more to go) and critted them, thinking about story-writing, the craft of it, the skill behind.
oh yeah, and on the way back from town in the car i wrote a poem.
a bloody poem!
that only happened because i was thinking about writing a bloody story!
one minor deadline out of the way.
bring on next weekend...
Poetry Prompts for Easter Weekend
Go out and buy
Being Alive
Staying Alive
(both edited by Neil Astley)
They are from Bloodaxe Books.
if they aren't available from your bookshop, it isn't a bookshop, it's a McDonalds in disguise and you are legally obliged to burn it down.
Being Alive
Staying Alive
(both edited by Neil Astley)
They are from Bloodaxe Books.
if they aren't available from your bookshop, it isn't a bookshop, it's a McDonalds in disguise and you are legally obliged to burn it down.
Hooray, Hooray, It's a Holi-Holi-day
Well yeah, if you exclude the primary stories to finish critiquing this morning (4 of 7 done last night) and posting these prompts.
I love the sensation of using poetry books to generate prompt-phrases. This is a great tip for block BTW. Just flick through any good anthology and copy out twenty random lines, lines that obviously "caught your eye"
Write them out, print the list. squeeze them, shuffle them, and if a story doesn't present itself with all thos fantastiv voices, check your pulse.
THE PROMPTS
down by one of the fish houses
IRON
The tinkle of cannons
MARSHMALLOW
Finally, the last one to know.
I have eaten the Haribo
The Amazing Debut of Wilberforce Smith
The Book
He's gay isn't he?
Bread and Dripping, Salt, The Smell of Old Dappers
Nobody in the lane and nothing, nothing but blackberries
Knitted Swimming Trunks
Your heartbeat, flew like a startled bird
PHONE
soaked for forty-eight hours
In Raglan Lane, in the gentle rain, I saw dark love again
CHANNEL 4
Maggie's taking care of a man who's dying
If Dad
his beautiful, not quite dutiful, wife
You weren't well, or really ill yet either
I will place three crosses
splashes through the disinfectant tray
the Elvis impersonator dreams
Come into the garden, Maud
I love the sensation of using poetry books to generate prompt-phrases. This is a great tip for block BTW. Just flick through any good anthology and copy out twenty random lines, lines that obviously "caught your eye"
Write them out, print the list. squeeze them, shuffle them, and if a story doesn't present itself with all thos fantastiv voices, check your pulse.
THE PROMPTS
down by one of the fish houses
IRON
The tinkle of cannons
MARSHMALLOW
Finally, the last one to know.
I have eaten the Haribo
The Amazing Debut of Wilberforce Smith
The Book
He's gay isn't he?
Bread and Dripping, Salt, The Smell of Old Dappers
Nobody in the lane and nothing, nothing but blackberries
Knitted Swimming Trunks
Your heartbeat, flew like a startled bird
PHONE
soaked for forty-eight hours
In Raglan Lane, in the gentle rain, I saw dark love again
CHANNEL 4
Maggie's taking care of a man who's dying
If Dad
his beautiful, not quite dutiful, wife
You weren't well, or really ill yet either
I will place three crosses
splashes through the disinfectant tray
the Elvis impersonator dreams
Come into the garden, Maud
Friday, 6 April 2007
Holiday Update
Seven stories in for "Primaries" (up to 99 for the year) but relatively quiet.
13 crits in from 56 required.
I'm out of my skull and ready for bed.
Alex
13 crits in from 56 required.
I'm out of my skull and ready for bed.
Alex
SUMPED but Still Ahead!
0,564 Words Flash Sunday
0,480 Words Flash Monday
0,403 Words Poem Monday
1,064 Words Article Monday
0,492 Words Poem Tuesday
0,362 Words Poem Tuesday/Wednesday
3,200 Words Article Thursday
1,596 Words Story Thursday
1,006 Words Story extended Friday & Flash
9,064 Words Total April 6th 22:42
3,064 words ahead of schedule. I really can't complain as today I was on gardening duty then hit something on the way to the municipal dump and probably damaged the oil-sump (it started leaking, I had to dump it at a garage, ring for a lift home.)
But HEY, I sat reading a Bloodaxe Poetry Collection "Staying Alive", sitting in the sun, sipping Blueberry Ribena.
My story? It's very rare that I can't peg EXACTLY how good or bad a story is, even my own, but this one came with "the wrong voice" or something and I thought yesterday it was complete, but it nagged, nagged, nagged at me.
In my mind it was telly, cold, and (for me) quite poor, but when I read it I could feel an ache. Those two facts should not go together. I almost never change a story (edit/tinker but CHANGE, not me) but this one needed surgery, something I just don't do.
But I did.
It will be interesting to look at this one and how it does.
0,480 Words Flash Monday
0,403 Words Poem Monday
1,064 Words Article Monday
0,492 Words Poem Tuesday
0,362 Words Poem Tuesday/Wednesday
3,200 Words Article Thursday
1,596 Words Story Thursday
1,006 Words Story extended Friday & Flash
9,064 Words Total April 6th 22:42
3,064 words ahead of schedule. I really can't complain as today I was on gardening duty then hit something on the way to the municipal dump and probably damaged the oil-sump (it started leaking, I had to dump it at a garage, ring for a lift home.)
But HEY, I sat reading a Bloodaxe Poetry Collection "Staying Alive", sitting in the sun, sipping Blueberry Ribena.
My story? It's very rare that I can't peg EXACTLY how good or bad a story is, even my own, but this one came with "the wrong voice" or something and I thought yesterday it was complete, but it nagged, nagged, nagged at me.
In my mind it was telly, cold, and (for me) quite poor, but when I read it I could feel an ache. Those two facts should not go together. I almost never change a story (edit/tinker but CHANGE, not me) but this one needed surgery, something I just don't do.
But I did.
It will be interesting to look at this one and how it does.
Poetry Prompts
I struggle with these, unless I rip-off exercises from somewhere but here goes (again)
1 Write a poem that subverts or inverts or recombines cliched sayings and/or stereotypes
2 A poem using only X words (say 10 or 15 or 20) (a, an, the, and, but, or : don't count) over and over (every one must be used twice, preferably more... and of course the poem should say something
3 A poem using books, quarterly, chick, lit, courgette
4 The death of someone close but no death-words
enjoy, bleed
1 Write a poem that subverts or inverts or recombines cliched sayings and/or stereotypes
2 A poem using only X words (say 10 or 15 or 20) (a, an, the, and, but, or : don't count) over and over (every one must be used twice, preferably more... and of course the poem should say something
3 A poem using books, quarterly, chick, lit, courgette
4 The death of someone close but no death-words
enjoy, bleed
Two Sets of Morning Prompts
Good Friday
Betrayal with a Kiss
Rising at Cock-Crow
Three Wooden Crosses on a Hill
No Lilies Till Sunday
Tomorrow shall be my Dancing Day
Denying Peter
Death, by Lamb with Bitter Herbs
Stations of the Cross
Passing the Cup
My Beloved Son
The Crack of Stone Shearing
This is My Body
Potholing with Mary
Son, You'll be a Batchelor Boy
There is a green hill far away
and
One Caesar
Two Left Feet
Three Coins in the Fountain
Four Horsemen
Five Finger Exercise
Six simple Ingredients
Seven Sisters
Eight Indictments
Nine Lives
Ten Alternative Commandments
Eleven (theoretically) make a team
Twelve Angry Men
Thirteenth Moons
NOW ANYONE COMBINING THAT LOT INTO A HALF-WORTHWHILE STORY DESERVES A BAR OF CHOCOLATE.
Betrayal with a Kiss
Rising at Cock-Crow
Three Wooden Crosses on a Hill
No Lilies Till Sunday
Tomorrow shall be my Dancing Day
Denying Peter
Death, by Lamb with Bitter Herbs
Stations of the Cross
Passing the Cup
My Beloved Son
The Crack of Stone Shearing
This is My Body
Potholing with Mary
Son, You'll be a Batchelor Boy
There is a green hill far away
and
One Caesar
Two Left Feet
Three Coins in the Fountain
Four Horsemen
Five Finger Exercise
Six simple Ingredients
Seven Sisters
Eight Indictments
Nine Lives
Ten Alternative Commandments
Eleven (theoretically) make a team
Twelve Angry Men
Thirteenth Moons
NOW ANYONE COMBINING THAT LOT INTO A HALF-WORTHWHILE STORY DESERVES A BAR OF CHOCOLATE.
Thursday, 5 April 2007
Better Numbers
0,564 Words Flash Sunday
0,480 Words Flash Monday
0,403 Words Poem Monday
1,064 Words Article Monday
0,492 Words Poem Tuesday
0,362 Words Poem Tuesday/Wednesday
3,200 Words Article Thursday
1,596 Words Story Thursday
8,158 Words Total April 5th 22:45
0,480 Words Flash Monday
0,403 Words Poem Monday
1,064 Words Article Monday
0,492 Words Poem Tuesday
0,362 Words Poem Tuesday/Wednesday
3,200 Words Article Thursday
1,596 Words Story Thursday
8,158 Words Total April 5th 22:45
Tom C, Thursday
Working on a story for tomorrow's primaries. Should be finished in time, even if I do have to be serious and start sorting out rubbish tomorrow, prior to a pending house move. Real life gets in the way of the writing sometimes...
Buoyed by a hit today, as Alex has mentioned in the post below. It's my twelfth of the year so far, and six of those have been paying - even if only $5 like this latest. I know it's not much, but it feels like it makes a difference to me. Anyone can say 'yes, I'll publish that for you' and stick it on a website, and I'm not knocking that - at least that option is there for us learner writers now, it must have been much more difficult in pre-internet days. But to have someone decide they will give cash for your words feels like a breakthrough.
Anyway, this is only a diversionary tactic. Back to the primaries story...
Buoyed by a hit today, as Alex has mentioned in the post below. It's my twelfth of the year so far, and six of those have been paying - even if only $5 like this latest. I know it's not much, but it feels like it makes a difference to me. Anyone can say 'yes, I'll publish that for you' and stick it on a website, and I'm not knocking that - at least that option is there for us learner writers now, it must have been much more difficult in pre-internet days. But to have someone decide they will give cash for your words feels like a breakthrough.
Anyway, this is only a diversionary tactic. Back to the primaries story...
Another Hit, a Few Subs, Stuff
Write for the most intelligent, wittiest, wisest audience in the universe: write to please yourself
Harlan Ellison
Tom gets one accepted at Midnight Horror, paying the princely sum of $5
Ibsen said to live is to war with trolls, and I promise you that if you write well and your words become popular, there will be trolls-a-plenty to give you an enema with a thermite bomb.
Harlan Ellison
A few more subs takes us to 41 for the month, comfortably on schedule for our "par" 200. I need just 9 subs to reach my personal target.
it not only offends me, it disgusts, short-tempers and enrages me to see people PLAYING at being writers.
(HE)
Two stories in early for this weekend deadline. One already has 5 critiques (and a split opinion). We are approaching our hundredth story of the year.
don't believe any of that flapdoodle about a writer being unable to estimate his own work. If he's anywhere near talented he knows better than anyone else.
Harlan Ellison
Harlan Ellison
Tom gets one accepted at Midnight Horror, paying the princely sum of $5
Ibsen said to live is to war with trolls, and I promise you that if you write well and your words become popular, there will be trolls-a-plenty to give you an enema with a thermite bomb.
Harlan Ellison
A few more subs takes us to 41 for the month, comfortably on schedule for our "par" 200. I need just 9 subs to reach my personal target.
it not only offends me, it disgusts, short-tempers and enrages me to see people PLAYING at being writers.
(HE)
Two stories in early for this weekend deadline. One already has 5 critiques (and a split opinion). We are approaching our hundredth story of the year.
don't believe any of that flapdoodle about a writer being unable to estimate his own work. If he's anywhere near talented he knows better than anyone else.
Harlan Ellison
Catching Up
0,564 Words Flash Sunday
0,480 Words Flash Monday
0,403 Words Poem Monday
1,064 Words Article Monday
0,492 Words Poem Tuesday
0,362 Words Poem Tuesday/Wednesday
3,200 Words Article Thursday
6,562 Words Total April 5th
I'm fairly pleased with that as I've been suffering this month!
0,480 Words Flash Monday
0,403 Words Poem Monday
1,064 Words Article Monday
0,492 Words Poem Tuesday
0,362 Words Poem Tuesday/Wednesday
3,200 Words Article Thursday
6,562 Words Total April 5th
I'm fairly pleased with that as I've been suffering this month!
As Far As You Can On Your Own?
I read yesterday, a comment by a good writer, who said you should take your writing as far as you can "on your own" before considering going on courses, working in a group or with a teacher or mentor.
At the time I didn't think about this a lot, but the more I think, the more illogical it seems to be.
Why should we re-invent the wheel? Why, if our weakness is natural dialogue, should we struggle for three years or ten, trying to get dialogue right? (And what if we don't even see that the dialogue ISN'T right?)
Why randomly read when our reading could be directed? Why randomly critique when our critiquing might be shown to concentrate on the easy parts of the story while ducking the tougher? Why be rough and random when we could be systematic, universal and polished?
Why concentrate on the styles of writing which are comfortable for us and avoid the more difficult (but where our relative greatness might lie) simply because we can, with no one to point our cheating out?
Alone, will we read widely enough or will we seek out our comfort zone, and worse, "stuff we like"? I didn't learn much theory, learned no craft on my MA but at least it got me to read black writers and women writers. I had not realised I didn't read them until I got my reading list!
This is not an essay, it's a set of quick thoughts, but what IS "as far as you can"? Surely you never get there? The only way to get there is to die while writing. We improve, however slowly, merely by writing. We improve, however slowly merely by reading. We improve, however slowly, merely by reading critically, after we have read for pleasure. We improve, however slowly, by critiquing the neophyte work of others. We never REALLY finish improving, so should we never look for help outside ourselves?
When we read well, are we not "taking advice"? Am I not learning to write poetry by reading poems? Am I not learning poetry by reading other poets who talk about their craft? Am I not learning when a poem by someone else inspires me to write a poem? Am I not learning when another poet gives me a short-story idea?
How is this different from having a teacher who DIRECTS my learning, who sees a blind-alley (because he went down it in 1989) and shows me a way to see exactly where I'm going, maybe two or more years before I discover it for myself? I can read books almost randomly (but I'm likely to choose 'easy" rather than challenging) or I can be directed to a wider range of books, books specifically arranged that open up new worlds, new ideas, new craft issues. I can be made to read for weeks, books that focus on known difficulties, read for weeks and discover how a great writer met a problem and resolved it.
Of course we can learn to write by simply writing. The analogy I use is the idea of a pen-pal. We have no natural letter-writing skills but begin to correspond with someone in a far off country. If we write a thousand letters and read a thousand, if we do nothing else, will our letters be better by the end? Almost certainly.
We have learned by the very act of writing. Perhaps we have learned economy, expression. Perhaps we learned some skills from reading the letters sent to us.
If we had the discipline to read a random short story every day, and if we wrote a short-story every day, if we did that for three years, would we be better at the end of those one hundred and fifty-six weeks? It would be remarkable if we weren't.
But if those 156 short stories we read were indeed, "random" how many were great stories. How many were superficial and cheap? How many, by simple chance and bad luck were "OK" but running over old ground? So we have improved, by osmosis, by simple exposure, by repetition, like a child learns to speak merely be being there, but how likely is that this random way is the BEST way?
What would we say if a doctor chose this route to knowledge? By chance he knows a bit about tropical diseases but he can't recognise a slipped disc or a bowel obstruction?
Doesn't the doctor need a long general education, then more specifics, chemistry, physics, biology, haematology, and then years of medical learning at a university, then years as a hospital intern, then a few more working with a general practitioner or a crusty hospital specialist?
Why is writing different? Should it be different?
The head of the Arts Council of England, in a radio interview last year said that only one serious self-taught painter emerged in the UK in the whole of the twentieth century, only one did not go through art college. Is painting an amazing picture any less artistic than shaping a beautiful story or writing a fine poem?
In the last century, thousands of young men left school to work as apprentices and it was as apprentices they developed their skills, overseen by older, wiser, more experience men who had once, themselves been apprentices. As these youngsters make their mistakes, the old hands see their own repeated, and know of ways to shorten and ease the inevitable pains of learning.
Some soccer is pure instinct, and a player needs the right physique, eyesight, muscular strength, flexibility, courage and so on. A great movement in soccer is like art, magical, poetry. But footballers train and train and train. They have managers, coaches, physical trainers. They learn tactics. A promising talent is NURTURED and he goes further, achieves greater heights because he is nurtured.
I cannot find the quotation right now but I think it was Raymond Carver who was asked about the teaching of creative writing, was there a point, could it be taught.
He answered by pointing out that Michaelengelo was AN APPRENTICE and so were Raphael and all the famous painters. He rattled off a list of great writers all of who were mentored. He was mentored by John Gardner, shaped by Lish. In turn he taught others who published and then others were taught after that.
I have lost count of the times in Boot Camp, a discussion will arise driven by errors in one story. Someone will write, "Yes, but…" and I can then post an example of a writer who DID resolve this problem, maybe post an opening of mine. Or I can take that issue and quickly rewrite a paragraph or two and SHOW there and then, in the heat of the furnace, that the problem is resolvable.
Without the group, the argument, my experience, MY reading, my examples, my rewriting (and then more argument, more directed reading) could the author have resolved the problem? POSSIBLY.
But it might have taken years, or the author may simply have avoided that situation in future writing. He would have written, maybe not one-armed, but with two fingers permanently taped together.
In this week's BC session we had seven stories, fifty-seven critiques, twenty or so grids of marks, one hundred and thirty-four posts on the works, then after the session a posted summary of the session where I wrote an editor/judge's view of the stories as a group.
How could a lonely, maybe depressed, writer, starving in his garret get the same intense learning experience? Where does he get his seven stories and when he crits, how does he know he's right (or wrong)?
083 100
084 098
099 113
089 103
085 094
076 094
This week we had stories with mark-ranges of 9-18 (relatively close) but the difference between a Boot Camp 83 and a BC 100 is HUGE. Either the 83 is wrong, or the 100 is wrong. Discuss!
Our solo reader-critiquer (if he even bothers to formally dissect and critique) may constantly over-estimate the worth of what he reads. If he does, who is there to correct him? Who is there to say, that the story he thinks is cool is in fact cliché-ridden, uses a ripped off plot and has wooden characters? (And note it doesn't matter who is right, the 80 or the 110 – what matters is the argument to support our marks.)
In one case (the highest-scoring story this week) the first-person protagonist dies. I HATE that and said so. (I hate the illogicality of this particular story.) I say so (learning note… at least one editor/judge would bin this because he has a negative thing about how I wrote this…)
But the author felt that the first person was necessary, that in any other point of view some of that voice would be lost. One critiquer actually felt the voice got in the way. Most "fell for" the voice and overmarked because of it.
So, could the POV change for the better? Would that lighten the voice? But even if the voice was thinned, would that be better or worse? Less is often more. BUT, the author couldn't see how this would be possible. She couldn't imagine a voiced third person. But the group leader could because he'd been there, done that, ripped his T-shirt.
Writer X
Alex, I agree with the death thing but if this was 3rd person wouldn't you completely lose the voice? I've scored it high too, but I am wondering now, like Tom, how much of this is voice, because not much else really happens. If you had marked it as 3rd, then the scores would, imo, be quite a bit lower.
WRITER Y
I had less of a problem about the 1st person POV of the narrator dying, because the author extended the dying into a sort of out-of-body experience, without going too weirdly ghostly. For me this worked better than just ending with nothingness. I'm not sure that a close 3rd person POV (which it would have to be, because it's all from the MC's head) would work any better. I have the same problem about continuing the story after the death of an over-the-shoulder narrator.
MOI
It would be hard for me to disagree more strongly than I disagree strongly! I think the story would be seriously enhanced by being third person. It can take on a spiritual voice over feel and make the whole resonate more.
WRITER Y
Could you do us a paragraph of it in this ethereal 3rd person voice to show what you mean?
MOI
One example At a Stroke
Let us look at the end of his life.
His name is unimportant. What he does, what he did, how he has earned his way to here, is immaterial. What matters is, somehow, today, he – call him Tom – has come to this.
It is about two-thirty when Tom thinks about the time, pulls away from the computer, thinks about going to get his daughter from school. Tom has been feeling faintly low, headachey, uncertain, undefined, and he has stopped these few minutes earlier to give himself time to clean his teeth, to shave, to slap and sting his face with cologne, to change his shirt for a fresh one. In the past he has called this "dressing to wake up". It breaks the cycle.
The discussion continues. Most like the example/sample voice, the writer of the original story sees what's going on. Then in the craft forum the author raised the issues raised by the story and a thread started where a second story was posted to show that "detached, ethereal, voiced voice" ( a story where the protag dies)…
The above is a trivial example, but it's a learning moment for every Boot Camper. A story develops, (actually a minor consideration) but more importantly the writer has learned that another POV might help, that there is a maximum amount of voicing that will create a voiced story without losing a reader. Forget THIS story, think how the WRITER has been changed.
And all the other writers who read the story, the critiques, the discussion, the new craft thread, and there see three stories "replying to" the original story, showing three similar but not the same ways of dealing with the issue.
This writer, could of course, have written for another decade solidifying her methods before exposing herself to these ideas, examples, argument.
This argument made me think of a very old story of mine, one which won $1,000 when Pontius was still in Pilate Training:
It opens, slow, slow, almost dreamy. The POV is 3rd but it's at Dai's pace, it reflects Dai.
Saturday afternoon and Dai Griffiths sits with his finger-polished roll-up tin. He is patient, fixated, listening. His tongue protrudes slightly as he makes careful, half dog-end, half Old Holburn, delicate, thin cigarettes. It is raining outside the pub and along the valley side snake-terraced roofs glisten. The afternoon light closes.
Rivers run down from the top of the mountain, down the steep side roads, black with coal dust. The rain is like stair-rods now and the Cwm road is welly deep. Running boot-steps splatter past the open pub door and Dai’s black and white terrier looks up. The dog is spotted with splashed black water and moves slightly. Without looking, Dai puts out a hand. The dog lowers its head back onto Dai's feet.
Pimple Roberts is laughing. He has a rolled up Western Mail in his massive fists and he is arguing the toss about something and nothing with Jones eighteen-months. Both of them have arms like pit-props.
From the crowd by the bar there comes a shout of, "Bloody 'ell, yer daff bugger!" A young apprentice called Merthyr Jenkins has just knocked over someone's drink. It is Toop Williams' pint and Toop has just given young Merthyr a good clip round the yur. Merthyr's a big lad and thinks about answering back, but Toop just looks at him and says in his slow voice, "Doanbe darf, son, bugger off inta y'corner and drink yer beer." Toop's face is dark, his eye-brows darker still. The boy turns back to the bar.
Everybody in the pub knows that if he wanted, Toop Williams could kick young Merthyr from where he stands clear to the Arms Park. And they all know no one else would dare. Merthyr is Toop Williams' buttee and no-one but Toop gives a clip to Toop's boy.
Evan Pritchard, shop steward, is in love again but this time it's pretty bad. Dai listens to him talk. Evan wants to take Arfona on the trip to Murrayfield. He's started drinking shandy with low-cal lemonade because Arfona says he's getting fat. The boys think this is funny but Dai Griffiths is sad. Merthyr takes four pints over to a side table, looking for support.
"But ee's a funny bugger, that Toop. I oanlee tripped."
"Fists like ee's got," Pimple says, "Toop can be as funny as he fancies," and Jones-eighteen-months says, "You're not bloody kiddin!"
Now they are talking rugby.
"So anyways," someone says, "this number eight, thickuz two short planks, no neck, shoulders like tallboys. Ee 'its Gareth swack, base over apex - Gareth's in the third row of the stand and on the Mayor's lap, over goes the bench with the Lady Mayoress, legs up in the air, all drawers and no pension book."
Someone asks seriously, "Gareth all right?"
The main character is Evan (or the village, the villagers, as an entity) and the detached, sad, voice-over feel returns at the end. The middle has just been dialogue, rugby, sex, the avoidance of reality. Evan has started learning and the more he learns, the more he thinks he'll have to leave the village, which is dying anyway…
Evan is head down. "No. I wuz thinkin of packin it in."
"What? Being shop steward? Oo the bloody else is gunner do it, Evan? You're the only bloke oo can understand the bosses when they come out with their bullshite."
"I've started doing Open University, "Evan says uncomfortably. "And, well, it's finding the time for everything…"
"Y'mean those dickeads on the telly with the naff clothes?"
"The films were done a long time ago, Ron. But achully, some of the stuff, it's rather good."
"Oh, act-chew-elly, some of it is rar-thuh good. Oh, bugger off, Evan."
"I'm doing political studies. Margaret Thatcher -- "
Jones Eighteen-Months cuts in sharply. "Is an old witch. She'll close every pit before she's finished."
Dai speaks now. Softly, but he is heard.
"Leave Evan alone, eighteen-months. If I'd ad some learning I wouldn't be sitting here now, watching the rain."
"Sorry, Dai. We thought you were avin a kip."
"No," Dai says, "just waiting for Phil."
"Look," Evan says, "Arfona, I think I'd better get back..."
"It's bucketing down, out there, Evan!"
"I know, but. And I've got some homework to do."
Suddenly, at last, someone is serious. "You'll be at the meeting? You won't let the boys down?"
Evan stands up.
"I'll be there. I'll be there. I think this is it, this time."
"You're not really goin' out in that wet are yer?"
"I got me top," Evan says. "It's only bloody rain."
"You get off oam," Dai Griffiths says. His head is still. He touches the dog's head. "And do me a favour while you're wet, check Phil's not ad a funny turn will you? Ee didn't look that good yesterday. I think this rain might be on is chest."
Evan likes Dai. "No problem," he says, meaning it.
Dai smiles and wonders. He taps the dog again.
*
Evan steps from the pub and out into the rain. He doesn't run. The one thing about being in the rain is he isn't underground. He didn't tell the boys about his job offer in Bristol. He couldn't. Dai might understand, but the rest, they'd think he was betraying them. The rain is so heavy and it is very cold. When he gets to Phil Pugh's house, the front room curtains are closed and there is no light.
Evan knows that Dai will die lonely and Merthyr Jenkins will have his dog. Toop will get the dust and be a thin, coughing old man. Wales will lose on Sunday in Scotland, the pit has six months to live. He might be crying but thank God the rain is in his face. If the boys knew he was crying for the village, his mates, they'd laugh at him for a fifteen day fortnight. Better just go.
Street lights glim behind the rain. He turns up one of the steep side roads.
Better just go.
The mood, the reflectiveness in the opening, the rain, is easy to create because there's this over-seeing, loving-but-sad view of the village. Then (they are inside, out of the rain) it becomes lighter, sillier, the lads having a laugh… But the ending has the old man Dai, there again, his dog, there again, the rain, always the rain. There again. The end answers the opening, the voice is resigned.
In first person, how much harder would that have been?
At the time I didn't think about this a lot, but the more I think, the more illogical it seems to be.
Why should we re-invent the wheel? Why, if our weakness is natural dialogue, should we struggle for three years or ten, trying to get dialogue right? (And what if we don't even see that the dialogue ISN'T right?)
Why randomly read when our reading could be directed? Why randomly critique when our critiquing might be shown to concentrate on the easy parts of the story while ducking the tougher? Why be rough and random when we could be systematic, universal and polished?
Why concentrate on the styles of writing which are comfortable for us and avoid the more difficult (but where our relative greatness might lie) simply because we can, with no one to point our cheating out?
Alone, will we read widely enough or will we seek out our comfort zone, and worse, "stuff we like"? I didn't learn much theory, learned no craft on my MA but at least it got me to read black writers and women writers. I had not realised I didn't read them until I got my reading list!
This is not an essay, it's a set of quick thoughts, but what IS "as far as you can"? Surely you never get there? The only way to get there is to die while writing. We improve, however slowly, merely by writing. We improve, however slowly merely by reading. We improve, however slowly, merely by reading critically, after we have read for pleasure. We improve, however slowly, by critiquing the neophyte work of others. We never REALLY finish improving, so should we never look for help outside ourselves?
When we read well, are we not "taking advice"? Am I not learning to write poetry by reading poems? Am I not learning poetry by reading other poets who talk about their craft? Am I not learning when a poem by someone else inspires me to write a poem? Am I not learning when another poet gives me a short-story idea?
How is this different from having a teacher who DIRECTS my learning, who sees a blind-alley (because he went down it in 1989) and shows me a way to see exactly where I'm going, maybe two or more years before I discover it for myself? I can read books almost randomly (but I'm likely to choose 'easy" rather than challenging) or I can be directed to a wider range of books, books specifically arranged that open up new worlds, new ideas, new craft issues. I can be made to read for weeks, books that focus on known difficulties, read for weeks and discover how a great writer met a problem and resolved it.
Of course we can learn to write by simply writing. The analogy I use is the idea of a pen-pal. We have no natural letter-writing skills but begin to correspond with someone in a far off country. If we write a thousand letters and read a thousand, if we do nothing else, will our letters be better by the end? Almost certainly.
We have learned by the very act of writing. Perhaps we have learned economy, expression. Perhaps we learned some skills from reading the letters sent to us.
If we had the discipline to read a random short story every day, and if we wrote a short-story every day, if we did that for three years, would we be better at the end of those one hundred and fifty-six weeks? It would be remarkable if we weren't.
But if those 156 short stories we read were indeed, "random" how many were great stories. How many were superficial and cheap? How many, by simple chance and bad luck were "OK" but running over old ground? So we have improved, by osmosis, by simple exposure, by repetition, like a child learns to speak merely be being there, but how likely is that this random way is the BEST way?
What would we say if a doctor chose this route to knowledge? By chance he knows a bit about tropical diseases but he can't recognise a slipped disc or a bowel obstruction?
Doesn't the doctor need a long general education, then more specifics, chemistry, physics, biology, haematology, and then years of medical learning at a university, then years as a hospital intern, then a few more working with a general practitioner or a crusty hospital specialist?
Why is writing different? Should it be different?
The head of the Arts Council of England, in a radio interview last year said that only one serious self-taught painter emerged in the UK in the whole of the twentieth century, only one did not go through art college. Is painting an amazing picture any less artistic than shaping a beautiful story or writing a fine poem?
In the last century, thousands of young men left school to work as apprentices and it was as apprentices they developed their skills, overseen by older, wiser, more experience men who had once, themselves been apprentices. As these youngsters make their mistakes, the old hands see their own repeated, and know of ways to shorten and ease the inevitable pains of learning.
Some soccer is pure instinct, and a player needs the right physique, eyesight, muscular strength, flexibility, courage and so on. A great movement in soccer is like art, magical, poetry. But footballers train and train and train. They have managers, coaches, physical trainers. They learn tactics. A promising talent is NURTURED and he goes further, achieves greater heights because he is nurtured.
I cannot find the quotation right now but I think it was Raymond Carver who was asked about the teaching of creative writing, was there a point, could it be taught.
He answered by pointing out that Michaelengelo was AN APPRENTICE and so were Raphael and all the famous painters. He rattled off a list of great writers all of who were mentored. He was mentored by John Gardner, shaped by Lish. In turn he taught others who published and then others were taught after that.
I have lost count of the times in Boot Camp, a discussion will arise driven by errors in one story. Someone will write, "Yes, but…" and I can then post an example of a writer who DID resolve this problem, maybe post an opening of mine. Or I can take that issue and quickly rewrite a paragraph or two and SHOW there and then, in the heat of the furnace, that the problem is resolvable.
Without the group, the argument, my experience, MY reading, my examples, my rewriting (and then more argument, more directed reading) could the author have resolved the problem? POSSIBLY.
But it might have taken years, or the author may simply have avoided that situation in future writing. He would have written, maybe not one-armed, but with two fingers permanently taped together.
In this week's BC session we had seven stories, fifty-seven critiques, twenty or so grids of marks, one hundred and thirty-four posts on the works, then after the session a posted summary of the session where I wrote an editor/judge's view of the stories as a group.
How could a lonely, maybe depressed, writer, starving in his garret get the same intense learning experience? Where does he get his seven stories and when he crits, how does he know he's right (or wrong)?
083 100
084 098
099 113
089 103
085 094
076 094
This week we had stories with mark-ranges of 9-18 (relatively close) but the difference between a Boot Camp 83 and a BC 100 is HUGE. Either the 83 is wrong, or the 100 is wrong. Discuss!
Our solo reader-critiquer (if he even bothers to formally dissect and critique) may constantly over-estimate the worth of what he reads. If he does, who is there to correct him? Who is there to say, that the story he thinks is cool is in fact cliché-ridden, uses a ripped off plot and has wooden characters? (And note it doesn't matter who is right, the 80 or the 110 – what matters is the argument to support our marks.)
In one case (the highest-scoring story this week) the first-person protagonist dies. I HATE that and said so. (I hate the illogicality of this particular story.) I say so (learning note… at least one editor/judge would bin this because he has a negative thing about how I wrote this…)
But the author felt that the first person was necessary, that in any other point of view some of that voice would be lost. One critiquer actually felt the voice got in the way. Most "fell for" the voice and overmarked because of it.
So, could the POV change for the better? Would that lighten the voice? But even if the voice was thinned, would that be better or worse? Less is often more. BUT, the author couldn't see how this would be possible. She couldn't imagine a voiced third person. But the group leader could because he'd been there, done that, ripped his T-shirt.
Writer X
Alex, I agree with the death thing but if this was 3rd person wouldn't you completely lose the voice? I've scored it high too, but I am wondering now, like Tom, how much of this is voice, because not much else really happens. If you had marked it as 3rd, then the scores would, imo, be quite a bit lower.
WRITER Y
I had less of a problem about the 1st person POV of the narrator dying, because the author extended the dying into a sort of out-of-body experience, without going too weirdly ghostly. For me this worked better than just ending with nothingness. I'm not sure that a close 3rd person POV (which it would have to be, because it's all from the MC's head) would work any better. I have the same problem about continuing the story after the death of an over-the-shoulder narrator.
MOI
It would be hard for me to disagree more strongly than I disagree strongly! I think the story would be seriously enhanced by being third person. It can take on a spiritual voice over feel and make the whole resonate more.
WRITER Y
Could you do us a paragraph of it in this ethereal 3rd person voice to show what you mean?
MOI
One example At a Stroke
Let us look at the end of his life.
His name is unimportant. What he does, what he did, how he has earned his way to here, is immaterial. What matters is, somehow, today, he – call him Tom – has come to this.
It is about two-thirty when Tom thinks about the time, pulls away from the computer, thinks about going to get his daughter from school. Tom has been feeling faintly low, headachey, uncertain, undefined, and he has stopped these few minutes earlier to give himself time to clean his teeth, to shave, to slap and sting his face with cologne, to change his shirt for a fresh one. In the past he has called this "dressing to wake up". It breaks the cycle.
The discussion continues. Most like the example/sample voice, the writer of the original story sees what's going on. Then in the craft forum the author raised the issues raised by the story and a thread started where a second story was posted to show that "detached, ethereal, voiced voice" ( a story where the protag dies)…
The above is a trivial example, but it's a learning moment for every Boot Camper. A story develops, (actually a minor consideration) but more importantly the writer has learned that another POV might help, that there is a maximum amount of voicing that will create a voiced story without losing a reader. Forget THIS story, think how the WRITER has been changed.
And all the other writers who read the story, the critiques, the discussion, the new craft thread, and there see three stories "replying to" the original story, showing three similar but not the same ways of dealing with the issue.
This writer, could of course, have written for another decade solidifying her methods before exposing herself to these ideas, examples, argument.
This argument made me think of a very old story of mine, one which won $1,000 when Pontius was still in Pilate Training:
It opens, slow, slow, almost dreamy. The POV is 3rd but it's at Dai's pace, it reflects Dai.
Saturday afternoon and Dai Griffiths sits with his finger-polished roll-up tin. He is patient, fixated, listening. His tongue protrudes slightly as he makes careful, half dog-end, half Old Holburn, delicate, thin cigarettes. It is raining outside the pub and along the valley side snake-terraced roofs glisten. The afternoon light closes.
Rivers run down from the top of the mountain, down the steep side roads, black with coal dust. The rain is like stair-rods now and the Cwm road is welly deep. Running boot-steps splatter past the open pub door and Dai’s black and white terrier looks up. The dog is spotted with splashed black water and moves slightly. Without looking, Dai puts out a hand. The dog lowers its head back onto Dai's feet.
Pimple Roberts is laughing. He has a rolled up Western Mail in his massive fists and he is arguing the toss about something and nothing with Jones eighteen-months. Both of them have arms like pit-props.
From the crowd by the bar there comes a shout of, "Bloody 'ell, yer daff bugger!" A young apprentice called Merthyr Jenkins has just knocked over someone's drink. It is Toop Williams' pint and Toop has just given young Merthyr a good clip round the yur. Merthyr's a big lad and thinks about answering back, but Toop just looks at him and says in his slow voice, "Doanbe darf, son, bugger off inta y'corner and drink yer beer." Toop's face is dark, his eye-brows darker still. The boy turns back to the bar.
Everybody in the pub knows that if he wanted, Toop Williams could kick young Merthyr from where he stands clear to the Arms Park. And they all know no one else would dare. Merthyr is Toop Williams' buttee and no-one but Toop gives a clip to Toop's boy.
Evan Pritchard, shop steward, is in love again but this time it's pretty bad. Dai listens to him talk. Evan wants to take Arfona on the trip to Murrayfield. He's started drinking shandy with low-cal lemonade because Arfona says he's getting fat. The boys think this is funny but Dai Griffiths is sad. Merthyr takes four pints over to a side table, looking for support.
"But ee's a funny bugger, that Toop. I oanlee tripped."
"Fists like ee's got," Pimple says, "Toop can be as funny as he fancies," and Jones-eighteen-months says, "You're not bloody kiddin!"
Now they are talking rugby.
"So anyways," someone says, "this number eight, thickuz two short planks, no neck, shoulders like tallboys. Ee 'its Gareth swack, base over apex - Gareth's in the third row of the stand and on the Mayor's lap, over goes the bench with the Lady Mayoress, legs up in the air, all drawers and no pension book."
Someone asks seriously, "Gareth all right?"
The main character is Evan (or the village, the villagers, as an entity) and the detached, sad, voice-over feel returns at the end. The middle has just been dialogue, rugby, sex, the avoidance of reality. Evan has started learning and the more he learns, the more he thinks he'll have to leave the village, which is dying anyway…
Evan is head down. "No. I wuz thinkin of packin it in."
"What? Being shop steward? Oo the bloody else is gunner do it, Evan? You're the only bloke oo can understand the bosses when they come out with their bullshite."
"I've started doing Open University, "Evan says uncomfortably. "And, well, it's finding the time for everything…"
"Y'mean those dickeads on the telly with the naff clothes?"
"The films were done a long time ago, Ron. But achully, some of the stuff, it's rather good."
"Oh, act-chew-elly, some of it is rar-thuh good. Oh, bugger off, Evan."
"I'm doing political studies. Margaret Thatcher -- "
Jones Eighteen-Months cuts in sharply. "Is an old witch. She'll close every pit before she's finished."
Dai speaks now. Softly, but he is heard.
"Leave Evan alone, eighteen-months. If I'd ad some learning I wouldn't be sitting here now, watching the rain."
"Sorry, Dai. We thought you were avin a kip."
"No," Dai says, "just waiting for Phil."
"Look," Evan says, "Arfona, I think I'd better get back..."
"It's bucketing down, out there, Evan!"
"I know, but. And I've got some homework to do."
Suddenly, at last, someone is serious. "You'll be at the meeting? You won't let the boys down?"
Evan stands up.
"I'll be there. I'll be there. I think this is it, this time."
"You're not really goin' out in that wet are yer?"
"I got me top," Evan says. "It's only bloody rain."
"You get off oam," Dai Griffiths says. His head is still. He touches the dog's head. "And do me a favour while you're wet, check Phil's not ad a funny turn will you? Ee didn't look that good yesterday. I think this rain might be on is chest."
Evan likes Dai. "No problem," he says, meaning it.
Dai smiles and wonders. He taps the dog again.
*
Evan steps from the pub and out into the rain. He doesn't run. The one thing about being in the rain is he isn't underground. He didn't tell the boys about his job offer in Bristol. He couldn't. Dai might understand, but the rest, they'd think he was betraying them. The rain is so heavy and it is very cold. When he gets to Phil Pugh's house, the front room curtains are closed and there is no light.
Evan knows that Dai will die lonely and Merthyr Jenkins will have his dog. Toop will get the dust and be a thin, coughing old man. Wales will lose on Sunday in Scotland, the pit has six months to live. He might be crying but thank God the rain is in his face. If the boys knew he was crying for the village, his mates, they'd laugh at him for a fifteen day fortnight. Better just go.
Street lights glim behind the rain. He turns up one of the steep side roads.
Better just go.
The mood, the reflectiveness in the opening, the rain, is easy to create because there's this over-seeing, loving-but-sad view of the village. Then (they are inside, out of the rain) it becomes lighter, sillier, the lads having a laugh… But the ending has the old man Dai, there again, his dog, there again, the rain, always the rain. There again. The end answers the opening, the voice is resigned.
In first person, how much harder would that have been?
Thursday's Prompts
01:09
End of an Era, End of an Ear
TING!
Sebastian
PING!
A Midnight Yoghurt
A Deer Dancing
Splitting Matches Four Ways
Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sacks
Yellow Wellies
Smeddum
Jones Has the Answer
And fine she well might, the coarse creature!
RAMC
The Man Who Stole a Snowman and Took it to Egypt
Making Fags From Dog-ends
Nature & Nature's Laws Lay Hid at Night
The A-Z of Murder
Eye Drops
Ten Quid on the Lottery, a Broken Toe
Why Getting Even is Odd
The Difference Between a Dove and a Pigeon
Half Welsh, Half-Irish (the Bad Halves)
End of an Era, End of an Ear
TING!
Sebastian
PING!
A Midnight Yoghurt
A Deer Dancing
Splitting Matches Four Ways
Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sacks
Yellow Wellies
Smeddum
Jones Has the Answer
And fine she well might, the coarse creature!
RAMC
The Man Who Stole a Snowman and Took it to Egypt
Making Fags From Dog-ends
Nature & Nature's Laws Lay Hid at Night
The A-Z of Murder
Eye Drops
Ten Quid on the Lottery, a Broken Toe
Why Getting Even is Odd
The Difference Between a Dove and a Pigeon
Half Welsh, Half-Irish (the Bad Halves)
Wednesday, 4 April 2007
Update
A couple on publications, one each for two BC ladies, Chick Flicks and Smokebox, taking us to 30 so far this year, about ten a month... quiet(ish) but still getting the stuff out there..
And two more hits for "JJ" a flash accepted by Smokebox, and a commended in Leaf Book's latest Poetry Comp (and a place in the anthology.
Me. today I installed a new network at Kingfisher Barn, plus "Apple TV" (more on that later) then had some sort of yuck corruption problem on one of the machines and had to spend hours trouble-shooting and then re-installing the operating system. The day just WENT and this bug gets worse, not better, now a chest infection, so now I'm 700 words behind for the month.
Spooky time... Apple TV is a damn neat box that links wirelessly into the network and allows one home computer to be synched to the households main TV and others to "stream" on demand.
Started getting used to the hardware/software and it began uploading my iTunes. Suddenly, it's about midnight when I hear someone talking in the next room. Turns out it's me with a really naff recording of a short-story I wrote, coming out of the TV speakers...
I won't be able to sleep tonight..
als asks - how many words do writers write?
writers write, right?
so...
you are not a writer if you go to bed at night having written nothing
you are not a writer if you carry on, day after day, not actually writing (even if you are thinking about writing)
you are not a writer if you constantly tinker with the same old stories, even if they're brilliant
you are not a writer if your daily, weekly, monthly yearly wordcounts go unrecorded (because then it's easy to pretend that when you're sat in front of the computer thinking about writing you ARE writing. you're not, and if you record your figures, you'll realise you're not)
you are not a writer if there is a deadline looming and you think, hmm, i'll write one for next week's deadline instead
you are not a writer if you are not prepared to sacrifice something you enjoy (drinking, football, sleep, work, whatever) in order to write
you are not a writer if you think, oh, i can't be arsed today, i'm uninspired, i'll wait 'til i'm inspired, then i'll write something REALLY good
you are not a writer if you do not think, every day, LOOK OVER THERE! - THERE'S something i want to write about!
you are not a writer if you sometimes write
writers write, everyday
the answer to the question at the top of the thread is - I don't know how many words a writer writes, but i do know they write more than i am writing at the minute
today, i am not a writer
i am pretending to be a writer
and until i get back to writing something new every day, inspired or not - but better full of inspiration taken from my day - with wordcounts steadily increasing, with a football match on the turned-off telly, with a deadline that i'm GOING TO MEET, then i will still be pretending
and what's the point of pretending?
it's time to write
so...
you are not a writer if you go to bed at night having written nothing
you are not a writer if you carry on, day after day, not actually writing (even if you are thinking about writing)
you are not a writer if you constantly tinker with the same old stories, even if they're brilliant
you are not a writer if your daily, weekly, monthly yearly wordcounts go unrecorded (because then it's easy to pretend that when you're sat in front of the computer thinking about writing you ARE writing. you're not, and if you record your figures, you'll realise you're not)
you are not a writer if there is a deadline looming and you think, hmm, i'll write one for next week's deadline instead
you are not a writer if you are not prepared to sacrifice something you enjoy (drinking, football, sleep, work, whatever) in order to write
you are not a writer if you think, oh, i can't be arsed today, i'm uninspired, i'll wait 'til i'm inspired, then i'll write something REALLY good
you are not a writer if you do not think, every day, LOOK OVER THERE! - THERE'S something i want to write about!
you are not a writer if you sometimes write
writers write, everyday
the answer to the question at the top of the thread is - I don't know how many words a writer writes, but i do know they write more than i am writing at the minute
today, i am not a writer
i am pretending to be a writer
and until i get back to writing something new every day, inspired or not - but better full of inspiration taken from my day - with wordcounts steadily increasing, with a football match on the turned-off telly, with a deadline that i'm GOING TO MEET, then i will still be pretending
and what's the point of pretending?
it's time to write
MORE STORY & POETRY PROMPTS
A blessing be upon your house
TUBE
A nasty break – my son's – and needing pins
HOMESTEAD
a little gas and air, barbiturates, routine
MAJESTY
quietly close your eyes.
HOW NOT TO BELIEVE
The trolley trundles; I pretend
JACOB's LADDER
his hand, mine, confederate, serene
THE RED TELEPHONE
they shroud his eye, his light put out
BLACKER
with sticky juices, half a death, he waits
HELEN OF TRING
through flapping doors to mystery
DELUSION
and all around is cancer, hideous disease
MAO'S LITTLE BOOK OF RECIPES
I did not taste what went into my mouth,
MICROSCOPE, GLASS
"What do YOU want, mother?"
THE COMPLETE SHIRT NOVELS OF SIMON BAREBACK
I am my ownworse nightmare, idiot,
TOWER
I saw his face, I loved it, him
A FIVE-WHEELED CYCLE
I was there in linen, lying, saw
MERRY, MARY, MAYBE
the drugs were cutting in, the pain subsiding, a
BLAST
Once on a moonlight road
PLATE
the deer was broken backed, eyes bulged.
THE RED CHICKEN, THE BLACK
under moon, we went three separate ways
TUBE
A nasty break – my son's – and needing pins
HOMESTEAD
a little gas and air, barbiturates, routine
MAJESTY
quietly close your eyes.
HOW NOT TO BELIEVE
The trolley trundles; I pretend
JACOB's LADDER
his hand, mine, confederate, serene
THE RED TELEPHONE
they shroud his eye, his light put out
BLACKER
with sticky juices, half a death, he waits
HELEN OF TRING
through flapping doors to mystery
DELUSION
and all around is cancer, hideous disease
MAO'S LITTLE BOOK OF RECIPES
I did not taste what went into my mouth,
MICROSCOPE, GLASS
"What do YOU want, mother?"
THE COMPLETE SHIRT NOVELS OF SIMON BAREBACK
I am my ownworse nightmare, idiot,
TOWER
I saw his face, I loved it, him
A FIVE-WHEELED CYCLE
I was there in linen, lying, saw
MERRY, MARY, MAYBE
the drugs were cutting in, the pain subsiding, a
BLAST
Once on a moonlight road
PLATE
the deer was broken backed, eyes bulged.
THE RED CHICKEN, THE BLACK
under moon, we went three separate ways
TIME FOR BED
01:48
0,564 Words Flash Sunday
0,480 Words Flash Monday
0,403 Words Poem Monday
1,064 Words Article Monday
0,492 Words Poem Tuesday
0,362 Words Poem Tuesday/Wednesday
3,362 Words Total April
0,564 Words Flash Sunday
0,480 Words Flash Monday
0,403 Words Poem Monday
1,064 Words Article Monday
0,492 Words Poem Tuesday
0,362 Words Poem Tuesday/Wednesday
3,362 Words Total April
Tuesday, 3 April 2007
Story Arcs - Prrrrttttt!!
"Marzipan" raised this issue in a comment here.
In Boot Camp a discussion has started:
TC
There's a question on the BootCampDiaries blog about story arcs. The questioner wanted to know AK's opinion of them.
I had a couple of lessons in my Uni course on this topic. They left me uneasy. The idea of story arcs is probably ancient, but it has been devoured by Hollywood, so that everything that comes out of there can be seen as a basic three-act story. (And we ARE talking start - middle - end here, nothing more complicated.)
I guess that's my problem. To me, it's only a step removed from the twist ending - everything is contrived, set up by the author.
I have no doubt that, in capable hands, the three acter can work perfectly well. But the pressure on the author to build to a massive finish is surely too great. You only have to look at the end of Silence of the Lambs, where a fantastic psychological study descended into puerile farce, to see how a story can go hideously wrong because it has to be seen to follow some artificial three-act template.
AF
don't know anything about story arcs.
What's the problem with arcs, that makes them contrived? Isn't the theory like what we use already: setting up voice and conflict in the opening, developing character and theme, and ending in a way which shines a light back over the story? Are there more formal "rules" than that?
TC
Yes, the trouble is that it does tend to be rigid. There's the start, where the problem is defined, the characters created. Then it goes on to the creation of ther threat.
Then it goes on to the MC confronting the threat, usually before anyone else does. He then persuades everyone to accept the problem.
End of act one.
So they march off into the fray, to confront the problem. They meet it, fail miserably. Meanwhile, the stakes are raised. We realise how important it all is. So FAILURE IS NOT AN OPTION.
But at the end of Act 2 failure seems inevitable. We have the first confrontation with the enemy. It doesn't go well, and the enemy seems bound to win.
End of Act two
So act three begins with the MC on the defensive, seemingly about to fail. At this stage Hollywood will generally start introducing some Christian bullshit. If not, some quasi-supernatural reserve of strength will save the MC and he will finally prevail over the seemingly all-conquering enemy.
It's crude. It can actually work well. There is a book which reduces a number of films to the story arc format (except it inexcusably forgets the embarrassingly awful Silence of the Lambs escape scene, one of the worst plot twists in Hollywood history). I don't like it because it forces writers into a straightjacket. How can you be fresh when you have to follow a rigid story-arc?
AF
Oh Lord.
Can you think of ANY good short stories which fit into that pattern? Take something like The Ledge, with the Sea as the enemy. It's great because some quasi-supernatural reserve of strength DOES NOT save the MC and he DOES NOT finally prevail over the seemingly all-conquering enemy.
Or is it that in a good short story the enemy isn't necessarily the obvious suspect?
Can you think of ANY good short stories which fit into that pattern?
No
I think short stories have a subtlety that can't be encompassed by the three-act formula.
Take A Silver Dish. It shifts. Your opinion of both Woody and Morris is constantly changing. They're real people, they're lives can't be reduced to a convenient three act summary. Both are flawed, in charismatic ways. How do you make a Hollywood ending out of that?
(Actually, you would make the Hollywood ending out of the scene with Woody getting into the bed to calm his father, because that's a natural end, but in this story it comes half way through. Thus showing a story arc doesn't work for this story. And, anyway, it would be a rotten ending because it doesn't take account of Woody's continuing ambivalence.)
In Boot Camp a discussion has started:
TC
There's a question on the BootCampDiaries blog about story arcs. The questioner wanted to know AK's opinion of them.
I had a couple of lessons in my Uni course on this topic. They left me uneasy. The idea of story arcs is probably ancient, but it has been devoured by Hollywood, so that everything that comes out of there can be seen as a basic three-act story. (And we ARE talking start - middle - end here, nothing more complicated.)
I guess that's my problem. To me, it's only a step removed from the twist ending - everything is contrived, set up by the author.
I have no doubt that, in capable hands, the three acter can work perfectly well. But the pressure on the author to build to a massive finish is surely too great. You only have to look at the end of Silence of the Lambs, where a fantastic psychological study descended into puerile farce, to see how a story can go hideously wrong because it has to be seen to follow some artificial three-act template.
AF
don't know anything about story arcs.
What's the problem with arcs, that makes them contrived? Isn't the theory like what we use already: setting up voice and conflict in the opening, developing character and theme, and ending in a way which shines a light back over the story? Are there more formal "rules" than that?
TC
Yes, the trouble is that it does tend to be rigid. There's the start, where the problem is defined, the characters created. Then it goes on to the creation of ther threat.
Then it goes on to the MC confronting the threat, usually before anyone else does. He then persuades everyone to accept the problem.
End of act one.
So they march off into the fray, to confront the problem. They meet it, fail miserably. Meanwhile, the stakes are raised. We realise how important it all is. So FAILURE IS NOT AN OPTION.
But at the end of Act 2 failure seems inevitable. We have the first confrontation with the enemy. It doesn't go well, and the enemy seems bound to win.
End of Act two
So act three begins with the MC on the defensive, seemingly about to fail. At this stage Hollywood will generally start introducing some Christian bullshit. If not, some quasi-supernatural reserve of strength will save the MC and he will finally prevail over the seemingly all-conquering enemy.
It's crude. It can actually work well. There is a book which reduces a number of films to the story arc format (except it inexcusably forgets the embarrassingly awful Silence of the Lambs escape scene, one of the worst plot twists in Hollywood history). I don't like it because it forces writers into a straightjacket. How can you be fresh when you have to follow a rigid story-arc?
AF
Oh Lord.
Can you think of ANY good short stories which fit into that pattern? Take something like The Ledge, with the Sea as the enemy. It's great because some quasi-supernatural reserve of strength DOES NOT save the MC and he DOES NOT finally prevail over the seemingly all-conquering enemy.
Or is it that in a good short story the enemy isn't necessarily the obvious suspect?
Can you think of ANY good short stories which fit into that pattern?
No
I think short stories have a subtlety that can't be encompassed by the three-act formula.
Take A Silver Dish. It shifts. Your opinion of both Woody and Morris is constantly changing. They're real people, they're lives can't be reduced to a convenient three act summary. Both are flawed, in charismatic ways. How do you make a Hollywood ending out of that?
(Actually, you would make the Hollywood ending out of the scene with Woody getting into the bed to calm his father, because that's a natural end, but in this story it comes half way through. Thus showing a story arc doesn't work for this story. And, anyway, it would be a rotten ending because it doesn't take account of Woody's continuing ambivalence.)
And as a Poet, I'M One!!
An idiot, that is.
When I did my MA in creative writing I opted to do the poetry module for my project (with Jeremy Hooker)... Why? because I knew I didn't have a fucking clue, and I wanted to change that.
Unfortunately I was the only person who put his name down, so I ended up doing short-stories (no time for a novel). That was not a challenge, but there you go.
But the difference between me and almost all the neophyte writers I meet is I'm willing to say, I'm a joke as a poet.
I CAN (very occasionally) put together something which isn't quite prose and the odd editor might like. I've had three poems in small(ish) anthologies and I actually won a first prize for a very unusual poem called "Oral Examination"
BUT
I get so far with a poem and any changes I make are as likely to make the poem worse as make it better. Nine out of ten poems I read mean absolutely nothing to me, either leave me cold or go over my head. i don't understand why this line break "works", that doesn't. When a better poet says, that LB there would be better here I say "Why?" and the answer never convinces me. I see loads of "poems" that just look like prose arbitrarily line-breaked.
I have not been IMMERSED.
So what do I do?
Well, as the man said, I have to start to try and understand what has already been discovered. So I've scoured my bookshelves for all the poetry books, went out yesterday and spent a hundred quid on yet more and I've also bought a few books on understanding poetry, from a "Teach Yourself" and "Poetry, the Basics" to Stephen Fry's "The Ode Less Travelled", another called The Poetry Reader's Toolkit, Ruth Padel's 52 Ways to Look at a Poem, and "Reading Poetry, an Introduction" (Furniss & Bath)
And I have all these famous-name poets to read, the comp winners... I've joined The Poetry Society, subscribed to a couple of mags... and, and, and,
I'm writing "poetry" every day.
I am quite sure I'm crap. Even when I like one of my poems (and it has been known) I know it isn't the kind of "poetry" that will be remembered next week, never mind in twenty years time
But in two years time, when I have read all these poetry books three times, when I have written 700-800 "poems", entered a few dozen comps, had a few hundred rejections and maybe 20 hand-written comments, then, THEN, I might be creeping towards having half an idea of how to stop being a beginner-poet.
Why not keep things simple? Take it easy, keep churning out short-stories and placing them?
Why not take notice of that warning sign there?
Because I want to be a better writer. This is something I know I'm not good at.
But if I live long enough, I WILL be.
But, right now, call me "idiot".
I won't mind....
alex
Admit it, You're an Idiot!
One of the big problems with teaching creative writing is that almost all neophytes imagine they are far FAR better than they are, and (especially on the internet) dare to tell them that they are NOT and risk their wrath.
It's bizarre that this happens in and around writing but not much in other fields. The soccer player soon realises how far off he is from being a top pro. The fledgling piano student has to spend years on scales, learning music, exam after exam, maybe 15 years before being HALF good (and still not a genius.)
Brain Surgeon? Yeah, just get a degree in 4-5-6 years, then serve a couple more on about 90 hours a week, then a few more working with a consultant. Now you might be ready to work under supervision.
If a teacher tells you you really are shitty, that shouldn't be a problem. You should realise that ALL beginners are crap. Your teacher was an idiot, too. It's false hopes, unrealistic views that are dangerous. These are made worse by false praise, people being kind (which actually means they are cruel), and worst of all, the self-congratulatory praise in 99% of internet "writing groups" followed up by cross-publishing each other. Have you ever looked at the qualifications of that particular editor of that particular ezine? Have you ever wondered how big that competition was that X won?
Anyway, I found this today, by Ezra Pound.
The scientist does not expect to be acclaimed as a great scientist until he has discovered something. He begins by learning what has been discovered already. He goes from that point onward. He does not bank on being a charming fellow personally. He does not expect his friends to applaud the results of his freshman class work. Freshmen in poetry are unfortunately not confined to a definite and recognisable class room. They are "all over the shop". Is it any wonder the public is indifferent to poetry?
It's bizarre that this happens in and around writing but not much in other fields. The soccer player soon realises how far off he is from being a top pro. The fledgling piano student has to spend years on scales, learning music, exam after exam, maybe 15 years before being HALF good (and still not a genius.)
Brain Surgeon? Yeah, just get a degree in 4-5-6 years, then serve a couple more on about 90 hours a week, then a few more working with a consultant. Now you might be ready to work under supervision.
If a teacher tells you you really are shitty, that shouldn't be a problem. You should realise that ALL beginners are crap. Your teacher was an idiot, too. It's false hopes, unrealistic views that are dangerous. These are made worse by false praise, people being kind (which actually means they are cruel), and worst of all, the self-congratulatory praise in 99% of internet "writing groups" followed up by cross-publishing each other. Have you ever looked at the qualifications of that particular editor of that particular ezine? Have you ever wondered how big that competition was that X won?
Anyway, I found this today, by Ezra Pound.
The scientist does not expect to be acclaimed as a great scientist until he has discovered something. He begins by learning what has been discovered already. He goes from that point onward. He does not bank on being a charming fellow personally. He does not expect his friends to applaud the results of his freshman class work. Freshmen in poetry are unfortunately not confined to a definite and recognisable class room. They are "all over the shop". Is it any wonder the public is indifferent to poetry?
Sick & Struggling
Had a sudden night away and feeling rotten with this bug.
Having to fight to keep on top of the word count but at least managed 492 words today, a poem using 200 words all invented in the 20th Century
0,564 Words Flash Sunday
0,480 Words Flash Monday
0,403 Words Poem Monday
1,064 Words Article Monday
0,492 Words Poem Tuesday
3,000 Words Total April
SPOOKY (these are genuine numbers) but at least I'm not actually BEHIND
Having to fight to keep on top of the word count but at least managed 492 words today, a poem using 200 words all invented in the 20th Century
0,564 Words Flash Sunday
0,480 Words Flash Monday
0,403 Words Poem Monday
1,064 Words Article Monday
0,492 Words Poem Tuesday
3,000 Words Total April
SPOOKY (these are genuine numbers) but at least I'm not actually BEHIND
Another Hit
JJ tells us he's got a HR in a poetry comp at Leaf and will be in the anthology.
Our 45th of the year
Our 45th of the year
More On Openings
I have written before on openings, most particularly in "How To Open Without a Bang" There I talked about how trying for effect was often false and off-putting and set the story off on the wrong foot. Remember, too, that editors and judges KNOW all the tricks. If you try to con them they can use the circular file.
I've mentioned too, that the dialogue opener, beloved of the cheap magazine editor is a rarity in modern quality fiction. The higher up the scale you go (in terms of quality) the rare is the dialogue opener OR the big-bang opener. My advice was, and still is, to consciously avoid both and instead seek out the right voice and tone and psychological direction for your story. Show that editor or judge you have confidence in your ability. Make the opening show that you aren't desperate to please. Instead you are doing what's right for the story; you're a professional.
I thought I would look at some published openings, NOT chosen because they are world beaters, and try to explain what I would see as an editor or judge. Here is the first opening from a story called The Golden Horde of Mississippi.
All that long morning of her cousin Bobby's funeral. Jessica Sue had meant to tell Grandma Lucy about the Golden Horde of Mississippi, but she and the old woman had been fighting as usual and the music video just hadn't come up.
Stop there! Look how much you have already. We know TIME and have a fair idea of PLACE, and generally we can sense it's "Deep South". We know someone has died, that the protagonist is female and we have this hook, the Golden Horde, a sense of the two women's ages, and immediate conflict. Forty-two words and the author is winning!
Now go to your own latest story and ask how much does your first 42 words do!
To be fair, Jessica was wearing a ratty pair of Dickie's jeans and a faded Megadeath T-shirt, which she knew perfectly well was not proper funeral attire. But she hadn't come home for Christmas vacation expecting her cousin Bobby to slide his Harley-Davison up under an eighteen-wheeler. And anyway, this was how Booby would've wanted her to dress and wasn't it his funeral after all? Wasn't he the one cremated and packed into that lavender and gold cloisonné urn up there on the mantelpiece?
So now we have the main character's looks, and a huge chunk of her personality, we can hear her voice and we know that there's conflict.
Now what does this tell me, not about the story, but about the writer? I can see he/she has done work, has cut out the rubbish, has tightened and sharpened and delivered a hack of a lot of information, character and voice, all in a total of 126 words. In Boot Camp terms this opener is 13-14, probably 14 and I could bet pretty good money that the story will be professional throughout and score 120 at a minimum, possibly far higher. When I read the next paragraph the story actually jumps in quality and I could bet a limb or two that the story is a winner.
Garden City
No one wanted to rent the Chen's apartment. It sat vacant for three months, collecting dust and heat. Footsteps now and then echoed along the wood floors. Voices came and went. Sometimes the drone of a fly butting itself against the glass. Eventually, the fly – its legs as thin as eyelashes – dried on the kitchen window-sill.
Yes! Straight away. Again there is tension, but look at the simplicity which is in fact almost poetry. There's great economy here. We sense the apartment and its emptiness, and the fly is just great.
With this alone I'm very close to thinking '14' (11 is solid par) and I would expect the story to get better and better. As much as the story promises, so does the writer. This is another story which just stamps its authority in a few words.
The story proceeds with Mr Chen showing someone round the apartment. He's very unconvinced. It's turning out to be a bad investment. His wife says, "Other than you and I getting married, this apartment has been the biggest mistake of our lives."
Perfect!
Essay 3: Leda and the Swan
Although the swan is not a delicate creature like a butterfly, and is not cuddly and cute like a kitten, it is a living thing that can feel pain and hunger just like any other living creature. In "Leda and the Swan", by William Butler Yeats, a perverted sort of swan ends up performing sexual intercourse with a loose girl called Leda.
I'm immediately hooked here (I would prefer to say "tilted" or "intrigued") and the voice is deliciously "off" and silly. I expect a lot of fun to come, but I'd bet this will be poignant and not merely funny.
The motive of the swan is shown when he performs only a few foreplays, like caressing her "thighs" and gripping her "helpless breast" before revealing his "feathered glory". He's got only one thing on his mind: shuddering his loins. This swan is clearly a sex-starved animal that doesn't belong in Ireland, let alone a cit park! In this essay, I will argue that Mr. Yeats is actually a mentally ill person who lives poetically through swans and furthermore knows nothing about swans and their gentile mating habits.
Again, delicious, loads of promise to come, and see the error "gentile" for gentle. And now look:
First of all, Mr. Yeats is a mentally ill person who lives, poetically through swans. I know this for a fact because my older sister Jeannie, is mentally ill and used to write poems about animals before she ran away from home and became a missing person. However, since she isn't a pervert, the poems were not about intercoursing swans.
How can we not like this one helluva lot? It's going to be funny but darkly so, almost certainly. But could I put this on the finalist's pile? Yes. Is it another 14+ opener? Yes.
Tuesday's Story Prompts
I was away, still catching up, but these were today's (early morning) prompts
Shagging his Best Friend's Daughter
Blow Flies
Death is not a bad joke if told the right way
Pomegranite
A sudoku sort of existence
Cling Film Woman
A Nun in a Red Mini
Handbags and Gladrags
Oh, that this too, too solid flesh would melt
The Italian Job
Ring a Ring a Roses
That be chamomile
The Phantom Strikes Again
Beating the Pope at Dominoes
The Greatest of These is Charity
Shagging his Best Friend's Daughter
Blow Flies
Death is not a bad joke if told the right way
Pomegranite
A sudoku sort of existence
Cling Film Woman
A Nun in a Red Mini
Handbags and Gladrags
Oh, that this too, too solid flesh would melt
The Italian Job
Ring a Ring a Roses
That be chamomile
The Phantom Strikes Again
Beating the Pope at Dominoes
The Greatest of These is Charity
Well Done Gang!
Just back and have to pick up the lad from friends...
Just want to say that amazingly, while the pussy-cat was away the guys came good and all the weekend's stories were cleared with 8 crits each, one story 9.
THIS is a writing group.
This IS a writing group.
This is a WRITING group.
This is a writing GROUP
alex
Just want to say that amazingly, while the pussy-cat was away the guys came good and all the weekend's stories were cleared with 8 crits each, one story 9.
THIS is a writing group.
This IS a writing group.
This is a WRITING group.
This is a writing GROUP
alex
Monday, 2 April 2007
There Will Be a Short Intermission
Called away suddenly, but chuffed as I've managed another submission and 1,064 more words, first part of an advanced article on openings. (The beginner's ones are already available).
0,564 Words Flash Sunday
0,480 Words Flash Monday
0,403 Words Poem Monday
1,064 Words Article Monday
2,508 Words Total April
There! My 2K achieved, and 508 words towards the back-log from March!
0,564 Words Flash Sunday
0,480 Words Flash Monday
0,403 Words Poem Monday
1,064 Words Article Monday
2,508 Words Total April
There! My 2K achieved, and 508 words towards the back-log from March!
Seduction Not Instruction, Judge
I don't like the adage "Show-not-Tell" mainly because 99.9% of writers don't understand it. If they did, IMO they would then argue that "Tell" is always, absolutely ALWAYS wrong.
I wrote two articles on Seduction-not-Instruction (my preferred, clearer alternative to the misleading "Show-Tell" and in the first
HERE I talked about a story of mine, about a woman who leaves her family and runs away to London.
The reason I post this is, if you read the article, the expanded parts, (the "tell" if you like) I quite like and I remember re-reading the article and thinking, "Hey, maybe people prefer the longer, more told version?"
But from my POV if the longer version is INTERESTING then it isn't really tell. It's not "instruction" it's seduction.
However, the point is this. The story won a $600 first prize, and look what the judge said.
"The Smell of Almond Polish is a story which is incredibly understated, yet which carries a vast understory. The writing is clear and uncluttered, starting with a journey, and following the fortunes of Bridie Collins who simply gets jobs, does rather well, then returns home again. The writer never tells us why she leaves her family, or what is actually going on in her life, yet the story is tender and painful."
This reminds me. A female editor at Atlantic Monthly LOVED this story and wanted Atlantic to take it. It was eventually turned down by the senior editor who called it "wilfully obscure"!
The female editor emailed me, woman-to-woman, to explain that the Snr Ed, a mere man, couldn't understand the duty we women understood!
yet which carries a vast understory
That's the point. If the reader can do a little bit of work mentally and sense an undercurrent, feel the back-story, know that there's a lot going on here, more than on the page, that's when work feels powerful and the words seem to be fighting far above their weight.
Hmmm, Mr Auden
Just read this:
Behind the work of any creative artist there are three principal wishes:
the wish to make something
the wish to perceive something, either in the external world of sense or in the internal world of feeling
the wish to communicate those perceptions to others.
Those who have no interest in or talent for making something, ie: no skill in a particular artistic medium do not become artists; they dine out, they gossip at street corners, the hold forth in cafes.*
Those who have no interest in communication do not become artists either. They become mystics or madmen.
W H Auden
* and in (internet) cafes!
Behind the work of any creative artist there are three principal wishes:
the wish to make something
the wish to perceive something, either in the external world of sense or in the internal world of feeling
the wish to communicate those perceptions to others.
Those who have no interest in or talent for making something, ie: no skill in a particular artistic medium do not become artists; they dine out, they gossip at street corners, the hold forth in cafes.*
Those who have no interest in communication do not become artists either. They become mystics or madmen.
W H Auden
* and in (internet) cafes!
Stumbling On
I seem to have so much admin at the moment in BC and etc. Whatever happened to time to write?
Not that I'm NOT writing and I'm certainly SUBBING. Glimmer Train has a new comp "Family Matters" $15 entry but $2,000 first and two good prizes for 2nd & 3rd. I've sent off two but really I don't know why I bother as I don't think my writing and their interns' tastes overlap much. I managed the last 25 final in one of their comps once and that was with my "third-string" entry, title (I kid you not) "Family Matters".
0,564 Words Flash Sunday
0,480 Words Flash Monday
0,403 Words Poem Monday
1,444 Words Total April
So 556 words just to be on schedule for a steady-work month, (and I'm supposed to be regaining 5K missed in March), BUT my personal target for the month subs-wise is 30 and I'm already on 20!!
You Can Come Second Next Year!
Here are today's poetry prompts
ONE.
This exercise comes from Lois Peterson's 101 Writing Exercises, slightly embellished by me.
Take a favourite poem, or one picked at random from a collection, and type it up exactly as written. Type double-space or treble space to give you room to write between the lines
Between each line now write YOUR line, a new one that might or might not realte to the one above (or below for that matter) - anything that comes to mind.
Now delete the original lines and work with the poem you've created, changing words, their order, inserting or deleting new line breaks or stanza breaks, doing whatever it takes to make this ne w poem YOURS.
TWO
a poem about three wives
THREE
a poem containing at lest two of thes words, preferably more
genius, nettle, stove, print, light
ONE.
This exercise comes from Lois Peterson's 101 Writing Exercises, slightly embellished by me.
Take a favourite poem, or one picked at random from a collection, and type it up exactly as written. Type double-space or treble space to give you room to write between the lines
Between each line now write YOUR line, a new one that might or might not realte to the one above (or below for that matter) - anything that comes to mind.
Now delete the original lines and work with the poem you've created, changing words, their order, inserting or deleting new line breaks or stanza breaks, doing whatever it takes to make this ne w poem YOURS.
TWO
a poem about three wives
THREE
a poem containing at lest two of thes words, preferably more
genius, nettle, stove, print, light
Wins the National Poetry Prize...
Before I start, found this, when I could still get in my office.
and this, an exercise in vanity or a reminder that yes, it really DID happen?
(Good?) Morning
Had a remission from this bug for a few hours late last night, crawled off to bed after 2AM and the wife (further into the same bug) was coughing so much it made her sick. Oh joy! So (we) barely slept last night.
Up early for the station run and then working on my subs/rejects spreadsheet. Realised I hadn't won The National Poetry Prize (came as a shock, I mean there were only 10,000 entries, probably half by poets who've published collections) how could they have not picked my three? I expected 1st, 2nd, 4th at least (given Seamus Heaney a token 3rd to show it's not fixed.)
Henny Weigh, if you fancy yourself as a poet. (I don't fancy myself as one, and yes, the above was a feeble attempt at humour) then it's well worth going to HERE (The Poetry Society's main site) as there are links to the top 13 or so poems this year.
I bet I came 14th, 15th, 16th...
(humour again folks)
Nice to see that the winner is accessible and readable.
Incidentally, I started to copy them into my word-processor intending to print and study (Study? Moi?) but some of them came across without line-breaks. I looked to try and see WHERE the line-breaks should be and it was hopeless. So often LBs seem arbitrary... but these are (apparently) seriously good poems, so the fault must be mine.
This is an old one of mine that appeared in Buzzwords Magazine (1999 I think.) In the following issue someone wrote that it benefitted from repeat reading.
Poetry remains a mystery to me. Doing my admin I was shocked to find that I've published twelve times (eight poems and two pieces that editors called prose poems that I thought were shorts.) I even won a prize for a rude poem about oral sex (whatever that is.)
But I know I'm crossing some dangerous wetlands just to get to the forest that I have to hack through to get to the bottom end of the foothills of being a poet, and it's raining really heavily, and the winds up, the temperature's dropping, and I shouldn't be out, but I like being in the position of being a neophyte (not unlike newbie short-story writers in Boot Camp) and I WILL get there.
Here it is...
Truth
Tell me the truth about sex, Jackie,
Tell me
the truth
about sex, tell me Jackie, the truth
about me, and sex, about me and sex
Jackie, the truth.
You've told me facts,
you've done it all,
most;
three in a bed, you, another girl, a guy,
you, two guys,
but tell me the truth about sex, Jackie,
not facts.
I can't tell you truths,
I know no truths
I think it's true, I know
but what I know are facts
my mistakes are always one at a time.
I can talk about truths and think
about true things
(not including being true)
to you
but truths from me, they're facts
and it's the truth I need
so tell me the truth about sex, Jackie.
and this, an exercise in vanity or a reminder that yes, it really DID happen?
(Good?) Morning
Had a remission from this bug for a few hours late last night, crawled off to bed after 2AM and the wife (further into the same bug) was coughing so much it made her sick. Oh joy! So (we) barely slept last night.
Up early for the station run and then working on my subs/rejects spreadsheet. Realised I hadn't won The National Poetry Prize (came as a shock, I mean there were only 10,000 entries, probably half by poets who've published collections) how could they have not picked my three? I expected 1st, 2nd, 4th at least (given Seamus Heaney a token 3rd to show it's not fixed.)
Henny Weigh, if you fancy yourself as a poet. (I don't fancy myself as one, and yes, the above was a feeble attempt at humour) then it's well worth going to HERE (The Poetry Society's main site) as there are links to the top 13 or so poems this year.
I bet I came 14th, 15th, 16th...
(humour again folks)
Nice to see that the winner is accessible and readable.
Incidentally, I started to copy them into my word-processor intending to print and study (Study? Moi?) but some of them came across without line-breaks. I looked to try and see WHERE the line-breaks should be and it was hopeless. So often LBs seem arbitrary... but these are (apparently) seriously good poems, so the fault must be mine.
This is an old one of mine that appeared in Buzzwords Magazine (1999 I think.) In the following issue someone wrote that it benefitted from repeat reading.
Poetry remains a mystery to me. Doing my admin I was shocked to find that I've published twelve times (eight poems and two pieces that editors called prose poems that I thought were shorts.) I even won a prize for a rude poem about oral sex (whatever that is.)
But I know I'm crossing some dangerous wetlands just to get to the forest that I have to hack through to get to the bottom end of the foothills of being a poet, and it's raining really heavily, and the winds up, the temperature's dropping, and I shouldn't be out, but I like being in the position of being a neophyte (not unlike newbie short-story writers in Boot Camp) and I WILL get there.
Here it is...
Truth
Tell me the truth about sex, Jackie,
Tell me
the truth
about sex, tell me Jackie, the truth
about me, and sex, about me and sex
Jackie, the truth.
You've told me facts,
you've done it all,
most;
three in a bed, you, another girl, a guy,
you, two guys,
but tell me the truth about sex, Jackie,
not facts.
I can't tell you truths,
I know no truths
I think it's true, I know
but what I know are facts
my mistakes are always one at a time.
I can talk about truths and think
about true things
(not including being true)
to you
but truths from me, they're facts
and it's the truth I need
so tell me the truth about sex, Jackie.
The Mary Celeste
Boot Camp is REALLY quiet, sneakily, spookily so.
I posted an attempt at a flash session for 18:45 tonight (between dinner and Dream Team) and I easily wrote the best flash.
It was the ONLY flash.
We have people away and more left today (school holidays) so this fortnight will be tough, although I'm VERY pleased to say that after "Misty" joined BC PRO a week or two ago, "Bry1300" has returned to also join PRO as has "Jacob". Excellent.
Despite the apparent quiet, mysterious, secretive elves keep popping in and doing critiques. One story is cleared and the rest are 7-7-7-7-7-6-6-5, btter than I could have hoped for.
AND DID YOU ALL SEE THIS? SO CUTE!!
IS THAT PEDALOPHILIA?
alex
I posted an attempt at a flash session for 18:45 tonight (between dinner and Dream Team) and I easily wrote the best flash.
It was the ONLY flash.
We have people away and more left today (school holidays) so this fortnight will be tough, although I'm VERY pleased to say that after "Misty" joined BC PRO a week or two ago, "Bry1300" has returned to also join PRO as has "Jacob". Excellent.
Despite the apparent quiet, mysterious, secretive elves keep popping in and doing critiques. One story is cleared and the rest are 7-7-7-7-7-6-6-5, btter than I could have hoped for.
AND DID YOU ALL SEE THIS? SO CUTE!!
IS THAT PEDALOPHILIA?
alex
Sunday, 1 April 2007
Now THIS is Early!
I lay around most of Sunday (drinking hot-toddies with Lemsip every 3-4 hours and now I'm wide awake!
So, what the hell, I may as well post the Monday Morning Flash Prompts:
HERE
... and the great cameras and lights...
MUREX
They had to lift her hand from the bedside phone
MUNTJAK
They wear teasing skirts and latest shoes
MUNITION
Woke up, fell out of bed
MURAL
I am falling, impartially on roads and roofs
MURINE
Ever since the accident I've walked this way
MURIACTIC
In the dark houseboats, families were stirring
MURK
Chinese soup cooked on charcoal stoves
MURRENGER
... the sound of grief and churning rivers...
NAPALM
and all the long morning, waiting for the hearse
NAPTHA
The first man I slept with kept his eyes closed the whole time.
In Vino Veritas
Three whisky hot-toddies to dull the pain, then two glasses of wine (ditto) (nothing works) but this is what happens when you try to use all the prompts.
America I have given you all and now I am nothing. I am elsewhere. Here, I wander the cheap movie theatres, the saloons, the fly-by-night markets, the rubble. I see the black-clad women, those tired, wailing women who choke and cough up dust; I see the thin blue lips of their children, crushed.
Once I believed in you America. I loved Elvis. My most important question was which came first, the rock or the roll? I wondered about small things like who ate the metal lost from a spoon, what happened to the quarters of the moon, what people must have felt, skin-clad, when the sun disappeared.
I live now in a stone grey town with a name like a bell, ten miles above the tits at St Tropez. Do you think that's funny, Yank, the revolutionary, retired to the hills? Why, why, why, America? Women, children, old people among them, are camping in my garden. I cannot feed them. Even to try would lead to my death. They are dying, they walk like Dachau Jews yet still all the boys are howling to take the girls to bed.
And do you know why, America? Why after all, when measuring the bottom line, it still comes down to juice, to loving? Did you not know we were made to love? Chide your mindless Caesars, explain. In the name of what? You have all but destroyed love (love is not the rape of a brown woman, not killing wide-eyed children).
I have lived in important places, times. I have sunbathed on white sand in Guantanamo Bay, I have picked orchids outside Mai Lai, chatted to passers-by in Abu Grabi, met the young girl who gathered cow-dung in a wide, round basket, who carried shit to her grandfather to bake it into bricks, ready to rebuild.
Oh, America, you sick fuck April Fool. You imagine you will be there forever? Like the Chinese? Like Romans? Fiddling while the world burns. Listen, in a corner of that fat blue sky the mill of night whistles, and it's the sound of an ending. In the finality what endures is flesh and blood, the human. Build what you like of cement and aluminium, build pyramids, great walls, monstrous faces. So? What stays is what connects, is what we remember, and it is not tall building, tanks and planes. It is not the protestations of the auto-cued Texan. In the end it's love, people breaking bread, drinking wine.
The only solution now lies in separation. We know this, even as you infiltrate, emasculate and fill us up with Starbucks soup and beef-pat discs.
But until then, continue. Imagine you rule. And let the five o'clock robots mob the newsstands, the blonde newscasters smarm and talk about collateral misfortunes, innocence, the lovers of Presidents slain. History will ask "What innocence? Whose Guilt? What eyes? Whose breasts? What sad vagina?"
You will spin and almost convince, and we will buy your DVDs. You will seduce British PMs, and they, of an imagined necessity, will wipe their hands, the devil-sold, damned.
But we, the patient, we will ignore the pains in our chest. We will cook Sunday lunch, lamb. Gravy, mint-sauce ( a real lamb, and gravy that we made, and mint from a garden). We will eat a little too much (because it's Sunday) and fall onto sofas and waste time.
America I have given you all and now I am nothing. I am elsewhere. Here, I wander the cheap movie theatres, the saloons, the fly-by-night markets, the rubble. I see the black-clad women, those tired, wailing women who choke and cough up dust; I see the thin blue lips of their children, crushed.
Once I believed in you America. I loved Elvis. My most important question was which came first, the rock or the roll? I wondered about small things like who ate the metal lost from a spoon, what happened to the quarters of the moon, what people must have felt, skin-clad, when the sun disappeared.
I live now in a stone grey town with a name like a bell, ten miles above the tits at St Tropez. Do you think that's funny, Yank, the revolutionary, retired to the hills? Why, why, why, America? Women, children, old people among them, are camping in my garden. I cannot feed them. Even to try would lead to my death. They are dying, they walk like Dachau Jews yet still all the boys are howling to take the girls to bed.
And do you know why, America? Why after all, when measuring the bottom line, it still comes down to juice, to loving? Did you not know we were made to love? Chide your mindless Caesars, explain. In the name of what? You have all but destroyed love (love is not the rape of a brown woman, not killing wide-eyed children).
I have lived in important places, times. I have sunbathed on white sand in Guantanamo Bay, I have picked orchids outside Mai Lai, chatted to passers-by in Abu Grabi, met the young girl who gathered cow-dung in a wide, round basket, who carried shit to her grandfather to bake it into bricks, ready to rebuild.
Oh, America, you sick fuck April Fool. You imagine you will be there forever? Like the Chinese? Like Romans? Fiddling while the world burns. Listen, in a corner of that fat blue sky the mill of night whistles, and it's the sound of an ending. In the finality what endures is flesh and blood, the human. Build what you like of cement and aluminium, build pyramids, great walls, monstrous faces. So? What stays is what connects, is what we remember, and it is not tall building, tanks and planes. It is not the protestations of the auto-cued Texan. In the end it's love, people breaking bread, drinking wine.
The only solution now lies in separation. We know this, even as you infiltrate, emasculate and fill us up with Starbucks soup and beef-pat discs.
But until then, continue. Imagine you rule. And let the five o'clock robots mob the newsstands, the blonde newscasters smarm and talk about collateral misfortunes, innocence, the lovers of Presidents slain. History will ask "What innocence? Whose Guilt? What eyes? Whose breasts? What sad vagina?"
You will spin and almost convince, and we will buy your DVDs. You will seduce British PMs, and they, of an imagined necessity, will wipe their hands, the devil-sold, damned.
But we, the patient, we will ignore the pains in our chest. We will cook Sunday lunch, lamb. Gravy, mint-sauce ( a real lamb, and gravy that we made, and mint from a garden). We will eat a little too much (because it's Sunday) and fall onto sofas and waste time.
A Challenge
Use AT LEAST two of the following prompts in a story, frist draft finsished and posted within 75 minutes of seeing the prompts.
Prize to the best non Boot Camper
Cheap Movie Theatres, saloons, fly-by-night markets
The metal lost from a spoon
All the boys are howling to take the girls to bed
Barb
America I've given you all and now I'm nothing
April Fool
sphinx of cement and aluminium
Vino, Vina, Vinas
The five o'clock robots mob the newsstands
Angina, Vagina
When tired women choke and cough up dust
Blue
The only solution now lies in separation
Mint Sauce
Brutish necessity wipes its hands
Chide
Which came first, the rock or the roll?
Caesar
I have live in important places, times
Elvis
In a corner of blue sky the mill of night whistles
the girl who gathered cow-dung in a wide, round basket
Out would come, the tin of Tate & Lyle's Golden Syrup
A Stone grey town with a name like a bell
Ten miles above the tits at St Tropez
My eldest sister arrived home that morning
Women, children, old people among them, are camping
What innocence? Whose Guilt? What eyes? Whose breasts?
Prize to the best non Boot Camper
Cheap Movie Theatres, saloons, fly-by-night markets
The metal lost from a spoon
All the boys are howling to take the girls to bed
Barb
America I've given you all and now I'm nothing
April Fool
sphinx of cement and aluminium
Vino, Vina, Vinas
The five o'clock robots mob the newsstands
Angina, Vagina
When tired women choke and cough up dust
Blue
The only solution now lies in separation
Mint Sauce
Brutish necessity wipes its hands
Chide
Which came first, the rock or the roll?
Caesar
I have live in important places, times
Elvis
In a corner of blue sky the mill of night whistles
the girl who gathered cow-dung in a wide, round basket
Out would come, the tin of Tate & Lyle's Golden Syrup
A Stone grey town with a name like a bell
Ten miles above the tits at St Tropez
My eldest sister arrived home that morning
Women, children, old people among them, are camping
What innocence? Whose Guilt? What eyes? Whose breasts?
I Do NOT Believe it!
How many minutes ago did I mention "Trigger's Broom"?
My more serious stuff is dealt with by my agent SP who is based in Paris. She's just been on the phone to say The New Yorker is taking it (and for silly money)!!!
Woo Hoo
And is this a first? She has my "serious novel" which God knows how many British Publishers are umming and ah-ing over, but a FRENCH House is prepared to bring it out in French first.
If I say yes, It will be called Le Sac à Main De L'Auteur Mauvais
I'm still thinking about that one.
Alex (can I go back to bed now?)
My more serious stuff is dealt with by my agent SP who is based in Paris. She's just been on the phone to say The New Yorker is taking it (and for silly money)!!!
Woo Hoo
And is this a first? She has my "serious novel" which God knows how many British Publishers are umming and ah-ing over, but a FRENCH House is prepared to bring it out in French first.
If I say yes, It will be called Le Sac à Main De L'Auteur Mauvais
I'm still thinking about that one.
Alex (can I go back to bed now?)
Sunday's Poetry Prompts
If they're crap, blame this fucking virus.
Deal today is TWO poems (about the same idea/feeling) but they must be very different deliveries
a sonnet and a haiku or whatever.
or write a poem containing four trigonometry terms
or write a poem that starts with a famous line and ends with a famous line from another poem... (should this turn out to be a wothwhile poem you can change the lines in your redraft.) The lines should inspire the poem not just be accidentally there
or (titles)
Clock, Clock
The Ship of Aeschylus or Trigger's Broom
if you don't know about the ship Google it... it's a wonderful philosphical concept but can be applied to life too.
I have a story "Trigger's Broom" based on the same idea (I would take it in a flash for 7Q but it remains unpubbed
Maybe it's because it starts:
Some say The Ship of Theseus is a paradox, but I wouldn’t. Like the book says, a paradox is an apparently true statement that seems to lead to a logical self-contradiction, or to a situation that contradicts common intuition. The identification of a paradox based on seemingly simple and reasonable concepts has often led to significant advances in science.
Har Har
Deal today is TWO poems (about the same idea/feeling) but they must be very different deliveries
a sonnet and a haiku or whatever.
or write a poem containing four trigonometry terms
or write a poem that starts with a famous line and ends with a famous line from another poem... (should this turn out to be a wothwhile poem you can change the lines in your redraft.) The lines should inspire the poem not just be accidentally there
or (titles)
Clock, Clock
The Ship of Aeschylus or Trigger's Broom
if you don't know about the ship Google it... it's a wonderful philosphical concept but can be applied to life too.
I have a story "Trigger's Broom" based on the same idea (I would take it in a flash for 7Q but it remains unpubbed
Maybe it's because it starts:
Some say The Ship of Theseus is a paradox, but I wouldn’t. Like the book says, a paradox is an apparently true statement that seems to lead to a logical self-contradiction, or to a situation that contradicts common intuition. The identification of a paradox based on seemingly simple and reasonable concepts has often led to significant advances in science.
Har Har
Sick!
I feel terrible. Lem-Sips barely touch this one. Everything aches but my lower back is actual PAIN.
Fuck! Last month I only managed 25,000 words (but I subbed for England) and my target for this month (as well as running every day) is to write the month's 30K minimum AND make up the shortfall from March. Talk about digging a hole and jumping in. Maybe some BCers will get some hits and cheer me up.
Someone else posted a set of prompts today:
HERE
It's a Fool's Game
Hit me with your rhythm stick
Any Dream Will Do
The woman who melts in my mouth, not in my hands
March Winds and April Showers
My Year in Pictures
The Donkey Sanctuary
A Long Walk to Freedom
Leading Man
My Vines have tender grapes
Demise of the Beanie Baby
Mattie and Mattie
A Host of Golden Buttercups
Fatherfucker
The Trials of Job
Confessions of a photocopier
The Time of the Singing of Birds is Come
The Alternative Service Book
I LOVE that picture! (Don't care if I posted it yesterday)
So does my wife Imelda.
Fuck! Last month I only managed 25,000 words (but I subbed for England) and my target for this month (as well as running every day) is to write the month's 30K minimum AND make up the shortfall from March. Talk about digging a hole and jumping in. Maybe some BCers will get some hits and cheer me up.
Someone else posted a set of prompts today:
HERE
It's a Fool's Game
Hit me with your rhythm stick
Any Dream Will Do
The woman who melts in my mouth, not in my hands
March Winds and April Showers
My Year in Pictures
The Donkey Sanctuary
A Long Walk to Freedom
Leading Man
My Vines have tender grapes
Demise of the Beanie Baby
Mattie and Mattie
A Host of Golden Buttercups
Fatherfucker
The Trials of Job
Confessions of a photocopier
The Time of the Singing of Birds is Come
The Alternative Service Book
I LOVE that picture! (Don't care if I posted it yesterday)
So does my wife Imelda.
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