Tag: fiction

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Writing Just Enough

As writers, I think we’ve all had the experience of starting a poem or a story with a great idea, but it fails because there simply isn’t enough material to sustain a complete story.

I remember one instance when I was invited to write a poem inspired by a botanic garden. I was particularly taken by a species of tree where the seed is sealed with a natural glue that can only be opened when it melts with heat. As such, in a natural environment, it requires a forest fire to reproduce. Despite writing many lines to this effect, I found only the first two and last two were strong candidates, so the end piece was much shorter than expected, but much punchier as well.

I’ve also experienced the opposite effect at least once. I set out to write a little joke for my online pals about how YouTube videos used to be sent out to customers by post. The fictional history of the company became so detailed that I eventually turned it into a 2,000-word short story.

The same unpredictability also happens in non-fiction. The Wikipedia page for Kirkton, Dundee is relatively short because it’s mainly a residential area, albeit with four schools and excellent transport links. On the other hand, the riot that erupted there at Hallowe’en in 2022 is given a separate page that’s around twice as long as the main article, simply because there is so much to be written about the incident.

Having written this blog for a decade now, I can generally predict how long my entries will be. Something else will occasionally occur to me while writing that extends their length. Every so often, I’ll run out of steam, leaving me with a draft entry that goes nowhere.

As these drafts are beginning to build up again, I’m going to see whether I can revisit them and add enough to create a fully-fledged topic.

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Inform the Troops There Has Been a Complete Breakdown in Communications

Because of other commitments, I sometimes don’t write my blog entries until the last few hours. Most of the time this isn’t problem; I usually have at least one idea ready to go.

Today, however, the Internet connection isn’t co-operating. As such, I’m going to write this short entry and keep trying the Schedule button until 8pm.

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Rewriting the Handbook

As mentioned in the last entry, our open-mic night for writers – Hotchpotch – held its first event in four months.

The bottom line is that the evening went well: we attracted a sizeable crowd, the event ran on schedule, and people embraced the new donations system. While there were a lot of variables outside our control, it helped to have a robust plan to remove as much guesswork as possible.

When I brought an assistant on board earlier this year, I composed a document to show her the structure of our events, as I’d previously done it from memory.

This is not an exhaustive textbook, but rather a handbook to give an overview of how the event is run, plus best practice gained from years of experience. For example, it reminds the host to recap the introductory speech after the first break for the benefit of those who arrive later.

Because our format evolved on the pub circuit, where we could finish later in the evening. I rewrote the handbook to include a stricter end time and added in revised best practice advice.

As the handbook is a living document, it will likely be updated every month or two with new tweaks, but it really did help with our event last week.

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Fragments of a Whole

If you’re a fan of the 1996 film Trainspotting, you’ll be familiar with the opening Choose Life voiceover.

Here, the phrase is repeatedly used to describe aspirations such as owning a large television and having fixed-rate mortgage repayments. It almost tells a story, but not one with a linear narrative. We as listeners have to mentally join the dots.

Later on, the film also features the dance track Born Slippy .NUXX by Underworld, and that takes a similar approach. In an interview from 2010, the lyricist Karl Hyde reported struggling with alcoholism while recording the vocals, so they were presented almost as snapshots rather than a complete image.

I’ve recently been experimenting with similar stream-of-consciousness work. A few months ago, on the way home from an event, I thought up a couple of lines of poetry that I quickly noted down. Over the following month, I added and added to it, one fragment at a time, creating a non-linear piece that straddles the line between prose and poetry.

When I’m performing it, I would normally omit any explanation, instead allowing the audience to interpret it.

When I submitted the piece to my poetry circle, however, I included some further details to aid their analysis. I wasn’t deliberately emulating the style of the Beat Generation, who actively fought against convention in poetry, yet it ended up taking that path.

The difference between my piece and the examples from Trainspotting is that mine doesn’t have music behind it. The Choose Life segment likely wouldn’t work as well without Iggy Pop in the background, while Born Slippy .NUXX would be markedly different if spoken at an open-mic night.

In fact, as I was writing that, I considered I might try it. If I do, I’ll let you know what happens.

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Writing Clear Instructions

Back in May, I started running a new writing class called Placing Your Mark.

Unlike the other events I run, where the members bring their existing projects, this one is actively geared towards creating new work. The format has now settled down to include regular features such as writing a passage containing five given words, starting with a line taken from a novel, or inspired by picking a card at random.

When I’m writing these prompts, I do it by myself and it’s difficult to tell how well they’ll be understood.

For example, there is always a break halfway through, during which I produce an object and ask the members to muse upon it and write a piece inspired by it. I initially thought I was making the intention clear: a ten-minute break, followed by five minutes of writing. After trialling the feature and finding members were confused, I rewrote the instructions to make it clearer.

Other prompts don’t fly as well as I’d hoped. A few of these have involved an office setting, which frequently has a power structure and is ripe for conflict. However, some members have had difficulty relating to this because they haven’t worked in that type of environment.

Based on this feedback, I’ve had less of a problem with prompts that don’t work. It’s just as well because we’re now into the third block of four sessions, with possibly enough interest for a future block, and that means I need to write even more of them.

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Writing Yourself Out of a Corner

If you were a fan of Friends back in 1998, you’ll remember the hype and speculation around what would happen during Ross and Emily’s wedding.

Coming at the end of Season 4, this had to be a climactic scene. These days, it’s hardly a spoiler to mention that Ross accidentally says Rachel’s name, which feeds into the entirety of Season 5. However, I’ve only learnt in the last week that the writers struggled to think of a proper ending until the actor who played Ross – David Schwimmer – accidentally switched the names during another scene.

This serves as a good example of how even professional writers are rarely bestowed with fully-formed ideas. A story often needs to be written out and figured out along the way, and that process can take years.

Larry Cohen pitched the idea for the film Phone Booth to Alfred Hitchcock in the 1960s, but neither of them could think of a reason to keep the main character in the booth. By the late 1990s, the public was becoming increasingly vigilant to the threat of terrorism, and Cohen played into that as he realised a sniper with a weapon could be a good reason. It was even a plot point that the main character was one of the few people still using a payphone by that point.

I even have a few examples of my own. One particular example was a three-line fragment of poetry I wrote at school before I ever routinely wrote poetry. In 2013, more than ten years after I left school, I finally found a way to work it into a fuller piece. It gained a sequel in 2018, taking a very different tone from the original, chiefly in recognition of how I’d changed in those five years.

But even professional writers miss the mark sometimes. The final episode of The Prisoner was broadcast in 1968. Although its writer Patrick McGoohan was pleased with the result, he was under pressure to deliver it quickly and many viewers were unhappy that it raised more questions than it answered.

And we must mention the ninth season of Dallas, which was entirely written off as a dream to bring back the character of Bobby Ewing.

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Pen at Work

Two weeks ago, I spoke about seeing a one-woman monologue at the Edinburgh Fringe. It particularly appealed to me because I’d previously written my own play with a similar theme and presentation.

With the festivals now over for another year, my attention has turned to giving my own work its first major rewrite for some time, including a new snappier title.

In particular, the main character has always been an English literature student who keeps a video diary I changed the subject to a music and video production course, giving her more reason to use a camcorder. I’ve also restructured the narrative to include self-interruptions where she looks back at her student days from 15 years in the future.

If I really give the piece my attention, it should be roughly redrafted by next week, and then I need to start reshaping it neatly into its new form.

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Next Story, Please

In yesterweek’s entry, I talked about reaching the end of a series I’m currently writing. I’m pleased to report I’m making good progress with this, and my thoughts now turn to the next long-form project.

Of all the options, the current frontrunner is a piece of memoir. Part of me wants to announce the subject right now to create some accountability for the project. The downside is that I might start to write it and find there isn’t much mileage in the idea. As such, I’m keeping it under wraps for the moment.

As I write, I’m reminded of a time – maybe ten years ago – when I attended a series of university evening classes all about life writing. This encompassed types of writing such as memoir and biography, and discussed the subtle but important differences between them, plus the ethics of naming people in such writing.

While it’s unlikely I would personally attend another series of life writing classes, aside from a one-off refresher, I recommend the genre to anyone interested in learning to express yourself. It was a good grounding for moving into the poetry scene, where there is more of a convention to figuratively bleed onto the page or stage.

Indeed, it happens that the life writing class in question no longer exists in its current form because of restructuring at the university. After that change was made, a few of the members did form our own poetry group, which survives to this day.

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How to End a Series That Was Never Meant to Be a Series

For the last three years, I’ve been writing a fantasy series under a pseudonym on a well-known website.

To set your expectations, this has been purely a passion project. I’m not at a stage where I wish to claim public ownership – and I might never be. As such, there will be no links to the series in this entry and only vague references to the plot. However, I feel now is the time to bring the series to an end, so I’ll be discussing the mechanics of this.

Back in September 2020, I published the first part, intended as a one-off story. It received a positive reaction, plus I found there was more I could do with the characters. I went on to write a sequel, then a third instalment, then a fourth. All the while, I’d been peppering my introductions with hints that the next story might be the final one.

In the early days of the series, my greatest hurdle was adding characters and moving them to new locations once the plot was exhausted in the first location. I was able to do this by taking unnamed side-characters from the first two stories and applying some retroactive continuity, known as retconning. Around the fifth story, the series had grown enough legs that it could stand up as its own self-contained universe.

Three months ago, I posted my 23rd part, and the 24th will definitely be where it ends. It’s taken so long because I wanted to tie up the loose ends while taking all the necessary space to explore that ending. So while most parts of the series have ended up between 1,500 and 2,500 words, the finale is likely to touch 5,000. There is even a circle back to the early days with the surprise return of two characters.

After that, I’m considering compiling the parts into a single volume and giving it some more editing, but that’s a long way off at this stage.

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The Satisfaction Line vs the Finish Line

At the weekend, I was talking with other writers, which led to a discussion about narrative structure.

Unlike a theatre or film script, there is no standard or accepted narrative structure for a short story. While this can be freeing for an author, my experience also tells me it can lead to a disappointing story without a decent resolution. I’ve had some difficulty articulating exactly what makes a satisfying story, but I’m working on a way of explaining it.

Bear in mind that I’m still working out some details of this metaphor, but below are my initial thoughts.

I’ve started thinking of a story as having two endings. The first ending is where the author stops the narrative. The second ending is the point at which the reader feels satisfied; this will vary from person to person, of course. That second ending is the Satisfaction Line.

Ideally, the Satisfaction Line should come before the end of the narrative, as close as possible, but never after it. Note that the two examples I’m about to give both happen to come from The New Yorker, and the website often arbitrarily says you can’t read any more articles without paying.

The first one is The Lottery by Shirley Jackson. For me, the Satisfaction Line comes a few paragraphs before the end. Structurally, it’s one of my favourite short stories.

The second example is the notorious Cat Person by Kristen Roupenian from 2017. The story ends with a string of phone messages, which I found vaguely threatening but hardly a resolution. My own Satisfaction Line might have been crossed if the author had continued to a more dramatic ending.

I’m going to park this thought for the moment with the intention of returning at some point in the future, however distant.