Short stories, short Substack
Rethinking my writing ....
A few weeks ago I realised I needed a push to get my creative juices going. Light bulb💡 moment, another course. Maybe a short course would provide a kick up the large, flabby backside. Slight problem my finances are not limitless. Why do all my insurances come at once? CBC, Curtis Brown Creative to the rescue with their six-week short story course - course details read, order button pressed, course booked. I now realise 💡 moments during my creative - ok tea drinking, lying in bed, slob, until I come round - periods, can be expensive, although I am improving.
I am very glad I pressed the button, it is good value and provided me with the short sharp kick I needed. Plus it has made me get off the hamster wheel and think about all my writing in a fresh light, particularly editing. Writing is a strange existence, not only is it lonely, it takes more time than you think, whatever you are writing. Algernon, my inner critic is always in the wings, or if I am honest breathing down my neck. These short courses help to push him back into his dark, dank corner for a while.
What I am about to say/write will horrify all experienced and published memoirists, particularly those who write on Substack and I greatly admire including
, and shed loads of others. Nevertheless, I will forge onwards. When I first started writing my memoir I worried about hitting the required number count, I just kept on writing, dumping anything and everything on the page. However, I struggled with descriptions, using words to show and paint a picture and I know there are a lot of totally irrelevant facts and other boring insignificancies filling the pages.Not being able to find words seems a strange thing to say/write down for an old curmudgeon who has opinions on everything, talks a lot and regularly writes rambling nonsensical Substacks. I put it down to over 40 years of dry reports, policy documents and training manuals, and latterly academic essays. In these disciplines, it is good practice to be blunt and succinct. As much as I would love to have added a more descriptive rendition of a communal bathroom, such as ‘I would not bathe my dog in that bath, nor shower, for fear of them developing some horrendous infection, due to the black mould and other unmentionables on the floor, walls and around the plug holes. I cannot even begin to describe the horror I felt, and smelt when I looked into the toilet’. The report would read: ‘The bathroom requires improvement and would benefit from deep cleaning.’
I did hit my initial target - 85,000 words - in my first draft and have added a few words in my first redraft. I am now panicking during the second redraft stage - will my book end up with only 10,000 words? I could rabbit 🐇 on about this forever and a day - I had to get him in somehow.
Back to the post in hand, or paw, the short story course is about showing the reader the story in as few words as possible although, not so bluntly as to destroy the meaning nor lose all atmosphere. The reader needs to be engaged, therefore every word matters and needs a purpose. My first stream-of-consciousness story was garbage. Back to the drawing board, second story pulled out of the archives, slight problem it’s only 1000, 3000 needed, quick rewrite 1300. I realised this was a good exercise for me to think about my story. As a work in progress, the course has helped me believe I can get to the full word count with an engaging story. Sorry Algernon that sounds a bit too positive for you.
Week 4 of the course and the related tasks are about concision and cutting words. My first thought was to run for the hills and forget about short stories. However, I found the exercise on reducing 200 words both fun and enlightening, I managed to reduce the word count, from 212 to 140. Honestly, I can count but it would not have made sense to cut a sentence in half.
The course has also made me think more critically about developing a beginning, middle and end of a short story whilst developing a believeable narrative arc in with limited words. However stupid this sounds, it is possible to develop a novel out of a very short story or even a one-line idea and a short story from a novel. Trying to increase my word count has made me think about all the avenues I could go down to develop the story.
Algernon whispers in my ear to send the story into the delete bin or other banishment, back in your corner Algernon I will not. I know these are not the right buttons to press, save is much better. It is important for my development as a writer to critically develop the story. I will try to increase it to 4,500 words and then strip it all out.
Some of the advice in the course I have learnt before throughout life as though by osmosis, such as stepping back. This advice applies to so many different things we do. I used to throw my drawings and paintings away until learnt to put them away and to get them out again a few weeks later, re-evaluate, learn and then bin them. The dustman took fewer away, I realised in the cold light of day some were ok. The same applies to writing, step away, take a break have a Kit Kat, walk, have a bath, do the washing, do anything to clear the mind before continuing.
I started writing this week’s Substack about COVID Memorial Day, but stopped myself. I would however like to make the point how hard it is not to feel that those of us who lost loved ones in a hospital during those horrendous days have been forgotten and our loved ones’ lives didn’t matter. Yet the impact of watching Sarah battle and eventually die two months later on Facetime on our family was devastating. We will never know if the outcome would have been different if we had been able to visit Sarah. I will never say that the lockdown was unnecessary the number of deaths from COVID speaks for itself.
Please remember that it was not just those who died of COVID and their families who were affected. If we forget lessons will not be learned for the future. I say more about her death and the impacts in my podcast I produced two years ago ‘Endings, Beginnings and Living with the Consequences’.
Prompts
If you could write a novel:
What would it be about, would it be a mystery, crime fiction, a romance or a comedy?
What would it be called?
Write a story in 200 words starting: I sat at the bottom of the steps with my head in my hands ……….
If you have enjoyed my rambling and haven’t already, please subscribe to my Substack and share with others. It makes an old curmudgeon smile when my numbers go up 😁💕
After years of report writing and writing in plain language I struggled to write any story longer than about 800 words! Flash and short fiction seems to be more my ‘thing’ although I haven’t written more than a shopping list in the last couple of years. I did feel something stirring when I read your post though…🤓 xx
I know you meant for this to be written for ourselves but my inner loon wanted to share, if only, for the Morecambe & Wise bit. lol
Write a story in 200 words starting: I sat at the bottom of the steps with my head in my hands ……….
Write a story in 200 words starting: I sat at the bottom of the steps with my head in my hands ……….
So here goes:
I sat at the bottom of the steps with my head in hands. My mind flicked back to the first time that I sat on the third step up in the dark entrance of the freshers halls. That awful, gut-wrenching, sobbing. I shuddered. I never thought I’d ever be sitting here again. Just three months ago I sat mourning the loss of my first serious boyfriend. He’d dumped me. We’d declared undying love to each other. Gave ourselves to each other. We’d promised “forever”. They were blissful months, both of them. I’d sobbed so hard I gulped for breath and tasted snotty tears.
Today, just three short months later, I find myself here again. It’s my own fault, of course. I’ve been talking with Tom. Tom was the first person to restore my faith in human nature.
I met Tom when he was buffooning about, entertaining the girls. I should have known he’d get under my skin. He’s made me laugh every day with some joke or mucking about but today he left me with this: “There’s two old men sitting in deck chairs. One says “It’s nice out today” to which the other said, sharply “Yes but….
Sorry, that’s 200. hehehehe
Those of you who don’t know the joke that Morecambe & Wise would tell at the end of their show but never finish, here it is:
‘There’s two old men sitting in deck chairs. One says “It’s nice out today” to which the other said, sharply “Yes but you’d better put it away now, there’s someone coming!”’