So far we have attempted some flash fiction, as well as trying to answer some 'impossible questions'.
This week's challenge is to think about perspective.
Try and write a piece entitled 'Near and Far', focusing on a single object. Begin by describing your chosen object from very close up, noticing the minutest details and interpreting them for your reader. You could pick anything you like: an ordinary household item, an item with special significance for you, or a piece of rubbish blowing in the breeze in the street.
Then move a distance away and see how the perspective changes. Think carefully about the vocabulary and any imagery you use. You may wish to only reveal what the object actually is at the end.
I have chosen to write about the steps outside the British Library, simpy because I sat on them for a while at the weekend and had a chance to observe them closely. I am including only my 'near' description for now:
Cracks, like pencil marks in the stone, trace the journeys and paths of a million footsteps. The fine lines swirl and age with each passing pair of feet. Tiny particles of dust trapped in holes make smooth again the damaged surface forming a time-worn, careworn concrete canvas: mottled, stained and pock-marked. Ancient chewing gum blocks a tiny crevice, new mortar for an impromtu repair. A single green leaf has fallen, uninvited. An upturned polystyrene cup rolls to and fro, detritus of a passing civilisation.
Three black tramlines mark each edge, reminding life's passengers of the danger of these obstacles. The steps are deep and wide to accomodate all shapes and sizes: the internal and external weight of the climbing and descending multitude. My two feet can stand one in front of the other on each carved ledge.
What do you think of the description? Can you identify any ways that I have used language to create a particular effect?
Monday 28 May 2012
Friday 18 May 2012
Impossible Questions
Let's get thinking creatively by attempting to answer some 'impossible questions'. You can have some fun with this. Choose at least three from the list below, and try to write a detailed response for each. Fill your descriptions with simile and metaphor; you can really go overboard.
If you're feeling particuarly inventive you could try them all. I've had a go at the first two combined: let me know what you think of my efforts!
Numbers taste metallic. That sort of taste you get if you accidentally get a piece of silver foil in your mouth, or you attempt to bite into a coin. They taste that way because they are mechanical things forming patterns and processes but individually they are leaden and fixed. They can set your teeth on edge. Very unwieldy numbers taste worse, like rust. Bits of them fall off and get stuck. Then they are a bit crunchy, but not 'good' crunchy like honeycomb, more the fiddly-chomp of iron filings.You want to spit but they cling.
Not like words, of course. You can't usually taste words because they are like fizzing popcorn in your mouth, dynamic and untamed. Explosive if too concentrated. Words can sometimes smell musty like an old library, particularly when they aren't used often enough. Mostly though they smell like spring, full of the promise of new life and the joy of a long summer ahead.
If you're feeling particuarly inventive you could try them all. I've had a go at the first two combined: let me know what you think of my efforts!
- What do numbers taste of?
- What do words smell like?
- What is the sound of silence?
- How old is never?
- What colour is fear?
- What does greed smell of?
- What shape is infinity?
- What does an echo look like?
- Who is nowhere?
- What is the texture of sadness?
Numbers taste metallic. That sort of taste you get if you accidentally get a piece of silver foil in your mouth, or you attempt to bite into a coin. They taste that way because they are mechanical things forming patterns and processes but individually they are leaden and fixed. They can set your teeth on edge. Very unwieldy numbers taste worse, like rust. Bits of them fall off and get stuck. Then they are a bit crunchy, but not 'good' crunchy like honeycomb, more the fiddly-chomp of iron filings.You want to spit but they cling.
Not like words, of course. You can't usually taste words because they are like fizzing popcorn in your mouth, dynamic and untamed. Explosive if too concentrated. Words can sometimes smell musty like an old library, particularly when they aren't used often enough. Mostly though they smell like spring, full of the promise of new life and the joy of a long summer ahead.
Friday 4 May 2012
Fiction in a Flash: Bound
'Flash fiction' is an increasingly popular genre, with many well-known lifestyle magazines publishing examples and a great number of competions running at any one time. It is, literally, fiction 'in a flash': a whole story in a very short space of time, say 100 words or less. You may have encountered it as 'mini sagas', though through Forward Press these are limited to just 50 words.
But a story must have a beginning, a middle and an end, and this is very difficult to do in such a short space of time! Now, I've promised not to ask you to attempt anything I'm not prepared to have a go at myself, so here's an example of mine, entitled Bound:
Gradually, she came to.
Her mouth was dry and she ran her tongue over cracked lips. The darkness was disorientating, and there was a strange numbness in her legs. Pinned back into the chair, bound and blind-folded, the fear pulsed quickly through her body. She was aware of movement around her, though helpless in her own immobility.
Suddenly, her captor spoke. “We will shortly be coming into land. Please ensure that your seatbelts are fastened…” intoned the tinny voice. She removed the air-line eye mask and smiled groggily at a fellow passenger. “Sorry, was I snoring?” she asked.
You can see that the beginning attempts to create tension: Where is she? What has happened? Has the protagonist been captured? Starting with 'Gradually, she came to' suggests that she may have been unconscious.
I am playing with the reader's expectations in the middle part of the story. The description of her dry mouth and aching limbs, reference to a blind-fold and being 'bound' reinforce the idea of capture or kidnap.
I am trying to surprise the reader at the end. She hasn't been kidnapped at all and is merely asleep on an ordinary flight. Were you fooled?
The title is also a play on words. She is bound by her seatbelt but also 'outbound' on the flight.
Now your turn. Have a go at writing your own flash fiction story. Make sure that the whole narrative takes place in 100 words or less (mine is 98!) Remember to comment to let me know that you've had a go.
Good luck!
But a story must have a beginning, a middle and an end, and this is very difficult to do in such a short space of time! Now, I've promised not to ask you to attempt anything I'm not prepared to have a go at myself, so here's an example of mine, entitled Bound:
Gradually, she came to.
Her mouth was dry and she ran her tongue over cracked lips. The darkness was disorientating, and there was a strange numbness in her legs. Pinned back into the chair, bound and blind-folded, the fear pulsed quickly through her body. She was aware of movement around her, though helpless in her own immobility.
Suddenly, her captor spoke. “We will shortly be coming into land. Please ensure that your seatbelts are fastened…” intoned the tinny voice. She removed the air-line eye mask and smiled groggily at a fellow passenger. “Sorry, was I snoring?” she asked.
You can see that the beginning attempts to create tension: Where is she? What has happened? Has the protagonist been captured? Starting with 'Gradually, she came to' suggests that she may have been unconscious.
I am playing with the reader's expectations in the middle part of the story. The description of her dry mouth and aching limbs, reference to a blind-fold and being 'bound' reinforce the idea of capture or kidnap.
I am trying to surprise the reader at the end. She hasn't been kidnapped at all and is merely asleep on an ordinary flight. Were you fooled?
The title is also a play on words. She is bound by her seatbelt but also 'outbound' on the flight.
Now your turn. Have a go at writing your own flash fiction story. Make sure that the whole narrative takes place in 100 words or less (mine is 98!) Remember to comment to let me know that you've had a go.
Good luck!
Early Scribbles
I don't remember first learning to read, but I do know that it opened up a magical world for me. I devoured 'Secret Sevens' and 'Famous Fives'. I read The Wind in the Willows over and over again. Ratty was my friend. He still is. All of my pocket-money would be spent on cheap paper-back books. And, although a visit to the library was always a treat, I loved owning books. I loved the feel of them. I still do. I have just spent a small fortune on bespoke bookcases to house my ever-growing library...
I have a Kindle, and I love the idea that I am forever but a few seconds away from accessing a new book, but this never beats the feel of a book in my hands.
There was a primary school teacher who asked once what I had done over the half term break. She called me a liar for saying that I had read 14 books. I would read one before lunch, one after. It was one of my happiest holidays.
At the same time I loved writing. I was praised for writing a story about a school caretaker when I was just five years old. I haven't stopped writing stories and poems since.
I was always good at English at school. It seemed to come very naturally to me, although I do remember struggling at times with A-Level English Literature. Paradise Lost was particularly problematic. And Auden's The Sea and the Mirror poems; I struggled with 'the search for identity' in those. But it wasn't enough to put me off reading English Literature at university, or becoming an English teacher a few years later.
So - do you remember learning to read and write? What are your favourite books? When did you know that you were good at English? What does it mean to be good at English? What does it mean to be creative? Do your English lessons provide you with that opportunity?
Write a blog post which reflects on these experiences and leave a comment below so that I can find your post and follow your blog.
I have a Kindle, and I love the idea that I am forever but a few seconds away from accessing a new book, but this never beats the feel of a book in my hands.
There was a primary school teacher who asked once what I had done over the half term break. She called me a liar for saying that I had read 14 books. I would read one before lunch, one after. It was one of my happiest holidays.
At the same time I loved writing. I was praised for writing a story about a school caretaker when I was just five years old. I haven't stopped writing stories and poems since.
I was always good at English at school. It seemed to come very naturally to me, although I do remember struggling at times with A-Level English Literature. Paradise Lost was particularly problematic. And Auden's The Sea and the Mirror poems; I struggled with 'the search for identity' in those. But it wasn't enough to put me off reading English Literature at university, or becoming an English teacher a few years later.
So - do you remember learning to read and write? What are your favourite books? When did you know that you were good at English? What does it mean to be good at English? What does it mean to be creative? Do your English lessons provide you with that opportunity?
Write a blog post which reflects on these experiences and leave a comment below so that I can find your post and follow your blog.
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