I am proud to report that my 6 Minute Story, The Swing, was selected as one of the 6 Minute Story site’s featured stories. Continue reading “The Swing – again.”
Tag: Short Story
Alt.Fiction festival – thumbs up
Nobody threw tomatoes and there was some polite applause- and even some laughter
Had a great time at the alt.fiction event at the Phoenix Centre in Leicester this weekend. Well worth going and I am looking forward to next year already. The rail service let me down Sunday, but that’s a different story.
Highlights are listed below.
- meeting Twitter friends, especially @mariaAsmith
- making new friends, including @IsoldeJansma
- Short Story Workshop by Alex Davis – all about how to sell your short stories and introducing us to the excellent Duotrope website
- Meeting the writer Graham Joyce (@Grafire) and buying his book and getting his signature
- Attending the reading of an excellent radio play by Keith Large (@KeithLarge3) – the very funny Carrot Nappers.
And, of course, reading my short story extract at the Flash Fiction open mic session. It wasn’t sci-fi, fantasy or horror, but nobody threw tomatoes and there was some polite applause- and even a little laughter. (And, I better just clarify, the piece was supposed to be funny.)
Telling Stories – Olympic style.
TEAMWORK was the challenge set. Despite being chosen to be an Olympic Storyteller, I really have very little personal interest in sports. How do I set about writing a story on teamwork with a sporting theme?
Connection was the topic for the latest Olympic Storyteller challenge.
I have to confess, despite being chosen to be an Olympic Storyteller, I really have very little personal interest in sports. And when I do something sporting, I usually choose an activity where my efforts are solitary. Not for me the team spirit of the hockey field, netball court or relay race. I am more inclined to go for long walks on my own, ski a slope in splendid isolation, or play a game against a computer opponent.
So Connection? How do I set about writing a story on the connecting power of sport? Continue reading “Telling Stories – Olympic style.”
Difficult assignment
Difficult homework assignment.
How about this for a tricky bit of writing homework:
Rewrite the Hemingway story Hills Like White Elephants in the style of Gabriel García Márquez’s The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World.
Hemingway’s prose is sparse and factual. For the most part, his story consists of dialogue between two people while waiting for a train. Márquez’s narrative is dense and mainly descriptive, told in the style of a fable or legend.
My task, therefore, was a difficult one. However, having spent most of a sunny Saturday afternoon struggling with it, I was quite pleased with the outcome. But my story seemed unfinished. I went back on Sunday and added an extra scene. This gave the story a better ending, but changed the theme into something a little different from the original Hemingway one.
Now, my next piece of homework: to rewrite the Márquez story in the style of AL Kennedy’s story, A Bad Son …..
Metaphors – can you can have too many?
My journey through the furrows of a book, where literary gems lie strewn amid the tumbled weeds of a partially ploughed landscape, strewn with half collected crops of obtuse words, overworked adjectives and obfuscated prose ….
for the trees.
The use and abuse of metaphors
Just read a book of short stories (Dr Mukti and other tales of woe by Will Self) and found myself drowning in a sea of muddling metaphors, distracting similes and obscuring adjectives.
Here is an example of a metaphor used in the book: ‘this was only the lull before the storm hit the frail vessel of his foundering career’. This is not the greatest of metaphors but, compared to some in the book, it is reasonable in the context of the story. Why is this a reasonable metaphor? Because it conjures up a useful image for the reader and adds an element of suspense. From this metaphor, we are aware that the character is in difficulty at work and we are waiting, in anticipation, for the storm to strike. Continue reading “Metaphors – can you can have too many?”
Ruth Livingstone 