novels

Short Story Problems!

~ ChanAtkins ~ 8 Comments

Short stories have always proved problematic for me. The clue is in the word ‘short’. I’m not too good at ‘short’. But I am learning, and I am also learning how vital it is to master short stories.

Recently, an old friend was sorting out her attic and found something I had once given her. It was a short story I’d written when I was about fifteen. She brought it over and gave it to me and for a moment or two I was utterly flummoxed. Not only could I not recall writing it, but I couldn’t work out how I’d done it either. I mean, I struggle with short stories, I really do.

For a while, I gave up on them completely. I was too busy writing rather long novels, and didn’t see the point in pursuing something I didn’t think came naturally to me. Then one day someone suggested writing short stories related to my novels and releasing them as a kind of marketing tool. I have to admit, as cynical as it sounds, I liked the idea immediately. Not so much the marketing bit, but the writing short stories related to my novels bit. You see I am rather over attached to my novels, the current ones, the ones in progress, and the ones that are still just in my head. I rather see the characters as real people and it’s extremely hard to switch off from them. They kind of exist forever. They are always starting new stories, diving into new dramas and conflicts. So writing some short stories suddenly seemed like an extremely enticing and fun idea. And it was. And Bird People and Other Stories was born.

Now, I have to admit to being rather proud of this little book. I can’t say I have mastered the art of the short story, far from it. Many of the shorts in this book are character snapshots, or scenes from a different point of view than the one shown in the novel. But they were easy and fun to write, which was a massive revelation to me as a writer who had turned away from short stories for so long.

I’m now kind of addicted to them. In fact I write one once a month to be included in my author newsletter (click here if you want to sign up!)

My friend’s discovery reminded me that I had once embraced short stories before novels. Like a lot of young writers, I cut my teeth on short stories and little ‘books’ before I worked up the skills and patience to write an actual novel.

I’d just forgotten!

Reading through this particular story, I’m both embarrassed and impressed. Embarrassed by the younger me’s habit of repeating myself, a lot. I used to say the same thing in about three different ways, as if afraid of being misunderstood! But I’m impressed by my fearlessness, and that’s what young writers have in abundance. I didn’t fear the short story then, I just thought of one and got on with it. There was no ‘I can’t do this’, or ‘I’m not as good at shorts, so I won’t bother.’

If I am honest, I still find them a challenge. Some work instantly. Like magic. Others don’t. For as many finished shorts, I have unfinished, festering, niggling ones. I know what I want to say, but just can’t seem to say it.

I mean, what is the perfect short story anyway? The one that says something big in the shortest, sharpest way possible? Or is it really down to personal taste, as with novels?

The other problem I have with shorts is their annoying tendency to start developing into full blown novels! Give them an inch and they take a mile! I now have one epic novel, if not an entire series of books planned due to inspiration taken from the last two short stories I attached to my newsletter. Unexpected and brilliant, but you know, I don’t want this happening too often! There is already a backlog of books waiting to be written. (See Upcoming Books!)

So, what’s your opinion on short stories? Do you enjoy reading them? What makes the perfect short story in your opinion? And if you write them, how does the process work for you?

Too Many Ideas, Too Little Time

~ ChanAtkins ~ 7 Comments

I’m lucky that I never get writer’s block, or run out of ideas. It would be quite nice to get some peace one day, but for now, my head is full of so many people and stories that I struggle to sleep or get a break from them. Some of them have been around for years. They fade in and out, getting loud, only to fall quiet again. Some are new, popping up and thrusting themselves into my consciousness when they are least wanted. Some of them are being dealt with right now, while some of them are getting really, really impatient…

It was the same today. I was out walking, because walking is where most of it happens, when I get away from the home and the duties and the children, I suppose when I get the chance to become more me…Anyway, today was a day like all others. It was good the way my mind jumped from one thing to the next. A new idea for the collection of shorts related to next novel The Tree Of Rebels. I had almost forgotten about these until I heard a gunshot while walking through the woods. In my perpetual childish state, I wanted to run and duck and cower and find a tree to hide behind because the baddies were after me…instead I let my mind run, and there was this small child running through the woods, running from the gun and the men in black and the dog-like creatures she’s can’t quite believe will be allowed to hurt her…and I thought oh yes, hell yes, another short for Tales From Province 5…I forgot I already had three…I need to sort these out and get these done! They were meant to be part of the launch plan I wrote for The Tree Of Rebels ages ago…you know, because for the first time ever I’m going to try that!

Anyway, there was that, and that was really good. I pretended I was her for a while, blundering through the thorns and the undergrowth, so that was fun. Then there was the Tree Of Rebels in general. You’ll be pleased to know I am not struggling with the final draft anymore. That’s probably because I know it won’t be the final draft! So at the moment I am changing it all to past tense, instead of present. It was worth a try to see if it worked, and I think it has. I’m editing as I go of course, but what I intend to do, is change the tense, then go back to the beginning for the final, FINAL draft. And I definitely love it again. I am loving it. It is loved!

Then there were some extra bits to add to a short story I wrote the other day, which was an attempt to alleviate the urgency of an old story pushing its way forward. It keeps doing it. This story about teenage alcoholic Bill Robinson I wrote when  I was 16 but abandoned for another idea…used to do that a lot back then! Anyway, Bill Robinson keeps piping up, so I wrote a short for him a while ago and put it on Wattpad and here, and that worked. It pushed him back a bit. But not for long.

You see, what happens is, I will be in the car, I’ll see a person, a face, hear some music, glimpse a building, a snippet of conversation, anything god damn it, and it will link up, it will hold on and it will grow and swell and it becomes fiction, although somehow real at the same time…so I can’t avoid it or ignore it, it just happens! So I wrote another short for Bill, but that made it worse. Some new bits came today, they’ll get added when I get time…he is not going to shut up any time soon.

And then there is Elliot Pie…quiet for now because his first draft was done, and that calmed him, that quieted him because his story is told. But even today, I got some snippets of dialogue, some expressions in my mind, some bits I need to remember…and this blog post…

I thought, god its frustrating and crazy feeling like this all the time, like there are stories and lives and stuff everywhere, and I get so impatient because I will never have the time to do it all, to say it all, to get it all out, especially when every time I leave the house I get more! But then I thought, hold on, isn’t it also the best feeling in the world? Like no other high? All that energy and life, all those possibilities, all that potential, comedy, tragedy, and drama in my head! It makes me feel so alive!

How to cope? Who to listen to? Who shouts the loudest or who has been waiting the longest? How to hold onto one thread and not drop it when another one barges in? How not to dilute the passion of one project, because another one is already tapping on the door? I will try to keep them back with shorts and notes, and thoughts that calm them. I will get to them all in time. Take a deep breath . Plot them out if I need to. Let them stew. So I do this, and I get home fast, got to rush in and get to a notebook and make a list, jot stuff down before I forget any of those things!

And then I step into the hallway and see that it needs sweeping, and the reality hits, and the toddler wants me, and oh it feels so selfish to want to push them all aside and get to my notebook before it fades… I just need to get this down, just quickly, just a few things before I forget, and my mind is always on it, always wandering here and there, always listening to the people in my head. So selfish.

Yet it’s not.

Think about it. All that sharing. Writers share their thoughts and feelings, fears and anger more than anyone else! Okay, a lot of it is made up, turned into fiction, exaggerated and so on, but at the same time it is real, because it came from us. Maybe we are like the sponge, absorbing all the lives and stories we see and hear around us, but we don’t just take it and keep it for ourselves. We put it right back out again. We share it with the world.

So I’ve decided, I will try not to feel guilty. It’s not like I can help it. I can’t stop them coming, I can’t stop seeing ideas and stories almost everywhere I look. I’ll just do what I can with the time I have, and try to remain calm. I just hope that if I am lucky enough to live a long life…I will have run out of ideas by the end of it. I want to lie on my death bed and know that there is nothing more to say! But that is probably wishful thinking.

 

 

The People In My Head

~ ChanAtkins ~ Leave a comment

There is one thing that dominates my writing life, and that is a sense of panic. It is not a panic about selling books, or being heard, or writers block or anything like that. It is a panic about running out of time. I am forever panicked that I will run out of time. Life is busy. There is stuff to do.  There is always something I could, or should be doing. Anyway, forget about all that, that’s another story, and this blog post is about all the stories I want to write, all the stories I need to write, but might not ever get the time to. So here goes. If I die and you knew me well, perhaps you could pick these poor souls up for me?

Working On; The Tree Of Rebels is lucky because I am working on it right now. Spewing out chapter after chapter for my girls to read and comment on. Lissie Turner is almost fourteen and lives in a perfect world, no war, no hunger, no crime, no disease. But the human race only achieved this after endless wars that saw them pushed to the brink of extinction. Question is, is this world really so perfect? A young adult novel of the dystopia genre, and a massive challenge for me. Getting great feedback from said daughters and their friends on Wattpad. They spur me on. At the moment it is a fleshless skeleton of a book. I don’t feel entirely connected to the characters yet, but this will come. This one is going to be told.

This Is The Day; The sequel to The Boy With The Thorn In His Side, another lucky book because it is written and only needs one more edit, but I can’t bear to jump back into editing yet…but if I die…well, it is done.

The Mess of Us; sequel to The Mess Of Me, started this but trailed off due to massive amount of editing that other books needed. Several chapters written and I know exactly what will happen. Still love these characters. Will jump back into this when Tree of Rebels is written….

Story with no name number One; written when I was nineteen, lost most of it moving house but still have about thirty chapters. Adam and Jude. Love story. Adam, working class lad, kind hearted, put upon, idealistic, close to his scatty mother who had an affair with his uncle and tore the family apart. Older brother a bully in jail. Younger brother heading same way. Loves and adores his intelligent and complex girlfriend Jude. Lives in a bedsit in rough area. Too nice for all this. World will eat him up. Bad people will infect and ruin him. Jude. Pretty but never believed in it. Mother, up own arse, daughter never enough for her. Secret bulimic. Gets attacked and raped in an alley one night leaving Adams bed-sit. He was too drunk to walk her to bus. What happens next? Police can’t find rapist. Serial rapist. Adam wants revenge. Links up with brothers dodgy friend. Good boy turns bad? What does Jude want? I’ll finish you one day…

Story with no name number Two; written when I was 28…Three women live side by side in old terraced houses. Student Katie, innocent, sheltered, anxious, needs to be free, find herself, get used? Single mother Abbie, private, judged, noisy students on one side, nosy old woman on the other. Lizzie, elderly, alone, unless sister on end of phone…passed by, ignored, unseen now she is old. Motherhood. Loss. Aching. Loneliness. I know these characters but the story/plot has not unfolded for me yet…

Story with no name number Three; written when I was 16/17…Bill Robinson, sixteen, alcoholic, loves to sing. A rough housing estate torn apart by turf war and reprisals. Bill won’t say sorry. Single dad raising him and his younger sister. Bill, sullen, angry at the world, killing himself daily, when he sings he is someone else, free and bright and innocent. Still got this somewhere…written in biro in a notepad…The girl he loves doesn’t know he loves her, he is so shut up and cold and angry…She turns to an older man…

Kezzy Granger’s Guide To Human Nature; in and out with this one, washes over me and then goes away, sometimes so strong I have to go and write down…not sure how old she is, but she is an observer…her mum is a big character coming to me slowly…used by men, retreats inside her home and body, eating to fill a void, sends Kezzy out to live life for her…no bond? Just confusion. Won’t leave the house. Kezzy watches the world from her window. Lady across the street dead three weeks in her house and no one knew but the cat. Feels the urge to reach out to strangers. They could be anyone? Alarmed by the fact once someone passes by you never ever see them again. Could connect and link up? Stay in touch? Even if weird? …Kezzy lies. All the time. To make life interesting. To get people to stay. To make things happen. What will happen? It is coming.

Thanks. Feel better now.

It’s actually less of a panic now, to get them all out, set them up, speak of them. I can do it. One by one. Just don’t let any more of them come.