Short Story #3: Writing a Story

It was a dark and stormy night…

“No, that’s definitely overdone.” I flipped my pencil and erased my writing with the rubber nub.
“I have to come up with something original if I want to be a half-decent writer,” I thought to myself.
I tapped my pencil on the mahogany table. My room was covered in inspirational posters, so much so that the underlying chrome yellow wallpaper was visible only in small shards.
All these posters, and yet, I still could not think of anything to write about.

“Hey! You wanna go to the shopping centre?!” That was my mother.
“Not now, Mum, I’m trying to think of something to write!” I called back.

I mentally scrolled through possible options. What genre? OK, well there’s adventure… that’s cliche. Same for action and romance. Sci-fi normally interested me, but I didn’t really feel like it. Fantasy, well I wouldn’t know what to write about. What other genres were there? I couldn’t think of anything. Except… non-genre! Hey. That’d be interesting.

“Alright, let’s write something non-genre.”

Tap tap tap…

“What’s a good idea for a non-genre story?”

Tap tap tap…

“How about… writing a story… about writing a story?”

Tap tap tap…

“No, that sounds like a terrible idea. Damnit, I can’t think of anything to write!”

I pressed my hands against my head in frustration. I stood up and strode off to the fridge to get a bag of cornflakes. I know you’re supposed to eat them with milk, but I liked them by themselves.

I was sitting there for an hour – actually, more like two – munching on flakes, and about an hour and a half in, I was digging for any last cornflakes and my hand came up empty. I didn’t really mind, since the crunching sound was really bugging me, but now I had nothing to do. It was only after another fifteen minutes of tapping that I realised I wasn’t going anywhere. I was going to get another box of cereal to eat (this time with milk), when my mum poked her head around my door.

“Are you sure you don’t want to go to the shopping centre?”
I thought about it, and this time I said yes. Why not? Maybe something in there will set off the spark I needed to power my train of thought. I made a note to myself to write that last sentence down. I thought it was a pretty good one.

Our car pulled over onto the side of George and Arthur Streets. A parking sign read: “1P”. One hour. Mum got out of the car and I followed suit. Large bold blue letters emblazoned high above the main entrance read: “CENTRA SHOPPING CENTRE”. The shopping centre had a modern steel and glass design.

Mum went off to do the usual shopping, like buying groceries, and I wandered off to see if I could find anything that interested me. Pharmacies, skincare products, been there done that. Fast food? I just had a whole box of cornflakes. There wasn’t really a lot you could do with only ten dollars. Maybe something could help me write that story of mine.

Walking around the shopping centre, there wasn’t really much inspiration. There were the usual bookshops, tech shops, pharmacies, fast food stalls. And supermarkets, of course. I was loitering on the first floor wondering if seven dollars for a new phone case was a good idea when an eccentric stall in the middle of the pathway caught my eye.

It was a dark blue tent, kind of like those shifty fortune-teller stalls that seemed to appear out of nowhere, but this one didn’t have veiled, costumed women in it or a large crystal ball in it. Treading carefully, I pulled away the side of the tent flap and peeked inside. A middle-aged man of small stature sat on a chair in the side. He was already looking at me calmly.

“Uh, hi. What do you, um, what do you sell?” I stuttered. The tent was filled with what would probably be best called “anomalies”. Something glowing and green was bottled on a shelf. I traced a line on the bottle and the liquid flowed along it. In a glass jar, resided something I could describe only as courage. A large bag of light lay in the corner of the tent. “I think you’ve seen for yourself what I sell,” the man spoke. He had a slightly hoarse voice, reflective of his age.

This was way too weird for me. I turned to leave. As I lifted the tent flap, the old man spoke once again. “I believe there’s something you want from here.” I turned back to look at him, my face blank with confusion. “No?”
“Are you sure?” Something in that last syllable clicked in my head. I realised what he meant. I shuffled up to him.
“Do you sell… inspiration?”
“Ah, now you remember what you want.” There was a long silence. I felt like I needed to make a move. “Do you sell it?”
“Yes, I do. But in this case, it would be a waste.”
“Why?”
“You already have what you are looking for.”
“Huh?”

And then I woke up.
…
…

OK, no I didn’t. As much as I would prefer it being a dream, what actually happened was that the tent and the man, with everything in it, dissipated. Each item faded away at its own pace, leaving only the man to dissolve last. I was still there, of course. I realised that I had to meet Mum back at the entrance.

So now fast forward past all the driving and tedious unloading of groceries, and I’m sitting at my desk again. Only, I’m not stuck looking for inspiration anymore. I’ve already found it. I pick up my pencil, flip to a new page and write with confidence. I already have the first sentence of my story.

“I glimpsed a blue tent nearby, and intrigued, I ventured in.”

QUESTIONS:
1. Is the magic realism believable?
2. Should I make any parts of the story longer?
3. Is there anything else that could be improved?

Does a character really need to change?

The general conensus on a short story is a character should change.

But why not write a short story without character change? Sure, it might not be a good story, but it’d still be worth reading. If you wrote about a character doing an everyday activity, like going to a supermarket or going for a walk, they might not necessarily change but it’s still a short story… right?

Or maybe in those instances there would be a very subtle change. Like the character realises the self-serve checkout is slower than the normal ones if you only have to buy a bottle of milk.

Magic Realism

It’s funny how I didn’t even know what magic realism was until a week ago. I have seen examples of it before, such as in Life of Pi or Midnight in Paris but if you asked me to give a genre I wouldn’t have said “magic realism”.

In my opinion, magic realism gives texts and media a mysterious, fantasy element without filling it up with magic spells, unicorns and fire breathing dragons. It’s just a touch of fantasy to spice up otherwise non-genre works.

For example, in Midnight in Paris, a man finds himself travelling back in time when he walks the streets of Paris during midnight. The element of fantasy gives the plot a wonderful enhancement, but if you went full on, it’d just ruin the film.

Now that I know what magic realism is, I’ll be on the lookout for it.

Inspiring Visual Stimulus

The Adventure

The boy treads through the vast, dense jungle. The dirt shifts silently under his feet. Strong rays of sunlight from the canopy contrast the dank greenery surrounding him. The sturdy trees tower over him. He is but a fraction of their height, and yet, they seem to kneel down to him. An adult jungle cat warily watches him, its head peeking ever so slightly out of a small lily bush.

He pauses. Slowly, he turns his head towards the lily. A speck of creamy fur is just visible underneath the long green leaves and delicate white flowers. His muscles tense and carefully draws his short sword. Picking up a small rock, he lobs it behind the lily. Startled by the sudden noise, the jungle cat bursts out of the bush, away from the disturbance. It skids to a stop right in front of the boy.

“HI-YAAAAAH!” He lunges with his weapon, trying to hit any part of the cat he can reach. But to no avail. The cat is too fast for him. It nimbly dodges his lunge, causing the boy to faceplant. As he lifts his dirt-covered face from the earthy brown ground, he glimpses the retreating figure of the cat, its tail swishing in a taunt.

Frustrated, the boy jumps to his feet and sprints after the cat. Shrubs, dark flowers, vines and logs whiz past him. He hurdles over a log, grabs a thick, mottled vine and swings over a mudpit. The pale yellow blur becomes visible to him.

The boy runs after it, his energy renewed. He catches up to the cat, and stretches his arm out in an attempt to grab it. He almost succeeds, but the cat pulls away, leaving him with a small handful of hair. He continues chasing it.

The jungle sporadically fades out into a grassy backyard. The boy stumbles over a plank of wood. He looks up to see a tall womanly figure. Behind the figure, the cat hides, shaken from the previous events.

“JORDAN!” yells the figure. “Just WHAT have you been doing to the cat?! And WHY are you so dirty?!”
“I-um…” mumbles the boy.
“Is this one of your games?” She sighs. “Go on then. Get inside and take a bath.”
Jordan scurries inside the house.

Limerick #7

From Sydney, Bronwyn Bishop flew,

To Nowra; a car she eschewed.

If ever comes the day,

She goes to Bateman’s Bay,

I’d hate to think what she’d do.

Style Analysis

Edgar Allan Poe

1. Complex sentences – many clauses
2. Dark imagery, words and themes
3. Lack of dialogue

 Ernest Hemingway

1. Simple sentences
2. Consistent usage of dialogue
3. Strong use of imagery

Short Story #1: “How I Survived a Mugging”

The dank, quiet street of a commercial zone of my hometown was especially gloomy during a late Saturday night. I exited the railway station and made my way to the apartment that I am currently renting. It was a rough night in the City. I don’t quite remember all of the details, but I know that I was having a night out with some mates of mine. I distinctly recall a very nice Indian restaurant.

Anyway, back to what I was saying. There happened to be a gang of punks hanging around a pawn shop. As I
walked towards them, I wasn’t sure what to do. Do I walk past them and try to act normal? Or do I cross the road to avoid them altogether? I was afraid of the latter because I did not want to offend them. But the idea of being physically distant from them appealed to me, and I thought the notion of offending them seemed paranoid. I crossed the road nonchalantly. There were no cars at this time of night. Once I was on the other side, I subconciously stiffened my legs and increased my walking pace, trying to get as far away from the gang as I could. “Thank god,” I thought to myself. I believed I was safe.

“Oy, you!” I glanced back. The gang was walking in my direction. Surely they were talking to someone else, right?”Come here!” The gang member was pointing directly at me.

I swore and broke out into a run. There was no-one else on the streets. I turned a corner at an intersection and sprinted into a residential street. I heard faint cries of “HEY! THIS WAY!’, which galvanised me into sprinting faster. My heart thumped at my chest, adrenaline coursed through my veins. Turning right at Dawson Road, I kept running. Traversing a bridge, I allowed myself a moment to look behind me. They were still there. I swore again. I knew I couldn’t outrun them, so I had to hide somewhere. A road sign loomed over my head. “Jackson Avenue,” I read. That would do.

The energy was leaving my veins now. I had to find somewhere to hide, and fast. A quick survey of the dark street gave me three options. A large dumpster? No, that stood out like a sore thumb. A large rhododendron bush? Too obvious. A hedge? No. I decided to take the second option, and half-dived into the flowering shrub. It was too hard to slow down my breathing, so I tried to get my breath back before they came to look for me.

They were surprisingly strategic in their search. Two of them stood guard at the entrance where I came in, while the rest scanned the road. I crouched stock-still in the bush, frozen in fear. What were they going to do to me? That question was answered when one of the punks sneaked into my view with a knife in their hand. As they passed my hiding place, I thought about what my next course of action would be. The house behind me was fenced off so that I couldn’t climb over and into the next house.

Gradually, I came to the conclusion that I was trapped. What came over me was that kind of calmness you get from finding out the answer, followed sharply by the sickening realisation of what that meant for you. I began desperately grabbing at any straws I could find. Could I somehow pole vault over the fence? Overpower the gangsters and make a break for it? 

I was halfway through an idea of constructing a makeshift shelter in the front yard and waiting for day before I heard a voice. “Come in, quickly(!)”

My head whipped around. A woman (the owner of the rhododendron bush I leapt into) was beckoning me into her house. Grateful of the protection, I hurried to her. “Thank you so much,” I sighed.

“It’s alright,” she responded. “I was mugged by a gang myself, when I was a teenager. You’ll have to stay the night. I’m Martina.” She looked in her late 20’s. 

“I’m Sam,” I said. “Short for Samantha.”

From that day, Martina and I have been very good friends. She has me over occasionally for tea and I her. Marta is pretty smart and I’ve been able to learn a lot from her. The gang was gone, and I strangely haven’t seen them since. 

The Advantages of Writing Without Genre

Most books fall into a genre. Actually, most of the best young adult books have a genre. Ranger’s Apprentice, etc. What does genre do to a story? I think it enhances it, adds flavour to the food. Sci-fi, fantasy, adventure, romance. All of these can turn a genreless story into something else. Not necessarily better, I’d say, but definitely something else.

But what about genreless writing? Genreless writing allows us to tear away the layers and get to the heart of our style. It allows us to see just how we write. There are definitely some writers somewhere that use the conventions of genre to fill holes in their own style, and I say this not because of the fact that every third book (I am not exaggerating see for yourself), on the iBooks Top Charts depicts a shirtless man on the cover with a love story on the blurb, but because I believe myself to be one of those, and I suspect some books I’ve read to show this to some degree as well.

tl;dr Genreless writing lets us look into our style, and analyse it. Adding genre is like squirting a dollop of tomato sauce on your spaghetti bolognaise. It can enhance the original product, but you must be careful not to overuse it, or it will mask the core ingredient.

Limerick #6

But what did the leaker say?

It was, (to the public’s dismay)

Abbott got bored,

APSC he ignored,

To cut the Defence Force’s pay.