Title Indeed

A bad pun of a title, but it leads directly into what I want to talk about.

Normally when I start writing a story I get a title and an outline idea straight away. This isn't a boast: these can sometimes become a straight jacket for the story and I can find it hard to break away from my original, bright, shining idea that spurned me into writing in the first place. The advantage, though, is that I have something to work with and can build on that.

Queue my February writing challenge. I decided (as I've mentioned before) to enter one competition a month this year. January is behind me and February is running out of time on me. But, there's the thing: I have the story written. It has changed significantly from the unusual ghost story it started with to the story of a young boy's breakdown in the face of his family's grief at the loss of an infant. Not a pleasant story, but I found my brain wandering to the theme of grief and it's effects on people and that's where my story went.

But I never got a title.

This is very strange for me. Titles are usually not a problem for me at all. I now find myself with three days to go and I have a story with no title. I don't even have a working title. I don't know what to do with this situation.

Any advice will be gratefully received in the comments. 

February - Not Like That

This...

... is ...

... sooo ...

... embarassing. 

I wrote my story and submitted it and the next morning I realised that I had uploaded the wrong file?

And it was too late to resubmit.

My spanish isn't very good and there were two sentences to be spoken by a spanish speaker. I had marked them in the manuscript with <translation: the phrase I wanted to translate> and later that day I came home and hit Google Translate and translated the two sentences. 

Then I uploaded the file with the placeholders in it by accident. 

I'm not sure I could be more embarassed than I am right now. 

They say you live and learn. I am learning the hard way.

February? Not Like This - Writing Magazine

My only New Year's Resolution this year was to enter one writing competition every month. I have some money to spare each month, so it's worth doing it; for the challenge, feedback and the possibility of payback.

February's challenge will be from Writing Magazine. The subscirber's competition is to start a story with the line "Not like this" and keep it to between 1,500 and 1,700 words. That's a pretty small window, but a solid, challenging target. 

That's it. Those are the only instructions. Everything else is up to the writer and I like it.

It doesn't surprise me that the competition page on the website says "You will have to work hard to stand out", because the first impulse is to go with obvious themes: a parent scolding a child; a child with poor language; the death of Switch in The Matrix. So yes, standing out is going to be a struggle.

Step 1: Find a solid opening.

How do you make that line in itself stand out? Do you start with something surprisingly soft, or do you go for something strong but perhaps predictable? Either way, it has to be an opener that introduces us to the protagonist and their character.

Step 2: Build the character to be "different".

There are only a few ways to build up a character in 1,700 words or less and make them memorable, reasonable and "likeable", not necessarily as a personality, but as a character that people will say "I like how you..."

Aim for this. Even if the character must ultimately be unpleasant, put something into their personality that the reader can hold on to.

Step 3: Break the character.

This character will have to have a flaw, something that becomes quickly obvious and is easily exploitable in the tight word count. Even better if the flaw can be exposed with the "Not like this" opener.

Step 4: Make it matter.

Exploiting the character's flaw and either saving or damning them for it must matter. Readers should feel that this character deserved what happened to them, good or bad, but maybe didn't "deserve" it.

There! That's the skeleton of this one. Time to build a character.

[EDIT] I made a big change to the story. I have found a character I like, and I'm trying to work in a twist at the end. I hope it works, but I know I'm still only developing my skill and my voice work.

Camped Out - NYC Midnight Short Story Challenge 2023

There is no way I'm getting through. I tried and submitted a story, but with no experience of the context at all it was beyond my skill to create it. I'll put it here and let others decide. 

Dear America: be kind! :D

Camping Out

[EDIT] It turns out I'm a fool. The story wasn't based in a Summer Camp, but a Summer School. I made a big mistake. I don't know if my story will qualify, but I'll find out in April. 😖

Camping Out

I'm in trouble. No, seriously.

I've started a new writing competition and the setting I've been assigned for my story is a Summer Camp. Great. I can do some research and reading around summer camps and the experience, but summer camp is a very American thing.

I'm Irish. I remember one summer our school had a summer scheme where we got to go and do some sports and a couple of visits to interesting places around the country. Getting to go to the Böse Factory in Drogheda (now closed) was a great one for me. I loved seeing how the speakers worked and how they were manufactured. Overall, though, Summer Camp as I remember it from Movies, wasn't a thing.

So, I turn where I always go: the internet. For the love of Chocolate, why is so much of this stuff promotional! Trying to find testimonial that isn't promotional is almost impossible. Given 7 days, I had to ask a friend who lived there what camp was like.

They couldn't afford summer camp. They never knew anyone who could. This leaves me in a place I don't like: I'm going to have to make stuff up about Summer Camp from the POV of rich Americans. I don't know them.

But I got lucky. I'm a member of a Discord server for RPG Players and there are a lot of Americans. I got to ask a few about their experiences of Summer camp (there's a lot of religion involved) and got some good feedback. I had to make quite a few adjustments based on what they told me, which left an already struggling story somewhat higgledy piggledy. I'm sure I'll pull something together, but I'm not sure if I can push it enough to make it real enough to get by. I'm pretty certain I'm not getting through. Given time for research and peripheral reading, I could maybe have created something that felt real (I'm remembering the book, "Night of the Moonbow" which would have given me something to work with) but I expect to get the bad news in a couple of months.

I could be wrong, or course.

Hey: wish me luck.

Litany - NYC Midnight 250 Word Microfiction Challenge 2022

It was competition day on Saturday. This one came to me quite quickly on Saturday morning from the Genre/Event/"word" prompts (Drama/Losing a key/"vest"). Once I had it written out with a few edits, my brain blanked, so there was no more work on it after that.

I still like it! I hope it's good enough to get me through to the final I hope you enjoy too.

Litany

The key to the tabernacle isn’t in my vestment pocket. Eucharistic ministers used to do all of this while we performed the rites. Marcella Cochrane had filled that role once. 

I am frozen before the tabernacle. I remembered her coming to me, begging a much younger man to save her from her husband’s beatings and belittlement. “Before the baby comes,” she’d said.

“For better or worse. That was your promise.”

Why had I said those words, that empty litany?

“And he promised to love and honour me. Is this love, Father?”

I had no answer, but she did.

“Oh, what would you know.”

The congregation is growing restless behind me. The Deacon appears with the key. I retrieve the ciborium, almost dropping it. Liver spots on my shaking hands reflect the state of my soul.

Why had I involved the bishop? He had gone to Michael Cochrane, who once again ‘punished’ his wife for embarrassing him. Imagine being more embarrassed about what the priest knew than what he did to her?

She almost died. Tommy Cochrane was born with “profound disabilities”. That was my fault.

As I hold up the Host, the congregation repeats “Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world...”

Michael’s body was found yesterday, two miles from home. Of course there were rumours when he disappeared, but nobody involved the police. Justice had been served. Nobody accused her. “Let he who is without sin...”

I cast no stones. I had done what was needed.

As always, I welcome constructive feedback in the comments, or if you just want to tell me I'm brilliant... ;)

A Step Ahead

I've been getting on with the whole "living" thing. It can be tedious, so I like to break it up with a challenge or two to myself. The current endeavour is to enter a writing competition each month. This month's is a short story writing challenge that will begin next Saturday, but that's not what today is about.

No, today is about the previous competition I entered. Once again, NYC Midnight have their 250 Word Microfiction challenge running and I'm in it. I put my story in last November (the 19th, to be precise) and found out yesterday that I achieved 5th place in my group and I'm through to the next round.

If anyone would like to read the story it is below. I hope you enjoy it and, as always, I welcome honest, constructive criticism.

Aquisition by Degrees

Her arm flopped to the other side of the bed. As she twisted, the quilt went with her. My knees were cold, but my head was full of pyrotechnics from the earlier argument.

I heard her teeth grinding, wondering if she was mulling it over too? Or was she asleep already? Without her mouth guard? Oh, but I’m the obstinate one.

I rolled myself back under the quilt. She turned onto her back, taking it further away. My entire right side was exposed to the November cold.

I tiptoed to the cupboard. It was in here somewhere. I banged my head on a Christmas tree and stubbed my toe against the vacuum cleaner. How had the towels ended up under the toilet rolls? Oh, but I’m the disorganised one.

I found the sleeping bag and zipped myself into it in the hallway, penguin shuffling back to bed. Central heating was great but I missed climbing into a sleeping bag fresh out of a hot press. And it smelled sort of mouldy.

Within minutes I was entangled in the sleeping bag. The smell was overbearing. I had to escape, struggling back under the quilt. The heat from her was so inviting, but she rolled away from me. Taking the quilt. Again! Oh, but I’m the inconsiderate one.

To hell with it. I spooned in, putting my arm around her. She relaxed against me, her heart beating softly on my wrist. I wanted to say sorry. She’d won me back again, somehow.

I'll post my story prompts next Saturday, and maybe use this blog as a sounding board for upcoming projects.

Bye!