Watch This Space

It has been over six months since my last post, but that is only because there has been a lot going on.

I’m performing in a play at the moment however as of next week expect regular blog entries. Watch this space…

NaNoWriMo!

What is it? No, it isn’t a result of me mashing the keyboard
with my hand. It’s short for National Novel Writing Month!

Basically, NaNoWriMo is a writing challenge. You have one
calendar month to complete a 50,000 word rough draft of a novel. That’s
approximately 1,613 or 1,667 words per day depending on the number of days in
the month (I suggest you never do this is February!)

However traditionally November is the official NaNoWriMo
month for two reasons. 1) because it’s cold and generally crap outside so it’s
a welcome task to do whilst in hibernation until the Christmas season begins
and 2) if lots of people are doing this during the same month then there is a
chain of support to get through to your final wordcount, for example at http://www.nanowrimo.org/
Okay, 50,000 words is more like a novella but stop being
picky; it’s a book. Possibly the first book you’ve ever written so a challenge
worth taking. This does not mean that you will have a polished novel by the end
of the month. Far from it! But the point is that you will have got through that
first draft that you can then shape into something you can be proud of.

I did NaNoWriMo back in 2005 and I found it an amazing
experience. I haven’t used the novel as material, not yet anyway, but it got me
writing on a daily basis and it gave me a deadline…two of the key elements to
assist in qualifying yourself as a writer.

So this November, why not do something you’ve never done beforee. Check out the website for more info and I suggest buying
the featured book, No Plot? No Problem! which accompanies the process to help keep you on
track.

The Chicken Shed Diaries #4: The End of the Beginning…

…apologies for the wanky title. SO, The play was a great success and I’ve been overwhelmed by the response. The director and cast couldn’t have done a better job. I may be getting hold of a more detailed crit of Chicken Shed which I will post up when obtained but for now I will be saying goodbye to my debut play.

(Back L-R) Me, Dean; (Middle) Alex, Anna, Josh; (Front) Denise, Badger and Richard.

I don’t want to dwell on the experience of the show-week for too long as I could write pages and pages of plaudits. However as this is a writing blog I want to remain focussed on talking about my feelings as a writer and how this experience has affected my confidence, perceptions, craft etc. Though I will bookend this experience with a photo of the individuals responsible for one of the proudest moments of my life thus far. Thank you all, I’m eternally grateful. X

So, how do I feel after having my first significant piece of writing performed?

S’alright! In seriousness I must admit for the first time I feel like I can call myself ‘a writer’. Whether or not I have the confidence to say it with conviction when meeting someone for the first time will remain to be seen. Let’s face it, even back when Dickens was around if he uttered the words ‘I’m a writer’ then you’d have thought he was a bit of a knob. But I digress; I feel like I can do this in the long run.

I’ve already spoken about coming up with the idea for Chicken Shed which you can read in my earlier post Coming Out of My Shell from my experience of bullying and using self awareness to create characters in the play. But what I found from the play being exposed to a wider audience is just how much other people have had similar experiences. I had several conversations with friends and total strangers who told me how it reminded them of instances of bullying at school or, in some cases, how they had bullied someone else. I haven’t significantly changed their lives but I’ve made them stop and think for a moment, even if just on the walk/drive home and that to me is a key part of what I want from my writing.

It sounds obvious but sometimes we feel that our feelings are individual to us, that maybe people couldn’t possibly empathise with what we have to say. At least that’s certainly how I feel sometimes. However writing about a topic around events that have greatly affected me as a person, especially one that most people will have some sort of encounter with in their lives, has generated discussion and made me feel like I have got something valid to say. That’s not to say that all of my projects will involve so broad a topic but it has given me a nudge to have more confidence in my writing.

If I had any advice from this experience it would be to trust your feelings and never be afraid to leave your own imprint on a project. You’re writing it with your own passion so why shouldn’t it be all about you.  This may sound obvious but originally when I started writing I was attempting to write near-carbon copies of Reservoir Dogs. Or sitcom scripts that as much as I wanted to be anything but Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps ending up being very similar; more like A Couple of Ciders and Some Pork Scratchings. However this didn’t really work as I’ve never been a chav or been involved in a failed diamnond heist…nor any successful ones. In hindsight, they weren’t great examples to emulate during my first attempts at scriptwriting!

As Jimmy McGovern once said, “I think finding a voice probably means finding a confidence in your own voice
and a respect for your own experiences, and being confident enough to deem your
own experiences as worthy of inclusion in the story. And then finding out the
kind of things you do well.”
So, now I have a fairly good idea about what I do well and the major areas for improvement. I think it’s vital as a writer however that I accept that I’ll never be 100% happy with my craft. But is there a writer who is?

So…next for me; obviously I’ll be continuing to write on several projects and hope to try getting into radio and television a lot more. I’ve already got a couple of ideas of how to adapt Chicken shed for an episodic radio play; we’ll see how that goes. Playwise, I have another in the pipeline which should have it’s public airing next year. It’s already been done successfully as rehearsed reading and has a working title of ‘Donaldson’, the name of the lead character, though the title may change come the production.
Now I’ve had some positive feedback from people who paid to see my play, the fact that they’re not asking for their money back, means I just might be able to get away with this writing lark!

As always, emails and comments welcome particularly if there are different aspects of the writing process you may want to hear about. I’ll be back to posting some more of my general writing tips/best practices very soon…

My 1st Review – The Chicken Shed Reunited

It’s been an amazing week and I’ll reflect on it all once I’ve had time to digest the whole experience, but for now here is the review of the double bill including my play. I can’t complain…but I can try as I do feel a bit frustrated the actors and director weren’t given individual mentions as they’ve done all of the hard work over the past couple of months bringing Chicken Shed to life. The description of the play is more of a synopsis however it’s difficult to delve in too far without giving the plot away and the reviewer has two plays to get through; anyway, here it is…

Bristol Evening Post – Friday 15th July 2011
Double Bill is Great Value
The Kelvin Players: The Chicken Shed Reunited/TV Times

TWO for one offers are big in supermarkets – now they’ve come to the theatre.Bishopston am dram group the Kelvin Players are offering two plays for the price of one for recession-hit arts lover.

The show, which runs until tomorrow night, includes two one-act performances, TV Times and The Chicken Shed Reunited. Both offer humorous and witty scripts, but with an underlying melancholy.
Of the two, Chicken Shed is the better work, but both have something to offer.

TV Times, written by Chris Adams, focuses on one man’s addiction to the gogglebox. Fred, played by Paul Dyson, and his wife Doris, played by Sue Stobbs, spend every night in front of the telly on their sofa. One evening they are visited by a cast of characters, the most entertaining of which is Steve Ellis’ policeman. It’s a shame he doesn’t have a bigger part as he and news leader Mike Luckett are the most entertaining

Chicken Shed, written by Craig Malpass, looks at the effects of playground bullying. It tells the tale of three friends brought together by a bully, and who hide out in a shed to escape.

The same actors play the roles both as teenagers and then again as grown-ups some 20 years later.
TV Times’ message is that you can waste your life watching television, so if you fancy a break from the tube these plays are worth a look.

7/10
SAM RKAINA

The Chicken Shed Diaries #3: Flashing Back and Forth

Last week
I had the pleasure of seeing Chicken Shed’s first off-book rehearsal at the
Kelvin Studios. It was my first interaction following my self-imposed
distancing of the project and to see what progress the talented bunch of
individuals (pictured below) had done so far with my first ever play.

Left to Right; Richard Jones (Director), Dean Bentley-Hawkins (Danny), Anna Charlett (Karen), Alex Needham (Miles) and Josh Cooper (Simon).

Before I
sat down to watch the action unfold it occurred to me that the last and only
time the play had been performed was over 18 months ago when the play made its
debut as a rehearsed reading in November 2009. (For those unfamiliar with the
term ‘rehearsed reading’ this is basically a play rehearsed within a short
period of time leading up to a performance where scripts are still used by
actors but the play has been blocked and may have elements of costume and props
and some set to give a general feeling of how it may look as a fully fledged
piece).

The
reading was actually cast four months before at a rehearsed reading ‘launch
night’ at the Kelvin Players’ studios, the theatre group I love and have been a
member of for the last 4 years. My cast consisted of Josh Cooper, Alex Needham,
Mat Rees and Megan Wiley; four members of Kelvin who are very highly thought of
for their acting talent and professionalism. The large GULP that resonated from
my throat could be heard for miles around and many believe was the reason for a
mild earthquake in Lincolnshire; I realised I hadn’t even written the thing
yet. I just had the bare bones.  

Luckily I
love a bit of pressure and not wanting this opportunity to be wasted the script
was ready on time. Now all I had to do was fool the cast into thinking I knew
what I was doing. You see, I don’t consider myself a director. Not yet anyway.
In fact at that point I didn’t consider myself a writer really. However, being
the control-freak that I am I knew that if I was going to write a play and it
was going to be performed I had to be in control of everything! 

Come the
rehearsal day, the evening of which would be the performance, I was really
quite scared. The cast and I convened in my front room and began rehearsing; we
blocked, we had a cup of tea, we rehearsed, we had a muffin, we blocked some
more…there may have even been some Jaffa cakes on the go. I can’t really
remember and I’ll be honest in saying that the rehearsal at my house was a bit
of a blur. Suddenly it dawned on me that within a few hours I would be showing
people something that I had written. It’s safe to say I panicked a little. My
mind was so focussed on self-deprecating remarks toward my own writing as the
rehearsal continued that I almost forgot to direct the thing. 

By the
time we ran through Chicken Shed the final time before the actual performance I
had just about got to grips with the fact that a play that I had written would
be performed to an audience shortly and that I would just have to deal with it.
Suddenly I thought of lots of little script tweaks and points of direction for
the actors that I hadn’t given them before…and we had no time to run through
any of it again.

Come the
performance however, my actors did me proud and took on board all of my
last-minute comments. I stood at the back of the audience, buttock-clenchingly
cueing the music I had chosen for the opening scene as the action began to
unfold. And so we flash forward to present day where I was helping out the cast
by cueing all of the music for the rehearsal, though there were no nerves this
time. I had already gone through the rehearsed reading performance and I knew
that it worked as a piece of theatre.

I wish I
could offer more of a specific analysis but obviously I don’t want to give the
full plot away. However, as I watched I thought back to how different this well
rehearsed piece of theatre was to the original rehearsed reading and, as happy
as I was with the performance I had directed, just how well the cast and
Richard had done at developing the play across the last couple of months of
rehearsals.  

The
relationships between characters were more well-rounded and believable using
the most subtle of mannerisms to create fresh dynamics. I found it easy making
direct comparisons between my version as half of the original cast, in Josh and Alex,
had successfully auditioned for the roles. The boyhood and adult relationships
between their two characters had evolved to produce some genuinely touching and
(intended) awkward moments that were more pronounced due to the much longer
rehearsal period than that of the rehearsed reading.

I was also happy from a
writer’s perspective as in seeing Dean and Anna’s performances, not being
members of the original rehearsed reading cast, I have seen delivered
completely different but massively impressive performances. It has given me
confidence that the characters have enough personality to be brought to life by a
variety of talented actors all with different acting styles. I believe the
knowledge that a piece of writing is accessible to various actors and audiences
is a very important contributor to a writer’s self-esteem and it makes me very
happy that my writing has been placed in such trusted hands.

I learned
a great deal as a writer from having my play performed as a rehearsed reading
and advise any writer who is wondering if their idea works to start by getting
in touch with a local theatre company as having actors at your disposal to help
see how the finished product will look is of huge benefit. Even if you’re
writing for television, film or radio a rehearsed reading can give you a great
amount of feedback before you submit your piece to production companies.

For me,
the rehearsed reading performance showed me that Chicken Shed works as a piece
of theatre and seeing the performance helped me to analyse my own style of
writing. Having the deadline of a performance date was also extremely helpful
in ensuring the piece was finished. I find it helps if you know you’d be
letting people down if you didn’t have the script and it makes you want to
write as best you can as you know people are going to be seeing it.

The
Chicken Shed Reunited is part of a double bill of new writing at the Kelvin
Players Studio on Gloucester Road Bristol. Click
here for more info and to book tickets.

The Chicken Shed Diaries #2: Coming Out of My Shell

In the build up to The Chicken Shed Re-united (or Chicken Shed as
it will now be referred to herein) I wanted to talk about where the idea came
from. It does mean that in this post I’ll be sharing a bit more about myself
than maybe people would expect me too, but I feel the stuff in this post is
vitally important to explain how you can use your own experiences to create a
piece of drama. So, I suppose I better start with a synopsis:

Miles, Simon and Danny are childhood friends brought together by their mutual
hatred and fear of school thug ‘Deano’. Some years later, having lost touch
during their time at school, Simon calls the three friends together for a
reunion to catch up with events in each other’s lives and reminisce on old
times. However, Simon’s motives for getting the friends back together are not
altogether sentimental…duhm, duhm, duhmmmm!

The age old tip of ‘write what you know’ is such a useful one to
follow and in this case a very therapeutic one. I can’t pin point exactly when
the Chicken Shed idea was first conceived but it was during my early twenties
after returning from University. After my three fantastic years in
Stoke-on-Trent (which some may consider a contradiction in terms) I found
myself returning home and not feeling altogether happy with myself. I
can’t explain it but I just felt very awkward socially despite the best three
years of my life and constantly hearing how Uni was a time to completely come
out of your shell. But I was holding something back. After some counselling and
subsequent self-analysis I finally, unashamedly admitted to myself that I had
been bullied at school and it had affected my confidence in social
interactions.

After a short period of bitterness this is something that I’ve come to be very
comfortable in talking about and have become very self-aware and indeed aware
of others and how every personality develops based on past experiences, most
significantly childhood experiences. I began thinking about how, if I hadn’t
analysed my past, I might have continued to grow up with an increasing
frustration and anxiety in interacting socially with others. From this the
three members of the Chicken Shed were born.

We start the play by seeing the three friends forge their
friendship in the Chicken Shed; a garden shed at the back of Mile’s house. The
adult actors play schoolboy versions of their eventual adult selves as we hear
how each boy experiences differing levels of bullying at school. In the
following scene, the bulk of the play, we witness their reunion (approx 15
years later) and see how each of the men have developed different feelings
about what happened to them with Miles’ girlfriend, Karen, in attendance as one
of us; an outsider looking in to this friendship group. I very much see each
character as three very different representations of how my attitude toward
life might have been affected had I not started to deal with my past.

I always knew I wanted to write something on the subject of
bullying but wanted to make sure that 1) I wasn’t just using it as a excuse to
rant about everything that happened to me hence why most of the events
described in the play are not those which I experienced and 2) I didn’t want it
to feel like a Channel 4 Schools educational piece on the affects of bullying
or an episode of Grange Hill. I wanted to show how self-awareness and
acceptance can dramatically help a person to move on with life despite their
negative experiences.

Dramatising something that is deep and meaningful to you is a very
therapeutic process, even if you’re just doing it for yourself and not for
public consumption. I’d strongly recommend it as a great way to flex the
writing muscles as it helps not to need to research anything because you’re
making your point from a very personal perspective. Considering myself a comedy
writer I found it a great exercise into using comedy to introduce a dramatic
subtext…that’s also me reassuring those that may now be having doubts about
coming along to see the performance that there are comic moments too. I
promise!

Thank you for reading. Next post, hopefully in the next few days,
will be announcing the cast and reflecting on Chicken Shed’s first performance
as a script-in-hand rehearsed reading some 18 months ago.

Writing Resource – Screenwipe Writers Special

Hearing from successful writers is a great motivational tool. I hope that one day someone might say something similar about my work (hopefully not that calling me a ‘motivational tool’) but for now I will share with you a fantastic video which has helped to motivate me in my writing.

Writer, television critic and general all-round grumpy git, Charlie Brooker, produced this special one off edition of his original TV review show Screenwipe back in 2009. It’s a ‘writer’s special’ episode in which Charlie talks to some fantastic television writers about how they got started. Sadly he hasn’t interviewed any female writers on the show which is a shame but the stuff that’s there is all very useful, even if you want to write for other mediums besides television.

For some reason Channel 4 has blocked the PART 2 clip as it contains some footage from one of their shows (Screenwipe is a BBC production) even though other parts contain clips of Father Ted. Anyway, PART 2 is by no means a ‘missing cog’ as it’s all good stuff. Enjoy.

Guests include:
Russell T Davies (Queer as Folk, Doctor Who)
Paul Abbott (Shameless, State of Play)
Jesse Armstrong and Sam Baine (Peep Show)
Graham Linehan (Father Ted, Black Books, The IT Crowd)
Tony Jordon (Life on Mars, Eastenders, Hustle)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mBPu8NrKhJI PART 1
PART 2 CURRENTLY UNAVAILABLE! SORRY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKF4NyMSPzI PART 3
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00Vf7_Eheko PART 4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hwBNP2eYwQ0 PART 5

I would also point you toward Mr Brookers weekly Guardian column as well as his other work. Just type his name in to YouTube and watch the hours fly by.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/charliebrooker

The Chicken Shed Diaries #1: Letting go

Its nine weeks to go before my first play, The Chicken Shed Reunited,
will be performed to a paying audience. Last week saw the read-through at the
Kelvin Players Studio in Bristol.

It was a very exciting moment for me as it feels
like a genuine step toward becoming a professional writer. It was also a very
scary moment as all of a sudden I realised that my writing was going to be
performed…in front of people. People with money! People
with money paying to sit and watch and judge a play that I have written. All of
a sudden my work is open for criticism or, potentially even more fearful to the
self-deprecating writer….praise!

Adding to my gut-wrenching anxiety, I am not having anything to do
with the production apart from being available for consultation from the
director (Richard Jones) as and when required, potentially attending the
occasional rehearsal. My fear does not discredit the director, far from it, but
it is a comment on how a control-freak like me can suddenly feel freakishly
out-of-control!

Anyway, the read-through. Sitting at the back, like a boy at school
trying to avoid the attention of the class…although it was normally the more
attention seeking boys that sat at the back of the class…anyway the point is
that I sat at the back and I listened and observed the play coming to life.
Fortunately the first scene is quite light and comical and so when I got my
first laugh only a few lines in it did settle the nerves, much as it does to an
actor performing comedy.

During the read-through the roles were passed around the attendee
actors so as to ensure everyone has the chance to read a part. This means there
is a wide variety of interpretations of the characters as they are read out;
variations included accents, tone of voice, pronunciation etc. As these roles
were changed around in relatively quick succession I started to feel more
relaxed than the first laugh had made me. In fact generally I was a lot less
nervous as I had expected myself to be. Toward the end of the read-through I
realised why; I was finally letting go!

All of those interpretations of the characters I had written were
different to the voices that I’d given the characters in my head at the time of
writing. This is not a criticism of the actors as in fact I felt very positive
that the characters could still live on in other voices than the ones I gave
them.

When you’ve written something so close to you, particularly around a
subject matter such as childhood bullying, it’s often horrifying to even think
of someone else reading it. Part of this is because you don’t want them to say
that the actual writing is crap but also because it’s something that belongs to
you; something you’ve decided worthy of creating. But as I sat back hearing the
dialogue that I had written I realised that the bulk of my work was in the
weeks and months of writing and re-writing that had led up to this read-through.
They were my anxious moments and now someone wanted to put on something I’d
written so surely that’s a positive step forward!

Don’t get me wrong, I’m still petrified that one reviewer may reduce
me to tears before I lock myself in my flat for a month as I cry over the
hundreds of tear soaked copies of the newspaper I ordered containing the review
that I bought to give to all of my friends and family, even having bought some
gold mounted frames…but for now I can sleep a little easier. I have every
faith in the director and cast (of who are in the process of being picked as I
write this) and I need to let them get on with the job in hand. As for me, if I
really want to be ‘a writer’, I just need to start
getting on with writing my next project.

In my next ‘Chicken Shed’ post I’ll start telling
you about how I started writing the play from inception to final
draft…without given too much away about the plot.

The Idea Generation Game

Everybody loves a good story. Whether experienced through celluloid, television, radio waves or via good old-fashioned paper (modern paper is just as good) we have a multitude of genres and mediums at our disposal to remind us of what a good story is. After all it’s probably the love of stories which is a major factor behind one’s urge to write. So coming up with a good idea for a story should be easy, right?

Not so much! So, let’s generate some ideas…

Note to self…!
If you don’t have a notebook, buy one. It may be obvious but is the most essential tool for any writer…in fact it shares the top spot with a pen!

I own a lot of notebooks, as my photo suggests. Now this is partly due to my unhealthy addiction to stationary but is also because these have accumulated over the years as I write almost everything down that I think may be story-worthy. Sometime this could be as long as a couple of pages or a kind of journal entry but most of the time it’s just a title, a subject matter, a line of dialogue I heard someone say or a joke they told me, an amusing incident that happened to me or a friend, a character based on someone I met, a place I visited etc etc…everything! Even keep the notebook by your bed as you’ll regret it when that most vivid of dreams soon evaporates into thin air by the time your feet hit the bedroom floor and your day begins.

Think of the contents of your notebook(s) as a box of missing puzzle pieces belonging to thousands of jigsaws. One day one of those pieces will help you to complete the full picture. You won’t use every idea you’ve noted down but when you do it will be worth it and it gets you writing and thinking about writing on a daily basis which will help to nurture your craft.

Write what you know!
It’s a cliche, but so true. We all have our own thoughts and opinions and have had vastly different experiences from one another. Try to think what events in your life have had an emotional effect on you and think of ways you can apply it to a story.

For example, The Chicken Shed Reunited was my first play about a reunion between three friends who were bonded together by a mutual fear of a bully whilst at school. Essentially the story comes from my experiences of being bullied at school and how those experiences have affected me as I’ve become an adult. Going back to my previous point around using notebooks, the name ‘The Chicken Shed’ was a title I’d written down many years ago and was originally intended as an idea for a Famous Five-esque book based on a group of kids who hung out in one of their parent’s sheds to escape a gang of bullies.

…try to come up with the idea for a story based on something that has happened to you, good or bad. Contradiciton in terms as it is, everyone is unique…what’s your story?

Use the News
As much I feel drowned in the the 24 hour news culture we live in the smallest of news stories can be good writing fodder.

For instance, going for some main features on the BBC News website at time of writing I will use two examples:
1. BBC Presenter reveals gagging order’ – the story was originally about BBC presenter Andrew Marr revealing that he took out a super-injunction to protect
his family’s privacy after having an affair early in his career. You could create a story based on this alone but try to use the news item as a foundation and brainstorm around it for instance your story could be about a public figure trying to cover his tracks in order to save his career/marriage/life. Or, to add a different spin on it, the story could follow a serious journalist who stumbles upon some celebrity gossip that would earn him a fortune and would kickstart his career in the tabloid profession, despite his morals lying with hard-hitting journalism for a more broadsheet based publication.
or
2. A video interview entitled ‘Sir Elton John on becoming a father’ – your story could be the diary of a young child who is raised by two gay same-sex parents. Alternatively the story could be about a celebrity who is tracked down by the child they never knew they had.

These are just loose suggestions to two random articles, but whatever your preferred theme or genre there’s something for everybody. Give it a try.

Picture it!
Look at a photo in the newspaper or just do a google image search on a random topic of your choosing. If the photo contains people, who are they? What are their names? Why are they in that location? It’s amazing how once you have a visible point of focus you can start ellaborating on the information you’ve been given. E.G. I typed ‘People’ into google and on the first page of results was this picture. To the right is my initial dramatisation of the photo.

This is Mark, George, Emily and Sarah. Just before this photo they were walking along, laughing and joking that their friend Bryan, who is always over-the-top, had asked to meet them all in a secluded cafe as their lives were in danger. Classic Bryan!

They’re looking across the street because a bomb has just gone off in the cafe Bryan had asked to meet them in. Dum dum dum….

There are plenty of other sources of inspiration for a story. As Abi Burman commented in my last post, the ‘missing persons’ column is a good one. I also like looking at the classifieds of items people are trying to get rid of…why are they trying to get rid of that item?

Anyway…

Hopefully you’ve found some of these techniques useful. If you’ve got any of your own suggestions please feel free to add them by commenting on this post.

Starting Short

“The townsfolk kept glaring angrily at Jack as they discussed what to do with 1200 pounds of rotting giant.”
Goose Egg by Jim Phelps.

A few years ago I couldn’t finish a single project. One of the reasons for this failure was that I was setting myself too big a target; expecting to write a fully rounded film script within the space of a couple of weekends. Not only does this impossible task break my one main writing mantra of ‘Writing is rewriting’, which I will address at a later date, but it was also a reminder that I expected too much from myself. This is where writing short stories became an invaluable part of developing my writing skills.

A short story can be any length from a few words (as above) to a few thousand. I am very impatient in that I want to see results soon after I have the initial idea. Writing short stories means that you are able to have a finished article in a much shorter space of time, even with multiple drafts. The story can always be elongated/adapted into the format of your choosing at a later time.

Though the short story has helped me with my confidence in my writing let me be clear that I do not see writing one as only a means to an end. Quite the contrary, it is a powerful art form in itself. A full scale novel has the time to set scenes and devote whole chapters to describing landscapes, sewing the seed of subplots and building up dramatic tension. A short story has only a few pages to hook the reader in, engage them and leave them wanting more. I would be proud to make a career from being a short story writer.

If you are keen to try writing a short story, there are a few elements I always keep in mind:

• The story should start in the middle of something. It’s up to you to draw the reader in; to want to find out more.
• Keep the time frame of events short: there’s no room for long drawn out quests, significant character growth or a detailed account of a week in the life of a tax adviser (and if that’s your chosen subject I pray it’s a comedy!).
• Don’t have too many characters or locations. You haven’t got that long to define too many elements.
• Make sure you know what you are trying to say.
• Make every word count.

Writing short stories has certainly improved the quality of my writing and the quantity of finished pieces on my hard-drive to satisfy my impatient self and assure me that I can finish a piece of writing. I’ve also found that working to a deadline helps and so I enter short story competitions on a regular basis, often specifically writing an entry for a contest. The benefit is you have a finished product you can look back on with the bonus of potentially winning a prize or getting published.

Below you will find a very useful website I use to enter any short story competitions. As you will see there are a diverse range of themes and word counts ranging between 5,000 words to 154 characters (a story told within one mobile phone text…an alternative activity when on the bus I find!). Entries to competitions can be free or sometimes stretch to only a few quid with some discounts on multiple submissions.

http://www.prizemagic.co.uk/html/writing_comps.htm

If you have any questions on writing short stories, drop me an email and I’ll do my best to answer them. I’m also open to any requests on subject matters for future blogs.