Toby Litt's Blog, page 14

STARTING TO WRITE – Lesson 6: Creating suspense in your stories

In this Lesson we’re going to look at how suspense works.

This isn’t because you’re going to be writing super-tense genre fiction – although perhaps you will be.

This is because suspense of some sort is useful in all storytelling, and it’s best to have an idea how it works.

Most stories play with different levels of knowledge. One character has a secret, say. Or two characters have planned a surprise for another character.

Or, taking a step back, it may just be that the reader knows more about what is likely to happen in the story than the characters do. The story’s title may have offered a clue.

Suspense is a very clear way to think about the levels of knowledge that a writer can create within a story.

Francois Truffaut

My understanding of suspense has mainly come from Hitchcock, the book that the French film director Francois Truffaut published in 1966. It is based on his interviews with the English film director Alfred Hitchcock.

I’m including below scans of both of the crucial pages. You should read every word, but I’m going to pick out the important sentences.

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The definition of suspense to grasp hold of, and never let go, is this –

In the usual form of suspense it is indispensable that the public be made perfectly aware of all the facts involved. Otherwise, there is no suspense.

For ‘the public’ you can insert ‘the reader’.

And here is the key explanation –

There is a distinct difference between ‘suspense’ and ‘surprise,’ and yet many pictures [movies] continually confuse the two. I’ll explain what I mean.

We are now having a very innocent little chat. Let us suppose that there is a bomb underneath this table between us. Nothing happens, and then all of a sudden, ‘Boom!’ There is an explosion. The public is surprised, but prior to this surprise, it has seen an absolutely ordinary scene, of no special consequence. Now, let us take a suspense situation. The bomb is underneath the table and the public knows it, probably because they have seen the anarchist place it there. The public is aware that the bomb is going to explode at one o’clock and there is a clock in the decor. The public can see that it is a quarter to one. In these conditions the same innocuous conversation become fascinating because the public is participating in the scene. The audience is longing to warn the characters on the screen:  ‘You shouldn’t be talking about such trivial matters. There’s a bomb beneath you and it’s about to explode!’

In the first case we have given the public fifteen seconds of surprise at the moment of the explosion. In the second we have provided them with fifteen minutes of suspense. The conclusion is that whenever possible the public must be informed. Except when the surprise is a twist, that is, when the unexpected ending is, in itself, the highlight of the story.

There is a huge amount of storytelling wisdom here. Not all of it will apply to you or your writing. But – as a generalisation – literary fiction will err on the side of concealing information from the reader whereas genre fiction will be more likely to make the reader aware of all the facts involved.

The more facts the reader is aware of, the more suspense there will be.

For a long time, I thought storytelling was about withholding as much information from the reader as possible, for as long as possible. My stories tended involve to be a series of surprises rather than a build-up of suspense.

I realise now that I was missing out. Sometimes I should have been letting my reader know more about what was going on.

Bombs

You don’t need to include bombs in your stories. But you will bring a great deal more suspense to them, and depth of characterisation, if you have complicated levels of knowledge within them.

A knows something that B doesn’t.

One literary equivalent of a bomb is a secret. A woman discovers that her husband is having an affair with her best friend. When does she choose to detonate this piece of information?

EXERCISE 12

You have already written a description of your two main characters, walking through your somewhere and finding the something. We called this Finding.

You have then written some dialogue in which the child and the grown-up disagree about what to do next. We called this Arguing.

You’ve also written a scene in which the child and the grown-up get in the car and drive away. And then the car breaks down. We called this Driving.

What you need to do now write three new scenes. The first is to go before Finding. The second is to go in between Finding and Arguing, and the third is to go after Driving.

In these short scenes, you are finally going to write more about the someone you invented back in Exercise 5. This is the person in disguise.

The first new scene – which will fit in your story just before Finding – needs to show the person in disguise looking out for anyone approaching. When they see the child and the grown-up coming, they place the something right in the middle of their path. The person in disguise then goes and hides themselves somewhere they can watch what happens. (Hopefully this isn’t impossible, and you haven’t made your somewhere a completely flat plain.)

Write this new scene, and then scroll down.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The second new scene follows on from the Arguing scene between the child and the grown-up.

All this second new scene needs to do is describe the person in disguise watching the child and the grown-up from their hidden place. As they continue to disagree, the person watching reacts – you can have them do whatever you like.

One suggestion is that you have the person in disguise make a phone call to report what is going on to a character we have not yet met.

When you have written the second new scene, scroll down.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The final new scene you’re going to write comes immediately after Driving, in which the car has broken down.

In this scene, the person in disguise drives up to the child and the grown-up and offers them a ride to wherever they need to go.

When you have finished this scene, write Arriving at the top of the page.

That’s it. That’s all you need to do today.

That took a bit of shuffling around of papers, but you should now have a story that feels a lot different to the one you have when this lesson began.

Shuffling stuff around is what a great deal of writing is about. Words within sentences. Paragraphs sections within stories.

Read your story through, start to finish.

Can you see how the introduction of a very clear new level of knowledge, that of the person in disguise, has brought tension to the story?

In the terms Hitchcock used, you have started to make the reader aware of all the facts involved.

But, of course, you haven’t done that. Because the reader doesn’t yet know why the person in disguise is doing that they are doing. They don’t yet know what the meaning of the something is.

Points of View

I haven’t yet said anything about points of view – except to ask you to write everything in the third person past tense. That’s using he, she, it, they and not I or we.

There was a reason for that choice. It is far simpler to create Hitchcockian suspense in a third person narrative than in a first person narrative. Because the third person narrator can easily be perfectly aware of all the facts involved whereas the first person narrator is likely to know only what they have seen or been told.

Think for a moment about whether it would be possible to do what you have just done, introducing that level of knowledge, if the narrator of your story were not a third person narrator but the child.

Let’s say their story starts like this:

I was walking along with [the grown-up] when I looked down and saw [the something].

What would be the information you would need to find some way of including through glimpses and suspicions that, in the third person version, can just be told straight to the reader?

I am not advising you to write all your stories in the third person. Not at all. But if you choose to write in the first person – as an I narrator – you need to find ways to access different levels of knowledge. These can’t all depend on your narrator eavesdropping, and overhearing conversations they shouldn’t.

READING 6

It’s time for you to do some discovering of your own. Before next time, you need to read at least two of the stories linked to from this Literary Hub page about 11 Very Short Stories You Must Read Immediately. Just look through the descriptions and see what takes your fancy.

A Climax

Hitchcock uses the example of a bomb beneath a table. In this scene, the boy is carrying a bomb in the metal film tin. He doesn’t know he’s carrying a bomb.

We’ll end the lesson with this masterclass in suspense.

 

STARTING TO WRITE – Lesson 5: Energizing your stories

Welcome back.

I have already given you my definition of a story –

A story is about someone who is somewhere they shouldn’t be.

Or:

A story is about something that is somewhere it shouldn’t be.

And you have begun writing the nothing draft of a story. You have two characters who have found something. You have another character (the one in disguise) who is going to reappear next Lesson. Now you need to make something happen.

Here, we come to what needs to happen in a story for it to pick up energy. Here’s a suggestion:

A story needs to have one thing go wrong,

then another thing to go more wrong.

Very often, stories which don’t last very long, or don’t feel very complete, run something like this –

A character is having a normal day. She encounters a problem. Using her qualities as a person, she works out a way to solve the problem. The story ends.

Chaos is allowed out of the box, briefly, then put back in the box.

Now think about this.

A character is having a normal day. She encounters a problem. Using her qualities as a person, she tries to work out a way to solve the problem. But in doing so she creates two new problems. Both the new problems are more serious than the original problem, and both need to to be dealt with immediately. The story continues.

Watch Disney’s Sorcerer’s Apprentice, starring Mickey Mouse.

 

If Mickey was successful the first time he tried to chop the mop up, there would be no story.

Now think about what happens in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s ‘Cell One’, the story that was last Lesson’s reading. Think about how things go wrong, and then more wrong, and then even more wrong for the brother. If he didn’t go to jail, it wouldn’t be such a good story. If he didn’t do as he does once in jail, it wouldn’t be a great story.

You must allow your stories to expand, by having things in them go wrong and then more wrong.

The next bit is a very important piece of advice:

Don’t panic if the story seems to be running out of your control. That’s exactly what you want it to do.

Unless a story excites you, it’s unlikely to excite the reader. Very often, the moment in writing the story when you think ‘Oh, crap, that just can’t happen’ is the moment at which the reader will think ‘Oh great, now something’s really happening!’

EXERCISE 11

Write a scene in which your two characters, the child and the grown-up, get in a car. Describe the car in one sentence. Then say how they set off with the something on the back seat. Have them talk about where they are going. Who are they going to meet? What are they going to do with the something?

Then have the car break down. This is the first thing going wrong.

The child and the grown-up disagree about what to do next. They are only a short distance from where they were heading. Do they walk or don’t they?

Have the child and the grown-up start walking along the road. They need to stay on the road. Then you need to invent the second thing that goes wrong –  the thing that goes more wrong.

Say what that thing is. Show it vividly to the reader.

When you’ve finished, write the word ‘Driving’ at the top of this page. That’s what we’re calling this scene.

Take as long as you need. Remember to include lots of dialogue. Read back over what you’ve written.

Then scroll down.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Why this day?

The story you are writing is not meant to be a great story, or even a good story. It’s meant to be a useful story.

Perhaps you’ve started to care about the child and the grown-up, but the purpose of you writing about them in this way is to get you writing in a more supple, energetic way.

When you come to write a story of your own, it may be more downbeat. However I suggest that even in stories that appear to have very little action in them, you will find that thing go wrong. At the very least, they go beyond the routine.

When you’re writing a story, you always need to be able to answer the question –

Why this day?

Usually the answer is one of two things –

This is the day on which someone’s life changed.

Or –

This is the day on which someone’s life might have changed but didn’t.

Stories are about change or the chance of change.

There are exceptions to this but they are usually to do with the writing itself being where the change takes place, or that the change takes place within the reader as they are reading.

 

READING 5

Read Flannery O’Connor’s short story ‘A Good Man is Hard to Find‘.

Think about the voice the story is being told in. How does that voice treat the characters it is describing? Could any of the characters within the story tell the story as well as the third person narrator?

 

STARTING TO WRITE – Lesson 4: Writing better dialogue

Writing dialogue is something many beginning writers either avoid or rush. It can be hard to see how you can rewrite dialogue. If a character has something to say, don’t they just say it? And if you – the writer – change how they say it, isn’t that cheating?

The Exercises you’re going to do today are designed to help you write more and better dialogue.

You’re going to need the pages you written in front of you.

Last time, you – using your pseudonym – wrote about a child and a grown-up finding something. I asked you to make sure they disagreed about what to do next.

Obviously, if you have two characters who agree about everything they may as well be one character.

But two characters who disagree can open up your stories in a way that makes them much easier to write.

However, it’s very very easy to write bad dialogue.

In fact, why don’t you do that now?

EXERCISE 7

On a new piece of paper, write the worst dialogue you can imagine. Remember, you’re not doing this as yourself, you’re doing it under pseudonym – you’re doing it as the  writer you invented in the first Lesson.

Take as long as you need.

Then scroll down.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What is bad dialogue?

Usually when I ask people to do this exercise, they write one of a few kinds of dialogue. They write deliberately boring dialogue (often in a realist novel style).

‘Good morning.’

‘Good morning.’

‘How are you?’

‘I’m fine. How are you?’

‘I’m fine.’

Or, they write deliberately overwritten dialogue (often in a parody romantic fiction style).

‘My darling, your eyes look like the most brilliant diamonds ever dug from the mines of Africa.’

‘Oh, my dear, your muscles are throbbing with the desire you clearly feel for me deep in your passionate soul.’

Or, they write deliberately overinformative dialogue (often in a thriller style).

‘Have we traced the B-X425 nuclear missile to its hidden lair in deepest Slaka?’

‘Yes, our agent Kayleigh Williams-Grace achieved this for us at oh four hundred hours precisely.’

‘Good, then we can proceed with our plan to overwhelm our enemies by a surprise attack at oh nine hundred hours precisely.’

Often, when people read these deliberately bad dialogues out in class, they get lots of laughs.

In fact, they get a reaction that suggests the dialogue isn’t bad because it’s good for making people laugh.

The Opposite

Let’s pause for a moment.

In this Exercise, I asked you to write the worst dialogue you could come up with, and to do it as a writer who isn’t you. I hope that made it easy.

At the very least, it made it easier than if you I had asked you the opposite – to write the best dialogue you could come up with, and to do it publicly, as yourself.

Often the best way to write well is to take the pressure off yourself by thinking, ‘Of course this isn’t me doing my absolute best, it’s just me trying something out – for the sake of it.’

I have found that using a pseudonym can often free writers up amazingly.

If it’s useful to you, keep using your pseudonym throughout these Lessons. If not, you can put it to one side and pick it up again when you feel like it.

Just don’t obsess in your nothing drafts about being yourself. Sometimes it’s a lot easier not to be.

Don’t think ‘How do I want this story to go? What would be the best I can do?’ Think ‘How could this story go? What would be exciting?’

The Good Stuff

You’re now going to do three exercises each of which has a different idea of what’s behind good dialogue.

EXERCISE 8

Write a dialogue in which your two characters (child and adult) are arguing over what to do with the something they have found.

Make sure that with each new line they say, the conflict between them escalates.

They must never say anything to agree with or placate the other person. Each line raises the stakes.

When you’ve finished, write the word ‘Arguing’ at the top of this page. That’s what we’re calling this scene.

Take as long as you need. Don’t write more than a page.

Then scroll down.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

WINNING DIALOGUE

The idea behind Winning dialogue is Power.

What’s important is that all the people speaking are trying to come out top dog.

Watch this famous climactic scene from A Few Good Men for an example of Power dialogue.

Both of the characters here (Lt. Daniel Kaffee, a military lawyer, played by Tom Cruise and Colonel Nathan R. Jessep, played by Jack Nicholson) are trying to win the scene. Kaffee wants to force Jessep to admit something he’s been concealing. Jessep wants to get through the trial but also to be true to his values. Their exchanges become more and more challenging and intense. They shout louder and louder. They get closer to the real issues between them. ‘I think you’re a monster.’ ‘I think you’re not fit to be a soldier.’ And when it comes, the rhetoric of Jessep’s long speech seems crushing. But the final win, which is Kaffee’s, is wordless. Jessep has betrayed himself, and will shortly be arrested.

EXERCISE 9

Write a dialogue in which your two characters are both trying to disguise what they really want from the other one. This doesn’t have to be directly related to the something they’ve found. It can be about practical or emotional needs.

Make sure that this is revealed to the reader by the characters’ evasions and inconsistencies.

Each character suspects the truth of the other one, and tries to probe them to reveal it.

Again, take as long as you need.

Then scroll down.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

HIDING DIALOGUE

The idea behind Hiding dialogue is Fear.

What’s important is that all the people speaking are trying to keep something secret.

Watch this scene from Four Weddings and a Funeral for an example of Hiding dialogue.

Both Charles, played by Hugh Grant, and Carrie, played by Andie MacDowell, are trying to hide how much they feel for one another, because they are afraid the other doesn’t feel it too. They hide their feelings, paradoxically, by speaking an exaggerated, parody version of what they feel. Carrie would like a sign of commitment from Charles, so she says she expects a marriage announcement. Charles, who is just waking up, is afraid that he might just get what he secretly wants (to have a serious relationship with Carrie). But he’s not up to speed, so he plays along until he realises it’s a joke. They both have moments when they come close to speaking the truth (Charles: ‘That is a tragedy.’ Carrie: ‘But I think we both missed a great opportunity here.’)

Interlude

Before we come to the next exercise, take a break. And while you’re doing that, try to think about what the third kind of dialogue might be?

If Winning dialogue is about power and Hiding dialogue is about fear, what could be the thing that is behind a different kind of dialogue.

EXERCISE 10

Write a dialogue in which one of your two characters isn’t really listening to the other.

Make sure that this is revealed to the reader by that character’s replies not really meeting up with what has just been said.

Each character is following their own line of thoughts.

They are talking at cross-purposes.

Again, take as long as you need.

Then scroll down.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

IGNORING DIALOGUE

The idea behind Ignoring dialogue is Ego.

What’s important is that all the people speaking are only giving the others a small percentage of their attention. The rest is spent on thinking their own thoughts.

Watch this scene from Some Like It Hot.

 

For much of the scene Jerry, being Daphne, played by Jack Lemmon, isn’t listening to Joe, played by Tony Curtis. She’s following her own thoughts of marriage to Osgood Fielding III. The comedy comes from how her answers follow her line of thought, rather than engaging with what Joe is insisting is the reality of the situation. Finally, Joe manages to break through and Daphne becomes Jerry. But the end of the film reveals that Joe’s assumptions are pretty much all wrong, and Daphne’s ‘deluded’ version of reality was closer to the truth. ‘Nobody’s perfect.’

The Opposite Again

Bad dialogue, to me, comes when no winning no hiding no ignoring is going on. If the characters are in complete agreement or close to it, they are being entirely honest or close to it and they are listening as hard as they possibly can or close to it – if all this is the case, what can they possibly say?

‘Yes.’

‘Absolutely.’

‘Amazing.’

People do have conversations like this. But if you overheard one on the bus, you’re not likely to tune in for long. But if two people are tearing chunks out of one another, you might just say on the bus an extra stop.

Chekhov

Last time, I asked you to read ‘Lady with a Dog’ by Anton Chekhov. This is a great short story. There are multiple somethings that are somewhere they shouldn’t be. One of the main examples of this is when the two characters, Dmitri Dmitritch Gurov and Anna Sergeyevna are first alone together in a private room.

“It’s wrong,” she said. “You will be the first to despise me now.”

There was a water-melon on the table. Gurov cut himself a slice and began eating it without haste. There followed at least half an hour of silence.

Anna Sergeyevna was touching; there was about her the purity of a good, simple woman who had seen little of life. The solitary candle burning on the table threw a faint light on her face, yet it was clear that she was very unhappy.

 

READING 4

I would like you to read Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s story ‘Cell One‘.

Think about how the character of the brother is deepened.

What tiny significant details do we get about him?

What are his big significant actions?

 

To become teacherly for a moment. In looking at the stats of people following this course, I can see what links are being followed. It’s becoming clear that only a small percentage are doing the Readings – or even taking a look at what they are.

I’ll say it very plainly – Reading is how writers become writers. If you don’t read, and re-read, you won’t be read.

Please find the time to do the Reading as well as the Exercises, even if it means taking twice as long to go through the course.

STARTING TO WRITE – Lesson 3: Making sure your stories keep going

Welcome back.

Very often, people start writing stories but find they end or stop after a page or two. There’s nothing wrong with that if what’s been told is a complete story.

There are different types of short story that are very short. You can find them online if you look up ‘flash fiction’. The Amy Hempel story, ‘Housewife‘, is just one sentence long.

But many stories a couple of pages long feel incomplete. Not enough has changed for the characters or the reader. Or both have lost energy.

From now on, I would like you to make sure that this doesn’t happen to your stories.

So, I am going to give you some Rules. When writing a story, during the time you’re doing the Writing Course, you must stick to the Rules.

Rule 1

Your story must contain at least two people.

Rule 2

Your two people must be very different from each other.

Rule 3

Your two people must make decisions by talking.

 

You’re now going to begin a story, using Exercises 3, 4 and 5 from the last Lesson. You already have someone, somewhere and something. Get them where you can see them.

EXERCISE 6

There’s only one Exercise in this Lesson, but it has several stages. When you’ve finished, you should have another page of your story.

I want you to put the someone to one side. They will come in later. For now, I want you to look again at the something and the somewhere. This is the basis of your story – but what you’ve written are just notes. A nothing draft.

For this exercise, you are going to have two new people, two new someones. I want you to make one of them a child and the other a grown-up.

You’re not writing the whole story now. You’re not even thinking of writing a whole story. You’re just making a beginning that needs to go on.

You will begin by describing what the child and the grown-up look like as they walk or wheel along together through the somewhere.

You are using the third person past tense, so you say ‘They were’ and ‘He saw’ and ‘She thought’. You don’t use ‘I’. Have some fun. Write for a few sentences.

Have the child and the grown-up walk through the somewhere, then have the child find the something. No need to describe the something. You’ve already done that. Instead you describe the different reactions to the something of the child and the grown-up.

Make sure they speak throughout this. Don’t worry if the dialogue is a bit clunky, just keep them talking.

Then, and this is the most important part, you have them talk about what they’re going to do with the something – and they must disagree. One wants to do one thing. One wants to do another.

That’s all. That’s as far as you need to go today. Re-read these instructions, then start.

Take as long as you need. Don’t write more than an A4 page, though.

When you’ve finished, write the word ‘Finding’ at the top of the page. That’s what we’re calling this scene.

Then scroll down.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Opposite

Why have I been restrictive? Why have I given you these three rules?

Well, because I have written and read so many stories that didn’t go very far, or weren’t very interesting, because they were about the opposite.

A story with a single main character, on their own, with no-one to speak to, and no-one to disagree with, is much harder to keep going than a story with two characters who speak and disagree.

I hope that, on finishing this exercise, you felt a bit of a desire to keep going. There’s more to be shown, more to be said. This is a good feeling to have.

Lydia Davis

Last time, you read Lydia Davis’ short story ‘In a Hotel Room in Ithaca‘. Have another look at it.

In this story there are two someones, or three if you count Socrates. There’s the narrator and there’s April, the housekeeper. The somewhere is a flat surface next to a coffee-maker in Ithaca. The something is the piece of paper. The some time is just the implied time of picking up and reading the note.

What’s where it shouldn’t be? On first reading, I would say it’s the smiley face. The detail of the smiley face next to a quote from Socrates makes the note remarkable – and comic.

On a second reading, it’s April who is where she shouldn’t be. If she’s quoting Socrates, why is she working as a housekeeper?

But then, ultimately, perhaps it’s the narrator staying in a Greek hotel room who is where she shouldn’t be. She doesn’t expect housekeepers to quote Socrates. It surprises her. Perhaps it shouldn’t. Perhaps her view of the world needs to expand.

Your interpretation of the story may be different to mine. I hope you’ll see how it depends on the four needed things – someone, somewhere, something and some time.

George Saunders

You also read George Saunders story ‘Sticks‘. Even though it’s very short, it includes lots of different elements. It manages to get a man’s life and a whole load of American culture. Like the first story, the more you think about it the deeper it gets.

The story obeys Rule 1 and Rule 2 very clearly. Rule 3, it dodges. Dialogue is absent. Words seem not to be important. But then they suddenly appear, and the change between ‘LOVE’ and ‘FORGIVE?’ is huge. The silent man, who speaks through his metal pole, has finally resorted to language.

If you were driving past this house, you would probably slow down. It would draw your attention, in real life. That’s a good test of a story.

There is a big difference between the father and the children, referred to as ‘we’, and between the father and the young couple. That final difference ends the story.

Note how every sentence moves the story forwards. Nothing here is just a description.

READING 3

I would like you to read the story Lady with Lapdog by the Russian writer Anton Chekhov.

Please think about how it relates to my definition of a story –

A story is about someone who is somewhere they shouldn’t be.

Thanks for following the course. See you next time.

If you feel like it, please tell other people about the course.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

STARTING TO WRITE – Lesson 2: What does a story need?

Exceptions

In all these Lessons, I’m going to make some very strong statements about what stories need and how they work.

There are exceptions. I know this.

There are always exceptions. And you can spend your time trying to think of those exceptions. ‘But what about…?’

Or, you can take my statements on trust. You can apply them to your own writing. You can come back to them later, and pick and choose what you need from them.

But for the moment I’ve decided to keep things as simple as I can, and not always be saying ‘but…’

Four Things

This time, you’re going to be doing three exercises – gathering together three of the things a story can’t do without.

But I’m going to start you off by giving you one of the four things for free:

The fourth thing a story needs is time.

If no time is passing, it’s very hard for anything to happen. But, in fact, time passes in every sentence you write – because it has a beginning, middle and end. Even a long paragraph just describing a statue or a painting moves in time. So, time is inevitable. You get it for free, too.

Not You

One of the main things you’ll be doing, throughout these Lessons, is getting yourself out of the way of your writing. And so although you’re going to be drawing on your memories and experiences, you’re not going to be writing about them as you.

So, before you start, write the name you came up with in the last Lesson at the bottom of the page. That’s the name of your invented writer. That’s your pseudonym. These three Exercises belong to them, not you.

Third Person Past Tense

For each of these three Exercises you’re going to be using the third person past tense.

If you’re unsure about what that means, read the next bit. If you know exactly, skip down to EXERCISE 3.

The third person means you don’t begin sentences ‘I’ or ‘We’, you begin them ‘He’ or ‘She’ or ‘They’ or ‘It’.

You’re also going to be writing in the past tense.

The past tense talks about things that have already happened. For example, ‘She went…’ or ‘He saw…’

Most short stories used to be written in the past tense. More recently, writers have started to use the present tense.

The reason you are writing all three exercises in the third person past tense is so they fit together easily when they’re done.

EXERCISE 3

Write a description of a very desirable object. The object must be one a person could pick up and carry. Write five or six sentences.

Careful: Before you start, make sure you stop yourself from writing ‘I’. This isn’t an exercise where you say, ‘I saw this diamond ring’. It needs to describe the diamond ring as if it were already in a story. So, for example, ‘The diamond in the ring was as big as a little toe.’

Take as long as you need to do this Exercise.

Write each Exercise on a separate side of A4 paper.

When you’re finished, scroll down.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

EXERCISE 4

Write a description of a place you knew well in the past but to which you cannot return. Write five or six sentences.

Again, be careful: You yourself are not in this Exercise. The place is described like a place in a story. Not, ‘I remember you could get into the garden through a hole in the wall.’ But ‘There was a hole in the wall halfway down the garden.’

When you’re finished, scroll down.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

EXERCISE 5

Write a description of a person who is wearing a disguise. Write four or five sentences.

Good. You’ve finished with the exercises for a while. Relax. You’ve now got all four elements of a short story in place.

Now scroll down.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What does a story need?

You did those Exercises without knowing what they were leading up to. Well done if you didn’t peek ahead.

Here is my simple definition of what a story needs –

A story needs someone, somewhere, something and some time.

When you listed the four things a story needs, last time, did you get any of these? Did you say character or setting? If so, well done. You were on track.

I have tried to reduce the four elements to their simplest form. So, someone rather than character. Someone can include robot or dog.

If you take away any of these elements, a story becomes incredibly difficult to tell. You either have someone floating in a void, or somewhere without a character there to do anything.

When you have all four of the elements, you can write stories of finding, losing, journeying, hiding. Lots of good story stuff.

Now, here is my definition of a story –

A story is about someone who is somewhere they shouldn’t be.

This can also run:

A story is about something that is somewhere it shouldn’t be.

 To understand this better, you can flip it around –

If everything is in its routine place, there isn’t a story.

When I said ‘shouldn’t be’, I don’t mean morally. (Though stories are often about people doing bad things.) And I’m not implying disapproval. What I mean is more like, they would normally be somewhere else. If you prefer you could think of it like this, A story is about something that is out of place.

Stories (usually) are the opposite of routines. Stories aren’t about the day on which nothing happened. They’re about that day – the day on which something different happened. Very often, they’re about the day on which something changed forever.

If, instead of doing today’s Exercises, I had asked you just to start writing a story, you might have begun by describing a person going through their usual routine. Getting up in the morning. Going to their usual place. You would be giving a reader a sense of who they were and what they did.

Would that be more or less interesting than what you’ve come up with, without thinking about it? The something, somewhere and someone that you just made up.

Your first story, which you’ve started without realising, goes like this –

One day, there was a person. Here’s what they were like.

Read aloud your Exercise 1 – the someone.

They were wandering around. What they saw was this.

Read aloud your Exercise 2 – the somewhere.

They looked down and saw something. What could it be?

Read aloud you Exercise 3 – the something.

Hemingway

Before we finish, let’s go back to the story you read last time. Where are the four elements in that?

For sale: baby shoes, never worn.

Well, the something is obvious. It’s the baby shoes.

The somewhere is harder to find. We don’t have a description of a place. But several places are implied. There’s the newspaper in which the advert appears. That counts as a place. There’s also the place the baby shoes are being kept – a box in an apartment, perhaps. There are other places, but two will do for the moment.

Finally, there is someone. Perhaps more than one someone. These people are implied, but they are easy enough to imagine. There is a mother or father of the baby who did not live long enough to use the shoes. There is also the imagined reader of the advert.

What makes this six words a story?

I would say, very simply, it’s the someone who is somewhere they shouldn’t be.

The baby should be alive, in the world, and it’s not.

The shoes should be on its feet, and they’re not.

The more you think about it, the sadder it becomes – and all from six words.

READING 2

Read ‘In a Hotel Room in Ithaca‘ by Lydia Davis. It’s a very short story.

Read ‘Sticks‘ by George Saunders. It’s a slightly longer story.

In both stories, think about the someone, the somewhere and the something – are they where they should be? What is out of place?

Think about how time progresses.

Think about what is and isn’t routine.

STARTING TO WRITE – Lesson 1: Preparing to write

Welcome to the Starting to Write Course. Thank you for at least taking a look at it.

The aim of this Course is to get you writing and reading with energy, to help you avoid some painful mistakes, and to show you how you can rapidly improve your short stories.

I always tell my students two things:

There are no short cuts.

but

There is no wasted effort. 

So, let’s begin.

What do you need to start writing?

Well, you’re looking at these words on some kind of phone or computer – and you could use that. But for lots of reasons, I believe it’s better to write with pen or pencil on A4/US Letter paper. At least for nothing drafts.

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I’m calling them ‘nothing drafts’ rather than ‘first drafts’ because they’re not even as finished as first drafts. They are just something you write, when you begin a story, and they are meant to be a mess. You really must not worry about crossings out, second thoughts and what you might be in danger of thinking of as ‘mistakes’.

There are no mistakes. There’s just getting stuff down on paper.

Everything you may write in your nothing draft is for you. You’re the only one who ever has to read it or understand it. As long as you can read back the words you’ve written, everything’s fine.

If you don’t have a pad of A4, you can use any spare piece of paper – the back of bank statements or bills you no longer need. I used to write on the reverse of teaching materials from the English Language School where I worked.

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I’m not great at writing in neat horizontal lines, so if I’m writing on blank paper I use one of these things –

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It goes behind the page and, when I stick to writing between the lines, makes the finished effect a little less wild.

The first advice I’m going to give you is this: Double-space your writing.

Right from the beginning, only write on every other line.

Why?

Well, doing this gives you more room to put in changes and new sentences than if you write on every single line. It also gives you a feeling of making faster progress. This is a page from one of my stories –

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It’s on grid paper, because I like working on that.

I hope you can see where I’ve written new sentences in between the first lot of sentences. They appear in the double-space gap, because that’s what the gap is for. The page is welcoming to additions, changes. It doesn’t make you feel bad for making changes. You’ll probably need to make lots of changes. Not always, but most of the time.

Next Lesson, you’ll start on a story.

For now, I’d like you to do a couple of writing exercises.

EXERCISE 1

Invent a pseudonym.

On your first blank page, write down the name of a writer (not a real writer who actually exists) – write down the name of an invented writer who you can write as.

For example, I once wrote something under the name ‘Alex Warden’. That was my pseudonym.

Don’t worry if you don’t like the first name you come up with. Come up with a few, then choose the one that you like.

Take as long as you need.

That’s all.

Before the next Lesson, I’d like you to read and re-read the story below. It probably wasn’t written by the American writer Ernest Hemingway, but is often spoken of as if it was. (Details here.)

Warning: It is very sad.

READING 1

For sale: baby shoes, never worn.

That’s a short story. A famous short story.

Before next Friday, think about these questions:

Why is it a short story?

What does a story need?

What can’t a story do without?

EXERCISE 2

Write down four things a story needs.

Think simple.

Birkbeck Creative Writing MA Alumni

Just so I have it all in the same place, I have compiled an incomplete list of former students on the Birkbeck Creative Writing MA (some taught by me, some not) and what they’ve gone on to write:

Annalie Grainger: author of Captive, Simon & Schuster, 2015, In Your Light, Simon & Schuster, 2018.

Abi Dare: Winner of the Bath First Novel award 2018.

Amer Anwar: author of Brothers in Blood, Dialogue, 2018.

Anna Hope: author of Wake, Doubleday, 2014, The Ballroom, Black Swan, 2016, Expectation, Doubleday 2019.

David Savill: author of They Are Trying to Break Your Heart, 2016, Bloomsbury.

E.C. Fremantle: author of Queen’s Gambit, Penguin, 2013, Sisters of Treason, Penguin, 2015, Watch the Lady, Penguin, 2016, The Girl in the Glass Tower, Michael Joseph, 2016, The Poison Bed, Michael Joseph, 2018.

Emily Critchley: author of Notes on my Family, Everything with words, 2017. (Current student.)

Emma Henderson: author of Grace Williams Says It Loud, Sceptre, 2011, The Valentine House, Sceptre, 2017; winner of the McKitterick Prize, 2011.

Karin Salvalaggio: author of Bone Dust White, Minotaur Books, 2014, Walleye Junction, Minotaur Books, 2016, Burnt River, Minotaur Books, 2016, Silent Rain, Minotaur Books, 2017

Fiona Melrose: author of Midwinter, Corsair/Little Brown, 2016, Johannesburg, Corsair/Little Brown, 2017.

Iphgenia Baal: author of The Hardy Tree: A Story about Gang Mentality, Trolley Books 2011, Gentle Art, Trolley Books, 2012, Mercedes Benz, Book Works, 2017, Death & Facebook, We Heard You Like Books, 2018.

Jules Grant: author of We Go Around in the Night and are Consumed by Fire, Myriad, 2016. Shortlisted Polari First Book Prize 2017, shortlisted CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger.

Julia Grey: author of The Otherlife, Andersen Press, 2016, and Little Liar, Andersen Press, 2018.

Louise Hare: author of This Lovely City (HQ) Shortlisted for the Lucy Cavendish Prize.

Louise Lee: author of A Girl Called Love, 2015, Headline, In the Name of Love, 2017, Headline, A Whole Lotta Love, 2018, Headline.

Luke Tredget: author of Kismet, Faber & Faber, 2018.

Mary Lynn Bracht: author of White Chrysanthemum, Vintage, 2018; winner of the Writers Guild First Novel award 2018.

Martin Nathan: author of A Place of Safety, Salt, 2018. (Current student.)

Nadim Safdar: author of Akram’s War, Atlantic Books, 2017.

Nicole Burstein: author of Othergirl, Andersen Press, 2015, Wonder Boy, Andersen Press, 2016.

Nii Ayikwei Parkes: author of Tail of the Blue Bird, Jonathan Cape, 2009; winner of Le Prix Baudelaire, 2014; shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize, 2010.

Nik Korpon: Stay God, Sweet Angel, Perfect Edge, 2014, The Rebellion’s Last Traitor, Angry Robot, 2017.

Niki Aguirre: 29 Ways to Drown, Flipped Eye, 2007, Terminal Romance, Flipped Eye, 2012.

Sarah Alexander: author of The Art of Not Breathing, Usborne, 2016.

Stefanie Seddon: winner of Commonwealth Prize and Bristol Short Story Award.

Suzanne O’Sullivan: author of It’s All In Your Head, Vintage, 2016, and Brainstorm, Chatto, 2018; Winner of the Wellcome Book Prize 2016.

The Passion According to G.H. by Clarice Lispector: Review

The Passion According to G.H. by Clarice Lispector

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I’m late to this, but –

Clarice Lispector is the most interesting, probably the best, writer I’ve discovered in the last five years. When I read Agua Viva, I was really startled. She was writing a distillation of something. I wasn’t sure what. After finishing The Passion According to G.H., I’m a little clearer. Mainly I know, I need to read her other books, and get a sense of them in relation to one another. The re-read them.

The Passion According to G.H. is a very strange novel. A woman enters a room, encounters a thing, doesn’t even leave the room. That would be a plot summary.

A woman experiences vastation. That would be a more existential summary.

Both Agua Viva and The Passion According to G.H. are about moment-to-moment experience. They are chasing the reality of the now, and finding what a weird temporality that is – and how it opens up into so much vaster speculations.

The closest thing I can compare to Lispector’s writing, having not ready any interviews with her or commentary about her, is Kierkegaard. There is a similar surprise towards the end of every sentence. There is a logic, a progress, but it is unique. Only in retrospect does it seem inevitable. As you read, there is perpetual puzzlement. What is this?

The other writer I’d suggest as a comparison is D.H.Lawrence at his best. Along with a seriousness of intent is a sense of ridiculousness – of human ridiculousness. I can’t think of a much better combination of qualities, if a writer is going to head into the blank territory of vastation.

If you read Lispector’s books, you might come to see yourself being changed.

View all my reviews

STARTING TO WRITE – A Free 10 Lesson Course on Writing Short Stories

Do you want to learn about writing?

You’re in the right place.

Maybe you’ve thought about taking a Creative Writing MA, but seen how much it costs. Or perhaps you’d like to go to a local writing group, but there isn’t one, or it meets at a time you can’t make.

This is a Course for complete beginners, or those who have written a little, or those who have written quite a bit but want to go back to the start and get better.

In 10 Lessons, I will take you through the basics of writing short stories – just as if you were sitting among the other beginning writers in the Creative Writing workshop I run at Birkbeck College, London.

I’ve been teaching at Birkbeck for 10 years. Over that time, many of our Creative Writing MA students have gone on to win competitions, to get agents and to be published. All great. But more importantly each and every one of them, whatever their level to start with, has improved as a writer.

You won’t need to buy any books. Hopefully, you won’t even need to buy any stationery.  Lesson 1 will deal with Preparing to Write. (It will also involve a bit of writing.)

All the reading materials – usually short stores – will be available online. And, when possible, I will link to videos as well as to stories.

There will be writing Exercises, and there will be some Reading. Each Lesson should take you around an hour to complete – but this may vary, depending on how fast a writer you are.

The Lessons will appear every Friday evening for the next 10 weeks, and then remain online after that.

The best way to keep in touch is to follow this blog, that way you’ll get a reminder when a new Lesson goes up.

I look forward to helping you write better stories.

Toby

 

 

 

 

At The Playground You Meet Someone Amazing – A new short story

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My mother had a stroke. Luckily, it was quite minor. She was still able to read, though more slowly. There was a gap in her vision – an absence where sight simply didn’t take place. Because of this, she wasn’t able to drive.

My mother’s stroke changed our family. None of her children had started families of their own. Within a few years, my mother had three grandchildren. Eventually she had six. We weren’t waiting any longer.

And so, when I was asked by A Thousand Word Photos to take part in their project, I was very happy to accept.

Here is what they do  –

A Thousand Word Photos invites photographers to share a photo with a writer who in turn is asked to create a short story of a thousand words inspired by the image they receive.

Selected short stories are then published online here, and read to stroke patients at Hospitals across London by actors working with the charity Interact.

From four or five photographs sent to me, I chose this image by Sara Naomi Lewkowicz. It was immediately intriguing and atmospheric. The green of the interior is a great colour. The light the girl is touching seems otherworldly.

I knew I wanted to write something that left the listener feeling better – better about life – than when the story started. (Not an aim I normally have.)

I hoped that – like Alice in Wonderland – it would transport them, for a while, into a different world with different rules.

Here’s the story.