Creative Writing Course – Week #14

Week 14 of our creative writing course was led by the other tutor – the more theoretical of the two. As this was his first time with us since the start of the second term, we went around the room reading extracts from our second chapters. We were asked to pick out a section we were pleased with, our strongest passages, and discuss what we liked about them. This would also give the tutor a chance to hear what we may have changed since the last time he saw the text.

For my part, I have added a scene break and introduced a new character into the end of my second chapter – which the tutor would not have seen at all. I've included the extract below;

~

Baba was a fat man. Fifty-eight years of over-eating, smoking, not exercising, and generally not giving a fuck about his weight had made him seriously obese. His walk had become a lumbering waddle. Just moving from room to room robbed him of breath and forced him to sweat. His breathing rattled and wheezed, as if forced from a tired and over-taxed set of bellows. Gluttonous feasts of Turkish cuisine had kept him this way over the years, adding to his expanding girth and jowly face. But he didn't care. He was rich. He was respected in his community.

Wreathed in cigarette smoke, Baba sat alone in the back room of the Agiri Social Club in Haringey watching Kurdish satellite television on an ancient bulky TV set perched on a shelf high up in the corner of the function room. People knew not to disturb him in here. Surrounded by stacks of tubular steel chairs and Formica-topped tables, it was his private sanctuary. Baba liked the down-at-heel simplicity of his surroundings. No sumptuous office or plush suite for him.

There was a knock at the door – it was Ozi and Mamir. Baba had been expecting them. He looked over from the TV and they both gave a slow, negative shake of the head in unison. Baba dismissed them with a wave of the hand and they duly backed out of the room, leaving him with the opening credits to his favourite soap opera. This was a complication he could have done without.

I like this inclusion. It's bold and direct, introducing a new Jabba The Hutt-style druglord who my protagonist is going to have to lock horns with soon. A minor concern is have I over done the fact that he's fat? Could those adjectives be spread out over several scenes, or do they work being all lumped together here? This is something I can fix later if need be.

I have also been toying with the idea of giving him a personality quirk that is slightly incongruous – he loves soap operas. Or more accurately in this instance – Kurdish TV soap operas. He'll spend a lot of time watching crappy TV, and maybe even make parallels between storylines on the shows and developments in the novel. This kind of dual approach can be a great device when handled properly – I'll have to see if I can pull it off.

Like everyone else on the course I suspect, I have some minor edits to make to this chapter in light of the tutor's comments, but this is all part of the process. I'm already starting to turn my attention to chapter three – which technically I've already written, but I doubt it will survive being re-read by me in editor mode!