How to Write a Short Story that

Works
Michael Allen

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This book has been written in the hope of findin! readers. The author wants it to be read, and used, and talked about, and passed on to other people who mi!ht find it useful. For that reason, the author has made the book a#ailable, free, on Scribd.com. $t is published on Scribd under the terms of a %reati#e %ommons Attribution licence &.'. (hat this means, in practice, is that you are free to copy, distribute and transmit the work in any way you wish. For instance, you can email the di!ital file to a friend, print it out on your printer, use chunks of it as a teachin! aid, and !enerally do pretty much whate#er you wish with it ) pro#ided, please, that you attribute the work to Michael Allen. $f in doubt, click on the licence link abo#e for more details. For any other information, please contact Michael Allen on mikel'"*!lobalnet.co.uk. First published on Scribd Au!ust +'',.

Other books by Michael Allen

-not a complete list. Novels, under various names The Leavers Spence in Petal Park Spence at the Blue Bazaar Spence at Marlby Manor No Holds Barred ounter!coup Topp "a#ily Secrets Passionate $%%airs Scroo&e and the Widow o% Pewsey Beauti%ul Lady The Suppression o% 'ice Short Stories (in& $lbert)s Words o% $dvice Stage Plays Spykiller -/ouchercon Pri0e, ",,'. What)s to be done with $l&ernon* Mr Beres%ord Television drama The Speckled Band -adaptation. Murder on Midsu##er)s +ve Radio drama ,eath o% a Student What)s to be done with $l&ernon* -adaptation. Non-fiction The -oals o% .niversities The Truth about Writin& /n the Survival o% 0ats in the Slush Pile

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Hyperlinks
$n this di!ital copy of How to Write a Short Story that Works, there are a number of hyperlinks to other material which is a#ailable on the internet. For e ample, there are links to a number of classic short stories. These links were effecti#e at the time of publication, but may cease to be so o#er time. $n that case, resort to 1oo!le, and you should find that alternati#e copies of out2of2copyri!ht material are readily a#ailable.

CONTENTS Introduction
,

Ten !ood reasons for writin! short stories , Se#eral !ood reasons for not writin! anythin! other than short stories "" The o#erall purpose of this book "& Some workin! definitions "4 Three basic re5uirements "6 The structure of the book "7

How to learn fro

past

asters

+"

An orthodo history +" An unorthodo history +3 (riters worth readin! &" %onclusions &&

How to decide your ai

&3

Money &8 /i! payers in the 9SA &8 The /ritish market &6 Smaller markets &6 /enefits of publication &7 /ut... don:t for!et the competition &, The truth about money and short stories Fame 3" ;iterary reputation 3" 4

3'

Satisfaction %onclusions

3& 33

"

How to understand e
$ntroduction 38 $dentifyin! emotions 37 Theorists of the short story Emotion in theory 4+ Emotion in practice 43 $rony 44 Summary 4, A word about len!th 47

otion

38

4'

How to find and de$elop ideas

<ust like that 8" A few words on ideas in !eneral =ow to !enerate ideas 83 $dentifyin! the emotional effect %lassifyin! ideas 86 %haracter stories 87 %omplication stories 6" Thematic stories 63 Atmosphere stories 66 Multi2phase stories 6, %onclusions 7" 8+ 88

8"

How to choose a point of $iew

Sources of wisdom 7& The omniscient #iewpoint Author comment 77 8 78

7&

The ma>or2character #iewpoint The minor2character #iewpoint %hoice and consistency ,6

," ,4

&

How to co

plete the plannin'

"''

Recapitulation "'" 1eneral remarks on plannin! a story "'" Re#iewin! your material "'+ 1eneral remarks about drama "'3 The elemental clash "'8 The social clash "'8 The internal clash "'6 Multiple conflicts "'7 ?rama in the character story ""' ?rama in the complication story ""4 ?rama in the thematic story ""7 ?rama in the atmosphere story "++ Fleshin! out your characters "+4 %hoosin! a name "+6 Fillin! in the blanks "+, The short2story schema "&" (ords of e planation "&+ The scene2by2scene outline "&&

How to write your story

The basic procedure "&8 Problems in writin! "&7 E#idence of literacy problems ?oes this matter@ "3" Testin! your skills "3& 6

"&8

"&,

Aocabulary "3& Spellin! "33 1rammar and punctuation "34 Some old fa#ourites "38 Bobody is perfect "36 Solutions to problems "37 /e your own prodnose "37 A basic library of reference books Personal style "4" Answers to the tests "43 Spellin! "43 1rammar and punctuation "43 %onclusion "44

"4'

) *

Su

ary of the procedure

"48

How to 'et your stories published

Submittin! to print ma!a0ines "8' Printed collections of stories "8" $nternet short2story sites "8+ %ompetitions "8+ Self2publishin! "8&

"8'

En$oi

"88 "86

Appendices
Appendi Appendi Appendi Appendi

$C The ran!e of emotions "86 $$C The E!ri character2analysis form "6+ $$$C (in& $lbert)s Words o% $dvice "63 $AC The Truth about Writin& "67

INT+O,-CTION
7

T=$S /DDE ($;; show you how to write a short story that works. A short story that works is a story which, at the end, makes a reader chuckle, or brin!s a tear to the reader:s eye, or makes the reader:s >aw drop open in ama0ement. $n oth2 er words, it:s a story that !enerates e#otion. The story works in the sense that it makes the reader %eel somethin!. The more powerful that feelin! or emotion is, the more likely it is that a story mi!ht win a pri0e, or persuade someone to publish it, or cause them to recommend it to someone else ) the so2called word2of2mouth effect. 9nlike most books on writin!, this one is not !oin! to make any silly promises. $t won:t !uarantee to make you rich and famous in se#en days. (hat this book will do is show you how to write an ef2 fecti#e short story. $t will do this by pro#idin! you with a pro#en techni5ue for de#elopin! your ideas into perfectly workmanlike pieces of short fiction.

Ten 'ood reasons for writin' short stories

=ere, >ust to encoura!e you to !et started, are ten !ood reasons for writin! short stories. " $t:s fun. + $t doesn:t take lon!. & Throu!h the internet you can now find readers far more easily than a writer e#er could before. 3 Modern printin! technolo!y means that you can, if you wish, publish your own work in printed form at dramatic2 ally less e pense than you could e#en fi#e years a!o. 4 $f you ha#e ambitions to be a no#elist or a screenwriter, ,

learnin! to master the short2story form will be e cellent trainin!. 8 $f you do mana!e to !et published in one of the small ma!a0ines, you may be approached by a literary a!ent. This is, belie#e me, a far more effecti#e method of makin! con2 tact with them than writin! to them direct. 6 There are numerous competitions for short2story writers, some of which offer substantial pri0es and ha#e some standin! in the literary world. 7 A short story can be about absolutely anythin&. $t can be set in this world or the ne t, or on a planet ten li!ht2years awayF the chief character can be a contemporary En!lish2 man or a prehistoric dinosaurF the endin! can be tra!ic, comic, or anythin! in between. $n other words, the author of a short story en>oys total freedom in the choice of sub2 >ect matter, settin!, timescale, final effect, and any other factor that you care to mention. Gou don:t ha#e to take or2 ders from an editor, producer, or director. , $f you ha#e a yearnin! to perform on a public sta!e, you can !i#e readin!s of your work. "' To make a start, you really don:t need anythin! more than a pad of paper and few pens. Althou!h, these days, ac2 cess to a computer and some technical skill with same is !oin! to be a !reat asset. Finally, if you find that you really don:t en>oy this form of writin!, or that you don:t seem to be much !ood at it, you ha#e lost #ery little. E#en if you buy a word processor, you can still use it for other purposes, after you ha#e aban2 doned your literary ambitions.

Se$eral 'ood reasons for not writin' any.

"'

thin' other than short stories

$n my e perience, those who ha#e ambitions to be an au2 thor often think that they could make a pretty !ood fist of writin! more or less anythin!C a no#el, a film script, radio play, tele#ision sitcomF you name it. =owe#er, the best ad2 #ice that $ can !i#e you is not to try writin! any of those. Bot at first, anyway. =ere:s why. Gou may, perhaps, be toyin! with the idea of writin! a no#el. ?o you ha#e any idea how much time and effort that will take@ $ ha#e written about twenty no#els, and on a#er2 a!e $ find that it takes me three hours to produce each ",''' words of polished, ready2to2print te t. These days, most publishers are lookin! for no#els of about "'',''' words or more ) which means that a "'',''' word no#el will take me about &'' hours to complete. $f you are writ2 in! in your spare time, as most would2be no#elists are, you will ha#e to find si hours a week, e#ery week, for a solid year. (ith luck, and much hard work, you may then ha#e a finished no#el which you are able to offer to publishers. Gou will probably ha#e heard that it is much easier to sell a no#el throu!h an a!ent than it is if you send it in on your own. /ut do you ha#e any idea how difficult it is to !et an a!ent to take you on@ Dne of the a!ents at %urtis /rown re2 cently re#ealed that in one year he personally was sent ",+'' manuscripts by unpublished authors. =e a!reed to take on >ust two of those authors as clients. /ut let:s suppose, with a !iant leap of ima!ination, that you somehow persuade an a!ent to represent you, and the a!ent mana!es to !et you a contract with a respectable publisher. ;et us e#en suppose that you achie#e some sort of a success with your first no#el. ?o you know what you ""

will ha#e to do then@ Gou will ha#e to !o on writin! clones of that book, year in and year out, until you finally !o mad or die. That:s the way the modern publishin! industry works. $ won:t bother to describe in any detail how difficult it is to !et established as a writer for radio, tele#ision, film, or the sta!e. /ut e actly the same situation e ists as in pub2 lishin!. $t:s a brutally competiti#e business. %onsider, by contrast, the happy lot of the short2story writer. She does not ha#e to commit a whole year of con2 centrated effort to produce a finished piece of work. A short story can be written within a few hours ) perhaps fifteen hours at the most, and often a lot less. Furthermore, a short2story writer is not under any commercial pressure to write the same type of work, o#er and o#er a!ainF on the contrary, she can write a tra!edy this week and a comedy ne t. True, you are most unlikely to become rich and famous throu!h writin! short stories. /ut then, belie#e me, your chances of becomin! rich and famous as a no#elist or a screenwriter are pretty close to 0ero anyway. Gou may ha#e heard that some =ollywood screenwriters pick up a million dollars >ust for one script ) and that:s true. /ut some years a!o the =ollywood branch of the (riters 1uild did a sur2 #ey. And !uess what ) they found that &,& of their mem2 bers had indeed earned a million dollars from writin! a script, but ",&&& members of the public had picked up the same amount throu!h winnin! the %alifornia state lotteryH And the lottery winners did not ha#e to work their socks off for it. $f you want to know more about how thankless a task it is to be a no#elist, playwri!ht or screenwriter, you will >ust ha#e to read my earlier book, The Truth about Writin& ) "+

you can read it free on Scribd. To be!in with, howe#er, $ su!!est that anyone who has a #a!ue, unfocused desire to be a writer would be well ad#ised to start with short storiesF and it mi!ht well be sensible to stick with that form of writ2 in! for e#er more.

The o$erall purpose of this book

The o#erall purpose of this book is to pro#ide you with a techni5ue for writin! short stories. $f you follow the simple procedures which are recom2 mended in this te t, you will learn how to find ideas for storiesF how to de#elop the ori!inal !erm of an idea into the outline of an effecti#e storyF how to re#ise and polish your first draftF and how to !o about !ettin! your work pub2 lished. To be fair, $ should point out that you could decide to write short stories without usin! any conscious techni5ue at all. $n his book /n Writin&, Stephen Ein! tells us that, in his opinion, a short story is a sort of pre2e istin! entity, or a found ob>ect. The process of writin!, he ar!ues, is a bit like di!!in! up a fossil which has lain buried in the !round for some time. (hat happens, accordin! to Stephen Ein!, is that one day you catch a !limpse of some small portion of the story, stickin! out of the earth, so to speak. -This is your ori!inal idea, which comes to you while you are in the shower, or out shoppin!.. (hen you are free to work on the story, you sit down at the word processor and be!in to write ) i.e. you di! up the story, metaphorically speakin! ) and you see what emer!es. (hen you start to write, you don:t know what the end of the story will look like. "&

$n the old days, this process was known as dependin! on inspiration. $ can:t say that $ fa#our the inspiration techni5ue myself. $t seems to me to be unlikely to produce anythin! which will impress your readers, and 5uite likely to produce tur2 !id rubbish. (hat is more, it is a theory which readily finds fa#our with those deluded I!eniuses: who ima!ine that any2 thin! which flows from their brilliant brain #ust be abso2 lutely wonderful, simply because they sat down and tapped it out. They don:t need to plan thin!s out, you see. To a !enius it all comes naturally. Sorry, but $ really can:t recommend the no2techni5ue2at2 all method as the basis for writin! short stories. /y all means try it, and you may e#en ha#e one or two successes, in the sense that someone reads a story that you ha#e writ2 ten in this way and tells you that they like it. /ut the main trouble with dependin! on inspiration is that you ha#e nothin! to fall back on when inspiration fails. As it as2 suredly will. Suppose you !et halfway throu!h the story and then you >ust can:t decide where to take it after that. Dr perhaps you ha#e an idea ) the ori!inal !limmer of inspiration ) but you >ust can:t see how to de#elop that idea. Gou can:t e#en !et started. $f the ma!ic doesn:t work, you are left up a !um tree. $t is far better, $ su!!est, to use the techni5ue which $ shall describe to you in this book. $f you do, you will always ha#e a#ailable to you a procedure which will brin! out and de#elop such possibilities as are inherent in your ori!inal idea. Gou may not end up with a short story which will win ma>or pri0es, or e#en be published, but you will at least be able to finish what you ha#e be!un. For fi#e decades $ ha#e read any book which seemed "3

likely to help me to do the >ob of writin! fiction more effect2 i#ely. $n fact, lookin! throu!h my files, $ find that $ ha#e read well o#er &'' books on writin!. Bot all these books were of any ma>or practical #alue, but many of them did contain useful ad#ice. $n particular, $ acknowled!e a debt of !ratitude to Thomas =. 900ell, the author of Narrative Techni1ue. First published in ",+&, that book is a classic in its field, and much of what $ ha#e to say is based in 900ell:s teachin!s. This present book is a distillation of the thinkin! of all those &'' writers on writin!, plus the benefit of my fifty2 plus years of e perience. $n other words, $ pro#ide you with a techni5ue which draws on the #ery best of theory and practice from the past, as amended and adapted by myself in the course of writin! somethin! like two million words of fiction.

So

e workin' definitions

/efore we !o any further, it may be useful to define what we are talkin! about. Some of the definitions which follow will be e panded upon, and perhaps refined, later in the te t, but for the moment let us a!ree on one or two terms. First, what is a short story@ (ell, to be!in with it is fiction. That is to say, a short story is an account of e#ents which ne#er actually happened ) at least, not 5uite in the way that you describe. My own belief is that all fiction should be re!arded as takin! place in a parallel uni#erse, where thin!s do not hap2 pen in 5uite the same way as they do in the Ireal: world. And some uni#erses, of course, are much more Iparallel: than others. Fantasy stories, in particular, take place in a world in which ma!ic is possible and hobbits li#e under the "4

hill. And the stories are none the less effecti#e for thatF more so, probably. For reasons which will be e plained later, $ don:t think a short story should run much beyond 4,''' words. A story of that len!th can comfortably be read in one sittin!. A piece of fiction which is o#er 7,''' words certainly be2 comes somethin! other than a short story. $t is a lon! short story, perhaps. 1o up to "4,''' words and you ha#e a no#ella, or a no#2 elette. -$ su!!est that there is not much to be !ained by dis2 cussin! the difference between those two terms.. Anythin! around &',''' words in len!th is a short no#2 el. -Full2len!th no#els used to a#era!e 8',''' or 6',''' words when $ was a lad, but, as noted abo#e, they now seem to run to "'',''' words or more. And they are not noticeably better as a conse5uence of bein! lon!er.. $ would like to emphasise, ri!ht at the outset, that 4,''' words is the #a2i#u# len!th that $ would recommend for a short story. A story of +,''' or &,''' words can be >ust as effecti#e as a lon!er one. Furthermore, you can write two stories of +,4'' words in the same amount of time as one of 4,''', and ha#e double the chances of achie#in! publica2 tion, fame, and money. -Bot, $ repeat, that fame and money are at all likely to come your wayF but you may, like most writers, ha#e some dreams and ambitions.. As for techni5ueC well, a techni5ue is simply a way of carryin! out a particular task, especially in the arts or sci2 ences. This book sets out to pro#ide you with a techni5ue for writin! short stories. As stated abo#e, there are others. /ut they aren:t as !ood.

Three basic re/uire

ents
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$n order to write short stories you need a minimum of three thin!sC " Materials. This means that you need some story ideas ) somethin! to write about. + Techni5ue ) a method of con#ertin! the ori!inal idea, or inspiration, into a story. & A facility with words. $n short, you need to be able to write effecti#e En!lish prose. This book can certainly do somethin! to help you with re2 5uirement ". $n chapter 3 $ will be su!!estin! ways and means throu!h which you can consciously find and de#elop ideas to write about. This is important, because $ suspect that the success of your stories will depend more on the nature of your ideas and sub>ect matter than on any other factor. All the techni5ue in the world won:t help much if your material is hackneyed, dull, or irritatin!. Re5uirement +, narrati#e techni5ue, is what this book is all about. $n my opinion you would be wise to use the method outlined in this book, at least in the early sta!es of your writin! career. $n time, you may work out a way of proceedin! which suits you better. (hate#er techni5ue adopt, it will be of relati#ely little use to you until you ha#e absorbed it into your blood2 stream, so to speak, and turned it into somethin! that comes naturally. $t:s like learnin! to dri#e a car. At first you ha#e to do e#erythin! slowly, rememberin! the correct or2 derF in a few months: time, howe#er, you >ust walk out to the car, !et in, and dri#e away. As the years pass, you be2 come e#en more confident and skilled. Practice, in short, is the key. "6

Re5uirement &, the ability to write effecti#e prose, is the one which $ can do relati#ely little to help you with, thou!h in chapter 6 $ shall try. $n any case, e#en if you can write !ood En!lish prose, becomin! fluent in the art of writin! fiction is a separate skill which takes a lon! time to master fully. =ow lon!@ (ell, the short2story theorist Thomas =. 900ell used to say that you had to write a million words of fiction before you could consider yourself a 5ualified writer. Malcolm 1lad2 well, in his book /utliers, ar!ues that to become proficient at any ma>or skill, such as playin! the piano, or computer pro!rammin!, you need to put in "',''' hours of practice. $f that sounds discoura!in!, please don:t let me put you off. Return to the list of ten !ood reasons for writin! short stories and think of the first oneC doin! it because it:s fun. $f you disco#er, after some trial and effort, that you really don:t find it fun, then for !oodness: sake do somethin! else. Take up bowls, or !row fuchsias.

The structure of the book

/ecause $ am an En!lishman, li#in! in En!land, much of what $ ha#e to say is set in an En!lish conte t. /ut the prin2 ciples e pounded are, $ assure you, applicable absolutely e#erywhere. %hapter " pro#ides you with a brief history of the short story. $f you are !oin! to work in this medium, you really need to know somethin! about the !reat masters of the past, and the nature of what they produced. Mind you, you will soon disco#er that literary historians are #ery selecti#e in what they write about. Most books on the history of the short story deal e clusi#ely with the liter! ary short storyF they i!nore, almost entirely, the history of "7

the commercial short story. %hapter " attempts to remedy this deficiency. %hapter + e amines the possible benefits which mi!ht, perhaps, come your way as a result of writin! short stories. Theoretically, it may be possible to earn some money, to achie#e a de!ree of fame -or popular acclaim., or to en>oy the -dubious. ad#anta!es of a literary reputation. This chapter makes it plain, howe#er, that your chances of actu2 ally ac5uirin! any of these benefits are e ceedin!ly slim. Gour best plan is to write short stories because you en>oy doin! so, and not because you think it will make your for2 tune or build a career. $f you adopt that attitude, you will sa#e yourself a lot of heartache and frustration. The third chapter e plains the fundamental function of the short story. Readers may not consciously understand why they be!in to read a story, but anyone who seeks to write effecti#e fiction certainly needs to understand the mechanisms which are at work. After readin! this chapter you will ha#e a firm !rasp of this important point. /ut what will you write about@ Some writers ha#e no dif2 ficulty at all in thinkin! up ideas which can be turned into stories, but others find it almost impossible. %hapter 3 therefore does two thin!sC it pro#ides a method for !ener2 atin! ideas, if they are in short supplyF and, more important still, it pro#ides a method for classifyin! those ideas, so that you know how to de#elop them into fully fled!ed narrat2 i#es. %hapter 4 deals with the point of #iew from which the story is told. This is one of the more technical aspects of the book. (ith practice, howe#er, you will soon understand the ad#anta!es and disad#anta!es of usin! the #arious possible #iewpoints, and you will identify the best one for any par2 ticular story without much difficulty. ",

The story idea which pops into your head may come to you in a complete form, all ready to write. $t is much more likely, howe#er, that your ori!inal idea will pro#e to be >ust a fra!ment of a complete story. %hapter 8 therefore offers a #ariety of techni5ues for completin! the plannin!, and for intensifyin! the emotional effect of the basic idea ) de#el2 opin! it so that it !enerates the ma imum impact on the reader. %hapter 6 has ad#ice on the actual writin! of the narrat2 i#e. $t considers the 5uestion of an author:s style, and it also faces up to the writer:s need for a !ood workin! know2 led!e of En!lish !rammar, spellin! and punctuation. Some su!!estions are made as to what to do if you find yourself with problems in those areas. %hapter 7 pro#ides a useful summary of the key points of procedure which ha#e been fully described in the te t. Dnce the story is finished, you will naturally wish to of2 fer it to readers. This in#ol#es sendin! it to editors, enterin! competitions, or publishin! it yourself in one form or an2 other. All of which are co#ered in chapter ,. And, finally, there are four appendices which !i#e fur2 ther details of some of the topics which ha#e been touched upon earlier in the te t. $n short, this book pro#ides you with a practical !uide to narrati#e techni5ue as applied to short stories. There is, howe#er, >ust one disad#anta!eC once you ha#e read the book, you will no lon!er ha#e any e cuses for not !ettin! down to work. Michael Allen

+'

CHA0TE+ 1 How to learn fro past asters

_____________________________________
?DB:T /E TEMPTE? to skip this chapterF it contains some

important information. Anyone who wants to write short stories can learn a !reat deal from the past masters of that art. So you need to know somethin! about the history of the short storyF and this chapter will meet that need. First, $ shall pro#ide you with an orthodo history of the short story ) the kind of brief summary that you mi!ht find in a literary encyclopaedia or a reference book. Second, and more importantly, $ shall tell you some of the thin!s that the purely academic accounts of e#ents and personalities often lea#e out. The combination of these two pieces of information will show you how to learn from the past masters of the short2 story form.

An orthodo1 history
$ am !oin! to keep this section as short as possible, because it is borin! to write about, which means that it is almost certainly !oin! to be borin! to read, and you naturally don:t want that. /ut you do need to ha#e some information +"

about what we mi!ht call the o%%icial history of the short story, if only to appreciate the contrast with the unofficial history, which $ shall also !i#e you. The short story was in#ented as soon as human bein!s could talk. Dne day, one of the first hunter2!atherers went out and had a close encounter with a sabre2toothed ti!er. (hen he came back he !a#e his family a lurid account of what had happened, no doubt with a little e a!!eration thrown in. ;ater, his wife told the story to some of the oth2 er wi#es while they were doin! the cookin!. And so on. $n other words, the short story be!an as a tale told orally, of2 ten around the campfire. As soon as ci#ilisation in#ented writin!, stories be!an to be recorded on paper. The /ible, of course, contains nu2 merous parables and stories which contain moral lessons and >ud!ements. The 1reeks had the fables of the sla#e Aesop, datin! from about the si th century /%. The $rabi! an Ni&hts is a collection of stories from Persia, Arabia, $n2 dia, and E!ypt, which was compiled o#er hundreds of years. $n the fourteenth century, %haucer !a#e us his anter! bury Tales, which are effecti#ely short stories in #erse. /oc2 caccio:s ,eca#eron -"&4&. is definitely a collection of short stories, by any reasonable definitionF one hundred of them. The book relates how a !roup of youn! people fled from Florence to a#oid the pla!ue. (hile they waited for the dis2 ease to burn itself out, they entertained each other with racy stories about wicked priests and randy nuns. $n the ei!hteenth century, The Spectator published many semi2fictional sketches of characters. 1enerally speakin!, howe#er, the accepted #iew amon! literary historians is that the short story, as we know it today, be!an in the early nineteenth centuryF that is to say, ++

it appeared as a literary form sli!htly later than the no#el, which is usually held to ha#e emer!ed in the ei!hteenth century. Accordin! to some authorities, the first short story of any si!nificance, by a writer of any standin!, was The Two ,rovers, by Sir (alter Scott. This was published in "7+6. 1rimm:s "airy Tales, in the "7+'s, was a famous and in2 fluential collection of folk tales, and before lon! the Amer2 icans !ot into the act with =awthorne:s Twice Told Tales -"7&6. and Ed!ar Allan Poe:s Tales o% the -rotes1ue and $rabes1ue -"73'.. $n En!land, Thomas =ardy:s Wesse2 Tales -"777. was the first #olume of short stories to en>oy a ma>or success. Dther masters of the short2story art who worked durin! the nineteenth century include Anton %hekho# in Russia and 1uy de Maupassant in France. The term Ishort story:, incidentally, is said to ha#e first been coined by Professor /rander Matthews, of %olumbia 9ni#ersity, in ",'". Dnce we enter the twentieth century, any orthodo his2 tory of the short story soon presents us with a lon! list of Irespectable: authorsF and $ am not !oin! to bother listin! them here. Beither am $ !oin! to list all the so2called Istyles: or Imo#ements: which the professors of En!lish literature claim to ha#e identifiedC alle!ed mo#ements such as real2 ism, modernism, and minimalism. $t is all too wearisome to think about. $f you really want to know more, #isit any well2stocked academic library and you will soon find some learned -and e tremely dull. treatises on the sub>ect. ;et us turn, hastily, to somethin! a bit more interestin! and useful. +&

An unorthodo1 history
D#er the years, $ ha#e come to the #iew that the Iofficial: histories of the arts often tell us only half the story. Dr less. Suppose you were to !o to the library and find a book called British Theatre since 3456, or somethin! similar. This book would almost certainly be written by an academ2 ic or a professional criticF and in terms of the year ",44, to take one at random, our official history would faithfully re2 cord that this was the year in which an Iimportant: and Iin2 fluential: play called Waitin& %or -odot was premiered. (hich is true. /ut what this scholarly book is unlikely to mention is that ",44 also saw the first ni!hts of such popu2 lar plays as The 0eluctant ,ebutante and Sailor Beware. Also open for business in ",44 were The Mousetrap -which is still runnin!., Separate Tables, and ,ry 0ot. These were all lon!2runnin! successes, attractin! bi! audiences. And why are these popular productions not mentioned in an official history of /ritish theatre@ /ecause they are not Iimportant:, that:s why. To respectable historians they were Imere entertainment: ) >ust mindless pap for !ormless morons. /ut that is not, as you may ha#e !athered, my own #iew. $ readily accept that plays such as Waitin& %or -odot and Look Back in $n&er, which appeared in ",48, were written about at len!th, both at the time, and since, by people who mi!ht reasonably be called intellectuals. /ut what reason is there for supposin! that plays which are ap2 preciated by intellectuals are more Iimportant: and Ibetter theatre: than those which entertain a more middlebrow audience@ That is a 5uestion which $ ha#e answered at some len!th in chapter 4 of my earlier book, The Truth about Writin&. +3

$f you want to consider the matter in any detail, $ su!!est that you read what $ ha#e said there. For the present, $ will content myself with sayin! that $ know of no rational ar!ument which con#inces me that plays which are en>oyed and discussed by intellectuals are any better than plays which entertain a middlebrow audi2 ence. As far as $ am concerned, they are not Ibetter: either morally, technically, emotionally, or in terms of any other criterion. They are not better at all ) they are >ust different. They are different kinds of plays, which appeal to different kinds of audiencesF these audiences approach the plays with different frames of reference and different sets of e 2 pectations. (hat is true of the theatre is also true of the short story. $n the first section of this chapter, $ !a#e you a brief run2 down of the Iofficial: history of this form of fiction. /ut, as in the theatre, there is another history, which runs in paral2 lel. $t is a history of the short story as it has been read and en>oyed by the a#era!e person in the street. Such a reader is not hi!hly educated and has not tra#2 elled the world, and is not, thank you #ery much, at all in2 terested in symbolism, stream2of2consciousness tech2 ni5ues, or ha#in! to work out what the hell is !oin! on from a minimalist description. Such a person wants a story told in plain En!lish, with a be!innin!, a middle, and an end. And in my opinion it is no sort of crime for a reader to want to ha#e thin!s e plained clearly. $ shall now pro#ide a history of such short stories, thou!h like the earlier outline it will be a much condensed #ersion of the facts. (hat we ha#e to remember, and what is so easy to for2 !et, is that, in the nineteenth century, ma!a0ines and books did not ha#e much competition. There was li#e theatre, of +4

course, but that was only a#ailable in towns. And there were certainly no radio pro!rammes, no tele#ision sitcoms, or films. %ompulsory schoolin! in En!land was introduced in "76'. This meant that more people were learnin! to read, and, as printin! technolo!y also impro#ed, the short story and the no#el were widely read and hi!hly pri0ed. $t should ne#er be for!otten that the most famous fic2 tional character of the entire nineteenth century, Sherlock =olmes, has his e istence mainly in the form of short stor2 iesF to be precise, there are four =olmes no#els, and fi#e ma>or collections of short stories. (hen the stories first ap2 peared, in ma!a0ines such as The Strand, sales markedly increased. %onan ?oyle, howe#er, is not often mentioned with much enthusiasm in the official literary histories. Anthony /ur!ess, for e ample, in his ",73 essay on the short story in En!lish, refers to ?oyle:s Itriumphant success:. /ut then he !oes on to tell us that he -/ur!ess. has Ine#er been satis2 fied that... the stories of %onan ?oyle are literature, in the sense that Shakespeare is literature.: So there. (e can be 5uite sure that in the nineteenth century, and e#er since, there has been a constant flow of fiction aimed at middlebrow or lowbrow readers. $n the twentieth cen2 tury, it became known as pulp fiction ) so called because the ma!a0ines which published it were printed on the cheapest possible paper. $n the ",&'s, popular fiction ma!a0ines often appeared weekly, and they were endlessly demandin! of product, particularly in the 9nited States. $ see from my file of notes that $ once read a book called Pulpwood +ditor, by =arold /rainerd =ersey. $t was published in ",&6 so is probably unobtainable now, but it was a mar#ellous autobio!raphy +8

by a man who edited pulp ma!a0ines. =e had a number of e traordinary stories about writers who, in some cases, ap2 parently churned out a million words a year. Some /ritish writers were also ama0in!ly producti#e. %onsider, for e ample, the career of %harles =amilton, who is perhaps best known for writin! the /illy /unter stories under the pen2name Frank Richards. =amilton used around thirty pseudonyms, and is listed in the -uinness Book o% 0ecords as the world:s most prolific writerF he is credited with a lifetime total of 6' million words. (hen $ was a lad, in the ",3's and ",4's, there were still many boys: comics, as they were known, which ap2 peared weekly and re!ularly featured the same characters. The 0over, ha#pion, Wizard, and others, were famous for the e ploits of such heroes as (ilson, the wonder ath2 lete, Rockfist Ro!an, the ace pilot who was also a bo er, Alf Tupper, the athlete known as the Tou!h of the Track, and do0ens more. A similar situation could be found in the ma!a0ines which were read by women ) titles such as Wo#an)s Weekly, Wo#an, Wo#an)s /wn, and so forth. Throu!hout my lifetime, all these ma!a0ines for women -and more like them. ha#e been printin! se#eral stories a week, and achie#in! circulations which are currently abo#e half a mil2 lion copies in each case. ?o the people who write stories for these women:s ma!a0ines e#er !et a mention in the official histories@ ?o they heck. (hy not@ /ecause they are writin! for an audi2 ence which is mainly workin! class or middle class, of a#er2 a!e intelli!ence or less, a#era!e education, lar!ely unsoph2 isticated, and of course, female. Such an audience simply does not count ) indeed it barely e ists ) in the eyes of our official literary historians. The intelli!entsia assume that +6

anythin! which is en>oyed by readers of such modest abilit2 ies must, by definition, be absolute rubbish. $ do not accept this #iew myself, and $ suspect that any2 one who tries to write for the lowbrow market will soon disco#er that the >ob is by no means as easy as it seems. E actly the same state of affairs e ists if we !o up a notch on the intellectual scale. $n the first half of the twen2 tieth century, by far the most famous and financially suc2 cessful short2story writer was Somerset Mau!ham. =e wrote hundreds of stories, and some of them were made into films, such as 7uartet in ",37 and Trio in ",4,. An2 other of his stories, 0ain, was filmed se#eral times, most famously as Miss Sadie Tho#pson, with Rita =ayworth in the lead. Mau!ham was a middlebrow writer to his coreF almost anyone could read and en>oy what he wrote. And how is Mau!ham treated by our official historians@ =e barely rates a mention, naturally, and when he is mentioned he is sneered at. =ere is Anthony /ur!ess once a!ain, from the essay referred to abo#eC IThe first thin! $ wrote... was one of those cheatin! kind of short stories which Somerset Mau!ham indul!ed inC not a word of in#ention at all, but the mere recountin! of an anecdote.: ;ater in the same te t, /ur!ess has another !oC I(ith some shame, $ ha#e to mention the name of (illiam Somerset Mau!ham, the most successful practitioner of the short story we:#e e#er had in En!land.: Mau!ham, accord2 in! to /ur!ess, was >ust repeatin! stories he had heard on his tra#els in the Far East. Mau!ham himself seems to ha#e !ot the messa!e about what the literary elite thou!ht of him. $n his autobio!raphy he saysC I$t is a misfortune for me that the tellin! of a story >ust for the sake of the story is not an acti#ity that is in fa2 +7

#our with the intelli!entsia.: /ur!ess, and the other commentators who !rud!in!ly mention Mau!ham:s name solely in order to deni!rate his achie#ements, seem to me to be offerin! a less than fair as2 sessment. (hate#er else may be said, Mau!ham was a man who communicated successfully with a wide audience. Bot only do academic writers tend to o#erlook whole areas of fiction writin!, but they are also likely to i!nore the economic facts of life. $n the nineteenth and early twentieth century, ma!a0ines were a popular form of entertainment, and the stories printed within those ma!a0ines were often the fea2 ture which readers en>oyed most. As the twentieth century ad#anced, howe#er, other forms of entertainment rapidly took o#er, and the readership of ma!a0ines declined. %inema, radio, tele#isionF !ramophones, tape recorders, #ideo recordersF 67s, 34s, ;Ps, %?s, ?A?s ) in the twenti2 eth century, new sources of entertainment appeared year by year. As a result, the markets for short stories disap2 peared almost entirely. =.E. /ates, in his book The Modern Short Story, first published in ",3", noted that e#en in the ",+'s and :&'s it was said that the short story was un2 wanted, unprinted, and unread. From about ",8' on, there was, for all practical pur2 poses, almost no commercial demand for short stories of any kind. True, there were a handful of small literary ma!a0ines, which published obscure stuff in return for small fees or no fees at all. There were some crime and sci2 ence2fiction ma!a0ines, such as +llery 7ueen)s Mystery Ma&azine and $nalo&. And there were a few !lossy ma!a0ines, such as The New 8orker and Playboy, which used occasional pieces of short fiction. And there were the women:s ma!a0ines. /ut these were all e ceptions, and the +,

likelihood that they would publish anythin! by a pre#iously unknown writer was close to 0ero. A few writers, mostly those who also wrote commer2 cially successful no#els, still mana!ed to persuade their publishers to put out collections of short storiesC Stephen Ein!, <effrey Archer, and Mae#e /inchy amon! them. These, of course, are a!ain names which are i!nored by the official historians of literature, because they are popular, easy to read, and therefore -it is said. #alueless. Some writers did mana!e to swim upstream, and make an impact primarily throu!h their short stories, rather than by means of full2len!th fiction. Stanley Ellin made his mark in crime fictionF =arlan Ellison in science fiction and fantasyF Roald ?ahl in mainstream fiction. Bot that any of these names was e#er !i#en any credit for his achie#ement by the intelli!entsia. =ere is Anthony /ur!ess on ?ahlC he is Inot a #ery !ood short2story writer, not a writer that you would study in a uni#ersity course, but well known... =is stories... ha#e a pointF they ha#e a twist in the taleF somethin! happens in them.: Perhaps Roald ?ahl:s stories were not in the top rank when >ud!ed by some obscure academic standard. Be#er2 theless, they were !ood enou!h to form the foundation of an enormously successful writin! career. Twenty2fi#e of the stories were used as the basis of a lon!2runnin! tele#ision series called Tales o% the .ne2pected. Dne of ?ahl:s books for children, harlie and the hocolate "actory, was chosen by readers of The Ti#es as the most popular chil2 dren:s book of all time, and was adapted into a hit mo#ie. ?ahl also wrote the script for the <ames /ond film 8ou /nly Live Twice. Most of us would re!ard that output as the record of 5uite a !ood writer. Today -$ am writin! this in +'',., the situation as re2 &'

!ards the market for short stories is chan!in! rapidly. $ shall say more about the increasin! opportunities for writers in chapter ,F for the moment, howe#er, let us >ust note that the ad#ent of the internet has led to the creation of new ways to reach new audiences. ?ramatic chan!es in printin! technolo!y ha#e also made it possible to produce books at a small fraction of the cost which would ha#e been incurred in pre#ious years. These chan!es mean that there is now some point in writin! short stories, where pre#iously there was little or none. $ myself, for e ample, wrote a few short stories in my youth, but then ne#er bothered to write any more for forty years, because there was nowhere to send themH $n +''&, howe#er, $ published a book full of them -(in& $lbert)s Words o% $dvice, which is free onlineF see also Appendi $$$..

2riters worth readin'

$f you are !oin! to be serious about the business of writin! short stories, you certainly ou!ht to ac5uaint yourself with at least some of the work of the !reat masters of the form. /ut don:t make the mistake of assumin! that you must be2 lie#e what the professors of En!lish literature tell you. $f you only read the work of the Irespectable: writers you will be -a. bored and -b. seriously misled in tryin! to under2 stand what makes a short story successful. Some of the writers that $ shall recommend in the ne t few para!raphs are indeed respectable in literary terms. /ut that:s not why $:m recommendin! them. $:m su!!est2 in! that you read them because their stories still carry an emotional punch, e#en if they:re a hundred years old, and you can learn somethin! useful from takin! a look at them. &"

Gou could be!in, perhaps, by readin! the work of 1uy de Maupassant. Antholo!ies of his short stories are readily a#ailable in almost e#ery public library, and can be bou!ht cheaply in paperback. $t would also be sensible to read the first theorist of the short2story form, Ed!ar Allan Poe. A!ain, see the catalo!ue of almost any library, or the Ama0on online database for a cheap edition. As for classic En!lish writers, $ certainly recommend Saki -the pen2name of =.=. Munro., and some Eiplin! would do no harm. ?espite the reser#ations of the En!. ;it. bri!ade, Mau!ham definitely is worth readin!, as is Roald ?ahl. A useful antholo!y of some well known stories from the past is The /2%ord Book o% Short Stories, edited by A.S. Pritchett, $S/B '",+7'","' ) thou!h you must remember that this is a sur#ey of literary fiction rather than popular fiction, as e plained abo#e. An interestin! critical analysis, sub>ect to the same ca#eat, is The Short Story in +n&lish, by (alter AllenF at the time of writin! it seems to be out of print, but many lib2 raries will still ha#e a copy. $f you already ha#e an interest in one or more of the es2 tablished !enres, or types of fiction, such as romance or sci2 ence fiction, you should in#esti!ate the classic short stories which ha#e been written in those !enres. $n crime, for instance, read the work of Ed =och -either his own stories or the antholo!ies which he edited.. $n sci2 ence fiction, $saac Asimo# and /rian Aldiss. $n fantasy, Ro2 !er Jela0ny and 1ene (olfe. And so on. (hat you will disco#er, if you ha#en:t done so already, is that findin! stories which really satisfy you is not as easy as buyin! a loaf of bread. $t re5uires work. The newspapers &+

tend to re#iew and publicise only one kind of fiction ) liter2 ary ) and unless you take the trouble to do some research you will hear precious little about work in other fields. Gou will need to read the specialist ma!a0ines, either in printed form or on the internet, to hear about new and classic work in other !enres. /ut do make the effort. Gou will find some ama0in! stuff. And if you take my ad#ice, you will i!nore the fact that the professors of En!lish literature tell you that popular fiction is worthless.

Conclusions
(hat can we learn from the two condensed histories of the short story which ha#e been presented in this chapter@ First, $ su!!est that any standard Ihistory of the short story in En!lish: is likely to be seriously distorted, in that it will concentrate only on literary short stories, as appreci2 ated by the so2called intelli!entsia, and will i!nore the #astly !reater number and #ariety of popular short stories which are read and en>oyed by the !reat mass of people. My second conclusion is that literary short stories are >ust a !enre like any other. Gou should not, under any cir2 cumstances, allow yourself to feel defensi#e, or !uilty, if you happen to prefer, say, fantasy fiction to literary fiction. %ertainly you should ne#er apolo!ise for such a preference. Gou will come to ha#e a better understandin! of my reasons for sayin! this as you read the remainin! chapters. For the present, please take my word for it that there is no rational reason for you to stru!!le to Iappreciate: literary fiction if, in fact, it bores you to death. Gou should i!nore the teachin!s of the literary establish2 ment and make up your own mind about what you like and dislike ) if only because when you write short stories of &&

your own, you will be well ad#ised to concentrate, at least to be!in with, on writin! the kind of stuff which you en>oy readin! the most.

&3

CHA0TE+ ! How to decide your ai s

KKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK
/EFDRE (E 1D any further, it mi!ht be as well to !i#e >ust

a little thou!ht as to why we are !oin! to bother to write short stories at all. $n the $ntroduction, $ did mention ten !ood reasons for writin! short stories, and you may think that ten is enou!h. Dn the other hand, $ know from e perience that many writers ) or would2be writers ) ha#e an entirely different a!enda. The truth is, you see, they wanna be rich, famous, and win the Bobel Pri0e for ;iterature. Preferably by ne t Thursday. (ell... =ow can $ put this tactfully@ ;et:s >ust say that it:s not !oin! to be easy. (hat follows is an abbre#iated #ersion of a much fuller discussion of the same issue which can be found in my book The Truth about Writin&. $n the remainder of this chapter $ shall describe four potential benefits which can arise from writin! short stories -or any other form of fic2 tion for that matter., and $ shall in#ite you to consider whether any or all of those benefits are sufficiently #aluable to you, as an indi#idual, to persuade you to !et in#ol#ed in doin! the actual work. &4

Money
Theoretically ) and $ emphasise theoretically ) bein! a short2story writer can earn you some money. Perhaps a lot of moneyC we ha#e already mentioned the commercial suc2 cess which was en>oyed by such writers as Roald ?ahl and Somerset Mau!ham. -$n their day.. So, >ust to !et you interested, let us be!in by seein! how much money you mi!ht make if you sold a story to a ma>or ma!a0ine.

Big payers in the USA

(e will be!in by considerin! some of the most famous American ma!a0ines, because they ha#e access to the lar!est En!lish2speakin! market and hence can pay the hi!hest rates in order to secure top2class material. Amon! !eneral ma!a0ines, Harper)s reportedly pays 4' cents to L" a word, and The $tlantic offers up to L&,''' for a story. $ncidentally, both these ma!a0ines used to be listed on the website of the American ma!a0ine Writer)s ,i&est under the headin! IPie in the Sky:. $n other words, it is most unlikely that an unknown writer will actually be able to sell a story to either of these ma!a0ines. $n the crime2fiction field, perhaps the most presti!ious outlet is +llery 7ueen)s Mystery Ma&azine. Accordin! to the ma!a0ine:s website, the editors pay 4 to 7 cents a word. -This rate has been constant for se#eral years now.. So for a 4,'''2word short story you would recei#e appro imately L+4' to L3''. A leadin! science2fiction ma!a0ine, $nalo&, pays about the same rate as +llery 7ueen. Some ma>or ma!a0ines such as Playboy will still, oddly &8

enou!h, consider stories from anyone who cares to send one in. And if, by some concei#able chance, you mana!ed to sell them a story, you could count on recei#in! se#eral thousand dollars. 9nfortunately, many other American >ournals, such as The New 8orker, state that they are closed to unsolicited submissions, which means that they will only consider work which is sent to them #ia a literary a!ent.

The British market

So much for theoretical earnin!s in the lar!e and relati#ely wealthy 9S market. $f we e amine the 9E market, then the sums of money in#ol#ed are naturally smaller. /ritish ma!a0ines tend to be coy about what they offer to contributors. $n the reference books they are likely to say no more than that payment is Iby ne!otiation:. /ut here are a few !uideline fi!ures. For many decades, the leadin! women:s ma!a0ines ha#e constituted perhaps the ma>or market for short stories in the 9E. Most of the ma!a0ines with really bi! circulations, such as Wo#an)s /wn, refuse to consider unsolicited fic2 tion. =owe#er, at the time of writin!, a firm of literary a!ents which specialises in this field reports that the best payers for fiction amon! women:s ma!a0ines are Take a Break -up to M",'''. and That)s Li%e -reportedly M&''.. My Weekly and People)s "riend, on the other hand, are said to pay less than M"''.

Smaller markets
As $ shall demonstrate shortly, the le#el of competition that you face when submittin! work to the top2payin! &6

ma!a0ines is enormous. Gou may therefore be tempted to try your luck with some of the less well known >ournals. 9nfortunately, most of these pay their contributors ne t to nothin!. Aarious writers: sites on the internet list 9S short2fiction markets -print ma!a0ines. which in#ite submissions. Gou will find that the ma>ority of these offer to pay their con2 tributors in nothin! more !enerous than free copies of the ma!a0ineC usually one or two copies, at that. %loser to home, the smaller /ritish ma!a0ines are simil2 arly unrewardin!. Peninsular offers M4 per "''' wordsF hap#an -a Scottish literary ma!a0ine. !oes to M"4 per thousand.

Benefits of publication
(hether you !et paid for your story or not, ha#in! it ap2 pear in print mi!ht in principle lead to other useful con2 se5uences. Gour story mi!ht be noticed and picked up for reprintin! in an antholo!y, such as The 8ear)s Best "antasy and Horror. $t mi!ht e#en be bou!ht for adapta2 tion as a filmC The Secret Li%e o% Walter Mitty, one of ?anny Eaye:s early successes in the ",4's, was adapted from a short story by <ames Thurber. And should you be published in the 9S ma!a0ine 9oetrope, the reported fee of L"4'' will co#er both the Borth American ri!hts and a two2year film option. The option mi!ht e#en be taken up, and your story mi!ht be filmed. (ho knows@ Pi!s ha#e oc2 casionally been known to sprout win!s. A less remote possibility is that the published story mi!ht impress a literary a!ent, and she mi!ht ask you to consider writin! a no#el. That is what happened, in the 9S, to Amy Tan, who is now a successful no#elistF she was first &7

disco#ered in ",74 when she published a story in Seven! teen, a ma!a0ine for teena!ers. /ack in the 9E, The :rd $lternative once claimed that #irtually e#ery una!ented writer who had been published in the ma!a0ine had recei#ed at least one approach from a leadin! a!ent.

But... dont forget the competition

$n spite of the occasionally hopeful words printed abo#e, the fact is that your chances of earnin! any money at all from writin! short stories are almost nil. (hy@ (ell, e#en if you can write a !ood story, you need to be aware of the enormous amount of competition. Some years a!o, there was an American literary ma!a0ine called Story. This was a presti!ious >ournal, which published early work by such famous names as Mail2 er, %apote, and Salin!er. (hit /urnet was the editor, and he once re#ealed that, at the hei!ht of the ma!a0ine:s fame, it was recei#in! more submissions in a week than there were subscribers to the ma!a0ine. The editors of Playboy ha#e stated that, in an a#era!e week, they are sent +' short stories which they ha#e asked to see, and 8'' stories which they ha#e not asked to see. $n reality, Playboy publishes only the most presti!ious and successful writers in the world, so there really isn:t much point in sendin! them anythin! of yours. /y all means try, but in my opinion it:s a waste of posta!e. The three bi!!est science2fiction and fantasy ma!a0ines -$si#ov)s; $nalo&, and "antasy and Science "iction. each recei#e, on a#era!e, a thousand submissions a month. They publish about si stories a month. Df these si , at least four are by established authors. The unknown writer is most un2 &,

likely to succeed. The position is little better in the 9E2based small ma!a0ines. The editor of Peninsular is sent about +'' short stories in an a#era!e month. The +dinbur&h 0eview recei#es "8'' submissions e#ery year. 9nfortunately it sells only 64' copies. The editor su!!ests that, if you do send somethin! in, you should allow si months for a reply. And don:t hold your breath while you:re waitin!. The +dinbur&h 0eview situation is typical of many small ma!a0inesC in other words, the number of stories and articles offered for publication often e ceeds the number of subscribers. Dne /ritish editor was heard to remark that if e#eryone who sent in a submission actually bou!ht a copy of the ma!a0ine ) >ust bou!ht one copy, not a year:s subscription ) then the circulation of his ma!a0ine would increase by fifty per cent. So, if he has a circulation of ",''' copies -which would be hi!h for a small ma!a0ine., he presumably !ets 4'' submissions per issue. /y now, $ hope, you ha#e !ot the messa!e. The top2pay2 in! ma!a0ines ha#e an enormous amount of material to choose from, much of it written by full2time professional writers with years of e perience and a lon! list of publica2 tions to their name. (hat is more, their work is submitted by presti!ious literary a!ents who carry a !reat deal of wei!htF the editors know for certain that if a story is sent in by, say, %urtis /rown, it will be of professional standard.

The truth about money and short stories

Ma!a0ines come and ma!a0ines !o, and the rates they pay do #ary a little from year to year. Be#ertheless, the ob#ious conclusion to be drawn from the facts set out abo#e is that, 3'

if it:s money you:re after, writin! short stories is no way to !o about earnin! it. Gou will be much better off workin! be2 hind the counter in your local !ara!e or pub. An American writer, ?orothy Rothschild, re#ealed on her website that o#er a period of thirteen years she had made 4'' submissions of short stories. She had earned, on a#era!e, less than L+' a yearF this would probably not ha#e co#ered her posta!e bill.

3a

Many writers not only want to be rich, but they also want to be famous. Poor bewildered fools that they are, they ac2 tually want to be inter#iewed by the bi! names on TA. They really 5uite fancy ha#in! their picture in Hello< ma!a0ine, and they want to be photo!raphed sittin! ne t to Posh and /ecks at a film premiere. (ell, sorry, but writin! short stories >ust isn:t !oin! to do that for you. Dn its own, short fiction does not !et you into the newspapers on a re!ular basis. So if it:s fame you want ) real, pop2star2standard fame ) then you:re >ust !o2 in! to ha#e to try some other field of endea#our, and lea#e the short2story writin! to those who are happy to remain unreco!nised in the street.

4iterary reputation
The third benefit which some writers yearn for is literary reputation. There are now 5uite a number of bookish types aboutC people, for instance, who ha#e studied En!lish liter2 ature at uni#ersity and ha#e belie#ed e#ery word that they heard and read there. As a result, these otherwise sensible people become afflicted with a stran!e desire to ha#e said 3"

about them the same kind of thin! as is said about writers who already ha#e a hi!h literary reputation. $f you e#er read the literary pa!es of The -uardian or The Sunday Ti#es you will know the sort of thin! $ mean. A typically !ushin! re#iew mi!ht say of an authorC IShe writes with enormous sensiti#ity, with an ineluctable flow of !lorious prose which sparkles and coruscates with wit and ima!ination.: And a whole lot more crap of much the same order. There are, $:m afraid, 5uite a few people around who are naN#e and mis!uided enou!h to think that sentences of that sort actually mean somethin!. $f you are amon! their num2 ber, >ust ask yourself one 5uestionC does any normal, well balanced person actually pay any serious attention to this kind of literary twaddle@ ?oes your milkman care what The -uardian says about the !reat literary find of the year@ ?oes your dentist care@ ?oes that fabulous !irlOboy who works behind the bar in your local pub !i#e a tuppenny damn about any of it@ Df course not. So why should you@ /y now you will ha#e realised that $ am not o#er2im2 pressed by literary praise. As it happens, my own books ha#e from time to time had some e cellent re#iews in some most presti!ious >ournalsF and it:s always more comfort2 able to ha#e nice thin!s said about you than harsh ones. /ut what $ realised, after these re#iews had appeared, was that no one, in the entire world, seemed to notice what was written in, say, the book section of The New 8ork Ti#es or The Washin&ton Post. And if $ myself drew the fine words that were said about me to anyone else:s attention, their re2 action wasC IDh really@ =ow interestin!H: And then it was back to discussin! last ni!ht:s telly. Ges, if you are determined to earn yourself a literary reputation you certainly can do it throu!h the medium of 3+

the short story. /ut it will be a specialised reputation, known only to a select and eccentric few, and it is not likely to make you rich or famous. So think hard before you de2 cide whether a !lorious reputation as a deeply sensiti#e writer will >ustify the effort of ac5uirin! it. And by the way ) be warned. ;iterary reputation can disappear like smoke. This year:s a#ant2!arde can easily be2 come last year:s old hat.

Satisfaction
Mr <a!!er, you will recall, claimed that he couldn:t !et no satisfaction -a double ne!ati#e which was, $ think, uninten2 tional.F but it has to be said that the fourth and final benefit which mi!ht come your way, as a result of writin! short stories, is that you mi!ht find the whole business rather satisfyin!. $n other words, you mi!ht find that the act of writin! and completin! a short story, e#en if it is ne#er published, or read by anyone else, is en>oyable in and of it2 self. Gou may find this a difficult idea to come to !rips with, so let:s try to think of some other e amples. My wife, for in2 stance, is interested in flower arran!in!. Bow, you may not realise it, but flower arran!in! is a popular acti#ity. Almost e#ery town has its own flower2arran!in! club, and all the local clubs are linked to a national body. E#ery so often there are local competitions, to see who can do the most impressi#e arran!ement of flowers on a !i#en theme, such as ITime: or IAbsent Friends:. There are re!ional competi2 tionsF national competitionsF and e#ery few years there is e#en, belie#e it or not, a world conference with associated competitions. Many of the ladies -and !entlemen. who take part in 3&

these local, re!ional, and national flower2arran!in! com2 petitions are intensely ambitious. They are really keen to win first, second, or third place. $n other words, they are a bit like writers who are passionately an ious to become rich, famous, and to ha#e a hi!h literary reputation. /ut it is possible to approach flower arran!in! in a dif2 ferent wayC a lady mi!ht, for instance, pick a few flowers from her own !arden, take the trouble to arran!e them in a hi!hly artistic and pleasin! manner, and simply en>oy them in the pri#acy of her own home. (ritin! short stories is an acti#ity which can be ap2 proached in e actly the same way. Gou can, if you wish, simply choose to write stories for your own interest and en2 >oyment, takin! pleasure in arran!in! the words on the pa!e. Think about that. /ecause, in reality, this kind of per2 sonal satisfaction may well be the only reward that does come your way.

Conclusions
$ hope this chapter has made it clear to you that writin! short stories is not an acti#ity which is likely to make you rich or famous. $t mi!ht, perhaps, lead to your ac5uirin! a literary reputation amon! e perienced >ud!es. And it can certainly be as satisfyin!, in creati#e terms, as photo2 !raphy, flower arran!in!, or paintin!. Personally $ think it is important to ha#e at least some idea of what you are tryin! to achie#e when you write, if only to pre#ent you wastin! your time. $f you were under the impression, for instance, that writin! stories was likely to be a #aluable source of spare2time income, then $ hope this chapter has cured you of that. 33

For those who do wish to continue, the rest of the book is de#oted to pro#idin! you with a basic techni5ue which will at least enable you to write some kind of short story ) e#en if that story does not, in the end, enable you to fulfil all your hi!hest ambitions.

34

CHA0TE+ " How to understand e otion

KKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK
AT T=E T$ME when he was in char!e of the /ritish educa2

tion system, Sir Eeith <oseph is alle!ed to ha#e asked, I(hat is education for@: $t was a fair 5uestion, thou!h it:s doubtful whether he was e#er !i#en a clear answer. $n the same way, you and $ mi!ht usefully askC (hat is the short story for@ Bow ) listen well. $ am not often !oin! to lay down the law in this book. $ will usually admit that there is more than one way of lookin! at thin!s, and that people whose opinion differs from mine may ha#e a point. =owe#er, on one particular issue $ am !oin! to insist that $ am ri!ht, and that no other opinion is #alid. $n other words, what $ am !oin! to tell you in this chapter, about the purpose of the short story, is in the nature of an absolute truth. Sorry to be so do!matic about it, but that:s the way it is. /y way of >ustification, let me !i#e you an e ample of what $ mean by a statement of absolute truth. %onsider the followin! statementC $f you !o o#er to the nearest wall, and ban! your head a!ainst it hard, you will feel pain. 38

$ don:t think you will ha#e much difficulty in a!reein! that that particular statement is true. And that:s because your e perience of life, which includes ban!in! your head a!ainst thin!s by accident, confirms what $ ha#e said. ;et:s consider another statement. This time $ am !oin! to sayC The sole purpose of the short story is to !enerate emotion in the reader. That is what is for. That is what it does -if it works at all.. This second statement is >ust as true as the first. /elie#e me. Trust me on this. Df course, the truth of this second statement may not be immediately ob#ious to you, because you may not ha#e had enou!h e perience of writin! short stories, and thinkin! about their techni5ue, to !i#e you a sound basis for >ud!e2 ment. Gou are perfectly at liberty to doubt me, if you wish, and you are free to conclude that my statement about the pur2 pose of the short story is total nonsense. /ut you will waste an awful lot of time and effort if you do. So for the moment $ su!!est that you !o alon! with what $ say, and act as if you belie#e it to be true. $f you do that, you mi!ht e#en succeed in writin! a halfway decent short story. $f you work on the principle that the purpose of a short story is to !enerate emotion in the reader, then e#erythin! that you do when plannin! and writin! a story ) all your thinkin! and the actual writin! ) will be directed to that end. And by focusin! your efforts in that way you will cer2 tainly increase your chances of success ) no matter what definition of success you choose to adopt. %on#ersely, if you choose to i!nore the intended and ac2 tual emotional effect which is !enerated by your story, and if you write the piece without any conscious thou!ht about those matters, then you are likely to produce somethin! 36

which may seem wonderful to you, but which is likely to be uninterestin! and unimpressi#e to editors and readers alike. %ommercially minded writers are most unlikely to make any serious money unless they understand what sort of emotions are sou!ht by readers of lar!e2circulation ma!a0inesF furthermore, commercial writers must learn how to &enerate those emotions in the mass2market read2 ers, because such effects do not occur by ma!ic. E actly the same is true of literary writers. They will not achie#e any kind of a reputation unless they are sensiti#e to the emotions which stir the blood of hi!hbrow critics.

Identifyin' e

otions

$n my earlier book, The Truth about Writin&, $ included a lon! chapter about emotion. $n it, $ described what modern science can tell us about the nature of emotion, how it is caused, and what happens in the human body when emo2 tions are e perienced. $ am not !oin! to attempt e#en to summarise that chapter here. $ will simply say that if you are serious about writin! short stories ) or no#els, or sta!e plays, or screen2 plays ) you should study that earlier chapter of mine at some len!th. -A free copy of The Truth about Writin& is a#ailable online.. All $ am !oin! to say here is that, from a writer:s point of #iew, it is con#enient to di#ide emotions into those which are positi#e, and those which are ne!ati#e. Positi#e emo2 tions are those which, broadly speakin!, are pleasant to e 2 perience, and ne!ati#e emotions are those which are not so nice. /oth types of emotion can feature in, or be the out2 come of, a short story. 37

Gou will find lists of both positi#e and ne!ati#e emotions set out in Appendi $. The lists in that Appendi are not intended to be e 2 hausti#e. $ don:t pretend to ha#e listed e#ery possible shade of emotion. The two lists are simply a tool which $ de2 #eloped for my own use, and which $ am now makin! a#ail2 able to you. -Thus sa#in! you, as it happens, a !reat deal of time and effort in research.. (hen you start to write your own stories, feel free to add to, or delete from, these lists of emotions, in whate#er way you wish. They are nothin! more than an aid, and not a set of commandments handed down by Moses. $ am now !oin! to su!!est that you sit down and read, or re2read, two or three short stories. Preferably famous ones, by established masters in the field. -$ncidentally, without wishin! to be flippant or rude, $ ha#e to say that, if you are !oin! to make a serious attempt to write short stories, it would be a !ood idea to read more than two or three. $ mention that because, as any editor or tele#ision producer or theatre mana!er will tell you, it is all too common for people to send in scripts or stories which re#eal that the person concerned has ne#er studied the rel2 e#ant medium at all. People still send in scripts to //% ra2 dio with the su!!estion that they would be I>ust ri!ht for %hildren:s =our:, despite the fact that %hildren:s =our has not been broadcast since ",8". <ust a thou!ht.. So, pick out two or three famous short stories, read or re2read them, and then write down, in relation to each, an answer to the followin! 5uestionC (hat is the o#erall emotional effect of this story@ All $ want you to do is to report your own feelin!s. ?o you feel amused@ ?o you feel horrified@ ?is!usted@ Dr pu00led@ ?o you feel pity for the heroine whose husband 3,

diedF or a sense of deep satisfaction that the #illain !ot his comeuppanceF or a sense of sympathy for the decent man who tried to do the ri!ht thin! and !ot no thanks for it@ <ust write down, in a word or two, whate#er your principal emotional reaction is. $ want you to name >ust one emotion, the one that you feel when you ha#e completed your read2 in! of the story. At first, you will find this a peculiarly difficult thin! to do. (ell, $ used to find it difficult, anyway. (ith years of practice $ now find it somewhat easier. $f you find yourself stuck, try referrin! to the lists of emotions in Appendi $, and pick out the one which most closely applies. (hen you ha#e completed this task, you will ha#e be!un to understand two thin!s. First, that a successful short story does produce one ma>or effect in the ma>ority of read2 ers. And second, that a writer who focuses her mind on producin! that one effect will !i#e an in#aluable sense of unity to her story. %oncentratin! on achie#in! that one ef2 fect will pre#ent the writer from wanderin! off into all kinds of interestin! but unhelpful hi!hways and byways.

Theorists of the short story

The first !reat theorist of the short story was Ed!ar Allan Poe, and he was followed by Professor (alter /. Pitkin, whose theories were built on in turn by Thomas =. 900ell. And what those e perimenters and theorists concluded from their research may be taken, for all practical pur2 poses, to be one of the Ilaws: of literature. The most important literary law !o#ernin! the short story is -as $ ha#e already e plained. that the function of the short story is to !enerate emotion in the reader. The second law is that the short story can produce only one 4'

dominant emotion. (hy only one@ /ecause it:s a short story, that:s why. $f it was a lon! story it could produce more than one emotion, usually one ma>or emotion per chapter. /ut then it would be a no#el ) or a no#ella, if it was a #ery short no#el. There is nothin! new or re#olutionary in the principles that $ am e poundin! to you here. Ed!ar Allan Poe under2 stood it all, perfectly well, in the "73's. $n "73+, Poe used his re#iew of Bathaniel =awthorne:s Twice!Told Tales to set out his #iews on the most effecti#e way to write a short story. =ere is an e tract from that re#iewC IA skilful literary artist has constructed a tale. $f he is wise, he has not fashioned his thou!hts to accom2 modate his incidentsF but ha#in! concei#ed, with de2 liberate care, a certain uni5ue or sin!le effect to be wrou!ht out, he then in#ents such incidents ) he then combines such e#ents as may best aid him in estab2 lishin! this preconcei#ed effect. $f his #ery initial sen2 tence tends not to the outbrin!in! of this effect, then he has failed in his first step. $n the whole composi2 tion there should be no word written of which the tendency, direct or indirect, is not to the one pre2es2 tablished desi!n. As by such means, with such care and skill, a picture is at len!th painted which lea#es in the mind of him who contemplates it with a kindred art a sense of the fullest satisfaction.: Gou will disco#er, as we proceed, that in this one para2 !raph Poe has condensed almost e#ery important truth about the writer:s task and the role of emotion in art !ener2 ally. $t will be helpful, howe#er, if $ e pand and e plain a few of his remarks, since $ ha#e lifted them out of conte t. 4"

Poe says that, if the literary artist -writer. is wise, he will not Ifashion his thou!hts to accommodate his incidents:. (hat this means is that you should not simply write a story based on whate#er Iincidents: happen to come into your head. (hat you should do is decide upon Ia certain uni5ue or sin!le effect: ) in other words, decide what precise emo2 tion it is that you wish to !enerate in the reader. Gou then invent such e#ents, or incidents, which will best brin! about Ithis preconcei#ed effect.: To paraphrase Poe in more modern En!lishC The short2 story writer:s >ob is to decide what emotion to create in the reader, and then to in#ent a series of incidents -a story. which will !enerate that emotion. Dnce a!ainC the principal purpose of fiction is to make the reader feelF the principal purpose of non2fiction is to con#ey information. Emotion is what fiction readers lon! for and what edit2 ors will buy. Readers may not understand, consciously, what it is that they are seekin! when they be!in to read a short storyF and e#en editors may not consciously under2 stand what they are lookin! for. /ut in both cases emotion is the dri#in! force.

otion in theory

(hat follows is an ultra2brief summary of what science can tell us about emotion, and how that knowled!e may be ap2 plied in writin! effecti#e fiction. For more detail, as men2 tioned abo#e, you should consult my earlier book The Truth about Writin&. An emotion starts with a stimulus. Somethin! happens to somebody. As a result of this stimulus, there may or may not be 4+

conscious thou!ht on the part of the indi#idual concerned. $f there is no conscious thou!ht, there will certainly be un! conscious thou!ht. There is then a physical response to the thou!ht, such as lau!hter, tears, tremblin!, or blushin!. And there may subse5uently be conscious thou!ht which leads to further action. This process will be easier to understand if we consider an e ample. ;et us consider what happens to a youn! !irl, workin! in a bank, when a man comes throu!h the door with a !un in his hand. The stimulus is the entry of the criminal. (hat is the !irl:s response to that stimulus@ $n real life, a bank clerk faced with this problem mi!ht react without conscious thou!ht. She mi!ht free0e, and stand there paralysed, like a rabbit cau!ht in the headli!hts of a car. This reaction is #ery human, but it is not particularly interestin! for fiction2 al purposes. Another uninterestin! reaction to dan!er is the panic re2 sponse. The !unman comes in and the bank clerk starts to screamF she falls on the floor, and has a hysterical fit. Sorry, but your reader isn:t !oin! to be terribly interested. $n real life we would all, $ hope, be sympathetic, but in fic2 tion, for!et it. The only response which will seriously interest the read2 er is the conscious, considered response. The !unman ap2 pears, and our heroine the bank clerk is horrified and fri!htened. /ut we don:t >ust say that she is horrified and fri!htened. (hat we do is describe her shortness of breath, the sud2 den lack of blood supply to her cheeks, the tremblin! of her knees. 4&

And then we describe how she starts to think. %an she reach that alarm button@ $f the !unman sees her, will he shoot@ She feels fear, which we describe throu!h her phys2 ical reactions, and she wonders what she should do ) rin! the alarm or not@ Finally, althou!h it:s dan!erous, she does press the alarm button and the criminal is cau!ht as he tries to escape. Dr whate#er. (rite that scene in the ri!ht way, and your reader will be held, will feel sympathetic emotion, and will be im2 pressed by your heroine:s character.

otion in practice

(e can now state what a writer has to do in order to !ener2 ate emotion in the reader. " ?escribe the stimulus which kicks off the whole emo2 tion. $n the case outlined abo#e, describe the man comin! throu!h the door with a !un in his hand. -This, incidentally, is always a !ood dod!e. Raymond %handler, a hi!hly suc2 cessful crime no#elist, used to say that, when in doubt as to what should happen ne t, a writer should always ha#e a man come throu!h the door with a !un in his hand.. + ?escribe the clash of desires !oin! on in the head of the sympathetic character, who in this case is the bank clerk. She wants to sa#e her own skin, but she also wants to pro2 tect the bank:s assets, because she:s a really !ood employee. The period of time durin! which the character re#iews the options and decides -naturally. to be a heroine may be 5uite short, but it in#ol#es conscious thou!ht. & ?escribe the physical responses which result from the 43

thou!ht processes, and the action which follows. $f there is time, for instance, our heroine may ima!ine the !unman:s bullet tearin! throu!h her, and she may start to tremble #i2 olently. Then she decides to take the !un off himF or duck for co#erF or whate#er. The most powerful emotions are created by the most basic human interests and e#entsC birth, death, courtship, mar2 ria!eF food and drinkF the desire for freedomF and other matters of the same elemental kind. These desires and oc2 casions pro#ide the raw materials for fiction. $f your char2 acters: desires are stron!ly opposed, the characters will e 2 perience emotionF and if you describe the e#ents, and the feelin!s, in the correct way, then your reader will also be emotionally mo#ed. Dne has to say, howe#er, that there are plenty of people around ) particularly well brou!ht up En!lish people ) who are ner#ous about emotion. -They feel emotion about emotion, in other words.. Many of us don:t like Icausin! a scene:, and we hesitate to raise our #oice. And perhaps you are one of those people who consider that e pressin! stron! feelin!s in public is more than a little #ul!ar, or un2 seemly. $f this reticence and dislike of emotion is carried o#er into the writin! of fiction, it can create problems. $t may mean that your stories won:t carry much of a punch. So you are either !oin! to ha#e to o#ercome your well2bred reluctance to let rip, or do somethin! else instead. 1rowin! fuchsias mi!ht be more your thin!.

Irony
44

$ want to say a special word here about irony. $rony is not an emotionF but it is a herb, so to speak, which !i#es fla#our to other emotions. (hat is irony@ (ell, 5uite frankly it:s easier to reco!nise it than to define it. There are many different definitions of irony, none of them all2embracin!, and many of them re2 late to the theatre. Dne definition of dramatic irony, for e ample, is a situ2 ation in which the audience knows more about the immedi2 ate circumstances or the future e#ents of a story than does the character within the play. Thus the audience may feel deeply saddened that a character is lookin! forward to meetin! an old friend, when the audience already knows that the friend is dead. Dr, in comic terms, we may wri!!le with !lee when /uttons tells us that he is !oin! to open a door, and we know that a bucket of whitewash is !oin! to fall on his head. Another kind of irony occurs when a writer says one thin! and means somethin! else. (hen a Private +ye columnist re#eals that someone has been doin! somethin! ille!al or unethical, and then adds, I(e must hope that this does not come to the attention of the authorities:, what the columnist means is that he hopes the bastard in 5uestion will !et a lon! term of imprisonment. Get another type of irony is sometimes called Ithe irony of situation:. This occurs when there is a discrepancy between the result which a character e pects from his ac2 tions, and the result which actually occurs. $t is this type of irony which is most useful in writin! short stories. E amples are always useful, so here are brief summaries of two stories in which the final emotion is fla#oured by irony. $n the first, Mrs Bi2by and the olonel)s oat by 48

Roald ?ahl, we find ironic amusement. The story is as followsC Mrs /i by is married to a borin! dentist. Dnce a month she says that she is !oin! to #isit her elderly aunt, but she actually spends most of her time with her lo#er, the %olonel. Dne day the %olonel buys Mrs /i by a ma!nificent, full2 len!th, black mink coat. /ut now she has a problem ) how can she e plain this coat to her husband@ Dn the way home she thinks of a cunnin! plan. She takes the coat to a pawnbroker, accepts a small amount of money for it, and !oes home with the pawnbroker:s ticket in her purse. She tells her husband that she found the ticket in a ta i. =er husband, who can ne#er resist a bar!ain, tells her that the ticket mi!ht be for somethin! #aluable, and he in2 sists that they should redeem the item themsel#esF they will only ha#e to pay a small sum and the pawned item mi!ht be worth a lot of money. -Mrs /i by, knowin! her husband, was well aware that he would not be able to resist !ettin! somethin! cheap.. Mrs /i by !ladly accepts her husband:s su!!estion, but she insists that if the pawned item turns out to be somethin! feminine, he will !i#e it to her. The husband a!rees. The ne t day, husband !oes to the pawnbroker:s shop. =e then phones his wife and tells her that the ticket was for somethin! really e citin!. $t is a very feminine item, and he tells her to come and collect it when he closes his dentist:s sur!ery that afternoon. Full of !lee, Mrs /i by arri#es at the sur!ery. =er hus2 band tells her she is a #ery lucky !irl. The ticket was for somethin! in real mink. And then he re#eals what he claims to ha#e redeemed... a little fur neckpiece. Mink, cer2 tainly, but a scrawny, scra!!y, cheap2lookin! neckpiece. $t 46

isn:t the %olonel:s wonderful coat. Mrs /i by can do noth2 in! but choke back her disappointment and pretend to be pleased. /ut what, she wonders, has that bastard of a hus2 band done with the fabulous full2len!th coat@ (orse is to come. As she lea#es the office Mrs /i by is passed by her husband:s secretary. And, yes, the ultra2 !lamorous secretary is wearin! the beautiful, full2len!th, black mink coat that the %olonel had !i#en to Mrs /i by. Bow ) this story is amusin! -at least it is when told by Roald ?ahl.F and it is also ironic, because in tryin! to ar2 ran!e to keep the mink coat, which Mrs /i by earned by cheatin! on her husband, Mrs /i by has in fact achie#ed the opposite result. She has succeeded only in awardin! the ma!nificent fur coat to her husband:s mistress -about whom she pre#iously knew nothin!.. (e now know about ironic amusement, or ironic com2 edy. /y contrast, it is e5ually possible to ha#e a story which con#eys a sense of sadness, or pity, tin!ed with irony. The Procurator o% =udea, by Anatole France, pro#ides a useful e ample. $n that story, two elderly politicians, both of them re2 tired after lon! years of ser#in! the Roman Empire, meet in the baths in ancient Rome. Dne of the two men is Pontius Pilate. Pilate and his friend talk at len!th about old times, and !radually the discussion turns towards the period when Pontius Pilate was administrator of the fairly obscure pro#ince of <udea. Pilate:s friend mentions the name of <esus %hrist, and he waits while Pilate thinks about it. I<esus@: says Pilate e#entually. I<esus of Ba0areth@: And it turns out that he cannot e#en remember the man. 47

Stories with an ironic fla#our to them carry double the punch of stories which con#ey a similar emotion without irony. And ironic stories do not come to you in a flash of in2 spirationF they ha#e to be worked on, pretty much from the !round up. The work, howe#er, is worth the effort, because the resultin! stories are, in my opinion, amon! the most impressi#e e amples of the short2story art.

Su

ary

The short story, by its #ery nature, can !enerate only DBE ma>or emotion, or effect. -A no#el can produce many more than one emotion, because it has more space in which to do so.. ?urin! the course of readin! a short story, a reader may feel, of course, se#eral minor effects, such dismay at the heroine:s setbacks, and dis!ust for the #illain:s lies, but there can be only one ma>or emotion at the endC perhaps a !low of satisfaction at the sound of weddin! bells. $f you want to write a successful short story ) successful by any definition ) you must make up your mind, in ad2 #ance, to produce a sin!le o#erall emotional effect. $dentify that sin!le effect. Bame it. -Bame it in your own mind, that isF not within the body of the story.. The writer has to think about what she is doin!, and has to plan the story in ad#ance. $t is not necessary, howe#er, and it may well be unhelpful, for the writer herself to feel emotion, while she is writin!. The reader, by contrast, %eels a !reat deal more than she thinks. Allowin! the reader to think may pro#e to be un2 helpful, because a reader who thinks can probably pick a hole in the credibility of e#ery story e#er written.

A word about len'th

4,

A couple of hundred years of human e perience ha#e demonstrated that somewhere around 7,''' words is the upper limit in len!th for the short story. -Ges, of course there are e ceptions. /ut 7,''' words is about the top limit in most cases.. (hy is this so@ /ecause of human psycholo!y, that:s why. E#en the most dedicated readers are not prepared to stick with the same characters and situations for lon!er than a certain amount of time. $n the theatre, people won:t stay in their seats for much more than an hour, because their bums !et sore and some of them need the looF so you ha#e to ha#e an inter#al. Similarly, in fiction, people will only read for a limited time before they want the story to chan!e !ear. And if you do chan!e !ear, then what you are writin! is a no#ella, or a no#el, and not a short story. (hile 7,''' words is around the absolute upper limit, you would be well ad#ised to make your own personal limit about 4,''' words. $f, in the course of 4,''' words, you ha#en:t hit the reader o#er the head with a sock made hea#y with a powerful emotion, then you are not !oin! to do it in 7,''' words. $ am not a fan of Stephen Ein!, but $ a!ree with him on one point. (hen introducin! a book of his own short stor2 ies, he wrote thisC IFor me, that emotional payoff is what it is all about. $ want to make you lau!h or cry when you read a story... or do both at the same time. $ want your heart, in other words.: E actly. Gou must mo#e the reader:s heart. Be tC how to find ideas for stories.

8'

CHA0TE+ # How to find and de$elop ideas

_____________________________________
$ SA$? $B the $ntroduction to this book that, in order to

write short stories, you need three thin!sC materials -somethin! to write about.F techni5ueF and a facility with words. This chapter is about findin! the raw materials to work with ) ideas for stories, in other words.

5ust like that

Sometimes an idea for a story will come to you >ust like that. Stephen Ein! tells us, in relation to one of his stories, that all he had to be!in with was a mental ima!e of a man pourin! !old coins down a drain. Bow where did that come@ Ein! says he has no idea. /ut does it matter@ There it was ) an idea, or a #ision, which >ust popped into his head. And Ein!, bein! a writer, said to himself, =mm. %ould make a story out of that. And he did. $n my own case, $ am sometimes conscious of where the idea for a story came from, and sometimes not. Take, for e ample, -unner Bal%our Treated "airly, which is to be found in my collection of short stories en2 titled (in& $lbert)s Words o% $dvice. The -unner Bal%our story arose because $ happened to find myself in a church2 yard where a number of youn! soldiers lay buried, and $ be!an to wonder how the dead men felt about dyin! so 8"

youn!. $f you are in the habit of writin! short stories, then you will probably find that ideas occur to you fairly fre5uently. $n which case you should write them down immediately. $ ha#e a file labelled IDne2pa!ers:, which means that it con2 tains ideas which ha#e been scribbled down on a sin!le sheet of paper and ha#e not, so far, been de#eloped any fur2 ther. Dn other hand, if you are new to the writin! !ame, you may perhaps find yourself scratchin! your head and won2 derin! what on earth you could write about. $n which case, do not despair. There are plenty of ways to !enerate ideas ) more than enou!h, in fact, to keep you !oin! for decades.

A few words on ideas in 'eneral

The !reat beauty of the art and science of writin! short stories is that you can, 5uite literally, write a story about anythin!. Gou could write a story about a rabbit who falls in lo#e with a -human. ?uchessF a carrot who is about to be eaten for dinnerF a #ase bein! put up for auction. $ don:t say that any of the abo#e ideas would be !reat onesF $ simply say that by usin! your ima!ination, and some of the tools which $ shall pro#ide you with in this book, you could 5uite easily de#elop a workable short story from any of those one2sentence ideas. (hat you choose to write about will, of course, depend on your personal taste and preferences, and upon your ob2 >ecti#es. $f your main ob>ecti#e is to make money by writin! for women:s ma!a0ines, then you are !oin! to ha#e to re2 >ect, ruthlessly, any idea which is not suitable for that pur2 pose. Dn the other hand, if your main ob>ecti#e is >ust to amuse yourself, you will choose the idea which most ap2 8+

peals to you, re!ardless of its suitability for publication in any particular market. Perhaps this is a !ood time to remark that, whate#er kind of story you choose to write, the result will ine#itably tell the reader somethin! about yourself. The cold commer2 cial choice re#eals that you are a person who is interested in money. The odd, 5uirky and ob#iously uncommercial tale tells us that popular success is not important to you. And so on. E#ery story you write will demonstrate, at least to some e tent, what kind of a person you areF and if that makes you uncomfortable, then it would be wise not to start writin! fiction in the first place. Some writers, of course, positi#ely en>oy self2re#elation, and use their own life as the basis of some or all of their fic2 tionC <ames <oyce is the prime e ample. My own #iew is that, if you wish to write your memoirs, you should write your memoirs and label them as such. Fiction, on the other hand, re5uires ima!ination, and you should use it to the full. $ recommend that, in writin! fiction, you a#oid the use of characters who are easily identifiable by anyone who knows you. For one thin! you run the risk of bein! sued for libel, and for another thin! it:s unfair. E#en if you ask the permission of indi#iduals to mention them in your story, and they a!ree, they still won:t like the result. (hen the story comes out they will say, IAh yes, but $ didn:t know you were !oin! to say that.: So don:t write up your own life with >ust a few names chan!ed. $t:s not a responsible thin! to do, and anyway it:s not remotely necessary. Ges of course you will be well ad2 #ised to write, in a !eneral way, about the kinds of people you know. And you will be well ad#ised to write stories which that kind of person will en>oy, too, because you are 8&

likely to ha#e an e cellent feel for what will amuse and en2 tertain them. %on#ersely, you are not, on the whole, likely to know what would deli!ht an audience made up of Pa2 ta!onian coal2miners. <ust strike a sensible balance between personal e perience and in#ented stories, and you won:t come to much harm. Bow it:s hi!h time to be specific about some methods of !eneratin! ideas.

How to 'enerate ideas

$ ha#e already touched on one method of !eneratin! ideas, which is to consider incidents in your own life. That:s per2 fectly possible, but, as indicated abo#e, you should proceed with care. Another, and perhaps better, method is to consider your own tastes in fiction. Suppose you are a re!ular reader of crime fiction, and you fancy writin! in that !enre. $n that case, draw up a list of #arious types of crime fiction and see which type appeals to you as an author. =ere are a few sub2 di#isions of crime fiction as e amplesC police proceduralF pri#ate eye -male, female.F locked roomF caper. %hoose one and !o on from there. Suppose you decide to write about a female pri#ate eye. First you !i#e her an a!e, a back!round, a location. Then, someone comes into her office and commissions her to... well, let:s say locate a missin! husbandF or find a missin! willF or keep watch on a dirty old man. Already you ha#e material to work on. Alternati#ely, and still in the crime2fiction field, you could be!in with a crimeC take your pick from mu!!in!, murder, rape, car theft, bur!lary. (ho commits the crime@ (hy@ ?o they !et away with it@ 83

Gou could follow the same procedure in the field of ro2 mantic fiction. $ am not an e pert in this field, but e#en $ am familiar with a few of the sub2!enres which readers en2 >oyC historical, paranormal, Re!ency, romantic suspense, hospital storiesF and so forth. $f none of the abo#e procedures appeal, you could start with a character, such as a ta i dri#er, or a shopkeeper, and speculate about what mi!ht happen to him -or her. in the course of a day. Dr you could start with an incident, such as a boy bein! knocked off his bikeF a chimney pot bein! dislod!ed in a stormF or a car breakin! down. Get another method of findin! materials -and the last that $ shall su!!est to you, althou!h $ am sure that there are many more. is to start with an emotion. Such as pity. (hat arouses pity@ An old lady who is de#astated because her cat is run o#erF a child who is dyin! of leukaemia. 1o to the lists of emotions in Appendi $, choose one which looks promisin! to you, and work on that. $f you really, truly, !enuinely, ha#e tried all these meth2 ods, and still can:t come up with an idea for a story, then $ would su!!est, politely, that writin! is not the !ame for you. Gou are a bit like a footballer who !oes on to the pitch for fi#e minutes and then has to lie down for a couple of hours because he:s e hausted. Such a player isn:t a natural2 born footballer at all ) he:s a spectator. Similarly there are lots of people -nearly all men. who claim to be interested in photo!raphy but who are actually only interested in camerasF which is 5uite different. /ut that:s DE. Bone of these thin!s is a sin. And until you ha#e a !o at the >ob, and !i#e it your best efforts o#er a period of time, you won:t know whether you are any !ood at it or not. 84

As soon as you ha#e so#ethin&, some !limmer of the be2 !innin!s of an idea for a story, my ad#ice is that you should >ust de#elop it a little bit. Simply scribble on a sheet of pa2 per, or tap away on the keyboard, and see where it takes you. Proceed until you ha#e no more than a sin!le pa!e. At that point it would, $ su!!est, be a !ood idea to pause and to think about the nature of the material that you now ha#e in front of you. $f you !o plou!hin! on for too lon!, you may perhaps be usin! your time inefficiently. $t will be better at this sta!e to do a little thinkin! before you !o much further.

Identifyin' the e

otional effect

Gou will remember that $ asked you earlier to read a few well known stories and to identify the emotional effect of each of them. $t will now be a smart mo#e to take a look at the raw material for your own short story, and to identify what possibilities it has for arousin! emotion in the reader. (hat does the material look like at this sta!e@ ?oes it ha#e the makin!s of a comedy@ (ould it amuse anyone@ Dn the other hand, if the material is rather dark and !loomy, will it make a horror story@ 9se the lists of emo2 tions, in Appendi $, as an aid to clarifyin! your ideas at this point. (hat is the o#erall emotional effect of the ma2 terial as it stands@ The ne t thin! to do is to decide whether the likely emo2 tional effect of the material is one that you want to contin2 ue with. $f you are writin! for a particular market, ask yourself whether the emotional effect of the material matches the needs of the market. Suppose, for instance, you are hopin! to write a short story for The Lady ma!a0ine. At the time of 88

writin!, the chief re5uirement for such a story, as stated by the editor, is that it should be cheerful. $s your story cheer2 ful@ $f not, can it be made cheerful@ Aery often the same material can be used in a #ariety of ways. Tra!edy may be turned into comedy. $t all depends how you handle it. A similar problem mi!ht arise if your main aim was to write for a horror ma!a0ine. (e ha#e no control, by defini2 tion, o#er the type of material that >ust happens to pop into our headF and if your item of inspiration seems to deal with some happy little !irl who !oes about spreadin! sweetness and >oy amon! the sick and the lonely, then for a horror ma!a0ine somethin! has clearly !ot to chan!eF you are !o2 in! to ha#e to find some way of !i#in! this little !irl a !risly death. $ >est. Dr try to. Frankly $ don:t know why anyone would e#er wish to read a really !ruesome horror story, much less write one, but people do. $n any e#ent, the point is this. $s the most ob#ious emo2 tional effect of your material one that you can use for whate#er purpose you ha#e in mind@ $f it would re5uire a hu!e effort, and massi#e manipulation, to alter the natural thrust of the material, then it will usually be easier to dis2 card the idea, or at any rate put it on one side for another day, and de#elop a different idea instead.

Classifyin' ideas
=a#in! thou!ht up an idea for a story, and ha#in! identified the emotional effect of it, the ne t thin! to do is to classify the storyC which means that you need to decide how its ef2 fect is achie#ed. (hy would you bother to do that@ /ecause classifyin! the story will help you to work out how to stren!then it, 86

that:s why. And if that statement seems a difficult to under2 stand, then ha#e patience. All will be re#ealed as we pro2 ceed. =ere is the e planation. /riefly, a short story will be found to deri#e its impact from an emphasis on one of four principal factors, or a combination of some of those four factors. The four factors areC characterF complicationF themeF and atmosphere. $n the four sections which follow $ will !i#e you a much fuller discussion of each of these factors, so that you will soon be able to identify, without too much trouble, which cate!ory your story falls into. Dnce you know that, you will then be in a better position to work out how to de#elop the story:s full potential.

Character stories
A character story is much more than >ust a story with char2 acters in it. $t is a story which interests the reader more by its re#elation of what kind of a person the chief character is than in any other way. The reader is payin! more attention to the conduct of the main character than to any other ele2 ment. Abo#e all, the character story is one in which the emotional effect is !enerated by some aspect of character. As usual, it will be easier for you to understand what $ mean if $ !i#e you a few e amples. $n discussin! each of the four story types, $ shall !i#e you a couple of e amples of Iclassic: stories, by well known authors. $n most cases $ shall also !i#e you an e ample drawn from my own collection of short stories, (in& $lber! t)s Words o% $dvice, which was mentioned abo#e. The classic stories will be ones which are widely a#ail2 able in libraries or cheap paperback editions, and in some 87

cases they will be a#ailable free of char!e on the internet. $f you find that the hyperlink !i#en fails to connect, >ust !oo!le and you will probably find an alternati#e. The first e ample of a character story is The Piece o% Strin& by the nineteenth2century French writer 1uy de Maupassant. ;ike much of Maupassant:s work, this tale is literally a short story, runnin! to >ust o#er ei!ht pa!es in most editions. The main character is an old peasant called =auche2 corne. =e is accused of stealin! a wallet ) which he did not do. Baturally, =auchecorne insists that he is innocent. The wallet is later found. /ut =auchecorne is then accused of ha#in! had the wallet returned by an accomplice, to !et himself out of trouble. =auchecorne a!ain declares his in2 nocence. And he !oes on declarin! it, tellin! the story of what happened, o#er and o#er a!ain, to anyone who will listen. E#entually his mind fails, his health fails, and he dies. The emotional effect of this story is pity for the hyper2 sensiti#e and innocent old man, wron!ly accused of a crime. And, most important of all in determinin! what type of story this is, the emotional impact of The Piece o% Strin& is determined by an aspect of character ) a character trait, in other words. $n =auchecorne:s case, the trait in 5uestion is e cessi#e sensiti#ity to the opinions of other people. =e is not as emotionally robust as he should beF he is unable to shru! off the false accusations made a!ainst himF and they obsess him to the point where he loses first his mind and then his life. Another well known character story ) thou!h in my #iew a rather silly one ) is The 0o#ance o% the Busy Broker, by the American writer D. =enry. Mr =enry 8,

-"78+2","'. seems to ha#e !one out of fashion nowadays, but in years past he had a hi!h reputation as a master of the surprise endin!. The busy broker in 5uestion is a man called =ar#ey. =e arri#es at work one mornin! in company with his secretary. =is work in#ol#es buyin! and sellin! shares on the stock e chan!e, and before lon! he is operatin! at a frantic pace, usin! two phones at once, shoutin! orders across the room. Then, towards lunchtime, a brief lull de#elops. =ar#ey uses this pause in acti#ity to rush across to his secretary:s desk. =e declares his undyin! lo#e for her ) apolo!ises that he really hasn:t had time to woo her as a !entleman should ) and be!s her to marry him. The secretary at first seems o#ercome with ama0ementF then she criesF then she lau!hs. I?on:t you remember, =ar2 #ey@: she says. I(e were married yesterday e#enin! at ei!ht o:clock.: This, as $ said at the be!innin!, is a #ery silly story, and, when told as briefly as $ ha#e told it, it loses whate#er cred2 ibility it may ha#e in the full #ersion. /ut take my word for it ) in its day, this was a story which was widely read and much en>oyed. Emotional effectC amusement. Effect deri#ed fromC the actions of the busy broker. %haracter traitC obsession with business. Finally, a more modern e ample from my own workC Bud&ie Bill. This is a story about a youn! man who breeds bud!eri!ars. $n fact breedin! the little birds is /illy:s sole interestF he cares not for football, !irls, or !oin! out with the lads. =is mother decides that this is all most unhealthy, and she arran!es for a youn! lady, Samantha, to introduce /illy to the pleasures of the flesh. Samantha spends the e#enin! 6'

with /illy, and nature takes its course, and when /illy:s mum comes home she e presses the hope that /illy mi!ht like to take Samantha out a!ain. IDh, no,: says /illy. $t turns out that his best breedin! bud!ie, Petronella, didn:t take to Samantha at all. And therefore /illy couldn:t possibly ha#e any further dealin!s with Samantha, because if Petronella is upset, Petronella won:t lay e!!s ) and then where would we be@ A!ain, this is a sli!ht and silly story, another one which comes across much more effecti#ely, $ hope, in its full2 len!th #ersion. /ut my purpose here is to !i#e you a third e ample of how a character story works. $n the case of /ud!ie /ill the emotional effect is amuse2 mentF this is deri#ed from the character of youn! /illyF and the character trait is his obsession with bud!ies. $n this section of the chapter, $ ha#e !i#en you a defini2 tion of what a character2based story is, and $ ha#e pro#ided three e amples of how such a story !enerates its effect. ;et us turn now to stories which deri#e their effect from another factorC complication.

Co

plication stories

(hat on earth is a complication story@ (ell, it:s a story which deri#es its main interest, and its emotional effect, from a complication in the circumstances which are described in the story. Db#iously, a complication story must contain some characters too, but the reader:s attention is held mainly by the entan!lements in which the characters are in#ol#ed. Dnce a!ain, some e amples will be in order. Perhaps the purest complication stories of all are the crime stories which fall within the definition of a locked2 6"

room mystery. (hat happens in one of these stories is that a crime is committed in apparently impossible circum2 stances. A man is found dead, e#idently murdered by a !unshot woundF but the door of his room is locked from the insideF the key is still in the lockF no one could ha#e !ot in, or out, because the windows, doors, chimneys et cetera are all hermetically sealed. =ow was it done@ (ell -to !i#e but one e ample. the sun shone throu!h the window of the roomF the sun:s rays fell on a bottle of alcohol, which focused them into a burnin! hot rayF which set off the percussion cap of a !un han!in! on the wallF and thus our #ictim:s brains were blown out. Such, $ say, is a story of pure complication. The locked2 room mystery re5uires a special sort of mind to write, and a special kind of reader to read one with en>oymentF $ ha#e ne#er much cared for them myself, because the e plana2 tions are usually far2fetched and sometimes ridiculous. /ut at least you now know the sort of thin! that $ ha#e in mind when $ speak of a complication story. =ere are two e amples of complication stories by fam2 ous authors, coupled with a reference to one of my own. The ask o% $#ontillado, by Ed!ar Allan Poe, is a horror story. $t tells of a man who is determined to obtain re#en!e on an enemy. The leadin! character lures his enemy into a wine cellar, and mana!es to seal him up, ali#e, behind a brick wall. IFor half a century no mortal has disturbed the masonry,: the author tells us. %harmin!. Ges, you are 5uite ri!ht, and well spotted. This story does feature a character whose actions are dominated by one powerful traitC the desire for re#en!e. So it is temptin! to describe it as a character2based story. Be#ertheless, $ ar!ue that the emotional effect is deri#ed principally from the central complicationC which is, the plottin! and schemin! 6+

by the narrator to brin! about his enemy:s death by a pecu2 liarly unpleasant method. EffectC horror. %omplicationC wallin!2up of the #ictim. Another, mercifully less distasteful, complication story is The olonel and Mrs Bi2by, the e#ents of which ha#e already been summarised in my discussion of irony. EffectC ironic amusement. %omplicationC Mrs /i by:s de#ious scheme with the pawnbroker:s ticket. And a third e ample by my modest selfC .nblottin& the opybook. $n this story, the chaplain of a famous school for boys relates how he stru!!les to a#oid a scandal when the headmaster collapses and dies in an embarrassin! loca2 tionC the bedroom of a well upholstered widow. The chap2 lain is aided and abetted in co#erin! up this incon#enient death by the school bursar and a bribed policeman. EffectC a kind of black humourF amusement at the hypo2 crisy of the Irespectable: main characters. %omplicationC death of the headmaster in the wron! bed. Perhaps you ha#e already sensed, from the e amples !i#en abo#e, that complication stories -in any medium. !enerally ha#e a more down2to2earth appeal than character stories. Stories about indi#idual characters tend to be hi!h2 brow, not to say hi!hfalutin, and they appeal to older, more sophisticated, readers. Gour a#era!e teena!er, on the other hand, is more likely to en>oy a bit of blood and thunder, as found in a complication story. $ cannot claim to ha#e done a detailed statistical analys2 is, but $ suspect that, in practice, ei!ht or nine short stories out of ten will deri#e their effects from character, complica2 tion, or a combination of the two. The double2barrelled or 6&

combination story, in which emphasis is laid more or less e5ually on character and complication, is certainly 5uite common.

The

atic stories

The third type of story is the thematic one. For the pur2 poses of our discussion, a thematic story is one which sets out to illustrate some basic truth about lifeF or at any rate, it illustrates some statement which the writer believes to be a basic truth about life. =ere are a few e amples of Ithemes: in the conte t of the short storyF the e amples that $ ha#e chosen are deliber2 ately hackneyed -althou!h they may still remain true.C =onesty is the best policy. (ar is hell. ?iamonds are a !irl:s best friend. Thomas =. 900ell, whom $ ha#e mentioned before, took the #iew that thematic stories were the Rolls2Royces of the short2story world ) he called them Ian e alted form of nar2 rati#e:. $ don:t belie#e a word of that myself. Thematic stories tend to be literary and earnest in toneC they are often writ2 ten by people who ha#e a mission to impro#e the world, and the resultin! story may well be pompous, preachy, and ob#ious. Most of us already know that war is hell, thank you #ery much, and we don:t need any smart2alec short2 story writer to tell us about it. So my first comment is that you should think hard be2 fore !oin! to the trouble of writin! a thematic tale. Gou could, $ belie#e, ha#e a nicely successful career in short fic2 tion without e#er botherin! your head about Ithemes: in any way, shape, or form. 63

Be#ertheless, such stories ha#e been written o#er the years, and some people pri0e them hi!hlyF so for the sake of completeness we must briefly consider them here. An e ample of a thematic story from the nineteenth cen2 tury is /ld $&e, by %hekho#. ;ike many of %hekho#:s stor2 ies, this is a brief and decepti#ely sli!ht narrati#e. An old man returns to the #illa!e where he !rew up, and disco#ers that he is pretty much for!otten. (hat is more, he finds that he is no lon!er interested in the townsfolk. =e #isits the !ra#e of his wife, who died many years earlier, e pect2 in! to be mo#ed to tears. /ut what he disco#ers is that no lump comes to his throat, and, no matter how hard he blinks, no tears come to his eyes. The emotional effectC a sense of melancholy -or perhaps reliefH. at the realisation that, if you become #ery old, death may not seem so unattracti#e. The theme may be summarised asC Dld a!e destroys and carries away e#erythin!, perhaps e#en the capacity for !rief. From the classic era of the short story our familiar friend Maupassant pro#ides another e ample of a thematic narrati#eC The Be&&ar. The be!!ar is a cripple who is unable to work for a li#in!. =e limps about the countryside, sleepin! rou!h and be!2 !in! for odd scraps. 9nfortunately, the local populace ha#e lon! since lost their sympathy for him, and they treat him badlyF he be!ins to star#e. ?esperate for food, he finally !i#es in to temptation and kills a chicken, but is cau!ht red2 handed before he can eat it. =e is immediately thrown into >ail, and the ne t mornin! he is found dead. Emotional effectC horrified sympathy for the wretched be!!ar. The theme is biblicalC I(hosoe#er hath not, from him 64

shall be taken away e#en that he hath.: -Matthew "&C"+. Dur third e ample of a thematic story is drawn from my own work, because oddly enou!h $ ha#e written such a story myself. $ say oddly enou!h because $ ne#er e pected to write one in the first place, and $ don:t e pect to write another. $ts title is $ Motto to ,ie by.. The story was inspired by the fact that $ had recently come across yet another e ample of #illainous beha#iour by a firm of publishers. Gou may be under the impression, dear Reader, that publishin! is a profession which is popu2 lated e clusi#ely by !entlemen. (ell, up to a point it is. /ut there are also some ruthless and unscrupulous fellows in the business. Anyway, there $ was, feelin! particularly cross about an appallin! piece of publishin! skuldu!!ery, so $ decided that $ would write a story about a less than honest publisher. $ also decided that, in writin! this tale, $ would build into it the idea, or theme, that honesty is the best policy. $ndeed $ would !o furtherC $ would try to demonstrate that the tellin! of deliberate lies, and the distortion of facts for per2 sonal !ain, is not only immoral but is also likely to be self2 defeatin!. The se5uence of e#ents described in my story is a !reat deal more complicated and con#oluted than either of the two e amples of thematic stories 5uoted immediately abo#e. Suffice it to say that the #illain of the piece is a pub2 lisher who is tryin! to sell his firm, for a hi!h price, while dis!uisin! the fact that it is on the #er!e of !oin! bust. To assist him in his plans, he tries to bribe an honest man, and the whole scheme backfires, lea#in! him with no hope whate#er of sellin! his company to anyone. -Gou can read the whole of this deli!htful and entertainin! narrati#e ) if $ do say myself ) in my aforementioned collection of stories, 68

(in& $lbert)s Words o% $dvice.. Emotional effectC wry -or ironic. amusement that the #illain:s schemin! results in the directly opposite result from the one that he desires. Theme of my storyC as stated abo#e, honesty is the best policy.

At

osphere stories

(e don:t need to spend lon! in consideration of this fourth cate!ory, atmosphere stories, because they are rare, diffi2 cult to write, and ha#e limited reader appeal, particularly in the twenty2first century. $ ha#e ne#er written such a story myself, and $ don:t intend to try. /ut here, for the record, is what they are all about. All stories are bound to ha#e a settin!C that is to say, there must be a place, or a series of places, in which the story takes place. /ut a pure atmosphere story is not >ust a story with atmosphere. An atmosphere short story is a story in which the settin! rises to its feet and be!ins to play an acti#e part in the plot. $ndeed the atmosphere must do more than >ust play a partF it must be the most important character of all, performin! a #ital role in the outcome of the e#ents which are related. An Iatmosphere: in this sense is not >ust tropical heat, or free0in! coldF those thin!s, if they play any part in the story at all, are >ust simple complications. An atmosphere for our purposes is some aspect of the settin! which has a powerful impact, often an o#erwhelmin! impact, on the minds, as well as the bodies, of the human characters in#ol#ed. =ere are brief references to a couple of classic atmo2 sphere stories. $n both of them the atmosphere is cast as the #illain. 66

$n Ed!ar Allan Poe:s The "all o% the House o% .sher, the ancient mansion which is home to the 9sher family is a crumblin!, sinister ruin, with an air of Istern, deep and irre2 deemable !loom:. The story -which is not a bundle of lau!hs. relates how Roderick 9sher inad#ertently buries his twin sister ali#e. E#entually, in the midst of a #iolent storm, she reappears in front of Mr 9sher -and his friend, who relates the story., and 9sher drops dead. The entire house then disinte!rates. Gou ha#e to read the complete te t to !et the full fla#our of the thin!. Another famous atmosphere story, and a more credible one to my way of thinkin!, is Robert ;ouis Ste#enson:s The Merry Men, first published in "776. Ste#enson referred to this as his fa#ourite work. =e called it Ia fantastic sonata about the sea and wrecks.: The principal character is the sea, or a particularly dan!erous and male#olent stretch of it where underwater currents collide, and the sea boils with fury. Bo sailor can take a boat within half a mile of this death trap, and the sound of its roarin! can be heard si miles away. To summarise crudely, the narrator:s uncle is dri#en in2 sane by the si!ht of a ship which is wrecked in this mael2 strom. =e also suffers an o#erwhelmin! sense of !uilt, !en2 erated by the fact that he murdered a seaman who was cast ashore from a pre#ious wreck. The mad uncle plun!es into the sea himself, ne#er to be seen a!ain. $n both of the e amples of atmosphere stories !i#en abo#e, the effect, so far as most readers are concerned, is pure horror. The respecti#e atmospheres are, pretty ob#i2 ously, the creepy old house and the dan!erous stretch of sea. /oth stories referred to in this section were written well 67

o#er a hundred years a!o, and $ think that:s si!nificant. $n those days, readers were much more prepared to read len!thy descriptions of scenes, localities, and atmosphere, than they are today. (hy@ /ecause in the nineteenth century there were no cinemas, no tele#ision sets, no di!ital cameras, and most people didn:t tra#el much. Today we:#e all been there, seen it, and bored our friends with the home mo#ies. So we are no lon!er prepared, $ suspect, to wade throu!h se#eral pa!es which attempt to con#ey to us the full fla#our of an atmosphere which can be con#eyed to our senses so much more effecti#ely on film or #ideotape. (e ha#e concentrated, in this chapter, on analysin! short stories to find out how they achie#e their effects. /ut it is possible to use our four cate!ories of fiction to analyse works in other media, such as films. $f you apply the ana2 lysis to the 1eor!e %looney film The Per%ect Stor#, you will realise that it is an atmosphere film with knobs on. And the film also illustrates 5uite nicely why it is that atmosphere short stories are seldom written todayC no short story can hope to compete with special effects which ha#e cost mil2 lions of dollars.

Multi.phase stories
As already mentioned, it is 5uite common for a story to de2 ri#e its main interest and its emotional effect from more than one of the four main factorsC the character2complica2 tion story is fre5uently found. Such a story is simply one which deri#es its impact from more or less e5ual emphasis on both the characters and the entan!lements in which those characters are in#ol#ed. Another point which is worth emphasisin! at this sta!e 6,

is that analysin! material, and determinin! which of the four cate!ories, or combinations of cate!ories, it falls into, is by no means an e act science. Two different readers, e#en if they are e perienced ana2 lysts, mi!ht easily study a !i#en story and find that they dif2 fer on its cate!orisation. Dne analyst mi!ht feel that the story is purely thematicF another mi!ht conclude that it is a character2complication story with some thematic content. ?oes this matter@ Bot a lot, at least as far as writin! your own stories is concerned. (hat $ am su!!estin! in this chapter is that you should analyse your own raw materialF and it is your material, when all is said and done. The whole point of analysin! and cate!orisin! your basic idea is that doin! so may help you to decide how to de#elop and stren!then the material, so that it has the ma imum possible emotional impact on the reader. Much more will be said about that in the ne t chapter but one. (hat you may well find, from analysin! and cate!or2 isin! your story ideas o#er a period of months, or by look2 in! back at your e istin! body of work, is that you tend to fa#our certain types of material o#er others. ;iterary writers, who are often deeply sensiti#e chaps -and ladies. with the souls of poets, may find that they fa2 #our stories which emphasise character, perhaps to the e 2 clusion of all else. A typical story of this kind may amount to no more than a simple description of a person, with #ir2 tually no conflict or drama in it at all. The New 8orker was at one time famous for short stories of this rather #a!ue and feather2li!ht nature. Such stories are much admired in some 5uarters. $ don:t much admire them myself, but that:s because $:m a #ul!ar fellow with coarse tastes in almost all the arts. More robust writers, often youn! men with a scientific 7'

bent, may prefer complication stories, usin! #iolent crime, or space tra#el, as their basis. And those who are determined to sa#e the world will no doubt !o in for stories with a theme. $t is all a matter of personal preference, and $ make no recommendations. $ simply ar!ue that it is usually a pretty !ood idea to work out what you are tryin! to do before you start. ?ecide that, and you are then in a better position to work out, lo!ically and rationally, how best to achie#e your aims.

Conclusions
$n this chapter $ ha#e su!!ested ways in which you may de2 #elop some basic ideas for short stories, if you happen to be one of those people for whom ideas do not appear out of the blue. The first step is to write down your basic ideaF de#elop it to some e tentF and then step back and take a look at it. $dentify the emotional effect of the material, as it stands. $s that emotional effect one that you are happy with@ ?oes it match the needs of the ma!a0ine you are tryin! to write for@ $s it the kind of story your mother would like@ And if not, do you care@ Assumin! that you wish to perse#ere with this story idea, the ne t step is to determine where its principal in2 terest lies, as far as the reader is concerned. $s the reader !oin! to be mainly interested in one main character@ Dr will the reader be persuaded to keep readin! by a fascination with the twists and turns of the complica2 tion@ $s there any si!nificant thematic element ) in other words, does the story illustrate what seems to you to be an important truth about life@ And, finally, does the 7"

settin!OlocationOweather play such a ma>or part in the e#ents that the story may sensibly be placed in the atmo2 sphere cate!ory@ -This is rather unlikely, but it is possible.. $n chapter 8 $ shall describe how you !o about de#elop2 in! and stren!thenin! your raw material. /ut first we ha#e to consider another technical 5uestion ) namely, the point of #iew from which the story may best be told.

7+

CHA0TE+ % How to choose a point of $iew

_____________________________________
T=$S %=APTER %DBS$?ERS the problem of how to choose

the best point of #iew for tellin! your story. And if you don:t really understand what $:m talkin! about in that first sen2 tence, then don:t worry because all will be made clear to you by the time you ha#e read this chapter. Frankly, it was a bit of a pu00le tryin! to decide where2 abouts in the book to put this particular discussion. $n the end, howe#er, $ decided that this present point is the most lo!ical position to insert a discussion of #iewpoint. (hy@ (ell, because in most cases the choice of #iewpoint for a story is best made after you ha#e a pretty clear idea of what the story is about, but before you put the final touches to itC somewhere about here, in other words.

Sources of wisdo
D#er the past fifty years or so, $ ha#e read more or less e#ery book that $ could lay hands on which appeared to shed some li!ht on how to write fiction -about &'' of them, all told.. These analyses ha#e #aried from abstruse aca2 demic works at one end to crude Ihow to !et rich 5uick by writin! a no#el: manuals at the other. The books at either 7&

end of this spectrum tend to be useless. The #aluable ones are somewhere in the middle. As a result of this research $ am in a position to !i#e you the benefit of all that accumulated wisdom. (hat follows, in other words, is not so much the fruit of my own !enius, but an amal!am of the thinkin! of all the !reat fictional theorists, e pressed -$ hope. in simple and clear lan!ua!e. $t may be useful if $ mention here the names of some of the most #aluable thinkers on this particular aspect of story2tellin!, so that you can read their discussions your2 self, if you so wish. First, $ need to remind you of Thomas =. 900ell, author of Narrative Techni1ue -first published in ",+& and lon! since out of print.. $n that book, 900ell writes e tensi#ely about the #arious possible points of #iew for relatin! a story. 900ell:s early ideas were refined some thirty years later when he considered full2len!th fiction, in his book The Techni1ue o% the Novel. $n the remainder of this chapter $ shall make e tensi#e use of the principles which 900ell sets out in both his ma>or works. A more recent #iewpoint theorist is Albert Juckerman, whose book Writin& the Blockbuster Novel is essential readin! for anyone who intends to tackle the lon!er form of fiction. Al Juckerman is one of the most successful literary a!ents in Bew Gork, and as it happens he was my own a!ent for about fifteen years. $n ",7'O7" $ worked #ery closely with Al when $ was writin! a thriller called No Holds Barred, so $ ha#e personal e perience of the insi!hts which he can brin! to a writer:s work. Bot surprisin!ly, the best books on fictional techni5ue are those written by literary a!ents. $ say not surprisin!ly because a!ents are the people who earn their li#in! by actu2 ally sellin! books to publishers, and it is therefore #ery 73

much in their interests to think hard about what makes a book tick. A!ents who ha#e written useful books on writin! fiction include Paul R. Reynolds, Malcolm Mac%ampbell, Scott Meredith, and %arole /lake. For completeness $ suppose $ must mention that $ ha#e also sou!ht help from the academic writers on the sub>ect of #iewpoint ) thou!h the academics are, as usual, much less helpful than the more down2to2earth practitioners. Academics, by and lar!e, consider that they are lettin! themsel#es down if they write anythin! which can be un2 derstood by the ordinary reader. They don:t feel they:re do2 in! thin!s ri!ht unless their prose is well ni!h incompre2 hensible. Gou mi!ht read, for e ample, a work by 1erard 1enette, entitled Narrative ,iscourse. $n that book, 1enette identi2 fies three types of prose, which he refers to as non2focal2 ised, internally focalised, and e ternally focalised. The ter2 minolo!y is not what you mi!ht call instantly clear, is it@ So, what is 1enette actually talkin! about@ (ell, when you di! down throu!h the layers of obfusca2 tion, you disco#er that what 1enette calls non2focalised fic2 tion is simply a story told from the point of #iew of the clas2 sic omniscient narrator -of whom more below.. $nternally focalised prose is a story told from the point of #iew of a particular character. And an e ternally focalised story is one which is told in the =emin!way manner, with an ac2 count of the e#ents bein! !i#en from the #iewpoint of one of the characters, but without any comment or thou!hts from that character. The analysis which 1enette !i#es us is interestin!, up to a point, and useful, up to a point. /ut, for the record, it is an incomplete and faulty analysis. (hat is more, 1enette offers us a discussion which is couched, like most academic 74

discourse, in obscure lan!ua!eF readin! the thin! is damned hard work, and in the end you disco#er that it:s scarcely worth the trouble, because other writers ha#e set out the same ideas with !reater clarity. Dther academic writers who ha#e dealt with the 5ues2 tion of #iewpoint include (ayne %. /ooth -The 0hetoric o% "iction., and T0#etan Todoro# -The Poetics o% Prose.. (ade throu!h these stod!y tomes if you wish, but you won:t find anythin! there which tells you more than is con2 tained in the rest of this chapter. And you will find that my description ) e#en if $ do say so myself ) is a !reat deal easier to follow than the output of the academic elite. $t is hi!h time we !ot down to business. $n the !ood -@. old days, writers on the art of fiction would limit themsel#es to ad#isin! you that there were two ways ) and only two ways ) in which you could tell a story. Gou could either write it in the first person, or in the third person. Either you wroteC $ opened the door and walked into the room, where $ fell o#er a dead body. Dr you wroteC He opened the door and walked into the room, where he fell o#er a dead body. $t must ha#e been nice to li#e in such simple, untroubled times. Today, of course, we know that thin!s are not that simple. ?ear me, no. So let me end this brief introduction to the sub>ect of #iewpoint in fiction by sayin! that there are three principal points of #iew from which a story may be told. The first of these three #iewpoints is the omni2 scient. The omniscient viewpoint A writer who adopts the omniscient #iewpoint writes as if she is one of the !ods. $n other words, she looks down from 78

abo#e and sees e#erythin! with perfect clarity. An omniscient author knows e#erythin! about e#ery2 body in the story. She knows what each and e#ery charac2 ter is thinkin! and feelin!, at any !i#en point in time, and she is free to tell her readers about those thou!hts and feel2 in!s to whate#er e tent she wishes. The omniscient #iewpoint is sometimes called the no#el2 ist:s an!le, and certainly it was much used by no#elists in the nineteenth century. Such no#elists, as often as not, commanded !reat armies of characters, and they told their readers, in enormous detail, about the characters: upbrin!2 in!, tastes, likes and dislikes, moral character, and family history. They also related the innermost thou!hts and feel2 in!s of those characters. The writer who adopts the omniscient #iewpoint stands well outside the story, lookin! on. She is not a participant in the taleF she stands aloof. $ne#itably, and inescapably, the omniscient writer must write in the third person. She must say I=e climbed the stairs:, and not I$ climbed the stairs:, because if you write in the first person you are, of necessity, usin! one of the other two a#ailable #iewpoints. (hile it is possible, in theory, for the omniscient writer to enter the minds of all her characters, it is common for no#elists to limit this practice to the half2do0en or so ma>or characters. $n a short story, it may be wiser to describe the thou!hts and feelin!s of only one or two ma>or characters. Dther, minor, characters may best be dealt with by describ2 in! their actions only, i!norin! their internal reactions. And by the way, if you are !oin! to enter the heads of your leadin! characters, and con#ey their thou!hts to the reader, you should preferably be consistent about it. $n a murder story, for instance, it is no !ood tellin! us what 76

e#eryone is thinkin! e cept the murderer. Bot only is that aesthetically unbalanced, and a form of cheatin!, but it also tends to send a si!nal to the alert reader. $t is the e5ui#al2 ent of puttin! a neon si!n abo#e the !uilty party:s head, sayin! This $s The Dne (ho ?id $tH The omniscient #iewpoint has a lon! and honourable historyF and for that reason it is, perhaps, >ust the tiniest bit old2fashioned. ?on:t let me put you off ) you can certainly breathe new life into the old !irl. /ut, in adoptin! a tech2 ni5ue which was widely used "4' years a!o, you can easily slip into the habit of writin! in the style which the old2 timers used. And that may not !o down too well with mod2 ern editors and readers. $uthor co##ent /efore mo#in! on to describe the second of the three pos2 sible #iewpoints, $ want to say somethin! about the e tent to which an author may, or should, comment on the action. There are numerous #ariations which can be worked upon the three basic #iewpointsF and one of those #ari2 ations is the e tent to which the author chooses to com2 ment, or nud!e the reader:s elbow. The omniscient #iewpoint pro#ides ample opportunity for the writer to say what she thinks about any of the char2 acters, or about the unfoldin! e#entsF and, if you are usin! this #iewpoint, you really ou!ht to decide, as consciously as possible, whether you are !oin! to use this opportunity to comment, or not. Bot commentin! means that you >ust tell the story. Gou simply relate what happens to the characters. Gou may, perhaps, take ad#anta!e of your !odlike position and tell the reader what the ma>or characters are thinkin! and feel2 77

in!. And that would probably be a !ood ideaF it helps to !et the reader in#ol#ed in the story. =owe#er, the writer who chooses to comment can !o considerably further than that. The writer may, if she wishes, !i#e hints and tips about the unfoldin! actionC she may choose to remind us readers of thin!s we mi!ht ha#e for!otten, and forewarn us of e#ents yet to come. She may well tell us, for instance, that Mr /rown is a nasty piece of work, and that Mrs 1reen will one day be declared a saint. She may point out that Miss <ones is makin! a bi! mistake by a!reein! to ha#e dinner with that man from the sales de2 partment, and she may assure us that Mr /rown will one day be married and ha#e four kids. $n the nineteenth century, particularly, writers took full ad#anta!e of their !odlike status to bombard us with their own beliefs and moral >ud!ements. (hich is all #ery well. Gou can do that if you choose. /ut >ust remember that the modern reader is likely, on the whole, to be more interested in the unfoldin! e#ents of the story than in hearin! what you, the author, think about couples li#in! to!ether without bein! married, or the state of the modern ;abour party. A writer can make herself the star of the show if she wishes, and inflict her opinions on the lon!2sufferin! reader. /ut be warned ) e#en the star can be booed offsta!e. My ad#ice -to be i!nored if you wish. is that you should confine yourself to tellin! the story, enterin! the minds of the leadin! characters from time to time, and tellin! us what they are thinkin! and feelin!. Apart from that, keep your mouth firmly shut. Bo one wants to know. E#en if you refrain from tellin! us directly that Miss <ones is makin! a bi! mistake, you may still colour the reader:s thinkin! by the way in which you present raw in2 formation. And here a!ain, this may be done either con2 7,

sciously or unconsciously. For e ample, you could writeC =e was a seedy, unpleas2 ant2lookin! man. /y writin! such a sentence, you are con2 #eyin! to the reader, deliberately or otherwise, what you think of this character. $f you refer to him as seedy and un2 pleasant he doesn:t sound like much of a catch for a well brou!ht up youn! lady, now does he@ Dn the other hand, you could write, of the same indi2 #idualC =is shoes were down2at2heel and his raincoat was streaked with dirt. (hich is more ob>ecti#e, and doesn:t ram home a moral >ud!ement. $t also lea#es open the pos2 sibility that this character mi!ht turn out to be a perfect !entleman ) one who, for entirely understandable reasons, is temporarily down on his luck. And the reader mi!ht well be more interested in continuin! to read your story if she is left to wonder about that possibility, than she would be if you put up another neon si!n abo#e the character:s head, sayin! This Dne $s 9p To Bo 1ood. Some literary thinkers ha#e referred to these two differ2 ent ways of presentin! the facts as writin! sub>ecti#ely and writin! ob>ecti#ely. Bud!in! the reader:s elbow, by describ2 in! a character as seedy, may be thou!ht of as writin! sub2 >ecti#ely. (ritin! ob>ecti#ely, by contrast, simply means tellin! the reader that the man:s clothes are shabby. All too often a writer will fall into a sub>ecti#e style of writin! without bein! conscious of it. And that may be a perfectly satisfactory way of proceedin!. /ut >ust try to be aware of what you are doin!, and ask yourself whether that is really the best way to achie#e the effect you are seekin!. At the re#ision sta!e, try to reco!nise when you are fall2 in! into the commentin! mode, and, if that is not what you really want to do, strike out the offendin! passa!e. ,'

The major-character viewpoint Bow we come to the second of the three possible #iew2 points for writin! fiction. A story which uses the ma>or2character #iewpoint is, rather ob#iously, one in which the e#ents are related as seen by one of the most important participants in the e#ents. A story told from this point of #iew is an account of the action as seen -or heard., by a character who is hea#ily in#ol#ed in the story. (hen usin! this #iewpoint, you relate the e#ents as the ma>or character sees them, and you describe that one char2 acter:s thou!hts and feelin!s. /ut you do not enter the heads of any of the other characters, or tell the reader what those characters are thinkin! and feelin!. (hy not@ (ell, because your ma>or character can:t be sure what the other characters are thinkin!. 9nlike the om2 niscient author, he or she is not a !od. The main character may !uess what is runnin! throu!h the minds of the others, from the way they look and act ) but he can:t know for sure. %onsider, for e ample, Maupassant:s story The Be&&ar -already mentioned.. The story tells us what happened to the only important character in it. (ritin! in the third per2 son, the author describes the e#ents precisely as they were e perienced by the main character, the be!!ar himself. $n addition to recountin! e#ents, Maupassant describes the be!!ar:s thou!hts and his feelin!s. =e also tells us what other characters do in relation to the be!!ar, but he ne#er tells us what those characters are thinkin! and feelin!. (e can definitely deduce that those characters are an!ry, and resentful, and that they dislike the be!!ar, but we are ne#er told e actly what they are thinkin! or feelin! internally. ,"

%hekho#:s /ld $&eis another story told from the ma>or2 character #iewpoint, in the third person. Ed!ar Allan Poe:s The ask o% $#ontillado uses the ma2 >or2character, first2person #iewpoint. So far so !ood. /ut hold on a minute, you say. There may be four or fi#e ma>or characters in a story, so how do you decide which of them to use as your pair of eyes@ Al Juckerman:s opinion -with which $ do not intend to ar!ue. is that you should choose the character who is e 2 periencin! the bi!!est emotional load ) the one who has the most to !ain, or to lose, dependin! on how the e#ents of the story turn out. Maupassant:s choice of the be!!ar him2 self as the #iewpoint character was a fairly ob#ious oneH The ma>or2character #iewpoint is ideal for stories in which the #iewpoint character e periences stron! inner conflicts, which you can describe in some detail. Gour char2 acter may well sit and think for some time, rather than act as prompted by pure refle . As remarked abo#e, a story told from the omniscient #iewpoint has to be written in the third person. The ma>or2 character #iewpoint story, howe#er, can be written in either the third or the first person. 900ell maintained that it doesn:t make a scrap of differ2 ence which !rammatical form you use, because both forms con#ey e actly the same information. I$ climbed the stairs: tells us no more than I=e climbed the stairs:. This is true, up to a point. /ut... it is worth makin! a few comments. To be!in with, a first2person narrator must ob#iously be a reasonably articulate indi#idual, if he is to be con#incin!. =a#in! said that, you may, of course, want to con#ey an im2 pression of an indi#idual who is not particularly articulate, in which case the first2person mode con#eys perfectly what a limited #ocabulary the fellow has. ,+

The first person is far better than the third if you want to write a story which is told with a re!ional accent. See, for instance, my story ,ecent White "olk, in (in& $lbert)s Words o% $dvice. $ sometimes feel, instincti#ely, when readin! a story told in the first person, that such a story is probably more in2 #ol#in! to the reader than it would be if it were told in the third person. That, howe#er, is not a contention which $ can pro#e. And $ do ha#e to accept the #alidity of a point made by 1erard 1enette, namely that it is implicit in a first2person story that the narrator has sur#i#ed the e#ents which he is describin!. (hen readin! a first2person story we thus ha#e some assurance -perhaps absorbed uncon2 sciously. that our first2person character will come out on top in the end. So, if you want to maintain total suspense about the ultimate fate of the narrator, then the third per2 son is the one to use. Maupassant, for instance, could not use the first person in The Be&&ar, because the be!!ar ends up deadH $ belie#e it is also true, at least in most cases, that stories which call for a !reat deal of psycholo!ical analysis and self25uestionin! are better handled in the third person. An indi#idual who, on his own admission, spends a lot of time worryin! about his own moti#es and re#iewin! his own past history can soon be!in to seem rather self2centred. (hen usin! the ma>or2character #iewpoint, it is still possible to Icolour: your descriptions, or alternati#ely make them ob>ecti#e, in >ust the same way as was described in re2 lation to the omniscient #iewpoint. $n other words, e#en when you are writin! in the first person, our main charac2 ter can either say I=e was a seedy and unpleasant2lookin! man:, or, I=is shoes were down2at2heel and his raincoat was streaked with dirt:. $t is worth noticin!, howe#er, that ,&

in the ma>or2character story, the writer:s choice of words will not only colour the reader:s attitude towards the other character who is bein! described, but the words will also colour the reader:s #iew of the ma>or character himself. For e ample, if a first2person narrator says of another character I=e was a total shit2ba!:, then you know that the narrator is not a man who pulls his punches. Dn the other hand, if the narrator says -of the same character., I=e was far from a perfect !entleman:, then the narrator is re#ealin! that he is probably an elderly !entleman who was brou!ht up in the a!e of understatement. Finally, before we lea#e this discussion of the ad#ant2 a!es and disad#anta!es of the ma>or2character narrati#e in the first person, $ should not ne!lect to ac5uaint you with the concept of Ithe unreliable narrator:. The term is pretty much self2e planatory, and at the risk of statin! the blindin!ly ob#ious $ will >ust say that it is at least possible that a character who !i#es you a first2person account of a series of e#ents may, in fact, be lyin! throu!h his teeth. The whole story may be a complete fabrication, intended either to entertain or to decei#e. This possibility presents a number of interestin! opportunities, but $ will lea#e it to you to e plore them. The concept of the unreliable narrator is much discussed in literary circles. $ndeed in the En!. ;it. common rooms of the !reat uni#ersities they speak of little else. /ut don:t let that put you off. Another possibility presented by first2person narration is not so much that the narrator is lyin!, as that he misun2 derstands completely the meanin! of the e#ents that he is witnessin!. And, if you can somehow contri#e to re#eal to the reader that the narrator is drawin! entirely the wron! conclusions from the e#ents in which he is in#ol#ed, then ,3

the result can be either comic or tra!ic, dependin! on how you handle the material. This writin! business, you will now realise, does tend to !et a bit complicated at times. /ut therein lies the skill, and the interestF and by masterin! these skills throu!h practice you will !radually learn how to ensure that your stories ha#e a bi!!er impact on the reader ) an impact more in line with the one that you ha#e intended. The minor-character viewpoint The third and final an!le from which a story may be told is the minor2character #iewpoint. $t is sometimes referred to as the mystery an!le ) for reasons which will now be e 2 plained. $n a story told from the #iewpoint of a minor character, the narrator is a participant in the action, but is more of an obser#er than a person who makes the key decisions in the story. And a story told from the minor2character #iewpoint can be written in either the first or the third person. Fortunately, we don:t ha#e to !o far to find an e ample of a whole series of stories which are told from the point of #iew of a minor character. Sir Arthur %onan ?oyle pro#ides us with the archetype in the Sherlock =olmes canon. The =olmes stories, you will recall, are written in the first person by the !reat detecti#e:s faithful assistant, ?r (atson. And, as %onan ?oyle ob#iously realised at an early sta!e, the minor2character #iewpoint is ideal when the au2 thor wishes to maintain a sense of mystery. (e, the read2 ers, know no more than (atson is able to tell us, and as of2 ten as not that is not #ery much. =olmes sits and puffs his pipe, and comes to ama0in! conclusions, but we, like (at2 son, stumble alon! in =olmes:s wake, wonderin! what on ,4

earth he is up to now. %ountless other crime no#elists ha#e adopted the same techni5ue. S.S. Aan ?ine wrote a series of mystery no#els which are related by the detecti#e:s secretary. Re Stout:s books about the eccentric detecti#e Bero (olfe are recoun2 ted by (olfe:s faithful sidekick, Archie 1oodwin. And so on. The minor2character an!le has other uses, howe#er. Suppose you were to write a story in which the main char2 acter is !oin! to be dri#en insane, or commit suicide, as a result of the impact of certain tra!ic e#ents. Such a story could either be told from an omniscient #iewpoint, as de2 scribed abo#e, or the story could be told by a minor charac2 ter. Throu!h the eyes of such a minor character, the reader shares the impact of the e#ents on the narrator, and is told of the much !reater effect that they ha#e on the ma>or character. As with the other two #iewpoints, the writer of a story told from the minor2character #iewpoint can influence the reader:s attitudes towards all the other characters in the story by the e tent to which the narrator !i#es the reader nud!es, winks, and nods. (hen usin! the first person, you can also colour the reader:s #iew of the minor character cum narrator by what you make the narrator say about himself, about the other participants in the action, and about the nature of the unfoldin! e#ents. $f you e#er read my own collection of short stories -(in& $lbert)s Words o% $dvice., you may need to know that $ re2 !ard ,ecent White "olk as a story with a minor2character #iewpoint, told in the first person. The principal character in that story is the $nspector, not the narrator. Choice and consistency ,8

$ appreciate that by now you may ha#e the impression that choosin! the best #iewpoint to use for a short story is a de2 cidedly tricky business. /ut it isn:t really. $f you are plannin! to write a story at all, then you will presumably ha#e some sort of an outline in mind. =a#e a look at that material, and as often as not you will find that the Ibest: #iewpoint pretty much su!!ests itself. The choice is fre5uently instincti#e, and may well be dictated, or at least su!!ested, by the nature of the material. =owe#er, if you !et really stuck, then here is a handy summary of the decisions that you need to make. " Are you !oin! to use the omniscient #iewpoint, which enables you to enter the heads of any and all characters if you so wish ) or are you !oin! to write from the point of #iew of one ma>or character, or one minor character@ + $f you are usin! the ma>or2character #iewpoint, or the minor2character #iewpoint, are you !oin! to write in the first person or the third person@ & (hiche#er #iewpoint you choose, are you !oin! to de2 scribe e ternal and #isible e#ents only, or are you !oin! to describe the internal thou!hts and feelin!s of any of the characters@ 3 $f you are writin! in the third person, are you !oin! to pro#ide Iauthor comment:@ Are you !oin! to !i#e the reader stron! indications of how she should react to the characters and e#ents, or are you !oin! to let the e#ents speak for themsel#es, with the reader comin! to her own conclusions about who is !ood or bad, ri!ht or wron!@ ,6

4 $f you are writin! in the first person, is that narrator !o2 in! to try to influence the reader about who is !ood or bad, ri!ht or wron!@ Dr, a!ain, is the reader !oin! to be !i#en a neutral, ob>ecti#e account of e#ents, and be left to form her own conclusions@ 8 $f you are writin! a first2person account, is that !oin! to be a truthful account of what happened, or not@ 6 ?oes the narrator come to correct and sensible conclu2 sions about what he obser#es@ Dr does he come to false -and perhaps comic. conclusions@ To repeat, you will not often find yourself needin! to work throu!h this checklist in any conscious way, because the answers to the 5uestions listed abo#e will often be im2 plicit in the material that you ha#e already de#eloped. Be#2 ertheless, it can sometimes help you to stren!then what material you ha#e by thinkin! about some of these possibil2 ities. As for consistency in the use of one #iewpoint ) well, that is a matter of personal choice and taste. $ myself make it somethin! of a point of honour to stick ri!orously to the selected #iewpoint. 1enette, on the other hand, ar!ues that strict obser#ance of this rule is unnecessary. (ill anyone complain if you do #ary the #iewpoint@ Sup2 pose, for e ample, you are writin! a story from the ma>or2 character #iewpoint, in the third person. $f, for a para!raph or two, you for!et to be consistent and suddenly tell the reader what a minor character is thinkin! ) are your read2 ers !oin! to feel upset@ Probably not, is the honest answer. Most readers won:t ,7

e#en notice. At least, not consciously. $ am inclined to think, howe#er, that readers will notice such a shift of #iew2 point unconsciously, and that is why $ a#oid it. My ad#ice is that you should choose, consciously and deliberately, to write each story from one particular #iew2 point and then stick to it.

,,

CHA0TE+ & How to co plete the plannin'

KKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK
;ET 9S <9ST pause for a moment and see where we ha#e

!ot to in the process of writin! a short story. First, we learnt how to identify the emotional effect which an idea for a story is likely to ha#e on the reader -chapter &.. Be t, we !a#e some thou!ht to analysin! our basic story material and classifyin! it into one of four cat2 e!oriesC character, complication, theme, or atmosphere -chapter 3.. And, in the pre#ious chapter, we considered how to select the best point of #iew for use in writin! the story. /efore we actually be!in writin!, howe#er, we need to take a few more stepsC which is why this chapter is entitled Ihow to complete the plannin!:. Please note that $ refer to plannin& the story, and not plottin& the story. Plottin! is a word which has always made me a bit ner#ous. (hen $ was a lad, many moons a!o, most books on writin! !a#e the impression that plottin! was somethin! of a black art. Furthermore, said books also !a#e the im2 pression that plottin! was somethin! that only a moron would ha#e trouble with, and as $ had trouble with plottin! all the time $ was made to feel inferior. "''

So, as $ say, we can do without the word plot. (hat we are doin! in this chapter is completin! the plannin& of the story. (e are !ettin! oursel#es or!anised to the point where we can actually be!in to write without wastin! our time on futile first drafts which later ha#e to be abandoned.

6eneral re

arks on plannin' a story

$ think it is important at this >uncture, particularly in #iew of what $ ha#e said in the section abo#e, to make it clear to you that plannin! a story is not a mysterious black art. $t is simply a matter of keepin! a clear head and askin! yourself a series of perfectly lo!ical 5uestions. $t is also worth pointin! out that plannin! need not take a lon! time. $ ha#e disco#ered, durin! se#eral decades of writin!, that the process of producin! a finished story or a no#el can con#eniently be re!arded as ha#in! three sta!esC plannin!, writin!, and re#ision. Furthermore, $ ha#e found that, on a#era!e, it takes me about one hour to complete each of the three sta!es for e#ery ",''' words of finished prose. $n other words, a "'','''2word no#el usually takes me about &'' hoursC "'' hours to plan, "'' hours to write, and "'' hours to re2 #ise and polish. Sometimes, if $:m lucky, the >ob will be done in a bit less than & hours per ",''' wordsF and occasionally, if a lar!e amount of research is needed, or when a publisher de2 mands an e tensi#e rewrite, it may take lon!er. $f we take it as a !ood rule of thumb that a short story should not e ceed 4,''' words -a principle which $ ha#e already recommended to you., then it follows that plannin! your story should take no more than fi#e hours at the very #ost. $ would hope that, in many cases, an hour or two "'"

would suffice. $n any e#ent, howe#er lon! the process takes, don:t let it become hard work. <ust remember that we:re doin! this lar!ely for fun. Bo matter how thorou!h and conscientious you are, the finished story is unlikely to make you rich and famous. So han! loose. E#en if you choose to follow my su!!ested procedure step by step -which would not be at all a bad idea for a be!inner., then this plannin! business still need not take #ery lon!. A short story should be cunnin!ly planned and thou!htfully written ) but it remains, essen2 tially, a pretty simple de#ice.

+e$iewin' your

aterial

The first step in completin! the plannin! of your story is to !ather to!ether such material and ideas as you ha#e so far produced and take a close look at them. Dur old friend Thomas 900ell defined the short story by borrowin! a definition from Professor Pitkin, and that is a definition which $ will offer to you hereC A short story is a dramatic narrati#e told with a sin!le effect. ;et us consider the terms used in that definition in more detail. First, what is a narrati#e@ A narrati#e is an account of certain e#ents. $t is the storyF it is what happens. And in a short story it is certainly a !ood idea to ha#e so#ethin& happen, e#en if it:s not #ery much. (hat does dramatic mean@ For our purposes, drama is the same thin! as conflict. "'+

And what is conflict@ (ell, all too often, especially in soap operas, conflict in2 #ol#es two people standin! in a room and shoutin! at each other. (hich is #ery tedious in my opinion, and constitutes the main reason why $ don:t watch soap operas. /ut, for our purposes, conflict can also be e5uated with opposition ) it is the #arious obstacles which are encountered in the course of tryin! to achie#e somethin!. A lot more will be said about this conflict business below. (hat is the sin!le effect@ As $ hope you know by now, the sin!le effect is the prin2 cipal, and final, emotion which the reader is intended to e 2 perience. And the term Itold:@ Told means related ) told in a particular way, and per2 haps by a particular character -#iewpoint.. /earin! all that in mind, let us now take a look at the material which you ha#e assembled for your intended short story. Gou ha#e an audience in #iewC perhaps you are writin! for the women:s2ma!a0ine marketF or for your local writers circleF or for a literary ma!a0ine. (hate#er. And if you ha#en:t yet chosen an audience, do so now. (rite it down. E#en if your definition of the intended audience is only somethin! like Ipeople who en>oy readin! Mae#e /inchy:. (hich, come to think of it, is a pretty !ood way of describ2 in! a certain type of reader. Be t, remind yourself of your chosen emotional effect. Gou will ha#e consulted, no doubt, the list of emotions pro#ided in Appendi $, and will ha#e selected one of the emotions named there ) or, alternati#ely, you will ha#e dreamed up a fresh fla#our of emotion instead. ?on:t be tempted to try to !enerate more than one emo2 "'&

tion. Gou will ha#e enou!h trouble producin! one emotion effecti#ely, without complicatin! your life by tryin! to do more. Ges, $ know that Shakespeare introduced comic relief into his tra!ediesF but you aren:t writin! a play, you aren:t Shakespeare, and you ha#en:t !ot fi#e acts and four hours to play with. And last, but not least, you ha#e at least the crude out2 line of a story ) somethin! to write about. (hat you ha#e to do now is finish the plannin! of that story. Finishin! the plannin! means manipulatin! your raw material, and polishin! it so that it !enerates the stron!est effect possible. /ecause the emotional e%%ect is the whole point of the thin!. Df course, you will not always want to produce an emo2 tional atom bomb, so to speak. Sometimes you will be per2 fectly content to set off a sin!le firecracker. Be#ertheless, it will always pay di#idends to consider how you mi!ht tinker with your raw material in order to intensify the effect which it is producin! ) and the process of tinkerin! and en2 hancin! is what the rest of this chapter is about.

6eneral re

arks about dra

(e know by now -and you were reminded >ust a moment a!o. that the whole point of a short story is that it !ener2 ates emotion. And the lesson to be learnt here is that emo2 tions are intensified -which is normally a !ood thin! in a short story. by hei!htenin! the drama. A pa!e or two a!o, we decided that drama, in this con2 te t, is a form of conflict -or opposition.. $t follows, there2 fore, that in order to increase the emotional impact of our story, we need to !enerate some conflict cum oppositionF "'3

and, ha#in! !enerated some conflict, we usually need to crank it up, or make it more intense, in order to produce the ma imum potential emotional effect. =ow do we crank up the conflict@ (ell, the answer depends on what type of story you:re dealin! with. /ut more often than not, and particularly in a character story, you !enerate conflict by identifyin! the de2 sires which are bein! felt by the main characters in the story, and then creatin! some opposition to those desires. A desire, by the way, could also be defined as a !oal, or an ob>ecti#e, if you prefer to think in those terms. At any rate it is somethin! that the character wishes to achie#e, or do. And if you:re wonderin! at this point whether the char2 acters in the short story that you:re plannin! actually ha#e any desires, then that is why this chapter is called Icomplet2 in! the plannin!:. $t is at this sta!e that you take a hard look at the material that you ha#e assembled, decide what:s missin!, and then supply the deficiencies. Suppose for the moment that your story has a main character, and that said character does ha#e a desire. ;et us also suppose that $ am correct in ar!uin! that it will often be ad#anta!eous to pro#ide some opposition to that desire. =ow do you !o about that@ Fortunately it is possible to distin!uish three types of opposition which can be faced by any character who actually wants to do somethin!. These three types of opposition are those which mi!ht be pro#ided by nature, by other characters, and by the charac2 ter:s own internal doubts and conflictin! desires. $t will be much easier to understand this when you ha#e seen a few e amples, so let:s consider each of these three types of con2 flict in more detail. "'4

The elemental clash

Dne of the most basic ways in which desires can be op2 posed is throu!h the force of nature. A doctor wants to !et to a remote farmhouse, late at ni!ht, to help a pre!nant wo2 man, but a bli00ard is blowin!. This first type of conflict, therefore, can con#eniently be thou!ht of as man #ersus nature, or the Ielemental: clash. Gou will already ha#e noticed that this first form of con2 flict is a bit basic, so to speak. And it is definitely a down2 market de#ice. Gou don:t find many literary stories which feature characters who are stru!!lin! to cross a flooded ri#er, or who find themsel#es marooned in the middle of the desert, without water. Get all those situations in#ol#e a man #ersus nature conflict. Stories which feature this kind of conflict are much more likely to turn up in what used to be called pulp2fiction ma!a0ines than in the pa!es of serious hi!hbrow >ournals. Be#ertheless, the possibility that your character:s desires may be thwarted by some aspect of nature is somethin! that is well worth bearin! in mind.

The social clash

The second way in which a character:s desire may be op2 posed is by another character in the storyF or possibly by se#eral other characters. For e ample, a youn! man may passionately desire to marry his !irlfriend. The youn! lady:s father, a !rumpy old so2and2so, may fiercely ob>ect to this proposalF the old man considers our hero to be a useless layabout, a >unkie, and a !ambler, absolutely the last person he wants to ha#e as a son2in2law. "'8

Another e ampleC a teena!er wants to !o to an all2ni!ht ra#e, and her mum is determined that she will do no such thin!. This second type of conflict, man #ersus man -or person #ersus person. can be described as the Isocial: clash, and it may or may not in#ol#e physical #iolence. For the most part it will be more interestin! and in#ol#in! for the reader, $ su!!est, if the conflict is e pressed in non2#iolent terms. /ashin! people about is all #ery well, but it:s a trifle crude.

The internal clash

The third type of conflict occurs when one internal desire of a character conflicts with another internal desire within the mind of the same person. Dur youn! man may passionately want to run away to Australia with the !irl he so much admires, but he also wants to finish his uni#ersity de!ree. The teena!er who wants to !o to the ra#e has a mother who wants to let her dau!hter !row up, but mum also wants to protect her little !irl from dru!2dealers and wicked seducers. /oth of these characters, the youn! man and the teena!er:s mum, are !o2 in! to ha#e an internal stru!!le while they decide which of their two conflictin! desires is the stron!er. This internalised form of conflict appeals to the more in2 telli!ent and literate reader. (ith this type of conflict there are no tropical downpours, and no face2to2face shoutin! matchesF the action all takes place in the mind of the char2 acter. Shakespeare, of course, used the solilo5uy to allow his characters to describe their internal doubts and difficultiesC and perhaps the most famous solilo5uy of all is =amlet:s ITo be or not to be: speech. "'6

An actor, howe#er, need not depend solely on the play2 wri!ht:s dialo!ue. $f he is really cle#er, he can use his face and his body to portray his internal stru!!le. %olley %ibber, writin! in the se#enteenth century, described seein! a mas2 terly actor called Bokes, who could use his body lan!ua!e alone to illustrate his internal debate about what action to takeF he could do this for minutes at a time, reducin! the audience to tears of lau!hter in the process. Gou, on the other hand, functionin! as a short2story writer, you must use words aloneF they are the only tool you ha#eF and, as you will 5uickly disco#er, describin! an inner conflict in prose is somethin! which re5uires skill and practice.

Multiple conflicts
Sometimes it is 5uite enou!h for a short story to feature one type of conflict onlyF you either ha#e one character copin! with the disasters of nature, or one character in an ar!ument with another, or one person wrestlin! with her own conscience. /ut it is certainly possible to write about a character who e periences all three types of conflict, or drama, in the course of the same story. ;et me !i#e you an e ample drawn from real life. $ was recently watchin! a TA documentary about ?2?ay. Dne of the persons inter#iewed was an officer who had led a ni!ht2 time attack on 1erman !un positions in France, >ust a few hours before the first Allied troop landin!s in Bormandy, in <une of ",33. This officer:s >ob was to disable the 1erman !uns so that they could not fire down on the Allied troops as they came ashore. ?isablin! the !uns therefore constituted this man:s Idesire: or ob>ecti#e ) that was what he wanted to do. This "'7

desire was opposed by the followin!C " Bature -the elemental clash.C it was dark. -$n a short story you could intensify the drama by addin! a thick fo!. Gou could also arran!e for the officer to lose his compass and his map.. + Man -the social clash.C ob#iously, the 1erman troops would shoot to kill as soon as they heard or saw the officer and his men creepin! up on them. -$n a short story you could ha#e a traitor amon! the attackin! force who had already radioed ahead with details of where and when the 1erman !uns would be attacked.. & $nternal -the internal clash.C the inter#iewed officer ad2 mitted that durin! this ni!ht:s action he was, not surpris2 in!ly, scared stiff. =e had at least half a mind to abandon the attack. -$n a short story you could pile on the a!ony by !i#in! him an e#en stron!er desire to a#oid !ettin! killedC perhaps his wife has >ust !i#en birth to a new baby son.. $n real life, the officer in#ol#ed in this ?2?ay incident ac2 knowled!ed that pretty well the only thin! that made him !o throu!h with the attack was his understandin! that, if he beha#ed in a cowardly fashion, he would ne#er be able to look his friends in the eye a!ain. $n other words, in this real2life instance, the desire not to be thou!ht a coward was sufficiently stron! to o#ercome his #ery natural desire not to be shot at and killed. This documentary e ample demonstrates an interestin! point, which is that, e#en when all three kinds of drama are present, the conflict which is likely to be of most interest to the short2story reader is the internal one. "',

(hy is that@ $ su!!est it is because the internal conflict is the one which is best illustrated throu!h this particular medium. A short story is not particularly effecti#e at illus2 tratin! the difficulties of findin! an enemy !un position in pitch darknessF neither does it !i#e a !ood impression of hand2to hand fi!htin! with Sten !uns, pistols, !renades and kni#es. Film would be a much more effecti#e medium for !i#in! a realistic impression of those forms of conflict. /ut a short story, skilfully written, can be remarkably effecti#e in describin! the inner conflicts and the clashin! desires which are e perienced, internally, by your leadin! charac2 ter. $n the ne t four sections of this chapter we will consider how conflict can best be !enerated in each of the four dif2 ferent types of story that we identified in chapter 3C that is to say, the character, complication, theme, and atmosphere #ariants of the short story.

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a in the character story

$n chapter 3 we spent some time learnin! how to classify stories. Dne of the reasons why we did that was because it is much easier to decide how to intensify a story, and thus create more emotion, if you are 5uite clear what sort of story you are dealin! with. And in this section of the present chapter we are !oin! to learn how to create drama -or conflict, or opposition. in the first of our four types, namely a character story. A character story, you will remember, is a story that paints a portrait. =ow is character portrayed@ %haracter is portrayed in action. People may or may not be what they eat, as the dietitians tell us, but people sure as ""'

hell are what they do. A coward turns and runs. A hero stands his !round. And in both cases they think before they act. Dr at least they do for our purposes. $t is only the person who thinks, and then decides what to do, and in the process demonstrates her true character, who is of any interest to you and me when we write a short story. A person who reacts without think2 in! does not re#eal characterF such a person is merely bein! blown about by the wind. A short story, as $ may ha#e remarked before, is pre2 cisely thatC short. There is not the time and space, as there is in a no#el, to re#eal the many facets of a real2life, roun2 ded human bein!. $n a short story you can only deal with one aspect of the indi#idual at a time. And the aspect of character which you choose to describe can usefully be re2 ferred to as a trait. A character trait is a distin!uishin! characteristic, and, a!ain for our purposes, it is in practice the same thin! as a desire, or an ob>ecti#e. $f you ha#e decided that the raw material for your story su!!ests that the main emphasis is on character -rather than complication, theme, or atmosphere., then you will probably be able to state, without too much thou!ht, what the character:s main trait, or desire, or ambition, is. ;et us take a man whose principal character trait is an obsession with football. This man:s specific desire, for the purposes of our hypothetical story, is to see his fa#ourite team, ;ittle Eickabout (anderers, play the !reat Manchester 9nited in the FA cup. Bow ) we ha#e decided that the emotion !enerated by our story will be more powerful, and hence the story will be more interestin! to readers, if we pro#ide this desire of our character:s with some fierce opposition. /y opposin! the """

character:s desire we will test the stren!th of the trait, and we will amuse, or shock, the reader, accordin! to our intent and accordin! to the way in which we present the material. Botice, please, that the same raw material can often be used for either a tra!edy or a comedy. $n this instance $ will settle for comedy, because in my opinion life is already 5uite serious and !loomy enou!h, without writin! short stories which make the world any !loomier. (e also know, from careful perusal of the earlier sec2 tions of this chapter, that we can oppose our character:s de2 sire by presentin! it with opposition drawn from one or more of three sourcesC nature, other people, and competin! internal desires. Puite often, in a short and simple story, it will be suffi2 cient to test the stren!th of the character:s trait by submit2 tin! it to one conflict only, and lea#e it at that. Dn the other hand, if we are determined to write a story which carries a massi#e knockout punch, we can test the stren!th of the trait with repeated conflicts, from all three sources, culmin2 atin! in a life2and2death choice in which the o#erwhelmin! stren!th of the one trait is, ine#itably, demonstrated. So, let us be!in. <oe -our football fanatic. announces his intention to at2 tend the cup semi2final in Manchester, despite the fact that he li#es in ?e#on, has no money, and has no ticket for the !ame either. Purely by way of illustration, we will test the stren!th of this desire in three ways. First, <oe is opposed by his em2 ployer. =e asks for time off, and his boss says noF in the boss:s #iew, <oe has already had far too many days off for football matches. The boss says that, if <oe !oes to this match, he will lose his >ob. $nternally, or perhaps in discussion with a friend, <oe ""+

debates what to do. After some thou!ht, he decides to !o to the match. The fact that he will lose his >ob wei!hs less with him than his desire to see his team play a!ainst Manchester 9nited. Please note that <oe does not react by instinct alone. <oe re#iews the options, thinks, and decides. The period of time durin! which he thinks is known technically as the reflect2 i#e delay. $t is essential to pro#ide a reflecti#e delay in a short story in which you wish to show character in action. Pure refle , or !ut reaction, is less interestin! than con2 sidered action. Be t, <oe:s !irlfriend tries to persuade him not to tra#el all that way to Manchester. She offers to take him for a nau!hty weekend in /ri!hton instead, and e#en shows him the flimsy underwear which she will wear in the bedroom. <oe is mi!hty tempted, and a!ain considers -internally. the #arious options open to him. Another reflecti#e delay. /ut, in the end, the lure of the leather ball pro#es stron!er than the se y underwear. Finally, <oe sets off for Manchester, and has to fi!ht his way throu!h a sudden snowstorm. The police warn him that the road ahead is hopelessly blocked. /ut <oe, thinkin! it o#er, decides to plou!h on anyway, puttin! his #ery life at risk. E#entually <oe arri#es at the !round and... (ell, you fin2 ish it off. $ hope that by now you ha#e !ot the point. A character2 orientated story can be made stron!er by identifyin! the one character trait which you want to demonstrate, and then pro#idin! that desire with some opposition. $n the e ample abo#e, you will note, opposition comes from other people -the boss and the !irlfriend., and from nature. $n each of the three instances of opposition there is ""&

also an internal clash, durin! which <oe e plores the stren!th of his two competin! desires. =e wants to keep his >ob, but he wants to !o to the match. The match wins. =e wants to !o to bed with his beautiful !irlfriend, but he wants to !o to the match. The match wins. =e wants to re2 main ali#e, and not !et fro0en to death, but he wants to !o to the match. The match wins. Gou could !o on in#entin! situations in which <oe:s trait is tested, o#er and o#er a!ain. /ut remember that the read2 er does not ha#e unlimited patience, and the ma!a0ine edit2 or does not ha#e unlimited space. The su!!ested limit of 4,''' words is one which, in practice, you would be wise not to e ceed. Gour reader will be amused and held by <oe:s antics for about that len!th of story but not, $ su!!est, for much more. The e ample abo#e uses a character with a lo#e of foot2 ball, but there are thousands of alternati#e character traits which you could use instead. Gou could write a story about an e treme feminist, or a woman who is afraid to lea#e the house, or a man who passionately wants to own a Ferrari. And so on. Eccentrics are usually easier to portray than are Inormal: people. (e are now in a position to formulate a workin! method for !i#in! added punch to a character story. The rule is as followsC look for the desire present in the material, !i#e it ma imum stren!th, and then pro#ide it with ma imum op2 position. $f you really want to prove, as opposed to merely demonstrate, the stren!th of a trait, then you ha#e to sub2 mit it to a life2and2death situation, and show that the trait is stron!er than any opposition, e#en if it costs the charac2 ter his life. $f you do choose to write a story of life2and2death intens2 ""3

ity, make sure that the character has sufficient time to con2 sider internally all the a#ailable options. $n fact you should put him, or her, in a situation where he cannot avoid think2 in! thin!s throu!hF and, ha#in! thou!ht, he must be ob2 li!ed to make a choice. $f the character responds, yet a!ain, in accordance with the principal trait that you ha#e !i#en him, then the stren!th of that trait is not >ust demonstrated but is pro#ed to be stron!er than the desire for life itself. (hether the character emer!es from this test ali#e or dead depends, of course, upon the emotional effect that you are seekin! to produce. For the record, let me say here that much of the abo#e analysis was set out nearly ninety years a!o by Thomas =. 900ell. /ut he too was buildin! on the thou!hts of fiction analysts who had preceded himC Professor Pitkin, Poe, and others. So much for character stories. Be t we will turn to creat2 in! drama in complication stories.

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a in the co

plication story

A complication story can be defined as one which features a predicament ) often an unusual and intri!uin! predica2 ment. And by the wayC >ust as you should confine your charac2 ter story to a description of one trait, so you should arran!e matters so that your complication story features only one complication. -$n a no#el, successi#e chapters may well fea2 ture successi#e complications.. $n readin! a complication story, the reader is chiefly in2 terested in some e#ent or twist of fate. And the sin!le effect of the complication story deri#es from the author:s descrip2 ""4

tion of that predicament, twist of fate, or e#ent. $n the character story the rule for creatin! drama, or conflict, is simpleC >ust identify the main trait, !i#e it plenty of opposition, and you:re done. /ut in the complication story there is no such uni#ersal solutionF you are more reli2 ant on your own powers of in#ention. Speakin! of in#ention, the position in a complication story is that you usually ha#e to in#ent the characters to !o with the predicament, whereas in the character story, as we ha#e seen, you normally ha#e to in#ent situations which test the trait. Some writers are drawn to character stories, and some are natural complication creators. $ am more of a character man myself, but $ ha#e noticed, as the years ha#e !one by, that $ now find it infinitely easier to in#ent complications than $ once did. $f you find it difficult to think up intri!uin! predica2 ments, you should remember that there are numerous well established complications which ha#e been featured in thousands of short stories and which can be recycled, with small #ariations, if you ha#e the in!enuity. For e ample, all crime stories are essentially complication stories. 1host stories are not as popular now as they were in the Aictorian era, but they can be re#i#ed if you wish. $n science fiction there are no doubt some !ood old !ood ones, such as the space tra#ellers who come across a space ship with no crew. And in westerns -$ ima!ine. the problem of how to !et the cattle back from the rustlers has no doubt been used more than once. As for romantic fiction ) well, it:s not my field. $n any !enre of fiction, the way in which you intensify a complication is surely to make it more complicated than ""8

e#er. The three sources of conflict which we identified in the pre#ious section are a!ain your best resource. They are, you will recall, nature, other people, and internal clashes of desires. ;et us look at these three sources of conflict in terms of intensifyin! a complication. %an we make our complication worse, and therefore more interestin!, by ha#in! it occur in darkness, or durin! a flood, a thunderstorm, a drou!ht@ All of these added complications are forces of nature, of course. Then there will be characters in your storyF that will be true no matter what sort of a complication is featured. Gou can perhaps add to the intensity of the complication by ar2 ran!in! for a character to make the situation worse ) either deliberately or accidentally. For e ample, you ha#e a child trapped down a narrow well. A helper decides that it will make rescue easier if the top of the well is made wider, so he be!ins to remo#e some of the bricks around the rim. Dne of the bricks falls into the well and knocks the child unconscious... Dr... $n the middle of a bank robbery, our heroine is ed!in! her way towards the alarm bell, when a collea!ue, who is in the pay of the crooks, accidentally but deliber2 ately trips o#er the electric cable and pulls the plu! out of the wall, thus disablin! the alarm. The clash of internal desires can also be utilised to in2 tensify a complication. A man is offered M"',''' if he can remain o#erni!ht in a haunted house. /ut he is terrified of the dark.... All of these are, of course, hackneyed and trite e amples, in#ented in the space of thirty seconds. Gou can do so much better, $:m sure. And you will, you will. A word of caution about complications. A#oid coincid2 ""6

ences and accidents. Ges, you will occasionally read in the newspapers a story about a husband and wife, tra#ellin! in separate cars in op2 posite directions, who collide with each other and are both killed. Such thin!s happen. And in the case >ust 5uoted we would ha#e both a coincidence and an accident. /ut the point is, $:m afraid, that you cannot use such e#ents in fic2 tion. People find them incredible. And it:s no !ood sayin!, IDh but it really happened.: E#ents which really happened are not always belie#able when they are reproduced in a short story, and e#ents which could not possibly happen in real life can be made perfectly credible in the ri!ht fictional conte t. Fairy stor2 ies, !host stories, stories about talkin! do!s and cats, all of these will work perfectly well if the author is talented enou!h. /ut you simply cannot use that con#enient coincidence which will nicely round off your story ) not e#en if it did happen to your real2life Auntie <ane. Be t, drama in the thematic story.

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a in the the

atic story

(e need not spend too lon! worryin! about how to create drama in the thematic story because thematic stories are relati#ely rare, difficult to write, and often not #ery interest2 in! to read. Thou!h there are, of course, e ceptions. The thematic story, as you doubtless recall, is intended to make the reader think. $t is a story in which the reader:s interest centres more upon an underlyin! truth about life than upon character or complication or atmosphere. As such, the thematic story is dan!erous. /y and lar!e, readers don:t want to think. $f they wanted to think, they ""7

wouldn:t be readin! a short story, because they ha#e plenty to think about already. (hat readers of fiction want is to %eel. =owe#er, if you do feel morally obli!ed to !i#e readers the benefit of your #iews on life, the uni#erse, and the meanin! of e#erythin!, don:t let me put you off. <ust make sure that you present your theme in an entertainin! pack2 a!eF otherwise your readers aren:t !oin! to be with you for lon!. The word Itheme: is capable of many definitions, but in the conte t of short2story writin! it may be defined as a statement about some aspect of life. For instance, it makes no sense to say that you are !oin! to take Iad#ertisin!: or Iloneliness: as your theme. Sin!le words are >ust topics, not themes. Dn the other hand, the statement that IAd#ertisin! mis2 leads the youn!: could be used as a theme -if you happened to belie#e it.. And the same is true of I;oneliness is worth than death:. Dr, in a li!hter #ein, ITA ad#ertisements are more fun than the pro!rammes they interrupt:F or I$t:s bet2 ter to be lonely than married to a man:. Dnce you ha#e decided to write a thematic story, you can proceed in one of two ways. Gou can either decide simply to pro#ide an illustration of the theme, which means no more than writin! a story which shows that your theme holds true at least in the circumstances that you describeF or you can attempt to Ipro#e: your theme, which means that you must demonstrate that the theme is true in all possible sets of circumstances, in all societies, in all eras. Personally $ take the #iew that few Iabsolute truths: about human life remain true whate#er the circumstances, and therefore $ would be cautious about tryin! to Ipro#e: my chosen theme, whether by writin! a short story or "",

throu!h any other form of ar!ument. /ut you may be more certain of the tenets of your faith than $, in which case you will plou!h ahead re!ardless. $ ha#e already mentioned, in chapter 3, that $ ha#e writ2 ten one thematic story myself, and the basic theme of that story is I=onesty is the best policy:. A banal enou!h idea, !oodness knows. (hen writin! that story -$ Motto to ,ie by, which is in2 cluded in my collection (in& $lbert)s Words o% $dvice., $ confined myself to !i#in! a description, which $ hope is modestly amusin!, of a set of circumstances in which hon2 esty would indeed ha#e been the best policy. $ did not at2 tempt to pro#e that this thematic statement is always true, no matter how the circumstances mi!ht #ary. (hy not@ 9m, well, because it is 5uite often the case that honesty is not the best policy. $f you read the newspapers, not to mention the history books, you will find lots of e amples of ro!ues who ha#e prospered and honest men who ha#e !one bankrupt. The statement that I?ishonesty leads to riches, more often than not: is more likely to be true than my own modest conten2 tion of the opposite. $f you must write a story with a theme to it, try not to make your choice of idea too ob#ious. As already stated, I=onesty is the best policy: is a pretty familiar cry, and, in and of itself, it is not likely to be wildly e citin! for readers. Secondly, if you hope to !et your story published, it will probably be a !ood idea not to make your theme too con2 tro#ersial or shockin!. I/lack people are plottin! the downfall of the white race: mi!ht not !o down too well with the Race Relations /oard, and IFeminists should be sterilised at puberty: mi!ht !et you beaten up by two butch2lookin! ladies round the back "+'

of the bus stop. So it will do no harm to pay some attention to simple self2preser#ation. As for finishin! the plannin! of such a story.... (ell, as with the complication story, you are !oin! to ha#e to in#ent your characters and e#ents to illustrate your theme. (hich should not be impossibly difficult. Suppose we were !oin! to write a story with the theme I;oneliness is better than bein! married to a man:. (ithout too much effort, one could tap out a story to illustrate that idea as followsC Miss Smith is a lonely middle2a!ed lady. She has a >ob which in#ol#es little contact with the public, and her boss is less than interested in her. At %hristmas she has only her cat for company. $n the new year, her cat dies, and she decides that enou!h is enou!h. She will ad2 #ertise in a lonely2hearts column. (hich she does, and soon meets a man who proposes to her. Thinkin! that this is !oin! to be her last chance, Miss Smith accepts the offer of marria!e. /ut she soon realises that her new husband has simply been lookin! for someone to do his housekeep2 in! and darn his socks. =e is absent most of the time, play2 in! bowls with his friends, lea#in! her as lonely as e#er. =er conclusion, that loneliness is better than bein! married to a man, is your theme. Such a story could be written, as has been remarked be2 fore, as either comedy or tra!edy. Dnce a!ain, $ prefer com2 edy myself. Dnce you ha#e settled on a story framework, such as the one abo#e, you would then consider whether the drama could be intensified. Miss Smith:s desire is for companyC so, !i#e that desire some opposition. She has a close and lon!2 standin! friend, someone she was at school with. The friend marries, or dies, depri#in! Miss Smith of her last confidante. She tries to !et a >ob which in#ol#es meetin! "+"

peopleC she is re>ected because she is too old. And so on. 1i#en the sli!htly depressin! nature of the material sketched out so far, $ would be inclined to !i#e this story somethin! of a black2comedy fla#our. $ ha#e su!!ested that Miss Smith soon realises that her new married state is worse than her former lonely spinster2 hood. She has made a mistake. Bow suppose that her hus2 band demands that she make him an apple pie e#ery Thursday, despite the fact that she dislikes apple pie herself ) it brin!s her out in spots. So she makes him an e tra2spe2 cial apple pie, with an unusual fla#our that her hubby re2 marks upon. Althou!h he does not know it, the stron! fla2 #our is there to dis!uise the taste of arsenicF and, since hubby is so enthusiastic about it, our heroine promises to make him an apple pie at least twice a week from now on. $ rather like that.

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a in the at

osphere story

The atmosphere story, you will recall, is the story that makes places come ali#e. $t is a type of story which is sel2 dom attempted, hard to write, and, $ suspect, mostly not worth the trouble of writin! it. (e noted in chapter 3 that other media, notably film and tele#ision, can e#oke the power and ma>esty of nature and Iatmosphere: much more effecti#ely than can prose. =a#in! said that, we should not underestimate the ef2 fecti#eness of the written word. Mountains ne#er look all that impressi#e -to me. in a black2and2white photo!raph, despite all those ra#e re#iews that are !i#en to Ansel Adams. (ords seem to me to be able to describe a moun2 tain at least as well as a photo!raph. So don:t despair. $f "++

you are tempted to write about the awesome power of nature, the cause is not completely lost. Gou may yet be able to make your mark with a story of this kind. $ma!ine the followin! sceneC a beautiful youn! woman is sunbathin! nude in a field. Bow ) it would not be difficult to find a human bein! who would respond to this scene in some way. A youn! man mi!ht well be se ually stimulated. An older woman mi!ht be concerned at the risk which the youn! woman was runnin! by lyin! there naked. An old2fashioned prude, of either !ender, mi!ht be shocked and dis!usted by the display of flesh. Gou notice that so far $ ha#en:t mentioned the field. Few obser#ers, $ suspect, would notice the field. An eld2 erly and short2si!hted naturalist mi!ht, >ust possibly, ha#e concentrated on the lesser2spotted multi2crested blue2bel2 lied dra!onfly which was ho#erin! >ust abo#e the youn! lady:s left nippleF but e#en he, $ #enture to su!!est, would ha#e found little to !et e cited about in the field itself. And the problem, you see, is thisC when writin! an atmo2 sphere story, what you ha#e to do is to find, or in#ent, a character who would be >ust as stron!ly affected by the field as the youn! man or the old2fashioned prude were by the naked youn! lady. (hich is not, $ further su!!est, an easy task. The main character in the atmosphere story is the atmo2 sphere itself. $t is the field or the storm or the ruined castle. And, >ust as you should ideally dramatise the main charac2 ter in a character story -rather than simply describe that character., so, in this instance, you ha#e to dramatise the atmosphere. Many, perhaps most, atmosphere stories cast the atmo2 sphere in the role of #illain. $t is relati#ely easy to !i#e the "+&

reader a powerful >olt by relatin! how the heat of the desert dri#es a man mad and then kills himF it is harder to !i#e the reader a powerful emotion by describin! how a sunny day at the seaside cures a man of his depression. /ut the atmo2 sphere can, of course, be cast as hero if you are seekin! the li!hter and more cheerful emotional effect. There are fi#e key steps to take when plannin! an atmo2 sphere storyC " %hoose an atmosphere. + Select the character -or characters. who will be pro2 foundly affected by the atmosphere. & Show how the e#ents !enerated by the atmosphere affect the character. 3 $n#ent a crucial situation in which the fate of the charac2 ter is sealed. Preferably this situation should be unusual or une pected in some way. 4 Tell the story from the point of #iew of an onlooker or a minor character, usually someone who is not affected by the atmosphere to the same e tent as the ma>or character. To repeatC the human characters in an atmosphere story are there to show the impact of the atmosphere, whether that impact be !ood or bad. $n practice, in most published stories of this type, it is usually bad. Dn the whole, $ feel that an atmosphere story is one which should be attempted, if at all, only after you ha#e written perhaps a hundred other stories in the more ortho2 do character and complication modes. "+3

3leshin' out your characters

Gou are now close to completin! the business of plannin! the e#ents of your story ) thou!h you can, of course, come back and alter them at any time you wish. (hat you need to do now is to flesh out your charactersF !et to know themF understand why they do what they do. $t is not possible to write a successful short story without ha#in! a !ood workin! knowled!e of human nature. That knowled!e should ideally be deri#ed from per2 sonal e perience, but the study of other people:s e perience may suffice at a pinch. To obtain personal e perience, all you need to do is li#e a life and at the same time keep your eyes and ears open. ?o that for forty or fifty years and you may ha#e learnt a little about how human bein!s beha#e, and why they do the thin!s they do. That:s all #ery well, you say, for those of ad#anced years. /ut if you:re youn! you may need to fall back on the e peri2 ence of othersF fortunately this is widely a#ailable in sum2 marised form, in books and newspapers. $n my youth $ read a !ood deal of academic material about human psycholo!y, and for what it is worth $ found that the most con#incin! e planations of human action were those !i#en by Alfred Adler. ;ike <un!, Adler was an early disciple of Si!mund Freud, and, also like <un!, he soon found himself in disa!reement with Freud:s theories and went his own way. $f you poke around in second2hand bookshops, or search the internet, you may still find some information about Adler, and you could do a lot worse than study what he had to say. $n any e#ent, besides ha#in! a workin! knowled!e of hu2 "+4

man psycholo!y, you will also need to know some mundane thin!s about your characters, such as where they were born, whether they are married, whether they ha#e any physical or mental defects, what their ambitions are, and so forth. Some years a!o $ can across a useful way to summarise this kind of information. $t was a list of topics which had been drawn up by the drama theorist ;a>os E!ri, and it was set out in his book The $rt o% ,ra#atic Writin& -first pub2 lished well o#er fifty years a!o and still in print.. E!ri considered it #aluable for a writer to draw up a summary of each fictional character:s back!round, settin! out the information under three headin!sC physiolo!y, soci2 olo!y, and psycholo!y. -For a complete list of E!ri:s head2 in!s, see Appendi $$.. $ a!ree with E!ri in thinkin! that it is e tremely helpful to !et to know your character by fillin! in a form of this kind. Bow that we li#e in the a!e of computers, $ ha#e set up a template for the E!ri character2analysis data on my word processor, and for each character $ simply open a new copy of that template and proceed to fill it in. D#er the years $ ha#e found this to be a thorou!hly prac2 tical discipline. $n the case of a ma>or character in a no#el, $ may well take half an hour or more to complete the 5ues2 tionnaire in some detail. For a short story $ usually sketch in a few key points. Dnce you ha#e !one throu!h this E!ri form2fillin! e er2 cise, writin! down as much or as little as you think you need to know, the ne t step is to print out a copy of the data and re#iew it. $ myself then take a red pen and underline those parts of the character:s back!round which, in my >ud!ement, need to be passed on to the reader. The rest is >ust there to help "+8

the character to Ili#e: in my mind. For e ample, $ may ha#e decided, when thinkin! about a particular character, that he is an only child, or that he is left2handed. /ut does the reader really need to know that@ $f $ think she does, $ put a red line under that piece of in2 formation, to remind me to include it in the te t. And in case all this form2fillin! is be!innin! to sound like a lot of work, let me say that, for most short stories, the E!ri character2analysis e ercise takes no more than a few minutes. /ut $ always do it, reli!iously, because $ ha#e found o#er the years that it helps me to write better stories.

Choosing a name
/efore you complete each E!ri form, you will, of course, need to think of a name for your character. Dr at least a name for most of themF some characters can remain name2 less, and be referred to simply as the bus dri#er or the wait2 ress. A word of caution is necessary here. (e li#e in an increasin!ly liti!ious a!e, and the 9E is the world capital for libel suits. $t is easier to sue for libel in the 9E than it is in most western nations, and the dama!es paid for defamation tend to be hi!her here than elsewhere. Gou do not, belie#e me, wish to become in#ol#ed in de2 fendin! a libel suit. E#en if your defence is successful, the process will take for e#er, the cost will be hi!h, and the worry enormous. Gou therefore need to !i#e >ust a little thou!ht to this possibility, remote thou!h it is. /ut surely the risk of libel can:t affect anyone who writes fiction, $ hear you cry. Dh yes it can. $t was established in the case of =ulton #. <ones, in ","', that an action for libel can be brou!ht if "+6

reasonable people mi!ht conclude that the defamatory words in a work of fiction refer to a real2life plaintiff. ;et us suppose, for instance, that you write a story about a priest who is a paedophile, and that you call him <ohn Somethin!. ;et us further suppose that you don:t bother to check whether or not there is a real #icar called <ohn Somethin!, and it subse5uently turns out that there is such a man. $n that unhappy case you may be in bi! trouble. Gou would ha#e to hope that the Re#erend Mr Somethin! was a #ery for!i#in! and merciful %hristian indeed. $t is best, on the whole, not to e pose yourself to that risk in the first place. (hen writin! about professional people, such as doctors, actors, #icars, military personnel, and so forth, you should !o to your local reference library. All of these professional bodies ) the %hurch of En!land, solicitors, the Army, et cetera ) publish lists of the names and other details of their members. Seek ad#ice from the librarian on which reference book to use, and choose a name which does not appear on the rele#ant list. And it:s no !ood ima!inin! that choosin! an unlikely name will help you, e#en for a non2professional characterF it mi!ht do 5uite the opposite. Tom Sharpe, in Porterhouse Blue, satirised the noble souls who work in tele#ision, and he chose a name for a character which was truly outlandish. Be#ertheless, from a far2flun! corner of the //% there emer!ed a person of that same unusual name. Mr Sharpe could produce no notes to show that he had scoured the appropriate directories to a#oid libellin! the person in 5uestion, and he had to pay up. $n the case of #illains ) and other characters for that matter ) who are not professional people and are not on any list anywhere, writers ha#e in the past adopted #arious "+7

strate!ies to protect themsel#es from possible libel. Some writers ha#e bou!ht themsel#es a !a0etteer and picked the names of places for use as surnames. Dthers, followin! a method used by Sir %ompton Macken0ie, ha#e used a ",3' Bew <ersey telephone directory. These are wise mo#es, and if your work is !oin! to ap2 pear in print anywhere you should keep a note of how you ha#e selected the names of your characters. And you defin2 itely shouldn:t use the names of people li#in! in your street. Finally, as $ mentioned in the chapter on findin! ideas, there is considerable risk in writin! any kind of fiction which is nothin! more than thinly #eiled autobio!raphy. (ritin! fiction about real e#ents, and hopin! to escape bein! sued for libel by merely chan!in! the names, is not !oin! to pro#ide any real protection. $f you write a story based on your own schooldays, and someone takes e cep2 tion to bein! identified as the school bully, you are at risk. E#en if the real2life e#ents did happen forty years a!o. For further information on libel, read ?a#id =ooper:s useful book, 0eputations under "ire.

3illin' in the blanks

There is another form to fill in too ) at which news $ can positi#ely hear you !roanin!. $ am sure that at times, when readin! this chapter, you must ha#e be!un to wonder whether all the steps that $ de2 scribe are really necessary. 1ood !rief, you may ha#e said to yourself, is all this really necessary@ Surely there must be simpler ways to do thin!s. And what about inspiration@ (hat about spontaneity, the heat of the moment, the sud2 den flash of e citement as an idea une pectedly comes to you@ "+,

Ges indeed, what about all those thin!s@ To a#oid doubt, let me say that $ am entirely in fa#our of them. $ am an admirer of spontaneity, and $ welcome in2 spiration. /ut my point is thisC if you follow my ad#ice, then the happy surprises of inspiration will come your way more often than would otherwise be the case. (hat is more, they will be rele#ant to the story that you are workin! on. $ recommend that, when plannin! a short story, you work systematically and methodically, and think clearly about what you are doin!. $f you do that, then inspiration has some fertile !round in which to !row. The process of ac5uirin! literary techni5ue is a bit like learnin! to dri#e a car. $n my youth, learner2dri#ers were tau!ht the M$1S formulaC Mirror ) $ndicator ) 1ear ) Si!2 nal -a hand si!nal, belie#e it or not.. And at first, as we learners >erked alon! the road, abusin! the clutch, we had to mutter those four words under our breath and concen2 trate hard on performin! each task. /ut soon the dri#in! process became entirely instincti#e. So it is with the procedures outlined here. (ith constant practice, techni5ue will become in!rained and automatic. The second reassurance $ can !i#e you is that, once the techni5ues which are outlined in this chapter become fa2 miliar, the necessary steps can be thou!ht throu!h pretty 5uickly. So 5uickly, in fact, that the results which they yield be!in to %eel like inspirationC it:s as if the idea came to you >ust like that. /ut it didn:t really, and it won:t in future. $n most cases, that happy insi!ht into how to end the story will only come to you if you apply the lo!ical thou!ht pro2 cesses which $ ha#e set out for you. (hat then, is this other form to fill in, which $ referred to a few para!raphs earlier@ Answer, it is a schema which enables you to identify those parts of the plot or the story "&'

which are as yet incomplete or which need additional work. As with the E!ri form, you can make a template of this schema on your word processor, and simply fill in a new copy whene#er you:re ready. <ust when you fill in this form is a matter of >ud!ement, but if you ha#en:t done it by this sta!e in your plannin!, then now is the time. The schema is set out below, and you will not be fully ready to start writin! until you ha#e completed all parts of it. The blank spaces will tell you which bits of the plannin! are not yet complete. The completed schema should run to no more than one side of a sheet of paper. Some words of e planation follow the schema itself.

The short-story schema

A Type of story / The sin!le emotional effect to be made % %onflict " $nitial complication + Main character-s. & Main character-s. trait 3 %rucial situation 4 Dutcome ? Editorial #alue "&"

E The point of #iew

ords of e!planation
Gou may be little uncertain about what you are e pected to write down a!ainst some of these headin!s, so let:s !o throu!h them one by one. Type of story. This means that you must decide whether your story can sensibly be classified as character, complica2 tion, theme, or atmosphere -or some combination of these.. =ow you de#elop your material will depend on the classification of the materialC we ha#e considered the #ari2 ous different dramatic techni5ues, for the different types of story, in the earlier sections of this chapter. The sin!le effect. %onsult Appendi $ if you are in any doubt about your chosen effect. (rite down the intended emotion as precisely as possible. %onflict. A!ain, we ha#e dealt with how conflict -or drama. is created, in each type of story, earlier in this chapter. (hat we need here is a brief summary of the traits, the conflict, et cetera, to pro#e to yourself that the elements of the story are all there. The Iinitial complication: may well be your ori!inal story idea, and in a pure complication story it will be a more un2 usual e#ent than in a character story. The crucial situation will ine#itably occur later in the story. $t is what is often described as the clima , but it need not necessarily be intensely dramatic, une pected, or #iol2 ent. The meanin! of Ioutcome: is, $ hope, ob#ious. $t means what happens at the end of your story. /ut perhaps it is worth sayin! that most readers prefer a story which has a "&+

clear endin! and doesn:t lea#e you up in the air. Editorial #alue. (ho will read this story@ (ill anyone pay money for it@ $f not, does it matter@ Perhaps editorial appro#al is irrele#ant to you. The point of #iew was discussed in chapter 4.

The scene.by.scene outline

Dnce you ha#e filled in an E!ri form for each ma>or charac2 ter, and completed the schema, you are almost ready to be2 !in writin!. And about time too, you are no doubt thinkin!. /ut there is one further step to take, howe#er keen you are to !et started, and that is to draw up a scene2by2scene out2 line of the story. 9m, >ust a minute, you may be sayin! to yourself. This is a short story $:m writin!, not a play. So what:s with this business of a list of scenes@ (ell, it is perfectly true that you are not writin! a play, but you would ne#ertheless be well ad#ised, in my >ud!e2 ment, to write your story in the form of a series of scenes. Twenty2first2century readers e pect it. That was not true, of course, of readers in the nineteenth century. A hundred or more years a!o, writers could !et away with a different form of narrati#e. They could be wildly discursi#e, if they wished. They could tell their read2 ers all about the weather, the scenery, the characters: reli2 !ious beliefs, their clothes, their education ) and a lot more besides. $f they felt like it, writers could comment on the state of national politics. (riters could !et away with all that, in those days, because the nineteenth2century readers, bless their little cotton socks, were not bombarded daily, as we all are, by stories told in scenes. $n the late nineteenth century, theatres became com2 "&&

mon in all the ma>or cities, thou!h not in the countryside. $n the early part of the twentieth century, cinemas be!an to appear. Then radioF then tele#isionF and now most of us ha#e access to se#eral hundred different di!ital channels to entertain us. The a#era!e person watches tele#ision for between three and four hours a day. ;et:s say that half of that #isual e 2 perience is drama. (hat this means, in practice, is that a person a!ed thirty will ha#e watched tele#ision or film drama for about "' hours a week for +4 years. (hich is a total of "&,''' hours o% stories told in scenes. Bow do you be!in to understand why $ say that you should write in scenes@ $t:s because your readership is used to stories told in that way. Modern readers e pect it, and they will resist any other approach. DE, so we will write in scenes. /ut what is a scene@ Scene is a term deri#ed from the theatre, and it ori!in2 ally meant a chan!e of settin!. Scene " of a play mi!ht be set in a drawin! room, and when the curtain went up there would be a representation of a drawin! room up there on the sta!e. There would be chairs, tables, windows, and so forth. Scene + mi!ht be set in a !arden. To mo#e from scene " to scene +, the curtain would ha#e to come down, and the sta!ehands would set to work remo#in! the chairs and tables and substitutin! !reenery of #arious types to represent the !arden. The curtain would also come down to indicate a passa!e of time, e#en if two successi#e scenes took place in the same settin!. $ think you !et the idea. $n film, of course, we can cut instantly from indoors to outdoors, from a scene set on an aeroplane to a scene set in the desert below. And in film a scene mi!ht reasonably be described as an interaction between two or more people, "&3

e#en if the people concerned mo#e rapidly from settin! to settin!. For the purposes of your short story, a scene can be thou!ht of as endin! when one of the followin! happensC Gou be!in to write about a different !roup of people -and particularly if you chan!e the #iewpoint.. There is a si!nificant lapse of time. Dr the characters mo#e to a new location. $t will help you, belie#e me, if you draw up a one2pa!e summary of the #arious scenes in your story. And if you ha#en:t yet thou!ht of the story as a succession of scenes, then kindly do so now. Resist the temptation to skip this process of drawin! up a scene summary. $t will only take a few minutes. And, as we shall see in the ne t chapter, the process of writin! a first draft of your story will create 5uite enou!h problems of its own, e#en if you are absolutely certain of what story it is that you wish to tell, and how it is structured.

"&4

CHA0TE+ ( How to write your story

KKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK
AT ;ASTH GD9:RE ready to !o.

Gou ha#e completed your schema, filled in your E!ri character analyses, and ha#e your scene outline in front of you. Gou also, perhaps, ha#e some scraps of scenes written on odd bits of paper. $n any e#ent, you ha#e more than enou!h material to make a start on writin! your story. So be!in.

The basic procedure

Gou write the story simply by workin! throu!h the outline, scene by scene. And as you !o, remember the followin! points. Maintain consistency in the use of your chosen #iew2 point. ?on:t name the emotions which your characters are e 2 periencin!F describe instead the physical effects which the e#ents ha#e on the characters concerned. To be more precise, remember the procedure for creat2 in! emotion which was outlined in the discussion of emo2 tion in theory -chapter &.. Make sure that you describe the stimulus which kicks off the emotion. -$n our ori!inal e 2 "&8

ample, you may remember, a man comes throu!h the door of a bank with a !un in his hand.. Be t, describe the clashes !oin! on in the head of your selected character -ori!inally a bank clerk.C should she press the alarm button, and thus risk !ettin! shot, or should she be a coward and do nothin!@ Make sure that your character has sufficient time to re2 #iew the options open to her ) i.e. make sure that there is a reflecti#e delay. Then describe the physical responses in the character which result from the thou!ht processes. And, finally, de2 scribe the action which followsC tell us what she does. (hen each scene is complete, in the full2len!th #ersion of your story, mark it off from the ne t scene with a one2 line !ap. $ usually put an asterisk in the centre of the !ap, so that if the break occurs at the bottom of a pa!e it will still be apparent that there is a chan!e of scene. Dnce you ha#e completed a first draft, you will need to re#ise it, probably se#eral times. /ut with modern word processors this is not the tedious business that it once was. As you re#ise, make sure that all the information listed on your scene outline, your schema, and your scraps of pa2 per, is either included in the draft or is deliberately dis2 carded. %heck your E!ri sheets and make sure that you ha#e passed on to the reader all those facts about your character which you decided were worth passin! on. And incidentally, please note that as much information as possible should be con#eyed to the reader indirectly rather than indirectly. For instance, you could 5uite reas2 onably say of a characterC =e had a mop of unruly red hair. /ut it would be far better to include this description of the character:s anatomy as part of the actionC IBoH: said <ohn loudly, shakin! his mop of unruly red hair. -Ges $ "&6

know that looks silly, but you !et the !eneral idea.. The start and finish of a story are the most #ital parts of all, the be!innin! bein! e#en more important than the end. (ork hard on these at the re#ision sta!e. Then set the story aside for a while ) perhaps a week or a month. After which, do a final check. Gou will be sur2 prised at how much you spot that needs chan!in!. A word about proofreadin! your manuscript. $t is all too easy to read what should be there, rather than what actu2 ally is there. $ was recently !i#en a leaflet ad#ertisin! a local theatre. $t was a !lossy, four2colour leaflet, and $ ima!ine that se#eral thousand copies had been printed at a cost of se#eral hundred pounds. The main features offered by the theatre were listed in lar!e letters on the front of the leafletC MusicH %omedyH ?ramaH E cept that the leaflet didn:t say I%omedy:. (hat it said was I%omdedy:. About fourteen people had probably looked at the proof of that leaflet, before appro#in! it for printin!, and they had all read what they thou!ht was there rather than what actually was there. And you, if you set your story aside for a week or a month, will find all sorts of similar mistakes in your own work. This is the time to eliminate them. (ith this final polish, your story is finished. And then, for hea#en:s sake, lea#e it alone. ?on:t tinker with it any more. True, it may not be perfect. Bothin! e#er is. /ut >ust !et on with another story instead of fussin! o#er this one.

0roble

s in writin'

There is no polite or tactful way to phrase the content of this section on problems, so $:m afraid $:m >ust !oin! to ha#e to warn you at the outset that some readers may find "&7

it offensi#e, and hope for the best. $n writin! the first draft of your story, you may en2 counter a number of problems. And if you are under 8' years of a!e, and you were educated in En!land, the chief of these problems is likely to be that you don:t know how to write decent En!lish. /y Idecent: En!lish $ mean prose which is clear in its meanin!, !rammatically correct, and correctly spelt. $f you can contri#e to make your prose not only cor2 rectly spelt and punctuated, but also ele!ant and stylish, so much the betterF but most editors and readers will !ladly settle for prose which >ust meets a few basic criteria. (hy are you unlikely to know how to write decent En!2 lish@ /ecause no one e#er tau!ht you, that:s why. ;et us be!in at the be!innin!. $ will try to >ustify my claim that many would2be writers lack the skill to write well.

"#idence of literacy problems

$ could 5uote many e amples to illustrate the problem, but $ will confine myself to three 5uotations from The Ti#es. Dn "6 Bo#ember +''+, Minette Marrin wrote an article about /ritish uni#ersities. ID#er the past "4 years,: she said, I$:#e listened to despairin! accounts ) from friends who teach e#en at !ood uni#ersities ) of how bad thin!s ha#e become. Many students arri#e unable to write essays, or e#en to construct a para!raph.: The followin! day, in the same newspaper, the forthri!ht Ann (iddecombe remarked that she li#ed in a world Iin which lin!uistic anarchy pre#ails, where children are no lon!er tau!ht the function of a #erb, much less its precise formation, and where bri!ht, enthusiastic !raduates pro2 "&,

duce a >umble of words, randomly punctuated, and call it a letter.: A few months later, on "7 March +''&, The Ti#es car2 ried an report on a study which showed that nine out of ten !raduates were turned down for a >ob with one particular firm because their %As were full of errors in spellin! and !rammar. The firm analysed ",''' applications from people who had been educated at uni#ersity le#el, and found that ,' per cent of the applicants had dis5ualified themsel#es be2 fore the end of the first pa!e of their %A. A spokesman for the firm commented that IThe fallin! standard of literacy is a most alarmin! de#elopment.: The problem is not, of course, confined to students, or e#en to those under thirty. $n the fi#e years or so before $ retired, $ had a >ob which in#ol#ed e tensi#e correspond2 ence with solicitors. And you mi!ht ima!ine, bein! a trust2 in! sort, that the members of that profession would in#ari2 ably be capable of writin! a sensible letter. Bot so. $t was common for me to recei#e letters from so2 licitors which were sloppy, careless, and semi2literate at best. $ had one correspondent who re!ularly misspelt the name of his own client. Sometimes $ couldn:t e#en under2 stand what the writer meant to say. More than once $ ha#e picked up a letter by its corner, held it out at arm:s len!th, and said to myself, (hat in the world is this man talkin! about@ -Dr words to that effect.. $f you, dear Reader, are of retirement a!e, and if you went to an old2fashioned !rammar school, or an independ2 ent school, and if you were in the so2called Iarts: stream, then there is a fi!htin! chance that you mi!ht be able to write a short story in prose which will not make an e peri2 enced editor wince because of its elementary errors. "3'

/ut if you are +' years old, and attended your local com2 prehensi#e, it is more than likely that you will ha#e been tau!ht En!lish by someone who was, frankly, incapable of writin! a respectable sentence himself. The result will show. /elie#e me, it will show. Bone of this is your fault, of course, and your position is not alto!ether hopeless. /ut neither is it promisin!. For the moment, at least, you are a person who wants to be a champion hi!h2>umper but is only four feet si inches tall and wei!hs twel#e stone. Gou are like a trumpeter with one lun!F a !olfer with one armF a pianist whose fin!ers !ot cau!ht in the man!le. 9nlike any of the poor souls named immediately abo#e, you may be able to do somethin! to o#ercome your defi2 ciencies. /ut it is !oin! to be damned hard work. Fortunate are they who were blessed with !ood En!lish teachers in their youth.

$oes this matter%

/ut hold hard, you cry ) after you ha#e roundly abused me, under your breath, for insultin! both you and all those hard2workin! teachers of En!lish. (hat does it matter, you en5uire, if there are one or two tri#ial errors in my punctu2 ation and spellin!@ (hat matters is surely the underlyin! story ) the 5uality of the tale $ ha#e to tell. (ell ) deep si!h ) yes. And then a!ain, no. $t is true that you can write the most polished and per2 fect prose that the world has e#er known and still produce a mi!hty dull story. $t is also true that a crackin! !ood story can sur#i#e a few typos. /ut ) and this is a si0eable but indeed ) put yourself in the chair of a hard2workin! editor of a small literary "3"

ma!a0ine. She !ets +'' stories a month. Fifty a week. Ten a day. At least. Bot only does she ha#e to read these stories, but she also has to edit and produce the ma!a0ineF prob2 ably in her spare time. Suppose our lo#ely editor be!ins to read the mornin!:s post and she comes across somethin! like thisC Their were fi#e men on the batlments, and for of them were enmy sol>ers, the fith was 1enrul %arstairs. Bow ) how does our editor react@ The story is potentially interestin! ) it >umps strai!ht into some action, which is seldom a bad idea. /ut we ha#e two sentences separated by a comma, and 6 of the ", words are incorrectly spelt. (hat will our lon!2sufferin! editor do@ The e#idence from those who ha#e done the >ob su!!ests that she will read half a pa!e our so, >ust to make sure that the apparent illiteracy is not a sophisticated pose, and then she will drop the story into the circular file which stands !apin! at her feet. E#en if the story is essentially a !ood one, our editor simply doesn:t ha#e time to do a re2write >ob. That is not her function. E actly the same attitude is !oin! to be taken by most of those who >ud!e short2story competitions. For the most part these will be #olunteersF they are not e#en bein! paid to read what people send in. Many of these >ud!es will be indi#iduals with enormous tolerance and !oodwill. /ut in the end they are !oin! to say to themsel#es, %an $ really award a pri0e to this story ) which will after all be pub2 lished in the club antholo!y ) when it is written in such an appallin!ly careless manner@ Re!retfully, they too will set aside your wonderfully mo#in! epic. All of which may be !rossly unfair and unreasonable. "3+

But that)s the way it is. And if you want to operate in the real world, you are !oin! to ha#e to face up to this fact.

Testin' your skills

/y now it is >ust concei#able that you may be wonderin! whether you yourself ha#e any shortcomin!s in the spellin! and !rammar departments. And how is your #ocabulary@ Fully familiar, are we, with some of the more notorious pit2 falls for the unwary@ $t is not for me to label your knowled!e of En!lish as !ood, bad, or indifferent. /ut if this book is to be of any practical #alue $ ha#e to make it plain to you that you are unlikely to make pro!ress as a writer without ha#in! at least a rudimentary awareness of some of the more ob#ious potential errors. Gou need, abo#e all, a feelin! for the nu2 ances of the En!lish lan!ua!e. $t is not for nothin! that En!lish possesses so many words of almost, but not e 2 actly, the same meanin!C it is to enable writers to commu2 nicate facts and feelin!s more precisely. =ere are a few test 5uestions to enable you to disco#er whether you are "'' per cent on the ball in this department ) or whether you mi!ht, perhaps, still ha#e a few thin!s to learn.

&ocabulary
?o you know the difference between the followin! pairs of words@ %an you e plain the difference, in each case, in a couple of brief sentences@ $f you can:t, check the meanin!s in a dictionary. aural and oral "3&

appraise and apprise can#as and can#ass complement and compliment discreet and discrete loath and loathe interment and internment prescribe and proscribe principal and principle stationary and stationery (hy am $ ban!in! on about these similar but different words@ /ecause the spell checker on your word processor won:t help you if you write complimentary when you mean complementary. For that matter, your spell checker won:t help you if you write see when you mean sea, or no when you mean know.

Spelling
Spellin! is difficult to test in a printed book, but set out be2 low are twenty commonly misspelt words. =alf of them are correctly spelt, and half are not. %an you identify the wron! :uns@ -Answers at the end of the chapter.. accommodate a!ressi#e appallin! a5uire benefitted besie!e concensus desparate detatched "33

!au!e harassed millennium minuscule momento neccessary niece seperate supercede surprise threshold wilful

'rammar and punctuation

Finally, if you:re already not fed up with this !ame, here are a few sentences which contain some elementary errors of !rammar or punctuation, or both. %an you see what is wron!@ -Answers a!ain at the end of the chapter.. " After inspectin! a !uard of honour, President Rea!an:s motorcade mo#ed into the centre of Moscow. + $ts a lon! way from ;ondon to (iltshire, the train toots it:s whistle with relief when it finally arri#es. & She was the oldest of the two sisters. 3 /etween you and $, he is 5uite wron!, and $ would of told him so if he hadn:t been so bi!.

4 Throu!h hard work the coach affected a considerable "34

impro#ement in the teams performance.

Some old fa#ourites

The En!lish lan!ua!e does not stand still -thou!h many of the older !eneration wish it would.. $t chan!es and de#el2 opsC new words are added, old ones drop out of use, and e#en spellin!s can #ary o#er the years, particularly where hyphens are concerned. $n my youth, dinin!2room was a term which had a hyphen, as hereF now it is more Icorrect: to print it as two separate words. ?espite all this flu , there are a number of traditionally contro#ersial sub>ects on which you need to take a position. (here do you stand, for instance, on the 5uestion of split infiniti#es@ =ow do you decide whether to use that or which when a relati#e pronoun is called for@ (hen you need to use the past tense of learn, are you !oin! to write learned or learnt@ And spelled or spelt@ $n the case of #erbs endin! in a syllable which sounds like eyes, do you spell the suffi !ize or !ise@ $n other words, is or&anize correct, or is or&anise better@ $n order to form a #iew on these matters, you will need to establish a !ood workin! relationship with a number of standard reference booksC these are listed in the section on solutions, below. /ut if you:re remotely interested in my own #iews, they are as followsC Split infiniti#es. As far as $:m concerned, you can split infiniti#es with impunity if it makes your meanin! clearer. $n other words, if you want to boldly !o where no one has e#er !one before, that:s DE by me. /ut bewareF some read2 ers may think you:re doin! it out of i!norance. The use of that or which is a tou!her problem. Suppose "38

we writeC The &overn#ent approved a law that will &ive %ree sweets to all children under ten. $s the word that cor2 rect in that sentence, or would which be better@ My #iew is that the choice is not so much between that and which as between that and co##a!which. $n other words, if you don:t need a comma before the word, then that is DE. $f you do need a comma, which is the ri!ht choice. %onsider the followin! e ampleC The consu#ption o% chocolate; which so#e people consider unhealthy %or children; rose a&ain last year. $ prefer learnt and spelt because that:s the way $ think the words should sound. The !ize and !ise 5uestion is essentially an etymolo!ical one. =istorians of the En!lish lan!ua!e ar!ue that all words endin! in this sound deri#e ultimately from a 1reek root, in which the words are spelt with a z. This leads the D ford dictionaries, for e ample, to insist on or&anize, theorize, and so forth. 9nfortunately, this is the En!lish lan!ua!e we:re talkin! about, so there are 5uite a few #erbs ) ad#ert2 ise, despise, e ercise, and others ) which ha#e ne#er -well, not recently. been spelt by anyone with anythin! other than an !ise endin!. My personal choice is to end all eyes words in !ise and ha#e done with it. This decision has nothin! to do with ety2 molo!y. My choice is aestheticC $ prefer the rounded shape of the s to the an!ular shape of the z. So there.

(obody is perfect
;et me make it plain at this point that there are definite limits to my own knowled!e of !rammar. $ will readily admit, if you put a !un to my head, that $ would ha#e to think hard before e plainin! the difference "36

between a transiti#e and an intransiti#e #erbF and there are also some thin!s called ditransiti#e #erbs, which ha#e both a direct ob>ect and an indirect ob>ectF they are really tricky. $ belie#e $ understand what is meant by the acti#e #oiceF and $ could ha#e a stab at e plainin! what a !erund is. /ut for all these e planations $ would much prefer to consult one of the standard reference books -of which more below. before claimin! e#en tentati#e authority on the sub>ect. As for spellin! ) well, some of the words listed in the spellin! section abo#e are those which had me fooled for years. And it:s ne#er too late to learn. (hen $ was in my forties, a professor of mathematics pointed out to me that there is a difference between verbal and oral, and a pro2 fessor of chemistry reminded me that data is a plural noun. So is #edia.

Solutions to proble Be your o)n prodnose

As you write your story, you should make a note, on a sep2 arate piece of paper, of all the points of !rammar, spellin!, and fact which need to be checked. For e ample, as $ was writin! this present chapter, $ >otted down the followin! 5ueries, amon! many othersC %hristian ) does it re5uire a capital@ proofreadin! ) one word or two@ hi!h >umper ) hyphen@ Two words@ And so on. Sometimes there is a lon! list of words and facts to check ) more in a non2fiction book like this than in a "37

short story. /ut the dreary truth is that $ ha#e to check them all if $ am to be reasonably sure of not makin! a fool of myself. And to be perfectly honest this task is sheer drud!ery. (hen it comes to checkin! such thin!s, those writers who are workin! for a ma>or newspaper ha#e the ad#anta!e o#er us ordinary mortals. The full2time >ournalists know that they ha#e some back2up a#ailable to them in the form of sub2editors. Dn ma>or newspapers there is e#en someone whose >ob it is to tidy up the careless errors of !rammar and punctuation, and nothin! else. Bowadays this person is known as the re#ise editor, or somethin! similar, but years a!o he was called the prodnose ) pre2 sumably because his >ob was to prod his nose into all the copy !oin! into the paper, and to check for mistakes in style and usa!e. An article in The Ti#es illustrated how useful such a re2 #ise editor can be. Dne of that paper:s most distin!uished correspondents admitted that in draftin! a recent column he had misspelt Mother Teresa -by includin! an h., Mar2 !aret Atwood -with an unnecessary second t in the sur2 name., <.M. %oet0ee -with an s., and 1utenber! -with two u:s.. All of these errors, if left in, would ha#e attracted criti2 cism from readers who care about accuracy. The article made the point that, e#en on The Ti#es, cor2 rect usa!e is definitely a problem. For one thin!, >ournalists work at speedF more importantly, Ithere are now two !ener2 ations of >ournalists who were not tau!ht any formal !ram2 mar at school.: $n other words e#en our leadin! newspaper is feelin! the effects of our pathetic education system. So, you ha#e to be your own prodnose. /ut how do you do that@ Answer, by buyin! yourself a decent set of reference "3,

books.

A basic library of reference books

I1rammar,: said Alice Thomas Ellis in ",7,, Iis like walkin!. Gou ha#e to think about it when you start but if you ha#e to !o on thinkin! about it you fall o#er. $t should come as second nature.: Ges indeed. Most of us, howe#er, need a little help from time to time, and $ recommend that you buy copies of the latest edition of each of the followin!C " oncise /2%ord ,ictionary. $ suspect that many readers ne#er notice, but at the back of this dictionary there are a number of useful appendices. The most rele#ant of these, for present purposes, is a -uide to -ood +n&lish. $f you didn:t do #ery well on the self2assessment test that $ pro#ided a few pa!es a!o, this basic !uide to !rammar and punctuation is essential readin!. + The /2%ord ,ictionary %or Writers and +ditors. (hy do you need this as well as the oncise@ /ecause it is what it says ) a dictionary specifically for writers. $t is sometimes much easier to find thin!s here than in the oncise, espe2 cially when you:re checkin! terms like proofreadin! -which, it appears, is so#eti#es hyphenated.. & The /2%ord -uide to Style. This used to be known as Hart)s 0ules, because the book was ori!inally prepared by a Mr =art as a !uide for the typesetters of D ford 9ni#ersity Press. This is the book to !o to when you want to know, for instance, whether to describe a character as a !irl of "4 or a !irl of fifteen. The answer is "4, strictly speakin!F but as the "4'

book says, on pa!e "88, Iclarity for the reader is always more important than blind adherence to rule.: And as $ ha#e already mentioned, $ for one i!nore the su!!ested endin! for #erbs such as or!anise. 3 "owler)s Modern +n&lish .sa&e. (ell, Fowler wrote the first edition, back in ",+8. This is the classic te t to turn to for ad#ice on correct !rammar and construction. The dis2 cussion of the word that alone occupies more than three pa!es. Another book which is well worth ownin! is Sir Ernest 1owers:s The o#plete Plain Words. First published o#er fifty years a!o, this is still as !ood a !uide to writin! prose as $ ha#e e#er come across. $t remains in print. The chapter on punctuation constitutes, in my opinion, the best !uide of all to that sub>ect. Earlier in this section $ wrote, in reference to the on! cise /2%ord ,ictionary, that Ithere are a number of useful appendices:F and it may ha#e occurred to you to wonder whether $ should ha#e written Ithere is a number:. $f so, read 1owers:s discussion of the sub>ect in his chapter on the handlin! of words. There are many more books on the use of En!lish that you could read, and possess, with ad#anta!e, but the ones listed abo#e will do for the time bein!.

0ersonal style
Dnce upon a time, any te t which dealt with writin! would place considerable emphasis upon a man:s style ) and in those days it was mostly men they were talkin! about. $:m not 5uite sure why there was so much emphasis on "4"

the importance of style, but in any case no one seems to worry about style any lon!er. Perhaps that is because, as stated abo#e, mere e#eryday proficiency in the use of the En!lish lan!ua!e is now so rare that it seems absurd to e 2 pect such refinements as an ele!ant personal style as well. (e, howe#er, do need to touch upon the sub>ect of style, if only briefly. $s it worth tryin! to culti#ate your own style of writin!@ And if so, how@ ;ookin! back o#er the history of literature, we can see that the nature of prose writin! has chan!ed dramatically o#er the centuries. Sir Thomas /rowne is widely re!arded as one of the !reat stylists of the se#enteenth century -his essay I9rn /urial: in particular., but his line of thou!ht is sometimes remarkably difficult to follow at this distance of time. The same can be said of many !reat writers. Dpenin! Wuther! in& Hei&hts at random, for instance, $ find Emily /ronte writin! I$ sei0ed the handle to essay another trial.: Today we would ne#er say any such thin!. I$ !rabbed the handle to ha#e another !o:, perhaps. %omin! to the twentieth century, we can see that there were certain Istylists:, for want of a better word, who were hi!hly influential. =emin!way for one. <ames <oyce for an2 other. Air!inia (oolf, in certain circles. Some of these writers tended to attract attention by #irtue of their style alone, almost re!ardless of the content of their stories or no#els, and for that reason they were often much imitated. Thou!h $ ha#e heard it said that the reason why =emin!2 way was so influential was because he was so easy to copy. /ut is what the famous and successful writers of the past did of any rele#ance to you and me as we stri#e to finish our modest short story@ $ su!!est not. Any conscious stri#in! after a particular "4+

style would be likely, in my #iew, to be less than helpful. Most of us ha#e enou!h trouble >ust tellin! the story in plain En!lish. IPeople think that $ can teach them style,: Matthew Arnold once declared. I(hat stuff it all isH =a#e somethin! to say, and say it as clearly as you can. That is the only secret of style.: $ a!ree. (e should be continually aware, of course, that the reader needs help. (e should not make thin!s o#er2com2 plicated. Many years a!o -lon! before you were born., there was a famous American >ournalist called Ed Murrow. =e made his name as a reporter in En!land, durin! the /lit0. Towards the end of his life, Murrow was told by an aca2 demic that, after e tensi#e study of Murrow:s published work, the academic had disco#ered the secret of his suc2 cess. $t was short sentences. Murrow replied that he didn:t think short sentences were much of a secret. Bor are they. $t is also worth mentionin! that, when writin! in the first person, you must, of course, write in the Istyle: or the I#oice: in which that person would naturally speak. A cock2 ney labourer is not likely to speak in the same accent, or use the same sentences, as an D ford don. /eyond that, $ su!!est that you should >ust write in your own natural #oice, and lea#e it that.

Answers to the tests Spelling

"4&

Earlier in the chapter $ set you a modest spellin! test. The correct #ersions of ten of the words are set out belowF the other ten are correct as printed. ac5uire, not a5uire a!!ressi#e, not a!ressi#e benefited, not benefitted consensus, not concensus desperate, not desparate detached, not detatched memento, not momento necessary, not neccessary separate, not seperate supersede, not supercede

'rammar and punctuation

" The first sentence pro#ides an e ample of what is tech2 nically an unattached, or dan!lin!, participle. The motor2 cade did not inspect the !uard of honourF President Rea!an did. + =ere we ha#e two sentences separated by a comma. $deally there should be a semi2colon after Wiltshire, but a full stop would do. Also, the first its should be it)s and the second it)s should be its. & She was the older of two sisters. $f there had been three sisters, she mi!ht ha#e been the oldest. $n talkin! about persons who are closely related, elder and eldest are often used rather than older and oldest. 3 /etween you and #e, not $. This is a common error, but "43

often debatedF see the discussion in Fowler. Also, $ would have told him soF not would o%. 4 The !eneral sense of the sentence implies that the coach e%%ected a considerable impro#ement. =e mi!ht ha#e a%! %ected a lack of dismay when the team lost, i.e. he mi!ht ha#e pretended not to care. Tea#s re5uires an apostrophe before the s, unless he coached se#eral teams successfully, in which case the apostrophe would !o after the s.

Conclusion
(e ha#e now completed the main body of the book, and it is time to pro#ide a handy summary of the su!!ested pro2 cedure for writin! a short story.

"44

CHA0TE+ ) Su ary of the procedure

KKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK
SET D9T /E;D( is a summary of the procedure for writin!

a short story which has been outlined in the pre#ious chapters of this book. " Think of an idea for story. Gou need some raw material to be!in with. -%hapter 3. + $dentify the emotional effect of that material, as it stands. -%onsult Appendi $. & ?ecide whether the material deri#es its effect predomin2 antly from elements of character, complication, theme, or atmosphere. -%hapter 3. 3 ?etermine the best point of #iew from which to tell the story. -%hapter 4. 4 ?e#elop and intensify the material, if necessary, to hei!hten the emotional effect. -%hapter 8. 8 %omplete the paperwork by fillin! in the su!!ested schema, doin! an E!ri analysis form for each of the ma>or "48

characters, and by drawin! up a one2pa!e outline of the scenes. -%hapter 8. 6 (rite a first draft. 7 %heck that all the material in your rou!h notes, in the schema, the E!ri forms, and scene outline, is either in2 cluded in the final story or is discarded as unnecessary. , Set the story aside for a week or two, and then do a final polish. "' 1i#e some thou!ht to marketin! the story. -%hapter ,. "" Start a new story. Few further comments are necessary. /ut it mi!ht be salutary, $ think, to refer back to the para!raph from the work of Ed!ar Allan Poe which $ 5uoted way back in chapter &. $ am also !oin! to repeat some of the comments that $ made there. $n "73+, Poe wrote the followin!C IA skilful literary artist has constructed a tale. $f he is wise, he has not fashioned his thou!hts to accom2 modate his incidentsF but ha#in! concei#ed, with de2 liberate care, a certain uni5ue or sin!le effect to be wrou!ht out, he then in#ents such incidents ) he then combines such e#ents as may best aid him in estab2 lishin! this preconcei#ed effect. $f his #ery initial sen2 tence tends not to the outbrin!in! of this effect, then he has failed in his first step. $n the whole composi2 tion there should be no word written of which the "46

tendency, direct or indirect, is not to the one pre2es2 tablished desi!n. As by such means, with such care and skill, a picture is at len!th painted which lea#es in the mind of him who contemplates it with a kindred art a sense of the fullest satisfaction.: $ hope that you are now in a better position to under2 stand what Poe was talkin! aboutF indeed, you can now see, $ hope, that in this one para!raph Poe has condensed al2 most e#ery important truth about the short2story writer:s task. ;et us take a closer look at some of the thin!s Poe says. Poe speaks of Ia sin!le effect to be wrou!ht out:. Time and a!ain $ ha#e reminded you that a short story can ha#e only one final and principal emotional effect. That is what you are aimin! to achie#e from the #ery first wordC you are tryin! to make the reader feel an emotion. The wise writer, says Poe, Ihas not fashioned his thou!hts to accommodate his incidents:. $n other words, do not plun!e ahead with writin! whate#er story pops into your head. $nstead, work out what the emotional effect of that story is likely to be, and consider whether it is one that you wish to proceed with. $f it is, fine. $f not, you must do as Poe says, and Iin#ent such incidents as may best aid... in establishin! this preconcei#ed effect.: /ut please note that the reader:s desire is not >ust a de2 sire for any emotion. $t is a desire to be made to feel what Poe calls Ia sense of the fullest satisfaction.: $n my own mind, $ e5uate this process of creatin! a sense of satisfac2 tion with that of entertainin! the readerF $ appreciate, howe#er, that Ientertain: has a rather superficial rin! to it, and the effect that is bein! sou!ht is often far from tri#ial or superficial. $n any e#ent, the writer:s task -as $ see it. is "47

to lea#e the reader with a stron!ly positive emotion, e#en if the sub>ect matter is dark and tra!ic. $t is possible, of course, to set out to lea#e the reader with stron!ly ne!ati#e emotions. $n an e treme case, you mi!ht wish to lea#e the reader with the impression that this world is such a horrible place that it:s hardly worth con2 tinuin! the stru!!le to li#e. $ wouldn:t wish to do that my2 selfF $ would re!ard it as immoral. More to the point, per2 haps, it is definitely not the way to write a story which one reader will recommend to another, or which is likely to im2 press a professional reader. -Althou!h, come to think of it, some professional readers, particularly academics, are 5uite foolish enou!h.. Finally, Poe speaks of the story bein! read by someone who contemplates it Iwith a kindred art:. (hat this means is that not e#ery story is !oin! to work for e#ery reader. $t is impossible to write a story which will create the desired emotion in e#ery sin!le indi#idual, no matter what their tastes or back!round. Db#iously, a story which is written in En!lish can only be appreciated by someone who can read and understand En!lish. ;ess ob#iously, stories also re2 5uire a particular Iframe of reference:. A pensioner is !oin! to ha#e a better feel for a story set in the second world war than would a childF a youn! woman is more likely to en>oy a /rid!et <ones2type story than is a man who re!ularly sup2 ports Arsenal. And so on. $n short, there is nothin! particularly new or re#olution2 ary about the techni5ue for writin! short stories that $ ha#e described to you in this book. (hat $ ha#e pro#ided is ba2 sically a reminder, for modern readers, of the principles that !o#ern success in a classic art form.

"4,

CHA0TE+ * How to 'et your stories published

KKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK
$B %=APTER + $ in#ited you consider why you were bother2

in! to write short stories in the first place. $ also made it plain to you that spendin! your time in this way is unlikely to !enerate enou!h income to co#er the costs of paper and posta!e. =owe#er, it may be that you still ha#e hopes. Gou may hope to earn so#e income, howe#er modestF you may wish to achie#e reco!nition as a literary fi!ure throu!h publica2 tion in the more hi!hbrow -non2payin!. ma!a0inesF you may hope to attract the attention of an a!ent, or a publish2 er, with a #iew to writin! a no#elF or you may simply want to !et your name into print so that you can show the result to your !randchildren. The rest of this chapter outlines the possible ways in which you mi!ht achie#e these aims. $n brief, you can submit your story to print ma!a0inesF you can offer it to websites which publish short storiesF you can enter competitionsF and you can publish your work yourself. More about each of these follows.

Sub

ittin' to print

a'a7ines

There is no point whate#er in my listin! here the names and addresses of potential markets in the world of print. $n "8'

practice, the famous ma!a0ines, with lar!e circulations, are simply not !oin! to publish your work, and the smaller ma!a0ines come and !o at an alarmin! rateF it is a rare one which stays around for years on end. Start with a reference book that contains a list of ma!a0ines that publish fiction. To find one rele#ant to your own country, !o to Ama0on and type the two words writers and #arket in the keywords search bo . $t would also be sensible to do an internet search for possible print markets, particularly in some of the smaller !enres such as fantasy and science fiction. These days, most ma!a0ines ha#e some sort of web site of their own, and there will usually be a set of !uidelines for potential contributors. For !oodness: sake follow these !uidelines ) otherwise you are not merely wastin! your own time but you are also insultin! the intelli!ence of the person who opens your en#elope. And it !oes without say2 in!, $ hope, that there is no point in submittin! a romantic story set in Tahiti to a ma!a0ine which publishes only hor2 ror fiction. /ut people do. E#ery day.

0rinted collections of stories

$f you ha#e enou!h stories to make up a book2len!th collec2 tion, you may think it worth while to try to interest a book publisher. The truth is, howe#er, that publishers are most unlikely to be interested. $n an article on the pli!ht of the short story, published in +''&, Erica (a!ner concluded that Ifew publishers would dare release a book of stories by an unknown writer without first softenin! up the market with a well2recei#ed no#el.: $n the same article, it was claimed that, in the twel#e2 month period from <une +''+ to <une +''&, /ritish pub2 "8"

lishers put out only +" new short2story collections. Df those, "& were by authors from abroad.

Internet short.story sites

Dnline fiction ma!a0ines come and !o at an e#en faster rate than printed ma!a0ines. (hat happens is that some ea!er enthusiast ) for, say, fantasy fiction ) thinks what a splendid whee0e it would be to open up a web site which will blow the socks off his fel2 low fantasy fans. So he sets to work, only to disco#er a few months later that it is enormously hard work and doesn:t brin! in a penny. The web site 5uietly closes. %orrespondence with such people may pro#e to be re2 wardin! on a personal le#el. Dn the other hand, your story may disappear into a cosmic black hole. And few of these sites pay e#en nominal fees.

Co

petitions

$f you do a web search for Ishort story competitions: you will soon disco#er that there are lots of them. Some of them offer substantial pri0es. The //% Short Story Award brin!s a che5ue for M"4,'''. First place in the /ridport Pri0e com2 petition wins you M4,'''. Bot bad, $ think you will a!ree. Most competitions, howe#er, offer only M"'' or M+''. E#en if you win. The sna! is that in order to enter the competition you al2 most always ha#e to pay a fee, usually somethin! of the or2 der of M& 2 M4. $f a thousand people enter, the or!anisers can bank a few thousand pounds, pay the >ud!e a few hun2 dred perhaps, and emer!e with a modest profit. From time to time the work of the winners of these com2 "8+

petitions is posted on the internet or is offered in print form. Such e amples as $ ha#e read su!!est that the >ud!es tend to pick the kind of stories that they themsel#es write. (hich is hardly surprisin!. So it pays to find out somethin! about the >ud!e, if heOshe is named. $f the >ud!e writes sensiti#e literary stuff, your hard2ed!ed scifi horror story is unlikely to win. /y all means ha#e a !o at these competitions if you wish. After all, if you aren:t in, you can:t win, and M"'' is better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick. /ut don:t hold your breath.

Self.publishin'
=ere, >ust for fun, are some e tracts from an article that $ found on the internet. $t was written by <osh Sait0, who -at least when he wrote the article. was runnin! a ma!a0ine called Ne&ative apability. I$ know from e perience,: says <osh, Ithat if you want to !et published in a ma>or ma!a0ine, you ha#e to ha#e an a!ent, and most a!ents won:t take you unless you:#e done somethin!.... $f you are a talented writer and are thumbin! throu!h the writin! market book lookin! for a place to send your submission, do yourself a fa#our and sa#e yourself the posta!e. Publish it yourself. (rite it, edit it, !et pictures yourself, print it and sell it. Gou don:t need anyone to #alid2 ate you and you definitely aren:t !oin! to make any money or !et any fame by ha#in! a short story published by the Pine one =ournal in (isconsin because nobody reads that shit anyway.: <osh continuesC I$:m sorry if this short spiel has left you feelin! disappointed, but $ really do ha#e a !reat deal of empathy for you because $ too was a miserable unpub2 "8&

lished writer for a lon!, lon! time. $ also sent out hundreds of short stories, essays, re#iews and other wonderfully in2 si!htful pieces and $ was re>ected ,,Q of the time, usually by bein! i!nored. The "Q of people who responded were either liars or total frauds.... I$ ha#e written for do0ens of ma!a0ines since then, but only because they had already read my own ma!a0ine. So my ad#ice to you is to publish your own work, send it out, trade it, sell it where#er they sell stuff like that, and e#entu2 ally you will be able to find your audience before you !o cra0y.: Thanks <osh. $ don:t ha#e much to add, e cept that $ a!ree with e#ery word of it. Bot, please note, that $ am sayin! that the self2publish2 in! route is easy. $t isn:t. $t is time2consumin! and arduous and possibly e pensi#e. /ut it can be done. $f you want to !o down the self2publishin! route, your choices are broadly as followsC " Publish work on one of the web sites which allow you to do so without char!e. -Gou are currently readin! a free copy of this book which was ori!inally posted on Scribd.com.. $f you insist, you can set up your own web site, on which no one else:s work appears, but $ don:t recommend it. And by the way, if you aren:t already fa2 miliar with the internet and all its wonders, then you certainly should be. + Publish a sin!le story in print form, as a small book2 let. The cost of such an enterprise, in cash terms, would be modest if you use an online printer such as ;ulu.2 com or /lurb.com. "83

& 1ather to!ether enou!h stories to make up a small book and publish that. Recent chan!es in printin! tech2 nolo!y are such that the cost of publishin! a paperback is now tiny compared with what it was e#en fi#e years a!o. A!ain, check out some online firms such as ;ulu or /lurb. Self2publishin! is too lar!e a sub>ect to !o into in any de2 tail here. /ut there are plenty of books to !uide you, some of them e cellent. $f you:re interested, do your research. Df course there are also firms which will perform this ser#ice for you. At a fee. Sometimes a lar!e fee. The back pa!es of any writer:s ma!a0ine will pro#ide se#eral ad#ert2 isements.

"84

EN8OI
KKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK The purpose of this book has been to teach you a techni5ue for writin! short stories. /ut you should always remember that no techni5ue is worth much to its possessor until it has been mastered and for!otten. So by all means read, mark, learn, and inwardly di!est all the principles which ha#e been set out in the precedin! chapters. /ut then you must practise until the process becomes well ni!h instinct2 i#eF after that, you can chan!e and impro#e upon e#erythin! that $ ha#e tau!ht you. Personally, $ write short stories because $ en>oy doin! so. $t:s a lot less work than writin! a no#el, and it:s a more #ar2 ied e perience. $f you are a be!inner, $ hope that this book has at least encoura!ed you to make a start. And if you are an estab2 lished writer, $ hope that it may ha#e !i#en you some fur2 ther insi!hts into the craft. 1ood luck.

"88

A00EN,I9 I The ran'e of e otions

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$F $T $S true, as $ belie#e, that fiction writers need to under2

stand how emotions are created in the human body, and that writers also need to de#elop the skills which will en2 able them to !enerate emotions in readers, then it follows that they need to be aware of the possible ran&e of emo2 tions. =ow many emotions are there@ And are they all e5ually useful to the writer@ Those were the 5uestions that $ be!an to ask myself about fifty years a!oF and !radually, o#er the succeedin! period, $ ha#e put to!ether some answers. (hat $ needed, $ e#entually decided, was a sort of emo2 tional e5ui#alent of /loom:s Ta2ono#y o% +ducational /b! >ectives. -A ta onomy is simply a classified list or catalo!ue. =owe#er, no self2respectin! social scientist will e#er use a short and familiar word when a lon!er one can be used in2 stead.. About twenty years a!o, $ picked the brains of my friendly nei!hbourhood psycholo!ists, searched the data2 bases in a !ood library, and found that there was only a modest amount of scientific literature to help me. The best book that $ could then find on emotion was The "86

Lan&ua&e o% +#otion by <oel R. ?a#it0, and, with the aid of that and one or two other sources, $ put to!ether a list of all possible emotions. That list is reproduced below. $ say Iall possible emotions: with some trepidation, be2 cause naturally anyone who looks at my list is !oin! to say, /ut what about so2and2so@ (ell, what about so2and2so@ Gou should understand that the list which follows was ori!inally drawn up for my benefit alone. As far as $ am concerned the list is complete, but if you wish to add to it, or delete from it, for your own purposes, then feel free to do so. $ appreciate that some people will ar!ue that there are omissions from the list, and will say that some Iemotions: are included which should not be there. For e ampleC cow2 ardice and bra#ery are not listed. Personally $ don:t think that cowardice is an emotionF it:s a character trait. %owardice is what you display, or re2 #eal, when you are placed in a situation which re5uires your action but creates fear, and then you run away, rather than do what you should. The same can be said about coura!e, or bra#ery. $f, in the face of dan!er, you make a conscious and deliberate de2 cision that you will stand firm and fi!ht the enemy, then you display bra#ery. Dn the other hand, one Iemotion: which is listed is !aietyF and some mi!ht ar!ue that it should not be. $t could be ar!ued that !aiety is a mood, or a manner of beha#iour, rather than an emotion. There are many more 5uestions and 5uibbles which we could discuss, and you are welcome to debate these matters in your own mind or with your friends if you wish. Gou will also note that $ ha#e placed the named emo2 tions in a particular order. $ decided, correctly or otherwise, "87

that emotions can con#eniently be di#ided into two kindsC positi#e and ne!ati#e, which broadly means pleasant and unpleasant. (ithin those two cate!ories, emotions can a!ain be ran!ed from the merely satisfactory to the ecstat2 ically deli!htful, and from the mildly unpleasant to the ab2 solutely horrible and intolerable. (hether $ am ri!ht to think that elation is more Ipleasurable: than en>oyment, for instance, is a nicety which we could debate all ni!ht. /ut it would not, $ su!!est, be particularly profitable. =ere then is my list of emotions, be!innin! with the pleasant onesC Positive e#otions -ran!ed from the most powerful and pleasant to the mildest in stren!th.C Ecstasy Rapture =appiness =ope E ultation ?eli!ht 1aiety Elation %ontentment Serenity En>oyment Amusement %onfidence Relief ;o#e ;ust Passion Affection "8,

E citement %heerfulness Friendliness 1ratitude ?etermination Admiration $nspiration Pride Ama0ement Astonishment %uriosity Awe Re#erence Solemnity Satisfaction Ne&ative e#otions -ran!ed from the least powerful and unpleasant to the most intolerable and unwelcomeC Apathy /oredom Reflection Pu00lement Surprise Resi!nation ?isappointment $ndi!nation %oncern ?e>ection $mpatience $rritation Frustration ?islike "6'

Embarrassment Resentment ?iscontentment Pity E asperation Scorn <ealousy %ontempt Sadness Ber#ousness ?ismay ?is!ust Shame 1uilt Repentance =umiliation Alarm ?istress Remorse Melancholy Sorrow 1rief An iety ;oathin! ?epression An!er -ra!e, fury. ?read =ate Fear Panic =orror Terror ?espair "6"

A00EN,I9 II The E'ri character.analysis for

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AS STATE? $B the te t, the form which is reproduced below

is adapted from one that was de#ised by ;a>os E!ri for his book The $rt o% ,ra#atic Writin& -",4'.. $ ha#e amended it here and there, for my own purposes, and you are, of course, free to make further chan!es yourself. $t is simply a tool, a little aide2memoire, to remind you to think about #arious aspects of a character:s physi5ue, back!round, and temperament. %=ARA%TER:S BAMEC P=GS$D;D1G Se C A!eC =ei!htC (ei!htC %olour of hairOeyesOskinC PostureC Appearance and clothesC ?efectsC =eredityC "6+

State of health pre#iousC presentC SD%$D;D1G RaceC BationalityC %lassC Manner of speechC DccupationC EducationC MarriedOsin!leC =ome life pre#iousC presentC Reli!ionC Place in communityC PoliticsC Amusements, hobbiesC Eey possessionsC PSG%=D;D1G Se lifeC Moral standardsC AmbitionC FrustrationsC Attitude to lifeC %omple esC AbilitiesC E tro#ertOintro#ertC $PC Main trait to be emphasisedC "6&

A00EN,I9 III King Alberts Words of Advice

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FRDM T$ME TD time in this book -in a shameless piece of

self2ad#ertisement. $ ha#e referred to #arious short stories of my own. These stories may all be found in the collection (in& $lbert)s Words o% $dvice, published by Ein!sfield Publications at M"'.,,, $S/B " ,'&,77 '8 &. Fortunately, you don:t ha#e to buy a copy of the book ) which in any case may be out of print by the time you read this. $nstead, you can download a free #ersion, in P?F format, from Scribd.com. $!norin! all the rules of modesty, $ would like to point out that my collection of stories does constitute a useful supplement to this present book, in that most of the stories in it were written accordin! to the principles which are e 2 plained in the precedin! chapters. Set out below is a brief summary of the three key facts about each story in the collectionC the story:s classification -character, complication, et cetera.F the #iewpoint usedF and the final effect. The stories in my collection may, in your opinion, be !ood, bad, or indifferentF but if you read them after readin! this book you will at least !ain some benefit from seein! how theory translates into practice. "63

(in& $lbert)s Words o% $dvice %omplication. Minor character, first person. Amusement that the sli!htly simple and credulous narrator has been persuaded to buy drinks. Bud&ie Bill %haracter. Ma>or character, third person. Amusement at a worried mother:s failed attempt to !et her son interested in !irls. Tears to the +yes %omplication. Dmniscient. Pleasurable sense of satisfaction that %harlie has settled down to married life. .nblottin& the opybook %omplication. Ma>or character, first person. /lack humourC amusement at the hypocrisy of the Aicar and the supposedly #irtuous school staff. Tea with Mr Swinburne %haracter. Ma>or character, first person. Amusement, tempered by concern for the fate of the troubled poet. 'erbena Lod&e %haracter. Ma>or character, first person. Surprise and -amused@. dismay at the realisation that Mrs Addams !ot away with murder. "64

Theodore)s Bride %haracter Ma>or character, first person Reflecti#e amusement at the prospect of Theodore marry2 in! a much youn!er woman. $ Man o% Sound =ud&e#ent %haracter. Ma>or character, first person. Amusement, tin!ed with dis!ust, at the realisation that the Iman of sound >ud!ement: had, in fact, no >ud!ement at all. ,ecent White "olk %omplication. Minor character, first person. ?ismay, or e#en shock, at the attitudes re#ealed. The Last (in& o% +n&land %omplication. Ma>or character, first person. ShockOhorror at the fate of En!land. +vent Prediction 363 %omplication. Ma>or character, first person. 9neasy concern about the unpredictable fate of the earth. Say What 8ou Mean %haracterOcomplication. Dmniscient. Amusement that the pedant:s ar!ument about the import2 ance of clear communication has been 5uestioned. "68

$ Motto to ,ie by Thematic. Dmniscient. $ronic amusement that the #illain:s schemin! has resulted in the opposite effect from that which he desires. Starin& Me in the "ace %haracterOcomplication. Ma>or character, first person. Sympathy, and some admiration, for the narrator. Truth in the ,ra#a %haracter. Ma>or character, first person. Sympathy for two rather confused youn! men. The -olden Boy %haracter. Ma>or character, first person. Reflecti#e sadness, tin!ed with horror. -unner Bal%our Treated "airly %omplication. Ma>or character, first person. Sense of sadness at the li#es wasted in the first world war.

"66

A00EN,I9 I8 The Truth about Writing

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ABDT=ER /DDE DF mine that $ ha#e referred to in the te t

is The Truth about Writin&. This is a book which contains much useful information for anyone who is in#ol#ed in what mi!ht loosely be called Icreati#e writin!:F for that mat2 ter, it will also be #aluable for those who write non2fiction. =ere is a brief rundown of the contents. And if you think the book sound as if it:s worth readin! in full, you can either buy a copy -$S/B " ,'&,77 '4 4. or you can down2 load a free copy from Scribd. The underlyin! thesis of the book is that, if you:re not careful, writin! can seriously dama!e your health ) not to mention your relationships, your bank account, and your career prospects. My o#erall aim is therefore to tell writers how to sur#i#e and prosper while stru!!lin! to make sense of the mad worlds of publishin!, theatre, tele#ision, and film. The early chapters help you to clarify your ideas about what you hope to achie#e as a writer ) money, fame, or lit2 erary reputationF they also pro#ide a realistic assessment of your chances of achie#in! those aims. Subse5uent chapters pro#ide a detailed e planation of how the modern publish2 in! industry works, and e plain the crucial role of emotion "67

for writers of both fiction and drama. The chapter on emotion is essential readin! for anyone who intends to write fiction or drama. Gou may not a!ree with what $ ha#e to say on the sub>ect, but you can hardly fail to benefit from readin! the chapter. The latter part of the book offers practical ad#ice on how to find the time and ener!y to pursue your writin! career, and help is pro#ided on how to market your work in the di2 !ital a!e. =ere, by way of a taster, are >ust of few of my more con2 tro#ersial conclusionsC As far as income is concerned, most writers would be better off workin! behind the bar in their local pub. The desire for fame should be sufficient, in and of it2 self, to !et you sectioned under the Mental =ealth Act. Serious literary criticism is written in a lan!ua!e called litbabble, which is a form of postmodern, de2 constructed !obbledy!ook. $ts practical #alue, in terms of helpin! you to write a better no#el, is nil. 9nsolicited submissions, from writers who are not represented by an a!ent, are accorded the same de2 !ree of respect as would be !i#en to somethin! left on the publisher:s doorstep by a do! with diarrhoea. The so2called ad#ance is actually a retrospecti#e. Most publishers can reco!nise a bestseller, but only "6,

when it was published two years earlier and they ha#e the sales fi!ures in front of them. Publishin! depends, for its continuance, upon a ceaseless flow of mu!s, suckers, and assorted halfwits who are prepared to work for a year or more without any serious prospect of remuneration. The de!ree of success e perienced by a writer will #ary accordin! to circumstance, and the definition of circumstance is e#erythin! that the writer cannot control, or e#en influence. The Truth about Writin& has, $ am pleased to say, been warmly welcomed by some of those who actually work at the coalface of writin! and publishin!. IThis is a thou!ht2pro#okin! book, written in a chatty, informal style, that will be of !reat interest to any serious writer.: /renda Townsend Ph?, Worlds $part IMichael Allen pulls no punches. =e tells it like it is. Gou should buy this bookH: Michael (ilson, Link The Truth about Writin& is published by Ein!sfield Public2 ations at M"+.,,. $S/B " ,'&,77 '4 4. As with my collec2 tion of short stories, you can download a free P?F #ersion from Scribd.com.

"7'

Bow that you:#e finished How to Write a short Story that Works, do remember that you can print out a paper copy -if you ha#en:t done so already., you can send the di!ital file to a friend, or you can >ust email your friend and offer the link to Scribd. $f you ha#e the time and ener!y, you can use the book as the basis for offerin! an e#enin! course at a local colle!e, or whate#er. $n short, feel free to use it and the information that it contains in any way which appeals. All you are asked to do is to mention the name of the au2 thor, and where to locate the ori!inal te t on Scribd. (hy am $ offerin! it free@ /ecause $:m not able to think up a way to make any serious money out of it, that:s why. Ges, $ could self2publish the book in printed form, and $ mi!ht one day, because there may be a few eccentric souls you would like a copy in a con#enient paperback format. $f $ e#er do that, $:ll add a note here. Michael Allen Au!ust +'',

"7"