Boot Camp "Set Books"

For 2010


Ballistics by Alex Keegan

The Pen/O.Henry Prize Stories 2009
Best American Short Stories (BASS) 2009
BASS of the Century


Raymond Carver

What We Talk About When We Talk About Love
AND
Beginners

or buy Carver: Collected Stories (Library of America)


SHORT-CIRCUIT: A Guide to the Art of the Short Story

(Ed Vanessa Gebbie) SALT BOOKS

Tuseday's Prompts

There are 24 Prompts on show at Boot Camp

HERE: http://bootcampkeegan.yuku.com/topic/12261/master/1/

They begin

01 They have found a body of a girl on the towpath

02 I breathe you

03 There are certain obscure things that must be loved

04 Han-in-Hand

05 Your long legs crossed, soft, brown

Prompts, Monday 18th

Any direct quotes will be followed by an asterisk




As I age I remember small, beautiful, things

Once a snake

Or on the other hand, Harlech

No man is an island, entire of itself *

Sometimes the numbers overwhelm us.

Consider, a fox

An apple, after rain

The machines are rusting. One day they will wonder what they were.

I must continue

Kings and fucking bishops

After this last snow I love the way the earth returns

This was his village

And I must love

Three fifties in his belt, but he is still dead

I choose the serious corner

I have good openings, but the end is always bad

I'm leaving, on a jet-plane*

The squirrel, and you can shoot them and be paid

Floating

I thought, this year, I would plant potatoes

Small pellets of lead

Two Rediffusion engineers playing chess in a greasy-spoon

Cauliflower

Lie to me, but in a nice way

Friday Prompts

It wouldn't be true to say I wasn't there, but I wasn't there

Requiem

There are places that breathe, that whisper

Not Required on Voyage

The river isn't listening

Street shouts, the housemaids roused

I was on such a train

Consider grass

Meeting at the Bottle-Bank

I am glad I'm not a fish, a fish, a fucking fish

The tenements glisten under slow Welsh rain

The sword is handier in a fight than the pen

It was about a second

I have decided to be English

From the train into London, mud huts with corners

The Circle most definitely isn't

They are closing the gun factories. Less jobs and more people. Madness!

She sits in a blue-grey smog. She could be beautiful

Bookshop

I was not at Waterloo

Last night I dreamt about my first wife

If you want to get there, don't start from here.

Thursday Prompts

Broken Mirror

It was just the time is all

I see the sun flashing on their shields below

Tread softly...

The Policeman's Parrot

Big Spider, Yellow, Swelling

It is all too much with us, with me

Some bastard stole my plums

People wearing lights

As if there is no sky, no sky

At the end of this sentence, at the end of this story

Pebbles

I know the truth but it is grey

Ousel

Wild men who grabbed at life and lived!

Gorilla, Chain-Saw, Poetry

Slugs and Snails. Basically Slander.

RUST

That shit book by that Irish fraud

Waving? Sort of.

Dirty British Coaster

I'll be there as soon as I can

21 More Prompts

True North

Walking slowly towards the end of the pier

Night Shift

Man, Child, Pigeon

We turned back. Anyone would

Or I could live in a village

There are things that make us close. They are not all light.

One or two safety tips

Angels are waiting in the tree line

It feels like afternoon

If there was a blip. Blip.

I want more sky, more blue, and the world higher.

Cinnamon

Beneath the Wheels

Dead Eye Dick

You forget what it was like. It was not like this.

The best steak ever.

I asked the customers to sing.

The tracks, red lights and unrelenting white

A parcel from Tibet; emptiness to cherish

I loved you once, sort-of, in my way.

Another BCer Novel

I received this email yesterday.

Great News.

At the last count that makes about three dozen published books by BCers and ex-BCers


Dear Alex,

I was a boot camper for a short period of time about eight years ago. Your straighforward feedback, honest and thorough, pushed me to become a better writer very fast. It also helped me to learn to accept criticism in a productive manner--I don't sulk much.

I left the bootcamp about seven years ago when my first daughter was born, and took a break from writing. Four years ago I started writing seriously again. It felt like I never stopped--everything I learned was still there.

I write flash fiction and short stories. The flash 'Snowrise' was nominated for the Pushcart Prize, and also won the Evelyn Sullivan Gilbertson Award to an Emerging Artist in literature.

I just learned that my novel, Swearing in Russian at the Northern Lights, was accepted for publication by Invisible Publishing (Canada). The novel is set in the Canadian arctic, and the protagonist is a Russian woman. No, it is not autobiographical, though I'm Russian and I lived in Iqaluit for three years. The pubication is slotted for the spring of 2011.

I wanted to share this good news with you. Because of you I didn't waste years as a hopeful beginner, struggling with the craft. I moved forward fast, feeling I gained a firm base in the fundamentals of creative writing.

Thanks for everything,

Ania

Two More ex-Boot Campers doing well

The recently-announced final 12 for the Scott Prize (Salt Publishing) includes two ex-Boot Campers. Congrats to Joel Willans and Alexandra Fox

Prompts. Saturday 9th Jan

Nothing more beautiful

The water doesn't care

God

As each one of us lowered our eyes

I woke to the sound of horses clopping past

Slowly, aching with morning, the train pulls away

CART

Tin Bath, Sky Dish

The future may be bright, or not

BALSA

I knew a girl once, but not her name

You'll have to dig deep to find me, but I am there

How the world disappeared, and came back

I Remember, I Remember

Snow. It could be the end

The steam, smoke, grit, all swirling

At the gates, they come because they come

Home Town? Hardly.

Alleys, Gunnels

Some women marry houses

We all have to wear the same colour suits

Everyone dies. Why is over there any different?

Answering my Own Post

I have found

2008 Caroline JBWB Winter Prize
2008 Colin Writers Forum
2008 Nancy Children in Need
2007 Tom Mary Gornall
2007 Tom Grace Dieu
2007 Caroline Blaenau Gwent
2007 Cally BBC Sedbergh
2007 Cally Lancet
2007 Tom Pier Pressure (SS)
2007 RVJ Pier Pressure (Poetry)
2007 DP-J Momaya
2007 Lexie HISAAC
2007 Cally Eclectica-CiN
2007 Fleur Guardian-Virgin

First Prizes totaling $5,310

There are others to account for, especially 2009s


Embarrassed? Me?

Boot Camp 2008 and 2009 Did You Win a Prize?

I have the data for First Prizes up to the end of 2007 but in my haste to clean out BC I have managed to zap the Prize and Hits data for 2008 & 2009

If you were in BC at the time and won any prizes, please contact me so I can rebuild the database. I have at least 15 First Prizes to account for.

Another Boot Camper Hits the Big Time

Just bought January 2010's "Writers' Forum" and the cover is former Boot Camper Cally Taylor.

Inside are details of her book "Heaven Can Wait" (Orion) and an article by Cally called "The Long and the Short of It" where Cally details why WRITING SHORT STORIES taught her how to write a crisp novel.

Soldier of the Queen

My BASS 2009 hasn't arrived, but I have my OHenry Prize Collection and the opening story (chosen as the best by two of the three judges) is "An Ordinary Soldier of the Queen"




An Ordinary Soldier of the Queen

I'm going to ask the Queen. I'm going to tell her what I know and ask her what is true, and if she winks at me, well, there will be trouble. This is me, Seamus Todd, born in 1955, ordinary soldier of the Queen and very little else, and this is my testament, which is honest, true, and factual .If I haven't seen it with my own eyes, then I have left it out. There's more than enough cheap talk and I don't want to add to it.



Once again, no big-bang, not even a little bang.

But a very good story that was published in The Paris Review and now OHenry.

Twenty Prompts: WRITE Something!

01 Once again, this time for Zelda

02 In dreams I do not know where I am, who I am

03 I'd been in London ten months

04 I will start with the visible, imagine the rest

05 Anti-Clockwise

06 Sometimes I think I can feel you but it's just warm air moving

07 Ghee

08 Thames Beach, above us glasses

09 Time will show it: I told you so

10 Let aeroplanes circle, droning, moaning

11 The handsome cyclist, but his back is dark with mud

12 My daughter is drawing with pink crayon. She asks for red: the blood.

13 Burning the cards

14 Village, yes; City yes; Towns, oh God!

15 I used to have this amazing bath, this amazing bath

16 Without a doubt, there is a way to lose.

17 The men have left. The silences are louder

18 Far off a light glows

19 I could learn guitar, talk rather than sing

20 I think I am hearing the songs. I hear wood creaking

Some TILTS, not Bangs

More on TILT

It’s easy to say, start gently and tilt your reader, engage the reader with language and probability. But how can I show it works?

What follows are the openings of the stories in my collection “Ballistics”. A dozen First-Prize winners, two more Bridport Second-Prizes, many of the stories reprinted often, many reprinted in anthologies. I would argue that only Ballistics itself even comes close to a big-bang opener.

The stories are posted here in the sequence they are in the book, except for Ballistics and Postcards from BalloonLand.


Miguel Who Cuts Down Trees.

When I was a little boy, I had a wooden truck. One day the truck began to move by itself. It went around the yard and then it came back to me. I went to sleep. When I woke it was just a wooden truck.

When I was fourteen I was flying a kite. I saw an angel alongside my kite. She was very beautiful. I found I could make the angel move by pulling the string of my kite, but then I fell asleep and when I woke my kite was broken and trampled with mud.

$600 First Prize




The Smell of Almond Polish

Paddington, London, 1954

Bridie Collins steps down from the train, waits for the crowd to wrap her up. She looks above her; pigeons scattering under the great glass roof. Someone bumps her shoulder, rushes on. In the half-light she shivers, picks up her cardboard case and walks towards the ticket collector.
On the train, from Wales, Bridie had listened to the clattering songs in the track. "Did she do right? Well, did she do right? What could she have done? What should she have done? Was it right, was it right, was it right?"


$600 First Prize



Mother, Questions

Mother, can I ask, with you and Dad, my father, how did it happen, how was it? Were you frightened, excited, was he strong, was he clumsy?

You told me once, before you died, you said, "We walked out for almost a year and then, one day, on a bridge over the canal at Alt-y-ryn, he asked if he could kiss me." You said you laughed, couldn't help it. He ran home.

So Mum, how did you get from there to being my mother? How did that shy young man learn to make love? Was he your first, Mum? Nellie said to me once, (she was drunk on gins), she said you had a beau everyone wanted, but he was "a bit of a lad, a heart-breaker", wouldn't take no for an answer.

Joint First Prize, Cadenza.




GREEN GLASS

When you say it, finally say it, when you tell her you're leaving, when you finally realise that loving her isn't enough, not if she can bring you so much pain, your anger is so great you crush the wine glass you're holding. You watch as splinters embed in your hand, as a long, wicked shard of dark green glass hooks into the flesh of your thumb, your Mount of Venus, and you watch the blood from your palm, your arm, flow magically red to the floor.
The blood is everywhere, the rug, the drapes, but she laughs at your crucified hand, your slashed wrist. She says, "My, honey, so much drama for such a pathetic little man. Rush yourself to the hospital, why don't you?"


First Prize






L for LAURA: L for LOVE

Ay for orses, remember that? A for orses, B for mutton? C fer yerself, D fer payment? Not sure I could remember it all. I'm not even sure if that's right, A-B-C-D.

A is really for Alice, B for Billy Smith she ran off with. C is for Clown, me for not noticing. D is for Diane my second, after we had to wait all those years until I was officially deserted.

You know what I remember? It wasn't jealousy. It wasn't shock or shame or humiliation. As soon as Alice was gone I realised I'd never really loved her, anyway. No, what I remember was realising that the world was a lot shittier than it looks on Christmas Cards (she went Christmas Eve) and all of a sudden nothing was just simple any more, or innocent.

First Prize, Southport





Old Man Watching Football After Sunday Lunch


I’m an old man watching football after Sunday lunch. Earlier we went to The Sun in the Wood. I had Cold Turkey, Mary had Roast Lamb, her mother looked like mutton dressed up, with mint-sauce. There we were, lording it, our Sunday-best, our table reserved as usual in the annexe, four bottles of Chateau Neuf du Pape opened and breathing, waiting for us when we arrived. El Perfecto!

My grandson plays soccer. (The manager is a clown). It’s a crap day, wet, wind, and I have to remind myself I’m a volunteer, here to watch my boy. When he pulls on that red shirt I realise he is the most important thing to me.

First Prize, Pencil, Bantry





The Point-Two

My brother's habit is bloody annoying. He’s Friar Tuck and I’m running as Maid Marion and we are only four miles into the London Marathon and the swish-swish-swish-fucking-swish is driving me crazy.
“Fer Christ’s sake, Colin, I TOLD you. Go as The Sheriff of Fucking Nottingham, we’ll never catch Robin Hood and Little John now and that’s me and you down fifty quid each.”
“Ah fuck off, brother,” Colin says (he always says it like that, brother heavy on the emphasis). Then he reminds me the London is his seventeenth marathon and Robin and Little John have gone off far too fast.



First Prize, Lichfield.




OBELISK

The first time he had seen her she was the writer – he didn’t know – of a story he’d already chosen as winner in a competition. He was aware of her but not seeing her – was her hair pulled back? Was there grey in it? Did she wear light-framed spectacles? He wasn’t seeing her because one of the students in the class was a nightmare, a conference classic, a bitter wannabe who couldn’t write, would never write – you need a soul to write – but could talk forever about conspiracies and rip-offs, and all those editors – no doubt including himself – who couldn’t understand.
He began by trying to be nice, but this monster was eating class time, moved to sarcasm – wasted, completely wasted – eventually had to call foul, suggest a meeting at another time, the class needed to get in some work.
Later, coffee, biscuits, the winner – her pseudonym was Obelisk – leaned in close, not for intimacy but for group-sustaining politeness (but she just had to say this), and he, not for intimacy either, but the feeling was intimate, dropped an ear closer.


$600 First, judged by Hilary Mantel
Connections Magazine




Spectacles, Testicles, Wallet & Watch.

Late February, 1991. Friday.

Friday afternoon, very cold, and Thomas Smith, sales manager, leaves his London offices for home. Tom has left a little early. Once a week he allows himself the chance to beat the crush of commuters travelling from Waterloo to the South Coast. He knows that the 15:30 train to Weymouth will be at worst three-quarters full, and that the one after that won't have an empty seat. Tom hates to board anything later. He knows that any train after 15:45 will be little better than a cattle-truck.
As Tom walks across Waterloo Bridge he rehearses a new joke, one he heard today at lunch. The wind off the Thames is vicious but Tom's eyes shine and he walks on. In December he had his first million-pound month and tomorrow his sales force are coming to a party to celebrate. That's why Tom wants to remember the joke. He chants the punch-line almost like a mantra. Tom is 33.

$600 First, Peninsular Magazine





The next story, “The Last Love Letter of Berwyn Price” actually opens with an almanac entry (about as far from a big-bang start as it’s possible to get.)


Price, Berwyn Philip. b. 11:2:21, d 12:2:97.

Wing and full-back, (occasionally scrum-half). Played, Aberavon (267), Barbarians (3), Wales (42). "BP", Known for his blistering pace, scored 27 tries for Wales, most notably the two tries in injury time in "BPs Triumph" the 1947 21-20 win over England at Twickenham. Also representative honours, Wales 100/220 yards. Empire Games Gold Medal, 1948 (100yds) Son of Philip Price, Swansea & Aberavon, one Welsh cap.

Mrs Bethan Price, if you're reading this, then it looks like I must have managed it, after all. I went and over-did it and popped my clogs, just like you and Doctor Llewellyn said I would. So bugger me, I'm dead, well what do you know? I'm sorry love, but if that's what happened, then it happened. I'll bet I died happy, though. Was it at the Arms Park? I bet all I could see when the moment finally came was red and white and green. I bet I could smell the lads and the mud, see the flags and hear Bread of Heaven!


Berwyn was $2,000 second place (4,500 entries)
in The UK's Bridport Prize





Another, another “Welsh one” is "The Bastard William Williams"


I am the bastard William Williams, late of The Universal Pit, Senghennydd, then the pit at Abertridwr, and latterly the cellars of The Commercial Hotel, as pot man. Now that the dust have slowed me I am easy to find. I am still lived next door to the English Congregational Church, Commercial Road, Senghennydd. I venture from my place only for the English Cong, and in summer, if I am lucky, a visit from a relation.
Until the coaldust on my chest confined me to my front room I have been known as a hearty man. My years is matched exact to the century and for the most part it have been a good life, wholesome. I think though, with what have passed, I shall not like to be here when the clock strike two thousand.



"William" was also placed second ($2,000) in The Bridport Prize




“William Tell” (eventually named “The Quarry”) won Momaya under a pseudonym. This one (best be fair and honest) was rejected by Writers Forum as having too slow a start. However, I disagreed, and so, obviously, did the judges at Momaya.

This opening was a boy describing how to build a home-made crossbow. It's "factual" but contains metaphors, character and a lot of foreshadowing of the story.



This is how you make your crossbow. A piece of three-by-two pine you got from a building site, cut it up. Make a crucifix, two nails at the centre, other-wise the cross-piece moves. You’re gonna have to buy the thick rubber, but no problem. Get over the wall at the back of Feraro’s Chip Shop, steal a few pop-bottles, take them back in the morning for the deposits. Smile.
Nail the rubber along the cross-piece. Don’t put the nail through the rubber. If you do it splits. Use a couple of nails each end, bang them in either side of the rubber, so far, then smash them over the rubber till it squishes down. You have to do two nails at least, otherwise it can come out. That’s what happened to Colin Hicks and that’s why he’s got a glass eye.


Result? Another First Prize.





Next in the sequence is “Postcards From Balloonland” but I will move that one to the end, along with the story “Ballistics” with an explanation, then.




Tomatoes, Flamingos, Lemmings,
& Other Interesting Facts.

I always think, you know, it’s like being on stage. You have to look your best. You come in from the wings and there’s your audience and straight away, you’re in the spotlight, you can’t hide, and every night you have to perform, no matter what. You’ve been short-changed on the maintenance again and the kids need new shoes, maybe it’s time of the month and you’re feeling lousy, but you have to do it, you do, look good for the punters. It’s yer job.
I nearly went stripping once, but at the last minute, I bottled out. I thought that being behind a bar would be easier. I’ve been here for two years, one month, a week and a half; five quid an hour, tips and a conveyor belt of blokes. I think I should’ve gone stripping.


"Tomatoes" was Editor's Choice in The Fish Prize, a competition I went on to judge, many years later. It has been reprinted many times all over the world and an extended version was on BBC Radio Four.



The following story, also known as "Ernie the Egg" appeared in three versions, a 2K, a 3K and 3.3K, earning its keep. The longest version was inches away from being my biggest, most-important publication at the time, in the prestigious Atlantic Monthly Magazine (US).

It was chosen to be the inaugural story for Atlantic Monthly Unbound, earned a further $250 and offers from US publishers. Does it start with a big bang?



Meredith Toop Evans and His Butty, Ernest Jones

In the villages all down this valley, from Senghennydd down to Caerphilly, they call me Ernie the Egg.

I do not mind this, but for the record, I am Ernest Jones, poultry farmer, son of Robert Jones, Deacon, and they are my hens that run amok on the hill above the town. You may eat whosoever's pigs you wish, but it is my eggs that you shall have on your plate if you sup anywhere in the valley from Park Hamlet right through Abertridwr. My eggs is on the plates for most the best part of Caerphilly, too, though I know of some Cardiff eggs there.
Yes, I am rich, and the boys in the villages, and the old men, make jokes about me. Yes, Ernie the Egg I am, and with a few bob, and sought after by the Revenue, too, but I am wealthy by fortunate accidents and hard work, and with the help of God, and because of a great and ordinary man, Meredith Toop Evans, collier, and because I am shot in the neck in the Great War and because I am a failed scholar.
The hens have been my livelihood but this have not always been so. Once I was to be a teacher, then a collier, then dead underground, then dead from a bullet in the Great War. That I am not any of these things is an odd thing for me, peculiar altogether, but facts is facts, which is why I will relate my story.




The closing story in my collection Ballistics begins:

Happy as Larry



Larry wakes at 03:50, takes a piss, and with his shoes in his hands, goes out through the glassed front door leaving the stale jam-and-cream sponge, and the remains of Mary’s tea, stone cold. She had insisted, insisted on staying up to talk. Larry had taken to coercive or death-inducing mental incantations to make himself alone:

“It’s-time-to-go-to-bed-you-cow. It’s-time-to-go-to-bed.


It’s-time-to-go-to-bed-you-cow, so knock it on the head.”

But Larry is away now, Larry is en route Larry is dans le car, tout le suite and he wants to get away vitely. He is leaving the Kremlin. It isn’t even light yet, only the flabby yellow of two streetlamps but the sodium glow’s enough for padding Larry Peters to tread gently to the car, get in, lock the door, start up, reverse, and slink away. But as soon as he exits the cul-de-sac, once he is uncatchable, unshoutafterable, he puts his foot down. He flies.

In minutes, a country road, silver, dark birds lifting from hedgerows. Then another, better road, then the A303, and under a light, her, thumbing.





The title story of Ballistics is one of the few which might be argued to have a big-bang opening. Certainly there is instant drama referred to:



Ballistics

A set of car keys, fat as a grenade, is arching towards your eyeball. The tip of one key, v-shaped will precisely pierce the dark core of your eye. You're not yet two years old but this won't protect you. You are not old enough to understand that these keys, thrown in anger, began their journey a year before you were born, that maybe, a psychiatrist will say, they began even further back when a mother left a father, or further back than this, when a mining foreman, bitter, too bad for drink, strapped his wayward son.
You don't yet know the word key, but you know car and you know picnic. This is where you are now, out in the soft English countryside, and the sun shines, and down there is a clear river and over there moo-cows, and you have a mummy and a daddy. One day you will marry a much older man, a man with a criminal record for violence, who shaves his head brutishly short, who has his country's emblem tattooed on his chest, but nothing, nothing of this exists yet, not even this next moment, the long seconds when you look into the air, to the brightness. It's blue, and the black bird fills your view and then something happens.





However, the accident is referred to almost in passing and we move away quickly into the essence of the story. That is family, heredity, destiny and the way life and other lives shape us against our will. Remove the single fact of that first sentence and it’s another slow, titling start.



I moved Ballistics and Balloonland to the end of this discussion. Ballistics could be argued to be “big-bang” but Postcards suffered in early drafts for being too subtle.

It opened with three “innocuous” postcards from family members crossing the Atlantic. That was how I wanted it but in the hurly-burly of the market they could be read as trivial and pointless. The story bombed a few times before I added the two lines just after the title.



There are things we should say, things we should not.
And there are things we want to say but have never learned how.

The purpose of those two lines was to “salt” the start, to tell the editor or judge, “Yes, there’s something here, this is important.” After that the story sold and earned me about $1,500. It’s been reprinted many times


Postcards from BalloonLand

There are things we should say, things we should not.
And there are things we want to say but have never learned how.

Dear Dawn.
We’re in DisneyLand! Dad promised us that if it was the last thing he ever did we were going to go to America and go to Florida and go to Orlando and go to Disney and stop in the Contemporary Resort. It’s very hot. The grass is funny. There are hundreds of dead good things in the shops.
Love Rachel.

Hi Robert!
The Frog wants to go to the Magic Kingdom tomorrow and do all the girlie rides. Dad says we have to wait until Friday to go to EPCOT. The Contemporary Resort Hotel is brilliant! There’s a monorail goes right through the building! It took nine hours to get here. We saw Concorde! Dad had a headache when we landed. Mam said it was because of the flight. Gotta go. Bet you wish you were here!
Love Ben.
Dear Millie,
I hope you and Dad are well. The flight was far better than I expected. There was so much for me to do that I forgot to be frightened! Peter was very tired, Rachel led him round everywhere by the hand. They bought me perfume. I told Peter off for spending but he just laughed and said, ‘What’s money?’ The kids played Scrabble most of the flight. Peter fell asleep in my lap.
Your loving daughter, Margaret.

He was Peter. Soft red curly hair, blue, bright eyes, thirty-three; married to Margaret, father to Benjamin, to Rachel and to three-year old Tobias. He read their postcards again. Rachel’s card was a picture of Winnie-the-Pooh and Tigger in front of a blue-grey castle. The holiday was costing a fortune but he knew he had never spent money more wisely. Before they left, he told Margaret that this would be a once-in-a-lifetime trip and not to worry about the expense. It was all taken care of, he said. The look on the kids’ faces when he told them was sheer joy.


==========================================================

Pick up BASS (Best American Short Stories) or The OHenry Prize Collection, or the latest "Pushcart" and actually READ the openings.

What percentage are "big-bang"? I doubt if 1 in 20 is a BBO.


Why then, are there clowns out there in print and on the internet ADVOCATING starting with a bang?

I know that 99.9% of stories arriving on my desk and starting with a bang will be poor quality, almost certainly by beginners.


Alex

How to Open WITHOUT a Bang

For the first week of 2010 I thought I'd open with openings.

This is an ancient article of mine that appeared in The New Writer and on-line at The Internet Writer's Journal (and other places)

Feel free to respond and ask questions, see if we can't get an interesting debate going.

Just remember that I do NOT publish anonymous responses.


How to Open WITHOUT a Bang


Grab your reader with an opening! Right? Have a man walk in with a gun, set the bomb ticking, the lovers begin to undress? Oh, how many stories I've seen with a slam-bang start like that, and oh, how many have immediately gone to a flash-back, admitted the dream or simply fizzled, spluttered and dribbled slowly away.

The nuclear bomb opening I see as the medallion man of literature, more flash than substance, more likely to lead to disappointment than satisfaction. It's the confident whisper, the self-assured promise I look for, the paragraph which quietly says, "I don't need bells and whistles. Listen, listen." And the story may be so quiet that I have to lean forward. I am tilted into the body of the work, disconcerted, or intrigued by setting, attracted by character or seduced, simply seduced, by the sounds and shapes and meaning of the words.

Saturday afternoon and Dai Griffiths sits with his finger-polished roll-up tin. He is patient, fixated, listening. His tongue protrudes slightly as he makes his careful, half dog-end tobacco, half Old Holburn, delicate, thin cigarettes. It is raining outside the pub and along the valley side snake-terraced roofs glisten. The afternoon light closes.


I want to know. And that's all it takes. Make the reader want to know more.

Rather than use the verb "grab", I like to suggest "tilt". I want to push my readers just a little, not slam them so hard they resist me, but persuade them that this road is interesting, one of ultimate promise. My job (first) is to ensure they reach (and want to read) the second paragraph, that the second begets the third and that the whole of the first page is strong enough to quiet the TV, block out the conversation on the train, or more importantly, wake up that tired editor, that jaded judge.

It was now lunch-time and they were all sitting under the double green fly of the dining-tent pretending that nothing had happened.

"Will you have lime juice or lemon squash?" Macomber asked.

A famous opening from a famous story, Hemingway's The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber. What's fascinating about this opening is that, yes, the tilt is there - if someone says "pretending that nothing had happened" you betcha I want to find out what did happen - but look what Hemingway chose not to start with. The story has to flash back (eventually) to an incident of high drama when Macomber panicked faced by real danger. Surely, surely, with such a gift we should start with the dramatic action?

But Hemingway had the drama still to come -- so we await it. He didn't start with something climactic -- after a climax is anti-climax - but promised us at least one. The work shows self-confidence, the ability to present seemingly innocuous events well, but in such a disarming, confident way we simply feel the power to come. But there's more to this opening. It was chosen to guide the reader into what the story was really about, not big-game hunting and cowardice or bravery, but what these things meant to the sexual relationships of the three main characters. By starting with the "ordinary" drinks scene, Hemingway was able to steer us, the readers towards the core of the story. We get to see and feel the coldness and unhappiness of Macomber and his wife -- exacerbated by Macomber's lack of physical courage -- and it's through courage that Macomber eventually gains self-respect and a fleeting but glorious happiness.

So yes, an opening must promise us a diverting story, but also it should be right for the story, not just a good opener but the best, the most apt opener. When we take time to "find" our opener, to find the exact character, setting, tone of voice and point of view, when we wait and let the opener float until it begins to resonate as solid and true, then, often the story falls in front of us like dominoes, sentence after sentence begetting sentence, driven by the feel, the force, the organic predictability contained within the start.

He wondered what the sex would be like. She thought it would be good. When she asked him, "Do you think it will be good, Harry?" he knew it would be great. But that was later.

Sometimes we just know from the opener...



When I began writing I leaped on ideas, rushed to grab a pen or typewriter, and started. More often than not I crash-landed, and even when I did finish things they sucked and didn't sell. Now I've learned a little patience, an ounce of forethought, a few minutes of consideration and now, rather than dive into a story, I'm more likely to climb into a bath, a half-bottle of wine close by, and wallow, body and mind. My story idea may well be weeks, months, even a year old. It has been fermenting in my unconscious, a particularly unsavoury and mixed up place. I went there once, right next to The Old Man and the Sea was Three Blind Mice, a picture of an old girlfriend, the guitar riff from Pulp Fiction and... the rest is censored. But somewhere in the mess there is a story -- at least I hope there is -- and I want to coax it out. If I shout, it will run away, if I do nothing it will sit there, but if I just make little coaxing noises, show I'm friendly out pops an opening, a tone, my protagonist, complete with accent and attitude.

I lie.

The opening almost comes. Here is where I have another glass of wine and top up the hot water. I've learned that if the opening really comes to me, if the character pushes through the fog and steps into my world, if he is ready to live, really ready, not a good one but the one, then I just know, little bells ring, presses run, music plays, the opening resonates, buzzes, sings. The almost openings flutter in an out but the opening doesn't. It comes with a life, a history, a destiny. Truly, getting the exact feel is more than half the story.

Gabriel Garcia Marquez said, "One of the most difficult things is the first paragraph. I have spent many months on a first paragraph and once I get it, the rest just comes out very easily." Absolutely, Gabriel! "In the first paragraph you solve most of the problems with your book." Yes! Yes! "The theme is defined, the style, the tone. At least in my case, the first paragraph is a kind of sample of what the rest of the book is going to be." Smack on! "That's why writing a book of short stories is much more difficult than writing a novel. Every time you write a short story, you have to begin all over again." (Excellent, he should go far).

Yes an opening should interest, tilt us forward, but an opening does far more; it sets the agenda, it makes not just promises to us, but suggests to us how we should react, what mood we are likely to find here, how best we might take on the upcoming dream.



Tom is watching a movie with his mistress when something in the story-line touches him, and breaks through his well-constructed façade. His defenses breached, he thinks of his son and his small daughter. He begins to cry soundlessly. When his mistress realises her lover is upset, she tries to be kind, but her kindness makes the guilt worse and Tom snaps at her. She doesn't understand.



Once there were many prairie dogs and they decided their kingdom was fine and suited the prairie dog way of life. Some prairie dogs were large, some very small, but most of the prairie-dogs were middle-sized and their bark, more a yap, was conservative.



Two openings, but the contract with the reader is different.



I hope my openings are directive. I want them to intrigue and seduce but I want them to channel the story as a whole, to create in the reader a sense of a joint adventure, one of a type. If I'm trying to be funny, I need the reader to be thinking light music, not Beethoven's Fifth. If I want "serious", I don't want him whistling The Birdie Song. Like Gabriel Marquez, my openings take time but they contain the organic nature of the story as a whole, the theme, the tone, where I'm coming from, where I want the reader to go.


Look at the opening to Catch-22.


It was love at first sight. The first time Yossarian saw the chaplain he fell madly in love with him. Yossarian was in the hospital with a pain in his liver that fell just short of being jaundice. The doctors were puzzled by the fact that it wasn't quite jaundice. If it became jaundice they could treat it. If it didn't become jaundice and went away they could discharge him. But this being just short of jaundice all the time confused them.

We get the main character, the tone, the craziness, the feel, immediately.


Or Cuckoo, mine.


Cold Monday morning, six o'clock. November. Brighton sea-front had to be grey, windswept and damp. It was, but as far as Caz Flood was concerned, it was the only place, the perfect place to be. Yesterday she had been a beat copper, a woodentop, today she was a DC, a detective constable, and nothing, but absolutely nothing, could stop her now.


Or Brighton again, Graham Greene.


Hale knew, before he had been in Brighton three hours, that they meant to murder him. With his inky fingers and his bitten nails, his manner cynical and nervous, anybody could tell he didn't belong - belong to the early summer sun, the cool Whitsun wind off the sea, the holiday crowd.


Or Raymond Chandler.

It was about eleven o'clock in the morning, mid October, with the sun not shining and a look of hard wet rain in the clearness of the foothills. I was wearing my powder-blue suit, with dark blue shirt, tie and display handkerchief, black brogues, black wool socks with dark blue clocks on them. I was neat, clean, shaved and sober, and I didn't care who knew it. I was everything the well-dressed private detective ought to be. I was calling on four million dollars.


Oh, I wish!!

23 New Year's Day Prompts

The first of many, this set. Please let me know if you write a flash, story or poem today.

Join up for the Weekly Frantic Flash (starts next weekend)


23 PROMPTS

Does the road wind uphill?

MINE

This is where we met

I have a rendezvous with Life

Consider the cat, the worm

I have walked this way before but it all surprises me

At least it wasn’t your fault

Nothing is required

We hear the wail of mothers

1,620 Minutes

All the traffic lights are red

Paper Crowns

Doubt drifts down among us

I heard it was Kerry

Mrs Murchison and the Man from Vienna

It’s a kind of blue but more green, really

Gerry Adams loves this one.

The river widens, deepens but then it is mud

I was seeking the answer, to do with butterflies

To do with pork, something about pork

The hands of other people and I am lifted up

Friends, fellow travelers, no need for pity

When you are away, I turn down your pictures

The Return of the Frantic Flash

In 2010 I will be re-introducing the Frantic Flash Competitions, run every weekend.

The idea is simple. Sign up for the weekend (and your first story) and you will receive a set of prompts at set times over the weekend and have up to 75 minutes to write a flash and submit it.

There will be six time slots per weekend and you can enter 1-2-3-4-5 or six times (each entry for a fee).

At least 50% of entry fees will be paid out in prizes and all entrants will be able to view all the (author-anonymous) flashes in a closed area of Boot Camp, comment and rate.

Winning entries (and selected finalists) will enter a second competition for a second, larger prize.

Copyright will remain with authors.

Winning stories will be published on this blog (author-anonymously) BUT ONLY IF the author grants permission.

If you are interested in Frantic Flash please comment here or email alex.keegan

at btinternet.com

Interview and a Couple of Stories

A few weeks ago I did an interview for Express FM in Portsmouth and read a couple of unpublished flashes.

Click on "Interview" above

Imagine this:

Imagine this:

A group of twenty young men decide they want to be soldiers. They vary in age and life-experience but the one thing they have in common is that none has ever fired a gun or faced an enemy.

But these are keen young men. They find each other on the internet and form a self-help group, promising each other to understand their dreams and to be kind in pointing at each other’s faults.

Of course, since none of the participants actually knows how to strip a rifle, or how to fire a gun from cover, they make rather bad soldiers. In their first engagement they all die.



A group of twenty or so men and women decide they want to be writers. They vary in age and life-experience but the one thing they have in common is that none has ever been seriously taught creative writing, or written extensively or submitted, or been published.

But these are keen young aspiring writers. They find each other on the internet and form a self-help group, promising each other to understand their respective dreams and to be kind in pointing at each other’s faults.

Of course, since none of the participants actually knows how to strip down a story, or how to write well, how to edit, they make rather bad writers. In their first engagement with reality they fail miserably.


Another twenty aspiring soldiers enlist and find themselves drilling, going on runs, doing callisthenics. “Why?” they cry out. They just want to have guns and go shoot the bad guys. Their hard-bitten Sergeant tells them they are not ready. They are not fit. They are not tough. They are not trained in self-defence or military craft. They need months, probably years to become ordinary soldiers, and then, if they work and work at their craft as green new members of their units, one day they might actually be good soldiers. They might survive long enough to be tough old soldiers like their sergeant. One day they might teach a new batch of kids.

But why should we believe you, they wonder? What makes you special, Sergeant?

Well, I was like you once. I was naïve, stupid, green and untrained. An old war-horse of a sergeant taught me first how to stay alive, second how to protect my comrades, third how to get better and maximise my chances in combat.

And he points to his medals (if his presence isn’t enough) and the recruits read of his exploits. They know he has been under fire and survived. He shows them that he can strip a rifle in fifteen seconds, put it together in another fifteen. He shows them he can knock down the biggest man in the group without breaking sweat.

If beginning writers work solely with other beginning writers, they have no mentors, no experience to call on. If a more forceful or more outspoken beginner makes a statement of “fact” in error the less forceful and more easily-led might well accept that fact and cement the error. Since one of the stronger voices says this, and others in the group concur, bad habits become routine and widespread.

Beginning writers seeking out other beginning writers is at best naïve, at worse, stupidity.

Why, then, does it happen?

It happens because few of these wannabee writers are prepared to face the simple truths about any craft. It takes a sustained effort over an extended period of time, hours and hours of practice, practice, practice for weeks, months, even years to even start to become a writer.

Why not, instead, “hang” with a load of people who will say nice things about me and my work (in return for me saying nice things about them and their work.) Not only that but the more active among us can set up little magazines with editorial standards that almost match our abilities. We can all “be published”.

Our internet groups can grow and we will, of course, be the founder-members, the old-guard, the inner-circle. We will be the leaders of this, in principle, same-old self-help group, just bigger and more glossy (and probably with its own in-house internet magazine publishing the older hands.)