Flash Fiction: The Girl & The Car

Posted on 27/05/201829/05/2018 by Ndrw

You know what? Sometimes, it’s murder coming up with a good title for your story. I wrote this little flash-fic ages ago, and although I don’t think it’s the best story I’ve ever written, I wanted to at least share it on the blog but… I just haven’t been able to come up with a decent title for it to this day; and believe me, it hasn’t been for a lack of trying. Still, it’s been sitting on my computer doing nothing for too long so for better or worse, here it is. Feel free to suggest better titles in the comments.

As always what follows is entirely my own work and has not been published anywhere else in the world, whether in print or online, nor do I expect or permit it to be. And so without further ado, I give you:

The Girl & The Car

by A. Ferguson

The car was mine. I found it, so it was mine.

I don’t know how it got there. I was just playing in the bushes at the bottom of the hill one day and there it was, in the clearing. It didn’t have any glass in the windows and two of the doors were missing. Also the steering wheel came off if you turned it too hard.

I couldn’t have been happier. My own car. A real one. I let Michael and Paul use it too, and sometimes I even let them drive it because it’s no fun on your own. That was okay because they knew it was mine because I found it. I didn’t tell Mum and Dad about it and I told Paul and Michael not to tell their mums and dads either. Adults have funny ideas about things like that. I knew they wouldn’t let me keep the car, even though I found it fair and square and it didn’t really go.

It was Sunday. Me and Michael were playing Batman in the car while we waited for Paul. His family went to a different church from me and Michael so we always met him after lunch. I was Batman (obviously, because it was my car) but it was Robin’s turn to drive.

When Paul arrived, he had a girl with him.

‘Girls aren’t allowed in the car!’ Michael objected. ‘Why’d you even bring her here? This is private property.’

‘Aw, c’mon Mikey, she’s my cousin!’ Paul whined. ‘Mum said I had to. It’s just for today. I swear I tried not to but they said I had to or I couldn’t come out. I swear I tried!’

‘Well, she’ll have to sit in the back!’ I decreed, thinking myself generous. I don’t know how old she was but she was younger than us. Too young. And a girl.

‘I want to drive!’ She cried with glee. ‘Please please please please, pretty, pretty please!’

‘No.’ I said. Enough was enough.

‘How not?’

‘Cause. It’s my car. Girls aren’t allowed.’

‘Come on, Haitch, let her have a go.’ Paul said. ‘It’s only for today.’

‘He’s siding with her!’ Michael jeered, gripping the wheel even though it had fallen off again.

‘I’m not! It’s just Mum said I had to or I couldn’t come out. It’s only for today. Come on!’

‘Your mum only said she had to come with you. She’s with you.’ I ruled. ‘She doesn’t even know about the car so that doesn’t count.’

‘Henry!’ Michael hissed, grabbing my arm. ‘What if she tells?’

‘I’m telling!’ The girl taunted us. ‘I’m telling, I’m telling!’

‘That was your fault!’ I said, punching Michael in the arm.

‘How’s it my fault? Paul brought her!’ He hit me back, though not hard. I guess he knew it was his fault.

‘I’m telling, I’m telling!’ The girl sang in words that didn’t rhyme. ‘Let me drive or I’m telling!’

‘Henry, just let her drive!’ Paul pleaded. ‘What’s the big deal? It’s only for one day.’

‘She’s a girl!’ I exploded. ‘And she’s too wee, she’ll tell!’

‘I’ll not tell if you let me have a go.’ She promised. I was about to argue but–

‘Alright.’ Michael said, opening the imaginary door and climbing out. ‘You can have a go, just a quick one mind! But you’d better not tell!’

Treachery!

‘That’s not how it works!’ I said, clambering across to the driver’s seat and grabbing the wheel. ‘It’s mine!’ I said, pointing to the place on the dash where I had scratched ‘HBS’ into the dashboard. That’s my initials: Henry Barrington-Smyth. ‘I found it, so it’s mine!’

‘Fine!’ The girl shouted. ‘It’s a stupid car anyway! I’ve got a better one at my bit, with proper doors and windows and everything! And it drives for real! And you’re not getting a go!’

Then she went away. Paul went after her.

‘Just let her go!’ I shouted after him. He turned to face us but kept walking backwards slowly.

‘I can’t! My mum, she said…’ He trailed off. Then he turned and ran after her.

‘Paul! Paul! Just let her go, Paul!’

He ignored me. Michael ran after him, leaving me alone in the car. I couldn’t move. It felt important to hold my ground in the car. The car was mine as long as my bottom was on the seat and my hands were on the wheel. Ahead, at the edge of the clearing, I saw Michael grab Paul by the arm to pull him back. Paul shrugged him off and shouted something at him. I don’t know what it was but his face was livid. He stormed off through the bushes, out of the clearing. Michael followed him, shouting after him but was back a few moments later. He came back to the car.

‘Henry, what if she tells?’ Michael asked again. His voice was quivering and his face was ashen.

‘She won’t tell.’ I said, fighting to ignore a hollow sensation in my stomach. ‘Paul won’t let her. She won’t tell. She was just saying that.’

* * *

Well, she told. Ten minutes later, Michael’s mum came down into our clearing where our car was parked. We were still sitting there, forcing ourselves to be Batman and Robin. Michael got such a blazing row off his mum that I didn’t know where to look. She gave me a good tongue lashing as well, then I went home and got more of the same from my own mum. I wasn’t surprised by that. Once one adult knows something, they all know it.

We never saw Paul again for weeks. He didn’t go to the same school as me and Michael and whenever we went in for him, we were told he couldn’t come out. I felt sick. What if he wasn’t talking to us any more, all because of some stupid burnt out car? Michael and me never spoke about it but I think he felt the same. Then one day Paul came in for me. Turned out his parents had just grounded him and never told us, not even when we went in for him.

We never saw the car again. In some ways, it was a relief. We went back to the clearing a while later (and I mean a long while later) but the car was gone. I don’t know where. We didn’t dare ask. It didn’t matter that it had my initials on it or that I found it. It wasn’t mine any more. I don’t think it ever had been.

THE END

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ATTENTION AUTHORS:

I’m hoping to do author interviews here on Penstricken over the coming year, especially with new fiction authors. If you’re interested in having your work featured on Penstricken, be to sure to drop us an e-mail or message us on Facebook/Twitter.

Until next time!

Writing a Good Character Description

Posted on 20/05/201816/05/2018 by Ndrw

If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a thousand times: characters are the beating heart of every good story. Good characters, more often than not, make for a good story. That means you need to write a character with strong goals, strong motives and a clear problem to overcome. We know this. Nevertheless, it also goes without saying that your characters must all have a physical appearance, which you can describe to the reader (unless, of course, you’re writing some highly ambitious piece of supernatural fiction where all your characters are non-corporeal beings who never interact with physical reality as we know it).

Let me tell you right now, there’s an art to describing characters. Do it right and your audience will have such a vivid image in their minds that they’ll swear they’ve actually met your character. Do it wrong and you might just produce one of the most pedestrian scenes in your entire story. Nothing drags the pace of a narrative down quite like a long winded description of Jimmy’s hair colour, eye colour and whatever unremarkable clothes he might be wearing. I say it’s better to have no physical description than a bad one.

If you give a simple description of height, weight, hair colour, eye colour and so on you will not only bore the reader to tears but you will also, in the most long-winded way possible, tell us nothing significant about the character. Instead, focus on distinguishing features and other details which help us to really get to know the character. Let us refer, once more, to the master, John Steinbeck. He described his character, Lennie Small, in this way:

A huge man, shapeless of face, with large, pale eyes, with wide, sloping shoulders; and he walked heavily, dragging his feet a little, the way a bear drags his paws. His arms did not swing at his sides, but hung loosely and only moved because the heavy hands were pendula.

(John Steinbeck, Of Mice and Men).

If you’ve read Of Mice and Men, you’ll know there are two essential things to know about Lennie Small: 1) he’s a large and strong man and 2) he has a childlike mind. These two facts form the basis for his entire plotline from start to finish. Is it any surprise, then, that Steinbeck’s description emphasises these qualities? Just look at the adjectives/adverbs: ‘huge’, ‘large’, ‘wide’, ‘heavily’, ‘heavy’. All these words signify bigness. Notice, incidentally, that Steinbeck never says ‘tall’, nor does he give a specific height. After all, Steinbeck’s purpose is to emphasise how physically imposing Lennie is but not all tall people are imposing. Whether Lennie is tall or not is unimportant. What matters is that he is huge.

Similarly words like ‘shapeless’, ‘pale’ and ‘hung loosely’, used to describe his face, eyes and body language all have a certain vacant quality to them. The bear metaphor is especially powerful, as bears are animals which are known to be physically imposing but not frightfully intellectual. Nothing in this description is superfluous. It tells us everything we need to know about Lennie. We can imagine unimportant details like his hair colour for ourselves.

Another important thing to consider is how subjective/objective your word choice is. Objective language sticks to the facts. For example: ‘Johnny had brown eyes’. Subjective language is based on one’s personal impressions: ‘Johnny had eyes of the richest chocolate’. Or alternatively, ‘Johnny had eyes like a pair of dirty brown pebbles’. Striking the right subjective/objective balance can be hard and will be largely dependent on your narrative POV. As a rule, First Person and Third Person (Limited) narratives can and should include a generous dose of subjective language, since we are being given the personal impressions of a particular character. We want to know whether or not the narrator is attracted to or repelled by the character in question. Third Person (Omniscient), on the other hand, should be more reserved with its use of subjective language. But that’s only a guideline.

One last tip: use vivid but precise language. Consider again Steinbeck’s description of Lennie. The word ‘pendula’, used to describe the movements of Lennie’s arms, creates a very sharp image in the reader’s mind. After all, we’ve all seen the lazy, mindless but unceasing swing of a pendulum that hangs from a clock, powered by nothing but simple physics. We can imagine that motion so clearly that it is easy to picture Lennie’s arms as they swing in a way that more bland language might not have been able to convey. Beware, however. Don’t let clever sounding words get in the way of a description which is also precise. Steinbeck is a master of description not only because of the vivid imagery he employs, but also because the imagery is so very appropriate. If simple language creates desired effect, use it. Don’t bamboozle your reader with ~~peripheral~~ unnecessary purple prose, especially not if it is less precise than simple language. You will lose your reader’s attention if you do. Instead, aim to use words and metaphors which convey an accurate and vivid image in the most direct way possible.

Remember, your reader doesn’t really care what your character looks like. They care about who your character is. So when you describe your character’s looks, cut to the chase. Keep it snappy, keep it sharp and most importantly of all, keep it relevant.

ARE YOU AN AUTHOR?

I’m looking for authors (especially, but not limited to, new and/or indie authors) whose work I can feature here on Penstricken over the coming year. It will simply take the form of a quick Q&A about yourself and your work via private message or e-mail and, of course, a link to where we can all get a copy of your work.

I’m open to interviewing authors of almost any kind of story, provided your work is complete, original and of course, fictional. I will not consider individual short stories/micro-fictions, however I am happy to feature published anthologies or entire blog-sites of micro-fiction, provided you are the sole author.

If you’re interested, or want to know more, be to sure to drop us an e-mail or message us on Facebook/Twitter.

6 ‘Six Word Stories’ for the 6th (vol. III)

Posted on 06/05/201802/05/2018 by Ndrw

Well can you believe it, it’s that time again already? Today is Sunday the 6th of May and that means it’s time for another exciting instalment [2] of 6 ‘Six Word Stories’ for the 6th!

You probably know the rules by now. I roll six Story Dice and I write a six word story loosely based upon whatever image is displayed on each die, starting from the top left. As ever, the following stories are entirely my own work.

So here we go.

Screenshot_2018-03-20-09-02-36

Alea iacta est.

New Earth colony. Same old stories.
The Englishman’s mortgage was his castle.
‘Judas, take charge of the moneybag!’
Final upstairs climb, borne by ambulancemen.
Bit the coin. Not real gold.
Old friends, old wine, old times.

Phew! It doesn’t get any easier! Why not give it a go yourself? Use the stimuli above to come up with six ‘six word stories’ of your own and share them in the comments below so we can all see how much better you are than me.

We’ll do it all over again on Sunday 6th January 2019.

Until next time!

ARE YOU AN AUTHOR?

If you’re interested, or want to know more, be to sure to drop us an e-mail or message us on Facebook/Twitter.

Gleaning Ideas from Other Stories

Posted on 15/04/201814/04/2018 by Ndrw

Every story, good or bad, starts with an idea. Before you can have a plot, characters or any of that other wonderful stuff, you must have an idea. This we know. We also know that plot bunnies can sometimes pop up at the darnedest times and provide you with a wealth of truly original material with which to create your masterpiece.

But what do you do when the Idea Tree stops putting out its juicy fruit?

Easy.

Glean ideas from someone else’s story.

No, don’t look at me like that! I’m not for one second advocating plagiarism. That’s illegal and rightly so. But reading other people’s books and watching other people’s films can be a great place to find ideas. In fact, you’ll never read/watch/listen to a story of any kind that doesn’t contain at least a few ideas. Even really bad stories still have ideas embedded within their pages which can be used, reused and used again without any risk of plagiarism, so it’s worthwhile learning how to find them and make them work for you.

It’s also worth being clear on what you absolutely shouldn’t do. It’s all very well watching Star Trek and deciding you want to write a novel about space exploration, but it is not okay to write a story about a pointy eared, emotionless man from the planet Vulcan’t who explores the galaxy on the Confederate Starship USS Business. CBS would have every right to hunt you down and ~~pinch your neck~~ sue your face off if you try that. Moreover, it’s okay to read a Batman comic and decide you want to write about a masked vigilante, but I would think twice about making it a millionaire who operates from a secret cave and wears black rubber and a cape. The line between originally and plagiarism can sometimes be fuzzy, so the best advice I can give is to stay far, far away from this kind of obvious idea stealing. Remember, the goal is to get inspired, not to copy. And there’s an art to it.

Think about the last story you read/saw/heard, whether good or bad. For me, it was the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode ‘The Most Toys’. Not my favourite episode by any stretch of the imagination, but that doesn’t matter. We’re going to break it down and squeeze it for every last juicy idea droplets we can and turn those into something good and original. Begin deconstructing the story by asking yourself some basic questions about the plot, characters and themes. Simple stuff like:

Q: Who are some of the key characters?
A: Data, an emotionless android Starfleet officer; Fajo, a cruel and irreverent collector of rare items; Varria, Fajo’s long-suffering slave-come-mistress.

Q: What was the basic plot?
A: Data is kidnapped by Fajo and forced to perform as his latest museum piece. Data refuses to perform and, recognising how Varria has come to loathe Fajo, enlists her help in escaping his captor.

Q: What are some of the key themes?
A: Greed, pacifism, physical and psychological violence against women/domestic abuse, deceitfulness

Q: Any other interesting facts about this story?
A: The title comes from the expression ‘he who dies with the most toys, wins’. This expression emphasises the ultimate futility of humanity’s obsession with accumulating things in the face of our inevitable mortality.

And that’s just for starters. I haven’t even begun to consider settings, minor characters, motives/goals/conflicts or some of the more subtle themes buried throughout the story but I used the questions above just as a demonstration. Your aim here is to deconstruct the story to the nth degree, thus drawing out as much raw material as you can.

Don’t worry about whether or not the themes or character motives are “really” in the story or not. All that matters is that you amass as much raw material as you can and take a note of it. If you’re like me, you’ll probably find it helpful to pool all this material together into one place (in my case, a Scrivener project in which I dump all my loose bits of idea).

Now all you need to do is take some of those individual idea bits and try to turn them into something new. Do a bit of zero drafting or free writing based on what you’ve come up with. For example, the material I gleaned from ‘The Most Toys’ could inspire me to write a story about:

A slave trying to escape his owner who sees him only as property.
A woman trying to escape an abusive relationship.
A woman who, perhaps fearing for her own life, murders her abusive partner.
A robot trying to establish his rights as a sentient being.
Capital punishment. Is it ever morally justifiable to kill?
A robot judge in a criminal court.
A museum where the exhibitions include living people (perhaps from a particular culture or race which that particular society views as inferior?), forced to perform for paying clientele.

Furthermore, by pooling these ideas together with ideas you have extracted from other places, you can mix and match ideas to come up with even more original and interesting stories. Ultimately, no idea is truly original. When you break them down, you’ll find common themes and recurring motifs in almost every story you ever come across. So be sure to pick up all the gleanings from every story you come across. Before long, you’ll have an endless supply of raw material that you can work into something original.

Until next time!

ARE YOU AN AUTHOR?

If you’re interested, or want to know more, be to sure to drop us an e-mail or message us on Facebook/Twitter.

5 Writing Rules I Like To Ignore

Posted on 04/03/201828/02/2018 by Ndrw

If you Google ‘writing rules’, you’ll find that there’s no shortage of writing-gurus out there telling you their top 5, 10, 25 or 100 rules for how to write a killer story. All very useful stuff. I definitely recommend taking their advice on board. In fact, I’ve been known to write a few posts like that myself (though I am not a writing-guru by any stretch of the imagination).

Sometimes, however, you just need to rebel and write according to your own darn rules. So what follows are my top five common story-writing rules and wise sayings which I frequently bend, break and flat-out disagree with.

1. You Must Write Every Day

This is often put forward by some writers as the golden rule all serious writers simply must follow. The idea goes that if you want to be a real writer, the only way to do it is by writing every single day for the rest of your natural life. Personally, I find that rule more of a hindrance than a help.

Don’t misunderstand me. I do believe it’s fundamental to write often and especially to write regularly. I write every weekday evening (I have a day job) and I write all day on Saturdays. But on Sundays? Nope, no writing for me on Sundays. Sunday is my day off. Come hell or high water, Sunday is a no-writing day, except for scribbling down any ideas that pop into my head so I don’t forget them.

When Monday comes around, I’m invariably the better for having rested.

2. When You’re Not Writing, You Must Be Thinking About Writing

Yes, you got me. I’m paraphrasing Eugene Ionesco who said, ‘For a writer, life consists of either writing or thinking about writing’. And while what Ionesco said wasn’t exactly a rule, many would-be writing-gurus like to turn it into a rule. And understandably so, because it’s a catchy soundbite with that wonderful absolutist quality that we writers love to use, because it makes us sound just a little bit supernatural. It creates a nice little distinction between Writers and Lesser Mortals.

Now I can only imagine what it must have been like to be Eugene Ionesco. Maybe he really did spend his entire life in a perpetual state of writing or thinking about writing without a moment of interruption. Maybe lots of writers are like that. I don’t know. If so, good for them. Far be it from me to comment on the lives of others.

But for me personally, writing is only part of my life. It’s a huge part, but only a part. I’ve got a wife and daughter. The day I got married and the day my daughter was born, my story didn’t get a look-in all day. I’ve also got a part time job. When I’m there, I’m not allowed to write and the job requires too much of my concentration for me to spend the whole afternoon daydreaming about my story.

And you know what? I think it’s perfectly healthy (vital, even!) for a writer to have room in his life for other things. There. I said it.

3. You Must Only Write About What You Know

Writing what you know is great. It’s hard to go wrong writing stories based on real jobs, relationships or experiences you’ve had. I’m all for that. If you read through my stories (especially my flash fictions that I post on here), you’ll find a lot of them seem to be set on public transport. That’s because I spend an average of ten hours a week travelling by bus. But I also like to write about spaceships, wizards and fantastic worlds of my own invention. You may recall I once wrote about what it is like to be a mouse. These are things I simply can’t experience — and so, I imagine.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s important to check out your facts before publishing anything and a good way to research your facts is through gaining firsthand experience. I’m not saying you should write in ignorance. But a writer is nothing if he can’t use his imagination to fill in the blanks.

4. You Must Write First and Edit Later

‘But we’ve heard you preaching this rule before!’ I hear you cry.

Yes, you’re right. In general, I absolutely believe that if you want to get anything done, you need to resist the urge to edit until the draft is complete. But on very rare occasions, when I’m discouraged with the draft I’m working on and thinking about giving up… I do find doing a cheeky little edit perks me up and gets me back in the zone.

Still, it’s a nasty habit. Don’t do it.

5. You Must Ignore The Rules

An alarming proportion of the ‘writing rules’ you’ll come across on the internet (including mine) conclude with this altogether unoriginal rule: ‘ignore the rules’.

The idea behind this ‘rule’ is simply this: since there aren’t really any rules for writing, it doesn’t really matter how you write. Just as long as you do write.

Well… sometimes (not always, but sometimes) I like to ignore the ‘ignore the rules’ rule, especially if I’m having a bad writing day. After all, these rules exist because they work, right? So if you get stuck (and we all do from time to time), there’s no shame in taking a bit of instruction from those who know better. Only a fool would spurn their wisdom out of hand.

Until next time!

ARE YOU AN AUTHOR?

If you’re interested, or want to know more, be to sure to drop us an e-mail or message us on Facebook/Twitter.

50 Quotes About Writing

Posted on 28/01/201826/01/2018 by Ndrw

Well, we’ve already had fifty quotes about fiction in general so today it’s time for another fifty quotes, this time providing advice, encouragement and general reflections on the process of writing. So without further ado…

‘I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they go by.’ — Douglas Adams
‘There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.’ — Maya Angelou
‘There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.’ — Ernest Hemingway
‘Writing is easy. All you have to do is cross out the wrong words.’ — Mark Twain
‘If you don’t have time to read, you don’t have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that.’ — Stephen King
‘It’s hell writing and it’s hell not writing. The only tolerable state is having just written.’ — Robert Hass
‘We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospect.’ — Anaïs Nin
‘Writing is an exploration. You start from nothing and learn as you go.’ — E.L. Doctorow
‘A writer, I think, is someone who pays attention to the world.’ — Susan Sontag
‘You have to write the book that wants to be written. And if the book will be too difficult for grown-ups, then you write it for children.’ — Madeleine L’Engle
‘If a story is in you it has got to come out.’ — William Faulkner
‘You never have to change anything you got up in the middle of the night to write.’ — Saul Bellow
‘I’m not a very good writer but I’m an excellent rewriter.’ — James Michener
‘You only learn to be a better writer by actually writing.’ — Doris Lessing
‘It is a very cool thing to be a writer.’ — Bryan Hutchinson
‘You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.’ — Ray Bradburry
‘If there’s a book that you want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.’ – Toni Morrison
‘Start writing, no matter what. The water does not flow until the faucet is turned on.’ — Louis L’Amour
‘Substitute “damn” every time you’re inclined to write “very”; your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be.’ — Mark Twain
‘The only writer to whom you should compare yourself is the writer you were yesterday.’ — David Schlosser
‘Step into a scene and let it drip from your fingertips.’ — M.J. Bush
‘Growing up is highly overrrated. Just be an author.’ — Neil Gaiman
‘Be ruthless about protecting writing days, i.e., do not cave in to endless requests to have “essential” and “long overdue” meetings on those days.’ — J.K. Rowling
‘What doesn’t kill us gives us something to write about.’ — Julie Wright
‘There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.’ — W. Somerset Maugham
‘When asked “how do you write?” I invariably answer “one word at a time.”‘ — Stephen King
‘Writing, to me, is simply thinking through my fingers.’ — Isaac Asimov
‘Writing is show business for shy people.’ — Lee Child
‘It is perfectly okay to write garbage –as long as you edit brilliantly.’ — C.J. Cherryh
‘If you’re writing stuff, you’re a writer. If you’re not writing stuff, you’re not a writer. If you publish ten thousand best sellers, all of which get made into films, then stop writing, you’re no longer a writer… Similarly, if you are writing with any kind of regularity, you are a real writer. You might be a professional or only an amateur, but you are a writer. Really.’ — A. Ferguson
‘If you want to change the world, pick up your pen and write.’ — Martin Luther
‘Write about what really interests you, whether it is real things or imaginary things, and nothing else.’ — C.S. Lewis
‘Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart.’ — William Wordsworth
‘Imagination is like a muscle. I found out that the more I wrote, the bigger it got.’ — Philip José Farmer
‘I write to find out what I’m talking about.’ — Edward Albee
‘Throw up into your typewriter every morning. Clean up every noon.’ — Raymond Chandler
‘You should write because you love the shape of stories and sentences and the creation of different words on a page. Writing comes from reading, and reading is the finest teacher of how to write.’ — Annie Proulx
‘Don’t be a writer. Be writing.’ — William Faulkner
‘Writing is like giving yourself homework, really hard homework, every day, for the rest of your life. You want glamorous? Throw glitter at the computer screen.’ — Katrina Monroe
‘Write what disturbs you, what you fear, what you have not been willing to speak about. Be willing to be split open.’ — Natalie Goldberg
‘To write well, express yourself like the common people, but think like a wise man.’ — Aristotle
‘You can make anything by writing.’ — C.S. Lewis
‘I write to give myself strength. I write to be the characters that I am not. I write to explore all the things I’m afraid of.’ — Joss Whedon
‘I need solitude for my writing; not “like a hermit” — that wouldn’t be enough — but like a dead man.’ — Franz Kafka
‘Writers don’t make any money at all. We make about a dollar. It is terrible. But then again we don’t work either. We sit around in our underwear until noon then go downstairs and make coffee, fry some eggs, read the paper, read part of a book, smell the book, wonder if perhaps we ourselves should work on our book, smell the book again, throw the book across the room because we are quite jealous that any other person wrote a book, feel terribly guilty about throwing the schmuck’s book across the room because we secretly wonder if God in heaven noticed our evil jealousy, or worse, our laziness. We then lie across the couch facedown and mumble to God to forgive us because we are secretly afraid He is going to dry up all our words because we envied another man’s stupid words. And for this, as I said, we are paid a dollar. We are worth so much more.’ — Donald Miller
‘Some writers enjoy writing, I am told. Not me. I enjoy having written.’ — George R.R. Martin
‘A word after a word after a word is power.’ — Margaret Atwood
‘A writer is someone for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.’ — Thomas Mann
‘Writing is thinking. To write well is to think clearly. That’s why it’s so hard.’ — David McCullough
‘Serious writers write, inspired or not. Over time they discover that routine is a better friend than inspiration.’ — Ralph Keyes

Until next time!

ARE YOU AN AUTHOR?

If you’re interested, or want to know more, be to sure to drop us an e-mail or message us on Facebook/Twitter.

Can’t Afford Scrivener? Try yWriter.

Posted on 12/11/201711/11/2017 by Ndrw

Many years ago, when I decided to make my first serious attempt at writing a novel, I did what a lot of enthusiastic beginners probably do: I searched high and low for the perfect novel writing app. I didn’t know about Scrivener back then (in fact, I’m not even sure it was available for Windows at that time) but I did come across another app in a similar vein called yWriter by Spacejock Software. I attempted my first ever novel with it and I absolutely swore by it for a long time. Only the discovery of Scrivener for Windows really turned my head. However, in homage to auld lang syne, I’ve decided to download and review the most recent version of yWriter (specifically, yWriter6) for those of you who don’t want to spend any money (for there is no other good reason not to get Scrivener).

yWriter’s main window (fig. 1) is, for the most part, fairly self-explanatory. Like Scrivener, it allows you to organise your various notes on characters, settings, etc. and, like Scrivener, it allows you to organise your work into separate chapters and scenes. You can either begin with a blank project or you can use the project wizard… which is basically the same as making a blank project, only you begin by specifying the title, author’s name and file directory you want to save it to before you begin, thereby saving yourself thirty seconds later on.

The window which you use to actually write your scene is also pretty self-explanatory for anyone even remotely familiar with ordinary word processors. Unlike many modern word processors, however, you are essentially restricted to writing in a rich text box rather than on a virtual page. As such, there is no easy way to format your page layout (rulers, margins, etc). However, in addition to the features you would expect to find on any word processor, you also have the ability to hear your story read out to you by Microsoft David or Microsoft Zira (a feature which can be handy for helping you to edit a manuscript you’ve grown overly familiar with) and there’s a whole host of tabs on this window which allow you to edit all sorts of information pertaining to the scene you’re working on, if you find that sort of thing useful. You can also easily jump from one scene to another using the drop down menus at the bottom of the scene editing window.

Though this app is simple in many ways, and certainly lacks the flexibility of Scrivener, it does boast a plethora of handy little features which you can use or ignore as you see fit. I doubt if you’ll be inclined to use all of them and I don’t have nearly enough space here to mention them all, but suffice to say it seems pretty obvious to me that the developers have tried to appeal to a broad spectrum of novelists by adding a variety of tools.

Personally, I am rather fond of the word usage window, which shows you a list of every word used in your story and tells you how often you’ve used it; a handy feature if you’re given to tediously repeating certain turns of phrase over and over again. In addition, the help menu includes a ‘writing tips’ option, which brings up a simple message window containing a snippet of handy writing advice such as ‘take a 5-10 minute break every hour. Walk, exercise, make a drink’ and ‘sometimes it’s quicker to rewrite a short scene from scratch than to keep editing it’. You can also rate the relevance, tension, humour and quality of each scene you write and collate that information into a handy-dandy line-graph (fig. 3), which could be a potentially useful tool when you come to edit your drafts (assuming you can be honest with yourself about the quality of your work). The tools for developing characters, settings and items which appear in your story are simple enough to use, if a little basic and inflexible, although there’s plenty of room for writing whatever notes you want.

If there’s one major thing yWriter lacks, it is the ability to compile your manuscript into a suitable format for distribution. For instance, with Scrivener, you can easily compile your work into a variety of useful formats including (but not limited to) standard manuscript format, screenplay format or e-book format– and of course, if none of the presets appeal to you, you can customise your own format. You can’t do any of that with yWriter. It does allow you to export your project in a variety of ways, but if you’ve got any serious plans to submit your work for publication, you’ll need to transfer your exported project to a suitable word processor and format it yourself.

I realise I’ve unintentionally spent a lot of time here comparing yWriter to Scrivener but I hope you won’t misunderstand my intentions. I really like yWriter. Yes, there is room for further development but I do think it’s worth trying, especially for new authors who are just dipping their toe into novel writing for the first time. Nevertheless, bells and whistles not withstanding, it is quite limited when it is compared to more expensive tools like Scrivener. My advice would be to give it a go. You may find yWriter is more than sufficient for your own particular needs, in which case you should be able to get your novel written and save yourself a few bob into the bargain.

My rating: 🌟🌟🌟🌟

Until next time!

5 Sci-Fi Tropes I Could Live Without

Posted on 29/10/201729/10/2017 by Ndrw

Among the many styles and genres of fiction which I enjoy, I must unashamedly confess to a particular fondness for popular sci-fi and fantasy. Yes I know it’s all just unrealistic escapism into a nonsense world of space adventures, suspiciously human shaped aliens and humanity being conquered by the very robots we built to help us but still… it’s fun. And you know… fun’s allowed, even if you like serious literature.

All the same… there have to be limits. But for some reason, sci-fi is just chock full of certain clichéd tropes, some of which are so very ridiculous that it frankly beggars belief that they ever became clichés. The others are just plain done to death. What follows are some of my (least) favourites.

The Holographic Hook

You’ve got to write a space opera and are struggling to come up with an exciting opening scene to draw the audience in from the very beginning. Solution: an exciting space battle! Ships firing at one another, hand to hand combat between aliens and humans, lasers, explosions–

Then an admiral calmly walks onto the scene and ends the simulation. It was all just a holographic training exercise!

This kind of scene, made famous by the Kobayashi Maru scene in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (and then repeated time and time again in one form or another), gives the audience a burst of excitement that has very little bearing on the story which is to follow. The best it can do is foreshadow some internal conflict the protagonist may face later on in the story.

Please… it’s been done too often. Put some effort in and come up with a proper hook for your story.

Is That You Clive?

You’re alone on an abandoned space station or a spooky castle. Or maybe you’re just home alone, meticulously colouring in your colouring-in book on a dark and stormy night. Suddenly you hear something… something rattling, hissing, banging… perhaps even a sinister inhuman voice whispering your name.

You spin around wildly.

‘Is that you Clive?’

No. No, it’s not Clive. It’s never Clive. And really, ask yourself, is this the sort of thing Clive normally does? If it is… you need to dump Clive and get yourself some nicer friends. Just saying.

Just once I’d like to read or watch something where the victim doesn’t automatically assume that the scary noise is their friend pulling a cruel prank on them. Or better still, just once, I’d like it to really be Clive pulling a cruel trick. At least I’d be surprised.

Hey Clive, Are Those New Horns?

Something terrible has happened to Clive. He’s being controlled by an alien or replaced with a robot duplicate. His behaviour is erratic. His speech has become strange. His eyes have turned luminous green and he has grown horns.

And no one really notices until it’s too late.

My personal favourite example of this occurs in the Doctor Who episode, Rose. Rose returns to her boyfriend’s car to find he is now made entirely of plastic and is talking funny. And what does she do?

Goes out for dinner with him. She suspects nothing until the Doctor fires a corkscrew straight through his skull without injuring him. And she’s supposed to be his girlfriend.

Sigh.

We, The People of Earth…

So it finally happened. Aliens have made contact with humanity. They may have come in peace or they may have come laser guns blazing, but one way or another, it’s first contact day for the people of Earth.

You know Earth, don’t you? Seven-point-four billion different versions of the truth, spread across one hundred and ninety five independent sovereign states (to say nothing of those who want to break away and start their own nation or conquer others) all gathered together on one planet, unable to agree on even the most trifling of matters?

A whole host of different political ideologies, systems of government, international treaties and religious beliefs, and yet when the aliens finally come, humanity all rallies around a single leader, or at the very least, sets aside all their differences. Usually it’s the President of the USA, except in Doctor Who where it can be just about anyone except the President. In any event, I have a sneaking suspicion that if aliens did make themselves known to us today, humanity would not respond with a single unified voice, or even two or three differing voices. Call me cynical but I think it would probably be chaos.

Ask yourself this. If aliens landed on Earth today:

How would Donald Trump respond?
What about Kim Jong-Un?
What about Angela Merkel?
What about ISIS?
What about the Pope?
What about the World Health Organisation?
The Scottish National Party?
The British National Party?
Richard Branson?
Kim Kardashian?
The writers of Doctor Who?
The guy that sells the Big Issue in the town centre?

You get the idea.

Magical Alien Artefacts

I don’t really have a problem with functioning magical artefacts if you’re writing a fantasy, set in a world of magic and myth, rather than a sci-fi set in space and/or the future. At its core, sci-fi (even silly popular sci-fi) tends to speculate on the advancement of technology and science, rather than the possibility that magic might actually work. If we are assuming that magic is not real, as sci-fi tends to do, we have to ask some serious questions about why it would work on an alien planet.

‘Ah, but, you see, it’s not really magic!’ I hear you cry. ‘It’s just technology that seems like magic!‘

But if it’s just technology… why dress it up like magic? Star Trek is very guilty of this. Whether it’s the legend of the Tox Uthat (a quantum phase inhibitor which appeared in TNG: Captain’s Holiday), or Vulcan mythology concerning the psionic resonator (TNG: Gambit), there just seems to be no end of magical artefacts in space which are actually just very clever technology. Technology made of stone. Stone technology that does magic. Heck, some even involve meditating and muttering incantations.

Dishonourable Mentions:

Everybody knows how to fly every kind of spaceship in the universe, even if it is of completely alien design.
Everybody knows everything about science.
Rough alien taverns. Just once, give me a classy alien wine bar.
With just a slight modification to the engine/shields/BBQ grill, we can do some sci-fi magic to save the day!
The bad guys believe emotion is a weakness and that is their Achille’s heel.
Love conquers all (exemplified in the Doctor Who episode Closing Time, where Craig is turned into a Cyberman then somehow manages to turn himself back into a human simply because he hears his baby son crying… as if he was the first parent the Cybermen ever upgraded. Seriously, I preferred it when the Cybermen’s greatest weakness was gold).
Universal translators.
Legendary technology, planets or lifeforms which really do exist.
Having a weapon of mass destruction called ‘The Weapon’. By all means call it the Super Zappy Death Ray, but don’t call it The Weapon. Use your imagination and give it a name.
Shooting the control panel/monitor shuts down everything on the entire spaceship, unlocks every locked door and/or disarms the Weapon.
Snippets of news reporters telling the general public how to survive the alien invasion. I repeat, do this to survive the alien invasion!
Jeanie who works at the shop is actually THE PROPHESIED CHOSEN WARRIOR QUEEN OF ALL THE MULTIVERSE and she doesn’t even realise it.

Well that was a far from exhaustive list but I’m glad to have got it off my chest anyway. Thanks for taking the time to read this post. Be sure to leave us a wee comment below and don’t forget to ‘like’ this post and follow us so you never miss another post. You can also follow Penstricken on Twitter and like Penstricken on Facebook, if that’s what reverses your polarity.

Until next time!

100 Word Story: Little Thieves Are Hanged

Posted on 22/10/201716/10/2017 by Ndrw

You may recall that a couple of weeks ago, I published a 100 word story entitled The Monster which I had previously entered (unsuccessfully) into the National Association of Writers’ Groups 100 Word Mini-Tales competition. Well, I’ve since decided to publish just one more of my entries here, mainly because I’ve already made reference to this particular story on previous posts and it seemed only apropos to let you read the thing.

As ever, what follows here is entirely my own work and has not been published anywhere else in the world, whether on print or online, nor do I expect it to be. And so, without further ado, I give you…

LITTLE THIEVES ARE HANGED

by. A Ferguson

Based on a true story

The junkie was talking before he reached the bus stop. Coming toe-to-toe with another gentleman who was waiting there, the junkie recounted his entire life story, occasionally tapping the gentleman’s stomach; a genial ‘wait-until-you-hear-this’ gesture.

The gentleman put his hands in his pockets. He glanced desperately towards me. I smiled, trying to reassure him.

An eternity passed before a bus finally spirited the junkie away, still talking as he embarked. The gentleman relaxed.

‘I’ve no idea who that was!’ He confided to me as my bus arrived.

I laughed and boarded the bus, fingering his wallet, safe in my pocket.

THE END

Until next time!

How Many Drafts Should I Write?

Posted on 15/10/201713/10/2017 by Ndrw

I remember when I first came across the concept of writing in drafts. I was in primary school doing some piece of written work (I forget what about) when my teacher told us all to write a rough draft first, then to write a second draft.

Well that’s just silly, I thought (I couldn’t have been more than seven years old). Why don’t I just write it properly the first time?

Because, as Ernest Hemingway (one of the greatest writers of the modern age) pointed out, ‘the first draft of anything is s***’. Now if Ernest Hemingway couldn’t knock out a high quality novel on the first go, what chance have the rest of us got?

‘Okay, okay, I know that already!’ I hear you cry. ‘But how many drafts should I write?’

Ah, well, now you’re asking. The short and somewhat glib answer is, ‘as many as it takes’. In my experience, three would be the bare minimum but no two writers work in quite the same way so if you’re looking for a hard and fast rule, look elsewhere because I ain’t got one to give you. I can only give you the benefit of my limited experience. So, this is what works for me. Feel free to try it out and if it doesn’t work for you, well… don’t shout at me.

Zero Draft (or the ‘Not Technically a Draft, Draft’)

Before I even attempt to write a first draft, I write a zero draft.

‘Well, that just sounds like a load of pretentious nonsense to me!’ I hear you cry.

Well a lot of writers of both fiction and non-fiction use zero drafts and I don’t know whether or not they use the term in exactly the same way I do, but for me a zero draft sits somewhere between free-writing and drafting. I’ll write maybe half a dozen (often more) of these individual, disjointed portions of narrative, without worrying too much about whether it’s any good or not, to help me invent settings, audition characters and generally breathe a bit of life into my ideas and research without worrying about if they will fit into my final project.

This kind of writing is not structured enough to be considered a true first draft but it is more focused than free-writing, which simply involves typing whatever comes into your head even if it’s nothing to do with anything (click here for an example of what free-writing looks like).

Not all writers use zero drafts. They work well for me because, as a half-planner/half-pantser, I need a chapter outline to help me write a draft… but I can’t easily imagine what my characters might do and think unless I’ve already written them into existence. Thus I write a zero draft to help me plan. Then I use the plan to help me write my first draft.

First Draft (or the ‘Tell Yourself the Story Draft’)

This is where I make my first serious attempt at writing my novel/novella/short story/etc in all its fullness. After I’ve completed my chapter outline, story beats, character profiles and all that boring stuff, I should have a pretty clear idea in my mind as to what events should happen and in what order. I know where my story begins, where it ends and the journey it takes to get there. All I have to do is write it, starting with chapter one and ending with the ending.

What I don’t worry about at this stage is my writing style: word choice, figurative language, or even more basic things spelling and grammar. I try to stick to a rough word count, but even then, I don’t let it hinder me. The point of this stage is simply to get the story out in all its fullness, no matter how badly written it may be. Or, as Terry Pratchett put it, ‘the first draft is just you telling yourself the story’.

Write it quickly. Don’t edit it. It can be rubbish, as long as it’s complete (note: it should still make sense, however, assuming you’ve done the planning bit properly!).

Second Draft (or the ‘Make Your Story Better’ draft)

Congratulations! You’ve completed your first draft. Now go away and do something else for a few days at least.

Done that? Alright, now print off your first draft and read it with a dispassionate eye.

Rubbish right? That’s okay, it’s meant to be. At this stage, I grab my red pen and go through the whole thing picking out everything in the story itself that needs fixing or improving. Shallow characters, unconvincing dialogue, plot holes (though there shouldn’t be too many of those if I planned well in the beginning) and all that sort of stuff. I still don’t waste too much time at this stage thinking about language or style; what matters is the plot, the people and the places that make up my story. Once I’ve worked out everything that needs improved, it’s time to start writing that second draft, slower this time, taking care to apply all the improvements I’ve decided to make.

Note: by ‘writing that second draft’ I do mean writing the whole story all over again from scratch, not simply tidying up the first draft. Keep the first draft safe so you can refer back to it.

Third Draft (or the ‘Make Your Story Beautiful’ draft)

For me, this is the final essential stage of drafting any story I write, although it is entirely possible that I might need to write more if my first ones weren’t up to scratch.

Once I’ve completed my second draft I again set it aside for a little. This time when I come back, I print it off and, using my Red Pen of Editing, go through it with a fine tooth comb working out all stylistic issues. This is without a doubt the slowest draft to create. Every word counts, every sentence matters. By now, I should be fully satisfied with my story (if I’m not, I need to go back and repeat an earlier stage) and am focused purely on turning my story into a work of art. Word choice, turns of phrase, figurative language and all those other subtle things that turns a story into something beautiful.

What you’re trying to say should already be well and truly established. For me, the third draft is all about how you say it.

Until next time!