I. Feel. Dirty.

I felt so unclean after writing that piece of drivel, that I had to partake in Yr 11's activity - we rewrote part of my original story, and made it better. Just the phone conversation.

Here's what 10 minutes got me. First drafts are always so rough, whatwhat?

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She sat in her room, fingers worrying the torn edge of her jeans. Had she done something wrong, embarrassing, that she didn't remember? Did she smell? She had thought he'd liked her...and she'd tried so hard to get his attention this week. Maybe too hard...
"Mary!" her mum yelled from downstairs. "Phone for you. It's some boy...says it's urgent!" She'd been so caught up in her depressed thoughts that she hadn't even heard the phone ring. She thudded down the stairs, and picked up the still-warm receiver.
"Hi, this is Mary," she said questioningly.
"Mary! Oh! Um, hi!" said a familiar voice hesitantly at the other end of the line.
"Max?"
"Um. Yeah. Um. Look, sorry about the short notice and stuff, but...um..."
"Yes...?" she offered, hoping he would go on.
"Well, the Prom's tonight, and, well, I was hoping you might still be going, and um, be free and...maybe I could come and pick you up...um..." he stammered.
"Wow! Really?"
"Yeah."
"Of course I'd love to go!" She tried to sound calm and confident, but knew that her excitement was shining through her voice.
"You would? I mean, that would be great! Um, cool! I'll be there at 6?"
She put down the phone with a smile. He'd sounded so nervous - maybe that's why he hadn't asked her till now!
Mary bounced up the stairs to her room, two at a time, calling out to her Mum. "I'm off to the Prom! Can I borrow your diamante purse?"

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I think the most obvious thing learned here is that once you expand out the simple story, you end up with real, live characters, not the black and white, cardboard things from my original piece of poo. Here, the audience are invited into Mary's life a little more, not kept at arm's length. By inviting them into the intricacies of the phone conversation, you're making the reader feel important. Readers want to be involved, to stand beside the characters and live their lives too.

Don't just TELL the reader what's happening. SHOW them, involve them, make them feel like they are there. That's one of the secrets of good writing, and it's easy to do.

OMG, I was bored!

So, writing creatively and engagingly is hard. But it doesn't have to be. The best thing to remember is NOT TO BORE YOUR READER TO DEATH! Give them lots of descriptions to make them feel like they are there too. A catchy opening, so that they want to keep on reading. Dialogue will make it feel realistic. And don't just recount events - BORING!

Here's a really poor short story for you to edit and make more exciting. Don't copy it out, just adapt it into your books.

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Mary was 17 and had never been kissed. It was the week of the school prom and she was hoping that her dreams would come true. That Max, the hottest guy in the school, would ask her out. Every day for a week she want to school, smiled and was friendly, wore lots of make up and paid careful attention to her hair. But he never asked her.
On Friday, she went home from school, very sad.
It was the night of the prom and Mary was thinking of not going but then the phone rang. It was Max and he asked her to go with him to the prom! Of course she said yes. She put on her best dress and her favorite shoes. She was ready for the night of her life!
She ran downstairs and he said she looked gorgeous. She'd never been so happy. It was the best night of her life.

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Urgh...it hurts to write something this bad!

Get Stimulated!

Start what, from where?
Use this as a stimulus for a piece of creative writing.
Thanks to my friend TOA for the pic.



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Gaiman is teh clever

Here, as promised, is the vid footage of Neil Gaiman reading his short story 'Orange'.
Enjoy.

SMH goes downhill