Short stories over time

        After all those Peculiar Children, I needed to get back to the basics of creative writing (and my favoutite genre)  - the short story.

        I ratted my "Waiting To Be Read" shelf, took down a small 1959 English collection designed for schools that I found in the chuckout tray at the OpShop. At the time I thought at that price it was worth a look, especially as the five pieces in it were from heavyweights of their day - Joseph Conrad (a story published in 1909), D H Lawrence (1909), Saki (1914), Katherine Mansfield (1921), E M Forster (1928), and Graham Greene (1954).

        I guess it was designed to shape the literary minds of older English school pupils in the 1950s, but geez I struggled with each of them, as they were all too long, too dated, too many big paragraphs, too dry, spent much too much verbiage describing things oh-so cleverly in unnecessary detail. But it was the way of the day.

        Consigned it to the Re-donate pile, pulled down "The Penguin Century of Australian Stories", a collection of 100 short stories, from 1902 to 1999, by Australian writers, mostly of some note. Look forward to getting stuck in. But the very first thing that struck me, was that it's arranged in alpha order by author, when I totally expected to find it chronological - y'know, a study in the changing styles and themes over 100 years. But no, once again it's being said that the author is more important (okay, my interpretation) than the content.

        Stay tuned....

                T.R.E.

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A good (peculiar) read, but....

         Just finished this, a sort of a journey through Time and Imagination, a Mystery / Adventure / Horror story for 13 to 18 year olds, a bit like Harry Potter meets Alien meets The Terminator, just enough of everything to get any teen reader percolating, and as I said before, probably designed for the TV market, with an ending left hanging ready for the sequel, or a whole series.

        One reaction was that it was like watching a literary idea evolve - well, a storytelling idea, as this novel is more about getting the action down than being about good writing. But don't let that put you off, if you'd like a bit of Hunger Games type genre, give it a shot. And don't let the 2016 movie and its mixed reviews put you off. I was told by a table of close relatives who have read/seen both, that the book is better.

        There's an interesting interview with Ransom Riggs at the end, opening with the totally predictable - "Did the photos or the story idea come first?" Answer is (as I suspected) the photos, collected up by Riggs and some geeky mates from Op Shops, Markets, and rubbish bins(!) over a period, and as Riggs went through the slowly increasing horde (he claims about 100,000 passed through his hands), the odd ones of children stirred his imagination and he started sketching out story ideas that fitted, and this book is the outcome.

        I was marvelling at the whole unique idea this morning, and it occurred to me that it was a very similar thing back in 2008 when I did that Explorer Bear picture book epic for Smudge, when she was 7. Maybe Riggs saw that online? Gave him the idea? (Yeah - right!!) Ah, ya never know.

        Cheers....

                    T.R.E.

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Currently reading, something ... different !

"MISS PEREGRINE'S HOME FOR PECULIAR CHILDREN"
         - Ransom Riggs (2001 USA)

        I actually found this in a roadside library, nearly passed it over as I don't read a lot of fantasy. But it has led me in slowly and subtly so now I'm hooked, about a third-way in, and I need to know what happens next.

        My initial guess was that Riggs (check the Wiki page below for the whole story) had a few old black and white photos, which fired his imagination, he then rounded up a heap more, and decided to weave a story around them. Clever idea. Not only that but he's put the photos into the book as they are mentioned, and it's damn hard not to look ahead to see what the next one is. All of them odd or even a touch weird. And thereby hangs the tale.

        It starts off sort of "Adult" but it soon gets to feel more like it's pitched at the Young Adult market, say 13-20 year olds, with it's delving into the mildly fantastic. Not that this detracts in any way, it's a good read, so far, well put together and worth the time. No surprise that they've already (2016) made a movie out of it, as it screams Netflix.

        More soon....

            Cheers....

                    T.R.E.

RANSOM RIGGS

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A.I. postscript...

         Sucked in a bit by all this A.I. stuff, I jumped into an exercise relevant to authorship and all that.

        I put up Copilot and asked it to "Write a 100 word review of 'The Prologue Of Jemma Raglan by T. R. Edmonds' ", and got just about the warmest fuzziest feelgood geez-I-must-be-brilliant 98 word review you could possibly ask for. Who needs the real thing!

        But then I added the word "critical" to "review" and got quickly deflated by what came back, shooting holes in just about everything from style to content.

        I know that A.I. simply draws on available data, both online and from "reading" a mountain of printed matter, but what it puts together is what it "thinks" you want to hear, as it offered to do an even more critical review if that was what I needed (not likely!) and I know that such reviews don't actually exist in the real world.

        So, the whole thing smacks of shortcuts for schoolkids who have to do reports and analyses and don't have the brainpower or go-get-ness to do it the old way. Using your own brain. Godknows what their education will be like, or how many things are put up for marking that sound suspiciously similar.

        Anyway, curious about copyright breach, I asked for an extract from my "Myths, Sins... " novel, and it came back, politely declining (even sounded a touch indignant that I'd even asked) because "...the book doesn't exist publicly..." and set about making up some sci-fi crap about a dodgy renegade machine (that actually came as being a lot like A.I. !!) to make me happy.

        A footnote to all this - quite a while back I toyed with Copilot and simply asked "Can you write a short story?" and back (it's damn fast!) came a 100-150 word bit about a lighthouse keeper. Which wasn't too bad. But curious where it may have got it from, I Googled several unique key words from it, and it took me to this site below...

STEVE'S STORIES

...and a story which reads remarkably similar. Hit the "Stories/Content" tag at the top of the page. What do you make of all this? Did AI steal from Steve, or is Steve simply cranking out A.I. stories by the bucketload? It's a funny old techno world out there my friend.

        Cheers....

                Trev

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Disappointing end....

 "SO LATE IN THE DAY" - Claire Keegan (UK/Ire 2023)

        Crestfallen.

        After so much excellence, this one - looking at it in context of the other four - comes across as an opportunistic exercise by the publisher, cashing in on the momentum of her being hot, but I found it unsatisfying, just a bit of blatant bloke-bashing (and okay, this guy needed a bit of bloke-bashing), when heaps of her writing is so much better than this, and surely Faber could've waited for something loftier.

        It's about 9k words, but put out in a bigger font and a down-sized book size, looks more like it's going to be for the ten-year-old market. Just about expect pictures.

        She writes this one as the main male character - a wishy washy adult Dublin accountant - but can't help doing it really from his partner's point of view, a strong-minded French live-in, but I just came away feeling it missed its mark, whatever that was. The writing is good, the story trivial. In my opinion. Waiting with breath held and crest fallen to see what Keegan does next.

        Cheers....

                T.R.E.

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There ya go....

         Wouldn't you know it, ink hardly dry on that tissy little self doubt rant the other day, and a soul lift comes along in the form of one of our 6.30am coffee club mates and a great guy.    

        He's about 80, a refugee kid from middle Europe's Nazi and Commo mayhem, arrived in SA after his family (he's in the middle of 9 kids) was harassed all over, grew up in tough Pt Adelaide times, initially trained as a Catholic Brother but - in his own words - gave that away when he discovered females (he's a dag!), became in time a private High school teacher specialising in English.

        We knew he'd get a badly needed laugh from "Dudley's Career In Cabbages", lent him a copy, came back a few days later clearly taken with it, gave me a decent old charge, made my day.

        There ya go. Sure sign of a totally insecure scribbler.

        Cheers....

                Trev

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How does she do it?

 "SMALL THINGS LIKE THESE" - Claire Keegan (UK/Ire 2021)

        Another long short story (about 22k words), of Ireland's everyday people, this one in about 1985, and again, superb writing.

        It's the week leading up to Christmas in a country town (still heavily influenced by the Catholic church), and we follow the local wood and coal merchant as he does his rounds. Simple as that. But it's what he thinks about, and the couple of incidents he gets caught up in - because he's a decent man - that makes the story.

        They've turned this one into a movie as well, and justifiably so, and I can't wait to get hold of a copy.

        Looking back over these four "books" of hers, right or wrong I get the impression that Keegan has a canny agent, and a lot of support at Faber & Faber, her publisher. The first one ("Antarctica") was a collection of random short stories, some not so short, that incorporated several that made a significant stir in the Irish and British literary circles when put out there, and Faber took a punt and published 15 of her best (at the time), and they sold well on the back of the publicity.

        That led to a repeat in "Walk The Blue Fields", also to some acclaim, so next they took a punt on using a single long-ish story that stands alone well - "Foster" - to put it out as a stand-alone book. Which was then made into a great movie, and she had arrived. On a winning streak, Faber did it again with this one, a long-ish short story that easily stands alone, and again it was made into a movie.

        So, you'd have to conclude that Keegan and her agent and Faber between them have found a whole new publishing niche. I have absolutely no idea if this is how it all went, but long may it continue.

        Last one coming up....

                Cheers.....

                        T.R.E.

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Self doubt - a baleful animal...

        The COMMENTS on/off thing. If you noticed.

        It went like this.

        I finished the latest short story and put it up in The Workshop. Then I did that Mitzi & Duds tribute over in Pandora's Box. Which had me re-reading "Dudley's Career In Cabbages". Compared the two, which got me worried that my craftmanship was slipping, as I found the older one ("...Cabbages") brighter, zippier, looser, easy-flowing, like it had oozed out of the old fingertips in one sitting. Which it didn't, but that's how it felt.

        Then I re-read "The Ballad Of The Unspeakable Son" (tag below), and it seemed - like - heavier. As if it'd been harder work. A bit pedestrian even? I know the subjects are miles apart, one meant to be light and funny, the other a bit sad and poignant.

        Whatever. I came away a touch concerned. Like The Ghost was slipping away from me. Getting tired. And no-one to bounce off.

        It was a bad day.

        So, I decided to turn on the COMMENTS, as if I thought someone "out there" might have an answer. But I slept on it for a couple of days and nights, decided all that was just a touch pathetic, then asked myself - "Would I change how I write and what I write because of someone's comments anyway?"

        Answer of course (being a single-minded type) was - "No." I have always written what I want, did my best, edited it to death, been my own muse, judge, and jury. And too old to change. So I turned it off.

        What else can I say?

        Nup, that's it. Small lesson learnt. Back to the pen, the paper, the keyboard.

            Cheers....

                    Trev

THE BALLAD OF THE UNSPEAKABLE SON

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Keegan No 3....

 "FOSTER" - Claire Keegan (2010 UK)

        I've already commented on this one (below somewhere still), having read it a while back by chance, which was what hooked me onto the movie of it (which we've seen twice and loved, even though it's mostly in Irish with English subtitles, still a great watch), which in turn had me hunting for anything else she's done.

        But I though I'd best stick to the plan and read all five of her books in sequence anyway, and have to say this one is as good as the first time through. At about 18k words, this small gem is somewhere between a long short story and a novella, which is Keegan's way by the look of it, as the next two are both like this one, a long short story done up as a novella.

        I haven't changed my mind on the "Walk The Blue Fields" comments below, this writer, this storyteller, just arrived on Earth with her talent ready to go, and I wouldn't presume to say that she is steadily "improving" as you might expect, they are all as good as each other.

        One of the happy bonuses of my First Edition copy (original cover shown) is that some aspiring young - female I'm positive - literary student has scribbled copious notes all through it. Geez I love that. And I hope that you had a good old scribble on all of mine when you read them. Next one soon...

        Cheers.....

                T.R.E.

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Finished No 2....

"WALK THE BLUE FIELDS" - Claire Keegan (2007 Ire/UK)

        This is the second book of Keegan's in her series of five I'm reading, and doing it in time sequence to get a feel of the development of her writing, and is another collection of short stories, which seems to be her genre.

        She must've started her "serious" creative fiction writing when in about her mid 20's best I can work out, but I have to say it's like she simply arrived with her talent at full perk and hit the ground running, because this one is just as good as the first.

        She has a capacity to find great ways of describing small detail, in people and landscape, such as one gem in this book, introducing the main character to us as "...a bold spear of a woman...". Geez I wish I could come up with that sort of thing a little more often!

        Once again, this is the lives of ordinary people, and some not so ordinary, but even with these you get the feeling that they would see themselves as ordinary. It's a collection of only 8 stories, mainly set in Ireland, and averaging about 7k words. But some of them, again, fairly long for a short story at well over 10k words. Two of her later long stories have been made into movies, being the next two in the sequence, but no idea if she set out with this in mind or it's simply been a great spin-off from good writing.

        Okay, "FOSTER" next, stay tuned....

            Cheers....

                        T.R.E.

ps - re-brained PC humming like total contentment !!  Ahhhh - bliss !!

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