Three stories in 450 words.

Today is flash fiction day, so I thought I’d share my efforts with you. Here are three stories at 150 words each, let me know what you think.

 Meterman

Only come to check the meter, so of course I let him in. He was a bit too jowly, and his eyes were dark around the edges, but he was the first man I’d had in the house since my Terry passed. He hadn’t gotten his photo ID yet, but he looked the part, with his British Gas fleece and his little suitcase full of wires. I offered him a cup of tea; he declined, so I stood in the mirror checking my curlers, and somehow he got to the front door without me seeing him. 

“All done now, love,” he said, and stepped into the evening rain.

I dreamed about the meterman last night. He was stood bedside my bed. He fell softly on my neck, kissing, biting. There was ever so much blood. I woke early this morning and opened the curtains, but the sun was too bright.

Bridge

He stands with his hands on the Victorian iron and looks down at the water. Steady, wide. He has never been east of the river before, but he has a five pound note, and he wants to see the fair.

There are so many people. So much coloured light. He sees a sign. He doesn’t read well, but he knows the word ‘magic’, so he follows it to a red velvet tent. The man in the spotlight calls him to the stage, has him check a hat for hidden compartments, then conjures two doves, which fly out through the doorway. Someone says it is fine sleight of hand; he is sure they are wrong.

It is midnight. He stands on the bridge which will take him back to the flat above the butcher’s, where his mother and sister sleep. He looks at the sky. A dove flies towards the moon.

Flash – A horror story

There was lightning in the sky, and the rain fell on the leaves like a giant watering can.

“Let’s hide in that old house!” shouted Kevin.

He was sick of reading horror stories. Nobody wants to mark coursework at one AM. Every story seemed to feature fifteen year olds taking shelter in haunted houses. Still, they ticked the boxes for similes, adverbs and onomatopoeia, so he gave them good marks.

It was raining when he went to bed. It hit the windows like… like a giant watering can. Perhaps bad prose really was infectious. He sunk his head into his pillow and closed his eyes. Great Expectations sat on the bedside cabinet. Dust made thick fur on his guitar strings. A notebook lay open on the

coffee table. He’d left the pen lid off when he’d written ‘novel ideas’ in the centre of the page; the ink was going dry.

St. Shakespeare's Day Anyone?

As an agnostic who doesn’t believe in dragons, I won’t be celebrating St George’s Day on Monday. This does not mean I am ashamed to be English. I’m happy being English. I eat crumpets for breakfast, drink tea by the gallon, and have even started wearing a bowtie and tweed jacket to work. On a less cartoonish level, I love the rock music, the sense of humour, the old trees at the side of country roads with no leaves on the branches but with a think green beard of ivy. I love the history, the language, the cities. I love the people. I love the long standing tradition of tolerance and multiculturalism.

I am aware that there is an equally longstanding tradition of intolerance and racism, and that there are those who think that to be proud of being English you must believe that England cannot include those who have cultural roots in other countries. I would take a perverse pleasure in referring those people to a Frenchman. Charles de Gaul wrote that ‘patriotism is when love of your own people comes first; nationalism, when hate of people other than your own comes first'. Unfortunately, any patriots wishing to celebrate St George’s Day risks having to put up with nationalist saying embarrassingly racist things like a drunken uncle at a family wedding.

However, this is not why I reject St George’s Day entirely. I’m just not sure what celebrating the feast day of a Roman soldier from Palestine who is most famous for killing a creature which probably never existed, and who was venerated by a faith which I, and many other English people, do not have, has to do with being English. I suspect (although I have no evidence for this) that the choice of George as patron saint may have been partly inspired by a desire to kick the Welsh dragon into line. In fact, according to Wikipedia, the story of George and the Dragon most likely originated from the iconic tradition of the Eastern Orthodox Church, with the dragon as a metaphor for the anti-Christian Roman Empire which eventually tortured and executed him. He is portrayed as victorious because his bravery in the face of death led to the conversion of the empress, and of a high profile Roman priest. If we must remember St George, let it be as someone who stood up for what he believed, and was killed as a result of religious intolerance.

As for patriotism, surely there must be some English person worth celebrating - someone known and respected internationally, someone who has had an impact on English culture. Well actually, there is, and we wouldn’t even have to change the date. William Shakespeare was born on the 23^rd of April, and died on the same date about fifty years later, which probably ruined his birthday party. In that time he wrote around 38 plays which still cast an enormous shadow over world literature. Yes he might ‘only’ have been a writer, and I might be a little biased, but Scotland has Burn’s Night, so why not? Few people have had so strong an impact on the imaginative life of our nation – he has been part of the secondary school syllabus for generations, and almost anybody educated in Britain will have read at least one of his plays. Most importantly though, he does not represent a single faith, creed or ideology – his interest is in people as human beings. So, whether you plan to celebrate St George’s day on Monday or not, spare a thought for good old Shakey.

Incidentally, I discovered while writing this that somebody else had the same idea and took it even further. It’s controversial, but it’s an interesting point of view. You can read their article here.

U-turn Ahead (or, Why I'd Quite Like an E-reader)

In the past I’ve been quite dismissive of e-readers. Theoretically, I should have been exited from the start – an infinite library packed into a device the size of a slim volume of poetry. But where was the rustle of turning pages, the smell of yellowing paper, the battered cardboard covers? What about bookshelves? You can’t nose through somebody else’s Kindle without looking downright rude. You can’t line a wall with all your favourite ebooks. What about the familiar weight of your favourite novel as you take it down from the shelf for another go? And I can’t help but feel like reaching the end or warandpiece.doc or ulysess.txt won’t be as satisfying as finding that last half page of text in a heavy tome. Somehow, the paper adds to the poetry.

I still think all of this is true. But here I am, trying to decide whether I can afford to shell out for an e-reader from my next payslip (actually, I’m secretly hoping I might have won one, but that’s another story). Why? Because the rise of e-publishing represents what is probably the biggest change in the way books are produced since the printing press; as a wannabe writer, I can’t afford to let get left behind because of my own Luddite tendencies.

And it really has opened up a great number of exciting possibilities in the publishing world. The serialized novel has returned, awaiting the possibilities of our post-modern world. Almost anybody can make their work available to the entire world, free of charge (although they might later come to regret unleashing a poorly edited and proof read debut). A greater number of books are available to a greater number of people than ever before. And (most importantly), lower production costs mean that, in theory, writers could be paid more. I rub my hands together greedily in expectation of the great mounds of cash that will surely follow.

Obviously, e-publishing will work better for some things than for others. It’s perfect for magazines, as it keeps production costs down and helps prevent the mounds of paper which threatens to fill the living rooms of even the most casual reader, but for me at least, it will still never replace the physicality of a good perfect-bound novel. There are things about which I am sceptical. The wave of self-publishing is exciting, but it will make it more difficult to good work to get noticed, just as it could be more difficult for new novelists to find their feet without the support of a good editor. Perhaps the plethora of creative writing will start to fill that role. I am wary of the ‘multimedia novel’ which some are predicting; video clips and sound files just seem a little gimmicky for me. Still, these are exciting times to write in. I can no longer pretend that e-books are a passing phase – it’s time to jump in and see what happens.

Watch this space.

Must Try Harder

It is about eleven on Christmas Eve Eve. I am in Asda buying snacks and pop to mix with the spirits we have at home. It is filled with people buying huge quantities of crisps, breaded mozzarella fingers and Advocaat. I have just had to wait in the ‘20 items or less’ self-service queue for ten minutes while a couple scan through an entire large trolley worth of alcohol and ready meals, and another man struggles with the mysteries of the barcode scanner. My arms are loaded with heavy bags; I am glad to finally be heading towards the rotating doors which lead to freedom and cool air.

But wait! As I walk past the last row of self-scan checkouts I spot something which troubles me. A skinny young woman in pink tracksuit, mouth hanging half open, is about to finalise her purchase of Santa Baby, the latest ‘novel’ by Katie Price’s ghost-writer. Filled with the charity of the season and the snobbishness of the English graduate, I think ‘I must do something to prevent this affront to everything I stand for.’ I fight back the urge to approach the woman, pick up her book, and say “ma’am, I have as much confidence in Katie Price’s ability to write a novel as I do in your ability to read it”, then watch as she puzzles of the meaning of my words. I leave the store feeling sickeningly smug.

On my way home, through the dark streets of Wolverhampton, I am smacked by a grim realization. Katie Price has four autobiographies, seven novels, and twenty six children’s books on the market. I have one book of verse which has only sold three copies, and I bought all of those. I know that quality is more important than quantity, and I feel in my self-important heart that my book must be better than any of Jordan’s, but there is one fact that I cannot ignore.

I have written a handful of paragraphs and two or three lines of verse in the past few weeks. Even with a ghost writer in tow, Katie Price clearly spends more time working on her literary career than I do. How can I call myself a writer when I apparently put less effort into writing than Britain’s most famous blow-up doll?

And so it becomes clear. I must try harder. And step one is to reinstitute this blog, and make it better than ever before. Watch this space folks, and have a Merry Christmas.

Book Review: Stephen Fry, 'Making History'

Before I begin, I'd like to point out that I've talked before about celebrity novelists. More specifically, I've talked about Jordan, and how stamping her name on a few ghost written rags does not give her the right to call herself a writer. I know that I shouldn't judge books I've never read, but I'd still rather break that rule than discover great works of literature are floating around Waterstones with Jordan's name on them. Besides, she still hasn't chosen to defend herself by accepting my challenge to a short story competition.

Stephen Fry is a completely different case. Firstly, because he has a discernible talent other than finding new ways to whore himself to the tabloids, and secondly (and more importantly) because as far as I am aware, he does write his own books. This leaves just one more thing to note before we embark on the review proper, and that is that way back in 1996, Fry predicted the iPad, right down to the use of little symbols to represent the different apps.

Now onto the review.

If you were given the power to alter history, what would you do? Would you try to stop Hitler? This is one of the most obvious answers to that question, and it forms the central premise of the novel. The book is divided into two parts, the first of which begins with a chance encounter between Micheal 'Puppy' Young, a PhD history student at Cambridge, and physicist, Professor Leo Zuckerman, inventor of a machine which allows the user to see a moment in history, and to send simple objects back in time. The two develop a plot to stop Hitler from having ever been born, and then put this plan into action. In this half of the book, chapters following Young and Zuckerman are alternated with flashbacks detailing the relationship between Hitler's mother and her abusive husband in the early years of Hitler's life, and then showing us episodes from Hitler's time fighting in the First World War. Fry manages to make real, human characters out of both obscure historical figures and of the most hated figure of the twentieth century.

In the book's second half, Micheal finds himself on a drunken night out in Princeton with almost complete memory loss. Over the next few chapters we see him piece together the details of his life in this new version of history, while details of what brought him there return to his memory. Fry again alternates Michael's first person narrative with chapters set in the First World War, although this time in Hitler's absence we watch as one Rudolph Gloder is promoted through the ranks.

Meanwhile, back in Princeton, Michael discovers the world he has created is far from perfect. He might have eliminated Hitler, but he did not eliminate the oppressive conditions Germany was subjected to in the aftermath of the Great War, nor did he eliminate the nationalistic and antisemitic sentiments which they produced. In the world where Michael finds himself, Gloder, a far more efficient and charismatic leader than Hitler, became Fuhrer and subjugated Europe. America has been in a long cold war with Nazi Europe, creating oppressive government of its own. The civil rights movement, and those other movements it spawned, never happened.

Fry knows his form well, and is not afraid to experiment with it's conventions. While most of the chapters set in the present (both as we know it and in the alternate world) are in standard first person narrative, there are a few chapters which Fry presents as film scripts. At first this can come across as confusing, and disconnects the reader from the protagonist somewhat. On the other hand, it allows him to skip through large portions of time in a montage form, while literally sticking to the 'show, don't tell' motto popularised in many creative writing classes. It also serves to emphasis the difference between film heroes and heroes in novels, namely, that characters in films are by necessity men (or women) of action, whereas characters in books are given the opportunity to contemplate their actions.

One criticism of this novel would be Fry's decision to make his protagonist gay halfway through the books second part. In itself this would not be an issue, but there are not enough hints before hand to make the transition seem believable, and those we are given seem forced. This could have been solved by either making Michael gay from the very beginning (if this was the sexuality Fry wanted to give his protagonist), or by giving more hints from the beginning of the book that this might happen. Other than this, Fry's characterization is extremely good, and very believable. Granted, if he were less sinister, Gloder would come across as something of a pantomime villain, being one half Red Dwarf's Ace Rimmer ('What a guy!') and one half Shakespeare's Iago, but he is an enjoyable character to read.

I would recommend Making History to anyone interested in history, whether that be real or alternate. It is a fine reminder that history is often more complex than we think.

Book Review: Scarlett Thomas, 'Our Tragic Universe'

'Never judge a book by its cover,' says the old adage. While I know this is the case, I've often had a problem with this statement. If you aren't supposed to judge a book by it's cover, what do you judge it by? You can't just stand in Waterstones reading a whole book. Believe me, I've tried.

Luckily, anyone judging one of Scarlett Thomas's books by their beautiful hardback covers will not be disappointed by their content. I first came across Scarlett Thomas through The End of Mr. Y, which tells the story of a PhD student writing a thesis on late Victorian thought experiments, who finds a supposedly cursed book containing instructions on how to reach a psychic realm known as the 'troposphere'. If this all seems increasingly far fetched, be assured Thomas's prose is strong enough to carry the reader through it, and there are so many interesting philosophical ideas crammed within its pages that it makes for genuinely intelligent, thoughtful reading. I loved it, and started lending it to people almost as soon as I had put it down.

Last week I was pleasantly surprised when one of these people bought me a copy of her latest book, Our Tragic Universe, for my birthday. Especially as I needed something to read before the start of the next semester and a return to busy reading lists. Before opening it, judging the book by its cover, I saw that Cannongate's design department had once again excelled themselves.

The book's protagonist, Meg, lives with her boyfriend in Devon, ghostwriting teenage genre fiction to pay the bills while her 'proper' novel shrinks and changes shape but never seems to progress. There is a trend in fiction to centre stories around middle class bohemians, especially writers and publishers, and I sometimes worry that the whole thing could collapse into a smug, self referential black hole. In Our Tragic Universe, despite a cast made up almost exclusively of middle class bohemians, this does not seem to be a problem. The characters are human, likable, but imperfect. They move through the story getting together, breaking up, making unexpected fortunes, changing from happiness to sadness or from sadness to happiness, meeting fairies and searching for a monster on Dartmoor, but none of it feels climactic.

In most books this would be a flaw, but in a book which concerns itself so often with questions of plot, the nature of fiction and it's relationship to real life, it seems appropriate that despite all these reversals we finish the book feeling as if nothing much has happened. Indeed, one of the book's central questions is that of how to avoid simplistic expectations of a neat plot where the hero overcomes the monster and all loose ends are tied, both in fiction and in the ways we use its structures to understand our real lives.

Scarlett Thomas teaches creative writing in Kent, and it is clear that this has inspired some of the ways in which this book examines the structures of fiction, making it an interesting read for aspiring writers. While the book reflects the 'storyless stories' it discusses, it does it in such a way which to me, never felt boring, although I'm sure some readers would find it slow to start, I expect most of them would be won over by the end, which despite the feeling that nothing has been overcome, still gives a satisfying sense of conclusion.

Guest post

Hey everyone,

I've written a guest post about tuition fees for my Dad's blog. You can read it here:

http://alan-beddow.blogspot.com/2010/12/guest-post-from-my-student-son-luke.html