It's a Blast!

Forgive me for I have not posted of late.  And by 'late' I mean for about 3 months, so I'm sorry. There - I've said it.

And yes, I'm back here today with a figurative cap in hand to ask for forgiveness.  Because after all, if you can't ask for forgiveness at Christmas-time then when can you? (I feel like I'm badly quoting something from Love, Actually but I can't be bothered to check.)  And before you mention, YES, I DO come bearing gifts but also YES they do come at a price - appalling attempt at making small print amusing.

I'll stop rambling shall I?

You will recall.... and I absolutely insist you will so here's the link:
http://strictlywriting.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/self-promotion-guide-to-how-not-to-do-it.html ...that I posted about something I had become involved with called 'Stories for Homes' which was a project conceived by the fabulous Debi Alper and her equally fabulous friend, Sally Swingewood.  And although I have no real proof that these ladies are in any way officially 'fabulous' as they are two of those most elusive of creatures - 'Facebook friends' - I can undeniably state that I have come to realise their proper fabulousness first-hand, once removed (that'd be Facebook again).

Debi and Sally had an idea, spurred on by their own personal experiences, of raising awareness and money for the Homeless charity, Shelter by compiling a book of short stories by published and emerging writers.  

Announcements were made, stories of up to 3,000 words were submitted and the girls set to work sifting through the well over 250 submissions they received, and writers who needed to edit their stories a tad were paired up to (is this called Beta-reading?) help each other with the polishing up of their story.

In three months - 3 months - they had not only come up with the idea, they also had 65 stories, proofreaders, editors, cover designers (*ahem*), e-book formatters and even a promotional video put out for the anthology.

BOOK LAUNCH:
 Friday 13 Dec 6pm at the Bookseller Crow on the Hill, London SE19 3AF.
 ALL WELCOME!

The book went live on Amazon to rave reviews.  It soared up the charts during its first week and has continued to sell well with ALL money going directly to the charity Shelter.

In fact it's done so well, the paperback was published last week.  It's a thing of beauty, it's polished, professional and it's even gone DOWN in price since it's birth last week.  It's now a very lovely £12.44 (reduced from £14.99) which is an amazing price considering there are nearly 600 pages of solid gold stories.  I still haven't finished reading them and each one delivers a different emotion.

The paperback is available from Createspace here: https://www.createspace.com/4489757, from Amazon here and here are the story/discussions and threads for Facebook and Twitter.

I know you can adopt llamas and penguins as gifts, or pay for an elderly chap you've never met to have his Christmas lunch brought to him by elves and reindeer, and they're all very commendable.   But whilst you're considering which one of these you'd like buy this Christmas, don't forget that the purchase of 'Stories for Homes' (mine took only 3 days from Amazon order to letterbox) means you are supporting and donating ALL proceeds to the homeless charity Shelter, you're getting a great read into the bargain AND you're making a fellow writer smile.

It's not often you can give so many gifts with one present.

After all 'tis the season :)

Gold Winning Story of the '500 Words' Annual Radio 2 Competition

I wanted to share with everybody (in case you don’t follow this annual event) the Gold winner of the 10-13 age group of the “500 Words” Radio 2 competition which is run in conjunction with the Hay Literary Festival.

It stopped me in my tracks when it was read out on the radio and it looks like the short story writers amongst are going  have some fierce competition in the future!

YOUR LIFE

December 31st 2013

I sit up as the alarm rings through the dormitory. 6 am. Up and dressed by 6:15, along with all the other girls. My label says 1068G. That's my name, has been for three years now, ever since the flood. Our town was destroyed, they said, and the rest of the world just seemed to disappear, so we moved straight into the vaults.

Breakfast is at 6:30, as it's a 15 minute walk away. The place is vast. As I enter, I notice B, my only friend here, across the room. Most people here don't have friends. If they do, it's usually with the person above them in the dormitory, but I can't ever seem to get a word out of the girl above me. In the night I hear her whisper her parents' names into the darkness. None of us see our parents anymore; they have different time schedules. Sometimes I see my little sister standing in the queue for the canteen but I don't think she recognizes who I am anymore.

It was by chance that I met B, or 1069B, to give him his real name. We were queuing to get in here after the flood, and he was opposite me in the line. I smiled at him and he smiled back; we've been friends ever since.

I push my tray of food along the canteen, and sit by B, whose plate is full. I glance down at mine. Porridge. Eugh. We eat quickly in silence. We don't talk much, sometimes dream about escaping. Only ever dreams, though.

After breakfast, we head down to our jobs. As I exit, something catches my eye. A flashing, like a camera recording. I shrug this thought off and head to textiles. That's what I do, repair outfits and bed sheets and make new things. It's hard work, but at the end of the day we always come back to our evening meals, which are usually pretty good. And I get to see B. But today, something is different. A guard patrolling the corridor catches my arm, and warns me that we're all going to the main hall. This is odd; we only go there for ceremonies. I follow him inside and sit. The room is packed with people. The hall is silent, before a hollow, expressionless voice rings out.

"For three years now," the voice begins, "You have been of great scientific use to me. But that time is finished. You are worth nothing anymore." The lights blink out as the gas valves hiss open.

"And that, folks, is the last ever episode of Your Life, where we explored the effects of underground living. Next week, tune into our new reality series, Watching Us." A family snuggles close as the credits begin rolling. Thousands of metres below, two terrified children lock hands in one final desperate human motion.

With a careless flick the TV screen turns blank.

Written  by Olivia Hunt aged 12  http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio2/500words/2013/stories/

Whatever happened to the Strictly Writing Award Winner? Carys Bray returns to tell us all!

I wanted to be a writer when I was a little girl, but I married young, had several children in quick succession and the dream got buried somewhere - probably under a big pile of dirty nappies. I started writing again as soon as my children were at school. I did a writing module during my Literature degree with the Open University and then I decided to do a Creative Writing MA.

I entered one of my early MA stories in the Strictly Writing Award competition and I was tremendously excited when I won. I was just beginning to think that perhaps, one day, when I’d had a lot more practice, I might actually be able to call myself a writer.  

I kept writing stories after I’d finished my MA and I soon had enough to make a collection. I heard about Salt Publishing’s Scott Prize, the only international prize for debut collections of short stories written in English, and I decided to enter. I was delighted to be shortlisted and over the moon to win.

My collection, Sweet Home, is full of stories about family and the things that go right, and wrong, when people live together. Some of the stories are sad, some are funny and some are best described as fairy tales. 

Lancashire Writing Hub guest editor Sarah Schofield reviewed Carys Bray’s Salt Scott Prize winning short story collection Sweet Home here: she says "...The collection is titled after the third story in the book. This decision is well measured. ‘Sweet Home’ is an updated twist on Hansel and Gretel. Playing on the original narrative, it highlights discrimination, racism and small community gossip. Refering to the foreign woman’s gingerbread home, one zenophobic character states: “She should have used an English recipe… Victoria sponge… You can’t get more English than that.” It seems more than appropriate that the Hansel and Gretel narrative, so ingrained in family life and read to generations of children, should have a re-evaluation and hold an important place in this collection. Challenging established expectations of what ‘family’ looks like...."

I get inspiration from everyday things. A couple of the stories are set in shops; one in a surreal store where people can buy children, and another in a midnight supermarket during the rescue of a group of Chilean miners. I read a lot of parenting books when my children were small and, over time, I developed a hatred of them. The opening story in the collection deals with that hatred - it is interrupted by ‘helpful’ quotes from fictional parenting books. I really like fairy tales and I think they have fuelled my love for short stories where impossible things happen. In one of my stories an old lady builds a gingerbread house and in another a carpenter sculpts a baby out of ice.

I like to read stories that are funny and sad, probably because real life is often both of those things. I like beautiful language and I also like to be surprised. Some stories I have really enjoyed recently are ‘Sports Leader’ from Jane Rogers’ new collection Hitting Trees With Sticks, ‘Sometimes Gulls Kill Other Gulls’ from A.J. Ashworth’s debut collection Somewhere Else, Or Even Here and ‘Tamagotchi’ from Adam Marek’s new collection The Stone Thrower.

I’m still writing short stories, although at the moment I’m mostly concentrating on a PhD and novel. I’m nearly at the end of my first draft of the novel. It doesn’t have a name yet, but it’s about the sudden death of a small child and it’s full of fairy tales and misplaced faith in the miraculous. It’s sad, but I hope it’s funny too, just like real life. 

To find out more about Carys, you can find her blog here:  http://carysbray.co.uk

To win a signed copy of 'Sweet Home', simply tell us which traditional fairy story YOU'D like to give a modern twist and why.  Leave your idea in our comments box  and we'll announce the winner next week on Strictly Writing.

Many thanks to Carys for coming back and telling us all about her rise to publication fame - we're so proud that we were able to play such a meaningful role in her success story.

Guest Short Story Writer, Samantha Tonge - Reading between Rejection

Having sold almost 30 short stories to woman’s magazines (small potatoes compared to some of their writers, and I’m still learning), I might be in a position to offer some advice, on how to break into this market. However, I suspect anyone who regularly reads this blog realises, by now, that the key ingredients to success for getting published in any area of writing are mostly:

Hard work

Determination

Perseverance

And, of course, an unlimited supply of your particular poison -  caramel Tunnocks bars are my latest – to see you through the good and bad times.

More specifically for the womag market (that’s what it’s called) I would add:

Always carry a notebook – you never know when an idea might strike

Read the tabloids – I am often inspired by their tales and surveys

And, of course, get to know the market. A brief summary of the various magazines, according to my opinion is:

Take-a-Break Fiction Feast – interested in a diverse range of stories – crime, humour, twist-in-the-tail, romance, supernatural

Woman’s Weekly – slightly more literary, often deal with ‘issues’ – the 2 stories I’ve sold them touch upon bereavement and mental health.

The People’s Friend – cosy, moral, uplifting family stories, about the young and old, nostalgia, romance, inoffensive in every way.

The Weekly News - will take the quirkier stories, likes twists-in-the-tail, plus from the male POV as their readers are from both sexes.

Perhaps it might be more useful, though, if I take you through some of my rejections and what I actually think they mean, when an editor has said that my story is…

Too flat/level – whilst the scene and characters don’t need to be big, the story mustn’t be too slight. What are the stakes? Is there any conflict? What revelation is there by the end? Does the main character change?

Not engaging enough – do we care enough about the characters? Is the story visual? Does the plot suck us in so that we want to read on?

Too stilted – read your story out loud, especially sections of dialogue that run to more than a sentence – would a real person actually say that?

Too real – if the story is in anyway based on your own experience, don’t make it sound too autobiographical. Perhaps write it in the 3^rd person instead of the 1^st. Remember, it is fiction, not a memoir.

Finally, there will always be what I’d call random reasons, for rejection.

-       we’ve just bought a story like that

-       our readers don’t like pretend characters (huh? No one told me Father Christmas wasn’t real!)

-       our publisher owns Friends Reunited and wouldn’t like the number of times you’ve mentioned Facebook.

I guess sometimes, you just can’t win!

Womag writing is rewarding, fun and an excellent way of earning money from short stories. Whilst it’s a shrinking market, with many of the magazines now preferring celebrity gossip stories to fiction, the magazine fiction specials have their fanbase and fingers crossed, will ride out the recession.

For anyone interested, there is a Woman’s Weekly roadshow 13-15^th September 2012, near the Trafford Centre in Manchester, where you can book yourself into seminars on how to write fiction for them:

http://www.eventcity.co.uk/whats-on/creative-stitches-amp-hobbycrafts/

Best of luck!

  

Samantha Tonge has sold short stories to Take-a-Break Fiction Feast, Woman’s Weekly, The People’s Friend and The Weekly News. Currently, she has stories appearing in the 1^st Sept and 8^th Sept 2012 issues of The People’s Friend.

Also, Samantha writes romantic comedy novels and her agent is currently seeking homes for Doubting Abbey and Must Love Ghosts. She has two children, two kittens, two rabbits, and, um, just one husband.

Short Stories are Everywhere. Look, there goes another one!

I’ve had two short stories published. In my life. Which I think is pretty bad going considering how much ‘life’ I’ve had. The first one, ‘Sidney’, a humorous homage to my very best friend in the world, was printed in our local free newspaper which probably doesn’t even count. I was 20 and I’d written it aged 18. Although I did have to go and have my photo taken for the little Biog that went with it, so I did feel like a minor celebrity briefly. And the real ‘Sidney’ had many pints bought for him following the publication that week. In hindsight, I think the pints were more commiseratory than celebratory because of how I’d portrayed him.

And I had a lovely letter back from the (then) Editor of ‘Woman’ magazine, to whom I’d also sent ‘Sidney’. Telling me that whilst he’d enjoyed reading it, he didn’t feel it was particularly suitable for their style but he’d enjoy the chance to meet up and discuss the possibility of future commissions.
Of course, to receive such a response today would have me clawing my way to the front of the ticket queue at British Rail, demanding I’m taken to the IPC building immediately. If not sooner. (Not really – I’m not like that – I’d just queue up like everybody else sweating profusely and imagining the worst).
But back then (wwwaaaay back then) my parents had other ideas. I’d only ever been on a train once, and that had been with them and my brother as part of a ‘See Your City’ day-trips we’d taken one summer holiday. I think I’d been 15. So I was kind of green behind the gills and not very travelled and, of course, still ‘under their roof’. And there was, as they told me “plenty of time to go gallivanting around London when you’re older”. Little did they know.
Little did I.
Maybe if I’d been a tad more resolute and single-minded I’d have just done it, sod the parental consequences; but I was very eager to please in those days and simply complied.

The second (and last) short story I had published was in the TwitterTitters book, written and sold as part of comic Relief, called ‘Killing Kevin’. I wrote that about 5 years previously too, and sent it on the usual rounds of magazines. But I just got back the same response my ‘Not-So-Secret-Agent’ always seemed to get when she submitted my shorts and that was “not sure there is a market for this type of story”. Clearly my style hadn’t changed. Still unmarketable. At least I was consistent!
So I was stunned that ‘Killing Kevin’ had been chosen to appear in this celebration of humour and for such a worthy cause. And my story appeared alongside such greats as Cally (“Heaven Can Wait”) Taylor, Dave (co-writer of Phoenix Nights) Spikey and Lane Mathias, whose blog I love. I couldn’t quite believe it.
I still flip through the book occasionally and marvel when my eyes fall upon page 49. There’s me. And there’s Kevin.
Which proves there’s a short story to be found everywhere. I grew up with ‘Sidney’ (we’re still friends) and even though I didn’t actually kill ‘Kevin’ there were times when all I did was sit in front of my accounts screen at work, imagining how I would kill my boss, given half the chance (and a heavy-duty stapler) because he angered me so much. In fact the day I wrote the story, he had angered me more than I can ever remember being angered by a boss*.
Ever.
So there’s a short story waiting to be written wherever you are. Sit back, reflect; go with your feelings and then get them down on paper/screen.


Oh, and then enter the Strictly Writing Short Story Competition, of course. That was the idea of this post, after all!

*He made me "redundant" a week later and I still wonder if this was something like divine intervention for ‘killing’ him off in my head!

Writing Short Stories – There’s No Need To Be Scared! – Guest Post by Nik Perring

To celebrate the halfway-mark of the Strictly Writing Award (see over there on the right for full Rules and Regs), we asked successful short story writer, Nik Perring what his advice would be to any aspiring writers out there who were thinking of turning one in to us, and here's what he had to say:

 
I’ve been writing short stories for a few years now, with reasonable success. I’ve also, over those few years, talked to a lot of people about short stories and it seems to me that a lot of those people are, somehow, scared of them. A bit like poetry. It’s as though there’s a secret you need to get them and an even bigger, magical, one you need to be able to write them. Well, I’m here to tell you that’s not true. Anybody can write and read short stories, and if they want to, they should. Or at least give them a try.

There’s no magic formula I can share with you that’ll make you write great short stories. I wish there was. If there was one it’d save me an awful lot of time. What I can tell you, though, are a few things that work for me.

Writing short stories, really, is no different to writing novels – the same principles apply. The only difference is that short stories are, well, simply shorter. And I think that can be daunting to some people – it really needn’t be.

Here are some thoughts and suggestions that, I hope, will help.

So. Where to begin? If you’d have asked the wonderful Kurt Vonnegut (whose short stories are brilliant), he’d have said ‘As close to the end as possible’. And I’d agree with that because it means we’ll be starting the story at a point where things are getting interesting.

Most importantly, you need to find something or someone interesting to write about. I often find that asking myself ‘What if?’ questions help: What if someone suffered from an illness that meant they couldn’t actually stop moving?; What if someone chose to decorate their walls with Post-it notes? What if the only way a woman could shut up her husband was by taking off her clothes? That kind of thing works for me and allows me to write the story to find out the answer. It could work for you too...

One of the most common worries I’ve found people have when they’re thinking about writing short stories (or not writing them!) is that of word count. ‘But how long is a short story?’ they’ll say. ‘How long should one be?’

And my answer to them. One: Stop Worrying! And two: It’ll be as long as it is.

I honestly never worry about word count. The important thing with any story (and I’d include novels here as they’re stories too) is that, as writers, we should allow them to become what they should be. We tell the story as best we can without giving a second thought to length. The moment we start to pad things out, or cut things, for the sake of the length is the moment when the story will stop working, where it’ll get bent out of shape. And that’s the last thing we want to happen. Don’t forget that once you’ve written a first draft, the parts that need more explanation or that need to go will become apparent and can be fixed – but that should only be for the story’s sake and not so it fits in with any imposed word count.

But, if you want some guide as to what sort of shape (or length) a short story should be, I’d point you in the direction of a collection of fairy tales.

What I also find really useful, and this probably a very obvious one, is reading good contemporary shorts to see what people are doing are how they’re doing it. (I’d recommend reading people like Aimee Bender (I interviewed her about this sort of thing here (http://nikperring.blogspot.com/2010/07/aimee-bender-interview.html) ), Etgar Keret, Sarah Salway, Michael Czyzniejewski, Mary Miller, and Amy Hempel.)

Likewise, read the greats: Carver, Hemingway, Checkhov, Kafka, Vonnegut, Alice Munro, Lorrie Moore, Joyce Carol Oates, and so on. See why they’re greats.

And ENJOY it! Writing’s supposed to be fun. We’re supposed to enjoy it! Sure, edits and making something interesting into something great can be an awful lot of hard work – but that hard work’s much more enjoyable if it’s being done on something we enjoy and find interesting.

Which kinda leads me to my next point, and that’s one about content. A lot of people think that short stories are super-literary and/or overly worthy. Sure, some are. Some are boring. No different to novels. So it’s important that, as with novels, you write the story you want to write. A story doesn’t have to be anything other than good.

So, go on. Try writing one. Enjoy yourselves. You might find you actually quite like it!

Nik Perring is a writer, and occasional teacher of writing, from the north west. His short stories have been published widely in places including SmokeLong Quarterly, 3 :AM and Word Riot. They’ve also been read at events and on radio, printed on fliers and used as part of a high school distance learning course in the US.

Nik’s debut collection of short stories, NOT SO PERFECT is published by Roast Books and is out now. Nik blogs here (http://nikperring.blogspot.com) and his website’s here (www.nperring.com). He also offers short story help here (http://thestorycorrective.com/).

Quickfire Questions with... Della Galton

Della Galton sold her first story in 1987. Since then she has sold hundreds of stories and serials here and abroad. She lives with her husband Tony in a 400-year-old cottage and enjoys walking her dogs in the beautiful Dorset countryside.

My first sale was…
A poem to Pony Magazine when I was eight!

My family think my writing is…
All based on them.

The best/worst thing about writing short stories for magazines is…
They’re very short. That’s the best and the worst thing.

Long hand first or computer?
Computer.

On completing a story I feel…
Relieved.

When I run out of ideas I …
Don’t often run out of ideas to be honest.

Ideas come to me when…
I’m driving, chatting, doing housework, walking the dogs, all the time really.

My biggest tip for new women’s mag writers would be…
Read the magazines constantly.

3 authors – dead or alive I’d like to invite to dinner would be…
Teresa Ashby, Nick Hornby and Daphne du Maurier.

Favourite writing outfit?
Soft fleece and comfy trousers, plus hot water bottle. Our house is freezing.

Favourite writing snack?
Chocolate. Favourite any time snack actually!

Daily Mail or Guardian?
Mail – much better for plot lines!

Corrie or Eastenders?
Corrie – brilliantly written.

Best woman’s magazine story I’ve read during the last three months is…
The Leftover Cat by Teresa Ashby



Della has published two novels - "Passing Shadows" (2006), "Helter Skelter" (2007) and "How To Write and Sell Short Stories" (2008) - all with Accent Press,