Friday 15 February 2019

Workshop - Short Stories for Magazines - Ajay Close


Ajay Close has a background in journalism but has since had plays and novels published. She is interested in the creative writing process and was at one time Writer in residence in Paisley. She gave us an excellent tutorial and workshop which kept us all engaged and busy writing.

Introduction
Her topic was writing for Woman’s magazines. (though as she pointed out Weekly News readership is 50% male, 50% female). Not an easy task. Women’s Weekly receives 800 short stories a month, of which they publish 8! She advised polishing the story and also sending it to a friend/ friends to read. A good short story should be like a fine slice of fruitcake. Payment can be from £80 upwards. The short story pays better per word than a novel does.

General Advice
1.       Research the market.
2.       Read the magazine. Don’t try to break the mould and write something quite different. They won’t take it.
3.       Follow the mag’s guidelines and rules. Remember they are a commercial operation selling a product. They know what sells.
4.       Aim for a contemporary feel eg people use smart phones. Don’t write about the elderly as lost in the modern world. Avoid slang: it will either be out of date or readers won’t understand it.

Warning 
     The fiction editor may just read the first paragraph and decide from that if the story is worth taking.

People’s Friend
   Ajay handed out copies of advice from the People’s Friend website and highlighted some aspects about readership, (30 to 80+) the kind of adjectives used to describe the stories such as tender, touching, amusing, moving, charming. She advised us also to look on line at the Women’s Weekly website.

Themes, topics, settings
Weekly News will take stories about death, illness, fear, as long as there is a happy ending. Avoid shocking endings.
Magazines often like setting to be geographically vague, so relevant to all. Don’t use dialect, though you can put in some dialect words.
May help to imagine your story as a film. Max 4 characters.
Plots and settings to avoid
Historical setting
Graphic scenes of murder or sex
A straightforward romance where boy meets girl and they live happily ever after
A story where narrator is revealed to be a child, a fox, a tree, an inanimate object
Policeman who turns out to be a singing telegram
Husband’s secret lover is a man
Tampering with car brakes
Twins
Nosy neighbours

Task
Ajay read out various possible plots/ settings/ characters and we discussed whether or not they would be suitable for Woman’s mag and why.
Cinderella’s ugly sister
Mother abandons baby in plastic bag
Divorce
Road rage
Time running backwards
Old lady selling ‘antiques’ she has made to dealer
Babies switched at birth
Avoid the formulaic!

How do people read?
Ajay pointed out we should understand how people read. The reader is alert, he/she stores away every crumb, trying to second guess where the story is going. Reader is hyperaware.
So therefore, only put in details which you are going to use, which have a purpose. If you put in what seems like a significant detail and then don’t use it the reader will feel short-changed. Everything must pay off.   It is often quoted that Chekhov said that if in Act 1 of a play you have hung a pistol on the wall, someone must fire it in Act 2.
Don’t bore the reader with literal truth. You need artificiality to make fiction feel real.

Character
Ajay gave us a sheet Creating a character- a few pointers
In fact 13 pieces of advice! We also at one point discussed if a main character can be unlikeable. In Ajay’s experience people may accept a male main character who is less than sympathetic, but not a female character.
Caring about the character is an important factor in what makes a reader read on.
A well-chosen detail eg faint smell of TCP is better than a detailed description.

Names of characters
Vitally important. We guessed from a list Ajay read out which names were names of real people and which were fictional characters. Avoid John and Margaret. NB Editors may change name.
Name can give region, sociological status, era. Ajay suggested that names with unusual letters are more memorable eg  x, z, q, k  Some characters have suitable names like Ian Rankin’s Rebus or  names used ironically like Janice  Galloway’s Joy in The Trick is to Keep Breathing.
Be bold re characters even ordinary-seeming people can have something weird about them.
Eg woman who keeps a motorbike in front room.
Blurred line between character and plot--- character drives plot but character also reacts to things which happen.

Task
We all chose and shared a memorable male and female name.

Dialogue
Use sparingly because dialogue uses up a lot of words in a short story. Edit, turn up the contrast between two characters. Readers get the point quickly, so don’t use waffle or repeat things.

Idiolect
Concept to describe the fact that each of us has a particular way of speaking eg  vocab, swear words, slang, er and umph, like, you know, giggle, nervous laughter, and stuff.    We all speak with a recognisable vocal pattern. This is useful for the writer who then does not always need to write     said Richard, replied Anna.

Task
We were asked to write down at least 5 things which we find
Funny
Pleasurable
Touching
Interesting
ie which have an emotional effect.

Then we were asked to start writing a short story incorporating some of what we had listed
Followed by 25 minutes silence as we all wrote!

NB Ajay also gave us a sheet on presentation of story when we submit it and on re-selling stories in another country.

A most enjoyable couple of hours. Thanks Ajay for giving us information, challenges, inspiration and fun!

Posted by Morag Moffat.



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