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it will either be out of date or readers won’t understand it.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.
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.
Posted by Morag Moffat.
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