Author: Matthew J. Richardson

Stories in Golddust Magazine, Literally Stories, Idle Ink, Writer's Egg, CafeLit, McStorytellers, Whatever Keeps the Lights On, Flashback Fiction, Down in the Dirt, Close to the Bone, Shooter, Soft Cartel, Fiction Junkies, and Heavenly Flower Publishing

A Skeleton to Flesh Out: Pre-planning

flexible-mini-skeleton

 

Good morning fellow writers,

After idea formation, the next stage in my writing process is what I call pre-planning. This takes place once I have a nugget of an idea. What I am trying to achieve is a skeleton; something to which I can later add flesh.

I am the first to admit that I am something of a bureaucrat when it comes to writing. I like structure. I like a plan. I am not one of those gifted authors who can knock out a 3,000-word, pre-formed story in one sitting and who never has to touch it again (more’s the pity!). Dour as it sounds, I use a pro-forma document at the start of each of my projects, an example of which is below.

This is a direct lift from the planning for my short story ‘Watan’, which was written in 2015 before being published by Literally Stories in 2016. This is in no way prescriptive but helps me to understand what I need to research and organise in order to write my story. I take no care here with grammar or syntax, spelling or spacing. This is a working document, and not one which will ever be seen by anyone (pre-blog, at least!).

Title

 

 Convenience Store (working title)
Length

 

 4000-5000 words
Location

 

 Deprived Glasgow housing estate
Time

 

 Modern day
Timespan 20mins
Narrator

 

 1st person narrator – one sided verbal conversation.
Themes

 

 Depression, immigration, poverty, crime, deprivation, responsibility
Characters

 

 Asian shopkeeper-has relatives back in Pakistan whom he supports

Local drug addict
Synopsis

 

 Story is one half of a conversation between an Asian shopkeeper and a drug addict (not clear at start state of customer or establishment-make it appear as though it is posh). He takes the customer through his options re alcohol in a servile manner, gradually coming down from fine reds etc to a bottle of buckie. Similarly with tobacco, as it becomes clear that the customer is a scumbag with the shakes. Shopkeeper becomes increasingly dry and bitter as he contrasts his lifestyle of hard work with the self-indulgence and myopic nature of the addict. Addict then pulls a knife and the shopkeeper shuts begins an increasingly aggressive monologue aimed at the addict. He drives the point that the addict has only targeted him because of his perceived ‘otherness’, yet the shopkeeper is far more imbedded in Scottish society than him. Reveal shopkeeper’s journey to Scotland and his history in Pakistan. Emphasise that whereas the addict is alone due to his problems, the shopkeeper has connections throughout Glasgow, and that any robbery will be swiftly avenged. Addict panics and runs off. Sirens are heard as the shopkeeper returns to menial chores.

 

 

 
Research

 

 BOWES, A; J MCCLUSKEY; D SIM (1990) “The changing nature of Glasgow’s ethnic-minority community”. Scottish Geographical Magazine, 106(2), 99-107

Bailey, Nick; Alison Bowes, Duncan Sim (1995) “Pakistanis in Scotland: Census Data and Research Issues”. Scottish Geographical Magazine, 111(1), p.36-45

Hamid, Mohsin (2008) The Reluctant Fundamentalist. Great Britain: Penguin

Sidhwa, Bapsi (ed) (2005) City of Sin and Splendour-writings on Lahore. London:Penguin

My pre-planning document serves three main purposes. Firstly, it forces me to focus upon some of the more prosaic elements of the piece. Sometimes it is easy to become fixated upon plot to the detriment of location, character, or narrator. As I work my way down this document, I am obliged to consider each aspect in turn. This makes me consider the effect that each has upon the story itself, so that I repeatedly ask myself ‘How will this work?’. How can I convey a robbery using first person narrative? How can I include the protagonist’s history in a short story encompassing twenty minutes? Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, it highlights the research still necessary for the project. In the case of ‘Watan’, I was writing about post-partition Pakistan and a culture with which I was not conversant. A lot of research to do here, then!

Many writers find this part of the process mind-numbingly boring. They are keen to get stuck in and put their foot down on the word count pedal. For me, this is where I have the most freedom – I can do anything at this stage. Change the narrator from third to first person? No problem. Move the plot across continents? No sweat. This process is so important to my writing precisely because it allows me to play around without the shackles of a first draft; I am untethered by plot, unhindered by work I have already completed.

It also serves a third and slightly more psychological purpose. No matter how many times I hear William Wordsworth’s ‘To begin, begin,’ I always hesitate before starting to tickle those keys. I get the same sensation before writing on an exam paper, a feeling that the wind hasn’t really caught in my sails yet. That is why I find it helpful to have my pre-planning up on the left of my screen as I start to type or research. It is my skeleton, and if it does nothing else, it gives physical form to my project. It might sound incredibly boring to those writers who value instinct and intuition over cold, hard planning, but I find great comfort in the banality of fleshing out that skeleton!

Igloos in the Tundra – Idea Formation

Igloo

Morning fellow scribblers,

I have always been intrigued to find out about other writers’ processes. Interaction with other authors, whether it be in writing courses, workshops, critique groups, or in academia, has taught me that no two writers approach their work in the same way. Indeed, what one writer swears by, another will see as anathema!

Throughout the next few weeks, I’ll be exploring the different processes involved in being a writer. This is not by any means to suggest that this is the right way to approach writing, but merely a way which has worked for me in getting my short stories published. Today I’ll be exploring idea formation.

I’d be fascinated to hear what tips and tricks you have found useful in your work.

Idea formation

Any author worth their salt will know that an idea can strike at any time – on the bus, on the treadmill, on the loo! Most of these a writer will explore and discard on an almost subconscious level, but a few will ignite that creative touch paper. What I’ve found useful is getting these down on paper as quickly as possible. Many, and indeed most, will peter out before ever reaching the end of a first draft, but it is important to at least have that discussion with yourself.

A recurring complaint I hear amongst writers is that they are bankrupt of ideas. I don’t see this as a failure of imagination, but rather of mindset. Most of my stories are set in banal backdrops – a convenience store, a railway station, a bus; the catalyst for changing these into narratives is the question ‘What If?’ What if a woman tried liposuction using a vacuum cleaner in the bath? What if an agoraphobic man had to announce himself to the world? I think an author should always be on standby for an idea, their mind should always be worrying away at a ‘What If?’ like a schoolboy with a wobbly tooth. Stories don’t announce themselves; they have to be teased out.

Cliched as it is, I find that a lot of ideas strike me just as I am going to sleep (Watan, Light in the Blackhouse). For that reason, I will routinely text myself ideas before I forget them. Consequently, I often wake up to a badly written, almost indecipherable message on my phone which, if successfully decoded, may or may not result in a story! Whether it results in a final product is immaterial. Once it is written down it acts as an igloo in the tundra; somewhere I can explore from and return to if that exploration is unsuccessful. Like many writers, my tundra is littered with igloos whose bricks did not quite fit together.

That’s not to say that they won’t someday…

Let me know if the start of your creative process differs…

Book Review – The Underground Railroad

The Underground Railroad

Colson Whitehead

Fleet Publishing

GPB 8.99

The_Underground_Railroad_(Whitehead_novel)

‘If you want to see what this nation is all about, you have to ride the rails. Look outside as you speed through, and you’ll find the true face of America. It was a joke, then, from the start. There was only darkness outside the windows on her journeys, and only ever would be darkness.’

 

The sheer volume of escaped-slave narratives available to the book-buying public ensures that it takes something special to rise above the din. In his sixth novel, The Underground Railroad, Colson Whitehead takes the sub-genre where no-one has previously, with astonishing results.

Cora is a slave on a Georgia plantation in the 1800s who decides to run alongside her associate Caesar. She follows in the footsteps of her mother, Mabel, who ran years before, leaving Cora to fend for herself. Driven by her hatred of the cruel plantation owners and haunted by her mother’s motives in abandoning her, Cora runs north-east to South Carolina.

Whitehead’s centrepiece is his transformation of the Underground Railroad into physical form. Each station is of different character, as are the various drivers of the engines transporting Cora and Caesar. However, what is at face value a twee idea is given short shrift by the brutality the pair encounter on their bid for freedom. Their footsteps are haunted by the slavecatcher Ridgeway, whose only failure was in not managing to catch Cora’s mother years ago.

This novel’s strength lies in it’s characters. It would have been easy for Whitehead to slip into well-worn stereotypes typical of slave narratives – the innocent runaway, the brave abolitionist ahead of his time. He chooses not to do so, and the results are subsequently more plausible. Readers, quite willing to take a young, pure Cora into their hearts, are shocked by the fact that she is spiky, resentful, and often lacking empathy. She is eventually all the more real and admirable as a result of this. Similarly, Cora’s helpers along the railroad have their motives dissected, from their own racial stereotyping to a hereditary burden reluctantly taken on. Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, is the character of Ridgeway. Even though he has freed slaves himself, Ridgeway is utterly committed to finding runaways, his not finding Mabel serving as a useful driving force for the narrative. He works so well as an antagonist because his skill lies in working within a larger system; slavery is not his creation, but he has prospered because of it and as such has no motivation to challenge it. His cruelty is not gratuitous, but rather what he considers necessary to subjugate Cora and her friends, horrifying though it is to the reader. It is in Ridgeway that Whitehead delivers his most damning indictment of anti-abolitionist America – complicit, profiteering, and utterly convinced of white superiority.

Needless to say, there is extraordinary cruelty, treated almost incidentally by Whitehead, as it was in the era of the novel. In particular, the horrendous treatment of recaptured runaways is described in a matter-of-fact way, mirroring the transactional nature of the bond between slave and owner. Likewise, Whitehead disposes of characters just as the reader is beginning to bond with them, discouraging any emotional attachment. This has the effect of encouraging the reader to root for Cora even more as she makes her way northwards to what she hopes will be freedom. A superb and sobering read.

Sweat and Tears

Sweat and Tears

Matthew Richardson

(Adult content)

People can’t help but describe blood. ‘Shockingly red,’ they’ll say, as though the default colour is salmon pink or forget-me-not blue. ‘A fine mist of blood,’ they’ll gush, as if the killer had his thumb over an artery as he might a hosepipe in a garden. Also worthy of comment appears to be the fact that blood pools. It’s a liquid, folks. Can’t we take it as red (sic) that it won’t distribute itself evenly over pockmarked warehouse floors and torn linoleum?

Anyone who’s ever killed will tell you that it’s the smell of blood that you notice. It reaches up your nostrils with red, ragged fingernails and tugs right at the bridge of your nose, making your sinuses contract and your eyes water.

A scent brings a thousand connotations. When I smell blood I see ragged head wounds edged with shocking white bone. I see haemorrhaged scleras; a thousand, thousand burst capillaries surrounding a still-staring pupil with livid magenta. I see rust-red plasma slipping down floorboard cracks, congealing and hardening like cement between bricks. I…

There, now! Do you see how you’ve gone and made me do precisely what I said I wouldn’t?

That is exactly how I lost my temper just a moment ago.

Book Review – A Gentleman in Moscow

A Gentleman in Moscow

Amor Towles

London, Windmill Books

£8.99

A gentleman in moscow

 

‘Who would have imagined…when you were sentenced to life in the Metropol all those years ago, that you had just become the luckiest man in all of Russia.’

 

In A Gentleman in Moscow, Amor Towles takes on a gargantuan task. The culture of Soviet-era Russia might not appear at first glance to be comfortable ground for a former investment professional. Towles, though, has an instinctive understanding of what western readers find interesting about the era and is not afraid of using footnotes to expand upon history. What results is the impression that Towles is genuinely fascinated with the evolution of the Soviet Union, a passion that quickly transfers to the reader.

The eponymous gentleman, Count Alexander Ilyich Rostov, is not immediately apparent as a heroic protagonist. Privileged, aristocratic, and a member of what his prosecutors describe as ‘the leisure class’, Rostov is sentenced to indefinite house arrest at the Metropol Hotel in Moscow by a Bolshevik tribunal in 1922. As he comes to terms with his confinement, Rostov finds comfort in routine, however mundane. Dining at the same restaurant, keeping the same appointment at the barbers, and rearranging his modest apartment allow the count a semblance of order whilst endearing him to the reader.

In what might seem limiting scaffolding for a story encompassing thirty-two years, Towles progresses his narrative through exquisitely drawn secondary characters, from the forthright child Nina, to the irascible chef Emile. Typically for a hotel, some characters linger throughout the book, whilst others, seemingly integral to the plot, disappear heartbreakingly without trace.

Towles treats the major historical events of the novel with similar disparity. The second world war itself, an obvious set piece, slides by with hardly a mention, whilst the gulag is evoked in all its industrial cruelty and horror. It is in this flux that Towles brings his third novel to life. History leaves its mark on the Metropol, its staff, and its guests. Rostov, though, remains serene. It is only when the Soviet Union threatens someone whom he has grown to love that the Count seeks to change his fate rather than console himself to it.

On spec, A Gentleman in Moscow has the potential to be mawkish. It is no such thing. Towles’ lightness of touch makes the novel warm and rewarding, its characters complex and contrasting.

 

 

 

Taken for a Spin

Taken for a Spin

Matthew Richardson

Taken for a Spin

Accusatory fingers pointed at him from all over the screen. Finger marks to be precise – the smudged signs of hope and despair and salt-and-vinegar grease. The marks drew a map for whoever came to the terminal after him; the leavings of a cartographer desperate to show his bad luck. There were sweaty streaks over red, black, odds, evens, bet, double bet, and add credit. Precious few over cash out though. Not yet anyway.

Spin again.

Oliver tapped and watched as the roulette wheel began spinning, the silvery ball spiralling its way towards black and red stripes. A stream of cold air and a phlegmy sniff told him that someone else had entered the bookies. He could see in the reflection on the screen that it was Gary, in for the horses at four-ten. Oliver pulled his thick jacket around him, hoping that Gary wouldn’t clock him yet. Not that he didn’t like the guy, but he did bloody talk and Oliver needed to at least break even for today.

Spin again.

Thank God. The wet weather outside had resulted in Gary going for a sneaky smoke in the gents before the race started. With any luck Oliver would get a break and be out in ten. He would have to power-walk home; at least he would be warm. He had been sat in front of the machine so long that he felt frozen to the metal stool. His hands were like blocks of ice –the touchscreens didn’t work with gloves. In went the debit card. One last go before heading home.

Spin again.

Oliver hadn’t looked at his watch for a while, nervous at what he might see. Evens, reds. They hadn’t come up for eight spins now. Surely by the law of averages they were due. Surely. If he could just go in a hundred of so down, he could explain it to the wife. The phone went off in his pocket. It was Sheila.

“Hi darlin’…yeah just dropped by the bookies to put a line on…yep, I’ve literally just walked in…”

Spin again.

It was saving the best for last.

Damn. Gary had just come out of the bogs and spied him. Over he came, skipping like a scratched record. This time for sure, though. There was no way, simply no way, that this could not land. Not if the God-forsaken thing wasn’t rigged anyway. Sheila was still wittering away in his ear. He put the mobile down at the side of the terminal.

“Olly!” came the raucous greeting from Gary, bringing with it a slap to the back for Oliver. “Long time no see mate! Got a lighter? Mine’s gubbed. You still stuck on these, mate? It’s a mugs game, ain’t it?”

“Just give me a moment, Gary,” he answered tightly, eyes still fixed on the screen. “Last spin”.

His fingers reached for the screen again. Keep the faith. Evens, red. Sheila’s voice still issued from the phone on the machine, whiny and insistent. One more spin, money back, home, see the kids. That was the plan.

“Horses mate, that’s the way you wanna go. Head home with some dough to feed the weans,” laughed Gary, giving Oliver one more slap on the back and knocking his fingers across the screen where they struck black. Gary gave a sheepish grin. “Oops, sorry mate! Hope I brought you a bit of luck!”

Oliver half-turned to swear at the man, his face beetroot and swollen with rage. He turned back, though. The wheel was spinning, the ball circling, picking out its victim. It hopped onto the wheel like a child onto a merry-go-round, full of carefree abandon.

Red

Black

Red

Black

Red

Black

Red

Black

…

Red

He closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. From beside him came, insistent, the tinny voice of his wife.

“Olly? Oliver? You still there? Oliver?”

He opened his eyes once more and looked at the balance at the bottom of the screen. A big fat zero, round and pulsing.

Swinging off the seat and grabbing the mobile, he flung it as hard as he could towards Gary, who was now engrossed in the racing. Sheila’s voice whined through the air as she spun, falling silent as she hit the bank of televisions.

“Oi! What was that for?” came the reply.

Oliver’s fingers were still like chilled bars of steel as he curled them into fists, but the boiling heat of righteous indignation rose in his stomach as he strode over to his friend.

Two Doors

Two Doors

Matthew Richardson

Garage-Door-Open-Overnight

The shapes don’t make sense at first. Maybe the yellow streetlights are reflecting perversely off the garage door. Maybe it’s a shadow cast upon the white aluminium. As I walk into the driveway though, I realise that my eyes aren’t playing tricks. There is a huge bulge in the bottom half of the left door; a metallic pustule ready to burst through.

The windows in the house are dark and expressionless.

Key fob pressed, and the mechanism works. Groaning and squealing, the door raises, unpeeling with a shudder from the back end of my Audi. The vehicle is skewed across the darkened room. My eyes strain past shattered tail lights and an open car door to the garage beyond. Serrated saw blades and medieval chisels glint in the dim light, hanging from hooks and providing reference points in the shadow.

Black against grey, a man is seated in the driver’s seat of my car. He isn’t moving. Backing off, I fumble for the mobile phone in my pocket. A half-breath catches in my throat at what I see on the floor. Body parts litter the concrete. Frozen steaks, chicken wings, pork chops and even the remnants of the Christmas turkey, all scattered where the rear of the vehicle has struck the chest freezer.

The strange driver still hasn’t moved, and I shift round to look at him. Cheek bones jut out from his face, jumbled scrabble-tile teeth fill his mouth, and a dirty tracksuit hangs off him. His face rests on the steering wheel, blue powder smeared around his mouth. Cobalt bubbles pop in his spittle as he breathes gently.

He’s out for the count. I should do something; call the police, a neighbour, a family member. For some reason though, I can’t move. I can’t decide what to do first. The only thing stirring in the garage is the air freshener attached to the rear-view mirror. It swings gently, urgently.

My attention is drawn to a flashing red light on the dashboard-door open. It strikes me that it is not the driver’s car door that is open; it is the passenger’s.

The yellow streetlights seem more dirty-orange from the garage. The light doesn’t reach far.