Noir Fiction - a Workshop

 I've joined another writers' group, the Shorelink Writers, who meet weekly on Monday nights, in school term times. Most group members agree to create and run a workshop for the whole group about once a term, I've just delivered my second workshop, inspired by some of the odd and slightly off-key place names in the local area, which I thought would suit a noir-style story. My local area happens to be Hastings and St Leonards-on-Sea.

The workshop went down very well, almost every writer chose one of two names, Galley Hill and Goat Ledge. Galley Hill is obviously noir, but Goat Ledge? Of course, the thing with Goat Ledge is that everybody local knows the place. It's the name of a very popular beach café, and originally the name of the reefs of  somewhat treacherous rocks just off the beach, where historical goatherds would take their flocks to feast on the seaweed. 

This is the workshop I delivered:-

Noir Stories

I’ve watched a bit of Scandi Noir and got hooked on watching Shetland on TV, which is very noir. Noir is a category of crime fiction usually involving the police, think of the Ian Rankin’s Inspector Rebus stories, set in brooding Edinburgh. Maybe noir might even be funny, think of the creepy goings on in Royston Vasey!

 Noir isn’t a horror story, it’s all to do with the place and the mood, feeling dark, a bit threatening. It does seem to me that the place where the story is set plays a vital part in Noir Stories. They’re local stories about ordinary people, not usually involving royal palaces, long distance travel, desert Islands, etc.

Here are some very local place names which sound like they might have a noir story in them. You probably know most of these places. Choose one and write about what might happen there:-

Maze Hill    Pelham Beach    East Ascent    Galley Hill    Combe Haven    Ravenside    Conqueror Road

Bulverhythe    Goat Ledge    Horntye Park    Undercliff    South Saxons

 

Biscuit - Flash Fiction

Mike just wanted to have his cake and eat it and I wasn’t the cake. I was just a biscuit that he liked to nibble on sometimes. I didn’t even know if I was the only biscuit he liked and was I a Bourbon cream? Or a Lincoln biscuit, the one you nibble the dots around the edges? Hope I wasn’t a Garibaldi, all those squashed flies!

I first met Mike down the Bull Hotel. Not at the bar, girls didn’t go in bars then, it was in the back room where there was a folk night every Friday.  The Folkies weren’t welcome in the bar either, not really but the landlord wanted their money so he sent a boy in to take orders, then carry them back on a mucky tray. If you didn’t have the right change for your drink it would cost you. Pints of mild or bitter was all they’d sell. I drank a half of mild, it was ten-pence and I could make it last all night. I used to go with Billy, he’s my brother and he’d buy me the half and tell me to make it last. I didn’t really mind, I was only sixteen and I wasn't that keen on the beer anyway.

I did like the music though. There was a girl singer, she had long, dark hair. I so wanted hair like hers, mine’s ginger and fluffy and I can’t hardly tie it in a ponytail, like the other girls there. Anyway this girl, she sang like Joan Baez and she was good but I preferred the guys singing. Then that night Mike appeared, with his guitar, he wasn’t a boy he was older and he had a man’s voice and he sang like Johnny Cash.

I got off with Mike, even though Billy said he was married and I should stay away from him. So when he came back, after I hadn’t seen him for weeks,  I just told him we was finished. So that was that.

Come to think of it Mike probably had thought I was a biscuit,  I was his ginger nut.

Good writing week...

I mean, I've had a good writing week, a good fortnight actually!  Two short stories tackled and an article for publication.

Completed the first short story which had its first/second draft last month, inspired by combining two stories on the morning's news.  The news is so often depressing, but two stories rang some creative bells for me. Terrible films  of flooded homes were immediately followed by the appearance of Alison Cronin, founder of Monkey World primate rescue in Dorset, with her appeal for people to never buy marmosets as pets. Marmosets are tiny monkeys, sentient creatures which need specialist care and should never be kept in small cages in peoples living rooms. So my story evolved, about a woman who had marmosets in her living room, and had to save them when her home was flooded.

The second story is part way through but I'm a bit stumped for now. It came from a writers' group prompt - write a story 2-3,000 words, containing at least six of the following:-


Wizard of Oz,  John Lennon,  Death Valley,  an accountant,     27degreees C,     a Dalek.

Blackpool Tower,   the Sun newspaper,  Gollum and the song,  “I dreamed a dream.”

I continued with the theme of flooding, and have managed to get in eight of the required elements, while creating an apocalyptic scenario with galloping global warming, plus two good characters. What I now need is an actual plot line for the characters to follow.  It will come.... I hope!

The article is about the Local Marine Conservation Zone. It's a fascinating subject which I really enjoyed researching. Should soon be published online and maybe in the local press. 

I won a Prize! No, not for my writing

Simply for turning up to Hastings very first LitFest.

I only found about the LitFest by chance, even though I now live in St Los, which is to Hastings what Hove is to Brighton, i.e. an attached twin. But I found out in time to attend a couple of the events. Hastings Lit Fest isn't famous, this was its first year, but it will become famous - I'm told that most events were very well attended and all the workshops were sold out. Already it has playwright David Hare as its patron and attracted speakers such as Patrick Gale, Sophie Hannah, Ed Boxall and Mavis Cheek to name just four of the 36 involved.

I only attended two events, but they were very worthwhile. First was in a garage behind a pub where I watched excellent performances of 2 long, Shakespeare derived monologues written and directed by writer/performer/ producer John Knowles. I then attended his scriptwriting workshop the following day. I'd never heard of him, but the workshop was very worthwhile, I'm now engaging with three separate monologues of my own, one of which may even get performed, Mr. Knowles is staging another production and was quite keen on what I did at the workshop. I have submitted a piece, not the one I began at the workshop. We shall see.

So how come I won a prize? My name was just pulled out of a proverbial hat which contained, so I'm told, the name of everyone known to have participated in any of the events. I went to a meeting of Litfest volunteers where I was presented with my prize, a bundle of signed books by some of the festival speakers. Can a writer own too many books? Of course not! I'll review them as I read them. 

In no particular order, here they are:-

Prague Spring by Simon Mawer

Angels of Islington by Sam Davey

More of Me by Kathryn Evans

Me and My Alien Friend by Ed Boxall - book and CD
Of Men and Angels by Michael Arditti
Dogchild by Kevin Brooks

Blanket - writing exercise

Blanket

Pink, quilted, brushed nylon with thin polyester wadding inside – brushed nylon was all the rage, my grandmother bought brushed nylon sheets to use instead of flannelette.

This blanket is double size, although it was bought for my brother when he had asthma and couldn't tolerate the feathers in the eiderdown. The blanket had to be folded to fit a child’s bed. As my brother is now forty-seven, this blanket which nestles in the bottom of my airing cupboard has been around for a while.

 

My brother developed asthma when he was seven. He got lost, after leaving the swimming baths in Chichester. Mother couldn't find him, she arrived home in a complete panic. She’d been to the police, they’d asked her for a description of the missing child. That was easy.

What I can’t remember is why I hadn’t gone swimming that day. I’m certain I wouldn’t have let him get lost. I was used to having to keep an eye on him. I was his big sister, he was the baby. The small, delicate baby, with a heavy, dark birthmark. On his face. By the time he was seven he had had three operations, to remove the mark.

I’m sure they’d do it better today but plastic surgery was a bit more hit and miss then. They left him with scars, shining skin grafts on his forehead, cheek and eyelid. And a strange black tuft of an eyebrow.  I was used to it, we all were, this boy was just our little brother, he was okay. We didn’t even notice, but other people did, they stared in the street. Pointed. Whispered behind their hands.

So there he is, this small, timid boy, lost in a big town. Where’s Mum? Gone, without him. He’s cold, his hair is wet. All the strangers around, they won’t talk to him. Won’t ask him what’s wrong, why he’s crying, scared. Because he looks funny. And they’re English, it’s not done to notice people who look funny. No wonder he has a panic attack. Wheezing, fainting. The police are called when the funny looking child collapses. Nobody tries to help the child. They might catch something. Compassion, perhaps.

 

*

 

The blanket is almost an international symbol of compassion.

This is a writing exercise based on a particular household object.