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Andrew, 1975

It’s February, and evening is upon us. Andrew goes unnoticed. Pedestrians streaming by the Palace Theatre barely even see a youth leaning against the wall. Some look towards him, but they are peering through the glass doors. Maybe they are wondering whether Jesus Christ Superstar is worth the ticket price. The traffic sweeping a…[Read more]

Yeah, I think recruiting people to a Discord group is much easier than to a website, tbh. I spend more time in my discord group than I do any online group, mainly because it’s an app & I can do it easily when I’m away from my laptop. Partly because it facilitates chat in a way websites, however well constructed, just don’t. And where I am now, I’m…[Read more]

I like Discord for all those reasons too @raine.

It may well and best suit the members who will show up there, and couldn’t there be an influx of new writerly blood from the different tags we use on open channels?

There’s a lot to be said for Discord. There are a number of pages I visit regularly. I don’t imagine it would suit some of our members, but there may be no alternative in a year’s time.

Just wanted to extend my appreciation to Ath and Jules for starting & maintaining/updating/supporting this place. I’m afraid I have very much drifted off, largely just because of the other demands on my writing time. It’s nice to know this place is here & I look forward to the annual challenges, but I honestly don’t spend enough time here to be…[Read more]

Sorry Sandra, I copied it in from my phone and forgot the ever-imperative word count: 500 words excluding the title.

A Sneeze with Open Eyes

Everything is a lie. Even the sky being blue is a lie. It’s violet. I read that on the Internet. The problem with lies is they’re easy to tell. Like yesterday, a man claimed he sneezed with open eyes.

The easiest five hundred dollars I’ll make. That was a lie.

“So, you want me to believe you didn’t know the contents of…[Read more]

I think ‘potentially static’ probably referenced one of those generalised statements that crop up when creative writing is discussed. There could be a nugget of wisdom in there but as shorthand it’s too cryptic to decipher and I couldn’t reverse engineer it to anything that might be a pitfall we should be aware of. It doesn’t seem to be like the…[Read more]

I too fail to understand what ‘static’ is supposed to mean in this context, or why it should apply to present tense. I have no problem whatever with reading present tense stories: sometimes I think I even prefer them. With past tense you’re always at one remove, as if listening to someone tell a story. Present tense is immersive, immediate. After…[Read more]

It is odd. Almost as if the commentator was doing a list for a creative writing course: what are the pros and cons of etc etc. But among the reasons I have for not enjoying a novel or short story, static-ness (?) isn’t among them. Slowness, yes of course, and an apparent lack of narrative thread, and straightforward dullness, but I don’t think…[Read more]

No preference.

My WIP is first person, present tense. I didn’t choose or plan this; it just happened when I started writing. I think it fits the voice of the MC.

I suppose that many people who are mainly familiar with a narrator, often omnipotent, addressing the reader in past tense, assume that present tense (especially first person) is likely…[Read more]

Just realised, quite a few of my Challenge stories are written in first person present. I think to give myself an extra treat!!Would definitely deny they are static!

I find the idea of present tense feeling static quite odd. Because you are in the moment, I think it’s hard to pause in a way that is possible in past tense. So I’d say the opposite of static.

Like Sandra, sometimes I’ll find a book jars a little initially in present tense, but I’ll quickly cease to notice as I adapt to the books style.

I read a…[Read more]

Brief, and not necessarily well-thought out reply, (nor am I 100% I’ve got the terminology right), but Elly Griffith’s ‘Ruth Galloway ‘ series is told in present tense, with sentences/Pov  as “Ruth watches as C and C get into the Rolls” (second person??) Every time I start a new one I think “Oh no, forgot how much I dislike this” then very…[Read more]

<p style=”text-align: center;”>THE LIBRARIAN</p>
“Come here.”

Mayrie tensed at the grave, inscrutable timbre of his voice. Some would call it a salt-of-the-earth voice but she was under no illusion about the nature of the man seated before her. The slight narrowing of her eyes all but said, if it’s just the same to you Guv, I think I’d rather…[Read more]