Seagreen

I’ve never started a piece of fiction knowing the ending. I like to start with a scene, put a character into it, and see where it goes. I enjoy the ride.

How intersting Sea. I have a couple of short stories that are often in the back of my mind as having potential to develop into something else. And back story is often the first idea that comes to me and then I have to work out how the situation will play out in the now.

Yes, Raine, I absolutely have to know where the setting is, or I can’t w…[Read more]

INteresting question. Funnily enough, sometimes the first thing I get is the setting. I’m very into the atmospheric setting & its role in the story, so that’s definitely there before I start any planning or research or even think about characters! The other thing though is a pretty formless idea of some sort of ‘issue’ I want to explore. Not big…[Read more]

Congratulations Alan. Excellent news. As Raine says, do let us know how the course goes!

Wow, well done, Alan. That’s a major bit of validation, and those courses look great. I’ve eyed them a few times, but never bitten, so will be really interested to hear how you get on.

Yes, sorry, meant to congratulate the worthy winner – great, unsettling and dreamlike tale that owns the innate silliness of the tiny guitar and the bizarre phenomenon of the vast ukulele band. Great stuff, and thanks Sea for a challenging and fun competition

Congratulations Jonathan, fascinating story – sounds like there’s a lot more to it than in the words on the virtual page. And congratulations to everybody who entered. I’m in awe of how you manage to come up with stories at the drop of a hat. Every month I read the prompts and think I’ll have a go but somehow I never do. Maybe this month….

Oh, well done, @alanr! That’s fantastic. So which course are you going for?

That’s a fantastic achievement @alanr! Congratulations! What an exciting choice to be faced with …:-)

That’s great Alan, well done. The courses sound superb

AAARRRGGHHH! (as it used to say in my comics)

Up with the count. Resisted the temptation to count the 2500 “seed” words that I had before the start. I think I’ll have a couple of hundred more to do before I give up tonight. Remarkable difference in the way I feel about making myself write at this pace which, honestly, isn’t that high a word…[Read more]

@kazg, thanks so much for that link.

And you’ve expressed above so beautifully my exact thoughts on story structure – including the necessity of balancing all our technical knowledge with room for the subconscious to speak.

“Let’s go. Everyone’s gone!”

“Not yet, there’s still one coat left.” I only been working in the cloak room for less than a month, but I take it seriously. It’s my first job after my stint in jail. Nothin’ bad, just got me some sticky fingers is all. Then of all the jobs to land after that, I gets a job takin’ care of other people’s belongings…[Read more]

I know @raine!! It’s just too good to be true eh? AND now you love me forever 🙂 What a very fine day this is turning out to be. Back atcha BTW (and apologies to all others for PDA. She’s Scottish and I’m Aussie so the English emotion rules don’t apply :-))

@KazG & @emmad – oooh, I like the phrase ‘thinker on paper’! That sounds a lot closer to what I do. For all my love of graphs and themes and character outlines, and more graphs, very little of the detail gets decided until I’m in the story. I think it’s a little like my old self’s data analysis process – first you gather all the plethora of…[Read more]

Last day to put in an entry for the Den monthly competition, people… 🙂