Authors Electric

What's your favourite?  When I write non-fiction, I tend to type straight onto my laptop, as the ideas come to me. Sometimes I use full sentences, even creating an entire paragraph. When I’m working on my short stories, I tend to use pen and paper to create a list of bullet points of action. These I then flesh out as I type up the story.  Now, for the last 18 months I’ve been plodding my way through a poetry course. Whilst exploring poetry I’ve found myself returning to writing everything down. This has allowed my ideas to flow. I’ve scribbled my half-baked ideas and half composed lines into one of my many, many note pads. (A writer can never have too note pads, especially if they are really lovely). It’s not until the poem is almost ‘there’ that I go to my laptop and type them up, ready for editing.   During the process of writing in long hand I’ve discovered I don’t like writing with a biro. Even if it’s the left handed ergonomic one that cost me an ...

Last month I wrote about how I like to get the ‘facts’ right in my stories when it comes to animal behaviour. This month I wanted to share how I also like to weave nuggets into my stories that were once considered fact but have now been disproved. For example, I’m working on another collection of stories featuring the animals of Moon Meadow Farm. One of the stories concerns Hedgehog and a young swallow. Because I’m a bit of a geek when it comes to hedgehogs I’m already aware of the many facts once believed by our ancestors. Perhaps my favourite was written by Albertus Magnus (1200 – 1280): "The hedgehog, which lives in its lair in the ground, indicates when storms of wind are coming. It makes three or four exits to its lair or dwelling and when it senses that the wind is going to blow from a certain direction, it closes the corresponding hole…………" This is one of the facts I’ve not included in the new short story collection I’m working on (which ...

As a writer of short stories I love how a story can be conveyed in a few words. So when I'm teaching my creative writing courses I often set homework and ask my students to write a short story. Before I even have the chance to go any further I'm often asked how short is short. I tend to use this opportunity to introduce them to the story forms of flash fiction (also known as nano-fiction, sudden fiction, micro-fiction and the micro-story) using the following as examples: “In bed, struggling, he succumbs.” A. J Chilson and  “For sale: baby shoes, never worn.” Ernest Hemingway I then introduce them to the 'twister' which is a story using just 140 characters which originated on the social media platform Twitter. Here is an example by Ron Gould: "Time travel works!" the note read. "However you can only travel to the past and one-way.  " I recognized my own handwriting and felt a chill.” Or these examples wr...