By Martina Swift

Writing exercise inspired by this photo. A piece of random graffiti on a bridge on the M25 that circles London has now become a landmark of sorts. But what does it actually mean? This question was explored, and here is one result.

***

‘Give Peas a chance’

Peas was an elf who fell out with Father Christmas, he wanted to rule the kingdom in the North Pole. He stole away one Christmas eve, not before sabotaging the toy making factory at Lapland.

Christmas was cancelled for all the boys and girls all over the world. Father Christmas had to issue a statement apologising to every child. Peas’ photograph was posted in many local newspapers. After many weeks of searching for Peas, a £1 000 000 reward was offered for the safe capture of rascal Peas.

All the boys and girls started a facebook petition for Peas, they demanded a pardon. They didn’t really mind going without toys for just one Christmas!

‘Forgiveness’ they pleaded. The petition increased in hundreds of thousands every day and Peas’ mug shot was shared on facebook over and over again.

‘Give Peas a chance!’ they cried.

One dark night , Peas crept out of hiding and wrote the words ‘Give Peas a chance’ on the bridge  he knew Father Christmas would be going past there later the next day.

What could he do? He thought.

He wasn’t really repentant, he wanted to get back in the fold so he could make a better plan to usurp Father Christmas from his mighty throne!

Peas had to think of a cunning plan, a plan which would help him take command, show those spoilt, over indulged children how much hard work went into making toys.

The children sent messages of peace to Peas, offers to mediate between Peas and Father Christmas so they could become friends again.

There were children crying in the news, crying because of the break-up of two good friends not because they had no toys?

Peas was really puzzled!

Writing Exercise: Your Character Finds Themselves...

By D R Cartwright

A quick writing exercise for the evening. The person next to you gives you a scenario and you have to choose a character that you're currently writing about and put them in that scenario to see how they would react. A great way to get to know your character more.

My Scenario: My Character finds himself in Eastenders (who come up with that idea???)

A brief bio about my character so this little flash piece makes an ounce of sense: Devon McCormick is a gangster from my fantasy world and he's currently fighting against a Necromancer with a powerful black crystal.

***

He had absolutely no idea that the black crystal was so powerful until the Bishop directed its glow towards him. Feeling the pull of its power, Devon had no choice but to give himself over to it.

For what felt like hours, Devon was floating, drifting in a sea of blinding light, and when it dimmed he collapsed in a heap on the floor. He sat there for a few minutes, blinking the blindness from his eyes, and when sight returned to him he saw he surrounded by dark, towering structures. He new they were buildings but they were unlike any he had ever seen, and it was then he realised he was no longer in Montagola.

Where was he?

He knew the crystal mastered the art of Necromancy, but to transport someone somewhere? That was impossible. Yet here he was - wherever here happened to be.

A blue door opened to his left, its squeaking hinges alien to his ears, and he watched as a man stepped out carrying a black bag stuffed with unknown contents. In one swift movement, the man tossed the bag onto a pile of others that littered a large, steel box on wheels.

Devon frowned and looked from the pile to the man and the white apron he was wearing. Such strange garments he was wearing. And just as he was about to turn and head back in, the man's eyes fell on Devon's sprawled form.

"Oi! What you doing back 'ere?" he yelled. Devon assumed it was an attempt to frighten him off.

Finding his strength, Devon climbed to his feet and stepped over. "Where is this?" he asked

The man looked him up and down. "How much 'ave you had?"

Devon closed the gap between them. "Where is this?" he repeated.

"You're behind the cafe, you know, in Albert Square? Walford?"

"And your name, sir?"

The man frowned and hesitated before answering. "Ian Beal."

He was glad the crystal hadn't drained him of strength when it transported him, and in one swift movement he raised his hand, his fingers gripping around Ian's neck and closing airwaves.

Ian's eyes bulged, his mouth gaping as he clawed at the grip, and slowly his complexion took on a purple hue, his protests weakened and his body fell limp. Devon kept his grip and crouched as he let the body collapse in a heap.

He had killed Ian Beal. He didn't know who the man was, didn't know how important he had been, but he knew if there was one, there were others, and he could assume domination over them all like he had in Montagola. All he needed now was something to heat his ring with so he could brand his victim in his usual fashion and leave his mark - the first, he knew, of many...

World-building vs Atmosphere . . .

By Belle Noire:

Have you ever noticed that your story is lacking something? It’s frustrating when you’ve built a world that you feel is incredible, and yet still, still, there is something missing. You have your setting; you have your currencies; you have your language especially designed to reflect the fact that your characters belong to a race of beings with split tongues, or no lips; your character morphology and intellect and emotion reflects the environment (or not, if that is the central struggle); in short, you have built a world entire, and yet with all of this development and consideration and creativity, THERE IS STILL SOMETHING WRONG.

Have you considered atmosphere?

Yes, yes, of course the stuff they breathe, but more than that. If you have created a fantastic world like the one above, and yet haven’t given it an atmosphere, it can very much lead the reader to believe that it is just a bog standard world not much different from her own. It can leave the reader feeling that the world-building is somehow incomplete. In certain genres, like horror, lack of atmosphere can be absolutely fatal, particularly if your subject is esoteric; and lack of atmosphere is why some paranormal horror stories fall flat despite the plot. Nonetheless, atmosphere is useful in all genres. And yet, because it is so subtle, it is often the most difficult thing to include, because the nuances of a world are the easiest things to overlook.

For instance—

The cricket in the forest; do you hear it? Do your readers? What about the rustle of the leaf or the smell of the rotting log it’s hiding under? You don’t have to write about these things explicitly, but you certainly have to evoke them so that the reader knows they are there, so that they are represented in the reader’s inner vision of your world. In fact, where atmosphere is concerned, delicacy is everything. Lengthy descriptions often bore the reader, and while you may think you are creating a world for her, it’s often better to let the reader do it for herself.

When a reader gets a feeling from a story, it’s the nuances that she gleans from the language that shape her feelings even if she misses other clues. We create that atmosphere with language, by choosing the right word to evoke the feelings needed. You don’t choose happy words for a horror piece; but beyond that, even within the pool of appropriate words, you have to dive for the one that can say a sentence’s worth by itself. Lack may work, but void is more intense. In that one little word is a whole religion’s worth of subtext and psychology, subtle and nuanced and weighted from 2000 years of use, and you’d be a fool not to use that for your own ends. Atmosphere comes from choosing those weighted words, the words that evoke the images you want without having to describe them. Subtlety is, after all, the whole point.

Often, though, this subtlety is the reason we overlook them in our everyday lives, and thus, our writing. The first way to develop atmosphere is to start noticing it in your life. No doubt, at some point in your life you will have come upon a situation in which people described the atmosphere as “electric” or “heavy” or “charged” or “thick”. Think about what these terms are describing: they are metaphors, certainly, but are there physical responses on which these metaphors are based? A “heavy” atmosphere, for example, is a description of a reaction to stress, which prompts a physiological response similar to that of bearing a weight: changes in posture, body temperature, blood pressure and pulse rate, and more subtly, changes in breathing and pupil response. Yes, these things are understated and easily missed, and yet they all contribute to that amorphous thing called a “heavy” atmosphere. You feel it even if you miss every one of those tiny clues on a conscious level. Similarly, a reader should be able to get a feel for your story even if they choose not to wade through your three page description of local geomorphology. Atmosphere allows you to do away with long, boring descriptions and get to the heart of the story. It's all in the words you choose.

Whatever, keep writing.

Dance Like No One Is Watching . . .

By Belle Noire:

I struggle to write. 

I’m sitting here with a blank page in front of me, wondering what in the world I can write that anyone would be interested in reading. Maybe no one will read it; there is a certain freedom in that. But then, what’s the point of writing if no one does? I think that is the central conundrum when you start to write: the simultaneous fear of being ignored and getting attention is a big stumbling block, and not just for writers. It’s all very well to trot out the old line of ‘dance like no one is watching’ but it’s hard to find a reason to dance when no one is watching.

You’ve got two things to do here: you can suck it up and find the self-belief that drives you on in the face of opposition, and you can find people to read for you. The two work better in conjunction, but you need at least one of them to get you through. If you are looking for a few friends to look over your work, you can feel free to drop into our writers’ group, but any group of friends who care enough to tell you the truth would work just as well.

Hang on, did I say you had two options? Well of course, there is another. You can do nothing.

Your call.

Whatever, keep writing.