Happy Friday Scribblers,
We’re closing out the week in a fun way - meeting up with author John Ironmonger later to record some social media content around upcoming eco-thriller ‘The Angel of St Piran’ and 6-9pm we will be kicking off our new two day book fair at Seesaw, Manchester! Tonight at 7pm we will have an hour of performances; tomorrow at 12pm we will have a publisher panel. Tickets for both or either day here!
Plus for those of you based around the Wirral way, John Ironmonger will be starting his tour for hardback ‘The Angel of St Piran’ at Linghams Booksellers on the 9th of September!
This is a story of love and passion, of adventure and self discovery. Above all it is the story of a courageous young Cornish woman, fierce determination, and some extraordinary apes.
A powerful new novel by John Ironmonger, a storyteller who gives a voice to those whose language we don’t understand.
Today I’m going to leave you with a writing prompt by Daisy Johnson (a short story prompt - but perhaps a longer form or a poem might appeal to you more!) from ‘The Subtle Art of Short Fiction’, in which each of the ten essays comes with a writing prompt!
“When I am first thinking about a story, I often think about the revelation first: what is hidden at the start of the story and revealed by the end? When I was working on my first novel, ‘Everything Under’, I saw it like a boulder at the top of a very steep hill, beginning to roll, slowly at first and then faster and faster until there is no possibility that it will stop. I wanted the novel to feel as if it were picking up speed, rushing towards an inevitable revelation which we saw coming in flashes, slowly coming together to make a full picture.
In the two stories above, there are special objects – the metal bowl, the stones – the significance of which remains hidden and is gradually revealed to the reader. Try this exercise:
Think of an object. Give it a hidden significance.
Introduce a character for whom the object is very important.
Answer these questions: Does the character know the meaning of the object at the start of the story?
When do you want the reader to know the meaning of the object? How does the object change the character by the end?
Introduce three clues as to what the object means.
The meaning should come only at the story’s climax – just as the metal bowl and the stones do in the stories above.
Jackson, S. (1948). The Lottery. The New Yorker. https://www.newyorker.com/
magazine/1948/06/26/the-lottery
July, M. (2017). The Metal Bowl. In The First Bad Man and other stories. The New Yorker. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/09/04/themetal-bowl
Have a gorgeous weekend,
Isabelle x
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