I don’t do serious very well according to my girlfriend. Following a day whereby I made stupid faces at her for a period of no less than 4 hours she asked me if I did this when I was dealing with clients or patients when out eye testing. I said that I make silly faces when I’m talking to clients or patients on the phone and they can’t see me (or I think they can’t see me). When I’m face to face I admitted to struggling to maintain a serious demeanour. It’s a work in progress.
Short but sweet
I’m not going to take up my time or yours with endless prattling on my life and what’s going on. It’s an epic tale of adventure, humour, tragedy and triumph that will make a fine novel one day. Just not today.
Today I’m here to talk about short stories and more specifically a short story I recently had published by Ink Pantry.
Short stories go a bit like this:
The reader is too tired or busy to read the next novel lingering on their shelf but they want to read something fictional and entertaining so they read a short story.
The writer is pulling their hair out and having a mini meltdown trying to figure out their next edit or move on a longer piece of work so they write a short story to take their mind of things.
What made me write this short story?
I was listening to the radio a few months ago and the news was dominated by the Gaza attacks and counter attacks. At my desk I was busy trying to edit a chapter on my first book and I was having a lot of trouble. Like a lot of fiction writers I run into walls on a fairly regular basis. Plots stop working, characters end up sending you to sleep and you generally feel like scrapping the whole thing and starting again.
My attention drifted towards the radio and the various Israeli and Palestinian commentators busy accusing one another of murder and other brutal acts. Instead of feeling sorry for either side I found myself growing steadily angrier. Here all these men and women were in their radio studios busy blaming the other side for all the death! They weren’t interested in trying to stop it. To me they didn’t seem all that interested in listening to anyone but their own voice. Intrigued and annoyed I flicked to various radio stations and found multiple phone in shows discussing the same subject. The common denominator throughout was the total lack of empathy or understanding by either side of the debate. No one wanted to listen to any point of view that didn’t agree with their own. Whether or not that is the tragedy of the continued Israeli/Palestinian conflict is a debate for people more informed.
Listening to these angry people inspired my story, though it bears little to no resemblance of the conflict still raging in Gaza. I wanted to explore why people seem unable to accept a different point of view to their own? I also wanted to comment on how as a species we seem intent to destroy rather than try and understand another person’s view. Whether or not I was successful in this you can decide. Some feedback I have received tells me that the story is too vague and they want to know more about the man and the woman and the surrounding conflict. Others have told me that they like the vagueness of the situation. That’s the great thing about fiction though. One person’s view will always be different to another’s. That’s also the great thing about life. It’s just a shame that not everyone can see this.
I can be serious
I usually write a lot of humour and pieces designed to make the reader chuckle at the very least. This is because I like reading a lot of humour, satire and absurd fiction. I also like reading a lot of dramatic, science, fantasy and contemporary fiction as well. There are always serious themes running through these stories. Writing ‘Surrender the Different’ was one of my many attempts to write something a bit more serious. I don’t think it’s my best attempt, but I’m proud that I gave it a go.
You can read “Surrender the Different” here at the Ink Pantry Publishing website.
