Sundown rippled across the waves as Laurie slipped into the water; the cold, slapping against her thighs as she edged further out to sea, leaving the laughter of children behind, their form, a string of Lowry dots strewn across a hot shoreline. Her muscles tightened as more of her flesh was touched by the cold of the ocean, tensed as blood rushed away and up to her core, where it was warmer, less hostile.
As her shoulders slid under, until her head was fully submerged and her flesh engulfed, silence was the thing she relished most. If anything happened on the shore, she would not hear, her ears only taking in echos of gentle ocean currents and of boat engines far out in the distance; here, in the water, it was cold and quiet. The temperature drop focused her mind on the movement of her body, as she kicked and swung each arm out to sea, towards the sun as it began to hide behind the line of the horizon. She could only see the light under the water, the colour of the sea removing the orange glow of the skyline, the way a childhood storybook removed an image with a single sheet of coloured acetate, wiping it out completely and showing you a different picture through a different coloured lens. Above and below the water line were two different scenes, the image below the water, darker, mysterious, expansive. She found the vastness of the ocean liberating, freeing her mind. Laurie had seen the Ice Man, Wim Hof, explaining the Ayurvedic effects of cold water on the immune system, as well as the mind, hormones, blood flow, skin and hair. Her hair floated freely in wet strands, her skin felt the tingle of the North Sea salt water, cleansing her flesh and renewing her mind. Friends talked about wild swimming, but it had not made sense, not until she had felt the cold on her own flesh and submerged her body into the silence of the sea. It had become addictive, a way of numbing the thoughts that shouted at her as the day drew to a close, clamouring for her attention. As her body temperature dropped, so did life’s pressures. What had begun as a sponsored open water swim, had now become part of her daily ritual, a way of letting her thoughts slip into the ocean, carried off to some far flung shore, where no one knew her name…
I met an aspiring write yesterday, who asked lots of questions about the craft of writing, and wondered whether beginning a novel was a viable option after quitting a high-flying city job. I remember asking similar questions, back in 2007, when I moved abroad and gave up a teaching job that I loved. Moving from London to Vienna stirred up all sorts of ideas in my mind and, as I said to the person yesterday, there is something about moving to a different place, and living in a different culture, that somehow frees your mind and inspires lots of creative ideas. There are lots of questions from the writing community on Twitter today and, if you follow the hashtag #WritingCommunity, you’ll see many of these. There are so many questions and so many good books to you to get you started, and to help hone your craft.
My first piece of advice to anyone wanting to begin writing is to read widely, both within and outside your genre, especially outside your genre – it’s easy to just focus on what you want to write – and read as much as you write, spend as much time reading as you do writing.
Read as many books on the craft of writing that you can get your hands on. Find your local library, as there are lots of useful books that you can borrow. You don’t need to buy them all, or do a book swap with another writer. I’ll add some of the books that I’ve found helpful at the end of the post. It’s by no means an exhaustive list.
Sign up for writing courses. The Avon Foundation have lots of wonderful writing courses and many authors offer course, as well. Learn as much as you can.
Don’t be afraid to experiment. You may be fiction writer – a poet, a novelist or a short story writer – or you might prefer creative non-fiction writing (memoir, autobiography/biography, essays, literary journalism, journaling, or topics like food or travel writing, self-development, art or history). Within fiction there are so many genres; read as widely as you can.
Don’t give up. You will have hard days were you want to quit. It will get hard. If writing was easy, there would be many more authors with published work. Even the most gifted writers hit a wall at some point. Push through it.
Set yourself targets, if this works for you. When I began, I sat down to write from 9am – 6pm (with breaks) and gave myself 3 months to get around 35,000 down on paper. After this length of time, I would assess whether or not I had enough to continue and a good enough story to write a whole novel. It worked, I kept going, and I finally finished my first book.
Find a writing partner or a writing group. If you can’t, or it doesn’t suit you, tap into the writing community online. Twitter is a good place to start and will be really helpful, in terms of keeping up to speed with the industry. It’s a great way of networking, finding support, and following publishing trends. I have been contacted by authors, readers, editors, agents and publishers this way. It’s invaluable.
These are some of the books that have helped me along the way, although, Meander, Spiral, Explode is a new acquisition, so I’ll write a review when I’ve read it. Which books have helped you? Can you recommend any others?
We spent yesterday exploring one of the oldest timber-framed buildings in Suffolk. It is one of the best preserved of the cloth towns in the county, and was built in the 14th century. Little Hall, in Lavenham, belonged to clothiers and later, scholars and schoolmaters.
I was fairly captivated by the books in the library, the scent of lignin, the choice and range of books, and a beautiful writing desk with a window view. I think the pictures speak for themselves…
I had the privilege of being invited by Reflex Press to be a reader for their Autumn International Flash Fiction Competition. I hugely admire them as a publisher of, ‘long, short and very short fiction,’ and have been fortunate enough to have had work published with them previously.
What I gleaned from the many entries sent my way, was inevitably going to find it’s way into a blog post. There were several things that struck me, which I think might be helpful for writers in submitting work to journals. Every reader or editor will have a different take, but this is mine:
Think about your title
Writing short fiction requires that you grab the reader’s attention fairly swiftly, and the title needs to do some of the work for you. It should do the heavy lifting of piquing and reader’s interest, before they begin to read the contents. The Association for Psychological Science says that a series of experiments by Princeton psychologists, Janine Willis and Alexander Todorov, reveal that, “all it takes is a tenth of a second to form an impression of a stranger from their face, and that longer exposures don’t significantly alter those impressions.” (Their research is presented in their article “First Impressions,” in the July issue of Psychological Science, if you want to find out more.) I would say that the title of your story will have a similar effect. You may have a great story, but if the title is weak, or even irrelevant to the story, the rest will fall flat. The title is key to a good story and can be the difference between an acceptance or a rejection. Make sure you take time to think about what you want the reader to know. What is the point of your story? What’s the context? And, what do you want the reader to find out? In short fiction every words counts, and this very much applies to the words in your title.
2. Read the guidelines
It’s an easy thing to skip past, but don’t. The guidelines are there for a reason, and you absolutely have to stick to them in order for your story to even get past first reader. Reflex Press has two readers for each story – this is quite common. Those that reached me had followed the guidelines, but there will be many that didn’t reach any of us, because they were too long, in the wrong genre, or highly offensive. If a journal states in the guidelines that they do not accept racist or homophobic content, don’t send it, although I’d question why it’s been written in the first place. If they say, do not send in work over 1,000 words, you may have a gem of a story that is 1,003 words, but it will not get past the first reading, because it’s too long. Cut it or find another place to send it. Have a look at the font and size required. Editors really dislike fancy fonts or multicoloured submissions. You wouldn’t sent a CV off like this, so don’t send in a story that looks like a poster. The most common requirements are Times New Roman 12, but check. I can’t stress this enough. Most journals will tell you they only want one submission at a time and whether or not they will accept simultaneous submissions. Follow these guidelines. It’s important. Find out whether it’s an email submission or an online submission, which format is required, a Word or PDF document, or pasting the story into the body of an email, and take the time to find out the name of the editor. Don’t misgender or mislabel. Do not be tempted to just fire out a load of submissions to different journals in the same format. It’s generic and editors can see that it’s not specific to their journal. At the very least, begin with, Dear *insert journal name* Editor. Make it personal, but keep it professional.
3. Read stories that have already been published
Familiarising yourself with their work, and with the kinds of stories that they publish, will increase the chances of your work being accepted. Don’t send in a love story, if they like dark, twisty stories. There may also be a request to add trigger warnings for certain content, so again, back to the previous point, read the guidelines. Does your work fit what they are looking for? Do you know what style of work they publish? If not, read some of their publications. It really shows when a writer sends in work that clearly doesn’t fit either theme, if there is one, or the type of work that the journal publishes. Some journals will give you ideas of what they are looking for, like SmokeLong:
4. Consider your narrative mode: Tense, person and point of view
We’re highly influenced by what we read, so be careful not to just plump for the familiar. Do experiment, but make sure you’ve got a handle on it before writing and submitting your work. Choosing the right narrative mode for your story determines the perspective and the way that your reader experiences the story. It establishes the relationship between the narrator, reader, and main character, if you have one. This may need a separate blog post at some point.
tense (past, present, or future). There are six different tenses in the English language, but only three are generally used in fiction. Past and present tense are the most commonly used. Future tense is rare and difficult to sustain, but as with any rule, there are exceptions.
person (I – first person, You – second person, or They – third). Third person narrative is the most commonly used, followed by first person. As with the future tense, a second person narrative is rare, but I’ve used it for some of my favourite stories to create tension.
point of view (omniscient or limited). This really comes down to who is narrating the story. Take The Book Thief as an example: Death is the omniscient narrator who switches between first person and a third person point of view, describing all the characters’ thoughts as well as his own. It’s powerful and works in this context, but won’t work with every story.
The best advice I can give is, don’t keep jumping about. Find your tense, person and POV, and stick to it. So many stories begin well and start to flounder because there’s a lot of jumping about and the story unravels. Unless there is a clear reason to keep changing, stick to what you’ve chosen. Changing tense can be one of the most frustrating things for a reader, unless it’s needed and expertly done. The Book Thief is written in the past tense, with flashbacks and occasional flash forwards, but unless you’re Markus Zusak, leave it alone.
4. Don’t underestimate your reader and don’t attempt difficult themes unless you feel confident you can handle them
There is a tendency for many, and particularly new, writers to tackle either assault or suicide. These are important subjects, but they are often badly handled and over described, with heavy writing and a blow by blow account. Assume your reader is intelligent, because most of them are. Don’t give them every detail and keep the sorded details out of it. Some of the most powerful stories I have read on these issues are the ones where what has happened is only hinted at. Don’t hit the reader over the head with a sledgehammer. They’ll pass out. Even journalists won’t give you all of the details in an article, so don’t do this in fiction. It will really kill a story and make the reader wince.
One of the best pieces of advice I can give is, find the space between the words. Some of the power of what you write will be in what you don’t say. Toni Morrison explains this brilliantly in an interview in The Paris Review on ‘The Art of Fiction’ (no.134):
“The difficulty for me in writing—among the difficulties—is to write language that can work quietly on a page for a reader who doesn’t hear anything. Now for that, one has to work carefully with what is in betweenthe words. What is not said. Which is measure, which is rhythm, and so on. So, it is what you don’t write that frequently gives what you do write its power.”
I’m from the UK in the South East of England, but I’ve lived abroad and travelled widely. I do a lot of photography and there’s something about the East Anglian skies that draws a lot of artists to the area. ‘Angel of the North’ sculptor, Sir Antony Gormley, has had a studio near Swaffham since 2010. Historically, Thomas Gainsborough, Sir Alfred Munnings, Edward Seago, Lucien Freud and John Constable, to name a few. ‘The Hay Wain’ was painted in the beautiful countryside nearby. Freud was one of the first students at the avant-garde East Anglian School of Painting and Drawing, first in Dedham and then at Benton End. The flat landscape in East Anglia creates vast, expansive skylines, giving way to the most incredible sunrises and sunsets.
What is the greatest thing about the place you call home?
Living by the coast. I love the sea – the sound of the waves, the scent of the salt air, feeling the wind against your skin, walking barefoot along the beach, collecting shells and sea glass. There’s nothing like it. It’s where I feel freest. I also really enjoy water sports, particularly windsurfing and waterskiing. You can live close to rivers and lakes, but it’s not the same. I love Scotland for the same reason, particularly the Hebridean islands on the west coast. There’s something about the wildness of coastlines that draws me.
What turns you on creatively?
I’ve always been inspired by poetry and, more recently, short stories. There is something about these forms that spark so many ideas in my mind. I read a lot of both, and have long been an admirer of poets like Yeats, Keats, Auden and Dickinson. In terms of short stories, my go to authors are William Trevor, Alice Munro, Chekov, Kafka, and Hemingway. My current favourite is a collection by the brilliant Hilary Mantel, The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher. She never wastes a single word. Her writing is tight, thought provoking, at times, shocking, and illustrates everything a new writer needs to learn about the craft. Reading her work can teach you more about writing techniques than any learn-how-to-write handbook ever will. I also read a lot of short stories by Alison Moore and flash fictions by David Gaffney.
What is your favorite word, and can you use it in a poetic sentence?
My favourite word is a German word: Morgenmuffel. It describes someone who struggles to wake up in the mornings and usually avoids early morning conversations. Although I’m not grumpy, as the word implies, I’m not a morning person, at least not until I’ve had a strong coffee, or two. I’ve always been a night owl and find that I wake up as the day goes on. I used to write essays at university in the small hours and I now often write in the evenings, as my days are pretty full. I enjoy that quiet space at the end of a busy day to think and put words to paper, or screen.
What is your pet peeve?
I don’t really have any pet peeves. It takes quite a lot to wind me up. I’m a pretty relaxed and even-tempered person. In terms of writing, though, am a stickler for grammar and punctuation. I’m surprised by how much printed material and journalism includes obvious mistakes. I should probably start proofreading, as I always pick it up.
What defines FC Malby?
My writing is a mixture of literary/historical fiction and psychological thrillers, but I’m also a short story and flash fiction author, as well as a poet. I use imagery and try to create suspense and a sense of anticipation in my work as much as possible. I try to avoid putting people or writing into boxes. Some of the endorsements of my writing might help to sum up my work: “Deeply moving and attuned to the subtleties of human relationships.” Dan Coxon. “Malby’s writing is restrained, understated and elegant.” Maureen Scott.
F C MALBY 
You must be logged in to post a comment.