Dear all,
I released my
latest short story ebook, ‘Harpy Blinks’ on the 18th December.
It is most certainly not a Christmas story but December is when it just
happened to be finished and I wasn’t going to wait around.
The story
centres on a forty-six year old man who appears to be unhappy with the way his
life has turned out even though by all markers he seems to be doing quite well.
While taking his department out for a drink (there is a section before this
happens that you can read part of on the preview below) to celebrate a new
promotion he meets a young woman. This young woman turns out to have a
connection to him and as such they begin a conversation. It is evident she is
drunker than he is. As the night progresses he stays drinking with the young
woman and the story follows the conclusion of the night from his point of view.
The preview above is for the
US Amazon site but to buy in UK you can visit: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Harpy-Blinks-R-G-Rankine-ebook/dp/B01MU2717J
I had a story
like this in mind for quite a while, and as I have mentioned before most of my
short stories have been drafted years ago, and it was just a case of getting
around to it. (All of my new ideas are being channelled into the novels I want
to write over the next five years.) However it did change quite a lot in the
writing. My original idea was to present a dilemma to the reader. I wanted to
set out an ambiguous tutor/student relationship whereby your instinct is to
presume there is something awry or unsettling in the relationship but upon
examination you can find no evidence to suggest this. Therefore the whole story
plays upon societal norms and expectations, and depending on your personal
point of view, asks more questions of you than it does the characters. But as I
started writing I found that I wanted to present a much more explicit and
defined situation. I felt this gave the reader more of a problem because it
wasn’t the case that they would have to dig to find something unsettling and
balance their own sense of proprietary, rather they would be presented with an
uncomfortable and unsettling situation and then have to confront themselves
with how they judge the characters. It became a much more fulfilling exercise
in writing although there were some uncomfortable moments for me too. For
starters, it contains sexually explicit material. Not of the erotica kind, or
the steamy-beach-holiday kind, but more of the everyday lustful, unsentimental
animalism described in everyday crude language. I was reminded of all the interviews
I’ve seen where an actor describes being in a sex scene and all they could
think about was that their mum would be seeing this…
Without giving
the story away it wasn’t just the language that was difficult. It was the
portrayal of abuse. I won’t say any more than that as I want the story to stand
for itself and allow for many interpretations, I don’t want to give concrete
explanations that may change a reader’s perception of the piece. All that I shall say is that it was not a nice place to put your mind and I hope that transfers to the reader.
The problem with
writing drama is that despite what the word ‘drama’ means you risk normalising
situations. As I was writing, I was thinking how many people could or would see
themselves in the characters I am creating. One on hand that is what I am
hoping for, to reflect modern life and let people associate with situations
they may find themselves in, or have found themselves in, but on the other
hand, I’m not writing an essay. It is meant to be enjoyable, readable fiction (well, enjoyable in the language not necessarily in the subject matter) and I don’t want to make it so every day that it reads more like a newspaper
article. So some aspects are heightened and some ignored, some described in
detail, some overlooked, and so on. As I wrote, re-wrote and edited, I found
myself naturally gravitating towards a certain kind of focus as that is where I
felt it had the most impact. Writing in that way is very joyful because there
is quite a lot of freedom, I didn’t feel constrained to fit into a preconceived
idea. Although, yes, it is very hard to delete lots of work because it doesn’t
‘feel right’ or doesn’t ‘fit in’, there are moments when you feel days and
weeks of work are totally wasted.
This was a
totally fictitious story, not based on anyone I know or a personal experience
of mine. That’s the first thing people ask of course but I was prepared for
that and will quite happily repeat that I am not Harpy, I am not the young
woman, and there are not two people out there that are. But of course, yes, you
cannot help but draw upon people and experiences to create characters, it is
just they are comprised of dozens, hundreds if not thousands of people you come
across during a lifetime, some for brief moments, some part of your life
forever. As I built these characters up I both became them, and also distanced
myself from them. I wanted to make both characters identifiable but not necessarily
likeable. It’s a natural thing to do when starting to read a story, to ‘side
with’ the main character as in most cases they are the traditional protagonist hero. However I didn’t want that. I wanted the reader to be doubtful, to be
concerned, to worry about the way things are going and of course then you feel
like you are betraying the people you have just created because you are
intentionally making them look bad. It’s a strange feeling to have to write
badly of people but again, quite joyful because it makes you think: if this
character is effecting me and I know them inside and out because I created them
(and by inside and out, I mean I know the characters information to a far
higher level than I could ever fit into a single story, in fact a lot of the
time spent developing a character can feel wasteful because you know you are
never going to include this information in the story itself, yet that’s the
only way to make them believable) then what will a reader think about them when
it is the first time they will have encountered them!
As I have said
many times, I am a novice writer and I know I have a long way ahead of me but I
feel this story was a good lesson for me. I learnt and developed a lot during
this process and I feel a better writer for it. I guess you should feel that
way after every story but I don’t. This time however I was a lot stricter on
the editing and a lot more focussed on making it ‘readable’. I tried to be as
brave as possible in my descriptions while still not being too exacting, the
whole show-don’t-tell thing not being my strength. I feel I stuck to my aim of
describing something in a thematic way without overtly expressing my personal
opinion or being too didactic. I want all of my stories to be things people can
associate with even if in a general ‘this is society’ way and this may be an
uncomfortable but not by any means unusual example.
The cover image
is pretty straightforward symbolism. The beginning of the story describes a
single afternoon in a local park or field and I thought I would use that. I
visited a field I know and took lots of different photographs all of the same
place but at different angles, heights and lengths. I then applied different
colour saturations to each of them, playing with hues, tones, brightness, and
so on before placing them in a haphazard order. Very simply this is meant to
imply that a memory, no matter how strong, can be fragmented, incorrect,
changed over time, not in the right order and certain elements emphasised
whilst others minimised. Therefore the cover shows that although it is the same
place you are looking at (or rather memory, or even, future ideal) it appears
very differently and not in the way you would expect.
I feel happy
with the story although I do have to be truthful and say that I didn’t want to
take up any time over Christmas so I made sure I finished it for a 2016
release. It may well have been better to have waited a while and done one more
round of re-reading and editing but I had to make a decision. I have two more
short story ebooks ready for 2017 (although this time back to collections,
three in each, of much shorter length) that will be Collection Four and
Collection Five. They need some work done but are more or less there. And I
have one more short story that will be of similar length to this one that I
would like to finish by the end of spring. Those aside, I will be returning to
my novel in 2017 as I need to get that finished. I am glad I took time out and
entered competitions this year as I feel I learnt and got a lot from it
but I won’t be doing anywhere near the same amount in 2017, instead making sure
I get a decent draft ready of the novel. Wish me luck as I am doubting myself
before I even finish this sentence…
Have wonderful
Christmas and New Year celebrations.
The best to you
all,
R.G Rankine.
