K is for Kansas

Kansas? I hear you ask. Well yes. K is a difficult letter to think of anything writing-related to write about, but Kansas leads me nicely onto contrasts.

The magical land of Oz is an amazing place. L. Frank Baum's descriptions and characters create a wonderful setting for Dorothy's adventures.

But without the contrast to the dusty farmhouse in Kansas and the homely comforts Aunt Em provides, Oz doesn't seem quite as amazing. We miss out on something because there's no contrast to 'normal' life. J.K. Rowling uses the same techniques of contrast between 4 Privet Drive (where, if you haven't read the books, Harry lives with his mean aunt, uncle and cousin) and Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

Contrasts don't have to apply to settings, of course. You could have a character who is full of contrasts - the hardened criminal who has no mercy on his victims but who rescues a kitten from a rubbish bin, or the weedy kid in a playground who manages to stand up to a bully. The idea of contrasts is often used in superhero stories - Superman's 'meek and mild' alter-ego Clark Kent, or He-Man's alter-ego the coward Adam.

The writing challenge for today is to create a character who has contrasting traits.

Review: Among Others by Jo Walton

Among Others starts slowly, but is immediately intriguing. Told through the diary of a 14-year-old Welsh girl, Mori, to begin with it appears that the main action has already happened - Mori has run away from home after some terrible magical occurance which left her crippled and her twin sister Mor dead.

Mori is then forced to live with her father, who she has never met before, in Shrewsbury, which feels very far away from the rolling Welsh mountains and the enigmatic fairies Mori is used to.

As Mori is sent to boarding school in Oswestry, the story takes on a slight Harry Potter feel, but in reverse, with the magical girl having to try to fit in at a very normal school.

Mori's love of sci-fi is a theme throughout the story, but even without knowing the authors she mentions the story still flows, and the books she reads eventually turn out to be more than just a diversion for a crippled girl who can't play sports.

Living in Oswestry myself, I found myself wondering if girls from Moreton Hall boarding school had ever caught the bus into town to look for fairies, or if the school had been the basis for Mori's school, especially after finding out that the author, Jo Walton, went to boarding school in the town when she was the same age that Mori is in the story. There are lots of little hints of description when Mori visits Shrewsbury or Oswestry, and a lovely diary entry chronicling the train journey through Shropshire on the way back to Wales - all of which will have a very familiar feel to anyone who knows the area.

Set in the 1970s, Among Others has a nice, almost old fashioned feel, and it was a captivating read that I didn't want to put down.

5 out of 5

• Among Others by Jo Walton
• RRP £7.99 (paperback)
• Published by Corsair
• ISBN-10: 1472106539
• ISBN-13: 978-1472106537

J is for Jazz Night

Okay, I admit, this one is a bit of a shameless plug, but J is for Jazz Night - my first ever published poem.

The process of writing the poem started in September 2010 with a freewrite based on a picture by Jack Vettriano (below) and the song 'It looks like rain' by Jann Arden. At the time I wrote 'I can easily imagine this song being sung late at night in a club with dim lights and small tables. I'll see where that takes me and go from there.'

After I'd done the freewrite, it sat around in my files for a few months until I had an assignment for my Open University course on poetry. I dug out the freewrite and looked at it to see if it was suitable for making into a poem, and then started tearing it apart, separating sentences, looking for rhymes and rhythms, and seeing if I could recreate the picture I'd been using as a prompt in poetry. The rhyme scheme was deliberately relaxed - ABBA and not AABB - and loose, breaking down completely in the last stanza.

The finished result was published by Every Day Poets in June 2011, nine months after I wrote the first freewrite. It got some very positive feedback and was also one of the top poems of the month. Writing Jazz Night was a good lesson in patience and revision, as well as proof to myself that I could produce something that other people wanted to read and that was worth doing.

Jazz Night by Pam Griffin

The tables set back from the glare
seat men who come to lose the night
in whisky under muted lights,
in jazz, in blues, in cheap affairs.

No talking here, no friends, no food,
just whisky poured out by the dram,
and saxophone, piano, drum -
The perfect place to sit and brood.

The sultry singer shows her range
and tells about her latest sin,
while drinks are served by faceless girls
who take your cash – and keep your change.

I is for If

What if a rocket ship crashed on an uninhabited planet? What if the little boy stepped into the road a second earlier? What if the woman accepted his proposal instead of rejecting him? What if they had scored that final goal? What if there was a power cut just as the show was about to start?

I used to be afraid of throwing ifs about willy-nilly. My internal dialogue would go something like this:

'What if an asteroid struck?'
'That doesn't fit with the story.'
'What about if a celebrity came walking down the street?'
'That's just unrealistic and stupid.'
'What if he ordered a takeaway?'
'He can't do that, he's broke.'
'What if...'
'Oh just shut up!'

But my internal arguments have got a lot quieter since I realised that it doesn't matter if the 'what if' doesn't fit with the overall story outline or the way I see my character. Ifs are a great way of moving on a story, even if the ideas don't remain past a first draft. I might throw in a burglary at the old people's home that, as it turns out, doesn't fit at all with the 100th birthday party story, but makes the start of a whole new flash fiction.

Sometimes the most interesting passages come just off the cuff and unplanned, and if a strange 'what if' gets me writing rather than staring at the screen and complaining that I can't think what to write, then that has to be a good thing.

H is for Heroics

I believe that heroics are part of what makes a story really good, whether it's swashbuckling with pirates, besting a dragon and rescuing a princess, or overcoming personal demons to save the day.

Heroics can also turn a supporting character from a one-dimensional background figure with very little personality to someone who in other circumstances could be the hero of a story in their own right. Good examples of this sort of character are Neville Longbottom in the Harry Potter series, Dr John Watson in the Sherlock Holmes stories or Batman's young sidekick Robin. Each of these three characters play useful plot points - Dr Watson is the narrator who tells the reader about Holmes' adventures while Dick Grayson, Robin's alter-ego, makes Bruce Wayne more than just a man who fights crime at night; he is now a man with family responsibilities. And how many people aren't even a little bit glad when the sidekick gets his or her moment to shine? Who doesn't cheer when Robin comes in to save Batman from death just in time for Batman to go on and properly defeat the bad guys? Or when Neville stands up to Voldemort, risking life and limb because he believes in something?

The challenge for today is to take a supporting character from anywhere - your own story, a book, film, TV series, videogame, etc - and give that person the chance to shine in their own story for a change.

G is for Genres

A sort of follow-up post to F, G is for genres.

I admit I pinched this idea from Samantha Anderson's post for today where she talked about not getting stuck into one fixed genre for all your writing.

In response, I wrote: I suppose the main reason authors end up sticking with one genre is that that’s what the publishers know people will pay for by that author, although JK Rowling doesn’t seem to have done too badly out of writing an adult fiction book.

Now that's fair enough for people who are paid to write, but what about people who write for fun, or without having being previously published? How do you decide what genre to write in?

Personally, I find a lot of my fiction seems to have a touch of fantasy or sci-fi in it. I find it more difficult to write about real-life situations than fantastical ones. I have, on occasion, attempted to write romance or teenage fiction, but I alway struggle to get the characters to seem real. Somehow it's easier for me to create a believable girl who can turn into a boy than a normal woman having a holiday romance, and the really annoying thing is I don't know why!

So knowing what genres are easy for me to write in is helpful when choosing what genre to write, but sometimes I just get an idea for a character and run with it. It might just be a line of dialogue that pops into my head, but from that I can carry on the character's train of thought and see where it leads. If they start talking about taking the kids to school it might be a more mainstream story, but if they start asking whether their space ship is ready for launch yet then the chances are it's something more sci-fi - or the character is a child playing let's pretend.

I don't like giving advice because I'm not sure if what works for me would work for anyone else, but if I had to offer some advice on choosing a genre to write in, I would say just see where your imagination takes you. If something catches your imagination, the chances are it will be interesting for you to write and you'll have some fun while you create the characters and the situations.

F is for Fantasy

According to Wikipedia, which is, of course, the fount of all knowledge(!), fantasy is a genre of fiction that commonly uses magic and other supernatural phenomena as a primary plot element, theme, or setting.

I like writing stories with a touch of fantasy, because the only rules you have to stick to are the ones you make yourself, and you don't have to worry too much about explaining how things work. I've never written about wizards, elves, sorcerers or witchcraft - what might be seen as the staples of fantasy stories, but I have done stories about people who can change their appearance, see ultraviolet and infra-red light, and know just by touching someone whether they're telling the truth or not.

I think the key to writing fantasy is that you can be as extreme as you like as long as you stick to the rules of your universe. You want there to be pink flying elephants? You go right ahead - just make them consistant pink flying elephants. If, in your universe, all pink elephants can fly, then don't throw in an aquatic one just because it would be fun. Keep those pink elephants flying!