ONE SMALL STEP

I’ve just finished reading a book which dealt with characters having to take steps to change the far future following a message sent back through time. It was set in 1920’s rural England and didn’t hold all of the classic time travel decorations of vehicles to accomplish the jump and wild and advanced science. Instead, it was told on a much smaller scale with all of the action unfolding between at maximum three characters, and that size of story is something which appealed to me.

I’ve written books which encompass sweeping tales of good and evil, and massive scope for intrigue and peril, but stripping away so much of the superfluous information can lead us to a tighter and more accurate story.

The tale of changing the past to prevent some future catastrophe isn’t new. The idea of going back to kill Hitler before he got his head of steam going pops up a fair amount in books, film and TV, so much so that it tends to be as a throw away line to give quick explanation of what’s taking place at that point.

Dipping back into the past was embedded in Avengers Endgame and the scale was enormous. The Back to the Future films had the same idea but was more aimed in where our attention was focused but both these example had the characters seeing the time changes personally and then amending issues as they unfold.

But now consider that you don’t even get to see the problem yourself.

You’re told by the big booming voice from the future that to stop a terrible wrong in the far future you need to prevent a certain event now. You get a cursory overview as to the details but the rest is up to you. Could you trust that it’s for real? I suppose that would depend on the way things are presented to you but beyond the mechanics of time travel and the hard science of it all, the biggest hurdle to overcome would be the idea that just completing one miniscule task now could save lives in a thousand years.

It’s all too easy to just look at ourselves and what we do as being the tiniest speck in the grand tapestry of all of reality but even a single dropped stitch in that tapestry can have an effect.

I went to the beach today and had a wander about, getting some fresh air and I picked up and put down a few stones as I went. They just looked interesting and I wanted to have a look see. All good fun. But when I’d finished my assessment, I dropped them back on the beach, but in new positions. What’s to say that by me putting that stone where I did, I set in motion a cascade of events that means that in a thousand years it’s a fragment of that rock which results in the event which kills millions? If I hadn’t picked it up, no far off event?

We’ve all been told to see the big picture at some point but maybe we’ve been looking the wrong way? If any and all tiny events have the chance to warp the future, maybe we can see ourselves as being just that little bit more powerful, and by extension, that much more invested in the world around us.

Every action matters.

Stay safe all.

THE EASIER THE BETTER

How many stories have you encountered which have a narrative which has more twists and turns than you’d ever think possible?

Whodunnits which writhe like a nest of snakes with so many layers and choices can very often confuse in an attempt to misdirect and all you end up with is disappointment.

In stories, as in life, I think the trick is not to complicate things unnecessarily.

A character goal, when finally finished in the crucible, tends to be much smaller and more straightforward than first shown and I think we could all do with remembering that on the day to day activities we enjoy.

So I raise a glass to keeping things simple.

Stay safe all.

Happy New Year 2024

Let’s all have the best year we possibly can and make sure to let your love of stories really take flight.

Have a good one everyone.

WHAT CAN YOU SENSE?

I’ve spoken in the past of how important it is when I write to always keep in mind each of the senses we have at our disposal but a story doesn’t need them all to be successful.

Writing a description of a location or an object comes to life when you add the different perspectives of the different senses we have. Understanding that an object is smooth or pitted, sharply cold or searingly hot, if a location smelled of flowers or vomit, if there’d been a noise of any kind means we are drawn deeper and deeper into what’s happening so we can truly be immersed into the action.

But things can be just as engaging in a story if a particular sense is removed.

The loss of a sense means you’d have to lean more on the others.

There’s been a few films over the last few years which have relied on the idea that certain senses become actively dangerous to the protagonists. The Quiet Place takes away the ability for people to make a sound so vocal speech is taken off the table. So how to communicate? Sign language is the easy option in terms of story telling but beyond that, it’s any noise that becomes a problem, not just speech. Just consider our daily existence today and imagine that you can’t make any sound or you could very well die. I type quite ‘heavy’ so I’d have to amend that. You’d need to make changes to how repairs were done at home, you couldn’t use a hammer. Driving goes out the window, washing clothes will need to change, even where and how you walk. The film looks at these issues to show how sound is baked into what we all do but there’s a great example used in there which also shows just how disciplined we’d all have to be every second of every day. Don’t hurt yourself, stub your toe, catch your finger in a door, you scream in pain and that’s you stuffed.

By taking away a sense, it changes the scope that character has to experience the world. It’s not a question of pointing at someone who’s hearing or sight impaired for example and saying that they won’t be able to exist or how sad it is, rather it’s important for all of us to imagine putting ourselves into a place where the things we all take for granted are taken away.

Could you adapt to life without your sight?

If you lost both legs?

But that which is no longer available doesn’t have to be anything of this kind to be able to cause a massive re-evaluation of how we do things. Look at your life and imagine changes to your day to day.

Would you be able to live the same way if you no longer had the luxury of a car?

You now can’t ever use a mobile phone?

You have to live in a house that doesn’t have any heating?

You have to live on such low income that you have to choose between food or warmth?

Just imagine a world like that?

Our senses are how we interact with the world around us and process what we discover and a story which removes the faculty of one of them can create struggles as the characters have to work to adapt to what they can and can’t do but far far beyond just being an idea of recognising that specific hurdle, it, as all stories should, makes the reader have to consider the life they have and how they would potentially face such a time as something important was lost.

If we can all do that little bit of thinking along the way, maybe there’d be a bit more understanding.

I can just sense it.

Stay safe all.

MEMORIES

Hi all, I hope we’re all feeling well this new week.

I’m going through a period of change at the moment after being made redundant from my ‘day job’ so there’s been a fair amount of reorganising and sorting of my home office while I get into the head space I need to really get back rolling and on the job hunt.

I’ve got a notice board put up, a white board, my computer work station arranged and I’ve been rooting through drawers to make sure I have everything I need to work fully from home at the same time as having as comfortable and well appointed a writing nook as possible.

Now I’m sure that we’ve all done it at some point in our lives. We’ve been carrying out a big tidy or you’re moving house, and you stumble across things from back in the day and then we marvel at what was.

You find an old childhood toy that you may have loved in your younger years but may then not have seen in an absolute age and all of a sudden, you’re back with the younger mindset. The idea of ever being without this item and using it every day is a clear example of heresy. How can you ever be without it? Why did you stop using it?

Now I haven’t discovered any old toys as I’ve gone about my actions but one thing that has popped up is an old notebook where I’ve written down possible ideas for future books and it’s blown my mind.

There are threads in there going back to 2014 and I’d forgotten all about them. I’ve been reacquainted with some interesting ideas and most importantly, have been reminded just how creative my mind can be. There are ideas dealing with science fiction, with fantasy, and with horror, which could all become full novels if I put my mind to it and that collection of ideas takes me back to a time when my fire for writing was at it’s brightest.

When we hold up something from the past, we get the chance to reminisce to those days when we were younger and it’s great to just get a view of a time when we saw things being simpler.

But we can also rediscover something which we may not have known was diminished or missing. Suddenly we’re in a position to just hold up a lens from a different time to view todays situation and can sometimes give us the chance to remind ourselves of a time where we may have felt very differently. We can get a boost or an idea just from the colouring applied thanks to that old lens and our mind gets a kick start.

We’ve all felt it in some way, even if it’s just the warm fuzzy feeling, but being given the chance to examine things in a different way means we could see something important we’ve missed before. Characters in books have had the same experiences because we do and it can feel very much that it can become just a ploy to advance the story but it’s not always the case.

Remember, each and every one of us has a deeply coloured history and we’ve thought and felt different things at different times. Maybe something from back then could give you just what you need today.

Stay safe all.

ALL IN THE MIND

What do you do to maintain your mental health?

We’re starting to recognize more widely that societal mental health is more than just taking tablets or time in hospital and anyone who has struggles in this field isn’t automatically going to be confined to a padded room.

We’ve always recognized that we do things for our benefit in terms of the physical situation but making sure that our minds are doing the right things has always been seemingly done conscientiously. We all want to do things that make us feel happy so doing these things, things that we enjoy, can give us a great outlet for the stresses and strains we all experience in the real world.

I’ve played sports over the years and it was a great way for me to de-stress.

Playing rugby gave me the chance to have a level of physical conflict but also the chance to pit my mind against others. I had ways of having something direct to overcome to unwind from the real world. When I played cricket, I was a fast bowler and the physicality again gave me the chance to have a direct contest with the individual batsmen but not just by hurling the ball as fast as possible. I had to make sure the ball was put into the right place to be able to work the batsmen out. If he was holding the bat a certain way, if he preferred to play a certain shot etc.

But having the physical side is one thing but we need to work on our minds.

As a writer, the stories I play about with can also hold the chance for me to shut the world away and work through my thoughts and feelings.

Characters on the pages have the chance to explore ideas and situations that I could never actually come face to face with but also direct ideas that may have crossed my path. I can let my mind unwind in every possible direction and pick apart those things that I’ve been dealing with and help me untie any knots that may have been there. Catharsis comes when we work it through.

Stories of all kinds allow us to explore different ideas and understand ourselves as we do everything we can to look after our minds. We need to know how we can make any kind of sense of the world we see all around us and all those methods we have to place everything we see in some kind of order, be it mental or physical, means we do all we can to look after ourselves.

It’s that important really.

Look after yourselves all.

WHERE DOES IT ALL COME FROM?

I was asked today how I was able to come up with something to say each week when writing on here and for a brief second, I didn’t have an answer to give.

How do we find things to say all the time?

Every time I blog, I’m reaching out to the whole world with whatever it is that’s crossed my mind in the hope that other people out there read it and connect with what I had to say.

We’re all searching for others to sit around the fire and recount the stories of our lives. To, laugh, to cry and to learn.

We’re all out here shouting into the world in our own way because we know we need people to listen to us, and whereas in the past we would have been constrained by our geography, we now have the whole planet to call to.

We have things to say, each of us, and having the people to hear us can be all we need to drive us to say our piece. We know people are listening so we just keep on talking.

Here’s to all of us shouting out to the world, and here’s to all of us always having something to say.

NEED

Our species has thrived and found ourselves in such a strong position on this planet down to our mental ability. We can’t match enormous numbers of animals in terms of speed, strength, endurance etc but our problem solving power and all around smarts have enabled humans to understand the world around us in ways no other species has been able. But over time, so very much has now been discovered and understood, there’s just not the same kinds of challenges for us. We’re far from having all the answers but the void of the unknown is shrinking and it’s from this point that I see our reliance on stories. We need them. Not because it can give us explanations for what we haven’t worked out and therefore comfort is as so many local legends would have done, but because that huge brain of ours needs to explore. If we reached a point where we knew everything, where everything was catalogued and there was nothing else to see, that central spark of what it truly means to be human would flicker out.  Beyond the cataloguing of things, the understanding of ideas, and the knowledge of all, we want to go further. There’s a need to understand, and just keep on spinning ideas because our brains, the things that have given us our advantage, can always imagine more.  We can enchant and terrify and still we need to know. We break the gems of understanding out of the rocky ground around us but there’s that intangible yearning that’s always thereto just keep looking. Our minds demand more knowledge and stories are the way we create more than we have access to. Yes they help us understand out world, but deep within all of us, there’s a surging need to just keep on going and do all we can to understand. Stay safe all.

HALLOWEEN IS OVER BUT THE HORROR REMAINS

I’m a fan of horror.

I love horror stories, no matter how they’re told and I know I’m not the only one.

Stories in their entirety allow us to be entertained but to explore facets of ourselves and understand all of the elements that make us human. We can see tales of what it means to be human in situations of wonder, of love and family, but when the terror begins to build, the light we shine on ourselves is brightest and can expose realities we may never have considered.

Horror is a big genre but it’s far too easy to be dismissive of it as nothing more than tales of the oogidy boogidy man meant to keep children in line but there’s a vast continuum of ways to scare and unnerve. Gothic horror of the likes of Dracula are very different tales to examples of Body horror, think The Fly. Zombie hoards or slasher stories, alien attack and psychological horror all show us our fears but in different ways.

Are we scared of the ways that our body can break down or be corrupted? Of a very real violent murder? What would we do if aliens landed tomorrow? Would they be benevolent or subjugating?

One of my favourite films is Hellraiser and the character of Pinhead, or Hell Priest as was originally intended, was such an interesting monster. Well spoken with an educated mind, this creature wasn’t being evil just because. He wasn’t being evil at all. He was just showing others that which he so loved and allowing them to REALLY go beyond their limits. He was more than a revenge killer or a religious character. He wasn’t a generic demon out doing demon-y things, he had more depth to explore and you knew that you couldn’t write him off as one dimensional.

I first saw the film when I was in my early teens and it scared me a whole heap but I also read the book that it was based on, The Hellbound Heart, and that scared me even more. And I read it in my thirties!

Horror explores the darker reaches of who we are and gives us a good chance to explore those things without putting us in real danger. Films and books can terrify us but horror is everywhere if we’re willing to give other options a chance.

Watch all of these.

Long may the horror continue.

BENDY

Have you ever encountered the storytelling classic, so often a part of tales woven by young children but not by them exclusively, of “and then we all went home and went to bed”? If you were a deep sea diver and came up that fast, you could guarantee a case of the bends.

It’s an awesome wand to wave about as a kid when you’ve written the exciting stuff and you’ve got a little bored with tying up the loose ends. All you do is throw those words on the page and you’re done, knots be damned.

Now I mention this as an author who, despite no longer being a child, has to make sure not to undercook the end of the process when I’m working on a story. Not that I’m having to keep weapons raised against characters heading off for a snooze, it’s ensuring that there’s the correct, and appropriate conclusion for everyone and everything involved.

You’ve all read a story or watched a film or TV show where there’s an unintended cliff hanger because the arc of a character hasn’t been completed and it’s bloody annoying. It’s not that we don’t appreciate an open end, rather it’s the fact that it isn’t addressed as such. At the end of a book, being told that there’s more to come because the character in question is in the middle of something means that the author has been considering the onward story and that it wasn’t just forgotten about.

Going home and going to bed after an adventure of some kind is pretty much the life experience of a child though, so seeing that manifest in a story shouldn’t be overlooked as a sign of the person telling the tale. If you’re out playing with your friends as a kid then go home, landing back to reality, it can be seen as just mundanely dull so it’s understandable that in terms of story telling, a child would translate that to mean that as soon as the ‘action’ finishes, there’s nothing left to talk about. Maybe we cut them a tiny bit of slack in the early years?

All in all, a good beginning is vital to a story because it pulls the reader in, but a strong ending is just as important. You plan and plan and plan and as the story develops, you make amendments and adjustments to keep the ship sailing in the right direction but if you finish abruptly, without paying the attention required, either through laziness or oversight, the results can ultimately negate everything which has gone before.

A bit like rushing to reopen schools, businesses etc. before the full and correct controls are implemented, wouldn’t you say?