More than Writers

  Let’s start at the end I’ve recently become fascinated by story endings and epilogues, conclusions and codas, post-scripts and denouements. A good storyteller knows how to end a story well. We may gasp in shock or sigh with satisfaction, but we know intuitively that a well-crafted ending is a powerful thing. How did the narrator or their story survive? Moby Dick and The Handmaid’s Tale give some interesting options. What eventually happened to the protagonists? Animal Farm tells us how low the pigs really go. Did she marry him? Readers of Jane Eyre will understand. Is there going to be a sequel? Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince ends on a cliff-hanger, with the death of a beloved character. Is there a reveal or twist? Max’s supper is still hot in  Where the Wild Things Are  – why is that? What about Jesus as storyteller? The purpose of the stories Jesus told was not in entertaining his listeners, although parables could certainly do that. On th...

  Imagine Jesus, sitting by the shore of that powder blue lake called Kinneret — Harp— because of its shape. The Master Storyteller is telling the story of The Lost Son, also known as Prodigal. Is he telling the story because He loves sitting telling stories? No! This is His way of getting an important message across—something His listeners need to know and understand about God and about themselves. Who are these listeners? Interestingly, they are twofold. Luke 15, where this parable appears, quotes sinners and murmuring Pharisees. And the story is about two brothers, one a sinner and the other a murmuring Pharisee type. Jesus’ audience can identify with his characters. The story revolves around their unbrotherly relationship with one another. It centres on their very different relationships with their father who represents God. The sinners learn that God is a forgiving Father and that they are not beyond redemption, even if they have wandered far away and wallowed in s...

I’ve been listening to Andy Serkis’s #Hobbitathon, a live stream charity reading of the The Hobbit https://www.gofundme.com/f/thehobbitathoncovid19appeal . He’s spontaneously inventing accents and voices and song tunes. It’s unrehearsed and unedited, with the actor stumbling over sentences and sometimes losing his place. It’s no audiobook but it’s glorious. There’s something so magical about having a story read to you, isn’t there? I think back to primary school, sat on the floor in the corner of the classroom for Little Grey Rabbit or Charlie and The Great Glass Elevator - favourites for both children and teachers. How I loved to read to my own children. I can still quote the rhyming books – Hairy McClary, My Cat Likes to Hide in Boxes, and of course Dr Seuss. Visiting Seuss Landing at Universal’s Islands of Adventure, my boys were unimpressed by the novelty of a green eggs and ham roll as they were so used to ours! I look back and wonder if these books seeded my younge...

Two lines can tell a story. and they can tell them, in I think, two different ways. The first of which would be in micro stories, the two sentences tell the entire story between them, the first being both the opening and the middle, and the second being the middle and the end. All condensed down into a short but, hopefully, interesting piece of work. "Upon Simon's return from work, he discovered that burglars had had their way and ransacked the place. So preoccupied was he though with his missing items, that he didn't notice they had taken the entire front door." Nothing however says that both lines have to follow the same theme. While both lines above are two halves to the same story, the first is enticing and serious, while the second is slightly more comical. Nothing is better in something sort like this than leaving a few dangling threads. of course questions need answering in the long game, but leaving a few questions unanswered allows the reade...

Dragonfly What inspires your  writing?' “What inspires your writing ...?” What is a privileged childhood?  Privilege can mean many things. I’ve never thought I’d had a privileged childhood – but the ‘ How do you do it?’ question, about my novels, shows me I had. It wasn’t books, it wasn’t stories ... it wasn’t wanting to be a writer ... pencils first inspired drawing ... The two privileges that shaped my writing One is learning from a very young age about the natural world. I loved nature study at school. Before that, there was plenty of nature study at home. At age 4 or five (as it must’ve been, my maternal grandfather only lived until I was five), I remember being shown, by Grandpa, how prisms filter and divide white light into rainbow colours. And being told how rainbows are formed. I can remember the excitement over an eclipse, (also at age 5), and the explanation about how we can, and how we mustn’t, watch. Then learning the names and characteristics ...