Writers\' Forum - 04.2020

then took the rest of the ice cream with a smile.
The waiter asked about cofee. John asked about her family.
Catherine told him there was no one special because school was
too busy. John thought how alike they were – neither with enough
time to enjoy life away from work. She told him she had always
wanted a dog but never got the opportunity. John kept quiet,
internalising his indiference to the canine world. He was certain
this would be a topic of some discord, potentially fatal to the
rest of the evening. Catherine probed him about home, digging
round the edges of his life. John stalled and gave non-committal
answers, nothing that could be held against him later on.
The bill arrived. Coincidentally, it came almost exactly to their
shared allowance. They decided to split it. As John inished with
the card machine, Catherine reached across and took his hand.
John felt a room key fall from her palm into his. She stood up and
leant down to his ear.
Simultaneously casting a spell and breaking the magic, she
reminded him that his parents could only look after the kids
until 9am. Then Catherine turned and walked towards the lift.

• Simon, from Sutton, Surrey, says: ‘I saw a similar scenario depicted in
  a TV show and thought it was a fun way to approach this task about a
  romantic date.’

Carl’s comments
I asked you to tell a story rather than show it, rebelling against modern
storytelling rules. You had to use reported rather than direct speech,
and could hop between heads and be an old-fashioned omniscient
author. One or two entrants fell down on this point, as they had a
third character spying on the romantic couple, in effect showing the
scene from this person’s viewpoint.
For example, Letting Go by Shirley Thomson was an otherwise
excellent story that had Sadie spying on Harry in a restaurant as he
meets a mystery woman for a date – the twist is that he’s not her
husband but her son, who has Asperger’s. Sadie realises she has to
stop worrying and let him go. But we remained in Sadie’s head and saw
everything through her eyes and thoughts.
Both Lesley Macauley’s winning story and Simon Shergold’s
runner-up took advantage of the omniscient viewpoint. In The Food
of Love we are told what happens in one pub, and then whisked to
another pub for a twist ending. It wouldn’t have worked if we’d been
in either of the young couple’s viewpoints. What we, the waiter and
the patrons imagine the couple are thinking turns out to be a complete
con. I didn’t see it coming
The twist in Time is of the Essence plays on our ideas about how
stories work. It seems like we’re always hearing the true thoughts of
‘John’ as he lirts with a stranger, but more often than not what we’re
actually being told is a spot of roleplay between husband and wife. We
are in his head when he keeps quiet about getting a dog and avoids
talking about family, but the reasons become clear only later.
I had a few more entries than usual, which is worrying as I don’t want
to encourage this sort of thing! Showing a story, using the viewpoint
of a main character and letting scenes play out incorporating dialogue
is much more engaging. Having to avoid all that, I found this month’s
entries lacked life and warmth. But I hope the exercise was useful.

Highly commended

A Night Two Remember by David Jackson
Crosswords by Richard Smith
Ice-cream and Innocence by Kathy Schilbach
Sweet by Caitlin Oldield
Tr y st by Sue Clayton
Altered Images by Dominic Bell

T

he editor’s monthly competition for short short

writing has a £100 prize for one winner and a

number of runners-up may also be published,

depending upon the nature of the contest and available

space. The lash competition is FREE FOR SUBSCRIBERS

(single entry only). For non-subscribers (or extra

subscriber entries) the entry fee is £5, which you can

purchase by following the link on the Writers’ Forum

website (www.writers-forum.com).

Entry is strictly by email only.

Writers’ Forum wants to encourage you to write, so:

■ We will have a theme/task each time so that new

writing has to be produced.

■ There will be a tight deadline so that results can be

published quickly and entrants can’t dither!

The editor’s decision is inal and no correspondence over

results will be entered into. By entering, entrants agree to these

rules and for their entries to be published in Writers’ Forum.

COMP 222:

SCORN

Deadline: 12 noon

GMT on 23 March

Editor’s assignment:

Write a 500-word (±10)

story using the prompt

‘scorn’. As usual, I will be looking for engaging stories

that start right in the thick of things and have a satisfying

conclusion. Your title must not include the word ‘scorn’

but the rest – viewpoint, tense, genre etc – is up to you.

How to enter

1 Paste your entry straight into the body of a new email

(NOT as an attachment) followed by the wordcount

and your name and address. Give your purchase order

number or state if you’re a subscriber to check against

our database. Add a line or two about what inspired you.

2 In the email’s subject line box, write Flash Comp 222:

followed by your interesting and relevant story title.

3 Send your email to [email protected]

by the deadline above.

The results will be published next issue. Good luck!

Writers

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