How Marmalade Spawned a Short Story Collection

While I am currently in the early planning stages of a novel, I am also almost half way through the first drafts of my short story collection!

This all began over a marmalade sandwich. No, seriously.

After a long hard day of doing absolutely nothing, I had made myself a marmalade sandwich. I was rather looking forward to eating said sandwich, but I got distracted by something upstairs.

So, like a fool, I left it to fend for itself.

When I returned not five minutes later, my hand-made masterpiece had vanished, and only breadcrumbs remained.

I demanded to know who the culprit was, and found out rather quickly that it was my little sister. With a childish glint in her eye, she simply said,

“I thought it was for me.”

The arrogance of today’s youth.

So mournful and enraged by the loss of my lunch, I went back upstairs and penned a tale about a young man, also enraged by the lack of sandwich in his stomach, going on a murderous rampage to find out who took it.

I did not kill anyone myself, however.

I christened the tale ‘That Bitch Took My Sandwich’, now renamed ‘Marmalade’, and showed it to a few close friends and work colleagues.

I was shocked when they actually found it funny.

Personally, I never believed I could actually write humour. My attempts when I was younger were so painfully forced, it just failed in all aspects. This, however, really caught on.

As such, I decided to create a short story collection out of this one, singular incident. I decided that each of the stories (there are ten) would be titled after a specific condiment, and would feature it in some way in the writing. The stories would deal with things such as sex, politics, death, homosexuality, religion and other such serious topics in a tongue-in-cheek sort of way. I wanted to make this collection about the idea that you can poke fun at everyone, no matter whether you agree with their side or not, and also point out some of the more ridiculous aspects of society that I’ve observed and come across. 

It’ll probably also highlight all of my ridiculous aspects too.

The short story collection is, for now, titled ‘The Condiment Collection’, and I shall update you on it’s progress as I write the stories.

I hope that, when released, it brings you as much joy and laughter as ‘Marmalade’ did for myself and, still to my shock, those around me.

How One Became Three

My novel writing career, much like my blogging career, came to a screeching halt after the summer ended.

This was partly due to the massive changes going on in my personal and professional life, but it was also down to the conclusion that I came to a few months ago.

I didn’t really like my novel.

I found this out sat at my computer one day. Having spent my entire summer holidays feverishly planning out scenes and story structure, downing caramel lattes as if each one was my last, the finished outline was there and ready for me to begin writing from.

And I did begin it.

I began it about four times.

Every restart resulted in myself getting a little bit further, until I finally made it about halfway through chapter two.

And that day, at home, at about eight at night, I realised what the issue was.

The scene in question involved the main character, Matthew, walking through his town at about three in the morning. I was struggling with it in general because descriptive prose is something I’ve always had issue with, but as Matthew was reflecting on the life I had created for him in this town, I began to reflect on it too.

I realised, then and there, that this story wasn’t going to work. I had first received the idea about a year and a half previously, and as a whole it had changed very little from the original thought to the outline I created over the summer.

Opinions can change in a year, though.

The story, on reflection, had a lot of issues. Mainly plot and structure related, but the difference between my thought process then and now is astronomical.

So, I decided to scrap the story. It really is a shame, because it’s the first novel I ever planned out, and seeing it through to completion would’ve been nice.

However, from this realisation came opportunity.

My favourite part of the outlining process involved the characters. I absolutely adored fleshing them out, giving them traits and quirks, and working out intricate backstories for them. As a whole I’m positive they were going to be the best part of the story, and I didn’t want to see them go to waste.

A lot of there own little side plots, though, weren’t going to be highlighted due to the main plot of the novel. 

So, I’ve decided to take these four characters, and write three separate novels/novellas about them. The first of which I am going to begin planning this month, with hopes of having a fully-fleshed outline ready to go by March/April.

I will reveal more information about the main characters and plot in the coming months.

The unfinished novel will always have a special place in my heart as the first novel I ever finished planning, but it’s on to bigger and, hopefully, better things.

So that’s how one novel ended up becoming three.

Horror Movie Reviews – The Boy

The Boy is an American/Chinese Horror Film directed by William Brent Bell. It stars Lauren

Lauren Cohan as Greta Evans.

Cohan (of Walking Dead fame) as Greta Evans, an American who runs away from her troubled past to become a live-in nanny to the British Heelshire Family for a few months. She discovers that their ‘child’, Brahms, is actually a porcelain doll, and that the real Brahms died in a house fire when he was eight years old. After The Heelshires leave Greta with a specific list of rules and a warning that Brahms ‘isn’t like other children’, Greta is left to deal with ‘Brahms’, and the consequences of living in that house.

As a horror film, The Boy fails to conjure any real scares. While the premise is genuinely unsettling, once you are constantly exposed to the face of the doll over a number of scenes, the novelty begins to wear thin. Most attempts at scaring the viewer are done via jump-scares, and these are all incredibly predictable.

The Heelshire’s inability to deal with Brahm’s death is a melancholic and interesting plot point.

There is a sense of melancholy that permeates throughout the film, however. Witnessing the Heelshires treat an unblinking, inanimate object with the warmth and tenderness as one would a child is more upsetting than terrifying, and you feel a genuine touch of sympathy for these elderly parents who have never been able to move on from a horrible tragedy.

This also transfers to Greta, who we discover also has a dark and troubled past involving children, which eventually leads her to getting attached to Brahms. The subject matter is dark and would’ve made for an interesting and insightful psychological horror film, if not for the fact that the reveal of her backstory is ruined almost instantly by the romantic lead. Rupert Evans plays Malcolm, the Heelshire’s grocery delivery boy, and while the chemistry between the two is quite strong, it all leads to a terribly hammy and downright offensive scene in which, after Greta reveals her tragic backstory, Malcolm’s response is more or less ‘Oh, well that’s horrible, but I’m glad your trauma lead you here.’ And then they kiss.

Cohan and Rupert Evans (who plays Malcolm) have decent chemistry overshadowed by a horribly hammy and slightly offensive scene.

What could’ve been an interesting plot thread, although slightly hammy, was immediately tarnished by this weird, uncaring and downright bizarre scene.

Overall, The Boy, in the most basic terms, fails as a horror movie. While it does have two likeable leads, raises some interesting questions about dealing with grief and lengths someone will go to protect those they love, and has a decent twist, once you are conditioned to it’s gimmick after a few scenes, all the fear simply evaporates.

2/5.

(all pictures belong to their respective parties, and are in no way owned by me).

Redesign, Rebuild, Reclaim: An Update and Plan of Action

There’s no point beating around the bush, I’m a bit of a bad blogger.

A really, really bad blogger.

I won’t make excuses, won’t sit here and say that I’ve been too busy, that I haven’t had time, because I have had time. I’ve just chosen not to make time. My priorities the past couple of months have been away from all forms of writing, both fiction and non-fiction.

But now that things have sort of settled down in my life, I can begin to properly focus on writing again.

There’s another issue, however, that we need to talk about before we can continue.

What is this blog?

Seriously though, what is it? This has been an issue I’ve struggled with for a while now. I want to do so many different things, but every time I try them, they just don’t stick, don’t feel natural. I’ve written about my WIP, written about life anecdotes, written reviews of movies and tv shows. I’ve done a whole lot, but I felt like I was trying to be everything at once.

The issue that comes with that, though, is that I like doing different forms of writing. Because there are so many different layers of my life I want to share, and so many different topics I want to touch upon in both fiction and non-fiction.

So the past few months I’ve done a lot of thinking. In between my new job (which I’ll touch on in a moment) and just generally dealing with life, I think I’ve figured out exactly what I want this blog to be.

I’ve got a three point plan ready to deploy, so let’s get on with it, shall we?

Redesign:

After much deliberation and consideration, I’ve decided this blog is going to be focused entirely on my efforts to become a published author of both fiction and non-fictional works.

Before you say anything, yes, I know that’s what I set out with this blog to begin with. But I was unfocused in my vision, my goals, and how I wanted to structure this. The past few months have given me a new perspective, and most importantly have pushed me to become the person, the writer, I really want to be. I can’t do that without practice, so practice I shall.

So what’re my goals for the blog, as a whole?

• Weekly Blog Posts. Yes, I know I’ve made this promise before. But this time it’s different. I can’t tell you why it’s different, I’m just a changed person now. So this blog will be updated, weekly, every Monday.
• Updates on my WIP. After a few months of absolutely no activity writing wise, I’ve had enough of inactivity. I’m itching to get back to writing, and tonight I’ve set about putting together a schedule for the upcoming year that’ll help keep me focused on my writing goals. I’ll discuss more about my WIP’s in the near future, and hope to properly continue to update you on their progress, perhaps weekly.
• Writing Tips and Tricks. I want to talk about writing, and what I’ve learned over my nineteen years of existence. I am by no means an expert, but we’ve all learned tips and tricks along the way. I also hope to learn so much more than I already do about writing, from independent authors as well as fellow bloggers.
• Reviews. I do very much enjoy critiquing things, and as such I will continue to do so on this blog. I will review most forms of media, like books, movies, tv shows and even the occasional video game.
• Reader interaction. I want to talk to you more. I want to promote more discussion about the pieces I’m working on, as well as the pieces other people are working on. I want to properly envelop myself in this blogging community. Specifically, I want to meet and talk with other young bloggers like myself, because I feel there is nothing more interesting than hearing the stories people my own age, my own generation, are coming up with and cultivating. That’s not to say I’m not interested in the writing of people older than myself, far from it.

I would also like to point out that this won’t be my only blog here on the internet. I won’t go into the specifics of them now, since we’re here to just talk about writing, but expect an update when they’re launched over the coming weeks. As I said earlier, there are many layers of things I want to write about, so I shall.

Rebuild:

When I was in college, I used to write so often. More so than I’d ever written in my life. Those study sessions in small cafes, rain pouring outside and pitter-pattering against the glass, a caramel latte warming my hands as I scanned over the computer screen, made me so happy.

I don’t get to do those a lot anymore, which is a shame, as they truly were one of the highlights of my college experience.

The reason they were so effective, though, was because I pushed myself to write, and  I had deadlines.

I want to rebuild myself back up to that writer, the guy who wrote every day no matter how tired he was, the guy who thrived on thinking about story ideas on the train rides to and from college. The circumstances are different, sure, but I still have that drive inside me.

This new schedule I’ve developed, alongside finally settling into my routine, should do the trick. And if it doesn’t, I’ll figure something else out. I want to have work published someday, and to do that, I’ve got to work as hard as possible.

Reclaim:

I’ve not written for such a long time that part of me feels like it’s forgotten how. Like my fingers have forgotten how to move across the keyboard, like my brain has forgotten how to turn letters to words, words to sentences, sentences to paragraphs and paragraphs into stories.

I want to reclaim that confident writer, the guy who felt entirely in his element when faced with a blank page. I want to be the guy who spent hours in a coffee shop intricately planning out his characters, writing outlines and conjuring up stories.

He was a guy who was on his way up. How far he would get is anyone’s guess, but he was going up. He was progressing.

I’ve not progressed in the past few months writing wise, and that, quite frankly, pisses me off.

That changes from now on.

This isn’t a New Years Resolution (good luck if you have any though!), this isn’t an empty promise.

In 2017 I’m going to work on producing some of the best articles, the best reviews, the best discussions and the best pieces of fictional writing I possibly can.

I look forward to all of you being on this journey with me, and I look forward to taking a look at all the hard work you’ve put into your blogs both in the past and in the future.

I hope all of you have had some happy holidays and are looking forward to the new year ahead!

J. Fenton.

31 Days of Horror: Friend Request Review

Friend Request is a 2016 German ‘Psychological Horror Supernatural’ film, directed by Simon Verhoven, who also co-wrote the script with Matthew Ballen and Phillip Koch.

It follows Laura (played by Alycia Debnam-Carey, who played Lexa in The 100 and Alicia Clarke in Fear the Walking Dead), a college student who is one of the most popular students on campus. Her popularity earns the attention of a loner named Marina (played by Liesl Ahlers), and the two strike up a friendship. With a constant bombardment of messages and a creepy Facebook profile, full to the brim with horrific imagery and animations, Laura soon grows weary of her new friend.  Things soon spiral out of control when Laura doesn’t invite Marina to her an intimate get together for her birthday. Mortified, Marina takes her own life, and proceeds to possess the ‘internet’ itself in order to render Laura ‘as lonely as she was’ by systematically slaughtering her closet friends.

Marina (on the left) and Laura (on the right). Picture owned by Warner Brothers.

Story:

The plot itself isn’t exactly an original one, with a somewhat similar movie titled Unfriended being released in theatres in 2014, which was around the same time filming for this movie ended. It’s your run of the mill horror movie in which a bunch of characters you don’t really give a damn about end up being brutally murdered in gruesome and occasionally interesting ways.

The plot, along with the dialogue, is certainly the films biggest weakness’. The entire premise really revolves around these two points:

1. Laura being exceptionally popular.
2. Marina being a sympathetic character.

Overall the movie fails to deliver on these two fronts.

For starters, the only real indication we get that Laura is really popular is through a social media montage at the beginning of the movie. While this was a nice way to open everything up, the fact that we then don’t see throughout the movie that she is popular makes zero sense. She barely interacts with anyone outside of her small circle of friends, which completely detracts from the entire selling point of the whole movie, and Marina’s entire motivation for wanting to make her lonely.

Secondly, Marina is the furthest thing from being a sympathetic character. The writing seems to flip-flop between wanting to make us care about and despise her, and while this would work if the script was better, it fell flat here.

 

Marina kills herself because Laura doesn’t invite her to a dinner. Which is for her birthday. And involves only her boyfriend, closet friends, and her mother.

And she met her maybe a week or so this dinner happens.

How are we meant to sympathise with that? The movie refuses to be consistent with how we’re meant to feel towards her, and as we glean more of her backstory throughout, it continues not to make any sense. She’s not sympathetic enough for us to feel sorry for her, and she does enough horrible things to make her a credible villain, but the writers insist on forcing the fact that she’s had a horrific childhood down our throats. But it’s not logical enough to make us completely care about how badly she was treated. Either they should’ve focused on making her character completely sympathetic by having Laura throw a massive party and not inviting her (which would’ve made sense, considering she’s meant to be exceptionally popular) or completely make her an unlikable villain. Instead we get a mish-mash of cliche emotions we’re meant to feel, and the resulting concoction results in a ‘meh’ antagonist overall.

Look at that face, how could you not feel sympathy for her?

Acting/Dialogue:

In short, it’s bad.

The only two people who give somewhat memorable performances are Alycia and Liesl, who both play their parts competently. Liesl gives off a genuinely creepy vibe when she’s alive, and her pallid appearance fits what most would consider a weird individual.

Alycia’s character does come off as likeable in a sea if pointless characters who are nothing more than meat to be cut down. Connor Paolo (of Gossip Girl fame) gives a decent performance as Kobe, a hacker who is in love with Laura. This soon breaks down into a hammy, almost laughable bunch of scenes towards the movies climax, and a change in character that makes no sense. Everyone else comes across as wooden and uninteresting, specifically Laura’s boyfriend, Tyler. There is nothing remotely interesting about him, which is a shame, as he is a fairly important character in the plot.

Laura and Kobe, having struggled to find some decent dialogue anywhere, extend their search to bizarre places.

The dialogue is completely forgettable, and standard horror movie fare.

I do have a massive nitpick with two of the characters. There are two people in this movie, a man and a woman, who are slightly overweight. I wouldn’t say they were fat, just slightly wider than the other cast members.

In almost every scene bar the ones where it would make absolutely no sense to bring it up, they’re talking or doing something with food. It was an exceptionally weird thing I noticed, but it is prevalent.

In one scene Laura is on the phone with her slightly overweight friend, and his response to being freaked out about the entire Marina situation is that he ‘needs more chocolate. Chocolate always calms me down’. I’m paraphrasing there, but it’s basically what he said.

It’s not a massive deal (no pun intended), just a little bit weird that the only defining character traits that these two characters possessed were that they liked food.

Was it Scary?

Yes, yes it was.

Despite all my gripes with the plot and the characters and the writing, there were some genuinely scary scenes. A lot of them were jump-scares, but they were unexpected jump-scares. There were many predictable areas that there could’ve been some, but instead they forwent those in order to build some tension. While nothing will get under your skin and keep you up at night, there are a few heart-stopping moments here and there.

I see you. (Owned by Warner Brothers)

The psychological aspect of the movie was also really interesting, with a couple of shots of the murder scenes from different perspectives being a highlight. While they aren’t particularly haunting, I can still clearly picture one scene, in which we’re shown CCTV footage of a woman walking around a packed hospital, believing that she is the only one there and freaking out. Haunting? No. But it is a tad unsettling.

Other:

• There are a couple of really beautifully animated scenes in here, with a very unique art-style. I’m not much of an animation guy, so I couldn’t tell you what it was, but I enjoyed it. It did, however, feel out of place in the movie, and I feel like I would’ve preferred to just watch ninety minutes of sub-par acting and dialogue.
• One little thing the movie did well is that it had a counter show up every so often, depicting the number of friends on Facebook Laura had going either up or down. While this would’ve been more powerful had she actually seemed popular, it was a nice touch that added to the drama.
• Fun fact: this movie was shot in Cape Town, South Africa. And despite the fact that this was directed by a German man and produced by mainly German production companies, because of the majority of the cast being English, they had to make the movie in English.

A picture of the cast in Cape Town. Looks like a genuinely lovely place. (Picture taken from Tumblr)

Final Thoughts:

Friend Request is a movie that has potential, but never quite lives up to it. Even if it did live up it however, it would’ve never been anything more than a slightly-above average horror film. Some clever use of social media and a few good scares are not enough to carry the sub-par plot, wooden acting and poor dialogue to anything other than a passable movie.

2/5.

Trying To (Update You): Of Curveballs and Horror Movie Reviews

So, I’m still alive!

I bet you all missed me terribly.

On a serious note though, life proceeded to throw me a number of curveballs that have completely derailed all attempts at writing, both fiction and non-fiction. As such this blog hasn’t been my main focus, or even a focus at all the past few months. I’m hoping that as I settle into my new routine that I’ll find time and motivation to write proper blog posts again. I’d also like to go back to writing some of my fiction work, specifically my novel and a number of really intriguing short stories that have been pottering around in my brain.

But, let’s move onto what will probably become the main content on the blog for the foreseeable month.

Spooky Pumpkin is spooky.

I’m a huge fan of Halloween, and considering it is now October, this is the month where I splurge and proceed to devour as many horror movies as I can.

I am, however, not very well-versed in the horror genre overall, and so I’ve not see many of the classic horror films that are so well-loved.

I’ve seen maybe like two of these movies/video games. Also, took this from Pintrest, not sure who it belongs to but it belongs to them!

I’ve decided that I’m going to spend some time this month writing reviews for every horror movie I watch, would should be over thirty-one, as I’m going to completely splurge on Halloween night.

The reviews will take on two formats:

• Full movie review. Basically what it says on the tin. A somewhat in-depth constructive critique of the movie where I’ll discuss most, if not all, of the things I liked/disliked about it.
• Multiple Movie Summaries. I might not have time to sit down and write full length reviews for each movie I watch in October. As such, I might combine a few of the reviews into shorter, more concise pieces that hit all the basic points I liked and disliked.

So, there we are! My first review will be up sometime later today, and it centres around something that us creative types use quite frequently, whether we wish to or not…

Doesn’t it just give you chills?

Diary of a Trainee Dog Trainer

So for those of you who are unaware, my current job involves me working with assistance dogs. It’s only recently, I’d say over the past two or so months, that I’ve begun to properly invest myself in learning how to train the dogs.

I can honestly say that it’s one of the most difficult but rewarding things I’ve ever done.

A majority of the things I do are insular. The only thing that I need to improve on or work with is myself and my own mind. If my writing isn’t up to scratch, that’s entirely on me. If I’m struggling with an IT problem it’s because I’ve yet to come up with the solution.

Dog training is different, because it’s not just about me. You’ve also got the dog, a dog with a personality and character traits. A living, breathing thing that is looking to you to guide it.

It’s not just me, though. Whenever I do dog training I shadow someone, and with good reason, who is kind enough to correct me when I make a ridiculous mistake.

Having control, or the idea of having control over a living thing is confusing. It’s up to me, in this training session,  to ensure that this dog continues to grow and develop into an animal befitting of the title of an assistance dog.

And when you’ve spent most of your life dealing with computer issues and being unable to find the right words, both in a social and literature based sense, staring down a four-legged ball of fur is certainly a new challenge.

On the surface, though, dog training isn’t that hard. Teaching a dog to sit shouldn’t be difficult, but it is, because there are so many different variables that go into it. Is the dog focused on you, are you focused, is the dog more focused on the treat, what outside stimuli are there around you, how often has the dog practised sit before etc. Something so simple at face value quickly becomes exceptionally complicated.

Dogs also have this absolutely fascinating, but woefully annoying habit of remembering everything you have them do. That’s the theory, anyway. Sometimes it feels like the dogs remember the things you don’t want them to, while forgetting the things you do want them to remember.

All of this makes it probably the biggest challenge I’ve ever faced. And that’s just all the different things you need to remember with the dogs. When you’re fairly inept with your hands and struggle to make your brain and body work at the same time due to a variety of different issues, it becomes even more difficult.

It’s a struggle for sure. Every single training session, whether it’s one of the older dogs or a little puppy, always brings a new challenge, something I need to adapt to in order to solve.

I’m also not very good at it yet. I’ve always liked to think I’m someone who has a decent grasp at whether or not I’m decent at things, and right now, I’m not a good dog trainer.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying I’m terrible, and I ruin all of the dogs training leading up to our training session because of my absolute incompetence. I’m not that bad. I hope.

I make a lot of little mistakes, though. I’m on the wrong side of the dog, I get my commands mixed up, I reward the dog when I shouldn’t have, I do things in the wrong order etc. Nothing monumental, but these little things soon begin to stack up in your mind and weigh you down. I’m just not confident in my own ability yet, and these little mistakes continue to hamper me.

Despite all of the struggles, mostly down to my own inabilities, why do I enjoy doing it so much?

Because when you make progress it’s the proudest feeling in the world.

During all of the training sessions I’ve been apart of, there is usually a moment in time where everything just clicks. Both you and the dog align, and they manage to perform the command perfectly, or you figure out how to get them to follow the command, or you get them one-hundred percent focused on you.

Then you begin to coo, almost like a father proudly talking about his child’s achievements. It sounds so odd, talking to a dog as if it were a baby, but you genuinely cannot help but express your absolute delight at the progress being made.

When you both manage to make those steps forward, it’s a wonderful feeling. The feeling of progress can’t really be topped, especially when sometimes you feel like you’re banging your head against a brick wall.

My two favourite memories of dog training so far are as follows:

The first involved a perfect following of eight  commands by one of the older dogs. Sit, Down, Stay, Heel, Sit, Down, Wait, Come.

The dog being able to do this obviously wasn’t down to me, as she’d had training from the far more competent dog trainers in order to remember all of those commands. But it was nice moment for me, I suppose, that I managed get through all the commands without screwing up once. We’d both remembered what we had to do, and that stands, in my opinion, as the best thing I’ve ever done training wise.

My second favourite memory involves looking like a muppet. I was training one of the younger dogs outside, and I was struggling to get her focus completely on me. I decided to act drastically, took her lead, and proceeded to run and leap and bound away, calling her in a sickly sweet voice, my hand outstretched with a treat in my palm. She bounded after me happily, and we repeated this odd song and dance multiple times.

I looked like a lunatic. I sent a majority of the other dog trainers into laughing fits due to my wonderful leaping abilities, and probably disturbed all of the neighbours with how loud I was exclaiming my insistence that the puppy follow.

But it was so much fun. At the end of that training session I came away from it having had a damn good time, and from the way her tongue lolled out of her mouth, her tail swished from side to side, and the way she was panting for breath, I’d say that the puppy enjoyed it too. Plus, I entertained everyone else, so that was nice.

This memories, although they’re not very old, still make me smile. Coupled with the fact that I am improving keeps me motivated too.

Just like my little mistakes, I also make little improvements. The one that springs to mind is not letting the dog out of the door before you. It’s good manners for the dog to wait until you’ve stepped through the door. I wouldn’t have paid any attention to that before. But now, almost instinctively, I’ll make the dog wait and allow me through the door first.

These little things add up and up, and they’ll continue to add up until they become big things. I’m confident that with enough time and effort (probably some laughter too) I can become competent at dog training.

Is it hard? Absolutely.

Is it a challenge? One of the hardest I’ve ever had to face.

It it frustrating sometimes? Without a shadow of a doubt.

But when you see that look in the dogs eye as you praise her for performing a command perfectly, there’s very few feelings I’ve felt that match that sense of pride, passion and progress for not only the dog, but myself as well.

Blog Plans

So… remember me?

Hello everyone! I’m back after another absence, for which I can only apologise for. A slew of things have come up in my life that made it difficult to blog (and write overall), but now I’m back on the saddle, as it were!

Today I’m going to be discussing a few of the articles I’m planning on writing in the future. So this post is more of a ‘what’s in store’ than anything else, but it’ll get me back on track with regards to blogging, so it’s all good.

So, without further ado, let’s dive right in!

• This one is pretty self-explanatory. I’ll mostly be doing movies, television shows and books, but I might branch into the occasional video game I play or something else entirely, who knows! I want to stress that reviews are not my strongest suit, and they’re an area I would like to develop in. As such, constructive criticism for them would be very much appreciated!
• Character Analysis’. Characters are, by far, my favourite part about story-telling. As such, I would like to do one of two things. It’d either be an in-depth analysis on them, examining their psyche and motivations. Or, it’d be just a general overview of a character that I feel like might be underappreciated or unknown to people. I’ve got a couple of ideas for characters already in mind, so look out for one of these in the near future!
• Young Writers Advice. I, personally, believe I’m too young to be giving out properly substantial writing advice. That being said, I feel like I can connect to people my own age and discuss with them about the struggles we, as young writers, might face while writing. This could be stigma from older authors and people in general, to balancing schoolwork and writing, to a plethora of other tips, tricks and discussions.
• Guest Posts. When I have built up enough of an audience and interacted with enough writers, I would certainly like to have some guest posts up on the blog. These would all have a specific focus, however. I would like for each guest post to discuss what the writers were like as teenagers. Specifically, what creative mediums that they were introduced to around this time that helped shape their writing, and just in general what their writing was like back when they were younger. If anybody is interested in writing a guest post, please let me know and we can discuss the details!

So, there we have it! These four things will become more prolific on my blog as time goes on, and of course you’ll continue to get general writing and WIP updates, as well as any other articles that strike my fancy.

Thank you all for reading, and see you all next time.

J.Fenton.

Trying To (Update You) 30th July 2016

Saturday Update:

Hello everyone.

I’m here today with a bit more of an informal blog post, which I think is going to the norm for Fridays/Weekends from now on. I feel like that, since it’s the end of the week, we should all just chill out and have a little chat. Nothing serious, nothing strenuous, and nothing stressful. Just a general update about what’s been going on in my life, writing and otherwise. So, let’s get on with it:

Writing Updates:

• First chapter of WIP is finished. Yes, I’m exceptionally excited to announce that I finished the first chapter of the first draft of my first ever novel a few nights ago! I’ve finally managed to get over that major first hurdle, and while there is obviously a lot I will need to go back and edit, I’m somewhat happy with the result. There are some diamonds in all that rough, I think, and that’s enough to spur me on! I’m hoping to get another chapter more or less finished by the end of the weekend, but we’ll see how that goes!
• Learning how to do grant work. Because of the work that I do, I’ve now been employed to start writing grants in order to receive funding. I’ve never done this before, and so very recently I went on a course in order to learn how to do these grant applications. It was a very short course, and was finished within two hours, but I had no idea how in-depth grant applications actually could be! There’s so much research and tailoring your words, it’s looking to be a massive challenge. But, as the course leader said, practice makes perfect. I’ll just need to start actually doing them, and hopefully I’ll hit the ground running!
• Coursework ideas. Despite the fact that it won’t need to focus on it for a couple of months, I’m already getting ideas for what my Creative Writing A-Level coursework is going to be. Mine is going to be a fiction piece, and the short story idea is already bubbling around in my head. I’ll need to do some serious thinking on it, but overall I think it could work exceptionally well if I can pull it off!

Reading Updates:

• Gone Girl. I only started reading it today, and have mixed feelings about it so far. The prose is exceptionally engaging, with some really interesting uses of description of both scenery and characters. Considering that is a major struggle of mine, I’m hoping that by reading the story I’ll gain some much needed knowledge on how to apply it to my own writing! While I am enjoying the novel, it’s not really gripped me as of yet. I’m only a couple of chapters in, but I find myself not really interested in the characters so far. The writing style is really what’s keeping me going so far, and I’m sure it’ll pick up soon, so I shall continue on with it!

Film/TV Updates:

• Finished Skins Season 2. I finished the second season of Skins a few nights ago, and continue to have mixed feelings on it. As a finale it was really well done, and I think it tied things together in a decent little knot. That being said, after an exceptionally strong start to the season (with one of my favourite ‘one-off’ villains of all time), it all just sort of fell a bit flat after that. I might write a review of Seasons 1-2, if anyone would be interested in that. Now, the hunt for a new show to watch on Netflix begins…

Overall Updates:

• It’s been an interesting week for me, as I’ve been exceptionally contemplative. Whenever I sit down and think for a long period of time it always puts me in a weird mood. It’s not bad necessarily, but it’s not good either. I get into a limbo state, in which I’m neither happy nor sad, and feel really full and yet empty at the same time. I’ve been doing a lot of that recently, mainly about where I fit into the world and if I can fit into certain parts of it. I’ve still not come to a conclusion, but I’m working on it!

So, there we are. I hope everyone has a good weekend, and roll on Monday’s blog post!

J.Fenton.

Writing Advice #1-Read what you Hate

Good evening everyone.

Today, I’d like to bring to you all a piece of writing advice that I have yet to see anyone else share. This doesn’t mean to say it hasn’t been shared at all, I wouldn’t dare be so arrogant, but since I haven’t seen it I thought I would bring it up and see if anybody else shared the same sentiment.

Before I properly begin, I would like to point out that this is advice coming from an eighteen-year-old. As such, keep in mind that any advice that I give out might not apply to you, because we all write differently! So, let’s begin:

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I want you to think about a piece of creative media that you hate.

Whether it’s a book, a tv show, a movie, a play. Anything with a story and a plot and characters. Just picture it in your head.

I now want to ask you a question. You ready?

Did you finish watching/reading this particular thing?

If the answer is yes, then wait a few paragraphs.

If the answer is no, however, then I’m going to give you some very important advice.

I want you, after you’ve read this blog post and done whatever important things we all need to do in our day to day lives, to go and read/watch this thing.

I can imagine you might be thinking this is pointless. Why subject yourself to something you hate? Why make your eyes read and watch something so horrifically bad that you can’t stand it?

Because I genuinely think it will make you a better writer. How? Here are some examples:

Example 1: The Bad and the Bad.

There are two very specific forms of ‘bad’ creative media. The first is the ‘in your opinion bad’. This is, obviously, exceptionally subjective, and your reasoning for not liking this specific thing is down to your general dislike of it. That doesn’t mean to say there is anything actually wrong with the creative piece, but just because of your own beliefs or interests, it just doesn’t appeal to you.

I find myself thinking things are ‘bad’ in this way quite a lot. I’m such a character and dialogue driven reader and writer, that when I read long winding descriptions of scenery and endless amounts of world-building, I generally bored. That’s not to say that the world building or descriptions are bad in of themselves. In fact, they might be incredible passages, but because of my own personal likes and dislikes I’m never going to be able to appreciate them properly. Which is perfectly alright, because we all have things we like and dislike!

The other form of bad, however, is very different. This is the sort of creative piece that you have an issue with. It’s not that it just doesn’t interest you, but you genuinely feel as if this piece of creativity is deeply flawed to a level that it makes you dislike it. From poor dialogue to horrible descriptions to nonsensical plotlines to an overabundance of clichés, we’re all critics of art in some form or another, and sometimes we come across things that just make us say “Right, here is everything that is wrong with this.” And then we’re off!

We’re going to be focusing on the latter of these ‘bad’ pieces of fiction today, but I will write a bit more about them both at a later date.

Example 2: From Bad to Average.

Drawing from personal experience here, I’m someone who never really wrote a lot of non-fiction. While I’ve been attempting to write fiction for most of my teenage life, articles and reviews were things that had always escaped me.

So, when faced with having to do them for my Creative Writing A-Level, I was a little bit stumped. Whenever I would attempt to write them they came across as clunky and choppy. We spent hours upon hours looking at excellent pieces of non-fiction from a variety of different writers, and while these certainly helped, they didn’t really address all the issues I had.

And then, we started looking at things my Creative Writing teacher thought were ‘bad’. As a class we analysed them, dissected them, and figured out why exactly they didn’t work.

I found this tremendously helpful, especially considering I was starting out with non-fiction. If you can figure out what not to do before you figure out what to do, you will start with an average piece of work. And that average piece of work is far easier to build on and turn into something good, as opposed to spending forever trying to emulate the excellence of other more seasoned writers without any building blocks.

Example 3: Finding your Style

The word ‘style’ gets thrown around a lot in the writing community. Everyone has it, a certain way of communicating the ideas in their head and putting them onto paper. It is unique to each writer, but is also notoriously difficult to figure out. I’ve seen countless articles and videos detailing about this search for the ‘elusive style’ and how to finally snare it.

By actively seeking out and absorbing bad pieces of creative work, you’ll be able to figure it out much sooner. It won’t be a be all end all where you’ll read some atrocious story or watch a sub-par movie and shout “Eureka, this is my style!”, but being able to eliminate what you don’t like will help significantly. Your style is hardly going to include things you don’t like to read or watch, is it? Don’t like dialogue heavy-stories? Not going to be your style. Enjoy long-widened expansive descriptions of scenery? Your style will end up reflecting that.

Removing all the things you know you’ll never write about will only leave the things you do enjoy writing, and that’ll make it one hell of a lot easier to find out exactly what your style is.

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So, there we are! I hope you enjoyed my first piece of writer’s advice, and I hope it made sense to you all! If it didn’t I am more than willing to discuss it further in the comments down below, as I understand I can ramble at times. See you on Friday, or perhaps sooner!

J.Fenton.