Category: Microfiction

Teenagers trapped in houses of no hope: How We Disappeared & The Nickel Boys

30/9/2019

Two historical novels in which young people are subject to brutal institutional regimes: in the first as comfort women in Singapore under the Japanese invasion; in the second as supposed offenders in Jim-Crow-era Florida. Both novels contrast the main character’s aspirations prior to captivity with their struggle to survive unspeakable cruelties with their sanity intact, and the scars they carry for the rest of their lives. Thankfully, for the reader who can vicariously accompany them, there’s some hope of redemption by the end. Read on, or jump to the end of the post for this week’s 99-word story.

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Mothers missed and missing: The Dutch House & Patsy

24/9/2019

12 Comments

Two novels featuring mothers who leave a child/children when they’re still quite young, following the implications over several years. In the first, the narrator doesn’t know why his mother has disappeared, or even whether she’s still alive, and claims not to miss her as his older sister fills the gap where the mother belongs. The second is a dual narrative from the perspective of both mother and daughter as each suffers, in different ways, from the mother’s decision to leave Jamaica for New York. The theme gives me an excuse to sound off about attachment and share some of my own fiction, including a new 99-word story.

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Looking back: This Is Happiness & This Tilting World

14/9/2019

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Here are two novels in which the narrator looks back on past connections: the first a coming-of-age tale during Ireland’s electrification; the second a writer’s stream-of-consciousness(ish) look at her Tunisian roots. The colour-coordinated covers is pure coincidence. This week’s 99-word story in response to the prompt ‘the greatest gift’ follows my reviews.

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Reason is irrelevant. ‘The people’ demand their pig in a poke

9/9/2019

14 Comments

For over three years, British politics have been a pantomime that gives democracy a bad name. A referendum dreamt up to unite the Tory party – spoiler alert, it didn’t – fragmenting the entire electorate with a just-over 50% vote in favour of economic self-harm[1]. The nettle grasped by a vicar’s daughter[2], and boy oh boy did that nettle sting. Still, she tackled it with robotic determination, while Rome burned[3], until she finally got the humbling she’d been rooting for since day one[4]. Now, for those of us bludgeoned by the Tory leadership contest[5], the victor’s blundering first week in parliament has been a joy. But will we find, amid proroguing parliament, sacking twenty-one of his mates – including the longest serving MP – and an apparent willingness to break the law rather than ask Brussels for an extension if he can’t secure a new deal, the final straw that will bring the country to its senses? I hope so, but I can’t believe it will.

[1] Leaving me and many others feeling homeless inside.
[2] Is that relevant, Anne? It is if she considered that a stamp of her morality, then went on to railroad through an agenda even she didn't want, having voted Remain.
[3] Or London did, in the Grenfell tower
[4] See Humbled Theresa puhleeeassse
[5]AKA a fascist plot to demoralise the Left

14 Comments

On the margins: The Summer Stance & Travellers

7/9/2019

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Two novels about marginalised people, the first actually about travellers – or tinkers as the often refer to themselves in this novel – in Scotland; the second about migrants from Africa in Europe, beginning in Berlin. My reviews are followed by this week’s 99-word story prompted by the Carrot Ranch.

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Observing and conserving: Tiger & The Museum of Broken Promises

2/9/2019

6 Comments

While separated by style – the first literary lyrical, the second more off-the-peg – and setting – the first wilderness, the second three cityscapes – these two novels are united by more than a character named Tomas. The main characters of both stories are preoccupied with meticulous observation of the environment: for animal research in Tiger whereas in The Museum of Broken Promises, surveillance might be a more appropriate word. And while the latter is about conserving objects and memories, nature conservation is one of the themes of the first.

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Consequences: The Man Who Saw Everything & Things That Fall from the Sky

27/8/2019

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So often our actions, or inactions, have dramatic consequences, impossible to foresee. In very different ways, these two novels address this issue, the first in relation to carelessness, the second in life-transforming chance events. Each also explores the non-linearity of time. In addition, while the first includes a translator as character, the second is a translation itself – from the Finnish, my fourth for Women in Translation month.

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Unethical experiments: The Rabbit Girls & The Confessions of Frannie Langton

18/8/2019

6 Comments

Two debut novels from female British writers featuring dodgy scientific experiments on nonconsenting participants within very dark periods of history: the holocaust in the first and the transatlantic slave trade in the second. Yet, despite both also featuring women disempowered by their husbands, and voluntary and involuntary drug abuse, each contains a thread of hope in a love story.

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Young women trapped on adulthood’s frontier: The Blue Room & The Ha-Ha

10/8/2019

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Two short novels about vulnerable young women who are psychologically and physically trapped: the first by the locked door to her bedroom; the second by the psychiatric care system. Both women have unusually close bonds with their mothers, potentially cause and consequence of their struggles to relate to their peers. Both encounter difficulties distinguishing fantasy from reality, feel estranged at parties and find life getting both better and worse when they fall for young men. With unreliable narrators, whether they break free of their fetters is left to the reader to decide.

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Kicking off Women in Translation Month with 8 recommendations from previous years and a new review: The Faculty of Dreams

4/8/2019

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As August is Women in Translation Month, I’m delighted that my first review of the month is a woman’s translation of a female author’s novel. It’s the twenty-first female translation I’ve read since the end of August last year, and I’ll be celebrating the other twenty – and maybe more – at the end of this month. Meanwhile, you can check out my opinion of The Faculty of Dreams, plus an overview of eight favourites from previous years.

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What is YA fiction? Learning from Paula Rawsthorne and Dorothy Winsor

29/7/2019

14 Comments

Around this time last year, I was 10,000 words short of finishing the first draft of a dystopian novel provisionally entitled Snowflake, but failed to meet my overambitious target of getting it done before my “summer break”. Almost a year on, although I’ve done a fair amount ofsome editing, I still haven’t written those final scenes.

Aside from the usual dose of self-doubt, two things have held me back: one about plot, the other about genre. How do I get my characters in and out of the cave? With a fourteen-year-old narrator, ought I to position this novel as YA?

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Celebrating another book birthday: Sugar and Snails turns four

23/7/2019

3 Comments

One advantage of getting a new car on the day I published my first novel, is that I’ll always remember when it’s due its MOT. And taking the car for its MOT means I easily remember my book birthday. So what’s happening as my baby turns four? Read on for an interview with one of the minor characters thanks to one of Craig Boyack’s alter egos and an update on revamping the blurb.

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A meadow of our own

5/7/2019

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When we moved to this house over twenty years ago, I was most excited about the garden. Although I’d previously worked an allotment, I’d never had custody of shrubberies and trees. That first winter, we cleared a patch of ground for ten raised vegetable beds and another for fruit bushes, fenced-in to keep out the birds. Along with that and creating a pond and patio, we didn’t pay much attention to the grass.

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Every picture paints a story

1/7/2019

6 Comments

Although I’m generally more articulate in words than visuals, sometimes the balance swings the other way. Still playing catch-up a busy week and weekend, and with a few things to share before I can fully embrace a new week and new month, I’ve gone for an image-heavy post today. First up, is the gorgeous cover of my debut novel, Sugar and Snails, about a woman who has kept her past identity secret for thirty years, which is battling with nine others on cover wars. If you can spare a moment, please follow the link and vote for the one you prefer.

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Is the #ToryLeadershipContest a fascist plot to demoralise the Left?

19/6/2019

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In the late 1960s and early 70s, American psychologist Martin Seligman and his colleagues subjected dogs to inescapable electric shocks. Later, when the same animals were placed in a situation where the shocks were avoidable, they didn’t attempt to get away. If you can stomach the cruelty, the concept of learned helplessness derived from this research is a useful way of thinking about depression and – although I don’t recall ever seeing it referenced this way – the experience of a baby left to cry. Right now, British politics makes me feel like a dog given uncontrollable electric shocks and I can’t help thinking it’s a fascist plot to demoralise the Left.

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Cults: Nina X & Beautiful Revolutionary

15/6/2019

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Have you ever wondered what draws people into a cult, or what keeps them there? Do cults always start with good intentions and end in tears? Although neither of these novels can give us all the answers, they do provide interesting insights into what it’s like to outsource your autonomy to a community with a megalomaniac at the helm. Both are informed by real cases: the first in contemporary Britain, the second in 1970s USA.

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Young marriages under strain: Asghar and Zahra & Snegurochka

10/6/2019

8 Comments

Two novels in which a marriage of a twenty-something man and woman from superficially similar backgrounds shows early signs of strain. In the first, between Muslims in contemporary London, the politics of religion are problematic right from the start; in the second, life gets tough when a new mother follows her journalist husband to a posting in newly-independent Ukraine. All harbour secrets, communication suffers and trust is hard to find. But, with youth on their side, they’ll take something from the experience, whether or not the marriages survive.

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Surviving flawed parents: The Distance Home & The Body Where I Was Born

3/6/2019

4 Comments

Two novels from continental America inspired – if that’s not too optimistic a term for the subject matter – by the authors’ own challenging childhoods with parents who weren’t up to the job. Both girls had a brother, a partially-absent father, a determined mother and grandmother with whom she didn’t see eye to eye. Both learnt early about gender discrimination; both lived in relatively comfortable households on the fringes of marginalised communities (with Native Americans as neighbours in the first novel, set in Dakota, and refugees from repressive South American regimes in the second, set in Mexico). Some say a difficult childhood is the ideal apprenticeship for a writer. Read on, and see what you think!

4 Comments

The trouble with writing book blurbs: can’t see the wood for the trees?

20/5/2019

8 Comments

Many authors struggle with the task of summarising a book-length project, whether it’s the one-page synopsis we need for submissions, the 10-second elevator pitch ready for the dreaded what’s-it-about question or the blurb to entice browsers at bookstores or online. How do you condense the twists and turns of a 300-page novel into such a small space? How do you tease out the key elements when you’ve lived with those characters for years? Sometimes, it’s impossible to see the wood for the trees.

Another pair of eyes can provide the necessary distance; likewise the passage of time. Almost four years on from the publication of my debut novel, Sugar and Snails, I’ve agreed with my publisher the blurb we worked so hard to perfect could be sharper. To get it right, we need your help.

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Writing isms: would you risk causing offence in your fiction? #amwriting

13/5/2019

10 Comments

Much as I despair of living in a country where the birth of a baby is headline news – ditto his naming the following day – I do try to bear in mind that the extended family I involuntarily support via my taxes is made up of human beings, and therefore worthy of my respect. I sincerely hope I’m incapable of channeling my rage at inequality and unearned privilege into a bizarre racist tweet, as a BBC DJ did recently. How could he not know, as he has claimed, that an image of the latest royal baby as an ape would cause offence? But, in reflecting the world as I see it in my fiction, with darkness as well as light, I do risk inadvertently offending my readership, especially in portraying the isms from which, in my other identities, I’m at pains to distance myself.

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<<Previous

Teenagers trapped in houses of no hope: How We Disappeared & The Nickel Boys

Mothers missed and missing: The Dutch House & Patsy

Looking back: This Is Happiness & This Tilting World

Reason is irrelevant. ‘The people’ demand their pig in a poke

On the margins: The Summer Stance & Travellers

Observing and conserving: Tiger & The Museum of Broken Promises

Consequences: The Man Who Saw Everything & Things That Fall from the Sky

Unethical experiments: The Rabbit Girls & The Confessions of Frannie Langton

Young women trapped on adulthood’s frontier: The Blue Room & The Ha-Ha

Kicking off Women in Translation Month with 8 recommendations from previous years and a new review: The Faculty of Dreams

What is YA fiction? Learning from Paula Rawsthorne and Dorothy Winsor

Celebrating another book birthday: Sugar and Snails turns four

A meadow of our own

Every picture paints a story

Is the #ToryLeadershipContest a fascist plot to demoralise the Left?

Cults: Nina X & Beautiful Revolutionary

Young marriages under strain: Asghar and Zahra & Snegurochka

Surviving flawed parents: The Distance Home & The Body Where I Was Born

The trouble with writing book blurbs: can’t see the wood for the trees?

Writing isms: would you risk causing offence in your fiction? #amwriting

2019 Reading Challenge

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