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About the author and blogger ...

Anne Goodwin’s drive to understand what makes people tick led to a career in clinical psychology. That same curiosity now powers her fiction.
A prize-winning short-story writer, she has published three novels and a short story collection with small independent press, Inspired Quill. Her debut novel, Sugar and Snails, was shortlisted for the 2016 Polari First Book Prize.
Away from her desk, Anne guides book-loving walkers through the Derbyshire landscape that inspired Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre.
Subscribers to her newsletter can download a free e-book of award-winning short stories.

TELL ME MORE

Should I stretch this short story to a novel?

27/8/2018

12 Comments

 
One moonless night, when her daughter was but a few months old, Eve clawed back her silken baby skin and planted a bomb in her chest. It wasn’t as difficult as you’d imagine; a baby’s body is more malleable than an adult’s. Getting under her daughter’s skin was rather like peeling an orange. Or picking at the flap of a sealed envelope to slip an extra something inside.
 
It was only a small bomb, the size and shape of a button battery, albeit large in relation to her daughter. It was bigger, for example, than her daughter’s dainty fingernails, bigger than the snub of her nose. But, like a school uniform, the child would grow into it, grow until the bomb was eclipsed by the face of her wristwatch or an ornament she might hang from her ear. 


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I wouldn’t blame you if the opening has put you off my most recently published short story (or the length at over 3000 words) but, if you do choose to read it, you might be able to help me decide where, if anywhere, to take these ideas next.

The seeds of this story began to germinate almost exactly two years ago, and I rattled off the first draft as soon as a hint of greenery poked through the creative ground. Although the premise of a mother who plants a bomb in her baby’s chest is clearly crazy, I liked it. In fact, I liked it so much I thought I might get a novel out of it too.
 
As described in my post
planning for pantsers, the short story provided a firm foundation from which to outline the novel and I completed the first draft fairly fast. But I haven’t gone back to it to produce a second draft. In fact, I thought I’d abandoned the project altogether when I transferred one of the themes (which isn’t so prominent in the short story) into Snowflake, the dystopian novel I began earlier this year.
 
But working with an editor to ready the short story for publication – thank you Peter Coles for a rare luxury for fiction published online – revived my interest in the stillborn novel it spawned. I was particularly excited by editorial comments that sparked other possible interpretations of the “bomb” than the one I’d originally had in mind. Could I build more ambiguity into the novel that, rather than confusing readers, would widen its appeal?
 
Structurally, the longer story unfolds through alternate chapters from the mother’s and daughter’s points of view. Eve’s strand starts with an event that cements her desire to have a baby and continues through her denial of the difficulties of single motherhood and her disappointment that her daughter isn’t the feisty female she was sure she’d become. Felicity’s strand begins with her reluctantly leaving home for university and the adjustment difficulties of her first year. I felt both of these had potential but both fell flat towards the end.
 
First I wondered if, while I had material beyond the short story, it wasn’t enough for a novel. What would it look like if I cut a lot of the latter chapters and positioned it as a novella?


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But I also wondered if the structure was overly constraining, with alternate chapters from mother and child. What would it look like if I added a third perspective (triangles being considered more robust by both Kleinian psychoanalysts and structural engineers) and, rather than alternating them as in my possibly third novel, Matilda Windsor Is Coming Home, they were nested within each other like Russian dolls?
 
Your response to my short story would help me enormously in deciding whether to take this forward and, if so, how. What does the story evoke in you and where, in your opinion, does it fall down? Is the whole thing too horrible, or too fanciful, or does it make you think? Whatever you make of it, I’d like to know!

This story isn’t included in my forthcoming short story collection, Becoming Someone, but there are a few others where the ordinary rules of logic are suspended in part. I tend to classify this type of story as slipstream, a genre part way between speculative and literary fiction, with a stronger real-world base than sci-fi or fantasy. Others might prefer the term magic realism.

Magic? Well, there’s a neat segue into
this week’s flash fiction challenge! Charli isn’t cracking her whip this time, but waving her wand and seeing what we writers bring forth from our hats.

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First morning in the new place
 
Despite her diligence in tidying away her thoughts on retiring to bed, Matty awakes to a muddle. It is as if a kitten has whiskered its way into a sewing box and woven a cat’s cradle with the thread.

Opening her eyes, it is obvious something larger than a baby cat has caused the chaos. Has a magic carpet whooshed her to China? Or, like Alice, she’s fallen down a rabbit hole to a world where walls move and rooms shrink?

A maid beams at her from the bedpost. “Welcome to Tuke House, Matty! Are you ready for breakfast?”
 

Thanks for reading. I'd love to know what you think. If you've enjoyed this post, you might like to sign up via the sidebar for regular email updates and/or my quarterly Newsletter.
12 Comments
Frank Hubeny link
28/8/2018 02:05:12 pm

The flash leaves a mysterious opening for further development.

Reply
Annecdotist
29/8/2018 09:34:57 am

So glad you think so, Frank. Matty’s story has stretched to a novel and, although from her perspective it feels very much like slipstream, has a firm foundation in the real world. Thanks for reading.

Reply
geoff le pard link
28/8/2018 04:48:53 pm

I read it. Typical Goodwin, of course, playing with our imaginations, making us wonder just what we were reading, whats true and what's not, whats metaphor and whats real. We know, or we think we do that the bomb would go 'off' somehow but how and when? And still we are left to wonder at the reality of the bomb and so many practical questions.. how do you get through school these days without a sleepover or a school trip away, what powers a bomb over so long a period, what can actually detonate it, how do you get through any sort of airport style security without a clanking of a bell?? So extending it to give some depth to all the questions this poses, to have the many occasions when the terrible secret might be discovered, yes, extending it has a lot of potential. But then, how do you sort out an ending that would satisfy? Death? Having a child of her own? Having it removed? Indeed there are many possibilities there too and they having their own internal logic. I think the clock it tick tick tocking away on this Anne...

Reply
Annecdotist
29/8/2018 09:45:37 am

Thanks so much for giving this your time, Geoff. I’m glad you think it’s typical me as, although it feels different, I keep recycling the same themes!
You make some excellent points about extending credibility. In the novel first draft I have Felicity refusing to board a plane – now I know why! But the premise might break down under the scrutiny of too much reality. I’ll never be in the same league as Ishiguro but the science behind his clones in Never Let Me Go was a bit dodgy and I loved novel.
And the ending is certainly a puzzle at the moment. I like the ambiguity in this version but a novel might need more. Interestingly, the ending was a bit more concrete in the version I submitted and it was the main thing the editor wanted changed.

Reply
Charli Mills link
29/8/2018 03:42:20 am

Geoff offers you a good line of questioning to cement the realism that actually gives grander space to the speculative parts. It's somehow deep and intriguing to think of the mother-daughter relationship in this framework, and to consider gender roles and identity, expectations and disappointments. As a novel, it seems a good direction to go and your thought to nest perspectives like Russian dolls feels similar to the idea of having something surprising inside.

Matty may not see her life clearly, but as a character she's endearing. She is like the forerunner to this idea you are considering.

Reply
Annecdotist
29/8/2018 10:06:02 am

Thank you, Charli. It’s exciting to think that the structure could echo the premise: I’d thought of that in the sense of the baby inside the mother and the mother’s hatred symbolically inside the baby, but taking that further might tell me what the third strand should be!
And I hadn’t thought of Matty as the forerunner for this! In her novel I seem to be inviting readers to look at the world through her point of view, not to see it the same way but to understand why she might misinterpret. You’re right that this would be taking that idea a bit further.

Reply
D. Avery link
29/8/2018 04:06:48 am

I got sucked into the slipstream and gave it a read. I feel unqualified to suggest what you might do with that story; I have never written anything near as long nor can I imagine writing a novel. It certainly works as a short story. But you seem to have enough ideas on this situation and the characters to wring a novel from it. I would need a softer opening if I were to get sucked into reading a full novel.
What do I know? I think you should just ask the characters what they have in mind.

Reply
Annecdotist
29/8/2018 10:11:16 am

Glad you got sucked into the slipstream, D, and that it works for you as the story. Of course you’re qualified to comment! When I played with writing this as a novel I did give it a different opening working up to the incident that begins the short story at roughly 25%. I think that works better but the disadvantage is that it doesn’t warn readers that something weird is going to happen. I don’t know whether or not that matters.

Reply
Norah Colvin link
29/8/2018 01:13:06 pm

I thoroughly enjoyed your short story, Anne - both times I read it! I think you have Eve and her motherly frustrations nailed. She is as real to me as many mothers I've known or even could have been in different circumstances. Did she suffer postpartum psychosis? It certainly seems she suffered some insecurities and delusions. Was the bomb real? Or metaphorical? I think most mothers plant some sort of time bomb in their children, however small. Or they get blamed for having done so, anyway. The tight chest and anxieties felt by Felicity certainly would be contributed to by anxiety and mental health issues in a parent. Throughout both readings I vacillated between thoughts of whether the bomb was real (could it be? as Geoff questioned) or metaphorical. In the end I still wasn't sure, and somehow I didn't mind. It made me think and I was happy not knowing.
You story flows with well-chosen words and wonderful descriptions; like in the ending where Felicity recalls a vision of a vulture pecking at her chest. And the baby's cry as the bomb explodes - perfect!
Your introduction is also very well done with images that are so real and both horrific and beautiful at the same time - the contradiction that pervades the story.
The only bit that confused me was that Eve wanted Felicity to go as she had other needs to fill, but she also needed her to return for holidays. However, with the link between postpartum psychosis and bipolar, this contradiction could be expected.
I think your story is perfectly told as is. I like the idea of peeling away the onion (Russian dolls) to get to the inner layers. Perhaps in the novel, your first scene here would be the last, as the inner layer. The bomb that was planted, hidden but having an impact on all other layers, until the disastrous end. Hints throughout the story could make it all tie together in the finale.
I don't know how you'd do the novel. I think, as Dede says, you'll have to let the characters tell you their secrets.
The beauty of your writing is also obvious in this part of Matty's story. How I feel for her; her world is thrown upside down. How is she expected to make sense of it? It must be very difficult for those who have difficulty with reality at the best of times.
I particularly like this image: "It is as if a kitten has whiskered its way into a sewing box and woven a cat’s cradle with the thread."
And of course the maid 'beaming' from the end of the bed fits in perfectly with the previous images.
Whether short story or novel, Anne, you've got me as a reader. Bring it on in whatever form feels right for you, and them.

Reply
Annecdotist
29/8/2018 06:32:48 pm

Thanks a gazillion, Norah. You deserve a medal for reading it through twice and for this thoughtful response. I’m pleased it resonates as a metaphor – I’m not sure whether I believe it’s real even myself, but I had to write it as if it might be.
I’m not keen on diagnosis, but Eve is certainly overstressed and unsupported, and probably experiencing momentary psychosis in those sleepless nights. I also think she expected to be able to take motherhood in her stride and can’t admit she’s struggling.
It’s an interesting suggestion to put the implantation at the end – it could even be a story told backwards. I’m loving these ideas. I’ll also think about Eve wanting to send her away.
You might like to know that the two images you picked up on – the vulture and the baby’s cry at the end – arose through the editing process. It shows how helpful it is to have someone questioning your ideas and thereby pushing you (me) to take it a bit further.
Glad you’re still enjoying the snippets of Matilda Windsor. I’m looking forward to when I can share more of her with you.

Reply
Norah Colvin link
30/8/2018 11:58:27 am

No medals required. The pleasure was mine. It's interesting how the editing process works. I'll be interested to see where you take this one.
I think Eve's struggles are common to many. We're told it's natural and we should take it in our stride. I was one of the fortunate ones to enjoy it. There is little compassion for those who don't, as if there's something wrong with them.

Annecdotist
31/8/2018 05:09:51 pm

I think little compassion and little support – and then we act surprised when mothers kill their babies. Fortunately not as many as might contemplate it.




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