A female artist for whom there is no life in meaning, confronts a troubled  philosophy professor looking for meaning in his life.

At a breakfast table, Professor Iain Grey, 50, sits with Rachel, 30. Both are dressed for the day. Iain is staring into his coffee cup. Rachel is looking at him, quizically.

Iain: I can see. You know that, don’t you?

Rachel: You can see what? You’re not making sense?

Iain: It’s clear… it’s like the substance of you… what you are, psychologically speaking  …encased by your presence… your actions and deeds. It’s like the air trapped in a bubble…

Rachel: A bubble? Now I know you’re not making sense.

Iain: We all have it… a bubble. When you get close to me your bubble pushes against my bubble…

Rachel: [laughs]

Iain: Don’t. I can’t stand people who laugh at something that isn’t funny…

Rachel: You’re funny…

Iain: Stop it. …And you’re too close.

Rachel: Too close?

Iain: Yes… Your bubble is pushing against mine?

Rachel: For Christ sake, make sense!

Iain: You believe in god?

Rachel: No, I don’t. …any way, I wasn’t too close last night?

Iain: Last night was different. The wine…

Rachel: Sod the wine …the sex was fantastic.

Iain: Now you’re just changing the subject.

Rachel: What subject?

Iain: Bubbles… It’s eighteen inches… [shakes head] You didn’t know that… did you?

Rachel: What’s eighteen inches…

Iain: The point at which intimacy stops and personal space begins…

Rachel: Pardon.

Iain: Intimacy… that’s the problem.

Rachel: Problem?

Iain: Yes. There are four zones of interpersonal space. Intimate, personal, social and public. It’s all a question of how far from me, you… or anyone… is. Eighteen inches to four feet away from me is personal. Beyond four feet it’s social and beyond eight it’s
public.

Rachel: So… I’m… what… sitting in your personal space right now?

Iain: Yes…

Rachel: And last night? …It was intimate?

Iain: Yes… I suppose… Well, no…

Rachel: There wasn’t much choice… that’s a small bed you’ve got!

Iain: I don’t normally have company.

Rachel: That’s your problem.

Iain: I know.

Rachel: I got it! …I burst your intimacy bubble. [laughs]

Iain: And that’s the problem. My personal space is for conversations with friends… chatting with
associates or group discussions.

Rachel: And I don’t fit in?

Iain: And you don’t fit in.

Rachel: That’s rich. What about last night.

Iain: There was nothing psychological about it… I seem to remember it was primordial. …Animal
even.

Rachel: But it was intimate? …Surely?

Iain: [Grunts]

Rachel: What’s a matter? No answer for that?

Iain: Intimacy… that’s friends, lovers, children, family…

Rachel: Don’t I fit in anywhere?

Iain: No… I don’t think so… Well, I mean…

Rachel: Mean?

Iain: …we only met yesterday.

Rachel: And tomorrow you or I could be dead.

Iain: I probably will be.

Rachel: Christ… you’re dark.

Iain: Tomorrow’s the election.

Rachel: I know.

Iain: My brother is a candidate.

Rachel: You?

Iain: My brother…

Rachel: You’re that University Professor in the news.

Iain: If my brother loses, the president stays.

Rachel: And…

Iain: And I end up disappearing.

Rachel: How?

Iain: It’s complicated. …I can’t say. I can’t be intimate or even personal with you.

Rachel: Fuck your bloody bubble.

Iain: You did… last night… don’t you remember.

Rachel: So you do have a sense of humour… there is hope for you yet!

Fade out…

What would burst your bubble?

The ThirskWriteNow writing group meets at the Rural Arts Centre in Thirsk on alternate Tuesday evenings at 7.30. If you are in the area and interested in what we might be up to, why not pop in…

The idea that story and narrative have relevance to business is not new. What is a case study, after all, but a distillation of the essence of a business issue in narrative form. The history of a firm or product is a story to be captured, told and retold, often with the purpose of embedding cultural awareness in the minds of new recruits to a firm. Furthermore, how often do marketing departments proclaim ownership of the origination of a product story in the desire to communicate product and service benefits to consumers?

But story is more than this. It is more than a tool for operationalising aspects of the firm. Story is a strategic framework for making sense of a reality or, even, the creation of new realities.  I have written previously about the existence of narratives, myths and stories being a ‘fundamental feature of a social existence’. Insofar as the firm is a social structure, I argue that narrative, myths and stories are also a fundamental feature of business life. Those that command positions of responsibility in an organisation sense are a responsibility to understand story.

What is your businesses’ story? Can you tell it? Rewrite it? Sell it? Could you produce a new story if you had to? …One that engages beyond the boundary of the individual and the organisation itself, to the social structure that supports its very existence?

I must have dozed off. All of a sudden, flashings lights appeared before me.A psychedelic whirl of colour challenged my senses, drawing me forward, inexorably. I felt as though a rushing, gushing river was carrying me down-stream. To what, I thought, to fall over the rock-strewn precipice of a white-water rapid?

It came to an end. I paused for breath.

From the corner of my limited field of vision there was a movement. I sensed it, rather saw it directly. It was dark and my eyes had not adjusted properly from the bright visual onslaught of the past moments.

‘Hello,’ said a voice. It emanated from the direction of the movement I’d sensed.The tone of the voice – for I still could not see, let alone focus properly – was inquisitive, the inflexion just so; it was not a frightened voice; neither was the voice threatening in any way, as if I’d invaded some sacrosanct space. ‘You are the fourth today.’

‘Fourth? Fourth what,’ I asked.Curiosity on my part was leading me forward, into the unknown. Not something I had ever been keen on in the past. I rarely took risks. I would even baulk at the thought of venturing from my small apartment, walking down the street to buy provisions. Such a potentially hazardous excursion required much careful thought, analysis and the plucking up of the requisite courage. But: “why I was here, now”, and “why was I taking such a bold step”, were questions that hadn’t entered my head.

‘You are the fourth visitor today,’ said the small voice. Yes, small; despite the fact I could not see the speaker, I felt able to add a size qualification. Small, yes. Small, as in quite squeaky! Indeed, if I had believed in talking mice, I could have easily imagined that the speaker before me, in the shadows, was a mouse.

The voice continued. ‘You can’t see me, can you?’

‘No,’ I replied, ‘…it’s dark here.’

‘That’s the idea,’ said Squeaky. ‘Just enough light to entice – no more.’

‘Where is here?’ I asked

‘Exactly’

‘Exactly, where?’

‘Exactly here, my friend.’

‘You’re not my friend.I don’t know you. I can’t even see you…’

‘But you’re talking to me!’

I had no quick or clever answer to that one.I changed tack. ‘I don’t like this place.’

‘Give it time. You will get used to it.’

‘What if I don’t want to?’

‘But there is so much here to see.’

‘Where, I can’t see anything at all.’

‘But this is just where you land… when you visit. Splash! So to speak.’

Suddenly a window opened in front of my eyes. The flash almost blinded me. A loud unwelcome tune struck up – discordant notes filled the air, distracting my attention.The window seemed to beckon me, to call me forward and the deafening music dulled my senses.

‘Go on,’ said the squeaky voice ‘…why don’t you enter that.’

I reached out. My fingers, as if detached, seemed to hover over the space the window occupied. Then it was gone.The music ended.Relief, I thought.

‘Chicken!’

‘You call me friend… then Chicken?’

‘It’s my world you’re in here. I can call you what I like. I can be who I like and I can say what I like.You do not matter in my world!’

I didn’t like where this was going… It was a dark world. ‘I’m not going anywhere I don’t want to,’ I said in defiance.

‘Touche! Well you have a point. I can’t make you.’

‘Why should I go anywhere in here?’

‘Because there is so much to see and do; if you don’t look, you will never know.Go on, try it.’

I wasn’t sure what there was here, in this new world I’d never visited before. ‘Have you a map?’ I asked.

‘A map? Maps are for sissies… and chickens!’

I thought I heard laughing. ‘But,’ I challenged, ‘if there is so much here in your world, and if I can’t have a map, then how do I find my way around?’

‘See those?’

‘What?’ I peered forward into the darkness.Rubbing my eyes I concentrated on my peripheral vision… shades of grey lightened an otherwise meaningless swirling darkness. And in the shade there appeared a series of stepping stones. Or they would be stepping stones, if they had lain horizontally – perhaps in that river I had been carried here on.

‘What do you see,’ asked Squeaky.

‘Rocks?’

‘Fourth today… and t’only one what chooses to call ’em rocks!’ The mock accent didn’t help matters – it was so false. ‘Well, you just go to one and look underneath.’

‘And then what,’ I asked.I wasn’t at all impressed with this: so little information to go on; so little to entice me.It was as if I had jumped down Lewis Carrol’s rabbit hole.I had an idea. ‘Are you a rabbit?’

‘No. And there’s no Mad Hatter here either. You’re not the first, you know.’

‘Not the first?’

‘Not the first to draw the Alice in Wonderland analogy.’

‘Not a little allegorical then?’

‘Not at all… the designer wasn’t that good,’ Squeaky said with a note of sarcasm.

‘Your world…,’ I started.

‘My world.’

‘So your world is not your own work then?’

‘No.’

‘Go on,’ I said, impatience beginning to strain my voice.

‘Go on what?’

‘What happens when I’ve got under a rock?’

‘More rocks.’The smug snigger was a little too obvious.

‘So, no signposts? No real clues as to what lies behind all these rocks? I’ve been here… how long?And I’ve found nothing of interest, and been challenged by some Squeaky voice… not to mention being assaulted by loud tuneless music and enticed into further darkness.Not much of a trip this.For Christsake, you’re not even enticing me with some interesting allegory.Not much of a world, you’ve got here, is it?’

Then I did something I hadn’t thought of in the past minutes. I took a step backward. Light replaced dark. I could see again. Gone was the dark impression – the absence of light. My focus returned and I could see my outstretched hand. I squeezed the mouse.

Click!

Well, ask a fiction writer to write about web sites? You just don’t know…

Anton Chekov

“Don’t tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.” Anton Chekhov

In this quote, the Russian writer Anton Chekov (1860–1904) was making clear reference to what has become stock advice for fiction writers on paper, screen and stage. Chekov was not alone. Henry James (1843–1916) is noted as leaving pencil-marks in the margins of his notes, reminding himself to “Dramatize, dramatize!”

From the Staff Choices bookshelves of BluntNib, here is a more contemporary example:

Evan Marshall writes in The Marshall Plan for Novel Writing that ‘Whenever possible, focus on details which add realism like nothing else. Don’t just write “The subway station was shabby.” Write: “Near the edge of the platform, a man with knotted hair held out a Dixie cup to no one in particular, calling, ‘Spare some change? Spare some change?’ Swirls of iridescent orange graffiti covered the Canal Street sign. The whole place smelled of urine and potato chips.”

Instead of flatly stating a situation – as in a shabby subway station, showing not telling (or dramatizing) a situation means letting the reader or audience discover what it is you are trying to say through action and dialogue. For the writer of novels, Robert Mckee’s advice in “Story” is highly relevant… It would be too easy to write “He’s been sitting there for a long time.” The novel writer can learn from the screen writer “What do I see on the screen? …Perhaps ‘He stubs out his tenth cigarette,’ ‘He nervously glances at his watch,’ or ‘He yawns, trying to stay awake’ to suggest waiting a long time.”

Showing is essentially about making scenes vivid. But do not over do it! Telling can be useful, in order to compress time and move the story on, otherwise you might end up with a pretty long narrative!

Note: This Post Originally featured on the WickedWriters Blog…  http://thewickedwriters.blogspot.com/

A tricky place…

I sat, contemplating.

Sat in consideration;

sat thinking, mulling and pondering

– just why?

Just why, you say.

Why should I deviate

from fictional play

to reality?

He spoke not a word today.

Just a wave to beckon me on,

then, carelessly tossed away,

my identity drifted aside.

I wait; contemplate.

Did I offend?

Some transgression; even fate?

No. Idle curiosity satisfied, I move on.

The old man, sprang from stasis.

His weathered features, grey,

like the dried bed of a dead oasis.

Taxi? he called.

No. No taxi, I plead.

First, I seek the help of others,

a money changing need.

Taxi? The old man reappears.

But, where is this he leads?

Steel: a crumbling, decaying fragility,

we mount the old man’s wheeled steed.

Darkness embraces us.

Again, where is this he leads?

Sand: it gives place to concrete.

As lights flash by, time pays no head.

The old man smiles in my darkness.

I sat, contemplating.

Sat in consideration;

sat thinking, mulling and pondering

– just: why?

Steel: the crumbling, decaying fragility;

the old man’s wheeled steed creaks.

Through darkness my taxi’s ability,

once denounced, now championed.

Paper: the folded bills demanded;

the old man’s smile fades…

…his extortion plans now interrupted.

The old man turns away; I smile.

Just why, you say.

Why should I deviate

from fictional play

to reality?

I stand at the foot

of seven star luxury, contemplating.

Stand again, as considerations put

the breath of life in words I write.

Later, as I continue a stand,

more darkness envelopes our ground

as wind rustles and whips at sand.

Yellow dust coats my parched throat.

And, later still, I breath again,

as sand no longer troubles,

replaced by simple generosity, plain

– hands  full, I smile.

The paradox of the unreal real

stands, now bare, before me.

Yet again, in my existence, I feel

what I have known.

OK, a free blog topic! So, is it really true? I really don’t have to write more about horror, Halloween, and other ghouly stuff? (At least not for another year!)

But I have gotten so used to this place… writing about stuff I haven’t really a clue about! What am I to do now? Go back to mundane thrillers and financial crime? And, me being so late with this post… What will you readers be looking for now?

If in doubt… write from experience! Write what you know and can feel!

Yes, all well and good, I say… but there is an existential paradox here (big words #1 & #2) Oooo! I love it when I get philosophical! (Big word #3) Again I digress…

The Existential Paradox of Fiction

A paradox...

Write what you know and can feel? But I write fiction. Fiction is not real. I cannot KNOW it; neither can I actually FEEL it! I cannot therefore write fiction based on what I know and feel. I cannot write what I cannot know. QED!

Existentially, if in doubt… what the h*** do I do now? How can I effectively write fiction if writing is best based on knowledge and experience and I have neither?

Research, I hear you say. (Well I might, if I could get the hang of this auto-suggestion malarkey!)

Research is a search for knowledge – perhaps the knowledge I need to write the fiction I am planning. But research implies a systematic investigation to establish facts and it usually also implies a scientific (not existential) method. What good is research to me? I am trying to write about stuff that does not exist – it is FICTION!

I repeat: F I C T I O N ! ! !

What about applied research, though? Surely that is different?

Oh, yes! Discovery and interpretation – all designed to advance human knowledge. But, knowledge as the basis of the unreal – of fiction? The paradox again. There are no facts concerning what is not real.

Now here’s one! Artistic research… Debatable! Art as an alternative in the search for knowledge and truth? Dubious, surely… but we are still digressing from the paradox! There are no facts concerning what is not real.

The existential paradox suggests: “why should we bother to develop our individual knowledge-bases as an aid to writing fiction – developing untrue narratives for the purpose of entertainment, not the advancement of human knowledge – why?

Why bother with research? We can just make stuff up, surely!

A tricky place...

Case in point! A short time ago, I posted the opening chapter of my work in progress – the sequel to River of Judgement – in which I set the villain of the peace in a tricky situation in Libya. What do I know of Libya, or what an encounter with a criminal master-mind would be like? I know nothing. It’s fiction. I just made it up!

I created a social situation in a country that I have never visited, in a world (of crime) that I have never witnessed, about people that are wholly fictitious! If I was to gather facts – research, if you like – to develop the knowledge to write that scene on the basis of what I knew to be the case, I could end up in a pretty dicey situation myself. That is, assuming that such a reality actually existed somewhere, and didn’t mind being exposed in a real narrative. But then, that would not be fiction…

I have missed a point here (deliberately so, in the hope that I could find enough to write about, lol)

The paradox of the unreal real is simply solved.

The answer lies in counterfactual analysis (big word #4). Assume the fiction is real, as we write about it. We research for facts that would support our fictional reality (if it was real). We research to support the narrative, not to provide it.

We want our readers to believe in the worlds we create. But the great thing is, these worlds we create don’t actually have to BE real. The world of our fictional narrative merely has to give the impression of a reality, long enough to engage our readers.

Fictional worlds, the places and characters that exist within them and the lives and actions we portray as fiction writers, form what can be described as socio-cultural contexts of systems of meaning, action, and/or beliefs.

These contexts of systems are basic to the world they describe. They are “plausibility structures”, and are a dialectic (given up counting big words now). Our fictional world should comprise a plausible structure, one that supports the fictional narrative. It does not replace it. And the fictional narrative, drawing on the plausible structure, in turn, suggests that structure is wholly real! The narrative acts to make the fictional world self-evident.

So research becomes a necessity if we do not have the knowledge to create and write about plausible structures.

And where does that leave the opening of my sequel set in Libya? Is my reality plausible? (Not factual.) Well, lucky me, this weekend I am about to set foot on Libyan soil for the first time in my life. I shall take full advantage of gaining experiences that will help me develop the structure of my fictional world – but I shall not worry a jot about the narrative!

A time for confessions? Indeedy!

But, not only have I not read any Stephen King (not even his book on writing, Sharon), I have also not read Dean Koontz, James Herbert and that chap called Poe! (I have been warned off Shaun Hutson and Clive Barker – but, strangely enough, I had never heard of them in the first place. No loss there, then.)

He heard snarling, inhuman voices cutting through the ghostly blackness in front suddenly … a man was beating a dog with a stick… [He] strained helplessly not to see or hear … A small crowd watched. A squat woman stepped out and asked [the man] please to stop. “Mind your own business,” the man barked gruffly, lifting his stick as though he might beat her too …

Ooops…. Now where did that come from?

When researching for this post… “Research,” I hear you exclaim. Yes, research…

When researching for this post I recalled the one (horror) story that I read that must have appealed to me. Well, I recalled it, didn’t I?

When I was young, I had a collection of short stories – the only collection of short stories I had ever attempted to read, until I acquired a collection of Anton Chekov only last year… There I go, digressing again…

[He] quickened his pace to get away, almost ran … At the next corner a man was beating a small boy brutally in the midst of an immobile crowd … [He] recoiled with sickening recognition. He was certain he had witnessed that same horrible scene sometime before. Déjà vu?

Some digression! Now, where was I?

Ah, yes… a short horror story… Well, despite recalling it, I have no idea of who wrote it or what its title was; but its themes have stuck with me. If someone tries to engage me in a conversation about horror stories and writers, then this short story is about the only thing I can talk of… then I try and change the subject because I truly cannot recall the detail.

I do know that the story in question featured three inns on a desolate moor, three inn-keepers, copious quantities of darkness and fog, a traveller and various body parts – including some rather ornately carved “ivory-like” utensils, chair legs and some rather tasty soup… Just what a tired traveller on the desolate moor would look forward to! I believe one of the inns was called the Rest of the Traveller!

I could just do with a drink...

The yawning wound — was that a tube of slimy bone he saw running deep inside the gory scarlet flowed behind the twitching, startling fibres of weird muscle? — was dripping blood in several trickles, like snow melting on eaves, but viscous and red, already thickening as it dropped.

Urggghhhhhhhhhh……… too, much detail! Is that why I don’t read horror stories? My mother was a nurse, my sister is a nurse, and my step sister too… I’ve been in and out of hospitals (as patient and visitor) and I viewed the effects of knife wounds and gunshot… Do I really want to read about more of the gory stuff?

[His] undershorts… were soaking up blotches of blood on one side as though in thirst. [He] was stunned at how waxen and ghastly his friend’s bare leg looked, how loathsome, how lifeless and esoteric the downy, fine curled blond hairs on his odd, white shin and calf. The wound… [was] as long and wide as his hand, and too raw and deep to see into clearly. The raw muscles inside twitched like live hamburger meat.

I said… “DO I REALLY WANT TO READ MORE OF THE GORY STUFF?” It’s a good job I’m not a regular at MacD’s or (perish the thought) BK… (Live oysters are much more fun… they don’t twitch so much… well, maybe, if the lemon is particularly sharp! But that’s another subject entirely.)

Then he saw a sickening, gigantic hole in his friend’s ribs and watched helplessly as the man died before him, his insides spilled out all over him, revealing a secret.

“Look, this is beyond a joke…”
“What?”
“This…”
“This what?
“This interrupting my blog post with your constant glimpses of stuff I’m not interested in…”
“Ah! That STUFF! You mean you don’t like glimpses into…”
“Into what?”
“Stop interrupting”
“Pardon,” I exclaim, “you’re interrupting me! I thought? Now you’re getting me confused…”
“I should say!”

His teeth were chattering in horror. He forced himself to look again. Here was God’s plenty, all right, he thought bitterly as he stared — liver, lungs, kidneys, ribs, stomach and bits of…

“Look…”
“There you go again.”
“Where?”
“There. Interrupting me when I’m about to tell you what I’m up to.”
“You’re up to something?” I ask, sarcastically. “What do you know of horror?”
“More than you, it would appear!”
“If that’s horror, I’m not sure I’m going to change genres…”
“But…”
“But what?” I snap.
“But didn’t you say… now let me think… last post, wasn’t it? Didn’t you say something about horror being found in reality?
“Well, yes I did, I guess. But this?
“Yes, this…”

“It was easy to read the message in his entrails. Man was matter; that was [his] secret. Drop him out a window and he’ll fall. Set fire to him and he’ll burn. Bury him and he’ll rot, like other kinds of garbage. The spirit gone, man is garbage. That was [his] secret. Ripeness was all”

“Where did you find this?”
“Don’t you know? I am surprised, David… it’s one of your all time favourite books, by one of your all time favourite authors.
“Pardon?”
“Really!”

Tasty, this soup...

“I just played with your mind a bit and changed the context.”
“Go on then, tell me.”
“No. Now sit there and eat your soup…”
“What did you say the name of this inn was?
“I didn’t…”

No, this is not an Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials-International announcement in the affirmative. It is an oblique reference to our schedule and this week’s topic – scary movies. (Well, I did to a light double-check as, being a Brit, I wondered whether I could get away with suggesting I got the wrong date… Four Ten would have got me off the subject entirely!)

But first, this time… The Competition… which I find I am hosting again. Now, is this a new competition? Or is this week two of the competition in my last post? Questions, questions!

However, after my last post, I also wondered …dare I venture forth? Not one entry to win a copy of my book… 

Come on, guys, it’s not that bad! Honest. And just to show there are no hard feelings, the competition will remain open… and I will give away two copies, one each to the two best answers. So, come on, and give it a go!  Follow the link!The comp is at the bottom of my last post.

What next? Ah… The schedule! That’s what!”

Favourite scary movies? I wish it had been Four Ten! Or at least Four One – April 1^st would have suited me better.

Abandon hope...

I do recall, as a child, watching black and white talkies from the Hammer House of Horrors and other studios. I think I even recall mentioning the Pit and the Pendulum in an earlier post (but having been born with a mild case of something like Alzheimer’s, my memory has always been hazy).

Other titles seemed to revolve around the actors Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee – which just goes to show, I must have watched a few such films in my youth. I cannot remember many actors’ names at all! But, try as I might, I cannot say I have remained a fan of the genre or, indeed, continued to watch any scary movies of any age. (The one exception being, I suppose, Sean of the Dead – and only because someone told me it was funny!)

What gets me is that I find – letting my imagination run away with me – that there is enough in real life that is a good base for “scary”…  “suspense”… “thrills”… or whatever.

Interesting... tee hee!

More interesting... I have an idea!

I do, though, have a confession. The conflation between real life and scary movies happened early for me… at the age of (ahem, clears throat… and mumbles incomprehensible sound). After the Pit and the Pendulum, I had a brilliant idea. I tied my younger brother to a soapbox cart in the cellar of our house (when no one else was there). He lay prone, motionless (relatively speaking) under the wooden beams of the floor above. I then proceeded to construct a pendulum from an axe and rope… (and before you call in social services, I was well trained in knots – being a Sea Scout).

I set the axe swinging and…”

Well, my brother is still around – I hasten to add. And he doesn’t seem too afflicted by the experience! Furthermore, following his Close Protection training with the Military Police and more recent Canadian Special Forces Training, I am unlikely ever to attempt such a stunt again!

I suppose, since recreating such a famous scary movie scene in the bowels of my mother’s house, cinematography has never really offered the same sense of reality. But that is my excuse. Now I just find it more challenging to create suspense on a less-is-more basis.

And I guess my brother might be thinking…

…it’s a good job we didn’t have computer games to play with in those days.”

So, who else out here in reader/writer land thinks that there is enough “scary” to be found in “reality”?

OK, dear readers…. getting even with someone who’s riled me? Have I ever written a character to help me deal with my anger?

Well, let me tell you something… anger? A little strong, perhaps… catharsis might be more appropriate…  But imagine losing your job (not difficult to imagine these days). Would you want to get your own back on the guy giving you the push? Especially if you had been doing most of the work and he only seemed to be window dressing (at times, anyway)… Oh! And I forgot… it is your company!

Stranger than fiction...

It’s true, I tell you! Imagine it… there I was, one sunny August Monday morning, stepping into my office as CEO of a public limited company – my company, the company I founded – ready to face another day struggling with a depressed economy and the increasing fallout of the sub-prime crisis, when my business partner says to me: “David, we want you off the board and out of the company. Period.” (Or words to that effect, at least!)

Well, what’s a guy to do? A guy who is burning to write a story? I write one, don’t I!

This is a work of fiction.
All characters and events in this publication, other than
those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to
real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. All companies
and locations are either the product of the author’s
imagination or, if real, used fictitiously.

Are there any recognizable characters in it? Well, that would be telling… but since the idea of this post is to enlighten you, dear reader, I can offer you one possible answer!

In UK employment law (and I am sure that it is not too different in the US), there is a thing called a “Compromise Agreement” and one of the things in that legal agreement is a requirement for me not to bring the name of the company or its directors or staff into disrepute. There are also laws on slander and libel! Of course I didn’t write about anybody in my old company! Of course… because there must have been a perfectly good reason why I had to leave! Must there not? It was my own decision. Was it not? Of course it was – the agreement said as much!

So the story I wrote is not about my company, my exit, my business partner or my colleagues! The only truth of the matter was that the hero leaves his company. It was so true, in fact, that one reviewer had to suspend disbelief:

“This story has more twists than a corkscrew and I reached a point where I simply had to keep reading to find out what would happen next. On more than one occasion I simply couldn’t see how the situation could be retrieved. It’s superbly, cleverly done. I had to suspend disbelieve over how easily Finn was initially ousted from Tiger Oil, but after that I was hooked.”

Suspension of disbelief? Really! The only (possibly) true bit in the fiction, and… well, I won’t carp on about it.

But how did I handle characterization? How did I not get sucked into a potential legal minefield of libel and slander? Well, I made a conscious effort to select a board of directors who were most definitely not images of my acquaintance. (I had no money for a court case!) I found a real oil company, with a real board of directors and said: “Hey-ho, these are the guys for me!”

Old Town, Nice... nice spot for people watching!

But isn’t it funny… have you ever sat in a café (the South of France is brilliant for this – sorry, name dropping again) and just watched the world go by? You see someone. They have a physical presence, characteristics, mannerisms… all good stuff for observation. And then you sit there and imagine them in conversation… imagine who their lover might be, who their partner is, what happened to them that morning, what is going to happen next… you project them into another reality – your reality. They are malleable… you can dress them (undress them!)… you can see things in their character that might (oops), accidentally of course, remind you of other people. (Now, isn’t that strange!) You could even murder them!

“Ooooooo,” I hear you say, “…did you say murder?”

“I did,” I say, smiling; a little sardonically, perhaps. “I am a thriller writer.”

“Did you really project the character of your business partner onto one of the characters in the story? And then murder him?” you say.

“Of course not…” I smile again, wink, in a knowing sort of way, and continue “…I sold him a copy of the book, of course! He loved it.”

“So, no revenge then?”

I consider your question thoughtfully for a moment longer than is perhaps strictly necessary. Rubbing my chin, I reply.

“Have you ever heard the saying, ‘revenge is a dish best served cold’?” says I. “There is a series in this!” I laugh. The sound of my laughter echoes, eerily, as though it is being channelled down some tightly narrowing but endless passage, bouncing ceaselessly, carelessly off the walls, until it disappears in the distance, a faint reminder of the past.

Oh… and the competition? How remiss of me, I nearly forgot!

Gloria...

Well, since I will post a real “printed” and signed copy of my book “River of Judgement” to the lucky winner, who may well be in the US, then I will make this one challenging… Go to Smashwords, download a free copy of my short story Gloria, read it and leave me an honest review there. Then post a response here on WickedWriters with an answer to this question: “Which character in Gloria is a character based on someone I have known?” There is only one right answer. No marks will be deducted for honesty in the review! In the event of more than one correct answer there will be a tie breaker. The tie breaker will be the most accurate (or amusing) answer to the question “Which renowned classic short story writer influenced the plot of Gloria?” All runners-up (anyone who actually enters) will receive a consolation prize. Bon chance, mes braves!