For the 50th post on Sky and Field, I would like to offer a glimpse behind the scenes of the Sky- the 12 short stories that I have posted on this blog so far. I have included my own reflections on my work, and mentioned where inspiration for styles and stories have come from. I feel that I have improved over time, and hope that I have more stories to post here in the future.
My first short story was created to present a sci-fi idea I had of an alternative earth. The belt spinning around the world so that people can permanently live in a time of day instead of a country is an exaggerated idea of humans trying to control our universe. I got to throw in a few other alternative-universe ideas too, like companies installing a new ozone layer, etc. The idea could be expanded on at a later date, but I am not motivated to do so myself.
A quick trip through a well know Dickensian tale causes Mr. Evan E. R. Screwj to question why he has to die. This parody, starring a more generous human than the original, and a cockney grim reaper, was simply something I used to draw some quiet attention to death as a part of life. Some of my other blog posts have described how I don't think death, as a topic, need be as taboo as it is. Also, dying as "the bad news" hints towards "the good news" (a.k.a. The Gospel) being a remedy.
I had great fun writing this third story! I couldn't tell you where the inspiration came from, but the idea of turning grammar items into characters in a story fits together so easily. If punctuation was people, what would they be like?
The story was originally called "Grammar" in draft form. The success I felt at writing this so easily probably contributed to my writing of the 50 Year Dream, below.
One of my least well written stories, I think. A simple metaphor of the world having a sickness and a doctor offering a cure to those who want it reflects the Christian gospel of grace. A crude structure of 1, 2, both, shapes the telling. A badly done piece, unfortunately. It probably should have stayed as a metaphor, instead of being turned into a short story.
The other story which I am not so fond of. The writing is not any worse than my normal level, but I think that the story does not work because it leaves you either depressed or, more likely, unchanged. It feels too short to make the reader care for Thaniel, and so when Thaniel is experiencing the strong emotions of despair at the end, the reader does not share this moment with him. The story fails to draw you in as much as it could.
The story was inspired by some text from Chapter 1 of C. S. Lewis' book The Problem of Pain, where Lewis explores the idea of a world where God overrode any bad intentions of men, and therefore would be depriving them of free will.
Another sci-fi idea, and written much better than Belt Life I think. The idea of someone being born and then instantly fast-forwarded so that they start life at 30 was an interestingly alien one, but the star of this tale is a cocoon of technology. Doystin is told he should spend his life only seeing other people via screens and hearing other people through speakers in his personal technological shell. Technology has been used to reduce effort from any task, but Doystin is drawn to the value of doing things like walking and talking naturally. The story ends with a choice, which is meant to present the reader with a question- which would you choose?
This short story is possibly my favourite comedy. It marks the start of my writing really fun stuff, in a humorously cynical tone that I think has been inspired by Terry Pratchett. In the Myth, I enjoyed trying to write in the style of an ancient legend or fable. I was inspired to write something in this style after reading Pratchett's book "Nation". I am also quite pleased with the ending of this piece!
I was still in the mood of writing in the same slightly cynical tone from the Myth of Khu, and wrote this within the same few days. The action in this story, however, is quite limited, because I wanted to practise writing more depth and description of each moment. This was to contrast the Myth, which almost exclusively contained character interaction. The magical camera is meant to feel at home alongside items from kids television shows such as a watch that pauses time, and a 50 pence coin that grants wishes when you rub it. The prop is there to create a story, not be explained.
This is my favourite parody. The setting is a familiar fairy tale one- a wood where a woodcutter lives. Some of the conversation and tone, in particular that of the mob of boys, is inspired by Tales of the Arabian Nights, which I think I had read recently before writing this.
But most importantly, the story is written to re-tell the parable of the Good Samaritan from the Bible. Kenneth E. Bailey, in his book Jesus from Middle Eastern Eyes explains that the original audience hearing the parable would have expected the Samaritan to be a bad guy in any story, and that we have become so familiar with the parable that today's audience has forgotten that. The plane conversation on either end of the tale even mimics Jesus' conversation from the gospel story.
A silly ride written just for the fun of it. I started by turning the concept of "you wait for a bus and then 3 come at once..." on its head, and then just let the story write itself from there. In my imagination, the house has a face like a character from the Pixar movie "Cars".
3 parts of my largest fiction to date. That's as small as I could make it, too- once I knew how the idea would work, I had lots of character interactions to get through! I once thought to myself, what if the parts of a story were the characters in a story? And the 50 year dream was created. It is quite similar to Sentence in the City, where I also took items and made them into characters. My favourite character is Eric, because I liked writing a character who was kind of travelling through time.
I thought it would be really funny to put a thriller-twist on this well known tale. Less of a parody, more of a joke, I suppose. The serious authorities laughing at poor Mr. Gulling is an amusing thought. The method of writing as an interview text was inspired by Terry Pratchett's short story Turntables of the Night.
Image source: http://www.star-astronomy.com/2008/08/galileo-telescope/galileo-telescope
