Short story appraisal - 01

I have a rather large home library of unread books. They’re unread because I tend to keep buying new books before I’ve read the earlier purchases. My excuse is that books have a short shelf life in bookstores…

My curse is that I’m interested in many subjects so I collect non-fiction and fiction books within a great variety of disciplines and genres. From time to time, I’ll pull off my shelves a book or two I haven’t got round to reading; many of these are short story anthologies. As a writer of short stories, I like to immerse myself in this particular art-form, in an attempt at avoiding any staleness of approach in my own writing. As they say, writers should read.

A long time ago, in the early 1970s, I picked up a paperback entitled Modern Short Stories (1965), primarily because it contained ‘The Secret Life of Walter Mitty’ by James Thurber and stories by Ray Bradbury, Jack London and Jack Schaefer. It’s designed as an educational tome with an interesting Introduction and Notes at the end. The editor is S H Burton, MA. If you write short stories, then it stands to reason that you should read them.

Encapsulated, the introduction explains what a short story should contain. When the story ends, something that matters has happened; there has been movement. Plot in the story imposes a pattern. In addition, the writer is concerned with his characters and with his setting. And, finally and most significantly, ‘the short story involves values of one kind or another’.

Burton sums up very well, that ‘values embodied in the story will usually be expressed through the plot, the characters, the setting – and by the way in which the story is written.’ The style will be the guide as to the writer’s sincerity. ‘The best writers try to work unobtrusively, presenting their view of life through characters involved…’ It’s interesting that the editor labels the first two tales in this collection, ‘Jeremy Rodock’ by Jack Schaefer and ‘To Build a Fire by Jack London’ as ‘adventure stories’, not westerns.

In conclusion, Burton spells out what should be obvious to the writer. Short stories are of limited length, originally aimed at periodicals that have only so much space on offer. This imposed economy of words means that words must not be wasted. Every word must count in creating the world of the characters involved. Each word must ‘purposefully contribute to the overall effect’. A novelist can apply equal weight to plot, character and setting; a short story writer doesn’t have that luxury so must choose which to lay emphasis upon, the other two simply supplying just enough to maintain the illusion of reality. So a short story can be about character, or plot or the setting itself; yet in the final analysis it should illuminate an aspect of the human condition. That aim requires craftsmanship and dedication.

Next post, I’ll take a look at the first two stories in this book.

Book Award surprise

I was surprised and pleased to win the April bookaward for my thriller The Prague Manuscript. See: http://www.thebookawards.com/News.html

It seems I'm in good (though much richer) company with The Time Traveler's Wife winning in March. The nominations (which stand for the May voting are many, but among them) are: The Lovely Bones (reading this at present, remarkable first novel), Eclipse, The House at Riverton (no relation), The Vampire Diaries, Atonement, The Shipping News, The Lost Symbol, 44 Scotland Street and The Tarnished Star.

Pop along and vote, if you see one of your favourites nominated - or nominate your own favourite.

TRIPWIRE by Brian Garfield

I was loaned this book by my Swedish friend Iwan. It’s one of his favorite books. This edition is a US hardback, 2nd printing in 1973 and signed with a personal note from the author dated 1975. The cover picture is poor and though relevant the title isn’t particularly good, either; yes, much later, Lee Child used it too. The cover calls it a novel, yet it is a western; maybe this is because Garfield has a very good track record with best-selling books in a variety of genres and the publishers feel the book transcends the genre. These are minor quibbles, however.

This is a great story, tightly written in 185 pages.

Buffalo soldier Boag helps out with a gold heist only to be double-crossed, thrown overboard from a steamship and shot. Doggedly, he tracks the men who robbed and hurt him. Boag is a believable character and we take the hard long journey with him. There are setbacks. He meets a variety of individuals, helps some and others help him. He’s a likeable man, but you don’t want to cross him.

The denouement is riveting and exciting. Highly recommended.

SPANISH EYE

Tales from Leon Cazador, Private Investigator

I’ve just signed a contract with Solstice Publishing, USA for this book of 21 short stories featuring Leon Cazador. The stories were published between 2005-2009 but I have rewritten them for this collection.

The Solstice cover was designed within a day or so and I reckon it’s very eye-catching.

The book still has to go through the Solstice edit process so I don’t know yet when it will be available as an e-book and a print book. Watch this space.

Blurb:

Private Investigator Leon Cazador is half-English, half-Spanish and wholly against the ungodly. Sometimes he adopts an alias, Carlos Santos: he is a modern day Simon Templar, willing to hold back the encroaching night of unreason and help the gullible and downtrodden. He combats drug-traffickers, grave robbers, al-Qaeda infiltrators, misguided terrorists and conmen. Dodgy Spanish developers and shady expat English face his wrath. Traders in human beings, stolen vehicles and endangered species meet their match. Kidnappers, crooked mayors and conniving Lotharios come within his orbit of ire. Vengeful Chinese and indebted Japanese are his friends – and his enemies. Leon Cazador fights injustice in all its forms. It’s what he does.

100th Published Short Story

The COSTA TV TIMES weekly magazine out here in Spain has published my hundredth short story. Entitled ‘The Museum of Iniquity’, it’s a fun murder mystery, which also happens to use 36 titles from the plays, short stories and books of Jeffery Archer!

There’s also a plug for the anthology A Fistful of Legends.

Welsh Cowboys and Outlaws

We all know it's a small world, and getting smaller with the aid of the Internet. Not so long ago, I was browsing in a shop here in Spain when I picked up and bought one of those UK nostalgia books packed with old photographs: Monkseaton and Hillheads (Whitley Bay). Inside was a photo of the house where I lived for most of my first seventeen years of life!

Another shop nearby stocked a couple of It’s Wales books, short 92-pagers, and I was drawn to this one – Welsh Cowboys and Outlaws by Dafydd Meirion (2003).

While the prose is slightly repetitive – ‘decided’ and ‘many’ are two overused words – the information, gleaned from a number of intriguing references, is interesting and possibly a good source for a plot or two of a western or historical saga of the Old West.

Meirion tells us that perhaps 250,000 Welsh left Wales for America – compared to 4.5 million from Ireland. The largest proportion originally settled in Pennsylvania (17%), while the rest wended their way west as the expansion gained pace. Of the 10,000 whites who died during the treks westwards, apparently only 362 were killed by Indians. Most succumbed to disease or the weather or renegade whites and Mexicans.

He also points out that Hollywood rarely depicts the ethnic split of cowboys, for example: only 63% were white; 25% were black; 12% Mexican.

He touches briefly on a wide range of Welsh characters. Isaac Davis, the Mormon renegade who raided settlements; the James brothers, whose great-grandfather was a Baptist minister from Pembrokeshire and emigrated to Pennsylvania; Sheriff John T Morris, who gunned down Belle Starr’s husband; Frank Jones and John Reynolds Hughes of the Texas Rangers.

Edward Davies from Llanrwst entertained in saloons; as did John G Jones from Bethesda, north Wales. Morris Price left Powys and travelled to Illinois where he started a small ranch which grew into one of the biggest. John Rowlands who was raised in a workhouse in St Asaph near Denbigh emigrated to America and changed his name to Henry Morton Stanley and became a famous journalist and of course tracked down Dr Livingstone in darkest Africa. Then there’s Robert Owen Pugh of Dolgellau who married the granddaughter of Chief Blue Horse of the Oglala Sioux; quite a character, Pugh, and a staunch friend of the Indians in their hours of need. And there are plenty more in these few pages. Also mentioned briefly is Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show visit to Cardiff; the locals didn’t take kindly to local lasses walking arm in arm with Indians!

On the trail of 'last chance' Morton

This week’s Costa Blanca News has run a full-page article about my western writing.

Here is the page (Expertly joined by my old pal Neil from two scans ).


Inevitably, a few things got lost or altered in translation from interview to page. Needless to say, I don’t write ‘how is y’all’ dialogue, contrary to what is suggested… The article states that I have ten westerns under my belt, when in fact I’ve only got four – though my latest sale is my tenth book printed/accepted. (I’ll just have to get busy and write those other six pronto!) Also, when I studied ten BHWs and analysed them, I thought that I could write one too – I didn’t think I could ‘do better’. Such quirks make for a better article, I guess!

The Costa Blanca News is sold north and south along the Spanish costas. As to whether it will galvanise any readers into buying Black Horse Westerns, well that's another question without an answer...

VALLEY THIEVES by Max Brand - review

I’ve got two editions of this book – recent gifts from Swedish friend Iwan. An American edition, 1933 plus the first UK edition, 1949, and the dust jacket is from the latter. While I’ve read a number of Max Brand books, I haven’t read any of his Silvertip stories, so this is a first for me.

Narrated in the first person by Bill Avon, it relates Jim Silver’s continuing battle of wills and wits with his arch-enemy Barry Christian, in the process of which Silver’s wolf Frosty and his powerful horse Parade are abducted. We also meet the enigmatic Harry Clonmel, another bigger-than-life character.

There’s no indication when the story takes place, though a few references may suggest the mid-1890s. Silvertip’s pal Taxi seems to have a penchant for modern inventions; he owns an automatic pistol (1893) and carries an electric pocket torch (the first 2-candlepower lantern, weighing in at 2lb would make his pocket very heavy; invented 1892; the tubular torch, 1898). The evil Barry Christian has a concealed derringer up his sleeve, operated by elastic; elastic braid or knicker elastic came out about 1887 while elastic bands were around post-1845.

The writing style isn’t particularly great, but Brand delivers on storytelling. Here, he writes about a West where there are good men and true, where even villains seem to possess some humanity. Old Man Cary is the patriarch of a family of bad blood; he’s well drawn and multi-faceted: he reeks evil yet has a sneaking regard for Silvertip.

Silvertip – so called because of the ‘tufts of grey hair over his temples, like the beginning of little horns’ – is not an anti-hero but a mythopoeic hero. As Avon says, ‘… a hero is a property of every ordinary man and because of such men as Jim Silver the rest of us stand straighter. He was a man who had never been found in a cruel, mean, or cowardly action.’ These heroes are necessary, even in this day and age. Too often, so-called heroes espoused by the media have feet of clay. Perhaps there’s a need for more honest and true sportsmen, movie stars and politicians around to set examples to the young. Maybe loss of faith has something to do with it, now our world is overwhelmingly secular and acquisitive. Bill Avon said of Silvertip, ‘His faith in me made me strong. Another man’s faith always multiplies one’s own, I think.’ Self-belief and self-worth grow from the influences of others.

I came away from a relatively simple western tale with these thoughts, which surprised me a little. Brand doesn’t openly preach, but his tales clearly have a moral tone, which may appear quaint these days, and yet perhaps many of his readers dearly wish to go back to those simpler times.

A SMALL STEP… SO FAR

Today, I got a pleasant surprise when I learned that my story ‘A Gigantic Leap’ featured in Midnight Street #13 (Editor: Trevor Denyer)is on the rather long long list of short stories nominated for the 2010 British Fantasy Society’s awards. Those listed are all nominations from BFS members.

Review from Gareth d Jones, sfcrowsnest.com
"Nik Morton takes us on 'A Gigantic Leap' as he re-imagines a piece of Soviet history and wonders what might happen if the American paranoia about space-born germs had been justified. It's a gently told story, narrated by an old man who has seen too much in his hard life. Then in the last few paragraphs, the stress and alarm build up nicely. All of the international panic and national security issues occur in the background, though, so as not to spoil the calm flow of the story. It's nicely done."

This tale is a particular favourite of mine, so fingers crossed, though it’s up against very stiff competition and several big names. Still, nice to be included.

Pictured is the first page of the story from the magazine, with an excellent relevant illustration from Surabhi Wade.

In alphabetical order, here is the short story long list
(from http://www.britishfantasysociety.org/):

A GIGANTIC LEAP, Nik Morton, Midnight Street #13
ANOTHER END OF THE EMPIRE, Tim Pratt, in Strange Horizons, June 22
AT FIRST SIGHT, John Llewellyn Probert, in The Catacombs of Fear (Gray Friar)
BRYSON FEEDS FAMILIES, T.F. Davenport, Black Static #12
CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR, Justin Carroll, in Dragontales: Short Stories of Flame, Tooth and Scale, ed. Holly Stacey (Wyvern)
CAT AND MOUSE, Marie O’Regan, in NVF #4 and Deadly Dolls (NVF)
CERTAIN DEATH FOR A KNOWN PERSON, Steve Duffy, in Apparitions, ed. Michael Kelly (Undertow)
CHARMS, Shweta Narayan, Strange Horizons, August 24
CLOCKATRICE, Tanith Lee, Fantasy Magazine, October 5 post
DEADHOUSE STEPS, Mark Chadbourn, in The BFS Yearbook 2009, ed. Guy Adams (BFS)
EDISON’S FRANKENSTEIN, Chris Roberson, in Edison’s Frankenstein (Postscripts #20/21), ed. Peter Crowther and Nick Gevers (PS)
FINISTERRE, Maria Deira, Strange Horizons, August 10th
FISHERMEN, Al Robertson, Interzone #221 (TTA)
FUTURE CITIES, Allen Ashley, from Once And Future Cities (Eibonvale)
GEORGE CLOONEY’S MOUSTACHE, Rob Shearman, in The BFS Yearbook 2009, ed. Guy Adams (BFS)
GOLDEN LILIES, Aliette de Bodard, Fantasy Magazine, August 10 post
GRANNY’S GRINNING, Robert Shearman, in The Dead That Walk, ed. Stephen Jones (Ulysses)
GROWING PAINS, Ian Whates, Hub #101
HERE WE ARE FALLING THROUGH SHADOWS, Jason Sanford, Interzone #225
IF WISHES WERE HORSES, Tiffani Angus-Bodie, Strange Horizons, May 25
IMAGES OF ANNA, Nancy Kress, Fantasy Magazine, September 14 post
IN THE GARDEN, Rosalie Parker, in The Fifth Black Book of Horror, ed. Charles Black (Mortbury)
IN THE PORCHES OF MY EARS, Norman Prentiss, from This Is the Summer of Love (Postscripts #18), ed, Peter Crowther and Nick Gevers (PS)
JOLLY ROGER, Robert Shearman, from Love Songs for the Shy and Cynical (Big Finish)
LIFE AFTER DEATH, Mark Butler, New Horizons #4 (BFS)
LIFE-O-MATIC, Paul Kane, Estronomicon, May 2009 (Screaming Dreams)
LILY GLASS, Veronica Schanoes, Strange Horizons, April 27
LOVE AMONG THE LOBELIAS, Robert Shearman, from Love Songs for the Shy and Cynical (Big Finish)
MARLEY’S HAUNTING, Simon Kurt Unsworth (Ghostwriter)
MASQUES, Paul Kane, in Return of the Raven, ed. Maria Grazia Cavicchioli (HorrorBound)
MICROCOSMOS, Nina Allan, Interzone #222
MOTHER SPONGE, Mur Lafferty, Hub #83
MY BROTHER’S KEEPER, Nina Allan, Black Static #12
MY SECRET CHILDREN, James Cooper, Black Static #13
NINJA RATS ON HARLEYS, Elizabeth A. Vaughan, in Zombie Raccoons & Killer Bunnies, ed. Martin H. Greenberg and Kerrie Hughes (DAW)
NON-ZERO PROBABILITIES, N.K. Jemisin, Clarkesworld #36
NOTES TOWARD A COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY, Nicole Kornher-Stace, Fantasy Magazine, August 5th post
OF MELEI, OF ULTHAR, Gord Sellar, Clarkesworld #37
OFFERINGS, Stephanie Burgis, Fantasy Magazine, August 24 post
ON CONSIDERATION OF THE MUSES, Eric Stener Carlson, in Cinnabar’s Gnosis, ed. Dan Ghetu (Ex Occidente)
ONE LAST LOVE SONG, Rob Shearman, from Love Songs for the Shy and Cynical (Big Finish)
PELICAN BAR, Karen Joy Fowler, Eclipse Three, ed. Jonathan Strahan (Night Shade)
PLAYING WITH SPADES, Mari Ness, Fantasy Magazine, August 3 post
PROOF, Gary McMahon, in Apparitions, ed. Michael Kelly (Undertow)
RED CHRISTMAS, Jim Steel, Supernatural Tales #16
SALT’S FATHER, Eric Gregory, Strange Horizons, August 3
SANCTUARY RUN, Daniel Mills, in Strange Tales III, ed. Rosalie Parker (Tartarus)
SERVITOR, Paul Kane, DeathRay #21 (Blackfish)
SHUCKED, Adrian Joyce, Interzone #225
SILENCE AND ROSES, Suzanne Palmer, Interzone #223
SURVIVOR’S GUILT, Rosanne Rabinowitz, Black Static #14
THE BELOVED TIME OF THEIR LIVES, Ian Watson & Roberto Quaglia, from The Beloved of My Beloved (NewCon)
THE BLACK FLOWERS OF SEVAN, James Lecky, Heroic Fantasy Quarterly #1
THE CHYMICAL WEDDING OF DES ESSEINTES, Brendan Connell, from Cinnabar’s Gnosis ed. Dan Ghetu (Ex Occidente)
THE CONFESSOR’S TALE, Sarah Pinborough, in Hellbound Hearts, ed. Marie O’Regan and Paul Kane (Pocket)
THE CONVENT AT BAZZANO, Allyson Bird, in The BFS Yearbook 2009, ed. Guy Adams (BFS)
THE DEVONSHIRE ARMS, Alex Dally MacFarlane, Clarkesworld #32
THE ELEVENTH DAY, Christopher Fowler, Black Static #14
THE GHOST OF ONIONS, Marcie Lynn Tentchoff, Strange Horizons, July 20
THE KILLING STREETS, Colin Harvey, Interzone #226
THE LAST GALLERY, Joel Lane, Midnight Street #12
THE MYSTERY, Peter Atkins, in Spook City (PS)
THE PICTURE, Rosalie Parker, Supernatural Tales #15
THE RULEBOOK, Christopher Fowler, in The Dead That Walk (Ulysses)
THE STRETCH, Christopher Fowler, in The BFS Yearbook 2009, ed. Guy Adams (BFS)
THE TRUE VINTAGE OF ERZINE THALE, Robert Silverberg, from Songs of the Dying Earth: Stories in Honour of Jack Vance, ed. George R.R. Martin and Gardner Dozois (HarperVoyager)
THE WAGER, Daniel McGachey, in They That Dwell in Dark Places (Dark Regions)
THE WHITE BULL OF TARA, Fiona Patton, in Zombie Raccoons & Killer Bunnies, ed. Martin H. Greenberg and Kerrie Hughes (DAW)
THE WORLD ENTIRE, Ron Weighell, in Cinnabar’s Gnosis, ed. Dan Ghetu (Ex Occidente)
TWAIN, James Barclay, in The BFS Yearbook 2009, ed. Guy Adams (BFS)
VENETIAN PAPERWEIGHT, from Mostly Monochrome, John Travis (Exaggerated)
VIC, Maura McHugh, Black Static #10
WALKING WITH A GHOST, Nick Mamatas, Clarkesworld #33
WELCOME TO THE HOTEL MARIANAS, Mike Chinn, from The Bitter End: Tales of Nautical Terror, ed. Jessy Marie Roberts (Pill Hill)
WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU WAKE UP IN THE NIGHT, Michael Marshall Smith (Nightjar)
WHITE CHARLES, Sarah Monette, Clarkesworld #36
WORLD WITHOUT END, Marie O’Regan, The Thinking Man’s Crumpet #2

Mention by the Western Writers of America

Congratulations to Matthew P Mayo for getting his short story 'Half a Pig' (from A Fistful of Legends - Express Westerns) mentioned as a finalist in this year's prestigious Spur Awards. Well done, Matt!

Write and write some more

Interesting agent’s blog. http://www.thecroceagency.com/
which is currently featuring an excellent short interview of Ray Bradbury about his writing schedule. He is an inspiration to all writers - if they half a wit to notice.

Write, write and write some more is the way to go. I should know, I've been doing that for 40 years or more!

His books are on my shelf and I can still remember so many of his tales, which is he measure of the man and the writer.

As Stephen Vincent Benet said, 'A short story is something that can be read in an hour and remembered for a lifetime.' That's Ray Bradbury.

Book of the film: Vertigo

The book Vertigo was originally written by Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac in French, D’Entre Les Mortes (1954) and translated by Geoffrey Sainsbury as The Living and the Dead in 1956. I don’t believe the book’s beginning would attract a publisher nowadays; as it contains far too much exposition via lengthy dialogue. Still, the story itself is intriguing – hence the adaptation for Hitchcock’s 1958 film. Perhaps not surprisingly, the film diverges considerably from the book, save for the crucial deception.

The book's protagonist Flavières left the police due to his inability to cope with vertigo (or possibly acrophobia), and seemed at a loose end so he was grateful when his old friend Paul Gévigne asked for his help. However, Flavières wasn’t too happy when he found out he was hired to follow Paul’s wife, Madeleine. She was a mystery, it seemed. She had altered psychologically since they married and was obsessed with her strange past. Worse, Flavières found himself being obsessed by the beautiful Madeleine.

Unlike Kim Novak’s curvy blonde character of the movie, the book’s Madeleine was dark and slim. Of course we know that Hitchcock seemed to have his own obsession with blonde actresses. Madeleine wore a grey suit – as did Novak. And only her name was retained for the film; Flavières became Scotty Ferguson (James Stewart) and Paul became Gavin Elster.

The story begins during the phoney war, before the Germans had invaded France. As it was written some nine years after the war, there’s no obvious reason why it wasn’t set in the 1950s, save that perhaps there’s a parallel between the fall from grace of Flavières and the collapse of his country. It’s obviously a French story, as Flavières ponders about Paul’s concern for his wife: after all, Madeleine ‘had every right to have a lover if she wanted to.’ Yes, typically French, that. Though even at this early stage (p22), Flavières found that he hoped she didn’t have a lover, as he felt he’d suffer acutely at the knowledge.

I don’t believe the film realistically showed the growing obsession James Stewart had for Kim Novak. The book conveys this gradually, subtly: ‘… he was mortified by the joy he felt at the prospect’ of following Madeleine. By p32 ‘he had only to think of her to lose his sense of proportion.’

Following the tragic events of Madeleine’s suicide, the German offensive of France began in earnest. Flavières went to pieces and ‘made little distinction now between the national disaster and his own. France was Madeleine lying crushed and bleeding at the foot of a church tower.’

At the beginning of Part Two, Flavières returns to post-war Paris, and his past seems to haunt him still. The similarities between the book and the film are there, though the Paul character died during the war. It would be unfair to detail much else, save to observe that since this is a French novel, it most definitely has noir undertones with an unhappy ending, in effect to gratify Flavières’ ‘taste for melancholy, solitude, and impotence.’