You have heard of Julio Cortazar, haven’t you? Of course you have, you’re well read (you are, aren’t you?) so you can probably rattle off the title of every story he ever wrote, yes?
Be honest – can you name any?
A couple of years ago a fiendishly tempting display in the local Waterstones begged me to buy a collection of his shorts: Blow-Up and Other Stories. At the same time (and in a familiar moment of weakness) I also bought Juan Rulfo’s novel Pedro Paramo and that was a thoroughly intriguing read.
So, did you name any? I can name two. Blow-Up and Axolotl. Remember them? I read more than just those two, but right now – miles from home and without the book to refer to – those are the ones that immediately spring to mind. Memorable is the word. Isn’t that what separates good fiction from the not so good? The good stuff is memorable. It might be memorable for any one of a number of reasons, but it’s memorable.
What about the not-so-memorable stories that you’ve read? Can you remember any of those?
Me neither.
The next time you sit down to write a piece of fiction, be it short or long, I want you to staple a piece of paper to your thumb with the word ‘memorable’ on it. When you’ve finished writing, ask yourself why what you’ve written would be memorable to your reader. If you don’t like the answer, do something about it.
I did staple my finger once, when I was 16 and working in an accountant’s office. It didn’t hurt, not on the way in at least, but on the way out was a different story (a memorable one, in fact).
At this point I should mention my son, the baby of the family, who is also now 16, and who received his GCSE results today. Great set of results, my son. Well done. And watch out for staples.
So anyway, Blow-Up and Other Stories, it’s a memorable read. Before I began writing (fiction) five years ago I barely ever read short stories. Now I can’t get enough of them. In fact, over the last few years I’ve become something of a short story reader and have struggled to read novels. That’s had to change this year as I’m making the effort to get up to speed with contemporary science fiction, so I’m gulping down novels as fast as my brain can parse them.
To do that, to read so many novels in such a short space of time, I’ve had to make some sacrifices. I’ve cleared the decks, or almost cleared them, so that I can find the time not only to read more, but to write more. In particular, so that I can write a novel by the end of next year.
The final deck clearing is just taking place. After three and a half years of looking after the Critters Bar writing forum I’m calling it a day. Two kind souls have come forward to share the responsibility, so Critters Bar will continue to provide a warm welcome to aspiring writers. I’d like to thank the members for making it easy for me to run the place for the last three years. After some teething problems in the first couple of months things really settled down and a lot of good work has been done behind the bar doors.
So, it’s goodbye to Critters Bar. Well not quite goodbye, I’m still a member and I’m sure I’ll turn up in there like a bad penny when I need a break from writing the novel, but it’s the end of an era. It’s been fun.
Something I tend to do, now that I have more time and because I’m planning to write science fiction, is read the science and technology sections on the BBC web site. All that information just a mouse click away, it’s fascinating what you come across sometimes.
Today there was an article on how some of the things we consider science fiction today could become science fact tomorrow. Such things as time travel and invisibility. Apparently neither of these is actually impossible, but we don’t have the solutions for them yet. One of the problems with invisibility, for instance, is that you’d need two holes in your invisibility cloak so that you can see out. So, you’d have these two detached eyes wandering around.
In another (unrelated) article it said that the axolotl is on the verge of becoming extinct in the wild. (You don’t think I chose randomly to talk about the axolotl do you?). The article reminded me immediately of the short story by Julio Cortazar. If you haven’t already read it, then I think you should. And Blow-Up. In fact, you could do far worse than buying the whole collection, Blow-Up and Other Stories.
But anyway, the axolotl article said that recent surveys suggested that there are less than 1200 of them left in the wild. That’s not a lot, is it. It also said that one of these surveys found just a single axolotl in the particular region under study. Blimey. Just one!
And that got me thinking. Could the two stories be in any way related? Don’t laugh. I’m serious. Could it be that the axolotl has developed invisibility cloak technology? Because that first article was very clear. It said you should be very careful about using the word ‘impossible’. I can’t help wondering whether that survey, which was looking for axolotl, missed the fact that they were being watched by thousand of pairs of detached axolotl eyes.
I know. It sounds daft, doesn’t it, but you know, we often see what we expect to see, don’t we. It’s only on closer inspection we sometimes find that what we thought we saw wasn’t there at all. Did the survey look for axolotl eyes? No. It looked for whole axolotl. I’m sure of it.
But there you go. My point is not that we sometime see what we expect to see. My point is that good fiction is memorable. It is, isn’t it. You know that and I know that. So don’t forget it. Whatever it is that you’re in the process of writing, or are about to write, read it back afterwards and ask yourself: why is this memorable?
Oh. And just in case: you can remove the staple from your thumb now.
