The Short
Story Journal
Course: 3120_ENGL_2045
Date: 15th Sept 2011
© 2011 Copy this? Good luck!
Contents
Rioters London 2011
Riot
Police
Fuck
the Dispassionate Third Person Narrator!
Yes
Corporal!
The
dawning age of the short story writer
They’re
not dead yet!
Rupert
doing it tough
Parrakie, South
Australia, Map
White
Settlement
Gift
of the Magi Alternate Ending
Rioters London 2011
Word
is you’ve got no money!
Lecture
Notes
Rioters London 2011
I’m sick of this
bullshit!
Old bill, CCTV
It’s worse than
Orwell’s 1984
Got busted
Screwed by the
courts
But “Despite all my rage I am still just a rat in a cage” [2]
No money
No job
No hope
Today’s the day,
I Fuckin’ take what’s coming to me
“Fuck you I wont
do what you tell me,
Fuck you I wont
do what you tell me
Fuck you I wont do what you tell me”[3]
Riot Police
“Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will
fear no evil.” (Psalm 23)
Thump! Thump! Thump!
Baton on shield
Get the adrenalin pumping
Right, let’s get this done
Keep the line straight
Push! Push! Push!
Controlled aggression
Come on, we’re getting traction
Hold the line
Gas! Gas! Gas!
Canister deployed
Ahh Shit! Paint balls and bricks
Here comes the push back
Hold! Hold! Hold!
The thin blue line
Fuck the
Dispassionate Third Person Narrator!
Military
History- tells the facts not the truth.
Bravo
company advanced on hill x with two dead and three enemy killed.
It
gives no indication of the smell, or the adrenalin rush. The elation at having
overcome the toughest opponent of them all, “the one that can think reason and
shoot back” (unattributed)!
What
about the sorrow and shock of losing mates? Fuck the government’s agenda, he
watched my back when I needed him, I owe him a debt that can’t be repaid. The
government is never going to hug his kids; it’s never going to replace his
humour or potential.
Yeah
I’m bitter, well fuck you!
He
was a good bloke.
Yes Corporal!
By
the right, quick march, left right, left right, left right, left
Swing
your arms in time you quamby, give me 20.
If
brains were dynamite you wouldn’t have enough to clear your ears, give me 20.
Get
me a goffa, give me 20
Get
me a durry, give me 20
If
you don’t shut up, I’ll rip off both your arms, shove them up your arse and
push you round like a wheel barrow, give me 20.
Hurry
up people, give me 20
Complete
bloody furphy, give me 20
Somewhere
son, is a village with no idiot & your
it!
Unknown soldiers marching in Melbourne
The dawning age of the short story
writer
They’re not dead yet!
“Postmodernist
thought is an intentional departure from modernist approaches that had
previously been dominant.”[6]
(wikipedia,
2011)
The age of the
short story writer is coming, but the transition from the old landscape and
adaptation to the new reality will be brutal!
Books are a
commodity[7]
and while writers continue to use the current infrastructure that is based on
turning their highly valuable intellectual property into mass produced
commodity they will continue to suffer. The book retailing business is
currently in turmoil and it’s the consumers fault[8].
As some one who is forced to buy books (for Uni) that aren’t worth the sticker
price, of the 32 books I’ve purchased in the last three years I’ve kept three
and given the rest away. This is intern reinforced by the fact that I’ve had no
earned income for three years. Purchasing a book has come down to price. Having
been forced economically down this path the thought now is “why pay the
publisher/printer when what I really want is to pay for the writer’s time and
insights”.
That is a problem if writers aren’t prepared
to give up the notion of publishers, dead trees and bookshops. It comes down to
shortening the supply line. This will be a big call as these things are part of
the fabric of writers’ lives, emotional attachments, self image etc.
As Mike Masnich
from tech crunch discusses:
“But the truth
is that the main advantage these particular gatekeepers had was in
distribution. They controlled the gates to distribution, and knew they could
charge huge rents to get through. Copyright was merely the mechanism that built
the gates, but the fact that there was a gate at all was a function of
technology. Now technology has done away with that, and opened up the playing
field wide. So wide that gates are meaningless, and the real focus needs to be
on enabling content providers to do amazing things to stand out in the wide
open field. But that's got nothing to do with copyright”[9]
Shortening the
supply line to reduce cost, dismantling and replacing copyright and digital
versions leads to the question “Is it available electronically?” With the old
business this creates a huge problem, as soon as there is one electronic copy
available the replication cost is zero and the free-wheeling nature of the
internet mean copyright is ineffectual, virtually unenforceable and therefore
after the initial showing the material is free.
In the search
for a solution the current artistic business models offer some potential
solutions that could be worked with and adapted. The comedian seems to have the
toughest time of all artists because of the consistent need for new material
and another audience. This is because you can’t tell the same joke to the same
audience twice. In the past writers have been able to write a novel send it off
to the publishers, do a book tour, kick back and wait for the royalty cheques.
These days are fast running out.
The power of
the short story (yarn, joke, bullshit) has not gone away, if writers were to
get back on to their soap box, into the pub, sit around a camp fire or the
street corners, these have gone virtual and 6,930,055,154 people[10]
are potentially involved every day.
The problem is
how to make money? If you hear a song that you like you are happy to listen to
it many times, the nature of a short story is once read you loose interest. In
the new model the short story writer like the comedian needs to produce new
work on a regular basis to get people to pay to see his “gig” but is happy when
his punters tell there friends the joke because it encourages their friends to
pay to see him. In marketing speak this is encouraging a following in the early
adopter’s part of the market. Writers can create the same situation by creating
a blog (website) that either charges consumers a fee, uses banner ads or pay
per click to generate income.
If the innovators and early adopters become
evangelists and convert the early majority and buy the next story at a low
price (or free) it opens up the market and provides the writers with a much
greater potential income.
3 Blog’s That
Make A Lot Of Money Online[11]
Rank
|
Website
|
Owner
|
Monthly
Earnings
|
Main Income
|
1
|
The
Huffington Post
|
Arianna
Huffington
|
$2,330,000
|
Pay Per Click
|
2
|
Mashable
|
Pete Cashmore
|
$560,000
|
Advertising
Banners
|
3
|
Perez Hilton
|
Mario
Lavandeira
|
$450,000
|
Advertising
Banners
|
The volume of
information that people are forced to consume daily mean that relaxing with a
good book is less attractive. The writer has a much shorter time frame to tell
their story. The short story blog also allows much greater input by the reader,
if you can’t hear the audience clap or boo you have no sense how your going. It
“shines a light on excellence” and allows an almost instantaneous response,
hopefully giving an incentive to carry on or “step your game up”.
Breaker Morant[12]
Henry Lawson[13]
Lets put the
“rock star back”[14]
into writing and make it financially attractive and cool, not sleazy (thanks
for your help Mr Murdoch) and poorly paid. Welcome to the dawning age of the
short story writer!
Rupert
doing it tough
“My Precious”
Now heres a bloke with huge sunk costs, holding on
to the old ways, and the power they brought, really tightly. Even though his
empire doesn’t rely on publishing any more he personally is finding the
transition extremely difficult.[15]
Gift of the Magi Alternate Ending
Whilst no financial relief do the holidays bring,
time for reflection a change in mindset is afforded.
Trading worldly goods did not replace the things of
true value they had in abundance. Physical objects could never replace love,
respect & self sacrifice. How could these things be compared with the
passing value of trinkets?
Insights into the creation of money from thin hair,
trade and arbitrage, give greater scope to live in a world with financial
success, love, beauty and hope.
*I don’t think
I understood this story? Maybe the ending wasn’t the ‘put down’ that I
understood? I still think that if I’ve read the ending a number of times and
not been able to decipher its meaning the writer has missed the point. I read a
SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) blog in which they’d done some research into a
company’s web site which they discovered that it was very ‘sticky’ for older
people. They were very proud of this until they worked out that the site was so
confusing that it took a long time to work out how to use, but older people
were prepared to persist. The take away for the SEO Company was a generational
change in attitude:
“Older: if I
can’t work it out I must be an idiot.
Younger: If I
can’t work it out you must be an idiot.” (unattributed)
I can’t work
the ending of this story out, who is the idiot?
Parrakie, South
Australia, Map
White Settlement
[16]Fruit trees, scrub and
remanets of Ma Monka’s house Baan Hill,
South Australia
A soak is an
area where underground water comes close enough to the surface to be accessed
by humans and animals. Dry conditions mean animals are attracted which makes
hunting easier. The Ngarkat aboriginal tribe were experts in this field.
Because of limited carrying capacity each soak could be no more that two days
walk apart. The soaks form an intricate chain in a sequence of stepping stones
allowing the Ngarkat to move from summer to winter food sources. The dreaming
about the soaks that form this chain is so old that some of the animals have
become extinct and the stories have become myth. The delicate balance between
this interconnection of myth and reality was extremely fine, in a strong yet
brittle relationship. On the 27 January 1822 as the Ngarkat walked over the
sand dunes the Baan Hill soak was dry.
Word is
you’ve got no money!
Sunshine, lollipops and
rainbows,
Everything that's
wonderful is what I feel when,
we're together, (Lesly Gore)
What are you lot doing here? You’re making the place
look untidy
What do you want?
When you came into ask for a loan did you see
“charitable institution” written above the door?
You card carrying, hand holding, fucking hippie!
If you think this loan will get up just because you
want it to,
Because it’s nice, because it will save the planet,
Your kidding yourself!
No, It’s not the governments fault, It’s not banks
fault
You are the
problem!
How much money have you got?
Oh isn’t this nice? The only money you’ve got is what
the government saved for you and called superannuation.
Oh looked you stopped investing in the “lets all hold
hands together” super fund because the return started to slip and invested it
in the “show me the money you bastards” fund.
Do you think that investment returns just appear out
of thin air?
Super funds invest in companies
Companies are simple creatures
Companies make profits and return dividends
If they don’t investors take their money out
Each year the investors want more profits
Companies are ruthless with costs
Guess what? Airy fairy loans that have no possibility
of being paid, just like yours get nixed!
Tell your story walking and don’t let the door hit you
on the ass on the way out.
Lecture Notes:
Week
1:
Character
•Cannot be separated from
action/plot
•considered in relation to point of
view
Character
& point of view
•Omniscient author-narrator
•omniscient narrator
•Character as narrator
A character might be implied
Imagined,projected, another aspect of a character’s
personality, absent but affecting another character, etc.)
Protagonist
•Lead character
•revolves around the protagonist
Antagonist
Character who opposes protagonist
Minor
characters
•Have a specific function
Who is
this character?
•Gender?, Age?, Race?, Nationality?
Direct
characterisation
•Appearance, Speech, Action, Thought
‘The
Iceberg Theory’
Much
of what readers know about any given character is never stated remains submerged
Week 2:
Plot
versus Story
Gus Freytag 1863, rise, climax, fall
Plot: the author rearranges time sequence
Story: events arranged in time sequence.’
Week
3:
Narrative
Point of View
•From where is the writer telling
us the story?
•What frame is being placed on the subject?
•Whose story?
•Should the story be told by the
main character?
What choices are there?
•The first person - using the ‘I’
narrator
•The second person - using ‘you’
•The third person - which normally
describes the characters as he or she
The
first person narrator
•Voice of the protagonist (his or
her own story).
•Witness who tells of an event.
•That of the re-teller, where the
‘I’ tells a story first told by someone else.
Third person narration
There
are generally three types:
•Third person omniscient
•Third person limited or
intimate (or subjective)
Week 4:
Theme: Race & Class
§ No answers, just
questions, frame ideas, develop instinct for good ideas
Concentrate
on detail, Show don’t tell, should not be reduced to cliché, Can’t state
the theme.
Week
5:
Setting,
Atmosphere & Environment
What makes the story different & engaging
Convince the reader to believe
Setting should enhance the story
Draw maps of character
About a moment in time
Sir Walter Scott. 1771–1832
SOUND, sound the clarion, fill the fife!
To all the sensual world proclaim,
One crowded hour of glorious life
Is worth an age without a name.
Result: 6/10
[1] http://coto2.wordpress.com/2010/11/10/50000-london-students-riot-against-conservatives/,
viewed 16 September 2011.
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullet_with_Butterfly_Wings, 1995,
viewed 16 September 2011
[3] http://www.ratm.net/lyrics/kil.html, 1992, viewed 16 September 2011
[4] http://www.artmonthly.org.au/artnotes.asp?aID=5&issueNumber=206,
viewed 14 September 2011
[5] http://www.slv.vic.gov.au/argus/0/1/2/doc/an012215.shtml, viewed 14
September.
[6]
Wikipedia, 2011, “Postmodernism”, viewed 3rd September 2011,
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postmodernism>
[9] Masnick, M, 2011, “Why Are We Letting An Obsolete
Gatekeeper Drive The Debate On Anything?, viewed 3 September 2011,
<http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110823/02531915631/why-are-we-letting-obsolete-gatekeeper-drive-debate-anything.shtml>
[14] http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/chris_anderson_how_web_video_powers_global_innovation.html,
viewed 11 September 2011.
[15] http://newstechnica.com/2009/11/10/murdoch-announces-plan-to-cut-off-nose/,
viewed 11 September 2011.
[16] http://www.panoramio.com/photo/20351851?source=wapi&referrer=www.panoramio.com,
viewed 14 September 2011.
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