Whodunnit?

[caddyman]

I am toying with the idea of writing a short crime story (1,000 to 2,500 words) for a competition I was pointed at by thalinoviel. Having written a few 500 word ghost stories over the past few years (yes, I know that having launched the Christmas 2010 challenge, I signally failed to attend to my own party. What can I say, I was side-tracked by an engagement), I quite enjoy the discipline of getting something across in a very few words. Five hundred words is quite hard¹, I would imagine a maximum of 2,500 would be easier in that it allows more room for manoeuvre and misdirection, but possibly harder in avoiding irrelevant flim-flam.

The story challenge requires a sense of locality. It does not need to be the area I live in now, but I need to state the locality it is set in, so that it can be judged against that place and whether or not I convey the feel of it to the reader. I need a couple or more characters that I can create and give personalities and I need a crime with a twist for the denouement.

I think I would set the story in Telford, where I grew up, or Newport (Shropshire) where I went to school, by preference. I think I can do all that reasonably convincingly. There are people who read this journal who know the locales well enough to tell me if I have succeeded, but I need a crime with a twist and that’s the hard bit.

I must think about it a little more.

Annoyingly, I am not allowed to publish (including self-publish, including on this LJ, I guess,) ahead of the competition winners being announced, which would be June. So if I come up with any ideas, I may email drafts to certain people for comment.

IF I end up writing anything at all.


¹Spare a thought, then, for Budgie Barnett (budgie_uk) with his self-imposed 200 word limit. See note of his “Fast Fiction Challenge” here.

Comments

[keith-london.livejournal.com]

How about 'A Shropshire Lad' (or ladette) as a working title? Maybe it could involve ASBOs. I'd say set in a gruesome council estate - but I have an impression (perhaps wrong) that Shropshire is on the whole not blighted by inner city London style estates. (Just thinking aloud!)

[bluesman.livejournal.com]

One of my Fleeceham stories was a crime effort, in which the Honourable Nigel and his fiancee attempted some sleuthing. My main problems were in making sure that all the plot twists were logical and all loose ends were finally tied up. I trust that your smaller word count will mean that the twist will only come at the end, and that it'll be that much easier for you. Mine was about 18,000 words, the shortest of them all as it was the story I least enjoyed writing. Not my milieu and too much bother!

I'm looking forward to it, so get scribbling.

[jfs.livejournal.com]

Happy to help with a read if you'd like.

Oh, and if you want some imagery, a chap I knew from Telford when I was growing up is writing a history of Woodside - the estate we were one. He's putting a lot of images of the area up on Facebook - mainly scans from the Telford Journal and the Shropshire Star going back 40 years.

http://www.facebook.com/#!/profile.php?id=1182754132&sk=photos

[gibbspaulus.livejournal.com]

Good luck. I found my ability to write more than two sentences has almost been twittered out of me. It's one of the reasons I am slowly flexing my LJ muscles a bit more.

[caddyman.livejournal.com]

Thanks, John.

I may well take you up on that!