Gushing New Author thing ;-)

So the brief for the anthology read something like "We are looking for approximately 20 pieces of flash fiction (approx. 500 words) for an anthology to raise money for New Futures Nepal's work with orphaned and disabled youngsters in Nepal. Ideally with a Nepalese twist, but must include steampunk and/or Nepal".

I'd been invited to the launch party at Southcart Books in Walsall by friends and authors Steven C. Davis and LM Cooke, who were unaware at the time that I was writing. I couldn't make it to the event, but asked if they were still taking submissions? The answer was yes, and so I declared that I'd write a flash piece for it.

Now everything that I'd written before (under other names) had been magazine articles or short story fan fiction; 500 words would be easy, thought I! I'd been mulling over an idea about a steampunk story involving international intrigues in an alternative history Afghanistan for a while, and it shouldn't be that difficult to move the story to Nepal. So I started on it, but on checking the word count after an hour or so it was approaching 1,000 words with the story hardly started. This would never do, so time for a rethink.

I mulled over it for the rest of that evening, and then another idea struck; a campfire in Northern India where an excentric English major and an Indian pandit (scholar) sat telling tall tales. I'd been reading up on Nepali culture and folklore, so the story began to flow. Keeping it tight and trying not to drift, later that night I'd finished a story which I was quite happy with. Only problem was that the word count had hit around 900...

As usual when I finish a draft, I leave it at least overnight before making the first edits. I'd checked with Tenebrous Texts (the publishers) and they really wanted it no more than 750 words, so there was a bit of "fat" which much be carved off. I try not to get too precious about my own words, but on reviewing this the following evening there seemed to be only about 70 words that I could cut without losing too much structure and meaning. Something else had to give. I realised that it had to be the eccentric Major. Only appearing in the opening two paragraphs, I actually liked the way that he started the story with the last bit of a tiger-hunting tale, then challenged the Pandit to beat that, but he was the only one who could sensibly go. With a slash of the editing knife, he was lost to the recycle bin and the story ended at 683 words. Interestingly enough, having just received my copy a couple of days ago and finally reading the other flash stories, there is a very similar character at the heart of the story by my friend CS Wright. Great minds think alike and all that, eh?

#steamflashes