StillStunned
Writing...
- Joined
- Jun 4, 2023
- Posts
- 3,877
In the interests of starting more discussions about writing as a craft, I'm starting a thread about one of my stories. Feel free to weigh in, both on the points I raise and anything else you like or feel should be improved. I'm a big boy. I'll take suggestions and constructive criticism on board to hopefully become a better writer.
This is intended to be a discussion about writerly aspects. Don't complain that the story's too short, or you don't like fantasy, or you only read stories written in 2P POV. Please respect the story for what it is.
With that out of the way, I give you Fairytale of New York. It's 1.8k words, currently with a rating of 4.47 from 55 votes, with a little under 4k views.
The story started as a tribute to Shane McGowan and Kirsty McCall, and originally I envisioned something with trolls and fairies in Central Park. In the end I decided to stick closer to the theme of the song, and make it about a pair of fairytale lovers whose dreams fall apart.
This is how it opens:
This is where the story really took off in my mind. I imagined a troll trying to blend in, and realised that no-one would look twice at a large bulky figure with their hood pulled down over their face. But then I had to figure out where the troll would live the rest of the time, and I imagined them hiding out in the subway tunnels, becoming lonelier and lonelier.
From here, my introversion took over. It was easy to picture Pod the troll hating the world above, but coming to hate the tunnels even more. Knowing that hiding wasn't healthy, for him or his relationship with Oonagh, but being unable to convince himself to change. And this of course triggers the story: Oonagh leaves, and he retreats further into himself, except the one night a year that he goes to look for her.
To describe this dichotomy, I filled the story with juxtapositions: hopes and reality, promises made and promises broken, the happiness and unhappiness of being in love.
Pod gives in to his addiction - petroleum and electricity, because I have no experience of real-world drugs and I figured that trolls would need something unusual. In fact, it's his introversion that's his true addiction, until it turns into emptiness.
Against the odds, he finds her, and their encounter left me stumped. I didn't want to write reams of couples counselling dialogue. So I turned back to the song, and the line "The boys from the NYPD choir were singing Galway Bay." I introduced a crowd gathering to see a marching band, and it brings back memories of "the Old Country". This allowed me to shorthand my trolls' reconciliation - after all, they've known each other for centuries, and deep down they love each other. They *want* to be reconciled.
But of course their conversation is awkward:
This contrast - worse and better - sums up Pod's development. When Oonagh replies that she understands, he realises that she's undergone the same development. At this point they're reconciled, and the happiness that Pod experiences outshines his earlier addiction:
The addiction of course also represents his introversion, or at least his willingness to let his introversion take control.
I end the story with another direct reference to the song, or at least the video, which ends with Shane and Kirsty dancing together.
One reader commented that they'd expected the crowd to be singing "Galway Bay", as per the song. In fact, this is the opening line, the way my granddad used to sing it to me, which is slightly different from the "official version". Also, I couldn't fit in "the bells were ringing out for Christmas Day". It would have made the line too long, or I'd have had to split it into two sentences, and it just wouldn't have worked. Less, I felt, was more.
That's my analysis of the story, and what I did and why. I needed to do some research about New York. What the paths in Central Park are made from, especially near a bridge that had the right appearance for a fairytale about trolls. When the subway tunnels were first built, and where the trains went at night. I handwaved the question of whether or not any marching band played in Central Park by leaving it open whether this was a regular thing or not ("The band was striking up. Since when do they play in the Park, anyway? The thought floated across his mind like snow over the teeming city.").
Besides the petroleum-and-electricity addiction, I also had to think of some points of troll anatomy. They're made of rock, and they don't breathe. Their hearts are diamond, and that gave me this imagery:
Throughout the story, I also tried to blend in the imagery of the city. Like above: "like snow over the teeming city". But also this one:
Overall, I'm very pleased with how the story turned out. The writing was easy and difficult at the same time. Perhaps I could have dwelt longer on the reconciliation, but by that time I was almost blubbering over my keyboard. I think that it packs more punch this way too.
So now over to you lot. Do you think my imagery worked? Does anything feel contrived or awkward, now that you know what I was trying to achieve? Does it succeed both as a fairytale, and a story of Christmas in New York?
This is intended to be a discussion about writerly aspects. Don't complain that the story's too short, or you don't like fantasy, or you only read stories written in 2P POV. Please respect the story for what it is.
With that out of the way, I give you Fairytale of New York. It's 1.8k words, currently with a rating of 4.47 from 55 votes, with a little under 4k views.
The story started as a tribute to Shane McGowan and Kirsty McCall, and originally I envisioned something with trolls and fairies in Central Park. In the end I decided to stick closer to the theme of the song, and make it about a pair of fairytale lovers whose dreams fall apart.
This is how it opens:
First up, there's a typo there: "cheers" should be "cheer". I think it's a leftover from my first draft, which was something like "Lights and shouts and cheers". Otherwise, though, it refers quite closely to the song: "Sinatra was swinging, all the drunks they were singing, we kissed on the corner and danced through the night." It also sets the tone for the story: light and warmth and companionship versus cold and darkness and loneliness.
This is where the story really took off in my mind. I imagined a troll trying to blend in, and realised that no-one would look twice at a large bulky figure with their hood pulled down over their face. But then I had to figure out where the troll would live the rest of the time, and I imagined them hiding out in the subway tunnels, becoming lonelier and lonelier.
From here, my introversion took over. It was easy to picture Pod the troll hating the world above, but coming to hate the tunnels even more. Knowing that hiding wasn't healthy, for him or his relationship with Oonagh, but being unable to convince himself to change. And this of course triggers the story: Oonagh leaves, and he retreats further into himself, except the one night a year that he goes to look for her.
To describe this dichotomy, I filled the story with juxtapositions: hopes and reality, promises made and promises broken, the happiness and unhappiness of being in love.
Pod gives in to his addiction - petroleum and electricity, because I have no experience of real-world drugs and I figured that trolls would need something unusual. In fact, it's his introversion that's his true addiction, until it turns into emptiness.
Against the odds, he finds her, and their encounter left me stumped. I didn't want to write reams of couples counselling dialogue. So I turned back to the song, and the line "The boys from the NYPD choir were singing Galway Bay." I introduced a crowd gathering to see a marching band, and it brings back memories of "the Old Country". This allowed me to shorthand my trolls' reconciliation - after all, they've known each other for centuries, and deep down they love each other. They *want* to be reconciled.
But of course their conversation is awkward:
This contrast - worse and better - sums up Pod's development. When Oonagh replies that she understands, he realises that she's undergone the same development. At this point they're reconciled, and the happiness that Pod experiences outshines his earlier addiction:
The addiction of course also represents his introversion, or at least his willingness to let his introversion take control.
I end the story with another direct reference to the song, or at least the video, which ends with Shane and Kirsty dancing together.
One reader commented that they'd expected the crowd to be singing "Galway Bay", as per the song. In fact, this is the opening line, the way my granddad used to sing it to me, which is slightly different from the "official version". Also, I couldn't fit in "the bells were ringing out for Christmas Day". It would have made the line too long, or I'd have had to split it into two sentences, and it just wouldn't have worked. Less, I felt, was more.
That's my analysis of the story, and what I did and why. I needed to do some research about New York. What the paths in Central Park are made from, especially near a bridge that had the right appearance for a fairytale about trolls. When the subway tunnels were first built, and where the trains went at night. I handwaved the question of whether or not any marching band played in Central Park by leaving it open whether this was a regular thing or not ("The band was striking up. Since when do they play in the Park, anyway? The thought floated across his mind like snow over the teeming city.").
Besides the petroleum-and-electricity addiction, I also had to think of some points of troll anatomy. They're made of rock, and they don't breathe. Their hearts are diamond, and that gave me this imagery:
Throughout the story, I also tried to blend in the imagery of the city. Like above: "like snow over the teeming city". But also this one:
Overall, I'm very pleased with how the story turned out. The writing was easy and difficult at the same time. Perhaps I could have dwelt longer on the reconciliation, but by that time I was almost blubbering over my keyboard. I think that it packs more punch this way too.
So now over to you lot. Do you think my imagery worked? Does anything feel contrived or awkward, now that you know what I was trying to achieve? Does it succeed both as a fairytale, and a story of Christmas in New York?
But yes - for me, it succeeds on every level. I'd go into a deeper, proper review - but then I'd have to read the story again for a fourth time, and I don't know if I can handle that today. The story takes a t
