Novelist and Creative Writing Tutor, Adrienne Dines, had members laughing with the funny stories she shared during her talk on storytelling and imagination. Adrienne
Write a 300-word piece of creative writing, taking inspiration from any of the following prompts:
Season’s turn
That one small light
When you said
Adrienne very generously took the time to speak with each competition entrant who attended on the night, and give them feedback on their entries.
And the winners are…
First Place: Butterflies by Julian Richardson
Second Place: Just In Case by Francesco Sarti
Third Place: Books by Sam Christie
Highly Commended: That One Small Light by Damon L. Wakes
First Place: Butterflies by Julian Richardson
Well crafted, used dialogue and setting to move the story forward along both the plot line (building up to the bust-up), and the emotional arc (when he realises what’s lost after the last butterfly is turned).
‘peppery with the smell of ozone’ – great sense of place. Not just where it happened, but working as a character in the story. Loved the pacing in this too.
Adrienne Dines
The new fridge arrives on Monday. By Thursday, we’ve sunk into an unpleasant morning routine, bickering about it in the kitchen.
“When you said it was big, I didn’t think you meant…” Angela points at the refrigerator, looming like a giant silver robot in the space where the dog bed used to be.
“You wanted it!” I complain.
“I didn’t mean this one!” Her eyes and mouth are narrow slits. I turn away and face the fridge. The installer left a row of colourful magnetic butterflies stuck high on the shiny metal door. I turn one around so that its little metal antennae face the floor. The three to its left already face down; the three to its right, still look optimistically upward, oblivious to the consequences of future arguments. What will happen when we reach the end of the row?
“Are you ignoring me? David?”
I do ignore her. I’m not stupid enough, or brave enough, to fight when she’s like this.
I open the fridge. A wave of cold air flows over me, peppery with the smell of ozone. The glass shelves, half empty, are still clean, except where our son, Alex, has left a ring of chocolate milk next to a plastic-wrapped leg of lamb.
Alex has a football game today. Afterwards, we’ll have a big dinner: roast lamb, potatoes, brussels sprouts cooked the way only Angela knows. A glass of wine, or two. Once, we might have snuck to bed early, and crossed our fingers that Alex wouldn’t hear us over his video games. Not today. Not this week, this month.
But the roasts are really good.
I look at the row of butterflies. I can’t imagine turning the last one.
“We don’t have to keep the fridge,” I say.
“Let’s give it a few more days,” she replies.
“And these?” I pull the magnetic butterflies off the fridge.
“They’re hideous, aren’t they?”
I nod, and toss them in the bin.
Second Place: Just In Case by Francesco Sarti
Great use of a child’s voice to juxtapose the child’s perception of what’s happening on the surface with what he senses is threatening below. Sentence length varied for dramatic effect – this would be even more sinister read aloud. Great writing.
Adrienne Dines
It’s a fine balance, you know, and I can’t leave it to my little brother.
This house’s volume is always shifting, like a bad recording of an action movie, and I’m always turning up and down the speakers to catch words or hide noises.
I don’t have a remote for the house as I do for the telly, but that’s ok. I’ve learned to tinker with what I have.
Sometimes I steal frying pans to use as weapons and challenge my brother to a duel. Our battles muffle the slamming of doors, the smashing of dishes, and the screams, when not too loud or too graphic, make up the sound of our imaginary crowds.
Sometimes we play video games, and by the time we’re finished, our eyes are red and sore. I don’t like when he asks if Mum plays too, though.
It’s not as easy when we need to be quiet.
If whispers ooze into the corridor, or the couch rumbles with heavy snoring, like a dragon’s cave, I need to turn down the volume.
I put headphones on my brother’s ears, let him stream a horror film on my phone, even if it’ll give him nightmares, and I wear my fluffy slippers all year round.
There’s always something to do during silences. Especially at night. There’s always that one small light behind the plant, the one Mum keeps forgetting to turn off, the one that seems to shine for me.
Sometimes I grab crisps and candies from the larder. Sometimes I swipe the floor from broken glass. Sometimes I place cutleries back in the drawer.
Sometimes, though, when the silence is alive, and I know games won’t help, I keep a knife for myself, to store it under my pillow.
Just in case.
Third Place: Books by Sam Christie
I think this story could be developed – maybe name the specific books and let the convos flow, but given the word count restriction, well done. I liked the story within a story (the lady of the house moving coffee table books/ what people in toilets read) – funny and irreverent.
Adrienne Dines
– Why are we here again? I mean, I don’t mind now we’re all together, I find it rather cosy.
– Can’t say old bean, but it is better than rubbing shoulders with all the other unread classics in that draughty hallway.
– Yes, it’s nice to slide up against the sexy coffee table number written by that famous singer. I notice that the lady of the house moves it from time to time depending on the type of guest.
– Try being a coffee table book, mate. I haven’t been leafed for years. I am a totem, regardless of what racy nonsense lies within my folds. I have more in common with the knick-knacks on the sideboard.
– You think you’ve got problems. Have a go at being a bog book, sitting for hours on the top of a cold, damp cistern waiting for someone to expose their backside and then continue to disdainfully peruse the first page. Notably, no one ever gets as far as to find out why E=mc2.
– I think they’ve got a book with a corkscrew in it. It’s not even a book. Callously hollowed out as it is to provide literary based amusement during wine and cheese evenings.
– Why are we here again?
– They haven’t touched us in years. It’s all that flappy snap of those tablets and that weird pallid glow on their vapid faces.
– I suppose the field of intellectual operations is wider on that big TV.
– Er, this is all a bit odd, we’re arranged in a sort of pyramid. And we’re outside.
– Yes, and what’s that glow? That one small light getting closer and closer?
– That’s a flame, buddy. That’s from a match. I should know, I’m a 1970s science textbook; a veteran.
– I am a history tome. This is not good.
Highly Commended: That One Small Light by Damon L. Wakes
I love the ending to this particularly. Byfleet the time we are better end of time in the third paragraph, we’re pretty sad but then.. that one small light. Great use of repetition for effect.
Adrienne Dines
In approximately 800-900 million years, increasing luminosity of the sun will have disrupted the Earth’s inorganic carbon cycle to the extent that all plant life dies, with multicellular life of all kinds following shortly after. In approximately 3-4 billion, the planet’s core will freeze and the atmosphere will boil. In perhaps 8 billion, the moon will shatter into a ring of debris, if the sun has not grown large enough to swallow it. But by the time this story is set, this is of no concern. By the time this story is set, these events are not even a memory.
A hundred billion years or so more, and no map names Sol. Nor could anybody say where the Milky Way once ended or Andromeda began. As continents once crawled across an ancient sphere, so do these two galaxies crawl across the heavens: but rather than splitting, they form a new Pangaea. The people of this place journey between its stars, wringing iron from asteroids and fuel from gas giants in pursuit of new frontiers. But even this is still too soon. By the time this story is set, those frontiers have all been conquered.
A hundred and fifty billion years in the future—more than ten times the age of our universe now—the sky beyond the galaxy is dark. One by one, all other lights have slipped beyond the particle horizon. All other lights, that is, but one. From the farthest reaches of the galaxy, against a backdrop of unbroken night, anyone can see it. But this requires the most powerful of telescopes, and it grows fainter all the time. To suggest this is another world—untouched and forever out of reach—is heresy. Besides: why would no histories record it, and why would there be just the one?
But still those with telescopes look out and wonder: what is it?
That one small light.
That one small light.
That one small light.
