Creative Writing Course - 4th week's homework.

When Doug asked us to read out our monologues last week, it became obvious that I had somehow ignored that it was meant to be about an accident that we, or someone we knew, had had.  I sat there for a few seconds wondering how Alzheimer's had caused me to forget the accident part, before scurrying through my notes and reading the instructions I had written down.  The notes read 'Think about when you or someone else had an accident and write a monologue.'  Damn!  It was even in my handwriting too.  I quickly recalled what I had written, wondering if I could pass it off as being about a metaphorical accident, but Doug was looking at me as if he wanted me to go first, so I decided to come clean.


After I had read mine out, Doug graciously said that it could have been about an accident and that the purpose of the exercise had been to make us look inside ourselves and drag out something poignant.  Everyone else read out stories about falling into a swollen river, being hit by a car, being on a train behind one that was blown up in a terrorist attack, falling off a toboggan or being knocked off a motorbike and run over by a bus causing his kidney to 'pop'!  How my story of becoming a publican fitted I wasn't sure.  Maybe Doug was suggesting that my career had been an accident (actually he has a point) or that not following my notes had been an accident, I don't know.  He did say he liked it and that mine had been a true monologue, so at least I'd grasped the concept of  'monologue' if not 'accident'.  He then added 'it was cynical - like we've come to expect from you' which rather pleased me, because that was what I had intended to portray, but then I wondered if he was referring to me being cynical rather than the monologue.  Do I really come across like that?  Chambers lists the following synonyms for 'cynical' - sceptical, doubtful, doubting, distrustful, disillusioned, disenchanted, pessimistic, negative, critical, scornful, derisive, suspicious, contemptuous, sneering, unsentimental, surly, scoffing, mocking, sarcastic, sardonic, ironic, bitter, embittered, worldly-wise, streetwise.  Hmm...that would be a 'yes' then!  Besides, I believe Doug used to work for the Daily Mirror and ought to know.  Nonetheless, I made a mental note to produce next time, something uplifting and joyous, just to confound him.


This week's homework is to continue the following opening line with a couple of paragraphs which 'hook' the reader into continuing reading.  'The day after my eighth birthday, my father told me ...'  At first glance this looked promising.  I could write '...that we were going camping/fishing/boating for the very first time'.  Nothing cynical there, but not much of a hook either.  Some of the best 'hooks' are problems or crises that compel the reader to stay and find out how the character resolves them.  I can't get excited about someone pitching a tent or waiting for a fish to bite, (boating has potential but I feel the 'hook' would take longer than a couple of paragraphs to develop unless I sank it the second they cast off). It seemed Doug had done it again.  What, on the face of it had looked easy, was proving to be difficult.  I decided to approach the question from the eight year-old's perspective.  What would be one of the most painful problems for them to deal with?  With my cynicism already aroused, I wrote the following, and afterwards questioned where from inside me it came.

The day after my eighth birthday, my father told me I was the reason mother had killed herself.  He spat the words through clenched teeth, close enough for his spittle to sting my face.  I cowered in the corner, waiting for the inevitable beating.  I wished he would just get on with it.  I’d learnt to cope with physical pain years ago.  I didn’t even cry any more.  I’m sure that was why he no longer bothered beating me so hard.  He knew mental cruelty was much more harrowing and the scars less visible to doctors and social workers.

Later, in my room, I mopped the blood from my face with toilet paper.  I had stolen a roll from the bathroom the previous week, hoping he wouldn’t notice it was missing from the new pack.  Downstairs I could hear him crying as usual.  Poor dad.  I wished I didn’t hurt him so much.  I wanted to go down and give him a hug.  I wanted him to cuddle me.  I wanted to say sorry for being a bad son, but he would see my apology as a ploy to be allowed food or to watch TV.  That might start him off again.  My belly ached with hunger but I knew I didn’t deserve supper, as I hadn’t deserved lunch or breakfast.   So I stayed in my room, huddled under the sheet still damp from last night’s accident, hoping that by morning it would be dry and I wouldn’t have to tell him about it.