{"id":973,"date":"2018-03-06T13:11:42","date_gmt":"2018-03-06T13:11:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/WritingTutors\/?p=973"},"modified":"2018-03-06T13:17:50","modified_gmt":"2018-03-06T13:17:50","slug":"unusual-places-notes-on-short-story-writing-by-louise-tondeur","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/WritingTutors\/?p=973","title":{"rendered":"Unusual Places: Notes on short story writing by Louise Tondeur"},"content":{"rendered":"

Using live writing to create short stories<\/strong><\/p>\n

When I wrote my short story collection, I mainly used a technique that I call \u2018live writing\u2019. Others have called it \u2018writing in situ\u2019. I went to a particular place to write. I usually did this longhand in a notebook. Sometimes I spent the day writing a first draft of a story, on other occasions I got some ideas down and wrote the story at home \u2013 this depended on the environment itself. I wrote the second and subsequent drafts at home, referring to images of the places I had visited.<\/p>\n


\nA patch of nettles: where it all started<\/strong><\/p>\n

I started using this technique at Totleigh Barton https:\/\/www.arvon.org\/centres\/totleigh-barton<\/a> (the Arvon centre in Devon) when the tutors asked us to watch something outside for 45 minutes. This was a revelation to me (aged 19) as I had never watched anything for that long, and hadn\u2019t meditated or anything similar. I realised how much detail you get involved in if you watch something for an extended period of time.<\/p>\n

At Arvon we were simply watching \u2013 not writing. I watched a patch of nettles. I wrote afterwards. I began to understand that there was something about being in the environment itself that helped me to write. It wasn\u2019t only the observation, it was also being immersed in the experience of being there.<\/p>\n


\nThe natural world<\/strong><\/p>\n

Most of the stories I have written using \u2018live writing\u2019 have been in towns and cities and weren\u2019t \u2013 like my Arvon experience \u2013 about being thoroughly immersed in the natural world. However, nature does play a big part and I found that trees in particular were an unintentional theme throughout the collection. Again, unintentionally, most of my live writing excursions involved finding the natural world in an urban environment. I wrote at the Garden Museum in Lambeth, the College Garden at Westminster Abbey, in Chiswick Park, and in Kensington Gardens for instance.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the story I wrote in Kensington Gardens, called \u2018The Swim\u2019: http:\/\/www.viewfromheremagazine.com\/2013\/06\/the-swim-by-louise-tondeur.html<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

The Round Pond, Kensington Gardens, London, where I wrote ‘The Swim’. \u00a9 Copyright Paul Gillett (licensed for reuse under the Creative Commons License).<\/p><\/div>\n

Research<\/strong><\/p>\n

I had a few guide books to help me find my way to quirky locations in London. The stories aren\u2019t all set in London, but it was where I was living when I started. I began writing my short stories this way a while back (in the early 2000s) \u2013 and there seem to be several more books about hidden or secret or unusual London now. Try searching with those key words and you\u2019ll see what I mean! I also found sites such as London Walks (http:\/\/www.walks.com\/<\/a> ) very useful.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Unusual Connections<\/strong><\/p>\n

I find I tend to make unusual connections between stories when I used live writing. For example, one character \u2013 someone whose face had been disfigured \u2013 came across very strongly and I realised that they were appearing in several of the stories, including \u2018The Swim\u2019. I turned this into one long short story called \u2018Unusual Places.\u2019<\/p>\n

I named the whole collection \u2018Unusual Places\u2019 because of the way in which I set about writing the stories in the collection.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Four rules & several cafes<\/strong><\/p>\n

I had a few friendly rules which helped me to choose places to go and write:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. The place had to be free to get into. (I only deviated from this once \u2013 at the Garden Museum in Lambeth! https:\/\/gardenmuseum.org.uk\/<\/a> )<\/li>\n
  2. The place had to have something unusual, secret, hidden or quirky about it.<\/li>\n
  3. The place had to have access to tea and shelter from the rain.<\/li>\n
  4. There had to be somewhere to write \u2013 at least a bench, for instance.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    This meant that I ended up writing in a lot of caf\u00e9s, so caf\u00e9s feature in the story somewhat. All of these are fictionalised. My favourite was the caf\u00e9 in Red Ruth in Cornwall, with its cosy atmosphere and open fire place, which I think has since closed, and formed the basis of the story \u2018Red Roof\u2019 \u2013 of every fictional place I invented, I wish Red Roof was a real place!<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

    Adventures by train<\/strong><\/p>\n

    Now the collection is finished, I\u2019m still using the technique to write. My most recent use of live writing was on a trip to the Cumbrian coast where I wrote on the train (it\u2019s a long way from the South of England!). I find it very useful to write on a journey or an \u2018adventure\u2019 and to go somewhere I have never been before. I see this as a development of the live writing technique. I prefer to write short stories this way, rather than writing at my desk.<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

    Where to find the collection<\/strong><\/p>\n

    My short story collection comes out with Cultured Llama Press in May 2018, when it will be available from here: http:\/\/www.culturedllama.co.uk\/<\/a><\/p>\n

    Louise Tondeur, Sussex, March 2018.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Using live writing to create short stories When I wrote my short story collection, I mainly used a technique that I call \u2018live writing\u2019. Others have called it \u2018writing in situ\u2019. I went to a particular place to write. I … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":172,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[122,74],"tags":[169,170,168,171,152],"class_list":["post-973","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-writing","category-short-stories","tag-live-writing","tag-london","tag-short-stories","tag-unusual-places","tag-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/WritingTutors\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/973","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/WritingTutors\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/WritingTutors\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/WritingTutors\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/172"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/WritingTutors\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=973"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/WritingTutors\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/973\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":977,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/WritingTutors\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/973\/revisions\/977"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/WritingTutors\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=973"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/WritingTutors\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=973"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/WritingTutors\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=973"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}