My online writing course is continuing with Strathclyde University. I started this quest last autumn, seeking something to motivate me into regular writing. It did work for a wee bit – I must admit at present I am not managing to keep up a daily habit.
But the weekly tasks have been thought-provoking and force me to show work to people (even if they are relative strangers). It’s good to get feedback and try and see the piece from a reader’s point of view.
Prompts
One of the recent tasks was to look at a photo and write a complete story in 300 words. I have written about this ‘flash fiction’ before. On a earlier course, we were challenged to write a story in 50 words, using a prompt set by the Scottish Book Trust.
This time, our tutor gave us a photo and a list of questions designed to get us thinking about who the people in the picture were, what their relationship was and what their conflict might be.
The picture showed an couple dancing together, while from behind a gate in the background, another man was watching. You could see the dancing man’s face – he was older, bald and wearing dark sunglasses, the woman was in a floral dress, with permed hair and had her back to us. The man at the gate was also wearing sunglasses, a shirt and tie and trousers.
This is all we had to go on.
I quite enjoyed this task, though my story did take some time to emerge. For me, there was a 1950s aesthetic to the woman and the man at the gate. It made me think of someone dancing at the end of the world – I have just watched the TV series, Fallout. But I also thought there was a relationship between the people. There was something in the dancing man’s expression that suggested he was determined not to look at the man at the gate. I’ll show you my story in a bit.
Labyrinth
At the same time, by coincidence, I listened to a New Yorker podcast featuring a reading of Labyrinth by Roberto Bolaño, a Chilean writer (1953-2003).
In the podcast, writer Sterling HolyWhiteMountain read the story and discussed it with fiction editor Deborah Triesman. (I am very far behind in my podcast listening. This one came out in February and I got to it on my list in May).
The story is written about a photo, which you can see here. It features a number of people, a group of intellectuals, sitting at a table at a Paris cafe, looking at the camera.
Bolaño’s story starts so innocuously, by naming the people, describing the table. He moves onto to describe each person and their relationship with the others.
And then, it takes a turn and he’s imagining what they do beyond this moment in time. Imagining what each is thinking in the moment of the photo being taken and then where they go and what they do for the rest of the day. Until night-time and then we’re back at the photo and he’s off in a different direction with each person.
At first, I was listening in an incidental way, doing something else, with the podcast on in the background. But slowly, I was sucked in – it was a twisting tale with an apt title. I really want to listen again or read the story on paper. I’d never read anything like it before and it made me want to try the exercise with the photo I had been given.
Waltzing
I haven’t tried Bolaño’s approach yet. My story was nothing so sophisticated – you can read it below. Do you know of any other short stories inspired by photographs?
The sunshine cast long lines across the paving stones and from his position outside the gate, Paul followed their yellow path inside the compound. He had never understood they put boards over the bars, especially since it wasn’t covered entirely. Why leave that sliver for people to see in?
Feet interrupted the light. Two dancers had broken free of the main group and come closer to the gate, almost close enough for him to reach through the gap and touch. The man wore dark sunglasses like Paul’s. The woman gazed everywhere except at Paul.
‘Excuse me, sir.’
At the edge of his vision, there was a uniformed woman standing by the gate post to the left. He kept watching the couple in their graceful clasp, waltzing across the wide driveway.
‘Sir, you have to leave now.’
He sighed and looked down to his feet.
‘They always send you to do the dirty work, don’t they, Jennifer?’
‘You’d miss me if they didn’t.’
Beyond the couple, Paul saw the banners and the tables of food and the familiar faces. None looked his way.
‘It’s time to go, Paul.’
He stared through the gate.
‘Why do they leave this gap? And why do they dance there, right in front of me?’ He shook his head. ‘How many times do I have to say sorry?’
‘I don’t want to call security, Paul, not like last year.’
Paul stepped up to the gate, holding the bars and poking his face through as far as it would go.
‘I’m sorry,’ he shouted at the couple. ‘Do you hear me, Pa? I’m sorry.’
Other guests murmured and looked towards him. The man and woman kept dancing.
He stepped back and walked past Jennifer.
‘See you next year.’
Jane Candlish 
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