Percy the Pebble

[soft ayperth]

Hi, everyone. I'm a new member. Haven't had the gall to post anything yet but, what the heck, I'm giving it a go. You can be as brutal as you wish in posting your comments. After a career in the education field, I've learned to handle criticism.

 

By way of background, I was taking a creative writing course last Autumn run by the extension department of our university. Alright, Seniors' College. Why bother with euphemisms?

 

The instructor wanted us to use our imaginations, so she passed around a bag of pebbles. We each took one. Each of us had to pretend we were the pebble and compose a story about our exploits, life history, etc.

 

Here is my effort:

 

http://sheffieldwriters.ath.cx/SFStoryArchive/1234814121.doc

 

Off to a rocky start?

[Tallyman]

rogG

 

A warm welcome to the group, and thank you for submitting your first piece

 

This is an interesting exercise in creative writing, tackling the problem of putting yourself inside another entity and describing how you see the world. I remember one of the regularly punishments at school was to write a thousand words on the inside of a ping-pong ball!

 

By way of constructive criticism, two things come to mind:

 

Firstly, when writing numbers, I'd suggest choosing to do it all in figures (200,155,001 years, 6 months and 5 days) or all in text (Two hundred million, one hundred and fifty five thousand and one years, six months and five days); a mix of the two seems ungainly somehow.

 

And secondly, there's the question of your point of view. You're a pebble; you have your own experience of the world: the many millions of years you have lived; the elements that have affected you; your 'other half', Patsy. Your perception of the world is limited by your experiences and your own ability to understand them.

 

As a pebble, you may have experienced being on the receiving end of a dog's bladder evacuation, but it's the sensation you feel; you don't know it's a dog, or an animal, and you don't have the ability to describe it as such. You don't know what a deck chair is or what it's called; you don't know what humans are.

 

What I'm suggesting, for what it's worth, is that one aspect of this exercise worth pursuing is the challenge of describing the world using only such terms that might be appropriate to a pebble's vocabulary, but in such a way as to convey that meaning to a human reader. Percy wouldn't know a dog, but he might have the sensation of a dark shadow blocking the daylight above him, feel the vibrations of short, repeated, intermittent yelps, experience the air swished about him as he is whipped by something soft and furry, hear a distant 'Here boy!', and feel a warm stream splash over him.

 

I know it's not perfect, but it's the idea of an entity like a pebble expressing his experiences in such a way that we understand what he's going through, even if he doesn't. That makes us, the readers, feel quite superior and helps to make a connection with the story. For examples, could I suggest The Book Of Dave by Will Self, and Fluke by James Herbert.

 

As with all my ramblings, feel free to ignore it all! Most importantly, please post more writing

[coyleys]

Hi rogG, and welcome to the group.

This is an interesting one, and one I would not fancy tackling.

We could get really pedantic here, the likes of; he compares his colour to chocolate and ivory, I would be more incline to use a comparison something with his usual surroundings, It’s very hard not to view things from a human perspective.

Tally summed it up much better than I.

I think; if the most creative writer were to attempt this, we could pick spots all day.

Having said that, I think you did a grand job mate, and look forward to reading more.

Nice one rogG

[soft ayperth]

Thanks Tallyman and coyleys. Your points are well taken. Actually, it's a perspective of the assignment we were given that hadn't occurred to me. But you're absolutely right. The vocabulary and understanding of a pebble would be limited, yet I've superimposed those attributes of a human upon it. To be honest, the entire class did the same thing. The purpose of the exercise, in the words of the instructor, was to get the mindset of the class "away from I did this, then I did that, always in the first person." So, she didn't really care about the vocabulary. In that sense, and that alone, we all wrote our pieces like a children's' story - the English-speaking Charlotte in the web, Toad of Toad Hall etc. Because I have a science background, she implored me, tongue in cheek, not to write about the number of elements or molecules in the pebble. Thinking outside the box, using imagination were the goals.

 

I do recognize that for a literary audience it would need some work. Yet, there was a different audience for this piece. I was asked to recite it at a local public gathering. I wanted to get a few smiles and a chuckle and it did succeed in that respect. Around the time I wrote the piece I was looking at some old family photos. The scene, probably Cleethorpes, was almost exactly like I had described it. My grandparents and aunts, dressed to the nines, ties and bonnets on, sat on deck chairs, slurping mugs of tea. A caricature, but I found it hilarious. How to get this across to a bunch of Canadians who've never done any of that? I had to keep the vocabulary crisp.

 

Please don't take any of the above as me being in any way dismissive of your comments. As already stated, I value them very much as they've revealed an angle that hadn't occurred to me. What is evident to me is something I should have thought about as a guiding principle, i.e. the writing needs to fit the readership.

 

I don't plan to do anything in particular with this piece. I have a number of other short pieces that I've written. I'll take a look at them along with others that are to be written and in due course, send selected ones your way. This is a new experience for me.

 

Thanks again.

[coyleys]

Because I have a science background, she implored me, tongue in cheek, not to write about the number of elements or molecules in the pebble.

.

 

I think that is exactly what I would have done, where does the life of a pebble start; a molecule drifting in space, a drop of molten lava or a grain of sand, indeed, even a grain of sand has a history.

This is one of those subjects that students debate into the early hours of the morn, along with cheap cider or wine.

[Ron Blanco]

Hi rogG,

 

I liked your story.

 

Despite Tallyman's excellent comments, I am quite tolerant of the way you bent the rules. I suppose if we were being really fussy we might also query whether a pebble would be writing a story at all, let alone mastering the internet and posting it on this forum.

 

I liked your pebble's character. He seemed quite amiable and laid back about things. I think you probably would become like that after all that time. However, I would like to have seen a little more emotion following his split with Patsy, they had been together for millions of years after all. Perhaps if that aspect had been extended it would have fitted nicely with this month's theme. Although you would also need a flashback. Maybe to dinosaur times? When he was p***ed on by a diplodocus??

[soft ayperth]

Hi rogG,

 

I liked your story.

 

Despite Tallyman's excellent comments, I am quite tolerant of the way you bent the rules. I suppose if we were being really fussy we might also query whether a pebble would be writing a story at all, let alone mastering the internet and posting it on this forum.

 

I liked your pebble's character. He seemed quite amiable and laid back about things. I think you probably would become like that after all that time. However, I would like to have seen a little more emotion following his split with Patsy, they had been together for millions of years after all. Perhaps if that aspect had been extended it would have fitted nicely with this month's theme. Although you would also need a flashback. Maybe to dinosaur times? When he was p***ed on by a diplodocus??

 

Thanks Ron. Interesting ideas there. Well, you never know, I could build it into this month's theme, although Feb is almost gone now. We'll see. Cheers.

[Tallyman]

[snip]...I suppose if we were being really fussy we might also query whether a pebble would be writing a story at all, let alone mastering the internet and posting it on this forum.

 

Good point well made RB