Aidan Trulove, "How to End Your Story"

Aidan Trulove is a writer from Austin, Texas, who specialises in experimental fiction, mostly fantasy and horror. She mainly writes for a Young Adult (YA) audience, though also enjoys horrifying her professors with her encyclopaedic knowledge of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, a film she has incorporated into all of her academic work (without penalisation). She has been published by the Agave Review and the Skyline Literary Magazine, and currently works as a bookseller and story competition judge. 

Below, Aidan has written a letter addressed to future MA Creative Writing hopefuls, discussing her time writing her dissertation, The Unchosen One. 

How to End Your Story

To My Fellow Creative Writers,

When our dear lecturer and head of program, Jonathan Taylor, asked me to write about my process in crafting my dissertation, I was a bit surprised. Not because of anything about Jonathan, but due what he now knows about my own personal style. Even after earning my MA, I’m really not the formal academic-type. Here again, I probably won’t reference much of the theory that I’ve learned, or the articles (the many, many articles) I’ve read on the practice of writing. Instead, I’m going to tell you in the most unabashed way I can what it felt like to write my dissertation: The Unchosen One.  

Probably not the most dramatic title I could have chosen, but too late now. 

I came into this program having a pretty clear idea of what I wanted to do. I knew I wanted to finish my book, the first book in my Young Adult fiction series, which up until recently I’ve been calling The Unchosen One. (I’m changing this title because, now that I work in bookselling, I’ve realized there’s a Middle Grade book by the exact same name). I’ve been working on this project since the start of the COVID pandemic, when I had nothing else going on. The story of Gwen, my protagonist, and her misadventures in the magical world of Iaxos, have been my constant companion through two degrees, my entire relationship with my now-fianceé, and a series of moves from Texas to California, California to Texas, and Texas all the way to England. 

Still, even as I crept closer to the end of Gwen’s story, I found myself unable to part with it. I was terrified to let the story end - to face the beckoning crescendo at the culmination of the piece, one I didn’t feel skilled enough to write. I knew where I wanted Gwen’s story to go, but I didn’t know how to get there. Hence, deciding to get my MA. 

The single most important thing I learned during my time at Leicester is this: all stories have to end. They can have a concrete ending, an open-ending, an ending that falls somewhere in-between, but there comes a time where the words on the page must simply stop. Whether it’s a five-line poem or a twelve-thousand word dissertation, it’s not healthy to keep a story going indefinitely, for you or your writing. Especially since I plan on writing more books, I was encouraged in my dissertation to take this plunge, and to find out what an ending looked like, for me and for Gwen. 

At first, it felt like I was flying blind, because the research I wanted about the theory behind YA books just doesn’t exist yet, given that it’s a relatively new genre. This led me to switch to a more practical approach: reading YA books, mainly ones that were the first in their series, to look at how they ended and think about why. Given the timespan for the MA, I mainly focused on series I already loved: Suzanne Collins’ Hungergames, Tracey Deonn’s Legendborn, and Tomi Adeyemi’s Legacy of Orïsha. I looked at these series, observing a) how the protagonists changed from the start to the end of the first book, b) what questions the end of the stories did/didn’t answer, and c) the overall effect of the ending on me as a reader. 

Between these factors, I noticed something: none of these stories came to a polished end. As they approached their final pages, they opened the worlds of their protagonists even wider, while also, as Harry Whitehead would put it, "chasing their characters up a tree and continuing to throw rocks at them." I also realized, it isn’t enough to scare your readers into caring about your main character, by simply leaving them dangling over a cliff. Most of the authors I read took things a step further, by using the very final moments of the book to take something away that their protagonists could never get back, and then, after backing them into a corner, finally allowing these figures to reach their true potential. 

To end, here is a small excerpt from one of the final chapters of my book. I hope you enjoy, and if you happen to be a fellow YA/fantasy/horror writer, don’t hesitate to ask Jonathan for my contact information. Writing is a team sport, and I couldn’t have done any of this without the advice of my lecturers, and the support of my peers. 

From The Unchosen One

Once when I was around fifteen, my family left me alone at the house for a few days. I was given free reign of the kitchen, with instructions to throw out any food in the fridge that I didn’t eat before it went bad. I forgot, and on the morning they came home, we opened the fridge to find a very brown, very sour steak that had sat too long and gotten exposed to air. My mom nearly threw up on the spot, and I was tasked with throwing out the old meat, along with cleaning out and sanitizing the entire fridge. That was the smell that reached me as I curled my shield into my body, only to feel something new, and wet, soaking the edge of my clothing ...

Good luck with your own writing! Yours truly,

Aidan Trulove

Joanna Nadin, "Birdy Arbuthnot's Year of 'Yes'"

Dr Joanna Nadin is the author of more than 90 books for children, teenagers and adults, including the Sunday Times-bestselling series The Worst Class in the World, and the Carnegie-nominated Joe All Alone, which is now a BAFTA-winning and Emmy-nominated BBC drama. She is an Associate Professor in Creative Writing at the University of Bristol and lives in Bath.

 

About Birdy Arbuthnot's Year of "Yes", by Joanna Nadin
Birdy Arbuthnot’s Year of "Yes" follows 18-year-old Margaret "Birdy" Arbuthnot from Surbiton to Soho in 1960, on her quest for a life less ordinary, and more like one in the novels she reads. It’s a companion novel to the Carnegie-nominated A Calamity of Mannerings, which was also a Sunday Times Book of the Week. The cover is by Anna Morrison, who also designed Anne Enright’s The Wren, The Wren.

1960 is knocking on the door, and eighteen-year-old Margaret "Birdy" Arbuthnot, presently of Surbiton, wants more than her current existence in the dull suburbs. She wants to LIVE – in capital letters! Could Soho, with its bright lights and dark corridors, hold the key to a life more novel-like and less … Surrey? (Even if Mummy thinks it is a square mile of vice, full of men with overly shiny shoes).

At the cusp of the new year, Birdy resolves to only say "yes" to everything for the next twelve months. She can’t possibly realise that her biggest "yes" will launch her directly into the London orbit of the aristocratic Mannering family, and transform her life into one worth writing novels about. 

From Birdy Arbuthnot's Year of "Yes" 

DECEMBER 1959

Saturday 26th December

11 a.m.

I write this sitting in the kitchen sink. Or, rather, I tried to, but the sink is perilously small and slippery, the ceramic draining board is horribly cold, and I was just wondering whether or not to run the hot water lest I get chilblains when my mother walked in. She said at eighteen it was high time I grew out of all that "Cassandra Mortmain nonsense" and in any case she needed it for scrubbing potatoes as Aunt Barbara (ambitious, bunions) and Uncle Roy (obsessed with war and golf) are coming for lunch, so please go and do whatever it is I was doing in somewhere more suitable, i.e. the dining room. I was about to point out that I am barred from the dining room (for reasons I cannot be bothered to explain here but suffice to say I vehemently disagree with) but I could tell she was in no mood to brook argument (her lips go inexplicably thin) so I have come upstairs to my bedroom and she has gone back to doing something inventive with mince.

So, in actuality, I write this sitting on lavender candlewick, whilst wishing, yet again, that my life were more novel-like. I shouldn’t even mind if it wasn’t I Capture the Castle, however attractive moving to a dilapidated mansion in East Anglia might be; I’d settle for anything disaffected and preferably French – like Cécile in Bonjour Tristesse, perhaps. Sadly there is no chance of torrid poolside affairs in Surbiton, where private swimming pools and disaffection are regarded with the same suspicion as are exotic pets and ambitious hair. Instead I am constrained by complete mediocrity. Even my name – Margaret – is average (Princess Margaret notwithstanding, as she is a goddess amongst women). Why can I not be a Calypso? A Viola? A Genevieve? 

Tracey Foster, "Deep Diving the YA Market: My Creative Writing Dissertation"

For my MA Creative Writing Dissertation last year I intended to write for the Young Adult market, classified as readers of twelve to eighteen years-old. This was a target market I knew a lot about after working as a secondary school teacher for over thirty years. This group of readers has seen an explosion in choice content over the last decade with a range of formats and new authors to choose from, names that now fill the shelves at Waterstones: Malorie Blackman, John Green, Suzanne Collins. This diverse content has covered a huge range of challenging and controversial issues, from genocide (Boy in the Striped Pyjamas), racism (Ghost Boys), teen pregnancy (Boys Don’t Cry), transgender (The Art of Being Normal), and bereavement (Holding Up the Universe). The bar was set high for me to write a novel to sit along these ranks.

My first mission was to read all the classics, novels that were not always written with this market in mind but have since become a go-to for adolescents. The current top 100 list compiled by TIME magazine (see here) features Lord of the Flies, Little Women and The Catcher in the Rye, novels that we were encouraged to turn to as children and that formed our early understanding of the adult world. As I reread all the classics, I began to feel undercurrent themes of loss, hardship, and inevitability. This was understandable as many of these authors wrote in a period either between or after the wars, when there was an uncertainty about our future and a pervading sadness about the human condition. William Golding witnessed the horrors of the D-Day landings before writing Lord of the Flies, George Orwell served in the Spanish Civil war before penning Animal Farm, J.R.R. Tolkien had served in the trenches in the First World War before starting on the idea that would become Lord of The Rings. A melancholy that pervades these books stems from the experiences of the writers, but when read by the young it seems to resound with their yearnings to find a place in the world. 

Modern stories have moved more directly to tackle issues that are current and all-consuming. Many authors today often choose to shift the narrative away from third-person description to a first-person perspective, and this gives the tone an immediacy and intimacy that appeals to modern readers - a confidential tone that appeals to younger readers and is a quick let-in to the action. Some authors have chosen to employ alternative voices to narrate each chapter, showing the scene from different viewpoint and allowing the reader to choose their favourite. The YA audience likes this approach as it works on a few levels, moving the action along and showing prejudice and preferences. This has led to a series of online formats pushing similar novels written in the multiperspectival style (see some examples here). 

One of the biggest outputs in the YA market in recent years has been the multicultural novel. Like buses, you wait several decades for one and then you get a whole shelf full. This has been one of the most successful areas of writing as the market seems to lap up these newcomers with open arms. Read avidly by all YA readers, the multicultural novel has explored all aspects of multiculturalism in society from many different viewpoints (see some examples here). 

The Carnegie Medal, first established in 1936, sought to identify and celebrate the best in British children’s literature. Its aim is to publicise and reward those authors whose works stay in the imagination long after closing the cover, and while the content may be challenging for the audience, the readers must leave with a sense of closure and pleasure. These books are sometimes not written for the YA market but become championed by it. They are often a good starting point when beginning to dip into the field of YA material and are usually available in most libraries. (See Carnegie Medal Winners here).

After spending a long summer reading as much YA material as I could get my hands on, I wanted to consult the experts and, having the target market close to hand, I thought I could survey my pupils on their reading habits. This required a few careful steps before starting. I needed to approach the Ethics Committee at the University of Leicester and also seek permission from the principal of my school. Secondary education is already protected by many safeguarding measures, and students' information is secured within an IT safe wall. I was able to use these systems to create a survey that asked my pupils about their literature preferences and dislikes. The online nature of this survey meant that I had complete control over the collection of the data and could interact with it as needed but always keep the student’s data anonymous. The Ethics Committee had to check my questions and the school’s safeguarding measures before giving me the green light to go ahead. Working with the head of English, we selected the students according to their English sets, choosing the ones most likely to be avid readers and asked the pupils to complete the survey over the summer break. (The school already had a cluster of students that took part in shadowing the Carnegie medal every year and who read and reviewed the short list together). The survey was very informal and used a Loom video to introduce and to personalise the task. All the students knew me well and the questions embedded this approach as I asked, ‘tell me,’ rather than ‘tell the school.’ From this lengthy questionnaire I sought to determine a few things.

• What they would recommend as their favourite reads, genre, format, author
• What they had a dislike for, authors, genres, particular novels
• What were the key themes, topics that they found engaging or a turnoff
• What topics were controversial to them, how easily were they shocked

I had no preconceptions about the survey results as these were discussions we had never had, and, more importantly, neither had the English department. Given that curriculum syllabi have spoon-fed a diet of classics for years without asking the audience what they really want to read, I found it fascinating that nobody had talked to the students before. What I found was an articulate, vocal, perceptive audience who most definitely had something to say about what they really wanted. Responses included the following:

‘I think that in today’s generation, there are very little topics that can be classified as extremely controversial due to progress for LGTBQ+, black and female rights. YA is arguably one of the most controversial genres due to the varied ages of the readers, but this is simply the nature of YA.’ 

‘I think things are controversial when they aren’t spoken about correctly. If they are talked about in a way that highlights issues people go through, then I think it is important to speak about them.’ 

‘I do not mind "disturbing" content as in the right context, it’s interesting. If I’m reading murder mystery, I would obviously want more gruesome descriptions. As long as the author isn’t being offensive themselves, they are allowed to make their characters antagonistic.’

‘Women are still considered inferior and instead of reading books with misogyny and about patriarchal societies we should read books about matriarchal societies and support female authors.’

The students identified their biggest pet-hates in novels as misogyny, animal cruelty and racism and instead recommended stories that had spoken to them. Clustered with the obvious best sellers was a surprising gem, Sylvia Plath’s Bell Jar. The YA popularity of this novel about a young woman’s decent into mental breakdown, subsequent hospitalisation and suicide attempt has even sparked mimicry by other authors, like Meg Wolitzer’s Belzhar. The students also suggested a few other novels not originally intended for the YA audience, showing that that are happy to browse the shop shelves and be discerning buyers. All of these novels showed a similar use of an informal first-person narrator, a clear voice, quick pace and the use of good metaphors. 

One of the best of the bunch was The Lie Tree by Francis Hardinge, winner of the Costa award. My original intention for my novel was to culminate with a horrendous accident in which the father is killed, so this book proved to be good research for both in technique and content. Teens are very adept at handling mortality and death is a topic often explored in YA fiction. The classics often set out with an orphan’s perspective to elicit empathy right from the start - e.g. Secret Garden, Jane Eyre, Great Expectations. This enables a confidential tone to the narration as we become their sole confidant in a lonely world.

I also set up a shadowing group at school and gave students the early drafts of my story to read. This process was invaluable, asking the readers what they think whist creating the plot. Hearing first-hand opinions on the scenario, pace and voice was really exciting. I can recommend this process to everyone as it was fascinating to hear what the readers inferred from my words and finding new perceptions that I hadn’t even intended. I was initially concerned about my opening paragraph as it stemmed from a real incident that had affected me as a child. The teenagers of my focus group were much less disturbed by the incident and even found the idea amusing. A viewing diet of TV and films means that the YA market is much more likely to have been exposed to death at a tender age. The survey had identified that young readers have a fast filter that enables them to quickly identify good and bad content and make their own decisions.

Concluding from this experience, I would recommend reading as much relevant material as you can get your hands on. Seek out your audience and, if possible, open a dialogue with them. Ask pertinent questions to determine what likes and dislikes your readers have and be open to criticism. Show them first drafts and allow them to find their own way through the plot you will be amazed what others perceive from your words. Listen to your readers to become a better writer.

Some useful links include:

• https://nybookeditors.com/2017/08/5-tips-for-marketing-your-ya-novel/
• https://www.penguinteen.com/2023-ya-book-preview/
• https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/childrens/index.html
• https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2013/10/the-8-habits-of-highly-successful-young-adult-fiction-authors/280722/

About the author
Tracey Foster started off in a long career as an Art and Design teacher but wanted to refocus her creative energies into writing poetry and prose. After helping others find inspiration in the world around us, she took an MA course in Creative Writing at Leicester University and has not looked back. She finds inspiration in the past and the events that shape us. Previous work has been published by Comma Press, Ayaskala, Alternateroute, Fish Barrel Review, Mausoleum Press, Bus Poetry Magazine, Wayward Literature and The Arts Council. 

Peter Kalu, "One Drop"

 

Pete Kalu writes crime fiction, scifi and YA novels. He also pens short stories in styles ranging from realist to surreal to the carnivalesque. Until recently, he ran a carnival band called Moko Jumbies. More on his website here and on Twitter @peterkalu and Instagram @petekalu.

About One Drop, by Peter Kalu

One Drop is  Malcolm X meets George Orwell: a dystopian novel that looks through eyes of two black teenagers – Axel and Dune – at what might happen if demagogues gained power and used technology to crush resistance. In war-torn Britain, inseparable Black Radicals Axel and Dune are arrested. With SIMs implanted in their heads, they are placed in a prison camp for those who defy the Bloods’ white supremacist government. The SIMs start brainwashing them with the Bloods’ evil philosophy, and drones constantly monitor their movements and thoughts. 

In this living nightmare, the couple battle to keep their love alive and to break free. The odds on survival are long. Dune and Axel have very different takes on how to escape. But when things come to a head, will their love hold them together and set them free, or will it tear them apart?

Below, you can read a short sample from One Drop.

 

From One Drop

The London Wind

The London wind had got up and was blowing bomb smoke from the south, from far beyond the fences that held us in. The smoke was a wall, maybe half a mile high and wide enough to blow across the entire prison camp, which it did. Soon we were choking in it. I wanted to duck down but Dune said ‘No, let’s stay out.’ 

So we gauzed up our mouths and noses and sat there, squinting, letting it blow over us. It surged on, tugging in its wake everything that had been trapped within it, and lifting up new stuff. Cinder from the cooking fires, rust from burned-out cars, bits of plastic, rags, a fugitive wanted poster. The smoke storm hurtled along, carrying alarmed cries from the tent zone and the screeches of birds that were pulling away before the rolling wall of smoke. 

We held onto each other, me and Dune. It blew over fast. No longer than twenty seconds. When I slipped off my gauze, I saw Dune was twitching, the pupils of their eyes flexing, and their limbs stiffening.

 They nudged me. - I think I’m fading, the drones are gumming me again.

- You’re not. You’re right here. 

- No, I can feel it, Axel. They’re at  me. They always coming for me.

- C’mon, Dune. We lickle but we strong, right?

- Don’t joke. I know they’re gumming me. Remember me, Ax. If I’m totally gummed. 

- OK.

- Remember me, Ax.

It was one effect of the gumming. The repetition.

- You’re OK. It’s passed.

I could see it had passed. Dune was OK. Shaken but OK. 

- Am I?

- Watch.

I put Dune in a headlock the way they loved, and they laughed and pretended to struggle, squirming and bucking and laughing into my halter top all at the same time.

I didn’t know it then but soon Dune would be gone and that would be the last time I headlocked them. Right now, their legs were kicking, their hips jerking, their lips rubbing the cotton straps at my collar bone, their Afro tickling my chin. 

- No way can you wriggle free, I got moves on moves!

 gif by Akinyemi Oludele, inspired by the book

A Masterclass from Bali Rai, by Rosalind Adam

The MA in Creative Writing at the University of Leicester joined together with Literary Leicester today to bring us an inspiring masterclass presented by Bali Rai.

Bali Rai was born in Leicester. He grew up in a multi-cultural, multiracial community, an experience that has had a definite influence on his writing. His first book was the best selling (Un)Arranged Marriage and he went on to become one of the UK's most successful YA authors. Today we were given a glimpse into his writing world, a chance to see how he has become so successful in his craft.

Bali Rai's enthusiasm was infectious.

"All humans are nosey parkers," he told us. We must make sure that our audience wants to know more. We must elicit in them first sympathy and then empathy for our characters. Throughout the afternoon he kept bringing us back to this point, to considering who our audience is when we are writing. How we can connect with the audience became his mantra.

He stressed how important it is to analyse each section, each paragraph. Every sentence needs to be there for a reason. If it doesn't have a reason then get rid of it and make sure all the content will connect with the audience. 

How well do we know our characters? He asks his characters questions about their habits, desires, emotions. Only when he knows the characters really well can he portray them in a three-dimensional way. Only then will they connect with the audience.

He dropped in many pieces of advice as he spoke, sharing lessons that he had learnt from experience. The beginning of a novel is the hardest and most important to get right. Character is more important than setting. If you find yourself staring at a blank screen then turn it off and take a break. And yes, as a writer he believes in ghosts. Why be rational? You're a creative writer! 

"Everything comes back to connection with the audience," he reminded us and he practiced what he preached. For this afternoon we were his audience and he certainly connected with us. We were with him all the way.


By Rosalind Adam, first published here.