Our Writer Of The Week is Charlotte Marion.
Charlotte’s story, “Dancing Feet”, appears in the January 9 issue of the magazine.
The love of ballet is core to the story. Does this stem from your own interest in dance?
As a young girl I always wanted to dance but never had the opportunity to have lessons.
Instead, I would hold on to the back of my grandmother’s chair and practice all the ballet positions from pictures in a book. As soon as I had a daughter of my own, she was signed up – luckily, she loves it!
Belief and resolve are two character traits in the story. As a writer, is it important that your characters obtain their goals, or is it more about the story journey, whether successful or not?
It is always about the story journey. Like in life, I find you will discover so much about yourself on the way to a goal that often the goal keeps moving.
I like to try and build up my characters to believe in themselves, regardless of the obstacles that I put in their way. Sometimes they don’t make the original goal but they will still feel empowered by the end.
This is your first “Friend” success. Does it make it easier or harder to write your next story, already knowing you have had a story published in the magazine?
I always start off writing stories for myself with no pressure and no end place set for them.
I take the ideas I have gathered and play with the characters until I get something that either myself or a loved one might like to read.
Only then, I might begin to think about having it published. This way allows me to be as creative as I want.
You wrote the story in the first person present tense. Do you decide which direction a story should go in at the ideas/planning stage, or when you first start to write down the words?
I have a personal preference for the first person as I get sucked into “being” the character whilst I am tapping away at the keyboard.
I have written in other tenses before, but I am at my most happiest when I am “living and breathing” the character I am writing about.
Generally, I don’t know what the outcome of my stories will be when I start out and just let my imagination run wild.
It is only through editing that I start to be more structured with my story.
Notebook and pencil or laptop? Kitchen table or study? Blank wall or inspiring view?
Notebook and pencil every time. I have so many scattered around my house – all filled with ideas of characters or things that have happened in the news or just in the street.
A half conversation or a picture I have seen will all be scribbled down and sat waiting for me to bring it to life at the laptop.
P.S., What’s your one top tip for an aspiring Writer Of The Week?
Write something every day. Don’t wait for the perfect time – it will never come.
Scribble a few words or lines a day. It will all add up and may even take you to some wonderful places that you can only ever dream of.
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Alan Spink I am a member of the “Friend” Fiction Team. I enjoy working closely with writers and being part of the creative process, which sees storytelling ideas come to fruition. A keen reader, I also write fiction and enjoy watching football and movies in my spare time. My one tip to new writers is “write from your imagination”.
