Keeping secrets

There are several reasons why a fiction writer might initially deprive readers of information. The most common is that the story is being told in chronological order - the reader knows as much as the characters as they progress through the story. But there are other reasons -

• In a Whodunit the reader's not usually aware of all the past events. There are reasons why some characters keep secrets, and reasons why some other characters (who are representatives of the reader) want to know those secrets.
• There may be a delay giving information to the reader because the Point-of-View character may not consider the matter of any immediate importance. In a first-person piece, it may not pass through the character's mind that they're (say) called Sue, that they're a white woman (rather than a cat), aged 53, living on Earth (rather than Mars) in 1980 and they're childless. Such details often become clear later, indirectly.
  Do such delays matter? Without an initial infodump they're hard to prevent. Sometimes the punchline of a story works by revealing that the reader's assumption about a detail is wrong (e.g. the person's actually in a wheelchair) causing the reader to re-interpret the story (ah, so that's why they never went upstairs).
  First-person pieces in particular are prone to such delays. They can be irritating - rather than guess the gender, age etc (by default giving the persona their own traits), readers may suspend judgement, keeping multiple possibilities laboriously in mind. If readers guess too early and later find out they guessed incorrectly, they can lose their sense of immersion.
• In some books I've recently read there's an info-dribble rather than an info-dump - at the end of chapters a new piece of biographical information is revealed. Sometimes in a first-person narrative the details are increasingly embarrassing, so it's understandable why the info was withheld. More often it comes over as an authorial ploy.
• The withheld information may be in the forefront of the main character's mind - e.g. we're told that they're on the way to a funeral, but we're not told whose; the character tells us that they've just made a huge mistake, but we're not told what.
  It's a standard literary trick to add suspense, but unless it's psychologically justified (perhaps the persona's desperately suppressing the info) it feels contrived to me, an attempt to make musings into a page-turner.
• Information is often withheld because at the time of writing the author considered it irrelevant. However, to the reader the information may be crucial to the understanding of the piece. If, for example, readers don't know the era/setting of a piece, how can they interpret a character's casual use of the "N" word? This contextual information is often provided from outside the text.

A key issue is whether curiosity is incited, or indeed, whether readers even know that information is missing. Some readers want to know about the characters' appearance, the location, etc, and expect to be told the details sooner or later. But not all authors think such details are necessary. Not all first-person protagonists have names.

Dorset 2026

I stayed in a thatched cottage by Corfe Castle for 2 nights, visiting 2 old pubs. At night I took a photo of the standard jigsaw puzzle view.

The castle attracts artists and photographers. It's visible from miles away. It wasn't destroyed in a battle, it was deliberately ruined ("slighted").

It's common for National Trust places to have secondhand books. Inside the castle walls there's this hut.

A steam train from Swanage goes to Corfe, providing further photo-opportunities. We walked to Swanage on the hills and caught the train back. More books were available at the station.

We walked from Sandbanks Ferry along to beach to Swanage, seeing this seaside bookshop. We visited Brownsea Island too (a first for me). Red squirrels live there, and Corfe Castle is visible. We caught a ferry there from Poole quay where there was a poster advertising "Drag Bingo" - another first for me.

Using my free bus pass I went to nearby Wareham. "Anglebury House" is the pub where Hardy often wrote. Anglebury is what he called Wareham in his novels. On the side of the pub is a sign banning Traction Engines.

Bookshops - specialist shelves

The bookshops that impress me have "Short stories" sections. They're mostly in Dublin, though the Amnesty International shop in Cambridge and Saffron Walden's Oxfam shop have story sections. The Oxfam bookshop in Islington doesn't have one, though it has a section for "Literary Magazines" - Acumen, Pennine Platform, etc.

Blackwells in Oxford has a "poetry pamphlets" section.

"Poetry" shelves often have an "Anthologies" section. The Islington bookshop has that, and also has a section I've never seen before - "Contemporary Poetry" - which includes pamphlets and many slim volumes. It makes sense to display the spineless pamphlets in boxes - it makes browsing easier, like fingering through LPs in the olden days.

CB1, September 6th - Sue Rose

Though September's supposed to be the quietest month, there was a decent audience for headliner Sue Rose. Several of her poems were about identity, using Hebrew letters as a way to delve into her Jewish roots. Among the open-mic pieces were translations from German and Chinese. Anne Berkeley, Jane Monson and Joanne Limburg were among the readers. The supposedly nervous first timers did the longest poems again.

Books

At Burghley House the system of bells included bells labelled "Library" and "Anti Library". I know what they mean.

I keep books/magazines hidden away in the wardrobes - sections are: Prose magazines, Prose anthologies, Short story collections (maybe the biggest section), Flash collections, Novels (8 of them), Poetry magazines, Poetry anthologies, Theory, Magazines I'm in.

Here's a rare sighting of one of my books in Waterstones, next to Christopher Logue. I saw my poetry pamphlet in an Edinburgh secondhand bookshop once.

I don't know why the Ely Oxfam shop had this label on the bookshelves - Tim's Literature Labyrinth".

I used to borrow from Cambridge University library. I miss it. It's a copyright library so in theory there are millions of books to choose from.

Writers circles

My local writers group began as a "Circle" in 1948. It removed "Circle" from its name decades ago because of the connotations that "Circle" had then. Those connotations are less scary now, and recent changes in the literary world make me wonder if it's time for a circle revival.

On "What Is a Writers Circle?" Katherine Payne writes "A writers circle has many similarities to a workshop group. Perhaps I’m putting too fine point on it, but for me, the name is significant. A “workshop” calls up images of an apprenticeship model where a master of a particular craft demonstrates and works with students as they develop proficiency and then mastery within that particular craft. For writing this is an important model and the backbone of the majority of creative writing programs. I in no way want to denigrate that model as I have benefited from it immensely and know many others who have as well.
But a “writers circle” calls up slightly different connotations. “Circle” is a flexible term that can refer to any group of people who associate with each other. It is freed from the apprenticeship model, as a circle implies equality and a bond shared among members. A geometry that can be turned in any direction. It also has feminist undertones, such as a “sewing circle” that might provide a space for consciousness raising among a group of women.

Fair enough, but I think circles have problematic connotations too. The word still puts off ambitious writers. To me, the word brings to mind a circle of chairs with their backs to the outside world. Artists groups have similar issues. The cliché about village Artists Circles is that they focus on portraits, landscapes, and still lifes as if Art ended at Impressionism. Members paint for themselves, and join a group so that they can paint for themselves better. Each year they exhibit their work in the village hall. When challenged, members (who aren't young) declare that they might not know much about art but they know what they like. This is an unfair description of some groups I know, but that cosiness/isolationism is always a risk with local creative groups, and difficult to reverse. The membership numbers might not decay, but the group members get ever fewer successes, and budding, prospective visitors won't come again.

What's wrong with people enjoying creating together? Nothing's wrong - I think each town/village should have such a group. After all, not every artist wants to be Tracey Emin. Not every jogger wants to break records - even their own ones. However, I think also that each town/city should have a group that engages with the rest of the world too, that acknowledges that Modernism happened, that tries to reach out beyond their bubble, their circle, that tries to make the mirrors they keep staring at into windows.

Decades ago I was asked by a group to give them a talk. The organiser was worried that the group was getting too cosy and felt unable himself to change the tone, wanting an outsider to shake things up. Much more recently, people from another group visited ours, saying that their own group has become too settled, too keen on tea and biscuits. Talking to writers at a residential conference this summer I concluded that local groups for ambitious writers are doomed, replaced by small, invitation-only Zoom groups who often ask prospective members for samples of work/critiques first.

I think Covid was the tipping point. During lockdown, more people started using online options to meet fellow writers. They discovered like-minded people online who they'd never have met at their local group, and questioned the benefits a local IRL group has over international ones. It looks to me that experienced writers (often the lifeblood of their groups) are abandoning local groups and are not being replaced. Local groups might consequently need to reposition themselves in the market - an opportunity? I hope so.

AI for writers again

Maybe the usual competition/magazine guidelines about AI (i.e. don’t use it at all) are becoming untenable. As AI becomes an ever more standard, useful tool, there'll come a time when competent writers are expected to use it, in the way that they already use spell-checkers and style-checkers.

The Bournemouth Writing Prize includes the following in its guidelines, which may show how things will be in the future -

The use of artificial intelligence (AI) tools (including generative text or image systems) is not permitted as a primary author of submitted work. AI tools may be ONLY be used for copyediting:

• The submission remains substantially the author’s own work, demonstrating clear human creative control and decision-making
• The work is not wholly or predominantly generated by AI
• Any use of AI tools is clearly declared at the point of submission

Authors must include a brief statement outlining any use of AI in the creation of their work. Failure to disclose AI use may result in disqualification or withdrawal of the submission. We reserve the right to reject submissions where AI use is deemed to undermine originality, authorship, or the integrity of the publication.