Idle Pretention (a.k.a. Learning from My Lazy Student Days)

 After a bit of a tidy-up, my Mum found this sheet.

 

Holes with Flaps was a story that I wrote during my time at university. It was part of a flash fiction collection that I submitted for a short story module.

            The story itself is curious but re-reading the rather faint pencilled comment from the marking tutor really struck me. For one thing it is a rather generous critique for a flimsy and thematically embarrassing piece of writing but it also includes two words that have followed me around for many years. These are ‘poignant’ and ‘ambiguous’.

            ‘Poignant’ is one of my favourite adjectives to describe anything that makes me go hmm. Unfortunately it took me a couple of years to actually learn its precise definition, which is a strong and often sad effect of feelings. Here I was thinking it meant incredibly intelligent. Must have got it mixed up with ‘profound’.

            Nevertheless I have always intended to write stories that are poignant and profound. This is a foolhardy endeavour but has taken me just over a decade to realise the fact. I had an inkling as far back as 2010 that what I was putting to paper wasn’t quite as clever as I hoped it would be. Indeed my love of quirks and gimmicks in fiction doesn’t necessarily lend itself well to writing in the styles of Raymond Carver or Alice Munro. I tried regardless and had some occasional successes, Holes with Flaps not being one of them. Prior to rediscovering this sheet, I had all but forgotten the story.

            The other adjective ‘ambiguous’ is precisely the reason why these stylistic experiments rarely worked. Not enough meat on the bone. At university I learnt that the coolest short stories were the ones that were plain-speaking with short punchy sentences that only highlighted details the reader absolutely needed to know. I came to overlook the nuance of clear character development and mood-changing setting description. I neglected playing with a unique idea over multiple paragraphs, for fear that explanation would counteract a Hemingway-like honesty.

            While ambiguity was the common complaint, only I knew what it really was: laziness. Pure and simple sloth. I didn’t want to put in the hard work to make a story truly meaningful and memorable, I just wanted it to stand out. And it did though usually for all the wrong reasons. Oh sure, there was a poignance to some of those stories but it lacked depth and definition. In fact, you could say that there was a big ambiguous hole in my stories that was disguised with a thin flap of poignant expression.

            Now it’s not for me to say if I have developed much as a writer since then but I like to think I pad my stories better. If there are any conceptual tears, I try to sew them up and hide the stitching. It’s a lot of work but worth it. With every story I write now, I actively move away from idle pretention. It would be lovely one day to write something that combines gimmick, genre, philosophy and simplicity; something that sticks in a reader’s mind. Still that could take years. Another decade perhaps.

            Once upon a time I persevered blindly. I genuinely thought that stories like Holes with Flaps were erudite and enlightened. Since then I have added observation and self-awareness to that perseverance. I still create tales that fail to connect but I learn from them. That is the wonderful thing about keeping on with creativity through one’s life. You slowly shrug off idle pretention and grow up.