Historical plots for short stories

Historical tales is in my genre and I was delighted to find Writing Magazine's next competition was for just that. Now I need a plot line that meets the editors requirements of:-

Something forewarned about. A menace that hangs over the protagonist. The bomb is set to explode in ten minutes but the disarmer doesn't know and is being deliberate. The tsunami is coming to the beach. He's trying to make a big sale but doesn't know he'll be made redundant if he fails. 

A ticking clock. A deadline to meet or a delivery to make before the closing time for the contract, or the organ being transported dies.

High stakes. I doubt if the type of high stake that Bertie Wooster experiences would qualify. I assume it is life or death type of thing. Maybe an important job interview, or getting Brexit done or stopped.

A moral dilemma. Should the sniper fire when he knows the armistice is due in ten minutes? Should he keep the money and let his pal take the blame? Should she marry for money or love?

Complications. Brexit has to get through parliament. The new job would mean moving away from his elderly parents. He's Moslem and her parents are staunch Christians. Is he marrying her just to get a passport? 

Hero/Villain dynamic. Normally the people would know each other. Two boxers in the ring or two political candidates. It doesn't need to be two people it can be someone trying to stop a runaway train.  

Now where do I find a historical tale that will fit all that? David and Goliath maybe. Harold at the battle of Stamford Bridge with William the Conqueror ready to invade. A pacifist Campbell at Glencoe. Someone on the Titanic or the Hindenburg. One of the Scots in the English army at Bannockburn.A submarine captain looking at a hospital ship he's been told carries tanks. That's the list started and beginning to move but I need to give it more thought. 

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Ruth's new job

Looking deeper into Ruth’s story, up till now, the stories have been about leaders and a growing or already large organisation but this story comes down to employee level. It’s a tale of someone joining a new company. Ruth makes the change successfully because she embraces the new culture without reservation. Not only that, she takes advice from an old member of the culture, her mother-in-law, Naomi. The lesson is that when someone changes jobs, they should buy into the new culture and not hanker after how it was elsewhere. It’s the same with relationships, none of which is perfect, and comparing the new relationship with an old romance only serves to highlight shortcomings in the new one, while romanticising the old. It’s better to enjoy a new partner’s scones than tell them they’re not as good as Mother made.

That is not to say it is wrong to suggest changes in a new situation but they must be made using the culture of the new one and not seem to challenge it. Of course, if the new culture doesn’t accept suggestions, keep quiet, that’s the culture!

What about Naomi? She didn’t try to hold Ruth tight and keep her to herself but urged her to explore the relationship with Boaz; a relationship which would elevate Ruth to at least her equal. In the end that relationship would produce David, then Solomon and his wisdom. How that worked out teaches us that we should not be afraid of helping those who are our juniors to climb the corporate ladder or become stars in the team, they may take the company, or the team, to greater heights.

Horsemeat in the trenches

I was about to start on the horse flesh idea I listed for a Writers' Magazine competition and thinking of where the story starts, which is not always at the beginning but where the dramatic question is postulated. For a short story of 1500 words it would need to be close to the time the soldiers were 'going over the top'. That would have the cook thinking he had at least given them a good meal and go into backstory to set up the sadness when only half came back. There were other possibilities but, as I turned them over, I realised there was a lot more in the story and to build the characters properly it would need more than 1500 words. I'd want the colonel to come and, like Forester's General, stir things up. The increased activity would get people killed and the men against him. He might even get one or two shot for cowardice. There is the cook's reaction to trench food and his decision to join the catering corps. The General would have to replace all the old lieutenants, reluctant to risk the lives of men they had been with for months, with new ones who were gung ho and wanting to make a name. There is the sergeants' reaction and so much more to explore that it would take maybe 40,000 words or more to do the thing justice. With that, the story has gone on the back burner with several other ideas. In actual fact, I'm not keen on writing about the trenches and much prefer the German South West Africa (now Namibia) and German East Africa (Tanzania) campaigns (starting in King or Kaiser and Shadows in the Veldt) with the movement that allowed characters to develop. I need to finish the 1820 story but then I am going back to put Koos, the coloured man mistaken for white by the recruiting office, back into Intelligence.

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Writing to a style

I've talked about the short story competitions in Writing Magazine several times but have yet to give it a try. The trouble is, I've other things to write up and there's no point in submitting an entry that isn't in the style of what wins. By style I don't mean just the length of the paragraphs or sentences but the real ethos of the thing. I have a check list for analysing short stories but what it can't do is give the feeling of a typical story. Again, the stories may have different scenes and outcomes but they will have a feel about them that is quite distinctive when you get a handle on it. Like any magazine, to find that ethos, I find it is necessary to read a number of their stories and to read them one after another, and maybe even several times. To send them the best story I've ever written without doing that is just a waste of time. I suppose what I want to find is the magazine's voice. Anyway, the latest competitions are for Historical Fiction and another with an open subject so maybe I'll do my homework and give it a try.

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Ruth

The story of Ruth comes between the desperate intercine warfare among the Israelites in Judges and the serious business of Kings but it's not just a bit of light relief. When reading the Bible stories, it is best not to rush but to let the story talk to you. First, is the old maxim that a kindness done without expectation of reward will come back in some way or other. BUt then there is Naomi's advice and Ruth's behavior to think over. The relationship grew, not because Ruth pushed it but because she let Boaz decide to pursue it. All Ruth did was to give him the opportunity. Any relationship, personal, working, or business will only succeed if both partners want it to. Pressurising another party into a relationship is a recipe for disaster. This is not the same as reaching consensus, which may involve sacrifice; the sacrifices must not create animosity, os course, or the relationship will implode. hard lessons from a love story!

A writer's life is sometimes a happy one

Well, all I need to do now about the food stories is write them up but my, 'to do' list gets longer and longer and I need to just get down to writing the stories in alphabetical order. The initial ideas can be developed with the list technique but the detailed plotting of one of them can take just as long as finding a good subject. It's easier if the characters are familiar as they do a bit of the writing but making the plot three dimensional can be hard, especially at 300 words, as there has to be some doubt about the outcome. My immediate priority (I think that's a repetition of terms) is to get a monologue and a report of a museum visit written for my Writers' Group's annual anthology. I've already sent in the short story and the poem and a news report. I had the choice of a short play instead of the monologue but decided against it as the stage directions don't count and I tell half the story in them, anyway. The thing I'd like to get moving is Just Life notes about aggravations like people in bus queues and amusing things overheard on the bus. Like the woman who was asked to visit her daughter for a few days near the time of her seventieth birthday and got all excited but found she was the baby-sitter while her daughter and son-in-law went to a party.
I suppose with the early nights, I'll get a lot more done.

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An extra ration of food for thought

What I like about making a list of possible story lines is, if one persists, they start to yield good even exceptional ideas. This business of food in Writing Magazine, for example, has already produced several with potential, not always light heated but with legs. Now let me list another.
Suppose an animal lover who has been training as a chef goes into the army in WW1 but is so disgusted at the food, he joins the Catering Corps. His unit are getting ready to go to the line for an attack, in which half of them will not return. He wants to give them a hearty meal to set them on their way but there is only tinned sausage. The major has a horse, which the men regard as a kind of mascot. It's kept in a stable to one side. As the 'chef'' considers the enemy have seent a ranging shot that fell short. The next one will be long and possibly near the kitchen. The shot comes over and kills the major and the horse. Now what will the chef do? There's enough horse meat but it's only the French who eat horse.  There's enough in this to answer the editor's ideas of what a short story should contain, pre-warning of disaster, ticking clock, moral dilemma etc.

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The 'normal' trap

After Samson the last chapters of the book off Judges mentions that there was no king in Israel and everyone did as they pleased. That situation has been repeated often in the succeeding centuries. Many revolutions have degenerated into petty quarrels among the ‘victors’. The crux being that there is no longer any central authority, or even objective and squabbling becomes the 'normal' relationship. The Israelites had been absorbed with claiming the land they had been promised but when that was done, they lost direction. There are many lessons in the story, personal, relationship wise and for business.

In personal life, it highlights the need for a long term goal, many fail college and university because their goal has been achieved. The idea that they are at college or whatever to learn how to be a doctor, for example, is dampened by the realisation of their short term goal; those who succeed see it only as a stepping stone.

Relationships break down for similar reasons. Great sex, intellectual compatibility, even being a good doubles partner at tennis or golf become ‘normal’ and descend into boredom after a while and it is those who want to share their life experience that make real partners.

In the business sphere, without firm direction the sales manager argues with the production manager, who argues with IR, who argues with PR and energy that should be directed to success is dissipated in internal wrangling.

What is needed is a plan for what happens next; the understanding that the realisation of one goal will open the door to another challenge. Someone who wants to be a foreman for being a foreman rather than to learn how to be a manager, for example, will become bored and useless, unless their life objective lies elsewhere. There is no point in getting into a relationship where the sex is great but the partner is thick as a brick, that’s obvious, but so is a partner who doesn’t share long term goals. Before a business has maximised it's market it must have plans to change direction or be sold.

It is distressing to see how many ignore the lessons of Judges for no better reason than that they are in the Bible. They are not only for the religious but contain the wisdom handed down from antiquity.