Dear All,

 The British Council is once again joining with the BBC World Service to launch the International Radio Playwriting Competition. The competition is now in its 23^rd year and has been incredibly successful in enabling voices from around the world to be heard.

 I would like to ask for your assistance in publicizing the competition as widely as possible in your networks. The competition opened on 1 May 2012 and the closing date for applications will be 31 July 2012.

 About the Competition

The complete set of rules can be found here. The main criteria are as follows:

• The competition is open to any writer who is not normally a resident of the United Kingdom.
• Applicants are invited to write a radio play of approximately 53 minutes in length on a subject of their choice.
• The play must be the original, unpublished work of the person or persons submitting it.
• The play must be written in English but can be translated by a third party (we are not able to offer any assistance with translation costs). Translated work must be identified as such, and the translator must be credited.

 Prizes

There are two main prizes given: to the best play written in English as a first language and to the best play written in English as a second language. The two prize winners will each receive £2000 sterling and a trip to London to see their plays being recorded and to attend a prize-giving evening.

Applications

Application forms are available to download from: www.bbcworldservice.com/radioplay. I have attached one for information.  

Submissions and application forms can be emailed to radioplay@bbc.co.uk

The writers may choose to submit their stuff directly through the given e-mail address

Okay, the heat has been getting to me. Heat? I know, if you are reading from Nairobi, you are thinking, what in the world? It’s been cold and wet and the traffic jams and the KPLC project to turn the country into an early Christmas tree has not been helping things. Now you see it, now you don’t! Huh. Put your lighters up, Kenya.

I am writing from a part of the country that is hot, and humid and the traffic jams and the KPLC project to turn the country into an early Christmas tree has not been helping things much. Now you see it, now you don’t. And while you are at it, how about we let you bake nice and charred?

Anyway, the heat has been getting to me. I missed last week’s Urban on the Blog. Well, actually where we were we had no electricity for 24 hours. By the time it got back, I had lost my chance to remind y’all to send in your urban pieces. And when I logged in to my email and you hadn’t sent in anything, I logged out and went to look for cooler air.

I did come back and turn on my laptop, watched a bunch of movies – who said we can’t watch TV with candlelight? I put in some time into this really big project I am working on as well. Take that, KPLC!

I am going to assume that it is the end of year, and you were busy with the NaNoWriMo or other major projects that have deadlines within the past few or coming up weeks and that KPLC screwed up with your inspiration and determination to write as much as it did with mine.

So… Friends?

Here’s just 3 things I want to remind you about blogging.

• Just because it’s quick and free doesn’t mean you shouldn’t write as well as you can. Revise and polish your blog posts before you put them up. You never know who might read them.
• A blog is public. Don’t post anything that ought to be kept personal, that might embarrass someone, or that might be considered libelous.
• If your goal is simply to write and have people read it, blog freely. Have fun with it. But if you are looking to build a freelance career writing for pay, don’t give away your best writing. Use the blog to offer samples, to toss around ideas, and to bring attention to you and your expertise. Save the good stuff for your articles and books.

No nominations were sent in this time. Again, I am assuming that it is either too hot or too cold, and likely too dark where you are. So what did I find when I went blog mining?

1. Car Woes: Seeing as my two past cars had names (as well as most of my toys) I decided to have a naming contest on Twitter. The idea was to get the most nominations for the hottest female tweep to name my car after. There was little or no interest (Bleh!) so I went with Chebet (such a lovely name, isn’t it? [From Archer]

2. I’m not Afraid… Ok, So Who Am I Kidding?: I’m addicted. I guess a whole lot of the people I interact with are addicts too…and our fix is that lethal S substance. It’s the whole reason we sit through insane inane meetings every week. The reason we roll out of bed on a weekday morning… [From Bugging Out]

3. 7 Reasons to love your JOB like your man: 1. The Search – Looking for a good man is just like searching for a good job. It has to satisfy you, keep you busy, provide for you and make you happy. Fundamentally if you leave either of the two, a good experience should be the ultimate by-product. [From Black Roses]

4. Legalize Me: Puff. *I’m pretty sure this post will give my mother a heart attack, so before it does, is this really about drugs? [From Strength of her Words]

5. Between Your Legs and Your Thighs: The title has nothing to do with this post. The title has everything to do with this post.  Someone said, “Women between twenty to thirty years of age must be married between those years otherwise they will never be women again.” [From Obsessive Ed]

That said, what kind of leverage do we have against KPLC? I am open to ideas; blackmail, revolution, whatever.

Have a great week! I mean, make sure you buy candles.

I asked around. The reasons Kenyan writers shy away from romance stories:

1. For most of you, romance stories equal those insipid romance novels packaged in books with near nude, too well-oiled models on the cover. (Okay fine, I’ll give you part of that.) Or Teresa. Yes, the soap operas with actors and actresses who never stop crying.But romance stories don’t necessarily have to go that way. I, for one loved Pride & Prejudice by Jane Austen. This book although categorized as a classic could also be classified under romance stories. My favorite classic films have aspects of romance, mystery and suspense as well.
2. Romance stories explore emotions. We are African; apparently someone decided that as Africans talking about emotions is a big no-no.
   *scratches head*

Before you throw me that ‘we are African’ line, allow me to point out that as writers, our creativity should not be bound by our personal identities. So I’m going to try and address both of the issues above for you as writers, not as Africans. Okay, I’m going to allow Anne Marble to address both issues.

Writing Emotional Scenes without Melodrama by Anne Marble

Emotional scenes are, of course, crucial to romances. A romance is a novel about two people falling in love and defeating their problems together. So without the emotions, one of the most important parts of the romance is missing. Because a romance novel is a novel, conflict must drive the plot — and sometimes, that conflicts stems from the relationship of the hero and heroine.

However, all too often, scenes that should pull at the heart strings instead tug at the heart strings with full force. What makes one scene emotional and one scene melodramatic? As a writer, how can you avoid yanking so hard on the heart strings that the window shades flop up violently?

Put the “I Hate You, Let’s Go to Bed” Plot to Bed

The infamous “I Hate You, Let’s Go to Bed” relationship was a mainstay of romance during the early day, and it is still alive and well. Some writers can make this work despite its flaws. Think of Sam and Diane in Cheers or David and Maddie in Moonlighting. However, many readers loathe that plot and will hurl the book against the wall if they run across it again.

Make your characters stronger. If they are fighting that much, maybe they should avoid sleeping together. If you really want to write a story using the “I Hate You, Let’s Go to Bed” plot, give it a twist. For example, if you’re writing a screwball comedy, you might be able to use it in a farcical manner that sends up this (in)famous plot. Or if you are writing an emotional and angsty romance, get to know your characters so well that you can find believable reasons for them to act this way, and then make your readers buy into that. The “I Hate You, Let’s Go to Bed” is so often a tired excuse for empty conflict, but if you are writer enough to make this plot work, you will end up with a truly heartrending read.

Avoid Contrived Character Behaviors

One of the worst things you can do is push your characters into emotional scenes by manipulating characters to act in illogical ways or by forcing the plot to twist into unbelievable directions. Your plot will be stronger if the characters act logically rather than acting like marionettes. This applies to secondary characters as well as to the hero and heroine.

Let’s say you’ve written a contemporary romance about a cop hero from the wrong side of the tracks who falls in love with a software tycoon’s daughter. The software tycoon has been very nice to him. But when the hero and heroine announce their engagement, the tycoon suddenly goes off half-cocked, calls the hero a fortune hunter, remembers that he hates cops after all, and threatens to disown his daughter if she marries him. This leads to a conflict because the hero now starts to think he’s not right for the heroine, and the heroine is afraid to marry the heroine because she doesn’t want to lose her father, which of course results in the hero thinking the worst of her because he doesn’t know why she is having second thoughts. What happened? Did the characters suddenly become pod people? This conflict would be so much stronger if it arose from logical character reactions, not pod people behavior. If you must have the father object to the wedding, find a believable reason for him to do so. Does he believe the hero isn’t right for his daughter because he is worried the hero might be killed in the line of duty? Ask questions about your plot and characters and how they might react, and you can find a much better reason for creating conflict than pod people behavior. You might even find a new conflict to add on top of everything else.

Avoid Stereotyped Characters

Besides making sure your characters don’t act as if they had suddenly become pod people, you should also avoid using familiar character types to push the plot along. The hero and heroine are getting along well, so it must be time for his manipulative mother or his former fiancee to show up.

No. Please. Stop. Readers will see this one coming from a mile away. (For more information about avoiding stereotyped characters at Romance Clichés to Avoid — Or Reconstruct and Don’t Treat Your Characters Like Puppets!)

Let’s say you are writing a Medieval romance novel about a heroine who spends her day toiling for an evil stepmother and three ugly stepsisters. You’ve been here before, haven’t you? How can you make this story different? The movie Ever After – A Cinderella Story found ways to twist the supporting characters, including making one of the stepsisters completely different from what was expected. Don’t be afraid to take similar liberties in your story. Just because you’re inspired by a favorite fairy tale, that doesn’t mean you can’t make the plot your own in some way.

Avoid Huge Coincidences

We’ve all read romances where major plot twists come about because of huge coincidences. The plots of Victorian writers such as Charles Dickens and Charlotte Bronte often hinged on coincidences. In Dicken’s Oliver Twist, the orphaned Oliver meets long-lost relatives through incredible happenstance. And for an orphan, he has an awful lot of relatives. Maybe Dickens and Bront‘ could get away with it, but don’t expect your readers to be so forgiving. Readers often refuse to swallow coincidences. If the plot hinges on a huge coincidence at a crucial moment, don’t be surprised if readers get upset. Even little coincidences can rile nerves if they happen too often.

There is an exception to using coincidences. If you’re writing a farce or screwball comedy, coincidences can add to the fun. Also, if you’re trying to capture the flavor of a classic Victorian novel, coincidences might be just what you need to add that tone. Connie Willis included coincidences in her humorous SF novel To Say Nothing of the Dog, which is inspired by Jerome K. Jerome humorous Victorian novel Three Men in a Boat.

Get into the Characters

Have you ever read what should have been an emotional scene and watched it sputter out because the characters didn’t appear to display the proper emotional reactions themselves? You can avoid that by crawling into your characters’ skins. How would they react to what is going on? Most important of all, how would they show their response? Even a character who is trying to appear unaffected will show some signs of their emotions, signs the other character might miss or misinterpret.

Imagine you are writing a Regency historical where the heroine refuses to marry the hero because of a secret in her past — when she was young and naive, she lost her virginity to a suitor who then ran off on her. She is in love with the hero but doesn’t dare tell him the truth because she knows he will then cast her aside. Now, imagine yourself in a Regency era study, having this discussion with the hero. What would you touch? Would you pick up a book from the shelves and pretend to read its title so that you don’t have to look at him, because you know that if you looked into your eyes, you would start to cry? Would the hero see through your act, or would he believe you really didn’t care? Done well, this can be poignant.

By getting into the characters, you might also start hearing a nagging voice that says “Psst! Hey you! I wouldn’t act this way.” Yes, characters become independent in this way. (If you’ve ever played the computer game The Sims, imagine independent characters as annoyed Sims characters waving at you because you put a sofa in their way.) Sometimes you have to follow this voice. Ignoring those voices can hurt your novel. Be careful, though. Are you really listening to your character? Or are you hearing the character you really wanted to write instead? When your character talks to you, make sure what she says makes sense in your current plot and background. If your Victorian era heroine is telling you that she wants to strip off all her clothes and jump into the hero’s arms without worrying about the loss of virginity, pregnancy, and her reputation, you may have created a very independent female… or you may have created a heroine who belongs in a spicy contemporary romance novel instead.

Avoid Overwriting

The more emotional a scene, the easier it is to find yourself typing “He shouted” or throwing in adverbs and exclamation points. However, the more emotional the scene, the better off you are avoiding that sort of writing or at least using those devices sparingly. Finding new ways to express your characters’ emotional state can make that scene stronger.

Also, try to strengthen your descriptions of the characters’ reactions by avoiding the usual clichés associated with descriptions emotions. Boycott glaring and shouting and glowing eyes in your writing. Run away from phrases such as “She clenched her fists…”

One warning: If you’re the type of writer who likes to write a first draft without stopping to revise, It’s all right to use those phrases while you’re writing the draft. You can always change them during the revision process. I’ve learned that if I worry too much about characters glaring and gazing each other during my first draft, I end up freezing, becoming unable to write.

Copyright © 2003 Anne Marble

Anne M. Marble has published articles in Gothic Journal and Writer’s Digest and is a columnist for the At the Back Fence column at All About Romance (AAR). In her “spare time,” she moderates AARlist, a busy list of romance readers sponsored by AAR. Just about everything she writes includes a romance element, even if it’s a fantasy novel about a lord and a countertenor. Her day job involves editing articles for the Journal of Biological Chemistry.

Whew! That was a lot of reading. So who are we featuring this time? Please read the stories below, comment on them and rate them as best as you can.

1. Clifton Gachagua presents Love in the Body of an Elephant: She was a twenty-four-hour mistress to the man who murdered Pio Gama Pinto. I am working on a short film about her, a sort of short poem. I keep looking at those eyes, same color as the Meerschaum pipes hanging…
2. Mercy Barasa brings us Theft on the Highway: You look like you have just arrived from a night running affair, like a wizard. Sorry, I don’t mean to offend you. Your eyes are red and swollen. Have you been crying? Where is Ashada?  Please tell me. Please… please… please…
3.  Mohamed Sheikh Abdiaziz sent us Will You Marry My Son?: It all started with a routine call Duale placed to his father one Saturday evening. He expected to know his family’s whereabouts as was usual for him to do once in a fortnight or so but today his dad had…

Enjoy! And have a great week!

THE WORLD TO COME

All writing anticipates the future if only because it presupposes the reception it will receive there. The very notion of reading compels writing to speak of the world it is destined to inhabit—the world to come. Even those writers who write only of the past still end up producing shadowy forms of the future.

The present time of writing is an especially precarious moment in which the writer is always at risk of slipping into the future as they trawl through their memories. The world to come is always snapping at our heels. After the end of everything at the end of the 20th century—of ideology, of the nation state, even of history—everything now feels as if it is once more about to begin.

Still what a future confronts us! Rising oceans threaten to overwhelm the species they once spawned; technology is slipping ever deeper under the skin of the not quite human; wars are being waged against enemies we hardly recognize.
The future feels foreshortened. Apocalypse may not be now… but it is pending.

Is the world to come to be here on earth? Or will it be wherever it is that eschatological fervour sets the scene of the future?

Present thinking about the world to come feels like squabbling in a crowded room, and so perhaps it is the short story—arguably the most nimble and surefooted mode of writing—that is best suited to cutting through the clamour and gaining a headstart on the future.

We encourage submissions of previously unpublished short stories for a proposed international collection about the world to come… whatever it might be… wherever it might be… and whoever will be there, or not, to call our present past.

Any genre of story is welcome, including but not limited to science fiction, speculative fiction, fantasy, realism, magic realism or naturalism.
The suggested word length is between 3000 and 5000 words. Please include a brief biographical note with your submission.

Payment will be negotiated once the publishing contract is signed.

The deadline for submissions is 29 February 2012.

Please send contributions as a Word document attachment to both Dr Om Dwivedi @om_dwivedi2003@yahoo.com and Dr Patrick West @ patrick.west@deakin.edu.au

Jungle Jim is a bi-monthly illustrated print publication, aiming on spreading narrative, imagination and concept-driven African stories. Taking from the pulp tradition, we publish short and serialized fiction that entertains and engrosses in all dramatic genres (horror, sci-fi, crime, detective, western, romance, adventure etc.), accessible to all, but with a high quality of writing. We seek to publish stories that explore the collision between visceral daring of pulp and the reality of living in Africa.

Visit our site to read our submissions brief:

www.junglejim.org

Deadline: Open

Contact: junglejimmag@gmail.com

“What a strange thing!
to be alive
beneath cherry blossoms.”
? Kobayashi Issa