• Free Newsletter and eBook
  • Privacy Policy
  • Red Eva
  • Home
    • Getting started in Creative Writing
    • OU A215 Creative Writing: What did I learn?
    • OU A363 Creative Writing: what did I learn?
    • BlogLinks
      • Shortlink
  • About
  • Posts
  • Contact
  • Novels
    • HEART of CRUELTY
    • CITY of FAMINE
  • Short Story Menu
    • Before 1700
    • 18th Century
    • 19th Century
    • 20th Century
    • Contemporary
      • A little bird told me
    • The Future
    • Short Stories by Year
      • Stories 2012
        • A weekend in the garden
        • Clone brothers
        • Heaven Palace Beach Resort Hotel
        • Lucky sixpence
        • Mulcahy and Rivers
        • My boyfriend ran off with the Nifty-Ware salesman
        • Nothing ventured – nothing gained
        • Optical Illusions
        • Parallax
        • Peace walls
        • Power of a woman
        • SANS, SOUCI.
        • The Manoir
        • The Morgawr
      • Stories 2021
        • Self portrait as Winter
      • Stories 2013
        • A matter of time
        • Dead wires
        • Hikikomori
        • Moonlight flit
        • Murder on the Dejanira
        • The Analytical Assurance Company
        • The Bones of a Plot
        • The Eye of the Storm
        • The London Spy
        • The man who killed the thing he loved
        • The scarlet thread
        • The Tree of Knowledge
      • Stories 2014
        • Death at the Red Rose
        • Orange trees
        • Out of Africa
        • Snow
        • Something old…
        • The Best of All Possible Worlds
          • For Anton!
        • The Duddingham Line
        • The memories of sand
        • The shopping list
        • The Transaction
      • Stories 2015
        • ‘Silver Ghost’
        • A Month at Bath
        • Adam
        • Arrivals
        • Gold, and blue…
        • Hinky-Dinky, Parlay-Voo
        • Love at first sight
        • Meat
        • Out of the blue
        • Smoking is bad for you
        • The Immortal Lavoisier
      • Stories 2016
        • 969 miles
        • Doggerland
        • Love and Death at St Cluedo’s
        • The Imp
      • Stories 2017
        • Pond Dippers
        • Salou
        • The cyclist
        • The Invincible Armada
        • The kitchen window
      • Stories 2018
        • 60 minutes
        • A Christmas birthday
        • Hate mail
        • Snow Devils
        • The ‘Daisy Dancer’
        • The picnic
      • Stories 2019
        • A darkness in the light
        • A five course lunch
        • A tale of two lifestyles
        • Bilberries in January
        • Curiosities of Literature
        • Knightsbridge, 1967
        • Missing hours
        • The Speyside Regiment
        • The stone
      • Stories 2020
        • Leap Years
        • No. 13
        • The Ballads of Old Ireland
        • The Inevitable March of Time
        • The lost vellum
  • The HistWriter Newsletter

M Wallis

~ HistWriter.com

M Wallis

Tag Archives: fiction

TCWG April Story – Smoking is Bad for You

19 Sunday Apr 2015

Posted by M Wallis in Creative Writing, TCWG

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Creative Writing, fiction

I was delighted that my March story ‘Gold, and Blue…’ came first in the voting!

The April theme for the Telegraph Creative Writing Group competition being ‘Health’, my story of the month ‘Smoking is bad for you’ is a 500-word short fiction about a survivor of children’s home abuse. Inspired by the Crown Prosecution Service’s decision not to prosecute Greville Janner due to his dementia. All characters are fictional.

Books make great gifts

16 Tuesday Dec 2014

Posted by M Wallis in Creative Writing

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

CIRC, Creative Writing, fiction, Telegraph Creative Writing Group, Writing

Especially for oneself, when finding Christmas too much of a headache. Take a look at my Books 2014 page!

Telegraph Creative Writing Group September Story

29 Monday Sep 2014

Posted by M Wallis in Creative Writing

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Creative Writing, fiction, Telegraph Creative Writing Group

‘Something Old…’ A short story on this month’s theme of ‘Weddings’.

Rothko’s 7 core qualities for art – and for storytelling?

28 Sunday Sep 2014

Posted by M Wallis in Abstract art, Creative Writing

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Abstract art, Creative Writing, Den Haag, fiction, Rothko, Writing

From the Rothko exhibition at the Gemeentemuseum, The Hague.

It can be hard to connect with abstract art. Rothko’s blurry oblongs seem at first to be mute and meaningless. But following the progression of his work from the figurative, one sees how images of people, of subway and street scenes, are replaced by rectangles of colour.
Rothko1
The artist speaks to us mood to mood, short-cutting the middleman, leaving out the figures in a landscape, the still life. Black speaks of grief, red of passion, sombre browns and greens of quietude.
Rothko2
Rothko, who would withdraw from exhibitions if his works were not displayed in the right environment, would have approved of the Gemeentemuseum in The Hague. It’s a wonderful Modernist building from the 1930s, tiled and calm and democratic. Their audio tour was on an electronic device around my neck. I was struck by one section: Rothko’s seven core qualities for art.
Seven core
I wondered if these could also be core qualities for storytelling.
Always unable to remember lists, I typed them in to my phone:
1. Death
2. Sexuality
3. Tension
4. Irony
5. Humour
6. Transitoriness and random chance
7. Hope

TCWG Short Stories 2013

07 Saturday Dec 2013

Posted by M Wallis in Uncategorized

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Creative Writing, fiction, Writing

TCWG Short Stories 2013 has been published by the Telegraph Creative Writers’ Group in time for Christmas. A sparkling anthology (don’t miss the writers’ bio section!). Themes include Trees, Time, Newspapers, Flitting, and many others. We all write for the fun of it, and for the enjoyment of sharing our writing with others, and so the pleasure of writing bubbles up through the pages.
TCWG
The Telegraph Creative Writers’ Group welcomes any writer, from anywhere in the world. Come and join us here!

Historical fiction, on the wall in Amalienburg

22 Sunday Sep 2013

Posted by M Wallis in Creative Writing, Historical fiction

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

fiction, historical fiction, Writing

Nymphenburg
These are tiles on the wall of the Electress’s Kitchen, Amalienburg, in the grounds of Schloss Nymphenburg, Munich.
If you look closely, you will see that some of the tiles don’t match, but the overall design is still preserved. Isn’t this a perfect paradigm for historical fiction?

Maryland Romance Writers Online Workshops

16 Monday Sep 2013

Posted by M Wallis in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

fiction, Writing

I recently took part in an excellent on-line workshop run by Stephanie Dray of Maryland Romance Writers.

This inexpensive four-week long course explored a number of different approaches to plotting a novel. Although the workshop was particularly aimed at the romance genre, the principles applied to other genres too. I started out with a very basic idea, which might just about have made a short story, and this became amplified over the course of four weeks into a decent outline for a novel. I also rejigged my ‘Work in Progress’.

Although the course emphasised the use of Scrivener and Aeon Timeline, both being helpful software programs, the exercises could probably have been done on index cards or pieces of paper, as the emphasis was on thinking about characters, their motivations, and pivotal points in the plot structure. I have found that the planning and structuring particularly helps me as a part-time writer, making it easier to resume writing after a break.

They have more online workshops timetabled, so I shall be keeping an eye on their website.

09 Saturday Feb 2013

Posted by M Wallis in Creative Writing

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

fiction, Writing

96%

04 Friday Jan 2013

Posted by M Wallis in Creative Writing

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

fiction, Writing

I’ve got 96% for my short story assignment on my OU course, I’m absolutely blown away by it! My tutor says he can’t remember giving a mark this high on the module.

Follow me on Twitter

My Tweets

M Wallis #HistWriter

M Wallis #HistWriter

Instagram

For March 2021, The HistWriter ponders the Victorian poisoner Dr William Palmer and reviews Silk by Alessandro Barrico and Daughters of Night by Laura Shepherd Robinson. Free pdf download from the HistWriter site at https://buff.ly/3suF3yP

Blog posts

  • Red roses for St. Valentine’s Day
  • Doggerland
  • The Scarlet Thread – free short story
  • At the 11th hour, of the 11th day, of the 11th month:
  • Writers Ink ‘Page Turner’ Challenge