The Story What I Wrote...

At the workshop, I stood
proud before the Colosseum
crowd – and literary lion:
story in hand with its
beginning, middle and
end.

A teenager's warble had crept in
but the delivery was quite
good. At least I hoped so.

'You should start in the middle, Ray.'
they said. Later, it did, and if my
Amis true, the arrow's flight is erratic
now.

'You need a dramatic
arc!' roared the lion, I
moved the milieu à Paris de
Aberystwyth.

'Is there an inciting incident?'
came from under hornrims
and over bobbled tweed, lisle and
brogues.

'There's an exciting accident,
would that possibly do?'
I scrawled this semi-precious stone
in the margin.

A black polo neck and goatee
avowed that 'like, we need
multiple POV.' I said 'there's
two

yours and mine.' My eyes were
blurred a little now and I felt sick,
suggestions came from the thick
and the fast.

Conflict? My story now unfolds
in front of the hastily painted
backdrop of the Franco-Prussian
war.

Character, motivation, voice,
advice on every aspect of
my helpless creation 'til
I sat down.

On the desktop now stands
proud in a mahogany
frame a scrap of paper
that was the story's fate,
a rejection from the People's
Friend.