Writer

Pronouns

You are editing

Your editor is

Title

1

Amelia Armande

they/them

Tom McNally

Marian Hilditch

Reclaimed Footage 408PXJ

2

Joshua Crisp

he/him

Marian Hilditch

Murray Simon

You are not forgotten

3

Murray Simon

Joshua Crisp

Tom McNally

The way to do it

4

Marian Hilditch

she/they

Amelia Armande

Joshua Crisp

The Dance

5

Tom McNally

he/him

Murray Simon

Amelia Armande

Dinner with the Ambassador of Sirius

We were about to start. Then the teacher stopped our introduction to hand out a bucket of wooden swords. Within seconds, a black eye, a bloody nose, a lost tooth.

Dig, mine, furrow, burrow, deeper, deeper, shining mining lustrous lucre. heat it beat it, shape it mold it, forge it and forget that what you made is meant for murder.

If the pen truly is mightier than the sword, then I have not been giving squids the respect they deserve.

Come on, let me get a taste, he’d said and here they were, in a state. We shouldn’t be doing this, he’d replied, and he was right. They’d broken it.

Minimise surface area for a given force of bicep extension. Transfer chemical energy into glorious victory.

Amelia Armande first draft

Reclaimed Footage 843XT

Sky. Then water. Wobbling horizon and sky again as the camera holder balances and settles on the scene. The thump of wind against an unprotected microphone. A brightly coloured human with oversized feet dangles a string of meats in front of a pack of juveniles, evoking a chorus of screams.

We carefully reconstruct around the frost icicles and heat burn. There are twelve whole seconds of pristine footage on the data card.

It's an amazing find, an intact video camera floating in orbit above the destroyed planet. There are hive queens that pay a lot of nectar for accessible footage.

When you are finished:
Select 10 sample words from the draft (can be in any order and of any level of significance)

Sky

Water

Wobbling

Camera

settles

twelve

floating

frost

data

meats

Amelia Armande, your editor is:  Marian Hilditch

Help asked for: Got there? Got to the end of the thought…

Is it in the right order? Am I revealing things in the right way?

There’s a non-human element to this - can I play with that more?

Marian Hilditch’s edits: See comments. I think a few more words on the footage description, less on the twist. Don’t need more on the aliens, but enough to make them sound different. A hint of what they may do with the footage maybe? (something very sick 🙂)

Word count:

Amelia Armande second draft

Reclaimed Footage 408PXJ

Final draft

Sky. Then water. Wobbling horizon and sky again as the camera holder balances and settles on the scene. Waves. Gulls. The thump of wind against an unprotected microphone.

A brightly coloured manikin with oversized features dangles a string of meats in front of a pack of juveniles, evoking a chorus of screams.

The data card was floating sun-bleached and frost-bitten, just orbiting the destroyed planet. A speck. Easy to miss.

And there are twelve whole seconds of pristine footage on it.

It's an amazing find. There are hive queens who will pay a lot of nectar for such a jewel.

Word count: 100

she

in

those

festering

gruel

Joshua Crisp your editor is:  Murray Simon

Help asked for: oh god

The bones of an idea are in there

Needs a lot to be gone from it

No real point or ending

It’s just a high-concept pitch

Come up with a few interesting directions in which it could go

Murray Simon’s edits

Margaret was beginning to have second thoughts about the smooth-talking salesman in the shiny greasy suit. His smile was too large and toothy, his eyes wide, imploring and boring, not an unpleasant face but off.

At least she was having thoughts again. She'd started the day at eighty-six, with her mind the same festering slurry as retirement-prison-home gruel, now by early afternoon she was wearing the tight skin and warm muscles of a fifty-two year old, This new skin itched.  

It was such a seductive pitch. Especially lucrative in retirement homes - those clean and clinical prisons where we can put grandma out of our misery. Scream if you want to get fitter. Scream if you want to be younger. Scream if you want to think faster. But it's horribly addictive. They were now a group of toddlers, and determined to keep going.

He was beginning to bore her now. she couldn’t waste this fleeting moment of energy on this crocodile sweating in a patchwork suit, his skin glistening, shiny, young. Maybe she would wear his for a change, she hadn’t done that for a while. The outside was calling, escape, leisure, Youth!
But no, she was comfortable here, no one suspected, no one cared, she had been getting away with it for years.

“I’ll take two, young man” she said with hungry eyes.  

Word count:

Joshua Crisp SECOND DRAFT

You are not forgotten

In retirement-home-prisons,

Where Grandmothers and not-great-fathers

Can be safely pickled, and put out of our misery,

The crocodile smiles

You'll find this dark priest praying like a mantis,

Offering youth to the useless,

A bond to the abandoned,

A promise.

Scream if you want to remember

Pay if you want to be loved forever.

Lying, Liquid Lifeblood, thick and golden pumps the greasy syrup of hope into ancient veins,

I'm here, reassures the crocodile, to gaping mouths and vacant eyes,

I'm here. His teeth on their jugular, their child's caress.

You are not forgotten. He gulps. And gulps and gulps.

Word count: 100

Murray Simon first draft

That’s the way to do it

The night was not pitch black but it was not too far off, a soft glean of silver touched the edges of the hallway and the stair allowing her to slowly pad her way to the kitchen, where the sound was coming from.
She pushed the door open, the fire on the hob was lit and smoke was pouring from the pan.
The laugh was what she

Word count: 62

When you are finished:
Select 10 sample words from the draft (can be in any order and of any level of significance)

stair

silver

fire

hob

pan

laugh

Kitchen

black

smoke

sound

Murray Simon, your editor is: Tom McNally

Help asked for: Finish it. Did have a clear view, Just ran out of time

Agonising over first few sentences. Title sums up what is going on. Dark and brooding

Tom McNally’s edits:

The night was not pitch black but it was not too far off, a soft glean of silver touched the edges of the hallway and the stair, allowing her to pad her way to the kitchen, where the sounds were being formed.
There, the fire on the hob was lit and smoke poured from the pan.
His laugh rode the crest of a wave of heat and hit her immediately. It pierced her forehead and curled the ends of her hair.

He affected not to notice her, though his performance - the wretched violence, the cruelty, the mockery of justice - was all for Judy’s benefit.

Cut down the front half and started a direction for the second half.

Word count: 104

Murray Simon SECOND DRAFT

The way to do it.

The night was not pitch,a soft glean of knife blade silver touched the stair, guiding her to the kitchen, where the sounds were being formed.
There, the hob was lit, smoke poured from the pan the acrid smell of burnt meat.
His broken toothed laugh rode through the heat to freeze her immediately, piercing her forehead, raising and curling hairs.

This performance - the violence, the cruelty - was all for Judy’s benefit.

It was not the stinging smoke and rancid smell were that filled her eyes with tears as  the children laughed and laughed and laughed

Word count: 96

Marian Hilditch first draft

Working title

Mummy said I have to dance, but I never did like it. The man insisted and we moved, but it wasn’t the same without an audience. Warm up then on to the real thing

Word count: ??

When you are finished:
Select 10 sample words from the draft (can be in any order and of any level of significance)

Mummy

Dance

Moved

Audience

Real

Have

Like

Insisted

Same

Thing

Marian Hilditch, your editor is: Joshua Crisp

Help asked for:
I haven’t written very much!

Ran right out of time.

Suggestions on tone - how dark should it end up being?

Joshua Crisp’s edits:

Mummy said I have to dance, but I never did like it. The man insisted and we moved, but it wasn’t the same without an audience. Warm up then on to the real thing

Okay, ‘Mummy’ is an incredibly potent first word, it really infantalises our protagonist, and then the use of ‘never’ is interesting, because it suggests the passage of time. How dark this ends up being is probably contingent on how young our character ends up being at the time they’re narrating this.

This could go as lighthearted as not wanting to go to ballet, and being forced to do it all the way up to a career they hate, or as dark as child porn and prostitution, using ‘dancing’ as a metaphor the child doesn’t understand, they just know it hurts and makes mummy cry, but the man says they have to do it anyway. It makes her cry too etc.

That’s all pretty bleak, but if you want to go there, this piece has the form for it. It’s really a matter of what you’re comfortable pushing into, but whichever it is, do it wholeheartedly. If you’re going to wreck a room, wreck a room. Decide on the tone you want up front and THEN go for it.

Word count:

Marian Hilditch SECOND DRAFT

The Dance

Mummy said I have to dance, though I never did much like it. The man gave the call so on to the show. I’d always imagined an audience. Holding hands and singing chants and round and round we go. Foul air gashed from the bottomless hole as we all moved around it. Some others cried, I don’t know why. We’ve all prepared for this. My feet don’t hurt, they’re wrapped up well, my dress is white and pretty. The air makes it flow as I jump down the hole, blood from the wall colours my form.

Look mummy, I’m dancing!

Word count: 100

Tom McNally FIRST DRAFT

The Ambassador of Sirius

She had been appointed to the most important post in the world. She was to serve the Ambassador their first dinner. She took no advice and held no votes - she knew exactly how to distil ten thousand years of Earthly cuisine into a representative dish for her species.

 The Ambassador was wheeled in to the dining hall and arranged at the head of the table. The [serving dish lid?] was lifted and the meal presented to the visitor from the Dogstar, to the cameras, to history: Four steamed Bockwurst.

Did you check to see if the chirality of amino acids matched? No.

Too late, the Ambassador has scarfed down all four. The Ambassador’s eyes are glowing with something new.

Word count: 119

10 sample words from the draft (can be in any order and of any level of significance)

dinner

advice

representative

thousand

cuisine

Dogstar

Bockwurst

chirality

glowing

history

Tom McNally, your editor is: Amelia Armande

Help asked for:

Write second part

Amelia Armande’s edits:

I think perhaps you can lose that whole first paragraph. Maybe reconstitute some of the fun bits into the ending. I like ‘distil ten thousand years of earth cuisine’.

I really like the words like ‘arranged’ in relation to the ambassador too, something gelatinous and boneless about it. I think you could maybe tease us with just one or two implied descriptions like that in the later bit.

Who’s asking about the matching chirality? Is this a bodyguard, aide to the ambassador, other official? It could be fun to give that a specific person. Otherwise, maybe add another question to make them clearly rhetorical and like ‘obvious’ questions while being bizarre and space-age.

How does this end? Is the ambassador pleased? Angry? Poisoned? Does this decide our fate or simply win the chef a prize? Can you overlap a couple of possibilities into something fun and ambiguous, or is a single reveal more satisfying?

Word count:

Tom McNally SECOND DRAFT

Dinner with the Ambassador of Sirius

Clarion took no advice - she knew precisely how to distil ten thousand years of Earthly cuisine into a dish to represent her species.

At Turtle Bay, the Ambassador was arranged at the head of the dining table. Charles, the chef, lifted the cloche to present the meal to the visitor from the Dogstar, to the cameras, to history: Four steamed Bockwurst. All four were scarfed down at once.

Charles stood on the razor’s edge, their eyes nailed to the Ambassador for whatever clues that could be detected. The Ambassador made a rising whistling noise. Clarion beamed only with pride.

Word count: 100