The Innominate Tale

We gathered at Clive’s house and read Clive’s short story. A tale without a title.

The story unfolded and told of Dennis Afrani, a middle aged business man, who had been posted to Belfast by his company to set up a new branch. Dennis’s character was carefully drawn as a philandering, dishonest egotist. Before long his opinions make him the butt of a practical joke. His reaction to the practical joke was extreme. The story also had a strong theme about the political situation in Northern Ireland.

The group enjoyed the story and found it amusing but also though-provoking. Particular phrases were singled out for special attention including: ‘all pink and powdered and silver-haired in his Rubinacci chalk strip three piece;’ ‘the strangulated vowels of Belfast’ and the question: ‘Are you a Catholic atheist or a Protestant atheist?’

Another facet of the story that appealed to all was thinking about the fall-out that would follow Dennis’s over-reaction. Clive was also praised for his natural sounding dialogue. ‘Linda-the-hyphen-Bruce’ spotted several hyphen related incidents: over zealous use and omissions. Rob again performed open prose surgery; he suggested removing the ending to the piece to leave a much stronger finish.

As for the news this week, I had nothing to report. Rob has received several emails from Lisa Etherington-Runions from Cornwall and Area Writers’ Society (our twinned writing group in Canada). He is planning to send her his latest piece. Aside from that Rob has entered several competitions and has made structural changes to his work in progress called ‘The Sting Inside.’ Linda has delayed her most recent Gold-dust session. Chris talked about his upcoming talk at The Rose Theatre in Kidderminster. Tony has entered the clocks competition and is working on two linked articles. Clive has submitted a rant to ‘The Oldie’. Tony asked, ‘Do they accept unsolicited rants from unknown ranters?’ It would appear that they do not.