Themes and ideas that inspired my first novella, Chopsticks

If you have followed this blog for a while, you will have seen a whole range of articles, poems, short stories that form part of the regular posts. I use this as a place to test ideas, try out different ways of writing, but mainly to keep occupied with the process of putting pieces together.

Over the past couple of years, I have been working on a number of long form pieces. I did not set out to write or complete a full gothic novella as my first foray in to proper writing. It just so happened that this was the story that had to be written. The whole idea started (in typical gothic fashion) with a feverish nightmare.

I remember not feeling particular well, and knowing that night would be difficult in terms of sleep, dreams tend to re occur, roll over themselves. But one element kept coming back. A dream of a figure, dripping wet, hunched over an old piano, slowly playing Chopsticks. So much so that it stuck with me till morning and I just had to write it down.

That was where the idea stayed, locked in a notes page on my laptop for months. Often writers will leave a completed manuscript for months before tackling the process of editing. I tend to leave the idea for a story for a few months to let it steep, grow stronger, sometimes grow legs. The character of Otto in the novella becomes familiar, his back story, family. Sometimes they will make it into the story, but at the very least I need to understand who they are and where they are heading. It makes them feel more real to me and easier to write about.

I work full time, so this dictates how much space and time I have to write. Over the course of about a year the story began to take shape. I don’t tend to write in a linear fashion. I would more describe it as jigsaw pieces of the story, on piece at a time, then eventually the full picture emerges. I have tried a few approaches which involved spreadsheets, diagrams etc. While they were useful for recording what was already in my head, I ultimately found it distracting from actually getting the story onto the page. Sometimes even a single line of dialogue can be more revealing about a character than a whole page of personality traits. Part way through the story, Coleville, who has had very little dialogue till that point threatens his agent:

“But if you cross me or ever mention any of this to anyone” he continued, brandishing a flick knife he had pulled from his shabby jacket “I’ll cut that sharp old tongue from your mouth”.

It was this line that really helped me formulate a visual of the character, what he was really all about. This helped with pulling this to the next piece of the jigsaw.

I don’t really worry too much about a piece thematically. Again, it is up to the reader to draw from this what they want. The themes emerge from the context of the story as it unfolds. Betrayal, revenge, ambition are all big terms which could as much be applied to a Shakespeare tragedy as to this book (not that I am comparing of course!)

I do enjoy the architecture of the gothic. Its crumbling buildings, fading lights, ghosts etc. I think this approach applies to a lot of my stories, mainly because my interest is not in creating characters who are perfect, but ones who are loved or hated for their flaws.

Chopsticks will be available very soon. There are one or two cover related issues to sort before I get the proof copies, but more to update on this soon. In the meantime here is the cover and some details of my other recent work.

Chopsticks: A debut novella

When journalist Peter Chapman visits the former music agent Arthur Bragnall for his latest article, he uncovers a haunting tale of deception, betrayal and a supernatural curse. Over the course of the evening the truth is revealed about Otto, a gifted young composer, and the disappearance of a once famous musician, Herbie Coleville.
Chopsticks, a debut novella by Gavin Turner, explores the price of genius, the cost of ambition and the dangerous line between inspiration and theft. By the time he leaves, Peter Chapman will have uncovered more about the story, and himself than he could ever have planned for.

A Mouthful of Space dust

A Mouthful of Space dust is my second collection of poetry. An eclectic selection of darkly comic and strange poems from the edge of normality. I wrote this collection over a number of years and you can find examples of some of the poems on the poetry page of the website. If you like humorous poems or know someone who does, this could well be the elusive Christmas present you are looking for! Available via the link here

The Round Journey

The Round Journey was my debut Chapbook. First published in May 2022 with Alien Buddha press, this collection takes you on an enlightening journey round the landmarks of a village, representing the fragments and moments of each of our lives and our understanding of emotion, nature and the passage of time. Each poem represents a found object or physical location from the village in which I live. The Round journey is temporarily unavailable but a new e- version is planned. Look out for updates coming soon.

Triplicated

Triplicated is an E-book PDF collection of Haikus. I set a personal challenge to write 100 haikus in a year. This book showcases some of the best of them, arranged in sets of three haikus that have a common link or theme. This is a FREE to download book which I have made available for all subscribers to my site.

That’s all for now, keep an eye out on my site for updates on the new book, can’t wait for this to be released. You never know, there may be a few teasers or extracts coming your way, keep checking the website for updates!