In Competition No. 3317 you were invited to provide an opening to a novel that bears out Elmore Leonard’s tip to writers: ‘Never open a book with weather.’ Leonard’s other bêtes noires, outlined in his 2007 10 Rules of Writing, include prologues, exclamation marks and the modification of the word ‘said’ with an adverb. But his most important rule, he said, the one that sums up the ten was: ‘If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it.’
On which note, over to your laboured, florid, banal offerings. They were a hoot to judge and earn their authors £25.
The winds perform their lucubrations, crossing the silent furze, shifting hither and thither like shadowy thieves intent on looting the moorland, lifting the vegetation leaf by leaf, prickle by vicious prickle. In the distance, the sea can be heard, though faintly, bludgeoning cliffs with breakers. Above, it’s a harbinger moon, half-hidden, throwing weak shapes, promising nothing less than total tempest, albeit in due course. Watch that soft smirr: it deceives the eye – fools the imagination – soon it will rouse itself, thickening and fattening, moaning, whistling its blustery way into a violent storm. And oh, the narcissism of the sullen clouds! Pouting like maladjusted starlets! Preening their dark edges in an already half-bombastic sky! It is on such an evening that Jim Greengrass, by profession a realtor, steps blithely out along Sixteenth Avenue with a yen to see South Pacific one more time.
Bill Greenwell
‘It’s raining.’
‘No it isn’t!’
‘Perhaps it’s going to rain.’
‘No “perhaps”. It isn’t!’
Amy stared through the window. Damien did the same. Neither was exactly right nor exactly wrong. Thickened with moisture the air both did and did not fall in droplets which did and did not coat the glass and which did and did not reach the ground. It was essence of rain, the eternal spirit of drizzle, the endless future become grey and indistinct in the immediate present. It was all the haar there ever was condensed into endless moments of indecision and vague intention. Drizzle was forming across all the plans of the country, clouding the windscreens of opportunity, misting the windows of all dimensions, those portals into other regions of space and time where there might, conceivably, be a day when drizzle might be no more.
‘Oh God,’ Amy thought. ‘This is going on for ever.’
D.A. Prince
Outside the morning was moderately bright, with a light but noticeable wind, and patches of dark cloud visible in the East; I might have predicted a rainless day. Yet the weather forecaster on Radio 4 was warning that later in the day there would be a danger of intermittent showers. For a second, though possibly less considered opinion, I switched on the television for the Good Morning Britain forecast, and was not really encouraged by the confident but not entirely persuasive young lady there, who suggested that the day would be notable for sunny intervals. To me this suggested that there would also be intervals that were not sunny – perhaps even the reverse… As I set off from home that day with the intention of murdering Miss Cornwallis, it was, therefore, with one troubling question uppermost in my mind: ‘Should I, after all, have worn my macintosh?’
George Simmers
For miles in every direction, the countryside was as dry as a bloodstain on the saloon floor in an Oklahoma ghost town, dry as a gin brand named Sirocco, dry as a breakfast of burlap and ashes, dry as a 100-year-old great-aunt’s feathery kiss on a bride’s cheek, dry as a losing bake-off recipe, dry as a twig snapping beneath the foot of a parched predator, dry as the mouth of a politician lying under oath, dry as a Mormon keg party, dry as a tumbleweed convention, dry as Satan’s sandbox, dry as the wit of a Noël Coward impersonator, dry as the sunward side of Mercury or the cold dust of the Moon, dry as a droning sermon delivered to a dozing congregation, dry as the underbrush the day before a forest fire, dry as the eyes behind a wealthy widow’s funeral sunglasses. There was, in short, no moisture.
Chris O’Carroll
It was a hot and sultry night. The promised cool spells with some light precipitation hadn’t materialised and were it not for the 42-inch three-speed oscillating tower fan that he had bought from a well-known online retailer at not inconsiderable cost, Gideon would have found the heat intolerable. As it was, he twisted and turned in his sheets like a hapless creature ensnared in the coils of a ravenous boa constrictor. Finally, the sun rose like a blood orange, oozing gore over the pale, prone body of the Earth. Gideon rose too, not like a blood orange, obviously, for he resembled no known fruit except, perhaps, at a stretch, a tumescent aubergine when he thought of Gwendolyn, his love, his passion, his torment. He fired off a frantic message to her, bringing to bear the full force of his frustrated eloquence. ‘Are you finding it hot too?’
Sue Pickard
McMurtry cursed, and ground his cigarette butt into the pavement. Could the heist go ahead? Was it safe?
At 30 degrees it was unlikely to pose an ‘immediate risk to life’, but he had to factor in the additional hydration requirements for the crew, and the potential for disruption to transport systems in a few places.
He was also concerned that there was a 40 per cent chance of isolated thunderstorms later in the evening just when they should be transferring the bullion on to the boat. What if they upgraded the warning to amber, or even red? Would it be ethical for him to proceed when he should be taking immediate action to protect himself and others?
McMurtry cursed again, and refreshed Tomasz Schafernaker’s Twitter feed. He needed to stay ahead of this thing – and he needed suncream and protective clothing.
Paul Harrod
No. 3320: Pleasure principle
You are invited to submit a poem extolling Epicureanism over Stoicism or the other way round. Email entries of up to 16 lines to lucy@spectator.co.uk by midday on 4 October.
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