Lessons from Irène Némirovsky

 I’ve been reading Irène Némirovsky’s biography and some of her  novels: All Our Worldly Goods, Suite Française, The Wine of Solitude. Her technique is to sketch in detail the back story of her main characters in their social milieux - invariably based on friends or business acquaintances - and then confront them with the crises and angst of her own situation.

She was a Jewish émigré in inter-war France with truly dreadful parents; her raging, resentful energy brought forth masterpieces.

Her approach is useful. My own efforts tend to prioritise plot over character, to overplay ideas and underplay setting, producing hack work (this is not uncommon). I will try to do better in future stories - my new year resolution is to get to know my characters better.

Meanwhile I am going to inflict one more old-style flash-fiction vignette on you, distilled from a 14,000 word unpublished story which I self-characterised thus:

        “This has to be one of the worst stories I have ever written. So bad that I was deterred even from posting it on Booksie. The writing is flat, bland, dreary and sterile. The characters are stereotypes lacking interest even to the author. The plot is muddled, contrived and rapidly runs out of steam while never looking even remotely either convincing or even interesting.”

Still, even in such a desert there are small sections which may amuse, I promise you no more than that: “The Demo” in 600 words.