Dickens in Space

I’m ill.

I’m supposed to be editing a second draft of a story due to its deadline being on Saturday, but I can’t concentrate. So, I thought the best writing I could do in this state is to tell you about something I did in class last week. I also just wrote this once and Google Chrome, in its infinite wisdom, decided to quit. So here is attempt number two. Probably quite apt, as I’m sure what I typed before was better.

In class last week we analysed a piece of prose in a group, discussing everything we could think of from sentence structure and rhythm to semantic feel and the metaphors used. At the time we didn’t know who our piece of prose was written by, but after our lecturer suggested we read it out loud, I noted it reminded me of the start of a Dickensian film where there is narration and the camera is zooming into the scene. The piece was actually the beginning of Dombey and Son by – you guessed it! – Charles of the Dickens clan. It raised an interesting point, Dickens actually made more money from reading his work than from writing. So, if you struggle reading his work, try reading it aloud, or try and audio book. It makes an interesting difference, particularly to rhythm and pacing.

As homework from this we were tasked with taking a scene we had written and writing a pastiche. In basic terms, every story has a scene, but stories vary in style, so we had to take a scene and write it in the style of the author we analysed; Charles Dickens. It was one of the hardest things I have had to write so far. Thankfully I have read Dickens (I hadn’t read any of the others the other groups looked at), but I have a very contemporary style, that is influenced heavily by modern science fiction. This led to the title of this blog as myself and the other members of my group (all science fiction and fantasy writers) shared our pieces. I suggested Rob should turn his (excellent) piece into Dickens in Space using his usual hilarious comedy stylings. So keep an eye out for that one!

I don’t feel my piece was as good as the others, but I tried none the less. What follows is a scene written for the story I mentioned earlier, re-written in the style of Charles Dickens. Be prepared to laugh, to cry and the throw your computer out of the window in disgust! Without further ado (What is ado?) I give you Endaris by Michael J. (Dickens)

Endaris in the style of Dickens

Michael J. Hollows

The royal court, home to the godly, powerful, and undying king, sat in the heart of Endaris; where the houses lined the city in rows, short, thin, and narrow, like precessions of match sticks, although the inhabitants seldom matched; great grass courtyards grew in splendid colours, like the grasping tendrils of the forest that lay to the south, but controlled and trimmed, synonymous with the populace of the city. Those in power lived in mansions, around the houses, housing the round. They longed for the decorative comfort of indoors, past shuttered doors, and jealous stares.

One such man was Rao, the councillor of councillors, and he shut the door behind him, the door that resembled a wooden face. The hallway was closed-in, like a burial chamber, and claustrophobic in its likeness; where the surfaces were covered in blood, but not the blood of men, rather, merely the suggestion that blood had, could, or would be spilt, as the flickering candle of illumination cast its red-orange hue on the stone steps that led, threateningly, up towards the audience chamber, like the steps of a throne, towering above lesser men. Rao ascended the steps, though his heavy heart passed the other way, ever towards the audience and his doom, through blood-casting candles, and through rooms filled with judging portraits, he continued, forever up.

In the court, the room overflowing with people, like a lake in midwinter, water rushing away, free to its path, his erstwhile colleagues, less erstwhile than colleagues, laughed and joked at Rao’s expense, but he would have the last laugh.

Once again, thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed!