Drew Payne
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Everything posted by Drew Payne
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Spoilers, spoilers... Liam did one, very stupid thing because he had no one there to support and help him. Now he has been sucked into the Criminal Justice System. If his mother had stood up for him, if his school had reacted to the bullying he was suffering, if Rhys Clarke had been kicked out of school, if... if... if... I also wanted to write about how easy it is for things to go so seriously wrong.
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That's the problem with bad decisions, things get worse and worse. At least people listen to Miss James.
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Mr Bowley dragged Liam at almost a run into the science block and into the first empty classroom there, all the while pulling at his arm and increasing the pain in his shoulder. Mr Bowley threw Liam down onto an empty chair and then stood over him. Mr Bowley shouted down at him, demanding to know why Liam had done it, Mr Bowley’s face red with anger and beads of sweat breaking out across it. Liam reacted in the only way he knew how to, he remained silent, stared down at the floor and waited for
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That was what I wanted to describe here. With a sharp knife, knife crime is very easy and doesn't require a lot of strength, and that's why it’s so dangerous. The human body can be so strong and yet so fragile too. But I never write about violence without consequences.
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That's the problem with bad decisions, they can happen in seconds.
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It was a Wednesday morning, Liam’s first lesson had been English with Rhys Clarke sitting behind him. Just the thought of it had made him shake with fear - he couldn’t even face stepping inside the classroom. Instead he’d turned around and walked away. He’d kept walking and walking. He walked right out of the school’s back entrance. He kept on walking until he reached home. There he let himself in with his key and spent the rest of the day watching television, alone and safe there. He didn’
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Thanks Marty. It's still a story I am rather proud of because I turned an argument against platitudes into a narrative story.
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I wrote this story, originally, over twenty years ago. It was the first time I wrote a narrator/central character who I didn't like. I challenge myself to create an unsympathetic character and to my surprise I was able to.
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Thank you but we have to thank the lovely Russell Tovey for this story. He gave me the inspiration for it
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csr July's CSR Feature: Stories Written on Lined Paper by Drew Payne
Drew Payne commented on Cia's blog entry in Gay Authors News
Thank you for that, feedback like this keeps me writing. At present I'm posting chapters of a long story called The World Out There, it is a dark story but that is nothing unusual for me. I am also writing new and re-writing old short stories and I'll create a new collection on GA later this year. GA has given me such support and feedback as a writer. This year I found the confidence to publish a collection of stories on Amazon. -
Thank you, this is one of the themes I am writing about here, the de-humanising effect of bullying. But the big theme here is the story behind the headlines, who is the person and what has led them to take the actions that they do.
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As the great Professor River Song said, "Spoilers sweetie." This story does take a long journey to get Liam from bullied school boy to nineteen year old left alone in a rundown B&B hotel. I am writing chapter twenty-one and I'm probably about halfway through. (Though Rhys Clarke is modelled on the shit who bullied me at school)
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I really can't say. I am going to write an afterword to this story, when I finish it, about what led me to write this story.
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Unfortunately he isn't alone. Bullying isn't "character building". The way we still ignore or excuse school bullying revolts me.
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Again Liam looked around himself. His room was quiet. He couldn’t hear any of the other residents in the B&B hostel, not even an occasional raised voice or music playing loudly somewhere. But this room was barely furnished. It had that old single bed pushed up against one wall with its mattress that his body sank into every night. Pushed against the opposite wall was a wooden table. Next to that was the tatty old armchair he was sat on. It had a high and curved back and high solid arms: some
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Thank you. That's high praise.
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That's what I wanted. This is about the story behind the headlines. I don't want to say anymore because it'll give away far too much of the coming plot.
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I promise we will learn more but this is a slow drip story. I don't present the whole of Liam's story in the first page, but that is so much my style of writing. I am glad people are enjoying this story, if that's the right word. I wanted to explore Liam's personality and how events affected it.
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Liam glanced up at his room’s door which was still firmly closed and locked. It was held closed by a black, metal lock which Donna had quickly shown him how to double-lock it… and he always did. It was double-locked now. The door itself was wooden with two recessed panels, one at eye height and one at knee height. It had once been painted bright- gloss white, but over the years, that had faded to a dull cream, streaked with dirt and grease. The door was as old and neglected as the rest of the ro
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Thank you. More to come soon.
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Oh, spoilers. I didn't want to say anymore but all will be revealed but only as the story goes on. This is a slow burn of a story, I am currently writing chapter twenty and I'm just over halfway through the story.
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His room was quiet today. Usually he would have his radio on, filling the room with noise and music and sound, chasing away the silence, but not today. He couldn’t take the risk of hearing the radio news, not today. He sat on the window’s wide, wooden sill and stared down at the street below through the window’s dirt smeared glass. He was only four floors up, but already the people in the street seemed small, like little animated dolls. Everyone down there seemed to be hurrying along the pa
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It is Sunday morning. Liam sits alone in his room, at the top of the building, and hides himself away. The world outside has suddenly become a dangerous place and he must stay away from it, and he must also remember that his name is now Leo. This story follows Liam through one fateful Sunday and, through flashbacks, tells the story of how he came to be there.
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James, thanks for your wonderful feedback. My stories keeping you "entertained and thoughtful" is the highest praise. Thank you. P.S. I am writing more.
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Thank you so much, this is a story I have worried whether it worked or not. @pvtguy gave me some wonderful feedback too. The inspiration for this story was me shouting at the radio. It was after the Jimmy Savile scandal broke, here in England (The link is to Savile's Wikipedia page which gives so much more detail). There was an old journalist being interviewed on the radio and he said everyone, in the media, knew Savile was a paedophile and Savile should have been kept away from children. I lost my temper and screamed at the radio because that man had been silent while Savile was alive. This story is my response to that journalist and all the others who claimed hindsight only after Savile was dead and exposed.
