Writes Notes #7

Technique notes on The Kangaroo Boy

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The Kangaroo Boy

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Technique Notes

I first drafted The Kangaroo Boy in 2024. The core concept was the same as it is now, though the story was less focused on the surviving brother and instead explored the Kangaroo Boy’s entire immediate family. The Kangaroo Boy event, so to speak, was a trigger to explore their character; how they responded revealed who they were.

As a result, the story was at least 1500 words longer and more convoluted. I put the story away because something was off. It fell flat. I came back to it with the idea to focus on the surviving brother, and to centre the story around the wake. We see the brother at the wake, we dip off to the Kangaroo Boy event and then return to the wake with a slightly different attitude. Simple, straight-forward. More punch.

The second change—other than structural—was stylistic. At the time, I was reading a lot of William Faulkner, and for those unfamiliar, he has a cool style. He’s brilliant. As I Lay Dying was the book that influenced me the most. It explores the death of a matriarch from a variety of perspectives (hence my initial structure) and does so with complex sentences and abstractions and imagery—far from simple, straight-forward. My first draft was more poetic as a result, more meditative. Here’s an example:

When a father stares at a son he never sees him as he is but rather as a thousand images since birth: a flipbook, a kineograph of yesterdays. Images, memories, assumptions. When Gary knelt down, it was the image of his youngest crying while wedged between two pallets at the warehouse that came to mind. This was last summer. Clouds did not exist and yet there’s the snot running from his nose, the pleading eyes, the strange silence. The memory caused the father to soften and he caressed his son’s shaking arm.

At the sentence level, I thought some of it was good, but too many of those sentences together is like making a smoothie with no liquid—it don’t mix. And I’m no Faulkner. The whole ordeal reminds me of the time I saw Hell or High Water with Chris Pine and decided to grow my hair out. I spent mornings swapping between my mirror and my phone—a picture of Chris Pine—going, ‘Why do I still look nothing like him? I’m squinting to look mysterious, I got the style, the moustache… But my hair is still red, and where’s my gun?’ That all culminated in one final, insecurity-driven attempt to rob a bank. But it was Sunday, so Bendigo Bank was closed. I returned the rented horse (actually an asthmatic donkey) and shaved my head to look like Jason Statham.

Takeaways

I’ve written about this a few times, but it comes down to finding your voice, and I’m still looking for mine. And in the search, you fuck a few things up, as I’ll explain.

I’m easily influenced by writers I admire, and those writers often use complex language. I enjoy the colour, the add-ons, the tangents. I’m thinking now of Pynchon and the run-on, 80-word sentences. My last two stories, however, I’ve stripped back the language, and I think it is mostly working. Perhaps I’m just not ready yet to harness the added complexity. After all, you must walk before you can fight off an entire basketball court of assholes to defend the honour of your ex, Statham style. For now, I’ll try to master the simple and feel for the complex when it’s right. That was my thought, anyway: make it simple.

It sounds easy enough, but it’s tough. You focus on one or two things in a piece and then forget others. Things you’ve learned already fall away. Take this bit of feedback I received on the story below:

Apprehensive_Dust_86 is correct on all accounts. I simplified the language and forgot about flow, about sentence-length and syntax variety. I re-read the story a lot during editing, but this went straight over my head. That paragraph is clunky. To me, that’s a basic error, basic, basic, basic. But I was so focused on simplifying that I missed it.

Next piece, I will try to keep it simple, look for opportunities for flair, but also remember to check for basic flow. I’m sure that will cause me to miss other things, but I believe the overall trend is upwards. Three steps forward, two steps back.

The Future

As of today, I’ve posted 81,701 words of fiction on Substack. That puts me probably 7-10 posts away from 100,000 words, which will likely be around August-September. Call it 40 posts, 100,000 words by end of September. Here’s where I’m at now:

Once I’ve got the 100,000 words, I will pick the best 20-25 odd and rewrite them. There are some pieces with promising concepts but poor execution: the structure is off; the main character is passive; stakes are not high; some are more a ‘day in the life’ rather than ‘the most important day in the life;’ the writing itself sucks... There is heaps to improve but potential too, I think.

After re-writing the chosen pieces, I’ll compile them into a book of short fiction called something like Honest Work, which you will be able to buy. I might whip up a draft cover in the coming weeks to avoid actually writing. But all of that is a while off. For now, I will keep learning and practicing. Thanks, as always, for giving me your time.

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Short stories, fiction. Original absurd, satire and humour writing. Influences include Pynchon, DeLillo, Vonnegut, Adams, and Norm Macdonald (all lovers of SEO).