Flash in Five: Jon Hunter

The story behind the story

Jon Hunter the story behind his story, Mr Jenkins, Period 3, History. Read it here.

IDEA

I was a teacher in busy secondary schools for 25 years the setting came from experience. Lesson changeover is a hectic time with pupils and teachers competing for space in corridors and on staircases. In addition, schools always run with a shortage of time, deadlines to meet, lessons to teach, meetings to schedule and so it goes; the breathless sentence seemed a good form to reflect that.

My last school had a policy of recruiting new, young teachers and training them up, rather than recruiting older experienced (more expensive) staff. This brings with it a young culture, one element of which is drinking. Like any drug once you get hooked it affects your entire life. I imagine Mr Jenkins is, or was, a good teacher but has got to the point where alcohol is a life-prop as well as his being his downfall. Whatever your weakness, students will find it and use it to their advantage. The name calling is part of that.

DEVELOPMENT

The piece originated as an exercise. The breathless sentence was a style I’d not tried before. The very first few drafts included punctuation, all commas, however the result was neither properly punctuated nor unpunctuated. So, I played around with the rhythm of the piece to, hopefully, allow the reader to navigate the piece, finding points to pause. Finally removing all punctuation and staircasing the text toward the end led me to its current form.

I realised Mr Jenkins needed a backstory so I added small notes of failure from his past, a father he could never please, a relationship he couldn’t maintain. The idea of dropping his Gran’s China came late, it would be something so catastrophic to the young boy - an event he could never live down or make up for – a memory that might keep you awake in the middle of the night.

EDITING

I played with the numbers at the beginning to avoid repetition. I removed all punctuation. Mr Jenkins backstory took a lot of tinkering. I read the whole piece out loud repeatedly, noting the moments when I tripped myself up. It’s something I do with all my work, but this piece especially; I had to develop a rhythm that would replace the punctuation.

Finally, I used a staircasing format at the end just for a touch of style. After my writing group read it and gave their feedback the piece felt complete.

SUBMITTING

I had one refusal for Mr Jenkins prior to submitting to Westword. I’m very happy he has found a home here among many other wonderful characters.

FINAL REFLECTIONS

It pays to try different styles of writing. Probably best to cut back on the alcohol too.

I have a slight regret about leaving the poor man broken on the stairs like that. I may have to return to him one day in another piece.

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Author: Jon lives in Tooting, South London from where he’s been writing micro, flash and short stories for the past seven years.