The subject (and title) rather speak for themselves; if all things were appropriate, this would have been scribbled on the back of several beer mats in an intoxicated attempt to block out all of the other ballads I'd ever heard, such as:
Lumberjack Song
(Monty Python: specifically Terry Jones, Michael Palin, Fred Tomlinson)
I'm a lumberjack / and I'm okay / I sleep all night / and I work all day. […] I cut down trees / I skip and jump… / I like to press wild flowers / I put on women's clothes / and hang around in bars.
Hedgehog Song
(The alt.fan.pratchett newsgroup, inspired by snippets Terry strews through the Discworld novels.) Bestiality sure is a fun thing to do / But I have to say this as a warning to you:
With almost all animals, you can have ball / But the hedgehog can never be buggered at all.
It's interesting that most popular modern ballads are those with rhythms lending themselves to recital whilst intoxicated. Oh, and "Eric" is a Discworld novel. It has Faust scrawled on the cover…
Short Tale
Not exactly an oral story; I was thinking of those brief interludes encountered whilst leafing through anthologies which act as a mental brick wall. I like those.
Character Sketch
Written in two stages, possibly a legacy of having read too many potted NPC descriptions in role-playing guides. Basic logic: Fill a side of A4 with detail, and build and restructure from that…paying close attention to self-descriptive dialogue. Keeping "character sheets" I find prevents overt self-contradiction during on-going fictions, and I would like to use Sadie in some form of longer fiction; her sheet is included at the end of this submission.
Description
The sort of "Fear And Loathing In Aberystwyth" one might envisage whilst becoming shambling drunk with Hunter S. Thompson on the brain. Despite the distancing effect, the pair probably move no more than about a hundred metres.
(Hmmm, I should probably point out now that it's been months since I read any of the books I tend to sneak in references to when writing, and also that I'm not an alcoholic. Denial, you say? Moi?)
Dialogue
What began as a straightforward early C20th film script rapidly switched tack…after all, only Chandler can be Chandler, so I felt an extension to the faux arrogance was necessary. Gibson provides only the name 3Jane Tessier-Ashpool, to keep the reader concentrating on the duality of the RP conversation and internal narration.
As may be evident, I have a strong fascination with the weave of intertextual connections which define and generally enrich our characters. I go along with Terry Pratchett's declared modus operandi; sprinkle in enough white knowledge* that even a reader who notices few refs will derive some enjoyment, and everything will probably be cushty. Freshness lies in the assembling of existent detail, rather than trying to pass off age-old archetypical narratives as year zero invention.
* derived from "white noise", used to describe osmotically-absorbed cultural trivia.
