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1. What is wrong with the following phrases:
a) “excerpts of their voices” (Return Journey)
b) “the marble proscenium of the fireplace” (The Worst Fog of the Year)
c) “blackness and sorrow as hard and sharp as a beak” (Twice by Fire)
d) “cars scurried like spiders on threads” (Accident Zone)
Hint: students are advised to focus upon the glaringly obvious inaccuracies.
2. “The tea in the porcelain cups abandoned on a black table was clouding over like two miniature ponds.” (The Worst Fog of the Year)
Explain the precise nature of the resemblance between tea and two miniature ponds.
3. Try to 'unpurple' and elucidate the following:
“The Land sank beside the track, and a river streamed beneath to the horizon, where a glittering curve of water hooked the sun from behind frowning clouds to rediscover the colours of the grassy slopes.” (Return Journey)
Candidates are advised to use more than one sentence.
4. Translate into decent English:
“It [the ticket office] was closed - a board lent it the appearance of a frame divested of a photograph - but flanked by a timetable.”
(The Retrospective)
Having done so, explain why the author bothered to tell us this in the first place.
5. Correct the grammar and make some sort of sense of:
“It couldn’t be a flaw in the glass, not one that moved round the edge of the mirror and sank back out of sight and reappeared.” (Accident Zone)
6. Consider the following two sentences about trains:
“Other trains, some also newly arrived, stood emptily by platforms, their passengers long since departed.”
“The station and whatever it contained that she hadn’t quite liked were gone now, and trees accompanying the train, first strolling backwards and then trotting as a preamble to breaking into a run as the last houses stayed in town.”
One of these sentences is by Shaun Hutson, the other by Ramsey Campbell. Which is the work of which writer?
The Shaun Hutson sentence appears in a highly critical article by Campbell on Hutson (in Ramsey Campbell Probably) and is cited as an example of his poor writing. Discuss the relative blackness of pots and kettles. *
7. “Ramsey Campbell is the best of us all.” (Poppy Z. Brite, Introduction to Told by the Dead)
Discuss this statement seriously. Marks will be awarded for resourcefulness and ingenuity.
8. “Told By The Dead” was the winner in the British Fantasy Society’s “Best Collection Of 2003” category. Ramsey Campbell is President of the British Fantasy Society.
Speculate upon the possible links between award success and the holding of high office.
* We have been asked to point out by fans of Mr Hutson that he was most certainly not responsible for the second sentence quoted in question 6.
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