Snow Gum River

Snow Gum River is a literary short fiction piece that unfolds around a bushranging gang in New South Wales, Australia during the late 1800s. I recently entered into the daunting world of publishing and this is my début short story which is available for free download through Smashwords here. After the break, I'll be discussing a little bit about how I came to write Snow Gum River and the process behind it. Spoilers below in case you haven't read it.


For those of you who are unaware, I am currently in the middle of completing my final year at University, with the main specialisation in Creative Writing. This semester, there was a unit about Authorship & Publication, which explored the different aspects about what it meant to be an Author and about the world of publishing. As part of my assessment we were required to write a short story and get it up to a high quality of publication standard. During the classes we also did several 'Wild Writing' exercises that our tutor encouraged us to possibly develop into our final project, which is what eventually happened. Originally I had conceived an idea that I may follow through but based in Russia during World War Two, following one of the female snipers on the front lines.

Snow Gum River went through a lot of changes between the original fifty word idea that came to me during the Wild Writing and the final 2500 word product. The characters underwent numerous name changes as to begin with the story was set in England, with Margaret originally being Sadie Davidson and Clarence being Jack, and the story just containing the two of them being highway men. In another exercise, I wrote another scene with Gerta, Maggie's mother, and this is where the setting changed to Australia and the Bushranging gang became the central focus of where the story would go. I was also influenced by another class that I was doing called Criminal Underworlds where I focused on juvenile crime during the 19th Century, but was also interested in the idea of Bushranging. Alas, outside of folklore journals, there weren't many historical sources for me to research from that weren't related to Ned Kelly.

Bushrangers are an iconic part of Australian national identity, especially the Kelly gang, which is a reason why I was initially hesitant to write Snow Gum River and had a lot of trouble later on with the direction in which the story was going. I didn't really want my characters to be compared to Ned Kelly, that they would be their own distinct personalities, but with such an iconic figure the comparisons were inevitable. I researched into the reasons individuals turned to bushranging, and if there were any female bushrangers around at the time, as I wanted to be as historically accurate as possible. This also affected the setting for the story, as the majority of bushrangers were centred around the eastern states of Australia such as: Victoria, New South Wales and Tasmania. The era of the bushrangers came to an end around the beginning of the 19th century with the advances in technology which then allowed me to direct the plot to a suitable conclusion.

The plot of the short story was something that came to me as I wrote the scenes and as I researched. Since I was going to be writing about bushrangers, looking into how many were captured and the causes of their downfall. From this research, I developed the ending to the story; I also wanted to leave it a bit ambiguous. After discovering that there were cases of female bushrangers, I changed the plot from what it had been originally about a female thief in England to the idea of a woman bushranger working within a gang. Since the story was restricted by a word count, I didn't want to have the story told in one block, I wanted to see some development about how they were adjusting to police efficiency and their way of life being affected by different circumstances. So the story had to be driven by plot, rather than focusing completely on character, but the characters themselves had a heavy influence in the way that the plot of the story was planned out.

Characters to any story are vital and in particular to Snow Gum River. I originally conceived of just following two characters, a woman and a man, but I wanted the story to be told from her point-of-view. A lot of my works tend to centre around women and are told from their point-of-view, they're all heroines in their own way. For this story, Margaret came to me after the second small scene I wrote. Originally as Sadie, she was quiet, stubborn but followed the male character obediently. When I developed her as Margaret, the hot-tempered fighter came to the forefront, and changed the tone of the story completely. Even though she is recruited by Clarence, she becomes his equal, mainly because she won't stand for anything else. I wanted her to have a temper, to be seemingly unladylike in personality for the time period, but still be unashamed of her femininity. I hoped to make the reader empathise with her and to show that even though she was a law-breaker, she was still complex and cared about those around her. 

Clarence on the other hand was the leader, trying to protect the young woman he had brought into his life of crime but ending up being protected by her. I only implied them being in a romantic relationship because I didn't want the romance to be central to the story, but adding another layer to their relationship and how it would change their decisions for survival. He ends up being the mediator between her and Georg, trying to direct her temper elsewhere but usually ending up on the receiving end of it. I wanted to show that he considered her his equal and that there was a distinct camaraderie between the two even with Margaret's dislike of Georg. This is why when it came to killing the two of them off, I wanted it to be as a symbol of the bond between them. He holds the group together, not only as leader, but as someone the other two trust with their lives.

Originally the story was just meant to follow only Clarence and Margaret, but towards the later drafting stages, Georg made his appearance. I wanted someone who would cause some tension and conflict in the group, someone who wouldn't view Margaret the same way as Clarence did, and who would bring the brunt of Margaret's personality to bear. Due to the way that the story is heavily told from Margaret's point-of-view, there is a bias towards his character that leaves the impression that Georg could be untrustworthy. I wanted to leave his ending open, leaving the reader to question whether he survived the events in the town or whether he also died with the rest of his gang.

The style for Snow Gum River came easily to me. I wanted to be able to tell the story of the gang in a way that the reader would get the sense of time that they spend together and be able to establish both their relationships and the tension that their lifestyle would bring. The scenes are small and differ in some sizes; they are also non-linear, jumping between present and past events in their lives before reaching the ending. Due to the word limit, I felt this would be true to the story of the characters, instead of focusing on one or two scenes to follow their story. I've been experimenting a lot with this sort of style and am considering writing my next short story series in the same manner.

If you're interested in following my writing updates and future publications, you can find me at:
Twitter: @beneparte
Smashwords: Beneparte