THE TALE OF SHORTBREAD SOPHIE &

KILOMETRICO KID

or,

THERE ARE NO WOODS AROUND HERE

Creative writing has long been a passion of mine, so when I chose to undertake the English

Extension II course, I did not question the medium of composition – I would write a short story.

My Major Work began with a single mental image – a woman, returning to the house of

someone she once loved, standing vulnerable on the doorstep, shaken by something concerning

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both of them very much. After a lengthy diversion into the realms of fairy tales, gender identity

and the Paris riots of 2005, I found myself returning to this first concept and developing it.

Through the investigation I undertook, I narrowed the focus of the work and developed

otherwise unconsidered ideas of concept and character. I was exposed to styles of narrative, tone

and characterisation that have become central to my story. It became a composition which

appeals, through adherence to the style of coming-of-age stories such as The Perks of Being a

Wallflower1 and the subversion of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl trope, to the young people most

vulnerable to disillusionment in relation to such popular portrayals of their subculture. The

aforesaid vision was but a minor undercurrent in the story: The Tale of Shortbread Sophie &

Kilometrico Kid or, There Are No Woods around Here.

My major work is undeniably reflective of my own context. Able to be realised only through

my interest in the modern bildungsroman, it is influenced by concepts and characters from

Wallflower, The Catcher in the Rye2 and Looking for Alaska3, among other texts. Most notable

of these ideas is the Manic Pixie Dream Girl trope (of which the title character from Alaska is an

example) – referring to that mysterious, other-worldly female creature that exists “solely in the

fevered imaginations of sensitive writer-directors to teach broodingly soulful young men to

embrace life and its infinite mysteries and adventures.” 4 Claire’s repeated attempts at profundity

(“it’s impossible to tell if they’re actually there, or if it’s just your eyes playing tricks on you” 5,

“when the whole world stops turning and we are nothing, truly nothing... where will we be?” 6)

are testament to this. One reader of my story commented that she thought “the girl might turn

1
Chbosky, S 1999, The Perks of Being a Wallflower
2
Salinger, J D 1951, The Catcher in the Rye
3
Green, J 2006, Looking for Alaska
4
Rabin, N, 2007, My Year of Flops, Case File 1: Elizabethtown: The Bataan Death March of Whimsy
5
Own major work
6
Ibid.

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out to be a figment of Jasper’s imagination.” This is, of course, exactly how Claire wants to be

perceived.

The trope relies heavily, however, upon the assumption that this character will succeed in her

mission to change the male protagonist. While Claire sees herself as a Manic Pixie Dream Girl,

her actions are role-play. Jasper is not so much “broodingly soulful” as acutely perceptive, with

a voice reminiscent of Charlie’s in Wallflower. He leads Claire much too close to an admission

of her own mundane humanity, while Sophie definitely exposes her to the reader:

“She had sucked him into her sad, not-quite-there, self-absorbed world … she

would find, as so many before her had found, that the real world was different in

ways other than she had hoped.”7

The HSC English Advanced elective, Conflicting Perspectives, allowed me to develop the

starkly conflicting perspectives of Jasper and Claire (in relation to the latter’s humanity), to

subvert the typical portrayal of the MPDG and the conventions of the texts in which she appears

and to expose ‘her’ for what ‘she’ is – a ludicrous invention of unattainable mystique and

charisma.

Originally, I saw the purpose of this composition as being to challenge common perceptions

of mental illness; to indicate that mental illness is secondary to one’s character. I was heavily

influenced by Mark Haddon’s writing style in The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-

Time8, which was invaluable for the development of Jasper’s voice – simple, yet pervaded by

stark and perceptive observation:

7
Ibid.
8
Haddon, M 2003, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time: A Novel

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 “[The dog] looked as if it was running on its side. The way dogs run when they

think they are chasing a cat in a dream. But the dog wasn’t running or asleep.

There was a garden fork sticking out of the dog.”9

However, the development of Jasper’s letters caused a change in my own perception of

audience and purpose. An author talk by John Green, author of Looking for Alaska, certainly

assisted me to put this newfound purpose into words, by clarifying my own thoughts and

expressing them in language, which is, of course, absolutely vital:

“[The best way to be a person], I would argue, is to try, even though it’s

incredibly difficult and maybe even impossible, to understand that the person

sitting next to you is a person in precisely the same fascinating and complex and

difficult way that you are a person. That, I think, is our challenge as human

beings.”10

Jasper’s Asperger’s is now completely secondary – it is not mentioned and is irrelevant to a

reading of the story. (Ironic, perhaps, is that this irrelevancy of mental illness is what I originally

set out to achieve.)

Potentially able to be published in Australian publications such as Wet Ink or Torpedo, or as

part of the Eclecticism e-zine, my story is composed for an audience of older teenagers,

specifically those with interest in the common ideas of the bildungsroman style. These include

the discovery of self and, perhaps more importantly, the discovery of others as ‘selves’. I aim to

challenge the audience to think of every person as a ‘self’ – people who think and feel just as

they do and are flawed, essentially. This is equally important in relation to Sophie as it is to

Claire. The direct inclusion of an adult perspective is uncommon in young adult literature, yet I

9
Ibid.
10
Green, J, Sydney author talk 03/06/09

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believe it fundamentally important for young people not to force an expectation of perfect

morality upon the adults in their lives.

The Preliminary Extension I module, Representations of Women, exposed me to female

characters with lives influenced by plots much more complex than any I had come across before,

complete with incidents that were not morally black and white, unreliable narration and other

characters just as complex (or more so) than they were. Sophie was inspired by the female

protagonists in texts such as We Need to Talk about Kevin11 and the short story So Much Water,

So Close to Home12 – characters who seemed a sort of middle ground between the perfect or

dysfunctional adult women I seemed to encounter in much of the young adult fiction I had read

(regardless of its quality). These two characters, in particular, encouraged me to further explore

the ways in which Sophie reacts to the events of the story and were certainly factors in

determining the weight of Sophie’s perspective in the final composition.

My writing style has developed considerably over the course of composition. Notably, it was

affected by young adult author Francesca Lia Block’s evocative use of imagery and description. I

initially read The Rose & the Beast13 as part of my research into the modern fairy tale; however,

this anthology and subsequent reading of Block’s writing served as inspiration for

experimentation with sentence structure, notably in the listing description used by Jasper in his

letters (“this black blonde candy shop girl”14). This style of identifying persons with a noun

descriptor is also demonstrated in my composition’s title (‘Shortbread Sophie’ and ‘Kilometrico

Kid’).

The composition process was not without its challenges. Periods in which I lacked motivation

became essential, however, to the work’s development. Boredom and fatigue with the direction
11
Shriver, L 2003, We Need to Talk About Kevin: A Novel
12
Carver, R 1989, ‘So Much Water, So Close to Home,’ Where I’m Calling From: Selected Stories
13
Block, F L 2000, The Rose & the Beast: Fairy Tales Retold
14
Own major work

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my composition was progressing encouraged me to develop it in new ways. For example, the

realisation that I had created Claire to be an MPDG came relatively late in the process and

allowed me to develop, clarify and articulate the concepts, audience and purpose of my story.

Perhaps the most challenging part of the composition process was creating a climactic ending. I

believe, however, that this challenge was more a result of my unwillingness to commit to a

concrete ending, due to uncertainty about the potency of my composition. I found that when I

simply forced myself to construct an ending, it flowed naturally. The conclusion has become one

of the parts I am most proud of.

The process of composing my major work was extremely enjoyable and equally rewarding.

Reflecting thus upon the process, I realise my accomplishment. Although I have enjoyed fiction

writing since an early age, this is the first purposeful and extended story I have written, and a

large step in expanding my creative potential.