Book from 'jacks' point of view

[young_ripper_writer]

For my AS english language creative writing piece i have decided to use something that has facinated me for years, the ripper murders, and all kilers in general really.

I was hoping that you could all help me to do this? or at least give me pointers on how to do this well?

I was wanting to write as if it were a diary that jack were keeping at the time.

Is this a bad idea... thanks in advance for all the help

Ripper_Writer

[Supe]

RW,

Well, you might start by reading the Maybrick Diary, which most in the field comsider to be a work of fiction.

Don.

[Sam Flynn]

I was wanting to write as if it were a diary that jack were keeping at the time.

As Don suggests, take a look at the "Diary of Jack the Ripper"... and try to emulate it as little as possible. Bear that in mind, and you should do well

Alternatively, you could try to write it from the point of view of someone associated with the case "on the ground" - e.g. an ordinary policeman, a police surgeon or a journalist.

[Christine]

There are numerous reviews of ripper fiction in the Ripper Media section. It doesn't look like it's been updated in a while, which is a shame. You can also find some fiction authors who have posted here.

I'd say your first step is to decide who Jack really was and what kind of a person he was. Feel free to decide he was Joe Unknown, you'll still need to fill in the details. If you want to go for a realistic guess, you can get lots of info on the likely real Jack by reading through here. Also decide if he wrote any of the letters (or at least if you want to quote the letters in your story). Likewise give yourself some solutions to the major mysteries: the Goulsten Street Graffito, how many of victims were actually his, and so on. If it's not to be a very long story, you might want to limit yourself to a few incidents.

Also, a general exercise which might be especially useful is creating a data sheet for Jack: age, date and place of birth, any living family members and state of the relationship, any romantic attachments, past or present, where he lives, what his room is like (if he even has a room), illnesses, in particular mental illnesses and venereal disease, jobs, past and present, income, cash on hand, wardrobe, education, religion, diet, things like that.

In many cases we known a fair amount about a suspect's background but very little about his capacity for violence, so that's why I say it might be especially useful for Jack. Even if your Ripper is Joe Unknown you might want to start with some of the real suspects and fill in the blanks and come up with a killer.

[Jeffery]

I wrote one like that myself a wee while ago. It's hard, but it's wicked fun!

Do you want to use a made up local guy? It might be neat to pick a suspect and run through where he was the whole time.

Good luck! I hope it turns out awesome. Bet it will.

[claire]

One other thing you might want to consider is, if it is to be a diary kept (purportedly) by Jack, the sort of language you will use. Making sure that your language is entirely consistent with language use at the time is a bit of a knack (Peter Ackroyd is terrific at this), but websites like etymonline will help you figure out whether a word or phrase was in use in 1888 (I've hammered that site to death more than once). It can be quite laborious, but it really does help to keep the voice consistent (in both senses of that phrase!).

Good luck with it; you could always post drafts here for comments as you go, a sort of mini-workshop, if you like.