Wondering Mind

Did you know? The hidden story of words... 2 - Awful

2011-11-25T17:23:00.002Z

And here is another word, "Awful":

Contemporary usage of “awful” only has its origins some 200 years ago, in a slang form of finding both concrete and conceptual objects or persons monstrous or bad; be it the state of a nation[1], or the dramatising of an adjective, as per the letters of Keats[2]. Colloquialised versions of the adverb followed shortly after, from Twain[3] to Paine[4]. This suggests a paradigm shift in the power of the word, perhaps introduced by the Victorian novel: a wilful playing down of the original meaning as something more natural, mundane and relevant to a speaker’s everyday life.

In the objective sense of the word, its etymology stems from the noun “awe” and, ironically, the striking of “a subjective emotion... fear... dread”[5]. Stemming in turn from the Old Norse, and Old Germanic, the suffix “-ful” makes its Anglo-Saxon appearance as slang, from the time of Alfred the Great[6] up through the 1800s. However, this use relates at first to vast “awefull armies”[7] and scenes that inspire dread, such as plagues[8], and massacres[9]: a sense of horror.

It is the words of Ælfric, circa 1000, which attempt to evoke instead a sense of God’s greatness[10], but other writers choose to subvert this as an earthly reverence in men only. It isn’t until Tudor England’s power play between Reformation and Counter-reformation that the inspiration of reverence and respect re-emerges. Even then, this subjective sense of being “filled with awe”[11] merely touches upon exaltations of God rather than settling there.

[1] Thomas Green Fessenden · Pills, poetical, political, and philosophical: prescribed for the purpose of purging the publick of piddling philosophers, of puny poetasters, of paltry politicians, and petty partisans · 1809.

[2] John Keats · Letters, 1814–1821 ed. H. E. Rollins 2 vols. 1958

[3] Mark Twain · The adventures of Tom Sawyer · Authorized ed., 1876. Leipzig: Bernhard Tauchnitz

[4] Ralph Delahaye Paine · Comrades of the rolling ocean · 1923

[5] "awe, n.1". OED Online. September 2011. Oxford University Press. http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/13911 (accessed November 01, 2011).

[6] King Alfred · Boethius' De Consol. Philosophy · 888

[7] William Warner · Albions England: a continued historie · revised edition, 1602 (1 vol.). London: E. Bollifant for G. Potter

[8] Daniel Defoe · A journal of the plague year · 1st edition, 1722 (1 vol.). London: Printed for E. Nutt; J. Roberts; A. Dodd; and J. Graves

[9] John Richard Green · A short history of the English people · 1st edition, 1874 (1 vol.).

[10] Ælfric of Eynsham · Deut. · 1000

[11] "awful, adj.". OED Online. September 2011. Oxford University Press. http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/13943?redirectedFrom=awful (accessed November 01, 2011).

Did you know? The hidden story of words... 1 - Horror

2011-11-25T17:22:00.000Z

What follows is a brief discussion on the origins of the English word "horror"; an assignment in research and citations. Enjoy...

English forms of “horror” originate during the Hundred Years’ War. Its etymology borrows the Old French spelling “(h)orrour” for at least the first 100 years, but alters its Latinate of physical reactions: “bristle... shudder”[1] to a psychological response to fear[2]. It is unknown whether this is a French etymological development or a weak translation. However, since the recorded use of “horrible” precedes “horror” in the poetry of Mannyng[3], it can be suggested that noun and adjective have informed each other.
This “shuddering with terror and repugnance”[4] is settled within the English language. Brief transferences into nautical[5] and alchemical[6] do not weaken or colloquialise the term. Neither does its appropriation as reverential fear and awe, which draws on the etymology of “awful” (as seen in Pope’s Iliad translation[7]), since this is soon obsolete.

The transferred sense from personal to projected horror (following “horror’s” introduction into the language) as early as 1413[8], remains throughout the word’s timeline. It becomes a dysphemism for places, things and people, as evidenced in Ulysses[9], becoming synonymous with the waxworks of Tussaud’s Chamber of Horrors[10].
In a medical sense, the Latinate etymology returns within 200 years as a symptomatic description of disease – we may take it for fever, as expressed in Phillips’s New World of Words[11] – before being interjected into conversations in the late 1800s in a mostly over-dramatic manner, as per the writing of Troubridge[12]. The psychology of horror though, developed further into a colloquialised description of mental ill-health[13] which found itself linked euphemistically with the medical term for alcoholic withdrawal: “delirium tremens”.

[1] "† horre, v.". OED Online. September 2011. Oxford University Press. http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/88553 (accessed November 01, 2011).
[2] The Wycliffite Bible (early version) · a1382
[3] Robert Mannyng · Handlyng Synne · 1303
[4] "horror, n.". OED Online. September 2011. Oxford University Press. http://www.oed.com/viewdictionaryentry/Entry/88577 (accessed November 01, 2011).
[5] The Annual Register · 1758–
[6] Elias Ashmole · Theatrum chemicum Britannicum, containing severall poeticall pieces of our famous English philosophers, collected, with annotations, by E. Ashmole · 1652.
[7] Homer · The Iliad of Homer (transl. Alexander Pope) · 1st edition, 1715–1720 (6 vols.).
[8] The Pilgrimage of the Soul · 1483–1500
[9] James Augustine Aloysius Joyce · Ulysses · 1st book edition, 1922 (1 vol.).Paris: Shakespeare and Co; Dijon: Maurice Darantiere
[10] William Makepeace Thackeray · The history of Pendennis · 1st book edition, 1848-1850 (2 vols. publ. in parts). London: Bradbury and Evans, 11, Bouverie Street
[11] The new world of words; or, universal English dictionary (ed. John Kersey) · 6th edition, 1706 (1 vol.).
[12] Laura Elizabeth R. Troubridge · Life amongst the Troubridges · 1966.
[13] Oliver Goldsmith · The good natur'd man · 1st edition, 1768 (1 vol.).

Litopia's 1st Anthology

2011-06-22T05:24:00.000Z

The end began with a whimper, where the Sun had always been at its most fervent: Rome, and in all the cities, regions, and countries clinging to the equatorial line. By the time Alfredo Giancarlo was born, the end was unalterably established and advancing without much fanfare.

It's a good time of year when you are told that a piece of your writing has been accepted into an anthology of work - finally. Phew!

Back in January, Litopia announced it's first anthology, in association (and all hard work carried out by) Nemesis Publishing.

"And?" I hear you say. "And?"

Well, I'm in it. Naturally! My 5,000 word response to visiting Rome for the first (and only) time - so far - which I'd drafted up back in 2008, has been accepted to join the work of other Litopians. The piece is called Dreaming of Flora and emerged from my experience of the heat of Rome and the stone and flora and how, like Christianity across antiquity, one can consume the other.

The first ever anthology of short fiction by Litopians will be published later this year – and all full members have the chance to be involved.

It will be a collection of the finest short fiction that Litopia has to offer, published in print and as an e-book, with the release scheduled for mid-November...

For full details visit Litopia.

I'm really pleased, as I'm sure you'd appreciate that I would be. It is a good day. The anthology is set, at present, to be published by the end of November.

The Role of Tiresias in Salley Vickers’s ‘Where Three Roads Meet’

2011-06-08T08:00:00.004Z

So it was that the second analysis essay needed to be written if ever I was to worm my way onto the English degree. I needed to find something to analyse that would engage me (so that I could get on with reading and absorbing it), but not too contemporary that I looked totally out of touch.

Inspiration hit me when I was wandering through the library (as I do) and there it was... reviewing my old interviews with authors would show my interview with Salley Vickers, in which we discussed for a while her entry for the Canongate updated mythology series.

It was divine inspiration that led me to 'Where Three Roads Meets' a novella that deals with Freud's death and, as Vickers has decided to frame it, his ruminations over the Oedipus Complex. Vickers's story is both contemporary but allowed me to reach back into Sophocles's play so as to straddle the divide between antiquity and now. What better way to stretch my researching skills than to read both Vickers and Sophocles and extract the greater meaning that Vickers has laced her work with?

Critical Analysis of a Literary Text

Discuss the role of Tiresias in Salley Vickers’s ‘Where Three Roads Meet’

“Know thyself” (Vickers, p.99) Tiresias tells Sigmund Freud at the height of their discussions on Oedipus and, in this particular case, Oedipus’ understanding of the riddle of the Sphinx. It is this self awareness, or self analysis, that lies at the heart of ‘Where Three Roads Meet’, and is the fundamental basis for Tiresias’ role in deconstructing Freud’s Oedipus complex.

The professed abilities of Antiquity’s prophets can be seen, in all their metaphorical ambiguities, as shaping the science of the mind. Freud was one of many to call upon ancient stories and metaphors to help develop his theories, though Vickers, a psychoanalyst herself (Vickers’s Website), prescribes to Jung’s theory that where the myth of Oedipus was concerned, “Freud’s not read it correctly” (Feay).

Know thyself is a philosophy Oedipus’ pride and drive prevented him from fully understanding and contributes in part to the tragedy of his downfall. Freud touches on this when he says “[Oedipus] was more comforted by truth than fortified by comfort” (Vickers, p.169). However, it is best illustrated in the schism between Oedipus and the Chorus, when he claims he was responsible for solving the riddle of the Sphinx (Sophocles, 536) while the Chorus suggest “There was a god in it, a god in you” (Sophocles, 58). It also shows in the divide between Freud, who diagnosed Oedipus’ problems as being the making of his own psyche, and Freud’s one-time protégé, Carl Jung, who considered that “the problem of antiquity… [is that] there is a lot of infantile sexuality in it” (Hayman, 1999, p.119).

Author Salley Vickers has observed that “at the end of his life [Freud] was revising his theories… So the subject of Oedipus would have been at the forefront of his mind” (Vickers’s Website). She uses this ongoing development (comprising 6 stages over a period of 41 years), coupled with Freud’s age and failing health, to entertain the notion that Freud might, even subconsciously, consider counterarguments. In doing so Vickers is standing on the shoulders of Jung, who tried and failed to get Freud to, “… get rid of all your complexes and stop playing the father to your sons and take a good look at your weak spots instead of aiming continually at theirs” (Hayman, p.163).

The role of the blind prophet Tiresias in several tragedies and stories surrounding the ancient Greek city of Thebes, amounts to warnings and prophecies. As the seer from the ‘Oedipus’ he is central to the events of the play, having pronounced the prophecy whose outcome Freud took as the basis for “the linchpin of his theory of infantile sexuality”: the ‘Oedipus’ Complex (Vickers’s Website). In ‘Where Three Roads Meet’ Vickers takes Tiresias’ seer role at its basest function: to act as analyst. While not a representation of psychoanalysis, since Tiresias would analyse waking dreams and signs in nature in order to relate the prophecies of the gods, he does reflect the thoughts and feelings of Freud as a psychologist or counsellor might.

Tiresias, it seems apparent, was chosen as a foil for Freud because he is one of the earliest representations of a man whose mind and wits are used for the benefit of others. Before the philosophies of Aristotle, Socrates and Plato began to shape the hearts and minds of Ancient Greece, men and kings alike would turn to the seers and oracles for guidance on how to shape their lives or how their lives were shaped. Oedipus acknowledges the power and skill of Tiresias’ role in the ‘Oedipus’ by welcoming Tiresias to Thebes and proclaiming, “We are in your hands Teirsias. No work is more nobly human than helping others” (Sophocles, 426), as do the Chorus when they exclaim “the truth is rooted in his soul” (Sophocles, 411). Tiresias’ role carries great weight and significance in both the ‘Oedipus’ and ‘Where Three Roads Meet’.

In the ‘Oedipus’ Tiresias proves: his insight, with his prophecies, “… see who he really is: their brother and their father; his wife’s son, his mother’s husband” (Sophocles, 629); his empathy, when he doesn’t want to share this hurtful reality with Oedipus, “I will do nothing to hurt myself, or you” (Sophocles, 450); and his guile at reflecting Oedipus’ feelings, “That gift is your destiny. It made you everything you are, and it has ruined you” (Sophocles, 610). These are the three core skills of an analyst and a counsellor that Tiresias employs in respect to Freud in ‘Where Three Roads Meet’.

Tiresias’ empathy extends to showing his acceptance of Freud’s weaknesses and normalising them, by making light of his own, “No matter, I stumble too” (Vickers, p.23). He also does not disagree with Freud’s godless belief that he shall never get to see his dead mother again (Vickers, p.42). He reflects with Freud that Freud reasons there is a universality man shares with man in myth (Vickers, p.28). More importantly, his insight is shown in his ability to explain the meaning of the story of Oedipus and the manner in which he is able to avoid debates on digressed topics. When Freud belittles the “primitive need” of deity worship or suggests Tiresias may have had an Oedipus complex, Tiresias only says, “Whatever you say, Doctor” (Vickers, p.30, p.36). Later, Tiresias comes to pre-empt Freud’s tendency to jump to conclusions, by asking Freud to listen to what he has to say first (Vickers, p.104).

It is Vickers’s intent to blur the lines between the roles Freud and Tiresias play. One allusion to the similarities between psychoanalyst and oracle are in their choice of seating. Tiresias mentions that, “the Pythia sat on a three-legged stool to utter the divine pronouncements” (Vickers, p.83). Freud had a three-legged analysing chair – his “tripod” – “We had it specially made.” (Vickers, p.24). Coupled with these similarities, the Socratic dialogue that Freud and Tiresias engage in evokes a very real sense that the pair’s opposing viewpoints are designed to stimulate the critical thinking Freud’s subconscious needs to reach its conclusion. However, Tiresias’ refusal to enter into debates on certain subjects suggests that he is leading the conversation.

Following the introduction that frames Vickers’s novella, the main body of the text is presented as a dialogue, or script, rather than a narrative piece. Descriptions and actions, aside from any that Freud and Tiresias may share or direct at each other, are redundant here. The effect is to create the appearance of a transcript that lends the reading of the piece a sense of urgency and helps to depict the dialogues shared by Freud and Tiresias as analytical sessions.

It is Freud who imagines, by their fourth meeting, that he is in an analytical session. He acts, initially in the dominant role of host and analyst, by offering Tiresias a seat, but, “No, no, not, please, my analysing chair.” (Vickers, p.24). Tiresias even sets up this misconception by telling Freud, “It is your gift for listening I need” (Vickers, p.26). However, what Freud does not realise and which becomes increasingly apparent to the reader is that Freud comes to adopt the role of patient, while Tiresias becomes the analyst.

On his fifth visit, Tiresias does not wish to “dislodge” Freud from his couch and when he offers to sit by the desk Freud accepts that Tiresias should “take the armchair by me” (Vickers, p.42). On the sixth, when offered the couch and Tiresias answers, “I prefer not”, Freud admits that he would rather remain lying upon it (Vickers, p.59). By the seventh visit, Vickers has done away with talk of where to sit and though Freud might be oblivious to this reversal, particularly since he has previously asked, “Tell me, what has been in your mind since we met?” (Vickers, p.59), it is clear to the reader that Vickers’s intent is to have Tiresias’ tale relate a universal truth in order to help Freud.

It is fitting then that Vickers has chosen to invite Tiresias to hold discourse with Freud. Throughout Carl Jung’s life, Jung discussed philosophical matters with a fantasy figure: Philemon. Jung said “[Philemon] was to me what the Indians call a guru… a man with great intellect and ability who could have decoded for me the involuntary creations of my fantasy” (Hayman, p.179). Just as Tiresias was born of myths and stories, so too was Philemon. “[He] had appeared in Ovid’s ‘Metamorphoses’ and in Goethe’s ‘Faust’” (Philemon Foundation Website). There is synchronicity between the roles of Philemon and Tiresias. Both are seers and both reflect the subconscious of the men in whose minds they have been created.

This is Vickers’s design: an irony that mirrors Jung’s schizophrenia in Freud’s drugged and post-trauma mind. Tiresias, like Philemon, is an “archetypal image of the spirit” (Hyde & McGuinness, p.55). He is present to help Freud reconcile his consciousness with his theories. Freud makes his standpoint on gods and God clear, “[a] ‘deity’ is a primitive need to rationalise natural injustice” (Vickers, p.30), and, “My dear fellow, I have no god.” (Vickers, p.31). Stricken as he is with cancer and overshadowing death, Freud has no God to turn to or repent before, as a man of faith would. He only has himself to face. A subconscious desire, as Vickers has decided to portray it, to reconcile his disagreement with Jung, particularly since Freud “did not regard his own experiences as automatically valid for all humanity” (Fay, p.90) and would wonder “whether his claim that everyone passes through [the Oedipus complex] can be substantiated” (Jacobs, p.15).

Freud took issue with the questioning his ideas received, and was particularly affronted by Jung’s interpretations of sexuality and the Oedipus complex as being “abstract, impersonal and non-historical” (Freud, p.236). This disagreement led to increasingly fractious dialogue between the pair that in turn ended their friendship and made Freud increasingly protective of his theories. It can be argued that Freud would not respond as well to any other character, real or fantasy, as he does to Tiresias.

Tiresias embodies the philosophy of Socratic questioning, and Socrates’s view that, “The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.” Tiresias is even heard to advise Freud that “I can only speak from my own experience” (Vickers, p.46) and “You’re the expert, Dr Freud. I’m just a humble witness” (Vickers, p.149). Tiresias and Freud are often in disagreement, which leads Tiresias to reveal ever more concrete truths, such as his blinding by Athena at the Castalian spring (Vickers, p.77). Tiresias intends to prove that not everything can be rationalised from Freud’s external perspective and theories.

“The audience [of the ‘Oedipus’] have a godlike vantage on the action of the play” (Clay, p.12), but Freud doesn’t appreciate the divide. For example, when Tiresias mentions Apollo’s plague, Freud denies the inherent divine nature of the ‘Oedipus’, stating “it was a mortally contagious virus passed on through inadequate hygiene” (Vickers, p.115). Tiresias does not correct Freud but continues, through his story, to prove what the Athenians knew “when they returned to the life of their city and the [very real] plague that was ravaging Athens” (Clay, p.15): Freud has taken a divine fiction and attempted to remove the gods.

Tiresias phrases his response, towards the end of their dialogue, by telling Freud he’d missed the point of Sophocles’s play, stating “here in all the world was the one person you could safely say didn’t have an Oedipus complex you dreamed up for him. He was Oedipus, plain Oedipus” (Vickers, p.169).

Tiresias is the right choice to correct Freud’s thinking due to his polite, challenging manner and for his perspective from being at the centre of the events of the ‘Oedipus’. He does so without riling Freud. Just as Tiresias succeeds in voicing his opinion where Jung failed, he is best suited out of all the characters of the ‘Oedipus’ to state it. Jocasta would be reliant upon Freud since the crime of the ‘Oedipus’ is perpetrated against her. Her realisation, as Tiresias reports to Freud, is filled with grief and denial: “For the gods’ sake, Oedipus, drop it, let the man go!” (Vickers, p.153). Oedipus could argue, as he does in the ‘Oedipus’, against the Oedipus complex because he is able to separate out the responsibilities of the gods from himself: “It was Apollo, always Apollo, who brought each of my agonies to birth, but I, nobody else, I… I stabbed out these eyes” (Sophocles, 1732), but Oedipus is overcome with the hindsight that has revealed his fall.

As author of the ‘Oedipus’, Sophocles would have made a worthy counterpoint to Freud, for even though he has Jocasta say, “Many men have slept with their mothers in their dreams” (Sophocles, 1238), he is rightly placed to discuss the purpose and reasoning behind the metaphors. Freud could still argue against Sophocles, citing the author’s subconscious yearnings: “It was castration,” Freud declares of Oedipus’ blinding and it is Tiresias who can honestly explain, “Had Oedipus seen fit to castrate himself, believe me he would have done so” (Vickers, p.176).

Tiresias has the benefit of standing in both realities: Freud’s and the ‘Oedipus’. He can relate the mind of Sophocles and, when he states to Oedipus “You don’t see how much alike we are” (Sophocles, 458), he shows that he shares a “fixity of disposition” with Oedipus (Clay, p.104). This disposition exists both when Oedipus and Tiresias first meet and afterwards when Oedipus has fulfilled the Sphinx’s riddle and becomes as physically blind as Tiresias. Finally, Tiresias can reveal the ironies: as Oedipus says, “It is frightening – can the blind prophet see, can he really see?” (Sophocles, 979).

“To put it otherwise, there is always another way at the crossroads” (Vickers, p.126) says Tiresias, alluding to the metaphor of the junction on the road to Phokis where Oedipus kills his father, King Laios, and the title of Vickers’s novella ‘Where Three Roads Meet’. In resolving the fallout between Freud and Jung, Vickers is proposing through Tiresias the theory that the act of knowing a possible future limits our choices. From within Freud’s subconscious, Tiresias is able to circumvent Freud’s unwillingness to accept that he has afforded too much significance to the Oedipus complex. Since Freud has adopted the role of patient, lying upon his own analyst’s couch, Tiresias is free to reflect the reality of the Oedipus myth and to direct Freud to the conclusion that others, from Jung to Vickers, have reached, whilst not forcing him to accept it. True to the role of analyst that Tiresias adopts, he does not judge but resolves to lead Freud to the truth.

On the Death of Dr. Levet

2011-06-07T09:33:00.003Z

In order to prove myself worthy of returning to university in order to complete a full time degree I needed to analyse two pieces of literature. These had to consist of one critical essay on a literary text and one analysis of poetry or prose. The pre-requisite was that at least one of the texts needed to be pre-1820.

I've never been one for poetry. I couldn't ever get my head around it and didn't really find anything in it to pique my interest. However, following two days of observations in the schools of a couple of friends it suddenly clicked while I was sitting with a sixthform class discussing Blake's Songs of Experience. Tada - epiphany moment.

Therefore, for the first analysis, I chose Samuel Johnson's poem: On the Death of Dr. Robert Levet.

Condemned to Hope’s delusive mine,
As on we toil from day to day,
By sudden blasts, or slow decline,
Our social comforts drop away.

The Poetry Foundation are kind enough to provide a copy for your viewing pleasure.

Samuel Johnson c. 1772, painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds

Analysis of ‘On the Death of Dr Robert Levet’

In eulogising his friend and dependant, Robert Levet, Dr Samuel Johnson immediately sets out his respect and empathy for Levet and Levet’s work. Johnson titled the poem: Dr Robert Levet, conferring a status upon him that wasn’t legally merited. Levet was a lay physician, oft labelled a quack; he never benefited from formal medical training and even Johnson’s biographer, James Boswell, referred to him as “... his humble friend Mr. Robert Levet” (Boswell, p.102).

It can be argued that his age and the loss of his closest friends to death made Johnson nostalgic; he longs for Levet and weights the poem in his honour. From the moment Levet descends to the grave he is, “Officious, innocent, sincere, Of ev’ry friendless name the friend.” demonstrating, “His vig’rous remedy display’d.” There is a definite sense that Johnson feels Levet was underestimated in life and his portrayal of Levet’s “power of art without the show” cries out that here is a man who did what he did and refused to draw attention to it.

Johnson is not simply beatifying Levet. He is at once stating Levet’s shortcomings, though these are touched upon only briefly and tempered by the adjectives that conflict with the descriptions in line 10, “Obscurely wise, and coarsely kind;” Levet is portrayed as something of an anti-hero in these manners – traits we wouldn’t otherwise attribute to a saint. Johnson however, goes further by speaking out against what he felt was the needless snobbery of Levet’s naysayers, “Nor, letter'd arrogance, deny , Thy praise to merit unrefin'd.”

Whatever Levet’s shortcomings, Johnson resolutely denies that there are any in Levet’s empathy and diligence to his patients. Levet, Johnson summarises in the sixth stanza, attended to every need as soon as it was requested, “No summons mock'd by chill delay,” He wasn’t motivated by greed, “No petty gain disdain'd by pride,” and had “modest wants” supplied by “the toil of ev’ry day”, in the form of food and drink. As Hibbert describes: “The poor people whose unlicensed doctor he was could rarely afford his modest fees and he would accept their offer of a drink instead.” (Hibbert, p.83). This added to Johnson’s affection for Levet and ironically Levet’s dependency on him. It has been observed that “medicine was something of a lottery in the mid-eighteenth century” (Martin, p.184), especially for the unlicensed, as Levet was.

This exalting of Levet renders a second layer to the poem, which contains references to life as a purgatory, “Condemn’d to hope's delusive mine, As on we toil from day to day,” and an underworld, “In misery's darkest caverns known”. “Misery’s darkest caverns” refers to where London’s underbelly of poor dwelled. Levet cared for them and Johnson highlights the lowly despair of “hopeless anguish” and “lonely want” where Levet’s “useful care was ever nigh”. It is between the allusions to purgatory and the underworld where much of the poem affects a despairing tone with its “fainting nature” and “hov’ring death”, where Levet had spent much of his 80 years battling death and nature. It is a mirror on Johnson’s personal feelings about whether his own life amounted to anything near Levet’s righteousness. “[Johnson] reproaches the author himself, who has squandered multiple talents” (Lipking, p.293).

Talk of Levet’s physical death, “See Levet to the grave descend;” echoes the sentiment of descending to the underworld, but by the seventh stanza and through the process of expounding Levet’s virtues Johnson touches upon a favourite biblical parable of his (the Parable of the Talents from Matthew 25: 14-30) and the tone shifts, “And sure th' Eternal Master found, The single talent well-employ'd.”

Johnson admits that Levet was obscure in his mannerisms, coarse in conversation, and unrefined in his person, but he believes that actions speak louder than words, and when he details that Levet’s “virtues walk’d their narrow round” he is setting a broader tone: one of judgement.

Johnson considers Levet to be that single talent well-employed that he doubts exists in himself. In that belief Johnson raises Levet up, as if pronouncing a benediction upon him for Levet’s good works; his actions and not his words. Johnson alludes to hellfire and flesh rotting away, “Then with no throbbing fiery pain, No cold gradations of decay,” These are fates reserved for those of us who do not meet the standards of Levet’s commitment to others. Levet’s soul however, Johnson tells us, is freed and he is resurrected.

This conviction in Johnson is further expressed in a journal entry for 20th January 1782 in which he recorded Levet’s funeral and commented: “May God have had mercy on him. May he have mercy on me.” Johnson bestows power on Levet over himself, perhaps believing that men of charity would be the judge of other men. This strong position held by Johnson shines all the brighter for having immortalised Levet as he has. Even Thackeray in his discourse on the “Four Georges” wrote, “Do you remember the verses the sacred verses which Johnson wrote on the death of his humble friend Levett? ... Whose name looks the brightest now, that of Queens-
berry the wealthy duke, or Selwyn the wit, or Levett the poor physician?” (Thackeray, 1864). Thackeray echoes Johnson’s strongly held belief that one Levet is worth a great many gentlemen of higher social standing.

Finally, rhythm and warmth pervades the poem. The cadence of the adjective-noun couplings: “sudden blasts... slow decline... obscurely wise... coarsely kind... fainting nature... hov’ring death... vig’rous remedy” and so on, carry the poem’s beat. The poem is written in iambic tetrameter, lending the stanzas a warm and thoughtful rhythm that is both traditional and familiar, much like a heartbeat. It marks the passages as both laden with regret and resolute in their conviction.

Johnson’s eulogy of Dr Levet is a resounding cry of loss and regret as well as a challenge to the bigotry which pervades amongst the gentry. Allusions to the underworld in which we find ourselves and the nature of good deeds which raises us up are illustrated in a man who embodies, in spirit if not decorum, everything godly. That Johnson has chosen to immortalise a commoner and otherwise unremarkable man in this way may speak more of Johnson’s personal grief than real saintliness. However, he is sermonising. He is trying to evoke self awareness in the reader. We ask ourselves if we have done all we can to be spoken of so highly when it is our turn.

Literary Schizophrenia

2011-06-07T09:29:00.005Z

I know, I know. The answer? Well, I've abandoned my mind... frankly.

Life gets in the way and I am too easily distracted, but rest assured, in order to bring my mind back to order I am re-engaging with the literary world and my soul.

Wondering-Mind is therefore changing to represent my next set of learning as I embark upon a full time degree with Reading University to do a BA in English Literature, with an eye on becoming a Secondary English teacher.

With the publishing industry in free fall thanks to the eBook revolution and the unwelcome rise of eBook cyber theft maybe the time to get published is... never.

So, here you should now find my learning and my essays.

I didn’t really know Virtue Evelyn Donahue at all until...

2010-08-13T08:33:00.018Z

... the night she slipped out of the first floor window of a house party on Shiplake Avenue and fell into my arms. Literally.

Anyone who's been paying attention over the past 7 years will recognise the name. Don't worry if you don't. It's obscure and one of the leads in a novel I'd plotted and toyed with the opening off back in 06/07.

Add to Your Faith Virtue; and to Virtue Knowledge by Walter Rane

Back then my biggest problem was style and voice. Who were my chosen authorly compadres with whom my book would nestle up to on a library shelf? Who's work did I love to read and I felt mirrored the way I wanted to write? It was a deep dark problem, compounded by the fact I don't write the same as I talk and that I do literally mix up profound words of great weight with minced colloquialisms. Many are the friends and family who advise me that I talk too much, and that, more importantly, they don't have the foggiest what I'm chuntering on about.

It was actually the bathroom window that she’d swung wide. Trying, I thought, to find safe haven from the midnight music that thudded and tinkled from the strains of some club anthem. Then she was struggling out the window the wrong way like some crazed cat burglar before she fell, bringing with her the sweet aroma of someone masking a smoking habit.

‘You wanted some air?’ I asked.

After that it became an issue of learning how to write proper and battling against my desperation to produce something fittingly pithy, amazingly descriptive, and focused, writing and re-writing my coursework for the NAW until I could barely make sense of it and didn't know good writing from bad.

While she sat in my arms, grinning broadly, her hair all plastered to her glowing face, somebody broke down the bathroom door with a bellow and the shatter of what had to be a mirror. It was the kind of sound you cringed at and hoped no one had hurt themselves or that the damage wasn’t so bad, but Virtue, she just kept on grinning. At me. Right up until the door breaker lurched to the window and shouted down.

What next? I struggled with the hope that I could write a fast flowing YA caper that would bring me the quick buck and allow me to focus on writing full time, and not when my lethargy abated to give me 5 minutes of writing time. It didn't help that I was still framed in the persistent rewrite mode. Thinking to myself, got to get it right first time, must add this extra nugget in here, must cut back there, must make it golden prose, but that makes perfect sense. The outcome was two half-started YA novels that went nowhere but which are fully plotted. Does my writing fit the YA market? At this point I guess not.

Her angular cheekbones had that classic, Hepburn look and her eyes were filled with late night dreaminess. They, or me, seemed fit to burst. Until the interruption she was happy to let her feet lightly swim in the air but she kicked then to be let down and she took her arms from around my neck and shook one and pointed up at him.

And in moving onto a pet project-cum-fairytale, that's kind of The Princess Bride meets Twilight, I realised - and this is largely Katie's thoughts that made me realise this - I have a serious problem with associating my reader with my main characters, and making them care. Think of Evelyn Waugh's Vile Bodies and how the vapidness of the main characters really doesn't endear them to the audience at all. Think of, for some, Inception, where many feel that Cobb really is the engineer of his own downfall and should hardly be cheered on when he's got his associates into so much danger. How does a writer make a character relatable when they both need to be generally interesting and likeable but have a character flaw that needs to seriously be turned about in order for the character to become fully rounded and for the story to have it's emotional heart?

‘Virtue, what the fuck?’ he shouted, ‘I thought you were dying in here. Did you jump?’ There was a moment when he searched the window frame, the sill and the scrabble point on the front wall where Virtue had lost her footing, as if trying to find a quick way down but threw up his arms. ‘Fuck.’

...

And none of my characters have been overwhelmingly relatable... not in a good way. One's a sexual snob who secretly harbors desires, one's from a gang, but refused to stand up for others, one's just a bit of a nobody kid who can't stand up for himself, one's a moany, self-infatuated psychic who keeps trying to commit suicide, one's a moany, self-infatuated spinster who has committed suicide. And of course, what you're reading now which has one possible rape victim / possible liar being used by a writer who wants to use her as his muse.

...

‘Shit,’ I said instead, ‘rape?’

‘New guy: Brett. Brett: new guy. Brett was my boyfriend.’

‘Was?’

‘Didn’t you get the memo about the attempted rape, or were you too busy staring at my tits?’

...

You see, the problem is two fold.

The characters I wanted to portray, and their character arcs were at odds with the larger story I wanted to tell. I couldn't service both as they exist.
I really needed to find other ways to introduce the characters to the reader, making sure to: start late, finish early; show not tell; stay focused to the story; create tension; keep the narrative moving; make them likeable

...

‘So… where are we going?’ I asked.And that’s where this whole thing started. For me. Because she said, ‘Your place.’

As I return to Spoiling Virtue and take a new approach to the opening, I'm beginning to feel that the route to successful leads and therefore successful fiction maybe in both charisma and mystique. Keep them proactive, thinking, acting, emoting. It's worth a shot.

Bracknell Libraries - Top 25 Fiction

2010-06-23T13:48:00.009Z

1.	8th confession by James Patterson [Search Catalogue] Buy from: [Amazon], [Book Depository], [Waterstones]
2.	Twenties girl by Sophie Kinsella [Search Catalogue] Buy from: [Amazon], [Book Depository], [Waterstones]
3.	Dead tomorrow by Peter James [Search Catalogue] Buy from: [Amazon], [Book Depository], [Waterstones]
4.	The stepmother's diary by Fay Weldon [Search Catalogue] Buy from: [Amazon], [Book Depository], [Waterstones]
5.	The associate by John Grisham [Search Catalogue] Buy from: [Amazon], [Book Depository], [Waterstones]
6.	Compulsion by Jonathan Kellerman [Search Catalogue] Buy from: [Amazon], [Book Depository], [Waterstones]
7.	The truth about Melody Browne by Lisa Jewell [Search Catalogue] Buy from: [Amazon], [Book Depository], [Waterstones]
8.	Remember me? by Sophie Kinsella [Search Catalogue] Buy from: [Amazon], [Book Depository], [Waterstones]
9.	The scarecrow by Michael Connelly [Search Catalogue] Buy from: [Amazon], [Book Depository], [Waterstones]
10.	The other half lives by Sophie Hannah [Search Catalogue] Buy from: [Amazon], [Book Depository], [Waterstones]
11.	Found wanting by Robert Goddard [Search Catalogue] Buy from: [Amazon], [Book Depository], [Waterstones]
12.	Tea time for the traditionally built by Alexander McCall Smith [Search Catalogue] Buy from: [Amazon], [Book Depository], [Waterstones]
13.	Gone tomorrow by Lee Child [Search Catalogue] Buy from: [Amazon], [Book Depository], [Waterstones]
14.	Love letters by Katie Fforde [Search Catalogue] Buy from: [Amazon], [Book Depository], [Waterstones]
15.	Long lost by Harlan Coben [Search Catalogue] Buy from: [Amazon], [Book Depository], [Waterstones]
16.	Born bad by Josephine Cox [Search Catalogue] Buy from: [Amazon], [Book Depository], [Waterstones]
17.	Without mercy by Jack Higgins [Search Catalogue] Buy from: [Amazon], [Book Depository], [Waterstones]
18.	The ghost by Robert Harris [Search Catalogue] Buy from: [Amazon], [Book Depository], [Waterstones]
19.	A prisoner of birth by Jeffrey Archer [Search Catalogue] Buy from: [Amazon], [Book Depository], [Waterstones]
20.	Deadly intent by Lynda La Plante [Search Catalogue] Buy from: [Amazon], [Book Depository], [Waterstones]
21.	Swimsuit by James Patterson [Search Catalogue] Buy from: [Amazon], [Book Depository], [Waterstones]
22.	Handle with care by Jodi Picoult [Search Catalogue] Buy from: [Amazon], [Book Depository], [Waterstones]
23.	Rumour has it by Jill Mansell [Search Catalogue] Buy from: [Amazon], [Book Depository], [Waterstones]
24.	Are you afraid of the dark? by Sidney Sheldon [Search Catalogue] Buy from: [Amazon], [Book Depository], [Waterstones]
25.	The overlook by Michael Connelly [Search Catalogue] Buy from: [Amazon], [Book Depository], [Waterstones]

Bickering Gods - Reviewing the story choices of The Clash of the Titans

2010-04-12T07:34:00.008Z

Love.

Love is a far more potent emotion; more virtuous, more universal, more identifiable, particularly for a hero us audience members wish to be, than revenge.

So it is not with the remake of Clash of the Titans. In which Perseus, Demi-God and son of Zeus, raised as a fisherman, finds himself in Argos to buy a new deckchair and sunshade set- no wait... finds himself in Argos and suddenly orphaned when Hades kills his family as collateral damage during the cull of some of Argos' soldiers.

The main story is elaborated with the overt tell: "Andromeda is more beautiful than Aphrodie and actually, you know what? We are the Gods" by Andromeda's mother, Cassiopeia, so that Hades appears again to wreak revenge against Cassiopeia and set the main story in motion - sacrifice Andromeda to save Argos. We've already had the Gods discussion on this issue. The duplication is a waste of screen time.

In the original it was enough for Cassiopeia to declare Andromeda as more beautiful than Andromeda. The petty jealousy of the Gods was enough to establish their want for revenge on Argos for the slight, but here in the new one the layering of reasons to exact destruction and damnation on the Argives.

That's issue 1. And it leads right on into Issue 2. The Gods are as human as humans in their bickering, scheming, bitterness, bitchiness and ego. But where is it? The only scheming going on is by Hades. The other Gods don't even get a look in. And Poseidon, who, being God of the sea, logically owns the Kraken, says but one line and is gone.

It's all arse about face with its Greek mythology. And that raises the question of why? Artistic license is a must in all forms of entertainment, but what is the point of changing a well established story, character or plot?

Take the remake for what it is, and you may be happy with the choices of plot. But then you may wish to learn the greek myth it is based on and having read that, wonder why the film makers would deviate from the Mythological Cannon. You could argue that it doesn't matter since it's just a story. But that's just it. I watched Clash of the Titans last night, the story of Perseus and Andromeda... except it wasn't the story of Perseus and Andromeda.

Which lands us on issue 3. The love story. What love story? Perseus falls for Andromeda and is driven to save her from the Kraken because of the purity of their love and in doing so he will prove himself a hero.

Not here. I should have guessed what was going on by way of the tiny screen time given to Annie. We learn enough to know she has better character than her mother, gives selflessly and is easy on the eyes. And that's it. Perseus doesn't love her in any way and isn't planning on getting with her come story end - oops, sorry, did I not say SPOILER WARNING?

Remember, this is not a love story but a revenge story. Everything about Andromeda is a side thought. Since Perseus has no love for her, since he doesn't fancy her at all, and is only on his quest to get back at Hades while throwing his toys out of the pram about wanting to do everything as a man not a Demi-God, Andromeda's fate is irrelevant.

Why should the audience really care that a beautiful woman is to be sacrificed to the Kraken? The hero doesn't and beautiful women in films die all the time, just watch the Kraken's tentacles lay waste to Argos. Lots of dead people there.

Hint to film makers everywhere: If your hero and damsel in distress share no chemistry (be it from the screen presence or dictated by the plot) then the audience doesn't care. They need to converse with each other, banter, get to know one another's character, otherwise their fates are irrelevant to each other and us.

Imagine Speed, and Keanu Reeves's Jack has absolutely nothing to say to Sandra Bullock's Annie. They spend the whole film with no banter, no flirting and only straight dialogue of go here, turn there, speed up, slow down. We get off the bus after he's rescued her... no kiss. No romance at the airport. Then, Dennis Hopper's Howard kidnaps Annie along with his money. Jack gives chase finds Annie a prisoner and thinks "Oh no, poor her". And that's it. Sure, we're all sad for Annie, being mixed up in all this and possibly about to blow up, but so what? Jack's got no relationship with her. The old woman who tried to jump off the bus and got blown up in the stairwell and went under the wheels was an awful shock but we didn't get to know her either. Collateral Damage and even Jack won't lose sleep over her, so why should he and we care any more about Annie.

Same thing with Argos and Andromeda. The plot is weakened by the choice of revenge movie over love.

Issue 4... this could go on all day. Grab yourself a sofa and a coffee. Issue 4. Adding lots of special effects, better fight scenes, and great cgi monsters does not a great movie make. Medusa, while more life like, had no attached-fear or tension. She dispatched her prey way too fast. Yes, she's a snake, and yes, perhaps in the original she is too slow, but even that wonderful movie Anaconda didn't have the giant snake whip itself all round the boat at one point and kill everyone at once. Where's the tension in that?

And what the hell is she doing being beautiful?

And, of course, Mr Tree-bark Djinn man with his blue eyes and blue heart. What the hell was that? He's not from greek myth. He doesn't even fit. It's like taking Indiana Jones and introducing aliens... no wait!

And the fact his only purpose was to go and blow up Medusa, sacrificing himself for little use, was just mind numbing. He could have saved everybody by letting them know he was going to do that in the first place. And since Medusa's lair is the place where all the soldiers get it, the scene feels like a moment to clean up the character list rather than progress the plot.

We can get rid of him, and him, and him, and him, and... then IO.

In place of the love story between P and A, we have the irrelevant IO. She's there in place of the three gifts from the Gods (sword, shield and hair-do), to help progress the plot, and let all us dullards know what Perseus is meant to do.

Perseus doesn't really fall for her either and yet at the end when she is resurrected they embrace, but why should we care?

There are so many reasons to be frustrated by this film's lack of attention to the realities of the human condition, but also to its logic. Take Pegasus for example.

Pegasus, winged horse, never ridden by a man. We meet it earlier in the story but it is scared off by the arrival of Calibos. Again Perseus hasn't trapped it, seduced it with his manly prowess or got to know it. So, why, at the 11th hour, with the moon about to eclipse the sun, and Argos about to be laid to waste by the Kraken, does Pegasus simply arrive at the right time and place, and Perseus jump aboard without needing to calm the beast?

Away they go, as if Pegasus has always been Perseus' steed. Add to that the two hunters who refused to go into the underworld, riding a scorpion across many days of trekking (and I mean, many), and getting back before Perseus (whose winged horse is meant to take but an hour or so).

Add to that the crapness of the 3D...

Clash of the Titans was not filmed in 3D. Read James Cameron's general warning. In Clash, it gives the viewer the 2D reel at the back and then all the closer objects and people as cut outs stuck on so that often you can see the flat reel behind the projected 3D object. Which, frankly, looks shit.

I've exhausted myself. :)

Heed in a Box

2009-07-13T20:35:00.009Z

I hunch over the keyboard, trying to discern the keys in the darkness. Not because there's no longer enough money to pay for electricity, but because I can't be bothered to turn the light on. The same lack of discipline has kept me from the manuscript this evening.

Been watching Se7en, that wonderously dark film with Morgan Freeman and Brad Pitt... ooh, ooh, ooh, and Kevin Spacey (but don't tell anyone, it's a secret).

Hush, my typing's annoying the wife - must type slower, quieter, sneakier.

Watching Se7en for the first time in absolutely ages, I realised that the story isn't about a serial killer murdering people to the tune of the seven deadly sins.

Bare with me here, I did just say I hadn't seen it in a long time (not since school some 10 years ago),

That's our genre, our macguffin (if you can think of it in that kind of macabre way). The story is about the divide between the cynical, soft and experienced cop and the naive, hard and head-strong cop. The play between them is constantly that of wisdom versus wilfulness and cold realisation versus forced optimism.

Which leads me to a point about every aspect of the film: every scene plays on either the forward motion of the macguffin or the wrestling of Mills and Somerset.

Which in turn leads me to pondering the difficulty I'm having with the manuscript - I plotted the main events, I start working at them in the scene and I realise I'm not touching on the themes. I always have trouble writing those extra character bits that expand themes or show characters but don't necessarily progress the plot (I'm talking about minor bits and snippets of scene).

So the question is, when do you fit these scenes into your writing schedule? Are you able to just let it all flow together, or do you write your main plots page by page and then add the character and setting moments afterwards when you've realised your theme, etc, etc?

Yours in grateful mental obscurity.

Hello from Hollywood

2009-07-02T07:33:00.007Z

So...

I managed to go for over a month without a blog entry - that's bad. Real bad.

In the meantime, I'm now 30 (nervous breakdown which included muchos Guitar Hero Drumming, alci-frol and some ruminating over aforementioned manuscript - aforementioned some months ago that is).

Still not disciplined to just get on with it. Wrote 2800 words yesterday though. So, sporadically trying to attack it from various angles - lots of planning still in the offing, so that's good. Only another 16 and a bit chapters to tackle. Keep it bitesized.

Anyhoo, it's been a hell of a week hasn't it, folks? Last Friday's MJ death coincided with the first live Litopia After Dark podcast recording, with Amanda Lees, Donna Ballman, Eve Harvey and yours truly, meeting up with Agent Pete, and his Producer, BBC Director and great sport, Andrew Gillman.

Which was a crazy affair on a very hot day in London where every shop and bar was playing only Michael Jackson music.

In the meantime, LiToon has been going from strength to strength. If you haven't caught it yet, get on over to Litopia.

Today LiToon really went global after Nia Vardalos (Screenwriter and Actress of My Big Fat Greek Wedding) mistakenly commissioned me to write her a script with guns so that she could jump Hollywood's genre niches.

The result will go live on Friday - you can find the link on Twitter :)

In the meantime, check out what Nia says, and particularly what a Hollywood Actress's Twitter can do for you as advertisement. I'm over the moon.

At time of going to press (SIC) clicks were at 51... They're still going up. I'll have to work with Nia again. She was a pro. ;)

The Future... Much Like the Past

2009-05-27T06:30:00.003Z

Largely in response to Solvey's latest post, I'm in a completely different boat with regard to my novel writing (when I get time to do any) - I'm writing at the moment, just to get words on the page - the framework, so to speak.

MG and Solvey have spoken of being involved in the writing... emotionally. Feeling what their characters feel, the sadness of loss, the trauma... and I've got to admit that I'm not feeling any of it.

In fact, I didn't "feel" very much in the ten months of rewrites on those opening chapters. And while Peter seemed to really like them, I fear that I can now jump through the hoops without feeling my way. It's like I'm dead behind the eyes.

As it is, I'm not too worried right now since I just need to get words on the page and keep moving forward. If Christopher Paolini and Cayla Kluver can get pubished before puberty (SIC) then why can't I now that I'm 30 (end of the week - lucky me).

There's no rush, I remind myself, and yet at work I've been rumbled by my boss over the fug I'm in that has permeated my work life, home life and writing life. It's not like one has taken over the other - I told him I've not written anything at work for months (lots of months) - so much as I've given up on everything.

We had a pep talk about my having stagnated and despite doing jobs as soon as they arise and with typical flair and aplomb, I spend much of my time day-dreaming... and people have started talking (bastards - don't they realise they're going to go into my book?)

So, now I'm turning 30, and I've had all of three employers in 12 years of having left school. I don't manage anyone and my IT skillset is largely learnt from the Internet. I don't have any certification beyond my generic HNC, HND, and Degree courses. What future do I have beyond writing? I've cultivated nothing but the belief that I could be in the 0.01% of wannabes who get published.

30, he said, is the new 40. He's retiring next year so sees the light at the end of the tunnel and has long fallen into a fug of his own, but he hates the idea of coming back in 10 years, even 5, and finding me sat at the same desk, doing the same job.

I read my old school report cards a few weeks back which pretty much encapsulated the notion of: intelligent to the fault of being a lazy sod. Had I learnt anything from that I'd be doing my writing and not blogging about not doing my writing.

Oh the irony.

Anyhoo, I feel at times like Anakin Skywalker (sans the intense need to slaughter younglings): I'm not the man I should be.

In other news, did I mention I'm 30 at the end of the week? And a major plot point just fixed itself in my head regarding my manuscript - the essential ingredient I've been searching for (searching as in waiting for it's arrival, not even realising I was doing so).

So I feel partially galvanised.

Will I still be here at 40? Will Atwood?

Rambling! The Bane of Pace

2009-05-20T17:39:00.004Z

You know, this is exactly what I've suffered from all along - and why Lesbian and Literary fiction never mix.

No sooner have I brought my dastardly villain to bear on the damsel than I'm describing the curtains or over-egging the moment with a flourish about who shined the floor.

That's exactly why when I do get around to writing that novel I keep putting off, it's with immediate drive (and I don't recommend you trying this at home kids), and sans description - I hope on the second pass that I can add it in without fluffing it and going back round in a circle.

Anyhoo, some of you may note the name Discordia (tis one of the witches from my novel). Yeah, I know you've not seen a version that mentions her for quite some years. She is still present.

For more literary cartoons, by moi. Check out http://www.litopia.com/litoon.

LiToon - The Spitoon of the Publishing Industry

2009-05-15T08:12:00.004Z

You knew publishing was a tough nut to crack. So what do the nuts do when the cracking gets rough?

They read LiToon.

Full of juicy, undigested ejectamenta from too many publishers' lunches, LiToon throws up the inside poop and outside phlegm fresh from the remnants of the book business. Expectorate the unexpected.

"For innocent souls wishing to conquer the publishing world in one fell swoop", says JK Rowling, "LiToon is the best possible place to start.*"

So spurn the spissitudes of fate, and remember:

Truth hurts. LiToon hurts more.

(*she didn't actually say this)

The Mentalist - The Rote of Police Drama

2009-05-05T08:04:00.000Z

I never liked Columbo, Murder She Wrote, Miss Marple, Poirot, Inspector Wexford. You can keep your Rebus and your Scarpettas... I just don't do cop shows and and crime fiction.

Why is it then that I am enjoying the Mentalist, have watched Seasons 1 to 3 of The Wire in a couple of weeks, and dip in and out of CSI?

Tis the same reason why we all hang on those other genres (which are layered upon the established groundwork of crime and mysteries): because we like to be surprised, love to try to solve the puzzle, worry about our characters and hope they don't take a hit.

It's just cop dramas are boring (aren't they?). We love sci-fi and fantasy mysteries, from Firefly to Buffy to Battlestar, and high energised shows like 24 and Prison Break, because the hooks keep coming.

Jack Bauer's 24 is a cop drama on a rollercoaster. Bauer must find the badguys... in 60 minutes, or the wheels will fall off his wagon!

So, they're not boring procedurals, are they? This is most apparant while watching CSI and the Mentalist.

Take away CSI's little torches and their "let's recreate the scene" and you've got a boring procedural. Take away the Mentalist's moments of "psychic" ingenuity, and you've got boring procedural. In fact, the Mentalist's non-ingenue moments are really boring.

Don't even get me started on how formulaic it is with him "always" being right.

Anyhoo, take this scene,
In it our hero, Patrick Jane, uses his psychological know-how to flummox the sherrif at Rock-Paper-Scissors. Not only do we see Patrick use his ability, but we get to see how it upsets the sherrif, so much so that his anger is used against him. It's not magic... it's psychology, and without it the Mentalist would be dull-dull-dull.

Just think on what marks your novel out from all the others. What's the high-concept idea about it, that stops it from being procedural? Do you have a Deren Brown character like the Mentalist, whose every action makes you wonder where he's going, or do you have sci-fi technology, weapons and space flight?

Are you using it enough to keep you audience entertained... hooked even?

Dorset and the Jurassic Coast

2009-05-03T06:56:00.006Z

A week away to gather my thoughts and worry over whether I can carry off a whole novel on one subject (I've done that since my 180,000 word failure that was a psychic adventure back in 99 - 03). Mephisto in 04 didn't even come close to completion.

Anyhoo, it was a mixed bag of sunshine and showers - quite enjoyably mixed as it happens. The Golden Cap Holiday Park, where we stayed is a mere 100 metres from the sea down at Seatown, where you can wander to West and to East along the coastline, by beach or by cliff top.

When the weather is swells, the sea air down there gusts like no other wind, bringing the rush and roar of the sea.

It wasn't all plain sailing however, as Mum took it upon herself to take a dive. We'd crossed from Eype to West Bay, which, for those of you who know the area, requires (via beach) clambering over a ton of boulders to reach the end of the promenade from the West Bay, shimmy over the barrier and look at the sign which reads - no safe route to beach (or something like that).

Which explains, why, when Mum decided against following our "safer" route and whilst using the dog to pull her up the harder inclines, she didn't make it. I turned back when the dog stopped pulling. Mum had leapt onto a boulder, only for her legs to decide that they wouldn't hold her. She looked like a gymnast who'd just landed and was crouched and waiting to gain control. Except Mum wasn't going to gain control of anything.

She wobbled and teetered and finally - and this we watched in complete horror - slipped her legs forward, landed on her rump, and, looking like a teddy bear (you know the ones - immovable, always sitting)...
...she just toppled off sideways in that teddy bear position, as if she'd blown off the rock. She disappeared into a small crevasse.

It was shocking and funny all at the same time, like those awful You've Been Framed programs, where the canned laughter just can't match the home viewer's empathy for the pained victim.

She was shaken, and rightly so. She's on all sorts of meds, had landed on her head, arm, bum, leg... We shipped her off to hospital and walked the dogs home after a quick lunch at West Bay.

Of course, she wasn't the only one to fall foul of the scenery.

Here's my futile attempt at taking a sunrise shot on the first morning. Note the sea rising on the right. Immediately following this photo the sea jumped on me.

I kid you not.

I'd watched it to make sure the highest it would climb, but didn't factor on it's rising not falling. And suddenly I was thinking: "Oh dear, my shoes are going to get wet. I don't want them to get wet, that would suck."

So, I did that thing we all do, again as witnessed on You've Been Framed, I backed away as fast as I could, which, on shingle and up hill, was daft.

"Aw nuts!" I wasn't going to escape the sea and yet I sped up to escape its approach. Which, still up hill and still on shingle, meant only one thing.

As the horizon became vertical and the waves crashed over me (my arm with camera attached, raised like a main mast) I thought only one thing: "Well, this isn't as cold as you'd imagine."

Anyhoo, aside from wetting myself, we did plenty of walking and enjoyed lots of wildlife.

Coming Together

2009-04-23T21:11:00.007Z

It's been a long hard slog - both the gestation of my slowly evolving writing skills (if I have any - lol) and completing this NAW course.

Tonight I put the finishing touches on my final project, thanks to some handy hints by our friend, Peter the Agent - who else can rely upon a literary agent for writing advise, eh?

And he was brilliantly supportive and praise-giving too - which, as everyone who's a client of his will tell you, is something he doesn't often do (the praise-giving that is, not being brilliantly supportive - Peter is always that, he's just also clear, concise and honest, which means the writers in his stable are always under pressure to write better than they do).

I want to share his wonderful words... most especially because this is the precipice I've been straining to reach, and from up here I can now see the valley of work laid out before me. And it's nice to offset the one-sided angst I've ridden out on this blog.

So, a couple of months ago I pitched an adult fairytale - face to face (now, who else gets to do that with a literary agent), with the following encouraging words (that should also help you, dear reader):

I've had a good think about this - it's extraordinary. It's deeply creative. It feels epic and archetypal.

Enough of the praise - most people know that I hardly ever give any.

My checklist:

Could I sell it (sorry, but I'm an agent...) probably not. Not easy to define the market. Not easy to conceptualize for the inevitable elevator pitch, and therefore, not a calling-card book to announce a new writing talent.

How did I feel after reading it? And by extension, how will publishers?

Impressed certainly, but not sufficiently involved. It's a quality piece of writing and creation, no question, but it lacks the requisite degree of emotional involvement. The kind of ms you get fantastic rejections letters about. "I didn't quite love it enough..." It's not quite connecting down there, viscerally.

Advice / suggestions? I didn't catch your voice here. I'm aware of a brilliantly fertile mind scheming away behind the scenes. I'm not aware of who you are, your passion, your essence. It feels a bit like a writing exercise, something intended to show off your creationary brilliance. Maybe a bit too calculating and cold-blooded. I would willingly trade a lot of that sparkling creativity for some authentic voice and zeal. I suspect a lot of that has been slowly edited away.

I'd focus on developing that, actually. Finding your voice can take time, can't be forced. Can be accelerated by the right project, something you have no choice but to write.

You may have got to the point of diminishing returns on this. What are your priorities as a writer at this moment? Developing this -or developing yourself? The two may not be the same.

Imagine my excitement at such a response.

Anyhoo, as you all know by now, my final project has engaged me in plotting and writing the open to a Young Adult novel which is essentially Noughts and Crosses meets Harry Potter. The pitch to Agent Pete produced this response:

I really like this. Good style & pace, very page-turning. Nicely odd, too.

Only a few minor points, nothing major or structural.

Nicely disturbing! Feels surreal, very engrossing.

Nice Lynchian imagery, very powerful.

Basically, I think it’s great – there’s a maturity, assurance and control about it that impresses me. Your writing has very clearly developed. Congrats, and keep it coming!

Yippee. So, while I thought this project would end here with the final project and I'm to move onto pastures new, it actually has legs.

I've been writing towards this for 12 years now, 6 of those with Litopia holding my hand. Hold in there people, keep reading, keep writing, and keep learning.

If I can get this kind of response, then you can too. It just takes time and commitment. Anyone fancy a drink to celebrate?

PS: My big-big thanks to Peter for everything he's done to make Litopia such a supportive environment, and for giving me all these chances.

Scribd is a No Show - CEO Trip does a Bunk

2009-04-04T07:12:00.006Z

Last night's Litopia After Dark tackled the big issues of Scribd's blatant book thefts. Having thrown down the gauntlet to Scribd CEO Trip Adler (a wee 26 year old), Litopia attempted to call Trip for the live show, but he was too busy cowering at the other side of his office, listening to the trill of his desk phone, hoping it would all go away.

The podcast went ahead on the subject and we really beat out the problem, searched for more illicit stuffs saved on Scribd's site, and still had no counter argument... there just isn't one.

Scribd has the opportunity to pick up the publishing industry's dropped mantle, but at the moment they're too busy making their money and pursuing their God-given right to the American Dream.

Intellectual Property can kiss their ass - I guess.

The issue isn't going away and what Scribd doesn't yet understand is that unlike the Pirate Bay, Scribd is hosting the illegal content. They're culpable.

Ooh-er! Watch and listen to Litopia as this story continues to turn its pages.

Evaluating Masterclasses - Part 2

2009-04-03T18:30:00.000Z

Ken Follet’s talk on the history and development of the paperback thriller was a step beyond those of his contemporaries, providing nuggets of sound advice (namely, the ramping up of suspense or the change in the course of the story every 4 to 6 pages). However, the presentation was little more than a documentary. Even the Q&A session didn’t allow much of a two-way discussion. It was interesting and the ground work covered was clearly a “need to know” for those following in the footsteps of previous thriller writers, but it might better serve the general public as a one hour television programme.

Ken’s talk fell into the category of informative rhetoric, a category shared by the two agents (Ben Mason and Luigi Bonomi). Their formidable knowledge of the business and their statistical facts about professional publication were as brutally honest as Jim Crace. They shared advice that may be plucked from the pages of the Writers Handbook or the Writers and Artists Yearbook and discussed the steps from writing to publication. Guidance that, while essential to all new writers, I found had little significance to me at the time; having the good fortune to know a literary agent (who has answered all my questions) and currently being in no position to approach an agent, let alone publication.

Yet, they were of more immediate use to me as a writer (who would be looking for representation) than Robert Ronsson’s practical applicator masterclass on self publishing and how best to promote and market oneself. I don’t intend to self publish. So, while this talk was invaluable and its field of reference deep (information a writer looking to self publish wouldn’t find elsewhere), it was of far less importance to me.

Another practical applicator, Ann Lingard’s presentation on research, covered the collaborations between authors and the science community. It raised interesting points about the usefulness of SciTalk (her online project) and the importance and relevance of research to a manuscript as a whole. She explained that research should be used to enhance the world of one’s story not stultify it with detail. She discussed the creation of characters with a science background: they are human beings with human needs. The plot doesn’t have to revolve entirely or at all around their role. “A story about an accountant,” she says, “doesn’t have to be about accountancy”.

Ken Follet, too, discussed the level of research he has carried out for each of his books and how that provided an extra element for a readership to hang on: readers love to think they are learning something. However, his talk didn’t provide the moment of epiphany generated by Ann’s, which demonstrated how research can help us learn things about the characters. Where and how the character works can be a great way to show the character to the reader, providing the writer with many more scenes in which to develop their characters or themes – veritable gold dust.

By contrast, the hands on, tear-it-apart and look inside it, classes provided by James Roose-Evans (on playwrights) and Linda Thompson (breaking down a BBC script for ‘Casualty’) spent as much time on practical discussions as they did on anecdotes. These practical applicators could be argued as being limited in their appeal to one such as myself: not wishing to write for stage or television. But, that is to ignore the accessibility and opportunity presented by all the masterclasses, as I have mentioned above: ideas are transferable; media feed into each another.

When Linda spoke of ‘Casualty’ having one main plot and two sub plots, and that the themes of each mirror the others to create cohesion and synchronicity, her words were just as important when considering the use of subplots in a novel (mirroring subplots, in my opinion, not being essential though they do lend weight to an argument). And, when James suggested a playwright needs to know everything about his characters, not just from a background point-of-view, but also where they were before the current scene, and where they will be afterwards, he provided us novelists with insight: we have a vast number of considerations that may not reach the page but do provide depth (not just for the characters but for the scene and location).

Rather than having little regard for the messages and words of wisdom shared in some of the masterclasses, I understand that the presented knowledge feeds into each other. I’ve catalogued the discussions and will return to them when they become relevant to me.

That said, by far my most useful and informative masterclass has been the skills implementation of Jim Crace’s prose stripping. Hands-on writing-driven teaching holds, for me, the most essential learning elements. With Jim’s deep and extensive look at the inner workings of sentences, word choice and structural design, the relevance of his cynicism and realism from back in the January finally made sense. By getting the students to reconsider the way they critique and write, and their choice of words in any given sentence and then to apply that, he freed our understanding of the craft of writing in a way that the other masterclasses didn’t.

Skills implementation highlights something I have come to appreciate with regard to many of the questions I, and others, have posed to the agent I know. We cannot waste our time on decoration when the structure needs work. Neither my work nor my ability is yet ready for publication and I need to focus my attention there.

A masterclass’s effectiveness is dependent upon the mindset of individual students. Their variations of style are as important as what is said or shown on a slide. A set of stilted, classroom led lessons poring over cold hard facts and “how it has all been done before” does little to garner audience participation or memory after the event. Acting during James Roose-Evan’s playwright discussion, and stripping sentences of another student’s work with Jim Crace have stayed with me. And, while the practicalities and usefulness of each masterclass greatly differ, they each have their purpose and their place. Not just in instruction but in awareness and the suggestibility of how to open doors.

Evaluating Masterclasses - Part 1

2009-04-02T20:35:00.000Z

This is the second essay from my NAW Professional Development Portfolio. Comprised of two parts, it is my personal view of the masterclasses I have attended - which means it is not a reflection of the quality or content but my perception of how useful those masterclasses have been to me and my learning:

-------------------------------------

The masterclasses have covered a wide range of discussions and skillsets. But, I have found that many aspects of these discussions have been rhetorical, anecdotal, or statistical in nature. Only a few have had practical analysis.

A second issue hinges on the timeliness of a masterclass and where the student is (in their own head). A student involved with reassessing their style or troubled by how exactly they should weight the pace of their narrative is not going to find a talk on the current trends and necessities of submissions to agents of any relevance – which does not diminish the quality of the talk itself. It does mean that areas of perceived irrelevance may lead to the listener overlooking an important message about core skills. Furthermore, much of what has been said that was not of a statistical and set-in-stone nature may be thought of as a one-off or very personal situation for the speaker.

The masterclasses I’ve observed may be categorised into one of the following types:

Anecodotal inconsequence (this is how I did it)
Informative rhetoric (this is how it is)
Practical applicator (this is how you can do it)
Skills implementation (try this for yourself)

However, there is always a message of some significance in every masterclass. While the categorisations above don’t necessarily make one more important than another, I have ordered the categories, as I perceive them, from least to most effective. The practical applicator and skills implementation types are more applicable to my current needs and mindset, which are: choosing scenes for their appropriateness and relevance to a story and maintaining brevity by avoiding irrelevant description that does not further the action or narrative.

Talks and classes falling into the category of anecdotal inconsequence may enthuse one listener but bore another. Their topics and situations are not directly replicated by, or transferable to, the circumstances of the students – but are unique to the speaker and their subject.

Barry Turner was one such speaker, whose positive and affirming discussion opened our course in January 2007. The encouraging tale he told of his own introduction to media and onwards into writing was interesting but indicative of the time at which he started out – the launch of television and radio. It had little or no significance other than anecdotally. Again, this by no means diminishes what Barry had to say for his “carpe diem” boldness really excited the students.

The next masterclass was the polar opposite of Barry’s. Jim Crace talked us cautiously through our intended directions and interests and mulled over the difficulties of our labours of love. His was a very sobering discussion, making it clear that we needed to be the passionate ones about our work, that we aren’t guaranteed success, and that some people may have the inclination to write, but not the ability. It ended somewhat bluntly with his admission that he would, in two books time, stop writing altogether! What were we to make of this? Do writers have a self imposed shelf life, only so much in themselves to lend to paper?

The different stances of these two speakers seemed to say far more about their outlook on life, their journey to publication, and successes or setbacks than they did about the audience’s own future endeavours. In Jim’s case this had a greater sense of realism given his interest in the education of new writers. Whatever their positions, cynical realism or intrepid optimism, perhaps both messages were affirming and bookend every masterclass and lesson that followed: encouragement to strive for what we want to achieve matched alongside (not against) our egos stripped of all naivety. That this may be a good thing does not necessarily mean they were of any proactive assistance to the studying writer.

Working for a library service I have attended several author events and talks (Tracey Chevalier, Jodi Picoult, Salley Vickers, Colin Dexter, Lionel Shriver, Freya North, Cynthia Harrod-Eagles, Ann Widdecombe). All were pitched at a readership level, with interests in the writers’ origins and the concoction of characters and plot. The anecdotal inconsequence never focused any deeper than biography or research, i.e. never touching on the elements that comprise a certain paragraph: on changing subjects, using a metaphor to infer a character’s point of view, or relating a memory that provides synchronicity to the unfolding scene.

The anecdotal inconsequence of Catherine O’Flynn’s masterclass was symptomatic of those other writers. She has an innate ability to write without consideration for how she does it. She has a set routine that she maintains but she doesn’t appear to worry over the disparate skills necessary to juggle the creation of a story. As with the other writers her talk never entered into deep discussions on the complexities of maintaining reader interest, while levelling their narrative for clarity, pace, action and dialogue.

The masterclasses have covered a number of subjects, from self publishing to the expectations of an agent to the operations of the Times Newspaper. We have been handed the broad canvas of the industry’s workings as well as views of the many doorways that might provide access. However, I am reminded that, short of being a celebrity, the only thing that truly sells a manuscript to an agent or publisher is the manuscript, and thereby the talent of the writer – everything else is decoration. In my particular case – a single-minded view to becoming a novelist – the decoration, aside from being informative, is irrelevant. Counter to this is the argument that these masterclasses are meant to refocus my attention and reinforce the lesson that Jim, in particular, went to great lengths to explain: no-one can do it but me.

Though, again, that is not to diminish the masterclasses, since all the speakers that have taken the time to prepare and discuss their subjects with us have been supportive and they have been open to students contacting them at a later date.

Litopia After Dark Live With Trip Adler of Scribd

2009-04-02T14:12:00.002Z

Tomorrow night (Friday 3 April) Trip Adler, one of the figures behind Scribd.com, "the YouTube for books, magazines and documents" that has this week found itself in the headlines accused of copyright infringement will speak live to writers from Litopia.

"We are delighted that Trip has accepted our invitation," says Litopia's Peter Cox. "Maybe he'll be able to reassure us that Scribd isn't 'Copyright Theft Central'. Maybe he'll be able to convince us that his website isn't getting rich by allowing its members to steal from writers' livelihoods. Whatever happens, we respect Trip's integrity in choosing to defend his company in this way, and I will guarantee him a very fair and polite hearing."

The debate will take place as part of the regular Friday broadcast of LITOPIA AFTER DARK. Broadcasting begins at 7:30pm London, and the show starts at 8pm London, 3pm EDT, 12 noon PDT. Guests on the show beside Adler, include Martyn Daniels, Vice-President of Value Chain International, and Redhammer clients Donna Ballman, a US attorney, and Dave Bartam.

Please help spread the word about this important event to other writers
- the chat room will be open for everyone's participation.

Click here to go to the Litopia UStream page where the broadcast can be
viewed:

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/litopia-after-dark

Late-breaking news will be served on Litopia's home page.

Julie Cohen - Masterclass in Character Development

2009-04-01T07:00:00.002Z

Actually, this took place a couple of Fridays ago, and I'm only just getting on with the write up now - boy am I out of sorts.

Anyhoo, we here at Bracknell Library had the author Julie Cohen over for a bit of a conflab and spin through how she creates characters.

But first:

Julie is an American living in Reading and started out writing three books for Mills and Boon. As we all know, that's a very specific writing format to fit into, so good on her. Now she's written 9 of them and 4 (of what I'd call) proper books.

She's clearly set on her road of romantic novel writing (more specifically quirky-chick-lit) fairly well, but what does she have to impart to the unpublished author?

Well, she took us on a whirlwind tour of methods for creating characters - you know, fully-fledged, rounded, conflicted, interesting - that sort of character.

We covered eight ways (some longer than others), but first we had two postits and a coin. So, Julie went round the table handing out two alphabet letters per person, which took two loops. We each wrote down the two letters we'd been allocated on one postit and handed that to the person on our right.

Next we came up with a number between 1 and 100, wrote it on the second postit and passed that to our left.

Finally, we tossed the coin and chose our character's sex: heads for female, tails for male and if it landed on a body part or akilter, that meant a robot or asexual or something odd.

Which gave me D. R. A 73 yearold female.

Bear with me, this is just the setup.

I chose to call my character Deane Robards

1. The Basic Description

For this part we were asked to describe our character in anyway we pleased, as long as we used the words extraordinary and yellow. (The words are a way of getting your imagination working - they don't have to be included and they don't have to be extraordinary or yellow).

Deanne sits in an upright chair, keeping her back straight to fight the spasms - a result of her circus days. She has drawn on eyebrows and must constantly wipe her brow to stop sweat stinging her yellowed eyes. She sits quietly for the most part, on the porch of her terraced home, seemingly asleep to the world. But she never sleeps. Not even when it is time to do so. She sits on her porch, still and silent, and seemingly dead, but for an extraordinary ability to greet every passerby long before her ears should have registered their approach.

2. Showing

In this exercise we were asked to walk our characters into a room and get them to pick up an object (of our choosing).

Deane pushed the door open with her cane, let it swing wide and surveyed the bedroom. Everything was still. Everything was as it had been the day she found Bill. She stared at the bed covers, thrown aside by the paramedics and tried to imagine Bill as he had been, asleep, not dead. She couldn't do it. The dresser opposite was still a clutter of creams and curlers, the vanity mirror still tipped back against the wall so that shafts of light lined the ceiling. And her glasses... It was useless to try and see them from outside. The curtains were closed and she had no choice but to go in. She took it slow. Short hobbling steps. The cane used to be a big help, but these days the pains in her legs made it almost too difficult to walk. But she kept going, trying not to look back at the bed again and finally at the dresser she stopped and peered down. Had to push aside some of the mess with the cane. And there they were. She plucked them off the dresser and clutched them to her chest as she turned back to the door, avoiding the sight of the bed. From this angle, she remembered, it looked like an empty cadaver on a mortuary slab.

As you can see I was more interested in getting the character in there than picking up the object - boy does my mind wander - and I had to finish the exercise while Julie talked about the next one.

3. Symbolism

We were asked to consider the importance (emotionally) of our objects.

In my case, the glasses were needed so that Deanne could see if she'd won the lottery - her home was remortgaged to help her kids out (and they've deserted with her money), but she can't stay in the place where she found Bill dead. She needs to win the lottery so that she can pay off her debts and move out.

4. Setting

Obviously, this is about describing the place where the character lives... or rather, locates themselves.
5. Conflict

What does the character want more than anything? This is answered in the Symbolism. And what stands in their way? In this case, Deanne not having her glasses... and then not winning the lottery.

6. Good Quality Versus Worst Quality

Two qualities in a person create conflict.

I.e. A very generous person either: i) puts others first always, or ii) always wants something in return.

i) This leads to the character playing second fiddle to others and never getting what they want, or exhausted because they never have any "me time".
ii) This leads to a need in the character. An expectation that others will always play their part.

The good and bad quality are intrinsically linked helping to round out your character. The character must change the good part of their nature in order to remove/make better the bad part.

Check out Julie's little chart on this:

7. Voice

Obviously, this is about dialogue or writing in the first person. Getting a sense of the character, the way their mind works, colloquialisms, etc

8. Other ways

Put character in a place they don't belong
Meet a character with different goals
Meet a character with same goals but different methods
Give them an impossible task
They make a horrible mistake
They're forced to confront their past
They lose everything
They win something they don't want
They get unexpected/unwanted fame

The interesting thing about Julie is that whatever she writes as she gets a sense of character, she throws out once she starts writing the book, and never refers to her notes again.

I guess she writes fast enough so that it doesn't exit her frontal lobe before she's done.

Litopia vs Scribd

2009-03-30T08:35:00.003Z

Hey hey - Litopia has finally made it into the mainstream news with The Times reporting on a forum discussion and podcast on the evils of Scribd.

You can read it here.

DESCENDANT ARG - The Climax

2009-03-27T06:56:00.004Z

If you've been following the Descendant ARG (part of the Joshua Files series), then you should know that today... in a few minutes, the final run begins, with Gabi desperate to get across Mexico in time to reach her missing aunt before 7:30am and before Runig's men capture her.

I think this is it! The culmination of Gabi's month long investigation into her father's murder.

Can you help her get to her aunt in one piece?

DO IT NOW!

Only YOU can save her!

http://geekgrrlgabi.com

If you've missed the trauma of her adventure, go back to the start and learn her story. These links should help you:

MG Harris launches Ice Shock

2009-03-04T18:00:00.003Z

It all begins with a talk and a Joshua Files cake - yumm, let's hope it ends in a similar fashion too. It was a great night that no wannabe writer should ever pass up: the chance to attend a book publication event. There's always the agent, the editor and the publicity specialist, and they all have lots of juicy info about the publishing business.

Really enjoyed myself, MG. Thanks for the E-vite.

Ice Shock and The Descendant (The ARG has begun)

2009-03-03T07:18:00.006Z

By now you should all have got out there and bought your copy of MG Harris's Ice Shock, the latest installment in the Joshua Files series. It's now available in all good bookshops, and a host of nefarious online stores.

I had the pleasure of reading Ice Shock before Christmas and it rocks along just as swiftly, just as excitingly, as the previous episode. Check out this quick review.

And once you've got your copy, and set to deciphering the clues in the book, you need to get on and register yourself at themgharris.com and start investigating The Descendant - The Joshua Files's ARG - The Descendant - that has been rolling now for a couple of days - something big is about to happen... about to shake young Gabi Beltran's world to the ground.

Check out the video... if you can discover the password (clue: you'll find it amongst those links)

And don't forget this video... the Ice Shock video - everything is connected.

Emotional Topography - Part 3

2009-02-26T00:01:00.001Z

So, finally, lets have a look at version 12 (I kid you not - and this is just for 2009) of my opening chapter to my final project. In the light of Wolf Brother and Invisible City, I imagine that my chapter is going to rush sloth like from branch to branch, stopping to admire fruit here and there.

Curse of the Library - Page 1

Confusion, overridden by...
Horror of expectation
Uneasiness but inner defiance

Curse of the Library - Page 2

Irony and nerves
Anxious and rationalised will
Irritation
Fear

Curse of the Library - Page 3

Labelling himself an idiot
Replay what he should have done
Too much noise to think
Trapped and doomed
False composure, will to run away
Fear of knife and wariness of antagonist

Curse of the Library - Page 4

Overcome fear
Sickness and ache of longing
Determination
Tense, dread
Realisation and self blame
Action - to escape
Strain

Curse of the Library - Page 5

Physical pain
Tears
Horror and fear
Sickness

Curse of the Library - Page 6

Realisation of worse to come
No escape
Ridicule but keeping spirits up
Fight the flight and think
Nausea and tiredness
Cold

Curse of the Library - Page 7

Pain and lethargy
Give up
Defiance and avoidance
The truth hurts
Be angry

Curse of the Library - Page 8

Fear of death
Tired defiance
Indifference to own plight
Nausea and resignation

Hmm, I didn't imagine that I'd have so much myself!

Can I make one thing clear - good use of emotionality doesn't make a good story (certainly, I might not even be evoking the emotions properly). MG Harris and Michelle Paver both weave very different narratives, but they're going places and dealing with issues - I fear mine is a very static piece by comparison and my wife said of the iteration before this one that she could clearly see the antagonist character but not the protagonist.

That's it darling! Identify with the badguy, why don't you.

How do I like them apples?

Emotional Topographies - Part 2

2009-02-25T00:01:00.000Z

Looking now at the emotionality of MG Harris's Invisible City

Invisible City - Page 1

Troubled - too many thoughts
Alone and with dark thoughts

Invisible City - Page 2

Foreshadowing through being unaware
Joyful past time interrupted
Slow realisation of reveal
Mounting tension

Invisible City - Page 3

False emotion of others and avoidance
Dread and thoughts of the worst kind
Momentary denial
Tactile dislocation from emotion
Emotional dislocation from tactile - horror and anger

Invisible City - Page 4

Body takes over where the mind can't comprehend
Avoid restraint of physical contact and unleash aggression
Sickness and horror
Submit to physical contact and thoughts of reversal
Tears
Kernel of denial, something to clutch at

Invisible City - Page 5

Searching for the silver lining, the logical truth
Sadness in the face of reality
True horror - the body shock

Invisible City - Page 6

Emotional shut down
Mechanical reactions
Playing over the scenes
Placing blame and unable to absorb anything
Taking responsibility

Invisible City - Page 7

Looking for the chance of optimism
How he should be reacting and how he is reacting

The remainder of the chapter enters into blog posts that cover a reanalysis of what must have happened in the plane crash, but we've got all we need from those first seven pages. Another opening jammed with emotionality.

Emotional Topographies - Part 1

2009-02-24T00:01:00.000Z

It's been suggested that as my mind has a tendency to jump from one act to another like a gazelle fleeing a cheetah, and since that doesn't bode well for the emotionality and reader hooking, I should look at the emotional topography of other writers' first chapters and see what they're doing.

So, let's do that by starting with an old fave of ours - Michelle Paver's Wolf Brother - but before we do so, let's pay attention to the fact the story opens in third-person-limited to Torak's pov. So the emotional topography relates to him:

Wolf Brother - Page 1

Tense fear at waking
Empty, afraid but loyal to his father
Why us?

Wolf Brother - Page 2

Horror at the abnormal bear, on edge, it could be anywhere
Sad desperation about his father
Distracted by his fear and shaking, then sick
Out of his depth, the world on its head
Attempt to be an adult by fighting his fear

Wolf Brother - Page 3

Attempt to be an adult by fighting his fear
Confronting the imminent death of his father and denying it
Choosing physical pain to take away the inner
Fear of surviving alone
Forced against his will to leave

Wolf Brother - Page 4

Shock at his father's request to swap knives
Ignore the imminent death
Tense surprise at movement in the forest
Expectation that the bear returns
Avoid the goodbye - he can't deal with it
Fight the fear and sadness
Breakdown

Wolf Brother - Page 5

Holding his breath
Supernatural fear
The hush
Disbelief

Wolf Brother - Page 6

Denial and misunderstanding
Feeling the burden
Unexpected reveal
Holding on to the last moments
Afraid but doing what is asked of him

Wolf Brother - Page 7

Bitter sadness and resignation
Acting on impulse alone
Another denial
Care over the final rites
Overwhelming sadness at meeting death head on
A final denial

Wolf Brother - Page 8

Keeping from tears
An attempt at smiling
Horror at spotting the pawprint, searching for the cause
Jumpy

Wolf Brother - Page 9

Realisation of his precarious position
Trying to hold it together
Keeping quiet to save himself
Labelling himself a coward
Rationalisation
Denouement - fight or flight - he stalls
The height of fear and fleeing

I'd like to note the word SHIT at this juncture. Not Ms Paver's writing, but at just how much emotional movement she packs into 9 pages. Dare I look at my own?

Critically Reviewing 3 How-To Write Books

2009-02-23T08:29:00.002Z

So there we have it, you can now access my full essay on Critically Reviewing 3 How-To Write Books:

I hope it gets you thinking ;)

Critically Reviewing 3 How-To Write Books (Part 3)

2009-02-23T00:01:00.002Z

Technique isn’t beyond the intelligence of any writer. It requires awareness and an ability to absorb the skills employed by others. Burroway’s teaching textbook is, in contrast to the previous two guides, more akin to an academic set-text and far better as an example of good pedagogy. It provides readers with literary explorations otherwise to be found in Francine Prose’s Reading Like A Writer.

Burroway’s formal style is more accessible than Wall. She expands her reach with quotations and a multitude of examples to substantiate her meaning and strengthen reader comprehension. Technicalities over the mechanics of prose style and rhythm are as clear as her delineation of point-of-view (A preface informs both instructors and students separately, establishing the book as serious and, perhaps, more responsible than either Frey or Wall).

Layering her textbook with literary technique and structural tools, Burroway breaks elements down into modes, i.e. iterations of dialogue, methods for presenting characters, symbology of setting and theme. By naming and working methodically through the tools, Burroway enthuses and educates in a way that Wall and Frey fail to do. No subject is approached solely on its own terms. They are layered with instructions to the reader: how to match the scene to action and theme, emphasising setting with the views of the point-of-view character, evoking atmosphere (given the emotion, mental state of the point-of-view character, directing the reader to a particular feeling). Doubling-up in this way bolsters the reader’s knowledge and perception of what is possible.

Burroway’s examples are never restricted to a specific genre or style. In providing always at least two examples for each subject she highlights more than one way of achieving the same goal. This prevents readers from taking a “defacto” view and rigidly adhering to one writer’s voice or style. But, Burroway takes her examples a step further by including two short stories at the end of each chapter to stress her topics, in a prolonged capacity. As with the depth covered in the Fiction module on the varied short stories covered, I found I had a fuller understanding of Burroway’ techniques. Use of examples worked to strengthen chapter learning, and this is the best use of pedagogy, to show and tell.

The exercises are where the book comes into its own. As a classroom textbook, exercises engage reader involvement. Never numbering less than six, they are separated into individual or collaborative tasks and have real consideration for the chapter’s aims and the reader’s needs. As per the Fiction module they have justification and direction and the reader clearly understands the outcomes. They are multi-faceted so as to respond to the initial task, but allow readers to consider their choices. As the book continues, the exercises draw upon the reader’s prior learning, interlacing and developing their ability to write multi-faceted narratives. This too, pedagogically, helps to create a linked structure of learning.

Of the three, Wall’s book is of least relevance and is least pedagogically effective. Its topics are covered in greater detail and with more interest in both Burroway and Frey’s. Its documentary format portrays anecdotes similar to the rhetoric of some of the masterclasses but it fails to support or develop the reader. Frey’s covers essential elements of crafting that both Wall and Burroway don’t attempt, but Frey alone will not create great writers. His philosophy for teaching is far too single-minded to support a reader’s learning needs. Burroway’s, however, is nigh on essential to any writer perfecting their craft. As with the Reading into Writing and Fiction modules, its assessment of varying styles, techniques, and exercises is the only way for a writer to advance.

That there are still further areas of crafting, concepts and techniques not covered: building tension, foreshadowing, managing pace, introducing exposition, writing exposition, evoking reader emotion, logically guiding a reader without confusing them; suggests only that a reader must read as widely in literature as possible.

Burroway’s use of chapter instruction, followed by examples, then exercises, best mirrors the pedagogy of the classes I have attended. Not only does the repetition of the information reinforce a reader’s learning, but the varied approach helps the reader consolidate the techniques. This is the most important aspect of the pedagogy, to ensure that afterwards, the student/reader retains the information they’ve been taught.

Critically reviewing 3 How-To Write Books (Part 2)

2009-02-21T00:01:00.001Z

Wall’s book is concise and focused, eschewing straight “how-to” lore in favour of accompanying the reader on a journey through established texts (From Flaubert and Swift to Atwood and Moorcock). It deals in concepts and is designed almost like an “Idiots Guide to…” Documentary-like discussions make up the brunt of the work, utilising information-bubbles to develop a specific point to a deeper level (like footnotes) or to suggest exercises.

Examples are literary based, but, extracts or quotations are rarely used. This is Wall’s greatest failing. Other books provide extracts to better express theory behind explanations but Wall labours on abstracts by discussing notions instead of showing concrete examples. It’s here where Wall is most contradictory: a short book designed with bite-sized info-dumps meant to be easily accessible, but with heavy concepts and extremely literary examples that lack appropriate quoted-detail.

Furthermore, short chapters on Irony, Humour, and Themes feel rushed and shoe-horned in, lacking in impact or development. Their importance is established by their range but, like any overview, I felt as if I were being made aware of concepts without being shown the appropriate techniques to apply them myself. A subsection rushes through character archetypes that Christopher Vogler spends an entire book discussing in The Writer’s Journey. This highlights Wall’s greatest failing, by attempting to cover too many subjects too abstractly. From a pedagogical viewpoint the reader is being rushed through too many disparate topics, without an opportunity to secure their understandings.

Wall hasn’t aimed his work at the new writer. He requires ability and self-motivation that even I lacked while reading. I was put off by most of the exercises:

“Make up ten modern-day insults you could use in a work of fiction”
“Describe your hand”
“Consider the following opening sentences and the way they convey information…”

Examples provided by better guides translate into reader understanding that Wall fails to convey. Good pedagogy investigates a specific topic, detailing points, examples and follows up with exercises. They don’t appear alongside theory in mid-chapter. Readers wish to complete a chapter before attempting exercises, but here they feel disinterested in revisiting.

Very much like the Reading into Writing module, Wall requires a certain ability and mental capacity from his reader. Reading into Writing benefited from the class’s ability to throw ideas around, highlighting what they learned from chosen set-texts. Wall’s refusal to do this means the reader must do the hard work themselves (if they come to the right conclusions).

Critically reviewing 3 How-To Write Books (Part 1)

2009-02-19T07:59:00.003Z

Those of you who know me, may be aware that I've been doing a course in writing - whoop-de-doo. My most recently completed module has been in my own professional development (a very important aspect, I'm sure you agree). Anyhoo, now that it's done, and hopefully marked, and in the interest of continuing to provide content for my blog, I thought I should share some of my essays - maybe they'll give you writers something to think about. Maybe I'm just gassing.

You should agree that this essay highlights the need for a writer to read widely (and not just fiction).

Anyhoo, what follows, is the first part in my essay on critically reviewing 3 different How-To Write books - and please, if you disagree, keep it to yourself (kidding - let's discuss):

--------------------------------------

My understanding of teaching creative writing results in the use of three categories (which encapsulate literary tools):

Crafting
Concepts
Techniques

Both classes and textbooks shift between these categories to varying extents. Those that assist students/writers by covering multiple examples and using a number of different exercise techniques are clearly better facilitators for pedagogy. However, a writer wishing to learn more about writing needs to rely upon more than one textbook in order to gain a comprehensive knowledge of the subject, because I don’t feel that any of them cover enough areas of creative writing’s broad canvas.

I selected the following textbooks because they varied in styles and I hadn’t read them:

How To Write a Damn Good Novel by James N. Frey
(A step-by-step no nonsense guide to dramatic storytelling). New York: St Martin’s Press, 1987.
Need to know? Writing Fiction by Alan Wall
(The best guide for anyone with ideas). London: HarperCollins, 2007.
Writing Fiction by Janet Burroway
(A Guide to Narrative Craft). US: Pearson Longman, 2007.

Frey’s introduction to the art of writing falls largely into crafting, but touches upon concepts. With a pulpy feel that never strays beyond his remit of creating characters, developing a premise and telling the story, Frey expresses his topics candidly and I grasped them easily. However, they lack depth and exploration, i.e. discussing the basic psychology of character, Frey never fully realises a character’s development mid-novel (such as epiphany/evolution). He briefly examines concepts of point-of-view, voice, and dialogue but fails to use established literary examples and, as topics, they feel tacked on at the end. From a pedagogical standpoint this tells me rather than guides me through the process.

Mostly, Frey’s approach ticks boxes with effective and accessible examples from established fictional works, i.e. analysing rising conflict using A Christmas Carol when Scrooge is first confronted by a ghost. He also generates his own examples to maintain consistency in the crafting process – create character, put them in conflict, wrap in a plot, beat the story out to a climax. I found this focus valuable in applying Frey’s advice to my own writing.

Frey restricts himself with brief quotations from the majority of his examples, favouring A Christmas Carol and his own examples. These become monochromatical. I’d have benefited, as I did in the Fiction module, from multiple sources - greater learning is stimulated by casting a wider net. In the Fiction module we assessed two very different short stories, discussing how their content, style and technique varied. Frey avoids detailing how his chosen examples and their authors may differ in their approaches.

Frey’s written the opening to a full “narrative craft” textbook. He touches upon the structural subjects of rising tension and beats that are the mainstay of (and better discussed by) Robert McKee in his technical manual Story. He covers, too, elements that were discussed in the Screenwriting module, but, again, doesn’t meet the same level of depth. Finally, there are no exercises to stretch the reader beyond the methods presented by Frey’s topics, which the reader must extract and copy themselves.

The value of Frey’s book is important for the complete beginner, but it offers no unique advice. Besides lacking topics on scenery, evoking atmosphere or creating groundbreaking imagery from literary techniques it fails in a pedagogical sense to engage the reader to try things out for themselves.

Show don't Tell! Damn it!

2009-02-17T10:56:00.003Z

Recently I got very angry. Very angry indeed - that's me telling you how upset I am at this. Alternatively, I could just throw into a rant... ahem:

I cannot believe that they just sit there ripping it out of my work as if no one else does it... gets away with - nay gets published committing it! It's how I write, damn it! How I write! Don't they see that real authors do it all the time? Don't they see that editors let this sort of thing stick because it expands the narrative's world... gives the back story? Heathens!

I'm not really angry - okay, a tell again - certainly not a those plucky individuals who'd been good enough to crit my recent return to my final project. I did feel naffed off that I can't just write the way I want to, the way established authors do - I tell you, they have a lot to answer for, with their five pages here and there of unbridled backstory that stops everything dead - it rubs off on us non-published folk and messes with our heads.

Take, for example, James Herbert's Once... it opens with a car crash. Succinct and crashy and then we're trawling through the countryside with protagonist Thom almost 20 pages as we're brought up to speed on everything that's come before.

Same with The Testament of Gideon Mack by... so-and-so. Big, long, winding tell to frame the story.

Sigh! The problem is that I'm not reading the type of book I'm writing (YA and teen) and so that's messing with my head.

Fortunately everything's salvageable and I'm learning to prune.

So, that's where I am - a happier, more aware place, thanks to my critiques. Thanks guys.

New Thriller Author - Matt Hilton

2009-02-16T07:02:00.002Z

Here's a shout out to new thriller writer, Matt Hilton, who was signed to LBA last year and agent, Luigi Bonomi.

An informative interview with Matt's arrival (per se) can be read on Col Bury's New Crime Fiction blog.

I find it's always useful to read this stuff as it reminds you how long it takes from getting an agent to publication - often longer dependent upon the state of the manuscript. It also helps you think about how many new authors are in Matt's situation as we wade into our recession, and wonder what could happen to some as publishing houses cut themselves to shreds as they attempt to survive!

Good luck, Matt!

Joshua Files - ARG, coming in March 2009

2009-02-02T10:06:00.003Z

I'm out of it for a little while and things start to happen... like lots of snow and lots more books in print.

Sheesh!

Anyhoo, I've been backpeddling through other blogs on a catch up mission and come across our MG, saying none other than:

I’ve also been working on the ARG (Alternate Reality Game).

I forget - have we said what it’s going to be called yet?

Nope, I don’t believe we have. Well, it’s called THE DESCENDANT, which is the title of the techno-thriller novel I wrote back in 2005, before INVISIBLE CITY. It’s from this manuscript that the backstory of Joshua Files is drawn, as well as the ARG. I originally conceived a sequel, which was to be entitled THE FIFTH CODEX.

But then it struck me that the hero of THE FIFTH CODEX could be a youngster. And from that, I had the idea to write for children. (That and a reluctant-reader teenage daughter who I longed to see reading…)

At the beginning of THE DESCENDANT two DNA scientists meet to swap secret biological samples. One scientist is murdered and the other goes on the run. Is he the killer? Or is he running from the killer? The story moves from Mexico to Europe and then to Iraq, where a mysterious underground chamber hides an ancient secret about human civilisation.

For the ARG, we introduced a new character, Gabi - the teenage daughter of the murdered scientist. Her father has been killed - but why? And by whom? Like Josh she’s all alone…stressed out…can’t believe what she’s hearing about her father…and increasingly close to danger. And since her Dad was Josh’s godfather, Gabi turns to her old friend in Oxford for help.

Josh is ready and happy to help…but it won’t be long before his life is taken over by the dramatic events at the beginning of ICE SHOCK.

When we launch THE DESCENDANT ARG you’ll be able to watch as Gabi’s story unfolds. Who’ll solve the mystery first - you or Gabi? And will Gabi survive to tell the tale? In a real-time interactive finale you’ll be able to watch and assist as Gabi goes on a midnight run - with her life at stake.

Say it with me... Oooh!

And:

Just finished closing down the beta run of The Descendant ARG. Phew, what a month. All put to bed now, until March!

I enjoyed both books (yes, I've been lucky to read the second novel, Ice Shock, due out in March... to coincide with the ARG, no less) and am looking forward to getting on with the ARG. I think it's going to be something big, considering my joy at scrounging the net for the LOST ARG. I just love getting the background information on existing story worlds, because they always have titbits that expand the existing story.

Check out http://www.joshuafiles.co.uk/ and www.themgharris.com for updates.

Controlling the Narrative - Adult content Warning

2009-01-13T07:57:00.011Z

First and foremost, here's a warning about adult content! Don't go deeper if you don't want to!

There are two ways of writing a narrative!

Bold statement indeed. Please follow...

In the first, the writer is not holding anything back. And I don't mean they're avoiding maintaining suspense. I mean, their story is unfolding with a clearly established scene involving a couple of characters who are immediately set in the reader's mind, and whose dialogue / action is clearly visualised and understood.

Now then, there is a second way of writing... and is favoured by some brave souls when opening a story. An opening such as mine - one in which I am attempting to deliver myself whilst being brave but possibly without the nous to pull it off.

This second way involves the development of a feeling of senses or style rather than immediate understanding. It's meant to bring along the narrative but does so in a way that is trying smoothly to deliver an experience instead of simply stating: "Here we are, this is what we're doing".

Still with me?

Okay, imagine this... or rather, read it:

At first Rapunzel was terribly frightened when a man came in, for she had never seen one before; but-

Rapunzel withdrew as the Prince leapt in from the window, forcing the awkward placement of his rapier to the side. His circlet of gold shone in the sun’s heavenly light and yet Rapunzel felt ill at ease from his arrival. The jut of his codpiece was unnatural; unnecessary and distracting. His face lacked, like the Old Witch, all feminine charm. But he might have seemed easy to behold, appealing even, had it not been for the intensity of his gaze; Adam regarding Eve for the first time. What could he want with her? What were his intentions?

-the Prince spoke to her so kindly, and told her at once that his heart had been so touched by her singing, that-
A strange sensation akin to nausea (but not so repulsive) bloomed within...

Here we have the opening of my latest work (after the preface you have already read, of course). In it we have two narratives that relate directly to one another.

The words from the fairy tale "Rapunzel" - begun mid-story - and pasted exactly as the Brothers Grimm intended. This is a narrator's voice, no?
My own narration of Rapunzel's meeting with the Prince, after he climbs up her golden tresses.

Is that easy to follow? I'd imagine so.

Now then (this does relate to my previous post on dealing with questions as they arise in the reader's mind, BTW), the narrative swings back and forth between Brothers Grimm and myself for just over a page as the BG narration moves on unfalteringly, but my own narration places Rapunzel and the Prince in bed with each other.

But, I don't want to deal with the reader's question of: Well, why are we having to listen to the BG narrative as well? What's the point.

Because if I did so, it would ruin the effect I'm trying to create - an effect I'm hoping will lead the reader on rather than bore or confuse.

The problem arises that if the reader does become confused, then I, the writer am not controlling the narrative.

This is exaserbated when my narration swaps the third-person pov of Rapunzel and the Prince with the first-person pov of me... okay, well not, me! Per se:

-she put her hand in his and said: “Yes, I will gladly go with you, only how am I to get down out of the tower? Every time you come to see me you must bring a skein of silk with you, and -

He held her down with the heat of his body alone. And she, open to his advance, floated in that ruby sea and drew up its velvet waves in her fists, exclaiming her elation with a hoarse cry that roused the night dwellers of that great wood. Breathless, she could not be fulfilled.

-I will make a ladder of them, and when it is finished I will climb down by it, and you will take me away on your horse.” They arranged that till-

I spread myself beneath him, let him push against me. Felt the heat flushing from me, chest to neck to face, as I cried out. Again! Let him thrust. Take me! I wrapped my legs about his waist, let him deeper.
-the ladder was ready

Forgive me! I write like this under the lame pretense of literary wantonness. :)

So, while I'm lost to my own excesses I'm failing to keep the reader attuned. They get to the change in tense and think: "I've lost it! The narrator hasn't a clue, and neither do I. Why the double narrator? And why the change in tense? Is this a schizophrenic narrator?"

This is made worse when, half a page later, my narrator discusses a whole new scene while the BG narrators continue.

The fact is that literary curlicues and clever tricks require grounding so that the reader feels that they are being led by someone with a map and compass. Not someone who's going to take them through this field, turn about... look at the horizon for a clue about where they're going... you get my point.

So, in controlling my own narrative, the above passage can be changed to:

He held her down with the heat of his body alone. And she, open to his advance, floated in that ruby sea and drew up its velvet waves in her fists, exclaiming her elation with a hoarse cry that roused the night dwellers of that great wood. Breathless, she could not be fulfilled.

-I will make a ladder of them, and when it is finished I will climb down by it, and you will take me away on your horse.” They arranged that till-

I spread myself beneath him, let him push against me.

The two characters entwined atop Rapunzel’s tower were gone. They had suddenly, and without my wishing, escaped my day-dream. Replaced by Holden and myself. My much shorter braid was coiled above my head and the sun-starved body of the Germanic prince was now the chocolate colour of an African-English boy. I tried to hold that moment, tried to ignore Mr Gimli’s droning narrative, or the rest of my English List class who were listening idly along with me.

It felt insalubrious to have such thoughts in public but after the fire of imagination Rapunzel’s story had started within me, I couldn’t help myself. I could see Holden pause above me, pushed up on his arms so that we could regard each other, allowing me to run my palms over his chest. My hands so pale against his dark skin.
He came on again. I felt the heat flushing from me...

Does that make it clearer? As I said, I didn't want to have to break the effect I was creating, but I have a responsibility to the reader. I was going for the effect drawn by movies when a voice over narration continues over changing visuals - but of course, the visuals will speak for themselves. We'd see the characters change from Rapunzel and Prince to... err... "Rapunzel" and Holden.

But Why? When a Reader Asks Questions

2009-01-12T07:34:00.005Z

[Don't leave the reader with too many questions]

When a reader sits down to read your manuscript (obviously once it's all been polished and reshaped into a rectangle box filled with yank-free toilet paper) they do so on the pretense of a good story.

However, the one way street we all so assume we're creating here. Listening to one of Peter's Pitch responses recently and also in a discussion I had last night with MG, it is clear that the act of reading is a one way experience certainly: the acceptance and absorption of story. However the total experience does not end with boredom, annoyance, tears, joy, or thrills.

There is a separate and entirely essential element: questioning.

Writers are constantly looking for ways to hook the reader, if it's not simply to get them to start reading, then it's to keep them reading, keep them thinking, keep them guessing. The easy genre for this to work in is mystery and crime: Who dunn'it, will the cops get the badguys? Will the detective rescue the heroine in time?

But, these are your standard quizzies - look closer, there are more important, more basic questions that pop up in a reader's head as you woo them with story. Questions whose answers - answered / ignored /alluded to but put off - may have a stronger bearing on whether or not the reader gives up.

In my latest attempt at a manuscript I've started very late in the plot's development. So much so that MG asked why would I do that, considering the important facets I was leaving behind and would therefore have to deal with in flashback - not a great dramatic tool (and remember we're trying to be dramatic to hold the reader's attention.

But then, I've taken the choice to unveil the flashback as a series of vignettes throughout the novel to force the reader into changing their view of a couple of characters. Let's hope that works.

In doing this what I'm essentially doing is making my reader have to deal with a lot of unexplained issues, background elements and character motivations that I may elude to but not wholeheartedly explain (for fear of giving the game away). I cannot, however, ignore the fact that as a reader reads, questions are raised, points of interest that they instinctively want dealt with so that they can file it and move on in the narrative.

If I avoid considering these questions, and then fail to answer them at the point in the narrative when the reader thinks of them, then I'm going annoy them. Certainly, I won't be deemed the authority on my own work and therefore why should the reader keep reading?

How many books have you read that failed to tie up certain niggling plot points - and you were happy about that? None. Because we want resolution, we want to know - it's the gossip in all of us, the need to understand the truth of the matter.

Same principle with those little questions, that wish for the author not to skip ahead while the reader is still dwelling on the brief mention of the dead mother, the lesbian who used to be friends with the protagonist, what kind of town the characters live in, how that character got from A to B.

If you can't consider these for yourself it may be worth asking your beta readers to write down questions that emerge in their head as they read your work - they may not all be relevant, or the same. You may specifically wish to hold back. But if you raise too many unanswered questions, you're not on a winning streak.

Twilight

2009-01-08T07:19:00.005Z

You quote something as being like your own intended manuscript and what must you do next? Read it. *SIGH*

I'd heard that Stephanie Meyer's book wasn't as good as the movie (I was forced - honest - to go and see the movie before Christmas - dragged there I tell's ya) and that many critiques were particularly critical about the book (the series in fact) for not being written brilliantly.

I guess that's a bonus for Meyer since poor old JK Rowling gets slated personally for failing to be a great writer. Meyer's got away with only her books being bad - not her.

Anyhoo, so, I've picked up a copy and found the preface pretty straight forward. All well and good. Nice hook. So, I kept reading... and I'm not sure how much further I can go.

The girl whose book I borrowed claimed that she got really annoyed by Bella's narration but still loved the books (that's a big pointer right there that the book might not be my thing). Bella's girly insights and her self-obsessed moodiness and commenting on absolutely everything, while SHOWING us her character also serves to cause the narrative to jackrabbit down the road rather than drive smoothly.

Case in point, this from the opening chapter, provided by TheTwilightSaga.com:

Oh hang on, they've got a funny way of editing their excerpt! Try this section instead from only a few pages in:

"Where did you find it?"
"Do you remember Billy Black down at La Push?" La Push is the tiny Indian reservation on the coast.
"No."
"He used to go fishing with us during thesummer," Charlie prompted.
That would explain why I didn't remember him. I do a good job of blocking painful, unnecessary things from my memory.
"He's in a wheelchair now," Charlie continued when I didn't respond, "so he can't drive anymore, and he offered to sell me his truck cheap."
"What year is it?" I could see from his change of expression that this was the question he was hoping I wouldn't ask.
"Well, Billy's done a lot of work on the engine - it's only a few years old, really."
I hoped he didn't think so little of me as to believe I would give up that easily. "When did he buy it?"

Does this girl have to comment on absolutely everything? And she seems so bitchy about it too! I only wonder because it allegedly gets worse.

What this does show us from a learning point is that in order to get us to know the protagonist we need to have a sense of who they are, and Meyer does this by bringing forth Bella's anxiety over the new car. We definitely get a sense of her character.

A New Fairytale

2009-01-07T15:23:00.003Z

So, a new year, a new story idea.

Tis one I've been thinking on for over a year now - just no time to get it down - and obviously that perpetual fear that if I try, it won't come out right and I'll have wasted an opportunity.

Anyhoo, after a feverish few days of really consolidating the story plan I've committed to an opening paragraph (the actual plot is going to take a lot more effort as I'm actually trying to work out the chronology of what to tell when, and what flashback to use where, for maximum suspense and effect).

Without much further a'do, here is the opening to my contemporary Fairytale (imagine: Twilight - Vampires x Brothers Grimmest ala Angela Carter)

Fornitale, or as I originally conceived it, Wrapped Around Your Finger:

Rapunzel! They spun out my new name in breathy whispers. Spreading the message behind my back while I lingered on thoughts of the night before. Subconsciously I felt their attention, just as I'd felt certain on my way to school that everyone knew what I'd been up to. But I pushed the guilt away, consoling myself that my secret was safe. No one could know. I scooped my braided hair from one shoulder to the other and cradled it across my chest as I lost myself to my childish mistake. Little did I realise how my indiscretion had already gone to press, weaved into the fabric of the school consciousness by the note soon to spiral over my shoulder and skitter across my desk. Its arrival was to be heralded by a fanfare of sudden quiet. A wake up call I'd feared, but long needed.

Anyone have any thoughts?

Chain Letters

2009-01-07T08:07:00.001Z

I guess that wasn't my last post! Fancy that.

I have been remiss and missed the love - the fragrant kisses of joy and sharing. Missed it in October, missed it in November but not yesterday!

Okay,
That's nice... the three of you: MG, Esy and Solvey.

So, here goes:

This is how it works: Display the award. Link back to the person who gave you this award. Nominate at least 7 other blogs. Put links to those blogs on your blog. Leave a message on the blogs of the people you’ve nominated. You can only answer in one word.

1. Where is your cell phone? Coat.
2. Where is your significant other? Sofa.
3. Your hair color? Brown.
4. Your mother? Sorethroat.
5. Your father? Wii.
6. Your favourite thing? Stories.
7. Your dream last night? Murderous.
8. Your dream/goal? Published.
9. The room you’re in? Extension.
10. Your hobby? Writing.
11. Your fear? Death.
12. Where do you want to be in 6 years? Published.
13. Where were you last night? HabboHotel.
14. What you’re not? Focused.
15. One of your wish-list items? Time.
16. Where you grew up? Bracknell.
17. The last thing you did? HabboHotel.
18. What are you wearing? Jeans.
19. Your TV? 37".
20. Your pet? Spaniel.
21. Your computer? Slow.
22. Your mood? Concerned.
23. Missing someone? Everyone.
24. Your car? KA.
25. Something you’re not wearing? Bra.
26. Favourite store? CDWOW.
27. Your summer? February.
28. Love someone? Forever.
29. Your favorite color? Red.
30. When is the last time you laughed? XKCD.
31. Last time you cried? Elizabethtown.

Who do I nominate?

MG, Esy and Solvey, Kate, John, Crowe, Scribe, Lynn!

Now Morning from her orient chamber came...

2009-01-06T08:59:00.005Z

And a happy new year to y'all!

[An ickle Sunrise picture - by me]

Now then, straight to it: if there is one thing I don't do, it's poetry!

If ever there a higher language be
whose obvious subtleties speak
of somethings and nothings
and flowers and loneliness
of war and of famine
of "unrequited love" and joy
then surely that impenetrable verbiage be
po - et - ry

Purposeless? Maybe! You'll have to forgive my own lame attempt - I stopped doing English Language at GCSE - that's poor show for a writer, I know, but my grade C (sigh) was deemed not good enough to attempt A-Level.

Oh this doesn't bode well, I hear you say... this whipper-snapper thinks himself a writer, be!

Well, let's ignore all that.

I don't make new year resolutions - because I don't believe in waiting to start a new year before changing my life - but, I've just been watching/listening to Agent Peter's video feedback to a couple of pitches over at Litopia
- if you didn't know, Litopia now has a pitch room where accepted members can pitch to the agent and receive a video response helping to diagnose where they're falling short (which is absolute bloody gold dust - and a masterclass far superior to any of been to on my course - bar, of course, Jim Crace's prose stripping [you'll have to check through my blog to find the results of that]).

Anyhoo, in one of his crits, Agent Peter recommended that one writer's clunky dialogue needs a bit of poetry to it, to smooth over the clunk. That she needs to get some poetry in her.

So, why not, I thought, do that myself. Tis a new year. I'm sure it's not too much effort to read one poem a day. How difficult can that be? Perhaps I could read more!

And in the process, I might learn something that infuses my own writing with better linguistic ability (than I am currently showing) - Solvejg, I can see you right this minute staving in your monitor with your forehead, screaming: "Why won't this idgit listen to me! How long ago did I say this?"

There's no rush, dear boy!

So, it's the 6th today - having read the first of Keats from the Penguin Classics edition, Imitation of Spenser, which was lovely, woolly and fully adjectivised, I'd better read at least 5 more.

Will this be my only post of the year? Who knows?

Scholastic - Wow 366

2008-09-09T07:33:00.005Z

Books are released in their thousands every week (ahem... probably) and a great many of them, having the backing of their publishers have launch parties - where the publishers and some/many of their staff schmooze with agents, authors, illustrators, librarians, booksellers, editors and the press... oh, and little ole me.

Okay, maybe I'm not so little. Here I am with the indomitable Peter Cox and the Salsa-holic MG Harris at the London Transport Museuem, last night, for the release of Scholastic's short story collection in association with the National Year of Reading 2008.

I certainly felt like a plum though, and exceedingly intimidated by the published and those in the business, doing their damndest to develop, to edit, to design, to promote, to schmooze.

I arrived on the dot, joined the queue and dumped my bag and brolly, making my way into the museum's "Bus depot" where people were already gathering in pockets of association. Of course, having arrived on my own, and with Peter and MG apparantly downing mojitos somewhere else, I was becomming increasingly concerned about how the devil I might interupt someone else in order to have a conversation with them - including the ubiquitous "So, what do you do then?"

Fortunately for me, Scholastic's designers (of book covers and websites) took pity on me and descended with great enthusiasm to find out who I was and what I did - I'm thankful to them for taking the time (though perhaps it was more because my name badge was just a name with no association - everyone else was marked either with their business or "author", while mine did not and during conversation many eyes would shift again to my name badge wondering why they'd already forgotten my company).

Richard, Emily, Zoe, thanks for making me feel less of a billy-no-mates.

What surprised me was the age of the staff. Yes they were assistants in the large, but to editors and copyeditors. All of them having to rent in London, all on low pay, but all gushing with praise for how much they do enjoy their jobs - and many had only been in post for the past 8 months - there I was wondering if it was a business that chewed people up and spat them out. Yes and no!

They were tight knit and positive about what they were doing - take a cross-section of most other businesses and many young workers would already be jaded by what they were doing. But, here at least they really believe in what they are doing.

Trying to explain who, how and why I was there was a little difficult - considering the very secret work I'm doing for Scholastic - more on that next year.

After the brief speeches the schmoozers got down to more schmoozing and Peter and MG were nice enough to lead me around to speak to particular people, but who do you choose when asked, "Editors, publishers, authors... you don't want to speak to agents... who shall we talk to?"

I talked with MG's editor about the work that she did, and was surprised about the nature: as much copy-editing as it is discussing the purpose of a character, a scene, the drive of the narrative. A lot of the work I assumed agents did, but Peter said that once the author is signed with a publisher he takes a step back so as not to impede on the relationship between author and editor.

When I asked the editor about generating the skills for her work - remember that I struggle over many of the skills, as I'm sure, we all do - she said that they just develop with the work. Certainly, she said, she needs to enjoy the writing. An editor must be, she was told when she was starting out, the author's biggest fan. She must like the book better than most.

And it was while then talking with the other authors, Sally Nicholls, Fiona Dunbar, and er... a few others (I don't know who these people are!) that I felt a great sense of underachievement. Here these authors were talking about getting their next contract for so-and-so books, and having written and now redrafting their third... and all these Scholastic folk doing their damndest to promote and push, and me... who can't even commit to a chapter.

It's a real eye-opener to experience, to see particularly that the publishers and their staff are the real heroes of the literary world. Particularly with regard to the National Year of Reading, here Scholastic are doing so much work to promote reading to children and at the other end of the spectrum (where I work in a library), there is so little being done. Libraries are thwarted by the red tape of local government, and so beleaguered by lack of funding that computers are the only real thing pushed.

Must... work... harder!

Anyway, it was on behalf of this book.

Oath Breaker - Wolf Brother 5

2008-09-05T12:28:00.005Z

It's funny how the book world works. In movies, films are released on a Friday. Until recently, preview screenings were on a Thursday, but at least you knew where you stood. Films on DVD and Singles and Albums are always released on Mondays.

But books... it's as if the retailers don't care - so, I was able to buy Michelle Paver's Oath Breaker (book 5 in the Chronicles of Ancient Darkness series) on Tuesday instead of its official release date of Saturday 6th.

Crazy!

And, I've finished it. Another great stream of narrative, broken between the three leads, Torak, Renn and... no not Stimpy, but Wolf. There filters in another character's cracked up narrative for a brief moment to develop the plot and build tension but we stick rigidly to these three characters for everything.

And Paver makes sure to entwine us with the emotions of these characters, endearing them to us even when they're making the wrong choice, getting lost on the quest, or beating themselves up for their failings.

Sometimes there's no warning. Nothing at all.

Your skinboat is flying like a cormorant over the waves, your paddle sending silver capelin darting through the kelp, and everything's just right: the choppy Sea, the sun in your eyes, the cold wind at your back. Then a rock rears out of the water, bigger than a whale, and you're heading straight for it, you're going to smash...

Torak threw himself sideways and stabbed hard with his paddle. His skinboat lurched - nearly flipped over - and hissed past the rock with a finger to spare.

Streaming wet and coughing up seawater, he struggled to regain his balance.

'You all right?' shouted Bale, circling back.

'Didn't see the rock,' muttered Torak, feeling stupid.

Bale grinned. 'Couple of beginners in camp. You want to go and join them?'

So it begins, and while the last book started more thoughtfully, and this one with a spruce of action, we can already see that Paver is a master of maintaining her style and garnering reader interest.

And I've still learnt so little of these skills.

Sigh.

Anyhoo, Oath Breaker... out now. Read it. It's good stuff.

Hamlet

2008-08-18T06:02:00.002Z

So, yes indeed, we had the best seats in the house for Hamlet and weren't we glad for that! We were aptly placed to observe Russell T. Davies down in the stalls and to avoid the carelessly thrown objects that flew from the stage into the audience. Such as Patrick Stewart's dart-like pen that shot out of his discarded jacket and thwacked against a wall. And, Mr Tennant's own fumbling with a footstool that slid into the face of a first row patron (lucky he caught it)

You can get a full idea of how the play played out at MG's site.

Let me just say that they made brilliant use of light and dark - a shiny black floor which the soldiers shone their Mulder-and-Scully torches on, which reflected back onto each other's faces. The rear wall mirrors that cracked to amazing effect. A brilliantly doddery Polonious, played by Star Wars favourite Oliver Ford Davies (Sio Bibble), a great to see Patrick Stewart (who almost laughed when, during the interrogation of Hamlet to ascertain the location of Polonious's body, Tennant opts to reply with the same deep, Stewartesque tones "He's in Heaven!").

Tennant is, as they say, a good Hamlet. Fully realised, brilliantly unhinged at times, funny and distraught - but, as the lady on the front counter said to us, it's not dark enough.

There was perhaps, too much humour. And while, as Laura pointed out, Shakespeare purposefully added comedy into his tragedy and tragedy into his comedy, Hamlet needs to be a far more brooding piece than it was.

Not that it ruined the enjoyment - certainly, Tennant's choices made for a more relatable Hamlet than, say, the knowing-Hamlet of Brannagh's (though we have just bought a copy of Brannagh's Hamlet because it's great).

Anhyoo, here's a piccy of David Tennant signing autographs - and yes, we were sad enough to join in, though we failed to get one.

Stratford

2008-08-18T05:54:00.002Z

So, MG isn't the only one lucky enough to see the new representation of Hamlet. I have too. After we sat down (front row of the circle, right in front of the stage) in the best seats in the house, a lady toddled over to us and quietly enquired about how long ago we'd purchased our tickets... well, last September actually.

Oh, she sighed... are you RSC members?

Damn right!

It was a crazy old weekend. That morning, on our way to visit Shakespeare's grave in ye olde church, we passed GMTV's Penny Smith in the graveyard. We all made eye contact, and while my wife gave a knowing nod I kind of gurned as I tried to work out where I'd seen the short blonde lady, sans-makeup who sounded like someone off tv

PENNY SMITH!

We're such geeks - we didn't accost her, though I did suggest to Laura that she should have papped her and we could have made some money from Heat magazine. But she wasn't having any of it - so we giggled our way into church (Bet you didn't even see the bloke's face, who she was with? Laura asked me... There was a bloke with her?) And Laura promptly put the money to see Shakespeare's grave into a giant old-wood chest upon which was sat a visitor's book.

The £3 landed with a dull thud - not a chink of coin on coin to be heard.

What are you doing? I asked.

She explained about paying the money, but, as I pointed out, the Church coffers were requesting money halfway down the church, and payment for Shakespeare's grave was at the far end. She'd literally dropped gold into an empty box that probably wouldn't be opened for another 100 years.

Sigh!

Watchmen Trailer

2008-07-18T04:58:00.002Z

I know, I know! I haven't been round much - certainly failed on the 30 posts in a month front. Well aside from all the uni work I've been doing, I actually have work work to do - and that's a bad thing, because it prevents me from writing. Sigh! In the meantime...

We may all be waiting on Dark Knight's release (got my tickets. Got yours?), but here's one I'm desperate to see:

Finally it's online - to see a perfect quality version of the March 2009 Comicbook movie trailer, go to Empireonline. (Hope you love it, MG)

Also, a storyboard matchup between comic and movie also on Empireonline.

Senses

2008-07-09T06:50:00.000Z

More often than not we deal with sight over the other senses, generating monosensual texts that, while functional, remain flat to the reader.

Anyone remember what great sensual references Dan Brown made in The Da Vinci Code? Me neither. Anyhoo, listing them out like this is a great to see where I'm reliant upon certain sense, failing to use others, or not entirely developing reader sense through power words or onomatopoeia.

Touch

This is an abstract reference of loss rather than an actual bite or sting felt by the character, but, it's a start:

Even an insect bite or sting might have seemed natural, but they too were not to be found in Rome's parched carcass.

Another reference to loss:

He wished they were within reach, so that he might feel their texture.

Then I start relating more concretely (and this is a crossover to taste):

The air was heavy and dry in a way that no air conditioning or water could satisfy.

I begin to relate more specifically. Here are temperature references:

Lying in the pooling heat on her bedroom floor he'd plead with her to talk cool words and chilling breaths.

In the wintertime the frost settled upon the bedsheets and he'd huddle up to Mama.

When soil was soil:

... when her hands weren't thick and dripping with soil.

Rugs and grass:

... softer and more comforting than any rug.

Temperatures:

... as she kicked off her shoes to feel the cool of the unsunned flagstones.

Mama's soles were burnt and stinging as she fled home.

Dying flora:

She presented her parents with the crinkled leaves she'd saved as they fell.

Foodstuffs (I didn't bother to consider flavours here - silly me, missed a trick) These are insinuated rather than stated by my word choice. Imagine these textures in your mouth (hardly crunchy):

... fed her from the synthetic mush of proteins... chase withered vegetables...

We all know how heat and cold can give us headaches:

...fusion of chill-filtered air and muggy heat gave the workers migraines.

Pain:

Alfredo rubs his eyes and digs his fingernails into his palms.

Antiseptic wind(!):

... pushed down by the cool wind and the numbing taste of antiseptic. As he stroked their leaves and felt the sturdiness of their trunks his eyes began to stream.

Cool and wet:

... and wipes her eyes with a cool flannel...

Death:

He feels the relaxing string of her muscles...

Sound

A simple reference to silence:

He'd wander the city's hushed streets that once had been laden with tourists.

A tell:

... weaned on the scents and textures of geoponics.

Insects and church bells:

The buzz of insects would wake her before the morning haze lifted... or the first bells of morning rang out from the seven hills.

Dogs:

... and the dogs would never stop panting...

Birds:

... and the swallows were already at play, chirruping over breakfast on the wing.

Horror:

No amount of wailing could reverse the change.

More bells (this is Rome, I'm trying to evoke):

The church bells continued to ring morning...

Inside the glass-snakes (giant, hermetically sealed greenhouses):

The venting systems always thrummed...

Crying is sight (really), but I believe that if used properly the reader can imagine the sound:

... stood outside her room and listened to her gentle tears.

And breath is always a good one:

Her breathing has become a drawn out rasp...

Not a greenhouse, but a private floral collection this time (a crossover into touch also):

... beneath a gently humming ventilator that expelled great breaths of midwinter chill.

More breath:

She gasps, a long inward breath...

Smell

And the first reference to smell is abstracted:

If only their distance was no further than the intake of one breath.

The next is more concrete:

He only ever smelt dirt and dust, the stench of foodstuffs rankled by the Sun.

And:

Come day or night, what wind there was carried only a stench of rot.

Finally, I give the reader some smells to work with (though these are restrictive to those who know the scents). So, they're a little leading:

Rome's breath would scent her room with sweet matthiola and the fragrance of freesias.

More lacking smells, I first relate camphor laurel to the reader, and then (this does require the reader to know what the smell is in the first place for this kind of scent reference to work:

She didn't detect the muted note in its scent.

This is a story about the lack of scent, so it is only in the denouement that I finally relent:

... giddy from his task and the heady excitement of so many fragrances... in great breaths those sweet and spicy smells...

Taste

My word! There's no taste! That's a shame... I think I need to focus a little better.

Maximising Impact

2008-07-08T06:33:00.000Z

The rule of three hadn't occurred to me when writing this piece. Certainly not until I was sitting here typing this analysis of what I'd done with a particular object / symbol.

Mama's hosta is a symbol of life and loss, but in my original writing of the scene with its loss I hadn't developed an introduction for it - that's what initial drafts are for though. We get it down on the page so that we can make the connections and work out a taxonomy of importance. The hosta, I realised, as I had it dying and its leaves falling about the girl, was a key emotional link to how life had been and how it has gone. And I'd wasted it.

In the next draft I split it up so that the introduction of the hosta and Mama's attachment to it was well established and interlaced with some characterisation (page 6):

She took cuttings of the more flourishing plants and potted them for her window box. There also she planted a plaintain lily: a hosta she’d rescued from the unkempt and overgrown grounds at school. She devoted herself to its resurrection and fell in love with the lilac flowers it produced in August. Against the azure heavens their tubular heads reminded her of organ pipes.

When we come back to the hosta, the decay of the flora is already in full swing. I have chosen to build up the tension for Mama as she discovers more and more failing plant life, and tries (and fails) to save them, ending with:

That’s where her parents found her, trembling in the corner. She was stood beneath the overhang of her own window box with the variegated leaves of her favoured hosta tangled in her hair and collected in clumps about her feet.

Finally, I rely on the re-introduction of a hosta at the end of the story. Though I'm not copying that extract here.

Its purpose brings us full circle, and then some. A live hosta for a dying mum, but then it becomes synchronous of her death.

Dialogue Modes

2008-07-07T06:35:00.000Z

Along with the modes of drama - dramatic mode, scenes, half-scenes - there are three types of dialogue and thought (as detailed by Janet Burroway in Writing Fiction, a guide to narrative craft). It works, really in the same was as the drama modes, in that we have:

Direct
Indirect
Summary

I employed each of these in my Bridport entry, and for once, centred upon indirect and summary over direct - using direct in one place only, for one character. I touched upon this in my reading of Murakami. But let's look at each in respect to my work, and how I employed them from my learning:

Summary

With his chores complete Alfredo would sit down with Mama before preparing their evening meal and describe the shapes and colours he’d seen through the gated entrances and barred corridors.

Here we have the summary of dialogue. We don't hear the exact ins and outs or a specific dialogue session between Alfredo and his mother. It's largely irrelevant to the narrative, and the fact that we get the overarching pointers of their discussions (and the feel that they repeat this) is what's important. We don't need to know much more.

Indirect

Never did a day pass, she‘d told Alfredo with a wan smile, when her hands weren’t thick and dripping with soil.

Much of my dialogue-related prose in this short story is made up of indirect speech. the parts that tell us what is being discussed, in a more specific way than in summary, but without, again, having to go into the machinations of the scene itself. We can flutter over it, picking up the necessary exposition, getting a feel for some characterisation but not an awful lot - we're maintaining pace, and moving swiftly on.

Particularly in this story however, I am using indirect speech to continue the sub-story flashbacks, the expository moments that relate the scientific backdrop to the narrative and to push along the drama. As such the indirect speech is infused with the flashback elements - the telling of a story by a character.

Direct

‘Maybe as little as a week.’ The doctor packs his medical bag with a meticulous calmness but refuses to return Alfredo’s eye contact. ‘I’m afraid there’s nothing more I can do. The morphine will keep her comfortable and if you stick to the routine I told you, she won’t suffer.’
Alfredo rubs his eyes and digs his fingernails into his palms. Before the end came there had been hospitals and affordable medicines, people to care for the sick and means of making them well again. Now there is morphine and Alfredo.
‘You must call at the mortuary before the body starts to rot,’ says the doctor and he is gone.

Here we have the specific, direct dialogue between two characters. It should be used to show dramatic action, change in a character, conflict, discoveries and decisions. And until now I know that because of my over-reliance on scenic modes I have had an over-reliance on direct dialogue when it's not necessary (no wonder my scenes have seemed overly stretched with not a lot going on).

In this short I save my sole direct dialogue for the doctor who visits Alfredo and his sick mother. I think it strengthens the doctor's words that he is the only one with direct speech. The indifference and his inability to talk about her as a person, just as a body. How many dead and dying does the doctor have to deal with on a daily basis?

Combatting the Dramatic Mode

2008-07-06T06:34:00.000Z

As mentioned previously, the flying output for my short story became, in the majority, a piece in the dramatic mode.

My initial draft was built up of connected scenes, utilising flashback from the midpoint onwards and wasting a vast amount of time on the relationship between the cop and the young protagonist. There was conflict and a lot of showing in these characters' actions and treatment of each other, but, it didn't shine a light on the story or theme, and, in fact, the story I was supposed to be telling was a little bit lost.

11 pages in, my main (false) narrative came to a stop, not because I was done with it, but because for all of its drama and development - flashback to show why the protagonist had come to make the decision that brought him into conflict with the cop - it didn't explain anything and I needed to ground the work in at least some exposition. At the time I thought after that section would be perfect.

The end didn’t arrive as they had depicted in any one of the Hollywood movies. It didn’t go with a bang and it wasn’t centred solely in America. In fact, by the time Alfredo Giancarlo was born, the end was unalterably established and advancing without much fanfare. It appeared, to those watching from – as yet – unaffected regions, that the billions it had afflicted and displaced and whose deaths it had contributed to were just more of the same: plague, pestilence, famine and the seemingly ubiquitous refugees.

Hollywood was safe long after the Mediterranean had suffered.

It's a contrivance, but it's a better starting block that relates to the story I should have been telling. This, of course, is the dramatic mode. We're not inside a scene, observing the characters' actions. We're outside, building up a picture.

I realised the technique I was using after a couple of pages (fancy that! Me, using a literary technique), and the story began to take a different shape - the necessary one. And here's the key, particularly in respect to the short story form: the tale I was telling was, though grounded in a mother/son relationship, one of sci-fi origins. It has a lengthy backstory that would otherwise have needed to be fleshed out in whole dramatic scenes - but again would have been a different story (imagine The Day After Tomorrow, but without so many weather patterns and a bit more potting).

Again, the backstory is pivotal, but only a partial of the story I wanted to tell. As such, writing in the dramatic mode allowed me to convey feeling and dip in and out of certain moments in these characters' histories, getting right to the punch and the crux of the subject and emotional journey.

Gone was the entire story setup that, I felt, was needed to spur the protagonist into action. Gone was the cop, the bullying, Alfredo's brother. As such I had to show certain things a different way: The characters' poverty and the mother's sickness in particular. What we must observe when writing in the dramatic mode is that showing and telling is still an important concept (inference adds weight to explanation):

It didn’t cost Alfredo a cent to stare.

... I'll be discussing word choice later.

National Academy of Writing's First Anthology

2008-07-05T04:58:00.002Z

Available through Amazon, this is the taste of things to come.

A few weeks ago we had an evening of presentations and readings given by a number of NAW students, including myself (unsurprisingly giving a talk on Online Writing Communities and the Litopian Model), which received much acclaim from a number of publishing folk from:

Bloomsbury Director Richard Charkin, author David Lodge, Times Newspaper and Murdoch's News Corporation, and then some.

As part of our yearly roundup of developments some of our luckier members had their work included in our first anthology (lucky for some - sadly I didn't make the grade this year, due to a lack of appropriate offerings). It's pretty chocker anyway, totally rammed with the latest talent about to hit the shelves (once we all get our modules out the way).

So, head on over to Amazon and get yourself a copy of the Anthology.

Getting it Down

2008-07-04T06:36:00.001Z

So, sat in the moderate coolness of our hotel room - Laura sleeping to the thrum of the air-con - I hunched over my pad of paper and started fashioning the story:

As soon as the door opened, Alfredo came hurtling through it, propelled, with his arms swinging to maintain balance like a cartwheeling clown, by the policeman now following curtly behind. Skidding to a halt against Mama's sideboard so that he had to hug the plant pot - an ancient ceramic urn painted in the Greek style of orange and black as if it were from real antiquity - and stop it from teetering over the edge. Mama would be more than displeased, even more so to see the trouble Alfredo had brought with him. Alfredo glared back at his escort and captor and hoped the young man registered his indignance. It's not like he was the thief.

Worry not, this isn't anywhere near the story narrative that went to Bridport. It does give an idea of my direction.

Anyhoo, I rely solely, in my planning and in my writing, on the scenic narrative. Now, I've mentioned this previously in this post on the dramatic modes. I quoted James N. Frey in the discussion. He discusses the writing of Flaubert's Madam Bovary as an example of dramatic narrative. I have come across this, I realise, with other works, for example Pride and Prejudice (I didn't get on with it one bit).

The dramatic mode, I thought, at the time when I was really settling into my learning of writing, was just a cheap and easy way to do a lot of telling and get away with it (oh, how naive I was, and really rather awful in my own writing).

So it was, that I set to work on my new short story by planning and delving straight into the scenes that show the dramatic purpose and direction and conflict of the story. I can't comprehend how to do it in the dramatic, and as such I can only consider in those muse-fueled early drafts the scenes and how they should work.

- As an aside, anyone want to open up a discussion on how to plan your work from the dramatic mode angle rather than beating out the scenes, let me know.

What I had, therefore, was a lot of gesturing and poncing around by the characters - Alfredo and the cop - as I tried to keep the story interesting, injected bits of exposition that didn't slow the narrative too much, and raised questions. I had:

The cop has brought Alfredo home, having caught him up to a nefarious deed
The cop wants Alfredo to get his mum, but Alfredo refuses because his mum is sick
The cop doesn't believe Alfredo because Alfredo has already lied to him
The cop calls to the mum (really, desperately sick) up stairs, and beats Alfredo when he complains
Alfredo's brother comes home and wants to know what's happening
Flashback: Alfredo watching the Spring bird exodus (there aren't any plants left, thus no bugs). Alfredo and his friend get beaten up by older kids
Flashback: Later Alfredo and his friend retaliate, having spied one of the other kids stealing from tourists
Flashback: Alfredo gets caught by the cop

None of it related to the story I wanted to tell - it was all set up, or the fleshing out of a far larger narrative, perhaps the film of the short story - and I barely touched on the theme or the direction of the piece.

Theme, at this point: If we take what we covet and what is kept from us, we destroy the thing's beauty and the thing itself.

It was a riff on the the fact that the flora had died off and now only private collectors can afford to keep their own collections alive - but at what price to the poor? But then, if the poor had access the collections would become infected, etc, etc.

In the piece I wrote by hand I managed to fit in two pages of explanation on the situation and how it arose... Two out of eight, and when I came to do the typing, by the third draft, a form of those two pages were all that would be left of the original plan and write-up

Conceptualising

2008-07-03T06:24:00.000Z

In line with many of the writers' theories I have read, I now get into a state of planning. Gone are the days when I was able to write from the off, and just take my work anywhere, with only a brief guesstimate of where it'll all end.

So it was in Rome, while my wife badgered me to get on and write something. She was so enthused with having completed her finals back in May and actually getting out to Rome to see and touch the things she'd been studying - real history, mind you. These things are at least 2000 years old. Can any of us comprehend that?

So, she gets into this sharing mode, wanting to make sure that I'm not only included but that my inspiration is sparked by what we're seeing - it's nice to have a partner who wants you to succeed in your dreams - but then, of course, she's always saying: "Are you inspired yet?" as if we're on a drive to some destination and I need to be ready by the time we get there!

But, I did get my game on. And here is the spark of my idea that I then toyed with for a day (yes, just a day, the Bridport closed in a week and in our downtime in the hotel I had only pen and paper for extra-curricular activities) before having a play:

What really stood out for me as we traced a path from monument to tourist attraction through the tiny piazzas and the winding streets that stretched high above, were the vast number of open corridors (albeit gated) that led in under these villas and apartments and housed many numbers of statues, busts, faux (probably) antiquities and greenery - perhaps a private founatin in a courtyard.

As we trudged in the heat, always ensuring that we didn't go for too long without a 2 litre bottle of chilled water for fear of fainting or heat exhaustion, I got to thinking about the green places - especially Rome. I'd seen some photos of Rome before, and couldn't remember seeing any of the green gardens and tree'd parks we were now wandering past, with their broad-umbrella branched stone pines and a number of indigenous plant life. I had thought Rome might be devoid of flora altogether (okay, at least a lot), but here we were with bits of verdancy all around and these separate, imprisoned collections that were barred off from the public.

What, I thought, would happen if the world's flora upped and died? As if nature had given up, climate change was too much (a true problem that is currently killing of the equatorial species). I imagined a boy who was poor and who, after this event of dying flora, still lived on the streets of Rome and only saw green life through the barred gateways. Would he appreciate them? Would he want to touch them, to share space with them? Or would he simply get on with his life and have them on the periphery, a nag in his mind but one he can't do anything about?

What then, would happen if his mother lay dying and she'd been there at the time when the end of flora had first come? Her 20 year old memories trouble her, the life she had once led, the loss, and the desolation of living without - it would be unbearable for her. But then, her son might go out of his way to surround her in flora, at whatever cost, to steal it and bring it to her - regardless of whether the stolen plants would die when out of their protective habitats (a sciency set of explanations would be required for much of the plot's construction - such as the distinction between standard flora and crop-flora, where food comes from, how there can be private collections (and why, of course)).

But this was the concept, and the first draft, which I never completed, but ran for over 5,000 words (the Bridport restricts writers to 5,000 words - I've been writing 1,500 for Litopia's competitions for so long, I was worried about having to go the distance) by the time I got it to a place in my own head to be able to start typing it up and considering my stand point (more on this in a later post).

One Month of Learning

2008-07-02T07:13:00.000Z

Linking in my outstanding coursework with the recent Bridport Prize entry I submitted just 2 and a bit hours before the deadline, I hope to detail all my learning and how I've come to my present state. What follows is my agenda:

To bring the blog back up to speed
To meet the requirements of my diary coursework
To help in my pedagogic review (again, more coursework)
To avoid actually displaying too much of the story I will use in my examples, for fear of it being expunged from the Bridport for "having been already published"

Bring it on!

Done Roming

2008-07-01T06:43:00.008Z

I have been to dark places and met with the muse of enlightenment in the unlikeliest of places!

The past month, as all months seem to be these days, has been difficult for me - creatively speaking - not least with troubles-at-mill, a weekend in Rome, deadlines and work problems. But, I've got my responsibilities to be getting on with...

As such it was fortunate of my wife to advise that I take some inspiration from our surroundings while in the 33 degree heat of Rome (no breeze, sparse shade and a boiled head). The Bridport Prize ends... er... last night - midnight. Wouldn't it be great if, beside my other two pieces entered, I was able to shake my muse into dropping some tidbits to get on with.

Funny that there's so much religiosity in the City of Rome - the most unspiritual city I've come across (but then, that must come with so many tourists and no one knowing, or caring, what language another person speaks) with no apologies, people reversing, turning, stopping, shooting out of nowhere across your path, without a hint that they might do it. And then there are those wonderful Euro-queue-jumpers. Us Brits just don't cope too well in the mix do we?

At least we felt safe.

Anyhoo, so it was that we were mixing it up a little, with a lot of walking (a lot of walking) and just as much historical consumption as possible. When we got back the number of people asked if we'd been to this church, or that church and then stood a little surprised by our "no" was quite surprising.

We went for history, not religion! St. Peter's was a phenomenal sight that brought Laura to the brink of tears, and after that, why'd you need to go see another church? There's so little reason. Nothing will meet the basilica's splendour (where'd all this money come from? Hmm). No, we didn't even do the Sistine or the Vatican museums. We were there for antiquity - the Colosseum, Pantheon, the Ara Pacis, Palatine Hill, and the Forum.

So, got to get back into that saddle.

Dramatic Modes - The Dramatic Narrative

2008-06-07T11:31:00.004Z

How ever did I miss this?

It's one of those very important writing tools that I've been ever so desperate to emulate, and failed to grasp.

The question is why? The answer is that I had not correctly analysed the elements and therefore hadn't named them.

As we all know from Ursula le Guin's Earthsea: To name something is to have power over it.

Back in January (my, that's a long time ago), I evolved my concept of Narrative Focus, and listed 9 elements:

Reflection - narrator / character reflects on the past / present / future
Action - physical movement, physiological movement / reaction, interaction with others / object
Intention - decision / impetus / drive to perform an act
Observation - senses, dialogue delivery
Perception - like observation but subjective
Wish / Need - future reflection
Feeling - how the character feels generally or their observation towards a situation / object / person (with feeling)
Relating - reflection vs feeling / observation towards a situation / object / person
Resolving - intention vs feeling / observation towards a situation / object / person

But what I couldn't grasp was the flow from scene to scene. That effortless movement that, in some fashion, propels us not simply from location to location, as if we were watching ye olde films with their static cameras, but through the world and the narrative - exactly as if we're on steadicam, at one pursuing the characters, then into montage, and back again.

A friend bought me James N. Frey's How To Write a Damn Good Novel. But, aside from dipping in and out (I have such difficulty maintaining interest in how to books, where it's all this is how it's done, now go and do it yourself - I know, that's how they all are), I never got further than halfway.

However, towards the back of the book is where the nuggets are, and where, in this particular case, Frey explains the concept of Dramatic Modes.

There are, points out Frey, three distinct ways of splicing the narrative, or three different modes, if you will.

Dramatic Narrative
Scenes
Half-scenes

Let me cover, point 2 first: we all know what scenes are. They're the definable units of action, where we see our characters interact with one another, develop, and conflict. When I am writing, these are the formal elements of my prose - the bits I am conscious of setting up and writing about.

Why did I cover scenes, first? Because they're exactly what they say they are - and even the worst of writers can write a scene (rightly or wrongly).

Thirdly, half-scenes are a meshing of scenes and dramatic narrative, so we don't need to cover them.

So, to the crux of the post... what is dramatic narrative?

In dramatic narrative, the narrator relates actions, shows character growth, and exploits inner conflict, but does so in a summary fashion.

- James N. Frey (How To Write a Damn Good Novel)

I touched upon this while talking about Earthsea, some months back - or at least I was thinking about it.

Dramatic narrative separates true writers from the amateur, relating to the reader this elements I laid out (above) with regard to narrative focus - the narrative topics and direction that take us slightly out of the scene and evolve the story beyond what is happening within a said scene.

The Book Quiz

2008-06-06T14:21:00.001Z

Which book are you? I was merrily traipsing back through my blog, looking for elements to use in teaching people how to write creatively, when I uncovered a couple of external people having linked to certain of my blog posts (which is very nice of them - I am now quoted elsewhere on the web, as if an officiando of sorts)

Anyhoo, one had the book quiz on her site... so I thought I'd have a look and give it a go... perhaps I shouldn't:

You're Lolita!
by Vladimir Nabokov

Considered by most to be depraved and immoral, you are obsessed with sex. What really tantalizes you is that which deviates from societal standards in every way, though you admit that this probably isn't the best and you're not sure what causes this desire. Nonetheless, you've done some pretty nefarious things in your life, and probably gotten caught for them. The names have been changed, but the problems are real.

Please stay away from children.

Take the Book Quiz at the Blue Pyramid.

The Book Thief - Reviewing Elements

2008-06-05T13:51:00.000Z

Those of you not part of the Litopia phenomenon, one of our latest brainwaves is to host a book group, so as to discuss varying elements, issues, styles and likes/dislikes). We've been reading Markus Zusak's The Book Thief this month, and having a little discussion on it. I include my thoughts here also (not least to fulfill the criteria of my NAW course - I have been doing stuff really, teacher):

The Book Thief - Opening

I started the Book Thief long before the book club, and got to 100 pages before setting it down and having then to pass it onto another reader (damn library books and patron requests). Of course the reason I set it down were due to the book's lolloping narrative, something that I did not feel had become a problem until about page 50.

The opening in particular, I found very interesting and we immediately get a sense of Death, of our narrator, and the style in which we are going to be presented the narrative throughout the story - there will be no surprises later on with the introduction of bullet points, narrator asides, or the pre-chapter summing up. They're all present right there at the beginning.

It's like Zuzak has gathered his tool box together and set out what he wants to use on the first pages as a reminder to the style he will stick to, throughout.

However, what does change is the narrative style - later chapters flow with large swathes of description, whole paragraphs filled with what's happening. The opening chapters are very bitty.

It has to be difficult to set up Death as a narrator and present us with his foibles and indiosyncracies:

Quote:

First up is something white. Of the blinding kind.

Some of you are most likely thinking that white is not really a colour and all of that tired sort of nonsense. Well I'm here to tell you that it is. White is without question a colour, and personally, I don't think you want to argue.

It raises the question: "What is Zuzak doing here?" since the story is supposed to be leading us toward a meeting with Liesel, but instead we're discussing the finer definitions of the colour white. It's unnecessary, and I wonder if Zuzak started off writing in the voice of Death to get a feel for his narration, and then chose to put all the woolly wanderings into the book simply because he'd done all the leg work of writing them!

By 50 pages in we've forgotten the discourse on colours, so why bother us? What purpose does it have?

Style

The style is an interesting one, as I mentioned in the previous thread:

Quote:

The opening in particular, I found very interesting and we immediately get a sense of Death, of our narrator, and the style in which we are going to be presented the narrative throughout the story - there will be no surprises later on with the introduction of bullet points, narrator asides, or the pre-chapter summing up. They're all present right there at the beginning.

Each part begins with a breakdown of the following chapters (like Pratchett's Going Postal) except that these aren't entirely the chapter headings. They're more thematic than that:

Mein Kampf (P.133): the way home - a broken woman - a struggler - a juggler - the attributes of summer - an aryan shopkeeper - a snorer - two tricksters - and revenge in the shape of mixed lollies

Some of these are chapter headings, others regard content. But the effect is to give us a sense of rhythm, a brief overview (of what to look forward to - if any of you really relished moving on - wow! a snorer! That'll be interesting!) and potentially, for Zuzak, a way for him to keep track of what happens when and where.

But what purpose do they really serve? Are they just a device for maintaining the style, or something more?

Do we remember them by the end of the chapter, or part? I'd say a definite no. Perhaps, even by page two of a chapter, I'd forgotten what the chapter was called.

Do we pay enough attention to warrant them? Are they cookies meant to keep us reading (in a similar way to Zuzak repeatedly foretelling someone's imminent, or not so, death) - would we not bother continuing without them?

I mean, it's a good -enough- story, but it seemed to lag - like a biography. We know it has to reach the otherside of the war (wouldn't we all be very angry if the book ended halfway through and we closed the last page thinking that for the characters who remained, the war was yet to end), and so, aside from the so-and-so is soon to die (so it goes), The Book Thief doesn't have a particular narrative drive - we just dip in and out!

The Word Shaker was about standing up against the Fascism - in a way it's like standing up the lies and bigotry and the loud-shoutiness of all man-made cults, dogmas and doctrines. Here are two characters prepared to stand against the stupidity of the sheep, because their truth is far stronger than even the loudest of Hitler's screaming rhetoric... but, but...

I understand the story's meaning, just not why the tree died at the end of it, and what that was supposed to mean

Story/Plot

Hitchcock's bomb (not his box, which is, obviously a discussion on McGuffins)...

Take page 505, finally we reach Zucker's death - and this has been foretold many-many pages before it occurs. This gives us a distinct lack of surprise when it does happen - we don't have any invested interest in this particular character, so is Zuzak turning a wasted opportunity on its head and giving us something to expect, to wait for (he does indeed do this a lot).

Hitchcock (as I believe Robert McKee states in his book Story) that if you had two people discussing a situation at a table, perhaps they're dining there, and after a time the table explodes, and they both die, then, short of the shock factor - oh my - and the confusion... what do we go away with?

Not a lot.

Now, what if we have two people at a table, let's say they're dining again, and chatting away, and Hitchcock lets us see that there is a bomb sitting under the table, right where the couple can't see it. And we can see that there is a countdown, and we, the audience, know that the couple don't know about the bomb, and don't know about the countdown, and we do the little maths and realise that they won't escape in time, and that no one is coming to pull them away, then we have a form of dramatic irony.

We are in a greater position of knowledge than the characters - which creates a sense of tension, and spurs us to remain glued to our seat, our fingers on the book, our eyes to the page.

The pay off is that we've seen it coming and long hoped for a reprise, for saviour or deus ex machina - and it hasn't come. In Rudy's case we have come to like Rudy, and join in his adventures (adventures that are in no way diminished by constant reminder of his foreboding death).

The fact is, if I'm cynical, Zuzak would have had no real means to keep his readers reading without this kind of cookie to entice the reader on. The narrative plods, is more biographical of accounts that action/adventure/thriller, and the problem a lot of us have had in sticking through with it is largely, I believe, down to a distinct lack of anything big or attention grabbing.

That's why foretelling Rudy's death and continually reminding us is a bit of a cheat.

Also, it could seem that Zuzak is arguing in some fashion against Shoah (there's no business like Shoah-business) getting all the limelight - "My German ancestors had it bad too, you know!" he seems to say. "We were stuck here, bound by the fervour of our zealots, without a word or opportunity of rising up against it all."

And that is probably the biggest factor in people not feeling fulfilled by the piece at all - it's like setting the original Star Wars trilogy entirely from Lando Calrissian's pov (oh, I've lost the Falcon, oh the Empire are being mean to my friend, and now proposing to leave an Imperial garrison! And now I've got to lose Bespin and go fight too... Sigh)

A far better book that touches upon this level of bigotry, but doubles-back to trully show and deal with the effects is Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner. The protagonist has it largely easy, even when the Taliban get going - and then he flees Afghanistan altogether.

The key being that he still has a link to that place, has unbridled guilt, and must return to right a wrong, an in so doing endanger his life.

General Thoughts

A couple of thoughts on the Book Thief

# P.148 (A tell as a marker that leads us into a show):

Soon, her sedated condition transformed to harassment, and self-loathing. She began to rebuke herself.

'You said nothing.' Her head shook vigorously, amongst the hurried footsteps. 'Not a goodbye. Not a thank you. Not a that's the most beautiful sight I've ever seen. Nothing!' Certainly, she was a book thief, but that didn't mean she should have no manners at all. It didn't mean she couldn't be polite.

# P.157 (phraseology to match mood and subject):

'Johann Hermann,' she said. 'Who is that?'

The woman looked beside her, somewhere next to the girl's knees.

Liesel apologised. 'I'm sorry. I shouldn't be asking such things...' She let the sentence die its own death.'

The woman's face did not alter, yet somehow she managed to speak. 'He is nothing now in this world,' she explained. 'He was my...'

# P.175 (as above):

The road was icy as it was, but Rudy put on the extra coat, barely able to contain a grin. It ran across his face like a skid.

# P.329 (Death's Diary - here we're sidelined in the story to join Death):

What's the point of this sojourn? To tell us more stuff that Liesel or anyone in Molching would otherwise know. Death allows Zuzak to frame the narrative in the wider story of Nazi Germany and all the evil that happened. It's a bit of a cheat, and like his little asides (the tells), it's a bit distracting, but it does have purpose.

Also, it's interesting how he leads back into the story (P.332), linking us in with the wider picture:

Unknowingly, she awaits a great many things that I alluded to just a minute ago, but she also waits for you.

She's carrying some snow down to a basement, of all places.

Handfuls of frosty water can make almost anyone smile, but it cannot make them forget.

Here she comes.

# P.333 - Backtracking / flashback:

We start in the present (of the story) developing Liesel's present situation and physicality, and then scoot backwards:

Opinions varied, but Rosa Hubermann claimed that the seeds were sown at Christmas the previous year. The twenty-fourth of December had been hungry and cold...

# P.437 - Juicy descriptions:

A wooden hand swiped at the splinters of his fringe, and he made several attempts to speak.

The Whimsy of Bracknell

2008-06-03T12:32:00.002Z

So it was that I, and a colleague, were wandering back from lunch (a new Chinese restaurant in town - all you can eat buffet for £5.99 [I am there]), and we decided to take a convoluted route back past a set of marquees and film crews set up outside the Police station - so desperate to find out what ruffian was being released today...

Only, it was a real film crew. And, who came racing past on their ways to their chauffeurs, one after the other (I guess in time for their lunch since filming looked as if it was wrapping up)?

Well, none other than Marc Warren and Alexander Armstrong (strange but true).

They're filming a new BBC production called "Mutual Friends".

Bridport Prize 2008

2008-05-27T13:14:00.003Z

Fancy your chances much?

The Bridport Prize has been running now for 30+ years, with many thousands of entrants and two competitions open every year - the poetry and the short story prizes.

Obviously, I'm not one for the poetry. I'd be worse than old McGonagall. So, this year, for the first time in my amateur writing career (career? Ha!) I've entered two short stories - both of which I had critiqued and used on my NAW writing course last year.

In both cases my choices had confused the readers (when hasn't that happened?) and the pieces of work were a chronological nightmare - In the development of the first piece (the largest of the two - 5,000 words - and my entry for the Fiction module) had already undergone a vast change to its theme and subject matter. No longer the opening to a novel it had to change direction, background, and I performed a massive feat of shifting the time in which it takes place, back 55 years (yep, a major shift).

For the Bridport entry I had another mammoth task to carry out. Namely the resetting of the flashbacks. I had relied heavily on these and the story was still somewhat confusing since I had two moments in cars - which was happening when? It didn't matter that the tenses were different. So, I reset the order and had everything run smoothly from beginning to end, changing tense only for the last section. This meant, of course, revising certain elements of narrative development, but that is expected.

The second piece required far less work. Having already worked on it with Jim Crace during the Prose Stripping session at NAW, the biggest heft of the work was, again, the redesign of the narrative and the resetting of the time shifts - I'd confused the readers with my flashbacks (all of which were set within a boat) and which I washed back to time and again as my mind felt compelled.

There were minor necessary changes - namely my over use of sea and fishing terminology (still all largely present but altered for appropriateness and pov) - but nothing on the par with the first. It is a much smaller, easier read. Very light weight in fact (for me) at 1,600 words.

Here's hoping I at least place somewhere - though I find that doubtful. Yes, we can all hope. But I won't hold my breath. Lots more things to be getting on with.

Understanding Indiana Jones & the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull - No Spoilers

2008-05-23T05:38:00.011Z

There are certain types of film - I believe - that can only be properly reviewed by the people who have previously enjoyed them. A successful franchise can only be appreciated by those that have championed their greatness.

Imagine listening to Christopher Tookey (from the Daily Mail) as your be-all and end-all critique on the latest Indy flick knowing that he's rated the original three poorly (on the grounds of childish excess and fast-paced but limited story). It's just not a fair review. The bases are already loaded... so don't do it.

You want to listen to me instead... though, I rated the Phantom Menace 5 stars (just like Empire Magazine did) when it first came out. I'm sorry people, please forgive me. I won't make the same mistake twice!

That is exactly why I'm having so much trouble reconciling myself with the latest Indy movie: I saw Temple of Doom first, aged 7 or 8. Mum and Dad had rented it in 84/85 and I chose to watch it on a Sunday morning instead of Gummi Bears. Raiders I watched first at my grandparents, and then Grail I saw with my Mum in the cinema, aged 10, back in 1989.

All three are adult-orientated action adventures, but rated PG to allow kids to enjoy them too, and of course that's where the magic is. Kids buy into a lot of stuff that adults find jarring or difficult to accept. But, the Indy series has prided itself on being action first and foremost, mcguffin to keep the ball rolling and ensuring that the fantastical doesn't arrive until the last reel:

In Raiders we have no manifestations of the Ark's true power until it's on the boat, searing the Nazi symbol from the crate and making the rat go crazy - by the time we reach the opening of the Ark, we expect something horrendous and ghostly to manifest.

In Temple of Doom, voodoo, possession and ripping of hearts before sacrifice come midway, but these are examples of earthly-based "magic" that has never been proven or disproved (heart rending aside, Derren Brown could prove voodoo magic through the power of suggestion, I bet). Besides, you never seen anything physically manifest. No devils or demons arrive on behalf of Kali or Shiva to wreak their vengeance. And though the Sankara stones glow and are too hot at the end for Mola Ram to hold, the suspended-disbelief has been earned.

Let's not go into the dining scene with the eyeball soup and monkey brains - Lucas and Spielberg were trying to play up the comedic assumptions of the west against the east. Knowing that it's tongue in cheek and watching just a few weeks ago (I'm purportedly an adult now) just shows it up to be seriously misjudged, and wryly amusing.

So, Grail, in which the quest remains legitimate until the final reel again - the Grail Knight is a grey surprise in an earth-toned film. For me he never did work properly (I mean, what would he really have done in there for 700 years?) Anyhoo, it's even more jarring by the fact that the three trials Indy faces to get to the Knight are physically realised traps and puzzles rather than ghostly effects. The Grail itself is a great idea

Lucas and Spielberg go to great lengths to bind these movies in realism, and then tweak the mythologies to provide a little freakishness, something different, and for the public to bite into, and to maintain their "high-concept idea"

For Kingdom of the Crystal Skull the goodwill of the audience is stretched right from the start - and I don't mean in the age of Indy, (it is jarring and we feel sorry for him being that old) we very quickly forget he's 60 and the adventure rolls on. You can't help but get caught up in it all, to laugh, to tense and to be moved by John Williams's score - it's all expertly constructed to maintain audience enjoyment and with Lucas and Spielberg the two people we should feel most comfortable with.

However, the "mumbo-jumbo", if you will, is there from the beginning, and though the story follows the template of the previous three with maintaining ground-based, earth-realm concerns, chases and peril, the film-makers sprinkle the "other-world" bits a lot-lot more. At least it feels that way. But, when the mcguffin is on screen almost as long as Indy, that's going to happen. And it's all there as a means of getting you used to the final reel in which, I'm sorry, you're going to be tested in your support of story, film-makers, and, as I said, goodwill.

However, I think I love this film!

I love Indiana Jones, what can I say?

That we're moved ahead 20 years, and it's the 50s with all that that encompasses: Elvis, Greasers, Reds, Atom bombs, nods to what's happened in between for "Colonel Jones" - sorry couldn't resist that (it's a wonderful little moment when we learn he's done a lot of work for the war effort), and also that in his job he's taken on the name "Henry Jones" as a nod to his deceased father.

The movie's opening salvo stutters through the first 5/10 minutes as we try to get up to speed with Indy's situation, push ourselves to accept he looks as old as my dad (and I don't want my dad to be in that kind of danger), and force ourselves to accept we start at Area 51 in the Nevada desert (yes, we are at the Ark's final resting place - ooh) and everything that that encompasses.

But it hits its stride almost immediately afterwards. And what a ride. You cannot be disappointed. Because the film ticks all the right boxes, makes all the right nods to the films past and is Indiana Jones (for crying out loud). You can't despite it's momentary failings (a horrible-horrible-horrible Tarzan swing through the trees for Mutt), the ants take it a bit far and the Vulcan mind-meld is... sorry, wrong film (!)

But, I think the film really speaks well for the time in which it's placed. It's not better than the others, but it "mostly" fits well in the Indy cannon. I can't say anymore than that because you need to form your own decisions about which way you swing when you realise the real intent of the film (I personally feel the film-makers have been a bit over self-indulgent, yet, I think I love the film). I'll have to see it again.

SORRY - SPOILER ALERT:

Okay, I have to get one proper spoiler in - though it happens within the first 15 minutes -

Be careful now, you'll have to highlight the text to read it:

When Indy escapes from the Russians he finds himself in the perfect world of the Atomic bomb testing site in Nevada valley. It is the most surreal, awkward and upsetting scenario, not-least for the fact that it's another jarring point against what Indy Jones films have been about (deserts, jungles and earth tones). Here we are in the staid and pressed formica world of mid-class America, except its a setup to see the results of the 200 kiloton bomb hanging over the city... and Indy's only got 1 minute to escape!

Now, that was nail-biting stuff - real horror (and I'm 29). They can make you squirm with delight even though you might be an adult.

Emotional Resonance

2008-05-15T12:01:00.003Z

Further to my previous post (check down)... protagonist goals is something we discussed last night - MG and I - about giving the protagonist ample emotional resonance and necessity to follow their quest. An editor had wondered about her choice of ladening on some emotional weight to her protagonist in order for him to "want" to pursue his goal. Was it necessary? We agreed that a writer should, in finding an identifiable protagonist, always give them a quest that is of the upmost importance to them or the world or to avoid jeopardy.

We talked about Endymion Spring:

Endymion Spring has a double storyline. The first story follows two children in current day Oxford, Blake and Duck Winters. Blake is twelve years old and his sister is a few years younger. The two happen to come across a strange book in a library in Oxford, which is entitled Endymion Spring. After finding out that it leads to a book of all the knowledge in the world, all the knowledge Adam and Eve tried to obtain from eating of that forbidden tree of knowledge but lost, they then embark on a quest to find it. However, when they do, the story then becomes a battle against the Person in Shadow, a person whose heart has turned black with evil and desire for the knowledge and power of the book. The second story line follows the journey of a young printer’s devil who works in Gutenberg’s workshop named Endymion Spring from his hometown in Mainz, Germany to Oxford, which was then a settlement of monks. The two story lines are about 600 years apart, with Spring's story taking place at the epoch of the printing press in 1453, and Blake's taking place in the late 20th or early 21st century.

- Wikipedia

MG, and more importantly her agent, are very hot on emotional resonance between protagonist and reader. The reader needs to buy into the goal and the quest. In the latest Indiana Jones film, Indy has to get the crystal skull and stop the Ruskies from using it for their... well, what ever evil deed they wish to do - fact is, at the height of the "Red Scare" the Russians pose a serious threat to America during the cold war. That's reason enough for Indy to want to save the world, and obviously, he being an archaeologist is enough for his interest in the skull.

With that in mind, could someone explain to me why the Book of Knowledge be of any importance to two kids? I'm certain there must be some big badguy to act as foil, but that doesn't come across at all in that synopsis.

Pah! I say. Pah!

Identifiable Goals

2008-05-15T11:30:00.004Z

Writers should fear treading unwarily in the creation of their epic. I've recently slogged my way through the smallest of King's Dark Tower installments - The first, the Gunslinger - and I feel absolutely bereft of care for either the Gunslinger or his world.

Where did it all go wrong? King's series has a stalwart following of millions and it's written well - I've seen some choice skill uses that have helped to inform my writing - but its sprawl has a single purpose - to find the Dark Tower... oooh!

It's not clear why, and though the Gunslinger's world has turned to pap and there seems nothing else for him to go back to, I am left wondering what the point is (and let's face it, there's 7 titles in the novel series, and I started out by reading the interesting Gunslinger Born graphic novel - so, I cheated and Wiki'd the whole thing to find out how it turns out - shudder).

It's clear to me that while King has his reasons for putting the Gunslinger on his quest, it doesn't come across to the reader with any emotional weight - "I've just got to go there". It's all kind of Neo from the Matrix going to the Architect's room and realising the loop of things. Sigh! Do readers want that kind of ending? To go back to the beginning?

Oh, sorry, didn't I say Spoiler alert?

Anyhoo, there it is. A wasted journey - I'm sure it has its themes and messages, but where's the resolution, and apart from a very personal mission for the Gunslinger, where is the feeling of world-in-jeopardy, or other people at least (I'm talking again about the first book here). The third main character of the book is off'd without ceremony and plenty of foresight and no one cares - least of all the reader.

That King rewrote portions of the version I'm holding to make it work within his finished series proves the point: he was writing blind.

Needless to say, I didn't hang around to read the first chapter of the next book.

Vote for the Podcast

2008-05-07T15:38:00.002Z

If you enjoy the podcast, please vote for us every month at Podcast Alley, the site that produces the "top ten" podcast charts every month.

Just click on this link:

http://www.podcastalley.com/one_vote2.php?pod_id=47355

Fill in your e-mail and don't forget to confirm your vote when their e-mail arrives a few minutes later.

Charts are prepared monthly, so please vote regularly!

Mortal Engines

2008-04-29T07:32:00.005Z

I have traveled vast distances in my search for the holes in my own writing logic, particularly YA novels such as Reeve's Mortal Engines which is a cracking bit of fiction - a high-concept idea welded onto a story of self-discovery:

In this post-apocalyptic world, after the Sixty Minute War destroyed North America, population centres have re-built themselves as traction cities and towns. They travel around the globe, the stronger destroying the weaker. The story is based on London’s attempt at global domination by destroying Shan Guo, the last remaining free state of the world. Valentine, a top archaeologist, is responsible for locating MEDUSA, a weapon so powerful that it can destroy whole cities. However, Tom Natsworthy, an apprentice historian; Katherine, Valentine’s own daughter; Bevis Pod, an apprentice engineer and Hester Shaw, a young disfigured girl, all strive to prevent London using MEDUSA.

- Heinemann Resources Sheet

Extract:

It was a dark, blustery afternoon in spring, and the city of London was chasing a small mining town across the dried-out bed of the old North Sea.

In happier times, London would never have bothered with such feeble prey. The great Traction City had once spent its days hunting far bigger towns than this, ranging north as far as the edge of the Ice Wastes and south to the shores of the Mediterranean. But lately prey of any kind had started to grow scarce, and some of the larger cities had begun to look hungrily at London. For ten years now it had been hiding from them, skulking in a damp, mountainous western district that the Guild of Historians said had once been the island of Britain. For ten years it had eaten nothing but tiny farming towns and static settlements in those wet hills. Now, at last, the Lord Mayor had decided that the time was right to take his city back over the land bridge into the Great Hunting Ground.

It was barely halfway across when the lookouts on the high watchtowers spied the mining town, gnawing at the salt flats twenty miles ahead. To the people of London it seemed like a sign from the gods, and even the Lord Mayor (who didn't believe in gods or signs) thought it was a good beginning to the journey east, and issued the order to give chase.

The mining town saw the danger and turned tail, but already the huge caterpillar tracks under London were starting to roll faster and faster. Soon the city was lumbering in hot pursuit, a moving mountain of metal that rose in seven tiers like the layers of a wedding cake, the lower levels wreathed in engine smoke, the villas of the rich gleaming white on the higher decks, and above it all the cross on top of St. Paul's Cathedral glinting gold, two thousand feet above the ruined earth.

Here we have an unforgettable opening, but Mortal Engines doesn't stop there. The reader is propelled immediately into the world of Tom Natsworthy, and before we know where we are, his world is thrust out of London and onto the packed-earth of out-country. Aside from its originality it doesn't once stop for a breather or a description of the wider world without relating it to the characters, where they are, how they're interacting. And it does it without an ounce of pretension - it's all in the style.

In the quoted passage above we have the description and then we're related what London has been up to recently and in that recap (a backstep rather than a flashback) we get more description of places. And then we're onto the feeling of the people of London, their interpretations of the situation and their hopes.

I must learn to condense more, move on from a single emotion and develop my story like Reeve. Reeve doesn't wallow in one emotion, he deals with it and moves on, always pushing the plot.

AA

2008-04-29T06:46:00.004Z

Doc! I've got a serious problem. It's with my writing see... I... well... there's several things really.

In order to overcome our weaknesses, our shortsighted endeavours and our verbosity, we need to face them and learn to overcome them. It's a shame I have so much trouble in that regard.

So, let me stand up and say, for the record and the group, I am an alcoholic... er- anti-brevite. I can't help myself. I seem to write only for me, and I get lost in the scene. Maybe I should break it down so that we can all see just how superficial my writing is:

Pretty plates

Here's a term pointed to by Solvejg regarding Exposition. In my case I laden my magnificent castle of a plate, with all its shimmering shell-like adornments, raised parapets, and hanging balustrades, the glazed windows overlooking the table edge and the conical towers that point skyward like spears, with a bean. One, single, bean. And that's my plot. A bean.

Personally... I blame Solvey ;) No, it's half-an-half. I needed to learn to write beautiful descriptions. It's just that I now need to let it go and use it sparingly. I suppose I'm always too busy writing for myself - I fail to see that I will be returning to these particular locations again, and because of the way I've filled out the first scene, there will be nothing left to describe. Of course, there's also the problem of no interaction between the character and location - this surely has to be my biggest sin.

This eeks across to the literary quality of the piece (which prolongs reader pain, elicits confusion and closes the book). I have to, have to, have to throw away my pretensions of writing literary YA. There's a time and a place. It isn't now.
Lack of character interaction

I never give my characters enough to say. They pretty much serve the basic need of the scene and little more. We don't get a sense of character, we don't learn anything about the wider world/scenario, just what is going on at that particular moment - and this in spite of some character template generation.
Stuck in the scene

And yet, despite the above, I hang the entire scene on masses of pretentious description (it's not pretension when it leaves my brain, I assure you) because, specifically, there's not enough to fill the scene and last a good number of pages.

At the moment, my previous chapter looks like a fluke. I must concentrate to avoid my consternate.

Character/Narrator POV and Interlaced Descriptions

2008-04-23T10:10:00.004Z

Coming out of another dark spot of self doubt I've been reading much and wide - recently finished Scar Night by Alan Campbell (who worked on Grand Theft Auto). Brilliant book, had me gripped all the way.

After my last slap down I got angry with myself, my inability to write something pacy, coherent and interesting - then I reworked my opening chapter... again. But I'm still not happy, despite Solvejg giving his thumbs up (with caveats). I was worried that there was still no pace to it (though, I'm probably too close to it at the mo' to realise - a kind of word blindness). I felt that the reader just floated along with the description. And it just has no place right up there at the front. So... I needed a breather. I'm kind of wrong, despite needing to do some more work (always more work), but what could help?...

What's great about Scar Night is that it's begun to yield some secrets about the construct of chapters - and, at times, I've begun to make use of them in my writing (mostly subconsciously). Let's look at the opening:

Chains snarled the courtyard behind the derelict cannon foundry in Applecross: spears of chain radiating at every angle, secured into walls with rusted hooks and pins, and knitted together like a madwoman's puzzle. In the centre, Barraby's watchtower stood ensnared. Smoke unfurled from its ruined summit and blew west across the city under a million winter stars.

Huffing and gasping, Presbyter Scrimlock climbed through the chains. His lantern swung, knocked against links and welds and God knows what, threw shadows like lattices of cracks across the gleaming cobbles. When he looked up, he saw squares and triangles full of stars. His sandals slipped as though on melted glass. The chains, where he touched them, were wet. And when he finally reached the Spine Adept waiting by the watchtower door he saw why.

'Blood,' the Presbyter whispered, horrified. He rubbed feverishly at his cassock, but the gore would not shift.

The Spine Adept, skin stretched so tight over his muscles he seemed cadaverous, turned lifeless eyes on the priest. 'From the dead,' he explained. 'She ejects them from the tower. Will not suffer them there inside with her.' He tilted his head to one side.

Below the chains numerous Spine bodies lay in a shapeless mound, their leather armour glistening like venom.

'Ulcis have mercy,' Scrmlock said. 'How many has she killed?'

'Eleven.'

Scrimlock drew a breath. The night tasted dank and rusty, like the air in a dungeon. 'You're making it worse,' he complained. 'Can't you see that? You're feeding her fury.'

'We have injured her,' the Adept said. His expression remained unreadable, but he pressed a pale hand against the watchtower door brace, as if to reinforce it.

'What?' The Presbyter's heart leapt. 'You've injured her? That's... How could you possibly...'

'She heals quickly.' The Adept looked up. 'Now we must hurry.'

Scrimlock followed the man's gaze, and for a moment wondered what he was looking at. Then he spotted them: silhouettes against the glittering night, lean figures scaling the chains, moving quickly and silently to the watchtower's single window. More Spine than Scrimlock had ever seen together. There had to be fifty, sixty. How was it possible he'd failed to notice them before?

So begins the Deepgate Codex. A brilliant entry point into a series that is well founded on equal part description and action, with a pace that never lets up. It's not often that I finish a 500+ page book in a week, and when I (a slow-slow reader) do, the book must be good - Shirley?

Here we have the prologue entry, a 7 page section that precedes the main events by 2000 years (hmm... let's not get into a discussion on the finer points of prologues and whether they should be used or not - here it's employed specifically to introduce 2 main characters: the Angel Carnival, and the city of Deepgate. Being 2000 years before the main narrative, it sits better as a prologue).

Anyhoo, let's look at what we get...

Paragraph 1 - The character of the city of chains is evoked in one punchy paragraph. Description to set the scene and locale.
Paragraph 2 - A "real" character walks onto the scene and as they arrive, we have them interacting with the scenery, showing clothing but always making it act or react to the location. It never tells us what he's wearing. Instead we know he had a lantern because the lantern's swing knocks against the chains and throws light about, illuminating the scenery. He wears sandals, we learn, because the floor is slippery. And finally we arrive at a specific place (The watchtower door) and another character.
Paragraph 3 - Brief dialogue and character reaction to... blood! We learn he's wearing a cassock because he rubs the blood onto it. Emotionally, we get "horrified" and the "gore would not shift"
Para 4 - We meet the 2nd character, and have a quick bit description with dialogue - and here came a big epiphany...

The narrator, in Scar Night, is third person limited, but... the narrator, having chosen the first character to align with (Scrimlock), describes things from the chosen character's pov. So, when the narrator writes: "The Spine Adept, skin stretched so tight over his muscles he seemed cadaverous, turned lifeless eyes on the priest", it's not so much the narrator's observation but Scrimlock's.

And this is what I've not noticed prior to this book. That 3rd person pov is not an excuse to separate ourselves from what is going on; the emotion, the feeling of being there. Why didn't I see this before?

This explains why later in the book we get recaps of certain things we have already covered - because we've entered a new character and now they're observing it.

Scar Night - Official Website
Chapter 1 Extract - Pan Macmillan

The Memoirs of Ludlow Fitch

2008-04-14T07:07:00.002Z

The anti-climactic ending to F.E. Higgins's The Black Book of Secrets does not detract from either the message of natural justice or stark setting of a victorian age... at least I thought it was victorian. Dark Dickensian influences were abound.

The narrative turns that utilised the full extent of Higgins's three-way setup (Ludlow's diary, the confessions and the 3rd person narrator). They were ways of presenting information to the reader without relying upon other convoluted or contrived methods that would either have required out of character (for the book) info dumps or multiple povs from a many number of characters.

The ending is muted somewhat by its very nature with crisis averted and the reader informed as to what has been concerning Ludlow with his nightmares - and it's not strong enough to carry the suggestion that he has been weighed upon heavily by his "sin". The frog was too obvious a setup (but then, I am an adult... aren't I?) and Joe's reveal was as expected.

And yet... and yet, I couldn't put it down! Higgins has great ability to streamline her scenes, dip in and out and along with ease.

This in particular is of great importance to me at the moment since I seem incapable of choosing when to start a scene, how long to wallow in it, and when to get out again before the reader's eyes roll back in their head. While Higgins spends many a paragraph in describing the characters I waste many of mine in relating past incidents I hope will inform the reader upon the character. I don't feel that either is of particular importance, but then, I've still to learn much about brevity.

So, Higgins... a good read, and the concept stays with you even if the story itself disperses.

The Black Book of Secrets

2008-04-11T08:09:00.005Z

In Higgins's the Black Book of Secrets we have a narrative structure composed of three separate narrators. A brilliant decision that works well to keep the reader enthused with the story. As with many published books it is a masterclass in the ways of doing things right.

As Higgins writes in the blurb:

I came across Joe Zabbidou's Black Book of Secrets and Ludlow Fitch's memoirs in a rather curious manner. They were tightly rolled and concealed within the hollow of a wooden leg. When I unrolled them the pages were brittle and water-stained, and much was illegible. The fragments are reproduced here exactly as they were written. As for the parts that were missing, what could I do but draw upon my imagination to fill the gaps?

I pieced the story together as I thought best. I do not claim to be its author, merely the person who has tried to reveal it to the world.

So it is that we have:

Fragments from the Memoirs of Ludlow Fitch - 1st person pov, past tense

When I opened my eyes I knew that nothing in my miserable life prior to that moment could possibly be as bad as what was about to happen. I was lying on the cold earthen floor of a basement room lit by a single candle, no more than an hour's burning left. Instruments of a medical nature hung from hooks in the beams. Dark stains on the floor suggested blood. But it was the chair against the opposite wall that fully confirmed my suspicions. Thick leather straps attached to the arms and the legs were there for one purpose only: to hold down an unwilling patient. Ma and Pa were standing over me.
Narrative purportedly to have been made up by Higgins to fill out the gaps in the memoirs - 3rd person pov, past tense

It was not easy to describe Joe Zabbidou accurately. His age was impossible to determine. He was neither stout nor thin, but perhaps narrow. And he was tall, which was a distinct disadvantage in Pagus Parvus. The village dated from times when people were at least six inches shorter and all dwellings were built accordingly. In fact, the place had been constructed during the years of the 'Great Wood Shortage'. The king at the time issued a decree that every effort must be made to save wood, with the result that doors and windows were made smaller and narrower than was usual and ceilings were particularly low.
Extracts from the Black Book of Secrets consisting of confessions - 1st person pov, present and past tense

My name is Obadiah Strang and I have a terrible secret. It haunts my every waking hour, and at night when I finally manage to sleep it takes over my dreams.

I might only be a humble gravedigger but I am proud of it. I have never cheated anyone: they get six feet, no more, no less. I have always led a simple life. I need very little and I ask for nothing. I was a contented man until some months ago when I fell foul of my landlord, Jeremiah Ratchet.

Higgins has used a different voice, particularly for each of the confessions, and their use breaks up the narrative structure to give a different view and feel. It works, maintaining (for the moment at least) my interest. Each has varying levels of info dumpage (check out the 2nd style)

Opening Hook, Line and Paragraph

2008-04-08T20:14:00.005Z

Openings can be either amazing, encompassing themes, plot, or simply functional and drive us straight into the action. Just started reading Philip Reeve's Mortal Engines which opens with:

It was a dark, blustery afternoon in spring, and the city of London was chasing a small mining town across the dried-out bed of the old North Sea.

How crazy is that? Straight into the action, but, more importantly, straight in there with the high-concept idea that cities are great big traction engines, many stories high, that feed on each other for resources.

I spend forever on my opening paragraphs, and still get them wrong. What follows are the six variations of the openings to my latest project, a YA fiction. As I have tried to find my voice, the style of the piece, where the best place to open is (start late, leave early, etc), and who I want to focus on, I have refined my choices of theme and the narrative concept itself... until I reached version 5. Then, of course, it required others to point out how slavishly I was devoting myself to a sustained bit of action between the protagonist and and a contagonist (check out Dramatica for more on that kind of talk) and really pouring over the pain felt in every limb and inch of the protagonist, with confusing bits aside, and irrelevant descriptions during the climactical moments of the scene.

What had I forgotten to do? Relate it back the protagonist! He may have been suffering but did the reader really connect with him and understand what the pain meant to him? The situation?

No. So, it led me to another rewrite (and I don't me a quick one-two). I rewrite a chapter whole and then edit all the bloody juices out of it until it's a fine sculpture - it's a shame that so many people point out that I've accidentally carved the face off and left both arms. Alas! My Venus!

Anyhoo. The final version opening leads straight to the protagonist and relates to the themes and story message directly...

Version 1

Libraries are many things to many people. The Babylonians used them almost four-thousand years ago to store astronomical charts and constellation maps. They hold all sorts of information; facts, stories, maps, and charts; the most stalwart truths and the greatest of lies.

Version 2

‘Put those down, child. Put those down and come with me,’ said Penthera Discordia with disarming charm.

Version 3

‘Listen to my voice. Relax, child. You must put down those books and accompany me.’ The command slithered through the humid air like a python through underbrush, carving a trail towards its intended victim. The words hissed hypnotically across the counter, eased into sleepy ears by the heat rising to the vaulted ceiling.

Version 4

… and the page shivers. A sliver of polished stone, the width and breadth of a man’s chest, floats up from the book and curls over. Paper thin. In the half light the movement is barely visible.

Version 5

Skull splintering pain. Pain, like the head of a cliff shearing away from a rock face. Its cry resounds off mountains and valleys with the skreee of shattering stone as it avalanches away.

Version6

Charles James Sanura had always been afraid of words. Growing up in the city had taught him how wicked they were, spoken to deceive and written to ensnare. One word, he had learned on the streets, was enough to provoke love or fear. Two, he knew from his school texts, could equally pardon or put to death. It required as little as three – and this he did not know – three words to change the fabric of the universe.

As you can probably tell... my mind won't select an opening scene and stick with it. We have an overview, two critical fight scenes (rewritten over and over), 1 scene with the central mcguffin, disassociated pain felt by the protagonist and then my current fave (though it is still hot off the press... so that could change any time soon).

Explaining the Setup

2008-04-07T09:08:00.004Z

"Sparrowhawk, if ever your way lies East, come to me. And if you ever need me, send for me, call on me by my name: Estarriol."

At that Ged lifted his scarred face, meeting his friend's eyes.

"Estarriol," he said, "my name is Ged."

Naming is a big thing in Ursula Le Guin's A Wizard of Earthsea. Not only is it wrapped up in the themes - to know the name of something is to have power over it - but over the first 70 pages that lead up to this extract the reader has a good understanding of that names have a special place in this world.

We have had a great setup with Le Guin clearly developing the nuances of names, so when we reach this part, and we get the explanation (info dump if you will). It is a big tell that follows:

Then quietly they bade each other farewell and Vetch turned and went down the stone hallway, and left Roke.

Ged stood still a while, like one who has received great news, and must enlarge his spirit to receive it. It was a great gift that Vetch had given him, the knowledge of his true name. No one knows a man's true name but himself and his namer. He may choose at length to tell it to his brother, or his wife, or his friend, yet even those few will never use it where any third person may hear it. In front of other people they will, like other people, call him by his use-name, his nickname - such a name as Sparrowhawk, and Vetch, and Ogion which means 'fir-cone'. If plain men hide their true name from all but a few they love and trust utterly, so much more must wizardly men, being more dangerous, and more endangered. Who knows a man's name, holds that man's life in his keeping. Thus to Ged who had lost faith in himself, Vetch had given that gift only a friend can give, the proof of unshaken, unshakeable trust.

but then, how else do you set that out clearly? Would we have understood the meaning to Ged without it having been stated here?

This also raises a point about the difference between Show and Tell... what we have with the old S&T debate is that writers must show, in order to maintain reader interest - integrated descriptions of action, emotion, characters and setup that weave together.

The character was angry... is a tell.
The character threw down his ale an unsheathed his sword... is a show.

With exposition there is only so much showing that can be done. It's essentially an info dump and in order for the reader to understand fully what they are being told, the writer cannot flourish with a show. They must tell.

Podwatch Review the Litopia Podcast

2008-04-01T05:53:00.003Z

The first major review of LITOPIA AFTER DARK has appeared on Podwatch... and it's a HIT!

You could be forgiven for thinking a podcast hosted by literati would be stuffy and outdated, but that does not begin to describe those involved in Liopia. Rather, the show is accessible to any reader or writer with an interest in the area, and the discussions are interesting, entertaining and contemporary. When I speak passionately to someone about how great podcasts are, Litopia is precisely the sort of thing I would use as an example. The subject matter is too narrow for most TV or radio, but for their target audience this podcast will be a godsend.

Over the past 2 years, podcasting has gone from a handful of enthusiasts talking about technology, to a thriving community of content creators — both independant and mainstream.

There are now thousands of podcasts to choose from, which sounds great until you try to find a favourite. I believe it is the future of broadcasting, but there is a lot of dirt to dig through before finding a gem. This is where Podwatch comes in — every week I will do the hunting for you, and will provide comprehensive reviews on the best and worst of podcasting.

- Podwatch

As a regular panelist I'm so pleased with this development. It's a real sign that Peter Cox continues to be the defacto Word-pusher on the web. Certainly it is a brilliant outcome since Podwatch only reviews the top podcasts in their genre, and the Litopia podcast is being compared to shows that attract hundreds of thousands of listeners - The Best on the web.

9.5/10 Overall If you are a writer, or simply someone interested in literary culture, Liopia should be a permanent subscription in your podcatcher. Cox is likable and does a great job at covering all the news you will need to stay in the know.

You can read the full review here.

Or, you can listen to Podwatch's Tom's podcast on Litopia here.

The Info Dump

2008-03-31T18:54:00.003Z

George Lucas always places his info dumps at roughly 1/3 of the way through. In the insipid Phantom Menace (sorry George, I dig what you were trying, and you certainly set up a brilliant Episode 3, but Menace ain't too good) this is the scene around the dining table at Anakin's slave quarters when Qui Gon discusses Jedi's, pod racing, Anakin's ability et al. After the initial setup of action and intrigue an info dump is always required to set the ongoing tone and direction of the piece - though it doesn't necessarily have to occur where George specifies, though consider any number of quests - Raiders of the Lost Ark, James Bond, etc - after the initial opening (which in the case of both the aforementioned have the culmination (Act 3) of a different/separate story) we cut back to be told by the professors or M what the mission is going to be and its importance.

Of course, info dumps occur throughout a story - they're essential to fleshing out the piece - and as with my previous post "Stop starting" I showed how information can be slid under the reader's nose without distracting (too much) from the forward moving narrative.

The info dump I'm talking about is the big one that consolidates the "why we are here", and, as with Inkheart, there is just such a scene - though this is pulled off another site (I don't yet know where it appears in the book itself because I've not got far enough):

So, Inkheart has the following blurb:

Meggie lives alone with her father, Mo, a book restorer. But a frightening new chapter in their lives begins the day a strange figure from the past called Dustfinger arrives at their door. He warns them that a villain named Capricorn is looking for a precious book in Mo's collection. And he will stop at nothing to steal it. The dire warning forces Mo to reveal an extraordinary secret — that when he reads a book aloud, the fictional characters come to life. It is revealed that long ago, Mo accidentally brought the villainous Capricorn into the world. And now Capricorn has returned to destroy the last remaining copy of the book. Soon, Meggie discovers she shares her father's gift. If only she can use her newfound powers to send Capricorn back between the pages where he belongs.

But, the brunt of that info dump is given here.

As you can see from the excerpt, it is reeled off in dialogue form - since the reader hasn't come across this news already in their reading, there is no loss in having the conversation here (though were another character to be given this info we, the reader, would not want to sit through it a second time). Also, as it's in a specific character's voice they can embellish and use their own witticisms, giving us a feeling for them rather than having to listen to the droll of the narrator.