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

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.

• Sitting down with Salley Vickers
• Interviewing Salley Vickers

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?

© Salley Vickers 2009

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.

Evaluating Masterclasses - Part 2

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

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:

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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.

Julie Cohen - Masterclass in Character Development

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.

Oath Breaker - Wolf Brother 5

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.

Writing for you Audience

I've been reading Ursula K. le Guin of late - more about her later - and she's such a great writer, especially the Earthsea Quartet. Now, they should be re-released and promoted by the publishers!

Anyhoo, it's been really helpful to give me a push to get on with my own writing. Though that's led me into a pickle. Not least with my wife, who says: "You can't write a YA book aimed at the 12+ and use words like obsidian and oubliette."

Actually she told me off for my first draft being even beyond her comprehension - sigh. Perhaps I'll never get my act together with learning to write with restraint. I guess that answers the age old question... Who do you write for? Yourself or your audience?

Clearly, I write for myself.

But, I must curb my enthusiasm and write for my audience. Out with obsidian and oubliette, or at least in with some explanation. That said, writing:

At the bottom of the tower where the wall shakes and groans columns of books line the stonework, evoking a solid, impenetrable oubliette - a dungeon with a trapdoor in the ceiling as its only means of entrance or exit.

only supports the argument for brevity and a call to yank oubliette from the page. (I'm still fighting my corner, and by the way, thanks dictionary.com for that succinct description).

So, other than that, mostly good points for simple behaviour, only, I still have my flourishes. Which brings me to my second point...

I wanted to write about those columns of books moving and revolving around the room. Where better to start than by familiarising myself with someone whose already done a similar thing (and no, there is no dishonour in peeking at someone else's work to get an idea at how to jump first first into an issue - Francine Prose practically throttles the writer in the hope they will learn from the best).

So, who do I turn to, remembering a certain scene in a certain book about bricks coming to life and shuffling apart?

JK Rowling... of course. In Chapter Five - Diagon Alley, Hagrid magics a wall to open up and allow them access to the Wizarding World. In the film this is extremely memorable thanks to the those visual wizards, Industrial Light and Magic, who create a spectacle of shuffling bricks, that slide and grind back and forth over one another, reconfiguring like a living, organic structure, until the entrance is clear - almost like a Rubik's cube but with pull out and push in sections.


So, I thought, where better to get a feel for moving brickwork than Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone? Where better indeed:

He tapped the wall three times with the point of his umbrella.

The brick he had touched quivered - it wriggled - in the middle, a small hole appeared - it grew wider and wider - a second late they were facing an archway large enough even for Hagrid, an archway on to a cobbled street which twisted and turned out of sight.

It took me a short while to find that short passage, and having read it shuffled off grumbling and moaning and generally besmirching JK's good name for being a weak writer and nothing like as grand as Ursula K. le Guin.

Of course, I wrote my version, ahem:

The circular wall shifts as the words continue to wriggle across the page. The rows of books revolve like some ancient mechanism. One row clockwise, the next anti-clockwise, until all are in motion. They stop, one column breaks at the centre and the upper half rises up through the fog, one book length, to reveal the bare wall behind. The rows revolve a second time, stopping briefly to allow the top-half of another column to slide down into the gap. Two… three… four more times, revolving and separating, sliding and converging. The brick-books reorder themselves like a cylindrical sliding puzzle until all halt and a gap, the width of two books, comes to a stop before the great book and its pedestal.

But, as my wife now points out. Look at the size of the passage. Along with my occasional grandious words, this passage does little to push along the plot (other than generate a gap in the brick-book work) but does a lot to slow the reader down. Is a 12 year old going to care? Especially, I must consider whether or not the kind of audience I'm after - reluctant readers (it's all part of my game plan) - are going to stop there and think, so what?

I don't like it one bit and yet I must bow to my audience. I must set aside my own wants and think of them. How relevant is it? I must levy myself to JK's way, focus the reader's attention instead on what is important.

Sigh!

No Country for Old Men - Cormac McCarthy

There's a funny story to tell with how I came to read this book... I had seen the trailer over on Apple's Trailers site and it piqued my interest, so much so that I avidly watched for its arrival at my local cinema... any one of the four. Of course, what with me living in the anti-cultural capital of England, none of them felt the need to show anything that didn't appeal to children or Horror-meisters.

Alas I will have to wait.

And so it was that midweek, MG Harris said she'd spotted her book Invisible City on the shelves in Oxford (two weeks early), and I raced out to the local Waterstones to see if I could buy it too. And again, the local businesses let me down. But instead I stumbled upon Cormac McCarthy's No Country for Old Men. Hazarr!

Bought it half price too, and finished just minutes before we did last night's Litopia podcast.

I'm in two minds over the book itself, or is that I'm in one mind over the book and in another mind regarding the writer?

The book is constructed in two separate povs. Since the title and the subject of the piece regard Sheriff Bell (Tommy Lee Jones in the movie) we open with a monologue of his:

I sent one boy to the gas chamber at Huntsville. One and only one. My arrest and my testimony. I went up there and visited with him two or three times. Three times. The last time was the day of his execution. I didn't have to go but I did. I sure didn't want to. He'd killed a fourteen year old girl and I can tell you right now I never did have no great desire to visit with him let alone go to his execution but I done it. The papers said it was a crime of passion and he told me there wasn't no passion to it. He'd been datin' this girl, young as she was. He was nineteen. And he told me that he had been plannin' to kill somebody for about as long as he could remember. Said that if they turned him out he'd do it again. Said he knew he was goin' to hell. Told it to me out of his own mouth. I don't know what to make of that. I surely don't. I thought I'd never seen a person like that and it got me to wonderin' if maybe he was some new kind.

And then we slide into the chapter proper, with a third person pov that allows us to shift easily between characters at separate locations. It's all good stuff, nice and simple prose that any reader can understand without too much concentration, and yet in these main narrative moments I was driven to great distraction by McCarthy's choice of structuring:

He ran cold water over his wrists until they stopped bleeding and he tore strips from a hand towel with his teeth and wrapped his wrists and went back into the office. He sat on the desk and fastened the toweling with tape from a dispenser, studying the dead man gaping up from the floor. When he was done he got the deputy's wallet out of his pocket and took the money and put it in the pocket of his shirt and dropped the wallet to the floor. Then he picked up his air tank and the stun gun and walked out the door and got into the deputy's car and started the engine and backed around and pulled out and headed up the road.

How can I recommend this book to anyone when every other word is surely and? It isn't easy.

And yet through this style we know exactly what and where and how - but it doesn't half begin to grate! Use a comma, a full stop or something... please?

The next problem for the reader lies in the lack of quotation marks for dialogue (single or double). Narrative runs into dialogue and others follow without attribution to characters, often leaving a lazy reader (or tired, as I was) a little lost, and in need of some backtracking.

And yet, the story is cracking and the idiosyncrasies of the characters bring them alive enough that any hate I had for McCarthy's style had to be endured to find out what happened next - and I was surprised by the turns in the story. I'm not sure if I like the direction it took at the end (but I guess that's what you get when you're riding shotgun with a writer like McCarthy).

I can recommend this on story and character alone - it may be better just to watch the movie (at least that is up for Oscars). And on a side note, I do enjoy watching the trailer for a movie and then reading the book, all the characters are fleshed out for me - it helps that the movie seems to follow the book faithfully (don't get me started on I Am Legend).

Reaction Before Explanation

Just a quickie... I was popping my nostrils through Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (as you do), looking for a description of the Mirror of Erised, and the room in which it is sitting, because I am trying to make sure that if (and when) I finally get back to writing my children's story, I must keep my writing less flowery (if you must know).

Anyhoo, I came across how JK Rowling presents a surprise to the reader when it affects her characters - she does so by dealing with the most immediate element, and in the case of Harry looking into the mirror - his reaction. This keeps the reader slightly distanced, as if pushing them away so that they can't see what Harry sees, making them want to know more:

His panic fading now that there was no sound of Filch and Snape, Harry moved nearer to the mirror, wanting to look at himself but see no reflection again. He stepped in front of it.

He had to clap his hands to his mouth to stop himself screaming. He whirled around. His heart was pounding far more furiously than when the book had screamed - for he had seen not only himself in the mirror, but a whole crowd of people standing right behind him.

The lady can write. As for the screaming book, that's another example of sudden surprise, but this time rather than dealing with the character reaction, we have the most pertinent element of the shock, that being the scream that breaks the quiet:

He pulled it out with difficulty, because it was very heavy, and, balancing it on his knee, let it fall open.

A piercing, blood-curdling shrief split the silence - the book was screaming! Harry snapped it shut, but the shriek went on and on, one high, unbroken, ear-splitting note. He stumbled backwards and knocked over his lamp, which went out at once.

So, surprise or reaction first... works both ways but it's dependent upon the specifics. There's no point in her writing about Harry's reaction to the screaming book before we've read that it's screaming. Similarly, we lose any suspense and / or terror if we see the people in the mirror and not Harry's reaction.

Oh, and as for the mirror itself:

- but propped against the wall facing him was something that didn't look as if it belonged there, something that looked as if someone had just put it here to keep it out of the way.

It was a magnificent mirror, as high as the ceiling, with an ornate gold frame, standing on two clawed feet. There was an inscription carved around the top: Erised stra ehru oyt ube cafru oyt on whosi.

Functional description linked in with character action (it was facing him - relates back to character position so that it doesn't feel as if we've stopped to describe it).

Masterclass - Prose Stripping with Jim Crace - Part Two

Before I go on with a breakdown of the elements of my 1,000 words, Jim still has much to tell us of the art of writing - as a means for consideration with prose stripping. Read on...

Specificity

When we write of the lovers on the back row at the cinema, cuddling up to one another because the girl is afraid for the maiden on the silver screen, who is fleeing from the grotesque monster that refuses to die, we don't simply tell the reader that the couple are watching a film. We are specific. We tell them that the characters have gone to see Alien, or the Fly, or whatever it is. That they've gone to the Paramount, which has sat on the corner of Western and Third since the fifties, withstanding two arson attacks and the red scare. We give the reader detail, and whenever possible we name a noun, a theatre: the Old Vic; an audio appliance: a Walkman; the make of his jacket: Harris Tweed; the cheese they're eating: Yorkshire Blue.

We do this to bring the world alive. These are details that more than likely, the reader will forget immediately, but whilst they are there - like the immense work put into cinema these days by Industrial Light and Magic, Weta Digital... and others - the reader can feel immersed.

As, Francine Prose states (in her wonderful - you must go buy it - Reading Like a Writer):

... God is in the details, we all must on some deep level believe that truth is in there, too. Or maybe it is that God is truth: Details are what persuade us that someone is telling the truth - a fact that every liar knows instinctively and too well.

It's funny that I should bring this up twice in two days - I digress now, in a particularly Sebald-like manner - for while discussing Sebald's work The Rings of Saturn, I read out the passage above. Why? Well, let me tell you (don't you hate narrators that speak like this? It's so condescending): Sebald's work, as previously mentioned, is faction - it details facts and figures that link in with its themes, but it goes into scenes and locations that Sebald would have no knowledge of, even in research (and thus he makes up descriptions of thought and observation). And he'd do this... he does this, to ensure that the reader is invested and ready to hear the facts that Sebald wants to impart. By lacing the prose with details he provides the reader with something on which to hang their thoughts, their subjectivities and their memory.

But remember, that gratuitous references in metaphors/similes or merely observations, must serve a purpose. Certainly, the Yorkshire Blue, the Walkman, the Harris Tweed all inform on choices made by the character(s) involved; and they may also advise on place and time.

Bees in the Head

Countering specificity is bees in the head syndrome. Providing the reader with too much imagery, too many character names and/or too much specificity renders the reader in a comatose state. They can no longer concentrate on the narrative. As an authoritative author, you must lead the reader gently through the narrative, providing names and details in a timely fashion.

Tenses
When getting down to writing the default mind-set we enter into is past tense. Whenever we talk to others about things we've done, seen, etc, it's always in the past tense - that's how we relate stories to one another:

This morning I got up at 5:30 and climbed into the car at 6. It was so cold, but after five minutes on the road the feeling returned to my toes.

Trying to retell the story in the present tense, especially to someone you're talking to, is slightly at odd with the norm:

It is morning and I climb out of bed. The clock reads 5:30... It's 6 and I get into the car, finding it cold but my toes are warming up now that I'm on the road.

It doesn't work person to person, but does on the page, giving a sense of immediacy between writer and reader.

But the past tense is baggy; it can be construed in different ways, easily misunderstood, and complex. Jim told us this:

Groucho Marx is now seventy. He's an old man, but he still loves to socialise. He's out one night at a party and as the evening draws to a close he gets his coat and makes for the door. The hostess sees him going and stops him on the threshold to wish him goodnight.
"Did you have a good time?" she asks.
"Yes I did," says Groucho, wagging his cigar and raising his eyebrows, "but this wasn't it."

The present tense isn't a generous tense. It's not wide-angled. It's restrictive. But it has its advantage. In the example above the joke is told in the present tense - as most jokes are told. This is the default tense for jokes, giving the audience the impression that the information is unravelling right at that moment, that it is happeneing at the same time that the comedian is telling it.

However, the crux of the joke - the dialogue - regards past tense: Did you have a good time, and, Yes I did, but this wasn't it. And by its very nature - the comedic missunderstanding between Groucho and the hostess - highlights the bagginess.

Masterclass - Prose Stripping with Jim Crace - Part One

So, finally, I've had my prose stripping session with Jim Crace, author of 9 books (and only 2 left to write - allegedly).

S, first off, what is prose stripping all about?

Essentially, it's about analysing the final draft of someone's work and niggling at the word use. This comes after planning, critiques, and draftage, but, as Jim says, before at least two more edits (the editor's editing and then the line editor's editing). There can be more drafts before that; obviously dependent upon what the prose stripping brings up.

But, before I give a run down of what happened to my manuscript, I want to cover some of what Jim discussed with us.

He began by talking about redundancy of words - the main focus of prose stripping. In a previous group (some years ago) one of the students began a story with:

The Black and white magpie flew across the empty field.

Obseving thusly:

1. Everyone knows magpies are black and white
2. Everyone knows that magpies fly

So, what is this sentence really telling the reader? Nothing. Jim advised that not every sentence has to work to multiple effect, giving colour, subtext, description, narration, etc, all at the same time. Were every sentence like that the reader would be overwhelmed. But, a sentence can't be so brazenly loaded as the magpie one above with the most obvious elements that do nothing to inform the reader.

The same student also wrote something like:

Whenever the two of them fought there seemed to be a bonfire always there in the backgarden, emitting smoke.

Top marks to those of you raising your hands to say, emitting smoke? What else is a bonfire going to do? Exactly! Apparantly in Jim's group at that time, the entire class flapped their hands like magpie wings to signify the redundancy.

The student was sent away with the text to reconsider and rework - a difficult, sometimes anxious, time for any writer, but, as Jim says, an essential time. We must all spend time going over our work like this after the final draft, considering our purpose. When the student came back, she'd changed nothing... but two letters. See how much this alteration changes the meaning (whether it's an obvious meaning or a personal one provided to the reader):

Whenever the two of them fought there seemed to be a bonfire always there in the backgarden, knitting smoke.

The reader now has a domestic image of knitting set against the argument. The notion of someone hunched over working furiously at their needles. An idea of the branches and twigs on the fire acting like needles, and the smoke becomes a scarf reeling off into the air.

"Metaphor," says Jim, "never works unless the reader is on your side." The metaphor needs to be easy for the reader to grasp; which is to say (as Solvejg has often pointed out of my own writing) that a metaphor is usually better stated with regard to a concrete noun/verb instead of abstract ones.

Jim says that once he's done with his book he heads off to a stationers in search of a cruel pencil - a pen or pencil that looks vastly different from the usual kind one might purchase for normal use in writing or editing. Something tactile, colourful, oddly shaped; anything that can help the writer put on a different head - the head of cold objectivism towards their own work.

"Don't set yourself too many tasks at once with your editing," says Jim. "Split the work up. Go at it first to identify the faults, but don't repair it until a second pass. First mark up what doesn't work, then once that is done, go over it again; so that you're not doing too much, trying to change hats."

We touched briefly upon different authors and how they layout their manuscripts differently - opting for different ways to attach characters to dialogue, to separate passages of time, the way their characters think, etc.

Jim says that the author's ability to change the layout of their manuscript is their unacknowledged armoury - it's a great support in helping narrative flow and reader understanding, and should never be undervalued. It is interesting therefore that today I am reading the charity book - The Book of Other People (edited by Zadie Smith) - and in the introduction she comments on these features of layout in respect to the many writers that have been involved in the project (a bunch of short stories solely about characters):

There is, however, an element of their character that has been removed: the fonts. Publishers standardize fonts to suit the style of the house, but when writers deliver their stories by e-mail, each font tell its own story... There are many strange, precise and seemingly intimate tics that disappear upon publication: paragraphs separated by pictorialsymbols, titles designed just so, outsized speech marks, centred dialogue, uncentered paragraphs, no paragraphs at all.

In response to the beginning of one of the other students' opening lines we then went on to discuss attributing dialogue to the character speaking. Some people attribute using he said/she said, but others, for example, Iris Murdoch in The Green Knight, chooses not to attribute much of what is said at all. There seem three ways to do it - and though this is by no means didactic, writers should consider using each sparingly:

1. Naming a character in dialogue (in two way conversations this allows you to deduce the speaker by who they are speaking to)
   
   "Why, thank you, Marie, I'd very much like to get out of this wet dress."
   
   
2. Attributation (in these days of avoiding he growled/she simmered, he said/she said can become really monotonous)
   
   "I don't think I like where this is going," said Harold.
   
   
3. Adjacent action (forgoing he said/she said in favour of the character acting)
   
   "Count me out. I've never been so humiliated in-" Karen turned away from the table and stared at them all in the dark reflection of the city, her hands balled in her lap.

Really great writers can of course develop a rhythm in the language of different characters that the reader knows for certain can't be anyone speaking. And of course, in a conversation that goes on for more than a couple of lines the author can omit any reference for a period because the reader should be able to maintain their own knowledge of who is speaking - though they do need gentle reminders from time to time to prevent having to go back in search of who said what!

Reading Like a Writer

A strange convergence has brought me to this moment - and that's without considering the strange coincidence that (having gone out of my way to drop my wife off at her work today) I was queued behind a Porsche bearing the license plate: GO RIX - In Reading into Writing we have been dissecting the meaning of texts both young and old, genre based and literary, translated and as originally intended, picking apart the reasons for inclusions and exclusions. At the end of last week's Fiction module, my tutor advised us to read not only short stories (ie: Checkov in particular) to better understand a writer's intent, but also to hunt down Francine Prose's Reading Like a Writer (A guide for people who love books and for those who want to write them).


The book does perfectly what we've been trying to do in Reading into Writing. It does exactly what Solvejg has been telling me for years, thumping my literary endeavours into pulp over.

Jessica Murphy discusses the book with Francine Prose here.

So, why haven't I listened to Solvejg? Well, I have... I've just been ready to put it all into practise (there's still a lot of other errors in my prose to sort out). The other reason is that it's a big step. I've read your latest opening to Tethered Light, Solvey, and to tell you the truth, I'm awestruck. I will produce a more detailed report for you, but right now I'm reeling, because I'm not even in the same game, let alone league.

And the same goes for Prose's chosen extracts for analysis. Whilst I struggled through Sarah Waters's Night Watch, I began to lose hope in writing in general, but a book such as Reading into Writing, so beautiful by inclusion of the extracts, and so eye opening in its meaning really makes you fall in love with writing and literature. Just the sheer flow of some texts that I'd otherwise avoid (my wife and her English class had to do The Great Gatzby for A-Levels and hated it), but check this out:

The windows were ajar and gleaming white against the fresh grass outside that seemed to grow a little way into the house. A breeze blew through the room, blew curtains in at one end and out the other like pale flags, twisting them up toward the frosted wedding-cake of the ceiling, and then rippled over the wine-colored rug, making a shadow on it as wind does on the sea.

The only completely stationary object in the room was an enormous couch on which two young women were buoyed up as though upon an achored balloon. They were both in white, and their dresses were rippling and fluttering as if they had just been blown back after a short flight around the house. I must have stood for a few moments listening to the whip and snap of the curtains and the groan of a picture on the wall. Then there was a boom as Tom Buchanan shut the rear windows and the caught wind died out through the room, and the curtains and the rugs and the two young women ballooned slowly to the floor.

Francine Prose says:

You could almost get a sense of the passage by sorting the words according to what part of speech they represent, the participles and verbs (gleaming, rippling, ballooned), the adjectives and adjectival phrases (the white windows and skirts, the fresh grass, the pale flags of the curtains, the frosted wedding cake of a ceiling), the nouns (the whip and snap of the curtains, the groan of the picture, the caught wind, the boom of the shut window).

She says a whole lot more - really insightful stuff that I'm sure we could all pick up with no trouble if we weren't all hurriedly skim-reading to finish the book. Prose teaches us to read slowly (like I need any more encouragement to do that - I'd never finish a book), looking at specific word use, sentence us, paragraph use, character use, narrative use... etc.

I cannot recommend this book enough - and guaranteed, once I've got my course out the way, I'm going to have to go back and read it again and again.

Fairytales

Despite having numerous ideas for novels blatting around my psyche already, a new one has elbowed its way in - a fairytale in fact, that matches the present day against the past (or rather the perceived past of a fairytale setting).

I guess that it's serendipitous that MJ mentioned he'd bought the Brothers Grimm collection (which one, I don't know) whilst I was already in possession of the Hans Christian Anderson collection (slightly less violent me thinks, and yet, so very... violent!). I felt the need to go out in search of the Brothers Grimm also - If I'm to write a semi-pastiche then I need to understand the machinations and standard themes (note, I've decided not to pursue a pastiche, but a completely new idea).

My initial idea was sparked whilst at the Police concert, listening to Wrapped Around Your Finger and the wonderful lyrics that I'd always associated with a magician and his apprentice and the powerplay between them - suddenly I felt the urge to write about it (nope, I've not written a thing yet). Over the course of the past month (has it been a month already?) I've toyed with that same idea - trying to make it work in a fictional novel context without it being entirely Sting's idea - it's not, I can assure you.

So, over the month I've stretched it out, drawing on previous story ideas and reworking the mythology of Sting's song to a secondary level that I'm not prepared to discuss here.

So it was that I bought a copy of the Grimms, and with it came a free copy of Angela Carter's The Bloody Chamber (short story collection based upon fairytales), which includes the original version of the film Company of Wolves. Why is this suddenly important?

Well, having read the title story I realise that it's the kind of style I want my novel-fairytale to include. Admittedly it's bleak, and I'd want to include some humour in my story, but her choice of words are as sublime as any Solvejg has ever used in his narratives:

His wedding gift, clasped round my throat. A choker of rubies, two inches wide, like an extraordinarily precious slit throat.

After the Terror, in the early days of the Directory, the aristos who'd escaped the guillotine had an ironic fad of tying a red ribbon round their necks at just the point where the blade would have sliced it through, a red ribbon like the memory of a wound. And his grandmother, taken with the notion, had her ribbon made up in rubies; such a gesture of luxurious defiance! That night at the opera comes back to me even now... the white dress; the frail child within it; and the flashing crimson jewels round her throat, bright as arterial blood.

And that singular item, the ruby choker, wreaths the entire first story of the Bloody Chamber like a soiled bandage, such is Carter's well-planned imagery.

Now then, how might I copy?

More Atonement

Her memories of the interrogation and signed statements and testimony, or of her awe outside the courtroom from which her youth excluded her, would not trouble her so much in the years to come as her fragmented recollection of that late night and summer dawn. How guilt refined the methods of self-torture, threading the beads of detail into an eternal loop, a rosary to be fingered for a lifetime.

- Ian McEwan's Atonement

A gorgeously constructed paragraph is it not? Especially the development of the threading beads into rosary.

Not getting hung up on the finer points though, McEwan's Atonement is written in a narrative of fluctuating time periods. This quoted segment is in the future, and directly afterwards we, the reader, find ourselves back in the present of the story, dealing with the ongoing issues. This manner of jumping ahead to encapsulate the happenstance with which she's made her choice to remain resolute. A previous chapter begins:

Within the half hour Briony would commit her crime.

McEwan is keeping up the tension of the piece, making sure the reader knows full well that a misdeed is on the horizon of which the protagonist must atone.

This, in a roundabout sort of way, is the very reason why I felt the need to come back to this story - lucky me that a copy finally got ordered for the library and I could steal it momentarily for perusal in this very matter.

Coming out of the cinema, both Laura and I shaking our heads at the dire circumstance inflicted upon the hapless characters, we took differing views on Briony's pov.

I, taking in full view the synopsis presented: that she would make a mistake; coupled with the consistent manner in which Briony is depicted (wrapped up in her creative world), and of course the fact we are repeatedly placed in her misguided point of view; felt that Briony was mistaken and as a child, joined the dots without a map (so to speak). Therefore, though she came to realise her mistake, at the time she made her judgement it was with all good intentions.

Laura on the other hand felt simply - and this she backed up with the fact that Briony did have a crush on Robbie (true) - that Briony was getting revenge for being slighted. This too was backed up by the view of another woman Laura works with, who just "wanted to slap Briony silly".

Both believed there was malicious intent there, and I, certain there wasn't, have proved as such by reading the book - phew! I like being right.

But how has this misinterpretation come about? Is it a girl/boy thing? Is in the reading of the synopsis prepared me to make that leap? Has the film making lost some of the translation of the book - in the book we spend such a long time in Briony's head that it is clear what is going on with her. In film the audience is guided yet never explicitly told. Who knows? I can't take a bigger sample of people in for questioning since no one seems to have gone out to see it - they're either too old to bother with the cinema or they're all out watching Shoot Em Up (awful) and Disturbia (quite good actually) - on a side note, a friend suggested that Disturbia sounded awful and she wouldn't go see it, but would consider it were it called Entertaina (a stout note there then all you writers)

On another note, McEwan's slickly concieved narrative slips between pov's in a not so obvious manner. First off, each chapter is set in one specific character's pov, and yet within that, we get the occasional glimmer of what another person is feeling. Very interesting. If I had time, I'd read more to see whether this has a specific reason (I don't think I could pull it off so expertly - in the past my writing has done just this and annoyed my readers... and the agents).

Outcast - Wolf Brother Book 4

I am in a perpetual loop of awe when I read Michelle Paver - and admittedly, as a 28 year old man (I feel so old) I shouldn't be going to Waterstones and purchasing myself a copy of a children's book aimed at 9 to 12 year olds (it's for Mum really, I just read them first), but I do.

Let me argue that in my defence, I read all of Rowling's Potters, and in actual fact Paver is the far better writer. Her work might not deal with the big issues of Pullman's His Dark Materials, and it might not bas a literary and grand, but her writing is dead on, perfect, an easy read, a fast read, a great story.

So much so in fact that when I realised her latest book was out, I dumped the heavy going and rather waterlogged depiction of life on the Shiants in Adam Nicholson's Sea Room (for uni) - it's a well written read that falters because its all about the history and has no story (yawn) - and picked up Outcast for an immediate burst of life.

And it moves so fast that, at such a gripping pace that I'm at page 144 in only a short number of hours.

Considering the brief mentions Agent Peter occasionally makes about meetings with Ms Paver, I got to thinking how much time and effort he now needs to put in on assisting or advising her in her work - since he is extremely adept and what he does and MG has spoken previously of the need for rewrites having passed her work under his eye. Maybe you could shed light on that MG with your next work?

Anyhoo, in the meantime, let's sneakily open Outcast and read page one:

The viper glided down the riverbank and placed its sleek head on the water, and Torak stopped a few paces away to let it drink.

His arms ached from carrying the red deer antlers, so he set them aside and crouched in the bracken to watch. Snakes are wise, and know many secrets. Maybe this one would help him deal with his.

The viper drank with unhurried sips. Raising its head, it regarded Torak, flicking out its tongue to taste his scent. Then it coiled neatly back on itself and vanished into the ferns.

It had given him no sign.

But you don't need a sign, he told himself wearily. You know what to do. Just tell them. Soon as you get back to camp. Just say, 'Renn. Fin-Kedinn. Two moons ago something happened. They held me down, they put a mark on my chest. And now...'

I needn't go any further - that is a perfect opening (and one I'm certain Agent Peter must have had a hand in). His advice on such matters are as succinct as that passage.

Brevity, Brevity, Brevity as Solvejg and MJ used to say (a hell of a lot). The use of the viper to open with goes hand in hand with the cover, with what has come before (see the previous book) and as a portent of things to come.

We get an immediate sense of where we are with descriptions that tie in with movement (it not mattering what riverbank, river or the setting of the bracken looks like beyond their existence) and the introduction of Torak with his deer antlers is simply delivered.

But why is this important? Because Ms Paver doesn't make a big deal out of things. A lesser writer (ahem... myself) might make a big deal out of the antlers and/or the viper because of what they represent and what they will lead to, but Paver leaves that until the right moment. Until such time she sprinkles these references and allusions to greater things with a scarcity that puts them in the reader's mind without drawing too much significance too early.

In that strain she leaves off providing too many hooks for the reader - note the only hook we get is at the end of the passage in the reference to the mark. This is the hook that ties the reader in with trying to remember what the mark was from the first book, the title Outcast - what does that mean? How does that tie in with the mark?

And the descriptions of the actions of either Torak or viper are not wasted. We're not flooded with he watched this, did this, thought this, moved there, ate that, drank that. I seriously need to rethink my own approach in this respect.

Congratulations to Peter again for this, another great addition to the Wolf Brother series.

When a book grabs you...

... you've just got to pick it up and read it!

Boring myself with PC reinstalls at one of the branch libraries t'other day, I stumbled upon Jed Rubenfeld's The Interpretation of Murder. The blurb on the back looked intriguing:

The Interpretation of Murder is an intricately plotted literary thriller based on true events - the story of Sigmund Freud's 1909 visit to New York. Around this kernel of fact, Jed Rubenfeld has spun a spectacularly entertaining fiction centred upon murder: a wealthy young debutante is discovered bound, whipped and strangled in her penthouse apartment, high above Broadway. The following night Nora Acton, another society beauty, narrowly escapes the same fate and the mayor of New York calls upon Freud to use his revolutionary ideas to help Nora recover her memory and solve the crime. But nothing about the attacks - or indeed about Nora - is quite as it seems.

and, strangely the cover looked very intriguing - a period setting, that yellowing-sepia style and at its centre a mysterioso (a man in bowler hat walking away from us) - who is he?


I read to the first break, and immediately loved the tone and writing - it's going to be a book with brains that is an easy read and manages its reveals very well:

There is no mystery to happiness.

Unhappy men are all alike. Some wound they suffered long ago, some wish denied, some blow to pride, some kindling spark of love put out by scorn – or worse, indifference – cleaves to them, or they to it, and so they live each day within a shroud of yesterdays. The happy man does not look back. He doesn’t look ahead. He lives in the present.

But there’s the rub. The present can never deliver one thing: meaning. The ways of happiness and meaning are not the same. To find happiness, a man need only live in the moment; he need only live for the moment. But if he wants meaning – the meaning of his dreams, his secrets, his life – a man must reinhabit his past, however dark, and live for the future, however uncertain. Thus nature dangles happiness and meaning before us all, insisting only that we choose between them.

For myself, I have always chosen meaning. Which, I suppose, is how I came to be waiting in the swelter and mob of Hoboken harbor on Sunday eve­ning, August 29, 1909, for the arrival of the Norddeutsche Lloyd steamship George Washington, bound from Bremen, carry­ing to our shores the one man in the world I wanted most to meet.

At 7 p.m. there was still no sign of the ship. Abraham Brill, my friend and fellow physician, was waiting at the harbor for the same reason as I. He could hardly contain himself, fidgeting and smoking incessantly. The heat was murderous, the air thick with the reek of fish. An unnatural fog rose from the water, as if the sea ­were steaming. Horns sounded heavily out in the deeper water, their sources invisible. Even the keening gulls could be only heard, not seen. A ridiculous premonition came to me that the George Washington had run aground in the fog, her twenty­five hundred European passengers drowning at the foot of the Statue of Liberty. Twilight came, but the temperature did not abate. We waited.

All at once, the vast white ship appeared not as a dot on the horizon, but mammoth, emerging from the mist full­blown before our eyes. The entire pier, with a collective gasp, drew back at the apparition. But the spell was broken by the outbreak of harbormen’s cries, the flinging and catching of rope, the bustle and jostle that followed. Within minutes, a hundred stevedores ­were unloading freight.

Brill, yelling at me to follow, shouldered through to the gangway. His entreaties to board were rebuffed; no one was being let on or off the ship. It was another hour before Brill yanked at my sleeve and pointed to three passengers descending the bridge. The first of the trio was a distinguished, immaculately groomed, gray­haired, and gray­bearded gentleman whom I knew at once to be the Viennese psychiatrist Dr Sigmund Freud.

Doesn't that just make you want to get on and read? Am I becoming geekier by the day?

Anyhoo, after the double paragraph introduction that will sum up the great quest at the centre of the novel, we meet our main character and his setting - so clearly and deliberately evoked by such a cunning style that I loathe the writer already (just check out the fourth paragraph that gives a feel for Brill (in his actions), the narrator (his worry for the ship and his chosen descriptions: unnatural, premonition; later: apparition) and the place.

And of course, Freud is revealed at the end of the passage. Short of reading the blurb, this is a case in point to Solvey's recent blog post regarding how to develop suspense in readers and how then to deliver on that. Here we know from the outset (okay, after the initial two paragraph intro) that our narrator is awaiting someone so very special to him. We are then left hanging - the hook having been cast... who is this man? And after the wait and a brief getting-to-know our narrator the reveal (and note how Freud is left to the very, very last word).

It's a shame I've got my set reading to do - five books to get through for uni before I can move onto this. Gaa!

A Prayer For Owen Meany

I am doomed to remember a boy with a wrecked voice - note because of his voice, or because he was the smallest person I ever knew, or even because he was the instrument of my mother's death, but because he is the reason I believe in God; I am a Christian because of Owen Meany. I make no claims to have a life in Christ, or with Christ - and certainly not for Christ, which I've heard some zealots claim. I'm not very sophisticated in my knowledge of the Old Testament, and I've not read the New Testament since Sunday school days, except for those passages that I hear read aloud to me when I go to church. I'm somewhat more familiar with the passages from the Bible that appear in the Book of Common Prayer; I read my prayer book often, and my Bible only on holy days - the prayer book is so much more orderly.

And so begins A Prayer for Owen Meany - a story of two friends growing up in the 50s and 60s, one of whom, the narrator, shares his childhood with an extraordinary boy called Owen who, as stated, kills the narrator's mother, but who then proves the existence of God to the narrator through his actions and the eventual coming true of his long foreseen destiny.

In Owen Meany John Irving has created an amazing narrative structure that slips effortlessly between three separate time periods, makes repeated references to previous descriptions to keep them alive in the reader's mind (lending itself well to one continual read or to a disjointed read over several weeks - which is often the case with me). Symbolism is rife and the outcome of the denouement proves just how strong Irving is in honing a broad story filled not only with a plethora of engaging characters, but also a long and deep history for each - Irving isn't one to go jumping into writing a story until after many months of thought and preparation.

In a way, much of this book has the same feel as To Kill A Mockingbird. Admittedly it's not about race, and it does tend towards the slightly miraculous, but that shouldn't discourage anyone - which, I suppose, is why it made the Top 100 in the BBC's Big Read (It reached 28).

The narrative is weighted so that while the beginning opens with the clear message that Owen is going to kill (albeit accidentally) the narrator, Johnny's, mother (the reader's needed suspense to sustain the then following passages which draw us back through religious viewpoint and the setting of Johnny's family), all the important reasonings, the great reveal, and the epiphanies only come in the last 100 pages. You get a clear sense that Irving has started at the end and worked his way back to the beginning, lacing everything with meaning (though I'm guessing that since the work is semi-autobiographical it may have been slightly easier to write than starting from scratch).

Anyhoo, since my latest work raised some questions about the nature of dramatic suspense, I've found that Owen Meany's first chapter has added weight to the argument. I've been worried about the amount of knowledge I should pass to the reader. My first chapter ends in a car crash that both characters in the car know is going to happen - they will it to happen. I wanted to keep this secret from the reader until the final moment, so that, like a car crash in motion, the reader is stuck in this situation baring witness to it in complete surprise.

However, as Owen Meany, and Solvey, have demonstrated, dramatic suspense is a far stronger tool than surprise - this harks back to Hitchcock's theory of the two men talking whilst a bomb ticks underneath their table - neither of them know, but the audience does, giving expectation and suspense - we were not to know, we wouldn't be hooked.

I was watching Child of our Time on the Beeb a few weeks back and one of the children was perpetually distressed that her dad was going into hospital and might die (he was going to give a kidney to his brother). The parents had decided (in their infinite wisdom) that it would be best to prepare their daughter for the worst. This ties into the theory that dramatic suspense is by far the most gripping tool any storymaker can use. The poor girl is now stuck in the constant anticipation/aprehension that her father is going to die in surgery - unfortunately for her, dramatic suspense feeds off our anxieties a time-lock or option-lock situation is slowly ticking by, the outcome getting closer, out of our hands. (IMHO they should only have told her he was going into hospital and would be a bit tired and ill from it... not dead)!

Take horror films for example, more often than not only a handful of times does the killer come from nowhere and kill - surprise doesn't last long, and only serves to change the direction of a story or scene. Horror and thrillers use dramatic suspense far more than simple surprise - we know the killer is around here, stalking our hapless hero/heroine, and we're waiting for the crunch. We are held in a continual loop of suspense until it all unravels with the attack, and though we can't be held like that forever without a break, it can be sustained for quite some time.

In Owen Meany, we learn that Owen will kill Johnny's mum in the first paragraph. It doesn't happen for another 40+ pages. So, we left hanging, waiting to see exactly how she will be killed, trying to ascertain motivation, second-guessing the development of relationships, waiting, waiting, waiting for it to come.

In the Bourne Ultimatum, the chase half-way through the film involves a failed attempt by Bourne to save a contact. He is on the back foot when he realises that he is now the target, and by implication, Nicki (who is now working with him). The chase ensues not with the simple lets-all-chase-Bourne, but with the badguy heading back along the streets to seek Nicki and execute her, and Bourne desperately trying to beat him there. He's late and Nicki has to call on her own initiative to evade the badguy. This extends the suspense as we're certain that whilst Nicki has her own skills she will be no match for the badguy.

With this in mind I need to alter my opening to cover the knowledge of the impending crash... simple really, just lots more work. Sigh!