Sea Room

It is with dubious pleasure that I bring Adam Nicolson's Sea, Room to your attention, a studious history of the Shiant (pronounced shant) Islands, how he came to own them, the possible lives of those before him and the geology (yawn).


To be fair, as I will show you, he's a good writer, who finds no ends of ways to describe water in motion, be it about a boat or upon a cliff face - for those of you that have read my latest entry for the Litopia Short Story Competition (this one being Paid Companion), you will understand why I fell so easily to choose a sea-nario (SIC).

Alas, for all its pretense and execution I'm stuck half way, wondering why I'm still pretending that I'll ever finish it. The problem is in the way it's a biography of a group of small islands - and I find reading biographies a dubious adventure at best (yours, Carolyn, are the exception I can assure you), but this is about rock, and sand, and sheep, and geese! It has no direction, and frankly, I don't care - but I've found that problem with all the books I'm supposed to be reading for college. They just don't touch me that way. My mind is on more important things (I hope at least).

Anyhoo, what does Adam Nicolson do right?

I always felt embraced by his presence. He whispered his stories through lips that clung doggedly to the crushed stub-end of a roll-up, his eyebrows, like sprigs of long-grown lichen, leaping at the punch lines. The movement of his mouth was so quiet, like the fluttering of a flame, that you would always be creeping closer to hear him, to put your ear in his lips. And while he spoke his eyes would move from you to the horizon and back: you, the listener, the target of the words, the horizon somehow their source.

Adam has chosen the important aspects of Hughie MacSween's character - not just his appearance. What makes Hughie MacSween Hughie MacSween? Well, that description! His ability to evoke places and people is luminous - I must pay attention :)

Later we have the descriptions of more people:

It was a charming, affectionate and mutually impatient double act. Fergus - Mike calls him Fergie - is the more bullish and macho of the two. He plays tennis for the Yorkshire Veterans, talks with fervour about 'stonking great sledge-hammers', likes to give things 'welly', wears dark glasses and short-sleeved tartan shirts, and looks after Mike, whose balance on the rocks is uncertain...

Nicolson isn't afraid to bring a person in one scene to the fore by describing their manner in another place entirely, helping to give and immediate, rounded sense of them.

The second aspect is in his ability to move from topic to topic, a skill I tried out in that latest short story compo, and, I believe, I deftly succeeded - we shall see. Anyhoo:

A gannet suddenly slaps into the sea beside me. No warning. I start at it and remember this, the story of on of the stewards of St Kilda...

I was first told that story when I was a ten-year-old boy. I stood up with shock as the crisis hit and, of course, I have never forgotten it...

It is the one bird I wish would to live on the Shaints. For a few years in the 1980s, the islands were the smallest gannetry in the world...

What you can't see are the swathes of paragraphs that separate these excerpts - I can't go pasting whole passages of someone else's work now can I? What we should note in this is the back-and-fro way the narrative moves between topics, ensuring that the reader is never jarred, but that one item/object/creature/idea helps to bring cohesion, so that the reader doesn't flounder.

You see, the kind of books I enjoy reading and the kind of books I want to write have, for some time, failed to match one another. I was writing simple, descriptive fiction, as in, I would be describing actions, dialogue and immediate thoughts. I realise that I enjoy reading sprawling narrative such as Murakami, McEwan, Irving and Angela Carter (more on her in the next blogpost). I don't do thrillers on the whole (certainly not Patterson, though I'm partial to a Dan Brown!), so why have I been attempting to write in that limited, fast paced narrative?

Lack of experience, foresight, failing in skill - now all I lack is consistency and the limitless knowledge of words that my peers have seemed able to harness.

The Village By The Sea

Anita Desai's children's novel The Village By The Sea was the first of the four contemporary fiction novels I've got to read for my next uni module - Reading into Fiction - and though it was only 260 pages... what a slog.

Had I realised it was a children's novel I might have given it an easier time. This has highlighted rather than my awareness of poor writing, the difference between adult and child fiction (this was an award winner for crying out loud)... *SIGH*

Take this extract for example. I feel it is poorly written, a tell that is a sweeping statement to save the author coming up with a better way of showing what she means:

'Poor Pinto,' he murmured , and fell silent again. Although he said no more, everyone realised he was saying he was sorry for the role he had played in Pinto's death, for being responsible for it in a way.

I mean... seriously? Surely that's a leap to make?!

Another extract shows up something that many writers seem to do (from what I've seen), describing something through a show and then telling it as well - doubling everything up unnecessarily (though of course, this being aimed at children, might be necessary):

'There are enough bad character in this city - thugs, murderers, thieves, gamblers, drunkards - why not go after them instead? Why not start with those drunkards playing cards in that corner over there? They make life unsafe for us who live in this locality, we are all afraid to come to this park because of them - not because of this poor bou who has no home and nowhere to sleep,' he said.

The policeman stood chewing his moustache uncertainly. 'Hr-umph,' he grunted, not knowing quite what to do. The bent old man had made him feel ashamed of bullying a child when there was adult work to be done: tackling the real criminals of the city.

It's truly awful.

To be fair though, it's not that bad. The ending draws nice synchronicity with the beginning, returning us full circle, and even though I personally found the Dickensian style ending too happy-go-la-la considering everything the family's been through, it's far more engaging than the opening.

And for every unnecessary line or repetition (as in:

He thought of the sails one saw along the horizon and the lights of the boats by night which were visible from the beach. He thought of the catch coming in in the evenings, the voices of the women quarrelling over the baskets of shining fish on the sand. He thought... He thought... He thought... He thought... He thought...

which I found really grating) there are well established moments of tension, where Desai maintains suspense across two separate story threads.

In Crace's The Pesthouse our two heroes are split up by bandits and though until this point the story has originated and stayed with Franklin, because it is Franklin who is kidnapped and Franklin who is in peril, it is Franklin's thread which goes cold. We then follow Sarah's story (I believe she's called Sarah) until we meet up with Franklin again. Then, at that point we travel back in time to revisit what has happened to Franklin in this time - Crace choosing not to hold off giving the reader this info for as long as possible.

Desai uses a form of this in two incidents in her book. Firstly, as we come up to the end of Act One, we have spent the day with Hari, which was a functional account really and rather boring. But as he returns home at the end of the day, his story merges with whatever has been occuring to his family:

He went into the hut, Pinto bounding ahead of him. They looked up at him. Their sad, frightened faces made him cry out, 'What has happened?'

And we move into the next chapter, recounting the day's tribulations and horrors.

Towards the end of the book we are with Hari again, following his life in Bombay. We hear of the loss of boats over the news from his village - from a great distance so that we cannot know the ins and outs, but only Hari's concerns and worries. Again, it isn't until we go back with him that we meet up with his family's story thread.

Desai is also good at the judicious use of description to evoke time and place... not as per my usual fashion of throwing all and sundry at the reader in the hope they will understand where they are:

'Let's go home and eat,' cried Bella, suddenly very hungry.

'Run - I'll race you,' shouted Hari and they set off, shouting.

The horizon was brightly lit by the sun that seemed to be melting into the sea like a globe of molten glass. The sky had paled to lemon-yellow and in the east it was already mauve. A star appeared, the brilliant evening star that was always the first to shine.

But it's a poop book, so don't read it. I'm sure her other ones are much better.

5* Young Adult Openings

Still in the holding pattern before the final Potter I thought I'd sit down and investigate the openings of 5 YA books - in the hope that before I return to writing my YA book on a Library I might work out what I need to focus on:

1. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (JK Rowling)
   
2. Lirael (Garth Nix)
3. The Dark Portal (Robin Jarvis)
   
4. Northern Lights (Philip Pullman)
5. The Trolltooth Wars (Steve Jackson)

First and foremost one clear theme seems to reach across all of them: death. In all 5 novels the author has made clear the threat of violence, either to kill or murder. Interesting considering that these books are aimed at the young! But, there must be a reason. That threat immediately sets up a level of suspense - there is real danger here. Young people are less inclined to sit through long passages with no threat, because they want to feel in danger- as Ken Follet said some weeks back that thrillers and suspense novels do so well because readers want to be put into situations of danger and experience things they otherwise would not.

1. The Philosopher's Stone
   
   
   Rowling opens her book with the Dursleys - Harry's Aunt and Uncle. This sets up the ordinary world into which Harry will be thrust, and meanders along with not a lot going on - you can understand why Chris Little passed on it first time - the writing is no worse than the other four books I've looked at, and it's a good character study on exactly who the Dursleys are.
   
   Why do this? Why risk boring the reader with something so unconnected with the rest of the book? Although we are in the ordinary world, Rowling uses the opportunity to develop Harry's story from the start - that witches and wizards are out in the open celebrating. This helps to show how much of a "prune" Vernon Dursley is, and how hateful he will be towards Harry. Remember that in this one we spend four chapters with the Dursleys, up until the end of Act 1 (Philosopher's Stone is about 200 pages, so this is roughly right) when Harry moves from the ordinary world into the wizarding world. So, the Dursleys play an important role in fashioning who Harry is by their manner and the way in which they treat him - setting them up as Harry's first antagonists of whom he must overcome.
   
   However, we don't end the first chapter with just the Dursleys. Rowling relates strange occurrences - shooting stars instead of rain, wizard and witching folk dressed up, a cat reading a map, as most importantly whilst we are introduced to Dumbledore and McGonagall, and through their discussion setting them both up as caring and trustworthy characters, we are given the backdrop to the tale which does several things in itself - through the mannerisms and dialogue of the two professors we are given the badguy (Voldemort) and his evil deeds, the death of Harry's parents and that for some reason Harry is the boy who survived, that he is in some way special. There are question marks over whether Voldemort really is dead and there is enough tension presented by Hagrid's arrival with baby Harry (that these three are trying to protect him from danger) to sustain further interest.
   
   
2. Lirael
   
   
   Unlike Potter, Lirael opens with setting rather than character. While Rowling introduced us to the normality and hatefulness of the Durselys, Nix gives us focus in a mound - a place of darkness that (I guess - I haven't read this one) will bring much pain and suffering. From this mound Nix reveals a character shrouded in mystery. We know from the first book by his clothing that he is a Necromancer but Nix doesn't assume anything and shows him to us. Similarly to Potter we get hints of magical power, subtle uses, but we soon realise that in this case we are being introduced to the main antagonist, or if not him, at least one of the main badguys (Hedge) who will unleash the antagonist (Kerrigor). There is a momentary recap to bring us up to speed (just as in Potter), carried out through dialogue and plucked moments of narrative that feed off the dialogue for pointers, so that the reader feels shown rather than told, and we are presented with direct threat to the point of view character - Hedge - the threat of death.
   
   Onto Chapter 1, and we meet our hero Lirael, through whose anxieties about having no parents and being physically and spiritually different from her fellow orphans we learn of her history and her place. But there is no menace against Lirael, no threat to her person. This is a small matter since the seeds have been sown in the prologue. With Lirael we are invested into her worries over not yet having her awakening (a spiritual thing), and though it's her birthday (14) another child has (being only 11) had her awakening - and as such stolen the day from Lirael. So, although no physical stress, their is mental anguish. And we still have the dramatic irony of the prologue which means that we, the reader, are expecting whatever it is Hedge is doing to come by Lirael sometime soon.
   
   
3. The Dark Portal
   
   
   Jarvis's book again is different. After a very brief prologue that sets the scene immediately for the world in which we will invest our time - Mice communities, fearing monstrous rats and worshipping in some fashion the Green Mouse and then the danger of the Grill which leads to the sewers and danger. Straight away we are pulled into the world of Albert (a minor character, since by the end of the chapter he will be sacrificed by Jarvis to show the danger that the mice are in - more dramatic irony). Through Albert we have someone to invest our emotions in - he's lost in the sewers - and Jarvis has chosen to give us the extra anxiety that poor Albert being lost will mean he won't be there for his children's Mousebrasses presentation (don't ask, it's not as spiritual as Lirael's awakening - from memory I think it's adulthood). Before we have time to become bored by his moping and lostlessness, we bump into Piccadilly, another lost mouse, and through their dialogue exchanges we learn more about the world and the dangers - references to the rats, chief-rat Morgan and the sinister monster Jupiter. Threats of death soon turn into real death when the two stumble upon Jupiter's alter, we see first hand the exchange between Jupiter and Morgan (learn of his diabolicalness) and hear of plans (just as we do in Lirael) of things to come. Albert of course is eaten and Piccadilly flees.
   
   Out of the three books so far, this one is the only one with a thrilleresque cliff hanger.
   
   
4. Northern Lights
   
   An astonishing piece of writing (that slightly goes askew in book three, but nevertheless is a riveting read) that draws us immediately into this strange world and straight to our protagonist. None of the other four books do this, all opting to set the scene. Here we meet Lyra in the first word, her daemon, admittedly, not until the last third of the page, but nevertheless, Pullman draws us right behind Lyra as the reader goes with her, knowing instinctively that whatever it is she's doing... she shouldn't be.
   
   The hall is dark. She takes care to keep out of sight - she shouldn't be here. She flicks a glass and is told off by Pantalaimon. She disregards him - we understand their relationship (he's Jiminy Cricket and she's headstrong and possibly troublesome). She stops the ringing glass - she's not stupid and does listen to Pantalaimon, as if he indeed acts as her conscience. Pantalaimon wants them to be quick but she refuses every time she gets further - Pan is also the fearful part of her conscious. This is almost like a buddy-buddy situation. These two will play off each other throughout the story, which is compelling in itself. We can tell Lyra will get herself into trouble at future turns because of her behaviour here.
   
   When Asriel arrives Lyra isn't so afraid to stay hidden and saves her Uncle from being murdered. Her will to do what's right, despite getting into trouble for being there, draws the reader to her - she is somehow special, and not just because of her daemon (they all have them), but because we know that she is tricksy but also trust worthy. We know her nature is good and she will persist, despite the threats Asriel makes against her of breaking her arm.
   
   
5. The Trolltooth Wars
   The first of the five to open on a battle, with minor characters. Not much can be said for this opening beyond how well Steve Jackson always managed his battles - whereas I previously mentioned Rowling's wizard fight at the end of the Order of the Phoenix, here Steve Jackson manages his way through the battle so that it's not just a list of who is fighting who, is standing where, is dying how - admittedly this is made easier by the fact we don't know anyone and only have 3 characters names to learn - Donnag Kannu, Foulblade and Orcleaver.
   
   Jackson moves from one immediate piece of action/fighting, draws it back to give a brief paragraph on how this came to be and then darts back to where Foulblade has usurped a Strongarm's mount. We move swiftly to a new point of view, and follow a charge away from the battle, a chase and escape - all in 4 and a half (small) pages. We also have a Mcguffin - that we don't yet know the contents of - kind of like Marcelle Wallace's briefcase in Pulp Fiction.
   
   It won't be until chapter 4 where we meet our hero, however in the second chapter we go with bit part player Donnag Kannu to his master to relate what has occurred (giving no description of this master beyond the beady red of his eyes), and then once the game is set, Donnag is taken away for execution. Then, it's back to the Goblin camp, and a dark encounter with something we assume is from Zharradan Marr (great name), before they head off for the Black Tower.
   
   This moves along faster than the Da Vinci Code (SIC) on steroids, and feels better written too. We realise that none of these characters are good, but it doesn't matter - little boys are in for the ride of death and battling. The scene is set by the end of chapter two and we know from the title - The Trolltooth Wars - that this encounter between the two dark forces is going to have sparked the war. Can it be stopped? What's the Mcguffin? We've met Zharradan Marr, but what of the man in the Black Tower (Balthas Dire) - who is he?
   

RIP - Douglas Hill

I'm always in awe of the nature of coincidence. Strange serendipity brought me to Douglas Hill's obituary today. I'd returned to Waterstones to de-bear from my blue costume (I was sweating like a... big blue bear in summer) and was cooling down with a copy of Waterstones's The Bookseller when I came across it.

Douglas Hill is best known for his Last Legionary quartet, which I'm sure many of us read in school. Anyhoo, why has this affected me so?

Back in 2004 I'd just joined Litopia and had simultaneously started writing a new piece of fiction - Mephisto - I'd sent it off to Real-Writers and paid the handsome sum of £50 for a professional critique. It was the first one I'd ever gone for beside attempting to bug Terry Pratchett once in 1998 via e-mail for him to read my fantasy novel and tell me how to make it better (he wasn't best pleased).

Douglas Hill was the poor pro who had to wade through my turgid prose - The Douglas Hill (come on, work with me here people). He was blunt, to the point, and absolutely brilliant. Along with the support at Litopia and Douglas's deft chop at the crap I was secreting I don't think I'd be anywhere near to the writer I am at the moment (hopefully still moving up). Reading back through it, it's fairly amusing. Here's the covering letter that came with it:

The appraisal of your novel extract is enclosed.

It isn't very promising, I'm afraid. Douglas Hill felt you have a lot to learn if you are going to pull off a novel like this. It's clear you have great enthusiasm and a vivid imagination, but writing fiction is hard work, and successful novelists have taken the time to learn the skills before embarking on anything too ambitious.

You may find Douglas's criticism harsh, but at Real Writers we see little point in telling anything less than the truth as we see it. Douglas has many years of experience in publishing; he is a fantasy writer of some renown, and has also worked both in-house and freelance as an editor. So he knows what works, and what publishers look for; his opinion is worth having, even when he doesn't say what you want to hear.

God Rest in Peace, Douglas. Thanks for your help.