Dark and Secret Writes

Another year...

2012-01-01T14:07:00.000Z

Let me wish all my readers a happy new year. I hope 2012 brings you all you would wish for. I even hope it brings all you wish for other people. I'm guessing that's mainly good things...

Me? Well, I've been busy planning. Ask me what I should be doing on, for example, October 17th at 20:30. Go on, ask!

I'm glad you asked. I should be about 70% through writing a query letter and crafting a synopsis for a novel entitled "Innocent Error".

You see, this is the year I get rid of the backlog.

A less anal person might look at some items in their backlog and delete them. Chalk it up to experience and move on. Fragments (oh, yes, I have many fragments) might, rarely, be slated for completion. More likely, they will be ditched. That first book they wrote will garner a fond smile before being burned. It served its purpose as a training exercise. Now it can be forgotten. This sensible, efficient writer will be focused on the future. They are going to produce one novel and twelve short stories this year, all of which will be rewritten, edited, sent out to beta readers, tweaked, honed and given a final polish before being submitted. All of them. A work, once started, will be completed and sent off.

I salute this efficient, unsentimental, effective writer. I wish them well.

I'm not doing that. Oh, no. I'm going through the entire backlog: rewriting, editing, gaining critiques, honing, polishing...

All of them.

I will start 2013 with no backlog. All my works to date will be out there, fighting for attention and sales. That's five novels, four screenplays and three anthologies of short stories. I can just about finish them all, go through the entire production process, submit them to carefully chosen agents - having regard for location, genre, other clientele and general suitability - and maintain a database of submissions. I should submit the last novel on December 30th, just short of midnight. I can look at the database on 31st December 2012 with a degree of smugness.

A sceptical reader might think - oh, poor dear. He's got writer's block. No new ideas, can't face the blank page anymore.

Not at all. I have plots for two more novels, two screenplays and ideas for about 130 other works stored away. I like to say they're maturing nicely. If past experience is anything to go by (and let's face it, at my age, past experience is frequently all I have to go by) I will generate another twenty or thirty good ideas this year.

Talking of past experience, all my hard-earned knowledge of plans and schedules tells me this plan will last perhaps one week before something happens to throw everything off track. Timetables will go awry, word counts will be hopelessly lacking, I'll have to face change of job, bereavement, moving house and the complete demise of Western society as we know it. Ah well, no change there.

Which is why I've restricted my New Year's resolutions to these three:

I will submit two different novels to agents this year
I will submit two different screenplays to agents this year
I will self-publish one anthology of linked short stories

I like the ambiguity. About fifty percent of theoretical maximum output, and I don't specify which novels, screenplays and anthology. Because I know in one year's time, I'll be writing:

"I will start 2014 with no backlog. All my works to date will be out there..."

Until the next time - enjoy!

You thought they were dead?

2011-10-26T20:01:00.000+01:00

In good olde Britain, many years ago, there was a bunch called the Puritans.

They started out with good intentions; they wanted to strip away all the ritual and flummery from Church services. Good on them, we cry!

But then they got into power. And, big surprise, they didn't stop there. They ended up being extremists. They banned singing, dancing and enjoyment. "You are here to praise God, not to enjoy yourself," some of them might have cried. Then we had the restoration; King Charles I, the Merry Monarch, came back and all was well with the world. The Puritans slunk away into the dark, and all was well.

Aye, and all manner of things would be well. No more puritans. The world would never hear of them again.

Did you think that? No more puritans?

Dumbass!

They are back, and they run our lives - or try to.

Oh sure, they don't step up, bold as brass, and say "We are Puritans, and we will now control your lives!"

If they said that, OK, fair play, they set themselves up as a target to fight against. But no, not these new puritans.

They sneak in, via unnoticed bye-laws. They infiltrate well-meaning special interest groups. They crawl into local government, or perhaps masquerade as innocuous MPs, disguising their true intent until they have a sniff of power. They recruit naive but eloquent speakers on their behalf.

How to spot one?

Their message is always the same: "Thou shalt not..."

I write this as a man, straight, approaching sixty. I eat meat and fornicate with women. I am of middle height, fat (though I prefer the words stocky or robust), don't exercise much, drink alcohol and smoke.

They hate me.

Daily I am exhorted, stridently, to do things for the sake of: the planet, the environment, my neighbours, my society, my friends, information security, the future of mankind (sorry, personkind) and above all, for the sake of people living in places I can't even pronounce.

If I don't comply, I will be shunned, reviled against in general, and probably taxed. My carbon footprint will be held up to appall the doubters; I will be denounced, heaven forfend, as not green.

These new puritans go further. They will dumb-down any TV serial I might enjoy, because it might give offence to vegetarian, one-legged, vertically-challenged, differently-sane one-parent Esquimaux.

Now, to all vegetarian, one-legged, vertically-challenged, differently-sane one-parent Esquimaux out there who are outraged by my life-style choices, I say: get a life.

To the new puritans out there protesting on their behalf I say: leave your life.

To the rest of us I say: be warned. They haven't gone away. The bastards who would stop you living as you wish are still around, and they mean to stop you.

Give them the sign - you know, the one that means they're number one!

Yes, that finger!

Reality versus perception

2011-10-05T11:43:00.000+01:00

This post has been triggered by the Amanda Knox / Meredith Kercher case.

Now, I don't know the details of the case, so I'm not going to comment on the initial verdict or its overturn in the subsequent appeal. But what has struck me is the opposing views of Amanda Knox.

To much of the American media, she is a heroine, unjustly accused, fighting for a thousand days to clear her name. To most of the rest of the world she is evil, manipulative and a sociopath.

Whatever the truth, she will profit from it, no matter how just or unjust that may be. But why the discrepancy?

Why do the American public view her as a clean cut, pretty, young American girl and therefore innocent, persecuted by depraved and corrupt Italian officialdom? Why do the Brits feel she's slithered out of her conviction because of incompetence on the part of - yes, you've guessed it - corrupt Italian officialdom?

Perceptions. That's why. Most of the world regard the Italian police and judiciary as hopelessly corrupt. Most Italians probably think the same. But that does not make it true. Most Americans regard clean-cut American girls abroad as incapable of being criminals. Doesn't make it true. Some people believe the Moon is made of green cheese, and if it isn't then it's really, really unfair. The Moon doesn't care. It isn't made of cheese and isn't going to change for anyone. It has no motivation to make the change. It is made of rock and dust and it's staying that way.

Reality is what it is, and no matter how you view it, it will remain unchanged.

What about the Observer Effect? I hear you cry. You know, where the act of observing (perceiving) something alters the fundamental nature of the thing being watched.

Deep philosophical point. The effect of bombarding sub-atomic particles with X-rays in order to discern their structure might well change their structure, position, spin, charge or any other properties. True. The act of looking at Amanda Knox as an innocent victim does not make her one.

If a branch falls in the forest and no-one is there to observe, has it fallen?

Duh, yes it has. Does it make a sound? Well, who knows. And, frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn.

So the true role of a PR agent is to change our perception of reality and thus influence our actions with regard to that (apparently) altered reality. Not Public Relations but Permeable Reality.

Cool job!

The arrogance of youth

2011-09-29T19:10:00.000+01:00

o tempora, o mores...

First let me say if you are reading this, are young and not at all arrogant, this doesn't apply to you. But I bet you can recognise several of your friends. Also, if you're reading this, are not so young and very arrogant - well, welcome to the club.

This post has been inspired by a seventeen-year-old recent member of the Goodreads community. This person, who shall remain nameless save to say he goes by a shortened version of Shakespeare's first name, has apparently never encountered the concept of spellchecking. Neither has he discovered the shift key. Punctuation? Never heard of it.

R u stil wiv me? lmao.

That sort of language, in and of itself, is perhaps excusable. Maybe he missed many years of schooling due to some loathsome and socially embarrassing disease. Maybe he has an old keyboard and the shift key doesn't work. Or maybe he has merely fallen into bad and lazy habits while endlessly texting drivel about American Idol.

What is not excusable is that when it was pointed out to him, gently at first, more scathingly later, that in a group devoted to fiction writing and the improvement thereof, it behooved him to use such basic constructs as sentences; that it was impolite to pour out meaningless, illiterate drivel riddled with errors of spelling and syntax; that complete ideas are often possible even in the most difficult of circumstances; why, what was his reaction?

'i wrt how i wrt lol; lmao; its my ideers thast re impotent.'

When it was mentioned that asking a question like 'how do i publish an e book' showed an arrogant reluctance to do even the most basic of research for himself before asking other people to spend their time on him - same response.

A lazy, arrogant youth with, apparently, precious little to be arrogant about. Maybe he thinks he looks like Brad Pitt.

I have to say he is only the third example of such feckless idiocy I have encountered in three years as a Goodreads member. They generally are self-selected out when they realise it's a site devoted to books.

Why planning doesn't matter any more...

2011-09-26T15:28:00.000+01:00

Do you like to plan things? I'm not restricting this to plotting before writing; I'm thinking in a wider, life-skill way.

Recent trends in business, industry and politics seem to me to have announced the death-knell of meticulous planning. Governments do whatever tabloid surveys suggest would be popular without working out consequences. Companies plough on with changes to structure and organization without thinking about the effect on quality of provision or the problems such changes will cause.

Oh, of course. Sorry. We don't have problems any more; we have challenges.

I can see several advantages to not having rigid plans for the future.

It's impossible to anticipate every eventuality. Your lovely plan may have to be changed or even scrapped very early on
Trying to cater for everything that could go wrong will ultimately lead to paralysis
Adaptability and flexibility are vital qualities everyone should possess

That doesn't mean you don't plan at all. You make your plans broad in scope, sketchy in detail. They will guide you along the right lines, satisfy the major thrust of your activity, help you stay on track.

While it's true, in military terms, that no plan survives first contact with the enemy, the armed forces still have plans to get them going in the first place. How to get in, what you do when you're there and how to get out; these are vital elements of every military plan. If they continue to plan, even though they know full well the plan is doomed to fail - shouldn't we do likewise?

Otherwise, we would live our lives like some demented character from a self-help book: 'Ready, fire, aim...'

Experience not required?

2011-09-13T14:23:00.002+01:00

There is a depressing trend, in many organizations in the UK, to put cost ahead of all other criteria when it comes to employing staff.

"Surely not!" I hear you cry. "Unbelievable!"

Believe it. I've seen it happening to a dear friend of mine this year. She is immensely talented, highly qualified, massively experienced, deeply committed and hugely successful at what she does. She also costs quite a bit per hour.

So she's being replaced by a new graduate willing to work for about half the salary. The fact the new graduate will not be legally or even mentally able to do half the things my friend did seems to be irrelevant. The need for these things still exists; that need won't be met unless the organization throws its (metaphorical) hands up in defeat and hires an outside consultant. Who will cost more ultimately than my friend ever did.

It's the underlying messages that worry me. Many employers seem to believe qualifications are more important than experience; that theory accurately reflects reality. This is delusional thinking. Basing decisions on faulty paradigms always leads to disaster.

It's also a subtle form of ageism. Someone with twenty-five years experience in a subject is going to be at least twenty-five years older than someone with no experience in that subject. Let's not forget, young people are willing to work for less than more mature people because they are less convinced of their own worth.

'Intern' is a fancy way of saying 'slave'.

An organization that makes its employment decisions based on cost rather than quality is an organization that is doomed. The demise may be a few years coming, because of the nature of the employment sector it's in, but doom is on its way. The sad thing is, the organization of which I write is only one of many, all of them doing the same thing. I foresee calamitous times ahead for us all.

Remember, you heard it here first.

Schedule your life

2011-09-08T16:01:00.000+01:00

Yesterday, I wrote about the follies of organizing your life with absolutes - like I will write for six hours a day. What do you mean - you didn't read it? Go away and read it now.

Go on. I'll wait right here till you get back.

Done? OK, let's move on. We all agree that shit happens, and it happens all the time; usually it happens to us. So we need to take account of it in any planning or scheduling we do.That means allocating a large chunk of time where we do nothing. Most days, something unexpected will crop up and that time will get filled somehow. If nothing goes wrong, great; we have a couple of hours free time to do anything we like. Read, write, watch a sunset, drink a barrel of ale.

Here, in no particular order, are some other things to remember when creating a schedule.

Avoid averages. We may work 48 weeks/year, 37.5 hours/week, which equals 1800 hours, or an average of 5 hours/day. However, we don't work five hours/day on the days we go to work.What with actual work, and travelling to and from, most people have nine hours or more taken out of their life on workdays. Similarly, we don't work any hours at weekends or during holidays - at least not for our job. We may work for ourselves, but that's a different matter.
The converse of 'avoid averages' is 'be specific'. So do it. Be specific. Your schedule should reflect reality. If you leave for work at 7:55AM Monday-Thursday, that's what should be in the schedule.
Keep it real. If you've always had your evening meal at 19:00 hours, keep it like that. Why change anything you don't need to? You'll only upset yourself and those around you.
Avoid ideals. By that, I don't mean become a person of dubious morals. I mean you may approach an ideal state of being occasionally, but normally you're like the rest of us: flawed, weak and undependable. It may be your ideal to run half marathons before breakfast, avoid alcohol and eat a high-fibre five-a-day diet while paying your bills on time and never cheating the Government. It may be your ideal, but if you try and live it, you'll end up mugging some poor sod for his bacon sandwich.You know yourself. You know you'll never do what you'd like to do. You can, however, do something towards it.
Think small. Never mind exercising for two hours a day. Start with fifteen minutes a few times a week.
Symmetry is great. Don't distort your random life trying to achieve it.

I'll share my schedule with you now, and explain why I chose various options. It's a good schedule. It's good because it can be done and I can stick to it.

Mostly.

But if all you're doing is creating new stuff for two hours every evening, when does the editing and proofing and so on get done?

Good question. Notice that schedule is weekdays. At weekends, I work for 8 hours on Saturday and 4 hours on Sunday. That's the rewrites, line edits, proofreading and so on. So it's about 24 hours per week in total during term time. During the 13 weeks of holidays, I'm writing or editing for about 40 hours per week.So, in my nice relaxed way, I'm still managing as much time writing per year as I am doing paid work for other people.

Which is nice.

Notice the work/life balance? I'm in bed for eight hours a day, working for eight, and having eight to myself - writing, eating, exercising, chilling out. Better than a busy-busy-busy timetable, don't you think?

Think small

2011-09-07T13:46:00.001+01:00

Traditionally, motivational gurus and self-help enthusiasts encourage us to think big. 'Dream on a grand scale' they advise us, and 'reach for the stars'. They pour scorn on the old advice not to set your sights too high.

But are they right? If you set high standards and challenging targets, do you risk overwhelming yourself before you even get started?

I think so. Let's consider a typical person developing a new daily schedule to fit in all the things they want to do, in addition to all the things they need to do. Let's even assume they have the luxury that all these things actually fit into a standard twenty-four hour day. The alternative involves emigration to a planet with a slower rotational period.

Wow! I have an entire four hours a day free. Well, I've long been meaning to start an exercise programme that'll convert me from a couch potato to an Olympic athlete in two years, so that's two hours a day. That leaves two hours per day for writing.

Two hours? That's not very much, is it? You won't be producing two books, two screenplays and twelve short stories a year just by writing two hours a day, will you?

You're right. OK, let's see if we can't economise a bit. I can cycle to work, which is as quick as using the car and takes care of the exercise as well. And no-one really needs to sleep for eight hours; six would be fine.That gives us six hours a day free to write.

That's more like it. Six hours a day is about 6000 words. Assume we take Christmas day, New Year's day, two birthdays and the summer solstice off, that's 360 days a year times 6000 equals 2.1 million words. Also assume that you have to write about 360,000 words to produce a finished standard novel, 100,000 for a finished screenplay and about half a million for the short stories, blogs and everything else: that means we can produce our two books, two screenplays, twelve short stories, our weekly blog and still have time for our new mammoth epic fantasy series, one giant volume per year! Sorted!

Great. I'll just produce the daily schedule now...

Yeah, right. I'm sure many of us have devised schedules like that. I know I have.

Guess what?

It won't work. Ever. Oh, you might be able to stick to it for a few days, with a Herculean effort of willpower, but it's unsustainable for medium or long periods. Worse, it will leave you with a learned aversion to cycling and writing which may last for the rest of your life.

So what's the matter with the schedule?

Let's take a typical day. It's winter. You really want to leap out of bed at five to write for a couple of hours, don't you? It's cold and dark and wet outside, and it's not too sparkling inside. But no, you do it. Well done you! Except it won't be two hours writing, because it takes a small but measurable length of time to get up, get dressed and switch on the PC. So, it's about 1 hour 50 minutes. Already you are ten minutes adrift.

You can wash, dress, cook and eat your breakfast in an hour, so that's OK. You pull on the wet weather gear and cycle off to work. In the rain, into the headwind; with the lorries throwing icy, muddy spray in your face as they thunder past with an inch to spare.

You get to work. It's chaos. Network systems have failed and major new orders have to be filled. You have to work through your lunch break and stay until six in the evening to get things done. Cycle home, picking up a puncture on the way.

Now it's official. You're knackered. You need to eat, your wife is getting dressed up, there's a bill to pay and already it's way past seven. The upstairs tap is dripping, your better half expects you to go out with her to that party you were told about a month ago and you're getting a stinking cold.

Looks like there'll be no writing tonight, unless you stay up till three in the morning. If you do that, you'll have two hours sleep before it starts all over again. Your wife wants to snuggle in bed and if you refuse yet again, you'll end up with pneumonia, divorced and sacked because you keep falling asleep at work.

I know, because I've been down that route, if not all the way.

Next time, I'll share how I now produce a schedule that has a good chance of working, but for now, remember this: shit happens. In fact, shit happens daily.

You need to have periods of time that are actually left free to accomodate these unexpected little crises. You need to allow time for snuggling with your nearest and dearest. You need time to read and watch films and TV dramas to analyse how other writers handle things well (or badly). You need to get enough sleep.

Oh, and two hours writing a day? That's what Stephen King does, and he seems to have produced a fair amount over the years.

Motivation - where does it go?

2011-08-31T15:53:00.001+01:00

Aaahhh yes, motivation: that topic beloved of self-helpers and psycho-babblers everywhere.

What, you may ask yourself, can I possibly write about motivation that many people before haven't already done a thousand times over?

Good question.

Well, I can give you my own, unique perspective on motivation - that blend of experience and character that I, and I alone, can bring to bear on this subject.

Fair enough, but before we do that, let's all be sure we're talking about the same thing:

Motivation (noun): The psychological feature that arouses an organism to action toward a desired goal; the reason for the action; that which gives purpose and direction to behaviour.

OK. How many times have you heard someone complain they just don't have the motivation to do something? Ten? A hundred? Yeah, right. Several thousand times minimum. And it isn't at all surprising.

Shall I dispel this myth of motivation for all time? Shall I? You really want me to? OK.

Motivation is a myth. There ain't no such thing.

Look, there are two categories of actions in our world. There are things you have to do, and there are things you want to do.

If you have to do something, motivation doesn't apply. You have to eat. If you don't, you die. No motivation needed there, surely. You have to die. It's unavoidable. Motivation doesn't apply. You have to pay your taxes - if you don't you go to jail.

Ah, OK, there might be a motivation issue. You have two options - pay tax or go to jail. Which would you rather do? If you'd rather go to jail, don't pay your taxes. Sorted. Where is the motivation problem?

All things involve want. When it comes to writing, people say they lack the motivation to edit their works. No they don't. They would just rather do something else than submit a finished novel. If they wanted to submit the novel badly enough, they would do the editing. Motivation not necessary.

Whenever you hear or read the word motivation, replace it with desire or want. If you want to send off your novel, you'll do what it takes. If you'd rather lie on the beach working on your tan - then for goodness sake, lie on the damn beach. Who cares? The world won't end because your novel never got published. The only person who really gives a damn is you. Do it or don't do it.

But if you don't do it, please don't whine about how guilty you feel, or how you lacked motivation. Just be honest. Something else was more appealing. No guilt, no problem with self-image or fear of success or procrastination. You didn't edit because you didn't want to.

End of story.

Muddy waters - suitable for bottom feeders

2011-08-05T12:53:00.000+01:00

This is a comment I've just left on The Write Agenda (TWA) website.

What, so all these well-respected literary figures and organizations are engaged in smear and hate campaigns against the rip-off guys and the vanity publishers? Hard to believe. I quote from nielsenhayden.com - April 19th this year:

"Word to the wise: a new outfit calling itself The Write Agenda has been taking potshots at Victoria Strauss, Ann Crispin, our own Jim Macdonald, Absolute Write, Writer Beware, Preditors and Editors, SFWA, Atlanta Nights, and other entities that give newbie writers helpful information about the scams and nogoodniks that prey on them."

So Preditors and Editors and the Science Fiction Writers of America - organizations that are legendary for the impartial, disinterested and unstinting help they give to authors, would-be authors and newcomers - are biased and inaccurate when they adversely comment about Publish America and Author House?

I don't think so.

The fact that the people behind The Write Agenda choose to remain anonymous is enough to convince me this site is an attempt by a combine of sharks to muddy the waters enough they can still continue feeding off their innocent, gullible and needy prey.

This comment posted at 12:29 BST, August 5th 2011. Let's see how long it remains up here and what response it gets.

I've personal experience of some of the authors and organizations TWA is attacking. I've found them, without exception, to be thoughtful, honest, helpful and impartial. They have not attempted to charge me fees or rip me off in any way. They have not attempted to sell me anything.

TWA haven't attempted to sell me anything either. They have, however, attempted to dissuade me, with one star reviews, from purchasing the books of several authors whose work I admire.

They gave one star to a collaborative anthology called Menage-a-20. I'm one of the authors in that anthology. My work is far better than one star. All the authors in there are better than one star. Many of them have in the past attacked Publish America and Author House for their dubious practices.

Coincidence they get one star?

Probably not.

And before you say that reviews are a matter of personal taste, I'd like to point out a fact: there are thirty stories in Menage. They encompass a wide variety of styles, themes and genres. Surely they can't all offend the reviewer's tastes?

But don't take my word for the quality of the stories. Download the anthology. Check it out for yourself. It's free. Then check out the reputation of the authors in the anthology.

Decide for yourself who you'd rather believe.

What is horror?

2011-01-17T10:52:00.000Z

How would I define a work of horror?

I've taken part in a few, and read or heard many more, discussions on this subject. None of them have precisely expressed what I think makes a horror story. So here is my opinion, for what it's worth.

For starters, there is no one definition of horror.

Oh, that's really helpful, isn't it?

Yes, but there's more.

Many people have said that if an author intends to scare the reader, that makes the work Horror. More have said if the material scares the reader, the work is Horror.

If that were the case, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by William L Shirer would be a masterpiece of surreal horror, set in a society like ours.

Oh, no, wait, that actually happened, didn't it?

No, horror, as I define it, is a work of fiction. And horrific fiction quite happily divides into three types.

Type One

Works set in our world, as we know it, with few, if any, changes. Examples might be The Silence of the Lambs or The Girl Next Door. Now, to me, while horrific, these are not works of Horror. You might call them thrillers, or suspense, or anything else you like, but not Horror. I class these as books about things that do happen. There are cannibals, serial killers and neighbourly torture clubs.

Type Two

If Type One is things that do happen, then Type Two is things that could happen, given a few changes. Aliens conquer the world. Crazed military scientist unleashes a Doomsday virus (or it escapes). Neural networks become self-aware. Consider The Puppetmasters or Prey. Again, to me, not Horror. Call it action sci-fi, or speculative fiction.

So what does that leave?

Type Three

Things that could never happen. I'm really, really sorry, folks. There are no vampires, werewolves, ghosts, demons, dragons, djinns or zombies. It's a great shame, 'cos I love them too. But they aren't real. Never could be, never will be.

That doesn't stop us writing about them. This, to me, is Horror. Supernatural, playing with death and beyond.

There is a caveat here - the action must take place in a world that is recognisably ours, but with nasties added. For example Bag of Bones, Rosemary's Baby and Dracula. If it takes place on another world, it's probably fantasy. If there is a large element of magic used routinely, it's fantasy.

So there you have it - a story about something that could never exist, added into our world, and scaring the crap out of us, because we've suspended belief and accepted that there are vampires and evil deities resurrected from the dawn of time.

Now that's proper Horror.

This editing year - 1

2011-01-03T11:30:00.000Z

It seems like a long time ago I last wrote about editing. OK, it was a long time ago. Must have been June last year. Then I advised myself and you, constant readers, to make a spreadsheet of beta-readers' comments.

'OK, did that, now what?' you cry.

I went through the book in question, adding notes to the manuscript (Word: Insert: Comment) in all the places my readers had found something to remark on. Plus, I added my own comments here and there - pithy little notes to myself like 'Move this bit six months forward' or 'Add some action here - perhaps flashback'. Most of the time I read the book with great pleasure, often remarking 'Oh! Great writing here.' Then, with regret, I added a note: 'Flowery - rewrite.'

The entire process took about four hours - remember, this is a standard-sized novel. (Well, actually it's currently some 57K words, so needs fleshing out here and there.)

Next comes the tricky bit. Going through the manuscript a second time, when I come to a note (highlighted in yellow on my system), I read it.

Then I do it.

For example, the words 'Chapter One' had a note attached. It read 'Add prologue'. When I'd got over the shock of having to make a change so early in the book, I got on with it.

The tricky bit is writing a prologue in the same style and tone as the rest of the book. Remember, I wrote this manuscript about ten months ago. The person writing this prologue (me) is not the same person who wrote Chapter One (me-in-the-past).

Having written the prologue, I deleted the note and moved on the the next one. Read-do-delete note. And so on...

Some of changes require great attention to detail. Moving chunks around in time has a knock-on effect on many other sections of the book. It may also require additional research. What time is sunrise in mid-April in Mid-Wales? What is the weather like generally? Then there are questions like 'If this happens in April and not October, what effect does that have on characters X, Y and Z?'

With flashbacks, it's the same. What was my protagonist supposed to have been doing three years ago? If I have him in action in East Africa, do I say somewhere else that he was in Afghanistan at the time?

This has pointed out some useful tips to bear in mind for future novels. One is the importance of a detailed timeline and back-story for all the characters. I thought I'd done that with this manuscript, but I was wrong. Yes, I'd itemised significant events - date, time, place, summary - but what about the rest? What about that vast collection of apparently insignificant events and activities that form the great bulk of everyones' lives? I didn't have them.

I'm not saying write a day-by-day diary for each character:

Fred, January 3rd, 1989. Got up 06:00, had toast for breakfast. Still staying at 2437 Pacific Heights Boulevard. Broke a vase this morning. Good bowel movement at 0746. The Presidential assassination was postponed again. It's raining.

That would be ridiculous. But a note like 'Jan 89, Fred in California. Did not assassinate the President. Pete in East Africa, killing Chinese sponsored guerrillas. Feb 89 Fred and Pete back at base. Training. Mar 89...' would have been helpful.

When I've finished the big - the macroscopic if you like - edits, I'll be reading and re-reading the manuscript looking for inconsistencies. Then I'll be delving into the minutiae of the language itself. I'll cover these topics later.

Until then - enjoy!

Dark and Secret Writes: Hello, 2011

2011-01-02T11:10:00.000Z

Dark and Secret Writes: Hello, 2011: "So, a year has come and gone, not with a bang but with a whimper. It seems to have passed in a haze of work, more work, pressure and not eno..."

Hello, 2011

2011-01-02T10:47:00.000Z

So, a year has come and gone, not with a bang but with a whimper. It seems to have passed in a haze of work, more work, pressure and not enough sleep. (Of course, that could be a function of alcohol and declining cerebral function due to age.) I enjoyed writing during the last twelve months, and, looking back, I did actually manage to produce quite a volume of work - several full length first drafts of novels, a few film scripts, multiple short stories.

That's the good news. The bad news is those works now sit on various hard drives and memory sticks leering at me; they issue the taunting cry - 'Go on, scribbler. Edit us - if you dare.'

Well, I dare. I can't resist a challenge like that. Am I a man or a mouse?

Now, where did that cheese go?

Who will win? Me or approx. 3,200 pages of manuscripts? Only time will tell. The pity is, I have at least four projects I want to start this year, but I think they're going to have to sit on a shelf somewhere in the subconscious becoming mouldy. Or perhaps maturing like fine wines and cheeses.

OK, I've looked back and there's no one creeping up behind me with malicious intent and clutching a sharp object. Now, let's look forward.

There is no light at the end of the tunnel. This is good, because it means there's no one up ahead with a torch bringing me more work. So, ignoring the average four hours every day I spend earning money to pay the bills, and the six hours a day I spend sleeping, and the two hours a day eating, washing, dressing and the like, it means all the rest can be devoted to writing and reading.

So editing it is. Beta readers (yes, you know who you are. Don't hide at the back. There is no escape,) prepare to be deluged with manuscripts over the next few months.

A word on some changes to the format of this blog. I've joined the Amazon affiliate program, so when I review books, if you click on the link you can go straight to Amazon and buy them. Yes, I will receive a commission if you do that, but believe me when I say I will only recommend books I have actually read and enjoyed. If I read a book and dislike it, I'll make that fact clear in the review. I may have lousy taste, but at least I'm consistent.

Finally, may I wish all readers a happy and fulfilling year. I hope you all enjoy yourself as much as I hope to in the next twelve months.

Review: Author Jack Ketchum

2010-07-24T19:23:00.007+01:00

Hi all!

I've spent a happy few hours reading two books by Jack Ketchum, an author I'd heard much about but never read before.

The books are: Off Season and The Girl Next Door. Both are horror. Neither are for the faint of heart or weak of stomach. By the way, the version of Off Season is not the neutered one that Ballantine Books produced in the 1980s but the revised and partially recovered one that Ketchum produced much later. So if you've read the earlier version (apparently) the later one is much, much nastier.

Unlike Twilight, which I guess most people have read by now, Ketchum might be a new name. I suppose not many have read his works. So I will try very hard to avoid spoilers.

Off Season

This is certainly one of the goriest, most violent works I have ever read. And yet, none of the gore and violence is gratuitous. It's there because it needs to be. Written in 3rd person limited POV, that shifts often (sometimes confusingly), it's a story that offers scant rays of hope and goodness. The predominant feeling is bleak, savage and dark. From a kick-ass start, it maintains a fast-paced writing style, flowing natural dialogue, good characterization, frequent dizzying blows to our expectations throughout, and ends in a chilling and thrilling climax. This book kept me going non-stop. It gives several nods to other icons of horror such as Romero's Night of the Living Dead, and is similar in style, perhaps, to some of James Herbert's more misanthropic works, but its style - I have come to discover - is uniquely Ketchum's own.

I give it an unhesitating 4 stars.

The Girl Next Door

This is in many ways totally diferent to Off Season. We start with an idyllic country scene, young boy in the 1950's playing in a stream, hunting crayfish. Reminiscent of Stephen King in IT.

Told throughout from the point of view of this twelve-year-old, the story takes us through a gradually intensifying maelstrom of horror, made much worse by the sheer prosaicness of the setting. We join in the creeping paralysis and helplessness that besets our protagonist; unwilling yet fascinated voyeurs with him in the flow of events. Reminiscent perhaps of A Simple Plan in its portrayal of the banality and lack of imagination shown by evil.

This one disturbed me more, because it could happen to the girl next door (if there were a girl next door).

Another 4 stars.

Similarities

Neither book has the slightest trace of the supernatural or paranormal in it. Both portray, unflinchingly, the evil that man can do to fellow man.

But the greatest similarity is this: both books depict creatures of human shape, human DNA, human ancestry that walk among us, yet are stranger and more alien than the amoeba. Human they look, but they do not share anything in common with us apart from physical shape - no emotion, no compassion, no fellow feeling. They aren't humane beings, and they barely deserve the title of human beings.

All done without recourse to magic, soul-stealing or any other typical mechanism of much horror fare.

These are both books I'll read again. And probably again.

Book Review - Twilight by Stephenie Meyer

2010-07-20T11:56:00.008+01:00

OK, I was the last person on the planet to read Twilight. I hadn't read any of the other three books in the Edward/Bella series. I haven't seen the films, or even trailers for the films.

How? Just lucky, I guess.

All I knew about Twilight was that young girls raved over it, anyone over the age of thirty hated it, those blessed (or cursed) with even minimal amounts of testosterone became nauseous in its presence, and vampire afficionados spat garlic and holy water when any mention was made of sparkly vampires.

So, last weekend, since my daughter has the complete set, I read Twilight with a relatively open mind.

Possible spoilers
Let me start on a positive note. I liked Stephenie Meyer's style of writing - fast, easy, page-turning stuff. But then I also like Dan Brown's writing style for the same reasons. And James Patterson. All three have accessible, smooth prose and, generally speaking, fairly natural and believable dialogue.

Back to Stephenie.

So, I liked the style. I'm afraid that's almost it for the good points.

Now for the rest.

Content
Our main character is a teenage girl (Bella). Shallow, self-obsessed and totally absorbed in trivia. Never mind global famine or war in Afghanistan. She worries about what her new friends will think of her, and does that green go with her eyes.

Oh, and she falls like so totally in love with a vampire in the space of two weeks or so.

This vampire has nothing going for him except for being inhumanly beautiful, amazingly fast, unbelievably strong, rich and, presumably, never belching or farting. Well, he doesn't eat, does he? Oh, and he saves her life three times.

See? The girl is shallow, like I said. Nothing about his personality, mind, world view or plans for the future. In fact, all the characters are shallow, veering from furious to placid in the space of two sentences - which is always the sign of poor characterization. Real people, and real vampires, hold grudges. They harbour festering resentments. They are slow to change their opinions. Not in teen-girl world, obviously.

No, wait - Edward Vampire is a tortured soul. We know he's tortured, because both he and the author tell us so, constantly. He is in torment, torn between killing the annoying whiny teenager and falling in love with her. He writhes on a knife edge. He oscillates between love and thirst.

Hmmm. Vampires aren't supposed to have a soul, are they?

Most of the vampires in this book have the same moral dilemma. Humans - frail, slow, blundering, short-lived, pathetic - friends or food? Social circle or herd? No wonder people, including our heroine, want to become vampires. Where's the downside?

The vampires - yes, plural. There is a family of these demi-gods going to school with our heroine. This school is set in Washington State. The cloudiest, wettest, most cloud-bound, fog-shrouded part of Washington State. Echoes of Thirty Days of Night.

Why there?

Because our vampires sparkle in the sunlight. It's the place in the USA with the least amount of sunlight per year. The author explains this sparkling as a mechanism to entice their prey closer.

OK, you can catch fish with something shiny. So if their prey (us, remember?) has the IQ of a mackerel, that's plausible. Oh, wait, teenage girls - yes, fair enough.

These vampires also play baseball. Score one for irony. No problem there.

Oh, and they don't hunt humans any more, because they've all sworn to be good vampires. Sometimes they slip, but not often. Well, yes... I suppose I could just about accept that.

When Bella first thinks Edward is a vampire, and then has it confirmed, her reaction is: 'OK, yeah, so, like nobody's perfect, yah? Look how handsome he is.' Where was the emotional trauma about falling in love with a blood-sucking creature of the night? An undead creature of limitless evil? Oh, sorry, I forgot, these are good vampires. They don't even have bad breath.

The trouble with the book, is that in five hundred pages, nothing much actually happens.

She falls in love, he saves her life, but it's all negligible in terms of visceral action or excitement. Even when a rival clan of 'bad' vampires hunts her, we have no real action. There is a hunt, the excitement builds, she is separated from her vamp protectors, she sacrifices herself for the sake of others. Yes! Action at last!

Er, sadly, no. The climax of the book, from my point of view, is totally missed because our protagonist passes out before most of the action occurs. I felt cheated.

And, if I had to read one more occurrence of ' crooked grin', 'sculpted chest', 'burning eyes' or 'compelling gaze' I was going to vomit.

The biggest problem of all?

Plot structure. There isn't one. There is no nemesis. A baddie is brought in 75% through the book, but he's an incidental plot mechanism enabling the author to further elaborate on the implausibly sudden, unbelievably intense love of girl and vamp. You can discount the Indian boy who also wants Bella, and is a werewolf, because he won't be revealed until Book Two or Three. Because there is no nemesis, we can have no major action. It's all Act One - set up stuff.

Of course, for commercial reasons, that may have been the intention all along. How many people bought the book only to find that, in order to gain satisfaction, they had to buy two or three more books afterwards?

So, my verdict?

If you're a teenage girl worried about surface appearances, peer pressure, the allure of 'bad boys' and very little else - 5 stars.

If you belong to the real human race - 2 stars.

But I do think that Stephenie identified and hit her target market perfectly. I have nothing but admiration for that. She can write well. She just needs a decent plot and some believable characters to bring out the best in her.

Software and aids for writing

2010-07-15T16:38:00.008+01:00

Well, after another massive hiatus, almost fifteen weeks this time, service is resumed.

This post was inspired by a thread, of similar name, in the On Fiction Writing forum on Goodreads. Since it first appeared, I've spent a few hours trying out some of the software mentioned there, so you, Constant Readers, don't have to. Here are a few things I've discovered.

The non-electronic route

I still use some methods for planning and writing that don't (gasp, shock horror) depend on a steady supply of electricity. For example:

Plot outline - written, pencil, A4 writing pad
Scene outlines - 3 inch X 4 inch index cards, arranged in order
Character bio - pencil, A4 pad
Timeline - as above

I have even, when separated from PC or laptop, used A4 pads to actually write stuff - you know, the actual prose. Yes, it can still be done without a keyboard or an i-Pad.

In fact, most of my best stories come from just lying in the sun, bottle of beer to hand, writing stuff with a pencil. No worries about extension leads, glare on screens or any of that hi-tech nonsense.

But, since you have, at some point, to produce it electronically for printing or emailing to potential buyers, the sooner you start the digital process the better, I suppose.

The Electronic Route

Well, for research, obviously.

But also...

As some of you may have read before, I tend to write using MS Word 2000. I use a set of templates from the BBC Writers Room, ScriptSmart, which allow me to produce either novels or screenplays, American or British, without having to worry about word counts, font, paragraph format, scene breaks, slug lines and the like - the templates take care of all of that for me.

However, ScriptSmart for the novel or short story seems to have disappeared now, leaving only the screenplay versions. More worryingly, with later versions of Word in Office 2003 or Office 2007, the templates cause the document to lock up after perhaps twenty pages, leaving you unable to add any more. You either have to cut and paste into a new document or start another document for the rest of the story. So these templates are becoming less useful as time goes on.

You could of course create your own templates to do the same thing, from within whatever version of Office you have, but that requires a degree of specialist knowledge, and I'm trying to be broad based here.

I also use Excel spreadsheets to keep track of comments that critiquers use - aligning comments and suggestions with the particular scenes they refer to, so I can see at a glance who's said what about something.

So that's Microsoft Office.

Many people swear by Open Office and indeed, I have an installation of that on a USB memory stick, just in case I'm ever stuck somewhere with a PC and no MS Office in sight. It has perfectly good word processing and spreadsheet software, can import and export from and to all versions of MS Office, and can save things as PDF, which my version of MS Office can't. I could just as easily use Open Office as MS Office for routine stuff like writing. It even has a feature akin to the 'Track Changes' feature of Word, which would allow me to edit other people's stuff, or accept and reject changes that others have made to my works. It's called 'Changes' in Open Office.

But what about specialist software designed especially for novelists and scriptwriters?

OK, I'll discuss some here, but I will focus on Open Source software - for 'Open Source' read 'free'.

Write or Die

Write or Die is a program (install the desktop version in case your Internet connection goes down) that gives you a text editor. You set yourself a challenge, say 500 words in 15 minutes. Begin writing. If you haven't touched the keyboard for 15 seconds, pondering the exact word to use to show subtle nuance, the screen starts turning pink. You have perhaps 10 more seconds before the program plays a loud, really annoying sound. You have failed the challenge. If you don't complete your 500 words in 15 minutes, you get an even louder, even more annoying piece of music. If, on the other hand, you succeed, you get a nice little fanfare.

The point of this application is that it forces you to write. It's for producing first drafts, where, as we all know, the object is to slap your story down as fast as possible and to hell with the errors, repetitions and generally crap standard of writing. WoD can even be configured to disable the backspace key. It's an aide to productivity.

The Internet version, browser based, is free. The desktop version costs $10. I have found it has increased my output from 1000 words per hour to 1500 words per hour. No time for daydreams, or to roll a cigarette. Write or Die!

Drawbacks - yes. Produces text (.txt) output only. You can append your output to a text file, but at some point, you have to copy and paste to another processor to add format, font, italics and so on. But very good for its limited purpose - to get you to produce.

WordWeb

WordWeb is marvellous. When it's running in the background (the default is to have it start on PC startup), if you highlight a word in a document or a text file or a browser, and Ctrl-Right Click, it will tell you the meaning of the word, give you synonyms, types, adjectives, nouns, similar words and so on.

WordWeb is free.

Rough Draft

Another Open Source program. I've played with this and found a use for it.

When editing your own stuff, it would be quite handy if you could just scribble notes in the margins. Rough Draft allows you to do that. It will open up all sorts of Word Documents, Excel Spreadsheets, stuff from MS-Works (if that isn't a contradiction in terms), Rich text and ordinary text files, even Word Perfect Files. You can read them, and make notes in the margin. The notes are saved as an associated text file. It will work with, and format correctly, prose (stories, novels), screenplays and stage and radio plays. When you reopen the story, the notes are still there. Handy for research pointers and so on.

But, it will only save files as rich text (.rtf). OK, as a novelist, that's fine. You will have to eventually put the finished product into Word or equivalent for final formatting and error checking anyway. Very good for editing.

StoryBook

Remember what I said at the very beginning - about index cards and A4 pads and the like for research and outlines and characters and so on?

Well, Storybook does all that. You can create characters, locations, plot strands for each major character, assign a timeline, then just drag and drop your characters and locations into scenes, write scene dialogue and prose, assign scenes to chapters or acts...

It looks to be a very good, and free, tool for creating outlines and plot structures. It might also cut out those embarrassing errors when you've got the same character doing two things simultaneously a hundred miles apart...

But all this is saved in a proprietary format. So you'll need the application on all the other computers you use to be able to use it wherever you are.

So, if you want, try any of those, feel free. I do recommend them.

But I will still often resort to the most flexible, sophisticated method of all.

Brain, paper and pencil.

Next time - reviews - I'm going to start a series of them - new books and old classic books, alternating.

Till then - enjoy!

Back to the editing

2010-03-22T12:33:00.005Z

Hi all.

After yet another enforced absence (pressure of work, feeble excuse, I know) I'm back, to continue the description of the editing process.

Last time (and it was, believe it or not about ten weeks ago,) we discussed the panel of readers, their feedback and how to put all the comments into a spreadsheet.

This time, I'm going to look at what we actually do with the spreadsheet.

In other words, how to actually edit.

So, In chapter 1, scene 1, we have reviewer A's comment:

The actual sentence was:

Tightly closed doors seemed to deny welcome or solace.

So that's easily changed, since I agree with the reviewer.

Tightly closed doors denied welcome or solace.

That's quite straight forward, isn't it?

But what about where reviewers say 'You need to add more action in the first ten chapters.'

How does one go about doing that?

Well, ahem, by adding more action and conflict and pace.

In this instance, I have to add to the plot.

I had a coherent plot, but, as with all books, the reality deviates from the plan by quite a margin. So, in order to change the plot and add bits, I have to know what's in the plot now, in terms of theme, motivation, character arc, sub-plots and so on.

That's best done by writing a treatment - in other words, re-analysing the book using the snowflake method.

Which I'll apply to this book and detail in my next post.

Until then, enjoy!

I've been tagged

2010-01-10T19:47:00.003Z

I've been tagged (who knew?) by two friends, Sonia Carriere and Anna Walls so I suppose I'd better answer the questions and then tag three more unfortunate bloggers :) Be sure to visit their blogs as well for a good read.

1. What's the last thing you wrote? What's the first thing you wrote that you still have?
The most recent thing I've finished is a science-fiction novel called 'Distress Call', which I partly wrote for NaNoWriMo and completed at a much more leisurely pace afterwards. I wrote a bunch of stories and novels back in the early 80s and got rid of them all. I only started writing again about 18 months ago, so the oldest thing I have is a screenplay called 'Death Search'.

2. Write poetry?
No, except rhyming doggerel and the occasional haiku.

3. Angsty poetry?
What's angst?

4. Favourite genre of writing?
Science fiction, horror, fantasy, action thrillers. Both to read and write.

5. Most annoying character you've ever created?
'Under Secretary Whitehead, who always reminded me of a surprisingly clever caricature - the toad in human guise.' A direct quote, and partly based on some people I have worked for.

6. Best plot you've ever created?
I think so far, it has to be 'Revival' - a horror/fantasy novel I'm currently editing.

7. Coolest plot twist you've ever created?
In a short story called 'The Return of the Creature'. Love conquers all, even between different species.

8. How often do you get writer's block?
Never. I always stop in the middle of a sentence or a paragraph, so I know what I intended to write when I start again the next day. Once I've written a few words, I'm up and running again. For me, delaying starting anything isn't block, it's inertia.

9. Write fan fiction?
No, though I did create an outline for a two part Doctor Who season finale. It turned out to be amazingly close to the actual season finale, including some of the lines of dialogue. Pure coincidence, as I intended mine for the following season, and I hadn't even submitted it.

10.Do you type or write by hand?
Type. I can't read my own handwriting half the time.

11. Do you save everything you write?
Yes. In several places, just in case.

12. Do you ever go back to an idea after you've abandoned it?
Sometimes I'll revive an idea that failed as e.g. a novella as a screenplay instead, or vice versa.

13. What's your favourite thing you've ever written?
I think that would have to be 'Halifa', but it's still waiting its turn to be edited.

14. What's everyone else's favourite story you've written?
Opinions vary, probably 'Revival'. So far.

15. Ever written romance or angsty teen?
No angsty teens - my characters are like me - old and past it! There are romantic elements in everything I write, 'cos it's a part of life.

16. What's your favourite setting for your characters?
Settings of extreme tension and fear. Where they're threatened by death and spattered with gore at frequent intervals.

17. How many writing projects are you working on now?
I'm editing one novel, and writing two short stories. Also developing ideas for the next bunch of stories/scripts/books.

18. Have you ever won an award for your writing?
Not yet.

19. What are your five favourite words?
"One ring to rule them." Oh, you mean in real life? "Your cheque's in the post."

20. What character have you created that is most like yourself?
Most of the male protagonists are like me to a certain extent. Or perhaps, like me as I'd like to be.

21. Where do you get your ideas for your characters?
Usually, people I know or have known. You know, mannerisms, habits of speaking, things like that. Physical appearance - sometimes, particularly in film scripts, I like to picture who would play the characters when Tarantino makes the film. So then, the character resembles the actor. The alien ones of course are just that - alien.

22. Do you ever write based on your dreams?
No. I do get a lot of ideas for stories when I'm in that happy state between waking and getting up, just quietly dozing, but usually what I dream about makes no sense, even if I wake myself up and write it down immediately.

23. Do you favour happy endings?
Only if they come naturally. Which is rare, since most of my stuff is quite dark and bleak.

24. Are you concerned with spelling and grammar as you write?
I will go back and check from time to time as I write,but a lot will be left untouched until the first sloppy proofread.

25. Does music help you write?
Once I start writing, I become oblivious to anything around me, so I wouldn't even know if music was playing.

26. Quote something you've written. Whatever pops in your head.
'Offbury was a typical English rural market town: pubs packed with young farm-worker types busy getting pissed; streets roamed by semi-feral, semi-naked packs of young girls emitting unbelievable decibel levels; corners and doorways littered with twelve year olds getting wrecked on white cider.'

From 'The Symbiont'.

My three ~~victims~~ tag choices are:

Jaimey Grant

Henry Lara

Gwen McIntyre

Enjoy!

What to do with critiques - part three

2010-01-10T16:03:00.003Z

Alright, the moment is finally here! We've amassed our panel of readers, sent off the manuscript, and it's come back, spattered with red comments and notes.

So what do we do with it now?

Simple. We make a spreadsheet.

"What?" you cry in horrified disbelief. "Make a spreadsheet? I'm a writer, not an IT technician!"

Nonetheless - make a spreadsheet.

Consider: you have umpteen scenes in your book - one or more per chapter. In the example I'm using, there are twenty-seven chapters, and a total of one hundred scenes. When I'm rewriting the book, I can either open up my copy of a scene, then refer to what Fred said, and what Bert said, and Mary, and Ethel, and ...; or I can open up the spreadsheet and refer to that instead.

In the left-hand column, I have the chapter and scene number - e.g. Chapter 21, scene 3 (21-3). In the next columns I have what my reviewers (or critiquers if you prefer) said about that scene, one column per reader. I simply go through their critiques, cutting and pasting their comments about various bits into the appropriate cell.

A couple of technical terms here:

Their comments won't fit easily into a cell on a spreadsheet, so format all the comment cells as 'Text' and turn Word wrap on.
You can record a macro to format each cell as you enter content - so font size, orientation, alignment and so on are consistent - if you feel comfortable doing that.
Or simply wait until you've finished with each reviewer and format that column when you've come to the end of their critique.
Have a few rows at the end for their general comments.

Now, I can see at a glance what each of my readers said about each scene. It's very easy to find out if they said the same sort of thing, or if they differed, or if they had no comment about the scene at all.

As you can see from my example, at least in the section I chose, there was no general agreement. So I read each comment and decide whether, on considered reflection, I agree with it. If I do, I rewrite that scene accordingly. If I don't agree, I leave things unchanged.

Obviously, if all, or most of, the readers say the same sort of thing about a scene, it would be wise to change it, even if you may not agree with their comments.

Using a spreadsheet like this is much easier than going through each critique, constantly referring back and forth to the others and to the original.

By the way, at this point, I'd like to thank the readers who helped me on this book - Gwen, Renee, Wendy and Tj. Most of the improvements in the work are down to your keen eyes and good judgement. Any clunky bits left are entirely of my own making.

The general comments are also massively helpful. There was unanimous agreement that the first ten chapters were too slow. A deeper exploration of character was needed. Less tell, more show. More action. Helpfully, there was also a consensus that the work was too short. So I can add bits into those chapters without having to struggle with over-large word counts.

OK, it does mean practically rewriting those chapters from scratch, but I happen to agree with the comments. You cannot afford, any longer, to start slow and build. You have to start with a bang and get louder.

In the few next posts, I'm going to be dealing with the actual editing process.

Until the next time - enjoy!

What to do with critiques - part two

2010-01-02T12:09:00.002Z

So, as promised, here I am again, doing the soon-to-be-regarded-as-regular weekend blog.

Two per cent of the way through the year. Only another 49 topics to think of!

Last time, I discussed the composition of the panel of readers/critiquers to whom we send our beloved manuscripts.

Then, while waiting for the replies, we got on doing something else.

Replies start trickling in during the allotted time. Do we read them straight away, see what they have to say about our baby?

No, first we reply to the emails, thanking the respondents for their efforts and promising to get back to them when we've had a chance to digest their comments.

Well, yes, of course we read them. It's only natural to want to know immediately what people think about our work, isn't it?

But really, there's no reason why we should. We have, at least temporarily, abandoned that work and are fully committed to whatever we're doing right now. So, being wise, we create a new folder on our hard drive and put the attachments (Word documents doubtless covered in metaphorical red ink) in the folder, along with the original.

The deadline for replies draws near. We scan the inbox with increasing frequency (and desperation.) We asked ten people to read the work and only two have replied so far. What's going on?

Human nature, that's what.

You'll get another five or six replies in the last couple of days.

OK, we have all the replies we're going to get, so what next?

Scan through each of the revised manuscripts first, just to get a flavour for what the reviewers are saying. It's traditional to put closing comments at the end, so if you want to end the suspense quickly, skip to the end of each document and read what their overall take on the book was.

Take a moment to bask in a warm, fuzzy feeling of adulation. Alternatively, storm out of your writing room, kick the cat, pour yourself a stiff drink and give vent to your feelings about the reader's dubious ancestry, under-performing neurons and myopic inability to recognise talent if it got up and bit them on the ass. Perhaps even do both. You'll likely get a mixture of good, lukewarm and critical comments.

Well, what did you expect? You knew from the start that not everyone was going to like your sacrilegious, splatterpunk rewrite of The Red Shoes.

Didn't you?

Think again. No matter how good your writing, not everyone is going to like it. People's minds don't work the same. What, to some, is an exquisite heightening of tension is, to others, tedious and drawn-out. Your sparse, elegant prose may seem to some to be under-descriptive.

Never mind. The real work starts next. This is where we collate the responses in the easiest way I've so far discovered.

Next week...

See? Heightening the tension even more.

Till then, enjoy!

What to do with critiques

2009-12-31T12:57:00.003Z

First let me take the opportunity to wish all readers of this blog a very happy New Year, where you get all that you wish for. Sounds like an ancient Chinese curse, doesn't it? But you know what I mean.

Second, although the one New Year's resolution I kept, ever, was the one where I resolved not to make any more resolutions, I am making a solemn undertaking (not quite a resolve perhaps?) to post this blog every weekend during 2010.

Drat, that means I've got to think up something semi-interesting to say about 50 topics next year.

Now, on to business - the editing process.

Last time, I discussed sending out your finished first draft to a panel of readers. Remember, this is draft A-1, where you've already fixed the problems you became aware of during the writing of it, and done a quick proofread to fix obvious mistakes.

Today, let's think about who is going to be on your panel of readers.

First, they must be habitual readers. That might seem obvious, but choosing, for example, a brother-in-law to read it, when he doesn't generally read a novel from one year to the next, is useless. He has no background on which to base an opinion of a work of fiction. People who read a lot, on the other hand, know what works for them and what doesn't. There is also every chance they'll be able to offer an informed opinion on what needs to be changed to make it better.

Second, they should not be close friends or family. To use the brother-in-law example again, he might feel obliged to heap praise on it for familial reasons. (Alternatively, he might feel compelled to savage it because he can't stand you. Either is a likely outcome.) You want people who are either total strangers or cyber-buddies. I'm thinking here of sites like Goodreads and the Online Writing Workshops These people may be friendly towards you, but they are insulated by the electronic medium. They can be brutally honest. In fact, you should always ask for honesty in their critiques, just as you would give honesty when critiquing the work of others.

Third, it helps if they write themselves. Fellow writers can point out mistakes in the larger structure (the macroscopic elements) of your work. Holes in plot, faulty chronology, lack of pace, conflict,tension and so on are best picked up by writers who have made the same mistakes themselves. They are also more likely to correctly identify the microscopic errors - shifting POV, too much tell, not enough show, and all the other mistakes we (I) tend to make when churning out first drafts.

Fourth, they have to be willing to do it. Again seems obvious, doesn't it? If someone says 'I'll read it, but I'm so busy I can't do it till August' - that basically means that person cannot be of any use to you right now. They may really be too busy, or they may not want to do it. Either way, you are in no position to insist. Nor should you.

Fifth, balance in the composition of the panel (this is an ideal). Equal numbers of men and women, young and old, cynics and romantics, fat and thin, active versus sedentary, a mix of sexual orientations, dietary preferences and religious inclinations. Yeah, well, good luck with that. This is a blog about writing fiction, but even I'm not that far into the realms of fantasy.

How many should you have on your panel? You need enough so that you can have a majority opinion on improvements. So, more than two. Remember that if ten people promise to critique your work, only seven or eight will actually do it, at best. That's a fact of human nature. Other things crop up, disasters occur, and reading your stuff is going to be fairly low on their list of priorities. But do ask at least seven or eight to read your stuff.

Do set a time limit - politely of course. Can I please have it back six weeks from now at the latest?

How do you get readers in the first place? By doing the same for them, being brutally honest, praising whatever is possible to praise and sticking to agreed time limits. Reciprocity is the name of the game here. Reciprocate first :)

What do I want these readers to do exactly? Just what the name says. Read your book. Make suggestions for improving it e.g.

this scene doesn't work
this character serves no useful purpose
you need more action in the first quarter
the climax isn't big enough
character Y shows no development during the course of the book
you have a character in two different places at the same time
this fact is wrong
the dialogue isn't natural here
people in Venice don't do that
your POV shifts suddenly in these scenes

It would be nice if they added what they did like about the book. Most people will do this anyway. They feel uncomfortable about criticising (even complete strangers) and are happy to praise.

What you don't want them to do is painstakingly proofread the thing, getting subject-verb agreement, tense, syntax and flow right. After all, you're going to be rewriting large chunks of it after you've absorbed their opinions, so there would be no point, right?

So, as agreed by email, you send off your (ideally) Word document. I would send it off as a .doc (i.e. save as Word 97-2003). Not everyone has Office 2007 yet.

A Word document because you want them to be able to make comments and insert examples of what they mean. If you use Open Office or Star Office or similar, save as a Word document. PDFs are no good, because they aren't easy to change.

A Word document because you want them to use the 'Track Changes' feature.

What about readers stealing my ideas? Any ideas we have and write about, other people have also had and written about before. Others will get the idea and write about it in the future. While there are horror stories about copyright theft and plagiarism, they are, in my experience, vanishingly rare. So don't worry about it.

Having sent your baby off, start doing something else while you wait the month, two months, whatever time limit you agreed on, for the responses to arrive.

Next time (this weekend, honest!) I'll write about what we actually do with the critiques when they come back, using examples from the book I'm editing right now.

Till then...

Enjoy!

Editing and proofreading - 1

2009-12-07T09:38:00.003Z

Hello again, Constant Reader!

Today and for the next few weeks, I'm going to be focusing on the various processes that go into producing a polished manuscript from a first draft.

First, I must make an admission. I am perfectly happy to talk about plot structure, theme, tone, pace, style, characterization, romance, action and the actual mechanics of producing a finished first draft (be it novel, story or screenplay). I even think that I have a fairly good idea of what I'm talking about. I produce finished first drafts that are, by all accounts, good.

Editing is different. It's a newish field for me. I've done some basic research and now I'm learning by doing, making it up as I go along. If you think what I write here is absolute rubbish, please tell me. You probably know more than I do about this.

Some definitions first:

Critique - the specific opinions of non-related readers about first draft A
Editing - the act of restructuring draft A, adding scenes, removing characters and so on, based on the critiques and your afterthoughts, to produce draft B.
Proofreading - the re-reading of draft B, with minute attention to detail, to remove extra spaces, typos, wrong words, POV shifts, clumsy sentences, wrongly named characters etc.

So, the difference, to me at least, between proofreading and editing is one of scale.

Editing means the big changes. Character X serves no useful purpose, and you want to get rid of him. You want to introduce Character Y, because she adds some sexual tension. You need three extra chapters from the antagonist's POV. The setting changes from Kansas in the summer to the Himalayas at mid-winter. Your protagonist is in fact from another planet.

Proofreading means catching all the rest, all the little faults that are so irritating when we read them in other people's work.

Step one then, logically, is to send out draft A to our willing panel of readers, to get their helpful critiques.

Or is it?

Not really. I've noticed that by the time I've finished a novel or screenplay, I already have second thoughts. I know I've certainly made mistakes in grammar, syntax, spelling, word choice, character names, chronology...

To me, it would seem rude to send out such an ill-moulded lump of clay to readers, willing or not. So I have an intermediate step. Fix the problems I already know are inherent in the work (let's call this the preliminary edit) and do a semi-thorough proofread before sending out the draft. We'll call this draft A-1.

Then send it off to the readers and get on with something else. When it comes back, begin assembling their opinions.

Which is what I'll pay more attention to in the next blog. The critiques and what to do with them.

Back after NaNoWriMo

2009-12-02T18:15:00.004Z

Hi all, I'm back! After the unmitigated hell that was the National Novel Writing Month.

OK, I did the requisite 50,000 words and a bit more, so I was proclaimed a winner. However, the book isn't finished, and I actually wanted to do 100,000 words, so I only feel partially successful.

Back in July, I wrote 100K in a month, but I was on holiday from one job and one course then. It's not so easy to chisel out three or four hours a day when many of those days are twelve hour work days as well. Even forgoing wimpish things like food and sleep, it's not easy.

So although I made the 50K with a couple of days to spare, I'd already given up on the idea of 100K.

It was also difficult at times to find the motivation to do anything after a day's work and/or a teacher training course. Doing stuff before going to work might be considered an option: until you've heard my wife complain about being woken early, that is.

I still have about 10,000 words to go to finish the book, and in general I'm happy about the structure, shape, content, language, tone and pace. When done, I'm going to set it to one side and start producing second drafts from the three other completed books I have stacked up.

But that's editing, not writing. So I've developed the ideas for several short stories to keep my hand in while I'd doing the editing and patching and cutting and moving and rewriting and adding and subtracting...

And I'll have slightly more time for this blog as well. The next post will be about editing.

Plot: themes expanded

2009-10-30T12:08:00.002Z

In this last blog before I start the NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month if you didn't already know), I'm going to go slightly deeper into the topic of themes.

But first a digression. The aim of the NaNoWriMo is to write a fifty thousand word first draft of a novel in a month, the month being November. This is my first attempt. I've done the sister campaign, the April Script Frenzy, when you write an entire movie script in a month. I did a mock NaNo in July, when I wrote 100K words. So this time I'm aiming for 100K words as well.

To that end, I've been outlining the plot and detailing the characters using the snowflake method - see Randy Ingermanson's site for more details. Basically, you describe the story in one sentence. Then expand it to a 5 sentence paragraph. Then create character summary sheets. Then expand the plot to 5 paragraphs, create a one page character synopsis for each of the major characters and so on.

The idea behind all this is to ensure that come November 1st, everything is worked out, plot is known, each scene is sketched out and all I have to do is write around 4000 words a day.

So what's my story about (I hear you ask)? What's the theme?

By theme, I mean which essential human emotion is being most thoroughly explored. Which element of the human condition is being plumbed and exposed.

There aren't that many themes, just as there aren't many basic emotions. Perhaps the commonest ones, the heroic ones, together with some filmic examples are:

Vengeance - (Gladiator)
The reluctant hero (High Noon)
Overcoming inner demons (My Beautiful Mind)
The tragic hero (Troy)
The family protector (The River Wild)
The coward transformed (Deliverance)
The tortoise and the hare (Die Hard)
True love conquers all (Casablanca)
Doomed lovers (Romeo and Juliet)

Now, my story can be summed up in one sentence:

"Can two lovers persuade their opposing factions to fight the enemy in their midst?"

What theme is being explored here?

I mention lovers, so there's obviously a romantic element. I mention opposing factions, so there's obviously conflict. I mention an enemy so there's more conflict.

It's clear from that one sentence that the lovers are going to have to convince warring groups to co-operate, so Romeo and Juliet might spring to mind.

But there's personal tragedy a-plenty, for which vengeance must be sought. Neither of the lovers wants to be a leader or a hero, so they're reluctant. Each has his and her own inner turmoil to confront. The enemy at first seems unbeatable, so tortoise and hare. The only ones that aren't present in bucketfuls are the family protector and the coward transformed.

This is often the case. A novel's main plot may express one theme, but other themes are brought out in the sub-plots. One major character may represent one theme while another may have completely different motivations.

And so it is here. I would say that honour and duty are the predominant facets of both the major characters, so reluctantly, they do what must be done, no matter the cost to themselves or others.

In my next post, whenever that may be, I'll expand on the ideas of conflict and romance a little more, as they are two essential elements to nearly every fiction and every theme.

7th Son: Descent by J C Hutchins

2009-10-25T14:58:00.005Z

Just a quick reminder: I don't give 5 stars (well maybe once or twice a decade). I'm stingy. I'm mean.

So, on with the review.

7th Son: Descent by J. C. Hutchins

Now, I haven't read all of this book. I've only read the first 33 pages. So I can make no comments about the book's overall structure, or character arcs, or sub-plots.

What I can comment about is the quality of the writing.

It is superb.

From a real kick-ass opening, unexpected metaphors and unusual word formations flow with assurance. Characters are introduced with almost dizzying rapidity, yet each establishes his individuality, his own personality, rapidly and with great economy of prose.

The dialogue is believable, snappy; the internal thought processes consistent with the character thinking them. Vignettes of their various normal lives are pointed enough to let us get an idea of what they were like before something happens to them.

Something unexpected. Something horrifying.

The action sequences - and yes, there is plenty of action, from the prologue on - are well executed and realistic.

The basic premise of the book is excellent.

All I can say is that I'm going to order a copy this week - the print version comes out on the 27th - and if the rest is as good as the start, I'll write another review, this one going up, perhaps to that fabled 5 star realm where only the literary giants dwell.

OK, hyperbole, but this book is really very, very good.

So, Mr. Hutchins, or Chris if you prefer, excellent beginning. I was hooked from the first page.

I'm happy to give it 4 stars.

PS - I bear no relationship or affiliation with the author, and have not been offered any inducement of any nature to write this review, apart from a simple request that I do so. I don't know if it's a requirement to make that statement yet, but I thought I'd make it clear anyway.

Previews and the first episode of the book can be seen at

http://jchutchins.net/site/about-7th-son/7th-son-descent/

The book details are: ISBN 978- 0- 312- 38437- 1

and it is available to order online from:

Amazon
Barnes & Noble
Borders
Books-A-Million
Powell’s
Macmillan
Indiebound

Review: 'Riders of the Spew' by Robert Thompson

2009-10-17T20:15:00.002+01:00

Remember, I hardly ever expect to give 5 stars to anything. 1 star is so bad, I wouldn't even finish the book.

2 = OK, passes the time
3 = Good, would recommend and read again
4 = Very, very good.

'Riders of the Spew' by Robert Thompson (available from Smashwords and Amazon)

OK, where to begin with this one? Don't think I've read a book quite like it before. Robert Thompson fills nearly all his pages with action, action and more action. Occasionally interspersed with dry humour.

It would have been hard for me to imagine that I could have come to empathize with a collection of six sociopathic, sadistic killers and their savage, mutant steeds, but perhaps the book contains a kernel of hard truth. A few centuries in hell changes a person. And some of the creatures they encounter!

Well drawn characters, natural dialogue and a host of unexpected twists kept me reading 'Riders of the Spew' non-stop from start to finish. I look forward to the sequels - their work is not yet done. Well worth three stars.

Reviews: Spellbound by Jaimey Grant

2009-10-17T18:10:00.006+01:00

My review system:

5 stars is only given to books that are brilliant; ones that I will want to read again and again, ones that will become classics. I haven't come across more than a double handful of those in my lifetime, and I read a lot.

4 stars is given to books that are very, very good.

3 stars goes to good books, that I enjoyed and which had few or minor slips.

2 stars means that it passed the time in the absence of anything better to do, but I wouldn't want to read it again.

1 star indicates that I was sorry I ever picked the thing up, and wouldn't want to recommend it to my worst enemy.

"Spellbound" by Jaimey Grant, ISBN: 1440414726

I read this recently.

Now I have to admit, the genre, Regency romance, is not something that I habitually read. Well, to be honest, it's not a genre I've ever read.

I have to say, I was pleasantly surprised. It was a lot better than I was expecting. The protagonist, Raven, was someone I took to immediately. There was an admirable supporting cast of eccentrics, Regency fops, nobility in various shades of good, evil and torment, and a good story line. It's not a genre I could relate to, but I was hooked and made to care about the ultimate fate of Raven. All the characters were believable and well-realized. There were sub-plots and red herrings in abundance, and the dialogue was often snappy, believable and witty. There were a number of words and phrases that were new to me, but that were authentic to the Regency period.

The book was also proofread and edited with very few mistakes that I noticed.

I have to admit I got confused at the late introduction of the nemesis, but overall, I thoroughly enjoyed it; much more than I was expecting.

So I am happy to award this a 3 star rating. Nice one, Jaimey.

Plot structure - expanded

2009-10-16T11:18:00.002+01:00

This post focuses on the classic Aristotelian three act structure.

Broadly speaking, any work of fiction, whether a novel, novella, short story, play or film script, will fit into the three act structure. I'm going to generalise here, but the structure goes something like this.

Act one:
About one quarter of the length of the work. Starts off with the main characters going about their daily business. A little scene-setting, as it were.

A short way in (3-7 minutes for a film, somewhere in the first chapter for a novel) comes the

Inciting incident (also called the complication.)
This is the thing that forces the protagonist into motion. It doesn't even need to be in the work. It can have happened way back in the back story. In Lord of the Rings for example, you could argue that the inciting incident happened in the Hobbit, when Bilbo found the ring. Or a thousand years ago, when Gollum found it. Or three thousand years ago, when Isildur didn't destroy it. But generally, it happens in the work you're creating.

The II is the thing that propels (or perhaps compels) the protagonist to become involved in the action of the story, often reluctantly.

Also in Act one, all other significant characters are introduced, especially the nemesis. The threads of the main plot are laid. Some of the major sub-plots are introduced.

Act one ends with

Plot point one, a critical incident. Our hero(ine) discovers a crucial fact, gains a significant ally (buddy, rival, mentor or similar) or develops a talent he or she will need to defeat the nemesis.

All the significant features of the story have now been exposed to the audience. From this point on, all that occurs is inevitable because of the groundwork you have done.

Act two:
This is where the majority of the character development, the other sub-plots and a lot of the action takes place. Generally about half the length of the work. If Act one was about laying the foundations, Act two is about building the house. About halfway through this act comes the

Midpoint. This is the first significant trial of strength against the nemesis. Our hero may retire, defeated but alive. He may defeat the chief lieutenant of the enemy. The point is, it is inconclusive. The threat remains, and from here on to the end, intensifies.

Act two concludes with

Plot point two (also called the Crisis.) Our protagonist is at his lowest ebb. His wife has been kidnapped, his dog shot, his son proves to be the spawn of the Devil, and he's hanging head down over a vat of boiling sulphuric acid.

This point is perhaps the most important of the whole story. This is why our protagonist is a hero. Remember the classic themes mentioned in the last post.

Now, any reasonable being would give up at this point. Heroes don't. They're too stubborn, or stupid, to recognise that they're beaten. Instead of dying quietly, they get mad. They stiffen themselves for one final attempt.

They take full responsibility for their life and their actions, taking charge of events. If they have been reacting so far, now, in a titanic expenditure of will and courage, they take charge of events, driving on to the end. Their entire life has narrowed down to one focus; victory or death.

Act three:
This occupies the final quarter of the work. If Act one was laying the foundations, and Act two was building the house, then Act three is defeating the neighbour who objects on planning grounds, stopping a horde of crazed bikers from trashing the place, throwing up a wall of dirt to stop the flood from washing the house away and finally moving in with your loved one.

Almost immediately, we are plunged into the

Climax. The final trial of strength. Our hero generally overcomes his fears, his limitations, masters that crucial flaw and defeats his nemesis, who cannot do the same.

OK, our hero may die in the process. In many ways, it is deeply satsfying if he does. After all, who would actually want to know or live with a genuine hero? They can't be easy people to get along with.

Of course, if you're writing from the 1st person POV, it is not a good idea to have your hero die here. That's the end, fini, right there. If you've used third person, shifting POV, fine. Film scripts, you have written omnisciently anyway, so no problem.

The climax was presaged in Act one, developed in Act two, and is now fully realized in all its violent, terrible beauty.

Act three finishes with the

Resolution. All the loose ends are tied up. Unless you want to leave room for a sequel. Boy gets girl, music swells, they walk hand-in-hand into a beautiful sunset. The audience sighs in appreciation, gets gently returned to reality and walks out happy, having shared time with someone who took charge of their destiny, albeit briefly.

Something most of us can never, will never do.

That's why they're called heroes.

Plot - theme or structure?

2009-09-28T15:04:00.005+01:00

First, yet another apology. It seems that whenever I'm presumptuous enough to post that I'm going to write about something 'tomorrow', fate intervenes, and I get buried in extra work. Yet again it's taken me three weeks to dig myself out far enough to see daylight. In future, I'm going to simply say 'next time I'm going to...'.

So, not tomorrow, but three weeks later...

There are two ways of creating a plot - with almost any sort of story.

You can focus on the structure - that is, what happens in the story?

Or you can focus on the theme - what is the story about?

As a concrete example, consider the clasic Western 'High Noon'.

Structurally it's about a man who is systematically abandoned by all those on whose loyalty he has a right to depend, prior to his impending battle with a band of vengeful killers.

Thematically it's about a man's struggle to maintain his integrity and honour when surrounded by cowardice, hypocrisy and overwhelming temptation. He is an archetypal reluctant hero.

I suppose you can say that structure focuses on the events; theme focuses on how the participants feel about those events; or perhaps the actions they choose when faced with those events.

Now, you might say that the two are very much interdependent. You'd be absolutely right. A person can't be a hero, reluctant or otherwise, unless there is an occasion where heroism is called for.

There are only a limited number of themes available - such as:

Vengeance - (Gladiator)
The reluctant hero (High Noon)
Overcoming inner demons (My Beautiful Mind)
The tragic hero (Troy)
The family protector (The River Wild)
The coward transformed (Deliverance)
The tortoise and the hare (Die Hard)

When designing a story thematically, I suppose you would have to start by creating a protagonist with a flaw, and an antagonist, also with a flaw.

You can already tell that this story would be about the protagonist being able to accept help and advice, overcome his weakness and so defeat the antagonist - who of course, because of hubris was not able to overcome his, and so failed.

Structurally, you would start with an exciting idea - a protagonist who has a mortal falling out with his former best friend. They fight on a high, swaying bridge above a bottomless pit.

Synthesis of the two gives you the protagonist afraid of heights, who falls in love with his beautiful psychoanalyst and rescues her from his former best friend turned nemesis. She is of course at the far end of the bridge on which the two are fighting. The nemesis was in love with her till she fell for our hero. He spurned her offer of help overcoming his fear of hamsters.

At the height of the battle, our hero presses forward despite his profound acrophobia to rescue the woman he loves. He hurls his pet hamster at his nemesis, who recoils in horror, slips and plunges to his death. Boy and girl reunite, hero risks all to rescue beloved hamster from the lip of the abyss, and hand in hand in paw they walk into the sunset as the music swells...

OK, it's a silly example, but it illustrates my point. Theme and structure are different ways of looking at the same small, isolated sequence of events that makes up a piece of fiction. Both are still, and always will be, subordinate to the story.

Avoiding hubris myself, I'm simply going to say that next time, I'm going to examine plot structure in more detail.

Till then, enjoy!

Plot structure - Introduction

2009-09-07T09:11:00.003+01:00

For as long as people have been telling stories, there has been a structure that works well. One that captivates the audience, hooks them, draws them into the world of the storyteller.

As far as I'm aware, that structure was first analysed and codified by Aristotle in his work 'The Poetics.' Of course, he was talking about epic oral poetry and Greek theatre, complete with chorus. Nonetheless, what worked for 100,000 years huddled round fires at night, worked for Ancient Greece, was followed by the Romans, the writers of Northern European epics such as as Beowulf, the Prose Edda and the Nibelungenlied and was obeyed by great writers of the Medieval and Elizabethan periods (Chretien de Troyes, Mallory, Chaucer, Shakespeare, Jonson and others) is as relevant and important today as ever it was.

Don't forget, people have told stories as long as there have been people. The idea of reading stories has only been around for some 500 years. Watching them at the talkies or on the telescreen has only been around for a century.

What I'm saying is that what worked for millennia worked for a reason. It satisfied some basic human need. Technology may have evolved, but the human brain has not kept pace. What worked when the sabre-toothed tiger roared outside and mammoths roamed the plains still works.

We call this the Aristotelian structure.

Aristotle's six most important elements of any drama were:

Plot
Character
Theme
Dialogue
Music
Spectacle

This list still works marvellously for films, though sadly, Hollywood seems to have reversed the order in recent decades. Special effects do not make a great movie no matter what the movie moguls think.

You might also notice that music is on the list - important for Greek drama, crucial in films.

OK, if we're talking about writing books, you can ignore music.

Spectacle for books is what the reader envisions as he or she reads your prose.

Tomorrow, I'm going to write about the two ways of creating (or analysing) any decent plot. In later posts, I'll go through every other element on the list with the exception of music.

Enjoy!

Ideas - where do they come from?

2009-09-06T11:47:00.002+01:00

OK, after a slightly longer than expected absence, due to family stuff, I'm back with the next installment. By the way, I do apologise most humbly for the delay.

Ideas and where do they come from?

I suppose that's the one question that we all face if ever we mention that we write.

"Where do you get your ideas from?"

So where do they come from?

A few concrete examples. My first film script (it's available if anyone wants to buy it for the going rate - hint, hint) was about eco-terrorism masking corporate greed, and it came about from reading an article on dams in Idaho and the potato farming that had been made possible by these dams. This was an article in National Geographic, and I was reading it in the dentist's waiting room. The rest of the plot was elaborated in thirty minutes of semi-inebriated conversation with a script-writing friend of mine, Dr. Roger Cottrell, a few days later. Just a few concrete (no pun intended) facts and then the 'what if' moment.

My third novel (no, it's not finished yet, just the first draft) was loosely based on the premise - 'what if man-made global warming is a reality? What if Governments and corporations were aware what they were doing? What if they were doing it deliberately? Who would benefit? What if the beneficiaries weren't human?'

Add a few facts and figures, and a degree of inventiveness and you have the idea from which the plot develops.

My second film script was based on an article in one of the broadsheet newspapers, commenting on the increasing divide between urban and rural communities. I thought 'what if you take this to its logical conclusion?'

You would have totally separated communities living entirely dissimilar lives, with the chattering urbanites being blissfully unaware of their complete dependence on the rural society. Throw in a few other semi-related facts and stir. Voila! You have a plot.

You can see from the examples I've given, that my ideas come from events or facts in the real world, twisted by my warped imagination into some sort of demonised offspring. Add in a few other facts, similarly distorted, and you have an idea.

The 'what if?' bit is crucial. Take Event A, as reported by e.g. the BBC. What if it were totally false? What would be the consequences? OK, what if someone stood to gain from a widespread belief in this event? How would they organise it? Who would notice what they were doing? Who would try to stop them? Then stick the story thirty years in the future when - unrelated fact - all cars apart from emergency services were electric, state owned and driven by computer. Add in an elevated concern for health and safety, risk avoidance and litigation, exaggerated to extreme levels. (I know, that bit is already true, but bear with me.) What sort of society would we have? What would be the likely outcomes? And you have the basis for a story.

So, today's homework: choose your own event of interest, extrapolate thirty (or fifty or a hundred) years, add in two unrelated facts of your choice, and then (this is the fun bit) open a bottle of your favourite tipple, sit back, kick off the shoes, loosen the tie, ignore the dog and just ... speculate.

When it comes to facts, related or otherwise, I'm lucky. I have the sort of memory that stores immense quantities of information. OK, 95% of it is completely useless, but the remaining 5% - oh yes.

Paydirt!

I've read other writers who say their ideas come from watching people in the street, or a chance conversation overheard on a bus or ...

Fine, whatever works for them. I store up observations and snippets of conversation to give authenticity to dialogue or description, but my ideas are always generated by events or facts.

Or at least, by articles that claim to relate events and facts. I don't actually believe much I read in newspapers or hear on TV, but if it's interesting, the authenticity quotient doesn't matter.

Finally, I would like to quote an answer that Stephen King gave when asked, on a chat show, where his ideas came from. He said the usual things we always say, but was then asked, 'But why do you always write horror and darkness?'

To which he replied, 'What makes you think I have a choice?'

Tomorrow I'm going to start a series of articles on plot structure - typical Aristotelian plot structure that is. A technique that has worked well for story tellers for the last 10,000 years.

Enjoy!

Conveyor belt writing - 2

2009-08-28T12:11:00.004+01:00

Yesterday, I showed you how to estimate the time it will take to produce a finished first draft for a novel. In the model, it took us 12 weeks to plot, research, write and edit the first draft. Today, we'll go through the next stages.

Assume, for the sake of argument, you started writing it on the 1st September. By the end of November, your manuscript is finished. Now what?

1st December, you send it out to your panel of readers. Ideally you want a mix of readers - some writers, some who like reading the genre. The 'reading readers' will tell you if it works as a piece of fiction. The 'writing readers' will tear the structure apart, savage the language, and in general cover the manuscript in red. To save costs and a few acres of tropical rainforest, I suggest you email the readers an electronic version of the manuscript, and, assuming they're using MS Word, ask them to 'Track Changes' - so all their revisions will show up highlighted. If they want to comment on any particular part, ask them to add notes.

How long will the readers take?

It doesn't matter!

Because on the 1st December, you're starting work on your next project. This is a conveyor belt, remember? You are totally dismissing novel A from your thoughts and working on novel B. For the next 12 weeks, you're producing another semi-polished first draft.

When the readers respond, and surely they will within three months - if not, send them a polite reminder. Do be polite because they're doing you a favour - thank them and promise to get back to them. Then carry on with novel B.

According to our model, you'll have finished that at the end of February.

Then what?

Send it off to your faithful readers. And begin the second draft and edit of novel A.

If you recall, we assumed that the first draft would take about 100 hours, writing at 1,000 words per hour. (Obviously plug your own figures in there.) Allowing a margin for error produced a figure of 120 hours.

How long will the second draft take?

You've been away from the story for three months. In that time, you've come up with some more and better ideas for parts of the plot. Your readers will have come up with suggestions. So, take some time, re-read what you've done, familiarise yourself with the concept. Immerse yourself in the action once more. Then consider your new ideas and the ones your readers have dreamed up. Choose the best, ignore the rest. Tighten up the plot, cut out redundant characters, correct factual errors. Let's say 30 hours for this + the surplus = 40 hours.

There isn't as much typing in a second draft. You will be re-using large chunks of the first draft, although perhaps moved around. You will be rewriting perhaps 30% of the story completely. You'll also be correcting all the errors your readers spotted.

If the first draft took 120 hours, shall we say this takes 60 hours?

The final edit - like the first, but with even more scupulous proofreading and formatting. I'm going to say 60 hours. Some might say it takes longer.

Then the final bit. You have to summarize your marvellous, genre-blurring, profound work of fiction in 500 words or less - the synopsis. You also have to produce a query letter, where the task gets harder - you have to describe theme and concept and give an overview in two paragraphs - the query letter. This letter you send off, perhaps with the synopsis and a couple of sample chapters, to as many agents simultaneously as you can.

The first time you do this, it will take quite a while - after all, you have to identify the agents who deal with your main genre, weed out those who are not accepting clients, or who do not accept email submissions.

Only do this once - record the details (email address, submission guidelines, contact name and phone number) in a database or a spreadsheet. Why do it each time you submit something?

I'm going to average out the time it takes to do this. Let's say 20 hours for the query, synopsis and submissions.

Voila!

You're done. Time for a novel = 400 hours.

According to our figures, this second, post reader, bit took 180 hours (9 weeks).

Then immediately begin working on the second draft for novel B.

When you've finished and submitted that, write a couple of short stories. Alternatively, go lie on a beach, or sit in a bar, or climb Mount Everest.

Or, let's hope, work on yet another round of editing according to the diktat of the agent who agreed to represent novel A. Or talk to the director about the film version.

Using this conveyor belt system, you can easily produce 2 novels per year.

Tomorrow I'm going to ramble on about ideas and how there is no end to them.

Have fun!

Conveyor belt writing

2009-08-27T17:03:00.007+01:00

Yesterday I told you how I managed to convince my spouse that writing was more than a hobby - by using deadlines and third party involvement. Today I'm going to explain how I arrive at those deadlines. Of course, if I had agents, publishers and producers clamouring for my output, the deadlines would be externally imposed, but since that isn't happening (yet) I set my own.

The first thing to do is work out how long any particular piece of work is going to be.

A full length novel is typically 100,000 words; a novella - 40,000; film script about 30,000; short stories can be immensely variable, but let's say 8,000.

I know that something that starts out as a novella can turn into a trilogy of full-sized books. I also know from personal experience something that was meant to be a novel can come to an end after 50,000 words - it's shrunk to a novella. Maybe the writing was too hot? But let's assume for the sake of argument, that any given piece of work is going to be around the predicted length.

OK, so you're going to write a novel. What are the stages involved?

Research and development Well, actually, it's the other way around. Work on the plot, sketch out skeleton scenes or chapters, identify your plot points - then work out what research you need to do. Go away and do it.

First draft - pretty obvious, that one.

First edit - by which I mean: adding the bits you forgot, or that are obviously needed by unexpected changes in the plot; removing bits that have become redundant for the same reason; and going through the actual writing to correct typos, remove waste words, change passive to active and so on.

First reading - it goes off to a panel of readers to critique, do some editing, make suggestions, and proofread.

Second draft - this is when you incorporate those readers' suggestions you want to accept and tighten up the plot, focusing more on structure. You will be re-using large chunks of the first draft, so far less typing is involved.

Second edit - Either done by you or someone else - a final proofread, tightening language, formatting the manuscript correctly.

Create query letter and synopsis, and submit.

Ok, that's it. All done. Those are the stages involved (at least for me) in writing a novel. Other writers may go through another cycle of third party reading and critiquing, followed by another draft and edit, but I don't. For the sake of this post, let's assume that you follow my model.

How long is it all going to take?

An impossible question to answer, you might think. Waiting for inspiration, struggling with stubborn plot issues, recalcitrant characters - I mean, how long is it going to take?

Remember, we're talking about production line techniques here. Never mind losing your Muse's number. Never mind the creative juices are suffering an unprecedented drought. We're treating this like any other business.

So, what do we know?

We know the first draft is going to be about 100K words.

How fast do you write? Work it out. Set aside one hour and write something fast and furious. Never mind the typos, the spelling mistakes, the inconsistent names. Ignore all of that. How fast can you physically write?

For me it's about 1,000 words per hour. It doesn't matter that half of them are going to be discarded. That's what the editing is for. We are going to steam through the first draft at 1000 words per hour. It's going to take 100 hours to complete the first draft.

Well, no it's not, because stuff happens. Allow some margin for error, unexpected interruptions, the odd natural disaster or two. Let's say 120 hours.

The R & D? Remember, this is a business. Assign a figure and make sure you stick to it. Let's say 30 hours. Add on the margin for error. Be generous. Give yourself 40 hours. That's equivalent to a full working week, Monday to Friday, 9 till 5. And don't forget, you're always advised to write what you know, so the actual research should be a few hours with Google and Wikipedia.

First edit - tricky. There's a lot to do, but remember, you still have another edit to come afterwards, so let's say it takes half as long as it did to write the entire thing - so 50 hours plus our margin = 60 hours.

From the very start - sketching the outline, to the end - an edited first draft ready to send to readers, has taken 220 hours.

How many hours can you definitely chisel out of the week to write? Why don't we pretend that you can absolutely free up 20 hours a week. Producing the intermediate product is going to take you 11 weeks. Add on one more week to cater for nervous breakdowns, plumbing leaks and swine flu.

Twelve weeks from the day you start, you have a finished first draft. Put it in the calendar. Time is money, the tide waits for no man ... the date on your calendar is the date you have to finish. Tell yourself your job depends on it. Sack yourself if you miss the deadline. Inform your readers now that you'll be emailing them the Word document twelve weeks from today.

Tomorrow, we'll go through the next stages - the second draft, the second edit and the submission.

(Ab)normal service is resumed

2009-08-26T09:22:00.000+01:00

Hello again, faithful followers! (If I were Hannibal Lecter, I could count you all on the fingers of one hand. Am I complaining about the small number? No, I'm not, and I'll explain why in a minute.)

There has been a long gap since my last post here. That gap can be explained in one word.

Infrastructure.

For the past four months, I've been refining and industrializing the process of writing. Well, to be more precise, the process of writing fiction as a part-time job, relying on something else (a job) to pay the bills.

It seems, from the many people I've chatted to on Goodreads and from reading other writers' blogs, that writers seem to fall into three distinct groups.

One group is made up of those select few who are good enough and persistent enough to be able to write full time. Like the upper class, this is the group the rest of us want to join.

Another group is made up of the stay-at-homes. Although burdened with children, dogs, household chores etc., they can fit in a fair amount of writing time per day, in an unpredictable pattern.

The final group is made up of those (like me) who have to go out and work to pay the bills. Our writing is fitted in during the time we manage to chisel loose from our non-work hours.

I would have used the term 'free time' but free time seems to be a very malleable concept. To me it means any time when I'm not doing paid work, eating, washing or sleeping. To my wife, it means any time I'm not being co-opted to take out the trash, wash dishes, shift heavy objects, redecorate rooms or joining her for theatre/cinema/friends/dinners/TV/social events (weddings, funerals, christenings, birthdays etc).

I think this partly stems from her perception of my writing. To her, it's a hobby, on a par with angling or trainspotting. To me, it's work. Alright, it's work that doesn't yet pay, but one day it will.

It's the lack of a guaranteed return that makes it a pastime rather than a profession.

You might point out, quite reasonably, that any self-employed person, or anyone who owns their own company, spends perhaps a third of their working time doing stuff that may produce a return but isn't guaranteed to - things like product development, research and training to position the company ahead of future trends.

Well, yes. I have been self-employed. I do own a company. I have never managed to convince my wife that producing e.g. a software product, which may or may not sell in bulk, is anything other than 'messing around on a computer'. Writing is similar 'messing'.

Which brings me back to infrastructure. To the industrialization of the writing process - the establishment of a set of processes that take a certain amount of time to produce a defined end-product. Third parties are involved with this end product. It is tangible. It has weight.

Explaining it in this way to my wife has finally managed to lift writing out of the hobby category into an alternative niche - not quite paid work, but of higher status than stamp collecting. Involving third parties has been a definite plus.

Consider yesterday's conversation.

"Darling, I have to finish version 1.0 of this book. I have readers booked to critique it at the start of September."

"Well, how long is it going to take to finish?" she asks, quite sensibly.

"Thirty hours."

A quick glance at the calendar establishes that I need to be doing four hours a day, minimum, in order to meet this deadline. Free time becomes more organized immediately. Anyway, I really didn't want to go and see a performamce of the Soweto Gum-boot Dancers, so it's a double victory.

Tomorrow, I'll explain how I have regularized the writing process so it's just another evening in the office. How I have set up the conveyor belt of writing. And bits about time management and writer's block.

Oh, and why aren't I complaining about lack of followers?

Because writing each post takes time. Reading each post takes time. Answering each reply takes time. If I didn't have anything worthwhile to write, why should I waste my time and yours by doing it anyway?

But, thanks to the marvels of the conveyor belt system, I now have some extra time available each day to write useful stuff about writing, books and the creative process. I now have time to be abe to respond on a daily basis to each and every comment or query.

So by all means network this blog, tweet it, recommend it to your followers, mention it on MySpace, Facebook, Goodreads, Smashwords and anywhere else you have influence.
Be sure to mention that in the future, I shall be blogging every day, although many posts may be shorter than this one.

Enjoy the rest of the day!

Narrative hooks and coherence

2009-04-18T12:17:00.000+01:00

NARRATIVE HOOKS AND COHERENCE

First some definitions perhaps.

A narrative hook is a sentence that raises an unanswered question - typically, "what happens next?" It is a device to keep the audience reading the next sentence, the next paragraph, the next page and the next chapter.

Coherence is the flow of text, where one paragraph leads smoothly on to the next. In fiction, it would also be the way in which one scene drives on to the next.

Now, conventional advice is to incorporate something dramatic in your first page that keeps the reader - errm - reading. More importantly, perhaps, it keeps the agent and publisher reading!

So, your first sentence should be a narrative hook. The reader is almost forced to read on. But then end of the first paragraph also needs to be a narrative hook, so that the reader continues to paragraph two and so on.

We also have to hold the concept of coherence in mind, where paragraphs flow smoothly and imperceptibly into each other.

Have a look at this example, from "Phase-Up", a short story by - well, OK, it's by me. And why not?

The end

I can quite clearly remember the moment of my own death. The feel of the poison ripping through my guts: the pain, the sweat, the muscle spasms, the burning. The cold circlet of metal against my temple. A brief flash of light, then nothing. Just black, soothing, nothingness.

I always did like to be thorough.

After the end

When I was next aware of myself, my surroundings were so strange, so … alien, that for a long time I could do nothing but stare in disbelief.

Imagine if you will a vast grid of shining blue lines...

Apart from the sub-heading, which itself is a sort of narrative hook - I mean, who in their right minds starts a story at the end - the first sentence is a corker (or so I am told).

I can quite clearly remember the moment of my own death.

I might revise that now, removing the redundant word 'own'. But even so, the reader thinks - weird, what's next? Must read on!

Next comes the details - how did I die? Raising the question at the end of the paragraph - why poison and gunshot? Must read on!

The second paragraph answers the question. Why? Because I like to be thorough.

OK, so that's the end of the story, isn't it?

No! Because the next sub heading tells you that there is more - there is something 'after the end'. Must read on!

I wake up in very strange surroundings.

Raising the question - why are they strange? Must read on!

And so on. Each sentence, each paragraph, each page sweeping the reader on, as helpless as a paper boat in a torrent. Resistance is futile. The reader must read to the end.

Well, that's the idea anyway.

Remember the old adages about paragraphs. One paragraph = one subject; start with topic sentence, fill in the details, finish with a conclusion. Or, as Rita Webb says in her blog, when writing about scenes: "Hook, intensity, push". Frankly I prefer Rita's version. Hook the reader, build or reduce the intensity as desired, leave a push at the end to nudge the reader onwards to the next bit.

That's coherence.

Don't regard words as your building blocks when writing. Don't even think of sentences as the basic unit.

Think of paragraphs as the building blocks that create a scene or a chapter. Start with a high, fill in all the bits that the reader needs to know to enhance understanding of action, setting or character (but no more detail than that), and end on a high.

So we have hook, detail, hook ... hook, detail, hook ...

Easy, isn't it?

Away for a week

2009-04-07T16:14:00.000+01:00

I'm off to Wales tomorrow for a week - no phones, no Internet - but we do have electricity. So, I'll take the laptop and write a full-length film script in a week! Do some general building and gardening in the afternoons. And some reviewing as well.

Bliss! (But I'll miss you all.) I expect I'll have 9000 emails to page through when I get back ;)

Then I'll get to writing somemore writing technique things - narrative hooks and POV, before a biggy: developing characters.

Romantic interest 6

2009-04-03T11:49:00.001+01:00

ROMANTIC INTEREST 6

It is too late for Rhian to go home. She spends the night snuggled up to Gaz, just sleeping.

The next morning…

When she came downstairs, breakfast was almost ready. She had dressed again, and seemed oddly shy, as if unsure of the reception she'd receive.

"You've shared my bed and my toothbrush," I said, "so it seems only right that you share my breakfast as well."

I removed any lingering awkwardness by giving her a hug, planting a quick kiss on her mouth.

"Good morning," I said. "You look good in the morning."

She blushed.

"I feel good," she said. "Better than I have in a long time."

I pulled a seat out for her at the drop leaf table and watched in pleasure as she stowed away bacon, egg and toast, washed down with several mugs of tea.

She glanced at the clock as she finished off the last piece of toast.

"I have to go to work in a minute," she said.

"Yes, where do you work?" I asked. "You didn't say much about yourself last night. Well, I suppose you didn't really get much of a chance, did you?"

She put her hand on mine.

"I'll tell you all about me the next time we get together." She put her hand to her mouth in shock. "Oh, God, I didn't mean to sound clingy, or possessive. There will be a next time, won't there?"

I squeezed her hand.

"Of course there will," I said quietly. "I hope there'll be a lot of other times. And thank you, Rhian. For being my friend, for listening to me, for staying with me. I'd like to think that we could be more than friends, in time."

She surprised me by laughing.

"Gaz, I've always been half in love with you."

I gaped at her. She laughed again.

"You mean you didn't know?" she asked.

"No," I said blankly. "I had no idea."

"I'm only sorry that it's taken us twenty years to get that out in the open," she said. "I know we didn't exactly waste those years, but still…" She blushed again. "Oh, and I work in the library."

They are now a couple. All that remains is for the relationship to get physical, but I'll leave that to your imagination… :)

Romantic interest 5

2009-04-03T11:47:00.000+01:00

ROMANTIC INTEREST 5

OK, so our couple have had a kiss and a cuddle. But it is not necessarily a close relationship yet. Gareth now forces himself to make a commitment - to trust Rhian and share his past with her, as well as sharing the real reason he has come back.

Then Rhian pushed herself away.

"Why are you back, Gaz?" she asked, staring into my eyes.

"I don't think my folks died of heart attack and stroke," I said flatly. "While I was killing total strangers in Guatemala, someone here in Brynddu was killing my parents.

"I want to know why, and I want to know how, and I want to know who. When I find out, I'm going to make them pay."

She stared at me in bewilderment, like someone who calls out to a friend only to find they are talking to a total stranger.

"How would you know your Mam and Dad didn't die naturally?" she asked. "You're just a squaddy, aren't you?" She pressed her hand against my chest, partly for contact, partly to keep me at arm's length. "Aren't you?"

I felt an unfamiliar sensation; anxiety.

"Rhian, if I tell you what I am, what I've done, I'm afraid you won't like me anymore. That would hurt."

I gazed at the floor, dreading her next words. I felt a flood of relief and shame as she stroked my cheek.

"Look at me Gaz," she said. "You've always been my friend; a good friend. Even when we were little, and it wasn't done to be friends with girls, you were my friend. You're a nice man. Anything you've done, I'm sure you did it for a good reason. I trust you."

It was her turn to tilt my head. She kissed me on the lips, slowly, gently, lingeringly.

"You don't have to tell me anything about the past if you don't want to," she whispered, her breath tickling my face. I put my arms around her waist, pulling her close again.

"But I do want to," I said. "I've wanted to be able to tell someone I can trust for years; to share the shit I've paddled through with someone who won't run to the News of the World or Special Branch." I paused, trying to choose the right words.

"I'm not going to be melodramatic and say that if I tell you, your life will be in danger. But I'm being truthful when I say that if I tell you, and you tell anyone else, my life will be in danger. So I'm trusting you now. Do you want to hear it? My past?"

She kissed the end of my nose.

"I want you to make me a promise first," she said. "From your heart; from your soul. I know you might do things that hurt me. I know you won't want to, but you may have to. But I want you to promise me that you'll never lie to me."

I held her hands and gazed into her eyes, deep blue, almost violet.

"I will never lie to you Rhian," I said. "I promise."

She pulled away, all briskness now.

"Right, let's get some more beers and you can begin."

I glanced at the mantel-clock. It was nearly eleven.

"It's getting rather late," I said doubtfully. "Would you like to leave it for another day? I expect you have work in the morning."

She shook her head.

"I don't want to wait. Do you?"

No, I didn't. I ached to be able to put my trust in someone, to confess and bare my soul to a friend, to Rhian. She was perhaps becoming more than a friend, but only time would reveal the weave of that tapestry.

"I think I need something stronger than beer for the stuff I'm going to tell you," I said, opening one of the wall cupboards and removing another bottle of JD.

I looked at Rhian. She nodded, so I poured us both a generous shot as she opened another couple of bottles of Hobgoblin.

She sat on the sofa, patting the cushion beside her.

"Come on then, tell me," she smiled. "And I don't believe that you're afraid. You've never been afraid."

I sat next to her. If only she knew, I thought. I'd been afraid, terrified, on more occasions than I could count.

She snuggled up to me, legs curled up on the cushions, an arm round my shoulders, gazing at me with trust and innocence in her eyes.

I began.

Gareth now shares some of his tormented past with Rhian.

"I was a squaddy, for 3 years," I said. "In Three Para. I moved from there to Special Forces, just in time for the Gulf War. The first one, you know, Desert Storm and the mother of all battles."

I briefly relived the hot, sandy, fly-infested hell that had been Iraq; outlining my part in it to Rhian.

It was hard, telling her of the seventeen years I had spent with the SAS. I had spent time in nearly every shithole in the world, doing various nasty things on behalf of an indifferent Government.

I told her of the fire fights; of the bombings, the sniping; of the friends I had made and lost in remote parts of the globe. I told her of the petty warlords and dictators I had helped overthrow, or prop up; sometimes both in successive months as Government policy changed. I told her of the squalid corruption I had encountered at every level - in our system as well as the foreign ones. I told her of the honourable people; of the betrayals and abandonments.

I told her of the dead who visited me in my dreams, the memories that tormented and goaded me through the day, of the way that certain sounds or smells dragged me back into the hell that had been my past.

When I had finished, Rhian was crying again, but she had also snuggled closer, empathising with me.

"No-one should have to bear all that suffering alone," she said. "Was there no-one who could help you? A counsellor or a psychologist?"

I laughed, but there was very little amusement in it.

"There was only one psychiatrist who had a high enough security clearance to be able to listen to me without breaking the Official Secrets Act," I said. "And he committed suicide a week before I was due to see him. He couldn't stand the sort of thing he had to listen to, I guess. Even second-hand it was too much for him to stand.

"Besides, if the Foreign Office, or MI5, or the SIS even thought that I was going to start revealing their dirty laundry, to anyone, I'd have ended up as just another traffic fatality."

Rhian hugged me tight, resting her head on my shoulder.

Then I told her of the endless training between missions. Of the Bachelor's degree in computer science I had gained in my spare time; of various Master's degrees in the same field. Of the security consulting I now did, mainly for Western Governments. Of the languages I had picked up while working undercover in South America, Iran, Afghanistan, Russia.

"Which is ironic really," I said, "because that was what caused the rift between my folks and me. They were dead set on me going into research, building in a career using my first degree. You know, settling down to a secure, respectable, professional career, getting a wife and two point four children, buying a house - all that conformist stuff.

"But I was too restless. I actually wanted to do something real, to see a bit of the world before I settled down. So I joined the Army. That was what we argued about, and because of it, I hadn't seen them in twenty years. Then it was too late.
I was in Central America removing a so-called terrorist leader when my folks died.

"I think they'd have been happy that I had made a career for myself eventually. I'm one of the most expensive security consultants in the world now. I even had Linda and children. Then I was sent off to Afghanistan again to remove some minor warlord. And my family died."

I sighed.

"It's almost like it's a pattern, don't you think?" I asked bitterly. "I get sent somewhere to kill some asshole, and as a balance, someone close to me dies."

"Oh Gaz," Rhian sobbed. She held me tight, stroking my chest.

I actually felt better now, having told someone my awful past, and finding that they didn't look at me like some loathsome creature in the bath.

They have bonded now - there are only a few more steps to go in the relationship. See next post.

Romantic interest 4

2009-04-03T11:45:00.001+01:00

ROMANTIC INTEREST 4

Our protagonist's relationship with Rhian progresses as they go out together.

One thing about Rhian - she didn't believe in this 'fashionably late' rubbish. She never had done. To her, seven-thirty meant seven-thirty. One of the reasons I had always liked her. Her Volvo estate pulled up to the kerb as I was reaching for the takeaway door.

"No dark glasses?" I said as she swung herself out of the car. She was wearing a pair of tan slacks and a snug pink sweater - cashmere possibly, though I wasn't an expert on that sort of thing. She looked stunning.

Rhian smiled at me.

"No, I decided I wouldn't be too embarrassed to be seen with you," she giggled. "This is silly, I feel like a teenager going on her first Prom date."

"I'm flattered," I said, meaning it. "I feel pretty good too."

She took my arm in both of hers, leaning against me.

"Come on then," she said. "Feed this girl. I'm starving!"

As we entered the takeaway, I saw our reflection again. We looked even more like a couple than we had before.

After the usual five minutes deliberating over the menu, we handed our order to the plump, smiling, middle-aged Chinese woman behind the counter.

"I'll pop to the offy and get the wine," Said Rhian. "What sort do you like?"

"I'll leave the choice to you," I said, gallant to the last.

She looked at me for a second, as if pondering a difficult decision.

"Will you think I'm really uncouth if I tell you that I don't really like wine?"

"Not at all. I don't care for it that much myself. What do you like then?"

"I'm a real ale girl," she said, fluttering her lashes in parody. I stepped back a pace, clutching my heart.

"I'm in love!" I cried, falsetto.

The comment wasn't taken in the spirit in which it was meant.

Rhian's face clouded.

"Don't say that to me Gaz," she said in a low sombre tone. "I've had too much of that crap in my life already."

She stood unflinching, waiting for my response - whatever form it took.

I put my hands on her shoulders, looking into her eyes.

"I'm sorry, Rhian," I said. "I do like you though. I always have. You know that, don't you?"

She rested her palms on my chest. When she smiled, it was a sad, sweet smile that hit me like a blow to the stomach.

"I know," she said. "And I am glad you asked me out."

She brightened, smiling in happier fashion.

"Now, are you going to trust me to get real beer? I am just a girly you know, not a macho hunk like you."

"Go on," I said. "I trust you. Just remember, real ale doesn't come in pink bottles."

I laughed. After a second, she joined in, and the evening was back on track again.

Rhian indicates that she has had some pain and trouble in her life before. But an important point is established here - they like and trust each other. They have done for years.

So where do they go from here?

We sat back on the sofa, bloated with king prawn, Szechuan beef, noodles, rice and sundry other bits of Oriental cuisine. Mugs of Hobgoblin foamed darkly in our hands.

We had enjoyed a relaxed evening, eating, sharing food off each other's plates, off each others' spoons. There had been a mildly hilarious interlude when I tried to teach Rhian how to use chopsticks properly. I'd made a note in the book to clean the carpet in the morning.

We'd talked about old times, at school, college (I had gone to London, she to Aberystwyth, but we had visited each other on a couple of occasions) and fun, drunken evenings out in the long summer vacations. We'd played the 'whatever happened to so and so' game, and the 'do you remember thingy' game. We'd both, I think, made a conscious decision to avoid more recent events.

Unfortunately, the topic could be avoided no longer.

"I met Owen Lewis today," I said. "I've hired him to do the renovating."

"Mmm, I haven't seen Owen for months. How is he?" asked Rhian.

"Seems OK. He likes a pint. He was telling me about this Order of Agrona."

Rhian flushed and almost jumped off the sofa. She banged her mug on the table. Beer slopped out, over the wood. She stood glaring at me.

"Is that why you asked me out?" she snarled. "So you can get information out of me?" She started towards the door.

I jumped up and caught hold of her arm. She whirled, hand smacking hard against my face.

"Get your hands off me! Don't touch me!"

Her voice was wild now. Tears glistened in her eyes. I pulled her to me, wrapping my arms around her and holding her despite her attempts to punch my chest. Her struggles subsided. I stroked her hair as she started to sob convulsively; great racking gasps that shook her entire body.

"Ssshhhh…" I said, continuing to stroke her hair. "It's alright Rhian."

Her voice was muffled against my chest now.

"I thought better of you than that, Gaz" she said quietly. "You didn't have to pretend to want to see me. You could just have asked me about Agrona straight out. I thought you were my friend."

I put a hand under her chin, tilting her head so I could look into her eyes. Tears were trickling down her face. She made no effort to wipe them away. I cradled her face with my hands, brushing the tears away with my thumbs.

"I am your friend, Rhian," I said quietly. "I've enjoyed tonight more than anything else in the last year. I asked you out because I like you, I like your company. I wouldn't lie to you, or use you. I'd never knowingly hurt you."

Very slowly, giving her time to refuse, I lowered my face to hers and kissed her eyes, left then right. Then, gently, I kissed her lips. She stood like a deer in headlights for a minute, then, like frightened animals, her hands crept round my back, holding me as I held her. She put her head on my shoulder, and I stroked her back, tracing her spine through her jumper.

We stood together like that for several minutes, not speaking.

Here, in the space of a couple of pages, I've employed the old cliche - boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy wins back girl - which tightens (I think) the narrative by compressinbg the course of the relationship into a single evening.

The rest of the evening in the next post.

Romantic Interest 3

2009-04-03T10:31:00.000+01:00

ROMANTIC INTEREST 3

What if they do like each other at the beginning? What if they are already friends?

Let's consider an extract from my novel, 'Revival'.

The basic scenario is that a man has returned to the old family home after twenty years. His parents have been dead for two years, and he has had his own family killed in a car crash nine months ago.

The second day back, he is going into a shop.

As I went to go in through the swinging glass door, a woman was trying to come out. We spent perhaps fifteen seconds performing that curious dance of the socially inept, each deciding simultaneously to give way to the other, hopping from side to side like exotic birds of New Guinea in a previously unseen mating ritual.

Then the woman stopped in the middle of the doorway and stared at me.

"Gareth?" she asked hesitantly. "Gareth Lloyd?"

I looked at her. Perhaps forty, the same sort of age as me. Someone who knew me from when I had lived here? Memory tugged like an undertow. Curly blonde hair, nice face despite the little encroaches of age.

"Rhian?" I offered.

"It is you!" she said triumphantly. "I heard that someone had come back to the house. I thought it might be you." She thrust out a hand and we shook. Someone muttered behind me, and we moved out of his way onto the pavement, still holding hands.

"Sorry," I said, releasing my grip. "You're looking well."

Rhian Davis had been one of the children I had gone to school with, and later one of the adolescents I had hung out with, when we both attended the secondary school here. We had been friends, I suppose, but never quite made it to the stage of a couple, despite a few kisses and cuddles in bus shelters and taxi ranks when waiting to come back from a night club in nearby Barmouth or Aberystwyth.

She was indeed looking well. Under the baggy jumper and jeans tucked into green Wellingtons, her body looked trim and fit. She still had her fresh country complexion and clear blue eyes. Almost unconsciously, I looked at her hands. No rings or recent evidence of rings.

"Is it still Davis?" I asked. She shook her head, smiling a little sadly.

"It is now. I was a Johnson for a while, but it didn't work out." She looked at me again, putting her hand on my arm in a gesture that was surprisingly tender, almost intimate. "I was sorry to hear about your parents. They were well liked. I miss them. How's the wife and family doing?"

I swallowed. My voice was rougher than I intended when I answered her.

"Dead. They died in a car crash nine months ago."

Rhian's face showed shock and surprise. She had barely known Linda and the children, but she was one of the few who had sent Christmas cards every year after I went away.

Her hand tightened on my arm momentarily. I looked into the glass window of the newsagent and saw the pair of us reflected there. We looked like a couple.

"Oh, Gaz, that's awful. I had no idea."

"I was in Afghanistan at the time," I said roughly. "A drunk driver smashed into them head-on. Killed himself as well."

I didn't add that I had wanted to have the satisfaction of killing him myself, but it must have shown in my face, because Rhian withdrew her arm and took half a step back.

I took a deep breath and swallowed again, feeling the prickling in the eyes that presaged the pointless, detestable tears. Looking away for a second to get myself under control, I saw us again in the shop window. We didn't look like a couple now. My face, reflected in the plate glass, looked like someone who has been to hell, and brought some of it back as a souvenir.

"I'm sorry Rhian," I said, forcing myself to look at her once again. "I don't really want to talk about it yet. How are your folks?"

"They died a couple of years ago, just after yours," she said. "Within a few weeks of each other. A lot of people seemed to die round about then." There was a curious hardness in her tone. "I don't really want to talk about it either. Not here and now anyway. Are you staying long?"

I thought about it. Depended on your view of long, I suppose.

"I've moved back for good," I said. I'm going to do up the house and settle down here."

I felt a little stab of pleasure as her face brightened.

"Oh, that's good," she said. "Perhaps we could get together for a drink sometime next week." She seemed suddenly hesitant. "That is, if you want to. I mean…"

It was my turn to touch her arm.

"I'd like that," I said. "Let me have your phone number."

She recited the number and I jotted it down in my notebook. I remembered that, at school, she had always been good with figures.

"I'll ring," I promised. "Tuesday sometime?"

We parted. I watched her walking down the street for a moment.

When I turned to come face to face with myself in the window again, some of the hard expression had left my face. Now I just looked unkempt, shaggy, and vaguely lost.

Note how our protagonist feels a stab of pleasure when she is pleased he is staying. Note also the little tenderness - her laying a hand on his arm in sympathy; their reflection looking as if they are a couple.

OK, they have been friends for over thirty years, and they are both lonely and therefore vulnerable, but they could become more than just friends, if the writing is any indication.

Always start small and build. Don't start with a passionate kiss, start with a handshake, or a pat on the back.

This relationship develops thus:

On the way back through the darkening afternoon, I used the payphone on the corner to call Rhian.

"Hello Rhian, it's Gaz."

"You're a day early," she said, sounding surprised, and perhaps a little pleased. "I thought you were just being polite - you know, don't ring us, we'll ring you - that sort of thing."

"Well, I don't want to sound eager or anything," I said, "but are you doing anything tonight?"

There was a lengthy silence. I was determined not to be the first to break it. When Rhian answered, the pleasure had gone from her voice, replaced by caution.

"Why? What do you want Gaz?" she asked.

"I'm sitting in the old house alone every night," I said, "and you're one of the few people I still know and like in this town. I'd like some company, that's all." I was startled at how much truth there was in that. "I've been alone for nine months now," I added.

When she responded this time, the warmth was back in her voice.

"Oh, Gaz, of course. I could do with some company as well. What do you want to do?"

"You decide," I said. "I'm only just back, so I don't know much about the night life."

"Night life!" she scoffed. "The best selling postcard here in the summer is completely black on one side. Guess what the title is - 'night in Brynddu'. Why don't we just get a takeaway and a bottle of wine and go back to your house? I'll meet you in the Happy Garden about half-seven"

"Aren't you worried people will gossip?" I asked innocently.

"It's OK," she said. "I'll wear dark glasses and a scarf. No-one will recognise me."

"Half seven it is then," I said. "And I'll spring for the meal."

I was about to hang up when I heard her say something, very quietly, almost as if to herself.

"Thanks Gaz; thanks for asking me."

I felt another curious rush of warmth towards her.

"No, Rhian. Thank you for saying 'yes'".

I gently put the phone back in its cradle.

So they have a date! You youngsters, trust me. When you get to forty, or more, you no longer care about looking like an idiot. You will just ask someone out, just like that.

The next post will show the progress of this relationship.

2009-04-02T15:38:00.000+01:00

ROMANTIC INTEREST 2

The relationship continues to blossom. (Funny how many botanical terms are involved in describing relationships isn't it? Bloom, flower, blossom…)

Now, in a hotel room decorated in early hideous, we finished our planning.

"So we're just going to spend a couple of days here absorbing the atmosphere?" asked June.

"Yes."

"And then move to Lamingdon and do the same there?"

"Yes."

"And then walk through the front gate of the Research Unit and start asking them questions?"

"Yes."

"You really are a master of strategy and tactics aren't you?" she said, fluttering her eyelashes.

"I try."

"So … beer and curry?"

I usually let her make major decisions like that. After all, she was nominally in charge.

Yep, getting along well. And shortly afterwards, June makes the first overt move to increase the depth of the relationship.

"And how do you suggest we get these samples?" June enquired sarcastically. "Kidnap one of them?"

I nodded.

"Exactly."

"God, you are a ruthless bastard aren't you?" she said.

"Is that admiration in your tone?" I asked.

"Actually - yes. It is." She flushed slightly. "Never thought I'd hear myself saying something nice about you. Or to you."

For once, I had no ready answer.

June has actually admitted that she admires Player.

It takes danger for them to get physical though.

I put a hand on June's shoulder. She jumped at the unexpected contact. I put my mouth to her ear.

"Pull back," I breathed.

She looked at me, uncomprehending.

I gestured towards normality behind us, pulling her arm. She struggled. I persisted.

Our target stopped below us.

Directly below us.

He stood immobile, the tethered goat awaiting the tiger.

The bait in the trap.

June's face showed sudden understanding. We began to slide back through the elders and hawthorns.

Through this thin strip of woods lay an open field. The far side of that was in what we had begun to call 'the normal region'.

We ducked through a rusted wire fence and began running across the field.

Noises erupted in the woods behind us. A dozen men emerged from the sheltering darkness under the trees.

They ran after us.

We ran faster.

The noise behind stopped. June looked back and tripped, falling into the uneven wet grass. I pulled her up, looking behind.

The men had stopped in an even line about halfway across the field. They reminded me of footballers waiting for the national anthem.

They stood and stared, motionless.

We walked towards what we hoped was safety.

As if in response to some unheard signal, the men turned and retreated into the woods.

We watched them go.

"Back to the car then," I said.

"How did you know?" asked June.

"Too quiet somehow podner," I drawled.

We sat in the car. I told it to go to the hotel. As it glided away June threw herself at me, wrapping her arms around my neck, pressing tightly.

I could feel her heartbeat. She whispered into the side of my neck.

"I was so scared. Thank you. Thank you."

I could feel my heart beating too. I'd been scared, but that wasn't the main reason for my racing pulse.

She kissed me, her lips moist, her mouth opening slightly, her tongue probing.

I didn't resist much. Actually, I didn't resist at all.

He has saved her from being caught by the aliens. We now have physical contact and a kiss. A passionate kiss.

They go further.

"We obviously need a different game plan," I said as we recuperated in the hotel room. "It seems to me that we need to start with small things that don't fight back."

"Like what?" asked June sarcastically. "Blades of grass?"

I nodded.

"That might not be such a bad idea," I said seriously. "Maybe throw in an invertebrate or two - see if their behaviour is different."

"Invertebrates don't have behaviour," she retorted.

"Ants do, bees, any social insect."

"And I suppose we use the SAS to perform this daring mission?"

"Why not? I don't really want to be transformed into a zombie.

I quite like myself the way I am."

She grinned at me.

"You do start to grow on one after a while. And after half a bottle of Jack Daniels."

June leaned across me to pick up the bottle. As she did so, she pressed a firm young breast against my arm.

"How old are you, June?"

She poured my drink before answering. Her tone was defensive as she did so.

"Sixty-three. Why, does it matter?"

"Not to me. I wouldn't have put you a day past eighty."

She put most of her weight in a very sensitive spot as she leaned back. I yelped. She raised an eyebrow.

"Nothing," I said. "It was nothing."

"You're eighty-one, aren't you?"

I nodded.

"You look about thirty, thirty-five. God, isn't technology wonderful?"

"Mmmm. Have you been married?"

She sighed.

"Couple of times. They didn't work out. And you?"

"The same. Except it was me that didn't work out."

I sometimes have these painful attacks of honesty.

June stood up, grabbing my arm and pulling me up off the bed.

"Your room or mine?"

It ended up being both of them.

And the bathroom in-between.

So we now have a full-on relationship. This is signalled by the relaxed intimacy they now share and the exchange of sensitive personal information.

Their relationship will get deeper and more intense as they become more and more threatened.

2009-04-02T15:35:00.000+01:00

ESTABLISHING AND DEVELOPING ROMANTIC INTEREST

INTRODUCTION
Nearly every story should have an element of romantic interest. Without sounding like Mills and Boon, love and romance are important elements in most people's lives.

The good side is, of course, falling in love. The bad side is the breakup of relationships. Nearly every reader or film goer has had the experience of falling in and out of love. You strike a chord with them; you recruit their encouragement or their sympathy when you detail these things. The reader has suddenly become engaged - he or she is now your tacit partner in the book.

This is why it is so important to have love and romance in your work. Not many people have met a seven foot, blue-skinned alien wielding a ray gun. The readers have to use their imagination there. They don't have to imagine what it feels like to be in love. They know.

Note that the title of this section is romantic interest. There are of course many other kinds of love, and you could quite profitably use all of them in your works: love of parents; love of children; love for a house, a piece of land or a country. Nearly all your readers will also know what those emotions are like.

It is also quite easy to write romance and other loves well. Just honestly examine your own feelings. How did you feel when you met someone special? How did you act when you were in love? What was it like when the relationship turned sour?

See, you know how it feels, don't you?

ESTABLISHING THE RELATIONSHIP - FIRST MEETING
As Frank Herbert says in 'Dune': 'beginnings are such crucial times'.

Extreme care must be taken at the beginning of something.

Consider the first meeting of boy and girl (or man and woman, or any other combination you might want). The two may not initially like each other. Your path in this situation is to, gradually, over the course of the first half of the book, find ways in which they can come to admire and respect each other.

That admiration must turn to mutual liking, and then to love. It could well be that boy rescues girl from life threatening situation. The sex follows, as a celebration of continuing life.

Here is an example from my work in progress, "The Symbiont".

There were two people in the office. One was Under Secretary Whitehead, who always reminded me of a surprisingly clever caricature - the toad in human guise.

The other occupant was obviously a woman and, less obviously, an American.

Mister Charm-and-Personality was the first to speak.

"Where the hell have you been, Player? I've been tickling you for nearly two hours!"

Amazing! Even his voice was a guttural, batrachian croak. I replied with considerable restraint and dignity. Well, I thought so anyway.

"In the pub, where do you think? Tickler must be malfunctioning again."

His face turned an interesting shade of ugly.

"Your contract says forty-five minutes for lunch, not four hours!"

"Fine; so fire me. Better yet, I quit."

I turned to leave.

The woman, who had been following the conversation like a tennis spectator spoke for the first time; confirming that she was indeed American; West coast probably. The tan strengthened that impression.

"Can you quit in a few weeks? We need you for a while longer."

I looked at her with as much insolence as I could muster. And that was plenty. I've had lots of practice.

Pretty, shoulder length dark hair, oval face, nice body. Dressed in American office-casual - slacks and sweater, trainers, white socks. No rings or other jewellery.

She withstood my look with composure. Obviously she was another with more than the usual quota of arrogance.

"You want me for what exactly?"

She picked up a buff file from the corner of the Whitehead's desk. She quoted from it at length, without once looking at the pages themselves. Impressive.

"So you're the famous Richard Player? A legend in his own lifetime. How many research programmes have you -" she mouthed the word as if it were tasty - "sequestered?

"Don't strain your memory; I'll tell you. Seventy-two."

I shrugged. She continued.

"Which is the only reason you're still working here. Your personality profile puts you at borderline sociopathic. A drunk, a loner, a misfit; who hates himself marginally less than he hates the rest of the world.

"Make no mistake Player. You are only here on sufferance - because you're a useful tool. As soon as you cease to be useful, we'll put you in a psych ward for the rest of your miserable life."

I couldn't help myself. I laughed. A look of surprise crossed her face; then she followed suit. Her nose wrinkled nicely as she did so.

I pulled one of the nice leather swivel chairs over next to her and sat.

"You must know I'm a sucker for flattery," I said. "So, once again, what is it you want me to do?"

So what is happening here? Player, our protagonist, has just met this woman. He finds her attractive. This is clear by the sentence Pretty, shoulder length dark hair, oval face, nice body. So he is interested.

She, on the other hand, is not interested. She describes Player as borderline sociopath. Not an ideal start to a romance is it?

However, towards the end of the passage, they do find something which they can share - a laugh. A contact has been made.

Later we have this passage:

She looked at Whitehead in surprise - almost as if she had forgotten his presence.

I found myself almost liking her.

Almost.

"You want?" she enquired. Whitehead reverted to Civil Service Mandarin mode.

"That is to say, that my masters, the powers that be, require it."

"Then let it be so," I said. "Miss Hill, let's go to my office and start digging."

We walked out together. I was old school enough to open the door for her. She was old school enough to take that as a courtesy and not a sexist and demeaning act that forever trapped her in an inferior socio-economic stereotype.

We talked as we drifted down the slo-tube.

"What is your name then, Miss Hill?"

She actually blushed.

"Juniper Hill," she said. "And please don't make any pathetic jokes about it sounding more like a piece of real estate. Call me June."

I bit back my flow of those exact pathetic jokes.

"Call me Dick, and please no jokes about it sounding more like a hobby."

She laughed again.

"OK, it's a deal".

We shook hands and left the slo-tube.

Now we have dialogue and the beginnings of a relationship. It is still a fragile bud, which could be destroyed by a single careless word or action.

Player and June work closely together for the next few days, building the relationship.

Oh, and let's not forget the murder of crows patiently stalking a cat on the outskirts of Lamingdon itself, seen from the train window.

"A murder?" enquired June.

"Collective noun for a group of crows," I explained.

She looked at me for a moment.

"You're just full to the brim with useless information, aren't you?"

"I try my best," I admitted modestly.

#

For the last two days we had carried out a ceaseless verbal war of sarcasm while we worked.

Fuelled with beer and Jack Daniels - the real stuff, the harmful version, not the New No 8, bland and packed with nanites.
June had spent both nights at my flat, though not in my bed.

"I'm claiming expenses for a hotel, of course," she confessed. "But I don't actually want to waste perfectly good money on a room. I'd rather invest it in alcohol."

"Thought all you Americans were sober, industrious, clean living, all that good shit."

"Yes, maybe, in America; but this is like being on holiday for me. I'm just copying the habits of you English natives."

"You picked a good role model then," I said.

She winked and drinked.

They are getting along quite well now, on a basis of good-humoured banter.

2009-04-02T12:14:00.001+01:00

HOW TO WRITE ACTION SCENES

I think the simplest way to show how to write an action scene is to give some examples (good and bad).

GOOD EXAMPLE 1

Extract from 'The Yillian Way' by Keith Laumer.

…Retief stood, the Yill topping his six foot three by an inch. In a motion almost too quick to follow, Retief reached for the sabre, twitched it from the Yill's grip, swung it in a whistling cut. The Yill ducked, sprang back, snatched up a sabre dropped by another dancer.

"Someone stop the madman!" Spradley howled.

Retief leaped across the table, sending fragile dishes spinning.
The other danced back, and only then did the orchestra spring to life with a screech and a mad tattoo of high-pitched drums.

Making no attempt to following the weaving pattern of the Yill bolero, Retief pressed the other, fending off vicious cuts with the blunt weapon, chopping back relentlessly. Left hand on hip, Retief matched blow for blow, driving the other back.

Abruptly, the Yill abandoned the double role. Dancing forgotten, he settled down in earnest, cutting, thrusting, parrying; and now the two stood toe to toe, sabres clashing in a lightning exchange. The Yill gave a step, two, then rallied, drove Retief back, back -

And the Yill stumbled. His sabre clattered, and Retief dropped his point as the other wavered past him and crashed to the floor…

So what's good about this?

Look at the paragraph length - very short. Frequently, only one sentence. Sentence length is very short as well.

Look at the choice of active words - pressed, chopping, relentlessly, abruptly, lightning…

All these words are indicative of speed and motion. Dramatic words abound - cutting, thrusting, parrying - a sequence of verbs separated by commas. More evidence of violent motion and speed.

BAD EXAMPLE 1

This is one I created specially for this workshop.

The alien, that was hideous with its mottled orange and green skin, charged towards me. I was forced back, retreating, having to block its talons as the swung towards me again and again.

I was panting, gasping for breath. My heart was pounding. The blood was throbbing in my temples. I tripped over a rock, falling to the ground as if in slow motion.

The alien towered over me, resting a clawed foot on my chest…

So what's wrong with this passage?

Have a go at rewriting it following the pointers I gave for the good passage.

2009-04-01T19:33:00.000+01:00

SETTING, MAINTAINING AND CHANGING PACE

SETTING THE PACE

If you write horror, SF, fantasy or action thrillers, you will probably want to have your book accelerating throughout to a slam-bang breathless climax at or very near the end.

But you also need to have a great opening page to hook the reader’s attention – and the attention of the agent and publisher.

So what bits can be slow, what bits must be fast, and how do you set the pace anyway?

Before we get to the mechanics of changing pace, I’d like to give everyone a little repeat of the Aristotelian plot structure of a book (or film).

Act one – the first quarter of a book.

Act two – the middle half of the book.

Act three – the last quarter of the book.

The opening pages of a book may well show the main character, the hero, going about his or her daily life. Then something happens that forces the hero to do something out of the ordinary. That something is called the inciting incident. This should definitely come near the beginning. (Of course, you could argue that in some instances, the inciting incident might well happen before the start of the book, and this guarantees a reasonable pace, because we’re already into conflict and drama at the very beginning.)

About a quarter of the book is spent establishing all the characters and settings, equipment, introducing all the major themes. This is Act One. This is where you will have descriptions – of people and places, of the characters state of mind, feelings, interaction with others, setting up dialogue – so Act One is of necessity going to be moderately paced. Your problem is actually making sure that it’s not too slow.

A word of caution here – one thing you should always avoid is expositional writing – i.e. telling the reader things. Never, ever tell the reader anything – show them. If it is significant that the hero’s parents died two years ago, introduce the fact in some dialogue with an old friend. Much better and more natural.

You might well want to go through your descriptions weeding out redundant words. The word “that” can usually be cut out completely. “Was running” can be replaced with “ran”. Changing these words for active verbs has the effect of heightening pace.

Using your characters to drive the story will also set a natural pace. Yes, you have your plot points to meet and satisfy, but letting the characters arrive there in a natural and believable way will automatically set the correct pace.

Plot Point One is the end of Act one. It is a significant event. The hero meets the woman who is going to help him resolve the problem he has and overcome the nemesis.

Act Two, and the pace will begin to speed up. The hero may still be gathering the allies, talents or skills he will need to confront the nemesis, but there is also action. Ideally, quite a lot of action. Again to speed things up, eliminate words like “that”. Replace all passive verbs with active ones.

And here is a handy hint. Have shorter sentences. That increases pace.

Instead of your long, lingering, beautifully crafted sentences: the ones that contain multiple clauses; to increase pace, write simple sentences wherever possible.

Read the above paragraph again, and then read the paragraph below, where I say the same thing, but with much greater pace.

Abandon long sentences. Speak out against multiple clauses. Write only simple sentences.

See what I mean?

The mid-point though, about half way through Act Two, is the first major trial of strength between hero and nemesis. It should be fast. It may be inconclusive. It may be that the hero kills the nemesis’s chief lieutenant.

The hero’s low point, at the end of Act Two, Plot Point Two, about three quarters of the way through the book, can be slow. Indeed it should be slow. It is the calm before the storm. Our hero is gathering all his strength, resolved to win or die trying. You can have lengthy dialogue. You can have elaborate descriptions of his mental state.

Act Three, and now we gallop towards the inevitable climax that was prefigured in Act one and developed in Act Two. The climax comes about two thirds of the way through Act three. It should definitely be fast. Use the usual tricks again – no redundant words, active verbs, short sentences, abbreviated dialogue, little or no description. Just violent action and more violent action.

The resolution, at the end, can be as slow or as fast as you like.

As before, with the conflict section, why not post some of your writings up here and we’ll see if we can’t change the pace. It’s always better to have examples, don’t you think?

Establishing and escalating conflict

2009-04-01T10:16:00.000+01:00

ESTABLISHING AND DEVELOPING CONFLICT

INTRODUCTION

Every piece of fiction, whether it's a short story, a novel, a film script or a stage play, needs some sort of conflict. Life is all about conflict, and fiction reflects life, albeit in a distorted and microcosmic way.
Conflict involves an element of struggle. For example, your lead character may be an alcoholic. His conflict, or one area of it anyway, is therefore his struggle against his own addictions.
There are many different sorts of conflict:

Physical confrontations, including war, battles, and fights
Internal struggle - as in the example above
Emotional conflict - two conflicting desires, for example lust and guilt
A struggle against the elements - as in the battle to survive in a blizzard
Romantic conflict - he loves her, she hates him. The conflict here would be his battle to win her over.
Political conflict - the battle to win the votes, conflicting ideologies
Intellectual conflict - the struggle to win a court case, or prove a theory
Companion conflict - rivals become buddies (or vice versa)

If there is no conflict in a story, then there essentially is no story. Why would anyone waste time reading a story about nothing happening?

It is important to establish what sort of conflict(s) we are to expect very early in a story. Ideally, the inciting incident (or complication) comes in the first five pages of a film script, or the first, or at most second, chapter of a book. It is this inciting incident that signals what sort of conflict we can expect. This incident is what forces the hero into action.

Simplified, every story is the struggle of the main character, the hero or protagonist, to overcome his or her nemesis (enemy). It is the tale of the hero's journey to acquire the strength, skills, talents or companions he needs to overcome his nemesis.

To make the introduction and escalation of conflict more important, there is usually a time element involved as well - if Frodo doesn't drop the ring in the fire before Sauron conquers Minas Tirith, Middle Earth is doomed.

EXAMPLES OF CONFLICT

Using our categories above, we can use the following as examples:

Physical:
o Achille's battle with Hector (Troy)
o Alex's fight with Dim (A Clockwork Orange)
Internal:
o Nash's struggle with schizophrenia (A Beautiful Mind)
o Sarah T (Portrait of a Teenage Alcoholic)
Emotional:
o Adultery (lust and guilt) (Desperate Housewives)
o Jealousy - (Othello)
Struggle against elements:
o Cold (To Build a Fire)
o Storm (The Perfect Storm)
Romantic Conflict:
o Love/hate (The Taming of the Shrew)
o Obsessive love (Fatal Attraction)
Political conflict:
o A struggle to maintain ideals (The Candidate)
o Rebellion v oppression (1984)
Intellectual conflict:
o Uncovering the truth (A Few Good Men)
o Discovering the truth again (The Pelican Brief)
Companion conflict:
o Strangers become friends (Lethal Weapon)
o Friends become enemies (High Noon)

HOW TO INTRODUCE CONFLICT

We will examine various types of conflict and how they escalate using a simple plot for a film. This is the plot.

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A widower, Frank, lives in the house he has occupied for the last twenty years. His wife died three years ago. His children have long since grown up and left home.

Next door lives a woman, Julia, who was divorced two years ago. She has occupied her house for twenty five years. In other words, they have been neighbours for two decades. The two houses are an isolated pair on the top of a steep hill. It was a brake failure three years ago that killed Frank's wife at the bottom of the hill.

Both Frank and Julia are in their mid forties. Frank has lusted after Julia for much of those twenty years, but has never voiced this to her, even when they were both available.

Now she has a new boyfriend, Sam. Frank can occasionally hear them making love through the thin party wall. He can do more than hear them however, because over the years, he has comprehensively bugged the house next door. He watches Julia obsessively - photographing her when she hangs washing on the line, watching her on a monitor when she sleeps, watching her showering, making love. He imagines himself in Sam's place. One night, Sam, also a widower, proposes to Julia. She accepts. Frank looks on disbelieving. They set a date for the marriage - in three months time.

He hates Sam. He begins to plot Sam's death. He engineers brake failure for Sam's car, after extensive research on how to do it and make it look like an accident.

But Frank still doesn't have the nerve to reveal his desire (he calls it love, we would call it lust or obsession) to Julia, even though she is now available again.

He is sitting in a darkened room, watching her on a monitor as she sleeps. Suddenly, she throws back the cover and gets up, walking over to the concealed camera / microphone.

Bending close to the camera she whispers "The back door's unlocked. Come to me, Frank. I want you now." He thinks he is hallucinating, dreaming perhaps. She waits. When he doesn't show up, she speaks again.

"Come to me now. I've waited for you for twenty years. I killed your bitch of a wife - it was no accident. I want you. I've waited for you all these years. Come to me."

The film might end with Frank in tortured indecision - does he go? Does he call the police and play the tape of Julia's words?

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Don't use that plot, because I've already written the script. Even as you read this, the script, called "Driven", is looking for a good home.

Now, how many types of conflict are there in this story?

Frank obviously suffers internal conflict: he lusts after Julia but is too afraid of rejection to voice that desire to her. This could also be characterised as romantic conflict. He probably suffers from guilt - bugging her house and watching her in the night would raise guilt in most people's minds. He has another conflict - he wants Sam dead, and decides to kill him in an engineered traffic accident. More guilt; more fear. There is physical conflict in that Frank undertakes a series of actions that will lead to Sam's death. The time element is present - he only has three months.

What about Julia? If she isn't a total psycho (and of course, she might be) she must be feeling guilt. Guilt about killing Fran's wife. Guilt about using Sam to provoke Frank into decisive action. She obviously feels lust and suffers from obsession.
There is really very little here about love - this is the warped version. Lust, desire, murder, and voyeurism - this is a seriously warped couple. They may well go on to be very effective serial killers.

So, how would we introduce some of these examples of conflict?

Start small. Don't reveal too much to the audience yet - whether readers or film-goers.
Frank watches Julia hanging washing next door.

That's it.

Except there is more. He is lurking.

He hangs back, obscured by net curtains, the archetypal peeping tom. He watches her with a vacant expression on his face. Only his eyes seem alive.

This is a nasty guy - a stalker. There is conflict expressed here. The way he hangs back expresses fear, indecision.

Julia wears jeans and a tight, white sweater. She bends over the washing basket. The movement reveals the crack of her bum.

There is a click. Frank photographs her. The camera is expensive, with a long, telephoto lens.

So what is going on here? Frank has obviously spent money to further his obsession. But what is Julia doing? Is she oblivious to her watcher, or is she deliberately teasing him, provoking him.

She turns sideways, putting her hands on her hips, arching her back to relieve the ache. The sweater pulls tight over her breasts. We hear another click and another as Frank takes more photos.

Yes, she is indeed provoking him. What is she up to?

We have just introduced internal conflict and perhaps a battle of wits between watcher and watched. But we started at a low level.

ESCALATING CONFLICT - STAGE 2

Where do we go from here?

The next escalation would involve Frank looking at his watch - perhaps seven in the morning.

He gets up, padding downstairs barefoot. He goes into a room filled with electronic equipment.

A beat focuses on an old newspaper. The headline revealed states 'Tragic death of wife in auto accident'.

Frank switches on a monitor.

We see the image of Julia showering, turning, running her soapy hands over her body.

Frank's gaze is riveted to the monitor

So, this conflict has escalated. Frank hasn't just spent money on his obsession. He's spent a shitload of money. He has broken the law, bugging his neighbour's house. Again, it is almost as if Julia is deliberately provoking him with her seductive movements. Do people really shower like that?

ESCALATING CONFLICT - STAGE 3

The next escalation would also involve Frank lying in bed awake.

Frank lies, staring at the ceiling. We can hear the rhythmic creaking of a bed; muffled moans of passion. Frank's face shows anguish.

He gets up, again padding downstairs barefoot. He goes into the electronics room, switching on the monitor and clicking a setting on the PC.

We see the image of the couple next door, making love. The frantic movements are seen reflected in Frank's eyes. Pulling back, we see his expression is stony. The sounds are clearer now. Julia is emitting little cries. We see her facing the hidden camera. We see her body and her face. It is almost as if she is staring directly at the hidden camera.

ESCALATING CONFLICT - STAGE 4

This time, we hear speech, transmitted into an earpiece.

An outside shot established that Sam and Julia are in a dining room. From outside, we see their lips moving, but cannot hear what they are saying.

A voice over reveals the gist of the speech.

A beat focuses on an earpiece in someone's ear. We pull back to reveal the ear belongs to Frank.

So, Frank indulges his obsession 24 hours a day? Serious stuff.

Sam is proposing to Julia. She accepts. They set a date for the wedding - three months time.

A close up of Fran's face reveals a tear trickling down his face.

He plays the conversation over and over again.

Gradually, his expression changes from grief to fury. He clenches his fist. His lips thin down to a narrow slit.

So, he is not going to take this lying down. He is going to do something. What?

ESCALATING CONFLICT - STAGE 5

We see Frank staring at a monitor. He is not watching the woman next door. He is looking at a schematic of a brake system. The system is for the make and model of car we have seen parked outside next door's house - Sam's car.

So the conflict has escalated to murder?

We see the stealthy night-time tinkering carried out by Frank on Sam's car.

So Frank is carrying out his plan for murder.

Sam is getting into his car. Julia opens the passenger door. Is she going to get into the car? Frank's face is a mask of fright and confusion. He goes to the front door, ready to run out. He hesitates, dithering.

Making a decision, he opens the door, running out.

Too late! The car is driving away, down the hill. He is going to run after it, but a voice stops him.

"Morning Frank."

It is Julia. She didn't get into the car after all.

We hear a screech of tyres, a crash, the crump of an explosion. Black smoke rises above the trees.

Frank has resolved his conflict with Sam. He has killed him. How will he resolve his conflict with Julia?

ESCALATING CONFLICT - STAGE 6

Frank sits in a darkened room. He watches Julia, watching her on a monitor as she sleeps.

So, is the situation back to normal?

Suddenly, Julia throws back the cover. She gets up, naked, walking over to the concealed camera / microphone.

Bending close to the camera she whispers "The back door's unlocked. Come to me, Frank. I want you now."

He thinks he is hallucinating, dreaming perhaps. She waits. When he doesn't show up, she speaks again.

"Come to me now. I've waited for you for twenty years. I killed your bitch of a wife - it was no accident. I want you. I've waited for you all these years. I saw you fiddling with Sam's brakes. I've got photographs.

A quick flashback shows Julia standing in a darkened window, photographing Frank. A pan around the room shows that she has hundreds of photographs of Frank in all sorts of situations.

"Come to me," she repeats, but now it is a command.

That is how the situation is resolved - with a dramatic twist.

CONCLUSION
So we can see how each segment involves little steps, but the steps are cumulative - each is a little worse than the one before. You are drawn into this sick couple's world.

We do not realise until the very end that Julia is as badly besotted with Frank as he is with her. Perhaps even more so.

They have had their little game with each other, but Julia has proved to be the winner, being more deceitful, manipulative, deadly.

Introduction

2009-03-29T11:26:00.000+01:00

Hi all!

This is the first post to this new blog, so I suppose I'd better introduce myself.

My name is Paul Mitton, I'm 55, and I live in England. I used to write quarter of a century ago, getting as close to being published as having the same novel rejected by three different publishers with three completely different sets of (extensive) changes. In disgust I gave up writing and took courses in computer programming, becoming variously an analyst programmer, 3rd level desktop and network support, IT contractor on data migration projects and so on.

I spent 25 years in the wastes of IT before coming back to writing, this time mainly film scripts, though I have just finished the first draft of a horror novel.

I now work in a college of Further Education, where I run a study centre (part library, part stationery store, part IT suite), develop multimedia learning resources (movie clips, Flash, PowerPoint, interactive quizzes using Hot Potatoes etc.) and provide IT support on an ad hoc basis. I am also taking a Cert Ed course, specializing in Adult Literacy.

During the summer, together with my co-director in Blind Samurai Films Ltd, Dr. Roger Cottrell, I will be delivering two week-long workshops in script writing and film entrepreneurship. We will also be producing a pilot film for one of our fictions (we only do horror, science fiction and action thrillers), and producing a couple of short films in collaboration with various local colleges of FE - Hereford, Worcester and Kidderminster.

I'm an active member and contributor to Goodreads, and will be maintaining this blog fairly regularly, so watch this space!