Selling Snake Oil

Other writing blogs (yes, I've glanced at them, I know they exist!) make much of offering advice about how to get published.  Although it would be easy to give you a lot of blah di blah about how you should approach an agent first and send them a synopsis and your first three chapters double-spaced and printed only on one side of A4 paper, I feel reluctant to do that.  I hope it's not that  I'm sore because my Arts Council Award-winning novel has yet to find a publisher,  although it has made me aware of how very, very difficult it is to get into print at the moment, but more than that I don't want to be passing you off with snake oil.

Publication can be a useful goal, but it shouldn't be an end in itself.  It's certainly not a route to fame and fortune, which is what I suspect a lot of people think when they first pick up a pen or start tapping away at a keyboard.  The best motivation for writing should be the urge to tell a story in order to make sense of the world for yourself, coupled with an obsession with the nuances and inflections of the music of words and the subtleties of meaning.  In my experience, the greatest fulfilment comes from the creative process itself; everything else is a means to sustaining this end. 

I know that part of the reason for writing is to find some kind of affirmation, and I don't think you should underestimate the value of a constructive and vibrant writers’ group.  If there isn't one near you, think about setting one up.  And then there's the Internet… it costs nothing to create a blog, and with a little diligence and flair and time, you can build an audience for yourself that exists beyond the sphere of the big publishing houses, where the connection is more direct and the potential unconfined.

Undercurrents

Here's a damp Devonly thought for the day.  It seems to me that when people argue, the issue they pick on is often not the one which is really bothering them. A couple might rip each other to shreds about the fact that he will insist on using the drying up cloth to get hot dishes out of the oven, making it too greasy for her to wipe her hands on , but the real battlefield is about his infidelity.  Some subjects are just much too difficult to tackle head on, so all the anger and the hurt is rehearsed on safer terrain.  This is sometimes referred to as the subtext of a situation and provides meaty fare for the writer: it neatly captures the chaff of everyday life, the stuff that makes up 90% of our humdrum lives, while alluding to the dark and dangerous stuff which lies beneath.  Paying attention to the subtext will have the effect of making your characters more lifelike and giving them greater depth; it will also help to engage your readers’ curiosity, as they will be keen to know what lies at the root of their behaviour.

To put this to the test, try writing a scene in which an argument takes place.  Find some superficial yet combustible excuse for the row and also make sure that the readers know what it is really about, without ever spelling it out for them.  That's the hard part, the interesting part; the part that will make your reader want to know more.

I'd Like You to Meet...

When you are introducing a character for the first time, it's an easy pitfall to concentrate on their physical appearance at the expense of other useful information.  Indeed, physical appearance can sometimes be rather limiting: although it helps you to identify a character, to differentiate somebody with cropped dark hair from someone with a blonde bob, it doesn't tell you very much about who they are.  Even a young face has experience written into it -- it can be an irrepressible quality, or a wariness - and it is this which makes somebody interesting and helps us to remember them.

As an exercise, why don't you try describing a character, but as well as including detail about how they look try to give a sense of what it is that has shaped their appearance -- do the lines around their eyes come from laughter or disappointment, is the hardness in their face actually a form of defensiveness or is it more aggressive than that?  A catalogue of features on their own is of little interest, it is the weathering of these features which will hook your reader. Things which are hinted at or alluded to ignite curiosity in a way that information which is readily accessible does not.

It is also worth remembering that in fiction, as in the real world, appearances can be deceptive - what you see is often not what you get - so incorporating something of that notion into your work might be productive and interesting.

Repetition : The Get-Out Clause

In my writing class we have the literary equivalent of a swear box, an automatic penalty for anybody committing the offence of repetition.  I've blogged before about how slack your writing can appear if you use the same word more than once in close proximity -- it gives the impression that your vocabulary is limited and/or your editing is careless.

However, as with all good rules, there are exceptions. Many writers use a device known as a leitmotif, where the same phrase or image re-occurs at key points in the narrative to highlight an emotion or underscore a mental state; rather than being laziness this is a kind of orchestration which needs careful handling.

The idea I'd like to float today is the way in which you might use repetition in the structure of your work.  Perhaps you could take a key scene in the life of your protagonist, a critical moment on which the plot hinges, and revisit it again and again as the story develops, casting it a little differently each time so that something fresh is revealed.  Think of it in terms as a camera panning back slowly, going from close-up too long shot (or conceivably in the opposite direction) so that the picture which emerges is amplified (or concentrated).  It's a way of adding depth and resonance to the story you are telling and of allowing the plot to unfold in a way that goes beyond  the simply linear.

Get Set

In a good story (the one you're writing?) there is an organic relationship between your heroine and the setting of the narrative. Her physical location can provide a great deal of practical information about her - is she a city dweller or a country girl?  - you see, straightaway you're starting to build up her character.  Whether she works in an office, a factory or a farm has a bearing on the kind of person that she is likely to be; even the furnishings of a room can provide detail that sheds light on who she is.

Just as the place in which you locate your protagonists can be informative, so can the period.  Although the fundamentals of human nature don't change that much down the centuries, how people behave is quite closely linked to the era in which they live. For example, women living in the 19th century before the start of the suffragette movement may have different attitudes and expectations to those born in the early 20th century - they will certainly speak differently.

However, setting can be used subliminally as well, to help indicate the emotional state of your characters.  Emily Bronte externalises the turbulent passions of Heathcliffe and Cathy in her descriptions of the wildness of Wuthering Heights.  Clumsily done, this can be incredibly cliched -- how many movies have you watched where sad scenes take place in the pouring rain - but with a lightness of touch it can add a dimension to your characterisation.  Showing that your protagonist at odds with her surroundings, rather than in sympathy with them, can also be useful in adding tension and brio to the plot and is a potentially intriguing way of developing a character further.

En Route to Experience

David Lodge, in his excellent book The Art of Fiction, maintains that, "All novels are essentially about the passage from innocence to experience," and while I'm not sure that I entirely agree -- the novel that I'm working on at the moment follows virtually the opposite trajectory, from world-weariness to redemption - I think it is interesting food for thought.

Novels are most definitely about a journey and essential to that journey is the process of change and growth. It is up to you as the author whether that journey is from innocence to experience, or from despair to hope, but you need to make sure that during his adventures your hero acquires the self-knowledge that he lacked at the outset. The path he follows should take him up one or two blind alleys, the gradient should be steep and there should be plenty of setbacks and breakdowns en route. The creativity for you, as a writer, lies in how you engineer the discoveries your protagonist makes, how you inflect his emotional encounters, but it might be worth putting David Lodge's theory to the test and telling a story that arcs from one state to its opposite....

....just to see what doors it opens for you and your characters along the way.

A Thin Veneer

Amos Oz talks about, "the pollution of language, making something sound clean and decent, when it should have been peace and violent."

Well, there's something to get your teeth into, first thing on a Monday morning.  As a writer, I'm fascinated by the function of language.  It's a slippery facility to have at your fingertips.  You might think of that its prime purpose is to communicate thought directly and with clarity, and some of the time that is true, but only some of the time.

Words can also be used to obfuscate, to muddy the waters, an attribute that George Orwell used with eerie prescience in his 1984 portrayal of news speak and double think, where what is stated usually means the opposite. Nowadays politicians and bankers -- anyone in corporate life -- are well-schooled in this means of non-communication.  Oz is describing this misuse of language in critical terms, but I think that it can sometimes be used positively in your writing.  Prose is always richer when there is more than one thing going on at the same time, in this case a kind of linguistic tension between the warp of what is happening and the weft of how you are describing it. Try writing about something base and violent, but see if you can give it a thin veneer of decency, of sanitisation and see what effect that has.  My hunch is that it will give an uncomfortable, sinister edge to your writing -- something that I am sure you will be able to put to good use.

Getting Away from It All...

I'm in Scotland for a short collapse of our house sale break and it's my birthday today, so I feel fully justified in sitting down with True History of the Kelly Gang by the inestimable Peter Carey and just enjoying myself. It has everything I look for in a book - dry, concentrated description to kindle my imagination, a plot that engages my curiosity and characters with whom I can empathise (essential ingredients to incorporate into your own work wherever possible).

So here is a picture of the Moray Firth to act as a kind of bookmark and keep my place.

Back on Monday...

In My Bad Books...

When we thought we were moving house, I started packing up my books and while I was doing that I chucked out some of the bad ones, the ones with gold embossed titles that I felt slightly embarrassed to have on my bookshelves.

Silly me for being such a literary snob. You need to read bad books from time to time, partly because they can be fun and we all need a great escape now and then. They are also a fantastic antidote for the flu -- perhaps instead of chucking them out I should have put them in the medicine cupboard along with the Lemsip. But the real reason you need to read bad books - don't worry, they won't contaminate you, nor will they make you go blind - is because by analysing what makes something truly dreadful, you will learn how to avoid writing rubbish yourself.

When I was teaching creative writing I used to use Riders by Jilly Cooper as an example of how not to write.  It was a big fat catalogue of pitfalls - two-dimensional characters, tired description and an overreliance on adverbs (shock horror). But it was also frothy and funny and blessed with a plot which zipped along, so there were positive lessons to be learnt as well.


So, if you are feeling a little under par, or if your self-esteem has taken a knocking, or if you just fancy an indulgent afternoon of guilty pleasure,  reach for some literary junk food and tell yourself that it's all in the name of research. (As a little aside, I read in The Bookseller that the most successful e-book genre  is romantic fiction, a phenomenon which industry insiders attribute to the fact that people can read anonymously on their Kindles or their I Pads without anybody knowing what they are up to.)

Take a Dictation, Ms Dunn

Stephen King once talked about writing as being a kind of transcription, a thought I've often had myself but never really articulated.  At the risk of sounding incredibly cheesy, it is rather like listening to a voice inside your head (call the doctor, somebody!) and writing down what it says.  As a writer, you need to be receptive to this voice, as it is easily drowned out by stuff;  you need to tune in and in order to avoid all the hiss and static which gets in the way, it is probably helpful to have a quiet and private space in which to work.

This voice, this murmur, demands your attention, as sometimes it is difficult to hear. It also demands your respect -- you have to nurture it by reading eclectically and thereby giving yourself a wide sphere of reference so that you can tell when it strikes a duff note. You also have to learn to challenge it, so that when it is falling short you have the confidence to make it go back and repeat, and repeat, and then repeat once more.

I've often thought that when I'm writing I'm doing a great deal of thinking and imagining, but perhaps all I'm really doing is listening, straining to catch the elusive whisper that will send my fingers flittering over the keyboard like some crazed stenographer alone in the courtroom; perhaps this isn't creative writing at all, it's creative transcription.

PS Stephen King, On Writing - personal, outspoken, quirky and eminently practical.

Carriage Return

A paragraph is a wonderfully flexible thing: it can vary in length from one word to several pages.  Traditionally, its function is to signal the introduction of a new subject which can then be explored at some length, or to indicate that a new speaker is about to give voice, but in contemporary novels you rarely see page after page of solid text -- perhaps our shortened attention spans make this too hard to digest.

I've started a new paragraph here in order to draw breath for a moment and to show that I am going to change tack slightly, by suggesting other functions which paragraphs can fulfil .

Having several paragraphs on any given page will make your writing much easier on the eye, so they certainly have a visual role to play.  Starting a fresh paragraph is a way of concentrating on what is critical in your scene, it gives emphasis and focus to a particular moment.  Although single word paragraphs can be irritating if overused and are the grammatical equivalent of self harming, they can be an effective way of underscoring a dramatic climax.

Using a number of different paragraphs can also help to vary the pace of your writing-- the same is true of the sentence, where it is a good idea to go from long to short to medium to long, and so on.  It keeps your reader on their toes.

Arranging your work into paragraphs is probably something you do instinctively, without really thinking about it, but maintaining a watchful eye on the mechanics will help to keep you in touch with the ebb and flow of tension and suspense in your work, with where the focus lies, and with how the pace is developing.

Don't be too Passive

I'm a fine one to talk.  I am the most passive person, mild to a fault (don't tell my husband I said that) and am happiest sitting in a reflective state, working away at my computer.

It won't do for writing, however. Passivity is the death of robust writing. Unless you have very good grounds that will stand up in court, you should always try to be active. Consider these examples...

The letter upset him; the news it contained was distressing.  In this sentence the letter and the news are the focal point of interest and the person in receipt of them is merely a sideshow.  Turn it around -- He was upset by the letter; the news it contained distressed him - and immediately you have a greater sense of urgency and identification.

The same principle applies in the following example: The building was captured by the rebels after a lengthy firefight / The rebels captured the building after a lengthy firefight.  Not only does the second version use fewer words, therefore making it more punchy, the rebels, who are the subject of the incident, are in the driving seat, making the whole sentence more dynamic.

It might be helpful to try this out for yourself. Write down a list of ten passive actions and then convert them into active ones. This will help to give you a solid grounding in the difference between the two modes, so that you get a feeling for which one will work best when you come to apply it to your own writing.

The Readiness Is All

Your first thought is usually your best, so be careful not to have it until you are ready for it. This applies to an idea for a story, the inspiration for a plot twist, or the honing of the perfect phrase. Once you have had the thought, if you don't jot it down straight away, the chances of you recreating it in all its perfection are pretty much zilch.

There are a couple of ways in which you can help yourself with this. I'm not organised enough to always carry a notebook with me, but I do generally have a pen stuck in a pocket or wedged at the bottom of my bag and I have often resorted to writing ideas down on bus tickets and saving them for later. In a similar vein, if I have managed to get my brilliant idea onto my computer, I do always try to back it up when I have finished working on it, as I have learned from bitter experience that if you lose a precious paragraph or (heaven forfend) a chapter, it is almost impossible to rebuild it phrase by phrase, and that first clarity and lightness of touch is lost for ever.

I don't want to sound too girl guide-ish, but as a writer you do need to be prepared, although not in the way that you might think.  You need to be prepared not to write about the idea when you have it.  Note it down when it first comes to you so that you don't lose track of it, but then tuck it away inside your head and let your subconscious get to work on it.  If you write it too soon before you have allowed it to mature, before your imagination has seasoned it properly, you will never have the chance to write it for the first time again -- that opportunity will be gone for good. It's a question of timing: if you can leap in to action at that point when freshness is balanced by reflection, then you will truly be ready to write.  Don't squander that moment, because revision doesn't bring with it that jawdropping sense of wonder that vision can inspire.

All Dressed up with Nowhere to Go

Apologies for lack of blog.  We had a mad dash at the end of last week to get everything packed and into boxes, expecting to exchange contracts on Friday and then when that was deferred, Monday.  We had the van hired, our haphazard summer itinerary all planned and then our purchasers, the most unkindest Cutts of all, pulled out.  On the day of exchange.  They are going to get divorced instead of buying our house and to be honest I can understand how the stress of moving might have that effect.

Now I've had time to recover from the shock and find my laptop, I'm wondering if there are creative writing lessons to be learned here.  I think there are...

There's quite a lot to be said for whipping the rug out from underneath the feet of your characters.  Apparently capsizing your story halfway through can have a devastating effect on them and therefore indirectly on your readers and is often the stuff of memorable fiction - think that notorious episode on the cruise ship in Jonathan Frandsen's wonderful novel The Corrections (I don't want to give too much away for those who haven't read it). Often, a blow that winds your hero will take your readers' breath away as well and can send your story off in a whole new direction, with fresh momentum too.

Another thing to bear in mind is that, as a writer (playing God in the fictional world you have created) you set challenges for your characters and send them trials and tribulations in order to show how they can grow and change, so the way in which they respond to a crisis is extremely important. Although a moment of introspection and uncertainty is human and therefore acceptable,  the reader will want to see them rising to the occasion with resilience and finding a way to resolve their difficulties.  Basically, there is no room for self-pity in your character's make up. It is the readers who must feel sorry for them, rather than your protagonist feeling sorry for herself.

With that thought in mind, I'm going to pick myself up, dust myself off and start all over again. No doubt another door (or gate) will open soon...

I'm in Denial

I'm in denial about how quickly our moving date will be upon us.  I'm in denial about how many boxes of books I still have to pack. I'm in denial about all the complications of living out of a car with only sporadic access to the Internet.  I'm in denial about how much I'm going to miss where I'm living now.

It's a rather interesting place to be -- in denial.  It is ambiguous and ambivalent and it provokes a lot of questions which can be difficult to answer.  For all these reasons, it makes an excellent plotting device.  Having your main character in denial about something can be a useful narrative spur: why is he in denial? Is it because of wilful blindness, or lack of self-awareness, or is it through fear...? And what happens to shake him out of his sense of denial and bring him to some kind or acknowledgement and acceptance?  You see -- already the cogs of your story are turning and the wheels are in motion...

Smiling Damned Villain

Following yesterday's announcement that Osama Bin Laden, the nemesis of the West, has finally been run to ground, I've been thinking a bit about villains. Bin Laden's reviews haven't been that good, unsurprisingly, and as a writer it can be fun to write about someone who is unquestionably evil -- you can get down and dirty and really go for it, but without a little bit of light and shade you run the risk of creating the kind of two-dimensional bogeyman that the leader of Al Qaeda has sometimes been portrayed as.

So....today's task is to have a go at writing a likeable villain, an attractive baddie.  He must still fulfil the normal function of counterbalancing the hero, challenging him so that he is obliged to grow and change, but see if you can create a character that your reader will be drawn to almost in spite of themselves, someone who has foibles or redeeming features that in some way compensate for his wickedness.  In this way, when he finally meets his comeuppance, you will put your reader in the interesting double bind of being both pleased that the hero has triumphed, but regretful that the villain has been vanquished.

You You You

In a post last week I suggested you might find it interesting to try writing a short piece twice -- once in the first person (I) and once in the third person (he/she) in order to find out which you feel most comfortable with.

There is another option, one that is generally overlooked by all but the brave or the foolhardy (I think Jay MacInerney  tried it to dazzling effect in Bright Lights, Big City, but few dare to follow where he treads). You could try writing in the second person - you. 

It takes a bit of getting used to, both for the writer and for the reader and the effect is very particular, but it can be productively unsettling. A protagonist portrayed entirely in the second person can come across as someone extremely edgy and with a slightly skewed sense of themselves, potentially fertile territory if you are writing about a character who is dislocated or disturbed in some way.

Here's a quick example to demonstrate what I mean: You think you hear something and now you are irreversibly awake.   You can hear the creak of cartilage on bone as you turn your head and the sound seems catastrophic in the silent room. You sit up.  The breath catches in your throat...

You get the picture...Have a go at yourself; you might be surprised at the complicated but challenging places it may take you...