Language As a Precision Tool

Good writing is the living, breathing heart of a great book, and by good writing I don't necessarily mean  soaring arias of prose, although they have their place.  I mean using the fewest number of words to convey the most meaning: every phrase should carry its full payload, without wasting so much as a syllable.  That way your writing will remain lean and taut and highly charged.

Let me give you an example.  The other day I heard a man say, "I've a daughter lives down that way."  I thought it was the most extraordinarily revealing phrase: by saying a daughter, he completely depersonalised the relationship between them in a way which spoke volumes. If he had said, "My daughter lives down that way," there would  have been a sense of connectedness, of possession, even; certainly of belonging.

This shows very clearly what a huge effect a tiny change in words, in phrasing, can have.  It is at this nuts and bolts level that you need to work when you are writing.  A forensic attention to detail is incredibly important if you want your prose to be concentrated, with an internal drama all of its own. Forget the purple prose and concentrate on the precision of each individual line, because that's where the really interesting chemistry occurs.

Compare and Contrast

That phrase - compare and contrast - underpinned just about every A-level essay I ever wrote, it became a default way of thinking when I was a student, but in the real, grown-up world of writing fiction it's something that is easy to forget.

I recently finished watching The Bridge on BBC Four.  I was so tense at the end of episode nine I had to lie down in a darkened room to recover.  As television thrillers go, it was lean, monochrome and beautifully nuanced.  The writing was restrained and the performances were taut, with none of the over-emoting that sometimes passes for good acting, or indeed for any kind of acting.

I've thought about it a great deal since.  Set on the Oresund suspension bridge that links Copenhagen and Malmo, the series was coproduced by Swedish and Danish television. but it wasn't just the high production values, the script, or the stars which made it so compelling, it was the use of contrast.

The programme was predicated on a clash of two different cultures, two different languages, two different ways of doing things. The two protagonists, Sofia Helin as Saga and Kim Bodnia as Martin, were male and female - she is on the autistic spectrum and he is a shambolic womaniser.  All of this means that at every stage and every level of the story, there are sharp juxtapositions, which lead to all kinds of conflict, both internal and external, and as Aristotle observed, conflict is at the heart of drama.

I'm mulling this over in the hope that, when  you are planning new work or revising old, you will pay close attention to how you use contrast. It won't just make your story more dramatic, it will give it definition, too.

Not quite the elegant Oresund, but it is a bridge, and the best that I could find...

Re-Imagining Material - How to Use Research in Your Writing

The allure of an interesting doorway is very similar to  that of a gripping book; it is to me, at any rate.

Both provide a portal to a vivid new world and every time I pick up a book, even a dog-eared paperback, the literary equivalent of the battered old door above, I'm  transported  to a different realm.

This has never been more true than with Bring up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel. I won't rehash the story for you here -- suffice to say it follows the downfall of Henry VIII's queen, Anne Boleyn, as seen through the eyes of the consummate politician, Thomas Cromwell. There are countless reasons why, if you are interested in writing, you should rush out and beg, steal or borrow a copy: Mantel's characterisation is faultless, she can turn a phrase so that the axis of your imagination shifts while you are reading it, her pen sheds light on people, places and events so that the novel becomes positively luminous.

All of these are reasons enough to read her work. However, the greatest lesson that a fledgeling writer can learn from her is how to take hard facts and turn them into magical fiction.  It's a kind of alchemy, honestly, it is.  Her research is inexhaustible and meticulous, meaning that she writes with accuracy and authority -- you believe the truth of what she is saying, but it is never, for a single instant, like reading a history book It's like being at the beating heart of a lost era. She knows how to translate historical events into living, breathing actuality by means of beautifully observed, vividly drawn characters.

Writers new to the craft can sometimes lack a lightness of touch when it comes to using research they have unearthed, either historical, emotional or plain factual. Perhaps it's thriftiness, not wanting to waste anything, or perhaps it's a kind of security blanket. When you are sweating blood trying to bring your material to life, here are a few things to bear in mind:

• Don't include everything you know about the subject, use just enough information to give veracity to your work.
• Don't be literal about anything - only include information if it is significant, suggestive, seductive.  It must show the reader something as well as tell them.
• Reveal, don't regurgitate.
• Don't be afraid of including more than one version of the truth.  Look at an event or a person from several different angles.  Leave it to the reader to decide which speaks most clearly to them.
• In fact, leave as much as you can to the reader. Use your imagination to work on theirs -- you are handing them the tools -- your words -- to do the work for themselves.
• Find the telling detail -- a single pinprick of light will be more illuminating that a blanket of grey fog. 
• Go for the small picture rather than the large -- from little acorns...

Characterisation -- How to Read a Face

While we were in the seductive book village of Cuisery (see my previous post) we wandered into the little church of Notre Dame, originally begun in the 11th century and completed in 1504.

I was stopped dead in my tracks by some beautiful frescoes in a side chapel.

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Although some of the paint is in lamentably poor condition, the character of the man portrayed here is by no means obliterated.  Standing gazing at his solemn, preoccupied face, it struck me how  rules which apply in one creative form can be easily transposed to another.

Try studying the painting and analysing what you see, because it will tell you so much about the person you're looking at.

• Clothing: he is wearing a hat that is well-fitting and has some kind of shape/design that goes beyond the merely functional.  We can see the collar of his tunic, which has some ornamentation on it, so he is probably reasonably prosperous.  The fact that he is dressed in co-ordinating shades of blue perhaps suggests that he has some sense of style and self-esteem.
• Age: he looks like a man in his prime, sporting a full beard with no apparent flecks of grey in it, nor are there any lines upon his face.
• Build: he seems thickset and well fed, again suggesting that he is well-to-do.
• Features: he has a strong nose and a full mouth, though his head is held at a slightly tentative angle, and his eyes....

Ah, his eyes, the windows of the soul, particularly in this man's case.  All his experience - sorrow?  grief?  loss?  uncertainty?  regret? - is expressed in the look askance, the slight frown, yet none of these emotions over drawn; they are subtly synthesised.

If you look at a face for long enough, you learn its secrets, you discover its landscape -- so much of the early stages of falling in love consist of gazing with unwavering absorption at the face of your beloved and it's this kind of intensity you need to bring to portraying the characters you are writing about. It might be a helpful exercise to try and bring to life on paper the picture in this post.

When it comes to your own work, imagine you're standing gazing at a mediaeval fresco, look long and hard at your hero or heroine, don't be afraid to stare!

Bring up the Bodies -- Old Books Laid to Rest in Cuisery

As promised, here is another ravishing bookshop from the enchanting book village of Cuisery in the Saone et Loire department of France.

We wandered around the ancient streets peering at irresistible doors, including the one to the 13th century chapel, with its (timeless) plea not to piss against it as the urine  then enters the church!

I found myself feeling vaguely compromised: here I was, pressing my nose against the windows of wonderful bookshops with their precious cargo of rare and characterful books, with my recently acquired Ipad, loaded up with Hilary Mantel's latest, lying heavy as a bad conscience in my bag.

I won't stop buying books, real books, paper books, books that smell, books that age, books that crack when you bend back the spine, ever. But I can't promise that I won't continue some kind of illicit relationship, a guilty affair, with my Ipad, even though I hate the fact that it doesn't have page numbers and I can't weigh in my hand how much I have read and how much there is still to go.  I miss looking at the cover of the book when I start reading, I didn't realise how much it helped to locate me in the story.

Electronic reading is convenient and pragmatic, pallid virtues which kind of compensate for the loss of orientation, for the intensity of the relationship between the reader, ink, and paper.  But the story is king, always, and the vehicle is secondary, and I'm devouring Bring up the Bodies page by weirdly backlit page.

What the Dickens?

Just back from hearing Claire Tomalin give a wonderfully erudite and amusing lecture about Charles Dickens, as part of Bristol's Festival of Ideas. I find it incredibly inspiring to hear writers talking about their work and Tomalin has a breathtakingly encyclopaedic knowledge of her subject, so it felt like a privilege to sit and listen. The evening was enhanced with readings from the novels (written for performance, it seems to me) given by local theatre company Show of Strength. Dickens' capacity to lead his vivid and eclectic life to the full, and Tomalin's capacity to capture and convey it so beguilingly, together make a potent incentive to knuckle down and set to work myself. Too much thinking and not enough doing in the shed at the moment...

What (or who?) inspires you?

Bookshop Heaven

Just back from a watery couple of weeks in France.  When I die and go to bookshop heaven, I believe it will look something like this....

This was one of several divine bookshops in Cuisery, the French equivalent of Hay on Wye, although France has four  "book villages" to our measly one.  Being France, and it being a Sunday evening, all the shops were shut, but drifting around the streets you could almost smell the must which clings to seldom-turned pages, and the thick yellow light that faded over the hillside seemed slightly foxed.

More bookshops and more book chat very soon.  This is just a quickie to let you know that I am back.

Losing my E Book Virginity

Windswept with the weather on the Saone - wind, and then when you think it can't blow harder, more wind, making the light dance on the water.
But I'm breathless with excitement anyway as I've just downloaded my first ever ebook: it had to happen sometime and today, the day of my three hundredth blog post, is the day. And the book is...
Bring Up the Bodies, Hilary Mantel's sequel to the dazzling Wolf Hall.
So no one will get a peep out of me for weeks.

Tales from the River Bank # 1

I'm sitting overlooking an almost medieval mooring at the confluence of the rivers Saone and Doubs. I've spent the morning feeding the tiniest, new-hatched ducklings yesterday's bread, then some of today's because they were hungry. I've been hatching myself - themes and ideas for a new novel. I've also been reflecting on the book I've just finished reading - Before I Go to Sleep by SJ Watson, about a woman who loses her memory every time she goes to sleep. I become a bit like Zelig when I read a good book:in Woody Allen's movie, the hero morphes into anyone he becomes close to, taking on all their attributes. The vulnerability and dependence of Watson's heroine Christine had an eloquence which touched some nerve inside me.
Waking this morning, with pollen from the lime trees and the sound of the village's church bells drifting through the window, it took a moment to remember where -if not who - I was. But I do remember. And I remember that what makes a good book is a central character with whom you can identify intensely. So as we glide further south on the Saone, I shall bear that in mind as I plot and plan and think and dream...
PS No pix, sadly, as words don't do justice to the beauty, but I left the camera battery charging in our bedroom at home!

Going fishing....

Am off to see legendary Canadian band The Sadies tonight, with their spine-tingling blend of country, psychedelic, rock and surf music. If brothers Dallas and Travis Good perform their party piece - Dallas strumming his guitar while doing the fret work on his brother's, and vice versa, then I shall die happy.

After that I'm going to the French canals to do some light research, looking for doors to photograph and stories to tell.  Will try to blog when not cruising down the broad, forgiving valley of the Soane, passing through locks,  watching wraith-like Charolais cattle pick their way down to the riverbank to drink, getting the bread in the morning, panicking in thunderstorms, passing through locks, coiling and recoiling ropes, buying vivid-coloured fruit in French markets (and stinky cheese), passing through locks, our little boat being overtaken by ancient pedestrians on the tow path, watching the wraith-like Charolais cattle...

You get the picture...

 See you soon!

Expectation is All - Or is It??

It's weird how expectations influence your experience of something.  Last week I went to see the South Downs/Browning Version double bill at the Harold Pinter Theatre in London, partly because Nicholas Farrell, whom I hugely admire, received rave notices from all the critics.

I found his performance disappointing.  I felt that he was acting old, rather than being old; he seemed a little mannered and never quite inhabited the frail heart of the character he was playing.  (Anna Chancellor, on the other hand, was blazingly, unpleasantly brilliant).

Then last night I went to see Salmon Fishing in the Yemen, because I had loved the book, even though the kindest reviews of the film were mediocre.  It turned out to be perfect fodder for a wet Wednesday evening -- gently funny, well performed, unpretentious.

Expectation is a tricky thing to handle, for writers as well as everybody else.  You have to contend with your own expectations regarding the quality of your work and the likelihood of publication; if you have any kind of track record you have to deal with other people's expectations too.  Well handled, they can be a positive creative pressure, but if you are thinking too much about your performance and what others will make of it, you're likely to come undone. The writing is all, it is an end in itself.

As my recent cultural outings have demonstrated, preconceptions are there to be thwarted, so don't put yourself under too much stress when you're working -- that way, you'll give yourself the best chance of trouncing other people's expectations...

Why Characters Should (Sometimes) Keep Their Own Counsel

Still on the theme of creative spaces, or more particularly, how you can fashion spaces in stories which both you and the reader can use creatively, having glanced at characterisation yesterday, today's small and imperfectly formed thought concerns dialogue.  What people say to one another can be incredibly potent, but what they don't say (and why) can be equally fascinating.

As a starting point, think of all the reasons you might not tell somebody that you love them:

• Because you are not sure how they will respond.
• Because, more specifically, you are fearful of rejection.
• Because to speak out would give them too much power over you.
• Because you feel unworthy.
• Because it would be inappropriate -- perhaps you are married to somebody else.
• Because you assume they already know (but perhaps they don't).

 Even in this simple little list, some intriguing and potentially complex scenarios are emerging, so if you want to have a go at a writing exercise, why not try writing a piece that hinges on the significance of what is not said. It might lead you to examine all the different qualities that silence can have, or maybe you'll end up writing about regret, a major literary theme in its own right, but perhaps that's for another post...