Back From the Drink

 I've been travelling for a couple of months with only limited access to the Internet, which is why my posts have been few and far between, but I'm back from careering down the River Rhone, so wide they say you can see the curvature of the earth,

 and hot for some literary trotting.

 The great thing about casting yourself adrift for a few weeks is the opportunity it gives you for reflection and - more importantly - READING. My big news is that I have finished the inestimable Claire Messud's latest book The Woman Upstairs. Let me tell you why it broke my heart. Not just because her writing is pitch perfect: clear, revelatory and highly polished, but because her access to the inner reaches of the human psyche, with all its frailties and inextinguishable aspirations, is second to none. She tells the story of spinster schoolteacher Nora Eldridge's attachment to the family of one of her pupils and her eventual betrayal by them and there are so many lessons to be learnt as a writer that I hardly know where to begon, but the two biggest ones are:

• Detail, when it well observed and pertinent, is a vital tool for drawing a reader into your story. The relationship between Messud's two protagonist's, Nora and Sirena, is forensically recorded glance by glance, meeting by meeting, until you feel that you are part of the web she is spinning between them. 
• Hold your nerve. If your story is strong, as Messud's is, then have the courage of your convictions and give it due space and time. Don't feel the need to cut to the chase - in some ways, the slower you go, the more impatient and curious your reader will become.

I was both awed and enchanted by The Woman Upstairs - the writing  made me ravenous - rush out and read!

Lost in Translation

Not sure the branding would work over here...

Health and Safety for Writers?

I took this photograph in a disused pottery in North East France. It's a lovely old health and safety notice positively steeped in period atmosphere.

Roughly translated, the exhortation reads, All injuries must be declared – good guidance for writers of fiction, perhaps, as often what makes characters interesting is not their qualities but their short comings, not their strengths but their weaknesses. A bit of emotional damage can be irresistibly attractive to a reader and therefore good material for an author. The tragic flaw – the trait which traduces a hero – is a key factor in classical drama, so when you are working on a character, remember to focus on their imperfections – declare their injuries, if you like – because that is where growth and change can occur.

A Sea Dog's Tale....

A lazy post for a lazy summer's afternoon – the Daily Mail has published my online account of a trip to New York my mum and I made on the Queen Mary 2 back in the spring, so I thought I'd share a link with y'all...

Have a great weekend!

Scouting for Locations

Think of all the novels you've enjoyed, and I'll bet that a number of them are defined by a sense of place – not just defined, but enhanced. Off the top of my head, I'm thinking any one of the Brontë novels, anything by Thomas Hardy, The French Lieutenant's Woman (wonderful for John Fowles' evocation of Lyme Regis, amongst many other things), Sherlock Holmes (Baker Street), Motherless Brooklyn (New York), I could go on and on.

With publication so competitive at the moment, anything you can do to give your work the edge can only be a benefit, so don't allow the setting of your story to be incidental. Try and track down a place that will resonate with your reader and may provide a useful selling point when it comes to publicity. Although it will involve you in a little more research in the interests of accuracy, setting your story in a specific site rather than somewhere generic you have conjured up from your imagination might work hugely in your favour. And you might have a great deal of fun scouting for locations...

Protective Clothing for Writers

In Scotland recently we visited Ballindalloch Castle, ancestral home of the MacPherson Grant family whose ancient coat of arms is carved above the entrance.

I was intrigued by the family motto: Touch Not the Cat Bot a Glove, which I take to mean don't do anything rash with out protecting yourself first (or something to that effect).

It might be a good motto for writers – there are a number of things it's worth protecting yourself from, not least your own expectations. The competition for attention from traditional publishers is extraordinarily tight and it is easy to start writing what you're sure will be the defining novel of the 21st century in the belief that it is only a matter of time before a contract is on the table, when this may not be the case. Even published authors with great track records are turning to self publishing now.



You may also need to inure yourself to criticism. If your work does find an audience, there is no guarantee that everyone will like it and adverse comments can be wounding.You might also have to protect yourself against the consequences of success: the stuff of dreams may turn out to be a nightmare of tight deadlines, increased demands on your precious writing time and having to cope with the pressure of repeating previous triumphs.


If you want to write, nothing will stop you, but it's worth remembering that living creatively makes you vulnerable – if there's a cat about, then reach for the glove...

Starting as Story TS Eliot Style

In my beginning is my end...

I love TS Eliot's eloquent line from East Coker (The Four Quartets) – the melancholy in it is balanced and weighed and there is an inevitability about it which I find appealing.

Eliot's elegant summary of the trajectory of a human life can also be applied to the development of a story. Integrated into all the elements that you assemble at start of a book should be a suggestion of where the narrative might end, or at least an indication of the direction of travel. I'm not suggesting that you give away too much, but I think it's very important in your opening paragraphs that you let the reader know the kind of ground that you will be covering, at least in terms of genre: it should be obvious from the outset whether you are writing romantic fiction or a thriller. If you open your book with a dramatic event which begs several questions, not only will it draw the reader into your story, but it suggests a kind of competence and authority that will help to reassure them that you know your craft and it will be worth then investing valuable time in finding out what happens next.

If you want an example of what I mean, read the beginning of Thomas Hardy's The Mayor of Casterbridge where, after a bout of drinking, Michael Henchard sells his wife and daughter to a passing sailor in a defining moment which dictates the course of subsequent events.

In a well-crafted narrative all the seeds of the story will be evident in the opening: character, style, genre and the suggestion of a plot. If your beginning is well-conceived and integrated, you won't have too resort to clunking expediency later on, the only kind of surprises lying in wait for your reader will be the right kind.

In my beginning is my end...

How to Create Tension – Am I Keeping You in Suspense?

Suspense is the tension that is created when you are waiting for something to happen. You might be waiting for news of a loved one; you might be waiting to see if the creak on the stair which sounded suspiciously like a footfall sounds again; you might be waiting, lottery ticket in hand, to see if your numbers have come up. Often, it's a period of magnified inactivity which anticipates a moment of action.

What interests me about suspense, which is often so gripping for your reader, is that it usually occurs when nothing is actually happening.

If this is a contradiction that you'd like to explore further in your work, why not write a scene in which nothing at all takes place, but the tension is excruciating?

Franz Kafka: a Dead Man Writing

I'm sitting in my shed at the bottom of our garden with the doors and windows open, revelling in what passes for peace and quiet in an inner-city. Next door's runner beans are dying, but the ash trees which thresh and rustle overhead have survived the dieback blight so far. Apart from the odd insect zithering amongst the flowers, and the gulls which trace the vapour trails high above, I'm completely on my own, certainly beyond the reach of the front door bell.

That's how I write – in isolation. I can't bear any distraction: the view from my window is hard enough to resist. How JK Rowling managed to write the first volume of the Harry Potter series in a cafe beats me. As Franz Kafka once said, "I need solitude for my writing; not 'like a hermit' - that wouldn't be enough - but like a dead man.”

So here I am, sitting at my laptop like a dead man, but feeling very much alive...

What's the perfect environment in which you would like to write?

White Rabbits, Wonderland and Writer's Block

Recognise this little fellow?

Said to be carved in approximately 1330 and wearing the distinctive satchel of the pilgrim, he graces the archway of St Mary's Church in Beverley, Yorkshire, a town where Lewis Carroll stayed while he was preparing to write Alice in Wonderland. Even the most fleeting glance suggests an impression of the White Rabbit, running behind schedule, whom Alice follows into the rabbit hole, thus beginning her fantastical adventures.

It was a treat to see him, so distinctive and characterful, partly because it made me smile to think of the stonemason with a sense of humour all those years ago, but also because it's a reminder that inspiration comes in unexpected places. If you are tussling with your Work in Progress, or suffering from writer's block, go out for a walk or a wander – it's amazing what you might stumble upon and following a fresh idea may lead you to unexpected places, just as Alice discovered when she set off in pursuit of an irresistible little rabbit...

Twenty Questions about Characterisation

Do you remember playing that car game, brilliant for long journeys, where one of you assumes a character and the others have to guess who it is by asking twenty questions? When we were little we whiled away hours playing it on the autobahns and autoroutes of Europe, but it has other applications too and can be particularly useful for a fiction writer in search of a protagonist.

When you are in the process of fleshing out your hero or heroine, you might consider submitting them to the same sort of interrogation (and it's also the kind of thing you can do on long car journeys!)

1. When were you born?
2. Where were you born?
3. Do you have brothers and sisters?
4. What is your happiest memory?
5. What makes you saddest?
6. Where do you live?
7. What do you do for a living?
8. Have you had other relationships?
9. Do you consider yourself an extrovert?
10. Do you have secrets?
11. How good is your self-esteem?
12. What is your attitude to your appearance?
13. What is your proudest possession?
14. What are you most ashamed of?
15. What are your politics?
16. What makes you angry?
17. What is your best quality?
18. What do you value most in other people?
19. What do you yearn for?
20. What keeps you awake at night?

There are dozens of other interesting questions you could pose and while some are more simplistic than others, all of them will get you thinking about your character and may even send you off in an unanticipated direction which, in my experience, is where the interesting stuff is to be found...

Monet, Monet, Monet...

Because it's high summer (!) I thought I'd share with you this picture of Monet's garden at Giverney just north of Paris.

He is reputed to have regarded it as his greatest work of art and if you gaze at it through half-closed eyes you can almost see his impressionist brushstrokes at play. There's light and shade and texture and tone and colour all in this little thumbnail image. There's a sense of composition too, with the two paths running in parallel and the tulips bursting forth in between. The effect is deceptively simple, but if you look at the way the blue contrasts with the pink and the prickly rose bushes oppose the softness of the tulips, you begin to get a sense of how complex the design really is – and that's before you take account of the olfactory delights the garden – the symphony of different scents.

I'm not sure that there is a creative writing lesson here, except that Giverney is extraordinarily beautiful in a number of different ways and that it is an expression of one man's vision - much like a good book. It's a source of inspiration, and there is a kind of education to be had as well, if you start to look at the structure of different areas and how they interact as a whole. Perhaps today's little homily is about being receptive to what you see, about being attuned, about seeing the creative potential in your surroundings, no matter what they are...

An Exercise in Sensory Deprivation

The sun is shining, I can hear birds singing outside my window and it's the longest day, so the last thing you probably want is a writing exercise for the weekend, but if you think that the longest day will, by definition, give you more time to write, and allow your senses to be stimulated by the effects of the lovely weather, perhaps you might be persuaded....

Early memories, because they are vivid and elemental and form part of your make up, can be a fertile source of ideas. Try and recall an event from your infancy or early childhood and jot down as many details as you can remember so that you have plenty of information  at your fingertips. Then, just to make it a little more challenging, write a few paragraphs based on this memory, but without using any visual description at all.

This will force you to think about other ways of recalling and describing things – sounds, smells and tastes can be intensely evocative, and conjuring up a memory purely through the medium of touch might be a revelation. This is an opportunity to flex different writing muscles; going beyond the visual might take you deeper into the experience itself, thus bringing rewards to both you and your reader.

And anyway, the forecast for tomorrow is for gales and rain. Have a great weekend....

Why I Hate Fantasy Fiction

I've never been a great fan of fantasy fiction. I don't like its expedience or its lack of boundaries – the way that rules can be endlessly changed to suit the author's creative intent. It's too geeky for me, too concerned with form rather than content, too preoccupied with creating a world and establishing the conventions that go with it to get to the heart of the characters - I think it's often difficult even to find their pulse. For me, the magic is too overt – I prefer something a little more nuanced.

I think I might be with Oscar Wilde on this one. He once said, "The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible," and I think he's right, it's the ordinary everyday mysteries of human behaviour that lend themselves so well to fiction and make the vital process of identification between the reader and the protagonist much easier to achieve. I know that all fiction is fantasy in one way or another, but some of it is too fantastical and anything overly esoteric just doesn't cut the mustard with me.

Which genres do you particularly hate - or admire?

A Light Touch – A Lesson in Characterisation from Mark Chagall

On a recent trip to France we stumbled upon a stunning window by Mark Chagall in a restored chapel in the town of Sarrebourg. Peace, his extravagant bouquet of scenes from the Old and New Testaments, takes your breath away when you first walk into the room. Although the impact is almost overwhelming, as with most things, the power of the piece lies in the detail...

This Madonna and Child is tucked away somewhere at the bottom of the composition and when you study it, you see how few strokes of colour (and yes, genius) are needed to create an image of Mary cradling the baby Jesus - a line here, the darkening of a shade there - and the job is done.
That's not to underestimate the talent and skill of the artist. Quite the contrary, it demonstrates an absolute understanding of what is needed to engage the imagination of the viewer.
The same is true when you are depicting characters in fiction. Flashes of insight - a telling observation, a revealing line of dialogue - can do more work than whole paragraphs of overwrought description. Work with a light touch, suggest rather than prescribe, and the chances are you will end up with figures as luminous as the simple yet powerful ones in Chagall's beautiful window.

How to Make Your Fiction Faultless (Read Your Work Aloud)

This may not occur to you when you are starting out as a writer, but any time spent reading your work aloud is time well spent. Usually, when you stumble over a phrase, it's a cast iron indication the phrase does not ring true.  Perhaps it's the literary equivalent of the flicker in the gaze which betrays a lie. It's certainly a useful ploy you can put to good use in your work: when you have finished a paragraph or a page or a chapter, if you read it out loud to yourself and note which sentences trip you up, you will usually find that the structure is awkward or the syntax awry, or that you have loaded on too much alliteration.  You can bet your bottom dollar that something won't be quite right.

It may feel like a self-conscious exercise to begin with, and you mustn't get carried away by the richness/polish/perfection of your own prose, but it's well worth doing.

Fracking for Fiction

"There is no rule on how to write. Sometimes it comes easily and perfectly; sometimes it's like drilling rock and then blasting it out with charges."

Ernest Hemingway's description of the creative process sounds a bit like fracking to me – occasionally you strike oil and out comes the black gold in an effortless stream, but more often than not you're drilling into rock, setting your charges and then blasting away. The British Government called a halt to some experimental fracking in the north-west of the country because it seemed to be causing minor earthquakes. The compensation of a good day's writing, even if it involves some difficult detonations, is that the effects of it can sometimes feel seismic. It's one of the few things that really does make the earth move.

In Defence of Flashback

I know that some writers – and editors – view the use of flashback with some misgivings, objecting to it because the reader is made to look back at events which have already happened and therefore knows there is a positive outcome (your heroine is still alive and compos mentis) meaning that the narrative tension is diminished.
I'm currently plotting a novel and I'm definitely going to tell some of it in flashback, for a number of different reasons.

• Looking back at something which has happened enables the writer to put a spin on events. They don't just happen sequentially, they can be viewed through the lens of the present, which gives you the potential to examine them more obliquely and add layers of subtlety. It's rather like lighting a scene for effect – do you use soft, rosie tones or go for a cool, blue hue? What you might possibly lose in tension, you certainly make up for in atmosphere.
• I don't believe that suspense is necessarily diminished. The reader knows that the protagonist has got from point A in the story to point B, but they have no idea of the route taken, the pitfalls, or the high points. In a novel written sequentially you don't know whether the heroine will make it to point B, but generally speaking they do, so it seems to me that nothing is lost.
• Writing in flashback can allow you to use an unreliable narrator, which is another way of adding tension to your work, as the reader gradually comes to see that the account given by your central character may not necessarily be accurate and unbiased.
• Using flashback enables you to exploit the full potential of dramatic irony, where the reader knows more than the characters do, thus giving a different kind of tension to the story.

It also has to be said that a number of writers have used flashback to dazzling effect. Off the top of my head, I'm thinking that Wuthering Heights opens with the ghost of Cathy outside the window and Heathcliff in terrible distress calling out to her. Emily Brontë then goes on to describe the course of their ill-starred relationship, but knowing from the outset that it ended tragically means the narrative is shot through, not just with dramatic irony, but a delicious kind of poignancy as well.
And one of the most famous opening lines in modern fiction is Last night I dreamt  I went to Manderley again...I don't suppose anybody had the effrontery to tell Daphne du Maurier to avoid writing in flashback.

Hot Off the Press...

...my picture of the statue of the renaissance man who invented it – Johannes Gutenberg - standing proudly in the square named after him in the centre of Strasbourg.

Gutenberg was a goldsmith by profession and modified existing screw printers while adding innovations of his own, thus making it possible to create movable metal type in huge quantities. His fifteenth century printing press could produce three thousand six hundred pages a day, so he was directly responsible for facilitating the mass distribution of books.

Respect!

It was a strange experience to stand gazing up at him (in the rain) reflecting on how he helped to turn the world on its axis. By printing the works of revolutionary theologians such as Erasmus and Luther he contributed to the Reformation, radically changing both religion and society.

The experience was strange because the world is tilting on its axis once again, and once again it is because of changes in the way that information is distributed. The arrival of the internet and the development of e-books will doubtless seem as significant in five hundred and fifty years time as Gutenberg's achievements appear to us now. I couldn't help wondering if some techno-geek will have an equivalent statue erected in his memory in some mall in Silicon Valley half a millennium in the future.

As someone fascinated by publication, self-publishing, blogging, Kindle editions, books as apps and books that are foxed, dog-eared, musty-smelling, much-loved and much-read, I felt a little sad that Gutenberg's invention is being superseded, but then I had to remind myself that it was he who started the process of democratising literature and that recent technological developments are merely picking up from where he left off.

Most of all I had to remind myself that it isn't the medium that matters – it's the message. What is most important is that writers write, and that readers read. The rest is detail.

Punctuation – To Be Punctilious, or Not?

I was chatting to a writer friend last night who had recently been doing some editing and she remarked how much the rules of punctuation seem to have changed since she started out. Should you use double quotation marks or single, for example? Though strict grammarians would probably take a different view, I suspect that punctuation is becoming less and less of an exact science.

I'm probably not alone in using a rather subjective approach to the matter. When I'm writing, I get totally absorbed in the rhythm of my work -- each phrase has its own particular beat which in turn feeds into the overall metre of the sentence and then the paragraph. In some ways it's like a musical score, and if you think of it like that then punctuation becomes a little easier. For example, commas, semi-colons and colons are really the measure of different lengths of pause: picture the shortest, the comma, as a quaver, the semi-colon as a crotchet and the colon as a minim.  They are there to isolate phrases so that they make sense to the reader and enable her to pace herself throughout a sustained piece of writing - in some cases they are almost a pause for breath.Writers put punctuation in a sentence in the same way that a climber might put pitons in the side of a mountain: they are way markers to help you navigate the complicated escarpment of a paragraph.

As with all things, it is important to be consistent and work with  conviction: if you are confident in how you punctuate your work, then the reader will feel at ease. I don't think you should lose too much sleep over it in any case, as most publishers have their own house style and you can bet your bottom dollar that whatever you do will be altered to fit in with that.

NB If in doubt, get hold of a copy of Lynne Truss's definitive book on the subject – Eats Shoots and Leaves. It's an amusing and informative bible.

Wanted : Goethe's Dog

Wandering through the rain-soaked streets of Strasbourg recently, we passed a house where the playwright Goethe lived for a time...

...and I was reminded of a remark that he once made: wanted, a dog that neither barks nor bites, eats glass and shits diamonds.

Part of me wants that dog too, and wants it really badly (perhaps it's the little fellow who featured in my earlier post), but the hard-working writer part of me knows that what is worth having doesn't come easily, although on reflection perhaps drafting and redrafting and then – oh yes – having another go at it is the authorial equivalent of eating glass and that what you get in the end – dog or no dog – is a kind of hard-edged, glinting prose - your very own literary diamond.

Summer Reading

I've had a rush of summer reading – well, let's just call it reading: not much sign of summer here – and it's made me realise how much I miss feeling besotted by a good book. I've done a lot of work reading over the winter, which is always thought-provoking and demanding, but it  makes me feel as if I have to be on my best behaviour, so in the last couple of weeks I've let my hair down and romped through My dear, I Wanted to Tell You by Louisa Young (which knocked my socks off so much that I've blogged about it elsewhere), Waiting for Sunrise by William Boyd (detailed, intense, with an aftertaste that stayed with me), The Night Rainbow by Claire King (luscious, full of melancholy echoes, but with beautiful, sunlit prose) and two books by Ian Rankin because I was on holiday and never read crime fiction and – why not?

Piled up beside my bed, waiting to be devoured, I've got Sweet Tooth by Ian McEwan, Ancient Light by John Banville, Toby's Room by Pat Barker and The Beginner's Goodbye by Anne Tyler. What treats in store!

I'd be really interested to hear what's on your bedside table at the moment, or what kind of book you think makes the perfect summer read...

How Detail and Context Work Together in Fiction Writing

We're currently stuck in the rain on a broken boat in eastern France, so whiled away an afternoon in Strasbourg. In the cathedral we spotted this mason's moment of madness, or sentimentality, or rebellion, or joie de vivre...

This little dog is tucked away at the back of the pulpit. The first picture I took just showed the animal, until it occurred to me that you need some of the surroundings in order to give a sense of perspective and proportion, to get an idea of just how sweet the little fellow is.

The same is true with writing: detail on its own doesn't really work - you need context as well, as this gives the reader the tools with which to interpret the detail you are describing. If you show a character performing an act of extraordinary kindness in isolation, it means less than if we have some yardstick to judge the action by. Perhaps your character is usually cruel and unfeeling, so this kindness has significance; perhaps they have never been show kindness themselves; perhaps the kindness is a means of achieving something in return.

Detail is important, but you can maximise the effect of it by showing it in a wider context.

Bow wow wow...

Telling the Difference Between Showing and Telling

This is a tough one, the mistake most writers, but new ones in particular, are most likely to make: telling the reader something, rather than bringing it to life by showing it happen. In a sense it's the art of dramatisation; it's certainly the raising agent that turns a sloppy mix of eggs, butter and flour (or characters, plot and language) into a light sponge (or gripping read).

Here are a couple of examples of what I mean:

John was a tall man. Hmmm. Doesn't really do much, does it? But John shouldered his way into the room, ducking his head from habit; he was used to the feeling of being too large for most interior spaces. Without directly commenting on John's height, the writer has shown the physicality of his size and a little of how it makes him feel, so not only are we seeing John in action, we are getting a hint about how his appearance affects his behaviour and his thinking. Although the description is longer than John was a tall man, it is doing far more work.

"I wish it would stop raining," said Jane gloomily. "It's been like this for days." In this example the writer is half way there, as dialogue can be a help when you want to avoid bald statements and this short speech is a better description than simply saying It had been raining for days. There's more to extract here though, especially in terms of the effects of the weather on Jane and what it tells us about her mood. How about, "I wish it would stop raining," Jane leaned her forehead against the window, her breath flaring against the glass. She traced the path of a single raindrop through the condensation with an idle finger, noting how the paint on the frame was cracking and that small rifts were filling with moss. "It's been like this for days." She paused, waiting for a response, but nobody answered her. She breathed on the glass again, trying to make the weather disappear..." By exploring more fully just what gloomily might signify, a great deal of additional atmosphere and context has been added to the scene: the single raindrop perhaps equates to a tear, the cracked paint filled with moss implies neglect and decay, the fact that Jane's finger is idle and that nobody responds to her her remark suggests her boredom and isolation. The resulting image has infinitely more detail and more depth.

To try and prevent yourself from slipping into the trap of telling something rather than showing it, remember that good writing will always do more than one thing at a time - it will comment on the interior as well as the exterior, will describe physical and mental states, or use the particular to throw light on the general. This is partly because as an author you always want your work to have a two-fold effect on your reader - you want to make them think and feel...

Plotting - Taking Affirmative Action

I've recently finished reading My Dear, I Wanted to Tell You by Louisa Young. You'd think that everything  which could possibly be said about the First World War has already been said, truth, in this instance, being considerably stranger than fiction, but Ms Young certainly gives Sebastian Faulks a run for his money - her novel is infinitely finer and more unusual than Birdsong.

Without wanting to spoil the book in any way, it concerns the burgeoning relationship between Riley, a working class lad and a young bohemian girl called Nadine. The barriers her family try to throw up between them are as nothing compared to the devastating effects that the war has on their lives.

What makes the book so heartrending and compelling is the challenging journey Riley embarks upon: he defies the rigid class system of the day in order to better himself and win the girl he loves, but he also has to draw upon superhuman resources to survive the war and come to terms with the consequences of it. Along the way there is also much for him to learn about the integrity - and otherwise - of  human nature.

I think the reason My Dear was shortlisted for the Costa Prize and has chimed with so many readers is that in it Young provides a masterclass in the positive power of reading fiction. Her protagonists are beset with the worst things that life can throw at them, thus demonstrating the potency of creating characters with whom  readers will identify, in order to punish them mercilessly, to grind them down, so that we can then witness the inspiring process of their redemption. To see someone triumph over suffering in a fictional setting convinces us that it is possible to overcome the afflictions that may trouble us in our own lives. So in terms of planning a novel or story, be aware of the power of setting up your hero in order to knock them down - as long as you chart their recover afterwards.

In that sense, My Dear is a truly inspiring read; it is also well-researched, informative and utterly beguiling - rush out and buy!

Rainer Maria Rilke's Rubbish Lorry

I'm just back from New York and still dazzled by the vibrancy and brightness of the city – the vast electronic hoardings that pulse with colour in Times Square, the vivid yellowness of the taxis and....

...this!

It's an American garbage truck and even in the murky light of early evening you can see that it is decked out with the Statue of Liberty and the Stars & Stripes and the lettering is in red and gold – in fact, the whole thing is done up like a Christmas tree and very lovely it looked.

In creative writing terms, this got me thinking.The truck caught my eye because it should have been ugly and functional, but it wasn't – it was actually rather joyous. It was a lesson in the unexpected. As a writer, you need to see things with a fresh eye, so that you can re-invent them for your reader. The poet Rainer Maria Rilke talks about finding beauty where it wouldn't normally be apparent and this is a key part of your job as an author. Think of the loveliness in a plain face lit with emotion, or the softening effect of sunset on an industrial wasteland.

My garbage truck was, in its way, a thing of beauty, weird and wonderful enough to make me stop and take a photograph. If you want to arrest your readers' attention like this, seek out the surprising; follow Rilke's advice and look for beauty where you wouldn't expect to find it.

The Three Rs of Creative Writing

A few weeks ago I mentioned that I'd passed the the first three chapters of my Work in Progress to my writing mentor to see if she thought I was working along the right lines. Like a good friend, she responded incredibly swiftly with some trenchant and radical opinions, so radical, in fact, that they stopped me dead in my tracks. She thought that I wasn't starting the book in the right place and that the strain of trying to bind two stories together was showing and that I should focus on just one. And that was just for starters! She had other observations to make as well.

My knee-jerk response was to junk everything I had written and begin the book again, closer to the origins of the story.

The subconscious, creative part of my brain has now had six weeks to process these suggestions. I've barely written anything and yet I feel the time has been well spent. The two strands of the plot are beginning to synthesise themselves together, although I have made major changes, and I'm fairly confident I know where my starting point needs to be.

The reason I'm sharing all of this with you is that it has taken me a long time to make constructive use of the criticism I received. You can't rush the creative process – if you do, you are likely to make mistakes you will come to regret. If you are in the throes of writing a novel or a story, hold your nerve and take your time. Contemplation is one of the most active things an author can do, even if it make you feel as if you are in a passive state. The three Rs of creative writing are every bit as important as the reading, writing and 'rithmetic you learn at school: when you are lucky enough to be given criticism, Receive, Reflect, Respond.

It's There in Black and White – and Grey?

We are complex beings and our behaviour frequently lands us in complicated situations, something you should try and reflect in your fiction writing. Things are rarely cut and dried in the real world, so it is a good idea to tie some intriguingly complicated knots in the story you are working on. Your heroine may love somebody but not be in love with them; she may be frightened of the consequences of being successful in either her professional or her personal life; your hero may be attractive yet unsympathetic all in the same breath. It is within these areas of ambivalence that tension grows and tension is an extremely handy tool to have in your writing armoury.

Things are rarely black and white -- it is in that ambiguous,blurred area that most of us live and where interesting fiction is often kindled. Although you should always be aiming for clarity in your writing: the well-realised character, the taut plot, not to mention crisp, new-minted prose, try not to exclude a little bit of healthy ambivalence at the same time. Instead, go for grey and see where it takes you -- my hunch is that you will arrive in an interesting space full of creative uncertainty.

A View from the Bridge...

....in this case, the bridge in question is on the Queen Mary 2 and the view is of the North Atlantic, where I've been busy on a press trip hence my silence on the blog front this week, but am now safely back home and full of literary inspiration...

As it said on our breakfast tray every morning, It isn't that life ashore is distasteful to me, but life at sea is better. That's my Sir Francis Drake quote of the day, more thoughts on fiction writing to follow soon...

All at Sea

Literally! I'm writing this in the mid Atlantic, where I'm on a press trip for the travel pages of www.dailymail.co.uk so intermittent posting for the next few days, but worth it in pursuit of a wonderful story!
In the meantime, I'm trying to think of literary associations with the sea...
Treasure Island
Moby Dick
Poems by John Masefield

Any ideas welcomed with interest.
Bye for now...

A Small Slice of Research Lite

I love a good bit of research to get me going with a book, whether it's set in the present or the past, whether it's fiction or non-fiction, digging around for information is a great stimulus of the creative juices.  Things that I unearth can often help in the development of character and certainly can influence the course of a plot. Because I love research so much, I'm really sensitive to the danger of piling all the knowledge that I've rootled out into my story.  Including something because you've gone to the trouble to find out about it isn't a good enough reason to run the risk of weighing down your narrative.

Just because I've made the cake, it doesn't mean I have to eat it all;  it's OK to have a slice and leave the rest in the tin for another time. It's the same with facts which you've uncovered.  Use some of them, to give authority to your work, to make it credible and help to bring it to life, but for goodness sake don't cram everything in as that's more like bulimia than writing and won't do you or your work in progress any good.

Breaking the Spell

As a writer, you're an illusionist: you create brave new worlds for your reader and go to great lengths to make them seem as real and as plausible as possible -- that is what writing good fiction is all about.

The subversive in me is interested in the effects of setting up an illusion only to destroy it with a kind of devastating sleight of hand.  It can be the most fantastic plotting device and leave your reader open-mouthed with astonishment. Sarah Waters is an absolute genius at this: without wanting to give too much away, in her novel Fingersmith she creates one reality only to whip the rug from under the reader's feet and reveal another, different one in a way that can leave you feeling a little giddy.

So here's a challenge for you: set a wheel turning  within a wheel -- as you're weaving one illusion, produce another like a string of bright silk handkerchiefs hidden up your sleeve. Fiction is bluffing anyway, but take it a step further and go for double bluff. It can be a circus trick: cue drumroll, cue fanfare...

The Laxative Powers of Catharsis?

Weirdly, my dictionary (a lovely old Chambers that my mum and dad gave me in 1989) defines catharsis as purgative medicine having the power of cleansing the bowels - they missed that bit out in my drama degree.  It does go on to say that it can also mean the purging of the effects of a pent-up emotion by bringing it to the surface of consciousness through drama -- much more Aristotelian.

In classical terms, catharsis is the central experience, the raison d'etre, of fiction. People read partly as an escape from their own world, but also in order to see it reflected back at them through the lens of the hero or heroine's heightened experience, so that they gain insight and understanding, but also a gratifying release of the tension you will have generated in your well crafted plot!

You can achieve this by putting your hero under incredible pressure so that they are obliged to change in order to meet the challenges you set them.  There must be a lot to lose, and also a lot to gain.  It's very gratifying to feel wrung out at the end of a book - just as physical exercise gets the endorphins flowing, so a good book should give your reader a great emotional workout - that's what you should be trying to achieve.

Literature, Lycanthropy and Howling at the Moon

I love Margaret Atwood when she is slightly off the wall. She once told someone I knew to bury the names of the people who frightened her in a hole in the garden, something I've considered doing myself, although it would have to be more of a pit in my case.

Here she is talking wolfishly about writing:

"All stories are about wolves. All worth repeating, that is. Anything else is sentimental drivel.... Think about it. There's escaping from the wolves, fighting the wolves, capturing the wolves, taming the wolves. Being thrown to the wolves, or throwing others to the wolves so the wolves will eat them instead of you. Running with the wolf pack. Turning into a wolf. Best of all, turning into the head wolf. No other decent stories exist.”

Perhaps what she means is the best fiction is about dealing with some kind of perceived threat, which is perhaps a bit of a theme for her as the gardening advice could be seen in that light too. I thought it would make an interesting subject as a writing exercise. Why not have a go at some literary lycanthropy yourself? Wolf in sheep's clothing, wolfsbane, wolfing something down – there are all manner of starting points and you might find that you have the germ of an interesting story. In any case, don't you think that writing sometimes feels like howling at the moon?

Writers' Block – Finding the Hidden Slipway of the Imagination

Am I suffering from writer's block just now? I don't think so. I hope not. It's just that I'm not entirely sure what story I want to tell and at the moment it feels as if the various component parts of my proposed novel are straining to get away from each other.

If that's a kind of writer's block, then this is my solution....

Before I start to write, I find it helps to put myself into something like a meditative state. You'd be forgiven for thinking that I was simply staring out of the window, but it's the beginning of a process of submersion which makes my pulse quicken with excitement and my thoughts flow. I don't breathe in a particular way, or chant, or focus on anything specific. I just allow myself to be. The only thing I need in order to achieve this is quietness.

If you are suffering from writer's block at the moment, here's a little exercise that you might like to try. I took the picture below when I was in Cornwall last week.

Think of it as the hidden slipway of the imagination. Picture yourself standing in the shade at the top of the steps, feel the grit of the concrete under your feet, imagine the salty, wiry grass and the scent of the ocean on the wind. Start to walk down, listening to the sound of your footsteps; perhaps you can hear a seagull wheeling overhead or the lumbering sound of a fishing boat's engine. When you move from the shade into the light, you can feel the warmth of the sun on your skin. You keep walking, down and down and down, beyond the steps, following the gentle incline into the sea. Spring hasn't reached here yet and the water is freezing. It laps your ankles, then your knees, your thighs and your waist. It is cold enough to deprive you of breath and for a moment you feel precarious, still earthbound, your feet scudding into rocks you cannot see, but then you take a deep breath and launch yourself and the cold stings your scalp and shocks your brain into action, but already you  have imagined all of this and as you start to float, to swim, you find that you are ready to write...

Now strike out from the shore and keep on going, until the tide turns and brings you home.

Free Range Writing

I'm having a break on the coast of Cornwall, so my posts (when I can manage them) are shorter than usual...

Here's a pic of some free range eggs, West Country style:

I like the chromatic echoes of brown and fawn and cream and palest blue, colours that are sympathetic yet subtly different. They share the same ( egg-like) spherical form although each one is distinct; they are pleasing in every way. The same qualities apply to good books, in which themes and plot lines should be harmoniously orchestrated, and characters well-realised and individual, yet at the same time inhabiting the same literary universe, or in this case, egg box.

However, unlike these irresistible eggs, your free range writing should be neither scrambled nor poached...

Here endeth the metaphor.

Normal Service Will Resume...

...but at the moment I'm hidden away in a remote spot without access to the internet - yes, such places still exist and the breathtakingly lovely Helford Estuary in southernmost Cornwall is one of them. It's an inspiring place in which to think and dream and I shall be back at my desk next week refreshed and inspired and ready to rock some thoughts about writing.

See you then.

Structural Editing Versus Copy Editing (Thank You Catherine Ryan Howard!)

I'm an avid fan of Catherine Ryan Howard's self publishing blog and read it regularly. I was intrigued by today's informative and thought-provoking post which was guest written by Robert Doran of Kazoo Independent Publishing Services and argues whether it is better to invest in a structural edit or a copy edit, when you are preparing to launch your book into the world.

His view, and that of many of the people who have left comments, seems to err on the side of paying for a copy edit on the grounds that you can learn how to address structural difficulties yourself, but my sense is that if the structure is all over the place, with the plot unravelling and the characters behaving inconsistently, readers aren't going to be seduced by the fact that all the commas are in the right places. The structure is the foundation on which your book is built and I think you need to be really sure that it is sound before you start tinkering with aspects of presentation, although of course it is important that grammar and punctuation are as good as you can make them.

It isn't necessary to spend a fortune buying these kind of services, you can always enlist the help of a critical friend. Reciprocal mentoring is a wonderful thing – you learn so much whether you are giving or receiving advice and it is illuminating (and cheap!) to do.

I've Just Killed My Darlings...

....because that's what they tell you to do when you are writing – cut the parts you like the best because you may be blind to their failings or including them for the wrong reasons.

The section I've eviscerated is the opening of my new novel:

The Watermill appeared to float in an inlet of green light, moored by a slender bridge to the canal embankment on one side, listing into the mill stream on the other. Minna propped the ladder against the wall of the house, steadying its base on the narrow walkway that ran from her front door to the tow path. The tangle of her little island garden seemed a long way below. She didn't look down, didn't make the slow plunge into the shade, into the twist and twine of the weeds, the woody creeper, the scuff of grass, into the greenness of it all. Instead, she shoved the secateurs into the pocket of her shorts, tested the lean of the ladder and climbed the first few rungs.

She blinked at the clarity of white and blue: white-rendered walls and the neglected, flaking, French blue of the shutters. The wisteria dripped down her window like rain and she fished the secateurs from her pocket and reached for the lowest bough, stretched beyond her reach, grasped the shoot, and then –

- there was a detonation: the soft shrapnel of feathers and talons, a grey whirring that sent her rearing back then snapping forward to save herself from falling. A bird exploded from the branches, the sheen of metal in its wings, and for a moment Minna's head was full of helicopter blades and sniper fire, the long lances of telegraph poles with their endless wires, the shattered apartments – she gripped the ladder – broken tarmac, the sound of boots running, a woman weeping, mortars reeling – she held the ladder till her fingers hurt – a woman screaming, a truck careering, the sound of running, of guns being primed.

She was panting, breathing for survival. The secateurs clattered to the ground. She rested her head against the rung, feeling the ridged coolness on her skin. This isn't me, she whispered, this frightened woman isn't me. She inched her way back down the ladder and stood on the narrow bridge, holding the iron hand rail, swallowing dry air.

I've sweated blood over it, tweaking and polishing endlessly, but my wise and insightful writing mentor thinks that I'm starting the book at the wrong point in the story and so these opening paragraphs (and quite a lot else besides) have to go. It's difficult medicine to take, bitter as aloes, but it would be far worse to continue steering my narrative in the wrong direction, so I'm going to do a handbrake turn and set to work again.

The moral of this little tale? When you're writing fiction, nothing is sacred except the story.

Lost in Translation # 5

I love the weird dissonance that can happen during  translation – the way in which two languages collide and send words glancing off in unexpected directions. Here's something I saw in Venice last autumn...

On the contrary, I think historical pasta might be very, very sexy – anything from the past kindles my imagination, but what intrigues and delights me about this notice are the questions that it poses – what was the writer trying to say? All the possibilities of nuance and interpretation are suddenly opened up and my reader's (and writer's) brain is flung into overdrive.

It reminds me of the subtleties and accidents of language – and it makes me laugh....

The Coffin and the Sharpened Stake - Accepting Criticism

I've just sent the first three chapters of my new novel to my writing friend and mentor, so I'm feeling a little unsettled and unstable. I want her to like it, but I don't necessarily want her to tell me that she does, as I don't think that would be helpful or constructive. I need her to find fault with it, to pick it apart forensically with her writer's clinical analysis rather than her friend's warm heart. I hope she'll tell me all the ways in which I can make it better and then, after this savaging, I want her to tell me that if I work really hard at it, she thinks it might have some potential.

I'm not sure that praise, when you're in the early stages of writing fiction, is particularly helpful, although sometimes you need a small amount of sugar to help the medicine go down. David Mitchell put it this way...

“If you show someone something you've written, you give them a sharpened stake, lie down in your coffin, and say, ‘When you’re ready’.”

If you've had a literary pasting yourself and are in need of balm, you could do worse than reading his excellent novel Black Swan Green  (which is where this quotation comes from) – not only will it divert you, it's an exemplary lesson in how to write.

The Literary Come-On

 Ooh, I've been writing so hard I feel as if my head is spinning and I could easily have parked my bicycle high on the wall of this French restaurant and in fact perhaps I did!

 Although I hardly know whether I'm on my head on my heels, I do recall rash promises of talking about tension and suspense, so here are a few brief thoughts...

Tension, suspense, anticipation – all of them delicious emotions if you experience them in moderation, although the extreme versions take you into murky, E L James, pain-and-pleasure territory, so it's probably best to stay within the parameters of delicious and allow your reader the thrill of having their expectations built up, before they are fulfilled or thwarted.

There are a few ways of doing this.

• You can announce that something is going to happen up front and then leave your reader in an agony as to how and why.
• You can drop hints – the use of portents and omens a la Thomas Hardy can be very useful here – without being too specific, just enough to whet the appetite.
• You can take your reader right to the brink of the crisis, and leave them there.
• You can convince your reader that one thing is going to happen and then surprise them with another.

It's a form of structural flirtation, a literary come-on. In a way, plotting the novel is an extended seduction, so we're back in EL James territory once again. You want to confound your reader, but not too often. You want to leave them hungry for more.

Story Structure Made (Very, Very) Simple

In my previous post I made a few suggestions about how you might approach the plotting of your story and finished with rash promises about offering some thoughts about structure, so here goes...

I've never read how-to books on structure, other than Christopher Vogler's much trumpeted The Writer's Journey and although I found it fascinating, I found it equally difficult to apply to my own work.I couldn't forge my story to fit his framework, no matter how much I tried to hammer and bend it, so consequently I'm wary of instruction manuals that are too specific about assembling the elements of a narrative, because it's such an intuitive, organic process and you don't want your well-crafted work of fiction to read as though it's come off a production line.

There are a few basics which are unarguably necessary, among them a beginning and an end. You'll notice I've left out the middle, because in fact I think you need two middles, as I suspect the old three act structure of the well-made play does have something to recommend it. So...

• Act One: a beginning, the arrival of some complicating factor, a crisis.
• Act Two: some high-stakes attempts to resolve the crisis, denouement.
• Act Three: resolution.

...and even that feels a little too prescriptive.

The best advice I can give you is to pay attention to contrast and pace, because if you are vigilant about these you will automatically create and then dissipate tension, thus providing well-integrated climaxes in your story.

Perhaps in my next post I'll look at how you handle tension, (but on the other hand...)

How to Achieve Plotting Perfection without Really Trying

Finding the perfect plot is something which writers agonise about, but asking yourself a few simple questions will soon help you to tease out the germ of a good idea. 

Girl meets boy, girl loses boy, girl wins boy back and they live happily ever after. Think of this  corny old outline as the foundation of your narrative. The plot is the sequence of events through which you describe your story taking place. The way to derive a plot from your original idea is to keep asking yourself questions.

Girl Meets Boy. What is the girl like? What is the boy like? How do they meet? Have either of them had partners before and if so was it a positive or negative experience? What are their first impressions of each other? Is one of them more keen than the other? Where do they meet? Does the meeting go well, or is it a disaster?

Girl Loses Boy. What exactly has she lost? How far has their relationship developed? Does it have a solid foundation or has it been precarious from the start? How does she lose him? Does the loss come as a surprise or was it predictable from the outset? Is another person involved? What effect does the loss have upon her? What does she decide to do about it?

Girl Wins Boy Back. How does she achieve this? What odds are stacked against her to make it a challenge? Does winning him back occur in a single moment of realisation or does she conduct a sustained campaign? How has he changed? Why has he changed? What makes him want her back?

They Live Happily Ever After. Or do they? Are the auspices positive or negative? Is it a question of "be careful what you really want..." What is happy?

When you have answered all these fundamental questions you will have the basic elements of a plot. You then need to think about structure – how you fit all these elements together, but that's a story for another day...

Time Travelling – the Use of Tenses in Fiction

In my manuscript-appraising life, I'm prone to slashing and burning when it comes to the pluperfect tense - cuts here, red lines there – I think it should only ever be used sparingly. I know that when they teach you grammar in school, they tell you that the pluperfect is the tense to use when you are talking about the distant past – I had been, rather than I was, but I like my stories to be more immediate than that: I don't want to be reading about things which seem remote from me, what I'm after is a sense of current engagement. I prefer to use the perfect – I have been,  the simple past - I was, or even the zingy present – I am. I'm also wary of any grammatical construction that burdens a sentence with additional words – had and have can weigh your prose down unnecessarily. I'm not saying never use the pluperfect: it can be fantastic for adding dimension to your narrative of the past and for giving a sense of perspective, but once in a scene is probably enough, there's no need for reinforcement.

If you want an exercise to help you explore the effect on your writing of using various tenses, try this: I'll jot down four first lines below to get you started on four different paragraphs – they don't have to be related in any way. Just continue in the tense in which I've started and when you have finished read them through and see what effect they have on pace, tension, accessibility and immediacy.

1. It had been a cold winter and I hadn't seen our neighbour for more than a month.
2. I have been meaning to write, honestly, I have.
3. The beeping stopped, the monitor flatlined, the nurse checked for vital signs.
4. The child is inching along the wall, heel to toe, trembling;  he cannot reach her.

You might also try constructing a sentence that uses all four tenses, just to see how muscular your prose needs to be in order to accommodate that kind of movement.
I'd be interested to hear how you get on...

The Multi-Tasking Manuscript

We've become so adept at multi-tasking – bringing up children, sustaining a relationship, running a house, keeping down a job, writing a novel - and that lot's just for starters. Doing one thing at a time doesn't really cut the mustard any more, we've got to succeed on as many fronts as possible.

Hold this thought in your head next time you sit down to work on your novel or short story. It's no accident that the mighty BBC's mission is to educate, inform and entertain. Not just inform. Not just educate. All three in a one-er. I think the same applies in creative writing. If you dash off a good yarn with a cracking plot, you may do very well – there is a place for stories which simply entertain and sometimes it can be a profitable one. However, I suspect that in these hard-pressed times people have got used to looking for added value – that's what makes them commit to a purchase, or to reading a book – so it might be worth spending some time thinking of how you can add value to the story you are writing.

Here are a few ideas...

• If you set something in the past, make sure your period is well researched and seek out as many illuminating details as you can, so your reader finishes what you have written feeling she has learnt something.
• I suspect that dramas about hospitals and the police do so well on television because people want privileged access to a world that is denied them elsewhere. They want to feel as if they're on the inside of an exclusive group. Try and make this work to your advantage – set your narrative in an environment that most people wouldn't normally have access to, so that you can draw them in.
• Make sure your writing is as good as it can be. Of course, its primary function is to tell your story, but if the quality of your prose beguiles the reader at the same time, they are more likely to come back for more.
• You could even weave in recipes, or prizes, or tips for better sex – it's all been done to great effect before (Like Water for Chocolate, Kit Williams' Masquerade, the ubiqitious EL James...)

In a bid to multi-task with this blog, I'm not just jotting down a few thoughts for your delight and delectation, I'm giving you a beautiful door as well...

Steinbeck's Rule for Writing Fiction

The Grapes of Wrath...Of Mice and Men – okay, okay, John Steinbeck knew a thing or two about writing fiction, so I was interested to come across this quote from him on the Goodreads site,

"If a story is not about the hearer, he will not listen. And here I make a rule—a great and interesting story is about everyone or it will not last."

I think it goes to the heart of why we read – to understand our own experience and find some kind of affirmation of it. Most of us are looking for illumination and reassurance from the books we choose (as well as excitement, entertainment, catharsis, diversion, information - are you sure you want to be a writer?)

When you are starting work on a novel or short story, I think you should have this issue of reader identification at the forefront of your thinking. Finding your voice as a writer is one thing, making sure it speaks to your reader is something slightly different and that is where your choice of subject and theme comes into play. Be wary of taking the advice about writing about what you know too literally – if you work in a hospital, don't necessarily write about routine on the wards, but draw on your experience of what it feels like to save (or lose) the life of a child so that you can write vividly, in heartfelt tones, about striving, disappointment, elation, loss. These feelings are universal, but the events that give rise to them are specific to an individual.

Perhaps that's what Steinbeck is getting at – use your narrative to anatomise one person's particular experience of an emotion that is generally felt. When you are reading, the best moment is always one of recognition – of I know how that feels. Use your writer's guile, your literary smoke and mirrors, to reflect their own emotional truth back to your readers – it isn't their narcissism you will be speaking to, it's their desire to share....

Scrabbling for Metaphors...

I found my parents' ancient set of Scrabble in our loft the other day - the box (which boasts New Plastic Tiles!) endlessly repaired with yellowed sellotape. Inside was a record of all the scores of all the games they'd ever played. Forty two years of unarmed combat! One day my Dad, convinced of his supremacy, did the maths and totted up the figures. Result: 60,900 to him and a resounding, trouncing 63,283 to my mum.

That's an awful lot of words.

That's the portrait of a marriage, in miniature.

That's the germ of a short story, surely? Think of a metaphor for your own relationship, and set to work...

Creative Writing: Working with Mosaics

I thought you might like some gilded Art Nouveau flowers to brighten up this interminably long shortest month. I am so through with February. I'm desperate for some mad March wind to blast the grey away and shake the gold from the daffodils.

In the meantime, here are my gaudy blooms, found above a shop front in Nancy, France. I'm intrigued by the composite nature of the image, hundreds of tiny tiles that would be decorative but meaningless on their own, fitting together to make a picture. I like the way the artist has put contrasting colours together to create an impression of depth and texture. It's interesting that the composition is framed in gold and then again in blue and white, and yet the petals break through the frame rebelliously, softening and subverting.

What my flowers teach us about writing fiction is to do with the accumulation of detail. They show how a picture full of depth and resonance can be fashioned from hundreds of tiny details, which looked at individually have little to tell us, but viewed as part of a larger whole can be extraordinarily revealing.

See how you can apply this to your own work: it can be helpful in building a character or describing a scene. Jot down as many individual observations as you can – more than you need – and start assembling them, being conscious of the effect of comparison and contrast. Move them around until you're happy with the overall effect and then stand back and take a look – you might be surprised at what you see.