I once had a friend who always chose books on the basis of how good the hundredth page was, flipping past the first page and going up country into the interior of the story. If things looked good on p100, then he bought the book.
To put this theory to the test, here are three hundredth pages taken at random from my bookshelf:
The Siege of Krishnapur by JG Farrell
A small portion of the graveyard had been reluctantly allotted to Father O'Hara by the Padre for his Romish rights in the event of any of the half-dozen members of his church succumbing during the present difficulties. But when Father O'Hara had asked for a bigger plot, the Padre had been furious; Father O'Hara already had enough room for six people, so he must be secretly hoping to convert some of the Padre's own flock to his Popish idolatry. The Collector had settled the dispute by saying with asperity: "In any case, nobody is dead yet. We'll talk about it again when you can show me the bodies."
Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
The remembrance of this admonition gradually faded, and he continued as before giving innocuous consultations in his back room. But the Mayor was against him, some of his rivals were jealous, he couldn't be too careful. His kindly attentions were meant to put Monsieur Bovary under an obligation and ensure his silence in case he ever noticed anything.
Spies by Michael Frayn
I watch in growing agony as Keith's mother walks unhurriedly away into the evening sun, towards the end of the street. I should be out there after her, watching from the corner as she enters the tunnel, from the near end of the tunnel as she reaches the far end...but how can I, when I'm being watched myself?
If these are anything to go by, I think it does hold water. JG Farrell combines a comic take on petty rivalries while hinting at an imminent catastrophe; Flaubert leads us into murky waters where manipulativeness and duplicity are rife and with Frayn we find surveillance with added spin.
The reason I'm mentioning this is that it is easy to get hung up on creating impact at the opening of a novel or story and to overlook the need to sustain this well into the middle of the book. It's a classic trap to write a brilliant first three chapters and then to come unstuck. If you are going to hold the tension, you need to think ahead, to anticipate. If it inhibits you to plan in too much detail, do be aware of the need to have some forward momentum. You need to know where you are going, even if you're not sure how you will get there...
Tuesday, 12 April 2011
Monday, 11 April 2011
Prospecting for Gold
I once went prospecting for gold in the Australian outback. It was THE most exciting thing. My companion was a real life, professional prospector called Cranston Edwards and armed with a state of the art metal detector, he showed me how to read the geology of the landscape, to interpret the signals the detector gave off and how to identify false alarms with the magnetised end of a pickaxe. We made our survey in one direction and where the bleeper lost its head completely, we drew a line in the dirt. We then swept back and forth along our mark and when the bleeper sounded off again, we drew another line and at the junction of the two (X really does mark the spot) we started to dig, until Cranston unearthed a nugget of the palest gold.
It's a similar process for writers finding their voice. It's not a random process; you need to be methodical and wide ranging. You set off in one direction, writing about this and that, until you find a subject that resonates with you. Then you start to tackle this subject from a number of different angles, developing the plot, working up the characters, drafting away and then re-drafting, experimenting with different styles until the tone of your work, its musical note, stops sounding muffled and flat and rings true -- maybe only for a single moment, in one sentence, but it is here that you start to dig. It becomes the focus for all your excavations. You find different strata and uncover many layers and it is a delicate and labourious process. As with proper prospecting, the secret lies in listening diligently to begin with, in remaining alert to possibilities, and being sensitive to the material you are working with.
However, if you are painstaking and keep sifting through the dirt, like Cranston, you'll find one nugget, and then maybe another, and another. It's not bullion -- it doesn't come all at once in a solid and reassuring block, but a little bit at a time, glimmering here, glittering there, but that way the search is more exciting and rewarding.
It's a similar process for writers finding their voice. It's not a random process; you need to be methodical and wide ranging. You set off in one direction, writing about this and that, until you find a subject that resonates with you. Then you start to tackle this subject from a number of different angles, developing the plot, working up the characters, drafting away and then re-drafting, experimenting with different styles until the tone of your work, its musical note, stops sounding muffled and flat and rings true -- maybe only for a single moment, in one sentence, but it is here that you start to dig. It becomes the focus for all your excavations. You find different strata and uncover many layers and it is a delicate and labourious process. As with proper prospecting, the secret lies in listening diligently to begin with, in remaining alert to possibilities, and being sensitive to the material you are working with.
However, if you are painstaking and keep sifting through the dirt, like Cranston, you'll find one nugget, and then maybe another, and another. It's not bullion -- it doesn't come all at once in a solid and reassuring block, but a little bit at a time, glimmering here, glittering there, but that way the search is more exciting and rewarding.
Friday, 8 April 2011
Epiphany - in April
Still working those characterisation muscles, helping to give you core strength as a writer (I can feel a bit of a Pilates metaphor starting to take shape), here is an exercise that you might like to think about over the weekend.
Write a scene in which your central character has a moment of epiphany. This is a classic term for an instance of realisation, or total clarity. The dictionary defines it as a sudden revelation or insight into the nature, essence or meaning of something. In this case, try showing your hero or heroine in a situation where something happens which makes them realise they are not the person that they thought they were. This will give you the opportunity to show two different aspects of their character, a before and after point of view, which will get you thinking about how you can resolve two contrasting or conflicting aspects of their personality and will ultimately lend greater depth to how you portray them. We are all a mass of contradictions and complexities, but we often have a particular narrative to account for the person we've become: I think/behave like this because such and such happened to me. In this scenario, blow that narrative into smithereens and see what your hero is left with, and what they make of it.
April is the cruellest month, after all....
Write a scene in which your central character has a moment of epiphany. This is a classic term for an instance of realisation, or total clarity. The dictionary defines it as a sudden revelation or insight into the nature, essence or meaning of something. In this case, try showing your hero or heroine in a situation where something happens which makes them realise they are not the person that they thought they were. This will give you the opportunity to show two different aspects of their character, a before and after point of view, which will get you thinking about how you can resolve two contrasting or conflicting aspects of their personality and will ultimately lend greater depth to how you portray them. We are all a mass of contradictions and complexities, but we often have a particular narrative to account for the person we've become: I think/behave like this because such and such happened to me. In this scenario, blow that narrative into smithereens and see what your hero is left with, and what they make of it.
April is the cruellest month, after all....
Thursday, 7 April 2011
Appearance Isn't Everything
One of the reasons that Radio Four's long-running soap The Archers is so popular
is that the faceless inhabitants of Ambridge take on a vivid and
distinct reality within the listener's head. I really don't want to know
what the actress playing Caroline looks like, because I have such a
clear image of her already.
The same applies to fiction. I hate it when I'm reading a novel and halfway through the writer makes casual reference to the heroine's dark hair when for 200 pages or so she has been immutably fixed in my imagination as a redhead. It completely destroys the illusion I have been working so hard to create for myself, but it can provide a small lesson for the writer...
When it you are describing a character (n.b. don't ever have them looking at their own reflection in a mirror, it is the oldest cliche in the book), try to avoid saying she had dark curly hair and brown eyes, search instead for something less literal. Think of it in terms of attempting to bring to life her personality by describing how she looks, rather than just going for appearance for appearance's sake. Describe her bearing, her mannerisms, how she speaks, the texture of her skin, how the light catches her (you can use setting to great effect for this). By approaching the task in a lateral and slightly elusive manner, you leave plenty of scope for the reader to colour in the picture for themselves. In that way, they invest in your narrative and take possession of it. If you hand everything to them on a plate, they will stay passive, like passengers along for the ride, whereas you want them to be active participants in the story you are trying to tell.
I saw this pretty fountain on my recent trip to Burgundy. You might like to try describing the woman's face applying the techniques above. See if you can bring out her qualities rather than how she looks and this will lead you to the essence of who she is....
The same applies to fiction. I hate it when I'm reading a novel and halfway through the writer makes casual reference to the heroine's dark hair when for 200 pages or so she has been immutably fixed in my imagination as a redhead. It completely destroys the illusion I have been working so hard to create for myself, but it can provide a small lesson for the writer...
When it you are describing a character (n.b. don't ever have them looking at their own reflection in a mirror, it is the oldest cliche in the book), try to avoid saying she had dark curly hair and brown eyes, search instead for something less literal. Think of it in terms of attempting to bring to life her personality by describing how she looks, rather than just going for appearance for appearance's sake. Describe her bearing, her mannerisms, how she speaks, the texture of her skin, how the light catches her (you can use setting to great effect for this). By approaching the task in a lateral and slightly elusive manner, you leave plenty of scope for the reader to colour in the picture for themselves. In that way, they invest in your narrative and take possession of it. If you hand everything to them on a plate, they will stay passive, like passengers along for the ride, whereas you want them to be active participants in the story you are trying to tell.
I saw this pretty fountain on my recent trip to Burgundy. You might like to try describing the woman's face applying the techniques above. See if you can bring out her qualities rather than how she looks and this will lead you to the essence of who she is....
Wednesday, 6 April 2011
Throwing Down the Gauntlet
What we want as readers is to see characters triumphing over adversity, partly because that is inherently exciting, but also because it makes us think that when trouble strikes are us, we too will be able to overcome it. So, once you have created your hero or heroine, conjuring up a well-rounded, sympathetic, plausible person, your next job is to turn up the heat on them, to put them under pressure. In this way their weaknesses will be revealed, giving you, the writer, the material you need to work with as your plot unfolds.
In order to calibrate things properly, first of all you need to identify what fears, neuroses, emotional scars, dependencies and self-imposed limitations afflict your protagonist. Have they been hurt in the past? Are they so frightened of failing that they are reluctant to commit themselves to anything? Conversely, do they have a wildly over-inflated opinion of themselves and need cutting down to size? It is probably best to focus on one central flaw, in the knowledge that it might also spawn a number of other minor glitches which need putting to the test.
You ought to frame the challenge to your characters fairly early on, as a large part of your story will be concerned with how they cope with all the hardship you throw at them. Part of the gratification for your reader is to see your hero behaving -- well, heroically! It's a vicarious pleasure that lifts our own humdrum lives into the realm of the extraordinary.
So take a deep breath, and throw down the gauntlet. It's not always easy stuff to write as often what confounds your characters is actually what confounds you too, so you may well find that in challenging your protagonist, you are, in fact, challenging yourself as well.
In order to calibrate things properly, first of all you need to identify what fears, neuroses, emotional scars, dependencies and self-imposed limitations afflict your protagonist. Have they been hurt in the past? Are they so frightened of failing that they are reluctant to commit themselves to anything? Conversely, do they have a wildly over-inflated opinion of themselves and need cutting down to size? It is probably best to focus on one central flaw, in the knowledge that it might also spawn a number of other minor glitches which need putting to the test.
You ought to frame the challenge to your characters fairly early on, as a large part of your story will be concerned with how they cope with all the hardship you throw at them. Part of the gratification for your reader is to see your hero behaving -- well, heroically! It's a vicarious pleasure that lifts our own humdrum lives into the realm of the extraordinary.
So take a deep breath, and throw down the gauntlet. It's not always easy stuff to write as often what confounds your characters is actually what confounds you too, so you may well find that in challenging your protagonist, you are, in fact, challenging yourself as well.
Tuesday, 5 April 2011
Beginnings -- It's Not How but Where
How to start writing a story is relatively straightforward: you have an idea in your head, pen and paper or a computer screen in front of you, and you sit down and slog away until you have a few pages of matchless prose to show for all your efforts. How isn't the problem....
It's where to begin which is the real poser. Which strand of the yarn you have in mind do you knit up first and does it matter if you drop a few stitches along the way? (Probably not.)
If I were telling the story of my life, I definitely wouldn't start at the beginning, which was in an RAF hospital somewhere in the Fens and awfully flat, as Noel Coward observed. I'd cut to the chase and go for drama: some near death experience, perhaps; or first love; or first heartbreak; and I'd use that incident to hook the reader in, for sure, but also to give them an impression of what the story is going to be about; to set the tone, so that they'd know from the first page whether this was likely to be a romance or a thriller, or something elusive and literary. A good beginning provides a kind of map and compass: this is the terrain and here is the direction we will be travelling in.
Having started with a Big Moment, I would then take care to thread in essential information from the past and interweave this with some key scenes heavy with plot, in order to give some forward momentum to the story.
You could think of it in terms of:
situation + character x drama > plot = great opening sequence
On the other hand, you could picture it as a beautiful old door (another one) weathered and mysterious, a threshold, full of beckoning possibilities...
It's where to begin which is the real poser. Which strand of the yarn you have in mind do you knit up first and does it matter if you drop a few stitches along the way? (Probably not.)
If I were telling the story of my life, I definitely wouldn't start at the beginning, which was in an RAF hospital somewhere in the Fens and awfully flat, as Noel Coward observed. I'd cut to the chase and go for drama: some near death experience, perhaps; or first love; or first heartbreak; and I'd use that incident to hook the reader in, for sure, but also to give them an impression of what the story is going to be about; to set the tone, so that they'd know from the first page whether this was likely to be a romance or a thriller, or something elusive and literary. A good beginning provides a kind of map and compass: this is the terrain and here is the direction we will be travelling in.
Having started with a Big Moment, I would then take care to thread in essential information from the past and interweave this with some key scenes heavy with plot, in order to give some forward momentum to the story.
You could think of it in terms of:
situation + character x drama > plot = great opening sequence
On the other hand, you could picture it as a beautiful old door (another one) weathered and mysterious, a threshold, full of beckoning possibilities...
Monday, 4 April 2011
Memory and Imagination
I've just got back from Burgundy -- time travelling through ancient villages - where I've been checking a few details for the novel that I'm writing the moment, which is set on the Nivernais canal. There were doors to die for on every corner; here's one I saw in Noyers sur Serein, its faded yellow paint a bit like a sunset scorched into the wood...
I spent some time in Chatillon en Bazois, a little town in the Morvan where the denouement of my story takes place. I'd been there five years ago and looked at pictures of it since, but visiting it again having written about it for my book, I was struck by the interplay between memory (how I thought it was) and imagination (how I wanted it to be) and how fiction begins at this intersection. Revisiting Chatillon was almost like seeing the alchemy taking place: the town was less beautiful than I remembered and I could see at once how my imagination had been at work. All the details were there, but the reality was like looking at a landscape that is overcast compared to one in broad sunlight. It made me think that that is what imagination -- creativity, if you like - does: it sheds light.
So keep writing, and shine brightly....
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