As I write these words, I am meant to be busy typing and clicking in another window, in another language, with another hat on. Yet I am self-evidently not. Instead, I am tying myself in knots. Self-evidently.
In the past few weeks the little engine that keeps my head spinning, and the sky from caving in (it’s ok – it’s a very personal piece of sky, there’s no need to be alarmed or look up, or invest in U-SAVE-ME Head Protectors) has moved from WWII-destroyer-cannae-take-any-more-cap’n, through to Model-T-any-thought-you-like-as-long-as-its-black to itty-bitty-kitty-lying-in-the-sun-purring to Norwegian-blue-cold. Mon head-engine est mort. Deceased. Moved on. Past it’s sell-by date. Past it’s use-by date.
Paid work and fiction deadlines have streamed past, like meteors. The hull of the mothership has maintained integrity, while little else of me has. The temptation to do a dying swan in a matt-black ship into a white-hot sun is ever present – but fortunately I lack both the energy and well, the energy, to do anything excessively maudlin.
I do not seek pity, or condemnation. I write these words to myself – a minor public flagellation. I operate at my best under pressure, but my duende and assorted internet gremlins are always seeking to release the pressure. Distract me. Disinflate. Disfunction. As Philip K Dick wrote, everything tends towards kibble.
My head, my words, my actions. All kibble-bound. It’s at times like this that I am reminded that no matter how privileged, or happy, or healthy, one may feel, there is always a need for a sense of injustice, of struggle, of need required, to achieve anything worthwhile. And because I lack such focus, I simply trip myself up – like millions of others. Just to see if I can get back up again.
Anyway. Six weeks or so I haven’t touched the novel. I’ve barely done anything beyond run and exist. And yet still there is not an aching unhappiness. Just a general sadness. I used to wonder if I ever really felt anything – if I was simply too controlled, too passive, to succeed as an artist (or as anything much). This, and other nonsense, is the outcome of the luxury of spare time, a navel, and half a brain.
I’m nearly 40 years old. I feel about 12. I suppose it’s about time to get back on the horse of time and try and catch up with the grown-ups. While I still have clients, stories in my head, and nerves in my fingers. Push the button.
I’ve been a little quiet of late. I’m trying hard not to distract myself. *SQUIRREL*
Preamble
I’ve been editing away, trying to make the redraft a better book. I’m about half way through, I’d estimate – a little shy of 48,000 words. For the most part these are new, or at least tweaked. I’m breaking several agents’ rules – writing first person, present tense – but it’s the way I can most comfortably tell this story. It is, after all, the story of me. Or a not-too-far-from-me me, at any rate.
The story has a new title, and a new narrative arc. It still (probably) has too many characters, sub-plots, symbols and grammatical faux pas. But it feels like a better story. I think the motivation of the lead character is a lot more obvious; his eccentricities are more human, and there’s more of a thread to keep people’s attention. I’m tempted to structure it as a ‘write your own adventure’ book, but I suspect this will ultimately fall into the ‘nice idea, but for another day’ category.
The lists of things I think about when I think about redrafting
As I edit, or add new text,I’m trying to make more of an effort to be aware of what has just come before, for the reader’s sake. The process is analogous to mixing paint, but I will usually retreat a few paragraphs from where I want to start, and start editing there instead. The theory is that this will iron out inconsistencies in mood and tempo, as I mix one day’s words with another’s – or, crucially, at least I am more aware of the effect of a change – especially if it’s necessary (eg after an emotional scene I like to put in a descriptive section, which partly shows the character’s state of mind in terms of what he says and how he responds, but also gives the reader a break from too much dialogue).
It’s a theory, anyway.
When I get to the writing proper, I am trying to keep this in mind as I tweak, edit or slash:
How does this scene fit into the overall plot? Focus on the main plot – sacrifice micro-plots or things that seemed funny the first time round. Audition each scene. Does it deserve its place in the story? Will it hold me back?
How does this scene relate to what the main characters want?
Do I need to speed up or slow down? Have I done too many similar-paced scenes on the spin? (I’m using coloured-index cards in Scrivener to give me an instant view of this)
Am I using dialogue where reported speech would be more efficient?
Am I using character actions enough, or too much? I’m probably overfond of stage directions to indicate mood.
Do I need to break up time with a descriptive thought, or sentence. Or use another character to interrupt, or impede?
Is what I’m writing credible?
Is it natural? No-one’s walked in with the bag marked ‘McGuffin’ too obviously, have they?
Have I written this before? I am really rather good at having the same idea several times over several days. Often in neighbouring paragraphs. Have these characters met already – initial descriptions being one of the worst culprits.
Lastly, am I writing to amuse myself – ie does the reader really need to know?
There’s another list, which is to do with linguistic tics:
Remember that people rarely call each other by name in two-person dialogue.
Don’t ‘just’ do things, ‘actually’, ‘really’, or ‘you know’.
Watch for slang. I’ve thought long and hard about this, but the American reader will just have to work out what bloody, bollocks and the tube are. Because obviously that’s the least of their worries.
Don’t ‘obviously’. Although I know I have, and it hurts.
Check the number of smiles.
Check the number of stares, hard or otherwise.
Check the units of booze or caffeine.
If Tom must stare out of windows and generally be a bit of a moper, help the reader be on his side. Or give them the opportunity to laugh at him. Farce is quite satisfying to write.
I’ve made a couple of colourful mind-maps to try and keep myself on track. I have all my plot points, and decisions to make as to what to keep in or throw out, but the mind map is helping me to focus on what Tom (lead character):
wants – I have four boxes here, these lead to:
what would success look like – each box has several offshoots, leading to at least one:
what stands in his way – either characters, or situations, or backstory, leading to:
resolutions – how these obstacles are overcome.
Each level is a different colour. I already have a timeline document of sorts, and I can map most of the 3s and 4s to this timeline. Things that don’t fit either need to go, or I need to resolve them differently, or I need to write into the timeline.
I also did a relationship diagram of all my characters, and used different colours to indicate different things- type of relationship, are they a helper/hinderer, are they incidental or do they advance the plot etc. The colours help to draw people together across the page.
Combined, these drawings have really helped me to boil down the main questions I think that my story needs to answer, in order to make a ‘satisfying’ plot. This is different from ‘what the novel’s about’ as without the eggs, there’s no erm, egg-nog. Not that my book is about egg-nog. Although it is about noggins. And good eggs. And bad eggs.
Ok. Enough writer’s woe. I feel I’ve given myself enough of a kicking over the various faults with my writing process, soliciting feedback, editing, querying and sulking. Yes, even my sulking sucked, in retrospect. Time for action. So – here’s what I’ve done:
I’ve read the manuscript all the way through. I tried to read it as an outsider – and summarised at the end of each chapter what it was I appear to have been trying to say and/or do with the plot. This in itself has been an education, but the time I have spent away from fiddlign with the plot has also helped me to identify problems easier (because I’m not kidding myself it’s fixed in chapter N or saying ‘ok, I wrote that but I meant this’).
Each time the writing drew attention to itself, I circled the phrase or section in pencil. Sometimes this was an adverb, more often a simile – occasionally something so entirely self-indulgent that nothing short of my new favourite marginal mark (WTF!) was sufficient.
Each time a new character, motif, key item or location is mentioned, I made a note in the header in ink, so that I can flick through and check back. In an early draft I’d lost a dog for three chapters because I’d forgotten about him. (If I were writing from scratch in Scrivener, I would add these as keywords). Each character also has the age they are at that time – this would have helped me with various continuity errors I made, had I been more diligent first time around.
Alongside the summary, I have made three types of comments on each chapter:
Starred items are things to keep but improve. For the most part these are ‘sharpen dialogue between X and Y’, ‘make more realistic’ or simply focus more on a specific plot point.
Question mark items are things I want to look at and think about in the edit, such as new character interactions, things to check against the timeline, or things I’m not sure whether to keep or not.
Delta mark items (what do you mean you don’t know ‘delta’ – that almost complete triangle from maths lessons aeons ago) – means ‘change this’.
Together these form a sort of ‘to-do’ list for the entire novel.
And now that I have the whole novel sitting in my head again (it’s rather disconcerting how so many weeks of effort can be digested again in just a few hours) I have made some adjustments to the plot that I, as a reader, would like to make. I parked these for a couple of days. No need to rush.
I went back to the list of things that my early readers liked or disliked, and I’ve measured them against the notes I’ve already made, adding a few things, and ignoring others. What I initially thought was inevitable (‘you can’t please everyone all of the time’) I now interpret as ‘this is how I pissed this (type of) reader off at this point’. Most, if not all, of the points they made need fixing. But it’s my choice/responsibility as to how this is achieved.
I revisited the notes I made listening to the authors and agents at various LBF and London Writers Club events I’ve attended recently – in particular Miranda Glover’s comments (documented in the previous blog entry), and Lucy Luck’s impromptu list of first-novel-cliche-bingo (rather mortifying to hear them direct from an agent at LWC Live): avoid writing first person, present tense, spiritual journeys that resolve broken relationships involving alcoholic fathers, and starting the novel with the lead character waking up from a hangover. Oh dear. I did not call ‘house’ at the time, but I did want to crawl under a rock. Admittedly this may have been the lashings of ginger beer I had consumed that evening (top tip, writers, as a rule, like a drink. Next time, bring my drinking head). She was at least engagingly non-commital about the appeal talking pigeons, but sadly my pigeons merely bob, they do not speak.
The net result is that I have survived my first major test of faith, I think. I’ve blown it with the agent I really wanted (or thought I wanted, anyway), but Lucy recommended approaching at least 20 before accepting that perhaps this piece is not for public consumption. I’m on 2 formal rejections, of something I accept now wasn’t polished enough. So, there is hope.
And where there is hope, there is a drink, I mean way. Thus armed with oodles and squoodles of guidance, I have a plan:
Write to be read, not to draw attention to myself as author.
Self-indulgence is for blogging, not for fiction. I want to be a professional storyteller, not a professional blogger. I have a duty of care to the poor sods who may end up paying money for what I write. You, dear blog reader, get the more narcissistic/angst-ridden/petulant side. And aren’t you the lucky one?
I can ignore all of Lucy’s rules, as long as I observe Miranda’s (and so on and so on). No-one I’ve met, read or listened to agrees 100% on process, or plot or anything in fact. But all of them agree on one thing: write the best story you can in the most original voice you can.
I will not write to a word count, or to simply finish a chapter. I will write to the end, wherever that may be. I will keep the reader in mind at all times, and that reader will not be me, or my wife, or my mum, or my friends. It will be someone who only has the book to go on. Obvious, I know – but so much of what I’ve read in the manuscript is obviously (to me) aimed at one or more of the first group that it makes me a little mad with myself. Again, it’s about professional craftmanship, not being the best novelist in my own study.
I will stop worrying. I know I can write. The right words in the right order in the right voice. Prove it, monki.
Which all means that it’s not an edit, or a re-draft, but a more or less complete rewrite. But I’ve learnt so much along the way, that this can only make for a better book. It’s just taking a little longer than I’d have liked….
Do let me know of any other tips you use or have come across for self-editing or rewrites. (And while not specifically referenced above, I’d recommend ‘Self-Editing for Fiction Writers‘ to anyone who’s OCD about filling their shelves with books on writing rather than books they’ve written)
I have decided, with a typically male lack of need for scientific, or indeed, observable, corroboration, that I have writer’s woe. It’s a bit like tennis elbow, or runner’s knee, but much more French.
In the past couple of weeks I have been thinking about, listening it and reading around a lot of professional advice on how to get published. In particular:
The LBF Masterclass that I’ve already posted about – although the more I think about the £40 plus travel, for two hours of informed, but ultimately neither specific nor novel (no pun intended, I already own @caroleagent’s excellent From Pitch to Publication) advice, I do think this was incorrectedly advertised as a ‘class’ and consequently overpriced;
The slightly odd experience of winning a place (via twitter) on the current London Writers Club Fiction Masterclass – on the strength of my revised pitch for the novel, itself revised because of something Carole Blake said at the event I’ve just been slightly sniffy about, so in some ways I’m £57 up on masterclasses at present. Strictly speaking I think this is the first thing I’ve ‘won’ as an adult fiction writer.
Meeting one of my heroes – Ian Rankin – nutching about the quality of Highland Park and on writing to instrumental music. I listened to him being interviewed at LBF (and then repeat the same anecdotes on a comics panel later that day) – and I thought ‘here’s a man who doesn’t care what his hair looks like, drinking a free pint, telling stories about himself and the people in his head.’ Yes, dear reader, there was a wistful sigh at this point.
The LWC Masterclass is a series of tele-conferences – one a week. Initially, this felt a bit odd, as it reminded me a little of my old job – but Miranda Glover’s lecture was delivered in such soothing and polished tones that it was occasionally difficult to remember I had a handset on loudspeaker, and that I wasn’t listening to the radio. It’s a testament to the amount she packed in to her initial slot that I filled several pages with notes – she covered a lot of the basics, but also went into quite specific details as to process and her technique, using examples from her own career to back up her points.
I’m always impressed by authors who give something back – Glover not only runs a writing group, she has also set up her own Press. I was really impressed by the way she addressed the Q&A bit, being both highly specific and making people feel that she was interested in their work, their issues and genuinely trying to help. Not all authors I’ve met or paid to hear have been so magnanimous.
More importantly, perhaps, is that unlike so many other bits of advice I’ve read/paid for/ listened to or simply been on the end of in the pub/facebook/twitter (just as everyone thinks that they have a book in them, lots of people also have an opinion as to what you should be writing, or how, I’ve discovered), I put some of what she said into immediate action. I was also helped by something Jacqueline Burns, who co-runs LWC, said – suggesting I approach my imminent readthrough of the novel with one very specific question in mind (doing several if needs be).
Sadly, the net result has been writer’s woe. I currently hate – ooh, 90% – of the novel, I’d say. Having put it in a drawer for a few months, I’ve since discovered that the lead character spends most of his time drunk, grasping people’s shoulders, tracing outlines of text or pictures. Pigeons always bob. Computers always mechanically wheeze into action. And various things are constipated. It is the fate of all artists to struggle with their creations, I suppose.
And Glover again came up trumps for this scenario – declaring that the drafting process was only finished when she felt ready to move on to another story. When there was nothing left.
Without mentioning the shape-shifting dogs, random cliff-hangers, and the very obviously episodic way I’d written it. The embarrassment is that I really thought this was good enough to go out to people – and it so obviously isn’t, now that I read it as a whole, on paper, and without the rose-tinted glasses of finishing the damn thing.
Because I haven’t. Finished, that is. As she said, the end of the first draft is a momentous thing, but it’s only the start of the next round of the process.
So much of all of this process stuff is subjective – when it makes sense, it just makes sense… others will disagree wildly. One of my – perhaps male, perhaps not – criticisms of a lot of seminars I’ve attended, creative writing and otherwise, is that people aren’t specific or detailed enough. The initial talk / lecture therefore gave me plenty of material to chew over, and made me feel that Miranda was genuinely interested in improving the writing / process of others.
In particular I loved three things she said which I hope I captured correctly:
– writing a novel is a commitment, like joining a gym. (My extension – I go through regular gym-fixations, but equally months of gym-avoidance. I need to make the most of my short-term focus). Because:
– you have a relationship with your novel (and within the novel with your characters and your readers); which in turn explains:
– you’re finished only when you feel ready to move on (again, my analogy – I’d fallen out of love with my novel, but the relationship is worth saving).
I liked that she wasn’t afraid to give advice, could back things up from personal experience, and did so with grace and enthusiasm. I’ve yet to meet or listen to an author that I haven’t learnt *something* from, but it’s rare to get so much in such a short space of time – without feeling patronised or naive or ‘why the hell didn’t I take this more seriously earlier’.
The next class (Emma Rose, out of sequence) was on the publishing process, something that I am sadly already intimate with, having started my grown up career as the web ‘guy’ for a major academic publisher. Funny how little has changed over the years, and how much the textbook and ELT markets (ruthless, in all senses) led the way. Little did I imagine that I would ever picture myself as an academic monograph, waiting to be found and filed in some dusty library somewhere.
And tonight I am attending the LWC Live event with Lucy Luck. Let’s see how grim the market really is for ‘London commuter belt Iain Banks-esque family dramas’.
It was all fine while I was reading Private Eye on the tube. It was all fine while I was walking around to the pleb’s entrance. It was all fine while they conspicuously failed to scan me on my way in (ooh, what larks I could have got up to in my ‘not-really-here’ way). But then I was in and on my own, in a very, very big shed. The London International Book Fair – a trade show, and not just any trade show – the biggest publishing event in the UK, and one made memorable this year for the various and increasingly expensive Fogg-like tales of ingenuity in the face of Le Manche. And Eyjafjallajokull.
Apparently exhibitors are down by a fifth – and it was certainly painful to walk around the non-UK stands and see the number of deserted stands and the odd rather lonely looking rep staring balefully at their laptop, cardboard boxes half-heartedly ripped open behind them.
DIY publicity – Mantel on stage, and top-middle right, man fixing DIY posters to the wall
But first and foremost I had no real reason to be there – the events for prospective authors are sales pitches for companies I hold in varying degrees of fondness (the Arvon Foundation changed my life, Author House is unlikely to ever feature on my Christmas card list. I was considering using The Literary Consultancy until I attended their event). And because of this I felt very much the outsider. I’ve been to oodles of trade shows before – indeed, one of my first jobs was helping to assemble the stand for a disco light manufacturer for PLASA, and I’ve presented and attended lots of digital / web conferences. But always the primary focus was my job – picking up trends, new suppliers, a day larking about, or simply out of the office.
I didn’t have that context for this show. I wandered around a bit aimlessly, gawping at the big trade publisher stands, pausing briefly outside the academic publishers that I’ve worked for in the past, and half-heartedly talking to a couple of folk I know from Twitter who were manning the Bookseller stand.
But I felt very much like a fish out of water. It’s a serious business, and none of mine (yet). I felt a little deflated – I had hoped to chat to a few people and – not necessarily network per se – but just talk to people I don’t usually talk to. But I had a fit of the shy-boys, and slunk off to the PEN Literary Cafe, to wait for Kate Adie to interview Hilary Mantel (got to justify the ticket price somehow, right). And then something clicked. Watching, listening, observing. I have at least two stories worth just from overhearing my elbow-neighbours.
And Mantel was great value (and Adie is a great interviewer), but while they spoke I couldn’t help but notice the suited man in the empty stand behind. He’d hand-written some headings on sheets of A4 and was busy pinning them up on the wall. Presumably the publicity materials for the stand had never arrived, or were stuck in a warehouse somewhere waiting for a volcano and wind patterns to behave. The signs were for digital services – and the wonky, hand-drawn lettering just seemed to make the little scene even more pathetic.
Then, just to further make the gentleman’s day, a trio of ‘other’ suits came and sat on his spare table, and began passing around and stroking an iPad as if it were a newborn baby. Or a puppy. A4 sheets of paper just isn’t going to cut it, son. Personally, I’d have gone down the pub, but manfully he didn’t. He sat there and made some posters on his Toshiba. And then somewhat bizarrely didn’t take down the handwritten ones, but put the printed ones next to them. I wish him and his company well.
And all the while, Mantel’s voice, elaborating on the politics of Tudor England, and the very non-digital process and workflow she uses (giant pinboards, and index cards). Talking about an ‘unsellable book’ that has racked up more sales and awards than I could ever hope to achieve.
All very poignant, somehow.
I then had an impromptu meeting with someone researching collaborative writing tools, had a blander-than-bland sandwich, and trooped around again – trying not to stare at the graphic novels, Harper Fiction heels or the strange man dressed as a wizard. By then I’d decided my time was better spent at home, doing something more likely to get me on to the business end of the Fair. I’ll be back tomorrow, to hear Ian Rankin do his thing, and I will again be too shy to say that I listen to Mogwai while I write because he said he’s done this in the past, and that my scotch of choice is Highland Park, a la Rebus.
Because that would be fanboy behaviour. And this is serious business.
I attended the London Book Fair Masterclass today for aspiring authors – entitled ‘How to get published.’ In my particular case it should have been called ‘how not to get lost in a two elevator system’, or ‘how to tell two people next to you to STFU if they just came to hiss and tut and make sarcastic comments to each other’.
Anyhoo – an interesting experience – as it usually is when listening to professionals in the industry (the supply side (authors) are always full of doom and gloom, while being pleased as punch to be in front of an audience) and the demand side try hard to keep a straight face in front of the occasionally insane things the authors say, and the absurd things the attendees get bees in their bonnets about).
One of the great things, of course, is the amount of disagreement that there is between them. Which just goes to show what a highly subjective and personal experience-driven occupation publishing is….
Anyhoo, it’s left me re-energised, and more determined than ever to get both the editing and the pitching of Tom or whatever it ends up being called, better.
A good day.
*Update* So the day itself wasn’t earth shattering. The agent, publisher, self-publisher and the two authors all said intelligent, anecdotal – ie not ‘follow this snake-oil formula for succes’ but ‘this is what I’ve found/observed’ – mostly relevant stuff (there was a brief hiatus for a discussion about book covers which had me reaching for the refund button, but it got back on track soon enough). Interestingly, Carole Blake said she’d already sealed 3 or 4 seven figure deals for established authors, and three first-time writer deals this year, both statements being hugely encouraging. Siobhan Custer, the self-publisher, said all the sort of things I thought she would, and I hope it works out for her. But it’s not for me.
I’ve already got Blake’s book, and while Lionel Shriver and Meg Rosoff were interesting (and perhaps suprisingly, funny) so it was Mark Booth’s talkette that I probably got the most out of – even if it is nothing more than thinking about the title of my novel more carefully.
The quote of the day belonged to Rosoff – ‘just write a fucking great book’ – in response to one of several disappointing questions from the audience (although to be fair, I guess there is no magic bullet question to ask either – I’ve done a lot of research and worried about loads of stuff, so the two questions that came to mind:
(1) What do professionals think is the role or potential usefulness of peer-review sites like authonomy or completelynovel?
(2) The agent I’ve wanted to work with all my adult career has not responded to my query. Two others have rejected it, presumably having failed something basic in the submission package – and partly based on this I want to resubmit to my ‘preferred’ agent. However, I don’t know if I should mention the previous submission, or just pretend the whole thing never happened (as I haven’t had a reply and it was sent on the same date, with the same SAE as the other two – getting on for three months ago now).
But I suspect I know the answer to (1) – as it was staring me in the face looking around the attendees (my heart sank, slightly, but then this is partly because it reminds me how much time I’ve ‘wasted’ trying to get the life experience to have something to say….)
And as for (2) – well, if nothing else comes out of today, I am going to re-edit the novel, refocus on one specific element. Blake said the most impressive query she’d had was one that persuaded her to read outside of a subject area she normally read in, because the author had ‘written a book he wanted to read’. The more I think about my first book, the more I realise it’s a book I wanted to write, and I need to put some more thought into making it something I, and others, would want to read.
And, fortunately for my sanity, I’ve realised since that this isn’t so hard. That sometimes the problem is sitting in this study and staring out my internet window and feeling too scared by all the fireworks and bigger dogs and IP and e-books and self-publishing blither blather to remember that I can write. I just need to focus on the reader more, whether that’s me or you, or whoever.
Have something to say. And say it as best you can. Even if the end result is ‘I wish I’d read this kind of book when I was going through what I’m writing about’. It’s valid, and true – and might just help me write something more… universal.
So, despite the embarassment of attempting to wander round an empty first floor, the neighbours who seemed intent on adding their own soundtrack to what was being said, the annoying sound problems and the cringeworthy questions, I really enjoyed my day – although perversely I don’t think I’d recommend it to others.One attendee stormed out because the panel were being too negative, or not specific enough. Wel… as the whole panel repeated, time and time again – it’s persistence, passion and professionalism. Which means accepting the odds are highly stacked against us first-timers, and you know, it’s not personal.
It’s not us, it’s Rupert Murdoch. Or whoever runs Walmart. Ok, ok. It wasn’t said. But you weren’t there, man – you don’t know how tough it was in bookselling ‘Nam.
I jest. Of course it’s Murdoch’s fault. Without him BA Barracus would never have got on that plane.
Ok, ok. The real advice – follow agents, publishers and authors on twitter – read their blogs and websites. Absorb – without prejudice. And one day you’ll be up there, among the followed, and not just among the followers.
One of the nice things about Fetcheveryone, the running community and perfomance recording website I belong to, is the certainty it can bring to specific statements – like ‘Prague is a minor city in Wimbleshire’, ‘*Username deleted* (who I have still to meet) is, or at least was, a twat’, or ‘I ran my fastest marathon at a faster pace than 90% of all my other runs in 2008’ and that kind of thing.
Too much lemon septus
So today I can say with satisfaction that I ran further than I have since Oct 3rd last year. I even ran an extra mile because I found that the towpath remains shut on the other side of the Thames (I suspect the Barnes Socialist Muddyfunster Front is enjoying it’s splending isolation from those orrible Mortlakeians and Kewiaianianians and so they have extended the ‘none shall pass, not even reading Vogon poetry’ period until after the election. I don’t believe their ‘it was wet’ excuse.). So I had to run an extra mile doubling back on myself
I was passed by at least two V50s, out for their Saturday constitutionals. One of them waved after he ambled past. Cheerio, he waved, without realising the homicidal maelstrom in my head at that moment. I was listening to an audiobook – Transition by Iain Banks. It contains scenes of extrreme torture and gratuitious fornication. It is about the banking meltdown, morality, and responsibility. I have to take my headphones off when ‘The philosopher’ bits come on, and listen out for the change of accent that signifies a new narrator. To say it’s grim is putting it mildly. It’s a brilliant book, and brilliant concept, it’s just that for a remarkably mellow man, Mr Banks has a really nasty streak.
Really. Nasty.
But despite this extreme provocation, I did not string the V50s up by the goolies, and cover them in paper cuts and lemon juice. Or attach electrodes anywhere. Funny that if it were a film or a game, this story would almost certainly be banned.
Anyhoo, running. It’s a beautiful day, and it’s my first proper week back running for a long time – five times this week. Each time I stop I forget in my head, and each time I start I remember in my muscles. I love plodding longer distances. I love the ups and downs of the endorphins and glucose in my system – the odd, almost orgasmic highs where your whole body tingles and currents wash up and down your nervous system, followed inevitably a mile or so later by a sugar low and feeling like death. And then realising your not going to die, and building up to another, smaller, peak of exhilaration, until again, that fades, and you’re sinking again.
It’s funny to be aware that your head’s not in control of this. Neither is your heart, or your lungs. It’s muscles and nerves – fibres twitching away inside whatever skin bubble you inhabit. Twitch, twitch, twitch. And the connections that form, again and again, no matter how many times you’ve done it before, or how long since the last time.
A memory – a muscle memory. Euphoria, followed by pain. Addictive, and destructive.
I’ve been spending a little too much time on Zonal Marking of late, so it’s not entirely coincidental that I’ve been thinking about 4-4-2 and christmas tree formations when indulging in a spot of literary criticism. Well, not strictly literary – I’m referring in this post to Yellow Bird’s adapatation of Wallander, which in my view is massively superior to the more lauded BBC/Branagh Wallander (our Ken seems to play Kurt Wallander as a cross between Rebus and Hamlet, who drives noiselessly through the Swedish vastness, disturbed only by a ring-tone and the ghosts of his failed family relationships. He also has the demeanour of someone who is simultaneously being forced to eat pickled herring and can’t hear a word anyone’s saying. Which is obviously why people phone him so often).
Krister Henriksson as Wallander
Anyway. The most recent episode I’ve seen is ‘Skulden’ (Guilt) – and while it may not reveal anything particularly deep or novel about the human condition, it’s an enormously satisfying piece of drama to watch. I’ve only read one of Mankell’s originals, and I didn’t particularly enjoy it (Firewall – I didn’t enjoy it on screen, either).
If you’re not familiar with the Yellow Bird series, which Mankell developed but others write, the focus is much more on the ensemble – perhaps a little less so in Series 2, which lacks the bleakness of Series 1, presumably due to the departure (and suicide, sadly) of Kurt’s on-screen daughter, and the other intra-generational conflict (Stefan, an on-screen suicide to further confuse things). In my head , the Ystad police team has clear ranks – a 4-1-4-1 formation – Wallander on point, the Prosecutor, Martinsson, Nyberg and the ME in behind, Svartmann as a defensive shield and the Polis drones in defence. I guess that puts the dog in goal. Or the receptionist, whose name escapes me at the moment.
Ok – seriously, this episode shows some really well crafted relationship dynamics; the theme – ‘guilt’ echoes around the cast and plot; and this being Wallander, no-one emerges unscarred. There are three mother-son couples, the three ‘romantic’ couples (more if you include the paedophile subtext), the competitive man syndrome (the two brothers, the estranged husband, Kurt and Martinsson) – all set against Kurt’s desire to start again, to literally be cleansed (as per the beginning of the episode) and impress his new neighbour and boss.
The chains of guilt are established and detonated in sequence, each with unfavourable effects. Like all Wallander episodes, the team does the solving, not the individual. And what appears to be a red herring is usually not – it is simply an extension of the theme, a separate arc – counterpoint or reinforcement. While Kurt still gets to do the heroic parts – the breaking down of lies, and doors – it is a collective will and redemptive power of maternal love that ultimately win the day.
One thing I particularly like about it as television is the way the camera steps aside once the point is made – the difficult conversation with the little boy when they find the body; the suicide; the murder itself. It allows for imprecision – and involving the viewer, making them complicit, eg the setup of the ‘flashes’ in the shed is particularly good – it is the viewer that interprets this as the convicted paedophile using a flash camera – and while it’s hardly unusual to trick a reader/viewer like this, it was an exemplary way of literally showing how your own prejudices affect what you see – we are all guilty, sometimes).
Don’t get me wrong – it’s not a work of staggering genius, but what it is, is really good storytelling. The reader/viewer is given two options at each main decision point – is the young teacher complicit? is the ex-con re-offending? does the mother lie? all the way through to husband or wife? and ultimately husband or son? It’s clear, logical, clever and most of all (returning to my theme from yesterday) believable.
If you haven’t seen any of them yet, and you can get BBC4, I strongly recommend watching them.
I’ve been thinking a lot about voice recently. I get criticised, when anyone cares to make any observation at all, when I write things that aren’t ‘Ivan’. Like my last post, which I had intended as an exercise, and was supposed to be about the fear that was crippling me from writing anything new, but instead turned into something darker and more reptilian. But at the same time, it became more wordy, more showy… less me.
I've got sweeties for you
And I’ve been called out for it. I understand that. I get it. There’s something self-indulgent about bringing attention to your word choices. Oddly, I think it’s not so obvious if I make words up, rather than choose an ivory-enamelled one.I need to put that toy back in the box. Or find a different game to play – by using more points of view, or introducing more than one narrator per story.
Most of my writing for the past year has been very strongly first-person narrative, with a lot of interior monologue. The thing that has most affected me as a writer recently, is Daniel Day Lewis’s monologues from There Will Be Blood. I haven’t felt such a – ooh, I don’t know, visceral is such a stupid word – but it’s a rumbly feeling in your stomach when the bass hits just right and your inner cat wants to purr while your head is trying it’s damnedest to warn the heart for lies. I didn’t explain that well, but listen to Plainview speak again when you get a chance. It’s simply brilliant characterisation, and a highly distinctive voice. Larger than life, grotesque, even, but totally believable.
Most of my stories feature a child, or child-like, narrator. Often they are around the 8-10 year old mark. I don’t really know why – perhaps I’m working something out in my head. They rarely have a nice story to tell. And when they’re not physically young, they are emotionally immature. But if I get away with it with a child, so far, adult readers are finding it harder to ‘forgive’ an adult character’s flaws, which they are happier to do for a child’s. Or at least, that’s what I’ve found. You can use a word that’s too old for a child, or they can be too astute or even too mute, but when I write a ‘flawed’ adult, I’m finding that my readers are much more judgemental.
I wonder why that is? Is it simply not writing believable enough scenarios or characters? Hmm. Perhaps I am asking the reader to suspend too much disbelief, to ignore too much of their own experience. I’ve never really thought about it that way, but I guess I ‘read’ crime, SF and other genre fiction with different expectations from when I read literary or commercial fiction. Is it as simple as observing more conventions?
I frequently use naivety, ignorance or plain self-absorption as the catalyst for plot and character interaction. Usually, my characters grow or learn something – become less flawed – but sometimes the reader doesn’t see them as flawed, they see them as caricatures, or stereotypes. Or doesn’t understand how such a character functions in a ‘normal’ setting. I’m writing too many aliens, and not enough monsters.Monsters can be credible, no matter how grotesque – but the reader needs to believe in them for the effect to work. Aliens are just that – alien.
And an adult who behaves like a child, after a point, becomes an alien.
Not really sure where I’m going with this thought, but maybe I need to do a little less playing with words and character, and do a little more ‘work’. If I get the believability right, then the reader doesn’t need to decide whether to come to ‘play’ or not – they’re simply there in the room with Tom, and his choices.
Snakebite and black, mixed by Scaramago and Darwin
*A fictional response to a powercut.*
Light. Then, nothing. An electrical snap and darkness folds around me. Instantaneous, uniform, enveloping… punishing, the light snatched away in a…what is the opposite of a flash? A sump? An implosion? A thwuck?
My senses strain. To touch, to feel, to smell, to see… to hear. Yet there is nothing. There is only absence. An unnatural stillness. A silence where the body plays the lead part in the orchestra. Breathing, too loud. Blood fizzing and popping through my ears. The rustle of fabric as I struggle to control my urge to twitch. To freak out.
The silence closes in on me like a predator. The darkness does nothing. It merely is. Smug, all-powerful, crushing. A bully to beat all bullies. Together, they are nothing personified. No – bigger than that – geomorphic, catacylsmic, universal. Yes, that’s it – they are the universal nothing. A nothingness. The nothingness.
I am scared. I no longer trust my body. All it tells me is that it is neither cool nor hot. My muscles refuse to move, locked. There is nothing to taste but the salt in my saliva, and as for smell, well, whatever that is, logic dictates that it must be me. Perhaps the signals from the senses are somehow trapped between nerve ending and brain.
I wonder if I am paralysed. I wonder if I am still attached to my body at all. I wonder if I am dead. If I am part of the nothing.
But is it really nothing? I feel stupid even asking the question. Of course it’s nothing, Listen. Even the voice in my head is nothing. Tiny, insignificant, too small and feeble to ever reach an echo of another thought. There, it drifts off into infinity….
The nothingness does nothing. Says nothing.
I am, by nature, inquisitive. Imaginative, sensitive, impatient… melodramatic, even. Yet I cannot imagine this nothing. And then I realise… this nothingness – perhaps it is only nothing because I do not want it to be Something. I try not to want. And yet. There. It starts. A thought hatches and starts to uncoil like a snake in a basket. The nothingness starts to change. Subtly, almost imperceptibly. But enough for my new pair of snake eyes to see. To taste on my tongue. To hear in the pressure behind my ears. The nothingness is evolving, forming patterns. And yes, there is something, maybe, hidden – or cloaked – in the world outside my head.
Shh-hssh-shh-hss. I am confused as to whether it is the snake in my head or the nothingness outside that starts to hiss. I hesitate. The world – for I am convinced it still exists – indeed, I must believe, or I will fall into basket and never climb out, of this I am sure, is not silent. It is the sound of static, of electro-magnetic pulses. Of rhythyms and organisms beyond my understanding. White noise against a wall of black. An impenetrable tangle of noises and frequencies.
The noise triggers something in my vision, and I see snow. And floating orbs of purple and green and yellow and red. It is magical – no longer scary.
But then I imagine the source of these sounds. I imagine the insects and moulds and bacteria, inexorably destroying my body, my room, my house, my world, from the inside out. I imagine the radiation soup my brain is frying in – my bedroom, like most, a living, bleeping faraday cage of information, ubiquity and always-onness. The static shriek of earth as billions of machines screech at each other the desires and emotions of standardised instruction sets of bone and muscle, encased in fat and pressurised just so, so that we cannot escape to the stars or the depths, but spread ourselves and our ideas like a virus across the blue and green and white and red. All tending to brown. To dirt.
The dancing field of colour becomes outlines of tickboxes and thumbs and faces and logos and avatars and photos. And all the things I will never see, never own, never feel, never think. I try to blink, but the icons are inside my head, not out there.
I find myself longing for the darkness again. I cannot find my ‘off’ button. I do not want my brain to be always on. Always connected. Always in the way of a thousand billion streams of information, lies, likes and dislikes. My snake turns on me, dancing to someone else’s tune.
I am lost. An explorer across the stars, marooned in a human hell that they could not wait to die to build. And I am afraid. So afraid.
I try to remember childhood platitudes. ‘The only thing to fear is fear itself’. And ‘that which does not kill me, makes me stronger’. And I understand with a heart-crushing certainty, that I am alive – that I must fight.
And I realise that the answers are in me. I am programmed for this. I am a biological machine with almost endless capacity for self-deception, but my prime directive, my reason, my soul, my will, is in my genes. In my instinct for survival. I must find shelter. Or build one. I must find food. I must find others like me.
So I will build my hut, my cave, my island. I will learn to walk in the dark, or in the chaos of the light. And I will eat the static, and learn to like it. I will eat the bugs and the waves and the science and the fiction. I will find my blind and deaf companions. And I will teach them to read again.
