Going Dark

I’ve decided to stop posting on this blog, because I’m so much enjoying my other site, The Quack Doctor, that I’d rather divert my energies to that. In the rare event of me thinking of something erudite to say on the subject of writing, I will be sure to post it on Strictly Writing.

You can still find me at my main website, to which I might add a news page soon, and at:

The Quack Doctor

Strictly Writing

Twitter

Red Room

I won’t rule out starting up again at some point in the future, but for now thank you for reading and I hope to see you around online.

Is your writing ready to party?

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Do people still throw  ’come as you are’ parties? I rarely get invited to parties… for some reason…  so I wouldn’t know, but I remember them being the cause of much contrived hilarity in vintage sitcoms.

An editing tip that occurred to me recently is to think of each sentence as a potential party guest. When the telephone call arrives from the hip ‘n’ happening hosts, is the sentence ready to step out of the door looking effortlessly glam, or is it sitting in its threadbare pyjamas in front of a Dallas re-run, eating Krispy Kreme doughnuts and examining its split ends?

I think this is a useful way of looking at a nearly finished piece of work. Not a first draft – first draft sentences can be as hasty, dull, or clichéd as is necessary to get the idea in place – but a piece that has been revised, edited, polished and polished again.

When I get to that stage with my current novel, I’m going to go through every sentence in the whole book – yep, every single one – and consider whether I’d be embarrassed to for it to be seen out alone in public, without the rest of a 100,000-word manuscript to hide in. Would I be prepared to post it on an internet forum, for example, or to read it to an audience who wanted to know what my writing was like?

If not, perhaps it isn’t ready to be the life and soul of the publishing industry’s party.

Computers of the Olden Days

The youth of today don’t know they’re born. We had 256K of memory and we were grateful for it.

(From the Casa Grande Dispatch, Arizona, 26 Dec 1984)

Why haven’t I read this yet?

This week’s Weekly Geeks challenge asks: tell us about a book (or books) you have been meaning to read. What is it? How long have you wanted to read it? And, why haven’t you read it yet?

Top of the list is….

Redemption Falls by Joseph O’ Connor

I bought this over a year ago having loved Star of the Sea, but it is still sitting pristinely on the shelf. I started it a few months back and then just sort of forgot I was reading it and started something else (this doesn’t mean I thought it was rubbish – far from it,  I just got distracted.) I’m working up to starting it again quite soon.

The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters by G. H. Dahlquist

This must have been on the TBR pile for over a year too. I picked it up in a charity shop because of the attractive cover and the fun premise, but many Amazon reviews are uncomplimentary about the writing and while I don’t mind functional prose when there’s an exciting plot, one of the criticisms levelled at this is that it’s tedious and repetitive.  As it’s quite a chunky book, I keep putting off investing the time in it in case it’s as trashy as some people say. Then again, plenty of reviewers like it too, so there’s only one way to find out.

Salmon Fishing in the Yemen by Paul Torday

I borrowed this from a friend and I’m not sure why. I mean… fish. Woo. I’m sure someone will tell me it’s not all about fish and is really a witty exploration of the dichotomy of pathos and humour that characterises the human condition, or something. But if no one persuades me to start it within the next couple of weeks, I might just give it back to its owner.

Accordion Crimes and The Shipping News by Annie Proulx

More from the South Bucks Hospice Shop  (which I have to say has way better book stock than the local second-hand bookshop). I bought these because I loved Proulx’s short fiction collection, Close Range. Why haven’t I read them? I think it’s something to do with Proulx’s style being perfectly suited to the medium of the short story. I’m not confident of my brain’s ability to process such startlingly clever imagery for a whole novel.

Then there are two historical biggies that I really should read but haven’t bought/borrowed yet – Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel and The Children’s Book by A.S. Byatt. I have been avoiding both because they are no doubt so outstanding that they would make me too depressed ever to write another word!

Creating Mystery

One or two people have described my book as ‘gripping’ or mysterious. I’m not relating this in order to show off but because it’s about time I did a proper blog post about writing, so I thought I’d describe my process of building up tension and mystery.

Plot events, however exciting, don’t create much mystery on their own. They need foreshadowing by little clues that encourage the reader to wonder what’s going to happen. Giving away too much obviously reduces the tension, but it is equally unsatisfying to hold back all the information and then hit the reader with a twist that comes from nowhere.

I want the reader to anticipate something without being certain what that something is. For me, most of the work towards achieving this takes place once the book is at a second draft stage, i.e. when it’s hanging together without any gaps in the narrative, with all the major plot points in place and after any superfluous first-draft scenes have been binned.

At this stage of writing Kill-Grief, I printed off the whole thing, got an A4 lined notebook and wrote “Questions” at the top. Then I went through every page of the manuscript and listed every question that might come into my future reader’s mind (not counting things like “Is it dinner time yet?” or “How the hell did this get published?”).

For example, the list for the first page was something like:

Why is Mary nervous/frightened?
Why is the beggar watching her?
What’s wrong with his skin?
Why has Mary come to the city, and where was she before?
What’s the new job she is going to?
Why does she tell herself she has nothing to give the beggar, then we find out she has coins in her pocket?
Who is the ‘he’ who gave her the coins?

And so on…

If a page raised few questions, I considered whether any of it could be cut altogether, and then I worked more questions into the text – for example, a character’s behaviour suggesting they are not telling the whole truth, or a subtle hint at something that might happen later. Each of these hints is meant to act as a hook to keep the reader reading, while also asking them to concentrate so as not to miss something important. The further I got into the manuscript, the more questions were being answered too.

So, for me, creating mystery does not rely on some indefinable knack – it requires work that may seem somewhat clinical compared with the notion of the perpetually inspired writer. This suits me just fine and is one of my favourite parts of writing. If only I could find an equally methodical way to write a first draft!

Why do you never see baby pigeons?

Or really, the question should be: how come that stupid clichéd question keeps getting repeated? There are plenty of baby pigeons in the world. I can’t be the only one who sees them, can I? Do people just walk around with their eyes shut, or what?

Anyway, here’s one that was on my car yesterday:

I needed to go out, so I moved it into the hanging basket to keep it out of reach of cats and other large predators:

Its mother was in the vicinity and later on she came to look after it:

(Please note it wasn’t me who planted up this crappy hanging basket.) The baby pigeon stayed there all day and when I looked in the early evening it had gone. So there you have it – a baby pigeon. Everybody can stop going on about not being able to see them now.

More books go out into the world

Just a couple of pics from my Borders Cheshire Oaks signing on 15 August, because although I don’t want to fill up this blog with me-sitting-gormlessly-in-a-shop photos, it is nice to have a record of each event.

Borders was really well geared up for signings – note the smart tablecloth, backdrop and book stands! The staff were friendly and professional and set everything up for me and I was announced over the PA system several times during the afternoon. Most impressive of all, I even got 2 cups of coffee.

My philosophy for signings is to expect nothing whatsoever from the bookshop.  I take my own refreshments and promotional material – even down to the Blu-Tack to put up posters. I am always completely prepared to walk in and find that no one remembered I was going to be there that day (fortunately this has never happened but I wouldn’t be fazed if it did). With Borders I provided my own books as this is the way they work, but with other shops I always have some in the car just in case. I don’t even take it for granted that there will be so much as a table for me, so when the shop goes above and beyond the call of duty, it’s wonderful!

It was not only the shop staff who were brilliant, but the customers too. I used to think authors wouldn’t really care about individual sales – readers must somehow all fade into one and be a rather anonymous part of the whole thing. But to me every single sale is incredibly special and important. I’m not just saying that to be corny – I truly appreciate everyone who buys my book, and the excitement of seeing each copy go out into the world is a novelty that never wears off.

Forgotten Victorian books

Via Twitter I encountered this new publishing company, Victorian Secrets, which is to print critical editions of the forgotten gems of the 19th century.

Due out in September is The Dead Man’s Message by Florence Marryat. Catherine Pope of Victorian Secrets and Victorian Geek has recently set up a new website devoted to this very interesting but neglected writer. Marryat wrote around 90 novels, split up with two husbands, became an actress and a journalist and developed an interest in spiritualism that influenced her later work. Two years before her death, she published The Blood of the Vampire, which came out around the same time as Dracula and was largely overshadowed.

From the publisher’s blurb for The Dead Man’s Message:

The central protagonist Professor Aldwyn wakes, after what he believes was a nap, to discover that he is, in fact, dead. The Professor has entered the spirit world and in this short novella the author presents us with a sometimes playful, but ultimately engaging, challenge to the wider scientific community and their skepticism of the spiritual other.

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Here’s a snippet from Professor Aldwyn’s awakening:

A sickening horror of the whole business took possession of him, as if the body, lying in the arm-chair, were not his own, but that of some one else. He tried to move further away from it ; to go to the other end of the library; but he found he was unable to do so. Some invisible, but powerful attraction, chained him to the vicinity of the corpse, and he was forced to remain where he was, gazing at it.

Sounds like a great Gothic read! I like the spooky cover image too. I’ll definitely be looking out for this one when it’s published, and wish Victorian Secrets every success with bringing lots more forgotten books back into print.

The Modern Writing Day: A Beginner’s Guide

Shameful self-promotion round-up

A few bits and bobs to link to today:

• For a chance to win a signed copy of Kill-Grief, leave a comment at Farm Lane Books (closing date 12 August).

• After futile-ly resisting for a long time I have joined Twitter. Whether this is a good idea or not, I don’t know, as I always join things like this and then find that I have absolutely nothing interesting to say, but anyway, please follow me so I don’t look like the Billy-no-mates that I really am.

• The Kill-Grief book trailer is up for the New Covey Trailer Awards this month, so any votes you care to sling my way would be gratefully received. (It’s entry no. 11 in the list)

• Anyone in the Cheshire/Wirral area? I will be doing a book signing at Borders, Cheshire Oaks, on Sat 15 August from 1pm, so do pop in and say hello.

But this post isn’t all me-me-me – no indeed! Some of my fellow Picnic authors are in the first round of The People’s Book Prize at the moment. This new prize features a monthly selection of independently published titles that go on display in libraries for members of the public to borrow and then vote for their favourite.  The three Picnic books are Empires Apart by Brian Landers, The Ghosts of Eden by Andrew Sharp, (the synopsis for this only refers to the first few pages for some reason – it’s much more than that!) and Jasmine’s Tortoise by Corinne Souza. Any votes for these would be much appreciated by the authors.