Repulsive Reading

26/04/2019 Paul Leave a comment

I’ve read several crime novels recently, which appeared to have been written with the sole intention of testing how strong my stomach is, with detailed descriptions of mutilations, torture and decomposition.

Most of them were marketed in a steampunk/Goth/alt.horror way, trading on the image of the author. Chuck Wendig has a strong reputation, and several members of the Colony have mentioned his cantankerous newsletter sent from him blog Terrible Minds.

His Blackbirds is scabrous, but relatively mild compared to a couple of other gruesome novels I gave up on. Sacrificing plot and characterisation for explicit descriptions of dismemberment and torture makes me indifferent as to what happens to the protagonist or antagonist. Perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised at this trend, for people are hardened to viewing atrocious acts—try looking at the Daily Mail website, where there are embedded videos of violence and people dying.

I’m not being hypocritical, for though I write crime novels featuring murder, I always emphasise the effect the death has on the victims’ friends, relatives and acquaintances. The killers’ emotions are described too—and they are not always what the reader expects.

As I’ve mentioned recently, I’ve just read Natural Causes by James Oswald. It’s the first in a series about an Edinburgh detective, in which he’s investigating a ritual murder of a walled-up corpse from 65 years ago, which he theorises may be linked to a series of recent killings of prominent men, who all have their entrails exposed. It’s gory, but the author doesn’t dwell on it too much. All the same, it came as a surprise to me, for the overall tone of the story is quite genteel with lots of inner dialogue.

On finishing the book, there’s a note from James Oswald about how he moved from writing fantasy stories to the crime genre. He explains that Natural Causes started off as a short story, which he expanded and entered into the Debut Dagger competition of the Crime Writers Association. To grab the judge’s attention, he added shock value, telling the ritual killing from the point of view of the victim:

‘I have always had rather mixed feelings about the scene, though. On the one hand, it is undoubtedly a powerful hook that sets up the background to the story. On the other, it’s a 500-word graphic description of a brutal, ritual gang-rape and murder.’

Readers also had mixed feelings, some being put off reading on, others complaining that it clashed with the rest of the story. The offending chapter is printed after the explanation, and really it belongs more to a horror story. For the paperback edition I read, the original chapter for the short story version is used, which still isn’t for the squeamish, as it describes a corpse sitting in a chair with its innards streaming down onto the floor.

As it turned out, he got short-listed in the Debut Dagger, before going on to sell 350,000 copies of his novels as e-books. The thing is, his gruesome opening may have contributed to him being placed in the competition, so although he had a change of heart about it, the gore was his calling card.

The word ‘gore’ is relevant to me, as I quietly contemplate the plot of my sixth Cornish Detective novel, which will feature a crime scene awash with gallons of blood, but no corpse. The blood, when analysed, turns out to come from several people and a variety of species of animal! I’m looking forward to writing it this summer, but am staying on course with my self-promotion campaign of blogging and social media posting. I don’t think I’ll be able to write a bloodbath that’s not repulsive…then again, some readers like being scared.

There’s a specific fear of blood, called haemophobia

which is described by psychologists as ‘irrational’, though to my mind, seeing what should be in being out is highly rational a fear. Lose 30%-40% (about 3-4 pints) of your blood and you’re headed towards a state where transfusion won’t save you. I’ll inject a personal anecdote here (pun intended) for I bled out at the age of 11, following botched dental surgery, which saw me dead for a few minutes as they attempted to restart my heart. This may explain my weirdness! The dentist who operated on me was drunk, going ahead with the extraction without the required presence of an anaesthetist; he was struck off, forbidden to practice. It’s a wonder that I’m not haemophobic.

It’s worth remembering, that the first books we read as children are often violent fairy tales, and campfire storytelling, from the time of the caveman, was aimed at being scary.

What sort of books scare or repulse you?

Do you have any phobias?

Do you like gruesome tales?

What are your favourite scary stories?

Writing

Grunts, sighs, whistles and….

26/04/2019 Paul Leave a comment

How do you deal with denoting who is speaking and how their voice sounds?

I’m currently writing a short story, that’s growing into a novella, about a widowed hedge witch meeting a newcomer to her village, a handsome widower, who appears to have arcane knowledge, but is reluctant to engage in conversation about it, when she makes hints. To write their interplay, a lot depends on the tone of their voices—only so much can be conveyed by word choice, for them talking and me as the narrator.

Dialogue is one of the trickiest areas of writing to make realistic. Much of everyday conversation is full of filler words, delaying tactics, pauses and irrelevancy. For example, in writing crime novels, I’m well aware that when my detective interrogates a suspect, he gets results quicker than would happen in real life, where questioning can go on for days.

Mark Twain highlighted this dilemma well:

There’s also the problem of accents, for writing them phonetically looks patronising and can be awkward to read. Many writers, including me, drop the occasional colloquialism into a local person’s speech. In Cornwall, a greeting might be “Awright, me ‘andsome?”—meaning “How are you, my friend?” I’ve met some Cornish men and women, whose accents were thick enough to cut with a bread knife. Transcribing their speech accurately would be tricky to do and to read.

Recently, I came across a television spy drama where the writer, or maybe the director, hadn’t bothered with accents at all. It was an episode from Callan, a series that ran from 1967-1972. Well-written by James Mitchell, with great characterisation and brilliant acting, the episode I saw had David Callan captured by the Russian secret service. None of the KGB agents sounded Russian, rather their British accents made it easy to forget that Callan was imprisoned in Moscow. However, the skill of the actors conveyed with one shift of expression, what would have taken a novelist a dozen words to describe.

Curious about how audiobooks deal with this side of drama, I listened to several extracts from novels set on foreign shores, finding variable results. Should my Cornish Detective series ever reach audiobook format, it would be treading a fine line between authenticity and listenability.

It’s a common bit of advice from writing gurus, to only use ‘said‘ to delineate who is speaking, partly because ‘said‘ becomes an invisible stepping stone to the reader. Emotion can be conveyed with judicious use of verbs, nouns, adverbs and adjectives—The suspect moaned “I didn’t do it”—but, this runs the risk of looking like stage directions in a script if it’s done too often in a novel.

Maybe I have too literal a mind, but I always imagine a character blowing up into fragments when I read he exploded. I have a running joke for my own protagonist Detective Chief Inspector Neil Kettle, who’s alert to finding out if he’s been given a nickname by his team, worried that his habit of whistling with amazement will see him called Neil ‘Whistling’ Kettle. He still whistles, a mannerism that’s hard for him to break, as he grew up whistling commands to sheepdogs on his family farm.

Things could be worse, for words often have more than one meaning, some of which are a bit rude!

Reading

Paper beats Pixels

26/04/2019 Paul Leave a comment

This article on which book format is best for enhancing literacy and language skills and bonding with the parent seems to back up other surveys about ebooks.

Ebook readers certainly have their advantages, mainly being able to carry dozens of titles, but we interact with a screen differently to how we relate to a physical object. A book isn’t just the words on the page, it’s a physical object that we feel with our skin, that we manipulate with our hands and which smells in a way that’s redolent of a pleasurable experience—think of the odour of a new bookshop and of a secondhand books emporium. Hard to get turned on by the smell of a smart device, be it a laptop, phone or Kindle.

Having a glass screen between us and the words is not only a barrier but also carries connotations of being work-related or a way of killing time with meaningless web surfing. Neither attitude is conducive to achieving the type of concentration needed to learn from and enjoy a book.

A 2014 survey showed that recall of events in a mystery story was worse by those who read using a Kindle.

Furthermore, reading from a device that’s basically shining a light into your face, is a poor way of relaxing while you’re in bed, as your body needs to produce melatonin for you to sleep properly.

This article in the Guardian explores some of the problems with ebooks, not the least of which are plagiarism and piracy.

It’s sometimes said that ‘Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery,’ but it doesn’t apply to what is effectively fraud. A writer acquaintance, who’s written a series of modestly successful children’s adventure stories, published as ebooks, was alerted by a friend travelling in Asia that her books were for sale in China as cheap paperbacks. Her friend moved onto India, where she also found them in street markets. She recognised them, as she’d designed the book covers—which had been altered to look like Chinese and Indian children. So far as they could ascertain, the supposed authors’ names were the only thing the plagiarist wrote themselves. The writer could only speculate on how many millions of sales she’d made, without knowing it. There was no way of stopping the trade.

Should this piracy have occurred in the West, legal action could be taken, but even when that happens, book pirates fight back. It beggars belief, but one of the most notorious of them has launched a GoFundMe campaign to pay for his defence against being sued.

Do you ever feel like the world is going increasingly wrong?

I sound like I’m against ebooks, which isn’t the case, what with 45 titles published and five novels to begin releasing this summer. I must admit, I’ve never read a novel in digital format. The most I’ve read is probably a few thousand words of a PDF download writing guide.

I’m online for 12 hours daily, up until midnight, 90 minutes before I fall asleep—time I fill with reading a book in physical form—my brain appreciates the change of pace.

If you have children, how do you read to them?

What format do you read for pleasure…and for work?

Writing

Do You Know Where You’re Going To?

26/04/2019 Paul Leave a comment

After spending the last four years writing a series of detective novels, I decided to devote 2019 to self-publicising. I may well return to self-publishing, but as I throw myself into blogging and social media posting, I queried 88 agents and indie publishers who look like they know what they’re doing.

I’m not sure that I do, but one thing I’ve learnt about the business of writing is that no one knows what works until it does….such as when an unlikely-sounding story becomes a bestseller.

Over the years, I’ve come to a state of mind where I don’t mind being a bit lost, having a look around where I’ve unexpectedly ended up while keeping my eye on my ultimate destination. My attitude to writing and publishing conforms with my career path, which has wandered like an albatross. I’ve always admired people who knew what they wanted to do from a young age and did it, finding their choice to be as happy as they thought it would be. Not many people have this certainty.

I wonder how many writers knew exactly what their first book would be about and how it would be published—surely, only those who intended to vanity publish can be this certain. Like a fledgeling learning to fly most of us have trial runs, before attaining any proficiency.

Octavia E. Butler

Ultimately, the important thing is to get something down on the page…you can’t edit and improve what isn’t there. All the same, there’s little point in getting stressed about what you’re doing, agonising that your book will never reach readers. It might have been easy to say, as a legendary and reclusive writer (is such a thing possible in the 21st-century?), but I like J. D. Salinger’s laid back approach:

There is a marvellous peace in not publishing. It’s peaceful. Still. Publishing is a terrible invasion of my privacy. I like to write. I live to write. But I write just for myself and my own pleasure. I don’t necessarily intend to publish posthumously, but I do like to write for myself. I pay for this kind of attitude. I’m known as a strange, aloof kind of man. But all I’m doing is trying to protect myself and my work.

I’ve always been comforted by an old Chinese proverb, which advises:

‘To be uncertain is uncomfortable; to be certain is ridiculous.’

In undertaking projects, I usually do a lot of planning, accruing information and raw material to complete the task and nudging what I’m creating in what I hope is the right direction—sometimes giving it a bloody big shove if it’s defying me!

Mind you, what I’ve accomplished were things that I had control over—rebuilding engines, repairing a roof on a 19th-century cottage, organising a playscheme for deprived inner-city children. The problem with writing is that though I can create decent stories if I want to be published traditionally, I first need to persuade a literary agent that my story is commercially appealing. Even if I self-publish, I have to sell myself and the books to indifferent readers.

During my recent round of querying agents, I found myself disconnecting from writer me to observe salesman Paul, as I analysed my introductory letter, synopsis and three chapter sample—wondering if I knew what I was doing and were the documents enticing? Even if I’ve done a good job with my submissions package, much depends on luck and timing, which are beyond my control.

I’d like my Cornish Detective to venture out into the wide world. Why is he still hanging around with me?

All any of us can do is keep on trying.

Do you know where you’re going to?

What do you hope will happen with your writing career?

It sounds like an unlikely source of solace, but I sometimes hear the lyrics of the theme tune of Mahogany, starring Diana Ross, playing in my head:

Writing

When Writing Gets Personal

26/04/2019 Paul Leave a comment

Some time ago, I posted about authors and their friends appearing in their own books and film adaptations, in a thread called You In Your Book

It’s still going on, for quite by chance, I’ve recently read three novels in a row which feature personal appearances. James Lee Burke’s excellent Dave Robicheaux series has long seen the Louisiana detective raising an adopted daughter called Alafair. In the books she’s an El Salvadorean refugee he rescued from a crashed plane. She grows up to become a lawyer and screenwriter. In reality, his own daughter Alafair is a lawyer and crime novelist. I don’t know how tightly he’s based his book character’s mannerisms on his own daughter, but there was an unsettling moment towards the end of the latest story, New Iberia Blues, in which Alafair is kidnapped and threatened with death by a nutter. It really looked like she was dead at one point, which felt ominous—surely, he’s not going to kill his own daughter, thinks I—but no, she survived. Imagine the atmosphere, if he’d bumped her off.

Sadder, was the way that crime novelist James Oswald handled the real-life death of his parents in a car crash when he was 40, by having his protagonist in his Inspector McLean series lose his parents in a plane crash when he was four. Write what you know, certainly: writing as therapy, maybe.

Touchingly, Amanda Coplin based the titular character of her debut novel The Orchardist on her own grandfather, who tended orchards in Washington state, where the story is set. It’s all the more realistic for being drawn from her own memories. She acknowledges his influence when giving thanks in the end matter.

In my Cornish Detective series, I’ve based two recurring characters on friends, with their permission. One is a retired social worker, the other a photographer and maker. I don’t steal details from their lives, striving more to capture their attitude to the world.

Have any of you used friends, family members, acquaintances or work colleagues as the basis for fictional characters?

Did you do so in an admiring way?

Or, for revenge!

Did you tell them?

Words

Beautiful Words

26/04/2019 Paul Leave a comment

This article, listing the 70 most beautiful words in the English language could be useful, if you applied the words wisely—in your book title or synopsis, for example.

I’m surprised at two omissions, words that I like and which I’ve seen authors mention as their favourites when interviewed—tintinnabulation, for the sound of a bell ringing—and susurration, meaning a whispering sound made by people, waves on a beach or wind through leaves.

I guess, that for most writers, two of the most beautiful words appear when they type The End…except that they’re followed by one of the most terrifying of words—Editing!

Do you have any favourite words that didn’t make the list?

Ann Patchett

Reading

I Couldn’t Put It Down!

26/04/2019 Paul Leave a comment

I find that, as a reader, I approach books in different ways. Some titles I hope will be edifying, such as philosophy and self-help books. Volumes of poetry and studies of a painter’s work may lift my spirit. Sometimes, I read non-fiction as research for my crime novels, delving into forensic medicine, autopsies and poisons.

I tend to base my library requests on book reviews and works praised in author interviews. There’s always the drawback, when reading in my chosen writing genre of Crime, that I’ll be less likely to enjoy the ride than look for ways that it could be improved.

There aren’t many authors whose work blows me away every time, making me thrilled when I see that they’ve got a new book being published, keeping me alert for its UK publication date, so that I can be first in the queue to request it at the library. When I’ve got my hands on it, I’m voracious!

One such author is James Lee Burke, whose 400-500 page novels I usually read in a few days, but then I’ve been a fan of his 22 Dave Robicheaux detective novels since the first title, The Neon Rain was published in 1987. After so long together, I’ve invested in his protagonist’s story arc, even wondering about how he’s getting on from time to time, which proves how real he is to me.

Reading a new Robicheaux story is like meeting up with an old friend—and it’s not always good news—Burke’s protagonist is a deeply flawed man, which he realises himself, and it makes him all the more compelling. I’m currently 50 pages from finishing the latest story New Iberia Blues, already having mournful feelings that I won’t be able to find anything as good to read next.

In the Crime genre, the only other author I know of who portrays such a conflicted hero is Jo Nesbø whose Harry Hole is self-destructive, determined and excruciating to keep company with—which again makes the books unputdownable. There’s definitely an element of “What’s the idiot going to do next?”, that keeps me reading on.

It’s a key element of story-telling, that we care what happens to the main characters. Their story becomes our story—their truth becomes ours—a merging occurs. From the time of the caveman telling tales around a fire to people reading e-books on smartphones and Kindles, the narrator needs to create that empathy.

In historical fiction, I’m transfixed by the dilemmas that C. J. Samson’s Tudor era lawyer Matthew Shardlake faces.

Shardlake is one of the most likeable fictional characters ever created, and one who lives on his wits and cunning in what were incredibly dangerous times politically—with heads rolling off the Royal chopping block—and, where a man could be stabbed to death by the henchman of a courtier as he walks along a darkened street.

What these three protagonists share is that they walk a fine line between normality and oblivion. They all want to make things right in society, but the evil forces they oppose threaten to corrupt and destroy them. They’re living on the edge. As Friedrich Nietzsche warned:

Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.

As a reader, I stand alongside them, glad that I’m not them, but eager to know how they’ll survive.

Whose books can’t you put down?

Which characters have you bonded with?

Writing

Sexist Expressions

26/04/2019 Paul Leave a comment

This year, I’ve been writing a short story to keep me sane (ish) while I queried agents and indie publishers. One of the protagonists is an incomer to a village in decline, who’s purchased the rectory which was empty for ten years, during which it was vandalised. It needs restoring, so I went to write:

‘He’d be busy renovating his new home—even if he employed tradesmen.’

I paused, fearing the wrath of sensitivity readers—should I say tradespeople?—which looks clumsy to my eyes. Also, it jars with the dynamic of the story, where males are in positions of influence, and smug with it, unaware that the village really runs on the efforts of a coven of modern–day witches.

Etymologically, the use of man as a suffix came from it meaning person in Old English—there wasn’t a gender differentiation. However, political correctness has seen a few expressions of long-standing being replaced with descriptors that are gender neutral.

Actresses have become actors, police officer describes policeman and policewoman, and there are no longer air stewards and air stewardesses, but rather flight attendants. Surgeon has long been used, with no differentiation based on gender. Firefighter was swiftly adopted and rightly so.

Although some jobs might have gender-neutral titles, like mail carrier, people still commonly say mailman and mailwoman or postman and postwoman without it being seen as sexist. And, sporting activities appear to have escaped being lumped together: sportsman and sportswoman are commonly used, rather than sportsperson.

Other artistic activities have long been described inclusively, such as painter, though one still occasionally sees sculptress and, less commonly, poetess and authoress.

It’s a shame, in a way, that political correctness has led to smoothed-over, catch-all terms that are vague and which imply we’re all the same. Can’t we celebrate the differences anymore, by acknowledging that someone is masterful at what they do with a special word, such as a female pilot who is worthy of being called the delightful-sounding aviatrix—rather than the bland aviator?

How do you handle potentially sexist expressions, terms and job descriptions?

Writing

Unexplained Sources of Income

25/04/2019 Paul Leave a comment

It always helps a protagonist in a novel, if they’re comfortably off. Money is a great aphrodisiac, encouraging intimacy in luxurious surroundings, not to say kinkiness that would be rejected if proposed by a road sweeper!

And if things turn brutal, being able to afford weaponry, the latest technology, vehicles and the wages of disposable soldiers will provide more thrills for the reader than some lone tough guy with iron fists and a chip on his shoulder.

It slows things down if your hero has to work a 9-5 job. Much of Fantasy and Science Fiction storytelling sees the protagonist cushioned by the efforts of serfs or technological support teams.

Even ordinary-looking characters are given social cachet by money. I recently enjoyed James Oswald’s first Detective Inspector Tony McLean novel, Natural Causes, one of a series featuring an Edinburgh copper. Fourteen chapters into the story, he learnt that his recently deceased grandmother has left him a fortune of £5,000,000 in shares and property.

My own Cornish Detective, Detective Chief Inspector Neil Kettle, is a millionaire from the sale of his deceased parents’ farm and a life insurance payout when his wife died in a road traffic accident. He inherited another half-a-million from his father-in-law, (who turned out to be a serial killer), but gave his house away to a charity who operate women’s refuges, using income from the investment portfolio to run the place.

He’s unimpressed by wealth, his own included, as he’s more of a spiritual soul interested in art, music and nature. He’s toyed with the idea of packing in his career to become a painter, something which bothers his boss, the Chief Constable, as he’s a brilliant sleuth. He stays a detective because he relishes the intellectual challenge and resents the loss of order to society that crimes cause.

I’ve written two novellas in a series about an American Civil War veteran, who is trying to rebuild his life in the Era of Reconstruction. He’s a self-sufficient fellow, a trained blacksmith, but he’s helped on his journey by having been left funds and horses by a fellow veteran, he assisted in fighting off the KKK, before the man committed suicide. Giving him financial freedom enabled me to keep my protagonist moving, not having to stay static to work a job for money.

Ray Robinson did the same thing with his protagonist in Jawbone Lake, which I’ve just read, in which a software entrepreneur investigates the mysterious death of his father. His company is up for sale for millions, so he’s able to travel at will and help out witnesses damaged by dad’s criminal activity.

Forbes business magazine used to publish a list of the wealthiest fictional characters, the last list released in 2013…with the richest fictional character not even human!

Reading a story is escapism for many, so why would they want to stay in a world with the same financial constraints as their own?

How do your protagonists earn a crust?

Are they independently wealthy or wage slaves?

Reading

Fan Letters

25/04/2019 Paul Leave a comment

I’m not really the type of person to pen letters to an artist of any kind, nor to stand in line to get a copy of a writer’s book signed with a personal dedication. Were I to achieve any success as an author, I suppose I could find myself on the other side of the table.

Nevertheless, I contacted three writers yesterday, all of whom run interesting blogs that I subscribe to. In the last year, I’ve been assessing what works and what’s bloody annoying about blogs. The most irritating, is one that requires me to click through three links to get to the article mentioned in the newsletter—that’s like entering a supermarket through the sliding doors, only to find a vast empty space with a shop assistant directing you to open a door into a corridor, where you meet another shop assistant who points at another door you need to open before seeing the first food items.

There are some blog newsletters I’m always glad to see in my Inbox. I intend to pinch emulate some of their techniques as I resurrect this blog Paul Pens. I’m still rather naïve about blogging, but understand that guest blogging is a good way to network and meet people. I’ve noticed that several well-known writing gurus seemingly started out with a blog/website to promote their novels, but in offering advice about writing they created an income for themselves by offering online or residential retreats.

Building my brand, my Cornish Detective series and me as an author is best done through blogging, and, more importantly for sales, having a mailing list of subscribers. At least that’s what marketing experts reckon is the most effective way of making sales, compared to Facebook, Twitter and paid ads on Amazon.

I’m such a numbskull, that I’d failed to appreciate how lucrative blogging could be. Of course, I knew that revenue could be made from ads down the side of the page, promoting products that are often nothing to do with your books, but I hadn’t put two and two together to realise that blogging could be a viable business.

Anyhow, as an early attempt at networking other bloggers, I responded to three authors who’d put out requests in their latest newsletters. One wanted to know about novels that were neglected treasures, another was happy to take suggestions for articles about Cornwall, while the third was suffering from a cold and wanted home remedies…I told him about my use of garlic.

(I haven’t had a cold for 24 years).

If they respond, we may start a dialogue that leads to guest blogging. Writing is such a solitary occupation, that it’s good to know there’s someone else out there who’s castaway on another desert island chucking bottles into the sea containing messages!

Have any of you written to an author?

Did they reply?

Have you attended a book signing?

If you blog, do you have reciprocal arrangements with other bloggers?

How many subscribers do you have to your blog?

Have you received fan letters for your own books?

Paul Pens

Monthly Archives: April 2019

Repulsive Reading

Grunts, sighs, whistles and….

Paper beats Pixels

Do You Know Where You’re Going To?

When Writing Gets Personal

Beautiful Words

I Couldn’t Put It Down!

Sexist Expressions

Unexplained Sources of Income

Fan Letters

Real Write, Real Edit, Real Publish