I found this interesting article in today’s New York Times, about fake books—some blooks are ornate, useful or just plain fun.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/29/books/a-secret-in-every-tome-no-text-required.html?
More blooks: The Aesthetic Allure of Books Without Pages
I own a blook, though it’s more of home security device or hidey-hole, as it resembles a boring brown leather bound Victorian tome on the shelf, but it’s actually a box.
I had a bit of a mental tussle with the place of swear words in my second novel. It’s a crime novel featuring a gruesome death, drug smuggling, illegal importation of weapons and human trafficking—all typical of Cornwall!
Given that I was writing about hardened detectives and violent villains, they shouldn’t have been talking like genteel vicars at a garden tea-party, but despite this, I didn’t include that much swearing. It wasn’t out of prudery, for I can out-swear anybody, and have, once causing a foul-mouthed Tourette’s Syndrome sufferer to complain about me.
My reluctance to use oaths in my Cornish Detective series is more that I fear it will distract from the flow of the story. Swearing is a useful tool to emphasise the tension a character is feeling when talking, but starts to look like the writer is going for a shock effect if peppered through the text. Anyone who has read Irvine Welsh (best known for ‘Trainspotting’) will know what I mean.
In real life, people often use expletives in a calm way when talking to one another, showing mild irritation at best. Funnily enough, I wouldn’t be having this problem if I was writing an erotic novel as I could use profanity willy-nilly!
Interestingly enough, recent research shows that having a large arsenal of swear words is proof of a healthy verbal ability and not poverty of vocabulary.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/12/22/why-its-a-good-sign-if-you-curse-a-lot
It’s always puzzled me how most swearing references sexual activity or private body parts, with blasphemy bringing in religion in a sacrilegious way.
You might think that rather than using things that we’re fond of, swearing would choose people, physical activities and jobs that make us disgusted. In my opinion politician should be a swear word! The only profession that is used as an insult uses Cockney rhyming slang, with ‘merchant banker’ being a euphemism for wanker.
How do you deal with four-letter words in your writing?
Does it bother you if a story is full of swearing?
There’s been a kerfuffle recently over writers not getting paid for attending literary festivals. It caused Philip Pullman to resign as a patron of the Oxford Literary Festival.
This article by Nick Cohen ponders the problem of why we’re treated like doormats. It’s worth a read, as it encapsulates the something-for-nothing attitude that many book world executives have to their authors, not to mention readers who expect books for free.
http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2016/01/why-english-writers-accept-being-treated-like-dirt/
Do click on the link to the video of Harlan Ellison’s foul-mouthed rant about being expected to work for free by a major film studio—he tells it like it is, and he made me smile.
I’ve wondered about this too, as today people expect authors to give their services away for free by attending festivals to read from their work and answer questions. It’s almost as if they think we’re all monied dilettantes who dabble in creating stories for our own amusement.
As we all know, not everyone makes millions from their writing, even though we all work hard at it. I estimated recently that since the summer of 2013, when I returned to creative writing, I’ve devoted 10,000 hours to researching, writing and editing my stories. In that time, I’ve earned about £40 from my efforts. I’m not going to attempt to work out what that makes my hourly rate of pay!
Storytelling has been around for as long as humans could talk to one another. In the Middle Ages, troubadours or minstrels told stories to the public for payment, reciting traditional tales as well as those of their own making. Booksellers once took their wares on the road, flogging them from carts and panniers on pack animals. It’s as if modern day authors are expected to continue an age-old tradition, by being peddlers of their own literature, scraping a living from pennies.
(that’s me in the middle, that is….)
An article in the Guardian newspaper made me think about what books I’ve recommended, and given as presents to friends over the years.
I’ve read several of the titles mentioned, and one of them Stoner is a favourite of mine. It was recommended to me by an American friend three years ago, so I borrowed it from the library and absolutely loved it. Written by John Williams and published in 1965, it was poorly received at the time but has since been reappraised and is now lauded for its depiction of human truths. It’s currently being adapted into a film, and I hope that they do a good job.
Some books take you by surprise, and one of them is a novel that I would never imagine as being to my taste owing to its subject matter. Although I’m spiritual I’m not religious so a novel about the relationships in a Mormon family wouldn’t have been my first choice. I read several favourable reviews of it in 2010, so gave it a chance—and was mightily impressed! The Lonely Polygamist by Brady Udall is a memorable tale of relationships within a family, being humorous and tragic. It’s excellent at depicting the loneliness of the human soul and how we throw ourselves into liaisons for temporary comfort. I gave four copies of it as Christmas presents last year, and am keen to hear what my friends think of it.
Lastly, I’d say that any collection of short stories by Guy de Maupassant is worthy of your time. I think he’s still the best short story writer ever, and he packs more about the human condition into a few pages than some writers do in a whole novel. I like his novels, but the shorter form is where he excels. I’ve given many copies of this Penguin collection Selected Short Stories to friends and lovers over the year. They’re good stories to read out loud in bed at night!
Sometimes I’ve given books to friends not just because I enjoyed them, but to help them through a difficult period in their lives.
One of these is Margaret Craven’s I Heard The Owl Call My Name, which tells the story of the last days of a terminally ill young priest sent to a remote settlement to tend the native population. He’s unaware of his limited lifespan, which has been kept from him by his bishop. He learns much about life and love before dying. That sounds depressing, but the short novel is a life-affirming read.
Another is a novel called The Maytrees, by Annie Dillard. This is a tale about the mysteries of marriage, as well as the nature of forgiveness. I gave it to several friends whose long-term relationships finished unexpectedly, leaving them to face life alone. The story is a wise reflection on who our soulmates are, and how we sometimes need to maintain a certain distance to appreciate the value of the closeness we crave.
Books can be many things to us, including thrilling, inspirational, educational and amusing. But they’re also a source of great comfort.
What books do you share?
Remember: one day readers will be passing our stories on…
There’s an old bit of advice given to writers of crime stories on how to move the action forward. It was given by Raymond Chandler in an essay called The Simple Art of Murder in a magazine called the Saturday Review of Literature, published in April 1950.
In the essay, he laments that while his stories may lack realism due to the compressed way that they show events, with only a limited group of characters, that:
This was inevitable because the demand was for constant action and if you stopped to think you were lost. When in doubt have a man come through a door with a gun in his hand. This could get to be pretty silly but somehow it didn’t seem to matter. A writer who is afraid to overreach himself is as useless as a general who is afraid to be wrong.
As I look back on my own stories it would be absurd if I did not wish they had been better. But if they had been much better they would not have been published.
I remembered this advice, as I contemplated how to proceed with my second novel Who Kills A Nudist? I was at the midway point, with the murder at the core of my story and various subplots involving drug smuggling, illegal weapons importation and people trafficking adding murkiness to the villainy. My detectives are surveilling the suspect’s mansion from a boat on the river running beside his estate—their position means they can see things well, but not easily intercede.
Their suspicions about the main baddy being involved with bringing in guns from Europe are proved when his henchman starts playing with an automatic pistol while drunk. He’s apparently suicidal, placing the muzzle in his mouth, but they are reduced to being spectators owing to their precarious location. This scene provided my tale with tension, as well as unexpected comedy, and helped me decide the direction of the next few chapters.
The ‘gun in his hand’ needn’t be taken literally, for any unexpected event can move a story on. Often, we write such perfect worlds, with characters who don’t stumble over their words imparting just what needs to be said, and the action unfolding seamlessly. But accidents do happen, and people lose their tempers unpredictably.
Why not throw a spanner in the works and see what happens?
I took a break from creative writing over the festivities of 2018-2019, mulling over the progress of my Cornish Detective series, after completing the fifth story. Recharging my batteries seemed to help my enthusiasm, so I returned to querying in February, sending off 88 submissions. It’s as well to remember that what we do in creating stories isn’t a sprint, but more of a marathon with obstacle courses thrown in!
While reading about writing, I found this lovely lecture by Zadie Smith called That Crafty Feeling. It was originally given to the students of Columbia University’s writing programme in New York on Monday 24th March 2008. The brief: “to speak about some aspect of your craft.”
http://irmadriessen.nl/publicaties/that-crafty-feeling-zadie-smith/
There’s an excerpt of her reading from her lecture here:
It’s worth a few minutes of your time to read. I recognised much of what she says about the relationship a writer has with their book. She uses the terms ‘Micro Planners’ and ‘Macro Planners’ to differentiate between the two main types of writers, more commonly known as ‘Pantsers’ and ‘Planners’. I’m definitely a Micro Planner or Pantser, though I do make vague plans on scraps of paper to guide my plotting.
I am at her ‘step away from the vehicle’ stage with my five novels, written over the last four years. It’s been a valuable period of reconsideration, and I’m glad that I didn’t rush to self-publish them.
Malcolm Gladwell is under fire for his over-generous praise of friends’ and lovers’ books.
I’ve read a few of his books, enjoying them, though I’m not sure how influenced I’d be if I saw his name on blurb praising an author unknown to me. Then again, if I saw a mystery-murder novel lauded by one of my literary heroes, such as James Lee Burke or Michael Connelly, I might give it a try.
Many of the practices in publishing are a racket, but then so is much of any business—dressing up lies to be acceptable. Having once witnessed a famous law lord, journalist and writer bullied by a publishing executive into scribbling a blurb for a book that he’d never heard of, let alone read, I have a jaundiced view of the truthfulness of the words of praise one sees on book covers.
Imagine the effect it would have on sales of your YA or mystery novel if J.K. Rowling endorsed your writing! I somehow doubt that I’ve got enough money to bribe her…
Just as cynics say “Great career move” when a fading musician dies unexpectedly, leading to a massive boost in the sales of their albums, so it takes having The Grim Reaper as your literary agent for some writers to get anywhere.
I’ve mentioned the sad tale of John Kennedy Toole in previous threads, and it would have been fascinating to know what else he would have created. At least he hasn’t been turned into a franchise operation with hired gun authors brought in to continue the series, as happened recently with Stieg Larsson’s Lisbeth Salander and the long-established James Bond and Sherlock Holmes stories.
https://litreactor.com/columns/11-authors-who-became-famous-after-they-died
This article popped up on the Write Conversation blog:
http://thewriteconversation.blogspot.co.uk/2015/12/do-novelists-have-to-be-politically.html?
The novelist’s subject matter is certainly controversial, and it set me thinking about some of the problems I faced in 2015, when writing my second novel, Who Kills A Nudist?
Briefly, the plot includes a murder victim found at the location of a nudist colony on a Cornish beach, used by mainly gay men. The likely suspect is also involved in drug smuggling and people trafficking. I have my own opinions on these subjects, but none of them are bigoted. My fictional characters, however, display hostility towards gays and illegal immigrants. People who are ill-educated or politically biased aren’t likely to use politically correct language.
I wrote a short sentence in the way that my right wing, hardline retired detective talks, having him say something about the gay nudists in a dismissive and inflammatory way, describing then as ‘deviants and shirt-lifters’. It’s certainly how he would speak, but it’s not how I think. It rings true, but has the potential to taint me—not that I’m that bothered, as after making 650 queries, I’m bulletproof!
All the same, it raises some interesting problems. We can’t make all of our characters politically correct, otherwise the narrative will be bland, safe and boring. An out-and-out baddy can go berserk, saying and doing what he likes, but what about more ordinary people who casually express opinions that might stray from what is acceptable?
Have any of you faced similar problems writing your stories?
As one familiar with long-term depression, the findings in this article don’t surprise me. Most of the artists I’ve known in my life have been troubled with some mental malady or other, and that includes writers, sculptors, painters, musicians, photographers, actors and craftspeople.
It’s good that famous people are being more open in talking about their personal struggles, as it helps to reduce the stigma of being diagnosed with depression, bipolarism, borderline personality disorder or schizophrenia.
Just as we need a bit of grit in our lives to create friction, so we can get purchase and progress through being creative. Some of the best books, records, paintings, photographs, sculptures and films come from those who’ve been through the turmoil of mental tribulation.
