I'd better start with a proviso: I'm not one of those people who thinks films and books are essentially the same thing and therefore require exactly the same set of skills to write. I'm well aware that the two media have different abilities, conventions and limitations. All the same, there are useful lessons that writers can learn from the movies – and here are some of them. 1. Show, don't tell Yes, I know it's the most basic 'rule' we as writers have. Yes, I know it can sometimes be usefully broken. But if you're struggling with the concept of showing rather than telling, it might be helpful to think about film as a medium. Because 'show, don't tell' is precisely what a film does. How do we know a character in a film is angry? By how he looks, what he says and what he does. How do we learn what someone's personality is like? By seeing her in a series of situations and getting to know how she reacts. You'll never hear a character who's experiencing a strong emotion yell 'I'm so angry!' or sob 'I'm so unhappy!' And (most of the time) you'll never see a character turn to the camera and tell you who they are, what they like doing and what's their greatest flaw. So if you want to show rather than tell, imagine your character in a movie. If they wouldn't naturally say a particular line out loud in that context, don't write it as part of their POV. Incidentally, writers can go one better than filmmakers here – because we can describe a character's situations and reactions using all the senses, not just hearing and sight. Get it right, and your scene can be even richer and more immersive than it would be on film. 2. Cut the backstory A two-hour film leaves no room for lengthy setup or exposition. Most of the time, the audience is thrown into the action and expected to work it out as they go along. This is particularly relevant to sci-fi and fantasy authors, who often feel as though they need to explain everything to their readers up front. In that sense, filmmakers tend to give their audience more credit than writers do. People don't want or need all the details of how a world works before they even get into the first scene. They can figure it out for themselves. 3. What you don't say can convey more than what you do A good actor can make one speaking glance worth a whole paragraph of dialogue. Likewise, a good writer can say in a single sentence what someone else might have taken a whole paragraph to get across. Guess which one has more impact? In a way, this is another example of 'give your readers more credit'. People are very good at picking up the subtleties and reading the subtext. And anything has more impact when it's used sparingly than when it's scattered all over the place like confetti. 4. Don't let the special effects drive the narrative I'm sure we can all think of films that are stuffed full of special effects but have little in the way of plot, realistic characters or emotional heart. There are plenty of ways that this comes up in writing, too. Strings of gratuitous action/sex scenes with little to hold them together, for example. Or details of a fantasy world crammed in for the sake of it rather than because they're relevant to the characters at that moment. Even clever structural devices or a love of flamboyant language can become 'special effects' if they're allowed to take precedence over the story itself. Whether you're dealing with a book or a film, it's the characters' journey that the audience will remember in the end. 5. No-one will notice the deleted scenes We've probably all been there: agonising for hours about cutting a particular scene from a book. We know it needs to go, for reasons of length or structure or plot. But we're convinced that everyone who reads the book will get to that point and see the gaping hole where the scene used to be. If you ever find yourself in that situation, just think of a DVD. You've watched the film itself, and now you turn to the extras and start watching the deleted scenes. Did you notice their absence while you were watching the film? Can you even remember where half of them should fit? Probably not – because what you saw was the finished product. You weren't aware that the deleted scenes ever existed, and so you didn't miss them. That's what editing is all about. That's it from me, but I'm sure there are other lessons that writers can learn from the movies (and indeed vice versa). Please feel free to add them in the comments section! Write Every Day: tip of the week Take a scene from your book and imagine it's going to be filmed. Now describe the scene: what happens on camera, what the characters say, details of the setting. Make sure you restrict yourself to only what the audience will experience – in other words, any explanatory or inferential text is out. When you've finished, read back through the scene. What's it like? Is there anything in it you can use?
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As some of you know, I'm an editor as well as a writer. Getting the right words in the right order is how I make my living. Which is why I get the tiniest bit annoyed when I hear aspiring authors say things like this: "I'm not too bothered about my spelling/punctuation/grammar [delete as applicable]. I know it's not very good, but a proofreader can sort it out." Great. I'm glad you want to give a fellow professional some work. But at the same time, speaking as a writer … really? You're happy to let someone else decide what your words mean? Spelling, punctuation and grammar are like the stage directions in a play. Without them, the actors all face forward and speak their lines without any shade of inflection or meaning. If you want to convey exactly what you had in mind when you wrote your words, you have to get these basic things right. It isn't a matter of being pedantic for the sake of it. It's a matter of being pedantic in order to make sure your meaning is understood. In a similar vein, I've noticed a tendency for people to dismiss errors in their work as 'typos'. Fine, if they genuinely have made one or two spelling errors here and there. Even if you get five different people to read through your work, there's bound to be at least one mistake you and they all overlook. But consistent misspellings or misuse of apostrophes? They're not typos. They're tools being wielded incorrectly. If you met a carpenter who referred to his constant failure to craft a tight-fitting joint as a 'slip', or a plumber who described her recurring inability to fix a leak as a 'minor error', you'd assume they were incompetent. So why is it OK for a writer not to possess the full set of basic skills they need for their own particular trade? I'm not saying that people shouldn't make mistakes, nor that they should be born knowing everything. Both are impossible. But what I do object to is an attitude that says I don't need to learn any of this stuff, because it's not important. Some people seem to think that an ability to write well is a natural talent and, as such, they don't have to work for it. Yet in taking that approach, they're confusing aptitude and technique. A professional in any craft needs both. You can be born with an amazing ear for music, but unless you learn how to play the piano you'll never be a concert pianist. You can have the potential to be the world's greatest athlete, but that won't get you anywhere without training. And you can have an innate ability to tell a story, but unless you learn how to tell it no-one will ever take you seriously. I'm aware we're not aided by the world around us. The modern user relies on a spellchecker to point out mistakes and assumes that the computer rather than the human brain knows best. I've complained before about how the auto-correct feature on the iPod (among others) constantly changes its to it's, whether or not it's appropriate – a perfect way to teach an entire generation of people how to use an apostrophe incorrectly. And I'm often amazed by the basic grammatical errors appearing in promotional literature from the biggest and most respected of companies. But we are writers. We, of all people, should be standing up in defence of the conventions that allow us to convey our meaning clearly and accurately. Yes, we need creativity. Yes, we need brilliant characterisation and a gripping plot and sparkling dialogue. Yet for our own sake, we also need to know how to spell properly and how to punctuate a sentence. If we let these things go then the subtle differences that it's possible to convey by using, say, a semicolon instead of a colon will also be lost. And as George Orwell knew very well, if a language loses its capacity to express particular nuances and shades of meaning then it won't be long before our ability even to think them begins to deteriorate as well. Write Every Day: tip of the week Since I've got my editor's hat on this week, this is a tip about editing. As we all know, writing the words is only half the battle. Editing them is just as important and can often take far longer. In the past I've tended to write a book, then spend the next period of time concentrating solely on editing it. But in fact that's probably a bad idea, for two reasons. First, focusing on editing means you're no longer maintaining the creative flow that sustained you while you were writing. I'm not saying editing isn't a creative task – because it is – but it's a different kind of creativity. If you spend months editing a book, and nothing else, then when it comes to writing the next one you'll have a hard job getting going again. Second, you learn things while you're editing. You learn what works and what doesn't, how to phrase things in a tighter way, which words you overuse. If you start writing your next book while you're still editing the last one, those lessons will be fresh in your mind and you can apply them – which means the next time you reach the editing stage, your task will be shorter. So, in short, I'd suggest that even when you're ready to edit a project, you don't stop trying to write every day. Instead, maintain momentum by writing short fiction or experimental scenes or another book at the same time. Both your writing and your editing will benefit from it. There are all kinds of writing 'rules' washing around the interweb: most of them, it has to be said, ignored by virtually every published book I've ever read. Don't write in first person present, for instance – not sure if it's coincidence, but all the books I've enjoyed recently have been written in that very tense. Or don't use the verb 'to feel' (as in, to use a generic example, 'I felt a nervous flutter in my stomach' as opposed to 'Nerves fluttered in my stomach'). Or even our old friend don't use adverbs. Every successful writer I know ignores that one – sometimes. Of course, it's the sometimes that matters. The point is, like all rules, these should come with a caveat: unless it's for a good enough reason. In any craft, the novice breaks the rules because he doesn't realise the difference; as he begins to learn, he absorbs those rules and sticks rigidly to them, believing them to be absolutes. Yet as he grows still further in confidence and knowledge, he learns where the rules can be bent and where they can be broken. He learns that the 'absolutes' are really a set of guidelines. And thus the difference between the amateur and the professional is that the amateur follows the rules because, well, them's the rules. The professional follows them because she knows why they work – and when they don't. This is all really interesting stuff, and bound up also with the wider question of style (because, after all, no-one can have style if all they do is follow the rules. That's just painting by numbers). But it's not what I set out to talk about. No, I came here to wave the flag for another much-maligned and misunderstood friend of mine: the prologue. The rule there is simply don't use a prologue. And indeed, I've heard all kinds of bizarre statements about the poor persecuted prologue. No agent will touch a novel that starts with a prologue, it seems. If you have a prologue then you should consider making it your first chapter or cutting it completely. Some people don't even bother to read them and skip straight on to Chapter 1. Clearly no-one in their right mind would include one in their book. Well, setting aside the fact that I simply cannot understand someone not reading a prologue – which, after all, is part of the writer's vision and put there for a reason – it seems to me there's an awful lot of confusion here. Certainly there are plenty of ways to write a prologue badly (the info-dump prologue, in which a fantasy writer pours out all the supposedly vital facts about the history of their world in a dry regurgitation of invented knowledge, springs to mind). But then, there are plenty of ways to write a book badly. Generalising about prologues is like generalising about books. Each one should be taken on its own merits. If a book has a prologue then it's safe to assume the writer chose to put it there. As such, it shouldn't be treated by the reader any differently from a first chapter (though no doubt the writer has chosen it as a literary device because it fulfils a different structural purpose). Come across a book with a prologue you hate, and chances are you won't like the book. But come across a prologue you love, that intrigues you and makes you want to read more – well, then, it's done its job. It's the exception that proves the rule. Because, like all those other rules, don't use a prologue should be followed by except if it works. How to make it work is another matter entirely, and one I don't claim to be an expert on, so I'll simply end by listing a few of the benefits that a prologue can bring to a book, if it's done well. It can add depth and richness, bringing a context or a viewpoint that wouldn't have been available from the main narrative. It can widen the book's sense of history by touching on another time and place. It can tease the reader with hints of what is to come, or give insights that are only fully realised once the book has been read. It can grab the reader by the throat and drag them kicking and screaming into the main body of the story. Remind me again why you wouldn't want one in your novel? Write Every Day: tip of the week You know that scene you just can't bring yourself to write? The one that sits there like a big black hole in your manuscript, except instead of sucking you in it repels you every time you get near it? Well, this week is a perfect time to make yourself tackle it. To do that, you need to work out why you're so reluctant to write the darn thing in the first place. If it's because it's boring to write then you should seriously think about cutting it, or changing it, because chances are it'll be boring to read as well. If it's because the words just won't flow then maybe you need to do more research (it's hard to write convincingly about something you know nothing about). Or maybe you're trying to force your characters into uncharacteristic behaviour for the sake of the plot and they won't cooperate – that's always a bad idea and you're probably better off listening to them. If you're struggling because the scene is too emotional and you find it painful to write, you just have to go with it. Pick a time when it doesn't matter if you end up bawling like a baby and immerse yourself in the very thing you're afraid of. Your readers will feel what you feel, and the scene will be all the better for it. Looking back over the long and glorious history of my blog (i.e. the past four months), I realised that I haven't talked much about fantasy writing specifically. As a fantasy writer myself, that seems a little remiss of me. And since there's one aspect of writing that's more relevant to fantasy (and its hi-tech cousin, sci-fi) than any other genre, I thought that would be the best place to start. Worldbuilding. For those of you who don't know, worldbuilding is simply the process of creating and filling in the details of the world that a book's characters inhabit. In most genres that's fairly simple, because the world in question is our own. In some genres – horror, for instance – it requires the addition of an extra layer that isn't part of our everyday reality (werewolves or vampires or whatever it happens to be). And in fantasy, it's the foundation of the entire novel. So let's go back to basics. What is the most important thing to bear in mind when creating a fantasy world? What is the number one consideration? What, in fact, is the first rule of worldbuilding? Well, for a start, it isn't You do not talk about worldbuilding. Otherwise this would be a pretty short discussion. Nor, contrary to what some seem to think, is it You load up your world with all the coolest weapons and monsters you can think of, chuck in an impossibly muscular hero and see what happens. And it certainly isn't You take the plot and dialogue patterns of LOTR, add a couple of swearwords to make it gritty and label it 'The next big epic everyone's talking about!!'. No, if I had to pick one rule, one principle to follow when creating a fantasy world, it would be this: Everything has to be logical. Though that may seem like a second-rate Spock quotation, it's actually very important. If a world has internal consistency then it's possible to believe anything that's written about it – and belief, above all things, is what writers want to instill in their readers (if only for the duration of the book). If you were reading a thriller and suddenly, for no obvious reason, the gun floated out of the villain's hand, allowing the heroine to knock him out, you'd feel pretty cheated. It would break the laws of physics, of causality, of probability: all laws that we know exist and operate in the world around us. Of course, most of the time this isn't even an issue, because thriller writers don't have to think about the laws of the world they're writing in; they grew up with them, and so the logic comes naturally. But when you add a layer of worldbuilding to the narrative, that's when it can all start to go wrong. I say that, but the problem seems to be far less common in sci-fi than in fantasy. Sci-fi writers have to be rigorous, because the things they invent have to be plausible technologies. OK, no-one reading a sci-fi novel today is ever going to know whether the author's vision of 2312 was correct, but it has to at least be possible based on what we know now. Most sci-fi writers are aware of that, and they put a lot of effort into making their systems coherent and consistent. So why in the name of Arthur C. Clarke do so many fantasy writers lose all sense of logic as soon as they pick up their quills? I've heard people say they don't like fantasy because 'it's unrealistic' or 'anything can happen'. But the point is, it shouldn't. When you're building a fantasy world, every single detail has profound consequences. Decide your system of magic requires fresh-laid eggs to work, and you can't suddenly change your mind when the hero finds himself in a desperate situation with not a chicken in sight. And because you're inventing the world from scratch, the issue goes even deeper. OK, so you've got a city in the middle of the barren desert plains; that's fine, but you'd better have a damn good answer to the question of why they didn't build it a few miles to the south where there's a handy water supply, or a few miles to the north where it would have been elevated above the surrounding terrain. And no, before you ask, because it's cooler that way is not a valid reason. So, if I had to give one piece of advice to the fledgling writer about to take their first steps down the worldbuilding path, it would be this: please, please think everything through first. Yes, you can be as inventive and as creative as you like; yes, you can have mile-high cities and magic based on rainbows; but above all things, your world must have its own logic – and stick to it. Write Every Day: tip of the week Choose an aspect of your world (if it's a standard fantasy trope, so much the better). For instance, say swords are the main weapon. Now ask yourself a series of questions. Is steel common? Is it cheap? Who can afford it? Who produces it? If there's magic in your world, why don't people use that as a weapon instead? How come gunpowder hasn't been discovered yet? Do people walk around armed as a matter of course? What effect does that have on the level of crime? And so on. Once you've finished, you'll have solidified the logic behind that area of your narrative, and maybe created some useful social/historical/economic background to draw on as well. Many years ago, sometime after dinosaurs but before Justin Bieber, writers worked in isolation. They came up with an idea, plotted the book and wrote it – maybe in mere months, maybe over several years. Then, in happy ignorance of what any other writers in the world might be doing, they sent it off for consideration. With the arrival of the interweb, however, all that changed. Being online brought many advantages for the would-be writer – a wealth of information and advice, a greater degree of access to publishers and agents, a hitherto absent sense of community. But it also brought one serious disadvantage: the newly connected writer could compare him/herself to other people. I'm sure you know how it goes; most of us have been guilty of it at one time or another. My online writer friend has just published her first book. And that guy I did NaNoWriMo with last year has signed with an agent. X has a wildly popular blog, Y has an amazing website, and Z has ten thousand Twitter followers. I'm failing as an author and as a human being! I need to catch up! Thinking like this is easy to fall into, but it's ultimately unproductive. We're not in some kind of global race to see who can achieve the most the quickest. What matters is the quality of the final product: the book itself. If it takes you a year to write a decent book then there's no point rushing to publication after six months. In fact, it does you much more harm than good. Fine, so that girl you met in a writer's forum can go from blank page to completed novel in the time it takes you to come up with a sketchy plot outline. So what? She's not you. Work at the speed you know has the best results for you. Making sure what you've written is as good as it can be before you start submitting or self-publishing will have much more positive consequences in the long run than trying to sell something you rushed through in a vain attempt to keep up with some idealised schedule. Of course, 'taking the time to get it right' can become an excuse in itself – and that's where the other half of my title rears its head. There has to come a point when you know, deep down, that any further editing you do will only be changing, not improving. Any further work on the book after that falls under the heading of procrastination. I've written about this before, so I won't say anything more about it here except Stop. Just stop. You can't make it any better; steel yourself and take the plunge. So what's the optimum length of time to spend on a book? you may be wondering. The golden mean between rushing and lingering? Well, that's the point: I can't tell you. It's different for every writer and every book. But if you keep on writing, you'll know it when you find it. Write Every Day: tip of the week OK, so you've decided to have a go at writing every day, but you're finding it difficult to get started. Maybe you're used to only writing at weekends, or you can't seem to get more than a sentence on the page without thinking That'll do until tomorrow. If that's the case then here are a few suggestions.
Welcome back, everyone. I hope you have enjoyed the break and are now looking forward to 2012 with wide-eyed excitement/terrible glee/unmitigated despondency (delete according to character type and personal preference).
It being the first day of the new year, I thought it would be appropriate to talk a little bit about resolutions. For this is, of course, the perfect – or at least traditional – time to cast away old habits and form shiny new ones. Now, if ever, is the moment to resolve to eat my greens, go for a healthy refreshing run every morning and be nice to everyone, even if I don’t feel like it. Right? Well, no. Because I came to the conclusion some years ago that making resolutions is thankless, fruitless and pointless. Mainly, it has to be said, because I never keep them. A list of resolutions in January is the perfect recipe for misery and self-disgust in December. In the past I would come up with ten or twelve things I wanted to get done during the year, then concentrate all my efforts on the one I was really interested in. And I’m not convinced that the virtuous feeling I got when I wrote down things like ‘keep the house tidy’ or ‘stop eating so much chocolate’ was worth the subsequent and rapid realisation that it was never going to happen. So this year, I’ve decided to take a different approach. There’s just one thing I want to do: write every day. No matter how busy, how tired or how unimaginative I feel, I want to get some words down. And I’m not going to look at it as a resolution so much as an inevitability. Because I know how easy it is to slip into days, even weeks where the notebook remains closed and the laptop gathers dust. And the one thing I don’t want from 2012 is to look back and wish I’d done more. Of course, it’s not going to be straightforward. As some of you already know, my partner and I are expecting a new addition to the household later this year, which won’t exactly make it easier to find time for writing. But even if I can only manage a sentence a day, at least I’ll have done something. At least I won’t let whole months go by in which I realise I haven’t achieved anything at all. So, that’s the plan. I’ll let you know how I get on. And in the meantime, best of luck with all your resolutions – if, that is, you chose to make any. As a member of various online communities, I have been critiquing the work of other writers for the past three years or so. Receiving critiques as well, of course – most of us are seeking feedback on a book of our own, so the idea is that it's a reciprocal relationship (not that it always works that way). Now I've decided to retire my red pen for a while and concentrate on actually writing the stuff, but before I go I thought I'd share some of what I've learnt about how to behave when you're playing the critting game.
Say you've put an excerpt from your book up for comment. You're trundling along nicely, garnering vague positive comments from people who hope you'll give them vague positive comments back*, then all of a sudden BAM! You're slapped in the face with a critique that strikes you as disproportionately negative. What do you do? My answer would be, first of all, sleep on it. To begin with every word will feel like a stab in the heart, especially if you're used to uncritical praise. When you've calmed down a bit and no longer want to garotte the commenter with a metal wire, read the critique again. If it's specific and detailed and you actually see that they might have a point, hurrah! You've gained something valuable from the process. Edit your book, thank the commenter nicely and move on. If you still disagree completely with what they've said, but they've clearly made an effort to engage with the text, fine. Part of the process is learning that opinions vary and you can't please everybody. Thank the commenter nicely and move on. In fact, the only time it's acceptable not to thank the commenter is if they've left a short, purely subjective comment – something like 'This book is a load of rubbish'. In that case, it might be reasonable just to ignore it. (Though I would argue that 'This book is amazing!!!' is equally useless, but for some reason no-one has the impulse to ignore that.) Personally I'd suggest thanking the commenter anyway, but with no obligation to read his/her book in return. Courtesy costs nothing; spending your time on someone who couldn't be bothered to do the same for you does. What you really shouldn't do is argue with the commenter. If they didn't like a particular aspect of your book, it's not as if pointing out why they're wrong is going to change their mind. Sure, if they asked a specific question then go ahead and answer it. But don't get personal, don't leave a revenge review, and please don't throw a hissy fit whilst at the same time making some or all of the changes they suggested. You can't have it both ways. Either the critique was useful or it wasn't. Using it and complaining about it just makes you look like a hypocrite. Essentially, all of the above behaviours come across as deeply unprofessional. And although you may be on an amateur site, it's still important to behave in a professional way. If someone is upset by a comment I've left on a critique site then I'm happy to take it down – I have no wish to upset people – but I have to admit that I lose all respect for them as a writer after that. After all, what are they going to do if their book is published and a critic reviews it unfavourably on a blog or a customer leaves a less-than-five-star comment on Amazon? Writers who start arguing against negative feedback are laughed at; if they keep at it then they become a liability to any sensible agent or publisher. No matter how you feel about someone's critique, they spent time and effort writing it. Get over yourself, and thank them. No book is perfect. Finally, a note for anyone who's commenting. My view is that honesty is better than prevarication, but it's also really important to be specific. Always use examples from the text to illustrate what you're saying. Keep subjective opinion to a minimum, and flag it clearly where it does appear. Never be personal, and always present your thoughts as suggestions – you don't know the text as well as the author does, so you may be wrong. And if the recipient does react badly, resist the temptation to get into an argument. Just shrug and walk away. If nothing else, you'll have learned something from the exchange. This will be my last blog post of 2011, since next Sunday I will be busy trying to look jolly in a paper hat. See you all in 2012, and in the meantime I hope you have a wonderful Christmas. * I have never understood the value of this. But then, I've never understood the value of celebrity gossip magazines, sushi, or push taps that don't quite stay on long enough to rinse the soap from your hands. Clearly I'm not cut out to understand some things. I'm not really interested in being famous. Respected in my field, perhaps. Loved by a core of loyal fans, certainly. But the public attention that comes with JK Rowling levels of fame is something I can do without. (Apart from anything else, it would mean no more slouching around the supermarket sporting unwashed hair and a scruffy pair of faded jeans. The luxury of looking like you've just got out of bed because you have just got out of bed – and, more to the point, no-one caring – is reserved for those of us who are blessed with anonymity.)
For one thing, it's pretty obvious that fame is more or less random. Books that become so wildly popular they make their authors millions (which, let's face it, are few and far between) don't have some intrinsic quality that makes it obvious they were always going to be a hit. We all know how often Harry Potter was rejected before it was accepted. We've all heard stories about writers who toiled unnoticed for years before they reached the heady heights of success. The fact is, no-one – not the publisher, not the agent, and certainly not the writer – knows how the public will react to a book. They all believe in the book, of course, or it wouldn't have been produced in the first place. But there isn't a single person, in the field or otherwise, who can look at a book and identify it as the next big thing. That seems to come down to a combination of story, marketing and serendipity. And of those three factors, serendipity is by far the most influential. How else could a publishing executive identify a novel that will perfectly capture the public imagination in 18 months' time? One thing's for sure, if I had a talent like that then I could think of far quicker ways of making money out of it. So, if I were to become famous then I'd know full well it was mainly down to luck – that there were writers as good as or better than me who just hadn't hit that elusive moment where everything comes together. Of course, I'm not denying that the vast quantities of cash appearing in my bank account might go some way towards alleviating any discomfort or guilt I was suffering in that respect. Think of the possibilities: I could replace my scruffy pair of faded jeans with an equally scruffy but five times as expensive pair; I could buy a new ideas notebook (I've had the old one for over a decade); I could even set up my laptop in a dedicated writing chamber instead of on a small table at the end of the bed in the spare room (oh, the decadence). But beyond that … what does a writer need, really? Food, water and something to write on. Everything else is just decoration. In addition, reach a certain level of popularity and you become an instant target for criticism. For every global phenomenon, there is a very vocal backlash from people who can't understand why whatever-it-is is so popular. It becomes fashionable to say how much you hated Twilight or loathed The Da Vinci Code. Part of it comes from genuine incomprehension as to how that particular book could have become so popular (this from people who don't know about the serendipity factor). Part of it is probably jealousy. Very successful writers become the target of vitriol that never seems to be directed at their less popular colleagues – and in many cases it's other writers, those just starting out, who are the source of it. And though I've probably had a moan or two about poor writing and narrative inconsistencies myself, to be honest I think it's a shame. We should be pleased that books are such a key part of people's lives, despite fears to the contrary. We should be glad that people are reading – that there's still a market for what we do. We should be excited that every so often, an astronomical salary is made by a writer and not by a footballer or a reality TV star. Above all things, writers want their work to be read and enjoyed and talked about. They have a story, and they want to share it with the world. I guess in that sense, the more of the world it gets shared with the better. But the excess of money and the recognition on the street … meh. Just give me a keyboard and a chocolate muffin, and I'll be happy. Over the past few weeks, for various reasons, I have been singularly lacking in ideas. And creative drive. And any kind of intelligence at all, really. All I want to do is sleep, or if I can’t do that then curl up under a blanket and watch cookery shows on TV. Which isn’t good when (a) I have three short stories to write before the end of the year and (b) I promised myself I’d finish my current rewrite/edit by then as well. So, to help anyone who is likewise afflicted with the demon Uninspiration, here are a few tips to get those ideas flowing.
1. Do something else. There’s absolutely no point in sitting there staring at a computer screen for hours on end and feeling miserable because you’ve only written two sentences (and you know quite well you’ll delete them the following day). I know some people say you should force yourself to write a certain amount every day, but if you just can’t then there’s no point beating yourself up about it. Listen to music. Go for a walk. Paint the kitchen ceiling. Above all, don’t think obsessively about whatever it is you’re stuck on. Your subconscious will whirr away in the background and by the time you return to your desk, chances are that scene will have coalesced in your mind. 2. Be prepared. This is of course an excellent rule for life in general, but it applies to writing as much as anything else. Ideas tend to pop up when you least expect them: in the bath, on the bus, in the middle of a boring meeting. I often find that when I’ve hit a spell of uninspiration, it’s only when I’m away from my laptop that I can have any ideas at all – because that’s when I relax and stop putting so much pressure on myself. So carry a little notebook around with you, and then when the ideas do show up you’ll be able to capture them. (I realise this may be tricky in the bath; this is where a voice recorder or a willing spouse comes in handy.) 3. Go with the flow. Half the time, what I should be working on isn’t at all what I want to be working on. And usually I find the best way to deal with that is simply to go with it. Write what needs to come out of you, not what you think you ought to be writing. Forcing the issue will only result in something that’s stilted, awkward and/or clunky. I realise this isn’t a great solution when you have deadlines to meet, but even half an hour spent working on your current passion can get you back in the right mindset. Then, once you’ve showed yourself that you aren’t an utter failure who will never string a coherent sentence together again, you can get on with whatever it is that needs doing. 4. Try a new perspective. Sometimes when I’m really stuck, I go back to a scene I’ve already written and write it from a different POV. Or I take a passage of text and switch it from first to third person or vice versa. Or I pick a character, invent a scenario that isn’t going to appear in any book, and walk them through it to see how they’d react. This kind of playing around has a number of benefits. It reassures you that you can still wield your tools. It teaches you things you didn’t know about your characters, and allows you to experiment with different ways of doing things. Best of all, it might even give you a better way of handling a scene or a completely new idea you haven’t considered before. If nothing else, it’s fun. Anyway, I hope that helps. And if all else fails, you can always write a blog about the issue. When I was young – by which I mean 12 or 13 – I decided to write a fantasy novel. The sort of book I enjoyed reading myself at the time. I didn’t know anything about story arcs or characterisation or POV. It didn’t even occur to me that there might be more to writing than picking up a pen and getting started. On the other hand, I had read an awful lot of books, which at least meant I had a reasonable vocabulary and a vague understanding of how to construct a sentence.
So, I had my idea and I set off with it. There were numerous false starts and obstructions along the way, of course: other writing projects I started and abandoned, little hindrances like school and homework and exams, periodic cases of ‘rip it all up and start again’. Getting my first computer helped; falling in love with a totally unavailable member of the opposite sex didn’t. But finally, I had something that could justifiably be called a completed novel. It was rubbish. Yet despite the clichés and the one-dimensional characters and the plot contrivances, the basic idea remained a good one. It was just my execution that was at fault. And so, with a few more years’ experience behind me and a better understanding of what I was doing, I set out to rewrite the thing. And I improved the language and tidied up the POV and added depth to the plot. And that was Novel Mark II. It was OK, but still not brilliant. So then – well, I think you get where I’m going with this. The book went through iteration after iteration, and each time it improved to a greater or lesser extent. But the problem was, by then I’d grown attached to certain scenes or characters or ways of putting things. So whereas someone coming to it afresh might have cut out a vast chunk here and changed an entire plot point there, my progress was a lot more incremental. The book was evolving. But it was evolving very, very slowly. By then it was ridiculously long and I’d pretty much lost all sense of what I needed to do to make it right. So I tucked it away on a high shelf and began to write something else instead. And this time, because of all the experience I’d gained on the first project, I knew what I was doing.* I plotted in advance. I set my POV characters and my word count up front. And then I went for it. Instead of years, it took me a few months. I edited once for logic and once for nitpicks and that was it. Done. So what’s the point I'm trying to make by telling you this little story? Well, the evolving novel was obviously a good thing in some ways. I think it taught me a lot more than if I’d started a completely new project each time, because it allowed me to see how what I was changing affected the book for the better (or worse). In addition, I know that world and its characters inside out. I’ve spent so long in it that I probably know more about it than I do about reality. Yet what I’ve also found is that it’s very hard to pick something apart once it’s written. The first draft is by far the most important. Like a pearl around a grain of dirt, everything in a book will build on that first set of words. And if those words happen to have been written when you were 12 years old and pretty clueless about writing, you won’t have an easy task ahead of you. Evolution is a useful process. But sometimes you have to accept it won’t be the evolving book that gets the full benefit of it. * Relatively speaking, of course. I don’t ever claim to really know what I’m doing. |
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