Learn from the Experts, and Weep
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| Masterworks of fiction awaiting evaluation |
Rip it up. All that blood, sweat and booze - wasted. With noble intent and inspired labour you have single-handedly created what must be a literary masterpiece. Surely, justice and honour demand recognition. But, my dear weeping reader, lofty concept has been out to lunch with its close associate, fair play, for as long as there has been paper to write on.
What counts is talented technique, and failing that, just plain old formulaic technique.
In my post of January 8th or thereabouts (let's not get too fussed) titled Writing Your Novel - how NOT to do it, I gave a dozen gold-plated, bottled-at-the-source, from-the-horses-mouth points on the subject of getting it right but, as tiredness and emotion were extracting their inevitable toll, I merely mentioned that a sea of good advice awaited any writer brave enough to seek it.
This warning was directed at you, yes YOU there, cowering at your desk. And let me say, these accursed suggestions, advisories and commandments seem to breed faster than they can be controlled. So, before the situation gets out of hand, I thought I'd better table a few more of them.
You will forgive me I hope if one or two of these points bears an uncanny resemblance to what may have been said before, which (and I only just thought of this killer argument) plainly goes to show how tremendously apt, indeed vital, they are.
What follows has been gleaned from both my own extensive and interminable enlightenment as a writer and from sleuthing in the works of others. Needless to say, this no. 2 list is not (groan) definitive.
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| Something big turns up |
Oh yes, for as long as people have had the quill in their hand, there has been no shortage of writing advice. Note carefully however: these sowers of wisdom have already made it big. They have been embraced at every level or whatever level is important to their success. Not only does this tend to confirm in their minds that what worked for them is undoubtedly going to work for you as you struggle in the literary mire, but that as a consequence they are entitled (should the mood take them) to proffer, ah, whimsical solutions to your dire problems.
Thus, in our avid, not to say, pathetic quest for our writing grail, we will encounter pronouncements of such momentous eminence that we can do aught but be awed by them, as follows:
- Take a pencil to write with on aeroplanes ... (preferably) two. If both pencils break, you can do a rough sharpening job with a nail file (Margaret Atwood).
- Do not place a photograph of your favourite author on your desk, especially if the author (has) committed suicide (Roddy Doyle).
- Don't have arguments with your wife in the morning, or late at night (Richard Ford).
- Get lucky ... stay lucky (Ian Rankin).
- Don't write in public places ... it should be done only in private, like any lavatorial activity (Geoff Dyer).
- Work in the morning ... the afternoon ... and go back to work until bed-time. On Saturdays ... watch an old Bergman film ... (and) no going to London, no going anywhere else either (Colm Toibin).
- Stop reading fiction - it's all lies anyway ... if you haven't (read a great deal of fiction in the past) you have no business at all being a writer of fiction (Will Self).
Well, they must have their fun along the professional writing journey (although I acknowledge that much of their advice not shown here is first-rate), except for Will Self, who thinks he really is giving good advice with the kind of quote we see above. What a comfort it must be to know that your utterances are the definitive word.
As an antidote to designer-label advice from Big Name authors, I suggest, nay hint, that the gems that follow from an obscure non-entity such as yours truly may chime with aspiring and, how to put it, modestly recognised writers of fiction.
Craft a strong or intriguing or engaging story. Is your story worth telling at all? Would anybody care if the whole thing was lost on the train home? Remember - not all news is newsworthy (have I said that before? - if not, I should have).
Tell your story in a straightforward way, preferably linear, starting at the beginning and in accordance with in-time events, progressing to the finish. This is so simple it seems stupid to say it at all. So, be warned: flash-backs and fast-forwards must be handled skilfully, in order not to confuse, and in any case limited to the essential. If it's backstory, dialogue or reminiscence may be a better alternative to some plodding, exhaustive flashback.
Make your characters interesting or at least worth having an opinion about. Readers don't have to like all the characters but there must be a spark in all of them, unless you are really and truly portraying a dullard. A good tip is to ask yourself why that character is there - what's their purpose? If you can't quickly give a good answer it's time to question their presence in your story.
Of course, major characters need lesser beings to act against, to compare favourable with, to give contrast. But you've got yourself a book you didn't plan on if a 'minor' character displays tendencies of running away with the story. Maybe that protagonist of yours is the colourless accessory to the action taking place somewhere else? What's this book about anyway?
You're going to need a hero or heroine (or both), for want of better words. This character - what they want, what they do, how they react, how others react to them - is the driver of the plot. They are rarely the entire story but they are it's focus and main interest. Conrad's Nostromo is a story about Nostromo; Proulx's Shipping News is a story about Quoyle; Stow's To the Islands is a story about Herriot; Toole's A Confederacy of Dunces is a story about Ignatius J Reilly. All these novels employ strong and convincing supporting casts but at the end there is no doubt who owns the story.
There is, of course, such a thing as the ensemble story, featuring several co-protagonists. No one character dominates but you'd better be sure you give your readers a story they can engage with and an ending that rounds things up for the characters or on a theme or both, or those readers will rightly say, as they metaphorically snap the covers together, 'so what'. And chances are that they won't bother to read you again.
So, have a conclusion, an ending which satisfies the reader. The task facing the protagonist needs to be brought to fulfillment. He or she should win in some way or another.
A story is not worthy of its name if it just sits there and sulks. 'I went to bed, I slept, I got up.' Where's the movement, action, drama, interest? 'I came, I saw, I conquered' has more potential but as a one line grab it still lacks the essential element of struggle. A story needs conflict, forces which thwart the protagonist but are, through struggle, finally defeated. Obstacles must be overcome. The hero must prevail in the face of difficulty.
This need not be violent and destructive. Redemption, justification, happiness, call it what you will, may come in subtle forms. And we've all read books which do a fine job over four hundred pages or so of leaving us with no denoument at all, no conclusion, or at least a collection of possibilities still asking the question 'how does it all turn out?'. This is not a recommended technique for beginning writers. It is very unlikely to be the direct route to bestsellardom.
A dash of romance can help. Forgive me - I can hardly believe I said that, being an active disciple in the romance-avoidance movement. Perhaps I should have modified this guideline by saying that romance is OK if it shuns sentimentality. Preserve us at all costs from the poor-me bleeding heart who unashamedly peddles love-related sentimentality.
And yet, many a best-seller is ripe with the indulgence of other kinds of emotion - pain, suffering, victimisation, cruelty, rejection etc. Is this blatant exploitation of human sympathies? Who cares, say the marketers. If you can make 'em laugh and make 'em cry you've got a winner. I'm fighting hard not to believe this but ...
If you must write sex, write it well, although I'm dammed if I know why this 'rule' counts. We have before us innumerable descriptions of sex which are the fodder of the Bad Sex Awards (BSA). This means that this drivel has already been published (therefore having received the tick of approval from agents and publishers) and will, due to its further exposure via the BSA publicity machine, no doubt go on to further sales success.
Does the sex writing conundrum reveal a deeper truth? Is it better to simply be noticed, for anything at all? That media junkie, Rose Hancock, said that there was no such thing as bad publicity. Perhaps she's right. It hasn't hurt many a popular writer. I think (he said, steering a wide course around that zillion seller Multiple Grades of Dull Writing) of Sebastian Faulks' Birdsong which nearly made me puke at the sheer awfulness of its sex scenes. Cringeworthy is too mild a word to describe it. Pity Faulks didn't stick to the trench warfare bit, at which he was very good.
If the story can be kept simple, do it. Plot twists, unexpected event or reactions, layered or parallel lines of progression, veiled meaning, psychological complexity etc. are all very well but they risk confusing the reader. The story should never be so fractured or dense that the reader loses interest. To write a novel that alienates the reader means you are entertaining only one person - yourself.
Write clearly. We know that English is a rich language and that many authors write to a literate audience but this does not mean the indulgence and deliberate use of abstruse words and phrases, forms of construction or concepts. You might understand it all but much of your potential readership won't.
Then there is the matter of deep and meaningful writing. The picture you see, the feeling you experience, may be very clear to you (or perhaps even nebulous but powerful), but is that what you have just written about on the page? Make sure that the intangible thing that so moves you is expressed in a way that allows the reader to understand it too. There is nothing to be gained from baffling the reader. If you are clear in your own mind as to what it is you mean to express then you will find a way to make it clear to your audience.
The above does not mean a return to the language of the first grade. Dumbing-down is not the aim of the exercise. Just write your fiction so that you limit the number of times the reader has to reach for the dictionary and for pity's sake don't write so esoterically that he/she feels like disemboweling the book in frustration and rage.
Avoid deep psychological dissection and literary breast-beating. Your readers don't want to know all that stuff. They want a good story told well. Leave off being a clever dick. You are far better served by practising the craft (art?) of being an effective writer of riveting fiction.
Employ a balanced mix of dialogue and narrative. Both are needed. Too much continuous dialogue confuses the reader in a he said/she said tennis match duel. Too much narrative, especially in interminably long paragraphs, risks boring / antagonising the reader and stalling the drive of the story.
Dialogue needs to be real. I don't mean the translation of patois or accent (there's a minefield there unless it's done with skill and restraint), rather a reflection of the way conversation should sound in the reader's head. Tricky, I know. We are trying to avoid stilted, essay-perfect speech but likewise not making a direct copy of how people converse face-to-face.
Talk is full of repetition, incomplete sentences, jargon, short hand, nonsense, and feelings verbalisation (ah, the wonderful Victor Borge and his phonetic punctuation - pure genius). Depicting street speech would drive a reader mad.
The approach to narrative is highly individual. Some writers are spare, others florid. Some stories require extensive narrative, others would choke on it. When it comes to description of places, persons and actions we can find successful exponents of the minimal to champions of the excessive. It has been said that too much description denies readers the delicious exercise of imagination, as well as putting the brakes on the advance of action, while too little description leaves them floundering in an ocean of unknowns.
And don't start me on this show-not-tell mantra. It's hammered in at creative writing classes as the commandment Moses hid behind his back. We all know, for example, that telling the reader that Mr Cuddly is really a cruel, vindictive bastard is less effective that writing the incidents that show he is a cruel, vindictive bastard.
But I cannot tell you how many praised authors employ the tell method and nobody says 'Oh naughty you, breaking the golden rule.' I suppose it is as Sarah Waters has said: 'Talent trumps all. If you're a really great writer, none of (the) rules need apply.' For what it's worth, I think it is also true that if you are a stand-out crappy writer of stuff people want to read, you likewise can forget the rules, if you ever knew them. Your audience most certainly doesn't and what's more, doesn't care.
Make your research an understatement. You may have trekked half the globe, turned albino ransacking gloomy archives, and alienated legions with in-depth interviews, all to make your story authentic, but keep a firm grip on it. Use it with restraint. Your research serves the story, not upstages it. No matter how fascinating the information may be, most readers will not thank you for inserting into your fiction a diversionary treatise on the form and function of the neolithic penny whistle. Anyone who will thank you is not reading your book - they are up to their necks in tomes about the neolithic.
Humour engages the reader, so use it where you think it will work. But perhaps you are a naturally amusing writer, in which case the humour will come out of its own accord. I'm not talking jokes here. What I mean is whimsy, comic irony, self-deprecation, grim laughter, the release valve of natural living, the repartee that makes us human.
And serious fiction has room for some humour, or should. It makes the story more approachable, more survivable, when the weighty message is mitigated with an occasional light touch. I was on my knees, begging, for any character at all to see a comic slant to anything which assaults us in Cormac McCarthy's The Road. How else could I avoid chucking myself under a bus (same feeling when viewing Ingmar Bergman films).
Well, now that it's time to say goodbye, now that it's time to yield that sigh, I think I'll go to the vault and try to put my hands on that slapstick standby, Leonard Cohen at the Circus. But fear not, I'll not abandon you without a final word on the weid world of writing. Note well this shining gem of insight:
As an antidote to designer-label advice from Big Name authors, I suggest, nay hint, that the gems that follow from an obscure non-entity such as yours truly may chime with aspiring and, how to put it, modestly recognised writers of fiction.
Craft a strong or intriguing or engaging story. Is your story worth telling at all? Would anybody care if the whole thing was lost on the train home? Remember - not all news is newsworthy (have I said that before? - if not, I should have).
Tell your story in a straightforward way, preferably linear, starting at the beginning and in accordance with in-time events, progressing to the finish. This is so simple it seems stupid to say it at all. So, be warned: flash-backs and fast-forwards must be handled skilfully, in order not to confuse, and in any case limited to the essential. If it's backstory, dialogue or reminiscence may be a better alternative to some plodding, exhaustive flashback.
Make your characters interesting or at least worth having an opinion about. Readers don't have to like all the characters but there must be a spark in all of them, unless you are really and truly portraying a dullard. A good tip is to ask yourself why that character is there - what's their purpose? If you can't quickly give a good answer it's time to question their presence in your story.
 |
| Scene stealer upsetting scripted order of events. |
You're going to need a hero or heroine (or both), for want of better words. This character - what they want, what they do, how they react, how others react to them - is the driver of the plot. They are rarely the entire story but they are it's focus and main interest. Conrad's Nostromo is a story about Nostromo; Proulx's Shipping News is a story about Quoyle; Stow's To the Islands is a story about Herriot; Toole's A Confederacy of Dunces is a story about Ignatius J Reilly. All these novels employ strong and convincing supporting casts but at the end there is no doubt who owns the story.
There is, of course, such a thing as the ensemble story, featuring several co-protagonists. No one character dominates but you'd better be sure you give your readers a story they can engage with and an ending that rounds things up for the characters or on a theme or both, or those readers will rightly say, as they metaphorically snap the covers together, 'so what'. And chances are that they won't bother to read you again.
So, have a conclusion, an ending which satisfies the reader. The task facing the protagonist needs to be brought to fulfillment. He or she should win in some way or another.
A story is not worthy of its name if it just sits there and sulks. 'I went to bed, I slept, I got up.' Where's the movement, action, drama, interest? 'I came, I saw, I conquered' has more potential but as a one line grab it still lacks the essential element of struggle. A story needs conflict, forces which thwart the protagonist but are, through struggle, finally defeated. Obstacles must be overcome. The hero must prevail in the face of difficulty.
 |
| What obstacle? |
This need not be violent and destructive. Redemption, justification, happiness, call it what you will, may come in subtle forms. And we've all read books which do a fine job over four hundred pages or so of leaving us with no denoument at all, no conclusion, or at least a collection of possibilities still asking the question 'how does it all turn out?'. This is not a recommended technique for beginning writers. It is very unlikely to be the direct route to bestsellardom.
A dash of romance can help. Forgive me - I can hardly believe I said that, being an active disciple in the romance-avoidance movement. Perhaps I should have modified this guideline by saying that romance is OK if it shuns sentimentality. Preserve us at all costs from the poor-me bleeding heart who unashamedly peddles love-related sentimentality.
And yet, many a best-seller is ripe with the indulgence of other kinds of emotion - pain, suffering, victimisation, cruelty, rejection etc. Is this blatant exploitation of human sympathies? Who cares, say the marketers. If you can make 'em laugh and make 'em cry you've got a winner. I'm fighting hard not to believe this but ...
If you must write sex, write it well, although I'm dammed if I know why this 'rule' counts. We have before us innumerable descriptions of sex which are the fodder of the Bad Sex Awards (BSA). This means that this drivel has already been published (therefore having received the tick of approval from agents and publishers) and will, due to its further exposure via the BSA publicity machine, no doubt go on to further sales success.
 |
| So that's what's down there! - tireless research bears fruit |
If the story can be kept simple, do it. Plot twists, unexpected event or reactions, layered or parallel lines of progression, veiled meaning, psychological complexity etc. are all very well but they risk confusing the reader. The story should never be so fractured or dense that the reader loses interest. To write a novel that alienates the reader means you are entertaining only one person - yourself.
Write clearly. We know that English is a rich language and that many authors write to a literate audience but this does not mean the indulgence and deliberate use of abstruse words and phrases, forms of construction or concepts. You might understand it all but much of your potential readership won't.
Then there is the matter of deep and meaningful writing. The picture you see, the feeling you experience, may be very clear to you (or perhaps even nebulous but powerful), but is that what you have just written about on the page? Make sure that the intangible thing that so moves you is expressed in a way that allows the reader to understand it too. There is nothing to be gained from baffling the reader. If you are clear in your own mind as to what it is you mean to express then you will find a way to make it clear to your audience.
The above does not mean a return to the language of the first grade. Dumbing-down is not the aim of the exercise. Just write your fiction so that you limit the number of times the reader has to reach for the dictionary and for pity's sake don't write so esoterically that he/she feels like disemboweling the book in frustration and rage.
Avoid deep psychological dissection and literary breast-beating. Your readers don't want to know all that stuff. They want a good story told well. Leave off being a clever dick. You are far better served by practising the craft (art?) of being an effective writer of riveting fiction.
Employ a balanced mix of dialogue and narrative. Both are needed. Too much continuous dialogue confuses the reader in a he said/she said tennis match duel. Too much narrative, especially in interminably long paragraphs, risks boring / antagonising the reader and stalling the drive of the story.
Dialogue needs to be real. I don't mean the translation of patois or accent (there's a minefield there unless it's done with skill and restraint), rather a reflection of the way conversation should sound in the reader's head. Tricky, I know. We are trying to avoid stilted, essay-perfect speech but likewise not making a direct copy of how people converse face-to-face.
 |
| Victor Borge in full flight |
Talk is full of repetition, incomplete sentences, jargon, short hand, nonsense, and feelings verbalisation (ah, the wonderful Victor Borge and his phonetic punctuation - pure genius). Depicting street speech would drive a reader mad.
The approach to narrative is highly individual. Some writers are spare, others florid. Some stories require extensive narrative, others would choke on it. When it comes to description of places, persons and actions we can find successful exponents of the minimal to champions of the excessive. It has been said that too much description denies readers the delicious exercise of imagination, as well as putting the brakes on the advance of action, while too little description leaves them floundering in an ocean of unknowns.
And don't start me on this show-not-tell mantra. It's hammered in at creative writing classes as the commandment Moses hid behind his back. We all know, for example, that telling the reader that Mr Cuddly is really a cruel, vindictive bastard is less effective that writing the incidents that show he is a cruel, vindictive bastard.
 |
| Principles of fine writing receiving careful scrutiny |
Make your research an understatement. You may have trekked half the globe, turned albino ransacking gloomy archives, and alienated legions with in-depth interviews, all to make your story authentic, but keep a firm grip on it. Use it with restraint. Your research serves the story, not upstages it. No matter how fascinating the information may be, most readers will not thank you for inserting into your fiction a diversionary treatise on the form and function of the neolithic penny whistle. Anyone who will thank you is not reading your book - they are up to their necks in tomes about the neolithic.
Humour engages the reader, so use it where you think it will work. But perhaps you are a naturally amusing writer, in which case the humour will come out of its own accord. I'm not talking jokes here. What I mean is whimsy, comic irony, self-deprecation, grim laughter, the release valve of natural living, the repartee that makes us human.
And serious fiction has room for some humour, or should. It makes the story more approachable, more survivable, when the weighty message is mitigated with an occasional light touch. I was on my knees, begging, for any character at all to see a comic slant to anything which assaults us in Cormac McCarthy's The Road. How else could I avoid chucking myself under a bus (same feeling when viewing Ingmar Bergman films).
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| Viewer of Ingmar Bergman film in typical joyous mood |
Well, now that it's time to say goodbye, now that it's time to yield that sigh, I think I'll go to the vault and try to put my hands on that slapstick standby, Leonard Cohen at the Circus. But fear not, I'll not abandon you without a final word on the weid world of writing. Note well this shining gem of insight:
'Only bad writers think that their work is really good' (Anne Enright).
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