Tag: fiction

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Money for Nothing, Join for Free

There are a couple of perennial topics on this blog. One of them is public speaking, and the other is banging the drum about joining the Authors’ Licensing and Collecting Society.

The ALCS was founded in 1977 to ensure writers are given fair payments for any of their works that are copied, broadcast or recorded. The organisation is the literary equivalent of the better-known PRS for Music, which does a similar job for musicians.

This year, £35,038,136 was shared between 111,415 members. It’s important to note this is not an equal share, but calculated according to the activity of each author’s work. You can bet that bestsellers like Richard Osman and Julia Donaldson took a sizeable chunk of the pie.

My payment this year was around £133. It’s not enough to live on, of course, but it’ll pay my energy company for nearly two months. What’s more, that’s from just nine publications spanning as many years.

So how does an author grab a piece of the action?

The ALCS has recently suspended online applications for reasons unknown, but will accept a postal version. Visit the How to Join page to download and fill in the form.

You don’t need to send any money. Instead, the organisation will deduct a one-off fee of £36 once you’ve earned that figure in royalties. This grants you lifetime membership. Payments are collected for a variety of different visual works, so check the website for details of these.

To start earning, you’ll need to enter the ISBN of each work you’ve had published. This is the 13-digit string of numbers beside the barcode, or 10 digits if the book was published before 2007. Remember to include every publication where you receive credit, regardless of its age.

After all that, it’s just a matter of maintaining your list of works on the website and awaiting the annual payment.

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Going Off-Script

From 2002 to 2005, I studied for a BSc Music Technology degree at what is now called the University of the West of Scotland. The course taught us how commercial music is recorded, along with related skills such as composition, Web design, and making promotional videos.

Last week, I had cause to rake out a short film I’d made as part of the degree. It dates from around 2003 or 2004, but nobody had thought to write the date on the box.

Although DVD was fast becoming the dominant format, we had to submit the piece on VHS. I wish I’d at least kept a disc-based copy. I can’t say for sure whether the tape has been partially wiped or whether my video recorder is at fault, but the picture is almost unwatchable.

The sound, by contrast, is more or less intact. Hearing this for the first time in years unexpectedly reminded me of the scriptwriting process. I distinctly remember sitting in the student union discussing ideas before someone flippantly said, ‘Why don’t we make it about four students who fall out making a film?’ That flippant suggestion became the backbone of our script.

At this point, I wasn’t routinely writing any fiction, but I recall enjoying the process. This should have been a foreshadowing of where my interest would ultimately lie in the future.

Some of the lines were a little clunky, aside from gems like He’s about as much use as a mic stand, yet the structure was spot-on. Each character blamed one or more of the others for the failure of the film, whether it was the director having a go at the others for not understanding his vision, the technician who kept forgetting to charge up the camera batteries, or an unseen ex-girlfriend who split up with one character to date another.

It really does leave the viewer guessing, and I’d be pleased if I managed to pull off that complexity in a current piece. What’s more, the action takes place in a span of well under five minutes. I vaguely recall our brevity cost us some marks, but it was a self-contained story.

I haven’t yet returned the tape to the cupboard, so my plan is to find someone with another video recorder to test whether my equipment or the tape is at fault. At a minimum, it would be prudent to make a safety copy of at least the audio portion and figure out whether the drama could be adapted into a longer piece.

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Friday Poetry in St Andrews

It’s the time of year for StAnza, the annual poetry festival in St Andrews. I’ve made a point of going for some years now, as it’s only half an hour away by bus.

I would normally go on a Saturday and/or a Sunday, but I could only attend the launch party on Friday instead, and this also meant missing a visit to a pal who lives nearby. Before the pandemic, I would set aside the weekend, typically staying in the town. I’ve fallen out of that habit, but next year would be a good time to resurrect it.

During the same period, the festival length has been reduced from six days to three. I’ve heard grumbles from poetry pals about this cut-down programme, this would work in my favour. By omitting weekdays other than Friday night, there’s less chance of events clashing with work, and I’d be able to attend late-night readings with a finishing time dangerously close to the last bus home.

The next email I’m expecting from StAnza is a feedback form. They’ve nothing to worry about on that front, as I enjoyed the launch. Half of it was improv, calling poets at random to read poetry themed around colours, with the other half a structured reading from Ruth Padel.

The more important aspect is that such festivals often rely on sponsors for their continued operation. The more customer reaction the organisers receive, the easier it is to convince funders to back it the following year, so always fill these in.

The other two places I would like to visit for the first time, ideally this year, are the Wigtown Book Festival and the Orkney Storytelling Festival. These start in September and October respectively, but it’s a good idea to start planning now.

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When to Veer Off-Course

I’m a founding member of a monthly writing group called the Wyverns. Over the decade or so of existence, the format has remained relatively constant. A prompt or theme is agreed upon at each session and the members strive to write a poem on that theme for the following session, in return for constructive feedback.

These prompts are generally abstract or open to interpretation because our members write in a variety of styles. Recent themes include peace, cartoon characters and view or scene. I couldn’t make it to the last meeting, so I’m not aware of the conversation that happened, only that the resulting prompt was the more specific Devices that control our lives.

Importantly, the prompts are not mandatory but are treated as a springboard that members can use for their work. As such, this is one of the few instances where I’m considering not following it and instead submitting work on another topic.

On the one hand, I’m up for a challenge. Some of the most difficult prompts have resulted in superior work that I might not have achieved with a simpler one. On the other hand, I’m growing weary of hearing such endless discussions and debates, let alone contributing to them.

It’s not always wise to evade the brief. Try submitting a piece to a competition that isn’t within the rules and I guarantee the editor will have binned it by the time the ink dries on the rejection letter. But there are instances where it’s acceptable to change the nature of what you’re writing.

In 2019, I was looking to write a short joke about how YouTube originally started as a mail-order video-rental catalogue. The more I considered the idea, the more detail I kept adding. It turned into a 1,700-word short story. In the process, it morphed from a one-liner into a satirical alternate history, yet I was pleased with the outcome.

I’m still considering what to do with the Wyverns prompt, but I do intend to submit something before our meeting next month.

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Stories That Spawned a Saying

There are any number of everyday sayings that started out as phrases in literary works.

The example that comes most easily to mind is Hamlet. The script virtually acts as a Rosetta Stone of phrases that were probably fresh when first penned by William Shakespeare, but have since devolved into clichés. We won’t have time to explore all these in this entry; besides, Wikipedia has us covered.

Before introducing the two phrases I’d like to explore, a couple of honourable mentions:

Monkey’s Paw

Last week at writing group, one of the members used the phrase monkey’s paw. Having never heard it before, I assumed this was the invention of the Internet era, perhaps in reference to some meme or another. As such, I was surprised to find it dates back to 1902, specifically a short story by W W Jacobs. With those initials, it’s a real shame he didn’t live to see the World Wide Web.

The story centres around a mummified monkey’s paw which has been cursed. The owner will be granted any wish by the paw, but always with unforeseen consequences. This has come to apply to any similar situation in real life where the positive effect is outweighed by the negative.

The Monkey’s Paw is now in the public domain and can be read on the Project Gutenberg website. On the whole, I feel it’s well-written, but I would like to have seen more time taken to ramp up the tension before the third wish was used.

Jekyll & Hyde

On Thursday of last week, I went with a couple of pals to a stage production of Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde; a search reveals the title is apparently not prefixed with The.

The concept of a Jekyll and Hyde character is so widely known that even those unfamiliar with the Robert Louis Stevenson novel often understand his duality. I too wasn’t particularly familiar with the story, but I enjoyed its execution and I’d be interested in reading it in full.

This particular adaptation took the source material and turned it into a one-woman stage production. Additionally, I’m already acquainted with the writer (J D Henshaw) and the performer (Heather-Rose Andrews), and we had a brief discussion after the show about the staging of it.

There was, unfortunately, just one scheduled performance or I would urge you to go and see one.

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Blogging on The Move

On Wednesday and Thursday of last week, I had a plan to visit the eight Millennium bridges in mainland Great Britain: seven listed on Wikipedia and an unlisted one in Ayr that I learnt about from pals. Along the way, I would keep a blog of my progress on Tumblr.

As I had such a strong idea about where I would be at certain times and what I’d be doing, I was actually able to draft a substantial chunk of text in advance and simply copy it over to my travelogue.

Real life, of course, frequently has other plans. For instance, my first stop was to be the Millennium Bridge in London. However, my train from Edinburgh Waverley was cancelled at Newcastle. By coincidence, I’d planned to stop there on the way back for the Gateshead bridge, so I hastily wrote up a revised entry explaining the situation.

The planning did pay off, though. When reached the Big Smoke, I’d also planned to make a quick side-visit to the former London Weekend Television Tower and I’d already written and edited a block of text about why I was going there.

It was helpful that most of the trains had at least a USB socket, if not a 230-volt socket, so I rarely worried about running out of power. It was also helpful to have an All Lines Rover, which lets you travel on almost any National Rail line for a week, as it was necessary to be very flexible about my plans.

That was especially true when I cut the tour short after the seventh bridge at Ayr. The Glasgow one was within sniffing distance, but Storm Éowyn was closing in. There were already some cancellations that day, and no trains the following day, so I couldn’t risk being stranded.

By complete coincidence, I missed the bulk of its effects. The same day, I’d already arranged to be in York, where I’d booked a hotel before the full tour was planned, with it being somewhat central. I was then heading further south to visit a pal in Rhos on Sea. I did catch the fringe of Storm Herminia as I visited Penzance and Land’s End, but that was rather tame in comparison.

Some of these journeys took hours at a time, allowing me to make a lot of progress on a fantasy fiction series I’m writing. I write different projects in different ways, and this one uses a Google Drive document in a browser so the formatting of the text matches the paragraph spacing of the website, meaning I can copy over the text wholesale.

Even today, phone signal is still patchy on many parts of the nation’s railways. I’d assumed Google would simply cache my text locally during dropouts and post it when I next reconnected. What happens instead is that the browser won’t accept any more input until the signal is present. To work around this, I made a local copy, which I hope has maintained the correct formatting.

My next piece of writing will be less fun: an email to Great Western Railway, who sold me the train ticket. While the staff accepted it, all but two automatic ticket barriers failed to recognise it, and those two were only at exits rather than entrances.

That was the second time I’ve been on a tour of the Millennium bridges, the first being in 2023. Although I’ve no plans to do that route again. I’ve learnt a lot about how to prepare for such a tour and how to write about it. Once I think of a new challenge, I’ll build on that even further and tell you about it nearer the time.

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Fun with Fandoms

The website Archive of Our Own – or AO3 to its users – has existed since 2008, growing in popularity over the next few years. Writers can use it to post fan fiction, taking characters that already exist from books, films or even real life, then placing them into new stories or retelling existing stories from another angle.

Despite knowing about the site since almost day one, I didn’t open an account because I only used it to read the stories of one pal who would use characters from Star Wars.

More recently, it’s been brought to my attention that another pal writes and collaborates on steamy romances between two male Formula One drivers, so I finally opened an account in September to read them. Then, quite independently, I learnt someone else had published a multi-part tale placing the members of a 21st-century alternative rock band into a 1930s adventure story.

I’m being deliberately imprecise in these descriptions because all three writers use pseudonyms and don’t necessarily want their identities associated with their pseudonyms.

It’s common for fan fiction authors to stay anonymous, as some published authors actively dislike their characters being used in other work, even when the resulting work isn’t earning any money. Anne Rice and George R R Martin are two prominent examples. In other cases, there is potential for libel where living people are featured.

While mere threats of legal action are a dime a dozen, I can think of just one case involving fan fiction that actually went to court. In 2009, Darryn Walker was arrested on charges of obscenity after writing a story imagining the kidnap and murder of the pop group Girls Aloud. Ultimately, the author was cleared of all charges. If you’re interested, the offending text has been archived.

Although I’ve published many short stories online, they all featured original characters rather than existing ones. I think if I were going to write any fan fiction, I’d probably pick Rosaline from Romeo & Juliet. For starters, there’s no risk of legal action from William Shakespeare. For seconds, she’s a seriously underdeveloped character considering how pivotal she is to the early plot; if she hadn’t rejected Romeo, the events of the entire play might never have happened.

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Start a Story Late, Finish it Early

Every so often, a pal and I run a readathon where we invite members to set aside some time one weekend to catch up on reading. It last took place a couple of weekends ago, and I intended to make some progress with War & Peace.

However much I wanted to read, though, I kept putting it aside because I wanted to write. I can’t think of the last time I had such an urge to pick up a pen. I was continuing a fantasy series under a pseudonym on a well-known website. It’s a passion project and I can’t foresee a time where I wish to claim ownership, so references to the plot will be vague.

The classic wisdom for writing a story, and especially a play, is to start late and leave early. The aim is to hook the reader by going straight into the drama rather than explaning the backstory, which can be done once said drama is established.

Stories will sometimes will arrive fully-formed, and these are a joy to write. In the most recent parts, I’ve had a strong idea of where the charcters should be, yet I’ve struggled with how to place them there while maintaning the pace of the story.

Despite its genre, this series still has one foot in the recognisable world. In the most recent part, I needed four characters to end up in a riverside cottage and I tried to build up a sense of drama before they even arrived.

The first draft saw their trains delayed because of industral action and bad weather, so there was a sense of relief upon arrival. Another draft saw them arrive early, only to be told by the grumpy cottage owner they couldn’t enter for another two hours.

Because fiction is so subjective and personal, it’s difficult to teach someone how to spot where the action should begin. When you’ve been doing it for a while, though, you develop a sense of where it fits best.

As I continued, I realised the real drama would happen at the cottage, so I didn’t need to create any more on the journey and I began the story at the time of their arrival. By contrast, if I’d needed to convey any backstory to the reader, having the characters stuck on a train chatting about previous events might have been the ideal way to do it.

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Oh No, It’s Not a Panto

It’s widely known in the theatre industry that Christmas pantomimes often keep venues financially afloat for the remainder of the year. As such, many companies take the opportunity to stage sure-fire hits, sometimes bringing in a celebrity to play one of the leads.

There are exceptions, however, like the Dundee Rep. They no doubt face the same financial pressures as any other theatre, as the Christmas production is generally a tried-and-tested hit, but they steer clear of traditional pantomime. Previous productions have included A Christmas Carol or The Snow Queen.

This year, the Rep has taken yet another approach with Oor Wullie: The Musical.

Like a pantomime, there’s a good guy and his sidekicks, a cruel baddie intent on causing mayhem, and a focus on laughs rather than plot. The script employs a similar technique to last year’s hit film Barbie, where the audience is invited to suspend their disbelief as characters transfer between the real world and the fantasy world at will.

Yet there are few of the traditional hallmarks. There are no crowd shout-outs and the action isn’t set at Christmas-time. Instead, the three main hooks are:

  1. The character of Oor Wullie is owned and published by the Dundee-based DC Thomson, so the audience is familiar with the setting and the catchphrases.
  2. It’s one of the few festive productions where a significant portion of the dialogue is in Scots.
  3. The show has previously been staged and is a proven hit.

I’ve talked rather dryly about the production so far, but I had a lot of fun seeing this on Friday just gone. If you’re nearby and fancy it as well, there are just a few more shows left.

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Subject Matters

I learnt yesterday that Jamie Oliver has withdrawn his children’s novel Billy and the Epic Escape over accusations that it stereotyped Indigenous Australians. It had already been on sale for six months.

As the backlash dies down, it’s being quickly replaced by puzzlement. If this book had been written by a previously-unknown author and released by a small press, it’s easier to see how this might have happened.

But this is one of the country’s best-known celebrity chefs contracted to one of the five largest publishers in the world, namely Penguin Random House. The manuscript will have been seen by countless pairs of eyes before the first copy was even printed. Each would have looked at a specific element such as grammar or typesetting, and that would typically include some consultation with the community it portrays. The story is also widely believed to have been ghostwritten, adding another possible layer to the checking process. We’re unlikely to find out who this is. It’s almost always a contractual requirement that the identity of a ghostwriter is not revealed.

Still, this book somehow slipped through the net, and the reason might never be known. I’m only conjecturing here, but it’s possible that everyone involved assumed someone else was dealing with the matter, or maybe any concerns didn’t reach more senior ears.

It must be stated that there’s nothing wrong per se with authors writing outside their own experience, but it’s vital to have an insider’s perspective. When Frederick Forsyth wrote The Day of the Jackal, a fictionalised background to a real assassination attempt on Charles de Gaulle, he used his background in investigative journalism to construct his plot. It shows in the precision of the language and imagery, even if I personally think he could have deployed a few more commas.

Regardless of whether it’s done for well-justified reasons, banning or withdrawing a work is often the best promotion it can receive. I wasn’t aware of Billy and the Epic Escape before this news broke, nor about Oliver’s most recent cookbook, which is also on sale and has attracted no controversy.

At the time of writing, it’s still possible to bag a copy of the novel from Amazon UK, and you can bet the remaining stock will sell out soon.