Tag: writing

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It’s Gonna Be Epic!!

I was invited last week to be part of a one-off writing workshop. I knew little about the content in advance because it was brought to my attention by a third party. However, I believe improv keeps me sharp, so I was excited to go along and find out.

Martin O’Connor led us through the workshop. He’s interested in epic poetry, particularly in the Scots dialect, so he was holding these sessions around Scotland.

As part of the exercise, the eight or so participants were asked to complete several statements ranging from ‘My favourite holiday was…’ to ‘After death, I believe we…’ From these, we were asked to build a chronology of one aspect of our lives, before building up to the beginning of an epic piece of prose or poetry.

Martin invited us to send the work to him, either as it was written in the workshop or expanded into a full-length piece. The work didn’t necessarily have to be in Scots; in fact, none of the participants wrote that way.

Poetry is about boiling down big concepts into a few words, so for epic poetry, you need a lot of source material. Paradise Lost by John Milton is based upon Bible Scripture so he had a lot of material to draw up. Similarly, The Iliad and The Odyssey by Homer are both set over a 10-year period.

Prose allows a little more flexibility for expanding ideas. The classic example is War & Peace by Leo Tolstoy, which runs to 250,000 words. This took seven years to write, and is set during the Napoleonic Wars, which took place from 1803 to 1815.

This month, I’ve started upon my annual attempt at National Novel Writing Month, as well as leading the local region with the help of a co-host.

The target is 50,000 words, more modest than the works mentioned above, but the challenge is to write them all within 30 days. Fortunately, I’ll be spending a lot of time on trains, giving me ample time to boost that word count, and the region as a whole is nearly at the 300,000-word mark.

Of course, the new standard of epic literature is neither fiction nor poetry. In July 2016, Sir John Chilcot published his long-awaited report about the invasion of Iraq in 2003. It ran to 2.6 million words.

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The Benefit of Experience

Last week, a friend sent me a poem she’d written about a recent bereavement, asking for some suggestions. I immediately agreed. I copied the piece into Microsoft Word and switched on Tracked Changes, then looked through the piece line by line.

The first thing I did was check whether she’d followed generally accepted conventions, such as placing a lowercase letter where the start of a line isn’t a new sentence, and making sure a significant word ends each line.

When you read poetry a lot, you begin to build up a template in your head of what you like and don’t like, and what looks ‘right’ and ‘wrong’. So aside from the conventions outlined above, I considered how the piece sounded overall, and omitted or added words accordingly.

I made it clear than anything I wrote was merely a suggestion and could be ignored if she felt it didn’t work. Indeed, the poem was great to begin with, but someone else could easily come along and make different suggestions in accordance with their experience.

I don’t know yet whether this friend took my suggestions on board, but if she does, I believe it would improve the piece.

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Years In The Making; Weeks In The Tweaking

It’s sometimes the case that an idea exists in the mind of a writer years before it’s published, or sometimes long before it’s even committed to paper.

Larry Cohen, for instance, pitched his screenplay Phone Booth to Alfred Hitchcock three decades before it was made, but neither of them could think of a reason to keep the main character in the booth. Jilly Cooper lost the original manuscript for Riders in 1970, and it took until 1985 before the novel was finally published.

One of my own pieces took around 15 years to write. When I was in high school, I had a fragment that was supposed to be set to music:

Have I known you too long?
Are we too far gone
as just friends?

But I could do nothing with the fragment. I hadn’t begun writing poetry or even short stories at that point, and I didn’t pursue my interest in playing music.

It wasn’t until 2013 that I revisited the fragment, just when I was beginning to feel confident to call myself a poet. With help from online friends, I shaped it into its current form and it appeared on The Purple Spotlights EP in 2016.

I didn’t mean to write a companion piece. Over the last few months, I’d thought of another fragment I’d initially been unable to use, though I knew it would make a good refrain:

Let’s shag each other senseless.

The catalyst for the companion piece was when I found out something surprising about a couple of friends, which put me into a strange mood and then became entangled with the fragment above. The next day, I was due to take a train journey of 5½ hours each way, and I’d have access to pencils and paper, so I had the means, the motive and the opportunity.

On the trip, I remembered that Tied Up was about platonic friendship, and that the poem I was writing would be about a couple who couldn’t go back to being that way. The first draft was completed in around 24 hours; I named it Tied Down.

Some pieces feel finished once they’re on paper. By contrast, I pulled out this one every day and simply looked at it, trying to make sense of my own words, perhaps because it isn’t a sentiment I normally express in my work. Sometimes I’d score something out; sometimes I’d shuffle around the words.

It currently sits at 67 lines, longer than what I usually write. I haven’t modified it for around a week now, but I’ll probably come back to it in a month and see what changes need to be made.

 

 

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The Linehan Problem

For a long time now, I’ve been a fan of Graham Linehan’s TV shows, including Father Ted, Black Books and The IT Crowd.

Over the last couple of years, however, it’s emerged that he holds views that I disagree with, explored in an opinion piece from 2016, while this and other matters are still debated on his own Twitter account.

This entry is not to discuss the views themselves, but to question how to react to his writing in their wake. Can I still rate Moss playing Countdown as one of my top sitcom moments? Am I allowed to imitate Mrs Doyle offering a cup of tea?

I accept that some artistic expression can change from from acceptable to offensive in as little as a decade or two. Last week, I saw John Cooper Clarke on stage. He included a poem from 1993 about a person he described as a ‘disgruntled transsexual’, containing outdated stereotypes, as did the introductory patter.

In Clarke’s case, only that poem was problematic, and he at least acknowledged how much controversy it causes today. For this reason, I don’t have the same problem enjoying his work as I do with that of Linehan, whose opinions I’m far less willing to accept.

An odd disconnect struck me while writing this. I’m also a fan of the musician Peter Doherty, who has a long criminal record, yet this doesn’t seem to factor into whether or not I can appreciate his work.

Perhaps the passage of time will determine whether a given person’s personal life overshadows their artisic work.

That said, a journalist friend has stopped using the Gill Sans font in her zine. Even though he died in 1940, she has an ethical problem with its inventor Eric Gill who was accused of abusing his own daughters.

An article in The Guardian from last year asks similar questions about Gill as I ask about Graham Linehan.

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Adapting to Film, Adapting to Change

On Saturday, I went to see a performance of Benidorm at the Edinburgh Playhouse, based upon the ITV2 comedy of the same name. It even featured some of the actors.

The TV series is already rather theatrical in nature, like a Carry On film with a more modern attitude. As such, it transferred very well to the stage.

Sometimes, though, adapting a story from one medium into another is a hit-or-miss affair.

Those I enjoyed include the 2004 film Layer Cake, then I discovered it’s so closely based on the novel by J. J. Connolly that it even contains direct quotes. Similarly, The Thirty-Nine Steps worked as a mock radio adaptation performed on stage, even though the plot was stripped down to the bare essentials.

Yet I was disappointed by the film version of one of my favourite books, Starter For Ten, perhaps because it deviates from the first-person point of view. And the 2016 Dad’s Army movie opened to lacklustre reviews, with The Guardian asking why we needed a film version of a much-loved TV series.

One classic case of an author disowning a film version is Roald Dahl’s reaction to Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. He disliked the plot changes and musical numbers so much that no other screenplays of his work were authorised until after his death.

A few years ago, I posed a question to Irvine Welsh at a book signing about his thoughts on adaptation, considering how many of his novels have been on the big screen. He replied that he considered film to be a different medium and he accepted that changes sometimes had to be made.

‘And,’ he concluded, ‘it never hurts book sales.’

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Right Now or Write Later

The V&A design museum in Dundee officially opened its doors on Saturday. I’d been fortunate enough to win a ticket in the ballot so I could be among its first visitors.

However, this entry is not a write-up about the experience. Rather, it’s about the balance between reporting on an event as a punter versus enjoying the experience in person. This thought was prompted by a colleague who asked me to take lots of pictures while I was there.

As regular readers know, I do sometimes report on events for this blog, but my style has changed over the years. When I used LiveJournal, I would write about anywhere I’d been: music festivals, airshows, boat trips, and so forth, often taking dozens of pictures.

These days, I’m of the mindset that I report back on only notable places and often don’t bother taking pictures. I did tell my colleague I’d take one to show her the inside of the V&A, but that would be her lot. After all, there had already been many published in local media.

During the five or so minutes I spent taking and sending the aforementioned picture, it reinforced how little I was engaging with the surroundings. I was far happier to see it through my own eyes without the aid of technology. I’ll leave that to the real journalists.

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Restoration

I’ve had some computer problems over the weekend. Windows was running slowly and wouldn’t update, and I eventually had to perform a system restore.

Although this has caused lots of short-term chaos, it seems to be a good long-term solution; it already feels like a new machine. Unfortunately, this episode has taken up so much of my attention that I don’t have a full blog entry for you.

However, I did manage to catch up with some reading earlier in the week. I was on a train to Birmingham and back, a total of around 11 hours, so I’m halfway through the short story collection Arcanum Unbounded by fantasy author Brandon Sanderson.

Most authors write short stories of mayble a few thousand words long and that stand alone from each other. By contrast, this author’s short stories are more like novel extracts, while some would qualify as novellas. What’s more, almost all of them link into the same universe, known as the Cosmere.

I bought the book when I met Sanderson last year because there were no more copies of his latest novel left. I’m glad I started with this collection as it’s given me an excellent sample of his style, and now I look forward to tackling his novels when I have the chance.

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Patchwork Poetry

Many writers like to post their work on the Internet. People I follow here on WordPress do it regularly.

But it’s important to remember that publishers generally won’t accept work that’s available online. It’s difficult to persuade readers to pay for a book when the material can be found on the author’s website free of charge. That’s why you rarely see my work here.

Today, however, I’m making an exception, as it already appears on a friend’s Facebook page.

The friend in question posted about the patch notes for the computer game The Sims. These notes detail which bugs have been fixed and which features have amended. Out of context, some of the notes sound ludicrous.

I then combined this with a list published by Beloit College to help their colleagues understand the worldview of the 18- to 22-year-olds who enrol in their classes. The Mindset List throws up similar gems that sound ludicrous out of context. I’ve long been taken by the phrase ‘Dean Martin, Mickey Mantle, and Jerry Garcia have always been dead’ from one of the lists, and finding the notes for The Sims was the perfect companion.

The last verse should have a hanging indent, but this is difficult to achieve in HTML. Nonetheless, I hereby present:

Dean Martin Has Always Been Dead

Alien abductions have been disabled on houseboats.
Top Spook is an equal opportunity post.
The bed has been made less lethal.
Dean Martin has always been dead.

‘Dude’ has never had a negative tone.
‘Become Enemies with Child’ wish no longer appears.
Fixed a tuning issue so they vomit at acceptable levels.
Dean Martin has always been dead.

Spray paint has never been legally sold in Chicago.
There has never been a Barings Bank in England.
Fire engines maintain functionality in Egypt, China, and France.
Dean Martin has always been dead.

Carbon copies are oddities found in attics.
Fish are no longer duplicated in the fridge.
Babies and toddlers will no longer go into a frozen state.
Dean Martin has always been dead.

Their parents’ car CD player is so ancient and embarrassing.
An issue caused unicorns to lose their special powers.
As kids they probably never got chicken pox.
Dean Martin has always been dead.

Americans and Russians have always co-operated in orbit;
they have never really needed to study at a friend’s house.
Fairy children will no longer stretch into adult size.
Dean Martin has always been dead.

They no longer play detonated pianos.
Televisions no longer play after they are burned or broken.
They have never attended a concert in a smoke-filled arena.
Dean Martin has always been dead.

Fixed an issue that could cause a teen to be trapped in a child’s body when travelling to the future at the exact moment of a birthday; they have never needed directions to get someplace, just an address.
Dean Martin has always been dead.

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Debunking Popular Writing Advice

Experienced writers often love to give advice to newbies, whether or not it’s solicited. However, there are some maxims where the original meaning has been lost over the years. Let’s look at three of them.

Write what you know

This is great advice if you already know a subject inside-out; for example, the banking system or nuclear physics. In which case, that knowledge can be used in your writing to add a touch of authenticity.

But the phrase is often misinterpreted to mean ‘write what you already know’. Rather, the intent of the advice is to encourage the writer to carry out research. Does your character want to go skydiving, or visit South Africa, or both? Once you know enough about a given topic, you can write about it with more authority.

Honoré Daumier [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
Advice to a Young Artist by Honoré Daumier, c1865-68
Kill your darlings

This phrase has been attributed to many authors. A lot of people take it to mean ‘remove any phrase you especially like’. However, this only applies to phrases that you like but that don’t fit in with the rest of the piece. If you like it and it works, leave it in.

There is further confusion in the 1791 biography of Samuel Johnson by James Boswell, in which Johnson says:

I would say to Robertson what an old tutor of a college said to one of his pupils: ‘Read over your compositions, and where ever you meet with a passage which you think is particularly fine, strike it out.’ (Full text)

It is possible the word ‘fine’ had a different meaning in the 18th century. It otherwise seems rather strange advice.

Read On Writing by Stephen King

Many writers have been open about their process or daily routine, but few in as much depth as King. As such, his 2000 book On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft is sometimes held up as a gospel for aspiring writers.

However, you are free to ignore what he says about how to write, or indeed what any writer says. Someone I know rewrites as she goes along rather than having a definite first draft; I know of only one major author who does this. Similarly, a number of sources recommend keeping a bedside notepad for nocturnal ideas, but I don’t do this because ideas don’t come to me in bed.

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The Art of the Anecdote

On Thursday, I went to see the new Gyles Brandreth show Break a Leg, which is running at the Edinburgh Fringe until Sunday 26 August.

In his career as a writer, broadcaster and former Member of Parliament, he’s become friends with a number of people in the worlds of entertainment and politics. The show talks about his acquaintance with a few of them, from June Whitfield to Frankie Howard.

The show is listed in the Comedy section of the brochure as there are a lot of laughs. Yet it isn’t stand-up, nor is it bragging. Rather, he uses his privileged access to these well-known figures and tells humorous anecdotes about them in his slightly camp fashion.

By User of Waffle TV YouTube channel (https://www.youtube.com/user/waffIeTvUK/) [CC BY 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
Gyles Brandreth in 2013
As such, his material is strong. The show could run for two hours and there would still be more to tell, and the audience would probably lap it up. But not everyone has such great anecdotes.

In 2007, I went to an event featuring Clive Swift, who played Richard Bucket in Keeping Up Appearances. He specifically didn’t want to discuss his sitcom days. Instead, he was there to tell us about his theatre career and how he’d worked with prominent stage actors such as Peter O’Toole.

It quickly became apparent, however, that he’d worked with these notable thespians only in supporting roles and that he was trying to turn minor episodes into a big deal. He was certainly never friends with them. One anecdote, for example, involved meeting Sir Laurence Olivier by chance in a theatre bathroom and hearing some worldly advice from him.

The only factor that saved Swift’s show from being a total train wreck was his skill on the trombone, accompanied by a pianist called Claire Greenway. Had it been a musical event with those minor stories peppered between songs, it might have worked well.

A review from the Scotsman newspaper very much captures the essence of the performance; scroll down past the review of Pete Firman to read it.

The lesson here is to make sure your material stands up to some scrutiny. Many performers – especially comedians – like to arrange preview shows, often to an audience who have paid a special reduced price for a ticket. This approach is invaluable for ironing out any kinks in the material and a useful guideline for how listeners will react at different parts of the script.

Additionally, there’s a lot to be said for having an honest friend or professional who can listen to your show to tell you what works and which parts need strengthening.