What's in a Name?

 

People sometimes ask me what on earth I was thinking when I named my son David John, exactly the same name as mine. I reply that I was expecting him to be a girl. That I was taken by surprise. That I panicked when I realised Samantha wouldn't be appropriate.

My decision has caused minor confusion for a long time but the situation recently changed with the publication of his first novel. He calls himself David J Harrison, not to be confused with D J Harrison, which is me. Phew! So that's OK.

His book, Recursion, comes out very soon and you should buy it so that you can see just how brilliant a writer he has become. I would like to claim some credit for his awesomeness but I won't.

Recursion

First Principles

We all know about Climate Change. Believing it is one thing, doing something about it is another. Then there are prominent related issues like Biodiversity and Plastics in the Oceans. The situation is pretty much overwhelming. It's hard to believe that any individual can make a difference.

We're constantly being fed conflicting information. This is designed to confuse and frustrate our good intentions. If there's a report on how a plant-based diet is not only good for our health but of enormous benefit to the planet, the media will respond with 'research' based evidence that meat is good for us and that vegan families are risking the health of their children by such faddism.

Let me try to help by explaining my approach. When I was studying Chemistry I found that provided I understood the first principles I could avoid having to remember huge amounts of information. So it is with the environment. None of us can know and understand every consequence of every action. Life and our relationship with the planet is much too complex for that.

I'll give you an example to begin with.

Fracking. Why do we oppose fracking?

Proponents of fracking will argue that we need gas, that there is no risk, that the earthquakes are small and that opponents should back off.

The anti-fracking brigade cite horror stories about contaminated water supplies, the loss of value of homes adjacent to fracking sites, flammable gases coming through domestic water taps and lots more.

My advice is to forget all that. Risk assessment is subjective. Go back to first principles which is that fossil fuels have to be left in the ground if we are to mitigate climate change and avoid extinction. Extracting gas puts the carbon it contains into the atmosphere. Simply put, fracking will make climate change worse. That's enough for me.

The country, and some councils, have declared a climate emergency without doing anything except shout about it. We need to dramatically reduce our use of gas. There will be no market for fracked gas if we do that and the frackers will give up because they're only in it for the money.

The Committee on Climate Change has advised Government that 800,000 households a year need to be converted to sustainable fuel from here on in if we are to reach our carbon reduction targets. Yet almost all new houses are being fitted with gas boilers. This is wrong. Councils can and must stop this. There are alternatives and these are much cheaper if installed at the building stage rather than having to retrofit.

So that's the first principle:
Anything that will make Climate Change worse has to be avoided.

Precious Words

People ask me how many words they have to write before they have a novel. It's an interesting question. Writers like me can be a bit obsessive when it comes to word count. I use it as a measure of progress. I like to write at least a thousand words every day. My problem is letting some of them go into the trash but I'll come to that later.

I'm reminded of the story about the budding author who approaches a publisher at a party. 'What's the least number of pages you'd publish as a novel?' she asked. 'Three hundred,' he answered. The writer threw up her hands in joy and went running excitedly around the room shouting 'It's finished!'

The conventional answer to the question is seventy to ninety thousand words though some genres like fantasy can be much longer. I would add a few words of caution, though. The important thing is to tell the story in a compelling way. That may take more words or, preferably, fewer. Vonnegut urged us to 'start as close to the end as possible'.

Which brings me back to the unpalatable truth that not every word I write is either necessary or appropriate for the story I'm telling. Accepting this isn't easy. Those words were painstakingly and often painfully extracted. Losing them into the oblivion of the trash bin can hurt.
There are times when I read through the previous day's output and am tempted to trash the lot. This is normal but ill-advised. I have learned to leave everything exactly as it was written until I've finished the story. Then, after a period of reflection, revision can take place.
Working with an editor has taught me that I am not a good judge of my own work.

The initial casualties of the editing tend to be the first few chapters. Often these can be completely removed with great benefit to the whole piece. Why is that? The way I've come to think about this is to consider the opening exchanges of a difficult conversation. Imagine having to persuade someone to do something you know they won't like. How would you start the conversation? I'd certainly not go straight to the point. I'd ask them how they were and try to get an idea of how they were feeling. See if there was some angle I could use to soften the impact of the harsh words to follow. So it is with my characters. They are inevitably in for a hard time. I'm about to throw all kinds of trials and tribulations their way. Before I do, though, I spend a bit of time getting to know them a bit better.
The reader doesn't have to see this process.

My first Jenny Parker novel originally began with a long detailed scene with Jenny sitting on a toilet. I resisted its deletion with all my might but eventually conceded that this piece of information might have been essential for me but it was something my readers should be spared.
Incidentally, six years after its first publication, a new edition of Due Diligence has been released. The toilet scene is still missing.

New Year

Happy New Year!

Here are a few tips that might help make 2019 a good writing year.

1. Write

Seems obvious, doesn't it? However, by waiting for the right time and perfect conditions I wasted many years of opportunity. Write a little bit every day. This is hard, I know, but it can be done.

2. Don't Edit

Write the piece in its entirety without going back over it and making changes. Finish it. This is even harder than number 1.

3. Write something else

This is the advice I give to anyone who sends me their work. A finished piece is best put away for a while before trying to assess it.

4. Don't Self-Publish the first thing you write

I know that intense feeling of temptation to upload my novel as soon as I've finished it. After all, if people can't buy it how do I become the next J K Rowling?
I was fortunate to avoid this catastrophic error and my writing career was saved. Anyone trying to read the first novels I wrote would have avoided me like the plague for the rest of time. And been quite right in doing so.

5. Just because it's been written doesn't mean anyone should read it

Believe it or not, this is a liberating thing. I avoid 'writing for publication' and write for myself. Always. Or at least I try not to second guess what the public might like because I have absolutely no idea. I do, however, know what I like. Write the book you want to read.

6. If you do publish, do it properly

There will come a time, I hope, when you've produced something you think might be of interest to a wider public. When that time comes, it is important to present it in readable form. In other words, it will need a professional edit. This will cost money. A lot of money in writing terms. Almost certainly more money than you will ever recoup in sales.

7. Writing is not a competitive sport

Any success I've had has been dependant on help from other writers. The writing community is a wonderful resource. Join it in whichever guise suits you. Your local writers' group is a wonderful place to begin.

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Unruly Chracters

As you might already be aware, I try to write a bit every day. I wake up in the morning and find myself enveloped in the story. I look around and see the characters who then begin to do things. Sometimes unexpected things. Unintentioned things. Exciting things. That's what makes writing so interesting for me. It's the not knowing.

When I get almost to the end of a story and realise what's going to happen, it becomes more of a struggle to write. It's as if my mind has finished with the project and is no longer interested.

I have been a little bit poorly of late and unable to write. Now I'm recovered and back at it, I find that my characters haven't had the patience and good grace to hang around and wait for me. Instead, they seem to have carried on regardless and what was a nice linear plot line involving four of them in a voyage of discovery has fallen to bits. I left them all on a perfectly good ship complete with crew, provisions and a clear plan. On my return, I find the ship is gone. I have no idea where it is. One of my characters is sitting on the shore feeling sorry for himself. Two more are wandering around in a jungle when they should be on the ship. These are the least of my problems. My fourth character has disappeared completely.

You might think it would be easy to find her. I'm the writer, after all. The fantasy world I've created is a bit short of detail, though. I only know about the places my characters have actually been. She may have gone somewhere new. Or even hopped out of this particular version of reality into a completely different one. She can do things like that. She's a witch.

OK, I'm currently writing fantasy but my process is the same for my crime thrillers. I'm with the reader all the way. I know what they know. I can speculate, just as they can, and I do this in the same way whether I'm writing or reading someone else's story.

Another thing I should mention is that my characters appear fully formed. What I mean is they have lived their lives outside the confines of my story and their motivation derives from experiences I have no knowledge of. Usually, I get to understand them better as the story unfolds. That's what makes them interesting.

Like my witch. After 250,000 words of the story, I'm at last beginning to understand the reasons behind her behaviour right at the beginning. What she did then is only now beginning to make sense.

Are writers supposed to carefully design characters down the the colour of their eyes and the toys they received for their first Christmas? Should they always know what's going to happen at the end of their story? 

Am I the only one who writes without knowing anything?

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The Ten Minute Rule

Give it ten minutes.

It's a symptom of the modern age that we have less and less attention span. The situation hasn't been helped by the advent of streaming. We can get movies and books instantly. If we don't like the one we're watching or reading, we can change at the prod of a finger.

Once upon a time, I used to have to go down to the local Blockbuster video store and physically borrow a copy of a film. An even longer time ago, I would go to the library every Saturday morning for my weekly ration of reading matter.

Either way, movies or books, I was stuck with the selection I'd made. If the film was rubbish, I'd watch it anyway because I'd taken ages to choose it, queued up to rent it, paid for it and driven there and back. And there wasn't anything else for us to watch. If the book I'd borrowed was a bit dry, I'd read it anyway.

Now I have Netflix and Amazon and iPlayer and Kindle and iBooks. If what I'm reading or watching isn't doing it for me, it's liable to get replaced by something else. Instantly.

That's what I call the ten minute rule. Sometimes ten minutes is being over-generous with my time. A good film has me forgetting that I'd decided to give it ten minutes because I get absorbed.

As a writer, I feel compelled to give books a bit more room to impress me. A slow start doesn't necessarily mean a bad book. However, I'm conscious that many readers these days aren't so patient. Books are chosen on the basis of the cover and then the first few sentences. Quite honestly, I'd be happy if readers would give my books a whole ten minutes.

Which makes it incredibly satisfying when people do read my books from cover to cover. My publishers recently promoted my first Jenny Parker thriller in Australia and we sold lots of copies. What was most exciting, though, was the number of people that bought and read the other two in the series. Unless I'm deluding myself, these wonderfully astute readers must have enjoyed their first taste of Jenny Parker to be willing to pay for more. Nothing could be more satisfying for an author like me.

Having said that, I'm constantly aware of the need to make my books as instantly compelling as possible. There's no room for shilly-shallying about in the modern novel.

The ten minute rule sees to that.

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Violence

I love a good thriller and thrillers usually involve violence. What I don't like is the portrayal of violence as the universal answer to any problem. If I read a book or watch a film that uses violence to sort the job out, I feel cheated. I think of it as lazy and unimaginative writing.
Violence creates problems, it doesn't solve them.
Take a comment I once saw posted on the Glock website. (For those of you who don't have an interest in handguns, I will explain. Glock make pistols that are the weapon of choice for many law enforcement agencies. British police use them, for example.) A customer asked why the Glock 19 only held fifteen bullets in its magazine. The answer was a good one. If fifteen rounds from a Glock hasn't solved your problem then maybe you chose the wrong solution.
My complaint is that books and films choose the Glock solution too often when it is inappropriate and unsatisfactory.
Most of us don't have the option to visit violent retribution on evildoers. As any sane American will testify, nor does having a gun protect you. (Unless someone shoots you and the bullet hits your gun and bounces off, I suppose)
My protagonist in Due Diligence, Jenny Parker, is an ordinary person. She's just like you and I. Vulnerable. No institution to back her up. She doesn't have the option to fight fire with fire. That would not only get her arrested. It would be also be pointless and ineffective. She has to find other ways to survive. She has to use her wits.
I find that so much more satisfying to write and to read.
As for the magazine capacity of a Glock 19, I find it hard to stuff more than ten rounds into the magazine before the spring gets too stiff for my thumb.
(I hasten to add that my experience of handguns has been limited to a legal range in the US while conducting research. Sometimes it's necessary to obtain first hand experience even if you disapprove of what you're trying out.)







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First Draft

OK, so you've written a story. Now what?

Read it out loud, either to yourself or some poor soul that hasn’t anything better to do with their time.

This will give you an idea of what works and what doesn’t. A word of warning, if it’s your first novel then very little of it will be salvageable. Best not to try.

I thought my first novel was a humdinger. A work of brilliant wit and master storytelling. Fortunately I paid someone to tell me different.

It wasn’t until I finished my fourth book that I had something that had the potential to be read.  Then I made a big mistake. This was Due Diligence, my first Jenny Parker novel. I’d just finished writing it and was introduced to the crime fiction editor at Orion. He said he’d read it if I sent it to him. On the train coming back from London, I pressed the send button. I wish I hadn’t.

It taught me never to send out or publish a first draft. I never heard from him again and no wonder. The book began with Jenny on the toilet!! What was I thinking? The final version (two years and several versions later) had none of that in it and started what had been halfway through.

You only get one chance to impress a publisher or a reader. If you blow it, that’s them gone for ever. For ever. Think about it. If you started to read a book by D J Harrison and it was an unreadable stinker, would you be likely to seek out one of his later books and give him another chance? No? Of course you wouldn’t.

Publishing a first draft is always a mistake. Always.

What do I mean by a first draft? Well, you’ve written it, put it away, read it out loud and revised it. Then it’s a first draft. 

When you can’t make it any better yourself you need an editor.

Believe me, you can’t edit your own work. It’s impossible. I’ve tried. There’s a blindness that afflicts a writer when reading their own work. After all, you know what you meant to say. You know all about the characters. You know everything. It’s impossible to be objective.

A good editor costs money but is an essential investment. Before you commit to that expense, I suggest that you pay for a critique. This will help to convince you that your novel is worth further time and attention. Or it might not. Both messages should be heeded. Especially the second one.

I think of my novels as ships. If someone looks at the whole vessel and decides that it’s ugly and unserviceable, there’s no point in my redecorating the captain’s quarters and hoping that will make things right, is there?

What about money, though? I already told you that editors cost money. But how much should you pay? Editors are a bit like lawyers. There’s nobody more expensive than a cheap lawyer, in my experience. Scrimp on the editor and you’ll end up with a shoddy book.

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Writing Tips

Someone has asked me to write down my writing tips. So I have.

My first tip is: Write

            This is so bloody obvious it shouldn’t need saying. But it does. It took me ages to realise that’s what I needed to do.

            For years, I wrote very little, preferring instead to prepare for that wonderful day when I would be free from all encumbrances, released form inhibitions and have the swathes of time I needed to write.

            Poppycock. Baloney.

            This was self-sabotage of the worst kind.

            A writer needs to write. The thing that has helped me more than anything has been the development of a writing habit. This began when I managed to persuade myself that writing was more important than watching Coronation Street. As soon as the theme music started, I left the room, went to my quiet place and sat down to write. My wife and family became used to it. They were distracted by the TV and I claimed an hour or so of peace. This was my big breakthrough. I ‘came out’ as a writer as a result. I became a writer at last.

            Now, my practice has shifted to early morning but remains an overt one. My wife doesn’t expect to see or hear from me until about 11am. By which time I have done my writing for the day.

            Writing every day is good for my soul. It provides me with nourishment and contentment. On days when I can’t write, the ensuing day seems to have less sparkle.

            However, if I don’t write, I’m gentle with myself.

            Writing every day (or most of them) brings another benefit. Productivity. A morning’s writing can produce a thousand words. If I do that every day, we’re talking about three hundred thousand words in a year. Five hundred words a day would still produce the raw material for two or three novels.

            The maths are compelling if you write every day. Two hundred and fifty words, a page, accumulate nicely to a novel a year proportions.

            It’s doing it every day that makes this possible.

Quite honestly, I couldn’t write any more than I do. Writing is hard work. Exhausting work, physically, mentally and, if you’re having a good day, emotionally.

My advice is to write, then. Whatever you’re writing, write until you’ve finished it. Don’t look back. Don’t try to judge it. Resist the urge to throw it all in the bin.

Put it away for a while. Some like a month, me, I prefer a year.

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Freefall Writing

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Writing-Without-Parachute-Barbara-Turner-Vesselago/dp/1785921711/

No matter how long I've been writing, there's always more for me to learn. Reading other writer's work is a brilliant way to do that. Writing itself, just putting words on paper is also recommended. However, a school teacher once told me that practice did NOT make perfect. 'If you carry on making the same basic errors, you'll never improve. CORRECT PRACTICE makes perfect' is how he expressed it.
With that in mind, though they say you shouldn't take any notice of school teachers because 'those who can, do and those that can't, teach,' I try to take every opportunity to improve my writing technique.
Content isn't a problem for me. I'm blessed with a very inventive mind that is harder to rein back than it is to get going. Getting it down on paper in a manner that will keep a reader engeged is the trick as far as I'm concerned.
Many years ago, I was introduced to Barbara Turner-Vessalago's Freefall writing method and I've been attending her two UK workshops every year since.
My first attempts at novel writing are the stuff of legend. I wrote a SF trilogy with a casual, stand-offish point of view that was packed with self-conscious humour that didn't work and served only to dissipate what little dramatic tension I'd created.
Barbara taught me to write from a more authentic place. To embody what I was saying. To feel in to the characters and the situation. To drop into a place, look around, see what was happening, smell the air, listen to the wind in the trees, watch my characters react to their surroundings.
Her workshops are wonderfully transformative. She is a supremely gifted mentor and the feedback she gives is always exactly what is needed. Unfortunately, there are only two courses per year in the UK and only twelve writers per workshop. Of the twenty four potential places, though, at least half are taken up by gluttons like myself. So the opportunities to attend are very limited. If you ever get a chance, I advise you to take it because you won't regret it.
After much heart-searching, Barbara distilled her teaching into a book which provides a very cost-effective alternative to her workshops and is the next best thing.
With Barbara's blessing, I'm going to be giving a short introductory workshop to Chorley and District Writers' Circle on February 27th. Check out  http://www.chorleywriters.org.uk/ if you're interested.
If you can't make it, get the book.

Chekhov's Gun

My wife had trouble sleeping and discovered that not watching the TV (or any other kind of screen) in the evening made a positive difference. It has also helped me.
In the absence of television to amuse us, we turned to reading together. A good book is a very rewarding shared experience. Even better, we find, is reading aloud. Most nights, therefore, I read to my wife who sits on the sofa in front of the fire with her knitting. We started with my books. It's important for me to hear what I've written because it helps me eliminate clunky bits and also adjust the rhythm of the sentences. Reading to someone else also has the advantage of giving the opportunity for feedback, a valuable resource for any writer.
My wife is particularly good at picking up things that don't work. Awkward sentences, inadequate explanations, lack of detail, that kind of thing. There's a good adage when it comes to feedback:
If someone tells you that a piece doesn't work they're almost always right.
My wife is getting very good at helping me put things right.
Reading makes me a better writer. Writing makes me a better reader. I think it works for everyone.
In the days before television, books were the main source of entertainment and delight. There was a time, not so long ago, where not everyone could read and being read to was a valuable experience. Before that, storytelling was a purely verbal craft. I find that reading to my wife is wonderfully intimate and connective. It's a joyful and rewarding experience that nothing televisual could ever match.
My wife doesn't only have to listen to my books, though. We both delight in reading other things. Recently we've completed Peter Hoeg's The Susan Effect and Philip Pullman's Book of Dust. Currently we're getting on well with The Paranormal Policeman by D J Harrison (which is yet another one of mine).
As a writer, I can appreciate the craft that goes into a good book. One of the things that I particularly watch out for is the principle of Chekhov's Gun. This convention insists that something introduced into a story, such as a gun, must be used. Otherwise there is an element of dissatisfaction for the reader that they might not even be consciously aware of. In the Susan Effect there's an actual gun hanging on the wall which is taken down, examined and put carefully back onto position. My experience tells me to watch out for it later on and sure enough, there it is, popping up at the end in a very satisfying conclusion. A popgun, you might say if you were a humorous writer.  I told my wife about Chekhov's gun. She's now on the lookout for more examples and says it makes reading (or listening) to stories even more enjoyable.
My editor once pointed out the way I was dangling items in front of my readers then never mentioning them ever again. She told me to cut it out, that it wasn't something a good writer ever did. I had to mention the Sternwood chauffeur in The Big Sleep (Marlowe never finds out who murdered him) but her justifiable reply was to the effect that if I ever became as proficient as Raymond Chandler then I could please myself. Until then, I'd be best advised to knuckle down and learn my craft.
That's what I'm doing and reading to my wife is a big part of that.

Stranger then Fiction

Truth is stranger than fiction. This familiar saying is a quote from that master storyteller, Mark Twain. Any writer of fiction, like myself, has to bear this in mind.
Why?
Well, I suppose it's because too much realism can be difficult for a reader to swallow. Real life tends to be fragmented, things happen that are often completely unrelated. The relative importance of events can be very hard to judge and often remain opaque. Things come and go. Things that seemed to matter one moment fade into complete insignificance.
None of these aspects of reality are conducive to telling a good story. In fiction, it's essential to have a structure. A beginning, middle and end. There has to be a satisfactory outcome for the reader, something that can't be guaranteed by a factual account.
You might have observed that books, films and TV programmes based on true events are always heavily dramatised. The complexity of the real has to be simplified and carefully presented in order to tell a story in a way that will hold an audience. Outcomes, especially, are manipulated in order to deliver that essential happy ending.
Here's an example of what I'm trying to say. Consider this as the plot for a thriller.

The Russians invade Ukraine on a pretext. They arm the local thugs and support them with Russian soldiers who are 'on holiday' there. A Russian-supplied ground to air missile system is deployed to shoot down a civilian airliner and kill hundreds of innocent men, women and children. The AA battery is quickly spirited away back to Russia and vigorous denials are issued.

The CIA find satellite evidence of Russian involvement in the atrocity. Secret agents in Russia collect damning information about the incident and also uncover links between the Russian leader and organised crime. More diligent investigative work discovers billions of dollars of offshore funds linked directly to Putin.

OK, so far so good. Let's put an ending to it:

In a race against time, a plucky CIA agent puts all the information together and then manages to dash to the UN building, through a hail of FSB bullets, and give it to the US Ambassador. A Security Council resolution proposed by Russia is blocked when the revelations are made. Russian allies voice their disapproval and withdraw support. Hundreds of thousands of lives are saved in Syria as the disgraced Russian regime is prevented from continuing to support the vicious Assad regime. A popular uprising in Russia ousts the president and the world becomes a better and more peaceful place.

This is the kind of thing required to make a good story. Of course, it's fictional. The true outcome is as follows:

FIFA decide to hold the World Cup in Russia.

See what I mean?

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Growth

Stephen King considers The Shining to be his breakthrough novel. Instead of doing more of the same that had earned him fame and fortune, he consciously decided to make the Shining something more. The way he did it was to concentrate on the character of the father and his upbringing so that the demons that afflicted him later on in the book are as much internal ones as the result of supernatural forces. According to King, being propelled by some external irresistible force provides too much of a comfortable excuse and dilutes the power of the narrative.

I found this insight extremely valuable and it has changed the way in which I view my own writing. My crime fiction books are primarily plot driven. Fast paced, breathless even. I try to pack as much story into each paragraph as I can. There's nothing wrong with that. As Vonnegut advised, I try to spend  my reader's time as wisely as possible.

Lately, though, I've been working with my writing mentor on a project which is more an examination of character and relationships than whirlwind narrative. For me, it has been a completely new way of doing things. I'm a great proponent of the write the whole thing and don't look back until you've finished method. It has served me very well in the past and has the great merit of not having to make any judgements as I go along.

For this novel, and it's grown to novel proportions already, I'm constantly trying things out because I have the great benefit of someone I trust who can give me an opinion. There's been a lot of stuff that I've submitted which hasn't gone down at all well. Fortunately, I've sufficiently matured as a writer to view negative comments as even more valuable than positive ones. Sometimes I find it hard to agree with them but most of the time I'm able to reflect on the truth behind them and take them on board.

This has resulted in lots of rewrites, many versions of the same scene, drastic plot revisions galore. For example, an early version had the protagonist in a hospital bed paralysed apart from a couple of fingers on one hand which he used to type long accounts of early childhood. This might immediately seem cumbersome and overly melodramatic to you but it took me a while to get that myself.

I don't know if this will be my breakthrough novel and, quite honestly, it might not even see the light of publication. What matters is that I feel that I'm growing as a writer all the time and that's important.

photo credit: JoeInSouthernCA Vintage Movie Poster: "The Shining" via photopin (license)

Washy-Wishy?

I saw this thing on the BBC website and loved it enough to want to tell you about it. As a writer, I love words and what they can do. I also recognise that years of practice have instilled in me some basic rules that serve me well. A writer's job is to tell a story and not to advertise the way in which the story's being told.
If I write a clumsy sentence, or even a single inappropriate word, the reader is immediately pulled out of the situation my protagonist is faced with and back to reality. Do that often and any reader will put down my book in disgust and give up. Having a compelling plot and interesting characters isn't enough. The story needs to flow in a way that a reader will find comfortable and satisfying.
There are many craft books out there that help a writer to understand what works and what doesn't. However, there are some extremely powerful rules that are instinctive and rarely expressed.
Take this, for instance:

Adjectives in English absolutely have to be in this order: opinion-size-age-shape-colour-origin-material-purpose Noun. So you can have a lovely little old rectangular green French silver whittling knife. But if you mess with that word order in the slightest you’ll sound like a maniac. It’s an odd thing that every English speaker uses that list, but almost none of us could write it out.
The Elements of Eloquence by Mark Forsyth

Break this rule and, as the man says, you'll sound like a maniac. Which will be off-putting to your English wonderful readership. ARRGH! See what he means?

Of course there's more too it, there always is. I can almost hear the cries of Big Bad Wolf. What about that then? Shouldn't it be Bad Big Wolf according to the rule, even though that would sound pretty awful?

The brilliant Mr Forsyth explains:

Reduplication in linguistics is when you repeat a word, sometimes with an altered consonant (lovey-dovey, fuddy-duddy, nitty-gritty), and sometimes with an altered vowel: bish-bash-bosh, ding-dang-dong. If there are three words then the order has to go I, A, O. If there are two words then the first is I and the second is either A or O. Mish-mash, chit-chat, dilly-dally, shilly-shally, tip top, hip-hop, flip-flop, tic tac, sing song, ding dong, King Kong, ping pong.

So linguistic reduplication is so important that it outranks the adjective sequence.

We don't have to learn any of this, it's all natural. Which makes it so powerful because my readers don't spot that I'm breaking any rules, they only know that it sounds wrong and they don't like it. So they stop reading. And I don't want that.

No more washy-wishy prose for me, I'm getting Mr Forsyth's book. 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Elements-Eloquence-Perfect-English-Phrase/dp/1785781723/

Is Kindle broken?

Amazon KDP has been good to me. Way back in 2013, Due Diligence made it into the top twenty crime thrillers and the overall top one hundred kindle charts. You can imagine how chuffed I was. I sold several thousand books in a very short time and all because Stephen Leather invited his readership to try it.

A few years down the line, services like BooksgoSocial and Bookbub will promote your book for a modest fee. They can be picky, though, as they depend on keeping faith with their readers and not fobbing off some rubbish on them. A lot like Stephen, who took the trouble to read the copy I sent him. Not like Stephen because he helped me for free, as he's helped lots of other writers.

Amazon, in order to promote their Prime membership, decided to offer free loans of books that were enrolled in KDP Select. At first they paid authors on the basis of downloads. Then they decided that this wasn't fair. Short books received the same payment as longer ones. It didn't matter if the books were read or not the author got paid regardless. Then Amazon decided to change the basis of payment. Every page read was recorded and totted up and the fund distributed accordingly. Seemed fair to most people at the time.

I quite liked it at first, I had a 'pages read' graph to go with my copies sold one. Some days, I'd pretend the pages read were the copies sold just to make me feel especially good. Then bad things started to happen. I got wind of authors' amazon accounts being removed because of anomalies in their page counts. One of my books took a leap skywards for no reason, thousands of page reads where there had been a steady few hundred before. I got cold feet and took all my books off Select. Losing your Amazon account is fatal for an author in these digital times and I realised that abuse of the new Amazon payment system was likely to become worse. I was right.

Recently, really awful books by unknown authors have been hitting the top of the Kindle charts. Books with very few and very bad reviews. They got their exposure and thousands of sales by what's known as clickfarming.

Clickfarming involves downloading the book hundreds of times and then employing someone to flick through each copy. Let's say a book is 200 pages. After each 200 page views are recorded, Amazon count it as a sale. Then the book is catapulted up the charts, people see it and they buy it.

Not only that, but the author is paid a share of the KU pot on the basis of every page read.

Some organisations offer this service to authors for a fee. Others take all the money themselves by uploading their own books, often computer generated or pirated.

In order to make it more difficult for Amazon to detect them, some clickfarms add some 'innocent' books to the ones they are pushing.

Amazon delete the accounts of anyone they suspect of clickfarming and this seems to have included authors who were completely unaware of what was going on. I've not heard of any successful appeals.

So, keep your eyes peeled, stay sharp and safeguard your precious account. If you're new to Kindle, think twice before enrolling in Select.

photo credit: ToGa Wanderings Free Internet via photopin (license)

Publishing, self or otherwise

Writing

I was looking for an image that best represented much of my writing. This is stuff I had to write, stuff I enjoyed writing and stuff that helped me to get a better handle on the process of writing. All good stuff, as far as I'm concerned. Do people lie awake at nights longing to read this stuff?
No.
Neither would they thank me for offering it to them. In the unlikely event that they did read it, they would be mightily irritated. To the extent that they'd shun anything and everything I might show them in the future.
And I don't blame them. It's what I do.

Self-published books

This is an image representing self-published writing. The notice on the bin bag hasn't been edited or proof read, something that 99% of self-published writing has in common. Anyone that reads the label can see that what's inside is rubbish.

Write, by all means. Write as often and as long as you can. Write everything that comes into your head. But try to resist the impulse to publish it until you're absolutely sure it's the best thing to do.

Otherwise, when you do come up with something worth reading, any readership you might hope to attract has long ago written your name on their reading list and crossed it off with an indelible marker.

I was very fortunate. I wrote what I considered to be a cracking SF trilogy. Everyone who read it said it was awesome and brilliant. The problem was that my friends and family weren't professional writers and, worse still, are usually inclined to be kind to me. Neither of these factors was helpful in determining the merits of my novels. What I needed was an objective and knowledgeable opinion from someone used to giving one. A professional critique, to give it its proper title.

My first critique was very difficult to take. It took me years to get over my anger and disappointment but I did come to terms with it eventually. My writing got better, much better. I became conscious of things I do that get in the way of the story and learned to avoid them much of the time.When my first novel was published, I'd improved enough to tell a good story without annoying the hell out of most of my readers. This proved a good marketing ploy because many of the same readers went on to buy more of my work, which gets better all the time. As it should.

photo credit: Mink When will people start to recycle? via photopin (license)

photo credit: garryknight Heavy via photopin (license)

Don't Give Up

William Shakespeare was not impressed when we met.

Me? I'm trying to put on a brave face in front of the diminutive literary giant and failing badly.

It's easy for a writer like me to fall into the trap of becoming overwhelmed by a feeling of inadequacy when confronted by someone I can't ever hope to emulate. I've often felt like giving up writing after reading Iain Banks or Haruki Murakami. I can't write like they do so why should I bother trying?

A couple of people in my writers' circle have recently informed me that they are giving up writing. They both cited disappointment with their lack of success with books they had published. This has got me thinking about my own situation. The odds are stacked against me becoming a literary giant.

So why bother writing at all? It's hard work, demands a lot of time and produces scant monetary reward. Putting in the same hours at work would make much more economic sense.

These are some of the thoughts I've had:

Writing is like golf.

I don't play golf regularly. I've never been tempted to take it up but I have played a few rounds in my time. If I did play golf I would do it without the expectation of winning the British Open. So why expect to win the Booker Prize with my writing?

What would I do someone saw me playing golf and said that I could earn as much money as Tiger Woods and if I gave them a few thousand pounds they would show me how? Laugh in their face, of course. But what about those predatory publisher that make similar promises? What is it that makes us writers so vulnerable?

If I did play golf I wouldn't expect friends and family to spend hour after hour trudging around after me watching me hack my way from hole to hole. So why do I expect them to drop everything and read whatever I write as soon as I send it to them?

Then there's the issue of practice. If I want my golf to improve I need to take lessons, which I have to pay for. OK, I might get some help from a playing partner who could make a few observations about my technique, or lack of it. Another golfer may be able to spot some obvious flaws but if I'm to remedy them I'll need professional help. Writing is very much the same. If I keep on writing the same way for year after year there's not going to be much improvement. Other writers might point out that I'm telling rather than showing, or that my characters are stereotyped but I'm going to need to attend some courses or get some coaching if I'm going to change things. Practice is essential, but it needs to be informed. The right kind of feedback is essential for progression.

Very few get to be professional golfers. It's the same with writers. Yet golfers keep on golfing, they don't give up just because the hurdle to fame and fortune is set unreasonably high. They play because now and again they hit an almost perfect shot and that gives them immense satisfaction. Nobody else needs to see their hole in one, though it's even more fun if they do. Sometimes I write something that makes me sigh with pleasure or laugh out loud. That's why I write. If it makes someone else feel the same way, then even better.

My advice is this. Write. That's what writers do. Commercial success is an unrealistic expectation forced on us by a society that demands instant gratification.

a Bit of a Rant about Publishing

If you're reading this then you're almost certainly a reader and you might even classify yourself as a writer. I've written lots in this blog about the process of writing and my own personal experience. It's been a while since I had a proper rant about self-publishing so I'm going to indulge myself. It's Christmas, after all. Or it was not so many weeks ago.

There are lots of books out there. Millions and millions of them. Not many of them are worth reading, even so there's not enough time to read all the good ones. What I'd like to see is a better way of getting through all the dross to find books that are worth my valuable time to read.

We all know that everyone can self-publish at the click of a mouse. This doesn't mean that everyone should. Quite the reverse. This wonderful opportunity should surely be used with discretion. Self-restraint should be the order of the day but I've seen very little of that recently.

I estimate that there are about three million self-published titles. I doubt that one per cent of these are readable. That leaves three hundred thousand that have been reasonably well written and professionally edited. My bet is that one per cent of these, three thousand, are books that I would find enjoyable. Problem is, how do I find them?

About half a million titles per year get traditionally published in the UK and US combined. One of the features of traditional publishing is that they sell books like vegetables. Once they've had a couple of months in the shop window, they get replaced by new fresh produce. This is in sharp contrast to the self-published market where it's very rare indeed for an author to unpublish their beloved opus.

Traditionally published titles have a greater chance of being good books, properly produced and generally readable. Let's assume that a whopping ten per cent would interest me. That's fifty thousand books a year, about a thousand times the number I read.

So, for me, the statistics, even though I'm making them up as I go along, are compelling. I don't have the time to search amongst all the dross for that rare self-published gem. My chances of a good read are greatly enhanced by sticking to the traditional offerings. For this reason, I have never bought a self-published book. Occasionally, I might have a 'look inside' but this generally only serves to confirm their appalling lack of quality.

What's the answer? How can self-publishing be improved to overcome the reluctant buyer like me?

For a start, writers can stop publishing crap. That would even the odds a little. Completing a first novel is a wonderful thing and something to be proud of. Self-publishing it is almost always a big mistake. Very few of us are able to produce work of merchantable quality first time round. Conventional wisdom suggests that a writer needs about a million words of practice. That's the equivalent of ten full length novels. Ten. No matter how special a talent you might be, you're going to need lots of practice and tuition.

Writers can get valuable encouragement and learn their trade by joining a writers' circle and attending writing courses.

Once a writer has produced a good chunk of work, there are useful books on craft that may be helpful. You may even be lucky enough to find someone to read your work who doesn't care about your feelings.

It's a good sign when a writer stops being precious and protective about their work. I'm afraid that most writers never progress to this important stage which is necessary in order to work constructively with an editor. Every writer needs a professional and talented editor.

There you go, rant over for the time being.





photo credit: _Hadock_ Study Time via photopin (license)

Review of 2017

Dark days ahead?

I really commend the blog written by Tara Sparling, a talented lady that I met at the Harrogate Crime Festival.

https://tarasparlingwrites.com

I mention Tara's blog because I'm about to do something that writers get into big trouble for and that's plagiarism. She's already done a very witty and perceptive review of 2017 and I have been inspired to copy her. Sorry, Tara, but you missed some very important events.

Including:

January

President Donald Trump is sworn in as the most charismatic, intelligent and honest president in history, according to his inauguration speech. President Putin hails him as a visionary and good friend to Russia.

February

A leaked intelligence report revels that Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton were having an affair during the presidential campaign. Trump makes a categorical denial and accuses the media of inventing false news. Hillary Clinton says she didn't know that Trump was Republican and that everyone is entitled to be forgiven for an honest mistake. Bill Clinton refuses to comment.

March

President Trump announces that a wall will be built on the border with Canada to prevent Americans escaping northwards.
Paula Hawkins releases her follow-up novel to The Girl on the Train entitled Another Girl on Another Train.
The UK trigger Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty confirming withdrawal from the EU.

April

The Canadian Government offers to pay for the wall.
Another Girl reaches number one in the bestsellers. At number two is A Girl on a Train.
Ireland, Denmark, Poland, Holland and Belgium invoke Article 50.

May

President Trump agrees to Canada's offer. Canada point out that the offer was made on 1st April and was meant as a joke. Trump asks the CIA to provide a detailed briefing on the subject of jokes.
The remaining EU members except France and Germany invoke Article 50.
Leicester City, Sunderland and Hull City are relegated from the Premier League. Manchester United and Manchester City share the title. Dagenham and Redbridge both win the FA Cup.

June

Work on the Mexican wall is delayed because of a labour shortage.
France and Germany invoke Article 50, meaning that the UK has nothing left to leave. Teresa May holds a snap referendum which votes to stay in the EU now that Britain is the only remaining member.

July

Trump meets Putin in Moscow. Both men hail a new era of cooperation. Putin promises not to invade anywhere west of Germany.

August

The European Parliament is relocated to Milton Keynes now that Britain is the only member. UKIP change their name to EUPIP and Nigel Farage is elected President of Europe.

September

Britain agree to re-admit all the previous members to the EU, apart from France.

October

Putin visits Trump in Washington. The two men decide to swap jobs for a year in the interests of better understanding.

November

Civil unrest in Russia results in Putin returning to Russia.

December

Civil unrest in the US greets Trump's return from Russia where a week long celebration is held.
Nigel Farage renames the European Union as the British Empire. India, Canada, South Africa, Australia and the West Indies are admitted.
Christmas is moved to July in order to relieve the backlog of undelivered parcels caused by Amazon's drone pilots going on strike.

You thought 2016 was bad?

Happy New Year

Submissions

This is the result of the previous submission I made to the BBC. Note the date. January 1972. It's taken me this long to recover from the feeling of disappointment. OK, I suppose I'm not quite there yet.

In 1972, submitting a script was much more difficult than it is today. There were no computers, printers, photocopiers, email, internet or automatic spell checks. I had to type out my manuscript on a typewriter, a process akin to carving out letters on to tablets of stone. Mistakes were impossible to correct. They hadn't even invented Tippex in those days.

The kindest thing I can say about my 1972 submission was that it was typed reasonably neatly.

I'm now used to working with an editor, as you will have gathered from previous posts. I love the freedom this gives my novel writing. I am relieved from having to guess what works and what doesn't. An editor tells me in no uncertain terms. I'm more happy to accept criticism these days now that I recognise it as an essential part of my writing process. You note I use the term more happy and not just happy.

I've (bravely) put the BBC disappointment behind me and have sent them another script, 55 years on from the first (and only) one. This temerity has to be laid at the doorstep of that distinguished Irish writer and friend, Daragh O' Reilly. He's developed a bee in his bonnet about radio plays and, just so that I can spend some time with him, I joined him on a course about them. I've always been a big fan of Radio 4  and the prospect of getting something out on the airwaves is a delicious one however remote the possibility might be. Writing for radio is very different to writing a novel. My story arcs tend to be vast, requiring several hundred thousand words to complete. I write novels in batches of three or four. A 45 minute radio play needs only about 7,500 words. This is all a bit sudden for my liking so I've submitted the first episode of a six-part series.

I need to get back to the third Tyrant book now, but, before I do, I'll finish a new radio play that I've started . Then Daragh and I have a joint one to complete. Maybe I'm catching some of what he's got.