As the week draws to its end, I just wanted to share with you, my lovely readers, one important lesson which I’ve learned in the last few days:
Unless you actually are a sculptor, or have a hand as steady as a professional stonemason, do not attempt to remove ice from a freezer compartment with a screwdriver and hammer.
Yes, I am an idiot. Still, the new fridge-freezer looks good in the kitchen.
When did it become cool for popular music artistes to be named like my grandmother and her friends?
I only hope they don’t smell of Parma Violets and carry their handbags everywhere.
So, I didn’t make it to the next round of the CBBC Competition. Ah well.
I did, however, get a friendly e-mail from the BBC Writersroom, saying that my script had made it through to the second reading stage, and encouraging me to send stuff to them in future, which was nice.
And, of course, it was good to find out either way, on the appointed day. Well played, BBC, I say.
But enough of me; you’re a bunch of talented sods out there, surely at least one of you has been asked to go along to the masterclass? C’mon, share the good news, that’s what the Comment function is for…
I referred to the Monty Python Spanish Inquisition Sketch the other day (in this post), and that led me to think about its appearance in the film Sliding Doors. Hey, that’s how my mind works.
For those of you who haven’t seen this film (and I’ve only seen it once, at the time of its cinema release), John Hannah recites lines from the Spanish Inquisition sketch to a table of hysterically impressed friends, including Gwyneth Paltrow – in fact, his Python performance kind of forms part of his wooing of her character in the film. The people around the table are laughing a lot at this bit in the film, including women, which didn’t ring true for me, as I was the kind of spotty indoorsy teenager who’d learn Monty Python sketches off by heart, and as much as women like a laugh and like comedy, very few of them are particularly keen to hear you recite other people’s comedy material. Especially a sketch as reliant on visual aspects and incidental music as that one.
Anyway, as an aspect of the film in which we’re supposed to think Hannah’s character’s funny or likeable, it didn’t work for me. In a similar way, I once found myself watching Showgirls to see if it was as bad as it was said to be (it was), and about twenty minutes in (I think – it was just before the first ad break, and I switched it off then) there was a big song and dance number. The main character, played by Elizabeth Berkeley, watches this show on stage, and is utterly captivated by it. I, on the other hand, thought it was a pretty risible sequence featuring semi-naked people cavorting amidst model volcanoes.
Hmm, those last three paragraphs make it sound as if I’m just having a go at other people to make my point (and I do have one), so let me share a similar confession about my own writing; some years ago, I wrote a novel (unpublished, and with hindsight that’s probably fair) called Fall From Grace. It was essentially a re-telling of the fall of Lucifer, set within a modern-day Evangelical Broadcasting Network – members of staff rebel against the existing regime, get kicked out, seek to take revenge, that sort of thing.
Reader: These religious broadcasts don’t strike me as that awe-inspiring.
Me: Well, they are. Trust me.
Reader: They wouldn’t convert me.
Me: Well, the people in the book are quite taken with them.
Reader: I don’t know why.
Me: Look, they’re really impressed. Take my word for it.
Reader: I suppose I have to, for the story to make sense.
Me: Yes, you do.
Reader: Hmph.
Otherwise, you end up just having to take other characters’ word for it; John Hannah’s character is funny, the show in Showgirls really is impressive, and in my personal example, millions of people do tune in every week to watch a religious TV show… and if you don’t believe what the story wants you to believe, or feel the reaction that you’re apparently expected to feel, you’ll be jerked right out of the experience of the story, and that’s never a good thing.
Looking at how this should be done, I watched the first episode of The West Wing again yesterday, and – possible spoilers ahoy – we don’t get to meet the President himself until very near the end of the episode. Instead of the viewer being told for the best part of an hour that he’s quick-witted, supportive of his staff, and articulate, we’re shown it – President Bartlet demonstrates this in a couple of minutes, and at the end of the scene (indeed the episode) you can see why his staff are so loyal to him. That, as Mr Punch would say, is the way to do it.
The Roman Emperor and philosopher Marcus Aurelius once said “Waste no more time arguing what a good man should be. Be one”, and I think the same applies to aspects of plot or character as detailed above. Is a character meant to be funny? Show them being funny, not other people telling them they’re funny. Is something in a story meant to be amazing or startling, and send people’s lives in a new direction? Then the story needs to show it being amazing or startling.
As is so often the case, I won’t pretend that I’m making a devastating insight about a requirement of writing here; however, I was quite pleased when all the above churned around inside my head, and I finally realised that all of the examples which sprang to my mind all point to one fundamental principle of writing: Show, Don’t Tell.
… which seven-volume fantasy series which began with a fairly slim first volume got more and more lengthy as the end drew nigh: Jo Rowling’s Harry Potter or Stephen King’s Dark Tower?
Let’s find out! Potter’s in Blue, the Tower is Purple…
So – perhaps appropriately enough – the Tower has the highest numbers.
Here’s a thought: how different would the current state of Bloomsbury publishers be if the Potter books had each been 324 pages long, and the series had run to ten books ?
I know that books, unlike many media, can be as long as they need to be to get the story told, but I’ll wager that somewhere, a publishers’ accountant has asked exactly the same question, though they probably followed it with a sigh, and then returned to crunching numbers.
(Found in a number of places on the internet.)
Well, it makes me laugh.
And that’s why I shared it – because if there’s one thing this blog is all about, it’s spreading laughter and joy and love and peace and tea and biscuits. Oh, and it’s about writing. But that’s still one thing, if we use the Inquisitional numbering system.
Speaking of matters writerly, it seems that the CBBC Competition had over 700 entries. Crikey.
Still, I’m keeping my fingers crossed… though if I do get through, I won’t hurry to claim it’s a case of the cream rising to the top – after all, the scum also rises, as Hemingway nearly put it.
Still, we’ll see how things go, and of course if I get invited to the next stage (a workshop), I’ll be sure to talk about it in the usual self-hyping fashion here on the blog. Because if there’s one thing this blog is about, it’s… ah, you guessed it.
Like many people with a letterbox, I’ve become accustomed to coming home to find myself dazzled by a shining sea of glossy junk mail – pizza menus, flyers for estate agents and repair firms, and party political newsletters and the like.
I’ve become kind of jaded to it really, so my immediate reaction is to ignore the stuff – the exact opposite of the hoped-for result, I’m sure – and it takes something quite startling to make me actually pay attention to unsolicited mail.
Which is why the flyer which you can see here (scanned in from the original, hence the scuffmark across the middle from my shoe) caught my attention when it arrived. I’m well aware that there’s a market for this service, but … well, I’d kind of hope that people would do a bit of research beyond waiting for a leaflet on the subject to come through the door.
Despite having lived in London for over a decade, yesterday was the first time I’ve ever been to Highgate Cemetery.
As the chap at the gate said, the main draw for many visitors is the tomb of Karl Marx:
But there are many other graves to see, and it’s a quiet and somehow relaxing atmosphere – well worth a look if you have the time and are in North London.
Though I have to admit that several times in the visit I heard David Tennant’s voice in my head…
We can put the whole tea-wasted-in-the-harbour thing behind us, right?
Anyone else think she’s jumping before something unsavoury emerges?
Manchester Metropolitan University are running the Manchester Writing Competition, which has an impressive first prize of £10,000.
The deadline is 7 August, the entry fee is £15, and entries are limited to 5000 words, but other than that restriction it’s pretty much a case of write what you like… something which longtime readers will know is one of the tenets of this blog.
I’m not entirely keen on the fact that you have to pay, but then again it’s a college, so they probably don’t have loads of cash to spare – though on the other hand being a college should also ensure they don’t do a midnight flit with all the dosh, what with having buildings and students and being fairly well-established and everything.
Anyway, hope this is of use – not sure if I’ll enter myself, but if you do, good luck!
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