Category: Writing Page 6 of 24

Rather Like That Irish Singer Shane MacGowan (Born 1957 In Kent)

On 15/10/2009

In Film, Fish In A Barrel, Link, Music, Uncategorized, Writing

For reasons I really don’t need to get into, I’m currently working on a 60-minute biopic of singer Chris de Burgh.

I don’t know about you, but I kind of thought I knew everything there was to know about him; the early years, The Lady In Red, the affair with the nanny, the angry letter to the Irish Times, and all that, but I’m finding that the more I read about him, the more of an enigma the man turns out to be.

Take, for example, the opening line of the Wikipedia page for Chris:

“Chris de Burgh (born Christopher John Davison on 15 October 1948) is an Argentinian-born Irish singer-songwriter…”

I’m starting to think I may need more than 60 minutes. I tell you, the man’s a mystery… wrapped in a thriller.

Curled up inside a romance.

If You Only Read One Thing On The Internet Today… Well, You’ve Wasted That Allowance Reading This. What Were You Thinking?

By John

On 06/10/2009

In Link, Uncategorized, Writing

Yes, many other people on t’interweb have linked to it already, but there’s a reason for that: it’s very honest and sensible and true and many, many other positive adjectives.

Michelle Lipton writes about the path of the freelance writer, and I recommend you read what she has to say.

That’s it; anything else I might say will – and I have simply no idea why – look facile and shallow in comparison.

The 24 Hour Book Challenge

By John

On 04/10/2009

In Books, Link, London, Uncategorized, Writing

Just wrapping up in sunny South London is the 24 Hour Book Challenge.

It started yesterday, and a group of writers have been working on a book based around a group of city centre allotments – having started the writing at 10am yesterday and finished it at 10am this morning, a group of volunteers is currently knocking it into printworthy shape and it’ll be on sale as of tomorrow. Follow the above link for more details of what sounds to me like a rather interesting challenge.

On the subject of novels written in a brief time – and unlike the above, you can get involved – it’s just under a month until the start of 2009’s National Novel Writing Month. I don’t think I’m eligible to take part as I’ve already started my book, but are any of you good people intending to have a go?

Everything That Has An Ending Has A Beginning

By John

On 22/09/2009

In Books, Uncategorized, Writing

I’ve been thinking about opening lines to books a bit recently, not least because The Body Orchard, the next book I want to write, has been stewing in my head for a while, and I’m ready to start writing it.

It’s a truth universally accepted that most articles about Jane Austen will start with a paraphrase of the opening line of Emma, though I must admit I’ve always found the sentiments of the sentence (which I’m far from inclined to accept) tend to put me off a bit.

I recall being told at school that the start of The Catcher In The Rye was noted for its length and flippant tone, and I could kind of see why, but then a decade or so I found an ‘uncut’ version of the book, which included a whole new section at the end of that well-regarded sentence, which was a bit off-putting.

I’ve always been fond of the beginning of Kafka’s The Trial, with its almost casual reference to the fact that the soon-to-be persecuted protagonist is innocent, and now I think about it the start of Metamorphosis is pretty classy too, and is certainly bolstered by the fact that (if memory serves) the story doesn’t go on to explain exactly why Gregor has turned into an insect. The opening sentence draws you in with the ‘what the hell..?’ factor, and then it’s too late, they’re knocking at the door and you’re in the story.

Isn’t there a story by Poe or Defoe (or maybe it was Cotton Eye Joe?) which has a line on the first page to the effect that if you read a page of it, you’ll soon forget the fact it’s meant to be a tale which the narrator is telling you? “Read one page, and I will be forgot” or something like that. Classy if you can pull it off, but I’m not so sure I could be that confident, and besides I’m such a rampant egomaniac I want everyone reading my stuff to be remembering my name, fame, I’m gonna live for ever.

More than anything else, though, I found myself thinking that one of the best opening lines I’ve ever read is the first line of the first chapter of the first book of Stephen King’s Dark Tower series:

“The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed.”

I think that’s very effective writing – sets up who, where and what’s going on, and of course raises a lot of questions in the reader’s mind. A good way to rope you in (which is probably very wise indeed, as Mr K intends to keep your attention for seven books before the tale is told).

So, it’s very probably with this line very much in mind that, last night, I wrote the following:

The dying man coughed, sending a spray of blood onto the living room carpet.

Sure, the content’s not very pleasant, and I’m sure that it’ll get changed more than once in the rewrite… but it’s a start.

And The Winner Is… Oh, Can’t Get The Envelope Open…

By John

On 21/09/2009

In Link, TV, Uncategorized, Writing

I see that the Writers’ Guild Of America has announced the results of their recent elections.

And their new president is John Wells.

John ER, West Wing Wells?

Yeah, I can see how he might know a thing or two about the business of writing.

Alternatively, You Can Get A B(as)ic Biro For … What, 30p?

By John

On 16/09/2009

In Link, Pictures, Uncategorized, Writing

Like many people who enjoy writing, over the years I’ve gradually realised that I prefer writing with certain pens and notebooks. They’re often ones which work more smoothly and without reminding you of the physical act of writing, so like the ideal tools, they’re at their best when they’re unnoticed.

There is, and I’ve certainly seen it in myself, a tendency to get a bit carried away when it comes to writing implements; “if I only had a nicer pen [or notebook or computer or whatever], then I’d find the writing more easy, and thus I’d write better stuff”… or so the theory goes.

I don’t know if it’s necessarily the case at all – for me, a lot of it is just procrastination combined with my inbred Western craving to be a good consumer – because I’ve done some of my better writing when using just a biro and sheets of A4 paper. But it’s horses for courses and all that, I suppose.

Anyway, that was a typically lengthy and digression-riddled lead in to the following, which is a link to what is claimed are the Top 10 Most Expensive Pens In The World.

Quite a few of them are obviously the results of great craftsmanship, but given some of the price tags, you probably wouldn’t be likely to use them – indeed, some of them look as if they wouldn’t be very comfy to use. And what was it I was saying a few paragraphs ago about tools being at their best when they don’t impinge or make themselves the focus of the task at hand..?

A Writing Competition That Some Of You Might Possibly Be Able To Think About Drafting A Story To Consider Submitting

By John

On 15/09/2009

In Link, Uncategorized, Writing

I’m not sure how many of you will be eligible to enter this – in all honesty, I’m not even sure if I can enter – but even if only one of you is able to have a go at this competition, this post will be justified, my work here will be done, and I can log off knowing I’ve done something useful (and how often can one say that?).

So. Recently announced is the Sunday Times EFG Private Bank Short Story Award, a short story competition with a sizey prizey of £25,000. That’s the logo to the side there.

They’re looking for stories of up to 7000 words, and no theme is specified, and there’s a pretty impressive list of judges (even I have heard of them all). The possible hurdle to entry, though, is that the rules state “the authors must have been previously published in the UK or Ireland”. I don’t know if this means you have to have had a short story published, a novel or other book, or whether (and this is where people like me might sneak under the wire) comic stories and magazines count. And what about radio plays and TV sketches, or whole screenplays? I just don’t know.

Anyway, the prize is pretty alluring, isn’t it ? And there are five runner-up prizes of £500, which means it’s not quite a one-horse race. Entry is by hard copy (you have to send seven copies of your story), and the closing date is 30 November 2009, so you’ve got a while yet to work something up for it, if you’re going to enter… assuming you’re eligible to enter, I mean.

I’ll let you know if there are any updates about eligibility, but in the meantime, if you’re clearly and unequivocally in the ‘previously published’ category, then you might want to start putting some words together…

Giving You A Lead, Talking Up Another Writer… Is There No End To My Magnificent Munificence?

By John

On 10/09/2009

In BBC, Link, Uncategorized, Writing

Despite the fact I could do without the competition, I’d be remiss if I didn’t draw your attention to this writing opportunity: the BBC Radio 4 comedy programme Recorded For Training Purposes is inviting writers to send in sketches.

This is the fourth series of ‘RFTP’, as all the cool kids call it, and they genuinely have used sketches from people who’ve sent them in – why, none other than Lord Jason of Arnopp sent stuff in to them last year, and now he’s been commissioned to write stuff for the forthcoming series. That’s right, he went from being a speculative sender to one of the people on the inside. IT CAN BE DONE.

Anyway, I’ll definitely be giving this a go – full details can be found via the link above, including the general themes that they’re looking for (in addition to asking that all submissions huddle comfortably under the umbrella theme of ‘communication’).

The closing date is midnight on October 2 (though one has to hope that they won’t be there that late – long hours could mean they get tired and overlook the genius of my material), but I think I’ll be starting to work on this sooner rather than later…

Oh, and did I mention that they’re asking for no more than two sketches from each person? Ah yes, looks like I just did in that previous sentence. Good. Would have looked like an idiot if I’d neglected to mention that, and as regular readers (or even those with chronic constipation) will know, looking stupid is the last thing I’d want to happen.

King Of All I Survey, King Of All Surveys

By John

On 08/09/2009

In Books, Link, Pictures, Uncategorized, Writing

I don’t know about you, but I really dislike it when I’m on a website and a pop-up asks me if I’d be willing to take a survey.

If it’s a site I like and visit often, then the pop-up is just an annoying obstacle, stopping me from getting to the bit I want to see, and if it’s a site I’ve never looked at before, then it often puts me off to the extent that I may just stop looking at the site. And maybe it’s me being mercenary here, but I prefer it when a survey tries to lure me in with the promise of being entered in a draw for a voucher or iPod or something – don’t people get paid for working in market research? Pass the rewards on to your helpers, I say.

So, despite being very quick to criticise, I’m not much of a survey-completer. And when I do fill one out, I don’t always remember it.

Which is why, when I received a book through the post yesterday from The Screenwriter’s Store, I thought there’d been some kind of mistake. I hadn’t ordered a book from them (well, not recently, anyway).

But on cracking the box open, I found a copy of Archetypes For Writers by Jennifer Van Bergen, accompanied by a letter from MovieScope magazine thanking me for taking part in their recent survey. Reading this letter, I remembered completing the survey, and was slightly surprised that I’d received a thank-me, as many of my comments had been pretty harsh. Then again, they probably need to know what people don’t like as much as the things they’re keen on, I guess.

Still, it’s always nice to get a surprise in the post, and as anyone who writes knows, there’s no better way to justify avoiding actually getting on with some writing than to have a new book about writing to read.

After all, this book might be the one containing the key insight which makes it all so much easier…

Work In Progress : Update

By John

On 05/09/2009

In Link, Uncategorized, Writing

I realise I haven’t written much about my progress in writing my novel The Body Orchard recently, but that’s for one simple reason – I’m still working on the details of some of the storylines.

The main item I’m currently wrestling with is re-orienting a couple of the plot threads to avoid what the late Blake Snyder referred to as Double Mumbo Jumbo – that is, having too many coincidences or instances of magic or the like; an example, to my mind, would be Spider-Man 3, where the Venom plotline seems to exist solely on the basis of coincidences.

Whilst I don’t have many coincidences in the story, I was suddenly aware that there were – as fans of the film Sneakers will understand – too many secrets. Not in the mystery element of it, but secret enclaves of people doing secret things to a secret agenda, and that basically put so many veils between the reader and the reality of the situation as to make it impossible for them to have a guess as to who the baddie might be. And I feel quite strongly that you should play fair when it comes to the reader having a go at solving the mystery.

So I’m re-working the nature of the crime – or, at least, aspects of the criminal – and then when that’s all smoothed out, I’ll be able to wade into it properly; I wish I could just start and then sort it out as I go along, but (to draw an analogy I recently heard) as with a rocket it’s much easier to make adjustments to the trajectory before launch.

That said, I now feel very happy with such a vast amount of the story it’ll be less a case of sitting and staring blankly into space and trying to guess what comes next, and more a case of running the events through my mind and reporting on them.

Minutes from meetings that never happened, as it were… but doesn’t that definition cover a large amount of fictional writing