‘It’s not about good books any more…

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… it’s about the hook.’

This quotation comes from a very recent Hodder Children’s Books Acquisition Meeting courtesy of Beverley Birch.

Beverley presented an illuminating talk, followed by a Question and Answer session, to the Hampshire Writers’ Society at Winchester University on Tuesday 10th January 2011. It was a sobering presentation.

The essential point for us as aspirant writers in the current market to grasp is that our chances of being taken on by commercial publishers have very little to do with the readership. It is not about children.

It is about the buyers from Tesco, Asda et al and to a lesser extent, W.H. Smith and Waterstones. If we do not have a ‘high concept’ pitch ( think ‘Snakes on a Plane’) that will appeal to these buyers, then we may well be better off self-publishing.

It is not enough to have a coherent plot, engaging characterisation  and a well-conveyed setting. There must be pace and suspense, of course.The voice of the piece also must be distinctive and vigorous – and it must be commercial.

It is this last that shrivels my heart.

What do you do if your imagination runs to less easily marketed ideas?

What do you do if you’ve never been attracted by the mainstream?

Any thoughts?

 

“To hurt is as human as to breathe.”

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J. K. ROWLING, The Tales of Beedle the Bard

How a person copes with pain reveals a lot about their character – an observation that will usefully serve for us writers. After all, our job is to put our creations through a lot – to show what they are made of.

Maybe they are injured but keep quiet and stoical. This may be as brave as it seems, or perhaps later you have them let slip the stored resentment because no-one took the hint. Or show someone else crumbling under same stress to bolster the point.

What about the prima donna type wanting to be waited on hand and foot? That’s fine – but it could be fun to have your demanding diva set all that aside when it really matters. Always good to have different sides to a character – especially if you set up a pattern of behaviour and then break it.

Their attitude to medicine can be telling too. Do we see them reach for painkillers straight away, dispute with doctors, reject cures or heal themselves? Do they ask advice – or dish it out? Hypochondriacs can be a source of amusement – and so can the gullible.

A bit of realism doesn’t come amiss. I loathe adventure stories and thrillers where people carry on and on despite broken limbs, near drownings and shootings.  I remember Richard Lester’s ‘Four Musketeers’ where Christopher Lee and Michael York tottered with exhaustion. We need to write like that – as near as dammit feel what our characters suffer – and show it.

Likewise their response to others in distress is important – rush in with sympathy but little thought, offer practical solutions, actually do stuff? The characters we love to hate can be straightforwardly callous – but how much more loathsome is the much-advertised kindliness which is far more about image than substance? How calculating to have an apparently concerned ‘friend’ who later abuses their place of trust.

Whatever time period your work is set in, pain is something common to all humans and other animals. It can work well to increase sympathy and credibility – be it a stubbed toe or a dreadful fever. So go on – give your protagonist a poke and see how they react.

Betwixt & between

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This time of year can make you feel adrift. Though traditionally we are still in Christmastide until Twelfth Night, it now seems more like a form of Limbo – waiting for the New Year’s Eve celebrations. There’s a pause in the circling of the year as it turns over to start all over again.

The colloquial use of Limbo as a place or time when everything is held up may well seem apposite for these days – but it feels more like Purgatory to me. There is a sense of working through things, of heading towards a new destination.

In Science for Year Three, we looked at  the life-cycle of the butterfly. I learned that the caterpillar doesn’t just sprout wings that it already had and fly away. Remarkably, it deconstructs itself, becoming a chrysalis full of insect soup before re-assembling its constituent parts as a butterfly. It strikes me that such a radical transformation is not entirely comfortable.

This time of year is often unsettling. The shades of those who are not here drift across the celebrations. We recall things we wish we had not done – or perhaps regret things we have. The focus on our families and friends can stir up muddier thoughts and feelings than we care to consider aloud. Where are the boundaries?

From a writer’s point of view, this is all good. I make no wonder that there are ghost stories a-plenty – so many secrets, so many hidden things coming to the surface ( see my post from earlier in the month).  As my YA author friends know, The Edge is an interesting place to be.

Yes – emergence is demanding.

So to all my writing friends – and any one with  expectations for 2012:

I wish you a hopeful Christmas

I wish you a brave New Year

May all anguish, pain and sadness

Leave your heart and let your road be clear.

(Greg Lake)

Time out

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Today, I went overseas – well, the Isle of Wight, actually. I have an arrangement with my husband when visiting clients in interesting places that I go too. I treat these jollies as kinds of ‘Artist’s Date’ to use Julia Cameron‘s term.

It’s good to have a breather – a change of scene can lead to a different perspective. Followers of this blog will know I’ve been struggling with major revision of my Work in Progress – so when this trip was suggested, I leapt at it. Then I cracked it – I plumped for what I wanted to do and edited merrily away. By today I had a good fifth of the WiP sorted.

So then I had some choosing to do:

  • stay at home and edit – and risk annoying very supportive Better Half
  • go – and resent the time not spent editing when on a roll
  • go – and embrace the little adventure
No contest. Making the best of it seemed the wisest move.
It had to be said I am no further on with my gutting and filleting – my WiP remains as it was with 80% wanting revision. I have gained the following:
  • the restorative effect of fresh air, sunshine and sea air
  • a chance to observe ferry port banter
  • some choice turns of phrase
  • details of an appealing setting I could use
  • intriguing anecdotes which lead to possible story development
Not bad for something I hummed and hawed about. I think this might a good approach to Christmas, don’t you?

The Ambridge Delusion

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The long-running serial ‘The Archers’ works best when it creates illusion of being there. The writers make the audience almost believe they are overhearing something as it occurs.How do they achieve this sense of immediacy?

First off, there is no prefiguring: no-one announces what will occur in the future. They cannot possibly know, so they don’t foretell. This applies well to a novel too.

Secondly, there is little back story. OK , sometimes a newly-arrived character will be brought up to speed – but that kind of exposition can be clumsy even in experienced hands. Best not to have ‘As you know…’ dialogue, then.

Thirdly, there are rarely more than two characters interacting in any one scene. There’s no confusion that way. This seems a reasonable idea to pursue, in dialogue especially – no problems with attribution then.

Furthermore, characters are created by layering. Habitual Archers listeners will have heard many different aspects of the regulars over the years – but only one at a time. We compose our view of the characters out of the evidence we’ve been given.

It cracks on because there is only dialogue and implied action. Nobody wastes time reflecting and informing you what they are thinking – you have to work it out.

Finally, there’s no voice-over. No busy-body author telling you what to think or describing the scene in boring detail – that’s left to a few choice sound effects and your imagination.

All-in-all, not a bad way to think about keeping it apparently real.

Summoning up the past

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On Wednesday 7th December, I went to the opening of a Christmas Tree Festival at St John’s Chapel, Chichester in aid of Chestnut Tree House Children’s Hospice. The lights were switched on by Kate Mosse and the twinkling trees were a delight. But the thing that struck me most was the smell. I wasn’t the only one: a lady lost in thought murmured:

‘it takes me right back, that scent.’

Inspired by the event and with the help of a little mulled wine, I decorated our Christmas tree. Out came the wonky angel made by my middle son at playgroup, the toilet roll mini Christmas tree made by my youngest at nursery, and the dangly felt and bead caterpillar my eldest once sewed ( they are all in their twenties now). So many memories.

I put on Radio Four to keep me company – and caught one of their Weird Tales. It was, I thought, suitably spooky. It started me thinking about ghost stories and Christmas.There are fine literary  antecedents: M. R. James, Charles Dickens, Edith Wharton – not to mention the oral tradition. What is the link?

At a simple level, the dark months make us hungry for brightness – and a light casts shadows. Could my Jewish or Hindu readers tell me if here is a similar need for the uncanny around the festivals of Hanukkah and Diwali?  Humans love the contrast of light and shade – few things better than being safe indoors while the storm is out there, or the wraiths.

But there is more. Ritual brings us closer to those who have gone.

I cannot attach the one remaining little bird with its spun glass tail without thinking of my Nanna. I feel that pinch to the nose, that puckering of my forehead which show sentiment has got the better of me. I see her fingers pinching the tiny clip. This physical resonance is much deeper than creepy stories to out-scare the ghoulies and ghaisties and long leggedy beasties.

Some call up benign spirits – I think happily of L.M.Boston’s Children of Green Knowe – but others fetch more furtive shades. Not all memories should be recalled. Nonetheless, I think that’s why love ghost stories at Christmas – they close up the gap between the living and the dead.

Writer for Sale or Rent

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Vintage 1961 model in good working order

  •  includes brand new MA (Creative Writing)  from West Dean College
  • at home with Junior School children ( has previous as teacher)
  • however it would be fair to point out disturbing darker side to personality
  • addicted to anything maritime, the weirder aspects of folklore and ghost stories
  • excellent creator of imaginary worlds but definitely not streetwise
  • needs direction – middle grade, tweens or teens?
  • worryingly keen on dressing-up
  • grammar, punctuation & spelling in good condition
  • has demonstrated writing stamina
  • Yorkshire background – will work for tea and crumpets

All suggestions considered.

 

What sort of writer do you want to be?

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The viva voce for my MA in Creative Writing was on Monday. I have passed ( thanks to superb tuition from Greg Mosse) – and I am immediately wondering which subset in the Venn diagram of authors I should inhabit.

I’ve been asked to consider writing for adults. Straight off I flinch at that. I will admit to an entire Harry Ramsden’s on my shoulder about the status of children’s writers. It is compounded of my experience as a teacher that your rank is in direct proportion to the age of the children taught; the same impulse that made the ‘Children’s Writing IS a proper job’ badge sell out so quickly in November 2010, and Martin Amis’s remarks in February about brain injury and writing for children. The subtext is that writing for adults is somehow better, cleverer, more valuable.

Well, I’m with John Dougherty:

Don’t worry Martin. We can’t all be imaginative and versatile.

One of the things I admire most about the literature published for young people is the sheer range and breadth of ideas. Big ideas, written for people who will not be blinded by the effulgent beauty of your prose nor give one microfortnight of attention to reviews by your literary chums.

It is notable that David Almond (a literary hero to me) found a sense of liberation in writing for the young. I am put in mind of this concept:

Australian Aborigines say that the big stories—the stories worth telling and retelling, the ones in which you may find the meaning of your life—are forever stalking the right teller, sniffing and tracking like predators hunting their prey in the bush.

Robert Moss, Dreamgates 

Quite simply, I believe young people are more likely to be receptive to the stories following me about and asking to be told than adults. And I bother to write because of my belief in those same young people, and what stories are for.

 Every word written, every sentence, every story, no matter how dark the story itself might seem, is an act of optimism and hope, a stay against the forces of destruction.

David Almond, Hans Christian Anderson Award acceptance speech

Now before I get all too Messianic, I’d also like to point out that despite all the moaning of the pessimists, the children’s book market is thriving. According the ‘The Bookseller’ in 2001 it was worth £193 million – and in 2010 £325 million. Christopher Paolini’s ‘Inheritance’ sold more than 76,000 copies in UK in first week of publication this November.
Hilary Mantel’s ‘Wolf Hall’ (Man Booker winner) ? 14,600.
Children’s books often demonstrate the effectiveness of long tail marketing: they carry on being bought long after the brass bands and banners have left town.
It’s possible for me and my colleagues to do well.
When I decided to get serious about writing, I read Alison Baverstock’s unsettling but finally very useful ‘Is there a Book in You?’. She made it quite clear how important a support system is for any writer. My best scaffolding comes from SCBWI – I know I can contact wonderful people who will talk me down off the parapet, sort out my formatting issues or just plain be there. The conference in Winchester is a highlight of my year.
What other sort of writer could I possibly want to be?
Then come the next questions: YA or middle grade? Fantasy or thriller? Ghost stories or sea stories?
 to be continued….

Never mind the quality, feel the width…

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I’d read Stephen King’s ‘On Writing.’ I knew I had to put my work away in a metaphorical drawer for six weeks.

But it’s hard. You’re locking your baby away. Your baby that you’ve cried over, laughed and smiled at. As a writer you have to be totally involved with your work. If you don’t care, why on earth should your reader?

It is, however, entirely necessary to thrust it on one side. You have to have time to develop the emotional distance so that you can stand back and look at it with a critical eye.

If you’re too close, there’s a terrible temptation to fiddle, to tinker with the little safe bits. If it were a wedding dress you might rearrange a few seed pearls on the bodice- whereas it’s the darts that want seeing to.

Now I have to admit that my MA script is a bit of a meringue at the moment. There are some flounces that it really doesn’t need. They are well constructed but detract from the overall effect. They will have to go because they just don’t suit.

I don’t really like it – but I can see it has to be done. The big cuts have to be done first – no point pinning on the broderie anglaise until the overall form is right, is there? Makes me wish my design and my  toile had been better.

Ah well – at least with writing, you can cover the joins.

Cooking the books

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Those of you who have been on Arvon courses will know that taking part in the cooking is integral to the Arvon experience. At The Hurst, I was a member of the Thursday Singing Crew and whilst stirring my onions and belting out Songs from the Shows, I thought about the creative process.

As I see it, when you get ideas for a book and you do research, you’re looking in the fridge and the larder. You dig out the things you have in store, your experiences, your memories. Maybe you pick up something new. You assemble all your bits like the TV chefs and have a good think.

You might already know the shape of the book, the form it will take: you’d know if you intended to make a soup or a sorbet. Likewise, you’d have an idea of genre be it a ghost story or a spy thriller. Sometimes the best things come from fusion – anyone for supernatural romance or a sci-fi western? Whatever it may be, you’d need some idea of the conventions if only to subvert them.

Some mixes might have limited appeal, like snail porridge or a robotic bodice-ripper but throwing everything in results in a mish-mash, a pot-boiler, which pleases no-one. You know the kind of bottom of the fridge stir-fry, or plot with far too many elements thrown at it. The Venetians have an expression:

non piu di cinque ( no more than five)

not a bad idea in writing as well as in your risotto. The more you add, the more it diminishes the whole.

But that doesn’t mean the judicious use of herbs and spices doesn’t have its place. Just a little of something unexpected can lift the ordinary into first class: chocolate in your chilli; an astonishing image at a critical moment. It all comes with effort and odd bursts of inspiration.

At first, you stick to the recipe, read every How-to. Then you get bolder, take a few risks, produce the weird and the inedible. Only after a great deal of experimentation, maybe with the help of someone more experienced, do you learn how to handle it yourself.

Finally, I hope, you reach a stage where your work pleases your taste and people like what you do. You create for yourself, using your own intuition as a guide but not ignoring thousands of years of tradition. You have a style, a voice of your own and, although people may adapt what you’ve done, you make something distinct and original.

Like a soufflé, there may be lots of work done to create a short-lived moment, but at best, something may linger in the memory of many people. We all need things to sustain us.