From the heart

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Thursday 5th May 2011 I had the pleasure of attending a fundraiser for StonePillow , a local charity working with homeless people. I went to hear readings from three very local writers: Isabel Ashdown, Jane Rusbridge and Gabrielle Kimm. The quality of the extracts was excellent – and it gave me to thinking why.

The three main works were quite distinct – though all had an historical element. Both ‘Glasshopper’ by Isabel Ashdown  and ‘The Devil’s Music’ by Jane Rusbridge take place in England in the  recent past, whereas Gabrielle Kimm set  ‘His Last Duchess’ in 16th century Italy. But it wasn’t the vivid recreation of a previous era  that captvated: it was the emotion.

All three authors read with a clear sense of the emotion in their work. Speaking to them afterwards, it became clear that despite the distance between the reading and the publication, the feelings of their primary characters still animated the writers. And this in turn engaged their listeners.

This is critical to me as both reader and writer. I may have no idea how banquets were conducted at the Court of Alfonso d’Este – but I can connect with the tentative feelings of a young bride. Similarly, I can identify with  the experience of a frightened boy or an embarrassed  teenage girl in any time, location or culture because of their emotions. Emotions link us to all humans: and the single emotional thread was the first key concept Greg Mosse taught us on the Creative Writing MA.

These writers, and many more who engage with their readers, portray emotion with clarity and honesty. They use dialogue and action to reveal their characters’ emotional lives. Everyone experiences anger,  love and loss – and writers show these because they are inherent to the human experience. They don’t use emotions to draw the reader in – they experience the emotions of their characters and record them.

Therefore a creative writer shows anger, love and loss through distinct voices.  At this reading, I had the direct experience of hearing those voices and the physical emotion in them. As a reader, you ‘hear’ the voice of the characters in your head – and you also have a sense of the author’s voice. It is the intensity of feeling in the writer’s voice that draws us into their fictional world.

Animal Instincts

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I don’t know if animals truly are good judges of character – but they can be used to show it in fiction. I am focusing here on how animal characters can illuminate the human ones.

The way your characters treat animals can be a simple method to indicate empathy. They might take care to feed birds over winter. They might use humane traps for vermin. They might lift their piglet on the wall to see the parade! More conflicted characters can be revealed by a confused approach – vegetarian but eat fish, or keep urban chickens yet feed foxes. You might use concerns about animals as a plot driver: the vegan diver who liberates lobsters from local fishermen, the shoplifting  lady with too many cats or the kid with a catapult keeping magpies away from  nesting birds.

On the other hand, their behaviour towards animals can be used to show a character’s darker side. The green-stained fish tank, the donkey with untrimmed hooves or the stinking rabbit hutch speak of neglect and failed promises. What about the horrors who train magnifying glasses on ants, or pull legs off spiders? The choice of animal associated with a character can speak volumes – Philip Pullman knew that well with his use of daemons. And where would a world class villain be without an appropriate pet?

But it’s not just our character’s attitude towards animals that indicates personality – it’s the animals’ reactions to them. Ever since Bucephalus, the behaviour of the horse around a person has been used to  indicate nobility and trustworthiness. Similarly the wagging tail of a dog can suggest they sense a warm open personality. An affinity with wildlife in particular has been used for innocence and patience – I love Dickon in ‘The Secret Garden’ for that.

Ambivalence, mystery or less stereotyping can be created by the showing the trust of more unusual animal in a given character. How will your reader react if a character wins the affection of a hooded rat,  an ocelot or a seal? What if they are generally unpleasant – but feed deer at dusk on nectarines?

Of course, the fear or hatred of  animals can be used to great effect. The reader does not feel comfortable round someone who makes the joyful blackbirds fall silent, makes a wolfhound tremble and droop its tail or a wildcat cower. And having a carrion crow as a companion certainly says something about a person.

So using an animal as a minor,  secondary or ( as in the case of Black Beauty) central character can be useful strategy for letting your reader see personality in action – without hanging a label around your characters’ necks.

Better to travel…

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There you are , not sure how to open your story.  You don’t really want to fire off all your exciting stuff immediately, – how could you build a crescendo from there? You could do worse than start with a journey.

Your reader will appreciate being introduced to your central character by herself, and then secondary characters individually. This can happen naturally with the preparations for a voyage or trip. How and what  your central character packs, for example, can say a lot about her. It’s not unlikely that further characters could board the bus, or walk up the gangplank one-by-one, giving your reader time to see them separately at the very least.

Another advantage of travel in fiction is the setting. You have the opportunity to show minor characters going about their business in active and interesting harbours, airports etc. and interacting with your main character. You also have the reaction of the main character to the place and its challenges – how does she cope?

There is nothing forced about description of a new place animated by action. There’s nothing forced about showing the reader a situation which is strange to your main character, so that’s all good too. You have forward movement because your character is doing something: the sense of place is integral to the small dramas like getting a visa stamp, misunderstandings about customs or simply choosing food.

And these little things, these mundane events can evolve. An insignificant interruption might lead to a delay. The delay might mean missing the connection, missing the connection might lead to a stay in a hotel on the wrong side of the tracks and so on. It could be comic, it could be tragic – but consequences of even a straightforward journey could be huge.

So if your writing’s going nowhere, try taking a holiday. Who knows where it might lead?

Is there anybody out there?

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You know the one: the social situation with people milling about, being polite. Someone asks you what you do. You tell them you write. Then they ask what sort of thing. You explain you’re a children’s writer. At this point, you may be asked what you’ve had published – or if it’s someone feeling clued up, who’s your target audience?

It’s then I translate their question into the one I want to answer – like a politician. What I hear is ‘Who am I writing for?’ My immediate response is me. There’s an element of ‘you can’t please everyone…’ in there, and the child inside. I write the books I wish someone had written for me.

Then, of course, come the second thoughts. A nasty little Imp of Doubt asks whether modern children could possibly have any interest in my concerns. I bat it away with the assertion that adults’ needs and desires haven’t change over millennia – and neither have children’s.

My third thoughts bring me back to the original question about ‘target audience’.

I don’t have one.

Chasing trends, thinking about demographics and responding to focus groups is SEP* as far as I’m concerned. Perhaps it’s arrogant, but I think my calling is to tell this one story as well as I can.

And what I see, who I am writing this book for, is a boy (I have three sons). He is boy fascinated by the sea. He is a boy who wonders if there’s some truth in myths and legends. He is a boy who half-sees things in grungy corners, who wants to escape into another world. He thinks the ’60s were cool.

I hope he’s out there – him and his mates.

*Someone Else’s Problem

Chicken and Egg

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Easter holidays; no bus trips to college and time to do some serious wordage. One thing I have learnt is you’ve got to have form ( no, not that sort). Think of a garden – it can be colourful, jam-packed with plants but it won’t impress the Yellow Book judges much if the hard landscaping’s all to pot. That’s certainly how I used to garden – and my writing is still a bit that’s good- bung-it-in-and-hope-for-the-best.

One antidote to splurging is looking how other people do it. I had a spot of ironing to do, so I popped on Radio 4 and listened to ‘On Mardle Fen’. I scribbled down notes on the structure in between pressing Gorgeous Hubby’s poplin shirts and the posh tea-towel. There were plenty of mini-dramas including finding the remote restaurant, kitchen disputes and a runaway daughter – but one overarching  familial drama. A big feature that holds it all together, like a wall round a vegetable garden, or a central fountain, definitely creates an effective structure.

An external event can be a good device – the count-down to a wedding, for example or that highlight of East Wittering’s year: the opening of the refurbished Co-op. It doesn’t take too much imagination to realise how many mini-stories are possible with so many people  involved. What about the reporter with the comedy cardboard scissors, the football coach holding the giant cheque, or one of the fitters looking down from the roof? And it wouldn’t have to be limited to the contemporary: think of the excitement of the first supermarkets arriving, or the fuss the Victorians made opening a shop.

But, of course, all these possibilities lead off in different directions. You can follow your protagonist and secondary characters wandering off along all sorts of paths. And where’s your planning, your pre-formed structure then? Back to the venerable Plotter v Pantser debate.

I’m trying Plot-the-Big-Stuff and Wing-the-Details at the moment. It feels like herding cats – or trying to control couch grass.

Any advice?

“It matters not what a person is born, but who they choose to be.” J.K. Rowling

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As part of my MA at West Dean College, I gave a presentation about my work-in-progress. I used images and texts to evoke the period and place that my story was set in quite comfortably. I felt confident about portraying the 1960s without cloying nostalgia, and happy firmly locating it on the Yorkshire coast. I was able to outline the general social background: the underlying tension between the seal people and the fishermen of Scoresby Nab.

But then I reached the specific ‘who’- my central protagonist – and it all went a bit vague. Come the plenary and it was clear my audience had been left in some fuzzy hinterland they disliked.

I determined to do something about this.

I had no joy with writing a bog standard character description. It came out twee, stereotypical. If  I could sneak up on him sideways somehow, Mattie might become clearer. It occurred to me that in the best stories we learn a good deal about a character by the reactions of those around them. I hit upon the idea of ‘asking’  Mattie’s grandmother and others: I could see him through a matrix of other people’s views.

So now I am creating chunks of Grandma’s diary, newspaper cuttings, and  a doctor’s note. I wonder what else might inform.

Any suggestions?

Focus

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The writers on the Creative Writing MA at West Dean College are reshaping their work in different forms. Some have chosen to explore screenplay; some poetry; others are working in the radio play format. I am tackling a theatre play – in much the same way that my first forays into gardening involved equal parts of enthusiasm and ignorance. My initial attempts have pruned a story set in Scoresby Nab right down to the bare stems – a very useful exercise. I’ve had to hack away all sorts of extraneous matter. But now it needs to grow.

It is abundantly clear to me that it needs a clear framework. Storytelling in any form is about how you choose to reveal the sequence of events – but you first must have a sequence. I am learning oh so slowly how to intertwine one story strand with another. It’s pruning rambler roses all over again: which to tie in, which to cut back hard, which diseased shoots must just go.

Add in to that the Head Gardener standing over me and my secateurs just come to a halt.

Self-consciousness must be like honey fungus. Its evil rhizomorphs lurk, waiting to spread into any crack . Then the mycellium of despair get in and you’re done for. According the RHS, the only prevention is a physical barrier – and I hope concentration will act like that for thought.

So my intent is to persist, following the Head Gardener’s patient instructions, doing just one bit at a time. It might be slow and painstaking but my ambition is to understand. I want to be able to do it for myself.

The road to responsibility

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I’m writing this in Aldea Global Cafe, Tarifa, Spain.

Yesterday, I went riding up towards the mountains through sweet-scented pines and admiring gloriously free-ranging  black pigs destined to be jamon. The turf in March is green and lush, full of flowers and herbs.

It was unsurprising that my horse kept  eating the grass. It bent its head down, I pulled on the reins. I didn’t want to cascade down its neck into the prickly pear bushes.

My lack of control tells you a lot about my experience as a rider, and also gave me to thinking about imposing my will on the animal.

Today, I managed rather better, pre-empting the horse’s move to grab a quick nosh. For a little while, I experienced a satisfying unity between what I wanted to do and what this large creature’s abilities. Lovely.

At a plateau we stood looking over the sea to Morocco. Miggy, the instructress explained about the scars on the noses of  Andalucian horses. These come from the local method of breaking. (Breaking –  what a telling word that is.) She spoke of some of the local men having to have stallions – often before they were ready to handle them – hence the cruelty.

I thought back to Martin Clunes’ ‘Horsepower’ series. I had watched fascinated by  Monty Roberts’ and Jean Francois Pignon’s natural horsemanship. They both used the animals’ natural traits to manipulate their behaviour in a compassionate way. The animals were not stressed, no force was used (other than personality) and yet they did as they were asked.

On the plane over, I watched Kirsty Young presenting ‘ The British at Work’. It gave a salutary reminder of  the  dictatorial management in the postwar era – and how much it was resented. I thought also of how much we hated over-strict teachers, the sort who shouted and threw board-rubbers. They ruled through fear because they hadn’t the skills to persuade.

Nonetheless, I get fed up with the cliché of the leader as always an incompetent bully , as though being in charge inevitably leads to domineering behaviour. As a fictional counterpoint, I like to think of Terry Pratchett’s Baron in ‘I Shall Wear Midnight’. He was a man who gained respect because he asked his people to do what they would do anyway. A not-dissimilar technique is used by my MA tutor Greg Mosse.

As I hope Mubarak has learned, in positions of responsibility there are  better methods than oppression.

Istanbul not Constantinople

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  1. Book your preferred restaurant for a Friday or a Saturday night – even in the low season. The best places serving mehanes (a kind of Turkish tapas) fill up fast.
  2. The Grand Bazaar is big, busy and bewildering: try the smaller Spice Market also known as the Egyptian Bazaar instead.
  3. The Fish Market down by Galata Bridge is fascinating, smells of the sea and is full of free entertainment.
  4. Istiklal Caddesi is long, and full of life. Every evening there is a procession of people; you might see a Balkan band dressed like the Mafia, a political protest or the crowds parting like the Red Sea for the Nostalgic Tram. If it gets too much, seek solace in the fabulous Denizler Kitabevi bookshop. 
  5. Need a healthy pick-me-up? Look out for a Vitamin Centre – fresh fruit juices squeezed on the spot. They seem to be on every thoroughfare of any size. Some markets have men with handcarts who put on quite a performance at it.
  6. Fancy a sticky cake instead? Find Hafiz Mustafa in Sirkeci and try the konefe, halva or one of the  countless other sweet treats whilst looking out past the Orient Express Terminal to the Bosphorus.
  7. If you want to see the Harem in the Topkapi Palace at its best , get there early ( 9 a.m) You need to take a left after you have gone through the Topkapi entrance ( past the Executioners’ Fountain) and get your ticket as soon as you can. Look out for the Valide Sultan’s appartments – especially all you Jason Goodwin fans out there.
  8. A tip from Jason well worth passing on – the Rustem Pasha mosque is small, calm and spiritually refreshing. It sits above Hasırcılar Çarşısı (Strawmat Weavers Market) in Eminönü.
  9. For a taste of Stambouliot  flavours, locate Haci Abdullah on Sakızagacı Caddesi (a side treet off Istiklal in Beyoğlu) or Sumerhan Lokantasi on Büyük Postane Caddesi in Eminönü.
  10. And if your feet are aching after all that, use public transport. The trams are cheap and cheerful – you need a little red jeton( one price for any journey) which you can buy from a  Jetonmatik machine. There is cute little funicular at Tunel and the Metro is good for the airport. The ferries are fun too.