Thursday Thoughts: Back on Track

 

Hello Blog-babes,

Today is a little blog about the state of my novel and a problem that I doubt is unique to me.

I’ve actually been struggling to write recently. My struggle hasn’t been in terms of putting words on metaphorical paper, it has been in an acceptance that the words are the right ones. Or even good ones.

For two weeks I have been writing small sections of prose. Where I had once managed to average about 5,000 words a day I was suddenly having to drag myself to reach 1,000. Each day I would read back over the previous day’s efforts and rip it out and try it again. It was torturous, slow and demoralising. It wasn’t that I didn’t know what I was writing, but I was falling into that trap of writing without saying anything. Actions would come and go with ne’er a purpose between them. It’s frustrating reading your own work and realising that you are not reaching the potential you know is there.

Aside from the story/character exercises I’ve previously blogged about – which did help! – one other invaluable tool to the writer is: discussion. If something is knotted up and you know that no matter how you try you can’t work around it… talk to someone. We have an amazing capacity, when we really need to, of making ourselves understood to other people. By trying to explain the beats and narrative of what you are trying to write to someone else, if they are not understanding it you will find yourself instinctively rephrasing your point for clarity, this continues until the other person understands. You are refining and streamlining your problem to its clearest form so that it makes sense to another, and importantly also to yourself. If you’ve got a good friend who is willing to be talked at, sit them down with a nice cup of tea and have at it.

I did this last week, set out what Evin is going through, what actions I’m writing and thematically what the section is about. And lo, I set about writing again and the words are flowing clearly and the action is moving purposefully forward.

Let your inner editor come out for a while when you both need space to breath, it will help.

I’ve also been exploring options for presenting the short stories I publish on this blog in a form that allows for them to be read on e-book/smart phone/tablet devices as an alternative to you only being able to read them on the blog itself. I had a play with Apple’s iAuthor, but I’m not sure if it’s the tool for me. I’m not sure if I’ll get anything finished before the next story is published, but hopefully soon after. And there’s one other thing that I have planned. But more on that at a later date.

– Andrew

(Also, Blog-babes?! Oh dear, that won’t do. I gotta think up a good collective term for you fine folks)

 

Monday Musing: No Offence Intended

Hello,

I intended to blog about something else today, maybe I’ll come back to that in a later posting, for now I want to talk about something that came up yesterday. I’ve talked about how a small select group of people have read the opening 100-odd pages of my novel They’re Here. The people are all of different temperaments, out-looks and interests, allowing me to get feedback from them on different aspects of the story, find common likes, dislikes, or even something I hadn’t noticed.

I had a lengthy discussion with a friend yesterday about the story and what’s going on, where it’s heading, the political aspect of the world and who Evin is as a character. I also talked in moderate depth about what my plans are for the remainder of the book. One thing came up in this conversation that I hadn’t intended: my friend was offended by a part of the story.

To deliberately offend was not my intention and on a personal level I did not attach the same reaction to the event as my friend, yet when he told me how he had perceived it I felt bad because I hadn’t had the forethought to look at my work through the eyes of someone who sees the world differently to me.

I won’t go into what the thing was because in the scheme of the story my changing it is meaningless. The event itself is meaningless, yet I had created an offensive action to my friend. I have changed the section and added some other elements based on our conversation that I think maintain the essence of the scenes but remove the troubling element.

This got me thinking about the notion of offence as a concept and action. As I say, my intention is not to offend and am pleased to have corrected the issue. I don’t think that my work challenges things, but I think it important for any artist to challenge ways of thinking (again, not my intention with the scene which is why it has changed), to examine the world, particularly the status quo, and say: is this right? Is this the correct way we should look at the world?

I think the problem always arrises when it’s not done with thought to others, or with the deliberate intent to hurt others. No two people think alike, this person is one of my very closest friends and our opinions on many things differ, yet this does not affect our friendship. To set out with the express desire to go against what people think to be confrontational for the sake of upsetting people rings through as false art to me. Yes, challenge, inspire people to question what they perceive to know, believe or understand. It helps people grow. To question our society, our values, our behaviour is important to human growth. But I do not believe in attack for the sake of controversy.

As an example, one of my favourite books (that I’ve longed to make into a movie for over a decade) is a novel by Bo Fowler called Scepticism Inc. it is a particularly difficult book to find now as it is out of print. It is a very challenging book and I understand the elements of it that some many take issue, or even offence to, yet I believe the guiding thought behind the book is to question what you are told and decide for yourself what you believe.

The book is narrated by a shopping trolley that believes in God because he was programmed to do so. He has always believed in God. The trolley’s journey in the book is to discover whether or not be chooses to believe in God. This is set against the story of Edgar Malroy who does not believe in God. Edgar opens a chain of betting shops, metaphysical betting shops to be exact, where religious people come and bet that their God is the one True God. As such a thing is unprovable there is never any payout (Edgar uses the wealth for humanitarian work).

Again, I bring this up because I can see why people could take offence to it, to the book’s exploration of organised religions and the meaning of faith. What I thought was important in the book, and why I don’t think that it is a deliberate attack on religion or God or belief is that Edgar is largely the only voice in the book for atheism, the narrator, Edgar’s love Sophia, and everyone who bets at the metaphysical betting shops has an absolute and un-mocked belief in God. The view of one character in the book is not the whole truth of the story.

The writer states at the end in a note that the theme of the book is: People matter more than The Truth.

We grow up with our beliefs, opinions, actions, all dictated to us by our surroundings. Some people go through life never questioning what others around them tell them they believe to be true. We must all, at some stage in our lives, look at who we are and question whether or not that is genuinely what we think or if it’s the thoughts of others imposed upon us. I don’t think we have the right to make anyone believe what we believe. No one is wrong. How they choose to express that is when there are problems. Look at that story of Prussian Blue for a real world example of this in the mainstream.

I am grateful to my friend for voicing his opinion, and I have changed my novel accordingly to make it not be weighed by something I didn’t intend. I’m not fool enough to think there won’t be people who wouldn’t like my book, but I hope this would be because it’s not a story or style that interests them and not because I thoughtlessly upset them.

Let me know your thoughts in this issue in the comments.

– Andrew

 

Monday Musing: The Real World

Hello,

Welcome to the accidentally Tuesday Monday Musing.

I’ve been thinking about reality, and the reality of fiction. What makes a world real to a reader? It’s something that I’m constantly thinking about in my writing at the moment, and have been thinking about other works of fiction and the worlds that they created.

I’ve recently finished reading Flashman’s Lady, which like the rest of the series deftly mixes historical fact with fiction. George MacDonald Fraser researched fact and built his fiction around it. It’s a staggering feat to me. I utterly believe the world he is writing. It’s a beautifully believable world. If you’ve not read any of the Flashman Papers I heartily recommend them.

I’m currently reading Storm Front by Jim Butcher because I’m on a bit of an Urban Magic kick at the moment, having recently enjoyed Ben Aaronovitch’s River of London series. Storm Front is set in a modern-day Chicago and layers on levels of fantasy, mythology and magic. Which is what got me thinking about this topic, as I realised I totally bought his world, but can’t pinpoint the moment that I did.

Fictional worlds like Middle Earth, Westeros and The Discworld all feel like real places, brilliantly realised on the page. The Time Traveler’s Wife works around nonsense science that you believe as being a problem Henry suffers from.

In film, the world of Star Wars originally caught imagination because it presented its world as lived in and used, we were seeing the parts of the world that people like us would live in, we were seeing our lives mirrored in this galaxy far, far away. (which is why I think the prequels feel so cold to those of us that grew up with the original trilogy. Suddenly we’re in palaces and government buildings. Nothing is really as relatable to us in those films).

I’ve recently finished playing Bioshock Inifinte and my god there was a world that I believed I was in. From the opening level that allows you to explore the floating world of Columbia at your own pace before all the fighting starts allows you to feel at home and familiar with it. This is expanded later when you are joined by Elizabeth who has never seen the world before, her fascination with the world and it’s citizens is constantly refreshing and continuously brings you into LOOKING at the world, not just pass through it.

I love all these world, and so many more. As I create a version of the world we are familiar with I keep having to ask myself does that make sense? Will a reader understand the technology, am I being too vague, too specific, am I skewing things just enough to get the desired effect?

I believe that the key to this is to set out the rules of the world, that certain things exist or can happen and why, and stick to it. There’s nothing worse than a fiction that presents rules and then bends/breaks them for a quick payoff that feels hollow or undeserved. I’m reminded of a designer of panic rooms discussing David Fincher’s film Panic Room, stating that what he was grateful for was the world of panic rooms was established as being unbreakable, that no one could force their way into the room, and that this was maintained as an absolute in the film.

Rules are not always made to be broken.

I feel that my test-readers have been given a mini quiz when they are done reading. I desperately want my world to feel real, lived in, complete and for it to make sense. I hope it does, so far I nothing seems to have really caused any discomfort to my gallant guinea pigs.

Creating a believable new reality is the power of the fiction writer.

– Andrew

Thursday Thoughts: What My Book Is About…

I’ve been teasing this for a long time, so it’s perhaps overdue that I talk a little more about the novel that I am writing. This is not part of NaNoWrMo (National Novel Writing Month to those that maybe don’t know), though I am considering taking part next year. A recent change in lifestyle has made me examine my creative output and I decided that the best course was to write a book. It’s slow going (I’m marvelling at the NaNoWrMo writers who have surpassed my word count already) but I’ve not felt so creatively liberated in a long time.

I’ve spoken around the subject since I started this blog, revealing the main character’s name (Evin) and I published the first paragraph a while back. So here, finally, is what it is about…

They’re Here tells the story of Evin van Wijk in her own words. Written in the months after she wakes up to find that her parents are missing. Not only are they missing, but their belongings have vanished and they have been erased from any photographer or drawing that featured them. A letter on her doorstep tells Evin that her parents have been taken and that she should never speak of them again.
With the disappearances occurring world-wide, Evin must survive on her own and look for somewhere safe to live. But is the fear of being taken worse than the reality of what is left of the world?

There you have it. I’ve nut-shelled my story for you. I’m having a lot of fun writing this book. Some of it has gone to places that I hadn’t anticipated when I started. I’m looking forward to getting to the end (please see: https://ardavidsonwrites.wordpress.com/2013/10/21/monday-musings-the-end/ for more details on that).

Let me know what you think.

Just a reminder that you can get involved with this blog in other ways. facebook.com/ardavidsonwrites and ardavidsonwrites.tumblr.com

AND there is one week left to add your short story suggestions here: https://ardavidsonwrites.wordpress.com/2013/11/01/november-short-story-submission/ I want you to challenge me.

– Andrew

 

Monday Musing: What’s In A Name?

I have a terrible time naming characters. I always have. I was reminded of this the other day when I decided to play Mass Effect 3 again using my second character. I played through the previous two games twice, once trying to do it properly, the second time just being the galaxy’s biggest dickbag. If someone asks nicely for something, I tell ’em where to stick it! If I have the choice of saving someone or letting them die, it’s adios unnecessary baggage. If I’m trying to extract information from someone, they are gonna get a broken face. Throughout the second game in the series I worked hard to maintain the deep red scarring that was representative of being a total dickbag. As the first name of Commander Shephard is never said in the game it’s irrelevant what you call the character, my second character is called Girl’s Name Shephard (the other version was called Fucknut).

This naming fiasco is as a result of putting no thought into it at all, and not representative of my usual naming process. The problem is that my usual naming process is part of the reason why it takes me so long to write anything. To me, the name of a character is defined by who the character is, not the other way round. I don’t write for a while and think, “Well, she feels like she’s a Trish.” It gets to the point that I can’t write anything for the character until I have named them.

Admittedly I will name ancillary characters after friends and family, and whenever I made a short film with the actor Darren McAree (from Autumn Heart onwards) his character’s name always started with a J. I wish I could tell you there was some great story behind that, but there isn’t.

I struggle every time, and I hate it. I hate that I have to trawl through name books every time I start writing because I can’t do anything until the character can identify themself. Yet, and this is what’s important to me, once I have named the character it is easy to write for them, I feel a sense of accomplishment and satisfaction having named them. The process is hard and seldom instantaneous, but it is worth it.

I don’t think that a reader should notice or think much at all about what the character is named. I don’t believe that I’ve ever felt that a character in a book I’ve read, a movie or television show I’ve watched, has had the wrong name. I’ve never spoken to other writers about this so I can only speak for myself, but the name of a character to me defines who they are, what they represent in the story, and only when their name fits them like a thing that is really well-fitting, can I begin to let them live.

There is power in a name. As long as that isn’t “Girl’s Name”.

– Andrew

(oh, just leaving this here… http://www.kabalarians.com/m/andrew.htm)

Thursday Thoughts: Writing Goat’s Story

Hello,

First up I feel the need to apologise for the terrible quality of the images in this post, since installing Mavericks my scanner no longer works, and no amount of searching has yet found a suitable (read: free) work around for this, so the images are taken with my phone. Yeesh.

I wanted to use this post to talk about the short story that I published on Tuesday and how it came about. I also spoke briefly on Monday about a writing exercise that I find helpful.

In the image above you can see a breakdown of the story. I will talk you round how I map out and plan the story.

Starting with the left hand bubble in the centre we have the Title of the story. This can be temporary, but it does help to start by naming your story.

Directly above that is the Subject of the story. This isn’t a detail of the plot, but a quick summation of the story. This is helpful if you feel you have a block in your writing, remind yourself what you are writing about, is what you are trying to write in service of that? Mine is simply: Goat eats pages after writing them.

The next bubble anti-clockwise is the Setting. Where and when is it set? I’d originally planned for the book to all take place from Mr. Goat’s house, but eventually moved the final scene to be elsewhere. Yours could be in the future, the past, on an alien planet…

Next left is What Changes. My story is about a goat who eats his writing when he finishes it, so the change I wanted was that he meets someone who can help him fulfil his wish to write. Your character is destined to be a different person when the story concludes, whether for the better or worse. What is it that happens to them?

At the bottom is Plot. This you must breakdown into three parts: 1. Inciting Incident – what happens that sets our story in motion? For my story, Mr. Goat eats his work and this makes him sad. 2. Complicit – How do they react to this and what actions do they take? Their involvement allows for the rest of the story to unfold. If Mr. Goat chose to carry on eating his work, it wouldn’t make for a story. He chooses to abandon his writing, breaks his routines and sets in motion the involvement of Nanny Goat. 3. Climax – I’ve spoken about endings before, here it is again, how will the story end? I wrote “Tells someone his story. They surprise him by writing it.”

Connected to the Title is the Major Theme that in the instance of Goat’s Story was of not trying something for a fear of failure. In this case as a metaphor for love, which you can see above as a Minor Theme. You can have as many minor themes as you need. Again they are good to come back to if you’re struggling to write, remind yourself what it’s about.

There’s the story mapped out in a very loose terms. There’s no right or wrong way to write this out, perhaps the themes will help dictate the plot, perhaps the plot is what comes first and you explore the themes as texture. It’s a good tool to be able to look at your story at a glance.

A similar exercise to this is regards to character. Start with your main character in the middle and all the bubbles coming out are what he/she Wants. I didn’t do this for Goat’s Story as it was a fairly straight forward piece, but for the book I have a page all about Evin with numerous bubbles coming out which lead to sub-bubbles. You can carry this further by starting a new page with your protagonist in the middle and the first bubbles around are all the secondary characters, from them you state what they want. I’ve got another page like this with Evin’s family, friends, people she’ll meet and the antagonist. You are really looking to explore what makes those characters. There will always be pieces that come out of it that you hadn’t expected, and you will see opportunities to create scenes where those characters either get or are denied the thing that they want.

If you are writing right now and having some trouble with a character and what to do next try one of the character exercises and see what comes from it.

From that basic diagram of the story I tend to move to a more detailed outline of what I want to write. For me it’s usually the major beats of the story in fairly broad strokes and I am constantly writing questions, be it whether the character would or should do something, to giving myself a couple of options for a scene. Below is the two pages for Goat’s Story.

It was at this point (despite the note on the diagram page) that the story organically became in the style of a children’s story. It seemed a logically extension for a metaphorical story as the best children’s stories are metaphors.

I’m never a slave to this outline, but I find that it helps keep me on track. In the novel I have given an entire story that I had planned for Evin to another character, which has slightly derailed the outline, but that story is better where it is now.

I hope you’ve found this interesting. I will post the story breakdowns for each short story after publication, although the posts will not contain as much explanation of the process as this. I was fortunate that the story came quite easily to me on this one, I’m sure there will be a story that won’t be so fortunate.

And next week I will reveal the details of my novel!

– Andrew

 

Monday Musings: The End

Hello,

For my first Monday Musing I thought I would start with the question most frequently asked of me: “Do you have an ending?”

Endings are regarded as the most important part of a narrative experience. You can afford to start weak if your ending is strong. The ideal would be to have a strong start, a great middle and a fantastic end. I loved Joe Abercrombie’s Best Served Cold because I was instantly hooked from the opening chapter. It’s his best writing and his best characters.

A story simply can’t afford a limp ending that readers feel cheated by. I’ve just finished reading Kate Mosse’s Citadel which I thought had a deeply satisfying ending. Emotional, truthful and, importantly, right for the characters. Conversely I threw David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas to the floor when I finished it. I loved the individual elements but felt no sense of completion at the end.

Those are my opinions on the aforementioned books, you may share them or not.

With my story I actually started with the ending and tracked back from there. The inception of the story goes back about four or five years and has changed a lot over that time. I eventually found an interesting hook for the story and it has grown into what it is now. That’s not to say that the ending I started with will be the ending that the book will have. I’ve been toying with variations of it recently. I’m not locking myself into anything at this point.

I have told some of my closest friends what this ending is and their reactions have varied so far, I think it depends on their personality. Don’t read too much into this next statement, but I like a certain amount of ambiguity in my work. I think it was the director Adrian Lyne when talking about his film adaptation of Lolita who said that he wanted the audience to figure out for themselves how they felt about the characters and what happened, rather than being told what to think. I’m paraphrasing there. My point is that I like to create a story and draw attention to the plot, characters and themes and then go: “And you decide what that means.”

Excuse my horrific self promotion here as I use a short film I made 10 years ago for demonstration purposes. I feel we said everything that we wanted to in the story, explored and re-explored the central theme and left it at a point where the audience has to think how they choose to interpret what has happened and where the character goes next.

There tends to be a 50/50 split between people rationalizing the events and those that want to see something else. I argue that both are correct and both possibilities are accounted for in the film.

Upon explaining the ending of my book, many people nod sagely and say “Yes that makes sense.” Others agree that the ending works but are concerned that there may not be the clarity that they want. I think that is the key to any ending. I can be as vague about the specifics as I like but if people don’t feel that the threads of the narrative are adequately tied up it will feel like a cheat. So, again, I’m sort of catering to different groups.

This isn’t to say that it works with every story. Some stories need to be tied with a bow and pronounced complete. I will write those stories for sure. That’s just not this book. That’s not who this character is.

It’s hard to talk specifically about what the ending is because I don’t want to spoil it, I haven’t told you what the story is about yet (that’s coming very soon), and where the main character ends up may not be where I think she is supposed to find herself. I have explained my intentions of how I will wrap up the story to people and hope that I will be able to deliver. It’s certainly the right ending for the character and what happens to her.

I think what I’m keen to achieve is that I want the ending to be talked about, to be debated, I want people to have different interpretations of the events (all of which, and more will be correct), but for the finale of the character’s journey, of her experiences, of who she is at the end to be satisfying and rewarding.

– Andrew

 

Musical Inspiration

Hello,

First up, let it be clear that this post exists as a pretence to talk about the Danny Elfman’s Music From The Films of Tim Burton concert at the Royal Albert Hall last night.
Sorry.

The show was fantastic and consisted of largely new suites written from themes from each of Burton’s films (anyone with either of the Music For A Darkened Theatre albums will have recognised the Edward Scissorhands and Batman suites) with illustrations by the director projected onto a large screen behind the orchestra. The show ended with Elfman himself appearing on stage to sing live for the first time, so he says, a number of songs from The Nightmare Before Christmas.

Above is a picture of my friend Alexandra in our box.

For a massive film score nerd, particularly the works of Mr Elfman, it was a fantastic night of some of his best work played by a stunning orchestra. It was nice to see a theremin being played live during the Mars Attacks! suite. Edward Scissorhands was as timeless and beautiful as ever. And I have lived to see Danny Elfman sing “What’s This?” from Nightmare live to the scene in the movie.

This bring me round to writing.
I can’t write to songs because I listen to the words and can’t concentrate. I can write in silence, but I find it a little oppressive. I listen to film scores as a means of inspiration. There are a few video game sound tracks in there too, Jesper Kyd’s score for Assassin’s Creed 2 is phenomenal. I just checked and iTunes tells me that if I were to listen to all my soundtracks continuously it would take 5 days to listen to them all.

Whilst writing my book I have been mostly listening to Michael Giacchino (Star Trek, Super 8 and M:I Ghost Protocol in particular). I’m often to be found wandering the back catalogue of John Williams’ work. I’ve said it before, but this is a man who composed three of the best film scores ever over three consecutive years:
The Empire Strikes Back, 1980
Raiders of the Lost Ark, 1981
E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, 1982

You probably have favourite works of his: Harry Potter? Jurassic Park? Jaws? Catch Me If You Can?
Ergh, the list is endless.

Ennio Morricone’s work on countless Westerns; his theme to The Mission (oh my god, the love); his haunting, sad, edgy score for Adrian Lyne’s Lolita. There’s Thomas Newman (hello Silence of the Lambs, Lemony Snicket or The Green Mile) or Howard Shore’s everything. Who isn’t stirred by Alan Silvestri’s Back To The Future theme?

I love Alexandre Desplat’s Girl With A Pearl Earring, Clint Mansell’s Requiem For A Dream, Steve Jablonsky’s work on the Transformers movies, Eric Serra’s score for Leon, Stephen Warbeck’s Shakespeare In Love.

Perhaps the best score in recent years is Daft Punk’s soundtrack for Tron Legacy. If you don’t own that you’ve got to get a copy.

I’d be remiss not to mention my dear friend Steven Coltart who composed such wonderful things for my short films. He elevated Autumn Heart is ways that I can never fully explain, and to him I am indebted.

This is not a definitive list and I’m sure in half an hour I’ll think of something I should have added. There are hundreds. You’ll have your own favourites, post them below, I’m always open to suggestions.

What I’m getting at is these are the things that help bring my work out, that fuel my creativity, give it rhythm and pace. I lose myself to the emotion of the music. It helps me write.

How do you write?

– Andrew

 

Convenience, Contrivance and Cliché

Hello,

My novel-writing has been coming on well recently, the note I made at the start of the week unlocked a huge amount of content and I hit the 20,000 word mark yesterday. I’m still in the early part of the book and have been surprised that I’ve gone to some of the dark places that I have. I knew there would be some unpleasant moments along the journey but, well, I’ve surprised myself.

I have been thinking about conveniences, contrivances and clichés. To me all narratives are a series of conveniences, events that happen to characters are times that propel them forward through the story. Luke buying 3PO and R2 is a convenience. I also feel that these events fall under the suspension of disbelief umbrella and are protected from deep scrutiny.

Contrivances on the other hand seem like false godlike manipulation, forcing events to occur in a particular way to further the plot (I’d throw almost all of the Bond films into this category).

Clichés are a strange thing because they only become such through familiarity. I don’t necessarily believe they are a bad thing and can allow for some clever subversion. I’m particularly fond of an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer (Season 4, Episode 12 – A New Man) that finds the character Ethan Rayne hiding in a crypt and performing a sinister monologue after Giles leaves, only for Giles to pop back in and interrupt saying, “Is someone…?”. Buffy always worked best when it dissected the tropes of cliché.

This is a lot of talk about film and TV, my apologies.

My protagonist is called Evin and late in the story I intend for her to meet someone who I’m not looking forward to writing. He has always been there and is built into the final part of Evin’s story. Yesterday I wrote a section where she met an unpleasant character, intended to be a bit throw away role. I gave him a body, named him, surrounded him with people, and let him speak. And I really like the character, in the way that he’s a total bastard and I hate him. This left me wondering, would Evin meeting the same character again later spill awkwardly into contrivance? Would you read his reappearance and not believe that he would be there? The world I’ve created would not limit that sort of character to one person. My gut is that it would not be the same person she will meet again later, that I will work out a different personality and try to find a different way to be sinister.

Part of me is sad though, this horrific human got two pages and I can’t stop thinking about him.

– Andrew