Columns: Tag – Writing Courses
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Watch a novel grow
The world of the novel
My story takes place largely in Johannesburg, South Africa, although it must be said that I plan never to mention that city in the book. It will be clear, though, that it lies some distance from Paris, and therefore Europe, requiring an overnight plane trip to get there. But in every other respect the city in which my story takes place is as urbane and sophisticated as any other in the world.
Watch a novel grow
The birth of my heroine
I start in this blog to build my heroine, Juliette Irving. I want her to be energetic, intelligent and likeable (and sexy, of course). But I need to know a fair number of things about her background that I’ll never reveal in the novel… Secrets, even lies, and reasons for pride and doubt.
Watch a novel grow
Delving deeper into my heroine
So far I know only the bare bones of my heroine, Juliette. Here I take one more step into exploring who she really is what she does in her spare time, what her relationships with her friends and family are - above all, what her strengths and weaknesses are…
Writing Quips and Tips
Titles and other stuff
“Can you go on TV quickly? The crew want an author and you’re the only one I can find.”
I had just arrived at a launch function, where my newly published book was to be included in a list of recommended bookstore titles. I was thrust, sweaty-palmed, into the booms and mics of a small TV crew.
Writing Quips and Tips
Is God (as narrator, that is) dead?
I might be shot down in flames for this, but I find the Omniscient point of view a bit old-fashioned.
Of course there are exceptions, and some writers can still handle it with skill and applomb. But I’m talking generally here.
Okay, this is out of context and it is an old-fashioned example. But despite the fact that we probably all read Little Women voraciously as children, I’d like you to consider how you’d respond to this in a modern novel:
As young readers like to know ‘how people look’, we will take this moment to give them a little sketch of the four sisters, who sat knitting away in the twilight, while the December snow fell quietly without, and the fire crackled cheerfully within…
Writing Quips and Tips
Characters are people too
There’s a story about a novelist whose characters borrowed heavily from life. He wrote a moving story about a family, dominated by an overbearing matriarch who bent them all to her will through guilt and manipulation.
He was most concerned about the reaction of his mother. Would she forgive him? Would it cause a feud that would split the family, and make him an outcast?
He kept his head down, hoping she wouldn’t read it. But shortly after it appeared, his mother summoned him. Sweaty palmed, he appeared before her to receive her judgment.
Writing Quips and Tips
Therapy for Characters
Sometimes it takes a shrink to work out what really makes a person tick – even if that person is a fictional character in the mind of a writer.
Psychologist Pierre Brouard thinks he is probably the first of his profession to be involved in running a writing course.
Writing Quips and Tips
If it’s true, does it still have a story?
“I don’t have to worry about building a narrative because my story’s true.”
One of our writing course participants made this point recently. She also felt that she didn’t have to worry about characters, point of view, suspense, or trying to “show” rather than “tell”.
I think it’s a fairly common misconception that you don’t have to “create” a story if you have real-life. You don’t have to worry about characters, because your people are “real”.
Writing Quips and Tips
Changing and growing
Someone asked me the other day whether I always wrote the same way – and the answer, of course, is no.
I’ve said this often: sometimes it feels as though it’s flying, as though I’m a conduit for something larger than myself. Sometimes it plods, it drags its heels. But other things happen too. (It’s called life.)
We change, we grow, and it’s ridiculous to think our personal lives won’t affect our writing. Every event in our lives changes us a little bit. It’s going to change the way we see the world, and the way we express it.
The events themselves may creep into our writing in a way we didn’t quite foresee. I once had a huge fight with a good friend. The next day I was writing about a husband and wife. Almost of it’s own volition, some of the aspects of the fight crept into their relationship – and worked very well, I thought.
But I mean more than that.
Writing Quips and Tips
Does serious = obscure?
In a recent interview, I was asked about the “abiding division between ‘literary’ and ‘popular’ novels”. I was asked whether I thought my writing managed to span the division. And whether I considered it interesting to apply these kind of labels at all.
Perhaps because we’ve faced some pretty serious issues, I think our society has tended to obsess a little more than most about whether a writer happens to be “serious” or not. Obviously, I’m happy if my writing is seen to straddle the great divide. I try to be accessible. That doesn’t mean I don’t try to grapple with interesting issues and themes.
But why do we find it necessary to enclose fiction into these restrictive boxes? We make excuses for reading genre novels. We feel vaguely ashamed if we’re not seen to be reading something deeply obscure ...
• We run face-to-face and correspondence writing courses - see www.allaboutwritingcourses.com for range and dates
Writing Quips and Tips
Reading builds empathy
I fear for a society that doesn’t read.
Lately I keep coming across people who maintain, with a certain pride, that they never read. Okay there’s some self-interest here. I don’t like to see writing as anachronistic or arcane.
But we don’t want to become a society unable to concentrate on anything longer than a blog. We don’t want to be an ignorant society.
Readers learn without realising. Off the top of my head, just this year and entirely through fiction, I’ve learnt about consciousness, about Tudor society and the role of Thomas Cromwell, the gritty underside of Edinburgh, about mathematicians and the behaviour of chimpanzees, about sexual ambiguity and genetics.
What I fear most is that, when we no longer read, we lose the ability to enter different worlds, to place ourselves in other people’s shoes. Nothing makes us identify with other people quite like accompanying them on a life journey.
I fear that a society that doesn’t read is a society that lacks empathy. And that we can’t afford to be ...
• We run face-to-face and correspondence writing courses - see www.allaboutwritingcourses.com for range and dates
Writing Quips and Tips
Imagination doesn’t negate the truth
Writers are a lot like actors.
They need to be able to draw on their own experiences to understand others. And to express these in a compelling way that enables their audience (or readers) to believe in them.
Just to draw out last week’s theme a little more, this means that writers – novelists and non-fiction writers –are equally in the business of seeking out the truth.
Just because novelists use their imagination, doesn’t mean they’re not exploring their inner selves, and their time and place in history.
Gabriel Garcia Marquez says: “There’s not a single line in all my work that does not have a basis in reality.”
Writing Quips and Tips
Genre doesn’t dictate quality
I recently saw this brilliant response to a criticism of chick lit. Michelle Gormon is a chick lit writer herself, published by Penguin. Her article appeared in The Guardian.
“Critics cite many reasons in their dismissal of the genre, reasons that ostensibly aren’t rooted in literary snobbery. ‘The problem’ with chick-lit, I’m told, is that it doesn’t deal with the real issues that women face. Well actually, some of it does. From sibling rivalry to infidelity, addictions to poor body image, a woman can take her pick within the genre if she wants to. And the rest of it? It’s meant for pure indulgent enjoyment, and there’s nothing wrong with that.
“But why insist that chick-lit reflect the issues facing its readership when no other genre is measured by the same yardstick? It isn’t expected of science fiction, crime, mystery, historical fiction, or even most literary fiction. Women didn’t flock to buy We Need to Talk About Kevin thinking, ‘Gosh, my son is in prison too for picking off his classmates with a crossbow. That’s the book for me.’
Writing Quips and Tips
It’s hard and lonely - and Oprah’s unlikely to be involved
People have funny ideas about creative writing.
Either, they believe anyone capable of stringing two words together can put together a 90 000-word novel. (“She writes really good proposals / sales documents /memorandums”.) If they just put their mind to it.
“If only we had the time you do.” (Spoken with a rueful sigh.)
Or: “Old Jimbo’s retiring in September. He’s going to write his book.
That’ll keep him busy for October, but what he’ll do from November I’m just not sure.”
Writing Quips and Tips
Characters - in life and on the page
There’s a story about a novelist whose characters borrowed heavily from life. He wrote a moving account of a family dominated by an overbearing matriarch.
He was most concerned about his mother’s reaction. Would she forgive him? Would it split the family, and make him an outcast?
Shortly after it appeared, his mother summoned him. Sweaty palmed, he appeared to receive her judgment.
Writing Quips and Tips
Plunging and grinding doesn’t make a story
A judge for this year’s Booker prize, commenting on the state of the British and Commonwealth novel, said no one was writing much about sex anymore.
“It’s as if they were paranoid about being nominated for the Bad Sex Award,” he said. He was referring to the now famous, and little wanted award by the Literary Review. He added that “a lot of people” were writing about “taking drugs, as if that was a substitute for sex”.
The Bad Sex Awards were inaugurated in 1993 in order to draw attention to, “and hopefully discourage”, poorly written, redundant or crude sex in fiction. The intention, they say is “not to humiliate”.
That might not be their intention, but it must be absolutely mortifying even to be nominated. Yet I wonder if it is the Bad Sex Award that’s discouraging sex scenes.
Writing Quips and Tips
Writing about it is a lot like having it
If you’re self-conscious about sex in real life, you’ll be so on the page. You’ll hide coyly behind the frills of metaphor.
And if you’re over-confident, you’re likely to charge at the task and batter it with clinical description. Either way you’ll be cringy.
Since we were on the subject of sex in literature, (Last week’s blog on why no one writes about sex anymore), it occurred to me that sex in life is a lot like sex on the page. And learning to write about it can show us quite a lot about having it.
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