Good Writing is Invisible
Continuing my series on the Twelve Rules of Writing, here is rule 2: ~
2. Spelling and grammer are what copy editors are for.
Clearly, as a creative person, you do not want to be burdened with the task of spelling things correctly or constructing sentences that are grammatically correct. This is, after all, what copy editors are for and you will be depriving them of their livelihood if you do their job for them.
Did you spot the deliberate mistake? This is one of my blind-spots – I consistently type grammar with an ‘e’ when I know it’s spelled with two ‘a’s. It’s the sort of thing that I rely upon copy editors to spot for me because I just don’t see it for myself. That’s what copy editors do – except it isn’t. They will do it, but only when you don’t.
What your copy editor is really there for is to sense-check what’s been submitted, enforce a consistent style, and make sure there are no unexpected surprises in the text. For instance, did your character wake up with blue eyes and now they’re brown? Has your character been drinking from the same wine-glass for five hours without ever filling it? Are names consistently used throughout the text – is it Catherine or Katherine? These are the sort of things that trip writers up, and copy editors are there to make sure you don’t fall on your face.
So what about spelling and grammar (see, I caught it that time)? Well, curiously enough, that’s your job. You’re the writer and words are supposed to be your thing. More importantly words are meaning, and so is punctuation. Take the following passage: ~
he slaked his thirst taking long gulps form the glass realizing that no matter how much he drank he would never loose his thirst again: the eternal thirst
Starting a sentence with a capital letter and ending with a full stop (a period in the USA) is not optional. These, like commas, are clues that allow the reader to break sentences into digestible pieces. Learn where to use a semi-colon, a dash and a colon. You may think that this advice is obvious, but ask any agent or editor and they will tell you that there are those who believe they are unnecessary.
A spell checker is not a cure-all. The word form instead of from, and loose instead of lose, would not be picked up by a spell check. They are valid words, they’re just not the right words in that context. Is it realizing or realising?
Is it single quotes around speech or double? Do you put one space after a full stop or two? Is full-on hyphenated? These are things that may be adjusted by a copy editor to conform with house style, but if you don’t use them correctly in the first place then it makes the job of preserving your meaning that much harder.
Readers like to be drawn into a story. You know you’re winning when people can’t remember reading the words, they just remember what happened. Good writing is invisible, but spelling mistakes, poor grammar and bad sentence construction will have your readers puzzling out what you mean, and at that point they’ve left the story and are focused on the text – exactly what you don’t want.
In the next post in this series I’ll talk about meaning and how you select the words you need. Have your thesaurus at the ready.
Write What You Know – Part 2
Continuing my series of posts on my tongue-in-cheek article, the Twelve Rules of Writing and in support of those people participating in this year’s NaNoWriMo, this is the second on the subject of Rule 1 – Write What You Know.
In my previous post, I discussed the need for research and why using what you know can help you establish a vivid and believable setting for your story, together with the dangers of too much detail and data dumping. This is an important aspect of writing, especially in Fantasy, but it is not enough on its own. Having a believable world is only the first step in bringing a story to life.
Writing fiction is an art – it is about creating something, not reporting something. While you can include a beautifully described world with a developed ecology, an eon-spanning history, a viable economy and a vibrant culture, that does not provide a story. We’ve painted the scenery, but the play has yet to begin.
It is tempting to make a special case for Fantasy and SF. After all, these genres are specifically about creating situations that are inherently unreal, but actually this is true of most fiction. The fact that one genre explores alternate worlds and another trawls the depths of the criminal mind is looking at the same thing inside-out – we’re in another country in both cases. That one is set in the past and another in the future is simply a matter of perspective. Even in a historical novel, the writer is making things up. The one exception is perhaps Literature, where it can be more about stye and technique than about story-telling, though the best Literature is all that and more.
So what is the purpose of fiction? For me, it is encapsulated in the following quotation:
Fiction reveals truths that reality obscures – Jessamyn West (1902-84)
If you want to discover facts you should read non-fiction. History, biography, travel, science – all will increase your knowledge and perhaps your understanding of the world. If you want truth, though, you need to read fiction. And if you want to write fiction, you need to be able to write the truth.
“Write the Truth” was what Robert McKee wrote inside my copy of Story, his seminal work on the art of screenwriting. If you don’t have a copy then buy or borrow one. Better still, pay to go and listen to him at one of his occasional lectures. He’s irascible and cantankerous, but you learn a hell of a lot in three days. It’s simple enough, then. If you want to write fiction, simply tell the truth.
That’s not an easy burden, though. If you want to discover how easy it is, simply resolve to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth (as they say in court) for a single day. Careful, though – if you’re wise you’ll lock yourself in a room and neither see nor speak to anyone. The truth isn’t kind or considerate, it doesn’t take prisoners and it will trash your friendships, ruin your relationships and wreck your career. You’re going to have to tell the butcher that she has dirty fingernails, your boss that he’s greedy and selfish, your husband/wife that they’re overweight (while you’re no sylph), and your children that they’ve disappointed you. If you make it to the end of the day with your life intact, you will be very lucky indeed.
There’s a paradox here, then. I’m saying you should write the truth, but at the same time I’m telling you that if you do, it will ruin your life – the writer destroys himself. The saving grace is that while you write the truth, you make the characters up. Your characters become your proxies for the purpose of telling the story. But if you want your characters to be full and rounded then you need to have them react in the way that real people do and for that to reveal some truth about them, or about the situation they are in, and in doing so reveal some truth about yourself.
That can mean taking yourself and your characters into some dark places, and being honest with yourself about how you feel and how you would react in that situation in order that you can transfer those feelings to your characters and say, “That’s me, how about you?”
This is what you know. This is your truth. You know how you feel and you can imagine how you would feel if you were in that situation. How you feel makes you unique and individual, but it also connects you to everyone else.
Maybe your characters feel the same as you and react accordingly, or maybe they sneer at your reaction and go their own way. Perhaps their reaction is prompted by yours through empathy or revulsion, either is valid, or perhaps you are greeted with incomprehension. Whatever their reaction, it must be true to you and to the story you are telling. You don’t have to explain why they react the way they do, that should come from the story and be revealed as part of that character’s development, but the reaction should be true to that character in that situation.
As an example, take the funeral scene from The Road to Bedlam. Niall is drawn into participating in a joint memorial ceremony after the tragic death of his daughter. His initial reaction is to revert to his default behaviour and throw himself into work, organising the event. This allows him to distance himself from the shock and the grief, but it doesn’t allow him to escape. It’s only when he comes to stand before the assembly and speak about his daughter that his grief hits him, suddenly and profoundly.
As a piece of writing, that scene meant visiting the idea that I might lose my own child, and how that would feel. It was an extremely difficult piece to write and it meant treading a very fine line between sentimentality and honesty. It was challenging both technically and emotionally. Personally I think it’s one of the best things I’ve written, but not everyone reacts the same way to it. For some people, the scene leaves them bemused and untouched, while others have told me that it made them cry in public. Unsurprisingly, it’s the parents who found it the most difficult to read.
So in order to write the truth successfully, you have to be able to imagine the best and the worst, then transfer that to your characters in such a way that it becomes true for your readers, connecting back to your readers through their own empathic response and delivering a direct emotional reaction in a way that feels right and true.
Or to put it more simply, write as if it were the truth, no matter how hard that might be.
Write What You Know – Part 1
A few weeks ago I posted a rather tongue-in-cheek article entitle The Twelve Rules of Writing, which some of you may have read and which it was nice to see a number of people commenting upon. For me, one of the surprising comments was that people didn’t realise it was humorously intended until they got some way through it, perhaps because there are any number of articles out there where people say this sort of thing in all seriousness.
I’m also conscious that we are in the middle of NaNoWriMo and there are lots of people focused on upping their word-count with the intention of delivering a first draft by end of month. It seemed a good time to offer some advice and encouragement, and I thought I might try and follow the themes in the original article but address them in a more serious manner.
This is the first of those articles, which I have split into two parts, the first part covering factual accuracy and the second to cover authenticity of experience, but to remind you of the original post – here it is: ~
1. Write what you know
In order for readers to engage in what you are writing and be drawn into the story, your writing must be authentic and genuine. You must therefore write about what you already know. There’s no point in researching stuff that you don’t know about, since that will immediately appear false to your readers. Stick to safe ground and it will save you a lot of effort.
As a side-effect of this, obviously science fiction and fantasy are not proper writing as you cannot possibly know about things you only imagined in the first place.
The reason I chose this as the first rule is that it seemed to me to be one of the most common pieces of advice, frequently offered without any explanation of how to follow it. It’s trite, but it’s also true. The key to this particular gem is authenticity. It’s about getting inside the experience and making it immediate and personal, but it’s also about the suspension of disbelief.
Take the following example: ~
Sherlock Holmes went to the window of 221b Baker Street and glanced at the distant face of Big Ben. It was almost midnight. The game was afoot! (with apologies to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle).
There’s nothing wrong with this as a piece of writing. It is spelled and punctuated correctly and, though it is brief, it encapsulates a moment. However, twenty seconds with Google Maps will show you that from any window in a flat on Baker Street it is not possible to see the face of Big Ben – it’s in the wrong direction. Using the iconic landmark gives us a sense of place, but it’s the wrong place, and it jars the reader out of the flow of the story.
This is an obvious example, but small things can be just as damaging. I am reminded of the character living in England who opened a tin of beetroot (which is almost always sold in jars in Britain) or Robin Hood arriving at Hastings and then riding to Nottingham in a day (not possible at the time, given the roads and the available modes of transport). These are failures of fact and highlight the importance of research. If you are going to set a story in a location then you need to know not just the geographical layout, but also the culture, the smell, the clothing, the road-markings – everything that would bring that place alive for someone who actually lived there.
The danger then is that you include this in your story. Having done your research in painful detail, you then walk your reader through it, item by item. We’ve all done it. At the beginning of Sixty-One Nails, I describe Niall mentally mapping his tube journey in detail after a line closure. It’s a small thing, and I needed to know he could make the journey for the story to be realistic, but it was a mistake to include it. It is enough for the reader to know that it could be done. Now I know better.
A little later in Sixty-One Nails, there is a scene where the police take Niall back to his flat where he believes there is something waiting to get him. The scene has been described as “creepy” and “chilling” and is one of my favourite scenes from the book. In the initial draft the police broke into the flat, trying to catch the intruder. They worked quietly and moved quickly to surprise the suspect.
Later, though, I talked to serving police officers and walked them through the scene (thank you Steve and Rachel) and discovered that this is far from what would happen in reality. The police do not want to surprise intruders or catch them unawares. Surprised people are unpredictable and irrational, they can be violent to others or hurt themselves. When entering a premises where an intruder is suspected to be, the officers shout, “Police! We’re coming in!” to warn the intruder and let them prepare themselves psychologically for arrest. Of course, they also have someone at the back to prevent escape, but they do not surprise intruders if they can avoid it.
This changed the entire scene for me and resulted in a complete re-write of that section of the book. The result is grittier, more realistic (despite the other-worldly aspects) and rings true for the reader. It also changed my impressions of the police and the work they do, the way they are trained and the professionalism with which they approach their job. That added to the richness of the narrative and the portrayal of their role in the story.
In general, the people I talk to when researching a book are pleased to be consulted and interested in the writing process. Often they seem gratified that someone in interested enough in what they do to get the detail right. My experience is that this is true of most professionals, so all you really need to do is ask. Generally people want to help.
So when you reach the end of your NaNo novel, don’t be afraid to go back and revisit the material with a critical eye. Think who might have a perspective on what you’ve written. Talk it through with people you know – you might be surprised by the response and enlightened as to the experiences of your friends and acquaintances. Be prepared to rewrite where you find inaccuracy, but treat the factual content with a light touch. Like salt, research makes a fine seasoning, but a poor main course.
In the next article I’m going to discuss the other aspect of Write What You Know – emotional authenticity and realistic experience – and how you write about something you’ve never seen, not done and haven’t known.
BristolCon 2010
Posted by Mike in Events Schedule on November 5, 2010
This Saturday 6th November I am heading to the South West for BristolCon in the fine company of Juliet E McKenna (Irons in the Fire, Blood in the Water, Banners in the Wind) where we will be doing a panel on the tricky business of getting published and we will both be doing readings – Juliet at 10:50 and me at 14:50.
Joe Abercrombie (The First Law series is one of my all-time favourites) will be there being interviewed by Clarke-award winning Cheryl Morgan (Salon Futura) – also there will be Colin Harvey (Winter Song, Damage Time), Paul Cornell (Dr Who and far too much else to mention), Kim Lakin-Smith (Tourniquet, Myth-understandings) and Alistair Reynolds (Revelation Space, Poseidon’s Children), to name but a few. The full programme (organised by the wonderful MEG) can be downloaded here.
I’m really looking forward to the day and the chance to catch up with old friends and make new ones – if you’re within travelling distance from Bristol it’s definitely worth a day out. If you do come along, please come and say Hi, I’m easy to spot and I don’t bite (mostly).
Hope to see you there.
Bedlam Competition Winner
Posted by Mike in Competitions, Road to Bedlam on October 31, 2010
Firstly, a big thank you to all the people who entered the competition to win signed copies of both Sixty-One Nails and The Road to Bedlam. It helped me celebrate the US launch of the second book in style.
I have to say that you made selecting a winner hard for me – there was a good crop of entries and I was amazed at the detail and imagination that you put in to them. What a creative bunch you are! Everything from using the ground for scrying, to boiling the water in your opponent’s lungs (ugh!) – well thought through and wonderfully inventive.
There can be only one winner, though, and she came up with a peach of an idea:
My elements are Water and Air, and the fey power is one of communication.It allows you to read the memory of water, which has to be interpreted as it is fluid, but you can do things like follow someone or know a bit of what they are feeling/thinking. There is water everywhere, even in a desert.
It can also be employed to influence people, sending emotions and suggestions into their minds, through air and water combined and if you’re very powerful, you can load an idea into a glass of water before they drink it. More often it is a power to use from a distance. It works better though rain. Running water, like underwater streams, can intensify it. This is a very emotional power; unstable but also untraceable.
The winner is Anabel Portillo, from Dublin: I really liked that way she thought through the implications of her suggestion – the clincher was the idea that you could imbue a liquid with a memory, passing on ideas or thoughts, all through a glass of water. It’s a superb idea and makes Anabel our winner – congratulations to her, the signed copies will be on their way this week.
Thanks again to everyone who entered, I hope you had as much fun with the competition as I did and congratulations once again to Anabel, our winner.
Happy Halloween!
It’s Bedlam Out There
Posted by Mike in Books and Reviews, Competitions on October 26, 2010
The Road to Bedlam
Today is the release day for The Road to Bedlam in the United States and Canada and we’re celebrating here at Shevdon Manor by giving away copies of both books: Sixty-One Nails and The Road to Bedlam as a pair, in the US edition, signed and dated 26th October 2010, to be posted anywhere in the world, free of charge.
In order to win, you will need to put your thinking caps on. In the books, fey power is an expression of five elements. These are Fire, Earth, Air and Water and the Void, as in the early classical elements of Buddhist, Hindu and Greek philosophy. These are not literal elements, but a way of understanding how fey power manifests, which is through combinations of these elemental aspects. The void does not combine with other elements but underpins all, so it stands alone.
There are situations where fey power is used in Sixty-One Nails, but in case you haven’t read it yet (why not?) an example would be; Blackbird is a creature of Fire and Air and she can create a swarm of hornets by breathing into her cupped hands, releasing stinging mayhem upon an attacker. The troll, Gramawl, is a creature of Earth and Water, and can move silently, no matter what surface he walks upon.
In order to win the books, you must imagine that you are able to combine two elements from Fire, Air, Earth and Water to express a magical fey power. Email me to explain what the power is, how it works and, importantly, what limits it has. Note that the Void is excluded from the competition as it stands alone, and for reasons that may become clear in future books.
The most imaginative and interesting entry will win the signed copies and, potentially, may be included in book three as one of the powers of an escapee – the relevance of that word will become clear as you reach the end of The Road to Bedlam.
Send your entries by email to mike (at) shevdon (dot) com with a subject of BEDLAM COMPETITION ENTRY, including your name and contact details so that I can get in touch if you win. You need to explain in the email which pair of elements create the ability, and what this achieves for the fey concerned. Remember that this could end up in a book, so dream up something urban, magical and edgy – but not so powerful that it unbalances the rest of the story, otherwise I won’t be able to use it.
I may award secondary prizes for close runners-up and even post the best ones on the blog for all to see. As usual in these matters, family members and those involved with producing or publishing the books are excluded from the competition. The rules are as I make them, and I reserve the right to change them if I need to.
The best entries will win points, and you know what points mean….
A Star at PW
Posted by Mike in Books and Reviews on October 8, 2010
It’s not often that I feature a review on my blog. I keep track of reviews and sometimes copy extracts into my reviews page for those who want to browse them, but I don’t tend to post them. When the reviewer is Publisher’s Weekly, though, it gets my immediate attention.
Sixty-One Nails Mike Shevdon. HarperCollins/Angry Robot, $7.99 (432p) ISBN 978-0-06-199406-7
Spinning British folklore and history into a one-step-over-from-reality vision of the streets underneath London, Shevdon’s debut introduces the supernatural Feyre and their complex relationship with the human half-breeds created to maintain the fertility of the dying Feyre races. Niall Petersen, renamed Rabbit by those who know true names have power, awakens from a heart attack and finds himself in the care of the mysterious Blackbird. His previously unknown Feyre heritage has puts him in the sights of the human-hating Untainted. It also makes him uniquely suited to defending the barriers keeping the Feyre from the human world. An impressively accessible hero, Niall anchors the reader on a journey of discovery that feels constantly off-balance but never jarring. Comparisons to Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere are both inevitable and erroneous; Shevdon’s grittily believable, charmingly described underworld packs a dark punch all its own. (June)
If you don’t know Publisher’s Weekly then you’re probably not in the business. It’s an insider’s journal and probably one of the most respected literary publications on the planet. Given that this review was June, I obviously missed it, but I found a reference to it in Locus Magazine and just had to follow it to the source.
To get a starred review is a rare privilege; they are not easily come by. Hence you’ll forgive me for front-paging a review on this particular occasion.
