Authors Electric

  Imagine you’re a you ng journalist from  The Times , reporting on the Hay literary festival. Nice job if you love books and writing – which journalists do, or they’d be doing something else – and you should enjoy it while you can, as literary festivals are sadly in their   Götterdämmerung   p eriod, what with no corporate sponsor being pure enough to be allowed to fund them, and grants from such lofty organisations as the Arts Council being extremely unlikely, owing to books being lamentably highbrow and middle class (not!). Anthony Horowitz By Edwardx - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0,  https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=126308848 So there you are, listening to Anthony Horowitz speak on a panel on the subject of rewriting classics by dead authors in order to remove ‘offensive’ language ( as Puffin did last year with a new edition of Roald Dahl’s works ), and you hear him say he doesn’t approve of burglarising books.  Yup, that’s what he said. Well, h...

This fabulous song by Cream has been in my mind this week, primarily because of the first line of the lyrics, which is the title of this post. I work as an editor, and over the past week have edited a mystery novel, one collection of short stories that are acting as a novel when put together, and five mini pieces from five different authors as part of a small workshop I held, and they were one mystery, two sci-fi/speculative, two memoir/non-fiction. And as part of this week's editing I have encountered a few times what I have come to think of as "the white room," and with that, because that is just how my mind works, the Cream song quickly follows (I do love that song, so maybe any excuse? I mean, those lyrics are great!) Other than containing the white room, the Cream song doesn't actually apply here, but maybe it will help us remember the concept. And perhaps a famous author we have all heard of was also inspired by the Cream song, because she is the correct age to ...

 I very much doubt if anybody will take the trouble to update or censor my books after I'm no longer around to object, although of course you never know which topics are going to turn out to be contentious and what kind of descriptive language might be considered offensive by later generations. I've seen several examples of this kind of thing lately in the press and social media, and also of people pushing back against it, sometimes with a degree of success. Of course there are always topics that naturally go out of fashion and books that are no longer bought for various reasons, but this latest trend is something a bit different. I have an instinctive dislike of updating something that's already been written, which I think is partly based on my having studied history and having lived long enough to see parts of it re-written several times over. At one time this was something that was mostly thought to be done in Communist countries but I think it happens everywhere. In som...

 As mentioned in a previous post, in June 2022 I took part in a short story writing challenge. One of the writing prompts suggested taking inspiration from 'Romeo and Juliet'. I suppose in a way my story did that. But because I have always hated the plot for that particular Shakespeare play, with its pointless feud, silly deaths and ridiculous ending, I attempted to do what I have been ranting about the new Netflix version of 'Persuasion' for doing, and gave one of the characters some 21st century attitudes to see if that would help me come to terms with the play. And here is the result. Feel free to look away now if you love Shakespeare (actually I love all the rest of Shakespeare except this one). Illustration  69482079  ©  Ольга Калиниченко  |  Dreamstime.com Juliet and Benvolio Juliet gave a long sigh as she came to her senses again. Now she could get on with the rest of her life, the life she planned to share with Romeo. She struggled to sit up, an...

There’s a passage in John Clare's Autobiography when he describes the day he wandered away from his native village of Helpstone to explore the yellow furze heath of Emmonsales. It was a distant, alluring prospect.  He expected that, when he reached the horizon, he would gaze over the edge of the world. ‘So I eagerly wandered on and rambled along the furze the whole day until I got out of my knowledge when the very wild flowers seemed to forget me and I imagined they were the inhabitants of new countrys the very sun seemed to be a new one and shining in a different quarter of the sky still I felt no fear my wonder-seeking happiness had no room for it I was finding new wonders every minute & was walking in a new world and expecting the worlds end bye and bye but it never came often wondering to myself that I had not found the edge of the old one the sky still touched the ground in the distance & my childish wisdom was puzzled in perplexities night came on before I had time ...

Joy Margetts’s post on 23 July, A Tale Most Tragical , set me thinking. Anne of Green Gables by L M Montgomery I’m ashamed to say I’ve never read Anne of Green Gables ; but I’ve listened to the audiobook, which I hope counts, and watched a delightful BBC dramatisation about 30 years ago, and loved both. Even if I hadn’t, I’d back Joy to the hilt about interfering with another writer’s work; but loving the story as I do, I was aghast at what Joy revealed the makers of Anne with an E on Netflix have done with it. Not happy with the storyline as written by L M Montgomery in 1908, which lacked the modern required exploration of racism, colonialism and homophobia, the creators of Anne with an E have cheerfully added several new characters and storylines to make up for this. Joy kindly gives the screen writers the widest possible benefit of the doubt, judging that perhaps only this way could the series attract a modern audience.  Really? Anne of Green Gables is a timeless classic...

  A “Midsummer Night’s Dream” is my favourite Shakespeare Play, I’ve acted in it, produced and directed it and seen countless versions on stage and screen. One of the many things I love about it is the play the mechanicals put on for Theseus and Hippolyta’s wedding feast. I still laugh at “The Lamentable Tragedy of Pyramus and Thisbe”− especially the scene with the Wall. The humour may be slapstick, but there is an element of satire too. Shakespeare is gently mocking fellow actors and their need to be centre stage. When Quince casts Bottom the Weaver as Pyramus, Bottom is, at first, delighted to be given the lead role, but as each new part comes up he thinks he’d like to give that one a try too “An I may hide my face, let me play Thisby too, I'll speak in a monstrous little voice. 'Thisne, Thisne;' 'Ah, Pyramus, lover dear! thy Thisby dear, and lady dear!' ” Or “Let me play the lion too: I will roar, that I will do any man's heart good to hear me; I ...

An author friend and I have been writing stories together for years, and our collaborations are usually seamless. We agree on so much, but there is one thing we don't agree on.  I’m all for having a different point of view, but what if we have a different point of view about … point of view, also known as PoV?  Establishing point of view for a story isn’t easy since there are many to choose from: first person, second person, third person limited, and third person omniscient.  Point of view filters everything in a story. There are pros and cons for each choice. Where I differ from my friend is in the use of third person omniscient.   He likes it, and I don’t. Simple as that.  We’ve managed to write some fabulous stories together, so this difference may be a matter of personal preference and nothing more. Regardless, I thought it'd be interesting to explore the omniscient PoV more closely.  First of all, what is it?  An omniscient narrator is one tha...

Daisy Ridley's Ophelia swims with the fishes It's a writer's nightmare. You've put everything into a novel based on an idea that you thought was original, only to discover that it's already been done - maybe better, and perhaps famously. How did you overlook it? Just like that, your shiny new bicycle has a flat and you're out there pedaling with no pants on! No matter. Call it "a reimagining" and carry on. Writers have done it for thousands of years, most notably, William Shakespeare, that all time master of tales retold in iambic pentameter. Romeo and Juliet , was already a popular Italian tale when the Bard made it the subject of his masterpiece, as were other most famous plays. He based Hamlet on a very old Danish play entitled "Ur-Hamlet" which in turn was derived from a lengthy, 1200 A.D. compilation of Norse legends written in Latin: Saxo Grammaticus' Gesta Danorum, or History of the Danes , telling of the rise and fall of t...