Authors Electric

It’s been a busy few weeks for me. We’ve bought a house (and a car, as the old one was getting rather past it) and had all the attendant fun that goes with that. Still, at least I’m settled now. It’s had an impact on my writing, for obvious reasons – from not having the time or energy after a full day at work and then messing around for a couple of hours with boxes (and sheesh, I didn’t realise just how many books we actually own), to practicalities such as not having internet set up or secured,. As a wee reward, I treated myself to a trip to the opera (Rossini, the Barber of Seville) on World Opera Day. Wonderful staging, and the cast was stellar. A thoroughly good time was had. But it got me thinking on the way home, just how many parallels could be drawn between writing and opera (or, I suppose, other sorts of show or TV programmes). There was a wonderful phrase I heard (or read – it was a long time ago) that said good writing made it easy to suspend your disbelief and fill in ...

I mainly read books but split that between “proper” books and Kindle reading. I have a soft spot for audio books though.  My favourites are the Terry Pratchett Discworld series, which I think work well. (I go for the ones narrated by Sir Tony Robinson). When going on holiday to Scotland, a couple of those audio books will take my family and I from Hampshire to Sutherland, but we will have been entertained and had many a laugh on that trip. Then we have the joy of two more Pratchett audio books on the way home.   No matter how often I hear these, I always pick up on some new nuance I missed on previous hearings plus there is always the joy of re-hearing favourite lines.   Audio books are wonderful shared experiences too. Read a book, laugh out loud, and you’ll get some funny looks (or so I’ve been told, honest, guv).  Share an audio book and have two of you laugh out loud - not such a problem! Stories strong on dialogue work best for audio, I think. It is like e...

  Over the last few weeks I've been sifting through a pile of short stories written by new, local writers. There are a couple of reasons for this. The first (and the most important) is to provide a critique that will encourage the author and help them improve their story. Secondly, I wondered if there would be any common themes identified which might form the basis of an article. Forty-three stories later (it was all short stories, 3000 words maximum - I am the first to admit I know almost nothing about poetry) there was a clear theme that stood out.   Dialogue tags.   Or rather, an over-enthusiastic approach to them.   I've read more ways to attribute speech recently than I care to think about: (S)he enthused, bemoaned cried, whispered, intoned, breathed, muttered, screamed, laughed, gasped…   I could go on. The point is, none of these options are wrong, when used in moderation. But if every sentence of dialogue has a different tag, it becomes hard to read, and...

One of the ways in which we bring life to characters is through dialogue. Unless you’re writing fantasy or science fiction, you must create a world with believable people in it who do believable things. How they talk and what they say is integral to that world. An author can create characters by giving them specific personality traits such as being rude, boastful, kind, courageous, tender-hearted, etc. This is all well and good, but the reader needs to experience these traits. In other words, show me how a character is boastful or tender-hearted. Effective dialogue is one way to reveal such details. Good dialogue is all about listening to your characters. It’s the process of: writing a line of dialogue, listening, and then writing down the next line, and so on. Characters come to life through what they say and how they say it.   For this reason, I often talk to my characters as if they are real people. I suspect I’m not the only author who does this! I refer to char...

The audience at Novel Nights in Bristol A few weeks ago I was lucky enough to be invited to read at Novel Nights , a regular event in Bristol where local writers get the chance to air their work in progress.  I’ve been a fan of these evenings for quite some time and have followed them over two changes of venue.  Since guest speakers have been added to the programme, there’s the bonus of  picking the brains of a writing or publishing expert. And the cosy vibe encourages serious questions rather than the celebrity worship of high profile literary events.  In January, the guest was Celia Brayfield and the theme historical fiction, the module Celia leads on the Bath Spa M.A. As the guest is last to take the floor on these occasions, it gives writers (if they're anything like me!) the chance to recover from the anxietyof reading to an audience and take in the words of wisdom. So here are Celia's edicts for writing Historical Fiction, at least as I recall them. ...

Take me to a café or a restaurant, put me on a bus or a train and I’m the quiet one in the corner, the one with seemingly not much to say. It’s not because I’m shy, or don’t like being with people, it’s because I’m watching and listening to the people around me. For me, this is as vital as reading. It’s the way I get my dialogue right, the ebb and flow of the language, the non-sequiturs, the sentences that trail off into what is assumed is a shared understanding. Of course, all this will be edited. Real speech with its hesitations and repetitions doesn’t work in fiction, but the feeling and the flavour will be there. Dialogue too reflects character and life story. Language too is constantly changing. Words like “cool” and “wicked” are current one year, tired and dated the next.  Which is one of the difficulties when it comes to writing for children or young adults. When I was working in a middle school it felt natural to write for the age group I was teaching....

I've started the post today with a photo of Glamis Castle. This is the childhood home of Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother and is situated near Dundee in Scotland. Castles are something that we Scots seem to do extremely well. The other is using a language which sounds very bonnie indeed. There's nothing like the sound of a Scot in full flow, be it with the lilt of the Highlands and Islands or the strong accents of Glasgow or Dundee. However, these melodic sounds are accompanied by words which may mean nothing to a reader outside the area.  For example, I have a bonnie wee burn at the end of my garden. A burn would be called a stream anywhere else in the UK. In the middle of Dundee, we have a hill called the Law. Law is an old Scots word for hill. Therefore, the proper name is The Law. As I write crime books this could be somewhat confusing if I said "there's been a body found on The Law". So I have to say the Law Hill. I am sure you are getting my dri...

I have no shame. If I thought being photographed standing naked behind a pile of my books would create a sudden boost in sales, I’d willingly disrobe. My aesthetic sense, however, is sufficiently developed to persuade me that it would have the opposite effect. We’re judged by how we look, what we wear and, more importantly for the sake of this post, by how we speak. (As an aside, I should add that writers are also judged by their books. After reading a passage from my first book where my detective sits at traffic lights watching schoolgirls cross the road and reflecting on how they look, my wife said ‘Oh. So you fancy schoolgirls then, do you?’) As a writer of both novels and plays, it’s the speaking bit of the equation that interests me. Without wishing to offend anyone, I’d suggest that if you have a character saying ‘The proliferation of epistolary exegesis in your analysis anticipates the deplorable development of arcane terminology which is merely adventiti...