Have You Read…?

Here’s another list of recent reads that I’ve enjoyed.  Not all perfect but some come pretty close.  Enjoy.

The Scent of Death by Andrew Taylor

The View on the Way Down by Rebecca Waite

Instructions for a Heatwave by Maggie O’Farrell

As Far As You Can Go by Lesley Glaister

The Light Between Oceans by M L Stedman

Ten Things I’ve Learnt About Love by Sarah Butler

The Silent Wife by A.S.A. Harrison

Apple Tree Yard by Louise Doughty

Norwegian by Night by Derek B Miller

The Burning Air by Erin Kelly

Picture This

How do you decide which form is the best vehicle for a story idea?  Sometimes it seems obvious, the subject matter cries out for the length and complexity of a novel, or it’s a sharp, closely focused snap-shot suited to short fiction.  Other times something that originates as an idea for one form ends up, through happenstance, to see life in another.

I’ve had experience of writing a book and then adapting it for TV (Blue Murder) and of taking a TV script of mine and reworking it as a novel (Hit and Run).  One of my TV pitches became a novel (Witness) and has since been optioned for TV though has not as yet got any further.  Another TV treatment was transformed into a short story for radio (Boom).

I enjoy working in different media.  In my previous incarnation as a community artist I worked in a multidisciplinary company and relished the interplay of ideas and the development of projects involving visual and environmental arts, film, music, drama and creative writing.

My latest venture is a collaboration with my partner Tim, who is a visual artist. He has reworked my short story DOA (originally published by The Do-Not Press in the anthology Crime in the City edited by Martin Edwards) into a graphic short.  My role in the process has been to pare back the story, originally around 1200 words, to its absolute essentials, and comment as a first reader on the images that give the story a new identity.

It’s an experiment and I expect it will appeal to a quite different readership from that for my full length novels.  All I can say is the drawings are brilliant.  Honest.  And yes, I’m biased.  You can see it here and make your own mind up http://tinyurl.com/pkfjyxk

Rocky

He was a big cheese.  Thicker skin than Edam, punch like Farmhouse Cheddar, bite like Stilton.  Broke the mould.  You know, he never saw it coming.  Ended up with more holes than Gorgonzola.  Time we arrived it was a feta-compli.  Churned me up to see it.  Fondue.

Breaking The Rules

The great writer Elmore Leonard died recently and many people passed on his 10 rules for good writing, as follows:

  1. Never open a book with weather.
  2. Avoid prologues.
  3. Never use a verb other than “said” to carry dialogue.
  4. Never use an adverb to modify the verb “said”…he admonished gravely.
  5. Keep your exclamation points under control. You are allowed no more than two or three per 100,000 words of prose.
  6. Never use the words “suddenly” or “all hell broke loose.”
  7. Use regional dialect, patois, sparingly.
  8. Avoid detailed descriptions of characters.
  9. Don’t go into great detail describing places and things.
  10. Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip.

My most important rule is one that sums up the 10.  If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it.

Make sense to you?  I think there is a lot of good advice in there but also that rules are only worth keeping if they work for you and for the book you are writing.  Here are my gut responses/thoughts to these rules.

  1. It was a dark and stormy night. As a reader I’m hooked. Love it.  Like weather.  A lot.  Maybe it’s a British thing?
  2. Some prologues work, some don’t.  I’d ask if it was really needed.
  3. Okay as a generalisation.  But never say never.
  4. A little variety is okay,  Just a little.
  5. I agree!  Though I’d maybe allow seven or eight per 100,000 words (I have never written a book of anything like that length!)
  6. Yes to the latter.  ‘Suddenly’ I can handle – sparingly.
  7. Bare true dat.
  8. Beg to differ here – it’s a matter of personal writing style.
  9. Ditto no 8.  I relish descriptions of locations that help me see/taste/smell and hear just what it’s like.  Books that take me to unfamiliar places, vividly depicted, are among my favourites.
  10. Well, maybe but do all readers skip the same parts?

What does make sense in all this is that these are the techniques that worked for Leonard, whose novels are a joy to read and who has a very specific voice.  But pick another writer and I think their own rules would differ depending on the style of their prose and the way they like to tell their stories.

 

More Books

Another batch of recommended reads.  Lots of variety, too.  In this list there’s a brutal and blackly funny Western, a science fiction mystery novel, a hilarious yet moving take on modern American life as well as some excellent contemporary crime fiction.  Happy reading.

After The Fall by Charity Norman

The Last Policeman by Ben H. Winters

Nina Todd Has Gone by Lesley Glaister

Everyone Lies by A.D. Garrett

The Sisters Brothers by Patrick deWitt

May We Be Forgiven by A.M. Homes

The Detective’s Daughter by Lesley Thompson

Phantom by Jo Nesbo

Voracious

She read her way around the library, hungry for journeys, adventures, laughter and passion.  She took each new book to bed like a lover, savouring every chapter, going too far some nights until the letters danced like insects and she was groggy next day at work.  But still she’d sneak away for lunchtime trysts, her eager fingers fumbling for the bookmark.  In between times, in the worst of times and all alone, she would graze on safety notices, cereal packets, logos, the small print on tickets.  In museums and galleries she read the plaques, barely glancing at the exhibits.

When she died she had never travelled more than thirty miles from the small town of her birth.  But between the covers she’d been all round the globe:  a queen, a mother, a spy, a murderer, a general, a slave, an alien.  She died just before the last chapter.

*Originally published by www.the-phone-book.com (now archived)