Rationalising characters

This week I yanked a novel off the shelf, where it's been festering for the best part of a year. I'd got horribly stuck on one particular scene which stuck out like a sore thumb, but which I simply couldn't think up a suitable replacement for, and it was only this week that I suddenly thought of a solution.

When I came to read through the relevant chapter, though, I found that scene was only part of the problem - a symptom rather than a cause. You get so familiar with works in progress that sometimes you forget the details and in this case I'd forgotten that I'd made the love interest American, probably because I was writing for an American market back in the day when I started the novel.

There's nothing wrong with an American love interest, of course. It's just that being British, I'm not entirely familiar with American dialogue, American history, American culture. Most of what I know comes from tv series and films and might not always be strictly authentic, and I'd never even been to the city I had the character coming from. This all made it much harder to familiarise myself with the character. What would his accent sound like? Where would he work? Which part of the city would he be likely to live in? What's the attitude to gay men in that city? If I don't know this sort of basic stuff, I'm never going to convince my readers that the character is a real person.

I started to ask myself why the character needed to be American. Did it add anything to the plot, or to the character himself? The quick answer was no, not really. There were a few culture-clash style comedy moments but very little else, and it's easy enough to rewrite those.

So, this week my American has become a Liverpudlian. I know that city pretty well; I'm familiar with the accent which means I can hear the character's voice in my mind and know the sort of things he would or wouldn't say. And I can 'place' him geographically, and come up with a few amusing anecdotes about Liverpool, to add a bit of local colour. It'll mean a heap of rewriting, of course, but I already feel happier that the novel will be better as a result.

I don't think I've ever re-nationalised a character before, but there's a first time for everything...

Once there was... a disappearing blog

A couple of months ago I discovered the Midlands-based writing/resources blog Once There Was, and promptly stuck it on the list of blogs I follow. It had some interesting articles and useful links, it wanted stories for an anthology, and it was running a flash fiction contest. I entered the latter and was delighted when my story was 'placed' and appeared on the blog. The winning entries were also posted (and very good they were too), but after that I'd noticed the blog wasn't being updated any more.

I assumed the owner was on holiday or 'otherwise engaged' and checked on a weekly basis for anything new. This week when I clicked the link I was greeted with a mostly blank page and the alarming words 'the author has chosen to delete this account. No content is available'. Well, that can happen with blogs. It only takes the blog provider's server to be up the spout and the whole thing can vanish for an hour or two, and then reappear as though nothing had happened.

But Once There Was hasn't reappeared. The blank page and the message are still there, several days later, and it looks as though the owner has pulled the plug. This is a real shame, not least because it was such a friendly and useful site. I've had to take all the links to my flash story off my website and I have no idea what to do with the story I'd almost finished for the anthology. I'm left in limbo, wondering whether I missed a re-direct to another site, or any other sort of explanation.

If anyone knows what happened or where I can find Once There Was in the future, please get in touch. I'd hate to think I was missing out on all the fun somewhere else on the net! In the meantime, I'll have to chalk it down as the strange case of the disappearing blog...

Phone shop sharks

Dave's been looking around for a new mobile phone lately. His is now several years old and although there's nothing physically wrong with it, the rate technology moves on means it has been left lagging behind. Since he uses it all the time for work, something with the latest gizmos is pretty much essential.

This afternoon we happened to be passing a mobile phone shop, so we called in. We collared a salesman and explained that we were looking specifically at the new Nokia handset and an O2 tariff because several of the places Dave works can't pick up any signal from the other networks. We asked what their best tariff would be. He ummed and ahhed, said he would have to check with his manager, and sat us down to wait.

After a while the manager came over and the two of them started to ask us a load of personal questions and write the answers on a form. First question was: What's your home telephone number? This always annoys me, because it's quite obvious they don't need it and are only taking it for marketing purposes, so I told him it was ex-directory (which it is) and we don't give it out. After that he asked for Dave's mobile number, our name, our post code, and even our broadband provider. Quite why these details were necessary wasn't explained.

In the meantime the manager was doing his level best to sway us away from Nokia and O2, for some unspecified reason. Were we sure we wanted O2? Were we really, really sure? Why didn't we go for the i-Phone? Because we want the Nokia, I rather unhelpfully replied. Oh, he said. But why do you want O2? By the time we'd explained for the fourth time that we couldn't pick up any other signal, we were beginning to wonder what was going on.

Eventually, after much looking up in books and muttering amongst themselves, the pair of them came up with a quote for the tariff, which was reasonably competitive but not exactly outstanding. The salesman then asked Dave to sign the form with all the answers on it. "What am I signing for?" asked Dave, who's been caught before. "Oh, nothing, it's nothing, just some internal stuff for us," the salesman replied, looking shifty. We read the form. It turned out to be an agreement that we would purchase mobile phone insurance from them. Dave promptly ticked the 'no' box, but signed the form.

The next time we turned round, we found the salesman quietly filling in a load of other 'yes' boxes on the form, that quite patently didn't apply to us - but that would have been covered by Dave's signature. I asked for the form back and changed all the 'yes' ticks to 'no'. I then turned the form over. In small print on the back, it said 'by signing this form you are agreeing to let us contact you for marketing and research purposes, and to let us sell on your details to related companies and other businesses for marketing purposes' or words to that effect. On a form that was supposed to be 'nothing' and 'just for internal stuff'.

Needless to say we walked out of the shop without buying a phone, and the whole experience left us feeling grubby and used. What a difference from the O2 shop we visited a few days ago for a similar quote, where they told us the various tariffs without taking so much as our name and were friendly and polite throughout.

I very rarely 'name and shame', but Phones4U Kings Heath branch, you should be ashamed of yourselves.

The reality of writing

Writing, almost more than any other occupation, suffers from a strange and skewed perception of itself. In part this could be due to the way writers are portrayed in films, on television, even in other books. Writers tend to be shown as either mad ('The Shining') or bad ('Secret Windows') and the business of writing is shown as terribly artistic and genteel. I've had any number of people say, when I've told them I'm a writer, 'Oh, that must be a lovely hobby...' and the general perception of writers seems to be that we sit in a summerhouse surrounded by flowers, sipping wine (or tea) and tapping out our latest novel on an ancient typewriter.

At last there's an antidote to all that in the shape of a wonderful, and wonderfully funny, article by author Kate Douglas about the reality of writing and publishing. No floating around in summerhouses for Ms Douglas; she emphasises what anyone who tries to make a living from writing already knows - it's bloody hard work most of the time.

It’s great—you write full time, the kids are grown and three months is more than enough time to get a book written, right?

Yeah…sure. If that’s all you do.

I read the article, laughed, winced in sympathy, and wished I'd written it. I may not be writing simultaneous series of novels for different publishers, but I've been there with the edits and the cover art information and the second round of edits and the third round of edits and the proof-reading, all whilst trying my damndest to write something else. It makes juggling with chainsaws look easy. It's worth it in the end, of course, when you have your latest book or story published, but sometimes I do find myself wishing that people realised just how much of a full-time, business-like job writing is....

Tourists for a week

Last week we had our first visitors to stay at the Lakeland cottage. They'd never seen the area before so we put our tourist hats on and took them for a cruise on Lake Windermere, a walk round Bowness and Ambleside, and a trip to the old grammar school at Hawkshead where the poet Wordsworth was a pupil.

Once they'd gone we forgot to take our hats off again and ended up doing all sorts of other touristy things. We visited the South Lakes Wild Animal Park near Barrow in Furness, we took a ride on the Lakeside & Haverthwaite steam railway, and we popped into the Lakes Aquarium to see our favourite pygmy marmosets (yes, they have monkeys in an aquarium... go figure). All of which was immensely good fun.

The only time we'd been to the Wild Animal Park before was shortly after it first opened. It was very sweet, but a little sparse in the animal department - a few lemurs and wallabies and not a lot else. Now we're pleased to see it's bedded itself in really well, is chock full of animals and has started up a couple of great conservation/rescue services, for spectacled bears and macaws. Long may it continue the good work.

The steam railway only goes about three miles along the south-western shore of Windermere, but it passes through some amazingly pretty scenery along the way and there are all sorts of engine sheds and exhibits to clamber over at Haverthwaite station.

It always feels a little strange being a tourist in an area you call home, but it did mean we got to see things we wouldn't have done otherwise. Maybe next time we'll do a coach tour of the lakes and mountains. Then again... ;)

Crime writer tv show

I'm wondering if anyone else caught the first episode of a new US import called 'Castle' the other night? It was tucked away at 9pm on the Alibi channel so I'll forgive you if you say no, but you missed a treat.

We weren't optimistic at first. Yet another US crime drama. Yawn. Yet another series with the hero's name as the title of the show. Double yawn, step aside House and Dexter. Yet another series where a civilian with an unusual speciality helps the police. Hmm. Haven't we seen that idea before somewhere?

But Castle turned out to be much better than we expected. Nathan Fillion (of Firefly) was excellent in the title role and Stana Katic was equally good as his 'will they won't they' love interest/colleague. The script was a joy, chock full of witty one-liners that had us laughing out loud. And best of all, Castle's unusual angle was that he's a successful crime novelist.

Too often in movies and tv series, writers are shown as dippy floaty artistic types who drink lots of coffee, bang away on an ancient typewriter and talk to the walls. Castle was different, because he was intelligent and because he truly understood his craft. In order to write successful crime novels (possibly more than any other genre) a writer has to understand the motivations of his characters - why they would do something, or why they wouldn't. This was used to great effect in the first episode where several times Castle changed the direction of the police investigation because the motives didn't fit. Of course, it was a little hard to believe trained detectives could be quite that thick, but it was nice to see a writer genuinely using his craft to untangle the foibles of human nature.

Pilot episodes aren't always a good indication of the rest of the series but we're hoping the intelligence continues - and we'll definitely be watching episode two to find out.

Radgepacket 4 reviewed

Thanks to fellow Radgie author Paul D Brazill for spotting this one, the first review of the anthology I've come across. Author Donna Moore recently read Radgepacket 4 and had this to say about it:

"A collection of 22 short stories - gritty, funny, weird, warped and wonderful... They're not all crime stories but many of them have a crime in, and all of them are deliciously nasty. An anthology for those who like their fiction twisted, profane and depraved. Me, I loved it."

I've just finished reading my own copy and I have to agree - there isn't a duff story in the whole collection and many of them are very, very good indeed. My own favourites were Ragna Brent's 'Piano Man', Patrick Belshaw's achingly sad 'Grey's Elegy', Blaine Ward's startlingly chilling 'Eye for an Eye', and Carol Fenlon's poignant 'Half Mile Island'. But you don't just have to take my word for it now - you can pop along to Donna's blog and read the rest of her review.

Authors' rules of writing

The Guardian recently asked a bunch of well-known writers for their own personal top ten rules of writing. The results, which you can read here, were fascinating.

Needless to say every writer had a different set of rules and not a few contradicted each other. Some I found myself nodding over, some were completely new to me, some were hilarious and others I didn't agree with at all.

Margaret Atwood's suggestions for writing on a plane journey had me in stitches. Robert Ford was so brusque it was unhelpful. One author banned the use of prologues and another said all similes and metaphors were taboo. These two worried me. Yes, I've come across books where the prologue got in the way of the story and yes, I've read writing that's so full of imagery it's positively puce. But to ban every instance of something risks losing our wonderfully rich language and variety of writing forms.

And the top of the top ten advice? Well, lots of it was good but I think this, from Elmore Leonard, was pure gold: 'If it sounds like writing, rewrite it'.

Author blog awards

Someone has very kindly nominated my blog for this (I'm assuming) new award, run by CompletelyNovel.com which appears to be an online resources centre and networking site for writers.

I'm usually rather cynical about these sort of awards, which proliferate all over the net. You can find awards for blogs, e-books, web design... and I can't help thinking they're set up to provide members/publicity for the people running them rather than any real benefit to the nominated sites. It's still very nice to be nominated, though, and I figured I had nothing to lose by signing up.

You can vote for my blog (until 2 April) by clicking the logo at the top left of the post - apparently there are prizes available for people who vote. And thank you for your support!

RIP Tricity Bendix

My trusty friend of a washing machine, which I've had for the best part of twenty years, finally stopped working on Saturday.

It's been a wonderful companion, sticking with me through thick and thin. I got it when I bought my first flat here in Brum. Buying the property had just about cleaned me out (no pun intended) and I had to choose between carpet, or a washing machine. Having survived the previous three years in a rented flat with nowhere to put a washer, I chose the latter and managed on underlay for the next two years.

The machine followed me around the country, first to Loughborough, then back here to Birmingham. It never broke down, it never sulked, it never even thought about not working. I've used it every other day (sometimes every day if the drying weather is good) and it's been just about the most reliable piece of electrical goods I've ever had. But finally, after eighteen years' hard labour, it decided it had had enough. I switched on on Saturday morning to wash a load of towels and... nothing. Not a peep. The door didn't lock, no water flowed, no hum echoed through the utility room. Dead, as they say, as a parrot.

We dashed straight out and bought a new one and I'm sure it will be terrific. It's a washer-dryer for starters so I can get clothes dry in wet or very cold weather. It has a larger capacity and a wider-loading drum so I can actually wash duvets. It comes with all the latest energy-saving settings, and it even comes in a snazzy grey-and-white design.

I shall miss my loyal old Tricity Bendix, though. And I bet the new one won't last eighteen years....

Rats!

We were hoping to go on that Odeon cinema bus tour I mentioned the other day, but when I came to book tickets I found it had sold out. Either it's too popular or they didn't hire enough buses! Shame, as it looked as if it was going to be really interesting. Ah well, perhaps next year...

Currently working on...

I have two stories on the go at once which is quite a rarity for me; usually I prefer to finish one thing before starting another.

The first story, which I've just finished to first draft, is a shocking little tale of a man's increasingly frustrated efforts at picking up a parcel for his wife at the local sorting office, and the rather drastic steps he takes to provide suitable ID.

The other is a humorous crime story which begins with a man jumping naked out of the cake at a local crime boss's 50th birthday party. A birthday surprise and then some, you could say...

Both are proving tremendous fun to write and I'm hoping once they're done and polished, to add them to a growing collection of noirish/crime stories which I might submit as an anthology somewhere.

Right, back to that birthday cake...

Birmingham Flatpack Festival

Even after 20-odd years living in Birmingham I'm still finding out fascinating new things about the city. Today marks the start of the annual Flatpack Festival, which celebrates all things cinematic.

One of the highlights this year is a bus tour around three gems of the Odeon cinema empire. The founder of Odeon, Oscar Deutsch, was born in Birmingham (Balsall Heath, to be precise) in 1893 and the early cinemas were all built in the West Midlands in the high art deco style of the 1930s. Over the years the lavish interiors have been toned down (they used to have glamorous uniformed usherettes as well as carpet, chandeliers and potted plants) but the buildings themselves remain as landmarks in many places.

As well as the tour (more details here if you're interested!) English Heritage have a complete collection of photographer John Maltby's pictures of every Odeon cinema in the UK. You can see the photos at the English Heritage viewfinder site - just type 'Odeon' into the search box.

My books for sale at Created in Birmingham

Those nice people at the Created in Birmingham shop have agreed to stock both Radgepacket Volume 2 and Radgepacket Volume 4, since both have a story by a local author (ie, me!) in them.

I'm absolutely delighted about this, because it gets the Byker Books name out to a whole new audience (and let's face it, there aren't too many independent British publishers taking the sort of dark, gritty urban fiction that Byker like), and also because it hopefully gets *my* name out to a whole new audience. This is the first time I've had physical books for sale anywhere except the internet and it's rather nice to think that people will mooch into the shop and be able to pick up and browse my work.

CiB have asked for a few more details including business cards to hand out, and a display card with a few details about myself, so I shall be beavering away on those over the weekend.

For those of you who want to check the shop (and my books!) out, it's on the upper level of the Bull Ring shopping centre in Birmingham city centre, between the main entrance (with the bull statue) and Debenhams. It opens from 11 am each day, it's full of exciting local artwork, and the staff are very friendly. What more could you want?

Minotaur story finds a home

I had some great news from QueeredFiction yesterday - they've accepted Unravelling the Thread for their 'Love & Fables' anthology.

The story is a total romp, loosely (okay, very loosely!) based on the old Greek legend of the minotaur. In this case, when Theo's sometime-girlfriend Ariadne thinks there's a monster in the Coseley Manor maze, she sends him in to Deal With It. Never at his best in adversity, Theo surprises even himself - and is rewarded with Beauty of a different kind on the way to tackling the Beast.

The anthology is currently slated for publication in June/July of this year, but as usual I'll post more details when I have them so don't forget to check back from time to time.

A story in how many words?

I got chatting to a fellow author on Saturday who said he'd been trying his hand at a new challenge - flash fiction that's only six words long!

It seems almost impossible to tell a story in only six words, but he explained that if you got it right, it could be very effective, especially in comedy work.

Never one to turn down a writing-related challenge I decided to have a go. I'm used to writing flash and have managed stories of only 30 words before now, but six is something else again. And... I failed. At least for now. I managed one piece that was ten words long, which I'm actually rather proud of, but I couldn't have reduced it to six if it'd stared at it till Doomsday.

It was fun trying, though, and something to drag out and look at again in the future. I suspect it might be useful for prodding my brain into action when I've hit the latest brick wall.

And the ten word story? Well, I might be persuaded to post it on here in a week or two, if you're all very very nice to me.

Radgepacket 4 available now!

In case you hadn't already noticed from the sidebar (-->) Radgepacket Volume 4 is now fully available to buy.

This one is bigger and better than previous volumes, with extra stories in place of the interview and contest that have appeared before. Now there are 22 stories by 22 different authors, all of them dark, gritty and urban but most of them with a quirky element of gallows humour.

My own story, Lemon Sour, is loosely based on an incident from my childhood - although I swear the sort of revenge the main character takes never even occurred to me! Jenny isn't a very nice person; I can't think where in the darkest recesses of my mind she came from. However, I was trying to suggest the way that (sometimes minor) childhood humiliations can end up scarring people for life.

The paperback is available to order from either Byker Books or Amazon, for the very reasonable price of £5.99 (not bad for all those stories...). For more details including a point-of-sale link and an excerpt from the story, please hurry along to the Lemon Sour page on my website.

And if you do take the plunge, I hope you enjoy my story and some of the other sly, wry and downright naughty stories in the book.

Back from Newcastle

We had a fun, if exhausting, time in Newcastle over the weekend. The train journey went very smoothly, the only problem being that the heating controls got stuck on the way up and our carriage was absolutely boiling. It took three separate requests by three separate passengers over two and a half hours before the staff got the problem fixed, by which time I was a dripping wreck! Not what you need when you're attending an event an hour after arrival.

Luckily our hotel was only minutes from the station so I was able to freshen up before we headed out to explore the area and find the venue of the book launch. Newcastle looks to be a much more historical place than I'd realised; within minutes we'd discovered a section of 13th century town walls and a medieval friary, as well as Chinatown and St James Park (the Newcastle football ground). The book shop, The Back Page, was very close to the stadium; hardly surprising since it's a sports-lover's dream, stuffed to the rafters with football books, football dvds and football memorabilia, some of it quite rare. It made a fascinating backdrop to the party.

The launch itself was great fun; seven or eight of the authors came along and we met the editor (who grew up on the Byker estate in Newcastle, hence the publisher's name); discovered more about Byker Books' history; and chatted about our stories, writing and life in general. I picked up my contributors' copy of Radgepacket 4 which has more stories than previous volumes and looks great value at only £5.99. More of that later...

Since we both love Chinese food we couldn't resist dinner at one of the many buffet restaurants along Stowell Street? Lane? - huge choice of dishes and absolutely delicious. The highlight for me was jelly and fruit for dessert since I'm still a kid at heart!

Yesterday we had the morning to kill before our train back to Brum, so set off to explore the rest of the city including various shopping centres (they're strung out like washing on a line); the famous Grey Street with its statue of Earl Grey (of tea fame); and the river with its impressive gaggle of bridges, and a craft fair along one bank. Newcastle is obviously a vibrant city filled with music, culture, creativity and nightlife; in fact I don't think I've ever seen so many nightclubs per head of population - there were simply hundreds! The downside to that is a slightly higher than average amount of antisocial behaviour, with gangs of people shouting all night, broken glass and vomit everywhere, even early on Saturday afternoon. Highlights including seeing a curlew at close quarters at the edge of the River Tyne, and finding a lovely statue of a man with some pigeons in the Eldon Square shopping centre (you can see a pic of it here).

We were really glad to have seen the place at last, as we've been promising ourselves a visit for years. It's a long way to travel from Brum (three and a half hours each way on the train) so combining the trip with the book launch made a lot of sense.

One day to go...

Don't forget - it's the Radgepacket 4 book launch at The Back Page in Newcastle upon Tyne from 3-5 pm tomorrow (Saturday 13 March).

I'll be there. Will you? ;)

Review: Alan Hollinghurst's 'The Line of Beauty'

I bought this book a few years ago, soon after watching and enjoying the tv series based on it. Too soon, really - I spent most of my time comparing the book to the series and it pulled me out of the 'story' and made it very difficult to focus. Eventually I gave up and stuck the book on the shelf, and I only picked it up again the other week... and promptly wondered why on earth I'd waited so long!

The book is terrific. Quite possibly Hollinghurst's best, and that's against some pretty stiff opposition. Set in the 1980s of Margaret Thatcher, mobile phones, consumerist excess and yuppie-dom, it tells the story of Nick Guest, a young gay man who gets himself invited to live with his university friend Toby's family. Toby's father Gerald is an up-and-coming politician in the Thatcher government and his mother Rachel is an upper-class heiress. Nick, who is obsessed by beauty in all its forms, is swept off his feet by their attractiveness, their wealth and their social standing. At the same time he explores his own sexuality for the first time with affairs with a black council-worker and the son of a middle-eastern millionaire. Needless to say the course of true love does not run smooth and Nick learns the hard way as his lovers succomb to drug addiction and AIDS, and his new family prove to have their own skeletons in the closet.

There is so much going on inside the book - so much detail, so much humanity, so many themes, that I hardly know where to start. In particular I love the dry sly humour - the millionaire is clearly modelled on Mohammed Al Fayed, for instance - and the dialogue which conjures up so skillfully the brittle brilliance of the decade. Although the downward spiral of Nick's life takes on a tragic tone it's never overdone and the ending is just ambiguous enough to leave Nick, who's lost everything, with a flicker of hope for his future life.

Hollinghurst seems at times to be gleefully breaking all the usual writing rules. He uses 'tell' rather than 'show', especially when describing characters' emotions, and he manages to set an entire novel in the 1980s without mentioning a single person, piece of music, book, television programme or event from that time (with the obvious exception of Mrs Thatcher herself). And yet the sheer brilliance of the writing, and the everyday details of the characters' lives, bring the decade to vivid life anyway, so it hardly matters.

All in all it's a wonderful piece of writing and fully deserves its Man Booker Prize.