Roz Morris's Blog, page 103

Foreshadowing: how a sore thumb can prepare you for a brutal beating

I have a soft spot for hypnotists, as anyone who's read My Memories of a Future Life will readily believe. Required viewing in our house is the illusionist Derren Brown – and part of the fun is how he puts a show together as a story.

In the first show of his latest series, The Experiments, he tested whether a nice ordinary bloke could be conditioned to assassinate a celebrity – and then, like the man convicted of shooting Robert Kennedy, have no memory of doing the deed.

It's a lot to believe, for both volunteer and viewer. There were the obligatory demonstrations. We saw the lucky chap develop super-marksmanship under hypnosis. He was put in a trance and did things he couldn't remember.

But he could have been faking, of course. So before any of these demonstrations were done, the audience had to be primed to believe they could be true.

With some nifty foreshadowing.

Foreshadowing, sometimes known as prefigurement, is a way of suggesting developments that may happen later in a story so that the reader is more ready to accept them.

1 Foreshadowing amnesia

Derren mentioned moments of amnesia we all naturally have – driving a familiar route and not remembering the journey, or if you locked the front door. Hey presto, amnesia is something that could happen to us all.

This is what a writer might do if a story pivoted on an event the reader might find hard to believe if confronted with it cold.

Imagine a story that revolves around mistaken identity. Before you see the actual mistake, the ground is prepared obliquely. So a man meeting his wife off the train might hug the wrong woman, fooled by her coat. Or two characters might talk about a situation where a friend got in the wrong car. You think the scene's about something else – perhaps their friendship – but it plants the seed that mistaken identity could happen to anyone. So when later it does, it's easier to swallow.

2 Foreshadowing the killer tr ance

The assassin in Derren's experiment was activated when he saw polka dots. This was demonstrated in action a few times. But before all that, we were primed too.

While Derren was describing what witnesses saw when Kennedy was shot, he mentioned a woman in a polka-dot dress. It seemed like one of those details to make the story more vivid, as insignificant as what time it was or whether canapes were served. Until he introduced his visual trigger later in the show – polka dots. On a handkerchief. As a surprise picture on the inside of a restaurant menu.

Now we remembered they were associated with something sinister. And in the climax, they appeared on a dress…

And the sore thumb?

In Clint Eastwood's film Unforgiven, a blacksmith remarks that if you whack your thumb in cold weather it hurts a lot more. Not long afterwards, on an icy cold day, Little Bill gets in a fight with English Bob. But this is more than Little Bill playing football with English Bob, we're primed to feel the pain of the blows. Unforgiven is a world where everything is a struggle, where people are fragile. And a sore thumb tells us a kicking is really nasty.

Skilled storytellers don't leave your reaction to chance. More often than you think, they're planting clues to finely control the way you feel.

As always, give me examples you've noticed! Or used in your own fiction

Starts November 14: How to write a novel – in-depth webinar series with Joanna Penn of The Creative Penn, starting November.  Find more details and sign up here.

Nail Your Novel – my short book about how to write a long o ne – is available from Amazon.

My Memories of a Future Life is now available in full. You can also listen to or download a free audio of the first 4 chapters over on the red blog.

 

Imagine Desert Island Discs for novels – welcome to The Undercover Soundtrack… on the red blog

Imagine a novel could guest on Desert Island Discs. For those of you receiving outside the UK, Desert Island Discs is an immensely popular and long-running show on BBC Radio 4, where guests are asked to choose pieces of music that form a soundtrack to their lives.

After my recent co-post with Porter Anderson about undercover soundtracks to our novels, I am excited to announce a series…

Starting today, the red blog will be hosting writers who use music in the creation of their novels. I've got scores of them lined up to talk about special pieces that have guided them to a deeper understanding of a character, or helped populate a mysterious place, or clarified a particular, pivotal moment.

First up is Dan Holloway, founder member of the literary fiction collective Year Zero Writers and the literary project eight cuts gallery. His novel The Company of Fellows was voted favourite Oxford novel by readers at Blackwell's. He's talking about Songs From The Other Side of the Wall, and the music that helped him develop his rather individual characters.

Put through my paces by Guys Can Read: literary writing, storytelling and the brave new world of indie books

Today I'm back at Guys Can Read, the weekly podcast books discussion hosted by Luke Navarro and Kevin McGill. Luke and Kevin adore fiction, period. They review everything from Jonathan Franzen to Star Wars novels, with equal expectations of great storytelling, strong characterisation and robust themes. They're not afraid to pick apart what doesn't work, regardless of how hallowed it might be, to venture into genres outside their usual tastes (which are pretty wide anyway) and to celebrate a darn good book even if it's in a genre that's normally sneered at. Kevin's also just released his own rip-roaring fantasy adventure, Nikolas and Company: A Creature Most Foul, now available on Amazon.

I've been on their show a few times and was thrilled they wanted me along now that I've released My Memories of a Future Life. We started by talking about the novel but soon ventured into wider discussion. We nattered about aspects of literary writing that can get in the way of the story and characters. We talked about indie publishing – as a choice to connect more closely with readers, whether it's risky for writers with an established career, and how readers and writers will in future be setting the publishing agenda just as much as commercial publishers.  Oh, and whether I get away with opening my novel with a whinge scene. Come on over.

Here be no dragons – fantasy stories in a non-fantasy world

We've been away for a few days and one of my holiday reads was David Garnett's Lady Into Fox (appropriately enough, as we stayed at an eighteenth-century hunting lodge by the name of Fox Hall). Written in the 1920s, Lady Into Fox is about a man whose wife transforms into a fox shortly after their wedding. They are devotedly in love and determined that this strange change does not matter. He dismisses the servants and shoots the over-excited dogs. She wears clothes, bathes fastidiously and continues to eat her favourite well-bred breakfast of ham and eggs. But her feral nature grows stronger. She forgets to walk on her hind legs and starts to chase ducks – and his struggles to keep her civilised grow more desperate.

Mention fantasy and most of us assume a story set in a world of mythical beings, dragons, elves, unicorns, vampires, magic-doers and medieval technology. But the fable, fantasy's discreet cousin, is another breed entirely.

In Lady Into Fox, the world and its trappings are normal. There is a hint that the lady's transformation may be a long-buried family trait; her maiden name is Fox and she has russet hair. That's the only attempt at explanation; this happening is what it is. Nothing similar befalls anyone else, either. It seems the act of marriage has put this lady in a peculiar state of animal rebellion.

It reminds me (very obliquely) of Dean Spanley, the film based on Lord Dunsany's novella, in which a clergyman may be the reincarnation of a spaniel. The mood is somewhat lighter and in Dean Spanley, the fabulous happening may be all in the minds of the characters. However, the author is teasing the audience to believe too. There's a whiff of sorcery when a swami gives a lecture on the transmigration of souls. The Dean remarks that cats don't like him. He has a weakness for Tokay, which gives him licence for almost hallucinatory flights of fancy as a young, gambolling spaniel. And finally we go along with the fantasy – because of what it will mean to the characters.

Fantasy doesn't have to take place in a fantasy world.

Thanks for the pic, liz_com1981

While I unpack and catch up on emails chaos, tell me – do you have any favourite unusual fantasy or fable-type stories? Share in the comments!

 

Websites that review indie authors alongside mainstream

One of the hardest things about being an indie author is getting reviewed in the same places as traditionally published books – especially if what you write is non-genre fiction. Here are a few that came up trumps for me, so I thought if you're in the same boat you might find them helpful.

Bookviews - to request a review, email acaruba@aol.com

For Books' Sake – email jane@forbookssake.net

RALPH – the Review of Arts, Literature, Philosphy and The Humanities. Go here for their review policy

Also this week I discovered indie author interview site The Bookcast – click here to introduce yourself to them.

If your novel also carries a frisson of supernatural and darkness, you might also snag the attention of Deb at Pen In Her Hand and BJ at Dark Side of the Covers – who also very kindly gave me reviewerly attention.

And if it flirts with SF and fantasy, you might get lucky, as I did, and find yourself evaluated alongside mainstream-published SF and fantasy, both modern and classic, at Critical Mass. (My review is pasted here.)

Thank you, Mrjorgen, for the pic

Have you found any useful review sites? Leave their URLs in the comments!

Too much information – be gentlemanly with your research

As it's their wedding they can be forgiven

I just read The Fear Index by Robert Harris. Much of the derring-do is in the world of hedge funds. Hedge funds make me feel baffled and not a little cross. Mercifully, Harris is a great storyteller – which means he knows that already.

Instead of baffling us, Harris starts with characters in a situation we can relate to – a man with a mysterious intruder in his house. A good half of the book passes before the reader ever has to grapple with how a hedge fund actually works. When we do it's a terrific scene – a flashback to how the main characters met, so we want to read it. It's full of entertaining characterisation – a racy rogue explains to an introverted scientist that it's like betting on whether the girl at the fridge is wearing black underwear.

If you know about hedge funds, it's charming enough that you forgive it being explained so basically. If you don't, you see a bit of character interaction and emerge smugger and wiser.

Setting overload

So many novels derive much of their atmosphere and story from the setting. Whether it's historical, sci-fi, fantasy, mountaineering, SAS thrillers (or even the world of classical music like My Memories of a Future Life). A lot of the fun of a book like this is the feeling you've had an insider view. But it's easy to overdo the details. Especially if some of your story hinges around something as intricate as how hedge funds work.

I see a lot of novels that judge this wrong. Research-dumps, screeds of stodgy exposition that the writer mistakes for scene-setting. It's clear that the writer has done admirable amounts of legwork – but they then frogmarch the reader through it too.

This not only holds up the story, it puts the reader on the outside while things are explained to them. In fact, you want them on the inside, immersed in the world as though the distinctive details were a natural part of life.

Wear it lightly

Harris clearly understands that however heavily he has to research, the novel should wear it lightly.

His other thrillers tackle ancient Rome (Imperium, Pompeii, Lustrum), the 1940s wartime code-breaking centre Bletchley Park (Enigma) an alternate 1960s (Fatherland) – to name but a few. They are full of intricate world-building – but he translates them into pressures on characters that generate stories. At the same time, you never feel you're struggling to understand, or patronised because he's gone too simple. It's as if when he sat down to write he tried to say as little as possible about what he knew – and put the story and character first.

In your handling of research you have to be like the definition of a gentleman – a man who knows how to play the banjo but refrains from doing so.

Which authors do you think are gentlemanly with research?

How to write a novel – in-depth webinar series with Joanna Penn of The Creative Penn, starting November.  Find more details and sign up here.

Nail Your Novel – my short book about how to write a long o ne – i s available from Amazon. Not too late to nab a Kindle copy if you're aiming to be a Wrimo!

My Memories of a Future Life is now available in full. You can also listen to or download a free audio of the first 4 chapters over on the red blog.

 

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Rejection, stories ripped from real life and writer's block… Hampton Reviews asks the tricky questions

Today I've been given the third degree by Hampton Reviews. From their header they may look fluffy but that sweet smiling girl has a lust for blood, and not the vampire kind. How do I handle rejection? Do I ever use contemporary events or stories ripped from the headlines in my work? What do I find challenging and difficult about writing? What do I do about writer's block? Why do I write, full stop? What advice would I give to writers starting out?  And who is my favourite character in My Memories of a Future Life (can anyone guess) … Come over to watch me explain myself.

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Should you tie up all the ends when you type 'The End'?

In the Norwegian version of the film Insomnia, one of the characters tells an anecdote that is never finished. It appears inconsequential, perhaps a throwaway line to illuminate character. But good scripts never contain spare remarks, and this interrupted fragment quivers through the rest of the story like a deep note from a cathedral organ.

It is like the job the characters are doing – investigating a murder and having to create the ending for themselves. It  returns later when parts of the story become dreamlike and the main character is tormented by guilt. It is like the everlasting arctic sunlight that won't allow the day to end.

So leaving this anecdote hanging is a rather clever move by the writers.

 

Closure

Stories need closure – of course they do. We need to feel they ended in the right place. In most genres this does mean tying up all the ends and solving the mysteries. (We've all been infuriated by novels that are deliberately teasing us towards their sequels – The Hunger Games and Twilight. They don't seem to be playing fair.)

In most genres, the fun for the punters is wondering how the murderer will get caught, how the romantic twosome will get together, how the battle was won, how the world was saved (or lost). That's what they're there for.

But if you are writing a story that aims to go deeper than the events, perhaps you don't want to tie everything up or explain everything.

Resonance

Insomnia ties up most of its physical threads – it ends when the case ends. But morally it is anything but neat. The characters leave the story with unfinished business and nagging burdens – and this is its true power. It is the toll paid by those who have to deal with murder. The viewer carries it too, as sharer of this experience in all its ambiguity. (Did ever a post try so hard not to give spoilers?) It plays fair, but it deepens the mystery.

Stories don't always have to give us answers. Sometimes the questions they give us are as important.

Have you got a favourite story that doesn't answer all its questions? Or do you hate it when writers do that? Share examples, good and bad, in the comments!

[image error]How to write a novel – in-depth webinar series with Joanna Penn of The Creative Penn, starting November.  Find more details and sign up here.

Nail Your Novel – my short book about how to write a long one – is available from Amazon. Not too late to nab a Kindle copy if you're aiming to be a Wrimo!

[image error]My Memories of a Future Life is now available in full. You can also listen to or download a free audio of the first 4 chapters over on the red blog.

 

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I made you up. Honest. Red-faced guest post at Do Authors Dream of Electric Books

That dingy, dowdy town in My Memories of a Future Life? Nowhere that really existed was horrid enough so I made it up. I gave it a name that loosely rhymed with 'Hell-on-earth'. And do you know what? A friend has emailed me to say Vellonoweth, give or take an o, really exists.

So today I'm red-faced at Do Authors Dream of Electric Books, grovelling. Do come along and save me from the residents' pitchforks.

The undercover soundtrack for your novel – at the red blog

Do you write to music? Many authors do – as background, as a character's favourite or bittersweet tune – or maybe just a way to erase the traffic rumbling by in the street. I've found over the years that the right music can do more than immerse me in a scene – it can also collide with it to actively create unexpected twists and nuances. As though the piece is speaking to the novel at a subconscious level.

I call it the undercover soundtrack and I'm talking about it today at the red blog – as it's about music. And also because I got this terrific review for My Memories of a Future Life today so I figured its blog deserved a little attention of its own. Do come over.

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