Steve Harrison's Blog - Posts Tagged "advice"
Righting Advice
I am becoming increasingly annoyed when I read writing ‘advice.’ I write ‘advice’ that way because invariably, it’s not advice, it’s opinion. It is opinion disguised as advice, a sort of process of opinionisation (I made that up!).
If someone tells you, never jump out of an aeroplane without a parachute, that is advice. Good advice, unless suicide is your intention. As is, don’t cross roads with your eyes closed while wearing headphones.
Writing ‘advice,’ on the other hand, is opinion, or, at best, a suggestion.
Writing ‘advice’ can be broadly split between two sources:
•The successful writer who has employed a long list of methods and assumes that everyone who does exactly the same – without variance – is destined to be equally successful. It worked for me, right, so you need to do it? So what’s the problem?
•The unsuccessful or progressing writer who has heard ‘advice’ which they consider extremely good and have decided it is the right ‘advice,’ whether it works for them or not. It worked for someone else and I agree with it and one day it will work for me and, by God, you have to do it, too!
They both sound the same, because they pepper their ‘advice’ with things like never, don’t, you shouldn’t, you can’t, always, you must and, my all-time favourite (which has a number of variations), if you don’t do x, how can you ever call yourself a writer?
Should you ignore this tsunami of negativity? Sorry, I don’t give advice.
Writing opinion (note no quotation marks), offered by the thoughtful writer, however, is a different and much more welcome beast. The author of opinion will say things like, you might want to consider this, it worked for me in a similar situation, or, someone told me this, which I thought made sense and may help, although I haven’t used it myself.
As a writer, when I look at a blank page, apart from the feeling of dread, horror and panic, I see a universe of writing possibilities. I know – and I am reassured by the knowledge – that all the great and not-so-great works of literature, everything, in fact, that has ever been inscribed, began by someone looking at a blank page (or the ancient equivalent writing surfaces).
It is possible to dream that I might fill that blank page with something as wonderful and enduring as all those fabulous writers of yesterday and today. The reality may be quite different, but while the canvas is unspoiled by my written words, no one can argue with me.
It therefore irks me when I am surrounded by don’ts, nevers, always’s (I did that deliberately, so sue me) and musts. Suddenly, the giant universe of the written word shrinks into a negative little rule-bound world of fear and doubt. The page is no longer filled with words, but landmines.
Language is a tool and words exist purely so that we can express ideas with them. I can mash and pummel and invent (and invert) and abuse and misuse them to suit what I am attempting to do. The resulting success or failure is a very personal matter between ME and my readers.
So now, when ‘advice’ is presented as fact, I like to throw a spanner in the works by asking, why? The ensuing discussions are a lot of fun.
So, I hear you ask, what should you do? Should you ignore the plethora of ‘advice?’ This waterfall of instructions? The catalogue of commandments?
Decide for yourselves. I only have opinions.
If someone tells you, never jump out of an aeroplane without a parachute, that is advice. Good advice, unless suicide is your intention. As is, don’t cross roads with your eyes closed while wearing headphones.
Writing ‘advice,’ on the other hand, is opinion, or, at best, a suggestion.
Writing ‘advice’ can be broadly split between two sources:
•The successful writer who has employed a long list of methods and assumes that everyone who does exactly the same – without variance – is destined to be equally successful. It worked for me, right, so you need to do it? So what’s the problem?
•The unsuccessful or progressing writer who has heard ‘advice’ which they consider extremely good and have decided it is the right ‘advice,’ whether it works for them or not. It worked for someone else and I agree with it and one day it will work for me and, by God, you have to do it, too!
They both sound the same, because they pepper their ‘advice’ with things like never, don’t, you shouldn’t, you can’t, always, you must and, my all-time favourite (which has a number of variations), if you don’t do x, how can you ever call yourself a writer?
Should you ignore this tsunami of negativity? Sorry, I don’t give advice.
Writing opinion (note no quotation marks), offered by the thoughtful writer, however, is a different and much more welcome beast. The author of opinion will say things like, you might want to consider this, it worked for me in a similar situation, or, someone told me this, which I thought made sense and may help, although I haven’t used it myself.
As a writer, when I look at a blank page, apart from the feeling of dread, horror and panic, I see a universe of writing possibilities. I know – and I am reassured by the knowledge – that all the great and not-so-great works of literature, everything, in fact, that has ever been inscribed, began by someone looking at a blank page (or the ancient equivalent writing surfaces).
It is possible to dream that I might fill that blank page with something as wonderful and enduring as all those fabulous writers of yesterday and today. The reality may be quite different, but while the canvas is unspoiled by my written words, no one can argue with me.
It therefore irks me when I am surrounded by don’ts, nevers, always’s (I did that deliberately, so sue me) and musts. Suddenly, the giant universe of the written word shrinks into a negative little rule-bound world of fear and doubt. The page is no longer filled with words, but landmines.
Language is a tool and words exist purely so that we can express ideas with them. I can mash and pummel and invent (and invert) and abuse and misuse them to suit what I am attempting to do. The resulting success or failure is a very personal matter between ME and my readers.
So now, when ‘advice’ is presented as fact, I like to throw a spanner in the works by asking, why? The ensuing discussions are a lot of fun.
So, I hear you ask, what should you do? Should you ignore the plethora of ‘advice?’ This waterfall of instructions? The catalogue of commandments?
Decide for yourselves. I only have opinions.
Gender Pretender
I am a middle-aged male and for the most part my characters have been male in both stories and short films (with the exception of one major female character in my novel). I have tried to inject depth, intelligence and complexity into my male characters, although, as they are men, this is quite difficult, particularly when writing action adventure. However, in WE MEN DO*, a short film about mental health I co-wrote with John Osmond, I believe we did capture a level of male complexity and insight that surprised us both and certainly resonates with the film’s audience.
In short, I am confident about writing men. I feel I know them and how they think. Or, in reality, don’t think, which is probably why they appear to have more adventures and near-death experiences than women, who clearly have more sense.
My writing philosophy is that if faced with a choice, men will always choose the wrong one, usually because they believe it is the best solution, will be quick and hassle-free and is a very intelligent approach to the problem at hand. It’s not, it won’t and it is invariably stupid, not intelligent. It will actually makes thing much worse and harder or impossible to resolve. All fiction writers therefore owe a huge debt of gratitude to men.
In keeping with the sentiments expressed in the previous paragraph, in my latest novel, which is close to completion, I chose two teenage girls as the main characters. What made me choose to do this? Obviously, it’s the best solution, will be quick and hassle-free and is a very intelligent approach.
The reason I set myself this task, which makes climbing Mount Everest look like stepping onto my patio (which doesn’t actually have a step), is because of my daughter, Sophia. Like a loving father, if the book fails, I will hold her personally responsible and never let her forget how she ruined my writing career.
I was telling Sophia about the proposed book some months ago, a young adult science fiction, action adventure comedy (I like multiple genres) featuring two teenage boys, when Sophia asked, “why can’t they be girls?” I didn’t reply at first, trapped as I was in my middle-aged-male-boys-own-adventure mindset. “Boys are always the heroes in these books,” she continued.
It was very easy to counter this argument. Well, that was my thought as she spoke. But the reply came out as a shrug and an embarrassed, “Dunno.” I write better than I speak.
Sophia’s comments funnelled their way into my brain and took hold. As I thought about the idea, I became excited, inspired, troubled, worried and, eventually, terrified. But I do like a challenge, and as I have someone to blame if it goes belly up, I decided to go ahead.
The boys would have been easy, because, as a male I have never grown up and inside I am still a teenaged boy. But changing the story to accommodate a sex change proved to be difficult, until I decided what I was not going to do. The temptation was that because the characters were now girls I would have to introduce stereotypical ‘teenage girl issues,’ like emotional problems, puberty, body image pressures, sexism, foul language, romance and family complications. With possibly a deceased parent thrown in, so to speak, or maybe even gay parents. These were on a long and growing list of things that I would not in a million years introduce into the lives of my boy characters. I became ashamed of myself, until I remembered I have the brain of a teenaged boy and shouldn’t worry about it.
The key, I realised, was not gender, but maturity. My daughter and her girlfriends, at 15, had been quite mature, while the boys were completely clueless, with more in common with the grunting cast of The Walking Dead than actual living human beings. The boys in my story got themselves into trouble through stupidity, actions I could not imagine from my girls. Instead, the girls have the same adventure through over-confidence. They are, in many ways, too clever for their own good. It’s only a subtle difference, but all roads lead to Rome…
Whether the story involves boys or girls, they all want the same thing: to get out of the mess they created. The result will hopefully be the same as my original concept; a thrilling adventure with a couple of infuriating, but loveable characters who happily just happen to be girls. For a change.
The readers will decide if this approach works or not, but once I found that being human just might be a little more interesting than the usual male-female divide in what is, after all, an adventure, everything fell into place and I finally discovered my inner 15 year old girl.
*For anyone interested in 11 minutes of short, dark drama, WE MEN DO can be viewed at https://vimeo.com/19143670
Steve Harrison is the author of TimeStorm: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2...
In short, I am confident about writing men. I feel I know them and how they think. Or, in reality, don’t think, which is probably why they appear to have more adventures and near-death experiences than women, who clearly have more sense.
My writing philosophy is that if faced with a choice, men will always choose the wrong one, usually because they believe it is the best solution, will be quick and hassle-free and is a very intelligent approach to the problem at hand. It’s not, it won’t and it is invariably stupid, not intelligent. It will actually makes thing much worse and harder or impossible to resolve. All fiction writers therefore owe a huge debt of gratitude to men.
In keeping with the sentiments expressed in the previous paragraph, in my latest novel, which is close to completion, I chose two teenage girls as the main characters. What made me choose to do this? Obviously, it’s the best solution, will be quick and hassle-free and is a very intelligent approach.
The reason I set myself this task, which makes climbing Mount Everest look like stepping onto my patio (which doesn’t actually have a step), is because of my daughter, Sophia. Like a loving father, if the book fails, I will hold her personally responsible and never let her forget how she ruined my writing career.
I was telling Sophia about the proposed book some months ago, a young adult science fiction, action adventure comedy (I like multiple genres) featuring two teenage boys, when Sophia asked, “why can’t they be girls?” I didn’t reply at first, trapped as I was in my middle-aged-male-boys-own-adventure mindset. “Boys are always the heroes in these books,” she continued.
It was very easy to counter this argument. Well, that was my thought as she spoke. But the reply came out as a shrug and an embarrassed, “Dunno.” I write better than I speak.
Sophia’s comments funnelled their way into my brain and took hold. As I thought about the idea, I became excited, inspired, troubled, worried and, eventually, terrified. But I do like a challenge, and as I have someone to blame if it goes belly up, I decided to go ahead.
The boys would have been easy, because, as a male I have never grown up and inside I am still a teenaged boy. But changing the story to accommodate a sex change proved to be difficult, until I decided what I was not going to do. The temptation was that because the characters were now girls I would have to introduce stereotypical ‘teenage girl issues,’ like emotional problems, puberty, body image pressures, sexism, foul language, romance and family complications. With possibly a deceased parent thrown in, so to speak, or maybe even gay parents. These were on a long and growing list of things that I would not in a million years introduce into the lives of my boy characters. I became ashamed of myself, until I remembered I have the brain of a teenaged boy and shouldn’t worry about it.
The key, I realised, was not gender, but maturity. My daughter and her girlfriends, at 15, had been quite mature, while the boys were completely clueless, with more in common with the grunting cast of The Walking Dead than actual living human beings. The boys in my story got themselves into trouble through stupidity, actions I could not imagine from my girls. Instead, the girls have the same adventure through over-confidence. They are, in many ways, too clever for their own good. It’s only a subtle difference, but all roads lead to Rome…
Whether the story involves boys or girls, they all want the same thing: to get out of the mess they created. The result will hopefully be the same as my original concept; a thrilling adventure with a couple of infuriating, but loveable characters who happily just happen to be girls. For a change.
The readers will decide if this approach works or not, but once I found that being human just might be a little more interesting than the usual male-female divide in what is, after all, an adventure, everything fell into place and I finally discovered my inner 15 year old girl.
*For anyone interested in 11 minutes of short, dark drama, WE MEN DO can be viewed at https://vimeo.com/19143670
Steve Harrison is the author of TimeStorm: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2...
I Am a God
I create and destroy worlds. I make people bend to my will and if they won’t, I make them disappear or retrospectively ensure they never existed. I can make people suffer and die in agony or experience extreme happiness. I can bend the universe to my will and there is nothing anyone or anything can do to stop me. I control everything. I am all powerful.
On reflection, that may sounds a little bit conceited, so I’ll start again.
I am a writer.
I create and destroy worlds. I make people bend to my will and if they won’t, I make them disappear or retrospectively ensure they never existed. I can make people suffer and die in agony or experience extreme happiness. I can bend the universe to my will and there is nothing anyone or anything can do to stop me. I control everything. I am all powerful.
Much better. No wonder writing appeals to people.
Of course, that’s all bullshit. I am no more in control of my writing than I am of most other things in my life. The character I am about to subject to a gruesome death will do something nice and make me reconsider, or sweet-talk me into building his role. The planet I am about to destroy will surrender and ruin my epic interstellar war sequence. I’ll feel sorry for the woman I created who never finds happiness and make her happy. My hero will do something awful and become the villain. My brilliant plot will go off in another direction and defy every effort to bring it back on track. My characters will laugh in my face when I order them to do something and then do something completely different, presumably out of spite.
The truth is, I’m powerless. All my plans are reduced to ruins, my plots shredded, my genres twisted and my characters always seem to undergo personality changes as soon as I commit them to the page. Nothing ever develops the way I intend.
It all sounds very frustrating and probably makes you wonder why I subject myself to such suffering.
But the thing is, this process is wonderful and comforting. It means something – a creative spark, my Writing Entity, perhaps – is looking after me, saying, in effect, “This is crap!. Let’s do it this way!” I will resist sometimes, but invariably, the Writing Entity will gets its way and literally have the last word.
Despite our constant disagreements, I like and believe in my Writing Entity. It constantly surprises me with plot twists and character developments I could never have come up with myself. On many occasions I will watch my hands skim across the keyboard in slow motion (my usual writing speed) then look up to the screen and be completely surprised and delighted by the words on the page. Don’t tell anyone, but sometimes I think they didn’t come from me.
And so, alas, it appears I am not a God at all. Maybe I’m not even a writer. Perhaps I’m merely a typist happily taking dictation…
Steve Harrison is the author of TimeStorm: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2...
On reflection, that may sounds a little bit conceited, so I’ll start again.
I am a writer.
I create and destroy worlds. I make people bend to my will and if they won’t, I make them disappear or retrospectively ensure they never existed. I can make people suffer and die in agony or experience extreme happiness. I can bend the universe to my will and there is nothing anyone or anything can do to stop me. I control everything. I am all powerful.
Much better. No wonder writing appeals to people.
Of course, that’s all bullshit. I am no more in control of my writing than I am of most other things in my life. The character I am about to subject to a gruesome death will do something nice and make me reconsider, or sweet-talk me into building his role. The planet I am about to destroy will surrender and ruin my epic interstellar war sequence. I’ll feel sorry for the woman I created who never finds happiness and make her happy. My hero will do something awful and become the villain. My brilliant plot will go off in another direction and defy every effort to bring it back on track. My characters will laugh in my face when I order them to do something and then do something completely different, presumably out of spite.
The truth is, I’m powerless. All my plans are reduced to ruins, my plots shredded, my genres twisted and my characters always seem to undergo personality changes as soon as I commit them to the page. Nothing ever develops the way I intend.
It all sounds very frustrating and probably makes you wonder why I subject myself to such suffering.
But the thing is, this process is wonderful and comforting. It means something – a creative spark, my Writing Entity, perhaps – is looking after me, saying, in effect, “This is crap!. Let’s do it this way!” I will resist sometimes, but invariably, the Writing Entity will gets its way and literally have the last word.
Despite our constant disagreements, I like and believe in my Writing Entity. It constantly surprises me with plot twists and character developments I could never have come up with myself. On many occasions I will watch my hands skim across the keyboard in slow motion (my usual writing speed) then look up to the screen and be completely surprised and delighted by the words on the page. Don’t tell anyone, but sometimes I think they didn’t come from me.
And so, alas, it appears I am not a God at all. Maybe I’m not even a writer. Perhaps I’m merely a typist happily taking dictation…
Steve Harrison is the author of TimeStorm: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2...
Are Rules for Fools?
In writing, there are no rules. You do not have to conform to grammar. Spelling is optional and punctuation, well, who needs it? It’s just a lot of messing around with detail, really. Completely unnecessary and rather annoying. And time consuming. Actually, writing is much simpler when you don’t worry about this stuff.
People get upset with this concept. But, but, but, but, they say. You can’t do this! You must conform! Chaos will ensue! Even people who say there are no rules invariably string a ‘but’ after that statement, if you know what I mean. But, they say. And then they say, having said that. And having said that, they will go on to tell you that although there are no rules, there are some rules after all.
Confused? You should be. Because when it comes to writing advice and definitive solutions to those myriad everyday challenges presented to a writer, from within and without, in the words of the great William Goldman, no one knows anything.
Except for me, that is. I know everything.
Rules are unbending. They are black and white. You can’t break them. Unless more people break them than keep to them. Then the rules are changed. Yet rules do not apply to writing. I am sorry – not really – if you find that statement annoying, but it is true. You can write whatever you like, in whatever form you like and even make up your own grammar, spelling and language. And you are not restricted by technology. A manual typewriter is fine, as is a pen or a pencil. You can even scratch on a cave wall with a sharp rock, with the confidence that over the fullness of time your graffiti etchings will go on from environmental vandalism to become art.
Like I said, there are no rules in writing. And there are no rules to dictate how you express yourself through your writing.
But. There, I said it. There is a but. Not a but, there are rules, but a but about something else. Something to bear in mind when you consider the implications of your writing and the wider goal of writing, if your writing ambitions extend beyond self-fulfilment. And it’s this:
But if you want to write for an audience…
… there are still no rules. There are conventions. Expectations. Boundaries, even. Are they rules? Of course not. Didn’t you read the earlier paragraphs? These conventions are dictated, perhaps demanded, by your reader. They form the parameters of what they find acceptable. They expect you to write within them and do not take kindly if you stray outside of those lines. There is latitude within them, but, on the whole they know what they like and the way they want it presented. When they read, they want to see - like Hollywood film producers demand of a script – something that is the same, but different.
It may be counter-intuitive, but herein lies the beauty and allure of writing. If these conventions and expectations were rules they would be static and unchanged. But we know they are not. We only have to read novels from twenty, fifty or a hundred years ago – or more – to see how expectations and conventions have changed. It is no stretch of imagination to see no difference, for example, between yesterday’s Sherlock Holmes readership and that of Jack Reacher today. Stylistically, they are worlds apart, yet essentially they tell the same stories.
Writers across all writing spheres have forced the change in tastes and style and language by testing boundaries, stretching conventions and circumventing expectations. By stealth, they have changed their readers.
Writers, that is, who didn’t follow rules and allowed themselves the freedom to explore their craft.
People get upset with this concept. But, but, but, but, they say. You can’t do this! You must conform! Chaos will ensue! Even people who say there are no rules invariably string a ‘but’ after that statement, if you know what I mean. But, they say. And then they say, having said that. And having said that, they will go on to tell you that although there are no rules, there are some rules after all.
Confused? You should be. Because when it comes to writing advice and definitive solutions to those myriad everyday challenges presented to a writer, from within and without, in the words of the great William Goldman, no one knows anything.
Except for me, that is. I know everything.
Rules are unbending. They are black and white. You can’t break them. Unless more people break them than keep to them. Then the rules are changed. Yet rules do not apply to writing. I am sorry – not really – if you find that statement annoying, but it is true. You can write whatever you like, in whatever form you like and even make up your own grammar, spelling and language. And you are not restricted by technology. A manual typewriter is fine, as is a pen or a pencil. You can even scratch on a cave wall with a sharp rock, with the confidence that over the fullness of time your graffiti etchings will go on from environmental vandalism to become art.
Like I said, there are no rules in writing. And there are no rules to dictate how you express yourself through your writing.
But. There, I said it. There is a but. Not a but, there are rules, but a but about something else. Something to bear in mind when you consider the implications of your writing and the wider goal of writing, if your writing ambitions extend beyond self-fulfilment. And it’s this:
But if you want to write for an audience…
… there are still no rules. There are conventions. Expectations. Boundaries, even. Are they rules? Of course not. Didn’t you read the earlier paragraphs? These conventions are dictated, perhaps demanded, by your reader. They form the parameters of what they find acceptable. They expect you to write within them and do not take kindly if you stray outside of those lines. There is latitude within them, but, on the whole they know what they like and the way they want it presented. When they read, they want to see - like Hollywood film producers demand of a script – something that is the same, but different.
It may be counter-intuitive, but herein lies the beauty and allure of writing. If these conventions and expectations were rules they would be static and unchanged. But we know they are not. We only have to read novels from twenty, fifty or a hundred years ago – or more – to see how expectations and conventions have changed. It is no stretch of imagination to see no difference, for example, between yesterday’s Sherlock Holmes readership and that of Jack Reacher today. Stylistically, they are worlds apart, yet essentially they tell the same stories.
Writers across all writing spheres have forced the change in tastes and style and language by testing boundaries, stretching conventions and circumventing expectations. By stealth, they have changed their readers.
Writers, that is, who didn’t follow rules and allowed themselves the freedom to explore their craft.
