Rod Rees's Blog, page 4

THE DEMI-MONDE FALL 2

Here's the second preview of the illustrations that will be going into 'Fall' (excuse the typos - they're in the process of being corrected). This bit was written four years ago (doesn't time fly ...) and as I was looking for a symbol of a re-rejuvenated Britain it seemed that resuscitating the Blue Streak was the way to go. The Blue Streak was to have been the British ICBM, a totemic symbol of Britain's might and place in the world, but the deprivations of the Second World War, the country's economic decline and unease in Washington meant that the project was cancelled. All I'm hoping is that I wasn't being unwittingly prescient when I wrote this piece ...

Invent-10n

Hard at work on a novella I'm writing for Peter Coleborn and Alchemy Press. I had originally conceived it as a cut and paste piece made up of a montage from various diaries, newspaper cuttings etc. but Ive reined back and it'll be a tad more conventional now. It's a story set in a near-future Britain and features one of my favourite characters, a reBopper named Jenni-Fur. I got interested in the 30's jazz slang of people like Cab Calloway so I decided to update it a little and jenni-Fur's patois is the result. In her own words she's lush thrush with a tight tush.

I'm quite a way into the story now but the ending is proving to be a little tricky - it's a real downer.

Anyway here's Jenni-Fur:

THE DEMI-MONDE FALL

The final edit of the last book of the series 'Fall' is now with the publishers so I had to turn my attention to the plates that I would use in the book. As some of my readers will have twigged, the 'Real World' in the Demi-Monde is out-of-kilter with our world so I thought it would be fun to show some of these counter-factual differences as newspaper cuttings.

Here's the first:

I couldn't resist the idea of the marvellous Marilyn being exiled to the UK. The thought of her starring in some of the Elstree comedies is mouth-watering!

WHO WAS AGENT ELLI?

I attended a talk on the Cambridge Five given in Oxford yesterday by Professor Christopher Andrew (author of The Defence of the Realm: The Authorized History of MI5). I was keen to sit in on the talk as my new book ‘Faktion’ is currently out with publishers and Philby and Cairncross (two of the ‘Five’) feature in the story. Moreover, I hoped that Professor Andrew would speak about the mysterious ‘Elli’, the GRU agent who penetrated MI5 in the early years of the Second World War  and whose identity has never been revealed  and has been much speculated on ever since.
This is an important subject for me, given that the unveiling of the identity of Elli is the prime thrust of ‘Faktion’s’ plot and I was hoping that nothing the good Professor would say would lead me to doubt my own – somewhat radical – identification of who Elli was. He didn’t … in point of fact he hardly mentioned Elli apart from confirming – in response to my question as to how confident he was that Elli was Leo Long (his preferred candidate) – that he was ‘very confident’.
Very confident he may be, but I also think he is very wrong.
First, perhaps, a brief summary of what is known for certain about Elli (much of this coming from the defector Igor Gouzenko, a Soviet cipher clerk who gave himself up to the Canadians in September, 1945, rather than be shipped back to the USSR):
·         Elli was a man;
·         He was a GRU agent who had access to MI5 intelligence (that he was a GRU agent is important, the Glavnoye Razvedyvatel'noye Upravleniye being the foreign military intelligence directorate of the General Staff of the Red Army. The Cambridge Five were run by the NKVD, the Peoples Commissariat for Internal Affairs, Narodnyy Komissariat Vnutrennikh Del, which was the forerunner of the KGB and the secret police organisation that implemented the orders of the Soviet Communist Party. The rivalry between the NKVD and the GRU was long and bitter);
·         He had access to sensitive government policy documents (it was Elli who tipped Stalin off about the Quebec Agreement, signed in August 1943, under which the UK and the US agreed to collaborate on the building of the atomic bomb);
·         Gouzenko first heard of Elli when on a cipher course in Moscow in 1942, so Elli must have been active before this date;
·         He is described as ‘ou nego shto-to Russkoe’ … having something of the Russian about him; and,
·         He was active during the 1940’s, dropping off the intelligence radar circa 1950.
Pretty poor pickings information-wise to identify an agent who was, perhaps, the most important of all the Soviet agents – and there were a lot of them – to have penetrated Britain’s intelligence community.
And this paucity of information has, as might be expected, stimulated a great deal of controversy regarding the identity of ‘Elli’. That’s why I went to Professor Andrew’s talk: to see if I had gone wrong in my own surmising as to the identity of Elli.
Christopher Andrews claims Elli was Leo Long, who he describes as a ‘sub-agent of Anthony Blunt’. In support of this contention he cites the un-corroborated testimony of Oleg Gordievski (a Soviet defector) and the ‘fact’ that ELLI in Russian translates as the plural of the English letter ‘L’. (I am reliably informed by my in-house Russian expert – Nelli – that this is ‘bollocks’: no Russian would ever refer to double-L as Elli. And, anyway, I doubt the Soviets would have been so stupid as to give their most important agent a code-name made up of his initials). But of equal concern is that as Leo Long was a sub-agent of Anthony Blunt’s he would have been run by the NKVD. Elli was run by the GRU. No … the Leo Long hypothesis is weak to the point of unsustainability.
To my mind, the journalist Chapman Pincher has a more coherent set of arguments when he suggests that Elli is Roger Hollis – Hollis worked for MI5 from 1939, eventually becoming Director-General in 1956 (see Pincher’s Treachery: Betrayals, Blunders, and Cover-ups: Six Decades of Espionage Against America and Great Britain for details). A large part of Pincher’s ‘evidence’ supporting the ‘Hollis is Elli’ conjecture is persuasive but circumstantial. For instance, he refers to the ‘ou nego shto-to Russkoe’ description of Elli as inferring that Elli had pre-Revolutionary connections with Russia (Nelli disputes this: in her opinion the phrase is so ambiguous as to invite several, equally plausible, interpretations) and apparently the Hollis family is able to trace its lineage back to Peter the Great. But my biggest problem with the ‘Hollis is Elli’ hypothesis is that Hollis would have been too junior in the period running up to 1942 (when Gouzenko first heard of him) to be regarded as the Soviets’ most important intelligence asset in Britain (apparently Elli’s intelligence was so highly thought of that it went straight to Stalin). Moreover, Hollis’s Russian antecedents were tenuous to say the least and I am doubtful they would have stimulated gossip in the GRU’s Moscow cipher school, where Gouzenko heard the rumour.
So, if Elli is neither Long nor Hollis, who was he?
We are looking for a man who had access to important intelligence (the sort not available to junior agents in MI5); was so highly regarded that he was run separately from all the other first-rank Soviet agents in Britain; was active before 1942, leaving the stage around 1950; had pre-existing connections with Russia; AND whose identity is so sensitive – embarrassing? – that it has been very effectively protected by both the Russians and the Brits from enquiring journalists and historians ever since.
And I think I know just the man who ticks all these boxes. Elli isn’t anyone the historians or the journalists have ever flagged. Yeah, I know who Elli was.
Sorry … but you’ll have to read ‘Faktion’ to find out who my candidate is!

THE NEXT BIG THING

I was invited to do this promo-thingy by Ian Watson, so here it is!

THE NEXT BIG THING
What is the working title of your next book?
‘The Demi-Monde: Summer’ it’s the third title in the Demi-Monde series and it’s out in the UK at the end of December.
The guys at Quercus have just sent me a mock-up of the paperback cover (which won’t be out until mid-2013) and I think they’ve done a terrific job capturing the flavour of the book.
Where did the idea for the book come from?
I designed the Demi-Monde (which is a virtual Victorian-esque dystopia) so that I could have some of my favourite characters from history come out to play. In ‘The Demi-Monde: Summer’ these include Empress Wu (the only female Empress of China), Mao Zedong and Lucrezia Borgia.
What genre does your book fall under?
Difficult to say; it’s a bit of a mash-up of genres with cyber-fiction, steam-punk and even vampires making a house-call. Basically though it’s a science fiction thriller. The Demi-Monde series has been described as ‘Discworld’s savage noir cousin’ which I think is about right.
What actors would you choose to play the part of your characters in a movie rendition?
Toughie this. In a world without temporal boundaries my picks would be:
·         Ella Thomas (feisty African-American): I’m leaning towards Zoe Saldana, though maybe Dorothy Dandridge would be in with a shot.
·         Vanka Maykov (a Russian rascal: utterly immoral and without conscience): it has to be Errol Flynn.
·         Trixie Dashwood (English aristocrat and spoilt brat): Vivien Leigh.
·         Burlesque Bandstand (English low-life, pimp and petty criminal): Oliver Hardy.
Give a one sentence synopsis of the book.
Impossible, so I’ll cheat. ‘Set in 2018 the Demi-Monde is the most advanced computer simulation ever devised, a virtual world locked in eternal civil war – thirty million digital inhabitants living and dying in Victorian cyber-slums and led by some of history’s most vicious tyrants – Reinhard Heydrich, the architect of the Holocaust; Beria, Stalin’s arch executioner; and Aleister Crowley, black magician and ‘the wickedest man in the whole world’ – but something has gone badly wrong and the US President’s daughter has become trapped in this terrible world – it falls to 18-year old Ella Thomas,  black student and sometime jazz-singer, to rescue her – once Ella has entered the Demi-Monde she finds that everything is not as it seems, that its cyber-walls are struggling to contain the evil within and that the Real World is in more danger than anyone realises.
All that and only one full-stop!
 
How long did it take to write the first draft of the manuscript?
I guess I spent a month researching the historical characters I was going to use and then another couple of months reading up on the elements I needed to incorporate into the story: artificial intelligence; the origins and spread of the proto-Indo-European Language; the ironclad battles of the American civil war; the concepts under-pinning radical feminism and so on and so on.
This world-building lark ain’t easy folks!
Once I had all this organised I started to write. I generally aim to average 2,000 words a day, so a 200,000 word first draft will take three months. Then I spend another three months reworking, remodelling, reshaping and getting rid of the crap I’ve written the only purpose of which is to slow the pace of the story. So … from start to finish, nine months, a natural gestation period, methinks.
What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?
The trouble I have with this question is that (shamefully) I read very few contemporary novels, but ‘The Demi-Monde’ has been influenced by any number of books – we all stand on the shoulders of giants – so incorporated into the DM’s DNA are:
·         ‘The First Men in the Moon’: in my humble opinion Wells was the greatest SF writer of all time. ‘Etirovac’, which features heavily in ‘The Demi-Monde: Fall’, is the antipode of Wells’s ‘Cavorite’.
·         ‘The Man in the High Castle’: Philip K. Dick’s masterpiece was the first time I encountered a counter-factual story and I guess the idea of bringing disparate historical characters together came from this book.
·         ‘The RiverWorld Series’: Brilliant story and marvellous storytelling, the only regret is that Philip Jose Farmer got to Richard Burton (the Victorian explorer and linguist, not the film actor!) before I did. I’d have loved to have featured him in the Demi-Monde.
Who or what inspired you to write the book?
As an admirer of the writers of Classic SF and fantasy, I have always thought that attempts to update, or, as Tim Burton would have it, to re-imagine these stories have invariably been poor. But the nadir had to be the BBC’s ‘Jekyll’ which managed to eviscerate the story whilst simultaneously making it risible. Worse: it didn’t ‘honour’ the story. Sitting watching that muddled mish-mash I had the same feeling every writer since the dawn of time has had at one time or another: I can do better than that!
What else about the book might pique the readers’ interest in it.
As the books have a Victorian feel to them, for ‘Spring’ I’ve included plate illustrations of the various fashions sported by those living in the five sectors of the DM. Here’s one of them.
This is what the dissolute and erotically-charged citizens of the Quartier Chaud are wearing this season.

LAWLESS

Kit, Ellie and I decided to take advantage of 'Orange Wednesday' and hit the flicks ... the trouble was, what to see. So, with no great enthusiasm we trailed off to see 'Lawless': I'm no great fan of Shia LaBeouf and I wasn't in the mood for something the trailer suggested was just a gangster movie.

How wrong I was!

Set during the Prohibition Era, in sum the story (screen adaptation by Nick Cave) relates how the three hick Bondurant brothers become the preeminent bootleggers in Franklin County, their position threatened when a Special Detective Rakes (played by a brilliant Guy Pearce) arrives on the scene demanding a cut of the profits. Led by the uncompromisingly thuggish elder brother, Forrest (wonderfully portrayed with monosylabbic intensity by Tom hardy), the three resist which, of course, result in lots and lots of violence.

In the wrong hands this could have degenerated into just an excuse for murder and mayhem, but the script treats the violence almost as an aside, the thrust of the story revolving around the relationship between Forrest and Maggie, the 'girl trying to escape a troubled past'; Forrest and Jack his younger brother and 'the runt of the litter'; and between Jack and the preacher's daughter, Bertha. It is the way these strands intertwine and develop that gives 'Lawless' its power and it's emotional bite.

It's a story helped by some first-class performances but, remarkably, the stand-out is Shia LaBeouf. In a truly remarkable turn he manages to convincingly portray vulnerability, frustration and exasperation. This guy can act!

Not an easy film to watch at times (the throat-cutting scene was particularly gruesome), but certainly the best thing I've seen this year by miles. The girls concur, and these are young ladies not enamoured to shoot-'em-ups.

A very well deserved 8/10.

The Birmingham Independent Book Fair

Went to Birmingham at the weekend to attend The Brimingham Independent Book Fair (and for Kit and Ellie to attend GateCrashers but that was by-the-by). The great thing was that the fair was amazingly well attended, loads and loads of people wandering around sampling the very diverse books on offer (including, inter alia, Jewish-centric arts, LGBT literature, local history and steampunk) and enjoying themselves as they did so.

The nice thing was that a couple of our friends had a stall and it was great to see Peter and Jan making such a success of Alchemy Press.

Jan Edwards (Alchemy Books) on the left and Emma Barnes (SnowBooks) to the right
I'm a fan of independent publishers. They seem to me to be the ideal compromise between the corporate publishers and the self-publishers, giving a whole clutch of authors who ain't able to get a mainstream gig with the support they so often need. Independents provide that oh-so-vital arm's length critque of a book and that oh-so-vital editing which can turn an OK novel into something worth reading. I think any wannabe writer who has Peter and Jan looking after their work can be reassured they're in a safe (and constructive) pair of hands.

I was also impressed by Emma Barnes's 'SnowBooks' imprint. The CARE she takes over the presentation of her books is really quite wonderful ... though not quite wonderful enough to prevent me groaning when I realised that the hero in 'The Curious Case of the Clockwork Man' was Sir Richard Burton. Not again!

A good day and Birmingham was as lively and sparky as ever.

TOTAL RECALL

TOTAL RECALL
I’ve never been a great fan of Arnie (or of Paul Verhoeven for that matter) so I was kinda indifferent to seeing the remake of their ‘Total Recall’ but Ellie is something of a fan of Colin Farrell (this girl has a worrying taste for rascals) so it was off to the cinema we went, teenage lust trumping old-age indifference.
Not a bad film … but by no means a good one, and what it did do was confirm a worrying trend I’ve noticed in recent Sci-Fi films. Sci-Fi now seems to be a euphemism for ‘shoot-‘em-up’, where plot, dialogue and characterisation are jettisoned in favour of CGI action. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised: with the globalisation of the film business producers are looking for things that will work in a myriad of languages. Action and violence seem to be the lingua franca of world cinema.
And action and violence ‘Total Recall’ has in spades, all Colin Farrell (and after ‘In Bruges’ this man can do no wrong in my eyes, I’ve even forgiven him for ‘Alexander’) is required to do is look permanently bemused, hit people and run around a lot. Now I know he was reprising Arnie’s role but couldn’t the director (Len Wiseman, he of ‘Underworld’ fame) have streeeeetched him just a little. I mean when Colin is on the run from his ‘wife’ Kate Beckinsale (the best thing in the movie) couldn’t he be allowed some surprise when he’s rescued by Jessica Biel (awful throughout). I mean is it too much to ask for a ‘Hello, who are you?’ from the scriptwriters, or even a ‘Do I know you from somewhere?’.
In fact the lack of chemistry/dynamics/rapport between Farrell and Biel was the reason the second half of the film felt so very flat. There was absolutely no connection. Strange.
That’s the word to describe this movie: ‘flat’, as though everyone (with the exception of Beckinsale) was just going through the motions. And a long motion it was: 118 minutes which was at least 38 minutes too long. Shame, because with just a few tweaks it could have been really very good. Maybe the scriptwriters should have paid more attention to the source material: Philip K. Dick would never have allowed something so banal to leave his typewriter.
Score: 5/10

COVER STUFF

Lots of covers coming thru which I thought you might like a peek at.

Quercus are remodelling the Demi-Monde's paperback covers and the first up is 'Spring':



This, I think, is the best cover yet for the DM. Being me I had to suggest a little tinkering - the armoured steamers were refashioned in the style of the blueprint Nigel did for 'Winter's' hardback and the tricoleurs were made more slanting to show that this wasn't the Real World - but overall I think it's terrific.

The Americans by contrast have gone for something much more impactful:



I got to say that I'm not sure here, but they are the experts so I have ot bow to their expertise.

In the UK the hardback of 'Summer' (which I'm currently proof-reading) will look (something) like this:



The yin/yang dragon motif (designed by Nigel and very good it is too! ) will, hopefully be rendered in brass which will better integrate it into the cover as a whole. A good cover!

ROD'S EIGHT RULES OF WRITING

I've been neglecting everything lately (blog, personal hygiene etc.) as I worked to finish 'Tesla vs The Martians', but as I'm due to talk at the  Edge-Lit thingy in Derby tomorrow, I had to think about 'Getting Published'. The result is below.


ROD REES’S EIGHT RULES OF WRITING
Over the last nine months I’ve written the first of a new series of books (‘Tesla vs The Martians’, 123,000 words condensed down from 150,000) the fate of which is now in the lap of the god (aka ‘my Agent’), and with this trauma still fresh in my mind I guess now’s as good time as any to consider what I’ve learned about writing.
I set these rules down with a certain trepidation. I never thought I’d quote Noel Gallagher (Oasis was a shit band), but in an interview he gave to The Independent he said of Mario Balotelli that, ‘He’s like all naturally talented people: he’s not got a clue what he’s doing’. I think I could paraphrase this to read; ‘All published writers haven’t really got a clue what they’re doing’. Of course, the amount of verbiage written on the subject of ‘How to Write’ might appear to give the lie to that particular statement, but having read some of this, often contradictory, advice, I’ve a feeling that I’m right … or should that be write. I’ll give it a shot anyway.
One other thing before I begin: I write SciFi thrillers, which are, by definition, fast-paced and, well, pretty fantastic so if you’re an aspiring Dostoevsky or James Joyce then, perhaps, my rules ain’t for you.
A short preamble. I stumbled into writing. Five years ago I decided, on a whim, to write a book. I had no experience in writing (I’m an accountant by trade), never took a course on ‘How to Write’ and never, really, thought too much about the career I was about to embark on. I chose to write SciFi simply because I’d been a fan of it when I was young (Asimov, Herbert, Farmer, Wells et al) which was a loooooooooooooong time ago.
So it was a writer’s life for me and driven by naïve enthusiasm I hit the computer and wrote for one year. The result was my ‘re-imagining’ of Doctor Jekyll and Mr Hyde, a story I called ‘Dark Charismatic’, a real beast of a book that weighed in at 220,000 words, which I trimmed back to 190,000. Perfect! So perfect it was rejected by everybody!
Hardly surprising. Consider: in a conversation with my agent (get me: ‘my agent’) he advised me that during his time in the business he’d received something north of six thousand submissions from would-be writers and as he’s currently got a stable (or should that be a pen) of forty-three authors that comes out at a newby having something like one chance in a hundred and fifty of securing an agent. It ain’t easy to get an agent and without an agent getting published is nigh-on impossible.
ROD’S RULE OF WRITING #1: If you ain’t got the hide of a rhinoceros, writing ain’t for you. Rejection and criticism is part and parcel of a writer’s life so if you can’t take it …
In fact my suspicion is that writing is a covert government-sponsored scheme to keep people with ideas off the streets. Better that they’re holed up in their bedroom/office/shed typing nonsense than they’re actually meshing with reality. Which brings me on to my next rule:
ROD’S RULE OF WRITING # 2: Unless you really, really believe you’ve got the talent to write a novel that will knock a reader for six then stop now. Right now! This instant! Do something more productive with your life, like taking up knitting or rat juggling.
Rule # 2 is important. I’ve sat in on numerous writers’ groups and generally found my fellow scribblers to be a rather nice bunch of people and nice people try not to hurt the feelings of others. So you’ll be seduced by expressions like ‘that was interesting’ and ‘I think with a little bit of work that could be really good,’ into believing that you are a talented writer. And if you ain’t, you’re wasting your time ... a lot of time.
Anyway … back to me.
After ‘Dark Charismatic’ I wrote for another year and came up with ‘Invent-10n’. Another 200,000 words. It was crap, so I rejected it (I had my reputation as a failed writer to think about, after all).
I wrote for anotheryear slaving on ‘The Demi-Monde’. It sold! And now with the four books in the Demi-Monde series delivered to my publisher, I have exceeded the one million word mark which Ray Bradbury (RIP) believed was the benchmark for any writer. And being a fully paid-up member of the One Million Word Club I get to dish out advice of which the third instalment is:
ROD’S RULES OF WRITING # 3: If you wanna be a writer … write. Don’t take courses, don’t join writers’ groups, don’t read books – this is all busy work – just fucking write. Every day. One thousand words minimum. Anything else is just posing. Real writers write, ersatz writers think about writing.
I try to keep to a schedule where I write an average of 3,000 words per day (21,000 per week), which is then factored down to 1,000 words per day because for every day I spend writing I spend two days editing/reviewing/correcting/despairing.
On this basis, attending a weekend workshop on ‘How to Write’ is an expensive indulgence. A weekend spent talking about writing costs you 6,000 words or 5% of that book you’ve been trying to finish. Think about it, then go home and write.
So, let’s say you’ve convinced yourself that you possess both the drive and the talent to be a writer, the question is what should you write? What I hope isn’t the answer, is a short story. Writing short stories (unless your name happens to be Ernest Hemmingway or Stephen King) is the literary equivalent of jerking off: fast, fun and a totally non-productive. Worse, short stories use up storylines, characters and (most, valuable of all) plot twists at an alarming rate. Ideas are the life essence of any writer so don’t squander them.
Ah, do I hear the protest which says, ‘short stories are a great way to get your name out there!’ Answer: bollocks … nobody reads short stories any more.
More, ‘it’s a great way of learning your craft’. Answer: er, bollocks². The editing of most short stories is cursory in the extreme so the feedback you’re going to get is superficial at best.
Yet more; ‘it’s a great way to earn as I learn’. Answer: bollocks³. I’ve had four shorts published in my brief career as a writer and I’ve earned precisely … £50!
ROD’S RULES OF WRITING # 4: Never, ever be tempted to write short stories. They are the literary world’s equivalent of travelling at speed down a cul-de-sac.
Now ignore Rule # 4, because my belief is that every chapter of your book should be a short story, having:
·         A point:if the old adage ‘make every word count’ is important, then every chapter has to have a purpose. It might be introducing/developing a character, moving the plot forward, adding tension by stirring up a conflict, any number of things. But whatever a chapter’s role in life, it must – in my humble – be self-contained, which, once read, leaves the reader with a feeling of completeness.
·         A killer opening line: there’s been a lot said about how important it is for a book to begin with a ‘the clock struck thirteen’, an oh-my-gosh-that’s-clever opening line, but if a chapter is a book in microcosm, doesn’t it deserve the same treatment?
·         A denouement: just like any story a chapter should have a beginning, middle and an end (though not necessarily in that order) … especially an end. Why an end? Because it’s that which makes the reader eager to move on to the next chapter. Mini-cliff-hangers (hill-hangers?) are good.
·         A zinger of a last line: promoting the ‘wow, I’ve just gotta read what happens next!’ syndrome.
ROD’S RULES OF WRITING # 5: Treat each chapter as a self-contained short story: it’ll discipline your writing and help keep your readers entertained.
Next up are characters. I invest a LOT of time developing/tweaking my characters and I do this for the simple reason that they are actors performing in the theatre of my mind (God, that sounds pompous!). And like all actors they are always jockeying to be in the spotlight. Encourage them … and if this requires a little over-acting on their part so be it: surely it’s better to have your story populated by characters who, though they were bloody annoying/offensive/disagreeable, are at least memorable. The reality is that the best characters transcend the story – think Long John Silver, Sherlock Holmes, James Bond, Flashman – all of these were just a touch OTT.
The true test of Hollywood star power is whether the actor can open a movie, and I believe that the ones who can (and there are only a handful) are touched by the pixie dust that makes them larger than life. Similarly, a great character is one who can get a reader to open a book … and it’s your job as a writer to be continually auditioning for the next fictional superstar.
In this regard, my approach is to develop characters who are flawed. A hero who is saintly, resolute, trustworthy and kind to animals is also bloody boring. It’s the dark psychosis that haunts Batman that makes him such a great character … just as it’s the absence of any inner conflict which has condemned Green Lantern to being an also-ran in the superhero stakes. No one remembers a nice guy.
The other problem with characterisation is what I call ‘character drifting’ … a character drifting through the story who doesn’t impose his or her personality/attitudes on what’s happening. He or she simply observes and makes bland comments. To my mind, it’s no good giving a character a back story unless that character’s actions are influenced by what happened to him/her.
ROD’S RULES OF WRITING # 6: Push your characters, always remembering that it’s their flaws rather than their virtues which will make them stick in the mind.
Okay, enough about characters. Let’s talk about editing … your editing. I generally find that if I’m aiming to write a book of, say, 100,000 words then I’ve got to write around 120,000 words. The reason for this is simple, the pace/rhythm of a book is determined as much by what you leave out as by what you leave in.
A lot of what I write in the first draft of a book isn’t for the reader’s benefit, it’s for mine. I need to know where the action is taking place, what time of day it is, what’s the weather like, that sort of stuff but when it comes to the final edit I realise that most of this is unnecessary verbiage, worse, it’s the descriptive dross that most readers will skip anyway. My policy is to only leave something in the book which, if it isn’t read, will somehow diminish the reader’s understanding of what is or, more often, what will be happening in the story.
Having said that, self-editing is a difficult process BUT, believe me, it’s better (and a damned sight less humiliating) for you to do it than your editor.
ROD’S RULE OF WRITING # 7: If a scene is there simply to describe a situation ask yourself whether it should be binned. With descriptive dross it’s far better that it’s you hitting the ‘delete’ button than for the publisher to hit the ‘reject’ button.
Okay, nearly done. The last thing I always do when I’ve finished a chapter is to read it aloud (preferably when you’re alone otherwise the neighbours start to talk). I pretend that I’m reading it out on the radio (sad really, but writing’s a lonely occupation and you tend to go a little stir crazed). Odd behaviour though this is, it’s also bloody useful in that it accomplishes three things:
·         It’ll help you spot those irritating echoes that will have infected your writing. Use a word like ‘bored’ in one paragraph and the chances are that you’ll have used it in a subsequent paragraph. I also find it useful when deciding if a character’s dialogue stays in, er, character;
·         It’ll give you a feel for the times when the story starts to drag. And if  you’re bored (told you!) reading it, the chances are that your reader will too; and,
·         Reading aloud gives you a sense of the rhythm of your writing (and here I’m gonna get all new-age), telling you whether it flows, man. When you’ve nailed it, Paragraph One will segue naturally and seamlessly into Paragraph Two and so on and son … you won’t notice the joins.
ROD’S RULE OF WRITING # 8: Read what you’ve written aloud. Not only will it tell you an awful lot about how good or bad your work is, but it’s very entertaining for your partner.
Well, that’s it folks. I hope you found this useful. Best of luck with your writing and don’t forget to take the pills … writing is, after all, an addictive disorder.