T.S. Sharp's Blog, page 7

Creative Writing Course – Week #17 OR ‘What biscuits do you recommend when writing?’

Week 17 was the final class for the second term, so it was also submission day. I submitted my second chapter after some last minute edits, but I can’t shake off the feeling that I basically just scan-read it, hit print and handed it in. I’d spent some time the previous night making edits and adding an extra event to a scene, but it still felt rushed. I’m not too concerned by this, as I find the comments and feedback a lot more helpful than the numerical mark/grade it will recieve. Plus it’s not like the grades contribute to a degree or a vocational certificate etc.

As it was the last class of the term for the second chapter, we turned our attention to the third chapter, which will be the focus for the third and final term. It was suggested that the third chapter should really have a kind of mini-ending to the previous chapters, but also lay some more foundations for the rest of the story. Answer some questions, but ask some more for the reader to engage with.

It was also pointed that in the main, you should have introduced all the major players by the third chapter, either directly or indirectly. To generalise, there are often about thirty chapters in a novel, so three chapters in is roughly ten per cent of the whole novel. Another key element to tackle at this point in the novel is the sense of ‘world’ you are creating. A reader should grasp very early on what kind of world your characters inhabit. I fell foul of this recently when it was pointed out by readers/listeners of my work from the group that they only realised it was set in London due to geographical references I made in the second chapter. This can be easily fixed by refering to the setting much earlier on. Mental note; shoehorn in a reference to London in chapter one. This doesn’t necessarily have to be the use of the town/country the scene is set in, it could just as easily be something that is universally recognised that puts a pin in the map for the reader. A reference to the Statue of Liberty would say New York straight away. A reference to pubs or pints is a bit more subtle, but it would suggest Britain to most readers.

Other time was spent talking about the road by publication in general and routines and practices that various people employ, which I always find interesting to hear about. There was also some discussion of the best kind of biscuits to accompany the act of writing. Ginger Nuts were highly recommended, as were chocolate digestives I think. Personally, I think I’d have to place a ban on myself eating biscuits while writing. In fact, we don’t often buy biscuits due to the simple fact that I usually nail them in about two sittings, so it’s best not to have them around.

We then went to the pub where a lot more bollocks was talked, mostly by me.

So, what kind of biscuits/cookies do you recommend to accompany the writing routine?

Creative Writing Course – Week #17 OR 'What biscuits do you recommend when writing?'

Week 17 was the final class for the second term, so it was also submission day. I submitted my second chapter after some last minute edits, but I can't shake off the feeling that I basically just scan-read it, hit print and handed it in. I'd spent some time the previous night making edits and adding an extra event to a scene, but it still felt rushed. I'm not too concerned by this, as I find the comments and feedback a lot more helpful than the numerical mark/grade it will recieve. Plus it's not like the grades contribute to a degree or a vocational certificate etc.

As it was the last class of the term for the second chapter, we turned our attention to the third chapter, which will be the focus for the third and final term. It was suggested that the third chapter should really have a kind of mini-ending to the previous chapters, but also lay some more foundations for the rest of the story. Answer some questions, but ask some more for the reader to engage with.

It was also pointed that in the main, you should have introduced all the major players by the third chapter, either directly or indirectly. To generalise, there are often about thirty chapters in a novel, so three chapters in is roughly ten per cent of the whole novel. Another key element to tackle at this point in the novel is the sense of 'world' you are creating. A reader should grasp very early on what kind of world your characters inhabit. I fell foul of this recently when it was pointed out by readers/listeners of my work from the group that they only realised it was set in London due to geographical references I made in the second chapter. This can be easily fixed by refering to the setting much earlier on. Mental note; shoehorn in a reference to London in chapter one. This doesn't necessarily have to be the use of the town/country the scene is set in, it could just as easily be something that is universally recognised that puts a pin in the map for the reader. A reference to the Statue of Liberty would say New York straight away. A reference to pubs or pints is a bit more subtle, but it would suggest Britain to most readers.

Other time was spent talking about the road by publication in general and routines and practices that various people employ, which I always find interesting to hear about. There was also some discussion of the best kind of biscuits to accompany the act of writing. Ginger Nuts were highly recommended, as were chocolate digestives I think. Personally, I think I'd have to place a ban on myself eating biscuits while writing. In fact, we don't often buy biscuits due to the simple fact that I usually nail them in about two sittings, so it's best not to have them around.

We then went to the pub where a lot more bollocks was talked, mostly by me.

So, what kind of biscuits/cookies do you recommend to accompany the writing routine?

My ‘To Read’ Pile – Revisited.

A while back I posted a blog about my ‘to read’ pile – see here. For quick reference, here’s the pile;

I’ve now read the top three books, and have just started the fourth one down, The Orchard Keeper by Cormac McCarthy. By the way, I didn’t intend to read them in that top-down order, it just worked out that way. I’m not obsessive like that, honestly, it’s pure coincidence.

As I wrote in the first blog about these books, The Prow Beast by Robert Low is the last in The Oathsworn series about a band of Vikings, following their saga through the early middle ages. Lee Child’s Worth Dying For is a book from the Jack Reacher series, and is the first of Child’s books I’d ever read. I bought the Robert Low novel because I enjoyed the series and wanted to finish the saga, and I bought the Lee Child novel because I wanted to read a fast paced crime novel (and stea… learn some techniques from his writing). But The Dead Women of Juarez by Sam Hawken I bought on pure impulse in Waterstones because it looked interesting on the pile of books they insist on heaping up like funeral pires in their shops.

And it was this book I was most impressed with. I love picking up a random novel and loving every word of it, and it’s even more of a delight when it doesn’t come via a recommendation or a Richard & Judy/Oprah Book Club promotion. Briefly, The Dead Women of Juarez is about a washed-up American boxer who is scraping a living in the Mexican border town of Juarez. His Mexican girlfriend works for an organisation that seeks justice for Juarez’s many female kidnappings and homicides, and it’s through this angle that the book gets darker and more intriguing. Once the washed-up boxer falls foul of the criminals and corrupt police of Juarez after his girlfriend is raped and murdered, it falls to an equally washed-up cop to find out what is going on.

This book is well written and thought-provoking, dark but engaging at the same time, which is no mean feat. The chapters are short and choppy, lending themselves perfectly to the cinematic pace and feel of the novel. I read an Amazon review that suggested it would make a really good basis for a film, and would have to agree. It’s dirty and washed out, just like the Mexican town in which it is set. The novel has just the right amount of moral observation to make it thought-provoking without being too dictatorial, but overall it ticks all the right boxes for me in terms of pace and style. Bits of it reminded me of Cormac McCarthy’s writing, probably the border-land setting and economical prose. I also liked the fact that not all the loose ends are tied up, it had the right amount of conclusion without feeling the need to make it ‘happy ever after’ – as such an ending would simply feel wrong.

The author is at pains to point out in the Afterword that while his book is a work of fiction, Juarez does indeed have a huge problem with female kidnapping, rape and murder. A sober reminder behind the novel’s fictional setting. I thoroughly recommend this book.

My 'To Read' Pile – Revisited.

A while back I posted a blog about my 'to read' pile – see here. For quick reference, here's the pile;

I've now read the top three books, and have just started the fourth one down, The Orchard Keeper by Cormac McCarthy. By the way, I didn't intend to read them in that top-down order, it just worked out that way. I'm not obsessive like that, honestly, it's pure coincidence.

As I wrote in the first blog about these books, The Prow Beast by Robert Low is the last in The Oathsworn series about a band of Vikings, following their saga through the early middle ages. Lee Child's Worth Dying For is a book from the Jack Reacher series, and is the first of Child's books I'd ever read. I bought the Robert Low novel because I enjoyed the series and wanted to finish the saga, and I bought the Lee Child novel because I wanted to read a fast paced crime novel (and stea… learn some techniques from his writing). But The Dead Women of Juarez by Sam Hawken I bought on pure impulse in Waterstones because it looked interesting on the pile of books they insist on heaping up like funeral pires in their shops.

And it was this book I was most impressed with. I love picking up a random novel and loving every word of it, and it's even more of a delight when it doesn't come via a recommendation or a Richard & Judy/Oprah Book Club promotion. Briefly, The Dead Women of Juarez is about a washed-up American boxer who is scraping a living in the Mexican border town of Juarez. His Mexican girlfriend works for an organisation that seeks justice for Juarez's many female kidnappings and homicides, and it's through this angle that the book gets darker and more intriguing. Once the washed-up boxer falls foul of the criminals and corrupt police of Juarez after his girlfriend is raped and murdered, it falls to an equally washed-up cop to find out what is going on.

This book is well written and thought-provoking, dark but engaging at the same time, which is no mean feat. The chapters are short and choppy, lending themselves perfectly to the cinematic pace and feel of the novel. I read an Amazon review that suggested it would make a really good basis for a film, and would have to agree. It's dirty and washed out, just like the Mexican town in which it is set. The novel has just the right amount of moral observation to make it thought-provoking without being too dictatorial, but overall it ticks all the right boxes for me in terms of pace and style. Bits of it reminded me of Cormac McCarthy's writing, probably the border-land setting and economical prose. I also liked the fact that not all the loose ends are tied up, it had the right amount of conclusion without feeling the need to make it 'happy ever after' – as such an ending would simply feel wrong.

The author is at pains to point out in the Afterword that while his book is a work of fiction, Juarez does indeed have a huge problem with female kidnapping, rape and murder. A sober reminder behind the novel's fictional setting. I thoroughly recommend this book.

First Chapter Unleashed

Seeing as I missed last week's creative writing class because I was seeing comedian Sarah Millican (seeing her stand-up show, not actually seeing her in the relationship sense, you understand…) there won't be a week #16 write up. How will you cope? Perfectly well, is probably the answer.

In its place I thought I'd be brave and post the entirety of chapter 1 of my work in progress, the project I am working on for the writing course. To be honest I only have a sketchy idea of where it's going. I have a synopsis for it, but I know that if I think hard enough about it I'll find a million plot holes and problems, so for the meantime I am not going to look too closely at the synopsis side of things.

The whole thing is subject to a ruthless edit at any point, but this is the first chapter as I envisage it right now. To give an overview, the novel is intended as a noir crime thriller, set in modern day London following the exploits of a police investigation into drug trafficking that gets embroiled in all kinds of double-dealing and shady exploits. I notice that the formatting is kind of lost in translation between Word and WordPress, but you'll get the idea.

~~~

Chapter One

It was the fourth time that day Mitchell had seen the BMW X5 with the blacked-out windows. This time it was gliding past him on the eighth floor of the car park as he walked to his car. Mitchell could feel unknown eyes following him from its interior, even if he couldn't see them. He slowed his pace. He was almost at his car, but he'd shortened his step so much he'd almost stopped. This level was all but empty, cold dead concrete and harsh right-angles. The X5 moved on ahead, rolling at funereal pace until its brake lights lit red and came to a halt.

Mitchell stopped and stared. The passenger door opened. A large man wearing jogging bottoms and a sweatshirt stepped out. His hood was pulled up, shrouding his face as he turned toward him. Mitchell could feel his heart pounding, the adrenaline rush taking hold.

The man was now looking straight at Mitchell, as if to make doubly sure he had the right person. He raised his right hand, levelling the solid black outline of a machine pistol, and pulled the trigger just as Mitchell dived. The burst was wild and scattered, the rounds ricocheting off the concrete ceiling and pinging off the thick posts between car spaces. Mitchell dropped behind one of the pillars, his breathing ragged and harsh. His hand went to the waistband of his jeans and he pulled out his Glock 17, yanking the slide back, the hard dimpled rubber of the grip fitting neatly into his palm. He took a quick glance round the pillar and was met by another burst from the machine pistol, again wild and hastily fired, although a couple of rounds careened off the side of the post, sending chips of concrete across the empty parking bays. The abrupt, flat barking sound of the gun was amplified by the hard walls and floors of the car park, crashing back and forth around him, before dying on the wind, receding to nothingness.

Mitchell took a deep breath and snapped off a couple of rounds at the man before returning to the safety of the pillar. He'd tried to aim, using the split-second the brain allows between finding the target and firing, but there was no way to know the result without risking another look. He glanced around the post again, weapon raised, but saw the man lying on his back, the machine pistol dropped at his side. The BMW began to pull away but the driver stalled in his haste, the vehicle lurching to a sudden stop. Mitchell sprinted to the open passenger door, gun levelled at the driver, finger on the trigger. His initial sense of shock and terror had passed now, expelled along with the fatal shots he'd fired at his attacker. The familiar feeling of rage and power surged through him, owning him and dictating his actions.

The driver looked across at Mitchell, hands raised in surrender, eyes wide and fixed on the Glock. On the passenger seat was a small semi-automatic pistol, a cheap eastern European model by the looks of it. The driver didn't look like he was about to make a move for it, he was more concerned with staying alive.

Both men glanced down at the weapon and when their eyes met for the second time Mitchell fired twice. The rounds struck the chest, flinging the man against the driver's door, a fine mist of blood coating the leather interior and window glass. He slumped against the door, head lolling forward, mouth open. Pulling the cuff of his jacket over his left hand, Mitchell picked up the pistol and pushed it into the dead man's hand, careful not to leave any prints as he did so. Mitchell's ears were ringing. Every molecule of his body felt alive, as if something inside him was trying to break loose. Like a massive electric shock, but one that made him feel stronger.

Mitchell made a swift assessment. Both of the men looked Mediterranean – Turkish, or Greek perhaps, around their late thirties. He looked down at the attacker with the machine pistol. The rounds had found the chest area, so perfectly squared that Mitchell was glad the man wasn't wearing a bullet proof vest. He should have been. A pool of blood had gathered beneath him, a deep dark red against the bubblegum grey of the concrete floor. His weapon was a Tec-9, and judging by the bursts fired at him, it must have been converted to fire in full automatic mode. A poor choice, Mitchell thought. Cheap, inaccurate and prone to jamming, but with plenty of gangster appeal.

As he stared at the body, taking in the whole surreal scene, he became aware he wasn't alone. At the other end of the parking level was the door from the staircase he'd used himself only moments before. Standing in the doorway was a man, shopping bags in hand, staring open-mouthed at Mitchell. They locked eyes across the cold, empty space. Then the man fled, dropping his bags and heading fast up the ramp to the next level.

Mitchell bolted after him, gun in hand. The next floor was almost empty too, just a few cars dotted in isolated spaces. The man was running hard, fleeing in sheer panic. As Mitchell chased he could see the man was fishing in his coat pocket for something. Ahead of them, the lights of a Ford Mondeo flashed. The man had pulled his keys from his jacket and was hoping to get to the car and make an exit before Mitchell caught up with him. He was older than Mitchell, probably mid-fifties, and didn't look a man accustomed to sudden bursts of sprinting. He managed to get the driver's door open but couldn't get behind the wheel before Mitchell piled into him, pushing him against the side of the car, the door slamming shut.

Mitchell hauled him to the floor and put a knee on his chest, gun in his face. The man put up no resistance, ready to accept his fate, whatever it turned out to be. He was clearly terrified, but not in the same way the driver of the BMW had been. This man had no idea what he had walked into, unlike the two lying dead on the level below them.

"What were you doing back there?" Mitchell demanded, the gun pressed into the man's forehead, pulling the skin taut around his temple.

"I was coming back to my car. I heard shots I – I opened the door and saw you and the dead man, then more shots," the man gasped, swallowing hard.

Mitchell was silent, the gun still held on the man. He had hold of his jumper, balled up into his left fist as he held him down. He could feel the man shaking beneath him.

"Those men attacked me," Mitchell said, not sure why he was offering an explanation. The man just nodded and gulped.

"Just don't don't hurt me."

Mitchell slotted the Glock back into the waistband at the small of his back and pulled the man upright, pushing him against the side of the car. The man had brown hair, shot through with grey, combed into a rough left-to-right side parting. He was wearing sensible black trousers and beneath his waterproof Gor-Tex jacket was a navy blue sweatshirt which held back a moderate sized paunch. He was soft and rounded, the edges smoothed by a loving family and a comfortable suburban life. This was someone unfamiliar with acts of extreme violence. He reached into the man's jacket and retrieved his wallet, flipped it open and pulled out his driving licence. Mitchell memorised the details and shoved it back into the man's pocket.

"This is what you're going to do, Brian Whitaker, you're going to drive away. This never happened. The police will call you soon, they'll have you on CCTV leaving the car park minutes after the shooting. You'll be the prime suspect. Just tell them you took the stairs to this floor. As you drove away you heard what might have been a car backfiring, but you weren't sure. Got it?"

The man nodded.

"Stick to that story. If you deviate, or tell anyone else, anyone at all, about this or me, I'll come after you and your family, and you'll wish I'd put a bullet in your head right now."

The two of them stared at each other, faces centimetres apart, both breathing hard. Mitchell let go of him and stepped back, an unmistakable signal that the conversation was over, that Brian Whitaker's life had been spared. He watched the man's clumsy fumbling at the door handle followed by the multiple attempts to slot the key into the ignition. The Ford lurched forward, sped down the centre of the car park and down the ramp, wheels squealing as he disappeared out of view.

Mitchell ran back to the BMW and the bodies, stopping on the way to pick up the carrier bags the man had dropped in his haste to escape. As he opened the boot of his Audi saloon and threw them inside he pulled his mobile phone from his jacket and made a call.

"This is D.I Tim Mitchell. Get me DSI Winters."

There was a pause, just a second or two, but it stretched into eternity for Mitchell.

"Tim?"

"Someone just tried to take me out."

"What? Who?"

"Don't know. Don't recognise them."

"Are you OK?"

"Yeah, fine. But we'll need body bags for these two." He heard Winters take a deep breath, could almost feel the air being sucked in from the other side of London.

"Stay put. I'll be in touch."

The call ended.

~~~

Wow – you made it to the end of the post? I thought a 1k+ word post would be too much for most people to complete, but maybe I was wrong. Of course, you may have just skipped to the end, but I prefer to think you read all the way to here.

Creative Writing Course – Week 15

This week's writing class was the penultimate class of the term for me, because next week I'll be watching comedian Sarah Millican. The last week of term two is also the submission day for our second chapters.

This week we constructed scene breakdowns for our second chapters and looked at elements such as;

Characters – who is in each scene
Location – where is the scene/chapter taking place
Incidents/Action – what happens in the scene
Reasons/Scene Objectives – what are the motivations for the actions, where does the scene take us in terms of the plot?

We then took a few minutes to apply this structure to our second chapters, but it could also be applied to all our writing as a whole. This helps us keep in check with where our work is going and how it might be better organised etc.

This technique is better suited to those types of writers who are planners by nature, as opposed to those who write by instinct and return to it later, enjoying the narrative as it unfolds in front of them. More of that here. Even still, it could be applied retrospectively to a body of work at first or second draft stage.

Once we'd spent some time making notes on our work after applying the breakdown to Chapter Two, we looked at some of the elements we should bear in mind for the beginnings/opening of that chapter. Another bullet-pointed list for you;

Continuing the narrative throughline – to maintain the story established in the previous chapter. This could even directly refer to the first chapter if need be.
Adding or maintaining contextual information – to add to the sense of the environment you are creating, you should aim to reinforce informational nuggets like the location and era, or place and character names. Perhaps introduce some more backstory.
The 'Hook' – not necessarily a cliff-hanger, but something that keeps the reader glued to the story. A lot of novels have a mini cliff-hanger or hook in every chapter, all designed to lead into the next chapter. Introducing conflict or an objective for the protagonist is a good way of developing and sustaining the reader's interest.
A clear sense of authorial control – a writer should aim to assert some sense of control over the story, so that the narrative reads like it is being led somewhere. Consistent style and voice helps to maintain authorial control.

We then had the openings of our second chapters read out by the tutor. This was preceded by a brief recap by the writer of what had happened at the end of chapter one. Once we'd heard our individual pieces read aloud, we were asked our thoughts on what we thought of our own work. For me it was clear I had crowbarred in lots of exposition, much of which can be split up and dropped into the text at later points. I think I also need to make an earlier reference to location, just to establish that it's set in London and not New York or LA or some other crime-ridden urban sprawl.

As I'll be missing next week's class about style and voice, I'll do some edits to my second chapter and email it to the tutor. I'll also have to come up with some content for a blog for next week. And then I had better turn my attention to chapter three!

Creative Writing Course – Week #14

Week 14 of our creative writing course was led by the other tutor – the more theoretical of the two. As this was his first time with us since the start of the second term, we went around the room reading extracts from our second chapters. We were asked to pick out a section we were pleased with, our strongest passages, and discuss what we liked about them. This would also give the tutor a chance to hear what we may have changed since the last time he saw the text.

For my part, I have added a scene break and introduced a new character into the end of my second chapter – which the tutor would not have seen at all. I've included the extract below;

~

Baba was a fat man. Fifty-eight years of over-eating, smoking, not exercising, and generally not giving a fuck about his weight had made him seriously obese. His walk had become a lumbering waddle. Just moving from room to room robbed him of breath and forced him to sweat. His breathing rattled and wheezed, as if forced from a tired and over-taxed set of bellows. Gluttonous feasts of Turkish cuisine had kept him this way over the years, adding to his expanding girth and jowly face. But he didn't care. He was rich. He was respected in his community.

Wreathed in cigarette smoke, Baba sat alone in the back room of the Agiri Social Club in Haringey watching Kurdish satellite television on an ancient bulky TV set perched on a shelf high up in the corner of the function room. People knew not to disturb him in here. Surrounded by stacks of tubular steel chairs and Formica-topped tables, it was his private sanctuary. Baba liked the down-at-heel simplicity of his surroundings. No sumptuous office or plush suite for him.

There was a knock at the door – it was Ozi and Mamir. Baba had been expecting them. He looked over from the TV and they both gave a slow, negative shake of the head in unison. Baba dismissed them with a wave of the hand and they duly backed out of the room, leaving him with the opening credits to his favourite soap opera. This was a complication he could have done without.

I like this inclusion. It's bold and direct, introducing a new Jabba The Hutt-style druglord who my protagonist is going to have to lock horns with soon. A minor concern is have I over done the fact that he's fat? Could those adjectives be spread out over several scenes, or do they work being all lumped together here? This is something I can fix later if need be.

I have also been toying with the idea of giving him a personality quirk that is slightly incongruous – he loves soap operas. Or more accurately in this instance – Kurdish TV soap operas. He'll spend a lot of time watching crappy TV, and maybe even make parallels between storylines on the shows and developments in the novel. This kind of dual approach can be a great device when handled properly – I'll have to see if I can pull it off.

Like everyone else on the course I suspect, I have some minor edits to make to this chapter in light of the tutor's comments, but this is all part of the process. I'm already starting to turn my attention to chapter three – which technically I've already written, but I doubt it will survive being re-read by me in editor mode!

Creative Writing Course – Week #13

This week's course continued to look at themes, basic plot ideas and character archetypes, going around the room and talking about the themes our novels use and what character archetypes populate them. Talking specifically about one person's novel-in-progress is quite time consuming when you have a room full of people, so this dominated the first hour or so of the class.

For my part, my basic plot idea, according to the list we looked at last week, was Overcoming the Monster. There's no actual monster, rather a metaphorical monster in my villian's violent reactions. My character archetypes are the Anti-Hero – my protagonist being a cop who employs dubious methods to get the job done and is more than flawed, The Devil – again the villian of the piece who must be defeated, and The Traitor – my protagonist who betrays people to get what he wants.

By looking at themes, basic plot ideas and character archetypes you should be able to get a better idea of the novel you are working on. These concepts shouldn't constrain the work, but you should see how the novel gravitates towards one or the other.

We also took a look at editing – or more precisely the types of editing that a novel goes through. Yet another list for you;

Cutting
Grammar/Punctuation
Spelling
Repetition
Point Of View
Dialogue authenticity
Looking for symbolism
Checking for character consistency
Adding more detail
Continuity
Narrative Flow
Formatting
Clarity

Once the editing has begun, there are various approaches to take to editing your work. You should read your novel through from beginning to end without really pausing to correct any mistakes you might have found. The quick, straight-through reading is designed to give you an idea of the total affect the novel has on a reader.

Printing your novel out is another obvious way to look at it and harvest those flaws. You need to see what is by now a very familiar work in an unfamiliar light. How does it look on the page? This is where the formatting issues can be seen, as one obvious example.

Combined with the above, reading your work aloud is another valuable exercise. Does it scan correctly? What are the rhythms like? Does the dialogue sound natural? Look out for repetition.

Cutting is an obvious by-product of the editing process. I find that my work shrinks, death by a thousand cuts, because I make hundreds of minor deletions to extraneous words and dialogue tags that add up over the course of the novel. I rarely cut large passages from my work unless I've decided they're now redundant or don't move the plot forward. If you do cut swathes of text or entire chapters, you might want to save them elsewhere – they may yield valuable extracts that could be recycled elsewhere, or even form new short stories or novels in their own right.

It has to be said though – editing is a massive chore. Why can't novels be born fully-formed, straight onto the page?

Creative Writing Course – Week #12

Week 12 of my writing course spent a lot of time talking about themes and basic plots in literature. More accurately, we spent most of the class talking about films, but the principle is the same. In a class with about 15 people it's easier to use films to provide examples as more people are likely to have seen them than they have certain books.

We went around the class talking about the themes we'd employed in our writing, and while some people were quite clear about what they were exploring, others were less certain, but once they'd talked about their work the themes started to reveal themselves. I'm not sure if writers consciously start out to explore certain themes, but they certainly manifest themselves in the text, if only to the reader.

Several people read extracts from their second chapters, and were given feedback from the group. Before they read, they were asked if there was anything in particular they wanted to focus the feedback on – which is useful if you have areas you are uncertain about.

The '7 Basic Plots' concept was something we spent a lot of time looking at, to give an idea of the storylines universally applied in literature (or in last night's case – films). Some of the examples looked at were both figurative and literal – where possible I'll try to give an example of this.

Overcoming the Monster – examples;

Jaws – the big shark is the literal monster – but Brody is also scared of water, a fear he must overcome.

Alien(s)

The Machinist – this one is all but figurative – he must overcome his past misdeeds to move on.

Jekyl & Hyde

Silence of the Lambs.

Rags to Riches/Coming of Age – examples;

Brewster's Millions

Pretty Woman

Slumdog Millionaire – this works on both levels too – he gets rich and famous, but it's also a personal journey.

Cinderella

Harry Potter

The Quest – examples

Lord of the Rings – one epic journey!

Indiana Jones

Around The World In 80 Days

Bridget Jones – no actual journey or quest, but she is hunting for a man (this was not my suggestion)

Voyage/Return – examples

Gulliver's Travels

The Chronicles of Nania

Odyssey

Back to the Future

Comedy/Miscommunication – examples

A Spot of Bother

Life of Brian

Fawlty Towers

Tragedy – examples

Hamlet

McBeth

Philadelphia

A Perfect World

One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest

Titanic

Re-Birth – examples

A Christmas Carol

It's A Wonderful Life

Groundhog Day

Love Story – examples

Romeo & Juliet (plus a few more Shakespeare plays)

See Hollywood for many other examples!

Of course there are plenty of examples where films/books cross over. I would also include LOTR in 'Voyage & Return' – Frodo comes back to the Shire – but there you go. It's all open to personal interpretation of course.

Another big aspect of story telling and development we covered was Character Archetypes – those set figures that often re-occur in literature and film. Let's look at some of them here (standby for another long list);

Superhero

Bully

Rebel

Father/Mother

Child

The Fool – see Forrest Gump

Hero/Anti-Hero

The Devil – see also 'Villian(s)'

The Traitor

Lover

Martyr

Monarch

Damsel in Distress

Guardian/Gatekeeper

Loyal Servant – See Sam in LOTR.

the list goes on…

This was all useful fodder for looking at our own plots and characters. Using the Basic Plots premise, it should be easy to pigeon-hole your work into one or more slots. For me and my embryonic noir crime novel, I'd have to go with 'Overcoming the Monster' – my protagonist creates a monster of his own through his own mis-deeds and fights to control the consequences. As for character archetypes – I'd say my protag is an Anti-Hero (you want him to succeed – but his methods are dubious) and one of my antagonists is definitely The Devil/Villian role. There's also a Father figure in a senior policeman role too. No doubt others will come to the fore once I start properly writing the thing!

Where do your storylines fit into the 7 Basic Plots? Are your characters archetypal? Did you set out with these kind of structures in place, or did they only evolve after closer inspection?

Creative Writing Course – Week #11

Week 11 of my creative writing course had us feeding back any changes of direction or edits we were planning to make to chapter 2 of our novels, having recently got them back from a first draft critique from the tutor. For me, I think I'll work on the dialogue, and possibly add a new passage which will introduce a new character to the frame. One thing I am grappling with here is the amount of exposition to slip into the dialogue. I hate it when films have characters saying stuff like;

FBI Agent #1: He's gone rogue…!

FBI Agent #2: What?

FBI Agent #1: The agent inserted into the drug cartel is now working alone…

FBI Agent #2: You mean he's working on his own agenda and could possibly have double-crossed us and be working with the enemy?

FBI Agent #1: That's right.

The above parody is not far from the truth in the case of my WiP – hopefully not in terms of the dialogue, but the cops-going-bad theme. I need to show the complexities of an undercover police investigation without pages of explaining.

We were also asked to work on a synopsis for our pieces, and then asked if/how they informed the work. I need to complete mine, but I suspect that once I start working on it I'll find my plot taking unexpected turns. I welcome these kinds of developments, but I find hammering out a synopsis a very taxing ordeal. I think the only way to approach it is to write the synopsis without any regard for its length – ideally they should be a page or a page and a half of text – making sure you have every aspect of the story down, and then whittle it down until it gets really succinct. Easier said than done.

I often read thriller novels, with multiple twists and conspiracies in them and wonder what the hell the synopsis looked like. I imagine it to be like a cat's cradle of interconnecting strands which hopefully make sense at the end. Seeing as a synopsis lays the narrative of a novel bare and can't include cliffhangers like '…but will our hero remember which wire to cut?…' it can make for some serious explaining. You just have to hope the person reading it follows and will ultimately be compelled to read the story within.

Now I'm uncertain: work on the novel itself, or finish the synopsis and then return to the work?