L.E. Truscott's Blog, page 8

How You Can Tell The West Wing Was Written by Writers’ Writers – Part One

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I am firmly of the belief (and have said many, many times before) that watching The West Wing is like taking a masterclass in writing. The stories, the dialogue, the characters, the construction, it’s all about as close to perfect as writing can get.

Hiding in plain sight amongst the politics and policy and drama are numerous references to the English language – writing, editing and reading. To the casual observer, they may simply be perceived as evidence of the “liberal elitist” natures of the main characters. To the more devoted observers, such as myself, they are “in” jokes that only other writers will truly appreciate.

The first four seasons of The West Wing were primarily written by Aaron Sorkin. He left the show after that and I don’t think it’s coincidental that the number of writing references dropped off significantly once he was gone. (In fact, I only found one reference that I thought was worth including from the sixth season and didn’t find any from the seventh and final season). I absolutely consider Sorkin a writer’s writer. If you don’t, well, you’re pretty much dead to me (just like that lecturer in screenwriting from the local arts college who opened an interview on our national broadcaster by declaring he didn’t care for Sorkin’s writing – I changed stations immediately).

I rewatched The West Wing in order to compile these references (not really a hardship for me considering I watch it in its entirety – all 155 episodes – every year). Even if the subject matter isn’t your thing, hopefully you can appreciate these diamonds scattered throughout the scripts and maybe even learn something. Here is part one and look out for part two next week.

*****

President Josiah Bartlet: “There are fourteen punctuation marks in standard English grammar. Can anyone name them please?”

CJ Cregg: “Period.”

Josh Lyman: “Comma.”

Mandy Hampton: “Colon.”

Sam Seaborn: “Semi-colon.”

Josh Lyman: “Dash.”

Sam Seaborn: “Hyphen.”

Leo McGarry: “Apostrophe.”

President Josiah Bartlet: “That’s only seven. There are seven more.”

Toby Ziegler: “Question mark, exclamation point, quotation marks, brackets, parentheses, braces and ellipses.”

CJ Cregg: “Ooohh.”

Toby Ziegler: “Do you call the raise, sir?”

President Josiah Bartlet: There are three words, and three words only, in the English language that begin with the letters DW.

Josh Lyman: This is a pretty good illustration of why we get nothing done.

President Josiah Bartlet: Can anyone name them for me please?

Sam Seaborn: Three words that begin with DW?

President Josiah Bartlet: Yes.

Sam Seaborn: Dwindle.

President Josiah Bartlet: Yes.

Toby Ziegler: Dwarf.

President Josiah Bartlet: Yes.

Toby Ziegler (to Sam Seaborn): C’mon, Princeton, we’ve got dwindle, we’ve got dwarf.

President Josiah Bartlet: I see your five and raise you five by the way.

Toby Ziegler: Dwarf, dwindle…

Leo McGarry: Fold.

John Lyman: Fold.

CJ Cregg: Last card down.

President Josiah Bartlet: “Witches brew a magic spell, in an enchanted forest where fairies…”

Toby Ziegler: Dwell, dwell, dwell! Dwindle, dwarf and dwell!

“Mr Willis of Ohio”, Episode 6, Season 1

Toby Ziegler: “It’s good.”

Sam Seaborn: “Yeah.”

Toby Ziegler: “It’s good.”

Sam Seaborn: “Yeah.”

Toby Ziegler: “It’s a little flat.”

Sam Seaborn: “I think so, too.”

Toby Ziegler: “My writing’s been flat lately.”

Sam Seaborn: “It’s not you, it’s me.”

Toby Ziegler: “Well, you did the best you could.”

Sam Seaborn: “What do you mean?”

Toby Ziegler: “You reached your potential here.”

Sam Seaborn: “No, I didn’t! I can do better that this.”

Toby Ziegler: “I can do better than this!”

Sam Seaborn: “Are you saying I can’t do better than this?”

Toby Ziegler: “I’m saying you’re fine and I’m flat.”

Josh Lyman: “What’s going on?”

Toby Ziegler: “We’re having difficulty locating our talent.”

Josh Lyman: “You hearing anything about the banking bill?”

Toby Ziegler: “What do you mean?”

Josh Lyman: “I’m hearing some stuff.”

Toby Ziegler: “No, we’re fine.”

Josh Lyman: “You sure?”

Toby Ziegler: “Yeah, I’m having lunch with Crane.”

Josh Lyman:  “When?”

Toby Ziegler: “Lunch time.”

Josh Lyman: “I shouldn’t be nervous?”

Toby Ziegler: “No.”

Josh Lyman: “Okay.”

Toby Ziegler: “Alright. It couldn’t have gone far, right?”

Sam Seaborn: “No.”

Toby Ziegler: “Somewhere in this building is our talent.”

Sam Seaborn: “Yes.”

“Enemies”, Episode 8, Season 1

President Josiah Bartlet: “‘For the first time in three decades, the budget is balanced. From a deficit of $290 million just ten years ago—’”

Toby Ziegler: “Billion dollars.”

President Josiah Bartlet: “What?”

Toby Ziegler: “290 billion.”

President Josiah Bartlet: “What’d I say?”

Toby Ziegler: “You said million but let’s move on.”

President Josiah Bartlet: “I said million?”

Toby Ziegler: “Yep.”

President Josiah Bartlet: “‘From a deficit of $290 billion just ten…’ You know it says million on the teleprompter by the way.”

Toby Ziegler: “Sam?”

Sam Seaborn: “Our fault.”

President Josiah Bartlet: “Let’s take it back.”

…

President Josiah Bartlet: “‘I came to this hallowed chamber one year ago…’ And I see we’re spelling hallowed with a pound sign in the middle of it.”

Sam Seaborn: “We’ll fix that.”

President Josiah Bartlet: “The pound sign is silent?”

Leo McGarry: “Move on, Mr President.”

President Josiah Bartlet: “‘I came to this hallowed chamber one year ago today on a mission: to restore the American dream for all people as we gaze at the vast horizon of possibilities open to us in the 321st century.’ Wow, that was ambitious of me, wasn’t it?”

Sam Seaborn: “Leo?”

Leo McGarry: “Let’s take a break.”

President Josiah Bartlet: “We meant stronger here, right?”

Sam Seaborn: “What’s it say?”

President Josiah Bartlet: “‘I’m proud to report our country’s stranger than it was a year ago.’”

Sam Seaborn: “That’s a typo.”

President Josiah Bartlet: “Could go either way.”

Toby Ziegler: “Sam?”

Sam Seaborn: “I’ll take care of it.”

“He Shall, From Time to Time…”, Episode 12, Season 1

President Josiah Bartlet: “‘If the shoe fits’?”

Toby Ziegler: “It’s a little bit worse actually.”

President Josiah Bartlet: “‘When reporters confronted Secretary O’Leary in the hallway outside the hearing room, she defended—’ Oh, come on!”

Leo McGarry: “Don’t worry about it.”

President Josiah Bartlet: “Leo!”

Leo McGarry: “I’ll take care of it. Is she on her way here?”

Josh Lyman: “She’ll be here in half an hour.”

Charles Young: “Mr President?”

President Josiah Bartlet: “Yeah. Let’s go. ‘If the shoe fits.’ Is that the best she could do?”

Leo McGarry: “Of her many transgressions, Mr President, let’s not worry about she resorted to cliché.”

“Celestial Navigation”, Episode 15, Season 1

Toby Ziegler: “Any time you want to use punctuation, that’d be fine.”

“Mandatory Minimums”, Episode 20, Season 1

Joey Lucas: “It’s ludicrous to think that laws need to be created to protect the language of Shakespeare.”

“Lies, Damn Lies and Statistics”, Episode 21, Season 1

Toby Ziegler: “Let me know if you need me on Captain Queeg.”

“And It’s Surely to Their Credit”, Episode 5, Season 2

Sam Seaborn: “You think a communist never wrote an elegant phrase? How do you think they got everybody to be communists?”

“The Portland Trip”, Episode 7, Season 2

President Josiah Bartlet: “The number of different words they had for ‘manipulative’, Leo, there’s no way they didn’t have a thesaurus open in front of them.”

“The Drop-In”, Episode 12, Season 2

President Josiah Barlet: “Hackery! This guy was a hack. He had a captive audience and the way I know that was I tried to tunnel out of there several times. He had an audience and he didn’t know what to do with it.”

Abigail Bartlet: “You want him to sing ‘Volare’?”

President Josiah Barlet: “It wouldn’t have hurt. Words! Words, when spoken out loud for the sake of performance, are music. They have rhythm and pitch and timbre and volume. These are the properties of music and music has the ability to find us and move us and lift us up in ways that literal meaning can’t. Do you see?”

Abigail Bartlet: “You are an oratorical snob.”

President Josiah Bartlet: “Yes, I am. And God loves me for it.”

“Gone Quiet”, Episode 6, Season 3

Lisa Sherborne: “Why is it so hard?”

Sam Seaborn: “Because it’s a white piece of paper.”

“The Two Bartlets”, Episode 12, Season 3

Abigail Bartlet: “Women talk about their husbands overshadowing their careers. Mine got eaten.”

CJ Cregg: “Your husband got eaten?”

Abigail Bartlet: “My career.”

CJ Cregg: “Yeah, well, I’m on dangling modifier patrol.”

“Dead Irish Writers”, Episode 15, Season 3

TV Anchor: “I mentioned Governor Richie’s book because I was hoping you’d rise to the bait.”

President Josiah Bartlet: “There’ll be plenty of bait in September/October.”

TV Anchor: “Have you read the book?”

President Josiah Bartlet: “I’ll read it when he does.”

“The US Poet Laureate”, Episode 16, Season 3

Proposing a Collaboration

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Today is my father’s seventieth birthday. He’s fit and healthy but a little bit sad because all his friends keep dying. Last year, it was his cousin, Ray, from a massive heart attack. The year before, it was Steve, the best man from his marriage to my mother and his best friend, and Lindsay, a work colleague and subsequent lifelong friend. This year, he already knows there will be more. These are all people he spent lots of time with over the years.

On Saturday, my sisters, their husbands and children, and I are gathering at Dad’s house for a low-key celebration. I hope he has a wonderful day.

While I’m there, I am planning to propose a collaboration. I’m a little nervous. I don’t do a lot of collaborations. And I don’t know what the response will be.

A little background… I’m nearly finished my third book about the writing process. I was so sure it was going to be my last. After all, how much can one person write about the same thing? But after having conversations with my niece and nephew over Christmas and my sister’s birthday in January, I realised there was something really missing from all my writing about writing. And that was a focus on children’s writing and children writers. The very start of the process of learning to write.

My nephew is a voracious reader. My niece is a voracious reader and wants to be a writer. So as a follow-up to Project December: A Book About Writing, Project January: A Sequel About Writing and Project June: A Trilogy About Writing, I want the three of us to write Project September: A Book About Writing for Kids and by Kids. I already have an outline written, I’ve come up with about half the topics needed for the chapters and now all I need to do is ask them to do it with me.

I hope they’ll be as enthused about the idea as I am and particularly about being published authors at the age of twelve. It’s the kind of marketing gimmick that few people ever get to capitalise on. I should know. I have no gimmick.

Fingers crossed. I’ll let you know how it goes.

Book Review: Ghost Child by Caroline Overington

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This could easily have been a true story (in fact, I sought out the statement at the front of the book that declared it was fiction just to make sure). It has an awful sense of realism about it and maybe that’s why the story itself ends up being almost inconsequential. More than anything else, this is a character study, an extraordinary character study presented in beautifully simple writing by a very fine writer.

Lauren Cashman, now known as Lauren Cameron, has lived a tragic life. The oldest of four siblings, she was six when her five-year-old half-brother Jacob died from a depressed skull fracture that caused a massive brain injury. Her mother and her mother’s de facto were sentenced to fifteen years in prison for manslaughter. And Lauren and her two remaining siblings were split up and sent to various foster carers. The younger brother, Harley, was lucky and was placed with a couple who became his permanent family. The two sisters were placed with many, many foster carers over many, many years. None of them became permanent.

When we first meet Lauren, it’s twenty years later and she’s been caught up in a coronial inquest that is completely irrelevant to what went on when she was a child but, of course, nothing is completely irrelevant to what went on when she was a child because it permeates her whole life, her whole existence, her whole sense of herself. Almost immediately, the story pivots back to the events of her childhood. And then through a variety of participants – the detective, reporters, social workers, the doctor who tried to save Jacob, the local priest, the shopping centre photographer who took the portrait of the children that appeared on the front page of the papers as the news of the attack broke, foster carers, even the kids themselves – the details unfold. They are told almost as if the people are witnesses recounting the events for a book being written twenty years later and I think that was a deliberate choice by the author. “Look,” she is saying, “look at how affected and devastated all these people still are all these years later.”

Some of the characters narrate multiple chapters. Others appear only once and then recede into the background. But each person plays an important role in adding their perspective to the mix and everybody has distinctive voices, a unique way of telling their part in the story. There is no chance of mixing up in your mind who is telling the story from chapter to chapter. And there’s certainly no chance of getting bored by a narrative monotone because there isn’t one; it’s a triumphant tapestry of each person’s take on the situation.

The story doesn’t have the jaw-dropping twists and turns of some of Overington’s other books. When the big reveal comes about how Jacob actually died, who it was that caused his injury and why, it isn’t that much of a shock. It’s almost as though there has been an unspoken understanding throughout the whole book between the writer and the reader that everyone knew this is where we would end up; but it was the journey that was important, not the destination.

I feel like this review is very vague but Ghost Child is not a book that lends itself to a summary of the main plot points that will draw potential readers in with questions about what happened. It is, however, definitive evidence of Overington’s significant talent as a writer.

Still, if you’ve never read her work, I wouldn’t recommend starting with this book. Start with I Came to Say Goodbye and leave this for later when you’ll be able to see that while it isn’t her best, it’s still very good. And perhaps more importantly, that it’s a critical commentary about those who fall through the cracks.

3.5 stars

*First published on Goodreads 3 January 2019

Oh, Brother! (and Sister): Naming Fictional Siblings

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Naming characters is always a great deal of fun, like naming a baby but without having to go through nine months of pregnancy and a painful labour. Well, naming the first few is fun, at least. But what happens when you have to name hundreds? And what happens when you have to name a very specific group such as brothers and sisters?

Would Edwina ever have a brother named Lebron? It seems unlikely. And why does it matter so much? Let me illustrate with a couple of real life examples.

I have a brother-in-law named Timothy. Timothy has a younger brother. Perhaps at the time his parents were naming him they didn’t realise that calling his younger brother Thomas might draw a few guffaws later in life. But it did. Yes, they are Tim and Tom. And now fairly frequent namesakes in commercials featuring brothers advertising indigestion medication.

I also have twin nieces. Fraternal twins but arriving from the same womb on the same day nonetheless. Before they were born, my sister was contemplating names and mentioned she was thinking about calling them Olivia and Vivian. “Liv and Viv?” I piped up. I think it gave her pause and when they eventually came along, they were christened Olivia and Lexi. (Lexi is the name of one of my other sisters’ cat but at least that was just something we could joke about within the family, not something that would plague the little girls their entire lives like rhyming monikers.)

The reason it helps to get it right when you’re naming siblings in a book, apart from avoiding the sniggers, is that it’s a really good way of making sure the reader can differentiate them and remember them. In Anne Tyler’s book Back When We Were Grownups, there are four sisters nicknamed Biddy, Patch, NoNo and Min Foo. I couldn’t tell you what their real names are even though I’ve read the book and it is explained. I couldn’t even tell you which sister is which, apart from Min Foo, who is the half-sister. But do they sound like related women in their thirties and forties or do they sound like a group of elderly bingo attendees?

Kris Jenner knew what she was doing – from a marketing perspective at least – when she named her five daughters Kimberley, Kourtney, Khloe, Kylie and Kendall. The first three are Kardashians and the last two are Jenners but that doesn’t really matter because they sound like sisters. Well marketed sisters but sisters nonetheless.

One of the keys to remember is that siblings are all named by the same people, their mother and father. So while Edwina and Lebron are implausible, Kimberley, Kourtney, Khloe, Kylie and Kendall make total (although somewhat terrifying) sense.

When I named the sisters in a TV show I developed Minerva, Salome, Dahlia, Calista and Valentina, it was completely logical to me (and I hope to others) because their mother was a journalist with a classical education who shunned popular culture. When my mother named me and my sisters Louise, Natalie, Michelle, Stephanie, Elizabeth and Genevieve, it seemed right because they all have that English sound with just a touch of French influence. It’s an even better story when you know that I was supposed to be named Elizabeth but that my father vetoed it and made it my second name because he didn’t want to upset my paternal grandmother (Alberta known as Betty) since it was the name of my maternal grandmother (Elizabeth known as Betty). And that my mother divorced him (probably not for that reason) and had more children later, finally getting to use the name as she had wanted to all those years earlier. And that she never named Michelle at all because Michelle is actually my stepsister and was named by her biological parents. But we sound like sisters (perhaps because we are).

According to the internet (where else do we do our research these days?), there are several golden rules for naming siblings in the real world and I suppose it should apply in the fictional world as well:

Each child’s name should start with a different initial. “Yes, a certain reality TV family would argue this point, which may just prove it,” says Claire Gillespie.
Each child’s name can start with the same initial. “There’s a sweetness to siblings’ names who share the same first letter,” according to J Bartlet.
None of the children’s names should be matchy matchy. Why? “Because name substitutions are increased by factors like name similarity and physical similarity,” according to a study released by the University of Texas at Austin. Even fictional characters should have distinct identities. Sorry, Tim and Tom.
Similar names are okay. But not rhyming names. Tim and Tom, you’re back on. After all, it’s not like they’re Tim and Kim.
The names should not have a theme. It’s just cruel naming your kids Petal, Daisy and Poppy.
The names can have a theme. “Nyuh, nyuh, nyuh, nyuh, nyuh,” say Jools and Jamie Oliver.
All the names should have a consistent style. Lebron and Latonya? Yes. Lebron and Edwina? No. Cultural and geographical backgrounds will come into play here.
Do whatever the hell you want. Look out for little Lebron and Edwina in a future story of mine.

Your real children may hate you for it but at least your family of fictional brothers and sisters will never say a word (unless you write it for them). But do give it a bit of thought. After all, would we have fallen in love quite so deeply with Katniss and Primrose if they were Kathryn and Patricia? Somehow I don’t think so.

Who Cares About the Oxford Comma?

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Who cares about the Oxford comma? Plenty of people, it seems. Many writers, editors and language purists have strong feelings about whether or not the Oxford comma should be used. Some have even called it “a hill” they’re “prepared to die on”, both those who are for and against it.

Mike Pompeo, US Secretary of State, has issued not one but two memos to his staff outlining his preference for the Oxford comma. And under the Trump administration, a preference must be considered an order for anyone wanting to keep their job. However, “[o]n semicolons, Pompeo remains silent; on long dashes — not a tittle.” (From “Secretary of State Pompeo Is Mandating His Oxford Comma Preference at State Department, Report Says” by Glenn Fleishman, Fortune, 19 September 2018)

So what is the Oxford comma? Called the Oxford comma because it is required usage according to The Oxford Style Manual, and also known as a serial comma or a Harvard comma, it’s the comma used after the penultimate (second last) item in a list of three or more items.

With the Oxford comma: The shoes were red, shiny, and too small.

Without the Oxford comma: The shoes were red, shiny and too small.

There are two ways in which to use the Oxford comma:

*All the time as a stylistic choice (whether it’s your choice or the choice of an organisation you are working for or studying at)

*Only when necessary as a means of preventing ambiguity

Wikipedia has provided the following general formulas:

*The list x, y and z is unambiguous if y and z cannot be read as in apposition to x.

*Equally, x, y, and z is unambiguous if y cannot be read as in apposition to x.

*If neither y nor y[,] and z can be read as in apposition to x, then both forms of the list are unambiguous; but if both y and y and z can be read as in apposition to x, then both forms of the list are ambiguous.

*x and y and z is unambiguous if x and y and y and z cannot both be grouped.

Clear? As mud.

The majority of US style guides dictate use of the Oxford comma. The majority of British style guides, despite the preference of The Oxford Style Manual, dictate not using it. In Australia, Canada and New Zealand, it is not used as standard. Other languages in which use of the Oxford comma goes against the rules include:

*Bosnian

*Croatian

*Serbian

*Montenegrin

*Danish

*Dutch

*Finnish

*French

*German

*Greek

*Hebrew

*Hungarian

*Icelandic

*Italian

*Norwegian

*Polish

*Portuguese

*Romanian

*Russian

*Spanish

*Swedish

*Turkish

So who is right? Who knows.

The list above demonstrates, though, that bullet points can help to solve the problem of worrying about whether an Oxford comma is required or not because each new line, each bullet point, separates each item. However, bullet points are only appropriate in certain types of writing and not others. They are unusual in fiction, for example.

Why I Mostly Don’t Use the Oxford Comma

*I’m an Australian writing in Australia.

*The Oxford comma is generally redundant in a simple list because the “and” or the “or” serves the same function of separating the last two items.

*If there’s doubt because of the inclusion or the lack of an Oxford comma, then I rewrite the sentence so that its meaning is clear.

*The Oxford comma only makes sense if you use it in a list of two as well and nobody uses it like this (nobody who has any idea of what they’re doing anyway).

The shoes were red, and shiny. (No)

The shoes were red and shiny. (Yes)

Why I Sometimes Use the Oxford Comma

*Where there are multiple “ands” or “ors”, it needs to be clear which words are being grouped together.

Duties include menu preparation, cooking and serving food, and clean-up.

Why Not Using the Oxford Comma Can Sometimes Get You into Trouble

In 2014, the O’Connor v Oakhurst Dairy lawsuit was filed in the US state of Maine to interpret a statute under which wages for the “canning, processing, preserving, freezing, drying, marketing, storing, packing for shipment or distribution” of certain goods were exempted from the requirement to pay workers overtime. “For want of a comma, we have this case,” commented US appeals judge David J Barron.

The disagreement occurred over whether the phrase “packing for shipment or distribution” meant packing for shipment and packing for distribution (essentially packing only) or if it meant packing for shipment and then, completely separate to that, distributing the goods. Why did it matter? Well, there were $13 million reasons why. If distribution was included, the dairy could keep their money. If distribution wasn’t included, then truck drivers were owed $13 million in additional wages.

The lack of the Oxford comma seemed to suggest a certain meaning and the lack of the conjunction “or” before the word “packing” seemed to suggest another. A clear cut case of ambiguity. A lower court ruled one way, in favour of the dairy, and then on appeal, a circuit court ruled the other, in favour of the drivers.

Eventually, the case was settled when Oakhurst Dairy paid the truck drivers $5 million (better than the original $13 million they could have been out of pocket but no doubt still paid begrudgingly) and the intended meaning of the statute was settled when the Maine legislature amended it to include serial semicolons (which everyone knows are far more definitive than just commas) as well as replacing the word “distribution” with “distributing”. It now reads, “canning; processing; preserving; freezing; drying; marketing; storing; packing for shipment; or distributing.”

The fact that “distribution” was replaced with “distributing” goes to show that it wasn’t just the punctuation that contributed to the lack of clarity. All editors know that lists must be written with identical opening word suffixes (where they exist in the same format) so that it flows; for example, all infinitives or all –ing words or all nouns as below. The fact that the statute originally used “distribution” meant that it no longer flowed with all the other –ing words and could more easily be read as belonging with “shipment” and modifying the “packing” rather than being a separate item in the list.

Preserve
Preserving
Preservation


Store
Storing
Storage


Distribute
Distributing
Distribution

At the time, of the fifty US states, forty-three mandated use of the Oxford comma and both the House of Representatives and the Senate, whilst not going that far, did warn against leaving it out, for precisely the reasons described above; in their words, “to prevent any misreading that the last item is part of the preceding one”.

What Should You Do?

It’s probably best to follow the crowd on this one if you want to avoid having punctuation pedants contact you to tell you what you’re doing wrong every time you publish a piece of writing. If you’re writing in the US, use it. If you’re in Australia, Canada, New Zealand or the UK, or writing in any of the languages outlined in the long list above, don’t use it unless it is necessary to avoid ambiguity.

And don’t worry about getting it right on the first go. After all, the last stage of editing – most writers will be able to tell you this – is all about commas; putting them in, taking them out, putting them in again and then taking them out (and then putting them back in one last time) over several last draft read throughs. The best part about reaching this stage? You know you’re nearly ready to finish this piece of writing and begin working on the next.

Should I Stop Telling You What to Do?

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Recently, I was scrolling through Twitter (as I do several times a day) when I came across a post from either someone I follow or someone who had been liked, retweeted or commented on by someone I follow. (It’s hard to tell sometimes.) The poster essentially said that unless you were Stephen King or some other bestselling writer, then he didn’t think he should read or follow any advice you might have about writing. Most of the comments agreed with him. Some even thought that the only way to improve was to write more (but not to listen to advice on how they might be able to write better).

I have no problem with Stephen King. I have his book On Writing. I’ve read it. I don’t consider it a Bible on the craft. I’ve written and published two books on writing myself. I’m close to completing a third. I don’t consider any of them definitive guides on writing. (Obviously, if one of them was a Bible on writing, I’d be a lot more successful than I am now and I wouldn’t have needed to write the other two.) I have many books on writing. None of them render all other books on writing irrelevant.

It’s amazing, isn’t it, that an off-the-cuff comment by someone on Twitter (who could feasibly be the worst writer in the world) can make me doubt what I’ve spent almost my entire working life doing (and plenty of years before that). But suddenly I feel the need to justify and qualify the writing advice that I offer.

The Justifications

*I’ve been writing for more than thirty years.

*I’ve been reading for more than forty years. (Yes, I’m only forty-one as I write this but I started reading when I was eighteen months old and basically haven’t stopped since.)

*I have an Advanced Diploma (a two-year course of study now called an Associate Degree) in Professional Writing and Editing. I majored in novel writing, poetry and editing. I was taught by working writers, renowned poets and one of Australia’s most respected editing teachers.

*I have a master’s degree in writing, which means I can teach if I want to. (I don’t want to.)

*I also have a bachelor’s degree in history and international politics (yes, that’s three qualifications).

*I’ve written, edited and published three of my own books (and people have paid money to buy and read them).

*I’ve ghost-written, edited and published another.

*I’ve written three more books that will be published over the next few years.

*My second novel was shortlisted for the 2016 Text Prize for Young Adult and Children’s Unpublished Manuscripts.

*I worked as a corporate writer for almost a decade (until I couldn’t stand in any longer even though I was begged to continue on – to this day, I am contacted by recruiters asking me to return to the field).

*I am the go-to person for everybody I have ever met who has a writing or editing question.

*In addition to my own writing, I freelance as a copy editor for a magazine as well as writing and editing marketing campaigns for several businesses.

The Qualifications

*My advice is a product of who I am as a writer. Therefore, it may be completely irrelevant to who you are as a writer.

*My advice is also a product of who I am as a reader. Again, this might make it completely irrelevant to who you are as a writer.

*Most of my advice is more like musing. I like to think through things and write down the process of my thinking, as well as any conclusions I come to.

*Two pieces of completely contradictory writing advice might be equally valid, especially when talking about different types of writing. Sometimes this is also true when talking about the exact same piece of writing.

*Nobody is under any pressure to accept my advice or implement it or do anything more than give me the courtesy of considering it, even if in the end you choose to disregard it.

*I want to be challenged. It’s how I keep learning. It’s why I keep reading the advice of other writers even though all those justifications above might suggest I could get away with not doing it.

*I’m not always right.

*You’re not always right.

*Nobody is always right, not even Stephen King.

*I’m not telling you what to do. I would hate for anyone to think that any of my advice should be followed word for word. What I’m doing is trying to get you to think about the writing choices you make. Because that’s what all writing is. Choices.

I hope you choose to continue reading my advice. And if you don’t, thanks for reading up to this point. But I’m not going to stop writing or offering advice. That’s my choice.

Stop Telling Me What to Do

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I don’t claim to know everything. I hope everyone who reads what I write understands that. I hope people who read what I write understand that I’m just trying to help by putting what I do know and more tenuously but less definitively what I think into words. I hope everyone else out there understands that they don’t know everything either. No one does. No one can.

And yet there are some who feel sure that their way is the right way with no room for deviation or difference. And they have no second thoughts about telling everyone who will listen and the vast majority who don’t want to. I get a bit tired of being told I’m living my life wrong. If it’s true, then I will be the one who ultimately suffers. If I’m not (and even if I am), I don’t want to listen to other people’s judgements on actions that only affect me.

So let me say this. (No, actually, I don’t care whether you let me or not, I’m going to say it anyway.) Stop telling me what to do.

Stop telling me to be Christian. Stop telling me to be Muslim. Stop telling me to believe in God. Stop telling me not to.

Stop telling me to couple up. Stop telling me stay single. Stop telling me to have sex. Stop telling me to be celibate. Stop telling me to have children. Stop telling me not to have them.

Stop telling me to get a job. Stop telling me to get a better job. Stop telling me to be a leader. Stop telling me to be a follower. Stop telling me not to work at all.

Stop telling me to vote. Stop telling me not to bother. Stop telling me to eat. Stop telling me to eat less. Stop telling me to eat differently.

Stop telling me to exercise. Stop telling me to relax. Stop telling me to be more confident. Stop telling me I’m too arrogant.

Stop telling me to write. Stop telling me not to write. Stop telling me to talk. Stop telling me to shut up.

Stop telling me to watch. Stop telling me not to watch. Stop telling me not to watch it again.

Stop telling me to try. Stop telling me to give up. Stop telling me to care. Stop telling me not to obsess.

Stop telling me to read. Stop telling me what to read. Stop telling me I read too much.

Stop telling me to love. Stop telling me not to love. Stop telling me to dream. Stop telling me I’m wasting my life.

Stop telling me what to do.

I don’t want your advice, your orders, your morality or your opinions.

Stop telling me what to do.

If I want the benefit of your guidance, your experience or your hindsight, I’ll ask for it.

Stop telling me what to do.

I don’t want your disdain, your discouragement, your despair or your disrespect.

Just stop telling me what to do.

Book Review: See What I Have Done by Sarah Schmidt

[image error]This year, I’m doing twelve reviews of books written by Australian female writers, starting with See What I Have Done by Sarah Schmidt. Some would say writing by Australian women is having a renaissance but that’s assuming it was ever this good before. There are so many stories getting a lot of attention, some rightfully, some less so.

I wish I could say this is one of those Australian female writers who deserves all the attention the category has been receiving but I found the book disappointing. On the back it says, “You know the rhyme. You don’t know the story.” I knew the story and this book doesn’t add anything to it. Not to the real story anyway. In fact, it adds a lot of fictional elements that just muddy the waters.

Based on the true story of Lizzie Borden, who was charged with and acquitted of the murders of her father and stepmother, See What I Have Done is told through the viewpoints of Lizzie herself (self-involved), her older sister Emma (resentful), their maid Bridget (ill-treated) and a stranger named Benjamin (random). It isn’t chronological – it jumps all over the place – and I’ve often found this is a device used in stories that aren’t strong enough to be told in a simple linear format, definitely the case here.

Lizzie, Emma and Bridget were real people. Benjamin is completely fictional and completely irrelevant. He spends most of his time hiding in their barn or under the dining room table, watching the events of the story unfold. It’s ironic because he and his back story were the most interesting and deserved a book of their own, rather than being misplaced here as they were.

So what is the story? Thirty-two-year-old Lizzie and forty-one-year-old Emma live with their father, Andrew, and stepmother, Abby, in Fall River. Emma feels the burden of being her selfish sister’s carer and has gone to Fairhaven to stay with a friend and escape the unpleasantness. While she is away, her father kills all of Lizzie’s pet pigeons, claiming they are diseased. A few days later, Andrew is murdered in the sitting room and Abby is killed in an upstairs guest bedroom, both dying from multiple blows to the head.

The rest of the book deals with the aftermath, smattered with stories of the family’s life before. The death of Emma and Lizzie’s real mother, their complicated co-dependent relationship with each other, the first time they met their stepmother, Emma’s near escape into marriage but ultimate failure, their slightly creepy Uncle John.

As with many of these historical reimaginings of true stories, there is a very large focus on bodily functions. There is more vomiting in this book than I have personally experienced in my entire life. Sweating is prominent. Everyone, at some point, seems to pick a pear from the pear tree, eat it and let pear juice drip down their faces, necks and hands. The dead bodies lie in state on the dining room table to two days, stinking up the house in the middle of summer.

The book is poetic with a leisurely writing style but has a number of affectations and ticks, like constantly repeating words. Clocks don’t just tick, they tick tick. Hearts don’t just gallop, they gallop gallop. And there are lots of sentence fragments, giving it a staccato, interrupted flow. This book is the literary equivalent of someone who loves the sound of their own voice. It just goes on and on and one with minute focus on tiny details that add very little. And it’s the author’s voice we hear, not the characters’.

If you liked Hannah Kent’s Burial Rites (another book by an Australian female writer), you’ll probably like this book as well. But it feels like a wasted opportunity. It could have been something great. But it isn’t.

2 stars

*First published on Goodreads 1 December 2018

How Many Different Ways Are There to Write About the Same Thing?

As the end of the year approached, I sat down to write another Christmas-themed blog post. I’ve had this blog for nearly four years now and this would be my fifth Christmas-themed blog post (because I did two in 2015 when everything to do with writing this blog was all so new and I had so much to say). I sat down and tried to write… but nothing happened. I decided I just needed to give it a little more thinking time.

I sat down a few weeks later and tried again. Still nothing. Because apart from the fact that I wanted it to be about Christmas and writing, I had no idea what I was going to write about.

My four previous Christmas-themed blog posts were about:

*Writing a Christmas-themed book (December 2017)

*What a writer wants for Christmas – time, money, inspiration, motivation and luck (December 2016)

*Whether or not a writer should write during the Christmas holidays or take a proper break (December 2015)

*A poem about Santa running into a writer still writing as he was delivering presents – because “the night before Christmas/Was as good night as any/To write a few words/And if possible many” (December 2015)

This is now my third attempt to write this year’s Christmas-themed blog post. But I still had a big fat nothing. After all, how many different ways are there to write about the same thing? Yes, Christmas and writing are pretty broad topics but still, really, how many different opinions can one person have about them? And how many of those opinions will translate into something worth writing (and reading) about?

A handful, a dozen, a hundred, a thousand, tens of thousands, possibly millions? Millions, yes, if we’re talking about millions of writers. More likely a handful if we’re talking about just one writer. Maybe a dozen if we’re talking about a really insightful writer. And obviously that number gets a whole lot higher if we forget about things like being insightful and worth reading.

No, it’s not especially Christmasey but it’s as close as I’m going to get so this is it; I hope you enjoy this year’s Christmas (but not really Christmas-themed) blog post.

Writing the Same Story

Talk to any police officer and they will tell you that ten witnesses to the same crime will all have seen slightly different things and therefore will have ten slightly different versions of the same story. It’s a common writing device to use this approach to tell one story; multiple characters get their turn, each narrating essentially identical stories, the later perspectives revealing a little more, something that the other characters didn’t see or didn’t understand the importance of.

In a piece of writing like this, it’s crucial to develop the distinct voices of each of the characters telling the story. Otherwise, the danger is that readers will start to feel like they’re simply reading the same story ten times, instead of ten slightly different stories.

Writing the Same Topic

Clearly, it’s problematic for me to write about the same topic too many times (especially when the topics are Christmas and writing) but there are plenty of people out there who have no trouble churning out piece after piece on virtually identical subjects (see the work of every right-wing commentator with a weekly column for evidence of this).

The key is identifying all of the smaller components that go into the same topic (the A-Z, the top ten, etc) and then fleshing each of them out until they are large enough to make up a complete piece of writing on their own.

Writing the Same Theme

Ainsley Hayes: “‘He is an Englishman’ is from HMS Pinafore.”

Lionel Tribbey: “It’s from Penzance. Don’t tell me about Gilbert and Sullivan. It’s from Penzance or Iolanthe… one of the ones about duty.”

Ainsley Hayes: “They’re all about duty. And it’s from Penzance.”

“And It’s Surely to Their Credit”, Episode 5, Season 2, The West Wing

Gilbert and Sullivan must have been able to write the same theme over and over if “they’re all about duty”. They’re not the only ones. All writers fall into one of two categories: those who write about the same themes all the time and those who write about a variety of themes. Those who write about the same themes all the time know what they like to write and stick to it. Romance (true love), dystopia (anti-authoritarianism), science fiction (discovery), drama (the meaning of life).

Writing the same theme is a lot easier than writing the same topic because it is so much broader. While romance can seem quite limiting, true love can be about a lot more than just romance. True love can be about parents and children, about friendships, about citizens and countries, about pets and their owners. The same theme is more often than not an undercurrent rather than the easily identifiable plot points.

Writing the Same Character

Patricia Cornwell and Kay Scarpetta. Lee Child and Jack Reacher. Sue Grafton and Kinsey Millhone. Agatha Christie and Miss Marple. Arthur Conan Doyle and Sherlock Holmes. Jeff Lindsay and Dexter Morgan. Ian Fleming and James Bond. Clive Cussler and Dirk Pitt. Agatha Christie and Hercule Poirot (yes, she was good enough to come up with more than one character to write handfuls of novels about).

Kay Scarpetta, Patricia Cornwell’s most famous creation, is referred to in the novels as “doctor, lawyer, chief”, a play on the “Tinker, Tailor” rhyme as well as the fact that she has degrees in both medicine and law as well as being the Chief Medical Examiner for Virginia. Although the focus is on her role as a pathologist, her background gives plenty of scope for a wide range of stories. She also has a past (not a dubious one, just the life that has got her to the jumping off point that is the first novel).

If you have an interesting enough character, you can write about them for the rest of your career. Determining whether you have an interesting enough character, however, can be difficult. Sometimes it’s just a matter of waiting to see how the readers react to them. And if the readers react favourably, then it’s a matter of making sure the character has enough depth to be constantly wheeled out for the next book.

Writing the Same World

I’ve written before about not letting a world you’ve already created go to waste. And if you’ve created a great one and aren’t using it more than once, then you’re not just doing a disservice to yourself, you’re doing a disservice to all the readers who enjoyed immersing themselves in it the first time around.

Writing the same world doesn’t mean you have to write the same characters. Harry Bosch, Mickey Haller, Jack McEvoy, Terry McCaleb and Cassie Black have all starred in their own Michael Connelly novels but all exist in the same fictional version of Los Angeles and appear in minor roles or are referenced in other books of which they aren’t the main character. JK Rowling has written seven Harry Potter books and also released a “textbook” called Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them that featured in the original novel. A series of five movies based on it, essentially prequels in the Hogwarts universe, are now being made. JRR Tolkien’s The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion are all set in the same universe of Eä. What do all these works of fiction have in common? They have been an absolute goldmine – both in terms of earnings for their creators (or their creator’s estate) and as a foundation for continuing reinvention. Books have become films, TV shows, plays and merchandise beyond even the most confident writer’s imaginings.

Developing a fictional world that can withstand the constant return of a writer to plunder it time and time again is not a simple thing. But done right, it can be a marvellous thing – for both writers and readers.

*****

So how many different ways are there to write about the same thing? Fewer ways if we’re talking about really specific topics, many more if we’re talking about broad themes. But there are two crucial things when doing it:

*Keeping it all straight in your mind – nobody is better at picking up discrepancies than devoted readers and they will not hesitate to let you know about it.

*Keeping it different enough – even when writing or reading about the same thing multiple times, both writers and readers are looking for something new.

Best wishes to everyone for safe and happy holidays and a 2019 full of wonderful writing and reading experiences.

When Writers Become the News

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What’s so hard about writing? All you need is a working knowledge of the language you want to write in, a computer (or a typewriter if you’re nostalgic or a pen and paper if you’re old-fashioned) and a little bit of time. Or maybe a lot of time. However long it takes, eventually the words will come. And you’ll be left with a piece of writing. You’ll be proud (and you should be).

Okay, yes, it can get harder after that. Editing, publishing, marketing, readers – there will always be someone who doesn’t react quite the way you had hoped they would to what you’ve written. Of course, that’s nothing to those who think the appropriate reaction to words on a page that they don’t agree with or don’t like is to pick up a gun and track down their author.

You might think it’s a rarity for writers to be targeted and killed for what they’ve written but it’s actually quite common. More common in countries that don’t embrace freedom and democracy, less common in those that do but by no means non-existent. In June 2018, a man walked into the newsroom of the Capital Gazette newspaper in Annapolis, Maryland in the US and shot dead Gerald Fischman, Rob Hiaasen, John McNamara, Rebecca Smith and Wendi Winters as well as wounding two others. The paper’s crime in the shooter’s eyes? Accurately reporting his harassment of a former classmate on social media, to which he pleaded guilty, and then successfully defending the defamation lawsuit he brought against them because of that reporting.

In April 2018, Ahmad Abu Hussein, a Palestinian journalist covering a protest along the Gaza-Israeli border and wearing a vest marked “Press” and a helmet marked “TV”, was shot in stomach by an Israeli soldier. He died after two weeks in hospital. Earlier the same month, Yasser Murtaja died after being shot while covering the same ongoing protest. He was one of nine Palestinians who died that day. Another 491 were wounded. He was the only one who died simply doing his job.

This year alone (as of writing this), Reporters Without Borders (AKA Reporters Sans Frontières) lists 42 journalists and nine citizen journalists as well as two media assistants as having been killed and a further 166 journalists, 139 citizen journalists and nineteen media assistants as being currently imprisoned. Those figures don’t even begin to come close to the numbers of writers who are forced to relocate from their home countries to avoid being jailed or killed and who live in exile for the remainder of their lives while attempting to shed light on censorship, oppression, corruption and general abuses of power.

It isn’t just non-fiction writers. Salman Rushdie spent years in hiding and under police protection after a fatwa was issued calling for his death in response to the publication of his novel The Satanic Verses. Inspired in part by the life of the Prophet Muhammad, some Muslims felt that the novel was blasphemous and mocked their faith. Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran called for his death and there were several failed assassination attempts. As recently as 2016, money was being raised to pay any successful assassin.

The top ten countries in the world for press freedom (from 1 to 10) are Norway, Sweden, Netherlands, Finland, Switzerland, Jamaica, Belgium, New Zealand, Denmark and Costa Rica. The bottom ten countries (from 171 to 180) are Equatorial Guinea, Cuba, Djibouti, Sudan, Vietnam, China, Syria, Turkmenistan, Eritrea and North Korea. Australia is 19th, mostly due to the heavy concentration of print media ownership in two corporate organisations. Canada is 18th because of attempts to force reporters to reveal sources and the recent closure of over forty independent newspapers that threatens media pluralism. The UK is 40th because of insufficient protections for whistleblowers, journalists and sources and repeated heavy-handed media approaches in the name of national security. The US is 45th (ironically due in large part to the 45th president). Despite press freedom being enshrined in the Constitution, Trump often refuses to deal with media he considers unfavourable, suggests the revocation of press credentials (again of media he considers unfavourable), routinely uses the term “fake news” to describe unfavourable media coverage and calls the press “the enemy of the American people”. Additionally, reporters run the risk of being arrested for covering protests and attempting to ask public officials questions as well as being subjected to physical assault while on the job. Yeah, okay, Australia, Canada, the UK and US aren’t exactly at the level of North Korea but clearly they’re not at the level of Norway either. They can do better.

And still we write. And still we should. If we stop writing, then censorship is successful, even when it’s self-censorship. Of course, our lives are important but our voices are important as well. “But I’m nobody!” I hear you say. Hi, nice to meet you. I’m nobody, too. Our voices are more important than ever in a world where corporates increasingly determine whose voices are heard, usually based on whether it impacts on their ability to make money.

I’m unlikely to meet an untimely demise because of my writing (the most controversial thing I’ve ever written was calling out another writer who wrote a particularly ill-informed and badly researched article). In fact, as a white woman in Australia, the most likely causes of my death will be old age, illness or intimate partner violence. Wendi Winters probably thought the same things would be the cause of her demise. Would she have stopped writing had she known ahead of time it would contribute to her death? I doubt it. Will I? No. Will you? I sure hope not.