Alan Baxter's Blog, page 67

The Hunger Games and movies that are better than their books

You may recall that a week or so ago I was talking about the hype surrounding The Hunger Games, reading YA fiction and my disappointment with aspects of the book. The comments on that post led me to reconsider going to see the film. As did many of the comments on Facebook, surrounding the same discussion. So I went with my wife to see the film and you know what? It's way better than the book. I hate saying that, as films are almost never better than books, but in this case it's true. And I think I know why.

The main reason a film can never be as good as the book is because you can't fit all the complexity and detail of a good book into a one and a half to two hour film. Look at the length of the Lord Of The Rings trilogy of films from Peter Jackson. Excellent films they are, and very faithful to the books, but not nearly as good. Not even with the eleven hour total of the extended editions. Therefore, reading the book always immerses you more than watching the film. The characters have more depth, the world is more fully realised, the story itself is more deeply explored. For this reason, a film based on a short story or novella is invariably better than a film based on a novel.

Sometimes a film can be outstanding. The best movie of all time is Blade Runner. Don't bother arguing that point with me – you're wrong. Blade Runner is a masterpiece. It's better than the book it was based on, Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep by Philip K Dick. BUT! It's better because the movie is inspired by the book, but it's very different. Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep is an excellent book, as is most of PKD's work. But it's far from the story that gets told in Blade Runner. So the book inspired the movie, and there's a lot of crossover, but the movie is not an adaptation of the book.

The Hunger Games movie, to get back to the point, is an adaptation of the book. And it's a very faithful one. The reason it's better is because most of the issues I had with the book, the things I saw as the biggest flaws, were excluded in the film. We didn't have to sit through twenty minutes of how Prim got her fucking goat, for example. As I mentioned in the other post, that I linked at the start of this one, someone said of the book, "I'm sure there's a pretty good novella in there somewhere." And that's why the film is better – the film-makers found that good novella, and that's the story they told.

Sure, there were some aspects of the film that could have been developed a bit more. Some of the worldbuilding, so boring in the book, could certainly have been given a minute or two more in the film, but in this case I'll take the tightly-paced, interesting film over the saggy, boring book every time. Which is a shame, because the book should always be better than the film. This time it's not.

It's also worth mentioning that Jennifer Lawrence, who plays Katniss in the film, is outstanding. She's a simply brilliant actor and totally nails the character. She played a strangely similar role in a film called Winter's Bone. If you haven't seen that film, I highly recommend it.

Also, thank the tentacled appendages of the Great Old Ones, the film totally fixed up that fucking stupid werewolf thing. I was very pleased about that.

So I don't think I'll bother with the other two books, but I'll probably catch the films when they come out. The Hunger Games movie was really enjoyable, and excellently realised. Reading time is limited and there's a lot of good stuff out there I want to get to. I would never normally do such a thing, but in this very rare case I'll skip the books and get the story stright from the movies.

.

The Hunger Games and movies that are better than their books

You may recall that a week or so ago I was talking about the hype surrounding The Hunger Games, reading YA fiction and my disappointment with aspects of the book. The comments on that post led me to reconsider going to see the film. As did many of the comments on Facebook, surrounding the same discussion. So I went with my wife to see the film and you know what? It’s way better than the book. I hate saying that, as films are almost never better than books, but in this case it’s true. And I think I know why.

The main reason a film can never be as good as the book is because you can’t fit all the complexity and detail of a good book into a one and a half to two hour film. Look at the length of the Lord Of The Rings trilogy of films from Peter Jackson. Excellent films they are, and very faithful to the books, but not nearly as good. Not even with the eleven hour total of the extended editions. Therefore, reading the book always immerses you more than watching the film. The characters have more depth, the world is more fully realised, the story itself is more deeply explored. For this reason, a film based on a short story or novella is invariably better than a film based on a novel.

Sometimes a film can be outstanding. The best movie of all time is Blade Runner. Don’t bother arguing that point with me – you’re wrong. Blade Runner is a masterpiece. It’s better than the book it was based on, Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep by Philip K Dick. BUT! It’s better because the movie is inspired by the book, but it’s very different. Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep is an excellent book, as is most of PKD’s work. But it’s far from the story that gets told in Blade Runner. So the book inspired the movie, and there’s a lot of crossover, but the movie is not an adaptation of the book.

The Hunger Games movie, to get back to the point, is an adaptation of the book. And it’s a very faithful one. The reason it’s better is because most of the issues I had with the book, the things I saw as the biggest flaws, were excluded in the film. We didn’t have to sit through twenty minutes of how Prim got her fucking goat, for example. As I mentioned in the other post, that I linked at the start of this one, someone said of the book, “I’m sure there’s a pretty good novella in there somewhere.” And that’s why the film is better – the film-makers found that good novella, and that’s the story they told.

Sure, there were some aspects of the film that could have been developed a bit more. Some of the worldbuilding, so boring in the book, could certainly have been given a minute or two more in the film, but in this case I’ll take the tightly-paced, interesting film over the saggy, boring book every time. Which is a shame, because the book should always be better than the film. This time it’s not.

It’s also worth mentioning that Jennifer Lawrence, who plays Katniss in the film, is outstanding. She’s a simply brilliant actor and totally nails the character. She played a strangely similar role in a film called Winter’s Bone. If you haven’t seen that film, I highly recommend it.

Also, thank the tentacled appendages of the Great Old Ones, the film totally fixed up that fucking stupid werewolf thing. I was very pleased about that.

So I don’t think I’ll bother with the other two books, but I’ll probably catch the films when they come out. The Hunger Games movie was really enjoyable, and excellently realised. Reading time is limited and there’s a lot of good stuff out there I want to get to. I would never normally do such a thing, but in this very rare case I’ll skip the books and get the story stright from the movies.

.

Tuesday Toot – Angela Slatter

Tuesday Toot is a semi-regular feature here at The Word. An invite-only series of short posts where writers, editors, booksellers and other creatives have been asked to share their stuff and toot their own horn. It's hard to be seen in the digital morass and hopefully this occasional segment will help some of the quality stuff out there get noticed. It should all be things that readers of The Word will find edifying.

Today, it's Angela Slatter:

Who is Angela?

Some (okay, many) will say I'm a force for chaotic evil or chaotic good. It all depends on the day. I like to think of myself as a writer of speculative fiction (with two collections under my belt thus far), mostly on the side of dark fantasy and horror … with occasional patches of über-light science fiction (an 'I-can't-believe-it's-not-butter' kind of science fiction). My short fiction has appeared in venues such as Dreaming Again, Steampunk Reloaded, A Book of Horrors, Strange Tales II & III, 2012, Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet and Shimmer, and has had Honorable Mentions in the Datlow, Link, Grant Year's Best Fantasy and Horror anthologies.

I'm a graduate of Tin House 2006 and Clarion South 2009. I've been shortlisted for Aurealis Awards and Australian Shadows Awards. In 2011 my collection The Girl with No Hands & Other Tales (Ticonderoga Publications) won the Aurealis Award for Best Collection, and the story Lisa Hannett and I co-authored, "The February Dragon" (from Ticonderoga's Scary Kisses anthology), won the Aurealis Award for Best Fantasy Short Story. My other collection, Sourdough & Other Stories (Tartarus Press), was shortlisted for a World Fantasy Award for Best Collection in 2011.

I blog here www.angelaslatter.com about shiny things that catch my eye.

What are you tooting about?

Well, I guess the reprinting of my collection Sourdough & Other Stories by Tartarus Press. They originally did a limited edition hard cover version in 2010 – a gorgeous book with amazing cover art by Stephen J Clark. When that sold out, Ray asked if I was interested in having a paperback reprint. The cool, professional author response was 'Oh, yes'. The author response one does at home alone is to Snoopy Dance in one's underpants, throwing in a few jetés and pliés for good measure. No, really, it's an essential part of appeasing the Gods of Writing (also known as Fear, Famine and Fuck-you).

The book is a mosaic of grown-up fairy tales, with links between them so that the work can be viewed as more than just a series of unrelated stories. It's not a linear book and time shifts around in it (bit like a malfunctioning vortex manipulator), but I think it's a book of surprises and I'm very proud of it. The lovely Robert Shearman wrote the Introduction and the equally lovely Jeff VanderMeer wrote the Afterword, which is like a total bonus!

Don't read it to children though, the therapy bills will be through the roof.

What's in store for Angela:

Well, first and foremost there's Midnight and Moonshine, co-authored with Lisa Hannett, which is, depending on your point of view, either a collection of interlinked short stories or a mosaic novel. M & M will be published in November 2012 under the aegis of Ticonderoga Publications. The blurb reads:

Midnight and Moonshine traces the origins of the icy and dangerous Fae and explores their interactions over the centuries with the Laveaux and Beaufort families. Driven from their realm, the Fae come to America with Viking raiders in the 10th century; when the Vikings discover the nature of their stowaways, they desert them in the new land. Left to their own devices the Fae worm their way through history, largely keeping apart from humanity, but occasionally making connections that come to have long-term effects in America's alternative Deep South.

This year there's also: "Winter Children", which will be appearing in PS Publishing's Postscripts anthology; "Sun Falls" (originally in Ticonderoga's Dead Red Heart) will be reprinted in Prime's Year's Best Dark Fantasy and Horror; and "Prohibition Blues" (part of the Midnight and Moonshine suite), will make a cameo in Ticonderoga's Damnation and Dames. In 2013, "Cuckoo" will appear in the Dark Prints Press anthology, A Killer Among Demons. In 2014, Simon Marshall-Jones's Spectral Press will publish "Hearth and Home" as part of its chapbook series.

I'm also working a follow-up collection to Sourdough and Other Stories, called The Bitterwood Bible and Other Recountings, and a novel, Brisneyland by Night (with a sequel, Vigil).

You can get a copy of Sourdough and Other Stories here: http://www.tartaruspress.com/sourdough.htm, and a copy of The Girl with No Hands & Other Tales at www.indiebooksonline.com (or Book Depository, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other online retailers).

***

Seriously, talk about prolific. Just reading that makes me feel inadequate. Regular readers will know something of Angela and her work from previous posts here. I reviewed Sourdough & Other Stories here and I'm very proud to have one of the limited edition hardcovers. But seriously, beautiful an artefact the book may be, but absolutely essential are the stories within. Go get your paperback copy of this book now – you won't regret it. Easily one of the best things I read that year. – Alan

.

Tuesday Toot – Angela Slatter

Tuesday Toot is a semi-regular feature here at The Word. An invite-only series of short posts where writers, editors, booksellers and other creatives have been asked to share their stuff and toot their own horn. It’s hard to be seen in the digital morass and hopefully this occasional segment will help some of the quality stuff out there get noticed. It should all be things that readers of The Word will find edifying.

Today, it’s Angela Slatter:

Who is Angela?

Some (okay, many) will say I’m a force for chaotic evil or chaotic good. It all depends on the day. I like to think of myself as a writer of speculative fiction (with two collections under my belt thus far), mostly on the side of dark fantasy and horror … with occasional patches of über-light science fiction (an ‘I-can’t-believe-it’s-not-butter’ kind of science fiction). My short fiction has appeared in venues such as Dreaming Again, Steampunk Reloaded, A Book of Horrors, Strange Tales II & III, 2012, Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet and Shimmer, and has had Honorable Mentions in the Datlow, Link, Grant Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror anthologies.

I’m a graduate of Tin House 2006 and Clarion South 2009. I’ve been shortlisted for Aurealis Awards and Australian Shadows Awards. In 2011 my collection The Girl with No Hands & Other Tales (Ticonderoga Publications) won the Aurealis Award for Best Collection, and the story Lisa Hannett and I co-authored, “The February Dragon” (from Ticonderoga’s Scary Kisses anthology), won the Aurealis Award for Best Fantasy Short Story. My other collection, Sourdough & Other Stories (Tartarus Press), was shortlisted for a World Fantasy Award for Best Collection in 2011.

I blog here www.angelaslatter.com about shiny things that catch my eye.

What are you tooting about?

Well, I guess the reprinting of my collection Sourdough & Other Stories by Tartarus Press. They originally did a limited edition hard cover version in 2010 – a gorgeous book with amazing cover art by Stephen J Clark. When that sold out, Ray asked if I was interested in having a paperback reprint. The cool, professional author response was ‘Oh, yes’. The author response one does at home alone is to Snoopy Dance in one’s underpants, throwing in a few jetés and pliés for good measure. No, really, it’s an essential part of appeasing the Gods of Writing (also known as Fear, Famine and Fuck-you).

The book is a mosaic of grown-up fairy tales, with links between them so that the work can be viewed as more than just a series of unrelated stories. It’s not a linear book and time shifts around in it (bit like a malfunctioning vortex manipulator), but I think it’s a book of surprises and I’m very proud of it. The lovely Robert Shearman wrote the Introduction and the equally lovely Jeff VanderMeer wrote the Afterword, which is like a total bonus!

Don’t read it to children though, the therapy bills will be through the roof.

What’s in store for Angela:

Well, first and foremost there’s Midnight and Moonshine, co-authored with Lisa Hannett, which is, depending on your point of view, either a collection of interlinked short stories or a mosaic novel. M & M will be published in November 2012 under the aegis of Ticonderoga Publications. The blurb reads:

Midnight and Moonshine traces the origins of the icy and dangerous Fae and explores their interactions over the centuries with the Laveaux and Beaufort families. Driven from their realm, the Fae come to America with Viking raiders in the 10th century; when the Vikings discover the nature of their stowaways, they desert them in the new land. Left to their own devices the Fae worm their way through history, largely keeping apart from humanity, but occasionally making connections that come to have long-term effects in America’s alternative Deep South.

This year there’s also: “Winter Children”, which will be appearing in PS Publishing’s Postscripts anthology; “Sun Falls” (originally in Ticonderoga’s Dead Red Heart) will be reprinted in Prime’s Year’s Best Dark Fantasy and Horror; and “Prohibition Blues” (part of the Midnight and Moonshine suite), will make a cameo in Ticonderoga’s Damnation and Dames. In 2013, “Cuckoo” will appear in the Dark Prints Press anthology, A Killer Among Demons. In 2014, Simon Marshall-Jones’s Spectral Press will publish “Hearth and Home” as part of its chapbook series.

I’m also working a follow-up collection to Sourdough and Other Stories, called The Bitterwood Bible and Other Recountings, and a novel, Brisneyland by Night (with a sequel, Vigil).

You can get a copy of Sourdough and Other Stories here: http://www.tartaruspress.com/sourdough.htm, and a copy of The Girl with No Hands & Other Tales at www.indiebooksonline.com (or Book Depository, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other online retailers).

***

Seriously, talk about prolific. Just reading that makes me feel inadequate. Regular readers will know something of Angela and her work from previous posts here. I reviewed Sourdough & Other Stories here and I’m very proud to have one of the limited edition hardcovers. But seriously, beautiful an artefact the book may be, but absolutely essential are the stories within. Go get your paperback copy of this book now – you won’t regret it. Easily one of the best things I read that year. – Alan

.

Music in Post Marked: Piper's Reach

I'm very pleased to present here an interview with Jodi Cleghorn and Adam Byatt. Jodi and Adam are embarking on a very interesting literary experiment. Post Marked: Piper's Reach is "an ambitious organic narrative collaborative project", with Jodi and Adam "traversing an odd path between old and new forms of communication, differing modalities of storytelling and mixed media, all played out in real and suspended time". That's a fancy way of saying that they're producing a collaborative story through writing letters to each other.The project has at its heart a love of letter writing and music, with the letters posted in "real time".

Post Marked: Piper's Reach aims are to:

rediscover the love of letters (writing and receiving), and by extension, reintroduce readers to the form.


write a serial narrative in a non-traditional form.


write a serial which brings together the best of new and old technology to create a cross-platform merging


of digital and paper, instant and delayed gratification, music and prose.


work collaboratively.


utilise an organic narrative development process to as closely model a real exchange of letters and reveal between characters.


explore the different impacts real time and delayed gratification have on the process of writing, character and narrative development.


participate in a writing project which is fun and does not require massive investments of time in editing and redrafting, which slots between, and complement, exisiting writing projects and professional relationships.

The fictional setting for the project is described here:

In December 1992 Ella-Louise Wilson boarded the Greyhound Coach for Sydney leaving behind the small coastal town of Piper's Reach and her best friend and soulmate, Jude Smith. After twenty years of silence, a letter arrives at Piper's Reach reopening wounds that never really healed. When the past reaches into the future, is it worth risking a second chance?

So I had a chat with Jodi and Adam about the musical aspect of the endeavour and why certain songs were included:

Alan: What role does music have in your life and writing?

(AB) Music has always been in the background of whatever I was doing. I'm an occasional drummer and percussionist, currently learning to play guitar and bass, so I have a vested interest in music. Even if I abandoned playing an instrument, music would still form a significant part of my life. My Mum used to ask why I could remember song lyrics better than my History or Mathematics homework. I'm loving getting out to gigs again, hearing live music, playing it when I can. Otherwise, it's me, a pair of headphones and blissful enjoyment.

(JC) Music is the essential white noise of my life. I play it in the car, when I write, when I cook… I even have it on in the shower (a habit acquired in adolescence). I don't remember a time without music (apparently I could sing ABBA before I could talk). In my 20s I was a massive consumer of live music and a night club devotee.

(AB) My teenage years were characterised by heavy metal, and I'm still a lover of metal, but I love a wide variety of styles and genres of music. Some of these have crept into Jude's letters. Some are ubiquitous, others more obscure. I listened avidly to the radio as a teenager, and hearing some of those songs again transports me back to that era.

(JC) Music is my ever-evolving companion: nurturing, soothing, inspiring an outlet for the best and worst in life. In some ways I feel my life is catalogued more by music, than the dusty photo albums in my bookcase. Ella-Louise and I share this. Visceral and primal, music is a limbic connection to thoughts, emotions and memories, and is middleman between myself and the stories queued for scribing.

(AB) I identify with the emotional impact music and can swing through a whole dynamic range of emotions while listening. I often use music to help set a mood or a scene when writing. Picking and choosing the 'right' music to write to can be tricky.  And I like to drop hints as to my preferences in music here and there. It captures the subconscious levels of our intellect and our emotions.

Alan: The characters use music throughout their correspondence, either referencing song lyrics to suggest the character's emotional state or mention a song to convey a sense of their relationship. How does music add to the narrative and the characters' relationship?

(JC) Writing, reading and music were the three staples of my life as a teenager, so it made sense to use music as one of the vehicles to explore a fictional relationship between two people who were best mates as teenagers.

(AB) Jude uses music as a bridge to link him to the past (the experiences he shared with Ella-Louise as a teenager) and to the present. Jude sees the broken Ella-Louise and remembers the girl he loved. There are songs he remembers from their past. But he is unsure of what to make of it now. J: When Adam included a reference to Dire Strait's "Romeo & Juliet" he had me in tears. I'd never told Adam this was one of my teenage love anthems

(JC) The songs appearing in Jude's letters heavily influence Ella-Louise's thoughts, which in turn shape her decisions. I listened to "Don't Give Up" on speed rotation for an entire cooking session, exploring how it made Ella-Louise feel and it became the soundtrack to her meltdown, but also dominated her climb out of it. The darkness and the redemption in the lyrics appealed to Ella-Louise, as much as they appealed to me.

(AB) Jude's preference for songs from the past is perhaps an indication of his inability to grasp the present situation with Ella-Louise. Even though they have different musical tastes, the music they share amplifies their emotional connection. Some of the songs I've used in Jude's letters reflect of how I understand Jude as a character but also how Jude wants to engage with Ella-Louise.

(JC)  Ella-Louise uses music as a mirror to her past, and later the changing dynamic of her relationship with Jude. The lyrics she shares are tiny glimpses inside her, but for every answer they illuminate, twice as many questions are spawned. For example, in her second letter she pulls lyrics from Birds of Tokyo's "Wild at Heart."  She writes:

As I walk to the water to cleanse off the blood on my hands

The weight of this crime leaves a stain in the sand

I hope new tides come to wash me clean for good

It is a forerunner to what is an epic meltdown for her and I've often wondered just what Jude makes of it all… these strange, ephemeral disclosures from the girl-woman he loved twenty years ago.

(AB) Some of my favourite songs from adolescence appear in the playlist, having knowingly incorporated them into Jude's letters. Others, for example, U2's Ultraviolet (Light My Way), I was listening to while writing and it gave me an idea that fed into the narrative. I'm a bit of a melancholic, which certainly comes through in my song choices.

I tend to think of music in this project as a soundtrack, much like a movie. It conveys another emotional dimension from the words the characters use. If the reader is familiar with the song referenced, I hope it's played in their heads while they read it.

(JC) If not we drop a youtube clip at the end of the digital transcript, adding another layer and dimension to the letters.

Alan: Two songs appear in the first letter, Placebo's "Pure Morning" and The Waterboys' "Whole of the Moon". Was it an intended inclusion and what was the impact of those two songs on the rest of the project?

(JC) When I sat to write the first letter I had my iPod on random and "Pure Morning" came on and it seemed fitting, the beauty and rawness of Placebo's lyrics and the repetition of the line: "A friend in need's a friend indeed". Without planning it, I channelled the underpinning theme of Jude and Ella-Louise's letters from the start.

(AB) I tapped into Ella-Louise's love of music and the reference to Placebo, and found Jude had a different taste in music, but it captured his understanding of their past and their experiences. People speak of moments in their lives defined or characterised by a particular song; a shared, almost spiritual, experience.

(JC) The inclusion of The Whole of the Moon was deliberate. It came on the iPod while I was cooking dinner the day before I sat down to write the first letter. It seemed to me the perfect anthem for two young people who would eventually go their own ways without each other. And it set up an interesting contrast of personalities, of optimism and pessimism, light and darkness.

(AB) The Whole of the Moon is a song I remember from my youth and I reconnected with it when Ella-Louise mentioned it. It was from that point I saw music as another aspect to the characters' relationship.

(JC) Those two songs set up the precedence of music being pivotal to the characters understanding of themselves and each other, adding an extra dimension not just to the letters but to the online delivery of the project.

***

I'm looking forward to following this collaboration. Find out more about it all here:

BLOG LINK

http://postmarkedpipersreach.wordpress.com

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

http://postmarkedpipersreach.wordpress.com/the-authors/

.

Music in Post Marked: Piper’s Reach

I’m very pleased to present here an interview with Jodi Cleghorn and Adam Byatt. Jodi and Adam are embarking on a very interesting literary experiment. Post Marked: Piper’s Reach is “an ambitious organic narrative collaborative project”, with Jodi and Adam “traversing an odd path between old and new forms of communication, differing modalities of storytelling and mixed media, all played out in real and suspended time”. That’s a fancy way of saying that they’re producing a collaborative story through writing letters to each other.The project has at its heart a love of letter writing and music, with the letters posted in “real time”.

Post Marked: Piper’s Reach aims are to:

rediscover the love of letters (writing and receiving), and by extension, reintroduce readers to the form.


write a serial narrative in a non-traditional form.


write a serial which brings together the best of new and old technology to create a cross-platform merging


of digital and paper, instant and delayed gratification, music and prose.


work collaboratively.


utilise an organic narrative development process to as closely model a real exchange of letters and reveal between characters.


explore the different impacts real time and delayed gratification have on the process of writing, character and narrative development.


participate in a writing project which is fun and does not require massive investments of time in editing and redrafting, which slots between, and complement, exisiting writing projects and professional relationships.

The fictional setting for the project is described here:

In December 1992 Ella-Louise Wilson boarded the Greyhound Coach for Sydney leaving behind the small coastal town of Piper’s Reach and her best friend and soulmate, Jude Smith. After twenty years of silence, a letter arrives at Piper’s Reach reopening wounds that never really healed. When the past reaches into the future, is it worth risking a second chance?

So I had a chat with Jodi and Adam about the musical aspect of the endeavour and why certain songs were included:

Alan: What role does music have in your life and writing?

(AB) Music has always been in the background of whatever I was doing. I’m an occasional drummer and percussionist, currently learning to play guitar and bass, so I have a vested interest in music. Even if I abandoned playing an instrument, music would still form a significant part of my life. My Mum used to ask why I could remember song lyrics better than my History or Mathematics homework. I’m loving getting out to gigs again, hearing live music, playing it when I can. Otherwise, it’s me, a pair of headphones and blissful enjoyment.

(JC) Music is the essential white noise of my life. I play it in the car, when I write, when I cook… I even have it on in the shower (a habit acquired in adolescence). I don’t remember a time without music (apparently I could sing ABBA before I could talk). In my 20s I was a massive consumer of live music and a night club devotee.

(AB) My teenage years were characterised by heavy metal, and I’m still a lover of metal, but I love a wide variety of styles and genres of music. Some of these have crept into Jude’s letters. Some are ubiquitous, others more obscure. I listened avidly to the radio as a teenager, and hearing some of those songs again transports me back to that era.

(JC) Music is my ever-evolving companion: nurturing, soothing, inspiring an outlet for the best and worst in life. In some ways I feel my life is catalogued more by music, than the dusty photo albums in my bookcase. Ella-Louise and I share this. Visceral and primal, music is a limbic connection to thoughts, emotions and memories, and is middleman between myself and the stories queued for scribing.

(AB) I identify with the emotional impact music and can swing through a whole dynamic range of emotions while listening. I often use music to help set a mood or a scene when writing. Picking and choosing the ‘right’ music to write to can be tricky.  And I like to drop hints as to my preferences in music here and there. It captures the subconscious levels of our intellect and our emotions.

Alan: The characters use music throughout their correspondence, either referencing song lyrics to suggest the character’s emotional state or mention a song to convey a sense of their relationship. How does music add to the narrative and the characters’ relationship?

(JC) Writing, reading and music were the three staples of my life as a teenager, so it made sense to use music as one of the vehicles to explore a fictional relationship between two people who were best mates as teenagers.

(AB) Jude uses music as a bridge to link him to the past (the experiences he shared with Ella-Louise as a teenager) and to the present. Jude sees the broken Ella-Louise and remembers the girl he loved. There are songs he remembers from their past. But he is unsure of what to make of it now. J: When Adam included a reference to Dire Strait’s “Romeo & Juliet” he had me in tears. I’d never told Adam this was one of my teenage love anthems

(JC) The songs appearing in Jude’s letters heavily influence Ella-Louise’s thoughts, which in turn shape her decisions. I listened to “Don’t Give Up” on speed rotation for an entire cooking session, exploring how it made Ella-Louise feel and it became the soundtrack to her meltdown, but also dominated her climb out of it. The darkness and the redemption in the lyrics appealed to Ella-Louise, as much as they appealed to me.

(AB) Jude’s preference for songs from the past is perhaps an indication of his inability to grasp the present situation with Ella-Louise. Even though they have different musical tastes, the music they share amplifies their emotional connection. Some of the songs I’ve used in Jude’s letters reflect of how I understand Jude as a character but also how Jude wants to engage with Ella-Louise.

(JC)  Ella-Louise uses music as a mirror to her past, and later the changing dynamic of her relationship with Jude. The lyrics she shares are tiny glimpses inside her, but for every answer they illuminate, twice as many questions are spawned. For example, in her second letter she pulls lyrics from Birds of Tokyo’s “Wild at Heart.”  She writes:

As I walk to the water to cleanse off the blood on my hands

The weight of this crime leaves a stain in the sand

I hope new tides come to wash me clean for good

It is a forerunner to what is an epic meltdown for her and I’ve often wondered just what Jude makes of it all… these strange, ephemeral disclosures from the girl-woman he loved twenty years ago.

(AB) Some of my favourite songs from adolescence appear in the playlist, having knowingly incorporated them into Jude’s letters. Others, for example, U2’s Ultraviolet (Light My Way), I was listening to while writing and it gave me an idea that fed into the narrative. I’m a bit of a melancholic, which certainly comes through in my song choices.

I tend to think of music in this project as a soundtrack, much like a movie. It conveys another emotional dimension from the words the characters use. If the reader is familiar with the song referenced, I hope it’s played in their heads while they read it.

(JC) If not we drop a youtube clip at the end of the digital transcript, adding another layer and dimension to the letters.

Alan: Two songs appear in the first letter, Placebo’s “Pure Morning” and The Waterboys’ “Whole of the Moon”. Was it an intended inclusion and what was the impact of those two songs on the rest of the project?

(JC) When I sat to write the first letter I had my iPod on random and “Pure Morning” came on and it seemed fitting, the beauty and rawness of Placebo’s lyrics and the repetition of the line: “A friend in need’s a friend indeed”. Without planning it, I channelled the underpinning theme of Jude and Ella-Louise’s letters from the start.

(AB) I tapped into Ella-Louise’s love of music and the reference to Placebo, and found Jude had a different taste in music, but it captured his understanding of their past and their experiences. People speak of moments in their lives defined or characterised by a particular song; a shared, almost spiritual, experience.

(JC) The inclusion of The Whole of the Moon was deliberate. It came on the iPod while I was cooking dinner the day before I sat down to write the first letter. It seemed to me the perfect anthem for two young people who would eventually go their own ways without each other. And it set up an interesting contrast of personalities, of optimism and pessimism, light and darkness.

(AB) The Whole of the Moon is a song I remember from my youth and I reconnected with it when Ella-Louise mentioned it. It was from that point I saw music as another aspect to the characters’ relationship.

(JC) Those two songs set up the precedence of music being pivotal to the characters understanding of themselves and each other, adding an extra dimension not just to the letters but to the online delivery of the project.

***

I’m looking forward to following this collaboration. Find out more about it all here:

BLOG LINK

http://postmarkedpipersreach.wordpress.com

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

http://postmarkedpipersreach.wordpress.com/the-authors/

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Damnation and Dames launching at Swancon this Friday

Just a quick reminder to anyone in the Perth area that Damnation and Dames will be launching at Swancon this Friday. Sadly, I won't be attending Swancon this year, but if you're in the Perth area you should really give it a go.

Damnation and Dames is a collection of 'paranormal noir' stories from the likes of Lisa L Hannett and Angela Slatter, Rob Hood, Pete Kempshall and many more, including myself, in my first ever fiction collaboration. My story is called Burning, Always Burning and was co-written with the hugely talented Felicity Dowker. The anthology is edited by Liz Grzyb and Amanda Pillar, who've got stellar records at this kind of thing, and published by Ticonderoga Publications, so you know it'll be well worth a look.

Usually you'd have to have forked out for convention tickets to attend, but this year – for the Friday only – a gold coin donation is enough to get you in the door. The launch kicks off at 5.30pm at the Pan Pacific Hotel on Adelaide Terrace in Perth city. I'm not completely sure what the format is, but I imagine there'll be signings and stuff.

So if you're at a loose end on Friday, pop along – you won't be disappointed. Say hello to everyone there from me.

(This post stolen almost word for word from Pete Kempshall – thanks mate.)

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Damnation and Dames launching at Swancon this Friday

Just a quick reminder to anyone in the Perth area that Damnation and Dames will be launching at Swancon this Friday. Sadly, I won’t be attending Swancon this year, but if you’re in the Perth area you should really give it a go.

Damnation and Dames is a collection of ‘paranormal noir’ stories from the likes of Lisa L Hannett and Angela Slatter, Rob Hood, Pete Kempshall and many more, including myself, in my first ever fiction collaboration. My story is called Burning, Always Burning and was co-written with the hugely talented Felicity Dowker. The anthology is edited by Liz Grzyb and Amanda Pillar, who’ve got stellar records at this kind of thing, and published by Ticonderoga Publications, so you know it’ll be well worth a look.

Usually you’d have to have forked out for convention tickets to attend, but this year – for the Friday only – a gold coin donation is enough to get you in the door. The launch kicks off at 5.30pm at the Pan Pacific Hotel on Adelaide Terrace in Perth city. I’m not completely sure what the format is, but I imagine there’ll be signings and stuff.

So if you’re at a loose end on Friday, pop along – you won’t be disappointed. Say hello to everyone there from me.

(This post stolen almost word for word from Pete Kempshall – thanks mate.)

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Tuesday Toot – Kate Forsyth

Tuesday Toot is a semi-regular feature here at The Word. An invite-only series of short posts where writers, editors, booksellers and other creatives have been asked to share their stuff and toot their own horn. It's hard to be seen in the digital morass and hopefully this occasional segment will help some of the quality stuff out there get noticed. It should all be things that readers of The Word will find edifying.

Today, it's Kate Forsyth.

Who is Kate?

Kate Forsyth is the bestselling and award-winning author of 25 books for children and adults, translated into 10 languages.

Since The Witches of Eileanan was named a Best First Novel by Locus Magazine, Kate has won or been nominated for many awards, including a CYBIL Award in the US. She's also the only author to win five Aurealis awards in a single year, for her Chain of Charms series which tells of the adventures of two Romany children in the time of the English Civil War. Book 5: The Lightning Bolt was also a CBCA Notable Book.

Her latest book for adults, Bitter Greens, interweaves a retelling of the Rapunzel fairytale with the scandalous life story of one of its first tellers, the 17th century French writer Charlotte-Rose de la Force.

Her latest book for children is The Starkin's Curse, a tale of high adventure, wild magic and true love, set in the same world as her bestselling novels The Starthorn Tree and The Wildkin's Curse.

Kate is a direct descendant of Charlotte Waring, the author of the first book for children ever published in Australia, A Mother's Offering to her Children. She is also studying a doctorate in fairytale retellings at UTS. You can read more about her at www.kateforsyth.com.au

What are you tooting about?

Bitter Greens

Charlotte-Rose de la Force has been banished from the court of Versailles by the Sun King, Louis XIV, after a series of scandalous love affairs. She is comforted by an old nun, Sœur Seraphina, who tells her the tale of a young girl who, a hundred years earlier, is sold by her parents for a handful of bitter greens …

After Margherita's father steals a handful of parsley, wintercress and rapunzel from the walled garden of the courtesan, Selena Leonelli, he is threatened with having both hands cut off … unless he and his wife give away their little girl.

Selena is the famous red-haired muse of the artist Tiziano, first painted by him in 1513 and still inspiring him at the time of his death, sixty-one years later. Called La Strega Bella, Selena is at the centre of Renaissance life in Venice, a world of beauty and danger, seduction and betrayal, love and superstition.

Locked away in a tower, growing to womanhood, Margherita sings in the hope someone will hear her. One day, a young man does …

Three women, three lives, three stories, braided together to create a compelling story of desire, obsession, black magic, and the redemptive power of love.

BITTER GREENS will be published APRIL 2012.

"History and fairytale are richly entwined in this spellbinding story. Compulsively unputdownable!" – Juliet Marillier, author of 'Daughter of the Forest'.

"A must read for lovers of historical fiction. Philippa Gregory watch out!" – Pamela Freeman, winner of the 2006 NSW History Prize.

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Tuesday Toot – Kate Forsyth

Tuesday Toot is a semi-regular feature here at The Word. An invite-only series of short posts where writers, editors, booksellers and other creatives have been asked to share their stuff and toot their own horn. It’s hard to be seen in the digital morass and hopefully this occasional segment will help some of the quality stuff out there get noticed. It should all be things that readers of The Word will find edifying.

Today, it’s Kate Forsyth.

Who is Kate?

Kate Forsyth is the bestselling and award-winning author of 25 books for children and adults, translated into 10 languages.

Since The Witches of Eileanan was named a Best First Novel by Locus Magazine, Kate has won or been nominated for many awards, including a CYBIL Award in the US. She’s also the only author to win five Aurealis awards in a single year, for her Chain of Charms series which tells of the adventures of two Romany children in the time of the English Civil War. Book 5: The Lightning Bolt was also a CBCA Notable Book.

Her latest book for adults, Bitter Greens, interweaves a retelling of the Rapunzel fairytale with the scandalous life story of one of its first tellers, the 17th century French writer Charlotte-Rose de la Force.

Her latest book for children is The Starkin’s Curse, a tale of high adventure, wild magic and true love, set in the same world as her bestselling novels The Starthorn Tree and The Wildkin’s Curse.

Kate is a direct descendant of Charlotte Waring, the author of the first book for children ever published in Australia, A Mother’s Offering to her Children. She is also studying a doctorate in fairytale retellings at UTS. You can read more about her at www.kateforsyth.com.au

What are you tooting about?

Bitter Greens

Charlotte-Rose de la Force has been banished from the court of Versailles by the Sun King, Louis XIV, after a series of scandalous love affairs. She is comforted by an old nun, Sœur Seraphina, who tells her the tale of a young girl who, a hundred years earlier, is sold by her parents for a handful of bitter greens …

After Margherita’s father steals a handful of parsley, wintercress and rapunzel from the walled garden of the courtesan, Selena Leonelli, he is threatened with having both hands cut off … unless he and his wife give away their little girl.

Selena is the famous red-haired muse of the artist Tiziano, first painted by him in 1513 and still inspiring him at the time of his death, sixty-one years later. Called La Strega Bella, Selena is at the centre of Renaissance life in Venice, a world of beauty and danger, seduction and betrayal, love and superstition.

Locked away in a tower, growing to womanhood, Margherita sings in the hope someone will hear her. One day, a young man does …

Three women, three lives, three stories, braided together to create a compelling story of desire, obsession, black magic, and the redemptive power of love.

BITTER GREENS will be published APRIL 2012.

“History and fairytale are richly entwined in this spellbinding story. Compulsively unputdownable!” – Juliet Marillier, author of ‘Daughter of the Forest’.

“A must read for lovers of historical fiction. Philippa Gregory watch out!” – Pamela Freeman, winner of the 2006 NSW History Prize.

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