RSS |

Posts Tagged ‘Narrative’

Making a Move: 1, 2, 3, Go

Thursday, June 10th, 2010

Too many years ago, I was at a reading by Michael Marshall Smith, and he said it takes at least three ideas to sustain a novel-length narrative. It made sense when I heard that, and I’ve yet to see it disproved. What that meant for Make a Move, was that there was never a point where I thought ”that’s it – I have the idea for a novel”. It just doesn’t work that way for me. There was, however, a point where a number of other ideas bumped into each other and became more than the sum of their parts. That too didn’t happen instantly – it took a month or two to find a way to fit the separate ideas together into something that felt like it would work – but it was a shorter process than the collection of ideas/images/questions that I eventually fused into the book.

I Know Kung Fu

I was about five films into a Jet Li jag when I saw Kiss of the Dragon – a Luc Besson-produced film featuring a lot of people getting kicked in the head on and around famous Parisian landmarks. It was cool, if forgettable, but there was something in it that stuck with me. When Li’s Chinese intelligence operative arrives in Paris, he stays with a sleeper agent – an old man who’s been living in the city for most of his adult life, running a shop that makes and sells prawn crackers to local Chinese restaurants, whose real purpose is to provide a place to stay for agents passing through on Chinese government business. Spoiler Alert! He gets killed, and Jet Li takes his body to the steps of the Sacre Coeur and lights some incense, before running off to kick more people in the head. Nice scene, but it left me wondering who this guy was? What was his story? How many agents has he helped? I thought about a book based on the life of a sleeper agent, his excitement derived from the various operatives that land on his doorstep looking for a meal and a clean bed, but it felt flat. Without his own story, the episodic nature of the other operatives’ adventures would lack a narrative core upon which to hang, and it’d be a mess. I filed the idea away.

Sex Tourists

The first time I went to Paris, I didn’t know about Pigalle, and I ended up walking down the Boulevard de Clichy by accident. Honest. My then-girlfriend (now wife) and I had visited Montmarte, and decided to walk back down the hill toward the centre of the city instead of descending the 200-odd steps into the Abbesses metro station. I figured we’d taken one turn too far when I saw the first adult video stores, but we kept on, and it wasn’t long before we were invited, by a nice lady and her three big men-friends, if we wanted to go and see a live sex show. It probably helped that it was the middle of the day, but the situation just didn’t seem threatening, even when we politely declined the offer and headed on. It’s a strange place: filthy and sordid in all of the oldest ways, but friendly, and open, and very Parisian. I filed the idea away.

Skip To The End…

Spaced was an awesome TV show – original, funny, and intermittently moving. I bought both series on DVD on a bit of a nostalgia trip and watched the whole lot practically back-to-back. When I was done, I wanted more (they only made 14 half-hour episodes) and was feeling inspired, so toyed with the idea of trying to write a sitcom. Thinking through some ideas, though, I realised that Spaced had left me a bit flat – as the format hadn’t allowed me to get to know the characters to any great depth. They were great people, but compared to the depth of character you can mine in a novel, I just didn’t know that much about them.

That was the first time I thought of writing a book in a sit-com format, or rather, writing a sit-com in a book. I played with a number of ideas, one of which was that the setting should be aspirational in some way, which lead me to Paris as a location. That triggered a memory of Kiss of the Dragon, and how I’d wanted to explore the sleeper’s story; this idea of writing a sit-com could solve the problem of the narrative for him being too episodic, as I’d be purposefully embracing the episodic nature of the format. In the film, the sleeper’s shop is in a red-light district, but it was a nasty, cruel place with no room for humour; I ditched that, but other settings I thought about felt too cosy and sterile to produce any real drama. I think the idea of disguising the safe house as an adult cinema started as a joke, but one that had some truth to it. Those memories of Pigalle and it’s cartoony brand of naughtiness were still fresh, and as I dropped my scenario into that place – trying it out – a number of background characters arrived, and they brought friends, and scenarios, and conflicts, and humour, and cake.

Make a Move had found its home.

 

Tags: , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Inspiration, Writing | No Comments »

Adverbs are for Children

Monday, February 22nd, 2010

It’s a curious coincidence that somebody sent me this link today, as I’ve been planning a post on writing tips for a while now. The problem is, I’m not a big fan of writing tips, as writing is such a personal endeavour, I think it’s incredibly pompous to think that what works for you has value for others. Also, people love to give advice whether there’s any worth to their ideas or not; the joy, for them, is in the giving.

So, this post isn’t writing advice; it’s just some changes I made to my writing and life styles that got me through Make a Move, and that are on my mind as I plan book two. Maybe there’s something in here that will inspire you to make your own changes.

The List

  • Don’t plan in too much detail. If you already know every last plot detail of a book, there’s nothing left for you, as the author, to discover. If the writing of a book isn’t filled with delights and surprises, it’s just work, and most day jobs pay better.
  • Make it as easy as possible to write. For me, this meant buying a new battery for my laptop and taking it with me everywhere. A lot of people create a sanctuary of creativity in which to work – a haven of peace and inspiration. If you need that to write, what are you doing when you’re not in it?
  • Stop watching tv. Okay – this was one bit of advice I did take on board from Stephen King (in his book, On Writing), but I added my own twist. I like tv – I think Make a Move would make a great tv show, so I’m not going to dismiss it, either as an art form or a source of inspiration. What I did instead was to break my watching habits so I watch a show in my own time, rather than when it’s on. I have Sky+ for that, but there are many ways to “time-shift” your viewing (legally…): HD/DVD recorders, catch-up tv services, hell – even a VCR. The trick is to get out of that mentality that tells you “it’s 9pm, time for show X”; that hard stop is like an incoming truck ready to crush your productivity. And try to limit yourself to having one or two shows on the go at a time unless you’re working to a 30-hour day.
  • Create demand. The first book you write has nobody waiting on it, so the only pressure to complete it comes from within. If you can, deliver it to your first readers in stages, so that their expectation for subsequent parts is driving you. Make a Move is written in six episodes, so it’s perfect for this, but any book can be broken up during the writing. Those smaller project goals make it easier to keep going too.
  • Write something new. Okay – this is a contentious one, but it applies to me, and that’s what this list is about. If you’re writing your own take on a story that’s already in print, all you’re doing is walking in someone else’s footprints, and chances are, their story was pretty good (or why else did you read it) so you’re setting the bar even higher than it needs to be. My biggest issue with this approach is that I feel like I’m copying/rehashing/riding coat-tails (choose a term based on which is least offensive to you), and I can’t think of anything more likely to sap energy and creativity. If you think you’re in familiar territory, make it REALLY different. Play with textures of writing, with readers’ expectations. Break the rules. And if you’re convinced that you can’t get away from that previous work, ask yourself if there’s even a need for your book. Maybe you should move onto the next idea instead.

Like I said, this isn’t advice; it’s just a summary of the thought processes that got me where I needed to be, but like I said above, people love to give advice, so I’m going to give in to temptation and share one cast-iron writing tip:

Adverbs are for children.

Tags: , , , , , ,
Posted in Opinion, Writing | No Comments »

Shorter Stories

Wednesday, December 16th, 2009

Stories have to be the length they have to be. Some ideas are so pure, they suit the short story form perfectly – just a high concept, in-and-out narrative that is stronger for taking up less space. Other ideas have reach, grandeur, longevity, and when coupled with a couple more like-minded concepts, form the backbone of a novel-length tale. You can always tell when a writer has tried to stretch a short story into a novel, or has an idea crammed into a short that really needs more room to breathe and evolve. Ideas are born with a genetic word count, and have an inherent resistance to modification.

For the sake of discussion, let’s ignore novellas. They’re a marketing ploy to sell long short stories and short novels.

When I was outlining Make a Move, the ideas I felt drawn to write about weren’t “novel” ideas. They didn’t have the substance to carry a full-length book. Thing is, they weren’t “short-story” ideas either, as they relied on character background to work. I’d been messing with the idea of writing a book formatted as a sit-com (a British sit-com with 6 episodes, rather than the 22-25-episode US variety) for a while, but couldn’t see the point without a good story to justify it, and it was just sat in my back head waiting for a reason to use it. I think I’d just finished rewatching Spaced on DVD and was craving more. So there I was, with a collection of serial, but short, story ideas and an idea for a multi-part framework…

I think most people see the decision to write Make a Move in 6 parts as a gimmick, and I admit it was for a while. I referred to it as a lit-com, but that kind of marketing speak makes me feel dirty, and not in a good way, so I stopped. Once I started to write, though, I realised I’d hit on something that was going to inspire me in new and scary ways. I knew it was working for me when, despite not aiming at a word count, all of the episodes were dropping at 17-18,000 words. Episode 6 ran to 20,000 in the first draft, but I had to rewrite it extensively to make it not suck; the unsucky version is 18,000 words. That was the story (stories) dictating what length it wanted to be.

There was a side-effect to this structure that I became aware of early on, and I exploited it in every way. All of the writing books/websites tell you that characters have to have a reason to exist. They have to advance the plot, and must have detailed, convincing motivations in order to come alive. Fair enough. But what about all of those characters that are just cool, or fun, or scary, or sexy? Should they not exist just because they have no lofty goals? I have lots of characters like that; they turn up, do their thing, and then leave. Many writers would condemn that as frivolous, but my readers don’t, as they know that, due to the episodic nature of the book, there’s more coming, and my core characters will guide them along the way. I read somewhere (I forget where) that in writing a book, a writer establishes a contract with the reader, and they have to satisfy the terms of that contract or the reader will feel cheated. Make a Move comes with a contract too, but it’s not a pro forma deal; I changed the terms. I think my readers know that by the end of page one.

So the point of this post? A call to those writers wrestling with ideas that just won’t fit into the current accepted templates. The concept of the novel is in flux right now – some might say it’s in jeopardy – and it’s the perfect time to experiment. If eBooks get a foothold (a real foothold, not the toe poke the evangelists are currently creaming over) all manufacturing limitations will be removed, and there’ll be a market, and a platform, for stories of all length. I love short books – 100-150 pages – but they don’t cost half as much to print and bind as a 300-page novel, so they’re bad value, and I need to really like an idea before I’ll buy. Maybe it’s time for those diminutive ideas and marginalised characters to emerge. Make a Move and the (cringe) lit-com is just one idea (actually, it’s 15 ideas, but let’s not talk about that headache in this context) and it came to me before the Kindle was first hinted at; now, all boundaries are flexible, and all bets are off.

Tags: , , , , , ,
Posted in Writing | No Comments »