On Writing
Some random thoughts and ideas
on the craft of writing
Ideas and Inspirations
One of the questions that writers get asked more often than is entirely comfortable is: “Where do you get your ideas from?”
. . . and there are various answers to that: “I steal them from other people”; “Inspired by current events”; “They come to me in dreams”; “I borrowed the bones of a true story” or (best of all) “I haven’t got a clue”.
All of these answers are, in fact, accurate.
If I had to say where my own ideas came from, I’d have to say I often get ideas for scenes from listening to music – imagining, if you like, what sort of visuals would go with this or that soundtrack. One thing that I never do is to sit in front of a blank screen without an idea of the story I’m going to tell, because the process of making stuff up doesn’t happen (for me, at least) at a desk. It happens when I’m out and about, doing mundane stuff like driving, shopping, working, mending things in the garage – and mostly it happens when I’m walking our dog.
And that’s why most of the pictures on this page are about dog-walking in forests. My most creative time is when we are strolling along (well, I’m strolling, she’s usually running ahead or delving into the bushes, entranced by some exciting smells).
I should add that I make it a rule to never write them down, because (as the Beatles famously said) if you can’t remember your ideas, then they weren’t good enough anyway.
How to write
“It is easy,” said Hemingway, “to write. Just sit in front of your typewriter and bleed.”
As usual, Papa veered towards the over-dramatic.
I’ve talked about inspiration already; this is about the act of writing. The only way, in my opinion, to write is to actually write. The act itself. This is what I do:
Jot down the salient points for the scene I’ve got in mind. Above that, write one sentence. Consider it, trim it, turn round the other way, turn it back. Then put another sentence beside it. And a third sentence, and maybe a fourth. Delete the first sentence and re-write it. Continue until there is a whole paragraph on the page (or screen). Don’t stop now. Add a second paragraph, then a third, following the same process. Throw away the first paragraph and rewrite it. Edit the other paragraphs savagely.
Write until the quality starts to diminish, then stop.
I sometimes feel that this must be akin to what a sculptor in clay does. As the sculpture progresses, what doesn’t work becomes evident and is removed. It’s an iterative process.
Try – fail – try again. Keep trying.
Influences
When I started to do this section, I ended up with a long catalogue of authors that might as well have been the reading list for a degree in English literature. Nobody wants to look at that, I thought, so instead:
John Steinbeck – I love Steinbeck, for several reasons. I love him for the humanity of his writing, his understanding and empathy for people. The Grapes of Wrath, or The Moon is Down, for example. And that same lyrical humanity is there in Cannery Row or Tortilla Flat, but there it is laced with his abounding humour. Unlike his poe-faced contemporary Hemingway, he simply tells us about people, without beating the drum for an (unhealthy) obsession about masculinity or competence or grace under pressure.
I find myself liking authors for particular aspects of their writing. So, the observers of people are: Steinbeck and Antoine de St Exupery, Stefan Zweig and Somerset Maugham and Austen and Shirley Hazzard. Their cousins are the social commentators like Orwell, Bennet, Dickens, EM Forster and Tom Wolfe.
Then there are the plot masters, the writers who keep the pages turning with a need to see what happens next: Chandler, Sarah Waters, Du Maurier, Conan Doyle, Ira Levin.
And then there are the exciting adventure stories that I read as a youngster, Buchan, Fleming, C S Forrester, Wren, Wells and – a real favourite – George MacDonald Fraser, who combines adventure with history and humour.
All these writers (and the many others who I can’t squeeze in) have several things in common; they write a good clear sentence, they wear their erudition lightly, they deliver on their promises and – whatever else they try to do – they remember to entertain.
Humour
Should serious books have funny elements in them?
A reasonable question. And the answer is a resounding Yes.
Why? Because novels should reflect the reality of the world as we experience it. Novels are not, of course, reality because real life is never so neat, it doesn’t have endings that tie up all the loose elements of the story, real events don’t have satisfactory (or even logical) outcomes. But, as far as possible, stories should chime with our lived experience.
And reality is often very funny. And certainly very often absurd.
Strangely – and you’ll know this yourself – the more serious and solemn the situation, the funnier the little absurdities are.
For example, my own father’s funeral, a sombre affair. As a token of respect my brother and I decided that we’d carry his coffin into the church ourselves. Both being tall, we recruited two tall friends to help. In the car park outside the church, we hoisted the coffin up, the solemn music in the church began, the congregation fell quiet, and we set off.
All was going well (although that I would like to point out, to anyone considering doing something similar, that coffins are damned heavy and they rest painfully on that little bone on the very top of your shoulder) until we approached the church door. It was a modern church, and the door that was relatively low, no more than eight foot or so. The undertakers had piled the flowers and wreaths tastefully on top of the coffin, making everything still higher. It was apparent that we were not going to get it under the head of the door.
“Can you,” hissed the Head Undertaker urgently, “can you, bend at your knees?”
Collectively, we tried to do so. We gained about three inches.
“Can you . . . bend at bit more, perhaps?” he whispered.
I had visions of us arriving in the nave like a group those Cossack dancers, weaving around the floor with their arms folded and their backsides almost touching the ground. From the other side of the coffin, I distinctly heard one of our friends say, through gritted teeth: “If I bend much f—ing more, I’ll be kneeling down.”
The absurdities of a serious occasion.
Real life is inherently, laughably absurd. It is often very funny at the least expected moments. So novels should reflect that, as they should ideally reflect every aspects of our lives, the exciting, the tragic, the dramatic, the heart-breaking, the ugly and the beautiful.
The best novels encompass all human experience, including the funny bits.
"All your books are different"
Someone asked me the other day about the ideas behind the novels because, she said: “You have a very distinctive voice, which I can always recognise, but your books are all quite different.”
Well, I would certainly hope so.
Firstly, because I have no intention of writing the same book, or a version thereof, over and over again. I would bore my readers. I would bore myself. Why would anyone want to do that? All the novels are ones that I would want to read – otherwise, why bother?
And, secondly, I think there is an unspoken bargain between a writer and a reader. And the deal is this (and not all writers conform to this, I know, but that’s for them and their readers): if you are prepared to give me your time to read something that I have written then I will give you something as original as I can make it. This will not be a copy or a re-run of another novel; this will be new, this will be unique.
But, and here’s the ‘but’, there are re-occurring themes in all the books.
One theme is Rescue. Rescue is one of those actions that is (almost) unequivocally a good thing, a noble and worthwhile action. To rescue another human being from peril, be it emotional, financial, psychological or physical is always the right thing to do.
Consider this little tale – deep down probably a love story, although you might not see it that way – something I heard recounted on the radio, probably while driving. I believe that it’s true, but I can’t find the original version. Anyway . . .
Two cousins, young lads from (let’s say) the Penhale family on the coast of Cornwall, went out in a small sailing boat one day. They were competent enough for local, coastal sailing. I think this was sometime in the late 19th century.
A storm blew up, a serious blow, and the boys and their boat were swept out to sea. Realising that the boys were missing, and that they were almost certainly in trouble, one of the fathers went to the lifeboat station for help only to be told that the storm was too wild, and the crew were not willing to risk going out in such weather.
“In that case,” said the father, “we’ll take the lifeboat ourselves.”
And he rounded up every able-bodied Penhale man in the village, and set to sea.
Meanwhile, the boys were desperate. The light was fading and the waves were breaking over the boat and they were bailing water for dear life. The storm was showing no sign of abating and they must have known they were likely to capsize and drown. Suddenly, the highest wave yet came rolling towards them and then, as it broke, they found themselves looking up at the face of their uncle, standing on the prow of the lifeboat.
“We didn’t think anyone would come,” said one of the boys, as they were pulled aboard the lifeboat.
“How,” replied the uncle (and this is why I think it’s actually a love story), “could we not have come?”
Some say that, had the lifeboat been lost that night, the name Penhale would have become extinct in that part of the Cornish coast.
The other theme, I think, is Redemption. In a sense, all novels should be, in one way or another, about redemption. What I mean is that, except in series-books where the main protagonists keep returning and remain static in their behaviour (because we, the readers, want them to) then there should be some internal change, generally for the better.
The most interesting and satisfying thing to observe in people is change, or growth. It might be that they become braver (like the lion in The Wizard of Oz) or nobler (like cynical Han Solo returning to rescue Luke at the end of Star Wars) or less avaricious (like Scrooge in A Christmas Carol) or to understand the value of other human beings (like Nazerman does, ultimately too late, in The Pawnbroker).
So the story, which is the journey that the characters go on, must in some way be a journey of redemption.
Skills and competence
An odd little section to finish with here, a short note on story building. I find myself often asking about the competence of characters – by which I mean their ability to manage the situations they find themselves in. If you ask a plumber to do some plumbing, or a dentist to carry out a filling, or a mechanic to service a car, likelihood is that they will do it perfectly well – but that’s not a very interesting story. Much more interesting (to my mind) is to present the dentist with a plumbing problem, or to ask him to do something outside his (or her) comfort zone. And one of my pet hates, when reading, is to find a character encountering something difficult, only for them to suddenly reveal some skill which has never been mentioned before, to miraculously resolve everything. It’s a bit like the “with one bound he was free” trope so beloved of Saturday morning serials.
Let me give you an example: let’s say that a mother and young daughter are walking on the top of a cliff. Despite the mother’s injunction to stay away from the edge, the child goes too close (of course she does, you were waiting for that, right?) and, because of the recent rain, the ground crumbles and the girl falls, landing on a precarious ledge ten or twelve feet (certainly out of reach) below the clifftop. Now, if we make the mother an expert climber and rock-scrambler, she will immediately take the matter in hand, shinning down to the child and bringing her to safety.
Not much of a story, huh?
So let’s make it more engaging. Let’s make the mother a web-designer and, to add to the spice of the thing, let’s say she’s afraid of heights. But she has no choice. The ledge is unstable, help is too far away, she must act. What is she going to do?
And now we have a story.
You will have your own solution, but this is mine. She looks around for help (another walker?) but there’s nobody in sight. Desperate, she takes off her jacket, her sweater, her trousers (modesty is cast aside, this is life and death) and knots them tightly together to form a make-shift sling. She lies down full length (and you can bet that the ground is cold, hard and wet, but she barely notices) and lowers the knotted garments down, all the while talking encouragingly to the child (a calmness she does not actually feel, but this is a mother and she is able to do anything) and gets her to slip the loop under her arms. Then she hauls upward. The weight is surprising, but she finds the strength that she didn’t know she had; she has a momentary memory of carrying her baby in her arms – and she absolutely will not fail now. And she succeeds, bringing the child to safety.
And, if we want to add a little piquancy to our story, we can put in a coda. Returning to the car park (or the local cafe or whatever) both mother and daughter are muddy and bruised, so a laughing passer-by stops them and (mocking) says something like: “Did you slip over? Whoops! You want to be careful up on that hill.”
And the mother and daughter smile to each other.
And that’s a story.