Halloween Party

I’m writing this on October 31st to the sound of fireworks and between the doorbell ringing with Trick or Treaters. I think it’s great, that at such a dismal time of year, there should suddenly be so many reasons to be outdoors. The Trick or Treaters I particularly like. They aren’t a nuisance, but simply little kids dressed up and usually shepherded by a parent. I think they look terrific! Lucy, who’s part of a Youth Library team, co-hosted a – get this – Rave From The Grave at the local library. That’s apple-bobbing, spooky stories, kids in various costumes with skulls, lots of sweets, a spooky quiz and a tour of the library cellars. If this had been a episode of Buffy The Vampire Slayer something would have happened in those cellars, but, in fact, everyone just went home at the end of the evening. There are many, many Halloween parties in fiction, but most of them seem to be American. One English Halloween party where things didn’t go according to plan (or did they? Cue sound effects: NA,NA, NA…..) is Agatha Christie’s Halloween Party where, of course, there’s a murder. The list of games she give for Halloween is interesting. There’s apple-bobbing, of course, cutting sixpence off a tumblerful of flour (a sort of homemade Jenga) and seeing your True Love’s face in a mirror. So far, so much fun, even if you end up a bit damp from the apple-bobbing. And then there’s Snapdragon. This last sounds to me as if it’s lucky the party-goers got away with a mere murder. Multiple burns and legalised arson sound the least you can expect. As AC describes it, there’s raisins burnt with brandy in a great dish and the idea is to pick one out. I ask you. Has anyone actually tried this so-called game? You might as well declare we’re going play at Nero Versus The Christians. I’m all for folklore and traditional pursuits, but I do draw the line at watching the old home go up in smoke because some kid wants a raisin. My own family essayed forth to various Halloween parties dressed up in various guises. I didn’t actually see Elspeth, as she’s in Glasgow (at Uni) but had a long discussion with her on the phone about the best way of attaching a (plastic) knife so it looked as if it had been stabbed through the heart. Jenny went for Zombies, but, predictably enough, the sort of Project Runway, Tyra Banks stylish sort of Zombie, Jessica had nifty black ears and a tail as Catwoman (as if there aren’t enough cats in the house already) Helen, home for the weekend, was a snow-leopard print Cavewoman, with matching Cavewoman handbag and accessories and Lucy was invited to a Masked Ball. I mean, gosh, talk about style! Gold dress, gold shoes and gold and white Venetian mask. Peter and I stayed home and watched TV. Sometimes life just isn’t fair….

Writers' Workshop

I tried something a bit different this week.  I’ve given talks in the local libraries a few times and they’ve always been very pleasant.  The usual format is that a reading group get together, having read one of more of my books, then I tootle along, talk about what goes into the writing of the opus in question, answer some questions and we all have a cup of tea and a couple of biscuits.  The last talk I did for a library was especially good, because Jane Finnis, who writes an excellent series of murder mysteries set in Ancient Roman Yorkshire, was there and we did the talk together.  However, the talk I gave this week was a little bit different…

The challenge was that, although it was sponsored by a local library, it was open to everyone and I couldn’t rely on any reading-group stalwarts to be there.  The other challenge (problem?  nightmare?) was that I had one and a half hours to fill.  Oh, geez.  I mean, I can rattle on about my books for quite a long time, but an hour and a half? I don’t think so.

So what, short of developing a severe case of Parson’s Throat or emigrating to Brazil, could I do?  The answer, when I thought of it, really appealed to me; let the audience do the work. A writers’ workshop, in fact.  Yup, that’s the trick.

At the start of the session I asked everyone to listen pretty carefully because they were going to have to turn into writers too.  Then I tackled the old chestnut of a question, the one that’s always asked;  “Where do you get your ideas from?”

For some reason – I never been able to figure out why – a lot of writers don’t like this one.  But surely, it’s a perfectly sensible question?  I mean, something has to start the process.  What, exactly?  Well, I imagine there’s a lot of different answers, but what works for me is to find an intriguing situation, something that tugs at my imagination.  How did the situation come about?  Who’s involved?  What happens next?  Those are all questions that send threads out, that lead onto the rest of the story.  My favourite example from my own books is the opening of As If By Magic (if you go onto the books page of this website and click on Magic, it’ll take you to the first chapter.  (Then, of course, maddened by curiosity, you’ll simply have to read the book!)

After talking about ideas for a while, everyone wrote an ambition they had on a scrap of paper, folded it up, and put it into a hat.  Then, just like raffle tickets, the papers were mixed up and everyone drew out an ambition.  They then chose a picture from a collection of photographs I’d brought with me.  The photos were a varied bunch – a ruined house, a railway station, a busy market, children playing, old houses etc.  This is taking a real shortcut to “Where do ideas come from” you see.  After all, if we simply waited for inspiration to strike, we’d probably still be there!

Then, armed with pictures and the “Ambition” everyone sat down to write the first few lines of a poem or short story.  People worked in pairs – it was a fun exercise after all – but what surprised me was that everyone, from a really mixed bunch of people,  flung themselves into it and really wanted to write.  The various pairs came and read their pieces at the end of the session and everyone got (of course) a round of applause and, from what was said, a great deal of satisfaction.  Result!

How’s your Ancient Egyptian?

Last Saturday Jenny, my techno-whizz 16 year-old, and myself hosted a Quiz Night at the local tennis club.

The tennis club is a bit of a family affair as my Dad (who clocks in at the grand age of 88) is the treasurer and, over the years, all the junior Gordon-Smiths have been to the Saturday morning tennis lessons.  Jenny’s techno-wizardry came into its own as, thanks to her, we were able to play a round of Historical Voices, recorded from t’internet.  It’s interesting see people’s faces; you announce that we’re going to hear recordings from the past and everyone looks apprehensive and slightly glum.  Play a bit of Winston Churchill (“This was their finest hour”) and a clip of the 1966 World Cup Final (“They think it’s all over – it is now!”) spiced up with Apollo 13 (“Huston, we’ve got a problem”) and John (“You cannot be serious!”) McEnroe carrying on and everyone starts laughing again.  The trick to having a successful quiz, I think, is to think about the questions so everyone there can have a stab at answering most of them.  In order to get a winner, ask subsidiary questions, such as “What year is it?” and so on.  One round was "Missing Worlds".  The idea is to read three words, all of which can be prefaced by another word to make a new word.  For example, Wall, Brigade and Ball can be prefaced by "Fire".

See how you do with these.  Answers at the bottom of the page!

Ship

Yard

Martial

Room

Take

Bill

Fishing

Blown

Paper

Land

Spring

Sail

And, if you’re in the quiz mood, here’s some questions.  Again, answers are at the bottom of the page.

1) What sport am I describing? The competition is a timed race and the fastest wins.

The competitors start their race from a single point but have different finishing lines.

Races are generally between 62 and 621 miles but in the United States races of up to 1,118 miles have been recorded.

During the race, the competitors face the real danger of death from being attacked by wild predators.

To compete in a race, the competitor must wear a permanent, unique numbered ring or band that is attached to their leg when they are about 5 days old.

2)   To the nearest thousand (!) how many islands make up Great Britain?  This does not include Ireland.

3)   What was the Ancient Egyptian word for cat?  (Go on!  Have a guess!)

Answers:

Missing Words:  1)Court  2) Double  3) Fly  4)Main

General Knowledge:  1) Pigeon Racing   2) 6,000. Great Britain (England, Scotland and Wales) has a total 6,289 islands, mostly in Scotland. Of these, 803 are large enough to have been 'digitised' with a coastline by map-makers.   3) The Egyptian hieroglyphics spell out the syllables Mee-ee-ow!

Real Life?

Somewhere on the internet this week, my email pal, the author Donna Fletcher Crow (find her at her website Deeds of Darkness, Deeds OF Light) raised the question of real life as an inspiration for fiction.  It’s an interesting question, as it seems to be self-evident that real life has to be a powerful resource.  After all, if, on the cover of a book,  you read “Based on a true story”  then it’s a real selling  point.  But….

Agatha Christie, in her introduction to The Body In The Library wrote:  “Staying one summer for a few days at a fashionable hotel by the seaside I observed a family at one of the tables in the dining-room; an elderly man, a cripple, in a wheeled chair, and with him was a family party of a younger generation.  Fortunately they left the next day so that my imagination could get to work unhampered by any kind of knowledge.  When people ask “Do you put real people in your books?” the answer is that, for me, it is quite impossible to write about anyone I know, or have ever spoken to, or indeed have even heard about!  For some reason it kills them for me stone dead.”

And d’you know, I know exactly what she means.  When Agatha Christie, or anyone else for that matter – including me - is constructing a tightly plotted book, it can seem a mechanical exercise.  X bumps off Y and Z comes along and uncovers the dark deed.  Then, off course, you’ve got the Red Herrings – let’s call them A,B and C – to add pleasant confusion to the outcome.  Naturally, no one wants to read (or write!) about letters of the alphabet, so X and Y and all the others have to acquire personalities.   But they have to be a particular sort of personality.   That shy, mousey girl with an intense nature has to be capable of being so intense that, given the right motivation, she can be a credible murderer.  That jolly friend-to–the world, cheerful Uncle Charlie, has to show the odd flash of temper or meanness to make us accept that he, too, could embrace crime.  These personalities aren’t simply bolted on but spring from the plot.  What sort of person, to put it another way, would do this sort of thing? That way, with plot and characters working together, the book  becomes a unified whole.  And, because the book has to hang together, extraneous  bits have to be edited out.  If a character has a deep interest in chemistry, say, or mediaeval needlework, then that had better come into the plot somehow or the reader will feel a real let-down.  Now real people have all sorts of random interests and various quirks that makes them them.  Also – I hope! – the vast majority of the people we know well  aren’t actually capable of slipping arsenic in the tea or sawing through the axle of a car.   And that’s why raw real life isn’t much help to a dedicated detective-story plotter.  Real life is far too untidy and doesn’t stack up.  Fiction – an art – does.  That’s one of the reasons why it’s so enjoyable to read!