The King's Speech

I went to see The King’s Speech on Saturday. What a great film! Incidentally, going back to what we were saying about titles last time, what a terrific title, too. A well-known phrase that’s given an enhanced meaning is one of those titles which is so exactly right, nothing else would do.  The King’s Speech is perfectly cast, brilliantly written and really does seem to strike a chord across all ages.  16 year old Jenny loved it, 23 year old Jessica loved it, plus all the Gordon-Smiths in between and my 88 year old Dad, which is some trick to pull off.

As everyone knows by now, the story is about Bertie, the future George the Sixth, who has a terrible stammer that can render him virtually dumb.  As afflictions go, that might not seem too bad, but we’re immediately shown just what that means.  Bertie is commanded by his father, King George the Fifth, to give the closing address at the massive Wembley Empire Exhibition, an address not only to the huge crowd but, through the medium of the BBC, to a quarter of the world’s population. And he can’t speak.  As the silence lengthens, we can feel the poor man dying the death before the silent, waiting crowd.

How Bertie finds his voice makes enthralling viewing, as he reluctantly learns to trust the cheerfully irreverent Australian speech therapist, Lionel Logue. It’s a personal quest at first, prompted by his wife, Elizabeth, and then, with the Abdication crisis and the rise of Nazi Germany, the stakes get much higher.  Bertie’s brother, the gifted, handsome, loquacious David, the man who should be king, who’d been beloved by society and the people all through the 20’s and 30’s, who brought glamour and style to the throne after the stodginess of George the Fifth, doesn’t want to be king.  With war looming, he walks away from the job.  Hitler (a man who was never stuck for words!) is inspiring the Germans to war.  Bertie is the King and simply has to speak.

As I said, it’s perfectly written, cast and acted. The thing about really good acting, as with really good writing, is that, when you’re watching or reading, you’re living in the world.  It’s only afterwards you realise how good the acting and writing has been.  Helena Bonham-Carter (last seen as the gleefully over the top, completely barking,  Bellatrix Lestrange) is outstanding.  It’s a very subtle performance.  It’d be easy, with such a personal film about royalty, to pretend that everyone is just dead ordinary really, that they’d actually be happier as Mrs Average living in a bungalow and all this fame nonsense is just for show.  Helena Bonham-Carter doesn’t do that.  We’re always aware of who she is and, at the same time, always rooting for her.

When The King’s Speech first came out I thought speech therapy sounded a really odd premise for a film.  (I mean, where’s the conflict? Where’s the chase? Where’s the explosions? Where’s the story, for pete’s sake?)   To work at all, it would have to be brilliantly done.  It is.

What's in a name?

My pal, Jane Finnis, was talking about titles on her blog this week (see for yourself – it’s at

http://janefinnisblog.wordpress.com/)

The reason why Jane is pondering about titles is because Jane’s working on the fourth of her mysteries set in Roman Yorkshire (Yo!) and her publisher, not unreasonably you may feel, wants to know what the book’s going to be called.  Jane eventually decided on Danger in the Wind which gives a nice frisson of lurking menace.

It’s amazing how hard it can be to come up with the right title.  It has to be pithy, memorable, relevant to the book, a few words – maybe one word - that will jump out at the reader from the bookshop shelf and inspire them to part with hard-earned cash. Geez.

Names are often a good bet and carry their own baggage of expectation. You don’t pick up Emma, for instance thinking she’s going to turn into Dracula. (Which would be confusing but fun.) Or it may reflect the book’s theme:  Pride and Prejudice or Death on the Nile.

In the heyday of the gothic novel, you could get away with titles such as Geralda, The Demon Nun, which could still be – just about – be used today. Joanna Polenipper, Female Horse Stealer, Foot-Pad, Smuggler, Prison Breaker and Murderer is probably too wordy for modern tastes but you’d be wrong in thinking that Joanna came to a bad end. At the end of the book, “Joanna was transported for her crimes, retrieved her character in Australia, married a rich settler and lived for many years respected and beloved by all who knew her.”

If you found Joanna’s unexpected embrace of virtue unsettling, you’d probably be better sticking to another novel of the 1830’s, Lovel Castle, where the anxious author told his readers exactly what they were getting: Lovel Castle, or The Rightful Heir Restored, a Gothic Tale Narrating how a Young Man, the supposed son of a Peasant, by a train of Unparalleled Circumstances, not only discovered who were his Real Parents, but that they came to Untimely Deaths; with his Adventures in the Haunted Apartment, Discovery of the Fatal Closet, and the Appearance of the Ghost of his murdered Father; relating also how the Murderer was brought to Justice, with his Confession and the restoration to the Injured Orphan of his title and estates.



They don’t write them like that any more.

An American Point of View

I’ve just solved a bit of a puzzle.  Last August I published a book on Amazon’s Kindle.  The book, Frankie’s Letter, isn’t a Jack story but one I wrote as a bit of a refresher.  It’s a First World War spy/detective story, a sort of John Buchan/Agatha Christie mix of dark doings, country houses, deception, beautiful women, heroes and villains.  It very very nearly got taken up by Hodder and Stoughton but was finally turned down, with sincere regret by the editor as the massive bookseller, Waterstones, didn’t think it was really for them. Pause for a sigh here, I think.

Long gone are the days when editors could take a punt on a book they liked and hope sales would follow.  For instance, The Lord Of The Rings, was liked – very much liked – by its publisher, Stanley Unwin of Allen and Unwin, but he was convinced it wouldn’t make any money.  He believed it was worthwhile, though, and went ahead and published it anyway.  Well, we all know that story had a very happy ending and the world was enriched by the doings of Middle-Earth (although Legolas does break into rather too much poetry for my taste.)

So what, failing a Stanley Unwin, does a writer with a book on their hands do?  Especially one they believe in?  Imagine a light-bulb going on at this point.  Yes, that’s right!  Ebooks!  It’s time-consuming to publish on kindle but it’s possible.  So I did it.  Now, to read what’s written on the interweb, at this point it should go ballistic.  Did it?  Er… no.  Waiting for a reaction to Frankie’s Letter was like dropping a rose petal into the Grand Canyon and waiting for the echo.  Why, I asked, as I paced my lonely garret?*  So I asked the good people of the website Murder Must Advertise and got some fascinating answers.

I’d diligently linked Frankie’s Letter to Amazon with a nifty little logo on the Books page (go and see for yourself – it’s there!) BUT the link only works in Britain. I didn’t know that. I wouldn’t have known that if the nice American websiters hadn’t told me.  It is on Amazon.com, the US site, but you have to come off my website, log on to Amazon.com and start from scratch and in the meantime you’ve probably put the kettle on, put the cat out, walked the dog, made the dinner and generally lost interest in the entire process.

Hopefully, these problems are being fixed.  And a big thank you to all those kind Americans.  It’s genuinely appreciated.

*This is artistic licence.  It’s a sort of metaphorical garret.

Tangled

It was Jessica’s birthday this weekend and to celebrate, Helen came down from Edinburgh.  She was asked at work what she was doing for her sister’s birthday and said, “We’re going to see the new Disney film, Tangled, and them we’re going to Pizza Hut.”  Great, was the reply.  How old is your sister? About twelve?

Err.. No.  Double that and you’ll get the right sort of figure.  The thing is, everyone, by and large, enjoys pizza (I remember this exotic new food being introduced in the Seventies!) and you must have a heart of stone if you don’t enjoy Disney.

Tangled is really good. Not, perhaps, up there with Aladdin, Beauty and The Beast and Little Mermaid but that’s a pretty high standard.  It’s the story of Rapunzel, of course, a puzzling sort of story.  I remember as a kid thinking that it must hurt poor old Rapunzel to have the Witch and the Prince clambering up her hair and I’m glad to say in the film she ties it round a sort of pulley arrangement before anyone starts doing gymnastics. It’s a good story with some very funny lines, looks wonderful, and has a scene with floating magic lanterns which is just beautiful.

However… I could have done with the Evil Witch being a jolly sight more evil.  I wanted cackling and gloating and gleeful over-the topness, just like Ursula in Little Mermaid or, perhaps the grandmother of all evil witches, the Wicked Queen in Snow White. One of the many satisfying things about Harry Potter is how completely evil Voldermort is.

I’m not giving away too much of the story when I say that Tangled’s Wicked Witch is your average Old Crone who, by the magic in Rapunzel’s hair, is granted Youth and Beauty.  Only she’s more 30-oddish and not that stunning.  And that’s all she wants.  Why?

It might seem a bit of an Ur? Dur? Question, but Youth and Beauty isn’t really enough.  The WW from Snow White wanted Y+B so she could be the powerful Wicked Queen.  Ursula is after power too and  the magnificent originator of these seekers after Y+B, Rider Haggard’s She, wanted to be eternally young so she could stick around long enough for the boyfriend to turn up.  (He was last seen in Ancient Greece, so no one could accuse her of inconstancy!) The trouble with Tangled’s WW is that she was more like Wilma from Desperate Housewives or Tyra Banks being Fierce on America’s Next Top Model than genuinely scary.  (One of Tyra Bank’s lines really is genuinely more scary; Who will be eliminated tonight? Makes you think a bit, that.)

Maybe the Disney people wanted to tone down the scariness, but I think they just didn’t think her motivation through enough.  It’s worth keeping in mind if you’re thinking out your own story.  What does the villian want?

But I enjoyed Tangled. And Jessica had a lovely birthday.

B.U.G.

I intended to write about my usual busy, glamorous, jet-setting life-style this week, but the wheel came off the wagon as I got struck by a B.U.G.  That’s a Beastly Unyielding Germ.  Lots of B.U.G.’s in fact, as there’s always more than one. Yeah, right, know the type.  They gang up. Bullies. S’not fair.  There’s more of them than me.

As Lucy, who’s studying Biology informed me, the B.U.G.s multiply, then the antibodies kick in and the site of all this bio-chemical warfare (aka Me) is left feeling like a battlefield; sort of flat and chewed up.

I had all the usual symptoms as listed on the box of Tesco's Max Strength Cold And Flu capsules – tiredness, headache, copious amounts of self-pity – but what the box didn’t mention was a severe outbreak of Poetry.

I always asked the kids to share

Their toys, (when young) their books and hair

Products, such as spray and straighteners and shampoo

Unfortunately, they’ve also shared the flu.

I spent last week mainly in bed

With aching limbs and pounding head

Caught from my open-hearted daughter

But germs are things you shouldn’t ought-ter

Share.

It started with Jenny’s tonsillitis

I looked down her throat and saw what the plight-is

Or was; because she is now quite well

And I am feeling not so swell

Or great. Or good. Or fighting fit.

I don’t like this virus one little bit.

So having done naught* all week through

I’m rather apt to feel blue

I wish I didn’t have the flu.

*I know nobody says “Naught” anymore (if they ever did) but this Poetry, right?

Officious 2007 - Help!

Here’s a request to anyone who uses Microsoft 2007.  I’ve just installed it on my computer and it looks very nice, but it doesn’t behave in quite the same way as my tried and tested Word 2003.  One thing in particular is bugging me.  I don’t want this bossy system to leave a space between paragraphs.  And it does. Here’s one coming up now.  Arrrrgh!!!

Yes, yes, yes, I know!  Spaces are left between paragraphs when you’re writing a letter, a commercial letter, that is, but books aren’t letters and I want to write books.  And this blog.  And all sorts of other things that don’t start with:  “Dear Sir, thank you for your letter of the 4^th instant which I now have safely to hand,” and end with: “I beg to remain your most obedient and respectful servant, Yours sincerely…” etc etc.

I only changed over from the old Word because the system, which has worked more or less perfectly for ages started sulking and closing down and going off to hang round with the other Types (or Fonts) in corners with a brief “Word has encountered a problem and has to close” message.

So how the dickens do I get Word 2007 to believe I’m using their all singing, all dancing system with its pretty colours to write books and not letters with and to stop acting like a badge-hungry Boy Scout who insists on helping old ladies across the road, whether they want to cross or not. To do, in short, what I  want it to do instead of what it thinks I want it to do?  At the moment, I’m thinking of re-labelling this “Officious 2007” as that’s what it’s being. Help everyone!  It’s driving me nuts.

Writing Magazine and the perfect submission letter

I don’t know if you’ve seen this month’s copy of Writing Magazine (although it’s January, it’s the one dated February!)  If you do – and it’s on sale all over the UK in big outlets such as WH Smith’s and so on – you’ll see an article by me in it. It’s called, “How I Got Published” and more or less does what it says on the tin, so to speak. The article is the start of what will be a regular series, where AN Author answers the only question any unpublished writer ever wants to ask:  how did you do it? Luck? Magic? Bribery?

The thing is, there’s no one single answer and the various articles charting the path to publication will make interesting and surprisingly varied reading.  However, somewhere along the line, the chances are you’ll need a submission letter.  I mentioned this in the WM piece, because I was lucky enough to attend a workshop given by a leading agent, Simon Trewin, on how to write the perfect submission letter. I didn’t have space in the article to go into the detail, so here it is.  The bits in italics are culled from Simon Trewin.  The example letter is all mine…

How To Write A Submission Letter

Tell them what you're sending and why you're sending it to them.

For example:

Dear Agent X,

The Bible by God.  774,750 words

I enclose the first three chapters, the blurb and the synopsis of my book, The Bible, which is part history, part ethics, part philosophy and a guide to Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About The Afterlife But Were Afraid To Ask.

I am sending it to you as I can see from your website you represent other historical, philosophical, ethical and religious authors/Your author, Eweshould B. Solucky, recommended you/Insert other reason here.

Brief thumbnail description of the material here.



For example:

The Bible describes the history of the world as seen through the eyes of an ancient Middle-Eastern people, charting their loves, lives, conquests and failures. It ends as we look forward to a new life in a new world.  Or, as Oscar Wilde, one of my readers put it: "It starts with a man and woman in a garden and ends with revelations."

Why you wrote it.  Show the agent you're passionate about your work.

For example:

I wrote The Bible because I wanted the human race (to which so many of my readers belong) to justify my ways to Man, as John Milton might say.

Possible markets - who it will appeal to.

For example:

The Bible will be of interest to historians, philosophers, those interested in a practical guide to Ark-building or has ever wondered what to do when faced with a plague of locusts or frogs, plus domestic tips such as exactly how to remove that troublesome Writing on the Wall and everyone who’s ever Wanted To Know About The Afterlife But Were Afraid To Ask.

Nice things people have said about your work.



For example:

A wide range of people have commented on The Bible. Abraham Lincoln said, “It is the best book which God has given to Man,” the poet Samuel Taylor (“The Ancient Mariner” and Kubla Khan”) Coleridge stated that “For more than a thousand years The Bible has gone hand in hand with civilization, science and law,” and the American comedienne, Elayne Boosler, reflected on how it is a mirror of some very human failings: “My ancestors wandered lost in the wilderness for 40 years because even in biblical times, men would not stop to ask for directions.

Your letter should be on one page only. If you’ve got space, add a brief biographical bit.  If it’s relevant to your book (eg if you’ve written a crime story and you’re a policeman definitely put it in but it’ll probably come in the “Why I wrote it” section.

Otherwise you can leave it out.



For example:

I am the Almighty, the All-Knowing, the perfect and omnipotent and omniscient originator and ruler of the universe; the object of worship in monotheistic religions and the still, small voice of calm.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Yours, with all best wishes,

God.