As assiduous readers will know. I went to see the new Harry Potter film last week. My pal Jane Finnis added a comment to the post which you can see by clicking on “comments”. Read it? Go on, click on the comments. Done it? Fine. You’ll understand what I’m talking about then.
I must admit that I’ve got a lot of sympathy with Jane’s point of view. There’s always a resistance when the world queues up and tells you absolutely positively without stopping that you have to see/read/buy/go to whatever it is NOW!
It’s that vague resentment of being bossed about, I think. That and a innate distrust of propaganda. Surely, one reflects, I’ve lived this long without absolutely positively without stopping seeing/reading/buying/going to this life-changing TV programme/film/book/chocolate fire-lighter/amazing gig. How difficult is it not to continue just doing it? Besides that, there’s a certain imperious in some sorts of advertising that just puts my back up. EAT! says the banner of a chain of sandwich shops. To which, being contrary, I always think, “No, dammit, I won’t. So there.”
I remember when the first Star Wars film came out. The hype in Britain was like nothing we’d ever experienced before. We were bombarded with endless magazine articles, pictures and little plastic models. It was more like being in on the birth of a new religion than merely a new film coming out. It was so over the top that a new top had to be invented for it to go over. I wasn’t that fussed about seeing the film but went along with a group of science-fictioney friends to The Empire, Leicester Square.
And wow. Believe you me, when the utterly vast space cruiser flew overhead on the big screen and vanished into the back row, somewhere far above our heads, I was totally hooked. Seeing Star Wars really was more than just seeing another film, no matter how good it was. It suddenly made you free of a whole new raft of shared cultural references. A grim boss could be referred to as Darth Vader, if you waited too long to be served in a bar, you could do the Jedi Mind trick (or pretend to, at any rate – how cool would the real thing be!) and say, “Use the Force, Luke!” and everyone would get the reference and laugh. Now, of course, those references are completely embedded. When Radio Four launched a new show which asked celebs to try a new activity, it was called, without explanation, “I’ve never seen Star Wars”.
That’s what Harry Potter’s like. When Peter Mandeleson was first sacked from the government (yes, he’s been back and forward ever such a lot of times since!) MP’s in the House of Commons dining-room were heard to rejoice that Voldemort had gone. If you want to phone someone and can’t get through, it’s fairly commonplace to say you’ll “Send an owl” and everyone knows that we’re technically Muggles.
But… Star Wars was a mega budget film with jaw-dropping special effects. Harry Potter is (just) a book. (Books, I know but don’t quibble.) And books, pre Harry, were on the way out. Children, in particular, were thought to have given up on reading, dazzled by the sirens of computer games and TV. By and large, children's books were about Issues or cartoon-types that talked endlessly about lavatories because toilets (apparently) made kids laugh. Grave academic studies told us that the attention span of the average child had dwindled to slightly less than that of a mentally defective mosquito and words on a page were just boring, innit? I mean, like, they don’t move or nuffin. I have, as I’ve mentioned before, there are five junior Gordon-Smiths. On those golden weekends when a new Harry Potter book was published, the house was deathly quiet, full of five intensely reading children. Well done, Harry.
Saturday, November 27, 2010
Sunday, November 21, 2010
Harry Potter
In common with most of the world I went to see the new Harry Potter film at the weekend. Wow. It looks fantastic and the acting is brilliant. It’s hard to pick out the best bits, as it moves like greased lightning and is totally absorbing, but the part when the great snake, Nagini, hurls herself at the audience is a real shocker, then there’s the sheer look of the Ministry of Magic (black, shining and threatening) Snape walking confidently through iron gates which turn to smoke, and the heart-stopping chase as Voldemort and his Deatheaters chase Harry and Hagrid as they escape from Privet Drive.
The story of the Three Brothers where the Hallows come into the story is beautifully done, in a sort of Eastern European paper-cut-out cartoon. It’s exactly right for that fairy-tale atmosphere. However, one of the terrific bits of the book is when, after having heard the tale of the legendary Hallows, Harry, Ron and Hermione realise they actually have one of the hallows themselves, the Invisibility Cloak which Harry had owned ever since his first year at school. The sadness of Luna’s disappearance and the mounting tension and sheer creepiness of her unexplained absence is missing from the film too. However, you can’t have everything and there’s always the book to re-read.
Speaking of which, I’m sure someone somewhere (perhaps quite a lots of someones somewhere) will be grumbling about the amount of knowledge you have to bring to the film. Well, yes you do. If you’ve been living in a box for the last few years and have never heard of Harry Potter, don’t begin here! It’ll be fairly baffling, so go back to the beginning and read/watch the Philosopher’s Stone.
It’s always hard, with such a well-loved book, to translate it to the screen, as you necessarily miss out on a great deal of the subtlety that makes the book so rewarding. By and large, less is more, but with Harry Potter, more is actually more. The Deathly Hallows is a long book but you need that many words to make the world live.
And isn’t it interesting? A book is so personal. It’s one person with their imagination and a keyboard, conjuring up a world that will take hundreds of people to bring to life on the screen.
Having read and loved the book, it’s really hard to come away from the cinema when the story’s half-told. I really wanted to carry on, to see the ending. I was only glad I knew what happened! Incidentally, if anyone wants to have a master-class in how to write action, read the battle of Hogwarts at the end of the Deathly Hallows. Action is where film comes into it’s own, of course. It’s far easier to see a punch than write about it, to show an explosion that to describe it and to keep action going over pages is really hard. (I know! Believe me, I know!) But JK Rowling does it superbly well, so it’s an edge-of-your-seat read that simply keeps on going.
So book or film? Ah, c’mon, do we really have to choose? After all, we’ve got both to love!
The story of the Three Brothers where the Hallows come into the story is beautifully done, in a sort of Eastern European paper-cut-out cartoon. It’s exactly right for that fairy-tale atmosphere. However, one of the terrific bits of the book is when, after having heard the tale of the legendary Hallows, Harry, Ron and Hermione realise they actually have one of the hallows themselves, the Invisibility Cloak which Harry had owned ever since his first year at school. The sadness of Luna’s disappearance and the mounting tension and sheer creepiness of her unexplained absence is missing from the film too. However, you can’t have everything and there’s always the book to re-read.
Speaking of which, I’m sure someone somewhere (perhaps quite a lots of someones somewhere) will be grumbling about the amount of knowledge you have to bring to the film. Well, yes you do. If you’ve been living in a box for the last few years and have never heard of Harry Potter, don’t begin here! It’ll be fairly baffling, so go back to the beginning and read/watch the Philosopher’s Stone.
It’s always hard, with such a well-loved book, to translate it to the screen, as you necessarily miss out on a great deal of the subtlety that makes the book so rewarding. By and large, less is more, but with Harry Potter, more is actually more. The Deathly Hallows is a long book but you need that many words to make the world live.
And isn’t it interesting? A book is so personal. It’s one person with their imagination and a keyboard, conjuring up a world that will take hundreds of people to bring to life on the screen.
Having read and loved the book, it’s really hard to come away from the cinema when the story’s half-told. I really wanted to carry on, to see the ending. I was only glad I knew what happened! Incidentally, if anyone wants to have a master-class in how to write action, read the battle of Hogwarts at the end of the Deathly Hallows. Action is where film comes into it’s own, of course. It’s far easier to see a punch than write about it, to show an explosion that to describe it and to keep action going over pages is really hard. (I know! Believe me, I know!) But JK Rowling does it superbly well, so it’s an edge-of-your-seat read that simply keeps on going.
So book or film? Ah, c’mon, do we really have to choose? After all, we’ve got both to love!
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
Off The Record
My big news of the week is that my new book, Off The Record, is out. My word, it looks good! And, if you go onto the Books page of the website (use the neat little toolbar at the top) you can see it too. And, should you fancy it, you can read the first chapter, as well.
It’s called Off The Record because I like bad puns. Well, I think they’re good puns actually, but the family don’t agree. Poor old Lucy lost the heel off her boot yesterday and was subjected to about five minutes incessant merriment to the tune of she might not have a heel, but she’s got sole, she’d put her foot in it, etcetera, etcetera. Anyway, the pun in the title of Off The Record is because the story is woven round the hunt for a workable electrical sound-recording system in the early 1920’s, or, to put it another way, how to make a better gramophone.
Not only do I invent a better gramophone, I invent, with a wave of the pen (or computer keyboard) – this is like Grand Designs only cheaper - an entire Ideal Factory and Ideal Village run by the philanthropist, Charles Otterbourne, who manufactures record-players and, as you’d expect in any story that's got Jack in it, there’s some very rum goings-on in Mr Otterbourne’s life.
I really enjoyed dreaming up Mr Otterbourne’s Ideal Village (it’s all in chapter one – you can read this bit on the Books Page!). My Dad grew up in the 1930’s in Welwyn Garden City, a new town built by one Ebenezer Howard in the 1920’s, and my Ideal Village is a version of Welwyn. I know it’s difficult to think of someone called Ebenezer as having the milk of human kindness sloshing around inside him (he sounds like a grasping miser out of Dickens) but Ebenezer sounds OK. He had the radical idea that working people might like houses with bathrooms (gasp!) and gardens (double gasp!) and – now he was really spoiling folk – enough space. This is when the average working class household lived squashed together in a sort of brick-built shed with a shared outdoor loo and a tin bath hung up in the yard. To add to the idyll, my Granny kept chickens and had an apple tree. He didn’t like the Demon Drink, though, did old Ebenezer, and every Sunday morning was marked by a procession of men strolling out of Paradise in search of a pub.
One other little nugget in Off The Record (and there are many, believe you me!) is the word Otorhinolaryngological. Can you credit it? Don’t bother looking in the Oxford English Dictionary, because it’s not there. It is, however, in the 1911 edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica as a footnote to the article on soundwaves. I giggled myself stupid when I came across that and just had to get it in. In amongst the Ideal Homes, gramophones and unpronounceable words there’s an awful lot of skulduggery, corpses and impenetrable mysteries and poor old Jack (who has a chance to wear full evening dress – soooo mega cool!) has to do some serious brainwork, to say nothing of falling off the odd roof, before it all becomes clear and order is restored.
Newsflash! Beth Kanell of Kingdom Books, Vermont (which is a long way from Welwyn Garden City!) emailed me to say that Off The Record features in the USA Library Journal under the title of What’s Hot For Spring 2011. (The American publication date for Off The Record is March 2011) Here’s the link.
http://blog.libraryjournal.com/prepubalert/2010/10/25/what-else-is-hot-spring-2011-mystery
If, however, you’re reading this in the Land Of The Free or elsewhere in the world than Britain and fancy getting hold of a copy of Off The Record now (and why not?) you could try The Book Depository, www.bookdepository.co.uk who have free postage worldwide. There’s Amazon, too, of course, or you could demand it from the library (go on! Be imperious and demand it!) or, as they say, all good bookshops.
It’s called Off The Record because I like bad puns. Well, I think they’re good puns actually, but the family don’t agree. Poor old Lucy lost the heel off her boot yesterday and was subjected to about five minutes incessant merriment to the tune of she might not have a heel, but she’s got sole, she’d put her foot in it, etcetera, etcetera. Anyway, the pun in the title of Off The Record is because the story is woven round the hunt for a workable electrical sound-recording system in the early 1920’s, or, to put it another way, how to make a better gramophone.
Not only do I invent a better gramophone, I invent, with a wave of the pen (or computer keyboard) – this is like Grand Designs only cheaper - an entire Ideal Factory and Ideal Village run by the philanthropist, Charles Otterbourne, who manufactures record-players and, as you’d expect in any story that's got Jack in it, there’s some very rum goings-on in Mr Otterbourne’s life.
I really enjoyed dreaming up Mr Otterbourne’s Ideal Village (it’s all in chapter one – you can read this bit on the Books Page!). My Dad grew up in the 1930’s in Welwyn Garden City, a new town built by one Ebenezer Howard in the 1920’s, and my Ideal Village is a version of Welwyn. I know it’s difficult to think of someone called Ebenezer as having the milk of human kindness sloshing around inside him (he sounds like a grasping miser out of Dickens) but Ebenezer sounds OK. He had the radical idea that working people might like houses with bathrooms (gasp!) and gardens (double gasp!) and – now he was really spoiling folk – enough space. This is when the average working class household lived squashed together in a sort of brick-built shed with a shared outdoor loo and a tin bath hung up in the yard. To add to the idyll, my Granny kept chickens and had an apple tree. He didn’t like the Demon Drink, though, did old Ebenezer, and every Sunday morning was marked by a procession of men strolling out of Paradise in search of a pub.
One other little nugget in Off The Record (and there are many, believe you me!) is the word Otorhinolaryngological. Can you credit it? Don’t bother looking in the Oxford English Dictionary, because it’s not there. It is, however, in the 1911 edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica as a footnote to the article on soundwaves. I giggled myself stupid when I came across that and just had to get it in. In amongst the Ideal Homes, gramophones and unpronounceable words there’s an awful lot of skulduggery, corpses and impenetrable mysteries and poor old Jack (who has a chance to wear full evening dress – soooo mega cool!) has to do some serious brainwork, to say nothing of falling off the odd roof, before it all becomes clear and order is restored.
Newsflash! Beth Kanell of Kingdom Books, Vermont (which is a long way from Welwyn Garden City!) emailed me to say that Off The Record features in the USA Library Journal under the title of What’s Hot For Spring 2011. (The American publication date for Off The Record is March 2011) Here’s the link.
http://blog.libraryjournal.com/prepubalert/2010/10/25/what-else-is-hot-spring-2011-mystery
If, however, you’re reading this in the Land Of The Free or elsewhere in the world than Britain and fancy getting hold of a copy of Off The Record now (and why not?) you could try The Book Depository, www.bookdepository.co.uk who have free postage worldwide. There’s Amazon, too, of course, or you could demand it from the library (go on! Be imperious and demand it!) or, as they say, all good bookshops.
Sunday, November 7, 2010
Kindle a row
Incidentally, there’s a huge row going on at the moment with Amazon’s Kindle, because publishers have upped the price of ebooks to the same price as the paper book. This surely can’t be right. A paper book is a real thing, an actual object, that needs no technology apart from a pair of eyes to read, and (perhaps) has some re-sale value.
However, not to be unduly lacking in commercial sense, can I point you in the direction of my ebook, Frankie’s Letter? As I uploaded it to Amazon myself, I was able to choose the price (low! A bargain! Stunning value!) and, which was really nice, had total editorial control. If you fancy taking a look, there’s a link to the first chapter on the “Books” page of this website which is totally free.
However, not to be unduly lacking in commercial sense, can I point you in the direction of my ebook, Frankie’s Letter? As I uploaded it to Amazon myself, I was able to choose the price (low! A bargain! Stunning value!) and, which was really nice, had total editorial control. If you fancy taking a look, there’s a link to the first chapter on the “Books” page of this website which is totally free.
Bonfire Night
I watched an episode of Modern Family during the week (which was very funny) where the various characters all celebrated Halloween in their own way. But, wow, the trouble they went to!
As anyone in Britain knows, Halloween has really taken off in recent years. A lot of people grumble in newspapers and magazines that we’re all slavishly following the Americans, where Halloween has always been big news. I know for a long time it always struck a faintly exotic note when various American TV shows – The Simpsons for instance – always had such a carry-on about Halloween. When I was a kid, Halloween hardly impinged on our consciousness. I remember bobbing for apples one year, but that was about it. The dressing-up part, which we would have embraced enthusiastically, didn’t occur. No, our big event – and it was massive – was Bonfire Night.
From September onwards, the 5th of November dominated our thoughts. We spent hours (literally) logging. That meant going into the local woods and lugging back whatever fallen branches we could carry. Nature only provides so much, however – particularly as a load of other kids are also on the hunt – so we also knocking on doors, asking for wood for “The Bunty”. (I don’t know why a bonfire was called a Bunty but it was.) The bonfire was built up on the waste ground at the back of my friend Anne’s house where it was a tremendous source of pride. Adults from the neighbouring houses would look with pride at our bonfire, and it was a rare Dad or older brother who didn’t want to be in on the construction. They’d stand round in a manly way, discussing how the Bunty would burn. We children had to make the guy, however, which was a collection of old rags in vaguely human shape. Although we were mostly Catholics, I can’t remember ever being aware of a religious connotation, as we consigned poor old Guy Fawkes to the flames.
Bonfire Night means, of course, fireworks. Now fireworks are expensive. In this day and age, they simply get bought by parents (I’ve bought plenty of fireworks for the family) but way back then – this is in Northern England – the way to get fireworks was by a process known as cob-coaling. Don’t ask me where the name comes from because I haven’t the faintest idea! However, it was akin to Trick or Treating because it involved knocking on doors and then, when the grumbling householder answered, launching into cob-coaling songs. I suppose, in a way, it was more like carol-singing than trick or treating. Now I can’t honestly say these were priceless gems of folk-poetry. For instance;
Tramp, tramp, tramp, the boys are marching. Who’s that knocking at the door? It’s little Mary-Anne with a candle in her hand and she’s going down the cellar for some coal-coal-coal.
The songs were handed down, in that mysterious way true folklore has, from one generation to another. No parents were involved in this process! Cob-coaling has more or less died out now, to be replaced by Trick or Treating. Why?
Well, bonfires, as such, are more or less confined to public events now. The back of a pub, the back of a scout hut, say, will host a bonfire together with traditional food such as meat-and-potato pie, parkin (a rich, treaclely, gingerery cake) roasted apples and potatoes roasted in the bonfire. Nowadays these are usually wrapped in foil and look fairly edible, unlike the charred lumps we used to retrieve from the embers! Safety has played a big part in moving bonfires from a private to an organised event, but, more than that, I think it’s the lack of waste ground. Common spaces at the back of houses have been turned into gardens and car-parks and Hitler’s attempts at the urban reorganization of Britain (ie bombsites) have been filled in, grassed over and built on. It’s all much nicer, cleaner and better organised, but it’s hard not to feel a nostalgic twinge that the big shared private children’s secret of bonfire night is no more.
As anyone in Britain knows, Halloween has really taken off in recent years. A lot of people grumble in newspapers and magazines that we’re all slavishly following the Americans, where Halloween has always been big news. I know for a long time it always struck a faintly exotic note when various American TV shows – The Simpsons for instance – always had such a carry-on about Halloween. When I was a kid, Halloween hardly impinged on our consciousness. I remember bobbing for apples one year, but that was about it. The dressing-up part, which we would have embraced enthusiastically, didn’t occur. No, our big event – and it was massive – was Bonfire Night.
From September onwards, the 5th of November dominated our thoughts. We spent hours (literally) logging. That meant going into the local woods and lugging back whatever fallen branches we could carry. Nature only provides so much, however – particularly as a load of other kids are also on the hunt – so we also knocking on doors, asking for wood for “The Bunty”. (I don’t know why a bonfire was called a Bunty but it was.) The bonfire was built up on the waste ground at the back of my friend Anne’s house where it was a tremendous source of pride. Adults from the neighbouring houses would look with pride at our bonfire, and it was a rare Dad or older brother who didn’t want to be in on the construction. They’d stand round in a manly way, discussing how the Bunty would burn. We children had to make the guy, however, which was a collection of old rags in vaguely human shape. Although we were mostly Catholics, I can’t remember ever being aware of a religious connotation, as we consigned poor old Guy Fawkes to the flames.
Bonfire Night means, of course, fireworks. Now fireworks are expensive. In this day and age, they simply get bought by parents (I’ve bought plenty of fireworks for the family) but way back then – this is in Northern England – the way to get fireworks was by a process known as cob-coaling. Don’t ask me where the name comes from because I haven’t the faintest idea! However, it was akin to Trick or Treating because it involved knocking on doors and then, when the grumbling householder answered, launching into cob-coaling songs. I suppose, in a way, it was more like carol-singing than trick or treating. Now I can’t honestly say these were priceless gems of folk-poetry. For instance;
Tramp, tramp, tramp, the boys are marching. Who’s that knocking at the door? It’s little Mary-Anne with a candle in her hand and she’s going down the cellar for some coal-coal-coal.
The songs were handed down, in that mysterious way true folklore has, from one generation to another. No parents were involved in this process! Cob-coaling has more or less died out now, to be replaced by Trick or Treating. Why?
Well, bonfires, as such, are more or less confined to public events now. The back of a pub, the back of a scout hut, say, will host a bonfire together with traditional food such as meat-and-potato pie, parkin (a rich, treaclely, gingerery cake) roasted apples and potatoes roasted in the bonfire. Nowadays these are usually wrapped in foil and look fairly edible, unlike the charred lumps we used to retrieve from the embers! Safety has played a big part in moving bonfires from a private to an organised event, but, more than that, I think it’s the lack of waste ground. Common spaces at the back of houses have been turned into gardens and car-parks and Hitler’s attempts at the urban reorganization of Britain (ie bombsites) have been filled in, grassed over and built on. It’s all much nicer, cleaner and better organised, but it’s hard not to feel a nostalgic twinge that the big shared private children’s secret of bonfire night is no more.
Sunday, October 31, 2010
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….
Saturday, October 23, 2010
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!
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!
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