Reading

Fiction Writing Tips

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Melissa Donovan has 42 Fiction Writing Tips for Novelists on the website “Writing Forward”.  You can view her entire list here: http://www.writingforward.com/writing-tips/42-fiction-writing-tips-for-novelists.

I have picked out my top ten of her tips, and give my reasons for the selections below:

  • Don’t lock yourself into one genre (in reading or writing). Even if you have a favorite genre, step outside of it once in awhile so you don’t get too weighed down by trying to fit your work into a particular category.  (This particular piece of advice appeals to me because I haven’t selected ‘my genre’.  [See the post on Genre.]  I think this advice is especially appropriate for reading.  Reading different genres can definitely open the mind.)
  • Don’t write for the market. Tell the story that’s in your heart.  (This advice is related to the item above.  It seems to me that some writers have a genre which the market – and readers – recognise.  Sticking to that genre and their market can make them financially successful.  Think J K Rowling.  But even she has branched out with an adult story she wanted to tell.)
  • Make your characters real through details. A girl who bites her nails or a guy with a limp will be far more memorable than characters who are presented in lengthy head-to-toe physical descriptions.  (This is a very good point.  I think that what the writer should try to do is to stimulate the reader’s imagination, and a small, but telling detail is probably the best way to do that.)
  • The most realistic and relatable characters are flawed. Find something good about your villain and something dark in your hero’s past.  (In Efraim’s Eye, the villain has a  past which distorts his view of women, and one tends to feel sorry for him.)
  • Avoid telling readers too much about the characters. Instead, show the characters’ personalities through their actions and interactions.  (To this I would add, what the characters say.  The words a character chooses and the way they phrase their opinions can say a lot about their values.)
  • Every great story includes transformation. The characters change, the world changes, and hopefully, the reader will change too.  (I think that we’re all interested in important change – as long as it doesn’t hurt us.  We like to see how and why others change, and the effects on them.  In Efraim’s Eye, Naomi goes through a major change: from being an unfulfilled nomad to setting down nourishing roots.)
  • Aim for a story that is both surprising and satisfying. The only thing worse than reading a novel and feeling like you know exactly what’s going to happen is reading a novel and feeling unfulfilled at the end — like what happened wasn’t what was supposed to happen. Your readers invest themselves in your story. They deserve an emotional and intellectual payoff.  (Very true!)
  • Let the readers use their imaginations. Provide a few choice details and let the readers fill in the rest of the canvas with their own colors.  (I think this advice is particularly appropriate for sex scenes.  I used to think I had to paint a complete picture; now, I believe that a few brush strokes are sufficient to engage the reader’s imagination.)
  • Appeal to readers’ senses. Use descriptive words that engage the readers’ senses of taste, touch, and smell.  (To this I would add the reader’s sense of hearing.  Sometimes it’s appropriate for the reader to hear what’s going on.)
  • Apply poetry techniques to breathe life into your prose. Use alliteration, onomatopoeia, metaphor, and other literary devices to make your sentences sing and dance.  (This is about engaging the reader’s brain at another level.  Ms. Donovan has another point about ‘crafting compelling language’.  When we surprise the reader, we get him/her thinking.)

There are plenty of other excellent suggestions on the website!

 

Reading classics

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First of all, let me apologise to my subscribers for being off line for several weeks.  My publisher (Strategic Book Publishing and Rights Co.) hosts the site, and for some reason, they took the site off line.  After I protested twice (the second time quite vehemently) the site went back on line.  Sorry about that.

There was an article in the Sunday Telegraph about two weeks ago which caught my attention.  The title read: “Fact of fiction: how reading the classics gives the brain a boost”.  The article went on to say:

“Academics at Liverpool University found that reading the works of the Bard and other classical writers had a beneficial effect on the mind, by catching the reader’s attention and triggering moments of self-reflection.

“Using scanners, they monitored the brain activity of volunteers as they read pieces by Shakespeare, Wordsworth, T. S. Eliot and others.  Scans showed that the more ‘challenging’ prose and poetry set off more electrical activity in the brain than more pedestrian sections.

“Scientists were able to study the brain activity as readers responded to each word and noticed how it ‘lit up’ as they encountered unusual words, surprising phrases or difficult sentence structure.

In the first part of the research, the brain activity of 30 volunteers was monitored as they read passages from Shakespeare’s plays . . . and again as they re-read the text re-written in simpler form.  While reading the plain text, normal levels of electrical activity were displayed in their brains.  When they read Shakespeare, however, the levels of activity ‘jumped’ because of the use of unfamiliar words.

“In one example, volunteers read a line form King Lear: ‘A father and gracious aged man: him have you madded’. Shakespeare’s use use of the adjective ‘mad’ as a verb caused a higher level of brain activity than the straighforward prose.

The study went on to test how long the effect lasted.  It found that the ‘peak’ triggered by the unfamiliar word was sustained  into the folowing phrases, suggesting the striking word had hooked the reader, with their mind ‘primed for more attention.’

“Volunteers’ brains were scanned while reading four lines by Wordsworth: ‘She lived unknown and few could know when Lucy ceased to be.  But she is in her grave and oh the difference to me’.  Four translated lines were also provided: ‘She lived a lonely life in the country and nobody seems to know or care, but now she is dead, and I feel her loss.’  The first version caused a greater degree of brain activity, lighting up not only the left part of the brain concerned with language, but also the right hemisphere that relates to autobiographical memory and emotion.”

This makes sense to me, but I think that some comments are in order.  First, poetry is a different medium than prose: it is more condensed and tends to convey more feeling.  That being the case, one would expect the reader to be more engaged with a well constructed poem than with its prose equivalent.

Second, (apart from the use of ‘mad’ as a verb) the English language was different for the classical writers than it is today.  The English language is constantly evolving.  The reader therefore expects differences and their brains will be more alert.

Third, it is desirable but difficult for the writer today to achieve the same ‘brain boosting’ prose.  Desirable, because it captures the readers attention.  And difficult, because if the writer is not careful, s/he can create distrust in the reader.  The reader may begin to believe, ‘s/he is just making this novel difficult not for artistic reasons, but just for the sake of being different in their writing style.’

This is a particular concern of mine which I have touched upon in other posts: how to write in a style that the reader finds interesting for artistic reasons not just to differentiate my writing from that of other writers.

 

The Iranian Scorpion

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My fourth novel (another thriller) has just been published.

 

 

In brief, this novel involves an undercover agent of the DEA (Drug Enforcement Agency), who with the help of an attractive freelance journalist and a shadowy Taliban official learns the cultivation of the opium poppy in Afghanistan and how to convert opium to heroin.  He follows a heroin shipment into Iran and traces it to New York City where it has been sent by The Iranian Scorpion.  When a bust is made in New York City, The Scorpion orders the agent captured and executed.  Will the agent’s connections  including his father (a US Army general),  the journalist, a 15 year old Afghan boy and some Iranian dissidents be able to save him from execution?

The full synopsis follows: 

Robert Duval, an agent of the Drug Enforcement Agency, volunteers for a reassignment after years of trying to stem the stream of drugs across   Grande.  He is sent toAfghanistan with a mission of developing a strategy to stifle the flow of drugs to Iran and on to the US.  Robert meets Kate Conway,  a freelance journalist in Kabul, and she introduces him to Vizier Ashraf, a shadowy figure in the Taliban, who also has a religious interest in reducing the cultivation of the opium poppy.  In preparation for the Afghan assignment, Robert has developed fluency in Pashto, and, at the urging of the vizier, he disguises himself as Abdullah, as a migrant peasant farmer.  In the village of Nad-e-Ali, in Helmand province, Robert finds work on Azizullah’s large poppy farm.  Under Azizullah’s direction, Robert learns how the poppy is cultivated and its liquid opium is harvested.

After the harvest, Robert, Azizullah and three other field hands take the opium cakes to the owner of a make-shift conversion ‘factory’.  There is a violent falling-out over price, and that night, Azizullah, Robert and the field hands raid the factory, killing the owner and his helpers.  Robert questions the owner’s fifteen-year-old son, Rustam, who knows the chemical conversion processes.  Rustam is taken captive; the chemicals and equipment of the ‘factory’ are hauled away to Nad-e-Ali.

A new ‘factory’ is established in Nad-e-Ali, and Rustam, chained to Robert, begins to convert the opium to white heroin.  Men from Rustam’s village attempt to retake the factory.  They are repulsed, but Rustam fears that his old neighbours will kill him for the shame he has brought on his village, if he returns to it.  As an inducement for Rustam to stay in Nad-e-Ali, Robert persuades Azizullah to find Rustam a wife.  Rustam is married to Padida, a twenty-three-year-old war widow.

General David Duval, Robert’s father, is frustrated with his assignment to Pentagon logistics, and at the urging of his young girlfriend, he accepts an assignment with the International Atomic Energy Agency.  In Tehran he joins an IAEA delegation, which is reviewing the Iranian nuclear program.  David meets ‘Lisa’, the secretive widow of an anti-government activist. ‘Lisa’ is well connected in the Atomic Energy Organisation of Iran, and is not averse to using her body to obtain evidence of the duplicity of the Iranian government.  She provides David with test data showing that an enrichment level of 42% U-235 has been reached, as well as the wiring diagram of a prototype nuclear weapon.

Azizullah, Robert and Rustam cross the fortified border into Zabol, in southeast Iran, with 15 kg of heroin to find a buyer.  They are able to sell it, but Rustam protests that they have failed to find the principal buyer: The Scorpion.  On a subsequent exploratory trip, Robert and Rustam find that The Scorpion is actually the provincial governor, and they make arrangements for the sale of 25 kg.  Azizullah joins his employees for the sale, which takes place in the governor’s palace in Zahedan, the provincial capital, and is attended by The Scorpion and General Khorhoushi, the commander of the Republican Guard in the province.

Robert is able to learn where the consignment of heroin has been shipped.  He reveals his true identity to Rustam, and persuades the boy to accompany him on a trip to Kerman and Bandar Abbas, where the destination and method of shipment of the heroin are discovered.  Robert advises his boss, James, at the DEA, of the destination: a carpet dealer in New York, who is the Scorpion’s cousin.

The Scorpion guesses that it was Robert who had his cousin arrested, and he orders General Khorhoushi to find the agent.  Robert is captured and imprisoned, but Rustam eludes capture.  Rustam uses Robert’s phone to advise Kate and James of Robert’s capture.  The Scorpion is concerned that if Robert is released, he will inform Tehran of the governor’s involvement in the drugs trade.  Robert is tried by a kangaroo court, found guilty of ‘espionage’ and is sentenced to death. Tehran officials, notified by the US government of The Scorpion’s drugs trafficking, demand that Robert be released to them at once.  The Scorpion sends Tehran a premature message informing them that Robert has been executed. 

David Duval is informed of his son’s execution, and decides to take vengeance.  ‘Lisa’ supplies him with a ‘sticky bomb’.  He travels to Zahedan, and attaches the bomb to what he thinks is the governor’s limousine.  He learns, instead, that he has killed General Khorhoushi.

(You’ll have to read the novel to learn how it ends.)

Efraim’s Eye

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Efraim's Eye

My third novel, Efraim’s Eye, has now been published and is available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble. 

Briefly, it is about a lone wolf terrorist who has a fanatical hatred of the British, and who is financed by his half-brother.  Efraim intends to destroy the London Eye and kill the eight hundred passengers.  Standing in the terrorist’s way are a middle-aged British financial consultant and a beautiful Israeli charity worker.

A (nearly) full synopsis is as follows:

Efraim has designed a plan to sever the supporting cables of the London Eye, using shaped charges, causing the Eye to fall over into the River Thames.  All 800 passengers will be killed or drowned in their capsules.

But first, he must call on his half-brother to provide the funds with which he will buy the ingredients for the shaped charges.  Having obtained the money, he travels to Pakistan, Afghanistan, Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Chechnya, where he obtains the RDX high explosive, the polymer binder, and he has the casings manufactured.  He kills two Taliban who try to steal from him, and a Russian agent who tries to entrap him.  He visits prostitutes and agonises over the Qur’an’s proscription of ‘unclean women’.

Efraim’s half-brother, Yusuf, is chief executive of the Moroccan chapter of the British charity, Global Youth Enterprise.  GYE provides loans and mentors to young entrepreneurs who have a business idea, but no funding.  The CEO of the British GYE suspects that all is not well in his Moroccan chapter, and he engages Paul, a senior financial consultant, on a pro-bono basis, to assess the Moroccan chapter.

Paul is a well-to-do, widower in his late fifties.  He has worked in large practices, has joined Charitable Consultants LLP., and now has his own practice in the City.

Paul is joined in Marrakesh by Naomi, the operations director of the parent GYE.  An Israeli by birth, in her mid-thirties, and beautiful, she speaks seven languages, including Hebrew, Arabic and English.  In their week-long assessment of the Moroccan GYE, they find much that is wrong, including lack of financial and operating procedures, lax board governance, and rumours of fraud and embezzlement.  But they can’t find proof of illegality.  Yusuf’s evasiveness and hostility frustrate them at every turn.  Efraim appears threateningly, and his malevolence reminds Naomi of events in her childhood.  She draws close to Paul and they become lovers. 

Reportedly, Efraim is a fiery, fundamentalist imam at a minor mosque, and secretly, Paul and Naomi attend Friday prayers.  Paul records Efraim’s talk and Naomi confirms its venomous intent.

On his return to England, Paul informs Sarah, his divorcee lady friend, of his affair with Naomi, and Sarah leaves him.  On hearing Paul’s report, the Accreditation Board of British GYE decides that the books and bank accounts of Moroccan GYE should be properly audited, and Paul is sent back to Marrakesh to perform the audit.  A careful inspection of the bank statements reveals that fraud has been committed, but they lack the evidence of embezzlement until Naomi finds it.  Paul and Naomi secretly hear Efraim speak again; he gives clues that his target is the Eye. Just before fleeing to England, Naomi is abducted and severely beaten by Efraim.

Paul succeeds in convincing Scotland Yard of the seriousness of the threat, and a thorough plan of prevention is set in motion.  The attack is expected on Sunday.  Paul decides that he and Naomi should visit the Eye on Saturday.  They find Efraim hurriedly laying out the shaped charges. 

(You’ll have to read the book to discover the conclusion.)

Criticism

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In The Daily Telegraph of 9 October, there was an article in which Sir Peter Stothard argues that discerning readers should pay attention to established critics rather than comments posted on the internet by amateurs.  He went on to say, “There is a general trend – and it’s certainly very prevalent online – for replacing argued literary criticism that allows you to compare books, to put them in context, to analyse how they work.  That kind of traditional criticism is very easily replaced by unargued opinion.  Storytelling is fine but it doesn’t require Man Booker judges to decide what people are going to enjoy taking on holiday and reading on the beach.  What the Man Booker judges can do is apply traditional literary criticism and try to identify what people will still want to read in 20 years’ time.  That was the aim of the prize and it’s important to hold on to it.”

Sir Peter is the editor of The Times Literary Supplement and chairman of this years’ Man Booker Prize judges.

While I would certainly agree that one should respect the opinions of recognised literary critics, Sir Peter’s argument strikes me as somewhat self-serving.  Is he saying that “we recognised literary critics are members of an elite guild, and you readers should pay no attention to anyone who is not a member of the guild”?  I hope not.

Sir Peter told Radio Times that the Man Booker Prize judges were increasingly required to identify books that were mot immediately easy to read because they were the ones that would eventually reward readers most.  Why the correlation between being difficult to read and being ‘eventually most rewarding’?  I think that most of us who have read Ulysses would agree that it is difficult to read, but is it more rewarding for being difficult?  I  think not.  It is a landmark piece of literature, and for that reason it  is interesting, but in what sense is it rewarding?

It seems to me that the guild of recognised literary critics is encouraging the creation of obscure, difficult literature.  But why does a novel have to be obscure and difficult to be valuable?  I would argue that the hallmarks of a really good novel are that it captures both the emotions and the intellect of the reader in a unique and memorable way.

What about ‘argued criticism’ vs. ‘unargued opinion’?  Taking the adjectives first, ‘argue’ – according to my dictionary – means ‘to discuss with reason’.  The implication seems to be that the recognised literary critic gives reasons for his/her views while the internet blogger simply expresses an opinion without reasons.  This is clearly not universally true.  Turning to the nouns, criticism is defined as ‘the art of judging, especially literature and the arts’.  But since criticism is an ‘art’ not a science, in what sense is it different than expressing an opinion?

My question, therefore, is what does it take to become a member of the guild?  Does one have to have the title of ‘Editor’?  What if one had the title of ‘Author’?  “No! No!”  I can hear the members to the guild protesting, “an Author is biased toward his/her style of writing and cannot be an independent judge.”  But if s/he, the Author, is well educated and has read widely, might not s/he be able to appreciate the styles of others?  Besides, the Author, particularly if s/he has enjoyed some success in writing, knows something about the craft of writing, and may be a better judge in some respects than the unpublished, appointed Editor.   

The day after Sir Peter’s views were published, The Daily Telegraph ran a column by Jon Stock entitled “How I survived an online literary mauling” and “Far from throttling serious criticism, internet reviews can be helpful to authors”.  Mr. Stock has written a series of spy thrillers, and one review of his work began, “Stock: misogynist and serial killer”.  He went on to say that he tracked down the reviewer and found that she is a professor of English at the State University of New York.  The professors’ principal objection was to the deaths of three women in four of his novels.  He agreed that perhaps this was a bit lopsided and she mentioned much else that she liked in his writing.

In his conclusion, Mr. Stock says, “For me, the whole exercise was an example of  the internet working as it should, a place where people with wildly differing opinions, in this case about books, can engage in constructive dialogue.  The literary critic, as championed by Sir Peter Stothard, has its place, but so do online reviewers, even the hostile ones.”  I agree.

Should Kids Read?

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I happened on this subject the other day when I was riding on a London bus.  There were two boys sitting in the seats across from me.  One was about ten and the other was probably twelve.  Were they brothers?  I guess so, but it doesn’t really matter.  They were at least friends.  The younger boy was playing with his Gameboy (or whatever it was).  He was concentrating to the extent of  moving his upper body to coax the hero in the game to move in the right direction.  His fingers were flying over the keys, and occasionally, when the hero got in a tight spot, his tongue would dart out to better express his tension.  Now and then, he would emit a groan as – I  suppose – either the hero wasn’t as heroic as he had hoped, or his time was up.  When this happened, he would sigh with frustration, and drop his hands into his lap.  There was one occasion when the boy emitted a shriek of delight, nudged the older boy, and said something triumphant.

The older boy was reading a paperback book.  I have no idea what kind of a book it was, except that I’m pretty sure it wasn’t a text book.  He was reading for pleasure.  He was quite absorbed, paying no attention to his younger companion, to the other passengers on the bus, or indeed to where the bus was going.  (I guessed the boys were going from one familiar place to another.)  Deliberately, he would turn the pages, following the text with complete attention, but he showed none of the emotion of his younger companion.  He did, however, shrug off the attempts of the younger boy to involve him in the electronic game.

The boys reminded me of my own grandchildren.  Several of the older ones are a dedicated readers; some of the younger ones are addicted to electronic games.  Does it matter?  I suppose I have a bias on the subject, which is that by the age of about 12 kids should be into books, and out of hand-held electronics (unless it happens to be an e-book reader).  Why?  I suppose that e-games are great for helping develop hand-eye co-ordination, for improving concentration and dexterity, and for building problem-solving skills.  But, they do nothing for developing language skills (vocabulary, grammar, etc.), nor do they teach much about the real world.  And they have very limited ability to build intellectual skills.

How do we as parents help to stimulate the transition from games to books?  When I was about 10, there were no electronic games.  The games that were available were card games, and games like Parcheesi and Monopoly which you played with other people.  My big distraction was comic books (which I had to read), and serial Western programs on the radio, which I could listen to while I did my homework.  Both my mother and my maternal grandmother liked to read to me.  They read the great children’s classics like Treasure Island, and I remember sitting or lying nearby, with my head full of the imagined action.  I knew that books were good!

I’ve tried the same strategy with my children, with mixed results.  Some like to be read to and others couldn’t be bothered.  Of the five ‘children’ two are readers.  My oldest daughter is a committed reader of fiction.  My son reads mostly business literature, although an interesting bit of non-fiction may catch his eye.  Not a great batting average for me.

But, I’m not sure what I could have done to stimulate more interest in reading.  I’m sure, though, that it’s an important role that every parent has.

Why read fiction?

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Many of us have different ways of learning about life and the world.  Some people particularly like to share experiences with friends; others have favourite TV programs to watch; and still others like nothing better than to read a particular magazine or newspaper.  Perhaps there are people who have a preference for a special radio station or program.  And, I’m sure you can think of other preferences.

How about books as a means of learning about life and the world?  Hmm.  Well, I’m sure there are people who would say ‘books are passe – they are obsolete’.  Are the social media (like Facebook and Twitter) making books a thing of the past?  Are the sales of books, including e-books, declining?  An article by Julie Bosman published in the New York Times last summer revealed that publishers sold 2.57 billion books, in all formats, in 2010.  This represented an  increase of 4.1% over 2008.  Not only did the volume of books increase over those two years, but industry revenues increased by 5.6% to $27.9 billion.  Interestingly, the growth of e-books was very significant: e-books represented 0.6% of the market in 2008, but they represented 6.4% in 2010.  Their market share will almost certainly increase again in 2012.

As an aside, I should point out that Sin & Contrition is available in various e-book formats (including Kindle).  Fishing in Foreign Seas is currently available in hard copy only, but I am considering making it available as an e-book.  Comments?

So, it is fair to say that books are not obsolete or dying out.  In his article “Is Fiction Relevant to the Real World?”, Sydney M Williams says: “There are people who never read anything but fiction. Nevertheless, it has always seemed to me that the addition of some history and biography helps broaden the mind. However, much of history written today has the purpose of furthering a particular political agenda. . . . In contrast, with fiction there is no hidden agenda. Its purpose is to entertain, but with the added value of providing insight to a complex and ever-changing world, and to the people who inhabit it. Novelists come with political agendas, but we know upfront what they write is fiction.”  He also says: “Novels have long been lauded as a form of entertainment that activate the brain, provide insight into character and present a version of events that we know to be fictional, yet are based on human emotions and reactions we know to be real.”

In her article “Your Brain on Fiction”, Anne Murphy Paul says: “The brain, it seems, does not make much of a distinction between reading about an experience and encountering it in real life; in each case, the same neurological regions are stimulated. Keith Oatley, an emeritus professor of cognitive psychology at the University of Toronto (and a published novelist), has proposed that reading produces a vivid simulation of reality, one that “runs on minds of readers just as computer simulations run on computers.” Fiction — with its redolent details, imaginative metaphors and attentive descriptions of people and their actions — offers an especially rich replica. Indeed, in one respect novels go beyond simulating reality to give readers an experience unavailable off the page: the opportunity to enter fully into other people’s thoughts and feelings.”

The opportunity to enter fully into other people’s thoughts and feelings is, in my opinion, an opportunity not to be missed!