Coincidences and contrivances

Coincidences happen all the time. When I was on my walk, I finished a day at a small, remote beach in the northwest of Scotland. Sam parked the motorhome on a firm area, and a while later another motorhome parked nearby. It turned out to contain an ex-colleague of mine, who had no idea I was doing the walk. It was a coincidence.

Whilst coincidences happen, they can make for poor plots. I've recently finished reading Lee Child's first 'Jack Reacher' book, 'Killing Floor'. It will never be called classic literature (although much that is called 'classic literature' is unreadable tosh), but it was a riveting read.

However there was one major thing that niggled at me through the book: coincidences.

(Please note the following contains spoilers. If you have not read the book and think you are likely to, then consider not reading the rest of this post.)

The plot of 'Killing Floor' involves Jack Reacher, once a major in the US Military Police Corp. He left the armed forces six months before the book began, and in the meantime has led an itinerant lifestyle around the US, never staying long in one place, and never leaving roots.

The book starts as Reacher is having breakfast in the little town of Marburg, Georgia. Marburg is a town that has been bypassed by the interstate and is, for the purposes of the book, many miles from anywhere. Some policemen enter the diner, and Reacher is arrested for the murder of an unidentified man the previous night.

He is arrested for what, at first, appears a minor coincidence: Reacher walked past where the man's body was found, and therefore was in roughly the right place to at least be a suspect - although it turns out he could prove he was elsewhere at the time the man was murdered. This is, in my view, an acceptable coincidence; indeed, it is of a type frequently seen in stories to move the plot forwards.

The main plot and subplots continue until, halfway through the book, it is discovered that the unidentified body is that of Joe Reacher, Jack Reacher's elder brother. Joe Reacher was a senior agent in the US Treasury, and had arranged a meeting with someone at the exact spot that his brother would pass a few hours later.

The only link the two men have with the town of Marburg is an old song they both knew, and it is on the basis of this song that Jack Reacher made a carefree decision to get off a Greyhound bus outside the remote town. Neither man had been there before, and they had barely ever mentioned it. Yet they both happened for different reasons to be not just in the town on the same night, but in the same remote spot.

I found this coincidence to be really jarring, and spent the rest of the book awaiting it to be concluded. It made me assume that Jack Reacher was really being an unreliable narrator, and that it was not a coincidence: perhaps his brother had wanted him along for some extra muscle, but Jack Reacher had been delayed. But that did not happen, and it remained a massive coincidence. In fact, it was a rather poor contrivance.

What do I mean? Look at the following list of 'coincidences':

• A man visits a remote town that he has no history with: nothing coincidental - in fact, it happens all the time.
• A man being in a remote town without knowing his brother had recently visited: slightly coincidental.
• A man being in a remote town at the same time as his brother, both going independently and for different reasons, without knowledge the other was going to be there: very coincidental.
• A man  in a remote town at the same time as his brother, both going independently and without knowledge the other was going to be there, and the brother getting murdered that very night: extremely coincidental.
• A man unknowingly walking past his brother's body, in a remote town neither had had any connection with, both having arrived that day, without either knowing the other was going to be there? Immensely coincidental.
• An ex-military policeman with murderous skills unknowingly walking past his brother's body, in a remote town neither had had any connection with, both having arrived that day, without either knowing the other was going to be there? Fantastical.

I found the coincidence so jarring that I simply could not suspend my disbelief. it would be like me bumping into my ex-colleague on that remote Scottish beach on the same day we share the lottery jackpot with identical numbers we chose for different and independent reasons. It just won't happen, and it's a silly hook to hang a plot off.

There is a less serious coincidence later on in the book: Reacher places his trust in Finlay, the town's chief detective, who had only been in the post for six months. Finlay in turn places his trust in an FBI friend from Atlanta, Picard. It turns out that Picard is actually one of the book's chief antagonists, who is intimately involved in the core conspiracy. What are the odds of the one man Finlay trusts being one of the bad guys, despite being from well out of town?

It would have been easy to slightly alter the plot to 'solve' the central coincidence, without altering the general flow. It is a sign of a poorly-designed plot, even if the story itself is told well. A plot should not rely on major coincidences, either in set-up or to get things moving.

There were several other plot problems in the book, and characters acting in slightly (in my view) unrealistic manners. However these were mostly superficial, and none were as glaring as the plot's central coincidence.

I don't want to be too harsh on 'Killing Floor', which was an enjoyable book. It gripped me, and I finished it in three days - which is not a sign of a bad book, especially in this genre. It is easy to see how it won several awards after its first publication.

However this central plot coincidence slightly spoilt it for me.

McLevy: an inspiration for Sherlock Holmes?

We recently went for an amble around Wimpole Hall, a stately pile situated just down the road from us in Cambridgeshire. At the end of the walk Şencan dragged me towards the little bookshop situated in a corner of the rather ostentatious stables.

Whilst browsing, I found a hardback book called "The Casebook of a Victorian Detective", published in 1975. This is a selection of stories from a couple of books written by a real-life Edinburgh detective, James McLevy. McLevy served in Edinburgh for thirty years from 1830, and became the city's first detective. He published his books after he retired in the 1860s, and they look back over a career that saw thousands of crimes successfully solved.

As I am interested about writing about Edinburgh in the 1830s, I thought it would be a good book for research purposes So I parted with £3.50 and took it home.

The book contains a series of cases from McLevy's long and illustrious career, and depict an Edinburgh that is very different from today's city. He even has a website at http://jamesmclevy.com. This website features research that shows that some stories are between 80 and 100% accurate - not bad considering he was writing about events that in some cases occurred decades before. But what struck me most were the links between the real-life detective McLevy and his most famous fictional counterpart, Sherlock Holmes.

So what are the links between McLevy and Sherlock Holmes?

• McLevy published his books in the 1860s, whilst Arthur Conan Doyle published the first Sherlock Holmes book "A study in scarlet" in 1887. Therefore McLevy's stories precede Doyle's.
• Arthur Conan Doyle studied at the University of Edinburgh Medical School from 1877, which McLevy had consulted for pathological evidence in some of his cases. McLevy would therefore have been known to people who knew Doyle. It is perfectly possible, indeed likely to my mind, that Doyle was aware of McLevy's work.
• A (criminal) character in one of McLey's stories is called 'Holmes'.
• McLevy sometimes uses deduction in a similar manner to Holmes.
• McLevy is also adept at using disguises to catch his man, as is Holmes.
• The cases are presented as a series of short stories, as are most of the Holmes canon.

What is more, some of the story titles have a certain Holmesian lilt: "The White Coffin" or "The Dead Child's Leg".

I am hardly the first person to discover this connection (indeed, some are mentioned in the book's preface). Whilst Sherlock Holmes is entirely Doyle's brilliant creation, I find it hard to believe that McLevy would not have been a minor influence. After all, how could he not have known about stories written by someone who was connected with the department he was studying in just fifteen years before?

Professor Joseph Bell taught Doyle at the school, and Bell was himself a student at the school when McLevy was still serving. Given Bell's acute deductive skills are famed as being Doyle's inspiration for Holmes, could Bell himself have learnt some of these from the detective?

That is to take nothing away from Doyle's adept skill. His stories are rich and utterly readable, whilst McLevy's style tends to be rather heavy and proselytising in places. Whilst McLevy's social views were undoubtedly ahead of his time - he believed that only early education could stop criminals, not punishment, and was in favour of the Ragged Schools - he is rather overfond of promoting those beliefs and the nature of crime.

So, was McLevy an inspiration for Sherlock Holmes? We can never know for sure, but given the above links, I would say it is probable.

As an aside, only when I started reading did I realise that I knew the McLevy name - BBC Radio 4 has done a series of adventures loosely based on McLevy's stories. Also, if buying the stories, be aware that new stories have been written using McLevy's character. Whilst these may be excellent, the real voice lies in the original stories from the man himself.

Periodic table for writers

Just for fun, here is a link to a periodic table for writers, It captures some of the many tropes in writing and attempts to categorise them into headings such as Structure, Archetypes and Villains.

Some of my favourites:

JTS (Jumping The Shark)
5MA (Five Man Band)
PMD (Person of Mass Destruction)
ARC (Story Arc)
FLA (Flanderization)

Stories can combine several of these categories, for instance the film 'Highlander' has a Hero's Journey in which the Hero, imbued with a power that makes him The Chosen One, is taught how to use that power by an Eccentric Mentor in order to beat a Complete Monster and Save The World.

There is more to storytelling than is detailed within the table, but it is the first time I have seen such a comprehensive and easy-to-use reference.

Blurbs

A few years ago I was reading some book blurbs; the text written to entice a potential reader. It can either be a short description of the book, or a note about something else by the same author, such as: "For all those who loved Chocolat ... Vianne is back"

For instance, here is a brilliant short one from James Herbert's book "Fluke"

"The story of a dog who thinks he's a man ... or a man who thinks he's a dog"

This works; it describes the central theme of the book well, and introduces a mystery that might appeal to readers.

Not all are good. One, for an American romance-slash-action thriller, had the following:

"He was fire. She was ice. Together they made steam."

It may work for some audiences, but for me this seemed an absolutely horrible piece of text. It told us nothing about the book, and as a hook it was meaningless. It's fun inventing alternatives, though:

"He was fire. She was ice. Together they made a puddle."

"He was fire. She was ice. She extinguished him."

Will your novel be a bestseller?

Gizmodo has an interesting story about writing. Researchers from Stony Brook University in New York have created an algorithm that attempts to predict how well a novel will sell.

http://aclweb.org/anthology/D/D13/D13-1181.pdf

They have tested their algorithm against the text of many books over several genre, and compared their results against the books' sales.

The basic results show that high numbers of prepositions, nouns, pronouns, determiners and adjectives are all indicative of highly successful novels, whilst higher percentages of verbs, adverbs, and foreign words characterise less successful novels (ref. Table 6).

I would be intrigued to put some of my writing through this, and I can imagine that the researchers would be able to make a little money from desperate literary novelists (or publishers and agents wanting to reduce the size of their slush pile).

I generally tend to be sceptical about this sort of research, but these results seem to make sense, at least to a certain extent. However one of the most successful recent novels - Dan Brown's (yes, he) "The Lost Symbol", scored poorly. Which shows that plotting and oodles of publicity can overcome the predictive power of algorithms.

In defence of Dan Brown

Dan Brown has made many himself a fortune by selling books containing fairly implausible plots that revolve around tortuous conspiracy theories. Two of his novels have been made into feature films which have entertained millions and kept his bank manager smiling.

The one thing he lacks is plaudits from the critics. His books, it is said, are poorly written, ridiculously plotted hyperbole that have spawned thousands of worthless copycats in the treasure-hunting-conspiracy genre. His books are repetitive, contain totally unnecessary description and feature poor sentence construction (indeed, even worse than my own).

And the critics are right. Some examples of his writing can be found in the link below:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/booknews/6194031/The-Lost-Symbol-and-The-Da-Vinci-Code-author-Dan-Browns-20-worst-sentences.html

I first read a Dan Brown book whilst I was on the TGO Challenge in 2005. A nice Swiss lady in Alltbeithe Hostel gave me a copy of "Angels and Demons", which I read over the next few days. It was fairly ridiculous stuff and hardly grand literature, but - and this seems to be the fact the critics miss - it was enjoyable. I found myself stopping at lunch, nestling down in the heather and getting the book out for five minutes just so that I could read a little more.

A couple of years later I stayed at a B&B, and at breakfast the owner's daughter was reading 'The Da Vinci Code'. I asked her if she was enjoying it, and she stated that she was - and that it was the first book she had ever read. What is more, she said she might read other books. Dan Brown's novels might just have opened the door to a world of literature that was unknown to her before.

Yes, the books are nonsense. Yes, the plots are ridiculous. Yes, the writing is poor. And no, they will never be classic literature.

But they're also enjoyable and accessible.

We can't all read Tristram Shandy, Lord of the Flies or Anna Karenina, even if we should.

Thanks, mister Brown. Just try to write some proper literature next time, just to show the critics you can.

"for sure"

I am a great Formula 1 fan. I try to watch - or at least listen - to all of the races. Whilst on the Coastwalk I could not get Radio 5 on my radio in time for a GP. I was going through woodland near Eilleen Donan castle, frustrated by tracks that were marked on the map but did not seem to exist on the ground. Fortunately I did have a mobile signal, and I phoned a friend to see who was doing what in the race, clasping the phone to my face as low branches assaulted me.

I am that sad.

One thing that infuriates me is the way that 'for sure' has seeped into the language of the sport. There can hardly be an interview in F1 where a driver or technician does not utter the two words. This has led to a rumour that there is a bet amongst the drivers/team principles/commentators about who can say it the most on broadcasts.

The problem is that I am hearing it everywhere. I was just listening to an interview with an American political commentator who said 'For sure, Mitt Romney is the front-runner...'. Other politicians have used to recently as well.

The phrase is essentially meaningless. If you say something, you should be sure about it. If you are not sure, you state your uncertainty.

It has got to the stage where I cringe when I hear it. For sure.

What's in a name?

Over the years I have considered the possibility of merging two of my passions: programming and writing. What would it take, I wonder, to make a computer program to write a novel? Would it be possible to make Martin Amis and J K Rowling redundant, for a program to become an author whose works would eclipse Shakespeare?

The more I write, the more I realise that this is currently impossible. Let us take one tiny part of writing a novel: naming the characters.

Think of a character in your favourite novel. What is their name, and what, consciously or subconsciously, did the author try to tell the reader with that name? Take Dirk Pitt, the hero of the early Clive Cussler books. Dirk rhymes with dark, and is also the name of a small dagger. So, a dark character who is dangerous. Pitt also suggests danger, and the suggestion of depth matches well with the character’s frequent underwater exploits.

Or Jack Ryan, the hero of some early Tom Clancy books. It is a classic Irish name, and could belong to an Irish priest or New York policeman (indeed, the character’s father was a policeman). Jack is a common name, evoking an everyman. The message is simple: an ordinary man.

Few readers analyse novels to this extent, but the hints are there and are frequently noted subconsciously.

This is often taken to extremes in children’s books. Take the Harry Potter series; it has a Remus Lupin (a werewolf) and a Professor Sprout (a Herbology teacher). These and other similar names give the children obvious clues as to the characters’ nature. A little over-obvious for adults perhaps, but perfect for children. Harry Potter itself is an ordinary name for a child who, at the beginning of the series of books, thinks of himself as utterly ordinary. It also allowed the children reading the books to associate with him more than they would if J K Rowling had named him, say, Horatio Magei. Her naming is part of Rowling’s genius; she knows her audience.

This matching of names to characters is important: a name that mismatches a character only works if the mismatch has a point. If an author called a Muslim fundamentalist terrorist Iain Fortescue-Smythe, then it would need to be explained *how* the man became a terrorist. Failure to do so would make the character ridiculous. Of course, this would work if the ridiculousness was the point, for instance in a comedic role.

Such naming inveigles itself into our everyday lives. Take the surname ‘Smith’. Perhaps the most common English surname, it’s very anonymity has granted it an air of deviousness. From the couple signing themselves into a hotel under ‘Mr and Mrs Smith’ to the ‘Agent Smith’ in the Matrix, it has connotations of people not being who they really are, of secretiveness and lies. Pity the many real Mr and Mrs Smiths who had had to book themselves into hotels over the years.

A title of a story popped into my head as I was walking back from the polling station the other day. It was: “The egregious lies of Ethelbert Myana”. I had no idea what the lies are, or why they were so flagrant and bad. Yet the name fascinated me: Ethelbert is an old regal-sounding Anglo-Saxon name, whilst Myana (preferably with a tilde or diaeresis over the middle ‘a’) evokes to me a South American or exotic air. What family history does an Ethelbert Myana have? How did he get his extraordinary name? My mind wandered as I strolled...

Perhaps his father was a crusty scholar, happier with his nose in dusty Latin tomes than in entertaining his young son. His mother was a Brazilian beauty whose socialising and affairs scandalised the local area before she ran away with someone purporting to be a film producer. She took the teenage Ethelbert with her, granting him her exotic surname. His stepfather disliked him, and he was soon parcelled away to a remote boarding school.

At first Ethelbert hated his extraordinary name, which caused him to be bullied. Over time he started wearing his name as a badge of pride, revelling in the difference it granted him from his compatriots: the ‘ordinary’ Davids, the Olivers and the Harrys. He inherited beauty and innate charm from his mother, and a keen intelligence from his father. The adult Ethelbert became a sly, charming and intelligent man who was also utterly ruthless; he could inveigle himself socially as he wove his curtain of lies. He had no need of friendships and a burning hatred of the norms of a society that had, for no other reason than his name, marked him as being different.

So from a name I have created a character with rich traits and a limited history. I have a good idea who Ethelbert Myana is and potential plot lines fill my mind like confetti. A somewhat strange name has suggested countless stories.

An author needs to work out what a name would mean to the average reader, and use that to reinforce or subvert the reader’s preconceptions. Unfortunately this means that it would be incredibly difficult to get a computer program to invent good and believable names for characters; the nuances and meanings of names are just too varied. Indeed, I would suggest that the ability to match a name and a situation, as I have above, would be a good test of artificial intelligence. 

This is sad, and yet naming of characters is one of the easier and less important aspects of writing a good novel. There is certainly room for computers to help authors word-process or keep track of plotlines and characters, yet no computer can yet devise a series of good plotlines or even construct many meaningful, connected sentences of prose (see chatterbots such as Eliza for the limitations of such attempts).

One last thing: think of what your name says about you. How has it shaped your life, and what, if anything, would you prefer to be called? How often have you judged an unseen stranger (for instance from a CV or letter) simply by their name?

So many fonts, so little time

It is east to take for granted the power that modern PCs have placed in the hands of the public.

Take publishing. If I had wanted a pamphlet printing thirty years ago, then I would have limited choices: either hand-draw and photocopy, giving poor quality, or send it to a professional printers to layout and typeset the document before printing.

In the mid-eighties the term DeskTop Publishing, or DTP, was all the rage. This allowed anyone with access to high-end computers to layout documents with fancy fonts, multiple columns and even pictures. This could then be saved into a universal format called Postscript and sent to a professional printing outfit.

Roll on a few years, and the cost of printers decreased as rapidly as the power of computers increased. Instead of the old daisy-wheel or dot-matrix printers, we had laser and inkjets. Anyone could print out whatever leaflets or brochures they required for moderate cost.

Nowadays, of course, the Internet makes it possible to publish whatever you want without recourse to a printer. Yet the power of print - the sheer physicality of having paper in your hands - is awesome, as can be seen by all the political leaflets that dropped through my door in the run-up to the last election.

Yet the democratisation of publishing has led to other problems. One of them is in fonts. Hundreds, even thousands of fonts are available for the aspiring publisher, from Arial to WingDings. And this is a problem. Faced with such a choice, people choose to put many different fonts in their document. At worst this makes a mess, at best it detracts from the message they are trying to send.

It is therefore best to keep the number of fonts down used to a minimum, and only use others when there is a need. When writing on-screen I prefer Arial, which has a clear form on screen. When coding, the monospaced Courier is my favourite. Of the hundreds of fonts available to me in Word, I generally only ever use a couple.

Anyone wanting to print something for public consumption should try to learn a little about how the professional compose text. There are many tricks, of which I have learnt a few over the years. Some are obvious, whilst others are counter-intuitive.

For instance, take pictures. Pictures are powerful. Put them in the wrong place, and the readers' eyes will be drawn to it and away from the text that you want them to read. Put them in the right place, and they will lead the reader to the text. (Alternatively, a well-placed picture can be used to draw the reader away from some text that you do not want them to read, such as the legal small-print). 

Modern computers make it exceptionally easy to put presentation over content. That is wrong. If you are going to the bother of presenting something, the content matters. Sure, use eye-candy to get attention if you need it, but make sure that the message is stark and clearly legible.

The message is king.

Poor writing

Şencan pointed out the following paragraph in Stephen Donaldson's book, 'Against All Things Ending'.

... Her encounter with Viles informed her health-sense. She had experienced the eldritch paresthesia. She could not see the meaning of the strands; but she could hear that they had meaning. She could smell the austere suzerainty which had suffused their creation ...

This feels like a good example of poor writing.

Why? It depends on what you think of the purpose of writing. The best writing can be used to inform or entertain, and often both. Yet it should never be just to laud the intelligence of the writer over the reader.

Writing should be accessible to as many readers as possible, yet not treat them as though they are simple. The best writing should challenge the readers with concepts rather than words; after all, the grandest concepts can always be explained with skilfully applied simple words.

The type of writing depends on your audience. My writing suffers from my career in computer software; not just in terms of over use of passive voice (always a problem for technical writers), but also in the fact that I use technical terms that I assume people will understand. I always try to explain terms as simply as possible, but it is a hard task. One of the advantages of blogging is that you can always add links to complex words or terms.

Similarly, writing for children should be simpler than that for adults. JK Rowling breaks many of the unofficial rules of writing in her Harry Potter series (e.g. 'she squealed excitedly'), but her writing style works brilliantly well for children.

There is no problem with using long and convoluted words such as 'paresthesia', 'eldritch' and 'convoluted', but it is best to explain their meaning first; a skilful writer can subtly educate the reader in this manner. Too many writers use complicated words as a way of showing off, bigging themselves up over their readers.

For instance, is 'She had experienced the eldritch paresthesia.' really better than 'The eerie, prickling sensation crawled over her skin.'? It is actually hard to know, as it is difficult to decipher exactly what Donaldson meant in his original sentence.

Donaldson is making himself appear big-headed and turning off the reader.

Decimation

I am getting slightly fed up with on-line arguments about the meaning of the word 'decimate'


It is a curious word. The original meaning comes from the Roman Army, and refers to the practice of killing 1 in 10 soldiers in cases of mutiny or under-performance, and as such was a supreme example of pour encourager les autres. Although widely used throughout the Roman period, it has been used since. For instance, some parts of the Italian army practised decimation during the First World War. 


However, the word 'decimate' is taking on a whole different meaning. Instead of meaning a removal of 1 in 10, it is now generally used to mean much more than 1 in 10, and sometimes even total obliteration.


Take this page on the BBC about the American Mink:

Inside thsi [sic] beautiful looking creature lurks an indiscriminate killer of birds, fish and small mammals that decimate ground-nesting birds and tackle fish as large as themselves.

I can only assume that the Mink do not count out their victims and kill every tenth one. In this case, it is obviously meant to mean kill many. It is exceptionally easy to find this usage (indeed, it is far more common than the original, 1 in 10 usage).


This leads to a great deal of pedantry, with people insisting that the meaning is the historic one. This is bogus pedantry. For instance, the reference on dictionary.com has the following definitions:

1.

to destroy a great number or proportion of: The populationwas decimated by a plague.

2.

to select by lot and kill every tenth person of.

3.

Obsolete . to take a tenth of or from.

As can be seen, the historic form is seen as being obsolete. Merriam Webster more or less agrees (indeed, it does not mention the 'to take a tenth from' meaning. The OED also agrees.


For these reasons, unless you define exactly what you mean, it may be best to avoid the use of 'decimate' if pedants are lurking.

Inspirational songs when writing

Below are some of the songs that I can listen to over and over when writing; songs that do not distract me, yet take my mind soaring to undiscovered places.

Many of these take me back to previous times and places; this seems to disconnect my mind if I'm having trouble writing.

Kate Bush, the Wedding List.
This video is particularly weird, in a way that Kate Bush could only achieve. It is such a shame (albeit understandable) that she only ever toured once.

Al Stewart, Old Admirals.
I have admired this song for some time. It is about the life and times of Admiral Fischer, who revolutionised the Royal Navy. Sencan and I got married on HMS Warrior, which was one of the ships that Fischer served on early in his career.

Al Stewart, Roads to Moscow
This song is about a Russian soldier's experience in the Second World War. The acoustic work on this song is superb, as are the lyrics: "Two broken Tigers on fire in the night flicker their souls to the wind."

Kate Bush, Pi
A song about a man obsessed by numbers, sung by Kate Bush. How can it get any better (or geekier).

Pet Shop Boys, Fugitive (Richard X Extended Mix)
There is something about this song (especially the intro) that sends my mind soaring.

Phil Oakley, Together in electric dreams
Gloriously dated, dreamy, ecstatic electro-pop.

Momus, The Homosexual
A great song by the king of perverted pop music

Momus, the Hairstyle of the Devil
My wife gave me a CD years ago, whilst we were working together but not in a relationship. She specifically pointed out this song to me - I wonder if she was trying to send me a message? Again, it is a song that can be playing in the background as I write, the words and tune just sweeping over me.

New order, 1963
No-one seems to really know what this song is about, yet it moves me every time I listen to it.

Suzanne Vega, Tom's Diner
A simple, gentle song, which the music (literally) does not get in the way of. It takes skill to make a capella work. Unusually, the D.N.A. remix (which includes music) is also eminently listenable.

The Beautiful South, The Table
For many years the Beautiful South were one of my favourite bands, and it is hard to pick the one song that means the most to me. Yet, for listening to whilst writing, there can be only one. The Table is a simple song about an ordinary table. The official video (sadly not currently online) - featuring the table being dragged all over Ireland - is instantly memorable, and when I hear it I think of long journeys and the coast.

The Beatles, She's leaving home
I am unsure why this story helps me write - McCartney's speaks rather than sings most of the song, yet it sends my mind flying, although not necessarily to good places.

Joan Armatrading, Love & Affection
A song that takes me back to a walk that I was doing along the Grand Union Canal in London in 1994; I had just talked to my then-girlfriend on my mobile, and was looking across the water towards a canalside supermarket. This song always transport me back to that time, when I was a very different person. The song never fails to bring tears to my eyes.

Pet Shop Boys, A man could get arrested
One of their early songs from the mid-eighties. Somehow I can disregard the heavy electro-pop beat and the words take me away. Usually best when I am writing a fight scene.
The linked video has the song liked marvellously to the recent 'Sherlock Holmes' film.

Kate Bush, Babooshka.
The favourite song of an ex of mine, for years I could not listen to this song without crying. Oh, and Kate Bush is absolutely gorgeous in the video.

Madness, the Bed and Breakfast man.
Another little-known song by a famous band. This is another song that should not really help someone concentrate, but for some reason it really sends my mind soaring.

So there you go, a fairly strange mix of pop songs. And yes, I am a child of the eighties.

Sherlock

The BBC broadcast the second in the promising Sherlock series last night. The story of 'The Blind Banker' - involving murder and smuggled artefacts - was obviously based on the Sherlock Holmes book, "The sign of the Four".

First, the positives: the series so far has been very good. True, it has been updated to take place in contemporary instead of Victorian London, but the writers have given more than a quick nod to the original material. The first episode was excellent, with the introduction of Holmes and Watson deftly handled.

Whilst good, last night's episode was slightly disappointing. There were a few unnecessary get-out-of-jail free cards; for instance a struggling Watson knocks an automated crossbow that is aimed at his girlfriend, making the bolt miss her and hit the man who is fighting Holmes. Such a shot has to be a million to one, and was lazy writing.

The biggest problem, however, was Sarah, Watson's love interest. Although ably-played by Zoe Telford, the character's actions made little sense. First of all, some background. In 'The Sign of the Four', Arthur Conan Doyle introduces Miss Morstan, who later becomes Watson's wife. Therefore there has to be an assumption that Watson and Sarah will become an item in later stories.

In this adaptation, they meet as Watson applies for a job as a locum in a surgery run by Sarah. She hires him, but he falls asleep during a surgery, causing a queue of patients to build up. A normal reaction would be for her to reprimand him; instead she takes over his patients and does not seem to mind. Shortly after, she agrees to go out on a date with him. Her reactions were nonsensical and made her seem unprofessional.

It would have been easy for he plot-line to have been more deftly handled. For instance, she could have noticed that Watson was tired, but that he worked diligently through his line of patients. As a thank you, she invites him out. With a small change you have improved Watson's character (he is a diligent worker) and hers (her actions make sense).

Whilst on their date at a Chinese circus, Holmes gets attacked. Watson runs to his aid, as does Sarah. I would really wonder whether any woman would run up into a fight with two people she hardly knew - she had only just met Sherlock that evening. More likely that she would stand back or call the police. Again, it was sloppy writing - there needed to be a reason for her to risk her own safety by going to their aid.

This sort of thing happens all the time in TV dramas, but it stood out in last night's episode due to the brilliance of the rest of the plot. These are, however, minor foibles in what could well become a classic retelling of familiar tales.

Top tips from Authors.

The Guardian has a couple of webpages outlining ten points of advice about writing fiction from famous authors such as Zadie Smith, Neil Gaiman, PD James and Margaret Atwood. Some are concise, others more detailed. All are worth reading if you write fiction.

See:
ten-rules-for-writing-fiction-part-one
and
10-rules-for-writing-fiction-part-two

I do not agree with some of these, but then I'm not a famous published author. The process of writing is as individual as the pieces that are produced, and what works for Margaret Atwood may not work for you, and vice versa. Some are downright contradictory.

For instance, one piece of PD James' advice is:

'Read widely and with discrimination. Bad writing is contagious',

whilst AL Kennedy's is:

'Read. As much as you can. As deeply and widely and nourishingly and ­irritatingly as you can. And the good things will make you remember them, so you won't need to take notes',

and Will Self's:

'Stop reading fiction – it's all lies anyway, and it doesn't have anything to tell you that you don't know already (assuming, that is, you've read a great deal of fiction in the past; if you haven't you have no business whatsoever being a writer of fiction)'.

There are some real gems in these two articles. If you are writing fiction, read them. At the very least it is an impressive insight into the mind of some famous authors.

Crime and punishment.

Recently I was doing some editing of a story set in 1827. It is remarkably hard to get the voice and tone right for such a distant period, so I did lots of research; this included reading relevant books and novels that had been written at around that time.

Old newspapers are also a good source; both local papers from the time and the nationals. For instance, the Times has a brilliant if expensive online archive that gives lots of stories about what is going on in the relevant periods (or as long as the Times has been published).

I have, however, found another, free source. The Old Bailey Online Archive, which details proceedings of the court between 1674 and 1913. I started reading this a few months ago and found it absolutely fascinating. It details the cases that were held in the Old Bailey, and the results. As well as crimes, it gives lovely little period details; dialect, names etc.

For instance, here is a gentle description of a prostitute from April 1827:

" I sometimes take walks at night to maintain myself..."

Wouldn't that make a great line to use in a period book? It is both deep in meaning and sad. Another example is of hot to carry a sheep:

"...he had hold of the two fore-feet, the head hung before and the legs behind; "

Again, I would love to write that sort of detail into a book.

What is interesting is that in the nineteenth Century manslaughter may only get a three-month term in prison, whilst a crime that would be seen as being lesser nowadays, such as petty theft, could have the death penalty. Why this difference? Perhaps it is because, at least before the twentieth century, both the Jurors and the Judges would be from the propertied classes. A case of manslaughter amongst the working classes may have been seen as being morally reprehensible, but posed no direct threat the the jurors. However, theft was a threat. You can only steal from someone who has something to steal, and therefore cases of theft would be a direct threat to the monied classes.

Ejaculations

I have just finished reading a complete set of the Sherlock Holmes stories by Arthur Conan Doyle. And what a read they were! A series of great stories, well told by a master story-teller. I had read a couple of the stories when I was a teenager, but I freely admit that I had not appreciated them - my mind was more tuned towards stories of derring-do. Since then, my mind had been polluted by the varying standards of the TV and film adaptations (I am awaiting with apprehension Guy Ritchie's latest film, Sherlock Holmes, which I have the most tremendous fears for).

It was therefore with joy that I reacquainted myself with the series. They really are superb, and well deserve their reputation. It was a long read - 1,400 pages of small type in a large book - but it was well worth the perseverance. Very few, if any, of the collection of stories were disappointing.

The stories and writing led me to consider several things. Amongst these was the way that the English language has changed over the last hundred years. A while back I was chatting to someone about dialogue attributions, and I said that it always amused me when I saw 'ejaculated' used as an attribution in old texts. He had never seen it, and I had to admit that I could not recall where I had last seen it.

Well, the 'Sherlock Holmes' series of books are filled with them. Here are some examples that caused me to snigger:

• "What on earth does this mean?" I ejaculated ...
• "Not the Countess of Morcar's blue carbuncle!" I ejaculated.
• "It was a confession," I ejaculated.
• "My dear Holmes!" I ejaculated.
• "Joseph!" ejaculated Phelps.

The problem is that the verb has two meanings. The first is, well, the one used commonly nowadays. The other is to utter something suddenly. Both of these come from the same historical root; to eject suddenly.

Obviously such usage of the verb was perfectly normal at the time, but it would be thought odd to write any of the above nowadays, Indeed, it probably could not even be safely used in a historical piece set in that period.

Of course, it should be used. So I say freely ejaculate when you write! Ejaculate from the rooftops! Ejaculation is good!

Or, on a more sexual note: "Oh God, I'm coming!" he ejaculated...

Yes, you can see the problem.

On a more sensible note, if you wish to read Sherlock Holmes' books and you do not want them in dead-tree form, I suggest going to the 'Project Gutenburg' website and downloading them.

Also, whilst writing this piece I found a good website on Sherlock Holmes - the Sherlock of Peoria website.

Editing

I am currently editing one of the first scenes that I wrote for S&V. It is one of the first scenes that I wrote, and requires a very heavy edit. I thought that I'd reproduce part of it here as an example of how I edit my writing.

This short paragraph features two of the main characters in the book: Alan Hooke, a barman in his early thirties, and Karla, a woman he is growing attached to. She is sitting at the bar whilst he is serving another customer.

Original version:

By the time he turned back to her, a teenager, already half-drunk, was making a half-hearted attempt to chat her up. She was replying, but her eyes kept on moving back onto Hooke. Hooke gave the youth a glare, then: "How old are you, son?"

So what are the problems with it?

1. Show not tell: 'already half-drunk'
2. Impossibilities: 'eyes moving back onto Hooke'. Eyes do not move onto someone; a gaze does.
3. It feels very impersonal.
4. Repeat usage of both 'Hooke' and 'half' close together.
   

So, how to rewrite it? Firstly, what is the point of this paragraph? It shows two things: That Karla does not particularly object to someone trying to chat her up, even if she is not interested (her eyes flicking Hooke up and down). Secondly, it shows that Hooke does not appreciate the youth chatting her up.

After a little work, I come up with this altered version:

A teenage boy, already half drunk, stood next to her, his elbow resting against the bar in an attempt to look nonchalant. Hooke overheard some of the classic chat-up lines, ones that he remembered swapping with his schoolfriends. Karla was smiling as she replied, but her gaze kept on flicking back onto Hooke. He glared at the youth then asked: "How old are you, son?"

This is better, but I'm still not quite happy with it. I think the first sentence is weak, especially the 'already half-drunk' snippet. Therefore I came up with the following:

A teenage boy was standing next to Karla, his elbow resting against the bar in an overwrought attempt to look nonchalant. His voice slurred as he told her some classic chat-up lines, ones that Hooke could recall learning from his schoolfriends. Karla was smiling as she replied, but her gaze kept on flicking back onto Hooke. He glared at the youth then asked: "How old are you, son?"

I'm still not fully happy with this, but it is certainly better than the first version. I'll work on it some more when I do the next edit.

Highlander script

One of my favourite films - perhaps, if I am truthful, my favourite - is the original Highlander film, made in 1986 and starring Christopher Lambert as the immortal hero, Conor MacLeod. The film is a sword-and-magic urban fantasy about a bunch of immortals who have to kill each other until only one is left (believe me, it all makes sense in the film).

Whilst looking for some photos of the villain Kurgan (played brilliantly by Clancy Brown, see right), I came across not only the script of the film, but also an earlier version of that script.

The script of a film allows you to see the way the production process takes raw, textual words and crafts worlds around them. In this case, I had the opportunity to see a script much earlier on in that process. It is strange how different the early script was from the film; certain snippets of text and sentences are recognisable, but the plot follows a generally divergent route.

The female lead (Brenna in the early script, Brenda in the film) is a much stronger, capable character than her film incarnation. The early script also goes into much more detail about her search for the truth about Conor MacLeod. Another, perhaps more important, difference is that the Kurgan does not exist in the early script. Instead, you have a mysterious Knight searching for Conor. The Knight does not seem as malevolent as the Kurgan, and his character is not as richly developed.

There is the same chop-changing through history, between the Highlands and modern-day America, and again this is part of the charm of the story.

There are several parts of the early script that explain things in the film, for instance this quote from Romirez (Ramirez in the film), which explains why the older immortals are such a bloodthirsty lot:

                        ROMIREZ
               You are young, inexperienced.  You
               do not know what time can do.  How
               it can sap all pity, all love.

The film never puts it quite as bluntly as this. There are other major alterations from the film; for one, Conor says that he has fathered 38 children - in the film MacLeod is infertile until he has killed all of the other immortals.

The two scripts are so different they are really two different stories. There are aspects of each that I like; the Kurgan in the film is a far better villain than the Knight, and Brenna in the early script is a much more rounded character than Brenda in the film.

Even if you have no intention of writing a script, it can still be instructive to read scripts that other people have written. They condense a familiar story down to the raw elements, removing all of the fripperies of acting and special effects. In many ways it is storytelling in the raw.

Try it with a film you love.

A fable

I wrote the following fable for my Tuesday evening writing class. Enjoy!

The fable of the bear and the ants.

The bear was a miserable old fellow, with scarcely a single friendly bone in his whole furry body. His age had not dimmed his strength, nor had it improved his ill-temper. He had first moved to the cave when he was a young cub, and it had been his home ever since. It was a damp, sandy home, dirty and smelly, but it was a home nonetheless. Most bears would sweep out their caves; make them a nice, comfortable place in which to raise some cubs. Not this bear. He liked the feel of the damp sand under his fur at night.

It was the ideal den for a large brown bear. Salmon swum freely in the nearby river. If not salmon, then there would be trout. If not trout, well, he was a large bear, and there was always some food around.

Some tall, green trees stood near to the entrance of the cave, and they offered the bear shade from the sun during the hot summer months. Between the cave and the trees there was a sunny glade, where the grass was the comfiest. In the middle of this glade stood a solitary ant-hill. It was a large and ancient example of its sort, about five feet tall and as broad as the entire stretch of the bear's arms.

Now, the ants were of little interest to the bear, and the bear was of little interest to the ants. The ants did not bite or sting, and should not have been a nuisance to such a large bear. So they should have lived side by side with no problems.

But the bear had other ideas. He disliked the ants more than he disliked any other creature, and he disliked a lot of creatures. On the first day he moved into the cave, he had smashed the top off the anthill, and had roared in rage as thousands of ants got into his fur. The feeling of their tiny feet on his skin sent him gamboling into the river to rid himself of the pests.

To his horror. that was not the end. Within a month the anthill had been rebuilt, and there seemed to be just as many ants as ever, thousands of the things, scurrying about on their miniature legs. They avoided him, and he avoided them; except, that is, for the rare occasions when he would stamp on them with his gigantic paws, or try to smash down the anthill.

The beast grew old. No other bears ever came to see him, nor the birds; he had chased them all away from his glade. It was his glade. His and the hated ants.

Then, one day, in a fit of violence, he destroyed the anthill. Not just the top, but the middle and the base as well. His skin was thickened with age, and he could no longer feel the ants running over his fur and skin in their attempts to escape. He razed it right down to the ground, until only a pile of sand and mud remained. In the middle there was a hole that went further underground than even his long arms could reach. The ants had escaped. Beaten, he fetched some old, sun-bleached bones and dropped them in the hole, a final sign of contempt to the weak from the mighty.

The ants had had enough. Ants always take the long view; thousands of them may die, but the colony as a whole would survive past the awful, hated bear, with his paws so big and wide. Some of the colony wanted to move away, to go somewhere safer, away from bears, but no-one knew of such a place. Others wondered why they should be the ones moving. Instead they hatched a plan.

Ants do not think like you or me; they do not even think like bears. Sometimes one colony does not even think like another colony. This colony was very ancient. They had seen many bears come and go; some kind, some quiet, some nasty. But none of their tales from generations past mentioned a bear such as this.

Above the entrance of the cave was an outcrop of soft sandstone, heavily sculpted by rain and wind. On hot days it offered the bear protection from the sun, and he would lie out, letting the wind rustle his fur. On wet days it offered shelter as he stood outside, watching for anyone unwise enough to intrude on his glade.

The rock was soft, but the ants were little. They started one crisp March day, and ended on a blazing-hot summer's evening. Of course the bear noticed that there were not so many ants about, but that pleasing fact in no way made him curious. If they were gone, then they were gone. He only hoped that the rest would follow. He never went to look above his cave, where a big mound of sand was forming, right at the very lip of the ledge.

Each ant could carry only a few grains of sand, but they worked tirelessly night and day. A few grains of sand every half-hour, multiplied by tens of thousands of ants. Slowly the ledge weakened, and the bravest ants stayed until they could feel the first tremors in their legs as the earth started shifting. Tremors that were far too small for a big, mean bear to notice.

The ledge fell whilst the bear slept. Tons upon endless tons of sandy rock blocked the entrance. For days they heard the bear trying to dig himself out, then, finally, glorious silence.

Occasionally other bears came; but now there was no cave for them to live in. The glade had been ruined, at least for the bears. But for the ants it was better than before. For now there was a mound of loose sand in which a new, larger colony could be formed, Nestled behind this was a dark cave that gave protection when danger came. And in the middle of the cave, the white bones of a large, old, grumpy bear.

One ant may be small, but never underestimate the power of millions.

Bath literature festival.

Yesterday we went to visit the first day of the Bath Literature Festival, which is held every year at the end of February. Şencan proposed to me during the event last year, so it is a place that has many happy memories.

In the end we chose to attend four talks (after witnessing a spectacular acrobatic display from two near-naked men outside the Baths). This was just part of the atmosphere during the festival; there were morris dancers and tutu-clad juggling unicyclists.

The first event we attended was a talk by writer and author Linda Grant, who discussed her fiction and non-fiction works. This was fairly interesting, and when it was over we bought a copy of her book, 'The clothes on their backs', which I have started reading and will review later. Coincidentally, Linda Grant was on BBC Radio 4 as we drove back home, talking about her latest book.

The second event was a talk by Polly Devlin, in which she discussed her book, "A year in the life of an English Meadow". This was a passionate talk about a meadow that she saved from ploughing, and has turned back into a fantastic wild flower habitat. Her passion and vision came through in her talk, and again we purchased a copy of her book at the end. She referred to the 'normal fields' that we see as green deserts, with only five or six different types of grasses to be seen. In comparison, her meadow has well over one hundred.

The third, and best, talk, was by Ted Nield, discussing geology and Pangea, the gigantic landmass that once included all the land on Earth. His talk ranged wildly through the past and the future, covering millions of years in the space of minutes. He mixed quotations from Douglas Adams with a brief history - and future - of our planet. Again, we bought a copy of his book, 'Supercontinent'.

The fourth talk we attended was 'Guilty pleasures', a discussion of the works of Georgette Heyer and Dorothy L Sayers. By this time it was 17.30 and I was definitely flagging. As I had never read any of the works (a situation that I shall soon remedy), I found this a fairly boring lecture. Şencan, however, has read books by both the authors and seemed suitably riveted.

In the end we decided not to stay overnight in Bath, and instead headed back home to Romsey. We will have to miss some of the midweek lectures, some of which unfortunately look very interesting, but we may well go back next weekend to attend the last couple of days of the show.

Book festivals are a great way of reaching literature that you would not normally read; go along, pick a talk, listen, then buy the book at the end. I have found some absolute gems of books from doing this, and it has also broadened my reading considerably.