The Greatest Story

Rod and I were chatting the other day about what makes a story. However intricately plotted and carefully executed our writing is, if the basic plot lacks drive, it will be returned to sender. Whether it engenders faith in us or not, the Christmas story is unbeaten in dramatic terms and worth a seasonal snout to see what we can learn from it as storytellers. It makes Hollywood, with its overblown and crass Good v Evil schematics, look anodyne.

In the Christmas story the most powerful entity ever sneaks back into his creation to help set right its wrongs. That’s clear archetypal characterisation plus major mission. Where can you possibly take such superlatives? The Almighty can, after all, do Whatever. The story needs a major obstacle. Bring him back as a baby! Defenseless, incapable of communication or movement. The ultimate boss disguised as unskilled worker on the shop floor.

Add to the mix-for-he-who-hath-everything a teenage girl, lost in a strange city, in labour and homeless. Add lairy wide boys in the form of feckless shepherds who turn out to have hearts of gold. Add three of the most gifted and talented chaps of the day, then make them responsible for the grossest act of stupidity in the whole plot, spilling the secret beans to the Wrong Man, thereby bringing about mass infanticide, with our protagonist, omniscient but useless, as target. By this time, heavenly hosts with fetching wings and guiding stars seem mere set dressing.

The core story is lonely and bloody, terrifying and uplifting. How is it told? Bluntly. Conversationally. Plot twists that defy belief are jotted down by the Gospel authors with factual brevity. Nice counterpoint. Such an overblown plot can only gain authenticity from understated telling.

What can we learn from this? Be braver and bigger and bolder in our ideas than we think is right and proper. Why not? There is no Story Demon out there issuing permission slips as to what we may write. Why be diffident? Push the story to the limits of credulity to discover whether a better plot springs from such audacity. Be unlikely. Get your hands dirty in unknown realms. Bring in a broad social mix: a world leader wants to hack off the head of an unmarried teenage girl’s newborn, when he’s never met either of them. Why?

This coming year is the 400^th anniversary of the King James Bible. The courageous broad strokes of its storytellers have a lot to offer us as authors. Dig in. But first, wherever you are in your scribbling and subbing and plotting and panting, stop. It’s time for a total mental and physical break from writing. Time to pop corks, snap crackers, gaze vacantly at candlelight, sneak a hazelnut praline while basting the bird, indulge our sentimental souls with carols and our children with toys that won’t shut up. I’m having a day off from the constant boil and bubble of ideas, and I hope you do too.

Happy Christmas!

My December Writing Resolutions

For a long time, I haven't bothered with New Year's resolutions. Not because I don't think I'd keep them, but because goals and plans are too exciting to confine to a certain season. If they're worth making at all, they're worth making right now. Lately I've been thinking a lot about how to achieve more in life, so I've made some pre-Christmas resolutions to help me get the most out of my writing during the rest of 2010 and beyond.

1. Make more notes

The ancient question 'where do you get your ideas?' is easy to answer - they pop into my head all the time. The problem is, they usually pop out again after the briefest of sojourns. I've started writing them down instead and am already surprised at how completely I forget things that seemed brilliant when I thought of them. I need a back-up for my brain – why not pen and paper?.

2. Make 'dead time' more productive

I seem to spend an awful lot of time waiting for people to stop faffing around and let me get on with stuff. Instead of idly checking email on my iPod or scrolling through i-am-bored.com, I will use this time to read, to make notes as above, or jot down ideas for blog posts.

3. Become more energetic

Urgh. I hate doing sport. And every slob and their dog decides to get fit after Christmas. But I must grudgingly admit that exercise helps me write better. The gym is too grim for me, so I will shortly be joining a 1940s-style dance class – Strictly Writing might soon have its very own Anne Widdecombe!

4. Create 'a room of one's own.'

There's no space for a tranquil summer house at the bottom of the garden, so the room of my own has to be within my head. I'm practising tuning out noise, remaining calm when stressed and making the most of any brief pockets of peace, refusing to let them be spoiled by anticipation of the next interruption.

5. Write more in longhand

Now that my computer is regularly commandeered for Postman Pat DVDs, it makes sense to overcome my fear of putting fiction on paper and get scribbling. (Plus my handwriting is the absolute pits these days – better use it before I lose it.)

6. Listen to audiobooks

Irrationally or not, I've never considered audiobooks to be 'real' reading – it seems like someone else is doing all the work. The advantages of the format, however, have become too important to ignore – it's a way of learning and being entertained while continuing with the general drudgery of life. There are loads of free audiobooks available online, though the quality is rather variable!

7. Write for writing's own sake

The thought that everything has to be good enough to be published has been holding me back for a long time. So I'm going to have more fun with writing, try out some flash fiction and poetry, and enjoy spending time with the characters in my novel rather than worrying whether I'm really doing justice to the big themes I've stumbled into.

Strictly readers – what are your goals and plans for the next year? I'd love to hear about them, and as this is my last post of 2010 (apart from announcing the next Strictly Writing Award shortlistee), I'd like to wish you all a wonderful Christmas and a New Year filled with hope, happiness – and lots of writing.

Welcome to Susannah Rickards

The Strictly Writing team is delighted to welcome Susannah Rickards as our new team blogger. In fact, to fess up, it's a welcome back, as Susannah was on the team for a short while before. We sent the Strictly Writing heavies round to bully or beg her to come back - whatever it took, and in the end she agreed.

Susannah is the author of Hot Kitchen Snow, recently published by Salt, after winning The Scott Prize. This is an awesome collection that Jess and I have been reading aloud together, punctuated by gaps where we put down the book to marvel at the gems within the stories. It's good honest writing, often moving and often sparkling. Do get yourself a copy.

Susannah will post her first piece here on 23 December, so make sure you take some time off from roasting those mince pies to pop in here with a glass of sherry.

Welcome back, Susannah!

Dreaming of a Write Christmas

Dear Santa...please bring less dust next year

There must be no greater thrill than that for a writer who knows  there’s a fortnight’s worth of ‘time’ available to them in the form of a seasonal break (“End of Term” some like to call it).

And I’m always so stuffed full with good intentions that I’m surprised they don’t start seeping from every orifice with the excess of them. However, I also know full well that about three days before I’m due to go back to the paid work, I will realise I’ve positively frittered away this precious ‘time’ (again) in the pursuit of needless activities that could just as easily be shoehorned into evenings I already squander watching mind-numbingly pedestrian televised ‘entertainment’ (again).

It doesn’t matter how creative I get with this ‘time’, I just can’t seem to make writing my priority. There’s always something else that I’ll “just quickly do” before I can settle. Like that thing dogs do when they turn round and round and round in their baskets before they find the exact right place to bed their weary fur. And they always sigh with such pleasure when they find it. This is the sigh I long for. This is the sigh I need before I can write, care free.

There’s always housework. Especially dusting. Which was clearly invented by a man. No woman in her right mind would have decided that an accumulation of small particles of debris really has to be eradicated in the pursuit of personal calm. It doesn’t bother ME, so why should it bother anybody else? And, like my husband’s always telling me, he didn’t marry for my housekeeping skills  - so I can’t argue with that one - it must be me who’s giving me the hard time.

Piles of paperwork. Stuff that needs to be sorted, windows that need to be cleaned (why don’t window cleaners do the insides too?) and cooking that has to be done in order to satisfy hungry bellies. Why? Can these hungry humans not open a can or slice from a loaf just as well as I can? Why is it considered MY place to be nurturing these co-dwellers? If I had it my way, I’d be perfectly content with a cup of tea every hour and a Hob-Nob on demand. Twenty-four-seven. No, honestly. That’s as high-maintenance as I’m likely to get.

It’s because it’s not ‘real’. It’s still the stuff of dreams. It’s what most people still regard as my ‘hobby’.  My mother used to proudly show off her knitting and I’d nod as enthusiastically as I could to a row of plains and purls. With my Nan it was her steak and kidney puddings; my Dad could skin a rabbit with his eyes shut (as were mine mostly). My brother could have played football for Leeds United and my husband can turn any piece of wood into something beautiful and practical. So why can’t I just get on with my own talent and create something wonderful without placing these unnecessary obstacles in my own way all the time?

I guess if I can’t consider my writing to be as important or as valuable of my time that I genuinely want it to be, then I can't expect anybody else to take me seriously.
Right.  Deep breath. I have a fortnight. I have the Christmas fortnight. And I’ve heard that at Christmas, magical things can happen. Oh, and if Santa can't manage that Dust-Free Year I've asked for, perhaps I'll just take to wearing sunglasses as a kind of perpetual nod to festive irony.

So - a happy and housework-free Write Christmas, one and all!

Quickfire questions with author Marcus Sedgwick

Alongside a 16 year career in publishing Marcus Sedgwick has established himself as a widely-admired writer of YA fiction; his books have either been shortlisted for, or won, over thirty awards, including the Booktrust Teenage Book Award, the Carnegie Medal, the Edgar Allan Poe Award, and the Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize. His latest title is White Crow.
He now writes full time, is Writer in Residence at Bath Spa University, teaches creative writing, and is currently working on film and other projects with his brother, Julian.


Which 3 writers, living or dead, would you invite to dinner?

Edgar Allan Poe, Mervyn Peake and Ernest Hemingway

What's your favourite writing snack?

Waitrose plain chocolate biscuits

Longhand or computer?

Computer, surely to God.

Win Booker prize or land Hollywood film deal?

That's a real tough one. The film just edges it, because I love film so much.

Tabloid or broadsheet?

Broadsheet, though only rarely I have to say.

Independent bookshop or Amazon?

Independent. Use it or lose it, I guess.

Hacker or adder?

Neither, gentle pruner usually.

Plotter or panter?

Plotter. Almost every time, though there are some exceptions to that when you just know what you're doing without having to plan tooooo much.

Leave on a cliffhanger or tell all?

Cliffhanger, everytime. I want to do some work when I read and so that's the kind of book I write too.

You really must read…

The First Century After Beatrice

I get most excited by…

New ideas, or rather, new and exciting ideas. The unusual and the strange and the unexpected.

If I wasn’t a writer I would be…

Sad, grumpy, frustrated. Unless I'd managed to be a musician instead.

An author should always…

Remember their manners.

A Razor Wrapped In Silk

My Dad was a funny old sod.

On the one hand, he was a hard drinking Yorkshire miner who thought wearing gloves in January was nesh.

On the other he harboured a passion for Italian opera and had a life long love affair with Russian literature.

His fave book was Crime and Punishment by Dostoyevsky, which he re-read every year, finding, he said, some new gem each time.

So, it was with a degree of trepidation, that I agreed to review A Razor Wrapped In Silk, by R.N. Morris, who has, daringly, co-opted Dostoyevsky's canny magistrate, Porfiry Petrovich, for his series set in imperialist Russia.

This, the third book in the Porfiry series, tells the tale of two very different crimes. The first, a barely registered death of a serf. The second, the shocking murder of a lady of high rank.

It is Porfiry, of course, who investigates, with his characterisitic steely elegance and it is through his eyes that we see the disparate worlds of St Petersberg. The oppulence and wealth of the ruling classes versus the brutality of hard poverty.

For my Dad, the trade unionist, this was the crux of Dostoyevsky's genius. His ability to conjure the inequality of pre-revolution St Petersberg was powerful. It has to be said, however, that Morris too imagines the juxtaposition with ice-clear sharpness.

Indeed, so well drawn is 1870 St Petersberg, that the city becomes a character in its own right. Porfiry may be clever, but St Pertersberg is the complex and conflicted star of the show.

It's true that this is a crime novel, as opposed to an all out thriller. There aren't twists and turns at every corner. The book, however, is no worse for that, in my opinion. Instead, the prose is allowed to stand and shine, the atmosphere permeate.

There is enough tension to keep any reader happy.

If my Dad were alive today I wonder what he would think. Would he be shocked at Morris'audacity?

Perhaps.

Though I have a sneaky suspicion that he would like this book, very much indeed.

Quickfire questions with YA writer Helen Grant

Helen Grant was born in London. She read Classics at St.Hugh’s College, Oxford, and then worked in marketing for ten years in order to fund her love of travelling. In 2001 she and her family moved to Bad Münstereifel in Germany. While exploring the legends of this beautiful town she was inspired to write her first novel, The Vanishing of Katharina Linden, which was shortlisted for both the Booktrust Teenage Prize and the Carnegie Medal. She now lives in Brussels with her husband, her two children and her two cats. Her second novel, The Glass Demon, was published in 2010 and she has just completed a third book, Wish Me Dead, which will appear in 2011.

Which 3 writers, living or dead, would you invite to dinner?

Anthony Trollope, Charles Dickens and Montague Rhodes James (the English ghost story writer). I wouldn’t invite them all at once, in case they argued. I’d invite Dickens for his wit, Trollope so that I could tell him how much I admire him, and M.R.James so that I could ask him questions. I’ve written many articles speculating about aspects of James’ work and I could settle the questions once and for all.

What's your favourite writing snack?

Mint flavoured Viscount biscuits.

Longhand or computer?

Computer, although I do create outlines in longhand – sometimes using spider diagrams and lists.

Win Booker prize or land Hollywood film deal?

I didn’t have to think about this for even two nanoseconds. Hollywood film deal, please. I have a student husband, two children, two cats and two gerbils to support.

Tabloid or broadsheet?

Broadsheet – although it would be a treat to buy an English one as we have lived abroad since 2001.

Independent bookshop or Amazon?

I live in Belgium, so I tend to use Amazon quite a lot as it’s easier than travelling into Brussels to visit one of the English bookshops. All the same, there’s nothing to compare with the pleasure of visiting an independent store whose owner likes the same sort of thing I do (Victorian novels and zombie stories).

Hacker or adder?

Hacker, though I am known to add too.

Plotter or panter? [ie do you plan out all your work first or write by the seat of your pants!]

I’m a plotter, though I’m not one of these people who work out every paragraph of every chapter before I start writing. I have the “skeleton” of the story and I flesh it out as I go along. I like to know where the story is going and who is going to do what, but there has to be some room for spontaneity.

Leave on a cliffhanger or tell all?

I love end-of-chapter cliffhangers but I find books which end on a cliffhanger very frustrating, especially if the next book in the series hasn’t been published yet.

You really must read…

Handling the Undead by John Ajvide Lindqvist. Everyone has heard of Let the right one in because of the two film versions, but I think Handling the Undead is at least as good if not better. I suppose it’s essentially a zombie story but it’s an intelligent one – nobody shambling about trying to eat anyone else’s brains! It’s about the human fallout of the dead returning to life. How do you cope if a family member comes back to life after two months underground? The book crosses boundaries and in places it is horrific but it also made me cry, because the ending is so uplifting.

I get most excited by…

New sources of inspiration. I am often inspired by real places and their history, and genuine folk tales. I’ve been all over the place researching articles and later my novels. I’ve flown to Jutland and to the Pyrenees to visit particular cathedral towns, and poked about in lonely German forests looking for the ruins of ancient castles. Then I won’t shut up talking about them to anyone who’ll listen.

If I wasn’t a writer I would be…

Something in tourism. I’ve lived in Germany and Belgium so I can speak French, German and Dutch as well as my native English. Also since I have a complete mania for old folk stories and gruesome bits of history I’m sure I’d make a good tour guide!

An author should never…

Be a prima donna. I meet so many people who would love to get their work published, whose dream is to be a writer. Success is a privilege, not a right.