“I took a look at someone’s novel the other day,” I say. “Someone who lives in this street.”

            “Oh-oh,” says Nige, grinning behind his raised lager glass. “Doing a neighbourly favour, were you?”

            “It’s a steampunk novel that – “

            “Sucks?”

            “Well . . . “

            “Everyone thinks they can write a novel. Just like everyone thinks they can sand their own floors.”

            “At least you get some work out of it when they try and fail. I tell them what doesn’t work with their book and what they can do to fix it and rarely even got a thank-you. They just go looking for someone else who’ll tell them it’s great.”

            It’s Monday night in the Quaggy Arms. Nige and I are leaning against the counter. His hair is powdered with wood dust. I know he’s been re-sanding Brian’s floor today. Unfortunately, for us writing coaches, I can’t re-sand Jane’s novel.

            “Can’t you just convince them they need to write it again?” he says.

            “It’s not just re-writing she needs to do. She has to learn how to write. But very few people ever do. They just keep fiddling with the same flawed novel, send it out, get it rejected and blame the business for not understanding how brilliant they are.”

            The new, pretty, young barmaid takes Nige’s order for a pint for me and two more for him. Her eyebrow doesn’t rise at his request, not because she knows he likes to have three lined up near to closing time but because she just doesn’t seem interested.

            “The writers who succeed,” I say, “are those who frequently re-learn, re-begin, keep trying to improve.”

            “Sounds like the difference between the German and England footy teams,” he says.

            “You mean, like they always win and we always lose?”

            “Before answering that I gotta quote you something Gurdjieff once said.”

            “You’ve been reading Gurdjieff?”

            “Lucy lent me a book of his quotes; here’s a good one: ‘no conscious work is ever wasted’.”

            “Come again.”

            “What’s the main problem with English footy?”

            “Hubris.”

            “Exactly. Several hundred years of the robber barons converting their Mafia-like activities into false respectable fronts such as heraldry, sir bleedin’ this and dame bleedin’ that, ensuring the masses’ blind belief that royalty plus empire-building equals ingrained superiority, reinforced by one lucky win in ’66, and ever since we expect the England footy team to win every competition they go in for, but in fact all they do is fail and nothing ever changes.”

            “Whereas the Germans?”

            “Well, they already had a good team, built on solid footy principles. But they did bad in the 2000 Euros, finished bottom of their group, even below Blighty. So what did they do? Went back to basics, that’s what. Put in place a long-term plan. Every Bundesliga club had to set up a youth academy; no one person could own a football club; building for the future. Now, they’ve got two teams in the Champions League Final, stuffed with young German talent.”

            He’s pleased with this. Downs the rest of his pint in one, looking as if he wants to say,  Ta-da!

            “So, what you’re saying is my writers don’t want to re-create themselves with a long-term plan. Instead, they keep believing they’re already good enough really; it’s just bad luck they haven’t been spotted yet. So they tinker around with their book but don’t actually change anything fundamental.”

            “Exactly. I reckon that’s what Gurdjieff meant by no conscious work is wasted. But non-conscious work is absolutely useless.”

            While he works on his second pint, I think about this.

            It takes a long time to write a novel. Yet people write them without much conscious input. What should happen is that when it’s reflected to them that the book doesn’t work, they ditch it and start again, only this time first learning the skills they really need.

            “They don’t want to give up all the work they’ve invested,” I say, “even if it’s non-conscious.”

            He frowns. “If a builder took the same approach,” he says, “it’d be like he keeps on sanding the floorboards in house after house but every time cocking it up; or plastering walls what just collapse seconds later. He wouldn’t get paid. He’d get sued. He’d see that he’s useless and either give up or learn how to do it proper.”

            “Okay – so what do I do next time a new writer doesn’t take my advice?”

            He shrugs. “Don’t apply your conscious work to it in the first place.”

            “Which means?”

            “When I’m asked to estimate a job, I try to figure what the punter really wants. Mostly, it’s cheaper than what they like to admit. The problem is, they ain’t going to admit it to themselves, neither. So I have to look at all the clues – how they’re dressed, what kind of carpet’s on the floor and so on – then give ’em a price that suits their actual needs.”

            He’s probably right. Maybe it’s just my pride that has me giving a casual book written by a casual writer (even if they don’t think so) my full, professional attention.

            “I always like to believe any writer wants to be the best writer they can be,” I say.

            He finishes his third pint, meaning it’s nearly time to go.

            “Maybe they do,” he says, “but the thing is, Tel, Old Crapper’s Gloss White looks just as good as Dulux’s – when it first goes up, at least.”

Prose that’s a vehicle not a road block

One thing that definitely cannot be faked is spontaneous creativity. Back on that life-changing date, if you want her to laugh, or be impressed with your verbal dexterity, or simply think you’re a genuine bloke, you’re going to have to be those things. You’re going to have to get inside your sense of humour, for example, and then take a leap into the unknown by saying something that may make her laugh or may make her think you’re the biggest creep she’s ever met.

But the alternative is much worse: to, say, tell her a rehearsed joke. That can only be a road block for any further movement.

Prose is like that. If it’s coming from a genuine love of your theme, coupled with you taking artistic chances, it’ll produce a perfect and attractive theme.

Authentic collusion with the reader, including genre etiquette

With this one, it might be easier to start by looking at inauthentic collusion between author and reader.

An obvious example is in children’s writing, particularly Young Adult, where the author attempts to ‘get down with the kids’ by having his characters speak in dubious street slang and find novel ways to deny their IQs.

In pop music, Cliff Richard is the classic example of inauthentic collusion with his audience in that he struts and pouts like a sex machine when in fact his daily routine is bound up with playing tennis, avoiding red meat and praying. Actually, this is more complicated than it looks, because I’m clearly wrong that Cliff does not collude with his audience: there are thousands of women of a certain age who make it very plain they would like to collude with Cliff a whole lot closer (even if their modesty is probably ultimately protected by his actual choice of collusion vehicle).

So, Cliff’s audience collude with him in his inauthenticity. Can an author do the same? Possibly, but as with Cliff, you’d hesitate to structure a training course in how to do such a thing.

No, the better option is to aim for genuine collusion, based around the etiquette of the genre in which you’re writing. Cliff ignores the etiquette of being a rock star, but gets away with it because his audience doesn’t really want all that anti-authority and sexual freedom stuff anyway.

So genuine collusion must include respect for the genre you’re writing in, even if your story in the event subverts some of its etiquette. The simplest way to achieve this is to love the genre you’re writing in. The more complicated way is to do it purely for money, which means a) copy-catting the authentic tone of writers who do love the genre, and b) writing without much love of what you do other than the money it’ll make you.

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To round off this quick look at tone, I’m inclined to believe that the writers who have it in abundance are those who essentially love the relationship they can create with their readers. They want to provide the reader with a great experience, full of surprises, fun, thrills and revelations, both large and small. I don’t think this is anything to do with interactivity or audience participation – it’s still the author’s job to tell the story and the reader’s to simply listen to it. But the writers with great tone are, I strongly suspect, those who best love the reader.

It’s a bit like entertaining guests. A lot of hosts make sure they have good supplies of great food and drink; choose perfect background music; ensure that if they’re serving pineapple then a pineapple fork will be laid out for every guest along with all the other correct cutlery. In short, they will give the guests what they believe is best for them. This sort of host is perfectly adequate. If they were a writer, they would produce books that provide everything the author believes a reader should need.

But a truly great host does something quite different. They provide their guests with an experience that’s going to be special – on their guests’ terms, not necessarily by what they think is best. So, they’ll think of background music that these particular guests will feel at home with, or which will surprise them in the right way. They won’t provide damn pineapple forks if their guests are likely not to know what the hell they are. If they know their guests prefer beer to wine, then they’ll get in some great ales.

Which doesn’t mean a great host subjects himself to the will of the guests. He’s still the host, still in control. He is still going to put his own spin on the evening.

It’s just that adequate writers use their control to impose; whereas great writers use it to produce a tone that includes the reader in the experience, so they can own the story too.

There’s an old joke about a teacher berating a pupil: “Boy, don’t look at me in that tone of voice.” And it’s funny because it’s true, of course. My parents used to make a point of getting me to say sorry, for all kinds of things I didn’t feel sorry about. I would eventually say it – ‘Sorry’ – but in a tone as if firing it out of my sphincter. It didn’t matter, though, because for them it was just the word that counted.

But for an author tone is everything. And yet it’s not an easy quality to dissect. You know when it’s right and you know when it’s wrong or muddled or absent. I don’t think it necessarily has to be smooth and suave, by the way – the correct tone can be choppy, long-winded or even boring, as long as it’s serving the job the reader expects it to do, or at least is surprised by in the right way.

When I was at art college, they got us to do an exercise to improve our ability to differentiate tones. Most of us are not so good at this because we’re subjected constantly to such a huge range of different colours which are already clearly differentiated. So, at college we used to paint a picture but only using one colour. This automatically made us focus more strongly on tone. I believe the key to establishing effective tone in writing is similar: not to restrict your writing to say one word but more to become adept at expressing a multitude of emotions and characteristics through a single approach to the story.

So, I’m going to try to break tone down into five constituents that hopefully will make it easier to get hold of:

Consistent and genuine theme

Theme is the mother of tone. It gives birth to it, basically. But it doesn’t necessarily know what the kid is going to turn out like.

Let’s look at an example from so-called real life. You’ve finally got a date with the woman you’re convinced is the one. Although you’re not doing it consciously, as you prepare to go out, you’ll be establishing the tone you’re going to set. You’ll look through your wardrobe and, hopefully, decide against the ‘I’m with Stupid’ T-shirt, or the England football shirt. You’ll consider whether you need to look smart, casual, casual-smart, formal, cool – yeah, right – confident, sensitive, etc. And you’ll do this because you know that she will immediately get whatever tone you’re projecting when you meet, and if it’s not right then the date won’t work.

You’ll also worry about how you’re going to sound; how you should come across. Should you learn a few jokes (probably not). Should you work out where you stand on the UK going over to the Euro? Again, football’s almost certainly out. Is she religious; hell, you don’t know. Should you say you’re agnostic to be on the safe side; are you agnostic, or atheist? You don’t really know? What are you going to do if she’s a Scientologist, apart from run?

All of which of course leads to panic, sweaty thighs and mental convulsions. So, if you’re wise, you’ll sit down and ask yourself what is the theme of the evening. Is it to get smashed together and have meaningless sex? Well . . . no, not really. In which case you can put away the chest wig and the little blue pills. Is it to establish a friendship based on a mutual love of pub quizzes? It better not be.

But if it’s to put yourself totally on the line for the chance to begin a relationship that will be deeper and stronger and more committed than any other you’ve ever had, well, once you’ve admitted that to yourself, you shouldn’t have too much trouble picking out a shirt.

Of course, the difference between real life and being an author, is that in real life the success of your theme is dependent on her having the same theme in mind. Whereas authors can always cheat because they’re in control of both sides of the argument, or romance.

The consistent holding of tone relies, I believe, on the second ingredient which I’m calling:

The author instinct

Normal instinct mostly works to get us out of the way of lorries, angry wasps and the boss. It’s well trained to sense when something’s wrong, then to avoid it.

But the author instinct doesn’t have to avoid danger, because the only dangers in a story are the ones the author introduces himself, deliberately or otherwise. Therefore, the author instinct is free to work positively, which it does by sitting squarely in the middle of the theme and expertly controlling the reins of tone.

Which is a lot better than being on that potentially real life-changing date I mentioned earlier. There, one’s safety-first instinct can easily be at war with one’s creative instinct. So, instead of spontaneously telling her (because it’s what you feel right at that moment) that there’s so much depth in her eyes you know you’ll spend the rest of your life just getting to know what she’s really like, you spend the evening going through your bank statements to show her that you’re a good, solvent bet for the future.

So, if your novel’s theme is, say, the ultimate destructiveness of revenge, you can use it to shape the tone in every scene. And if one of those scenes is a fictional version of the first date, the tone will have a consistent shade of slightly dark foreboding about it, which you could show, say, in the way the guy doesn’t leave a tip because the waiter spilled a bit of wine while pouring it.

The right balance of funny/serious

I went to a fairly formal grammar school where the teachers all wore big black capes but the only weapons they kept in their utility belts were cane extensions for the better beating of the students with. Corporal punishment was second only to major torture (sorry).

Anway, one day we were having a serious discussion about religion in our history class. Or at least our history teacher was having a serious discussion with himself about it. Tony Jones, the class existential joker, kept asking facetious questions like, “If the wafer and the wine actually change into the blood and flesh of Jesus, doesn’t that mean all Catholics are cannibals, Sir?”

Eventually, Sir had had enough. He stormed over to Tony’s desk, clearly ready to inflict severe pain upon the boy, very red in the face and close to boiling point, and said, “Jones, I can’t stand any more.”

Tony said, “Well, you’d better sit down then, Sir.”

Which given the tone of the situation, was not really the best response he could have made. It was very funny, though; but here’s the thing: none of us laughed at the time, because we didn’t dare to.

By contrast, the balance between funny and serious in a story should be immediate and appropriate. The best sitcoms do this very well, by allowing just enough serious to highlight the funny. The worst sitcoms, unsure of their funny in the first place, over-compensate with sentimentality.

“How come quality doesn’t really sell?” I say.

I’m not sure Nige has heard me, since he continues frowning at the three pints of lager lined up before him in a dead straight row. He’s not feeling comfortable, I know, since I insisted we sit at a table tonight, instead of his preferred position, leaning at the bar. I think he believes that the bar offers some protection against possible public criticism of his drinking methods. Which is, essentially, to wait until it’s almost closing time, then down all three pints in a minute or two, thereby, I suspect, feeling he’s had a really good night out. That and receiving a hefty alcohol kick. Three pints on the bar might just comprise two that the barman has temporarily placed there for other customers. In a dead straight row.

But my legs are aching from cycling to work most of this week and I need to sit.

“Because, Tel,” he says eventually, pushing the base of one of the glasses slightly, straightening the straightness of the line. “The extra time, money and sheer bleedin’ effort required to make something a hundred per cent good is disproportionate to what’s needed to make it eighty per cent good.”

“You sound like you’re quoting from an instruction manual.”

He looks up. “I am. But it’s one that ain’t never been published.” He taps the side of his head. “Every builder has it burnt into his brain cells. These days, you learn the hard way through experience, but in ancient times, apprentices would be brainwashed at a very early stage by their masters. A young, keen guy would for instance take ages making sure he got some door painted perfect: no brush strokes showing, nice even application. But the gaffer would say, ‘No, no, no; you have to do it like this.’ And he’d show him how to paint it much faster. If the apprentice was conscientious, he’d notice that the final quality of the gaffer’s work weren’t actually as good as his own.”

He stops speaking, nods at me knowingly, waiting for me to put the pieces of his quality puzzle together.

Fact is, he and I know that I’ve raised this subject in relation to writing. And lately I’ve been trying to figure out a certain mystery where authors are concerned.

“I’ve been on writing workshops,” I say, “where we studied passages by highly commercial authors that were brilliantly written. But then I’d take a book by one of them, open it randomly and most of the time the writing was at best functional, rarely anywhere near as brilliant as the passage we studied.”

“Sometimes I paint a door perfect just because I want to,” he says. “And to remind meself that I can. But I ain’t going to make a living if I don’t keep to the eighty per cent rule.”

“But don’t your clients notice?”

“People that settle for eighty per cent aren’t clients; they’re punters. Sometimes I get a client and he gets a hundred per cent. But the cost of that extra twenty per cent is a whole wallop more.”

“But why would anyone settle for eighty per cent?”

“Because it’s still thirty per cent better than they can do themselves. And because they believe us professionals know what we’re doing. Which we do. We just don’t always do what we know we can do.”

What he says makes sense, even applied to writing. Commercial writers produce a lot of writing. Practicality says they’ll do better aiming at eighty per cent, not a hundred. After all, novels aren’t priced according to the quality of the writing; they’re all costed pretty much the same.

“But hold on a minute,” I say. “I understand that your clients – punters – might turn a blind eye to the quality of your painting not being a hundred per cent because they know that would cost them a lot more. But why would a reader settle for eighty per cent when they could get a hundred for the same price?”

Nige glances at the clock above the door. Three minutes to drinking up time. He reaches for the first pint and I realise he’s going to be distracted now by the need to concentrate on producing a one hundred per cent performance in downing nearly half a gallon of carbonated liquid in the time it would take a normal drinker to go for a pee.

But then an unprecedented event takes place. Nige withdraws his hand, sits back, folds his arms.

“You got me there, Tel,” he says. “What do you think?”

While I’m thinking, tradition grabs him once again and he reaches for the first glass, then sinks the contents in one visit. I’m fascinated by the rhythmic waves of amber in the lager pushing back from the opening and closing of his throat.

“Maybe it’s the unwillingness to pay a different kind of cost,” I say. “Your clients don’t want to spend money. Perhaps readers don’t want to spend too much effort on what they read. You don’t have to think about an eighty per cent book. It’s going to get the job done, on time, without any complications. But a hundred per cent could mean getting more involved; making a contribution.”

“Which ain’t giving ’em what they want, is it?” he says, between putting down the first glass and reaching for the second.

“So, if you’re aiming for a hundred per cent,” I say, “maybe you need to convince your readers that the extra effort is worth it.”

I wait until he puts down the second glass, with surprising delicacy as it happens.

“Fortunately,” he says, “that ain’t a problem we gentlemen builder/decorators have to meditate on. It’s one for you conflicted artists to sort out.”

He’s right. And I don’t know the answer right now. But I do believe it’s a question that’s worth struggling with.

Nige finishes his third pint and I can tell by the expression on his face that he’s struggling with an eternal question of his own: whether to have a slash in the pub now or risk carrying a full bladder all the way home.

Below is the script of my article for Starship Sofa, on Plot (Part Two):

As usual, I’ll be doing this in one take, partly because I believe in spontaneity but mostly because I don’t know how to use the pause button on the recording software.

So, apparently George Clooney was driving home from the film set one day when he spotted a painting thrown away in a skip. It was of a huge, naked woman; the worst painting he’d ever seen. Instead of driving by, he did what an author would do: got a flash of inspiration and nabbed the painting.

Then, he stopped meeting his mates on Monday nights, telling them he was going to art classes instead. He said it was having a therapeutic effect and even insisted on taking the boys to art fairs and shops. This went on for six months, then he proudly presented what he said was his first painting to a friend, but which of course was the one he’d found in the skip, signed by him. His friend thought it was awful but agreed to hang it on his living room wall to please George. Weeks later, Clooney finally confessed on live TV, no doubt deciding that all those months were worth it for the audience’s reaction and the expression he’d see later on his friend’s face.

So plotting a story is exactly like pulling off a practical joke. You need an idea, a situation, a planned series of events in which your main character has no idea what is happening to him and why he is being tortured, then a climax where all is finally revealed.

This story also illustrates, by the way, something said by Jeanne Cavelos, who runs the marvellous six-week Odyssey Fantasy Writing Workshop:

You’re not just reporting events, you’re shaping events.

So how do you shape a plot? Well, everyone knows the most basic plot shape of all: beginning, middle and end. However, even such a simple shape requires you to make conscious decisions about every step your characters take. This is because in shaping a plot, you’re making an essentially artificial structure. Nothing in life has a beginning, middle and end. Only stories do. Which is why we like them so much: they’re a way of bringing order to the mystery and mania of life.

As for beginnings, the big question of course is ‘Where?’ Well, Kurt Vonnegut said you should start as close to the end as possible. The beginning and the ending of your story are the most powerful parts – like birth and death; so it’s important to get them right. The beginning throws down a marker to the reader: this scene is vital; this time is the only time; this setting is part of the story; and this character is at the most critical juncture of her life.

The plot is the most meaningful segment – or arc – taken out of your main character’s life. It’s not an open-ended arc, nor is it a self-contained circle. This is very important, since the reader has to get a strong sense that the characters existed before the story starts and will exist after it.

Kate Wilhelm in her book “Storyteller” suggests telling stories to children because, she says:

Children are a demanding audience. They insist on an identifiable situation, a problem, a solution to the problem, and a satisfying, identifiable resolution . . . And you have to do it in such a way that your audience would not have thought of. Surprise them. If you can hold their attention, you can plot.

Incidentally, the sub-title of this book is “Writing Lessons and More from 27 Years of the Clarion Writers’ Workshop”. Kate Wilhelm was married to Damon Knight whose book I recommended last week, and I recommend this one too.

Ursula Le Guin in her book about writing, “Steering the Craft”, says:

I define plot as a form of story which uses action as its mode, usually in the form of conflict, and which closely and intricately connects one act to another, usually through a causal chain, ending in a climax . . . plot is a pleasure in itself . . . it provides an armature for narrative that beginning writers may find invaluable.

However, she also warns:

But most serious modern fictions can’t be reduced to a plot, or retold without fatal loss except in their own words. The story is not in the plot but in the telling. It is the telling that moves.

I recommend reading Joseph Campbell’s “The Hero with a Thousand Faces.” It was published in 1949 and is a distillation Campbell makes of the hero’s journey as it appears in world mythology. The great thing about this book is its mixture of enthusiasm and erudition. You’ll find yourself absorbing its wisdom about plot without really being conscious of it. George Lucas based the original Star Wars films on Campbell’s pharmacy hero’s journey. In fact, there is an excellent DVD you can find in which Campbell discusses his work, filmed at George Lucas’s ranch. Of course, there is just the smidgeon of a chance that Lucas did not base the new Star Wars trilogy on Campbell’s work.

You might also want to try “The Seven Basic Plots by Christopher Booker”, which is fascinating although a little heavy-going in places.

Also, I’d recommend looking at a book I mentioned in the first part of this article, “Save the Cat” by Blake Snyder. In it, Snyder gives his own definition of the 10 types of movie plot and the titles alone are very evocative, for example, ‘Monster in the House’, Dude with a Problem’, ‘Buddylove’, ‘Out of the Bottle’.

Okay, I hear you thinking, but where do I start with plot? All this stuff is interesting but I want the bare bones plot shape to help me write stories that go somewhere interesting. After starting somewhere interesting, of course.

Well, you can’t go far wrong with the Seven Point Plot shape. This appears to have first been put together by Scott Meredith, who was a top literary agent. It was later modified by Algis Budrys, a terrific science fiction writer and teacher. There are of course many other versions of a basic plot, and there are plenty of people who think this one is too simple. But the truth is that the vast majority of commercially successful stories fit into it.

I learned about it in detail at a workshop in Oregon, USA, in 2008, taken by Dean Wesley Smith and Kristine Kathryn Rusch. Dean and Kris teach with natural authority, in that everything they propose about being a professional author has resulted from their own direct experiences. They’ve each published dozens and dozens of novels and hundreds of short stories. Their workshop is incredibly hard work but very, very rewarding.

So, the first three elements of the seven point plot are together what should constitute the beginning of your story. If it’s a short story, you really need to establish these three in the first paragraph or two; in a novel, maybe the first chapter.

1. Character – in a
2. Setting – with a
3. Problem

Character . . . Setting . . . Problem

The main character is the one we need to care about. We need to know where he is – the setting. And this should not be arbitrary; it needs to be relevant to the story, as well as being interesting in itself. Beware of the white room, i.e. characters existing nowhere because you haven’t bothered to describe their setting. And also beware of assuming the reader will ‘get’ your setting, for example, ‘Intergalactic Commander Buggins strode on to the bridge’ may be enough for a Trekkie but the rest of us will be wondering whether or not to picture a large stretch of concrete over a river.

The middle of the story is the where main character:

4. Tries
5. Fails

He or she must make an intelligent try – one the reader is impressed with, would have thought of himself if he’d had enough time to. And the failure should be unexpected, both by the character and the reader. It’s here the problem gets much worse, and the villain if you have one succeeds. This leads to the climax where the main character makes his:

6. Last try – this should arise from the depths of his despair, when all is lost and there’s no way out. Finally,

7. Validation or resolution. This doesn’t mean the hero has won necessarily, but it’s where the core conflict of the story is resolved.

* * *

Now, I realise I’ve been talking about ‘rules’ or techniques – which a lot of writers like to believe they don’t need to learn. I know websites where writers regularly post self-indulgent stories that are impossible to read, in the belief that their natural greatness will get them noticed sooner or later.

Yes, it’s true that the best writers produce work that seems very simple – stories that zoom along, full of characters you really care about, and written so smoothly you don’t notice you’re reading at all.

But that level of simplicity only comes after a writer has moved away from the original simplicity of basically knowing nothing about what he’s doing, through the hard work and frustration of dealing with the complexity of writing well; finally, to arrive at a simplicity that can seem like magic.

Picasso was once on French television when very old. He was interviewed by a cocky young man who at one point handed Picasso a piece of paper and a pen and asked him to sketch something. Picasso obliged and handed it back. The young man said, “I could sell this for thousands, yet it only took you twenty seconds.” Picasso said, “No, it didn’t; it took eighty years.”

Below is the script of my article for Starship Sofa, on Plot (Part One):

Dear Deirdre,

I went on a writer’s retreat, slept with one of the students, found out later she’s my girlfriend’s grandmother and now she tells me she’s pregnant and wants me to marry her. Help!

I’ve always found it curious that everyone who writes to The Sun‘s problem page has such great writers’ instincts. They open their letters with a teaser, like a movie trailer or the blurb on the back of the book. This gives you the bare plot of the situation but without the resolution. Which of course makes the reader want to get involved, to find out how anyone could be so stupid or so randy as to sleep with a granny, and how Deirdre is going to make everything all right again. Or not.

Then the letter takes us back to the beginning of the story . . . My girlfriend and I had been arguing a lot so I thought a week in the country with a group of quiet introverts would help me regain my spiritual equilibrium . . . etc.

And here is the fundamental requirement of a plot: that something interesting, exciting, different, startling is going to happen to your character. Because, let’s face it, Deirdre isn’t going to publish a letter about how you went on a writer’s retreat, met some lovely people, cooked a nice tofu casserole that received lots of compliments, and you learned a bit about writing too.

So, today I’m going to talk about plot. Which is the main ingredient that separates a story you tell that complete strangers will pay to read, from a story that your mates will pretend to be interested in down the pub after you’ve bought them a round or two. It’s a vast subject, however, so this article will be in two parts, and I suspect we’ll come back to it again and again in future.

Here are two quotes about plot:

Writers are always grappling with two problems: they must make the story interesting (to themselves, if no one else), yet keep it believable (because, somehow, when it ceases to be believable on some level, it ceases to be interesting).

In a very real way, one writes a story to find out what happens in it.

Samuel R Delaney ‘About Writing’

On the other hand, Jon Franklin, in ‘Writing for Story’ says:

Every writer of any merit at all during the last five hundred years of English history outlined virtually everything he wrote.

Which just goes to show how complex this subject is. So to begin with I’m going to keep it simple and look at the basic attitudes you need as a writer if you’re going to produce great plots, whether you outline them first before starting the story, or write the story first to find out what the outline is. In the second part, we’ll look at the mechanics and possible shapes of a plot, and we’ll stick with short stories for now.

A short story goes for a single emotional effect, ideally felt at the climax where it will have the most impact. A short story plot is about economy – one main character and one Point of View, maybe two secondary characters, and probably no more than three or four scenes. A short story is like a single, punchy memory: short beginning, accelerating middle, dramatic end with short resolution.

Because of this, short story writers need to be ruthless with their plots. They need to be like the wife who’s husband comes home late, smelling of strong liquor, face covered in lipstick. “What happened?” she demands. “Well,” he says, “it was a fine, sunny morning and I got the 8.35 to Liverpool Street as usual. I even got a seat and — “. “What happened!” she repeats. Of course, what she wants is for him to start this story as near to the end as he can get. Which will be to do with drinking too much at the office party and not realising the policewoman who’d come to arrest him was not really an officer of the law.

We’re all too polite when we hear other people tell us stories about their day. We nod encouragingly when they go on about the cyclist who nearly knocked them over on the way to work, and their boss who gave them a really weird look, and how hilarious it was when they hid the secretary’s miniature teddy bear but it’s okay they put it back before she noticed . . .

Or when your mate tells you about how he slept with his girlfriend’s granny on a writers’ retreat and got her pregnant – you’ll laugh like a drain for a bit then settle down to suggest ways he can keep his life on an even keel.

But a writer will do the opposite: he’ll look to ways he can not only prolong his mate’s agony but compound it. If he’s a crime writer, for instance, he’ll suggest wiring the granny’s Zimmer frame to the mains then leaving the country before the police start their murder enquiries. If he’s a literary fiction writer, he’ll have his mate move in with the grandmother and parallel his struggles to write a zeitgeist-defining novel with his spiritual torment at living with someone so close to death.

And if he’s a science fiction writer, his mate actually went through a dark matter conundrum, thirty years into the future to sleep with his girlfriend as an older woman, who then stepped back in time with him so he now has to keep the two girlfriends apart or risk destroying the universe and his sexual credibility to boot.

So, a writer has to go against his social, moral and physical instincts to live a life free of danger, pain and anguish. He has to find ways to make life for his characters worse, to push them to the very brink of destruction. And even then, he doesn’t let them off the hook; instead, he makes them think they’ve succeeded – has them actually close their fingers around the staff of power which will restore their souls and destroy the marauding demons closing in on them by the second, only to find this one is a fake and powerless. All is lost; the darkness closes in . . . Then, out of the very depths of their despair, a possible solution is found – but it’s risky and will cost them dearly even if it succeeds . . .

When you’re writing a story, you need to actually torture your characters. And you torture them with plot. You make bad things happen to them. Then see how they react. All sorts of surprising things happen to people when they have plots dropped on their heads. They get angry and react and change, and then affect the plot in return. Suddenly, you have a real story on your hands.

But you need to be careful. When the plot controls the characters too much, the reader feels as if she’s doing the Times crossword – intellectually stimulating but rather predictable. When the characters run amok without a plot to guide them, the reader feels as if she’s reading someone’s diary or blog and wonders why she’s paid money for this story when she could be reading someone’s blog or diary for free.

A plot, then, is a series of imaginary events designed to create anticipation at a high pitch, either in the form of anxiety (in a story of conflict or mystery), or of curiosity (in a puzzle story). If you can build such a series, you can plot . . . In a plotted story, the ending may take the form of a revelation, a decision, an explanation, or a solution.

Damon Knight, ‘Creating Short Fiction’ – also check out his ‘Common Plotting Faults and What to Do about Them’ (in the same book).

This book is one of those essentials for any writer, by the way. Damon Knight was a great science fiction writer who also taught at the Clarion workshop for many years. I know lots of writers, from all sorts of fiction fields, not just SF, who say this is the one book they keep close at all times.

It helps to see the plot as a causal chain rather than a series of events.

Blake Snyder in ‘Save the Cat’ says:

The basis of the ‘Turn, Turn, Turn’ rule is: The plot doesn’t just move ahead, it spins and intensifies as it goes. It is the difference between velocity (a constant speed) and acceleration (an increasing speed). And the rule is: It’s not enough for the plot to go forward, it must go forward faster, and with more complexity, to the climax.

Now, I don’t think it would be too controversial for me to state that the plots of the second and third films in the Pirates of the Caribbean series were rather light on causal effects. Why? Well, my theory is that they’d struck accidental character gold in the first film with Johnny Depp’s Captain Jack Sparrow. In that film, he wasn’t the main character, which meant the plot could progress without depending on him being affected by it too much. But by the time of the later films, the studio had decided he was the main selling point, so of course they did the subtle thing and built both films around him. However, because his character was clearly a brand he was not to be tampered with. The solution? Was it to sacrifice him as the main character so the story could develop around someone else; was it to change him anyway on the basis that he’d still probably still be popular? No, much simpler to just dispense with the plot. Hence, there are lots of chases, fights, monsters, comedy characters, etc, but virtually no story development in the later two films.

To round off this section, here are a few more ways of looking at plot:

The main plot of any story is like the strings of a violin, carefully made to bear the weight of the bow and to transmit sound accurately. But a violin gets its timbre from the music box under the strings. Timbre, the resounding box in literature, is cultural allusion.

Carol Bly ‘The Passionate, Accurate Story’

The plot is the alignment of progressively developed actions – conflict or instability, climax or crisis, resolution, showdown action – with the theme or focus of a story. It is the development of events and character.

Ndaeyo Uko, ‘Story Building’

Characters caught in a crucible won’t declare a truce and quit. They’re in it till the end. The key to the crucible is that the motivation of the characters to continue opposing each other is greater than their motivation to run away. Or they can’t run away because they’re in a prison cell, a lifeboat, the army, or a family.

Sol Stein, ‘Stein on Writing’

Below is the remaining script for Starship Sofa on Show Not Tell, plus some additional thoughts I made for the show notes.

Finally, one more example from life that I hope will encapsulate the value of Showing above Telling.

When I was a student I once shared a house in Swansea with nine girls. Needless to say, I learnt a lot about girls from that experience, and not all of it fragrant. Anyway, I used to like Sunday mornings when the girls would drift downstairs to the living room and share stories about what they got up to on Saturday night. I’d sit in the corner and pretend I wasn’t there. Some of the stories they told about boys and sex were hilarious, which was interesting since I didn’t find sex all that funny, especially if I was involved.

Of course they knew I was there. They were showing me their stories, instead of just telling me. If they’d said – “Hey, Terry, we think boys and sex are hilarious” – that would have made their views definite. And definite views can be disagreed with, even rejected. Instead, they let me see their views, which is not a case for disagreement – you either share in them or not.

So, showing also preserves the integrity of the author and the reader. The magic becomes a shared experience, not a confrontational one. I don’t know about you, but Telling in stories tends to make me doubt the author’s ability to be so definite.

And now a writing tip, which is kind of related to what I’ve been talking about and is to do with enthusiasm.

About two and a half years ago, I took a long trip with a friend and one of the subjects we discussed was my frustration at not getting my novels taken on by publishers, even those who’d published me in the past. My friend, who’d built up a very successful coaching business from scratch at a fairly advanced age, urged me to be more outgoing: network, he said, find a mentor, join groups. I was very resistant to this, believing all that counts is what you write.

But later, I gradually and at first reluctantly thought he might just have a point. So I joined some groups; as I mentioned last time, I went to Odyssey and Milford; I chaired panels at fantasy conventions; did a lot more editing/mentoring. Sometimes, I came away wondering why I’d done it – because I couldn’t see the direct benefit, or thought I hadn’t received the benefit I’d expected. But here’s the thing: all those activities pumped my enthusiasm, which in turn now affects the way I approach editors and agents. For instance, I put a proposal to an agent a couple of weeks back, in which I talked a lot about all the stuff I’m involved with in SF, including this podcast, and she came back the very next day to say, YES YES YES – and I don’t think she was washing her hair at the time with that over-excitable organic shampoo. Now, I don’t know what will come of that proposal, but it doesn’t matter: the main thing is I’ve seen how important enthusiasm is. And guess what? Enthusiasm also back-flows into one’s writing, and when you think about it, is the most important element of all in making it attractive.

* * *

Additional Notes:

Showing a story treats readers with respect, providing space for them to infer the characters; basically it includes the reader – Telling doesn’t: it keeps the reader at arm’s length.

Showing reflects the ambiguities and uncertainties of life; Telling removes them all which is why characters in blockbusters tend to behave so predictably.

Just as being an eccentric is much harder than telling people you’re one, learning to Show rather than Tell means you have to completely change your mental approach to the way you write.

Writing tip on output and a bit more on enthusiasm:
Here are two contrasting examples. Jay Lake the science fiction writer was talking recently about how he has to write in one-to-two hour patches but in that time will produce 5,000 words, and typically he produces around 200k words – easily enough for a novel – in 35-40 days.

A children’s author I know – one book published so far to excellent critical acclaim – recently talked about how he has a job which only takes up three days of the week; in other words he has 4 clear writing days and seven evenings if he so chooses. He said he was setting himself a target of 2,000 words per week. So, let’s say he can manage 40 hours in a week, that’s around 50 words per hour, compared with around 2 to 3 thousand for Jay Lake. Lake also has a child, while the children’s author doesn’t. It’s no great surprise to me that this author is also worried about the work on his second novel not going too well.

Now, I know all the arguments against simply sitting in the seat and writing. I’ve used them myself. But then my partner was never fooled by my explanation that I was not having a ‘kip’ whenever she found me stretched out on the study floor but instead allowing my creative mind the time and space it needs to produce something more original than would appear if I simply bashed out the words. And I’m not really convinced, either. The fact is, the process of writing generates enthusiasm which in turn gives the writing integrity. So what if half of what Jay Lake writes has to be discarded eventually, he’s still got 100,000 words of good stuff down in under a month.

We all have this sly self that lives inside us and is incredibly clever at nudging us away from the writing desk. It knows our weaknesses and only has to whisper the suggestion that the ironing needs doing, or how great it would be to cook a proper meal tonight instead of making do with a sandwich – hey, writers have the cleanest and best-stocked larders of anyone – and of course, it’s excellent at convincing us that we’d have so much more energy to write with if we just watched the second half of the Chelsea game first; well, better make that the first half too, after all, you’ve paid for Sky Sports, haven’t you; might as well get your money’s worth.

What works for me is simple but somewhat unimaginative. I just sit in the chair and keep myself there by saying as often as I need to, ‘Just keep writing; just keep writing’; and sometimes I add: ‘Come on, you can do it; just keep writing’.

How do you retain enthusiasm when your stuff is getting rejected all the time? Keep improving your writing; keep sending it out; keep yourself informed; join in with other writers – workshops, conventions, online critique groups. And above all, remember that success is not one big publishing deal that changes your life forever – the media love that stuff but it’s incredibly rare. Success is little movements forward in this area, then that, and one over there, until bit by bit you find you’re heading up the path you always wanted to be on, which has no end, just a lot more learning and enthusiasm.

(In August last year, I wrote about Show Not Tell from the angle of Essence vs Personality. Here is the script of an earlier podcast I made on the same subject for Starship Sofa, coming from a different angle.)

This week, I’m going to look at the most vital element to get right if you want to truly involve readers in your story: Show Not Tell. By the way, if you hear someone shouting “Enunciate!” in the background, it’s my partner. She doesn’t know I’m recording an article, she just thinks I mumble a lot.

Okay, now Show Not Tell can be a difficult concept to grasp. One reason is that we grow up being told stories – by parents, teachers and those hyper-active children’s TV presenters with teeth that make you squint. But when we come to write our own stories, it’s not a simple case of converting from being a listener to a teller; we have to learn how to show a story instead.

But rather than start with written examples, let’s first take a look at how Show Not Tell also affects our daily lives. One reason for doing this is I believe of all writing techniques, this is the one most directly related to how we all communicate with others, whether we’re writers or not.

So . . . you’re in a restaurant with a girl. It’s the third time you’ve been out together and your pounding heart says for you it’s serious. You’re desperate to know if she feels the same way about you. Everything depends on her answer; your entire life will change if she says yes.

So, why not just ask her? She can tell you right up front – yes or no – then you won’t have to commit your nerves and expectations; you can sit back and enjoy the meal. Well, okay, you won’t be too relaxed if she turns you down, but at least you’ll know, and the agony will be over.

The problem is, she doesn’t want to Tell you now, because she hasn’t fully decided yet. She wants to Show you – indications, hints, possibilities – and see what you Show her by return.

And, even more frustrating for you and your plans, she wants to do this by talking about anything other than what you’re desperate to know. It doesn’t matter what the subject is – because it’s what’s shown by the way you talk, the actions you make and don’t make, that will draw out the magic: if it’s there.

And let’s stop right here, because this is the nub of Show Not Tell. If there’s magic in your story, it can only be transferred by how you show it working. David Copperfield doesn’t come out on stage and just tell you about the elephant he could make disappear and how the trick’s done: you want to see the elephant and then, well, not see it.

So, if you really do have feelings for her, and it’s not just some fancy game you’re playing on yourself, you’ll use that talk about the country’s current economical downturn to Show her your feelings. And if she has the same feelings, then by the end of the meal you can just smile at each other and know that both your lives are going to change forever. Then, of course, there’s the thorny question of who pays the bill, and that probably requires some Telling, truth be told, at least until you know each other better.

Now let’s look at the opening of two very different novels. Here’s the first line of ‘The Fourth Estate’ by Jeffrey Archer:

The odds were stacked against him. But the odds had never worried Richard Armstrong in the past.

And here’s the first line of ‘Northern Lights’ by Philip Pullman:

Lyra and her daemon moved through the darkening Hall, taking care to keep to one side, out of sight of the kitchen.

And the start of the second paragraph:

Lyra stopped beside the Master’s chair and flicked the biggest glass gently with a fingernail. The sound rang clearly in the Hall.

So, Archer’s book begins with two statements that just tell us two things about the character: the odds are against him but he’s not the type to worry about it. Which is fine if we’re interviewing him for a job but there’s nothing for us to get involved in: the second statement simply answers the first.

Pullman doesn’t tell us anything directly about Lyra. He describes her moving in the dark, taking care not to be seen, doing something she probably shouldn’t be. So we’re instantly drawn in: why is she doing this and what sort of person is she? We’re on her journey with her. And of course ‘ . . . her daemon’ is another great Show: what is it and where can I get one? Next, Pullman shows her stopping, letting her curiosity overcome her fear of discovery, to play with a glass – and not just any glass: the Master’s glass. So already we know a lot about her: that she’s rebellious and reckless, and full of curiosity – yet none of this has been told. There may even be a character clue in the fact she pings the biggest glass; or they may not be. A more telling author would have told us that she flicked the biggest glass because it was in her nature to always take on the toughest challenge. But in just showing it, Pullman creates some space around a character, like a little vacuum that we want to fill with our interest, not necessarily right now.

By contrast, blockbuster characters tend to be unmemorable: because you’re simply told that they’re brave, funny, witty, etc. To go back to our couple in the restaurant – he could try telling her he’s got a good sense of humour and is considerate of others’ needs; he might as well tell her he’s rich while he’s at it. But guess what? She’s not going to commit to him until she actually sees his humour and consideration of others in action.

Now, here’s a passage from ‘Dinky Hocker Shoots Smack’ by M E Kerr, a young adult novel published in 1972:
P John Knight got up in Creative Writing and read his new story, ‘Answered Prayers’.

It was science fiction.

It was about a future word entirely under the control of one man and one woman: Mama and Papa. Everyone took dope which Mama and Papa gave them. Everyone had the same last name: Love. The people with high IQs became slaves, and took care of the machines which did all the work. Everyone sat around in stupors, listening to television and saying, ‘Mama loves you. Papa loves you,’ and watching the word ‘Love’ spelled out in endless animated designs. There were no wars and no one went hungry. Everyone liked everyone else regardless of race or color, except for the ‘brains’ who lived in automated prisons guarded by automatons.

Notice how she doesn’t tell us a single direct thing about P John Knight but we know a lot about him from this, and we’re involved. We want to see why he thinks this way; if he really hates his mother and father as much as he appears to; and if he really is an outcast because of his intelligence or because he likes to wind up the liberals in his class, or both.

Now, M E Kerr could have just written this:

P John Knight hated his mother and father, and hated the liberal views of his classmates. He also disapproved of drug-taking and saw himself to be cleverer than most others.

But this is flat and uninvolving, and basically not as much fun as seeing him directly challenging his classmates. Also, and most importantly, it doesn’t allow for the shades of feeling P John actually has for his parents and class mates. Which is very important for his later development. For example, when he sees the real quality in Dinky, where everyone else including her parents tends to patronise her because she’s overweight and dresses badly.

Another kind of Telling is dialogue ‘tags’. Why ‘tags’? Well, because they’re like sales tags, that say ‘sofa’ when you’re looking at a sofa, just in case you don’t know what a sofa is. Dialogue tags tell you what a piece of dialogue is; for example:

“You asked to see me, sir,” Jenkins said apprehensively.

“Yes, I did, Jenkins,” said Sir inscrutably. “Sit down,” he added unambiguously.

“Thank you sir,” said Jenkins obsequiously.

And so on. Now, this is very strange, not least because people don’t do this in real life. Imagine, for example, you’re sitting next to our couple in the restaurant. You hear him say, “Isn’t this great wine I say hesitantly.” And then she says, “Yes, isn’t it, I reply noncommittally.” Then he says, “What do you think of the current economic downturn, I say suggestively.” To which she can only reply, “It’s not looking good, I say ironically.”

Or, they hire a writer to sit between them so when he says, “That’s hilarious!” the author says, “he laughed.” She says, “I’m not sure how I feel,” and the author says, “she frowned.”

So, why put tags in fiction? Well, one reason is the author doesn’t have enough confidence in his dialogue to let it stand on its own. And he may have a point; in which case he needs to re-write it until the way it’s constructed, in keeping with each character’s nature, resonates with feeling. Tags indicate the author wants to make sure you get the point; so he just tells you. But the trouble is with this is that readers get lazy if they’re told everything, which means they don’t invest any energy in imagining the characters, which means they end up not caring about them.

Besides, people rarely say anything with just one inflection. For example, they can be, say, two thirds angry with someone but one third frightened for them, too. So a tag which says, “he said angrily” truncates the full range of feelings involved.

Essentially, when you see a lot of tags it means the author is not working hard enough to infuse his dialogue with meaning in its own right: he’s just using easy to reach, flat-pack, speech, then slapping a display tag on the end so you know exactly what kind of furniture it is he’s trying to sell you.

Here’s how to use dialogue without tags to show character movement. This is the scene in ‘Dinky Hocker Shoots Smack’ where P John and Dinky meet for the first time:

‘How do you do,’ P John said, and then he turned back to Dinky. ‘You must have another name besides Dinky.’

‘It’s Susan,’ said Dinky.

Mrs. Hocker said, ‘Dinky is our affectionate name for her.’

P John held his arm out as though Dinky were his partner for the grand march at the beginning of a fancy dress ball. ‘Shall we be off, Susan?’

Basically, Showing creates meaningful space in which the reader can invest her own appraisal of a character.

For example, I once went to a bazaar in Cairo and found a jewellery box I wanted to buy for my girlfriend. So after establishing that the stallholder spoke English, I said, ‘Look, I’m going to say this price then you’ll say something higher, then we’ll end up in the middle: so to save time why don’t you just tell me what you want and I’ll pay it.’

The stallholder looked offended but fortunately for me chose to explain why. He said, ‘The point of bartering is that I get a chance to see what kind of man you are and you get to see what kind of man I am, and the final price is a reflection of that.’

These are updated extracts from the script of a podcast I did for Starship Sofa, with some additional notes.

I want to raise an issue to do with POV rarely if ever mentioned, which is the need for the author to deepen his own perceptions of his main character.

We live in a world of shifting viewpoints, basically. We get most of our stories now from screens where there is rarely a steady POV. We also believe in diversity and appreciating other people’s religions, nationalities, sexual preferences and choice of football team. The problem with this is that our appreciation tends to be shallow and only succeeds, if it really does at all, because no one ever challenges its depth.

I see a lot of manuscripts by new writers in which it’s clear they do not know how to stick with a POV and deepen their insight of it, and thereby their readers’ insight too. Instead, they adopt a camera-like POV which skits around their characters’ faces, or describes them standing under a lamppost lighting a cigarette with smoke curling into the light, their eyes in shadow – as if that tells us something about the character. It doesn’t: it’s just a camera direction.

For a writer to produce a convincing POV he has to buck the modern trend of superficial, short-sighted, appreciations of one character after another, and instead stick with the one, gather his courage in both hands (well, one hand ‘cos he’ll need the other to write with) and go in deep, to the uncomfortable truth that lies at the core of all of us. He has to be unfashionable, like people who still want to get married. Marriage is so restricting, surely; it inhibits your choice; it’s boring. Maybe, but it also can teach you more about another person and yourself than a history of picking up and putting down of partners according to the current fad.

* * *

On Starship Sofa, I mentioned Brian Clough, a famous now deceased, football manager. Here’s a Clough story that I observed myself:

One time, a load of fans ran on the field after a match – a big no-no – and Clough ran after them, clipping a few round the ear and forcing them off. This upset some people and I saw Clough interviewed about it afterwards. This young reporter said, “Mr Clough, some people might say you acted irresponsibly . . . ” Clough said, “Now, young man, who are these ‘some people’; are you one of them? Because if you are, say what you have to say like a man.” End of interview; power struggle won – fixed POV defeats shifting (‘some people’). Wonder intact.

Modern life is often like that reporter, like a group of friends in the pub: one’s talking while he’s flicking through a magazine; the others are texting while they’re sort of listening. Worse still, most people now get most of their stories on screen and in where TV/film POV is not really an issue, where the camera shifts around from point to point. But here’s the good news: the written story can do what no movie can – get you inside the main character’s head. And what is it that has had millions of children sitting still for hours at a time, concentrating on just one thing: a written story about a boy wizard. So POV is still something people respond positively to, even if they’re usually unaware of its presence.

* * *

I hope you’re beginning to see that the very limitation of POV is its power. I believe this is because the truth about another person – or a non-POV character in your story – lies more in the accumulated unseen clues they’re not aware of presenting: what they don’t consciously say or do; what’s in their aura and their body language. In omniscient or shifting POV, the author takes the easy route of simply showing you what each character is thinking. But there’s a problem there; because in real life, even if you ask someone to tell you the truth about themselves and even if they agree, the result will be a long way from the truth. This is because we don’t know ourselves nearly as well as we think we do.

So, it’s the author’s job to anchor the POV in the most appropriate character for observing the truth about the other characters, who in turn can intimate the truth about the main character. Then he has to do the work of selecting exactly the right expressions, movements, silences, unconscious habits, etc, in those characters that imply their truth to the reader, through the medium of the POV character. That way we are given two half-truths – how the POV character perceives himself to be and how he perceives others to be – which allows us to provide the other two halves. Implication is magic, in other words; whereas simply listing all the front brain thoughts and spoken words of your characters will turn your story into a nice, bright, shiny, risk-free, travel brochure.

* * *

Finally:

• No one can teach you to write but somehow you have to get yourself taught.
• There are no rules to what makes a great story but you can’t be a real writer unless you know the rules in every cell of your being.
• You have to write stuff that the market wants but no one knows what the market wants.
• The story you’re writing now must become a finished piece of work but you as a writer will never finish learning how to be one.

This is the first part of the script I used as a guide to the first podcast episode on creative writing I did for Starship Sofa:

A while back, I was on a conference panel with some other writers including a very successful and famous one. During our public talk, I said that I thought there needed to be better training facilities for writers. This very famous writer said he didn’t think writers needed training; they just need to write a good book.

Well, if that’s all he did to get his first book published, good luck to him. But in all the years I’ve been teaching and editing fiction writing, I’ve never seen a complete, ready to go, book produced by a new writer who’s had no training or teaching.

With that in mind, the issues this series will be working around, as they occur to me today at least – they’ll probably change as we go on, or if someone asks me an awkward question about one of them – are:

No one can teach you to write but somehow you have to get yourself taught.

• There are no rules to what makes a great story but you can’t be a real writer unless you know the rules in every cell of your being.
• You have to write stuff that the market wants but no one knows what the market wants.
• The story you’re writing now must become a finished piece of work but you as a writer will never finish learning how to be one.

I’m going to work live, so to speak, with issues that are bothering my own writing at the present time and the writers I work with.

Let’s start with Point of View:

I’d say this is the area that most of the writers I work with have the most trouble with. Which in one way is odd, in that we all spend all of our lives fixed in one POV.

The most important thing to understand is that POV is the main tool by which you create a sense of wonder in the reader. Here’s how it works.

When people used to gather around the fire for a story after supper, instead of now when they all go to their separate rooms to watch four different stories on TV, someone had to tell it. The story-teller was the POV for the audience. He would say, “Once upon a time . . . ” and everyone would switch off their worries and settle down for an adventure. But here’s the thing: he had to find ways to draw them into the story, otherwise they’d get bored, no matter how exciting the subject matter.

So a good story-teller used his face and hands and knowledge of his audience to draw them into his POV. He’d used analogies they could relate to, like – “The prince felt as happy as a hunter who finds two bears that have just killed themselves.” Even though the story is set in a magical land where there are no bears. He’d even directly bring in members of the audience, say how the prince’s son looked just like little Mugwug over there, only with more teeth; that kind of thing.

And so the wonder: the audience felt as if they were inside the story, and the story-teller as POV was the medium.

Now, moving forwards to the invention of the novel. For quite some time, novels and written short stories tended to carry on the story-telling tradition of having a POV that was not directly inside the story. Only now it was the author’s POV, not the story-teller’s. This is sometimes now called ‘omniscient’ POV which basically means ‘knows everything’ and is often associated with God, which is apt here in that the author’s POV tends to come across like a voice from on high.

You may be wondering how early novelists managed to draw their readers in to their stories and create that sense of wonder. Some people today will argue that they didn’t; that the sorts of people who read novels way back were toffs who liked to keep their emotions, like the peasants, at a safe distance. But at the same time, society was smaller then, people still shared common beliefs, perceptions and experiences. So writers could reasonably assume their readers would know what they meant for the most part. They also discussed the novels they read with each other, and so deepened the effect of the story. These days you could spend a week trawling every pub in London to find someone who’s read the same novel as you, if you didn’t get arrested first.

So, it’s fair to say that omniscient POV is a hard sell today and later we’ll look at why. But for now, think about the Sherlock Holmes stories: here we have a main character who’s brilliant but aloof, insightful of others yet often disdainful of them too. Yet we care about him. Why? Because Conan Doyle was clever enough to use first person POV, not omniscient. First person just means ‘I’ basically: the POV is directly inside one character’s head. If Doyle had used omniscient POV, we’d have hated Holmes and wanted Moriarty to have beheaded him, not just dragged him over a cliff into a gorge, to make sure the arrogant bastard could never return.

And here’s where Conan Doyle showed what a great author he was, because he chose the right first person POV: Holmes’s friend, Dr Watson. The obvious choice would have been Holmes, because then the author had the perfect vehicle for telling the reader every brilliant thought passing through the great detective’s mind. But then readers don’t want brilliant thoughts coming at them like an AK-47 (incidentally, that’s a POV violation, which I’ll explain later), they want to feel wonder and mystery and magic and emotion. Holmes doesn’t have time for any of that wimpy stuff; he probably doesn’t even believe in it. But Watson does. He’s clever, too, but can’t usually keep fully up to speed with Holmes because a large part of his psyche is fuelled by empathy and compassion. And it’s those qualities that draw us in to the story. From inside Watson’s humane view of the world we can admire Holmes but not hate him as we would if forced to sit inside his immense head for the duration of the story.

Which brings me on to another very important consideration in the history of POV, the invention of the movie camera.

Now, obviously theatre had been around for a long time, but it wasn’t such a big jump away from the story-teller, who was as much an actor as narrator anyway. But the camera is an inanimate object, not really any different to a pair of eyes looking at whatever they happen to point at.

So, when they came to make films of Sherlock Holmes, there was a problem: the story couldn’t be told from inside Watson’s head. Therefore, there was no contrast and conflict between the empathic Watson and the some would say sociopathic Holmes to draw in the viewer’s interest. Instead, they followed more of a music hall approach – which early cinema tended to follow, rather than the novelistic method – and created a nice obvious contrast between the two main characters: clever and stupid. Watson became the straight man for Holmes, except Holmes wasn’t very funny. Watson was the bumbling fool against which the director could easily show Holmes’s brilliance. This would have been impossible in the books, even if Doyle had wanted to do the same, because we were in Watson’s head and therefore he had to be at least clever enough to understand Holmes’ explanations when presented to him. But in film, Holmes just had to tell the camera.

As film making has matured, and equipment improved, Watson’s intelligence and empathy have been restored and as a result Holmes can be seen as less than omniscient – freed from that point of view – and be far more attractive as a result.