Sifting through the comments to last week’s inaugural Friday writing blog I found a couple of questions that I thought went well together. Some of you asked about how much planning goes into a manuscript, a few touched on other matters of preparation such as research, and Jennicki and Girlclumsy amongst others wanted to know where ideas came from and what you did with them once you had one of the little fuckers. For me these all related questions.
A common mistake of the baby author is lightbulb fascination. The big cartoon lightbulb goes on over their heads with a big cartoon flash and Eureka! — they’ve got it. The idea for the Great American/Australian/what ever novel. Unfortunately so bright and blinding is the light thrown out by the big cartoon lightbulb that they are blinded to everything else. Rushing to the desk they start pounding the keyboard, still blinking and half blind, tripping over the furniture, knocking over the desk toys and last nights half empty moth-filled glass of wine. They type for hours, maybe for days, in a flurry of excitement because of this great idea they’ve had for a book.
And then…
And then…
Nothing. The words stop flowing. The idea which seemed so brilliant and so close to fruition, suddenly seems vague and almost impossible to grasp as it retreats and retreats for ever out of reach. What the hell happened?
I’ll tell you what happened. You exploded out of the blocks and sprinted away as though you were running 100 m race, when in fact what you had signed up for was a year-long ultramarathon, a brutal, grueling and unrelenting endurance race that is as much about attrition as it is about skill or willpower.
To deliver a manuscript for a 160,000 word novel (Falafel was 47,000, Weapons was 155,000, Without Warning was 200,000) you need to plan for at least a year’s work. And that’s if you are a full-time writer with goldplated hovercraft and an army of Playboy bunnies to massage your aching shoulders and pop peeled grapes into your mouth while you hammer away at the keyboard. As a part timer, squeezing in whatever writing you can, when you can… Man, I don’t even want to think about that.
So what does planning and preparation involve?
Unfortunately that can mean different things to different people. Not everybody storyboards their manuscript like a movie. I have done it with Designated Targets, after having got myself into all sorts of trouble with Weapons of Choice because I charged into it exactly as I described above. Weapons was based on a great idea that came to me in the library one day when I was avoiding work on Leviathan by flicking through Matthew Reilly’s Ice Station. Time travel meets technothriller. What’s not to love? And that was pretty much it for planning and prep.
With Targets I took six weeks to methodically lay out the plot from the first page to the last. Each chapter was broken down into its POV elements and summarized in note form long before I wrote the first page of the book. So on day one I could tell you what was going to happen in the second section of Chapter 37. Or at least that was the plan. What happened of course is that the characters took over. If they are good characters they will do that. For instance in weapons, Dan and Julie were never supposed to get together. They were just characters who met on the page early in the book and hit it off. They hit it off so well that their unexpected relationship became a significant narrative arc through the entire trilogy.
You cannot plan for serendipity. If your characters come alive in your imagination they will do what they damn well please and you will have the devil’s own job getting them to stick to the plan.
Does that matter?
No, as long as they do not diverge so far from the main line of your story arc that they pull everyone else off course as well. When you are writing genre fiction in particular you need to have at least some idea of where you were going, and where you intend to end up on the last page. It will happen, if your story develops a life of its own, that subplots and characters develop under their own steam. But you need to maintain some level of control. There are plenty of books which got away from their authors. I’m not going to name any of them, but I’m sure you can think of one or two you’ve read that would have been a lot better had the editors and publishers been a little harsher with the blue pencil.
I am mindful that in advising you to put some effort into plotting out your story before you write it I am flying in the face of the established practice of some very successful authors. Garth Nix in particular has given me exactly the opposite advice, saying that the sacrifice of spontaneity and the loss of the magic of happenstance involved when you storyboard an entire manuscript is just not worth it. But both Garth and I are published writers of long experience. Most of you are not. So I’m telling you, you are much more likely to finish your first book if you invest some time in figuring out what the hell you’re going to write before you write it. It’s not easy and there are some elements of every plot which can only be worked out in the writing. Only when you have created and immersed yourself in your imagined world will you understand it well enough to be able to say with true certainty how the world and the characters in it will react to certain developments. That’s why a plan for a manuscript must necessarily be looser and more free-form than, say, the blueprints for a warp engine.
That’s planning. How is preparation different?
I guess it’s the difference between drawing up the plans for D-Day and actually gathering the resources, the men and matériel, building the landing craft and troop transports, manufacturing the weapons, training the personnel, raising the capital to pay for the whole fucking thing, and, well, do you get the idea?
Preparing to write a book like Leviathan was not that much different from preparing to write Weapons of Choice, even though they are very different products. For both I spent months reading and taking notes, just as though I was preparing to write a PhD. I gathered my references. I did my interviews. I tracked down the relevant experts and talked through everything I did not understand about the topics I was about to pretend I knew all about. Are you writing an alternate history set during the hundred years war? Then my friend, you have some very long and tiring days ahead of you in the library as you become an expert on the hundred years war, on the people who fought it, on the technology they used, on the institutions and the states and the personalities involved. And of the vast amount of knowledge you acquire about this topic only the smallest fraction will actually appear in print. The rest will sit like the frame of a soaring high-rise, hidden away, while it supports the great weight and stresses you will load onto it.
But preparation can go even further than that. If you are setting your story in a purely imaginary realm you have taken on the difficult task of getting the reader to believe in something they know not to be true. We call this the suspension of disbelief, and we commonly make the mistake of assuming the suspension is the work of the reader. But it’s not, it’s the work of the author. Your characters must stay in character, which means you must know all about them before you start writing their story. That is why so many authors write long, detailed biographies of the characters before they set the first line of their novel down on paper. Genre authors and literary authors all do this. But genre authors have another demand on them. Not only must they invent characters, they must build worlds.
But that is a topic for another day.
Finally, I see that I have said very little about where ideas come from. Well they don’t come from sitting around scratching your arse, staring into the middle distance. They come from thinking, and reading, and watching television, and movies, and conversation, and magazines, and ditzing around on the Web, but mostly they come from thinking. Not just consuming media passively, but from watching, listening, and reading actively, critically, but most of all imaginatively. This is something that writers do all the time. Pretty much every minute of every day without even be conscious of it. And it relates to planning and preparation because thinking, actively, critically engaging with media and ideas in all the forms is where the idea for your next story is coming from.
Orin: ‘Birmo, is link spam enough of a problem on this blog that posts that contain links (I have two in this thread that have yet to appear as I type this) don’t turn up?’
It is, actually. You guys dont see it because i never let it get to the threads, but there is a heap of link spam in my own trap. I do clean it out a couple of times a day, usually. Yesterday was different cos I was away all day.
Orin, your link to Hughes was visible and readable.
J.
Murph and Damian-
Your wise words very much appreciated. Too tired/busy to write properly now but I’ve read both comments thoroughly and found myself nodding my head about a lot of things you both said.
I don’t know if you’re familair with Elmore Leonard , but gee can that guy “show, don’t tell” -he’s like a sentence savant.
Orin- thx as well for putting up the “hughesy” link on writing.
JB- what’s so good about this idea of yours -apart from your words of wisdom and everyone else’s experiences- is having “somewhere to go” to discuss writing w/o putting anyone to sleep. I do have one friend who is a published writer but the very last thing she wants to do is talk about it (it’s like a bad luck thing for her and fair enough), consequently I get very lonely as far as writing is concerned, so I for one am very excited to see this dynamic little corner of the blogoverse spring up. Thanks again.
JB, do you have days, where you find that you are not happy with what you have written. do you push on, thinking you will come back to it and improve..or do you cut your losses and head for a different scene
Isn’t there an intosuctory course, “Writing for Enginners – a guide for the socially inept”?
If you’ve got time to write but you aren’t happy with what you’ve written, you should keep writing anyway. Just write something else.
How often do you find time to sit down and write rather than having to arse about doing something else? Don’t waste the time. If you can push through and write something golden, you’ll come back to that the next time the words are coming out like a slurry of sewerage. You’ve heard Birmo talk about writing muscles? Well not giving up when it all looks like shit is part of building them up.
If you arse off today, you’re likely to arse off in future. Take a break, but don’t give yourself an excuse to bail.
Apply arse to chair.
Does anyone mind if I ask a nosey question?
What genre do you guys work in ? ie fiction/ non/ blog/ lit fic/ genre fic/ (What have I missed?) Backgrounds in writing? I’m just curious to know what people are drawn to but if you don’t feel like saying, that’s fine.
I write lit. fiction (now there’s a laugh, I mean, I try to write it) as well as essays and poetry. I used to to be a very small-time peanuts “song writer” (elevating myself beyond my talents there) for a couple of bands I was friends with in the early 80s and my only claim to fame (which I dont care about , it is just a good story) is that when I was 20 I wrote some lyrics and left them sitting on the table ,lost them, wondered where, forgot about them. A few years later they turned up on the radio coming out of the mouth of the lead singer of a band (who were friends of my band friends I was sharing a house with and who often came around) who made a great deal of money on them. I just thought “hey! thats my lyrics!!!”
Not suggesting the lyrics were anything spectacular- this person was a much better song writer, take my word for it, (and far more successful than me) and he added verses which it needed- but I always felt , you know…damn that! So, after that happened, for reasons I can’t articulate, I lost a lot of writing confidence for quite a few years and it’s really only in the last couple of years that I’ve returned to it. (apart from dry, boring old academic writing which I had to do for years at uni but I don’t count that especially apart from the discipline it instills) Anyone else? What do you like to write? how long you been doing it?
I write textbooks, which isn’t really a genre. Writing textbooks isn’t as exciting as writing fiction. On the other hand I do get regularly paid enough to support my family off my books.
Abigail, I’ll give you some links of the ferals who frequent here.
What do they write..well all sorts of stuff to be honest. From Just blogging about..anything, to short stories, some published. most not..(laughs), most would like too. I’m not going to say killing is a theme…but EXPLODIE GOODNESS as it get referred to is WICKED!.
If you take a stroll down the links on the left of JB’s page you will come across they crews sites. Mos like me, put up their stiff on their blogs. And then there is the mini Burger of JB’s as well. Thats submitted stuff from us or and others…some good shit. Have a cruise around..but its FICTION with a significant Military / action bent!.
Orin.. reckon you are right..I just kept at it today. Its funny actually, because it was the continuation of the HILL scene from Intense and I have not written anything on that section now for some months. I suspect part of it was getting back into the grove with the scenes and the characters and I simply have to push through.. to re familiarise myself and get IN CHARACTER with them again.
My problem is that I am writing in a second language and at times, I get two wordy. By example, this is the opening scene of the story that I am working on.
***
“Shit, Steve, help me turn this goddamn turkey towards the river,” Elizabeth Tricozzi shouted as she steeled herself. She knew that regardless of whatever they did, they were going to crash. Even if all the alarms blaring on her ears, the tattletales’ red lights that flooded her instrument panel and the fast approaching hard ground were not enough of a clue. Since her first day of rotary flight school at Rucker, she been inculcated with the idea that there had never been such a thing as a gliding helicopter and had learned to always keep an eye out for emergency landing sites. So with her copilot help, she continued to fight the controls to keep them upright, and moving in the general direction of the only clearing they could reach as their Chinook threatened to shake itself apart. It was not on her nature to give up easily and she fought the controls, all the way down, hoping for a soft landing spot. However, as the ground reached for them with a decisive finality, the aviator last coherent thought were for her husband and children before the crash impact and darkness engulfed her.
***
And that was me trying to be brief.
Abigail, “What do you like to write?”
Speculative horsehs!t is my speciality.
As with others here I may daydream of being as fantasticly wealthy & powerful as Birmo as a consequence of my failed mental-state and the frippery & inanity it creates, but in reality it’s only for my own entertainment. The day someone pays for my brand of dribble must herald the last days of a corrupt culture. EG: What does Race Car spell backwards?
But just because it’s onanism at it’s worse, I still want my ideas to escape into the meme pool @ large, which means the will, skill & patience to craft sentances & hew paragraphs. Not saying I have any of the above, just recognising the need.
Of us all it’s Orin whom I think about most. Us Fiction freaks can just kill of an idea, charachter or scene if it aint working. The Man requires Orin’s material to cover X,Y and Z.
Havock, what Orin said. I have days where I look at my finished copy and think, what shit. Usually when I’m doing non fic, but sometimes with novels too. He’s right. You just hunker down and punch through. If you are a writer, you write, whether it’s working for you or not. It’s a bit like being a bowler, particularly a fast bowler. Sometimes you are the speed, it’s just streaming through you, and sometimes you’re no better than a very pedestrian medium paced workhorse. But you still have to run up and bowl no matter what.
Totally second Orin and Birmo. Pointless, pretentious crap written down beats the Humble Revealed Word of God not written down. The only way to make it happen is to sit down and do it. That’s precisely the bit that’s missing for me, and I make no excuses at all.
Abigail – as for genre stuff? What I *want* to write is somewhere between Raymond Chandler and Joseph Conrad. What I *can* actually write is probably different again, but since what I am in fact writing right now is nothing at all, so you might not want to attribute that “wise” tag to my advice :).
FWIW I wrote songs too in the 80s. But whoever remembers me would most likely do so for covering Billy Bragg, Elvis Costello and Leonard Cohen songs, and (very remotely) possibly for my punk influenced covers of Gram Parsons and others. Mostly the Story Bridge Bomb Shelter Bar, but a few other locations (4ZZZ occupation for instance) come to mind.
Orin, Havock, NowhereBob (I love that name btw, lots of character)
Thanks! That helps me make sense of things a bit. :)
Orin- to write a text book means you’re clever and certainly moreso than me, and christ knows the world needs more smart people who are contributing hugely to peoples’ education. And besides, you can always try other forms of writing some day if you feel like it.and writing’s writing, doesn’t matter what really, if it’s your own composition.
Havock- thx for your help. I just went and had a look in “mini burger”- a bit of girlclumsy and Dr Yobbo- WOW!! That’s terribly exciting to discover. Can anyone submit “fanfiction” or is it a closed thing? (Hvk you seem to know the ropes around here so i ask you:) I take it fanfic is just a name for words by unpublished writers.
NowhereBob-”Spec Horseshit”? I won’t hear of it sir! To feel you are creating something, gee you know, that’s the most important thing in the world (I mean thing, as opposed to the people we care about).
Although my own leanings (ie what I can do sort of kind of) are toward the literary, I just like all kinds of writing and I’l look forward to reading soemthing of yours if you offer it some day.
Best, Abs.
Damien-
Well, maybe this: just write one sentence. (but I’m not trying to tell you what to do. I hope that didn’t sound bossy)
Why wouldn’t your advice have given me something? It did. just because you’re not putting something on a page at present doesn’t mean you don’t have something intelligent to say and god knows Im used to doing all of this in a vacuum until two weeks ago when I became aware of this Friday writers’ blog, so thoughts on the subject hold legion benefits for me.
Conrad/ Chandler, two of the best writers there were. I know their style, so I know what you’re talking about.
What you *can write will just develop and develop.I’d venture that’s true of all writers.
Oh, btw- interesting you wrote songs then too!- great fun, is it not? Im not familiar with ‘Story Bridge Bar’- I was in Sydney and I’ve not heard of that place at all.
About just accepting it isn’t all going to meet your dreams and pushing on anyway- I have to add my voice to the consensus view.
Abigail, the mini burger primarily relates to FAN fic from JB’s novels, Having said that, the Intense pieces I posted are up and relate in no way to FAN FIC, its more a case of Persons from here…tuckerised i guess in my writings and the final thing is..ITS NOT MINE, the Mini Burger that is. Its JB’s. His decision alone.
How it works. well post what you write and then the big god like, I dont break my arm boss will will either post it or not i guess, or e/mail the man and have a chat.
The rest of the crew of sorts, more like a gather of ratbags ferals and some educated boffins gather Tues / Thur at the Blunt Instrument and Fri, with his writing blog, any day here abouts and saturday at the GEEK. All on tags here on the left side at the top.
hope that helps anyways!.
Miss A, there are some of my bits & pieces over @ the miniburger.
For me miniburger fan-fic comes from those who enjoyed JB’s novels and want to flex their writing muscles. Without the effort required to create a world from scratch.
Caution; much of it will be inpenetrable without having read (at least) WW and the AoT trilogy.
Oh and another thing.
Intel has been brining me disturbing reports about the Arch Anti-Birmo, a certain Mr Earls(SFX thunder & dramatic organ chords)
Sources indicate that he is becoming even more shevelled & couth, while our Glorious Leader continues in a the opposite directions.
While recieving a low veracity score on the admiralty scale, rumours & scuttlebutt persist that the next Candoo Campbell Erection is to be the Nick Earls Bikeway. Not only daily funneling more wan vegan slouchers into our fine megapolis, but lauding a hack & perpetuating a myth, while disregarding the contributions our Dear Leader has made to the literary wellbeing of the community and ignoring his selfless public service providing accomodation for polymath Playboy Bunnies.
This is intollerable. Something Must Be Done.
This is really helpful and I’ve passed the url along to other interested parties. Thank you.
NBob. Indeed.
Chin up. Mebbe there’s a Birmingham Effluent Treatment Plant on the way.
ER…said by one half of a duo that routinely christens Wankerisms with much more appropriate titles.
You know, if I were to create an alter-ego to switch into in order to protect my hard drives – it would be so obvious what it would be. So, so, obvious…
J.
Jane, if you chose to double your ego I’m sure there’d be an eager army of exterminators to volunteer to take it out.
Not obvious enough. Is this you speaking or your alter ego?
Hmm “protect my hard drives” suggests its your OCD speaking
Only I can end “Jane.” And the only thing it suggests is a change of careers.
J.
JB, I just wanted to say thanks for this Friday blog. I’ve really been enjoying reading it.
That is all. Move along please.
Me too, Crash guy.
I have another question for that growing list, JB. When you get to discussing productivity, I’d like to know what’s a reasonable word count to aim for per week.
If you’re working on that 12 month commitment timetable.
I imagine that you’d have to break it down into planning, structure, writing, and then editing.
When you think its ready for a test read, should you send it off to an agency, or what?
I was at a seminar at the QWC a few years back and there was a woman there from Curtis Browne, Tara someone, I think – and her suggestion was get it proofread independently before the agent sees it.
Actually Hughesy, if you’re out there, I’d be interested to hear your thoughts on this.
Good questions, Q. And worth a stand alone thread. The Tara of whom you speak has repped for me once or twice. She’s the goods. And she’s right about getting it independently assessed. But more of that later.
Here’s my 2 cents:
“Thinking” is a very underrated past-time. And I’m not just talking about when I zone out when someone’s talking, thinking about an interesting way to kill. I find a change of pace and or location is good: going for a walk, the movies, the beach, cooking, etc. Actually, cooking for me is the most meditative thing I can do — the one time where, if I want to, I can quieten the thinking mode and concentrate on the food. Usually some good ideas emerge out of that clarity.
Re writing discipline, I wrote my non-fiction book and first two novels while still holding down a real job at a newspaper. Subsequent 3 were written at home as a full-time novelist and it took the first of those to settle into a loose routine that works for me: I start each day at a local cafe for a couple hours, do a couple hours at home, then if it’s a nice day a couple hour’s writing/planing by hand in a beer garden in some pub (Hav, Naut, you’ve seen said pub). Evenings are editing, researching, emailing, and when the deadline’s looming, writing. I do something, eg write/make notes/read, every day of the year.
Re planning, I always know my major story beats and the ending (at least the FEEL of the ending) and I’ll do all this, and my research, by hand in notebooks. With FOX HUNT I made about 100 pages of notes, and mapped out my action scenes. PATRIOT ACT had a similar amount of notes and I structured like a mo fo. BLOOD OIL was minimal as it was written with pure fury — deadlines, anger of my character, and my own (eg, what’s the world gong to be like when we have Bible Spice and John McBush in the White House?) all driving it along. I think of these notes as rehearsal: when I write I don’t need to refer to them, it’s just the place where I ironed things out for the real run at it. (Oh, and these notebooks and papers can then be donated to libraries and such as a tax offset.)
All that said, I wrote my first teen novel last summer over a couple weeks, with no planning at all. That’s been my fav writing experience. As Birmo pointed out, there’s no right way to tackle a novel and experience certainly helps — I waste hardly any words these days (eg stuff that gets edited out), and I’ve never been more than a 10% waster from the get go. You just have persevere, and blindly believe that you can do it time and time again. I’m freaked out with each new book (can I do it again? will it be better?) and it takes the first 100-150 pages for me to lose those nerves and settle in. And, when you’re in the zone, and typing like mad, and storylines come together and characters do things you didn’t see coming a week ago… that’s the magic. That’s the rush that reminds me why this is a fun gig.
Apart from a couple short stories per year, I can’t bring myself to write anything else for anyone else — not even regular blogs for my own site — writing the novels is work enough. That’s why Birmo is the king.
Ooh this is good. thanks JP.
I found it very reassuring, what you said about nerves. I want to go back to a manuscript I wrote about 4 years ago and it just flowed. Needs work and teasing out and putting together but I’m scared to touch it in case I screw up The Flow.
I had so much fun with it at the time but now it’s a bit like looking back at an old love affair and wondering if you can rekindle the spark (And I’m not known as a sentimental romantic) or nope, Its Dead, Dave.
JB at the very end of your list, I’d like to hear your thoughts on dealing with agents and publishers, too. I often listen to radio national and if I’m around I like to catch the book show. A while back I heard a few publishing types speaking about new authors and the publisher (think it was someone from Hachette) was very dismissive about first time authors selling the film rights to their stories. She seemed to think they should take whatever they get ($500 and lucky to get it was the figure she quoted) but when I was at the QWC I’m sure Tara said something about trying to wrangle a good deal for the author if film rights were an option and she was disappointed if she couldn’t get them a good deal on that, if the book would obviously translate to a good movie.
Anyway, it put my shackles up a bit.
I can’t think of a lot of examples off the top of my head – frankly, after doing the rounds of Sydney Harbor yesterday in all that rain and swell I still feel like I’m on the Balmain Ferry – up, down, sideways, lurch – and then more of the same on the plane home – but there’s things like Melena Marchetta’s ‘Looking for Alibrandi’ and ‘Mao’s Last Dancer’ (OK I know that’s autobiographical but it was just beautiful).
I’d hate to think that those writers only got a measly $500 for the film rights.
Hughesy has a service mentioned on her blog where she will go over a manuscript and offer realistic feedback from the perspective of someone who worked as an agent.
Ta. I’ll check it out.
Like book advances, unless the film option has gone to auction with two or more peeps bidding each other up, the option $’s won’t be huge. I’m sure $500 was a figure of speech though – $5k is more like the ballpark average of a low figure for Aus film.
Whatever an author gets for film rights up front they keep, no matter if the film is made or not, and the buyer usually has the rights for 2 or 3 years and then they revert back to the author. If the film does get made, the author gets a percentage of the production budget, usually 3%.
That’s better.
The radio national interviewer sounded a bit aghast too and she said ‘so what’s the incentive for the author to write the kind of story that will make a good movie?’ and the response was ‘The increase in book sales.’
Thanks JP.
Did you get a cat?
J.
Cools, JP cleared that up for you quokka…gunna say. 500.00 and thats IT. NO WAY. to low for starters and yeah..its an options gig and term to either pre production, adaptation ( script prep ) or whatever the hell else is agreed to.
JP.. YEAH…THAT! is a good pub, perfect for that and or a stagger home…at least for you.
Writing question:
How do you protect people while simultaneously writing them into your stories?
Basically making a real person into a character–how do you know what details to change and keep in order to both preserve and protect the identity of real people in your stories?
Change the name and one detail – for example if you said “Diction was of paramount importance to Andrew” no one would figure out you were talking about Havock.
I’m finding myself in a place I suspect JB you have already been. Dan blacks death. At the moment I have just finished a section where, Havock & Jolls cleared out the guns line attacking the other two sections, , thats described only from Als perspective and shows no detail on WHAT and how the action of H & J took place.
If I was now to describe it, from H’s POV, it would by the time line be in the past and I’m leaning towards NOT describing it from that POV. The reader may well not like that, so I am thinking, it might be better to have another party, arrive on scene and the sort of PIECE together the action, like describing their thought process and they figure out the basics.
I suspect it NOT done to now go back, especially with an action scene that could have been a core component, although I have done it with other scenes, thats only to build the story line and slowly allow the reader to see a bigger picture start to emerge…
ROTFLMAO, Orin.
I’ve never understood the need for writers to get all their fact straight. Seriously, who cares as long as its a good read. If I want facts I’ll read non fiction.
The old chestnut I swear by is that the trick of writing is to write. Editing comes later. This does not preclude planning, by any stretch of the imagination. I think some time writing essays and working with words on a professional level is also extremely beneficial, but obviously not the rule for all. The couch is also your best friend and your enemy. You must know when laying down your head is helpful and when it is a crutch.
Zephyr — a superhero webcomic in prose
http://wereviking.wordpress.com
Oh yes, JB. Orgasmic sense, written as you know you know it.
I’d not dare do other than share jenicki’s salvation. Thank you.
But Neil, I’ve considered your thought for a millisecond, and decided I’d much much rather Shakespeare had known how to disguise Loyola by first quoting “the facts”.
And the research sweat and travail of Arthur Hailey whose novels – including ‘Wheels’, ‘Hotel’, ‘Airport’, all stand up topically and today.
Then there’s Tom Clancy’s blockbusters that have firm foundation of research and facts.
Not to forget the splendid C19th novelists of Russia, Britain, France, Portugal, Spain, Latin America – and a couple homegrown too.
But, of course, writing a 4,000 word flam from “pure” imagination is a facile wank. Like making a 6’00″ video drama without a script.
A much easier toss.
- tdb
.
Theo- I don’t know. I mean, certainly that’s true about the part of research in a lot of lit we like (try saying that after 2 bottles of red wine).But it can get in the way and especially if they get a detail a little bit wrong.
I didn’t take what Neil said as a deep criticism of the practise, myself.I guess it means it doessn’;t matter iof the whole thing is some made up stuff. I never carfe either. Sometimes research in a book reads like research and it can be clumsy and boring, so I don’t think there’s an absolute here.
I think I said elsewhere on this blog, Hermann Melville could do it; a famous Australian female writer who specialises in blockbusters which sometimes get made into mini- series , cannot.
I know a few brilliant people who can indeed improvise a great 6 min vid drama; savants; its there in their heads. doesn’t mean its wank. Again, nothing’s absolutely the case when it comes to creativity. Anyway, my view, I guess.
Great book on where your cultural tastes come from which I’d direct anybody to called ‘Let’s Talk About Love: Journey To the End of Taste’ by Carl Wilson, a Canadian music critic who analysed his hatred of Celine Dion’s music. Excellent read. Covers what you’re saying really.
“Reading, after a certain age, diverts the mind too much from its creative pursuits. Any man who reads too much and uses his brain too little falls into lazy habits of thinking.”
Albert Einstein
Touche John.