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In this section, we ask writers to explain extracts from their own books.
A chance to for our authors to learn from each other : An insight into writing not normally available to readers.
CONTINUITY
Name of book:
Best Intelligence by James Gault
The extract:
They reached the door of the first choice apartment without seeing anyone. Simon had been right about the fifteen second lock. They were in with less bother than most people would have with a sticky key.
Inside the shutters were down and they paused a moment to let their eyes acclimatise to the darkness.
“The window,” Simon whispered. They crept over to it.
“We’ll lift the shutters just enough so I can get my shot in. The harder we make it for anyone to see inside here, the better.”
Simon found a button and pressed it. The metal roll-top shutters started to unwind with an audible metallic groan. He switched it off when there was about six inches of daylight showing.
What was that? Both men stopped and listened. A sudden grunt had come from the direction of the bedroom. Charlie crept over to the closed door and listened.
Nothing. They both waited. After a couple of minutes, the soft rumble of a snore could just be made out. Charlie’s mouth fell open and he frantically mimed someone sleeping.
Simon signalled to Charlie to go to the front door, and open it again slightly, quietly. Then he pressed the shutter button in reverse, rushed to the door, and they both got out quickly and shut it. Luck was with them. There was no one else in the corridor.
“The other flat,” Simon hissed. They crept down the corridor.
They got into it as easily as the first. But this time they were a lot more careful. Charlie stood ready by the door while Simon silently checked all the rooms. He gave the thumbs up sign. There was nobody else in this flat. Charlie sighed with relief but he was still pretty mad.
“I’ll kill that bloody Alex, that last place was supposed to be empty.”
The explanation:
There are two aspects of continuity: consistency and coherence. Consistency is something that they worry about a lot in films. You’ve probably seen examples of it. During a single scene, in shot one the man is wearing a red tie and in the next it’s a blue one. Or the girl leaves her bag on the restaurant table but is seen carrying out as she steps out the door. The kind of thing that the audience notice and the whole effect and atmosphere is lost .These little slips of inconsistency are expensive to fix in film making, if not caught. The scene has to be set up again, actors recalled, lighting and cameras placed and matched to the original, several takes shot. Although less common in literature, the same kind of mistake can insinuate itself into a novel. It’s not so costly to change a few words in a book, but if you get it wrong the result is just as disastrous.
Coherence is more common in novels than consistency. It occurs when the reader loses the sense of place or time in the story. Action scenes are particularly prone to this, and can even slip though editing and into published books from well-respected authors. Action scenes are hard to do in literature; they work much better on film. Writers have to portray a clear and logical picture of what happens and at the same time imbue the passage with a sense of atmosphere and tension.
The excerpt is from an action scene in which two assassins are setting themselves up to shoot their victim from the window of what should have been an empty apartment. How do I make sure the action flows in a clear and understandable manner? The short answer is I picture myself filming the scene. I have to make sure that each ‘shot’ or incident links to the next. Each move the assassins make is explicitly depicted; nothing is missed out. They go from the door, to the window. They hear a noise, and one of them goes to the bedroom door. Then both of them move to the front door, exit the flat and enter another. At all times we know exactly where they are. If I was filming it, I would know exactly what to shoot and how the shots would link together.
The difficulty as a writer is that you know what happens, but in the desire to imbue the senses of tension, character and atmosphere, you miss out an important step in the action. You may not notice, but the reader will, and the resulting feeling of confusion will undo all your good work.
Name of book:
Best Intelligence by James Gault
The extract:
They reached the door of the first choice apartment without seeing anyone. Simon had been right about the fifteen second lock. They were in with less bother than most people would have with a sticky key.
Inside the shutters were down and they paused a moment to let their eyes acclimatise to the darkness.
“The window,” Simon whispered. They crept over to it.
“We’ll lift the shutters just enough so I can get my shot in. The harder we make it for anyone to see inside here, the better.”
Simon found a button and pressed it. The metal roll-top shutters started to unwind with an audible metallic groan. He switched it off when there was about six inches of daylight showing.
What was that? Both men stopped and listened. A sudden grunt had come from the direction of the bedroom. Charlie crept over to the closed door and listened.
Nothing. They both waited. After a couple of minutes, the soft rumble of a snore could just be made out. Charlie’s mouth fell open and he frantically mimed someone sleeping.
Simon signalled to Charlie to go to the front door, and open it again slightly, quietly. Then he pressed the shutter button in reverse, rushed to the door, and they both got out quickly and shut it. Luck was with them. There was no one else in the corridor.
“The other flat,” Simon hissed. They crept down the corridor.
They got into it as easily as the first. But this time they were a lot more careful. Charlie stood ready by the door while Simon silently checked all the rooms. He gave the thumbs up sign. There was nobody else in this flat. Charlie sighed with relief but he was still pretty mad.
“I’ll kill that bloody Alex, that last place was supposed to be empty.”
The explanation:
There are two aspects of continuity: consistency and coherence. Consistency is something that they worry about a lot in films. You’ve probably seen examples of it. During a single scene, in shot one the man is wearing a red tie and in the next it’s a blue one. Or the girl leaves her bag on the restaurant table but is seen carrying out as she steps out the door. The kind of thing that the audience notice and the whole effect and atmosphere is lost .These little slips of inconsistency are expensive to fix in film making, if not caught. The scene has to be set up again, actors recalled, lighting and cameras placed and matched to the original, several takes shot. Although less common in literature, the same kind of mistake can insinuate itself into a novel. It’s not so costly to change a few words in a book, but if you get it wrong the result is just as disastrous.
Coherence is more common in novels than consistency. It occurs when the reader loses the sense of place or time in the story. Action scenes are particularly prone to this, and can even slip though editing and into published books from well-respected authors. Action scenes are hard to do in literature; they work much better on film. Writers have to portray a clear and logical picture of what happens and at the same time imbue the passage with a sense of atmosphere and tension.
The excerpt is from an action scene in which two assassins are setting themselves up to shoot their victim from the window of what should have been an empty apartment. How do I make sure the action flows in a clear and understandable manner? The short answer is I picture myself filming the scene. I have to make sure that each ‘shot’ or incident links to the next. Each move the assassins make is explicitly depicted; nothing is missed out. They go from the door, to the window. They hear a noise, and one of them goes to the bedroom door. Then both of them move to the front door, exit the flat and enter another. At all times we know exactly where they are. If I was filming it, I would know exactly what to shoot and how the shots would link together.
The difficulty as a writer is that you know what happens, but in the desire to imbue the senses of tension, character and atmosphere, you miss out an important step in the action. You may not notice, but the reader will, and the resulting feeling of confusion will undo all your good work.
PLOTS and PLOTTING
What is a plot? Is it just the series of events that occur in a work of fiction, what we might call the story? Or is it perhaps more specific than that? Words can be hijacked to mean whatever the writer wants, and in this case I am shamelessly going to do that and define a plot in a specific sense.
A plot is a story with certain characteristics. For my definition, I am borrowing from a book called The Seven Basic Plots by Christopher Booker, in which he analyses and classifies the stories of works of fiction from different eras and from poems, plays, novels and films. You may not agree with all his classifications, but he puts his finger on what is perhaps the essential element of a fictional plot: a character is presented with a problem and has to overcome the challenges of solving that problem.
In a way, all fictional stories (and possibly all interesting real life ones) fit this model. The structure is obvious in certain genres: mysteries, thrillers, romance etc. Other genres do not at first sight appear to conform, and these I would call episodic genres. They include biographical novels, sagas, slice of life stories and so on. In these cases, there is no central problem to be solved, but a series of different problems which arise and are resolved. So they are more a collection of related plots, tied together by a central theme. For me, this kind of book requires much more talent from the writer, who has to find some other narrative drive to pull readers through to the end of the work.
Of course, the path to coming up with the solution to the main plot problem is normally long and tortuous. Other, smaller problems arise along the way, obstacles are put in the path of the protagonist, attempts to move forward are thwarted and misleading information is presented and misinterpreted with disastrous results. Unexpected plot twists make readers stop and re-evaluate their conclusions so far, and set their imaginations off in new directions. There is often a false ending, where everything seems to be resolved and then some forgotten fact or incident raises its head, plunging the reader back into the problem and looking again for a secure and safe answer, but with heightened suspicion now. Without a good helping of all of these ingredients, no narrative can expect to hold a reader’s attention to the end.
I’m going to risk an oversimplification here. There are other elements to novels, like writing style, atmosphere, accurate details, but I would contend that to be effective, the two main essentials are character and plot. So, for a novel (or play, or film, or TV drama, or narrative poem) to engage its audience. there are two essential goals the writers must reach:
- find an interesting and difficult problem for the protagonist to solve
- create main characters with whom readers can identify as they try to solve the problem.
Photo by rawpixel on Unsplash
ZOOMING INTO THE NOVEL
Name of book: The Wages or the Gift by Rosalind Morris
The Extract
(Chapter 1)
The noon rush had long since quieted, yet a silent residue of previous tensions lingered. Tensions are curious creatures. No one can see them, but their presence is rarely missed. They have no physical mass, yet they can fill an entire room suffocating those inside. The excited-anxious sort, the fear-based breed, the angry-blaming kind, and many others stay long after the immediate crisis has passed.
The tensions at New York City’s Bellevue Hospital’s maternity ward on one Monday afternoon were no exception. From 12:05 pm to 2:03 pm, they had sixteen women on the brink of motherhood.
The halls cluttered with doctors and nurses hustling to attend to each patient. The maternity waiting room filled with tense, anxious fathers, grandparents, aunts, and uncles-to-be. The pacers walked their respective courses across the marble floor. The talkers traded stories, discussing and sometimes debating the pros and cons of various baby names. The watchers, their focus on the door, stayed perched to jump up at its slightest movement, eager to hear sweet declarations such as “It’s a boy!” /“It’s a girl!” /“You’ve got twins!” With each swing of the door, the crowd grew thinner, the room quieter until only two people remained. Not the typical maternity ward waiters, they were two young men, ages eighteen and twenty-six. The elder stood six-foot-one with a medium build, his amber eyes dark with worry because the younger, slightly more chiselled and a half-inch shorter, tottered on the verge of a breakdown.
The Explanation:
This is a classic example of the zooming approach to starting a novel. The extract starts with the overall feel of the space our reader is entering. This place that was recently filled with excitement, anxiety, and the hustle of an overflowing maternity ward. From there, our reader moves further into the scene , past the lingering emotional atmosphere into the recent past that created it. Our reader sees the halls begin to clutter, the maternity ward fill, and then watches the people waiting in their respective roles and feelings. Our reader watches their numbers dwindle, as the story moves back to the present, and their numbers are down to two. Our reader gets a more specific description of these individuals as the story zooms in on them with specific description and insight.
Contributed by Rosalind Morris
Name of book: The Wages or the Gift by Rosalind Morris
The Extract
(Chapter 1)
The noon rush had long since quieted, yet a silent residue of previous tensions lingered. Tensions are curious creatures. No one can see them, but their presence is rarely missed. They have no physical mass, yet they can fill an entire room suffocating those inside. The excited-anxious sort, the fear-based breed, the angry-blaming kind, and many others stay long after the immediate crisis has passed.
The tensions at New York City’s Bellevue Hospital’s maternity ward on one Monday afternoon were no exception. From 12:05 pm to 2:03 pm, they had sixteen women on the brink of motherhood.
The halls cluttered with doctors and nurses hustling to attend to each patient. The maternity waiting room filled with tense, anxious fathers, grandparents, aunts, and uncles-to-be. The pacers walked their respective courses across the marble floor. The talkers traded stories, discussing and sometimes debating the pros and cons of various baby names. The watchers, their focus on the door, stayed perched to jump up at its slightest movement, eager to hear sweet declarations such as “It’s a boy!” /“It’s a girl!” /“You’ve got twins!” With each swing of the door, the crowd grew thinner, the room quieter until only two people remained. Not the typical maternity ward waiters, they were two young men, ages eighteen and twenty-six. The elder stood six-foot-one with a medium build, his amber eyes dark with worry because the younger, slightly more chiselled and a half-inch shorter, tottered on the verge of a breakdown.
The Explanation:
This is a classic example of the zooming approach to starting a novel. The extract starts with the overall feel of the space our reader is entering. This place that was recently filled with excitement, anxiety, and the hustle of an overflowing maternity ward. From there, our reader moves further into the scene , past the lingering emotional atmosphere into the recent past that created it. Our reader sees the halls begin to clutter, the maternity ward fill, and then watches the people waiting in their respective roles and feelings. Our reader watches their numbers dwindle, as the story moves back to the present, and their numbers are down to two. Our reader gets a more specific description of these individuals as the story zooms in on them with specific description and insight.
Contributed by Rosalind Morris
AN UNUSUAL WAY TO BUILD A CHARACTER
Name of Book: The Pacifist by Mehreen Ahmed
The extract:
Without a dint, the chauffeur dashed off in the direction of the news agency. The men sat quietly yet again. Being unreasonable became Malcolm no less than mourning became Electra. Lips pouted slightly, he avoided Tommy’s gaze. With bated breath, Tommy continued to look for the chauffeur, certain that he would return any time. When he did, Tommy exuded a palpable sigh of relief. So much that Malcolm could not hide a smile on his lips. He leafed through the newspaper with deft, long fingers of manicured nails, cut squarely. In a moment of impulsive munificence, he glared at Tommy’s awkwardness over the newspaper.
“Relax, what’s the matter?”
“What’s the matter? Do you not see how late we are?” Spewed Tommy in short sharp breaths. “You are doing this deliberately, aren’t you? To insult Henna and me.” In a sudden fit of temper, Tommy’s patience snapped; words spat out.
Malcolm paid attention. Out of some unspoken reprisal, he then calmly asked the chauffeur to turn the car around, back to his mansion.
The explanation:
Many novelists ‘create’ their characters by giving a description of their personality. Jane Austen, for example, famously does it in Emma. ‘Emma Woodhouse, handsome, clever, and rich, with a comfortable home and happy disposition, seemed to unite some of the best blessings of existence; and had lived nearly twenty-one years in the world with very little to distress or vex her.’
Nowadays this approach doesn’t seem to work. Maybe this style of writing is out of fashion; maybe modern writers just don’t have Miss Austen’s talent, or maybe it is just that readers of today don’t like being told this kind of information and want to make up their own minds. Contemporary novelists tend to fall back on have three basic tools to communicate the personality of their characters: how the character behaves, what the character says and what the character thinks. Done well, this approach allows the reader to assess the character just as they would someone they met in real life.
But in ‘The Pacifist’, Mehreen Ahmed hits on a less frequently used character development tool, and a particularly effective one at that. She shows us what kind of person Malcolm is through the eyes of others.
Before this extract, Tommy has been trying to get his boss Malcolm to an important event where people are waiting for him, but Malcolm has been dithering and delaying, and Tommy is becoming frustrated, because his relationship with Malcolm doesn’t allow him to say what he feels.
The extract employs the standard methods mentioned above: we are told Malcolm is ‘unreasonable’, we see his supercilious smile, and we hear his remark to Tommy, carefully chosen to annoy him. But the masterstroke is Tommy’s reaction, towards which the author had been building all through the chapter. It lifts Malcolm’s character right off the page and into our emotions: he makes us angry, the arrogant bastard.
The coup de grace of the extract is the last sentence, though. Malcolm reacts to Tommy’s worries by yet another detour and delay, thereby underlining the nastiness in his personality: he’s a real selfish arrogant bastard in fact. It’s a brilliant piece of writing and a lesson for all authors.
The technique is not unique, for example Scott Fitzgerald in The Great Gatsby portrays all the characters through the eyes of the narrator Nick Carraway. But this extract from The Pacifist is a fine example from a talented young writer that is well worth bringing to the attention of our readers.
Contributed by James Gault
Name of Book: The Pacifist by Mehreen Ahmed
The extract:
Without a dint, the chauffeur dashed off in the direction of the news agency. The men sat quietly yet again. Being unreasonable became Malcolm no less than mourning became Electra. Lips pouted slightly, he avoided Tommy’s gaze. With bated breath, Tommy continued to look for the chauffeur, certain that he would return any time. When he did, Tommy exuded a palpable sigh of relief. So much that Malcolm could not hide a smile on his lips. He leafed through the newspaper with deft, long fingers of manicured nails, cut squarely. In a moment of impulsive munificence, he glared at Tommy’s awkwardness over the newspaper.
“Relax, what’s the matter?”
“What’s the matter? Do you not see how late we are?” Spewed Tommy in short sharp breaths. “You are doing this deliberately, aren’t you? To insult Henna and me.” In a sudden fit of temper, Tommy’s patience snapped; words spat out.
Malcolm paid attention. Out of some unspoken reprisal, he then calmly asked the chauffeur to turn the car around, back to his mansion.
The explanation:
Many novelists ‘create’ their characters by giving a description of their personality. Jane Austen, for example, famously does it in Emma. ‘Emma Woodhouse, handsome, clever, and rich, with a comfortable home and happy disposition, seemed to unite some of the best blessings of existence; and had lived nearly twenty-one years in the world with very little to distress or vex her.’
Nowadays this approach doesn’t seem to work. Maybe this style of writing is out of fashion; maybe modern writers just don’t have Miss Austen’s talent, or maybe it is just that readers of today don’t like being told this kind of information and want to make up their own minds. Contemporary novelists tend to fall back on have three basic tools to communicate the personality of their characters: how the character behaves, what the character says and what the character thinks. Done well, this approach allows the reader to assess the character just as they would someone they met in real life.
But in ‘The Pacifist’, Mehreen Ahmed hits on a less frequently used character development tool, and a particularly effective one at that. She shows us what kind of person Malcolm is through the eyes of others.
Before this extract, Tommy has been trying to get his boss Malcolm to an important event where people are waiting for him, but Malcolm has been dithering and delaying, and Tommy is becoming frustrated, because his relationship with Malcolm doesn’t allow him to say what he feels.
The extract employs the standard methods mentioned above: we are told Malcolm is ‘unreasonable’, we see his supercilious smile, and we hear his remark to Tommy, carefully chosen to annoy him. But the masterstroke is Tommy’s reaction, towards which the author had been building all through the chapter. It lifts Malcolm’s character right off the page and into our emotions: he makes us angry, the arrogant bastard.
The coup de grace of the extract is the last sentence, though. Malcolm reacts to Tommy’s worries by yet another detour and delay, thereby underlining the nastiness in his personality: he’s a real selfish arrogant bastard in fact. It’s a brilliant piece of writing and a lesson for all authors.
The technique is not unique, for example Scott Fitzgerald in The Great Gatsby portrays all the characters through the eyes of the narrator Nick Carraway. But this extract from The Pacifist is a fine example from a talented young writer that is well worth bringing to the attention of our readers.
Contributed by James Gault
Location, location, location!
Name of book: Best Intelligence by James Gault
The extract:
At two forty-five, Kathy was standing in Glasgow Green looking up at the old carpet factory that had been built as a copy of the Venetian Doge’s Palace by an upwardly-mobile manufacturing mogul. As a young student, in the first throes of a romantic relationship, it had been one of her favourite places. Hers and Ahmed’s both! They had felt it symbolised the Glasgow citizen. Poor, downtrodden, trying to pretend they were something more than they really were. It symbolised them too. Unlikely university students trying to fit in with the sons and daughters of the privileged middle-class! She the daughter of an unemployed shipyard worker, he the son of a struggling Asian corner shop owner! The imitation Doge’s Palace was a place they bonded with, and it seemed natural to Kathy that he had chosen it as a meeting place after so many years.
The explanation:
Every story takes place somewhere, whether in a real place or somewhere drawn from the depths of the author’s imagination. In some stories, the location can be incidental. In others it is an inherent part of the work and the author has to create a real feeling of the place in his readers’ imagination. How?
In this story of drug battles and corruption in Glasgow, the city itself plays a prominent role. It’s a story that could only work in this particular place. In writing the story, throughout the book I had to always have this in the back of my mind. I had to ensure I communicated a view of the city that made the story work.
A city consists of streets and buildings, houses, shops and factories, but above all it consists of people. And in Glasgow, the people are important and in some ways unique. It’s not a capital city, but an old Victorian industrial settlement where hard-working inspired entrepreneurs made their fortunes and promptly escaped to better pastures. Now the industries have mostly gone, it’s a place abandoned by aristocrats and the nouveau riche, inhabited only by the poor, the working classes and a few middle-class professionals. They all bear an inbuilt resentment at being deserted, which they temper with the self-pride that comes from having survived and, to a certain level, flourished. Everyone in Glasgow is an underdog who overcomes their own adversity, sometimes legally, more or less, and sometimes illegally.
In many ways the buildings of Glasgow are typical of the people: proud symbols of being better than they seem on the surface. The old carpet factory in Glasgow Green is just one example of this. I chose to set a meeting there with two of the main characters so I could, in a way, develop the character of Glasgow itself as a compliment to the main protagonists in the novel.
Name of book: Best Intelligence by James Gault
The extract:
At two forty-five, Kathy was standing in Glasgow Green looking up at the old carpet factory that had been built as a copy of the Venetian Doge’s Palace by an upwardly-mobile manufacturing mogul. As a young student, in the first throes of a romantic relationship, it had been one of her favourite places. Hers and Ahmed’s both! They had felt it symbolised the Glasgow citizen. Poor, downtrodden, trying to pretend they were something more than they really were. It symbolised them too. Unlikely university students trying to fit in with the sons and daughters of the privileged middle-class! She the daughter of an unemployed shipyard worker, he the son of a struggling Asian corner shop owner! The imitation Doge’s Palace was a place they bonded with, and it seemed natural to Kathy that he had chosen it as a meeting place after so many years.
The explanation:
Every story takes place somewhere, whether in a real place or somewhere drawn from the depths of the author’s imagination. In some stories, the location can be incidental. In others it is an inherent part of the work and the author has to create a real feeling of the place in his readers’ imagination. How?
In this story of drug battles and corruption in Glasgow, the city itself plays a prominent role. It’s a story that could only work in this particular place. In writing the story, throughout the book I had to always have this in the back of my mind. I had to ensure I communicated a view of the city that made the story work.
A city consists of streets and buildings, houses, shops and factories, but above all it consists of people. And in Glasgow, the people are important and in some ways unique. It’s not a capital city, but an old Victorian industrial settlement where hard-working inspired entrepreneurs made their fortunes and promptly escaped to better pastures. Now the industries have mostly gone, it’s a place abandoned by aristocrats and the nouveau riche, inhabited only by the poor, the working classes and a few middle-class professionals. They all bear an inbuilt resentment at being deserted, which they temper with the self-pride that comes from having survived and, to a certain level, flourished. Everyone in Glasgow is an underdog who overcomes their own adversity, sometimes legally, more or less, and sometimes illegally.
In many ways the buildings of Glasgow are typical of the people: proud symbols of being better than they seem on the surface. The old carpet factory in Glasgow Green is just one example of this. I chose to set a meeting there with two of the main characters so I could, in a way, develop the character of Glasgow itself as a compliment to the main protagonists in the novel.
THE SAG IN THE MIDDLE
The extract.
We don’t have any extracts to look at this time, because the topic for this issue is related to the structure of the novel, so we are considering novels in their totality.
The explanation.
I listen to a lot of readers talking about different books, or commenting on them in book lovers’ Facebook groups, and one complaint dominates. They moan about the number of novels that become a bit slow and tedious after the first couple of chapters. Sure, these books usually begin well, generating a lot of interest and reader involvement right at the beginning. Then they get boring. But finally, if the readers don’t give up, they begin to discover the pace picking up and the book becomes a rattling good read after all. So what are the causes of this ‘sag in the middle’, and how do authors try to avoid it?
In one sense, all plots are the same: a character has a problem he has to solve. The differences are in the nature of the problems and the method of finding and implementing the solutions. Most novels begin by telling us, in a way that arouses our curiosity, that there is a problem. But if we, the readers, are to really get involved, we need to have the problem explained and the skills and personalities of those involved given to us. It is this ‘exposition’ phase of the novel that gives writers a headache. Most people, unless they are philosophers or scientists, find explanations a bit boring. They are about the past, and the past is over and done with. The future is much more exciting.
This is the dilemma for novelists: the need to tell readers something they really don’t want to spend time getting to know. How do they get round that?
The obvious and easy solution is to keep the exposition as short as possible. If your audience is not going to enjoy reading it why make them suffer? This is a bit of a tongue-in-cheek comment, but a lot of authors do seem to have a sadistic tendency to labour superfluous detail in their expositions.
However, if the writer wants to avoid this defeatist approach, there are other options. Important past events can be presented as intrinsically interesting stories in themselves, rather than as a mere list of facts. Just as they do in the main story, writers have to use all the skills of characterisation and tension building in these back stories. Sub-plots can also be useful here too, if they are related to the story and are used to introduce knowledge that contributes to the main thread.
Writers should always remember that a novelist is obliged to constantly fight to keep the reader’s attention. There must always be a reason for wanting to turn to the next page. If not, dear reader, exercise your right to close the book and start something else. The author doesn’t deserve you.
Contributed by James Gault : Photo by Leonie Fahjen from Pexels
The use of extended metaphor.
Name of Book: Best Intelligence by James Gault
The extract:
In this extract from a detective thriller, the funeral of the Glasgow gang boss is described.
‘Kathy Thomson’s life was to change completely after the murder of her husband. She had been restricted to the procreative duty of providing a dynasty for Big Tam’s empire and had produced a prince and a princess. But Kathy was an avid reader of medieval historical novels. She knew the early death of a monarch with only child successors was the perfect precondition for regency. And that the regent would often be the grieving widow. She had her reasons for seeking power and this was her big chance.
The funeral of the old ruler was a momentous event in the legends of the West of Scotland underworld. The typical Scottish weather painted a perfect backdrop: low grey cloud, a chilling breeze and interminable drizzle. Striding behind the coffin to the graveyard, Kathy cut a striking figure in black widow’s weeds, a protective arm around each of her two weeping children. Tellingly, Mac the Knife and Billy the Kid strode behind her, menacing and proprietorial. They were wearing their allegiance to the new queen on their sleeves. The other four Glasgow drug barons, further back in the procession and partially screened by the rest of Big Tam’s close family, could see enough to realise that the Thomson reign was not quite yet on the verge of disintegration.’
James Gault 2018
The explanation:
One of the secrets of creating innovative descriptions of a scene is to guide the reader to look at it in a different way. An author can achieve this by superimposing a relevant analogy on the action. When this is done, two scenes are described: the ‘real’ scene and the analogous scene. This double vision is intended to provide a much deeper and imaginative experience for the reader, who is led to envisage both scenes and then, at the same time, compare them against each other. The tools of analogy a writer can use are the simile and the metaphor.
In this extract the author picks up on the idea of a drug ‘baron’ and uses the analogy a medieval succession war alongside the modern day events of a battle for supremacy between rival gangs. The metaphor begins with the use of ‘dynasty’ and is kept up through words like ‘successors’, ‘regency’,’queen’ and so on, right up to the use of ‘reign’ in the last paragraph. The extended metaphor serves to underline the foreshadowing of the gang warfare that is to come.
Contributed by James Gault
Name of Book: Best Intelligence by James Gault
The extract:
In this extract from a detective thriller, the funeral of the Glasgow gang boss is described.
‘Kathy Thomson’s life was to change completely after the murder of her husband. She had been restricted to the procreative duty of providing a dynasty for Big Tam’s empire and had produced a prince and a princess. But Kathy was an avid reader of medieval historical novels. She knew the early death of a monarch with only child successors was the perfect precondition for regency. And that the regent would often be the grieving widow. She had her reasons for seeking power and this was her big chance.
The funeral of the old ruler was a momentous event in the legends of the West of Scotland underworld. The typical Scottish weather painted a perfect backdrop: low grey cloud, a chilling breeze and interminable drizzle. Striding behind the coffin to the graveyard, Kathy cut a striking figure in black widow’s weeds, a protective arm around each of her two weeping children. Tellingly, Mac the Knife and Billy the Kid strode behind her, menacing and proprietorial. They were wearing their allegiance to the new queen on their sleeves. The other four Glasgow drug barons, further back in the procession and partially screened by the rest of Big Tam’s close family, could see enough to realise that the Thomson reign was not quite yet on the verge of disintegration.’
James Gault 2018
The explanation:
One of the secrets of creating innovative descriptions of a scene is to guide the reader to look at it in a different way. An author can achieve this by superimposing a relevant analogy on the action. When this is done, two scenes are described: the ‘real’ scene and the analogous scene. This double vision is intended to provide a much deeper and imaginative experience for the reader, who is led to envisage both scenes and then, at the same time, compare them against each other. The tools of analogy a writer can use are the simile and the metaphor.
In this extract the author picks up on the idea of a drug ‘baron’ and uses the analogy a medieval succession war alongside the modern day events of a battle for supremacy between rival gangs. The metaphor begins with the use of ‘dynasty’ and is kept up through words like ‘successors’, ‘regency’,’queen’ and so on, right up to the use of ‘reign’ in the last paragraph. The extended metaphor serves to underline the foreshadowing of the gang warfare that is to come.
Contributed by James Gault
Creating atmosphere in a scene
Name of Book: OGG by James Gault
The extract:
In this story of time travel, the Great Being Ogg has taken Antonia back in time to somewhere, and she is trying to work out where and when she is.
This time she knew that she herself was different. For one thing, her clothes weren’t right. She couldn’t see them, but she could sense them clinging unnaturally to her. And her skin! It felt as if it were someone else’s. What had Ogg done to her this trip?
She wished there was more light, so she could give herself a right good inspection. But they were in a dark, funereal, side street. Tall buildings watched over the solemn blackness, sentinels against the invasion of moonlight. Scattered street lamps cast little puddles of light, tiny candles keeping vigil over secret shadows and subterranean tombs. A hundred metres away, the city was alive. Antonia could imagine she heard the living move busily around town in cars, taxis and buses. But the rumble of the city’s heartbeat faded out before it reached her ears. Only an occasional car horn came to her in an eerie scream. A warm pink glow of activity tried to reach from the civilised main street into the silent darkness, without quite making it to where she was standing, shivering in the summer evening heat.
The explanation:
On stage, when the curtain opens and before the actors begin to speak, or often even appear, the director will want to set the atmosphere using the set design and the lighting. Novelists face the same challenge, but they only have written words for tools. How can they create the emotional expectation of the reader with such flimsy and inadequate resources? They can use the description of the setting and the thoughts of the characters. Let’s look at what I try to do in this extract.
I begin by using the character Antonia’s thoughts to create a sense of mystery and of uneasiness. She’s in unfamiliar clothes and even her skin feels like someone else's. Ogg has changed her and it doesn’t feel right. She, and the reader, are already suspecting something not so nice is going to happen.
Next, I try to reinforce the sense of uneasiness in the description of where they are. Like a film director, I make use of light and darkness to create a chiaroscuro effect to suggest menace. I put the characters in shadow and silence, and underline this by having light and noise in the distance. The only noise I permit them to hear is a ghostly and frightening scream. I’m using these contrasts between the main thoroughfare and the side street to emphasise the sense of danger. I also use temperature and colour, talking of the ‘warm pink’ of the main street, while the character shivers in the side street in spite of the heat of the evening.
The reader can expect dark and dangerous occurrences to follow, and in fact they do.
Contributed by James Gault
Making a description stand out.
Name of Book: The Redemption of Anna Petrovna
The extract:
While she waited, she looked around the reception area. It wasn’t anything like the paper factory, where visitors found themselves hanging around a crowded afterthought of a room furnished with the leftovers from the serious business of production. The space she was in now was dedicated to creating an impression of power and permanence. Vast open areas, tiled walls and floors, large leather sofas that looked lost in the emptiness that surrounded them, bronze wall plaques and sculptures of worthy workers and soldiers– everything was large, heavy and immovable. And colourless! A mass of self-important greys! Whatever went on here was important: momentous decisions were being taken whose effects would be felt for decades if not centuries.
The explanation:
If an author only writes what other writers would write, what’s the point? Readers should be shown the world from a perspective different from their own. They should be prompted to think ‘You know, I never thought of it that way’. In a novel, the view presented ought to be unique, whether we are getting the authorial point of view or that of a character. This different point of view can be particularly powerful when describing a setting.
One way of presenting a setting in a unique way is to show it through eyes of a character, whose goals, feelings and personality will all affect what the person notices and how they react to it. This is what I am trying to do in the extract.
Anna has gone to the office of her aunt, a successful businesswoman, whom she hasn’t seen for a long time, long before she became successful. Anna herself has started a small business and she hopes that her aunt can offer her some practical help. She imagines her aunt’s business is similar to her own, except a little larger. What she finds is not what she expects.
The bare bones of the description are that the reception area is a large, colourless space with little furniture and some works of art scattered around – a bit like a half-empty museum. I could have left it at that, but I chose not to. I had other information I wanted to convey. So I have Anna interpreting what she sees, showing how her preconceptions of her aunt are being changed by it, and imbuing her special meaning to every feature. No-one else would see the setting in the same light. Readers may be familiar with such imposing receptions of large businesses, but would they have read all of this into them?
Here I am trying to convey not only a sense of the space, but of the interaction of the character with that space. The extract also hints that the help Anna will receive from her aunt is much more than she was expecting.
Contributed by James Gault
How Important is Grammar?
Name of Book: Best Intelligence by James Gault
The extract:
Charlie recalled the photo she had shown him. Double helping of shapeless sweaters and dirty narrow jeans! Two heads of mid-length unwashed hair! Two pairs of metal framed glasses! He could easily have taken them for brothers. Or maybe a pair of gays so much in love with each other they wanted to look identical. The one thing they weren’t was unnoticeable, which is what he most needed them to be. He’d have to keep them hidden in the cellar as much as possible.
They arrived under cover of darkness, which was a bit of a relief for Charlie. Had anyone noticed them turn into his drive, at least their psychedelic van stood out marginally less in greys and blacks than in glorious technicolour. Laura marshalled them quickly into the garage and safe anonymity, and then escorted them through the corridors and into the main house. Charlie noted the route chosen with satisfaction: there was a fair chance he could keep them hidden inside his walls for the duration of their visit.
Introductions were made over the late meal that Laura had prepared. They were a taciturn pair, and their lack of conversation inspired a similar reticence in Charlie. It was left to Laura to keep the party spirit going, and it was a tough task. Did they have a good journey? Nods of the head. Where had they come from? Germany; the information communicated via an almost inaudible grunt. How long did it take them? Three days - in the same low grunt. Et cetera for the rest of the thankfully short supper!
© James Gault 2017
The explanation:
Some readers, and many writers, find books containing grammatical errors a complete turn-off. Readers are entitled to set their own standards for what they choose to read, but in being pedantic about the use of grammar, do they deprive themselves of the chance to experience some exceptional writing? And does fear of making a grammar error inhibit creativity for a writer? Yes to both questions.
What’s the point of grammar? Why can’t we just throw words out in a random order as they come into our head? ‘Me think good idea.’ What’s wrong with that? It’s pretty clear what I meant. If good writing is expressing clearly and concisely what’s in your head, surely this has to be worth a Grade A?
If you look at this month’s extract, I would claim that, even to a grammarian, it’s not too bad. But it’s not grammatically perfect. There are a lot of incomplete sentences. My English teacher would have corrected them. For example, she would have changed Double helping of shapeless sweaters and dirty narrow jeans! to something like: He remembered the double helping of shapeless sweaters and dirty narrow jeans! But the words added to make the grammar perfect don’t tell us anything extra. If you add words to complete all the incomplete sentences in the extract, it becomes long-winded and struggles to hold the reader’s attention.
There are other situations where less than perfect grammar is useful. You might want to portray a character or narrator as poorly educated, or from a particular background, and deliberately insert grammatical errors: Hey, I cook real good, me and you back to my place, what you say? sort of thing.
Another thing about good grammar, especially when long and complex sentences are involved, is that it requires a lot of thought to be given to the construction of the sentences. The result is the writing comes across as considered and thoughtful, not a lot of good if the author is trying to achieve spontaneity. If character or narrators have to share their thoughts as they come to them, best to keep the sentences short and let the grammar slips show through.
I am not suggesting writers have carte blanche to produce works full of mistakes. But I am suggesting that writers should not be hemmed in by grammar rules. And readers should perhaps realise that bad grammar may be deliberate, and may itself be telling you more than the bare meaning implied by the words.
Contributed by James Gault
Name of Book: Best Intelligence by James Gault
The extract:
Charlie recalled the photo she had shown him. Double helping of shapeless sweaters and dirty narrow jeans! Two heads of mid-length unwashed hair! Two pairs of metal framed glasses! He could easily have taken them for brothers. Or maybe a pair of gays so much in love with each other they wanted to look identical. The one thing they weren’t was unnoticeable, which is what he most needed them to be. He’d have to keep them hidden in the cellar as much as possible.
They arrived under cover of darkness, which was a bit of a relief for Charlie. Had anyone noticed them turn into his drive, at least their psychedelic van stood out marginally less in greys and blacks than in glorious technicolour. Laura marshalled them quickly into the garage and safe anonymity, and then escorted them through the corridors and into the main house. Charlie noted the route chosen with satisfaction: there was a fair chance he could keep them hidden inside his walls for the duration of their visit.
Introductions were made over the late meal that Laura had prepared. They were a taciturn pair, and their lack of conversation inspired a similar reticence in Charlie. It was left to Laura to keep the party spirit going, and it was a tough task. Did they have a good journey? Nods of the head. Where had they come from? Germany; the information communicated via an almost inaudible grunt. How long did it take them? Three days - in the same low grunt. Et cetera for the rest of the thankfully short supper!
© James Gault 2017
The explanation:
Some readers, and many writers, find books containing grammatical errors a complete turn-off. Readers are entitled to set their own standards for what they choose to read, but in being pedantic about the use of grammar, do they deprive themselves of the chance to experience some exceptional writing? And does fear of making a grammar error inhibit creativity for a writer? Yes to both questions.
What’s the point of grammar? Why can’t we just throw words out in a random order as they come into our head? ‘Me think good idea.’ What’s wrong with that? It’s pretty clear what I meant. If good writing is expressing clearly and concisely what’s in your head, surely this has to be worth a Grade A?
If you look at this month’s extract, I would claim that, even to a grammarian, it’s not too bad. But it’s not grammatically perfect. There are a lot of incomplete sentences. My English teacher would have corrected them. For example, she would have changed Double helping of shapeless sweaters and dirty narrow jeans! to something like: He remembered the double helping of shapeless sweaters and dirty narrow jeans! But the words added to make the grammar perfect don’t tell us anything extra. If you add words to complete all the incomplete sentences in the extract, it becomes long-winded and struggles to hold the reader’s attention.
There are other situations where less than perfect grammar is useful. You might want to portray a character or narrator as poorly educated, or from a particular background, and deliberately insert grammatical errors: Hey, I cook real good, me and you back to my place, what you say? sort of thing.
Another thing about good grammar, especially when long and complex sentences are involved, is that it requires a lot of thought to be given to the construction of the sentences. The result is the writing comes across as considered and thoughtful, not a lot of good if the author is trying to achieve spontaneity. If character or narrators have to share their thoughts as they come to them, best to keep the sentences short and let the grammar slips show through.
I am not suggesting writers have carte blanche to produce works full of mistakes. But I am suggesting that writers should not be hemmed in by grammar rules. And readers should perhaps realise that bad grammar may be deliberate, and may itself be telling you more than the bare meaning implied by the words.
Contributed by James Gault
Concise Characterisation
Name of Books :
Hard Times, by Charles Dickens and Ogg by James Gault
The extracts:
The beginning of Dickens’ Hard Times, where we hear Mr Thomas Gradgrind’s speech to the pupils of the school.
‘NOW, what I want is, Facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing but Facts. Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else, and root out everything else. You can only form the minds of reasoning animals upon Facts: nothing else will ever be of any service to them. This is the principle on which I bring up my own children, and this is the principle on which I bring up these children. Stick to Facts, sir!’
from Hard Times by Charles Dickens
Ogg and Antonia have been transported in time and place to a shady night club in fifties USA.
A squat balding fifty year old tuxedo with a cigar stood before them.
“You havin’ a good time? I ain’t seen you ‘round here before.”
“We’re from out of town,” Ogg drawled, and Antonia choked on her sparkling water.
“Well, you sure picked the right place for good entertainment. I’m Harry. Harry Biaggi. This is my joint. D’ya like it?”
“Well, yeah, Harry, I do. It’s a real nice place you got here.”
“We try to be classy. Howd’ya find us.” Harry snapped his fingers as he said this and a bow-tie appeared and slid a seat under him. He sat down.
from Ogg by James Gault
The explanation:
If we read the opening few pages of Jane Austin’s Emma we see a common way for authors to introduce characters. Emma’s family, biography and character are presented to us in intimate detail, and before we start her story we feel we know her like a good friend already, and we can sympathise with her successes and failures and feel the delights and angst which follow. For this particular novel, the detailed early establishment of the character is important because the author needs to arm us with the tools to judge Emma.
This kind of approach to characterisation is out of fashion now: it slows up the action and needs inspired writing to keep the reader’s attention, and is especially distracting for any but the very main characters.
Nowadays, we expect to discover our characters rather than be asked to judge them. We expect to get to know the characters slowly as we read their story. We form first impressions, then we develop these impressions and sometimes we misjudge and need to correct our assessments. The discovery of the characters is as important to us as the development of the plot. The characterisation is drip fed to us, and the personality of each individual has to permeate each part of the story.
For protagonists that first impression is of prime importance, while for minor roles it is the only information we get. So we expect the author to imbue our first meetings with the characters with indications of what kind of people they are: by what they say, by what they do or by both.
The excerpt from Hard Times is only six short sentences of dialogue, but how much does it tell us about the speaker? He is self-opinionated, he at least claims to be rational, he expects to be listened to and obeyed. He speaks in short sharp sentences, in commands and assertions. No debate is permitted. We don’t know what he looks like, we don’t even know his name, but already we don’t expect we’re going to like him very much.
In the second extract, all the elements are employed to create an impression of Mr Biaggi: description, dialogue and actions. All of this is condensed into a short dialogue. Biaggi is presented as middle aged and overweight but well dressed. He has the strong accent of a man from the gutter who has made it to the top – others jump to satisfy his every wish. But he also has an aura of feeling inferior: he is anxious to please and be liked and appreciated. In the novel his is a walk on part, we never meet him again, but he leaves an impression and sets the tone for what follows.
The point of both extracts is to note the denseness of the character information which is presented at the same time as the plot is developed. The reader has to work hard to catch all the points, but the ongoing development of the story never flags. This is what I am calling Concise Characterisation.
Contributed by James Gault
Name of Books :
Hard Times, by Charles Dickens and Ogg by James Gault
The extracts:
The beginning of Dickens’ Hard Times, where we hear Mr Thomas Gradgrind’s speech to the pupils of the school.
‘NOW, what I want is, Facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing but Facts. Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else, and root out everything else. You can only form the minds of reasoning animals upon Facts: nothing else will ever be of any service to them. This is the principle on which I bring up my own children, and this is the principle on which I bring up these children. Stick to Facts, sir!’
from Hard Times by Charles Dickens
Ogg and Antonia have been transported in time and place to a shady night club in fifties USA.
A squat balding fifty year old tuxedo with a cigar stood before them.
“You havin’ a good time? I ain’t seen you ‘round here before.”
“We’re from out of town,” Ogg drawled, and Antonia choked on her sparkling water.
“Well, you sure picked the right place for good entertainment. I’m Harry. Harry Biaggi. This is my joint. D’ya like it?”
“Well, yeah, Harry, I do. It’s a real nice place you got here.”
“We try to be classy. Howd’ya find us.” Harry snapped his fingers as he said this and a bow-tie appeared and slid a seat under him. He sat down.
from Ogg by James Gault
The explanation:
If we read the opening few pages of Jane Austin’s Emma we see a common way for authors to introduce characters. Emma’s family, biography and character are presented to us in intimate detail, and before we start her story we feel we know her like a good friend already, and we can sympathise with her successes and failures and feel the delights and angst which follow. For this particular novel, the detailed early establishment of the character is important because the author needs to arm us with the tools to judge Emma.
This kind of approach to characterisation is out of fashion now: it slows up the action and needs inspired writing to keep the reader’s attention, and is especially distracting for any but the very main characters.
Nowadays, we expect to discover our characters rather than be asked to judge them. We expect to get to know the characters slowly as we read their story. We form first impressions, then we develop these impressions and sometimes we misjudge and need to correct our assessments. The discovery of the characters is as important to us as the development of the plot. The characterisation is drip fed to us, and the personality of each individual has to permeate each part of the story.
For protagonists that first impression is of prime importance, while for minor roles it is the only information we get. So we expect the author to imbue our first meetings with the characters with indications of what kind of people they are: by what they say, by what they do or by both.
The excerpt from Hard Times is only six short sentences of dialogue, but how much does it tell us about the speaker? He is self-opinionated, he at least claims to be rational, he expects to be listened to and obeyed. He speaks in short sharp sentences, in commands and assertions. No debate is permitted. We don’t know what he looks like, we don’t even know his name, but already we don’t expect we’re going to like him very much.
In the second extract, all the elements are employed to create an impression of Mr Biaggi: description, dialogue and actions. All of this is condensed into a short dialogue. Biaggi is presented as middle aged and overweight but well dressed. He has the strong accent of a man from the gutter who has made it to the top – others jump to satisfy his every wish. But he also has an aura of feeling inferior: he is anxious to please and be liked and appreciated. In the novel his is a walk on part, we never meet him again, but he leaves an impression and sets the tone for what follows.
The point of both extracts is to note the denseness of the character information which is presented at the same time as the plot is developed. The reader has to work hard to catch all the points, but the ongoing development of the story never flags. This is what I am calling Concise Characterisation.
Contributed by James Gault
The Use of Foreshadowing
Name of book: The Redemption of Anna Petrovna by James Gault
The context of the extract:
The heroine, Anna Petrovna, has quit her job but she has made a deal with her old boss that allows her to set up a little business she can run from home. She is in her flat, waiting for her fiance to come home from his job so she can tell him what she has arranged.
The extract:
"She heard the door of the flat open and close. She waited, sipping her tea, turning her back a little to the door so she wouldn’t see him come in. It was a little ritual they had. He would come in, she would pretend not to see him, he would creep up behind her and kiss her gently on the back of the neck, she would purr. She loved this ceremony; it was a tribute to her regal power."
The explanation:
In this little paragraph, I'm creating the atmosphere and the power structure of the relationship between the couple. The little ritual has nothing to do with the plot, we won't hear of it again and it has no significance in the story, but it is a vital clue to what is going to happen. Let me explain!
The key phrase here is 'regal power'. Quite clearly the head of this household is the girl. You should also note that the whole thing is staged, a pretence, encouraged by her. The reader is meant to get the idea that this woman is not only bossy but she is insincere in the relationship. I use the words 'ceremony' and 'tribute' to suggest this insincerity. This ritual both enforces her superiority and gives the man the sense that his role is to please her. The word 'purr' with its associated imagery of a pet cat was chosen to reinforce this role. My purpose is to give the reader the idea that what we have here is not entirely a satisfactory and stable relationship. The girl is in it for her own ends, and she doesn't care too much for the man's feelings or wishes.
Why does the reader need to know this? Because, unsurprisingly, this relationship is doomed and they will break up later in the book. And I want to prime the reader for the subsequent problems the couple will have and the eventual collapse of their marriage.
This is what foreshadowing does: it helps make the subsequent plot development more credible because you have signaled the possibility of that development earlier, and it poses intriguing questions to keep the reader interested. You just have to hope that your readers pick up the signals.
Contributed by James Gault November 2017
Name of book: The Redemption of Anna Petrovna by James Gault
The context of the extract:
The heroine, Anna Petrovna, has quit her job but she has made a deal with her old boss that allows her to set up a little business she can run from home. She is in her flat, waiting for her fiance to come home from his job so she can tell him what she has arranged.
The extract:
"She heard the door of the flat open and close. She waited, sipping her tea, turning her back a little to the door so she wouldn’t see him come in. It was a little ritual they had. He would come in, she would pretend not to see him, he would creep up behind her and kiss her gently on the back of the neck, she would purr. She loved this ceremony; it was a tribute to her regal power."
The explanation:
In this little paragraph, I'm creating the atmosphere and the power structure of the relationship between the couple. The little ritual has nothing to do with the plot, we won't hear of it again and it has no significance in the story, but it is a vital clue to what is going to happen. Let me explain!
The key phrase here is 'regal power'. Quite clearly the head of this household is the girl. You should also note that the whole thing is staged, a pretence, encouraged by her. The reader is meant to get the idea that this woman is not only bossy but she is insincere in the relationship. I use the words 'ceremony' and 'tribute' to suggest this insincerity. This ritual both enforces her superiority and gives the man the sense that his role is to please her. The word 'purr' with its associated imagery of a pet cat was chosen to reinforce this role. My purpose is to give the reader the idea that what we have here is not entirely a satisfactory and stable relationship. The girl is in it for her own ends, and she doesn't care too much for the man's feelings or wishes.
Why does the reader need to know this? Because, unsurprisingly, this relationship is doomed and they will break up later in the book. And I want to prime the reader for the subsequent problems the couple will have and the eventual collapse of their marriage.
This is what foreshadowing does: it helps make the subsequent plot development more credible because you have signaled the possibility of that development earlier, and it poses intriguing questions to keep the reader interested. You just have to hope that your readers pick up the signals.
Contributed by James Gault November 2017