There was a good article on The Guardian, ‘Ten rules for writing fiction‘, coming on the back of Elmore Leonard’s 10 Rules of Writing.
The first rule I’m going to make up is; Learn who Elmore Leonard is.
If you’ve done any research into writing tips and rules you’ll have come across quite a few of these, especially the first rule of writing; write.
The best ones are the specific ones; ‘don’t open with the weather’, ‘do not search amazon.co.uk for the book you haven’t written yet’,'avoid detailed descriptions of characters’, ‘Introduce your main characters and themes in the first third of your novel.’ and ‘Do give the work a name as quickly as possible’.
There are some I’ll blatantly ignore; ‘learn poems by heart’, ‘keep a diary’, ‘write slowly and by hand’ and ‘have fun’.
An interesting article on the Telegraph site, ‘Advertising is getting personal‘, about how companies are better utilising technology to track customers and offer them an improved service.
Of course, companies have always tried to do this but with more powerful technology at cheaper prices, the amount and type of information they can gather increases.
‘Railroaded’ uses this idea by having corporations track and measure their customers and employees to the minutest of detail with every object having a small microchip emitting data multiple times per second giving a real-time picture of almost everything from actual people and their personal interactions to a sweet wrapper or a pair of glasses.
Came across the ‘Power 2010‘ site via ‘Big Brother Watch‘. It previously gathered political ideas from the public, ideas people wanted to see implemented regardless of political leanings, eg. proportional representation, fixed parliament terms, etc. Watch the vid for a better explanation…
Power 2010 are now in Phase 2, which involves everyone voting on their favourite ideas. Power 2010 will then take the 5 most popular and try to convince everyone running for parliament in the General Election this year, to support all 5 reforms.
A step forward, that’s what I keep telling myself anyway.
An agent came back and asked to see the full manuscript of ‘Railroaded’, but then quickly rejected the whole thing.
I’ll ignore the obvious negative and take some positives; I grabbed the interest of a literary professional and, albeit briefly, viewed the slush pile from the outside.
She gave good feedback, some of it highlighting some points I was already conscious of and keen to avoid/focus on for Novel No.2. So having someone else comment on these aspects too means I must be ever so slightly thinking along the right lines.
I didn’t agree with everything but then that just means I haven’t communicated clearly enough. Also, for sanity’s sake, I can’t agree with everything otherwise I would just give up with ‘Railroaded’ and I’m not ready for that at the moment.
At university, a mate and I went round some London ad agencies with a portfolio of print and billboard ads we’d drawn up. One agency creative pairing was really nice and praised us, the other was OK but bland and the third tore us a new arsehole. I learnt so much and remember more fondly the agency creative that ripped us to shreds than the other two.
That didn’t happen here, she was very nice and friendly (agents DO have hearts!) but while this was the closest I’ve been yet it resulted in failure, I’ve got some valuable expert feedback, had some things confirmed which I thought I already knew and feel more confident going forward with this experience.
I’ve just read ‘English Short Stories 1900 to the Present‘ and by far my favourite short story in there was ‘The Intensive Care Unit’ by J.G.Ballard. A great little story where people live in isolation from each other and only have contact via tv screens and cameras, much like webcams basically.
A family eventually meet-up with disastrous consequences, highlighting human nature.
I can’t find a sample online so you’ll have to buy a book yourself, try this one.
This is the first victim of my ‘5 strikes and you’re out‘ rule for short story submissions.
The fifth rejection was a very pleasant one but it commended the submission cover letter and rejected the actual story, not a great sign to be honest.
This was originally written for the Writing Magazine ‘Seance’ competition in January 2009. If anyone wants to use it on or offline, then just let me know first.
Well, Max Barry did a word cloud for his online novel ‘Machine Man’ so I thought I’d try the same with ‘Railroaded’…takes my mind off rejections anyway.
Using the online service at Wordle you can easily create your own, my one above is also live on their public gallery here.
Quite interesting; Isaac, Amy and Poppy are the main characters, Gerard, Estelle and Julius are other characters. I seem to the use word ‘one‘ quite a lot, I can’t remember why though.
I also use the words ‘looked‘ and ‘back‘ quite a lot, which makes more sense as Isaac, Amy and Poppy are on the run most of the time and always ‘looking back’. Maybe I should find other ways to say ‘looked back’ though…’turned behind them?’…no.
I use ‘father‘ more than ‘mother‘. I use ‘Yes‘ and ‘Yeah‘ much more than ‘No‘. I use ‘DNA‘ more than ‘Chair‘, which makes sense as DNA is a theme and the characters don’t have much time to sit down.
Now I’ve looked at it for a bit, I’m not sure what it really tells you. I suppose you only have to worry when words such as ‘Once upon a time‘ or ‘It was all a dream‘ show up larger than most.
With the unveiling of Belle de Jour as a highly educated cancer research doctor the other day, the reactions have varied from surprise that it wasn’t one of the esteemed journalists previous guesses, relief that it’s over and shock that it may glamourise prostitution.
I’m more intrigued about struggling doctorate students having to resort to offering personal services so they may become professionally qualified to look after us in the future.
Apparently this isn’t a new thing, I’m just living in a cave.
So, I’m a citizen of a country that doesn’t fund it’s top students adequately? I kinda knew that.
This week I cracked open a brand new notebook and started writing a few notes which will hopefully grow into my second novel.
I’ve had the beginnings of an idea for a while and kept it on Gas Mark 5 in the back of my mind but thought I should concretely start writing as soon as my New Year hangover subsides.
I’m determined that this second one will benefit from the knowledge and confidence that I’ve been through this process already, mainly, I want to finish the first draft much quicker, hopefully by the end of 2010.
I watched Question Time the other night, the one with the racist nut on it and was struck by a comment from one of the questioners in the audience who seemed to have some kind of beef with some of the language being used.
You can see her full comment for yourself here on YouTube, I’ve linked to the specific bit in the video.
But here’s the text of the bit I’m referring to…
The parties must listen because, one of the things, I am sitting here and every time Jack Straw or somebody or one of the panel says ‘Afro-Caribbean’, I am cringing…Afri-CAN Ca-RIB-bean!
Talk about grammar Nazis! I missed the memo where ‘Afro-Caribbean’ was now an offensive term.
