How Neuroscience can make you a Better Writer- Y. Douglas

I should have given the guy's first name in the title, but wondered whether Yellowlees would fit in. It's a great name and names, as I was forever being told throughout my therapy training, are vital to our identity and always significant.

Beware the man/woman whose name is the same as your father/mother/ex/childhood sweetheart/abusive teacher. It's the name with all its loving or tender, rejecting or scary, heart wrenching or guilty associations that is luring you in, not the person. And be even more wary of a new lover, if you discover your own name matches any of the significant people in their past. One of my ex clients startled me (somewhat of an understatement) by declaring via email that he was now living as a woman and had chosen to be called by my own name.

Amanda means `fit to be loved' and my pregnant, single mum picked it when she heard someone in an adjacent garden calling a child in for tea. I can see that it has a lilting cadence when called outside, in summer, but for everyday use (except when the interlocutor, almost invariably my mum, was angry), it's invariably shortened. Even though I've always ruled out Mandy as sounding too Barbie-like, over the years I've been called: Manda, Ami (by a German friend; it's also what they called Americans), Mand, Randa, Rands (but never Randy).

But back to Yellowlees Douglas and his wonderful book. Never start a sentence with but, I was always taught. Maybe I became a writer to be rebellious and break all the rules I'm too timid to break in real life.

I've only read the first 25 pages but this is what I've gleaned from a book that isn't as easy to read as it should be, given the subject matter, using the word `chordate' in the first sentence and the word `maven' twice on the second page! I feel he should perhaps have followed some of his own rules, but then maybe he's a rebel too:

* `Readers process sentences most easily when the verb closely follows the grammatical subject.'

*`If, God forbid, you slavishly adhere to the guideline of sentences optimally containing an average of twenty words, an entire document containing sentences of such uniform length will put your readers to sleep.'

*Here (when reading a sentence) the brain's tendency to anticipate the most common scenario dovetails rather neatly with the old chestnut beloved of professors in medical school: When you hear hoofbeats, think horses, not zebras.'

*`Researchers have established that readers assume that sentences that follow one another inevitably reflect events that follow one another, what linguists have dubbed the iconicity assumption.'

*`We're unable to see anything without having a schema that enables us to perceive and process what our eyes tell us.' He cites as an example, Virgil, the blind massage therapist in Oliver Sacks' `An Anthropologist on Mars'. When he regained his sight at 50, Virgil still relied on touch to decipher the `bewildering images he encountered.' He had no visual schema to make sense of the world.

What I want to know is whether Virgil managed to develop a new schema over time.

 

Musings on Beauty and Writers

     Confucius said: `Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it.'

     When I went to the Festival of Writing last month, it was the first time I'd seen several hundred writers gathered together. Perhaps I should amend this to: several hundred, largely unpublished writers, with enough money to attend the event and perhaps this skewed the result, for I would definitely say that beauty was poorly represented- to my (myopic) eyes.

     There were notable exceptions, of course: stylish older women with exquisite jewellery, a young man who looked like Ian McShane in the 60's movie, `The Pleasure Girls' and could only afford to come from London for the day, but in the main we were a slightly unkempt (particularly the men), overweight, grizzled and scruffy lot or young and cadaverously sombre. Not so the agents, successful writers, editors and book doctors, who were largely beautifully elegant or elegantly beautiful, if female, and at the very least, charming and roguish, if male.

     I'm not sure whether this reflects the importance of beauty for success in many fields of life, particularly those in the public eye or whether many writers, who lead the life of the mind and create beauty rather than trade in it, aren't especially interested in the physical self. (`Ink on paper is as beautiful to me as flowers on the mountain- God composes, why shouldn't we?' Guillemets).

     Sadly, perhaps that stance works better for men than women, in all walks of life; men can afford to be admired and courted for their minds alone- Salman Rushdie, Stephen Fry and Howard Jacobson come to mind. For women, I fear, this remains more difficult. As Cindy Crawford said: `Even I don't wake up looking like Cindy Crawford.' So maybe what we female wannabe writing successes need to do is undergo a total restyling and rejuvenation programme. I'm sure that would help the confidence- and thus the perfect pitch- no end.

    

 

The Importance of Tips, New Short Story

           I'm sharing with you a short story I wrote for the recent Guardian competition. I didn't get anywhere, but as a few friends enjoyed it, here it is:

He spent his last £30 on a plate of oysters and a glass of champagne.  Plus the tip. Important not to forget, Emily always gave an extra note. It would have been her birthday today and this was exactly what she’d ordered last year, sitting at the same table, by the window. The young waitress with the mournful, spaniel eyes hadn’t wanted to serve him at first, until he pointed out the sign to her.

`How are you going to pay?’ she’d asked, smile like a curtain drawn back. `They’re very snooty in here. You’d be better...’

            He shook his head, indicated the little leather purse hanging around his neck. Her smile reminded him of Emily. He’d left the funeral crowd gathered around the graveside on the muddy grass. He’d wanted to jump down on top of the coffin and stay there, feel the dark clay pelt down on top of them both. It was Emily’s sister who’d restrained him.

            `I know, Sam, I know. How are we going to manage without her, eh?’

He wasn’t, couldn’t.  What is the point of me now? he thought and left, loping off among the skewed gravestones, out through the wrought iron gates and along the blaring road, over the roundabout and the lights, finding the river and his bearings.

            The waitress brought the bill and emptied out the purse for him. He pushed the final note towards her and she smiled again, rested her hand with its bitten fingernails on his back for a moment.           

            `Thank you. So much.’

            `No, thank you,’ he would have said, if he’d been able.

            He left the restaurant, ignoring all the people who stared at him and shook their heads,  waving their arms like the long reeds in the lake, where he used to go with Emily.

            It was night now; the light had been fading by the time he’d finally reached the restaurant. It hadn’t been possible to stay close to the river all the way and he’d had to climb towards rushing roads with roaring buses, the dank, mulchy smell still in his nostrils, a wet leaf sticking to his leg.

            Now he made his way up onto the bridge; at least no one paid him any attention here.  He found he was tired, head fuzzy from the champagne the waitress had poured so carefully over the shallow bowl of salty, shucked oysters. He wondered whether she could tell that oysters would never have been his own choice, that he was celebrating the short life of sweet Emily, who’d relied on him alone.

Every morning she’d started a poem on her laptop, sitting by the window, fingers curled around her coffee cup. Some days she finished the poem and they’d go to the park or along the High Street to the RSPCA charity shop or out to lunch with her mum and her sister. At night she’d recite the day’s poem, correcting it, while he dozed by the fire. The only time he envied cats; the way they could purr, with dignity. That was important too, like proper tips; Emily had written a poem about it.

        Which is why he’d made the decision. He’d seen the way they looked at him at the funeral, smelt their pity.  He’d wait here on the bridge till there were no more people crossing over and then he’d jump into the water. Emily had told him how fierce the current was, how easily you could get sucked under. She let him swim in the lake, but never in the river. She could be fierce sometimes: he thought of her voice, rich and sweet, like chocolate drops, changing; that hurt, like scalding water.

            He sat down by the railings, could smell the river, calling, welcoming him into her embrace.

            `Oh, it’s you!’

            It was the waitress. She paused beside him, leant her elbows on the rail and stared out over the water at the tall buildings and the sparkly lights.

            He tilted his head.

            She reached out a hand, laid it gently on the back of his neck.

            `Got fired! The customers complained. Said it was unhygienic. Told them to read the sign, access is allowed. For guide dogs.’

            She scratched him deep behind the ears and his tail flicked with joy.

            `Will you come home with me? After I got fired, the chef told me about Emily. My mum’s got AMD- macular degeneration. Won’t leave the house. You’re exactly who she needs.’

He stood up, shook his stiff limbs. Now he could wag his tail properly. He licked her hand. He had a purpose, dignity. And would always remember the importance of tips.

How to Improve your Writing; 10 minutes with John Wordsworth

At the Festival of Writing in September I had three 10 minute one to ones with agents. It was highly organised and reminded me of speed dating in the pressure to make a good impression on a stranger in a restricted amount of time, with the next `hopeful' ready to rush over and grab your chair.

In a large hall 30 or so agents sat at little tables with a stack of papers: your chosen agent had read your first chapter, a synopsis and a paragraph about you and had filled out a feedback form they would hand to you at the end of the time slot, with a single page of feedback, divided into four categories: Market Appeal, Prose Style, Opening Chapter, Next Steps.

You were only allowed into the room ten minutes before your time slot, then you checked in at the main desk and had your agent pointed out to you on a floor plan, as several were behind the central stairs and thus invisible. This immediately made me (even more) nervous, as I have no sense of direction and only knew what the chosen agent looked like from the snapshot on the agency's website or the agent's Twitter page. It has to be said that John Wordsworth, at Zeno Agency, who describes himself as looking like Robert Ford and feeling like Jesse James (@TheWorrierPoet), looks nothing like his picture, in which his hair is much lighter and there are no heavy framed specs. Killer smile still the same, though.

A bell sounded the one minute warning and those of us whose ten minutes were about to start were allowed to stand up, but not to move. I wondered briefly if my legs would start to shake, when I got to my feet. I felt in need of a strong drink or three.

The first thing John said to me was: `Six adopted kids! I can't even manage with two.' This derailed the `conversation' for a couple of precious minutes, before he launched into a lucid critique of my book. As a therapist I've trained myself to have an almost verbatim, but time-limited, recall of people's words and the first thing I did upon exiting the hall was to rush back to my room and write it all down.

In brief, although he liked my premise, my central character and the mechanics of the opening chapter, he astutely pointed out that:

1) The title was rubbish.
2)There were too many characters in the first couple of pages.
3)People's responses to the action weren't always credible- they appeared to take far too much in their stride (a comment I seem to remember my therapist making about me years ago).
4)My style was a little too frenetic, I needed to be more measured.
5)My dialogue was a bit `info-dumpy.'

His main piece of advice was: work out the crux of each scene and map out the story, figure out exactly what the reader needs to know in each scene and don't give them any more. And then the bell sounded and it was done.

It was time to start over, weaving the magic more carefully:

Writing Crime Fiction, with Claire McGowan

Firstly, I have decided to increase my font size as I have had another complaint about my blog being difficult to read for tired/ageing eyes. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be a medium sized font, so I hope this is not now too large.

Claire McGowan has a lovely, informal lecturing style and I imagine her books are likewise engaging and easy to read. She also writes an excellent blog (www.ink-stains.co.uk), which is worth checking out, especially her defence of prologues, which a Curtis Brown agent once told me she `detested' and were sufficient for her to read no further in a submission.

Claire began by talking about commitment to a genre. You can't write a crime thriller one year and then switch to science fiction, followed by gothic horror, or you will piss everyone off, including your readership. You are also expected to produce at least a book a year, as readers have short memories and we can't all be Donna Tartt and get away with an 11 year gap between novels.

She went on to a discussion about what makes crime fiction. She established that there needs to be a moral crime (though not always anything as `straightforward' as a murder). Missing people can be more dramatic than a suspicious death, but readers demand twists and ultimately a resolution (or they get very cross and write angry emails/reviews). A dark tone is good and you need someone who takes on the investigative role, which then leads them into danger. She recommended Tana French, `Into the Woods' as a good example of this.

Crime fiction should always be lean and pacy with strong plots (she talked about plot architecture, a phrase I enjoyed and understood as a helpful way of thinking about the construction of your `edifice'). Something must happen at the beginning, there are a series of events and reactions to these events, a series of choices and reactions to these choices and the main characters need to have changed by the end of the story.

Writing a series is always popular, as generally you are given a two book deal at the start and readers enjoy engaging with the same characters and seeing them develop and respond to suspenseful situations over a number of books.

She defined suspense as the art of the unsaid. I think this is one of my flaws as a writer and one I have been trying to fix over the past few months. I've found it's helpful to ask myself a series of questions in every chapter. Can I leave this out? Does the reader need to know this right now? Will the reader be able to infer this? Can I get this point across through action or dialogue rather than `telling'?

She asked and then answered the important question: Why write crime? (The answer inside my head was: it's what I like to read, I like to pit my wits against the writer and see if I can guess what is going to happen next, the solution to the puzzle, the resolution of the mystery. Or now, I ask myself: If I was writing this, what would be the surprise twist?) Claire's answer was reassuringly statistical: crime fiction is in the top 10 of all library loans and forms 1/5 of all fiction sales. That will do me.

She claimed to be research-lite, whereas personally I really enjoy a good bit of research, but then there's always the worry that what I'm really doing is postponing the inevitable sit-down-and-write-the first paragraph moment. She solves this by writing the story first and researching later. She advised checking details online, such as police or procedural handbooks or trade magazines. We don't all have a pet DI we can pester.

She closed with 3 pieces of advice to increase your chances of success in this highly competitive market:

1) Read: Stephen King `On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft' (an agent told me that if I was to only buy one book on writing, that should be it); Donald Maass, `Writing the Breakout Novel' (he is an experienced agent and the book comes with loads of practical exercises to improve your writing); and Louise Doughty (whose Apple Tree Yard I love) `A Novel in a Year'. To this list I would add: Milan Kundera, The Art of the Novel, but then I am a huge Kundera fan.

2) Go to festivals like Crimefest, York or Harrogate, where you can meet established authors and fellow unpublished or new writers and agents. Network like mad.

3) Enter competitions to continue honing your craft. This is how Claire herself found her agent and ultimately, her first publishing deal.

And when you've managed to get that agent, where better to celebrate than Story, in London, (`We seek to tell our story through the food we serve') where your book might one day sit, ignominiously colour-coded, alongside the likes of David Nicholls, Emma Healey, Jo Nesbo and John Fielding.

(Photo courtesy of TripAdvisor)