Cath Staincliffe

Breaking The Rules

The great writer Elmore Leonard died recently and many people passed on his 10 rules for good writing, as follows:

Never open a book with weather.
Avoid prologues.
Never use a verb other than “said” to carry dialogue.
Never use an adverb to modify the verb “said”…he admonished gravely.
Keep your exclamation points under control. You are allowed no more than two or three per 100,000 words of prose.
Never use the words “suddenly” or “all hell broke loose.”
Use regional dialect, patois, sparingly.
Avoid detailed descriptions of characters.
Don’t go into great detail describing places and things.
Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip.

My most important rule is one that sums up the 10. If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it.

Make sense to you? I think there is a lot of good advice in there but also that rules are only worth keeping if they work for you and for the book you are writing. Here are my gut responses/thoughts to these rules.

It was a dark and stormy night. As a reader I’m hooked. Love it. Like weather. A lot. Maybe it’s a British thing?
Some prologues work, some don’t. I’d ask if it was really needed.
Okay as a generalisation. But never say never.
A little variety is okay, Just a little.
I agree! Though I’d maybe allow seven or eight per 100,000 words (I have never written a book of anything like that length!)
Yes to the latter. ‘Suddenly’ I can handle – sparingly.
Bare true dat.
Beg to differ here – it’s a matter of personal writing style.
Ditto no 8. I relish descriptions of locations that help me see/taste/smell and hear just what it’s like. Books that take me to unfamiliar places, vividly depicted, are among my favourites.
Well, maybe but do all readers skip the same parts?

What does make sense in all this is that these are the techniques that worked for Leonard, whose novels are a joy to read and who has a very specific voice. But pick another writer and I think their own rules would differ depending on the style of their prose and the way they like to tell their stories.

Losing Touch

When she wiped her nose on her biscuit I could tell things were heading downhill.

More Books

Another batch of recommended reads. Lots of variety, too. In this list there’s a brutal and blackly funny Western, a science fiction mystery novel, a hilarious yet moving take on modern American life as well as some excellent contemporary crime fiction. Happy reading.

After The Fall by Charity Norman

The Last Policeman by Ben H. Winters

Nina Todd Has Gone by Lesley Glaister

Everyone Lies by A.D. Garrett

The Sisters Brothers by Patrick deWitt

May We Be Forgiven by A.M. Homes

The Detective’s Daughter by Lesley Thompson

Phantom by Jo Nesbo

Voracious

She read her way around the library, hungry for journeys, adventures, laughter and passion. She took each new book to bed like a lover, savouring every chapter, going too far some nights until the letters danced like insects and she was groggy next day at work. But still she’d sneak away for lunchtime trysts, her eager fingers fumbling for the bookmark. In between times, in the worst of times and all alone, she would graze on safety notices, cereal packets, logos, the small print on tickets. In museums and galleries she read the plaques, barely glancing at the exhibits.

When she died she had never travelled more than thirty miles from the small town of her birth. But between the covers she’d been all round the globe: a queen, a mother, a spy, a murderer, a general, a slave, an alien. She died just before the last chapter.

*Originally published by www.the-phone-book.com (now archived)

Starting and Finishing

I began a new book recently. Although I have been busy for some weeks creating characters and their stories, developing the ideas for the murder case, and researching on topics I needed to know more about, for me a book isn’t started until I write those first lines. That’s the ‘proper’ work of writing and no matter how much plotting and planning I might have done in advance (and that varies from book to book) it is in the process of writing that everything is given life and form and new ideas often emerge.

The finishing point is not quite so clear cut. I think there are two of those. The first is when I scrawl the last sentence, put the closing full stop. And the second is when after typing up, editing as I go, polishing and amending in the light of feedback from my writers group and doing a final read through I have a whole book, ready to send off my agent and editor. Of course there will be further work to do – changes suggested by editor or agent, copy edits to agree, proofs to be checked, cover images to consider but in my mind the novel already exists, fully formed. And what comes after, crucial though it is (and it is!) I see as part of the production and publishing process not the creative process.

If

Kelly was hell on legs from the word go. Born breech just to be awkward. Wild, always went her own way. If it hadn’t been the drugs it would have been something else. But I can’t help picking at it. Over and over. Sifting the blame like handfuls of sand.

*Originally published by www.the-phone-book.com (now archived)

TV Drama Writers’ Festival

Last week I went to the BBC Writersroom TV Drama Writers’ Festival in Leeds. My main aim was to galvanise my interest in screen-writing again because, like most creative endeavours, it often feels like an uphill struggle – or whistling in the wind. I was extremely, I mean EXTREMELY, lucky to see my first TV pitch, Blue Murder, get greenlit and become a successful returning series. That is the stuff of fairytales but since then, I’ve had much more experience of not getting projects off the ground. Of having meetings with commissioners and producers where I pitch my ideas and see them crushed (in the nicest possible way) one by one. The responses usually go along the lines of ‘we’ve got one of them in development, we don’t want any cop shows, we don’t do private eyes, we’re hanging fire on legal dramas, we’ve got one of them, and one of them, and (insert name of uber-writer) is doing a show looking at that world with us.’

What was refreshing about the conference was understanding that this is how it is, 99% of the time for all writers, even the ones who seem to be at the top of the game. And that scripts can get written and paid for and everything be going swimmingly until the plug or rug is pulled. A panel with Danny Brocklehurst and Toby Whithouse and Mark Catley looked at ‘The One That Got Away’ – and there was more than one – they were myriad! And then there are the fairytales. Wonderful to hear Chris Chibnall talk to Ben Stephenson about Broadchurch, Sally Wainwright and Nicola Schindler discuss the development of Last Tango with Peter Bowker and Dominic Mitchell and the team at BBC North describe the creation of In The Flesh. All shows I love. Good too to meet writers from theatre and radio and swap stories of where we’ve been and where we’re going – or would like to go.

So, when I can possibly carve out some time from my novel writing I will work on some new ideas to pitch for television. I will! Just don’t hold your breath…

PS The BBC Writersroom is a very useful website – do have a look if you’re not familiar with it. http://www.bbc.co.uk/writersroom/

Archives

Rocky

He was a big cheese. Thicker skin than Edam, punch like Farmhouse Cheddar, bite like Stilton. Broke the mould. You know, he never saw it coming. Ended up with more holes than Gorgonzola. Time we arrived it was a feta-compli. Churned me up to see it. Fondue.