This week I am guest blogging over on Womens Writers,  Women’s Books.  Come see me there.

There are various techniques for building tension in a story: the use of foreboding, the ominous comments of hindsight, the race against time or the ticking clock set-up, the sudden reversal of fortune or the shock revelation that trips up the reader and changes what we understand of the narrative.  Writing in the present tense can also contribute to the breathless, fast-paced feel of a thriller.  With this technique there is neither foresight nor hindsight.  We do not have the bigger picture, only the frame by frame, chapter by chapter account.  Like the protagonist we are in the moment.  It’s a very modern style, well, I assume it is (people who know about the history of literature please correct me if I’m wrong).

I’ve written novels in the present tense and others in the past.  Sometimes I’ve found that changing to the present tense gives a better edge to a story.  In my latest book, Blink of an Eye, one character’s narrative is written in the present and the other is in the past though it covers the same time-frame.  As with most choices your first instinct is usually the correct one but if you’re unhappy with the flavour of the prose then tense is one element to consider.  Write a chapter both ways and compare.  Like POV the tense should suit the story and work for the characters.

Here’s another list of recent reads that I’ve enjoyed.  Not all perfect but some come pretty close.  Enjoy.

The Scent of Death by Andrew Taylor

The View on the Way Down by Rebecca Waite

Instructions for a Heatwave by Maggie O’Farrell

As Far As You Can Go by Lesley Glaister

The Light Between Oceans by M L Stedman

Ten Things I’ve Learnt About Love by Sarah Butler

The Silent Wife by A.S.A. Harrison

Apple Tree Yard by Louise Doughty

Norwegian by Night by Derek B Miller

The Burning Air by Erin Kelly

How do you decide which form is the best vehicle for a story idea?  Sometimes it seems obvious, the subject matter cries out for the length and complexity of a novel, or it’s a sharp, closely focused snap-shot suited to short fiction.  Other times something that originates as an idea for one form ends up, through happenstance, to see life in another.

I’ve had experience of writing a book and then adapting it for TV (Blue Murder) and of taking a TV script of mine and reworking it as a novel (Hit and Run).  One of my TV pitches became a novel (Witness) and has since been optioned for TV though has not as yet got any further.  Another TV treatment was transformed into a short story for radio (Boom).

I enjoy working in different media.  In my previous incarnation as a community artist I worked in a multidisciplinary company and relished the interplay of ideas and the development of projects involving visual and environmental arts, film, music, drama and creative writing.

My latest venture is a collaboration with my partner Tim, who is a visual artist. He has reworked my short story DOA (originally published by The Do-Not Press in the anthology Crime in the City edited by Martin Edwards) into a graphic short.  My role in the process has been to pare back the story, originally around 1200 words, to its absolute essentials, and comment as a first reader on the images that give the story a new identity.

It’s an experiment and I expect it will appeal to a quite different readership from that for my full length novels.  All I can say is the drawings are brilliant.  Honest.  And yes, I’m biased.  You can see it here and make your own mind up http://tinyurl.com/pkfjyxk

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

1. Never open a book with weather.
2. Avoid prologues.
3. Never use a verb other than “said” to carry dialogue.
4. Never use an adverb to modify the verb “said”…he admonished gravely.
5. Keep your exclamation points under control. You are allowed no more than two or three per 100,000 words of prose.
6. Never use the words “suddenly” or “all hell broke loose.”
7. Use regional dialect, patois, sparingly.
8. Avoid detailed descriptions of characters.
9. Don’t go into great detail describing places and things.
10. 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.

1. 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?
2. Some prologues work, some don’t.  I’d ask if it was really needed.
3. Okay as a generalisation.  But never say never.
4. A little variety is okay,  Just a little.
5. 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!)
6. Yes to the latter.  ‘Suddenly’ I can handle – sparingly.
7. Bare true dat.
8. Beg to differ here – it’s a matter of personal writing style.
9. 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.
10. 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.

 

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

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.

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/

Here are the books that I’ve enjoyed most over the last couple of months.  Some funny, some sad, all compelling.  I hope you enjoy them too.

Crocodile Tears – Mark O’Sullivan

Tell The Wolves I’m Home – Carol Rifka Brunt

Hungry, The Stars and Everything – Emma Jane Unsworth

Where’d You Go, Bernadette – Maria Semple

Just What Kind of Mother Are You? – Paula Daly

In Her Blood – Annie Hauxwell

A Land More Kind Than Home – Wiley Cash

Precious Thing – Colette McBeth

The Yellow Birds – Kevin Powers

(Spoiler alert – some stories from the Sal Kilkenny series revealed here.)

The truth is always stranger than fiction and one of the spookiest things in being a writer is when something you think you’ve dreamt up turns out to exist in real life.  There are two particular times when this has really struck me.  The first was with my debut novel Looking For Trouble.  When I set out to write the book I didn’t know where it would take me and I was disturbed to find myself writing about organised child sexual abuse in children’s homes run by the local authority.  News was just emerging back then (1992) of suspected cases of  paedophile rings violating vulnerable children and young people but it was still very much under the radar.  Some time later I met someone who had worked in social services in Manchester City Council and who had read the book at the same time as an undercover inquiry was going on into exactly this type of crime in the Manchester area.  She almost sought me out, thinking I had some insider knowledge that they might draw on.

A second example was with Go Not Gently, the second Sal Kilkenny novel.  In this a number of unexpected and unexplained deaths in old people’s homes leads to a discovery of horrendous malpractice by the local GP who ‘cares’ for the residents.  Sometime after publication, news broke of the horrific crimes of GP Harold Shipman in nearby Ashton-under-Lyne.

In both cases it was complete coincidence that I had chosen these topics – or they had chosen me.   The stories emerged through the writing.  I hadn’t picked a topic, researched it and then given it to my PI as a case.  Perhaps there is an element of a writer picking up on the fears and rumours and speculation in the air at the time, on the undercurrents of anxiety and whispers of wrongdoing.  There’s also an element of writing about what you fear – and then real life showing you those fears are well founded.  In much of my work I write about what I dread – about my nightmares writ large.  And of course I sincerely hope none of them come true.  But life continues to be ever stranger, darker and more harrowing than fiction.