Wednesday, September 1, 2010
Once upon a time...
Image via WikipediaOnce upon a time, there was an art conservator who was given a new job. At first, it did not strike her as different from all the other jobs she had done. She restored large numbers of paintings, and holy icons that bore the likeness of saints were nothing new. What was so special about this one? The curator in charge of the picture needed everything explained to him. Why did they send a novice with this important-looking artefact? Everything about this job was strange, including the x-rays they took and the technical images that popped up on her computer.
The conservator soon found out what it was: another picture, hidden for many long centuries, was stuck underneath the one she could see. Why was it hidden, and by whom? She needed some explanation for this mystery, and the curator could only come up with answers she could find for herself. Or so she thought. Finding symbols that needed deciphering was not rare, but these were very unusual. And it seemed that there was someone else who thought so too. Someone, perhaps, whose footsteps could be heard following hers as she walked home through the silent winding streets of Venice, at the dead of night.
Telling a story to describe a story is the perfect way to describe how my forthcoming book starts. Even though you can access Chapter One and read it free on my website, telling it in this way brings a new kind of excitement to me too. Is it possible to be excited about a book that has shared my days for the last two years or so? It dogged my waking moments, baffled my efforts to plot it neatly, defeated my struggle to tell the story smoothly... but I got there in the end.
I re-wrote it several times, and even had to add a whole character one time, with the almost impossible task of weaving him seamlessly through the whole book so no one would notice he was an afterthought!
The book is now out of my hands, and instead of feeling baffled and defeated - which was something that went away when I found that the several re-writes had worked - I feel deflated and bereft. I can't play with it any more. I can't fiddle and re-work and re-write and edit. It's gone off and is in the hands of others as they design, collate and format it for the first print. The characters are what the characters are. The locations are there. It's going to be set in the concrete of publication.
So the story will be told, and readers will, I hope, benefit from the telling. I have striven for a satisfying ending, one that - with some effort - ties up all the ends. And there were many! Entertainment was my aim: and the creation of atmospheres, for readers to enjoy a vicarious trip through some romantic locations and startling situations.
Now one problem remains: how do I conjure the same feeling in my next book? Where shall I find my characters? And where shall I put them? What story shall I tell?
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Monday, August 30, 2010
Venice: A great location for a book
Image via WikipediaVenice makes an excellent location for a writer to put inside a work of fiction.
It's not difficult to see why this is. To make Venice one of the places
where action takes place when writing a novel solves a number of
dilemmas that writers often face.How can a location solve a problem?
Well - writers like me try to make their readers vividly imagine scenes, action, people and things. It is difficult for a reader to visualise a fictional place unless an author describes it minutely. I try to avoid lengthy descriptions, because I find it slows down the action. So how do I inject atmosphere without the words? Well - I use places like Venice.
So my action can take place in an easily-imagined location, and my readers can concentrate on what is happening, and the feelings and efforts of my protagonists, without getting bogged down with trying to mentally define the location in which it is all taking place. It helps that I have been there a number of times, and that I know how it feels to turn the corner at the public park and come upon the stretch of the lagoon. I know what it's like to stand aside to let people coming the opposite way across a narrow bridge pass, and then descend its steps into a tiny piazza where window boxes are filled with tiny flowers, next to an antique shop whose owner speaks five languages.
Because I have seen, felt, smelled and tasted Venice, I can make it come alive for my readers, whether they have ever been there or not, without needing too many words, because their imagination is already furnished with photos and films that other people have conveniently put in their minds.
Even if you have never been to Venice, it's not hard to picture, because it is one of the most photographed and filmed places on earth: it is easily brought into focus. You can see, in your mind's eye, the canals, the gondolas, the bridges and the little narrow lanes. You can see St Mark's Square, the Rialto Bridge, and the little islands called Murano and Torcello.
Even if you have never been there, you can imagine taking a waterbus and crossing the Grand Canal. You can see the churches in your head, and imagine how my heroine walks home along the traffic-free streets. You can see Santa Maria della Salute, San Giorgio, and the little shops that sell those beautifully painted and decorated carnival masks.
You can be there in an instant, with the minimum of description required from me.
Sunday, August 29, 2010
Are controversial books a fad?
Image by warrantedarrest via FlickrWe seem to live in a sensationalist age, when things come to our notice only when they have become famous... or notorious. Celebrity
watching is super popular, and books seem to become instantly famous if
they contain some controversy that brings them to the notice of the
media.Why is this? What is happening really - are people losing interest in themselves in favour of celebrities? Are books becoming mere channels for discussion and debate? Perhaps this is simply a fashion or fad. It certainly has been going on for some time. There is a morbid interest in the general public for things that contain some sort of controversy.
Biographies of controversial figures have never sold better. Gossip magazines are the vehicles of sensationalism. Books with some sort of issue or argument can cause a storm and sell millions of copies. Everyone wants to know what the fuss is all about: everyone wants to share their opinion, and buy in on the debate.
Perhaps it is because we live in an argumentative age. Perhaps it is because news travels so far and so fast it's not enough for it to be just news... it's got to raise dust, in the form of an argument. Look what happened to The Da Vinci Code. We look back now and wonder what came first: the media hype, or the debate and discussion? Were the publishers poised for the disputes and discussions, or did they know from the outset they were creating the environment for them?
These questions are interesting ones, and they continue to show their heads every time some stimulating book hits the bookstores. These sensations either last a month or two and disappear, giving place to others, or they live on and tantalise with their staying power to make people talk. Some of this is generated by the PR arms of publishing companies. Some of it is extended by the general need for a sensation. It's a fashion, perhaps. It is certainly food for thought and fodder for conversations.
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Friday, August 27, 2010
6 Things You Need to Know About St Luke
Image via WikipediaONE - St Luke was born in Syria, and lived in a place called Antioch. Paul mentioned Luke in his writings, as 'my beloved physician'.TWO - St Luke never met Jesus. It is stated in the Gospel that the described events in Luke's testament were never personally witnessed.
THREE - Luke spoke and wrote excellent Greek, and also probably conversed in Aramaic, the language spoken by Jesus.
FOUR - It is possible to tell that St Luke was well educated, because of the broad range of vocabulary found in writings such as Luke's Gospel and the Acts of the Apostles, parts of which are also attributed to the evangelist.
FIVE - St Luke is the patron saint of physicians and painters. A popular legend says the evangelist painted a number of images of Mary, the Mother of Jesus.
SIX - According to tradition, the reamins of St Luke were transported to Padua, in Italy sometime in the 12th century.
These six commonly-known things about St Luke tend to rouse interest in ancient times, when travel, communications, everyday domestic comfort, education, worship, entertainment, and literacy were very different to the way we think of them now.
St Luke is often pictured in sacred art. Very often, the artists depicted the evangelist in the clothing of their own period, rather than that of the saint's era.
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Thursday, August 26, 2010
How history works in modern fiction
Not if it is done well. Some very good, and very popular, writers are using history to give their modern books depth. Depth that consists of much more than their characters' back story. A few writers who have done this with great success are Robert Goddard, in Days Without Number , AS Byatt, in Possession , and Arturo Perez-Reverte in The Flanders Panel.
Taking these three books as examples, we can see how it is done.
The main observation is that these books are not historical fiction: their main action takes place in current times, and their protagonists are placed in the present. But the mysteries they try to solve, and the material they are fascinated by, takes them on a historical route. Some of what they unearth is true - did happen - so the reader has the added fun of examining something from the past that has a basis in actuality.
Is it entertaining to research as you read fiction? Far from being a distraction, looking things up during or after reading a novel can send a reader on some very fascinating journeys. And it's not just historical events: these authors write in depth about trades, tools, procedures, legends, myths and also cultural aspects that no longer figure much in modern society. Looking them up - and checking their authenticity - can make for some interesting studies.
There's food, music, clothes, jewellery and even books from other times that can be inserted into the fiction of today to make it entralling... intriguing... captivating!
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Wednesday, August 25, 2010
Malta and the New Testament
You might say I have started this blog with a very big question! Well, my next thriller, According to Luke, which will be released by my publishers rather soon, presents this question in a subtle way. Today, I'm going to think about the part of the New Testament that deals with the arrival and sojourn of St Paul and St Luke in Malta.
The Acts of the Apostles, believed to have been largely written by Luke, start Paul's voyage to Rome from Adramyttium at 27:1, in about 60AD. In these verses it describes the tempest encountered after passing Cyprus, how the sailors jettisoned a cargo of wheat and four anchors, and how Paul consoled and encouraged the men on board - 276 they were in all. He urged them to pray, and to eat, telling them none would be lost because he had experienced a vision in which he was told they would all be saved.
Paul and Luke's stay on Malta was eventful, and there are many legends and myths about this period in the history of the islands. Luke went on to Rome and stayed with Paul during his imprisonment and trial.
Why is it important that Luke visited Malta? Well - a number of St Luke paintings around the world are attributed to St Luke. He is the patron saint of painters (and also of doctors) because of the legends that tie the name of this disciple to miraculous images of Mary. These are mentioned in According to Luke. There is one of these paintings in Malta: Our Lady of Damascus, which can be viewed in an ancient Greek church in the capital, Valletta.
Picture courtesy latinmasses.ca
Icons of this kind figure largely in my new book. Researching this aspect of the inclusions for the novel was one of the most interesting things I had to do to complete the book exactly as I had envisaged while nutting out the plot.
Why not visit my information pages and read more about the facts I have included in the novel? It will fill you in while the book is being produced, and you can be among the first to get it when it comes out.
Smells, tastes and noises
Locations can play a very important part in fiction: the places where the action takes place can arouse nostalgia in readers, or excitement, or a sense of armchair travel. When readers recognise the name of a place in a title, they are intrigued if it is a place they have visited on holiday, or if it is where they spent their childhood vacations. A book called "Romance at St Paul's Bay" would attract a great number of people who spent their adolescence walking up and down the promenade from St Paul's Bay to Bugibba, in Malta.
Locations are not only sights: they have smells and noises. There is nothing quite like the soft splash of an oar in the water very early in the morning, accompanied by the scent of drying seaweed and the slight hint of putrefaction, coming from old bait lying on the concrete wharf, at the Menqa in St Paul's Bay. Later in the day, there are the additions of frying fish, and the smell of hobz biz-zejt coming through open doors and kiosks.
I remember buying one of those seasoned rolls - filled with white beans, tuna, onion, tomato and lashings of olive oil - and a Kinnie, from the Sirens Water Polo Club. That is so long ago! But I still remember what it smelled like, and the taste is in my mouth now. I put some of these smells and tastes in my collection of short stories about Malta called Counting Churches. Hopefully, it will be out as an eBook very soon. Only two of the stories are available now. But you can get them very cheaply.
Noises are not as memory-jogging as smells and tastes - at least not for me. They are the hardest thing to include in a novel, but I do see that doing so effectively would make for a more lifelike story. I think there are a few noises in According to Luke, my forthcoming puzzle thriller that has the Rabat Priory in it as a location.
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Fresh content
Thursday November 5, 2009
Today I added a reviews page. I remembered exactly where I kept them, and zoomed right in to the correct spot. Don't think my study is that neat and organised: quite the opposite. There's got to be a room in the house (or three) where chaos is allowed a long and dusty reign.
Crowning this chaos are a borrowed guitar and a retrenched trombone. Poor instruments - perhaps they need a niche in a story somewhere. I think there is a story about a cello in the second book you will find on the Reviews page. The Bookbinder's Brother has been out of print since publishers Jacobyte Books called it a day. Together with Counting Churches and The Astronomer's Pig, it will be resurrected very soon.
Why not right now? (Isn't that typical... someone always shouts why not right now from the back of the room. They're usually under twenty.) Right now is not the time - I am giving all three books a once-over, which is not quickly done. They will see the light of day in 2010, and all those who have asked for them will be able to read them.
Image courtesy www.aad.gov.au
SUNDAY November 1, 2009
Food in Fiction
Our choices make us who we are: we don't all like the same things. What we like to read, listen to or do on the weekend... these are all facets of our make-up. An author thinks subconsciously about all these things when creating characters.I like to think my characters are individuals in their own right, and they live and breathe inside my head. They take on aspects that develop gradually, just as the plot of the book develops gradually, no matter how swiftly I put down the elements in my working synopsis.
What my characters eat and drink might not have a fundamental effect on the plot, but it does make them plausible and alive to the reader. A vegetarian character, or one who drinks too much, or a personality that gives a lot of importance to what goes on her plate: these aspects lend reality to a novel.
Although it is fiction, we all need to feel that a book is alive: that what happens in it could happen. That its characters behave like real people. It's the only way a reader can relate and identify with a made-up cast of personalities.
The story might not hinge on fish and chips wrapped in paper, or a rack of lamb with new potatoes and beans, or a custard pie liberally sprinkled with cinnamon, but when written about as being chosen, eaten and commented about by a character, the dishes take on a worldly aspect of sensation that is so vital to modern fiction.
In her novel A Noble Radiance, by Donna Leon, the protagonist sits down with his father-in-law to a complicated meal at a Venetian restaurant. Each dish, and how the person enjoyed it, is described with relish and expertise. It is a scene that means more than fish or wine: it sends the reader messages and details that work better than a plain description of mood or attitude. It makes the book come alive.
TUESDAY October 27, 2009
Plot development
Today I added a character to my new draft. It was a matter of necessity: a subplot is an important thing, and the addition of a plot twist needed someone else in the story.So I returned to the top and wove him in all the way through, to as far as I have got. It was much easier than I thought. Let's face it: it's a lot easier to add a character than to decide to eliminate one. Still, it did feel as if I was staring down some sort of precipice: Dingli Cliffs, indeed.
I now have to nut out his personality a bit more fully: I do this better in my head than in writing. Whether to make him nasty or nice is a big consideration, but seeing I am not even a third of the way into the story, perhaps I should let him develop like the others. It is true that not all players turn out the way you imagine them at the beginning. The plot sometimes necessitates a baddie or two that you did not originally create. Or a helping hand who cannot just materialise out of nothing in Chapter 23! Still, they do kind of flesh themselves out as I go.
My present work in progress is about a series of paintings that need to be looked at in one after the other. I still have doubts about the sanity of this, because - apart from the fact I have to take my protagonist on a wild chase through Italy - the research is already bewildering: I have found some altogether intriguing stuff I never knew existed.
Shall I weave it into my story?
Pic courtesy Beth Buehlman
MONDAY October 26, 2009
MUSIC IN FICTION
I like to make my characters hear things. Perhaps fiction should have sound effects too: sound effects in words, written by the author not simply as padding or background, but as an indication of what the character listening to the sound effect is like. How we react to certain noises and sounds is built into our personality. Our experiences are certainly not limited to the merely visual.Music is, like other aspects of art, something we are very subjective about. We have no idea, we say, why we like the music we do. But if we think hard, our favourite pieces are linked to certain experiences, certain milestones, and to our childhood. I want to make this point in fiction, by giving my characters music choices, likes and dislikes, that will turn them into people in my readers' eyes.
It is possible to flesh out a character in a book by making them startle easily to loud noises, or make them happy when they hear a sea breeze riffling through the trees. Giving them certain favourite music to listen to might make a reader relate or even identify with them.
What would you think of a character in a book who loved Beethoven, or Wagner? There could be one who liked Led Zepplin or Eric Clapton. Would it change your idea of a character if you read they hated Mozart and absolutely adored Frank Sinatra?
Finding a character in a book with musical favourites similar to yours would make the book special in your eyes. Perhaps my next novel will have that effect on someone.
SUNDAY October 25, 2009
ART IN FICTION
These hands were drawn by an artist who becomes significant in the novel I am now writing. This work in progress is another art history mystery: I seem to enjoy writing the kind of book that needs a lot of research into history of art. It’s harking back to my education, I suppose. Also, it’s one of the things I like best, and it’s always more comfortable writing about the things with which you have some sort of truck. It’s up to you to discover which artist I am talking about. Or you can wait the necessary couple of years until the published novel shows its cover. It’s a frustratingly long wait, but processes are processes, and there are no short cuts. Just as in the writing, in the production of anything there are certain stages one cannot afford to miss.
Today I am listening to the music of Malcolm Williamson. His piece called Azure is very difficult to find: there is only one known recording in the whole world. But I got my hands on it thanks to the amazing friendliness of the presenter and researcher at ABC fm Classic. They sent me in the right direction, and the CD arrived in record time (no pun intended).
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