Writing Tips (#TuesdayTips)
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TuesdayTips184
TV review:
Forensics: The Real CSI.
This week’s #TuesdayTip is a TV Review for Forensics: The Real CSI, available on BBC iPlayer (https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/m0004p7f/forensics-the-real-csi).
Now in its fourth season, the documentary focuses on West Midlands Police’s Forensic Science Service. Each episode focuses on a single investigation, with footage following the technicians around the scene, body-worn camera footage from officers, and shots of the scientists in their paper suits in the laboratory.
The detectives are featured, with video of them interviewing suspects etc
But the thrust of the show focuses on the Crime Scene Investigators and technicians, with face-to-face interviews with various forensic experts, some of whom are in most episodes.
The series features a wide-range of different crimes, not just murders. Highlights of the current series have involved episode two, Time of Death, which utilised phone analysis, DNA evidence and witness testimony to close the net on the murderer of a young woman. Episode 4, Confession of a Killer, opens with a man phoning the police to admit to killing his flatmate. He subsequently claims self-defence and the police use blood spatter analysis, retrieved data from phone handsets and CCTV to probe his claim.
Probably the most unusual – and frankly scary – episode is episode three, Untraceable Guns, which involves the retrieval of a haul of illegal weapons, including versions of the assault weapons commonly used in US mass shootings. The investigation takes a frightening turn when it emerges that the guns are homemade, using a commercially bought 3D printer and widely available plans from the internet. This episode gives a fascinating insight into the work of NABIS, the National Ballistics Intelligence Service. The experienced officers and technicians are visibly shaken by the potential ease with which these untraceable weapons can be manufactured.
Episodes from previous series include online grooming by paedophiles, indecent exposure, armed robberies, arson attacks and rapists.
The programme is a goldmine for writers of crime fiction and a fascinating watch for anyone interested in how modern UK police forces use cutting-edge techniques to solve a wide variety of crimes.
I highly recommend it.
As always, feel free to comment here or on social media.
Until next time, all the best,
Paul.
If you are a writer with a tip to share, or fancy writing a fictional interview between you and one of your characters, please feel free to email me.
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TuesdayTips183
Block Buster
Ideas To Thwart Writer’s Block
Headline Act(ivity)
Today’s #TuesdayTip is another Block Buster – a short exercise to either bust your writer’s block, or just a fun writing challenge to practise your skills.
Last year, I set an exercise where you found a news story, extracted the key details, then wrote a fictionalised account of what happened. #Tip136 Getting To The Meat Of It.
Today’s tip is going to take that principle and strip it back even further.
Go to your favourite news source and pick a headline.
That’s it. Don’t even read the story.
Now use that headline to write your own news story.
The fun thing about this activity is that there are loads of ways to approach it.
For example:- Take a headline that features names. Tabloids assume that their readers know who ‘Kate’ is. Will your story feature the Kate they are referencing, or are you going to feature a different Kate?
- Take a headline that doesn’t feature names. This frees you up to be as inventive as you like.
- Take a headline that just sounds quirky. Man finds Taylor Swift’s face in Greggs pasty is replete with possibilities.
- Take a headline that is banal and desperately dull. Planning committee to meet Tuesday. What are they planning? Why Tuesday?
Remember the rules:
- Set yourself a time limit.
- Write without stopping, editing or overthinking.
- Write whatever comes to mind and don’t worry if it doesn’t make sense.
- It doesn’t matter if it has nothing to do with the scene that you are stuck on.
If you are a writer with a tip to share, or fancy writing a fictional interview between you and one of your characters, please feel free to email me.
Have fun,
Paul
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TuesdayTips182
Precision Or Pedantry?
Welcome to this week’s Tuesday Tip.
When does precision tip over into needless pedantry?
It’s a vexed question that I find myself wrestling with periodically. Recently (Tip180) I talked about how one of the hallmarks of an inexperienced, or under-edited, writer is too much information, incorrectly placed. Hand-in-hand with that can be a tendency towards unnecessary attention to detail, at the expense of pace, flow and story-telling. This is a separate issue to the balance needed between authenticity and realism (Tip149).
I pondered this question most recently when editing the first complete draft of a novel. As I’ve mentioned before, I have a tendency to write out of sequence, with minimal planning. I also typically leave my timeline and internal chronology until late in the process. Therefore, in order not to be caught out by errors in timing, I usually avoid specifying dates and times as I go along. For example, I might write ‘It had been XXXX days since the woman was murdered’, replacing the XXXX with a more precise timing once I have a structured timeline in place and there are unlikely to be any major changes to the order of the narrative.
But how necessary is that precision, and can it even be detrimental to the style and flow?
In a recent case, my timeline told me that it had been six days since a couple had met in a bar for a drink. But when I wrote that, it seemed out of keeping with the fairly casual nature of the surrounding prose. In the end, saying that it had been several days since they had last met just looked, and sounded, better.
English is a language that serves us well, whether we are scientists for whom accuracy and precision are essential, or poets for whom style is more important. Prose, especially fiction, requires both.
We can say ‘it was six days’ or ‘a few days‘.
‘The car was parked 150 metres from the junction‘ or ‘the car was parked a couple of hundred yards from the junction‘.
‘It was a balmy twenty-one degrees Celsius‘ or ‘a warm and pleasant day‘.
So ask yourself the following questions.- How necessary is precision? A forensic scientist delivering their findings may give exact measurements, whilst an eyewitness would likely give an approximation.
- Is the degree of precision in keeping with the character?
- Is it in casual dialogue or more formal dialogue?
- Will the degree of precision (or lack of) be important later in the story?
- How does it sound? When you read it aloud, does the prose flow correctly?
One final point: a lack of precision can also allow for some wriggle room. By keeping things approximate, we can avoid the eagle-eyed reader spotting that our character’s kids are going to school on a weekend …
What are your thoughts on precision? When does precision become needless pedantry?
As always, feel free to comment here or on social media.
Until next time,
Paul
If you are a writer with a tip to share, or fancy writing a fictional interview between you and one of your characters, please feel free to email me.
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TuesdayTips181
TV review:
Catching A Killer:
A Diary From The Grave.
Today’s #TuesdayTip is a TV review. Catching A Killer: A Diary From The Grave, shown recently on Channel 4 and available on My4, is actually a repeat of an episode first shown in 2020, but it is worth a watch.
My wife and I were already familiar with the sad and twisted tale of the murder of Peter Farquhar and the alleged attempted murder of his neighbour Ann Moore-Martin by the trainee vicar Ben Fields. It has featured in other true crime series, and was made into a superb BBC TV miniseries, The Sixth Commandment, starring Timothy Spall and Anne Reid.
However, this episode includes Fly-On-The-Wall documentary techniques and takes us into the police investigation. It’s worth watching because of the insight it gives into a complex investigation. It’s also chilling, because of the significant amount of footage of the killer Ben Fields in interviews and also his interactions with police officers within the station. What struck me most was the scary politeness and indifference of Fields. Fictional serial killers are often portrayed as charming individuals and it has become a clichéd hallmark of psychopaths. Here we see it in action. Fields is unfailingly pleasant and polite to all he meets, acting exactly as one would expect of a trainee vicar seen as the bedrock of the church. Rarely, if ever, does that mask (if it is one) ever drop.
Most poignantly, the title for the episode comes from use of Peter Farquhar’s own diaries, read aloud by a very good voice actor. In them Farquhar, a closeted homosexual who struggled with the conflict between his sexuality and his faith, records his growing love for Fields, along with the decline in his faculties as Fields slowly poisons him. The callous betrayal of this much-loved man is truly heart-breaking. Judicious use of interviews by Farquhar’s friends – many of whom were former pupils that kept in touch with their influential teacher – shows that he truly was deeply loved by all who knew him.
Interestingly, the documentary camera crews accompanied the police as they interviewed witnesses, and supplied a fascinating insight into how these things work. After one such interview, the interviewee innocently asks if Fields has done something wrong. The police decline to answer that question, and it becomes apparent that the witness has not been told why they are interested in Fields. This is something we rarely see. I watch a lot of these programmes and had somewhat naively assumed that many of the interviews are either restaged later, or the person being interviewed actually knew why the police were there. To see the police carefully juggling the need to interview someone without giving away too much information was really interesting.
Even if you feel you are familiar with this particular story, I heartily recommend seeking out this documentary.
What did you think of this documentary? Did it add something to a story already familiar to you? As always, feel free to comment here or on social media.
Until next time,
Paul
If you are a writer with a tip to share, or fancy writing a fictional interview between you and one of your characters, please feel free to email me.
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TuesdayTips180
The World(Building) Is Your Oyster.
One of the signs that can differentiate between a book from an experienced writer that has been professionally edited (either independently or via traditional publishing routes), and a less experienced writer who hasn’t had any professional input, is the volume and placement of detail.
Some months ago, I came across a short story. The author is an imaginative and enthusiastic amateur writing in the speculative fiction genre(*). The premise of the story was enjoyable and original, but the problem was that the author got rather too carried away with the world-building. The first part of the story was almost exclusively a description of the galactic federation in which the tale was set. It lasted several paragraphs, and included a potted backstory of how this organisation came about. It killed the momentum and pace, and I was getting bored by the time the actual story started.
Now this is not something limited to speculative fiction. Far from it, ‘world-building’ applies to all genres and is essentially the process of establishing where and when a story takes place, and the types of characters within it. It’s a form of backstory. The problem, is that after spending significant amounts of time imagining where our story is set, there is a real temptation to show the readers what we’ve been up to, at the expense of an actual story!
And this is where a good editor comes in.
Description is good. Description is essential. Even the most action-packed novel, that leaps straight into the story, will eventually have to start filling in some blanks for the reader. The question is how much and when?
So, to take our original example (and again, I’m changing details to avoid identifying the writer), we needed to know that the action takes place in the distant future, between alien species, who are part of a galactic federation. Somehow, that information needs to be passed on to the reader within the first paragraph or two. But what we didn’t need to know was when the federation was founded and by who, or precisely what the main protagonist’s species looks like and how it differs from others. Unless any of those details specifically impact the story being told at that precise moment, ditch them or delay their reveal until later.
One of the best world-builders in fiction was the late, great Terry Pratchett. His Discworld novels sprawled across a humungous, imaginative realm that grew bigger and bigger as the series progressed. Avid fans of the series (who have read and reread each book multiple times) are intimately familiar with this world, and so wouldn’t thank Sir Terry if the first few chapters were a potted re-telling of the entire history of the Discworld. By the same token, readers new to the series need to be able to pick up one of his books at random and dive straight into the story, with enough backstory to ensure they don’t put it back down in complete bewilderment.
So, after building your world, then starting your story, ask yourself the following questions.
1) Does the reader really need to know that detail?
Is it essential to the plot, the understanding of the wider context, an essential piece of character development (or in the case of comedic books, necessary in the lead up to a really good knob gag)?
If the answer to the question is no – cut it. Don’t be afraid to “kill your darlings” (Tips 27, 28, 29 & 30)
If the answer is yes, then ask yourself these questions.
2) Does the reader need to know this yet?
Can it be held back until later? As discussed previously, (Tips 64 & 68) you should try to avoid data dumps. They can be overwhelming to the reader. Trickle the information out slowly – it’s a novel, not a textbook.
3) Is this the right place for this detail?
As discussed numerous times in this blog, detail typically conflicts with pace. This is not necessarily a bad thing. Each novel has its own rhythm and there will be slower sections and faster sections. The placement of detail can help you dictate that pace.
And this is why an editor is essential. You are too close to your work to make that judgement, you need an impartial pair of eyes to help decide if information needs to be cut, pared back or moved.
(*) I am being as circumspect as possible here, since I would be mortified if the author in question thought I was using their work as an example on my blog. I have changed a few minor details, so there is hopefully no way to attribute this to them.
What are your thoughts on world-building? Is it better to let your reader know everything up front, or should you hold some back and trickle it out more gradually?
As always, feel free to comment here or on social media.
Until next time, all the best,
Paul.
If you are a writer with a tip to share, or fancy writing a fictional interview between you and one of your characters, please feel free to email me.
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TuesdayTips179
Stealing The Limelight
Welcome to the #TuesdayTip. This week, I am celebrating when a minor character unexpectedly takes over the reins.
We writers love a good cliché. Not in our prose, obviously – we and our editors strive to cut them wherever we see them – but when asked to describe the process of writing, hell yeah, bring them on! One of those clichés is that sometimes a ‘character takes over’ the writing. For the logically-minded non-writer, this is patently nonsense. You are the writer, everything comes from your mind. The character is a fictional construct from your mind. Ergo, you are still in control. Well, duh, obviously.
Yet sometimes it feels as if you aren’t in control of the process.
A related phenomenon is when a relatively minor character suddenly becomes more important. Like a character actor stealing all the attention from the A list celebrities.
I LOVE this!
When writing my third DCI Warren Jones novel, Silent As The Grave, I happened to be taking a creative writing class. Our homework was to write a short scene with two characters. Deciding to kill two birds with one stone, I chose to introduce the main antagonist’s henchman, Bixby. A minor character that was little more than hired muscle (he didn’t even have a first name). Over the course of those 300 words, the book was turned upside down. Bixby became one of the most intriguing characters I’ve ever met. By the end of the book, he was the most important and complex person in the story, other than my hero, DCI Jones.
More recently, in my current work in process, I introduced a female character who, whilst integral to the story, was little more than ‘utility character’ – a person that exists solely to help move everything along. Well, she wasn’t having any of that! Within a couple of paragraphs of me first meeting her, the entire focus of the book changed. It is now her story. Everything takes place because of her actions and it is her we are rooting for. And I am loving every second of writing her. And the amazing thing? The underlying premise hasn’t changed! My original two line idea is still there, in its entirety.
So, my advice? Take a leaf from my years of teaching. If a pupil is elbowing their way to the front of the class, don’t slap them down and make them return to their seat. Don’t stick to the original plan. Let them take over for a bit. If it doesn’t work, never mind, you can always return to the original idea. You can even cut them out and use them in a different book (the character, not the pupil!). Because, sometimes the end result is far better than it would have been originally.
What are your thoughts on this? Should characters stay in their lane? Would you rather stick with the original plan, or are you willing to take a risk and give them a bigger voice to see what happens?
As always, feel free to comment here or on social media.
Until next time, all the best,
Paul.
If you are a writer with a tip to share, or fancy writing a fictional interview between you and one of your characters, please feel free to email me.
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TuesdayTips178
TV Review:
To Catch A Copper
This week’s #TuesdayTip is a TV Review for To Catch A Copper – a truly jaw-dropping fly-on-the-wall series about the work of Avon and Somerset Police’s Counter Corruption Unit. Filmed over four years, it is currently available to stream on All4, with new episodes airing each Monday.
When Jed Mercurio first started writing the award-winning BBC drama, Line Of Duty, he famously received very little assistance from the police (at least officially), and so his AC-12 unit is largely fictional. It was a brilliant series, but bore only limited resemblance to what really takes place in this incredibly sensitive area of policing.
So full credit to Avon and Somerset Constabulary for allowing TV crews behind the scenes to show what really goes on. And credit also to the Chief Constable of A&S Police, Sarah Crew, for taking part and being willing to speak, on camera, extensively about her own feelings on the subject.
At the time of writing, three episodes have aired. Officers that are subject to allegations of misconduct typically appear on screen, their interviews recorded without their names or identity concealed. Sometimes victims also appear, with some brave enough to also do so openly. There is extensive use of body worn camera evidence.
The preponderance of allegations so far have been of sexual misconduct, with officers accused of inappropriate sexual relations with members of the public, revenge porn, an attempt to use police resources to blackmail a man using sex-workers, rape and even grooming, sexual assault and unwanted sexual advances towards police cadets or new recruits to the service.
Other allegations have involved violent confrontations with the public, a failure of duty of care towards prisoners, and alleged racially-insensitive policing or unwarranted and poorly carried out stop and searches. The thoughts and feelings of victims and their loved-ones are also given airtime.
The show follows the team as they investigate these potential offences and we see the ultimate outcome of the proceedings.
This is not a comfortable programme to watch, not least because of the questions and debates it raises. Sometimes you find yourself outright disgusted at these officers’ actions. Other times, you may find yourself siding with the officers who appear to have done their job as well as they could under difficult circumstances. It certainly provoked debate in our house.
You also see the role of the Police Federation Representatives. I learned that they are not defence lawyers, nor necessarily advocates for the accused officer. Rather they are there to ensure that correct procedures are followed.
The outcomes are also a subject of debate and can leave you feeling angered at decisions made, whether by the IOPC (Independent Office of Police Conduct) not to recommend more serious disciplinary action or by the Crown Prosecution Service not to proceed with criminal charges. There is plenty of fodder here for the armchair lawyer. The cynic may also question the use of ‘reflective practise’, whereby an officer found lacking discusses what went wrong and how they could improve. At times, you feel that the officers involved are simply saying what they need to say to tick all the boxes and return to duty. And then there is the time taken; officers accused of very serious offences can spend over a year suspended on full pay, before resigning the day before their tribunal.
In the programme’s voiceover the narrator questions whether it is right that a system where the police investigate themselves is up to the task. Sometimes, you have to wonder …What are your thoughts on this series? Too kind to the police? Too harsh? Were you shocked?
As always, feel free to comment here or on social media.
Until next time, all the best,
Paul.
If you are a writer with a tip to share, or fancy writing a fictional interview between you and one of your characters, please feel free to email me.
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TuesdayTips177
Space Is Pace
Welcome all! This week’s #TuesdayTip is a brief companion piece to last week’s discussion about rhythm and pace TuesdayTip176.A couple of years ago, I was sitting in the audience at a literary festival, listening to the authors on the panel discussing their writing. One of the authors was Steve Cavanagh, the highly talented author of the Eddie Flynn legal thriller series(*). Something he said really stuck with me.
Like a lot of writers, especially those in the thriller genre, when editing his prose, he keeps an eye out for pace. The Eddie Flynn thrillers area mixture of high-tension legal action, lower tension (but still exciting) legal skullduggery and heart-stopping action sequences. The pacing is always excellent and very well judged, with the reader in turns bowled along by the excitement of a fiery exchange or violent altercation, or allowed a well-earned breather as Eddie plots his next move.He said something very simple, but absolutely on-the-nose:
You can judge the pace of a scene by the amount of white space on the page.
Try it. Take a book off the shelf and compare different scenes.
Fast dialogue and exchanges between characters tend to involve short sentences, with rapid switching between speakers. Common convention is to start a new line each time a different character speaks. Furthermore, that first line is typically indented on the left-hand side. That means white space at both the beginning and the end of a line.Now look at a slower sequence. For example a person delivering an impassioned monologue to the jury. Typically, the paragraphs are longer, and with only one person speaking, there are fewer line breaks. The text is usually justified (the spacing between letters is subtly manipulated so that each line takes up the same width on the page). There is a lot less white space on the page.
The same goes for faster-paced action sequences, compared to slower-paced descriptive scenes. Shorter sentences. More line breaks. More and shorter paragraphs. All of these mean that the pace of a scene impacts the amount of white space.
Of course, a cynic might say that publishers are already clamping down on word count to counteract rising paper costs. How long until they start demanding that books are faster-paced so they use less ink? Unlikely, but never say never …
What are your thoughts on this? Is this an over-simplification? Could one write an algorithm to give a book a ‘pace score’? Is this a useful observation for writers or largely meaningless?
As always, feel free to comment here or on social media.
Until next time, all the best,
Paul.
If you are a writer with a tip to share, or fancy writing a fictional interview between you and one of your characters, please feel free to email me.(*) You can buy Steve’s books here or check out my reviews of Thirteen and Fifty Fifty here.
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TuesdayTips176
Getting The Write Rhythm
Welcome to this week’s #TuesdayTip. This time I want to talk about introducing Rhythm to our writing.
One of my pleasures in recent years is hearing my books read aloud by my wonderful audio narrator, Malk Williams. A key part of the listening experience is hearing him add inflection and rhythm to my words.As writers, one of the things we try hard to do is invoke emotion in our readers. Choosing the correct words and sentence structure, whether in prose or dialogue, can elevate a simple sentence such that it no longer simply states what is happening or what our characters are saying, but also makes the readers (or listeners ) feel what the characters are going through. Just this week, an extremely popular author, that I have read for a few years, actually had me crying for about thirty or so pages. That’s pretty rare for me, and I am determined next time our paths cross to take them to one side and tell them. I am being deliberately circumspect about their identity, because I don’t want to give away spoilers – fans of their series who haven’t read the latest book may figure out what has happened in this book to evoke such an extreme reaction.The rhythm of prose is key to evoking emotion. It is also a way to dictate the pace at which a passage is read, which again, feeds back into the reader’s emotional experience. It can also act as cue to narrators when they read the book aloud.
There are several tricks that we as authors can use.
Looking first at dialogue.
You can use punctuation and simple formatting to help add flavour or rhythm to your dialogue. For example an ellipsis (…) indicates that a person has trailed off mid-sentence. An em break (an extra-long hyphen that I can’t show you due to formatting issues with this blog) can show interrupted speech or speech that is abruptly cut off.You can also emphasise individual words with italics.
For example:
Take the sentence “What do you want to do?” asked Warren. Out of context there are no cues to tell you how Warren speaks this sentence.
Now let’s add some italics.“What do you want to do?” asked Warren. The italics tell the reader to stress the word ‘you’.
Alternatively.
“What do you want to do?” asked Warren. This time the italics stress a different word.
Or
“What do you want to do?”
“What do you want to do?”
“What do you want to do?”Try reading aloud these five sentences and see how the addition of italics can change the meaning or intent of a simple sentence. A good narrator will also follow these cues.
The above tricks can be used in prose as well as dialogue.
Line breaks can introduce a tiny additional pause, which can again add emphasis to a sentence or increase dramatic tension..
For example:He opened the report and felt a wave of disappointment. Their key suspect was already dead.
As opposed to:
He opened the report and felt a wave of disappointment.
Their key suspect was already dead.That line break extends the natural pause at the end of the sentence, which adds an additional element of drama.
Things to avoid:
If you are writing a report, and want to highlight sections or attract a reader’s attention, there are a plethora of useful options in Word and other word processors. Even email packages allow rich text these days, so you can format a message for clarity. It can be tempting to use those tools in your novels.
However, be mindful of your audience. Visually-impaired readers may struggle to differentiate between different formats, or find the text difficult to read. Blind readers using screen-reading software to read aloud messages may also struggle, since the software either omits or struggles with inconsistent and complex formatting. For this reason, many organisations, including HM Government and the Civil Service, have a strict set of guidelines about what formatting is acceptable, to ensure inclusivity.
Consider also the limitations of the format that your reader is using.
Using bold to emphasise text is usually acceptable, although I rarely see it in fiction, other than perhaps for chapter titles. You can also use different fonts – eg if your characters are having a text conversation. But most books (including eBooks on most dedicated eReaders) are just black text on a white background, and coloured ink increase printing costs, so avoid colour coding your text!What other tricks have you seen that can add rhythm to a novel? Are there things that you think don’t work?
As always, feel free to comment here or on social media.
Until next time,
Paul.
If you are a writer with a tip to share, or fancy writing a fictional interview between you and one of your characters, please feel free to email me.
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TuesdayTips175
Block Buster
Classified Stories
Welcome to this week’s Today’s #TuesdayTip. Since it’s still January and you might not be back into the swing of things yet, here is another Block Buster – a short exercise to either bust your writer’s block, or just a fun writing challenge to practise your skills.
Listings or classified ads have a long history. Originally found in the back of newspapers, they have now largely migrated online to sites such as Craigslist or Ebay or even Facebook Marketplace. They are a treasure trove of new and second-hand items for sale or even paid for services, such as gardening or decorating.
For today’s exercise, we are going to use one as a prompt.
First of all, choose a listings site. When you are satisfied, find three items for sale.
Now incorporate those three items into a short story.
For a bit of variety or extra challenge, why not include a paid-for service?
The exercise is replete with possibilities.- Your characters could simply use those three objects.
- Or they could find themselves in need of those objects. Why?
- Alternately, you could turn it on its head and compose a piece about why those objects or services are being offered.
- What happens if the object they buy isn’t quite what they are expecting, or has a hidden past?
PS this exercise gives me the excuse to repeat one of my favourite writing stories.
It is claimed that Ernest Hemmingway once bet $10 he could write a story in no more than six words.
The result is a masterpiece, told in the form of a classified ad. His fellow writers paid up without argument.
For sale: baby shoes, never worn.
Whether or not it really was penned by Hemmingway is unknown. Either way, the author is an absolute genius.
Have fun!
Remember the rules:- Set yourself a time limit.
- Write without stopping, editing or overthinking.
- Write whatever comes to mind and don’t worry if it doesn’t make sense.
- It doesn’t matter if it has nothing to do with the scene that you are stuck on.
If you are a writer with a tip to share, or fancy writing a fictional interview between you and one of your characters, please feel free to email me.
All the best, Paul.
