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Reading: Part 2

December 19, 2013

Reading as Recreation

‘When I was your age, television was called books.’
– Grandpa
The Princess Bride.

I’ve never understood people who don’t read. From as early as I can remember, I had a book of some sort in my hand – as a kid, they might be comics; then stuff like the various adventures of Asterix & Obelix, or Tintin; then novels.

There’s a relationship that you get from a book that you just don’t get from any other form of storytelling entertainment. That’s not to invalidate those other forms. There’s always great television series playing. Tune in and you devote yourself to them. It’s not unusual to discuss what happened with friends or family. When we’ve been impressed, how many times have you prefixed a question with, ‘Did you see …?’ or we debate the actions the characters took or what might occur next. If it’s something terrible, we’ll deconstruct it.

It’s the same thing with movies or theater. We’ll sit in a cinema or theater, amongst strangers, and share the experience. If it’s particularly good, we might chorus with laughter or shrieks or sit tensely. If it’s horrible, we might groan or – the more audacious amongst us – might mock it loudly. Afterward, we’ll go through the same examination of the stories and characters.

One of the strengths of these mediums is that they’re very visually and aurally-oriented – particularly in contemporary film and television. There’s very little filmmakers can’t do with CGI, creating worlds and effects that would’ve been impossible just ten years ago. Aurally, both are about more than sound effects (impressive in their own right), but also about the scores.

Watch any film John Williams has scored – e.g. Jaws, Star Wars, ET, Superman, Raiders of the Lost Ark, amongst others – and listen to how the music sometimes not only adds a new dimension to what you’re seeing, but breathes life into it. Many of the people responsible for the early cuts of Star Wars (including George Lucas himself) felt the movie was flat. When John Williams’s score was added, the movie came alive.

Another example is Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho. Hitchcock originally wanted the famous shower scene to occur without any musical backing. Composer Bernard Herrmann scored it anyway. Hitchcock was furious, but when he heard the score – that tune that’s become so iconic – he changed his mind (and would later pay Herrmann twice his fee as a bonus for the overall score). Could you imagine that shower scene without it?

But there are things that can go wrong in television and movies and plays, as well as all their derivatives (musicals, webisodes, etc.). As with books, the story itself can be lacking, the pacing can be odd, the plotting could be uneven, it could be haphazardly told, and so on. Specific to these mediums, actors might be miscast (e.g. Bonfire of the Vanities), performances could be bad, effects might be laughable, etc.

Books themselves aren’t infallible. Just as we might’ve seen bad television or films, we’ve all read bad books, or books which haven’t resonated with us, (even if they’re regarded as classics). But – for mine – their strength has been the intimate relationship they create with you as a reader. It’s a marriage of you and the book. The words are a framework for your imagination to fill in the details. From there, you are immersed in the book’s world – a world that might be impossible to realise through any other medium.

Similarly with the story itself. Books can span millennia. Characters can begin as babies and we can witness their whole lives unfold before our eyes. Stories can be told disjointedly. There’s nothing a book can’t do, their only parameters the author’s imagination. Whilst film and television can do some astonishing things, there are – and probably always will be – limitations.

Then it’s just you and the story. Even the author themselves can become anonymous at this point, or only be represented through their voice. A bad book can help you even the legs on that uneven table. A good book takes you away until there’s nothing but yourself in this unfolding world. You are a disembodied spectator, becoming more and more invested until, with regret, you have to leave the story. Ever read a book and rued the pages are running out? Not a lot of other forms of entertainment can generate that sort of lament.

The best thing is you can take a book just about anywhere and dip into it anytime – read it on a train, in the tub, on the toilet, waiting for a doctor’s appointment, or whatever the case might be.

Reading’s something you can always do. And there’s always a new story waiting.

LZ.

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Reading: Part 1

December 13, 2013

Reading for Writers

There are various reasons why reading is a worthwhile recreation, particularly if you’re a writer. Reading complements the very act of writing as an educator of how to develop your craft. Don’t think you can be a writer without reading. If you think that, you’re deluding yourself.

If you’re a writer, here are some reasons why you should be reading …
It teaches us punctuation
Well, how boring is that? But it does. I picked up pretty much all my knowledge of punctuation from reading. When I studied, I was taught only two additional things, (that a full stop goes inside a sentence self-contained within parentheticals, and the use of semicolons in lists containing commas). Everything else I picked up through reading over the years. It mightn’t seem important to some. Why should it? Get published, and some nifty, anonymous editor will put all the damn full stops in place. But a knowledge of punctuation helps you to understand how words can work, and how punctuation (and its use, and placement) can affect the tone of sentences.
It teaches us how sentences are put together
You might protest you know how to put sentences together and you probably do – at least in your own style. But give the same assignment to five different writers, and they’re all going to execute it differently. Some might use short, punchy sentences. Others might have a lyricism to their words. Some might be languorous, developing mood and setting. There’s no limit to the alternatives and it’s instructive to see how different writers construct their prose.
It teaches us about characterisation/setting and description
How do you describe characters? Do you perform an information dump, unloading paragraphs of descriptions once a character is introduced? Or do you seed in the information gradually? Are your descriptions straightforward? Or do you use similes? With a character’s history, do you digress to relay their backstory and how they got to this point in the story? Or do you offer it piecemeal, or trigger it only when the character has some correlation to that bit of history, e.g. when your character picks up a picture from the mantel?

How about setting? Do you handle that similarly to characters? Are their sprawling, Tolkienesque descriptions? Or are they short and sweet? Do you find neat little twists on how to describe things, like Cormac McCarthy? Or are their rich but evocative little details, like Inga Simpson? Look at how different authors describe characters and settings and think about how you do it.
It teaches us about structure
Are your stories purely chronological? Do you intersperse them with intermissions, like Stephen King’s IT? Does you story run in reverse, as occurs with Martin Amis’s Time’s Arrow, where the lead character gets younger and younger as the novel progresses? Is the chronology disjointed, like Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five? These are just a handful of examples, but there is no limit to the way a story can be presented.
It teaches us about pacing, plotting, and sub-plotting
This might seem silly, but it’s interesting to see the way different authors handle the pacing of their books. In Julian Barnes’s The Sense of Ending, the first half of the book is dedicated to protagonist Tony Webster when he is in secondary school. In the space of a couple of pages, Barnes advances the protagonist to the point of a retiree, and the second half of a book is spent with the protagonist trying to puzzle out a mystery regarding one of his schoolmates. JD Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye all takes place over several days. Tim Winton’s Cloudstreet unfolds over decades. How do you deal with time?

What about plot? Do you have a proclivity to axis the story around one plot, with all the characters revolving around it? Or are their subplots unrelated to the main plot? All the characters in The Sense of Ending exist to serve the protagonist. In The Catcher of the Rye, everything revolves around Holden Caufield. But take something like JRR Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, and whilst ultimately every character is dedicated in the fight against Sauron, they all have their own arcs – Frodo and Sam are attempting to destroy the Ring, Merry serves King Theoden, Pippin serves Lord Denethor, Aragorn is attempting to become a king … and that’s just a smattering of what occurs. In George Martin’s Game of Thrones series, there are numerous characters whose threads evolve disparately.
These examples could go on, and it might seem all that’s happening is a listing of techniques that can be drawn from other books. But this is the point: reading can teach you some amazing things. You don’t have to dissect a book, or analyse how it’s constructed. Just through reading we absorb that information.

Sitting down and writing and writing and writing is a great educator in itself. We hone our skills and get to experiment, find out what works for us and what doesn’t, where our strengths lay and where they don’t, et al, but through reading, we open our minds to possibilities we might not have otherwise considered.

And it can be a lot of fun, too. But more on that next week.

LZ.

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Handling Criticism

December 5, 2013

If you’re going to be a writer, here is something you need to learn – and accept – very quickly: not everybody is going to love what you write.

You could spend hours, days, weeks, working on a story, you may consider it pristine, friends and family might tell you it’s brilliant, your workshopping group may praise you effusively, but that doesn’t guarantee that once it’s out in the world it’s going to be accepted or, if it’s accepted and published, that everybody will like it.

In any sort of artistic endeavour – e.g. writing, music, storytelling – we are all at the whim of subjectivity. We see this everywhere. Avatar is the highest-grossing movie of all time, which validates its popularity, but not everybody likes it. Everybody bemoans the success of Fifty Shades of Grey and the Twilight saga, many question the quality of their writing, but there are people who love these books. People loathe the talent on a TV show like The Voice, whilst others love the music.

Subjectivity is also something we experience firsthand in running [untitled]. There are stories we reject and mightn’t think enough of which we later see popping up in another journal, or placing in a short story competition. Conversely, I’m sure we’ve accepted stories that have been unsuccessful elsewhere. This would be the case with other journals, agents, and even publishers.

Everybody has different tastes.

As we go through our writing lives, we have to learn to divorce ourselves from any destructive opinions, especially if we are (and most of us are to some extent, when it comes to our work) sensitive to criticism. There could be ten opinions of our story, nine of them glowing, and we’ll focus on the one which isn’t and let that gnaw at us.

Writing’s difficult. It’s not easy to sit in front of a blank page or blank screen and conjure an entire story from nothing. Talk to any wag at a party and tell them you’re a writer, and they’ll usually regale you with how they’d like to write a book, as if the act of writing simply required spewing any words and ideas onto a page, oblivious to the need for plotting, characterisation, motivation, structure, finding the right words, the right sentences, the right flow, the right evolution, et al.

Submitting’s little easier. Many writers are apprehensive about putting their work out there, worried that rejection will lead to invalidation. For those who do submit, they’ll lead a thankless existence waiting for journals (or publishers or agents) to respond, trying one after another until finally breaking through with an acceptance, (although acceptances usually remain the exception, rather than the rule).

Many – or at least many others who don’t understand a writer’s need to write – will question why writers do it. There’s (usually) little remuneration, less acknowledgement, and the most gratification we do get is from the accomplishment of completing a story and believing (or perhaps hoping) that it works. Because of the subjectivity of art, whether it works (and whether the story is itself complete) is harder to define than the product of, for example, a cabinetmaker, or a car-manufacturer, or whatever the case might be, as their goals have set parameters that have to be met, whereas storytelling is an abstract thing – no two people would tell the same story the same way.

Time and effort aside, we put a lot of ourselves in our writing. And whether our stories are brilliant or not, whether they’re accepted or not, whether they’re loved or not, we should be proud of that.

So don’t take criticism to heart.

LZ.

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Your Story: A What-Not-To-Do Guide

November 27, 2013

One of the more enjoyable aspects of being an intern is getting to read submissions. Being a reader is like going on a blind date; you hope that the time you spend ‘getting to know’ a story leaves you feeling content (dare I say, satisfied?) and that your potential suitor doesn’t turn up with their collar flipped up or talk too much during the meal.

There are a lot of submissions, and this year alone I have read hundreds of stories, most of which were eventually rejected. While the subjects, styles and structures were diverse, many of the unsuccessful stories had elements in common.

As a writer, I know how hard it is to pluck up the courage to submit your work to a publication; I know, too, the intense feelings of disappointment and frustration when your work is overlooked. However, as an intern and budding editor, I am able to step back from a story, put any emotional attachment or sympathy aside, and see a story for what it is.

Authors out there, whether you’ve submitted your work to us or not, give your story a once-over and consider if it is ready to be judged.
Here’s my guide to improving your chances of making that all-important, great first impression:

• Don’t use every big word you know, particularly in the first sentence. I think there is a misconception that proving you can write in a ‘literary’ style will make you seem like a skilful storyteller. Simple language draws people in a lot quicker than you may think.
• Don’t give us too much exposition. Establishing character(s) and setting(s) is vital, but it’s easy to overdo. When you’ve finished writing a draft, take a break from your work. Read it a few weeks (yes, weeks) later. If the story doesn’t start until two pages in, there is too much exposition. On a related note, throughout the story, don’t overlook where you’ve given more detail than the reader actually needs.
• ‘Don’t use seven words when four will do.’ This is, embarrassingly, a quote from Ocean’s Eleven (2001). Nevertheless, it is sound advice. Brevity is a virtue in the literary world. (The first thing I check when I open a submission is the word count. Stories over 4000 words really need to justify their own length to be seriously considered by me.)
• Don’t mimic anybody. You are not [insert your favourite author’s name here]. Trying to ‘channel’ their voice always – always – comes off sounding awful. Play to your strengths and write the best way you know how.
• Don’t try to be controversial. Shock tactics do the exact opposite of drawing the reader in. I’ve read so many stories that start with some sort of physical or emotional explosion that I don’t even flinch anymore.
• Don’t submit your story without editing it. You may have heard the saying ‘Writing is re-writing’; I’ll expand on that by saying ‘re-writing’ means workshopping, editing, re-drafting and/or proofreading. Your favourite author has an editor. You should too.
• Don’t underestimate the power of grammar. Improper use of punctuation makes your story – regardless of how good it is – more difficult to read. If you’re unsure how to use a semicolon, please don’t use it. Please.

I hope that didn’t come off sounding negative or overly critical. My intention is to help you improve your work and better the chances of it being accepted. Whatever you do, know this: you must stay true to your voice – this is what reaches the audience, what keeps them invested.

Remember: [untitled] is a vehicle for popular fiction in short story form. We respect writers, but we also have a difficult task whittling thousands of entries down to a handful. It’s possible that your work is fantastic but simply doesn’t fit into our publication. Don’t give up – every story is worth telling and every story has its place in the publishing world.

HK.

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Ten Reading Tips

November 20, 2013

Readings are an essential step in any writer’s development.

Many don’t correlate the two: you write a book, the reader reads it. Why would you ever need to read it for an audience? But writing a book is only a small part of the process. After it’s published, it needs exposure, which means selling yourself (and thus the book) as often as possible. One of the best ways to do this is through public readings (at libraries, bookshops, etc.). Thus, we get back to the need for readings.

Many writers are petrified at the prospect of reading publically, which is unsurprising. Writing itself is a solitary pursuit. You sit alone in front of a computer, banging out your words. There’s not much public interaction, the way there would be with most other vocations. A lot of writers are also socially shy, which might be a by-product of living inside their own heads so much.

But readings have benefits aside from being a marketing tool. They allow you to see how your material works with an audience. Stuff that seems great in your head and brilliant on the page doesn’t always click when it sees the light of day. They also provide you with an avenue to feedback, either by gauging audience reaction or – if you’re interested – in chatting with them afterwards.

With so much to gain from readings, it’s something we each need to pursue, regardless of our own fears and insecurities. If those fears and insecurities become paralysing, we need to step back and assure ourselves we’ll be okay.

Here are ten tips to help you through readings …

1. Readings are not a matter of life and death
One of the biggest issues with reading in public is the fear of failure. We put crippling pressure on ourselves. What if we screw up? What if we make fools of ourselves? What if people laugh? Doubts like this race through our minds. But the truth is, So what? Lives do not depend on the outcome. Nobody will die if we screw up. The world won’t come to an end if we make fools of ourselves. If the worst happens, it’ll be a minor embarrassment but, ultimately, nobody cares. There’s no need to put pressure on yourself. It isn’t the be-all and end-all of existence. Have fun with it.

2. Perception
Although having said that, don’t tell yourself, I’ll be okay. Why aim for such mediocrity? Tell yourself, I’m going to be great! Tell yourself that often enough, you might even start believing it, and even if you miss that benchmark, at least you should land somewhere better off than just ‘okay’. The point is instead of forecasting the worst and anticipating the worst, visualise the best. Many people would have no trouble reading in the quiet and solitude of their own home. Reading in front of an audience actually isn’t very much different – the act itself remains the same: reading. What changes is your own perception of your capacity to handle reading publicly as opposed to reading alone. Tell yourself it’s little different.

3. Rehearse
Such a basic tip, but lots of people don’t consider it. Rehearse. Stuff that reads fine on the page might be a tongue twister when read aloud. Or you might simply struggle with words that you can otherwise read fine inside your head. So rehearse. And when you rehearse, don’t just read, but perform. Think of what needs intonations, where you need to pause, where you might make a particular expression to accentuate what’s being said. Do it in front of a mirror until you nail it. Rehearse particularly any dialogue you have. It can be difficult to distinguish different speakers in dialogue when reading aloud, so practise until you can give them character, (but more on that later).

4. Focus on THE word at hand
When reading, many of us have a tendency to scan ahead in an attempt to alert ourselves to what’s coming. This is the absolute best method to lose your place, or to even reread the same sentence twice. Missteps like this can cause panic. Focus only on the word that you’re reading at that moment. This is also the best way to immerse yourself in your material.

5. Print your material in a bigger, more spacious font
This makes it easier to read, and whilst a bigger font might amount to your material being spread across more pages, it actually helps you lose that sense of density in the text.

6. Pace yourself
When nervous, many of us try to get through whatever we’re experiencing as quickly as possible. Take your time when reading. You might think this only prolongs the agony, but again it’s a matter that pacing yourself tells your head (and thus your fears) you’re comfortable with the experience unfolding. It also improves the quality of the reading, which again leads to some nifty self-assurance.

7. Don’t drink
Having a couple of beers or a few wines might seem the perfect way to calm the nerves. That might be the case if you’re about to take a flight and you’re a nervous flyer; it doesn’t work so well when you’re required to speak (or in this case read) at length. Drinking makes us effusive. We slur. It amplifies discomfort, such as feeling stifled. When these things occur and we notice them, we become uncomfortable and that begins a vicious cycle where we notice the symptoms more, panic more, and implode. Coffee and milk are no good either, as they can clog the throat. Have a glass of water instead.

8. Hold something heavy
If you’re a shaker, hold something heavy under your material, like a clipboard, or a book. This will weigh down your hands and stop the shakes (or, at the very least, minimize them).

9. Choose an appropriate piece
If there’s children in the audience, an erotic section from your novel probably isn’t going to be the most appropriate. Or if you’re reading somewhere sunny and bright and cheery, a dramatic excerpt (or one that contains horror) is probably going to fail due to a lack of atmosphere. Think about what you’re going to read. Sometimes, it’s best to have several pieces, and to choose what’s suitable as required.

10. Edit for the different medium
Edit out bits that might work great when read in the solitude of your own home, but mightn’t for an audience. Nobody will know. Change words you might habitually mispronounce or just struggle with altogether. Dialogue can also be difficult to convey in a reading. On the page, quotation marks set visual cues as to who’s speaking, a luxury not afforded to readings. If you’re going to include dialogue and it has no attributors on the page, stick them in for the sake of the reading so it’s understandable for a listening audience. This is about making the reading work for a medium that has its own subtle demands.

Hopefully, these tips can help any nervous readers out there.

Don’t forget that our Open Mic Night is on tonight, beginning at 7.00pm and running until 9.00pm, although people usually hang around for a chat.

Everybody welcome, no bookings required, gold coin donation, and refreshments provided!

Hope to see you there.

LZ.

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