Breaking Down Novel Writing into Achievable Daily Targets

 

A long time ago, I remember reading an interview with a young author in the paper. She’d just had her first novel published, and she talked about how she’d done an ‘apprenticeship’ in novel writing by writing short stories – writing as many as she could, entering them into competitions, etc. This note stuck with me – at the time I was into short story writing exclusively. I was reading a lot of Amy Hempel, Alice Munro and Lorrie Moore and I was all about being a short story writer. Who needs to write a novel? Short story’s where it’s at. This, at least in part, was because the thought of writing 50,000+ words was way too daunting to contemplate. That word count is a massive mountain to climb. I had attempted a novel, kind of, but it was half way through 30 pages in so not quite long enough.

But this idea of doing an apprenticeship in short story opened my mind to the idea of planning a novel in short story form. I didn’t know that I’d be able to write a novel but I could give you 100 short stories, no problem. I was writing new pieces everyday, coming up with new ideas, it became more conceivable for me to visualise a novel as 50 connected short stories. 50,000 words = scary. 50 short stories = doable.

Ro - chapter progression

This is how I planned and wrote my first novel (and planned my second, the writing has been slightly more problematic). I thought of an idea, of a concept that I thought would work. I thought of the key points, played them over and over in my mind and then, once I had a basic skeleton of the story, I sat down and wrote a list of 50 short pieces that would tell the story. Suddenly I could see how it was possible, writing short stories, one by one, was easy, I could knock them over at a rate of one a night. If I could get a solid plan down, I could do it. And with luck, lonely nights, and a lot of persistence, I did.

Of course, there was a lot more that came up along the way – extra planning, re-plotting, adding in chapters to build additional context once the themes were clear (note: the themes of your novel will only be 100% clear once you’ve completed your first draft), getting the voice right – there was more work to be done than one planning session. But it did work, and I do think this is a solid way to go about writing a novel. If you’re dedicated to writing a book but having trouble visualising such a vast amount of content, I’d recommend this as a process to help rationalise the workload, to break it down to an digestable amount. Writing 1000 words a day is something you should commit to, if you can, and if you’re able to do that, you can write a chapter a day. And eventually it will start to take form.

 

How Important is a Great Opening to a Novel?

 

I love opening a new novel. I love going through the bookshop – the smell of books – and I love finding that one that is going to take me away, curl round my brain like a cat and warm me into this whole other world. And one of the great things about new books, one of the reasons that I’ll take it to the counter, is the opening line or paragraph. I love a good cover, but more importantly, I love good writing, and that first section, for me, really sets the tone. A good opening will drop you right into the story and make it hard for you to leave. It will capture your imagination and almost force you to read on. It’s also a great learning tool for writers, working out how the great books begin, understanding how that can be applied to your story. There’s so much to learn from those first lines, it’s worth reading as many as you can to ensure you are using the best starting point for your story.

As an example, here are some of my favourite novel openings:

‘Tyler gets me a job as a waiter, after that Tyler’s pushing a gun in my mouth and saying, the first step to eternal life is you have to die. For a long time though, Tyler and I were best friends. People are always asking, did I know about Tyler Durden.

The barrel of the gun pressed against the back of my throat, Tyler says “We really won’t die.”

With my tongue I can feel the silencer holes we drilled into the barrel of the gun. Most of the noise a gunshot makes is expanding gases, and there’s the tiny sonic boom a bullet makes because it travels so fast. To make a silencer, you just drill holes in the barrel of the gun, a lot of holes. This lets the gas escape and slows the bullet to below the speed of sound.

You drill the holes wrong and the gun will blow off your hand.’

– Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk 

It’s so fast-paced and it perfectly sets the tone for the rest of the novel, which all moves at breakneck speed. Palahniuk drops you right into the chaos and lets you work it out from there – a really good opening.

‘Until the telephone rang, the only sound in my office was the scratching of my pen as I made margins notes, corrections and amendments.

                I pressed the speaker button.

                ‘Carl speaking’

                ‘Carl’

                ‘Catherine! I meant to send you home hours ago…’

                She interrupted me: ‘I am home. I’ve been home, been out to see a film, eaten a pizza, paid the baby-sitter and watched the end of Newsnight.

                The clock on my desk read 11:42. I turned in my chair. The window of my office was floor to ceiling. Through the window, I could see the city glitter and the night sky. No stars – a low cloud layer made the sky glow almost red.

                Catherine continued: ‘I’m calling because the last train leaves in twenty-five minutes’.

The Coma by Alex Garland

This also sets the scene for the whole novel, the pace, the steady flow of the narrative. But again, Garland drops you right into the story, not pages of him living his normal life, but right here, right in the midst of where the action is about to take place. It’s an important note – you want to start your story at a compelling point, a point where people need to turn the page and find out what happens next. Granted, this scene is still somewhat commonplace, but we know the narrator is now out in the middle of the night and will struggle to make the train home – and we, as the audience, know what a frightening train journey that midnight trip can be.

‘About the accident itself I can say very little. Almost nothing. It involved something falling from the sky. Technology. Parts, bits. That’s it, really: all I can divulge. Not much, I know.

It’s not that I’m being shy. It’s just that – well, for one, I don’t even remember the event. It’s a blank: a white slate, a black hole. I have vague images, half-impressions: of being, or having been – or, more precisely, being about to be – hit; blue light; railings; lights of other colours; being held above some kind of tray or bed. But who’s to say that these are genuine memories? Who’s to say my traumatized mind didn’t just make them up, or pull them out from somewhere else, some other slot, and stick them there to plug the gap – the crater – that the accident had blown? Minds are versatile and wily things. Real chancers.’

Remainder by Tom McCarthy

Remainder is a real mind twister of a novel, looking at psychology and the depths of the human condition. This opening sets the scene really well – you get, from this, that the narrator was involved in accident in which something fell from the sky and damaged his brain. The novel is about how he doesn’t know what’s real anymore, what are memories and what’s imagined, and this opening clearly aligns to that theme. I like this because McCarthy has explained a lot very quickly, very cleverly, almost without you knowing it. But again, it drops you into the story, rather than starting with long-winded context or backstory.

‘He’d cut His throat with the knife. He’d near chopped off His hand with the meat cleaver. He couldn’t object, so I lit a Silk Cut. A sort of wave of something was going across me. There was fright, but I’d daydreamed how I’d be.

                He was bare and dead face-down on the scullery lino with blood round. The Christmas tree lights were on then off. You could change the speed those ones flashed at. Over and over you saw Him stretched out then the pitch dark with his computer screen still on.’

Morvern Callar by Alan Warner

The detached, confused emotion of the narrator streams all the way through Morvern Callar, and again, the author has dropped us right into the story, leaving Morvern at home with her deceased boyfriend – what will she do next? I also love the detail in this scene, the image of the Christmas lights flicking on and off gives it a real sense, an authenticity and feeling, through such a small but important detail.

Not every novel starts out by dropping you into the action like this, but the vast majority do. It’s a powerful tool, and an important lesson for writers to learn, that the story starts where the action does. Your readers will work out the details and you can communicate back story through their interactions within the narrative – in that sense, it’s like someone telling you a story in real life. People generally tell you the highlight, the most shocking element up front, then explain the detail of how it got to that point. That peak moment is the hook that will gets the audience in, and it’s important to use that to compel your readers to turn the page.

One other thing I’ve heard when discussing good opening lines is ‘yeah, but those are great novels’ – as if their own work could not, and should not, be compared to works of this calibre. But why shouldn’t it? Why wouldn’t you hold your own work up for comparison against the greats? If you want your book to stand side by side with them in a book store, you have to aspire to being compared with them on quality, on compulsion. It’s important you do compare your work to established authors, you should be as good as them. Every author of every book was once a nobody. They started with nothing behind them. A blank page. The only difference now is that they made it. So your work should be compared to them. Because that’s the way that you can make it too.

 

Write What You Know

In one of the writer’s groups I’m part of, they were recently having a debate about the old writing adage ‘write what you know’. There was a surprising amount of differing opinions on this, people taking it literally, people suggesting a more abstract meaning. I’ve never really been that tied up about writing what I know in a specific literal sense, but I also don’t think that’s the intended meaning of that statement. Write what you know does not mean, literally, write what you know.

If the intention was to take this in its literal sense, how many great science fiction and fantasy stories would never have taken form? Some things, you can’t know, but again, that’s not the intended meaning of that sentiment. The intention is to highlight the importance of honesty in your work, of writing from the heart – and not necessarily your heart, but the heart of the characters in the story you’ve created. When writing, you are beholden to the honesty of the story you’re presenting. If a character does something, you have to know why he or she did it. It can’t be that you need a plot device, you can’t have things happening at random, that’s simply not real. That is the essence of ‘write what you know’, that you write with honesty and remain true to the characters as you know them. As they would be in the reality of the world you’ve created.

For instance, you need to know all the traits and history of your characters. You need to know that your main character was raised mostly by his mother, that his father never knew how to deal with him, that he took longer than normal to speak clearly because he didn’t feel confident around the other kids. That his first love never even looked at him, that he was intimidated by male teachers because of his absent father, that he was easily lured into trouble by peer pressure. That he didn’t want to go into the abandoned house, but the kids made him do it, then rode off on him, and left him scared and distressed when the police came.

This sort of summary, a basic rundown of the general moments in a character’s life, these details might never come up in your story, but they are the elements that will lead you to knowing and understanding how he will react in all situations. Now you know, no matter where you take the story, that the character is intimidated by older men. Maybe that’s a key plot element, maybe not. The point is, this is something you know, you’ve come to know this through your character development.

Normally I work in the opposite direction – I think of the major plot points then work backwards through the character’s history to understand what would have made him take the actions he/she did in order drive the story – but by doing that, as the story develops, the characters start to take on a life of their own, as you know all the things that have happened to them. You know how they’d react if this or that happened. Because you know them. They’re real, not plot devices. Ideally, you’d have this depth of knowledge with every significant character in your story.

The important thing to note about ‘write what you know’ is it’s not about what you know. It’s about what you need to know. You need to research, plot and learn your characters so you can know the information you need to communicate your story in an authentic and believable way. You need to be honest to the story, honest to each scene and each interaction – because people can sense fake a mile off. If your characters are inconsistent, that will jar in the reader’s mind. You need to be real, to see the scene in its reality, then present it in its truest form.

You can’t know what the scene would be like in the wake of a nuclear bomb blast. But you can research and know the detail of nuclear winter. You know what winter is like, you know what smoke and haze can be like. Based on what you’ve read and learned – on what you know – you can imagine the reality. Now feel it. Now write it down. That’s the essence of ‘write what you know’.

It should probably be slightly extended:

‘Write what you know, learn what you don’t’

And there’s never any limit on what you can learn.

My Issues with Breaking Bad

bb

I recently noted in a group discussion that I felt Breaking Bad had received more praise than it might have deserved due to their being no competing show in it’s league at the time it was broadcast. It was like I’d just cursed their unborn children, the crowd turned on me in an instant, demanding an explanation of my reckless remarks, a justification of the opinion (and I should underline that important point) which I’d put forth. People love Breaking Bad. A lot. You gotta’ be careful what you say about it.

For the sake of clarity, here is a record of my issues with Breaking Bad – while it is an excellent TV show, it did have some flaws that have been glossed over by the hype around it’s final season.

1. In almost every season there was a lull. Now, you can say, ‘yeah, but that happens with every show, nothing hits the mark with every episode, and I agree, but I felt Breaking Bad’s lull’s were major. I gave up on it twice, only to come back when I’d heard chatter about the latter episodes or when I couldn’t find anything better to watch and gave it a second chance. About three episodes into Season 3 – when Skyler was busting Walter’s balls about his other life, the show was just treading water. It felt like nothing was happening, the Skyler storylines never really did much for me and it didn’t seem to have any plan on where it was headed next. Same with Season 4 – early on, where Walter was becoming more paranoid and concerned about Jessie being ‘re-assigned’ by Gus, there was a stagnant block of episodes where nothing really advanced. Both times, it felt like the show had lost it’s way and I gave up on it, only to come back in – just in time on both counts, as it got back to it’s peaks in every season, and the final episodes of each series were very strong. But for me, those lulls were significant – in terms of being one of the greatest shows ever, I feel they are enough to count against it.

2. All of the characters became unlikeable. Similar to the lulls, they did come back around, but I remember there being a period where you didn’t want any of them to come out on top, none of them deserved to succeed. That can be a powerful storytelling advice in itself, but I didn’t feel this was an intended character arc, it was more a result of the writers making too much up on the fly. That lack of planning sometimes lead to issues in story flow, as it detracted from the magnetism of the show. Walt, in particular, would sometimes do things so devoid of his former self that it didn’t seem genuine – granted, the storyline trajectory aimed to show how a normal man could become a feared criminal, I get that, but sometimes his character moved a little too far from himself, more than I could go with.

3. Many critical story elements were reliant on coincidence. This is the criticism I’ve seen most often on the web, that a lot of things had to fall into place at just the right time to make things happen. Even in the great finale, the circumstances leading to Walt first not getting killed by the bikers in the desert along with Hank then wiping them out with an automated machine gun that poppped out of the boot of his car, these things needed a lot to fall into place at the right time. It often felt like the writers had got themselves into a  corner and they needed something, anything, to get them out, so it didn’t feel as planned, as clever, as it could have been.

Admittedly, all of these elements are, on balance with the greater moments of the show, pretty minor. Some of the characters and scenes in Breaking Bad were so good that I’d be up at 4am at the end of the episode, thinking ‘just one more’ before pressing play again. At it’s best, it’s one of the most compelling shows I’ve ever seen, and I do think it deserves to be considered among the best ten, fifteen shows in history. But I don’t think it’s the best. And I do think the lack of any ‘great’ shows airing at the same time as the finale season has amplified sentiment for Breaking Bad to crazy heights.

‘So what’s better then, idiot?’ (While not everyone says ‘idiot’ with this, that’s generally the tone in which the question is asked) The Wire, for me, is still a far superior show. Game of Thrones, thus far, has been consistently solid. Seinfeld, at it’s best, would rank higher. The Simpsons has played such a significant part in pop-culture that it’s undeniably one of the greatest shows of all-time – no doubt people will argue that The Simpsons has also had weak seasons, which is true, but that show changed the way we communicate, it changed how we see things. The cultural impact of The Simpsons is far more significant than Breaking Bad. Looking at a more isolated example, the first season of Lost was amazing, way better than anything Breaking Bad was able to achieve – of course, Lost ‘lost’ it’s way it the proceeding seasons, but when I think of how good that first season was, that was probably as close to the peak of TV writing that I’ve seen. On balance, Breaking Bad was a better show, but by comparison, Lost had a higher high point, in my view.

No doubt all the Breaking Bad die-hards will dismiss this, noting that for every example I’ve put forward, I’ve highlighted the same issues I’ve pointed to with Breaking Bad – that it had bad moments in amongst the brilliance. But the three points above, cumulatively, form a sore point in my mind when I think back on the show. Yes, it was great, and I’m definitely sad to not have anymore Walter White, but was it the greatest show ever. Nah, I don’t think so.

 

Reflections on a Societal Default to the Negative

 

Why you? What makes you’re any different? Who do you think you are? Why would they listen to you? How are you gonna’ do that? What do you know about it? You’ll never do it. You’ll never make it. You don’t know what you’re getting yourself into. Over your head. Out of your mind. Out of your depth. Do you know how many people are trying to do that? No hope. Not a hope in hell. Hopeless. Hope you’ve got a back-up plan. Hope’s only gonna’ take you so far. You can’t live on hope, you know? Fat chance. Snowball’s chance. Zero chance. Not a chance of that happening. Chances are slim. What are the chances? Honestly though, you don’t have a chance. You can’t. You won’t. Why bother? Why even consider it? Impossible. Unlikely. Doubtful. You’re better off to just forgetting about it. Are you crazy? Don’t get ahead of yourself. Don’t think you’re better than you are. Just leave it. Move on. Give up. Give it away. Let it go. Take a look around you. Take a good, hard look at yourself. Look at your situation. Look at the reality. Reality is. Not in this reality. Face the facts. Face the truth. Honestly. Seriously. Be serious. Be real. Be realistic. Wake up. Wake up to yourself. Open your eyes. Stop dreaming. Really. Why you?

It’s a wonder anyone ever tries anything out of the ordinary.

Time to change your way of thinking.

On Dealing with Criticism (and the Pain that Comes with it)

 

Here’s something that’s true in everything in life – criticism is hard to take. No one wants to hear what they’re doing wrong. Even helpful criticism, like ‘you’re breath stinks’ is generally deflating. In writing, criticism is a required element, a constant that will hurt every time you hear it. But it’s necessary. It gets easier over time as you learn to take in what you need and discard what you don’t, but if being told where you’ve gone wrong is something that cuts you deep, you’re gonna’ find it tough to succeed in the writing world.

I know the pain. When my novel came out I was, of course, incredibly excited. I bought the newspapers every weekend hoping to find a review of my book – and all the feedback I’d had on it to that stage was positive, so I was hoping for more of the same. The first review I read was in The Age – The Age being the most respected newspaper for literary content in my home state. The reviewer, Thuy On, had this to say:

‘Rohypnol tries a bit too hard to impress by following the “boys behaving badly and lashing out at society’s moralistic strictures” template, but we’ve read it all before and it doesn’t offer anything else to this particular sub-genre.’

It hurt – oh, it hurt. My life’s biggest achievement, something I’d been wholly committed to for years, torn down in one sentence. I felt shamed, depressed. People I grew up with would be reading this, all my bragging rights as a published author shrunk down to a passing remark. Maybe I wasn’t good enough, maybe the publisher had got it wrong and I wasn’t talented. I know the pain all too well – and this was in a major newspaper.

And there were others.

From The Australian:

‘When a novel begins with the line “Troy f—ed up”, you can probably guess its ambition will be to shock and that this is unlikely to be carried out successfully. A ready use of expletives, like shape poems and the liberal application of exclamation marks, are devices that quickly lose their effect and purpose.’

Yep. The Australian is a national publication. This is what people were going to read about my pride and joy, Australia-wide.

A commentator on GoodReads had this helpful critique:

‘Wanting to be an author myself I figured I should start supporting Australian fiction, so I bought this as it looked interesting and as though it may have something to say. Even though I wasn’t going into it expecting Heart Of Darkness I still came away majorly disappointed. No wonder Aussie fiction doesn’t get much recognition; the characters are 2-D, unbelieveably stereotypical and bland and the story makes no sense. The characters are like try-hard anarchists, date raping women and turning their backs on their parents and society at large. Having the main character follow these flimsy ideals makes the whole premise seem ridiculous. Plot holes also abound, not the least of which the fact a well known group of date rapists live within the community and are never confronted nor questioned by peers. Picked this up wanting to like it, but for drug induced humour and working class violence and profanity I’ll stick with Irvine Welsh.’

Weak characters? Plot holes? Excuse me? This isn’t something I just chucked together on a weekend, this is the result of hundreds of hours of work, and you’re just taking me down like that? And worse, I’m the reason you’ve lost faith in Australian fiction as a whole? That’s quite the weight to bear.

Compare these to the worst critiques you’ve ever had. I’m guessing they’re worse or, at the least, on par.

Every single criticism hurts, but you have to take it in. You have to absorb the info, process it, then cross-check those comments against what you’re trying to achieve. Were they valid criticisms? Were they accurate to your intentions? Are you confident that your work is as good as it could be? This last one is the key – you have to know you’ve done the work, that you’ve done all you can, and that the finished product is what you want it to be. If you can have faith in that and be true to yourself, you’ll be more resilient to the critical swipes and stings. You have to be strong, trust your instincts, and stick to what you do. Because there is one other aspect of criticism that’s important to keep in perspective, a crucial balancing point to counter the pain of negativity.

Criticism comes trailing behind success. The more successful you are, the more people read your work, and the more people read your work, the higher the chance some people are going to dislike it. Nothing in the world that is universally liked. There are millions, maybe even billions, of people who love Justin Bieber, but I don’t know any of them. And as you or I sit back and scoff at Bieber’s latest antics, there are way more people looking at that same story with wide-eyed adoration. We are not the target audience, but as his popularity expands, we’re exposed to his work. And we don’t like it. We’re haters only because he’s big enough to be within our realm of awareness. The more widely known you are, the more people are going to see your work, which, inevitably, means more people are going to hate it. That’s how it is. So in some ways, criticism can be seen as a measure of how well you’re doing – in order for people to criticise you, they have to be aware of you. And one person’s opinion is never going to define your success. Don’t let it sink you – your stuff isn’t their thing, no problem, there are billions of others who might check it out. A single opinion is not indicative of what you do.

To support that point, and to close out the post on a positive, below are a couple of the notes of praise that the book also received. On balance, I got way more positive comments than negative (the book generally averages 4-star reviews on most book review sites), but like anything, the bad ones stand out. You can’t let negativity get into your heart – read it, go for a walk, think it through, then keep the notes you need and discard the ones you don’t. You need to keep learning, keep improving and keep pursuing what you’re passionate about. And one piece of advice that was given to me very early on: Don’t ever respond to critical reviews of your work. No good ever comes of that.

‘Andrew Hutchinson’s debut novel Rohypnol is a great read. It’s assured, convincingly portrayed and grippingly plotted’ – Andy Murdoch, MX Magazine

‘Hutchinson weaves this plot with fierce authority and it is this that makes it such a standout debut. From the first paragraph you are confident this storyteller knows exactly where he is going to take you and, with such an assured, strong voice, he has the power to take you anywhere. This is no small feat.’ Louise Swinn, Sydney Morning Herald

‘A blistering, almost terrifying novel about social alienation, wrought in stark and pitiless prose, it paints a disturbing portrait of a nameless protagonist whose violence is without social cause or particular reason.’ – Kathleen Mitchell Award 2008 shortlist comments

 

Pitching Your Novel is the Worst

 

One thing all writers hate is the pitch. You have to do it – you mention that you’ve written a book and people are going to ask what it’s about. But it’s not an easy thing to answer. This is something you’ve spent months, even years with, characters you know inside and out, created lives you’ve lived. How do you summarize all those story intricacies into one sentence?

When I’d finished my first novel, I submitted it for consideration for an Emerging Writers Festival event called ‘Literary Speed Dating’. The concept was that five unpublished writers would sit across the table from five publishing industry types and get a chance to pitch their novel. This was in a crowded room, on the opening night of the festival. Oh, and also, my novel is about a group of young guys who drug and rape girls (it’s totally not about that, but that’s the standout plot point and… see, the pitch – painful).  This wasn’t going to go well.

I remember the night, Christos Tsiolkas did the opening speech. Christos, it goes without saying, was amazing – he ‘s one of the best I’ve seen at capturing emotion in his talks, and his timing is always perfect, elevating the passion as he moves through his words. The crowd were cheering wildly and he came down and walked through, like a rock star, and he saw me and gave me a hug – and I felt like the belle of the ball – ‘he chose me’. Then everyone was looking at me like I was somebody they should be paying attention to, then they went back to what they were doing and I went back to staring at those five empty seats at the front of the stage, one of which I was about to be taking up to pitch my controversial novel at five unsuspecting professionals.

It was nerve wracking.

I kinda’ switched to auto-pilot – you know how sometimes you can be talking but not actually listening to anything you’re saying? It was like that, I was sitting across from these sceptical looking important folk, yelling to be heard over the noise of the room, with random passers-by leaning down to eavesdrop on the conversation, pitching my difficult-to-pitch master work. Honestly, how do you pitch a novel like that? Rohypnol is about a group of guys who drug and rape girls, but it’s a social commentary, it questions modern privilege and the factors that lead people to do horrible things. It’s not, I wouldn’t say, about drugs and/or rape. But how do you pitch it any other way? It was tough.

But something happened.

I was speaking to Michael Williams who, at that time, was a publisher at Text Publishing. Michael listened to what I was saying, my voice raspy from yelling, my mind worn out from trying to think of clever angles to describe the book. Michael leaned forward, his hand over his mouth, and he listened.

‘Do you have any sample chapters?’ He asked.

My God. He was asking to see my work. A real life publisher wanted to see what I’d written. I did have sample chapters that I’d printed off at the local Officeworks, but I also had a complete version with me. I asked Michael if he’d prefer the whole thing or the sample.

‘Give me the whole thing.’ Michael said.

My God. I just handed my book to a publisher. This was happening. I gave it over, I watched him put it in his bag, then our time was up.  I think I pitched to two more people, but Michael was the big fish that night, he worked for the most reputable publisher. And he’d taken my book. I was excited. I kept my phone on me at all times.

I never got a call.

Much later, after the book had been published, I spoke to Michael at the Melbourne Writers’ Festival. As much as I was intimidated by him at the speed dating event, he’s actually a really easygoing, friendly guy. I told him how we met at the event, how he might not remember me but…

‘No, I remember you.’ He said. He told me how they wanted to publish the book (they did actually offer me a contract just after I signed with Random House) and that he was disappointed he didn’t get to take it on. I was so glad to know that, such a great compliment – and, also, good to know I didn’t come across as a total idiot at that speed dating event.

This is the story that comes to mind whenever I think about the pitch – but there were plenty more times where I had to try and give a short description of the book and I just couldn’t. Admittedly, my book is probably one of the more difficult titles to pitch, but all writers hate it. The pitch is the worst. My best advice – think of the three key themes of the book, then try to distil those key elements down into one inclusive sentence. So, for Rohypnol it would be:

‘It’s about the influencing factors that can lead a person to becoming the worst kind of criminal’

That might not be quite right, but it gets the message across clearer than:  ‘It’s about a group of guys who drug and rape girls’. It’s hard to get it to a one-liner that doesn’t sound too high-brow whilst captures the essence of your work. And ideally, you want it to be a conversation starter, you want people to want to know more. I think this sentence does that.

But ultimately I guess that’s the message of this post – it’s not about how you can do it better, not about the best process to use. The message of this post is more simply empathetic – yeah, I know, you hate trying to do your pitch. Everyone does.

You, my friend, are not alone.

 

What Writers Can Learn from Game of Thrones

got_kings_landing_final2

As many would be aware, the teaser trailers for Season 4 of Game of Thrones have started coming through. It’s exciting to have the show return, but the pending disappointment of having to wait so long when the season ends always lingers, bittersweet. As I was watching the latest teaser, I tried to think over what makes Game of Thrones so good. Sure, the acting, the sets, there are a lot of factors involved in making the show what it is, but it started from a book series – it’s core strength is in it’s writing. So here are five elements that I think are George R.R. Martin’s greatest storytelling cornerstones in Game of Thrones – the keys to it’s success, and the lessons writers, can take from them.

1. It constantly subverts expectations. The most refreshing thing about Game of Thrones is that it doesn’t go where you expect. I remember the first season, with Sean Bean up on the platform about to be killed. I remember his daughter weaving through the crowd, the tension rising. And I remember thinking ‘Sean Bean’s the biggest star on the show, they’re not going to kill him off’. But they did. It was so great, so amazing to have my expectation smashed, and I’ve found this over and over again with GOT – as soon as you think you’ve got it worked out, that this person or that one is going to come out on top, they’re gone. Killed, maimed, chained up and mutilated. There’s a whole science to why police procedurals are so popular, that it makes people feel more intelligent when they can work out the details of each case. GOT is almost the complete opposite, and it succeeds by switching up on you every chance it gets. It’s exciting storytelling, and hard to do in the modern era, where everyone has theoretically seen every story before in some form. GOT does this better than any other show I’ve seen. The takeaway for writers: Subvert expectation, don’t go down the well-worn path. Think about what you can do that will surprise and excite your readers.

2. It’s honest to the reality in which the characters live. As a writer, you’re only true obligation is to be honest to the story and world you’ve created. You can do whatever you want, so long as the actions and consequences are honest to the rules you’ve established for the world you’re writing about. GOT does this really well – if there were a medieval type world where the strongest ruled, generally by brute force, then there wouldn’t be the usual fairytale romances and maidens in towers. The key to success in that world would essentially be a willingness to do what others would not. Backstabbers and liars would rise, those willing to kill would seize power – it would be a pretty unpleasant place where you’d have to constantly watch your back (or resign to the life of a peasant). It somewhat aligns with the first point, but in GOT, the bad guys, more often that not, win. Because they don’t have the morals, the ethics of the hero. They’ll do what they need to take and maintain power. In the reality of that world, that’s how it would be. It’s that authenticity, that conceptual depth, that Martin has harnessed so well. The key note for writers is to stay honest to the reality you’ve created. Think through the impacts to ensure things don’t jar or stand out as obvious plot devices which don’t fit into that world.

3. The story develops organically. Or more accurately, the story feels like it develops organically. Martin has created such deep, true to life characters that every action has a reaction, every step resonates with someone else. And you pretty much know how each of the characters is going to respond. There’s a real logic and humanity to each of these interactions and no one ever gets away with anything, nothing is ever confined to one plotline. The characters respond as you’d expect real people to, and that changes their story arc. Someone who was once hell bent on one course of action can be swayed by emotion, and that change shifts the entire scene. It doesn’t feel like anything is planned or set in stone, which again, adds to that unpredictability. As a storyteller, the note to take away is to consider every action, not only from a core storyline standpoint, but for how it will ripple through to the rest of your fictional world. This attention to detail will add an important layer of authenticity to your work.

4. The characters are deep. I noted this in the previous point, but it’s a key one to highlight. The characters in Game of Thrones all feel like they could have a mini-series of their own to explain their back story. Martin knows each one very well, has got into tune with who they are and what they want. All of them have a level of humanity that is tangible, allowing the audience to be taken in by them. Well, except Joffrey, I guess. The key point – you need to know you’re characters. Not just ‘he was sixteen with brown hair…’ you need to know them, know where they’ve come from, what they’ve experienced, how those things have affected their world view. Once you do, once you can conceptualize a character to this level, the writing gets a heap easier. Because you know how they’ll react, what they’ll do in response to any action. Knowing your characters is key to writing great stories – research them, understand them. Even if you do all that work and a lot of it never makes it to the page, you’ll know it and your writing will be better for it.

5. Very little of Game of Thrones is revealed in exposition. I’m talking about the TV show here, not the books (which I haven’t read) but on the show, there’s very few sections of blatant exposition – characters delivering monologues on the reasons why things have come to be in this world. This is pretty rare, particularly for these fantasy realm stories, where you need to set up the parameters. GOT pretty much throws you into the politics and lets you work it out. And it’s much better for it. I liken this to something like ‘The Wire’ – when I first started watching The Wire I had to re-check I started on episode one, cause I had no idea what was going on. But four episodes in, I was totally immersed by it. Not knowing the detail made me concentrate harder and take in more to catch up. Of course, you don’t want to make it so complex that the audience doesn’t understand, but there’s definitely something to be said about writing a story that’s lived in, where things are how they are. Your characters wouldn’t, in their reality, sit down and go over the details of why things are how they are, and often you don’t need to, and shouldn’t, do this in your writing. People are smart, they’ll work it out, just give them what they need to make them want to turn the page and you’ll have them. It’s the old ‘show don’t tell’ principle – don’t spell it out, allow your readers into it, let them see it with the characters, engage with the story in a more organic way.

Game of Thrones is an excellent example of storytelling, and there’s a heap for writers to learn from it. Keep these elements in mind as you watch, try to work out how they utilise storytelling elements – and more importantly, how you can use the same tricks in your own work.

 

Author Stereotypes – And What to do When You Meet Them

 

Over the years I’ve had the opportunity to meet many writers – from really famous types to amazingly talented unknowns. The thing that has always stood out to me is that most writers are totally normal. You get an idea, an image in your head as to what this writer will be like in real life, how they might talk and act. That image is almost universally incorrect, most of them are the most normal, down-to-earth types you’re ever gonna’ meet. Award-winners to day-dreamers, the majority of writers I’ve met have been open, friendly and utterly normal folk.

But there have been some exceptions.

I have noted a few ‘types’ in my travels, a couple of categories of writers, stereotypical personalities that have been replicated amongst the storytellers I’ve met. There are a few, you’ve probably met them yourself. Some of the stereotype writers I’ve met along my journey are:

Super Normal, Super Controversial Content

I’ve met a few writers that have written, or do write, hard core sex and/or violence, and, surprisingly, they were totally normal. Almost uncomfortably so. Like, that dark element must be hiding someplace, you start to wonder when it’s going to come out. I met a female writer once who was totally normal, easy to talk to, funny. She wrote hardcore erotica, like, full-on stuff. I’ve also met super opinionated writers who seem almost intimidating in print form. But in real-life – normal. You’d never even know of their extreme stances if you hadn’t read their work. Everyone has layers and you can never judge a book by its cover, but this one is definitely a common stereotype. They’re actually pretty fun, you should hang with them, but maybe don’t go back to their place. At least not on the first date.

Super Quiet, Super Talented

I’ve met quite a few of these, those quiet bookish types who take everything in, listen to the world around them. They often have an acute understanding of what it takes to be great. They are their own strongest critics, which makes them more resilient to the harsh realities of the writing world, and they are constantly reading and researching, adapting their style. Sonya Hartnett is a bit like this – fairly quiet, fairly reserved, not interested in the hype of promotion and literary fame. Just loves writing great stories. And she’s super good at what she does. Not all the quiet ones are super talented, but often, if you get to see their work, they’re way better than they’d project. It’s worth getting to know them, understanding their perspective on the world. It might change your own viewpoint.

Super Confident, Super Sensitive

You know the ones. They’ve been told all their lives that their writing is amazing. All the way through primary school and high school – ‘amazing’. Nothing else. This is the only feedback they’ve ever had, and they come out self-assured, convinced they’ll be the next literary luminary, destined for greatness. And then comes the pain. They’ve never experienced criticism before, everyone told them they were great. No-one’s ever picked out an error or suggested a possible issue. It hurts – you can see it dragging down their face. I feel for these guys – they’ve not been hardened enough in the developmental stages and, unfortunately, many of them fade away. It’s a shame, alot of them are good writers, but you’ll never advance if you can’t absorb criticism and translate it into improvement. Tread carefully, hope they don’t ask for feedback, and make sure you tell them about any criticism you’ve received (at first, they’ll nod, thinking you are different from them, but in time they’ll understand – everyone cops a critical beating every now and then).

Super Serious, Super Pretentious Content

These ones are the worst. There are some people who adopt a persona when they are publicising their work, a way of supporting their message, communicating in a certain way. Then there are others who just are that way. Everything is super-serious, you can’t have a conversation that doesn’t have geo-political implications and headache inducing verbosity. When they do a reading it gets worse, as you’re subjected to a sort of self-gratification through language. It’s like seeing someone do a strip show for themself in front of a full length mirror. These ones usually write for the social status it gives them, being a writer is critically engrained into who they perceive themself to be. I try to steer clear of these types – whatever makes them happy is fine, but I’ll just be over here, minding my own business. You have fun.

Super Confident, Super Talented

And then there’s these. The best writers I’ve ever met are super talented, of course, but also super fascinating in real life. They are so open to the world, so fascinated by everyday life that they absorb all these amazing stories and experiences. Most of them aren’t especially confident types, but they’re so into what they’re doing that they can talk about it with no ego or self-conscious restriction. Writing is their passion, and they love nothing more than absorbing themselves in it, discussing it. And it’s totally fascinating. Maybe it’s because I love to see them express their passion, maybe it’s because I would love to imagine I’m somehow like them, but the greatest writers have always been able to hold my attention. Even writers I’ve never heard of, if I’ve heard them talking passionately, telling stories that drag me in – nine times out of ten I’ll love their writing. That correlation probably makes perfect sense, but there’s something infectious about the greats. They can talk in a way that makes you tune in to every word – not because it’s part of a show, not because they’ve learned to engage an audience. But because they love what they do. Actually love it. If you ever get a chance to catch a talk by a great writer, I highly recommend you take it.

As I say, most writers are totally normal, but these are the most common stereotypes I’ve come across. What about you, what types of writers have you met along your own writing path?

 

Why Gotye is One of my Biggest Inspirations

Walnme

I recently had a chance to catch up with my friend Wally. Wal is one of my biggest inspirations and it’s always great to get a chance to catch up with him and talk about what he’s been working on, creative processes, inspirations, etc. What makes Wal slightly different, in context, is that he’s also known as ‘Gotye’. You know, that guy who used to know somebody? Wal is one of the hardest working and most intelligent people I’ve ever met, and his passion for what he does is infectious. But while most people would be aware of ‘that song’, many are not aware of the long road it took for Wal to become an overnight success.

I met Wally a couple of years after he’d finished high school. Wal had been in a band with some high school mates, a very good and well-known band (locally) called ‘Downstares’, but after graduation the band drifted apart, the guys moving on to their respective next things. You could see this kinda’ broke Wal’s heart, he loved music and he loved performing, but without a band he had no outlet. Wal was studying at uni and working part-time, but there was definitely something missing. He wanted to make music again.

It was around the same time that The Avalanches’ album ‘Since I Left You’ was going well, and DJ Shadow had just released his second album, ‘The Private Press’. In retrospect, I would say that these two albums were among the most influential in the Gotye project coming into being – not musically, necessarily, but in terms of them showing Wal the possibilities of sample-based music. Wal had never really considered using samples – he’s an excellent drummer and pianist, and I imagine the thought of samples seemed somewhat inferior or not as tangible as actually playing an instrument. Either way, he’d never seriously considered it, then one night he tried it out, mucking around with records, playing with sounds on his PC. Wal’s a perfectionist, so once he’d started on it, there was no stopping him, and he worked with the samples till he had something he felt was great. And it was. His first tracks were amazing, way beyond what anyone would have expected. Wal was excited, he’d found a way to make music again, now he just had to work out what to do next.

Wal read up on agents and record labels and radio stations, sifted through the phone book to find as many contacts as he could. Wal hand made hundreds of four-track CDs, printing up the CD labels and hand writing the track listing on each sleeve. I remember seeing the pile of worn down brown pencils in his room. He sent the CDs out to everyone he could, then followed each one up with a phone call. The workload was amazing – Wal was driven to do whatever he could to find an audience for his music. Early feedback was limited. Most places didn’t respond, some did but weren’t able to offer anything. Wal kept calling, kept making CDs, kept chasing, and kept making new music. Eventually, Triple J added one of his songs to their playlist, an amazing day. I still remember hearing Wal on the radio for the first time. It was an incredibly proud moment. I think some other smaller stations played a track or two, and Wal was getting mentioned in street press, nothing major, but the first stages of Gotye had begun.

Wal released two more four track CDs, all hand made (though he cut out the hand written business after the first one).They got limited attention, but music critics were highlighting his stuff in their weekly columns, even if it wasn’t getting added to radio playlists. Wal continued to get support from Triple J and he gained enough attention to develop on a live show – a small gig in a city bar with a bed sheet as a projector screen. Wal worked extremely hard to try and perfect a live show, unsure of how to do it with sample based music. And afterwards he thought it was crap (one of the difficulties of Wal’s perfectionist nature is he always notices every tiny error – in his head those errors are highlighted way more than the audience would ever notice).

Eventually a small record label agreed to distribute an album of Wal’s music, a selection of highlights from those first four-track CDs. This was another amazing milestone, Wal’s CDs were in JB Hi-Fi, in between ‘God Speed You Black Emperor’ and ‘Green Day’. I remember going into stores just to see it on the shelves. Wal was a legit superstar in our eyes, but even at this stage, Wal was still doing all the work – the label was distributing the music, but Wal still had to work on all the production and manage every aspect, along with creating new tracks. After all the work and all the effort, Wal went quiet in Gotye stuff for a little bit. He was still working on it, but he’d started playing in another band and he’d moved house and he just hadn’t been able to give his new music the time he needed for a little bit. And in some ways, I think the whole process burned him out a little. This was probably three years after he started recording music as Gotye.

We were on a group holiday on the Gold Coast when Wal first played us his new tracks. He’d put together an album, had had it all mastered, professionally done, it was a major step up from the previous stuff. The album was called ‘Like Drawing Blood’ and as soon as Wal played the first track, ‘The Only Way’, I just wanted to listen to it over and over again. ‘Like Drawing Blood’ is an amazing album, and not only good because he’s a friend, a seriously amazing album, among the best of any released that year. Rightfully, it was recognised with an ARIA Award along with many other accolades. His track ‘Hearts a Mess’ was number 8 in the Triple J’s Hottest 100 in 2006. Wal had become a fully-fledged rock star. People recognised him in the street (it’s still pretty cool seeing it, seeing people do a double-take as he passes), he played sold out shows and huge, surging crowds sang along to his tracks. And people stopped believing me when I told them I know him. For years, I’d been pushing his music at people, saying they needed to listen to his stuff, now I couldn’t even convince people that he was a mate. It was all pretty great – amazing, inspiring stuff.

Then Wal waited a couple of years, recorded his next album in amongst his other musical and professional commitments. Quietly, patently, took his time getting it right. Then he released that song. No doubt you know the rest. Wal’s first Gotye recordings were in 2001 in his basement bedroom in Montmorency. In 2011, Wal released ‘Making Mirrors’, his third album. Ten years to become an overnight success.

Why is this overly long Gotye history lesson relevant?

As noted, Wal is one of my biggest inspirations. He has taught me so much about following your dreams and allowing yourself to be creative, and about how much work it takes to achieve something great. Wal’s story highlights three important things:

1. Persistence is key. Wal had to work so hard to get recognition. There were so many times when things seemed like they might never go anywhere and Wal could easily have walked away. But he never did. No one wants to be sending out hundreds of copies of their work knowing that many of them will never even get read or listened to. No one wants to follow up with phone calls and hassle people who probably have no interest in talking to you. But this is what had to be done, and Wal did it because he was driven to succeed. He believed in what he was doing, he believed in his music, and he worked and worked and did whatever he could to get it heard. You have to be willing to put yourself out there and to put in the consistent effort required to succeed. It took a decade of persistence for Wal to achieve that ultimate success. An even now, he’s still working on his music, every day.

2. Practice makes perfect. Wal is an amazing musician, always has been, but it took time for him to work out how to perfect his sound. He had to learn a heap of new instruments, read through pages of software documentation (the worst of all documentation) and he had to practice over and over and over to get things right. One time Wal told me how about he records around 100 vocal takes for every track. He knows what he wants and he tries and tries again till he gets it exactly right. Wal practiced over and over again to get to the point where he can produce the amazing live shows he does today, none of that came easy. He’s tried, he’s failed, he’s been dejected, then he’s tried again. You have to practice to get it right. As much as you possibly can.

3. Passion is your push. No one made Wal succeed. No one pushed him, and as noted, he could’ve given up several times. But he was passionate about what he was doing, he wanted it more than anything. That’s what makes Wal the success he is. It’s not his intelligence or his natural ability – those elements play a big part, but Wal taught himself most of the skills he needed because he had the impetus to do so. Because he was totally driven by his passion. If you’re passionate about something, you can achieve great things. You work hard, there’s nothing you can’t learn to support your art. You have to be self-driven, you have to make it happen, and you have to be willing to listen and learn and take in everything you can along the way. Take risks, be strong in your self-belief, trust in your ability even when no one else does. If you do these things will that turn you into an international superstar? Probably not, but it’s these fundamental elements that position you to achieve your greatest success.

Also if you’ve been living on an island with a volleyball as your only companion for the past few years, go check out www.gotye.com and listen to Wal’s music – if you’ve read through this whole post, surely that’s enough context to pique your interest.