Tagged: novel writing
How to be a Better Writer
Sometimes people will ask how they can get better at writing. What do you do? How do you come up with ideas? How do you start on something? The answer to all these questions is: you write. I have been writing for as long as I can remember – I was writing hand written, 20 page horror stories in grade four. I was writing a novel when I was 15 (by page 54 I was at the end, so not really long enough). I have always been writing.
I write 1000 words, every day. Not all of it is good, quite a lot of it will never see the outside of my hard drive, but I do write, every day. It’s like when you get to that tipping point when you’re doing a regular exercise routine, where you feel guilty if you take a day off. That’s how I feel about writing, I can’t stand not doing it.
It’s one of the hard things to explain to people – the ability to write well is not something you can pick up and start straight away. Everyone can write, but not everyone can communicate through words, and even fewer can convey emotion or feeling through language. To be able to find the emotional centre of what you’re writing about and re-create those feelings in the body of the reader is incredibly difficult. Only the best can do it consistently, and that’s after years and years of work. It’s hard to explain that I can write well, because I’ve spent years doing it. And even then, I’m still working everyday to get anywhere close to that next level.
How you get better at writing is you write. And you research. You read everything you need to form an entire city of ideas inside your head, till the story flows through your fingers and daydreams come to you in complete sentences. I research everything, from the specific sound of a punch, to the smell of the inside of a jail cell. I recently wrote a piece where I light-heartedly used Shakespearean language – no one would have noticed, but I researched the differences between ‘thy’, ‘thee’ and ‘thine’ for authenticity’s sake. I love the research, I love getting to know the world I’m working in. And I love to read. And I guess that’s the key point of the whole thing.
How you get better at writing is you write, you research. And you love it. You don’t love it and your readers will know. You’re not passionate about it, your writing will be flat. You might write something quite good, but the key to great writing is that you have to love it. You have to love sentences and paragraphs and the feeling that can be captured in the smallest details. How one line can break your heart or make your day. You have to love the content, find the heart of it and bring it out. If you’re not real, if you’re not able to put humanity into what you do, you’re never going to reach that next level. It’s hard to do, and it’s difficult to open yourself up to readers and put yourself on the line. But that’s what you have to do.
How you get better at writing is you write, you research and you love it. And you make it your own.
And the key to getting better is you have to do it. Every day.
Undeniable
I was watching the 30 Seconds to Mars documentary ‘Artifact’ recently when lead singer Jared Leto said something that really stuck with me. The documentary, for those who haven’t seen it, is about how 30 Seconds to Mars had been signed to some ridiculous contract whereby despite their global success, the band members were not actually making any money at all. The band then sought to change the terms of their contract and were subsequently sued by the label for $30 million. The film looks at the challenges of the modern music industry and the issues faced by artists in trying to make money from their work, and it’s a really well made film. Their music doesn’t do it for me (though I’m not the target demographic) but the film was compelling and definitely made me empathise with the situation.
So there’s one scene where Jared Leto is talking to one of the other band members – they’re lamenting their position and debating whether they even go on as a band. They’re facing building legal costs in a battle they aren’t likely to win, things are not looking great. Then Leto says this:
‘Don’t you wanna’ make something that lives forever? That’s phenomenal. That’s great. That’s undeniable.’
For some time in writing my second novel I’ve been trying to think of a way to describe what’s been the problem with it. I’ve written several drafts, and at least one of them was okay. But it wasn’t brilliant. I’ve been working and re-working and trying to get it on track – my view is that it’s alright, but it’s just slightly off target, like a train running with its wheels off the tracks. If it were on the tracks, it would be smooth, it would flow and it would be not good, not great, but perfect. It would be undeniable. When Jared Leto said this I was like ‘Yes, that’s it, that’s what I’ve been aiming for’.
I imagine this is both the strength and weakness of writers – you want something to be great, so you do all you can and the more work you do, the better it gets, but as your own worst critic, you’re also thinking ‘is it that good? Could it be better?’ I don’t ever want to read great literature and think to myself ‘I’d be happy if I could write something close to this’, because I wouldn’t. My work should hold up when compared to other great work, that’s the way I view it. And of course, brilliance is in the eye of the beholder, one man’s genius is another man’s trash. But I know my ‘brilliant’, and I know I haven’t hit it yet with that book. I remain ever confident that I will. .
Maybe it won’t be a literary classic known the world over and held up as an example for decades to come, but as long as it is, in my eyes, something that I can honestly say ‘that is the absolute best book it could be’, that is what I aim to achieve.
The aim is to create work that is undeniable.
Jared Leto gave me to words to express that desire. Who’d have thought the drug addict from ‘Requiem for a Dream’ would serve as a source of wisdom?
That Time When My Book Nearly Got Made Into a Movie
It’s the dream of almost every writer to have a book published. But close behind that is the dream of having your book turned into a Hollywood movie. I got somewhat close to having this, sort of. Here’s what happened:
When my novel ‘Rohypnol’ was published in 2007 we were contacted by a couple of groups interested in the film rights. I had no idea about this stuff, I still had stars in my eyes about having my book in Borders, so I took the advice of my publishers on what to do, who to listen to, etc. There were four groups trying to buy the rights to ‘Rohypnol’, which was awesome, and in my head, it meant it was definitely getting made. But the film world is incredibly complex, there are so many variables when seeking film funding – you’re asking investors (producers) to put up millions of dollars on the promise of a return, I can understand why there are many hoops to jump through.
I met with one producer and director combo in Melbourne. The director was Amiel Courtin-Wilson, who has gone on to do some fantastic short and feature film work in recent years. Amiel was a really cool guy and seemed really into the project, had a good vision, I liked everything about him. But there was one other group who had got in contact with us late in the piece which were pretty much the winner as soon as we heard them mentioned. The group was Seed Productions. Seed Productions was owned by Hugh Jackman, his wife, Deborah Lee Furness and their business partner John Palermo. They were working on a a couple of major films (Deception and X-Men Origins: Wolverine) so they had the contacts – and it was Hugh Jackman, of course he knew people who knew how to get a film made. Seed were the safest bet to go with – they had a clear funding plan, they wanted to get moving on the project straight away. They were the ones. So I signed the film rights over to them.
I started working with John, who had asked me to take a shot at writing the screenplay. I hadn’t written a screenplay before, but I’d read all the books and who’s going to say no to having at writing a Hollywood screenplay? We went through a few drafts, with John giving me regular feedback and sending me reference books and DVDs to help get the story down. By the end of that process I was reasonably happy with the screenplay. I was pretty sure it needed work, but it felt okay as a starting point – it didn’t feel way off. Seed then signed up a director for the project, Kris Moyes. Kris was best known for his music video work, but he’s always working on major art projects, amazing stuff. I was a big fan of his video for ‘Are You The One?’ by The Presets. In fact, when I saw that video had won the ARIA award for best video I thought it would be awesome to get that guy as the director of ‘Rohypnol’. And there he was. Kris is one of those guys who’s way cooler than you. Not in a bad way, he’s one the most down to earth, easy going guys you’ll ever meet, and I really liked him, but he’s cool in that he can, say, wear some outlandish kaftan in public and totally pull it off without looking like a douche. The sort of guy who you’ll run into in the strangest of places and it’ll seem completely normal that he’d be there. ‘Cause he’s cool, he can just do whatever and make it cool. His ideas were great, he was keen, everything was moving in the right direction.
Of course, this is over the course of a year or so by now. John was based in LA wo we’d go back and forth via e-mail and I’d write and re-write and wait for his feedback, like everything in publishing, things take time. After probably a year and a half we got to a point where we needed to get an expert to go over the screenplay and fix it up. Andrew Bovell was one of the names put up as someone who might be able to go over it, which was great – Andrew wrote the screenplay for Christos Tsiolkas’ book ‘Loaded’ (the film was called ‘Head On’) and ‘Lantana’ which was a great film. But that never came about, Andrew was working on something else and wasn’t able to do it. I met with Kris and John at Seed’s offices in Fox Studios in Sydney and we went over where everything was at then things got real quiet for a long time. ‘Wolverine’ was getting close to release so I figured they had a heap on, so no problem. Both Kris and I got VIP tickets to the cast and crew screening of ‘Wolverine’, which was pretty cool then after that nothing. For ages and ages.
Kris and I stayed in contact for a little bit, but he had other projects overseas so that sort of faded out and I’d heard nothing from Seed for months and months. Then one day I read on a news website that Seed Productions had shut down. The guys had decided to part ways, with Wolverine being their only major production credit. After I read this, I sent an e-mail to the Seed guys saying I guess this means the film is no go, and thanking them for their time and efforts and for giving me a chance to be a part of the process. Hugh sent me a polite e-mail back, wishing me all the best and that was it. By now the book was a few years old, no longer in stores – the ‘heat’ of the book was gone and the film offers had died down. It’s been under offer a few times since, but it’s never gone any further. It’s disappointing, but that’s how it is with film stuff, so I’m told. A whole lot of things have to align for you to get the green light, even if you are working with a major company or a company with major contacts. I still hold onto the dream that it might one day get made, but it’s pretty unlikely now. I never met Hugh Jackman. People always ask this, but no, I never met him. I think one time I was in the Seed offices just after he’d left, that’s the closest I got, other than via e-mail.
So despite the disappoinment, I really did enjoy the process. Being able to work with John and Kris and just the excitement of working on the possible film adaptation was amazing. John went on to produce the excellent ‘Drive’ with Ryan Gosling – which was interesting to see because after reading the book of ‘Drive’ I could relate the transition from book to screenplay to some of the advice John had given me as we went through ‘Rohypnol’. Kris is always working on something ridiculously amazing, living a life of creativity we can only dream of – you can see his stuff here. And Hugh Jackman is doing something, somewhere, I don’t know, he faded out a little bit after that.
And that’s the story of how my book nearly, almost got made into a real movie. I’d already imagined myself in a tux on opening night too. That’s how it goes.
Reading Out Loud
One of the methods Christos Tsiolkas passed onto me when editing was to read my work out loud. Christos would take a scene I’d written and read it out loud to me, showing me what he, as a reader, would get from it. And what I found was he’d often put a different intonation or emphasis than I’d intended, highlighting how sections were not as clear as I might have thought they were. But then I too would read out a section, and I’d find the same thing. Sometimes the story flow, in your head and as you’ve written it, will not come across that way in the mind of someone else. But reading it out loud helps detect this, helps you see the flaws and iron them out, re-wording and re-working them to ensure the message is clear.
It’s been a massive help to me as I go through, particularly when I’m stuck on a scene or section. It can be embarrassing and you need to find a space to do it, but reading your work out loud can be extremely valuable when editing and re-writing.
Becoming an ‘Author’
I read this excellent article by author Christopher Currie recently. It raises many of the issues and observations that I’ve found since becoming a published author, and those issues are part of the reason my second novel has been de-railed so many times. Chris is an excellent writer, and he has succinctly put into words many of the downsides of being published in a way that’s not complaining about success, which is one of the things that I’ve been most fearful of when discussing the same things.
I met Chris at the National Young Writers’ Festival in Newcastle several years ago, though Chris, I’m sure, either thinks I’m a total douche or an incoherent idiot – I treated Newcastle like a weekend off and was several beers into the night when we met. I’ve always felt bad about this, because I really like Chris’ work and his observations on writing – but this article in particular stands out to me because it’s talking of the negatives of the other side of publishing, of being an actual, published author.
As Chris notes, he is not complaining about success – and I too would never complain about being published. It’s a massive achievement and the people I’ve come into contact with have been amazing, and it’s the only thing I’ve ever really wanted to do. Writing, also, is almost an instinctive process for writers, it’s something we have to do. I can ignore it for periods, but it’s always there, stories being written in the back of my mind. Being published has opened up a heap of opportunities and it remains my dream to be a full-time author. But that’s where things get a little more complicated, and this is what Chris discusses in his article.
I guess the first, and main, point, is that becoming a published author will not necessarily change your life. When I first signed a book contract, the company I was working for was undergoing a takeover. People all about the place were stressing about losing their jobs, doing all they could to make good with the incoming managers. It was a pretty sad situation, a lot of good people, good employees, stressed because of something beyond their control. Me, I had a publishing contract. I thought I was going to have to leave work soon either way, heading off on book tours, doing talks. I was about to become a full-time author, so losing my job didn’t really matter to me too much. The idea in my head was ‘book gets published, you become full-time author’ – that becomes your job, your career. But I never really thought through how that might work.
The reality is not much changed. I was lucky enough to be retained at work and when the book was released I did a few launches and talks and interviews and then, about a month later, all was quiet again. It was back to normal life. The amount of money I made from my book was actually pretty good – I won $15,000 in the Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards on top of my book contract – but it was not enough to quit my job. I then sold the film rights, and that was massively exciting, and they signed up a director and we had meetings, wrote a screenplay, all was moving along. Then that production company folded. And by now it was several months after the book’s release so the ‘hype’ around it was gone and no other film companies were looking to pick it up (several have been interested ever since but it’s never been picked up). And life was back to normal. I wasn’t a full-time writer. Chris notes this, that you’ve only got a limited shelf life, and it’s totally true, then you’re back to where you were. I’ve seen lots of discussions and articles on this, and it’s hard to know if there is a way to fix it, but for me, I just couldn’t see how I was going to generate enough money from writing alone to be a full-time author, which was difficult to take, but that’s how it is.
The second down side, I found, was the publicity. Most of it was great, great people, good to get your name out there, have people discuss your work. But the negative reviews hurt. Bad. I only had a few, but they were in major publications. I’m pretty thick skinned with my writing, I can take people having a go at me and my work, no problem. But this was something I was immensely proud of, that not only me, but my editor, my publisher, other people had believed in and put their own hard work into. And then someone can totally trash it with a few paragraphs. It hurts, but again, that’s how it is. Not everyone’s going to like your stuff, you can’t write for every person. I’m much more comfortable with that now, but it was a learning curve.
The third issue I had was with the next book. For months after the book came out people always asked what I was working on next, and it was great, people were interested. Then the second novel got bogged down and it wasn’t working and people kept asking and in my head I was like ‘stop asking about it, it’s killing me’. This is no-one’s fault but my own, but Chris made an interesting note in his article – that he, in some ways, liked it more when he was unpublished. When there was no expectation. I can totally see where he’s coming from. I had an okay manuscript on the way by the time my first book was published. I signed a new contract as soon as it was offered, with the publication date set for a year or so later. This was what I’d always wanted, I was on my way, I could do this. I completed a first draft, had it all down, the story, everything was there. But it wasn’t great. I knew it. My publisher knew it. I went back to it, tried to fix it, but started getting myself in knots. Nothing was coming together, nothing was flowing, it wasn’t what I wanted it to be. And the most frustrating part – I knew exactly what I wanted it to be, I just couldn’t get it to work. I am still working on it, still writing that second book (among other projects), and I remain absolutely confident it’s going to be great, it’s getting closer each day. But the pressure I put on myself is what has blocked me up. I was no longer just writing something that maybe someone might read some day, maybe my friends would read – I was writing something that would be seen by a publisher. This had to be amazing. Not good, this had to be great. That expectation, my own expectation, has set such a high bar that it’s made it much more difficult to be free and flow with the story.
As I say, these are not complaints or not negative enough to ever want me to stop writing. They are more observations from the other side, which I don’t see a heap of. I can’t help but love writing. I do it every day, and I love getting that flow right, having a story form in my head, the sentences stringing together. I love having to get up and scratch around to find a pen in the middle of the night to get down some crucial sentence or note. I love everything about being a writer. And yeah, it’s hard, these points just attest to the fact that it remains hard as you go. I have no doubt that big name authors have the same challenges and issues. But it’s worth it. Nothing’s better than when everything feels right with a piece and you can’t wait for someone, anyone, to read it. When you know that you’ve been able to re-create the feeling you had when writing it in the body of another person. That communication is amazing. Nothing else comes close, for me.
And nothing beats the smell as you flick the pages of your own book.
As I work my way back into writing, getting more ideas and notes down, trying different ways to remain creative and create better work, this is what I keep in my mind. It’s tough, but you’ll get it right, it’s hard, but it’s always close to that perfect stream of a story.
twenty six 