What They Don't Tell You About Writing A Novel

"I do what I love, and I love what I do

but if you think this is easy, you must be new."

 M.C. Abdominal

1) There isn't a point at which you're "in". When you start, it's easy to think of writing as a club that has either accepted you or hasn't: it's not really true. Also, be ready not to to be satisfied. You might think you've set out what you intended to do, and now it's time to stop - or your first novel might encourage you to write another one. And another.


2) "Write what you know" isn't really correct. It's a decent rule of thumb, but really, it should be something like "Only include what you can depict convincingly". That's not as catchy, but it's more accurate. After all, nobody knows what it's like to ride a dragon. And as for "Show don't tell", there are times when a quick tell defeats a slow show. Not many, but some.


3) You can't write a good book through reading alone. That sounds weird, but a lot of advice boils down to "keep writing and reading". Yes, these are both vital, but getting feedback from others and learning the skills of how to write are also very important.

There wasn't a picture for "Toby Writes A Book"

4) Keep old ideas, and be ready to cross them with one another to get new concepts. I suspect that good new ideas don't just appear - they develop from something else. Often putting some unexpected element into an otherwise familiar story can yield very different results. It may be that an idea is perfectly good, but you're just not ready to write it yet.


5) Be wary of writing advice that says "You must do this". There's been a bit of a meme of "10 rules of writing" this week, basically as a response to Jonathan Franzen's rather odd observations here:  https://lithub.com/jonathan-franzens-10-rules-for-novelists/. However, some of the replacement lists are no better. Beware of anyone who says "You must do it like this". A lot of this business is figuring out what works for you.


6) Contrary to the impression I always get, you don't have to own a cat. Or even like them.

Gilbert & Sullivan's Blade Runner

Blade Runner: or, The Replicant's Revenge 

by Gilbert and Sullivan.

Deep breath...

Are you the latest model of a modern android replicant?

For in the nightmare future robot servants represent
A cheap source of labour
But if we dislike their behaviour
We don’t execute them: we mark them for retirement.

Now you may want to tell yourself “I’m no menace to society!
“I don’t remember fleeing from an offworld colony!”
You may recall when you were born
Or a prancing unicorn
But trust me any memory could be planted artificially.

You might like eating sushi, neon signs and cars that fly
And permanent advertisements for Coca-Cola in the sky
But you’ll find it’s all in vain
For memories like tears in rain
Get forgotten in just four years, and then you'll find it’s time to die.

So… Don’t come back to planet Earth or Rick Deckard or another
Blade Runner will hunt you down and shoot your robot lover
A blaster shot will hurtle
Through you if you flip the turtle
So tell me only the good things you recall about your mother.

Can you tell if you are human, as the androids all yearn to be?
Or if Deckard is a replicant with any sort of certainty?
Will Rick and Rachel stay alive?
Was it four bots or really five?
Just be warned the sequel goes on for all eternity!

Talking About Talking

I'd quite like a hat like this.

I've been watching Netflix's The Haunting of Hill House, which is very loosely inspired by Shirley Jackson's 1959 novel of the same name. Both the TV show and the book are highly acclaimed, and both, I think, have serious problems. In both of them, the dialogue feels wrong.

In the TV show, characters seem to communicate important information in monologues. That is to say, they basically go off on one for several minutes, usually with shouting and/or crying involved, and nobody really responds or tries to interrupt. It's really weird.

"Do I want a cup of tea? Yes, please. My father gave me a cup of tea once, the night that we first saw the statues move. I remember it well: a the storm raged outside and at 8.30pm, I..."

It's not quite that bad, but not far off at times. People just don't talk like that. They might do in stage plays, where internal thoughts have to be explained to the viewer, but I don't think it's really needed in TV drama ( the question "Is this a dagger I see before me?" would probably be answered with a special effect these days).

The novel has its own problems with dialogue. Everyone is very flippant and delivers their lines as witty repartee, no matter what horrific things they've just experienced. It's like one of those black and white films where bitchy starlets crack wise at parties. And if you've just met the living dead, it doesn't sound convincing*.

"... which was jolly."

Which gets me (neatly) to the importance of dialogue. Anyone who's not writing in the modern era - or about people in unusual circumstances, such as a haunted house - has to make a decision as to how the dialogue is going to work. Too "normal" and it will jar with the setting. Too strange and it will be hard to follow.

Someone once said to me "You can tell when the Space Marines are talking, because they say 'do not' instead of 'don't'." Personally, I'm not a great fan of "heroic" speech, as it loses a lot of nuance (except when Suruk the Slayer is using it. He's naturally epic).

"Let none dispute my epicness."

When I wrote Up To The Throne - and other fantasy -  I tried to use normal conversational English, taking out obvious Americanisms and Britishisms. It was surprisingly hard writing a novel about the criminal underworld without using "yeah"! I also took out all words with a real-world significance: the days of the week have different names, although there is still a sabbath, and there are no Christophers - and no sods.

Writing Space Captain Smith, in which a lot of the jokes are in the dialogue, makes me realise how important it is to get the speech just right. As to whether I've got the new book right, well, we shall see...


*On the off-chance it's of interest, I reviewed the novel HERE