Transparency for writers - how not to point at yourself

When writing a book, I am obsessed by the quality of my own writing. I agonize over choice of words, apposite phrases, clever ways to convey what I want to say. When a reader reads a book they don't want to see any of that - they want to hear the story. They want the author to be transparent. This is why we are urged to use the word "said" for our speech attributions - a word that is neutral, invisible. As soon as we say "retorted" or "quipped" or (heaven help us) "declaimed", then we are pointing at ourselves with the "look at me I'm a writer" finger. The more the writer gets in the way of the story, the less involved in the reality of the story the reader will be.

Likewise, too many adverbs or exclamation marks make the writer suddenly appear at the reader's shoulder as convincer -
e.g  "Shut up!" he said crossly.
instead of, "Shut up," he said.
The writer is trying to force the reader to understand what they have probably already understood - thus making another unwanted appearance.

Too many similes or metaphors also point to our own cleverness, and can bring the reader up short.
eg Writer : "The water was black as treacle."
Reader: "Black as treacle? Is treacle black? What does she mean?"
Hey presto, the writer is muscling in again.

A lot of the knack of transparency is scrupulous awareness. If you are particularly proud of a phrase, view it with suspicion! It is probably a phrase where you are showing off, and therefore putting yourself between the reader and the page. Awareness for a writer is about being able to put yourself in the reader's seat and having the courage to remove your cleverness in favour of the truth of the story.

Many writers think that if they give up pointing at themselves they will lose their own unique voice. This is not so, as your voice will be there even more strongly if you get your ego out of the way of it.

This idea applies as much to life as it does to creativity.

The best book I can recommend on awareness in general is Awareness by Anthony de Mello. Eminently sane advice without any new-age nonsense.


For looking at this topic from a writer's perspective, the writer Dorothea Brande, (whose book, "Becoming a Writer" has been a classic for the inward journey since the 1930's) has another work, "Wake up and live!" available for free as a pdf here:
http://lesecret.net/DorotheaBrande-WakeUpAndLive.pdf
Although a little dated, it has some excellent ideas about how to succeed creatively.

As some people know, I am a great promoter of meditation in all its forms - here is a nice post by the writer Orna Ross on the benefits of meditation and awareness for writers: http://janefriedman.com/2012/01/02/meditation-increases-creativity/

And on a completely different topic,  for anyone interested, my post on 17th Century Garden Design for Women  is over at the English Historical Fiction Authors site. And you can win a copy of The Lady's Slipper at Brits United. (Until 5th April)

Writers in the 17th century were obsessed by character

A jobbing writer in the 17th century, just like me, was obsessed by characters. This is because the News Sheets of the day from London were dull and factual, designed to inform rather than entertain.
The Weekly News and the London Courant were the first papers (1622),  followed by the London Gazette in 1663. But none of these papers ran what we would call today "human interest" stories.

So a new wave of character writing sprang up to give the public what we would call entertainment, or tabloid stories. Wycherley the playwright lists the common targets of this new breed of writer:

"lying jests against the common lawyer; handsome conceits against the fine courtier,delicate quirks against the rich cuckold and citizen."



Also popular subjects were ridiculing the fads and fashions of the day, as in this pamphlet about ridiculous fashions, The World Turned Upside Down.In order to get material, the seventeenth century writer
"frequents clubs and coffeee houses, the markets of news, where he engrosses all he can light upon: and if that not prove sufficient, he is forced to add a lie or two of his own making.." (Samuel Butler)




So, not so different from tabloid journalists of today then. The writer of the 17th century  was mostly printed in pamphlets and chapbooks, pocket sized thin booklets that could be easily carried for sale on the street. On the left you can see a peddlar with a tray of books and chapbooks. The upright citizen's greatest fear was that he would feature in one of these and his reputation be ruined, a fact I exploited in my book The Gilded Lily.I used some of the larger than life characters in my book too - the avaricious pawnbroker, and the swaggering rake, as described by Rochester:

. 

Room, room for a Blade of the town,

That takes delight in roaring,

Who all day long rambles up and down,

And at night in the streets lies snoring.

That for the noble name of Spark

Does his companions rally,

Commits an outrage in the dark,

Then slinks into an alley.

Apart from characters, the sensational and unbelievable made easy subjects, often with lurid woodcut illustrations. See below for The Mowing Devil and  The Womanish Man.

Today pamphlets and chapbooks are popular for poetry, but there is a whole range of possibilities inherent in this  medium, for a few ideas about chapbooks today, visit - The Book Designer
For more in depth  information on 17th century pamphleteering I recommend The Function of the New Media in the 17th Century

Thanks to The Newberry, Chicago
Bodleian Library Collection article

Nutmeg - a perfect little novel

I received Maria Goodin's debut novel via the Amazon Vine programme, having heard it was already set to be translated into four languages even before publication. Published by Legend Press - a small independent publisher, I can quite see why.

I was totally enchanted by this novel which is at once funny, moving and thought-provoking.

The story hinges around the relationship between Meg and her eccentric mother, who is terminally ill. The book is a sensory delight as Meg's mother is obsessed with cooking. What's more she has never told Meg the truth about her childhood but has told her stories that fictionalise Meg's life. Meg's memories are made from her mother's stories. Most of the stories involve food - the tastes and smells of pastry and cakes, herbs and spices. Rebelling against this fictional life, Meg takes refuge in science and cold hard facts. But cold hard facts cannot tell the truth as well as fiction can, and it is this that makes the book so engrossing.

Meg's mother is endearing precisely because of her story-telling and eccentricity, something which Meg's boyfriend, the rational Mark, sees as lies and mental illness. Mark is determined to cling to his own myth of scientific sanity, and his attempts to do so mean he rides rough shod over others sensibilities. When Meg eventually finds out the truth about her childhood, she is left wondering whether the memories her mother invented for her gave her a better start in life than the truth.

The divide between fact and fiction is a slippery one, and one which Maria Goodin exploits brilliantly. So much so, that at the end of the book when Meg's mother's funeral arrives you are left wondering how much of Meg's portrayal of it is real and how much of Meg's story was "True".

Tender, funny and poignant, this has definitely been the highlight of my reading year so far, and one I shall be recommending to all my friends.

Check out Legend Press's website for an extract, or to buy a copy.