Miss Writerly Raises Her Hand

HOST: Now would anyone like to ask any questions of our guest tonight? Is that OK, Lucinda? I don't want to impose on you. Just thought everyone would be really interested to have a chance to talk.

LUCINDA: Of course.

HOST: Feel free to talk about your own work, people. No point in hiding your light under a bushel.

LUCINDA: What is a bushel?

HOST: We're asking the questions! Anyone?

[An insignificant YOUNG WOMAN in the corner tentatively raises her hand. LUCINDA looks interested. MAN #1, a self-important older male, stands up to speak though, moving slightly too aggressively, a glass of wine spilling in his hand. LUCINDA can be seen to take a small step back, catching his sharp movement in her peripheral vision.]

MAN #1: Well I've written THREE novels now, drawing on some twenty years experience in headhunting. I was wondering what advice you had for the, ah, more advanced writers out there with a significant body of work? Should I send synopses of all of them?

HOST: And also, what is the plural of synopsis?

LUCINDA: Gosh, plural of synopsis. I'm not sure there should be one. I'm not sure that was ever meant to be, if you get my drift. My advice to you is to choose the one synopsis you think we would be interested in. And if there isn't one, please don't send it on the off chance we'll read it and change our prejudices just for you.

MAN #1: Only one though?

LUCINDA: Well, maybe it's just me. I'm sure there's some kind of literary porn out there in which editors and agents beg for simultaneous submissions from the same author. Not in real life though. I find the thought rather depressing. It's always men that do that, too. I assume your stories are all in a consistent genre, at least?

MAN #1: Fast paced thrillers set in the world of executive recruitment. I've had interest from several people.

LUCINDA [looking deeply sceptical now]: Any agents?

MAN #1: Well, I don't think agents really grasp the potential of this kind of work. I don't think they really see where the market is going to be. I guess they are a stage removed from actual publishing...

HOST: OK, let's move on to the next question...

[The YOUNG WOMAN in the corner tentatively raises her hand again. LUCINDA looks towards her encouragingly. But a self-important OLDER WOMAN interrupts.]

OLDER WOMAN: Yes. Lucinda. I wondered, with respect, what advice you could give me as to my novel set in a retirement home. Given that you are a commissioning editor probably still in your twenties...

LUCINDA: Thank you. I mean, I wish.

OLDER WOMAN: ...it's hard to see how you would quite empathise with that subject matter. And that audience. But there is a great readership among older people, that isn't being properly considered.

LUCINDA: Well I understand what you're saying. Although I generally think that anything that's written with empathy will appeal to anyone who has empathy. I published a novel recently about a group of pigeon breeders in Manchester , wich I'd have to admit is beyond my usual horizons. It was the warmth of the thing that appealed though. You just need to think about what is universal about your work, and make sure it is brought out properly. But not just in your writing - in your covering letter, in your synopsis.

OLDER WOMAN: But most novels still seem to be essentially of the Bridget Jones type.

LUCINDA: Well, that is true enough. In a strange way - and don't hate me for saying this - the struggles of younger women will always be more appealing. Even to older readers. So you will be struggling against that current. Don't hate me for saying that - I'm not saying that's my preference but that's definitely how markets work. Grannies on the bus aren't reading about grannies on the bus.

OLDER WOMAN: As a figure of influence, don't you think you might be in a position to change that though?

LUCINDA: No.

[OLDER WOMAN looks shocked.]

LUCINDA: Let's see now. I'd rather keep my job than be right and unemployed, any day. I have no more of a desire for martyrdom than anyone else. There's a poem, you know. Well, not a poem as such. Here lies the grave of Edward McVeigh, who died maintaining his right of way... he was right, dead right, as he sped along, but he's just as dead as if he were wrong. I know it might seem obscene, but we are in publishing to sell books and at the very least stay afloat. I'm sure there are hundreds of books inspired by Twilight and X-factor doing the rounds now, and the blunt answer is we need those books to publish the ones we personally believe in. The odds are that your beautifully observed metafictional story of life and love in twelfth-century Rome, the one I've been yearning to push on to the bookshelves, is not going to pay its own way. If they did, we'd publish more of them. Simple as that. Does that make me seem like a terrible person?

[Short silence. Then general laughter.]

LUCINDA: Oh god, it went all silent for a moment there. I am a terrible person. But you know what I mean. I'd encourage any writer to remember that publishers are not registered charities. I don't want anyone specifically writing for an audience - in the end, it just appeals to no-one - but maybe just think what would this novel about accounting mean to someone who isn't an accountant?

OLDER WOMAN: Although it's set in a retirement home, if you remember.

LUCINDA: Er, yes.

HOST: OK very good, any more questions?

[The YOUNG WOMAN in the corner raises her hand yet again. LUCINDA points to her this time.]

YOUNG WOMAN: I -

[Self important older MAN #2 rises to his feet instead.]

MAN #2: Just how long should a synopsis be?

LUCINDA [instantly]: 512 words.

[Small titters from the audience, some of whom are not 100% sure whether this is actually untrue.]

LUCINDA: Exactly. Not a word more, not a word less.

MAN #2: But how long should a synopsis for a trilogy of novels be? I have quite a lot of ground to cover in them...

LUCINDA: 512 words.

MAN #2: But seriously now.

LUCINDA: Sorry. Sorry. The trick is to read the submissions guidelines. They're kept on web sites, to keep them secret from the public.

MAN #2: Should it be a plot synopsis though, or more like the blurb on the dust jacket?

LUCINDA: I think that very much depends on the editor. Or the agent. I like an indication of style, myself - you never really work out much of the character of a book from a plot synopsis, but I imagine a publisher at the popular end of the market - I should say, non-literary, perhaps - would want to see fairly strong evidence that you know how to structure the story. To be honest I do too, but in literary novels it's not so easy to judge in formulaic terms. I mean, I'd love it if John Banville jumped ship and came to me with a plot synopsis like a Brazilian soap opera. But it's only ever happened the once.

HOST: Really? John Banville?

LUCINDA: And then I woke up. I was most annoyed with my husband at that moment, I can tell you.

HOST [laughing]: I just hate being woken up in the middle of a promising approach.

LUCINDA: You know, the scary thing is that someone over there is actually writing that last bit down. Anyone else, now?

[YOUNG WOMAN raises her hand again. No-one interrupts this time.]

YOUNG WOMAN [surprised]. Oh! Shit. Um.

More things to do when you should be at your writing group

Tony Bell reads Sebastian Aston's very fine 'She Doesn't Know How Tough It's Been' at Liar's League, Tuesday 9th November.

Tony : There's a really good writing group I go to. It's in a bookshop on Brick Lane.
Blogger : Oh, you too? When do you go then?
Tony : Tuesday evenings.
Blogger : (Thinks to himself) Like this one?

Man vs Nanny State

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A little story I read out recently at Storytails.

Fortunately I managed to finish this disturbing tale before the Hassidic Jewish family arrived for their family photograph session. Here's to comic double-bookings of upstairs pub rooms...

Compare and contrast

No pirates.
This, then, is my challenge. A story from one of the following:
-Thriller set in an airport. No words longer than 'marmalade' required.
-Teenage romance (with/without vampires)
-Pynchon-esque description of a recent political event
All I can say is this: there is a reason why right-thinking people dress up as pirates at Halloween.

Figure 1: Rubbish vampire kid

Figure 2: Brave, fearless pirate

The Theme

It's taken nearly a hundred years of debate (or it seems like it, at least). By now you'd have thought we'd all have jet cars and be wearing space-age leisure suits, and possibly the Omega point would have been reached before this: the theme for the next Brick Lane Wednesday writing group anthology has been set. And it is

part Secret Santa, part sadism. Each person in the group has been given the name of another person in the group for whom the first person must concoct three titles or ideas for a short story. These ideas should be designed to take the recipient well out of their comfort zone. For instance, if the person whose name you've been given likes nothing better than to write a soppy romance, what better subject to give them than a high octane thriller? If your nominated person always writes from a female perspective, it's time to get them thinking like a man. You get the picture...

...which you might think a rather complicated elevator pitch. Since I chose to attend a puppet show(!) rather than attend the final decision on the theme, I was sadly not privy to the decision making process. Rather wish I had been there now. I should think it was very much like the World Cup draw. Possibly without Charlize Theron. Almost certainly without David Beckham.

Personally, I'm hoping to be asked to write something about pirates. I can promise I've never written about pirates before.

Bookmarks I would rescue first from a burning building

It's good to have a sense of entitlement

Penguin 75

Two mighty foes, I have faced and conquered this month; I have read The Lord of The Rings, and I have navigated the Great Labyrinth of Foyles to its topmost floor (alas, I failed in my quest to find the toilets). Still, I grow in confidence day by day. Come! Rest a little, and hear of my adventures.

'Penguin Day' was the imaginatively-titled celebration of Penguin's 75th birthday at Foyles on Saturday 25th September. Featuring a variety of discussions and presentations, it kicked off with the recent Great Idea series that you and I have probably both softly pawed over in some bookshop or another, whether seriously interested in the content of the book or not. An impressively fluid discussion on the role of non-fiction then followed, which lives on my mind for the description of particularly florid biography as 'a higher drivel', a pejorative of rare beauty and distinction. I definitely had one celebrated biographer in mind when I heard that phrase, but the will to fairness in me reminds me that fiction is at least as much a perpetrator as non-fiction. In the afternoon, Rebecca Hunt talked with enthusiasm of her journey towards the publication of Mr Chartwell, a discussion that for some reason hinged as much on the cover design as the content. I mean, it's OK, I suppose...

David Vann's strangely self-deprecatory sense of wonder (am I really here? who are all these lovely people? Is this microphone for me?) was balanced by an amusing and oftentimes cynical Colm Toibin. With the exception of the sadly inevitable question 'do you think creative writing can be taught?' - to my mind, not a great step up from 'what's your favourite colour then?' - I came away from this day of nicely ambling literary conversation with a warm glow. Never mind that almost everyone there was probably in the industry anyway - the love and enthusiasm of all of those involved for their work was salutory. I tried to hold on to a little of that spirit on my way home, even while the tube was in a sulk and I was squeezed upside down into the 25 bus. I've kept a piece of it in a small tin in the kitchen. Could be useful for those grey days in winter.

Lit crit of the week, #2

"Oh, fuck, not another elf!"
(J.R.R. Tolkein's friend Hugo Dyson, while Tolkein was reading him the final instalment of The Lord of The Rings)

An Apology

It's no life for a book, sitting under the legs of my table to bring it to an ergonomic height. Apologies to Nick Hornby, John O'Farrell, Michael Bracewell,Wang Shuo, Bernhard Schlink, and several others. I actually enjoyed several of these books, notwithstanding the humiliating position I placed them in afterwards. I am not a barbarian. In general, I care for books. I carefully protect them from the other contents in my bag. I was brought up to abhor people who put books down spread open at the page with the spine upwards.

I have a proper desk now. These books have been released from their burden. Some have already reached the charity shop in Spitalfields, where they will now begin new lives, and find appreciative owners with well-dusted bookshelves.

Fringe benefits

Once in a while, this makes a nice change. Someone else writes the story; I merely perform it, and drink in the wild applause slight tittering from the second row. As usual, my palsied hands shake the script in front of me, visually undermining the confidence I think I'm projecting via the microphone. The London Short Fiction Award took place recently, culminating in rather enjoyable readings of all the shortlisted entries in the West End last Wednesday, and some kind of ceremony for the winners of this and other London Fringe events to come on the 26th. I was proud to take part, if only as a stand in reader for my friend Sarah, and her short story The Biscuit Man - by the time I was performing it, I'd more or less forgotten I hadn't written it myself. I guess this is what happens when I'm in a competitive frame of mind.

But, there is a lesson in this somewhere. The first rule of story competitions should be, you do not discuss the judging mechanism. Somehow it doesn't reassure me know that the ultimate winner was decided on a whim in the interval of the event, after only the shortlisted readers from the first half of the alphabet had read their work; nor that the published scores before the event reveal the judges to be of remarkably dissimilar mind to each other; nor that two judges pointed out that fiction wasn't really their area as such, but they did read it (oh good!); nor that the other judge cheerfully pointed out he'd had four drinks with his agent before he'd even arrived. Maybe it would be better just to keep the whole process mysterious?

But god it was worth it, to see how alarmed the judges looked, when a microphone was thrust in front of them...