Dutch rules for writing

Just spotted this on Grumpy's blog. Elmore 'Dutch' Leonard - author of 'Get Shorty', 'Out of Sight', and countless other solid works - has a 'top ten' list that attempts to illustrate the most common writing mistakes and how to correct them.

They all look pretty good to me. But I must observe that Dutch is rather strict when he writes that one should only use the verb 'to say' for dialogue. I'm not so sure. Then, what do I know? I've only written one book. Dutch has written dozens. Perhaps I haven't learned this one yet...

While I think about it, The Elements of Style contains, in concise form, just about every writing principle I've managed to learn over the years - and plenty I haven't.

Science and fiction

In a post over at the Writer's Guild, entitled Science in plays, I came across this link to a new play by Paul Brok:

In The Financial Times, Chris Wilkinson looks at how playwrights tackle science and maths.

The best example of how a play can communicate a particular scientific idea is London's Soho Theatre's recent production On Ego. Born of a collaboration between its director Mick Gordon and the neuropsychologist Paul Brok, it seeks to explain "bundle theory". This is Francis Crick's "astonishing hypothesis" that we are "nothing but a pack of neurones". Or as Alex, a character in the play puts it, our consciousness is made up of "nothing but material substance: flesh and blood, bone and brain. . . There's no one there, no essence, no ego, no 'I'." The play works, not simply because it explains these ideas, but rather because, in the relationship between Alex and his brain-damaged wife, the huge implications of this theory are graphically demonstrated for us. The very structure of the play reflects the emotional and psychological dilemma that such an apparently counterintuitive theory poses for us as human beings.

__

If the play matches the quality of Brok's popular science volume 'Into the Silent Land', then audience should brace themselves for a treat. I haven't seen the play, of course, but Brok's prose was a curious blend of dead-on scientific conceptions and enthralling descriptions of the effect of brain dysfunction on everyday life. In all, an excellent book.

I mention this because my own canon of novelistic fiction makes an attempt to deal with some of the philosophical aspects of memory and identity too; though not, it must be said, with the panache of Brok.

Technorati Tags: fiction, writing

Electronic books

Here's an interesting post: Over on ZDNet, the business technology website, a chap called Jeff Young has some thoughts on Sony's eBook reader.

Unfortunately, it doesn't look as though Jeff has actually seen the device (I could be wrong, but he doesn't make any comments that suggest he has). A number of good points are made, however.

To take one: The paperback book is a great technology already. It may not be 'advanced', but, like a pair of trousers, it does exactly what it needs to do, and its design has remained fundamentally unchanged since its inception. It's cheap - doesn't cost you $350. It's completely portable - doesn't need batteries. It's easy to locate - on the shelf, where you left it. It's easy to read - super high-def text that's visible in a wide range of lighting conditions.

How does Sony want to tempt you into buying their eBook reader? Why, by buggering about with digital rights management (DRM). DRM comes in different forms, but it essentially boils down to limits on what you can do with the book. Will consumers say, "Yes, that's what I've been looking for - something that will permit me to do less with my books?" Doubtful. Ever had Outlook 'block' you from a potentially unsafe attachment, even though you know the attachment is safe? Ever tried installing something on your work computer, only to have the computer tell you - in the smug manner at which computers excel - that you don't have sufficient privileges? Remember 'Clippy', the rage-inducing helper included with the old version of Microsoft Word? You'd start writing a letter, happy as the proverbial Larry, and suddenly this gittish cartoon would take over your computer and lead you up the garden path, thence mouth foam.

All these feelings are the equivalent: the ceiling-bump sensation of your computer, this fantastic tool, being scuppered by a general policy designed to make the computer world run smoother. Except, in the particular case - yours - experienced is enroughened.

Sony has slipped up with DRM before. It's too early to say whether they will fail again, but I, for one, will not be queuing to buy a device that tells me, smugly, "Sorry, sir, this book is past its read-by date."

Long Distance Running

Well, as promised, the Saturday post will be less of a navel-gazing enterprise than usual. Below I include the usual word gauge for progress on current novel Flashback, and it appears that I've only written four thousand words in the past week. This is a poor show quantity wise (fortunately, I don't have a deadline). I can trace the problem to a complete lack of research.

OK; not a complete lack. I spent most of last summer reading about aviation, and now my knowledge of aircraft safety and the principles of lift are second to none (I'm using 'none' in the special sense that means 'Practically everybody'). Regrettably, not much of a novel comprises technical asides on power-to-mass ratios. Everything is seen through the lens of character. This means lengthy diversions into, for example, the size of an Avro Lancastrian cockpit; how much a passenger might see and hear if he stood at the rear of the flight deck. Halfway through a sentence I realize I'm talking bollocks and, grabbing my surfboard, run into the cool water of the Information Superhighway and come across a site like this - solid gold! This guy will certainly get a big thank-you in the acknowledgments when Flashback sees the light of day. It inhibits the word count somewhat but results in some excellent material that will place the reader precisely inside my imagination.

Here's another first-draftish snippet, written yesterday (it might be easier to understand if you remember that the viewpoint character, Kirby, has some technological enhancements that allow him to induct electromagnetic information, such as the leaky communication on the closed-circuit loop used by the Lancastrian's flight crew):

The cockpit was not, as Kirby had anticipated, bright with sunlight. He crouched alongside Miss Evans in a gloomy pit behind the radio operator, who was squashed against a bulkhead partition that stretched halfway across the flight deck. Bulb light glowed behind the dials of the radio equipment, which was painted matte-black in contrast to the militaristic dun of the fuselage. A glass dome in the ceiling offered some indirect light. The radio operator leaned on his little table in a slump that marked him as a young man. His gloved hand supported his chin. Beyond the partition, Kirby could just see the throne-like seat of Commander Cook. His boots, bruise-grey in the sunlight, rested in the curves of the yoke. To his right was the first officer, Hilton Cook. His seat was lower but, as he reached towards the captain to strike a gauge with his knuckle, their eyes met at the same height. Both wore oxygen masks with rubber pipes that led beneath their seats. Behind the commander was the fourth crewman. He faced left and leaned over a map table, which he kept steady with an ungloved hand. The only space on the flight deck was to the right of the partition, behind the navigator. Miss Evans stepped into the space and reached for the elbow of Commander Cook. He turned and blinked with surprise. Then he noticed Kirby and raised a hand. Cook’s panache – flying this primitive aircraft with his boots on the yoke – almost defeated the gate of Kirby’s indifference, but it held.

Miss Evans unhooked a spare mask and pressed it to her face. Kirby noticed her hair for the first time. It was severely plaited and the fringe was pinned aside. With her free hand, she pinched her throat. Kirby let his fingers rest on the fuselage to aid the induction of their conversation.

“It’s Mrs Limpert, Skipper.”

“Go on.”

The second officer, Hilton Cook, turned in his seat. His eyes quickly moved from Miss Evans to Kirby. The airman frowned at Kirby’s fingers against the fuselage. Soon the navigator and the radio operator noticed the passenger on their flight deck.

“Hello,” said one of them, but Kirby could not tell which, “we’ve got some cargo on the deck.”

“Quiet, Don,” said Commander Cook. “Iris?”

“She’s convulsing,” said Miss Evans. “Has been for the past few minutes.”

Commander Cook looked at the first officer. “Since we climbed to twenty-four thousand.”

“She might,” suggested the first officer, “have burst something.”

“Reggie,” said Miss Evans, “we have to drop below twenty thousand.”

What happens next? Answers on a postcard.

98,113 / 120,000 (80.0%)

Brrrrrr

Further proof that I don't deserve my girlfriend arrived last night in the form of this fantastic collector's model of an Avro Lancastrian (operated by BOAC, not BSAA, but that's neither here nor there). Yes, it does detach from the stand. Yes, I have flown it around my office making a 'brrr' sound. Resarch, eh? The bane of the writer's life.

Strategies to avoid writing

Are various. But over the past few days I've been writing a part of my book that deals with a civilian air flight from 1947, and it's been fun finding out which manufacturer produced the barley-sugars that the stewardess handed out, or the start-up checklist for the Avro Lancastrian.

One great difficulty with the past is dialogue. We've all seen those black-and-white films from the period, but how exactly did people talk unscripted, in real life? Well, the crew of the Lancastrian in question were all ex-RAF Pathfinders who had seen action during the Second World War. You think, perhaps, that being a tightly-knit group, the crew would refer to each other by their first names during the flight. That's how I originally wrote the dialogue.

But then I heard a primitive recording of the internal communications loop on board a Lancaster bomber, over Germany, under fire. It makes for fascinating listening. When one considers that many of this crew were in their early twenties, and referred to those comrades over twenty-five as 'old man', it makes one stop and think. The recording, hosted by that excellent organisation, the BBC, is here. Be warned that the crew celebrate the 'downing' of a German fighter, whose pilot might have been seemed equally plucky had a recording survived of him. Listen to the recording, or view the transcript.

When I listened to this with my parasitic writer's hat on (what an image), the first thing I noted was that the accents are absolutely spiffing. The second is that, if I incorporated such dialogue into my book, no reader would believe me! 'Good show'? Crikey.

Another great source of material is British Pathe (they seem to have dropped the accent acute). I had to write a scene involving Air Vice-Marshall Don Bennett, and with only still photographs to go on, I would have had a rum time of it (sorry) imagining his mannerisms, etc. But, presto, a quick search of British Pathe came up with a number of reels in which Bennett - flying the route to South America for the first time, for example - comes alive. From this, I could hear that Bennett has no Australian accent, despite being born in Toowoomba, Queensland. He's a charismatic but nervous man. Excellent material for a writer. I went on to locate footage of school children being given a tour of a Lancastrian identical to the 'Star Dust', and from this I could get a feel of what it might be like to walk around the cramped cabin, identify the kind of steps used to board the aircraft, and a thousand more details.

So, research: a great way to avoid writing. A blog: that too.

Smoke me a kipper, I'll be back for breakfast.

David Irving: Bist du crazy, oder?

Grumpy points out an article in the Times about David Irving, the rogue historian who has been jailed by an Austrian court for denying the Holocaust.

Because this relates to free speech - itself one of the pillars of writing - a few words on this blog would not go amiss. It is apparent now, and was apparent when I first heard of David Irving's ridiculous claims, that laws intend to curb the expression of matters distasteful to a government represent an abuse of that government's power.

We have no laws banning the publication of extremist political views in Britain, as far as I'm aware. Ah, you might say, but those laws exist in Germany and Austria for a reason; they are safeguards against the spread of extremism. Well, I would challenge you to examine some of the anti-semitism that existed, and still exists, in this great country of ours. I am sure that, if we had such a law, there would be no great difficulty in identifying the first people to smite with it. Such laws are unnecessary, difficult to enforce, and fundamentally counter to the freedom of expression that our constitutions embody (codified in writing in the USA, codified by precedent in the UK).

If somebody wants to deny the Holocaust, let them make a twat of themselves in public. Engage with them. Open the argument and expose its flaws. Having studied experimental psychology for ten years, I'm cynical about the degree to which humans can engage rationally on matters that seem so connected to their fear (cf. 'reds under the beds', or 'Jews control the international monetary system'), but the notion that ideas can be squashed by the government is, to use a word often employed in experimental psychology, bollocks.

Don't let the ideas flourish in a fenced-off plot; let the ideas interact wildly, and the ideas that are absurd will wither.

Which pillar of representative government were we shinning up just a few days ago, when the Muslim world reacted angrily to defacements of their religion's figurehead? Hello? The German and Austrian constitutions need revert to their core principles; the Allied modification of their constitutions was a dyke against a flood that never came.

This from Hans Raucher, writing in Austria's Der Standard:

Holocaust deniers like David Irving want to trivialise these inconceivable crimes and make them politically acceptable. That is the decisive point. Whoever wants to render National Socialism harmless wants to revive it as a political option. It's just too much to ask of democracy to tolerate this. And it is deplorable treatment of the victims.

Wrong. It is not too much to ask of a democracy to tolerate this. The democracy is strong enough. The democracy should give voice to all its citizens (said the blog-writer). My experience relates only to Germany, not Austria, but my consistent impression is one of an anti-militaristic society (they don't even like children to wear school uniforms), still very much aware of the past, and it is the last place I'd expect to need anti-extremist legislation. Anti-extremist legislation is the mark of an extraordinary situation, like the one facing Germany and Austria following the Second World War. It's time for these constitutions to accept free speech.

Two words: Pot? Kettle? Tell me about it. Wir sind auch crazy - ich weiss das.

Tycho Magnetic Anomaly One

Why do people hate Waterstone's so much? For the same reason, I would guess, people hate Microsoft (and, as a Mac user, I hate them more than most). Waterstone's is getting to be a monolithic institution, and when something gets that dominant, the positive aspects of its hegemony fade while the negative aspects start to grate.

Like the man says, it's all about perception. Various sources this morning point to a 'charm offensive' (Grumpy's phrase) on the part of Gerry Johnson, who is the new Managing Director of Waterstone's. He thinks that authors and - uh-oh - customers have the wrong idea about Waterstone's, and it's easy to see why. Waterstone's demand huge discounts from publishers (which squeeze the author disproportionately), decide for themselves how many copies of a book are required and then, charmingly, send the units back to the publisher if they remain unsold after a specified period. If a publisher isn't happy with this, they can take their business elsewhere - i.e. nowhere. Of course, it's difficult to blame a business for negotiating the best terms for itself, because the management have a duty to their shareholders. And, if a company has huge leverage, it is likely to adopt a robust position within the market.

Still, when I walked into my local Waterstone's yesterday (Exeter high street), this was not my impression:

WATERSTONE’S WAS ONCE the favourite bookseller of the literati. The shops, with their red carpets and black shelving, were like idealised libraries, jammed with books often overflowing from shelves and tables on to the floors. The staff were knowledgeable and often maverick; you got an exciting sense that the selections represented the idiosyncratic tastes of the company’s booksellers.

The above quote comes from an article in the Times by Nicholas Clee, formerly editor of The Bookseller, now freelancer.

My impression was one of volume-shifting. The 3-for-2 table contained books that were literally years old. I don't mean classics, which are hard enough to find in Waterstone's (try looking for Norman Mailer), but books like Cloud Atlas, Bridget Jones's Diary, and other titles I recognised from the last time I lived in Exeter two years ago. Variety: out the window. Volume-shifting: in the door, smothering the 3-for-2 tables and tripping you up as your come in.

Clee makes a couple of comments about Scott Pack:

Pack has become the bogeyman — the man who revels in his power as dictator of the nation’s reading, arrogantly dismisses distinguished writers and has contempt for critics. There were reportedly celebrations in some quarters last week when he announced he was leaving in the summer.

“The way Scott has been characterised has been very unfortunate,” Johnson says. “He is an incredibly knowledgeable and passionate book buyer.” Certainly Pack has helped several small publishers and even self-publishers. He has offered them advice, read their books and even given them promotional support.

Indeed. If Johnson wants to change the perception of Waterstone's, he should encourage his staff to engage with the wider literary community - as Scott has been doing, to great effect - and narrow the gap between us, the little people, and Waterstone's, the monolith.

Technorati Tags: fiction, puppy, scott pack, writing

James Aach's 'Rad Decision'

James Aach, whose novel Rad Decision has been published electronically on the author's website, contacted me today with the news that he's written an essay about the difficulties of publishing his book.

I don't know Mr Aach all that well, but he sounds pretty on-the-ball, considering the comments he makes:

Dialogue is hard. It’s a real art form – and a real chance for any writer to look very, very bad.

Amen to that. The dialogue I write these days - and I've written a fairish amount, getting on for one million words of fiction - is vastly different from the stuff I used to write. Hopefully better. But it's hard work, and the quicker I realised that the sooner I started writing decent stuff.

Fiction is about characters – usually human beings. There’s just no way around that. (I looked.) A work of fiction can have useful science thrown in, but if the reader doesn’t care about the characters in some way, you’ll lose them quickly. (Yes, you can have a robot or a lab mouse as a central character – as long as it has feelings.)

Absolutely. If a writer doesn't care about his characters, it's time to stop writing and change the characters. One good thing is that if the writer does genuinely care about his creations, and can write in sentences, the reader is likely to care about them too. A surprising number of the books I've read over the past few months have been examples of poor characterisation.

I've read a snippet or two of Mr Aach's book, and I think you could do worse than taking a look.

Next audio instalment of Déjà Vu published

Don't forget I'm publishing Déjà Vu, for free, as an audio podcast. I'm up to chapter fifteen (of twenty six). The latest edition is now available and you can download it directly from here. To be notified of updates to the podcast, fill in your details on the form to the right of this post (just below the cover graphic). You can check the podcst feed manually here.

Miscellanea

I'm thinking of moving over from a lengthy Saturday post, which is the method I've been using thus far on this blog, to shorter and more frequent posts. In that spirit, here are some snippets of news.

Book review

My review of Mil Millington's Love and Other Near-Death Experiences has appeared on Spike Magazine.

Scott Pack Interview

Chris Mitchell over at Spike Magazine has run this interview with Scott. It's very interesting, particularly if you're a new writer who wonders how on earth you're meant to get your book into Waterstone's. Scott provides an address.

Progress on 'Flashback'

Not as much as I'd like - as usual. This week I have been mostly joining a new gym, discovering what it's like to have a sauna (it's frickin' hot), but the primary reason for slow progress is the research-heavy portion of the book. A character is about to board the ill-fate airliner Star Dust, and it's important to get the detail right. The details surrounding the aircraft has been quite straightforward. The difficulty is in breathing life into the people who were really there; which languages did they speak? how would they have acted? in which cultural milieux (or whatever the plural of that word is) did they swim?

Since I had some nice responses from the last snippet I published, here's another, with the usual caveats associated with a first draft:

“I don’t understand.”

Kirby lifted the cradle and let the waitress wipe the bar top. He set the phone down and said, in the overcooked Spanish of a German native, “I will spell it.” He checked his pocket watch. “S. T. E. N. L. O. C. Did you hear me? Repeat it, please.”

“S. T. E. N. L. O. C.”

“That is correct. It must run in the evening edition, with the exact form I have given you. Do you understand?”

“I’ve written down, ‘To J. Stenloc. From K.’”

Kirby popped the watch clasp with his thumb, press it shut, and opened it again. “I will send a boy with money.”

“Let me calculate the cost.”

“No need. The boy will have enough.”

“Sir, I should –”

Kirby hung up. He multiplied the cost of the call by ten and slipped a bank note under the black foot of the telephone. Then he nodded to the waitress, pictured the dead Clarisse, and left. He hesitated at the porch and dropped a trilby over his hair, oily with brilliantine, before the fair winds could disturb it. A wintry Saturday in Buenos Aires. The grass of the Plaza de Mayo was marked by blotches of shade, but the sun was dull. Well-to-do families took airs alongside hardy Argentineans whose countrymen had, not long ago, demonstrated on this plaza to secure the release of a certain Juan Domingo Perón, who now sat in the Casa Rosada as president. Kirby was sick of hearing about Peron; the president was debated in the cafés and revered in the homes, where his subjects strained hear speeches on his ‘third way’. Kirby turned to the Casa Rosada. A decrepit porteño once told Kirby that the casa was pink because it represented a fusion of the red and white of the opposing political parties that flavoured the reign of the nineteenth-century president, Sarmiento. This explanation was countered by a guffaw from the man’s female companion, who went on to give hers: gouts of cow blood mixed into the paint helped protect the palace from humidity.

Kirby nodded at the idea of a government that painted the house of its executive in blood. His correspondent’s shoes swished at the tough grass as he crossed the edge of the plaza. He entered the Avenida de Mayo and found the gates of el subte, the underground. His cane clicked on the hard stairs.

92,199 / 120,000 (75.0%)

Comings and Goings

Apologies, once more, for the blatant advertising of the previous post. I'm working with Chris Mitchell over at SpikeMagazine to test-drive his advertising system (the advert for Déjà Vu is to the right of the main column). Currently, Chris has the advert hooked up to my Amazon.co.uk page, but suggested that a more informative 'landing' page might be a better idea.

Amazon, by the way, is a right crowd. The American version of the website has forever listed the language of Déjà Vu as Spanish, and persists in doing so despite - or perhaps because of - increasingly rude emails from myself and my publisher. No replies, obviously. That's one example of the drawbacks that a multi-tentacled behemoth can have for publishing. Though, of course, Amazon has revolutionized the buying experience for consumers: when you enter the Amazon site, you can be certain of actually finding the book you want. Try doing that in Waterstone's, where you trip over a 3-for-2 table (don't get me started) as you walk through the door, finally get to the section you want, only to find that Kurt Vonnegut is nowhere to found because his books don't shift units above the monthly criterion.

Those with their ear to the blogosphere will know that Scott Pack, chief buyer for UK high street bookshop Waterstone's, will depart their climes for pastures new (probably already occupied by free-range chickens). One blog (I'll see if I can find the link) attributes his departure to a 'push' due to (i) not increasing profits sufficiently and (ii) generating too high a profile on blogs. Anyone who has come into contact with Scott will wish him well, I think. He recently read my own book and promised to send it on to a number of publishers. Immediately, he sent the copy he read to a good agency, who contacted me. When that didn't work out, Scott took it upon himself to email me asking where the further copies were. It turned out that my publisher's printer - who shall remain nameless in this article - had 'lost' the order, and not for the first time. Pausing only to slap my forehead, I contacted my publisher to re-send the order, which was duly done: the batch for Scott arrived forthwith, and they are now winging their way to agents in what Scott calls his 'Plan B'. So you won't find me making any critical remarks of Scott, who has consistently gone beyond the call of duty on my behalf, even when an ordering mistake at my end stretched his generosity beyond the point where I might have expected it to break. Best of luck to Mr Pack in his next endeavour, which should follow a lengthy and well-deserved sabbatical.

Precious little progress on Flashback this week. I've had to mark kilos of postgraduate assignments; about fifteen of them at almost two hours a pop. Next week it's back to the literary grindstone.

86,310 / 120,000 (71.0%)

Technorati Tags: fiction, hocking, scott pack, writing

Déjà Vu by Ian Hocking

Jon Courtenay Grimwood, writing in The Guardian Review:

"Investigator Saskia Brandt is dedicated to fighting high-level crime, or at least she thinks she is. David Proctor has no memory of bombing a British research facility in 2003, but plenty of people seem to think he did it. Then there's Bruce Shimoda, who is doing his absolute best to hide from a metal shark. While John Hatfield is a billionaire American philanthropist. Unless, of course, he's something else ... Ian Hocking's first novel mixes terrorism, time travel, counterintelligence and virtual reality.

"What makes Déjà Vu interesting is the understated, almost 1950s feeling Hocking brings to what is essentially a post-cyberpunk novel about murder and identity. His layering of the narrative is thoughtful and the way he makes events from different decades mirror each other shows quiet skill. This is a small-press publication; as such, it probably won't get the exposure it deserves. Larger publishers may want to take note."

Saskia Brandt will return in Flashback.

Déjà Vu is available from Amazon and a number of other locations.

Reviews

'A crisply-written, fast-paced thriller that makes assured use of cutting-edge science fiction ideas.'

--- Ken MacLeod, best-selling author of The Star Fraction.

'You've never read anything like it before.'

--- SFX

'I was enthralled and contagiously compelled to carry on throughout. The level of computerisation of daily life is plausible and handled with casual panache. It's gripping, fascinating, and powerful, and really well written, with wonderful pace.'

--- Ian Watson, screenwriter Artificial Intelligence: AI

'An interesting debut novel that successfully blends cyberpunk and technothriller and presents a few good sci-fi ideas along the way. ...The scenes set inside the digital world developed by Proctor and his partner Bruce Shimoda are particularly impressive. [This book] suggests that Hocking (whose first novel this is) can create interesting scenarios. There are some inventive and witty AI conceits, and Hocking's near-future world is neatly extrapolated from ours.'

--- Andy Sawyer, The Alien Online [read in full]

'The novel mixes real and virtual worlds with an absorbing near-future thriller narrative and intriguing ruminations on the nature of memory and self and has genuine cross-over appeal beyond the SF&F genre. The reviews he’s picked up ... point to a new voice in Brit SF that we should all be taking an interest in.'

--- Joe Gordon, Forbidden Planet International [read in full]

'A multi-threaded, thought-provoking sci-fi thriller. The story balances technology and people nicely, having the right mixture of both - the character building doesn’t overshadow the technology, and visa versa. There are some well thought out uses for technology, some of which I think are unique. Interaction between the characters is well thought out. It is always a nice suprise to see a debut novel such as Déjà Vu. Thoroughly recommended.'

--- Richard Hawkins, SciFi.uk.com [read in full]

'Déjà Vu is a pacey, crisply-written thriller set in a plausible near future. A clever blending of traditional SF tropes with cyberpunk shadings, there are some intriguing notions and a skilfully woven mystery element. Ian Hocking’s debut novel displays both sound scientific extrapolation and a mature confidence.'

--- Stan Nicholls

'I found Déjà Vu to be fast-paced, complex, ambitious, and written in a mature, clean-lined style that belied its status as a first novel. I felt that it trod a careful line between the all-comers accessibility of the contemporary thriller, and the more targeted ideas-driven pleasures of genre SF. In the first of these areas I found the principal characters real-feeling and engaging, while in the second the of issues of identity and personality were given a treatment that was detailed and fresh and which genuinely -- to my eye at least -- seemed to break new ground. All in all, I thought it an enviable debut.'

--- Stephen Gallagher, novelist and screenwriter

'Excellent...crisp and professional. This book bodes well for the future.'

--- Michael Allen (aka Grumpy Old Bookman) [read in full]

'A smart read filled with clever, fresh dialogue. The plot of Déjà Vu is intricate enough to leave readers pondering its twists long after they've finished it.'

--- Debra Hamel, book-blog.com [read in full]

'Get ready to have a mind-blowing experience. [This is] one mighty potent story, my friends. [I was] enthralled. Save this book for when you can isolate yourself and dedicate some time to a thought-provoking experience. This is good stuff.'

--- POD Girl [read in full]

'A fast-moving science fiction thriller. ...The book's real strength is not its imaginative look at the future of science, although this is fascinating, but the way the writer is able to make the disorientation the characters feel affect the reader. It is a gripping story told in a smart, simple manner. ...This may be a sci-fi book, but its strengths are the traditional virtues of any good book; namely, characters and plot. I imagine that Ian Hocking could turn his hand to more than one genre, and I have high hopes for his next book. Déjà Vu is an adventurous but unpretentious and very impressive debut.'

--- Exeposé [read in full]

'This is a science fiction novel. This is a chase novel. This is a multi-stranded, complicated novel that defies understanding at times, but is still fully involving and provides a very clever and satisfying denouement. This novel works. The writer's style is consistent with his content and the story fairly speeds along. It is confusing at times, but that is only because we are not given all the facts at once. This means that when we do find out what has been going on, we can happily exclaim, "Of course!" Science fiction does not work for everyone and this book, with its sentient computers, nano-technology and brain-wipes, will not be to all tastes. It was to mine, though, and, if you're that way inclined, I confidently predict it will be to yours too.'

--- Tregolwyn Book Reviews [read in full]

'It's well written...lots of action, some violence, plenty of clues and motifs hinting at what is to come, but enough suspense to keep you turning the page. ...I think the author is too good a writer to get trapped in the pigeonhole (black hole?) of SF.'

--- Exeter Flying Post

The Truth is Out There

First off, apologies for the two incongruous posts prior to this one. I'm using the blog to host some content, so I need a page to 'point to' for each of my current works-in-progress, the technothriller Flashback and the comedy Proper Job.

Second off, the next instalment of Déjà Vu is up on the podcast feed.

The whole thing about James Frey continues to spark gossip among the literati. Frey, of course, had a huge hit last year with his redemption memoir A Million Little Pieces. Then a website called The Smoking Gun discovered that he had fabricated significant portions of the manuscript - he wasn't such a bad boy after all, apparently - and, presto, Frey had an even huger hit. To be fair, he has eviscerated himself with a sword handed to him by Oprah Winfrey, but there is no such thing as bad publicity when it comes to selling books. Frey's royalties currently total three million US dollars.

The whole debacle got me thinking about the duty of a writer to research the factual information in his book. The case of Frey is not generalisable to all fiction, of course, because his book was sold on the assumption that it was not largely fictional. In other genres, such the thriller, readers expect to be duped.

I once heard Frederick Forsyth (whose novels captivated me as a teenager) tell the story of picking up a book at an airport and being disgusted, mid-flight, that the book's author had not even bothered to get his facts right. In part because of this, Forsyth went on to write The Day of the Jackal, a cracklingly accurate, if somewhat empty, read.

My own novel has reached the point where one of the characters is mooching around Buenos Aires in 1947 - as one does in time-travel-techo-hypno-uber thrillers. How do I know what Buenos Aires was like in 1947? I don't. But there are plenty of maps, old photos, aural history, and historical accounts on the web. After fifteen minutes of scratching around, this is what I came up with:

Tierra Argentina, land of silver, and this port city set on its eastern hip: Kirby loved them both. He walked briskly out of the San Telmo district, where, on his first visit, he had lingered hours over the mash of Spanish colonial designs, Italian flourishes and something that approached French Classicism. The painfully cosmopolitan architecture was highlighted by exteriors painted thick, primary colours. The Dutch painter, Mondrian, adored by Kirby's father-in-law, was three years dead, but in Buenos Aires he was celebrated, intentionally or not. Kirby placed his cane between the cobbles and tipped his hat to the strutting tango Porteños and their bandoneón accompanists. The tango had been refreshed by the recent ascendancy of Juan Perón, and Kirby's nerves moved to its rhythm, despite the shortness of his visit. The eyes of other travellers – a hard breed – touched his, like Geoffroy's cats making distant contact through the grasses of the Pampas. He passed the boutiques, smiled politely at prostitutes and declined the split coconuts with twisted straws. He moved through pockets of coffee-stained air, the tea-like odour of chewed coca leaves, and the autumnal smell of cigars. The life of the city overwhelmed him, and this was siesta, the quiet time.

This is the style typical of my first drafts: twice as many adjectives as needed, twice as many facts. No worries, because these things work about half the time, and this should be a tight little paragraph when it's been boiled down to half the length.

The point I'm lumbering Igor-like towards is that this paragraph begins a scene that starts with an important event and ends with an important event; both those events constitute a change in Kirby's character. That's a story: the emotional relief of characters developing. The city could be Santiago, Madrid, or Glasgow. The important, foreground questions are completely separate from the background: Who is Kirby? Where is he going? Is he in danger? (Yes.)

My response to Mr Forsyth - who is a fine writer - is that the streets of a story are not paved with facts whose cracks undermine its integrity. The story is the emotional journey. The facts take second place. Easy for me to say, of course, when he's been a best-selling author for thirty years. Whether I can prove that with my current book remains to be seen.

Current progress on 'Flashback':

82,900 / 120,000 (68.0%)

Flashback

A thriller by Ian Hocking - coming soon

A fifty-year-old mystery is about to be solved.

September, 1947: Avro-Lancastrian 'Star Dust' reports a successful trans-Andean flight from Buenos Aires to Santiago, and signals its intention to land. Four minutes prior to touchdown, it sends the letter sequence 'S-T-E-N-D-E-C'. Queried by puzzled ground controllers, the young ex-RAF operator aboard the Star Dust rapidly keys 'STENDEC, STENDEC'. Then silence. Star Dust vanishes along with all passengers and crew.

October, 2003: German Air flight A628 impacts vertically with the Bavarian National Forest. The only clue to its fate is the co-pilot's final transmission, shouted against the roar of failing engines: 'Stendec.'

Within hours, air safety investigators have been dispatched to the crash site. Investigator-in-charge Hrafn Óskarson has more questions than answers. Who erased the flight data recorders? What is the true identity of passenger Saskia Dorfer, whose documents have proved false? Who torched her Berlin apartment? And why did Saskia's English friend Jem refuse to board the flight?

The mystery of German Air flight A628 will be solved by a startling conspiracy that reaches twenty years into our future - and fifty years into our past.

Based on real events, 'Flashback' centres on Saskia Brandt, a character from my first book, 'Déjà Vu', described by The Guardian as 'showing quiet skill' and by SFX as 'a solid technothriller'. More reviews.

If you wish to be notified when the book is released, send me an email at ian_hocking (at) uk2.net.

Technorati Tags: fiction, writing

Proper Job

A comedy novel by Ian Hocking

Coming of age was never meant to be this hard. Fabe Carrick, an eighteen-year-old sales assistant for the St Austell branch of Shoe World, has been offered a place at Oxford University. In the regrettable absence of a Cornish Affirmative Action programme, Fabe will need to work every hour of the summer or he'll fall short of his tuition fees.

The crimp in his plan arrives in breathtaking form: Penelope Brown, heiress to the Brown's Ice-Cream empire. Before long, Fabe has been sacked from Shoe World, and finds himself in the surprisingly dangerous role of ice-cream man.

The cut in pay will not help him achieve the tuition fees. Neither will his best friend Doogie, who has also taken a shine to Penelope, or his new boss, Big Jeff, whose belly shakes like a bowl full of jelly when he screams, "You'm fired!" Then there's Fabe's militaristic older brother, The Rupert. And Old Boy, whose name no one can remember.

Proper Job is a story about a boy, a girl, long queues, dangerous driving, CB language, the dark art of magazine inserts, and Alaskan malamutes. Beach-time reading will never be the same again.

---

Some Excerpts

On meeting Penelope Brown

She had scarlet ribbons in her brown hair, and they flickered when she moved. Her eyes were steady and confident. She wore a blue T-shirt. It stopped above her belly button, where a dot of silver twinkled. Below that, she wore a denim skirt and flip-flops. These clothes – peripheral irrelevancies – were enough to make the edge of my vision crinkle with starlight before I even considered the body underneath. As I stopped, a little too far away to be normal – a great start – she smiled. I began the usual business of collecting and sifting every element of her expression for the gold of genuine attraction and the possibility that she might, one day, given the right circumstances – and, if necessary, chemicals – agree to have proper sex with me.

Proper sex, mind. With the lights on.

Ironic, then, that I chose to destroy the possibility of such a scenario by holding out my hand and saying, "H'mah," which isn't even a word.

Later that same conversation

"So," Penelope said loudly, restarting the conversation, "you work here."

Deep breaths, I thought. Articulate yourself.

"Work. I work in Shoe World."

Excellent. Now ask her if she'd like to see some puppies.

"That's that settled," Penelope said. She was on the brink of another smile.

Right, forget the puppies. She thinks you're being ironic. She is impressed by your post-modern approach to conversation. Cite something erudite.

"I –"

"Yes?"

"I work in Shoe World."

Remember this moment for every day that remains of your sexless life.

On the all-out fun of paintball

I glowered at him as he spread an icing of mud across his forehead. A hood covered his dark hair. Across his goggles, he had scrawled 'Born To Kill' in Tipp-Ex. On my own goggles, and at Doogie's urging, I had written 'Animal Mother', but my writing was so neat that the effect was ruined. Doogie wanted to write 'Me love you long time' on Old Boy, but the latter could not be pinned down for long enough.

After the first-aid

The paintballing had done its evil work: to a man, the warriors stood akimbo as though their testicles needed separate score sheets for size. One or two were smoking cigarettes for the first time. They spoke with the gravely resignation of soldiers expecting combat flashbacks, wives who hid the steak knives and children who wanted to know why daddy was living in the tree house.

Philosophy for eighteen-year-olds

Penelope, her waterproofs returned, approached the last of the Contemptibles as we sat on the bonnet of Doogie's Fiat, tossing stones at a crisp packet. The figure under her jeans and T-shirt was unbearable to behold. I wondered what would happen if the irresistible force of her sexiness met the immovable object in my trousers.

"No hard feelings, boys?"

H'wah, fah.

On looking gruff and manly in front of the woman you love

As the bike slid into my arms, I was sure to appear unfazed by its crippling weight. I even whistled, but because every muscle in my body was as tight as a violin string, and because my feet strutted left, right and backwards with the grace of a cockerel with anarchic leg syndrome, and because the bike was slipping through my unfurling fingers, the tune carried more spit than note; it was a movement more bowel than musical.

"As you are," he said.

"To me," I replied. "Steady as she – harnf!"

I folded like a weak poker hand, was pressed to the ground, and watched the bike's single rear wheel roll over my goolies, up my stomach, across my mouth – where it pushed my lip into a brief snarl – and watched all over again as the two front wheels delivered the same treatment to the edges of my body, only twice as painfully. I was the image of Vitruvian Man in first draft, when Da Vinci had sketched him holding his gonads and looking surprised.

"To you," I whispered.

The sterling support of friends

Old Boy jumped astride the contraption with the easy swing of a cowboy born in the saddle. He took a breath, straightened his tie, and nodded at the blue yonder. He opened the leather pouch on the cross bar and pulled out a huge hand-bell. Penelope nodded like a proud mother surveying her son's spiffy blazer on his first day of school.

He rang the bell.

B'ding, dongy-dong.

I'm not proud of what I said next. But it was my duty as a friend and, above that, as a human being.

"Mate, you look a right twat."

On the humane treatment of tourists

It was with little regret that I made sudden topiary of those customers near the roaring back wheels. I did not salute as prelude to departure, but, by God, I was powerfully tempted. For their part, the queue folk looked at me in a way that implied a wish to lock me inside a wicker man, set fire to it, link arms and sing 'Summer is A-Cumen In'.

Then I looked at the sweaty head of the thwarted Highball man and, damn it, treated myself to the salute I deserved.

"'Ere," he shouted. "Are 'ee goyn give me a Highball?"

"I'll give you 'Highballs'," I growled.

"Really?"

"No!"

A grand day out

Though it was only my second day on the job, I went about the preparations for launch as though I were a pensioner reprising a slow, easy dance from his youth. Scoops: one missing. Return to desk and pick up straggler. Float: miscounted. Return to desk. Van: though tickled by the key, won't burst into the laughter. Receive lesson in how to start a diesel engine from Big Jeff. Take hem of white jacket. Wipe spit from glasses. In back of van, check water taps are working. Take hem of white jacket. Wipe water from shoes. Fill bucket with soapy water. Wash outside of van. Throw dregs of dirty water across windscreen. Take hem of white jacket. Offer it to drenched Old Boy. Maintain straight face. Check oil and water. Fail to find either, but call it good. Check chimes: Wartime Vienna evoked wonderfully by the zither theme from The Third Man. Attach Old Boy's bike trailer to the tow hitch. Start engine. Nod grimly at other van drivers, who are also ready to launch. Who are ready to eat their own ice-cream and ask for seconds. Roar from the depot pulling zephyrs of dust. Pass Big Jeff who stands in the centre of the ramping wheeling his arm in a G'wan, m'beauties fashion.

Professional rivalries

Ahead of us, in an unsettling repeat of the pinched-pitch débâcle, was the rear of a 1940s ambulance with Mafia-inspired blackened windows. I knew I had to overtake it at all costs. My driving style shifted from common-or-garden panic to the devil-may-care double-declutching-for-the-hell-of-it madcappery of a television motor journalist voicing a to-the-camera line to top all lines, in the world, ever.

"I'll chase him round Good Hope –"

"Steady," said Old Boy.

"And round the horn –"

"Is that legal?"

"And round the Norway maelstrom –"

"We're not that lost."

"And round perdition's flames before I give him up."

We swooped on the ambulance.

"Easy, Fabe!" screamed Old Boy. "Easy like Sunday morning!"

I looked across and saw that he had put an empty ten-litre tub over his head.

All play and no work

I looked for Old Boy. He was standing next to a young woman. Both were staring at something on a worktop, but Old Boy obscured my view of it. When I touched his shoulder, he turned to me with sick dread.On the counter, moving in slow circles like an obscene spinning top, was a vibrator. I pulled Old Boy back before it could injure him.

"She asked me," Old Boy whispered, "how many speeds I have. I don't have any speeds, Fabe. I don't have any speeds!"

What to do as Old Boy slowly drifts into the maws of industrial machinery

Madame screamed again. I tuned into her ultra-sonic wavelength. "The red button!"

"There are no red buttons."

"Heng, it's looking right at you."

"There's a blue one."

"Push the red one, shit bag."

I whirled around and flapped my ridiculous mittens. "There is no red button."

Madame's gorgon eyes blazed. Her hair writhed in a Hadean wind.

"Alright," I said. "I'll check again. Ah, now. There is a crimson one. Though 'carmine' would be a better term."

"I'll frickin' swing for 'ee."

Thoughts when falling at high speed

My brain requested in its benevolent, dictatorial way that my left foot please meet the ground at the earliest possible convenience. This was due to unforeseen circumstances involving my right foot. My left foot – always a trooper – struck the sandy path without bothering to inform my knee about the new schedule. My knee had no time to bend. The shock travelled up my leg to my hip, briefly popped the ball from socket joint, and chimed up my spine with the enthusiasm of a tone deaf toddler playing mummy's piano with daddy's hammer.

The situation held room for improvement. My legs had turned to jelly. My brain, jelly-like at the best of times, now needed to rally the troops.

Now jolly look here. Left hand and right hand: On behalf of the body, particularly the face, which would prefer not to be rubbed away on the ground, could you please – listen, I know you're busy flailing – clutch desperately for the handlebar. Thank you so much. Mouth: you know what to do.

"H'yaaaaaaaaaaaaaar!"

Hiiding in the bushes on the eve of a fiendish plan

Old Boy, who squatted next to me in his baker's whites, asked, "Is this legal?"

I shook my head at his naivety. "Well, there's the legal definition of 'legal' and then there's the 'non-legal' definition, and there's no time to go into either now."

"But you said we had ten minutes yet."

I gasped at my watch. "No, it's now! Now's the time!"

Old Boy sprang upright into a karate stance and pivoted on his back foot. "What? What's happening?"

"Nothing. I did that to distract you."

Old Boy dropped back to the cover of the bush. "Mate, that's really annoying."

"Sorry."

"Next time, maybe I won't jump into a karate stance and, you know."

"What?"

"Well, my point stands."

"What point?"

My mobile buzzed. Old Boy's eyelids drooped. "Any news from Doogie?"

Technorati Tags: comedy, fiction, writing