Email malarkey

Not to mention shenanigans. Unfortunately, my service provider has - for the third time this year - screwed up my email. If you sent me an email between Tuesday and today, Friday, the chances are it's in some kind of holding pattern. The update email from UK2, which came forty-eight hours after the breakdown started (despite the secondary address I gave them for precisely this scenario), tells me that the lost emails have been archived somewhere and will be repatriated over the next few days.

This is particularly irritating because it's happened twice already. It might well be time to change provider...

The Lives of Others

1984. Germany comprises the western BRD and the eastern DDR. Families, railways, ideas - all have been cut in two.

The DDR has been Russified. Its population is monitored by the Orwellian-sounding Ministry for State Security (or Stasi, from the German for 'state security', STAatsSIicherheit). At its Berlin headquarters, the Stasi keeps files on all individuals and organisations suspected of anti-DDR activity. The motto of the Stasi is 'Shield and Sword of the Party' - and so its officers are both passive in their absorption of information and active in their destruction of lives connected (perhaps only by rumour) to subversion.

The story of The Lives of Others can be summarised in few words. Gerd Wiesler is an underachieving, isolated Stasi officer. He is assigned to monitor the activities of a playwright called Georg Dreyman, who is suspected of subversion and contact with the GDR. Wiesler begins his surveillance with gusto, and the expertise with which his team install their apparatus - behind electric sockets, in telephones - speaks to the frightening efficiency of a police state. These Stasi officers are people too - they love their work.

Ulrich Mühe as Herr Hauptmann Gerd Wiesler

As the surveillance continues, Wiesler becomes infected by the goodness and purity of Dreyman, the writer. Dreyman is a firm friend to those in his coterie damaged by the state's capricious attitude to art. He is a forgiving and faithful husband. And, when he sits down to play a sonata, Wiesler is listening from his bird's nest in the attic; the music acts as a form of unification. Wiesler rediscovers his humanity.

The film has been titled 'The Lives of Others' by its English-languages distributors, but 'Das Leben der Anderen' literally means 'The Lives of the Others'. This distinction is interesting because the film is concerned more with the clash of groups - i.e. ideologies - than intra-group conflicts. It focuses on the dualities created by imposed structures: informers versus those who refuse snitch; capitalism versus the DDR's flavour of socialism; duty to art versus the state; humanity versus inhumanity.

Martina Gedeck as the actress Christa-Maria Sieland and Sebastian Koch as Georg Dreyman.

The film is not without its difficulties. Wiesler's conversion is, frankly, unbelievable in the context of his life. Is this the first time he has heard a good piece of music? Why should the writer's performance push him to betray his state? How can Wiesler get away with nobbling an investigation when he works in organisation for which individuality is systematically subsumed in layers of checks, balances and betrayals?

Ulrich Tukur as Hauptmann Wiesler's boss, Oberstleutnant Anton Grubitz

But you can't go far wrong with a beautifully-shot character piece whose themes find reflection in many levels of story - the unification of opposites, the deliberations of betrayal and the betrayed. Plus, the director is an Oxford-educated aristrocrat called Count Florian Maria Georg Christian Henckel von Donnersmarck, which is entertaining in itself.

Ten Writing Beliefs

Over at Velcro City Tourist Board, Paul has posted an interesting article on writing tips. All writers are interested, to an extent, in codifying the principles of their craft (though some will claim that it breaks the spell to talk about it; I'm sure even these are aware of certain and persistent shaping forces in their fiction). Learning to write is an ongoing process, and, as part of this, I'll try to think up ten of my own. There is risk that this will be described as 'intellectualising'; if that's what you think this is, you haven't seen something sufficiently intellectual. I think I'd like to call these 'beliefs' because they aren't necessarily what I would impose or teach. These are just honest statements about what I've learned from trying to write novel-length fiction (which I've been doing for about twelve years).

(1) Every story, scene, paragraph and sentence must have an identity

The way a conceptual story unit (like a sentence) should work is as a crew member pulling his or her weight. Every word within a sentence must contribute to the identity of the sentence: What single thought does this sentence capture? What is its tone? Does its identity clash with the greater identity of the paragraph? If so, is this a good clash?

When you think of a good book, you probably feel something akin to a semantic thumbnail impression; a single sensation that captures what it is like to have read that book. That is the story-level identity, and it is informed by the nested identities within it.

(2) The effect of a good story should be greater than the combined effects of its components

Crikey, that's an undigestible sentence! By this, I mean that a story should operate along the Gestalt principle of 'the whole is greater than the sum of its parts'. For example, you could look at a disembodied nose, an ear, and an iris, and they mean nothing to you in isolation; but when arranged into the magnificent visage of President George Walker Bush, a new level of meaning erupts. Likewise, while the individual components of story - perhaps at the level of the sentence - may lack meaning or be plain ordinary, at the higher levels of story, where they are combined, they can appear extraordinary. Thou art more lovely and more temperate is so-so, and the word 'temperate' here borders on ugly. But placed within the structure of Sonnet 18 by You Know Who, some form of magic is conjured.

(3) The principles of story structure are to be applied in reverse

George: "But Joseph Campbell was quite specific: At the beginning of the second act, introduce the green Muppet."

This one is quite controversial because (i) stories do appear to have structures and (ii) bad stories appear to have structural problems. It seems straightforward to conclude that the application of certain structural concerns (a la The writer's journey or Story) will provide support just as sound engineering principles can ensure a building will not topple. I don't think these structures can be applied ahead of time (i.e. while the shape is being drafted) because they arise, I think, from an interaction of character, conflict, momentum, etc. They are superstructures that appear only when the jobs of lower levels are complete. Since I'm not trying to tell anyone how to write (and wouldn't even if I could write brilliantly myself), I won't fill this paragraph with loads of caveats, but here's one: This principle will be useful if you use an iterative approach to your fiction (what used to be called 'drafting'). It's possible that you do your writing in your head and only sit down when you've got an effectively finished product. In that case, the story-level superstructure might already be at work. A story begins with an inking of its identity; not a track with hurdles it must jump.

(4) A story is a place

Infocom's text adventure, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: 'I don't know the word 'shove the atomic vector plotter up the game designer's arse'. Do you mean 'hang the gown on the hook'?'

When you write, you cross a border into a new land. If you don't do this, you won't be able to write. You might need things to help you pass. The visa of a good piece of music or a photograph or a smell. When you are fully in the land of the story, you can appreciate its identity and make appropriate decisions about its construction. When you aren't, your decisions might be wrong.

(5) Writing is an unconscious process

Britta: 'Shhh. Ian's writing'

As a psychologist with a cognitive bent, I try to be careful about how I use the word 'unconscious'. Here, I do not intend to invoke Freudian or otherwise psychodynamic (mis)conceptions. I'm talking specifically of processes that occur below one's conscious threshold. The saccade of an eyeball to an interesting object is an unconscious process; as is basic reading. I believe that creating a world - i.e. writing a book - is one of those messy, intuitive tasks not suited to the narrow confines of the conscious 'wave crest'. Let yourself sleep on important story decisions. Feel your way through difficulties. Wait for your unconscious mind to background process a problem until the solution appears. Even the most dead-end of narratives can be rescued, because you'll be thinking about it all the time, because it's bugging you, right? If it's not bugging you...then you're not in the land of the story.

And now for some more practical beliefs.

(6) Writing is iterative

Kerouac notwithstanding, you will not be in a position to tell a story as beautifully as possible while writing the first draft because at least some of your mental resources will be employed in maintaining things like visual awareness, weather, location, the complex matrix of characters' intentions, and so on. Go back to the draft, identify its problems, then fix them until the draft is beautiful. Then wait. Then go back, find more problems, then fix them. Repeat until you are completely sick of the text, then repeat a few more times. If you still love the story after all that - even look forward to the next bout of editing - you either have (i) a story that works or (ii) a condition that needs medical attention. One interesting thing to note about editing is that, often, an edit can improve parts of the draft but make other parts worse (because of inconsistency of fact or tone). What you're performing is an evolutionary process: sure, a particular gene might be an improvement, but if it doesn't jive with all the other genes, you're a dodo.

(7) Don't use adverbs unless absolutely necessary

In my current novel, I've got about five adverbs. That's five too many.

(8) Delete words from a given sentence until the sentence breaks; then re-insert the minimum to fix it.

Self-explanatory, I feel.

(9) They are not called characters. They are called people

And they are responsible for everything that happens in a work of fiction, not you.

(10) Set the dial on your quality threshold to 11

The man from Havana - he say 'Nooooo!' And 'Pass the horse radish, sweetie - this warthog is trifle ripe'

Nothing should be 'good enough'. If it is weak, it is your job to strengthen it. Never say to yourself 'I'm only an apprentice writer, and this is acceptable'. Say to yourself 'Would Ernest Hemingway/John Updike/Martin Amis put his name underneath this paragraph?' No? Why not? Fix it. If it can't be fixed, destroy it.

Wow, that was cathartic. Mmmmm. What do other people think?

Final words

It's a slow old business, is writing. The stretches of time involved are so staggering that I wonder how I manage to keep the story on the rails. Well, it's reaching that happy time when a book is finished. This is 'finished' in the comedy sense employed by all writers, of course, which is usually defined as 'wait till you get the editor's report, Sonny Jim'.

I speak of none other than Flashback. It's been a year and a half since I had an idea about a character from my first book, Saskia, who had travelled back in time to the year 2003 (with a chip in her brain that provides her personality, and so on and so forth). Saskia knows that, in the year 2023, she will be around to save someone's life. So her death would represent a time paradox. Result: She cannot be killed. She is as indestructible as Cap'm Scarlet - SIG. But, I thought, death isn't the only way a person can be in jeopardy (as I thought this, I dry-washed my hands evilly and stroked a gerbil).

Then I had another idea. Let's say you're a time traveller. You're stuck in the past. You know that the 'present' ('when' you come from) will eventually pass in its exact form, otherwise 'you' won't be 'you'. You'd be someone else. It's akin to shuffling your genes; that would make you your brother or you sister. Anywho, if you spend long enough in the past, you might come to think that all these people are zombies acting out a scripted existence with no free will. But, of course, you have free will because you're from the present, aren't you? But if the state of the universe at a given point is fixed, you must be fixed as well. Meet paradox number two.

I think most people would be driven slightly bonkers by this. Not Saskia, though. She's made of sterner stuff. But the second time traveller - whom would be the 'villain' of this piece - has been shaghaied [ update: that should be 'shanghaied' :-) ] in the past for sixty years, and he is loop da loop.

Mixed up with my favourite quote from William James ('I will act as though what I do makes a difference'), and the mystery of a certain aeroplane crash, I decided to write a book.

Over the past couple of weeks, I've been getting some feedback from readers (on the first couple of chapters at least). Feedback is a tricky process. Some people are better at giving it than others; some can identify what needs to be done to correct the manuscript, whereas others have no idea; but all feedback is useful. It allows you to get inside the head of a reader somewhat.

The shortcomings of Flashback are two-fold right now. First, my prose style in the first couple of chapters - where I'm obviously trying very hard - has become so hardboiled that, unless the reader is working out the implications of every scrap of dialogue, they can't know what's going on and feel stupid. I put this down to 'high standards' (the quote marks are to signal to the irony, since the product doesn't seem to achieve this) and reading Cormac McCarthy and Thomas Harris. After The Road, I don't think I'll be able to write the same way again. But poetic prose doesn't have to be obscure; you don't need to write cryptically to write well. After all, McCarthy has been writing for years. I need to weed out the self-conscious metaphors, and put in about forty years more writing practice. One of my reviewers wrote, "If you publish this, you'll be the first person since Virgil to write a thriller in poetic verse!" I thought that was wonderful.

The second shortcoming follows closely on the heels of the first: obscurity. Because I'm a fan of McCarthy and Raymond Chandler and others for whom the style is equal to, and occasionally outguns, the plot, I'm quite used to narratives where the reader is not party to the motivations or specific driving factors of the character until later in the story. Now, this is obviously a dangerous game to play, and you've got to get the balance right. Readers won't follow characters they don't identify with in some sense. So...the lack of information has got to be an interesting lack. When you read about a mystery like the loss of the Star Dust, the absence of an accepted explanation isn't actually irritating; it's a positive force that makes you want to know more, and makes you interested in the story itself. You feel like you are about to discover something. This kind of anticipation can make twists (i.e. re-configurations of a story's identity) quite powerful, and I used it a great deal in Déjà Vu. It's something I need to get right in Flashback, and the solution will be to go slightly easier on the reader. I want to avoid the fatal pitfall of, with apologies to his fans, Murakami's Kafka on the Shore.

So these are just some random thoughts about the editing process. Back to work.

That was the Tweet that was

Hey, remember that post a few days back when I wrote about a column in Advertising Age that used one of my tweets to illustrate the pointlessness of Twitter? Looks like the magazine article is now in a password-protected area of the site, so you can't hear it from the horse's mouth, but said columnist has written a nice follow-up expanding upon his ideas, which you can read here. He seems like such a nice bloke that I almost regret calling him a muppet.

*UPDATE: Simon writes to tell me that this isn't a picture of him, by the way, it's David Carey, former publisher of The New Yorker. OK, so I can be a muppet too...*

Reading 'Jubilee'

It's amazing what you can find on the Internet these days. This afternoon I stumbled across this nine-minute video of me reading a short story called 'Jubilee' at a UKAuthors bash (which, I recall, was the launch of the UKA Press). The sound is a little underpowered, but should be audible. Jubilee was published in The Quiet Feather and this was my first ever public reading. The clip was uploaded by David 'SIRAT' Gardiner. You can view other clips from the evening too.