Cornerstones Mini Masterclass October 2015

with Ayisha Malik, Managing Editor at Cornerstones Literary Consultancy.

Each issue, Cornerstones Literary Consultancy explore and critique a reader's opening page. If you would like to participate in their Opening Page Mini Masterclass, send your opening page (400 approx words) as a Word Document attachment to submissions@wordswithjam.co.uk with the subject ‘Cornerstones Masterclass’. Pieces for critique are chosen at random from those submitted to Words with JAM.

Encoded

by Terry Ellen

Tim Browne didn’t even hear the storm. On the eve of his thirteenth birthday, when—for his own health, not to mention his Aunt Nellie’s peace of mind—he really should have been asleep, he was lying on his bed (in truly dorky pyjamas) wearing headphones and playing guitar. This is what he did almost every night, even when he wasn’t turning a year older the next day. It was not only a passion, but also an effective escape from the parts of his life that made him unhappy, which, these days, was pretty much all of them.

Beside him on the bed was a CD case whose resident artists were identified as the Three Fingers—a rock band his dad Rob had played in before Tim was born. He was listening to the album full blast and doing his best to play along with his dad’s gnarly riffs. His dad was a pretty awesome guitar player. Not as awesome as Jimi Hendrix, of course, who looked down benignly on Tim from his place of honor on the wall beside his bed. His dad had given him that poster and both of them knew no one was as awesome as Hendrix.

Suddenly, there was a blinding flash followed by an ear-splitting crack loud enough to penetrate even the full-blast, surround-sound musical world in which Tim was immersed. Tim jumped up and pulled off his headphones, looking around in alarm. When he heard the rain pounding the cottage, he quickly figured out the cause of the disturbance. In case he had any doubts, another peal of thunder, almost as loud as the first, confirmed his hypothesis.

Tim raised the window blind and peered outside, wondering just how close the lightning strike had been. It couldn’t have been very far, that was certain. He took a deep breath and exhaled, feeling his pounding heart slowly starting to return to normal. He put the headphones back on. The band was just about to go into the big finish. Smiling, he assumed his best rock and roll pose and raised his arm, getting ready to hit the final E7 chord. As his pick hit the strings there was another blaze of light. This time Tim didn’t have to guess where the bolt hit. The blast of electricity surged through the guitar, cementing Tim to the spot and freezing his entire body in an absurd contortion, a parody of rock and roll excess. As a noise like an explosion shook the cottage, Tim fell to the floor. It was a hell of a finish.

Critique by Ayisha Malik

I think there is potential in this opening page, especially to wring out the Tension that builds to the climax towards the end. In order to maximise on this the author could employ more Show Don’t Tell as well as anchor us more firmly in the main character’s Point of View, which links to Voice. Voice is all-important, particularly in children’s fiction (although it’s not entirely clear whether this is adults or children’s) and once the author unearths this it will immediately feel more authentic, vibrant and should positively impact on other aspects such as: Show, internal conflict and observation. It should also help to slow down the scene in key moments to aid build-up and tension. At the moment the authorial perspective takes away from us really engaging with Tim and this diminishes the impact of what occurs by the end of the page. There are also some issues with Pace that could be honed. I’ll go into more detail about how the author can develop these technical aspects in order for this first page to live up to its potential. 

We’re immediately given a good sense of place and Tim’s character – musical, a little nerdy (the pyjamas are a good touch), unhappy. However, using more Show would help bring out the dimensions of his personality, as well as allowing the reader to engage with him. For example, when the author writes:

It was not only a passion, but also an effective escape from the parts of his life that made him unhappy, which, these days, was pretty much all of them.

The author could employ more of Tim’s thoughts in order for the reader to find out about the reasons behind his unhappiness. Is it to do with school? Friends? Family? His mother isn’t mentioned and I get the feeling there might be a story there, especially as Aunt Nellie is alluded to (where are his parents?). What are the feelings specific to Tim that help him to escape? I like the subtle irony of this: Tim has his headphones on, doesn’t notice the storm and is so fully immersed in his own world that he has no idea about the one around him, which is going to eventually lead to an incredible accident. Also, how does this passion make Tim feel? What are the physical or emotional manifestations of this passion? I also wonder whether the author could add some details here to help raise the Tension. We know Tim doesn’t notice the storm, but the author could drip-feed certain details, suggesting something happening outside in order to increase a sense of mystery and foreboding. Perhaps a flash of light that Tim catches, but he ignores it? Or perhaps the light in his room flickers as a result of the storm outside? 

The details about CDs and names of bands, while giving us an insight into Tim’s likes and nicely alluding to his positive relationship with his father, take away from the tension of the moment and slows down the Pace. The jump from ‘No-one was as awesome as Hendrix’ to ‘Suddenly there was a blinding flash’ feels rather abrupt at present. I realise that’s the nature of its suddenness but the preceding description, which feels quite slow, means the lead-on paragraph jars somewhat in the narrative. Any drip-feeding suggesting that things aren’t quite normal might help with this. 

It would be good to stay away from any clichés when describing the lightning, such as ‘Blinding flash’ (it’s hard to imagine a blinding flash when the blinds are drawn) and ‘ear-splitting crack.’ This is also a good opportunity to Show from Tim’s Point of View. Can we be shown his reaction to the light and the sound? Does he squint or shield his eyes? Is there some kind of interference with the headphones he’s wearing, piercing the sound and hurting his ears? 

Structurally, if you think of the opening we have: 
First paragraph: introduction to character and setting.
Second paragraph: musical detail, along with mention of his dad. 
Third paragraph: action.
Fourth paragraph: inciting incident. 

The paragraphs are more or less equal in length, but not necessarily equal in narrative importance. I believe that condensing the second paragraph and slowing the pace in the third and fourth would increase the Tension. Tim’s ‘pounding’ heart is a good example of Showing (though perhaps also quite clichéd) and more of this the moment he realises what’s happening outside would be good. I’d also be careful of language that sounds too formal, such as, ‘Confirmed his hypothesis.’ This doesn’t sound like the voice of a soon-to-be thirteen-year-old boy, which adds to the distancing effect between the reader and character. How does Tim feel when he sees the thunder? What is he thinking? When he puts his headphones back on I want to see the emotional transition from fear back to happiness. 

The final few lines, leading up to the incident are imperative:

As his pick hit the strings there was another blaze of light. This time Tim didn’t have to guess where the bolt hit. The blast of electricity surged through the guitar, cementing Tim to the spot and freezing his entire body in an absurd contortion, a parody of rock and roll excess. As a noise like an explosion shook the cottage, Tim fell to the floor. It was a hell of a finish.

I think more careful use of language could contribute to a tighter finish. For example, do we need, ‘This time Tim didn’t have to guess where the bolt hit.’ This feels like an authorial perspective and without it, I believe the finishing reads in a more gripping way. 

In conclusion, this page has potential but the author should think about employing more Show Don’t Tell, editing out sentences/words to fasten the Pace when needed, and focus on Tim’s emotional reactions and perspective to slow it down when necessary. A much stronger focus on honing Tim’s Voice, Point of View, and his thoughts and feelings should also help the reader to engage with both Tim and the story. 

Best of luck to the reader with developing this piece. 

That's Classic, by Anne Stormont

What gives a book classic status - the accepted definitions and a personal list

How do you judge what's classic? Is it like beauty––dependent on the beholder? To a certain extent, I think it is. For one thing, culture will play a part as will personal taste and opinion.

And the word 'classic' has various meanings and a couple of cousins.

My husband has been known to describe a soccer match that has ended in favour of his beloved Aberdeen football club as a classic. Here its use is to show that the play was a very good example of its kind. And staying with sport, there are also certain major golf and tennis tournaments which are describes as classic–– again implying something outstanding.

My son will describe certain of my behaviours, usually when he's laughing at said behaviours, as 'classic Mum', and here the meaning is that the behaviour is absolutely typical.

The classic label is also applied to things which are judged to have been of the highest quality and /or appeal over a long period of time. These could be anything from a long-running comedy or drama programme on television or radio, to a movie, a play, a piece of popular music , an item of clothing or an accessory, a hairstyle, a piece of equipment and so on––just about anything really––it just has to have enduring appeal. Think Chanel Number 5 perfume, the short bob hairstyle, just about any Beatles album, the Mini car, the movie It's a Wonderful Life, the Kenwood Chef food mixer, the Little Black Dress... Make your own list.

Then there's 'classical' the slightly posher more formal cousin of 'classic', but definitely in the same classification family. Here, too, the things having this label applied to them must be long-established, but usually by centuries rather than decades. They must also adhere to a set of long-established forms and styles, and, of course, be of an exemplary standard. So, for example, classical ballet and music, but also items that represent a first significant and influential field of study which has gone on to be further developed by others, such as classical Freudian psychoanalysis.

And finally there's the second-cousin once removed, i.e. The Classics which covers the study and interpretation of ancient Greek and Latin civilisation, their languages, yes, but also their cultural aspects such as their literature, philosophy and history. The Classics underpin the English language and, of course, many of the other modern European languages too. They also provide the foundation for just about every aspect of Western cultural arts.

But Words with Jam is a magazine for writers, so does any of the above apply to us and, more particularly, with the results of our labours? I suppose the short answer is–– it's not for us to say. Judgement will be made using some or all of the above criteria. Having the term classic applied to our books is something we as writers can only aspire too.

What applies to movies, cars and paintings applies to books too. Classic is surely in the mind's eye of the beholder.

It's readers who decide what's officially classic––readers who reach a consensus-by-osmosis over a long period of time. It could be readers of a quantum physics textbook, a literary novel, a  whodunnit, a poetry or short story collection, a children's novel or a parent-child picture book––but it will be readers who'll be the judge of what gets the classic badge.

But we can, as readers, have our own, non-consensual, list of classic books. The books that meet our personal criteria that may or may not meet the classic standards of others. Below I've listed my own personal classic book biography. It covers the period from my childhood back in the stone age to the 1990s. Anything more recent of course can't qualify yet. So the main criteria for achieving a place on Anne's classics list is relative longevity, their high level of positive influence on me and my own huge affection for and attachment to them.

The Mother Goose Book of Nursery Rhymes

The Mallory Towers series by Enid Blyton

The Child's Garden of Verses by Robert Louis Stevenson

Peter Pan by JM Barrie

Jill and the Perfect Pony by Ruby Ferguson

Vicki in Venice by Lorna Hill

Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson

Lorna Doone by RD Blackmore

Greenvoe by George Mackay Brown

The Collected Poems by Robert Burns

The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare

The Crystal Cave by Mary Stewart

The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran

The Collected Poems by TS Eliot

The Collected Poems by Gerard Manley Hopkins

Les Fleurs du Mal by Baudelaire

L'Etranger by Albert Camus

The History of the English Language by Albert Baugh

Dibs: In Search of Self by Virginia Axline

Teaching as a Subversive Activity by Postman and Gartner

How Children Learn by John Holt

The Learning Game by Jonathan Smith

Taking it Like a Woman Ann Oakley

Women Fly When Men Aren't Watching by Sara Maitland

Over by Margaret Foster

The Hours by Michael Cunningham

Unless by Carol Shields

Grace Notes by Bernard Maclaverty

Fugitive Pieces by Anne Michaels

Becoming a Writer by Dorothea Brande

So there you have it. My life story up to the millennium in thirty books. It's all in there––childhood wonder, adolescent awakening, university study, political awareness, womanhood, marriage, motherhood and my imaginative, emotional, personal and professional life. All are (to me)  high quality, influential and great examples of their kind.

What would be on your classics list?

Anne Stormont is an author-publisher. She can be a subversive old bat but maintains a kind heart. As well as writing for this fine organ, she writes fiction for adults – mainly of the female-of-a-certain-age persuasion – and for children, when she goes by the name of her alter-ego, Anne McAlpine. She blogs at http://putitinwriting.me  – where you can find out lots more about her.

Websites at: annestormont.co.uk  and annemcalpine.co.uk

Writing about diversity from the outside in

by Anne Goodwin

While it’s generally agreed that diversity in the book world is a laudable aim, there’s not a great consensus as to how to facilitate it. Recently on Words with Jam, Debbie Reese cautioned against outsiders writing about Native Americans in books for children, while Farhana Shaikh, in the UK, saw no reason why white writers shouldn’t create BME characters. Having recently published my debut novel about a woman whose particular minority background I don’t share, I’m particularly sensitised to this polarisation of opinion. I want to avoid inadvertently perpetuating negative stereotypes but I also believe that diversity in fiction is everyone’s responsibility. While it would be painful to be accused of racism or homophobia, straight white writers have to do our bit.

I didn’t set out to write a “diversity novel” but, as the story evolved, I realised this was the right way to go. While I’m no expert, feedback, in the form of reviews, suggests I’ve done a good-enough job, so I thought it worth passing on some tips based on my experience of writing about diversity from the outside in.

Learn your craft

If you’re relatively new writer, it might be advisable to defer your “diversity novel” until you have honed your skills. Creating authentic characters of any kind is challenging; do you want to add another layer of complexity to the mix? Sugar and Snails took me seven years from inception to publication, partly because I didn’t realise what a complex task I’d set myself. On the other hand, my passion for the story made me determined to make it work.

Find a safe place to explore your prejudices

We’ve all grown up with assumptions about those who are not like us. The more we can be aware of our stereotypes and prejudices, the less likely they are to contaminate our fiction. If you can’t access equality and diversity training, at least examine your attitudes in confidence with a close friend.

Avoid stereotypes and ration the humour

Make sure your characters don’t conform to cultural stereotypes, and don’t make them the butt of your jokes. While most novels benefit from a sprinkling of humour, the truly comic novel should be left to those writing from inside.

Do your research, but don’t get lost within it

You’ll need to read around your subject and check up on facts, but don’t let your fear of mistakes impede the flow. If you keep your focus on why this topic interests you, you might find you don’t need as much background information as you originally thought. It can be liberating to let go of one’s grandiosity: you’re not writing the definitive text on a particular community, but one possible version of life within it. A journey of the imagination encompasses myriad possibilities.

Dig deep to find your personal connection with your character

Despite diverse cultural practices, at the emotional level, human beings are fundamentally the same. Connecting with your character emotionally, will make your fiction live and breathe. Give them some aspect of your own personality or history, or dress up in their clothes, so that you feel less the creator than the conduit for their experiences.

Let your readers get close and personal

First-person or close third-person points of view help reduce the distance between character and reader. Invite them inside your character’s mind, let readers live the story through their eyes. That doesn’t necessarily entail forgoing suspense. Consistent with her secretive personality, the exact nature of Diana’s identity issue in Sugar and Snails isn’t spelt out until halfway through.

Sensitively seek feedback from those in the know

Just as fiction with a school setting might benefit from feedback from a teacher, try to get the perspective of someone on the inside. But do this sensitively: your acquaintance might not identify as strongly with the minority community as you assume. Consider also when to show them your manuscript: a polished final draft is more engaging than a crude early one. With Sugar and Snails, we didn’t seek an opinion from any experts-through-experience until the proof stage. Fortunately, they loved it.

If you believe in it, do it!

Finally, if you’ve considered these points but are still uncertain, why not just give it a go? Writers need to be free to write that story we want to write, regardless of what others think. If you’re committed to your project, and you’re prepared to do the work, you’ll get there eventually.

Author bio

Anne Goodwin writes fiction, short and long, and blogs about reading and writing, with a peppering of psychology. Two of her short stories (“Heroes” and “The Beach Where He Found It”) were published by Words with Jam. Her debut novel, Sugar and Snails, was published in July 2015 by Inspired Quill. Catch up on her website: annethology or on Twitter @Annecdotist.

Six Songs, a short story by Catherine Edmunds

There are six songs worth singing. Finney claims I made them up. I don’t care. I hardly know him any more.

The first song happened when we made love in the dark, with the sound of ‘Blade Runner’ on next door’s TV. I imagined Finney as Deckard, I shivered, he thought it was down to him and that was when he crooned the first song.

The second time, we were at his farm. His father was in the barn, leaning over doing something with hay for the sheep. His red jumper smelled and had holes and he looked old and tired, but warm, I wanted to hug him. I said as much to Finney and he gave a short bark of a laugh, but he taught me the next song. Later we had supper, colcannon, and I watched his father.

The next time was when he’d come back from the desert, he showed me a photo of a burnt tree that wouldn’t rot away, not enough moisture, might have been like that for one year or a hundred. The cacti nestled at its base, the sky was indigo. Something wrong with the processing, he said. I held him, he was close to weeping, and I sang the song as he slipped inside me, needing my warmth.

Last May we went for a drive, we hurtled by fields of yellow. The scent was heavy as gold. We got out of the car, could barely breathe. There was no one about, we pushed through plants into the centre of the field, we were pollen covered, we lay down, we choked and sneezed, we found a lurching sort of a song. It didn’t work well. We went back to the car, dusty and embarrassed and didn’t speak for twenty minutes.

At the beach the next day, a man was floating along on a machine, part kite, part jet pack – something went wrong and the machine stuttered, he dropped into the sea, came back pulling his machine, swearing. We helped him retrieve what he could, drove him back to the place he had rented for the spring. He said he’d make us something to eat, and while he was preparing the food, we sat together on his threadbare sofa and looked around. This place had nothing to do with us, everything was strange. We crept out. We didn’t feel like tasting his food. On the way home, Finney tried to sing, but his voice faltered. I took up the song, but I couldn’t sing it either.

I said let’s go visit your father. I missed the old man, so we arranged it, and his smile when he saw me was a song, and Finney could see it. He never sang to me again. His father took me to bed that night while Finney went down the pub. I found him the next morning lying outside in the yard. There was vomit in the cattle trough.

Winner of Flash 500 Second Quarter 2015.

A Century and a Half of Wonderland

One hundred and fifty years after the publication of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland - perhaps the first great classic of children's literature - Catriona Troth examines its history, its mythology and its legacy.

We moved around a lot when I was a child. As a result, we had few relics of parents’ childhoods. One exception was my mother’s copy of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, bound in navy-blue linen with gold lettering, and including the original Tenniel illustrations.

I loved that book. I loved the way it played with words, like a cat playing with a ball of wool. I loved its surrealism, quite free of the moralising nastiness of other Victorian favourites such as (gawd’elpus) Strewlpeter. And I loved the way that the text danced around the illustrations, weaving the two together in a way that modern authors and illustrators like Cressida Cowell and Nick Sharratt have taken to a whole new level, but which must have been revolutionary in the 1860s.

Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (the real name of Lewis Carroll) was an unlikely candidate to become one of the lions of children’s literature. A mathematics don at Oxford university, he was ordained as a deacon (a sort of probationary priest) in 1861, though he never became a vicar. He wrote a treatise on geometry which has Euclid arguing humorously with is modern rivals. He was also an ‘early adopter’ of the new technology of photography.

I fancy I can detect some of Carroll’s fascination for geometry in his second book, Alice Through the Looking Glass. I wonder if he had read of the discovery, in 1858, of the Möbius strip, when he imagined those paths that always twist round and bring you back where you started.



The story of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland supposedly began one drowsy afternoon in Oxford in 1862, when Carroll and another Oxford don took three little girls, Lorina, Alice and Edith Liddell, daughters of the University Vice-Chancellor, on a boating trip down the Thames. To while away the time, Carroll wove a story in which Alice, then 10 years old, was the heroine.

Alice was enchanted and asked him to write the story down. He did so, calling it Alice’s Adventures Underground and illustrating it with his own cartoons. When it came to publication, though, friends including the art critic John Ruskin persuaded him to find a professional illustrator. The man Carroll chose was John Tenniel, newly appointed as chief political cartoonist in Punch magazine.

Unsurprisingly for a book of such towering importance, a good deal of mythology clings to it. Many places claim a connection, including the seaside resort of Llandudno, where the Liddells took a holiday home, Pen Morfa. The small town, sheltered by the Great Orme, would certainly have been a tranquil place for the author to work on his creation. However, there is little hard evidence that Carroll joined the Liddells there, though photographer John Lawson-Reay believes he has identified Carroll in a photograph taken at Pen Morfa.

Simon Schama has included some of Carroll’s many photographs of the Liddell girls in his current exhibition of British portraiture (The Face of Britain) at the National Portrait Gallery. They include a previously unseen image of the 18 year old Alice that Schama describes as ‘excruciatingly awkward’. Whether it is awkward because she hates having her photo taken or because of her feelings for the photographer, it is impossible to know. It is true that Carroll’s relationship with the Liddell girls can seem a little queasy through modern eyes, but as Schama tells the Guardian, “We would do very badly to say these [photographs] are purely innocent and ... as badly to say these are exhibit one in the paedophilia case against Lewis Carroll.”

Regardless of the book’s origins, Carroll’s lunatic creations have wormed their way into the hearts and minds of children and adults for a century and a half. In part this is because it was one of the first children’s books intended to be read purely for fun and not instruction. A good deal of credit for Alice’s longevity, however, must go to her original illustrator, John Tenniel.

Many others have tried their hand at drawing Wonderland. Arthur Rackham produced a set of typically ethereal images in 1907. Ralph Steadman, better known for his collaboration with Pink Floyd on The Wall, captured much of the strangeness of Carroll’s imagination in his 1973 edition of Through the Looking Glass. Even Marvel Comics attempted their own versions – including a children’s strip cartoon in 1978, illustrated by Frank Bole, and a 1977 limited edition, drawn by Frank Brunner, with a Playboy-style nude Alice!

Yet it is Tenniel’s images that live on. People who have never read a word of the original can nevertheless recognise the grin of the Cheshire Cat or the 10/6 price tag on the Mad Hatter’s topper (even if they have no idea that 10/6 means ten shillings and six pence – about 52 and a half pence in post-decimalisation coins).

The subversive, surreal nature of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland also makes it the perfect jumping off point for cartoonists and satirists. The Cartoon Museum in Little Russell Street, London, is currently hosting Alice in Cartoonland, an exhibition of cartoons inspired by Wonderland. From shortly after publication to the present day, artists have used Carroll’s mad ideas and Tenniel’s iconic images to score political points, or just to make us laugh.

Alice in Cartoonland at the Cartoon Museum

Tenniel himself turned his own drawings into political cartoons in Punch – such as his ‘Alice in Blunderland’ cartoon, showing the Gryphon and the Mock Turtle deriding the newly erected Temple Bar memorial on Fleet Street.

E.H. Shepard, illustrator of Winnie-the-Pooh and Wind in the Willows, turned to Alice for inspiration, with his Punch cartoon of Winston Churchill as the Duchess.

Victor Weisz (‘Vicky’) transformed British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan into Alice, his elongated neck a metaphor for the rising cost of living.

John Minnion portrayed Ronald Reagan as the Mock Turtle, Gorbachov as the Gryphon and Margaret Thatcher as Alice in a ‘dance of the superpowers.’

Fluck and Law, creators of Spitting Image, turned to the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party to satirise the formation of the Social Democratic Party in 1981.

Guinness produced a whole string of advertisements inspired by Alice, with images by John Gilroy – such as the Queen of Hearts shrieking ‘Off with her head’ and the caption ‘Guinness keeps its head.’

Charles Schulz drew Sally reading a copy of Alice to Snoopy, who gradually disappears, like the Cheshire Cat, until only his grin remains, at which point he reappears, looking shattered, and begs her to read something different.

Adaptations of Alice for stage and screen abound – including the Disney animation of 1951, the Jonathan Miller’s BBC version from 1966, with a cast including John Gielgud, Michael Redgrave and Alan Bennett (described in the Radio Times as ‘unsuitable for young children’), the 1988 Czech film Něco z Alenky, (‘Something from Alice’), which mixes animation with live action, Tim Burton’s technicolour fantasy of 2010, and most recently, Christopher Wheeldon’s ballet, jointly commissioned by the Royal Ballet and the National Ballet of Canada.

But such is the strangeness of Carroll’s creation that no visualisation will ever quite match the one in the mind of a child reading it for the first – or the tenth – time.

Alice in Cartoonland is on display at the Cartoon Museum in Little Russell Street, London until 1st November 2015. The exhibition is curated by Brian Sibley, President of the Lewis Carroll society.

Lewis Carroll’s photographs of the Liddell girls are in the 'Face of Love' section of Simon Schama’s The Face of Britain exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery, Trafalgar Square, London from 16th September 2015 until 4th January 2016.

Question Corner

Lorraine Mace provides answers to three common writing problems.

Carl from Milton Mowbray sent in the following email asking for help dealing with his confusion over hyphens: I never know when I should use hyphens to join two words together. I’ve tried to work it out from examples in books and magazines, but just get even more confused because sometimes the same two words have a hyphen to join them and sometimes they don’t. Please help!

The easy way to decide whether or not to use a hyphen is to look at where the two words come in the sentence. If they come before a noun to act as a modifier, they need to be joined, but not if they follow a noun or stand alone.

A ten-year-old boy came into the room.

The boy who came into the room was ten years old.

The often-quoted professor of economics faced the crowd.

The professor of economics facing the crowd was often quoted.

Michael from Tayside is suffering from a common complaint – getting that important first paragraph down: I sit at my computer and panic whenever I need to start a new piece of work. It doesn’t matter whether it’s fiction or an article. I’ve read so many times how important it is that the opening paragraph grabs readers, but knowing that makes my brain freeze. Any idea how to create the perfect opening paragraph every time?

This is something most writers have agonised over at some point in their writing careers. The answer is a simple one – don’t try to write a perfect opening. Don’t even worry about starting in exactly the right place.

Write anything in that opening paragraph. It doesn’t have to be crucial to the story or article. What you are doing is creating a first draft. This is something that is going to be rewritten a few times anyway. At least, it should be rewritten a few times before you consider it ready to be seen by the wider world.

Why not put down a paragraph setting out what the story or article is about? Then get on with the main body of the piece. When you’ve finished, you’ll have a much better idea of where and how to start. You might not even use any of the words, but that doesn’t matter. The paragraph is just there to get you into the flow of writing.

You could even start with some scene setting: Where are the events taking place? What’s the weather like? Who is in the room? What time of day/night is it? Simply jotting down the answers to these questions gives you an introduction to the story.

The correct idea for the opening paragraph/s will come to you as you write the rest and you can perfect it later.

Susannah from Cape Town likes to use big words and is fed up with her writing friends telling her to dumb down her writing: I love the English language and can’t understand why many writers are scared to use unusual or long words. I belong to a writing group, but everything I read out there is criticised because of my choice of vocabulary. Am I wrong to want to educate my readers?

Although I sympathise, even if you are writing as an educator, your main task as an author is to make sure your readers understand what you have to say.

If you use a little known word, or a longer than usual one, but the meaning is clear from context, I cannot see a problem with your choices. However, if you are using such words and your readers need to resort to a dictionary to understand what is written, then there is a definite problem.

The moment someone is unable to understand an unfamiliar word from context, you lose that reader’s attention while he or she struggles to guess the meaning. Whether you are writing fiction or non-fiction, the importance of holding the reader’s interest cannot be overestimated.

If you are writing for an audience who will grasp the subject matter without question, use whatever vocabulary you feel is right. If, however, you are writing for the general public (be it fiction or non-fiction) then you risk losing your readers by showing off your own impressive vocabulary at the expense of their enjoyment.

Lorraine Mace is the humour columnist for Writing Magazine and head competition judge for Writers’ Forum. She is a former tutor for the Writers Bureau, and is the author of the Writers Bureau course, Marketing Your Book. She is also co-author, with Maureen Vincent-Northam of The Writer’s ABC Checklist (Accent Press). Lorraine runs a private critique service for writers (link below). She is the founder of the Flash 500 competitions covering flash fiction, short story and novel openings.

Her debut novel for children, Vlad the Inhaler, has now been followed by the second in the trilogy, Vlad’s Quest (LRP).

Writing as Frances di Plino, she is the author of four crime/thriller novels featuring Detective Inspector Paolo Storey: Bad Moon Rising, Someday Never Comes, Call It Pretending and Looking for a Reason (Crooked Cat Publishing).

Writing Critique Service

www.lorrainemace.com

www.flash500.com

www.francesdiplino.com

The Industry View - Squirl

JJ Marsh talks to Jef van der Avoort of Squirl – a new app to help you discover your next read.

Squirl is the first location-based book discovery app. With the Squirl app you will bump into existing locations from captivating novels, life changing biographies and thrilling mysteries. The app takes you straight to the part of the story that unfolds right where you are standing. Read the excerpt, look around you, feel the vibe and smell the air. A crime scene or a romantic rendezvous, you are right in the middle of the action!

Hi Jef. Tell us a bit about your background.

I’m from Belgium, hence the name, and I’ve always been involved in advertising, tech or publishing. I was an exchange student in California, then later I worked for an advertising agency with LEGO as the main client. I got curious about the border between digital and analogue.

Which literary work most influenced you when growing up?

Siddartha, by Herman Hesse. Especially the image of the rock, letting the water flow around it. I’m not a Buddhist, but I love that concept of a simplicity in life.

Who or what had the biggest impact on your creative life?

Travel. I lived in Copenhagen, the US, Hamburg, Australia and all these places taught me something. There’s the "helicopter view" you develop from living in different places. Being part of the community, but also being a stranger. Of course I learned about those other cultures, but mostly I learned about myself.

Can you explain why you started Squirl?

I was reading one day and I saw a gap. I discussed this with my business partner, with the computers open, looking up places in the books we were reading. We thought there must be something out there which connects readers, books, places. There wasn’t. So we invented one. This is not about search, it’s about discovery.

Where did the name come from?

Squirrels find little nuggets. It’s also the name for a stylised handwritten flourish, such as used by monks for first letters. Those two elements of writing and finding treasures made the name right.

What are the benefits for readers? And for writers?

Literary serendipity. Via your reader profile, you can bump into books you may not have encountered. It’s about contextual engagement. For writers, we want a level playing field and we’re particularly keen to work with indie authors. They may not have the resources of a big publisher but this is a way to book discovery by enabling a reader to stand right in the middle of their story.

Have you ever visited a place because you read about it in a book?

For me, it’s the other way round. I go to a place, fall in love with it and want to read about it. I want stories about that experience. That’s why I read East of Eden because of its descriptions of California. And Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance captures that drive into San Francisco. This is why we created this opportunity to do just that. My business partner is from Montana and she went exploring all the Lewis and Clark locations, and those of Laura Ingalls Wilder.

What are your thoughts on the way publishing is evolving?

It’s going to get wider, more interactive, more inclusive, like advertising and communications generally. The reader as part of the experience. We’re working on a feature about characters. If you’re into Sherlock Holmes, you can find out where he’s been.

Ideal combinations – which book would you like to read where? And what would be the perfect food, drink and soundtrack?

I love hotel bars. I’d read The Great Gatsby in the bar at the New York Plaza, drink one of their cocktails and listen to Interbellum.