Crime and thriller writers in conversation

Darlington Arts Festival has seen a new series of events this year in the form of three In Conversation With… events featuring published authors. The third and final one is
Monday May 23 In Conversation with …..crime and thriller writers Mike Beck, Roger Barnes, Bud Craig and Pam Plumb, the final evening in the festival’s In Conversation With published writers series. Crown Street Library 7pm
Chaired by crime writer John Dean, the authors, all also Inkerman Writers, will chat about their work.
Ticket £5 on the door.

Mike Beck wrote the crime novel Harry’s Torment, Roger Barnes has written three thrillers, the most recent of which is Snow Birds, Bud Craig is the author of three crime novels, the most recent being Falling Foul and Pam Plumb wrote Akos Novus.

Open mic night

 

The Open Mic night for authors season continues on Thursday May 26 as part of Darlington Arts Festival.

The nights, supported by Darlington for Culture and which offer a forum for writers to read their material and audiences to enjoy it, run at Voodoo Café/Cantina, 84 Skinnergate, Darlington, on the last Thursday of the month. Each session starts at 7pm and the cost of entry is £3 paid on the door.

More information is available from Inscribe Media Limited at deangriss@btinternet.com

Still places on creative writing courses

Creative writing tutor John Dean is taking bookings for the Summer 2016 term of his popular courses at the Friends’ Meeting House in Skinnergate, Darlington, and there are still some places left, particularly on the Tuesday nights..
The adult learning courses deal with all aspects of creative writing, focusing primarily on prose, including short stories, novels and other forms of writing as well as occasional forays into the world of stage, theatre and radio.

Each course is different and deals with everything from characterisation to plotting, creating strong sense of place to how to edit. Each session runs between 7 and 9pm.

The courses start:
Summer term 2016 (8 weeks)

Tuesday

First session April 26

Half term No class May 31

Final session June 21

 

Wednesday

First session April 27

Half term No class June 1

Final session June 22

Cost £32 (Concessions 26)

 

 More information is available from John on 01325 463813 or email deangriss@btinternet.com
 

Getting the triangle right

Good story writing depends on many things but can be boiled down to three factors, the triangle.

At the top is the narrative, a strong story, plenty of pace, a tale that enthrals the readers.

At one bottom corner is a sense of place, a strong sense of where the action is taking place.

At the other corner is a sense of being, the creation of characters strong and interesting enough to carry the story.

Get the triangle right and the rest flows from it.

 

John Dean

A few simple rules

The rules of writing

Here are my golden rules for writing.

* Consider the reader - do not write for yourself, always write for the reader.

* Be disciplined - you may wish to pack lots of information in but does the reader need it?

* You may not have put enough information in - you can imagine where a scene is set but have you given the reader the information they need? You may have drawn a character but can your readers see them?

* Be brutal - if you have overwritten, chop out the fat.

 

Rules of the short story

1 . The best stories are the ones that follow a fairly narrow subject line: too many plotlines and you end up with a novel!

2. An effective short story often covers a very short time span. It may be one single episode that proves pivotal in the life of the character.

3. Don't have too many characters. Each new character will bring a new dimension to the story, and too many diverse dimensions dilute the theme. Have only enough characters to effectively tell the story.

4. Make every word count. There is no room for unnecessary expansion in a short story. If each word is not working towards putting across the story, delete it.

John Dean

Writing film scripts

I have been working with a writing group who are working with some film-makers which got me thinking. So how do you write a script? Here’s some thoughts:

* Read plenty of scripts and see how the experts do it - get used to how the script looks on the page. Then watch the film itself and see how the script translated when filming actually began.
* About half of the content of a screenplay should be dialogue and the other half should be visual.
* Keep camera directions to a minimum. Let the filmmakers decide how to film the script.
* Action is important you need to keep the story moving.
* Keep the story well-paced - generally, one screenplay page is one minute of screen time.
* Develop true-to-life characters. Know their history and why they react to events the way they do. And keep it consistent: if they are aged fifty in one scene make sure you do not have them celebrating their sixtieth birthday in the next unless it is part of the plot.
* If it helps, focus on a few key details that tell us what kind of person your character is. Maybe the person cannot wear a tie smartly, maybe their clothes are always grubby, maybe they never look anyone in the face. And when you write your scene, ask yourself if your character would really react like that?
* Before you write your script, write a list of scenes you want to include and what happens in each one. That way you can make sure your story develops in the right way.
* And finally, keep the balance right: you don’t want the first half of the film to be all dialogue, followed by 45 minutes of car chases.

John Dean

 

Now there's an idea

 

I’ve been doing a lot of teaching on the idea of ideas lately and came across these excellent quotes.

·         People always want to know: Where do I get my ideas? They're everywhere. I'm inspired by people and things around me. (Gwendolyn Brooks, American poet)

·         My standard answer is "I don't know where they come from, but I know where they come to, they come to my desk." If I'm not there, they go away again, so you've got to sit and think. (Philip Pullman, English writer)

·         Ideas come to a writer, a writer does not search for them. "Ideas come to me like birds that I see in the corner of my eye," I say to journalists, "and I may try, or may not, to get a closer fix on those birds." (Patricia Highsmith, American crime writer)

·         It's very blurred, it's not clear. The plan is something which gradually evolves. Usually, I'll just start with one particular idea or certain image or even just a mood and gradually it'll kind of grow when other things attach themselves to it. (Jane Rogers, British novelist, editor, and teacher)

·         Anything can set things going--an encounter, a recollection. I think writers are great rememberers. (Gore Vidal, American novelist, playwright, essayist)

·         You can write about anything, and if you write well enough, even the reader with no intrinsic interest in the subject will become involved.
(Tracy Kidder, literary journalist)

·         "From you," I say. The crowd laughs. I look at the woman asking the question; she seems innocent enough. I continue. "I get them from looking at the world we live in, from reading the paper, watching the news. It seems as though what I write is often extreme, but in truth it happens every day."
(A. M. Homes, American novelist and short story writer)

·         My usual, perfectly honest reply is, "I don't get them; they get me."
(Robertson Davies, Canadian novelist, playwright, and critic)

 

John Dean

Writers in conversation at Darlington Arts Festival

Darlington Arts Festival will see a new series of events this year in the form of three In Conversation With… events featuring published authors, at Crown Street Library

Monday May 9

In Conversation with… Poets

Crown Street Library, Darlington 7pm

Tickets: £5 per person (tickets can be purchased on the door or booked in advance by contacting Tracey Iceton: traceyiceton@hotmail.co.uk 07773 797817

Join three published poets, Natalie Scott, Becky Cherriman and Mel McEvoy, for an evening of poetry readings and conversation about the art of poetry and the ‘business’ of being a poet. Chaired by Tracey Iceton.

Becky Cherriman is a writer, workshop leader and performer based in Leeds. Published by Mslexia, New Walk, Envoi,Mother’s Milk, Well Versed and Bloodaxe, she was resident poet for Morley Literature Festival in 2013.

Natalie Scott is a published poet and qualified teacher with a PhD in Creative Writing. She is a member of Lapidus and is currently training with the International Federation for Biblio/ Poetry Therapy to become a Certified Applied Poetry Facilitator. Her first full-collection Berth – Voices of the Titanic (Bradshaw Books, 2012) received runner-up for the Cork Literary Review Manuscript Competition 2011.

Mel cEvoy is a published poet.  His first collection, An Emptied Space, was published by Mudfog in 2012.  His poems sharply reflect the rural Ireland of the 1950s shown through the heartbreaking lives of his parents.

Monday May 16

In Conversation with… Historical Fiction writers

Crown Street Library, Darlington 7pm

Tickets: £5 per person (tickets can be purchased on the door or booked in advance by contacting Tracey Iceton: traceyiceton@hotmail.co.uk 07773 797817

Join three published historical novelists, Michael Cawood Green, Andrew Crumey and Tracey Iceton, for an evening of readings from their historical fiction and conversation about the craft of researching and writing historical novels. Chaired by John Dean

Michael Green is Professor in Creative Writing at Northumbria University and a distinguished Fellow of the University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. His research interests include the uses of history in fiction, which is the subject of his influential monograph Novel Histories: Past, Present, and Future in South African Fiction.

Andrew Crumey is former literary editor of Scotland on Sunday and Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing at Northumbria University. His seven novels have been published internationally to critical acclaim. He has been shortlisted for the James Tait Black and other awards, longlisted for the Man Booker Prize, and was winner of the Saltire Prize for his debut novel, Music, In A Foreign Language, set in an alternative communist Britain. His latest novel, The Secret Knowledge, tells of a rediscoved musical masterpiece with a sinister legacy.

Tracey Iceton is an author and creative writing tutor from Teesside.  Now studying for her creative writing PhD at Northumbria University, she is a qualified English teacher experienced in delivering creating writing courses and workshops and has an MA in Creative Writing from Newcastle University.  Green Dawn at St Enda’s, her debut historical novel and part one of her Irish Trilogy, will be published by Cinnamon Press in 2016 with parts two and three following in 2017 and 2019 with plans for a fourth novel, Rock God Complex: The Mickey Hunter Story, to appear in 2020. 

Monday May 23

In Conversation with …..crime and thriller writers Mike Beck, Roger Barnes, Bud Craig and Pam Plumb, the final evening in the festival’s In Conversation With published writers series.

Crown Street Library 7pm

Chaired by crime writer John Dean, the authors will chat about their work.

Ticket £5 on the door.

Mike Beck wrote the crime novel Harry’s Torment, Roger Barnes has written three thrillers, the most recent of which is Snow Birds, Bud Craig is the author of three crime novels, the most recent being Falling Foul and Pam Plumb, pictured, wrote Akos Novus.

Book launches at the Festival

Darlington Arts Festival will this year continue its tradition of staging book launches.

http://www.darlingtonforculture.org/book-launches-at-the-festival/

Thursday May 12

Voodoo Café, Skinnergate 7pm

Darlington-based Inkerman Writers launch their new book Picture This with an evening of prose and poetry. £2 on the door.

 

Thursday, 26 May  

Vane Women 25th Anniversary Book Launch

Crown Street Gallery, Darlington, DL1 1ND  6.30-8.00 pm

Vane Women and guest poets will read from the latest Vane Women Press

anthology of photographs, poetry and prose. NORTHbound celebrates the 25^th anniversary of Vane Women, founded in 1991 to support the development and recognition of women writers.  The writing, publishing and performing collective has come a long way from its beginnings in the women’s writing class that ran at the late lamented Darlington Arts Centre in Vane Terrace.

This anthology contains Pat Maycroft’s wonderfully evocative images with responses by Vane Women and guest writers who live in the North East and who have been associated with Vane Women as their published authors or tutors of masterclasses. What binds them all is a strong sense of place; of the North, of a landscape both beautiful and harsh.

This is an edgeland that has weathered invasion by Vikings, the rise and fall of heavy industry, poverty,  erosion and landslip. It has bred stubborn strength and a tough pride in its people, whether they were born here or have chosen to live here.

NORTHbound represents the hard graft of image-making, writing and publishing and honours the camaraderie of writers who live in this region.

Admission Free

Literary events at Darlington Arts Festival

There are loads of literary events, including some involving Inscribe Media, in the Darlington Arts Festival 2016 - check it out at http://www.darlingtonforculture.org/darlington-festival-program-2014/

The golden rules of writing

Here are my golden rules for writing.
* Consider the reader - do not write for yourself, always write for the reader.
* Be disciplined - you may wish to pack lots of information in but does the reader need it?
* You may not have put enough information in - you can imagine where a scene is set but have you given the reader the information they need? You may have drawn a character but can your readers see them?
* Be brutal - if you have overwritten, chop out the fat.

John Dean

Getting the voice right in starts

I know I talk about first lines a lot in my blogs but they are so important.
One of the best ways to start a story is to instantly introduce the reader to a character who addresses us directly in a voice that is distinctive and compelling. What do I mean? Try this: “If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you’ll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don’t feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth.” — J. D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye
The voice is distinctive, you are challenged and want to learn more about this person.

John Dean

Arts festival programme is launched

The programme has been announced for the fourth Darlington Arts Festival due to run April 21-May 31 at a wide range of venues across the borough. 

Co-ordinated by Darlington for Culture (DfC), the group which speaks for arts and culture in the area, the festival has 70 events on its programme at more than 20 venues. Many of the organisations and individuals supporting the event are reflected in the programme, which includes:

* A series of music events, including the Darlington Jazz Festival at various venues  between April 21-24, which launches the Darlington Arts Festival in spectacular fashion, and throughout the month other musical events ranging from rhythm ‘n‘ blues to folk and opera. 

* A Hammer Horror Film Festival to be run by Darlington Film Club at the Forum in Borough Road, including a guest appearance by Blood from the Mummy’s Tomb star Valerie Leon.

* Literary events featuring readings, writing workshops and two book launches

* Art-based events including exhibitions and workshops at various venues

* Monday May 23 Making space for art and creative enterprise in Darlington – Arts Forum The Forum Music Centre, Borough Road, Darlington, DL1 1SG

1.00pm buffet, starts 1.30pm ends 4.00pm

At the One Darlington’s Assembly event in October 2015 Wayne Hemingway MBE identified the importance of accessible flexible workspaces in supporting the growth of creative enterprise, currently one of the fastest growing sectors in the UK economy and in helping to encourage vibrant successful places.  Creative Darlington wants Darlington to be a creative place in which artists, arts producers and creative businesses can flourish. They invite artists, producers, creative enterprises and those with an interest in developing workspace and business to bring their ideas and energy to this Forum event which will include short presentations on best practice from other locations followed by joint work to explore what we can do here.

* Comedy and dance events

DfC Chair John Dean said: “The fourth Darlington Arts Festival promises to be tremendous. There really is something for everyone, including a sprinkling of performers from abroad and some big screen magic.”

Author Tracey Iceton, one of the organisers of the festival’s literary events, said: “Year on year, the arts festival continues to grow, now attracting national and international artists as well as providing a valuable platform for the many talented artists living locally. It is a real highlight of the annual festival calendar for me and one to which I am pleased that I can contribute.”

James Watson, whose Darlington Film Club is bringing Valerie Leon to the Forum for a question and answer session on May 9 as part of its Hammer Horror season, said: ”'For Valerie Leon, star of Hammer, Carry On and James Bond films to be a part of the Darlington Arts Festival is such an honour for the Film Club. The month of Hammer films will be great to see these iconic films on the big screen at The Forum.”
* Festival supporters include Creative Darlington, Darlington Borough Council, Cleveland College of Art and Design, Resilient Business Systems, Ephemeral Web Design and Humantics, which runs The Forum in Borough Road.

DfC’s website www.darlingtonforculture.org has full details of the programme and a brochure is being distributed around the town nearer the time.

 

Creative writing course to run

Creative writing tutor John Dean is taking bookings for the Summer 2016 term of his popular courses at the Friends’ Meeting House in Skinnergate, Darlington.
The adult learning courses deal with all aspects of creative writing, focusing primarily on prose, including short stories, novels and other forms of writing as well as occasional forays into the world of stage, theatre and radio.
Each course is different and deals with everything from characterisation to plotting, creating strong sense of place to how to edit. Each session runs between 7 and 9pm. 

The courses start:
Summer term 2016 (8 weeks)

Tuesday

First session April 26

Half term No class May 31

Final session June 21

 

Wednesday

First session April 27

Half term No class June 1

Final session June 22

Cost £32 (Concessions 26)

 

More information is available from John on 01325 463813 or email deangriss@btinternet.com

 

What makes a good poem?

I have been doing some teaching on poetry recently. It is not my thing really so I had to do a lot of research, during which I came across a few quotes on  of what makes a good poem. Here are one or two:
 
A good poem is a slip-of-a-thing that celebrates language, that takes you on a short journey and touches your heart, turns on your imagination, or tickles your funny- bone somewhere along the way.
Nikki Grimes.

A good poem makes you feel like you’ve been there before, or want to go. A good poem takes you to the city, to the sea, to the heart of any and all matters; you see it, taste it, belong to it. A good poem is a menagerie of craft; a spinning of sound, word choice, alliteration, rhythm and often rhyme. A good poem is the arrangement of enchantment, or as J. Patrick Lewis says, a blind date with enchantment.

Rebecca Kai Dotlich

What makes a good poem? Brevity, terseness, spareness, viewing something new for the very first time, creating an image like no one has ever been blown away by before in their entire life.

Lee Bennett Hopkins

Love and care for elemental details, for chosen words and their simple arrangement on the page... and a way of ending that leaves a new resonance or a lit spark in the reader or listener's mind—that’s part of it.

Naomi Shihab Nye

A good poem surprises your senses, shakes you awake, stirs your emotions, and startles your imagination. Each poem is an act of discovery. Poetry helps us widen our vision and our hearts.

Joan Bransfield Graham

John Dean

Writing for theatre

I teach the occasional class on writing for theatre and thought some observations might prove interesting.
The power of words is crucial when writing for theatre but so is a technical understanding of the staging process. Writers need to do the following:
Think where the person was before entering the stage and where he/she goes to eg if he/she has come in from the cold remember to write cold references of actions (stamping feet etc )
The writer needs to consider what the characters are doing as well as saying - a walk across a stage can take a long time as can a passage of speech. Find something for them do, making tea, putting the kettle on etc. It gives the scene more movement and avoids problems for actors who feel all they can do is stand like a plank and spout their lines.
Think of how long words take to say and how they will play in an audience. An intimate aside in a small room can fall flat in a large theatre.
Comedy needs to big and bold, drama can be more subtle and considered (the actor can be more introspective, address the audience, reveal much about what they are thinking)

Dialogue is crucial. The actor will make much of the business etc up themselves but they need guidance and that comes from the words.  Abide by the rules of dialogue:

A lot of the time, we do not speak in correct sentences - we often use short sharp phrases

We assume the listener knows a lot about us

Dialogue can impart information but we try to make that information interesting, lacing it with humour, personal interpretation etc

We can tell a lot about a person in a short snap of conversation - a few words of dialogue can say a lot about a character.

Dialogue needs to be crisp (and humour needs to hit the gag and move on, good comedy relies on timing and pace)

Dialogue needs to be in character

Dialogue must take the story on

Dialogue must not be packed with extraneous information. If you need to slot in information, find a way of doing it subtly.

John Dean

Powerful writing

The best stories are those which show the writers’ instinctive understanding for the way readers can be moved.

What do I mean? Well, in my view, good writing is about triggers. What is the point if the reader gets to the end of your story, shrugs and goes to make a cup of tea, their life unchanged by your efforts?
How much better if, before they go and make that cup of tea, they sit for a few moments and think back on what they have read?
Maybe they will feel emotional, maybe they will feel moved to tears, maybe they will say a silent prayer for a remembered loved one, maybe they will smile at memories, maybe they will laugh at jokes just read, maybe they simply cared for the people in the story they just read. As long as they feel something.
Tales that bring forth such reactions often draw in some way on the writer’s own experiences but they also trigger something in readers they have never met.
We all have those triggers inside us. Fears, insecurities, emotions, experiences. Like everyone, I have had, still have, deep sadness in my life. Loved ones lost and damaged, deaths witnessed, things unsaid, lives un-lived. So when I read some stories, they trigger something deep within me. For others, different stories will move them and in different ways.
Now, I am not saying that to succeed all a story needs is power - we should never lose sight of craft - but if it has the ability to move someone somewhere then it’s achieved something special.
I think that sometimes writers forget the power in our hands when we pick up that pen, switch on that computer. Yes, it’s fiction but in so many stories you can see the truth running through it.
That is certainly the case with my own writing. In a way, my characters tell parts of my life story. Changed, adapted, developed but part of my life story for all that. Does it trigger something in the reader? Do you know, I reckon it might just do for some of them. Not all of them but for some.

 

John Dean

Writing novellas

I have increasingly been working on crime novellas. As a result, I have been researching the world of short novels and it seems to me that their time could be upon us because of the e-book revolution.
Folks are happy to read 30,000 words of story on their hand-helds - particularly on holiday when a book that can be finished in a day or two is welcome.
So what exactly is a novella? Well, it’s an extended short story in many ways, constructed in episodes but written in a tight and clipped way to guarantee pace. The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America Nebula Awards for science fiction defined the novella as having a word count of between 17,500 and 40,000. Other definitions start as low as 10,000 words.
Why are novellas so effective as a genre? Well, usually I write novels that run to 60,000-70,000 words but with novellas I cut back big-time.
I look at my early novels and it’s a lesson I have needed to learn. Hopefully, my writing has become crisper as a result of that growing sense of discipline.

John Dean

Open mic for writers

The Open Mic night for authors season continues on Thursday February 25. The nights, supported by Darlington for Culture and which offer a forum for writers to read their material and audiences to enjoy it, run at Voodoo Café/Cantina, 84 Skinnergate, Darlington, on the last Thursday of the month. Each session starts at 7pm and the cost of entry is £3 paid on the door.

More information is available from Inscribe Media Limited at deangriss@btinternet.com

How to write good crime fiction

Following the news that we are to run an online crime fiction course (details on the home page) I thought it would be useful to look at how to write a good crime story:

* The story should be strong and one that can be told in a short story (most crime stories are novels)
* Create a strong sense of place - the reader must be able to visualise where the action happens
* Create strong characters - do not stray into cliché, make our investigators real people. Your hero must not be perfect, he or she must be flawed but be careful about writing in too many flaws
* If you create a sidekick, make sure they have a job to do - passing on information, allowing your main character to react so we learn more about them etc
* Make the villain real not some clichéd villain from the movies. The best thing is for them to have appeared earlier in the story so the reader knows them. Give them a good reason to commit the crime - secrets, secrets, always secrets



* Grab the reader from the start. Here is an extract from an interview with the author Nick Brownlee explaining how to do it:
Q The opening scene of Bait features a character being gutted alive on a fishing boat. Was it always in your mind to start the book with such a gory scene?
A I have been a journalist for the best part of 20 years, much of that time writing stories for tabloid newspapers. The first lesson you are taught is that you must grab the reader’s attention with the very first paragraph, because by the third they will have lost interest in the story. It’s the same with commercial fiction – especially if you are an unknown author. In order to get published, Bait had to leap out of an agent’s slush pile and then make a publisher look twice. I needed an opening that would catch the eye. Hopefully it will have the same effect on the casual reader.”



* Even with a short story, it is worth mapping out a synopsis because crime stories are be definition complicated and you need to get it right
* Keep the story moving - nothing holds a reader better than tension creates as the pace develops. Keep it driving on relentlessly
* Think about your ending - surprise the reader, have some drama, a chase, a fight, a killing, a dramatic revelation
* Feel free to makes us think - maybe you want to cast light on human nature, or perhaps a problem in society, Do not preach but feel free to let that idea come through in your story

John Dean

Bringing the reader into your stories

The key to good writing is making the experience feel real for the reader, a major part of my teaching of authors.
You need to evoke a reaction in your reader and this is done through triggers, using your reader’s associations to evoke a reaction. How do you do that?
Well, why not start by playing on:
Their memories
Their connections to places and people
Their prejudices and preconceptions?
Their response to weather conditions - snow, rain, heat etc
Their deeply felt fears and phobias?

John Dean

Layering in fiction

Layering is crucial for writers, especially those penning novels.

Layering is directly related to the way we work and very often happens when you go back over something you have written

For me, it comes as I write and the plot evolves. Suddenly something becomes important that was not important before or maybe was not there before so I add in layers.

Like me, you may want to go back to a scene you wrote and inject it with an emotion or add in extra information about a character. Was it too bland as it was, was the reader likely to be bored? Or confused?

All this layering is crucial and, for me, it can change stories for the better.

 

John Dean

Writing arguments in fiction

Further to my previous blog on conflict, I thought a few lines on writing arguments might be useful:
They shouldn’t have repetitive elements Unlike real arguments which go in circles for ages, fictionalised ones are short and sharp

They shouldn’t be boring Written arguments are there to forward the plot along. They should reveal something about a relationship between two people or give the reader information about a problem

There should be some sort of immediate outcome from the argument  Arguments are a great way to provide conflict and tension to a manuscript but make they aren’t as unfocused and pointless in print as the verbal variety

Remember how rules of conversation work

* A lot of the time, we do not speak in correct sentences/we often use short sharp phrases

* Keep your dialogue crisp - we can tell a lot about a person in a short snap of conversation

* We interrupt a lot

* We assume a lot. Not ‘Your brother has been murdered.’

‘What, my brother Brian?’

‘Yes, that’s him. Your only brother. The younger one. With the long hair’ Keep it realistic.

* Dialogue must take the story on. Only write small talk if you need to, ie showing how tedious a person can be. If you don’t need it, don’t write it. Make sure each word does a job.

* Do not pack dialogue with extraneous information

John Dean

Starting your story with momentum

Here’s some thoughts on starting short stories by creating momentum right from the off.
The first rule of opening lines is that they should possess most of the individual elements that make up the story. An opening paragraph should have a distinctive voice, a point of view, a rudimentary plot and some hint of characterisation.
You might be tempted to begin your narrative before the action starts, such as when a character wakes up. Far better to begin at the first moment of something interesting happening, which is more likely to grab the reader‘s interest.
If you feel compelled to begin with dialogue, keep in mind that you’re thrusting your readers into a story in which it’s easy to lose them early on. So keep the dialogue to a minimum.
Sometimes a story evolves so significantly during the writing that an opening line no longer applies to the story that follows. The only way to know this is to reconsider the opening sentence once the final draft is complete.

John Dean

Focusing on conflict in fiction

I taught a class last night in which a number of the writers produced scenes dominated by conflict.
Good for them because stories need things to happen and that usually comes out of conflict - characters argue, fight, feud etc.
It is through seeing characters in conflict that we see them at their truest, when their guard is down, when they are fighting something.
You can develop a character through conflict: the meek little parlour maid suddenly becomes the towering heroine of the story
Conflict takes the story on: a school is to be closed, two friends fall out, a community is torn apart by an event. All these types of conflict are a rich hunting ground for the writer.
Conflict can evoke a strong reaction in a reader
Conflict makes for good drama - and if that is happening then writing is easier.
It also gives you a structure for your story, a story to tell.

John Dean

Online crime fiction course is under way

A reminder that crime novelist and creative writing tutor John Dean has launched an online Crime Fiction Course.
John, author of 12 novels published by Robert Hale, and the creator of DCI John Blizzard and DCI Jack Harris, also runs Inscribe Media Ltd, which is based in Darlington in North East England, which will be offering the course.
The online course, which runs in eight parts and can begin at a time and date to suit the student, will help writers to improve their technique and improve their chances of being successful, either in competitions or admissions to publishers.
When they enroll, students will be offered ongoing one-to-one feedback on their work, be it short stories or novels.
John, whose latest novel A Breach of Trust came out in January 2015, and who is a member of the UK-based Crime Writers’ Association, said: “Writing can be a lonely pastime and my aim is to help aspiring writers to improve their technique and improve their chances of being successful in a very competitive market.
“Crime fiction remains hugely popular and, hopefully, I can help aspiring writers to develop their ideas, and because it is online it does not matter where they live. In recent years, I have worked with writers from everywhere from Croatia to Australia and New Zealand.”
There is no official certificate of qualification at the end of the course, which will be led by John and features:

• Personal attention

• Exercises and practical work

• Discussions by email

• Because the tutor is on line, you can do the work at time and pace that suits you

Themes to be included are:

An examination of where ideas come from - what triggers ideas in writers?

Once you have the idea, how do you develop it? The course will look at the art of  plotting

How can you use places and landscapes to aid your story telling?

How do you pick characters to do the job? What are their functions in storytelling? This will include a look at creating villains

How conflict can be used to develop stories that assume a life of their own

That all important start to your story - how do you grab the reader right from the off?

Writing with pace - how do you produce a narrative that keeps your reader turning the page?

Pulling it all together - how to produce the finished piece of work.

Editing - how to make those changes that make all the difference.

Pitching to publishers and agents

The course costs £75. For further details you can contact John at deangriss@btinternet.com

Inscribe Media’s website, which also has details of other courses and the company’s mentoring programme, can be found at www.inscribemedia.co.uk

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