September 20 2014. How important is dialog in fiction—and how do you learn to write it?

“Always get to the dialogue as soon as possible. I always feel the thing to go for is speed. Nothing puts the reader off more than a big slab of prose at the start."

(Interview, The Paris Review, Issue 64, Winter 1975)”
― P.G. Wodehouse

---

THE ANGEL OF THE NORTH BY ANTHONY GORMLEY

The Angel of the North is a contemporary sculpture, designed by Antony Gormley, which is located in Gateshead, Tyne and Wear, England. It is a steel sculpture of an angel, 20 metres tall, with wings measuring 54 metres across. Wikipedia

The above has nothing to do with dialog. In fact, the first time I saw it, it rendered me speechless. It is a truly magnificent creation.

There was a Gormley in my year at school and I though at first the sculptor might be him. The dates didn’t match. This Gormley must be a younger brother or something—but he did, indeed, go to Ampleforth.

So did Julian Fellowes who writes DOWNTON ABBEY. In truth, I never regarded SHAC (stands for School House Ampleforth College) as creatively inspirational (it wasn’t) but a few of us seem to have survived it nonetheless. The place is now co-educational. Unbelievable! Lucky sods. I’d have killed for a woman in those days.

---

DIALOG

Back in the 19th century—when a great many fine novels were written—it seems have been quite acceptable for endless pages of prose to go by without being broken up by dialog.

In those days they were into lengthy descriptions and considerable introspection.  And people liked that because there was no TV, movies hadn’t been invented, and even photographs were relatively rare—so if you wanted to find out about a place or a situation, words were your camera. Yes, there were drawings and paintings—but they take a great deal more work to produce so there were less of them.

Today, we are so saturated in knowledge of the world from every form of media that lengthy descriptions are normally unnecessary—because people already know. You merely need to supply a context and a prompt.

As a consequence, fiction manuscripts have become less dense—and, perhaps because dialog drives movies and TV, more dialog is expected. Besides, people find dialog easier to read.

The bottom line is that dialog is immensely important in fiction today—which means that a writer has to develop a facility for writing it.

Dialog needs to operate at a number of levels:

• It needs to serve the story—advance it, and otherwise contribute..
• It needs to develop character and be consistent with it
• It needs to be entertaining.
• It can’t be too littoral. You want to make things clear—but not too clear. Readers should be kept in a curious fuzz. Think of them as greyhounds. Your business is to dangle the rabbit.
• Don’t provide too much information at once. Tantalize your readers. Leave them wanting more.
• It needs to be subtle.
• It needs to sound natural—even if it isn’t. In real life people tend to be very sloppy in their speech but if you do the same in writing, it will drive the reader nuts.
• There needs to be a rhythm to it.
• Every now and then, it needs to be memorable. You don’t need to be memorable with every line—but every now and then you need to impress.
• It is helpful if it works at a number of levels. For instance, apart from apart from imparting the necessary information, it may also serve to build tension and hint at what might be to come.

The hardest part about writing dialog, as far as I am concerned, is writing in such a way that people sound different. Since I don’t think I’m very good at that, I try and achieve the same effect by introducing people’s reactions to the dialog. This works particularly well when there is a difference between what people say, and what they think.

I like to incorporate considerable humor into my dialog—though mostly in a dry way. And I like the twist—to introduce the unexpected.

I’m naturally articulate—one had to be to survive at home (my mother was highly verbal and my step-father a formidable, witty, knowledgeable, and merciless debater) so I don’t recall having great trouble writing clear dialog. However, I sweated blood—and still do—try to elevate it from serviceable to include the other necessary attributes.

As far as I am concerned, dialog has to sound right—so I will tend to read it over and over again until it has the right rhythm.

It can be helpful if you can convey the right body language.

How do you learn to write dialog?

• Read so that you can see how others do it.
• Listen to how people actually speak and record the results.
• Fail until you succeed. Failure doesn’t get the credit it deserves (except, perhaps, in Silicon Valley). It’s a great teacher—arguably the best of them. Of course it’s a bit depressing—after years have passed and you are still struggling—but, as the military like to say with their normal compassion: “Suck it up.”

---

 

 

September 19 2014. That part of writing that editors hate—exposition. But are editors right? My feeling is that it has become too much of an editorial reflex—and doesn’t always work in the best interests of the overall story.

The exposition is the portion of a story that introduces important background information to the audience; for example, information about the setting, events occurring before the main plot, characters' backstories, etc. Exposition can be conveyed through dialogues, flashbacks, character's thoughts, background details.

Wikipedia

---

“Human science fragments everything in order to understand it, kills everything in order to examine it. ”
― Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace

The generally accepted underlying principle of writing a compelling read is that you focus on the story, with all its thrills, spills, twists and turns, and if there has to be any exposition, you deliver it painlessly through dialogue and action, rather than by slowing down the pace by introducing paragraphs of explanation.

If you explore a character’s thoughts (always a useful place to locate exposition) you should do it as briefly as possible—and get back to dialog and action quam celerrime—which was one of Julius Caesar’s favorite expressions if his GALLIC WARS is anything to go by. It is the Latin equivalent of ASAP—with a dose of “on the double” thrown in.

Caesar, one of my favorite generals (and a fellow author, I’ll have you know), specialized in moving fast—quite amazingly so—given that his legions and auxiliaries had to march everywhere. He used German cavalry as well,  but the legions were his main strike force.

To quote a former editor of mine: “The reader is then dragged through the story as if on the end of a rope.”

I’m far from sure it’s much fun to be dragged through anywhere.

I loathed the man. That said, he is regarded as one of the leading editors in the business. Indeed he would certainly qualify for the lofty status of ‘Writing expert.’

Most editors in my experience, hate exposition—but that doesn’t mean they are always right. When something becomes “generally accepted” watch out. It means too many people are not thinking.

This paranoia about exposition has its roots in a feeling that the U.S. public is so dumb that Americans aren’t interested in anything other than zipping through the story—and too much context and background will only confuse them,

Personally, I rather like exposition, subject to some provisos:

• It’s relevant to the story. In fact, it needs to enhance the story in some way.
• It’s innately interesting.
• It doesn’t go on for too long (whatever that means).
• It’s well written.
• It segues back into the main narrative effortlessly.

Clearly it depends up the story, but what I like about exposition—if it is really well done—is that it adds color, richness, and depth. It helps you understand the characters better; it clarifies motivations; and—best of all—it teaches you interesting stuff you didn’t know before. You get a window into another world.

Some writers can get away with exposition because their commercial track record is so strong that they have the clout to defy their editor. Tom Clancy was just such an author. In fact, you could make a very good case that he used exposition to excess, and that his later books would have been better if a third shorter. On the other hand, he wasn’t a particularly good writer, and his characters were mainly clichés—so a great deal of his popularity rested on his ability to portray the dramatic world of the military in stunning detail. In short, my feeling is that he knew his audience better than his editor did (and yes, I know the editor).

This editorial dislike of exposition reminds me of the current obsession with sound bytes—which are based upon the editorial belief that the typical viewer’s attention span and intellectual curiosity are both so limited that anything longer would cause them to change channels. Well, whether true or not, the end result has been a further degradation of the quality of the news.

Exposition has two other uses I haven’t mentioned so far.

• It helps the author vary the pace.
• It can be used to help consolidate the story.

Please note that I’m not suggesting that we should indulge in an orgy of exposition—more that the current editorial bias is excessive—and that though pace is a wonderful thing, it is far from the only element which makes a book a compelling read.

WAR & PEACE’S  richness owes a great deal to the fact that Tolstoy indulged in exposition whenever he felt like it—and what a book it is. Reading it was life changing event for me.

---

September 18 2014. “Once upon a time”—the four most exciting words in the English language (certainly, when you are a child). I think “Make love to me” took over in my teens. What is a story? Stories are my business—and I absolutely love them--yet I don’t think I understand them as well as I would like. I do know that the best stories are magic—and what sane, rational, person does not believe in magic?

There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.

Maya Angelou

Writing is an extreme privilege but it's also a gift. It's a gift to yourself and it's a gift of giving a story to someone.

Amy Tan

I never feel lonely if I've got a book - they're like old friends. Even if you're not reading them over and over again, you know they are there. And they're part of your history. They sort of tell a story about your journey through life.

Emilia Fox

Once you allow yourself to identify with the people in a story, then you might begin to see yourself in that story even if on the surface it's far removed from your situation. This is what I try to tell my students: this is one great thing that literature can do - it can make us identify with situations and people far away.

Chinua Achebe

---

People are notoriously bad at explaining what they do, and how they do it in any detail—particularly if they are experienced. They do what they do as a reflex. and just get on with it—as opposed to self-consciously planning their next move.

I’m no exception to such an inadequacy. As I wrote the other day, I can’t explain how I write. I know how I learned to write, and I have a few principles to guide me, but I certainly can’t explain the process itself.

For that reason, I’m somewhat ambivalent about writing about the significance of stories. I make them up, and I write them down—and how I do it seems to work—so why think about it too much? It will break the spell. On the other hand, that was the theme that popped into my head this morning—and it won’t go away—so now I have no choice in the matter.

So you think a writer controls what he writes? Hah! You underestimate the power of ideas. They pop up—as if from nowhere (like a bunch of demented frogs)—and then they bend you to their will. Best to go with the flow—bow to the frogs. Ideas don’t either go away or give up.

Being a writer—and an author at that--I am somewhat embarrassed to admit this, but I find that all too often I don’t know the precise meaning of words. To be fair, frequently that is because words are used somewhat loosely—or have several meanings—but you would think I would rattle off the meaning of ‘story’ without a second thought.

Not so. Then the marvelous Wiki let me down (a rare thing)—so I typed in ‘story definition’ and up came the following:

an account of imaginary or real people and events told for entertainment.

synonyms:
tale, narrative, account, anecdote;

There are other definitions, but I think this nails it because of the inclusion of the phrase ‘told for entertainment.’ Here, you have to interpret the word ‘entertainment’ somewhat broadly—because not infrequently a story is told to make a serious point, but it still gets at the essence of the thing.

Still, just for the hell of it, I looked up ‘entertainment’ too.

the action of providing or being provided with amusement or enjoyment.

synonyms:
amusement, pleasure, leisure, recreation, relaxation, fun, enjoyment, interest, diversion

Stories are astonishingly powerful. Why is that?

• Stories are ideas—and ideas are the most powerful things in the world. Ideas drive the world.
• They are the best tools we have to help us understand the meaning of life.
• They give us context, history, and purpose.
• They promote empathy, and help us understand and connect with other people—and how they think—better than just about any other technique. They hide the frightening fact that we really don’t know how other people think—which means, in essence, that we really and truly are alone—despite what we pretend. All we really know is what they say and do—which is not the same thing at all. 
• They please, puzzle, intrigue, stimulate, distract, deceive, surprise, demonstrate, fascinate, and explain.
• They come in seemingly endless varieties—and cover virtually every aspect of the human condition.
• They can be told through every medium. A story can be conveyed through pictures, orally, through mime, through the theater, through the written word, through film, through music, and by way of just about every communication methodology and technology yet devised. They sound pretty good on the radio.
• They evoke all our emotions. They make us laugh and cry and arouse us sexually. They make us angry and they make us afraid. They comfort us and make us feel less alone.
• They enable us to have adventures and other experiences—albeit second-hand—that we could rarely, if ever, have directly.
• They give us a feeling—albeit an illusory one—of control.
• We seem to have an innate and desperate need for stories. Life without them—without that escape from our daily cares—would be intolerable. As air is to the body, stories are to the spirit.
• Stories are magic.

I’m not sure how good I am at creating completely original stories—though it’s a moot point whether such things exist (though I guess at the beginning they had to). Who told the first one? Adam or Eve? Some say there only a handful of basic plots (I forget the actual number that is commonly quoted—seven is the number that comes to mind).

I tend not to think that way. I never cease to be impressed by the endless variations that my fellow authors come up with—and, if they are described as derivative—well, so be it. I don’t think any the less of the authors for it. Practically everything is derivative, if you think things through. Shakespeare was, arguably, the biggest idea thief of them all—and his reputation seems to have survived that discovery. Personally, I think it is only good sense “to stand on the shoulders of giants.”

According to Wiki, that metaphor probably originated with Bernard of Chartres though Isaac Newton—who used it in a 1676 letter –tends to get the credit.

My thrillers tend to be inspired by real events and to be character driven. Regarding real events, GAMES OF THE HANGMAN was inspired by my discovery of a freshly hanged body on my morning walk. Not a pleasant sight. This was a very messy hanging. Just the thing to set one up for the day.

As to being character driven, since my protagonist, Hugo Fitzduane, is intellectually curious, it is only natural that after he finds a hanging body, he wants to know why the victim hanged himself—if, indeed he did.

Did he? Go read the book! Regarding the body I found, the disturbing fact is that there was no real investigation. It was just assumed it was a suicide. That fact has haunted me ever since.

But storytelling isn’t just assembling ingredients. As with cooking, it is what you do with the ingredients that matters—and the permutations there are endless.

I tend to think about my stories a long time—for years—before I write them. Once the basic concept gets established, I will then revisit it frequently—often while walking or doing household chores—until the story becomes virtually real to me. Then, because I think visually, writing becomes a matter of turning the movie in my head into words.

Easy?  You jest. Writing is never easy. The challenge—in many ways—is the whole point.

As matters stand, I have more books planned than—most likely—I will have time to write. However, if there isn’t an afterlife, I’m not sure I’ll be concerned about my unwritten books. If there is, I’ll just go on writing. I haven’t been quite wicked enough to be consigned to hell—and I’m quite sure Heaven features computers and high speed internet.

I would like to write a really good love story before meeting up with Saint Peter. I’m not sure whether it will be of the erotic variety or not—I’m tending towards the former if I can summon up the courage—but either way, all I have so far is the intent, a title, and some erotic e-mails I have been sent. I keep them in the freezer.

Somehow a story eludes me. Every now and then an idea flashes across my mind, but, overall, the frogs are still in the shadows.

Erotic love? More research would seem to be required. This writing business can be tough.

---

 

 

 

 

 

 

September 17 2014. Big phones? I’m in favor of anything which encourages reading—and the news about reading is really quite encouraging. I’m agreeably surprised—and very pleased..

“When I get a little money, I buy books. If any is left, I buy food and clothes.”

Erasmus

“Reading is the sole means by which we slip, involuntarily, often helplessly, into another’s skin, another’s voice, another’s soul.”

Joyce Carol Oates

“There is no friend as loyal as a book.”

Ernest Hemingway

“What a miracle it is that out of these small, flat, rigid squares of paper unfolds world after world after world, worlds that sing to you, comfort and quiet or excite you. Books help us understand who we are and how we are to behave. They show us what community and friendship mean; they show us how to live and die.”

Anne Lamott

“I am simply a ‘book drunkard.’ Books have the same irresistible temptation for me that liquor has for its devotee. I cannot withstand them.”

L.M. Montgomery

“Never trust anyone who has not brought a book with them.”

Lemony Snicket (aka Daniel Handler)

---

As I have described before, I was sent to boarding school very young—at the age of five—and couldn’t read. Since the normal age of a new entrant was about eight and a half—and by that age all could read—it had been widely assumed that I could read too. The school either hadn’t thought to ask—or else my mother had been economical with the truth (as was her way).

If memory serves, it took some time before my inability to read was discovered—most of the first term, in fact. My recollection is that most of what we learned initially was by rote—with no written work required—so I guess that was why my deficiencies remained undetected. When my reading and writing inadequacies were discovered, there was consternation. Quite what all that says about the school’s teaching methods,  I don’t know—but I doubt it can be considered favorable.  My first boarding school was St. Gerards in Bray, Co. Wicklow, Ireland (in Ireland, we put ‘county first’—as in County Dublin). It is now highly regarded, but I do not recall it kindly. I associate it with years of bullying and mediocre teaching. Still, to be fair to Gerards, my experiences were colored by being far too young for the place. Why did they admit me so young? My mother could be extraordinarily persuasive.

Be that as it may, eventually a Miss Johnson took me in hand and taught me how to read and then to write. She also told me—appreciate that I was only five and very small—that I was so sweet she would like to take me into her bed and just hug me. I lived in dread of Miss Johnson for some time after that.

I learned very quickly, and soon became an obsessional reader. I read everything I could lay my hands on, was never without a book, and read everywhere—except in church. I tried there too, but a typical novel is larger than a prayer book so I was detected and punished.

But church apart, I read on the bus, at the circus, at the theater, at the fairground, during social occasions—when I could get away with it—and by flashlight  under a blanket when in bed. I loved it. I still do. Only writing now surpasses it as my passion—and writing involves a great deal of reading.

When I was in my teens—at a much better boarding school, Ampleforth College in north Yorkshire, England—I was warned by my housemaster, Benedictine monk Dom Patrick Barry (widely known as ‘Paddy’—see photo), that too much reading would separate me socially from my peers.

Nonetheless, since he was a bookish man himself, he was sympathetic and made me the house librarian. He was widely unpopular then (with the boys) because he was stern and had a formidable physical presence, but I liked and respected him a great deal. He went on to become the abbot—and last I checked was in his nineties and still alive. Who knew he would become so jovial! He’s a remarkable man—scholar, classicist, calligrapher, sculptor, archer—of many talents.

At that time, you had to write down the title of every book you read—and you had a minimum goal of something like three books per term. My problem was I read too many books—over ten times the minimum some terms--which gave rise to questions about whether I was studying hard enough. I wasn’t—except where the subject matter interested me.

But I read on regardless and, when I ran out of books in my house library, I borrowed them—via a friend—from another house.

In that way, I read every book Nevil Shute (see photo) wrote (and was much enriched by the experience). Shute is a great story teller—and I was quite bereft when I finished his last book. He was prolific and wrote 23 in all.

I always feel a little sad when I finish a really good book. Post-coital tristesse, indeed.

Was Paddy right that too much reading tends to distance a person from his peers? In some ways, he was absolutely right because too much knowledge tends to change the way you think fairly fundamentally. You have had—so to speak—more experience (albeit second-hand experience). Also, if you prefer to read rather than be social, that can be a problem in itself.

On the other hand, if you read as much as I did—and continue to do so—then you tend to know something about most things so find it easy to have common ground with just about anyone. Better yet if you are empathetic, which I am. So I have ended up intermittently social—but not socially needy. A major deficiency is that I am not a good networker. I regret that. Success has more to do with who you know than talent. But, you are what you are.

I have no regrets at all about the amount of time I have spent reading—though I do have decided reservations about television. If ever there was a social killer, that’s it. Conversation used to be an art form in Ireland—and that nation still maintains a high standard—but the introduction of TV into pubs noticeably degraded verbal skills. Similarly, dropping into each other’s homes used to be the focus of much entertainment in the evenings. And then came TV. I feel very lucky to have been brought up in a TV free house.

I have worried about the state of reading over the years—and much has been written either saying it is in decline—or forecasting that it soon will be. My concern has been that there are so many other distractions available—and multimedia represents formidable competition to the written word.

Yet recent research from Pew Research is quite encouraging. Let me quote from theatlantic.com

Millennials, like each generation that was young before them, tend to attract all kinds of ire from their elders for being superficial, self-obsessed, anti-intellectuals. But a study out today from the Pew Research Center offers some vindication for the younger set. Millennials are reading more books than the over-30 crowd, Pew found in a survey of more than 6,000 Americans.

Some 88 percent of Americans younger than 30 said they read a book in the past year compared with 79 percent of those older than 30. At the same time, American readers' relationship with public libraries is changing—with younger readers less likely to see public libraries as essential in their communities.

Overall, Americans are buying more books than they borrow, the study found. Among those who read at least one book in the past year, more than half said they tend to purchase books rather than borrow them. Fewer Americans are visiting libraries than in recent years, but more Americans are using library websites.

It could well be that we won’t all be communicating through pictograms—reverting to the caveman approach, so to speak, but I wouldn’t count on it.

Incidentally, the weirdest aspect of all this is the way talking on the phone is now so out of fashion. Texting is in instead. I regard that as a great pity—even though texting is (I suppose) a form of writing. Given what I read all too often, I make that concession grudgingly.

But the human voice is very special and communicates in an equally special way. And I particularly warm to the sound of an attractive female voice.

Not sure ‘warm’ is the right word.

---

 

 

 

 

“But my philosophy is that plot advancement is not what the experience of reading fiction is about. If all we care about is advancing the plot, why read novels? We can just read Cliffs Notes.” George R.R. Martin

“Of course, the writer can impose control; It's just a really shitty idea. Writing controlled fiction is called "plotting." Buckling your seatbelt and letting the story take over, however... that is called "storytelling." Storytelling is as natural as breathing; plotting is the literary version of artificial respiration.”
Stephen King

“When all else fails, complicate matters.”
Aaron Allston

“Remember: Plot is no more than footprints left in the snow after your characters have run by on their way to incredible destinations. Plot is observed after the fact rather than before. It cannot precede action. It is the chart that remains when an action
is through. That is all Plot ever should be. It is human desire let run, running, and reaching a goal. It cannot be mechanical. It can only be dynamic. So, stand aside, forget targets, let the characters, your fingers, body, blood, and heart do.”
Ray Bradbury

---

I find George R.R. Martin’s statement extraordinarily interesting. It makes the overall point that just when you think you have reduced something like fiction writing to a set of rules and principles, someone comes along and violates then with success.

I guess they call that creativity. All I can say is: “Thank God for it.”

So how do you judge a work of fiction if it breaks most—or at least many-- of the traditional rules? You ask the question: Does it work? By that you really mean: Is it entertaining? Does it grip me, stimulate me, amuse me, interest me, and make me want to read on?

What makes George R.R. Martin’s work so entertaining?

• Fascinating over the top characters of such duality and complexity that you never quite know whether to love or hate them.
• His willingness to kill any of them so it’s effectively impossible to quite know who to root for.
• A series of subplots which distract from the main storyline—but which are fascinating in themselves.
• The compelling unpredictability of events.
• The detail he puts into his writing.
• The writing itself.

By conventional standards, Martin should be focused on answering the main question he posits? Who is going to end up on top? Instead he advances that particular aspect of his storyline at the speed of a sloth, and seizes just about every excuse to deviate.

But he deviates so compellingly.

Most of the editors I have known—my friends at Grove excepted—would have hated him.

They would have been wrong.

It is in the nature of being creative, in every walk of life, that a great many people—the experts, the editors, the people “who who really know the business,” the publishers, the High Priests of the status quo—will try and crush you.

And yet we endure—which doesn’t mean you won’t be hurt. If you opt for a creative life, pain and struggle are pretty much guaranteed. But, if your inner voice tells you that you are right—you are indestructible.

Console yourself with that fundamental truth—while you scream!

---

 

September 16 2014. To plot or not—that is the question? But plot what? Life becomes damnably confusing without a title.

Storytelling is about two things; it's about character and plot.

George Lucas

“Character is plot, plot is character.”
F. Scott Fitzgerald

“But my philosophy is that plot advancement is not what the experience of reading fiction is about. If all we care about is advancing the plot, why read novels? We can just read Cliffs Notes.”
George R.R. Martin

Writing is truly a creative art - putting word to a blank piece of paper and ending up with a full-fledged story rife with character and plot.

William Shatner

“Writing fiction is the act of weaving a series of lies to arrive at a greater truth.”
Khaled Hosseini

I have my tombstone already. A tombstone company in the East gave it to me when I jumped Snake Canyon. My plot is in Montana.

Evel Knievel

---

Actually, if you are writing a story, of course it’s not the question. You have got to plot. The question is how. Some authors tend to plot in great detail before writing a line of the real story. Others start off with a rough outline—maybe only a few points—and then let the story “grow as they write”—which is another way of saying they make it up as they go along.

I’m a great believer in creative spontaneity—letting the story grow on the page—but I do think it helps to have an outline—even if minimal—before you start. In particular, I like to have a beginning, an end, and a title. Without a title I find it impossible to write. A title is extraordinarily important. It provides focus—and on a practical level, it helps you organize your notes and supporting files in some logical way. Given my penchant for forgetting the names of files I have opened—I suffer from a form of dyslexia which makes for administrative chaos—I need some routines to anchor me. Also, you can change the title once the book is written. Don’t change it in the middle or confusion will be rife. Your supporting material will be all over the place.

My first book, GAMES OF THE HANGMAN, was, in fact, written under the title of THE IRISH SAMURAI—a title I still like. I can’t recall why we changed it except that it was at the initiation of the publisher. They did it very nicely in that I was asked to come up with alternatives. I recall making a long list—with GAMES OF THE HANGMAN being towards the end. Nonetheless, that’s the one we settled on—and it has served me well.

I initially picked THE IRISH SAMURAI because I saw my main protagonist—the hero, if you will—as  having the nature, military skills, and traditions  of a samurai—albeit an Irish version. Though I changed a lot of the details, that core concept drove the creation of the character. Of course, a samurai is really someone who serves a high master—so, since my protagonist, Hugo Fitzduane, serves no one—he is, if anything, either the master or a ronin (masterless samurai) . But let’s not get technical.

I would still rather like to write a story under that name—and may do so.

Where plotting a thriller is concerned, I now have a simple technique I use which divides the setting-up of a story into the following. I then assemble lists under these headings. I don’t need lots of detail in most cases. My memory works pretty well—if prompted—but it does need prompting.

• CHARACTERS (People). I think about my characters a great deal and really get to know them. From character comes motivation.
• LOCATIONS (Places). I find visiting places inspires plot ideas.
• EVENTS (Situations). Someone once told me that a story consists of getting someone into trouble—getting them into even more trouble—and then getting them out it. There is some truth to that. I like to start a story off with a pivotal event which then drives the story to its conclusion.
• WEAPONS & TECHNOLOGIES (Gadgets). I like introducing unusual weapons and technologies
• TIMELINE. This varies in importance depending on the story. I keep a very close eye on it, but don’t emphasize it in the writing unless it is relevant.

It is quite hard to find a balance between writing with clarity—which I like to do—while keeping the plot complex enough to be interesting.

When writing the story, I try and adhere to the following principles

• GIVE THE BACKGROUND TO ALL MAIN CHARACTERS
• INTRODUCE HUMOR AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE WITHIN REASON
• AVOID PREDICTABILITY.
• INTRODUCE SURPRISES FREQUENTLY
• END EACH CHAPTER WITH A HOOK
• KEEP SCENES SHORT
• KEEP THE WRITING TIGHT

Except when writing a piece like this, I don’t try and analyze how I write. I don’t want to become self-conscious about it. Mostly, I just write.

The secrets of writing—mostly—are reading, writing, time, talent, and endurance. So simple. So hard.

What role does talent play? Ten percent? I don’t really know. What I do know is that raw talent is not enough. It takes a great deal of work before raw talent becomes fruitful. Conversely, given enough application, I have the feeling that minimal talent can be substantially enhanced.

Developed talent is another thing entirely. In the writing world, someone with developed talent is generally known as an author.

That said, no author ever writes quite as well as he or she wants. We writers live with with failure. It’s quite a paradox that such failures are so pleasurable.

---

September 15 2014. More on THE GHOST. It may well turn into the SUPER GHOST—a corvette sized superior littoral combat ship 150 feet long at a cost of $50 million. What do the current proposed Littoral Combat Ships cost? $700 million—and climbing. The LCS—just like the F-35—is a classic MICC project where so much money gets invested, it becomes too big to fail.

BACKGROUND. The U.S. Navy is currently primarily a deep water Navy—ill equipped to deal with the shallower coastal waters known as the ‘Littoral Zone.’

Coastal (littoral) missions could include anti-piracy (which is all too common in deep water as well)  coastal raids, fire support for special operators or Marines, countering the threat from small boats (as demonstrated by the Iranians and the attack on the USS Cole).

LITTORAL COMBAT SHIPS. To resolve this deficiency a class of relatively small, fast multi-purpose LCSs (Littoral Combat Ships) was proposed. Two variations are being evaluated.

Freedom Class from Lockheed Martin. c. 3,000 tons, 378 feet long. 47 knots. Cost c$700 million

Independence Class from General Dynamics and Austal c. 3,100 tons, 418 feet long, 44 knots. Cost $704 million first ship. $360 million future ships.

COSTLY. CONTENTIOUS & UNSUITABLE? The LCS program has been—and remains—contentious. There have been major technical problems—and serious questions have been raised about both the survivability of such ships and their firepower. In addition, it is clear that costs have spiraled out of control—in the classic manner of such projects (where the pattern is to secure the contract with a low bid which then escalates as the project proceeds).

A SUGGESTED ALTERNATIVE. The Super Ghost is being suggested as an alternative.  It represents a dramatically different approach—and could be much cheaper. However, development is less far advanced and its technology unproven operationally.

THE GHOST

The hull—and all its associated drag—is out of the water. Two angled ‘skirt’s’ link it to propulsion tubes. Powerful engines in the tubes create the bubble and power the boat at high speed. Stated goal is 50 knots (I think it will go faster).

The supercavitation propulsion method used to speed up the Ghost is the same enabling the Russian Shkval torpedo to gain a speed four time higher than its western counterparts. Essentially, an air bubble surrounds the torpedo—or ships hull—or equivalent—thus vastly reducing friction. The principle is simple. Doing it is another matter.

This is a head on shot of The Ghost. Note the sharp leading edges of the ‘skirt’ that cut through the sea. The powerful engines are in the tubes. Minimal drag + supercavitation equates to speed plus fuel economy.

FAST, STEALTHY & INNOVATIVE. This is a fascinating project. It could herald a whole new approach to both ship design and propulsion. The ship is called ‘Ghost’ because it is both fast and stealthy—it doesn’t show up on radar.

Reportedly, thanks to the fact that it cuts through the waves plus a self-adjusting suspension, the Ghost is unusually stable.

How will the ship cope with high waves and adverse weather conditions? No information on these matters is available as yet. This, as yet, a development project.

Defense-update.com comments as follows.

Juliet Marine Systems a small company from Portsmouth, N.H., has developed a unique high-speed watercraft called Ghost that could take on missions close to shores, where larger vessels, such as the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) would normally be too vulnerable to operate – company officials say. While initially the Ghost design was offered for fast patrol, special operations and force protection missions, Juliet Marine is now promoting a scaled-up corvette version ‘super Ghost’ for the US Navy re-evaluation of the Littoral Combat Ship force structure.

“With Ghost you can you can get into denied-access ocean areas, monitor what’s going on, launch operations and leave, and no one knows you’re there”

Plans are to build a corvette-sized 46 meter (150 ft) ‘super Ghost’ at a cost of about $50 million per vessel – six times cheaper than the $300 million per-ship cost of a current Freedom-class and Independence-class littoral combat ship. Such a vessel could operate with LCS or with other oceangoing naval vessels, providing a more affordable, agile and survivable naval strike forces.