Speakeasy

Mike Shatzkin, US expert on digital change, has written this article for Publisher’s Weekly that identifies the 15 trends he thinks will impact the most on the writing and publishing industry in the near future. Not reading trends - he’s not predicting a rise in the popularity of historical fiction, or novels about Hiroshima - but larger trends in the way books are produced and published, and the way they’re read.

Digital publishing seems to be the odds-on favourite, with the Amazon Kindle, the Sony Reader, and Apple’s upcoming foray into e-books readers as products to keep an eye on. He does talk a bit about the Borders v Barnes & Noble skirmish, suggesting the ways each chain might develop to take a bite out of the digital pie. Online marketing for books will naturally increase, in more and more experimental ways (Shatzkin mentions video trailers for books; if you haven’t seen one, click here). And Print-On-Demand could apparently save the hardback.

All in all, quite an interesting projection for the publishing industry, and lots of solid points to use in the argument against those killjoys who keep telling us the book is dead.

UK’s The Guardian has an interesting article on characters in novels; it essentially outlines the different schools of thought on ‘how to write a good character’, and the writer looks at a few of the heavyweights from classic English literature, finally reaching the conclusion that there isn’t really a formula for writing a successful fictional character (tell us something we don’t know).

But what I found really intriguing in this article was the sheer variety of characters and the ways they’ve all been formed. When you’re reading a novel, you don’t always pay attention to the way the words on a page merge to form the impression of a person, or a few different people, but this article has really interesting things to say about the ways this has been done. It’s all a little too complex to summarise, so you’ll just have to read it!

Grammar Bytes is the place to go in all those tricky punctuation moments. Full of printable handouts, tips, and rules and advice for every aspect of grammar and punctuation, this website is a great resource. And it’s funny - sample sentences include:

At midnight in Count Dracula’s castle up on the hill, you can hear Diana Ross crooning from the stereo. [Introductory prepositional phrase]

When the computer began to beep wildly, Donald grabbed the monitor and threw it out the window. [Introductory subordinate clause]

That second one is certainly familiar…

But back to the point, great website. Teacher-friendly, but also random-member-of-the-public friendly. Good, clean fun!

Saturday night saw the announcement of the 2007 Aurealis Awards - the awards for Australian science fiction, fantasy and horror.

David Kowalski’s The Company of the Dead took out both Best Science Fiction Novel, and the Golden Aurealis Award For Best Novel (This is the second year in a row that a first-timer has taken both of these awards. Last year’s went to Will Elliot, for The Pilo Family Circus).

Other prize-winners include Cat Sparks, Garth Nix, Lian Hearn and Kate Forsyth. Congratulations!

Clive Thompson over at Wired has posted this review of Cory Doctorow’s novella, which includes a great argument for science fiction as the new site of philosophical exploration, the new way to explore humanity and all its potential.

I have to admit, I could see his point about literary fiction, and the limits to what it can explore in relation to the big issues. Yes, literature that the majority can relate to, literature with characters that remind you of people you know, is fine. Great, even. But what if you don’t want to read a book that’s really just about the guy down the street? What if you’d rather read one that gives serious thought to what the world is going to do when half our land masses are under water? Or when human fertility runs out, or when that doomsday virus actually does make it out of the lab (you’ve all heard the conspiracy theories).

Science fiction, or ’speculative fiction’, to give it the umbrella title that adds in horror and fantasy literature, is not without flaws. It has it’s share of bad writing, but so does every other genre around. Spec fic is the only genre where a writer can twist reality as we know it - introduce a variable like German victory in WW2, for example, or the widespread existance of zombies - and see how humanity reacts. And it’s finally moving over into the mainstream. Cormac McCarthy, Margaret Atwood, Philip Roth, etc. have all abandoned the limits of reality for the unlimited potential of speculative fiction. Which, when it’s done right, can be some of the cleverest, most moving, most thought-provoking stuff out there. It can leave you feeling like the world might just make it through.

Or that we’re all doomed. Either one works.

Just found this article in last Wednesday’s issue of The Australian, about screenwriting and the Australian Film Industry. It focuses on the complete lack of funds available for script development, and also the fact that most Australian films are scripted by their directors.

Frankly, this whole issue explains a lot about the state of Australian movies (like the fact that many of them are completely awful). The idea that anyone can write a good script, without any training or practice, is ludicrous. And you can’t make a good film without a good script. You can make an okay film, or a halfway-decent film, but not a good one. Why the film industry gives precedence to trashy, underwritten scripts instead of experienced screenwriters is a complete mystery to me.

The List Universe has, among many other lists, picked out 15 great alcoholics, who also happened to be writers. The list includes Truman Capote, Hunter S. Thompson, and, of course, Ernest Hemingway. Dorothy Parker is the only woman, but perhaps that’s a reflection of history’s attitude to women writers. Or maybe Austen and the Brontes’ were just better at acting sober.

It’s funny how writing and alcohol abuse seem (sometimes!) to go hand in hand. The mind-expanding, tongue-loosening, writer’s-block-unblocking properties of alcohol have been written on elsewhere, but this list reminded me of the relationship between good writing and unhappiness. I’m thinking of alcohol as the great self-medicator, for depressives everywhere.

Great works so often seem to come from a place of wretchedness, of striving, searching and trying hard for something more. You don’t feel the urge to try so hard when you’re happy. Being completely at peace with the world is usually antithetical to the kind of impassioned, subversive, even antagonistic writing so often classed as ‘great’.

Not that every writer should develop a drink problem to improve their writing. Just the opposite: I need to concentrate just to hold a glass when I’ve had a few, so who knows how these literary mavens managed to hold a pen or operate a typewriter once they got sauced.

But blind happiness probably isn’t that helpful if you’re trying to write an opus full of the kind of passion that makes a book memorable, as opposed to the indifferent drek available in bookstores. Take a break and watch the news. Go online and look up animal cruelty, or child trafficking. Find something that makes you passionately angry, or just passionate, and go back to your computer determined to write something that will change someone’s mind.

News today that Australia’s longest-running news magazine The Bulletin has been axed by ACP Magazines, with the latest issue (out yesterday) destined to be its last…

But it might not quite be the end of the line for this 128-year-old publication with ACP’s arch rivals at the Seven Network apparently anxious to discuss possibilities to take over the title - and to do so quickly before the 40,000-strong subscribers to the magazine, and its place on the newsagent shelves, dissolves.

At its height, the Bulletin had circulation figures of over 100,000 but this has dipped down to the mid 50,000s in recent years. The Seven Network is reportedly keen to add a news/current affairs title to its current magazine portfolio of 15 and thinks it can work some magic to revive The Bulletin’s flagging (and fading fast) fortunes.

All the latest news at The Sydney Morning Herald.

The Australian newspaper has reportedly uncovered another case of an author stretching the truth and passing it off as fact.

The controversy centres around Ishmael Beah’s memoir of his time as a child soldier in Sierra Leone, A Long Way Gone. In the book Beah tells of his years spent fighting in the civil war from the age of 13. Investigations by The Australian alledge that Beah didn’t join the army until he was 15, meaning his account of his time as a refugee and then a solider was actually only 12 months, rather than the 3 years he suggests.

The book has sold more than 650,000 copies to date helped by a Starbucks promotional campaign and has been widely praised.

Beah and his US publisher are standing by the book, with Beah insisting in a letter to the editor of The Australian, "I am right about the dates. This is not something one gets wrong".

The acadamic who helped with the first draft, suggests that any flaws should be put down to poetic license: "If it turns out there are factual errors, I wouldn’t necessarily be all that concerned about it," said Professor Chaon of Ohio’s Oberlin College. "I don’t think the book is being presented as a piece of journalism. It’s being presented as a memoir."

It makes for interesting reading though with accusation and counter-accusation a-plenty. Read the original story from The Australian plus some international comment from The Guardian UK.

If you’re the sort of writer easily blighted by distractions or who falls foul to procrastination at every possible turn, check out these handy hints from lifehack.org.

It may seem obvious that you need to be comfortable and alone when writing but there’s also other more technical ways to focus the mind - using a text editor and cleansing your computer to use just for writing (take off ‘Solitaire’, save your photos somewhere else etc.) is good advice, wear headphones (with or without music, or try white/pink noise) and warn everyone in advance to stay away should all help maximise your time.

There’s lots of software out there especially for writing too - it helps you organise your notes, create drafts and unite themes etc. Check out this one for PCs and this one for MACs.