Here's one that didn't win....

Apparently, George Orwell often mistook rejection for failure. He kept going just the same, in a state of gloomy optimism with which I am pretty familiar.



I entered this story in the Bridport micro fiction competition, and it didn't win. So...it was rejected. But that wasn't a failure on my part: I successfully wrote it, entered it, and am now posting it. In the spirit of success. Or something. 

This is based on an actual theatre which was part of the Brighton Festival this year, and I really didn't go there, and there really was a Balkan band playing when I walked past, too busy to join the happy throng inside...

The Hurly Burly Café Theatre

I have never been to the Hurly Burly Café Theatre. I have never seen the oompah Balkan quartet with the gypsy in dreads from Dubrovnik. I didn’t buy black vodka from the pop-up bar, or sit on the bleached grass on Leonard’s raincoat with the wind in my hair. No one kissed me smoky when I scrounged a gold Soubrane. And when our lips didn’t meet, it wasn’t the real thing.

The song escaped over the addled roof-tops, the slates and chimneys and minarets. The curtains were cloud-drapes, moonlit and sun-dappled. Children ran among the giant legs. There were gryphons and unicorns and fluttering pennants. There was a pianola and roast chestnuts and a talking fish.

You were there, I expect, leaning over the table. Paying in florins and sixpences, counting the coins with rings on your fingers.

WRITING FOR YOUR LIFE

I'm preoccupied with death at the moment, the sudden and premature deaths of two people I knew, the fact my mother has a serious illness. I have just come back from a very beautiful funeral, which captured the everyday wonders of a supposedly 'ordinary' life.

One thing which came up over and over again was the fact that the person whose life we were celebrating loved stories - Discworld, the Narnia books, the Lord of the Rings. In recent weeks, I've felt as if my own concerns - with writing, and story telling and publishing what I write - are somehow trivial and self indulgent, as if I should Grow Up and get on with something else.

But I don't know how to do anything else. I can teach people, but what I teach is that writing is a way of finding meaning in life, if not the meaning of life. When someone dies, we sing songs, and read poems and the people who loved them tell stories about them, the memories and moments that live on. The music and poetry help us to survive, collectively, they keep the light burning.

And stories can do the same thing too. So that is why I write. Not to be published or famous or noticed. (Though every writer wants other people to be part of what they do.) But because I need to.

On the way back from the funeral, I got on a bus, weighed down with everything, the sadness and sorrow of it all. After a while, I saw the sun was out, shining through the mist of condensation that blurred the windows. We were passing the Brighton Pavilion, and I wiped the mist off the glass. I could see the pop-up skating rink they have set up for Christmas, empty chairs and tables waiting for the evening, a tiny glimpse of the ice through an open door. All in bright sunshine.

Plot number seven: Rebirth

And finally. We go to stories - and therefore plots - for things we can't find in Life. We are looking for patterns, for an explanation of some sort, a conclusion that can be drawn. We want the story to give us something back, a feeling of reassurance, the belief that while life ends, it also teaches. New beginnings emerge from bleak endings. There may or may not be rebirth in the hereafter, but there is certainly rebirth in the now. Or so the Hollywood screenwriters would have us believe.

I don't know what Christopher Booker says about this, because frankly I have looked at his book enough to feel pretty well informed about his point of view. His is the compendium approach to creativity, in which an assemblage of narratives, a great story pile, must surely offer something to those in search of narrative enlightenment.

Life is not neat or reassuring. Virginia Woolf thought sanity was a lie. Thing have happened in my life recently which don't suggest that life is a pattern of any kind. Experience tears holes in our reality, and there isn't much to mend them with. And yet. There is still the story of Pandora's box to keep the flame alive.

When Pandora opened the box, and all the bad things came out, all the evil and suffering and pain and horror, it seemed there was no hope. But Hope was exactly what there was, the tiny spirit trapped in the bottom of box who came fluttering out last of all. Ibsen said that human beings can't take all that much reality. Maybe he was being too harsh. Maybe all they need is a little bit of hope, enough to sustain the insanity of optimism which keeps us believing in the magic of story, and of being alive.

Make 'em wait.

There may or may not be seven basic plots, I have no idea. Christopher Booker says there are and he seems a knowledgeable sort of chap, though we may disagree about the reasons that Greenland's ice cover is melting and various other matters. (Him being a climate change sceptic and me being a non-driving near vegan and all that.)

And it's also true that there is a very great deal that I don't know about Plot, not to mention Theme, Characterisation, Pace, Dialogue and all the rest. I have written two published novels and one unpublished one (the best of the three, of course) and a number of short stories. The Unwritten far exceeds the Written, at this stage of my life.

But I do know one thing. The best writers know how to make the reader wait. Literary novelists may do this via the medium of endless description, or a general vagueness suggestive of profundity. (You may find, in the end, that you waited in vain.) Thriller writers approach this by deploying corpses and unexpected twists, with or without referencing Poe and The Gothic. Old school novelists Tell a Good Tale, in the manner of Stephen King or the mighty Mr Dickens. Anticipation is all. Delayed gratification is one of the greatest pleasures we can experience.

So is this the reason that I haven't yet revealed the mysteries of the Seventh Plot? Not really. I've been studying and on holiday:

Observe the reckless enjoyment and dedication to the moment demonstrated here as my son and I wait for a meal to arrive in Rhodes. Perhaps I am wondering how the holiday will end, what the twist will be, or what to write in my blog once I have covered The Seven Basic Plots. Who knows? I may or may not reveal this among other facets of a writer's craft in my next post. Now that's what I call a cliff-hanger.

Plot number six: Tragedy

In a tragedy, things end badly. Christopher Booker says that, crudely put, a story will end either with the union of lovers or with death. In tragedy, death is usually violent and premature. But tragedy isn't necessarily depressing. One friend of mine prefers sad endings: happy endings make them feel excluded and inadequate.

There is no simple formula for tragedy, it takes innumerable forms and some of the other story types: such as the dark Quest - might also be tragedies. However, C. Booker cites five examples which illustrate the most simple and enduring tragic story structure. These are: the story of Icarus; 'Faust': 'Macbeth'; 'Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde' and 'Lolita'.

The basic outline is this: the hero/heroine embarks on a course of action which is dangerous or forbidden: they go over to the dark side. This works for a while, and there is a brief halcyon period. But then they realise they can't find satisfaction. The protagonist becomes more and more frustrated and unhappy. Attempts to make his/her position stronger or safer fail. The dream goes sour; they are trapped in a nightmare. Violent destruction follows.


Tragedy can be split into different sub-categories: the hero divided against himself (like Faust) or the hero as monster (like Humbert Humbert in 'Lolita'.) But  in spite of the infinite variety within this story structure, there is a template which is useful when developing or planning any storyline. Essentially, a good plot is dynamic and there is a sense of movement and pace within the story; a sense of the dread inevitability of events.

This is the template:

1. Anticipation Stage. An unsatisfied or curious hero is tempted or attracted by something new.
2. Dream Stage. The hero commits himself to this course of action, and it all seems to be working.
3. Frustration Stage. Gradually, the situation unravels: he cannot find satisfaction or rest.
4. Nightmare Stage. This was a very bad idea. Everything spirals out of control; darkness beckons.
5. Destruction or Death Wish. It all comes crashing down. The hero meets a bad end.

Tragedies also tap into something fundamental in our psychology. Watch King Lear mourning the loss of Cordelia and you might feel a connection with the rest of humanity, and experience a flash of understanding about the universality of loss.

Plot number five: Comedy

Okay, so after brief hiatus caused by PhD stuff and daylight-dodging teenagers, here is plot number five: Comedy, courtesy of Christopher Booker (who I have just discovered is a global warming sceptic as well as a former editor of Private Eye, so clearly this is a man with a sense of humour).

Comedy doesn't have to be funny, as anyone who has a. seen 'Twelfth Night' or b. listened to Radio Four's weekday comedy slot will tell you. Comedy is a genre of story, and the basic requirement here are that things turn out well. The Ancient Greeks kicked the whole thing off, and at the heart of the story was an 'agon' or conflict between two characters or groups. One side is dominated by a restrictive belief or obsession. The other represents the life force, truth and freedom. The happy ending comes about when the 'dark' character is forced to see things differently and reconciliation/celebration follow. Good, in other words,triumphs over Evil. Nice thought.

Aristotle called this 'anagnorisis' or recognition, the moment when something not understood before comes clear. This discovery is still central to comedy: eg Bridget Jones discovers that Mark Darcy is really pretty sexy and the awful jumper he was wearing at the Alconbury's Christmas party was an unwanted present.

There are various sub-genres of comedy: romantic comedy being the most obvious. A classic plot is one in which the lovers are kept apart because they are unaware of each other's identity, or even of their own identity. Lost parents or the discovery that one of the characters is a prince or princess can be part of the mix. Shakespeare reinvigorated the form, complicating and enriching the original classical template. But he followed the same pattern: from darkness to light, from disorder to order; from discord to reconciliation.

Love is a frequent theme of comedy, but the 21st century version of the form attempts to 'play it for laughs' even if this goal is sometimes missed. A classic 'type' in this genre is someone who thinks they have the world under control whose life plunges into chaos. Romance and order after chaos/union after separation still dominate eg in ' Four Weddings and a Funeral' in which Charles is united with his True Love when his unfortunate bride (Duckface) is waiting at the altar. The classic of the form in old school Hollywood terms is 'Some Like it Hot' which is full of confusion, cross-dressing and romantic mishaps.

There are huge variations within this form. The key elements are a. we see a group of people in enclosed world with some problems/disconnections; b. it all gets a lot worse; c. light is shed on the matter, truth is revealed, a happy feeling ensues.

The plot thickens...

Just an aside from my Christopher Booker-based musings on plotting. The image of a plot thickening, like soup, is very useful. The best plots aren't great Heath Robinson constructions put together with mechanical ingenuity, which crank up the action with creaking, wheezing effort.

The best plots seem to arise naturally, inevitably. This applies to all kinds of writing, even thrillers. I read 'The Talented Mr Ripley' recently, and while it's a work of shimmering brilliance in almost every way, it doesn't depend on death defying plot twists or mind-blowing tricks in the final act. It just sustains the tension remorselessly via the medium of Ripley's weird and warped character, and the reader's collusion with him. (There is no way we want him to be caught, even though we know everything he's done - nothing is held back.)

A great plot is not a machine. It is an organic, vegetable thing, growing inside and outside the story, the characters and the the theme. I find it useful - as I approach my fourth novel - to think about these things under separate headings, but in fact the writing process retains its messiness no matter how much time you spend trying to analyse it and tidy it all up.

Next up - the comic plot, which comes in various forms, not all of them funny.

Plot no 4: Voyage and Return

At first sight this looks a bit like Quest with a return ticket. But the Voyage and Return protagonist isn't looking for anything specific. They are on a journey of exploration, going to a new world which is strange, unfamiliar, abnormal. At first this is astonishing and exciting, but eventually they realise they are trapped in this place, far from home, and they yearn for its familiarity and safety.

Two classics of the Voyage and Return form are Alice in Wonderland/Through the Looking Glass and The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe. Both have examples of the 'portal' which is common to many of these stories - the route to the other world. Rabbit hole, mirror, wardrobe - they mark the end of this world and the beginning of the next. In The Wizard of Oz, the tornado is the portal, blowing Dorothy's house over the rainbow. Once the portal has done its work 'we're not in Kansas any more'. Anything can happen - reality as we know it has been left behind.

There are ancient versions of this plot, and it was also used by Defoe and Swift in Robinson Crusoe and Gulliver's Travels. Travellers' tales were widely used in popular chapbooks before the novel came into being - the wonder of another world has a deep, atavistic hold on our imagination. As does the idea of home, a place you appreciate so much more when it is far away.

But the stories don't have to be fantastical - the protagonist can enter another world in social or geographical terms, as Paul Pennyfeather does in Decline and Fall, or Harry Lime does in The Third Man.

The hero or heroine of such tales can be dreamy and unfocused or naive and open to experience. They can be generic - an adventurer, up for anything. But they do need to begin with a set of assumptions that shape their world, and in the course of the story these assumptions do have to be challenged or undermined in some way.  A brilliant example of the form is another Greene novel, Travels with my Aunt, in which the narrator returns home in a way which is unexpected but satisfying. (I won't say how in case you haven't read it yet, and it's a brilliant story, clever, vivid and a real page-turner.)

At some point the new world becomes more dangerous and sinister that it is exotic and exciting. A crisis of some kind will take place, and the narrator will be in peril.  Mr McGregor might be chasing Peter Rabbit to put him in a pie; the Red Queen might be threatening Alice with decapitation.  Essentially, at this point they change, they expand their knowledge and awareness. Innocence is lost. The Voyage and Return plot is a plot of self discovery and 'coming of age'.

Christopher Booker (our plot guru) sums up the stages like this: 1. Anticipation Stage and 'fall' into the other world; 2. Initial fascination or 'dream' stage; 3. Frustration stage; 4. Nightmare stage and 5. Thrilling Escape and Return. Top tip - if you take one of the novels I've mentioned, you could break the action down under these headings. Or try it with another novel which seems to fit this story genre.

Plot no.3 - The Quest

The Quest story is well known and immediaetely recognizable. As Christopher Booker points out 'some of the most celebrated stories in the world are quests'. These include Homer's Odyssey; Virgil's Aeneid; Dante's Divine Comedy and Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress. More recent quest stories are The Lord of the Rings, Richard Adams' Watership Down and Steven Spielberg's Raiders of the Lost Ark.

The key here is that it doesn't matter what the characters are searching for, as long as they are searching for something, and it doesn't matter where they go. Vital components include the hero (or heroine); a 'call to adventure', some companions who help and support the hero, but with whom their will be conflict and a perilous journey. On arrival, or near arrival, the hero/heroine will meet some final frustration or impediment. There will be a last test, or tests, and then the final goal will be achieved.

And you can go towards the light and frothy - as in Around the World in 80 days - or dark. As in Conrad's Heart of Darkness or its cinematic alter ego Apocalypse Now.

Sounds so incredibly easy I think I will start penning my Quest novel right now.

Plot 2 - Rags to Riches

One of the most popular stories of all time is Cinderalla. The ordinary, apparently insignificant person steps into the limelight and shows that they are special. It's the structure behind The Ugly Duckling, My Fair Lady, The Sword in the Stone, Bridget Jones, the 1980s bonk buster Scruples and this scene from King Creole  At the risk of over-selling the point, there is a similarly satisfying scene at the end of Strictly Ballroom.

Christopher Booker makes the point that this story also appears in the Bible - Joseph the Dreamer becomes Joseph the great leader.  And the rags to riches story is associated with the fairy tale ending, which can be sugary and twee. (For my money, they should have cut the Strictly Ballroom scene at the end of Scott and Fran's dance and missed out the group dance-athon to 'Love is in the Air'. Now that's what I call cheese.)

But the feel-good factor varies - both Jane Eyre and David Copperfield are rags-to-riches stories in which the suffering far outweighs the happiness.  (Jane Eyre was famously only able to marry Mr Rochester after Charlotte Bronte blinded him; she (almost certainly) killed off M. Paul in Villette. Happy endings weren't Ms Bronte's thing.) Frequently, these stories begin with the childhood of the protagonist, and show that they need to ovecome dark forces aligned against them - the Ugly Sisters in one form or another.

The classic form of this story falls into three sections - the protagonist's fortunes seem to imrpove for a while  (Jane meets Mr Rochester, they fall in love and are about to marry) then there is a huge setback (he is married to Bertha Mason) and then there is a gradual return to good fortune again (Jane's equilibrium is restored when she meets her cousins, but she is drawn back to Thornfield Hall, apparently by supernatural forces or a deep instinct that Mr Rochester needs her).

Hollywood likes to run the rags to riches story as the classic Tale of the Arist, in which the artist is ignored for years and is eventually rich, famous and united with their True Love. This may be responsible for the misguided idea among some wannabe writers that this is the inevitable late stage of a writing career. If so, I am still in my Ignored period, and not expecting to be united with the Booker prize any time soon.


There is of course a dark side to the Rags to Riches story - there is a dark side to everything. The biopic which ends not with success but the artist falling victim to drugs and/or sycophants and groupies is one example. Riches aren't always what they seem - the pursuit of money and success can be an empty quest.  But what we are talking about here is plot, and as a plot device the tale of the poor, obscure, plain Jane who wins the handsome prince has been told a thousand times - and will be told a thousand more times.

Beating the monster

Herewith  Plot Number One. Among the oldest stories we have is Beowulf, the tale of a lone hero who fights a mighty monster in its lair. Christopher Booker points out that this ancient myth has almost exactly the same plot as the rather more recent Jaws: hero, monster, water, gore.

The earliest example of the 'overcoming the monster' story dates back even further than Beowulf: the Epic of Gilgamesh is more than 5,000 years old. The key to this plot is that the hero must challenge some embodiment of evil. It can be human, or similar to human - a witch or a giant. It can be animal or mythical beast - a wolf or a dragon. And it may threaten a community, or even the whole world. It may, as an optional extra, harbour some great treasure or a hold a 'princess' captive. And this evil has to be overthrown.

The hero must confront the monster, often with special weapons or with a borrowed magic power. Battle is joined in the lair: cave, forest, sea, or other enclosed place. A terrible fight takes place. At one point, it seems there is no way the hero can win. Then, there is a reversal of fortune and he outwits the monster and makes a thrilling escape. The monster is slain,and the hero takes the booty, or marries the damsel in distress.

'Overcoming the monster' is a Hollywood staple. The modern archetype in the modern monster myth is James Bond. What Plot Number One lacks in subtlety it makes up for in special effects, whether they are provided by CGI or a travelling minstrel telling a story in the firelight.

This plot encompasses thrillers, Westerns and war films. At it heart is constriction versus freedom; imprisonment versus liberty. Tomorrow - plot number two - Rags to Riches.

To plot - or not?

A good plot is, my agent once said to me, like wearing really good underwear. It gives structure and coherence to your work. Plots are certainly essential in some genres - thrillers and crime novels in particular. The old-school, well crafted novel is likely to be built on solid foundations.  (Or an expensive set of bra and knickers.)

But literary fiction is often more reliant on language, ideas and intellectual audacity than plot. I studied for my MA at Brunel, which favours solid plot construction. At UEA, still the creative writing equivalent of Oxbridge, plot is seen as somewhat middlebrow.

When I think about books I have read, what do I remember? Atmosphere, often, and character and scenes. In Bleak House, the brilliant opening and its depiction of foggy London. In Pride and Prejudice, the character of Lizzie Bennet with her razor wit and fine eyes. In The Girls of Slender Means, Selina Redwood squeezing through the tiny attic window with the Schiaparelli  dress.

But I do remember plot. Both Affinity and Fingersmith turn on audacious and ingenious plot twists, and so does The Woman in Black. Sometimes plot can sneak up and change the whole meaning of a novel - English Passengers does this superbly and made me weep. Plots can be stunningly well executed - as in The People's Act of Love, or tragically simple, as in The End of the Affair.

I also suspect that, like me, many writers are intimidated by the idea of constructing plot. It always struck me as the Maths homework of fiction writing, the boring bit, something that you might be picked up on or ridiculed for. And yet, as I have gone on with my writing, and my reading, I have become more and more interested in how and why plot works, and the different approaches taken by writers from Charles Dickens to Julian Barnes.

So the next seven posts will be a digest of Christopher Booker's seminal tome The Seven Basic Plots: why we tell stories. I hope you'll find this useful to read, and I'm sure I'll learn a lot myself.

WRITING IN A DIGITAL AGE

Telling stories is a lot older than the paper book, and the effect of digital technology on this ancient art is going to be interesting. Not, as some commentators seem to suggest, terminal.


Yesterday I went to Writing in a Digital Age, a conference run by The Literary Consultancy and the Free Word Centre which highlighted some current trends. There was a good cross section of views: Robert Kroese, a self published US novelist whose Mercury Rises novels have been picked up by Amazon; a panel of international writers and poets chaired by Ellah Allfrey, deputy editor of Granta, and (the highlight for me) a smorgasbord of agents and editors given seven minutes each to summarize their approach and pitch their views.

The agent/editor slot was a piece of inspired programming. Each contributor was the prisoner of their own slide-show, required to keep pace with the changing images. They revealed more of themselves and their true passions than any group of publishing professionals than I have ever seen before (and I am a veteran of these gigs) and it was great to see/be reassured that traditional publishing may be undergoing seismic change, but still has much to offer both the would-be writer and battle-weary mid-listers like me.

While the conference raised more questions than it answered, it was a fascinating and surprisingly inspiring day. I suppose this surprised me because my suspicion is that digital might be unicode for 'tekkie faddism' in which originality is overlooked in favour of formulaic and genre-throttled dead cert fiction. (Which usually ends up being just as much a hostage to fortune as any other kind.)

But the message, coming loud and clear from all concerned, was that digital writing may offer new platforms for fiction and new routes to readers, but it is not a quick fix in literary terms.

Just to be completely old school for a moment, Thomas Carlyle described genius as 'a capacity to take infinite pains' and anyone thinking of self-publishing in the e-universe would do well to have this maxim pinned over their desk. Turgid narratives, editorial inaccuracies and Awful Covers are all marks of the hopeless amateur.

And the words come first - and last. As Kroese pointed out, digital success is no more accidental than success in traditional publishing. You need to work for it - and you need to spend time not just writing the best possible book, but presenting it in the most professional possible way.