07
Feb
2010
Categories
Books

The Railway Detective by Edward Marston

It all looked so promising. A Victorian-era murder mystery set in the 1800s. Except the dialogue felt to this reader more like a script from the 1980s.

The Railway DetectiveThe Railway Detective is the first book in a series of novels about Detective Inspector Robert Colbeck. The Great Exhibition is fast approaching when a daring raid is launched on the mail train. Death, theft and blackmail follow as our dashing hero tries his hardest to solve the case.

There are a lot of points on which Marston has hit the bullseye. The plotting is spot on, his unravelling of the story can’t be faulted, the logic behind the investigation is strong and believable. But the main character isn’t particularly likeable, the villain’s motivation isn’t (I don’t believe) entirely plausible, and the words spoken by the characters feel strangely detached from the era in which they were spoken.

That’s where my important lesson lay.

My book is set in the years spanning 1856 and 1871 – almost the same era as this one – and like this is a detective story. The other thing it had in common, in the first draft, was fairly modern dialogue. I had wondered about that and whether it mattered, and having read this book I now see that it really does.

You can paint a scene, describing the look of the characters, the clothes they wear and the utensils they use, but unless the reader believes that they live and act within that scene in a logical and fitting manner, they feel detached and less believable. That, I think, is why I didn’t feel empathy towards the characters in this book – I didn’t believe them, so I invested very little time in hoping for a good outcome for each one.

Needless to say I’m spending a lot of time revising my own dialogue in the hope of convincing more readers that the words spoken – although spoken by fictional entities – really could have been said when I say they were.

And, of course, making sure my (hopefully) published sentences aren’t as tortuous and twisted as that one.

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11
Jan
2010
Categories
Media

Bond 23

From The Guardian:

The [23rd James Bond film] would be Mendes’s first proper action film – the director is best known for taut relationship dramas such as his 1999 debut American Beauty, for which he won the Oscars for best film and best director, and last year’s Revolutionary Road. However, he has dabbled in more high-octane fare before: on the 2005 Gulf war tale Jarhead, as well as the 2002 gangster flick Road to Perdition.

Well if it’s true it would make perfect sense, and would point ever more clearly to Bond 23 being the third part of a trilogy that kicked off with Casino Royale.

<spoilers ahead>

At the end of that film (and indeed the book as it was a fairly faithful adaptation), the treacherous Vesper lay dead and Bond retreated into the emotional shell that sees him through the rest of the series with the immortal words ‘The job’s done and the bitch is dead’. They were lifted directly from the book.

It’s only when he meets Tracy – an equal – that he is finally able to let down his guard where women are concerned.

Quantum of Solace picked up an hour on from the end of Casino Royale, and followed Bond on his quest to track down the Quantum organisation, which was ultimately behind Vesper’s death (through revenge of duty? Who knows – it could be a little of both). In the closing scenes he confronts Vesper’s betrayer in a Moscow flat, but apart from leaving him more or less alive we know nothing of what happened between them or the content of their discussion.

Bond 23, then, must surely repeat Quantum’s trick and pick up the story an hour later as Bond sets out to use the information he learned in the flat, find a way to reconcile himself to Vesper’s betrayal and finally become the a fully-formed, rounded character who can leave this thread behind in Bond 24 and beyond.

The 23rd instalment will be Bond’s final counselling session. So who better to direct than Mendes? A man who, in the words of The Guardian, is ‘best known for taut relationship dramas’?

That’s what Bond has been since Casino Royale.

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11
Jan
2010
Categories
News

How would you vote?

Reviewing papers at work today, I came across a poll on the Oakland Tribune:

2010-poll-1.gif

What a dilemma.

Not quite opposites, are they, but somehow still not sufficiently illogical to fox at least 199 voters to far…

2010-poll-2.gif

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09
Jan
2010
Categories
Television

It’s not like this in Anglia

Frankly I think we missed something good in Milwaukee in 1982 if these news credits are anything to go by. Whatever was happening – even if it was nothing – I’d be tuning in:

[Via]

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08
Jan
2010
Categories
Journal
Tags

Snow snow snow

The gritters have been out every night for the last 24 nights now, but they’ve still not come down our street. After a brief melting clear-up over Christmas week the snow came back this week, and by yesterday afternoon we had a good five inches of the stuff in the garden. The poor chickens were scratching their way through it, trying to find the grubs on the floor of their run, and their water is freezing every day, which makes for some early morning dousing with the kettle. Not good when you’re rushing to work.

Except we’re not rushing to work. We’ve both been working at home since Wednesday, and I have to say that looking at the same screen all that time is starting to drive me a little stir crazy.

The trouble is, you start at eightish rather than your regular start time, and you finish… well, whenever you’ve finished what you need to do, which means that we’ve been working ten or so hours a day. Great for the productivity – not so great for the sanity.

I wasn’t actually going to write about the snow because it’s all a bit British obsessionish, isn’t it. The weather, I mean. It’s been leading all the news bulletins, though, and everyone is saying ‘ooh, it’s like 1963/1981′, so I guess I ought to put something down for when people start asking where I was during the great 2010 snow-in.

Here’s a picture from Nasa:

Snow covering the UK

Pretty comprehensive, isn’t it.

The scientific explanation is Siberian gales sweeping in from the north-east which means, rather unusually, that the weather is coming in by way of Norfolk rather than Cornwall and Wales. Hence the severity. Norfolk is quite flat and there’s nothing to stop it.

Last night marked a record low of -22 degrees. Not here, fortunately, where it’s been down to the mid-teens, but a few hundred miles north.

Actually, we’ve probably been colder than mid-teens but the rules for measuring it have changed (the local rag reliably informs me). You’re not allowed to brush the snow off your sensor now, apparently, so if it gets covered up then it no longer accurately records the air temperature, but the warmer reading under the snow. Spoilsports.

It’s certainly turned the outhouse into a good walk-in fridge. Even with an oil-filled radiator in there chugging away 24 hours a day, the warmest we can make it right now is one degree. One paltry degree. Still, it’s keeping all our food nice and fresh and at least the pipes aren’t bursting in the laundry room.

They’ve started rationing gas to big factories so that there’s plenty left for domestic users, but if things start to get really tight and they start rationing home users, too, we’ll have to move the radiator into the house and sit around it at close quarters. I don’t like to think what’ll happen to our home-made yoghurt then.

We’ll probably risk frostbite and fractured elbows with a walk up to the pub this evening to get ourselves out of the house.

Wish us luck.

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07
Jan
2010
Categories
Journal

How to wrap a cat for Christmas

Oscar loves to help with wrapping presents. Particularly if there are bows and ribbons involved. He particularly likes sitting on the paper when you’re trying to fold it around a present.

Hadn’t occurred to me that he might stand for as much as this cat does, though.

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04
Jan
2010
Categories
Television

Crystal Maze is coming back

Whoop for the return of Crystal Maze. Treat with caution when you learn it’s headed to ITV. Eye with suspicion at the idea of replacing the contestants with so-called ‘celebs’. Decide not to tune in when they replace Richard O’Brien with Amanda Holden.

An opportunity missed.

Perhaps I’ll subscribe to Challenge.

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02
Jan
2010
Categories
Journal

Christmas 2009

Somehow it’s a month since Christmas. I know it doesn’t look like that, but I’m writing this at the end of January and backdating.

Christmas was busy, you see. Too much to eat, too much to do, too much snow (although not actually on Christmas Day) and plenty of people to see. We decamped to Galleywood on Christmas Eve for the traditional pheasant casserole (vegetable pie for some of us) and stayed over so we didn’t have to drive home. Oscar and the chickens spent Christmas Day alone with a feeding/watering visit from next door to keep them entertained.

Christmas Day itself was the usual carnival of food: cheesy toast for breakfast, a late lunch when everyone had assembled and a buffet we didn’t need but all enjoyed in the evening. I do think the telly went on once. In fact I’m sure it didn’t, and I’m glad Christmases are like that now. Years ago we would have had it on from the end of lunch until bed, but now we play games or cards and talk about how we’ve all eaten too much.

Oh, and Viv told us about the time she sat on a jellyfish. I don’t think either of them particularly enjoyed the experience.

We toyed with the idea of staying over on Christmas night, too, but in the end came home to a very grateful cat. It was ultimately the thought of all the preparations would have to do the next morning – Boxing Day – that brought us back. Sue and Bart were coming down, dad was coming over, and Sal and Dan were coming with Will, all in time for lunch.

It’s a frightening thought that this is already the third Boxing Day lunch we’ve cooked in this house.

This year it was lasagne, but I think we would all have been happy with a snack. Still, all but a couple of spoonfuls were eaten and the chickens polished off the end of it.

Sue and Bart stayed for two days; dad popped in and out over the Christmas period, and on Monday we drove up to Lowestoft to see Ean and Vikki and the ever elusive Boo, who did us the honour of staying in and letting us tickle her.

It was a good Christmas. We have a few programmes stacked up to watch, and now have plenty of books to read and DVDs to enjoy throughout the year, but much though we enjoyed ourselves I think we’re all glad to get back to normality after the busy festive season.

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01
Jan
2010
Categories
Picture story
Tags

Oscar and His Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat

Last night, well gone midnight, when the champagne had been drunk and the new year well rung in, Oscar re-enacted the lead from Joseph and His Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat in the lounge.

Oscar and His Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat

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01
Jan
2010
Categories
Journal

Why I won’t be making any new year resolutions

I’m not one for resolutions. If the turning of a calendar page is the only thing that can inspire change in your life, then your ruts are so deep you’ll probably never climb out of them.

Looking back to today’s entry from 2003, though, I see that I made a list of three ‘things I want (and intend) to do before 2004′.

That’s seven years ago now, so how well did I do?

Not well at all. To quote:

1. Travel to Russia, preferably on the train that runs from Paris to Moscow. Currently thinking end of March / beginning of April would be good for this one.

Still not done that. Still would like to, but know that it won’t happen by March or April of this year, either. Life, somehow, gets so busy that things like this get moved onto a ‘wannado’ list, rather than an ‘amdoing’. That’s wrong, I know, but isn’t it the same for everyone?

2. Sell some of my photos and/or have them shown somewhere.

Nope. Not done that, either. My photo collection now spans a couple of drives and is several gigabytes in size, but most of my photography at the moment is snaps with a point and shoot. Rather than aiming to sell or show my photos, then, perhaps I should just aim to get out there and take more of them. That’s the fun bit, after all, and would surely be more manageable, wouldn’t it?

3. Write my book (this one has been on the list for the last five years, so perhaps it should be downgraded to ‘make substantial progress on the book’).

Well, I did make fairly substantial progress on a book. I got to 115,000 words before it petered out, about half way through the story, and looking back on that first attempt I can see why: it was awful. Really terrible, largely because I didn’t have a plan, so I didn’t really know where my characters were going.

Also, I hadn’t ‘killed my darlings’: there were too many little turns of phrase that I thought were great and couldn’t possibly be excised.

Of course they weren’t great at all, as I can now clearly see, and they made the whole thing awkward and uncomfortable.

I still have the first draft, but don’t plan on doing anything with it.

It took me until last year to start work on a second fiction book, and rather than jump in with both feet and a keyboard, I planned it out properly with a written outline and character profiles. Looking back at that outline I see it was created on 9 April, and the first draft of the book was completed on 23 September, so it only took five and a half months to plan and write. The editing has so far taken three months and is about half way through, so it looks like being a year-long project, which I reckon is probably right for a novel.

I’m happy with that.

So will I be making any resolutions this year? No. I might, though, make myself a little list of things I want to do, 2003 style. If they don’t get done by the time 2010 is out, though, I’ll let them roll over. Sometimes things are worth waiting for – until you’ve learnt how to do them properly.

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