If Honesty is the Best Policy What About the Stinker?

I like writing reviews. I write them about movies that I have seen, hotels that I have stayed at, restaurants that I have eaten in and books that I have read. Now I studied English Literature at college and as a result I learnt the art of constructive criticism, so when I write a review I employ the tools that I acquired from that course.

The approach to review depends on what the subject matter is. People want to know what the ambience of a restaurant is as well as what fare is on the menu or how what kind of movie is it for example. With a book I think that most prospective readers want to know if it is well written. It is a curious thing but many readers seem to hate giving up on a book; I know I do. The review really has to consider this requirement and to be honest in most cases I probably would say that even with certain limitations the majority of books can be completed without too much arduous work on the part of the reader.

I wrote a review of Nick Smith’s ‘Gentleman of Fortune’, a book about pirates based in Whitby, North Yorkshire. It had an interesting tale with some great accounts of sea battles, better even than those of Patrick O’Brian of ‘master and Commander’ fame. It also had its problems in that the central character was supposed to be something of a loveable rogue but actually he possessed very few redeeming qualities. I saw this as something of a failing on the author’s part simply because after Jacob Hollum commits a rather reprehensible crime it was difficult to care about what happened to him. I actually started to dislike him but he was supposed to be the central protagonist.

Honesty has to be a part of writing such a review. The story was quite good, certainly enjoyable, and I made that point clear but balanced it with the failing of the main character. It was, I think, a fair point.

There is another write that I came across on the internet and they quite impressed me with the fact that they had written a short novel when they were younger and it had won a prize. I eventually bought a Kindle version and looked forward to writing a review about it.

The book was what Stephen Fry refers to as a ‘stinker’!

Now Stephen Fry is a man whom I much admire. He did a spell as a literary critic amongst his many other employments and he said that he quite enjoyed it until some publisher or agent forwarded him a copy of a book that he simply could not write a constructive criticism about; it was that bad! He did think about simply putting out a complete diatribe against the author but then stopped. It occurred to him that the writer was another human being and did he really have the right to attack them over a piece of work that might well be forgotten in a day or two? Besides that, where was the input from the editor, the agent, and the publisher? Shouldn’t these ‘professionals’ have interceded at some point before the book was submitted to a critic. Finally he decided not to write anything at all and gave up being a critic.

I understand this point of view. We authors invest a lot of time and energy in writing a book, whether it is good or not. Hopefully someone along the way has the courage to say that it is good enough to continue working on along the way, certainly before it gets into the hands of a critic. At least that is how it should be if you are going down the traditional publishing route but it is slightly different for independent authors.

We independent authors have to be out own worse critics. We really have to possess enough honesty and integrity that we can stand back and look at our own work and give a brutally honest appraisal. We have to do this because in many instances there is no one else to take on this role because we are independent and most of us do not know a skilled editor or cannot afford their services.

Now I could take a harsher stance on this and say that people who put out sub-standard material get all that they deserve but then I do not believe that. I do not agree with the ‘X-Factor’ show type approach to humiliating people and destroying their dreams. Being cruel is an act of weakness. The fact is that when someone writes a bad book, a stinker for example, the worse they have done is just that; presented something that is not up scratch. They have not killed anyone, swindled pensioners, lied in public office, or hurt anyone else in any way imaginable. They wrote a poor book. It is not a crime.

That then is my position but I now face the same ethical problem that dissuaded Stephen Fry from pursuing a career in literary criticism; what do you do about the stinker? After all, the book is being put out there for people to buy and invest a small portion of their lives in reading it; doesn’t it deserve some kind of response? Yes it does but the problem is balancing the integrity of constructive criticism with a consideration of the author’s genuine intent.

I have not found the answer yet. The book is still there in my Kindle library, the memory is still in my mind, and there’s this annoying itch that I cannot quite scratch. I should do something, I know, but it just seems beyond me at the moment. A part of me wants to believe that it is just not worth the effort because it was after all only a book, but the author in me wants to make a stance because I do not want prospective readers to think that the ‘stinker’ is representative of the quality of work put out by independent authors.

When I make a decision I’ll let you know!

Spirituality and the Writer

Spiritual belief is a curious thing to consider as an author. The fact appears to be that many people have a spiritual belief. Once you start thinking about this you are inevitably drawn into also considering how strongly people seem to hold their beliefs and how ardent some are at showing, and vice versa as well. It is also a fact that there are many people who do not have a particular spiritual belief or even if they do they do not feel it very strongly.

Then of course there are the many different types of belief. I do not know exactly how many religions there are in the world but it seems that even a casual walk around the city centre on any day of the week will reveal a fair number to me in these days of multi-culturism.

Religious and spiritual beliefs exist and they seem to be important to real people so when it comes to creating a character it seems necessary for the writer to consider this aspect of their imaginary person in order to make them more realistic.

There is a suggested rule in writing that you should only write about the things you know. Personally I find this too limiting, I mean, I do not know what it is to be a Saxon warrior stood in a shieldwall about to face some angry Vikings but that did not stop me from writing about it! I would amend this rule to read: ‘only write about the things that interest you’. If someone is interested in something then they tend to know their subject matter, which in turn imbues a degree of authenticity to their writing. I have an interest in history and some people have subsequently commented that my books have an authentic quality about them.

Spiritual beliefs are something a little more different that an easily definable subject like history though. To me religious belief is something far more personal in a very intimate sense. I have my belief, I am a Pantheist. It is a very ancient spiritual belief based upon the principle that everything is one and nothing exists outside of this collective notion. I was raised as an Anglican Christian but my parents were of the persuasion that seems to be so common these days; they only went to church for births, deaths and marriages! Being given to a philosophical frame of mind I nevertheless considered Christianity quite deeply but I could never attain the degree of contentment that I aspired to with it. As a result I just floated along without any conviction until I was introduced to Baruch Spinoza’s book ‘Ethics’ and through that the idea of Pantheism. All of a sudden lots of things started to make sense.

Now it might have seemed reasonable to expect to start writing stories about characters with similar spiritual beliefs but that never actually happened. I think that this might be because I do not feel the need to proselytize. I am of the opinion that if you want to discover something badly enough then you will do so.

My novel ‘The War Wolf’ is set in the 11^th century when the Christian church was coming to dominate most of Europe and exerting a very real power over people’s lives. Harold Godwinson himself was also quite a devout Christian according to the historical record that survives, he had the church at Waltham rebuilt in stone for example at his own expense. Obviously I could not ignore these elements of the story without risking losing a certain degree of authenticity, something that I genuinely wanted to avoid. I found the key to writing about a religious belief that I did not share was simply to be objective about it.

Objectivity has a strong place in writing fiction of course, especially in fiction. We cannot all experience everything that we claim our characters have. I think that it would take a lifetime to amass such a body of experience and that in turn would leave precious little time for the actual writing! When Berctauld the Deacon considers his previous life as a warrior after having become a religious man I had to write neither from experience nor interest in the Christian church. Instead I had to use my imagination and take some of my own personal experiences to work with. I can remember what it was like to go to church, the feeling of community shared with the rest of the congregation, and the sense of just going with the flow of the ceremony. I also have the feeling of conviction that comes not from Christianity but another religious belief, which although different in source amounts to very much the same thing. No one has criticised Berctauld negatively so I think that I can claim that I got him more or less right in this respect.

In one respect I can see that I have been spared going too deeply into this subject in that the stories that I have so far written have not had a central character who was strongly motivated by religion. For ‘The Sorrow Song Trilogy’ the emphasis is very much on the military history with religion being one of the threads that make up the background. In ‘Eugenica’, the book I am currently writing, there is barely any mention of religion whatsoever. I did not design my stories in this way, it is just how they developed.

Religion might be taking a more prominent place in my writing in the future, however. If ‘Eugenica’ is successful, which of course I hope it is, then a recent discovery that I made while doing some research on the subject of eugenics has suggested a character who will be very much of religious persuasion. I also have plans to write a science-fiction story that is heavily influenced by Pantheism. Spiritual beliefs can be complex, contradictory, and even inflammatory, which to my mind as a writer suggests that they could be interesting subjects to work with. As with all such subjects, however, balance remain the key, that is, to be interested enough to be able to write convincingly about them but objective enough so as not to end up beating readers over the head about the subject.

Gynophobia: the Fear of Strong Women

I was recently made to consider that some men are intimidated by women. It doesn’t surprise me that psychology has a term for this, Gynophobia, because that seems to me to be what psychology does, find names for things. I quite like women, I’m even married to one, so this masculine fear of women seems a little alien to me.

This all started because I am a football fan, or soccer as it is known in some parts of the world, and the Women’s World Cup is currently underway in Canada, screened here in England later in the evening. I watched the recent Norway v England game, the coincidence not being lost on me that in my two novels, The War Wolf and For Rapture of Ravens, it is very much a case of Norway v England, and later commented on the game to an acquaintance. “Oh I didn’t watch it,” he admitted, “there’s something about women’s football that I can’t get my head round!”

“Really?” I asked somewhat puzzled. “It’s quite entertaining and the women are getting technically very good at the game now.”

“No, it’s not for me.” He insisted shaking his head and looking uncomfortable.

Now I am not sure if this means that this particular person is suffering from Gynophobia, I’m not a psychiatrist after all, but I did wonder if he was unsettled by the thought of women proving quite competent in an arena of sport traditionally thought of as a ‘man’s game’? The same could be said, I suppose, for men reacting in a similar fashion to women pursuing careers in science, engineering and other ‘men heavy’ occupations. I know it happens, men feel uncomfortable with it. Intimidated even. Perhaps even afraid?

Pat Savage by Ron Miller

When I think about it I believe that I much prefer strong women. I remember reading Robert E. Howard’s Conan the Barbarian books when I was younger and being mostly disinterested in the female characters because they largely seemed to be there simply as dressing. They seldom did anything to help the situation even when the mighty Conan could have done with a little assistance. There was Red Sonja to buck the trend of course, and Pat Savage, brave and beautiful cousin of Doc Savage, and it may be that I remember those two from my days of enjoying pulp fiction exactly because they were competent, self-determining women who got involved in their stories and did not just stand around waiting for the men to rescue them.

So what about my female characters then? I’ll start with Mildryth from the Sorrow Song Trilogy. She’s a Saxon woman of the theign class who has already been through pain and tragedy. Her husband and son were murdered by Tostig Godwinson, then Eorl of Northumbria, but she finds it within herself to live life again. More than that she refuses to simply sit and watch the world go by in her pitiable state but determines to grasp what happiness she can and make the most of it. That is how she comes to meet Coenred, a warrior of similar class and inspire him to love her.

Mildryth is strong because she refuses to surrender to despair even when faced with the most bitterest of personal tragedies. There is more than one way to display your strength, however, and she gets several other opportunities to do this. One such opportunity comes from a chance meeting with another man, Wulfhere, all round bad egg. He has nothing but dark designs for Mildryth but she stands up to him at every occasion and leaves her mark upon his face. She is courageous before despair and brave before villain like Wulfhere. I found her engrossing to write.

Another of my female characters is very different but no less as resourceful and self-reliant as Mildryth. Grace’s workd is the 1930’s Britain of Eugenica into which she has been born disabled and abandoned. To begin with she is insular, having learnt by experience that others care little for girls like her. Indeed, the Eugenics movement is at its height in Eugenica and the disabled are the subject of active persecution and incarceration. Grace at first simply goes with the flow, not objecting to being taken into a state run asylum because she has no hope for the future, no expectation of anything better, and no belief in humanity.

It is while she is in the Spring Bank facility that Grace comes into contact with other people like herself and, after realising that they hold no ill will towards her, slowly begins to form relationships with them. One of the very unpleasant consequences of eugenics was the rise of a negative application of its principles, that is, dysgenics. This version of racial betterment argued that the deformed and the infirm were better off segregated at first and then dead. Grace responds to this danger to her life by softening herself emotionally to help her new found friends. Fortunately her years of hard living prove very useful in helping her take the lead in the fight against their oppressors.

Grace is still a character in the making but I am thoroughly enjoying writing about her. She is not the same as Mildryth but they share similar traits, the kind of characteristics that some men might find intimidating even. Neither of them looks to anyone else to get them out of their troubles. Each of them works to their own ends but they know, or at least Mildryth does and Grace has yet to learn, that compromise can be beneficial. Sometimes it does not hurt to let someone else do something for you. It is not a case of surrendering independence or become reliant on others, it is a way of including that most fascinating, rewarding, exasperating, and life affirming people into your world.

Several female readers have told me that they like the way I have written Mildryth, well to be honest no one has told me that they do not, but I wonder if both she and Grace would be anything like what they are if I suffered from Gynophobia?

Technology is Great – Well When it Works!

My first book sold quite well when released and as a reward to myself for all the hard work that I put into it I decided to buy a tablet, a decision made all the easier when I saw a Google Nexus 7 on sale for less than £100! Now I see devices like tablets as essentially entertainment. It is great that I can download the Kindle app for free and read all kind of ebooks without having to buy a dedicated ereader like, well the Kindle. It is also great that I can connect to Facebook, Twitter, and other social media sites. It did the job I expected it to do.

Did, in a past tense.

At some point I don’t know when Google released an update for Nexus and, quite frankly, the thing has become a bit of a Jeckyll and Hyde character. When it is Jeckyll it is still fun to use but when it switches to Hyde the thing becomes a beast.

I am not the only one to complain about this, plenty of other owners of this once wonderful device have done the same and Google, surprisingly, have done very little to put it right.

When my Nexus turns all Mr Hyde on me it basically becomes unusable. Programs start running slow and then freeze. Often they prompt a request from the operating system asking if I want to close the program, wait, or report it. Normally I don’t want to close it because I was using it for a reason. Sometimes I try waiting. Occasionally I attempt to report it but then even that has turned into a trial by combat with the program responsible for sending the feedback crashing itself. On more than one occasion the tablet has just turned itself off! Not so much as a by your leave, as Monty Python would put it. It doesn’t automatically restart either, you, the owner but definitely not the controller, have to do that.

Now I am reasonably comfortable with technology. I have a laptop, a smartphone, a smart television, a digital radio, an iPod, a digital camera – you get the picture! Having said that I do not consider myself an expert so when I googled my problems and found plenty of other sufferers out there I was dismayed at the majority of the answers. Mostly these were references to downloading Jellbaby 5.1 or Icelolly 2.4 or something.

Perhaps I am too old fashioned for the 21^st century? I mean, when I buy something then I expect it to work as described on the box, tin, bottle, or whatever other package it comes in. Experience seems to support this assumption. My television worked from the moment I switched it on and subsequent updates seem to have only made it better. My Nexus, however, has not been so lucky and I, as its owner, feel even more aggrieved as it seems that although I have done nothing wrong it is I who have to figure out how to put it right again. The quickest way would be to reset it the factory settings, and lose all the data I’ve put onto the machine in the process. Nice.

I would like to see Google take responsibility for the machine that bears their name but that does not look likely. I liked my Nexus when it was Dr Jeckyll but not so much that I am willing to spend the time necessary to become au fait with rolling back operating system software so as not to damage my tablet further; I’ve got books to write for goodness sake!

I bought my wife an Asus Acer tablet, a device lauded as inferior to the Nexus 7 but it has one key advantage over its more prestigious rival; it works! Despite also having an Android operating system the Acer has not given her that much trouble. She spends plenty of time perusing eBay, playing Candy Crush, reading emails, and whatever else she wants and with nary a problem. It does what it said it would do on the box. My Nexus 7 did once but the people who branded it ‘Google’ don’t seem to care that much about it anymore. When I next have a little free money to spend I think that I am going to avoid placing any value on a brand name and just look at the reviews given by actual users. As Alanis Morissette once said; “you live, you learn.”