Read Out Loud

By Russel D McLean

Recently, I’ve been working some (sssssh, top secret, but keep yer eye on me website blog for more details soon!) events for… well, sometime. In communication with one venue, I got an interesting email that said, in part, “we tend to discourage “readings””

I found that an interesting comment and one I wholeheartedly agree with. While I have done some small excerpts at events, I tend to keep these as short as I can because I feel the audience only has so much of an attention span and I know that I tend to zone out when hearing long excerpts. I also know that when I go to an author event, I’m not there to hear the author because – let’s face it – most authors cannot read from their books. Noteable exceptions of course include Allan Guthrie’s “Jesus” voice from Hardman (I still read the book and hear him) and the mighty mighty James “Devil Dog” Ellroy reading anything because, holy shit, the way he reads is the way you hear that damn book in your head. He’s whaaaacked, brother, and so far goooooone you gotta see him to believe him.

But on the whole, I like writers to give me something… something else. Because in general there’s a reason they’re writers and not actors (of course, Stuart MacBride has read his own book on audio, but he’s had theaterly training and Martyn Waites’ reading of Ray Banks is brilliant, because Waites was a professional actor for many years) Hands up, one of the worst events I saw was a writer whom I like on a personal level who did nothing but read from the book. It was a painful experience, even more so when they started answering questions and suddenly the event came to life. I mean, honestly, out of context excerpts are yawnsville except in small, staccato bursts. When I do read, I limit myself to maybe five pages and two excerpts. And then because mostly I have believed it to be expected of me.

But the more I think about the more I love the events where the author can talk about their life, their work, their reading habits. Iain (M) Banks is brilliant at this – so much that last time I saw he just went straight to the Q&A, and held it for the full hour. I think when we go to see an author, we are not expecting the book to be read to us. Why would we as an audience want that when the book part of he conversation between author and reader is very much a private one and we are going to see them in public? I think as a public spectacle, we want writers to show us something of the mind behind the book. And, yes, some authors are dull, but many are more interesting than they might believe and if they present us with themselves, naturally as they can, many readers will be immensely pleased, as I am, to have seen another side to the process, to understanding the creation of the writing I love.

I’m not saying events have to be intellectual or intensely illuminating, but I am saying that they should always be about more than simply making us aware of a book’s presence. They are, in essence, a form of entertainment, and I have found there to be little entertaining about someone just reading from a book you will later be paying to read yourself.

Of course, I realise I’m setting myself up here… am I as good as my own standards? Goodness only knows, but I try my best to give the audience something that’s fun; a few facts they might not know, some stories I think they might find amusing (ask me about rejection letters; I got a few doozies) and maybe some sense of what they might expect to find in my work if they haven’t read it, and if they have maybe some idea about the thought processes that went into the novels.

And if that fails I just swear in a Fife accent. That seems to amuse people no end…

Running out of things to talk about

Something odd seems to happen to me when I'm in the middle of a writing piece.

At least, this feels very familiar, so I'm guessing it's happened to me before.

When I'm in the middle of an opening draft, I run out of things to talk about writing wise. If you look at my Twitter feed or my Facebook page it's full of things about my wedding or LeBron James or the latest Bobby Gonzalez nonsense.

But very little writing stuff.

Why is that?

Because I've become sick of updating my word count. How interested are you in the fact that I wrote 1,000 words today? Truth is, you aren't. Or you shouldn't be.

What you should care about is what the book's about. And I'm not ready to tell you that. I don't even completely know yet. So I'm not going to talk about that.

I'm going to talk about anything and everything else.

That's the thing about Twitter and Facebook and the blogs. It's very insular. We communicate too often with other writers, and I feel at times we shut the reader out. The casual reader doesn't care how many words I wrote today. They don't care how you're going to go out and promote your next book.

They care about the story. Do they want to read it?

Writing about how you create a marketing plan, your brand, and your work ethic aren't going to sell a reader on that.

So that's what we as writers need to focus on. Or at least, I should.

And since I'm not ready to talk about the book yet, I'll stick to LeBron.

I only have another 18 hours to do it.

The Bridge on CBS

by
John McFetridge

This week my two sons (ages 10 and 11) and I have gone camping at a provincial park in Ontario. If we don't set the tent on fire or get eaten by bears we'll be back in time to see the debut of The Bridge on CBS this Saturday at 8:00.



I have mixed feelings about this because it was a great opportunity for me to work in the writers' room (I'm credited wth writing one episode and co-writing another), I met some great people and learned a lot but I don't think I did a very good job.

The show is about a beat cop who gets fed up with the politics and hidden agendas of the brass and gets himself elected the union president to try and clean up the force. It's ambitious material and was sold to me as "The West Wing of cops shows" (it's interesting that The West Wing was always a bigger hit in Canada than in the US). It wasn't designed as a police procedural about cops solving crimes, it was going to be about the inner workings of a big city police department.

This is the kind of thing I like to write about. A sub-plot in Everybody Knows This is Nowhere involves a union election and corrupt cops protecting one another. Okay, not breaking any new ground, really, but The Bridge promised to show the details. The way The Wire showed the details of policing and what the cops are really up against.

But with one Canadian and one American network involved there was a lot of push and pull and it did become more of a procedural and less political and even social.

Entertainment Weekly has this to say about the show:

"Another Canuck cop drama imported by CBS, The Bridge is (meager-praise alert!) better than Flashpoint. There's a nifty, Wire-esque exploration of police bureaucracy. As a rabble-rousing union chief, Battlestar Galactica's Aaron Douglas is no McNulty. And the criminals, like the truck-driving killer grandma, are lame. Oh, Canada. (C)"

TV Guide said, "The bureaucratic corruption forces the apolitical and hard-nosed Frank to get his Norman Rae on. His and the show's heart are in the right place but you'll likely predict every beat." The reviewer gave it a 5 out of 10.

The two-hour pilot and the first episode after that were written before the rest of us writers were hired. I think the pilot asks some good questions and raises some good issues (and, frankly, has some holes - how come the cops end up in a chase even though they had the name and address of the guy who owned the truck? Would there really be no lawsuit after the kid dies? Was there really enough justification for the police to go on strike?), but I don't think we were very successful in addressing much of them in the following episodes. Probably why CBS has only scheduled seven out of the thirteen episodes that were shown in Canada.

So, if the bears don't get us I'll be back here next Wednesday and if anyone has any questions about the show (either what goes on in the show or the production) please send them to me at: jmcfet@hotmail.com and I'll answer any I can next week.