In search of authenticity

One of the questions I'm most often asked by people curious about the writing process is,  "How much do you plan your novels?"  When I give the answer, I'm often greeted with incredulity, because for me, the direction of travel is not one that I'm particularly mindful of when I set out to write.

It's said that there are two types of writer, the 'plotter' and the 'pantser' (other descriptions are available).  John Irving, one of my favourite writers, is a plotter.  In interviews, he's stated that before he begins writing one of his works, he prepares a detailed treatment of how his book will unfold.  Those treatments, he says, can extend to over two-hundred pages and map the story from start to finish.

Other writers, myself included, are pantsers - we write from the seat of our pants.  When I start something, I have a vague notion of where I'm going, but often along the way, I discover that my final destination is different to that where I thought I'd arrive.  For me, this can lead to highly satisfying outcomes, the story is often better than the one I originally conceived and the process of discovery is mightily enjoyable.

Whatever route an author takes, the prevailing advice from those with more experience than me, is to get the damn words onto paper.  In her book, 'Bird by Bird', an excellent book on the craft of writing, the American novelist, Anne Lamott, talks about "shitty first drafts".  It's the principle of getting words down without being too encumbered by what they might be like.  There is an editorial process that follows and over the course of iterations, any issues that exist in the first draft will be addressed, improving the overall work.

What such an approach permits is the unfettered deposit of the vague onto the page.  It allows the uninformed to write whatever they like, safe in the knowledge that if it is a pile of the brown smelly stuff, it can be improved with input from those that know better.  It means that the stream of words is unhindered, the premise being that one will write more fluidly allowing the story to flow.

During the editorial process, the writer can revisit the liberties exercised due to ignorance and replace them with something notionally more realistic.  In a chapter in my forthcoming novel, 'Dignity', I included a scene that involves a fire.  There were certain things I wanted to happen that I suspected might be incompatible - a blazing inferno coupled with an improbable outcome.  While I knew that what I was writing was flaky, I nevertheless wove it into the manuscript, hoping that my grasp on reality wasn't too far removed from the laws of physics.

Believe me when I say that it was.  It was so far removed from the nature and outcome of a fire as to be laughable.  I know this to be true, because when I contacted my local Fire Service and shared it with the Station Manager, laugh is exactly what he did.  I suspect he thought he was dealing with an idiot, and given the unadulterated fantasy on the page, he may have had a point.

What I wasn't prepared for, however, was the assertion that what I'd written was insulting to the fine men and women of the Fire Service who serve to keep us safe.  I'd had the temerity to suggest in my scene that, post-fire, some of those that had wrestled to bring the blaze under control were now enjoying a lively gossip while other colleagues cleared up.  My Station Manager was firm, "None of my team stand around chatting.  No one stops until the work's complete."  My inadvertent slight was easy to correct, however, some of the challenges relating to the fire and the outcome required inventiveness.

With the patience that one reserves for the hard of learning, he took me through a number of plausible scenarios, each one greeted with a question from me that would enable my scene to better fit the plot.  He prefaced each answer with a grimace and the words, "You could ..." before telling me exactly why I couldn't.  Eventually we arrived at a compromise that didn't entirely undermine his decades of knowledge and I had material with which I could work.

As we were drawing to a close, the station's klaxon sounded, announcing an emergency.  I suspect he had never been so pleased to hear it.  "Do you need to go?" I asked.
He peered into the corner of the room, listening intently, "Not sure," he said.
An indecipherable announcement came over the Tannoy.
"Yep, gotta go," he said, before leaving the room.

I remained where I was, quite unsure of what to do.  After a moment, he popped his head around the door to find me still sitting in front of his desk.  "Do you know how to find your way out?" he asked.
"Ah, yeah.  I'll be fine."
"Okay," he said.  "Oh, and if you were planning to, I wouldn't take the A34 home."

And with that, he left along with his team to perform whatever heroics were required, while I left with the material I needed to write a much better book and the satisfaction of having had a private tour of my local fire station - next time I might ask him to let me sit in a truck.

Cheerio for now,

Craig

Before I go, a 'by-the-by'.  In a couple of months, part one of my serialised novel, 'A Little Something To Hide', will be celebrating its first birthday.  Over a series of weeks, I'll be making each of the volumes freely available to Kindle users in my Readers' Club for a limited period.  If you'd like to take advantage of the offer, click on the link where you can sign up directly or grab a copy of my free short story, 'The First Supper'.

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Craig Brown is an author living in Newbury.  To follow his work visit craigbrownauthor.com

Facebook/BlueSky/Threads/Twitter/Instagram: @GOMinTraining
Copyright © Craig Brown, 2025
25 April 2025

A wee hiatus

It’s been a while since I last wrote, almost two months, however, much has happened since then.

Most notably, Mrs B and I disappeared to New Zealand for a break and the opportunity to catch up with friends and family in what proved to be an indulgent month. A visit to my homeland isn’t entirely a holiday, although other than maintaining a journal of our trip, I confess to writing little.

It’s always great to go home (the notion of home being interchangeable depending on which country I’m in), if somewhat exhausting. In our final ten days, we stayed in eight different beds and drove many miles in between those resting spots. That, however, was a small price to pay for fabulous stays with friends from my youth.

We top-and-tailed the excursion to NZ with visits to Dubai and Singapore, the former affording us a long overdue reunion, the latter giving us the opportunity to explore somewhere new (although I did visit Singapore as a ten-year-old, but back then, I viewed the place with a somewhat different, Scalextric obsessed, perspective).

It is on this last destination that I wish to dwell. Singapore is a melting-pot of different ethnicities and cultures, seemingly living alongside one another in harmony. In a few square kilometres one can find great temples and monuments to Christianity, Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism, each faith prominently represented.

We had the opportunity to visit mosques and temples and experience ceremonies with which we were unfamiliar. We never felt unwelcome and when we sought to understand more of what we were witnessing, we readily found someone willing to share their knowledge and faith.

At the Sri Mariamman Temple, Singapore’s oldest Hindu temple, we had the great fortune to arrive during a ceremony that celebrated a couple’s marriage on the occasion of the husband’s 60th birthday. Fabulously adorned in traditional dress, the guests paid homage to the couple as the Pujari led the service, while musicians played the shehnai (similar to an oboe) and dholak drums, lending vibrancy to the event.

Our experience led me to wonder what it is that nationalists find so frightening or offensive about other cultures. What we witnessed was a joyous celebration of a couple’s love for one another. Neither the ceremony nor their faith was imposed upon us, we were the interlopers, willingly accepted into their place of worship. For us, it was a fabulous experience and one that we felt privileged to witness. When we left, we took with us our memory of the event and a feeling of general wellbeing. No one made us feel uncomfortable, nor did we gain a sense that the Hindu faith posed any threat to ours.

I suspect that if we visited a similar place of worship in the UK we’d be made to feel equally welcome and equally free to leave with the choice to continue exercising our existing way of life. Alternatively, if we wished, I’m sure we could embrace their culture – I even suspect that adopting a bit of both might not be mutually exclusive.

What our visit to Singapore has taught me is that different ethnicities, cultures and faiths can happily co-exist. The presence of a mosque or a Buddhist temple on our city’s streets does not imply an attempt to subvert existing Christian or Jewish faiths. Experiencing a festival such as Diwali should be viewed as an opportunity to experience other people’s culture, hopefully to be enriched and certainly not contaminated. One can walk away safe in the knowledge that one’s culture is preserved – Christmas won’t be cancelled.

The risk that nationalists express, that immigrant arrivals from other countries will undermine our culture, is nonsense. The failure to celebrate our own, and invite others to enjoy it, is more damaging to the fabric of whatever it is that makes for Britishness. Inviting a visitor to England to dance around a maypole, or have a slice of victoria sponge at a street party celebrating a royal wedding, will do far more to preserve UK culture and encourage newcomers to assimilate. But equally, it doesn’t matter if they don’t – I’ve Morris danced once, that was enough. Extraordinarily, despite my unwillingness to participate again, the practice continues.

Somewhere within my experience is a story waiting to be told. Perhaps it’s of a curmudgeonly old man who despises foreigners but learns not to fear and loathe them after receiving acts of kindness from the people he detests. Maybe there’s a tale of a terrified refugee who discovers that she is welcome in the place where she has arrived, or even the story of a man whose experiences make him feel comfortable to call two countries home. It’s something to ponder.

PS - In the Morris dancing clip, I'm the ridiculously smiley bloke who starts the dance second from the left.

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Craig Brown is an author living in Newbury.  To follow his work visit craigbrownauthor.com

Facebook/BlueSky/Threads/Twitter/Instagram: @GOMinTraining
Copyright © Craig Brown, 2025
28 March 2025

 

What's the hardest part about writing a book?

When I first set out on my adventure in penmanship, I agreed with my wife that I'd give it a year to see how it panned out.  We figured, that if I wasn't a raging success after twelve months, it was unlikely ever to happen.

Looking back now, I do so with a fondness at the naivete, albeit that fondness is tempered - there is still so much that I have to learn.  In March, it will be six years since I said cheerio to a world that included a steady income, regular (if long) working hours, and the certain knowledge that the world would remain largely untroubled by my presence.

Two of those things have changed, the one that remains resolutely fixed, and the one I most need to alter to achieve success (note the dropping of the adjective, at this stage, 'modest' would be a more than adequate modifier), is for a small corner of the world, populated by those that enjoy reading literary fiction, to notice that I've popped a book they might like onto the market.

I spend less time on social media these days, but when I allowed it to fully exercise its distractions, I spent much of my time reading the posts of fellow authors, many of whom are independently published.  I read less of their musings now, not because I don't enjoy what they have to say, but because I experience a degree of guilt from reading what they freely share through the digital ether, rather than buying and reading the books that they're trying to promote.

One of the writers I followed on X shared her book sales daily, expressing her most enthusiastic joy whenever she topped sales of one hundred copies, a feat she often achieved.  Before my own book came out, I condescended to think, "Bless her.  She's giving it a go."

I now know that to be a thought smothered with hubris.  What I wouldn't give to hit triple figures of daily sales.  In fact, I'd be happy just to hit triple figures!  Which brings me to my point - selling books is hard!

That reality is a slow dawning realisation and one with which I'm wrestling, often at the expense of doing that which I most want to do, writing.  There are no end of services available to authors for promoting their work - my Messenger feed is full of people willing to help; for a price and a vague promise.  I haven't yet found one who is willing to promote the book for a share of future royalties - their belief in their services (or my work) doesn't stretch that far.

There are other routes that I've explored, mostly with mediocre results.  Amazon and Facebook ads, direct approaches to booksellers, third-party services that marry readers with titles, and review services.

This last is the one that I'm enjoying the most - not because they're contributing greatly to sales, the truth is more narcissistic.  It's because each review carries a hint of validation.  I've been thrilled with the critiques, which to date are universally positive.  If you fancy taking a look, you can read them by clicking on the logos down below.

I am hoping that at some point, I will experience that mysterious moment that Malcolm Gladwell writes about in his book 'The Tipping Point', where a threshold is reached that leads to some form of critical mass.  His book is a brilliant read, but not one that tells me how to go about finding that vast audience for my book.

Notwithstanding the above, I'll keep plugging away and eventually spend more time on bringing my next novel to market.  The pleasure that comes from that process does a great deal to offset the frustration of not being a great bookseller.

Thanks for humouring me - I'm grateful that you're along for the ride.

 

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Craig Brown is an author living in Newbury.  To follow his work visit craigbrownauthor.com

Facebook/BlueSky/Threads/Twitter/Instagram: @GOMinTraining
Copyright © Craig Brown, 2025
28 January 2025