Ghostwriter

Archive for the ‘About writing’ Category

Have you ever read a novel and stopped somewhere thinking, yeah right? That little something that hasn’t quite held water, jerking you rudely out of the narrative perhaps?

I was reading a story the other day when a synchronous moment it described did just that. It brought me back to reality like a twanging elastic band. I grumbled at what I felt was the author’s too vivid imagination and went off to do some shopping. And that’s where my real life story begins to stretch belief.

I was away from home a great deal longer than I’d anticipated. On the way back, feeling extremely thirsty, I was lamenting that I’d forgotten to bring any water with me, so I pulled into a service station to get fuel, intending to buy some eau en bouteille at the same time.

No luck. The servo’s EFTPOS system had imploded, leaving the shop hamstrung. They were unable to charge for

fuel or goods, so they had switched off the pumps, closed the doors, and put the kettle on.  By this time I was very dry and exceedingly grumpy, asking the guy on the forecourt—only slightly sarcastically—if the EFTPOS being down had affected the air pump too.

I thought that I could at least check the tyre pressures and put some meaning into my visit before collapsing to the concrete with extreme dehydration. With any luck the EFTPOS would remain out-of-order long enough for the paramedics to be called, otherwise my rapidly desiccating body would be bounced around the pumps by a mad rush of vehicles when the place reopened.

The guy’s radiant, toothy smile made me feel instantly guilty and I decided to put a cap on my churlishness right then and there. My resolution was so strong that when I drove over to the air hose and saw it almost completely blocked by a campervan, I shrugged philosophically and took some time to manoeuvre around and squizzle the car as close to the pump as I could.

I’d just turned the engine off when a young man jumped from the campervan and walked toward me carrying two full two litre bottles of mineral water, another one half-full (please note the use of half-full rather than half-empty here), and a large bottle of fizzy drink.

His accent was probably Austrian.

“So, we are flying to Sydney in two hours and cannot carry this on the plane. Do you like it?”

I took the gifts and thanked him. As I guzzled back some of the water, my mind went back to that small fictional synchronicity I’d been reading. Now, if I included that water-manifesting story in a novel, I bet you wouldn’t believe it. And yet it happened.

I’ve just finished Barry Forshaw’s The man who left too soon, a biography of Stieg Larsson, author of the runaway bestsellers, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played with Fire, and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets’ Nest.

The Millennium Trilogy, as the collection is called, was published after Larsson’s death from a heart attack in 2004, aged 50. He was a journalist and an author who, sadly, never lived to see his books in print, or to enjoy the fame and immense fortune they and the ensuing movies generated.

Despite the conspiracy theorists’ popular notion that he was murdered by the teams of misogynists and right wing elements he actively condemned, Larsson died at his desk after struggling up seven flights of stairs. He was extremely unfit, a workaholic, chain-smoked, and was as much a lover of junk food as his protagonist, Mikael Blomkvist. Perhaps writers should take a note here.

Forshaw’s book is a blow-by-blow analysis of Larsson’s books and how they often mirrored the controversial writer’s life, although he would have been most unlikely, and very unlucky, to have actually encountered the other protagonist, the butt kicking, hate-filled, mean machine, Lisbeth Salander.

Forshaw also delves into the terrible acrimony surrounding Larsson’s estate, along with the possibility that a laptop exists with notes and drafts for another seven books in the series. How he could accomplish that feat after tying up The Millennium so tidily is anyone’s guess.

In the bio I particularly enjoyed the comments of other successful crime writers around the world. They were remarkably frank, and sans sour grapes, a phenomenon in itself. One publishing figure remarked that the first 100 pages of Larsson’s first book, despite a proper editing process—something the following two books missed out on—were so ponderous (and I agree) that if they represented a submission to a UK publisher by an unknown author, they would never have risen above the slush pile—so much for aiming for a dynamic, nail-biting start to every thriller.

Stieg Larsson was very much aware that most journalism is a matter of preaching to the converted. We generally read publications that confirm our own opinions, so reaching out to convince a reader that there’s an alternative view is difficult. One of Forshaw’s interviewees makes the point that fiction removes the boundaries of fixed opinion, leaving us open to contemplate new perspectives. Some would say open to suggestion.

Forshaw says that Larsson had a crusading personality and a fierce desire to right the wrongs of the world. If his books were, as they seem, a vehicle for his beliefs, it would make his untimely death that much more unfortunate, wouldn’t it? How much more he could have achieved will be cause for much ongoing speculation.

I was reading Ben Elton’s Meltdown the other night when I realised that some of the characters really pissed me off. Well, I didn’t realise it exactly. My wife, prompted by a few too many huffs and puffs, asked me gently if I was alright.

Jane Teresa will often ask me questions. She always has. In fact, from what I understand, she’s had an enquiring mind since she could first speak and, on a number of occasions, drove her mother crazy with queries. I guess that’s what catapulted her into the scientific world and then into her own research into dreams, but that’s another story.

I was so deeply engrossed in the book that I hadn’t realised that I was making an issue out of Ben’s characters until JT mentioned my obvious discomfort. I suppose discomfort is the word. Some of the people in the story were dickheads and, as the plot progressed, they developed into obnoxious dickheads. It was making me angry.

Of course that was Ben Elton’s idea. For example, the selfish, grasping, bad behaviour portrayed by one of the protagonists was meant to prickle and upset the reader. Unless they too were selfish and grasping in which case the whole point would be lost. But, again, they wouldn’t be reading the book anyway, would they? Too busy out there grabbing.

When I sat back and thought about it, I wondered if I really wanted to read the book at all. I had to make a decision. I was at the point in the narrative where I would shortly be sucked in and would have to finish the book. It’s happened to me too many times before not to be aware of it. What a choice – continue, knowing that I was going to grind my teeth until I was ready to climb inside the pages and give what’s his name a quick slap, or toss the book to one side and pick up another one without all the angst in it from my burgeoning to-read pile?

Do we really need to have books upset us? Is avoiding writing that challenges us ducking the realities of life? In my case I know the answer. From time to time my long life has been well drenched in other people’s dramas and sorrows. Conflict and death aren’t strangers to my memories. I’ve pretty much seen it all – very, very good and very bad. I wouldn’t swap my life’s experiences for anything. Well, not a lot anyway and only some things. Why would I choose to immerse myself in a story of bickering and misfortune when there’s so much happiness in the world to enjoy? It just reminds me of the blacker side of real life.

What do you think?

And Ben Elton’s tale? I did finish it. And I did enjoy it.

If we’re pet lovers and we faithfully pick up our dog’s dropping, we refer to that steaming offering as poo, don’t we? But when we step in a hunk of it on our way to an important meeting, it suddenly becomes dog shit.

The circumstances and origin of that awful inconvenience usually merits a considerably stronger reference, and the other day I had the dubious pleasure of hearing a well-heeled young lady scream, “I’ve fallen into a pile of fucking dog cack!” Everyone around her cracked up, and when the young lady’s colour returned to something less than life-threatening, she saw the funny side of it too.

Our choice of words can dramatically change the emphasis on what we want to express. We often use words that mean exactly the same thing, yet conjure up an entirely different picture.

I was recently writing about the Australian outback, and thought I had the mood just right. I’d spent time researching the weather in that part of the continent and had a good idea of the type of flora that predominate there.

But the piece wasn’t quite right, and for ages I couldn’t put my finger on the problem. And then it leapt out of the page at me. It was one word. One simple little word, and all I needed to do was change it and everything would be solved.

The word I changed was earth. It became dirt. And the entire universe shifted. Did the earth move? Did the ground tremble? Well, not exactly, unless it did for you around about that time, but someone reading my words in the not too distant future will have a better feeling for those harsh, uncompromising badlands of Australia’s backyard.

That one word, dirt, created a flavour beyond the capacity of earth. In the context of the story, it was meant to pique the imagination and bring the reader out of their comfort zone for just a moment. A bit like shit really.

I was listening to a loud conversation the other day. I hesitate to say that it was in a café because a number of people have commented recently that rather nice cafés seem to be where I spend most of my time, and have asked if I ever actually write.

When you’re a sociable sort of bloke who enjoys the buzz of a busy inner city java-joint, writing for endless hours alone often calls for a contrasting environment to refresh and revitalise the brain. An hour’s break to contemplate humanity, or interact socially, soon fires up the neurons for another session at the keyboard. It’s simply a matter of balance.

But let’s get back to that conversation. A rather smartly dressed young man was complaining to his comrades that he’d spent hours crafting an email to a web development company, explaining to them exactly why he was unhappy with their service.

“I wanted them to get the message in one email, so I chose my words carefully,” he said. “I covered every aspect of the problem in detail, and I even had my girlfriend read it so that I got it right. And then I get an email back from them full of advice and proposals, but none of it had anything to do with my issue. It’s as if they never even read the email I sent!”

That certainly struck a chord with me. In fact, much the same happened with one of my emails a couple of years ago. Fortunately I knew the addressee rather well, and was able to sit down and have a heart-to-heart to find out what went wrong.

“It’s too much,” he told me. “Every day I get emails that I don’t have time to read, never mind fully absorb. I end up just scanning through them to get the gist and hope I get it right.”

“And if you don’t …?”

He shrugged miserably. I lose customers, get stressed, and end up speed reading even faster because I feel panicked.”

That’s an extreme example of a very common phenomenon. We simply don’t make the time to read properly. Add the fact that the material we’re reading is often poorly written and it’s no wonder we’re confused and end up wasting more time unravelling meaning and getting even more stressed.

Combine bad writing with hasty reading and things can get nasty. There’s an urban myth about a letter sent to an emissary in a volatile nation that was read as a direct insult. The unintended affront was caused by the smeared remains of a tiny insect on the paper creating a phantom comma in the wrong place in the opening sentence. If the letter’s recipient had read the entire missive properly he would have understood the error, instead of commencing retaliatory hostilities and dispensing with a few lives.

Ghost writing is often about disentangling a few obscure ideas mixed with random thoughts, and that’s one of the great challenges of the job. However, if I’m in doubt, it saves a lot of everyone’s time if I just ask the client what they mean, instead of making assumptions. Well, we wouldn’t want to start a war, would we?

Many years ago, I gave my then friend, Jane Teresa, a swag of articles I’d written. I felt an enormous sense of pride as I handed them over. After all, JT, was a published author, and she was interested in my work – a rare combination. Actually, truth to tell, I was almost wetting myself in anticipation of the bit of praise I knew would be coming my way.

Little did I know that I was about to experience something every writer should. And that experience was going to be excruciatingly painful, emotionally disturbing, and completely heartbreaking. I could have easily given up the pen (and the friendship – no, I lie about that) right then, and if it were not for JT’s encouraging words that accompanied the awful ripping as she dissected my work, I would never have written again.

Fortunately, I continued to write and, not only did

Jane and I marry, but we also formed an extraordinary team for many adventures. I learned loads of lessons from those early critiques, but, more importantly, what was driven home like a stake through a vampire’s heart, was an indelible memory of pain and wounded pride that will endure forever. Isn’t that great?

From time to time, ghostwriting is not so much about finding new words, but resurrecting the old. For example, clients who present their tenderly crafted words for appraisal have the reasonable perception that the work may, at the most, just require a bit of a polish. And sometimes that’s all it does need. However, if the ghost is faced with a bit of a dog’s dinner, it would be as well for him to remember how those razor edges of rejection felt to oneself before ploughing ahead with a critique of another’s efforts.

Not long ago, I had a lovely lady client. She was elderly, poised, almost stately, and the epitome of good manners. As we progressed, she happily accepted my total rewriting of her book with the same emailed response, ‘reads well’. After a dozen or so of these I began to wonder if she was actually reading what I’d sent. I mean, some of the changes I’d made were quite dramatic. And then, halfway through the book, I had an email from her with a piece of text I’d edited out pasted into the message. It was accompanied by large red font which said, ‘Michael, I really fucking like this. Please leave it in’.

Yes, I was as shocked as you no doubt are. But, after I’d laughed out loud, I had a think. Had I become careless, or thoughtless? Immersed in my writer’s zone, and on a roll, had I lost some sensitivity to my client’s precious words? I’ll probably never know, but as a sharp reminder, the message served its purpose.

In her novel Dreams of Speaking (2005 Age Book of the Year Award), Gail Jones introduces us to Mr Sakamoto, a Japanese survivor of Hiroshima. Intelligent and urbane, he’s also an expert on Alexander Graham Bell, the pioneering engineer credited with inventing the telephone.

Mr Sakamoto’s fascination with Bell began with his own personal experiences of the phone and, from the narrative, it’s clear that the deeply personal interactions that Sakamoto enjoyed over the wires actually kept him sane during some of the darker moments of his life.

Without giving away what is a wonderful story, Ms Jones engages the reader with aspects of that priceless medium of human contact, the voice. But, in this case, it’s not the voice heard face-to-face that fascinates. It’s the voice on the other end of the phone. When whispered, murmured, and sighed, Mr Sakamoto suggests that words on the phone take on subtle nuances and inflections of shared confidentialities that wouldn’t occur face-to-face.

Today, satellites and fibre optics are replacing copper cable, and mobiles and VoIP are replacing the traditional dial phone. What remains, however, is the physical separation of conversationalists, a void waiting to be filled by the vibrating elements of speech and the rich and personal timbres of the voice.

I find face-to-face and phone discussions each have their own merits. But the phone does dispense with many of the constraints we must observe in a physical encounter, particularly between strangers. There is no body language to distract from the way something is said, no background noises to blur or conceal a nuance, no social behaviours or appearances to misjudge, and every reason to deeply engage one’s senses in an effort to fully comprehend the message in the voice.

Sometimes my work involves encouraging a client to think through an experience, to relive it, and ride a few bumps in the process. In those extremely sensitive moments, the phone is a tangible thing to hang onto. And not so much as a grip of abject terror, but more of a support as the emotions flow and ebb with the memories.

On the phone, comfortable, respectful, or reflective silences become part of a deeper conversation. One can almost hear the client’s thought processes, and it feels perfectly natural and unobtrusive to respond with ah, or hmm, just to let them know I’m there. Even the hum from the ether seems perfectly in tune with the moment.

We have a new tunnel. It dives under the Brisbane River, linking the south with the north and bypassing the city centre in a most convenient way.

When the tunnel opened, the toll was suspended to allow motorists the opportunity to test drive (and hopefully get hooked on) the new route. When the toll was imposed after the trial period, traffic through the tunnel dropped off. Actually it plummeted, despite a well considered discount. Within days, stakeholders and the media began to make remarks that sounded a little panicky.

Approaching one of the tunnel onramps the other day, I saw an enormous electronic sign with the message No tag? It then changed to We will bill you. Think about that. Those two sequential messages can be taken as a threat. They aren’t encouraging you to use the tunnel by saying that if you don’t have an e-Tag, it’s not a problem and they’ll catch up with you later. They are warning you, yes warning you, that if you proceed into the tunnel they desperately want you to use, they will bill you. And being billed is not perceived as a pleasant experience by most of us.

I regularly write about words, and how many of the words we use are often unnecessary. However, sometimes we need to add words to clarify a meaning. The tunnel operators were attempting to encourage users with their words, but their brevity terrified, albeit subliminally. What if the sign had flashed an in-between message? No tag? … No worries … We will bill you.

Of course, over the following days, I started looking at signs more closely. One at our local cinema encouraged me to join the movie club with the words, You’ll never pay full price again, unwittingly omitting to inform me that the discounted price was dependent on my continuing to pay the club subscription.

Hats: An Anthology by Stephen Jones, is a really cool exhibition currently showing at the Queensland Art Gallery – a must-see by the way. The huge sign advertising it in South Brisbane makes it unclear as to whether the exhibition is exclusive to Brisbane, or free only in Brisbane.

And then, as I began to notice more and more anomalies, it struck me. Some advertisers are investing huge dollars in clever imagery, but, without considering their words carefully, are failing to get the message across.

What do you think? Seen any interesting signs around the place?

Do you ever get a weird feeling somewhere around the pit of your stomach? I’m talking about something that ranges between an imperceptible tingle and a full-on lurch depending on what triggers it. I’ve heard it referred to as a feeling of dread, a nervous twinge, abject fear, a premonition, or plain old shitting oneself.

Looking in the rear view mirror in the middle of a totally absorbing conversation and seeing a cop car with its light flashing will always do it for me. There’s usually one clear expletive that will ensue from such a vision, and it ain’t oh, darn.

Last week I had my own intestine chilling experience when I posted a profound question in Twitter (I realise Twitter and profundity is a contradiction) that I’d contemplated for half an hour. As I hit enter I realised my question was sans question mark. How stupid, I thought. I’m supposed to be a writer. My next thought came quite logically (and practically), As if anyone would notice. But, yes, they did. And did I go through their tweets to check their grammar? I mean, would I?

The question of how long to spend editing can be a thorny one for a ghostwriter. Some published works have been known to take anything between one to ten years to complete, with some tomes enduring hundreds of editing sweeps during the writing process, and authors agonising for months over a single sentence.

Time is money to a ghostwriter, and because it’s the client’s money we’re talking about here, any unduly protracted work has to be avoided. Barking up the wrong tree is sometimes part of the writing process, particularly when research is involved. But knowing when to stop sniffing around that particular piece of flora and head off in a more appropriate direction comes only with experience.

Ghostwriters have to be prepared to lose words, and sometimes unexpectedly. For example, in the middle of a project a client approved 10,000 words I’d written for her. It was a part of the book that dealt with a truly terrible time in her life. Having never verbalised the experiences before, she had found the interview, however informal I tried to make it, a fairly rough ride.

A week later she called again to say thanks and to inform me that she’d read the material over and over and had wept buckets. Now, for the first time in her life, she felt she could forgive and move on. She added that the words had brought about a healing that she had never imagined possible, and rather than include them in the book where they would be likely to reopen old wounds for the people involved, she preferred to see them excised forever.

Sometimes to have a win-win, you have to aim for lose-lose.

And, talking of losing, how much is that traffic fine again?

“It’s as boring as bat shit,” I muttered, tossing the half-read book onto the couch.

My wife, Jane Teresa, sighed and looked up from the depths of Shades of Grey by Jasper Fforde, a really great book I’d recommended she read.

“I gave it my best shot,” I said, vaguely justifying having interrupted her pleasure. “But the author just doesn’t seem to be interested in the subject he’s writing about. It’s almost mechanical and there’s no excitement in his words.”

I left JT to return to Fforde’s amazingly futuristic world, and thought about a question I’d been asked at a recent interview, “How can you be passionate enough about someone else’s concept to write an entire book for them?”

It’s a good question. And the answer may lie in asking if a writer must be passionate about his words before he can make them magically spring to life. For me it’s a resounding yes. However, I’d take it a stage further. If you have an unquenchable thirst for knowledge, a mind constantly churning with questions, and a constant curiosity about people’s behaviour, the weather, the way soap dissolves in the shower, and the meaning of an ant’s life, you are likely to find most things interesting enough to write about, aren’t you?

My interviewer settled back in her seat, sipped her cappuccino and grinned mischievously. She was clearly enjoying herself, and I kind of knew what was coming.

“So, what wouldn’t you write about?”

I thought for a while.

“How about trainspotting?” she asked, barely suppressing a chuckle.

“Hmm, actually I reckon I could get interested in writing about trainspotting.”

“Really?”

“Well, yes,” I said, “I remember being hauled off to train stations in the UK as a tiny fella and spending hours, in thin clothes, on freezing platforms, with nothing to eat, blasted by snow laden winds until I turned into an icicle. All in the hope of a glimpse of the most famous steam train of all, the Flying Scotsman.”

“And?”

“Misery would be an understatement. I had no interest in trains, I loathed being cold, and at four years of age I had no say in how long we were going to endure the pain.”

“So?”

“So, one day a shout echoes across the platform, She’s coming! Suddenly, there were people everywhere, appearing out of cracks and crevices – all the clever places they’d used to shelter from that vicious wind. Scarves, coats, and notebooks were flung in all directions as a scramble for the best view began. Little boys like me were shoved to the front or hoisted onto the nearest stranger’s shoulders. Grown-ups were trembling with excitement and cheered madly when they heard the huge behemoth’s whistle in the distance.

At my age I had no idea of the importance of this old train to the enthusiast, but I could feel the overwhelming sense of anticipation and joy coursing through the crowd. It was incredibly contagious. Forgetting the cold and the hunger, I shouted myself hoarse as the great green monster thundered through the station belching clouds of thick black smoke. I remember looking up through the swirling steam at one old gent. He was grinning toothlessly and tears were streaming down his cheeks.”

I let out a long sigh.

“I’d say it was one of the best days of my life.”

My interviewer stared at me for a long moment.

“That’s amazing. Wow, look at me, all goose bumps. I’d really, really love to have experienced something like that.”

I laughed.

“You just did – with me. I was never there. It never happened to me. But if I can imagine it, I can write about it. That’s maybe what writing other people’s stuff is about. Finding something in it to be passionate about and then putting it into words.”