Teresa Driscoll - Author
  • Home
  • BOOKS
    • I AM WATCHING YOU - book club questions
  • Blog
  • My writing life
    • How to get published...
  • Telly days
  • Talks
  • Contact

First things first...

3/24/2013

 
Picture
Saw Dame Edna Everage on the One
Show the other night.  Oh my goodness – stirred a strange sensation in my stomach!
 Once upon a time I interviewed  “her” while working as a BBC TV presenter. What an experience. Technically I was
the one doing the interview but dear Edna had done her research and seemed to  know as much about me as I did about  “her”.
 By the time she was asking after my  family and home life in alarming detail,  there was real sweat on my brow. Where  would this go next? How MUCH did she know about me. Beam me  up!

 If anyone reading this knows the  glamorous  Dame Edna, please be  reassured that – cross my
gladioli -  I am a big fan – but there is no question   in any TV studio, who has the upper hand.  Respect!

 All of which points neatly to the  subject I was planning to write about this week.  Opening lines.

 Throughout all my years as a  journalist, whether interviewing a TV icon or someone “ordinary” with an
extraordinary story to share, I always wait for what I can only describe as “the  moment”. It is that special awareness that you have hit upon the opening to your  written feature or the sound clip for telly.

 News coverage is very different, of  course, because you are looking more simply for the strongest and most current  line but with features and lifestyle writing or filming, it is that special   hook you are after.  The
unusual. The offbeat.

 And you will guess now where I am  going with this because it is precisely the same in fiction.  We  all know that openings – for both short stories and novels -  need  to engage immediately. To pull the reader right in.   We are told this over and over but I wonder if we always listen quite in  the way that we should.

 It doesn’t mean, please note,  that we should panic. Drive ourselves to writer’s  block.  Chances are there are a
  million options for a first line so try one for size -  aware  that you can always change it ( and will probably want to).  The crucial point is to recognise its  importance but not to let that paralyse  you.

 For myself – when writing features,  I admit to relaxing inwardly when I hit  upon the“moment”. The ping in my brain as I clock my opening line – but I don’t  allow that to distract me from the interview as a whole. I just have faith that  the“moment” will come at some point. It may be at the beginning of the  interview….or it may be the very reason the guest has to end the interview early  – “sorry, just got to tend my competition marrow. Judging is Saturday…”  Ping!

 And if I were writing a feature  right now on that interview with Dame  Edna?

 “I began to sweat when Dame Edna  asked after my dog…..by name." 

You get the  drift…


 

The best advice for writers?

3/8/2013

 
Picture
Today  -  a few thoughts not about writing  but reading.
 I take it as a given that all  writers are avid readers so it always comes as a surprise  - no; even a shock – to me  when someone seeking advice with their stories admits they do not read a great
deal.
 This has happened more than once  and my brain struggles to compute the information. It reminds me of a  conversation with a fellow author a while back who explained why he gave up  working with a university. He said that too often he gave students a list of
books to read…only to discover that a large percentage would not  bother.
 Again - I was completely  nonplussed.

 Though I completely understand that  not everyone wants to write (it is a mad, crazy business and we should all be  certified), I struggle much harder to understand any reluctance to read. Quite frankly I still get palpitations
when I think of the sense of loss when my two boys were tiny and I struggled to  find enough space for books.  I
worked five days a week in television at the time, was always short of sleep and  something had to give. But my goodness – it was a  struggle.

 I think my addiction to books is,  in part, a frustration born of my biggest regret in life. No. Stop. Regret is
the wrong word. Sadness-more appropriate. The truth is I never got to read  English Literature at university, switching instead to a course in journalism  which would pay me a salary while training on a newspaper. The story is pretty  simple. I studied English, French and German at A level (for the excuse to call  reading-“studying”) and somehow managed to rock Three A grades when that was  still pretty rare.  This won me a place to read English at York ( and also Exeter). But my mother died of cancer  while I was taking my A levels and I had (understandably, I guess) something of  a meltdown. My father was moving to Devon and I lost confidence at the thought  of moving to York (knowing no one) and Devon too ( knowing no one). So I  switched to a course in journalism near London which would allow me to pitch for  a training place on a paper in Kent near existing
friends.

 This worked brilliantly career-wise but I was too young to realise how sad I would come to feel later about missing  out on that three-year space to just read and study literature. I guess I have  been over-compensating ever since.

 Perhaps it is why I feel not the  slightest pang of guilt that I am lucky enough in my current chapter in life to  find more space for reading.   Working as a freelance writer, my only challenge is to balance my reading  and writing time. This, I find, is a fluid equation controlled entirely by  commissions and the mortgage. Just as soon as I have brought in enough dosh, my  head is straight in a book. “During the day?” people ask,  aghast.

 Why ever not?
Just now my elder son is on a gap  year ahead of reading English and American Literature at uni (you can only guess  at how thrilled I am about THAT) and he is working through a long list of books  engraved on a little metal bookmark I gave him as a present. I find that I have  read the vast majority  myself long ago but  am thoroughly enjoying the  excuse to re-read them as I watch him, nose in book, eager for my  thoughts.

 He is also the first to “borrow” the books recommended by my book club. So I am going to set up a new insert to
the column on the right to list current recommendations so he can follow them  online.

 Just now, in case you’re interested also, I am reading Anne Tyler’s “The Beginner’s Goodbye” and The Liars’ Gospel by Naomi Alderman. I have also been re-reading some Kurt  Vonnegut ( from that bookmark list) and am recommending to anyone who will  listen -The Dinner by Herman Koch and Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl. I have also
  just finished Eudora Welty’s The Optimist’s daughter which was one of those  delicious, spur- of- the- moment purchases after reading an article online  about her short stories.
             
New writers sometimes ask me if reading the works of great authors  does not, in the end, become discouraging to me as a writer. Again – this  confuses me.  For I write  commercial fiction, not with any “great expectations” (ouch) or competitive, literary snobbery  but rather  because writing does not feel optional. 
It is just what I  do.
             
But reading? Oh my goodness. That is always a journey I set out on with very highest  expectations. They are not always realised, of course, but- no matter. For I  never forget the moments when they are. I vividly remember the strange weeks of  dreams when I was in my John Fowles phase. I can still feel the punch to my  stomach the first time I read that simple yet devastating phrase “so it goes” from  KV.

 And I will never,  ever  forget the ache while facing the“reveal” in life of Pi  years  and years back. So moved was I, I got up from my chair and began pacing around  the room, book in hand, because I simply could not keep still.

 So – yes. I am  completely at one with all those writers who have over and over again stated  the  obvious. That the very best  advice for anyone starting out on this wonderful journey of writing  is  very basic (but also very enjoyable)  indeed.

 Namely: Read…(as much as you can, whenever you can and to hell with the hoovering).


 

    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture

    Author

    Teresa Driscoll - journalist, author, mother of two and lover of great coffee.

    Picture
    Picture

    RSS Feed

    Picture

    CATEGORIEs

    All
    Tips For Writers

    Archives

    September 2021
    May 2021
    March 2021
    September 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    March 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    September 2018
    June 2018
    April 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    December 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012

  • Home
  • BOOKS
    • I AM WATCHING YOU - book club questions
  • Blog
  • My writing life
    • How to get published...
  • Telly days
  • Talks
  • Contact