This week our guest blogger takes a look at the vagaries of the English Language and how we ended up where we are. The views expressed in this blog are those of the blogger and don't necessarily represent the views of Selfishgenie Publishing. One of my friends on Facebook, an Irish lady, posted this picture and asked an open question about who felt confident about the pronunciation of the product name (no, not Heinz - the other bit) . She was re-posting it from another Facebook page which is owned by an American on-line magazine. I was able to reply with the information that English place names that include the letters “cester” don’t actually pronounce the “ces” part, so the correct pronunciation is Wooster-sheer. The incorporation of “cester” into a place name means that it was founded by the Romans when they were in Britain and has its origins in “castra”, which is Latin for a camp. It is also the origin for place names that include “chester” as in Chester and Manchester. From that word we also get Doncaster and Lancaster. Incidentally, the “lan” part of Lancaster comes from the nearby River Lune (pronounced loon), but I’m guessing the people of the city didn’t fancy being known as the people from Looncaster.* The pronunciation of Worcestershire is problematical for three reasons. Firstly, there is the pronunciation of Worc, It looks as though it should be pronounced as work, but the c in cester is soft, which makes the pronunciation worse, both literally and figuratively. I’m guessing the people of Worcester and its parent county didn’t fancy living in worse-tur, so the pronunciation shifted to woos. Secondly the “shire” part is pronounced sheer when it is quite clearly spelt to rhyme with hire. But that’s the English language for you, full of anomalies such as that one. I’ll return to that a little later. The final reason for this pronunciation being problematical, and pedants will already be penning their e-mails to tell me so, is that it is a sweeping generalisation and can’t be universally applied. What about “Cirencester”? They will ask. The “cester” in that is pronounced, otherwise it would be siren-stir and not siren-sester, like sister but spelt with an e. But anyway, Gloucestershire is pronounced gloss–tur-sheer, Leicestershire is less-tur-sheer, Towcester is toaster and Alcester is all-stir. This is part of the problem with English. It isn’t consistent with the application of its own rules. Especially the English that is spoken in the United Kingdom. Take “I before e except after c”. I think there is sufficient evidence to allow us to draw a veil over that one. In fact, there are far more words that don’t obey the rule than there are words that do. The saying itself isn’t even complete. Ebenezer Cobham Brewer’s 1880 “Rules for English Spelling” gives it as “i before e, except after c, or when sounded as "a," as in neighbour and weigh.” But there is insufficient evidence to support that, either. Despite Cobham being English and never having visited America, the use of his rule in schools started in America, not Britain. But there you go, rules are meant to be broken (actually they aren’t, but that’s a whole different blog). But there are a lot of words we don’t know how to pronounce, or which some Smart Alec decides we are pronouncing wrongly and who change it. Take the name of the warrior queen Boadicea, for example. A long time ago, when I was growing up, she was universally referred to as Boadicea (Boa – d - seer). It is even engraved on her statue, which stands close to Westminster Bridge in London. In 1797 a British frigate was named HMS Boadicea, there was a passenger ship of the same name which was wrecked off the coast of Ireland in 1816 and there was a 1928 film entitled Boadicea. Yet somehow it was decided by someone that this was wrong and all of a sudden everyone started calling her Boudicca (Boo-dick-uh). Why and on what authority? I blame actor Alex Kingston, who starred in the TV drama Boudicca, Warrior Queen, in 2003. The only reason we know of this woman’s existence (that’s Boadicea, not Alex Kingston) is because of the Roman historian Tacitus, who recorded much of Rome’s history of the first century AD. However, he wasn’t born until AD 56 and never set foot in Britain. Given that Boadicea (I shall insist on using that name) died in AD 61, Tacitus would only have been 6 or 7 years old and could only have heard of the warrior queen second hand from his father, who had served in Britain 3 times, including during the rebellion for which she is famous. He would have heard about her in Latin, the Roman language and not the language of Britain, whose native people were Celts. It is from Tacitus that we get the spelling and pronunciation of Boadicea, not Boudicca. As the Celts didn’t have a written language at this time, we have no idea how her name would have been spelt or how the Celts would have pronounced it. So, it would appear, someone has taken it upon himself (or herself) to decide how the Celts would have pronounced it, with no regard for the lack of historical fact. They may look to Welsh, Scottish or Irish pronunciations, but that would be wrong, because those nations would have rendered the name into their languages from Latin as it was the only written source available. If you doubt this, then you have only to look at how Welsh and Gaelic speakers render modern words into their own language. The Welsh for “television” is teledu and the Irish is teilifís. Given that these words were created in modern times they could just have been accepted without translation, much as the French use l’weekend, but no, they had to be given a linguistic twist to make them “Celtic”. Could the same not have been done with the name of Boadicea? Is the use of the name Boudicca not just us pandering to first century Celtic chauvinism? Or maybe even to late 20th century Celtic chauvinism. What is my evidence for all that? She wasn’t actually a Queen at all so would not have been known widely outside of her own lands. She was the wife, and subsequently widow, of Prasutagus who was a client King of the Romans in an obscure and quite remote part of eastern England, a small part of the county we now call Norfolk. Her rebellion was short lived, lasting only a few weeks, and while she wrought havoc during that time she died ingloriously, crushed by the Roman legions. She wouldn’t have been admired, even by her own people, after that defeat. In fact, given the reprisals visited on the natives by the Romans after the rebellion, it is more likely that her name would have been more cursed than celebrated. As I said, the only reason we know about her at all is because of a Roman historian who wrote her name in Latin and it was Boadicea. But back to words and their pronunciation. How do you pronounce “bow”? If you have thought about it you will have come up with two different pronunciations. Pronunciation (1) rhymes with “go” and pronunciation (2) rhymes with “cow”. You only know which is correct when you put other words alongside it to make it clear which bow you are talking about. So, you would need to know that the mother tied the ribbon into a pretty bow for her daughter’s hair, or that the man bent over in a deep bow of respect for the king. English is almost unique in having words that can be both nouns and verbs, depending on how we use them. No other language does that. This is why we get a noun such as bow, which can mean a knot or a weapon, and also a verb, to bow. We also have run, which is a verb and also a noun – a place for running as in chicken run and walk, a verb which means to move at a particular pace but which can also be a noun – a good walk. There are many others. How do we teach this to our children? Actually we don’t. They appear to learn it for themselves. No one is sure how, but they seem to pick it up instinctively. However, in many ways English is also a simple language. Take the definite article “the” as in the chair, the table etc. That’s it. That’s all we have. It’s gender neutral and doesn’t change between the subject and object of a sentence. German has der, die, das, den and dem for the same thing and the French have le, la and les and also, frequently, l’. In German there are 7 different versions of “you” depending on gender and familiarity with the person being addressed. The French have at least 2, tu and vous (I’m not a linguist so I am happy to be corrected on that). The Japanese have 7 forms of “thank you” starting with the simple arigato and moving up though levels of formality until the speaker is lying prostrate, face down on the ground. Just joking, but it isn’t far from the truth. The Japanese language is very big on formality, as are many others. English, however, seems to be much less worried about formality these days. Much of this is because our language isn’t pure. 2,000 years ago the residents of these islands would all have spoken the Celtic language(s), because the Romans’ only successful invasion wasn’t until AD42 (get ready for a big anniversary party in 20 years’ time). But they wouldn’t all have spoken in the same dialect. We know this because Welsh, one of the ancient Celtic languages, is different from Gaelic, which is spoken in both Scotland and Ireland but has differences even between them. They are all different from Manx, spoken on the Isle of Man., Then there’s Cornish and Breton. It wasn’t really the Romans that brought us Latin, it was more to do with the clergy, who used Latin to communicate between themselves and taught it to the children of the aristocracy and the wealthy, who also used it as a way of communicating with their peers throughout Europe. Many of our words have a Latin origin, even though a lot of them came via other European languages. European philosophers loved the Ancient Greeks and quite a lot of our words have their language as their origin because of that, especially those relating to medicine and science. About 1,500 years ago our ancestors started to speak Anglo-Saxon, brought with us (or perhaps to us, depending on your ancestry) by the invaders who filled the power vacuum created when the Romans went home. This is still the basis for our language but only scholars of mediaeval languages would be able to understand what a Saxon warrior was saying, were one to rise from the dead in today’s Britain. Mixed in with our Anglo-Saxon is Norse, brought to us by the Danes and Norwegians between 1,300 to 1,000 years ago, then sprinkle in some Norman French which arrived 950 years ago. Thanks to the Plantagenet’s we get more French, the real thing, which was brought in about 850 years ago and from that recipe the language we now call English began to emerge about 700 years ago. English wasn’t even the official language of the Royal Court until the time of Richard II, who died in 1400 (Trivia - he also introduced the fork into England as an implement of cutlery). With a bit of difficulty, we would be able to understand the dying words of Watt Tyler, the leader of the Peasants’ Revolt, who died in 1381. As he was beheaded his last word was probably “argh”, but you get the idea. Even though English was a fully formed language by the 1500s, it didn’t stop changing even after that. In the 19th century we started to adopt words from much further east. If you are in the habit of wearing pyjamas when you are in your bungalow, you are using two words that have their roots in India. From that it is unsurprising that so much of our language is confusing. Each new addition brought new words, new ways of saying things and new ways of spelling, much of which wasn’t written down because the Anglo-Saxons and the Danes didn’t have a written language at the time of their arrival. It was monks who wrote things down and they did it in Latin, not Anglo-Saxon. When the monks started to create a written version of the common languages they had to invent new letters, such as æ because there was no equivalent sound in Latin. They even had to invent the letters J and W because these weren’t in the original Latin alphabet. That’s right; You couldn’t go to a J D Wetherspoon’s pub in early Anglo Saxon times, it would have been I D Utherspoon’s. In fact English spelling as we know it didn’t come in until Samuel Johnson published the first English dictionary in 1755. Up until then people spelt things pretty much as they felt like it; even their own names. There are, allegedly, at least three different versions of the spelling of Shakespeare’s name, all in his own handwriting (scholars now dispute this, but they always did like to spoil a good story). Even after the publication of Johnson’s dictionary it took some time for spelling to become standardised and to take on their modern forms. American spelling didn’t start to be standardised until 1828 when Noah Webster published his “American Dictionary of the English Language”. This is the one that led to the Americans starting to leave the u out of words like colour and to put z where it had always been perfectly adequate for an s to be. Webster felt it necessary to try to simplify the language for the benefit of the wide variety of immigrants who were arriving in their droves from Europe. Just a note for my American readers (and many British too, because they make the same mistake). When you see a sign like this one it isn’t pronounced Yee Oldee. The Y isn’t a Y, it is an obsolete letter called a thorne and is pronounced th. Also, you don’t pronounce the e in Olde (or shoppe for that matter). So, it’s just plain “The Old”. Boring, I know. Robert Burchfield, who edited the Oxford English Dictionary for 30 years up until 1986, once caused quite a stir by saying that the British and American forms of English were drifting apart so rapidly that in 200 years’ time it was possible that we would no longer be able to understand one another. However, he was speaking in the pre-internet age (remember that?) and I think it is far more likely that we will soon all be speaking American English. Already I’m being bullied by software that provides an annoying red wiggly line under anything that it thinks should have a z in it when I think it should be an s, or when I spell “colour” with a u. How long before the weaker willed amongst us start to give in to this automated intimidation? Anyway, here’s one person who is happy to educate Americans on how to pronounce Worcestershire and who will always spell colour with a u. * The words “loon” and “lunatic” are derived from the French “la lune” meaning the moon and allude to the alleged strange behaviour of some people and animals at the time of the full moon. If you enjoyed this blog or found it informative, be sure not to miss future editions by signing up to our newsletter. Just click on the button below and we'll even send you an ebook of your choice for doing it. Would you like to be a guest blogger for Selfishgenie Publishing? Just email us with an outline of your blog. 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A while ago, in this very blog, I made an offer to review books for other authors. It was intended as an act of solidarity to undermine the leaches that are preying on the writing community by offering dubious quality services in exchange for even more dubious quality benefits - and all at a price. I should have thought it through a little bit more. It isn’t the work involved. If I was worried about that I would never have made the offer in the first place. No, it is that there are so very many poorly written books out there and when you make an offer to review books you have to read them first. The problem is quantity versus quality. There are more people writing books today than ever before. When Covid struck (and a recession earlier in the century), writing a book would seem like good way to generate a new income. The cost of entry into the market is as low as the price of a pencil and a notepad, though a computer of some sort makes life much easier. The truth is that very few authors make enough money to live on, but very few of these new authors would actually know that. When satellite, cable and free to air digital TV came along I made a personal prediction that the quantity it offered would come at the cost of quality. It is a prediction that came true. While there are good quality programmes on some channels, once you get away from the big name providers you are into a world of repeats, reality TV and pseudo reality. Most of it fits neatly under the heading of "junk TV". The same applies to writing. Quantity comes at the expense of quality. Anyone who can write 80,000 words (it is frequently a lot less) can click on the “upload” button on Amazon, Smashwords, Kobo, Lulu et al and hey presto, they’re a published author. Now, don’t get me wrong. I have read a lot of very good books by Indie authors and those published by small, online publishing houses. I’ve even reviewed some of them in this blog. They deserve better than the publishing industry gives, simply because the big publishers, hand in glove with literary agents, have such a strangle hold on the industry, which means that the majority of authors never have a fighting chance of hitting the big time. No, the problem is that so many people think that they can write a book when, really, they can’t. Before I go any further, I’m not going to mention any authors or book titles by name. It isn’t fair that I damage their prospects for sales by bad mouthing them in a blog. I’m not a big believer in karma, but I also don’t want to run the risk of retaliation. Let's face it, when it comes to sabotage, these authors have done such a great job themselves. I’m not talking about the “nearly” books that a half decent editor could help the author to lick into shape. The underlying talent in those books shines through and as an author myself I’m willing to tolerate the sentences that don’t quite come across as well as they might, the bit of dialogue that is a little bit clunky or the loose end in the plot that isn’t quite tidied away. All authors know we would write those books differently, but the point is that they aren’t our books, so the author has the right to tell their story the way they want. What I’m talking about is the book that should never have been written in the first place. The “it seemed like a good idea at the time” books that had no chance of ever making it to a satisfactory ending. These are the books filled with characters that are so badly written that to describe them as one dimensional is to ascribe one dimension too many. The books so lacking in emotion that you would think that the world was filled with emotionless robots rather than with real people. It is the latter which bothers me the most. Readers engage with characters they care about. They will want to read about them. They will want to turn the page to find out if they succeed or fail, love or lose, live or die. Readers care about them because they can identify with them and they identify with them because they understand them. So why couldn’t I identify with any of the characters in these poor novels? Basically it was because the authors told me so little about the characters. Oh, we get plenty of physical descriptions, to be sure. I was also given plenty of plot to read about, some of which was inventive, but much of which had been done before. To make me want to read on, I needed something to care about, and wasn’t given it. I ended up questioning my reason for reading the books. Why should I care about these characters? I don’t know them; I feel nothing for them. OK, they may be dangling above a fiery pit, just about to get burnt to a crisp, but do I care? Not really. The authors gave me no reason to care. They are just names on a bit of paper (or letters on the screen of an e-reader). They mean nothing to me because the authors haven’t told me anything about them to make me care. Like the guy on the left, they're just a caricature. When I think back over all the books I have ever read that I really enjoyed, the common factor is that they had strong protagonists. I don’t mean strong in the “wading through fire to rescue the damsel in distress” type of strong. I mean emotionally strong. Their authors made me feel every pang of emotion that you would expect a real person to feel. This is what worries me about the authors who are writing such poor books. Are they not people too? Do they not love? Do they not feel fear? Do they not feel happy or sad? To read their books you would think that the answer was a resounding “no”. If someone can’t write about emotions then I would suggest that they shouldn’t be an author, because to be an author you have to live with emotion every time you sit down to write. I don’t know about other authors, but when I stop writing at the end of the day I sometimes feel as though I’ve been through an emotional mangle; crushed and wrung out. If I can’t make myself laugh or cry then how am I ever going to make my readers laugh or cry? If I can’t make myself worry about what will happen to my characters, how can I expect my readers to worry about them? Another problem that I have encountered in recent books is a lack of drama. Drama comes from conflict and if there isn’t any conflict in the story there will never be a story worth reading. Even romantic stories have a conflict at their heart. It is the conflict that prevents the romantically entwined characters from being happy together, at least not until they have resolved the conflict so that they can live happily ever after. This means that the characters must have something meaningful happen to them early in the story. Something that will expose their emotional state and tell me who they are, deep down inside. I have to say that some of the books I refer to have garnered 5 star reviews on Amazon and Goodreads, which is rather worrying. Either the readers who posted those reviews are less critical than me, or the reviews aren’t genuine. I am well aware that not every reader will enjoy every book to the same degree. One person’s 5 star read may be another reader’s 4 or even 3 star. But I can’t believe that 20 or 30 people gave 5 stars to the book I would struggle to award 1 star. It defies logic. I think the problem for some authors is the market testing of their books. They ask friends or family to read them, rather than asking for criticism from somebody independent. However well-read friends and family may be, at heart they want to be seen to be supportive of the author, so they say nice things about the book even if it hasn’t got many redeeming features. Consequently, the author gets a false sense of the real quality of their work and they publish based on that. They may get away with it once and sell a few copies, but no one will be returning to read the sequel. In the meantime, if you have written a book that you think is better than the ones I have talked about above, I’d be happy to review it for you. I really, really would like to be able to post a 4 or 5 star review for someone. And if you think I’m an arrogant know-it-all who wouldn’t recognise a good book if it jumped up and bit me on the nose, then you can say as much when you read one of my books and post a review of it. You can find out more about my books by clicking on the “Books” tab at the top of this page. If you have enjoyed this blog, or found it informative, then be sure not to miss the next edition. Sign up for our newsletter by clicking the button below. We'll even send you a free ebook if you do. Once again we are featuring blogs by guest bloggers on a wide range of subjects related to reading and writing. All the opinions expressed are those of the blogger and are not endorsed by Selfishgenie Publishing. Enjoy! One of the questions most writers get asked is “where do you get your ideas from?”. While it’s a predictable enough question, It’s also one that’s easily answered. Ideas are all around us, we just have to look and listen and then let our imaginations take over. One of my earlier books was “The Girl I Left Behind Me”. The title came first. It’s the last line of the chorus to a traditional song and was used in the soundtrack of three John Ford westerns about the US Cavalry, titled Fort Apache, She Wore A Yellow Ribbon and Rio Grande. For some reason the tune popped into my head one day and I couldn’t shift it. But then it occurred to me that it would make a great title for a book. I quickly Googled it to make sure no one else had had the same idea (they appeared not to have) and then put it into my list of book ideas and let it ferment for a few weeks. It’s the fermentation that is important here. I had a title but no idea what to do with it, so I let my unconscious mind work on it. I also looked up the origins of the song and found that it was traditional, probably 17th or 18th century British or Irish and had been popular with both sides during the American Civil War. Its rhythm makes it very suitable as a marching song which is why it has come down to us via a military route. Letting that information ferment alongside the title eventually gave me the idea of writing a story set in modern times about two young men who are born just a few streets apart but who go off to war to fight on opposite sides and who leave their "girls" behind them. The story is as much about the two women as it is about the men. I won’t give any more away, just in case you want to read it, but I’m sure you can see that once I had the basics mapped out, writing the story became something that was achievable. Not only that, but one of the characters I created for the book went on to feature in a sequel. I have an ever-lengthening list of ideas for books that may, or may not, eventually see the light of day and they have come to me by a number of routes. They say that everyone has a book inside of them. American author Jodi Picoult added the rider “the problem is winkling it out” while British writer Christopher Hitchens is credited with adding “and that’s where it should stay”. But it is true. Everyone has a story that can be told, even if they aren’t able to tell it themselves. The problem Hitchens alludes to is making the story interesting enough to make people want to read it, which is the author’s job. For the author the only task in relation to coming up with new book ideas is to keep their eyes and ears open and the story ideas will come. At the moment I’m helping a fellow aspiring author by providing feedback on a book she is writing. I can’t give away the subject as that would be a breach of confidence, but the idea for it is straight off the front pages of the daily newspapers. She was so touched by what she was reading that the idea of not writing a story about it was probably more bizarre than the idea of writing it. Does that mean that anyone can write a book? Technically yes. If you can write your name you can write a book. However, there is no doubt that some people have an aptitude for it and some don’t. Thanks to the capability to self-publish books that’s available through the digital revolution there are many books that I’ve read in recent years that really shouldn’t have been written, at least not by the people that wrote them. They are living proof of Christopher Hitchens’ corollary. But that doesn’t mean that someone with more aptitude couldn’t write a very good book using the same plot and characters. Do all my ideas become books? Most certainly not. The length of a novel may vary, but generally falls between 80,000 and 120,000 words. I have taken some ideas and barely made it to 10,000 words before I’ve run out of steam. That tells me that, for me, the story just hasn’t got any legs and there’s no point in wasting any more time with it. Of course I don’t delete it. I may have some sudden inspiration that will take it off in a completely new direction, but for the time being it goes into the file marked “not quite as good an idea as I thought”. As for suggesting your own book ideas to authors, please don’t. It’s not that they aren’t good ideas, it’s that there are legal implications. Most big-name authors will tell you that at some point they have received letters or emails claiming that the idea for a book was stolen because they (the letter writer) once said or wrote down some of the words that are used in the book. The writer of the letter or email then goes on to try to claim money for suggesting the idea or, even worse, for plagiarism. Terry Pratchett’s agent told me that he received an email threatening legal action from someone who had once suggested, in another email, that Terry Pratchett set one of his books in Australia. The threatening email arrived shortly after the publication of The Last Continent in 2008, where Pratchett sets the story in the country of Fourecks on his imaginary Discworld. Fourecks bore a passing resemblance to the country we call Australia. That was enough for the loony who wrote the email. And that’s why authors would prefer it if you didn’t suggest ideas for books. It’s nothing personal. By the way, if that has given you an idea for making some easy money - forget it! Lawyers are expensive, they are happy to take your case because, win or lose, they will still get paid and proving plagiarism is a very difficult thing to do. If you don't believe me, just ask Sami Okri. So I took my idea that I had pitched to Terry Pratchett’s agent and wrote the book myself. It’s called The Inconvenience Store and is available (here comes the plug) on Amazon. How did I come up with the idea? Easy. I had just been to a convenience store to buy something that they didn’t have on their shelves. When I asked the manager why they didn’t sell it (it was a common enough item) he told me that people often asked for that item, but they didn’t stock it because there was no demand for it. The manager was a totally irony free zone. My response to the manager about his store being more inconvenient than convenient gave me the title for my book and the rest, as they say, is history. So, where is your next book idea coming from? It could be closer than you think. Would you like to be a guest blogger for Selfishgenie Publishing? Just email us and tell us your idea for your blog. The email address can be found on our "Contact" page. If you enjoyed this blog, or found it interesting, be sure not to miss future posts by signing up for our newsletter. We'll even send you a free ebook if you do. Just click the button below.
For the next few weeks we are featuring blogs by guest bloggers on a wide range of subjects related to reading and writing. All the opinions expressed are those of the blogger and are not endorsed by Selfishgenie Publishing. Enjoy! It was one of those conversations that only happen in pubs when drink has been taken. They usually don’t make sense the next day and are quickly forgotten. Well, usually they’re quickly forgotten. The subject was fantasy fiction. You know the sort of thing: wizards, orcs, elves, dragons, enchanted swords etc. My friend said he didn’t read that sort of book because he wasn’t able to suspend his disbelief. I was duty bound to argue against him because… well, because we were in a pub and that’s what blokes do when they’ve had a pint or two. But then, afterwards, I thought about it a little bit more. Why would it not be possible to suspend disbelief and read fantasy fiction? We suspend our disbelief every day of the week over some matter or other, particularly when it comes to the sorts of thing politicians say. So what’s so hard about suspending one’s disbelief over a story that is to be found on the fiction shelves? No one is saying its true (well a few deranged people maybe, but I’m not going to count them). All we fantasy fans are saying is that it’s an escape from the real world and into another. The stories are as valid as they are in any other genre. Indeed, they can be found in genres other than fantasy. They usually take the form of a battle of good against evil, during which quests are undertaken or duties carried out. Honour is high on the agenda, as is bravery, selfless devotion and many other altruistic character traits. Perhaps this is what’s wrong. Perhaps these things are so lacking in our modern world that some people can’t believe that they might exist in any world. There is an old tradition of fantasy fiction, of course, though it isn’t always recognised as such. First, we go all the way back to the Ancient Greeks and Homer’s epic stories in the Iliad and the Odyssey. These may be based on some factual events, but they also contain a lot of fantasy. Then we have Arthurian legend. Now, on the surface we have a story about men battling against evil, which forms the core of many a good novel. But we also have a wizard (Merlin), a witch (Morgana), a magical sword in a stone (Excalibur), a mysterious lady in a lake (Viviane or Nimue) and so on. In its basic form it’s no more fantastic than Tolkien. After that we get to the legend of Robin Hood. There is no evidence that he ever existed and what few historical bits of evidence that suggest someone resembling him did exist, don’t portray a picture of the hero of the medieval peasants that robbed from the rich to give to the poor, but a petty criminal who robbed from anyone and kept the loot for himself. OK, more of a legend than a fantasy, but one we buy into. There may be no dragons or orcs, but they’ve been replaced by the Sheriff of Nottingham and his men. We mustn’t forget the Daddy of them all William Shakespeare. In his plays we have a ghost in Hamlet, another one in Macbeth along with three witches, in The Tempest we have a fairy and some sort of troll (Caliban) and of course A Midsummer Night’s Dream which is littered with fairies and in which Bottom is given a pair of donkey’s ears, as though that were normal. Charles Dickens isn’t averse to using ghosts if it suits his purpose, as he shows in A Christmas Carol, while Bram Stoker gave us Dracula and Mary Shelley provided us with Dr Frankenstein’s hand-built monster. None of these books or plays were aimed specifically at children, which is where my friend thinks the target audience for most fantasy fiction lies. Ghosts, vampires and monsters may be seen as belonging to the horror genre, but they appear in fantasy as well. Now, I’m probably going to upset a few diehard fans here, but I’m going to suggest that the great British Hero James Bond is no more believable as a character than Bilbo Baggins. What is my justification? I hear you ask (I have good hearing). Let’s look at the evidence. Cars that turn into submarines, wristwatches that contain lengths of garrotte wire, cars with ejector seats and so on and so forth. But that’s all boy’s own gadgetry and no more of a fantasy than a sword that glows blue when there are orcs around. At the time when Ian Fleming wrote the stories, the technology for those gadgets didn’t exist, but that didn’t stop him fantasising about them. But the real fantasy is Bond himself. A suave, debonair killer who’s also a babe magnet and can get into a fight with half a dozen Kung Fu masters and walk away leaving them in a crumpled heap. He’s been shot so many times he must resemble a colander. He’s fallen from trains, planes and ski slopes. While Ian Fleming and the writers who continued the franchise never claimed magical powers for Bond, does this not require just as much suspension of disbelief as it does to read about Gandalf? Bond may not have “One Ring to rule them all (etc)”, but that was because Q never quite got round to finishing it (But just wait for the next movie – you read it here first). There is, of course, another literary genre that is just as fantastical and requires just as much suspension of disbelief. I mean Sci-Fi. People who will gladly suspend disbelief to accept the premise of strange creatures inhabiting worlds far from our own are sometimes reluctant to do the same for stories containing wizards and dragons. Why? Science does suggest that life may exist on other planets. Indeed, it’s been said that it would be a strange universe if life didn’t exist on other planets. However, science has no idea what form it may take and what its capabilities might be. This is the space that the sci-fi writer inhabits, if you’ll pardon the pun. The space where anything is possible providing the author doesn’t actually ignore the laws of physics. But sci-fi writers do that all the time as well. Time travel, warp speed, sub space, hyperspace, dilithium crystals. Do these sound familiar? Which ones are made up and which does science accept as being possible? No I don’t know either. Dilithium does exist, you can Google it, but can you use it to power a space ship? So, where’s the difference between fantasy and sci-fi? Why is one believable to my friend but the other not? So where do you stand on this issue? Do you read fantasy novels? If not, can you tell me why you don’t? Just comment below. Would you like to be a guest blogger for Selfishgenie? Just email us at our general enquires address, which can be found on our Contact page and tell us what your blog would be about. If you enjoyed this blog, or found it interesting, then be sure not to miss future editions by signing up to our newsletter. We'll even send you a free eBook when you do. Just click the button.
In a recent blog I made a statement to the effect that there were only 7 basic plots for books. It appears that I was right. Experts think that there are seven basic plots for books. I would throw in an 8th, but I’ll get to that later. The idea was developed by someone called Christopher Booker, who carried out research across a wide selection of books and then published his results in a book (what else) entitled “The Seven Basic Plots: Why We tell Stories”, published in 2004. This was no passing fancy. It took him 34 years to write. Amongst his other credits is that he was one of the founders of Private Eye magazine. He has nothing to do with the Man-Booker Prize which is awarded for literature. As well as the 7 basic plots, Booker came up with the idea of the meta plot, that is the basic structure which the majority of books follow. This breaks down into four distinct phases. Phase one is the call to action, in which the protagonist is drawn into the adventure to come. Some go willingly, like James Bond, while others, like both Bilbo and Frodo Baggins, go less willingly. Phase two is the frustration stage, where the protagonist struggles against the forces arrayed against him (or her) in order to resolve the problems he is faced with and win the day. During this stage they discover their weaknesses, which they must overcome and also, usually, unexpected strengths. In the nightmare phase all hope is lost and all seems to be doomed. The protagonist may come close to death and is certainly in despair, though quite how this works for plot type 5 (see below) I’m not sure. Finally, we reach the resolution stage, where the protagonist, against all odds, wins the day and earns the title of hero. Again I’m not so sure that this works for plot type 6 (also see below). It doesn’t matter how many other characters there are in the book, it is with the protagonist that the reader’s thoughts and emotions ride. If he or she doesn’t succeed, then the story doesn’t succeed. Even if the protagonist dies at the end, their death must be a sacrifice to gain their success. Do you recognise those four phases from the books you read or write? I must admit that I find it hard to think of any book that doesn’t conform to that pattern So, what are the 7 basic plots that Booker identified? Plot 1. Overcoming the monster. This might be a real monster, such as the Minotaur favoured in Ancient Greek literature, or it may be a figurative one: Big Business, Corrupt Government, Rogue CIA agent, etc. A lot of Greek literature focuses on battling monsters, but it has stood the test of time. H G Wells used it in War Of The Worlds and Michael Crichton in Jurassic Park. The ‘monster’ is also present in stories such as George Orwell’s 1984 and the Jason Bourne and Jack Reacher books. Just because it doesn’t have horns or a tail it doesn’t prevent it being a monster. Plot type 1 is, of course, a staple of the horror story genre: Frankenstein, Dracula, Halloween, Friday The Thirteenth. However, I used it in my World War II series, Carter’s Commandos, where the monster is the Nazi regime in Germany. Plot 2. Rags to riches. The most obvious (for me) examples are Dicken’s Great Expectations. Aladdin, The Prince And The Pauper etc. First of all the protagonist comes into great wealth before losing it all and then having their fortunes restored after they have learnt a significant lesson. There is usually a moral to the story, especially around hubris and not abandoning one's real self. Plot 3. The quest. This is much loved by the writers of fantasy novels and I used it in my Sci-Fi series. With the search for the magic sword, or whatever, also comes personal growth. The protagonist never comes out of a quest unchanged in some way. Its origins are as distant as Homer’s Iliad and progress through history with A Pilgrim’s Progress, Lord Of The Rings, Watership Down, etc. Plot 4. Voyage and Return. Similar, in some ways, to the quest, the protagonist must leave his home in order to achieve something and, again, returns changed in some way. One of oldest versions of this is Homer’s Odyssey, but perhaps the best known of these is the Lord Of The Rings prequel The Hobbit. Other examples include Gulliver’s Travels and The Wizard of Oz. It is the principal feature of this genre that the protagonist isn’t (necessarily) financially enriched by the journey, but is spiritually enriched. Plot 5. Comedy. Is this really a plot in its own right, I wonder? Comedy can be inserted into almost any plot, even a tragedy if it’s handled correctly. That’s why we refer to “black comedies”. The protagonist is usually a light, cheerful character to whom life frequently hands the dirty end of the stick: a good person to whom bad things happen. However, they stumble along and emerge triumphant at the end, often through luck rather than judgement. Mr Bean or any Norman Wisdom film provides examples. Plot 6. Tragedy. In Ancient Greek theatre this was the partner of comedy as the Greeks only did two types of theatre. Again, I would dispute this being a plot in its own right. Most stories can include a tragedy or two. The protagonist either has a major character flaw which they are unable to identify in themselves or they commit an act for personal gain which has unforeseen consequences and which spirals out of control. Either way it doesn’t end happily. There are many stories that fit this genre: King Lear, Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth, Bonnie and Clyde, Anna Karenina. This isn’t so popular in modern fiction and film as the public prefers a happy ending, so nowadays the inherent tragedy turns to success in the final chapter. While it was always normal for the protagonist to die at the end of a tragedy it is far more normal, now, for them to live. Not only will they live, they will also get the girl (or boy). Plot 7. Rebirth. This is the plot for any story in which a villain or an unlikeable character ends up as the hero. It involves the protagonist going through an experience that changes them radically in some way, making them a “new” person. There can also be an element of this in some of the other plots, particularly 3 and 4. Here we find A Christmas Carol (not my alternative version), Beauty And The Beast and Despicable Me. Now we come to my additional plot, Plot 8: Romance. Boy meets girl, boy loses girl for some reason (OK, girl can also lose boy), boy and girl either struggle to get back together, or fight against the inevitable attraction, and finally get back together again at the end of the book (and, of course, there are LGBTQ+ equivalents). This is the territory of Mills and Boon and Barbara Cartland, but has been used by many other authors. In which other genre would Pride And Prejudice fit? Now, here is the challenge. Can you think of any book that doesn’t fit into one of those 7 (or 8) categories? I have tried and I can’t think of any. If you are an author, have you ever written a book that doesn’t fit into any one of those categories? Would you ever try? An interesting thought is that we might each be living our lives in one of those ways. In other words there are only 8 life stories. That sounds a bit scary, as we all consider ourselves to be unique in some way. However, much as that idea both scares and appeals to me, I have no evidence to back it up so I’ll leave it there. What is of considerable interest to me is this idea of change. The majority of the plot lines described require some form of change to be undergone, in order for there to be a happy ending. This is where the story and real life part company. As a species we aren’t good at changing. If we were we wouldn’t keep repeating the mistakes of the past that lead us into all sorts of messes, up to and including war. This is where the author often views life through rose tinted spectacles. Their protagonist always undergoes the change, however reluctantly, whatever it is and grows with the experience. In real life this so rarely happens. I’m not saying that it doesn’t happen, because some people really do undergo change, though not always for the better. But for most of us life goes on the same day after day as we curse our bad luck rather than changing our behaviour as a result of experience. So, if there are only 7 (or 8) basic plots for books, why do we keep buying books? After all, once we have read one book from each plot type we have read them all, haven’t we? Well, this is where the skill of the author comes in. He or she makes us believe that their story is both unique and original. "It is the author that makes the difference." Firstly, they will mix and match the plot types to give variation to them. As I suggest above, a quest can also be a journey, and frequently is. Sling in a romance and a bit of personal growth and you tick the boxes of another two types. However, that still limits the number of stories available (Just over 40,000 by my calculation). Yet literally millions of books have been written. It is the author that makes the difference. The skilful author makes you believe, through his or her mix of character and plot, that their story is unique. All the great authors have done this. It is called “finding one’s voice”, in other words saying something different. It is hard to say which authors will find their voice and which will never be heard, because this is down to the reader to judge. But what is clear is that if the reader wishes to find a new voice to listen to they won’t find it by reading what everyone else is reading. A new voice can only come from a new author. If you have enjoyed this blog or found it informative, why not be sure not to miss future editions. Just sign up for our newsletter - and you can get a FREE ebook as well. Just click the button. A recurring theme amongst new writers is “How do you start a story?”. For some people this is no problem. An idea pops into their head, they sit down at the place they do their writing and off they go. 80 to 100 thousand words later they have the first draft of their book completed. But for others it doesn’t work that way. For others, getting started is the difficult bit. Sometimes they have an idea in their head, but sometimes they don’t. They just want to write, but how do they get going? Which is what this week’s blog is about. How to start your writing when you haven’t had that spark of inspiration to set you on your way. Even I need somewhere to start, so I’m going to start with “prompt phrases”. This is simply taking a few words that already exist and then continuing on from where they leave off. I’ll give you an example. “The door opened and …” continue writing from there. Where the writer goes from there is entirely up to them. It may end up as a short paragraph that leads nowhere, or it may end up on the shortlist for the Booker prize. Who knows? But great work always has a starting point and that could be it. So, here are a few more prompts for you to think about.
It may be that by the time you stop writing, you will actually be able to remove those prompt words and you will still be left with something that stands up on its own. The great thing is that you can use the same prompts over and over again, just continuing with a slightly different set of words to create something entirely new. You can even create your own prompts or take the opening words from favourite books and use those to inspire your own work. “Call me Ishmael” may have started Moby Dick, but it didn’t have to. There could have been a million different stories that emanated from those three words. And, providing you remove “Call me Ismael” from the starting sentence, no one will ever know you used it. If you search “writing prompts” on the internet you will come up with hundreds of articles with thousands more suggestions, some of which may be better than mine. The point about those prompts isn’t that they will lead the writer directly to a story. But they may give the writer a character, a location, a time, an incident or something else that then takes the writer to a story. It’s a bit like wanting to get to a certain street, but you don’t know where that street is. So you stop someone and ask for directions, or you go into a shop to do the same. That then gets you to the street where you want to be. The prompt phrase is the person you ask for directions. (For younger readers, people used to do that before we all had phones with maps on). Then there is the “I remember” technique. Write the words “I remember” then follow it with three sentences. For example: I remember I went to the pub last week. Harry was there. We talked about football for a long time.” At the end of that you can remove “I remember” and you’ll be left with “I went to the pub last week. Harry was there” etc. Where you then take that is where the story will lead you. It may not lead anywhere, and you may abandon it. But there are many exciting and unexpected possibilities that can emerge from a trip to the pub. One writer I know gets his inspiration from his favourite songs. He uses them to tap into his memories and emotions and they then give him a starting point for a story. Pick out a favourite song and listen to it. But while you are listening, ask yourself some questions and jot the answers down.
You might want to listen to the song several times to get more answers or to trigger fresh memories or additional questions. Once you have that, you can start to assemble the words into sentences. Some words you may use several times and some you may not use at all. They’re your words: do with them what you please. But when you’ve written those sentences, don’t stop. Keep writing, perhaps taking one sentence and writing a second, related sentence, much as you did with the “I remember” technique discussed above. You can do that with other media as well. A painting, a sculpture, a book, a poem, a TV show, a film, or a play. All of them have etched themselves into your memory for a reason and those reasons can be your source of inspiration. Photographs, like music, are another good source of inspiration. We all have favourite photos, but you might want to dig out your albums and start looking at the ones you took years ago. Or, for our younger readers, access your cloud storage to find your old photos. Use the same techniques as suggested for listening to music. Then there’s TV, radio or your news feed on the internet. The basic idea is the same for all three. Turn on your TV or radio or select your news feed on the internet (you might also use social media channels). Make a note of the first thing you see, hear or read. Don’t go searching for ones that may be more interesting. That becomes artificial and removes the spontaneity that is crucial for creativity. It doesn’t matter what it is. It could be a news story, it could be an advert, it could be someone discussing buying a house or selling an antique. Just write it down. Then, using the techniques discussed earlier, elaborate on what you have written. Try to reach around 500 words before you stop. Then imagine a character who is involved in whatever you have written and start to describe them. Some of things you might want to include are:
Combining the first 500 words with the character description should allow you to build even more. For example, the first character may have friends, an enemy, a lover, a helper and so on. How do these characters know each other? How did they meet? How is each one connected to the original 500 words? The final suggestion I have for getting started with your writing is the “what if” question. Viewers of “The Big Bang Theory” may remember the episode in which the character of Sheldon Cooper imagines what The Hulk would be like if he was made for different materials, eg what if The Hulk was made of sponge? This is the same sort of thing. So, what if the old lady I saw on the bus yesterday is actually a serial poisoner?” So, you start writing “I saw an old lady on the bus today. She looked so sweet and innocent, but she had a deadly secret. To change it into a third person narrative the sentence is started with “The old lady was sitting on a bus. She looked so sweet and innocent ….” So, here are some more “what if” ideas for you to play around with.
If you have particular interests or concerns (poverty, social justice, climate change, animal welfare, health, wealth etc), they could be turned into some excellent “what ifs”. There are pretty much an infinite number of “what ifs” that it’s possible to come up with. Spend some time generating a few (without answering the questions) then pick out just one to focus on and start writing. You never know where it might lead you. Turning what you have written into a story is just a matter of technique. Short story writer E M Forster describes a story as “‘a narrative of events arranged in their time-sequence’ and a plot as "also a narrative of events, the emphasis falling on causality." To put that into context “The puppy whined piteously.” is a story. “The puppy whined piteously because it was hungry” is a plot. Turning that simple line about the puppy into a longer plot is matter of asking some questions and then answering them, but again focusing on causality.
Try to think of as many questions as you can. You may not answer them all, but the more you have the greater the possible plot permutations can have. None of the ideas discussed here are a universal panacea. Whatever you start out with may not lead anywhere. But it doesn’t have to lead anywhere every time. All it needs to do is get you writing. Hold onto whatever you have created (I still have a box file from the days when I still used pen and paper) and go back and revisit these jottings from time to time. Perhaps they’ll provide fresh inspiration. But, importantly, just because one prompt didn’t lead anywhere, it doesn’t mean that the next one won’t. Ultimately writing is about imagination and these prompts are designed to stimulate your imagination. The rest is down to perseverance. And if you have neither an imagination nor perseverance, you aren’t a writer. You may be thinking “That’s all fine, but this is all about the here and now. I write fantasy/sci-fi/horror/westerns etc and those prompts don’t help me. Wrong. There is nothing that those prompts produce that can’t be transposed into any genre. Those genres are just a set of tropes that tell the reader what sort of book they are reading. The rest of it can exist in any time period or location – real or imagined. To think otherwise is to reveal a lack of imagination. To use the example of the puppy, discussed above, it could live in Middle Earth, on the planet Gargelfarch or in a Native American tipi in 1879. It doesn’t even have to be the young produced by a dog. It could be a baby that has turned into a werewolf puppy and it’s howling because it can’t get out of its cradle to find a leg on which to chew. (Editor’s note: That idea is now copyright, Selfishgenie Publishing 2021). All writing should be fun and fun comes from playing. Anyone who has ever studied the processes involved in creativity and innovation will know that “play” is a big part of it. What this blog is about, really, is playing with words. It serves two purposes. The first is you learn by doing it. The second is that the ideas generated through this sort of play can be turned into something useable. It won’t happen every time, but it will happen. If you have enjoyed this blog or found it informative you may like to sign-up to our newsletter. Just click the button below. One of the most asked questions of authors (after the most stupid question in the world - “Have I read anything by you?”) is “Where do you get your ideas from?” Some authors, especially those who write about the field in which they work, such as crime or medical, have an easy answer to that. They’ve either seen it or done it and are just winding it into their plot for the entertainment of their readers. But some authors base their fiction on their own real-life experiences outside of their profession. After all, most of us have fallen in love, been on a journey or had a traumatic experience, so all we are doing is turning it into fiction and perhaps adding a bit more pizzaz to it. For many, however, it is a slightly harder question to answer. “It just popped into my head.” Sounds a bit lame, but that is really what happens for them. Other authors take a more structured approach and maybe do a bit of brain storming, writing words onto post-it notes and sticking them on the wall to see what jumps out at them. Or using writing prompts to get them going, which (spoiler alert) I’ll be covering in another blog next week. Others may watch TV or a film, or perhaps read a book and then think “That was pretty good, but it would have been so much better if the author had …” and then they write the same book their way. That isn’t plagiarism, by the way. At worst it is inspired imitation. There are several books I’d re-write differently if I had the time and if I do it well you probably wouldn’t recognise the original. Some authors like to visualise things before they write them. For example, you might draw a picture of a house. You might then think about who lives in a house like that. Then you might think what could happen to those people that would upset their lives. Before you know it, you have both characters and a plot. I read about one quite well-known author (I’m sorry but I can’t remember his name) who drew each location he included in his plot so that he could get a “feel” for it. It also helped him to know where everything was in relation to other parts of the story. Others take their inspiration from life and use things they’ve heard or seen at work, in the street, at parties or wherever and then bulk them out until they become fully fledged stories. As an author I have used that latter approach. The fact is, no matter what method you use to start the story, the important thing is that it holds together as a plot and the characters are believable. One of our authors came across some tape recordings his father had made for The National Army Museum, which recounted his experiences in the Army. It was for a project the museum was running at the time to capture the memories of old soldiers before they died and the stories were lost forever. He listened to his father’s voice and his first thought was to turn those stories into a book about his father, a mini-biography if you like. To do that he had to do a considerable amount of research about the commandos, their tactics and their battles so he could provide readers with the necessary background information to support and elaborate on his father’s words. But at the end of the process, when the book had been published (“A Commando’s Story” if you want to read it), the author realised he had all the material necessary to support an entire series of fictional stories set around the commandos of World War II. And so, the Carter’s Commandos series was born. One real-life story, told as an act of love and respect, turned into three years of work and six books (and still counting). "we all take inspiration from the work of others" There’s no doubt that we all take inspiration from the work of others. When it comes to sci-fi and fantasy, for example, there is little in real life that can provide the basis for a plot. Actually, that isn’t correct. Pretty much any story can be transferred into a mythical land or outer space or a dystopian future. It just requires the imagination to do it and that’s what most authors are good at: having a vivid imagination. It is said that there are only seven basic plots. All the author does to vary that is to change the context in which the story is set and add the characters. This idea was put forward by author and journalist Christopher Booker in his 2004 book, The Seven Basic Plots: Why We Tell Stories. He was also a co-founder of the satirical magazine Private Eye. So, what are those plots? The first is overcoming a monster. That is the basis for a lot of horror, of course, but also a lot of fantasy and sci-fi. Also, within the sci-fi genre, overcoming a monster might include combatting a plague of some sort. Fans of Michael Chrichton will be familiar with the concept. However, it is often used by action-adventure novelists. James Bond has to overcome many monsters in his various adventures. It’s just that the monsters have names like Goldfinger, Blofeld, SMERSH or SPECTRE. The monster to be overcome can be any enemy, though they usually transcend just being “bad” to being completely evil. Peter Benchley's "Jaws" is also a story about overcoming a monster. Rags to riches. This was a popular theme during the Victorian era, with authors such as Dickens (it’s the basic plot for Oliver Twist) and also the fairy stories Cinderella and Aladdin), but it is still seen today, but more often in film. Brewster’s Millions, The Million Pound (or Dollar) Bank Note are typical, but there are many others. An important plot point in the rags to riches story is that the protagonist comes close to losing, or actually loses, their newfound wealth at some point and has to overcome adversity to gain it back. The quest. This is popular with fantasy novelists, but in sci-fi it is seen in the theme of space exploration and even historical fiction (Treasure Island is a quest). The Star Trek series is a typical quest, but sometimes also has to overcome a monster. Sometimes the quest takes a more abstract form. Jane Austen wrote a quest novel. After all, isn’t Elizabeth Bennet, in looking for a husband in Pride and Prejudice, embarking on a quest? Criminal investigations tend to use a lot of questing in order to identify the criminal(s), as does sci-fi that is seeking an antidote for a plague or a cure for a disease. Voyage and return. Well, if that isn’t The Hobbit, what is? It’s also Gulliver’s Travels and a whole lot more. The important thing about this plot and, also, the quest is that the protagonist learns something important along the way, usually about themselves. Bilbo Baggins, for example, finds out he is much braver and more resourceful than he thought. Comedy. Pretty much any of the above plots can also be turned into a comedy, so I don’t fully buy it as a “plot” in its own right. However, if you set out to write a comedy it is important to be able to convey the humour. Far too many books we’ve read that are billed as comedies just aren’t funny. More than one commentator has said that Shakespeare’s comedies are less than funny. But maybe 16th and 17th century audiences understood the jokes better. Tragedy. The same applies to tragedy as it does for comedy, really. Any of the above plots can be turned into a tragedy by killing off either the protagonist, the protagonist’s love interest (if there is one) or their family. Hubris forms a great plot point in tragedy as it brings people down to earth with a bump. Pride cometh before a fall; how the mighty are fallen (and all that)! A book by Christopher Moore, called “Fool” turns the tragedy of King Lear into a comedy quite successfully, thus spinning the plot on its head Rebirth. An interesting one this, because it isn’t a physical rebirth, it is usually a metaphorical one, though Frankenstein could be seen as a story of rebirth in a more literal sense. Like the quest and the voyage and return, it is about the character learning something and changing along the way, preferably for the better. However, a critical part of the rebirth plot is that the protagonist is either taken to the brink of death by their experience, or to the depths of despair. Only from those depths can rebirth take place. Much of religious fiction is about rebirth, as are stories that include battles with alcohol or drug addiction and battles with mental health. It is another important plot point that the protagonist, once reborn, is stronger in some way and not necessarily in physical terms. Of course, any two, or even three of those plots can be combined to create a single plot and this happens a lot in literature. So, seven basic plots, but millions of books that use those same seven. You wouldn’t think it possible, would you? "some people don’t agree with that concept " Of course, some people don’t agree with that concept and it has been much debated in the corridors of literary academia. There have been some authorities that have claimed both lower and higher figures. But all agree that the number of basic plots is finite and, more importantly, it’s quite a low number. There is also another rule in this plotting guide that not many people know they are using, but they use it anyway. It’s the rule of three. So, it’s the third in a series of events that proves to be the decisive one. The third battle that wins the war, the third attempt at romance that leads to happy ever after, etc. This is most literally seen in fairy stories such as Goldilocks, where it is the third of the things that she tries in the three bears’ house that’s the one that’s just right. But the same principle applies in many different plots. For example, it takes three attempts (two failed or only partially successful) for the protagonist to achieve their ultimate goal. Or three events are cumulative in order to provide a final outcome. This is common in detective literature, where the significance of different clues add together to identify the criminal. The criminal isn’t just a left handed man, he is a left handed man who limps and also wears a monocle. Are you someone who uses the rule of three without realising that you were actually obeying a rule? Of course, you don’t have to obey that rule, but it is surprising how many authors do adhere to these conventions. I don’t think many authors pay conscious attention to which of the seven plots they are using when they write their books. It doesn’t actually need a conscious decision. The plot may even start off using one of the plots structures and change direction later. For example, a quest might turn into a voyage and return or a rebirth. A plot may start off being a comedy but become tragic along the way and it may even return to being a comedy by the end. What is important, however, is that whatever plot(s) you use, they tell the story the way you wanted to tell it, whether it was inspired by something heard at a bus stop or by the life story of a relative, or even as a consequence of personal experience. Enjoy your writing, but don’t over-think it. If you have enjoyed this blog or found it informative, why not make sure you don't miss future editions, by signing up to our newsletter. For example, we'll send you a reminder about the one we're publishing next week relating to the use of writing prompts to generate story ideas. Just click the button below. By way of a change, which some people think is as good as a rest, this week’s blog takes the form of a quiz. It’s literary based, so the better read amongst you will stand the best chance of getting the answers right. Firstly, I’d better manage your expectations.
FAQs Q. What do I get for winning? A. A warm glow for being right. So, all you get for your trouble is the nice warm feeling of being right. By all means post your score in the comments section if you want to show off – but there’s still no prize for the highest score. Cheat if you want to and look up the answers, but you’ll gain nothing from it and you’ll lose your self-respect for having cheated. There are 10 questions, some of which are worth more points than others and there are also also bonus points available for some questions. All the answers may be found at the end. So, let’s get started. 1. Which literary figure once said of the Dickens novel “The Old Curiosity Shop” “One must have a heart of stone to read the death of Little Nell without laughing.” (2 points) 2. What pseudonym does J K Rowling use to write her Cormoran Strike detective series? (1 point) 3. In what country is the C S Forester book “The African Queen” set? (2 points) 4. In the Nevil Shute book “A Town Like Alice” who, or what, is Alice? (1 point) 5. Who writes the books that feature the police officer Inspector Frost? (1 point) 6. Which well-known author wrote “For Esme – With Love and Squalor” (2 points) Clue: He’s mainly known for one book. 7. In what county in Ireland was poet William Butler Yates born? (2 points) 8. In the Dickens novel “A Tale Of Two Cities”, which character says the words “’Tis a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done before?” (2 points) 9. In what decade was “To Kill A Mockingbird” first published? (2 points) 10. Which William Shakespeare play is currently the most often performed? (2 points) 1. Oscar Wilde (2 pts) 2. Robert Galbraith (1 point). 3. German East Africa, now part of Tanzania (1 point for knowing the earlier name, 1 point for knowing the current name). 4. The town of Alice Springs in Australia. (1 point). 5. R D Wingfield (1 point if you are British, 2 points if you are any other nationality) 6. J D Salinger – yes, he wrote more than just “Catcher In The Rye”. (2 points) 7. County Dublin (Sandymount). (2 points if you aren’t Irish, 1 point if you are Irish and 0 points if you live in Sligo, because he wasn’t born there even if you did misappropriate his name to nickname your county “Yates Country”). 8. None of them. (2 points if you knew that and an extra point for knowing that they are written after Sydney Carton has been guillotined, as the epitaph that he might have written for himself, had he been given pen and paper while in prison). Don’t believe me? Read the book again! (or at least read the ending again) 9. The 1960s. (2 points, 1 bonus point for knowing its year of publication was 1960, 0 points for the decade in which it was set, which was the 1930s) 10. A Midsummer Night’s Dream (period 2011 to the present) (2 points. 1 point for Romeo and Juliet as that is the one that most Brits know (about 51% of those who have read or seen a Shakespeare play or film)) Maximum possible score 21 points. We think anything over 15 is a good score.
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AuthorThis blog is compiled and curated by the Selfishgenie publishing team. Archives
November 2024
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