February 8, 2015
This week I was invited to an adult education class. The tutor had to hang around at the main entrance to let all the students in, and as they arrived at the classroom in dribs and drabs I was struck by a certain lack of hospitality. I would happily have introduced myself and tried to make small-talk to break the ice, but everyone was too busy texting, playing games or looking something up on their mobiles. Their impoliteness was not confined to ignoring me, but ignoring each other as well. They must have met each other at the three previous lessons, but beyond a curt 'hello' on entering, they could each have been alone. There was no exchange of news, no chat about previous lessons or about the lesson ahead, or even about the weather. The social graces were totally lacking, even though they were all middle-aged and might be supposed to have had to survive without mobiles and computers in their formative years. Instead of connecting them, their smart phones allowed them to isolate themselves.
Quite apart from the ramifications this might have for society (maybe there's an SF story here), this could have a drastic impact on writers. How can we learn how to write dialogue, or get a feel for teenage slang or local dialect if no one's actually talking to anyone? A great way to get inspiration for stories or characters has always been by listening to snatches of other people's conversations in cafés or bus queues.
Technology has done a lot to make life easier for writers, but this is one development I feel everyone could do without.
Posted by K. S. Dearsley. Posted In : Inspiration
February 1, 2015
A recent BBC documentary about the artist Hans Holbein, who painted so many of Henry VIII's court, was fascinating, and not only for the insights his work provided into the sitters' personalities. He had written Anne Boleyn's name as 'Anne Bollein'. Spellings in Tudor times were not as standardized as they are now, and Holbein probably wrote the name as he heard it pronounced. As the artist's surname also ends in 'ein' this could mean that it was pronounced the same way. So Anne Boleyn was ei...
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley. Posted In : Linguistics
January 25, 2015
Today is Burns Night, the annual celebration of Scotland's national poet. He wrote in his own dialect, and while many people (including, I suspect, some Scots) might struggle with it, every poet owes him a debt. Robert Burns broke the chains that bound poetry to classical forms and helped us all to escape the 'thees' and 'thous' and archaic language.
Now, poets can write sonnets or haiku, odes or free verse. They can write about eating the plums someone had saved in the fridge ('This is J...
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley.
January 18, 2015
I've been writing a short story, which seemed simple enough before I started. I'd got the beginning, middle and end, and I'd even jotted down parts of a couple of scenes. Yet as I scribbled away, it began to wriggle around. Would the story be better set in the past or the present day? Should I aim it at youngsters or adults? After a couple of false starts and much crossing out, I finally reached the end only to discover that the story isn't about what I thought it was at the outset at all. Ne...
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley. Posted In : Competitions
January 13, 2015
I've been plagued with clichés buzzing around my head while I've been trying to write, but I'm holding out for my own fresh metaphors, similes and turns of phrase. Clichés might be accurate, but everyone has heard them so often that they have become meaningless. Maybe a heroine does 'go weak at the knees', but readers will no doubt forget her unless she does it in an original way. Notice that I haven't provided an alternative myself. Devising good ones isn't easy, but it's well worth making...
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley. Posted In : Coming Soon
January 4, 2015
Happy New Year! My festive season was quiet, to say the least. Injuring my elbow was more frustrating than painful, and it prevented me doing things like sending Christmas cards (I could write them, but not get them in the envelopes) or keying in Discord's Apprentice, although I did succeed in completing another rewrite. Typing in this blog one-handed is as much work as I've attempted at the computer.
The enforced inactivity gave me a chance to reflect on a number of things. Mine is a rela...
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley.
December 13, 2014
Sorry to everyone who expected a new blog before this. I've had a fall, and although I feel fine, the plaster cast on my arm is slowing me down rather. Normal service wil be resumed when it comes off.
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley.
November 30, 2014
I don't usually use this blog as a platform to complain about society (apart from errant apostrophes), but the behaviour of the bargain hunters who stormed the shops on 28th November prompts me to break my rule.
What on earth did people think they were doing? Whatever happened to the British tradition of queueing? There was no politeness or consideration, and very little common sense. Wheelchair-bound people were knocked down and trampled over, shoppers were rugby tackled and people had go...
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley.
November 24, 2014
How many times can you rewrite a first chapter? I think I'm heading for a record. The first few pages of a novel are crucial in hooking readers' interest and persuading them to keep going beyond the free sample. It's always going to be hard to get it right, but with a sequel it's even harder. How much of the previous novel's events should I fill in? Do I need to describe the characters again? There's a real danger that I'll end up info dumping–having characters tell each other things they a...
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley. Posted In : Coming Soon
November 16, 2014
You never can be sure what the consequences of submitting work to a publication or entering a competition might be. It might seem straightforward: your work is either accepted, or it's rejected. However, even when the editors or judges don't select your submission/entry you might still end up a winner.
After my story, 'Salvage', appeared in
Daily SF, Paul Coles of
Beam Me Up Podcast asked if he could broadcast it. Of course, I grabbed the offer, and I'm privileged now to have had dramatis...
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley. Posted In : Competitions
