To tag or not to tag?

 What do other writers think of Dorothy Dunnett?

You may or may not have heard the name, but she wrote several historical series that garnered many, many fans.
Check out this link: The Writers’ Writer – Dorothy Dunnett Centenary (dunnettcentral.org) and find out. You will find my comments there along with a dozen or so others.

They make interesting reading. Currently I am going through my latest wip and trying to tie up all the loose ends. The easiest thing in the world is to add "said "after every line of dialogue, but oh! it does make for boring reading. 

So now I have struck out many of those dreaded words and let the dialogue stand alone, or I have add an action tag to make life interesting. Often I tie two separate sentences together to make one graceful, more interesting sentence. It seems when I'm writing the first draft I go for the simplest language and often employ phrases like "and then she...."

Not good. Second time is when the editing brain goes into action and re-writes all those awkward constructions. 

Filming Dunnett

Something I saw recently on Twitter claimed that someone is going to film the Lymond series of Dorothy Dunnett novels. I hope it is true - and I hope it is not true as well. I probably won't like their choice of actor for the hero, though I will be delighted if they choose Aidan Turner for Jerott. 

When I read a book, I have an image of the characters in my head. Call me odd if you like, but that image sticks with me through thick and thin and so often the stars the film production companies choose are so wrong compared to the image in my head. I suspect they are chosen for their "bankability" rather than their acting ability or their rightness for the part. 

Book groups never agree when they start on the right actor to play Lymond. They never have and they never will. Americans select actors the UK has never heard of, and no doubt we do the same in reverse. Very few actors are equally well known in both countries and very few of those can really act. I suppose the current popular choice would be Eddie Redmayne for the sometimes androgynous Lymond. I'll have to think about that. Will he do? Perhaps. Can he act? I think so but I've never actually seen him in anything.

On the other hand, I think Russell Crowe might do very well for Richard and I'd love Sam Neill to play Lord Wharton.

Fiction v reaity

Isn't it interesting how certain fictional characters become real to certain readers?
There's an interesting furore going on in the press at the moment because J  Rowling has finally admitted that Hermione should have married Harry Potter and not Ron Weasley. Her readership has neatly divided into squawks of anguish or howls of joy. It's fun to read how intense these people get - see the excerpts below -

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/feb/02/jk-rowling-hermione-harry-ron-married
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/feb/03/harry-potter-fans-jk-rowling-plot-regrets

But then on a little reflection I have to own up and say I too indulged in this sort of thing over the Crawford of Lymond novels by Dorothy Dunnett though I have to say I found Lymond's marriage to Phillippa perfectly acceptable. It must be the mark of a good book when the character are regarded as real, don't you think? And how often does it happen? Much as I enjoy the Outlander series, I don't get so involved in Jamie and Claire as to argue about whether they should or should not have had sex on the window ledge or parted the first time or even if she should have returned to Jamie the second time. No other book has ever been that real to me, except perhaps for Pride & Prejudice, and even then that didn't happen until I saw the 1995 BBC version with Colin Firth as Darcy.

Which books became real for you?

Taken Dead or Alive

"David Brawn, publisher for estates at HarperCollins, said: "Agatha Christie was—and still is—the world’s bestselling novelist. The stories she wrote and the characters she created have withstood the test of time and been successful on film, television, audio, stage, and online.

 But as we approach what would have been Agatha Christie’s 125th birthday, I am delighted beyond measure that Hercule Poirot will live again in the pages of a book, and take readers back to where it all started."

I can't help but feel that if Agatha Christie were still alive, she would not be pleased to have another author steal her character Hercule Poirot and make him the centre of a new story. I didn't like the spin off books using Jane Austen's characters. I haven't read them all. The P D James Death Comes to Pemberley I found boring, but it is said to be a best seller. I suppose James has many fans who bought it, but perhaps like me they were not in love with the book. The tale with a modern girl stepping through a cupboard and swopping places with Elizabeth Bennet was amusing and perhaps more permissible because the central character was the modern girl and Austen's characters only bit players.

It can only be because the fans want more of the characters. They may have thought that a vain hope until modern authors saw a way to make money. Fan fiction probably has a lot to do with it, too. Then the film makers jump on board, and of course, people are happy, money is made. I don't deny that. But is it right that characters are hijacked like this? What if someone began writing about Ian Rankin's character, Rebus? Would Rankin stand and silently applaud? I doubt it. Would Dorothy Dunnett's fans be happy if someone began writing novels featuring Francis and Phillippa? Is there any author writing today who would like someone else to pitch in and take their character?

Again, I doubt it, So how can it be morally right to swoop in and take a character just because the author is dead?

Socialising

Durham Cathedral from the east

This week I have done no writing at all. Six social engagements in one week and  everything has gone to the dogs!
The meetings were all great fun, (and I've just remembered there is another one tomorrow - a coffee morning to support someone who is cycling from Panama to Costa Rica for medical charity) but I couldn't do this amount of socialising on a regular basis and write as well.

Dorothy Dunnett once said that she couldn't write if she was doing a lot of socialising - after all, she said, it all comes out of the same tap. I am full of admiration for authors who write with children playing in the same room - I know I couldn't do it.
So - now I'll have to knuckle down and re-read a few chapters to get back in the groove before I can start. That's part of the problem - come out of the imaginary world for too long and I forget where I was when I was last in it!

Stirling Castle

My fictional heroes Harry and Matho are heading for Stirling and I'm wishing I could up sticks and mooch around the place myself. It isn't that far, well within a day's journey, but it isn't the best move in the world for me right now. I'm making do with a guide published by Historic Scotland bought for one penny via the internet. I love using maps and diagrams for this sort of thing, especially historical maps, and the web is just great as a research tool.

I did attend a dinner in Stirling Castle once, right after the Great Hall had been newly refurbished as it must have been when first built in the 1540's. It was part of the Dorothy Dunnett weekend conference and over 300 people turned up and filled the hall. On the way from Edinburgh to Stirling, our bus broke down. Wouldn't you know it? Other buses had arrived on time, and we were desperately late by the time a replacement bus turned up and completed the journey. We were met and whisked up and into the Great Hall with no time to look around. They handed us our champagne as we entered the door! I didn't reget the lack of time then, as everything was so exciting, and we had a wondeful evening, but I do now.

All in the mind?

Authors inhabiting the minds and thinking processess of people long dead, or not so long dead, or even alive, is a new argument I have stumbled across this week. Beevor and Byatt seem to be against it, and this astonishes me. I think of all the historical novels I have read over the years and think how much poorer my personal book world would have been if all those famous authors of the past had not given us those kingly/queenly thoughts. There are many authors writing today who are very good at creating thought processes for historical characters. I was about to say that so far nothing of mine has included anything but fictional characters - and then I remembered Kings Malcolm and Duncan in Banners of Alba. It is hardly an excuse to claim that so little is known of them that one has to invent, but it is true. I remember Dunnett's King Hereafter and the relationship between Thorfinn/MacBeth and his wife Groa and realise how much of the author's imagination went into that, but I cannot be other than glad she did. The result was a joy to read. I sit here and wonder if at any point Dunnett gave us their actual thoughts, and realise I would have to go and check to be sure, but I feel that she did not. A good author's craft can convey many things without inhabiting thought processes. Is that allowable, I wonder? I must go back and re-read Byatt and Beevor!

More thoughts on language styles

"I know that some readers don’t like my ‘modern language’ approach – and, I mean, really don’t like it! Well, I can understand that; I do sympathise with that. I understand that, for some readers, the modern language ‘gets in the way’, breaks the spell, even seems ridiculous. But that’s how the stilted dialogue of many other historical novels seems to me. I wanted to write a ‘historical novel’ that I’d want to read. When I’d finished The Queen of Subtleties, my agent and editor each compiled a list of words that had jarred, for them: words that had gone too far. I did study those lists (and was grateful for their efforts!), but in the end I decided to ignore them. Because, otherwise, I’d be writing by committee. I’d had a vision for the book, and I had to stay true to that. And you can’t please all the people, all the time."
This is a snippet from Suzannah Dunn's website, and it is well worth reading the whole piece.

I read the Sixth Wife, and to be honest I was put off by the modern language the author used, not only for her dialogue but I think I'm correct in saying she used it for exposition too. But you know, by the middle of the book I was easier with it and by the end I'd forgotten about it. My mindset had altered and embraced her use of language.

I know that Dorothy Dunnett wrote in what I have to call "modern language." I had no problems with her novels because she did not use modern jargon or slang - nothing too twentieth century. If I checked I'd probably find there were no words in her Lymond series that would have been unfamiliar in 1560. (Though occasionally there was a tiny slip - I'm not convinced that even the brightest person alive then would have know of the existence of brain cells.) In her first book Ms Dunnett made a glorious game out of using "old" words like passementerie - and I hope I've spelled that correctly - I don't use it very often! - that sent many of us off on a chase through dictionaries to discover the meaning. I enjoyed that, but some people found it irritating.

Ms Dunnett had a style all her own, and one I enjoyed tremendously. The opening line of Disorderly Knights, for instance: "On the day his grannie was killed by the English, Sir William Scott the Younger of Buccleuch was at Melrose Abbey, marrying his aunt." Now doesn't that get your attention? It got mine.

Or, a little later in the chapter - "Swearing with great spirit from time to time, always a good sign with Sir Walter, he flew through the filmy splendours of autumn, primed to nick Kerr heads like old semmit buttons."

You don't need to know what old semmit buttons are to pick up sense of glorious adventure and tongue in cheek humour to know you're going to enjoy a wonderful read.