Tuesday 30 November 2010

Books: Robert McKee - Story


Story: Substance, Structure, Style and the Principles of Screenwriting

Over the past 18 months or so I've listened to a lot of podcasts featuring authors talking about their work. I've also read a lot of author interviews and, unsurprisingly, plenty of books about writing. Almost all of the books have contained at least one nugget of inspiration or usefulness - some far more. One has proved absolutely indispensable - so much so that I bought the audiobook as well so I can listen to sections on the go.

Robert McKee's Story is aimed at screenwriters and, as such, uses examples from the world of film to illustrate its points. Don't let that put you off if you're a novelist - this book is simply a masterclass in the art of telling a story and telling it well.

McKee manages to strip away the layers and get right to the heart of what drives great storytelling - the gap between expectation and reality. By examining the structure of story (from the overall arc of the work to the reversals of each scene) he manages lay out some simple points to consider that will tell you where to go - if you listen.

That doesn't mean that Story is a step-by-step guide to writing a great screenplay or novel - far from it. What the book does is allow you to see the patterns, devices and structures used in great storytelling and shed some light on why the best writing is so effective.

I've read the whole book at least three times and, whether through selective re-reading or via headphones, must have covered some sections half a dozen times. I'm at the planning stages of my second novel - if I can build and sustain a career doing this I can only see those numbers growing.

The best £12 I've spent since realising I wanted to write.

Buy it now.

Thursday 18 November 2010

Great writing - The Book of Qualities

'Fear' from The Book of Qualities by J. Ruth Gendler

"Fear has a large shadow, but he himself is quite small. He has a vivid imagination. He composes horror music in the middle of the night. He is not very social and he keeps to himself at political meetings. His past is a mystery. He warned us not to talk to each other about him, adding that there is nowhere any of us could go where he wouldn't hear us. We were quiet. When we began to talk to each other, he changed. His manners started to seem pompous, and his snarling voice sounded rehearsed.

Two dragons guard Fear's mansion. One is ceramic and Chinese. The other is real. If you make it past the dragons and speak to him close up, it is amazing to see how fragile he is. He will try to tell you stories. Be aware. He is a master of disguises and illusions. Fear almost convinced me that he was a puppet-master and I was a marionette.

Speak out boldly, look him in the eye, startle him. Don't give up. Win his resect, and he will never bother you with small matters."

Tuesday 16 November 2010

Prima la musica - opera in translation

Whether or not to translate opera into the native language of an audience is a topic that continues to divide opinion all over the world. Whether it's Wagner sung in Italian, Cosi... in German or pretty much anything in English, there are staunch advocates of opera in translation and fierce traditionalists who say the original language is the only one that allows the words to fit the music. I'm English so, as there's very little opera written in my native language, opera in translation is an interesting question for me: would I rather understand the drama in detail as it unfolds or hear the work as the composer intended?

The arguments have been made elsewhere many times so, rather than go over old ground, I wanted to add something to consider:

Maybe the reason the argument exists at all is due to the fact that we don't really treat opera as theatre.

Plays written in languages other than English are regularly performed in London (Chekhov anyone?), yet when did you last see The Cherry Orchard performed in Russian with English surtitles? Despite the fact that many of the biggest technological advances in the theatre were brought about to accommodate opera staging, opera is still treated as part of the history of music rather that of the theatre. If you went into HMV looking for a DVD of La Traviata would you look in the Classical Music section or seek out the Shakespeare DVDs and see if it was filed with them? I thought so.

Despite expecting a higher standard of acting (and movement) on modern opera stages, what is expected above all is beautiful singing. I've been going to opera for the past 10 years and, in that time, have seen three different casts of Turandot - none of the actresses in the lead role have been dramatically believable, yet we can get past that if the singing is good. Given that the average dramatic voice doesn't settle til well into a singer's 30s and that most soprano heroines aren't anywhere near that age, is it really so surprising that we can suspend our disbelief for opera in a way we never could for other forms of theatre?

Most opera fans I know are happier to listen to a recording than watch a DVD (and an opera is generally no more expensive on DVD than CD theses days). Music - that's what it's all about and that's why opera will never be treated in the same way as theatre or for the same reasons.

Just a thought - I waver all over the place with this topic. I'd love to understand Wagner, Puccini, Mozart and Janacek in their original languages but I can't. I do own a few recordings of opera in translation and some are better than others - the quality of the translated libretto makes a huge difference. I still generally prefer opera in the original language though and see most of my opera at Covent Garden rather than ENO (although ENO do some of their best work with Britten operas, which were written in English).

Everybody's got their own opinion on this - my favourite comment in favour of opera in translation comes from John McWhorter, writing in The New York Sun in July 2008:

"Vowels are nice, but they aren't everything, and for my money an evening of vowels and reading is not much of anything - especially for a hundred dollars and change".

Add a comment and let me know what your opinion is.

Matt


Calling all opera singers...

Having finished my first novel and sent it out to agents I've been keeping myself busy by starting work on a second. The main character of this book will be an opera singer (lyric soprano with a tendency towards Mozart & Strauss in case you're wondering).

I know quite a bit about opera and am busy reading up on singers and singing technique but could really do with some input from people who either sing themselves or work with singers (repetiteurs, coaches, conductors etc). I'm interested in hearing from people at all points of their career - whether just starting out, auditioning for jobs, establishing a career, bringing the house down at the Met or whatever - anything can and will prove useful!

So, if you're an opera singer or work with singers and would be prepared to spend 10-15 mins answering a few questions then email me and I'll send you a short list. Let me know who you are and what you do when you get in touch so I can send you relevant questions.

Apologies for using a graphic version of my email address (making it tricky to cut and paste) - it saves me from getting loads of spam from bots trawling the web and picking up email addresses

Cheers in advance

Matt

Thursday 11 November 2010

Blasts from the past - favourite children's books

My mum has been going through a few boxes of old books we had as kids and sent me a package with a few of my favorites, so I thought I'd share them with you.

I loved all of these as a kid and having them in my hands again with their battered and sellotaped covers was wonderful.




What to do when you've finished your first novel

Write another (that's the bullet point for those of you who like to skip to the end of reviews and read the star rating rather than the review - everyone else read on).

I'm assuming that, having taken the time to research, plan and write a book you've also done your homework in terms of approaching agents and publishers, and that your manuscript (or at least enquiry letter) is out there in roughly the right hands. If not you shouldn't be reading this (yet) you should be reading From Pitch to Publication:Everything You Need to Know to Get Your Novel Published

There are several reasons why I think the logical next step after finishing your first book is to start another immediately. First up is your sanity; if you just sit round waiting for responses you're going to be waiting a while (with no guarantees of any takers) and your blood pressure will be going up all the time you wait. Your manuscript is like your child - you prepare it as best you can for the world and send it out to find its path. If it needs you it'll get in touch.

Secondly no agent or publisher will want to take you on if you don't look like a long-term prospect. Most first novels aren't massive hits so a career that can build over time stands the best chance of earning you (and therefore your publisher and agent) some money.

Next up is practice - if you want to be a decent writer then keep writing. The phrase 'writing is a muscle' is massively over-used but only because it's bang on the money. If you don't write you won't improve. If you're lucky enough to get published and your editor wants a few re-writes then keeping your hand in in the meantime is essential. Also, you don't write a book and magically become a writer, you're only a writer if you write.

Don't have an idea for a second novel? Just keep reading, writing and playing around with ideas. Keep asking those 'what if...' questions and an idea will come to you.

The fact that I've written one book is largely thanks to three people very close to me: one told me I could write, one told me I should and one told me just to keep going. The second book will be entirely down to the fact that I have loved the process and can't wait to do it all again.


Good luck and keep going.

Friday 5 November 2010

Disc of the Day #23 Bruce Springsteen 'Born to Run'



Born to Run

This morning I had a rather odd feeling as the first bars of today's disc kicked in - guilt. I have essentially been unfaithful, for every minute I spent listening to Born to Run I was wishing it was Nebraska instead. I have committed an infidelity (in thought at least).

It's not that I don't like Born to Run - I do. It's just that, while my ears were full of the pomp and swagger of the E Street Band at its finest I wanted nothing more than the gritty, grainy desolation of the later album.

My love for Nebraska dates back to the point in the mid 80s when a friend of my dad's made me a tape of Born in the USA and decided he needed to fill side 2 with more Bruce. As as result I got Nebraska with the song 'The River' at the end (even now I expect that song to come after 'Reason to Believe' every time I hear it).

I just love the sparseness of Nebraska - it's as though Bruce has sonically left space for the holes in society that the people he sings about have slipped through. Not necessarily the best way to prepare your head for the day but then maybe better than the guilty feeling I was left with.

So, today's disc of the day is sort of and sort of not Born to Run

Tuesday 2 November 2010

Thoughts on NaNoWriMo

NaNoWriMo (or National Novel Writing Month) is an initiative that encourages would-be writers to complete a short novel of 50,000 words in the space of a month.

Some people think this is a good idea, some are sceptical and several are downright dismissive. Here's what I think.

For staters I doubt anyone is expecting a work of genius to be written in the space of 30 days - that's not really the point though is it? What NaNoWriMo will do (for those who stick it out) is create a daily writing habit and give them the kernel of something to begin honing. Why is this important?

Well...everyone (and I mean everyone) tells us that to be a good writer you need to read. Doesn't it therefore follow that to be a good reader you need to at least try writing? I'm a musician and know plenty of people who play music purely for fun whilst, at the same time, increasing their understanding (and therefore enjoyment of) music as a listener. We don't expect everyone who owns an acoustic guitar to release a major label album and land a publishing deal so why is it such a bad thing if people have a go at writing for pleasure and (hopefully) in the process become more involved as readers.

It seems to me that writing should be exactly the same as sport, music, whatever - it's fine to do it for pleasure and not just for profit. 'Unpublished novelist' carries a far greater stigma than amateur musician and that seems ludicrous. The cliche is 'everyone has a book in them'. I believe that's probably true in the same way that I believe everyone is capable of making music. Does that mean I think everyone has the skills to get that novel out? No. Would I want to read them all if they did? No. Some people have a crap book in them - doesn't mean they shouldn't write it.

I'm a firm believer that the arts are for all of us and that we should be encouraged to have a go at whichever takes our fancy. Will most of us get to Carnegie Hall/The Booker Prize dinner/Wembley Stadium. No. Does that matter?

Great art changes the life of the audience - bad art can change the life of the artist. That's enough.

Monday 1 November 2010

Pulling focus - working with Mozart's music for film

The Guardian reported today on a new British film starring Richard E. Grant and based on Mozart's Cosi Fan Tutte - the working title of the film is First Night.

As you'd expect, the film features plenty of music from Cosi but also uses Mozart's music for the score as a whole. This posed some interesting challenges for writing/production team Morgan-Pochin who were given the task of turning Mozart's music into a modern film score.

James Morgan took the time to answer a few questions about the process.

How much of the music is from Cosi and what else is used?

Anything the characters perform in the film is from Cosi (we deliberately went for all the best bits!), but most of the incidental music is other pieces of Mozart - the soundtrack as a whole uses a whole range of his best loved works. Of course, none of the music was written with a movie in mind, so we've had to adapt and arrange so that it works with the picture. There's also an original arrangement of ours, the classic Perhaps Perhaps Perhaps performed in an operatic, Carmen-esqe style by Juliette Pochin, and a great big band number by crooner Rick Guard - all of these are used in the party scene in the movie.

What were the challenges of adapting Mozart's music to another medium?

The challenge of adapting the existing music is that, having chosen a piece that suits the general mood of the sequence it's accompanying, we then had to make sure it enhances the action rather than getting in the way - Mozart does have the habit of pulling focus! For example, we used the famous Don Giovanni opening for a sequence where there's a horseriding accident. The director wanted an imperceptible start to the music, so we had to rewrite the opening, starting only with lower strings, and reducing the size of the orchestra. The music then needed to quicken its pace and build to a terrifying climax - so we had to truncate the opening bars of the piece and rework all the dynamics to suit the picture.

In another, much longer sequence, we used the 'Elvira Madigan' piano concerto, but there's a lot of dialogue during the sequence, so we had to switch from Mozart to 'underscore Mozart' depending on what was happening on screen. The idea is with this and every other sequence is that the viewer doesn't notice the changes we've made, but is only aware of the score when it's the right moment in the film to hear it - otherwise it sits underpinning the picture, so that the viewer is barely aware of it.

Was it daunting working with such well-known (and revered) music

It was daunting working with such revered music, but it's also fantastic to see Mozart's genius brought to a whole new audience - people have reacted to test screenings with great enthusiasm. The film is a romantic comedy that happens to have the most amazing music within it - it's not an opera film - so it's a brilliant way to introduce some of the best music ever written to a whole new audience.