For crime writers and readers who missed the first episode of BBC1’s new drama, The Escape Artist, I would urge you to seek it out this weekend on BBCi-player ahead of the next episode on tuesday. It really is a masterpiece of TV crime writing, with leviathan-esque performances courtesy of a talented cast.

Much of the credit for the success of this new drama has been attributed to David Tenant, whom I agree is an actor with impressive skills, but I would like to give a mention here to another David: David Wolstencroft. Wolstencroft is the writer behind this latest drama and the reason for me blogging about him is because his latest offering raises important questions for writers everywhere. Those questions boil down to two fundamentals: (a) How fast does your story move? and (b) How do you deal with the obvious predictability of what you have written?

The first point, pace, is of increasing importance these days. My last brush with a literary agent, (the wonderful and extremely superb Camilla Wray at Darley Anderson), taught me a fantastic lesson about the importance of pace which essentially made my novel, The Scarlet Tessera, what it is. (Frustratingly, I remain unrepresented as a writer and eventually self-published the novel via the Indie route, but that is a different story for a different day…). Pace is very much a commercial demand these days in crime writing, and you ignore it at your peril. The Escape Artist is an unbeatable example of story pace, even though it is a visual drama as opposed to a book based experience.

The second point, about dealing with the reader’s ever-increasing skill at predicting story-lines, (and therefore desperately wanting to be proven wrong and surprised), is the true mark of a talented writer. To be able to present a compelling opening, to set up questions that the reader urgently wants answered, and then to either answer them in a surprisingly and satisfying way, or, more effectively, to deliver those answers so quickly that the reader’s mind is overrun and they are dragged into a space where they cannot foresee what comes next… well, this is the Holy Grail for all writers. David Wolstencroft has given a masterclass in that with his latest TV work.

So how does he do it? What can we, as writers, learn from this? Well, the answer is as simple as it is difficult: He writes himself into a corner and then lets his main character get him out of it. Easy, right?

Well, in reality, no, because what stitches great writing together is character, and what generates a compelling and believable plot is a set of actions that spring naturally from those characters. You will know you have a great story under your pen when you find that you are not writing it all - but your characters are by their sheer individual and unique competing interests and desires.

If you do nothing else this weekend as a writer I would urge you to (a) watch episode 1 if you haven’t already, and (b) have a quick read through this interview with David Wolstencroft http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/mediapacks/escapeartist/wolstencroft.html

Lastly, the single most impressive skill that sets writers apart is the ability to set the bar high with a dramatic work whilst still ensuring that the end is satisfying. On that particular point, the jury is still out…. until the next two episodes, obviously!!

I do not often blog about writing because there are thousands of others out there merrily teaching the world how (or how not) to write. The other  reason I do not blog about writing very often is because the late, great James Herbert once famously said “I’ve never read anything on how to write books; if you have got to do that then you can’t write“ and he was RIGHT. The other great writing success of our time, Stephen King, put the learning process in even simpler terms: “If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot. There’s no way around these two things that I’m aware of, no shortcut”.

So why am I breaking my own rule and blogging this week about writing? Well, I happened across a great You Tube video, the link for which I set out below, and it really does highlight a very important aspect of writing which every writer has to be aware of: Feeding your characters.

Feeding your characters is not an easy process, because they need  information. If there is no information then there is no plot, and if there is no plot then there is no point. They get that information by interacting with each other. Once you have given life to the little darlings and let them find their voice, and their quest, they then have to discover sufficient snippets of information in their theatrical world to solve the conundrum that has been dropped on them from the great author in the sky.

And this is where it often goes pear-shaped. Good writers and bad writers are differentiated by how they handle this skill. If I want my detective to discover that the killer likes hot-dogs, and the reason he is collecting the blood of his victims is to adorn his hot-dogs with his own blend of tomato sauce, (ridiculous example I know, but indulge me), how do I engineer the detective discovering this? I could do it in a gradual way – ie at the scene of every crime there seems to be breadcrumbs which are collected but never really given credence – until some bright spark thinks it is odd that amongst the crime scene debris there is always breadcrumbs, so they have them analysed and discover they are all the same type of bread, same brand, same everything. They are not a fluke appearance at the scene – so they run DNA tests and Hey Presto! Saliva, etc etc. Or I could do it in a non-subtle way –ie the killer leaves every victim with a hot-dog shoved in their lifeless mouth and the words “I Love Hot-Dogs” carved into their chest. Either way, as a writer, when looking at plot, I have to think about how characters glean information from themselves, the scene, each other, and even the overall pattern of information release.

So, back to my initial comments. Why am I breaking my own rule and blogging about this? Well, it is because, in my humble opinion, it is  information release/handling/discovery which either makes the novel great, or  makes it a let-down.

Why else would fans of Law & Order compile a list such as those in the link below? It is because over-use of one technique, (in this  instance websites/Internet), is soon exposed, and when something becomes routine it becomes ineffective and unbelievable.

So writers must work very hard to keep it fresh, believable and surprising. And so it should be. That is our job, and those who are good at it stand out a mile, in the same way as those who skimp on it deserve short thrift from their readers. Being a writer is a privilege bestowed upon us by our readers. Abuse that at your peril.

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MG-2zZfLm-U&feature=youtu.be

A quick browse of my bookshelves reveals an oddity: The back history of creative
men and women who have passed away and left a literary legacy does seem to be strangely linked to questions of substance abuse and mind-altering drugs. It is
not only my books which suggest this, but my music collection too.

A very brief overview to support my point would include: Beethoven drank wine
whilst composing and was reputedly drunk in public frequently; Fyodor Dostoevsky was a heavy drinker and wrote to pay for his dual addictions of booze and gambling; Aldous Huxley believed so vehemently in drugs bringing a visionary
experience that he wrote The Doors Of Perception which became a reference for artists seeking the same, and inspired the rock band The Doors to name themselves after it; the famous names of the literary Romantic Era, Shelley, Wordsworth, Byron, Coleridge and Keats to name but a few, all wrote under the influence of Opium and Laudanum. It is seen within acting too, (Oliver Reed, Johnny Depp, Martin Sheen), and, as I have mentioned, music, (Jimmy Page and Stairway to Heaven, Jimi Hendrix and his Purple Haze, Aerosmith, Megadeth, The Rolling Stones, The Beatles, David Bowie, Nirvana, Guns n Roses…. ad infinitum). Even amongst sports stars, and by that I mean publicly adored figures who produce “brilliance” for their fans, the stimulants abound, such as George Best, and, latterly, Paul Gascoigne. It seems that wherever there is art and creativity, there is some sort of substance abuse, use or addiction,  too.

So does it enhance one’s creativity? If it does then are we to doubt the artistic
ability of creative artists in the first place? Is their work the product of them – or of their altered state? Are they, therefore, defined by their altered state and not by their endemic talents? Can they even do their “thing” without the drugs?

As a creative artist myself the question is an important one. For my own part, I
believe the impetus and the drive for a story – the act of creation, regardless of the medium, comes from a very deep, (and deeply misunderstood), part of ourselves. Something I refer to as The Creative Anima. It lives and exists regardless of the addiction overlay that so many creative people, and others, labour under. Indeed, creativity is a basic human activity that resides within everyone. We are all blessed with the potential to create artistically just as we are all cursed with the ability to not see it or not use it. The real question I would like to see answered is not what the gifted are capable of with their addictions, but rather what they are capable of without them.

But who am I to say? I am just a nowhere man, living in my nowhere land, writing all my nowhere words for nobody. But consider these words from the massively
popular, highly successful and undoubtedly unparalleled (so far as commercial
impact is concerned) Stephen King, himself no stranger to drink and drug abuse
in his early days:

“The idea that creative endeavour and mind-altering substances are entwined is one of the great pop-intellectual myths of our time. The four twentieth-century writers whose work is most responsible for it are probably Hemingway, Fitzgerald,
Sheerwood Anderson, and the poet Dylan Thomas. They are the writers who largely formed our vision of an existential English-speaking wasteland where people have been cut off from one another and live in an atmosphere of emotional
strangulation and despair. These concepts are very familiar to most alcoholics;
the common reaction to them is amusement. Substance-abusing writers are just
substance abusers – common or garden-variety drunks and druggies, in other
words. Any claims that the drugs and alcohol are necessary to dull a finer
sensibility are just the usual self-serving bullshit. I’ve heard alcoholic
snow-plough drivers make the same claim, that they drink to still the demons. It
doesn’t matter if you’re James Jones, John Cheever, or a stewbum snoozing in
Penn Station; for an addict, the right to the drink or drug of choice must be
preserved at all costs. Hemingway and Fitzgerald didn’t drink because they were
creative, alienated or morally weak. They drank because it’s what alkies are
wired up to do. Creative people probably DO run a greater risk of alcoholism and
addiction than those in some other jobs, but so what? We all look pretty much
the same when we’re puking in the gutter”.

…. And so to the chink of glasses, the crackle of spirit over ice, and with the box
of regrets shoved firmly under the bed until the morning, the sun goes down and
the creative tools of innumerable artists come out to play. God bless you, my
creative brethren. Just be sure that when you pick up the pen, or the guitar, or
the paintbrush, or the dance shoes or whatever it is you “use”, that the Muse is
coming from the bottom of your soul and not from the bottom of your bottle. Yes,
I know it is a darker place down there, but no-one ever mined a gem from their
window-box. Sometimes you gotta go deep to find your feet.

One of the many arguments that circulate in today’s society is
whether it is genuinely more violent, (than, say, 40 or 50 years ago), or whether
that is simply our perception. With the advent of violent video games and ever
more violent films, wider gun ownership, gang culture, terrorism and
historical paedophile cases coming to the fore from sections we should have been
able to trust, (children’s entertainers, the Church), we would be forgiven for
falling into the camp who throw their arms up in horror and retreat behind their
security gates.

The counter-argument, of course, is that society has always been
violent, and that these things we now “feel” (in a way we never used to feel)
are simply a result of better reporting, better crime investigation, and a more
rigorous approach to uncovering the truth and insisting on
transparency.

The final overlay, and the driving force that many consider to be
the root cause of the change in our culture, is drugs and their availability,
(and diversity). Regardless of the credit crunch problems in the US &
Europe, (which does not help the sense of foundations crumbling), there is
enough already to make us rush to arms.

I think this has been a gradual process, and I wonder how much of
it has to do with the rapid increase and development of the internet and mobile
technology over the last 20 years or so. We are living through something more
potent than the last industrial revolution.  Consider the 3D printing of tangible
parts that will effectively wipe out current manufacturing in years to
come.

So I am both pleased, (and yet saddened), to find evidence this
week that books, and the language used within books, is still considered a
barometer of cultural shifts. The New Scientist carries an article (link below)
that shows the trend in language use over the last 30 years based on 5 Million
books digitised by Google. In simple terms it confirms that the language has
become less emotive (as in sensual) and more fear-based. Does the increase in
the use of fear-related words indicate a cultural societal shift to a more
fearful world community? Is it just writers having to stab an ever-increasingly
de-sensitized readership deeper for a reaction?

Click here to see the full New Scientist article:

I am delighted to say that The Scarlet Tessera has received a number of excellent reviews lately, and I am grateful to all those readers who have taken the time to post their support. One particular comment, (made within a recent 5-star review), related to the definition of the word "Tessera". I thought it might be helpful to readers for me to set the record straight on this.

"Tessera" is defined in the Concise Oxford Dictionary, 10th Edition, as follows:
"1. A small block of stone, tile, etc used in a mosaic. 2. (in ancient Greece and Rome) a small tablet of wood or bone used as a token".

Those who have read the book will be familiar with the "necklace" that appears around the neck of some of the victims, and that the forensic analysis of the small brown tile on that necklace reveals it to be of London Clay, (a vital piece of evidence which assists the Police in identifying that the victims may be being held in the network of tunnels beneath London). This idea is further supported by the fact that it is the network of underground tubetrain tunnels that they are specifically concerned by - (hence the "tile" link, given that all London Underground stations originally had tiles covering their curved walls, and most still do).

My earliest research when planning the novel confirmed that Ancient Rome used these "tessera" (plural "tesserae") as tickets -  small tokens of wood, clay or bone which afforded Roman citizens entrance to such spectacles as the Gladiator battles in the Colliseum and other public celebrations of violence and death as entertainment. The killer in "The Scarlet Tessera" notes early on that he is sending A Deadly Invitation (ie deadly as in "Scarlet", (as in "blood"), and invitation as in "tessera" as defined above).

It has been suggested within a recent review that use of the word "Tessera" within the title is confusing because its modern day use in Italy is a colloquial one and refers to ID cards such as those from the Health Service or Tax office. I hope the above clarifies matters.

When I was in New York two years ago I stumbled across a wooden ramp pushed up against the sidewalk - a hurried, makeshift arrangement put in place by a delivery guy to enable his wheeled trolley to move freely to and from the delivery truck. On it, someone had scrawled in big letters: “BECOME YOUR DREAM”.

I stood for several minutes, considering and photographing this piece of impromptu street graffiti, oblivious to the delivery guy passing repeatedly in front of me. Eventually, he said jovially “Hey buddy – you look a lot like Lee Majors. Anyone ever tell you that?”

As an Englishman in New York, the comparison was oddly comforting. It reminded me of home – not the bricks and mortar or green-and-pleasant lands I know as the UK – but of my childhood home. The home where my dreams were dreamed in all their glory without the wing clipping device we all know as “reality” getting its unwelcome blades in the way of my exploring fingers. I grew up watching The Bionic Man, a man who was a super-man in the true sense of the word. This was not a man from outer-space, energised by a green-glowing icicle, nor a gnarled, tattooed mini-superman energised by a green vegetable known mysteriously as “spinach”… No; this man was built. We built him. He was a broken man and we rebuilt him.

You will notice that the graffiti did not say “Achieve” your dream, or “Dream” your dream, or “Go for” your dream. It said “”become” your dream. Become it. If we become something, we change. It has a sense of possession and of ownership about it. The thing itself no longer exists, because we have become it. Not only has it changed, we have changed too. In many ways it is the purest form of alchemy – two separate states becoming each other and creating a third, singular, and changed, state.

So to that delivery guy, who bestowed upon me a fleeting kudos that I neither deserve nor could ever generate of my own accord, I say “Thank you”. In that single moment, that serendipitous, spontaneous, unexpected moment, you defined exactly what it means to Become Your Dream. Life, inevitably, breaks us down. Each day, in tiny ways, something of us is taken, or breaks, or decays. It is the nature of the human beast. For us to do anything, even before we dream, we must learn how to repair. We must learn how to be emotionally bionic and where we cannot repair ourselves we must seek out others who can do the repair for us. We are all broken in our individual ways, and the delicate skill of self-repair is what, ultimately, will really allow us to become our dream.

Ravens and crows have always held a fascination for me. In my writing processes I spend a great deal of time walking, (and thinking), and I try to do that deep in nature, alone. Very often, on these walks, I am watched by a crow, or a raven, depending on the landscape, but this has never been a source of worry for me despite the general perception of these beautiful birds as feeders on carrion, (the decaying flesh of dead animals),  or soul-stealers who will whisk you away to the spirit world. In my experience, they bring peace, and even seem keen to be part of the silent, contemplative creative activity.

In Shakespeare’s Othello, it is said that the raven flies “o’er the infected house”, and this has always had a strange resonance for me. Not because I see the description as relating to a specific house or location, but because I see it in much wider terms. If the raven flies in the skies above, then the infected house is Earth itself, with all its sorrows, its difficulties, its injustices and its horror.

The history of the relationship between humans and crows or ravens is characterised by ambivalence. From being the instrument of God in the Old Testament of the Christian Bible (“You shall drink from the brook, and I have commanded the ravens to feed you there” 1 Kings 17:4), through to Shakespeare’s assertion that ravens precede the appearance of death or evil intent, the great black bird has inhabited every space from saint to sinner.

These are clever birds, able to hunt in packs, to adapt to ever-changing environments; to be inventive and ingenious, to be cheeky, callous, unreliable and shameless, and yet also feature amongst the few species on Earth who mate for life. If that isn’t a mirror image of human I don’t know what is.

Which brings me to my favourite raven story. There is a Ukrainian legend that suggests the birds were once multi-coloured with beautiful singing voices. After the Fall of Angels, their feathers turned to black and their voice became the now familiar caw. When Paradise is restored to Earth, so too will the ravens’ original
beauty be restored to them. I identify with this story because it is linked so closely with the human story: childhood has a degree of innocence to it that is not repeated in later life as the inevitable moral dilemmas and unpredictability of human interaction takes hold. But there is still hope, still a shot at redemption. There has to be, because without it, the Tears on Earth’s Face will never be gently dried, and the weeping will be forever.