Writing Advice: Elmore Leonard

This was published in Guardian. It was so on point, we thought to share.Read more here. 

1.  Never open a book with weather. If it's only to create atmosphere, and not a charac­ter's reaction to the weather, you don't want to go on too long. The reader is apt to leaf ahead look­ing for people. There are exceptions. If you happen to be Barry Lopez, who has more ways than an Eskimo to describe ice and snow in his book Arctic Dreams, you can do all the weather reporting you want.


2 Avoid prologues: they can be ­annoying, especially a prologue ­following an introduction that comes after a foreword. But these are ordinarily found in non-fiction. A prologue in a novel is backstory, and you can drop it in anywhere you want. There is a prologue in John Steinbeck's Sweet Thursday, but it's OK because a character in the book makes the point of what my rules are all about. He says: "I like a lot of talk in a book and I don't like to have nobody tell me what the guy that's talking looks like. I want to figure out what he looks like from the way he talks."


3 Never use a verb other than "said" to carry dialogue. The line of dialogue belongs to the character; the verb is the writer sticking his nose in. But "said" is far less intrusive than "grumbled", "gasped", "cautioned", "lied". I once noticed Mary McCarthy ending a line of dialogue with "she asseverated" and had to stop reading and go to the dictionary.


Learn some prompts that would help kick-start your story here.

1. When planning your story, choose names, which reflect your characters.
2. Write Character Profiles - know your characters inside and out.

iRead

44 Bookers in 25 Words (Each )by Harold Augenbraum

 In light of the October 18th announcement of the 2011 prize, the Review's editors asked Harold Augenbraum, Executive Director of the National Book Foundation, presenter of the U.S. National Book Awards, to provide a bite-sized "take" on each Booker or Man Booker recipient (its sponsorship changed in the 1990s). He responded with precisely 25 words on each and every winner.

His thoughts on Famished Road. 1991 -- The Famished Road by Ben Okri -- Raises the coming-of-age novel to the thrill of epic, candidate for the Great Nigerian Novel. Okri is a worthy successor to Achebe, predecessor to Adichie.

To Fall Twice for the Same Trick (or Déjà Vu) by A. Igoni Barrett

"As I pushed the second leg into my yellow tiger paw boxer shorts, my mobile phone rang. Startled by the shrill of a ringtone I hadn’t selected, I lost my balance and pitched forward. My head struck the edge of the new writing desk, I hit the floor, and just before my mind emptied I said to myself: so this is what it feels like to die with your pants down.When I awoke the first thing that strolled up and muttered “hello” was the pong of clinical iodine. I opened my eyes to find that my nose, too, had turned traitor: I was sprawled at the foot of the new writing desk. I reached forward to pull myself up, and grasped a leg, which, after I whipped up my head to look, became in my hand the leg of the new writing desk.The floor was cold; My head hammered; The phone rang."

Tolu Ogunlesi on the Jaipur Literary Festival and literature in India

"Jaipur stands out for the prominence it gives to literature in local languages; as many as half of the fair’s guest writers write in Indian languages. This may also account for the popularity of the festival, in a country where the number of speakers of Hindi, a local language, is 4 times the English-speaking population, and where as many as 22 local languages each have more than 1 million speakers."

The 9th Issue of ITCH Online
The 9th issue of ITCH  Online features a variety of multimedia works exploring the notion of ∞ (the mathematical symbol for infinity).Poetry, prose, video artworks, graphics, drawings, photography and more dig into the corners and stretch out the sides of this sign of intertwined forever-ness.

Have a great week!

iDebate: Are We Writing in Africa?

Emma Iduma asks in Mantle

"The question this piece primarily addresses is whether or not we are writing in Africa (especially writing in the English language). The answer is a simple, yet complicated yes. It is simple because, indeed, we are putting pen to paper, and fingers to keyboard. There is evidence of this on the Internet – the growing number of platforms, including online journals, Facebook groups and networking sites. Yet it is a complicated yes because intra-African literary institutions are few, and insufficient. For instance, Nigeria, with over 150 million people, has less than five standard book publishers, less than five print literary journals, no grant-giving body, and few prizes.If we are writing in Africa the necessary corollary is that we are being published in Africa, by Africans, and for Africans (I am only interested in "Africa" as a geographical space, as a physical and territorial delimitation). This is not exactly the case, in a lot of ways, with only very few exceptions.It does not cost little to write in Africa; aside the fact that obvious glamour is not guaranteed to the young writer, there is the absence of intra-African visibility. The concerns, then, I propose, must shift from singular considerations of what is being written to pluralized considerations of how what is being written will be read, understood and contextualized."

Is Africa writing what she wants to write, the way she wants to write it? If she uses Western media, does it affect anything? Does it change the sound of her voice or the slant of her words? Is there a way Africa can be written? Tell me...

For Steve Jobs, for Creatives Everywhere

Steve Jobs may be dead..but his works live with us. They will continue to live with us. Read the top lessons that we think every creative person should learn from him, even as we find our paths.  Live your life, not anybody's. Write your own story, not another person's...only then will the life or the story be yours. Happy new month :)

"The most enduring innovations marry art and science – Steve has always pointed out that the biggest difference between Apple and all the other computer (and post-PC) companies through history is that Apple always tried to marry art and science.  Jobs pointed out the original team working on the Mac had backgrounds in anthropology, art, history, and poetry.  That’s always been important in making Apple’s products stand out. It’s the difference between the iPad and every other tablet computer that came before it or since.  It is the look and feel of a product.  It is its soul. But it is such a difficult thing for computer scientists or engineers to see that importance, so any company must have a leader that sees that importance." 

"No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true. 

Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary."

After the Commonwealth Short Story Prize 2011

The winner for 2011 was new writer Phillip Nash. So, yes you can. It does not matter if it is your first story, just keep at it.  It was announced about two months ago. Beyond the stories, we loved his words. And yes, for lack of ideas on what to post at the end of the month *wink wink*

"For me, short stories are like tight-rope walks. Because every word counts, even the tiniest slip can be fatal. "

There are no Nigerian winners this time. The winner for the Africa region was Kenyan,  Martha Basett Buyukah, Kenya. Where are all my Nigerian short story writers? 

Learn more about the Commonwealth Writers Prize here. And yes, there is no longer a Best Book Prize. You plan to apply for the next short story contest, learn about writing short stories for radio here.

"To write an effective short story for radio, you mustconsider everything you want to do in the light of howit will sound.Be careful not to lose or confuse the listener. For example, clarify different speakers.Try to help the listener imagine your story unfolding.They will work with you to ‘see’ your characters and the action, and to feel the setting and the emotion."

iDebate

The purpose of fiction is to entertain not to educate. If you want to educate, write nonfiction. This lesson was the most difficult for me to handle. An early editor who read my novel told me that I had written two books in one: a suspense novel and a non-fiction book on comparative religion. I'd always loved the thriller/suspense genre, but I wanted to write one that made people think. I grew up a Tom Clancy fan. I loved how he interwove the technical details of military strategy, espionage, and cool hardware into his thrillers. I wanted to do the same with the topic of religion. The danger with such an approach is that the non-fiction elements can take precedence over the fictional ones. The book can become preachy or, worse, boring. People read fiction to be entertained. It took me many drafts to strike the right balance: a balance that puts primacy on story and character. The educational aspects of the book had to be woven into the story and integral to the plot and the journey my characters take.

Jeffrey Small, author, The Breath of God writes . What do you think? What is the purpose of fiction? Does it have a purpose?

Book N Gauge V: Writing the Nation, Two Writers and Two Performers on their Craft

Nigeria was 51 as an independent country, October 1, 2011. Nigeria’s independence is one that is pregnant with many questions. How independent is the country? This question is one that is also asked in literature today; how independent is Nigerian literature? When it comes to themes, forms and awards? Book N Gauge V will feature conversations with two writers, Sam Omatseye and Chuma Nwokolo and performers Efe Paul Azino  and Jeffrey Jaiyeola aka Plumbline.

Writers & Performers

Chuma Nwokolo, lawyer, writer and the publisher of African Writing magazine. He is author of the poetry collection Memories of Stone, the serial Tales by Conversation, and many novels, including Diaries of a Dead African, the Pulpfaction Club Book of the Month for October. He was writer-in-residence at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford. Chuma’s writing has been termed as funny yet witty.

Sam Omatseye, poet and writer and frontline columnist with The Nation newspaper. His journey into journalism started in 1987 as reporter with Newswatch. He has won several awards, including the inaugural winner of the Gordon Fisher Fellowship for journalists in the British Commonwealth (1991). He also won the Alfred Friendly Press fellowship (1997). He won the Diamond Award for Media Excellence (2010) and Nigeria Media Merit Award for columnist of the year (2011).  

His latest works ‘Crocodile Girl'; ‘Lion Wind and Other Poems' and ‘In Touch', were published in 2011.

Efe Paul Azino got a rousing ovation after he thrilled the crowd at the last edition of the Book N Gauge. Regarded as one of Nigeria’s leading Spoken Word Poets, Efe Paul has been a headline performer in many performance poetry venues, including Anthill 2.0 and Taruwa.  Efe has delivered Spoken Word Poetry locally and internationally.  Reflecting the suffering in African societies and the hope that keeps them going; Efe Paul’s poems cut across class, social and religious boundaries.  Efe Paul is at once entertaining and thought-provoking; he leads a generation of poets in lifting poetry off the printed page, out of the shadows of academia and placing it right before the audience.

Plumbline studied as a Geo-scientist, rather than digging oil pipes; he “mines” words. Influenced by poets like the late Mamman Vatsa and the late Ken Saro Wiwa, the songwriter and spoken word artist wrote poetry from his secondary school days.  He performs Spoken Word Poetry at most Lagos Events like Wordslam, Anthill, Taruwa and hosts Chill and Relax. His words dash straight through the heart of the audience and leaving them with thoughts, little mementos to take home.

Ruby always knew she was going to sing. Her name is Ngohide Ruby Ann Gyanggyang; everyone calls her Ruby. Her father introduced her to soul music, to the world of Aretha Franklin, Miriam Makeba, Onyeka Onwenu, Marvin Gaye, Whitney Houston, Yolanda Adams and Jill Scott. In Jos, she met M.I and Jesse Jagz, who were then both starting out in music. Then Loopy Music started as a group of young people making good music. Together, they recorded and organised popular jam sessions in Jos and Abuja. Ruby's music tells stories of pain, passion, longing and love, of the mystery of life. When she is not making music with her 4-octave range voice, Ruby focuses on providing platforms for “musical expression” for female artistes such as her Diva's Unplugged.

Auction Session: There will be an auction session. What do you get? Latest books that you can only find online. Hot CDs that are yet to be on the streets. The lovely purple Pulpfaction Club T-Shirt. This month, we will support Wana Udobang’s fund raising efforts with 1k for Cancer. 10 percentage of the money off the auction goes towards giving cancer patients a better life.

There are prizes to be won for those who buy our Book of the Month Diaries of a Dead African before the event. To order, call:

Also:                                        

• A one-on-one interaction between authors, performers and readers.
• A platform for book enthusiasts to meet, interact and network. (Members of PulpFactionClub on Facebook and followers on Twitter would have a grand opportunity to meet).
• Freebies, lots of it. Let’s start with this. Invite five friends, ensure they come for the event and win a free book.
• Live Musical performances by: Ruby, Jeffrey Plumbline and Efe Paul Azino.
• Book signing.

DATE:  29th October, 2011

TIME: STRICTLY 2pm – 5pm

VENUE: Debonair Bookstore, 294, Herbert Macaulay Way, Sabo, Yaba.

Remember: Bring five friends and win a free book! Gifts are available for early birds too.