Getting carried away by words
Using Raymond Chandler's hack to improve your writing
This month’s tip is something that was originally intended for writing fiction, but it can be used for any type of writing to make it sail along, taking the reader with it.
Raymond Chandler used to write his stories on notecards, and he had a rule that something had to happen on each one of those cards. This gave his writing a brisk pace and kept the story moving along. (And if you’ve read any Chandler, you’ll know this to be true.)
Writing on notecards doesn’t work these days, but the size of a notecard works out to out 250 words.
In other words, you should have something happen that the reader notices and could remark on every 250 words or so.
I think this applies to all writing, not just fiction. You want the reader to be carried along by your words, to follow you on the journey. You don’t want them bogged down in heavy description and exposition.
Give it a go and let me know what you think.
What I’ve read and enjoyed recently
When you finish reading a book, do you bother to read the author’s acknowledgements at the end? I’ve only started doing so recently (I think it probably coincided with when I started writing myself and I began to understand just why they are there). This article dives into why you should read them and what you’ll get out of it.
There are a couple of books that I have read recently that I really want to highlight because I was blown away by both of them.
The first is Intimations by Zadie Smith, which she wrote in the spring at the beginning of the first lockdown in the UK. She was living in the US but headed back to London early on during the pandemic, so the essays discuss life in both countries. Two of them, in particular, struck me, and both of them featured older women. I love Zadie Smith’s voice but the way she wrote about these two women - one a neighbour in New York and the other a friend of her mother’s in London - really captivated me. It’s a short little book (around 100 pages). I devoured it in one morning.
And the other is Hadley Freeman’s House of Glass, a family memoir about her incredible grandmother and her siblings, their childhoods in a Polish shtetl and their love to Paris before the Second World War. It is beautiful, moving, tragic, uplifting. If you get a chance to read it, grab it.
What I have been up to recently
The past few weeks have been dominated by a couple of events. Yes, the US presidential election, of course, but I meant more personally as well. I’m adding an extra string to my freelancing bow and have joined Jill to co-host The Swede-ish podcast. Every week, we interview a guest or discuss topics related to “the paradox of life between two cultures” - in other words, when you’ve started a life in a new country, and each day you veer between maintaining your home culture and embracing something new.
Our first three co-hosted episodes are out now on Spotify, Stitcher, a-cast, and wherever you get your podcast fix.
The other main event that has been in focus for me recently is a little something called NaNoWriMo. For those who have no idea what this is, let me explain. It stands for National Novel Writing Month and challenges you to write every day during November, reaching 50,000 words by 30 November.
Yes, I’m writing a novel. Because my brain seems to have decided that writing articles, translating and editing reports, editing novels, and podcasting isn’t enough to fill my time.
What’s it about? Well, it started as family drama (set 60 years ago and in the present day) with a little bit of a love story, but it has morphed into a historical love story with a hint of family drama on the side. And I’m considering dropping the whole present-day aspect as well.
So, it’s a historical novel and also (dare I say it) a romance. Doesn’t that just make it a historical romance then, Kat? Hmmm, I suppose it does. The problem is that “historical romance” is a phrase that instantly conjures in my mind a Mills & Boon-style romance with a cover featuring a “beautiful” woman in a low-cut gown lying in the arms of a “handsome” man. (I’m looking at you, Barbara Cartland…)
And mine ain’t that kind of story. If I had to reduce it down to one image, it might look something like this (with a little more realism and a lot less Hollywood glamour.)
Photograph: Samuel Goldwyn/Sportsphoto Ltd/Allstar
As you might be able to tell, I am not quite yet at the stage where I can sum up my story in a succinct 50 words to pitch it. But I am very excited about writing it.
I might not be hitting the daily word target needed to achieve 50,000 words by the end of NaNoWriMo, but it has been the prod to get me to put pen to paper (or fingers to keys) and get started.
Watch this space.
Kat