Hello, Bob;

15 Aug 04 17:38, Bob Lawrence wrote to Robert Bull:

 RB>> So how do you get ideas for characters, and know which
 RB>> particular mix is going to spark?

 BL>  (blush) I use real people, changed around a little...

So you can't claim that none of your characters bears any resemblance, etc.  
;-)

 BL>  One of my problems is conflict. Characters are supposed to strike
 BL> sparks, as you say, to create tension and make the story hum, but my
 BL> *own* character avoids that, and so do the characters I
"create." It
 BL> takes me a real effort for me to make my characters act stupidly...

Crawford Kilian said something in his book about writing F&SF that if your 
story isn't going anywhere, you need to give your characters more conflict.  
You could have the conflict dumped on them from on high, like dimwit senior 
management or whatever.

 BL>  Actually, it was *very* hard for me to finish the first book. In
 BL> real life, the only end is death, but in fact, ending a *story* is a
 BL> conscious decision - you just end it and it doesn't really matter much
 BL> where, so long as it is satisfying.

I suppose could be part of the reason for the conventional happy ending - 
at least it's a stopping point, where all the characters' problems are 
sensibly resolved.  For now.

 BL>  It meant that I had to edit the whole bloody book, but it only took
 BL> me a week, and in total I only typed an extra three pages. I had to
 BL> *read* the whole 600-bloody-pages... but the actual changes were minor

Is it that much of a chore to read your own prose?  ;-)

 BL> gone with the early version, but this one closes off the niggling
 BL> "cheat" in the plot.

Which is good...

 RB>> Someone told me once that Christie is supposed to have had a
 RB>> system that sort of plotted things out on a chart...

 BL>  Of course! My complaint is the need for the big explanation at
 BL> the end. A proper plot is supposed to reveal itself in one big climax.

That was perhaps just her way, which too many people copied.  My father 
used to complain that whodunnits plots were often too complicated; maybe 
that's why the Big Explanation at the end had to be continued.

 BL> between the eysnot 20 pages of Popirot oe Miss bloody Marples
 BL> "explaining" how Aggie cheated all the way through the book.

I did like the TV films with Joan Hixson as Miss Marple, but she was so 
good in the part.

 BL>  A lazy author. Or perhaps he writes longhand. It's difficult to
 BL> rewrite longhand. On a computer it's easy.

Generations of authors used longhand...  some with a quill pen.

 BL>  In fact, I think that's the main problem with the Americans. They
 BL> invade Iraq, but they don't understand that the *first* thing you have
 BL> ot do is set up your own bureaucracy. All they neded as a few hundred
 BL> English in pith helmets drinking gin squash in the afternoon and
 BL> complaining that the natives are revolting...

I'm sure that could be arranged  ;-)

 BL> individual. Personally, I do it in bursts. If I am inspired, I have
 BL> to write solidly eight hours a day... and when it runs down (as it
 BL> does) I have to recharge by *reading*. I might go for two solid weeks
 BL> and end up with 160 finished pages, and then read a dozen books in the
 BL> next month before I go back and finish it. Then I put it aside for
 BL> three months before I edit and insert all the new ideas that further
 BL> reading (and my morning walks) have given me.

Do you choose the books you use for "recharging" to be in the same genre, 
or just anything you fancy?

 BL>  Sounds good! The problem is making the psycho a sympathetic
 BL> character. Redemption ought to work...

Oh, there's no sympathy and redemption.  He's a psycho to the last.  But 
you end up interested and involved in the problem if who put out the 
contract, and why.  That's good work.

 BL> kill an animal for one reason or another certainly sticks in my mind.
 BL> I imagine that killing another human would stick much harder, in War,
 BL> self-defence, or whatever. Of course, being human we justify whatever
 BL> we do... and go haead and do it anyway.

I'll bet the first one is the worst  :-(

 RB>> You forgot Kenneally; he's native Oz, isn't he?

 BL>  Tom is on my shit list. I only ever liked two of his books, the
 BL> first one (CHANT OF JIMMY BLACKSMITH), and the one he wrote about the
 BL> American Civil War. The rest is crap, according to me.

I think the only one I've read is his sort-of travel book around Australia, 
which as I've never been to Oz was interesting to me.

 BL> like Superman comics. Once promoted and exposed, if it doesn't take
 BL> and show a profit in its own right (like Opera and classical music)
 BL> then too bad, let it die and find something people actually like.

Hmmm.  Sounds like a charter for dumbing-down the world.

     Regards,

              Robert.

Just finished: LORD OF SNOW AND SHADOWS  by Sarah Ash.
     Ash's new trilogy (series title: The Tears of Artamon) starts with a 
     book filled with possession by a dragon-ghoul with vampiric 
     tendencies, poisonings, secret passages, vengeful wraiths, music- 
     powered shamanesses, romance, werewolves, unnatural weather, alchemy, 
     adultery, friendship, revolting peasants, betrayal, revenge, a cold 
     would-be emperor, and all set in something like an 18th or early 19th 
     Century Russia.  My reaction?  Get part 2!

... Nobody is perfect.  I am a nobody.  Therefore I am perfect.
--- GoldED 3.00.Beta2+