Monday 31 January 2011

Getting Le Carré'd away*

For a writer of romantic(ish) fiction, I have a deep and possibly incongrous passion for Cold War spy thrillers.  Before I start rhapsodising about Adam Hall's Quiller series and the delights of early Alistair MacLean, let me explain how this relates to the writing process.

In 1974, John le Carré launched the first part of his Karla trilogy, pitting the British spymaster George Smiley against his enigmatic Soviet opposite number.  The book was, of course, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy.  Hence my modus operandi for getting my book up to scratch:

Tinker... until everthing's just right.

Tailor... the work to your audience.

Soldier... on until you get published.

Spy... go and celebrate publication by reading The Scorpion Signal with a nice cup of tea and a packet of Fruit Gums.

While step four is somewhat personal to a thirty-something aspiring writer with a crush on a fictional secret agent and a weakness for PG Tips and Fruit Gums, I think the first three are good tenets to write by (or by which to write, if I'm going to have a crack at not battering the English language around the ankles with my prose).

The problem I'm having at the moment is Tinkering.  Looking For Buttons has been coming together for a few years now and has gone through seven drafts.  I give it a read through before I approach a new agent and sometimes I change things before it goes out.  I need to know when to stop.

But how?


* é appears courtesy of Lexi Revellian, who told me which keys to press (thank you!).

Wednesday 12 January 2011

Naming no names

What's in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet
- William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet

I have trouble with names.  Not in remembering them, mostly (although I once had a GP I could only ever think of as Dr Hyphen-Thing because I saw him so rarely that the only fact that stuck in my brain was that his surname was double-barrelled).  No, my problem is my own name.  More specifically, my name in relation to book covers.

Having given the matter some thought, what's letting my novel down is not its title.  Looking For Buttons sums up the tale neatly, and I've always been happy with it and its Cinderella connotations.  But my name is not terribly authorly.  It's not snappy or modish.  It's also only a few syllables away from a Famous Author, which could lead to complications.  So I think I need a pseudonym.

But what to choose?  I could Make Something Up.  I could reverse my school nickname, but May Brian is more family saga than romantic comedy.  (Yes, my nickname was Brian May.  It's a hair thing.  Life is too short for straightening irons.)  I could seek inspiration from my ancestors, but one of them was called Euphemia and that's even less apt.

With the WIP (work in progress), the problem is reversed.  I've got a great pseudonym, a no-nonsense thriller writer's name (conveniently, the book is a no-nonsense thriller).  Fab.  Except I can't think of a title for the book.  I'm a third of the way through and I haven't the faintest idea.  Nothing quite fits.

So I sit and I type and the Untitled on the title page sits there and sniggers at me. Heigh ho.

 

Sunday 2 January 2011

Buttons? What buttons?

No, not those sort of buttons.  This has nothing to do with haberdashery or electronics, or even bellies.  But it has everything to do with Cinderella.

Have you ever wondered if Prince Charming is really the man for you after all?  Perhaps you just want someone kind, gentle and caring.  Someone who'll unblock your drain or jumpstart you car in the snow, someone who's seen you with no make-up and a temperature of a hundred and three and still won't run away.  Someone who's not rich, not flashy, not necessarily drop-dead gorgeous, but always one hundred per cent real.

Maybe you should be Looking For Buttons.

Looking For Buttons - a comedy for the romantically hopeless.  A new novel for 2011.