Spies and more spies

Last night BBC4 TV aired the final part of Andrew Marr’s series on genre paperback fiction – Sleuths, Spies and Sorcerers. (See my earlier blog here).

This time it was the turn of the spies.

We visited Berlin, the remnants of the Wall, the prison where betrayed agents were incarcerated and tortured physically and mentally, and glimpsed old images of traitors such as Blake and Philby. All grist to the mill for John Le Carré’s breakthrough novel The Spy Who came in from the Cold. An old interview revealed that he wasn’t surprised that no communists liked his spy tales!

Another interview was with Frederick Forsyth; we’re shown film clips from The Day of the Jackal, whose protagonist was not a spy but an assassin; the point was that both Le Carré and Forsyth, along with several other scribes of this genre had some background in intelligence work. One of the first of these was Somerset Maugham (notably Ashenden), who confessed that looking back on his fiction he found it difficult to separate fact from fiction in his work.

 Maugham's Ashenden

Perhaps too much attention was given to the (admittedly interesting) William Le Queux’ popular sensationalist novel The Invasion of 1910 (1906) regarding a fictional account of a German armed invasion of Britain. The furore following its publication prompted the setting up of a British secret intelligence department, The Secret Service Bureau headed by Mansfield Smith-Cumming in 1909.

Other interviewees were Stella Rimington, a former director general of MI5 and author of the MI5 officer Liz Carlyle books, author Charles Cumming who has written eight spy novels since 2001, an early snippet from Len Deighton, and William Boyd who wrote a new Bond novel, Solo (reviewed here.

Other authors who are examined include (inevitably) Ian Fleming, Gerald Seymour, John Buchan, Graham Greene, and Eric Ambler, with intriguing interpretations and motivations.

Quite rightly, Marr states that he is annoyed at the literary snobbery with regard to spy fiction and genre fiction in general. It’s as if being “popular” is anathema.

At their best, spy novels delve into the dark recesses of the human condition, examining the repercussions of betrayal, corruption and deceit. 

Despite the high-tech surveillance in the present, there is still a place for the human spy.

As in the earlier two episodes, there were bound to be some deserving authors omitted, among them Adam Hall (Elleston Trevor), author of the Quiller books, Erskine Childers (The Riddle of the Sands), Dennis Wheatley (Gregory Sallust novels), Helen MacInnes, Alan Furst, David Downing, Desmond Cory (Johnny Fedora series), Colin Forbes (Tweed series), John Gardner (Railton family series, Bond), and Craig Thomas (Aubrey & Hyde series), among others!

The programme is re-broadcast on BBC4 TV tomorrow, Wednesday evening. The series is also linked to the Open University - see here

where you can 'dig deeper into crime, fantasy and spy fiction'...

Writing tips - Begin late, leave early

No, I’m not offering advice to party-goers. This phrase – or variants of it – is used by screenwriters.

There are two reasons for advocating enter a scene late and leave it early.

One: a screenplay has a limited length of time – roughly 150 minutes.

Two: by following the guideline, the dramatic sense is maintained or even heightened. In other words, there’s no room for flab.

One scene tends to lead to the next. In order to move the story forward. And, remember, an author is in effect writing scenes in a reader's head.

 

 

Therefore, the same applies to genre fiction. There should be no room for flab – and often the word-count or page-count is limited too. Genre books are meant to be fast reads, spurring on the reader to keep turning the pages. That doesn’t mean they can’t be contemplative when necessary, or varied in pace as the characters’ mood dictates.

One way to maintain the fast pace is to be judicious where scenes and chapters begin and end.

I’ve seen it time and again. A writer lingers at the end of a chapter, or even a scene, writing inconsequential detail that doesn’t move the story forward.

 

Beginning the book, new scene or new chapter is just as relevant. Enter just before a dramatic highpoint, rather than a lengthy lead up to it. (Exceptions will be suspense stories where what is being said is not what is going on between the lines.)

Here’s a rough example of a chapter ending that involves two main characters.

“Right, now listen. I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I’ll phone in sick for work and we can go together, eh? You sort out your work and then come over tomorrow and I’ll show you where the swine lives.”

            As luck had it, tomorrow was my day off, so I agreed.
            The next morning, with jumbled thoughts of Marcus, the swine, infesting my mind, I picked her up and we set off.
             I drove for about half an hour and followed her directions, turned into a street of run-down town houses.
            "Slow down, pet, we’re here,” Grace exclaimed suddenly. “Find a parking spot here. His place is just around the corner.”
            I switched off my thoughts and slowed down, and then eased into a convenient gap of parked vehicles. Grace opened the passenger door and stepped out onto the pavement. I gathered up my belongings, locked the doors, and then together we made our way down the street.

[end of chapter]

The red-highlighted text doesn’t tell us anything. The ending works just as well if all that red-highlight was deleted. The beginning of the next chapter has the two characters approaching the front door of the town house, or better still, confronting the character Marcus - doing away with the introductions at the door etc. (Begin late...).

The above example’s at a chapter end. The same applies to the end of a mid-chapter scene. Cut out superfluous wording; it isn’t really precious, is it? End on a note of anticipation, rather than a fade out. For example, ‘so I agreed’ in effect says to the reader, turn the page and find out what happens next; ‘made our way down the street’ is just tedious. (If the reader knew there was a killer waiting, then yes the walking down the street would raise the tension!)

The end of a book presents the same problem. How to leave it. The writer has been living with these (surviving) characters for ages - months or even years. There’s an understandable tendency not to let them go, just keep writing a bit more, tie up those not really essential loose ends. Does the story ending have more power when the ending meanders to a close with everyone chatting and getting all the I’s dotted?  There are many authors who know how to close, and do it well. Adam Hall with his Quiller books didn’t linger. You arrived at the end breathless, and then you were left alone, gasping! The ending of The Spy Who Came in from the Cold is memorable because it’s abrupt, and final for Leamas.

Quiller Solitaire - Adam Hall

 

The ending should be satisfying, but shouldn’t linger.

As Mickey Spillane said, “The beginning sells this book; the ending sells the next book.” If you leave the reader wanting more, then you’ve done your job.

I discuss the opening and closing scenes in Write a Western in 30 Days (pp142-144).

 

 

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A Most Wanted Author

I imagine quite a few authors would give their eye-teeth to be in John Le Carré’s shoes. Four of his books are in film production at the same time!

1. William Monahan is in talks with The Ink Factory and BBC Films to adapt Le Carré’s latest, A Delicate Truth into a feature film.

2. Ewan McGregor, Ralph Fiennes and Mads Mikkelsen are in Our Kind of Traitor, filming later this year.

3. Already in the can is Anton Corbin’s version of A Most Wanted Man with Philip Seymour Hoffman starring.

4. And plans are already afoot for Gary Oldman to don the guise of George Smiley again for Smiley’s People.

Le Carré has had 18 films made from his novels since he began writing in 1961. The most recent was Tinker, Taylor starring Oldman.

Le Carré is reported to have joked, ‘At this point I could write the telephone directory and get money for it.’ Not an original allusion – it was used many years back for Stephen King! Several of his books are still in my (long) list of favourite novels.