Writing – split personality or not

It could be argued that we writers have split personality issues anyway, what with all those characters rumbling about in our heads, not to mention hearing their voices. The question is, should we use pen-names when certain books are different in style or genre?

Fellow Crooked Cat author David W. Robinson has written an interesting blog about writing and typecasting. It’s worth a look.

http://www.dwrob.com/2014/10/wednesday-writing-typecasting/

There are no easy answers. Authors have to make up their own minds on the thorny subject, as styles and the subject matter differ. 

Quite a while ago (1986), Ruth Rendell wanted to get away from her police and suspense tales and tackle darker, deeper psychological themes; so she invented the penname Barbara Vine. My favourite early Vine books are A Dark-adapted Eye, A Fatal Inversion and King Solomon’s Carpet. Certainly, not all of her readers made the switch to the new books and some felt downright uncomfortable with them. Of course she continued writing under both names and eventually the secret was out. She still produces books under both names.

Readers of cozy crime are not necessarily at ease with gritty procedural thrillers; a little gore might be acceptable, but that too is a thin line to walk upon. Perhaps you should give consideration to the appeal of your work before making a leap. Some opinion favours writing to your audience (once you have one or know what it likes); this can become a strait-jacket, however. Contrary opinion says, write for yourself, whatever the genre, which works too – though in the current hard-nosed market-place, that might prove counter-productive. Truth is, the boundaries are gradually melting away, thanks to the wide appeal of the e-book. You might lose old readers when you switch to a different style or genre; equally, you might gain new readers who love the switch.

Bottom line: write what you’re comfortable writing, and don’t compromise yourself. Have faith in your product. Use a pen-name if that makes you comfortable or if it makes commercial sense. My author page on Amazon identifies me under my pen-names.

I’ve dabbled with a few pen-names over the years, for articles, short stories and even novels. I suspect I’ll continue to use a few, depending on the material.  My crime and thriller books published by Crooked Cat (Spanish Eye, Blood of the Dragon Trees, and Sudden Vengeance) are under my Nik Morton moniker; as will the upcoming thrillers Catalyst, The Prague Papers and The Tehran Text.  My westerns are written as Ross Morton (though I made an exception with Bullets for a Ballot, which is by Nik Morton! [Yes, it does get confusing, but as this latter book was likely to be marketed more at US readers, and I was better known in the US as Nik rather than Ross, I opted for that departure from the norm!]

 
So, there you have it. If you’re prolific or want to stretch your writing beyond any particular ghetto, there is no simple choice; you have to go with your gut instinct.

My e-books published by Crooked Cat – Amazon UK
http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&field-keywords=Nik+morton+crooked+cat&rh=n%3A341677031%2Ck%3ANik+morton+crooked+cat

My e-books published by Crooked Cat – Amazon COM

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&field-keywords=nik+morton+crooked+cat&rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Anik+morton+crooked+cat

 

Saturday Story - 'Tagged'

With the latest news about targeted radiation for breast cancer sufferers, it seems yet one more giant step will be made against this indiscriminate killer disease. In the beginning of June there was an encouraging report about a seemingly miraculous recovery from advanced melanoma after being treated with a new immunotherapy drug, pembrolizumah.

For some years it has been known that there’s a close relationship between the body’s immune system and cancer.  Recently, understanding has reached to the cellular and molecular level.

Cancerous tumours grow so vigorously because they’re able to switch off the auto-immune response that would normally combat unfamiliar cells found in the body. The tumour cells have a protein on their surface that binds with a compound on the surface of the cells that make up the advance guard of the immune system. The binding action turns off the defensive cells, allowing the tumour to flourish.

The new generation of drugs bind to those proteins on the tumour cells’ surface, stopping their interaction with the defensive cells. This enables the immune system to do its job and fight the cancer.

In effect, it is the body itself that can now fight the cancer. Professor Justin Stebbing, Consultant oncologist of London believes that in five years’ time immunotherapy will be the backbone of cancer treatment, rather than chemotherapy. It’s not a fix-all for every cancer, it seems; not the prayed-for magic bullet, and hopes should not be raised prematurely, but this research suggests that the fight against cancer will mean that thousands of sufferers will live longer and enjoy a high quality of life.

And maybe, ultimately, it’s all to do with our own bodies turning a switch. That’s a lengthy lead in to today’s short story, which was published in 2010 in the Costa TV Times.  

 

PET scanner - Wikipedia commons(Jens Maus)

 

TAGGED

 

Nik Morton

 

Alex Santini wished he wasn’t claustrophobic. It’s not as if he hadn’t been here before, either. Very much like a tunnel, he supposed. Maybe there’s hope now, light at the end of the tunnel.

            I’m hungry, he thought, which isn’t surprising since I haven’t eaten in over six hours. Nerves, too, are having their effect. Mind over matter is the answer. Think thin. That’s one way to diet, though it probably doesn’t have a great deal of success.

            It was only forty-five minutes ago - seems like ages - when Nurse Baker led him into the special preparation room. A radioactive substance created in a cyclotron was tagged to some glucose and injected into his bloodstream. She reassured him: ‘The intravenous injection’s just a slight pin-prick, Mr Santini, nothing to worry about.’

            ‘Fine. I’m not worried,’ he replied. In truth, worrying never cured anyone. Surgeons did, sometimes. Self-belief might. Faith often did.

            Odd, knowing it’s coursing through your body, yet not feeling the radioactive substance. Will I glow in the dark? The radioactivity is supposed to be short-lived, so maybe not. Afterwards, he was supposed to drink lots of fluid to flush out the radioactivity. He speculated about his radioactive liquid waste - would it mutate the rats in the sewer system?

            The injection was the easy bit, even though he didn’t like needles.

It’s the claustrophobia that he was really worried about.

            The PET scanner looked like something out of a science fiction film, similar to a large doughnut. Doctor Richards told him all about it in an effort at calming his anxieties.

            The Positron Emission Tomography scanner was made up of multiple rings of detectors that record the emission of energy from the radioactive substance in his body.

            The cushioned examination table was comfortable enough, just like last time. Then he started to sweat as it slid into the hole in the doughnut. Although he couldn’t see them, he knew that images were being displayed on the computer monitor as he lay there. Pictures of my brain, he thought.

            But was the tumour still there?

            This was the final test.

Three months ago, they’d run a PET scan and found the small abnormal shape, about the size of the hole in a doughnut. The cause of his headaches.

            ‘Sorry, Mr Santini,’ the Doctor Richards had said, ‘but due to the site of the tumour, it’s inoperable.’

            The fact of a tumour was bad enough, but to be told it couldn’t be removed was devastating. Alex’s head really ached then. They wouldn’t say how long he’d got. He could understand that. They could raise false hope or create premature despair if they were mistaken. When he got home, he radically changed his diet and drank lots of carrot juice. Over a few weeks, he purged all the toxins he’d fed into his body from coffee, tea and alcohol. Thoughts about closing stable doors crossed his mind but he dismissed them. He didn’t keep horses, anyway.

            Then for six weeks Alex meditated, picturing the unwanted cells that had gone astray, visualising the tumour shrinking, not growing and not spreading. Eating itself.

            The body is a remarkable creation, Alex thought, which is taken for granted until it malfunctions. It deserves to be taken care of, looked after. A balance, between the psychic and the physical aspects. A bit late in the day, he realised, but he devoutly believed that.

Now, as he waited for Doctor Richards to come out of his office with his diagnosis, Alex sat calmly sipping water from a bone china cup.

            The door opened and the doctor came through, a frown on his face.

Think positive, Alex told himself. ‘Well, doctor, is the tumour worse or not?’

            ‘What tumour, Mr Santini?’

            ‘Pardon?’ Alex said.

Doctor Richards shook his head. ‘Our PET and CT scans have diagnosed thousands of patients and we’ve helped almost all of them, saving their lives. You’re the first I’ve known where the tumour has simply gone away.’

            A massive wave of relief surged through Alex. ‘But you did save my life, doctor. If your PET machine hadn’t detected the tumour, I wouldn’t have been able to deal with it.’

            ‘Deal with it?’ Doctor Richards held his head to one side. ‘I don’t understand.’

            ‘I believe in mind over matter, doctor. Let’s be honest, we know that we only use a fraction of our brainpower. Just think, if we could utilise the unused portion, who knows what we’d be capable of accomplishing?’

            ‘But…’

Alex held up a hand to stall the doctor’s objections. ‘I know it isn’t taken seriously by scientists, but you have to agree that I’m living proof now that it can work.’ He smiled. ‘In fact, you could say that it’s become my pet project.’

***

Note: Since then it has been revealed that the urban myth that we only use 10% of our brains is a falsehood. That figure was probably plucked out of the air by early psychologists and subsequently made famous by Dale Carnegie’s 1936 self-help book, How to Win Friends and Influence People. It has been perpetuated by the self-improvement industry, since we all like to think we can better ourselves by expanding our minds. – Sources: Daily Mail/Barbara Sahaklan, Professor of clinical neuropsychology, University of Cambridge, and Sam Wang, a neuroscientist at Princeton University. Even so, individuals have been spontaneously cured of cancer and other ailments; maybe that’s positive thinking or mind over matter…

 

***

Tagged (above), copyright 2014, Nik Morton

My collection of crime tales, Spanish Eye, published by Crooked Cat, features 22 cases from Leon Cazador, private eye.  He is also featured in the story ‘Processionary Penitents’ in the Crooked Cat Collection, Crooked Cats’ Tales.

 

 

Spanish Eye, released by Crooked Cat Publishing is available as a paperback for £4.99 ($6.99) and much less for the e-book versions – UK or COM.

 

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Spanish-Eye-Nik-Morton/dp/1909841315/ref=tmm_pap_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1399383023&sr=1-4

 

http://www.amazon.com/Spanish-Eye-Nik-Morton/dp/1909841315/ref=tmm_pap_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1399382967&sr=1-5

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Spanish-Eye-Nik-Morton-ebook/dp/B00GXK5C6S/ref=sr_1_4?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1399383023&sr=1-4&keywords=nik+morton

http://www.amazon.com/Spanish-Eye-Nik-Morton-ebook/dp/B00GXK5C6S/ref=sr_1_5?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1399382967&sr=1-5&keywords=nik+morton

 

In the top 100 - #30 - many thanks!

It popped out of the Amazon co uk top 100 and now is back in again - so thanks again to all readers/writers who have purchased Write a western in 30 Days, which should prove helpful regardless of the genre you're drawn to write.

#30 in Kindle Store > Boo...ks > Education & Reference > Publishing & Books
#62 in Books > Reference > Publishing & Books > Authorship

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Write-Western-Days-Nik-Morton-ebook/dp/B00D6E3T6O/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1399123249&sr=1-1&keywords=nik+Morton

 

 

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).

 

 

Amazon.co.uk

http://goo.gl/RxRUHF

Amazon.com

http://goo.gl/XQC6cx

"Works both as master course and as a refresher course..."

There's a lovely review of my book at the Western Fictioneers blog by Jeremy L.C. Jones, here:
http://westernfictioneers.blogspot.com.es/2013/09/nik-mortons-write-western-in-30-days-by.html

Excerpts:
I wish Nik Morton had published Write a Western in 30 Days with Plenty of Bullet-Points (Compass Books, 2013) 20 years ago.
...

Oh, so here’s the beauty of Morton’s pistol-whip chapters.  He has a brilliant way of condensing a great deal of information into manageable junks without sacrificing clarity or content.  The resulting book works both as master course and as a refresher course...

Chapter seven is, I suspect, the heart of the book for most readers.  Morton, by this point, has referred to the “plot plan” enough that when you finally hit page 72 you feel as though you’ve finally arrived at, if not your destination, at least one heck of a fun way station... 

 
“Writing a novel is much easier if you have a plot to follow,” writes Morton.  “It doesn’t mean you’re in a rut.  The plot is a rough-and-ready road.  As the story progresses, you’ll find that characters will want to take the occasional more interesting byway.  Some writers let the characters wander off at a tangent and never rejoin the original plotted road; others are hard taskmasters and bring the character back in line after a fascinating diversion...
 
“A story is often about a character’s growth or change through adversity, which is brought about by facing obstacles and overcoming them,” he adds on the next page.  “Though sometimes unwelcome, change is inevitable in life; in fiction, change is vitally necessary.  The plot provides the means for the character to evolve.”

The plot plan, like life itself, is a “working document” and change is inevitable. 

 
The whole chapter is like that—one beautifully rich paragraph after another.
Part of the reason why I think my 23 year old version of myself would’ve loved this book even more than the 43 year old version does is that by about the third chapter, Morton makes it clear that he has thought of everything. ..

If Nik Morton taught a course based on this book I’d be the first to enroll and I’d sit up close. 

Thank you, Jeremy!

Jeremy L. C. Jones is a freelance writer, editor, and lecturer living in his wife's hometown in South Carolina. He teaches part-time at Wofford College, volunteers at the Carolina Poodle Rescue's dog sanctuary. The son of a son of a son of teachers, Jones is the founder of Living Words, a creative writing programs for seniors with dementia, and of Shared Worlds, a writing and world-building camp for teenagers. He is currently working on a series of stories for High Noon Press about a character created by one of his literary heroes, Frank Roderus.