Thursday 4 February 2010

The Writing Game


The past five days for me have illustrated that sitting here at my desk isn’t the single monotonous activity it may seem to be to an outsider. I haven’t even had time to experience life block (q.v.). The ongoing background activity finds me in the early 19th century reading about people such as Samuel Martin, a hatter in Aberdeen who was way ahead of the game when it came to advertising. In 1842 a competitor advertised ‘new patent washable beaver hats’ and almost immediately Sam was advertising his own ‘superior beaver hats which never require washing’. (That’s from Edward Ranson’s The Mad Hatter of Aberdeen.) Sam would have been all over Facebook and Twitter – he insisted that you should ‘never omit an opportunity of placing your name in printed characters before the world’.

Anyway, in order to earn some money I’ve had to switch away from that now and again to write a DVD about how to get stuff out of the hollow concrete legs of offshore platforms as part of the decommissioning process, another on the responsibilities of security personnel on ships' gangways, and a third on the awareness of the procedures and systems needed for gas testing where hydrocarbons are being produced. I know, I know – it’s really fun stuff and you’re all agog with excitement and tension now, wanting to know more about such fascinating topics. But I don’t want you to get over-excited and anyway, there are two more projects which are almost as interesting.

The first is with a local charity, the Aberdeen Safer Community Trust. Its aim is to make the city's streets safer, bring crime levels down, etc. Next month, they’re holding a fund-raising event called CSI Aberdeen. It involves people in groups of five combining to solve a mystery - it might be a murder or an accidental death. They get to study documents, interview witnesses and a forensic scientist, take and compare fingerprints, do experiments in a lab on substances and whatever else the scene of crime team produces. And they have to come up with a solution to the crime (if there is one) and/or an explanation of the death. The organisers asked me if I'd be interested in helping, so I've been creating the scenario and, in between the commercial stuff, I'm now writing briefs for witnesses, the scenario itself, notes to help the forensic chemists to decide what sort of experiments to devise, and a surprising number of other things.

I've never been to one of these murder mystery dinners so it's interesting to see how the process works from the inside. The writing is different in that I have to think very carefully about what to reveal and what to conceal. In a novel, I can control exactly when and how to drop in the clues for the reader, hint at motives, and so on. In this case, though, those taking part should really get the information they need from interviewing the witnesses but if they don't ask the right questions, they won't - and they'll probably feel cheated. It's a fascinating balancing act. And it occurred to me that, once the event’s over, it might be interesting to blog a version of it to see what conclusions you come to about the incident.

So I’m piecing that together but now there’s another, quite scary event coming up next week. I’ve been asked to go to a primary school and read one of my kids’ stories then talk to them/work with them to create another story or do something related to writing that might interest them. I’ll have 45-50 minutes with each of the 7 classes and it’s part of what the school calls a ‘literacy week’. I think it’s a great initiative and I’m actually looking forward to it. I won’t even mind if a 5 year old butts in as I’m reading my masterpiece to tell me it’s boring.

Meanwhile I think you should know that, although people say Hydrogen Sulphide smells like rotten eggs (and it does), in higher concentrations it destroys your sense of smell. That happens not long before it kills you. I just thought you should know.

15 comments:

  1. Mmmm, not long before it kills you...

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  2. What? Into that good night, Bill?

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  3. Exactly. Although I suppose you might want to send some of your characters there.

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  4. How DO you get stuff out of the hollow concrete legs of offshore platforms? Sounds exhausting.

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  5. Knowing your work Bill, I'm imagining your fellow Aberdeenians (is that a word?) going home from one of those murder mystery dinners with all sorts of interesting ways to die stuck in their heads.

    But I'm sure the city homicide rate won't go up. Not too much, anyway.

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  6. Always pleased to learn new stuff. I'll watch out for that hydrogen sulphide. And I'll know who to ask if I ever need to get stuff out of hollow concrete legs of offshore platforms - fascinating concept - wonder what you could hide there and how.

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  7. Samuel sounds like great fun!

    And we could have done with you as a writer on the last murder mystery night we went to. It was awful!

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  8. Maria (who, for those who don’t know her, is the author of Dorkismo, a very funny, entertaining and thought-provoking book), one day I may bore you with the possible answers to that question. For the moment, though, the focus is on how to get in to see if there’s anything there at all – and it’s all classified information …

    … so, Sheila, for the moment you can’t hide anything there – although, if you had a body you wanted to dispose of, that would be the ideal place. You’d have to get it in there just before they finished making it, so I suppose breaking into the construction yard at night, dropping it in, and spreading a bit of concrete slurry over it would be a good plan. No one would expect a corpse to be there, they’d seal the leg up and it would spend thirty–odd years on the sea bed, having all sorts of hydrocarbons and other things poured into it. Perfect.

    Gary, it warms my heart to know that you think I have the capacity to make people’s lives a little less pleasant. I hope the ABERDONIANS who attend the event agree with you.

    Fiona, yes I liked the sound of Samuel too. His ads were very inventive and others took their lead from him. As for the evening being awful, I’m relying on the forensic experts who’ll devise the experiments to breathe some realism and interest into it all. I’ll let you know how it goes.

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  9. Must say I like the idea of the CSI Aberdeen - they're lucky to have you involved, Bill. Good to see you escaped from your desk today!

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  10. Writing the murder mystery event's "script" sounds like a blast. Writing that other stuff sounds about as exciting as writing about insurance. But the $$ is lovely, isn't it?

    P.S. Too bad Sam Martin isn't still around; I'd like to add him to my staff at the insurance agency!

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  11. Catherine's play was definitely worth escaping for, Rosemary. Good to see you there.

    Linda, I knew the posting would strike a chord with you - and I agree about Sam.

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  12. What a wonderful and interesting life you have! So multi-faceted. I wish I could get in on one of those mystery dinners. Coincidentally, I was listening to a Charlaine Harris book on the route yesterday, the Real Murderers, where a club gathers each month to discuss old murder cases. During their meeting, a real murder is staged as a challenge to the group. Well, that won't happen but it's sure an interesting interactive twist, eh?
    Be sure to update us on all of your activities.

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  13. Well, whatever excitement real or imagined murders generate, I can't imagine they approached anything like the levels of frenzy there must have been chez toi, Marley, around 3 a m our time today when that final Colts drive came to nothing. You see, it was worth me abusing that fridge magnet on your behalf,

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  14. That might have made the difference, Bill! Thanks. It's a great feeling. They deserve it.

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