Son of Questionnaire

More soul baring from some of my Pfoxmoor colleagues: Maria Kuroshchepova, R B Wood, Greta van der Rol, Heikki Hietala, Michael Pollack, Gev Sweeney andSessha Batto.

If such a choice were possible and meaningful, would you prefer to live in a real or a virtual world? Why?

(MK) Real world never ceases to amaze me, but Andre Norton’s Witchworld and John Booth’s spellbinder universe both sound like places I’d love to live at, despite the dangers.

(RBW) I prefer the real world. So many experiences and challenges come up during the normal course of life—provides an author with a veritable cornucopia of writing material!

(GvdR) Real. Because virtual worlds smack of ‘The Matrix’. You can’t have a virtual world that is not controlled by some computer program. That’s scary and creepy. Mind you, a virtual world would be nice in some ways. Safe sex, for instance, with a male of one’s choice. (stop it) And flying on dragons and such.

(HH) Real, but augmented with a dash of virtuality in it. For example, the game Second Life would be very much fun if it had an immersive gaming experience, so that one could really feel the touch of someone else, or knock his head on the table after one beer too many.

(MP) Real world. When I was a kid I put two quarters in a soda vending machine just as some drunken jackass stumbled behind it and tripped over its power cord, unplugging it. No apology. No refund. No soda. The real world may be full of careless people, but at least it can’t be unplugged by one.

(GS) Real. I prefer the unpredictability, variety and adventure of the unknown.

(SB) I’m a pragmatist, the real world with all its ups and downs is just fine by me. I get nervous if everything goes my way too often.


You have permission to paint a celebrity in a colour of your choosing. That doesn’t mean you make a portrait, you actually get to cover them in paint. Tell us which celebrity, what colour, and why?

(MK) Angelina Jolie - paint the full Lara Croft costume onto her: black t-shirt, shorts and boots, because she absolutely nailed that role. I realize that she has since grown above and beyond the action flick chick, but I still love that image of her.

(RBW) Angelina Jolie. A very pale white or flesh tone. Because in the grand scheme of things, that’s really the color of her importance in life.

(GvdR) I’d paint our current prime minister bright green.  Does she count as a celebrity? A legend in her own tea break? (Greta lives in Australia – ed.)

(HH) I would be very happy to issue a nice, even, and utterly non-transparent cover of dull grey paint over Lady Gaga as she stood against a hangar at Boeing Aircraft Co. Just so that she wouldn’t stand out for a moment.

(MP) Kirsten Dunst in Medium Blue Quasar metallic (the color of my first car). That would be just perfect. (Kirsten Dunst features in 3 of Michael’s 11 answers. Just saying.- ed.)

(GS) .Queen Liz. Yellow. I think she enjoys a good laugh and would love to break loose, just once, in public.

(SB) Mmmmm, Jet Li because he has an extremely shapely behind. Colour doesn’t matter because, as you might have guessed, I just want to look at his naked ass!

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Return of the Questionnaire

For a change, the next few blogs will be coming thick and fast. That’s because they’re not written by me but by more respondents to…

(Psycho shower scene sound FX)

… The Questionnaire

(Extended scream).

When I started this blog, it was because people who knew told me that writers had to have this sort of online presence (well, maybe not THIS sort, but some sort). And it’s true that it’s got me some readers (as well as friends) I wouldn’t otherwise have had. (And, by the way, I do think some online friendships are real. There are, of course, those which mainly pay lip service to the idea of friendship, but others are the genuine article.)

It also brought me into contact with Diane Nelson, who is definitely a friend but now also, thanks to her energy, enthusiasm and willingness to respond to a challenge and take risks, my publisher. This year, with surprising speed, she’s set up Pfoxmoor Publishing  and gathered a highly talented team of writers who are producing books and stories across several genres.

I don’t want to name names or turn this into a promotional handout so, if you want to know who these writers are and what they’ve produced, just check via the link. Very quickly, we’ve blended into a group of mutually supportive friends as Diane and others have slaved away reading, editing, formatting and submitting manuscripts to various electronic outlets and printers. But you see how, even when all I’m doing is relating the facts of this enterprise, I’m beginning to sound like every other spin doctor and the language starts to seem artificial.

So, instead of presenting you with soft-focus shots of dreamy-looking artists gazing into the distance as their muses drift around them, I invited some of them to answer the questionnaire I set recently. The reason was that, despite the fact that it was designed as a bit of fun, an absurd parody of an interview, it turned out to be quite revealing and slyly drew people out of their comfort zone – or at least into areas other than ‘Where do you get your ideas from?’.

So, the next five blogs will lay bare the secrets of seven of the Pfoxmoor stable. They are: Maria Kuroshchepova, R B Wood, Greta van der Rol, Heikki Hietala, Michael Pollack, Gev Sweeney and Sessha Batto.

And their starter for ten was: What music would you play through loudspeakers at night outside the house of someone you disliked intensely?

(MK) Anything by Gustav Mahler, whose music I dislike just a little bit less than the only person in my life I’ve ever hated.

(RBW) A compilation of 70’s and 80’s commercial jingles. 

(GvdR) Tammy Wynette’s “Stand by Your Man”. I wrote that without even a  moment’s hesitation.
(HH) Ah- you’d not know this, but it’s a song by a Finnish artist, Ismo Alanko, and the name of the song is (very loosely translated) “Fuck how fucked I feel”. The net result would be well worth watching.
(MP) Something I hate, like 80’s glamor hair metal bands. That garbage.

(GS)  The soundtrack I composed for an indie film.  Haha, ask Diane. She’s heard it … :P

(SB) Bagpipes. I love them, but they can wake the dead, no matter how much you crank up other music it doesn’t drown them out ;) Of course, I have to say now that a steel drum band school moved in next door to my house, ANY music played continuously and repetitively will drive you certifiably insane in a very short time.

And, in the best Hollywood tradition, coming very soon:

Son of Questionnaire

Daughter of Questionnaire

Second cousin of Questionnaire by marriage

Bloke who knew Questionnaire slightly when they were students together.

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Dib Gringe

Let me tell you about Dib Gringe.

It’s not a small, eerie village, with cowed residents slinking about, fearful of what new horrors may be inflicted on them by their evil landlord from his dank castle on the hill overlooking the swamp on which the village was built.

It’s not the swamp itself, some modern equivalent of Conan Doyle’s wonderful Grimpen Mire, into which strangers have wandered to disappear with a gurgled scream, only to reappear at Halloween with dripping rags of flesh still clinging to their skeletal forms, moaning their souls’ agony into the echoing night.

Nor is it a wasting disease with a much more impressive Latin name but with symptoms too nauseous to describe, brought back from the southern ocean in the late 1700s by the crew of Captain Cook’s barque Endeavour and transmitted to the inhabitants of the brothels of British ports and from them on to the towns’ residents.

No, Dib Gringe is not an ‘it’, he’s a ‘him’.

He was born just before breakfast in a bedroom only a few minutes walk from Scotland’s national stadium, Hampden Park. In fact, Dib, as he lets me call him, came into being some five minutes after his mother. There were no midwives, nurses or obstetricians present – just me and my six year old grandson. And the bed was mine – at least for the duration of my stay with him and his 11 year old brother.

Mrs Gringe came about as part of a story we were telling together. She has no husband; Gringe is the name of her own family and her given name is Mrs. I know little more about her because, as I said, Dib arrived a few minutes later and immediately, like all children, became the centre of attention. He was, however, not like other children. When he was born, he was already six years old, six feet two inches tall and an accomplished basketball player. He wore soft leather trousers, no underpants, and a top made of seaweed. (The soft leather was a somewhat disturbing revelation but one which, fortunately, we didn’t explore further.)

We were called to breakfast and Dib was left to his own devices but, periodically, during the day, my grandson reminded me of him and asked questions about his habits, many of which were grotesque distortions of his own interests and activities. I think he began to identify with him and suspect that I was compiling his own biography.

In the evening, the whole family – Mum, Dad, two sons and me – went to a local restaurant. And Dib was there. Not in person, of course, but once we started talking about the sort of food he preferred (don’t ask), the questions started coming again and my grandson began to insist that Dib didn’t exist, that he was simply a figment of my (and his own) imagination. I protested, of course. (All my creations are real to me.) I took a call from Dib on my mobile but he rang off before I had a chance to pass the phone to my grandson. I must confess to being a little surprised when I did, in reality, get a text message from him just a minute or so later. It read:

‘Hi Dr Kirton. Dib here. Hope you’re having a nice meal. Wish I was there. Give my love to everybody.’

I showed it to my grandson, who remained relatively unimpressed. (Rightly so, of course, because it had been sent by my daughter from the other side of the table.)

Then, as I was telling him about Dib’s FaceBook page and debating with myself whether I should set up an email account in Dib’s name, I started wondering whether I’d gone too far. My grandson’s scepticism was refreshing, his hold on reality secure, and yet he wanted to believe – no, not believe, pretend to believe – that there was such a being as Dib Gringe. Kids are so open and receptive, not yet indoctrinated with the idea that everything is explicable. Their ‘normality’ is much wider than ours. (A granddaughter once asked my wife whether she’d seen Stanley, the fairy who lives under the dripping tap in our bedroom.) Kids are also quite trustful and if we’re insistent that fictions are real, they want to accept them as such. That’s fine for a while, with Santa, fairies, and the disappearing coins which then materialise behind their ears, but if they start trying to convince less imaginative friends in the playground that the 3 inch tall fairy who lives in Aberdeen and the six feet two six year old basketball player in soft leather are real, they may find themselves in trouble.

So Dib Gringe has now retired. But I bet he reappears when I’m next in Glasgow.

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Paragraphs Regained

If I’d been clever enough to think of the title ‘Paragraphs Lost’ for the previous posting, putting the two titles together would have shown how brilliant and cultured I am. As it is, I didn’t, so you’ll just have to take my word for it.

Anyway, whatever its title, the said posting obviously turned out to be considerably less than gripping. That shouldn’t have surprised me. I drone on so often about absurdity being the norm that I should acknowledge that all attempts to impose structure imply meaning and so, by definition, are futile. Before we leave it, however, here’s the ‘correct’ version and some quick thoughts on why I still think it’s a valid exercise.

By ‘correct’, I mean the paragraph in its original form, which means that it’s ‘correct’ for what we wanted it to say rather than being the only possible version. Anyway, the number sequence is 7, 10, 8, 6, 1, 3, 2, 9, 4, 5, which gives you the following paragraph:

Propaganda is seen by some as a necessary evil but by others as just lies. Writers use language to expose the hypocrisy of politicians. The fact that they see themselves as having a higher goal still does not separate them from those they seek to criticize. Politicians use language to manipulate people. But the writer is just as guilty of manipulation. He has an agenda, he shapes his words to create a specific effect and, as a result, he is responsible for distorting the vision of his reader. He claims that his aims are those of society. The politicians say exactly the same thing. It would seem, therefore, that words are dangerous, whoever is using them. Language is a very powerful tool.

The specific ‘clues’ to the ‘correct’ sequencing are:

• If there’s a plural noun or pronoun – ‘writers’, ‘they’ – it can’t be followed by a sentence referring to the same set of people in the singular. (Politicians use language to manipulate people. He has an agenda.) And vice versa (The writer is just as guilty. The fact that they see themselves as having a higher goal…)
• Stylistically, repeating a word in successive sentences is awkward. (Language is a very powerful tool. Politicians use language to manipulate people.) This would obviously be better if the second occurrence was replaced by ‘it’ and the two sentences were made into one and separated by a semi-colon.

But the real object of the exercise was to suggest that, just as a novel or chapter is structured for maximum impact (you hope), so paragraphs and sentences need just as much in the way of shaping. The essence of the ‘test’ is to focus on how each sentence links with the one before it and prepares for the one after it.

Technically, a paragraph should deal with one major point. If the emphasis changes, you need to start a new one. The opening sentence establishes the theme, those which follow develop it in more detail and, you hope, lead to a powerful concluding sentence. It should do two things:

1. Present thoughts in a logical sequence
2. Link them smoothly to make your argument/narrative coherent.

If anything in a paragraph makes you lose your way or wonder what’s being referred to, it’s failed. Surprises are fine when they’re effects designed deliberately to disorientate the reader, but not when they’re the result of  lack of clarity or stylistic ugliness.

So there, and after all that, just think yourselves lucky you don’t live in Aberdeen because I’m giving two workshops there next month on creative writing and I may well do more of this sort of thing with them. But, for now, I’m going to slip out of this teacher mode and into something more comfortable. Maybe a chiffon negligee, or perhaps the story of how my weekend visit to grandsons in Glasgow added to the population of Italy a six feet two inch 6-year-old called Dib Grinch who plays basketball and sleeps upright in a cupboard.

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The paragraph assembly line

I intended to write a blog about the importance of rhythms in both poetry and prose but time is pressing as usual and I need to find some good examples before I start. So this is another cop-out blog. Having just subjected you to an exercise that has probably lost me several followers, I'm going to do it again. No, the idea isn't to alienate everybody so that I can close down the blog, but some of you said you liked it, so I'm risking another one. Like the first, it's adapted from Just Write, the book I co-wrote with my friend and colleague Kathleen MacMillan and I think it's less likely than the previous one to hurt heads, sting your eyes, induce lethargy and make euthanasia seem attractive, etc. .

It's also shorter than the last one and it's writing-connected, so that's my excuse. Anyway, we wrote a paragraph which made sense, then broke it apart and listed its sentences in alphabetical order according to the initial letter of the first word in each. All you have to do this time is put them back in the right order to restore the original paragraph. I've numbered the sentences so you don't need to write them all out. If you want to make a comment you can restrict yourself to jotting down a numerical sequence that works for you. I haven't tested it to see if it's possible to produce variations of the original which still make sense and are grammatically and stylistically coherent. There may be more than one; I don't know.

So, here's the paragraph:

But the writer is just as guilty of manipulation. He claims that his aims are those of society. He has an agenda, he shapes his words to create a specific effect and, as a result, he is responsible for distorting the vision of his reader. It would seem, therefore, that words are dangerous, whoever is using them. Language is a very powerful tool. Politicians use language to manipulate people. Propaganda is seen by some as a necessary evil but by others as just lies. The fact that they see themselves as having a higher goal still does not separate them from those they seek to criticize. The politicians say exactly the same thing. Writers use language to expose the hypocrisy of politicians.

And here's the same sequence, with the sentences numbered:

1. But the writer is just as guilty of manipulation.
2. He claims that his aims are those of society.
3. He has an agenda, he shapes his words to create a specific effect and, as a result, he is responsible for distorting the vision of his reader.
4. It would seem, therefore, that words are dangerous, whoever is using them.
5. Language is a very powerful tool.
6. Politicians use language to manipulate people.
7. Propaganda is seen by some as a necessary evil but by others as just lies.
8. The fact that they see themselves as having a higher goal still does not separate them from those they seek to criticize.
9. The politicians say exactly the same thing.
10. Writers use language to expose the hypocrisy of politicians.

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All is revealed

This time, the illustration shows the book I co-wrote with a friend. It has lots of examples of the sort of things I've highlighted in the awful passage I concocted for the last posting. And here’s the passage again, with the mistakes highlighted and ‘explained’ – some obvious, some less so.

Health issues in humans have always been compared with animals in the wild[1] and the balance between activity and reward, in the way of nutrition, is a vital part of the equation. It was those factors that’s[2] behind the establishment of the fitness and health survey of January 2011. As a consequence of collecting data from various social groups on their eating habits and the amount of exercise they do each week, and taking age and other fitness-related factors into account.[3] Researchers got a clearer picture of the overall population’s general attitudes to health. Less[4] people said they feel[5] satisfied with their skill sets and general fitness levels. The amount[6] of middle-aged women joining health clubs has almost doubled and much[7] of the current research projects are showing unexpected results. There’s less obesity and less[8] sweets and chocolates on the average shopping list. If we keep on seeing that much[9] more changes are being made, we’ll all need to look again at what we mean by ‘normal’. The leader of the research team, not being really sure of how effective their results would be in persuading groups and individuals in all the towns which had taken part in the survey to change their eating habits, were[10] ready to repeat the process across a wider area. Her team was[11] preparing to send out the questionnaires and, indeed, were[12] already drawing up lists of target groups. The person that[13] represented their sponsors was satisfied that the findings of the researchers were more reliable indicators of the current state of affairs than the leader of the town council[14] and the sponsors themselves were convinced that their products would soon eliminate variations in obesity levels, age-related survival rates and increasing the use of health facilities[15] by a wider range of people. Speaking at[16] the launch of the report, it was obvious that their financial director was prepared to invest even more in the project. ‘Between you and I,’[17] he told the team leader, ‘I think it’s fair to assume that your contract will certainly be extended for another year and perhaps even beyond that.’ However, none of the team were[18] surprised by his words. They knew they’d done a good job. The general consensus of opinion[19] was that thorough preparations, careful cross-checking, and a meticulous observation of research etiquette always leads[20] to client satisfaction

Don't worry, we'll get back to normal human trivial absurd things next time.

---

[1] False comparison – ‘health issues’ with ‘animals’. The correct version would be ‘compared with those of animals in the wild’.

[2] Plural subject needs a plural verb ‘Those factors that were’

[3] This isn’t a sentence. It doesn’t have a verb in it. Change the full stop after ‘account’ to a comma and ‘Researchers’ to ‘researchers’.

[4] ‘Fewer’ for things you can count, ‘less’ for things you can’t – ‘fewer people’ but ‘less obesity’.

[5] ‘said’ is past tense, so this should be too – ‘felt’.

[6] ‘Number’ for things you can count, ‘amount’ for things you can’t – ‘number of women’ but ‘amount of exercise’.

[7] ‘Many’ for things you can count, ‘much’ for things you can’t – ‘many more changes’ but ‘much more success’.

[8] See 4 above.

[9] See 4 above.

[10] The subject of this verb is ‘The leader of the research team’ so it should be singular ‘was’.

[11] See 12 below.

[12] These verbs both have the same subject ‘Her team’ should they should both be either singular or plural.

[13] If it’s a person, the pronoun should be ‘who’.

[14] False comparison as in 1 above.

[15] This is similar to the comparison errors. All the things that ‘variations in’ covers should be the same part of speech. Here, the first two are nouns – ‘obesity levels’ and ‘survival rates’ but the third is a verb. The correct version would end with ‘increases in the use of health facilities’ – another noun.

[16] This is called an unrelated (or hanging) participle. It’s a common fault. When you start a sentence with a participle (in this case, ‘speaking’), it must relate to the subject of the sentence. So this should be ‘Speaking at the launch of the report, their financial director made it obvious that he was prepared… etc.’

[17] Very, very common fault. ‘Between you and me’ is the correct form. You wouldn’t say ‘he was standing behind I’, would you? If it’s governed by a preposition, it’s always ‘me’.

[18] Another common error. Expressions such as ‘neither of them’, ‘none of them’, each of them’, etc. are singular so the verb should be singular, too – ‘none of the team was’. (That’s the correct form but, as Gilly said, it sounds wrong.)

[19] ‘Consensus’ means ‘general or widespread agreement’, so there’s no need for ‘general’ or ‘of opinion’ – ‘The consensus was that…’ is enough.

[20] This verb has a plural subject – ‘preparations… cross-checking… observation’ so it should be ‘lead’.

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Your starter for 20

(The picture has nothing to do with what follows. It's just the latest of Sessha Batto's brilliant cover designs for my books - this one for the new Pfoxchase edition of The Darkness, which is available on Smashwords now. I'll write more about it soon.)

OK then, a little piece of anal retention this week. I’ve often spoken of how some writers don’t actually respect the tools of our trade. It’s OK to break grammatical and other linguistic rules AS LONG AS YOU KNOW WHAT THEY ARE. But far too many stories, not to mention newspaper articles by people (and their sub-editors) who should definitely know better, are littered with careless errors. Most respectable agents and reviewers stress the need to make sure your copy’s been thoroughly checked before you submit it. Sending stuff that’s grammatically crude, mis-spelled and the rest is the equivalent of submitting a manuscript with coffee stains on every other page.

But some errors occur so frequently that they somehow go unnoticed. That’s why I’m offering this as a wee game. I wrote the next paragraph to illustrate some of them. As (or if) you read it, you’ll sense how ugly it is but, rather than analyse its style, I’m suggesting you identify the mistakes. There are at least 20 of them. I say ‘at least’ because typos have a way of creeping through so there may still be more than I realise. If so, my preaching is worthless and I’ll be hoist with my own petard. I’m not expecting you to write long comments about what you’ve found but it would be nice to know that you’ve had a look at it. If anyone’s interested, I’ll identify them in a future blog. (Who said I can’t do cliff-hangers?) So here it is.

Health issues in humans have always been compared with animals in the wild and the balance between activity and reward, in the way of nutrition, is a vital part of the equation. It was those factors that’s behind the establishment of the fitness and health survey of January 2011. As a consequence of collecting data from various social groups on their eating habits and the amount of exercise they do each week, and taking age and other fitness-related factors into account. Researchers got a clearer picture of the overall population’s general attitudes to health. Less people said they feel satisfied with their skill sets and general fitness levels. The amount of middle-aged women joining health clubs has almost doubled and much of the current research projects are showing unexpected results. There’s less obesity and less sweets and chocolates on the average shopping list. If we keep on seeing that much more changes are being made, we’ll all need to look again at what we mean by ‘normal’. The leader of the research team, not being really sure of how effective their results would be in persuading groups and individuals in all the towns which had taken part in the survey to change their eating habits, were ready to repeat the process across a wider area. Her team was preparing to send out the questionnaires and, indeed, were already drawing up lists of target groups. The person that represented their sponsors was satisfied that the findings of the researchers were more reliable indicators of the current state of affairs than the leader of the town council and the sponsors themselves were convinced that their products would soon eliminate variations in obesity levels, age-related survival rates and increasing the use of health facilities by a wider range of people. Speaking at the launch of the report, it was obvious that their financial director was prepared to invest even more in the project. ‘Between you and I,’ he told the team leader, ‘I think it’s fair to assume that your contract will certainly be extended for another year and perhaps even beyond that.’ However, none of the team were surprised by his words. They knew they’d done a good job. The general consensus of opinion was that thorough preparations, careful cross-checking, and a meticulous observation of research etiquette always leads to client satisfaction.

(God, that was awful.)

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