Joanne Harris's Blog, page 2

Has anyone ever told you - a parent, a teacher, even someone online, mistakenly trying to “educate” you into “better reading habits” - that what you’re reading is second-rate, and that you should be reading Dickens instead of Harry Potter?

Ever wondered what to say in defence of your “guilty pleasures”?

Well, Dickens was a product of his time. He wrote in the language of his time. If he were alive today, he would write in the language of our time. So.. what would he sound like?

It seems to me that one way to find out is to look at his contemporaries, and compare what they thought with some of the similar things written by modern critics.

G.H. Lewes: on Dickens, in 1872: “ We do not turn over the pages in search of thought, delicate psychological observation, grace of style, charm of composition; but we enjoy them like children at play, laughing and crying at the images before us.”

So, to his contemporaries, Dickens was at best a guilty pleasure, enjoyable, but to be read for fun, not education.

George Eliot wasn’t a fan, thinking him superficial and psychologically shallow. “He scarcely ever passes from the humourous and external to the emotional and tragic, without becoming as transcendent in his unreality as he was a moment before in his artistic truthfulness.”

Charlotte Bronte didn’t have much time for him either. She thought he was sentimental, trivial, his characters more caricatures than real people. She says: “It seems to me too often weak and twaddling – an amiable nature is caricatured – not faithfully rendered.”

And yet he was immensely popular with the readers, a hugely best-selling author with a passionate fan-base who followed everything he did with adoring attention to detail.

Remind you of anyone yet, huh?

These are rather more recent reviews of one of our current literary superstars.

The Guardian: 2000. “What I do object to is a pedestrian, ungrammatical prose style which has left me with a headache and a sense of a wasted opportunity. Rowling’s characters, unlike life’s, are all black-and-white. Her story-lines are predictable, the suspense minimal, the sentimentality cloying every page.”

The Independent: 2012. "Her writing, which can be long-winded and laborious in the clunkily satirical set-pieces, picks up passion and even magic…”

The Sunday Book review, 20012. “The novel is... crammed with scenes and set pieces that demonstrate Rowling's superlative powers of observation: the subtle ways a wife can exact revenge on a husband, the visceral ­urges that drive adolescent lust. At times, though, … firmer control over the material might have prevented Pagford’s inhabitants from being turned into a gallery of grotesques, with every character carrying a label: wife beater, drug addict, alcoholic, snob, gossip, fantasist and so on.

Conclusion? If Dickens were writing today, he’d probably sound a hell of a lot more like J.K. Rowling than the latest Booker Prizewinner.

Take a moment.

My pleasure, kids.

Following the unexpected global response to my #TenThingsNotToSayToAWriter hashtag yesterday, I found myself involved in an equally interesting debate about what constitutes being a writer, and who exactly should be allowed to refer to themselves as such. The massive response to my hashtag suggests that there are many, many writers out there. Not all of them are published; not all of them want to be published. Some of them asked me if it was okay to think of themselves as writers if they’d never been published. Somebody even came to me and complained that I was encouraging amateur writers in delusions of grandeur.
This got me thinking about what it means to be a writer, and more specifically, what it means to be an amateur writer, as opposed to a professional. This was what I concluded.
If you write, then you are a writer. Some people need to give themselves permission to do the things they secretly want to do. There’s only one real difference between a writer and a non-writer. A writer writes. So first of all; write.
However, there’s a difference between coming out to yourself as a writer, and declaring it to the rest of the world. You may enjoy amateur dramatics, but you probably wouldn’t go to a showbiz party and tell people you’re an actress. You may be good at baking, and yet you wouldn’t claim to be a baker. So, how do you describe yourself if you’re not a professional?
I think it’s really time we reclaimed the much-maligned word “amateur.” It’s a French word, meaning “a lover of”, and for years it was worn as a badge of pride. Until recently, amateur sportsmen had a far greater status than professionals. Why? Because they had a choice. They were independent; free to indulge their passion for sport without having to answer to anyone.
Amateur status is not a comment on the quality of the work, or the effort that goes into it. Some amateurs are at least as talented and hard-working as professionals, if not more so. And in writing, as in sport, every professional starts off by being an amateur.
Basically, amateurs work for love; professionals work for money. And yes, some professionals love their job. But amateurs are willing to give up their time and to devote their energies freely to doing the thing they love the most. Amateurs work on passion alone, without having to make any concessions to the needs of bosses or the market. Amateurs have no timetable; they are not bound by rules or financial constraints. To be an amateur is to enjoy the art, or sport, or pastime, in its purest form, without any outside interference.
In fact, in some ways, to be a professional is less rewarding than retaining amateur status. It means having to give up independence, to give in to market forces, to submit to direction from others – even when you think those people don’t have your best interests at heart. It means accepting the fact that, to the people for whom you work, you will be a commodity, making money for the company, sometimes at the cost of pursuing your own ideas. You will no longer be free to write whatever you like, regardless of its marketability. Your work – your passion - will be at the mercy of bean-counters and market researchers.
It took me a long time to decide to give up my amateur status. I’d already had three books published by then, but although I’d been paid an advance for them, writing wasn’t my main source of income. At the time, I wasn’t sure if I ever wanted it to be. I think I was afraid of losing my independence and my joy in the work. Eventually, I took the step, and although I don’t regret it, I sometimes miss being able to do whatever I wanted to do, without answering to anyone.
So, let’s hear it for the amateurs. Be proud of your independence, your passion and your creativity. Just because you’re not being paid doesn’t mean you’re any less smart, appreciated or talented. Any job can earn money. (Besides, even professional writers are generally poorly-paid.) But it’s a rare and precious thing to find work that satisfies heart and soul. So if you love it, do it. Your devotion to the work matters more than the pay-check. That’s what makes you a writer; not the money you have in the bank, or what you tell people at parties. Be proud of what you have achieved – whether it’s for public consumption or something intensely private - and rejoice in your amateur status. You may not be getting paid, but you have something the professionals don’t. Enjoy it; appreciate it; learn from it. And don’t let anyone tell you that just because you’re not getting paid, the job isn’t paying you rewards. It is. So do it for love, first and foremost. And if one day you end up also doing it for money, then fine. But never, never stop working for love. And never sneer at those who do.

The Age of Reason is a term generally used to refer to one of two concepts. First, the rise of our society from out of the Dark Ages of superstition, ignorance and religious oppression: and two, the age at which a young child learns to process and articulate the difference between reality and dream.
A child who announces that he has seen fairies in his garden is treated with amused indulgence and praised for being imaginative: an adult doing the same thing is assumed to be a liar or more likely, mentally ill.
How can we justify this shift in attitude? An imaginative child is generally perceived as an intelligent child. As educators and parents, we try to encourage our children to think imaginatively. We read them fairy stories. We tell them little fictions about Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy. We encourage them to play role-playing games, in which they assume the identities of fictional characters; princes; knights; superheroes; animals. These things are all designed to develop the imagination – and then comes the age of reason, at which point the adult world begins to deliver a wholly conflicting message: that none of that matters any more, and that at a certain age, children should put aside childish things and concentrate on the real world.
Here we have perfect illustration of the modern era’s division between reason and imagination. Reason, we are led to believe, is what can be proved through logic. Reason is the enemy of dreams and wishful thinking. Reason is science – a word that translates, etymologically, as what we know – whereas imagination is what we create for ourselves in our minds, with no apparent connection between the fictional world and the real one. The Age of Reason is therefore the age at which intelligence – the function of the brain’s capacity to rationalize and process information - is valued and trusted more highly than its dream potential.
At last year’s Cheltenham Festival, Richard Dawkins made the following comment on the subject of fairy stories; that it is “... pernicious to inculcate into a child a view of the world which includes supernaturalism – we get enough of that anyway.”
His words imply a belief that telling fairy stories is not only dangerous, in that it encourages children to believe in impossible things, but that these fictions act as a means of training them to embrace the larger fictions of superstition and religion – areas still governed by the dark half of the human brain, as yet unenlightened by reason.
To Dawkins, it seems that fairy stories and the Dark Ages have a lot in common. They are the natural enemies of reason, logic and science. They represent a backward time in the evolution of Man, in which people were governed by irrational fears and emotions rather than the evidence of their senses. Pernicious supernaturalism is the enemy of progress: it has led some of the cruellest and most destructive phases in human history; it has been responsible for the destruction of most of humanity’s literature, sculpture and artwork.
And yet, the greatest achievements of Man have come from that dark half of the brain that looks at things previously deemed impossible – electricity; space flight; social equality; men on the moon - and brings them, kicking and screaming, into the world of here and now.
How can we reconcile the two? Can living in a dream world ever help us in real life?
Can irrational thinking be a creative, progressive force? Can the constraints of the fairytale help us to be truly free?
I think they can. But first we need to look at the role of those fairy stories, and their purpose in a rational world. Why do we tell stories? Why are so many of them set in fantasy worlds, where physics and magic collide, and where races of imaginary beings battle fearsome monsters? Is it because our own world has become too much to bear that we feel the need to escape into another reality?
This is the argument laid out by those who mistrust fantasy; who feel that irrational thinking is backward, primitive thinking. I disagree – not least because of our shared human history of inspired, imaginative thinkers and dreamers, who dared to embrace possibilities that had not yet been conceived of.
Because imagination is not about escaping from reality. It is the art of the possible. It teaches curiosity and flexibility of thought – both essential to the process of scientific discovery. And stories, - even fairy stories; perhaps especially fairy stories - teach us to look behind fiction and see the truth that it conceals. Picasso said that anything that can be imagined is real. Thus, fictional worlds, even the most fantastic, are merely reflections of our own world, glimpsed through a distorting lens.
So where do you get your ideas from?
It’s the question every artists dreads. We try to get round it in various ways, by making jokes (my standard response tends to be; “Goblins bring them during the night”), but actually the answer is this: They come from somewhere in my brain.
But the brain, for all its mysteries, isn’t a Magic Eight-Ball. It’s an organ that enables us to process what we experience. Everything we see and hear; everything we suffer; everything that brings us joy is filtered through memory and imagination to create a personal narrative that reflects our world and the things we think are important. Writers shape these narratives into stories for other people to read; an expression of our shared experience and humanity.
Some of these stories are metaphors, peopled with dragons and monsters and gods. But sometimes it’s easier to express our deepest fears and concerns through metaphor. Feelings are inarticulate. This doesn’t make them any less real. And sometimes the reality of our deepest thoughts and fears can only be accessed through story, and conquered by the imagination.
That’s why the original fairy stories by Perrault and the Brothers Grimm were so unflinchingly bleak and challenging. In these stories, children die, are abandoned, are victims of incest and abuse; love is often cruel; good does not always triumph over evil. In spite of the trappings of fiction, it represents a portrait of a world dominated by cruelty, unhappiness, war, disease and poverty. Magic, witches and unicorns aside, it’s a far from fanciful portrait. It is a view of reality, filtered through a lens of hope; hope that love can save us; that monsters can be defeated; hope that magic may exist – the power to change our destiny.
Nowadays, these stories have been sweetened and adapted. Disney has much to answer for. And yet, our world is no less bleak, with its nuclear weapons, world wars and terrorist organizations. The monsters of myth and fairy tale have different faces nowadays, faces that some of us would rather not see. But stories sometimes allow us, not only to expose those monsters, but to show us ways of fighting against them and defeating them in real life. Through a glass darkly, stories reflect our world and the monsters it contains. To limit the darkness in stories is to take away the very thing that gives us the power to fight back against cruelty; racism; prejudice; fear.
As a society, we claim to value Reason in all its forms. And yet, we are governed primarily by Unreason: by instinct; by all the inarticulate, buried emotions that dictate our movements and deeds. People like Richard Dawkins believe that by suppressing these emotions and by embracing Reality, we will as a species reach the Age of Reason, leaving the messy, irrational part of our psychological makeup behind.
I believe that to dismiss the power of the irrational mind is the sign of a person in denial of what it means to be human. Feelings are inarticulate, yes. They sometimes emerge in surprising ways. Feelings are unpredictable, awkward and irrational. But like it or not, this irrational part of the mind is also an integral part of the engine that drives it; the creative imagination that overcomes all obstacles in its attempt to fulfil its dream – be that an end to slavery; travel to another world or simply the dream of true love – in the course of its personal narrative.
And stories are the language of this buried world of emotions. By understanding and accepting them, we can learn to harness and use the power of imagination – a power so great that, in stories, it often translates as magic.
But magic is just a metaphor for the power of the mind. The words we associate and use with fairytale magic are also the words that we associate with certain human qualities. Glamour. Charisma. Charm. Enchantment. Qualities which, far from being supernatural, imaginary or irrelevant, inspire the devotion of others, and lead to the great imaginative leaps that created our civilization.
There’s no such thing as a fantasy world. There’s no such thing as supernaturalism. There is only the lens of the human imagination, powered by human intelligence, levelled at reality to enable us see the world as it is, as a changing, filled with possibilities.
So - read stories to your children. Read stories to each other. Imagine worlds. Feel feelings. That’s what it means to be human. Don’t be afraid of unreason, or magic, or fairies, or darkness.
Intelligence is the vehicle. Imagination is the road. Where it leads is up to you. Just enjoy the journey.

Any woman in the book business will have encountered prejudice. Whether it’s being told by a stranger that he “doesn’t read books by women” (This happens to me regularly, including at publishing parties); or having your literary love story referred to by critics as “chick-lit”; or being paid less for public appearances than men whose books command a fraction of your own sales; or visiting a mixed school to find only girls in your audience; or being patronized and heckled by a male panellist at a convention; (or, indeed, being groped by said panellist, later, at the post-show bash) - sexism happens to all of us. We’re used to it. We have to be. And yet, we still continue to hope that some day, we will see a change…

In this piece in the Guardian today, Peter Stothard, the editor of the TLS, expresses his satisfaction that the ratio of women reviewers to men is on the increase.

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015...

Hmm.

I’m not sure that a ratio of 327 women to 712 men is really cause for celebration.The fact that it seems to count as actual progress in the eyes of such as Stothard is particularly depressing, though not entirely surprising, given his track record.

In this piece, from 2011, he makes it clear what he thinks of women - be they writers, readers or reviewers.

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2011...

“I’m not too appalled by our figure, as I’d be very surprised if the authorship of published books was 50/50. And while women are heavy readers, we know they are heavy readers of the kind of fiction that is not likely to be reviewed in the pages of the TLS.”

Well, no: the authorship of published books isn’t 50:50. In fact, women dominate, although they are generally paid less than men (see this excellent breakdown http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/sara-...) and are far less well-represented in prizes and the media.

And what exactly does he mean by “the kind of fiction… not likely to be reviewed in the pages of the TLS?”

Chick-lit? Mummy porn? Or is Peter Stothard actually saying, as V. S. Naipaul has repeated, that women just aren’t bright enough to understand serious fiction?

In the same piece, Guardian books editor Claire Armitstead offers an explanation for the shameful scarcity of women reviewers:

“We always try to keep an even balance, but many more men offer themselves to review books than women, so we have to go out and find them. My own feeling is that there is an issue of confidence among women writers.”

So, really, women writers only have themselves to blame. We’re just too timid and lady-like to make our little voices heard. But what about the other voices calling out in the wilderness of a predominantly white, male, middle-class industry?

Let’s see what the TLS blog has to say about quotas….

http://timescolumns.typepad.com/stoth...

“Quotas are not a new question. Sometimes readers of the TLS tell me we are favouring Oxford over Cambridge, Texas over Scotland, French over Spanish and yes, men over women.”

Ah, yes. How nice to see that the gender imbalance in publishing is being fought as strenuously as the shocking historical imbalance between writers from Oxford and those from Cambridge. And who could have guessed that Texas was so sadly under-represented? With such a mass of important quotas to address, no wonder the TLS hasn’t got round to addressing our little problem of gender imbalance (not to mention the writers of colour and the gay, lesbian and trans writers, who don’t even get a mention)…

Because, though I’m not a statistician, at a guess, I’d say that Oxbridge graduates and Texans represent rather less than 1% of the UK community.

And women represent - 50%?

Ladies, please. Get in line.

This week, the book world sees the launch of an app. called Clean Reader, which claims to remove profanity from e-books, and replace them with “more acceptable” words with more or less the same meaning.

At first sight, this may seem to some to be a reasonable idea; not unlike the programs used by parents to ensure that their children are not exposed to unsuitable material online. But closer inspection of the idea shows how problematic this apparently simple idea is likely to be in practice.

First, what counts as “profanity”? Close inspection of the “acceptable alternatives” suggests a very strong Christian bias. Therefore, “Oh my God!” becomes “oh my goodness!” “Jesus Christ” becomes “geez” and so on. “Bitch” becomes “witch” (bad news for modern pagans), and by now we’re already beginning to see some obvious problems emerging.

The fact is that these “acceptable alternatives” are all taken from modern American slang, and not only do some of them make no sense in the context of English literature, they are likely to be far more intrusive (and potentially, more offensive) than the word they are meant to replace.

Body parts have often been the target for censorship, and Clean Reader seems, not only determined to remove all mention of them from your reading experience, but also to make it as difficult as possible to distinguish one from the other. Therefore, “vagina”, “anus”, “buttocks” and “clitoris” all become “bottom”, which seems to me not only anatomically incorrect, but also pointlessly repetitive (as well as potentially dangerous).

This excellent blog post by Jennifer Porter goes into further detail of how much is lost in translation, and gives more of an insight into the words judged acceptable (“boobs” apparently, are bad, although “rape” seems to be okay).

http://www.romancenovelnews.com/jooml...

However, for me, the main issue is not one of vocabulary, but one of censorship.

Most writers think very hard about the kind of language they use. Some of us are well-nigh obsessive about our choice of words – and those of us who are published in the US often have to fight to retain our British spellings and vocabulary. We do this because we care about books. We care about language. And if we use profanity (which sometimes, we do) it is always for a reason. Sometimes it’s about trying to achieve authenticity in dialogue. Sometimes it’s about making an impact. Either way, good writers do not use words indiscriminately, but choose to use certain words, having thought long and hard about their use. Editors often suggest changes to the text, but no-one, not even the publisher, is allowed to impose changes, or to republish a censored, abridged or altered version of a text without the permission of the author.

Except, perhaps, in the case of Clean Reader.

Apps like Clean Reader change the text without the author’s permission. They take the author’s words and replace them – sometimes very clumsily – on the basis of some perceived idea of “bad words” versus “good words”. No permission is sought, or granted. There is no opt-out clause for authors or publishers. This is censorship, not by the State, but by a religious minority, and if you think it sounds trivial, take a moment to think about this:

The Reformation brought about the destruction of over 90% of our country’s art heritage, including music, books and paintings.

The Nazis burnt countless works of art judged to be “degenerate”; including an estimated 45% of all existing Polish artwork.

ISIS are currently destroying antiquities and historical sites in the Middle East, including the ancient city of Nimrud, the walls of Nineveh and statues up to 8000 years old.

The Victorians bowdlerized and rewrote Classical myths and literature out of all recognition (they also converted hundreds of thousands of Egyptian mummies into fertilizer, having judged them of “no historical value”).

And all in the name of purity, morality and good taste.

Anyone who works with words understands their power. Words, if used correctly, can achieve almost anything. To tamper with what is written – however much we may dislike certain words and phrases – is to embrace censorship.

So what, I hear you ask? For goodness’s sake, it’s just a few words.

Well, we’ve been down this road before. We should know where it leads by now. It starts with blanking out a few words. It goes on to drape table legs and stick fig leaves onto statues. It progresses to denouncing gay or Jewish artists as “degenerate”. It ends with burning libraries and erasing whole civilizations from history.

Is that where we want to go?

Not.

Fucking.

Likely.

(An Explanation)
As a child I was a mythology purist. I started with retellings by H. A. Guerber and Robert Graves. I read Snorri Sturluson and Saxo Grammaticus; I snapped up every translation of the Poetic Eddas and longed to read them in the original. Finally, I taught myself Old Icelandic and did just that. My interest in Norse myth dates back over forty years, and my passion for these stories has followed me throughout my life.
In the light of all this, it may seem strange that I chose to write THE GOSPEL OF LOKI in the style in which I did. It’s a style as far removed from the epic poetry of the Eddas as you could imagine; it’s filled with verbal and historical anachronisms; it’s conversational, rather than heroic in tone. Some readers have commented on this, wondering why I would choose to take my retelling of the Norse myths so far from the original source.
Well, here’s the thing. The “original source” is unknown, unquantifiable. These myths are the product of centuries of telling and retelling; an oral tradition of story that was never written down. How could it? Every storyteller had their own style; their own personal take on the myths. There was no authorized version. And yet, everyone knew the myths. That is clear from the language, filled as it is with kennings; little expressions and figures of speech, which show how very familiar the stories were to the people of that culture. Thus, gold is “Otter’s Ransom”, or Freyja’s Tears” or “Sif’s hair”: mistletoe is “Balder’s bane.” It’s tempting to think of these kennings as part of a tradition of heroic, skaldic poetry, but it’s likely they were used all the time by ordinary people, just as the proverbs and sayings of the King James’ Bible have entered our own vernacular. When people hear the word “bard” or “skald”, they often imagine a kind of romantic, troubadour-like figure, as popularized by the Victorians. Nothing could be further from the truth. It’s likely the storytellers of the oral tradition were ordinary people, speaking, not in the language of romance and refinement, but in the robust language and coarse humour of everyday folk.
We owe Snorri Sturluson (the 12-century Icelandic historian largely credited for the Prose Eddas) a significant debt of gratitude. Although his account of the Norse myths is fragmentary, without him, we might have lost much more. But Snorri was a Christian and an academic; his version of the Norse myths, written after the Christianization of Scandinavia, is strongly coloured by his own beliefs. Since then, every subsequent retelling of those vanished stories has been another step along the road to cultural appropriation. In the seventeenth century, a renewed interest in what was now being referred to as “Viking” culture led to more romanticized retellings of the myths (still widely regarded as history). Later, the Victorians – themselves great rewriters of history and cultural appropriators worldwide - added to the stew. Artists like Rackham; composers like Wagner; writers like Walter Scott; these, and not the bards and skalds, are responsible for the way we perceive the Norse myths and the culture from which they spring. Through them, and later, through Tolkien and many others, the fantasy of “Norse culture” was perpetuated.
But it is a fantasy. It’s no closer to the truth than the Marvel version – and at least, Marvel Comics don’t pretend to be writing history. The fact is, that academics, artists and poets have claimed the Norse myths for themselves for too long. The myths do not belong to them. They belong to the people; to the ordinary folk who worshipped the old gods and kept their stories in their hearts. To relegate those stories to the past, or to some imaginary era of heroism and epic poetry is to miss their point entirely.
That’s why I’ve chosen to write my version of Loki’s story in the language of here and now; to challenge the “epic” stereotypes created by artists and scholars. The title of “Gospel” is deliberately ironic - Loki, the liar, tells you himself not to expect the truth from him. His story is designed from the start to ridicule the tropes of epic writing. There is no reverence in Loki’s Gospel; no Biblical grandeur; no echo of the pompous Victorians. His voice is rarely heard in the myths, except in Lokasenna; the “flyting” in which Loki gleefully, cruelly and hilariously insults the gods, one by one, and exposes their failings. This is the source of “my” Loki’s voice; crude, irreverent, juvenile. There’s no heroic language here, just the voice of everyday folk. For too long, academics have claimed the Norse myths as their own. With THE GOSPEL OF LOKI, I’m trying to redress the balance. To take back the myths from the scholars at last, and give them back to the people.

Spring is in the air, and it’s festival season again. Thatmeans a fresh raft of invitations from literary festivals all over the country, some very local, others vast organizations of international repute, bringing in tens of thousands of visitors from all over the world.

Let me make one thing clear from the start. I love literary festivals. They remain the most effective means of promoting literacy, celebrating books and bringing together like-minded people in the love of reading and writing. They are the best way for authors to meet their readers, and for readers to discover new writers. Most festivals are lots of fun for authors and the public. Most festivals are well-run and organized by hard-working, passionate people. However (in spite of charging up to £25 a ticket for certain events), most festivals also tend to get away with either not paying authors at all, or simply accepting to cover their travel and hotel expenses.

Why? Well, there are historical reasons for this, which date back to the days when all authors were traditionally-published. In those days, publishers saw literary festivals as an excellent means of promoting new books, and were happy to help subsidize them by arranging author visits and covering their expenses themselves. However, things have changed since then. The rise of the e-book has changed things. Celebrity culture has changed things. Small publishers have been taken over by large ones, or squeezed out of business altogether. Author advances are shrinking, except in the cases of a few celebrities. And the number of festivals has grown exponentially, now numbering over 600 in the UK alone. Some of these are very small, and cannot afford to pay fees or expenses to visiting authors. But some are huge; sponsored by large companies and attracting an international audience. And these international festivals, which once prided themselves on treating all their authors the same, are now offering large incentives to politicians, musicians and actors, whilst still expecting ordinary fiction writers to work for free. In some cases, authors have even been asked to pay a contributors’ fee for the privilege of working for free. Some younger and less experienced authors accept this for fear of being excluded, or because they think they have no choice – which is a pity, because it’s usually these younger and more vulnerable authors who most need the validation of a fee in the first place.

Let’s look at why some festivals (and even publishers) think that this situation is okay, and why I think it’s a bad idea. These are some of the arguments I’ve heard to justify not paying authors.

1: We just can’t afford to pay you.

Hmmm. To a certain extent, I sympathize. Some festivals are very small, and don’t have a budget of millions. However, this doesn’t entitle you to expect authors to work for free – or worse, to expect authors to be out of pocket for the privilege of doing you a favour. The fact is that festivals are happy to pay for their catering; their engineers, drivers, publicists and organizers; the printers who publish their promotional material; the firms that supply Portaloos and marquees; the hiring of theatres and halls. How can they justify paying everyone but the authors, without whom there would be no festival? By all means support the small festivals you care about – and if that means occasionally waiving your fee, so be it – but let’s not make it the norm for all literary festivals. Authors are often notoriously bad at talking money, but we are not philanthropists. We’re trying to make a living, like everyone else, and we deserve respect for the job we do.

2: But we’re providing free publicity.

Ah. The historical argument. But publicity is a publicist’s job, not the job of an author. And authors already have publicists, provided (and paid for) by their publisher. So what you’re saying is that, on top of their actual job, authors should also be doing their publicist’s job for free, while the publicist draws a salary?

3. But you’ll get a lot of book sales!

Well, it’s true that festival events sell books, but in order for the proceeds to cover an author’s time and expenses, you’d have to sell many hundreds of copies. Most authors are happy if they sell a dozen hardbacks or so. The figures here just don’t add up.

4: It’s only a few hours of your time.

True; but what you’re getting is far more than just that. Even without the time it takes to get to the venue (and, if it’s an evening event, the overnight stay, the return home, and the subsequent time spent away from the desk), what you’re getting isn’t just the time the author spends on the clock. What you’re getting is the sum of their expertise; skills that may have taken decades for them to hone and develop. That’s what makes their time valuable – and remember, time spent working for you is time they’re not spending at their desk, doing the thing they’re paid for. Most writers love festivals and want to help support them – but expecting them to do it for free is basically saying their work isn’t worth paying for. That’s hardly a great recommendation for a festival that claims to love books...

5: But you’ll get a free holiday/lunch/day out in the open air. Won’t that be nice?

Maybe it will. But it’s still work, not a holiday, and professionals don’t agree to work for food, or a trip to another place. Don’t believe me? Try asking your plumber to work for bus fare and a curry.

6: But...market forces determine what you’re paid. It’s not our fault if we can’t make enough money from ticket sales to pay you.

Er... actually - yes, it is. I find that having to pay the author is a terrific incentive to festivals to really make an effort to promote and publicize the events. Besides, you don’t organize a dinner party, then tell the guests you spent so much on wine that there isn’t going to be any food...

7: Now you’re being ungrateful. You wouldn’t be where you are today if it wasn’t for festivals like ours.

Let’s just look at that, shall we? Some festivals have grown so huge that they have started to believe that the festival itself is what brings the public in, and that authors should be grateful for the chance to work for free. Well, of course we appreciate festivals and value what they do, but ultimately, they exist to support the arts, not the other way around. We owe our real debt of gratitude to the reading public. They are the ones who buy the books. They are the ones who vote with their feet. Book festivals were created in response to their enthusiasm. And most members of the public would be appalled at the fact that, for the majority of author events, no part of the price of their ticket goes to pay the performer...

So...where do we go from here? Well, firstly, it's up to authors to try and change the historical perception that it’s somehow tacky or wrong to be paid for public appearances. That means actually charging a fee for festivals and readings. It doesn’t have to be an extortionate fee, but professional writers deserve respect, which means being paid like professionals. Most importantly, it means never accepting to be out-of-pocket when dealing with a ticketed event. If all authors do this, then festival organizers will soon get used to according them the same respect they give to everyone else. Of course, every author knows that the world does not owe us a living; but if our work is in demand, then we should not be afraid to charge a rate that reflects its value. Authors don’t get a salary. They don't get paid by the publisher for book tours or promotion. Instead, they are paid on the basis of individual pieces of work – a book; an article; a talk. And if the public is prepared to pay to hear their favourite authors speak, then why should a festival – or even a publisher - get to decide otherwise?

Ever noticed how book titles come in Mexican waves? One year, if they’re not one-word, publishers will say “that’s not snappy enough”; the next they’re all so lengthy that it’s a wonder they fit on the book jacket. Here’s your quick guide to identifying the ten main book title groups (and the genres that go with them). Which one’s yours? (And yes, I've probably used all of them, too.)

Examples are (as far as I know) imaginary.

1. The One-Word, Multi-Syllable Punch: as loved by horror and action writers everywhere. Doesn’t much matter what the word is, as long as it has plenty of syllables; just stick in block type and enjoy. Examples: INTRUDER; REGULATOR; DISCIPLE; AVOCADO.

2. The One-Word, One-Syllable Punch: Gritty, urban, artsy: Examples: BLACK: STONE; CRACK; PISS.

3. The Random Juxtaposition of Words: Attention-grabbing device, which works by placing an everyday word next to another word that has nothing to do with it: Examples: COFFEE MONKEY; MEAT THISTLE; FRIDGE BABY.

4. The Whimsical, Rather Over-Long Title That Tells Most of the Plot: Much loved by writers of cosy fiction. Examples: THE PANDA WHO STAYED FOR BREAKFAST; THE LITTLE OLD LADY, NOT WANTING TO DIE, WHO LEARNED HOW TO LIVE FOREVER.

5. The One that Sounds Kinda Like Latin: It doesn’t have to be real Latin, just a vague approximation. Favoured by writers of pseudo-intellectual thrillers and exorcism fiction: Examples: EXCELSIOR; THE NECROSCOPTICON. MAGISTERIUM; PODEX.

6. The One That Makes You Feel Clever: By including a reference in the title to some well-known artist, poet or philosopher, the writer subtly manages to convey to the reader the the illusion of being an intellectual, whilst concealing the fact that there’s nothing remotely clever about the book. (PS: If you can get some Latin in there too, you’re made.) Examples: PLATO’S ARMADILLO; THE SARTRE SUPREMACY; THE REMBRANDT CODEX.

7. The One With the Cat in it. It doesn’t have to be a cat; but research has shown that a reference to cats in a book title will guarantee more readers. Also works with weddings and chocolate. Examples: THE CAT WHO LOVED CHOCOLATE: THE CHOCOLATE CAT: THE WEDDING CAT.

8. The One That Sounds A Lot Like Something Else. (It goes without saying that the Something Else is always something that did very, very well in the bookshops.) So what if readers confuse it with another title? What the hell, it just means more sales, right?

9. The One With The Botanical Theme: Preferably an exotic one: Examples: THE AGAPANTHUS TREE; THE JUNIPER BUSH; THE QUADRIFOLIA LAWN; THE MAGNOLIA MEADOW.

10. The One That Gives You a Sugar Rush: Before CHOCOLAT, I don’t remember these being a Thing. But nowadays, food-themed titles are everywhere. Examples: WALKING OVER MELONS; THE PECULIAR MELANCHOLY OF CARROT CAKE; HALF A GRAPEFRUIT; COSMIC JELLO.

Three doors stand in front of you.
The first door leads to Critical Acclaim.
The second to Worldly Riches.
The third to Wherever the Hell You Like.

You know you’re a writer when you don’t even see the first two doors, but go straight to the third door, open it, walk through and vanish forever…

Where do you get your ideas from?

It’s the question nearly all artists dread. We try to get round it in various ways, by making jokes (my standard response tends to be; “Goblins bring them during the night”), but actually the answer is simply this:

They come from my brain.

Okay. But what if one of your characters is mean? What if you choose to depict a murderer; a paedophile; a rapist? What if one of your characters expresses racist or homophobic opinions? What then? Where do the ideas come from then?

Over the past few years, I’ve found more and more readers expressing very strong views on this. The other day I came across a heated discussion between two readers, in which one reader said that she had refused to read my books since she had come across “a transphobic slur” in a short story published 15 years ago.

I finally traced the “slur” to its source. It was not alone; in the same short story there was also a racial slur, a misogynistic slur and a slur against mental illness. There were also several usages of the word “fuck.” All of these words had been carefully-chosen to fit the character using them, who happened to be the kind of person who would have used that vocabulary.

But that was a character in a book; different from me in every way. For a start, he was a man; he was much older than I was, and he was using the language of his generation, his era and his social class. Moreover, I didn’t portray him in a very pleasant light. I think I made it pretty clear that he wasn’t meant to be a role model.

And yet, that reader felt that I shouldn’t have allowed him to use the “F-bomb”, or the word “tranny” to describe a transsexual in the Seventies.

Fair enough. It is a slur. But in that case, what word should I have used? Or was the reader suggesting that I shouldn’t have had my character mention transsexuals at all, in any context?

Where do our ideas come from?

Well, they come from our brains, of course. But the brain is just an organ designed to process what we experience. Everything a writer sees, everything they hear; everything they suffer; everything that brings them joy is filtered through memory and imagination to create stories that reflect our world and the things we think are important.

That’s why, if a character performs a racist, homophobic or thoroughly unpleasant act, it doesn’t automatically mean that the writer shares the character’s motives. Creating a racist character doesn’t make you a racist, any more than creating a murderer makes you capable of murder. And to assume that an author shares the flaws (or equally, the qualities) of the characters they have created is to fundamentally misunderstand the nature of storytelling.

Wait a minute, I hear you say. As writers, surely we have control over the characters we create. We can portray whomever we like. So isn’t it our responsibility, as artists, to keep the nastiness under wraps, and to write the world as it ought to be, rather than the way it is?

Well, no. That’s not the way story works. You see, to make a story come alive, we have to make it believable. We don’t have total control, inasmuch as we have to make sure that the stories we write obey the laws of the world we know. In that world, people die; sometimes people are stupid and mean, or racist, or homophobic; and sometimes people do bad things, and sometimes people say the word “fuck”. To deny those things occasional space in the context of a story is to take that story out of the world; to deny the reader the chance to believe.

Of course, all readers have the choice to read or not to read. Some are easily upset by descriptions of bad things, or depictions of bad people. But remember; darkness in storytelling reflects the darkness in our lives. That’s why the original fairy stories by Perrault and the Brothers Grimm are so bleak and challenging. And they show us the darkness of the world because that’s how we learn to defeat it, through stories and the imagination. To limit the darkness in our stories is to take away the very thing that gives us the power to fight back against cruelty; racism; prejudice; fear. The monsters of myth and fairy tale have different faces nowadays, faces that some of us would rather not see. But stories sometimes allow us, not only to expose those monsters, but to show us ways of fighting against them and defeating them in real life. Imagine a story like Roots, stripped of the racial slurs that give it such power. Imagine In the Heat of the Night without the vicious portrayal of racism that lies at its heart. Stories like this give a voice to protest. That voice cannot be silenced.

I’m not talking about gratuitous stuff here. Some writers do use their portrayal of their characters to pursue a toxic agenda. But those are in a minority (and, I would add, not great storytellers either). The rest of us try in our way to show the world in a different light; to make people think; to offer us solutions to our problems.

So, please, when you next read a story, try to remember: we are not the people we write, any more than an actor is the same as the part he plays on stage. Sometimes, those things are hard to separate, but in the end, if you believe, then we have done our job properly. We don’t make the world we write. That world was already there. We don’t make the monsters - but we do bring them out of the shadows. What you choose to do with them then - fight them, or just run away - is, as always, up to you.