24 November 2009

Posted by Zahid Hussain | File under :
There are a series of brilliant interviews with writers slotted all over the internet.

Here is a short interview that I recommend viewing for would be screenwriters. Paul Haggis wrote the screenplay for Million Dollar Baby. He has also written commercial screenplays such as Quantum of Solace.

Watch, listen, learn and take the best you can from his nuggets of wisdom...

ZHZ

7 September 2009

Posted by Zahid Hussain | File under : ,


Many writers believe they're that perfect writer, the genius, the one who just penned the Great Novel.
But they just haven't got round to sending it.

So you're waiting for the right moment to send your manuscript? Yes, I know it's literary gold and it will sell for millions and mummies will name their kids after you, but...you haven't sent it, have you?

Perhaps I should let you into some open secrets:
How's the coffee?You've smelled it, haven't you? If you want to be published expect rejection.That's how you know you're onto a winner. Agents get it wrong. Publishers get it wrong. Please, give them a chance not to live it it down.

So dust off your manuscript. Yes, I know it's brilliant. Just send it. And while you're waiting, keep writing.

Another coffee?

ZHZ.

30 July 2009

Posted by Zahid Hussain | File under : ,

Long before the typewriter, philosophers had charted the realm of poetry.

Over two thousand years ago Aristotle wrote:
"The greatest thing by far is to be a master of metaphor. It is the one thing that cannot be learned from others; it is also a sign of genius, since a good metaphor implies an eye for resemblance."
Aristotle, De Poetica, 322 B.C.

It is true that a poem can come to life without a single metaphor, but with it...from the tiny serifs of letters, wings can sprout.

It's so simple to create metaphors, that it is a tragedy that so many can't. Yet, it is so difficult that it takes veritable genius to do it. But children see them everywhere.

How confusing, how contradictory.

A few weeks ago, I spent hours rifling through the pages of poetry manuals. I discovered that few chapters, nay few paragraphs, explained how to master metaphor. Was Aristotle right, that you can't learn how to give life to a new metaphor? That you either have it or you don't?

I think Aristotle was wrong.

You eyes are narrowing. You're asking me: "Oh yeah? How do you create metaphors then?"

You want to know how to crack open your the Pandora's Box that nestles in your head?
You want to fill the world with new creations?
Then come with me.
All you have to do is-

-Look.

Look and keep looking until the object reminds you of...something else. And keep looking until you see...something else. And don't stop...keep looking until the world blurs and the object becomes a Stereogram. Not everyone has the knack of seeming them pesky things, but they're there alright, there at the edge of the world.

I tell you that those untouched, unknown, magnificent metaphors exist.

Dive, I say dive...go deep and keep going until you reach the solid and infinite home of imagination and grab hard- and come up fast, real fast before the blighters escape you and yank them out and let them breathe and when they do your metaphors will wail and they will keep wailing until they become cliches...

I promise.

ZHZ.

31 May 2009

Posted by Zahid Hussain | File under :

Poetry is potent.

The rhythmic gush of a poet's mellifluous syllables stir the embers of our frail hearts. In human history, poetry's invisible beat has spurred us into action and we have discovered the far and distant shores of enduring self-revelation.

But why? Why does poetry have this grip we cannot see, but holds us helplessly in its narrative? Whether with iambic pentameter or free verse, words, sometimes arcane, sometimes modern, fall into the depths of us and each time they hit they crack against something hard.

Why? Why does poetry shake us in this way?

The reason lies in the beginning, before we were born.

It was when we were nestled in the black of our mother's womb and the slow systole diastole of her heart comforted us in warmth. And that was all we had before we could speak: that muffled rhythmic thud of sound.

And sound. And sound. And sound.

That's why we can't help, but be ensnared in loops of sounds made words and each time we hear the beat of poetry our soul swells as it remembers the first thud that comforted us in the dark and we know, we just know, that we're finally coming home.

ZHZ.

26 May 2009

Posted by Zahid Hussain | File under : ,

I have often found that two things separate would-be writers from taking wing into the sky of words that they dream of.

They read little.
They write little.

Yet they expect an instant masterpiece to appear out of the nib of their favourite fountain pen.

I encounter such writers so often that I have fallen into the habit of asking them "who" they read and then I ask them "what" they are writing.

And the usual answer?

Hmmm.
Well.
Cough.
Ahem.

And then the million dollar phrase: "but X said that my writing was really good".

Enough.

This is all you have to do - and yes, you have to keep doing it.

1. Read.
2. Write.

Who said life wasn't simple? :-)

ZHZ

11 May 2009

Posted by Zahid Hussain | File under :

How do you describe an object, an animal or person and using the alchemy of word transform it into something utterly real in the mind of another?

Use the precise word.
Use the apt word.
Use the senses: visual, auditory, kinaesthetic, olfactory...
Use verbs of motion - even for something static...

And take your time. Look, really look. Wait, really wait. Observe and catch your observations on cool white paper cut with clean black lines of Indian ink...

And your words will rise form the page, organic and pulsating with the clenching tension of life. And then you'll sit back in your chair and gasp at your creation and wonder how you did it, how you spun letters onto a flat sheet of A4 and made the words...live.

ZHZ

9 March 2009

Posted by Zahid Hussain | File under :
I've completed the final draft of my current novel.

I shall rejoice for a heartbeat and then I will plunge back into its dark deep depths. To polish it.

Over the last few months I've read an enormous amount about the craft of forging fiction. I've learned some hard lessons along the way and I pause for a moment to tell you where I'm at so that it might help you too.

I hit a wall in December. The novel, T.S., is technically a difficult one and I was unhappy with the draft. I withdrew for a period and read as much as I could about fiction. I scrutinised the different opinions and then I removed the scum from the top.

And then I rewrote huge swathes of the novel to ensure the conflict was constantly rising and that the stakes grew from chapter to chapter. I wrote every day. I took my laptop everywhere, I plugged in my headphones and kept tapping away on the keyboard.

In the final draft I deleted almost 35,000 words. I currently have 75,000.

The scenes are lined up, the prose is good - but not perfect - and now comes the scalpel and the magnifying glass and the reading the text aloud. This is when I will polish it, shine it so bright they'll be able to see it from the moon.

And of course, what I hope to do is to create the 'uninterupted fictional dream'. Will it be easy to do? The question doesn't even matter to me.

ZHZ
Posted by Zahid Hussain | File under :

ALL writers must create what John Gardner termed the 'uninterrupted fictional dream'.

What does this mean?

When you pen a story you must aim to ensnare the reader in a waking dream so evocative that the reader cannot even break their gaze for a single second. The toast will burn, the kettle will boil and all the water evaporate, the final minute goal by Manchester United will be missed, the tile will fall from the roof and smash the window and they won't hear it...and all because what you wrought with words was so mesmeric that the reader couldn't look away.

Once you have this as your aim then you can ask the right question:

how do I do it?

Good question :)

ZHZ

24 January 2009

Posted by Zahid Hussain | File under :

To make any story come alive you need characters that breathe, make you smile, irritate you, who throw their fists in the air and rant and rave.

So how do you do it, how do you make a character come alive?

There are so many methods, but one of the techniques I teach is called "Love and Hate".

Take any character...I don't need to know their d.o.b. or their height, in fact, I don't want any of the usual biography stuff. I simply want two things:

1. What does the character hate most in the world?
2. What does the character love most in the world?

Then go deeper:

1. What would your character most love to happen?
2. What would your character most hate to happen?

And then go deeper still:

1. What does your character want more than anything in the world - in fact they would die for it?
2. What does your character not want - and would die rather than have happen?

It is such a simple exercise, but it suddenly makes you realise the inner motives, the powerful compass that direct your character.

But what do you do once you've got this information?

Ah, that's the easy bit, believe it or not.

You start to take away the things the character loves and you start to make the things the character hates to happen...and depending on how you want your story to end, you will either make their deepest want come true at the end of the story - or the opposite.

So go back to the story you were writing, or look to your next.

Look at the character's Loves and Hates. Then make the bad stuff happen. Make the character struggle for the things they love and if you do this right you'll create the most important thing needed for any story to come alive.

Conflict.

ZHZ