02 October
The James White Award
I've got a bit behind with these posts, because for a while some evil SQL bug prevented me from making them. One of the things that happened is that I didn't win the James White Award. So what? I hear you ask. Well, I didn't win but I was shortlisted... and that meant top 6 out of 355 entries. The story I submitted was 'The Last Words of Harry Niffen', and I suppose I'll have to try to place it somewhere else. Sigh. But not straight away, because I'm busy querying agents for Ghosts, with some help from Sophie Hannah. Yes, the author who writes the new Poirot novels. More of that anon.
18 August
Love on the Line (5)
I woke up this morning to find that Britni Pepper has written a great review of Love on the Line, which she has put up on Goodreads, and on her own blog. But the page doesn’t seem to exist anymore. But it was there - honest!
28 July
One of the only
What is it with this phrase? I see it quite often in even well-written and well-respected books by well-known authors. But think about it: what does it mean? ‘He was one of the only men in Scotland who could do [something]’. This is nonsense. What the writer probably means is, ‘He was one of the few men in Scotland...’ I dare you to check your manuscript, if you have one! Delete ‘one of the only’ if it is there!
23 July
Writing dialogue (4)
OK, I thought I’d do my fourth and last how (not to) write dialogue post right now, so the four of them all sit neatly together. This one’s about punctuation. First, should you use double quote marks or single? Answer: who cares? It used to be the case that US books always used double and UK single (except, for some reason, for children’s books). But with globalization of the market, this has become pretty meaningless. By all means adjust your quote marks to correspond with whatever agent or publisher you send your MS to: but chances are, the agent or publisher won’t much care.
Second, watch out for dialogue like: ‘Hello, I’m home.’ He said. What’s happened here is that the author, bless him or her, has put a full stop after ‘home’ because, right enough, that’s the end of the actual dialogue. Then Word, bless it, thinks that the next sentence must begin with a capital. Hence the double-whammy error. It should, of course, read: ‘Hello, I’m home,’ he said. Notice that the comma comes inside the quote mark. Don’t listen to the argument that it should come outside the quote mark if it’s not actually part of the dialogue. Confused? Look at these two examples. ‘I ran away,’ he said, ‘and I’m never going back.’ ‘I ran away and’, he sneered, ‘I’m never going back.’ No problems with the first sentence. What ‘he’ said was ‘I ran away, and I’m never going back.’ He said the comma, if you like. So no problem with keeping it inside the quote mark. Purists will tell you that the second sentence is correctly punctuated, with the comma outside the quote mark, because ‘he’ isn’t actually saying the comma after ‘and’. Technically this may be correct, but I have never ever seen it in any book, and I challenge you to find it. Even in books of yesteryear when grammar and punctuation were given more weight than they are now. So stick with comma inside the quote marks. Everyone will be happy.
These three rules are pretty hard and fast and you shouldn’t break them. Others, such as always starting a new paragraph for a new speaker, aren’t quite so hard-wired. Break then for artistic style if you want. And finally: if one of your characters speaks for several paragraphs, obviously you kick off with an opening quote mark. Then an opening quote mark at the start of each paragraph. And ONLY one closing quote mark - at the end of the final speech paragraph. That’s it. I’m going to lie down in a darkened room now.
16 July
Writing dialogue (3)
Here’s another piece of over-written dialogue I made up for this post. What’s wrong with it?
Justine nibbled her biscuit. ‘Are you sure about this?’ she asked.
Paul sipped his coffee. ‘Absolutely.’
’Oh.’ Justine shifted uncomfortably. ‘In that case, you’d better meet my mum.’
Paul put down his cup. ‘Really?’
Justine met his eyes and smiled. ‘You’ll like her.’
Paul blinked nervously. ‘Are you sure about this?’’Ha!’
Justine grinned and leaned back in her chair. ‘I just asked you that!"
I’m sure you get the point. Some writers insist on their characters doing a little something - nibbling, smiling, leaning, blinking...something - whenever they speak. I call them ‘fidgets’ and almost all of them can be deleted. I’m not saying characters don’t do these things. They do (and in real life, too). I’m just saying there’s no need to bore the reader to tears by describing them all. They’re mostly just not important. You might as well add in that, by the way, Justine breathed and Paul’s heart beat 457 times during the conversation. By all means include a couple of relevant fidgets that actually add to the story in some way. ‘Justine blushed’ would tell the reader she’s embarrassed about something. ‘Justine nibbled her biscuit’ tells us - what, exactly? You will find that there aren’t many relevant fidgets. Delete, delete, delete!
07 July
Writing dialogue (2)
Tell me what’s wrong with the following invented piece of dialogue.
’Hi!’ sang out Alice.
’Hi,’ grunted Paul.
’Did you have a good night out?’ queried Alice.
’It was okay,’ answered Paul. ‘Bit cold.’
’Didn’t Jane keep you warm?’ smirked Alice.
’She didn’t show,’ sighed Paul.
Right. We have sang out, grunted, queried, answered, smirked and sighed. All of these could be ‘said’ (or even omitted altogether). Despite what some people say on Twitter, it is NOT a good idea to sprinkle your dialogue with all these different voice actions. 70% of the time, ‘said’ will do. 25% of the time nothing at all will work fine. 5% of the time you might justifiably use ‘grunted’ or ‘smirked’. But, trust me, sprinkling them all over the place really, really makes a piece of text look amateurish.
04 July
Writing dialogue (1)
I’ve been reading some indie books recently, and many of them fall into traps when trying to write dialogue. What’s wrong with this (made up) example?
’Hello, Paula.’
’Hello, Dave, how are you?’
’I’m good, Paula. Did you enjoy the film?’
’It wasn’t bad, Dave, though the ending was a bit...’
’...unbelievable, Paula?’
’You got it, Dave.’
The thing is, people seldom refer to each other by name when they are talking to each other. If you don’t believe me, listen in to some conversations - even ones that include you. Yesterday I was chatting to my wife pretty much all day and don’t think I mentioned her name at all. Not once. So try to avoid characters using each other’s names in dialogue. You only need it for an introduction: ‘Hey, Paula.’ (Now the reader knows who’s there.) And for exclamations of various kinds: ‘Look out, Paula! Behind you!’
27 June
Love on the Line (4)
Well, LOTL is now live on Amazon! I have done my best to market it on Twitter, but my advertising skills being what they are (zero), I’m not expecting an immediate run. Still, if you have happened on this post by some other route than Twitter, perhaps you’d like to give it a try… but be warned, it’s for 18+ readers only.
16 June
Mycelia
And the first one is out! I received my contributor copy of Mycelia issue 2 yesterday, shiny cover and all. Inside is ‘Dark Triptych’, a story I wrote while on holiday in Barcelona. It’s deliberately not too easy to follow - I don’t like making readers lazy. The magazine is laid out with lots of cool pictures. The typography could be better, though: are you listening, Simone? There are unnecessary indents and lines withaboutamillionwordsonthem. But I’m so pleased to get another one of my stories ‘out there’. I hope people enjoy it, even if it gives the little grey cells furiously to think.
28 May
Two stories to be published
Yes, it’s Cashmore month! One story (Old Habits) will be coming out in the next issue of Supernatural Tales . I don’t think this is one of my best stories, truth be told, but I reread it last night and it perked me up more than I thought it would. Another story (Dark Triptych) will be appearing in issue 2 of Mycelia. I’m rather looking forwards to that because the story has some layout quirks and it will be interesting to see how they play out on the printed page. So get your copies of these two magazines! I want to know what you think of the stories.
14 May
Love on the Line (3)
There have been a couple of developments on the LOTL front. First, I have managed to get the book onto Goodreads. It wasn’t easy and I find the Goodreads site rather like a maze with no prize promised for reaching the centre, apart from reaching the centre. Anyway, if you care to log into Goodreads and search for S M Cashmore, LOTL is there. Feel free to request an ARC if you fancy doing a review. Second, I have made LOTL into an Amazon paperback as well as an ebook. Why? Because I read somewhere that lots of people prefer to get their hands on a paperback rather than an electronic version. Fair enough, so I’ve done that and made it available in that form. Here’s to the future.
08 May
Our friend Chie
Chie Hasegawa passed away yesterday, May 7, in a Japanese hospital surrounded by her family. She had been suffering a terrible form of blood cancer, and despite more than two years’ treatment, simply couldn’t make it. She was a lovely lady, just 39 when she died, and she has left a hole in our hearts.
03 May
Breaking Google
I posted a question on Twitter and nobody responded with the answer. So either nobody was interested or nobody knew the answer. If it was the latter, then I can only assume that even Googling didn’t turn up the answer. Hah: Cashmore breaks Google.
This was the question:who knows who these characters are? Pierre Cavell, John Bentall, Michael Reynolds, John Carter, Keith Mallory and John Talbot. Do you know? I bet you don’t. Scroll down if you want to cheat and find the answer.
They are the main (hero) characters from Alistair MacLean’s novels, such as Fear is the Key> and Ice Station Zebra. MacLean’s early thrillers are well worth reading, and his HMS Ulysses is an underrated classic.
25 April
Hooray for Mazda
My little MX5 is just over a month out of warranty, with only 15k miles on its clock, and lo and behold an ominous creaking has started from somewhere behind. In it goes for a check. ‘It needs a new bush,’ I am informed. ‘It’ll cost about £1000.’ ‘Urgh,’ I say, pathetically. The lady at reception says she will contact Mazda to see if they will foot some of the bill. I leave with fingers crossed. Two days later she calls to say Mazda will foot 100% of the bill. HOORAY FOR MAZDA. And hooray for the reception lady, who will be getting a box of chocolates when I take the car in for its replacement bush.
21 April
GOT s8 e1
I wonder whether, years in the future, I’ll look at the title of this post and thing, what was all that about? Anyway, the episode was OK. I could see what it was doing: reminding us of who was who, bringing together various groups and characters, foreshadowing future conflicts. Never mind Winter is Coming. It looks as though Chaos is coming. Is it me, or was there a lot of whispering and mumbling going on? I couldn’t make out all that was said, and I fear I may have missed important clues. Curses on the Realism School. The episode wasn’t one of the best, in my opinion, but it nicely sets up the rest of the series. Looking forwards to e2, anyway!
11 April
The black hole
The image of the black hole, released on 10/4/19, is amazing. Just looking at it and trying to image how far away it is and the size of it just blows my mind. BBC tried to lighten my awe with some light relief. They had two consecutive news items online:
Scientists release first ever image of a black hole.
Richard Branson says Virgin Trains may disappear.
Is there a connection? Oh, another pun. Sorry about that... but I think we should be told.
07 April
Love on the Line (2)
Progress. My friend Duncan, who is a typesetter and small publisher based in the wilds of the Highlands, has formatted Love on the Line into whatever it has to be formatted into so that it can be uploaded into Amazon. So I’ve done that, and you can view the results</a>. I have contacted a few folk for reviews, so hopefully they can leap into action on launch day (22 June). Meanwhile I shall try contacting known book reviewers to see if they will add their voices to the list. Facebook and Twitter are still a mystery to me. With a bit of luck I will find out more tomorrow, when I should be meeting up with <a href=\"https://www.denisecowleeditorial.com/blog\">Denise Cowle</a> for a tutorial. Of course, if you want to write a review, just let me know...
06 April
Fnarr fnarr
I have just finished reading Lynne Murphy’s The Prodigal Tongue, which I obtained from her at the SfEP conference last year. (I swapped one of her books for one of mine.) It’s obviously well researched, well written, very readable and gives rise to constant chuckles. Now that I’ve finished it, what sticks out most in my mind? The study of nationlects? Glottal stops and the absence thereof? The way English has transmuted itself all over the globe? No. What I remember most is the new onomatopoeia that’s crept into English: fnarr fnarr, apparently meaning a stifled laugh. I fnarred when I read that: it wasn’t something I’d heard of before. Now I’m determined to get it into one of my writings somewhere. Oh, and I thoroughly recommend the book.
04 April
Love on the Line
I wrote Love on the Line a few years ago and vowed to do my damnedest to get it published. Of course, it’s gathered dust since then, mainly because I’ve been so busy with editing work and life in general, but also because I am awful at marketing. My friend Duncan who works as a professional typesetter and small publisher asked me why I hadn’t tried putting it up on Amazon. Well, when I wrote LOTL, self-publishing was still not quite over the hurdle of being seen as the last place of books not good enough to be published. That’s all changed, of course. So I’m going to give it a go. Watch out for LOTL updates over the next few weeks. Launch date is 22 June!
01 April
SNAGS 2
It’s been a hectic five days; get up, drive to Glasgow, watch the swimming; drive back in the afternoon if Dylan didn’t make a final, or what seemed like the middle of the night if he did. Then same again next day. He made four finals this year (only one last year) and the highlight was the 50m freestyle, where he not only got to the final, but won the silver medal. You can watch it on YouTube if you’ve a mind to. So Dylan did well, and so did the South Ayrshire Swim Team (SAST) overall. They needed to finish in the top ten teams to be eligible for a team competition in Edinburgh in September - and they finished 7th. To put this into context, about 20 teams were competing, and SAST is one of the smallest. So it’s quite an achievement to finish in the top 10. No doubt I will be reporting on the team competition in September!
27 March
SNAGS
SNAGS - properly known as the Scottish Age Group Swimming Championships, starts tomorrow. Son number 3 will be swimming in nine races over the five days, and hopes to get to about 5 finals. The finals are shown on YouTube every day. So if you clock in to YT on every evening from 27 March to 31 March, you might be lucky to see Offspring splashing up Tollcross pool. Don’t bother on 28 March, though. Although he’s racing in the afternoon that day, he’s extremely unlikely to get to the evening’s final. But on the other days... fingers crossed!
25 March
Milk
A couple of months ago, a lady knocked on the door and enquired if we’d like our milk delivered to the door in old-fashioned glass pint bottles. We said we’d give it a try. They’re delivered twice a week at about 4am (I haven’t heard them yet) and it all works splendidly. Not only does it remind us of times gone by, but also we’re saving the planet. No longer do we have to buy those great plastic cartons of milk from Tesco... Why not check to see if there’s a similar service near wherever you are?