Blog

Macbeth gets nomination for best original audiobook

2012-02-21T16:32:52Z

I’m really flattered to tell you that Macbeth: A Novel has won a nomination for one of the coveted Audie awards, the audiobook ‘Oscars’. We’re finalist in the category for best original work of the year and up against some tough competition as you can see from the list here. But it’s great just to be there, so heartfelt thanks to my fellow author A.J. Hartley, our wonderful narrator Alan Cumming, and the people at Audible who made this all possible, especially our mentor Steve Feldberg, for putting so much faith in our insane idea from the beginning.

Macbeth will be out as a novel in May too. The awards take place in the august surroundings of the New York Historical Society on June 5. Which is the same time as Book Expo America as it happens. I wonder if I can sneak my way in….

Writing's biggest secret is… there's no secret

2012-02-18T07:20:28Z

Yesterday my first and last book on the craft of writing was published. It’s called Writing: A User Manual and is now out in print in the UK from Bloomsbury, with the ebook due on March 5 and the US version due to ship on April 20.

Lee Child wrote the foreword. In it he opines…

There are blind alleys, and ways to avoid them.There are elephant traps, and ways to sidestep them. There’s praise, and ways to parse it. There’s criticism, and ways to respond to it. And ways not to. Once the words are on the page, you step out of the office and into the jungle. You need a guide.
You need David Hewson.

Very (and typically) kind of him, since Lee, like me, has a distinct antipathy towards ‘how-to’ books about writing.

So why did I write a full-length book on the subject anyway? It’s because of That Damned Question. The one professional writers get all the time at book conventions and writing classes. I don’t teach much at the latter any more, partly because I simply don’t have the time.

But also because of That Damned Question. You know the one. It goes…

So what’s your secret?

Secret! These things are books. You can pick them up in libraries and book stores everywhere. Download them in a few seconds to your Kindle. They are as public as public can be. And you want to know their secret?

It’s an infuriating question in itself. But the sentiments behind it are pretty damned worrying too. There’s a myth at large that writing fiction is a kind of game of chance. You juggle the words and ideas, hope they work on the page, then pray some agent and publisher will pick them up and put their professional skills behind making the thing work.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Writing is a craft, like painting or music, one we can never truly master. Some of us may have natural talents for any of these. But talent alone isn’t enough. You need to work. You need to learn from others. You need to read (or see other paintings and listen to other music) and develop the ability to analyse the output of others and see what makes it tick.

Inspiration’s a wonderful thing but perspiration’s essential too. So often books about writing concentrate on the former and ignore the latter. That’s why you get keen and utterly lost students at writing classes who know the ins and outs of characters arcs better than many a professional writer, but still lack a firm grip on more basic, perhaps more boring, facets of writing such as tense, point and view and fundamental narrative structure and successful revision.

Stories aren’t just written. They’re built, step by step out of nothing. Unless you possess the right tools and an understanding of the medium you’re like an architect who’s clueless about physics. You may have the greatest vision in your head, but the chances are it will come tumbling down somewhere along the way.

So I wanted to write a book that told would-be writers everything I expected them to know before embarking on a novel, or even a class. I’m not sure you can teach writing. But I know you can teach people to think about it. That, I hope, is what Writing: A User Manual will do.

It’s a very simple idea. It takes you through planning, writing and delivering a novel. I talk about how I handle research and story structure, the tools I use, the kind of work strategies I employ. Some of these ideas may work for you. Some you could find horrifying. No matter. Every writer’s on an individual journey. You have to find your own way. So the advice I offer in this book is there to be accepted, questioned and rejected if you wish. So long as it makes you think about the way writing could work for you.

There’s a sample story in there, developed from that first rudimentary flash of an idea to a finished synopsis. Quite a few examples of work in various stages of progress, and the odd rant too. My aim was to produce a practical guide to the fundamentals of writing popular fiction. All the things I wish someone had told me — but didn’t — before I set out on this journey almost two decades and twenty books ago.

It will be, as I said, my first and last book on this subject. I hope it’s some use. My one planned talk on writing craft this year will, as usual, be at Craftfest in July in New York. I’ll be talking in some detail about the revision process, which is covered in some detail in the book too. Thrillerfest, the convention of which Craftfest is a part, is a fantastic event. There’s a bit more in the book’s 272 pages than I can handle in those forty five minutes — but if you’re going, do say hello.

Poor old Kodak. There are lessons here for us all

2012-01-06T09:13:05Z

In March 1995, when I was still writing technology for the Sunday Times and trying to develop my career as a novelist, I got an invitation that was simply too hard to refuse. How would I like to spend a few days in San Francisco learning about what Kodak had in mind for meeting the new world of digital photography head-on?

It was a dream freebie, much appreciated since I was working on my second novel, Epiphany, which is partly set in the city. They flew us business class, picked us up at the airport, deposited us in the Four Seasons on Nob Hill. Then left us to ourselves. None of the round of constant, tedious briefings from breakfast till midnight that most tech companies demanded.

All Kodak wanted was our presence at an event in the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts to hear a fancy, very expensive presentation. Forty five minutes or so and that was it. They weren’t even offering briefings afterwards. How can you say no?

Actually I nearly wished I had when they told me I couldn’t meet George Fisher who was running the company then. I wanted a story to write. That was my job. And the presentation was so baffling* it needed someone to explain it. Kodak was a huge company at the time, one of the best-known brands in the world. Most of us used one of their film products. Many their cameras. Hardly anyone the inkjet printers they were starting to ship.

Kodak’s digital strategy was, as far as I understood the presentation, incredibly half-hearted. The company was setting up a digital division. But it was very much a fashion thing. No one seriously believed that digital cameras and printers would, in the near future, wipe out film processing. After all, the quality was poor and the technology expensive.

I remember bearding someone and asking the key question: is the new digital division going to be an independent entity free to pursue its own future and compete with Kodak’s mainstream film business? Or will it be told: invent something but don’t damage the cash cow?

There was no straight answer but it was pretty clear the latter was the case. I seem to recall I wrote something saying that this was bonkers and digital was the future (and getting an obscene email from the managing director of a big UK film processing house as a result).

‘I told you so’ is never a nice thing to say, especially when one of the biggest company names in the world is filing for Chapter 11, as Kodak is now. But well… I told you so, and lots of other smarter people did too. In the end Kodak produced some nice cameras and apparently some good printers. But it doesn’t matter. They were too late. ‘Kodak’ doesn’t mean what it was. The brand has been catastrophically devalued, and while someone will doubtless pick it up, the opportunity to lead digital photography, the way it led the world of film, has been lost.

That’s technology for you. Who, a decade ago, would have said the biggest music retailer in the world would, within a few years, be a then struggling computer company called Apple? Or that the likes of Nokia would be knocked off its perch by that same company, and firms like HTC which were once just assembly lines for western names who used them to knock up bits of hardware?

This is a world in which things change at dizzying speed. You either keep up with them or you fail. Yes, you may make the world’s best fax machine, and sell it for the lowest price around. But it’s still a fax machine. And in case you never noticed… no one wants one any more.

Here’s what Kodak should have said to its new digital print division seventeen years ago: Go and put us out of business. Compete like crazy, with us most of all because we are the market leaders and want to stay that way. Save the company by destroying it and building something new in its place.

Sadly it didn’t learn that lesson till it was too late. The battle was lost, I suspect, back in that day in 1995 when it was a fat, comfortable, lazy company deluded into thinking the future would always be just around the corner.

I wonder: how many publishing companies will we be saying that about ten years from now?

*Here’s the press release from that event — judge for yourself.

Carnival for the Dead, now out in audio

2012-01-05T20:50:34Z

Today was the official publication date for my eleventh Italian novel, Carnival for the Dead, out now from Pan Macmillan. As you can read in the link above it’s a standalone story for one of the popular characters from the Costa series, Teresa Lupo.

I’m also delighted to tell you the audio version of the book is out at the same time. You can find it at the publisher, WF Howes, on CD, cassette and in large print too. You can also find the audiobook available worldwide through Audible. It’s in the Audible US store here, and the Audible UK store here.

Since this is Teresa’s story through and through the book suits a female narrator (don’t worry, the inimitable Saul Reichlin has something else on the cards for me). Teresa’s tale is in the very competent hands of Juanita McMahon, whose other audio credits including Sarah Waters and Val McDermid. You can here a sample of her narration on all the sites above.

A lot of American readers are asking: when will there be a print and ebook edition available in the US. The straight answer is: we’re working on it and hope to have an answer for you soon. In the meantime you can find print edition in import stores and order directly from Amazon UK who will do international shipping. You can find the book here.

The book thieves now have a 'religion' of their own

2012-01-05T09:00:30Z

The world is mad. OK, you knew that. But did you know exactly how mad? Here’s one example: in Sweden the authorities have given full religious status to a ‘church’ that makes the theft of books, videos and music (and anything else digital) it’s central credo.

Unless the story above is a joke (one can but hope) the ‘Missionary Church of Kopimism’ describes itself as ’ a religious group centered in Sweden who believe that copying and the sharing of information is the best and most beautiful that is’.

According to a press release from this ‘church’…

For the Church of Kopimism, information is holy and copying is a sacrament. Information holds a value, in itself and in what it contains, and the value multiplies through copying. Therefore, copying is central for the organisation and its members.

Being recognized by the state of Sweden is a large step for all of kopimi. Hopefully, this is one step towards the day when we can live out our faith without fear of persecution, says Isak Gerson, spiritual leader of the Church of Kopimism.

The Church of Kopimism is a religious organisation with roots from 2010. The organisation formalizes a community that’s been well spread for a long time already. The community of kopimi requires no formal membership. You just have to feel a calling to worship what is the holiest of the holiest, information and copy. To do this, we organize kopyactings – religious services – where the kopimists share information with eachother through copying and remix

Maybe the Swedes will next give religious authority to the National Church of Shoplifters and Pickpockets, since they doubtless take great joy in taking things they’re supposed to pay for without stumping up for them too. One imagines there are very few genuine authors, musicians and film makers among this outfit’s ranks. You have to wonder what the idiots in the Kammarkollegiet, the Swedish authority behind this mad decision, think they’re doing.

But there’s piracy for you. An awful lot of ordinary middle class people really don’t get it. I was talking to a friend who’d bought Kindles for himself and his wife recently. They went to see relatives at a dinner party and told everyone how happy they were with them.

One smart-ass chirped up, ‘I hope you’re not paying full whack for your books.’

He then demonstrated how he used ‘a man’ in Uzbekistan or somewhere. All he had to do was email asking for a book. The chap found it for him. The ‘buyer’ stumped up the princely sum of 50p — through some suspect east-European version of Paypal — and got a file back in return.

Apparently it was often a bit worn around the edges and needed some conversion and other work before he managed to get it onto his Kindle. But what the hell? He’d avoided paying £3.99 and got his ‘book’, not quite pristine but mostly there, for only 50p.

‘If you buy books from Amazon you’re a mug,’ this charmer said. I do hope he feels the same when the criminals who run these syndicates — and they are criminals, make no mistake — get round to taking his credit card details on a fun run to the Urals.

I’m pleased to report he got his ears blasted in return. But who are we talking about here? A teenage layabout? Someone on benefits? No someone approaching fifty in a senior job in the public sector, part of a dinky couple earning enough money to take them on several foreign holidays a year. As I’ve said a million times before book theft’s not about money. It’s about being able to take something without paying for it, safe in the knowledge you probably won’t get caught (if he was he’d doubtless lose his job by the way).

And now the Swedes have given these thieving idiots their own ‘religion’. I’m an atheist myself but I can’t help but wonder what people in real religions make of this. Sometimes the world is run by clowns.

All Kindle books are not made equal

2012-01-04T18:07:19Z

I had a sudden hankering to read Dickens’ Bleak House last night. Being lazy I thought I’d look it up on Kindle. My, are there a lot of different versions there, including the one with the cover on the right.

Only 77p for a Dickens book with a cover seemingly from Japanese anime? How can you go wrong?

Well, I guess you can’t really. As far as I could work out this is a genuine copy of the original. Just with a very odd cover. You’ll find lots of other books like it, some with identical text here. If you’re wondering what’s going… let me offer an explanation.

As most people now know anyone can publish to Kindle with very little effort indeed. So if you want to find an out of copyright classic painstakingly put together by someone in their spare time then released an open source material for free… you can. Then you put a cover on it, stick it on Amazon and hope someone will fork out 77p for the thing.

An awful lot of the stuff you see is precisely this. And the source is generally that excellent service Project Gutenberg, which will let you have it for free, in many different formats, usually delivered accurately.

Here, for example, are Project Gutenberg’s listings for Bleak House. All you really need. Though you don’t get that Japanese anime, which is what you’re really paying for I guess.

The morale of this story is: if you want free classics, take care. Some of those on Amazon have been very well put together, with additional material you won’t find on Gutenberg. These are the work of responsible publishers. Others are just people trying to make a quick buck out of out of print material. And some of them clearly don’t even read the material they up either, since I’ve found a few things that are full of scanning errors and gibberish.

As always on the internet, take care and ask a few questions. And if you find someone peddling other people’s work I hope you’ll complain.

Mr Newhouse's Proposition: a seasonal short story

2011-12-30T08:00:57Z

Mr Newhouse’s Proposition is a short story commissioned by the Daily Express for release today. You can find it in print inside the paper (the best medium, naturally), online here, and listen and watch to an audio version above.

It’s a seasonal tale about a young Englishwoman lost in Venice at New Year, finding herself in the company of an interesting yet mysterious stranger. The video is in HD by the way, which you can best watch by following the link to the original Vimeo file (where it is watchable through an HD TV if you’re up to it).

If you like it you may care to take a look at my new novel, Carnival for the Dead, in which Teresa Lupo, a regular in the Costa series, finds herself similarly in Venice and assailed by curious short stories. The print book is out in the UK on January 5 but you will find the ebook available now. We hope to have a US release date for the book shortly.

Many thanks to Caroline Jowett and her team on the Express for this, and to my son Tom Hewson who managed the audio of the narration and wrote and played the music you hear. The photos are mine from many years of visiting Venice.

Newspapers at Christmas: boy it gets desperate

2011-12-28T09:11:05Z

When I was a newspaper reporter I was often tasked with working over the Christmas holiday. It was rarely interesting. Newspapers report the news. Or they’re supposed to. And nothing much happens (apart from the year the fugitive Labour minister and crook John Stonehouse turned up on a beach in Australia on Christmas Day).

The result is… desperation. If you want to see what it looks like read this story in the Telegraph of all papers.

Let me summarise: a woman in Orpington, Kent, has seen the face of Jesus is a newly-washed crumpled sock drying on her washing line.

My favourite quotes…

We thought it would be good to make a little shrine for it - but unfortunately, when we moved it, the creases fell out a bit and the face isn’t quite as clear now.
…you can still just about make out his face. Unfortunately, it’s not quite good enough to donate to our local church, but our friends have all been round to see it.

And this… which has probably ruined my entire morning.

We think it’s a bit of a sign - but for what we don’t know.

The Sun definitely. The Mail maybe, provided a link with cancer is placed in there somewhere. But the Telegraph? Oh dear…

Minimalist writing apps: some new options

2011-12-23T10:23:12Z

Minimalist writing apps seem to be very fashionable these days. Apps like IA Writer and Byword on OS X take away all the formatting and let you focus on nothing but the words. I like this idea, in principle anyway. Books are made of words, not fonts and formatting.

Apps like these work well for short stories I think. Quite how you’d manage a full-length novel with them is another matter. But maybe you have better ideas.

Here’s one approach to minimalist writing that’s new to me and really rather interesting. Why not skip normal apps altogether and write, instead, in a browser?

Google’s Chrome browser has its own web app store. In it you’ll find a fair number of minimalist writing apps (I wish some of these were on Android so we could use them on tablets). You can browse a fair few here. Most are free, including the two below.

You install them into Chrome from the web store. Then (here’s the confusing bit) to see them you hit the plus sign for a new tab and choose Apps. You should find your apps there. Click them and they open in a new browser window. Drag the icon to the toolbar for a shortcut (yes I know it’s an odd way to run an app but there you go).

Quick Note comes from the web service Diigo and lets you create a series of notes in a virtual notebook. You can’t change the layout or much else. But it’s a neat way of just getting down some words, and you could use the multiple document list on the left as a way of mapping out scenes I guess. Basic Diigo is free but you will need a subscription if you want to use it a lot.

Writebox looks much more a minimalist text editor — spare pages, lots of white text, nice in full screen, with a toolbar that disappears while you’re writing. You can choose font and size (but not line length as far as I can see which is a shame because it looks a bit long to me). Still it’s nice to use, and you can open and save text files directly into Dropbox.

Scrivener users should know what that means. You can use Writebox to open and edit Scrivener files in text using the sync function (currently Mac only). Peruse these instructions to find out how.

Some important gotchas. The great drawback to browser apps is that many of them only work online. That’s right. If you’re working on the train and go into a tunnel your computer stops working. These apps aren’t like that, they say. They work online and offline.

I haven’t tested this. So if you want to use these things experiment with them and use your own judgement. I wouldn’t for one minute use them for something highly confidential since I don’t understand how secure they really are. They’re ways of writing and editing text quickly and easily. Nothing more (which is one of their strong points).

The logical way to use them would be using one of Google’s Chromebooks, laptops that run on nothing but a Chrome browser. In the UK the only models currently available are from Samsung and seem ridiculously overpriced to me. You can get a Windows 7 15.6 inch laptop with everything on board for the price of a Samsung Chromebook with just a 16gb sd card. The prices have just been slashed in the US. They haven’t over here (surprise, surprise).

But for now you can just try them out in a browser if you like. Writebox is a very nice way of seeing a Scrivener scene in a new context if you feel in the mood. Or you could really use these as all-out alternatives to some of the existing conventional minimalist apps out there.

Just make sure you know what’s going on and where and how your text is being stored.

An appointment with BBC Radio 5 Live

2011-12-10T12:24:46Z

I’m just back from a week in Copenhagen, chasing up ideas for the book based on Killing II. Fascinating trip. There’s a lot of Danish context UK viewers may have missed in the TV series which will make an entrance into the book.

I’ll be discussing our current fascination with Scandinavian thrillers on BBC 5live’s ‘Double Take’ tomorrow (Sunday). What is it about the dark characters and gloomy settings that means our TV screens, best-seller lists, and, from later this month, box-office charts are being dominated by the likes of Lund, Wallander and Blomkvist? I’ll be speaking to Anita Anand and Sam Walker, as well as the Swedish Radio Culture Correspondent Gunnar Bolin — who’s slightly bemused by it all (and he’s not the only one).

We’ll be on air from around 10:20 tomorrow morning on 909 and 693MW, or you can listen live on www.bbc.co.uk/5live. It will also be on the iPlayer from around mid-day tomorrow if you want to catch up later.