Bias ~or~ what's wrong with slaughtering your own characters?

Regular readers of this blog will probably know that I am the proud author of a book of short stories, winningly entitled "They All Die At The End".

You can buy it here as a Kindle ebook.

Or, if you'd rather have a paperback, contact me for a signed copy. Or buy it here unsigned - but be aware that I'll earn almost exactly nothing if you choose that route - such is the publishing business.


I sell a few. People like it - even people that I don't know.


And then occasionally, I read things like this:


There is a short-story competition, called "The Short Story", more information here: http://www.theshortstory.net/. The website contains "classic pieces of advice" and, at number 3 (higher than "opening and closing lines", "what is the premise of the story?" and "steer clear of the sentimental") we have...


"If you’re going to do death, make sure it’s original"


Aren't the first six words redundant? Why not just say...


"make sure it's original" ?


Otherwise you are left with the nonsensical implication that unoriginal stories in which all characters survive would be just fine. A clear message is being given that the judges would be strongly biased against stories such as mine, despite their later admission that "death is a part of life" and "these stories can be moving, funny, harrowing and compelling".


Never mind that one of their four examples of a great opening line is "Harry Joy was to die three times, but it was his first death which was to have the greatest effect on him, and it is this first death which we shall now witness" (Bliss, Peter Carey)


It might only be an implied prohibition but it seems extremely unrealistic. What proportion of films, television programmes, books (whether long or short stories), plays or operas concern death? Even if you exclude police procedurals, whodunnits and horror films, I would expect that well over half would include the death of at least one major character. Include those genres and you're maybe even close to the three-quarter mark.


There's a fair amount of slaughter going on in the judges' own lists of their top ten favourite books. I haven't counted but I'm confident that at least half of these titles result in major character wipe-out.


Maybe writing this blog post and entering the competition are mutually exclusive. Maybe they aren't. Kerry and Katherine - what do you think? Although really, you'd have to read my book before coming to a conclusion.

Love Cinema? Hate Piracy?

...but maybe hate overpriced, technically inept cinema chains too


Last week, before the film started at the Odeon cinema, we were treated to the Film Distributors' Association's one-minute public information film in which a run-down 'last cinema on earth' is shown with its customers gradually fading away. Apparently this dystopian future is not caused by zombie virus, nuclear apocalypse or global warming but by film piracy.


I do not condone film piracy, or indeed any form of theft. But that is not the debate here.


It is not film piracy that will stop me from returning to that cinema. The Odeon has lost my business due to extortionate pricing and being technically clueless. Perhaps someone could make a companion public information film in which a cinemagoer from ancient times (maybe the 1980s) falls through a portal and arrives in the Odeon in the year 2012. He'd be clamouring to get back before the minute was up.


From the top...

• Buying tickets from the food counter behind a long queue of people buying, er, food. To be fair, this is a minor improvement on making people queue outside to buy tickets.

• Ticket prices. When I can buy my own copy of a film for less than the price of two tickets, the visit to the cinema has to be particularly enticing. I'm not convinced the Odeon chain is taking this approach.

• Allocated seating without any staff or floor lighting. It is difficult to find row G in darkness. Some cinema chains have discrete lights on row letters. Not this cinema. At least mobile phone screens act as effective torches – glad I hadn't turned it off. But I could have ignored those points if it hadn't been for...

• Dark, grotty picture with sides of screen unused. Friends who had previously seen the same film in a better cinema agreed that it was too dark. Not just a bit too dark – much too dark. Apparently the Vue cinema managed a brighter and sharper 3D picture. (Yes, the film was in 3D but I do not wish to discuss the evils, pointlessness and general rubbishness of 3D here.)
  And, the squarer, not widescreen, picture suggested that we might have been watching an IMAX print – on a standard screen.
  
  All that work by a veritable army of skilled professionals – the overpriced cast and director, the writers, the artists who created the digital special effects, the model makers, the hair-stylists, the parking coordinators – ruined at the last moment by an inability to project it correctly. People have been projecting films for over a hundred years – how has the Odeon chain managed to lose the knowledge? If the director had seen his film made this ugly, he may well have come over all Russell Crowe.

• Bright floodlighting suddenly turned on 20 seconds into end credits. That was a bit surprising. It was the lighting equivalent of shouting at everyone to get out or you'll set the dogs on them.

At the very beginning of the film, I complained to a cinema employee about the lousy picture. I was polite. He was polite. He came in to the cinema and looked at the picture. He said something I couldn't catch into a walkie-talkie. He told me that he had notified whoever it was he was supposed to notify. And nothing changed.


If cinemas are to become history, I don't think this Odeon will be the last cinema on earth. I think it'll be one of the first to go.

Tim Minchin and the lure of the better offer

On 30 April 2012, comedian Tim Minchin announced that he would no longer be appearing at five events over the summer. These were, presumably, confirmed bookings and yet, with regret, he had to cancel. Fortunately for Tim, his reason for cancelling was a happy one – someone had made him a better offer.

Where does this leave his fans? To judge from the comments on his website, his fans are delighted. They know that he “would never do this unless [he] really had to”. They tell him that his “talent is more than deserving” and that it was “awesome that [he] personally broke the news to everyone”.

Either no one felt irritated or their view was not added to the site.

Personally, I find him a funny comedian. His songs, at their best (which they generally are) strike me as “thing[s] of jaw-dropping wonder” (as the Daily Telegraph would have it). I didn't have tickets to see his show this summer anyway. I probably will watch the American television show in which he will appear and so his actions will give me more entertainment, not less.

And yet, this rankles precisely because he has put his career above his fans, pulled out of shows for which tickets have been bought and hotels booked and train tickets purchased and baby-sitting organised. Some people will be out of pocket, even if they can obtain a refund (and even if that refund includes the booking fee and administration fee – which there's a good chance it won't). He has decided not to give some people a show which they have been looking forward to. Instead he will advance his own career.

In the song “I'm In A Cage”, after stating that “nothing ruins comedy like arenas”, he uses the lyric “this is not about you, this is all about me [...] and selling DVDs” I thought he was joking.

Obviously I am risking a backlash*. When Phil Daoust had the nerve to write a very bad review for Tim Minchin back in 2005, Tim responded (after some years) with a song, in which he hoped that a range of extremely nasty things would happen to Phil, some in front of his children. In my opinion, this song is not one of his finest compositions.

Clearly I will never reach Tim's heights in musical comedy but I wondered whether a better song and a better joke could have been made by constructing a song around all the good things that Tim could do to make Phil's life better and happier. If I ever bother to write a sample verse or two, I'll add it.

* I think there is little chance that Tim (or any member of his team) will even see this article, let alone respond to it. However, if I have caught his attention...

Hello. I bought one of your DVDs. Would you reciprocate and buy one of my books? Books for children and books for adults...

the badger

Earlier this year, I discovered that two members of pop band McFly were to write a children's book. This, in itself, is barely news since major publishers have been inviting all manner of unlikely candidates to add to the infant canon for some time. However, the subject matter... words fail me. Read it yourself: http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/17385604

So I wrote a little email to Random House. As is the way now with major corporations, they haven't bothered to reply. Shame on you, Random House! A polite one-liner is too much trouble now?

If they won't publish, I can at least blog the whole story.

**********

The following email was sent to Random House on 20 March 2012.

Dear Sir or Madam,

I understand from the BBC that you have offered a publishing deal to Tom Fletcher and Dougie Poynter (of McFly) to write the children's picture book 'The Dinosaur That Pooped Christmas'.

If this is likely to become a series, could I ask for my book to be considered as the follow-up?

In the interests of consistency, I assume that you would like to work with the same illustrator and so I have not made an attempt at the artwork beyond a few mock-ups.

The work is entitled 'The Badger That Barfed Easter'.

Brief synopsis
A family home is raided by a chocolate-loving badger the night before Easter. The creature eats all of the chocolate eggs, nests, etc. The badger is captured by the family and they decide that the best approach is to make the badger vomit up the items so that they can still enjoy their Easter treats. Various hilarious antics ensue as they attempt to make this happen.

The first draft of the book is attached to this email. (Or reproduced below on this blog post.)

Much as I appreciate that tales of bodily functions are popular with children, I have written other, less scatological, books. You can find out more about them here: http://www.petertarnofsky.co.uk/. I would be delighted to send you either paperback or digital copies of any or all of them. In the meantime, there are extracts on the website.

Yours faithfully, etc

**********

The important part was, of course, the last paragraph. I know, I know - putting the important bit at the end is silly but I couldn't start with it, could I? Anyway, moving on...

It would be inappropriate to post the illustrated version since my hideous mock-ups depended on photographs that I almost certainly had no right to use, especially the one where Brian May stands in for the badger. So you'll just have to imagine what it could look like.

I proudly present to you:

**********

The Badger That Barfed Easter (© Peter Tarnofsky 2012)

The smell of chocolate filled the air
So creamy, rich and yummy
It woke the badger from his sleep
And growls came from his tummy.

He slunk across the moonlit lawn
And walked up to the house
The smell was so much stronger there.
He was quiet as a mouse.

He crept in through the old cat flap
(The cat was out that night)
And what he saw inside the lounge
Just filled him with delight.

Chocolate eggs and chocolate nests
And chocolate bars galore!
But once he'd wolfed down all he found
He couldn't fit through the door.

And then the cat came back inside
And saw what badger had done.
The screeching woke up mum and dad,
And little Johnny, their son.

The family ran down the stairs
And found the big fat badger
The cat was running round and round –
It took them ages to catch her.

Johnny then began to cry
His chocolate was all eaten.
But then his mum said, “Don't you fear
We're not going to be beaten.”

“We'll get your chocolates back, you'll see
It will be easy to do
Not like when dinosaur ate Christmas
And we waited for his poo.”

“No, this time we won't wait as long
In fact we'll have a laugh
There's loads of ways that we can try
To make this badger barf.”

Dad held the badger upside down
And gave him quite a shake
But badger scratched and wriggled free
So that was a mistake.

Then mum found Johnny's old toy boat
And strapped badger firmly to it
They sailed it on the stormy pond
But seasickness didn't do it.

Then Johnny showed him pictures
Of a badger squashed on the road.
He still didn't start to throw up
But he went green as a toad.

Mum and dad held badger down
And Johnny bounced toys off his belly
And still no chocolate was thrown up
But the farting was quite smelly.

Johnny started crying again,
“We'll never get it back
Our Easter has been ruined by
This night-time badger attack.”

“Don't cry,” said dad, “we're not done yet
There are still things to try
Let's sit him on the trampoline
And bounce him good and high.”

But even bouncing didn't work
The badger found it fun.
He smiled as he went up and down
And frowned when they were done.

“Okay,” said mum, “there's just one thing
That's bound to make him puke.
This will work, I'm sure of it,
It won't just need a fluke.”

So dad held badger's mouth wide open
Because his teeth were sharp
And mum reached in and tickled his throat
And, starting with a parp,
The eggs and nests and chocolate bars
Were thrown up on the floor
They let the thinner badger go –
He ran straight out the door.

Mum and dad were pleased and proud
But Johnny cried again.
He said, “These eggs were eaten once
They can't be eaten again.”

“They smell disgusting, don't you think?
And look at all this slime!”
But dad said, “Don't be silly,
They came back out just in time.”

“This Easter feast will be just fine
Once rinsed under the tap.
It's not like last Christmas dinner
Which we picked out of dinosaur crap.”

new websites

Until my new website is fully ready and glued together, all online content about my many and various books can be found either here:

http://theyalldieattheend.wordpress.com/ (for the short stories)

or here:

http://petertarnofskybooks.wordpress.com/ (for the children's books)


The long term plan is that the proper writing stuff will go there and this blog will become a collection of random thoughts, rants and attempts at humour. (Not much change there, then.)