"Personal" question(s) to John Jarrold

[Flemcodogmusic]

Thanks for the info, John!

I have been sticking to one POV per scene, ever since you brought my attention to it a few months ago. Just wanted to make sure that multi-POV isn't the type of thing that might put publishers off ...

Cheers!

 

[John Jarrold]

No, certainly not, spread across a book - just not in one scene!

 

[John Jarrold]

Do you think chapters should be named?

Personally, I think chapter numbers are fine - it's about the prose, not the peripherals.

 

[TheEndIsNigh]

No, I definitely would not do that as you have written it: only one POV character per scene.

There are occasions, in action scenes, where intercutting POVs is possible - but even then, not every line and only with a line-break in between.

You definitely do not want to switch POV in the middle of dialogue like that. Try getting the thoughts of the character conveyed through the language used in the dialogue or through the thoughts of the other character.

You could try something like:

"Stu... Stuff you," Fred spattered.

Fred always stuttered when he got angry. It was one of the things Joe really liked about him -- it made him easy to read.

Also, I would tend to avoid writing "Joe taunted" and "Fred spattered" myself. "Joe said" and "Fred said" are a lot stronger -- if you don't know that Joe is taunting or Fred is (spattering?) then the dialogue and scene should be modified to reflect it.

(These are just my opinions, of course.)

So it's back to the ironing board then.

Thanks for the input.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

It's not that hard, TEIN. You can pick up the knack of sticking to one POV per scene very easily. It's learning to do the other in a way that actually works that's difficult.

And there are other aspects to writing that are a lot harder.

 

[TheEndIsNigh]

No. I shall retire to the country with my trusty ironing board and fade into the night. Wallowing in the misery of self contempt and the memories of a time when I once thought, just for a moment, that I could dream of joining the exulted ranks of the writers guild. There I shall wait for the inevitable end that surely will not be long in coming.

Wait; what about all the monkeys, the search for eternal life. The cure for poverty, hunger and universal peace.

No I must go on.

So little time, so little time.

 

[John Jarrold]

Looks like the medication is wearing off...!

 

[Gary Compton]

I think you are right! Send round a bottle of Blue Nun and be quick!!

 

[John Jarrold]

Pinot Grigio, shurely...

 

[Gary Compton]

I have told you not to call me Shirley in public!!

 

[John Jarrold]

I'm still covered in the scars (some internal) of taking authors out for publishing lunches over fifteen years as an editor and editorial director. I'm part of the last generation who REALLY lunched. Four or five bottles of wine, good food and discussion of life, the universe and everything...

 

[Gary Compton]

You will know a good bottle when you see it then John.

Sounds great fun but not sure if my liver could take 4-5 bottles of fally down water

 

[John Jarrold]

Nor could mine, any more!!! But in my pomp, in the late 80s and 90s, I had wonderful lunches and dinners with outstanding writers on both sides of the Atlantic. I reckon over 90% of the writers I published became friends, not just business colleagues, and remain so. We had enormous fun, and I think publishing SHOULD be fun.

Actually, I believe that life should be fun...take your work seriously, but not yourself...

 

[Gary Compton]

i agree 100%,too many people are miserable all the time - have a laugh at your own expense as you are a long time dead.

Humility at your own success is the key, drive a robin reliant like me and drink large amounts of pina colada, its the drink of millionaires - well next year anyway.

I'd give the 5 bottles a good go mind if you are buying John

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

Looks like the medication is wearing off...!

I sometimes think that medication (of one sort or another) should be issued to any person who even expresses the desire to become a published writer.

 

[John Jarrold]

Just one publishing lunch anecdote.

Ken Russell, the film director, wanted to write an SF novel - this was around 1996, when I was editorial director of the SF imprint at Random House in London. So Ken got in touch with me and I said 'Let's have lunch and discuss it.' I took him to a French restaurant called La Poule au Pot, in Pimlico, which some of us from RH used at least a couple of times a month. For about half-an-hour after we sat down, Ken was frowning, and I wondered what I'd done wrong. Then he explained that he'd recognised the restaurant, but couldn't think why - until it dawned on him it was the place he'd taken Twiggy and Justin de Villneuve for dinner on the opening night of his film THE BOYFRIEND, in which Twigs had starred!

We talked about his novel for about an hour, then moved on to films, naturally enough. I truly love films, so we had lots to discuss and discovered we are both huge fans of Powell and Pressburger, whose oeuvre took up the second bottle of house red. Eventually, I poured him into a cab to wend his way back to the station, and returned to the office.

We didn't publish the book - I had various editorial suggestions, but he wanted to keep his own vision. Someone else in London did publish it, but I don't think it set the world alight. But that's the sort of moment that makes publishing wonderful!

 

[Gary Compton]

You should write an auto biography- I know a good editor if you need one.

Joking apart, it would be a good read I am sure.

 

[Gary Compton]

You could call it "The Good,the Bad and the Ugly"

 

[John Jarrold]

I have no comment to make at this moment in time...!

 

[Susan Boulton]

Powell and Pressburger.

Now that is spooky!! My other half has just bought me a boxed set of P &P films... I love them! One of my favourites is "I know where I am going!" The way the train in it goes through a tartan landscape is quite delightful and somewhat surreal. But most of their films are, sometimes it is very slight, sometimes you have the full-blown total flights of fancy, that can be quite disturbing.