Eddie Izzard speaks about dyslexia and creativity

The following interview of Eddie Izzard by Mark Lawson on BBC Radio 4’s ‘Front Row’ touches on the relationship between dyslexia and creativity. The link is here, but I don’t know how long it will remain live, so I have made a rough transcription of the relevant part.

Eddie Izzard: I couldn’t do that writing bit. I kept trying to do the writing bit and sitting down and it wouldn’t come out. I couldn’t seem to write as fast as... My mouth was faster than my hand. So I said, what - happens - when... if - chickens - take - over - the - world, what - would - they... you know, and by that time, I don’t care.

Mark Lawson: There have been suggestions of a link between dyslexia and surrealism and some people have suggested that poets may be on the spectrum of dyslexia because they go for one word and get another. But there is possibly a connection in your comedy.

Eddie Izzard: I felt there’s a relationship between dyslexia and creativity. I believe that dyslexia tends to make you go off in a weird direction. And then you go: ‘Oh, that’s nice’. And that could well lead to that. And it’s interesting you saying about poets. I didn’t know about that. But I just thought creativity in general and dyslexia.

Mark Lawson: The learning of scripts, does that affect you?

Eddie Izzard: It doesn’t seem to. If I read things now, I can read better than I could. I used to really stumble over words. Big words. Especially names of people from a foreign country. I’d just go blah-blah-blah in my head. That’s how I’d read them out. Now I can read them. I’m just a really slow reader.

They say: ‘Read that script by tonight.’ People would knock it off in an hour or so if they’re probably a fast reader. But I have to stay up to three or four in the morning reading it. It just takes me twice, three times as long.

I sub-vocalise. I can’t do that thing when you ‘wshhhhhhhhht’ which some people do. I’d love to be able to. I’ve even got a speed reading book but, I... couldn’t get through it. Which is a joke in itself. But it was actually true. I got the speed reading book and I read half of it.

This is just an extract from a fascinating interview.

Generating Story Ideas

Where to find seed ideas for stories? Here are five ideas and observations:

Many stories come from asking questions. What would happen if... Thought is free so be as wild as you like. What would happen if a whale materialised high above the planet? No, wait, someone already wrote that one.

Stories can come from extrapolation. Read the driest news article from the most serious paper, then ask yourself about the people the story implies. The people in the background.

Don't be afraid of using up all your story ideas. The more stories you tell, the faster you'll find new ideas coming to you. The world is full of stories. All we have to do is train ourselves to notice them.

Other people's lives are a great source of story ideas. Happily, people love to talk about themselves. It is their favourite subject. Be a good listener and you'll have more stories than you can write.

I have a faulty digital radio that cuts out at random, usually leaving sentences unfinished. It's exasperating at times, but perfect for a storyteller. When the radio dies, my mind jumps forward, trying to complete the story.

And I am willing to sell this faulty digital radio/story generating machine. All reasonable offers considered. Now, that gives me an idea for a story...

Dyslexia the Dell Streak and Organization

Microsoft Word turned this dyslexic into a writer. Might the Dell Streak or some other smatrphone/tablet computer enable me to be super-organized?

I'm not one to harp on about the problems of dyslexia, as I am far more interested in the significant and often overlooked strengths. But here we do need to state the fact: dyslexics often have problems with organization. Find a really successful dyslexic and you will usually find a highly effective PA or partner standing close by.

Why is organization a problem? Because of a deficit in short term memory and problems tracking time/date combined an intense, creative tendency to make more lateral jumps than logical ones. I'm not going to show a photograph of my office to illustrate this. Even I blush sometimes. If you want to picture it in your mind, just meditate on the phrase 'creative chaos'.

Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't have my brain wired any other way. But this is a non-dyslexic world and I want to fit in if possible, so I'm always on the lookout for coping strategies.

Might the smartphone be the answer? Or perhaps a netbook computer? This is the question that has been tumbling in a pleasantly chaotic way around inside my head for the past year. My problem was that the netbook is just too big to carry round with me all the time - and thus would not work as a portable calendar. And the smartphone seemed just too small to read documents from with ease as well as some of the other features I was looking for. In short, I wanted something just in between these two classes of devices and nothing was on the market.

Enter the Dell Streak. Is it a tablet computer or a smartphone? A bit of both. In other words, it was exactly the class of device I was looking for.


It is a calendar, an alarm clock, a note taking device, a camera to take photos of receipts etc, a voice recorder, access to the Internet and e-mails, lists of contacts, names of people, documents I would no longer need to carry, an infinite supply of maps and it would tell me where I am when I get lost. Oh, and it makes phone calls too.

I believe this kind of technology will make a huge difference for many adult dyslexics, liberating them to integrate more effectively with the non-dyslexic world. As to whether the Dell Streak will be THE landmark device in this respect - there was only one way for me to find out.

So two days ago I went out and bought one. Or rather, the Carphone Warehouse gave me one and I agreed to pay a £35 contract every month for the next two years. Was it worth it? I'll report on my progress over the coming months.

The hidden benefits of Dyslexia

The term 'dyslexia' was first coined over a hundred and twenty years ago to describe students who had no deficit in intelligence but were nevertheless having difficulty acquiring literacy. It seemed a logical name. Dys-lexia. A problem with words.

Since that time, studies of dyslexia have naturally focused on helping dyslexic children lean to read and write. No surprise there. Get 100 dyslexics together and you will indeed have a crowd of people who have experienced difficulty with aspects of literacy. But look more closely and other quirky characteristics are revealed.

For example, many of the 100 dyslexics will have difficulty naming their left and right sides. Some may have problems reading the time from an analogue clock. Tracking the flow of time, short term memory and remembering names could also be an issue. Over the years researchers have been able to identify a cluster of such non-literacy-related problems.

But if you do get that group of dyslexics together and give them time to talk and compare notes, other commonalities start to emerge. For example, dyslexics are often very creative. They are lateral thinkers and problem solvers. Given a complex set of interrelationships, they easily see the whole picture and get to the root of issues. Many are able to read other people's emotions with stunning clarity.


No surprise then that so many successful people from the world of creative arts and the world of entrepreneurial business turn out to be dyslexic. Enhanced ability to think in three dimensions is another common attribute. Thus the ranks of top architects are also rich in dyslexics.

If we were to ask our group of 100 dyslexics whether they would like to be 'cured' of dyslexia - having the problems AND the advantages simultaneously removed by swallowing a pill - what would they say? What would you say? For me it would be an emphatic NO.

Not so much a learning disability, then. More a learning difference that manifests as disability in some situations (particularly in school) and manifests as a prodigious ability in others.

Writing and Improvisation

Aren't all writers improvisers, really? I mean, we sit at our writing desk or our computer or whatever, and we don't have the whole thing mapped out already finished in our heads. There may be an overall plan, but the detail has to be foggy.

Then we write. And the words spill out on the page.

Yesterday I was standing in a large, disused commercial kitchen, pretending to be a boom operator. Rhys Davies, the real life director, was playing the part of the camera man. In front of us were three actors - two playing the parts of actors who had turned up for an audition at this unlikely location and the third playing the part of a director with no budget who was interviewing them.

(Sorry about the confusion - actors playing actors etc. Unfortunately there is going to be much of this as the story of the new movie project is revealed. More of that later.)

The experience was fascinating. Some of the material the actors came out with, I could have written down there and then as polished dialogue. Other parts needed editing, so to speak. To be honest, some moments were so funny that I had to bite down on my lip to stop myself laughing out loud and spoiling the moment. And yes, funny was waht we were aiming for.

Today I am sitting at the laptop, experimenting with scenes for the same movie project. I'm typing dialogue that those same actors might potentially end up saying. The process seems very similar to what we went through yesterday. The lines come to my head and I type them without thinking. OK - I can go back and edit later, but the process feels as if it has that same spontaneity. I'm being the characters, just as the actors were.

The process of writing has a tension between these two tendencies - spontaneity and self-awareness. The creative genius and the critical editor. Both have to co-exist in the mind of the writer. Getting the balance right - that is the trick. As for the actor - is there room for the critic in her/his mind? At least I have the luxury of separating the process of creation from the process of editing.

I suspect that if I understood more of the actor's craft, I would find more parallels.

The End of a Story

A good story is a powerful thing. It lulls you in. It insinuates its way into the back of the mind and abides there, even when you are not thinking about it.

When you get to the end, there is a sense of completion. A journey has been finished. Parts that were separate have been brought together. The back brain can put it to one side and rest.

All the above is true of reading a book or watching a movie or listening to a story over a camp fire. It also describes my experience of creating a story. The narrative exists in a nebulous, illusive form only crystallizing into something solid when it is written down.

At the beginning of the writing process, I stride forwards into the fog, not knowing what is going to emerge after the next few paces. In the middle, I start to get a sense of the potential destination. And at the end - in the dash to the finish line - I have it all in my head simultaneously and am frantically trying to get it fixed on the page.

This last stage is the reason for my silence over the last couple of weeks. I have been pressing on towards the end of the screenplay 'Interviews With A Serial Killer' (formerly known as White Angel 2).

It is an all-consuming process. Frantic with writing. Even when not writing, I am thinking about it. The characters, the twists, the imagery and dialogue allow the writer little rest. It is a self-centred phase. I don't think it makes me a particularly nice person. There is just me and the story and I resent anyone who wants to take me away from it.

Last night at 9pm I finished writing and e-mailed the screenplay to Chris Jones - presently attending a film festival in Spain. I'm sure there will be further drafts, but for now I feel the weight lifted. My back brain is no longer having to juggle all the variables of a story.


Exciting things are happening in the next few days, so more blog entries will follow.

Being Dyslexic and Empathy

www.beingdyslexic.com is, as the name implies, a forum for people to discuss issues relating to their dyslexia. I have been a daily visitor to the website since I came across it some months ago. It has been refreshing to learn about the experiences of dyslexics directly from dyslexics instead of from reading the conclusions of research projects. Why? Because the issues raised are the ones that concern the dyslexics themselves.

Instead of fixating on reading and writing, the discussions range from talking about time management to empathy, from creativity to relationships. From this dyslexic-centred discussion several surprises emerge.

I have for some years wondered if there could be a connection between dyslexia and the degree of ability to recall emotions and to sense the emotions of others. My suspicions emerged from a chance remark by a dyslexic actor who said she relied on her strong “emotional memory” to help her get into role. This chimed with my own experience. As a writer I use the ability to recall and relive emotions when I am creating characters and working out what they must be feeling and how they will act as a result.

But when I asked dyslexic professionals I was told that there was no such relationship. I searched the internet and found no references to research on the subject. If such a connection did exist it would be a dyslexic strength. It would be something that dyslexics could use to give them an advantage.

Then someone posted a question on the ‘Being Dyslexic” forum. If you had a superpower connected to your dyslexia, the questioner asked, what would it be?

A stream of answers came through over the following days saying that the superpower they already had was the ability to read other people’s emotions – to know what they were thinking or feeling. It was such a strong effect for some of these people that it felt uncannily like ESP.

There is no doubt that in a predominantly non-dyslexic world, dyslexia presents itself as a disability. But in my opinion, the anomalous strengths of dyslexics are systematically under researched and under reported.

Which brings me to one of the other surprises from the being dyslexic forums – the spread of attitudes people have to their own dyslexia. Some hate it and wish it would go away, feeling it is blighting their lives. Others see it as a source of strength and part of who they are. The variation is huge. Now THAT is an area which could do with some research. It might not help anyone spell better, so educationalists might not regard it as a priority. But I’d rather be happy than get my spelling right every time.

Perhaps my priorities are skewed.

Thinking Differently in the Digital Age

Some people think differently from the rest of the crowd. The different thinkers don't do so well in times when the mainstream crowd has life all figured out. At such times the different thinkers are easy to spot. They're the ones doing crazy stuff, heading for disaster. Or ridicule.

But in times of rapid change, when the mainstream crowd are hanging on to modes of thought and behaviour that no longer work - that is when we need our different thinkers. In my opinion, that is why dyslexics and other kinds of people who tend to think differently are so valuable to society.

Take the example of the movie industry today. Digital production and digital distribution have arrived but the industry has not yet adapted. Or look at the the business of book publication. Or music. There is a tendency for people rooted in the way things were to see the new technology as a way of making slight modifications to the status quo. This is when the different thinkers shine.

I came across the following video on Chris Jone's blog. It is the work of two film makers Arin Crumley and Susan Buice, creators of Four Eyed Monsters. I this completely inspirational. If you are interested in the collision of old media and the new digital age, this is well worth the half hour it takes to watch.

The Eight-Stage Writing Arc

Eight psychological stages in the creation of a work of long fiction:

1) Trust. There is no preconception at this stage. The dominant emotion is nervous anticipation of the journey ahead.

2) Excitement. The characters and events begin to emerge. There are too many possibilities to hold in the head at once. But all the possibilities that do emerge seem to be strong.

3) Progress. The story is being formed. Chapters or a treatment are written. At the end of every writing session the word count has leaped forwards.

4) Crisis. The story gets stuck. The way forward is unclear. Long walks are needed. And the support of other writers. (There may be several stages of progress and crisis. Many novelists get stuck thirty to forty thousand words into the story. They have entered Act 2 and can't yet see all the way to Act 3.)

5) Vision. The last crisis is over. The way forward is clear.

6) Desperation. The end is in sight. The story is there in the back of the mind, but has not yet been told. At this stage, it will not let the writer rest. It never completely leaves the mind, from the moment of waking in the morning to the moment of sleeping at night. And it seeps into dreams. Carrying the story is exhausting.

7) Relief. The story is written - at least in first draft. It is out of the head and on the page.

8) Pride. Editing the story. It is improving every day. The writer finds passages that seemed mundane in writing, but now have obvious and surprising quality.


I am presently at the "Desperation" stage with the White Angel sequel. It is exhausting me. But it will be over soon. I'm so consumed with the film that my blogging is somewhat less consistent than it has been. Normal service should be resumed in a week or so once White Angel 2 is out of my head and on the page.

Ghosts of Eden by Andrew Sharp

It is the job of the novelist to lend eyes to the reader. One of the things that sets the really great book above the merely good is the clarity and intensity of the author's vision. It was this quality that struck me when I first came across the Ghosts of Eden by Andrew Sharp.

That was several years ago. It was then a manuscript being read out at a writing workshop. Since then it has been shaped and honed. And last night the process reached its fruition with publication by Picnic Books, marked by a splendid launch party.

The Ghosts of Eden takes place in East Africa and follows characters from different backgrounds who find themselves dislocated by changes in place and time. Like all great fiction it leads us along the individual narratives of its cast and thereby prompts us to ask questions about ourselves and the general condition.


I'll admit to bias here. I know the author and have seen the book emerge. But doing my best to see through all that, I still give you a strong recommendation to read it. If you follow my advice and hate it, feel free to write a complaint here. I don't think many of you will. (I'd also suggest it as a good book group book as there is much in it to discuss.)

The perfect attendance at an event is a number great enough to fill all the chairs in the hall and leave a scattering of people still standing around the back and sides. (People don't really mind standing for a few minutes and the event feels special when you have to squeeze in.) Happily that was exactly the number who attended Andrew's launch. Many of them were writers. There were also members of Andrew's family and many of his work colleagues. Leicester Writers' Club has hosted talks by the likes of Colin Dexter and Jacqueline Wilson, but I have never witnessed such a long queue to get books signed as I saw last night. Andrew must have had writers' cramp by the time he got through them all.

After the signing we were also treated to an insightful talk by Corinne Souza, Andrew's editor at Picnic. I've often heard editors and agents say that they cannot take on a book unless they feel passionate about it. That passion was clear and evident from Corinne's comments about the Ghosts of Eden. It warmed my heart to hear an editor speak this way. (And I guess the hearts of the other writers present).

Corinne is clearly a big-picture thinker and had things to say about the publishing industry. I found her insights fresh and stimulating. But I'll leave that and related issues to another post. I will also be posting photographs of the event as soon as I have sorted through them.

You can find a one week blog by Andrew Sharp on the Picnic Books website here.

Can Creative Writing be Taught?

There has been a fair bit of discussion recently on various blogs that I follow and on Facebook about the question “Can creative writing be taught?”

Some people subscribe to the ‘pure genius’ theory of great writing. To characterise it (possibly unfairly) this is the idea that great writers emerge spontaneously. They are born. It is in their genetic code. Thus, creative writing cannot be taught. You’ve either got it or you haven’t.

Set up in contrast to this is the ‘sweat and suffering’ theory. This states that anyone can become a great writer, given enough effort on their own part and given enough teaching. Great writing is achieved. Thus, the teaching of creative writing is highly desirable.

If this dichotomy sounds familiar it's because it is a re-statement of the age-old nature verses nurture debate.

My views begin from an observation: creative writing classes definitely helped me. I’ve been fortunate to attend classes given by Graham Joyce, Simon Brett, Sarah Maitland, John Gallas and others. I have also been privileged to see some of my own students progress very rapidly – particularly when they were prepared to listen to criticism and willing to work.

There is also evidence to support the other side of the argument. Some students never seem to progress, however many classes they take, whilst others jump forward at an astounding rate. Difference in capacity seems to be in-built.

Instead of the ‘pure genius’ and ‘sweat and suffering’ models, I subscribe to a third theory. The ‘buried treasure’ theory states that every individual is like a mine rich in gems. The nature of those gems will be different from person to person. Some people may have the capacity to become great novelists. Others great poets. Others still will never achieve anything as writers and will have strengths in different areas. But whatever the potential, it will remain unexpressed without a process of education.

“Regard man as a mine rich in gems of inestimable value.” - Baha’u’llah

As teachers of creative writing it is not our task to put writing ability into our students. That ability is already there in potential form. Thus I partly agree that creative writing cannot be taught. However, I do think it is our role as teachers to create the environment where the students’ innate abilities can develop. In this I agree with the ‘sweat and suffering’ theory - creative writing can be taught.

It all depends what we mean when we say ‘teach’!

As always, I would love to hear what you think on this subject. Do post a comment or send an e-mail.

Adult dyslexic creative writing workshop

I'm just back from a giving workshop on creative writing for a group of adult learners. These were mostly people who have difficulty with reading and writing. A good proportion of them were dyslexic. (Presumably that is why I was invited to give the class - because of my own dyslexia.)

I could certainly relate to the anxiety of some of the students on being given a form to fill in at the beginning of the session. Also the fact that the class was in a different room and at a different time from their normal workshops.

And then a third anxiety - I was going to make them write, wasn't I? That was the first thing I had to make clear. I don't get students to do much writing - even when they want to! I certainly wasn't going to ask this group to put pen to paper. My workshops are more concerned with imagining and understanding. We imagine scenes. We understand how stories work. We think ourselves into different places and times.

Today we used photographs of real people as a basis for creating imaginary characters. Then we used keys and mystery packages to help us imagine places. And we made up stories.

I was also told some true stories by one person - which were certainly more amazing and horrifying than anything I could have made up. Quite frankly, I am still stunned by them. And astounded by the fortitude of the person who told me.

What use a bag of old keys?

What use indeed.

Keys are interesting objects. They are vital to us when the lock they open is still in use but become junk as soon as the locks are changed. Somehow I could never bring myself to throw them out. Thus I have accumulated a jangling bag full of the things.

They are tactile objects. Put a hand in the bag and feel the rough and smooth edges. They make sound when they rub against each other. And they have that distinctive smell carried by old metal objects. A smell of subtle corrosion, I suppose.

Today the keys are getting an outing. In an hour I will be taking them into town to a writing workshop for adult dyslexics. We are going to be constructing stories together and the keys are going to help. A key is a good starting point for many a story. And I am happy to say, we won't be writing any of the stories down. This will be story craft done in the old way.

What Shape is Red?

As reported yesterday, I attended a book launch on Thursday evening. But earlier that day I'd had the chance to attend an exhibition at the Institute of Creative Technologies at DMU. The work on display had been created by students of the Creative Technologies masters programme.

I’d heard a little about the course already. I knew it was interdisciplinary, taking components of computing, writing, design etc and allowing the students a fair bit of freedom to shape the course to match their own interests. They graduate with either an MA or an MSc, depending on the bias of their work.

But that knowledge was all abstract. I had no idea what a showcase of students’ work would physically look like.

Without describing each piece in detail there is no way to sum up what I saw beyond saying it does exactly what it says on the tin. Creative technology. Here are two examples:

First Rhys Davis – whose name you may have seen in connection with the Zombie Undead film, of which he is the director. On first sight, his exhibit seemed to be a large screen on which were projected the silhouettes of flocks of flying birds. But when I stepped up to it, I found a kind of shadow of myself on the screen – in purple – under which the birds tended to congregate.

“It’s just a game, really,” Rhys confided apologetically. “A toy.” No need to apologise. I stood there watching the movement and the interaction, fascinated by the way the birds followed me as I shifted across the screen. I loved it. I could have stood there for hours, but there was a queue of other people waiting to have a go.

Second, Paul Found, who had started his project by asking a synesthetic question: “What shape is red?”

Synesthesia is a hardwired crossover of senses in the brain with which a small percentage of people are born. Taste to colour, perhaps. Shape to sound. It seems to be quite individual and different for each person. My daughter has this to some degree, having colours and shapes associated with words, numbers, times, objects and people.

Paul Found, a non-synesthetic – approached the question logically, taking the three numbers of the RBG system associated with each colour and using them to construct a three dimensional graph – which he then created using a three dimensional printer. It all sounded very high-tech to me. Although in finishing his colour models he had to resort to paint spray, car polish and elbow grease.

There was no suggestion that any synesthetic would agree with his colour to shape maps – indeed it would have told us something unexpected and fascinating about the brain had they done so. But the objects he created were undoubtedly beautiful and wonderfully tactile. I showed my daughter photographs of his red model and she pulled a face. "That's just weird," she said. "That's not red. Red is 2 dimensional."

The exhibition gave the impression that a group of intelligent and talented individuals had been given a room full of high tech toys and told to play for a few months. In the present economic climate that might seem to be a strange luxury.

But I found the results of their work enjoyable and stimulating. The world would be a far poorer place without them.

Writing Weekend part 2

Sunday.

Day two of the Writers’ Weekend. A bright, clear morning with dizzyingly beautiful views over the wide valley. I took off early for a walk with my camera, trying to catch that distinctive early-morning light. When I take photographs, in a doomed attempt to capture visual moments, I am also learning how to write. So much of the process of writing is about learning to really see the world.

Then more workshops. Two highlights for me were a workshop on synopsis writing given by Terri Bradshaw and one on editing poetry, given by Siobhan Logan. I learned about the subjects in question and approaches to teaching them.


I’d been trying to get Internet access and was told that I could use an unsecured wi-fi network based in one of the buildings on the site. I took my laptop out and sat next to the building in question – getting a strong and hopeful signal. But on trying to connect, my computer informed me that it had: “Failed to connect due to an unknown reason.” Blogging from the weekend was not to be.

I contented myself with walking around the house, admiring the quirky little details that set genuinely old buildings apart from impressions of history recreated on interior design lifestyle shows.


That evening, after a very enjoyable meal and a session of joke telling (during which I learned that the Scandinavian nations tell very rude stories about each other) I decided to drive back through the night rather than waiting until the next morning to return to Leicester.

What did I get out of the experience? (Other than a need to exercise. That food was far too good.)

In all the rush and focus on product that are part of my life as a writer, I sometimes forget what it is all really about. The writing weekend put things back in perspective. Spending time with writers. Talking about craft and creativity. Listening to other people's hopes and uncertainties. All this has left me feeling more centred in what I am doing.

And so, with that, it is back to the screenplay with renewed enthusiasm and a determination to enjoy the journey.

Writing Weekend - Cotswolds - Day 1

INT. ANCIENT COTSWOLD FARM BUILDING – DAY

Fifteen writers sit around a long dining table. Outside the window, the hill slopes away towards the patchwork of fields in the valley floor. Steam rises from a tureen of soup. A basket of French bread pieces is passed from hand to hand. The voice of children’s writer CHRIS D’LACEY rises above the murmur.

D’LACEY

I hope you all notice how expertly torn the bread is.

Yes, it is our self-catering weekend away. Self catering in every sense food, organisation, writing classes, entertainment.

I’ve been on writing weekends at Middle Stanley farm several times. On each occasion it has been hard to put my finger on what exactly I’ve learned. But I have learned. It is intangible knowledge, absorbed by osmosis rather than injected through instruction. Each time I have also come away inspired to write.

It is day one. This morning we had two sessions. The first focused on dialogue. How can we make dialogue work for us? How can we differentiate the voices? The second session was on scriptwriting and the differences between screen, stage and radio. Groups of us took the same scene and interpreted it for the three different media. Fascinating. I joined up with the group who were looking at stage play – as that is what I have least experience of.

And now it is the afternoon. We have all gone our different ways. Some are writing. Some walking in the hills. I suspect that one or two may be having a nap. For Myself, I’ve spent an hour writing up the scenes that Ivory and I were working on via Skype yesterday. (Was that only yesterday? It feels like a week ago.) I’m taking out a few minutes to write this. Then it’ll be back to White Angel again.

Frustratingly, I can’t get on the Internet, so I will have to save this up and post it as soon as I can get a connection. ...which turns out to be two days later


Note: I know the screenplay format above is wrong. Please blame Blogspot not me :-)

Collaborative Writing in Prose and Screenwriting

A couple of people have asked me recently about my experience of collaborative writing.

My first exploration into this was way back in 1998 when I wrote a non-fiction book with my father. At that time everything about writing was new to me and I didn't worry at all that it might disrupt the creative process. Anything we wrote was better than anything we had written before.

He was the researcher on the project. He had the knowledge. We quickly evolved a system whereby we would consult about the contents of each chapter. He would then write a very rough first draft that contained all the information and I would work it up into a finished text, perhaps asking for more information along the way. The polarisation of roles meant we each knew what we had to do and the final manuscript had a coherent style.

That seems to be one of the big issues with collaborative prose writing - style. The Narrative voice is a significant aspect of the finished thing. It is hard (but not impossible) to hide the fact if different people have written different sections. Perhaps that is why collaborations in novel writing are comparatively rare.

Contrast that with screenwriting - where writing partnerships and teams are common. Next time you watch a movie or a television drama, have a look at the writing credit. One writer or many?

The prose that makes up the body of a screenplay is never seen by the audience. The only words of the writers that the audience get to know about are the words of dialogue.

My first experience of collaborative screenplay writing was with the novelist Clare Littleford. We had previously worked on a couple of performance pieces together, so were fully confident that the creative chemistry would work. But the experience exceeded our expectations. Each of the days we spent writing together were hugely productive. We had to force ourselves to take breaks from the writing, such was our excitement at the emerging story. And at the end of each writing day we were both so exhausted that we could barely speak in sentences.

In STORY, a superb book on screenwriting, Robert McKee asks what stories are made of. Not words, he says. Words may be used to record a story, but the substance of a story are moments of change.

When two writes set out to work together to create a new story, they are able to throw ideas around and create these moments of change from their imaginations. That part of the process works far better with two minds than with one - that is my experience, anyway. The part of the process in which you write the ideas down, perhaps that is more easily achieved by one person.

Clare and I mapped out chunks of our screenplay in note form whilst we were together. Then we divided it up and working individually wrote sections of the thing in screenplay format. After that we'd edit each other's work, harmonising the style as far as possible.

I'd be very interested to hear other people's experiences of collaborative writing.

Creativity a disorder?

This morning I've been struck by articles on The Sheer Joy of Writing and Chris Jones's blog. In the first, Mike expresses the frustration that every writer must have felt from time to time. In the second Chris muses that perhaps creativity is a kind of disorder - something I've often thought myslef.

Who'd choose to be a writer? Whether it's novels, screenplays or poetry, the path is long and stony. Where is the audience we imagined as we sat writing?

But sometimes there is no other choice. We're driven by that creative itch. And who would want to do anything but be a writer, anyway? It's the best job in the world.

Yes, maybe creativity is a disorder. But it's not one I'd like to be without.

Memory Tricks and Dyslexia

Poorly functioning short term memory is one of the indicators of dyslexia. In practical terms, that means the typical dyslexic finds it hard to hold a series of instructions in his/her head. If I was sent out to buy three items, I might well have forgotten two by the time I got to the shop.

Exam revision was painful. I had to use what educationalists refer to as ‘over-learning’ - the repetition of the same bit of information over and over and over again. Other students might have been able to fix the thing they wanted to remember with two or three repetitions. I would need fifteen or twenty, followed by yet further repetitions after a few minutes break.

When I was a student, I evolved a system of exam revision in which I created complex diagrams that contained all the information I would need in order to answer different questions. I practiced drawing these diagrams until I could do it easily. Then, in the exam, all I needed to do was decide which diagram fitted the question, draw the thing on my answer paper, then write an explanation underneath. Sixty or seventy such diagrams got me through my final geology exams at university.

What I had done, though I didn’t know this at the time, was develop a system that relied on different kinds of memory. Spatial memory and kinaesthetic memory – the memory of movement.

Since then I have discovered that there is a science and an art to remembering things. We were never taught it at school – which in retrospect is bizarre – but people have been developing memory techniques for thousands of years. Using these ancient methods has not only revolutionised my ability to remember things, it has also become one of the small, secret pleasures of my life.

The statement that I started this article with – that dyslexics tend to have poor short term memory – is at best misleading. It is true that I will easily forget a list of instructions. But there are other classes of information that I have always been able to hold without effort. Spatial memory is my strong point. If I put something down somewhere, I will be able to find it again weeks later. I’m also good at remembering movement and texture. These things come so easily to me and were so different from my experience of exam revision that I never used to think of them as ‘remembering’ at all.

I used to try to remember the names of things. What I should have been doing was remembering their physicality.

A couple of days ago I was asked to go to the shop to buy: broccoli, tomatoes, cucumber, potatoes, red onions, grapes, oranges, carrots, fish, eggs, gluten-free fruit loaf, decaffeinated tea bags and sour apple sweets. As I was told this list, I mentally put each item into a different place in the house or garden. They are still there in my mind today. No effort was involved.



Shopping lists are a trivial example, of course, because you could write it all down on a piece of paper and not have to remember. Why don’t I do that? Because the act of storing this information and recalling it is intrinsically creative and pleasurable.

I don’t just imagine the items in different places. I imagine putting them into those places or taking them out. The tea bags for example: I imagined them growing like fruit on a bush in the garden. I imagined the smell and texture of them, the way they would rustle in the breeze. I imagined picking them one by one. Each item on the list only took a moment to imagine. But each image was playful or naughty or beautiful. Each image was fun.

Research for the Novelist

Thanks to several people who contacted me about the dangling trainers story. The trainers are, it seems, a well known sign to mark the territory of a drug dealer. Well known to all except this crime writer, it seems!

I'm sometimes asked how I do all the research for my novels. There is an implication that perhaps I have a network of contacts in the police force and in the criminal underworld. Or maybe that I read great quantities of academic research on inner city crime.

It is rather embarrassing to have to admit that I am not conscious of doing any research. Not in a formal sense. I'm just very, very curious. I see things, I ask questions and the information builds. Eventually it comes out in a story.

The thing is, I never know which question is going to lead to a gem, so I have to ask about everything.