Get the idea?

If you’re a writer it’s the one question you’re guaranteed to be asked –“Where do you get your ideas?” And, if you’re like me, it’s the one question you hate. But why? Well, there are a number of reasons. To me. It seems to imply that there’s some kind of hidden idea factory to which – probably by nefarious means – I’ve managed to gain access. As a result, my writing life is one of ease. All I have to do is pull up, load up with some ideas and off I go. It also feels as if the person is saying that, any success is down to luck. Finding an idea is like finding a wad of cash in the road: all you have to do is take it to the bank.
So, for those who are wondering, let me state it as clearly as I can – finding an idea is the easy part! Got that? An idea isn’t a story. And, if you can’t find an idea, the real answer is that you’re not looking hard enough. Ideas are all around. In your newspaper. In that anecdote you heard the other night. In books. You can even make them up. Anyone can have an idea. The skill is taking the idea and working it into a story, adding characters, suspense, humour.
Let me give you an example. Many years ago, I was reading a book of interviews with prisoners. In it, I came across the story of a man who had murdered his wife and not been caught. Then, years later, he heard a news report that a woman’s decomposed body had been found in the same area where he had dumped his wife’s corpse. Figuring that the game was up, he went to the police and confessed, only to learn later that the woman had been buried hundreds of years before. Oooops. Good idea for a story, I thought. What I didn’t realise was, it would take me 15 years to write it. See, I had the idea – but nothing else. Who was this guy? What was his wife like? Why did he kill her? How come the police didn’t catch him at the time of the killing given that the spouse is always the first suspect?
Eventually I answered all those questions to my satisfaction and wrote the story, entitled ‘Edwin the Confessor,’ which was published in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine.
Now, you could argue that I was lucky to find the story and, to a degree, you’d be right. But I was reading the book intentionally to find ideas for stories. And, once I got the idea, I worked at it until it was right.
So, ideas are not the problem. In fact, I’m toying with the idea of giving prospective writers ideas, then showing them how to progress from there. But that’s for another day….

Whatever happened to common sense?

You know, that thing that enabled you to assess something and make a reasonable decision based on the evidence before you? A while ago I was flying out from my local small airport. While waiting to go thru security I saw a sign telling me that, if anyone made a frivilous remark about having a bomb in their bag or whatever, they may be detained etc etc. Now, I'm not sticking up for the kind of prawns who think it's hilarious to say, when asked if they have anything in their baggage? "Oh, yeh, an AK47, two hand grenades and a neutron bomb." There's an argument that they should be arrested for crimes against comedy. You just know they're the kind of person who shouts out some supposedly funny remark in the cinema at a crucial moment. But is it truly not possible to tell the difference between a real security threat and someone just being a knob?
Of course, to make that assessment would require some common sense.

Next Stop Holywood

My short story, The Good Kid, is appearing in the book Next Stop Holywood, due out in the US from St Martin's Press in May. The idea was to find short stories that would make good material for movies, given that many of the old short story markets have dried up. As there were over 600 entries, I was really pleased to make it to the final 15. In fact, there were only 2 writers from outside North America to make the cut, the other being an Australian.
So, if you're interested in short stories - or movies - you might want to check it out. Here's the link on Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/Next-Stop-Hollywood-Stories-Screen/dp/0312357893/sr=8
Also, if you're interested in having a go and, hey, if I could do it, why shouldn't you? check out nextstopholywood.org

The Proposition

Watched this Australian 'Western' last week and liked it. Very Peckinpahesque. If anything, I think that's the problem with movies like these. Whereas ol' Sam himself was acting on an instinctive level, modern movies are much more knowing about the influences they use. Great acting, tho, particularly from Ray Winstone. At first, I thought the morality was going to be simple-minded bad-English-verses-noble-colonial, but the movie's brave enough to be much more complex than that. In fact, it almost feels like watching a wildlife documentary where the characters' actions are no more bound by morals than the animals and insects who inhabit this bleak landscape. Hence the references in the script to Darwin. Worth checking out, then, but not one for the maiden aunt.

Here we go...

So, here we go, the beginning of the Richmond Rant. I'm a 45-year old writer, originally from Belfast, now living in beautiful Donegal. I'm the kind of person that the internet was created for - you know, the sort of person who just lives to pass their interests and enthusiasms on to others. Of course, the advantage of the intrnet is that you can choose to read or not. That makes it infinitely preferable to being stuck next to me in a pub.
So, this site will deal with writing - mine and other people's - movies, music and, most thrillingly, my subjective and boorish opinions on anything else that comes up.
Some of my writing is in the crime fiction field and I was thinking about some of the American writers I admire: George V Higgins; John D McDonald, Robert B Parker and it occured to me, what's with the middle initial? I mean, is there anything more useless than a middle name? So why advetise the fact you have one? It's like wearing a t-shirt saying'I've got an appendix.' If you've got it, don't flaunt it. Nobody cares. Probably the only thing worse nomenclature crime is people who carry their teenage nicknames into adulthood. And yes, I do mean you, U2. Bono is my age or older, he's a middle-aged man, for god's sake. What's he still doing going around under this stupid playground moniker? And, as for The Edge, don't get me started...Is that how people refer to him? 'Would you like a cup of tea, the Edge?'
Of course, the other thing about nicknames is that you can pretend you were given one to increase your sense of cool. When I went to university in the early 80s there was a TV show called The Professionals. It was awful but popular although not among the Joy Division, NME-reading crowd of which I was part. This guy announced in our first term that his nickname was Bodie, after one of the brainless macho characters in the programme. Now, everyone knew this was a lie. And everyone laughed at the fact that this guy thought we would fall for this pathetic and transparent falsehood. And, of course, we all insisted on calling him Bodie as if we believed it, all the better to snigger at the way he took it all in. We were gits like that.
All the more amusing, then, that I meet the same guy a couple of years ago. He's the finance director of a large housing charity, wears slick suits and drives a Merc. So, he comes up to me, hand extended and says:'Hey, it's me. Remember, from university? It's Bodie!'
See you next time.