I propose to do a few writing exercises over the next few weeks and post them here. These have been taken from the very good book How to Write a Blockbuster by Helene Corner & Lee Weatherly, which you should grab if you’re keen on writing and are working towards publication.

The first of these writing exercises I’m going to attempt in the space between now and when I start work (about five minutes, but I cheated and wrote the rest of this post earlier) is the following -
I’m looking at ten three books to see the problem/s facing the main characters. How to Write a Blockbuster suggests these problems may be subtle and woven into the plot, but still act to drive the story forwards. I have chosen some pretty obvious books, but when I’ve got my thinking cap on I hope to spend a bit of time putting together some more interesting suggestions. First three, here goes…

Neil Gaiman – Neverwhere

Once Richard Mayhew is forced to help a bloodied girl he soon realises that he can’t be seen by anyone living in London Above. He has no choice but to follow the mysterious girl and her allies underground to London Below, the only place where people now notice him, but it is a dangerous place where he can trust next to no one. He wants to get back to his fiance who no longer notices him and everyday life in London.

Stephen King – The Dark Tower Series (notice this is a series of books, not a book – cheat!)
Roland the gunslinger’s goal is easy, he marches towards the Dark Tower. His problems arise in each book throughout the series. In the second book, The Drawing of the Three, Roland awakens on a beach and becomes the prey of massive hybrid lobsters who take some of his fingers. Through the early part of this book he fights off the fever and learns to shoot with his diminished hand, making it more difficult for him to fend off his enemies.

Thomas Harris – The Silence of the Lambs

Clarice Starling needs to track down the Serial Killer Buffalo Bill, and in doing so, must speak with the highly dangerous Hannibal Lector, whose clues are cryptic and often misleading.

As you may have noticed I didn’t bother to re-read and/or scan these books prior to writing about them here, which I may do in a more detailed follow-up post. Note the use of the word “may“.

Jaysus it’s cold this morning.

The other way to read books is made to look and feel more like the real thing. Called the eBook Reader, this book-sized Sony-made device boasts a large battery life and space for over a hundred books. There are already thousands of book titles available to be used in conjunction with the reader from Waterstone’s eBook store. I doubt and I hope that these don’t replace the trusty paper-based book we all know and love. I’ve seen things like this eBook that emerged a few years back and didn’t hear any more about them.

Google Book Search provides tools for publishers and authors. Have a look here for more information. You’ll notice I’ve added a Google Book Search box to the right

Visit Google Book Search

Check out Sony’s eBook Reader

Tropic Thunder has a brilliant ensemble cast and features one of my favourite actors, Robert Downey Jr. It pays homage to films like Platoon and Apocalypse Now, and it is laugh-out-loud funny.

Tropic Thunder sees Damien Cockburn (Steve Coogan) filming his directorial debut a war movie and it going badly. When he enlists the help of the author of Tropic Thunder the book, Four Leaf Tayback (Nick Nolte), the grizzled nam-vetran suggests they take the sheltered actors to the jungle and rig up cameras to shoot a far grittier movie. At this point things get all too real and Tugg Speedman (Ben Stiller), Jeff Portnoy (Jack Black), Kirk Lazarus (Robert Downey Jr) and Kevin Sandusky (Jay Baruchel) must fight their way through the jungle and its hostile inhabitants.

The cast are all good, but two of them really shone for me – Downey Jr and Tom Cruises’s unexpected cameo as Les Grossman. Downey plays an Australian method actor whose dedication has driven him to have a controversial skin pigmentation to turn him black. All of his jokes are delivered perfectly. Jack Black’s Jeff Portnoy, who is known as a comedy actor playing all the roles himself (Nutty Professor style) loses his drugs and spends much of the film in a cold sweat. At his most desperate when tied to a tree, he offers his services to his comrades if they release him – “I’ll cradle the balls, stroke the shaft, work the pipes, and swallow the gravy.” . Stiller’s character sees Tropic Thunder as a way to reboot his waning career after his last lukewarm performance in Scorcher 6 (shown in an amusing trailer at the beginning of the film) and doesn’t realise that fiction has suddenly become a battle for survival. Tom Cruise’s character Les Grossman is a complete maniac and constantly shouting, be it at colleagues, friends, or ransom-demanding Viet-Cong bad guys. In his more philosophical moments he dances to rap music and dishes out reassurances – “Speedman is a dying star. A white dwarf headed for a black hole. That’s physics. It’s inevitable.” It is a pleasant surprise to see Cruise in this role and he gets plenty of laughs.

Exchanges between Downry Jr and Stiller concerning his “Simple Jack” character are both funny and at times immoral, but shouldn’t be taken to heart. Equally there are jokes concerning race, but these are never overbearing.

I would rank this near to the likes of Shaun of the Dead and Borat for laughs and for that bit more substance than your average insipid comedy – you know, the kind that have those DVD covers of puke-worthy pinks and whites with people’s faces all over them, it’s the same for books and music too…

Go see it! You will laugh. Oh, and I know what dude I am. I’m the dude playin’ the dude, disguised as another dude!

Enjoy.

After thoroughly enjoying Haddon’s extraordinary Curious Incident I was very interested to read this, partly to see how he would write when not through the eyes of an autistic boy. His style remains, but points of view drift between several well-written members of a modern family and their respective spots of bother. Each character is meticulously crafted (like Jamie and Katie, brother and sister whose traits and relationship woes come alive on the page), while their problems are both familiar and fresh (lost loves, who to marry, whether to let on about your mother’s affair). Some parts are cringeworthy (in a good way), like George (a 57 year-old who is constantly worried about death) and his scissor incident and the story manages great humour through character interactions and their thoughts – culminating in a very memorable scene where all the characters and loose ends come together to satisfy.

If you liked Curious Incident then you should certainly like this, even if it is an entirely different animal. Give it a go, it’s a pleasure to read.

You can purchase the book here.