Writing Voice – Cyber Punk
back in 2007 I belonged to a writing group in Cheltenham and though I was basically the only one writing non-literary stuff I got good feedback (once story concepts had been explained and also explaining that the reason I hadn’t done something was becuase it was tired and done a 1000 times before etc… or that it wasn’t spelt out becuase the reader is suppose to engage and work it out etc… different reading audences). One of the things that kept coming up was my distinctive style that they had not really encountered before.
Strong and too intense for novels is what I was being told too – Science Fiction fans would tell me it was cyber-punk which I had never come across before even though I had belonged to Imperial Colleges Scifi, Horror and Fantasy Liberary at college! I was too caught up in the authors I knew and it was only at the age of 22 that I began to exhorst these and start to look for other things to read!
And cyber-punk is very like my style but it still wasn’t quiet there – though I definatly air towards the speculative fiction side of things – again this is a term I have only recently picked up as far as I can tell it means not ‘normal’ and is a pretty big catch all!
A Geologist friend of mine had read some of my work and was convinced that I should do something with it – she also started turning up with these thin tiny ‘novels’ original penguin classics with flaking spines and brown pages.
The first was Forty-Nine Steps, she thought it was relavent to me – the second was Raymond Chandlers Big Sleep. I didn’t read it for almost two years and then I was stuck for something to read and grabbed the smallest book I could find to stuff into my over fall bag. The slim green and white book fitted well.
I was off to a poetry slam, my first – I wasn’t reading at this one just observing. I found myself in a dingy club/pub/bar in Cheltenham – the sort of place that students prop up with the Doors playing in the background, yellowed lights, glitzy 70’s style lights mixed with tiffany wear from the 20’s and funky mirrors and painting of musicians – mostly Jazz and Rock types done in contrasting colours – you know the type of place – lots of sofas and little square leatherette cubs to sit on.
I was early as was helping the organiser set up but other people where helping so I pulled the book out and wham! There was my voice talking to me – there was a detective and he was gritty and it was dark and real and seedy. Excitedly i showed the book around and got lots of odd looks but as I’m the sort of person who takes novels into nightclubs I’m used to those. It’s strong story telling was what I got out of people – again its not the fabled literary stuff that we are all supposed to be attaining too – but I didn’t care!
This was it! The only flaw in it was that it didn’t contain the scifi element or the vampires or the fearies or anything like that – no ghosts and the society was one that existed and a projection of one specific aspect of our own society gone awall – a theme I love using – I form whole stories around the world and how the characters are hampered by the social construct they live in.
Anyway I was then intreged as to how the book felt so familiar and how I would have ended up with sort of concept in my head and then my dad informed me that I was obsessed with films such as the Maltese Falcon – I had watched the films of Raymond’s books as a child sitting with my Nan and had obviously absorbed some of it!
Then I thought well why does cyber-punk sound so similar to these old detective novels? It turns out that cyber-punk really is trying to emulate these old novels 🙂 So rather than me writing a combo of cyber-punk and old detective novels I’m just writing cyber-punk thats these about the tech and more about the gritty adventure/events of the story!
I first posted about this concept and some other writing theories on my personal blog which is an interesting read in itself!
Posted: Friday, November 6th, 2009 @ 10:07 am
Categories: Uncategorized.
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