Michael Drysdale

I’ve offered 2 copies of The Banker as a Goodreads giveaway. Goodreads members have until 29 February 2012 to register an interest.  Goodreads will then pick the 2 winners and I wll send them a free signed paperback copy.

Remember there is also a competition I’m running for a free copy of The Banker. This is open to everybody and closes on the 6th March 2012.  See my blog entry of  6th Feb for details.

Some notes from  Anne Aylor’s last seminar.

The main elements of Setting are:

Time, Place, Minor Characters, Mood and Atmosphere.

 Plotting doesn’t have to be done first, unless the book is a thriller.  The elements of a plot are Structure, Plausibility, Conflict, Climax, Denouement ( Mysteries revealed, most loose ends tied up), Subplot, Theme (central idea running through the book) and Symbolism (can be object, place, phrase, colour that runs through the book)

In fiction what is left out is important, like an iceberg.

Shaping is major structural revision and editing after first and subsequent drafts.

I was a bit disappointed with this movie. It’s about the  ménage à trois between Carl Jung (Michael Fassbender), Sigmund Freud(Viggo Mortensen) and a patient, and later fellow psychoanalyst, Sabina Spielrein (Keira Knightley).  The film starts with the relationship between Jung and patient Spielrein which initially professional soon becomes sexual.  Later Jung meets up with Freud and dumps Spielrein who, by now a qualified psychoanalyst herself, in turn forms a professional relationship with Freud.

Much of the film deals with the falling out of Freud and Jung. This is in part due to Jung’s initial attempt to conceal his unprofessional relationship with Spielrein from Frued but mostly because of their diverging views on psychoanalysis.

Although well acted, the falling out between Freud and Jung lacked any sort of drama. The viewer needs to have some knowledge of psychoanalysis to follow some of their disagreements.  I can only give it 2 stars.

I think it’s time to hold my first competition and offer a copy of The Banker as a prize.

The scene in chapter one where Sir Phil Black meets Strelnikov was influenced by an opening scene in a well known movie. To win the prize you need to name both the director and the film. I will give a bit of a clue: it’s a US director and the film was released in the last 5 years. 
You don’t have to buy or read the entire book to enter, which would be a bit pointless to win a copy.  Just go to the Read An Extract page which contains all of chapter one. Use the form on the Contact page or just email me at mp.drysdale@yahoo.com.

The closing date is the 6^th of March 2012. All correct answers will go into a hat and one lucky entrant will receive a copy of The Banker.

I saw Margin Call the other night – I thought it was very good. It’s the story of 24 hours in an investment bank during the 2008 banking crisis. Despite almost the entire film taking place in an office,  the result is a tense, gripping production.  I particular liked the opening scene of risk manager Stanley Tucci  being fired.

I found the younger characters convincing but I thought the older characters lacked the nastiness one expects from senior banking executives.  The character played by Kevin Spacey was far too cuddly.  Spacey is a fine actor so this is not his fault rather the script’s. 

Jeremy Irons, one of my favourite actors, played the vulpine CEO well, but I didn’t feel the character was menacing enough.  The CEO was in awe of the junior former rocket scientist (Zachary Quinto)  and showed it; in reality a CEO would never openly display awe or admit ignorance.  

An exception was the character played by Simon Baker.  This was a 43 year old senior executive, who despite his boyish looks did show considerable menace and was really quite scary.

I’ll be signing copies of The Banker on Saturday at Waterstones Richmond  from 12 to 3 pm. The address is

2-6 Hill Street, Richmond, Surrey TW10 6UA

The bookshop is quite close to the Odeon Cinema.

By sheer coincidence the signing coincides with this year’s WEF at Davos. Chapter One of The Banker opens at the 2009 Davos WEF.

I got my Goodreads glitch sorted out and I now have an Author page up.

This week’s session with Anne Aylor covered Point Of View (POV).   The three POV categories are First Person  (In general draws the reader closer to the character), Second Person (rarely used in novels) and Third Person (creates a little distance between reader and character).  However there is more to POV. The first and third persons have further subcategories, namely:

First Person Protagonist

First Person Witness

First Person Re-Teller

Third Person Omniscient (or God)

Third Person Objective

Third Person Limited

 As an exercise we wrote a story for 10 minutes in one POV, then rewrote the same story in another POV, and compared both. I wrote about a police detective arriving at a crime scene, first in Third Person POV (3POV) then in First Person POV (1POV).  Both I and a fellow student thought the 1POV version was better.  The 3POV was more like a report, whereas the 1POV contained all the 3POV information plus how the detective felt on seeing the uniformed police had already arrived and how he felt on being asked to produce his ID.

On reflection I think that if I had written the 1POV first, I then would have had to find a way of adding the detective’s feelings in the 3POV (for example through dialogue).   The 3POV version might have been better (for example dialogue may make it easier to show rather than tell).

An experienced author, writing in 3POV, would be able to incorporate such 1POV aspects into his or her first draft.  But I wonder if it might be good idea for a novice writing in 3POV to produce a first draft in 1POV.

I saw the Iron Lady the other night and although Meryl Streep is outstanding I would give the film only seven out of ten. A number of people have found the depiction of Margaret Thatcher old and suffering from dementia disturbing, I thought this was the better part of the film. The way she believes her husband Denis is  still alive and has imagined conversations with him was depicted well. Meryl Streep gave a very convincing performance here. The Iron Lady rummages through Denis’ possesions and these are used to link to a series of flashbacks to her earlier life and career as politician and Prime Minister.
Its the flashbacks that I had a problem with. There were far too many and meant that only a few minutes could be spent on each scene. This lessened their dramatic impact, although these all demonstrated Meryl Streep’s superb acting. She had Mrs T down to a T.

Anne Aylor’s second session was on characterization. Some bullet points:

Give your characters free reign.

You need to show people with their flaws.

Notebook your characters: what do they like to eat, their key experiences, moments of epiphany.

Write short stories about your characters.

Show don’t tell.

The main cast of characters shouldn’t be too big (3 or 4 max).

 We also talked about the importance of naming your characters well. I’m still in the early stages of planning my second novel, but one character in it will be a thirty something male police detective. Off the top of my head I came up with Jack Deegan, but after discussing it with the group I changed it to Andy Deegan. You heard it here first.

I’ve arranged my very first book signing. Its with Waterstones at their Richmond upon Thames branch on Saturday 28th January from 12 to 3. I’ve had some posters printed for the event.

I’ve also joined the Goodreads community, although I had a problem trying to join their Author Program. The Banker wasn’t on their database so I tried to import it from Amazon but the import program didn’t seem to work.