{"id":117587,"date":"2024-07-19T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-07-19T09:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jerichowriters.com\/townhouse\/?p=117587"},"modified":"2024-07-19T10:00:00","modified_gmt":"2024-07-19T09:00:00","slug":"fifteen-inches-from-the-eye","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jerichowriters.com\/fifteen-inches-from-the-eye\/","title":{"rendered":"Fifteen inches from the eye"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I once wrote a book about payroll fraud. (Yawn.) The fraud in question involved some kind of messing about with employee tax deductions. (Snore.) The fraud was perpetrated using online tools for sabotaging corporate databases. (Dull, dull, dull.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At one level, that book should not possibly have worked. It was like being trapped inside your very worst admin nightmare: dealing with government tax codes AND horrible tech stuff, both at the same time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Suffice to say, I don\u2019t think the book did fail \u2013 or at least, certainly not for that reason. Because I knew that the underlying subject matter was profoundly tedious, I basically avoided it. I mean, I couldn\u2019t avoid it completely, because the crime was the crime, but I never did anything more than basic window dressing. So, for example, a character at one point says this:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt looks like the basic mechanics of the fraud were initially set up by Kureishi. He installed software that gave external access to payroll. We\u2019re confident he was not the ultimate beneficiary of the fraud. We simply can\u2019t find enough money or signs of heavy spending. And the set-up looks remarkably professional. The fraud involves over a hundred and fifty dummy UK bank accounts. The money siphons via Spain, Portugal or Jersey to Belize. The Belize bank account is fronted by nominees and owned by a shell company in the British Virgin Islands. That shell company in turn is owned by a foundation in Panama.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s pretty much as specific as I ever got. \u201cHe installed software\u201d \u2013 well, shucks. That doesn\u2019t really say much of anything. Dummy bank accounts, money siphoning to Belize \u2013 well, I have no idea how to do that kind of thing and I never got even close to an explanation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In effect, my aims with speeches like the one I\u2019ve just quoted were threefold:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n
  1. Make the whole crime setup look plausible.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  2. Make it look big and meaty \u2013 something that matters enough for my character to be deeply committed to the investigation. (I did that partly with the number of bank accounts, but more importantly with corpses \u2013 by this point in the book, my Kureishi character was very, very murdered.)<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  3. Avoid boring the reader with too much technical jargon.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    You may not be writing about payroll systems yourself, but you quite likely are writing about something that involves technical knowledge \u2013 and if you are, you have some decisions to make.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Where your knowledge is actually interesting, then share it. I also wrote a book about the early oil industry and readers wanted to know how wells were drilled, what happens when you strike oil, what happens when gas leaks from a well, how wildcatting operated in those days, and so on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Because of the intrinsic interest of the topic, I read a lot about it and shared plenty. Several specific accounts of striking oil in the book were drawn from actual strikes at the time \u2013 from huge gushers to small, but highly indicative, indicators that oil was close. Plenty of readers wrote to me saying how much they enjoyed that stuff. The former head of a major oil company wrote to me to tell me that he had an interest in the technology of the early industry and that I\u2019d got my technical detail pretty much right. (Phew.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    But \u2013<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    The reason I\u2019m writing this email \u2013<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    But \u2013<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Phones. Whatsapp. Messages. Facetime. Emails. Login credentials. Twitter. Who follows who. DMs. Verification issues. Instagram. Lost passwords. Account recovery process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    For all of us now, a lot of our social interaction is mediated through tech and much of that tech is basically horrible and boring. As a matter of fact, I think that one of the reasons why people pick up books specifically is to avoid the specific negatives of tech involvement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    With a book, the attention commitment is long not short \u2013 hours, not minutes or seconds. It\u2019s emotional in a broad, deep, complex way, not in a \u201ccatty remark on Instagram\u201d way. If we\u2019re reading in print, then we\u2019re doing so because we don\u2019t want a screen in our hand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    All this says: you need to avoid talking about the detail of tech in your book wherever possible. If you need \u201cconvincers\u201d \u2013 as I did with payroll fraud \u2013 then stick them in. But the purpose of those convincers is really just to say \u201cI know this is boring, so can we please agree that I know what I\u2019m talking about, and we can leave it at that?\u201d That means, as short as possible, as little as possible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    You may think that this doesn\u2019t apply to you \u2013 perhaps your book is a domestic noir psych thriller, not a book about payroll fraud or the oil industry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    But in fact, domestic noir psych thrillers are precisely the kind of area where this issue crops up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Compare these two passages:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Tech-led<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    She looked at her phone and traced the unlock pattern to gain access. She navigated to Whatsapp and checked for unopened messages. There were a dozen or so messages in a school-related chat she was signed up to, but nothing from Emma. She tapped the search icon to bring up messages from Emma and was about to text her, when she saw a notice saying that the user had blocked her messages \u2026<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Emotion-led<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    She checked her messages \u2013 and found that Emma had blocked her. Why? Because of the Croissant Incident? But surely not. She\u2019s already apologised for that and Emma didn\u2019t seem like the kind of person to bear a grudge, no matter how covered in golden pastry flakes she might have been \u2026<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    I hope it\u2019s blisteringly obvious that one is terrible and one is good. My mother could basically understand the second piece of text, but she\u2019d have no idea what the first one was going on about. Now, OK, it\u2019s not your job to write for my mum, but the point is broader. One piece of text places tech-navigation at its centre. The other one places emotion and relationships at its centre.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    You need to do the second, not the first.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    These comments are acutely relevant to the kind of smartphone technology we all have in our lives now, but they\u2019re also relevant to any kind of Boring Tech \u2013 like my payroll fraud.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    If you\u2019re writing about something interesting \u2013 navigating an ice-breaker, a 1930s gusher, Napoleonic artillery, the newsroom of a contemporary newspaper \u2013 then go for it. Find the rich detail and give us that. If you\u2019re writing about something dull, give us the bare minimum and move away fast.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    In my oil book, I remember I had a roughneck fall out of an oil derrick, bounce off the tin roof of the power-rig, and lie on the ground saying, \u201cWould someone find a cigarette for this broken-assed sonofabitch?\u201d I didn\u2019t make that bit up: I just took it straight from eyewitness reports at the time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    The real gold? It\u2019s reality \u2013 edited.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    FEEDBACK FRIDAY: How to Write a Novel \/ Module #3 \/ Plot<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Watch the lesson\u00a0here<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0(available to Premium Members)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Give me your plot summary, as either:<\/p>\n\n\n\n