Fifteen inches from the eye

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.)

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.

Suffice to say, I don’t think the book did fail – 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’t 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:

“It looks like the basic mechanics of the fraud were initially set up by Kureishi. He installed software that gave external access to payroll. We’re confident he was not the ultimate beneficiary of the fraud. We simply can’t 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.”

That’s pretty much as specific as I ever got. “He installed software” – well, shucks. That doesn’t really say much of anything. Dummy bank accounts, money siphoning to Belize – well, I have no idea how to do that kind of thing and I never got even close to an explanation.

In effect, my aims with speeches like the one I’ve just quoted were threefold:

1. Make the whole crime setup look plausible.
2. Make it look big and meaty – 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 – by this point in the book, my Kureishi character was very, very murdered.)
3. Avoid boring the reader with too much technical jargon.

You may not be writing about payroll systems yourself, but you quite likely are writing about something that involves technical knowledge – and if you are, you have some decisions to make.

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.

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 – 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’d got my technical detail pretty much right. (Phew.)

But –

The reason I’m writing this email –

But –

Phones. Whatsapp. Messages. Facetime. Emails. Login credentials. Twitter. Who follows who. DMs. Verification issues. Instagram. Lost passwords. Account recovery process.

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.

With a book, the attention commitment is long not short – hours, not minutes or seconds. It’s emotional in a broad, deep, complex way, not in a “catty remark on Instagram” way. If we’re reading in print, then we’re doing so because we don’t want a screen in our hand.

All this says: you need to avoid talking about the detail of tech in your book wherever possible. If you need “convincers” – as I did with payroll fraud – then stick them in. But the purpose of those convincers is really just to say “I know this is boring, so can we please agree that I know what I’m talking about, and we can leave it at that?” That means, as short as possible, as little as possible.

You may think that this doesn’t apply to you – perhaps your book is a domestic noir psych thriller, not a book about payroll fraud or the oil industry.

But in fact, domestic noir psych thrillers are precisely the kind of area where this issue crops up.

Compare these two passages:

Tech-led

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 …

Emotion-led

She checked her messages – and found that Emma had blocked her. Why? Because of the Croissant Incident? But surely not. She’s already apologised for that and Emma didn’t seem like the kind of person to bear a grudge, no matter how covered in golden pastry flakes she might have been …

I hope it’s blisteringly obvious that one is terrible and one is good. My mother could basically understand the second piece of text, but she’d have no idea what the first one was going on about. Now, OK, it’s 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.

You need to do the second, not the first.

These comments are acutely relevant to the kind of smartphone technology we all have in our lives now, but they’re also relevant to any kind of Boring Tech – like my payroll fraud.

If you’re writing about something interesting – navigating an ice-breaker, a 1930s gusher, Napoleonic artillery, the newsroom of a contemporary newspaper – then go for it. Find the rich detail and give us that. If you’re writing about something dull, give us the bare minimum and move away fast.

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, “Would someone find a cigarette for this broken-assed sonofabitch?” I didn’t make that bit up: I just took it straight from eyewitness reports at the time.

The real gold? It’s reality – edited.

FEEDBACK FRIDAY: How to Write a Novel / Module #3 / Plot

Watch the lesson here (available to Premium Members)

Give me your plot summary, as either:

• Five bullet points (Status Quo, Inciting Incident, Midpoint, Crisis, Resolution), or
• 1-2 paragraphs

Either way, stay short. We’re focusing on the basic shape of the plot here; the detail can come later.

I know you’ve already done something towards plot, but I want you to get deeper and more specific this week. I’m looking for a further iteration of the work you’ve already done. If that means sharing something a bit more detailed than I’ve suggested, that’s fine.

Upload the result to Townhouse here. I’ll see you there. Everyone welcome.

BONUS FEEDBACK FRIDAY: 250 Words / Live Edit

I’m doing a live feedback event next week, so your task this week is really simple. Premium Members can register for it here. I want, please, 250 words (max) that you really like. Also, title and genre.

I’m going to give live feedback on this stuff next week, so if you don’t want your work torn to shreds in front of a baying mob, please mark it: NO LIVE FEEDBACK.

(Truth is, I only pick work I already quite like and I’m never that mean. But if you don’t want the live experience, then please just tell me so.)

Share your work here.

Til soon.

Harry