Sion, your description sounds like the 'Digested read' write up that John Crace gave to Julian Barnes's latest novel.

Sheila

There is a good interview with Archer in the Daily Telegraph:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2008/03/02/sv_jeffreyarcher.xml&page=2

I particularly like the line:

...there are more levels to him than you might suppose. I'm not saying he has depth - far from it - but he does have texture

Also:

A Prisoner of Birth is Archer's 14th novel. ...the central plot twist rests on the most improbable and preposterous coincidence.'

- 'improbable and preposterous' coincidence: I'll have to read it before passing judgment, but it strikes me that human lives are full of the 'improbable and preposterous', and if there wasn't a witness, no-one would believe the half of it.


- NaomiM

The point I was trying to make was that Archer perceived it as a flaw because it was something he wanted to work on and improve. He couldn't do it on his own, so he went to another writer for help. Nothing wrong with that at all. And if you happen to be friendly with Salman Rushdie, why not ask him?

But isn't that kind of like being taught, even if it is in an informal setting and not in a University?

THat may have been your main point, roger, but there were a number of other intereting points in your post:

Jeffrey Archer is a proven liar, so we shouldn't really believe anything he says.
- no, but that is probably what makes him such a good (he would say 'great!' storyteller.

One of Archer's early books had been criticised for relying too much on coincidence
- that is certainly a charge levelled at his latest book, so if Rushdie's advice was sought early on, it was ultimately ignored.


- NaomiM

Story telling is as old as man and thrilled audiences far bfore the advent of the written word...or the creative writing course.
HB x

Fair point(s), Naomi.

Roger, I agree that is like being taught (learning), but my point was that storytelling can refer to a different skill than the one he asked Rushdie's help with.

Deb

Thanks for the interview link, Naomi.This made me laugh:

the critics have compared me to Dostoyevsky, Pepys and Shaw

Yes, Dostoyevsky wrote about the criminal mind and Pepys wrote a diary; I'm not sure about the Shaw connection, if he means George Bernard. He was a writer, so maybe that's enoough. Oh, hasn't Archer written a play?

Probably, they wrote that compared with the other writers mentioned he was rubbish!

Critics compare me with Kate Moss when I wear Topshop dresses.

Sheila

It's funny how there's an assumption that 'compared' is to be taken in a positive sense in contexts like the one mentioned above. Why is that?

You can 'compare' Archer to Dostoyevsky, Pepys and Shaw, of course, but surely you'd have to add the qualifier 'and found sadly lacking'.

Deb, I'll admit I'm confused about this distinction between writing and storytelling that Archer makes. You can teach writing, he says - why they even do it at London University! - but you cannot teach storytelling.

But how does he (or any writer) tell his stories if not by writing them down? Don't the stories exist by virtue of the writing? Doesn't it follow that everything you can do to improve your writing is going to improve your storytelling?

And whenever something less than good happens in the writing - turgid prose, clunky dialogue, implausible incidents, unconvincing characterisation - that will have the effect of taking people out of the story. So if you can work on those things you can improve your storytelling. Isn't good storytelling just one kind of good writing? I've always thought so.

But Archer has a great editor. It would be interesting to read one of his manuscripts before they have been edited. I wonder if his great storytelling powers would come through as clearly?

There's a story I heard that Jeffrey supplied his prison memoir (bear in mind it was a memoir) with a large chunk missing. When this was pointed out to him by his editor, he said, "Oh, you write it, you know the kind of stuff I write." When I retold this anecdote to another editor at Macmillan he smiled and said that the editor in question had been a bit indiscreet to let that slip. But did not deny it.

I think it is a bit rich that you get someone else to write a section of your memoir, but I wouldn't essentially have any problem with someone else writing chunks of Archer's novels. He is a brand first, a writer second, I would argue. Who writes the books that have Jeffrey Archer on the front doesn't actually matter.

And perhaps the greatest gift any writer can have is an editor who writes his books, or at least sections of them, for him.

Roger, thanks for that, which is very interesting.

I suppose my view on storytelling is that it's a gift for being able to carry the story - for people to want to read on. That can be done verbally or in writing, but it's less about writing style, I'd say, and more about plot. Well, that's how I think of the term 'storytelling', anyway - but terms can mean different things to different people...

I mean, if a child says they want you to tell them a story (verbally, on the hoof), they want to be transported somewhere. They'd notice horrendous clunkiness, but they're not that bothered about finesse - they just want to be taken somewhere exciting. I guess that's how I see storytelling.

So that's why I was distinguishing between storytelling and the rest of the different abilities you need in order to write well. ISTM that storytelling is one skill among many you need in order to write well.

Deb

This term story-telling is being used by Archer to describe only the kind of writing he does, synonymous with 'page-turning'. But what's a story anyway? Who says a beautifully understated, elliptically told tale by William Maxwell about mid-century Chicago middle-class life isn't as fascinating as a story about a bank-raid or a tale about long-lost siblings facing one another across the boardroom. He's being disingenuous and cheap, appealing to an inverted snobbery about writing that has a ready audience. All he's doing is rubbishing the kind of writing he can't himself do and bigging up the kind of 'page-turning' stuff that he can. Shows how insecure he is. Deep down he hates the fact that he can't write better.

Pete

But Pete, would you not say that some people have a gift for storytelling while others have a gift for, say, beautiful and moving prose? Obviously you could have a gift for both. Obviously both could improve with practise.

You may be right about him bigging himself up, but I still think he has a point. I don't like his writing btw, or him.

Deb

Deb, I think a lot comes down to what the priority of the individual writer is. For me, the priority is storytelling. Pure and simple. I write to tell stories. There is nothing else (for me). Having said that, when I try to sit down and figure out how best to do that, I come up against technical writing problems. On a macro scale: where to start the story, how to structure the story, what to put into the story, what to leave out. On a micro scale: how to write the first, then the next, then every other sentence so that the story moves along at the right pace. And, yes, so that the reader keeps turning those pages. And also, so that the reader is transported to the fictional universe of my story.

There's a spectrum, though, I can see that.

Deb

I find there's great pleasure to be had from understatedly beautiful writing for its own sake, which is a separate pleasure from the enjoyment of the story...

Pete