The northern market in Iksan in Korea

I like a good panoramic photograph. This one is of a market I visited, or at least strolled through, almost every day when I lived in the city of Iksan, South Korea. A rather embarassingly long time ago.

If funds permit, I prefer to go to a place, if the scenes I want to describe are lengthy and rather detailed. When it comes to locations, there is no substitute for going there to see for yourself. You spot things that can be found in no memoir, no guidebook, no Google entry—small details that, collectively, create “the ring of truth” (an overused but still accurate phrase).link

Not much to disagree with and plenty to admire in this short piece from the Wall Street Journal on how the great Frederick Forsyth writes thrillers.

If I want a scene on a Scottish trawler in the Denmark Strait, I’ll find an old fishing skipper in the Scottish town of Peterhead and ask him to tell me what it was like. And here’s the joy of it: Most veterans simply love to describe their area of expertise. The problem is usually synthesizing what you really need for your story from the hours of fond reminiscences of the old boy in the cardigan.

I have a reputation for writing fast—about 45 days per novel. But that is deceptive. Ten standard pages a day is not a back-breaker, just six hours tapping away. That will yield 450 pages, a completed thriller novel.

What does not emerge from that figure is the six preceding months of slow, painstaking research, resulting in several tables spread with personal notes, tear sheets from magazines, cut-out newspaper articles, maps, photos and reference books. And all those jotted interviews with the experts.

Frankly, the research is the interesting bit, not the tapping of keys. link

From 1962, Ian Fleming on how to write a thriller,

In my case one of the first essentials is to create a vacuum in my life which can only be filled by some form of creative work. I am fortunate in this respect. I built a small house on the north shore of Jamaica in 1946 and arranged my life so I could spend at least two months of the winter there. For the first six years I had plenty to do during these months exploring Jamaica, coping with staff, getting to know the locals, and minutely examining the underwater terrain within my reef. But by the six-year I had exhausted all these possibilities, and was about to get married – a prospect which filled me with terror and mental fidgets. To give my idle hands something to do, and as an antibody to my qualms after 43 years as a bachelor, I decided one day to damned well sit down and write a book.

Failing a hideaway such as I possess, I can strongly recommend hotel bedrooms, as far from your usual “life” as possible. Your anonymity in these drab surroundings and your lack of friends and distractions in the strange locale will create a vacuum which should force you into a writing mood and, if your pocket is shallow, into a mood which will also make you write fast and with application.

The next essential is to keep strictly to a routine – and I mean strictly. I write for about three hours in the morning – from about nine to noon – and then do another hour’s work between six and seven in the evening. At the end of this I reward myself by numbering the pages and putting away in a spring-back folder.

I never correct anything and I never look back at what I have written, except at the foot of the last page to see where I have got to. If you once look back, you are lost. How could you have written this drivel? How could you have used “terrible” six times on one page? And so forth. If you interrupt the writing of fast narrative with too much introspection and self-criticism, you will be lucky if you write 500 words a day and you will be disgusted with them into the bargain.

By following my formula, you write 2000 words a day and you aren’t disgusted with them until the book is finished, which is, in my case, around six weeks. I spend about a week correcting the most glaring errors and rewriting short passages. I then have it properly typed with chapter headings and all the rest of the trimmings. I then go through it again, have the worst pages retyped, and send it off my publisher.

But what, after all these labours, are the rewards of writing?

First of all, they are financial. You don’t make a great deal of money from royalties or translation rights and so forth and, unless you are very industrious and successful, you could only just about live on these profits, but if you sell the serial rights and film rights, you do very well.

Above all, being a comparatively successful writer is a good life. You don’t have to work at all the time and you carry your office around in your head. And you are far more aware of the world around you.

Writing makes you more alive to your surroundings and, since the main ingredient of living, though you might not think so to look at most human beings, is to be alive, this is quite a worthwhile by-product – even if you only write thrillers. link

 

It’s not just about the food. Eating on the streets in Vietnam requires a certain tolerance for noise, humidity, cold, heat, wind, rain, street hassle of every shade, questionable hygiene, exhaust fumes and low seating. You’ll probably need to shout if you want to hold a conversation. You may need to learn to tune out the slurps, clicks and chomps of your fellow diners. You will have to get used to mess, both on the table and under it. Street food is a bit like smoking. It can seem somewhat disgusting at first, it takes a little time to get into it, but before too long you’re addicted.

Photo: At a friend’s favourite Bun Cha somewhere in the Trần Hưng Đạo street area.

I was first introduced to this restaurant at 11 Tạ Hiện street by a Deputy Minister in the Vietnamese government sometime in 1998. It became a firm dining fixture ever after. As far as I know, it’s still there. Hanoians visit Trường Thọ for one dish – Chim quay – juicy deep-fried pigeons, served with a side of rau muống. Great bone crunching fun. I want to go back.

Photo taken in 2006