IN NEWSPAPER JOURNALISM, WHAT IS UNACCEPTABLE?

What is unacceptable?

On 21 March 2002, Milly Dowler, aged 13, disappeared on her way home from school.

My daughter, at that time, was ten; small and blond... she looked very like Milly.

After Milly's disappearance, we bought her a phone, and freaked out everytime she was more than five minutes late.

A month after Milly's killer was finally brought to justice, The Guardian newspaper ran a shocking report about her disappearance.

Phone-tapping by journalists has made news before. Unreal? Sadly not.

Amongst the newspapers keen to report on Milly’s disappearance was the News of the World; their journalists targeted the missing schoolgirl's family. They illegally intercepted her phone messages.

The family lawyer describes the News of the World's activities as "heinous" and "despicable".

Journalists hacked into her messages. Awful. They didn’t stop there.

Scotland Yard is investigating evidence that the paper hacked into Milly’s voicemail and as her friends and parents called and left messages begging Milly to get in touch with them, the News of the World listened and recorded every word.

Although that was a terrible invasion of privacy, they didn’t stop there.

When Milly's voicemail box filled up it wouldn’t accept any more messages. The News of the World deleted the messages that had been left in the first few days after her disappearance.

This was sickening but they didn’t stop there.

When the Police realised the messages had been deleted, Milly’s friends and relatives were given false hope; they believed she might still be alive.

This was agonisingly awful, but the News of the World didn’t stop there.

When the Dowler family granted an exclusive interview it was to the News of the World.

Sally Dowler, reported that Milly’s messages had been deleted so she might be alive. The tearful Mum told the journalist: "If Milly walked through the door, I don't think we'd be able to speak. We'd just weep tears of joy and give her a great big hug."

Listening to the Dowler’s when they explained what gave them hope and reporting it in the newspaper was heinous.

The newspaper had destroyed evidence and confused the Police investigation.

The Dowler family will be pursuing a claim against the News of the World I hope they use the same ruthless, callous determination they learned at the hands of the paper itself.

I planned a cheerful Happy Canada Day and Independence Day blog post but now my thoughts are with the Dowler's and other families who have been affected by such a terrible loss.

SIX SENTENCE SUNDAY - STARRING

It's Sunday! 


I really appreciate the time people take to comment on the six sentence sections.


Thanks for your thoughts.

This week, the six sentences are from my MG fantasy novel STARRING.


Lucas' one happy moment, before the Board of Advisement convene the inquisition.

Nia and Cate giggled high like clinking glasses. They looked from Lucas to the tree stump eyes growing wider with their grins, and then they really laughed. Arms wrapped tight, they could not hold their laughter in. They kept on laughing, although now it was punctuated by snorts and hiccoughs and rolling side to side. Suddenly warm in the shade of the tree, Lucas thought it had been funny. But it wasn’t that funny. 

Thanks for reading. Have a great Sunday :D

RIGHTS, RESPONSIBILITIES AND READING

Rights of the Reader - Daniel Pennac

Everyone deserves the right to read.


Once you can read, does that mean you must accept the mantle of responsibility not only to read yourself but to share a love of reading and the necessary skills with others, as well as to protect the rights of everyone to be able to read?


Access to reading material should not be dependent on your personal wealth - vive la library!


Over your shoulder, please don't mind me
if my eyes have fallen onto your magazine
Oh I've been watching and wondering

why your face is changing with every line you read.

All those lines and circles, to me, a mystery.
Eve pull down the apple and give taste to me.
If she could it would be wonderful, but my pride is in the way.
I cannot read to save my life, I'm so ashamed to say.

I live in silence, afraid to speak
of my life in darkness because I cannot read.

For all those lines and circles, to me, a mystery.
Eve pull down the apple and give taste to me.
If she could it would be wonderful.
Then I wouldn't need someone else's eyes to see what's in front of me.
No one guiding me.

It makes me humble to be so green
at what every kid can do when he learns A to Z,

but all those lines and circles just frighten me
and I fear that I'll be trampled if you don't reach for me.
Before I run I'll have to take a fall.
And then pick myself up, so slowly I'll devour every one of those books in the Tower of Knowledge.

(Robert Buck/ Natalie Merchant) 10,000 Maniacs "Cherry Tree"

Friday is my favourite day on Twitter. I love reading the #fridayreads the mix of old favourites and new material to check out is thrilling.

This week I have read:

Firestorm Dragon Orb by Mark Robson

Dragon Fire by Cornelia Funke
Pure Dead Magic by Debi Gliori

The Demon's Lexicon by Sarah Rees Brennan

The first book for next week:

The Summoning by Kelley Armstrong

Part of the Rights of the Reader is the availability of books the reader wants to read and this week four of my books came from the library. The Public Library Service must be protected when recession bites hard and, for many people, money is scarce. This is not a good time to cut back on library services.

I'm a huge fan of the mobile library.

When my Mum wouldn't let me wander as far as the town library, I was allowed to go to the shops on the estate. Twice this week I've passed the library van, doing its thing at the local shops around town. 

This quote, from Larry Niven of Readers' Rights - which I have printed out large and pinned up over my laptop ;) - came from Phantomimic's Website:

The reader has certain rights. He bought your story. Think of this as an implicit contract. He’s entitled to be entertained, instructed, amused; maybe all three. If he quits in the middle, or puts the book down feeling his time has been wasted, you’re in violation.

WHAT HAPPENED?

There is a post missing. Strike me, that doesn't happen very often.  


What happened to the regular posting schedule?


My eighteen year-old arrived back from Uni last Friday. From the look of her room, the landing and the spare room, she brought the whole of Manchester with her. 


My Minnow is the sloth that lives on the top of whatever is lying around in her room. From a Health and Safety perspective, I didn't want to be handing out crampons to everyone who wanted to negotiate the landing.


I called a breakfast meeting at McDonalds - crafty ;) - once she decided it was her idea to life-launder, we spent the day discussing the relative merits of multiple pairs of black heals and capsule wardrobes.


We noticed the thunder and lightning and the torrential rain - it made the perfect backdrop to endless clothes handling, folding and hanging.


Hours later...


To celebrate the six bags of shoes and clothes that made it to the charity shop we went to Starbucks - sandwiching the miserable day with her two favourite things ;) 


BUT...


When we arrived at Starbucks some customers were sitting cherishing their mugs of coffee and everything seemed normal but dim.


The cheery assistant informed us they had experienced a powercut... the storm--don't-ya-know.


So we waited. We couldn't leave, we'd taken orders from the family... we would wait.


We chatted.


We couldn't leave because the coffee wouldn't be long.


We couldn't leave because we'd waited too long for the coffee.


We left coffeeless.


I hadn't written the post--blast!

VIRTUALLY A LITERARY FESTIVAL

The first ever online literary festival that is taking place 'virtually' over at the Awfully Big Blog Adventure Blog on the 9th and 10th of July.

The posts are always informative and insightful on the Awfully Big Blog Adventure, for two days they are going to be awesome.


The ABBA Litfest is going to be hosted by a raft great authors. Liz Kessler, Lucy Coats, Andrew Strong and Celia Rees are some of the fantastic children's authors who will be posting.


They have a hectic schedule planned: new posts every half hour. 


Vlogs and interviews will be featured during the virtual literary festival. 


There will be GIVEAWAYS too. :D


Click here for more information.

The Twitter hashtag is #ABBAlitfest, follow to keep up with the content.


Friend the Facebook page too.

An open access literary festival on 9th and 10th of July? I know where I'm going to be.

BASIC CONFLICTS COME IN 3 FORMS... OR 4

In a novel, conflict is an essential part of the plot.

There are three varieties of conflict you can inflict on your MC: inherent, external, and internal.

Inherent
Inherent conflict exists within the novel from the beginning - the environment, social mores within your society, previous experiences.

External
External conflict is the rub of one character upon the other - the antagonist. The external conflict can also be provided by environmental changes such as extreme weather.

Internal
Internal conflicts are driven by fear, doubt or failure and the MC's need to protect themself from physical, mental or emotional pain.

There is a fourth kind of conflict.

Extra-personal

I see this as the writer inviting the reader to bring their knowledge, understanding and fear into the plot eg when a character says it's time to go for one last swim, take the short-cut home or how kind it is to help the guy with the broken leg load his shopping into the car, I'm cringing and looking ahead to see if it is safe to read on. ;)

Without conflict, there is no novel.

I have no favourite kind of conflict but pitting an MC against nature leaves me cold ;)

Which kind of conflict do you love to read or write?

WRITING FOR CHILDREN - CHILD'S PLAY

The Independent's 5-minute Interview 

In 2008, Michael Rosen, the Children's Laureate, wrote advice about writing for children for The Guardian’s series entitled How To Write. In his extensive career, Michael Rosen has written 140 books of poetry and fiction for children.

This version is abridged ;)

We've all been children, we all know a parent or parent-figure. This makes us all potential writers of children's books.

I think of children's books as not so much for children, but as the filling that goes between the child world and the adult world. One way or another, all children's books have to negotiate that space, whether it's thinking about how the text of a picture book will sound when read aloud, or how the child views him or herself in a world run by adults.

And of course, more than likely, you're an adult reading this, so the moment you think about writing something for children, you'll be handling something or other from your own childhood. This may be something you read, experiences of being read to, pleasurable or painful experiences from when you were young.

There is also an interesting line between the child you once were and the children you know now. If you want to write a book for children, you will find yourself travelling to and fro along this line, wondering one moment about what kind of child you were, why you had those particular tastes and interests, what depressed or excited you, what you were afraid of, what you yearned for; the next, looking, listening and thinking about the children you know or meet.

Are there big differences, or is there some core child-ness that is unchanged?

Is the culture and background you came from, similar or different to the kinds of children you know and meet now? If so, how does your writing reach them?

The writer Morris Gleitzman told me that he sets himself one golden rule when he writes for children: "Start any scene as 'late' into the action or dialogue as you can."

We also have to spend time in bookshops, libraries, nurseries, schools and with reading children, seeing how the books work with the audiences.

You are of course the first audience for what you write, but you want to make yourself the kind of reader who can pretend to be the reading child. You also need to get that child who is now the age of your target audience into your head too.

A very important part of writing for children is appearing at book festivals, and in libraries and schools. An important part of becoming a writer for children is seeing what published writers do and say when they appear.

Writing children's books may be as lonely as any other kind of writing, but there is a big social element in how the books are taken to the readers. There are thousands of people out there doing this - parents, librarians and teachers mostly - so part of being a writer for children is being among these people at the events they organise. If you get the balance right, this will be part of what motivates you to go back into the cell and write some more!

Michael Rosen 

September 2008

After 20 years of teaching, I have more trouble keeping the target audience out of my head. I learned what interested avid readers but try to write in a way that will engage those who were less keen.

I find the question Michael Rosen asked very interesting:

Are there big differences, or is there some core child-ness that is unchanged?

Developmentally or socially?

If you are not eight, how do you write for eight year-olds?