Lockerbie

There’s been a heck of a lot of press coverage about the release last year from a Scottish prison of Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi, “the Lockerbie Bomber”. And quite rightly so. It seems everybody has an informed opinion, one way or the other, on the wisdom of setting this convicted murderer free, and it’s comforting to know there are still some people out there who are capable of rational argument.

I’ve held off passing comment because I’m living in Australia these days, and my feeling up till now has been that what goes on in Scotland doesn’t really affect me. But I’ve come to realise that’s a misguided philosophy since I will inevitably return there one day, to live or to die, and because I still speak with a brogue that identifies me as Scottish wherever I go, despite the Australian bushman’s hat sitting atop my head.

So, friends, I want to use this blog to make my position clear for all time: I believe it was fundamentally wrong to release Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi before he paid full price for his crime. In fact, I believe it's fundamentally wrong to release any convicted criminal before he or she completes the full sentence handed down by the trial court judge.

And, just so you know, it irks me when people – complete strangers, mostly – decry me, as a Scot, for the additional pain the Scottish government has caused the families of the victims of the Lockerbie atrocity.

I was sitting in front of the fire at home that cold night in Scotland in December, 1988, enjoying a beer with some friends. It was a quiet Wednesday evening in Perth, and we’d just begun our Christmas holidays. We were watching a video – can’t remember what was on it – but when it finished the TV brought us back to the real world with news coverage of the carnage that had rained down on Lockerbie, a relatively peaceful village in the Scottish borders.

The pictures we saw were horrendous. Flames. Twisted metal. Demolished houses. Papers and possessions scattered in the now infamous crater. I was a cop at the time, and I know from bitter experience of house fires and vehicle collisions – small bones by comparison – that the rescue crews and police officers on the ground will have witnessed something unspeakable that night, and for many days and nights afterwards.

The enormity of al-Megrahi’s crime must never be understated. Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi’s victims were human beings. Most were ordinary people, just like you and me, making the long journey home to be with their loved ones at Christmas, a sacred time of year for us Christians. But that didn’t matter to al-Megrahi. He had his agenda, and that was what was important to him.

That man denied his involvement. Even after an impartial court convicted him, he appealed his conviction, rubbing salt into the wounds he inflicted on the families of his victims yet again.

He has shown no remorse. He’s shown no empathy for those upon whom he heaped indescribable suffering. He should have died in prison, cancer or no.

Yet, the Scottish government saw fit – apparently without consultation with the families of the victims of the bombing (or with anyone else for that matter) – to ‘show compassion’ and release him from prison. And they cite a medical report from some source that now refuses to even explain itself to the people who most need to know how and why this decision was reached: the families who lost their loved ones at the hands of Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi.

You may have guessed that I have a passionate viewpoint on the subject of crime and punishment. I admit right here and in public that I’m a hardliner – commit a crime and you’ll pay the full price for it. No remission or time off for good behaviour. No access to TV. No access to telephones. One meal a day. If you’re sentenced to 30 years, you’ll serve 30 years and break rocks while you do it.

Yeah, I know – I’m an animal.

Or am I?

Inspired by what I see as the inadequacies of most modern-day criminal justice systems, I wrote a novel speculating on how close the public is to revolt over the matters of crime and punishment – that was long before Scotland’s Justice Minister Kenny MacAskill gaily pranced to front and centre of the world stage and showed up the Scottish criminal justice system as the pussycat it really is.

But here’s the rub: if you read just about any newspaper in Australia or Scotland (my points of reference) you won’t have to search too hard to find an article somewhere exposing the softly-softly approach to modern ‘justice’. And if you read the online editions in particular, the chances are you’ll come across a readers’ comments section – what the public have to say about the level of punishment handed down in our courts.

The comments can get quite alarming at times, even for me, but the gist of what the public has to say is this: the vast majority of us want stiffer sentences; we want prison to be a horrible place, not a holiday camp, such that it serves as a genuine deterrent; but most of all, we want to feel safe to walk the streets.

Rapists often serve two years when they should (in my opinion) be locked up for life – hard labour, no remission.

Child molesters are smacked on the wrist and told to stay away from kids. (Here’s a rhetorical question: how many kids’ lives does a child molester have to ruin before he’s (or she’s) considered a threat to society?)

A murderer generally goes to prison for a lot less time than someone who steals $10 million from a bank – assuming the prosecution decides to pursue the charge of murder, and isn't enticed to settle on the easy option of accepting a guilty plea to culpable homicide.

Is that justice? Real justice? If you answered ‘yes’, come the hell on! Have you asked the victims of crime what they think? Have you asked their families?

So here’s my recommendation to Kenny MacAskill and Alex Salmond: stand up and be men about what you’ve done. You made an appalling decision. Sure, you have no legal obligation to travel to America to justify your actions; but your obligation to the families of al-Megrahi's victims goes far deeper than legality – it reaches into the very heart of this thing we call 'morality'.

Get yourselves over to America, meet with Senator Menendez and his colleagues, and with the families of every victim of Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi if they want to meet you, and look them in the eye. Tell them why you did the unthinkable. Show them your reports. Justify yourselves. Prove that you have just as much compassion for them as you do for this convicted murderer.

Then, when you genuinely understand their hurt, their anger and their despair at what you’ve done, apologise to them, and to the people of Scotland for the embarrassment you’ve cause us, and resign from the Scottish government.

One Thing Australian...

All things Scottish, all things Australian, and all things literary… that’s what DUD is all about. That’s what Jack is (mostly) all about. And this is Jack’s blog, so that is as it should be.

However, once in awhile, Mr. Ramsay lets me pop Down Under to play on DUD. But I hesitate, sometimes. After all, I’m neither Australian nor Scottish. And, while I AM a writer, I’m not sure just how ‘literary’ I am. For sure, I know I’m not in Jack’s league when it comes to literarability.

However, I do have an Aussie connection. I have several good Australian friends, and I am going to have the pleasure of meeting one of them very soon. Larry arrives in Maine on Sunday night, and I will be picking him up at the airport. How exciting!

I am SCARED TO DEATH!

What if he doesn’t like me? What if I am far, far less impressive in person than I am online? After all, how much trouble can I get into when all I have are my words to make an impression? But once Larry meets me in person, he gets to see and experience the full deal. The real McCoy. Me, live and in color. Holy smokes.

This could be bad.

I once sneezed a pea out through my nose while dining in a restaurant.

I walked though the supermarket with a mashed and melted chocolate Rollo stuck to my butt.

I drove through town with a live chicken stuck in the grill of my car.

I drove through the same village with my groceries on the roof of my truck.

A customer introduced himself to me as Mr. Derbogosian, and I responded, “God Bless You!” (No peas were forthcoming, thank heavens…)

I bragged about getting a good deal on a piece of property by saying “I jewed them down to $25,000.00.” The man I was speaking to was named Steinberg. (Someone should shoot me and put me out of my misery.)

I got nervous when meeting a politician, so I licked my hand and slicked down his rooster-tail. (I feel a migraine coming on…)

I even broke wind in church (but made a remarkable save by scowling at the old man sitting one row behind me. It was a spectacular ploy, and the poor gent even apologized for it, afterwards. [I'm going to Hell, aren't I?])

And all that… well. That was just last week.

With luck, my Aussie friend Larry will be a big buffoon. He’ll lack grace, finesse and style, and he’ll be homlier than a stump fence, too. If that is the case—if he’s kinda like me—then we will have the time of our lives.

But if he’s cool, and suave, and polished… I think I’m doomed.

When he comes home-- when he flies the 10,000 miles back to Brisbane and Russell Island-- I hope you’ll not give his stories too much credence. If he’s as awesome as I think he is, my plan is to keep him drunk for the four weeks that he’s here.

And really… you can’t believe a single thing a drunk Aussie says, now, can you?

Grammar Pet Hates (a.k.a. Boy Him Card Read Good)

Warning: this is a rant. Look away if you're not in the mood for rantings :-)

Clarity. That’s all writing’s about. Well, okay - not all. But, without clarity in what we’re saying to people, there will never be complete understanding between human beings. That’s an important point to remember about why we need grammar; why grammar’s important to get right.

As a writer, I tend to pay particular attention to the structure, grammar and punctuation of anything I read – there’s an incorrigible editor locked away inside me, I suppose – and when I come across one of my pet hate grammar mistakes, I almost always throw a Trussie and correct the mistake with a big black permanent marker pen. What can I say – I’m human and some things just get under my skin. And just like everyone else, there’s one thing in particular that sets me a-fizz.

I was catching a train the other week, and right on the wall three feet from my face, surrounded by some Troglodyte’s best graffiti ‘art’, was something that that Trog would have sprayed over if he’d known it was stealing his thunder. I don’t want to risk infringing on some advertising exec’s copyright, so I won’t reproduce the error here, but here’s another very similar example from a well-known UK TV cookery show:

Whoever wins, it’ll change their life forever.

It’s on pay TV. It’s played right at the start of every show. It must be right, right?

Wrong.

What’s the problem? Bad grammar. The sentence has an agreement issue. It starts off singular (whoever), changes to plural (their), then sods off back to singular again (life).

Clarity? No chance. How many winners are we really talking about here? One, or many? You may think it doesn’t matter, but I’m asking myself: ‘How many chefs can win this competition? Can there be only one winner, as the sentence starts off suggesting, and which would be far more exciting? Or, will there be many, as the middle of the sentence seems to predict?

Bad grammar = no clarity = lazy speaker = no respect for me as a listener/viewer/reader.

If the presenter really wanted to ‘card read good’, he would have said (for example): We’re about to change someone’s life forever.

What alarms me most is that this obviously incorrect (and often confusing) way of speaking / writing is becoming increasingly acceptable in media – newspapers, TV, radio; and in publishing.

A while back I flirted with a website called authonomy – writers upload their works, whether finished or in progress, and others read and comment. I remember pointing out a very similar agreement issue to one chappie who’d uploaded a sample of his novel, and who wrote for a big-time newspaper. He also claimed to have a qualification in journalism. Good for him – no, seriously; I admire him for caring so much about the art and craft of writing (communicating) that he’d dedicate time and effort to formalising his qualifications.

But this chap almost knocked me off my seat when he said that I was the one who was wrong; that modern teachers actually tell their students that it’s okay to write sentences like that.

What absolute rot. It’s never okay to allow standards to slip. It’s never okay to turn a blind eye to laziness – or encourage it, for that matter - and claim it’s the modern way.

We’re writers. We work to a given set of high standards and we must always maintain those standards. If we don’t, no one will know what the hell we’re raving on about.

If you’re a writer, aspiring or otherwise, read Lynne Truss’s excellent book Eats, Shoots & Leaves. It’s probably the most cathartic text I’ve read in years, and it sets the bar very high. Please, aspire to achieve those high standards.

Oh, and for all the purists out there, I apologise for starting so many of my sentences with conjunctions. Here’s what to do: scroll back to the top of this article so that it fills your computer’s screen, then take a big black permanent marker pen...

Viewpoint Writing

Viewpoint

I mentioned in a previous blog posting that I’d come to talking about viewpoint in fiction one day. That day is here. I don’t intend to delve into the real nitty-gritty of what is one of the biggest (and heaviest) subjects in the world of writing novels. Instead, I’ll give an outline, and I’ll conclude by pointing you in the direction of my favourite reference material.

Viewpoint – or point of view – refers to the eyes through which the reader ‘sees’ a story unfold.

If I told you a story about a trip I made to town to buy shoes with my wife (don’t get me started), I’d be telling you that story from my point of view. In literary parlance, that’s called ‘first person viewpoint’ (FPV): the person who is relating the story is the person who experienced it first hand.

There are a couple of other ways to relate a story, though. One is called ‘second person viewpoint’, (SPV) and the other is ‘third person viewpoint’ (TPV). Just like FPV each has its advantages and disadvantages, and I’ll discuss these briefly.

First Person

We drove to the store, the same store we were in last week, and the week before that, hunting for those God-awful shoes. Sparkly, spangly, patently heeled and winkled. Shoppers jostled me, unaware I was on a knife edge. Just one more pair, one more pair and I’ll...

The big advantage with FPV is that the reader gets into the character’s head almost immediately. That brings the reader closer to the character, and empathy with that character (the holy grail of the fiction writer) follows on pretty quickly. For example, when we read David Copperfield by Charles Dickens, we’re reading the story from young David’s point of view – first person. Almost as soon as we start reading, we begin to get a real feeling of sympathy for David’s plight, and we start rooting for him. Bingo! Dickens has his readers onside and they’re easy meat after that major hurdle is overcome. We care about what happens to David, so we keep reading to find out how he fares.

One major disadvantage with FPV, however, is that writing style is more noticeable. Because you’re getting more personal with your readers, they’ll pay more attention to your ‘voice’ and be less forgiving if they find they don’t like it.

Another major disadvantage with FPV is that the writer must find some credible means by which to keep relevant information from the reader without having that reader exclaim in frustration, ‘But how could this character not know that?’ For example, in a murder-mystery it would be inconceivable to have a scene from the murderer’s first person viewpoint – for where would be the mystery in that? A writer could, technically, keep information back from the reader to increase and maintain the mystery to the end, but would you really want to read another book by that author if your bubble of anticipation was burst with some fact that must have been known earlier on? I doubt it.

Second Person

You drive to the store, the same store you drove to last week, and the week before that, hunting for those God-awful shoes. Sparkly, spangly, patently heeled and winkled. Shoppers jostle you, unaware you’re on a knife edge. Just one more pair, one more pair and you’ll...

SPV is an ‘in-your-face’ way to write, I find, and it really packs a punch when it’s done right. That’s the biggest advantage of writing in SPV – your writing stands out from the crowd... a bit like the stinky kid in the high school playgrounds.

And therein lies the problem. A huge slice of your readership pie won’t like reading this kind of writing because they’ll probably feel like they’re being dictated to by Moses or some snotty TV chef (actually, cook books are a great example of second person viewpoint writing). If you want to write like this – if you really, really enjoy the challenge that’s inherent in writing SPV - then go for it. Be aware, though, that just because you make direct short addresses to the reader (you’ll do this, and you did that...) doesn’t make your writing SPV.

Third Person

Jack drove to the store, the same store he drove to the week before, and the week before that, hunting for those God-awful shoes. Sparkly, spangly, patently heeled and winkled. Shoppers jostled him, unaware he was on a knife edge. Just one more pair, one more pair and he’d...

TPV is where the story is narrated by someone who wasn’t present as a character. There are a couple of ‘sub-modes’ in relation to TPV: omniscient (where the narrator knows and can relate anything that goes on in any character’s mind at any time); and limited (where the narrator narrows what information is divulged by keeping thoughts, feelings and attitudes to one viewpoint character in each scene or chapter.) And in limited, there are even more divisions – referred to a levels of penetration (i.e. how deeply into a character’s mind we can penetrate.)

The great advantage of third person viewpoint is that the narrator can more directly control what information is available to the reader. For example, in first person viewpoint, unless you’re Lwaxana Troi, you can’t usually tell with any great accuracy what’s going on in people’s minds when you walk into a room. But with TPV (omniscient) the narrator can get into those minds and let the reader know what’s relevant. Equally, with careful planning and execution, the writer can hold back information with a higher degree of credibility – and that can lead to increased tension and suspense.

That’s why TPV limited is the viewpoint of choice for writers of mysteries, thrillers and horror stories: readers find out what the writer wants them to find out, exactly when the story needs them to, for best effect. What’s behind the scratched wooden door? What will happen if our main character doesn’t jump off the train right now? Who was it who really planted the bomb? All of those questions can be answered after drawing out the maximum tension and suspense from the story, and TPV limited gives the greatest flexibility towards that end. Better still, in TPV writing style takes a back seat and lets the reader concentrate on the story.

There are disadvantages, of course, to writing in TPV. There’s a temptation to ‘head-hop’ – start a sentence or paragraph telling the story from one character’s viewpoint and end up telling it from another’s. That leads to confusion in your readers’ minds – never good.

The biggest disadvantage, however, is common to both first and third person limited viewpoint: controlling what your characters do and do not know at any given time. For example, if you’re narrating a TPV story using limited point of view, you can’t have that character thinking or talking about something he can’t possibly know about.

Conclusion

Whatever viewpoint you choose to write your story in, make sure it works best for the story you're telling. Try out a few paragraphs, or even a whole chapter, in each viewpoint that takes your fancy and go from there. Some viewpoint modes work best for certain story types – first person for comedy, for example, and third limited for thrillers and suspense. The big question is: what works best for the way I want my readers to enjoy this story?

Reference Materials

I found Characters and Viewpoint by Orson Scott Card (ISBN-10: 0-89879-927-9) to be very helpful in demystifying the subject of viewpoint.

Approaching Our Dotage--by KazzaBP

I’ve been pondering age, lately. My age. And I’ve come to realize something.
I’m getting old.

There are all kinds of clues. Wrinkles where there never used to be any. Gray hair that re-sprouts exponentially every time I pluck one. Arms that aren’t quite long enough to allow me to read the newspaper. A child who is approaching thirty.

One of the most telling signs, though, is how I am perceived by others. Young men never, ever flirt with me anymore. Instead, they call me Mrs. Pease. And old men flirt with me all the time. They call me honey, darlin’ and my favorite, which just came my way today: baby doll.

Hehehe. I am so far from being a ‘baby doll’, it’s not funny. Well, it is. Because if I don’t laugh, I’ll cry. He was eighty if he was a day…

Yep, I’m getting old. There’s no denying it. But I find comfort in many things--the first of which is–-my friends are getting older too. In fact, one of my dearest friends is about to catch up with me, once more. Jack Ramsay–-brilliant blogger, author extraordinaire, husband, builder, brother and best friend–-is having a birthday this week. For the next five months, he will be every bit as old as I am.

And I intend to rub it in.

Jack is a strange combination of mature, responsible man, and pain-in-the-ass kid-at-heart. He is full of sage advice one minute; giving words of wisdom and citing common-sense snippets designed to improve the world around him… and the next, he’s spouting potty-mouth and tee-heeing over the asinine and ridiculous.

It’s a combination I love, and one that is bound to keep him mentally healthy for years and years to come.

And that’s a good thing, for his body is falling apart all around him.

Now that Jack is approaching his dotage, there are subtle changes in his life and his life-style. He used to play rugby and tussle with the staunchest of adversaries. Now he watches the game from an easy chair and shakes his fist petulantly when he takes umbrage at a call. His grocery bags used to contain items such as curry chicken, beer and even the occasional bottle of Scotch. Now, he unpacks antacids, prune juice and—dare I say it?

You know… I really don’t! Because Jack–-even as he gets decrepit and stooped, even as his eyebrows begin to resemble thatched eaves and his whiskers get all gray–-is still a spirited son of a gun. He still gets wrathy, still gets wild, still gets EVEN! I’ve learned my lesson there! No way am I going to mention his incontinence pants! No way in hell!

Oh, I could go on and on about the not-so-graceful aging of one of my best friends. I could mention the hemorrhoids, the corns and the bunions and the bi-focals. But I won’t, because that would be mean, and I’ve a strict policy against elder abuse. Besides, I’m about to sneeze. And at Jack’s and my age, that can have disastrous consequences.

Happy birthday, Boy. And welcome. It's not so bad...

The Incredible Collapsing Man (meets Lee McGowan)

It's not often I fall in a heap with shock. It's even less frequently I'm left speechless (och, weesht - ye know Ah like tae gab). Today, both of the above happened. See, I've just checked the Tuesday night football scores, and I'm going to have to take back everything I've ever said about my beloved St Johnstone.

How timely for an example to appear right now: see, in years gone by I would have interjected there that the club's full name is actually St Johnstone-Nil.

I've suffered long and hard at their hands over the years. Every die-hard Saints fan has. But, lo! Lo and behold! St Johnstone 4 Rangers 1

I said St Johnstone 4 Rangers 1

Good God - the world's buggered. Someone restore some order again soon, I beg you.

Speaking about football, a great new writer by the name of Lee McGowan - a fine Scotralian, just like me, who's just as mad on the beautiful game - will be reading his work in the meeting room of the Brisbane Central Library on Saturday 10 April, starting at 3pm. For more details go here

I'm going to try to pop along, and I'm sure Lee and everyone else on stage will make everyone very welcome.

Quick Pic

Strelizia. Yesterday. 4pm. Enjoy (the ants sure are!) :-)