Mo Fanning - British writer and comic

Mo Fanning

Cancel culture – a new word for feeding trolls?

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Cancel CultureTwo perfectly innocent words when combined have become toxic: Cancel culture.

The easiest way to become ‘cancelled’ is to post something sexist, racist, or trans/homophobic online. In the olden days, we called this ‘trolling’ and implored everyone: Don’t feed the trolls. These days, because online life is the only life we have, no dodgy stone must go unturned.

But how effective is the practice of cancelling someone who you don’t agree with or whose views you find offensive? Most trolls thrive on being cancelled. If there’s no audience, there’s no point in their being online. Each time you bite back at Katie Hopkins, you justify the Uber Troll calling her a respected British journalist (as opposed to a self-publicising waste of skin cells).

Rebuilding Alexandra Small by Mo FanningIn 2019 Barack Obama noted: “If all you’re doing is casting stones, you’re probably not going to get that far.

Another argument against online cancellation is that it simply sends the trolls underground. Free speech sites like Parler provide ready homes to hate. Poke the trolls enough and you get insurrection.

In Rebuilding Alexandra Small, I explore cancel culture. When a TV couple split, it’s Megan Macmillan who finds herself out of favour, while Clive hosts their popular weekend show solo. Like Alexandra Small, Megan finds ways to rebuild her life.

What do you think? Should we cancel those whose views we find abhorrent online, or fight their words in other ways?

My next book ‘Rebuilding Alexandra Small‘ set in Brighton, city comes out in June. If you’d like to read early chapters and enter the draw for free signed copies, please join my mailing list.

Brighton – Six fun facts

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Brighton

I’ve spent eight years in Brighton – and it’s the setting for my upcoming book ‘Rebuilding Alexandra Small‘. Brighton, though, is more than just a seaside town.

When Swedish supergroup ABBA won the 1974 Eurovision Song Contest with ‘Waterloo‘, it took place in Brighton – at the Dome – and a few years back, the BBC went back to Brighton to pick the 2018 UK Eurovision Song – sadly Surie is better known for a stage invasion than winning the event.

Home to the UK’s newest national park

Locals might know Brighton and Hove as London by Sea, but the city stands on the edge of a huge national park. From my front door on the edge of town, it’s just ten minutes walk to the South Downs – officially the UK’s newest national park.

From something new to something very old. The oldest cinema in town is the Duke of York’s – also said to be the oldest working cinema in Britain. You get to sit in big wide chairs and watch a mix of big hit and festival films – and when Eurovision comes around, watch the show live and cheer along (obviously not right now, because Covid).

All around town, Blue Plaques tell you about all the famous people who once lived in the town. I share my street with Nick Cave and at one point, Cate Blanchett was once a neighbour. Other faces spotted around town include Fat Boy Slim, Zoe Ball (doing a complex three-point turn in my street), Adele and even Sir Paul McCartney!

Brighton Pier

Brighton's West PierIf you’ve ever thought how much fun it might be to live in a Grade 1 listed building, I’m here to say it isn’t. If you want to change things, you’re up against many rules and committees. But one listed building designed for fun is the West Pier. These days, it’s little more than a ragged structure after fire destroyed the fun. Each year, high winds and storms take a little more away. At this time of year, starlings gather in a murmuration. The best way to show you this is with a picture.

The city is said to have once had many tunnels running under the streets – most now lost. One remains between the Royal Pavilion and the Dome. There’s another one leading from the gardens on Sussex Square to the sea front – believed to be the inspiration for Lewis Carroll when writing Alice in Wonderland.

Want to know more about Brighton? My next book ‘Rebuilding Alexandra Small‘ set in this beautiful city comes out in June. If you’d like to read early chapters and enter the draw for free signed copies, please join my mailing list.

 

16 ways for writers to create a rounded character

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Character research

One thing I’ve come to accept with writing is the absolute need for character research. And by this, I don’t mean heading over to Google to find out about the town in which you plan to set your story, or looking up how likely it might be to die from a well-aimed gun shot. The single most vital bit of research any writer does relates to the people who populate their pages. Not knowing enough about the characters in your story is the biggest cause of writer’s block.

The obvious objection here is to say: How can I research a character I made up?

Soap writers access huge detailed fact files built up on each and every on-screen face so nobody acts out of character. As a writer, you need to do the same.

Each time I get an idea for a new project, I write the first few chapters (secure in the knowledge not one sentence will make the final draft). This is where I stop.

By then, I’ve created a handful of characters – or in my case, it’s more like twenty or thirty. This is where the initial character cull needs to happen. At least half need to go (or find themselves relegated to bit part roles – often without names).

What you’re aiming for is one or two lead characters and perhaps two (or three at most) supporting ones.

Character 16-point checklist

When you’ve agreed with yourself who gets to live, this is where research starts. My target is to write 2-4 pages on each. This is where you dig into your imagination, but also Google to understand who the character is, what drives them and what has happened to them in their life, where they come from and what sights, sounds and smells they recall and carry with them.

For each character, think about:

  • Their age
  • Where they live when the story starts
  • Background
  • Physical description
  • Typical clothing (here I like to create 5-10 outfits to copy and paste later)
  • Current and former occupation
  • Key relationships
  • What motivates them?
  • Describe their personality
  • Do they follow any hobbies?
  • Do they have habits or twitches/tics?
  • Why is their role in the story?
  • Does anything scare them?
  • What drives them on?
  • Describe their biggest secret
  • What do other people see when they look at this character?

I’m not going to say you must complete every single one of these for each character. Lesser ones don’t merit this level of depth, but having a place to check back and make sure you gave them the correct eye colour or the right hairstyle will save you hours of flicking through chapters. And avoids that horrible day when an editor (or worse a reader posting an Amazon review) points out your glaring error.

As a bonus, nine times out of ten, doing this exercise prompts storyline twists; knowing I’ve created something to reveal about any character is a brilliant motivator.

How do you build your characters? Share your tips.

Photo by Russ Ward on Unsplash

Covid lockdown madness – recording history

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We're COVID-Safe

It’s lockdown, but we’ve had someone in. He came to remove two radiators and deal with the bizarre (and clearly lethal) electrics in my mum’s old house. The very idea of hosting a stranger caused much excitement.

The word ‘hosting’ suggests something far more involved than it actually was. So read on.

In readiness, we stocked up on extra strong masks. Not the usual namby-pamby blue ones. The Fannings went for five-layer filtering half masks. Mr Fanning invested in three cans of spray antiseptic. Two hours before he was due to arrive, we threw open every window. And let’s not forget it’s February. In the Midlands. And positioned bottles of hand sanitiser randomly throughout the house. We opened each possible cupboard he might need to touch and left interior doors ajar. The dog was bribed with a bone and confined to a bedroom, and I was instructed to stay in my office and not emerge until the coat was declared clear – through a complex system of knocks and code words. (I may have made the last bit up).

Gone too soon

He was here all of ten minutes, wore a mask and gloves, and refused any suggestion of tea. Not that one was on offer. Mr Fanning offered this as a test, to test how lapse he might be with staying Covid-safe. Had he said yes, we would have felt obliged to raze the building to the ground upon his departure.

I’m telling you this because in the (hopefully) near future, I’ll look back on this time and tell myself lockdown wasn’t so bad. I just want to be sure I remember it was.

Mad.

In other news, I just finished edits on ‘Rebuilding Alexandra Small‘ – not long now until I start offering free copies in a special mailing list contest. Join if you want in.

Planner or pantser – what sort of writer are you?

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Writer who plans

There are two schools of thought for a writer working on a story – you either plan – and work out in advance what happens when. Or you don’t. You pants your writing – derived from the phrase ‘flying by the seat of your pants’.

After years of trying to be a don’t care writer, I’ve realised the only way I can ever finish a book is to plan. If I write and see where the characters take me – usually into a deserted parking lot where one of them pulls a gun and tells me to stop bothering them with my adverb-free prose.

That’s not to say there isn’t room for freestyling – especially when you first work on something fresh. In fact, playing things by ear is essential.

Brick walls

My creative process tends towards the same pattern each time I try to work on a new novel. I start off fine, loving everything about what’s clearly the best thing I’ve ever written. And then I run smack into a wall – usually around 15,000 words. The dreaded ‘writers’ block‘. If I climb over, I carry on, only to hit another somewhere between 30 and 35,000 words. It’s only when I’m safely past the 50,000 word mark that I feel sure the story will reach a logical conclusion and stand a chance of making it to a full first draft.

Why do these brick walls appear?

Often, this happens because I’ve taken the current characters as far as I can. Even if I’ve worked out roughly where the narrative should go next, I can’t find a road through. Sometimes, I realise I’ve grown bored with the story or the people telling it. Some might consider 15,000 words a lot to throw away, but I do this often. As a writer, I treat these initial meanderings as a passageway into writing. A chance to get familiar with my characters and their situation and work out who they need around them. Just like when you make a new acquaintance. You don’t know enough about them to determine if you want to spend six months of your life with them, or if they’ll fit with your other friends, or what to buy them on their birthday. Or even if they’re the kind of friend who makes your birthday present list. 15,000 words are usually ample for me to decide.

The same, but better

Even if every single word ends up in the trash, often the people who lived in those words survive. They might say different things or dress better (or worse) or have new homes and jobs and husbands or secret lovers, but when I start again, I understand them enough to clamber over that first brick wall. I’d say it makes me a better writer.

Next time I’ll talk about the second brick wall – because that’s where planning really counts.

Coming soon ‘Rebuilding Alexandra Small’ and if you’re up for reading advance chapters and special offers, please join my mailing list.

The first TEN people to sign up will be sent a Kindle version of ‘The Armchair Bride’ absolutely FREE.

Rebuilding Alexandra Small will be published in 2021. The Armchair Bride is now available now from all good websites and bookstores. If you’d like to support my work (and bag a FREE signed copy of any of my books), consider using Patreon.