Mo Fanning - British writer and comic

First Act As Leader

Ban ‘real life’ dialogue – My first act as leader

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Time to talk writing. In particular, tips for writing dialogue. One of my first acts as leader will be to ban ‘real life’ dialogue.

It’s something I cover in ‘Talking out loud‘ – a guide to writing sparkling dialogue – there’s an extract below.

What is ‘real life’ dialogue? I will use the phrase a lot. So get used to it.

It’s my mission to correct any idea you might have that dialogue on the page should reflect the conversations you have or hear every day.

When I first started to write, I was sure of one thing.: my characters would speak like the people around me. They’d um, err and repeat themselves. They’d talk nonsense and occasionally get things wrong.

‘Hi,’ Andy said.
‘Hang on, I’m erm, just finishing off this email, I . . . yep, that’s about it. Right.’ Kieran looked up from his keyboard. ‘What can I do you for, kind sir?’
‘OK, so listen. Say no if you don’t want to, but you know, I was just thinking, and God knows, I don’t do that often enough, but, would you, err, like to look after the new girl?’
‘Oh, erm, right, yeah, well, urm, sure, yeah, but, erm. Well, I’m not sure I’ll have enough time, like because this report is kinda urgent, but you know . . .’

Soon enough I learned that if the written world sounded exactly like a real life conversation, I’d got it wrong.

Writing dialogue

Writing dialogue isn’t about reproducing real life, it’s about creating an impression of it – and let’s be honest, making it better.

Just like when you write a book, you cut scenes that don’t progress the plot, the same should apply to conversations between your characters. Work out what matters and what moves the story on. Show conflict (or collusion) and boil down your dialogue.

Talking our loud - writing tips

Real-life dialogue quickly becomes unreadable.

Journalists have it in their power to make their interviewees look dumb by printing what they say word-for-word. And while they might be tempted where they find their subject boring and unpleasant – or where they turn up three hours late – these journalists know it won’t make for sparkling copy. Or repeat business.

As writers, we want our characters to carry the story; they need to come over as real. But real people are weird. They don’t always talk about important things. They pass comment on the weather or tell you what they binge watched last night on Netflix. And unless you’re writing a particularly niche story, this probably isn’t what your readers want.

Read more in ‘Talking out loud‘ 

 

Ban the office party – My first act as leader

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Office party ban

This week, I’ve spent more time than feels right researching the Peaky Blinders look. If I want to go full Peaky, I need to trawl charity shops for a frusty coat and gain a love of senseless violence.

Why does this matter?

Because my employer has requested the pleasure of my company at a two-day conference. The evening between the days is Peaky Blinder themed. An office party. We’ll have such fun. (Please apply sarcastic inner voice to that last sentence). The minimum dress code specifies a flat cap.

One of my first acts as leader will be to ban ‘enforced work social events’ – or as they are sometimes whimsically known, office parties.

I’m no killjoy. Despite being largely sober these days, I’ll happily go for a drink after work. But I choose who I drink with. The organisation of any works social event where absence is deemed an act of party pooping should be punishable by a large fine and community service. Add an enforced theme to the office party, and I’ll up the punishment to life imprisonment or a spell ‘on the wall’.

What is work, anyway?

Nobody works because they want to. If they did, what we do between clocking on and off wouldn’t be called ‘work‘. We’d find some other term like ‘fun‘ or ‘happiness‘ or ‘the less soul-crushing part of the day between being jolted awake and drinking yourself to sleep‘.

Many of us spend our working hours in open-plan hangers, exposed to communicable diseases and forced to mix with fellow wage slaves. We form pacts with anyone who displays similar signs of horror. These are ‘work friends‘. Some become real friends. Most remain the kind of person you cross the street to avoid during out-of-office hours.

For me, being made to spend three (or more) unpaid hours with such awful people ranks alongside the 8am root canal on the morning of my San Francisco wedding.

It’s not just the office party that needs to go. I will also outlaw ‘Leaving drinks’. Why go to a packed pub to celebrate someone’s flock freedom? Whatever you wrote in the big card someone failed to hide as it did the rounds of the office, you know you’ll never see Bob from Accounts again. He did a lovely little speech about how he’s sad to go and it’s the people not the place he’ll miss. Bob even emailed asking you fabulous peeps to stay in touch. By Monday morning, we’ll struggle to remember his name.

Why put your liver through it? Chances are you’ll end up talking shop with someone you hate. You’re not being paid. Go home.

The office party goes big

The biggest crime is the Office Christmas Party (OCP). Much as those who hold the company purse strings like to insist the OCP is a massive perk, everyone knows better. It’s a production-line dinner with limited caustic wine and a chance to watch Sonia from Sales snog her manager. You’ll find yourself locked in the basement of a Premier Inn while a DJ plays ‘Last Christmas’. At some point, you’ll hear the words ‘Come on, dance. You don’t look like you’re having fun’. Because you’re not.

My first act as leader will bring an immediate end to office parties.

But I’m not a total ogre. I’ll allow in-hours office kitchen bitching. I may even bend the rules for a ‘team’ lunch, but all other enforced socialisation with people you’d cheerfully throw from a very high window must stop.

In the words of Mumsnet, am I being unreasonable?

Ban text messages in drama – My first act as leader

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What would you ban forever? In the first of a series of rants and rails, self-confessed old person Mo Fanning imagines what life would be like if British politicians stopped arsing around like silly boys at summer camp and got their act together. His first act as leader would change society, promoting kindness and fair play.

It’s fashionable for any gentleman of advancing years to complain about mobile phone usage. Nobody cares that the world is falling apart. They’re too busy liking someone’s filtered photo or caring what David78333521 thinks of their recent status update.

To rail against this would make me a Luddite. Technology moves on. Twenty years ago, an illicit affair meant feeding coins into a secluded phone box, daubed with out-of-proportion sexual organs. I’m prepared to admit mobile phones have their uses.

My actual beef lies not with the phone itself, but with its ever-growing place in televised drama. Or comedy. Or anything with plot.

My first act as leader will be to impose a ban.

The Fannings have never bought into the trend of buying a TV set the size of one wall, but neither do we prescribe to the idea that having a tiny screen suggests television matters little in our otherwise busy lives. Whatever the average daily viewing hours might be for British households, add two. Or four if the bathroom needs a clean and one of us should work on his novel.

I love a good drama. What irks me is the increasing use of text messaging to carry the story.

Friday night dinner

An otherwise mundane dinner party hides the fact that one guest plans to first torture and then murder the hostess – an international spy hiding in plain sight – or Surrey – as a mother of two with a penchant for Boden fashion. As our soon-to-be in trouble heroine serves coq au vin with buttered carrots, an unseen phone beeps and the assassin shifts in his seat.

‘What’s that old chap?’ says Bertie Jeeves-Chopperhands. ‘One of those newfangled portable phones?’
‘My daughter got the bally thing for my birthday.’ Assassin fakes a smile. ‘It’s her way of keeping tabs.’
‘Big Brother is watching, eh?’
The table erupts in polite laughter and Assassin squints at the screen.

Viewers get two seconds to make sense of tiny text on a pixilated square. And the scene ends.

Ban this text messageThis is where, in the Fanning household, one of us dives on the remote control, mutters about it having a hundred fucking buttons and attempts to rewind, freeze frame, and make sense of what was likely a vital plot point.

In most cases, the wrong button gets pushed and a tense dinner party fades to an ironic BBC4 repeat of Top of the Pops from 1979.

Why can’t TV producers over-lay text messages on screen? I’ve seen this done. It doesn’t interrupt the flow. And there’s no frantic fumbling or the (frankly hurtful) suggestions that someone who can’t operate a remote control is showing their age.

One of my first acts as leader will be to ban reckless, thoughtless, feckless television trickery.

And then I’ll start on mobile phones.