Beware the MANCHESTER Myth-Makers

 

BEWARE THE MANCHESTER MYTH-MAKERS

 

Every day is a Learning Day, a chance to receive new information, but it’s rare you get a real, honest-to-goodness, slap-in-the-face piece of Inconvenient Truth. For me, it happened recently, the day I was busy telling people that I wrote the ‘Mickey from Manchester’ crime fiction thriller series of novels, and one man joked: ‘Oh, Manchester. I can imagine what that’s like!’

 

The point is, of course, that No, he can’t imagine what that’s like. He can’t. He can’t know what it’s like if he doesn’t know, and he can’t ‘imagine’ if he has to make it up, and anyway, I don’t write about the ‘real’ Manchester - so he can only guess what that might involve!

 

One thing at a time. For a person who lives in Southern England, they might think they ‘know’ about Manchester, in the sense that they hear about it, maybe on radio or in social media, and maybe see it, on The News, or other television programmes, (like the recent BBC documentary about the housing boom in Manchester). But, if it’s not housing, the ‘news’ about Manchester is likely to be only about drug gangs, shootings and stabbings, or perhaps, the occasional terrorist outrage, some bomb or other. These are the regular components of News bulletins. If you watch such stuff, you’re liable to see distraught residents, bemoaning the latest assault, and you’re liable to think, ‘Wow, I certainly don’t want to live in that War Zone’. In which case, you might be forgiven for forgetting that knife crime in London is higher than anywhere else in the country, and that violent crime in Glasgow is the highest in the United Kingdom. But Hey, we’re talking Facts here, and I’m as dependent on the media News as you are, for hearing about True Crime in this city. And, unfortunately for you, I don’t usually bother with such things, anyway. I write Crime Fiction, which makes my original Critic’s comment irrelevant. Even if Manchester was as gun-totin’ as 1930s Chicago, the only way he could be correct that he ‘knew’ what my books are like, is if I did him the honour of limiting my Manchester novels to reflecting life in this place, as it is. I don’t. Far from it.

 

But that’s talking about mere impressions gained from the Media. What about actual experience? What if you knew this city? What if you had actually visited? Well, I’ve had plenty of relatives come to stay, usually for short amounts of days, and I’ve spoken to people who have been here on business. All those people agree that they have only seen a small amount of the place while they were here, and, since Manchester is a city of a million people, it would be true to say that they hadn’t talked to anything but a fraction of the residents. So, visitors get a fragmentary idea of what the place is like, simply because they haven’t got time to do anything else. But, of course, it’s worse than that. I met a young man in Oxford who had been at University in Manchester. For Goodness’ sake, he was here for three years! And yet, he knew the Uni buildings, where to go for lectures and tutorials, he knew the sites of lots of bars, takeaway food shops and night-clubs, but his sojourn in the city hadn’t given him any information - as far as I could tell - about the culture, the history, or recent crises, conflicts and on-going issues. (Some student! I hope he learned something while he was here.)

 

But, the one thing my young student friend and I could agree on was where things were, not just shops, but also concert halls and football stadiums. Plus, he knew how to get around, the taxis, trams and trains. Well, as I’ve often said: ‘I always get the geography right’. If my hero Mickey walks down Chapel Street in Salford, passing Salford Central train station on his right, and crosses the road and walks up the steps of the URC church, you can be sure those places are there. They actually exist. Now, you might ask, is that because, Mike, you’ve taken advice from ‘How to Write 101’ and you ‘write about what you know’? No, not really. Not only did I learn from attending Writing Workshops, I went on to teaching them myself, and my advice evolved into something different. I told my pupils, ‘START by writing ‘what you know’, and make that the launchpad into your story, when your imagination runs free’. In my example, my hero Mickey walks into the church to attend an Art Exhibition, (which actually happened), but then someone asks him for help in bringing some tables down from the attic. The truth is that the building doesn’t have an upper floor, let alone an attic, (it was blown off by a falling bomb in the Second World War), but - in the story - Mickey gets trapped and has to break through into the building next door, then open a hatch to drop into an office there, much to the surprise of the workers. The sad truth is that the church has no connection with the buildings adjacent. In fact, there is an alleyway between the church and the nearest building. Mickey’s entrapment, AND his escape - dear reader - is total imagination.

 

I’m sorry, I can’t apologise for that. It’s true I write books under a series heading of ‘Mickey from Manchester’ and that most of the bits of the story that concern the city are fantasy, (apart from the geography), but then, I do advertise it as Crime ‘Fiction’, so I have never set out to mislead anyone. On the contrary, I seek to entertain. You might say I am basing my tales in a ‘Mythical Manchester’, a place that only exists in my imagination, but, you see, what I’m trying to say is that MY imaginary land is no more ‘real’ than the imaginary hell-hole of drug gangs that the first speaker assured me was the ‘true’ place, somewhere not worth reading about. In fact, it might be true that my stories set in HIS imagination would be depressing, since all his myths are the negative, threatening and violent kind. Luckily, my ‘mind palace’ is nothing like as downbeat as his. It’s made-up, which means that in my world the Good Guys win and Justice is served. As author, I’ve got the power to deliver that. Oh, and one more thing. Yes, my stuff is made up. So, my protagonist is called - Well, his name isn’t even Mickey! That’s just another ‘mystery’, revealed in a recent volume. ‘Mickey’ is his Dad. If you want to find out my hero’s real name, you’ll need to read Book 17 of the related series, the ‘Amelia Hartliss Mysteries’. Sorry, but it’s true!

 Author Mike Scantlebury takes a selfie with a friend 

Beware the COVER LOVERS

 "You're so wrong. You CAN tell a book by looking at the cover" (they say)

 

My mother had a saying, ‘You can’t tell a book by looking at the cover’, which seems like a sensible enough phrase or saying, and something that mothers might quote at regular intervals and hand down to their children. Unfortunately, she was wrong, dead wrong, and there a million people in Britain, for instance, who would stand up and disagree with her totally, (if she was here). How do I know? Because they are the people who go to an on-line book-store like Amazon and choose their ‘next book to read’ by looking at the picture on the front, first. How do I know that? Because Amazon gives people like me - an author and a self-publisher - that very advice: “Make a big effort to design or commission a striking cover or you may struggle to make sales”. That’s pretty clear, isn’t it? You can’t argue with that. However, it begs a question: who are these stupid people, and why do they behave so nonsensically?

 

You see, I’m not a philosopher, but even I can spot a False Association when I see one. What does ‘great cover’ have to do with ‘great contents’? Are people seriously saying that they believe that the artist who prepares the cover design has some kind of telepathic link with the author of the story that forces them to make a a top-flight product? One inspires the other (or vice versa). What universe does that happen in? Not this one! Most writers produce a manuscript and have it prepared for publication by a traditional publisher (self-publishers are still in the minority). So the reality is that the person who organises the cover designer is not the creator of the written work but the desk-bound organiser of printing and distribution. No, if you’re really interested in what ‘reality’ looks like, then you’ll soon be able to appreciate that the two things - cover and contents - may or may not both be wonderful, and the chances are that one of them is not so good, (and that could be either). So, if you actually look at the books on your shelf for one minute, you will soon find a great cover/poor story combination just as readily as you will find the opposite, poor cover/great novel, and that the winning team - great cover/great novel - are actually quite rare.

 

Sorry to be such a downer. But then, reading Fiction is all about inhabiting worlds of fantasy, so why not invent an alternate reality where covers and contents have a mystical link that has a causal effect: writing a marvellous manuscript will instantly create the conditions where the artist will move to the top of their game, and come up with the goods, a really nice, thrilling cover. Or maybe, it isn’t either of those two that makes such a miracle happen. Maybe the real Wizard is the publisher. Perhaps the sequence is - publisher discovers absolutely impressive story and goes out of their way to commission the best artist to give that work the launch it truly deserves, with a cover that matches the genius of its printed words?

 

Yeah, I agree. Unlikely. No, much more possible is the reality of the False Association. You’re given a really nice wine, it has a picture of a cottage on the label, and after that, you assume that all wine with rustic scenes on the bottle will taste good. Sound familiar? Maybe yes, once upon a time, you picked out a book featuring a man with strong arms riding a horse and, surprise, surprise, the story inside swept you off your feet. You seriously think that the next book with a picture of man and horse will be equally as thrilling? Why? Got any logical reason for assuming such a weird combination? No, what we’re really dealing with here is the way that Modern Life works. We watch television and see advertisements where glamorous models put gunk on their faces to make them attractive. We copy them, in the hope we’ll look good too - ignoring the fact they looked good before the make-up. We didn’t. After the mascara, they still look good. We don’t.

 

Or, we spend our time in the outrageously named ‘Reality Television’, where famous faces pretend to be camping out in the jungle, or pursuing romance with each other in Chelsea and Cheshire. This is actually a new genre, created in the last twenty years, called ‘Semi-Scripted Improvisation’. It certainly isn’t ‘real’, but we choose to believe it. We believe what we SEE. The pictures are there, and we accept - without question - the story they tell. So, it’s no surprise then that a glossy picture on the front of a book should be broadcasting a message that says, ‘This book is in the wonderful world of ‘Excellence’. You like the pic? You’ll love the tale’, and we choose to swallow the sales pitch whole, without question. Just like a pair of jeans wrapped in a celebrity endorsement, it’s much more fun entering into the make-believe existence, than having to walk the streets in plain old trousers. It’s much more exciting to accept that ‘good cover EQUALS good insides’, than having to live in a world where books are random, some good, some bad, and the only way to actually distinguish between them is to try them. That would be too personal. After all, how many people KNOW what they like? It’s simpler - and that’s the bottom line - to have guidance, and a striking cover is just that. It says: ‘Hey, Reader, pick me. I look good, but that’s not all - I taste good too’. Sure you do, Mr Book Cover. Sure you do.

 

Alternatives to 'Cut-offs'

Internet Authors don't need Cut-offs

Here’s a story. When our children were younger, and still at High School, we moved house. The new place was further away from the school, and they told us that there might be financial help available for us towards the cost of our kids' bus fares. We were sent a letter. It said that money was paid to people who lived '8 miles away and further'. We measured the journey in the car and it certainly seemed about that distance. Weeks later we got another letter. Our application was denied. We 'didn't live 8 miles away'. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. No, according to their calculations, we lived 7.9 miles away. That's seven point nine. Not enough, they said. After all, they said, there has to be a cut-off point.

Would-be authors keep coming up against the same problem. They send their work to Traditional Publishers, and immediately encounter problems. Say they've written a novel in the Horror genre. Oh, the publisher says, we do operate in a range of popular genres and we publish Science Fiction and Fantasy, for instance. But no, not Horror. After all, they say, you have to have a cut-off somewhere. Or let's suppose you've written a Spy novel. We don't publish spy novels, they tell you. But, you say, consulting the publisher's current catalogue, you are publishing two spy novels this month and you actually published three last year. Ah, agrees the publisher, but we figured we've published enough spy novels for this year now and that's why we're stopping this month. After all, there has to be a cut-off somewhere.

A worse problem concerns money. You read in the newspaper that a certain publisher has just paid a fortune to a famous author for his new thriller. Ohhh, you think. This publisher likes thrillers and is willing to pay out large advances. Nothing so simple! When you send in your manuscript, you're given short shrift. After all, the publisher says, ‘We've spent our budget for this year’, (you know on who). ‘We've had to cut-off all advances until next April’, (the start of the new financial year). Sorry.

Internet Authors don't have this problem. They know that they can go to a website like Lulu and get their books published there – no matter how many, what genre you've chosen, and what time of year it is, (or day or night, come to that). They know the service is superb and you can order copies in small or large numbers, as you wish. In fact, there are no limitations at all. No cut-offs.

Because, as you probably know, human beings are not actually robots. We don't have to live in a world where good things are cut off at some arbitrarily chosen point. A few weeks ago I went into a self-service restaurant one evening, hoping for a quick meal. I patiently queued at the counter, but when I got to the head of the queue, the man behind the counter pointed to a sign and said, 'We stop serving at 9 o'clock'. It was one minute past the allotted time. He insisted he was right, but then another chap came out from the kitchen, tray in hand. 'Serve it', he said. 'I haven't started putting things away yet. All the food is still out'. It's true, it was. It was no trouble for me to be served, no extra effort. It just meant breaking that rule that said there was an absolute and unequivocal cut-off. The second bloke wasn't so fixed in his views, and was willing to be flexible. I got fed. That was important to me, (at that particular time, and I was grateful for it).

What's important to hide-bound and inflexible bureaucrats (like the employees at most Traditional Publishers houses) is that The Rules are stuck by, adhered to and never questioned, (even when made up and changed at random). Why? In the first example, why, 8 miles was the limit and that was that. Why? Why not 9 or 10? Had someone checked how many people lived outside this boundary and drawn the map accordingly? Nothing so sophisticated! Had anyone thought to check whether the bus fare for a 7.5 mile journey was any less expensive than an 8.5 mile journey? Not at all. The problem is that when people design these so-called 'rules' they like to make them seem so scientific – without actually doing any science – and usually simply base their demarcation lines on sheer prejudice and blind faith. The usual reason such 'rules' are important, is that, we are told, if they are broken – well then, oh dear, civilisation will collapse, (or something far, far worse). Would it? Had anyone checked how many applications had come from people who lived at 7.5 miles or 7.3 miles? After all, if they bent the rules and let us through – at 7.9 – well, they might get flooded with all those other people within a decimal point or two, mightn't they? Well No, only if such people existed, and nobody could tell me that. They had no record of how many people had been declined or how close they were to that magic figure 8.

The saddest fact from the school story is that the budget for assisted bus fares was under-spent at the end of the financial year, and the school had to send a leaflet round to all parents, inviting them to apply again. That's what you get for 'sticking to the rules' – you don't get the outcome you want! You don't get to helping the people you want to help and you don't get to spend the money you've got available. The alternative? To grow up and realise that the 'cut-off' is drawn up in an office by a balding man with glasses and a pencil. He's not divine; he's not a superhuman genius; and his decisions can be challenged or circumvented at will. That's not anarchy, it's simply Common Sense.