Rule of Three

I was recently reading something by a noted author but it just did not seem to be grabbing me at all. This puzzled me as at first glance, it seemed well written. After some re-reading, it finally dawned on me what the problem was.

Some time back I was able to interview the author, Diana Gabaldon. One of the things we discussed was the Rule of Three as it applies to writing. In short, repeating things three times will make a reader remember it, such as a plot development - but be a bit subtle about it. Similarly, the Rule of Three applies to use of the senses in writing. We have five - use three of them in a scene to really hook a reader.

In this book that I was reading, I realised that the author had focused predominantly on just one sense - sight. They had described in detail what things looked like, but rarely what things sounded like, how they smelled, tasted or felt. So the scenes tended to be one-dimensional which was why things were not grabbing me in any real way.

So the moral of the tale is to make sure I use three senses in a scene when I am writing. The dark dungeon becomes much creepier when we know that it also smells like the corruption of rotting corpses and we can hear the skittering of rodent feet across the slimy flagstones.

Review: All Day Long the Noise of Battle

All Day Long the Noise of Battle: An Australian attack in Vietnam
by Gerard Windsor
2011
Pier 9

as reviewed at Boomerang Books

In writing any history, the immediate issue facing the research/author is that of information sources. At first glance, this may seem a relatively straight forward thing in this instance when many of the participants are still alive and may be consulted along with official records. What Gerard Windsor amply demonstrates here is that this is anything but straight forward. The problem of memory is a real inhibitor – different accounts because of different memories of specific events even comes into play with accounts written very shortly after the event, let alone some forty years later.

Despite this issue of conflicting accounts and memories, Windsor has compiled a detailed and very interesting account of the actions of the men from C Company, Seventh Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment (7RAR) in Operation Coburg.

Australian ‘memory’ of the fighting in the Tet Offensive in 1968 is heavily influenced by US sources such as film. Yet Australian infantry and artillery units on the ground also played roles. Operation Coburg saw the men of C Company assault a North Vietnamese bunker complex. This was no fleeting contact in the jungle or a rain-obscured contact and rescue as at Long Tan, but a concentrated assault over three days. It was in fact arguably the longest attack by Australian troops during the Vietnam War. Yet the events were barely recorded in the media at the time and recognised little better by the military itself.

I found the book something of an eye-opener as it told the story of an event that has gone strangely unnoticed. Windsor has gone to considerable effort to relate as much of the account as possible to the individual soldiers taking part, which gives the book a greater human dimension than may otherwise have been the case.

This account should interest not just those with an interest in Australian military history, but also those with a broader interest in Australian history in general.

a crazy 24 hours

Note - I wrote this yesterday but blogger.com was off the air.

What a crazy 24 hours I have just been through.

I have been suffering a persistent cold for the last two weeks. I knew that sinusitis was making its presence felt. But I was doing the right things, plenty of fluids, bed rest, keeping warm and keeping the vitamins and other good stuff going.

Yesterday afternoon I made an appointment to see my GP today, thinking he would probably put me on penicillin for this sinusitis.

Last night, not long after heading to bed, I suddenly found myself unable to breathe properly. It got worse. I called the ambulance. Trying to calm myself, I tossed a few things into a bag, expecting to be carted off to the hospital.

I staggered out to the living room, knocking on the bedroom door of one of my housemates. Pete kept an eye on me for a while as we waited for the ambos. He finally went looking for them, thinking perhaps they were at the wrong place in our complex. I received a call from the ambo dispatch, claiming a crew was at my place, so where was I? "They're not here," I managed to gasp out. After a bit of going back and forth like that, we agreed that they would radio the crew to go back to the entrance to the complex and I would have someone go meet them.

After some more of the ambo crew wandering around, lost, and one of my housemates waiting by the empty ambulance, becoming increasingly frustrated, eventually they reached my place. I was put on oxygen and the ambo crew announced that they were taking me to The Canberra Hospital.

Shortly after actually leaving our place, the ambo crew changed their mind and took me to Calvary Hospital instead - approximately the distance away as TCH but in the opposite direction.

Dizzy spells saw me put in a wheelchair at the hospital Emergency Room and told to stay in it. Eventually I was examined more closely and put in a bed. Oxygen had me breathing better but my coughing was now so bad that my body was being tossed around on the bed like I had shoved wet fingers into a wall socket. That eventually saw me vomiting. Then a flood of really disgusting stuff erupted from the facial orifices, filling up a sick bag. And that is the nice version of events. I was eventually shot up with some stuff to settle me down along with having to swallow penicillin pills the size of horse tablets.

Off to radiology for an MRI to see just what was causing a now blinding headache. Scan done, it was back to my bed in the ER, being wheeled around like King Dick in the mobile throne that was the wheelchair. Back came the results from radiology.

"Well, Ross, that pain is definitely from your sinuses. But we can see... "

Some whispered conversation between the doctor and and someone else.

"Ross, we think we might have just discovered an aneurysm. We will probably have to do a lumbar puncture to extract some spinal fluid to examine it further."

Oh boy, I was looking forward to that - NOT.

Fortunately I was spared the joys of spikes hammered into my spine, with another MRI being taken after I was pumped full of iodine in order to make prettier pictures.

Yep, I definitely have an aneurism, somewhere around my left frontal lobe - two millimetres wide and six millimetres long. So I have to be a very good boy, behaving myself for the next week or two until I get to see a neurosurgeon, who shall then decide whether or not to pull out the Black and Decker to start drilling holes in my head and fish the thing out.

By this point, having had to relate my medical history a casual thirty-seven times or so (how come medical people do not know how to spell the name of my drug for Crohn's Diesease?), because of my history with depression and the possibility that I had been experiencing elevated anxiety helping to bring on the breathing difficulties, a headshrinker was summoned. A bedside psychiatric consultation results. From that it has been decided that yes, I am suffering from anxiety issues which are somewhat consistent with potential side-effects from a particular anti-depressant I have been on for some years. The wheels have commenced turning to get me in for a formal psychiatric assessment of my medication etc.

Just about then, my housemate who had been helping find a mislaid ambo crew last night, telephoned. He had been calling The Canberra Hospital, arguing with them that I had definitely been taken there during the night so where was I? Had they lost me? Was I in the morgue? He had finally tracked me down at the actual hospital I had been taken to - Calvary.

With my breathing back under control, having coughed a large part of the blockage loose, now being organised for further treatment by neurosurgeons and more headshrinkers, and actually feeling rather better, the hospital sent me on my way early Friday afternoon.

Remember that doctor's appointment I had made? Well I just had time to get there and give him all the good news. I handed him the pages of information the hospital had given me. His eyes opened wide and we briefly discussed the aneurysm thing a bit further. He also had a good tap and listen to my chest, confirming what a doctor at the hospital had said - my left lung still has a mess of stuff in it. And my sinuses are badly inflamed. So it is a course of penicillin to clean the mess up. I was supposed to be going to a writing retreat next week with some fellow staff and grad-students from uni. I have been told that definitely ain' gonna happen now.

It was about now that my GP had another look at the info from the hospital. I receive a drug infusion every eight weeks in hospital, to keep my Crohn's Disease under control. Each of those treatments is preceded by taking some blood for testing. This pile of info from the hospital included some cumulative results of these blood tests going back some time. It was now that another incidental discovery was made. "I don't like those glucose results," he said. It seems that I may be in danger of developing adult diabetes and need to go back for some further tests, once I have finished my new course of penicillin and gotten entirely over these chest and head infections.

So, in about eighteen hours, I have turned into an insane walking respiratory infection whose head is about to explode, splattering all and sundry with my diabetic blood and cranial entrails.

Well, you have to laugh, don't you?

One thing is for sure - with this run of luck, I am definitely buying some lottery tickets in the morning.

Oh by the way - is it just co-incidence that today is Friday the 13th?

To write or not to write - that is the question

Earlier today as I was collecting a caffeine refill, I overheard what appeared to be a more senior student. He was complaining about the fact that as a computer science student, he was still expected to write essays. This was, to him, unfair and a waste of time.

What really concerned me though was the fact that he was saying this to a member of the academic staff - who was agreeing with him!

Now hold on a moment. I have worked with a lot of graduates over the years including IT graduates. Ever so many of them were frankly hopeless at expressing themselves, especially in writing. But the IT graduate does need to be able to write. They have specifications to work out with clients, reports to file and technical documentation to author. How good is any of that going to be if the IT graduate cannot write well? In my experience, IT people have been worse than average in this respect, which probably explains some of the messed up specifications and documentation that I have come across over the years.

Our education system in Australia has been letting people down for decades in this whole area. The 'authorities' decided long ago that things like grammar were no longer needed in the English curriculum. In my case, it was replaced with things like studying 'cause and effect' (useful but not exactly teaching me how to avoid dangling participles or even what the perishers are) and a rather fanciful description of the 'typical Australian' (a complete load of bollocks and thorough waste of time).

The complaint from students about not needing to do essays etc due to their specific field of study not requiring it, is hardly a new one. And it is still just as invalid an argument now as it ever was. But what hope do these students have when even their teaching staff seem to think that their students do not need to be able to write well?

Not happy, Jan.

BOOK REVIEW: Bossypants by Tina Fey

Bossypants
Tina Fey
9-781847-4451993
Little Brown
2011

Tina Fey was just a young girl with a dream: a recurring stress dream that she was being chased through a local airport by her middle-school gym teacher. She also had a dream that one day she would be a comedian on TV.

She has seen both these dreams come true. And now, here is her story.

REVIEW

OK the first and frankly rather obvious question is why am I reviewing Tina Fey's autobiography when my more usual gig is speculative fiction?

Well, firstly, only ten copies were being made available to blog-based reviewers in Australia. I put my hand up for a copy, not expecting to get one. It was a rather delightful surprise to receive an email a few days ago that a copy had been tossed into the post for me. Next, Fey is a writer and I believe in learning what we can from those who have gone ahead of us on the writing journey. Finally, I think Tina Fey is very funny and talented. And cute. There. I said it, OK?

When I first elevated myself to the luxury of pay television here in Australia, The Comedy Channel was running old episodes of the long-running US comedic icon, Saturday Night Live. The humour did not always do a lot for me but it must be incredibly difficult to keep turning out comedy sketches year after year. My favourite part of the show was easily the Weekend Update piece featuring a quirky, bespectacled lady who was not above throwing the occasional comment to the audience.

To many people, Tina Fey is “that” woman who did the impersonations of Sarah Palin even though this was just one small part of her story, albeit one that brought her a much wider audience and attention.

This was a very entertaining book. While some cultural references are naturally US-centric and I did not necessarily always get them, it is fast-paced and very easy to get right into. It is a confession, the story of a journey, an account of life in the entertainment business, genuine admiration of others, biting sarcasm, self-deprecating humour and some lovely lunacy.

With all the many people Fey has worked with, particularly the special hosts on Saturday Night Live, there must have been a temptation to do a 'tell-all' about some of the 'd-bags' (Palin's expression) but she has resisted that. But some people from earlier in her life come in for some biting sarcasm and ridicule but are generally kept anonymous.

I am left with the impression that Fey is a bit puzzled by the attention she has received in more recent years as an attractive woman. Her list of self-perceived body flaws includes her feet.

“My Father's feet. Flat. Bony. Pale. I don't know how he even gets around, because his feet are in my shoes.”

I was also a little puzzled by Fey's references to the alleged low popularity of her current creation, 30 Rock. That is easily one of my favourite programs.

As a biography, Bossypants will appeal to more than just Tina Fey's fans. It is a delightful reflection by a very entertaining and perceptive person and keen observer of life, not to mention giving an insight into life working in comedy and television.

I have also reviewed this at www.awritergoesonajourney.com.

Review of Laid

I do not normally review television. In fact I have never reviewed television. I stick to my meandering about books for awritergoesonajourney and occasionally elsewhere. However on this occasion I have decided to review the latest new offering from ABC Television, Laid.

This program was the brainchild of co-creator, writer and co-producer, Marieke Hardy. Marieke has an enviable television and entertainment pedigree. Her parents were television writers and producers. Her grandfather was Frank Hardy, noted Australian writer and radical (the polite family euphemism for becoming a communist) and grand-niece of the very funny and always unpredictable comedian, Mary Hardy. Any Victorian from my generation and back would remember Mary Hardy and her caustic, riotous wit on The Penthouse Club. The fact that Marieke became an actress and then writer is therefore not surprising although she has emerged to become a writer and personality in her own right. Her love and opinions of literature come through loud and strong with her appearances on ABC Television’s First Tuesday Book Club. Quirky, funny, intelligent and a vegan (which has nothing whatsoever to do with things but it’s a useless fact I know from following Marieke on Twitter) I was really interested to see what her new work was like.

Unfortunately I missed the debut of the program on Wednesday, February 9th. I was otherwise engaged on matters of earth-shattering importance. Oh OK. I was too busy scratching my fat, hairy ass and forgot. Happy now? Anyway I was able to legitimately download a copy from the ABC’s website today and watched it earlier this evening (after fighting with the DVD burner to get a disc burned that actually worked in the television’s DVD player rather than trying to watch it on the small laptop monitor).

Roo McVie is a market researcher. An old boyfriend that she privately refers to as ‘that dickhead’ has just died and Roo attends the funeral. She finds herself attending the wake with the family afterward and things go downhill from there.

Laid is a somewhat dark, adult comedy. It is not slapstick or farce. There is no laugh track, synthetic or otherwise. I hesitate to say that it is a clever piece. It was Chris Rock who said “If only smart people like your shit, it ain’t that smart.” But I thought this was a cleverly done and thoroughly enjoyable although to get the most out of it, you need to be listening carefully to the dialogue. The closing left things on a note that just compels coming back next week. I have already noted the diary.

10 "Rules of Life" from Tolstoy

From www.happiness-project.com, these are supposedly Tolstoy's 10 Rules of Life, written when he was 18. Let's see how I stack up against them.

Get up early (five o’clock)
There's a five o'clock in the morning now?

Go to bed early (nine to ten o’clock)
And miss out on all the thrills of the late-night 'infomercials'?

Eat little and avoid sweets
Oh strewth - this man was a masochist!

Try to do everything by yourself
Nobody else going to do it for me, so that means I have to do it for myself. But surely it is a good thing to utilise the resources of others when relevant?

Have a goal for your whole life, a goal for one section of your life, a goal for a shorter period and a goal for the year; a goal for every month, a goal for every week, a goal for every day, a goal for every hour and for every minute, and sacrifice the lesser goal to the greater
This I agree with. I do not always do it as often or as well as I could or should, but I think he's right on the money.

Keep away from women
Definitely not an issue for me except that it's the women staying away from me! I think that my deodorant must emit the wrong sort of pheromones.

Kill desire by work
Man, this fella had the constitution of a Benedictine monk!

Be good, but try to let no one know it
I hide my goodness by being a bastard - and I'm good at it!

Always live less expensively than you might
Aren't we writers all supposed to be starving in French garrets anyway?

Change nothing in your style of living even if you become ten times richer
Oh please - continue starving in a garret even after you start getting the seven-figure advances?

So how do I rack up against Tolstoy? Not terribly well. With those rules, he must have lived the life of a particularly unhappy monk. Or were these the sacrifices he was prepared to make for his calling? The question then becomes just how much am I prepared to sacrifice for my chosen vocation?