I say! The story behind screamers, and other literary curiosities...

Mike Bodnar explores some of the stuff we take for granted in literature every day...

"We all know what exclamation marks are for!" smirked Julian.

"I didn't ask you what they're for," retorted Gabby, "I asked if you know where they come from, not what they're for or where they go."

Julian shuffled on his knees to the door of the tree hut, then turned. "You're a girly swot, Gabby. I'm not playing!" And with that he exited the structure, and - forgetting the ladder had been hauled up - fell immediately to his death.

The End.

Okay, not your average Enid Blyton snippet, but, y'know, lol! It's just to grab your attention.

Because, while I was reading a novel the other day (Mick Herron's latest Slow Horses book, Clown Town, since you ask), I suddenly wondered where exclamation marks came from. 

No reflection on Mr. Herron's writing - I am easily distracted - but when he relates that one of his characters says something 'in italics' - that got me pondering the origins of italics too. There is a link between exclamation marks and italics, and it's called Italy. The clue, obviously, is in the word italics itself. Jackson Lamb and his clowns had to wait while I investigated.

So let's start with - yes let's! - exclamation marks, because I have done the legwork for you. 

"Guarda! Posso mettere più parole sulla pagina!"

Turns out we must travel back to the 13th or 14th centuries (the jury is still out), where, stepping from the Tardis, we discover that monks, toiling away on their tomes, would use a particular way of spelling 'joy' ('io') in Latin, which was to put the 'i' directly above the 'o'.

Over time, the 'o' became more of a dot, and the word eventually ceased to be a word and became the exclamation mark we all know today. Does that bring you joy?

If it does, you'll also be delighted to know that io is pronounced 'ee-oh', or even 'yo'. So when someone in your 'hood calls out, 'Yo!' you know they are really shouting joy to you. Either that or they're about to mug you.

But here I am being flippant again. Straight face, let's continue.

The man himself

For evidence, while we're in bygone Italy, we can meet Coluccio Salutati, where in one of his manuscripts we find the very first example of io written as an i above an o. 

However, he wasn't the one to popularise it; fast forward just a few decades - still in Italy - and we find printers such as Venetian Aldus Manutius standardizing the i above the dot to express and emphasise strong emotion. The rest really is history.

(As an aside, printers later called the exclamation mark the 'bang,' 'screamer,' and even the 'shriek'!)

Italics

As mentioned, the word italics provides a glaringly obvious clue to its origin, and once again it's printer Aldus Manutius who is the prime suspect. And we don't even have to get back in the Tardis.

Just a year or so after he discovered and popularised the joy of the exclamation mark, he got his assistant to craft a more cursive script for an edition of the Epistole of St. Catherine of Siena

Italics in action

. There followed rapid adoption of the slanting italic script by Manutius, but not, I must emphasise, for emphasis.

No; instead, the smaller slanting cursive script was used because it took up less space than more traditional typeface, enabling the publishing of more compact pocket books, in, for example, octavo format.

Not that cursive script was new - scholars and other scribes in the 14th century had often written in italics, but it was Manutius who began using it in print, and he in fact modestly named the type 'Aldino.' 

We don't call it Aldino today, because, very soon after Manutius claimed ownership (which, by the way, received papal approval three times, bless), competitors outside Venice also adopted it (some say counterfeited it), but called the script 'italics' as a way of giving Italy as a country ownership, rather than just one man. (I'm surprised they didn't call exclamation marks 'exclamitali' ©Mike Bodnar).

Just my type

Italics have a special place in my heart because when I was about ten or eleven years old, I was given a brand new typewriter, an Olympia 33 portable. I didn't think twice that it actually had italic type hammers, and that everything I typed was strongly emphasised. Writing a letter, I'd begin with, 'Dear Shaun,' except it would of course come out as an imperative Dear Shaun, and finish with an emphatic 'Your friend, Mike.' 

My school assignments likewise were presented in urgent typeface, though not, it has to be said, always in a timely manner.

But I learned to type on that machine, and it was my trusty workhorse for at least the next ten years.

Ellipses...

And so, at least in this article, to the final item of punctuative interest: dot, dot, dot - the ellipsis. Ellipses have, of recent times, become somewhat controversial. But first, some more time travelling. Follow me.

Terence, Andria, translated by Maurice Kyffin: 
London, 1588
(The British Library Board, C.13.a.6 sig. Iiiiir)

The use of dots to show a pause or a tailing off in speech can be seen in an early Roman play, Andria, in a 1588 English translation of previous Greek versions. Here, it seems, the translator has taken the liberty to introduce a pause or tailing off in speech using a series of dots. In this case (see pic) there are four, and they are more dashes than dots, but their purpose is the same: they demonstrate a deliberate absence of words.

Literary academic Dr. Anne Toner, in a paper on the origins and use of ellipses, has this to say...

But an absence of words usually signals a heightening of emotion or action ... The ellipsis acts therefore as a form of stage direction. As such, it has proved to be a powerful and extremely useful dramatic resource. In speaking aloud, pausing is, after all, a vital aspect of the delivery of meaning: a slight hesitation speaks volumes. As Toner says: “...not saying something often says it better."

Which makes me want to leave the rest of this article blank, just so you can marvel at the creativity that isn't actually here...

'Jack sweeps Rose up in his arms
and takes her into the bedroom...'

But you don't get rid of me that easily. I agree with Dr. Toner that something unsaid can also be something revealed. I feel, for example, that ellipses are the equivalent of the slow mix between scenes in a movie, something that suggests time passing, or a 'meanwhile moment.' 

Also in movie terms, ellipses are like the fade-to-black at the end of a scene, where no more needs to be said. For example, 'Jack sweeps Rose up in his arms and takes her into the bedroom...'

You could adopt this in a practical sense at home. For example, tomorrow evening, when it's approaching bedtime, try saying to your partner, 'D'you fancy a bit of dot dot dot?' and see what happens. Don't blame me if you get a black eye.

'Boomer ellipses'

So, to the controversy. Ellipses, when employed in a messaging or texting context, have taken on a tone of aggression in today's internet-based communication. Apparently. But - it must be stressed - this interpretation is entirely the domain of... young people. (See what I did there?)

Ooh, sarcasm!

People my age - and let's not say anything about that other than I was a teenager when Apollo 11 landed on the moon - and 'boomers' in general, have been accused by Gen Z and millennials of not understanding ellipses, or at the very least, misusing them. 

Seriously; they even call them 'Boomer ellipses,' because, duh, they're so old fashioned? (The question mark is so that in your head this sounds like a young person speaking.)

A Gen Z or millennial today will typically use ellipses in their phone messages to indicate sarcasm, displeasure, hesitation or annoyance, whereas we boomers continue to employ and interpret ellipses as they have been understood for over 500 years. In short, we have a generational divide; we employ ellipses as they were originally intended - to show a continuation, a pause, or a passage of time, while Gen Z and millennials have reinterpreted them as the bad guys - the Three Dots of the Apocalypse.

It's just one indication of how language usage is evolving at an increasingly rapid pace. But at least, for now anyway, bangers, screamers, shrieks and exclamitali (© Mike Bodnar) are safe. 

But, one wonders, for how long...

(Cue dramatic music. Fade to black.)

Epilogue

Julian didn't really die after falling from the tree. No characters were harmed in the writing of this article, although some Gen Z and millennial egos may have suffered mild bruising.

Chasing the Zeitgeist

Mike Bodnar reveals how his research into 1967 Britain delayed finishing his book by a year...

An organic thing

I  started writing my spy thriller Unity in February 2021. The date is etched in my memory - all authors remember when they started a work, and what it was like to get those first few words on the page, knowing that the other 200 to 300 pages to come were still blank. Emptiness stretched before me; it was literary high-diving into the unknown.

But while every author starts with a blank page or screen, authors en groupe do not share a common way of working. Some plan and map out their novels in extreme detail, knowing chapter by chapter what they will be writing about. Others draw diagrams, with circles, boxes and arrows linking characters, plot and sub-plots, with dramatic high points highlighted.

Still others, like me, just start writing, with only a notion inside their head as to where their story is going. That's fine though; each to their own. But this latter leap-of-faith writing-as-it-comes approach is the way it works for me. I guess in today's parlance I write organically.

London, 1967

However, once I'd started writing Unity I soon found that I was easily distracted, because as my novel is set in 1967 Britain - almost 60 years ago - I realised as I wrote that I needed to confirm the memories that I had of those days. And let's be clear, in 1967 I was but 13 years old, so I didn't have adult memories to draw on, only the acne-ridden recollections of a broken-voiced youth who was more interested in science fiction than current affairs.

Which is how I found myself interrupting my writing to do research. Let me give you an example from the book: Chapter 2 - Virgil Street Garage, London. Here I was just about 100 words into the story and I needed to find a real street in which to site the 'government garage.' So off I went into Google Maps, checking out satellite and street views, and found Virgil Street, not far from Waterloo Station and also not too distant from MI6 headquarters, Century House.

I wanted a real street so that I could actually see it (I did even go and visit) and write about it factually. There is no garage there, but there's a decent space where one could have been 60 years ago.

Century House today

Century House too caused me to detour onto the Internet; I needed to confirm where the headquarters of MI6 were located in 1967, and it turned out to be at 100 Westminster Bridge Road, a tower block that today is re-clad and refurbished as apartments. Almost 60 years ago it was London's worst-kept secret, and any cabbie could take you there or show you where it was if you asked.

Geographical locations aside, I also wanted to establish the zeitgeist of 1967 by correctly referencing such common objects as telephone kiosks (I do remember how pongy they smelt inside, of tobacco smoke and worse), and the motor vehicles of the time: Rovers, Austins, Ford Cortinas and so on. I even researched the factory colours for the Ford Cortina used by Russian undercover agent Lillian Grimes and her partner Dmitri.

When MI6 Director General Stone lunches with Foreign Secretary George Brown (for it was he) at the Savoy Grill, Brown is so distracted by news of a top intelligence operative resigning that he fails to read the menu, and instead says to the waiter, 'Tell Silvino I'll have whatever he feels would go best with the '55 Cheval Blanc.'

Silvino was the name of the head chef at the Savoy at that time, should you care to research it for yourself. And yes, 1955 Chateau Cheval Blanc was indeed a fine Bordeaux vintage.

My point is that I thoroughly enjoyed chasing information down rabbit holes on the Internet, and I learned more than a few interesting things about the people, places and politics of 1967 Britain. I also became quite knowledgeable about the Browning Hi-Power .9mm pistol, how many rounds it could hold (13) and what its pedigree was (It was also the standard issue firearm to members of the SOE, the Special Operations Executive).

A Browning Hi-Power .9mm

In fact, I often got so absorbed doing the research that almost a whole day would go by with hardly a single page of Unity written, and I have a feeling that had I just concentrated on writing the book instead of going off at tangents it would have been ready for publication a whole year before it was in fact released.

So, what difference does it make whether such details are accurate? Maybe it doesn't matter to you, but there are pernickety readers out there who would delight in finding inconsistencies or historical inaccuracies in a novel, and more than a few reviewers who would use those as ammunition to shoot down self-published novels as being sloppy or lazy. I didn't want to give anyone the opportunity for such schadenfreude, but equally I wanted the story to ring true to anyone who read it, critic or not.

Above all, I wanted to believe in what I was writing myself; the research helped me visualise my characters, how they spoke and acted, whether they smoked, drank bitter or vermouth, wore a hat, or how they determined distance on a map without the aid of Google or the UK Distance Calculator app.

Foreign Secretary George Brown,
'tired and emotional'

The melange of real people - especially the politicians of the day such as George Brown, Alec Douglas-Home, and Prime Minister Harold Wilson - adds weight to the story too, and I as an author felt safe in the knowledge that I wouldn't end up in court for using them: you can't, as a writer, defame the dead. Anyway, Foreign Secretary George Brown really did have a drinking problem, and there were rumours within the intelligence community that there was a plot to oust Harold Wilson. 

My reward for spending so much time on the research comes in the form of feedback and reviews. One perceptive comment, by a doctor of literature no less, notes, 'It's sharply honed thriller-writing, comparable with the very best in the field. Amongst the reading pleasures are the clever and devastating links to 60s political figures and what I call the 'faction' effect: you find yourself wondering: 'Is this actually fiction or has the author got the lowdown on what actually happened?'

Another says, 'I'm staggered with the quality of the writing and the attention to detail.'

Actor Derren Nesbitt

Perhaps the highest compliment comes from veteran actor Derren Nesbitt (star of The Prisoner, Where Eagles Dare, Special Branch and, more recently, the acclaimed movie Tucked) who emailed to tell me that he thinks I am 'a very fine writer... very talented' after he'd read Unity.

I seriously doubt many readers ever bother to investigate whether certain events in novels actually happened (I mean, they are novels after all, works of fiction), or whether some of the characters were real, but in the case of Unity I don't mind if they do check. I did deliberately include extra background information at the end of the book highlighting some of the realities, such as biological warfare experiments undertaken on the British public without their knowledge, details about the British intermediate range ballistic missile the Blue Streak, and Section VII, a division of MI6 which, during World War 2, trained young people as saboteurs, resistance fighters and even killers. That end section is designed to make you go, 'Wow! Really?'

I have started on my next novel and already I'm delving in-depth into the Internet, this time for the zeitgeist of 1970 Northern Ireland, and the beginning of what came to be known as 'The Troubles.' Alec Douglas-Home will be making an appearance again, this time as foreign secretary, and Edward Heath is the prime minister. There will be Ford Transit vans, and I can tell you even now that yes, in 1970, you could hire a car from the Dublin airport branch of Avis Rent-a-Car.

Please excuse me, I have much research to do...

Mike's next book The Liscannor Intercept should be out before Christmas 2023 (but might not be!)

The Success of Self-Publishing

 Mike Bodnar looks at what opportunities the Covid pandemic has created for aspiring authors...

The impacts of Covid-19 on the mainstream book market are many, with closed bookshops, cancelled book launches and publishers' strategies in disarray. However, none of this seems to have stopped writers. If anything it's given them a new lease on life.

With more time stuck at home due to the pandemic, an increasing number of people are using the opportunity to write that novel, memoir or history book, and submit it in the hope of publication, fame and fortune. You've probably got an idea for a best-selling book tucked away in the back of your mind somewhere too, haven't you? Go on, you know you have.

However, all this time for creativity has ironically increased the workload of publishers and literary agents, even if their sector is in chaos. In a recent Guardian article, one publisher said that their normal workload of four or five manuscripts a day had increased since Covid to as many as 16 a day, while a literary agent complained that her quotidian in-tray now included as many as 27 manuscripts. Yes, you read that correctly: per day!

So competition for publishers' and agents' attention is intense, but you can bypass mainstream publishing altogether by self-publishing, which an increasing number of indie authors are doing – and not necessarily due to a fear of rejection.

Self-published books are finally breaking through the decades-old stigma they've suffered, namely that if it's self-published then by definition it's inferior. (And yes, it has to be said that some self-published books are sadly wanting, if not dire.) On the upside, self-publishing has become the method of choice for many successful writers because it generates a bigger share of sales revenue, while offering more control over the work.

Out of this world success

Waving the flag for independence are fêted titles such asThe Martian, Fifty Shades of Grey, Still Alice, and The Shack – all successful self-published works. But what 'success' looks like is important, and not always to do with how many copies an author sells or how rich and famous they become, as we'll see.

Then there are self-publishing companies, providing everything from proofreading and editing through to cover design, printing, marketing and sales management. You choose how much of a package you want, or can afford. The main difference between these companies and the big established publishers is that you pay them to publish your work, not the other way round.

Self-publishing options today are many, largely thanks to the internet and digital publishing opportunities; on-demand printing, eBooks, and audio books can be achieved easily, with no publisher involved and with potentially much greater profits than traditional publishing.

But before you start you need to ask, 'How will I define success?' In the examples of sell-out self-published books above, success is in sales numbers, rave reviews, publishing contracts and film deals. But success can be a lot more modest and diverse than that.

For example, let's say you wish to write your family history. Your 'market' is likely

Rave reviews...

 your immediate and extended family. So, they get to own a professionally-published record of the family chronicle, while you have the satisfaction of being the originator of the work. 

There's no financial reward and no film deal, but your market – small and intimate as it is – will be delighted with what you've created (and they'll give you all the rave reviews you want).

Or you might write a travel memoir, based on your adventures riding a motorbike halfway round the world. Here you want to entertain and inspire others, so your target market is the armchair traveller and would-be adventurer. Success therefore might be readers saying they enjoyed your book so much that they're now planning their own adventure.

Avoid clichés like the plague

Then of course there's the novel, that edge-of-the-seat thriller, sci-fi drama or fantasy battle between the forces of good and evil etc. and so on. Self-publishing allows you to indulge in all the clichés that mainstream publishers would reject out of hand. Just be aware that your target market might do the same! 

Success here could be that despite all the science-fiction that's been written in the last 200 years, you come up with something unique that grabs the imagination of the public and nets you sales in the millions. Or maybe you'll just win an award of some sort. Clear space on the mantelpiece now.

But success could also simply be the extremely practical result that your publishing and promotional costs have been covered by sales, to the point where the book doesn't owe you anything. Any subsequent sales are a bonus, (maybe enabling you to create an audio book version!).

This, as a matter of interest, is the situation I find myself in; I sold all 500 copies of my self-published travel book Against The Current (a modest but practical number to print) and although now out of print, the eBook version is still selling, plus I've made enough from sales to not only cover the costs of publishing but also to fund the audio book version (which so far has sold around 200 copies and is still going). I call that success, even though I'm still waiting for someone to buy the film rights off me.

Sold out, sorry...

So success in self-publishing is what you make it, and not just about rave reviews, getting on a best-seller list, or striking a movie deal.

If you've been thinking of using lockdown to finally turn that book idea into reality, go for it. But decide upfront what your success is going to look like. That way you won't be disappointed.

Now, get on that keyboard!

Renovating the Blog

If you're a TFU follower, you'll have noticed that I've not been a very active blogger lately. Well, for quite a long time really; 'lately' stretches the definition a bit when I haven't actaully posted anything since last April.

All I can do is apologise and explain, so here goes: I'm sorry I've not blogged more regularly and often. There - that's half of it out of the way.

And I can only blame myself, along with the council, tradespeople, architectural plans, rubbish skips, hammers, nails, drills, saws, and cans of paint. Oh, and ambition - that's a prime offender. It all boils down to the house renovation, and it seems we might have bitten off more than we can chew. Or, to invent a new and more appropriate cliché: sawn off a bit more than we meant to.

Here's a speed-dating summary: Bought a rundown house because we liked the location, had plans drawn up for a modest grand design, got council planning permission and set to, aiming to save as much as possible by doing a lot of the work ourselves. Two years later still haven't finished, and my social (and social media) life has gone down the toilet. Which reminds me: must phone plumber.

So ambition is as much to blame as anything, yet to be fair we have come a long way on the project, even though from the outside there's not much to see. It's a bit like when the Queen Mother had a double hip operation in 1995 - when she emerged from the hospital she looked just the same as she had before, except that she had two new hips. (Was I the only one who wanted to be in the crowd shouting, 'Three cheers for the Queen Mother: Hip Hip..?)

So externally there's not much to see, but inside the house has been rewired, replumbed, damp-proofed, insulated, and reconfigured. It also has two new bathrooms and a new kitchen, an office, an atrium (yes really, with spiral staircase) and a gorgeous master bedroom with mirrors on the ceiling and a trapeze for enhanced sexual shenanigans. Part of that may not be true.

Geography has also played a part. When I started the TFU we lived in a London borough, but 18 months ago moved into the new house ('project' is a better word) just outside Greater London, so my initial idea of writing a regular and very London-centric blog went out the window. (Which reminds me: must call glazier)

Therefore I have now, just this minute, taken a pneumatic drill to the blog and reconfigured it as a general, all-purpose, go anywhere, say anything organ, in the hope that I can now write about whatever I like and not be tied specifically to the capital city, much though I adore it. Thing is, it's a 43-minute train ride into town and I don't get much time to go in as often as I'd like. Also, the train service (I use the term loosely) is operated by South Western Railways - or South Western Rile, as I like to call them - so what is notionally a 43-min journey can take 4.3 hours. Or not at all if it's on one of the many strike days (which somehow seem to stick to the union's timetable much better than the actual trains).

So while I had grand plans of taking a folding chair into London on a regular basis, iPad in hand, sitting and observing and writing about the teeming life there, I just don't get out as much as I used to (see drills, hammers, paint, etc. above). That, however, hasn't stopped me thinking, getting annoyed, finding joy in things, questioning the sanity of our nation's leaders, and obliquely finding humour in everything that's going on.

Which means I'm back, and - with encouragement from my wife to 'put the paint brush down, step away from the paint brush' - I am determined to renovate the blog. After all, over the past few months it's become a bit run down, leaks a bit, and smells of damp. It's in need of some attention.

Which reminds me: must call builder.