Monday 12 September 2016
That's Books and Entertainment: When the Ice Melts
That's Books and Entertainment: When the Ice Melts: When the Ice Melts is a novel by Phyllis J. Burton. The writing of When the Ice Melts came about as the result of Phyllis J. Burton read...
Wednesday 19 September 2012
English and The Written Word
I would like to give emphasis and three CHEERS to the proper
use of English.
There is a big and continuing debate about examination
results in English Language in the United Kingdom. Over the last few years, examination passes
in English have been increasing. Isn’t
that a good thing, I hear you say? No
it isn’t.
Since taking over in 2010, our Government has been trying to
give priority to improving the standard of English taught in our schools.
I am afraid to say that the STANDARDS of spoken and written
English have fallen quite markedly in recent years. This
may in part be due to the resistance of teachers to mark too harshly so as not
to discourage students, or simply the teaching itself that is at fault. If a child is not told the correct way to
write, spell or make their way in the world, how are they going to get the job
they want if their applications are full of grammatical errors and spelling
mistakes? We have all heard of employers
tearing their hair out when receiving badly written job applications. Surely we owe it to future generations to
make sure that they know how to apply for a job, they know how to write a
convincing Curriculum Vitae and how to generate a good well-written and
grammatically correct letter to go with it?
Without this knowledge, they will probably fail to even reach the first
rung on the job application ladder, let alone reach the top!
The English language relies quite heavily on the correct use
of ‘tense’. There is one rule in
particular which is being abused now by all sorts of people, even
politicians. Take the verb ‘to
sit’. More often than not, you now hear
people say … ‘I was sat…’ when clearly
it should be… ’I was sitting…’. When
bad English is not corrected, everybody starts using it and the correct way is
gradually forgotten, which is a dreadful shame.
Pronounciation of the
letter “H” has also been changing over the last few years. The spelling of the word “aitch” in any
dictionary is clearly written and should be pronounced ‘Aitch’ and not as is
often used nowdays, ‘Haitch’. I wince
when I hear this!
Another rule which now seems to be disappearing is the one
that says ‘You should never end a sentence with a preposition.’ For instance, take the sentence: “Good language is the subject I am referring
to.” The word “to” should never be placed
at the end of a sentence: the correct
wording should be…’The word to which I am referring…’.
These are just three examples of the way English has been
downgraded over the last decade. Ah
well, if as people say we are living in a rapidly changing world, people who
were taught to write and speak properly (I’m not including in this, the
question of regional accents etc.), will just have to put up with the use of
the new ‘bad’ language and forget how GLORIOUS the English written and spoken
words used to be.
Damsels
in Distress
As a writer, do you love the characters
in your book, or don’t you care what happens to them?
You have to care for them a great deal,
after all you created them, so you must be a just a little concerned about
their welfare. Therefore it follows
that you should know everything about them.
What makes them tick? What are
their needs and hopes for the future?
What is their financial status, or what sign of the Zodiac were they
born under. What do they look like? Are they fat, thin, or just perfect? I always find that when your main character
looks into the mirror, it is quite easy to describe what or who they look
like. Or you could ask another
character to describe them for you. You
must know all of these things, in order to make them seem alive to your
readers. They can never be just
cardboard cut-outs.
Would you send your principal character
into danger? Yes, you would probably
say, because you and you alone know that you can rescue them whenever you want
to: in fact you hold the key to their
life and their future. But why make
them suffer in the first place? The
answer to that one is easy, because it wouldn’t be a very interesting story without
conflict of some kind.
I have been known to lie awake at night
worrying about the main character (librarian, Katie Nicholson) in my latest
book PAPER DREAMS. I had placed her in
an impossible situation. The poor girl
was locked in the attic of a very old and creepy, crumbling mansion and as far
as I was concerned, this was the stuff of which nightmares are made. Katie had always been a bit of a dreamer in
a “Walter Mittyish” kind of way and I had placed her in an incredibly awkward
and positively dangerous situation.
Her protagonist, Harold Hapsworth-Cole,
was hoping to inherit the old house, following upon the death of his aunt,
elderly owner, and wealthy widow Marjorie Hapsworth-Cole. Katie had found evidence whilst cataloguing
books in the house’s old attic, that another possible heir existed! So of course, my evil intentions towards
Katie of whom I was supposed to be very fond, had to come out of Harold’s
mind. He had entered the old house in
secret and hidden in the shadows of the large wooden staircase…and whilst
listening to a telephone conversation between Katie and her employer about the
letter she’d found in an old book, had plotted to steal the evidence and make
sure that she couldn’t escape from her creepy prison.
At this point, I feel like saying…”it’s
nothing to do with me Guv!” But of
course it had something to do with me and yes, I had found a way of rescuing
her. Katie’s involvement in this drama
ended up with her being placed in an even more dangerous situation later in the
story, but I digress…
Katie had been treated badly by her
boyfriend at the beginning of the story.
She suffered as we all would at a time like that, so I found her a new
love: Stuart Wells. So, I had salved my conscience by giving her
a man who adored her…and everyone lived happily ever after.
Well, nearly every one!
Principal female characters in stories
seem destined either to be ‘damsels in distress’, or perhaps become the more
modern forward looking women, who single-handedly take care of their own lives
and futures. I know which ones I prefer
to write about, and despite their suffering, my readers can both cry and laugh
with them.
A small part of a review I have received
on this story ends with the words…”I do love a happy ending.”
Another recent review in THE
SELF-PUBLISHING MAGAZINE ended:
“The book feels substantial, the cover
is attractive and its quality is good.
It’s a galloping, very enjoyable read and HIGHLY RECOMMENDED and well
worth its price. Matador 9781848767898
(£7.99).”
Phyllis Burton
August 2012.
My
website: www.phyllisburton.com
Available from my publisher Matador (an
imprint of Troubador Publishing Ltd.)
Amazon:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Paper-Dreams-Phyllis-J-Burton/dp/1848767897/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1345370152&sr=1-1
http://www.amazon.com/Paper-Dreams-ebook/dp/B0069TI3LY/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1345370681&sr=8-2&keywords=PAPER+DREAMS+-+Phyllis+Burton
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