SITTING DOWN WITH YOU EVERYDAY

The idea of finding one’s voice can be misleading, as though it were a destination rather than an experiment. There is no stopping when it comes to voice-finding.

Dear Reader,

This week, I wanted you to have an insight into how these blogs are created, and the sort of things Carlo and I discuss while writing them.

Below is a conversation between the two of us where we discuss creativity, collaboration, writing prose and screenwriting, among other things.

As always, if you believe in paying for good writing, and want to help with my recovery, please do consider becoming a paid subscriber.

If you wish to preorder my forthcoming memoir, Shattered, you can do so by following the links provided here:

https://linktr.ee/shatteredH

HANIF: I was thinking we should have a conversation about what we do every day. How it produces work we couldn't have done separately. I couldn't have done all these blogs without you. You really pushed me. There's one blog we wrote about Isabella, Nightmares and Kisses, in three parts. That was your idea. I was initially reluctant, but it turned out to be one of the best. How did we begin doing this?

CARLO: Your first blog was really a statement you wanted to make about your accident. We were in your hospital room in Rome and you wanted to inform the public about what had happened.

But as you started to dictate it to me, it became descriptive – you wrote about the walk you had taken before falling, the evening you had spent watching football and sipping a beer. It came out as a sort of literary piece. Then you wanted to write one the next day, and you didn't stop.

HANIF: We began writing these hospital dispatches, and now we have a pretty big Substack following, for which we provide material every week. This has become a job, hasn’t it?

CARLO: I’m primarily a screenwriter – but the film and television business is slow, you can wait years. This kind of writing, the writing we do together, has a quick turnaround. You start on Monday, have a piece ready for Saturday, then move on. Within six months, you've written a huge amount on different topics, reaching people all over the world.

HANIF: What's it like sitting down with your dad every day? Is it enjoyable? Are there tensions?

CARLO: I fucking enjoy it. I live two minutes away, come over at 10 every morning. We had a good relationship before your accident, so we don't argue. Working on a project together is a good lubricant for a relationship - there's always focus and forward momentum.

I never thought of myself as a prose writer before. I think I was intimidated. I never believed I could write the way the writers I admired could.

HANIF: You're not just a typist. We work on these pieces together, talk through every paragraph. We come to an agreement about what we're going to say, then write it down line by line.

CARLO: Yeah, I'd say your memory isn't as good as mine, so you can start repeating yourself.

For instance, your last blog, Sticks and Bricks, started out as an essay about your various physios. But I realised we’d heard all those stories before. I prompted you to write about intimidation instead.

HANIF: So you're a live editor, making suggestions as the piece develops.

CARLO: Yeah, and also an engine. Writing can be laborious, and you can be uninspired even if there's potential. Having someone saying, "This is really good, this is interesting," pushes you past that initial scepticism.

HANIF: That's crucial. When I'm writing alone, I go dead sometimes, feeling worthless. But, because you and I are here for a fixed time, and these meetings mean so much to me in my present, physical state, I cannot let myself go dead. You help keep my desire to write alive. Our collaboration has altered the quantity and quality of my writing.

CARLO: One of the most important lessons I’ve learned from you is how to be economical, how few words you need to make a point. You’re great at cutting things down to the nub, which is why the pieces read well.

But sitting with you every morning, I’ve learned so much about your life. Excavating your memories and ideas, we’ve created some great writing out of them. It's a cathartic, fascinating process that many people never get with their parents.

HANIF: When I started out, I wanted to write about my situation as a mixed-race kid in 70s Britain. It was a new subject that hadn't been explored in fiction. How do you see yourself in terms of subject matter?

CARLO: I don't have a specific subject matter like you do. I'm interested in exploring different forms, genres, characters, and stories. I don't feel I have one particular story or perspective to share.

I’ve always been fascinated by the mechanics of plots. I love characterisation, but it should always be in service of the plot.

HANIF: What is plot to you?

CARLO: It’s a series of increasingly complex and connected situations.

A character can be well-suited to the task the plot sets out for them – think of Russell Crowe’s character in Gladiator.

HANIF: Or the character of Michael in the American Office, ill-suited to his job.

CARLO: And that’s the difference between comedy and drama.

HANIF: Do you have a strong idea about what you want to do as a writer?

CARLO: For me, the most important thing is to write something I would want to watch, something that entertains me. At the moment, I’m enjoying writing thrillers. They’re like magic tricks, a game you play with the reader, laying traps, creating surprises.

HANIF: The idea of finding one’s voice can be misleading, as though it were a destination rather than an experiment. There is no stopping when it comes to voice-finding.

I’m not very good on structure. I don’t bother so much about it. If you read The Buddha of Suburbia, it’s more like a series of incidents, a picaresque, the story of a boy charging through the world and what he encounters.  

CARLO: I don’t think you give yourself enough credit. The book is really well structured; it’s the story of a boy becoming a man, each incident or ‘encounter’, as you put it, pushes the story on. The characters are full and have their own momentum. The book wouldn’t have been so well received had it not been structured so well.

HANIF: I’ve always been interested in looking at the contemporary world from a fresh perspective, particularly at characters like myself who hadn’t yet appeared on the scene. You don’t feel this urgency?

CARLO: There might be some truth to that. I never felt the compulsion to write about my own personal experience in the way that you did. Perhaps that’s because I don’t find myself that interesting.

HANIF: Has working on these blogs and our book changed your approach to writing?

CARLO: I’ve come to appreciate how important personal narrative and anecdotal storytelling is. Moving between the personal and political, creating an urgency in the writing by using active verbs, setting as much as we can in the present tense, and not over-writing or complicating the language too much.

I never realised you could make big stuff out of small stuff. I suppose we are talking about big stuff - your injury and recovery – but people seem to enjoy your everyday observations, talking about your trips to Tesco, or staring at people walking on the street.

HANIF: This daily writing is essential for my survival. My life has become very reduced since the accident. I can't travel, can't go to Italy with Isabella. I spend two hours with carers getting ready, which is humiliating. What I look forward to is becoming a human being through our writing sessions.

CARLO: Do you feel like you're using writing now as you did when you were young - as an escape?

HANIF: I wouldn't say I write to escape. I write to bring myself into being. A lot of the time, I'm just a traumatized body. But at the desk with you, I'm a person with thoughts, ideas, jokes, the ability to communicate.

Is it difficult for you to think of yourself as a writer in a family where your father is already successful?

CARLO: I’ve always been asked this and the short answer is no. Writing is the family business, and I’ve never attempted to write a novel. I hope to one day, but I wouldn’t compare myself to you. I think that comes from our relationship, and how generous and patient you are when reading my work and helping me with it.

Kids who get complexes about their choice of profession – following in the footsteps of a parent or choosing another path – I think that comes from the relationship with the parent, first and foremost.

HANIF: Upstairs, I've got shelves of writing manuals. I particularly enjoyed the ‘left brain, right brain’ ones, which have become unfashionable now. Do you read these?

CARLO: I read lots back in the day; I found they were mostly telling me things I already intuitively knew, but I suppose that’s useful.

HANIF: The key to succeeding in anything creative, really, is your ability to observe and lift from your predecessors.  

CARLO: To understand why a story is effective, you have to break it down; asking yourself what occurs in each scene, what information is shared or withheld, how does this advance the story..

HANIF: You'd be better off reading Shakespeare than a writing manual. His plays are so classically constructed.

You never did a writing course, did you?

CARLO: No. I guess I learned from you, from mum, watching TV, reading books.

HANIF: Prose writers can learn a lot from filmic techniques.

CARLO: Well, cinematic techniques came out of literature. And painting. But structurally, books were hiding things, diverting audience expectations long before film existed. Literature has always had this meandering quality.

But yes, I think a lot of literature could be improved by adopting film techniques: start strong, be economical, get through scenes, introduce characters properly. Be dramatic.

HANIF: You've got to teach yourself. Working with you on these blogs, I've learned you're a very good editor. You're ruthless at cutting and moving things around. It's admirable – not getting stuck on things you admire about your own writing.

CARLO: What is the plan after Shattered?

HANIF: Well, I want to carry on writing the weekly blogs, which I intend to turn into another volume of Shattered.

CARLO: Shattered Reloaded?

HANIF: Shattered 2.0. And of course we are thinking of writing a movie based on Shattered, and are already puzzling over the question of how to do it, and how you might tell a grim story in dramatic form for the cinema.

CARLO: I wonder who is going to play you?

HANIF: I wonder who is going to play you?