Devizes Arts Festival Reviews: Steve Tuffin’s Have-A-Go Workshop on Memoir-Writing, Anthony Horowitz – “A Life In Murder”, and Becky Grey’s “How I Became A Ghost Writer”

It’s All In The Writing

Andy Fawthrop

The Devizes Arts Festival is now in its 40^th year and, as ever, seems to be in robust health.  Marking the anniversary with 30 wide-ranging events across two weeks in several venues in and around the town, here’s yet another example of D-Town continuing to punch well above its weight in the area of the Arts…..

Whilst there are lots of big, headlining events (see link below to DAF’s website), there’s lots of other more intimate, and interactive, things going on too.  Because it’s not just big bricks you need to build a wall, it’s the quality of the mortar to bond those bricks into something really solid.  The theme, if there is one, of many of these smaller events is about getting involved or “have a go”.  Well Devizine, as you lovely people well know, is always up for a bit of a challenge, so I thought I’d pitch in to three literary-type events this week.  Being no stranger to the publishing world myself, I decided that, apart from listening to one of the UK’s most prolific fiction and screen writers, I’d cast an eye over two things I’ve previously had a go at myself – memoir-writing, and ghost-writing. What could possibly go wrong?  You never know – I might actually learn something.

First up on Monday was Bath Spa’s Steve Tuffin, who led a very practical class on how to go about writing a personal memoir, or indeed how to approach any form of creative writing.  Surrounded by some wonderful sepia-tinted historical photos on the walls of the Cheese Hall (plenty of subject-matter there), Steve led an engaging session. In what could have been a dry, dusty and boring subject (rather like my good self), Steve presented a very lively, interesting and, yes, absorbing couple of hours.  Apart from some great tips, techniques and tools, there was plenty of good discussion and three different short practical writing exercises.

One of the interesting debates, especially in the light of modern politics and celebrity “voices”, concerned the cross-shading between factual/ absolute “truth” and the personal/ relative viewpoint of “my truth”.  The stories weaved by Trump and his cohorts, Raynor Winn’s “The Salt Path” and the Harry/ Meghan psycho-drama, are all evidence enough that “memoir” and “memory” can often be poles apart, thus melding the different worlds of fact and fiction.

Steve cantered through a number of techniques (starting small, finding your voice, controlling the speed, being brave, reading out loud, finding a way in etc), but the key lesson that came out time and time again was the need to “postpone perfection”: get what you want to say down on the page as quickly as possible, then re-draft (many times), edit, and polish. Clearly a technique that we at Devizine have already (ahem) been practising for many years!

Later on Monday evening, the venue switched to much larger Corn Exchange, where a lively audience of about three hundred turned out on a rainy night to hear Becky Grey interview the prolific and versatile author and screen-writer Anthony Horowitz.  Responsible for writing scripts for Midsomer Murders, Foyle’s War, as well as the Alex Rider teen spy series, two modern Sherlock Holmes novels and three James Bond continuation novels, Horowitz is no stranger to hard work and all the tricks and tools of fiction writing. 

Becky didn’t have to work too hard to get the man talking: Horowitz proved to be a loquacious and captivating raconteur. He had plenty of anecdotes and examples to give, peppering his replies with humour and witty asides. Having known he wanted to be an author since the age of ten, discovering that he had both the right skills and a vivid imagination, he was soon set upon the career which has now made him famous. Declaring himself a great fan of Agatha Christie and her skill at plotting, by planting the clues to the “solution” but without giving away the answer before the very last twist, and deliberately laying false trails, Horowitz showed himself to be entirely engaged in, and engrossed by, the techniques of the popular fiction-writer.

His line on the use of AI was that it was a useful, but a clearly limited tool, to be employed with care and discretion, and to understand its limits.  He said that he used AI simply as a research assistant, a search engine to fill in the gaps, simply to save time on researching factual background information, but never to do any actual “writing” that could end up in any of his books or scripts.

And that knotty subject that had emerged during the earlier session in the afternoon, the frequent non-alignment between “my truth” and factual reality, came up again for some more analysis.  The Trumpian world-view, together with a brief commentary of the recent Sturgeon/ Murrell embezzlement fandango were subjected to some light-hearted, but laser-sharp, critique.

Horowitz revealed that he had no set daily “routine” for his writing, that he was useless at reading his own work (for audiobooks), that “cosy crime” was a misnomer (because murder is too horrible to ever be cosy), that he can’t write poetry or romance (his wife had told him that he could never write about a subject that he had no experience of), and that over his career he had systematically killed off every single character who had ever been nasty to him (well, their fictional personas at least!).

After the 45-minute session, Becky opened the floor to audience Q&A for twenty minutes, after which there was plenty of action out front at the book-signing session.  Overall, a very entertaining and engaging evening from an author at the top of his game.

Finally (on Tuesday afternoon), to complete the final layer of this sandwich of literary delights, I turned to BBC Sport’s Becky Grey herself.  In an event sponsored by Wadworth, and held in the wonderfully historic surroundings of Devizes Museum, she spoke about how she had started her career in ghost-writing books and newspaper columns for celebrity sports stars. And the answer was – almost by accident. She zig-zagged her way towards it until, like Anthony Horowitz the previous evening, she suddenly discovered that she had a flair for writing, and that her subject-matter (sports and sports-people) was totally engaging. She seems to have never looked back.

Becky talked of the various sports personalities she’d worked with, and took us through the steps and techniques for tackling that kind of work.  Interestingly she hit many of the same themes and techniques that Steve Tuffin had mentioned the previous day (including just getting the first draft down on paper, refining and editing, picking out the real story etc).  In answer to questions, she also talked about handling the tricky “factual truth” versus “my truth” debate (by challenging, and with a lot of tact!), payment models, red lines, and copyright. 

And finally – yes you’ve guessed it – there was a short exercise, another chance to “have a go”.  And, of course, a book-signing. Another engaging and interesting session.

So there you have it – three events over two days, vastly different in some ways, but nicely inter-connected in others.  And did I learn anything?  Ah – that would be telling!

Anyways, onwards and upwards, with still plenty of great stuff to come over the next ten days, both ticketed and free.  The Devizes Arts Festival continues until the night of Sunday 14^th June at various venues around the town.  Tickets can be booked at Devizes Books or online at www.devizesartsfestival.org.uk