Nick, fresh from your trip to Japan. Imagine I’m about to introduce you to an auditorium, filled with the smiling faces of folks fuelled by caffeine and an eagerness to learn.
What would I say?
OK, I’ll give you three options:
- I’d like to introduce Nick Parker. He’s mostly a writer.
- I’d like to introduce Nick Parker. He’s gone deeper into the idea of brand tone of voice than is probably healthy. He writes Tone Knob and will probably bang on about Voicebox. He’s promised to shut up after 30 minutes but that’s doubtful. You know what he’s like once he gets started.
- I’d like to introduce Nick Parker. He’s very interested in how the language we use shapes our thoughts and consciousness. But to pay the bills he writes stuff for brands.
Thank you. I’m taking all three.
Here’s the part where we’d sit down and try and look comfortable next to the microphones.
Are you sitting comfortably? Then let’s begin…
Can you name the business book that’s always on your desk? (I’m talking about the one that’s covered in pencil marks, coffee stains and has turned down corners…)
‘Made to Stick’ by Chip and Dan Heath. It’s about creating ‘sticky ideas’. I think that’s the most useful way of thinking about what we do as writers: clarity, simplicity, metaphor, storytelling, voice etc. Ultimately, they’re all options we’ve got in service of making sticky ideas. (I haven’t read the book for years. The title is enough!)
What’s your all-time favourite advertising campaign?
TV Quick magazine in about 1996. A full page ad for an all-day breakfast in a tin. The slogan was: FROM CAN TO PAN TO MAN. It’s always stuck with me as the absolute epitome of ‘know your product, know your audience’. Poetry.
“Everyone has a book in them…” Or so the saying goes. What do you think/know/believe is the secret to good writing?
I think all writing exists on a spectrum., At one end there’s ‘writing to express what you know’, at the other is ‘writing to find out what you think’. At the ‘express what you know’ end, the knack is matching the techniques to the message (be clear here. Use a metaphor there. Now tell a story, etc).
At the ‘find out what you think’ end, – which is way more interesting! – the secret is simply having a sincere desire to use language to explore your thinking. If you embrace that in all its fullness of course you very quickly get beyond ‘technique’ into the fuzzy edges of knowing and not knowing, which is where a more ‘poetic’ approach becomes more useful.
Also: just being willing to keep going. I don’t think my first drafts are any better than most people’s. It’s just that when most people would think ‘that’s it!’ I’m thinking ‘oh, this is just warming up…’
If you were just starting out, what advice would you give yourself? Which book or books would you read first?
My younger self was an idiot. He wouldn’t listen to a word I’d have to say. And quite right too. And it doesn’t matter what you read, as long as you read lots, and widely, and have a curiosity about the world and look for the interesting in everything. Which come to think of it, is what I did anyway. Which is just as well, given that I’m not listening to me.
Silence? Radio? Or music while you work?
Annoyingly, it has to be silence. I wish I had a job where I could have the radio or podcasts mumbling away in the background, but I can’t. Too distracting. Silence.
What are your top three novels of all time – and why?
- White Noise by Don Delillo. The strangeness of modernity and the strangeness of families all mushed up together in a way that’s both bleakly ironic and somehow very tender. It’s the book I re-read the most. It gets more contemporary-feeling every time. (It was written in 1985).
- The Third Policeman by Flann O’Brien. There’s something about how it’s simultaneously very plainly written and absurdly weird that makes it completely hypnotic to me. Also, cod-philosophical footnotes, what’s not to love?. Marvellous.
- Middlemarch, George Eliot. Because it has everything, and you always need one door-stopper of a novel in a list like this. (Also, I’m re-reading it atm, so it’s in my mind a lot!)
What’s the best thing you’ve ever written? Why did it rock your world?
I’m still really proud of my book of short stories, The Exploding Boy and other Tiny Tales. And it’s great to read back over the Tone Knob archive and see how that’s shaped up as a ‘body of work’.
What’s the last thing you bought? And yes, that packet of chewing gum counts.
A replacement can of that goo you squirt into car tyres when you have a puncture because modern cars don’t have space for a spare tyre any more.
Who was your teenage crush?
Béatrice Dalle in Betty Blue. I never even saw the film, I just had the poster! I’ve just looked her up on Wikipedia. Her biography contains the line ‘…she also admitted that, while on acid, she once ate a dead man’s ear’. Crikey.
Can you describe the best meal you’ve ever eaten?
Hmm. Probably a ‘Steamboat’ I had in Singapore. It’s basically a big pot of boiling broth and you chuck bits of vegetables, meat, freakish-looking seafood etc in to make a sort of spicy primordial soup. Not sure how you don’t get food poisoning. But it was properly delicious, and accompanied a conversation that ended up changing my life.
What’s your favourite tipple? Is it wine, beer – a cask-aged malt?
I’ve pretty much stopped drinking (because all the reasons). But I do still really like the occasional late night smoky peaty whisky. Though the drink I’m a nerd about is coffee. I used to find coffee nerds to be insufferable. Now I seek them out and prattle on about light roast single origin beans, anoxic fermentation, and what their perfect V60 pour-over method is. Kill me now.
If I were to give you a private jet, David Attenborough as a tour guide and a month off work – all expenses paid – where would you go and what or who would you write about – and why?
So, the last time you asked me I said: I’d go to Japan. When I was younger I was obsessed with hyper-tech-sleeping-pod-Tokyo Japan. These days, it’s Hokusai and Zen and the idea of wabi-sabi. Absurdly, it only occurred to me recently that I could, like, just buy a plane ticket and go there for a holiday.’ And as I’m writing this, I’m just back from walking the Kumano Kodo pilgrimage trail.
What’s in your pockets?
Nothing. I am wearing a slouchy pair of tracky trousers and when I sit at my desk in them, everything falls out the pockets. (On my desk is a little pile containing a short stub of a Blackwing pencil, my shed key and the head off a Lego figure. They were in my pocket but I took them out.)
Pen and ink, pencil and paper or keyboard and screen? What’s your writing style?
Most of my scribbling is done in pencil (Pentel Graphgear retractable pencil with 7mm leads if you’re interested, which of course you are. I lose one every six months or so. I’m on about my tenth now). For planning and structuring things I use Artefact Cards and Sharpies. And for the actual writing and editing, I use a computer. I have an Iquinix F96 mechanical keyboard (I don’t think Iquinix make them any more) which makes typing an absolute pleasure.
Do you read any blogs or magazines about writing? (And I mean read, not just subscribe to and delete/leave on your desk and recycle?)
Oh that’s a good question. I don’t read much that’s specifically about writing, but I do read a lot of stuff that is deeply connected to language and ideas.
Tea – or coffee? What’s your poison?
Coffee. See above.!
Do you have a favourite cup or mug? Can you describe it?
Not a specific mug, but I do have very strict Acceptable Mug Assessment Criteria: Not too big, not too small, no stupid slogan, has to be non-gender-specific patterning or design, ideally with a handmade feel but not ‘rustic’, and it must have a large, properly weighted handle. Other than that, I’m easy.
What was your most adored children’s book? And character?
My favourite children’s book was called Arm in Arm, by Remy Charlip. It was a book of nonsense rhymes and riddles (I’ve just googled it, and the exact subtitle is ‘a collection of connections, endless tales, reiterations and other echolalia’). It’s full of weird little illustrations that I used to pore over for hours.
Your favourite word?
Right now it’s probably the Japanese expression ‘Wabi-sabi’, which is capturing the idea of the beauty of things that are imperfect, incomplete or impermanent. Such a beautiful concept, and such a splendidly wabi-sabi-ish sound. I also really like the word ‘spork’.
Your most loathed word? (You know, the one that makes you shudder and say “Ew!”?)
For some reason, I hate the abbreviation ‘uni’ for university, and ‘ciggie’ for cigarette. I always say both words in full.
Where can we find you? – Browsing online or lost in the aisles of a bookstore?
Both. Often.
Favourite song lyric of all time? And why?
Oh, it’s Reasons to be Cheerful, part 3 by Ian Dury and the Blockheads.
Summer, Buddy Holly, the working folly,
Good golly, Miss Molly and boats.
Hammersmith Palais, the Bolshoi Ballet,
Jump back in the alley and nanny goats
18 wheeler Scammells, dominica camels
All other mammals plus equal votes…
I do love a list song, and this is the best of them. And I remember Nick Hornby saying or writing somewhere that it should be the National Anthem, and we could just keep it updated with other new reasons to be cheerful. I thought that was an excellent idea.
Name the artist who’s guaranteed to get you up on the dance floor.
Oh, anything. If there’s a dance floor, I’d rather be on it than sitting round on the tables saying PARDON WHAT? I dance very badly, but with enthusiasm.
Do you have any strange writing rituals you’d like to share with us?
No. As in no, I don’t have any.
What are you working on today? What’s in the pipeline?
Today I’m working on.. this! In the pipeline: some storytelling workshops.
Can you describe the last photograph you took?
It is a picture of the book ‘Travels with Herodotus’, by Ryszard Kapuscinski. A lovely hardback edition with deckle-edged pages. The photo includes my hand giving a thumbs up. A friend sent me the copy. The photo is my WhatsApp in return.
What piece of advice really changed you as a writer?
‘Write more like you speak’. Incredibly, I’d been a professional writer for about 10 years before I heard it! I’d been doing it intuitively, but actually realising consciously why my stuff ‘sounded’ like it did was super helpful.
What was the last thing you wrote that had nothing to do with your job?
Ha! It was a little book I wrote with my friend Adam Kaveney. It’s called Wat Am Corgi. It is a surreal and stupid little book of wrong facts about corgi dogs, which grew out of a long-running WhatsApp in-joke thread.
What’s your favourite quote about the process of writing?
There’s a lovely bit at the start of Derren Brown’s Confessions of a Conjuror where he tells a story about going to the London Aquarium and noticing that underneath the little nameplates on the tanks, the names of the fish are written in braille. He says that if you’re blind, your experience of the London Aquarium would just be of a list of fish. He says that he hopes that his book isn’t just a list of fish. I often find myself reading some terrible bit of business writing thinking this is just a list of fish.
Who is your favourite Mad Man – or Woman?
Sorry, I’ve never seen it. I don’t really like watching telly. I know. Nor Sopranos, or West Wing or Game of Thrones. I’m rubbish with box sets. (I’m still only on Season 2 of Breaking Bad).
Can you name your favourite film – and tell us why you love it?
I don’t really have a favourite film. I like directors with a not-really-real vibe – David Lynch, Michel Gondry, Wes Anderson. The film I’ve probably re-watched the most is Anchorman. Sublimely stupid.
Which book or books is/are by your bed today?
Amy Jeff’s book Saints – she reckons we should know our ancient British saints stories like we know our fairy tales. Apparently most saints pre-1600 or so were partly mythical, much more pagan and folkloreish. The book is her re-telling of loads of Saints’ stories. Also a book of life advice called The Door Was Never Locked, written by a friend of mine. Also ‘Strange Pictures’, by Uketsu, the Japanese mystery thing everybody has been raving about. It’s absolutely dire. Really, really awful. It’s rare for me to genuinely hate something with a passion. This I do.
Who was or is your greatest teacher?
A guy called David Sudnow. He was an American jazz pianist who ran a course called The Sudnow Method, to teach people how to play jazz standards. But he was also a sociology professor and phenomenologist, so his course was simultaneously a brilliant method for playing jazz tunes from a ‘fake book’, and also a kind of exploration of the idea of ‘what does it mean to teach or learn a big skill?’
I took it in about 2005. It came on 3 CDs from America. (It’s now online at www.sudnow.com). The first 40 mins or so is essentially a kind of stand-up routine about why the worst place to go to learn anything is any place they teach it ‘because they’ve got a vested interest in you coming back’.
He died in 2007, so I only got to know him very briefly. His course has been a model for me of how to find a smart angle on learning anything – and also on my own approach to teaching writing – which is a similar ‘big skill’ to playing the piano.
Who is your favourite artist?
Favourite is probably Picasso. But I’m really drawn to artists who obsess over things or return to the same themes – and that can be anything from Morandi and his bottles, to Frida Kahlo and self-portraits to pretty much all forms of ‘outsider art’. I’d love to own a painting by the English surreal-landscape painter Christoper P Wood.
Where do you like to work best – is it at a desk, in an office or in a coffee shop? And would you send us a picture of where the magic happens?
Lol. Please use the photo you used last time. These days it’s the same, but grubbier.
🤖 AI, Chat GPT, Gemini, Claude—your thoughts as at today’s date, please? (Because it will all change in the blink of an eye and – yes – the em dash is deliberate.)
ChatGPT for research. Claude for editing. What do I think today? We could very well be on the cusp of LLMs changing everything. (Matt Shumer’s blog here is basically saying ‘we’re in Feb 2020 before the pandemic. We knew something was coming but we simply could not grasp what.’ This feels true to me.) Equally, I am deeply anti AI-woo woo (The writer John Warner is very good on this.)
But honestly, right now I’m kinda mourning the craft of writing. This is not a new phenomenon. It has happened to most ‘crafts’ long ago. Imagine – there was a time when every pot in the world was made by a potter; every item of clothing by a tailor or seamstress; every meal prepared by a cook. If you were a potter, you could look out into the world and understand your place and value. The world needs pots. And the only way the world gets pots is if me and my fellow potters make them. For a long time now, pots have also been made by machines, and handcrafted pots and machine-made pots both have their place. And no potter alive today knows what it’s like to be the previous sort of potter.
For writing, we’re the transitional generation. We knew what it was like before. If people wanted ‘good words’, they had to come to a writer. Now, there are other options. For anyone in fact who has been doing some kind of ‘knowledge craft’, the grief is real innit.
This is especially ironic for lots of brand and business writing. We used to have a problem which we called ‘corporate-speak’ – the bland emotionless tone that was ‘robotic’. The irony is that now the robots are actually writing stuff, the problem is the opposite: they’re too good, too smooth, ‘overly’ human-sounding in a way. ChatGPT’s voice is currently like an infinitely patient Clean Language coach.
There will, I’m sure, be plenty of things where we want to see the fingerprints of human touch. I feel like I’m ‘thinking like an editor’ far more than I was. Which is fine: I like editing, I’m good at it, and it keeps you focused on where do I add real value.
All of this might be exciting and liberating for humanity in the long run. We will likely have to face the big existential questions – of what work is for, how we are ‘useful’ to each other, how we educate young people. It’s big stuff.
And finally, where can this caffeine-fuelled audience find you?
My website is www.nickparker.co.uk
For my tone of voice method, Voicebox, that’s nickparker.co.uk/voicebox
For Tone Knob, my Substack about brands and language, that’s https://toneofvoice.substack.com/
For that stupid book about corgis, Wat Am Corgi.
#ends#
