by admin | Apr 7, 2015 | character, old posts, opening paragraph, overview, plotting, readers, structure
I’ve reached the conclusion that time away from ‘the current work’ enables me to step back and view what I’m doing more objectively, and more clearly, but it has to be a certain sort of break to be most effective. Here’s how it seems to work for me. I’ve been writing outlines and planning the current book (number 4) for some months now. I knew I would be taking two months away from it early this year and expected that this would provide the space I needed to reflect on the project – characters, pace, themes, plot and so on – so that everything would be clearer when I returned. But that didn’t work. The time away was like being on a different planet, so exciting, varied, all-consuming, and exhausting at times that there was no space in my head to reflect at all about the book. After I’d got home and recovered for a while I just started the first draft as I’d planned to do, using the outline much as it previously stood.
Ten days later, into the first draft and rolling along quite nicely, I’ve just had another shorter break over the Easter weekend. Immediately beforehand I was up to my ears in writing and editing, working and reworking the original outline as the detail on the ground was revealed – as I mentioned in my previous blog post. Maybe that was why, during four non-writing days, my head has been wrapped around the story to the point where I could hardly sleep. Two darlings have been ruthlessly put to the sword as a result. The first of them, the opening paragraph, was nudged towards its demise by my perceptive editor Charlotte who skims the drafts every now and then and always asks incisive questions. The old first paragraph which I’d polished carefully for months, is now dead, and the one will be sharper, clearer and more likely to capture a reader’s attention.
The second doomed ‘darling’ is a character from my third book, who was about to reappear in this one. I was looking forward to meeting him again, but yesterday, when I was half watching Wolverhampton Wanderers vs Leeds United on the TV, I suddenly thought ‘Why do I need him here? What’s he adding to this story? If he has a function, is that not already being played by another character? Why complicate matters unnecessarily?’ Scales fell from eyes and when the next stage of the outline is re-written, he will be gone.
Have I ever mentioned the Faber Academy course I went on years ago called ‘Stuck in the Middle’? Just a weekend, but I still remember the shot in the arm it gave me. Gill Slovo and Sarah Dunant led it as a double act, a pincer movement of perception and experience that caught many of us round the table in the middle, making us look at our half-finished work from the outside rather than the inside. It was harrowing but salutary. I’ve thought about signing up again, but I don’t think I need to. I think I can be ruthless – no pun intended – all by myself. Maybe watching football helps.
by admin | Apr 1, 2015 | overview, plotting, structure, word count, writing
I hope someone’s noticed that I’ve been away, out of the blogsphere all together, for weeks on a long and amazing trip to Argentina and Antarctica. Actually, it’s over two months since I’ve posted anything, and now there’s so much on my mind I’m not sure where to start.
The question on my mind right this minute is this: how helpful is a detailed outline before you start the first draft? Five years ago I might have said, ‘Who needs an outline. I have a few characters and a few ideas and doesn’t it all just roll out?’ Two months ago I would have said, ‘An outline is absolutely essential and the more detailed the better.’ Right now, today, I’m thinking. ‘The most helpful thing about an outline is that when you get lost, you have some idea where you are. It gives you a bigger map, but with a smaller scale so you can take in the whole picture more easily.’ But, just like with OS maps of the Lake District, sometimes the paths marked on the map don’t correspond exactly with the paths on the ground.
The first draft is where your writing feet meet the ground. Only then can you see more detail in the territory. Contours and dotted lines turn into real hills and walls. PH marked on the map becomes a real pub, which could be closed and boarded up, or open and welcoming. I spent much of my ‘thinking abut the new book’ time in the past few months on the outline, changing it again and again until I was sure it made sense and flowed and had a good balance of character and events, internal and external dilemmas and conflict, the highs and lows of a classic 3 act structure, and all that. When I actually started to write last week, the first two or three chapters fell on to the page pretty quickly, following the outline page by page. But then things began to spread out. I thought I’d dealt with all the ‘what-ifs’ but then more popped up, demanding to be pursued. Characters said some things I hadn’t expected, and unforeseen anomalies became glaringly obvious.
I’ve noticed before that as I go from outline to draft the story gets darker. Why is that? I think of myself as a reasonably happy and optimistic person, but the words seem to be pushing me into ‘noir’. ‘Cumbrian noir’ – a new genre perhaps? The current book is definitely feeling more ‘noir’ than the previous ones. It should, given that it’s a crime novel rather than the ‘family saga’ tag that loosely describes the trilogy published in the past three years. In crime novels, necessarily, some people do bad things and some people suffer: that’s the nature and impact of crime. But the things I want them to do and suffer seem more ‘noir’ in the draft than they were in the outline.
Seven chapters in now: the overall plot is holding together OK but the chronology has changed a little. I’m having to look ahead three chapters in the outline rather than one to get the best sense of where to go next, and wondering of course why I didn’t anticipate the extra twists and turns that seem so obvious now. I don’t regret this: actually it’s rather fun and keeps me engaged for hours, while the washing up languishes in the sink and I stay cloistered in my upstairs cubbyhole, facing away from the stunning view beyond the window. At the end of several hours writing I feel I’ve achieved something more substantial than the mere fleshing out of a given story. I also need some exercises to relieve my aching neck and shoulders.
I try not to word count: it’s the quality of the words not the quantity that matters. But I couldn’t resist counting at the end of Week 1 and it came to an impressive 20,000 or so. Sounds far too much, but there they are, and most of them read and checked and amended. So far, so good.
Tomorrow there are distractions, in the form of a trip to Cockermouth for a book-related evening at the New Bookshop where I’ll talk about my work as a ‘local author’. That should be fun too, although not as deeply satisfying as keeping on writing, to which I’ll return on Friday.
by admin | Jan 21, 2015 | writing, writing workshops
I’ve been looking forward to this for weeks, and anxious about it too, and last Saturday, January 17th 2015 at Kendal library I led my very first full day writing workshop. And I really enjoyed it, although I was pretty exhausted when it was over: partly the several hours of concentration and partly lack of sleep the night before.
There were eleven in the group, small enough for conversation and large enough to benefit from a range of people. The range was hard to deal with too, as each person came with different prior writing experience, and therefore a range of wants and needs. It was quite a short day as the library didn’t open until 9.30am and closed at 3.30pm. We took a short lunch break but even so it was only about 5 hours once we’d got organised and started, and the challenge was trying to cover the long list of ‘aspects’ that I’d made. Some things went by the board when they didn’t appear in the group’s list of priorities: we mentioned ‘dialogue’ only briefly, for example, even though to my mind it’s essential to the pace and depth of a novel, to drive the story and to reveal character. I could probably have skipped or truncated the focus on the interaction between character, setting and story, but that was the first session and it was only at that time that the importance of the prior learning became obvious. Or maybe we needed to start with relatively familiar stuff just to get warmed up.
What really delighted me was everyone’s willingness to contribute and be honest about the struggle of both writing and getting published. I felt as if I was among friends, and in that safety people were open to new ideas and developing their story plans really quickly given the stimulus of good ‘what if questions’. We laughed and encouraged each other, and that was great.
The part of the day that seemed to resonate with all of us was about ‘structure’, not just the protocols of the 3 act structure which I didn’t do well explaining I fear, but the business of seeing a full-length fiction as a whole before starting to write the first draft. That doesn’t mean that every last detail is mapped out and immutable, but it does give you as the writer a view of the landscape before you start your journey. Maybe I enjoyed discussing this because it was what I lacked so woefully when I started my first novel, and was probably the reason why it took four years to complete. I learned the structure lesson the hard way, and took much more care with planning the second book. Now on book 4 I’m planning ahead in even more detail, but this is the first foray into crime fiction and the intricacies of the story are demanding more care at this early stage.
I suggested that we need to see the shape of the work all at once, rather than sequentially. To this end I put my early draft outline on paper or cards and lay them all out on the floor, or pin them on the wall, taking in the picture all at once, moving pieces around, seeing connections and possibilities that I hadn’t seen when the work was on screen or in one continuous piece. ‘Simultaneous visual display’: maybe it depends what kind of mind you have. I’m an abstract random thinker by preference, at least in the first instance, and need that overall picture before I can sort the pieces into an order.
Most – but not all – of the group wanted to talk about publishing, and I’d forgotten how depressing the conversation can be as one by one we told our stories of disinterest from agents, prejudice against self-publishing, the financial considerations, the time and the waiting, ineligibility for competitions and so on, and so on. I don’t regret the decision to self-publish and to invest my time, energy and money in the process but for people with less to invest it looks a pretty bleak picture.
As we concluded, however we want to get into print, the most important starting point is to have a really high quality piece of work, and for that we need to welcome editing. Family and friends mean well but their feedback isn’t enough. Getting professional critique seems to cost so much that it becomes another hurdle that blocks progress. One or two people asked if I would offer a critique, and although I have a professional interest in feedback my own experience of writing is still limited. So I agreed, but won’t charge anyone until I feel I can offer a service worth paying for. Already I fear the siren call of writing-related activities – running workshops, critique and feedback, advice on self-publishing – when what I most need and want to do is write my own stuff.
I’m taking a break from everything for the next two months to pursue a long-standing travel ambition, so I’ve got some time to think about it. When I get back in mid-March it’ll be straight into the first draft of book 4 (as yet untitled) to meet the deadline of August that I have set myself. So I’m disappearing from Twitter, blogs and all that for two months at least. I’m not sure that anyone will notice!
by admin | Jan 12, 2015 | Authenticity, character, crime fiction, genre, readers, villain
The current novel is my first attempt at crime fiction, after reading tons of it over the past decades. Reading other authors’ crime fiction is easy: you can be self-righteously critical of too much information, too little information, too many clues, none at all, plot twists you can see coming a mile off and others so arbitrary you feel cheated. Oh yes, I can take other people’s work to pieces, but writing your own is a different story, literally.
To some extent, crime fiction can feel a bit formulaic. You go on the course and buy the book – the Arvon book on crime writing, for example – and see what protocols characterise the genre. But a perverse refusal to obey rules that I have always struggled with is getting in my way. If someone says, you need a 3 act structure I say ‘Really? Why?’. I’m working hard to overcome this unhelpful trait. So for now, as an novice in the field, I am following the structural conventions, but am still struggling with whether and how to hide clues, and pop in just enough false leads and red herrings (where on earth did that phrase come from?) to keep the reader on her/his toes.
Only got the outline so far, although it’s pretty detailed in parts and up to 18,000 words. The clues etc are in the outline, but because they’re in this truncated form they’re obviously standing out more than they should and hopefully more than they will when the full ms in in place. Those trusted few who are reading and providing feedback on the outline are counselling a lighter touch, and they’re probably right. I’m pleased with one false trail that serves to undermine the protagonist’s self-confidence, which always adds to the tension.
The new book is set in the recent past, and so has necessitated some research about details of the period, but I think I may be learning how to handle it as the obsession for authenticity isn’t looming as large in my mind as it did previously. Some details are essential of course, but I’m also trying to detach the action a little from its setting to avoid local readers feeling that their home turf is being traduced by bad people doing bad things. No-one minds recognising the local setting when the characters and their actions are benign, but I don’t think that will hold true when some of the people are pretty nasty.
The overall problem is how to balance the inferences with the need for twists and a ‘reveal’ towards the end. Classic examples of the genre require the main characters to be summoned finally by the hero detective who then rehearses the clues etc before finally revealing the baddy. I definitely can’t be bothered with that, but some final shocks are necessary. Too many clues may herald and reduce the impact of the shock, but if there are none, is the writer cheating? Maybe I read too fast and without sufficient thought, but sometimes I’m not prepared for the final reveal at all and don’t like that. Thinking about it, what really matters, even in crime fiction, is that we have to care about the characters, even if we don’t like them. What happens to them should matter to us: it’s not just a plot device. And we’re back to character driving the story as much as plot.
What I seem to be doing as the outline expands slowly into a first draft is putting in clues etc and then paring them back to the merest sliver of a passing detail that could be missed or noticed and remembered, so that the assiduous reader feels rewarded later for their concentration. Will it work? Hard to tell. The acid test is giving it to someone to read who’s never read any previous version or had any conversation about the plot. They have to come to it raw, as it were, and then tell me how satisfied or otherwise they feel. It’s going to be a while before I get to that stage.
by admin | Dec 31, 2014 | character, Forgiven, readers, villain
Every now and then I check to see if anyone has posted a review of my books on Amazon. Not that they make any difference to sales – or do they? – but just out of curiosity. The reviews are usually good, I’m pleased to say, but one for ‘Forgiven’ was a 3 star and I checked it. Can’t recall the precise wording but the general gist was that the reader was unimpressed as he/she didn’t find any of the characters ‘sympathetic’. That’s OK: but I asked myself whether I had really tried to make my characters likeable, and what that would mean.
‘Likeability’, like beauty, is very much in the eye – or feelings – of the reader. Who and what we like depends on who are, our own life experiences and our view of the world. It is therefore unlikely that any one character would be liked by everybody who encountered them. In a novel there will be a wide range of characters to choose from, but even then it may be that none of them appeal to a particular reader, as in the case of my 3 star reviewer.
The only book I’ve read recently that presented me with such a panoply of unattractive people was Gillian Flynn’s ‘Gone Girl’, which has been a runaway best-seller, despite my feeling that it relied for its tension on the reader’s detached curiosity about ‘whodunnit’ without actually caring at all, as none of the people involved were worth caring about. I couldn’t even finish it, but I assume I was in a minority. Then I began to wonder whether it matters. Do we need to like the characters for them to carry us through a novel? Can we care about them while still finding them unsympathetic?
The answer of course must be ‘Yes.’ Lear is a monster, Henchard stubborn and self-defeating, Emma vain and self-obsessed. In her own small way my heroine Jessie Whelan is a very difficult woman who creates most of her own crises. As one of my correspondents put it, ‘That Jessie – sometimes I could slap her.’ But without those flaws she could be flat and uninteresting, and her story less rich and worthy of the telling. John, her son, is portrayed as a young man damaged by the restrictions of his early life, awkward, distrustful, self-centred, although he is redeemed later by his love for Maggie and his children. On the other hand, two minor characters who appear in all three books and many of my readers enjoy are Hannah and Fred, who live at Mill Cottage in Boot. They both struggle with disability – the one-eyed woman and the one-legged man – and both rise above it with humour and unselfconscious enjoyment of their lives and each other. I loved writing about them, and mourned for Fred’s sad decline. In planning the current book I’m working hard to create rounded characters with weakness and challenges, not to make them likeable but to make them human. Even the villains can’t be all bad: they too need some redeeming features that drive their behaviour and provide a necessary ambivalence for the reader. Sympathy with the characters is not required, but a flicker of empathy helps to engage the reader, don’t you think?
by admin | Dec 23, 2014 | A Good Liar, character, Cumbria, Fallout, Forgiven, historical fiction, Lake District, readers, self-publishing
I’m sure more famous authors get loads of letters from readers, but for me it’s a new phenomenon: just a few, usually handwritten, in a card or on their own in an envelope. The writers tell me what they’ve enjoyed about my books. If they’re local, they say how they enjoy recognising places in West Cumbria – where the trilogy is set – and what they themselves remember about them. They talk too about the characters who live their lives in this setting. It feels like well-intentioned gossip, sharing details of what you’ve noticed with someone else. When the first book, ‘A Good Liar’ came out, I got an email, or was it a tweet, which said, ‘Oh that Jessie, I could slap her.’ I could too: Jessie has a tendency to come out with things carelessly at times, getting herself into all sorts of trouble. She’s a complicated woman, which is what I always wanted her to be, and not always likeable, although I still feel that she’s fundamentally a good person. Hence the title.
Other letters are less specific, just expressions of enjoyment and looking forward to the next book, which is due out in November 2015 by the way. I was in a local bookshop the other day and on the stand where my books are displayed was a little note, left over from the summer, which read. ‘Yes it’s here! Book 3 Fallout has arrived!’ I’m sure the queue was a little less long that those for the new Harry Potter books, but I was tickled by the idea of people I didn’t know waiting for a book to appear and wanting to get reading.
My readers sometimes tell me which of the three books they’ve enjoyed the most, and there’s no pattern to that choice, except that the quietest of the three ‘Forgiven’ seems to appeal to fewer people even though I think it’s the best of the three. What I’ve been waiting for and not had yet is something from people who personally remember the Windscale Fire of 1957, which features in ‘Fallout’, telling me that I’ve got it wrong. If I have, then no-one is telling me that, but maybe they just wouldn’t say anything at all. West Cumbrian communication can be a bit ’round-about’, and I am an ‘off-comer’ after all. If anyone’s reading this who has anything to say about any of my books, I would really love to hear from you. Feedback – it’s what keeps us going.
Generally, it’s hard for authors to get an idea of who’s reading what you’ve written, and how they feel about it. I read continually myself, and have never yet written to an author about a book, assuming that what I say about it will be immaterial and probably ignored. Now I wonder whether I should be more willing to write a note, or send a card. If you have a publisher, maybe it’s easier for readers to find you. Or maybe you just reach more readers and therefore increase the chance of communication.
Most of the feedback I receive is from the people I meet when I’m doing readings around this region, but unless I sometimes write down what is said it’s hard later to remember the specifics. When I’m struggling, as I am now, with the final versions of plot and sequences of events and a few relevant references to contemporary life, all the fiddly bits before the real enjoyment of writing starts, I have to stop and think that these details will be noticed and enjoyed, and that what I’m doing matters to someone beyond myself. I write to be read, not as a cathartic personal release. How the writing is received is interesting to me. It doesn’t determine how I write, but it’s certainly part of what encourages me to keep doing so.
by admin | Dec 15, 2014 | critique, dialogue, opening paragraph, pace, promotion, self-publishing, selling, writing, writing workshops
Well, actually, it’s not quite my first. That was at the Borderlines Festival in Carlisle in September – which was a great book festival, by the way – but it was only an hour and a half, not long enough to do anything substantial. Even so, I enjoyed it so much that I really want to have another go, for a few hours this time. I picked the middle of January to connect with people who feel that writing fiction is on their New Year’s resolution list, or whatever intellectual bucket list they carry in our heads and hearts. For me it was the approach of a big birthday that made me think that life is short: instead of just thinking about writing a novel it was definitely time to get started.
So Saturday January 17th was my pick for a date, when 2015 is beckoning. What about a venue? I’m not sure how many people may be interested, so I didn’t want to commit an expensive venue with the pressure of a deadline. Cumbria library service has been very supportive to my wring and publishing, and Kendal library has a good space and helpful people, so that was the decision. Despite all the uncertainties of an untried enterprise, I’m really clear what I want to do during those few hours. Looking back on my own choices, what has mattered to me most as a writer in the past five years has been balancing character, plot and setting and do justice to all three. I’m a good teacher, so with those goals in mind I can put together a learning experience that will – hopefully – motivate, inform and encourage people who like me feel they have a story to tell and need a place to start. And then there’s the business of getting published: I have plenty of advice to offer about that, from hard personal experience. The workshop is called ‘Writing and Publishing a Novel’, and I’ll be interested to see how much time participants will want to spend on each of these two aspects. For me, logic dictates that writing something of real quality has to come first: what’s the point in self-publishing something that isn’t as good as it can be?
So, Kendal Library it is, on Saturday January 17th, from 9.45 to 3.15 with a short break for lunch. Five or so hours is not much but it’s start, and we’ll see how it goes. When it came to a decision about a fee, I had some interesting choices to juggle. To get something similar in London would cost a lot, and with travel on top, but that would be led by a recognised ‘name’ in the business. My books sell well across Cumbria, but I couldn’t call myself a ‘name’ even here, so why would anyone want to come, and how much might they be prepared to pay? In the end I opted for £30, and bring your own lunch. Apart from the cost of a catered lunch you get into all sorts of paperwork about dietary needs and options, and it would be so much easier and more convenient to ask people to bring a sandwich, or a salad, or some leftovers for midday nourishment and let the real business of the day be about the writing, not the eating. Will anybody come? Some will, they’ve already signed up. The main problem will be letting people know that it’s on, and you can help if you read as far as this, if you know someone who lives within reach of Kendal and might enjoy the experience.
Which brings me to the thorny issue of marketing, the self-publishers hardest task. Some local bookshops will carry a poster but others will not. The libraries will advertise, but BBC Radio Cumbria can’t do so, except for local community events, and this workshop doesn’t qualify as that. The local papers might carry something, but if it’s too early it’ll get swallowed in the tide of Christmas stuff. So I think I need to wait until after Christmas, when people are beginning to think about the year ahead. Will it work? I don’t know. I know I can help adults learn something new, because that’s my life’s work, but the business of marketing is still a learning experience for me. I’ll have to be prepared to fail before I succeed – that’s how learning works. If you want to come, by the way, you can go to the ‘Events’ section of my website, sign up and pay online with Paypal. Or you can email me direct on [email protected]. Couldn’t be simpler, and it could be the first step on a road that will give you as much pleasure as it’s giving me.
by admin | Dec 5, 2014 | character, crime fiction, critique, genre, plotting, point of view, readers, villain
Weeks ago I thought the outline for Book 4 was almost finished: just the odd twist here. or an extra chapter there and it was done, waiting to be fleshed out in all its detail in the first draft. Then I had to step away for a while to focus on another project and when I returned to it, I lost confidence. Everything looked trite, predictable, and some of the characters felt wooden and two-dimensional.
So I controlled my impatience to get started, ready or not, and went back to basics, taking each of the characters and writing character studies: what does this person look and sound like, how do they dress, walk, eat? Where were they born and raised, what motivates them, what do they aspire to or fear? What will they do in certain situations, and ow will they relate to the other characters they encounter?
That’s a really useful exercise, but these deeper rounder characters are now so engaging that they demand many more pages to do them justice, and each wants their own voice, or ‘Point of View’.
I love the idea of multiple points of view, with even minor characters able to provide their individual perspective and version of events, but I’m wary of going down this road given the strict advice that accompanied the one – and only – professional critique of my writing, way back when the first novel was in its first iteration and I was floundering. ‘Keep it simple’ was the advice. Only two or three of your characters can be given a ‘Point of View’, so decide who they are and stick to it. To do otherwise runs the risk of confusing your readers and slowing down the plot.
Book 4 is my first attempt at a crime novel. I’ve taken the conventional stance – so far at least – of having two main characters on the side of ‘order and honesty’ but as time goes by I’m getting more interested in the ‘baddies’, without whom there is no tension, wrong-doing and resolution. If the ‘baddies ‘ are two-dimensional, the plot fails. Patricia Highsmith understood this: now I wonder whether I could take the risk of appearing amoral, as she can be described, by making the character of a central ‘baddy’ the driving force of the plot and its most engaging voice. I’d love to do that, but it could be a step too far for a first foray into a new genre. My readership so far trusts me not to shock or outrage them: they’re curious about my characters and want to like them. Would they feel betrayed by a detailed depiction of the despicable?
I think I’ll probably opt for safety this time, with two honest characters at the heart of the story, but I’ll also give depth and voice to at least one of the dishonest characters too, letting us see the complexities and ambivalence, and the flaws in our national life at the time when the story is set, which of course are still with us today. I want this book to be the start of a series, and that adds some pressures that I’ll explore in a future post. I’m still thinking about it.
by admin | Nov 27, 2014 | critique, dialogue, historical fiction, opening paragraph, pace, plotting, self-publishing, structure, writing, writing workshops
I suppose I’ve learned quite a lot about writing a novel over the past few years. A long time before that I learned how to write sentences and string them together into paragraphs that followed each other and made sense. I can recall some quite good writing in my school years, and at university, but that was mainly explaining ideas, or recounting other people’s ideas. Writing a novel is different, as different as painting a full canvas is from doing a doodle in the corner of a page. I didn’t realise that at the beginning. I thought that writing full length fiction was not palpably different, just more of the same, and I was wrong.
Now I’m wondering if I can help others through some of the stages I have been through myself. Ideally, as many of the best writing courses do, you would take people through stage by stage, with time intervals in between for practice and reflection, watching the improvement as time goes by. But those courses are expensive, and require high levels of expertise and confidence from the ‘providers’ to reassure the clients they are not wasting their time or their money.
What would I have to offer, having written only three works of fiction so far, which I have published myself. The feedback has been good, and the sales tick along nicely, but do I really have something worth sharing? And given I’m a relative novice in this business, would anyone want to put themselves in my hands even for a little while, and pay for my help? The experience of writing may be slender, but there’s one thing in all this where my experience is deep and trustworthy: I know how to help adults learn. I’ve been in the adult learning business as a freelance education consultant for over twenty years, all round the world. Most of my clients have been educators, but very varied in style, age, nationality, motivation and potential. I’m pretty good at meeting these various needs, as I should be after all this time.
So, could the experience in adult learning make up for relative inexperience as a writer? I think it might just do so, and in a couple of months I’ll get the chance to find out. I’m planning a writing workshop, for a Saturday in January, at one of our local public libraries. ( For those of you who know Cumbria, it’s in Kendal.) I want to find twenty or so people and work with them for six hours, embarking on the very early stages of ‘Writing and Publishing a Novel.’ I’m not going to start with ‘how to write a good sentence’, heading instead straight for how to find a setting and some characters, give them life and write a story that readers will enjoy. Already ideas for useful activities that will meet this purpose are beginning to bubble up, drawing on many of the best activities I’ve experienced in my own learning so far. The starting points will be setting and characters: once we have those, things begin to take off. Tackling the thorny question of getting published may be a lot to take on in a shortish day, but I know it is of interest to most aspiring writers, and here again some practical advice may be helpful.
Now I need the publicity that will bring in enough people to make it work. We’re working on the website link, but it’s likely that most people will hear about the workshop through the local libraries and media. I do hope some people come: I really want to see whether the ideas in my head will stimulate potential writers to take the plunge as I did six years ago, and am so glad I did.
by admin | Nov 15, 2014 | Uncategorized
I wonder how much the physical circumstances of writing affect my thoughts. The last post, about ‘Flow’, I wrote in an apartment on the 14th floor of a condo building in downtown Winnipeg, as the traffic streamed into the city and construction workers on yet another new building across the street picked their way around in a gusty wind beneath a massive crane. I felt energized and quick, with movement all around me.
Today, now, I’m sitting in a silent space watching light soft snow falling into the Salmon River as it slides past a few metres from my window, on its way to Grand Lake, New Brunswick. Fat, fluffy flakes drift gently down, the river’s movement is almost imperceptible, and my mind has slowed down too. Maybe it needed to: the past three weeks have been full on. And for the first time in three weeks I’ve had space in my head for the book that had pre-occupied me for weeks before I started this trip, the one I’m writing, the first one of a new series.
Walking in the snow this morning I had a clear vision of one of the characters in my head, and was also convinced that this was a different image than the one that found its way into the first draft of Chapter 1 written over a month ago. Lots to change I thought. But then I re-read the draft, and there it was, identical to my current image. Curiously reassuring: the complexity I wanted to see was already there. Then I went to the character study of this person that I’d written and filed many months ago, and all the prior work and thinking suddenly filled my head as if they’d never been away. Over the next few days, exploring the Bay of Fundy before I finally head home, I have to keep the thoughts simmering gently. If it carries on snowing like this, I might even make a virtue of confinement and write some more. It’s a relief to get back to the real writing after so long away from it. The snow is reminding of a wonderful book by David Guterson called ‘Snow Falling on Cedars’. I hope I can achieve the sense of place and atmosphere as well as he did.
On the verge of downloading Guterson’s book and re-reading it, I hesitate. ‘Be careful what you read during your writing project,’ was advice offered on a writing course. ‘Beware of being influenced by someone else’s style and losing your own voice.’ Could that happen, really? Even if it did, I couldn’t stop reading while my writing is underway. And I choose books within the same genre as my own, using my inner critic to deconstruct them and inspire to do as well, or better, myself.
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