Category Archives: Writing

News catch-up!

01 Thursday Dec 2016

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I am a bit shocked and horrified to discover it is over 3 months since I wrote a blog post, and I am becoming one of those bloggers who has to start every post with an apology that it’s been so long since the last one. So sorry, dear blog followers, I shall try to do better!

So in the last post I was between novels. Since then I have completed two rounds of edits on the ‘Irish covernovel’, which does have a title now but not one I am allowed to share just yet! I’m waiting to hear back from my publisher on the latest edits, and also to hear when it’ll be put up for preorder. I will, of course, announce it here!

And I am now 20,000 words in to the next one, working title ‘Drowned Village’. So there’s been plenty of writing going on in this house, if not any blogging.

And in another snippet of news, my book The Daughters of Red Hill Hall has been included in Amazon’s December monthly deals, so is priced at just 99p for the next 3o days. Go on, treat yourself!

 

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Between novels

29 Monday Aug 2016

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I’m in that wonderful, exciting, refreshing but also terrifying space between novels at the moment. I finished a draft of my last, still-to-be-titled, one over the weekend, and sent it to my editor today. There will still be plenty of work to do on it no doubt, but for the moment it is out of my hands.

Meanwhile ideas for the next novel after that are filling my mind, so although I’d planned to have a bit of a break I have spent a lot of time today scribbling notes and putting together a Pinterest board to inspire me.

There are a number of things I do when planning a novel before I start actually writing it. I’ll do them in roughly this sequence:

  1. Scribble notes about key scenes, in a lovely new notebook of course!
  2. Decide on names, ages etc of main characters
  3. Draw up family trees for main characters, especially important if genealogy is to be a theme in the book
  4. Draw up timelines for the two timelines in the novel
  5. Build up a Pinterest board of inspiring images
  6. Note down main areas where I’ll need to research ahead of writing, and order any necessary books
  7. Create detailed character sheets for the main characters so that I can really get to know them
  8. Scribble details of the main settings, draw a map or house-plan if necessary
  9. Write a one-page synopsis for my editor to (hopefully!) approve
  10. Write a chapter plan – two or three sentences outlining what will happen in each chapter

So although ‘the Irish novel’ has been sent off ready for the next stage (rather like a five-year old child being sent off for his first day at school), the ‘drowned village’ novel is already swilling around my head. You know you need to write a novel when you find yourself waking in the night with scenes for it playing out in full colour in your head.

It’s funny – to my readers Daughters of Red Hill Hall is considered my latest novel, but I feel as though I’m two novels on from that!

Inspiration from place names

28 Sunday Feb 2016

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For some time now I have wanted to write a novel in which all the characters are named after Dorset villages. Maybe it’d end up being a pastoral Hardyesque tale, who knows, but Dorset place names are wonderful for conjuring up characters. Here are some I’ve thought of.

Worth Matravers – elderly tweed clad, pipe smoking whiskery gamekeeper

Kingston Lacey – as Lacey Kingston this is our heroine, bit of an airhead, heiress

Margaret Marsh – the down to earth widow who runs the village post office

Piddletrenthide – split it as Piddle Trenthide and this is a fellow whose real name is Phillip, but he picked up his nickname in boarding school on account of his frequent bed wetting

Sixpenny Handley – dear old Simon went to the same school as Piddle Trenthide, and got his nickname for being not quite the full shilling

Melbury Osmond – all tan and teeth, tribute act playing the local pubs and clubs

Hazelbury Bryan – let’s rearrange her as Hazel Bury-Bryan,  horse mad and horse-faced

Bishop’s Caundle – Bishop Caundle is the white-haired retiring clergyman with a dark past

Maiden Newton – the town bike, ironically nick-named

Melcombe Horsey – actually he’s Malcolm, but he has such an upper crust accent it comes out as Melcombe

Wimborne St Giles – can be Giles Wimborne and I think he’ll be the hero who sweeps Lacey off her feet

I could go on! Wiki has a useful list of Dorset place names and I suspect there are other counties with just as wonderfully named villages. What do you think – should I write the novel? No idea what kind of plot could encompass all those characters!

 

Writing Magazines

19 Tuesday Jan 2016

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There are, I think, three stages in a writer’s relationship with writing magazines such as Writers’ Forum or Writing Magazine.

  1. As a beginner writer you buy them, read them cover to cover and learn a lot from them. You dream of the day when your work, even just a reader’s letter, is published in the magazine.
  2. As a writer who’s beginning to submit their work, you enter competitions featured in them, send in letters, fillers and article proposals. Some are published. You dream of the day when the articles are about you, not by you.
  3. As an established writer you are interviewed for features in the magazine, and buy the magazine to see what the journalist has said about you.

I seem to be somewhere between 2 and 3 at the moment – am delighted to have been featured in a article by Simon Whaley on how best to make use of the Leap Day this year (Writing Magazine, February 2016). He’s written about me because of my little time management book for writers – Give Up Ironing. That issue is in the shops now.

 

Stood and sat

30 Monday Nov 2015

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This is a bit of a rant, but I need to get it off my chest.

I seem to have read so many published books and articles lately, which contain phrases such as he was stood outside, she was sat in the kitchen. It’s driving me mad – every time I see this kind of thing it pulls me out of the story and makes my blood pressure rise.

‘was stood’ and ‘was sat’ are never right. It should be: He was standing outside, or He stood outside. And: She was sitting in the kitchen, or She sat in the kitchen.

No one makes this mistake with the past tense of any other verb, do they? I’ve never seen things like ‘He was ran across the field’ or ‘They were swam in the sea’.

I get that it’s a colloquialism, and therefore in dialogue you might use it if it would be natural for your character to do so. ‘He were sat right on top of t’mountain, by gum.’

But not in general prose. I’ve been trying to think of any way in which this kind of construction could ever be correct. The only example I can think of is this:

The cleaners had obviously been moving the ornaments. The china dogs were stood one at each end.

Now I write that, I’m not even sure it’s correct. Even if it is, it’s passive voice so better rewritten as: The cleaners had stood the china dogs one at each end. 

What grammatical errors wind you up the most?

Well, what shall I write now?

23 Monday Nov 2015

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I finished the first edit of my novel yesterday, and sent it straight off to my eldest son who’s my beta reader. I’m looking forward to hearing what he thinks of it, then I’ve time to make some more changes as necessary before sending it to my editor just after Christmas. Phew! It’ll be lovely to have time to start something new, before I get my editor’s comments on it and have to rewrite the whole thing, ooh-er.

Want to know what its title will be? Not sure if I should reveal that yet…Oh, go on then, you’ve twisted my arm. It’ll be called The Daughters of Red Hill Hall. It’s dual timeline, and both timelines feature the stately home Red Hill Hall, and two girls who are the best of friends at the start of the novel, until… I’ll say no more. Publication will be around April 2016 – will let you know when I have a definite date.

Anyway, after completing the novel and also sending a synopsis for the next one to my editor, I thought I’d have a few days off from writing. But I’ve sat here this evening with itchy fingers, so I wrote a guest blog post for someone else, and then this blog post. A change is as good as a rest, they say, and certainly it’s the case that writing something other than the novel I’ve been working on since the end of April feels refreshing and fun. Counting up, I realise that I’ve only spent 7 months writing this one, which is a lot faster than any previous novel. And in June I hardly wrote anything, so it’s really 6 months work. Not bad going, considering I work full time as well.

It’s good to give yourself a pat on the back now and again. Even if a minute later I’m back to the usual writerly mental state of feeling full of self-doubt and insecurity!

 

The next novel has been printed!

02 Monday Nov 2015

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On Saturday I finally finished the first draft of my next novel. It needs a fair bit of work to whip it into shape, but from this point on I’m editing rather than first-drafting. I feel more than ready for this change of tempo – it uses different parts of your brain and I am kind of looking forward to it.

I say ‘kind of’, because that first read through is a terrifying prospect. What if it’s rubbish? What if the plot doesn’t hang together and the prose is dull and lifeless, and the characters are unlikeable and inconsistent?

When I am writing a first draft I try to keep forward momentum going at all times, and never go back to edit. If I write something which will require a tweak or addition in an earlier chapter I just write myself a note and keep going. Otherwise I know I would never reach the end. This method works for me but does mean there can be quite a lot to tackle in the first edit – the one I must do before I let anyone at all read it.

Anyway, just now I printed off the entire novel. I will read it through with a red pen in hand and scribble notes as I go. Then I’ll get going on the edits. Deadline is Christmas. Wish me luck!

What I am working on

04 Tuesday Aug 2015

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It’s taken me a while to get seriously back to writing after the events of June (see last post) but I am gradually getting back up to speed. I’ve had a couple of weeks holiday in the meantime as well, and am now quite a way behind where I had wanted to be on my work in progress. Life does get in the way sometimes.

I don’t want to say too much about the work in progress for fear of jinxing it, but here’s a picture which might give a little taste of what it’s about, or might not, tee hee!

pistolsI’m approaching the half way mark with this novel so there is a long way to go yet. But it is taking shape nicely. It’s another dual timeline novel, and the themes are duplicity, jealousy and toxic friendships. Like the sound of that? I hope so!

Characters

26 Sunday Apr 2015

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I’ve just begun writing a new novel, and one of the things I always do at the start is try to get to know my characters. What works for me is to fill in a character sheet. I start with straightforward questions about name, age, hair colour etc as a warm up, then move on to the more interesting questions – what did you dream of last night? What is your greatest fear? etc. I ask my characters to fill this in in first person, so it is almost like an interview. By the end, I feel I know who they are and what makes them tick. I also possibly have a few ideas for sub plots or back story…

Here’s my list of questions. Do other writers use something similar? I first had this idea from my writing tutor Della Galton but adapted and added to it since then.

Name
Nickname
Age
Date of Birth
Hair Colour
Eye Colour
Face
Height & Build
Voice
Job/career
Favourite food
Favourite drink
A good night out is
Makes me smile
Makes me cry
Soft spot
Really good at
Afraid of
Get furious at
My one wish would be
A good holiday is
My view of money is
My prejudices are
Other people see my main qualities as
Other people see my main faults as
Do I get on with parents and siblings
The worst illness I ever had was
If someone tried to bully me I would
My most defining experience was
The best experience I ever had was
My secret is
Last night I dreamed

Endings

30 Monday Mar 2015

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Endings are tricky beasts, aren’t they?

Beginnings are dead easy. I’ve sat in writing classes and written dozens of beginnings, usually with no previous idea of what to write, and often done within a six-minute time limit. Some are better than others, but most could become the start of a story or even a novel.

But endings are another matter. Short story endings need to neatly finish off the story, include the twist, or link back to the beginning, or show the ‘universal truth’ your story is trying to illustrate. Novel endings need to tie up loose ends, leave your characters in a good place, and satisfy your reader. And they mustn’t end too soon – I think novels need a winding-down scene or two, where the main action has finished, to allow the reader to say their farewells to the characters they’ve lived with for the past few days or weeks.

I was looking through the reviews I’ve had for my novel, The Emerald Comb, earlier today. It’s been well received with (to date) 48 four and five star reviews, but there are a handful of three, two and one star reviews as well. The one thing the lower rankings have in common is that they all criticise the ending. They say the ending seemed rushed, and that things were left not quite resolved leaving the reader feeling perhaps disappointed or frustrated.

I find this very interesting, because (and this is a bit of a spoiler, so if you haven’t read it but would like to, skip reading this paragraph) nothing is kept from the reader. There’s no unresolved plot line. By the end of the novel, the reader knows the full truth of what happened. However, the main character Katie does not know everything. I wrote it like this on purpose – one of the themes of the novel is that no amount of research can necessarily uncover the full and complete truth of what happened in the past. If your ancestors really wanted to hide a secret, they probably could, and you’d never know. After exhausting all research angles the best you can do is make an educated guess or conjecture. And that’s what Katie is left with, although the reader knows everything. In my mind the story is resolved, but perhaps the critical reviewers identified so much with Katie they didn’t see it that way! (I’ll take that as a compliment on my skills at characterisation then.)

Some of the other reviews praise the ending for being realistic, and one reviewer stated she was glad I went for the ending I did, rather than the more predictable alternative which some might have expected. There’s someone who really ‘got’ what I was trying to do!

You can never please everyone, but it has made me think hard about the ending I had in mind for my current work in progress, which is another tale of genealogical mysteries. How can I stay true to my themes and yet be careful not to disappoint readers? I think there’s a fine line I need to tread here. Hope I can get it right!

Thankfully, no one’s criticised the ending of The Pearl Locket (so far). Although a number of people have told me it had them reaching for a tissue…