Tag Archives: Writing

My two favourite words…

27 Monday Mar 2017

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I just wrote “The End” on a (very rough) draft of my next novel. It is SUCH a satisfying moment! All the more so this time, as I have been racing ahead to finish a draft before going travelling – we leave in just 6 days time.

Having finished it before we go means I can print it off and take the printout with me to edit. I prefer doing the first, major edit on paper, with a red pen. It’s easier to be ruthless when you can put a big red cross over an entire page and scribble something different in the margin or on the reverse.

Of course, once we are away travelling in our motorhome printing will be a bit tricky. I’ll be taking my laptop of course, and we have various arrangements to allow us to be online (see here if you are curious!) but printing would involve taking a memory stick to a print shop and explaining what I need in broken French or even more broken Italian. It’d probably cost a fortune too. So I was keen to get to the point where I could print it at home and take it with me.

In other news – The Pearl Locket is currently on sale in the UK at 99p, but only for a few more days.

And don’t forget my new book The Girl from Ballymor is available for preorder in both ebook and print format!

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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!

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!

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…

Seriously considering a sequel…

20 Monday Oct 2014

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I know The Emerald Comb has only been published a month, but a couple of reviewers have mentioned they’d like to see a sequel. I wrote the book as a standalone novel, with absolutely no intention of writing more about these characters, but now I’m thinking hmmm, what if I took other characters from Katie’s family tree, and gave them secrets to hide, which leads to Katie having another mystery to solve?

I pondered this on the drive to Mum’s today, and by the time I got back, had the makings of a plot buzzing around my head. It’ll be fun to revisit some of my characters. I do feel I know them pretty well.

I’ve never tried writing a sequel. I know there are pitfalls – you need to make sure the book works for people who haven’t read the first one, also ensure if someone reads book 2 and then book 1 you haven’t given away the surprises in book 1. It’ll be a challenge, but I think I might have a go. Have to finish the two writing projects which are already underway first, though!

What do you think – have you written novels with sequels? How did you find it? As a reader do you enjoy sequels?  Should I go for it?

From Family Tree to Emerald Comb

24 Wednesday Sep 2014

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In the summer of 2009, the 1911 census was made available online. A friend told me about it, and one evening I thought, hmm, I wonder if I can find my grandparents on that census? I decided to have a look for my mum’s father. He’d had an unusual surname, and I knew he’d been born in Worthing, so I thought I’d be in with a good chance of finding him.

That idle thought was the beginning of an obsession with genealogy. I found my grandfather easily, then began tracing back through the censuses and other records, as far as I could go. Over time this led me to not only find out loads about my family tree, but also to discover and meet distant relatives I hadn’t known about, and eventually to the inspiration for genealogy-based novels.

My first novel was based on some characters and events from my own family tree, but one problem I had with that one is that I felt too constrained by the truth, by my own research. My characters had to marry, give birth and die on the dates my ancestors had. They couldn’t be completely free. But of course writers love making stuff up, and I’m no different, so the obvious next step was to write a novel based on an entirely fictitious family tree. What if you’d researched your whole family tree and thought you knew your ancestry for the last couple of hundred years, but your ancestors had secrets they’d buried deeply? What if you really did find a skeleton in your family history closet?

The Emerald Comb V3 cover small

And so began the story which became The Emerald Comb. It was a lot of fun to write. I outlined the two plots – the contemporary story and the 1840s story – and drew up an entire family tree spanning two centuries. Actually I had to draw up two trees – the ‘real’ one and the one my character Katie had discovered in her research. They’re not quite the same, as readers of the novel will discover.

My own genealogy research helped with this novel – I knew what you can find out online, and what processes researchers will go through. Katie’s not based on me, but I reckon if she was real and I met her we’d have lots to talk about!

The Emerald Comb explores the idea of identity. Just who do you think you are, and how important is it important to know your ancestry? Katie thinks it’s crucial, but her husband who was adopted, thinks not. Both of them change their beliefs during the course of the book.

Launched this week, and available to buy as an ebook from all outlets. Price is £3.79 at the time of writing. It’s been well received so far – I’ve had some wonderful early reviews!

Buy from Amazon.co.uk

Buy from Amazon.com

For more blog posts related to this book, click on the book title at the top of the page!

Blocked?

15 Friday Aug 2014

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Writer’s block.

You hear so much about it. Writers complaining they are blocked, they cannot progress, they’ve been stuck on the same scene for weeks and just can’t seem to get it written. Writing it is like wading through treacle, and every time they try to write a bit more they end up getting nowhere.

I know the feeling. It is like repeatedly banging your head against a huge boulder, trying to smash the rock with your head so you can get past it. I’ve been there and done that, it’s not nice. But I have found a solution.

Don’t try to break through the blockage. Go around it instead.

That scene you’re stuck on – leave it. Just leave it half-written. Write something else instead – the next scene, the next chapter, a bit near the end of the book which you’ve had in mind for ages. Or if blocked on a short story, start another one instead. New characters, new problem, and see where you get to with that.

You can always come back to the unfinished scene/chapter/story later. You might then find it is easy to finish. Or even that it is no longer needed and you have thought of a better way of getting your characters where they needed to be at the end of that difficult scene.

Writing novels is all about forward momentum. But if there comes a time when going directly forward is not possible, you’re blocked, then deviate slightly to the left or right and find a new forward.

It works for me.

 

Just call me superwoman…

30 Wednesday Jul 2014

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Life has been SO busy lately. If we’re Facebook friends you probably know about my husband’s cycling accident, 6 weeks ago. He crashed on a slippery road coming downhill, and broke his hip and wrist. His hip was operated on the next day to pin it, and the day after that he was on his feet on crutches. He’s making a good recovery, though still has to use the crutches for a few weeks yet. So I am having to do a lot extra in the home – all the cooking and cleaning instead of sharing it, all the driving around, shopping, taking him indoors to physio appointments etc.

The day job has been manic lately. I won’t bore you with the details but I’m definitely being pulled every which way and then some. Could do with cloning myself to get it all done.

I’m over the moon at having a two book deal – it’s what I’ve worked towards for ten years. But with contracts come deadlines, and the pressure’s on to get book 1 revised and back to my editor, also to get the first draft of book 2 completed. Both are on target, just about.

With the pier-to-pier swim completed that means no need for swimming training, but him indoors has discovered that a short swim in the sea is really helping his recovery. He hobbles in on crutches, then I take the crutches and leave them on the beach, then swim with him, then help him out of the water at the end. On beautiful Bournemouth beach and in weather like we’ve had, this is no hardship so I’m not complaining. But it’s all time out of my busy day.

Earlier this year I signed up for the Bournemouth half-marathon, which is in early October. So I need to pick up my running – get out there and start building up the distance. I’m so slow a 10km run takes me nearly an hour and a half.

And then today I realised that I have to do the ‘blue’ jobs as well as the ‘pink’ jobs. A U-bend under the in-sink disposal unit (aka the muncher) clogged up. I have never, repeat never, unblocked a U-bend in my life before today. (I have led a sheltered life and there has always been someone around with greater plumbing skills than me.) But I managed it, and then did a silly dance around the house because it is now official – I AM SUPERWOMAN and I can do ANYTHING!

Ahem. All this is really just a long-winded excuse for the lack of blog posts lately.

On writing a first chapter

19 Thursday Jun 2014

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The first chapter of a novel is so important – it’s the first thing a reader, editor or agent sees, and if they don’t like it they won’t read on. And these days with Amazon offering the Look Inside feature, potential readers can read the start of your book from the comfort of their armchair. Get it wrong and it’s all they’ll ever read. Get it right and you’ll make a sale.

One of my novels has had so many first chapters it’s amazing it knows its own identity. For your amusement, here’s its history, to date. What I needed to happen in the first chapter was for amateur genealogist Katie to visit a house where her ancestors used to live, get a look inside, and have the current owners hint to her at mysteries in its past. In chapter 2 the historical part of the story begins; from then on the chapters alternate between current day and historical.

First version

Katie arrives at the house, knocks on the door, chats to the owners and they show her round and hint at mysteries in the house’s past.

I read this version out to my writing group, and the feedback was that it was all too easy for her, there was no conflict. So…

Second version

Katie arrives at the house, knocks on the door but there’s no answer. She sneaks round the back to peer in windows, gets caught in the act by the current owners who threaten to call the police etc. She explains why she’s there, then they get interested, show her round inside and hint at mysteries in the house’s past.

I sent this version to a literary critique agency. The feedback was that it was all very well, but a central theme of the novel was conflict between Katie and her husband (who doesn’t get why she’s so fascinated by the past) and that I should show that conflict in chapter one.

Also, this version was discussed in depth by a group of fellow writers at a novelists’ conference, and they came up with the marvellous suggestion of taking the start of chapter 2 (which is the first historical chapter) and turning it into a prologue to give the novel a proper hook.

So…

Third version

New prologue – a couple of pages in the form of a letter, providing a definite hook and hinting at a mystery connected with the house.

Chapter One begins with a new opening scene where Katie reminds her husband she’s off to look at the old house, and he needs to look after the kids. They have a row, and their conflicting views are shown. Katie storms out and goes to the house, then it continues as version 2.

I sent this version to an agent with whom I had a one-to-one at the Winchester writers’ conference last year. He liked the novel and wanted to see the whole thing, but asked me to change the first chapter. ‘Don’t start with a domestic,’ he said. ‘I get enough of that at home.’ So….

Fourth version

I rewrote the beginning, so that after the prologue it starts with Katie in the car on the way to the house, musing on the row she’d had with her husband and wondering if he’ll ever understand her obsession. She arrives at the house, then it continues as version 2.

Sadly the agent didn’t take me on. I then submitted this version to publisher Carina UK, and they’ve offered me a two-book deal! Which I am very, very excited about! But it is highly likely my editor (oh, how I enjoy saying my editor!) will want some changes, so…

Fifth version

You’ll have to wait until it’s published, and buy the book to find out!

 

But it all goes to show – often you’ll work harder on the beginning of a novel than on any other part. It can be the most difficult bit to get right. Remember, you don’t have to get it right first time. The point of the first draft of the first chapter is to get you up and running, into the story. Just write, even if you know it’s not a good opening, and keep writing. When you’ve reached the end, you can come back and rework that beginning, as many times as you need to, until you’ve got something which grabs readers and doesn’t let them go.