An author visit with added sock

Yesterday I was at Stamford High School for my first author visit of 2020; I'd been asked back three years after my first visit, to speak to Year 7 about writing and to run a short exercise on creative writing.

It was a glorious drive over the hills to Stamford - spring green in the fields nearer to Leicestershire, (though that was probably grass - the ground's still far too wet in places to plough and plant yet) and a deep red in Lincolnshire, (must be drier higher up) with the road undulating up and down like tarmacked waves. I always drive with music when I'm on my own - my CD of choice yesterday was a compilation by Fat Boy Slim, and as 'Bird of Prey' began to play, I saw not one, but two buzzards. Gosh, but they are HUGE!

I had no problem finding a place to park in Stamford, and stood watching what I think was a red kite soaring over the park. It had a deep red-brown underside and forked tail, anyway. The walk up to the school was a bit blustery, but I stopped off at St Martin's Church on the way up the hill. Last time I visited the school I sat on the church steps to eat pizza for lunch - this time, the church was open so I popped inside. It's a beautiful and peaceful building, with some really beautiful stained glass and monuments.

As to the visit itself...I had lunch with Miss S, who'd organised the visit, and a couple of other staff members. (Worth mentioning the conveyor belt to take the trays of plates away...could've played with that for a while!) And then we went to the library to meet the Book Club.

Now I've received little gifts in the past from students, but the Book Club showered me with things they'd made. The girls had been encouraged to read the Scribbles to find out a bit about me before I visited, so there were plenty of links to books, liquorice and socks!

little books (including a teensy tiny one!), origami, bracelet, cherryade,
beginnings of stories, envelopes, fortune teller and sock!

And to prove that the sock I was given fitted, here it is on my foot:

We had squash and biscuits and lots of questions, then it was time to head down to the hall (a different one to last time) to meet the whole year group. A fair few girls were presented with their merit badges before we began, then I was introduced.

I did the usual 'this is me, how I got into writing and how I go about writing' talk, then we got creative. Last time, I used my paint samples to inspire; this time I decided to use a character to spark ideas. At this point, I must credit the lovely Julie Cohen, because I attended her character workshop at York some years ago, and used some of the ideas from that but simplified them for the girls.

Eighty-seven girls got to work - and eighty-seven new characters were created. The hardest bit of the entire session wasn't getting them involved, it was getting my voice to carry. The hall was large, and my voice is still affected by this coughing virus I've had. (Six weeks and counting, but yes I've had it checked and my chest is clear...) There were some lovely ideas shared; Caleb, the slight ten year old boy who wore an oversized red sweatshirt. The object of importance which was the key to the character's heart. (Imagine, an actual key to your heart.) A cat as a character - which meant the student had to think about how to convey dialogue when it came to the character 'speaking'. Quite a few of the girls went above and beyond what I'd set them to do, and the pantsers got to work creating whole storylines...

It never ceases to amaze me how, when students are given free rein in writing sessions, so many of them can pick up an idea and run with it, without internal censoring or second guessing themselves. There's a freedom that I don't think our educational system allows students to have, which a visit like mine can allow - at least for a short time.

I really enjoyed myself - and I think the vast majority of the girls did, too. I hope that some of them will keep on writing, and one day I'll be reading their stories!

With thanks to Miss S for inviting me, to the Book Club for asking the best questions and for all my gifts, and for the whole of Year 7 for engaging so well in the workshop.

A tumbleweed blog?

I've not written a blog for weeks. Sorry. Not because I'm deserting the blog, but you know sometimes, life just seems to get in the way? There's so much going on that you could tell people, but actually, there's no time to write it all down? Well, yeah - that.

So here's a very brief summary of what's been happening.

The kitchen: Still unfinished. Still waiting for two doors, a working radiator, a floor, for cupboards to be straightened and niggly snags to be ironed out. But everything works, so we have moved back in and we're gradually beginning to remember where we've put the saucepans and bottles of squash and the Tupperware lids.

Birthdays: I am now the mother of an adult. Squidgeling J celebrated her 18th birthday and we held a joint 'open house' for family and friends to enjoy her 18th and my belated 50th. It was a lovely day, the highlight of which was the rainbow layer cake J made for me. Can you believe that we don't have a single photo of it, though? I was so busy with food and chat, I never managed to pick up the camera...

GCSE's: Squidgeling T did really well, with A's, 7's and 8's (which are A's and A*'s in last year's money!) a C (Spanish. Not a surprise) and B in FSMQ. He's now in 6th form at a new school, hard at work.

University: We're in the final countdown before Squidgeling J leaves home for Bristol. I'm a little conflicted over this - I know she'll be fine, but I can't help worrying. We've been making lists and buying bits and pieces and packing and yes, I have shed a few tears on the QT...

Writing: This year, I decided not to go to the Festival of Writing because of its closeness to Fresher's Week at Bristol. But I HAVE been writing. I'm about halfway into my rewrite of Rurik, doing bits and pieces every now and again. I can't wait to be able to carve out some time every day and work through even more of the old material to make it read even better.

Flowers: I helped one of the other churches in town with the arrangements for their flower festival. Situated in St. Joseph's Chapel, I plumped for a woodworking theme...

Library: We have popped into the library at school, but what we can do is a little limited at the moment because we are waiting for an update to the system in a couple of weeks.

So there we are. A very speedy catch up. Hopefully there will be more time to write blogs in the near future, and I'll manage at least one a week from here on... 

York 2016

I had mixed feelings about York this time. For a start, my driving buddy wasn't going this time, so it was a bit different having to lug a case full of books onto the train.

I'd also done a lot of the workshops in previous years and wondered whether there'd be enough new stuff to keep me inspired. That said, there's no harm in going to subjects you have covered before with a different speaker, because you might just pick up a different way of thinking about or approaching the same topic.

And I wasn't doing any 1-2-1's, something I was worried might seem a bit arrogant. A kind of 'I'm published now, so I don't need them' approach, rather than an 'I don't have anything I can show you!' wail of despair (which is actually the reality).

But I went. The best bit has to be that I met so many cloudies again - and others that I'd never met before in real life - and we all sat talking about writing. In my fifth festival, I also found I was also more confident about talking to agents and book doctors and speakers without fearing they'd cut me dead. Maybe they were getting to recognise me, too?

So to the nitty gritty, the learning, the 'what I got out of it'...

Friday afternoon I sat in Brian Keaney's mini course on the golden rules of children's literature. A lot of it I knew already, but what stuck with me was Brian's insistence that you have to address a child you know when telling your story (your own or someone else's), or reconnect with your inner child, something he went into in more depth in a later session about the role of insight in children's literature. I came away wondering what I do - is it my inner child that writes my stories, or do I have a particular child in mind when I write?

We also touched on the issue of 'cross-over' books which appeal to both children and adults. Brian was of the opinion that a lot of adults who read children's fiction are looking for something with a good story that isn't depressing, something I found particularly interesting as StarMark has been read by more adults than children at this point in time. And as I'm a sucker for a happy(ish) ending myself, perhaps I'm unknowingly writing what a lot of adults - as well as children - are craving?

He also observed that often, children are powerless in their world. Stories have to reflect that powerlessness in order to inform and colour the decisions made by the child to shape the story you're telling on their behalf. And remember; children are human beings too.

There were excellent keynote speakers this year. C.L.Taylor, (Home for Christmas, The Missing, The Lie) and Jo Cannon (The Trouble with Goats and Sheep, whose talk I mostly missed because we had to get an earlier taxi to avoid the traffic delays caused by SkyRide York!) both proved that the unthinkable CAN happen if you want to be a bestselling author, but the road is often long and fraught with brutal edits and personal difficulties which mean the overnight success takes years to achieve.

Have to say that although I love hearing different authors' writing journeys, they always tend to be really big names at the Festival. I know that's bound to be a draw, but just once, it'd be great to hear from someone with - I was going to say less success, but of course that's completely wrong! From someone with less of a 'Big 5' approach to the business, because I am certain that most of the audience at York will probably end up as self-pubbed or small press pubbed authors rather than those who are discovered and experience a meteoric rise to fame. It would be no less inspiring to hear of other writing journeys and non-bestseller successes in publication... but perhaps that wouldn't be enough of a draw for the punters.

Julie Cohen's First 100 Words session was a blast! Not only were we given hints and tips on how to grab our reader in the opening few sentences, we were also given the opportunity to send in our first 100 words for Julie's opinion. She gave feedback on 26 previously unread submissions, rattling off first impressions at breakneck speed. Mine was one of them - number 13, but I'm not superstitious. Here's the piece I sent and what I jotted down of Julie's comments:

“All out! All out for Kartalma, if you please!”

            Zanni groaned and stretched. “Why’s he yelling, when there’s only two of us?”

            “I daresay he doesn’t get the chance to do it very often. Few people come this far so he’s making the most of it.” Pa pushed his glasses up his nose and shot a glance at Zanni. “At least it’s not dark yet.”

            “No.”

            Zanni was glad of it; too many of their travelling days had ended with night drawing in and the inside of the carriage being plunged into the kind of darkness which had brought the fear flooding back.

Great - fear of dark there. No backstory and keep backstory shrunk. Keeps us reading on. Where is it happening? Where is Kartalma? More sense of place.

I took notes on all 26 pieces and there were lots of positives as well as points for improvement. Interesting that some of the ones Julie loved, I was a bit 'meh' about - but that just reinforces the subjective nature of the written word and what appeals to different readers.

Thriller Plotting Techniques with Daren King was a strange session. There was lots of really useful tips in it, proving that Daren knew his stuff. But unfortunately he was a very nervous speaker which made it hard to listen to him until he'd begun to relax about half way through the allotted time. Daren introduced many 'concepts' which could be applied to a story to essentially increase the tension in a variety of ways, and I found myself jotting little notes about CKD (my current WIP) as he spoke, because I could see how something I'd already written into the novel's outline could be used to greater effect. There were also some useful definitions of bribery vs extortion (paying someone as opposed to forcing someone) and mystery and suspense (a question mark over the past or present, as opposed to a question mark hanging over the future) that I will be making much use of.

I attended two sessions by C.M.Taylor on Character is Destiny. By which, I mean I didn't do the same one twice - there was a part one and two! Part 1 looked at the golden triangle used by screenwriters to boost the emotional power of plot which I'd taken two years ago. (You can read about it by clicking here) and also introduced the Transformational Arc by Dara Marks. The latter is a device which produces a variation on a character arc within the four act structure, and I have to say I struggle to understand all the different phases. Well, I don't - I can understand them when I see the arc in front of me, but - and this is the pain in the bum bit - I don't know how to apply it to my own writing!

In part 2, Craig looked at how theme could be used to determine a character's destiny in combination with the golden triangle and transformational arc. Basically, when you have the theme of your novel, you can design characters to reflect the theme, oppose the theme, be ambivalent to the theme, or even be the neg of neg, ie someone who thinks they have solved the problem but in fact has not. (Deluded with respect to the theme, maybe?) The more fatuous the theme, the better this works because the more variations on the theme you can introduce. (It's also something I'd heard before in a session with Julie Cohen) Craig gave a great worked example based on a piece he'd been commissioned to write based on the barred list in a London pub.

Mind you, since having come home and tried to tackle the outline of CKD in this way, I got completely disillusioned and despairing because although I can see the events in my novel, I'm not sure whether they are the resistance or exhaustion phase, what my inciting incident is, how I push my character to breaking point...etc etc. I looked on the web to see if I could find anything to help, and surprisingly found a few articles on why the three act structure can actually stifle your creativity and you should focus on the natural story structure instead.

I like that idea a lot more, so I'll work with what I've got whilst sticking to a general intro, build-up, hi point, oh s**t moment, climax and resolution. It's vague enough for this mainly-pantsing writer!

Last of all, I attended Jeremy Sheldon's Endings and How to Climax in any Genre. (I like Jeremy - we shared a table for Sunday breakfast when I was running some ideas past Brian Keaney - and he really knows his stuff when it comes to screenwriting and how you can apply screenwriting tricks to the written word.)

This session came about because often, we focus on grabbing a reader at the start of our book - but do we apply the same effort to giving them a satisfactory ending? Compelling climaxes are decisive (no going back, time running out) substantive (present a risk to self or others) and spiritual (can be moral, psychological or emotional). They require that the protagonist makes a previously impossible choice to gain a slim chance at achieving the impossible. Put simply, the choicemaking has to be the most difficult it can be at this point of the novel. Make your protagonist work for every inch of gained ground until the situation is resolved...or not.

And there you have it. The only other things to report back on are the gala dinner (I wore a tiara thought there isn't much photographic evidence of that fact. Check out Debi Alper's blog for lots of pics of the FoW2016 - I'm in there somewhere), which didn't have dancing this year (boo!) but had lovely food and very good company as always; the futurecast session, where the issue of ebook pricing was hotly discussed though we all agreed to disagree and be polite while we were doing it; several cloudies had full MS requests and there was some very good news on the agent front for another; and last, but not least, I sold 10 of the 14 copies of StarMark I'd taken with me.

Not bad, eh?

Roll on FoW 2017...

Where did the summer go?

Actually, that's a misleading title.

If we're talking weather, then the summer is well and truly here this week, with very warm days and the threat of thunder. By 'summer', I'm talking about the holidays. Long, leisurely lazy mornings and nothing much planned. Instead, we're back at school (Leicestershire goes back immediately after the August Bank Holiday) and hit the ground running with new timetables, changes to after-school clubs, scouting, meetings...it's a bit of a shock to the system.

Add to that a wedding (more of that later), the Festival of Writing and a NIBS meeting, and I've not really felt much like blogging til now.

So let's start with the wedding. It was held in the Roman Baths in Bath, and was a beautiful occasion, full of love and very emotional. I'm only going to share one photo with you though. This one, taken outside the door of Bath Abbey by an obliging passer-by:

An ageing hippy/intellectual type with an armful of paperwork offered to take the pic for us. As the four of us (sis, Mum, Dad and me) posed, we started to giggle because our well-meaning photographer had the camera at a weird angle. It seems to be the trendy thing to do, to slant your photos, but we just laughed and let him get on with it. Look to the right of the photo too - he managed to get his pile of paperwork in, even if he did chop mum and sis off... 

The Festival of Writing...always a fab experience, and no less special this year than in previous years. The best bit, as always, is meeting friends old and new, and catching up on how everyone's doing in their quest to be published. I will blog about some of the sessions I attended and what I learned about myself and my writing this time, so more of that later...

And NIBS. Our little writing group met last night to get in touch with our inner child (inspired by a couple of York sessions). One of the exercises we tried was to produce something in the style of a well known children's author. When the Squidgelings were small, one of their favourite bedtime books was Peepo, by Janet and Allan Ahlberg, so that's what I used as a starting point. Thought I'd share it with you...

Here's a little schoolboy

One, two, three.

On his way to school

What does he see?

He sees his neighbour sitting

in a chair all alone

But he carries on by 

Cos he's kicking a stone

He sees a little lady

With a big black dog

And then he pretends 

To be a green frog.

Here's a little schoolboy

One, two, three.

Gets to the playground

What does he see?

His friends Ben and Jerry 

are running round and round.

Chasing little Katy

With a leaf they've found.
He sees the dinner trolley
With packed lunches piled high
And the mums and dads all talking
as a plane flies by.

Here's a little schoolboy

One, two, three.

sits in the classroom

What does he see?

He sees the teacher smiling

as she ticks off names

and a table in the corner

where there's lots of games

He sees the coloured pencils

in the pencil pot

And the numberline and playdough

and a book he's got.

Here's a little schoolboy

One, two, three.

Eating his dinner now

What does he see?

He sees the dinner ladies

in their aprons blue

and chips and bananas

and fishfingers too.

He sees his squished up sarnies

with the marmite in

and the juicebox of orange

with a tiger's grin.

Here's a little schoolboy

One, two, three.

outside for P.E

What does he see?

He sees a bag of footballs

and some bright red cones

A running track of nice green grass 

and no sharp stones.

He sees the teacher's stopwatch

hears the whistle too

And remembers - should've gone before!

He needs the loo.

Here's a little schoolboy

One, two, three.

The schoolday's over

What does he see?

He sees his mummy waiting

With a smile on her face

And there's his little sister

in the usual place.

He sees the clock hands moving 

Til they point to three

The door opens - out he runs

It's nearly time for tea!

So if you had to write in the style of a children's author you love, who would it be? 

Being lazy - again!

The last week has been totally hectic because of the church flower festival. The only writing I've managed are blogs about the festival over on a different blog site, so forgive me if I send you over there now to have a peek at what's kept me SO busy!

Having said that, I'm hoping to get a bit more of Kingstone drafted before I go to York for the Festival of Writing  - yes, it really is that time again! - and the evenings are drawing in, so I can cosy up in the lounge with my notebook and pen...

There's also the StarMark competition - got to find a winner!

So I'll leave you with storytelling in flowers for now and come back to you when I'm writing 'properly' again.

The determination gene

Delighted to say that I've got a guest post up on the Writer's Workshop blog today, which tells of my long involvement with these fabulous folk who champion writers at whatever stage of their writing journey they're at. It also mentions the wonderful Cloudies...and quite a bit about how having determination and perseverance pays off in this strange old world of being an author.

You can read it by clicking THIS LINK.

Sharing my love of writing

I've been gratified to receive not one, but two, requests recently for creative writing workshops.

Now, I have to be honest - I'm not a qualified teacher. I do have training in my background; years ago I gained a Certificate in Training and Development when I was designing and running cleanliness courses at work. That learning was backed up with an NVQ Level 3 in Training and Development as an Association Trainer with the Guide Association. I've also spent quite a few years (paid and unpaid) supporting primary school children in the classroom. And I help to run a small creative writing group locally.

And I write. I've even had work published, so I do know a little bit about writing stories.

But does all of that really add up to me knowing enough about 'creative writing' to run a kosher workshop?

Having recently been to York and sat in some fabulous workshops (check out the FOW15 Diaries on dialogue, theme and taking risks), I feel woefully inadequate compared to those very distinguished workshop leaders. Almost like a fraud...

I suppose it depends on what you want out of a workshop. If you want to kick your writing into shape, you most probably need to find someone who's more of an expert in sentence formation and story arcs to run the session.

If, on the other hand, you want to play with words, explore ways of inspiring stories, create characters and settings to get your story-juices flowing...

Well, then I might just be the right person for the job.

That's what's gone into the session plan for now, anyway; I'll let you know how it works out when I do it for real with the children...

Getting to grips with technology during an author visit earlier this year...

Who Dares, Wins - Taking risks with your writing (FOW15 Diaries)

How often do you get stuck in your writing? You look at what you've written and go 'bleurgh!' because it just...isn't...working?

Sometimes we need something to pull us out of the hole we appear to have dug ourselves into - and this workshop, run by the lovely Shelley Harris (author of Jubilee and Vigilante) looked at some intriguing methods to get our writerly juices flowing again. But it meant taking risks, forcing ourselves to move outside of our comfort zone.

The first thing we tried was character names; we had to write five names that we would never give our characters. When asked why we'd not use them, the reasons were many and varied - but Shelley challenged us to go away and write a colourful character for the boring name, to write Tarquin Roderick Matthias Jameson the Fourth without a penny to his name... I found myself writing quite a few 'upper class' names, or ones that sounded like doddery old ladies. Wonder what that says about the names I do choose and perhaps my prejudices for those I don't...?

Then we considered what stories we'd write if no-one were ever to read them. That's because we've all got no-go areas in our writing. Perhaps we choose not to write about our past, because we worry about upsetting people still living. Perhaps we choose not to write about sex or violence, for fear of shocking our readers. (She seems so nice! How on earth would she know about that?)

There are bound to be other examples - these are just what popped into my head as I was writing the blog - but the real reason we don't write certain things is because we are afraid of being judged; we edit ourselves, even before we've begun writing the story. If you could write, knowing that no-one would ever read what you've written, you have edited out instead other people's judgements and allowed yourself the freedom to commit what you want to write to the page. I'm not sure what I'd write if you were never going to read it; I fear my own self-editing rules are etched too deep inside to ever erase completely...

(Both of these ideas were attributed to Susie Maguire)

The next idea Shelley showed us was a morphological matrix. The creative think tank on wikispace describes this as 'a tool for generating options. It provides a structured or systematic way to generate a large number of possibilities including many unique or highly unusual options.'

Sounds complicated, but it's not, really. Draw yourself a grid. Across the top of the columns, add labels like 'jobs I've done, locations I know well, skills/knowledge I possess, favourite smells, current obsession'. Now fill in the lists with at least eight items for each one. Dig deep.

When you've done, combine the items across the grid in many and varied ways - and when you have, for example, egg pickler, the brook path, how to knit socks, lily of the valley and notebooks, (yep, they really apply to me) sit and think about what story you'd tell with them. Mine the familiar - but tell an unfamiliar story. It's a bit like those books you had as a kid, where the page was split into three parts and you could flip over different sections so you had a diver's head with a doctor's middle and a ballet dancer's feet...

On the subject of mining your own life experience, ask yourself questions - do you believe in justice or mercy? In nature or nurture? If you could return to one time in your life, when would it be and why? Complete the sentence 'Most people wouldn't guess that I...' Can you use these things to add to or generate a story?

You could BE your character. At which point, Shelley shared her experience of dressing up as a superhero for a day while she researched her novel, Vigilante. (You can read about her experience here.) Easy, it was not. But without that experience, Shelley couldn't have known what it felt like to put on a mask and hide behind the anonymity whilst trying to do good.

Make the unexpected happen; Pixar story rule #9 states 'When you're stuck, list what WOULDN'T happen next and material to get you unstuck will show up.' Your subconscious inevitably finds a way - which led us onto Petals problem solving.

Now this one was spooky - lots of folk in the room seemed to come up with a solution to a problem using this method - all starting with a single, completely random word from a dictionary. My problem was trying to make a character more active in a scene where she's arriving at an island on the king's ship - I had no idea how to solve that.

Shelley asked for a number, which gave her the page in the dictionary. The second gave her which word to pick on that page; can you believe the word was 'ahoy'? When my problem was ship-based? Spooky moment number one...

On a clean page, we drew a central circle, and surrounded it with eight 'petals'. In the centre, we wrote 'Ahoy' and around the outside - in the petals - we wrote words we associated with it. Mine were all very piratey and sea-faring, as you might expect.

Then the work began. We had to use the words we'd written in the petals to solve our problem. And the weird thing? I did - but I'm not going to tell you because I've not worked it into the story quite just yet. We were asked to share our thinking process; some climbed up into their crow's nest or looked through a telescope to see the bigger picture, and solved their problem that way. Everyone agreed that this method felt 'spooky' because from just one word, we solved our many and varied problems.

The idea is that the apparent randomness isn't really as random as you think. The process simply allows your 'good' mind to step out of the way and allow your subconscious access to the problem; it might have worked just as well if we'd had the word 'bell' or 'foot' in the centre of our flower, who knows?

And the last thing to try, to get your writing out of a slump?  Ask yourself what you'd write if you couldn't fail? And get it written. (Or as Shelley said, The F***-It Draft, or FID) Only to be used as a last resort, mind you, this method can come up with moments of sheer genius because it releases you completely.

In summary, taking risks in your writing is about being counter intuitive, about finding strategies to unloose your subconscious - and, probably most importantly, to stop caring about what others think!

Here's to a riskier Squidge in future...

Finding your novel's theme (FOW15 Diaries)

Julie Cohen is a great author, a wonderfully bubbly lady and she runs fantastic writing workshops. My last two York festivals, I've attended her Learning story structure from Pixar and Character sessions and got an awful lot out of them.

This year, I put myself down for another one - Finding your Novel's Theme - which was held on Severus Snape Sunday. Why Severus Snape Sunday? Because Julie decreed it so.

Anyway... theme. I can't say it's something I think about consciously up front, but apparently there are people who do - which makes me a discovery writer (pantser!) rather than an analytical one (planner!).

So what is theme? Well, it's the emotional core of your book... The question you're asking... The main abstract idea you're exploring... The problem you keep returning to... The pivot on which your book turns... The cakeness of your cake.

Sorry, have I lost you on that last one? Let me explain - Julie also recommended we look up one of Chuck Wendig's terribleminds blog post about theme, which uses the analogy of CAKE (among other things) to understand theme. Chuck wrote;

'In cake, every piece is a microcosm of the whole. A slice contains frosting, cake, filling. Okay, that’s not entirely true — sometimes you get a piece of cake where you get something other pieces don’t get, like a fondant rose, but really, let’s be honest, fondant tastes like sugary b***hole. Nasty stuff. So, let’s disregard that and go back to the original notion: all pieces of cake contain the essence of that cake. So it is with your story: all pieces of the story contain the essence of that story, and the essence of that story is the theme. The theme is cake, frosting, filling. In every slice you cut. Man, now I really want a piece of cake.'

(To see the rest of Chuck's post, follow this link.)

Sounds simple, doesn't it? The emotional core of your book. But...but...how, if you're like me and you don't start with a theme up front, how the heck do you figure it out so that every single morsel of story contains that essential essence? Does it fall into place naturally or do you have to work at it?

In already published novels, the covers will often hint at the theme - Julie's own novel, Dear Thing, is based on parenthood, reflected by a cover picturing baby shoes. Great for hinting at the reader what they might be getting. But for those of us still working on unpublished stories? Who can't use visual clues?

Well, THAT was the focus of the workshop - we had to find our own novel's theme.

Julie suggested looking at several things;
1. The main character's conflicts and desires
2. The premise of the story
3. The title and/or the first line
4. The main emotions
5. The idea or problem that as a writer, you are exploring
6. The resolution.

I tried it out with King Stone...and came to the conclusion that its central theme is 'doing the right thing'. Which sounds a little clumsy when you consider themes cover such huge issues as sacrifice, abandonment, loss, justice, identity, 'there's no place like home' and the like.

Incidentally - there was another 'doing the right thing' theme in the group, but as Julie pointed out, they would be totally different stories because as authors, we approach the theme from different directions and may choose to focus on different genres.

So, having found the theme, we moved onto a mind-map to explore it further. Here's mine:

Which gave rise to one of my favourite quotes of the weekend; 'How far you take this depends on how far you want to procrastinate.'

So with all these ideas now in the bag, how do you use them in your novel? Well, you could select subplots, using a 'branch' that is separate to your main character's branch. The central theme is reflected, but the subplot is distinctly different. You could design secondary characters to work with or against your MC. You can refine character conflicts. You could even choose your setting - in Julie's case, her parenthood theme led her to schools, hospitals, school playgrounds, antenatal classes, maternity shops and infertility clinics...all related, yet all distinctly separate.

Getting the drift?

I was surprised to see how much of my theme had subconsciously seeped into what I'd already written of King Stone; somewhere along the line, I must've given in to gut feeling and gone with where the story was heading. And as a pantser, I wonder whether that's preferable to trying to plan too much? (Although I think King Stone has been planned more than any other novel I've attempted to write, so maybe I'm moving towards a mix of the two?)

It's an interesting exercise that, having done it, I'm sure I'm going to be able to use to enrich King Stone. I can certainly see how my mind-map works for minor characters as well as main ones... And if it works for King Stone, who knows? My next WIP might start with theme rather than stumbling upon it halfway through the story.

So huge thanks again to Julie for another useful tool to go in my writer's toolkit.

And completely off-topic, I was delighted to see that Lego Hannibal (Lector), who travels everywhere with Julie, also made it to York!

Perhaps I should've introduced him to a few of the Lego peeps from the Squidge household? Next year, maybe...

Dressing up time (The gala dinner - FOW15 diaries)

This time last week, the gala dinner was done and dusted - and I have no pictures from it at all. You'll just have to imagine the scene...

From DJ's to dirndls, sequins to sassy, we had it all. Even a vampire - complete with red silk lined cloak and eight inch high stand-up collar! Definitely a first for York...

The vast majority of folk were dressed up, though no-one was turned away if they were still in jeans. There didn't seem to be as many long frocks this year, more cocktail dresses than formal gowns. And a lot of the ladies wore trousers - I did, for a change. Some of the frocks were outstanding - special mention goes to the Writer's Workshop lass who was a veritable glitterball of a photographer...

The dining room (when we finally got in - they made us wait outside and it was freezing!) was a forest of red and black serviettes. I don't know how many folk sat down to dinner, but there were at least 33 tables, each with 8 people sitting round them.

The menu:
Prawn and salmon starter with lemon and dill cream.
Guinea fowl and veg. (Never eaten guinea fowl before - liked it.)
(Posh) Chocolate brownie with ice cream.
Coffee and mints.

After dinner, it was time for thank yous and competition winners. Flower maidens Jane and Moira, Hil, and Rachel were joined by 'the festival's poster boy', Imran. I can't remember all the competition winners, but I'll do my best. The children's star was a young man who wrote 'The Sound of Colour' (he also read at Friday Night Live). Best pitch was won by the same author who'd won Friday Night Live. (Interesting that her pitch was built from the opening few paragraphs of her book, all about her childhood with a veteran soldier father. And there was only one prize for best pitch, when previously there'd been information suggesting there would be two - one for an adult book, one for children's. Never did feel brave enough to collar the judges and ask what'd happened...) There was another prize, offered by a printing company, but I can't remember what it was for - the lady who won seemed utterly delighted anyway. And then there was The Big One - The Opening Chapter competition. I was dead chuffed to see a fellow cloudie, Sophie Wellstood, walk away with the prize.

There was the traditional self-edit course graduates photo - after 16 courses, there were loads of us! And it is so satisfying to see so many of those graduates who have gone on to reap the rewards of the course with MS requests, offers of representation and publishing contracts.

Then...Disco! We've been asking for one for the last few years. Whether WW finally gave in, or whether they decided to give us a treat for the WW 10th birthday celebrations, I'm not sure, but it was great fun. Several die-hard cloudies boogied the night away into the wee small hours, including Jody Klaire dancing on her new wheels and Dave Gaughran in The Hat. I was called a minx - whether because people saw me dancing, or the fact I was wearing a corset that didn't have much of a back to it, I do not know - but it was great to let our hair down. I think some folk found it too loud when the music started, but there was plenty of bar space or outside lounge to sit and chat if you wanted somewhere quieter...

I finally sloped off to bed just after half twelve, my feet killing me and my ears ringing; at least I got a bit more sleep than those who stayed up till 5am...

So tell me, what else did I miss?

Double the fun (Keynote speeches - FOW15 Diaries)

Both the keynote speeches at the festival this year were doubly worth listening to - not least because they were both double acts.

The making of Nicci French.

On Saturday morning, we were treated to a conversation with Sean French and Nicci Gerrard, the husband and wife duo who are behind the pseudonym Nikki French. (Here's an interview they did a few years ago from the BBC)

They shared their individual stories of how they became writers - both studied English Lit at Oxford, though they never met at the time, both became journalists - and then they met, married, carried on writing individually until...they had an idea for a story and decided to write it. Together.

Now, writing a book by myself is hard. Writing it with another person and not coming to blows over it must be even harder! But Sean and Nicci seem to have found a way that works for both of them and Nicci French can probably be described as 'the other woman' in their marriage...

The first thing Sean and Nicci do is find the beating heart of their book - what's the plot? Whose voice will tell it? And only when they are sure they both have the same book firmed up in their heads do they begin writing. Sean has a writing shed, Nicci has an attic and they email sections of the book to each other. So if Sean started the story off, he'd send the piece to Nicci, she'd read it, edit it if she felt it needed changing, maybe add a little something after, and send it back to Sean to continue. Individually, they have very different styles, but they never tell which bit was written by whom, they don't change anything back (!) and eventually, a third voice appears that is a mixture of two.

Nicci said that by reading one bit and accepting it, you have taken ownership of what has been written. The whole process of writing is based on trust, respect and courtesy to each other. (Which made me wonder whether we are as generous when we give or receive critique from others? I've certainly seen instances where respect and courtesy were distinctly lacking.) And it helps to see the changes made as not being personal - it's for the good of the book.

As to Nicci French's novels, they are described as psychological thrillers, which build on a feeling of dread and focus on extraordinary things happening to ordinary people; Nicci French definitely has a particular kind of thing she likes to write, and she thinks in a certain way - but as Nicci (G!) pointed out, "You become a new writer with every book you start."

It was a fascinating insight of collaborative working, and I was left wondering whether it was ever something I could do myself.

Diana Beaumont and Eve Harris.

The festival ended on Sunday with another conversation, this time between the agent Diana Beaumont and her author, Eve Harris; Eve's debut novel, The Marrying of Chani Kaufman, was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2013. (It sounded so fascinating, I bought it on Monday and have already finished it. Enjoyed the style and the insights into this normally closed world, but the book has received mixed reviews).

Their conversation bounced back and forth, sharing the story of how they met - not via the slushpile as you might think, but via an acupuncturist.

But before we reached that part of the story, Eve told us about herself. She was a teacher, first at a convent school, then at a North London Orthodox Jewish school for girls. She is also married to a secular Jew, and it is the world of Orthodox Jews that inspired her novel. Having enjoyed writing short stories, Eve joined a City Lit class. There, she had her work 'mauled' (her words, not mine!) by both the tutor and her peers and came close to jacking writing in.

Then she got mad and wrote a short piece about Jewish life. When it was read out the next week, everything changed; Eve was accepted into the writer's group (Perhaps you CAN write after all was the tutor's comment) and she continued to write the unfolding story. During that process, she also approached the Writer's Workshop to find a mentor - someone who would help her to shape the story she wanted to tell. Eve also began testing it on a bunch of friends who let her read to them - because as she pointed out, it's all right reading to other writers but their aim is to get published too, so they are always thinking about their novel rather than yours. I'd not thought about that before, but it makes sense...

One of those friends was Eve's acupuncturist, an avid reader. Naarva Carman thought it was so good, she passed it on to another of her clients - Diana Beaumont - who just happened to be an agent. As Diana said, "Success is about talent, tenacity and timing", at which point Eve chipped in with "And the right agent for the client." In their case, everything seemed to click.

But.

The novel received 42 rejections from publishers. It got so bad for Eve, she would take lengthy detours rather than walk past another bookshop. Finally, they got the call; a small Scottish indie, Sandstone Press, would like to publish the story that was to become The Marrying of Chani Kaufman at 'Sandstone Bob's' suggestion. The original print run was only going to be 500 copies, but Sandstone were persuaded to increase to 1000...

And then there was the longlisting for the Man Booker Prize. The rest is history...

Eve hasn't written anything since, as she's had two children, but I'm sure this is not going to be the only novel we'll see from her.

What I took away most from this keynote was how important the relationship between agent and author is - it was very obvious that Eve and Diana work well together and that Diana believes very much in her client.

I can only hope that one day, I'll find the same...

'Ey up, me duck!' (Talking about dialogue - FOW 15 diaries)

If you listen to people talking, you are aware that they don't all use the Queen's English. Yet so many newbie writers tend to write any dialogue in their stories exactly that way. I probably did too.

I don't think I'm too bad at dialogue now, but I still chose J.S Law's workshop for two reasons:

1. I always hope there's something else I might learn about a subject, however confident I feel about it.

2. James is a fellow cloudie who recently published his first novel - Tenacity, a gritty crime thriller set in the world of naval submarines (I've read it - flippin' good!) - and I wanted to support him.

Anyway.

As an ex-navy man himself, James's style was brisk and to the point as you might expect - and boy, did he pack a lot into an hour. We could have gone on much longer; I found I didn't really have time to do the exercises we were given properly before we were sharing them. But that's a function of my need for a bit of thinking time before embarking on an exercise and is not to say I didn't learn anything - far from it.

The rules (yep, we started with rules) of the workshop were pretty simple and could be summarised by 'your words stand alone'. Don't apologise for what you'd written, James said. If you read aloud, then we - the rest of the room - discuss. Be supportive, be honest. And be brief and to the point. (Which made me wonder how many sessions he'd had sat through where one person dominated proceedings...I'm sure we've all probably been there?)

On to the meaty bit of the session...

Dialogue needs to tell us about the person who's speaking, and who they're speaking to. It should always - ALWAYS - move the plot forward. It should be compatible with the character, their environment, and be able to foreshadow events or declare intentions. It's no good having your Victorian urchin speaking in contemporary teenager-ese, for example. ('Yeah, so like, did you read abaht the latest Dickens book? Great Expectations? It's sick, man!') But don't go too far with 'insider knowledge' in dialogue either - we were shown a sample of a real conversation between two navy guys which read like gobble-de-gook to us but was perfectly understandable to those 'in the know'. For instance - do you know what 'Harry black noose' means? (Answer at the end of this blog...) Be wary of using dialect or accent so much that you isolate the reader.

(Having said that though, some authors use dialect and speech patterns to great effect - take a look at Brian Jacques' Redwall series and note how each kind of animal speaks. Great for reading aloud too - you just say what you see!)

We were shown how you can glean all sorts of information from dialogue - it can hint at gender, background, schooling, race, workplace, motivation... It is never lazy. It earns its place in a manuscript and if set up right, what is spoken should not need to be tagged. As in, you could lose 'she exclaimed' from "What a pretty dress!" if it's effectively framed by action. And 'Put the gun down' does not need 'he ordered'. 'He/she said' is almost invisible by comparison.

Every character speaks differently. Some of us waffle, others are more to the point. And in your writing of dialogue, you should bring in these differences. Not only does it make the characters unique in themselves, but by changing the way they routinely speak can hint at how they feel about situations that are occurring.

I can honestly say that I have never laughed so much during a workshop, or worked my brain so hard! I've taken away from the session the need to really make my dialogue work - make sure it is the character speaking, not me. And that I had never realised how much work dialogue does in the stories I've both read and written. I'm still not sure I can be as analytical about dialogue as James appeared to be, but having read his book, I can see the difference it makes, so I'm going to have a damn good go!


(And the answer? Black tie... which makes perfect sense once you know.)

York 15 : the first instalment.

The Festival of Writing. Every year I wonder whether I should go and this year I wondered even more, because I didn't have anything I felt was 'ready' to take. Even on the way up to York, chatting away to my travel-buddy Imran (who you might remember designed the covers of Granny Rainbow and is in his own right, a fabulously enthusiastic author of several books), I didn't feel particularly excited.

As soon as I stepped through the doors of the Roger Kirk Centre and saw the first of many familiar faces, I started grinning: there was the wonderful Writer's Workshop team booking everyone in, 'leprecaun noir' author Paddy and Nick Sheridan, cloudie friends like Skylark, Raine, John and J.Net, the amazing Debi Alper, agents and authors... The tingle was most definitely back, and as the weekend went on, I was glad I'd decided to make this my fourth year.

Some of you reading this from here on in will wonder what the heck I'm on about, but those Who Were There will understand these snippets from the weekend - some more than others!

"A proper author has an agent." Sam Copeland (just imagine how that went down in an audience which included several successful self-published authors...)

"That shower curtain REALLY loves me!" J.S. Law

"Every writer is full of faith and full of doubt - and self-criticism" and "You become a new writer with every book you start." Nikki French duo, Sean French and Nicky Gerard

"Why, oh why, does the publishing industry treat me like a leopard?" Unknown disgruntled writer

"Readers are bloodhounds for truth and authenticity." Shelley Harris

"Today is Severus Snape Sunday. Because." Julie Cohen

"Success relies on talent, tenacity and timing." Diane Beaumont

"My kidneys are crying!" Competition winner, the morning after the champagne...

"I was woken by The Phantom Noseblower at 6am." Me. (I'd forgotten how thin the walls are in uni halls!)

"They've asked to see the full MS!" Heard from far too many folk to name you all individually. You know who you are, and I'm cheering you on.

I will blog more over the next few days - about the specific workshops, my 1-2-1 feedback, the gala dinner and keynote speakers - because every time I go to York, I learn something. I learn something about myself, about the craft, about the people I spend time with.

This year, I learnt that I still have some fundamental flaws in my approach to storytelling, that I have a recognisable writing style (hereafter to be referred to as Squidge-speak) and that it's more the structure than the voice which means I fail to capture that elusive 'wow' factor.

But that's what York does; it enables, encourages, challenges you to be the best writer you can be. Not necessarily 'best' as in the most successful or well-known - but the best YOU can be.

I'm still trying to be the best I can. I AM moving forwards but I haven't reached the finish line yet, where I can say (like one of the competition winners who'd had multiple MS requests) "I think I get it now...I know how all of this works." One day...

Honey? I'm ho-ome!

Only those who've been to the York Festival of Writing will understand when I say that all weekend, you're buzzing. The adrenalin kicks in as soon as you see the Writer's Workshop staff at the registration desk, the first few cloudie friends, the geese on the lake...

By Sunday afternoon, you're so cream crackered that you can hardly think straight - you've 1-2-1 feedback running through your head, disbelief from MS requests or competition wins (not me, I hasten to add - but I saw many in that situation), and sheer lack of sleep.

Sunday night, if you're like me, you're glad to get back to your own bed, which is in a quiet room and not lumpy...there's even a proper shower instead of a curtain that loves you and won't leave you alone.

And then it's Monday morning. And you are going through the motions as the adrenalin drains away and normal service is resumed: alarm goes off at 6am, making sandwiches, finding PE kits, catching up with the washing pile (which has turned inexplicably into a mountain while you've been away, in spite of the fact you did LOADS before you went exactly so that wouldn't happen) and trying to morph from 'Squidge the author' back to 'Squidge the mum/wife/homemaker'.

I WILL tell you more about the festival - the workshops, the gala dinner, my 1-2-1 feedback on King Stone, the pitiful 2/3 photos that I took - but not just yet.

Be patient. It will be worth it, I promise.

When things don't feel good any more...

I haven't blogged much recently. Things - generally - have stalled on the writing front.

It's not that I don't want to get on with projects or post blogs - far from it! But there are several things on the writing front that are out of my hands at the moment and I'm playing the waiting game. Which seems to be sapping my writing energy, big time.

It's affected King Stone pretty badly. As you know, I'm working through the first draft, editing and filling it out. I was blasting along quite merrily, getting a chapter done a day, and then...

The pace slowed. It felt like I was wading through treacle and - I admit - I let it get the better of me. Combined with the things that are out of my hands, everything simply...stopped.

Talking sternly to myself didn't help. I mean, I'm not going to move forward if I allow myself a 'meh' moment...or day...or week, as it finally ended up being. I was getting crosser and more frustrated by the day.

Plus it's coming up to York and the Writer's Workshop Festival of Writing. For some reason, I don't feel excited about it this year. I only entered one competition (which I stand no chance of getting picked for, but hey, it was the only one I had something I could submit); I couldn't bear the thought of not being picked for anything.

(Fellow authors will recognise this syndrome - hoping like mad that this year will be your year in the competitions, followed by crushing disappointment and horrid jealousy when it proves not to be.)

I know it'll be great once I'm in York - I'm booked into some fab workshops, have 1-2-1's with two wonderful book doctors and I'll meet lots of Cloudies, but it doesn't seem to hold quite the same magic when the writing's not going well. (As usual, blogs will follow... I'm taking the laptop with me this year, so you might even get a couple over the course of the weekend itself.)

Having said that, in literally the last couple of days, things have begun moving again - on King Stone at least. I was bemoaning to an author friend how I could not get past a scene.

"Could be your character doesn't want to go where you're sending her?" she said.

"Hmm...could be. She certainly doesn't want to go to bed!" says I.

"My character sometimes she doesn't want to do something, so I ask her what she wants to do instead. I write a scene talking to her and she usually comes up with something better. And yes, it sounds crazy, but it works for me!"

So I tried it. It does sound mad, (feels it, too, the first time you try it!) but somehow your subconscious kicks in and supplies the answer your gut was trying to provide all along. I asked my character why she wouldn't go to bed after a traumatic experience, and she told me EXACTLY why she couldn't afford to sleep - she had to keep travelling to stay one step ahead of the baddie! Since then, I've rewritten a large chunk of the chapter and only need to add a short section at the end before signing it off as official second draft material.

This post isn't all doom and gloom then. Thank goodness! I shall just have to be patient with respect to the other projects - and trust that they'll start moving again at the right time...

Forgot an important birthday...

The big day completely passed me by... no card, co cake, no celebration of any kind.

Ooops. Poor Scribbles.

Because - can you believe it? - Squidge's Scribbles has been up and running for 2 whole years as of last weekend! Two years!

Happy Belated Birthday, Squidge's Scribbles!

And what a year it's been... all 135 posts of it!

As regular readers will know, this blog was set up first and foremost because I'm an author.

The last twelve months have seen the publication of several short stories in KlicBait Volume 1 and A Seeming Glass, as well as the second book of Granny Rainbow stories - More Granny Rainbow. I've been on author visits, held reading sessions at the library and helped to set up a local creative writing group, NIBS (otherwise known as the Nanpantan Improving Body of Scribblers!) I went to the Festival of Writing in York again, and raised money for charity through auctioning my books for Comic Relief and Authors for Nepal. I continued to write bits of flash fiction and shorts, posting them here on the blog for you to enjoy.

The highlight of my authorly year was the news that, after spending last November editing StarMark (I did NaNoEdMo instead of NaNoWriMo), the novel was picked up by Bedazzled Ink in the US and will be published this autumn.

I discovered that I like writing 'nasty' and after a setback on Ani's story, I began a brand new story as part of my 100 days of writing challenge I set myself (working title - The King Stone) and I'm delighted to say that after 65 days (out of 76 days since I began) the s****y first draft is almost finished!

Oh - and the Scribbles won their first award!

But it's not just writing that I blog about. You're just as likely to find me writing about home and family. Like the problems we had with the new bathroom, or when the stove was fitted. Or I'll tell you about flower arranging with toilet rolls, or wedding bouquets or the Miss Piggy rose... Being a photographer's model... Relaxing with some colouring in... My skiing holiday... Perhaps even what Mr Squidge has been up to...

And you - lovely reader of the Scribbles - you've probably been with me for a goodly chunk of the past year, haven't you? There are over 50 of you officially following this blog, but I know many more dip in and out to see what's going on in my life. It's still a surprise to me when someone says they've seen my latest blog post, especially if I don't know they 'follow' me - it can feel sometimes like I'm just writing this for my own pleasure. (Which I probably am because it's my on-line diary!) I forget that I've invited you in to share it as well...but I love the fact you're here! Thank you for still being interested.

So - Happy Birthday to the Scribbles, and let's see what this next year brings to celebrate around the time of a third birthday...

NaNoEdMo

November sees a flurry of writing activity as writers the world over sign up for NaNoWriMo - or National Novel Writing Month. The idea is that during November, you knuckle under and write every day - at the end of that time, you'll have at least a 50,000 word novel completed. A lot of my writing friend are taking part and I'm cheering them on from the sidelines as their word counts creep or leap in the right direction - up!

It doesn't suit everyone as a way to work. Chuck Wendig, whilst being adamant that writers need to write to succeed (which is obvious really, but you'd be amazed at how many of us say we're writers but faff about on Facebook or blog or paint bathrooms to avoid getting proper words down sometimes...), admits that such a structured, pressured way of working might not be for everyone. Quite frankly, I wasn't sure I'd have the self-discipline...

Anyway, this year, if you're a regular reader of the scribbles, you'll have seen I've been struggling to know what to do with the two complete novels I've written. Neither of them have that something special to make them stand out. Add to that a major flaw in how I structure my stories, which became apparent after the York Festival of Writing, and I reached a point where I had to decide whether to fix the flaw or start work on something brand-spanking new where the flaw would not appear. 'Cos now I know about it, it'll never appear again, right? Hmm...

NaNoWriMo seemed like a good opportunity to start a different project. I'd had an idea...a shadow of a new novel that I had actually planned out to make sure that flamin' flaw was not going to be there. NaNoWriMo might give me the impetus I needed to get stuck in. Problem was, I still wanted very much to self-pub one of my already completed novels next year - probably just a small print run and a digital version - see how it would be received by readers. I still love the story, you see, can't let it go...

As a compromise, I decided to adopt NaNoEdMo - National Novel Editing Month. I would work every day on that flaw as best I could, so the book would be ready to publish after Granny Rainbow 2.

And I've done it.

I'm now in the processing of listening to Dragon read it all back to me - and there's nothing like an inhuman digital voice putting the wrong emphasis on a sentence, or struggling with words it doesn't recognise because I've written an accent, to focus the mind on what you've written! Hopefully, I'll get the final chapters listened to before the weekend and then...

Then, it's going to a publisher who has seen a sample of the novel and asked to see the full MS. It's only a nibble, and might not come to anything, but there's hope. And even if it goes no further, I will publish it myself next year as planned - so I win either way!

After that, it'll be JaNewNoStar - January New Novel Start! Wish me luck.

Workshop a novel in a Day (FOW14)

One of the mini-workshops on offer at the Festival of Writing was 'How to Workshop a novel in a day', with the author Allie Spencer.

Why pick this session? Well, I tend to be a pantser rather than a planner...that is, I get an idea for a story and happily set to writing it - without any real planning of its structure. I have a start point, I have an end in mind; I just need to get my main character from A to B: job done.

Ahem. Not so. This session reinforced the fact that actually, I do need to plan more - especially with respect to the characters.

It was a small group, only half a dozen ladies, but that meant there was plenty of opportunity to input to the discussions and ideas. Allie's method should 'be used as a support, not a cage', and aims to build a nicely proportioned and structured novel. Well, by the end of the session, we'd certainly mapped out a complete new story...whether any of us goes on to write it is another matter!

Let me take you through the technique. At each point, we were encouraged to input our own ideas, then the group as a whole picked the characteristics etc that we wanted to use in this new, emerging storyline.

Step 1: Define your leading character.

Memorable characters have strong, definable personality traits. They are complex and open to change - even if they choose not to. They have strong goals or perceived goals. They have a strong physical presence, though it's often not described. The reader reacts strongly to them and the situations the character faces challenge the reader with events beyond their normal experience. The character is conflicted. They are human enough for the reader to connect with them, and they dictate plot elements because of their characteristics.

Armed with that list, we each wrote a description of a leading character. Mine was based on Lord Baraat, who appears in the flash fiction prequel to Thread, (which you can read on the Random Writers site.) We shared our descriptions and amalgamated them into one character.

Now at this point, my brain started to turn to spaghetti. I never - NEVER - plan my characters out in this level of detail. Before long, our new character had his own backstory, a career, a family history, favourite food, goals, flaws... Mine usually just get 'a look' - I trawl the internet for a person who looks like my character. There may be an idea of where they fit into the story and how I want things to work out for them, but a whole history? Nah. Which brought me to Important Realisation No 1: Squidge concentrates on story, not character.

Step 2 : Define your secondary character(s).

The protagonist - your lead - needs someone to spar with and talk to. The secondary character is as much about revealing the protagonist as they are about revealing themselves. They can be good or bad, there may be more than one, and they often create a synthesis in the story; if the protagonist provides the themes and tone of the book, the secondary character provides light and shade...

So again, we devised a secondary character - but specifically for Zack, our 40 year old suspended cop who was fighting to get his son back after accusations of child abuse. Again, we amalgamated the results and came up with two: Miranda, a female lawyer who can't do emotions, and Quince, Zack's coloured partner on the force.

Each of them got their own back story. Important Realisation No 2 : Each character needs their own story!

Now - apart from the fact that I don't normally 'do' the real world in my writing so I had no real idea of how to approach a scenario that included child abuse and drug use, I don't 'do' backstory for supporting cast either. But when the goals and flaws of these secondary characters started to be described by others in the group, the potential for the storyline began to unfold in front of my eyes - because we moved onto conflict.

Step 3: Give each of your main characters conflict.

There's internal and external conflict; internal could be claustrophobia, external could be that your character has to escape through a tunnel. It's best to have the two linked so that the external works on the internal.

So we worked out the conflicts for our three characters. Which opened up a whole can of worms...

You could take Miranda's secret drug habit - which meant she needed her job but taking on Zack's case is a last ditch attempt to save her career - and tie it in with a drug-addled one night stand with Quince that becomes the guilty secret of a happily married man...which is how Zack sees his partner and feels he can never measure up to with child abuse allegations hanging over his head.

Trying to keep track of all the possibilities was like trying to hold a handful of those wriggling worms...my brain felt like it was about to explode. There was almost too much information to deal with. But I could see that by developing the characters in this way to start with, the storyline sort of developed itself BECAUSE of the way the characters were interacting.

Important Realisation No 3: You can't just slot characters into the story - they have to BE the story.

I started to wonder whether THIS was the problem in my writing? The 'something special' to make it sparkle? Particularly when we got onto character arc...

Step 4: Character arc.

A character arc serves to plot the change the hero goes through. It can be positive, leading to a happy ending, or negative, which leads to tragedy. (Interestingly, some characters are already 'good' - like James Bond.) The dark element nowadays is often supplied by the secondary character, but we often see the main character moving from a position of weakness to strength or immaturity to maturity. One way to plot this change is to use the following stages:

Starting point - conflict - goal - catalyst for change - resolution.

So Zack, our cop, is starting at the point where he's been suspended from his job and has lost his son.
His conflict is that he's exhausted the legal route to get his son back and he's angry, which was the cause of the child abuse allegations.
His goal is to get his son back.
The catalyst for change could be that he sees how Quince handled the one night stand and stayed with his family for the sake of his kids - the realisation that he has to put his son first.
The resolution could be that Zack finds his son but realises he's better off where he is, ie puts his son's needs before his own selfish desire.

Repeat for each character in turn...

Aha! Important Realisation No 4: I have totally missed out character arcs from everything I've ever written. 

In StarMark, I don't show how Irvana changes by what she's been through. I haven't given her a goal - she just gets carried along on a wave of events which happen to her and she is almost a passenger until she reaches the end. I haven't given her a flaw - unless it's being too nice. And the same problem occurs with Rurik too - I haven't shown much of a change in him, either. How much of that is down to the fact I don't think about it and plan it  beforehand, I wonder?

So now, I have a choice to make. Continue to work on what I know are essentially flawed stories, or try my hand at something new, forcing myself to plan it out first when I'm dying to just get writing.

Hmm. I'll think on that a bit longer...but Allie certainly gave me a lot of food for thought and a method that might just work if I try it.

When is a chapter not a chapter? (FOW 14)

I enjoyed Hal's sentence workshop so much, I also sat in his chapter one too. Now I hope I'm going to remember most of it - this session was held Sunday afternoon, I was tired and feeling pretty poorly by that point, so I struggled to take in a lot of the technical stuff that Hal was sharing. Hopefully, there'll be enough here to be of use to you...

Again, it sounds simple - a chapter is a chapter. It starts with a new character, a new scene, and it finishes with something that keeps the reader turning the page, like a cliffhanger - doesn't it? But Hal pointed out that sometimes, a 'chapter' lacks the substance or structure to make it work.

If you think in terms of scales of action, then a clause or sentence can provide an action. A paragraph often frames a set of actions, and a passage shows the development of the action. The way Hal described the process, it sounded very much like a dance of sorts...

We read a short passage, in which the narrator is in a tavern, observing the clientele and eyeing up an old man as a model for a painting. This represented the goal of the passage. The barkeeper interrupts the narrator to apologise for his room not being ready, producing a diversion. The narrator considers how he came to be in the situation he's in, reflecting on his circumstances. Then, as the old man stands to leave, our narrator makes his request, giving us the incident.

Goal - diversion - reflection - incident.

Or...

Step - sidestep - shuffle - strike!

For a complete story, we know we need a beginning, middle and end. Another way of describing it would be Exposition, Rising action, CLIMAX, Falling action, Denouement. Or even...

Story is the Triumph of Outcome! 

The beginning is why and how things didn't stay the same. The middle is why and how things could have gone elsewise. The end is why and how things ultimately came out this way.

But we need the same in our chapters too - they aren't just a series of events following in step; we need to add the twists and turns that provide the dance and drama. And nail the end beat if you want to nail the impact! A spur, turn, step, crunch combination (different terms for the step, sidestep, shuffle, strike!) will add that ingredient.

But beware... a 'crunch' is not always a  chapter ending. Neither are cliffhangers (though both can be used effectively providing you don't start the next chapter picking up where you left off!), or reflections where there is no incident. Be wary too of overchaptering - putting too many breaks in might mean you don't satisfy that useful combo of spur, turn, step, crunch. Unnatural breaks can lead to scene snaps rather than complete chapters.

To find your true chapters, ask yourself;

- Is there unity of time, place and event?
- Can you encapsulate the event - name it?
- Is there a major plot stride?
- Two major strides? Can one happen elsewhere?
- Can you describe it, beginning 'In which our hero...'?

I particularly like the thought of 'In which our hero...', because to me, that helps capture the essential essence of the chapter; a chapter synopsis, if you like. It reminds me of an exercise we did on the self-edit course, too. We had to think of the chapter as a triangle - action, reaction, result - which then has an impact on the next chapter because the result may well turn out the be the action that causes the next reaction, and so on. So thinking of StarMark, you'd get something like 'In which our heroine's grandmother orders our heroine to go to the city with a box of keepsakes and the name of a man who'll help her.'

How do YOU decide on your chapter breaks? Gut reaction? Cliffhanger? Because you don't know where else to put it? Feel free to share any hints and tips that work for you, too...

How to write a sentence. (FOW 2014)

This year at the Festival of Writing, although there were some titles among the workshops I'd already attended in previous years, there were lots of new ones too.

One was Hal Duncan's 'How to Write a Sentence.'

Found at judyreeveswriter.com

Now it sounds simple, doesn't it? Most of us can write a complete sentence. I'm writing one now, and it makes perfect sense, doesn't it? Well, Hal's rapid-fire Scot-accented lecture got me thinking that perhaps I'm not as good at writing them as I thought...What follows is taken from my notes, so there's a strong flavour of 'Hal Duncan-ness rather than original Squidge!

We were told at the start of the session that 'Words are free and sentences are not precious; just write the sentence. Now throw it away. Repeat until you get it right.'

It's Hal's perception that the rules that are applied to sentences often try to rationalise an intuitive skill. So, for example, the 'Don't use adjectives' rule is more to do with mis-use than over-use...because sometimes, more IS better.

So rather than apply rules to sentences, Hal applies Principles. These Principles allow us to use words to conjure an illusion in the skull of the reader. They are Clarity, Economy, Specificity, Ingenuity, Acuity and Fluidity - and a lot of how effective they are relies on style. Not style (noun), which is a patina that can sometimes obscure the content, but style (verb), which is the act of shaping the words into tighter prose.

The following sentence was used as an example to work with - it had those of us sitting in the session cringing...

A sweeping blade of flashing steel riveted from the massive barbarian's hide enameled shield as his rippling right arm thrust forth, sending a steel shod blade up to the hilt into the soldier's vital organs. 

Hal applied the Principles...

CLARITY - Basically, decide between all the things you could say, the ways you could say it and the words you have; does the final sentence say what you want it to? Don't give in to garblage, ie garbling and garbage. Did the author really mean riveted?

ECONOMY - not everything is relevant. There are some qualities implicit in the noun or verb - you don't have to repeat yourself.

SPECIFICITY - Use exact terms. Do you need thrust? Is buried better? Is it a shield or a targe (the proper name for a hide-wrapped shield, apparently).

INGENUITY - Use a verb to conjure the qualities of a noun. Seek words that make others redundant.

ACUITY - Cut to the quick of what things mean. Make your phrases loaded - is the dog a cur or a pooch? Our barbarian is massive - as in a ripped hulk or a couch potato?

Up to this point, we've chosen to focus on the words and substance - now we get to the meaty bit: narrative, the process that makes our story flow...

FLUIDITY - Think of the dynamics of the piece. Yes, it could be written grammatically correctly, but that can interfere with the flow. Use punctuation to provide stress points.

Hal's final version ended up as

From behind the targe, steel flashed, brawn rippled, and the barbarian sank his blade, thrust it up to the hilt in the soldier's guts.

Applying each of these principles in turn, Hal then challenged us to rewrite the original sentence. After several false starts that either upped the word count or made the perpetrator of the action ambiguous, we settled on the following:

The soldier's blade flashed, glancing off the leathered targe as the barbarian buried his sword in the b*****d's guts.

Much improved, don't you think?

Remember - Work with the essential substance of your sentence...and make it sing!