Season's Greetings!

I'm pretty much on target with completion of the first draft of the next Esme novel which I'd planned to get done by this month, so I'm a happy writing bunny

(the idea being that I could indulge in Christmas and let the subconscious writer brain buzz away unmolested ready to spring into action for the first editing stage in the new year).

Thanks so much to all of you who have contributed in some way to my Engage Write Brain blog over the past year, either by adding your comments or by tweeting and re-tweeting posts.

So... I shall now get busy with present wrapping, singing carols, cooking yummy things to eat while I wish you a very Happy Christmas and a productive and exciting New Year!

See you in 2016!

How to save your writing sanity.

I was on a panel of SilverWood authors at the Penzance Literary Festival last week, answering questions on being an Indie Author. As part of the festival's Publishing Day, the event had been billed as a way to "pick up tips and avoid the pitfalls" in self-publishing.

The hour flew by and questions came thick and fast, leading from one subject to another until the audience must have reeled from so much information spinning around the room.  I can hardly remember now what questions were asked so I hope there was lots of note-taking!

This week, back at my desk and hard at it with writing the next novel, I thought of a great tip I could have passed on, relevant to all writers, whether indie or otherwise, and that's the keeping of a writing journal.

Now if that sounds like a lot of unnecessary writing when all you want to do is get on with the "real stuff", then stay with me for a moment, while I make the case for it being the way to save your sanity.

I first came across the idea of a writing journal when I read best selling author Elizabeth George's excellent how-to book Write Away not longer after I'd started writing. At the beginning of each novel, she starts a new journal in which she records her thoughts and feelings about the writing process. This is isn't a notebook of her ideas, plot, character etc., although that comes into it, but it's primarily about what's buzzing around in her head while she's actually in the throes of writing her latest work.

In Write Away, she quotes from her journals at the beginning of each chapter and for a novice writer, her words were of great comfort. She says things like: "What on earth am I doing pretending to be a writer?" and "Writing continues to be a scary proposition for me, as I don't see myself as particularly talented..."  To me, realising that even best selling authors have moments of doubt, gave me hope.

But she also shares the thrills as well as the angst: "Yesterday a most extraordinary thing happened... all of a sudden in the middle of a scene I had the most amazing moment of inspiration." Don't we just love it when that happens!

When I started to write The Indelible Stain, I decided I would also keep a journal. It wouldn't be something I'd slavishly write every day (I already write a daily diary, a sort of "ship's log", and have done for some 24 years) but if anything about writing was either bugging me or I had something to celebrate, I would write it down. Being able to have a good rant on the page can clear the air in my head and recording my buoyant mood after receiving a good review or a message from an enthusiastic reader helps puts things into perspective if I've had a tough writing spell, or I've felt overwhelmed by how much social media I have or haven't done that week!

As I grapple with my current novel and look back in awe at the research, the plotting and the note-making I did for The Indelible Stain and begin to doubt my ability to write another good book, I only have to dig out my writing journal and look back to the time I was in the middle of writing The Indelible Stain to remind me not to fret, that I experienced exactly the same wobbles last time around.

So, having reassured myself that, yes, I can do this all over again, I'd better get back to writing that novel before my confidence ebbs...

 

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Do you have any clever tips to keep you from throwing in the towel in despair? I'm sure there are many writers out there who'd love to know what they are! 

The novel before the novel



Backstory is a critical part of novel writing. The clearest dictionary definition I've read was in Jan Baynham's blogpost on the subject, Backstory. What is it?, in which she defines backstory as:

 

 "The experiences of a character or the circumstances of an event that occur before the action or narrative." 

Therefore, what's gone before the book begins helps define the characters who the reader will meet in the story, as well as providing the context in which those characters appear at the start of the novel.

The accepted advice is to avoid dropping backstory into the narrative in chunks which slow down the story. It's this consideration which is the subject of Jan's post.

As an author of mysteries, however, my use of backstory is as a critical and considerable part of my planning process. Famously, crime writer Minette Walters said she never plans her novels but just sits down and writes, remarking it would be boring to know in advance what happens in the end (though in an interview with Shots Magazine, she does admit to spending time building her characters).

Unlike Ms Walters, when I set out to write a novel, I do have to know what secret will be exposed in the story before I begin (though I have been know to change my perpetrator during the writing process). In fact, I need to actually plot the backstory in some detail before I'm able to start plotting the novel itself.

Through this plotted backstory, I explore the motivation of my characters and gauge an insight into those characters' reactions to the secret being revealed, which in turn helps me decide on the sequence of events for the novel I'm about to write. This pre-plot also acts as a 'cross-check' reference to ensure that what happens in the novel is a logical and credible continuum of what's happened in the past.

So by the time I've worked all that out, rather than ending up with a simple backstory, I've pretty much got the plot of a whole novel - a novel which never gets written!

While I was writing my first novel, Blood-Tied, I sought advice from author, Margaret James. After she'd read the synopsis and the first few chapters, she said she was intrigued by my protagonist Esme Quentin's backstory and asked whether I'd considered writing the pre-quel to Blood-Tied instead. "But you probably don't want to do that," she (quite rightly) surmised!

Later, as the novel progressed and backstories of other aspects of the novel were revealed, my husband pointed out that these too served as separate plots in their own right, even suggesting that I could use one to write another, completely different, novel. "That's no good," I protested. "It would mean that anyone who read that novel, would already know the secret behind what happens in Blood-Tied!" Besides, it occurs to me now, I'd have to write a backstory for the backstory and I could end up disappearing up my own... well, you know what I mean.

Does this happen to writers whose plots emerge from a series of linear events, I wonder? But then, no character operates in a vacuum, they all need backstory - it makes them who they are, so even if the backstory exists in the author's subconscious, it will still influence the plot. As someone once said, we are all products of our own history. (I think they were the words of a genealogist which, given the subject matter of my mysteries, I find particularly relevant!)

But I don't think I'm likely to find any time soon that I can do away with my double-plot approach to writing. That's OK - I enjoy doing it. It's just that it takes such a long time!

 

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So, writers reading this, how much backstory to you write beforehand? Could it be the bones of a different novel? Have you ever written a backstory and then decided it would make a better novel than the one you were planning? Or do you "sail by the seat of your pants" and rely on your subconscious backstory oozing its way to the fore as you write? I'd love to hear your thoughts.

 

 

 

 



Why tennis is like writing

As I watched the gladiatorial battles at SW19 this week, it occurred to me that tennis players are like writers. They fluctuate between self-doubt and self-belief.

But while we writers despair that what we're writing is rubbish in the privacy of our darkened garret, Wimbledon's finest must fight their internal demons in the full glare of the world's spectators.

I'll take the garret anytime!