April 2010
6 posts
Richard: Change of plan
In my last post I outlined my plans for my third session: a 10K extract focussing on the the relationship between Reverend Jenk and Agatha. Well, a lot can change in the world of writing in the space of a few days.
I put the plan to Miranda and she was happy with the suggestion so I had my target of finishing session two by today and then starting work on draft 3 of the novel, initially focussing...
Richard: Selecting extracts
Under the mentoring scheme I have 6 sessions with Miranda, each session comprising work of up to 10,000 words. Now this creates a challenge as the novel I have written is somewhere around 120,000 words so even my O’ level maths tells me that during the course of the mentoring scheme Miranda will see half of the novel. As I’m just about to send me second session across...
7 tags
>Jamie Extract 5
This is a short blog post. I don’t want to tempt fate.
I received back an excellent report from my mentor. By some miracle I’ve pulled off all the things we were looking at.
He says the opening is now a quantum leap from where we started. All the problems with overwriting and empathy and structure and show v tell are no longer there.
I am happy with the first 20,000 odd words now...
Richard: I know how it ends!!
This may come as a strange admission… but although I have finished writing the first draft of my novel I didn’t know how the story ended. All I did know was that the ending I had for the first draft didn’t work and needed some major revision.
The second draft of the novel has resulted in significant change to the structure and content of the novel; with whole chapters being culled and new...
6 tags
>Jamie Point of View
Since I received my 4th extract back from my mentor I’ve been thinking a lot about point of view.
What is meant by point of view in regards fiction writing? Well, this should be obvious, it is through who’s eyes you see the story.
The same story can look very different depending upon who is doing the looking.
There are a few different types of point of view.
First person. The novel...
6 tags
>Jamie Mentoring Day
Along with the 6 extracts we get to submit we have the opportunity to attend a mentoring day in the Big Smoke.
Apart from the industry figures that we got to meet there was the benefit of meeting up with the other mentees. Writing is essentially a lonely job. You spend a lot of your time on your own, making stuff up and then typing it out, deleting it all and starting again. The mentoring program...