Writing East Midlands

Richard: A busy week

Tue, 29 Jun 2010 08:36:53 -0400

On my last post I spoke about developing an action plan following my time at Alt Fiction as the weekend. So one week on, how am I doing?

A quick run through my “to do” list and I can cross off some of my tasks: I’ve written this post (when I finish it!) , I have signed up with the British Fantasy Society, and I have started to look at my web presence.

This is a strange phenomenon and could come across as narcissistic, but the results of a quick Google have shown:

“Richard Barber” – comes up on Google UK on Page 5

“Richard Barber” +horror – puts me on the first page of results in second, third and 5^th.

“Richard Barber” + author – comes up on Google UK on Page 2

An interesting observation is that writing this column does not, per se, seem to improve those rankings as I have been using “Google Alerts” and last week’s post never came up (although I did find out about a lot of other Richard Barbers). Perhaps more concerning is that none of these results found my website.

Obviously this is just the start of a process and there’s a long way to go… and I need to keep in mind that this is to support my writing, not to replace it!

At the same time I have reviewed how I promote my writing when I get published. So far I tend to put a message on my website and on Facebook to draw attention to anything I get published. However this time, to be more assertive, I’ve sent emails out to a group of people I know. My first message was on my latest short story “Race” which has just been published in Morpehus Rales IX. Will this make any difference? It’s hard to know yet but I’ve had some positive feedback from the people I have contacted so far.

Richard: Action plan!

Tue, 15 Jun 2010 14:45:40 -0400

I’ve been to Alt Fiction this weekend in Derby (an event supported by Writing East Midlands!) and I’ve come away with my head full of plans and ideas. Perhaps the greatest “lightbulb” moment I had was something that Stephen Jones said: which is this for a genre writer attendance at conventions/conferences such as this are absolutely essential. (I had been coming to the same conclusion following my attendance at the World Horror Convention in Brighton earlier in the year.) If ever I discover the secret to time travel, as well as advising myself not to touch that chicken curry in March, I’ll go back to my younger self and demand that I start attend conferences earlier in my career.

But I am where I am, and Quantum Physics notwithstanding that’s unlikely to change. On a more practical note attending the conventaion gave me a list of areas I need to address to develop myszelf and my writing and I thought I would share them here:

What I need to do!

Enhance my “market knowledge” so:

Subscribe to the British Fantasy Society
Subscribe to Locus
Review my list of “top 10 short story markets” and use it!

Build my online presence. Therefore:
Post this blog each week
Review my website
Look at how to develop my online presence (this throws up an interesting dilemma: If I do a Google Search I find there is a Richard Barber who is a medieval historian and gets more hits than me! Do I adopt a pen name to differentiate myself from this other Richard?)

And all of this around making sure that I keep on top of my writing “targets” both in the progress for my novel and other projects I’ve got in hand. I’ll try and follow my first “mid-year resolution” and post again next week to say how I’m getting on.

Richard: Change of plan

Fri, 30 Apr 2010 13:52:21 -0400

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 on the relationships of the main character Chris Symes, with the idea that this would form session three in a couple of months.

In the interim I had a response from one of the agents I pitched my novel to during the World Horror Convention last month. They liked it, they had some concerns but they liked it.

I’ve submitted work to agents in the past and only ever had once personalised response and that hadn’t been promising. Now here I was with a bonafide positive reaction to what I had written. I felt like my writing had just taken a huge leap forwards.

Now how to make the most of this opportunity? The agent had raised some concerns about the opening chapters - in particular relating to Chris Symes’s introduction (can you see where this is going - sounds a bit like session 3 to anyone?). So I could simply carry on with my game plan and submit the Agatha/Jenk session to Miranda and then the Chris Symes session in July… but I’m not sure that delay would go down too well with the agent.

So today I’ve contacted Miranda with a new suggestion: if she’s got time I can submit the prepared session 2 today and then a “fast-tracked” session 3 on Chris Symes in a couple of weeks… or if that’s too intense we drop Agatha/Jenk for the moment and I’ll submit the reworked Chris chapters in a couple of weeks. Either way it means within 4 weeks I’ll have something to take back to the agent that has strengthened the introduction of Chris’s character.

Richard: Selecting extracts

Thu, 22 Apr 2010 17:31:19 -0400

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 the quandary comes in selecting what to send (except it doesn’t because I know what I’m going to send, but for the purposes of dramatic effect let’s pretend I don’t).

I could simply send the first 6*10,000 words of the book, or the last 6*10,000 words, or I could mix it up and select alternate batches of 10,000 words just to keep Miranda on her toes.

My first extract was simple: the first 10K of the novel, that was a no-brainer. When it comes to trying to find a publisher/agent they’re only going to want to see the first three chapters so it stands to reason that my first session needed to include them. It also made sense because it was about setting up the scene and the characters which seemed an important subject to be focussing on.

For my second submission I’ve eschewed the 10K and 10K and 10K routine until I’m halfway through the novel and run out of sessions. Instead I’ve focussed on one of the principal relations within the novel (between Reverend Jenk and Agatha; this means nothing to you now but stick with me and it might make sense eventually) - and one I was aware was weak in my original draft. In the second draft the relationship has been considerably developed so I’m keen to see what Miranda will make about the way the characters interact.

So that goes off within the week. I’ll let you know how it goes down and whether Miranda thinks such an approach is madness itself!

>Jamie Extract 5

Tue, 13 Apr 2010 14:20:56 -0400

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 and so is he.

So, short of a bit of copy editing, spell checking and so on I can say that I won’t touch any of the first part of the book again before I begin the submission process.

What a great feeling.

I’m going to stop typing now and crack on with the bit in the middle that I’m working on before I tempt fate.

This is the section I’m submitting for my 6th and final extract, so I want to really put some graft in on it.

Fingers crossed.

Richard: I know how it ends!!

Tue, 13 Apr 2010 08:14:13 -0400

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 episodes being brought in. During this process I haven’t directly dealt with the problem of “the ending that isn’t”… but it has been a continual subject within my own thinking.

As the novel has altered so my understanding of the story has subtly shifted. Like a dripping tap, that issue of the ending has been working away in the background until now I know how the story ends. And I can tell you - that’s a relief! Whilst I was confident that the ending would come eventually, knowing that I now have a clearer idea of what is going to happen (whilst also realising that there is still a lot of detail to be fleshed out) stills the rising panic that I didn’t have a suitable ending and that the one that already existed just wouldn’t do.

So now all I have to do is write it: Easy peasy!

>Jamie Point of View

Tue, 06 Apr 2010 10:00:00 -0400

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 is written as if by the narrator. I did this, I did that.

Second person. The novel is written as if the reader is the narrator. You did this, you did that. This is really unusual and is rarely employed by novelists. I can only think of a handful of examples- Bright Lights, Big City by Jay McInerney, parts of Complicity by Iain Banks and more recently Sum by David Eagleman.

Omniscient or the God Perspective. This is written as if from the perspective of a narrator who knows everything, can dip in and out of every character’s head and can see the whole thing.

Third person. This is somewhere between omniscient and first person, in that the novel is written as if from the point of view of a particular character, but the character is still referred to by name. As in Grace did this or Grace did that.

I have written all this out as a way of clarifying something to myself. My present work in progress is written in Third person, but in the draft that I am working from with my mentor it takes the POV of several characters.

Grace is the main character, but in parts of the novel we see through 3 other character’s eyes.

Now, this isn’t omniscient as there are very clear breaks between the sections and whilst we are in a particular POV we only see what that character can see.

In my last extract Tim asked me whether I needed Maximilian’s POV in order for the story to work and suggested that the tension may be increased by us not knowing his motives.

I came to the conclusion that he was right and am now spending a long time removing Maximilian’s POV from the story and ensuring that the information that was provided from these sections fits in elsewhere.

Without resorting to cliche, okay a little bit, a wee bit of a lesson has been reinforced here, you don’t need to show everything. In many situations not allowing the reader access to the full information makes for a more intriguing read.

Which having thought about this for a few weeks makes me now realise why I never really find books written in Omniscient as satisfying as those written in First or Third person.

As a reader I want to be transported into another life or world or mind of a character. I want to believe that I am that character and see through their eyes.

And despite occasional megalomaniac moments I just can’t get in the mind of someone or something that can see or know everything. It just doesn’t work for me.

>Jamie Mentoring Day

Sat, 03 Apr 2010 04:36:19 -0400

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 is great in that it gives you direct response on your work from someone who has been through the publishing process. But, still, you don’t get to meet your mentor. And who can blame them? Writers are generally weirdos.

So, I got to meet with 7 or 8 other human beings who were going through or had just gone through the same scheme as I had. And they weren’t weirdos. Some of them were even friendly and chatty.

From an industry point of view we had presentations from Will Atkins, Director of Macmillan New Writing, Arzu Tahsin, Editorial Director at Orion and Carolina Sutton, Agent at Curtis Brown. They talked us through how they work, what they do, how to craft submissions, the future of the publishing industry, the etiquette of approaching agents and much more. Really great stuff.

I’ve been to conferences before, heard agents and publishers talk, but the ability to sit in a room with only 8 other people and quiz influential people in the industry was invaluable.

I stopped short of thrusting my manuscript in their faces of course.

That would be rude.

I left the day feeling positive, fired up and highly motivated.

Richard: Attending Conventions

Wed, 31 Mar 2010 08:46:03 -0400

I write within a genre (well, two actually… horror and fantasy) and that brings with it a number of advantages and disadvantages. The disadvantages tend to be the way people look at me when I tell them I write horror, and start to shuffle backwards and check for hairs on my palms or the bloody axe half-hidden behind my back, and the reaction from many “mainstream” publishers and agents who look at you as if you might grow a second head at any moment (horror? Do people still read that stuff?) and cast their eyes around wildly for something, anything they can press into use as a makeshift crucifix to ward you back to the dark shadows you obviously emerged from.

On the counter side is the fact that working within a genre means there is an identifiable group of other people who are doing the same thing. I have just returned from the World Horror Convention (WHC) and although I have previously attended one day conventions and workshops this has been a different experience for me. Here is a group of people who are passionate about the genre in which I write. People who understand when I wax lyrical about a piece of cover art by Steve Crisp (this man virtually drew my library!) or meet the author of a book I enjoyed years before.

Before I attended the WHC I expected to enjoy the experience, what I hadn’t appreciated was how important it would be. This is a group of people who understand what is happening within the genre publishing industry and actually shape what is going to be coming out in print for the next few years. I have no doubt that amongst those conversations at the bar and in the corridors there are deals being done and relationships being forged and strengthened that will bear literary fruit.

For me, I have come away knowing a few more people than I already did, a renewed understanding that it’s okay to want to be a published novelist (and that yes, it’s a crazy ambition, but it’s not an impossibility), a clearer understanding of where I am with my writing career and what I need to do next to progress it, more books than my little arms could cope with on the train home, and a stunning piece of Steve Crisp artwork. Not a bad result for a long weekend in Brighton.

Richard: Pitching a novel

Sat, 27 Mar 2010 04:12:56 -0400

At the beginning of the World Horror Convention I had the opportunity to make a pitch to a number of publishers and agents working within the genre.

Having never made a pitch before I did my research; I read up on all the participants, made notes on their interests and read and re-read this on the train down to Brighton.

I entered the room; a small, awkwardly shaped bar where they sat behind cramped tables and this was when I made my first discovery: they’re the same as the rest of us! No second heads, no-one with more than the standard 2 eyes, just normal people.

It didn’t take me long to make my first pitch, and quickly after that my second and third and so on. I came to the convention weighed down with typescripts of my synopsis and first three chapters (all double spaced, single sided, 12 font) as the grooves worn into my shoulders will testify.

So, what did I learn? There are two key things I will take away from my experience at the pitching tables:

i) Understand your book! I know this may sound strange, I have been working on the rewrite of novel for months, I can quote whole passages with my eyes closed, so of course I know it. But do I Understand it? Within a few minutes of pitching I had a Road-to-Damascus moment in explaining what my novel was about. I understood it…in the same way that writing a synopsis (or rewriting one after you’ve re-written the book) helped to crystallise my understanding of the work and highlighted issues that still exist within the narrative arc, so making a pitch required me to focus on the absolute core of my novel and deliver it. For me that process has given me an invaluable insight into my novel, and as I’m still mid-rewrite, an opportunity for that to influence the final product.

ii) Learn your pitch. This is not unrelated to my first point. I had envisaged a scenario where I would place my offering on the table in front of the publisher and they would flick through the cover sheet and synopsis and ask a few pertinent questions, and some of those I pitched to did in fact do just this. But others looked at me, looked down at the document I laid before them, and waited. And waited. And it quickly became clear I was going to be the one doing the work around here. This wasn’t like an interview for a job where the panel has a list of questions written down in front of them. I was expected to sit down, pitch my story to them without (one assumes) coming across like a babbling fool, and then the questions would begin.

So what do I take away from this experience? Well, none of the individuals I approached said, “of course I will print this,” and pulled a contract from their back pocket for me to sign, nor did any of them look at me with incredulity and ask “you’ve written what?”. Whether anything will come from the pitches I made I have no idea and I won’t know for weeks and possibly months (in some cases, many months) to come. But as a learning experience and an insight into what I need to do to develop the business-side of my writing, and another tool in my array of writing techniques, it has been a true learning experience.

Richard: Reading aloud

Wed, 24 Mar 2010 13:20:51 -0400

In my last post I discussed the common advice of “reading like a writer” and my discovery of audiobooks that help me to “listen as a writer”. Well, tied in nicely with that is my topic this week: reading (aloud) as a writer!

At the end of this week I shall be attending the World Horror Convention 2010. As part of that I will be reading the first two chapters of my novel (Sunday morning at 10.30, in case you’re in the area!).

To prepare for this I have been reading the first two chapters and I’ve made a discovery - that advice about reading your work aloud because it “sounds different”…? Well I’ve never been a massive fan of it but I am hereby doing what no self-respecting politician would do and admitting I was wrong.

Reading my work aloud has made a huge difference… it has forced me to read every word and not simply assume I know what’s written there (How many times have I read the chapter only to discover, when I read it aloud, that I had my main character “parking the park” instead of his car!). As a result I have taken to walking around the conservatory at odd hours of the early morning (so they don’t hear me talking to myself and send for the men in white coats) reciting my chapters. I am a huge convert and if you’re a writer, and like me you’ve heard the message “read your work aloud” numerous times but have never taken it to heart, I urge you to find yourself a quiet spot and read, and read, and read….

>Jamie Extract 4

Tue, 16 Mar 2010 18:05:14 -0400

So, I’m nearing the end of my mentoring process.

I’ve sent Tim 4 extracts and each time he has come back to me with something that has made me think about my writing, most of the time has taught me something and on 2 occasions has caused a major rewrite.

This extract was a piece from the centre of the book. In this extract Maximilian has locked Grace in a room and is trying to piece together the memories of how he came to be here. Grace is trying to escape and is using her skills as a counsellor to try and convince Maximilian to let her go.

It is absolutely pivotal, it is important that these scenes zing because they form the centre piece of the novel and set up the climax.

Firstly Tim had a couple of positives to share with me- he thinks there is real potential in the dynamic between them and he really admired the vividness of language in the flashback scenes of Maximilian.

But, and this is a fairly big but and one that made me think for several days, why is it important that we see inside Maximilian’s head? The question he asked was, is this essential? Because he thought the tension would potentially be stronger if we as the reader had little or no idea of Maximilian’s motivations.

I mulled this over for a while and made a hard decision. I could get across all the ideas that I wanted to within conversation between them and in some ways it would be truer to the themes of the novel if I were to do that.

If I was to be honest with myself I was writing from his POV because it gave me an opportunity to write some beautiful prose. I was writing it for me and not for anyone reading it.

So, out they came, tens of thousands of words.

Cutting your favourite bits out of your work is known as killing your babies. I was slaughtering them. This was word genocide.

I now have a lot of blank paper in front of me, but I’m excited about the possibilities for the novel again now.

Gulp.

Richard: Reading as a writer

Fri, 05 Mar 2010 09:05:00 -0500

As an aspiring writer you’re often exposed to regular aphorisms intended to help you improve your craft: write what you know about, show don’t tell, etc One that I have always struggled with is the instruction to “read like a writer” with the warning that once you become “ a writer” the way you read a book will alter so that you will never be able to enjoy a book as you did before.

I understand the idea behind this - the suggestion to take in a writer’s style, use of language, observe their tools even whilst you are consuming their narrative. The problem I have always had is that if a writer is good and their story draws you in, you tend to forget to read like a writer (which isn’t to say there isn’t something to be learned when the writer is not good and the story does not draw you in).

I recently found a solution to the dilemma: Audiobooks. You engage with the story through an audiobook in a different way to the hardcopy in your hand (or on your ereader if you’re that way inclined). I’ve recently listened to Stephen King’s The Stand on audiobook and the experience was beneficial. Maybe because I know the story already so well I was able to listen as a critical reader - to appreciate some of the “tricks of the trade” Sai King uses to tell his tale. I wouldn’t necessarily recommend coming to The Stand through an audiobook as a first read, and I envy anyone who hasn’t read it the opportunity to experience it afresh, but as a learning tool it’s definitely one to consider.

Richard: First feedback

Wed, 17 Feb 2010 14:49:12 -0500

I’ve just received my first critique back from Miranda. It was based on the first 5 chapters of the novel and the issues it has identified have caused my head to whirl. The following morning I was awake at 4.30 with ideas and plots and any other number of points racing through my mind. I’ll probably expand on them in greater detail in later posts but I thought I’d mention two here that particularly struck a chord.

i) My novel is set in a fictitious town in Yorkshire. As you read the story you come to appreciate that the town’s name: Stoneville, is a key point. However this is a 12th Century town in Northern England - not the middle of the United States of America. Add this to the fact that the main street through my town was called (wait for it…) Main Street and Miranda rightly pointed out the inconsistencies and the difficulty in developing a credible location for the piece. It struck me at that point that much of the fiction I read has a US location and how much I had absorbed into my culture without realising it. This isn’t an American-bashing mission, I was in Maine just a few months ago and I loved every minute… it’s my reflection on the need to understand your location and not be sloppy when making decisions such as place names etc.

ii) Miranda also suggested reading around the genre (horror). I read a lot of horror but I thought I would try and read as a writer (more of this in a later post!) so I have selected 10 horror novels and read the first 30 pages to look at how they were constructed. How the authors set the scene, introduced the characters, and created and developed the tension. So here’s my top 10:

Bentley Little: The Walking
T.M. Wright: A Manhattan Ghost Story
Stephen King: Lisey’s Story
Stephen King: IT
Joe Hill: Heart Shaped Box
Ramsey Campbell:Needing Ghosts
Neil Gaiman: American Gods
Clive Barker: Weaveworld
Michael Marshall: Bad Things
Michael Marshall: The Insiders
Tim Lebbon: Face
Mark Morris: The Deluge
John Ajvide Lindqvist: Let the right one in

The first thing you’ll probably notice is that I’m not very good at sticking to my plans! 10 is a bit harsh and even this list is shorter than the original.

In making the list I deliberately chose not to include any “classic” novels (Dracula, Castle of Count Otranto, Frankenstein etc) as I’m interested in how a contemporary author tackles these issues.

Richard : C******d

Fri, 12 Feb 2010 09:07:11 -0500

I have an interesting dilemma. I submitted a short story to a publication last year and have received a response saying that they’re interested in publishing the story if I remove the profanity as the story would currently be R rated (It’s a US magazine).

Coincidentally (if there is such thing as coincidence) I’ve recently been listening to Stephen King’s book “On Writing” and the same day I received the response from the publication the passage I was listening to in On Writing was discussing the need to be “truthful” in your dialogue.

This censorship may come as a surprise to people who know me, I don’t swear, but I do recognise that the characters in my tales are not all mini-me and so there are times when it’s appropriate for them to release the odd swear word. So my dilemma is whether to accept the editorial advice and cut the profanity, or whether to stand by my original draft and understanding of the characters within the story.

If the advice was given because the language wasn’t true to the character, and that was a criticism I recognised, then it would be a no-brainer. But is that my truth? I reread the story and questioned whether the speech was apprropiate, and in hindsight I still think it is right; I think that it indicates the frustration and anger of the character speaking. So do I think adjusting the language is “selling out” or lessening the impact of the piece? Well yes. Do I feel strongly enough to pull the story from the publication?

There will be other stories, and other publications… and it’s unlikely the publication or otherwise of this piece will affect my writing career, but still…

>Jamie Procrastination

Sun, 07 Feb 2010 13:37:00 -0500

Procrastination.

The enemy of all writers.

I work during the week, so the weekend is my writing time. If I can get some writing done in the evenings then great, but Saturday and Sunday are my staple writing times.

Every saturday morning I write a list of things to do that weekend. And it always starts with write 1500 words on WIP. This weekend’s looked like this:

1500 words- Not done.
Send extract 4 to Tim Clare- Not done.
Write short story for Short Fuse based around Babel- Done.
Write short story based around Union for Writers and Artist Yearbook Competition- Started.
Write a short story about Loch Ness for Litopia- Done research.
Write short story for Bristol Short Story comp- Not done.
Design business cards and presentation folder for submissions- Started.
Review Point Blank for my blog- Done.
Review Heartland for my blog- Done.
Do 3 critiques for Litopia- Done.
Write blog for my work blog- Done.
Submit book reviews for forthcoming Litopia Muse Ezine- Done.
Writing East Midlands blog- Doing it now.

On the surface of things looks pretty good, it’s been a fairly productive weekend. A short story in the bag, a couple of blog posts, some research, caught up with my critiques.

Apart from the fact that the only thing I really need to do is the first 2 items.

Why the delay then?

Because I’m procrastinating.

Because those 1500 words aren’t new and fresh and exciting words. They’re editing.

And editing is the mother of all procrastination.

I’ve written 131 words out of the 1500. I’ve listened to a podcast. I’ve done all the washing that was in the washing basket. I’ve watched the Arsenal Chelsea match. I’ve been to the Gym.

And the reason I’ve done this?

Because it’s hard. Because editing is hard.

This section is slap bang in the middle of the book; everything I do now unravels something else or is affected by something that happens before and after. I write something and I have to go and check whether the reader already knows this. And so I procrastinate.

What I need is someone to lock me in a room with no outside stimulus and force me to finish this section. I don’t even think it would take that long if I put my mind to it.Even when I’m sat at my computer it doesn’t guarantee that I am writing, there’s always the internet, Twitter, Facebook and Litopia. I’m building my author platform I tell myself. I’m not. I’m avoiding doing something that is hard.

The good thing about getting all this out is that I now feel guilty enough to stop faffing and get on with it. It’s about 6.30. If I knuckle down I can get 1000 words in before bedtime.

I’ll let you know how it goes.

Richard: leap of faith

Tue, 02 Feb 2010 16:24:53 -0500

After an exchange of emails with Miranda where we talked about what I was looking to achieve from the mentoring scheme, what elements of my writing I was particularly keen to focus on, and similar areas for consideration, the time has now come to step up to the oche.

I’ve been submitting fiction for a number of years now and I don’t ever remember being nervous like this when submitting a piece. Not that I think the response from my mentor is going to be a tirade of abuse of the “you can’t write, what are you doing on this scheme?” sort. I suppose I’m conscious of the desire to “make a good impression” (as we all are, surely?) and also that this is a leap of faith for me because typically my “public” writing falls into two categories: reading out raw work in workshops and writing groups while the ink is still drying, or submitting stories for publication once they have been worked and worked and worked and I’m satisfied that they’re as good as I can make them. The work submitted to Miranda is somewhere in the no-man’s-land between those two: I’ve written it, I’ve started to edit it, but it isn’t finished.

But it’s out there now… and whilst I’m waiting for the reply I’ll get on with some of the issues I have with the structure and storyline of the novel as it stands.

>Jamie Empathy

Sat, 30 Jan 2010 06:12:56 -0500

Empathy.

This is a tough one. I have been told by many people wiser than me and read in many blogs that you need to create characters that your reader can feel empathy with.

But, what does this mean in the context of fiction?

It isn’t sympathy, although sympathy can create empathy. It isn’t a matter of liking the character either. But it is certainly one of the main components of creating believable characters.

Wikipedia, the font of all knowledge, cites empathy as-

“Empathy, which literally translates as in feeling, is the capability to share another being’s emotions and feelings.”

This seems simple and is a really neat definition, but how do you go about writing characters that the reader can empathise with? This is really a question, because I don’t think I’m near enough to an answer to write about it with the sort of definitiveness that I would like.

The way I see it is, we don’t need to agree with a character, we don’t even need to like a character, we just need to have a clear understanding of their motivations. And these motivations need to ring true with the relationship which the reader has with the character and with the course of action that the character is taking.

Does that make sense? I’m not even sure if it does to me, but this is part of the process I am undergoing through these rewrites.

In my WIP I think the problem of distance from the MC and therefore lack of empathy with her is linked to her passivity and this is something that I am addressing in this round of rewrites.

Richard - Matching to a mentor

Sat, 23 Jan 2010 14:59:17 -0500

I sent my work off to TLC and awaited a response. Within a few days I had a response from TLC with the name of the person who was to be my mentor.

I read about the writer to be my mentor and after much heartsearching and deliberation I decided to contact TLC about the choice. In my head I’ve got a clear idea of what I want to get out of the mentoring scheme - someone to help develop me as a writer not only in the specific aspects of the novel I’m working on, but wider - lessons that would stay with me for the next book and the next and the next. For this I felt I needed a slightly different mentor to the one TLC had initially suggested.

This afternoon I heard back from TLC and they have suggested a different mentor; Miranda Miller, author of Loving Mephistopheles. I’m delighted to be working with Miranda and I can’t wait to get started.

It’s most likely that the first steps will be to come to an understanding on what the mentoring process is… I know the “standards” in terms of 6 pieces of work submitted over 12 months, totalling no more than 60,000 words, one of the areas I’m interested in is how to ensure the mentoring programme is not just a longitudinal critque scheme. Hopefully the next stage will begin to answer those questions.

>Jamie- extract 2

Sat, 16 Jan 2010 07:29:32 -0500

I sent my second extract to Tim still bubbling with ideas from the first response. His first crit had been about general thoughts, so I was interested to see whether the second extract would cement his opinion on the piece.

I included in the package a chapter breakdown so that Tim could see where I was going with it.

This in itself proved to be a worthwhile exercise.

I had outlined the novel and it lived for a long time as a post-it montage on my office wall before I turned on the computer. I’ve also written a one page synopsis of the novel.

But it was interesting to break it up into chapter chunks in such an emotionless way. It felt very much like writing scene directions for a play and enabled me to look at the structure in a very dispassionate way.

For example-

Chapter 2. “Understanding”
(Grace POV, past tense)

Grace goes to work- she is a drug counsellor. She debates with Paul, a patient about the nature of responsibility. In her office after the session she reflects on how the problems began in her relationship with Stephen and his jealousy, and thinks back to the events that brought him into her life. While at university she moved in with Lucy and David and fell into a lifestyle of drug abuse. Lucy calling her mobile snaps her back into reality. Lucy explains that she has spoken off the record to her contact at the police and that Amanda Levy died by having her throat bitten out, not cut.

This contains none of the nuances of the scenes, says nothing about Grace’s relationship with Paul, but it does allow me to see how the story plays out.

Sorry, I digress. Extract 2.

I sent Tim the next chronological 10,000 words.

In many ways what he returned with expanded on his thoughts from his first extract. It is clear that there are a number of things that I need to look at.

Empathy is one. This is something that Henderson (Of Writing East Midlands fame) has said to me before as well. I have created a distance between Grace as a character and the reader, she comes across as cold and it may be hard to feel any empathy with her as a result.

Distance is something that I always admired in writers, I think Martin Amis and Ian McEwan are very skilled at creating distant characters. But, you can always relate to them in someway and I think this is the point.

Passivity is another. My storyline is complicated. It took a lot of planning and rejigging and checking to make it work. The side effect of this is that it has made Grace passive in the narrative. Things happen to her, not because of her.

In this instance I relate Empathy and Passivity strongly. If the character has no say in what happens to her, simply allows events to occur around her then how can we as readers relate to her?

Two points to come back to.

I’ve touched on overwriting. Well, he mentioned it in this extract as well, along with show v tell, so there are two big things for me to think about.

I carried out an exercise that Tim suggested- print the whole novel out and then taking 2 different coloured pens highlight every section that I tell rather than show.

It was quite enlightening. I cut nearly 10,000 words out of the book just doing this. Of course, I’m going to have to put them back in, but after that laborious exercise I’m going to make sure when they go back in they’re going to be 100% show.