Novel writing: hints and tips

Like every writer, I have several stories on the go at any one time. Some sit around for years until I feel inspired to take them up again, others live with me either from day to day or week to week.

In my writing group we have a novel sub-group which meets every other week in a local pub where we read out our latest chapter or part-chapter to our peers. One of the group is transferring her novel into a radio play, so we all get a chance to play with the characters and interact with the story. It’s great fun and gets us all laughing.

I’ve been very fortunate in that I’ve already had two of my novels published by Loveyoudivine. You can see all the covers here with accompanying blurbs. I’m now exposing “Gofannon” to the Pub Clubbers and they’ve raised a lot of useful pointers showing how to improve it. My biggest problem is making the time to do the revisions!

This weekend I’ve been putting together my various stories about my shapeshifting cat people just to see how many words I’ve already written and how much more I’d need to write before revising and submitting. I’ve posted a single story on Literotica if you’d like to see what the characters are like. It’s a stand alone story, not central to the plot, but don’t read it if you’re averse to adult content! I’m waiting to see if they upload another story about the cats submitted yesterday which is part of the main book. (You can find it here.)

Trying to shape a novel brought me back to the novel writing workshop Sue Johnson put on for Solihull Writers Workshop at the beginning of May. Sue is a lovely person and a gentle and inspiring speaker. The advice she gave was sensible and sounded achievable, although she had us all gasping when she told us she had forty pieces of work out seeking placement at any one time.

I guess the difference is that she’s a full time writer, with a long track record of successful article writing and poetry publications and has just landed her first romance novel contract called Indigo Dreams with Samhain Publishing. She attributed her success to knowing her characters inside out, so she could describe the leading male as a “Rum truffle” (apparently the publisher use this as a test for all aspiring authors!) and was clear about her marketing potential through Facebook, blogging, twitter and workshops.

Sue said there were five main reasons why novels fail.
1. Insufficient conflict – conflict needs to be in place right at the beginning.
2. The characters are not gripping or convincing e.g. a TSTL heroine (too stupid to live!)
3. Settings are unbelievable – this can be rectified by having pictures or recordings of the place you have in mind and you must engage all the reader’s senses to take them to that setting and keep them there!
4. Unconvincing dialogue – all dialogue must be gripping and must move the action on. Don’t include every word, summarise and remove slower scenes.
5. Insufficient use of senses – must include colours and smells within the action.

A plot emerges from the motivation of the characters but must have enough conflicts within the story. A friend of mine likened a plot to a journey, but there must be threats and points of learning along the way.

My problem has always been that I don’t plot a novel before I start. I usually play with the characters – often with a writing partner online and let the characters decided their own stories by their interactions together. This is really good for understanding your characters, but can make deciding on the beginning, purpose and ending of the story really complex. One of these days I shall be disciplined and plot my story first!

I can understand what Sue means about conflict. I have a very gentle story I’ve played with on my own for a couple of years but apart from the characters heading towards a significant argument, they spend most of their time preparing food and looking after animals which really doesn’t help the story along!

Sue recommended conflicts should be included on three levels. Most stories are actually based on fairy tales and myths. She cited that twelve novels in the top two hundred best sellers are built on the fairy tale structure. James Bond is an example of a mythic plot.

If these structures are followed, you can see that conflicts come in threes.
1. The character’s battle with one aspect of themselves
2. The character’s battle with someone else
3. The character’s battle with some aspect of the environment e.g. weather/disease – something which causes a problem thereby isolating them.

If you are working with things happening in threes, foreshadow, but don’t let things happen immediately. If you have two false alarms, it heightens the tension.

The numbers three and seven are the most popular numbers in all cultures. If you are engaged in persuasive writing, emphasise the point three times.

Sue told us that Jane Austen included a plot twist every six or seven pages, which keeps her readers surprised and wanting to know what happens next. She said you need to have background information available about each character to ensure you keep everything consistent.

There is nothing more disconcerting in a story if you have decided to change the name of a character half way through but forget to make sure all the changes have been made in your word processor.

We had this problem in The Strongest Magick. The hero’s name originally was Agravaine, but his nickname used throughout the book just didn’t fit, so my collaborator came up with an older form of the name, Agryffan, so the nickname , Gryff , made more sense. I cannot tell you the hassle it was to go through the entire text and ensure everything had been changed correctly. You cannot trust a word substitution programme!

When you’re plotting a novel, Sue suggested you should decide the opening and the ending and twenty key scenes. These can be developed into chapters on a postcard. Chapter lengths should be varied. Cliff-hangers are good because they keep the pages turning. You need to have enough happening, possibly with events set in threes.

Prologues should be not too long and punchy. Use them to give an overview. The purpose is to give an idea of what has happened before providing any foreshadowing needed.

Similarly, an epilogue should sort everything out, but to achieve all this, the reader must care about the characters.

If you are writing heterosexual stories, Sue said the male and female parts of the novel should be developed equally. The same could be said if you’re writing about same sex couples – i.e. each partner has to be developed to the same extent. You can’t be captivated by Lavonia and have Count Leverhulme remain a cardboard cut-out.

What does he like for breakfast? How did he get the scar on his little finger? Why does he always groan when he hears Beethoven’s 5th Symphony played yet cannot stop drumming the opening sequence on any surface with which he comes into contact?
Sue suggested writers should not plot too tightly. It was more important to get to the end of your novel before tinkering. Don’t worry about perfection; get the bones of ideas down.

An interesting point Sue brought up which publishers are requiring to a much greater extent than before is what is the author prepared to do to promote their book? Sue recommended such things as building websites, offering promotional material, writing competitions, offering workshops, reading in libraries and all the social networking sites. To those can be added giving readings, attending conferences and book fairs.

All these examples are possibly less trouble if you are living and writing in a niche market. It would be much easier for me to write books on herbs or healing because I know where the gaps are and who might be interested and the subject matter is one which can be discussed over the dinner table with friends. It’s more challenging if you write for “adult” markets and can’t publicise your work perhaps as much as you’d like for fear of alienating family, friends or even losing your job!

Sue told us that most publishing contracts for novels often include the need for another novel within twelve months. If you follow her advice to have a minimum of forty pieces of work submitted at any one time, this can be made up of short and long versions of the same short story, articles, poetry, flash fiction, competitions etc. She advised us to have a database tracking system so we knew what was happening to any one piece of work at all times.

When submitting a novel, Sue advised getting the synopsis as good as you can get it, making sure you look at the publisher’s website as well as the Writers and Artist’s Yearbook. It is also advisable to ensure the first two pages have NO mistakes on them. If they do, no-one will read any further.

A one page synopsis can almost be considered as a blurb (the writing on the cover back page). You must make sure the synopsis includes the ending – a publisher does not appreciate surprises!

Publishers will often have blogs giving their pet hates. It is worth reading these so you don’t fall foul of such formatting issues as not having the first paragraph indented but making sure you indent all subsequent paragraphs. Sometimes publishers have enquiry forms and these should be downloaded and completed.

The workshop left me with lots of ideas and hopefully some new skills. Sue told us there is a market for everything. We should go for what inspires us and keep going until we get a result, at the same time looking for every opportunity you can find to promote yourself.

Now I have to follow her advice and push myself into action!

Sharing a tale

The dreadful weather we've been experiencing for the past few weeks led to the cancellation of Solihull Writer's Workshop this week, so, having written a short story to the given theme, I thought I would share it here.

I was inspired by a photo taken after Christmas by a Scottish herbalist friend of mine, Claire Mullen. It was a stunning view of the blue moon touching a tall fir tree.It was one of those scenes which just begged to be included in a story.

The theme we had to write about was someone who didn't fit in. Once again I have drawn on my own experience - it's very difficult to make friends in a small school where you're the teacher's daughter, you live five miles away from the village and your mother doesn't really think that any of the village children are suitable friends for her child.

The glue pasting incident is true as well. It happened in NZ and the 12 year old boy who decided I was far too clean was the local vicar's son in Mt Manganui. I don't remember anyone coming to my rescue, but everyone was shocked! Needless to say, I survived, but my lasting friendships were made in secondary school when I was far enough away from home to form my own relationships.

Making wishes come true!

What gives you inspiration to write? This is a question I am often asked. My usual reply includes the sage thought, “Writers write about what they know”. We all do this. We use experiences, phrases, stories told by others and pictures we see in our minds to weave a web of words to create something new, but which is based firmly in our own reality.

The opportunity for stories comes in many different guises. Take last week. I was sitting on New Street station in Birmingham waiting for a train to take me to Sheffield for a regular meeting with my line manager. The train was late and the man sitting next to me became very agitated. He was travelling to Leeds for a meeting with a different law firm from mine and was worried he would be very late.

“Why are you going to Sheffield?” he asked.

“My boss likes to make sure I’m alive and being nice to people.”

“That’s good,” he said. “I’m still alive yet 15 years ago a man was charged with my manslaughter. The police weren’t so nice then as they are today.”

It seemed such a strange fact to be sharing with a total stranger on a railway station. In one way I could wish there had been opportunity to discuss his life story further, but even so, he offered me the perfect beginning to a murder mystery or thriller – if I wrote those genres!

So where did The Lady and the Bull come from?

In 1999, Cornwall saw a total eclipse of the sun. It was also the year I decided to start visiting ancient sites all over the county. While my family enjoyed themselves at Shires adventure park, I went in search of some standing stones on the moor and Pawton Quoit. As I walked along a farm track, I was accosted by two traveller’s dogs. The owner came out of their landrover and quietened them so I could pass.

The following week, a fellow camper and I spent a day hunting stone circles, quoits and holy wells. When we reached Madron Well, a family were already inside the chapel. The mother was breastfeeding her baby while their two older children sat quietly on the stone seats by the alter. One of the two men with her asked me if I wanted to taste the water inside the baptistery and gave me instructions how to step on the middle stone.

I refused, feeling nervous and worried I would slip into the water. It was something I always regretted. When I returned the following year, the baptistery was dry – the local farmer had diverted the water supply from the sacred well. It was ten years before the water flowed again, thanks finally to the work of Andy Norfolk and others who love the site.

Even when I did collect water flowing into the stone baptistery, having gone to the chapel again with some German friends of ours, I was accosted by a local busybody who told me it was contaminated and shouldn’t be drunk!

But what of The Lady and the Bull? The story began as an account of our original day in West Penwith, which was eventually published in Circle magazine a year later. Then I took the first 500 words and decided to see what would happen if the woman who refused the water went back. The man who told me how to collect the water fascinated me. What would happen if he were still around? What was his history? What would she learn from being associated with him?

It was a difficult story to write. I had a vague idea of the outline, but in the end, the story decided what it wished to portray. When writing dialogue became a challenge, I was grateful to a friend of mine for helping to role play some of the scenes online so I could use the saved script as a basis for parts of the story.

For me, creating The Lady and the Bull was a profound teaching experience, helping me to understand a spiritual concept in greater detail. My readers may enjoy it for the developing romance and descriptions of wonderful Cornish countryside.

My only sadness is the fate of Altarnun bowsenning pool. I wish it were the clear, bathing pool it once was and could be again. Unfortunately, the farmer who owns the land appears to have no wish to conserve it and has not co-operated with local Cornish Archaeologists. The Parish Council at Altarnun is similarly uninterested in saving their unique heritage for future generations despite approaches by myself and others from the Wells and Spas community.

The Roman remains lie hidden and inaccessible under fallen trees and undergrowth. Maybe, the strength of the story will somehow reach out and touch the future in a way we cannot perceive today.