Romantic Novelists' Conference 2015 and Showing not Telling

It seems hard for me to believe that the RNA Conference was just over a week ago. As always. it was superb even though I feel I attended only half of the conference due to a 'bug' that would not leave (still have it). So many things at the conference recharge my writing batteries...being with other writers always tops the list along with whatever session fellow Heroine Addict, Julie Cohen teaches. These did not let me down.

But there were a few surprises...the biggest one was the Show Not Tell taught by Sue Moorcroft and Heroine Addict, Christina Courtenay. This is something that is always at the forefront of my mind as I tackle my first round of edits but not normally until then. Like Julie I tend to write a sh*tty first draft for me that is full of short cuts just to get the story down. This will include much of she felt like this - knowing I will head back in and 'show' in the next draft. Because to be honest when that burst of writing is upon me stopping to think how I can show she is frightened, nervous etc means I can loose the flow.

This wonderful workshop was a brilliant reminder of how much fun it is to show and not tell...how I hear you ask? We played dressing up. Christina brought part of her beautiful collection of Japanese clothing... It's been a long time since I played in a dressing up box or wore a costume for Halloween. When I put on the kimono I transformed in so many ways...and then PING. Something I hadn't thought about in the book I'm writing at the moment...when my character puts on her Wrens' uniform for the first time....what did she feel? How did it alter how she carried herself, thought about herself? Did 'the world' look at her differently or did she just feel this way?

Many times as writers we immerse ourselves in our characters and don't stop and think about it. It's part of the job. It was brilliant to step out of my world and put on someone else's clothes and to 'feel' the difference. Hopefully this will refresh my writing and certainly my sense of fun!

Research - love it or loath it

Love it or loath it research is key part of writing a book even if you know your subject. You need to check facts – that is important but only a small part of the joy of research for me.

I could do nothing but research – I love it. Now with the Internet, it is easier than ever to become lost moving from one click to the next - eventually finding yourself reading new and interesting facts that have moved a long way from where you started. So I have learned to restrict myself to minimum research before writing because, to be honest, the book may never be completed if I did it all before. I need just enough knowledge to write the first draft. This will be filled with lots of XXXX, which means more research is required. If I stopped to do it then and there I’d never finish the book.

But I love coming back to those points when I begin to rewrite - because I have found that doing the research at that point is when I find the layers that can make a story more interesting or thinking cakes – tasty.

In Under A Cornish Sky, I knew from the start that the garden would be important, but it was in choosing the name for the house, Boscawen that new layers were added. Boscawen means dwelling by an elder tree. I began to research elder trees and a whole host of wonderful folklore appeared, which then added plot twists and turns. The same happened with bluebells…

I didn’t plan these things - they arose from research, from looking into the small details and that is what I enjoy most, the unexpected. I find that research can lead to new books as it did with A Cornish Stranger. I found the old Cornish saying – save a stranger from the sea, he’ll turn your enemy – while doing research for A Cornish Affair.

At the moment, I’m writing and researching my next book, The Returning Tide, which has a dual timeline – current day and WW2. So much more research is required than in my previous books. But I’m trying to hold off doing too much before I finish the first draft so that the magic of research can help me twist and shape the novel like a cake with a surprising element in all the layers that somehow works together to satisfy and intrigue.

How do you feel about research if you are writer and if you are a reader how important is it to you? Do you notice it?

Letting Go

Malick Bowens and Meryl Streep in Out of Africa, 1985 © Universal Pictures Ltd.

I have this scene I'm writing in the current work-in-progress, and it's taking me a long time to complete. I'm not avoiding it, exactly, but I know I'm taking more time than I should, and only yesterday I realized it's because this is the last scene for a character I've come to really like.

No, I'm not killing him off, but it's still a goodbye.

I'm not good with goodbyes, whether real life or fictional, and in a film a farewell breaks my heart even more than a death, sometimes. (All I have to do is look at that picture above and I hear Malick Bowens's voice saying: "Then you must make this fire very big..." and I go all to pieces...)

The rational side of my brain knows this character needs to leave, needs to move on, so the story can move on as well. And I will get to see him again in revisions and rewrites, and when the book's finished and published I know I can visit him there in the pages whenever I want.

But the rational side of my brain isn't writing the book; that's the problem. And so I've been slowing down...finding small jobs that need doing...re-working a line here, a paragraph there...catching up on my research.

It won't work, of course. Either later today or tomorrow I'll write his last scene, and I'll probably cry (which is good for the book, in a way), and then that will be that.

But I never like saying goodbye to a character.

What about you? Do you have the same problem, as writers or readers? How well do you cope with goodbyes?

(Don't forget to come back Thursday, for Julie's post.)

WRITE CRAP

I have a post-it on my computer monitor saying WRITE CRAP. It's one of the most valuable pieces of writing advice I know.

I told that once to a reporter and they happily printed the fact that I believed I was publishing foecal matter, so let me explain what I really do mean.

I'm not saying my books are crap. Well, they might be, but I'm sort of attached to them so I wouldn't abuse them so soundly. What I'm saying is that at the composition stage, it's actively useful for me to allow myself to write badly. If I felt that I needed to fill each and every page, every little sentence, with exactly the right words—if I tried to produce a final draft when I was really creating a first one—I would be paralysed. I would be depressed. I would never write anything at all.

I realised, quite early on in this game, that my first drafts are rubbish. They're full of bad words, or good words put the wrong way. Dodgy motivations, two-dimensional characters, sketchy settings, large chunks where nothing happens, things that basically any four-year-old with a pencil could write better than me. They have big gaps where I'm not sure what should happen. They have XXXs where I haven't been bothered to find the correct word or do a bit of research.

They are so bad, that nobody should ever be forced to read them, ever.

The thing though, is this. First drafts are MEANT to be rubbish. First drafts are written to benefit the writer. Some people call them "discovery drafts", which is a useful way of thinking: a first draft exists so that the author can discover the story, making lots of mistakes along the way.

At the beginning of a story, I need to allow myself to write crap. Depressing as it can be, I need to write words knowing I'll be deleting them later. Because the wrong words lead to the right ones. And making mistakes—writing crap—means that when it comes to doing a second draft, I'll have learned the right thing to do to make the second draft NOT crap.

You write crap so that you can fix it later.

I'm reminding myself of this right now, because I've just finished copy edits on a lovely, finished, polished manuscript which is as perfect as is humanly possible for me to make it right now, and I've plunged immediately into writing a new first draft for a new story. And boy, is it bad, especially compared to the coherent thing I just sent off to my editor. It jumps around all over the place. I can't get a grip on the heroine, or her friends. I'm not really sure that the plot makes sense. In fact, I'm pretty sure it doesn't.

But I need to give myself permission to write crap, or else the crows of doubt will be pecking my eyes out with a vengeance. I need to remember: it's okay to make mistakes. It's NECESSARY to make mistakes. We all do it, because we all need to.

I might need some more post-it reminders, though.

Please come back on Sunday, when Anna Louise Lucia will be posting something possibly less crap-focused.

Why a Book is Like a Suitcase

Well, they're both rectangular prisms, I suppose, but it goes deeper than that. I've been packing today for my trip to Los Angeles, and in the course of my folding and rolling and stuffing I realized my books — or at least my first drafts — are like suitcases, really.

Some of the things I'll put in, I won't need. And some of the things that I'll need, I'll forget to put in.

In all my years of travelling (and writing) I have never yet perfected this. I've tried, believe me. I've refined my packing technique so I can usually fit what I need in one carry-on, but even then there will always be one shirt or one pair of pants that I could have left home, just as in every first draft I've written there's always been one scene (at least) simply taking up space.

Which is nothing, of course, when compared to the bother of getting to the end of the first draft and realizing I need to add a whole new scene or subplot (the equivalent of having left my hairdryer at home, instead of packing it).

In my latest book, The Rose Garden, I wrote a lovely scene in which my heroine and one of the past characters sat talking on a hillside on a quiet Sunday morning, and another scene in which she met two ramblers on the coast path. Good scenes, both of them, but totally unnecessary to the plot, and so although I packed them into that first suitcase they were never used.

On the other hand, I found I had forgotten to put something in the middle of the story that was necessary, so I had to add it in.

It seems no matter how I try to learn from past experience, this always happens. Even though I've laid my clothes out carefully and taken half away, the way I've learned to do, I know there will be something that will languish in the suitcase all this week and not get worn. And in my current work-in-progress I know I'm creating scenes that won't be in the final draft.

Maybe one day I'll be able to spot them straight off, and save time. Anybody out there have some tips to offer?

(Come back Thursday, when the lovely Julie will be posting.)

It's All in the Details

I had an epiphany lying in the bath reading Agatha Christie about two weeks ago. This wouldn’t be the first time this has happened reading her. The story was being told by one of Miss Marple’s friends and the details she shares with Miss Marple are such an insight into her character. Now of course I knew this, but sometimes you need to see it done so beautifully that you can spot where your difficulty with a scene lies. I was working on writing a scene that I had avoided in draft one of Penderown. It is an emotionally painful scene and to be honest I avoid them where I can, but that of course cheats the reader.

So here I was lying in the bath reading 4:05 from Paddington when I realized I hadn’t picked the right details out for Demi's state of mind or her personality. Once I saw this it was easier to write the scene. I didn’t have to tell how she was feeling – it was there in the details.

So this is the view from where I’m sitting as I write this…if I were to describe this scene in front of me what would I chose to highlight? If I was Maddie in A Cornish House it would be the bluebell because she is so drawn to the colour but if it was her step-daughter, Serena, it would be the small scented jonquil.

These small spotlights that we choose can actually make writing much easier. Here’s the opening paragraph of A Cornish House…

It was nearly eleven and Maddie had been behind the wheel of the car for over ten hours. She

yawned and forced her eyes open wider. Slowing the car she approached yet another blind

bend. Moonlight silhouetted the twisted trees against the sky. Their tortured shapes rose from

the hedges, forming a tunnel. It seemed to be closing in around them. A shiver went down her

spine. The engine stuttered.

Can you tell Maddie’s state of mind? What she sees is an easy way to show and not tell.

Do you think about the details you chose or are they free flowing? In my rough drafts I don’t consider them at all. It’s only in the revision process that I know my characters better and can see through their eyes.

Please drop by on Thursday to find out what Biddy has on her mind…