Writing Fiction -- Don't Kid Yourself That the Ending Is in Sight

The plastering is finished, the electrician is fixing the lights even as I write and if you look hard  you can glimpse possible shades of blue (possible shades of blue seem perfect for a writer's room). My house-shaped shed is on the way to completion -- there's the painting to do and the floor to lay and then the job is pretty much done.

Except, most of us know better than that.  The end of a building job is always just beyond reach, always the beginning of next week, rather than the end of this.  The same is true when you are writing a novel, when the finishing line can be a bit of a mirage.  In literary terms, I feel like someone who has just handed in a second draft: all the errors and shortcomings of the first one have (hopefully) been eliminated, the story is tighter, the focus is sharper, so for a brief period you can lull yourself into thinking that your agent (or publisher) will pat you on the back and set to work getting the darn thing into print.

So just as writers brace themselves for the e-mail that identifies a whole new set of problems which nobody has spotted/mentioned before (the suspense flags two thirds of the way through, the hero is completely unsympathetic/unlikeable, none of the jokes are funny), so I am waiting for the electrician to tell me that the armoured cable is too short to reach from the house, or that the sensor on the security light is knackered.

You need stamina as a writer, and resilience, and bucketfuls of hope, because it's not over until it's over....

Blog and Sheds and Sheds and Blogs

Just back from the smoke full of inspirational thoughts garnered from three excellent seminars organised by the Society of Authors. In the light of my ongoing shed odyssey, was thrilled to discover that first on the podium was Alex Johnson, author of the excellent Shedworking blog (and related book).

To a relative novice like me, he was full of excellent advice about how to blog well: reminding us of the need to enter a dialogue with visitors, to be interactive, to talk with, not at them (hmm, guilty? ed.) So from here on in (once I have moved into said shed and got my life back) expect Multiple Entry Points! Images! Latest news! Even audio and video!

But in spite of these hotly anticipated bells and whistles, I'll try to remember to do what I love the best - to write with as much passion and insight about the craft of writing as I possibly can.

Watch this space...

Going AWOL

Am off to London for conference on E-Publishing (amongst other things). Hope to come back not much older but considerably wiser.
See you next week...

Layer With Flair: What to Do When You Finish the First Draft

The plaster on the inside of my house-shaped shed is drying out.  Soon, it will be ready for painting and then the shelves will go up and the desk will go in and I will start to think about what pictures to put on the walls and then, finally, I will be able to start unpacking my books.

In a sense, this stage is like finishing the first draft of a novel.  The basic structure is in place; what lies ahead (amongst other things) is layering all the different levels at which the story can be appreciated.  Like flakes of gold leaf, they accrue: plot, subplot, subtext, theme, language, perspective - the list is long, but without all these your narrative would feel very thin indeed and your characters would have no meat on which to feed.

This picture expresses a little of what I mean.  I took it looking into my soon-to-be-study, with my back to the house, although weirdly, the reflection of the house dominates the photo.  Where I live and where I work are blurred together (as in life).  You can see the tools the Steves have been using, just as in a first draft you can see some of the joins, where the work hasn't yet been properly synthesised.

If you look very closely, you can see the outline of me, taking the picture.  The ghostly presence of the writer, which will always be part of the work.

The Chaos Theory?

It's chaos round our house, absolute chaos. The Steves are meant to be moving on in ten days time, so that we can move back in, but I cannot believe that this is even faintly possible.

OK, so the windows have glass in them, the plastering in my house-shaped shed has been finished, and the roof doesn't leak, but there's no electricity, no kitchen, and the boiler is in several pieces on the floor.

I keep telling myself that although the chaos may perpetuate itself for a few more days, it will resolve.  I say the same thing to myself when I am writing.  There is a distinctly uphill phase, exhausting because you are churning so much out, a feverish phase, when there is so many ideas in your head that must be committed to paper and you can't see how you're going to get it all out in the way that you want.  It's a kind of incoherent creativity, a messy period when all the momentum that you've been trying to generate kicks in and threatens to flatten you.  Then the strange geography of writing reveals itself as you reach the summit of your story and you can see the component parts of it laid out before you. It's like the view from the top of the Malverns: whole counties full of English fields as far as the eye can see. You catch your breath and everything makes sense.

So I know that we will have cupboards and work surfaces and a floor, and I will have a room in which to write.  But at the moment I can't see for looking.

Creative Writing: the Truth, the Whole Truth, and Nothing but the Truth

We are house-sitting for a friend while our building work is done, adrift in her beautiful home overlooking the park, so beautiful that she commissioned a local artist to do a watercolour of it.  Hung in the hallway, every time I go past I've admired the snowy scene with its tiny figures bowling down the hill on their toboggans.  It looks typically Bristolian and reassuringly familiar.

However, strolling back to Number 20 through the park the other day, I glanced up from the spot where the artist must have stood to see the view as she had seen it, but something was wrong.  The large conifer, which was palpably standing before me partly obscuring the house, is missing from the picture.  Artistic license to flatter the commissioners? Its omission lent perfection to the composition and at the same time robbed the picture of truth.  For any kind of artist, visual or verbal, this is a difficult call.  Part of the creative process is to stamp your own vision on your subject, and this may involve refracting reality to some degree.  I think it's probably OK to do this is if you are trying to make a comment about the situation you're describing, or if you are slightly altering an experience in order to blur the origins of it - protecting your sources, if you like - but to do it simply for expediency?? I'm not so sure...

How to Be a Lean Mean Writing Machine

Padding is great for sheds - the more of it the better, as far as I'm concerned, because I'm hoping it's going to keep me warm and toasty the whole winter through.

It ain't so good for novels, though.  There can sometimes be the temptation, particularly if you are writing in the middle period and desperate to put on length, to wodge things out so that your internal wordometer will tick over more rapidly.  This is why editing is so important -- if you want to write elegantly, economy is essential.  Because of this, I'm not a great fan of having a daily target: I must write a thousand words before lunchtime.  I try and let my own literary rhythm dictate how much I write, in the belief that each day's work has its natural length and that forcing the issue will add fat but not muscle to my prose -- the kind of insulation you can do without....

Creative Writing - Thrift not Drift

As well as stamina, fiction writers need good organisational skills in order to be able to stay the course.  As you are pounding through what can sometimes seem like the interminable stretches of the middle part of your story,  you may find that you write yourself up one or two blind alleys which lead nowhere, or have a brilliant idea which doesn't quite fit the section you are working on, so that you're not certain what to do with it.  I usually have a whole file where I deposit written passages that I can't quite place, but don't want to jettison altogether. The shed-building equivalent looks a little bit like this...

The Steves know they are going to need a door somewhere down the line, though not just yet, but there it is, not cluttering up the inside, but on hand ready when needed.

If you are editing as crisply as you should, you may find that your Out Takes file is soon bulging, and junking huge chunks of your work can be demoralising, but nothing is ever wasted.  Even if you cannot recycle material in another chapter, or another story, you will have learned something from creating it in the first place.  Try not to be sentimental or over-protective about your writing, even if you have sweated blood to produce it - remember that what you are after is quality not quantity and sacrificing a few pages as you go will be worth it in the end.

Creative Writing - the Weirdness of the Middle Period

,

Hmm. Yes. Well.

To the untutored eye (mine?) you might think that nothing much was going on in the world of shed-building, but that's where you'd be wrong, so terribly wrong.  In fact, there's felt on the roof (held down with bricks, admittedly), the electrics have gone in, and so has the insulation -- giant steps on the road to completion.

When I'm working, I hate it when people ask me how I'm doing, even though I know the question is kindly meant and springs from genuine interest (tinged with sympathy), and I'm sure our builders the Steves feel the same way.  I'm writing, I say,  just writing, and that's the truth.  There are long screeds of time when a writer is desk bound, hammering away at it, even though the unfinished novel stays just that: unfinished, as if nothing at all were happening.

However, during this time some incredibly important things are going on.  You will begin to find that your characters take on a life of their own: they may start doing unexpected things, they will certainly start to determine their own story if you let them.  It's a weird feeling.  Having spent so much time in preparation, honing your ideas, it is as if you begin to lose control of your material.  Intoxicating though this may be, don't let yourself be too carried away.  Keep a beady eye on the pitch and pace of what you are writing.  Make sure that you incorporate plenty of contrast in terms of action and mood, and don't worry too much about the fine tuning, because at this stage nothing is yet set in concrete and everything is still up for grabs.

On the Inside Looking Out - Writing in the First Person

The first person is a difficult gift for a writer, it's a complex knot of challenges and benefits that can sometimes take several attempts to untangle.  It's a brilliant conduit right to the heart of the narrator of your story -- you can monitor every breath she takes (should you want to), every thought that flickers through her mind, her joys, her pain, her preoccupations -- all of them are up for grabs. It's a chance to build an intense, absorbing relationship between the narrator and reader, offering unparalleled intimacy.

All this comes at a price, of course, as today's shed analogy will show...

One day soon, I hope, this will be the view I'll look out on when I'm working: the remains of an old orchard  sloping away to some houses further down the hill.  I'm sure it's an outlook I will come to love, in spite of the fact that it is rather restricted -  I can't see round the corner, or up the hill behind me.  The same is true of the first person -- if you're using it, you'll find it's very difficult to leap into the interior world of another character, so you can only reveal what other people in your story are thinking and feeling through what they say, what others say about them, and how they behave -- useful, but limiting tools.

Another thing that strikes me about this interior perspective is that it is a little dark, a little claustrophobic, possibly even a little oppressive, and you may find that when you are writing in the first person, the inside of your narrator's head may start to feel that way as well. So when you are deciding how to tell your story and from which point of view, weigh your options carefully, so that you know exactly what you're letting yourself in for.

My Viewpoint On Point of View

I took this picture of my shed from the house, from the outside looking in (note the progress -- windows!  walls!)  It's a particular perspective: it gives me a sense of location and proportion; I've got a great idea of how my little bolthole relates to all the other buildings and the landscape beyond.  I can glimpse some of the interior-- the beginnings of a stud wall, the suggestion of a window, but it's a bit murky and I can't see much.

In writing terms, this is a little bit like working in the third person, from the point of view of he/she, rather than I/me.  There's an externalised feel to it.  Although the third person doesn't reveal too much of the inner psyche of other characters because sometimes it lacks the intense feeling of intimacy that a first person narrative can evoke, it is incredibly flexible: you have a universal viewpoint, all seeing, all knowing, which enables you to follow the progress of one character for a time and then change courses and focus on another, rather than being confined to one narrator.

This means that at any given moment you can swing round and reveal an entirely different vista...