Chapter 7 and the invisible reader

It's been a productive day, though I was distracted when I ran out of teabags. I managed to knit chapters five and six onto the earlier bits and now have started chapter 7. I feel the need for less sitting around drinking tea and chatting and more action, so I might scrap today's words and rewrite as something bigger. The bad character is closing in, but I want to work on it. I wish I could just plan!

Thanks to recommendations I received from another blogger I picked up a copy of Between the Lines by Jessica Page Morrell, and the first thing I noticed is that it's a book that speaks to the female fiction writer, which really suits me. A lot of the time, books brimming with ideas are actually aimed at producing a male style of fiction that I neither write nor, very often read. So I recommend it if you are trying to write subtle, rich prose rather than a bodice ripper or a crime thriller. She also recommends Brian Kitely, and I look forward to exploring his writing exercises after my assignment bottleneck has passed.

One things I'm benefiting from at the moment is the input of fellow students who are willing to exchange work for editing/critiquing. I'm finding this incredibly helpful, and even if I (and they) don't agree with every suggestion (which is all they are) we are getting rare insights into how the reader receives the work. It's no good me thinking I'm come up with something really clever if the reader doesn't get it! I've always though that art, any art, is empty without the viewer. A picture on a wall is nothing, but when someone looks at it, it becomes something to that viewer. I think writing is like that, my ideas, my story acting itself out in my head, gets approximately and thinly translated into black and white marks on the screen or page, then someone else with a rich and varied imagination uses those words as a starting point to create their own story. If their story relates to mine, great. More importantly, does their story progress, is it satisfying for them? Ultimately, I write stories because I want to know what happens to the characters. Editing and rewriting gives me a chance to share that story with someone else, bringing it to life as a piece of fiction rather than an elaborate daydream. So, thank you ladies, I appreciate your help enormously.

Learning Edge

I find I get to the edge of what I'm competent at doing and then fear freezes me up. This stops me taking chances, learning new things, because I fear that while I am doing this, I will be crap until I practice and master it. Editing is this edge for me. I know I can do the small editing, better language, better punctuation etc. but doing the big story/plot/pacing edit is hard and I've never found an easy way to do it (yet). So I'm going to have a go anyway today, trying one of the suggested methods of analysing the book in the whole and then chapter by chapter, scene by scene until I have the structure clear in my mind. Tricky stuff.


I find talking to people about what I am doing, about the book in the round, helps me pick out bits that don't make sense or aren't very interesting. Yesterday I was talking to my friend Jo and she's a real enthusiast of good women's stories so another person I can bounce ideas off. The problem is, I think (without slipping into melodrama) the book needs enough drama to keep the reader interested. the problem for me is, I've already read it, I don't know if it's interesting or not any more.


Putting it away for a month is a good idea, at least in theory, so I can perhaps enjoy reading through it and find 'big' changes like point of view (POV) narration and get that consistent and working. I have to have two POV's for this book to work, but I can probably cut it down to chapter by chapter rather than swapping mid chapter. The second novel I'm just playing with, having fun, and I'm trying to avoid the big stereotype 'vampire/werewolf stuff' that's going on in young adult literature at the moment. While still having a bit of fun with the supernatural, which is at least an area where I'm well researched!


This is a snippet of the supernatural book. Hopefully it arouses enough interest! It's the first scene, I wanted to establish Jack as a figure who may be evil or may be good, but is a bit of an action hero!

[COMMENT REMOVED SO I DON'T PLAGIARISE MYSELF!]

Looking at pace

My biggest problem in fiction (that I am aware of, anyway) is pacing. It isn't something you can go through a book with a red pen and recognise 'a bit of pace' and cut it out. I tend to start strong, wander about in the middle, and finish strong and way too fast (this is writing a book I'm talking about). I've just written life writing piece no. 2 and realise (thanks to my home grown critics) that the first part is strong but the second part is moody and emotional but nowhere matches the first part. Back to the life writing drawing board.

So, I'm going to run up a checklist and analyse what I have already written. If I can give each scene a good pace and match them up a bit more. You can really tell the days I was tired or bored, and compare them with the days when I was carried away.

I'm working through Revision and Self-editing by James Scott Bell. I loved his book on plot, and so far this is as good. Back to my words!

Addicted to stories

As a psychologist I'm interested in why we do and like certain things. We clearly love TV, we watch hours a day. As a nation, we consume newspapers, books and magazines, we follow celebrity gossip and news scandals, we love film and TV. In the past, we were hooked on serial stories, radio dramas and storytelling in every form. I think my need for writing is a reflection of my need for stories. I have always told myself stories to get to sleep, and sometimes just need to write them down. So I've written short stories and much longer stories, but I was nervous about putting them out so I didn't get feedback. Now I'm getting the feedback and it's painful but I can't believe how much I have learned in this last couple of years! Working on short stories for my TMA, I'm distracted by the craft rather than the story itself. So I've decided to spend the weekend and early next week writing a short story for its story, then edit based on my new knowledge and the fiction chapters of the Big Red Book. I am feeling caught between 'good' writing and good stories.I've dipped into some 'good' stories and while the craft is beautiful the stories aren't always compelling. I've been reading some Bridport winning stories and runners up in their anthologies,and some of them are wonderful. Some are baffling to me, the stories take a back seat to the writing to such an extent I can't make head or tail of them. The characters are unlikeable so you don't care about them, so don't engage with the stories. So, as a novelist, I need to let up trying so hard to understand the short story thing and carry on doing what I do best - write long fiction with strong stories. So I thought I would take a bit of a plot in a novel and write it up as a short story, then edit as recommended in the BRB. I suppose I should stop talking about it and actually do it....