Author: Karen

After my last post you might think that I don’t agree with writing classes where the teacher comes in with an object such as a photograph, or a handbag and contents, and tells the students to write about the person in the photo or the owner of the handbag.

I don’t think they are bad. They seldom produce outstanding writing but I do not believe that producing a literary masterpiece is the object of such an excercise.

The aim is to make you write.

When you write you can’t sit around waiting for inspiration. Inspiration seldom comes while you wait for it, and your writing muscles atrophy from lack of use.

As a beginning writer you know that you want to write, but don’t know where to start, or even how, so you join a writing class. There in the class you come across other people who don’t appear to have the same problems as you. They can all write. They scribble constantly, even when the teacher is talking. You feel intimidated. Your confidence plummets.

The teacher puts a photograph onto the front desk and says, “I want you to write about the man in this photograph. 3,000 words. Bring it in next week.”

Nothing concentrates the mind so wonderfully as a deadline.

You sit around for six days and stress. You can’t think of anything to write. The deadline looms. It must be in tomorrow. Finally, the evening before the next class, you write. Anything, it doesn’t matter, just to get it done.

It gets easier.

By the end of the term you have learned the habit of writing to order. Good training for when you start your novel, if you haven’t already done so by now.

The other thing this type of writing does is encourage you to explore different ideas. The what ifs, the maybes.

I’m not really interested in this woman and her handbag, for instance, but that lipstick holder reminds me of the one my grandmother used to have.

I remember holidays at Gran’s. Her home creaked with the wind. We used to think it was haunted, and were terrified when Mum made us stay with her for two weeks when she had to go into hospital.

The story you turn out in this case is the story of the ghost, only peripherally connected to the handbag by a contrived ending involving the owner of the house finding the lipstick holder. It’s the best story you turn out all year.

You have finally learned to use your imagination to control what you write, rather than someone else’s.

I always wanted to be like Jaime, in Martha Grimes’ novel Foul Matter.

Foul Matter is about authors, editors, egos and contracts in the publishing industry. The authors in the story include best selling writer Paul Giverney, who is between contracts at the moment, literary writer Ned Islay, and Jamie.

Jamie churns out four books a year under various pseudonyms, and is the only writer in the group who actually makes a living from her books.

I realise now that I will probably never be a Jamie, simply based on the speed at which we write (and remember, there are two of us), the length at which we write, and the genre we write in. It’s a while since I read Foul Matter, so I don’t remember exact details, but I always imagined that Jamie wrote mystery and romance.

I tried to write a romance once.

This was many years ago now. I have learned and written a lot since then, and gained a writing partner as well.

My reasoning was similar to that of many other novice writers. Given that romance is one of the largest selling genres in the world, surely it would be an easier field to break into. (In my defence, I had devoured Mills and Boons as a teenager. I knew the market had changed, but at least I was familiar with the genre.)

It was hard, hard work. I persevered for 20,000 words before I gave up.

I found that old novel the other day. The writing wasn’t too bad, and the characters were okay, but the story failed to spark. It was boring.

It felt like one of those writing class exercises where the teacher brings in a series of objects—say a handbag with contents spilling out of it—and says, “Write about the owner of this handbag,” and you feverishly write, because you know you have to present something at the next class, but frankly, the owner of that handbag does not inspire you.

The most important thing writing that novel taught me was that one has to be able to live with a book for the whole of its life. If you can’t love it for the whole of that time you are making the writing process hard, and taking away everything that is enjoyable about it. It becomes a chore.

Then writing stops being fun.

Why choose a career that takes so much of your effort, of your time, if it’s not fun?

That’s why I’ll never be a Jamie.

A picture is worth a thousand words, they say, and it’s true.

If you see a sign like this on a box:

you know that:

• The package is fragile
• You need to handle it with care
• You need to carry it upright.

If you had chosen to write the warning instead, what would you have written? Maybe something along the lines of:

This package contains glass. Contents are easily breakable. Handle with care. Always carry right side up.

Which conveys the message better? The picture or the words? The picture.

Why write words when pictures convey the message so much more simply?

Words themselves are becoming simpler. We have come long way from Chaucer’s middle English:

Oones ayein ich must demaunde yower pardoun, for many dayes haue passid syn ich haue poosted heere

(Taken from the modern-day post “Whan that Aprill” Weekend on the Geoffrey Chaucer Hath a Blog blog site. I’d credit your name, sorry, but I can’t actually work out who you are. Great blog site, by the way.)

But we have also come a long way from what we recognise as modern day usage as well.

Thirty years ago, Marseilles lay burning in the sun, one day.

A blazing sun upon a fierce August day was no greater rarity in southern France then, than at any other time, before or since. Everything in Marseilles, and about Marseilles, had stared at the fervid sky, and been stared at in return, until a staring habit had become universal there.

Charles Dickens, Little Dorrit

While some people do still attempt to write like Charles Dickens, most of us have simplified our language, so that it is doubtful if a book with such heavy language would get past the agents enough to be recognised as the good story it may be.

The words have become simplified. “Ich must demaunde yower pardoun” from Chaucer’s time becomes “I must demand your pardon” in Dickens’ time, and “I am sorry” nowadays.

Even spelling is being simplified. “Colour” is slowly becoming “color”, no matter what we English spelling purists think, “Programme” is now generally “program”, and so on.

Yet in all of it, a picture beats words, almost any day. Do you have written instructions on your mobile phone, or do you have a picture for each function? You have a picture.

If we follow the trend to simpler words, and then on to images replacing words, what do we end up with?

Iconised images and very simple words as the major form of written communication.

I wonder what an archaeologist 5,000 years in the future will think, digging up our civilisation from the ruins of whatever has grown on top of it. Will they think us a simple people, with only the rudiments of written language, because we work mostly with pictures and simple words?

Do we, as authors, give our characters more pain than they can realistically tolerate?

I haven’t written much in the blog over the last month, as I pulled a muscle in my back.

I haven’t wanted to write. I haven’t been able to concentrate, and I haven’t been able to sit for long periods, whether it be in front of a screen or just sitting generally. I haven’t been able to stand long either, so I have spent days sitting, then standing, then sitting, and—more preferably—laying down.

Everything hurts. It’s only a back strain, but my hips ache, my legs ache.

I have not been able to do much of anything, and my whole life seems to be centred around my back.

I realise that this response is an over-reaction to pain in someone who seldom experiences it, but it made me wonder. Exactly how much pain would the heroes in our novels be able to bear?

As fantasy and science fiction writers we are more likely to inflict pain on our protagonists than the average author. Do we let them off too lightly?

Our hero gets a sword between the ribs. The local doctor—or equivalent—patches him up.

Next hour he’s limping around the battlefield, offering encouragement to the fighters who are left.

How likely is that in real life?

He’s going to be sore. All that movement will likely tear the stitches. He’ll start bleeding.

Because he’s our hero he’ll be thinking of his people, naturally, but he’s going to be really conscious of the pain. Sometimes, that will be all he can think about. Sometimes he will snap at people trying to help. He won’t be able to stop himself. All he wants to do is lie down, and for the world to go away.

Some remarkable people put up with crippling pain every day. Most of them adjust, and learn to live with it. Some even manage to be cheerful in the face of it. Often the people who tolerate pain least are those who seldom experience it. Me with my back, for instance.

As authors, we generally create hale, hearty heroes who become injured in the process of the story, not beforehand. Yes, they’re used to bruises and minor battle scars, but because of their very hero-ness, aren’t they more likely to be unused to major injuries?

Does this mean that they are also more likely to be incapacitated by deep, real pain when they experience it?

Carrying on the theme of a recent post … sites for writers seems to be a common subject at present.

Jessica Faust, over at Bookends LLC – A Literary Agency, gives the following advice about web sites for unpublished writers. She recommends getting a web site now, before you are published, as you need the site ready for any prospective agents or other readers who may be able to help you with your career.

Jessica also suggests that posting a chapter of your novel is a good idea.

Some of the people who commented on her blog thought this was a good idea, others were a little wary. I confess to being one of the wary ones. Yes, we are posting Barrain here on this blog, as unpolished in its early drafts as it possibly can be, but I’m not sure about posting any of the work we are currently trying to sell.

There is a practical issue here as well. The first chapter that you write is probably the last one that you finish. We occasionally still polish the first chapter of Potion as it arrives back from yet another agent. When would we post this chapter? Timing is everything.

Site design was discussed—by Jessica and the people who commented. The general consensus is that you need a simple, basic site that looks okay. You don’t have to pay a professional to design the site, but it doesn’t hurt if you do.

One thing that wasn’t discussed on Jessica’s post was blogs.

A web site is not a blog, although you can have a blog associated with your site, or even set up as the whole site. In an ideal world you would have both, a la Neil Gaiman, say. If you had the choice, though, and could only do one, which would you do?

I think that would depend on the type of writer you are, and how comfortable you are with the web.

Me. I think I would go for the blog.

People write blogs for different reasons.

As writers, I would say that some of the major reasons would be:

• For writing practise
• To maintain enthusiasm
• To showcase our talent.

This last is important. Some agents (e.g. Miss Snark) mention that if they are interested in an author’s submission they will check out their web site. I know, as a reader, if I find a writer I like, the first thing I do is look up their web site on the internet.

Which leads to the question—how much should we polish what we put in there?

When we write novels they go through a few major drafts, plus numerous minor ones, and every draft is reviewed by both of us. We take time between the drafts. Yet this blog gets one draft and one revision, by the person who wrote it. Not only that, it is generally reviewed on the same day it is written, so there is not even the distance of time between the initial writing and the revision. I still find mistakes in earlier posts, months after I posted them.

What does that say about me (or about us, really) as a writer if you come to this site and see first draft material?

How much should we worry about what people see?

In an ideal world we would polish our blogs until they are as sparkling as our other writing (or at least, as sparkling as our other writing aspires to be), but for a basic return on investment, wouldn’t we be better polishing our novel instead?

Time we spend writing blogs is time we aren’t writing the novel.

It takes me around two hours to write a post and review it.

My aim was to post two articles a week each for this blog and two for my technical writing blog.

Four posts, eight hours.

That is eight hours per week of novel writing I have voluntarily given up. One full working day.

If I wrote novels for a living that might be reasonable time out, but it’s actually time out of the few precious fiction writing hours I can scrape out of a full working week and other life. It’s quite a sacrifice.

I’m not complaining, by the way, it’s my choice to do it. However, should I be worrying that anyone who visits our site sees writing that is not particularly polished, or are my priorities right?

I don’t know. I don’t know that I will ever know.

One thing is certain. The impact of your blog is not just in the writing. It’s also in the design. If your web site looks good then people are predisposed to think of you as a better writer, unless your writing is appalling.

I am no web designer, and I have come to the conclusion over the years that you don’t have to be a brilliant graphic artist to create a functional web site. You just have to be competent. You may not end up with the ‘wow’ factor (to quote that advertisement currently doing the rounds) but at least you end up with something that doesn’t prejudice people immediately.

I think writing a blog is a bit like that too.

While we would all like to put up dazzling prose, mostly it just has to be competent.

For those of us who write novels but are unpublished as yet, we’re far better off spending the extra time writing them, than polishing our blog posts to that final 10% brilliance.

How important is it as a writer that you create likeable characters as protagonists for your novel? Is it better to create well-rounded characters who may not be very likeable, or is it better to create likeable stereotypes?

The only true-life hero I ever knew broke down the door of a burning building, raced inside and rescued the two occupants, both of whom were overcome by smoke inhalation. It was an incredibly brave thing to do, and it saved their lives.

This same man bashed his wife—frequently—and followed her around the country for ten years after she left him, making her life an absolute misery. No matter how far she ran, he always found her.

To people who didn’t know him well he was witty and good looking; a real charmer. Not to mention, a hero.

To those of us who did know him, he scared the hell out of us. I know I wasn’t the only one who genuinely wished him harm and there were days when I seriously contemplated doing something about it myself.

Had this man been in a book he would have been considered a ‘well-rounded’ character.

I recently finished Sara Douglass’ Hade’s Daughter, the first in the four-book Troy Game series. This is an excellent book. Well written and engaging, and I love the idea underpinning the story. However, as the Publisher’s Weekly blurb says on the back cover of my copy:

“Dazzling … full of seriously flawed characters both abhorrently evil and appallingly empathetic.”

Publishers Weekly

The thing about Hade’s Daughter is that it was a really good book, but I’m not going to race out and read the next three books in the series right away. I may do in future, I’m not sure. I need time away first, because sometimes the main characters were really not nice. Publisher’s Weekly really described them well.

For me, personally, no matter how good a book is, if I can’t like the characters I have trouble staying the whole book.

So does this mean that I prefer books with likeable stereotypical heroes rather than a truly good book with a truly flawed character? Obviously, it depends on the flaws, and one person’s idea of fatal flaws is not necessarily another’s. Some people will love Brutus, for example, in Hade’s Daughter.

I can definitely say that if you gave me a choice between:

• A Pulitzer-quality novel about a charming, but flawed hero (who just happens to beat his wife) who investigates the arson of a house where he rescues the occupants, and
• A lighthearted whodunnit about a (nicer) man who investigates the arson of a house where he rescues the occupants

I know which novel I am going to read, and it’s not the quality one.

In an ideal world, of course, the character would be rounded, flawed, and still likeable. That’s the type of book we all strive for.

I am currently reading Jared Diamond’s Collapse, subtitled How Societies Choose to Fail or Survive.

If you write fantasy or science fiction and want to build worlds, this is another book I recommend.

Collapse talks about the impact of climate change, environment, friendly/hostile neighbours and how society responds to these first four problems. The way it responds then determines whether that society survives or fails.

The world we created in Shared Memories was devastated by a war 40 years previously. In that war the people in our story lost their ability to produce energy, lost immediate access to major food supplies, and lost most of their healers.

The population crashed.

When we wrote it I wanted the population to drop by 80%. Sherylyn convinced me it would be more like 50%. I eventually came around to her way of thinking, but after reading Collapse I’m starting to think that an 80% drop in 40 years is still possible.

We’ll stick at 50% though, because to drop 80% the world would need to be a closed system, with no outside contact at all.

Our world—Roland’s world—did have external visitors and contact with others, albeit slowly.

The great thing about books like Collapse is that they show you how other factors, not just politics, influence a society, and make it survive or fail. As writers we often focus on the politics and omit the rest.

Novelists often look to history and geography to help with their writing, but they shouldn’t forget science, even if they’re not writing science fiction.

Some ideas stand the test of time, others come and go out of fashion, or are superseded by other ideas.

The idea of electrons in an atom orbiting in discrete paths around the nucleus like planets around a sun, for example, is now considered obsolete, replaced by the wave structure of matter.

Other ideas do stand the test of time. The Tragedy of the Commons, for example, is still as valid as when Garret Hardin proposed it back in 1968. Likewise, in her book On Death and Dying, Elisabeth Kubler-Ross came up with a model of the five stages of people go through to cope with death or terminal illness.

The stages are:

Denial – The “This can’t be real” stage.: “This is not happening to me. There must be a mistake.”

Anger – The “Why me?” stage.: “How dare you do this to me?!” (either referring to God, the deceased, or oneself)

Bargaining – The “If I do this, you’ll do that” stage.: “Just let me live to see my son graduate.”

Depression – The “Defeated” stage.: “I can’t bear to face going through this, putting my family through this.”

Acceptance – The “This is going to happen” stage.: “I’m ready, I don’t want to struggle anymore.”

Definition of Kubler-Ross model in Wikipedia

The model is as valid today as it was back in 1969 when Kubler-Ross proposed it.

I have to say that everyone I know, myself included, who has gone through a grieving process, goes through these five stages. No exceptions.

People move through the stages differently. One person may spend months grieving, another years. The stages also overlap. There is no, “I have stopped denying it, now I’m angry,” moment. It’s more a gradual realisation that you have moved from being alternately disbelieving/angry to angry/bargaining.

So how can we use this in our writing?

Any character who loses someone they love will go through this grieving process. Even your story characters.

Obviously, you don’t want to do grief-by-numbers scenes in your novel, but character-wise, you know some things will happen.

• There will be a period of disbelief
• At some stage the character is going to feel angry that their beloved has died
• They should eventually come to accept it.

What you put into the story is up to you, but if your bereaved character doesn’t respond to the death in a manner the readers expect, then the readers will lose empathy for the character. You don’t have to be predictable. Let’s take the following (admittedly cliched) scenario.

Your heroine is the queen of a small country at war. Her husband, whom she loves very much, is mortally wounded in battle. She sits by him as he dies and they tell each other how much they love the other. The king asks her to finish the war. She vows to do so, for his sake.

The rest of the book covers her struggle to win the war.

If she doesn’t spend part of the book missing her beloved. If she doesn’t even get angry with him for going off and leaving it all for her to do, then I won’t think much of her as a protagonist.

“But,” you might say, “She hides her grief by concentrating on fighting, so she doesn’t have to think about it.”

For a whole book?

No way. That grief will spill over occasionally, and where she is in the grieving process at the time dictates how she will react.