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Sabbie Dare and Friends
I have been writing fiction since my reception teacher, Mrs Marsden, put a paper and pencil in front of me. I can remember thinking; What? Do real people write these lovely books? I want to do that! I gained an MA in creating writing and sold my first books for children; Sweet’n’Sour, (HarperCollins) and Tough Luck, (Thornberry Publishing), both from Amazon. I also love writing short stories and they regularly appear in British anthologies.
I now write crime fiction, published by Midnight Ink. The idea for In the Moors , my first Shaman Mystery came to me one day, in the guise of Sabbbie Dare. She came to me fully formed and said; “I'm a young therapist, a shaman, and sometimes I do get very strange people walking into my therapy room. Honestly, I could write a book about some of them...”
I am a druid; a pagan path which takes me close to the earth and into the deep recesses of my mind. Shamanic techniques help me in my life - in fact they changed my life - although, unlike Sabbie, I’ve never set up a therapeutic practice...I’m too busy writing and teaching creative writing with the Open College of the Arts. I’m a fellow of the Higher Education Academy.
Although I was born, educated and raised my two children in the West Country, I now live in west Wales with my husband James.
IN THE MOORS, the first Shaman Mystery starring SABBIE DARE was released in the US in 2013 and UNRAVELLING VISIONS will be out this autumn, but you can already reserve your copy on Amazon.
Join me on my vibrant blogsite, http://www.kitchentablewriters.blogspot.com where I offer students and other writers some hard-gained advice on how to write fiction.
How Seven Famous Writers Conquered Writer's Block
How Seven Famous Writers Conquered…Writer’s block
Time and again, my creative writing students ping me an email that says something very like this–
Dear Nina, I’ve hit a crisis/complication/problem/issue with my mother/health/partner/job and because of this I’ve done no writing. Please can I have more time?
I write back, mostly to say, yes, of course, and I’m sorry that you’ve got so many worries that you can no longer write, but…just a thought…you’re not actually suffering from–
Writer’s block
Are you?
We all know how that dreaded ailment. It hits us where it really hurts, directly into our hopes and dreams and deepest needs.
Writer’s block is a strange thing, given that, as Flannery O’Connor points out, “Anybody who has survived an average childhood has enough to write about for a dozen years” but also the most soul-destroying thing.The pen has no ink, the keyboard refuses to tap out your thoughts.
Below, I quote Seven Really Famous Writers who have suffered the block, just as you have. They’ve all had periods of blankness, but, unlike Gustave Flaubert, who once said to a friend, “You don't know what it is to stay a whole day with your head in your hands, trying to squeeze your unfortunate brain so as to find a word” these writers have found an escape route, and been thoughtful enough to share it with the world, to help struggling writers like you and me. Here are my seven conquering heros:
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| Teeter Inversion Table |
NUMBER 1, CONQUERING THOUGH INVERSION
Dan Brown, Author of The Da Vinci Code
Telegraph Features writer Harry Wallop tried out Dan Brown's cure for writer’s block when Brown revealed that he hangs upside down to get the creative juices flowing again. The results, here on Youtube, are very entertaining, if highly unbelievable; Crazy idea? Don't try this at home? We'll quickly move on to number two:
NUMBER 2, CONQUERING THROUGH WALKING;
Philip Hensher, novelist
One thing I do is take the Tube to the end of the line, then walk back into the centre of London. It's hard not to find anything to write about doing that.
Sounds almost as crazy as inversion, but walking alone is a wonderful way of overcoming all sorts of blocks, and I use it regularly. Now I live in the country, I’m lucky, because my walks can be beautiful, but the point is not to be noticing the scenery, but to allow your steady footsteps to send you into a brown study in which you’ll find yourself entering your character’s minds, houses, conversations, and motivations, all of which can send you hurtling back to the keyboard. Be sure to take a notebook because it’s easy to forget those glimmers of brilliance.
NUMBER 3, OVERCOMING THROUGH FREEWRITING
Maya Angelou, writer and poet
What I try to do is write. I may write for two weeks ‘the cat sat on the mat, that is that, not a rat.’ And it might be just the most boring and awful stuff. But I try. When I’m writing, I write. And then it’s as if the muse is convinced that I’m serious and says, ‘Okay. Okay. I’ll come.
That advice sounds to me a bit like the freewriting I recommend, as do most writers who have tried it. If you still aren’t trying to get out of a block by regularly freewriting sessions, you should go to http://weareoca.com/creative-writing/go-with-the-flow-a-strategy-for-writing/ right now to find out what you’re missing.
NUMBER 4, OVERCOMING THROUGH RITUALS;
Laurence Sterne 18th C author of Tristram Shandy
Before writing, Sterne would shave his beard, change his shirt and coat, send for a “better wig,” put on a topaz ring, and dress “after his best fashion.”
Don’t knock it. If you’ve watched Shakespeare in Love, you’ll have noticed the little ‘ritual’ Joseph Fiennes has on-screen – he twirls his quill between his palms and spins on his stool each time he sits down to write. There is nothing wrong with having ‘prompts’ to get you going. I have a writing friend who has to play a game of Solitaire on her laptop before she can begin to write, and there are many more little rituals that might help get you going:
a cup of tea/bottle of water/glass of whisky at your side as you begin
10 mins of yoga, stretching, Tai Chi or similar
Try playing music – no singing, the words will get in the way – baroque/classic for heightened thinking, folk/easy listening for relaxing those muscles – something specific to stimulate production and create that ‘Pavlov effect’
Burn some essencial oils as you write
Start sessions by reading one chapter from a stimulating book
Allow 5 minutes surfing the net – set a timer to make sure you get to work
Keep a writer’s magazine to hand to dip into
Start with a freewrite (see Number 3 above)
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| Jessica Hinds |
NUMBER 5, OVERCOMING THROUGH MEDITATION
Jessica Hinds, screenwriter, playwright and lyricist
Learn to tap into your deepest instincts as a writer, and connect to your writing at its creative source. The goal of meditative writing is to return you to that time, when finding your voice as a writer was as easy as being yourself, and raw creativity flowed as effortlessly as inspiration…You’ll learn to banish writer’s block forever…
When you meditate on your writing, you may find you are taken far away from your surroundings. Although you are not asleep, your thoughts have taken predominance over being fully alert, your brain slows into Alpha brain waves. Writing can be achieved before touching a keyboard, when we visit a strange place in our heads and meditate…or visualize things we will want to write about. Writing is the setting down of the words, pictures, and ideas that have already appeared in our head – whether we visualized them only seconds before we touch the keys, or weeks – even years – before we write. Once a writer knows how to access their imagination, transferring their thoughts into writing becomes much easier.
NUMBER 6, CONQUERING THROUGH COMING AND GOING;
William Faulkner, Nobel laureate
“I only write when I am inspired. Fortunately, I am inspired at 9 o’clock every morning.”
Examine your body clock to find out the optimum time for your writing. Now look at the times you’re not ‘needed’ by other people. Ask yourself how you can chose a time, place and length of time to write, by factoring in all the possibilities. Now tell the people you live with, or see frequently, that they must please respect your writing time (and space).
Ernest Hemmingway, novelist, short story writer, and journalist
The best way is always to stop when you are going good and when you know what will happen next . . . That way your subconscious will work on it all the time. But if you think about it consciously or worry about it you will kill it
There are two types of writer’s block – not being able to start, and not being able to continue. If you follow numbers 1 to 5, you will soon be writing. Then you can start to work with number 6; coming to write at a specific time and place, and going away from your keyboard knowing what you want to say next. Further ways to accomplish that are;
working to an outline
walking or meditating on what will happen next between writing sessions
reading around 500 words of the last session’s output as you start to write.
NUMBER 7, CONQUERING THROUGH FEAR;
Michèle Roberts, novelist and poet
”It's usually because I'm afraid of what I'm writing about. In the case of my second novel I had great difficulty writing about incest, but as soon as I realised what I was scared of, and tuned into that, the block subsided.”
You may not be writing something as difficult as Roberts at the moment, but that does not mean to say you aren’t fearful of it. Writing is a terrifying process in itself. We are scared of failure, and when we read our words back to ourselves, we are often shocked at their futility and frightened of ever repeating a process that leads to such despondency. Face the Fear, writers. Bear two things in mind to help overcome it (a) you’re probably being way too hard on your own writing, and (b) so was every writer before you.
Seven Steps to conquering writer's block, all from people who have written successfully.
Over to you… Go Write!
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Rectangular Memories – Mind Mapping for Writers
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image by K. Jasven
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The concept of mind mapping may have evolved from the mathematical spider diagram, but, not being a mathematician, I wouldn’t know about that. What I do know is that by placing a single concept, in the shape of a word, phrase, or image, in the centre of a piece of paper, and using word representations, associations and memories to expand outwards, answers fall into place.
This technique prevents you from losing those tiny peripheral thoughts that may be the nub of creativity, and encourages new ideas to drop from the muses.
I use a mind map at the start of each new story I write. I’ve also used it to help poems along. I start by drawing a circle in the centre of my paper. Inside it I put an image, phrase or word, something core to my initial idea. Alternatively a random word or image can produce quite amazing results.
This week, I'm guest blogging again for http://weareoca.com and I'm talking about mind mapping because one of my OCA students has recently written an unusual poem, right at the start of her Degree Pathway, in her first assignment. To read the poem and the rest of my blogpost, go to rectangular memories at We are OCA.
…I feel quite privileged that you chose to use my mind maps as an example! : ) Thanks! Kat Jasven, OCA Art Student
Source: http://weareoca.com
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"NIna Milton's Marmite Books on CAMPAIGN FOR THE AMERICAN READER"
CAMPAIGN FOR THE AMERICAN READER
THE OFFICIAL BLOG OF THE CAMPAIGN FOR THE AMERICAN READER, AN INDEPENDENT INITIATIVE TO ENCOURAGE MORE READERS TO READ MORE BOOKS.
On their Writers Read page.
What have I been reading?
Really interesting books...Marmite books.
Marmite is the UK’s favourite yeast extract spread, and it is said that people either love or hate it. Some books gain a similar response from readers, and here are the ones that I loved reading in 2015, but some others hated. As a writer of crime, I’ve chosen three books that can broadly be described as ‘crime novels’. I'm reviewing:
A Brief History of Seven Killings
by Marlon James
I Saw a Man
by Owen Sheers
Elizabeth is Missing
by Emma Donoghue
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Book Launch in Glastonbury UK
Established crime writer Nina Milton is launching the third book in her Shamanic Mystery Series in the centre of Glastonbury and you are cordially invited to attend. Beneath the Tor features young Somerset shaman, Sabbie Dare, who enlists the help of the spirit world to fight the dark side of humanity.
All the Shaman Mysteries are set in the beautiful, but sometimes eerie landscape of the Somerset Levels, and Beneath the Toropens on Midsummer Eve at the top of Glastonbury Tor, where beautiful Alys Hollingberry dies suddenly after dancing the night away. The book has its own cast of Glastonbury characters and examines many of the myths and legends of this mystical town.
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| http://www.unitythroughdiversity.org/glastonbury-experience-courtyard.html |
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| Ronald Hutton with Nina Milton |
The launch will take place atThe Avalon Rooms at the Glastonbury Experience (Post code BA6 9DU) at 2pm on Saturday 27th February and all Milton’s books will be available at a special launch price.
Ronald Hutton, professor of history at Bristol University, will give a talk on shamanism today, and Nina Milton will give readings of her work and sign copies of her books.
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| Arthur Billington |
Complimentary refreshments will be served and blues guitaristArthur Billington will provide acoustic music. All book lovers are invited, and admission is free.
Born in Bristol, Nina Milton is a Druid with shamanic training, who began her writing career when she was awarded the Wells Festival of Literature Short Story Prize. She returned to the prize-giving in 2015 to talk about what can happen after winning.
Beneath the Tor has already received acclaim from reviewers and readers alike:
This third mystery of the series hits the ground running. I read the book straight through with only some sleep in between. It's not necessary to have read the first two to read this one. Wonderful mix of modern grit and ancient magic…Chesapeake Reader Amazon.com review, December 2, 2015
Milton puts an intriguing New Age spin on the traditional English mystery…Publisher’s Weekly
Nina Milton has created a unique fictional world in her Shaman Mystery Series, featuring Sabbie Dare as a young shaman. WithBeneath the Tor she has become a mistress of plot-weaving, and above all, she pulls off the trick of setting the totally fantastic amid the totally everyday and making the two fit together with pace and excitement…Ronald Hutton, author of Pagan Britainand The Triumph of the Moon.
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Notes from an Exhibition and A Perfectly Good Man by Patrick Gale
- NOTES FROM AN EXHIBITION was my first Patrick Gale; it wasn't my last.
- I love novels that are 'about something' that inform as well as entertain, and the setting of Cornwall, and the theme of contemporary art was enticing. I also love unusual structures of narrative, and Gale uses changing viewpoints that dot around in time and place, like pieces of a jigsaw, but he's confident about showing the reader the way through the story. While engaged on a groundbreaking new series of paintings, Rachel Kelly dies of a heart attack in her loft-studio was an artist. Her son can remember giving her six stones collected from a Cornish beach and believes they were her inspiration for the paintings. Gale has a great writer's skill; he allows the reader intimate acquaintance with the inner lives of characters. Rachel is bipolar and this is a convincing device which demonstrates the upside of her condition; the mystery of creative inspiration. When free of medication she soars towards a high, producing great work. Her suicidal lows are considered by her family to be the punishment for so many things.
A Perfectly Good Man, thenext book I read by Patrick Gale, is engrossing. The story examines events from various character viewpoints, moving around in time seemingly randomly to create a rich canvas. The characters are finely drawn, and the theme is deeply mined. I'm steadily becoming a fan of Patrick Gale's work and their fairly constant themes of Cornwall) dysfunctional families,and his continual theme of religion and Man's struggle within the confines of its boundaries of morality. The perfectly good man of the title is destined to fail - not precisely become a bad man, but indeed a flawed one. He did this in gloriously with horrendous consequences for him, his family and the wider community.
Someone Else's Skin by Sarah Hilary
Sarah Hilary admits she thinks of dark things. ‘I do have a dark mind…’ she’s quoted as saying, ‘a friend of mine pushed me into crime writing, saying…‘your mind is in a dark place already, you should make some money from it’.’
I love dark minds. I have one myself, especially when I’m asleep. My dreams are a deep recess full of images and actions useful to a writer. I dream of torture, of lost babies, of running at night from beasts, of hiding from men with guns. One morning I woke to discover I’d scribbled something at three am, before falling back to sleep. The words ran down the page like oozing blood – death and mayhem all night long.
So Sarah Hilary’s first novel, Someone Else’s Skin – a brilliantly apt title, by the way –was right up my dark alley, absolutely my cup of hemlock. Everything about the story leads to darkness. The symbols are disturbing; a woman blinded by an acid attack, a hand severed by a scimitar, a victim chained, waiting for torture. The themes explore hate, violence, misogyny, and sadism. Her characters are women fighting for some peace – some justice from men who have attacked them – but they all have inner demons to contend with. Even Hilary’s fiercely intelligent investigator, DI, Marnie Rome, has memories of a violent family event, and losses she’s trying to forget while she’s doing her dark, dark, job. Her partner, DS Noah Jake, is black and gay, which isn’t a problem to anyone except dyed-in-the-wool homophobe, DS Carling. However this is not a formulaic police procedural. KTW readers will know how I love my crime novels (read and written!) to be about why crime is committed, and what affect that has on victims, investigators, bystanders and even the perpetrators.
On the WH Smith Blog, http://blog.whsmith.co.uk/sarah-hilarys-fictional-heroines/ Hilary says: ‘Marnie Rome walked fully formed into a story I was writing two years ago. She was undercover, in biker boots and a black wig, but she was unquestionably Marnie. I recognised her at once. Later, I came to realise how many secrets she was hiding.’
According to C G Jung everyone has a ‘shadow aspect’. This is a repressed area of the unconscious reflecting the side of us we don’t see in our conscious selves. He wrote: The less it is embodied in the individual's conscious life, the blacker and denser it is. I don’t know Sarah Hilary well, but she looks a lovely cheery person in her photos – slightly quixotic, in fact, rather ethereal. If, like, me, she’s fundamentally a sunshiney person, it stands to reason your shadow aspect is going to be a cold sweat of despair and agony.
Jung believed that we should endeavour to be aware of our shadow aspect, so that we grow into balanced people, and I have a theory that writers have a way of gaining that balance, even without knowing it. They draw out their shadow aspect in their writing. That might explain why nice people end up writing about the worse sides of human nature. Ann Cleeves, a crime novelistand judge of the 2015 Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award, which Hilary won with Someone Else’s Skin, said… ‘she has this dreadful sense of horror, but it is done delicately and subtly. It always stops just as your imagination takes over.’Rome and Jake want to interview a resident of a women’s shelter in Finchley, Ayana Mirza. They want her to testify against her own brothers, who have driven her to the shelter with violent intimidation. But as the detectives arrive they witness a stabbing. A husband has sneaked in, bringing flowers for his wife, and now lies bleeding on the floor. In that moment, the book gains its delightful complexity, because Rome and Jake thought they had one, cut-and-dried crime to investigate, and now they also have a mystery. Was the knife inside the flowers? Has Hope Proctor just saved her own life, or did she always plan to attack the husband she’s been hiding from? The answers to those questions are dark and twisted, and the story will spiral out of the detective’s control before they’re answered. As Simone, another woman who has sought refuge remembers in the book…‘He thought he'd broken her in a thousand pieces, but sometimes... when you are broken... You mend hard.’
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| No Other Darkness is available from Amazon |
Domestic violence has often been lumped under ‘misery memoirs’ and it’s refreshing to see someone take the subject and create both a complex, crime novel and serious examination of the problem, without descending into cliché. Hilary writes with understatement. She doesn’t shout out her messages, but when she wants to describe violence, she does it with such power…Mum's bread knife, its steel teeth full of tattered red skin…Despite its subtlety, Someone Else’s Skin has its terrifying moments, the sort you have to hide behind the sofa to read. I read this book on Kindle, and right now it's only 99p on Kindle if you click here.
Since its publication in 2014, Hilary has published the second Marnie Rome novel, No Other Darkness, and I believe she’s ready to publish the third. I can’t wait to read them – I have my sofa all prepared to hide behind as I do so.
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The Flight from the Enchanter by Iris Murdoch.
The Flight from the Enchanter was Iris Murdoch's second book, but it was my first introduction to my number-one writing hero, which made me long to also write about love and power and goodness and beauty and what makes up a human being. Suddenly, at the age of twenty, I wanted to say great things, like Murdoch, who, being a professor of philosophy, has a far greater claim to be able to write such things than I will ever have. However, if we can’t be inspired by the great exemplars, what hope is there?
Once I’d put down Enchanter, I went in search of all her other books, and then lay in constant wait for her to write the next, which she did, for years, every 18 or so months. Only her very last book, written while in the grip of Alzheimer’s, is not among my very favourite reads to this day. Enchanter isn’t her best book, for me that is The Sea The Sea, but it was the first I read. I loved Iris Murdoch from that moment on, and reading her made me think more deeply, write more avidly and dream great dreams.
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
Did you know that when Dickens wrote this little novella in 1843 as part of his ‘Christmas Series’, it changed all our Christmases? Traditional practices were going out of fashion at the time, and the book revived them. Groaning boards of turkey and iced cake, presents, dancing and mistletoe were all saved for our enjoyment…or not! At the same time it was a clear comment on early Victorian society, as when the Ghost of Christmas Present reveals two children saying; “This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy, for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased.”
For me, the book was a tradition in itself. Every year, as my children grew, I’d read it, over four or five nights, ending the story with Scrooge’s transformation on Xmas Eve. Heady days!
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.
I’ve chosen this book from the series because its publication in 2002 was the moment things changed in the children’s book market. Children had always been ready love nr newly-pressed books, but these books, including the first three of JK's series, were usually about 200 pages long. Goblet weighed in at more than 600 pages and kids gobbled it up. Publishers finally realized that children loved to read and could read enormous books, as long as the words on the page moved and excited them.
Rowling has her critics, but she is the master of 3 important areas of writing; she can extend plotting, theme and structure to allow seven long books to reach their own climax yet take you on to a final, gripping finale where all important threads are tied. She can handle a vast cast of characters, in which the least has a personality potentially as big as the protagonist. And she makes you laugh.
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Candide by Voltaire
Candide by François-Marie Arouet, also known as Voltaire, was published in 1759 during the European 'enlightenment’ and at the time was banned as blasphemous, and politically seditious – Candide pokes a lot of fun at the establishment of the day. Voltaire was a sharp witty man, and (the two don’t often seem to go together) a philosopher, who strongly opposed certain Enlightenment ideas about social class. Candide is a naive young man whogrows up in a baron’s castle. His tutor Pangloss teaches him that this is “the best of all possible worlds.” Candide is discovered kissing the baron’s daughter, his secret love, and is expelled from his home. He wanders the world with Pangloss, surviving the most awful disasters and tortures, while Pangloss continues to describe life as ‘the best of all possible worlds”. Shortly after reading this novella, I saw the film Oh, Lucky Man, staring Malcolm McDowell, a sprawling musical intended as an allegory on life in the 20th century. I could not help linking the two stories. I still to this day believe that the screenplay takes its inspiration from Candide.
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We are All Completley Beside Ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler
— feeling cool 
Witty, stylish, page-turning and very finely written. Fowler takes a startling subject and creates deeply-felt characters as well as a shocking twist in the middle of the book. The disturbing lives of the Cookes family consists of a pedantic psychologist father who specializes in animal behavior, an emotionally fragile mother and three children: Lowell, Rosemary and Fern.
One daughter mysteriously vanishes, the other changes from a prodigiously talkative child to a silent adult; the brother runs away. And beneath the basic plotline lies a story as fantastic, terrible and beautiful as any Grimm's fairy tale.
This unconventional, dysfunctional family can't be too autobiographical, but Bloomington, Indiana where they live in the novel is also where Fowler spent the first 11 years of her life.
I found the ending didn't live up to the promise of the rest of the book, but that may be because I wanted it to be fairytale, and in reality, that woulnd't have been fair, right or very convincing.
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, published in 1962. During the seventies, when Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn was hitting headlines, I read most of his works. Some, like The Gulag Archipelago, are long and involved, and written to make people aware of what was going on in the USSR. But one of his smaller novels hit me the hardest. Denisovich is an account of life in a forced labour camp, and therefore of Stalinist repression. The book graphically illustrates what was happening behind the iron curtain – why people were thrown into camps and what happened to them there. Probably more than his longer non-fiction accounts, this was the book that forced the West to stop ignoring violent breaches of human rights behind the “iron-curtain.” Strangely, though, what struck me about it was its optimism, its emphasis on hope. I most clearly remember the scenes when, for instance, Ivan managed to gain a cigarette and inhaled the sweet smoke deep into his lungs. It seemed to sum up how humans will always seek something to cling to and make the most of the tiniest moments of joy.
Beneath the Tor by Nina Milton
Thank you, Publisher's Weekly, for the great review of my new book!
Nina Milton. Midnight Ink (midnightinkbooks.com), $14.99 trade paper (432p) ISBN 978-0-7387-4382-0
At the start of British author Milton’s unsettling third Shaman mystery (after 2014’s Unraveled Visions), a group of 10 people, all “keen to explore shamanism,” climb to the top of Glastonbury Tor to celebrate Midsummer Eve. When Alys Hollingberry, who has been dancing nonstop, suddenly collapses, Sabbie Dare phones emergency services. Another participant says it’s too late (“I saw her spirit go”). On the day of the inquest, Alys’s grieving husband, Brice, receives a strange email (“The Tor needs no sacrifice. The utter waste of blessed life signals doomsday”). It’s signed Morgan le Fay. Since Brice doesn’t want the police involved, he asks Sabbie’s help in identifying Morgan le Fay and figuring out this person’s connection to Alys. Meanwhile, a priest alleges that Alys took drugs during the celebration on the tor that may have led to her death.
Milton puts an intriguing New Age spin on the traditional English mystery.
Beneath the Tor is out in December if you live in the US; if you live in the UK you will have to wait until January 2016. But you can order your copy from Amazon now at the pre-order price;
And if you'd like to hear me read from all three of the trilogy, be at The Cellar Bar in West Wales next Friday the 30th October at 8pm for Celler Bards
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The king dies...the queen dies...
Foster’s definition of plot and story is pretty tight; the only difference is the word grief. No wonder I’ve noticed my students getting a little confused at times between the two.
Literary theorists like to differentiate between plot and story: plot is the way events are presented to the reader; story is the wider sequence, as we the reader (and author, of course) imagine them to be; their natural order and duration, which, from the perspective of the writing, is somewhat hypothetical.
A good example of this would be the way a soap opera works inside the head of the viewer. They watch half an hour on screen; the plot they view includes; a couple having a row; a young girl being punched by an older male; a scene in the pub where two old codgers plan some shady business. When the programme is over, the viewer is still processing this; they might ask…what other young girls has this chap hit before…this one should do something about it…why did the couple not see this row coming, after all she’s been ignoring him for her job for months…does this mean divorce is in the offing…will the old codgers get away with this plan, as they did the last… Such meandering is thestory behind the plot. We can utilize this in our writing.
Plot is the action that dramatizes the story, making characters come to life. This action consists of the patterns of events and situations that have been selected and arranged by the author to elicit a particular interest in a reader (or audience). Plot has been called the ‘narrative melody’ as it is the motivation around which the story is told, and that melody is entirely in the hands of the writer; they select the story they tell and create a plot to hold it together.
Plot arises from the result of human activities and adventures, and can be summed up by the word conflict; the opposition of forces between focus characters and their surroundings. A plot should develop conflicts that are eventually resolved, and trace a process of change within the characters caught up in the events.
An illustration would be the news you tell a friend on meeting them. ‘My dog died last week,’ you say. ‘I’m really sorry,’ the friend replies – they’re your friend and so they are interested – they probably knew the dog. But for this story to interest a reader, it must contain a tightness that creates surprise and drama, and, most importantly, one that concludes with some satisfaction; whether that’s a happy or sorrowful ending: ‘My dog was run over last week. It was touch and go. I was there by his side all the way. They told me it was a one in a million chance he’d pull through. Then the vet called in a specialist from the city, some bigwig with a new technique. And here he is, by my side, aren’t you Fido?’ (Notice how I can't resist a happy ending!)
This brings us to Cause and Effect. P D James takes Forster’s quote even further. She says...To that I would add: the queen died and everyone thought it was of grief until they discovered the puncture wound in her throat. That is a murder mystery and, in my view, it too is capable of high development.
Causality is a massive part of the plotting mechanism which will have a riveting effect on the plotting of your stories. Readers love to see the ‘story build up’, as events, thoughts, behaviour etc., set up in the early moments of the story, connect, build and develop the story.
Causality is linked closely to the motivation and personality traits of the characters. As the plot unfolds causality results in a process of significant change which gives the reader regular emotional hits, until the conclusion is revealed.
A plot builds up from incidents that impact on one another. These incidents should not be a series of unrelated events. Causality will help you get a patterned, driven, tight plot that takes the reader on a journey via the motivation of the characters. Causality also helps you guard against implausibility; if the character’s motivation and conflicts are always directed by cause and effect, the writing will be far more believable.
It is by combining causality with conflict that the strongest plot affects are gained. Conflict allows the ‘screws’ of cause and effect to tighten towards the end of the story. The reader knows all the complexities will be sorted, but they can’t for the life of them see how. A good ending will generally spring that sort of surprise; the ‘how’ of making a satisfactory and (if the author wants) happy ending, where the character has survived his ordeals, and learns and grows as a person. Using a learning/growing outcome often helps the plausibility of the story, and leads to a satisfying end, because the main character will have mostly sorted things out for himself and be responsible for most of the good outcomes.
So, looking at Forster’s quote above, it becomes clear that story, however interesting it might be to those caught up in it, does not have sufficient structure to hold an outside observer. Bear this in mind while you are plotting. The story that surrounds the plot, that led up to it, is also the story that that could lead away from it in any direction...floating away from the nice construction of cause and effect. Be aware and beware of that and you will keep your structures and devices tight and focused.
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Diana Cambridge…Secrets of a Writer in Residence
That shouldn’t be my first concern. But as I pack for my week as Writer In Residence to Sherborne Literary festival – that’s from Wednesday 14 to Sunday 18 October – it’s what I’m thinking.
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| Diana Cambridge |
The answer? Black! With yellow as an alternative.
Comfortable shoes are a must. So I put my heels in my bag and wear flats up the hill to the Digby Hall in Sherborne. I used to do this as a teenager, as I couldn’t totter to a pub but could nip into the Ladies before anyone saw me and change shoes there.
Princess Michael is one of the speakers at this prestige Litfest: also Victoria Hislop. I plan to squeeze into both of these – one of the lovely elements of WIR is that you can get into events free. The other fantastic bonus is choosing anything you like from their gorgeous café. Last year I’d eaten three hand made chocolate eclairs by 11.a.m most days. The café - yes, they do wine - is run by Sue Adams, sister of the late author of Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.
My drop-in writing clinic is open each day. You can email work ahead- up to 2000 words – for a critique and make a booking if you want. The festival charge £5 for the one-to-one clinic consultations. It’s money well spent! Several of my previous clinic students have been published. Already I’m working my way through ten pieces of work already submitted. Topics range from spy thrillers to sci-fi to playscripts to nature writing and more.
I try to avoid dealing with poetry, as I can never think of anything to say about it.
I’m always in awe of the gifted beginners, the talented writers who have never had any training, yet are intuitive about skilful management of words. Also the many writers who complete a whole work without any promise of publication; just relying on their own faith in their work and their market research. This is one of the signals that mark out the real writer, I think – the discipline to keep going. To finish.
Many good writers succeed on the words side, but haven’t quite worked out the plot or the structure of their material. It’s structure which counts. Your words can be perectly fluent, your descriptive abilities exemplary – but if you haven’t a story, you’re clobbered.
Also basic “holes” in plots can trip you up. Like a daily newspaper journalist, you have to check every fact, ensure that situations are credible. I find that writers often don’t care for this bit. Some fall down on targeting their reader. Writing a novel that has no reader or niche is a bit like creating a product – let’s say edible bow ties at £50 - for a market that doesn’t exist. Maybe that’s not the best example.
My first task as WIR is to set up my room. Most Litfests are run by volunteers, and the more you can do to help them, the better. This includes setting up chairs, clearing space, putting up your posters, meeting and greeting. Although the clinic is billed at 15 minutes per person, most chats go on much longer – if there’s no one waiting I’m happy to do that.
I may have seen students work ahead – or they may really drop in, with ideas. Often what I do is confidence boosting. It’s so easy to lose heart when you’re a writer! Plus, it’s a lonely job and family aren’t often sincere about their interest.
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| Dianna with Sue Adams sister of the late Doug ( Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy) Go to sherborne literary society for more details |
I prepare handouts, booklists and critiques ahead ready for the students. I think it’s essential to have something “to take away” – if they’ve been nice enough to come to see me, I want to give them as much as I can in return.
The atmosphere at Sherborne is energetic (Director is the amazing Judith Spelman) and the talks inspiring. Most events are booked solid: the stage, IT and acoustics are very well organized, which isn’t always the case at some Litfests.
Some of my drop-ins are returning students, many have achieved some success and need advice on the next step – or they may have hit a roadblock. Winning a big award and then not winning anything for ages can be hard, even lead to depression. It’s a bit like going from MD to office junior. All I can say is to keep trying – if you’ve been successful once, you will be again. That question “What am I doing wrong?” haunts all one-time winners whose success is followed by a long period of rejection. The answer is – you’re not doing anything wrong! “They” are!
Why do we always think it’s us?
I work right through the day and never turn anyone down – if I can’t fit them in instantly, I’ll make a slot for them later. It would be so depressing to drop in at a writing clinic and find there’s no room for you. The advice I give tends to be practical: I can’t bear writing advice that’s too precious. For example, the question: what IS a short story? followed by an hour of heavy academic theory. I sat through one of these once, longing for a Haribo.
In the evening I may go to Litfest events, and do some work for the next day – I now have an Android. I absolutely love being invited out for a drink. And it’s wonderful not to have to put out the bin bags. Though I often forget anyway.
It's not to late to visit the Sherborne Literary festival
Wednesday 14 to Sunday 18 October.
And there's still time to mail Diana for an appointment.
What to wear?
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Books I Loved when I still Sucked my Thumb
I think I have been a writer since the age of five.
My infant school teacher Mrs Marsden read a story to the class. It might have been the fable 'The Mouse and the Lion', but I can't really remember.
It was when Mrs Marsden asked the class to write a stor that I had my early epiphany. I was dumfounded. For the first time I realized that the books I loved had actually been written by real human beings. Before that, I believe they must have fallen from some sort of story heaven. It was a revelation. I haven't looked back.
I wrote my first novel at the age of fifteen. Well, okay I started to write a novel which I never finished. Writing by longhand was a distinct brake on my creativity, so I asked my friend to type it out. She was doing exams in typing at the time, so she was quite pleased.
I wrote in one corner of the room, while she typed. Blissful silence until Maggie looked up and said, 'it is a bit old-fashioned, but it's really nice.'
'Thanks,' I simpered. I'm hoping people will enjoy it.'
'Nina,' she said, 'I was talking about my new dress. I've been talking about my new dress for the last five minutes.'
I do believe I've got better since then, both at writing and listening to criticism!
As a children’s writer, I am bound to be influenced by the books I read as a child, but when I look back, the strangest, most obscure books have left the biggest impression.
My earliest memory is a book called Unicorn Island, which my father read to me when I was three or fourand I reread a million times afterwards. A coastal village of disparate animals live in fear of the offshore island, where white flashes of the dangerous unicorn can be seen circumnavigating the mountain.When the hero’s little brother falls dangerously ill, he and his friends take it uponthemselves to brave the island and come back with the healing herb. They discover all manner of wonderful things there, and the unicorn turns out to be the most marvellous of all. There is a slightly sinister atmosphere to the story and a gravity you don’t often find in picture books now…a precursor (but with a far longer story) of Where the Wild things Are.
Because I was often in bed with asthma, there were books I’d return to as a small child. The Adventures of Manly Mouse was one – Manly lived in a world where mice who went about their human endeavours in a little mousy town. He was a deliciously flawed character, often losing his job or breaking with good friends. He drove a dilapidated car and was easily duped by more suave mice. A phrase our family uses to this day came from the lips of one of Manly’s posh employers (who turned out to bea poor mouse in scam disguise)…and when I say shine, I don’t mean shine, I mean gleam. I when I say gleam, I don’t mean gleam, I mean glitter!
Some books I read too young. I can recall devouring Mary Poppins, which I was handed by Mrs Marsden in reception class with the words, ‘you’re past all these baby books,’ but when I read it aloud to my children thirty years later, the only things that rang a bell was the marvellously flavoured medicine and a strange man on a ceiling.
I can’t pretend I didn’t grow up on Enid Blyton, but the works that made the most impression were the magical Narnia stories and Anne of Green Gables. I loved the way Anne hurtled through life. Her ‘modular’ way of learning (by making every mistake in the book – literally) suits me to this day. But, as the books watched her grow into a woman,
I also (creep!) loved her commitment to duty and her attitude to life, which reminds me of that quote from Man for all Seasons, when Richard Rich asks… 'If I was, (a teacher) who would know it?' And Thomas Moore replies…'You, your pupils, your friends, God. Not a bad public, that…'
In some ways, the books I read made me the person I am. They were probably more influential than my textbooks or my teachers…or even my parents. I’ve even tried to rewrite some of their ideas into my own work, although that has rarely worked, and most of those early stories were never published. They were my apprenticeship, I guess, and although almost all of them are gone from my hands, I will never forget their stories and characters.
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