1984 the stage play: Angst und Zeitgeist

1984 presents a vivid, scary, dystopian view of the present. 

The Party sees, hears and knows everything people do through a system of screens, cameras and paid informers. People willingly submit to this invasion of privacy because of Project Fear: 

the country is at war

 terrorism threatens 

the collapse of civilisation is imminent

  'There is no alternative'  

Michael Billington's review 
The illusion is maintained through constant repetition and sinks into the world view of everyone. Though I found the play melodramatic and the scenes of torture unbearable, it did make me think about the narrative that national governments like to foster.

There is the narrative of Great Britain: the 'golden years' of a benevolent empire founded on profits from slavery and naval aggression. A transient lead in technology has endowed Brits with the illusion of supremacy, hints of which were heard in the run-up to the Brexit vote. 

It's convenient to forget that Britain is sinking into a morass of corruption and inequality; taking its place as a small nation on the edge of Europe.
In a way, our present state resembles the book group who debate Winston Smith's diary: the myths and illusions of our present day Zeitgeist are invisible to us because we all want to believe a cosy narrative.

The British Empire gave a lift-up to nations that hadn't experienced bureaucracy or prejudice on the grounds of sexual orientation. Missionaries civilised primitive peoples and their illegitimate children, rebellions, torture and starvation are not a part of this story.

The final week, access all areas

With only six days of November left, it's time to try out all strategies in order to finish the editing this month. 

These are the strategies I'm using [perhaps you have better ones]

Set goals: 

dividing my remaining task into five with 30 pages to go; that's six pages a day. On good days I'll try to exceed that.

Keep the journal: 

I [sometimes] write in my journal before going to sleep. it reminds me which scene I've been working on and shows me how far I've come in the last week. I need to see how close I come each day to my goal; the end is practically in sight.

Book train journeys

Make sure you have the hard copy or laptop to edit on the way. I have a two hour journey planned tomorrow. Trains are great for creating the illusion that there's no escaping the task. Journey times flash by when you're revising. I have another journey on the final day of the month so [if it's not overcrowded for Christmas] I can binge edit and hopefully reach the final page.

Stay away. 

Often a hotel can have the same effect as a journey, giving me nothing to do but write. I'm staying away for two nights this week. I think of it as a writing retreat. At this stage I need to trick myself with strategies like this.

Be kind to yourself. 

Obstacles often rear up at the last moment and we can't ignore the needs of work, familes and friends. This month I've had a domestic emergency: leaking pipe, workshop duties, busy weekends everything to disrupt my intent to finish editing the novel this month. It's 45,000 words long so it's not as long as some adult novels; it should be easy, no?

Bake.

It may be counterintuitive but baking helps me write because each time my dough is proving I have time to revise a few more lines of the book. The smell of baking raises my mood.Also writing increases my appetite and I have no time to shop for food.

More suggestions invited...

Dealing with hold-ups during editing

In writers' workshops, I've always found it confusing when writers offer alternative readings for a paragraph or announce that sections in their manuscript are 'to be arranged'. 

How can you comment on two versions at once? 

Now I find myself doing something similar when coming across a problematic chapter. By which I mean a section that diverts from the main plot, is intended as humour but is a bit too knowing or even irrelevant. 

I can't simply cut it out because I need a pause, a change of scene, a change of pace or I want to create tension and delay a reveal. Scenes like this arise because I have two alternating voices in two locations, one first person and the other third person, it's not a simple thing that I can fix in one session.

I'm at risk of losing steam in the three-pages-a-day edit that will see me reach the end by the end of the month. I worry that if I slow down and fix small rpoblems I'll 'loose the plot' ie miss out on the narrative trajectory.

Why don't I just fix that chapter? I need to see the manuscript as a whole. I need to get back to the narrative voice that I recognise. I'll decide later how the problem can be fixed. 
If I linger too long I run the risk of losing momentum and compounding the problem which is relatively small in comparison with the task of creative continuity witrh a consisten voice.
So what's the solution?
I've decided to change the font colour so I know that that section needs to be revised when I read through it next time. Anyone got any other suggestions?

mindful storyboards and filling the gaps in the narrative

Mindful storyboards, filling the gaps in the narrative

Creative writers always say: use all the senses. To evoke a particular place and time, include what you can see, hear and feel, also smell and taste.

This is very much like an exercise in mindfulness, to be in the present, non-judgmental, noticing what's special about the experience. In doing research, writers walk about the location: museum, library, canalside, drinking in the experience. In fiction, the character's emotion is the most vital part, but readers need to 'be there' as well.

Reviewing a piece of writing in a critique group you often find that you've left out some important detail, something so obvious it didn't occur to you to mention it. It's only when your work is read by fellow writers that your attention is drawn to these gaps. 

If you're working on your own, as most of us are, how do you guard against this tendency?

My suggestion is to use storyboard examples. Although a storyboard is used to show the sequence of camera shots in a film, it is also useful to let your story flow. A storyboard focuses on the key moments so it's useful in preparing an 'elevatior pitch' or a synopsis.

You don't have to be an artist. You can just draw stick figures and scribble in a rough background. If you pick out six 'story beats' from your novel.

The first thing you notice is that the boxes in a storyboard are  tiny . Some professional storyboard artists work on on an amazingly miniature scale.

My solution has been to use pastels on an A4 sheet like this:

I predict that you'll notice something in the pictures which belongs in the narrative but isn't there. Whose point of view matters? Are the characters looking at each other? Is there a whole scene that's missing? 

If it's helpful you can storyboard every scene and you may notice details which turn out to be useful. There is a risk is that storyboards are too visual. Our present culture is dominated by visual media: film, TV, internet, video game and the novelist's task is to portray human experience in all its aspects. 

Pictures can hint at smells, tastes, body sensations and emotions but ultimately it's  down to the writer's imagination that finds words to convey these.

Researching a novel setting, using maps, editing and keeping going

Prompts that help me edit

I've always been fascinated to see writers' scrapbooks and research notes. Because I'm writing about a remote historical time, research is vital to imagine how people lived

 Maps help me track the route characters need to take to get around the village. I have an outline of the key buildings, the river, the valley and the forest. I can see where the sun will be shining in the morning. 

I'm doing a line edit at the moment but it still helps to remember the context and to remember the feelings I had when I envisaged the landscape.

My book is set in the Neolithic period, or new stone age so I check through the images I have of stone age artefacts which play a big part in the story. 

Cave sculptures like this amazingly life-like creation remind me of the artistic creativity of the people and their relationship to animals. 

Totem animals may have had a spiritual significance, animals played a huge part in people's lives.

This photo reminds me of visits to neolithic sites. This stone circle in County Cork is close to a stone house that still has stone beds and and a stone sink. 

A lot of my research was from illustrated books and archaeological digs. I copied the drawings that might be significant to the story. Whenever I spent time in a library or a museum I always did some free writing about what I had seen that day. I feel this helped me internalise my learning and imagine how people felt when they wore these clothes and lived in these houses.

These are the things that help me keep going.

I have more suggestions on novel editing to come...

How to finish the novel in the drawer

Wouldn't it be wonderful if you could bring an unfinished novel out of the drawer, edit and submit it? 

So why don't we?

I'm assuming you're an accomplished writer who has benefitted from critiques by other writers whose work you admire. Perhaps you've completed a course an evening class, belong to a writing group or maybe you've completed an MA. It doesn't matter, we're all in the same boat.

Editing a book, however long, is a big task, too big, needing changes to dialogue, names, and even plot. Dialogue and names are easy but changes to the plot are serious because then you'll need to alter every other chapter to be consistent.

I can't get back into that space; my life is different now. I can't read all those sources that I took ages to find. If I do they don't seem as inspiring.
I have too many other things to do.

So what is the answer?

Not having time is just an excuse. Do you feel alive when you're being creative.? To rejig your priorities, you need a pattern interrupt:

Go on a writing retreat with other aspiring writers. Their enthusiasm and determination will rub off on you. 

If you need the visual prompts, take a scrap book of images and cuttings with you, some people use Pinterest.

I can't afford an Arvon course.

Persuade your writing friends to share the cost of a weekend break. Take your partner as long as they leave you in peace for a   few hours every day.

When you return home you could have that sense of needing to find a little time every day to keep the novel ticking over in your mind. If so, set a simple goal for the following month such as revising just two pages a day.  Trick yourself by starting before the first of the month. Take the novel manuscript printed out or on a laptop on the train. As long as you can sit down on a train you can usually get something useful done. Visit distant relatives by train. Do everything to maximise editing time.
Complete the first edit. The next step is for the next blog...

Truly creative writing, attribution and mindfulness

There are many books for writers that are designed to inspire you to write and to write well. 

For me, the best books are the ones that you have to put down because you feel: "I have to write now; it can't wait"

Writers often offer insights into their inspirations at literary festivals but the best advice I ever received was from Julia Green , children's writer and tutor at Bath Spa University. 

It has stayed with me and I often return to those five words:

"Get close to your character"

Whenever my writing diverts off into my own thoughts and favourite places or when I feel it's not resonating it's because I've lost that inkling of my character's feelings and thoughts. 

This is particularly likely to happen when I write in the third person. "She" feels a long way away and I need to remind myself that a novel perpetuates an untruth that we all act for a reason.

In real life I believe our actions and mediated by all kinds of random events to do with brain and body chemistry, day of the week and unplanned accidents.  Perhaps that's what a post-modern novel is designed to convey but it makes for heavy reading.

We live at the the Age of the 'Crisis of Attribution'; for most of us, natural disasters are not 'Acts of God' as they were in medieval times but random events which challenge a belief in a plan or an organising consciousness. 
In my best moments I believe in a spiritual realm but mostly I bumble along like everyone else, beset by regrets and ruminations.
In novels, A follows B which causes C in a believable and inevitable consequence of a character's actions. 
The challenge for the writer is to simulate free choice; to persuade readers that decisions and actions have consequences. It is conventional for puzzles to be solved, for evil doers to suffer consequences except in the case of lovable rogues and antiheroes. 
There's a great hunger for uplifting stories to be true and it's so strong that Governments employ storytellers to explain away setbacks and ugly inconveniences.
So my conclusion is to 'be in the zone' I need to become mindful and to imagine each of my characters is meeting the consequences of his or her actions.

Happy Endings in Children's Books

Happy Endings used to be vital in children's books. 

Not so with the recent trend for 'terminal teens' as seen in titles such as Jenny Downham's Before I die, John Green's The Fault in Our Stars and most recently in Sarah Benwell's The Last Leaves Falling. 

Perhaps these books reflect a post-modern rejection of moral tales and a willingness to tackle subjects specifically excluded in earlier guides for writers. They certainly tap into strong emotional events and enquiries about what lies beyond. Mainly, I think, the writers encourage us to live honest lives knowing that injury or disease can strike people of all ages without warning.

As a doctor, I'm glad that chronic disease in childhood, learning needs [Sarah Hammond's The Night Sky in my Head] are represented implying a more inclusive society. Since it's my blog, I can mention my own title: Speak to Me: Mute, witty and dangerous, which seeks to explore the teenage experience of advanced cerebral palsy.

All these titles challenge the overriding perception of a fit society in which 'fitness' is equated to both 'sexually attractive' and 'deserving'. The experience of people outside the presumed majority urgently needs to be explored in an age of hate crime of outsiders: those with disability, different gender, orientation or race. 

Despite advances in treatment, living with chronic illness is an experience of a minority of young people, their friends and their families. Arthritis, Down's Syndrome, autism, hemiplegia, cystic fibrosis, diabetes, heart disease all deserve to be represented here. 

What young people seek is not pity or charity but a recognition that their lives are as eventful and precious as any of the celebrities of whom we hear so much.

The secret of Wicked's success

The Musical 'Wicked' is a massive transatlantic success. 

What's the secret of Wicked's success?

1. Wicked champions the outsider, Elphaba is picked on for her colour and refusal to conform. We see many redeeming qualities in Elphaba: she sticks up for her teacher when he loses his voice and he falls into disrepute because he's not human. Opening scenes often feature arrival at school or college but Wicked pulls it off with humour, poking fun at the apparently sincere good witch, Glinda. But later on, the wicked witch Elphaba releases flying monkeys which cause havoc.

2. Wicked has style: strong female leads, an emerald and black colour scheme, brilliant lighting and stage effects  clocks to rival Harry Potter and Philip Pullman's Dark Materials and a cross between Victorian steampunk and 1930's American costumes. There are enjoyable touches of irony and parody. The Wizard sings a song in 1920's style reminiscent of King Herod's song in Jesus Christ Superstar 'Try it and See'.

3. It even begins with a disabled character, NessaRose whose relationship with her sister Elphaba promises an emotionally intelligent sub-plot

For all its style and popularity, the plot chunters off into nowhere land with arrests, escapes, re-arrests. The most glaring travesty of Elphaba's feisty nature comes in a stick fight with Glinda over Fiyero, the self-confessed shallow male lead.

Sadly Tessa Rose is portrayed as a mistake resulting from her parents' desire to avoid having a second daughter like Elphaba. "She's my fault," says Elphaba. The disabled sister and daughter is a millstone for all to carry. [as in Sleepovers by Jacqueline Wilson] Thus reinforcing widespread perceptions.

In one powerful scene, Tessa is cured by Elphaba's spell and stands for the first time. It must be hard for anyone in a wheelchair to witness this escapist denial of the meaning of chronic illness which harks back to sanitised fairy tales. 

Tessa Rose's fate is sealed off-stage when she is later crushed by a falling windmill and we are left to imagine that her recovery may have been temporary so she was unable to get out of the way in a sudden malevolently stirred-up storm.

The victory of style over contemporary resonance is complete.

How to keep readers reading

Best advice for novel writers: READ MORE

It's vital that writers to understand the conventions that readers are familiar with, in order to avoid cliche or worse: incoherence. 

Breaking the rules invites ambiguity

So what are the rules about keeping readers motivated to read on?

Plot comes first. However convoluted the plot, it can fit into one sentence. 
Tell your friends no more than that one sentence and remind yourself of it every day.
Keeping the plot sentence in mind helps writers write a continuous story and also helps agents and readers decide whether to buy. Knowing the plot keeps you away from sub-plots and irrelevant episodes.

Beware any changes in plot after your first draft; every change will have consequences on each page which will be tiresome to correct. By all means change the characters' names, gender, dialogue as much as you like but plot is sacred from the start.
Plot provides the motivation for your main character and it changes in a special way through the story. and yes, keep to one main charcater and maintain their point of view throughout.
[established writers ignore this but for first novels a rambling point of view puts people off] 

So what is a plot?

Stories open with stasis: the kingdom is in neglect, doom-laden, or everything seems fine but the king is ageing, rumours of dragons abound. Whether you start with action or dialogue, your novel informs the reader of the characters, the place and time and underlying this: the genre [thriller, mystery, horror, historical, romance] Concentrate on your favourite examples of your favourite genre and you will have a repertoire of clever plot twists. 
You can introduce the rules of your fictional world through action, narration or dialogue. If there is magic or paranormal events they are bound by certain rules such as: having a wand made of a particular wood, or having telepathy only with those you love.
Then comes the trigger, the call to action for our hero or heroine. A significant event brings the character to life [eg a beautiful princess is entranced and sleeps for a hundred years]
Ther character sets out on a quest. The object of his quest is often a symbol rather than anything especially valuable. Readers are asked to suspend disbelief, the wrtiter and the character believe that only this one object will bring happiness, relief, safety or survival.
Surprises happen. 
A good writer constantly reaffirms and contradicts readers' expectations. Stories that are entirely predicatable are boring so plan a surprise for every chapter ending. A surprise is an unexpected plausible obstacle or help to the character's quest. She meets antagonists and protagonists, a wise woman or a cruel tyrant.
Then she is faced with a critical choice which demonstartes free will. Things could go either way. She decides to follow a path which is fraught with danger.
This leads to the climax in which she confronts her greatest adversary: time, dragons, a torturer or an arranged marriage and a tense conflict plays out resulting in a reversal: now the character has changed in some way, become more resourceful or lost the battle and accepts defeat. Finally we have the resolution: the new stasis in which the world of the novel is altered following the climax.
So what has kept the reader turning each page?

Surprises and rising stakes. As the story proceeds the character rsks more and more until she stakes her whole life on the outcome. 

I haven't made these rules up, if they sound dogmatic, they can be traced in most films and books and talked about in plot advice to authors since the time of the Greeks. 

In my view, plot awareness is the author's best friend.

You can print paperbacks for free

You can print paperbacks for free

there must be a drawback, or is there?

Amazon's Create Space site enables you to transfer an e-book into a tree book free of charge. You don't have to be a computer wizard. The only costs are for an ISBN which is not essential and a book cover which you can make yourself. 

ISBN

I chose to buy an ISBN from Nielsen because I wanted to link my e-book to the paperback on Amazon. I also intend to publish several novels as e-books and in paperback, so I bought ten ISBN's. As you can see on the Nielsen site, the cost is £13.20 for each ISBN. 

I wanted my book to appear on Nielsen's Pub Web site so it can be found by book buyers and librarians anywhere in the world.

Book cover

If you have experience of using Photoshop you easily mock up a paperback cover. Create Space offer some tools to make the task easier, including advice on font size, spine width and content of blurb at the back. 

Research

I visited libraries and bookshops and studied the covers of books that had similar themes to mine. I tried to read the meaning of each cover. I opted for a face-on half portrait because it said: 'personal story of a young girl' [Lauren] and left space for the title.

I prefer drawings to photographs; they seem more personal.

I chose to distort my title using perspective like a yellow painted sign on the road; Lauren's van parks in a disabled bay outside school. I didn't want a wheelchair on the  cover because I thought it would put readers off. Lauren is a feisty young woman who happens to be on wheels. 

I made a collage and photographed it. The cut out letters against the tarmac give a striking adolescent feel to the cover.

The result was quite raw so I smartened it up and added a subtitle and author name using Create Space's editor. It took a number of tries to get the picture right but it wasn't technically difficult. Here's the finished result as it appears on Amazon:

I chose quotes from the text for the back cover and used the same design in the background. You can see how basic my drawing was using only 'Paint'. I wanted the drawing to look like as if it had been done by a teenager.

The heart is important. My book is a romance and I noticed that romances invariably have pink hearts on them. I chose to give my heart a rough, distressed look, the road to love isn't smooth.

You can read an extract from my book here.

In later blogs I'll tell you my experience of pricing, promotion and marketing.

Fairy Tales II: Fantastic fantasy via Tolkien

Fantasy, Tolkien says, is more suited to narrative than drama. Fairy tales are most often represented on stage as the peculiarly English Christmas pantomime.

Fantasy 'does not destroy or insult Reason, in fact, the best fantasy has clear reasons behind it. 

Fairy tales deal with simple, fundamental things, like keeping promises and judging by appearances. No princess is going to literally marry a frog; fairy tale transformations beautifully illustrate how transient human perspectives of people are: changing instantly between good to evil, ugly to beautiful, rags to riches [and back again].

Fairy Tales 'go back to nature' chiming with our evolutionary origins as animals. Humans are different from animals; our link with other creatures has been severed but we must be aware that it once existed.

'Trees are more beautiful than mass-produced street lamps' to paraphrase Tolkien.

Escape and consolation are important functions of fantasy. They sidestep the ordinary in order to inspire us. Fairy Tales must have a happy ending, according to Tolkien 

[though some mermaid tales and Grimm's 'Three Wishes' about petty marital arguments don't]. Reincarnation and survival are recurrent themes. The ending gives a beat and lifting of the heart.

Is it true? is often asked: if the secondary world of the fairy tale is well constructed the answer is 'yes, in that world, it is.'

Tolkien on Fairy Tales

What's special about Fairy Tales?

Professor JRR Tolkien writes in 'Tree and Leaf':

 Fairy Tales are not moral tales [Bunyan] or animal fables [Aesop] or dreams [Alice] or travellers' tales or allegories [Orwell] or satires [Swift] They have an ancient origin with elements of the 

• mystical [supernatural like religion] 
• magical [through observation of Nature] and 
• a mirror [reflecting the nature of human beings]

Fairy tales often explore what is prohibited; what is behind the locked door? Forbidden love, for instance.A spell is both a story told and a charm with power over people.Fairy tales are not simple yarns that appeal to children, in fact not all children enjoy them. 

Fairy Tales can be a literary genre which explores the depths of space and time, the ability to communicate with other living beings, They are presented and read as 'true'.

 Andrew Lang, a collector and writer of Fairy Tales says they require:

'a willing suspension of disbelief'

Tolkien disagrees, 

  He states that the best Fairy Tales enchant,that is they create a secondary world, with its own rules that draws the reader in.

Misquoted writers on the internet, brief attention spans

We all love short , inspiring quotes:

Albert Camus is quoted as saying  

“Blessed are the hearts that can bend; they shall never be broken.”

Inspiring, implying that we should train our hearts to bend so they don't break?

Look at the whole paragraph in its original language: 

“Heureux les coeurs qui peuvent plier car ils ne seront jamais brisés. Sont-ils si heureux que ça. Un coeur qui ne se brise pas ne peut pas guérir si on ne connait ni l'épreuve ni la guérisson on n'apprend rien et si l'on n'apprend rien on ne change pas. Mais les épreuves et les changements font partie de la vie. Tous les coeurs devraient-ils être brisés?”

Here's my translation with the help of Google translator

"Lucky are those whose hearts that can bend because they will never be broken. Are they happy? A heart that does not break cannot heal; if you're not tested and healed you learn nothing and so nothing changes. Trials and change are part of life. Do all hearts need to be broken? " translated by Google and adapted by me.

Camus' intent is exactly the opposite of the abbreviated aphorism; hearts need to break so they can heal. TV and the internet are breeding a short attention span that misses out on the wisdom of brave and profound writers like Albert Camus.

Top Ten Best Reads of 2013

My Top Ten reads of 2013

10. The Curtain Maker of Beirut by Teresa Thornhill

A unique mix of eyewitness account and travel journal, a moving portrait of a country at a postwar crossroads when it was possible to hear the voices of Sunni, Shi'a, Maronite Christian, Druze and Palestinian veterans and civilians. Well-written dialogue and background with extra relevance in the present conflict in Syria.

Highly recommended

9.  The Reason I jump by Naoki Higashida

The title promises more than it delivers but a fascinating insight for parents and friends into what it feels like to be autistic with advice about how to behave around an autistic person. An easy read with a question and answer format. Raises many questions with incomplete answers. 'Why?' is the hardest question of all to answer, 

A brave attempt.

8. Shine by Candy Gourlay

A cross-cultural allegory about growing up with a secret and despised blemish. How 'civilised' society alienates anyone different and how inclusive traditional spirituality can be. Mutual support from a fellow sufferer. Well written and original from a promising young writer, one to watch.

7. The Chosen One by Carol Lynch Williams

What it's like to grow up as a teenager, brain-washed in a remote and isolated cult. Tense and pacey. The redeeming impact of books from the outside.Available here

6. More Than This by Patrick Ness

Slow-burning page turner exploring the currently popular theme of  reincarnation in a YA novel. A hopeful book by a great story teller with striking characters. Worth persevering with. 

discounted here.

5. Microcosm: E coli and the new science of life by Carl Zimmer

This amazing book takes you to the frontiers of science about a bacterium which we know more about than any other organism. As well as causing life-threatening multi-organ damage, E coli saves lives by making insulin and growth hormone for us. 

So much I didn't know, it's embarrassing.

 Microcosm

4. Sacred Country by Rose Tremain

Deep in the English countryside, a story of a village community that spreads far and wide by one of my all-time favourite writers. Masterful narration and unmistakeable characters. 

Bargain prices here

3. Flight Behaviour by Barbara Kingsolver.

Orange Prize-winning doorstop book with a surprise twist on every page. Humorous, irreverent, insightful, feminine, everything I love. As good as Barbara's superlative Poisonwood Bible. 

Don't miss out.

2. The Fault in Our Stars by John Green

I would never have believed that a book about teenage terminal illness would make me laugh and cry on the train...

Unmissable

1. Picture Me Gone by Meg Rosoff

Read my review here

A superlative book with expert narrative, characters and setting, I love it.

My full book reviews are available here

S a new book looking like a library book

Books that weren't meant to be read.

A new book that appears to be a library book with annotations on it.

It's a piece of dissembling but could it be a trend?

S  reviewed by Mark Lawson in the Guardian here

Maybe this is a reaction to the ebook revolution, which has done away with the hard copy of a book and created a double for practically any book you can buy and hold.People have said that the packaging of books will become more startling as a response to all this cyber-reality.

Mark Lawson refers to AS Bayatt's Possession, for which the author made up poetry that purports to have been written by a poet who is being researched by one of the characters.  
What other documents could be released which are ambiguous about their origins?

• A book marked TOP SECRET that appears to have been smuggled out of GCHQ.  Perhaps we have that already.
• A coach's notes on every member of a cricket team with strategies about how to exploit the weaknesses of each player [of interest to enthusiasts, probably sadistic]
• A book of texts, [yes, it's been done]

Laurence Stern's Tristram Shandy is perhaps the best example of this genre, a rambling comic novel which reveals much while interrupting itself repeatedly and dispensing almost entirely with plot.

     Feigned invitations and letters are an regular part of the realist novel and are used in  Gothic novels to set the scene before wandering off into more fantastical realms.  Mary Shelley employs this technique,  switching between narrators: the creature, Dr Frankenstein and a sea captain.

   There is a whole genre of epistolic novels which include non fiction titles such as Priscilla Wakefield's An Introduction to Botany from the 1830's in which Felicia guides her sister through the orders of plants in a series of letters.  A modern equivalent is Lionel Shriver's We need to talk about Kevin which is constructed entirely of fictitious letters.

    It all goes to show that dissimulation is at the centre of the writer's art.

Children's writers- advice from an editor

1/5 books make 4/5 of the profit for publishers.  The FInkler Question won the Man Booker in 2010 and had the biggest boost ever: 200,000 books; meanwhile Jordan's biography sold 300,000 in 6 weeks.  Big successes fund the many failures.  

Mills and Boon are the most successful publishers, they sell 130m books a year.  Their success is based on  a promise to readers. An attractive young woman will meet a dashing virile man.  Every genre promises its readers something, eg Beast Quest.

What a story needs:

1. A good concept, well written.  The concept is more important than the writing.  If the concept can be summarised in five sentences it's high concept and that's your elevator pitch.
2. Practice summarising your book in 5 sentences max.
3. "But" is a useful word:  "Like Stephanie Meyer but with more heart."
4. A strong main character, male for young boys, female for teen novels.  Strong means aspirational, honest, cool, slightly older than the intended readers.
5. Younger boys prefer books about external conflict [eg dealing with monsters] which are usually written in the 3rd person
6. Girls prefer internal conflicts, written in the first person.
7. The inciting incident occurs in the first chapter.  Don't worry if it's confusing, readers can read on to find out what's happening.
8. Write short chapters [eg 200 words] and finish each one with a cliffhanger.
9. Word count: 5-7 4-8,000   8-10 8-10,000 10-13 10-50,000 13+ 30-80,000 words picture books, under 500 words.
10. Always have more ideas in outline form.

With Thanks to Lil Chase.

Why I wrote Speak to Me: mute witty and dangerous

In Speak to Me: mute witty and dangerous Lauren aged 14 starts school, only, she can't speak, she needs help to point at letters on a board.  

Lauren's nerves are on edge after overhearing comments as she comes in to the classroom. She wants to learn enough to get to university and also she's like to get to know the boys. Classmate Anthony learns how to help Lauren speak and after a series of misunderstandings Anthony gets called into the head's office with a serious charge that could affect his schooling forever.

I wrote Speak to Me while studying for an MA at Bath Spa University. I found few novels for teenagers explored the drama of life in a wheelchair.  It's a page-turning story that makes you think.  It is possible to be inside the head of someone who can't speak without help and there's plenty of drama on all sides.

Speak to me is available as an ebook on KIndle here:  Speak to Me and it will soon be released in paperback.

Kate Mosse: Five facts about the French in Languedoc

Kate Mosse: La France profonde

1. Richard Coeur de Lion couldn't speak English and he barely set foot in England, that's the revelation that Kate Mosse brought to the Cheltenham Book Festival today.  Richard was bilingual: in Langue d'Oil and Occitan.  The language of Occitan is promoted much more in schools than it used to be.

2. The French buy French wine, cheese and bread. Kate attributes this to the years of shortage in Vichy France, when people in towns relied on local farmers to stave off hunger.  In the older generation, she said, the gratitude lives on. The French prefer to do things in a French way which may not be the most efficient way. 

3. The majority of Jews in France were rescued in the South of France.  Kate has always been fascinated by the strong links between the land, its history and the people, which is portrayed in the Labyrinth trilogy.    Le chemin de la liberte provided an escape route over the Ariege Pyrenees.  The people of Launguedoc have a long history of subjection to  authority and a refusal to comply.  

4. Pretty villages in France  have hardly changed.  France is highly centralised but because of its sheer size it has a long history of independent local government.  Kate feels  French villages and towns have resisted economic change and redevelopment more effectively than the Brits. . However, some villages in the south of France have a larger population of ex-pat Brits than French people. 

5. Winters are cold in Provence.  Brits tend to forget about the Tramontane, the strong northerly  wind that chills to the bone in winter. It's not all hot sun, it's hotter in summer and cooler in winter than Britain.

Rules about Gothic novels

Setting aside the fact that there are no rules, here are some more rules for novelists.  In a chapter in The Realist Novel, Richard Allen  explores the concept of the Gothic novel using Mary Shelley's Frankenstein as an example.  Notice the way one story nestles within another, in this case Captain Walton's letters to his sister are interrupted by the first person account of a stranger he rescues from the sea ice, Dr Frankenstein.  In chapter 11, the creature takes over as narrator.

   Although genres overlap, the Gothic novel has some quite distinct qualities which differentiate it from contemporary realist novels. Eve Kosovsky Sedgewick brought these criteria together in her book The Coherence of Gothic Conventions [1986].  These criteria go back a long way and can be seen in the novels of Ann Radcliffe from the 1790's:

1. The setting will include an 'oppressive ruin' in a wild landscape in a European country which is 'a Catholic or feudal society'.
2. One central character will be a heroine with 'trembling sensitivity' and her impetuous lover.
3. There will be a tyrannical older man who will have 'a piercing gaze' who will try to rape, imprison or murder the lovers.
4. The narrative will be interrupted by contrasting voices and letters allowing changes in point of view.
5. Common sub-themes include taking religious vows and monastic orders, altered consciousness similar to sleep or death, underground scenes, live burial and discovery of remote family ties.
6. Incest is hinted at, unnatural echoes or silences occur and the poisonous effects of guilt and shame recur.
7. Unintelligible writing is discovered, often described as unspeakable.

If you see a relation to Charles Dickens, Bram Stoker, Richard O'Brien and JK Rowling, it is clear how deeply the Gothic novel seeks to explore archetypes that scare us in all their forms, especially the territory which is just beyond the known daytime world.

    Notice how Dr Frankenstein's account begins in a realist frame [cf the Dursley's suburban residence of Harry Potter] and shifts into the irrational: fearful obsessions, unspeakable obsessions and isolation.  Frankenstein seems driven by his unconscious in a half waking state.  This adds to the impact of the novel by suggesting an 'unreliable narrator'. We recognise that we are entering the subjective adrenaline-fuelled experience of the character so that we can more easily overlook the fantastical elements.

   In relation to incest, Frankenstein has a strong bond with his cousin Elizabeth ['you are my children,' his mother tells them].  Jealousy plays a part in the  way the creature disrupts Frankenstein's marriage to Elizabeth.