Exciting new times for the Book Length Project Group and a name change for this blog

Well the time is right for a changing of the guard for the Book Length Project Group. A lovely new team (old friends and members of BLPG) will be taking over the coordination of the group, which will continue to run as usual on the third Sunday of each month at Mattie Furphy's House in Swanbourne, Perth, Western Australia. The new coordination team consists of three wonderfully talented writers, Dr Louise, Emily and Kristen.

Louise

Emily

Unfortunately I don't have a photo of the lovely Kristen. 

To save any name confusion, I'll be changing the title of this blog in the next few days. I still have to think of a good name but it will probably be one that defaults my own name (or I'll be the one defaulting to my own name!). I'll maintain all the old posts for those who want to look back.

A heartfelt thanks to everyone who has attended the Book Length Project Group during my time as Coordinator and a very special thank you to all the generous and talented guest speakers that we have had over that time.

Also thank you to The Fellowship of Australian Writers WA, to Pat, Trisha and Peter for their hospitality and for providing the Book Length Project Group access to the wonderful venue of Mattie Furphy House over the past two years, and into the future.

And my very best to the new team. Exciting, creative, productive times ahead!

The poet and the crime fiction writer

The Book Length Project Group is fortunate is having two wonderful guests along to our next meeting on June 15, 2014. It will be interesting to see what sort of cross-pollination occurs when Poet Rose van Son and Harper-Collins Crime Fiction Writer and Writer in Residence at the Fellowship of Australian Writers, Felicity Young, meet with the group to discuss their writing process and share their knowledge.

A little about these two highly accomplished writers:

Rose van Son’s poems, stories and articles have appeared in The West Australian, Westerly, Landscapes, Cordite, Australian Poetry, Indigo and more.

 

She has won places in the Tom Collins Poetry Awards, the W.H. Treanor Poetry Awards, the Peter Cowan Patron’s Prize, the Fremantle Press Tanka Prize, City of Perth National Haiku Awards, paper wasp haiku and The Heron’s Nest.   She is Creatrix editor for Creatrix online.

 

She won first prize in the KSP Short Fiction Award, 2000.

 

She has read at the Margaret River Writers’ and Readers Festival and has judged the 2009 Julie Lewis Poetry Prize and the ECU Talus Prize.

Her poetry collection (Sandfire) was published by Sunline Press. 

Felicity Young is Writer in Residence at the Fellowship of Writing WA in June. She has seven novels published and is working on another. I am currently reading her latest novel, The Scent of Murder, and finding it engrossing and thoroughly enjoyable. Look out for a review of the book here in the coming weeks.

With her permission I have copied her bio from her website:

Felicity was born in Germany and attended boarding school in the UK while her parents travelled the world with the British army. She thinks the long boring plane trips home played an important part in helping her to develop her creative imagination.

Felicity settled with her parents in Western Australia in 1976, became a nurse, married young and had three children. Not surprisingly, it took ten years to complete an Arts degree (English lit) at UWA.

In 1990 Felicity and her family moved to a small farm 40 kilometers NE of Perth where she established a Suffolk sheep stud, reared orphan kangaroos and embarked upon a life of crime writing.

Felicity will be holding two workshops on writing while she is  at the Fellowship. What a great opportunity for the local writing community!

Writing tip 27 - a cop-out

The truth is that, offhand, I can't think of one for this week, but I did have a quick scan of the Internet to check out other writers' blogs and found this one that provides "21 harsh but eye-opening tips from great writers".

I'd suggest a visit. You'd have to love some of these from the likes of Hemmingway, Twain, Orwell, Vonnegut, Parker, Gaiman and others.

Now I'm going to stop using semi-colons. Again. What are they for anyway? We've always had an uneasy relationship!

Writing tip 26 - Embrace constraints and set limits

Embrace Constraints

If you are not in the habit of seeking out TED Talks, I'd recommend that you do so.

In a talk called "Embrace the Shake" Artist, Phil Hansen, talks about how an unexpected limitation, and what he calls 'thinking inside the box', ultimately freed up his creativity.

 

Sometimes having unlimited choices is not the best for creativity. Imposing constraints on the project might encourage the artist into experimental or problem-solving mode, so that s/he is forced to create within that self-imposed set of rules. The rules provide walls to push against. No form, no freedom.

It's worth considering. If nothing else listen to the talk by clicking on the "Embrace the Shake" link here, or above. Hansen has made some fascinating art by embracing his limitation.

Set limits

Slightly different, but there are a couple of things I want to mention here.

The first I learned when I was researching and writing up my PhD thesis. That is to set limits around the size and scope of the project. You probably have enough ideas for several books. If you stick to one idea at a time, it will help you to keep control of your project.

Another way of setting limits is to try imposing time limits on daily writing. Set yourself an hour, five hours, or half an hour of regular writing time (or any other number that contains the writing as your time allows) and work within the constraints of that limitation.

Writing Prompt

Choose and impose a strict limitation on a small (or large) writing project as an experiment to see how this changes things.

Writing tip 25 - pursue ignorance - ask questions

Does the most interesting writing ask questions, or provide solutions? Or...

Is the sky the limit?

Like this Tip section of the blog, it's possible that too much advice can be quite annoying.  Why? It might be because providing answers generally implies particular assumptions, and closes off other alternatives. It might be that it assumes an uneven distribution of expertise between the giver and receiver of advice.

So, sorry about that, and a caveat - I know nothing! Next to nothing. Moving on...

I listened to a couple of TED talks on science this week, and they both suggested that opening up, rather than closing off, was the way to go. Science is not so much about proving what you know, as discovering what you don't know. It's not so much the pursuit of information as the pursuit of ignorance. As I listened, I thought that the same could apply to storytelling.

The pursuit of ignorance could well be another way of growing intelligence. Check out the links. In this model, entropy is useful. Chaos is productive. Certainty might well be less  productive - at least if there is too much of it. It can slow down discovery and close off possible responses to difficulties.

Is this why advice is so stultifying - because it closes off possibilities and attempts to provide a single solution to a problem that we might have created precisely so that we can explore the possibilities? That's just one idea, and like all these 'tips', everything written here is simply an idea which may or may not be useful. It can be taken, or leaven (that is to say, inflated like bread!). From a pragmatic point of view the more we learn, the more we understand that we don't know. And I guess this is a good thing.

Maybe one of the reasons I like storytelling is because it presupposes that, even with the same characters, there are countless alternative stories possible - different choices and circumstances create different stories. Maybe the whole idea of fiction is about asking 'what if?' And 'what if' might be an even better question than 'why'.

The best question, if we want to really learn something, is an open question - one that does not lead to an absolute conclusion, a 'because', or a 'yes/no' type of answer. At its best, a good question - or a good story - opens up the space for even more interesting questions to be asked.

Feel free to comment and disagree.

Prompt: Read through what you have done and remove all solutions replacing them with questions.

Writing tip 24 - take whatever time you need, or have

While not everyone will agree with this, I am increasingly convinced that it is important to take all the time that is needed to write a book. Depending on the project, the time needed might be six months or it might be several years. Occasionally it might be decades.

At the Book Length Project Group yesterday Author, Ian Reid, talked about the value of writing slowly. He mentioned that he tends to edit as he proceeds, and that he is constantly reviewing the structure and the texture of the writing.

We have a slow food movement, with slow cooking arguably producing a more enjoyable and ultimately satisfying experience all round. I want to add my voice to the slow reading and writing movement.

My slow-cooked marmalade

To this end, Ian recommended a book called Reading like a Writer: A Guide For People Who Love Books, And For Those Who Want To Write Them by Francine Prose. I haven't read it yet, but it is on the list.

I think there is something important in this idea of taking time and care to consider different ideas and words.  If we want to enjoy a meal we might eat mindfully, savouring each mouthful and enjoying the context of our meal, the company and the setting. If we want to enjoy reading and writing, perhaps we could approach it in a similar way. When writing a book we might work carefully on a small section at a time, and finish that before moving on. Better to choose carefully than try to include every possible idea.

I wonder, is there a link between the way writing is changing, and the speed and superficiality that seems to be overwhelming modern societies? I don't know, but it is worth considering.

A tangential, but possibly linked phenomenon, was discussed in a recent episode of Radio National's All in the Mind. The program focussed on the increase in narcissism, and I have included a link here. It's well-worth listening to this program which also comments on the way in which point of view in novels has changed over time.

There is something about the phenomenon of focussing attention on the individual rather than the community that seems to encourage superficial, rather than more meaningful relationships. How does this relate to writing? The best books, I believe, are those which invite a deep engagement with the reader. For writers this means taking care to communicate as well as we can, and it means valuing the quality of the reading/writing experience over volume. It takes time.

Writing prompt

Try this as an experiment:

Allow an entire day to work intermittently on a single scene. Take time to let the mind wander around the scene. Write slowly and savour the process.

That Untravelled World - Ian Reid

I have just finished reading Ian Reid's most recent novel, That Untravelled World. For those interested in getting a feel for new settler, predominantly Anglo-Saxon Western Australian society in the first half of the Twentieth Century, this novel is a great place to start. It is beautifully written and eminently readable, a book in which the protagonist Harry begins the new century full of hope and excitement about a future which he believes is going to see the world transformed with flying machines and wireless communication, bringing people together across the world. As a young, skilled wireless engineer, he is full of optimistic anticipation about his own prospects in this imagined new world. As the story unfolds in the context of two World Wars and the Great Depression, we are guided through a single lifetime in which our hero's plans are progressively frustrated.

From the perspective of a reader/writer currently going through the joys and struggles of writing a second novel, there were a number of things that impressed me about this book. From the beginning it was evident that as reader, I was in good hands. I enjoyed the finely balanced structure of the story, its accuracy, restrained telling, and the way in which the era, age and physicality of the character, at various stages of his life, was so clearly evoked. Not once was Harry dropped out of character, or did the author flinch from portraying the less desirable mainstream social values of the time. At the same time, seen through Harry's eyes, there was compassion for each of the characters, damaged and flawed as they were, providing a way into what could otherwise have been difficult material.

Besides enviable fiction and non-fiction writing credentials, Ian Reid has the advantage of being a poet, a historian and a highly skilled researcher, and the depth of understanding is evident in the telling of this story. It's a satisfying read, and at the end I felt I had learned something about the early Eurocentric history and psychology of this part of the world.

Ian Reid will be meeting with the Book Length Project Group this coming Sunday to discuss his writing process with us. All welcome.

10am, Fellowship of Australian Writers WA premises, Allen Park Precinct, Swanbourne. Mattie's House.

Writing tip 23 - write about something meaningful to you

On the weekend I went to a book launch for Swamp - Walking the Wetlands of the Swan Coastal Plain. This is a compilation of poetry by Nandi Chinna, published by Fremantle Press.

Nandi is a dedicated campaigner for the preservation of fragile ecosystems, and her beautiful and deeply moving poems reflect this. Here is a taste of Nandi Chinna's Manning Ridge from this remarkable collection. The black birds mentioned refer to the Carnaby's cockatoo (Calyptorhynchus latirostris). There is some evidence that these gorgeous birds are under habitat threat if the proposed Roe Highway extension goes through:

At 6pm

the black birds flew over

so low I could see into

the dark shafts of their eyes.

They were all coming in.

The sky was filled

with what I have always known.

Then everything began to recede.

I was the last person left,

the black bird bursting

inside my chest,

squalling and flapping against my ribs. 

This volume of poetry, like almost all books, represents years of dedicated work and passion, and in this case an undoubted love of the life dependent on the wetlands around the Perth metropolitan area. It is passion combined with talent and writing skill that makes this volume so special.

I would suggest that a level of passion, or belief in the subject matter of a book (or short-story), is absolutely needed to maintain the impetus to bring a work to publication standard. I believe it is this passion and enthusiasm that transfers to the reader and encourages him or her to care enough to read on. So, this week's tip: write about something that is meaningful to you.

Writing prompt:

Make a list of all those things that are important to you, and those things that fire you up with indignation. Which is most important to you at this time? If what you are writing is boring you, ground yourself in your values and start again in a place that rekindles that spark.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Writing tip 22 - attend writing workshops

Well, the strategy of writing myself out of a hole seems to be working, although I don't want to jinx it by overanalysing. For me, creative writing is a bit like my road sense. I'm good at getting lost, but have managed to find my way back. So far. Getting lost has the advantage of seeing things I wouldn't have seen if I hadn't diverted from the track representing the shortest distance between two points, or getting off the track, full-stop. I often think, that looks interesting. What would happen if I followed that thought? Or thought-words to that effect. (I have to say I am also attracted to shiny things in shops!)

The other thing I did this last week was to attend a workshop run by Jaki Arthur from Hatchette and funded through the Australia Council, facilitated by writingWA. I gained a number of positive spin-offs from attending this workshop.

First of all it is a very good thing to gain an understanding of the publishing industry from the perspective of people like Jaki Arthur, who work so hard to promote and present the writers that they represent, and to remember that this will work so much better if the writers are pulling in the same direction as their publishers, once the book is ready to go. It is also heartening to know that the industry is full of such committed and talented people.

The very fact of attending a workshop that supports and challenges existing ideas is stimulating, and gets the brain back into doing what it needs to do to get that book written, and out there. This one was a market development workshop, but the sentiment applies to any other writing workshop, especially if it is able to provide a good balance of new information and participation.

It's inspiring, and encouraging, to meet other writers and to share ideas, stories, letters and cards. Many of these talented people are generously sharing their knowledge through teaching. They conduct workshops and creative writing courses through schools, universities and writing organisations. (And they are excellent value for the cost.) Check out UWA Extension courses, courses advertised through writingWA, the Fellowship of Australian Writing WA, KSP and Peter Cowan Writing Centre - to start. I have included links for all of these.

So that's this week's writing tip. If you are stuck, go to a workshop or two.

Writing tip 21 - if you get stuck, simply write

This is where I found myself over the last month. Writer's block. A loss of faith in my own ability to produce that second novel. 

I had two responses (more than two) to this.  One was to (virtually) stop writing new material. The other was to over-edit. It's not the over-editing on the page that is the problem so much as the over-editing inside my head. Going over things too much might suggest a good work ethic (in my own imagination), but it's not always the way to get the best result. I began to lose the bigger picture altogether.

So this is what I've done about it. Yesterday I got up and started writing. I had another thousand words by 9.30 am. Made another cup of coffee. Wrote more words. Today? The same. I'm going to keep writing forward for as long as I can. Let's see where it leads.

So here is this week's tip, for a first draft. If in doubt, forget about that inner critic and simply write more scenes. More chapters. Whether or not you will use these is largely irrelevant. Sometimes the key to writer's block (or writers' block) is to simply write whatever comes to mind. I am repeating myself, but it doesn't matter. I am relinquishing control. Contrary to one (now relatively common) perception, this doesn't necessarily mean opening a vein and bleeding onto the page. Thoughts might, or might not, reflect habitual patterns of belief, or character, but they are, after all, only fleeting electrical impulses, or chemical signals, and they can be changed.

Someone once said to me that you can often only work out what you are thinking when you say it, or write it down. Or maybe the words are a way of making some sort of sense of various physical sensations, impulses and emotions.

Alternatively, what you put on the page can be seen simply as words that can be used to shape a story. This is how I'm thinking about it today. Whatever I produce is material to be mined, whether that material is made up of my actual beliefs, or is a thought experiment, or something that the story suggests because of the decisions already made and what has already been written down. Ultimately, those words don't work for the story can be changed or deleted.

But I'm leaving that for later.

Writing Prompt: Yes, see above... write something new.

Writing tip 20 - Find your peer group

While writing is a largely solitary activity, it can be helpful to meet up with one or two (or a few) writing friends from time to time, to discuss progress, read, or simply connect.

If you look at the list of acknowledgements in any debut novel you will get a sense of the collaboration that takes place throughout the process.

Finding your group is not necessarily as easy as simply linking up with a couple of others who are writing. One of the functions of the Book Length Project Group is to bring a wide range of writers of various levels of experience together. As they network they can talk and get a feel for who they might like to link up with on a more regular basis.

There are groups on the internet that discuss issues related to writing, and blogs, many of which go into far more depth than this one. They can be helpful. Writers festivals are another way to meet up with people seriously interested in writing. Consider volunteering at your local writer's festival.

Each needs to decide for him or herself if, how much, and what kind of group contact, is helpful, but I think that some regular peer contact might be worth considering.

Prompt

Consider the kind of work that fits best with your own. Seek out writers who are like-minded. or not like-minded, if this is what works best for you. Try meeting on a regular basis. Attending a regular workshop might be one way to do this.

Writing tip 19 - When you get stuck, read.

I was at a poetry workshop on Saturday and poet Jackson said that she had heard that writer's block was not so much a case of the writing being stuck, as the writer being stuck (sorry if I have that wrong Jackson!)

Maybe that's why I find reading helpful when I get stuck - especially if it is a novel that hits the mark. This week's tip is one that many writers suggest (and just as many seem to ignore) and that is to read, read, read. For me it's part of my self-imposed professional development (to use that lovely bureaucratic term).

When I have been trying to solve a particular problem of how to lift the text, or help the pace, or avoid the cliché, a good book often brings back that old experience of recognition. This is why I do this! Because this is possible.

Besides novels I like to read poetry, and compilations of interviews with writers such as those in Ramona Koval's Speaking Volumes - Conversations with remarkable writers, and The Paris Review Interviews - Volumes 1-4. Another good one is Graham Swift's Making an Elephant - Writing from within.

Writing prompt

Put your writing aside for a few days and read a good book, all the way through, then get stuck back in.

The trouble with flying ... and other stories

Glen and Kristen from BLPG each have stories in this new compilation edited by Richard Rossiter and Susan Midalia. 

You can pre-order a copy at this link up to April 30 and receive a 10% discount. I've just pre-ordered mine.

April poetry month prompt

Choose a line from one of your favourite poems and use this to start your own.

Writing Tip 18 - Make a connection - and how this relates to likeability of characters

I found this Ricky Gervais quote in last weekend's Review from The Australian newspaper:

"Any art form, even one as lowly as TV comedy or presenting an awards show, is about making a connection."

If you haven't yet caught his Derek series, you really can see a great example of connection. This is my favourite Ricky Gervais creation, a show with pathos, humour and a sense of genuine love for the characters it portrays.  Derek is one of the helpers in an aged care home, a gentle, kind soul, who always falls on his feet.

Making a connection might mean many things, but my understanding of how a writer goes about this has to do with empathy which then (hopefully) results in communicating something that has meaning for people. It has to do with the relationship that is established. Relationship is important between the characters in a story, and because the reader is invited in, the relationship extends to the reader, and because the writer is expressing something from his or her own imagination, the relationship involves and implicates the writer. This doesn't mean that the character is the writer, any more than a child pretending to be Superman, or  Winnie the Pooh, is Superman or Winnie the Pooh. The imagination of the writer is constantly modified and restricted by what s/he has already written, and the decisions progressively made about a character's history and personality. This means that the final version of the character might be very different from the one that started out on the page. Likeability (and connection) can drift, or be reinforced.

Of course, not all writing is touchy-feely, but perhaps an element of including one's better nature in a work of fiction can only help with making connections. I gather that there is something about likeability (of at least some) of the characters that seems to be required of writers when it comes to whether or not a work will be published by a traditional publisher, or do well in sales. What it is, I find difficult to pin down, but likeability could be partly about whether a reader is able to imagine him or herself relating emotionally to what a character is experiencing, or is at least able to empathise.

And if writing is about communication, then surely this can only be a good thing.

Writing Prompt:

Revisit a favourite novel with a character that you love, and list all the aspects of that character's personality that you admire. Why do you connect to this character?

Undertake a similar exercise with your current writing project to bring those elements to consciousness. Write a scene where you play with the likeability of a character in a conscious way.

Daily Poetry prompt - April

April is Autism Spectrum Disorder Awareness Month. Today's prompt is to write a poem responding to this picture:

Daily poetry prompt - April

Begin a poem with

He stayed...

or

She said...

or

You went....

or

They were...

Daily poetry prompt - April

Find a newspaper article with potential, and edit it back or remix it,  to create a 'found poem', or a found song.

April - Daily Poetry Prompt

Find a photograph of your own that evokes some emotion in you and respond to it poetically


Or

One of these

Daily poetry prompt April Poetry Month

Choose a book title as your start line and write from there.

Here are some  suggestions in case you don't have easy access:

Antipodes

Zero at the Bone

The Last Sky

The Dream Merchants

Careless

The Marriage Plot

A Stranger in My Street

Big Brother

Book of Longing

Koala

Summer Lovin'

April Poetry Month - Prompt 2

The challenge is to write a poem a day for April.


Prompt 2:

 

or

Incorporate some, or all, of the following words into a poem or song lyric:

Truth

Determination

Self Respect

Humour

Freedom

Strength

Happiness

April - National Poetry Month Challenge - Write a poem a day!

 I heard about this at a poetry workshop on Saturday in Western Australia. It's national poetry week in the US as per this link.

Here's another link for Victoria.

And here's one to Poets online, with a whole lot of poems in response to writing prompts. Actually, this one is not about April being National Poetry Month.

Me? I'm going to become a virtual citizen and a virtual poet and write a poem a day over April.

How about you?

Also, I'm going to try putting up a poetry prompt a day for you and me to respond to.  Here's my first.....



First Prompt:

Write a poem using this line:              Can I take you there?

Writing Tip 17 - Respect the Reader's Emotional Intelligence

I once worked in a field where I assisted young people with a diagnosed intellectual disability to gain open employment. It was a great eye-opener to learn that an intellectual disability does not equate to a lack of emotional or intuitive understanding, and that in some cases intellectually gifted people seemed to fall further behind in this other kind of intelligence than many of the people I was assisting into work.

My 'clients' taught me many things. In one instance, I was assigned to help a young man learn a particular route. He was learning how to independently use the bus and find his way around the city. We were to find the way from the bus stop to the train station in the city, where he could already independently catch the train home. The 'transport training' went something like this: 

Me - 'Now which stop do we get off at? Where do we go now? Where do we turn? Do you know the name of this street?'

He was very good. He didn't make a single wrong turn.

When we reached the destination, he turned to me and said with a worried expression, 'Will you be able to find your way back?'

It was a long time ago - I was young - but I haven't forgotten the lesson.

The lesson for writing is to assume that the reader is as least as emotionally intelligent as you are. This applies to children as well as adults. Writing fiction takes every bit of imagination and ingenuity that you have, and if the author is not learning something new or challenging through the writing, then it is likely that the content or ideas will be too banal for the reader.

What this doesn't mean is complicated writing. The writing still needs to be clear.

Writing Prompt

Like many of these, this is more of an editing, than a writing, prompt. Check through your work for instances of over-explanation, where you have assumed that you need to interpret or explain the meaning of an action or conversation, instead of allowing the action or conversation do its own work. (Remember, less is more. Except in those instances where it is less, of course!)

Writing tip 16 - write with your own voice

What do I mean by this? I think there is a difference between the daily conventions of living and what is expected in a work of fiction. Bear with me.

Let's say we generally adopt social masks to navigate our way in the world, behaving in familiar, conventional, predictable ways that most other people understand and appreciate. Like manners, our various roles and the form they take, create a kind of shortcut in communication which works well in public relationships. For more private relationships many of these roles drop away enabling able us to make deeper connections.

Fiction exists in an interesting space because it is a public expression that often strips away the social niceties. Novels are often about looking beneath the surface. The writer's exploration can give the story depth and substance.

In some ways, the relationship between a book and a reader can be the most intimate of relationships, and therefore the most honest. Honesty here does not mean that the author writes about the actual details of his or her own life and beliefs (that is memoir), but that his or her bulls**t meter regarding the literary creation is at least as sensitive as that of the reader. The novel needs to be absolutely honest within the logic of the world it has created. As writers, we need to become very clear about what we want to say through the text. This might not happen until the fifth or sixth draft, but it will happen if we work hard enough. There is no point trying to second-guess what we think the reader might want or expect to read. When I pick up a book to read, I want to understand what it feels like to stand in someone else's shoes. Only the writer's authentic voice can deliver this. It doesn't mean that the writer needs to bare their soul, but it does mean that what is told, is told with courage and honesty. This takes reflection, work and clarity.


Writing with integrity enables us to explore what we feel to be true for someone (not necessarily self as author) but within the logic of a character. This means trying to get to the bottom of what that fictional person might think and feel given their personality, history and circumstances. Pitched against these are the challenges that are thrown up, because it is through challenges that character is tested, and it is this that brings a story to life. These challenges need to be those that are difficult to solve. They need to be real challenges that people face in life, and the attempt to face the challenges needs to be real and human, even though it might not always be successful.

Writing Prompt

Track through a section of your story or manuscript and put a mark next to any areas where the writing feels contrived, or where it doesn't quite work, or where it feels a little bit 'fake'. Are you writing with your own 'voice'? If not, what is it about this section that feels wrong?

Try editing the section back, or out, and see if this strengthens the writing. Think hard about what you really want to say, or not say.

Writing tip 15 - create an emotional graph

Art moves through emotion

A work of fiction is not simply about what happens. It gives a sense of the experience of what happens. Emotion is a critical factor - although it's not always easy to get the right balance.

So I would suggest looking at your manuscript from the perspective of emotional engagement by creating an emotional graph. This is borrowed from my few years of acting experience.

This can be an actual graph, or simply take the form of 'note to self''. The latter might involve going through the entire manuscript once it has been put aside long enough to enable you to read it with fresh eyes, and putting a mark in each spot where you lose interest with it yourself (the theory being that if you do, possibly someone else will). You might put a different mark where the text is particularly engaging to you, and analyse why that might be so.

For writing to be engaging there need to be highs and lows. Highs, plateaus and lows. Plateaus are important too, I believe. A story of all highs, or lows, becomes a high or low plateau, and can be as dull as one which simply trundles along going nowhere emotionally. (On the other hand, I think a story with all highs and lows can be emotionally exhausting).

This is not to say that the highs and lows can't be subtle, or that they need to involve raw human emotion. Many aspects of a story capture my attention when I'm reading. An interesting piece of information or well-argued point can be just as interesting (to me, anyway) as a more dramatic occurrence.

How do you improve the graph, or lift interest in the story? I always think the particular is more interesting than the general. If characters are to live on the page and to feel real, we need to experience details of what it is like to stand in their shoes, or at least in the shoes of the character, or characters, whose point of view is being explored. I think this is better if the balance of detail is more external than internal (action, interaction and dialogue, rather than expounding the philosophies of the author through the character's inner machinations. Not that there's anything wrong with inner machinations but if there are inner machinations, I have always thought it was best to challenge my own beliefs as an author, rather than express them. Why? In an attempt to continue to see things from different points of view. Nothing new about externalisation, by the way. It's frequently called "show, don't tell.")

Writing prompt

From your manuscript, lift out what you consider to be a problematic chapter and read through it with an eye to identifying where it engages your interest, and where you feel less happy with it. This will provide information with regard to some serious editing and rewriting. Check with a trusted reader before changing it to make sure that you are not throwing out the proverbial baby with the bathwater.

Writing tip 14 - Feel your way into the story by using the relationship between antagonist and protagonist

To plot or not to plot, that is the question.

I must say, I really enjoy a good, nicely-paced story, and if the characters have depth and believability, I think the writer really hits the jackpot, at least in terms of personal satisfaction.

Either approach can work  - plotting up front, or working the plot out after writing enough to know what it is that you really want to write about - this time. I like to explore first - to simply start writing so that I can uncover what the story might be. And I like to do this by throwing characters together to see how they will interact, especially if the relationship is fraught. I speak to myself strongly beforehand. I tell myself to be prepared to edit ruthlessly when I have finished playing around. Even the most hard won and beautiful (in my own imagination) phrases , sentences and paragraphs (even chapters) might need to be left to litter the cutting room floor, if the story is to emerge with some coherence, pace and credibility.

Antagonists and protagonists need the same amount of exploration and development if the story is going to fly. It's the old thing of what the protagonist wants, and what is standing in their way. Wants lots of things. Lots of things standing in the way. And it's probably best to make the character delivering the obstacles more substantial than (the proverbial?) straw man.

To discover what the various elements are, requires exploration and time to let the mind drift around the problems. If the solutions come too easily to the writer, the likelihood is that they will be easily anticipated by the reader. They also need to come from a substantial place. Perhaps the most interesting aspects of characters (the good and the not-so-good) need to bubble up from the unconscious part of the mind.  (In recent discussions with radio presenter Margaret Throsby, Margaret Drabble and Martin Amis agreed to such.) If the unconscious is the source, the information needs to be coaxed; allowed, not forced.

So there it is again. Take time. Write your way into the story. Trust that you will find your way. Eventually.

There are more rewards, than taking a shorter cut - characters that feel like real people with hidden pasts and actual lives. The story, too, feels less contrived than those where something is sketched out that hasn't involved detailed thought.  One way to think something through is to write it down.

Good plotters, on the other hand, might be able to do this very well without playing around so much first. And who knows, for my next novel, I might try that. I might try that again.

Writing prompt

Grow your antagonist. Start by writing down everything you know about him or her. Then make them have an argument (or two) with your protagonist where each tells the other what they really think of them. Make them argue back and defend themselves. No holds barred.

Happy international women's day! Do something nice for the special women in your life...

Have a great day!

William McInnes and Sarah Watt - Worse Things Happen at Sea... a great read!

Well I'm not sure if I can include this in my list for the Australian Women's Writers Challenge given that it is a collaborative work between award winning filmmaker Sarah Watt and actor/writer (writer/actor) husband William McInnes, but I don't think it matters. This is the first of my Perth Writers Festival purchases that I have read from this year, and one that I would not hesitate to recommend to anyone.

Worse Things Happen at Sea is a book that celebrates the small (profound) beauty of everyday life and the people that have touched and enriched it. At times it had me laughing out loud (William McInnes really is a very funny man!) and the next minute I was blubbering away, pleased that I'd chosen the privacy of my own lounge room to read.  The one thing that permeates this book is love, in the broadest and best sense of that word, and the understanding that when we approach the world primarily with love, it gives us the courage to see and experience so much more that is positive and good, and to live life more fully, than we could if we were to approach it only with fear.

It's a great read and we (the public) were lucky to have the lovely Sarah Watt in the world long enough for her to tell this beautiful story and to make Look Both Ways and My Year without Sex. We are lucky to continue to have William McInnes to bring us writing and acting that gets to the heart of things, and makes us smile along the way.

Writing tip 13? Become like a painter... or an actor..

I'm no artist, but I did try my hand for a while when I was writing the first draft of my first (and only, so far) novel, faces mainly, and a little bit of landscape with figures in relationship to the landscape. The big problem to overcome when transferring what you see to paper is overcoming your own perception, and the struggle to eliminate interpretation (what you think is there as opposed to what is there). I don't think it is possible, or even desirable to completely eliminate interpretation, but I do think that the struggle is important.


My father's painting 1971

What happened when I began painting was that I started to imagine how I would depict the things I saw in a painting, and I began to notice light in a new way - how it fell on objects, and faces - and the sources of light. I started to see light and shadow as a series of patterns.

Light and shadow as a series of patterns

Something similar happened when I was doing acting classes years ago. I started to see movement and gesture differently to the way I had seen it before. The small things began to take on more significance than they had before. I don't do it all the time, but when I am in writing mode, this could be my mantra:  Observe. Deconstruct. Imagine (daydream). Creatively reconstruct to create the work of fiction.

I think that both painting and acting filtered into my creative writing in a number of ways, but just two things that the experience has taught me is to look for what visual artists call the negative spaces, and what my most influential director called playing opposites. This helps in the search for the bits that a cursory observation of people and events misses. It is a way of getting behind my own preconceptions and prejudices to see how things might appear from someone else's point of view. It doesn't mean I have to throw out dearly held values, but hopefully it does help me to widen my view. It also taught me to entertain the possibility that I might be wrong in how I saw situations, and that I was almost always missing something.

There is a theory in psychology called Personal Construct Theory which suggests that we all form theories and beliefs about the world and other people, and that the older we get, the more entrenched these beliefs become, and the less likely we are to admit new information or evidence that contradicts our pre-existing theories (especially if they work for us). Seeing things from another perspective takes courage, because it can temporarily destabilise our own carefully constructed platform. But by shaking up our own perceptions and theories through our writing, by 'playing opposites' to see what we can discover, the writing will be so much more interesting and it will help to uncover our own blind spots and move us beyond cliché.

Writing Prompt

Identify a scene in a piece of your writing that is not working well, and experiment by rewriting the scene from another character's perspective, or by adopting an opposite emotional state to the one underlying the current scene.

Use what you can from this exercise (all or some) to incorporate into the current scene.

Writing Tip 12 - Have respect for the craft...

 

 Artists need to work at their craft and writing is (I believe) an art form.

So my tip for this week is to have respect for the work that goes into writing a book. Often it takes years to write a book and to bring it to publishable standard. Expect that this will be the case. If it takes only a short time, and it is to the best standard you can do, good on you! Well done. For me, writing a book is a marathon, not a sprint. It takes as long as it needs to take. Mostly, in retrospect, the book it ends up being better for taking longer. The book it might have been if completed earlier, and the later version, are two different works. The earlier version will almost always be the less polished or accomplished one (although it is sometimes fresher). The trick is to create the best of both worlds.

Remember, once it is out there, it is out there.

 

Writing prompt:

Go back and read some earlier versions of your manuscript (especially if you haven't looked at them for some time) and compare to later versions. Try to be objective, to view them from the perspective of someone who is coming to the work for the first time. What is better in the second version? What is worse?

Keep writing and honing your skill!

Perth Writers Festival - Saturday

So much to do. So little time.

The Perth Writers Festival, held in the grounds of the University of Western Australia, features a series of small tents, shade sails, and sprawling trees, marquees and food vans, and more permanent venues - the Octagon and Dolphin Theatres, the University club and the magnificent Winthrop Hall, most of which have some sort of air conditioning, which is a relief at he moment because of the run of days above 35 degrees C. The event is becoming so popular that it could do with a few more places to buy food for those (like me) too disorganised to bring something. There are places to sit - chairs and tables, a few beanbags, benches, the grass... and some round wooden slatted things outside the Octagon that serve as chair, table, sculpture and love seat, all rolled into one. Shaded paths, ovals and tennis courts with the University students keeping fit and playing some interesting-looking games involving pool noodles and boxing gloves (sadly, not in the same game).

At any one time there is a variety of free and ticketed events to choose from and half an hour between events to walk to the next venue, or buy a cup of coffee. The ticketed events are reasonably priced at around $13.50 (or less) and we are being treated to some of the best in the world, in their fields.

Yesterday I hit the ground running, detouring first to pick up my adolescent charges, who were booked in to see two of 'The Game Changers' events, featuring the developers of blockbusters (I gather from my more informed charges, although the only games I play are Solitaire and Brain Trainer). You might recognise Assassins Creed, Far City 2, Chaos Theory, Everybody's Gone to the Rapture, Gone Home. And more. You might recognise the names of Jill Murray, Clint Hocking, Guy Gadney, Bajo, Dan Pinchbeck, Steve Gaynor, and Dan Golding.  I dropped the boys off, pointed them in the direction of the venue, and hotfooted it to a Fremantle Press breakfast arranged by the tireless and talented people who make that undertaking the great thing that it is. Those of us who had books published in the last year had the opportunity to 'speed date' by each giving a 3 minute pitch to representatives of schools, libraries and other organisations that might like to have us come along to talk with students, other writers, and other readers.

I had thought of seeing Eleanor Catton's session at 11.30. she is the remarkable young new Zealander who is the youngest person to ever win the Man Booker prize. Instead I opted for some bonding time and a steep learning curve and sat in on the second of The Game Changers - 'What the Player Wants'. I'm trying to get my head around the world view of the gamer without actually doing the games, but not sure that this is even possible. The gamers (some pretty smart cookie kids, and some older 'kids') were enthralled, and even an old stick-in-the-mud like me found the session entertaining, although I felt that I needed to do some serious language classes to grasp the subtleties.

I wasn't going to miss Anne Summers and Carmen Lawrence for anything though. They were on at 1pm in Winthrop Hall, and about 500 people attended to hear them discuss The Misogyny Factor. If you want to hear Anne Summers speaking go here, and if you want to see her free on-line articles, go here. The publication is called The looking Glass.

Sunday is the last day of the Writers Festival - though not the Festival of Perth which features music, theatre, visual arts, dance, and so much more (imagine whatever you'd like here). If you are in the area, I would urge you to go along to something. It is all good and it nourishes the soul.

Perth Writers Festival - the story so far...

Last night Perth Writers Festival kicked off with a great talk by Lionel Shriver: on Literature and Religion, in which she commented on the dearth of serious (or reliable) religious figures in her own fiction. Seems she tends to kill them off but has them lose their faith first. Lionel Shriver is an accomplished speaker, witty, mind like a steel trap, and a great performer. She treated the audience to excerpts of her novels - some of the sections that related to religion - read expertly, and causing at least this audience member to suspect that more of her preacher father has rubbed off on her than she might acknowledge. Her father is, by the author's own account, a very good orator.  Wouldn't it be great to see Lionel Shriver in conversation with Martin Amis, who is another star of the Festival this year?

And the impressive names don't stop there. Today the highlights for me were and interview with Dame Margaret Drabble, the wonderful Liz Byrski in role of interviewer this time round, and another where Hannah Kent (the amazing young author of Burial Rites) was interviewed by Julia Lawrinson.  Great for gaining a perspective regarding the beginning of the writer's Journey in Hannah Kent's case, and not at the end (thankfully) but well along the way for the erudite Margaret Drabble. How generous these gifted and hard-working writers were with sharing their writing process, absolute (pure) gold for writers and readers alike.

All I can say is that we are very, very lucky to be able to listen to all of these generous writers, some of the best in the world, and to have them come to us.

Hooray! Perth Writers Festival is on again.

My favourite time of the year - a time to catch some of the world's best. Lionel Shriver was great last night, and looking forward to listening in on Margaret Drabble today. Hope to see you there! University of Western Australia.

Writing tip 11 - Take time to get to know your characters inside out

Character development is tip of the iceberg stuff. The little bit that finally appears in your novel is more stable, and all the more intriguing, if it supported by a whole lot of ballast under the water.

Or to continue using another well-used metaphor (because I like it) - think of it as sculpting. You start off with a great big block of something and chip away (or mould)  judiciously to create a great work or art (or a popular one). First you need to build your block.

In practical terms this means creating a deep history for each of your characters. What is it about their life experiences, where they were born, their personality, their physicality, their beliefs, that feed into how they respond to certain situations, and how they create certain situations? Very little of this needs to be used in the final cut, but the writing will benefit from the writer's deep understanding of his or her characters.

Why?

Consistency. Depth. Subtext. New leads for subplots. Inspiration with regard to the main plot development. A genuine process of discovery and the ability to share what the writer discovers through this exploration, with the reader.

Writing Prompt

Spend the equivalent of one full writing day developing a birth to current time history for each of your characters. Date of birth, family composition and dynamics, places they have lived, where they now live (in detail - the more the better), pivotal experiences, core beliefs, what has influenced their beliefs, physicality including any physical frailties, likes and dislikes, relationships, political beliefs and so on.  Once you have created this, consider how the information will affect what actually happens to them, and the decisions that they will make.

Women Writers Challenge - What is Left Over After and Sea Dog Hotel

Jung called it Synchronicity - where two causally unrelated things come together through meaning. In Art and Literature synchronicity happens all the time, and this time, at the start of my reading challenge. This is where I (along with many other active bloggers on writing) have made the commitment to read and review (a personally set goal of) a number books by Australian women writers this year. I'm reading ten and reviewing six.

I'm not sure if this counts as one, or two, reviews, but I'm posting these together because of an important thematic commonality shared by both novels, What is Left Over After, and Sea Dog Hotel. That is, both novels explore aspects of the mother daughter relationship where roles are reversed. The child is placed in a position where she is (at times) the default mother, required to take responsibility, and the mother is, at least part of the time, in the role of child.

It would be easy for a writer to tackle this subject matter in a way that creates a binary, a hardened point of view polarising ideas of right and wrong, either demonising the mother for not picking up her responsibilities or allowing a label of one or another form of mental illness to stand as a closed explanation for what occurs. It is equally tempting to cast the daughter as victim. To their great credit, neither of these writers does. The relationship between mother and daughter, the subtle exploration of these complex relationships, is undertaken with sensitivity and care in these otherwise very different novels.

Natasha Lester's debut novel What is Left Over After won the TAG Hungerford Award for an unpublished manuscript in 2008, which is no mean feat. I am not at all surprised. I found her writing to be accomplished, subtle, and emotionally sensitive. Natasha has since produced another critically well-received novel If I Should Lose You which I am looking forward to reading later in the year.

What is Left over After traces backwards and forwards through the life of Gaelle (Ellie) in a voyage of self-discovery after her baby daughter Aurora is stillborn. Much of the novel juxtaposes the relationship between Gaelle and her troubled mother, told as a story interwoven with magical stories of princesses and fantastical creatures that Gaelle's mother told to her as a child. Gaelle's muse, and witness, is a thirteen year old girl, Selena, who is befriended by Gaelle in Siesta Park, a tiny seaside holiday village in South-Western Australia. Gaelle has run away from her husband and friends in the months following the death of her baby daughter, and its self-destructive aftermath. I won't go into any more detail for fear of giving out spoilers.

The telling of Gaelle's story opens up spaces that cause us to consider both the saving grace and dangers of storytelling; its ability to transform, reveal deep truths, and act as a salve, but also how, if overused, it can seduce away from authenticity and closeness, making it difficult to know what is or isn't real, and difficult to engage in the moment; the grounded joys of the everyday. This is implied in Gaelle's case where her attempts to get at the truth are continually frustrated. Her mother uses story to avoid telling Gaelle (and perhaps admitting to herself) what she is doing with her life.

Playwright and novelist Marlish Glorie's first novel The Bookshop on Jacaranda Street was published through Fremantle Press. Marlish made the decision to self-publish Sea Dog Hotel as an e-book. The work and care that has gone into this new novel is self-evident. The story is primarily concerned with a mother-daughter relationship (Ruth and her daughter Grace). Young Grace feels responsible for taking care of her vulnerable mother but also wants to break away from her and return to a more stable existence, a door that now seems closed to her, as her much loved father has passed away and the family house has been sold. After the death of Grace's father Mother and daughter have wandered from place to place, never settling because of Ruth's apparent inability to do so, and when the story opens they are on their way to a tiny inland town in Western Australia, to a hotel ironically decorated on an ocean theme, hence Sea Dog Hotel. Ruth has bought the hotel, sight unseen, from the Internet.

As the story unfolds, we learn more about Ruth and her daughter, the story of the town and its inhabitants, and each becomes a catalyst for growth and change in the other.

Marlish Glorie's experience as a playwright comes to the fore as she explores these various characters and deftly employs dialogue in the vernacular, and  in the process bringing in that laconic country humour and stoicism that seems peculiar to people in Australian country towns. It is a warm and thought-provoking book, and well worth the incredibly reasonable e-book price which you can check out at Amazon.

Writing tip 10 - Season your text with an extreme scene, or two

Everyone likes a little seasoning. Some people like a lot. Whether it is pepper and salt, or the hottest chillies, it is good to have one or two highly seasoned scenes in your novel.

The difficulty with seasoning is knowing how much is too much, or too little. In a first draft I would suggest that where the text is restrained and pulled back, one judiciously placed scene of extreme emotional stakes, can lift interest, and keep readers on their toes. While it might come across as too much, or as melodramatic on first writing, it can be worked and pulled back  once you get to the editing process.

I think the key to writing a highly charged scene is to hint at, or foreshadow, the event earlier in the text, and to concentrate on the what (action, dialogue) rather than the how and why (adjective and explanation).

Writing prompt

Find a couple of novels that use dramatic scenes well and study what it is that makes these scenes work. It might be emotional content, placement and timing, the way the scene is written, or that the event depicted by the scene alters the stakes for the protagonist.

Now choose a place in your text where you might like to lift interest and try writing a high stakes scene of around 300 - 500 words for your project. Don't worry if the first draft is awkward and melodramatic. You can pull it back once you have the outline on paper or screen.

OR...

If your manuscript is too well seasoned with dramatic text, try pulling back a section of high drama that isn't working. Consider that light and shade in a story can help maintain interest.

Random Musings on Point of View and Theory of Mind

I've been grappling with some of the small 'p' political implications of point of view lately so I hope you will bear with me.

Currently I'm writing a novel from the points of view of a number of different characters, third person perspective, limited omniscient, I think it's officially called.

As I write I've been thinking about what psychologists (and others) call 'theory of mind' - a capacity that usually emerges in childhood, and which is based on the growing awareness that other people are independent, thinking, volitional beings.  Knowing this helps us to imagine what life might be like for another; to inhabit their perspective in order to better understand and predict what they might think and do.  Deeply understanding that others have their own psychological worlds has survival value for the individual, but also for the community because it helps people to develop empathy and build the strong social networks necessary for social cohesion and stability.

I've been thinking about what the novelist might do with point of view, that other artists might not (for example, an actor - at least overtly, constrained as he or she is by the script and gesture). The writer can show the internal workings of the mind, how the theories people form as they interpret another person's actions and motivations are sometimes spectacularly wrong, or right. This becomes apparent as other points of views are shown, and misconceptions are exposed.

The use of point of view as a plot device or thematic device interests me, and I suppose has done for some time, linked as it is to the politics of self-representation and the representation of another's identity. Used judiciously, perhaps point of view can bring into focus the normally hidden issues of who is subject and who is object at any one time, and the way in which these move around depending upon whose point of view is privileged at a particular moment in the text. Manipulation of subject/object position of the characters can greatly influence what happens.

I am thinking of Point of View in this context as being equivalent to the subject position. The subject position is privileged. The subject has the speaking stick. The subject can put his or her point of view. The subject can interpret reality for the reader. The object of the subject's perspective is fixed in order to be objectified and interpreted, and so has a much less powerful position. The object is continually being recreated and reinterpreted by the subject speaker.

This happens in real life all the time, of course. You only need to turn on the News to see it happening. In everyday life, between people of equivalent power and status, there is a dance between subject and object positions, and with ethical people, with friends, with peaceful workplaces and so on, there is cooperation, consideration, forgiveness, generosity - all depending on the level of understanding and ability of each person to put him or herself in the other's position, and the ability and desire to care for the other and sublimate the ego, to some extent.

My feeling is that the writer needs to continue to strive to develop this capacity (and desire) if they are to have characters that ring true and come to life on the page.