Talking about Style by Pauline Rendall

New writers are often told that they must try and find their own voice. Whilst clearly true, it’s not always easy to establish this, at least to begin with. It’s also true to say that, the more one writes, the more likely it is to find one’s own voice.

            One way of getting a grip on this is through style. It doesn’t have to be unique to you, but it does need to convey, not just what you want to say, but the spirit of it too. It’s about developing your natural tendencies and polishing them to be the best they can be.

Unfortunately there are a few errors that can get in the way of good style. One example is in the use of clichés, which have a tendency to deaden style.

Some examples might be:

Leave no stone unturned

The luck of the devil (or the Irish)

What’s done is done

No good crying over spilt milk

Pangs of remorse.

Heartstrings tugged

The silvery light of the moon

He stood stock still

Tears stung her eyes

Her heart pounded

Petite and vivacious

White as snow

Black as coal

Soft as silk (or swansdown)

I’m sure you can think of loads more for yourself. And this doesn’t mean you can never use them, but if you do, you need to be sure exactly why you are using them. For instance, perhaps you might use them in dialogue, maybe to show that a character doesn’t have much education, or is an incurable romantic (there you are, there’s another one!). This is where the clichés belong to the character and not the writer.

There are also cliché situations, for instance:

Beginning an novel or short story with someone looking in a mirror

A suicide note on the mantelpiece

Someone dropping a glass (or anything) when they hear bad news.

The story that ends ‘it was all a dream’

And don’t forget cliché characters. These and the cliché situation are often referred to as ‘tropes’. The usual meaning for trope is an overdone literary device. Think back to Hollywood movies in the forties. How many Westerns have a dark-haired, often Hispanic, saloon girl. She’s kind and well-meaning (the’ tart with the heart of gold’ trope), but usually gets shot protecting either the hero or the golden-haired heroine. Or the gangster/bandit/highwayman/contract killer who has a change of heart, but who has to die by the end because we’ve come to like him and we don’t like to think of him languishing in jail. Up to a point, these tropes help us identify with the film or book. We’re comfortable, we know that right will prevail in the end. But haven’t they been done to death? Don’t we groan when we see it happening all over again?

            Here are some more:

            The handsome prince

The body in the wardrobe/deep freeze. (anybody remember Francis Durbridge?)

Twins brought up apart

The butler did it

Finding a long lost letter

The unloved fat boy

The solitary geek

The femme fatale

The picture/ornament under the sink that turns out to be worth a fortune

The broken down horse rescued from slaughter that turns out to be a famous show-jumper (I did that one!).

The country house murder with the final dénouement in the drawing room (only Agatha Christie can get away with this because she was among the first to do it).

Crime novels abound with them, as I know to my cost. How often is the body found by a dog-walker? The trouble is, that’s very often how it happens in real life. So do it once if you must, but no more than that.

Fantasy and horror stories also abound with them: the room suddenly going cold, the dog growling into the corner, the window bursting open,  the lights suddenly going out… there are people who do this brilliantly, but today it’s all a bit old hat.

One simple adjective to describe all of the above is ‘corny’. Try not to fall into the trap. This isn’t to say you can’t use clichés or tropes, but if you do, you need to find some way of making them fresh. Maybe you can use them but subvert them in some way. Maybe Puss-in-Boots’ feet are being rubbed raw by the boots and he refuses to walk any further, maybe Sleeping Beauty is male and is rescued by the princess. Existing examples might be many of the female characters in George R.R. Martins’ A Song of Ice and Fire’, where, for instance the little girl Arya Stark, orphaned and abandoned becomes, first of all, an adept swordswoman and then a trained assassin, while Brienne of Tarth is a typical ‘knight in shining armour’, displaying all the knightly values of honour and chivalry, yet is a woman, and mocked for her knightly attributes by the men around her.

But whatever voice or style you settle on, be sure to make it so fresh that your reader wants to turn every page. After all, that’s why we do it.

Writer's block and ways to overcome it by Sue Dawes

Wikipedia defines Writer's Block as: 'a condition, primarily associated with writing, in which an author loses the ability to produce new work, or experiences a creative slowdown. The condition ranges in difficulty from coming up with original ideas to being unable to produce a work for years.'
Most writers suffer from the condition at some point during their writing life, whether it be due to rejection or just the feeling of being overwhelmed by want you want to achieve versus what life throws at you.  This often ends up with a blank page, a half finished novel or a headache.
One way to get past Writer's Block is to complete some short exercises, particularly ones where the first sentence is provided. Prompts seem to help because they remove the responsibility for creating the initial idea and thus the pressure.
It doesn't matter if the pieces you write remain fragments of stories - the goal is to actually put words down. Everything else comes after.  You are just trying to kick start the creative process.
Here are some of my favourite exercises:

• Go to your bookshelf and pick a book.  Open it anywhere.  Pick a sentence that appeals to you and use it as the prompt. You can make it harder by choosing the 7th book , the 7th page and the 7th sentence or any number that appeals to you.
• Grab a magazine.  Choose two adverts and cut them out.  Use the words (and only those) to write a poem. Even better if you can use the originals and stick them down.  Making 'physical' contact when you write seems to change the way you create.
• Take a newspaper article or a photocopied page from a novel and use the words on the page to create something new: a beginning or a poem.  Try and switch the original genre it was written in to something different.  This is a really interesting website if you get hooked on making new from old  http://www.tomphillips.co.uk/humument
• Dig out your old stories.  Use a sentence from your own work to start something completely new.  I often have favourite sentences that don't quite fit where they are but are too good to throw away.  This is word recycling and it resuscitates them. 
• Flash cricket.  Get ten friends to give you a word. The aim is to include all the words in a very short story. It's surprising what you can create with words that don't necessarily 'fit' together. This is a good basis for poetry too.

If your Writer's Block is associated with isolation, the best solution is likely to be a writer's group.   Hearing other people's work can act as an incentive, especially if during the group meeting, there are short exercises to complete.  Reading and editing both kick start creativity and writing in company can be a very productive.  There is a writing group in Colchester which offers this: https://twitter.com/ColWriteNight/status/856622375709941760

None of the exercises above will give you a finished piece of writing but sometimes the best ideas are found in writing that isn't planned.  You might create a place, an incident or a character that you can use again. More importantly, you have words on a page.

For more prompts, the following list will help. Some randomly generated dialogue and words, others have simple exercises to try:
http://writingexercises.co.uk/index.php
10 minutes or less
http://thinkwritten.com/365-creative-writing-prompts

Launch of 'Lament for a Siege Town' by Clare Hawkins

Clare's book is available to purchase at Wivenhoe Bookshop and The Red Lion Bookshop in Colchester.

Summer edition of WDTL

The Summer edition of WDTL has been produced and can be found (in hard copy) at Wivenhoe station.  It is also available to read on-line at http://offtherailswivenhoe.blogspot.co.uk/

Interview with Pauline Rendall writing as Paula K Randall.

Pauline has recently been interviewed on another blog: 'Authors interview', regarding her self-published novel, 'Hangman's Wood'.  It makes interesting reading.  Follow the link below for more information.
https://authorsinterviews.wordpress.com/2014/12/08/here-is-my-interview-with-pauline-rendall/

NYC Midnight Short Story Competition

Clare and I have taken on the NYC Midnight Short Story challenge this year, a competition worth considering if you want to hone your writing skills or be forced to write outside your comfort zone.

 The competition consists of a series of time-constrained challenges which increase in difficulty the more successful you are.  The first round lasts 8 days in which time you are asked to complete a short story (max 2500 words) with a given character, genre and subject.  For example, Clare was given:     

Character: Limousine  driver

Subject: Anger

Genre: Romantic Comedy

In contrast I wrote Historical fiction, about a widow and with the subject of sworn enemies.

If your story is successful, you proceed to the next round (you are competing against around 40 people in your category).  In this round you are given three days to write another story with a new genre, character and subject.

Although the entry fee is quite high, there is detailed feedback given on every story entered.  

Not only does this challenge encourage you write new material to a deadline, but also forces you to use new techniques in your writing, including language and style.  

This can only improve your writing skills in the long run.

http://nycmidnight.com/

Ready for publication? Part 2. The Feedback

In the last post we were waiting for my debut novel to come back from my editor. Was I going to be dancing round the house, reading bits of the report out to anyone who'd listen? Or was I going to be completely crushed?

Well neither, as it happens, but it wasn't altogether comfortable reading. There were twenty-eight pages of where I'd gone wrong. And the thing was, I could see that the editor was right. I recognised what she was saying. She wasn't telling me the book was terrible. In fact quite a bit of what she said was complimentary. But she certainly didn't pull any punches in the places where she felt I needed to tighten up the dialogue, places where the plot was falling flat, additional scenes I really ought to write, scenes I didn't need. And that, basically, my main character was a wimp!

The novel needed a lot of work. But was I downhearted? Well, yes, if you want to know the truth. But I'm a bit of a sticker, and besides, I was starting to see where I could make improvements. And the editor was very helpful: I sent a couple of revised scenes to her for comments and she made more observations and suggestions. Then having rewritten it almost from scratch, two of my writers' group members had a go at it. This didn't result in a re-write, but it certainly pointed out some careless mistakes and some more tightening up of dialogue and action.

And then guess what, I bit the cash bullet again. I paid for another critique. There was a 20% discount for a second read, but as the novel was now fifteen thousand words longer, it didn't really work out much cheaper. I chose to go with the same editor as before, because I felt we had developed an understanding of where my novel was going. And this time I got about twenty pages of notes. But at least now the changes were minor, and there were more positive comments. One excellent suggestion she made was to re-write a particular scene from the point of view of a different character. So I tried this, and she was right, it worked really well.

Of course, I didn't do absolutely everything my editor suggested. I'm not a sheep, after all, and in the end it's my novel. But her advice and recommendations were invaluable, and enabled me to create a much stronger story and with a much more credible main character.

Another good suggestion she made was to read it aloud to myself, all the way through. So a packet of Strepsils later I could now see how often my characters began dialogue with 'Well' (even though I'd known this and thought I'd eradicated it already) and the fact that the police discussed a partial thumbprint five times. Five times. Please!

So if you're reading this and you're in a similar position, don't try and go it alone. Don't be abashed at asking for help. Read the acknowledgements bit in a lot of novels and you might wonder how much the author actually contributed. Get the best advice you can, and that probably means paying for it some way or another. It might mean you undertake a serious creative writing course, such as a degree or an MA, like Sue. Or get yourself onto an Apprenticeship scheme like Clare. Or, like me, work with a professional editor you feel is on your wavelength. And if you can, find a group of writers with some experience to help you stay on the straight and narrow. If there isn't anything near you, join an on-line critique group such as Word Cloud or Authonomy. If you like crime you could join my Google+ group Creative Crime Writers. Post your stories or reviews on there and join the community.Creative Crime Writers



The other thing you need to do is read, read, read, especially, but not exclusively, in your chosen genre. It's only by studying others that you learn what works and what doesn't.

Altogether my book went through at least seven re-writes, probably more. It was at this stage I began the wearisome process of submitting to agents. And you know the rest. That's where we came in.



Next time I'll talk about getting your book ready for e-publishing.

Ready for publication? by Paula

One thing that this novel-writing enterprise has taught me is that I don't handle rejection well! It's no good telling me that Black Beauty was rejected nine times and Harry Potter, seven. Or that Ian Rankin had to write eight books before he acquired a name for himself. And I just read in the Afterword to one of Simon Kernick's novels that he had three hundred standard rejections before he finally got a two-book deal. He was certainly determined! But good for him; he now has several best-sellers to his credit.On top of this there's all the waiting time. Waiting for this agent or that publisher to decide whether or not your precious manuscript is for them. Of course, what you should be doing during this time is writing the next one. Only it's hard to type while you're biting your nails down to the quick. 
    So after four rejections (I know,  I know, I'm a wimp, have no persistence, no backbone etc. etc....) I decided to go it alone and publish my debut novel, Hangman's Wood, on Amazon and various other e-publishing sites. 

    Now, I'm not so arrogant that I think every word I write is a pearl beyond price. In fact I know quite well it's not. And I'm not above taking advice and acting on it. Quite the reverse, I value candid feedback, even when it hurts. So if you're interested in how I got to the point where I felt ready for publication, I'd better tell you first that I spent quite a bit of money, as well as effort. It took a lot of soul searching. I'd attended a writers' conference where I met several other writers in my situation, many of whom were considering using a professional editing agency. And these agencies, if they're any good, aren't cheap. And when you've no experience of using a service, you don't really know what to expect, and you can't help worrying that you may be throwing good money after bad. It really does take a leap of faith to decide to spend that sort of cash, especially when you don't really know what you're going to get for it. But anyway, against the advice of all my non-writing friends, I did it. I paid the money (about £400) and sat back and waited anxiously for the feedback. Of course, what you really want to hear is: This novel is fabulous. It's completely ready for publication. Or even: All this work needs is a little tweaking here and there. Because you've already spent ages polishing it, haven't you? It isn't your first draft, after all. Well, in your dreams. 
    Next post I'll write about what really happens!

Where to start, by Philippa

It has to start somewhere –  in the middle, at the end, or sometimes at the beginning – a dilemma for any writer planning his or her plot, but also a difficult question to address as I think about how my own recently published book/story/novel (call it what you like) came about.

    To start at the end ‘There’s No Sea in Salford’, my debut novel, was published in March this year by Wivenbooks, on a print-on-demand basis. On 26 April I had a wonderful book launch evening in Wivenhoe and sales of the 225 page paperback have been ticking away nicely since from Wivenhoe Bookshop and also Red Lion Books in Colchester. My main aim in publishing in this way was to allow family and friends to read my book without breaking the bank and not necessarily to make money out of the project – I am just about breaking even on the print costs.

    So that’s the end, but as for the beginning it’s hard to say when that was. I’d worked in Sri Lanka for 3 months in 1978 so I guess that’s when it really started but the actual story was inspired by the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami which so badly affected that country. Retirement in 2010 from a busy life as a GP gave me time to practise writing and a short course with the Open University called ‘Start Writing Fiction’ gave me a little confidence. I played with various story lines and created characters to take part. Each main character was given a filing card with personal details and dates logged to help me keep track, and I drew an extended flow chart to link their interactions. I read more about Sri Lanka and the politics of  recent times. ‘Woolf in Ceylon’ by Christopher Ondaatje and Leonard Woolf’s ‘The Village in the Jungle’ were fascinating and ‘Sri Lanka in the Modern Age, a history of contested identities’ by Nira Wickramasinge was helpful for reference while ‘Brixton Beach’ and ‘The Swimmer’ by Roma Tearne were just fun to read.

    Procrastination followed – I could never find the right time to actually get on with the writing until I read about National Novel Writing Month or NaNoWriMo (are you tough enough?) in Writing Magazine. I logged on, signed up and truly got started on 1st November 2011. I did just what they said and wrote without stopping to edit or correct grammar, pouring out 50,000 words in the month of November. At the end I got a certificate and the satisfaction of being able to say I’d written the skeleton of a novel, to either leave in a drawer somewhere or to rework into something more polished.

    I enjoyed fiddling around with it, adding bits, subtracting bits, changing words, changing names, but with hind-sight I was far too attached to my first 50,000 draft to change the structure and that could have been a mistake ( Stephen King in ‘On Writing’ does advise ‘kill your darlings’). By now I had 67,000 words and it felt more like a novel.