Thursday 29 November 2012

Armed with pens: introduction to structural editing

An expert’s introduction to structural editing.

A brilliant blog-post from Armed with Pens.

This is definitely worth reading. 
It shows understanding and good sense in equal measure.
In summary:
It is the hardest thing to edit your own work effectively. Emotional investment trumps intellectual engagement every time. 
  • Do we need that Prologue?
  • Go through every chapter, every scene. Can it start later; finish earlier?
  • If a scene does not advance the story of a novel, it should be cut.
  • Sometimes it is possible to remove one, or two characters.
  • Tighten the story and keep the reader’s attention.
And there's more. Lots more. 
Read it for yourself, note and inwardly whatever ... you need this deep within your own psyche. 

But, in the end, obviously, you can't beat a good editor like Steve Haynes!
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Wednesday 14 November 2012

Putting the story into the Fairy Story

I've found a great way to look into the story (aka the novel) I'm writing. It's liberating. I put one of my characters into a children's story. It was amazing. Suddenly, it all fell into place. Of course, I'll have to translate it back into the 'real world'. But that should be interesting too. 
I started with one sentence and the beginning of the next:

Broderick climbed the beanstalk to the very top. At the top he found ...

... another country.
Whose country was it?
He didn’t know.
He looked around for someone to ask.
The first person to come along was a troll.
Broderick asked the troll: “Whose country is this? If you would be so kind. Please.”
The troll replied: “Giant Domino.”
“And who is Giant Domino,” Broderick asked politely. “Is he a kind man?”
“Kind?! Giant Domino?” the troll said. “He’d as soon eat you as look at you.” “He’s a giant, not a man,” said the troll after some reflection.
“What can I do?” asked Broderick; “If I should meet with this Giant?”
“Run!” said the troll. “Run as fast as you can!”
This was bad news for Broderick, because he had taken a liking to the country and had thought he might stay there for a while. But how could he stay if it was ruled by a big, unfriendly Giant? It was a problem.
The next person to come along was a young girl on a bike.
“Hello,” she said. “Who are you?”
“My name is Broderick,” he said. “And I’m looking for somewhere to stay.”“Or, at least, a place where I could get a cup of tea,” he added hopefully.
“That’s easy,” she said. “Follow me.”
She set off, pushing her bike and, after a moment’s thought, he followed her ... down the lane and round the corner. She didn’t look like a Giant and he hoped she wasn’t. At the end of the lane they came to a house. The house had a name. The name on the wall said Jubilee Villa.
“This is Bottom End,” the girl said.
Broderick looked at the house and thought: If this is Bottom End, then the only way is up. How wrong could he be?
“It’s where I live,” the girl said. “You must speak to my Dad. He’ll know what to do.”
And, indeed, he did.
“I know the folks here abouts,” the girl’s father said. “I’ll see what I can do.”
Broderick wanted to know if he could find a patch of land on which to build a house and the girl's father said that he would help.
“But what about the Giant?” Broderick asked.
“Which Giant?” the girl’s father asked. “There are so many.”
“I met a troll,” Broderick said, “and he told me to beware of Giant Domino.”
“Domino?” said the girl’s father. “What is Domino up to?”
Giant Domino, it turned out, was a relative newcomer to the district. He had been there for twenty-four years and was still considered a stranger; him, his family and all their funny goings on.
“That sounds bad,” said the girl’s father. “I’ll have to see what I can do.”
He knew what he would do. He went first to Farmer Giles and told him how Broderick wanted to build a home.
“He only wants a patch of land,” he said. “To build a little house.”
“No problem,” said Farmer Giles. “I’ll see what I can do.”
“And have you by any chance heard any news of Giant Domino?” the girl’s father asked.
“No. Why? What’s he up to? Nothing would surprise me where Giant Domino's concerned.”
“That’s what I thought,” said the girl’s father. “I’d better see what I can do.”
And he did. The girl’s father, whose name was Robin, set off in search of Giant Domino or, if not exactly in search of Giant Domino himself, in search of someone somewhere who knew something somehow, anything in fact, because not many people know anything very much about anything at all, as a general rule – about Giant Domino, while Farmer Giles went off to see about a patch of land.
Meanwhile Broderick had his cup of tea. And a ginger biscuit.
“Where do you come from?” the girl, Robin’s daughter, asked him.
“The Universe,” he said.
“Is it nice?” she asked.
“Yes. Usually.”
“Which means it isn’t,” she said. “Now.”
She was clearly a perceptive child.
“No. Not now,” he said.
“What seems to be the trouble?” the girl asked.
She was obviously a natural counsellor too, this one, in no mistake.
“Oh, this and that,” he said. “You wouldn’t understand.”
“Oh,” she said.
The patch of land was secured. Broderick built his house. And then the trouble started.
Giant Domino came calling. Or, rather, he sent in the trolls.
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Excavating a Roman Floor | Time-lapse

This is a great little video. I love it.

Excavating a Roman Floor | Walbrook Discovery Programme

From the web page:
In a series of videos we recorded the whole process of uncovering, recording and lifting a Roman tessalated floor!  The first video follows our archaeologists (and our friendly McGee site laborours [sic]) uncovering the tessalated floor by removing the trampled material that lay on top. 
The only comment I would make is that it would be even better if the text was under the picture instead of on the picture. It's very distracting. But .. great idea. Do more! 

About the Walbrook Discovery Programme: web page
About Museum of London Archaeology (MOLA): website
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Tuesday 13 November 2012

Plot, story and episodes

This is a very good blog! Excellent. Read it.

The biggest problem facing the beginning novelist

Blog post: Anne R. Allen

From the blog: 
E.M. Forster illustrated this in one of his famous lectures on novel-writing:  
  • "'The king died and then the queen died' is a story.  
  • 'The king died, and then queen died of grief' is a plot."
Anne R. Allen gives six suggestions to help you get the plot. 
Read it. 
Read the whole blog post. 
Finally, she says:
Ask yourself these questions: 
  • Could you remove a scene or two and still have the same story outcome? 
  • Does the plot build from one inciting incident to an inevitable climax? 
  • Do you have both a protagonist and an antagonist? 
  • Does the protagonist have a goal that isn't achieved until the end?
  • Does your book have three well-defined acts? 
She gives a link to a graphic on the 3-act structure - from Syd Field, author of Screenplay and The Screen Writer's Workbook - as shown on the website of College of DuPage, Glen Ellyn IL, west of Chicago. 
Thank you, Anne. Very helpful.
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Thursday 8 November 2012

Build a career as a writer – podcast

This is the link to Nicola Morgan's blogpost which has the link to the full podcast of the Write Lines conversation between Nicola, Sue Cook, Sue Moorcroft and Julie Cohen. 
Nicola says,
Settle down with a cup of coffee while we talk you through aspects of trying to make a career as a writer:
Build a career as a writer – with Sue Cook, Sue Moorcroft and Julie Cohen
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Characters We Love to Write (And Read!)

A blogpost from the Adventures in YA and Children's Writing blog.
We don't fall in love with plots... Our brains are hardwired to relate to people, so for most readers, it's really all about the characters.
Characters We Love to Write (And Read!)
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When do you stop revising?

From Emma Darwin's blog:
With anything the size of a novel you could always change bits, and yet in the end you do have to stop.
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