RNA Conference 4 (part 3) - Linda Gillard

Below is the final section of Linda Gillard's Sense and Sensitivity session.

But before that I just wanted to update you on where things are with my own writing. I had to leave Penderrown at 71,000 words and plunge into A Cornish House as the New Writers' Scheme deadline is approaching fast. The good thing is that I haven't looked at the manuscript in about seven months. It is amazing what the fresh eye can see and what I have learned in the intervening time. I have read all the feedback from last year's NWS report, agents comments and publisher comments. I looked for any real consistency and there was none! So it is now down to me as the writer to see where this story needs to grow and shrink. I need to give myself clear page deadlines for each day which have to be met or surpassed - I may be a bit quiet on the blog if I start falling behind (Needless to say that this deadline falls as DH is on his three weeks hols, hence the rain in Cornwall, the kids are all here and we have guests!) So each day I need to revise 25 pages which will give me time for one last read through before submission. Fingers crossed.

CREATING DETAILED CHARACTERS – using photos

Beware: description of character can be where writing sags.

It’s much harder to describe beautiful people than ugly ones! Difficult to avoid cliché. Focusing on non-visual aspects some of the time will help avoid the pitfalls.
(I avoid describing my characters because I think it’s a pit you can fall into. I also think it’s a weakness in my writing, so I don’t draw attention to it.)
You don’t want lists of adjectives, back-story, clichés. You mustn’t let readers switch off. (Some skip description!) Keep your descriptions sensory and vivid, and readers won’t want to skip.
Make your characters vivid by using concrete detail (and not just things you can see.) Be specific.

I often work from photos of real people (sometimes amalgams of more than one) because it makes me step outside my comfort zone and my own limited memory bank.
[Resources: PEOPLE photo packs Note: Here pick a few of your own]

WRITING TASK 5 Sensory Gymnastics!

1. Choose a photo and study it.
Imagine this is one of your characters.

2. Think of a smell associated with that character - their perfume or their natural body smell; the smell of the job they do; perhaps the smell of fear or blood.

3. Think of a sound associated with your character – the sound of their voice, an instrument they play, the music they listen to, a sound their body makes (eg asthmatic wheeze.)

4. Think of a texture associated with your character – the feel of their hair, skin, clothes, or something they touch in the course of their work, something they make as a hobby.

5. Can you think of a taste associated with your character? A food or drink they like? Or if your character lends himself/herself to the sensuous and erotic, something s/he tastes of?…

I want to thank Linda for sharing all of this. It is a fantastic set of exercises and I can already see the benefit.... So to find out more about Linda drop by her website. There is a great section on writing.

Stuck Point

Penderrown has been moving fairly well but yesterday I hit one of the points where I started looking on ebay, reading blogs, tweeting.......finally closed the computer coerced dd into trying some gardening. After trying to keep her on task for more than five minutes I gave in to the sun and plonked onto the sun lounger with the current read - Nicholas Sparks True Believer.

Now I woke at five this morning determined to achieve at least 1000 words today. It is now 9:15 and I have written 72 and deleted 20. I am still at that impasse. Demi has an issue and a developing relationship is going to force her to face this. You see she can't lie very well,doesn't want to lie, and can't quite get the words out of her mouth - and the relationship is compelling her into it. I have set the scene - romantic cliff top picnic and boom - stop dead.

Why? Well,I suddenly wondered is this time to force her into this corner? Is it the right in the story or for her? Does it fit with the other events taking place? Is this just too soon for the reveal? Does it work with the bloody time line i set up (won't actually knwo this until go back and reread - confession here - I have forgotten some of the stuff I have written)? If I make her face all this now what is left?

So I turned to blog land again - just hoping for something that might trigger something - well anything to be truthful. Low and behold Michelle Styles came up trumps again:

I went and picked up McKee again. He makes the point that character and structure are interdependent on each other. You are designing events to reveal character and so it is a matter of personal choice whether you choose to work on the structure or the character but character and character change cannot be expressed except through the events in the story and the characters' reaction to that story. True character is the choices that people make when under pressure and the pressure can only happen from events that require characters to take bigger and bigger risks.

Her words gave me another way to look at it which far more sense to my addled brain. Michelle frequently posts on 'craft' and almost always she hits the nail on the head for me.

And another link which totally justifies my lounging in the garden yesterday. Relax from Anita Burgh

Disappointment

The month of May is closing and I had high hopes of completing Penderrown's first draft during this month. I lost the plot - literally - several times during the month but managed to pull myself back on course. Now as the month disappears I have written 23,000 new words. Not bad I confess but no where near reaching the end. Things have conspired against me on this and now with new plot complication continually flashing in front of me I have more work than ever.

I am also thinking that as I have grown as a writer I have slowed down because I can see the holes as I work and I want to go back and fix them. I want to add more description in at this stage which slows things down a lot. At this point in the book the season is almost exactly the same now. As I drive the lanes I am trying imprint the sharp pink exclamation marks of the foxgloves punctuating the blue sky in to my brain with the smell of the wisteria and honeysuckle accompied by the birdsong. This is not the best way to drive in Cornwall during half term week with visitors filling the lanes you need to do more that automatic driving while your brain writes!

I'm leaving Cornwall today and travel to Dubai on Monday. I'm back again shortly which consoles me.

Happiness

Happiness is all my data retrieved, a new little lappy to continue to write on and a new devious twist to Penderrown (now I just need to figure out how to work it in!) Oh and of course sunshine in Cornwall.

Work in Progress - It Has a Name PENDERROWN

Well, I have put the nose to the grind stone for the month of May. Why? Because come hell or high water I have to submit to the RNA New Writers' Scheme by the end of August and I haven't left myself much time. Not that I haven't been working but the rewrite of August Rock doesn't help. It has been through the scheme twice so I won't submit that again it would be a waste. A Cornish House went through last year. I need to put something new in and that would be Penderrown. Yes, the wip has a name. It is the name of the house that is quite important to the core of the story. I diligently worked out the name of the house before Christmas using mil's book on Cornish. I scribbled notes on a paper with all the variations and settled on the above (also several other I came up with matched names of existing houses in the vicinity). I would tell you exactly what it means but I can't find said paper. I should know enough to write these things in my various notebooks but I didn't. So when I find the paper or even mil's book I will enlighten you but trust me it does make sense!

I recklessly aim to complete the very dirty first draft by the end of the month. This is very foolish as I have two trips back to the UK in May! Next week I will sitting with little lappy in various coffee shops trying to connect and find inspiration as well as attending RNA's Summer Party.

The word count is 38k - almost half way. Victoria my villain is in dire straights and so is Demi so thus far no sagging middle. I do know that I am lacking on description and am rushing things as I am ruthlessly pushing forward - scene to scene with relentless momentum. I just want the story out. It will take some serious fine tuning to fix the pacing but I know that before I lift a pencil to edit. This ties into some of feedback I had from a lovely agent re ACH - which cracks on too. She said I needed to give the reader more time, build up more to the key scenes...Well I am not ready to look at ACH right now but even without doing it I now know what she was talking about. In the various first versions of AR I lavished attention on the landscape and Judith's reaction to it........it was a character in and of itself. Which I think was probably one of the strengths of the early versions. But I had been criticized that it moved to slowly, wasn't pacy or exciting enough. Hence I over corrected in ACH and I can see it happening in my quest to get the story down now. Let's hope when editing that I can see my mistakes and can fix them properly!

Here are two good links - first on Romantic novels from The Huffington Post which goes on to blast the stereotype view :

I may not have gotten my answer for why romance is selling so well in our troubled times, but the Princeton conference taught me that to rush to conclusions about romance fiction is to flatten out a rich, varied, and continually evolving genre. In the end, though, I did conclude one thing. People read and enjoy romance just as people deal with hard economic times: differently.

And here's one on what is needed to make a good author website from the Andrew Lownie Literary Agency newsletter by Alan White.

I will finish my Japan posts later this week with a good wind and meeting that daily word count on Penderrown.