Creative Kicks - Week 9 - Using Narrative Twists and Turns

By Chris Curran
Images by JD Lewis

Surprise! Surprise!

The Oxford English Dictionary describes a plot twist as an unexpected development in a book, film, television programme. Collins defines it as a decisive change of direction, aim, meaning or character. In a novel, play etc. an unexpected event, revelation etc.

Plot twists are often associated with crime fiction and any list of books featuring great plot twists will probably include the likes of Gone Girl, Before I Go To Sleep, Shutter Island, Rebecca and at least one Agatha Christie.

These lists invariably mention books that introduce a huge surprise, often at the climax of the story, which overturns everything the reader has believed so far. But while such twists can be incredibly powerful - think of We Need to Talk About Kevin and Fight Club - they are not the only game in town.

Plotting a book involves building a narrative; showing readers what happens in a particular scenario and finding ways to keep them wondering what’s going to happen next. Twists and turns are a vital element in retaining that involvement. I’m not talking now about the kind of mega-twists that have readers gasping: that is amazing, but about unexpected developments and revelations which, as well as helping to make the book lively and give it that crucial page-turning factor, can help reveal its true meaning, highlight its themes and illuminate what has gone before.

Coleridge regarded the plot of Fielding’s Tom Jones, as perfectly planned and it is chockfull of twists and turns. And one of the reasons Pride and Prejudice is Jane Austen’s most popular novel (apart from the allure of Darcy) has to be because it contains so many surprises and reversals.

So how can we use twists and turns most effectively in our writing?

Above all by ensuring they are believable in the context of this particular story world and its characters. By the time we learn Maxim De Winter hated rather than loved Rebecca, as the narrator believes, we know she aroused great passions, ridiculed men, probably had a lover and that Maxim can’t bear to talk about her. In Pride and Prejudice Darcy’s apparently unfair and snobbish rejection of Wickham makes perfect sense when we, and Lizzie, learn what Wickham has done, not only to Lydia, but to Darcy’s own sister.

It’s vital not to make readers feel cheated by a twist. There’s nothing more annoying or unsatisfactory than a shock event that comes out of nowhere: a deus ex machina. This is where a big twist can fail spectacularly as readers are left shaking their heads in disbelief. If you’ve firmly established a character, especially a narrator, as a model of honesty it isn’t fair to reveal they are actually a liar unless you have dropped sufficient hints that these impressions may be false. And if a murderer is to use an unusual method of killing or disposing of a body it’s important to set up in advance the fact that they have the expertise or the wherewithal required.

This is where foreshadowing comes in. Planting subtle clues that hint at the twist ensures that readers won’t shake their heads and think: where on earth did that come from? instead of the response you want which is: ah, I see now, but why didn’t I see it before?
Foreshadowing can take many forms. Passing references to an object, a pet, a minor character or event can come to be recognised as hugely significant indications of a future twist. Or you can be more direct with a prologue or flash forward. Daphne Du Maurier uses foreshadowing in the most direct way in the famous opening lines of Rebecca. She does the same kind of thing at the start of My Cousin Rachel with, ‘They used to hang men at Four Turnings in the old days. Not any more though.’

Confound expectations. If you’ve set up a situation where readers are likely to assume certain outcomes: boy meets girl, for instance, or police officer arrives at the scene of a murder, the twist can come when these characters behave in surprising ways that overturn the conventions. In Dickens’ Great Expectations a rich woman takes an interest in the young hero. When he is left enough money to become a gentleman the identity of his benefactor seems obvious. But Dickens fools us, while at the same time ensuring we have all the clues to work out the truth.

Twists can come at any point in the narrative. And they can be very effective midway through a story not least because we’re not primed to expect them at this point. Gillian Flynn knocks us off balance so well in Gone Girl partly because of when her big reveal occurs. As does Hitchcock in the movie, Psycho. An early twist can also lead on to multiple convolutions and has the added advantage that it allows the story to continue and reveal the twist’s consequences.

Misdirect readers. While foreshadowing helps the writer to play fair with readers it’s important to keep them from guessing the twist too soon. Unreliable narrators or misleading POV characters can help with misdirection. Agatha Christie is famous for her untruthful narrators in books like The Murder of Roger Ackroyd and Endless Night. Henry James makes brilliant use of an unreliable narrator in Turn of the Screw. Unreliable POV characters are not necessarily liars, or amnesiacs like Christine in Before I Go To Sleep. They may have been deceived themselves or misread a situation. They could be very young, naïve or blinded by love or prejudice. If you use several narrators, as Wilkie Collins does in The Woman in White and The Moonstone, you have the opportunity to show a variety of possible truths.

Be flexible even if you like to start with a carefully planned plot and a detailed outline. As the story comes to life situations or characters may suggest twists or surprising developments that can add depth to the narrative or offer a better way to reach the resolution. At this point you may need to go back and add in some foreshadowing or misdirection.

Exercise

Add a twist to the Cinderella story. Confound expectations by having the prince fall for one of the ugly sisters either temporarily or permanently. How many possible scenarios does this suggest? How will you alter the characters or events to make it believable?

Experiment with the twist occurring at different points in the story. How does it change the narrative if it happens early on, in the middle or close to the end?

Now add another twist. The sister rejects the prince. Why? What happens next? How are the other characters affected?

And how would the story change if instead of the omniscient story-teller you turned one of the characters into your narrator? A narrator who could of course be unreliable.

Try something similar with other fairy stories.

Chris Curran is the author of Mindsight, Her Turn To Cry, and Her Deadly Secret, all published by Harper Collins Killer Reads. Chris was born in London but now lives in St Leonards-on-Sea near Hastings, on the south coast of England, in a house groaning with books. She left school at sixteen to work in the local library - her dream job then and now - and spent an idyllic few months reading her way around the shelves. Reluctantly returning to full-time education she gained her degree from Sussex University. Since then she has worked as an actress, script writer, copy editor and teacher, all the time looking forward to the day when she would see her own books gracing those library shelves.

https://chriscurranauthor.com/
Facebook author page

Or follow me on twitter @Christi_Curran

Creative Kicks - Week 8 - Beat the Block with Anne Stormont

By Anne Stormont

Images by JD Lewis

Can't get started or stalling when you do?

Whether experienced or novice, most writers suffer from the dreaded writers' block at some time.

And it's not really surprising it happens. Writing is hard work. It's a craft as well as an art and it has to be learned, practised and improved.

Writing takes time and effort. The only way to learn it is by doing it. And the only way to practise is by doing it. And the only way to improve is by doing it. Yes, it's great when the creative juices flow, but most of the time it's a case of turning up and persevering. 

The block can be brought on by author fatigue, or by lack of commitment. But it can also be caused by lack of experience, by lack of confidence, or by lack of inspiration.

Its major symptom is procrastination which in turn leads to frustration, and in the most serious cases self-loathing and despair - where that voice inside tells you that you were a fool to ever think you could write - and you are tempted to give up completely.

Beating the block

But please, if you're affected by writers' block, don't give up. There is hope. It is possible to recover and become both creative and productive once more.

And because it can be due to different reasons it follows there are different remedies. So let's take them one by one:

Author fatigue - first of all congratulations for having got started and persisted up to this point. You've most likely been writing intensively - a do-not-disturb notice issued to friends and family - and every possible moment has been spent at your desk. You may well have been enthused, full of ideas and completely committed to your project. But then the well runs dry. Suddenly - or gradually - enthusiasm wanes, focus is lost and ideas dry up. It's time for a complete break, time to replenish.

So, get out of your writing space and re-engage with the world. The natural world is a particularly effective remedy. Going for a walk, run or cycle outdoors really does blow the claggy cobwebs away. And as you focus on the physical, your mind can go off on its own to process, refresh and reboot.

Social distractions are good too. A meal, a drink, and a catch up with the important people in your life also give the creative department of your brain some much-needed downtime. It seems as if switching your focus lets your mind declutter and work on things in the background - including your latest writing project - with no active input from you.

And don't forget to spoil yourself a bit too - take a nap or a nice long bath - or even READ, yes, lose yourself in a good book. It's amazing how after some time away you'll find renewed enthusiasm for the work-in-progress.

Lack of commitment - your writing can sometimes stall because the project you're working on doesn't excite you or seems pointless. In which case walk away. But it may be that even although you're enjoying the piece you're working on, you're still finding it hard to do, or to justify the time spent on it. This is where deadlines come in handy. Competitions are a great way of imposing a deadline on your project and will also ensure you give your writing your best shot. Or, if you share the intended date for the publication/circulation/reading of your story, article, poetry collection - or whatever - with your readers, that will also help you focus your efforts.

Lack of experience - the only remedy here is: get some experience. Yes, you need to be brave. Starting something new can often be scary. But like all journeys, learning to write begins with small steps. You won't have a bestseller overnight - indeed most of us who write will never have a bestseller. But that's okay because you'll have so much fun just writing for the sake of it. So begin small and build from there. Write a short story or an article or a poem. Then do some more. Maybe seek out a local writers group or club you can join where you can share your work and get some support. Consider take a writing class or course, online or in the real world. You could even consider a residential course and experience the joy of such an intense and fully immersive experience. But whatever you decide, do seek out constructive feedback, take criticism on the chin (but not as a personal insult) and aim to improve. 

Lack of confidence - this can be related to lack of experience but it affects established writers too. It can be related to disappointing feedback, a scathing review or the above affliction of author fatigue. But sometimes there is no obvious external cause. Sometimes it's that wee demon inside that likes to taunt us, tell us we're useless, asks us who we're trying to kid.

If you doubt yourself because of some negative criticism of your writing, take a bit of time to get over the hurt and then go back and interrogate the remarks made. More often than not there will be a grain (or more) of truth in that criticism and, also more often than not, you'll see a way to improve as a result. Equally, if you decide that no, the criticism is unjustified then put it aside and move on. Don't let one person's opinion stop you doing something you love.

And don't let the wee demon stop you either. Put it back in its box and turn the key. Then get back to doing the thing that gives you so much pleasure and excitement. Because there's nothing like the exhilaration of being in the zone, of seeing where the story - your story - is going to take you. And if one other person - besides you - also gets pleasure from reading it then it's doubly worthwhile.

And finally - Lack of inspiration - you want to write but you've no idea what to write. This is where writing exercises come in handy. So let me leave you with a few:

· Take the first sentence of chapter six in the last novel you read and write a 500, 1000 (or more) word story with it as your starting point.

· Get a photo of a person in e.g. a magazine advert (not someone famous or who you know) and write about them - their dilemma, or their life story, their job, their crime, their secret...

· As for the prompt above but use a picture of a place.

· Write about the first house you lived in, or the first film you saw, the first book you read - say what it meant to you and why.

· Choose something from the natural world - e.g. a starling, a river, an oak tree, or an object - e.g.paperweight, teddy, photo. Or choose an action - e.g. swimming, climbing, driving. Or choose an emotion - e.g. anger, sorrow, joy. And let that choice be your starting point for a short story, novel, poem or opinion piece.

So what are you waiting for? Go on kick the block aside and get writing!

Anne writes contemporary women's fiction. She has published two novels so far Change of Life and Displacement and her third novel Settlement  - a sequel to Displacement - will be out at the end of August.

Anne's novels have been described as thoughtful, grown-up fiction where the main characters are older but no wiser and feature characters who face challenges that involve love, loss and some of life's biggest questions.

Anne is a Scot, living in the land of her birth. She's a retired teacher and when she's not writing, she's a compulsive crossworder, yoga practitioner, avid reader, keen walker and gardener. She also loves spending time with friends and family - especially her two grandchildren.

Anne has travelled all over the world and her visits to the Middle East in particular have inspired her most recent writing.

She can be a bit of a subversive old bat, but she tries to maintain a kind heart.

Website: www.annestormont.co.uk

Facebook:  www.facebook.com/annestormontauthor

Twitter: @writeanne

Creative Kicks - Week 7 - Creating Literary Devices with Jerome Griffin

By Jerome Griffin
Images by JD Lewis

Breaking the mould is the holy grail of writing. Finding expression like nobody before. Standing apart from the crowd.

 It’s possible, certainly, but not probable. Chances are, if you think you’re a unique voice, you’re going to be sorely disappointed. Somebody somewhere has done it before.

Like the magic rule of three.
You say something, explain it, and then qualify it.
Just like the examples above.

So maybe you should set your sights lower. Aim for something more achievable. Less ambitious.
Like world peace. Or an end to global poverty. A cure for death.

People have become used to the rule of three. Now if you stop at two it feels unfinished.

On another note, more than three appears clumsy. Like the writer is struggling for clarity. To find the right words. Labouring the point. Going on and on and on.

Like that really.

As I say, it’s the magic number. The rule. The law.
But the rule of three must have started somewhere. Somewhen. Sometime.
And then it grew into the norm. This literary device. This catchy conjuror.

Thankfully there’s always someone out there hell bent on destroying the norm and poking a finger in the eye of comfortable predictability and nothing will stop them from finding their grail, so they toil and they toil and then they toil some more in search of inspiration with perspiration to break this new mould that society has cradled to its bosom so vigorously that it’s in danger of suffocating the creative spark that fuelled the imaginative inferno in the first place, and of course, they’re too late because society’s yearning for its warmth has already snuffed the fragile flame and what was once a creative beacon lighting the path of the future has been rendered a spent torch sucked dry by the very ones who sought to breathe eternal life into its core and suckle on its power, which means that nothing is new or unique or original anymore, but society thirsts for new and original and unique, and is wandering in a desert wilderness that tortures and torments even the strongest minds until they lose their ever more tentative grip on reality, and in tandem with their desert wanderings, their minds wander a metaphorical barren wilderness until they spew unchecked, unfettered, uncensored, unadulterated, raw beauty onto the world and now there is no editing because to edit would be to tarnish and destroy the creative seed that has been sown in this raging, ranting, rambling cacophony of literary noise: a noise of beauty, of fury, of power, of essence, of being crackling with electric energy, thrumming with pulsing rhythm, soaring with eagle grace, shining brighter than a galaxy of stars, soothing the soul in the warmth of its embrace and penetrating the heart easier than a baby’s smile.

And so the stream of consciousness is born. And it’s new and unique and original once more.

Until it’s tired and old and not new. Not unique. Not original. Just same same, not different.

So the quest begins for another new voice. Another new sound. Another holy grail.

And the quest will continue forever, because as soon as something new is found, it’s not new anymore.

Yep, from the nerve-shredding cliffhanger to the sinister smoking gun, from unfathomable hyperbole to terse understatement, and from harmonious juxtaposition to conflicting oxymora, we all love a well developed literary device. And writers love nothing more than creating their own. So, here’s a couple of tips on how to do so.

1. Turn things upside down. Instead of using a cliché that everybody knows change it around. For example, in Fight Club, Chuck Palahniuk took an everyday expression and simply changed the delivery. Everyone is familiar with the term “to sleep like a baby”. In the story the protagonist suffers from insomnia until he attends a support group, at which point he proclaims: “Babies don’t sleep this well!” Its effect delivers instant impact and the reader sits up and takes notice, whereas they might have glossed over the tired old original cliché.

So, your exercise here is to take old proverbs, sayings and clichés and change their format. Some examples as follows:

• If this is all fair in war, I’d hate to see what happens in love.
• This has gone way beyond tough and the tough have yet to get going.
• All the flies are on him.

For a bit of variety, throw in a little opposite:

• If at first you don’t succeed, maybe failure is your thing.
• What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger…said nobody ever with a bad back
• He leapt into inaction.

2. Keep to what you know. It’s a well known fact, by those who know it well*, that writers write from experience. There’s nothing clumsier than an author stumbling blindfolded into alien territory. Staying in your comfort zone is the best way to explore outside your comfort zone. As an exercise, write down some every day terminology used in your other/previous careers and play around with them.

For example, in My Better Half the protagonist works in advertising and employs a tool used by market researchers as follows: “If this product were a car, what kind of car would it be?” He brings this into his thoughts at different times throughout the story and varies the delivery.

For example:
 • If my company were a disease, what disease would it be?
• If I were a Shakespearean character I would be Hamlet.

So, let’s take a quick look at other jobs:

• Shop assistant - Management don’t care. To them I’m not a human, just a barcode.
• Shop manager - The customer is always right, especially when they’re wrong.
• Accountant - That’s a moral victory on the credit side of life’s ledger.
• Bartender - Everything he says is BS - Barfly Stupidity. 

Well structured literary devices add so much to a writer’s style and set them apart from the crowd. And all you have to do is look at things from another perspective. Go on, that diem won’t carpe itself!

*Thank you, Robert Rankin, for that wonderful example of the now legendary running gag literary device.

Jerome Griffin is the author of two novels - The Flight of the Earls, an historical fiction set in Ireland over 400 years ago; and My Better Half, a contemporary story set in London.

In 2014 Jerome launched Short e Publishing, which produces short contemporary fiction. Jerome has since gone on to publish two Short e stories: Divorcing Mum and 33rd County. There are many more in the pipeline from Jerome, as well as a number of other authors, under the Short e Publishing banner.
Jerome lives in London with his wife, Elaine. 
Amazon.co.uk 
Amazon.com
Website: https://jeromegriffin.wordpress.com/ 

Creative Kicks - Week 6 - Stoking the Creative Fires with Rebecca Lang

 

By Rebecca Lang

I run a fortnightly writing group. We, each of us, write different things - fantasy, memoir, crime, lit-fic - but all struggle with the same challenge: procrastination.

I don’t believe in writer’s block, but I do believe in ‘analysis paralysis’, where you can over-think yourself into a corner to the point where you write nothing at all. You know what I mean - you’re so full of ideas you don’t know where to start, so you don’t. You become the antithesis of a writer, which, by the way, my thesaurus confidently tells me is a reader!

Of course, most writers are readers as well, but if there’s no writing going on in your life then it’s hard to confidently refer to yourself as a writer. Let me help you remedy that situation the best way I know how, by challenging you to write something from nothing, using some tried-and-true creative tools.

Meme or Writing Roulette - Have you ever played Meme or Writing Roulette? You randomly select a meme (a humorous or thought-provoking image, video, or piece of text) and use it as a mental springboard into the deeper recesses of your imagination: your subconscious. It’s essentially a writing prompt, and thanks to the magic of sites such as Tumblr, Pinterest or search engines like Google, you can call up a host of choices using rather obvious search terms such as ‘writing roulette’.

Another great way to find inspiration is by actually typing in ‘writing prompt’ and select ‘images’ from the Google menu, whereupon you’ll be inundated with colourful and eye-catching scenarios, crafty phrases, and fantastical possibilities. These clever prompts have been dreamt up by other writers and editors to help you generate the first lines of your story.

This may seem like a very obvious source of inspiration, but the wonderful thing about using prompts such as these is that they use the element of surprise. Suitably startled, your brain is immersed in the creative soup that is your subconscious mind, leaving behind the restraints of your day-to-day critical, conscious thought processes. Happy day-dreaming!

StoryWorld Cards - What’s this? Witchcraft?! Well, the StoryWorld Cards created by Caitlin and John Matthews could almost certainly be modelled on that fortune-teller’s favourite, the old Devil’s Picture Book, also known as Tarot cards. Aesthetically rendered and rich with symbolism, StoryWorld Cards and their ilk act as a visual passport to your imagination, allowing you to access the dark, deep waters of your subconscious.

Sadly, the publisher stopped printing the StoryWorld Card decks (which feature many themed decks: faeries, haunted houses, adventures), so whatever remaining decks you see for sale represent its final print run. Our group loves the ‘three-card draw’, where you have to make up a story using elements from all three cards, and also the single-card challenge, where everyone uses the same card to inspire their story.

I’ve seen other inspirational decks pop up in recent times - including the Writer Emergency Pack and The Storymatic, to name a few - and they all play the same role in stimulating your creative juices. If you can’t lay your hands on a fancy deck, use some clever targeted searches on Google, Pinterest or Instagram. A visit to your local library can provide a similarly unpredictable and inspirational ‘old school’ experience by pulling books off shelves and opening them at random pages.

Story Map - This four-panel sketch is actually an idea I borrowed from a UK writing workshop, the exact source of which is lost to me in the mists of time and the Internet. It’s also of immense appeal to people like myself - visual thinkers who engage in a lot of doodling and spend far too much time blissfully zoning out to pretty images online.

The Story Map, as I’m calling it, is a great kickstarter for shorter writing projects - whether they be competitions or flash fiction - and as initial templates for much larger works. The Story Map forces you to focus on key elements: location, character, action and - crucially - an ending! You can read more on this approach below.

Deadlines - My father used to spend a lot of time quoting Parkinson’s Law to me when I struggled with writing essays, invariably leaving my assignments until the night before they were due. His variation was ‘work expands to fill the allotted time’, but the accepted quote as written by Cyril Northcote Parkinson himself is ‘work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.’ In other words, if you have two weeks to write an essay, it takes two weeks; if you have one night, it will take one night, and so on. This explains how, seemingly against all the odds, I still managed to pass English.

The Oxford Dictionary defines time as ‘The indefinite continued progress of existence and events in the past, present, and future regarded as a whole.’ But as writers (including Parkinson) know, time is really elastic. It can speed up, and it can slow down. Occasionally it can seem as if it has stopped altogether, usually when you’re stuck on a plot point or you’ve entered that spiritual and physical void of unspeakable boredom that seems to consume all creativity, what writer Douglas Adams called the Long Dark Tea Time of the Soul.

We know we can mark, measure and muse over it, but when we harness this mercurial motion with the power of deadlines, we can all briefly master time.

Chris Baty, the founder of the popular National Novel Writing Month (NANOWRIMO), a challenge in which writers strive to pen a 50,000-word novel in 30 days, knows about the power of deadlines. ‘A deadline is, simply put, optimism in its most kick-ass form.’ Word! Someone give that man a cup of tea! Wait, don’t - you’ll only distract him. He has his own stories to write.

Deadlines, as Baty rightly points out, can be a galvanising force for writers. Don’t fear deadlines, use them to their full potential as motivating goals. Think of your deadline as a Harry Potter-style ‘Time-Turner’, a device that will help you travel to a future state where your story has been fully realised and written. Deadlines deliver rewards.

So where does this leave us, friends? Optimistic? Inspired? Ready to pick up your pen or hit the keyboard? I hope so.

Here’s a short exercise combining all of the above tools to help send you on your way.

Exercise:

1. Deadline - Set your alarm and give yourself 20 minutes. It’s okay to cheat, I often hit ‘snooze’ and give myself another five to 10 minutes.

2. Inspiration - Use a meme, writing prompt or a StoryWorld card or similar as a starting point. Google is also your friend here! The words or images don’t have to represent THE perfect idea, just start writing.

3. Story Map - Take a blank piece of paper and divide it into four quarters by drawing two intersecting lines. In the first quarter, write a location for your story and draw it (it could be a map of a place, a house, a tree, a planet - be creative!).

In the second quarter, imagine your main character and sketch something representative (it could be a person or maybe an animal).

In the third quarter, illustrate an action - it could be someone doing something (perhaps exciting) like driving a fast car or running, or an event taking place.

In the fourth quarter, think of your ending or resolution and draw it as best you can.

Remember, it doesn’t have to be a masterpiece, these are just markers for your story. Using these four sketches as a guide, and your StoryWorld card or meme/writing prompt for further inspiration, write down the bones of your story. Be as descriptive as possible.

The words or images from your meme, writing prompt or StoryWorld card don’t have to represent THE perfect idea. Your Story Map isn’t set in stone. These things are catalysts for the ideas process, so just start writing and marvel at your rich and marvellous imagination as characters and scenes tumble forth.

Depending on how well your ideas have formed and how quickly you write, using this method you can, on average, pen between 400-600 words in less than half an hour. Not bad from a standing (or sitting) start. Happy writing.


Rebecca Lang is a writer and editor based in the Blue Mountains west of Sydney, Australia. She runs a lively fortnightly writing group, Novels by Night, and writes when and where she can - mostly on the train. She is the author of a series of novellas including Army Dreamers and For Fear of Little Men, and the editor of several anthologies including a collection of soon-to-be-published ghost stories, Dark Spirits.

Websites: www.rebeccalangauthor.com
Twitter: @rebecca_lang
Facebook: www.facebook.com/novelsbynight/

Creative Kicks - Week 5 - Creating Characters with Clare Flynn

Creating Characters that Readers Care About 
By Clare Flynn
Photographs by JD Lewis

Whether you’re a daredevil seat-of-the-pants writer who sits down with a blank page and lets the story unfold, or a meticulous planner and plotter who knows in advance what will happen in every chapter, there are times when a character will surprise you. What? You might say, I’m the author, I’m in control! But that’s not always the case.

Why do characters have a nasty habit of running off on their own - sometimes in a different direction from the one we intended, leaving us lolloping along behind them? Well, it can be a sign that they are living, breathing people who have a clearer idea of their own destiny than the plot structure imposed on them - or it could mean they aren’t yet fully formed.

One way to find out, is to know your characters as well as, or, given that self-knowledge is rarely a strength, better than yourself.

A fundamental element of story, from Shakespeare to Star Trek, is the concept of a hero’s journey. One of my favourite expositions of this is shown in this short clip from Kurt Vonnegut. 

So, what are your characters’ journeys? The start point is getting clear on what each character’s role is in the story. The main character or protagonist (MC)? - the central focus of your story - the hero on his or her journey. The antagonist? - whether well-intentioned or plain evil, they are out to foil the MC’s mission. A minor character? - if so, what is their role in the story and relationship to the MC? For the purpose of this post I’m going to focus on the main character - as if you get that wrong you’ve lost your reader.

Exercise 1

Answer these questions about your MC (it’s a good idea to do them for the antagonist and supporting characters too).

· What’s their role in the story?

· What do they yearn for? This is fundamental! It’s what drives them and sends them on their journey

· What do they look like? Whether you include these details in the book or leave them to the reader’s imagination is irrelevant - YOU need to know this - and this goes for all of these questions!

· A brief pen portrait of their personality - just a few sentences

· What’s their occupation?

· Do they have any habits or mannerisms?

· What’s their background? (history, family, location, backstory)

· What are their internal conflicts? What causes their angst? Their dark nights of the soul?

· What are their external conflicts? Who or what are the source of these?

Exercise 2

Once you’ve done that, here’s another exercise. This time write freely in the voice of your character filling in the blanks. Don’t stop to think - just get it down on paper, preferably by hand.

Let me tell you who I am ------

As well as all that, what you really need to know about me is ------

OK confessional time here, what I really want is --------

I’d be able to have exactly what I want if only --------

Don’t tell anyone, but what I dislike most about myself is --------

My life changed forever the day ---------

The worst thing that ever happened to me was ---------

The best moment of my life was -----------


Exercise 3

To get right under the skin of your characters, give them the Spanish Inquisition.

You can use The Proust Questionaire http://hoelder1in.org/Proust/fill_questionnaire.html ,

or any online personality test

or do what I did when I was writing The Alien Corn and needed to reconnect with the characters in the previous book, The Chalky Sea, and use the excellent one JJ Marsh wrote about here, or make up your own.

I recently did an online course with a university on outlining (I was trying to move from being a seat-of-the-pantser to a plotter). One of the exercises was to fill out a very comprehensive questionnaire in the voice of your main character. Many of the participants found it difficult, if not impossible, to answer as their character rather than as themselves. That’s fine if you’re writing a memoir, a fictionalised account of your own life, or are transplanting yourself into your novel as the main character Hey, why not live vicariously? You too can swing through Amazon jungles or live as a Trappist monk. But in most cases your characters are NOT you and you need to get to know them better than you know yourself.

Most of the questions in a questionnaire may seem pointless - I’ll never use it in my book, you say. But you’ll be surprised at the gems you uncover that can add colour and shade to your characters. Think of characters as being like icebergs - the biggest part is hidden from view but it’s what gives strength, power and presence. A character who only consists of the words that make it onto the page is going to be thin and insubstantial. We are all what we lived in our pasts - a complex construct of past slights and injuries, compliments and excitements, moments of joy and sadness.

Some of the areas to think about (not an exhaustive list) in forming your characters are -

· What is their backstory?

· Voice and manner

· Tastes

· What do they dream about?

· Quirks and behaviours

· Skills and aptitudes

· Fears and desires

· Strengths and weaknesses

· Formative experiences

· Friends and enemies

My last top tip is, having done all the exercises, print them out and keep these together as a reference document to inform your writing. Or if you are paper averse, save them in a folder where you can easily refer to them as you’re writing. If you ever feel “stuck” a dip back into the folder can produce rich pickings.


Author of seven novels, Clare Flynn writes historical fiction with a strong sense of time and place and compelling characters.
After a career in international marketing, working on brands from nappies to tinned tuna and living in Paris, Milan, Brussels and Sydney, she ran her own consulting company for 15 years and now lives in Eastbourne where she writes full-time - and can look out of her window and see the sea.

Clare’s latest novel, The Gamekeeper’s Wife, is available in paperback and as an e-book on Amazon http://mybook.to/gamekeeper
Website www.clareflynn.co.uk
Facebook - www.facebook.com/authorclareflynn
Twitter - www.twitter.com/clarefly
Instagram - www.instagram.com/clarefly

Creative Kicks - Week 4 - Blurb with Louise Mangos

You’ve written 120,000 words of your book and pared them back to around 90,000. You’ve edited and re-edited and edited again. You feel like you’ve read those words eleventy bazillion times (yes, that IS a number). You can even quote big chunks of the narrative from memory. Now you need to write a blurb. And the very thought makes you want to abandon everything and pour yourself a pint of prosecco. 

The blurb is a handful of sentences that sets the scene for your novel. If you’ve written in genre, the blurb should show something at stake for your protagonist or main characters in the narrative, whether your story is a romance, a crime, or a historical novel. The blurb often, though not always, asks a question of the reader - what would they do in a precarious situation? It should state the premise - perhaps a sentence about the dramatic opening to your story - and a hint of at least one reason your protagonist is not getting what they want. Most importantly, it has to make the reader want to dive into your work.

The blurb will appear on the back cover of the book, so it’s the second thing a potential reader will read after the title and your name. It has to be more perfect than all the words in your novel. It is not a synopsis. You must not reveal any spoilers. At this point you are giving nothing away beyond the first chapter.

The blurb is also useful as an elevator pitch. When someone asks you ‘What’s your book about?’ you need to be able to tell them without hesitation, especially if it’s an agent or a publisher. You never know where you’re going to meet these people. They are the gatekeepers of the publishing industry, and you must be ready to present them with the golden key. Assume you only have the time it takes to journey in the lift between four floors to forge your key and unlock the magic.

*

Exercise:

The easiest way to write a blurb is to create a mind-map.

1. Take your main protagonist. Write their name in a bubble at the centre of your mind map.

2. In a bubble above your character, write a sentence about the rising tension to the first dramatic incident in your plot. You could also make this a question - ask the reader what they would do in your protagonist’s shoes.

3. The other bubbles around the centre should include early plot arcs or twists in the narrative.

4. Pick one, and write a sentence that hints at the jeopardy or conflict in that incident.

5. Expand on the consequence of the drama, without giving away any obvious clues.

6. What is at stake for your protagonist? State their most intrepid challenge. This should be the final line of your blurb.


As an example, here is the blurb for my debut psychological thriller Strangers on a Bridge:

To what lengths would you go to protect your family? 

When Alice Reed goes on her regular morning jog in the peaceful Swiss Alps, she doesn’t expect to save a man from suicide. But she does. And it is her first mistake.

Adamant they have an instant connection, Manfred’s charming exterior grows darker and his obsession with Alice grows stronger.

In a country far from home, where the police don’t believe her, the locals don’t trust her, and even her husband questions the truth about Manfred, Alice has nowhere to turn.

*

You’ve got your blurb, something you’ve decided you can also use as your elevator pitch. And you pitched it so perfectly in that lift, you now have an agent who’s interested in representing you. Alternatively, you might have gone down the indie route and decided to self-publish. Now you need a tag line - one short sentence that will appear on the front cover of your book to deliver an essence of the tension in your story to the potential reader. Your tag line could be the last hanging sentence of one of your most tense chapters.

The tag line for Strangers on a Bridge is: ‘She should never have saved him’

This might shock the potential reader. Most of us would do anything to prevent the suicide of someone - our instinct is to pull any fellow human back from the brink. So why shouldn’t Alice have saved Manfred? She does actually think this at some point in the narrative. Your tag line should make your potential reader want to find out why.

However, I should add that if you’re lucky enough to strike a deal with a large publishing company, it’s likely you won’t have any say in the tag line chosen for the cover. There may be three or four people working on the marketing and publicity for your book, and they will come up with a selection of possible tag lines. These will be passed around the team and a shortlist drawn up. Focus groups might then have the taglines tested on them before the final one-liner is chosen. Not by you. By the publisher.

A final note on writing the blurb: Most authors only write the blurb after the manuscript has been perfected. But it helps some writers to have a vague version of the blurb when they’re plotting the chapters. I use the mind map method to plot my novels, and have adapted my own system from the Snowflake method taught by Randy Ingermanson. You may not have a final title for your novel, but it helps to create a working title, even if it’s something like ‘Woman Stalked by Man’. Around the title, forming the start of your snow crystal, you have your main characters, and from there you have key moments in your plot. This method can be used as deeply as you wish. You might want to plot each of your chapters this way, each with its own individual snowflake. Here is a link to Randy’s site for writers who might be finding it difficult to plot their novels:

https://www.advancedfictionwriting.com/articles/snowflake-method/

I look forward to seeing all your wonderful novels on bookshop and library shelves!




Strangers on a Bridge was a finalist in the Exeter Novel Prize and long listed for the Bath Novel Award and is published by Harper Collins imprint HQDigital. Louise also writes short stories and flash fiction, which have won prizes, placed on shortlists and been read out on BBC Radio. You can visit her website www.louisemangos.com with links to more of her short fiction, or connect with her on Facebook or Twitter @LouiseMangos. Louise lives on a Swiss Alp with her Kiwi husband and two sons. When she’s not writing you can find her in her kayak on the lake in summer or on the cross-country ski loipe in winter, painting in her studio, or drinking prosecco in vast quantities when she’s trying to write blurbs for her novels.

Link to Harper Collins page: https://www.harpercollins.co.uk/9780008287948/strangers-on-a-bridge/

Amazon.com link: https://www.amazon.com/Strangers-Bridge-gripping-psychological-thriller-ebook/dp/B079KL6VSB

Amazon UK link: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Strangers-Bridge-gripping-psychological-thriller-ebook/dp/B079KL6VSB

Creative Kicks - Week 3 - The S-word with Jean Gill

The S-word we all hate

That is, of course, s for structure. Before you rush off to read something that’s more fun, just answer one question. What if the story starts with Cinderella looking in the mirror at her middle-age spread and grey hair, as she remembers the moment when her bad-tempered husband, now King Charming, fell in love with her? How does that change the story? Hold those thoughts!

‘Structure’ sounds rigid, all rulers and straight lines, but we’re going to get messy, fool around with the sequence of scenes in a story, and consider the consequences.


The simplest structure for a story

Good storytelling is as old as sitting round a fire with friends and, although the terms used for the craft might change with fashion, the craft itself remains the same. My touchstone as to the simplest story structure, very useful for a play or short story, dates back to Aristotle. His theory of three unities suggests that you should limit your story to one location (place), one day (time) and one plot (action). Breaking one unity is fine but if you break more, you risk confusing your audience and losing the power in your storytelling.

In a novel, we can play with multiple places, times and subplots, but we should still be aware that this adds complexity.

Let’s return to the Cinderella story and consider some of the choices related to one of Aristotle’s unities, time.

Time structure is the order in which the content of the book (whether story, poems or facts) is revealed to the reader. This is where we have fun and get messy because there are so many options. There are no rules - just consequences!

The simplest time sequence for telling a story is chronological, by the time and date events happened. Imagine a four-year old telling you, ‘Then I went on the swings, then I went home.’

Even with a chronological structure, we can incorporate memories (the past) and hopes or fears (the future). We can change points of view (but not too quickly or the dreaded ‘head-hopping’ will annoy our readers). Versions of Cinderella’s story often begin with her being ill-treated as she does endless domestic chores, then she sees the invitation to the Prince’s ball. In between there are obstacles and resolutions. The ending is a Happy Ever After - classic romance structure.


What is the effect if you begin at the end?

In my Cinderella version, the beginning shows poor Cinders disillusioned and wondering what went wrong - the chronological ending of the story. This is now women’s fiction instead of romance, so there is a genre change. The hook is no longer ‘Will she meet her Prince, against all odds?’ (and because it’s romance, you can expect that she will) but ‘I know just how she feels. I want to spend time with this real woman and find out what went wrong.’

What if you begin in the middle?

Jane Davis’ superb novel ‘Smash All the Windows’ starts in the chronological middle of the story. The opening chapter shows us the trial and verdict regarding a lethal disaster in a London underground station. We know who was killed. The structure removes all suspense as to who dies, or what the trial verdict will be. This transforms what could have been an all-action disaster thriller into a contemporary novel focused on the survivors’ relationships and emotions.

You could start the Cinderella story with a middle scene. She is at the ball dancing with the Prince. This changes the mood of the beginning from misery to happiness and gives different ways of continuing the story, perhaps a) flashback to all the events leading to the dance, followed by losing the Prince again and a similar story arc until they are together at the end. Or b) a dual timeline, one chapter narrating Cinderella’s tough life with her stepfamily and the next continuing from the dance.

Why use a dual timeline?

Juxtaposing Cinderella’s time with the stepfamily before and after the dance with the Prince would allow psychological depth. She could know despair after happiness was snatched away, and realise that the cruellest emotion of all is hope. This would be a good structure for a novel raising questions about our existence.

A dual timeline is also useful for any story where two sequences of related events are separated by time, especially - but not only - Historical Fiction. J. T. Lawrence’s ‘Why You Were Taken’ creates sci-fi suspense by switching between two related women’s viewpoints, in 1980s and 2020s South Africa. When it works as well as this, readers are hooked as they puzzle over the connections.

A dual timeline can converge at any moment in the book, when the connection is revealed, but authors often leave the full revelation to the end, where a conclusion ties up all the main threads, apart from those left for the next book in a series.

Create suspense through the sequence of scenes

Readers love knowing something that the characters don’t, so show the reader something that’s going on, then let another character head for disaster, not necessarily straight away.

Let’s add a scene to Cinderella.

1) Cinderella finds Prince Charming in bed with her (ugly) sister.

From Cinderella’s point of view, this could come as a great shock or be no surprise but either way we know as much as Cinderella does.

However, if we see

1) Prince Charming in bed with a sister then

2) Cinderella talking to her friend about how happy she is with her dream husband

we feel the pain of Cinderella’s betrayal and we’ll read on quickly to find out what happens when she finds out! This is a classic example of dramatic irony and is one of the most effective weapons in the writer’s armoury.

Now it’s your turn to have fun with these techniques.

Exercise

1) On separate post-it notes or, if you’re hi-tech, in Scrivener or other software, arrange the scenes below

i) chronologically. What genre/s is the story?

ii) in alphabetical order. How does this change genre and mood? How would you write the link from one scene to the next?

iii) randomly. Shuffle the scenes, lay them in a row and add any scenes you like. Add a point of view for each scene (could be the same throughout)

iv) as a dual timeline. Add four scenes from the life and viewpoint of the stepmother twenty years before the ball. Put these in a row. Choose 4 scenes from Cinderella’s story and put these in a row above the stepmother’s. Read the story, zig-zagging from one row to the other, then add or write one scene to bring the two timelines together.

2) Play the same analysis game with any novel which struck you as having an interesting structure, especially if it’s in the genre you are writing.

3) Write each key scene in your story in the same way and have fun moving scenes around. Plotters can do this before writing and pantzers can do it at any stage. Both can do it at re-drafting stage. A key scene is whatever you want it to be - could be an event, could be a revelation (e.g. Luke Skywalker finds out that Darth Vader is his father).

J. Cinderella sees the invitation to all girls to go to the ball at the Palace so the Prince can find a wife

A. Cinderella’s ugly step-sisters are horrible to her and say she can’t go to the ball.

M. Her stepmother gives Cinderella lots of housework to do so she can’t go to the ball.

B. Stepmother and sisters get dressed up and go off to the ball.

O. Cinderella is crying and her fairy godmother appears.

R. Fairy godmother makes coaches out of pumpkin, footmen out of mice and creates beautiful gown. She instructs Cinderella to be home by midnight.

D. Cinderella is at the ball and dances with Prince Charming. Love at first sight.

P. Clock strikes midnight. Cinderella runs away. One shoe falls off.

V. Visit from the Prince and entourage to Cinderella’s house with shoe to see if the shoe fits. Ugly sisters try shoe.

L. Discovery of another girl in house. The shoe fits. The Prince has found Cinderella. Joy. Wedding.




Jean Gill is a Welsh writer and photographer now living in the south of France with two scruffy dogs, a beehive named Endeavour, a Nikon D750 and a man. For many years, she taught English in Wales and was the first woman to be a secondary headteacher in Wales. She is mother or stepmother to five children so life was hectic.

Her nineteen books are varied in genre, including the award-winning Troubadours Quartet, memoir, military history, dog books, poetry, and a cookery book on goat cheese. With Scottish parents, an English birthplace and French residence, she can support the winning team on most sporting occasions.


CONTACT

Contact [email protected]

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Youtube Channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPvXZBW-VLBibveKhXA-QZQ

IPPY Award-winning ‘Best Author Website’ www.jeangill.com

Blog www.jeangill.blogspot.com

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Creative Kicks - Week 2 - Characters over a Series

By Triskele Books

Way back in 2015, we gave ourselves the objective of developing our writing skills over the summer. We'd spent four years building the Triskele brand, learning about marketing and publishing, so it was time to go back to basics.And that meant writing.

We tried a bunch of exercises just to flex our creative muscles. Many were directly applicable to our WIP, such a Character, Voice, Point of View, Story Structure and Descriptive Prose.

But that was four years ago, and since then some of us have developed a series.

Gillian Hamer, JJ Marsh and JD Smith have all followed the same key characters over several books with every intention of continuing.

So we spent some time looking at the best way to keep those characters fresh and how to ensure they change and grow, rather than stagnate.

Exercises

1. What legacy of experiences mark your character’s personality and preferences now? Not just past trauma, but why is s/he allergic to seafood, soppy about butterflies, nervous of men in hats? Define a least one actual experience which has marked her/him. Then decide on something which has affected your MC vicariously (ie not something experienced directly - seen on TV, overheard, urban legend).

2. What stages of development does his/her personality undergo? How does that affect relationships with other familiar characters? What are the key turning points in each book?

3. When is the reader surprised by his/her actions? When does the reader have an ‘of course s/he would do that’. Even better, when does the reader have a moment of ‘I should have known!’ regarding character development?

4. Think of one past action scene which demonstrates your character’s personality (for better or worse). Now picture your character two/three books later - how would that behaviour change in those circumstances?

5. How other characters see your MC doesn't always reflect their true personality. That's logical - none of us is consistent or 100% honest. Look at your character from the outside. On the left hand side of a piece of paper, write down five of your character’s key values. What are the things they hold dear? Think conceptually, eg, truth, loyalty, persistence, kindness, etc

Now on the right, write down how those characteristics could be perceived by someone who hates your character. Eg, truth can be seen as rudeness, loyalty as blind devotion, persistence as pig-headedness, kindness as being a sap, etc

Triskele Books

For more detail on how each author approaches characterisation over a series, see this article.