Gill James's Blog, page 8

Stage of revision 7 Is there conflict and tension? Are there peaks and troughs?

 The role of conflict and tension It is so often the tension between characters that leads to story in the first place. So tension is a number one driver.  As is a conflict of interests. Often too, the protagonists are conflicted with  their environment. A character may cross the first threshold but may still refuse the call to adventure. There is also that very important conflict between what a character wants and what they need.   Lesson from stage and screen  It’s useful for novel and short story writer to look at what happens on stage and screen – and even in radio plays. There we find a projection forward. Suggestions are made and the viewer / listener looks out for how that pans out. Will the ghost actually appear to Hamlet? What will he learn from it?  What will he do as a result of seeing the ghost?   Not what but how  We expect a happy ending usually.  We know the good guy will win in most cases.  Yet seeing how that happens fascinates us. Car chases are welcome. Can you keep your reader on the edge of their seat? Will any scene make them say, “So what?”?  If it does the latter, get rid of it or change it. Every so often though the reader needs a break – and so do your characters. They need to regroup, gather their thoughts or reflect a little on what just happened. Or maybe they need to make a plan - albeit one that is going to be thwarted.
A few tricks up your sleeve There are a couple of tricks that help us to keep the reader engaged:1.      Have a cliff-hanger  at the end of each chapter 2.      Have one more nasty thing happen just before it all resolves   Practical editing tips So, what should we be doing in this stage of revision?Examine each scene carefully. It must do one or several of the following:  Relate to the main conflictMake the reader want to carry on reading Allow a break for the characters to regroup, reflect, rationalise and make further plansHappy revising!    

News 1 Janaury 2020

 A Happy New Year to YouI’m writing to you on the very first day of the brand new year. Does 2020 have a ring about it?  The days are already feeling a little longer probably because we’ve had some bright sunny ones recently. I have to confess to not being a fan of New Year’s resolutions. You so often set yourself up for a fall.  However, I do believe in goal setting and this is as good a time of the year as any to set them. If you’re also a writer do you have a submissions strategy? I have one but I’ve tweaked it slightly recently. Instead of just trying to find a home for what I’ve already written, I’m going to challenge myself to write specifically for some imprints and competitions.     When I first started writing I used to enter every competition I could find. Whilst completing an MA, being a Head of Modern Languages in a challenging secondary school and having two teenagers at home. How did I manage that? I’m not sure but I did. So it shouldn’t be too difficult to get back into that sort of swing, should it?  News about my writing I’m still working 240 X 70, and Not Just Fluffy Bunnies, my non-fiction text about the darker side of children’s literature. The House of Clementine, the fourth book in my Peace Child series, is now out with beta readers. I’ve completed my normal fourteen edits and I guess there’ll be more when it comes back.    I’m back to the Schellberg Cycle and am about a third of the way through the first draft of book five The Round Robin. This may be only a working title. The book of writing prompts is now complete and available here.
              Catalogue of books for children I’ve added: Paddington’s Finest Hour by Michael Bond. Michael Bond carried on writing the Paddington stories right until his death in 2018.  This is the penultimate Paddington collection.  Most people would look upon the Paddington books as classics. The first was written in 1958.  
As with many of the other Paddington books this volume contains several standalone but interconnected stories.  These are presented in short chapters so are ideal for the end of the school day or bedtime stories. 
You can read my full comments here.I also watched the film Paddington 2 over the Christmas break. I found it absolutely charming.  But is Paddington just for children?      The full catalogue is gradually moving from http://www.gilljameswriter.eu/p/blog-page_81.htmlto https://www.theyoungpersonslibrary.co.uk/
Current reading recommendationIt’s probably not a coincidence that now my writing is back in the 1940s I’m also reading again more about the 1940s and also fiction set in the 1940s.
I enjoyed most The Children’s War by Juliet Gardiner.  
I found this book totally fascinating, though it’s an awkward book to read in bed.  It is a heavy and wide hardback.
It is actually the official companion to the Imperial war Museum Exhibition of the same name.  There is an interesting blog post about the exhibition here. 
I have of course researched this era extensively but I was pleased to be reminded of some things I’d forgotten, be assured about some things that I still know and even to find out a few things I’d not known. 
This isn’t a scholarly work but I did buy the book because another academic mentioned it. It is however extremely well researched and gives a lot of factual information.  There are masses of illustrations and also photographs taken at the time. Many of the illustrations are adverts and posters.  When I used the facsimile War Papers for my research I found the advertisements very informative.  They gave much insight as to what life was like back then. The same was true for the illustrations here. 
The other academic who recommended the book did say that many of the first-hand accounts were less reliable as the story-tellers had had too much time to rationalise their experience.   Yes I’ll admit that is normally the case but I actually found it less so here.  The first-hand accounts and the realia gave very similar information. 
Very interesting was a discussion about the General Election just after the war when Churchill was ousted in favour of a Labour government. The Beveridge report in 1942 had promised ‘security to all “from the cradle to the grave” from the ravages of sickness or unemployment’ (200). There was an attack on ‘Want, Disease, Ignorance, Squalor and Idleness’ (201).
This is a book I shall dip into time and time again. An absorbing and very easy read.  Find it here.        
Giveaway This month I’m giving away my collection of short stories Other Ways of Being. Most of these have been published elsewhere before. They are all generally set in other worlds – historical, fantasy or futuristic.  At the moment it’s doing the rounds of my local National Women’s Register group. I read one story from it for our Christmas book group, where we all take a long a Christmas reading. This was a story from the point of view a servant who accompanied one of the wise men on the journey to Bethlehem.  My friends all seem to be enjoying the book - phew! You can download it and lots of other free materials here.  Note, that normally my books and the books supplied by the imprints I manage sell for anything from £0.99 to £10.99, with most on Kindle being about £2.99 and the average price for paperback being £7.00. We have to allow our writers to make a living. But I’m offering these free samples so that you can try before you buy.   Naturally I welcome reviews.  The Schellberg Project The posts may be helpful for teachers who are familiar with the Schellberg stories or who are teaching about the Holocaust. This month I’ve added another post about more posts about Hani Gődde: about the Kriegshilfsdienst – compulsory war work for young German women. You can read the post here.I’ve also added two book reviews.  The Children’s War by Juliet Gardiner, mentioned above, gives us some useful information about what it was like in Britain for children during World War II.  Read the full review here.  I’ve also reviewed Jessica Blair’s Just One More Day. This is an easy read that also gives us much insight about working as a WAAF officer and flying a Lancaster bomber.  Read the full review here. School visits I’m still promoting my school visits associated with The House on Schellberg Street project. I’ve now developed a whole workshop for this. It starts off with a board game, includes some role play and creative writing and ends with a discussion. It is now possible to purchase the kit to work on on your own. Find details here.Costs for my workshops = travel expenses plus £400 for a full day and £200 for a half day. This includes all materials and some freebies. Two schools near to each other might consider splitting the day and halving the travel expenses and fees. This is open to negotiation in any case.        I also offer a free half day visit, though you pay my travel expenses, if you allow me to promote my books.       I’m continuously adding materials for schools to the site that are different from the ones I use for the workshops. I’ve recently added in resources and books to do with the topic. See them here:       Query for a school visit here.I’m also happy to tailor a visit for your agreed donation. This can be for either a Schellberg Cycle visit or a creative writing workshop. Any monies raised this way will go specifically to a project I have for a non-fiction book about a journey that will follow the footsteps of Clara Lehrs. I’m hoping to do the whole journey by train, including departing via my nearest Metrolink station. It’s important to feel the rails beneath my feet.       I offer as well standard author visits which include readings from my books, Q & A sessions and creative writing exercises. Please remember, with these as well, I’m open to negotiation if you can’t afford the full price.  Some notes about my newsletters and blogsThey do overlap a little but here is a summary of what they all do.
Bridge House Authors For all those published by Bridge House, CaféLit, Chapeltown or The Red Telephone or interested in being published by us. General news about the imprints. News for writers. Links to book performance. Sign up here.
Chapeltown Books News about our books. Sign up here.
The Creative Café Project News about the project and CaféLit – for the consumer rather than for the producer.  Sign up here.   
Gill’s News: News about my writing, The Schellberg Project, School Visits and Events. Book recommendations and giveaways. Find it here.   
Opportunities List Remember I keep a full list of vetted opportunities on my writing blog. See them here. New ones are added several times a day. Roughly once a month I go through it and take out all of the out of date ones. At that point I send it out to a list. If you would like to be on that list, sign up here.  
Pushing Boundaries, Flying Higher News about conferences and workshops to do with the young adult novel. (infrequent postings) Sign up here.  
Red Telephone Books News about our books and our authors. Sign up here.
A Publisher’s Perspective Here I blog as a publisher. Access this here.   
The Creative Café Project Listings and reviews of creative cafés. See them here.   
CaféLit Stories Find these here
Gill James Writer All about writing and about my books. View this here.
Gill’s Recommended Reads Find information here about books that have taken me out of my editor’s head.    
Gill’s Sample Fiction Read some of my fiction here.
The House on Schellberg Street All about my Schellberg project. Read it here.
Writing Teacher All about teaching creative writing.  Some creative writing exercises. Access this here.       
Books Books Books Weekly offers on our books and news of new books. Find them here. 
The Young Person’s Library I am gradually moving the children’s book catalogue over to this site.  Access it here.
Fair Submissions I am gradually moving the Opportunities List to this site.  Find it here.   Happy reading and writing.

Stage of revision 6 Is it convincing? Is there cause and effect?

D1_TheOne from Pixabay
This is really all about your story being logical.  Cause The question “Why?” is very useful here. “How?” is also quite enlightening. If you could read your work backwards it might be helpful. Why is the gun smoking? How did it get there? Why has the father written this letter? How was it delivered? Why did the boy steal the loaf? How did he manage that?   Effect Does every happening lead to something else? Every scene must have its consequences. It’s useful too if it projects forward. What will that gun do?  What will the protagonist do because they have received the letter? What will now happen to the boy who stole the loaf?
LogisticsCan that really have happened? We looked at this with endings. Something must happen. It mustn’t be too melodramatic.  You mustn’t cheat and have some unbelievable magic move you on too easily. Don’t find the gun conveniently hidden in the chimney. Don’t let the letter contain a magic formula for curing all the protagonist’s ills. Don’t make the boy the secret love child of the judge. (Though we may have to forgive Dickens, Molière and Shkespeare for such tricks). 
How to proceed with thisExamine every scene carefully and ask these four questions. What has caused this to happen? What will this lead to?Is the relationship between cause and effect believable?Does this scene actually add to the story?   

Stage of revision 5. Characters

Alexas_Fotos from Pixabay
Are they consistent? Do they develop? Do you know everything about them that you should? The importance of character It is the tension between our characters that create our stories anyway. If your characters aren’t right, neither is your story.  Creating empathy It’s important that the reader can relate to the characters in a text and usually there is some empathy.  Sometimes a writer may create an unlikeable character but at least that provokes a reaction in the reader. Also in these instances we are shown why the character is the way s/he is. Consistency For a character to be convincing they must be consistent. Check for any behaviour or speech that is out of character.Rounded Are your characters rounded? Evil characters should have some redeeming features. Good character should have some flaws.  This all helps to make them more believable.  Development  Our characters must develop.  Look at what they’re like at the beginning of the story and what they’re like at the end. Is there enough change? Character knowledge Your character will work best if you know everything about them. You don’t have to write huge lists and answer hundreds of questions but you should certainly think about them a lot. You can get a writing buddy to fire questions at you about your character. And here’s a challenging experiment: get your writing buddy to read a passage of your text.  Now ask them a question about an aspect of your character that you know you haven’t mentioned in that passage. Do they get the answer more or less right? If so, well done.  You’ve carried the whole DNA of your character into that scene.  This shows you know your character really well.     

News 3 December 2019

  My new attitude to reviewing I’ve decided now to review every book I read.  I don’t mean a long review such as I do for Armadillo Magazine , my own Recommended Reads or The Young Person’s Library (note the new URL for my catalogue of Children’s books.  I’m gradually moving the archive over.) No, this time I mean just short reviews with a star rating. I’m posting both on Amazon and on Good Reads, even if the writer already has the magical 50 reviews. I used to only post reviews if I could give four or five stars.  I actually did a three star review last week. I’ve made these change for three reasons: 1.      I’d like reviews myself but feel it’s wrong to expect them and not take the trouble to write them myself. 2.      A lower star rating is more honest than silence. 3.      Consistently reviewing will raise my profile as a reviewer and increase people’s trust in the process.News about my writing I’m still working 240 X 70, and Not Just Fluffy Bunnies, my non-fiction text about the darker side of children’s literature though I’ve put this on one side a little as I work on my book about writing prompts. There will be 366 writing prompts. I’m going to give this book to all the people who have contributed to it and to all the people I’ve published. I’m confident I’ll get it finished in time for Christmas. I’m half way through October at the moment. Would you like to contribute? Do you have any writing prompts?Here are a few examples of the sort of thing: 5 February  Birth Choices?
The body is an amazing thing, but older women are at risk in childbirth of having babies with health problems. Can you tell a tale of the effects of older women having children may bring? Highlight the positives and the change in mindset your character will go through. Maybe a highflying business woman who didn’t employ people with disabilities suddenly realises they have the same dreams as us to have successful careers, when she gives birth to a disabled child late in life.
Paula Readman  
6 February Story Cubes Try out the APP Story Cubes.  At the time of writing it costs £1.99. But if you don’t want to buy I’ve “rolled my dice” for you.  I got: a cat, a fountain, an L plate, a book, an apple, someone sleeping and an open eye. Pick at least three to build into your story Gill James  7 February Chocolate  Can you say it with chocolate

Stage of revision 4: Overall time scale

Image by Couleur from Pixabay
Naturally we don’t want any two year pregnancies or characters maturing three years in six months.  Also you need to allow enough time for your characters to eat and sleep yet you don’t want to dwell on those matters too much. 
I’ve actually taken now to writing down the time and date of each scene as I plan it and I also work out how long the scene takes.  I leave these timings in the chapter headings until after I have completed this edit.  Normally anyway, if you’re showing and not telling the scene will take as long as it takes to write it or read it out loud though it will take less than real time if you read it in your head. 
Sometimes the writer is very well aware of the time but the reader doesn’t actually know. You can indicate times of the year by mentioning weather, plant life and seasonal markers. 
You can indicate times of day by meal times, the state of the traffic and the characters’ energy levels. 
Even if you plan your story out with time indicators it’s still worth checking that it all still works. You may have stretched or shrunk time as you wrote.    

Barking up the Wrong Tree by Philip Ardagh, illustrated Elissa Elwick

Sally Stick has a dog called Fetch. He understands what she says and she knows what his barks mean.  Other people simply hear him bark. They set up a detective agency, Stick and Fetch – in Sally’s granny’s kitchen.  This volume includes three separate stories – Telly Trouble, No Clowning Around and Up, UP and Away. As the overall title of the book suggests, there are misunderstandings. Yet all works out well: Sally and Fetch get to enjoy some of Granny’s celebration cake, they manage the cheer up a very sad little boy who is not enjoying his birthday and they enable children at the local library to have a very exciting story time.There is also much to amuse any adult who reads with a child: the adult will probably realise that Sally has misunderstood something every time.  However, Philip Ardagh remains on the child’s side and any reader will empathise with Sally.This book is 142 pages long so it has a respectable spine.  There is only a small amount of text on each page and amusing images illustrate this well. The text is formatted ragged right and is double-spaced. The font is Anka Sans, one that is easy to read.   

Stage of revision 3: Check format and length against target market / reader

This isn’t really quite as commercial as it sounds though it’s obviously sensible not to send a 100,000 word novel to a publisher that states that they won’t look at anything over 70,000 words.  There may not be anything wrong with your 100,000 word novel – it’s just that that particular publisher isn’t right for your work. 
However, do be aware that one of the first things that often happens when you work with a professional editor is that they ask you to shorten your carefully edited text. 
Here, really, I’m talking about making sure you’re always speaking to the same reader. This anyway is where voice comes from.  Voice exists in the gap between the reader and the writer. Your reader is another character.
Format, then, defines what is contained in the novel. Format may address items such as length of chapter, the amount of pace and tension required and the narrative balance. 
You do also have the option of deliberately writing for a particular publishing house. You turn their guidelines into a template. You may also create templates for different readers. 
As many of you probably know, I often write for young adults. Here is a template I use for that. The novel should include: 1)      Mixed genre2)      Emotional closeness3)      Leaving reader to decide 4)      Pushing boundaries5)      Fast paced / high stakes6)      Characters resemble young adults7)      Bildungsroman 
The mixed genre element is a godsend. So often work is rejected because publishers can’t work out where a book would fit on the shelf in a bookshop. Is your work fantasy or real life? The beauty of young adult texts is that the points above define it rather than a particular genre. 
The voice is important here too and should normally be of one young adult telling one another what has happened to them but before they’ve managed to rationalise it. The reader does the rationalisation and this is one of the decisions they make. 
Can you create a similar checklist for the genre you are working in?         

News 1 November 2019

  Image by Oli Lynch from PixabayCourse at MMU That’s Manchester Metropolitan University. I attended a two day playwriting course there this week.  We also dabbled in some virtual reality and wrote a few short stories. This was held at the Writing School, now housed in what used to be The Corner House (now moved to Home) but soon to move to a brand new building. The room we worked in was cold but it had a delightfully high ceiling. I’m told this aids creativity. Certainly ideas flew around and the critiques were helpful. I managed to write most of a twenty-minute play script, first draft, and I’ve also almost got the first draft of four short stories. The course director has said he will read and critique our completed play scripts if we send them to him.  I shall certainly send him mine.             News about my writing I’m still working 240 X 70, Peace Child 4 (The House of Clementine) and Not Just Fluffy Bunnies, my non-fiction text about the darker side of children’s literature. I’m also now spending quite a bit of time working on the book of 366 writing prompts. I’m going to give this book to all the people who have contributed to it and to all the people I’ve published. I’m confident I’ll get it finished in time for Christmas. Would you like to contribute? Do you have any writing prompts?Here are a few examples of the sort of thing: 5 February  Birth Choices?
The body is an amazing thing, but older women are at risk in childbirth of having babies with health problems. Can you tell a tale of the effects of older women having children may bring? Highlight the positives and the change in mindset your character will go through. Maybe a highflying business woman who didn’t employ people with disabilities suddenly realises they have the same dreams as us to have successful careers, when she gives birth to a disabled child late in life.
Paula Readman  
6 February Story Cubes Try out the APP Story Cubes.  At the time of writing it costs £1.99. But if you don’t want to buy I’ve “rolled my dice” for you.  I got: a cat, a fountain, an L plate, a book, an apple, someone sleeping and an open eye. Pick at least three to build into your story Gill James  7 February Chocolate  Can you say it with chocolate

The Boy at the Top of the Mountain by John Boyne

Click on image to view on Amazon

Pierrot Fischer, later Pieter, is half French and half German and spends the first part of his childhood in Paris.  He has a best friend who is Jewish, but doesn’t realise this and the significance of it.  His father, a great War veteran, commits suicide and his mother dies of TB. The Jewish family will not take him in – partly because they can’t afford to and partly because they think it will be dangerous for him. He goes first to an orphanage in Orleans and then his German aunt finds out about him. She happens to work at Hitler’s retreat, the Berghof in the Obersalzberg of the Bavarian Alps near Berchtesgaden.  Pieter becomes a Nazi and is quite nasty with it. His Aunt Beatrix and her lover, Ernst, the chauffeur are executed when they try to poison Hitler. Pieter begins to see that what he has become is wrong but only when the Germans are losing World War II and Hitler and the others with him in the bunker in Berlin kill themselves and when he himself is taken prisoner by the liberating soldiers. He eventually finds his old school friend from Paris, Anshel Bronstein, who has become a writer. Bizarrely at this point John Boyne switches from a close third person narrative to first person.   
As with The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, (the BBC film of which was first broadcast after the watershed) it is difficult to really pinpoint a reader. Pierrot is seven at the beginning of the story and at the end we see Pierrot / Pieter as a gown man.  Before the epilogue he is eighteen and wears a soldier’s uniform but isn’t ever involved in active combat. There is a scene near the end of the story where he almost rapes the girl he would like to have as a girlfriend.  Yet this would not be too startling for the younger reader as the scene is quite subtle. Clearer is his sense of entitlement that his Nazi upbringing has created. 
It’s quite hard also to assess the impact on a reader, again as is the case with The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas;   adults reading the text know what is happening. Boyne writes very much form Pierrot’s / Pieter’s point of view and we see everything through an innocent boy’s eyes. When he is transcribing for Hitler what some important Nazi figures discuss in a meeting, he queries why the showers in the new camps will not have water. However, once we get to the end of the story Pieter refers to Buchenwald, Dachau, Auschwitz and the Geneva Convention as though the readers would perfectly understand this.                 Pierrot changes rather too quickly perhaps into a Nazi and then rather too quickly away from these dangerous ideals. 
Nevertheless, the book is well written, engaging and gives the opportunity for some meaningful discussion of many important issues. ,