Gill James's Blog, page 9

Stage of revision 2: Is the resolution satisfying?

Image by Gerd Altmann
As a publisher, editor and creative writing teacher I frequently notice that though many people write extremely well, their story may lack shape and more often than not it is the ending that lets it down.   
There are four main faults.Damp squib Oh, was that it? Nothing has actually happened; there is no change from how the story started. A useful question here might be: has the main character changed as a result of this story? Has she grown? Has she moved on? I recently asked a “literary” writer what made his novel literary. He replied that one clue is that the reader can skip to the last page and it doesn’t spoil the rest of the novel. Does this contradict what I’ve just said? Maybe, maybe not. Perhaps this type of novel shows us how rather than what.  Melodrama The ending can be over dramatic and unbelievable. Could that really happen? Isn’t this all a bit sudden? It’s best to think of logistics here and then also to check back into your text that you’ve posted all the necessary clues. 
Deus ex machina A fabulous contraption flies a god or goddess on to the stage.  S/he waves their magic wand and all is well. The protagonist hasn’t had to work for their living. Note that Dickens, Molière and Shakespeare are all guilty of this. We often see it in pantomimes as well. By strange coincidences long lost relations show up and solve all of the protagonist’s problems. You have to put the protagonist through their paces. Note how the mentors in the best stories usually disappear leaving the protagonist to work on their own. Think of Cinderella, Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings.  
No endingThis is different from an open ending. Open endings are particularly common in YA books. This is an area I know well. The protagonist is left with several possibilities but we don’t know which will happen.  The reader may decide.  There is usually some hope and some closure. One of my own novels The House on Schellberg Street received one review that said it had no proper ending. I’m not entirely convinced that that is true. The protagonist is left with a question. The reader knows something she doesn’t know. It’s not a particularly comfortable ending but at least we have seen her grow. Importantly she has also come home and realised that her roots remain important.
The overall message seems to be that we must allow our protagonist to grow. That is what the story-aware reader expects.            

The Boy Who Swam with Piranhas by David Almond

This story is told in three parts: life for protagonist Stan after his uncle is made redundant when the ship-building industry dies, Stan running away with the circus and Stan becoming the one who swims with the piranhas. There are sub-plots:  the story of Nitasha’s mother and Aunt Annie’s and Uncle Ernie’s return to normality.  
This is a humorous novel but it has its darker sides:  Stan having lost his parents before the story begins, the poverty after the ship-building collapse, the hard graft the family have to put into run their fish-canning business, the change in personality that this causes in Uncle Stan, the ridiculousness and eeriness of the DAFT organisation that seeks to shut down the canning business and the poverty of the circus folk. This is however, all mitigated by the love that young Stan finds everywhere he goes. 
David Almond writes as an omniscient author here though often gets very close to his characters.  He often intervenes in the text  e.g. “Of course there’s never really a proper end.  The people who’ve lived through this tale will live through many more.  But we have to come to a halt somewhere and this is it” (p243). 
The book is 246 pages long. It has blocked text that is double-spaced. It uses a serif but very clear font. There are many quirky illustrations.   .

Stage of revision 1 Is the overall structure sound?

Image by PIRO4D from Pixabay
This really is the first thing to look at – after perhaps getting rid of a few typos which may be distracting. This has to be right.
I find it useful at this point to recheck if I have got all of the elements I need in the story and are they well balanced: ·         hook, ·         inciting incident, ·         increasing complexities (three usually for a short story,  more for a novel)·         crisis ·         climax ·         resolution 
In fact, I actually use this template to plan my stories but often that clear structure can get lost in all of the writing. We all find, don’t we, that characters can take on minds of their own, that we ourselves can so enjoy writing certain scenes that we hang on to them a bit too long and that we refuse to kill our darlings? We can also get bogged down in sub-plot. 
Sometimes, even when all of the ingredients are firmly there, it seems that something is lacking.  At that point it may be time to look at some other story theory.      
I’ve talked elsewhere about story theory on this blog – see the main post here.  Could one of those be applied to the text? 
Readers almost always expect the template and can be disappointed if it is not there. Is it our job perhaps to skew it a little so that we might take them by surprise?  
Literary fiction still has this there though it may be very subtle. In popular fiction and literary fiction it is more in your face. Often one more nasty thing happens just before the story resolves. It really is worth getting this right. No matter how well you complete the other edits if the overall structure isn’t sound, the story will fail and probably not get published.  

News 1 October 2019

 Visiting the Republic of Ireland Martin and I have been back just over a week from a two week stay in the Republic of Ireland.  We chose it for this year’s holiday as we’d expected Brexit to have happened by now and that how one travelled to other countries may still have been uncertain.  The Irish were still going to accept our driving licenses. We have yearlong and worldwide travel and car insurance anyway. 
Of course Brexit hasn’t happened yet. We found the Irish just as cheerful, friendly and helpful as we’ve always found them though couple of them did say “Take your Brexit back with you.” It was a bit of relief watching the Irish news. Naturally they are also concerned about Brexit but they also focussed on other items.  
We were lucky with the weather. It rained for most of one day and there were a couple of showers on other days. The rest of the time, however, it was warm and sunny but not hot. Ideal for boat trips, visiting old castles and interesting walks. 
We also enjoyed a pleasant evening of good food, Guinness and Irish music. I always do some work on holiday: does one actually need a holiday when you do what you love?  I think you do, so that you can get things into perspective.  Still, I did some writing and editing. And I gained some ideas for stories: one paranormal and two about feisty women.              News about my writing Not a lot new here: I’m ploughing on with 240 X 70, Peace Child 4 (The House of Clementine) and NotJust Fluffy Bunnies, my non-fiction text about the darker side of children’s literature, seems more neutral. On the short story front I’ve written Bus Stop, a story about an incident at a bus stop. I’m currently trying to place it. It has been rejected once to date.           Catalogue of books for children There are no new additions this month. This is partly because as we were away I was reading from my Kindle and though there are some young adult texts on there they didn’t come to the top of the list. However, at the moment I am reading a children’s book by David Almond and that will be added to the catalogue soon.     Current reading recommendationIt was difficult to decide again which book was the best one in September. However, I’ve opted for an unusual text: Will Self’s Umbrella. It’s not an easy read. The point of view shifts quite often and the characters flitter between the past and the present. There are no chapters and few paragraph breaks. It deals with mental illness, abuse and relationships gone wrong. This is one I read on holiday. I always read a lot when I’m on holiday and then I read intensely. This book needs that. It also requires a good deal of concentration.  It is worth it! You’ll find it here.  Giveaway This month I’m giving away mob-file copies of my flash fiction collection 140 X 140. These are 140 stories, each 140 words long.  The title of each includes the date on which it was written.  Each story is a response to the first picture I saw on Twitter on the day of the story. Note, my 280 X 70 that I’m currently working on does something very similar!    
Get your free mobi-file for your Kindle and lots of other goodies 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 a post about Käthe Edler becoming English. She came over to England as a young mother in 1939.     You can read the post 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. 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. 
Happy reading and writing.

News 2 September 2019

 Troubling TimesExtinction Rebellion activists are clogging up a main street in Manchester.  All over the country people are protesting against the suspension of Parliament.  An extremely powerful hurricane is hitting the US. A few years back on holiday both my husband and I read a book about the weather behaving strangely and indeed before the end of that holiday we had nine foot waves on the Med. Yet that seems very tame compared with what’s happening now. What can we do?I’m taking more care with my carbon footprint, querying very journey I make. We have a smart meter now and although we’re sceptical- we’ve always been careful haven’t we? – I do find myself studying it and reacting to it. I’m working on the garden and introducing plants that the wildlife will like. We’ve joined the local wildlife trust. But these are just tiny gestures. We can all of course write and talk to people. I’ve noticed my stories getting more political and my near future ones now assume climate change gets worse. But more about that in the next section.   Yet I look out of my study window now and I still see the birds and I hear them singing. The sun is still shining. The flowers are still blooming.  There’s hope?           News about my writing Yes, indeed my writing is getting political, especially 240 X 70.  That is perhaps not so surprising. I look each day for the first picture I see on Twitter and so often it’s one of BoJo. So there you go. My short story The Reckoning is about the after-life of someone who sat on the fence. The Last Ocean is about a world dying of thirst.   Peace Child 4 (The House of Clementine) as a YA (?) science fantasy is almost obliged to reflect our world and I certainly have references to Brexit and Trump in there. Not Just Fluffy Bunnies, my non-fiction about the darker side of children’s literature, seems more neutral. But then it’s about the darker side ….Note to self: remember the upbeat ending. End on hope.           Catalogue of books for children This month I’ve added:The Children of Green Knowe by Lucy Boston This is a delightful classic suitable for fluent readers.  The Stuff of Nightmares by Malorie Blackman  Here we have a horror story suitable for teen or young adults. Blackman recycles her own nightmares here. As engaging as ever. And it has an upbeat ending.  Phew! Night Birds on Nantucket by Joan Aiken  This is suitable for upper primary fluent readers. It starts off as an adventure at sea and then on land continues as a mystery / crime story. Only the Ocean by Natasha Carthew I also reviewed this for Armadillo Magazine Target readers are young adults and teens.  The writer uses a very unusual style but it works beautifully. Current reading recommendationI’m a little bit naughty when I select my library books. I always look at the new ones first and this one definitely caught my eye. Giles Milton’s D Day, the Soldiers’ Story is all about the Normandy landings on D Day.  You can find it here.This is a pleasing example of narrative non-fiction. The title is bit of a misnomer; we have stories of civilians as well. The stories are from both sides and include ones of the French civilians. There has obviously been a lot of research into this book. There are hundreds of anecdotes and vignettes. Milton uses an engaging narrative style. He certainly uses the senses well and we’re transported there. So, it’s not a particularly comfortable read.  But who says we need to be comfortable all the time? Even though I knew the outcome I was gripped by this throughout.   Giveaway This month I’m giving away Clara’s Story. This is the second story in the Schellberg Cycle. It might be described as a tragedy or it might be described as a story of survival. In the end it is up to the reader or even Clara herself to decide.

It is labelled as fiction and as biography on Amazon. Holocaust biography. Historical fiction. Clara Lehrs really existed, as did many of the characters in the Schellberg Cycle. We have a few, a very few verifiable facts about them. The rest we have had to find out by repeating some of their experiences and by using the careful writer's imagination.

Certainly the Schellberg Cycle examines the stories of several German Jews. Ironically Clara does not consider herself to be Jewish and sees no danger. She possibly needs Holocaust education even more than her readers do. Her dealings with Steiner Education help her to throw a little light on her situation and she becomes engaged in her own form of Holocaust resistance. So, we might even label this Holocaust fiction. Get your free mobi-file and lots of other goodies 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 a post about Käthe Edler as a refugee. She came over to England as a young mother in 1939. I’ve also written about the third book in the series, Girl in a Smart Uniform. This is to date the most fictional of the Schellberg stories.       You can read the posts 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, Chapletown 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. 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. 
Happy reading and writing.

The Children of Green Knowe by Lucy Boston

Lucy Boston’s stories abut the house at Green Knowe are based on her own home, The Manor, at Hemingord  Grey in Cambridgeshire. Her daughter-in-law, Diana Boston , still lives at the house and you can visit by making an appointment. It is full of artefacts that refer to the stories.  
This first story may be the most mysterious. Are there really ghosts of the children that used to live there or are they just in Tolly’s imagination, developed by his grandmother’s insistence that the children really exist? However she is quite careful in the way that she talks about them.  The reader may still wonder whether they are really there.
Tolly has a difficult life. His father is dismissive and his relationship with his stepmother is very difficult. He travels alone to Green Knowe and arrives when there are floods.
His grandmother offers some comfort. They establish a good relationship. He also cultivates a good relationship with the manservant Boggis. There are cosy evenings by the fire where his grandmother tells him stories.  
The ghosts are reasonably gentle, but they can tease and the stories his grandmother tells are full of mystery.  He has a frightening encounter with Green Noah, a topiary figure about which there is a lot of superstition.  
The text is 123 pages long and blocked in a close adult font. Peter Boston, Lucy Boston’s son, has illustrated the book.      

Stages of revision – all fifteen of them

I’m writing here about the stages of revision I put my novels through. I take between a month and three months to write the first draft and between six and eighteen to get it to the stage where I’ll let beta readers read it and then I send it out to agents and publishers or I self-publish. 
I’ve shared my young adult material with my friends from SCBWIas I’ve gone along, so they see my work at a very early stage sometimes.  
Anyway, I have the habit of writing a section and then reading it through three times. There is something optimum about three. After three times you’ll probably not notice much more unless you’re doing the very focussed edits I’ll write about in the next few posts.  The first read through at this point is largely about correcting typos. It’s amazing how much the other two read-throughs pick up as well.  
Why go to all this trouble you might ask, if an editor is going to work on it anyway?  Well an important point is that the better the script is in the first place, the better it will become after a professional edit, be it from an in-house editor in an established publishing house or a free-lancer you’ve employed to edit the text you intend to self-publish. 
As I work through my fifteen edits I’ll still adjust anything I see that’s out of kilter. It becomes like peeling layer after layer off.   
It is hard, then, when your beta readers or editors come back with something you haven’t noticed. But there are a few things you can consider here:You are too close to the text so you may not see what is blindingly obvious to others. It’s your choice in the end but if more than one person has said the same thing, they may have a point. You and our editors are on the same side – you’re both trying to produce the best text possible. You’re not an idiot because you made that mistake – that was then and this is now.  You’ve moved on as a writer.  
Over the next few posts I’ll be going into more detail about my self-editing process.                     

The Stuff of Nightmares by Malorie Blackman

Kyle encounters death when a train is derailed as he is travelling on a school trip. The only way to avoid death is to live in the nightmares of the other passengers.
Malorie Blackman admits that she has based the nightmares on some that she has had and that she has used some of these in other stories she has written. A full list is provided on the copyright page.  She also admits that she has been able to pinpoint the real life events that have led to the nightmares.  This is all discussed in the Author’s Note at the end of the book.  Possibly the book could lead to a discussion on the interpretation of dreams.
There is plenty of tension and pace throughout the novel and Blackman keeps us guessing as to whether Kyle will survive and if others in the train crash will live.
The hardback version is 338 pages long, uses a serif font, size 13/14 and the text is blocked. The chapters are reasonably short.    

Event Planning

Alongside my  writing I enjoy arranging events and find this as creative as the writing itself. Here are my tips on the process. Define your event What do you actually want to do at this event? What will it look like? How will you define its success? What do you want to achieve? How many people would you like to attend?  Who do you think is likely to attend?       
Some ways that you might save money:●  Some venues may be offered for free for a minimum spend●  Choose somewhere where there is cash bar or servery.  You can still supply a cake or similar so that you look generous.  ●  Form a mutual support group where you help each other with events.   
     
The key is to work backwards. What does the even look like? What do you need to do in order for it to turn out that way? Here is an example, and note it is set out with the event at the top.
50 people at the International Crumpsall Centre for book launch of Daisy Days 17 April 6 p.m. to 8 p.m.  Pick up cake / wine 17 April  12.00Plan timings - discuss with helpers 10 April 2020Order cake and wine 17 March    Order 35 copies of book 12 March (Why not 50? Experience tells me this number is about right.  Would you be able to sell the further 15 afterwards? And if you do order more don' put them out all at once. Seeing a huge unsold pile puts people off. If it looks as if stocks  are running out people may make the effort to buy. Find people to help - by 1 March                 Send invites (Invite 60 -writing friends, other friends, people interested in dementia) 1 March 2020.  Keep going until all tickets have gone.       Book venue by 26 February Set budget by 20 February        
For other sorts of events be kind to yourself. Still keep a critical head, though, and ask yourself these focused questions. What went well?What went less well?What else would you do?What would you do differently next time?  It's important to record the answers and look at them before you plan the next event.    

Editing: a never-ending process

In a Facebook Group I belong to we recently discussed when you should give up on a short story. Almost everyone said: “Never!” I tend to agree. I’m putting together now collections of my own stories but only where they’ve been published elsewhere and when I have the rights back.And here’s the thing: I edit them again before I publish them.
In fact, I read through again and often tweak those stories that are rejected before I send them out again.      
Surely, though, shouldn’t every story be the very best it can be before it goes out? Yes of course. But what was “the very best it could be” a couple of months ago may not be today. We all move on as writers and usually become better.  Language changes anyway. New facts creep in. 
On the other hand I very rarely alter stories to make them more suitable for a particular publication.  The story is what it is.  The trick is to find the right publication. I’ll make an exception, though, if I get some concrete feedback from an editor. I’ll often act on that unless it totally compromises what I was trying to achieve. 
I’m not alone either, in editing as I read my work aloud. The text sometimes needs to be a little different if you’re reading it aloud form if the reader is taking it in through her eyes. Also, again, you have moved on as a writer since you wrote the piece. 
Be warned as well, when that novel that you’ve slaved over and edited to what you perceive to be perfection, is finally accepted, your editor will proceed to tear it apart. Do not be discouraged: she is on your side. We scrape back the layers. The better it is to start with, the better it will become with more editing. 
Over the next fee posts I’ll be describing the stages of editing I put my novels through – before I release them to a beta reader, let alone send them out to publishers.