Imogen Clark's Blog, page 10

February 5, 2022

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.fusion-body .fusion-builder-column-0{width:33.3333333333% !important;margin-top : 0px;margin-bottom : 0px;}.fusion-builder-column-0 > .fusion-column-wrapper {padding-top : 0px !important;padding-right : 0px !important;margin-right : 3.84%;padding-bottom : 0px !important;padding-left : 0px !important;margin-left : 5.76%;}@media only screen and (max-width:1024px) {.fusion-body .fusion-builder-column-0{width:33.3333333333% !important;}.fusion-builder-column-0 > .fusion-column-wrapper {margin-right : 3.84%;margin-left : 5.76%;}}@media only screen and (max-width:640px) {.fusion-body .fusion-builder-column-0{width:100% !important;}.fusion-builder-column-0 > .fusion-column-wrapper {margin-right : 1.92%;margin-left : 1.92%;}}Chasing down rabbit holes.

Don't you love it when life sends you chasing down rabbit holes and you pop up somewhere totally unexpected?

Ten years ago, I was married to a sports-mad soccer and rugby player. I still am - but last night I sat in a packed theatre and watched a pantomime that he both co-wrote and directed, warmed by my pride in both him and everything that Upstagers Theatre Group achieves.

Goldilocks and the Three Bears

If you had told me that creating award-winning shows for young people would become my husband’s all-consuming passion, I would have laughed. Before all this, he didn’t even go to the theatre unless I suggested it. It wasn't that he was anti- the-arts or anything heinous like that. They just didn’t seem to be part of who he was.

Enter our children stage left. This is how it all began. One year, our eldest daughter auditioned for a part as a dancer in the pantomime and was lucky enough to get in. Her sisters and brother followed in her wake and soon there wasn’t a show that did have one or more of their names in the programme.

Joseph and the Amazon Technicolor Dreamcoat

And, as I’m sure you know, if you can be interested in your kids’ interests it makes for an easier life. So, my husband volunteered to help backstage. He didn’t really know what was involved but he was happy to learn, and he got to wear black clothing and a radio mic – who wouldn’t love that!

He kept showing up and learning and then before we knew it, he had gone from being a spare pair of hands in the wings to a trustee on the board. Now he is as heavily involved in the amateur theatrical world as I am in the publishing one.

Billy Elliot

I suppose there are two things that I really want to say about this. The first is to remind myself to embrace every opportunity that comes my way. The joy that performing has brought to my family is too enormous to be described by words alone. You have to see it in action to fully appreciate its impact. Also, the friendships that my children have made from those shared show experiences are heart-deep and lifelong. None of us had any idea how important the theatre company would have become to them.

Starlight Express

The second thing is to mention the importance of volunteers. Without those wonderful souls who are prepared to give up their own time to help others then many of these opportunities would just never be created in the first place. Each time a new production hits the stage I sit in the auditorium bursting with pride for every single member of cast and crew and all that they achieve.

So, let’s hear it for chasing down unexpected rabbit holes, and shooting your hand up to the sky to volunteer.

Legally Blonde

Want to know more? Then why not sign up for my Readers' Club? I'll send you a monthly newsletter to keep you up to date with all the inside information about life behind the scenes. You can also join me on my Imogen Clark Author Facebook page or Instagram where I post pictures most days.

I look forward to seeing you.

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Impossible to Tell by Imogen Clark | best-selling fiction

The Last Piece by Imogen Clark | best-selling fiction

Postcards at Christmas by Imogen Clark | Best-selling fiction

Where the Story Starts by Imogen Clark | best-selling fiction

The Thing About Clare by Imogen Clark | best-selling fiction

Postcards From a Stranger by Imogen Clark | Amazon best seller

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Published on February 05, 2022 06:11

January 14, 2022

My Trip to York

where I set a book really depends on where I'd like to go. As I said in my For Writers post on Setting, there are lots of ways that writers approach picking a location for their books. For me, it's generally somewhere lovely that I'd like to spend a few days wandering around. Three of my novels are set by the sea, proof positive of this fact. Did I mention that I love the seaside?

My latest book, Impossible to Forget, is set in York, the county town of Yorkshire and about an hour from where I live. If you haven't been to York then I can thoroughly recommend it. It is a beautiful city and simply oozes history which, with all its interesting nooks and crannies, really lends itself to being a story location.

York has everything - Roman archaeology, medieval streets, modern shopping and the majestic Minster and the River Ouse winding through its heart. The ancient city wall is still intact and you can follow it pretty much all the way round, dropping down to street level as you wish. One of the key scenes in Impossible to Forget is set up on the walls. When I was writing it, I was struck by the idea of my characters beneath huge unbroken skies and with the city bustling beneath them as they unravel a secret from their past. It is is an important moment for them, changing what they thought they knew about the world and their place in it. But of course, these things are insignificant when compared with the two thousand years of history that York has seen. We are all merely passing through.

River Ouse at Twilight

When I go on a research trip, I generally travel on my own and without a plan. My aim is to just wander and absorb the feel of a place so that I can capture on the page the parts of it that speak to me. I have absolutely no sense of direction so, for the first day at least, I will be lost. As I spend so much of my life not knowing where I am this really doesn't bother me, and I do have google maps to bring me back to where I should be if I get really stuck.

But I think not knowing where you are brings with it a kind of freedom. I take each street as I find it, without any preconceived ideas, and so I see things I might otherwise have missed if I'd had a particular destination in mind.

As I wander, I take photos of places that catch my eye and these often prompt part of the story when I get back to my desk. When I was in York much of the city was underwater. York often floods following heavy rain and the river was just starting to recede as I arrived, although the flood barriers were still up around my hotel.

I stumbled across the Hospitium, a 14th century hall sitting in the Museum Gardens. The river had risen right up against its walls and I was amazed that such an old building should cope so well with the water. I spent some time in the wintery sunshine, watching the waves lapping onto the building and wondering. When I was back at my desk and looking for a venue to set a smart party, my memory took my back there and I was able to imagine it, not with the flood, but on a warm summer's evening with fairy lights and candles.

The Hospitium, York

Sometimes when I go on a research trip, I know that there are certain places that I have to find. For example, in Where the Story Starts I needed to choose the house that kicks the whole story off. For Impossible to Forget, I was more interested in the University than the houses. I had last visited the university campus in 1987, when the characters in my book would have been in their second year. Much has changed over the intervening years, but the parts that I remembered - the lake, the covered walkways between buildings etc, were all still there. A little online research and a chat with the friend I was visiting back then helped me with the details that I needed to bring those corridors to life.

York University Campus

I had visited York many many times before I went on this research trip, but going without a particular aim in mind allowed me to explore parts of the city that I had rushed past before. And that is what I'm looking for on these jaunts - the quiet corners of a place that make me ask questions. If I have whetted your appetite, then Impossible to Forget will be published on 3rd February 2022.

I look forward to seeing you.

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Published on January 14, 2022 01:48

December 17, 2021

Guardians

When our children were very small, my husband and I discussed at length what should happen to them if we died before they were old enough to look after themselves.

And we discovered that we didn’t have many options.

Both sets of parents were already quite elderly by the time the grandchildren came along. Making them guardians might work if we died when the eldest was young but not as time ticked on.

We thought about our friends and the people we had chosen as godparents. They all had children of their own, often a similar age to ours, so they were at least set up for childrearing. And we would have made provision for the costs of bringing up children in our will so we hoped they wouldn’t be out of pocket. I felt sure that many of them would have made brilliant parents to our brood as well as their own.

But at the end of the day, we didn’t feel we could ask friends to be guardians. It was just too big a favour. The stresses that it would place on their family went beyond what even the best friendships could stretch to.

So, in the end, the guardianship of our four children would have gone to their uncles and it would have been for them to decide at the point of our death which of them was best placed to take the children on. Not an ideal arrangement but the best we could come up with.

Luckily, my husband and I have managed to stay alive long enough to see the children through to legal adulthood, and so all that worrying turned out to be unnecessary.

But it must have left a mark on me because guardianship was at the front of my mind when I came to write Impossible to Forget. What if, I pondered, instead of having one guardian to bring up a child, you split the job up? Some people, I reasoned, are more suited to some parts of the job than others. We all, for example, have a character like Maggie in our lives. She is the organised kind of friend, the sort who never leaves bills unpaid, can be relied on to have saved everybody’s address somewhere sensible and not only remembers a birthday but generally has sent a card.

After coming up with Maggie as a character, I had a little think. Each of us has experiences we want to pass onto our children, usually because they formed such a significant part of our own childhoods. Maybe it’s a weekly game of competitive Scrabble, an annual pilgrimage to a particular seaside town or snuggling down to read the same book on each Christmas Eve. And who could be trusted to not only make sure that these things happen, but would be interested enough to do as good, or maybe a better job than I would have done myself?

And things can get even more complicated. What if you love sport and would have spent lots of time as a family playing or following it? You would need guardians with similar interests so your child experienced the childhood you would have given them had you been around do it. If reading is your family’s thing, then you couldn’t entrust your child into a house with no books. If you are a Lancastrian, then a Yorkshire guardian might be totally out of the question!

I’m being flippant, of course, and actually, as my husband and I discovered, there really aren’t so many available candidates for the job so most people can’t afford to be that picky.

But that is the joy of writing fiction. I can ask myself the question ‘what if?’ and then I can answer myself.

And the result is a novel.

Want to know more? Then why not sign up for my Readers’ Club? I’ll send you a monthly newsletter to keep you up to date with all the inside information about life behind the scenes. You can also join me on my Imogen Clark Author Facebook page or Instagram where I post pictures most days.

I look forward to seeing you.

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Published on December 17, 2021 03:25

November 19, 2021

What Next?

.fusion-imageframe.imageframe-7{ margin-bottom : 20px;} Journey | Imogen Clark author writer's blog

For Writers….fusion-body .fusion-builder-column-19{width:33.3333333333% !important;margin-top : 0px;margin-bottom : 0px;}.fusion-builder-column-19 > .fusion-column-wrapper {padding-top : 0px !important;padding-right : 0px !important;margin-right : 3.84%;padding-bottom : 0px !important;padding-left : 0px !important;margin-left : 5.76%;}@media only screen and (max-width:1024px) {.fusion-body .fusion-builder-column-19{width:33.3333333333% !important;}.fusion-builder-column-19 > .fusion-column-wrapper {margin-right : 3.84%;margin-left : 5.76%;}}@media only screen and (max-width:640px) {.fusion-body .fusion-builder-column-19{width:100% !important;}.fusion-builder-column-19 > .fusion-column-wrapper {margin-right : 1.92%;margin-left : 1.92%;}}What Next?

So, you’ve got to the end of all the writing and editing and your manuscript is complete. Now you have to decide what to do next. And as we are now in the 21st century the great news is that you have options – lots of them.

Option 1 – you can do what authors for centuries have been doing and try to bag yourself a literary agent. If an agent likes your book enough to want to take you on and try to sell it for you then this may be your way into a publishing contract, although there’s no guarantee of that. Plenty of writers have an agent but no book deal. However, having an agent does help and many of the big traditional publishing houses are unlikely to accept your submission unless it comes through an agent.

For many people this option aligns so closely with their dreams that it really is the only one that they want to consider. And that is great. An agent is likely to be a valuable member of your team, maybe helping with editing, negotiating any contract on your behalf, pushing for marketing and generally being a good egg on your behalf. You will then pay them 15% of what you earn as their commission and that is likely to continue even after your relationship with the agent has come to an end, so that is something to bear in mind.

The important thing to remember here is that agents are generally swamped with enquiries, so you really need to take care that yours doesn’t fall at the first hurdle. Make sure your book is in the best state it can be and follow their submission instructions to the letter or you may just get dumped without anyone ever reading a word of what might be a bestseller.

Option 2 – you can submit your manuscript direct without using an agent to do it for you. The proviso here is that not all publishers allow this and those that do sometimes have limited windows of time when they will accept unsolicited manuscripts direct. But if you keep your eyes open then there’s nothing stopping you from having a go.

As with option 1, make sure that you comply with all the instructions properly. Using the wrong font or the wrong document type can be enough to send you skidding into the reject pile.

Option 3 – do it yourself. Self publishing used to be called ‘vanity’ publishing because it was the realm of people who were unable to get a publishing house to appreciate the merits of their book and so decided to press on and publish themselves anyway. Mark Twain, Beatrix Potter and Margaret Attwood all started out this way back when there was a stigma attached to it and they didn’t do too badly!

But these days, publishing your book yourself is generally the result of a definite decision that the author makes themselves rather than because they have been rejected elsewhere. By publishing yourself, you are able to keep control. You make the creative decisions on your manuscript, choose your own cover, decide where and when you would like to published and control your own pricing and marketing strategies. (For the avoidance of doubt, whilst you can create your own paperback and hardback versions of your book, the majority of your sales are likely to be of the ebook because of difficulties in getting your books into bookshops as an independent author.)

The internet is awash with sites that will help you through the process. I find The Creative Penn and The Self Publishing Formula to be the most helpful but there are many many more and you just need to find somewhere that suits your style.

Now here’s the hard word.

None of these options are easy. Catching the eye of an agent and then securing a book deal is difficult in such a highly competitive marketplace. Publishing yourself is much easier, but then making your book visible enough to sell takes a wide range of skills, including mastering advertising on sites such as Amazon and Facebook. There doesn’t appear to be a quick or easy route whichever way you choose.

BUT

It does happen. People do find success through all three paths. My own story is a case in point. Being of an independent mind and also quite scared of rejection, I made a business decision to publish my first book, Postcards From a Stranger on my own. I did the courses and learned what was necessary, and published the book myself on the 9th of June. I was delighted. My book was out there and it was selling to people that I didn’t know.

Then on 7th July I received an email from an editor at Amazon Publishing. She had read the book and wondered what else I was working on. Five months later I had signed a three book deal with them. Postcards has currently sold more than a quarter of a million copies and has been number 1 in the UK and Australian Kindle stores. I had no agent and negotiated the contract myself. That contract led to others and now I am earning my living as a full-time author.

So, it can be done. A very well-known editor once said to me that all books can get published in the end. It’s just that writers give up before they get there.

I hope you have found these posts helpful and that they have given you a taste of how my books are produced from initial idea to publication. Of course, everyone does it differently and what works for me might not suit you but as a parting word of advice I would say have courage. Be brave. Commit to your story and your process and just keep going!

Still got questions about me? Then please join me on my Imogen Clark Author Facebook page, on Instagram and Twitter. Join my Readers’ Club to keep up to date with behind the scenes of my life and work and exclusive offers. In the end, please get in touch whichever way suits you best.

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An Unwanted Inheritance | book cover | Imogen Clark best-selling English author

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Published on November 19, 2021 09:31

The Best it Can Be

.fusion-imageframe.imageframe-8{ margin-bottom : 20px;} write | Imogen Clark author writer's blog

For Writers….fusion-body .fusion-builder-column-23{width:33.3333333333% !important;margin-top : 0px;margin-bottom : 0px;}.fusion-builder-column-23 > .fusion-column-wrapper {padding-top : 0px !important;padding-right : 0px !important;margin-right : 3.84%;padding-bottom : 0px !important;padding-left : 0px !important;margin-left : 5.76%;}@media only screen and (max-width:1024px) {.fusion-body .fusion-builder-column-23{width:33.3333333333% !important;}.fusion-builder-column-23 > .fusion-column-wrapper {margin-right : 3.84%;margin-left : 5.76%;}}@media only screen and (max-width:640px) {.fusion-body .fusion-builder-column-23{width:100% !important;}.fusion-builder-column-23 > .fusion-column-wrapper {margin-right : 1.92%;margin-left : 1.92%;}}Make your novel the best it can be.

So, now you have your amazing first draft and you are delighted with yourself. You came up with an idea, decided who would tell the story and how and you kept writing despite everything until you reached THE END. You should give yourself a huge pat on the back and enjoy a celebration of your choosing.

But sadly, you’re not finished. Now you need to edit it.

Before I was published, I was totally confused by the concept of editing. To me, it just meant going back through my manuscript, fiddling around with the odd clunky sentence and picking up any typos. And that is a part of editing but there’s a whole lot more to it than just that.

Unless you are extremely talented, (and even if you are) it’s likely that your story will need a professional editor to read it and tell you what’s wrong with it. This is a developmental or structural edit, and they can be both worth their weight in gold and very painful.

It may take an independent eye to see the flaws in your novel because, let’s face it, if you could see them yourself then you wouldn’t have written it that way in the first place. So, plots that don’t quite work, pacing that is too fast or too slow and inconsistent characterisation are all things that a developmental editor worth their salt will pick up.

In my edits I generally have two issues that need correcting. The first is inconsistencies, because I’ve made the story up as I’ve gone along and the path I think the story will follow when I start is often truly lost by the time I get to the end. I do try to pick these things up before I send my novel to my editor, but because I’m so close to it I don’t always see them.

The second is just to write more. I have a tendency to make my reader do more work than my editor wants them to have to, so I often have to write additional scenes to create more background so that important points are clearer and don’t get missed by the reader.

You will no doubt have different things that need correcting, but believe me there will be something.

There are lots of ways of finding a good editor to help but I can recommend Reedsy, where all the freelancers have been vetted to a very high standard and so you know that you will be getting someone with appropriate experience and not another writer who thinks they can do it or someone who just likes reading books.

Try not to use someone you know for this process. It can be hard to hear criticism of your book and even harder to hear it from a friend. And anyway, the chances of you being friends with a suitably qualified editor are quite slim. And your mum probably can’t do it either. Neither can your friend with an English degree.

After you’ve been through a structural edit, your novel will be in a much better shape but it’s still likely to have some issues. You may have daffodils blooming in May, your timeline might be slightly off, so birthdays don’t quite line up or maybe you have your characters talking about a film that hadn’t yet been released.

This is where the copy editor comes in. Luckily I’ve never met one in real life, but they are the pickiest people I know! Here’s a little confession for you. I have to do my copy edits twice because, after I’ve been through them once, I have to go back to the start and take all my rude comments out. It is a painful but very necessary and valuable part of the process.

Next comes the proofread when final typos and anything else that has been missed up until now will be picked up. There are bound to be a few mistakes that still slip through the net, but hopefully this will have caught most of them. Don’t try to do this stage yourself unless you really have to. If proofing your own work can’t be avoided then try reading it out loud or getting your computer to read it out loud to you. You’re more likely to hear the mistakes than see them.

Of course, it may be that you attract an agent with your unedited book, in which case all these steps are likely to happen in conjunction with the agent or a publisher rather than you doing the work on your own. However, if you are contemplating publishing the book yourself then these are hoops you’ll need to jump through before you hit ‘Publish’.

One final tip on this stage is to not get too excited and send your work out too soon. It’s so very tempting to finish and then whizz it off to an agent or press publish on KDP and pop open the champagne, but please take time to make sure that what you’re sending is your very best work. You might not get another chance to make that first impression.

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.fusion-body .fusion-builder-column-25{width:100% !important;margin-top : 10px;margin-bottom : 0px;}.fusion-builder-column-25 > .fusion-column-wrapper {padding-top : 20px !important;padding-right : 0px !important;margin-right : 1.92%;padding-bottom : 0px !important;padding-left : 0px !important;margin-left : 1.92%;}@media only screen and (max-width:1024px) {.fusion-body .fusion-builder-column-25{width:100% !important;order : 0;}.fusion-builder-column-25 > .fusion-column-wrapper {margin-right : 1.92%;margin-left : 1.92%;}}@media only screen and (max-width:640px) {.fusion-body .fusion-builder-column-25{width:100% !important;order : 0;}.fusion-builder-column-25 > .fusion-column-wrapper {margin-right : 1.92%;margin-left : 1.92%;}}.fusion-body .fusion-flex-container.fusion-builder-row-18{ padding-top : 0px;margin-top : 0px;padding-right : 50px;padding-bottom : 0px;margin-bottom : 0px;padding-left : 50px;}.fusion-body .fusion-builder-column-26{width:100% !important;margin-top : 0px;margin-bottom : 0px;}.fusion-builder-column-26 > .fusion-column-wrapper {padding-top : 0px !important;padding-right : 0px !important;margin-right : 1.92%;padding-bottom : 0px !important;padding-left : 0px !important;margin-left : 1.92%;}@media only screen and (max-width:1024px) {.fusion-body .fusion-builder-column-26{width:100% !important;}.fusion-builder-column-26 > .fusion-column-wrapper {margin-right : 1.92%;margin-left : 1.92%;}}@media only screen and (max-width:640px) {.fusion-body .fusion-builder-column-26{width:100% !important;}.fusion-builder-column-26 > .fusion-column-wrapper {margin-right : 1.92%;margin-left : 1.92%;}}.fusion-body .fusion-flex-container.fusion-builder-row-19{ padding-top : 0px;margin-top : 0px;padding-right : 0px;padding-bottom : 0px;margin-bottom : 0px;padding-left : 0px;}

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Published on November 19, 2021 09:19

Get the Work Done

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For Writers….fusion-body .fusion-builder-column-27{width:33.3333333333% !important;margin-top : 0px;margin-bottom : 0px;}.fusion-builder-column-27 > .fusion-column-wrapper {padding-top : 0px !important;padding-right : 0px !important;margin-right : 3.84%;padding-bottom : 0px !important;padding-left : 0px !important;margin-left : 5.76%;}@media only screen and (max-width:1024px) {.fusion-body .fusion-builder-column-27{width:33.3333333333% !important;}.fusion-builder-column-27 > .fusion-column-wrapper {margin-right : 3.84%;margin-left : 5.76%;}}@media only screen and (max-width:640px) {.fusion-body .fusion-builder-column-27{width:100% !important;}.fusion-builder-column-27 > .fusion-column-wrapper {margin-right : 1.92%;margin-left : 1.92%;}}Get the work done!

It may sound obvious, but the biggest hurdle to getting your book written is not actually writing your book! Sitting yourself in front of your screen (or notebook if you’re old school) and then stringing words together is the most important part. It doesn’t matter how brilliant your idea is. If you don’t show up and do the work, then no one is ever going to be able to read it.

But it’s not easy and lots and lots of people get stuck and give up. So here are my top tips for how to keep going.

Write every day

I find that being creative is just like everything else. It takes practice and if you don’t use it you tend to lose it. That’s why I find it helpful to write every day or at least on more days than I don’t. There are lots of good reasons for this but here are my two favourites.

Firstly, writing becomes a habit which means that it takes less effort to start each day and if you do ever contemplate giving it a miss, your sense of guilt can kickstart you into action.

Secondly, if you write every day you will have better ideas and the words will flow more smoothly as a result. If you are constantly stopping and starting, it’s hard to find any rhythm and if you’re anything like me you’ll waste huge chunks of time trying to remember what it was you were about to say.

Set a daily word count

I write in Scrivener and one of its features lets you set your project word count target and the length of time it should take. The software then calculates how many words you have to write each day to get there. If you miss a day or write over your word count it recalculates accordingly.

It doesn’t have to be a big number. I tend to aim for around 1000 words a day which gives me a complete first draft in about three months. But if you only have time for 200 then do that. It will take you a bit longer to get to the end, but every day you’ll be a little bit closer.

Don’t spend time trying to craft the perfect sentence

It is important to edit what you write . . . but not at the cost of writing anything new. Try not to keep going over what you’ve got so far. This is a first draft. It’s okay if it’s a bit rough. Cleaning it up is what editing is for. But if you get into the habit of polishing every sentence as you go then you probably won’t go very far.

I do start each day by rereading what I wrote the day before. This lets me pick up any obvious typos and repeated words, but mainly it’s about reminding myself where I’d got to and helping me sink back into my story. I don’t let myself get bogged down in what I already have.

Find a place and a time when you write

I know that part of the joy is that you can write anywhere but, to be honest, when you’re starting out there’s a lot to be said for routine and kidding your brain into the right mindset. It’s also easier to build a habit this way, so find a time and place that will work more often than not and try to stick to that. You’ll start to find that your brain works with you on this, recognising when you sit down in your usual place that it’s time to write.

That all sounds very simple, doesn’t it but what happens when we get stuck, because we all get stuck at some point. It’s part of the process.

I know lots of people use the term ‘Writer’s Block’ but I’m not sure that’s helpful. I like to think of writing a book being like a crossword puzzle. You might be having difficulties over a particular clue, but that doesn’t mean that the solution won’t come to you. It might just need a bit of coaching.

I have a few ideas that I use to get myself unstuck. Because I don’t write to an outline, I’m often not sure where I’m going next which can cause an issue so, to try and minimise this, I stop writing at a point when I still have an idea of what I’m going to write next. It doesn’t need to be much but just enough to fool my brain into thinking that I know what I’m doing. It also avoids having to stare at a blank page first thing in the morning.

Despite what I said above about have a place where you write, if I get stuck I might take myself off and write in a different setting. Most often it will be a café or somewhere outside if weather permits, but I’ve also been known to borrow a friend’s house for this purpose. Being somewhere new seems to help me get going again.

Sometimes I use the text itself to get me started. I might jump forward to a scene that I know is coming or start a new chapter from a different point of view to see what happens. I might get my character to leave the house, or I make the phone ring. These artificial changes may not make the final draft but if they get me beyond the blockage then they’ve served their purpose.

It can help to chat through your problem with a friend or partner. Explain the scenario to them as if it’s about you and ask them what they would do in those circumstances. I generally don’t take any notice of what they suggest but that’s because I’ll have come up with my own idea just through talking to someone else.

Getting your book all the way through to THE END is no mean feat and if you can do that then it puts you miles ahead of most other people who just never finish. It’s not easy and it takes real dedication, but it is perfectly doable as long as you find a way of working that suits your lifestyle and you DON’T GIVE UP!

.fusion-body .fusion-builder-column-28{width:66.6666666667% !important;margin-top : 0px;margin-bottom : 20px;}.fusion-builder-column-28 > .fusion-column-wrapper {padding-top : 0px !important;padding-right : 0px !important;margin-right : 2.88%;padding-bottom : 0px !important;padding-left : 0px !important;margin-left : 3.84%;}@media only screen and (max-width:1024px) {.fusion-body .fusion-builder-column-28{width:66.6666666667% !important;order : 0;}.fusion-builder-column-28 > .fusion-column-wrapper {margin-right : 2.88%;margin-left : 3.84%;}}@media only screen and (max-width:640px) {.fusion-body .fusion-builder-column-28{width:100% !important;order : 0;}.fusion-builder-column-28 > .fusion-column-wrapper {margin-right : 1.92%;margin-left : 1.92%;}}.fusion-body .fusion-flex-container.fusion-builder-row-20{ padding-top : 0px;margin-top : 0px;padding-right : 0px;padding-bottom : 0px;margin-bottom : 0px;padding-left : 0px;}

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Published on November 19, 2021 09:14

Where to Start

.fusion-imageframe.imageframe-5{ margin-bottom : 20px;} start | Imogen Clark author writer's blog

For Writers….fusion-body .fusion-builder-column-13{width:33.3333333333% !important;margin-top : 0px;margin-bottom : 0px;}.fusion-builder-column-13 > .fusion-column-wrapper {padding-top : 0px !important;padding-right : 0px !important;margin-right : 3.84%;padding-bottom : 0px !important;padding-left : 0px !important;margin-left : 5.76%;}@media only screen and (max-width:1024px) {.fusion-body .fusion-builder-column-13{width:33.3333333333% !important;}.fusion-builder-column-13 > .fusion-column-wrapper {margin-right : 3.84%;margin-left : 5.76%;}}@media only screen and (max-width:640px) {.fusion-body .fusion-builder-column-13{width:100% !important;}.fusion-builder-column-13 > .fusion-column-wrapper {margin-right : 1.92%;margin-left : 1.92%;}}Where to start

When you’re going on a journey, working out where to start is quite important. And it’s just the same when you’re writing a book. I’m not talking here about how to get going with the writing – we will discuss the next post – but literally where the opening chapter begins.

One of the most common mistakes I see when reviewing the work of new authors is that they choose to begin into the wrong place, or often they don’t think about it at all and just start writing.

For example, say you come up with a story about a woman who decides to have a tattoo. It’s a big decision because she’s always been bit sniffy about tattoos before, but two years earlier her son was killed in an accident and whilst she will always grieve his loss, she is now feeling strong enough to want a physical daily reminder of how important he was to her which others will see and ask her about.

So, where does this story start?

When I first began writing books, I might have begun on the day she was going to get the tattoo done because that would have seemed to me to be what the story was about. So, maybe the opening scene might be her lying in bed on the big day and revisiting her decision. She might feel excited about it, a little apprehensive or even have a needle phobia but the story would take the reader through all these thoughts and anxieties as she lay in bed. She would then get up, have a shower and get dressed, have her breakfast, check the bus times to get to the tattoo parlour . . .

You can guess what I’m going to say. It might be where the story actually starts, but it’s unlikely to draw your reader in and get them turning the page to find out where it goes. It’s just a bit dull. We all get up and dressed each day (well, most days at least!) and so there is nothing about an opening like that to entice your reader into the world of your character.

Let’s have another think.

What about starting with the moment she gets the tattoo?

That is more intriguing and it immediately raises questions in the mind of your reader. Who is she? Why is she getting a tattoo of a penguin on her hand? Why, when she has made this decision, is she so upset about it? Surely, if she didn’t want a tattoo then she didn’t have to make the appointment. And why a penguin? What’s that all about?

You can see, I hope, that starting the story there automatically draws your reader into the book. Of course, they might have had questions that needed answering from the getting up scene, but it’s more like that they will want to read on if you start here in medias re to quote the Latin, in the middle of the action.

Doing it this way also gives you, the writer, the opportunity to keep your reader intrigued as the story unfolds. Of course, the tale wouldn’t be complete without the answers, but there is no need for you to give everything away right at the start.

Part of deciding where to open your story is also working out how to give your readers the backstory that they need to understand the plot. There are as many ways to do this as there are writers, but can I suggest that you don’t do it by dropping a whole ton of information in one place.

Which of these two books would keep you reading on?

Martha looked at the penguin. It reminded her of her son who had died in a car accident a year ago. He had loved the penguins as a boy and had a toy one that he kept on his bed. Seeing the penguin on her hand would always make her think of him.

The tattoo artist eyed his client. Tears were streaming down her face and she bit her trembling lip as he worked.

‘Do you want me to stop?’ he asked her.

She wiped her tears away using a neatly pressed cotton handkerchief, the kind his grandma used to use, and shook her head.

‘No. I’m fine. You know, my son loved penguins when he was little.’ The corners of her mouth turned up in a weak smile.

‘That’s nice. What’s he doing now?’ asked the artist, as he marked out the shape of the beak.

‘He’s gone away,’ she said.

I could keep going – I was quite enjoying myself – but then this whole post would be about the story. You can see, though, how much more interesting it is to discover the woman’s backstory like this than just being told in one paragraph.

If you think about it, there are other places that you might want to open this story that would also hook your readers. How about beginning with the accident? That would make for a very dramatic opening scene. Alternatively, you could start with the woman and her son at the zoo so we could see why she goes on to choose the penguin. What if you started at the end of the woman’s life with a child asking her about why she has the tattoo?

All these openings would give you the chance to tell it differently. None of them is right or wrong but each one would give the book a different feel. What you have to do is decide which one would let you tell the story that you want to tell.

Never be afraid of starting in the middle or even at the end. Some stories are best told out of sequence with lots of hopping backwards and forwards in time. For example, my second book The Thing About Clare spans a timeline from 1961 to 2017 but I didn’t just start at the beginning and keep going until I reached the end. I jumped backwards and forwards in order to draw the reader through the story which allowed me to drip the backstory in at appropriate moments so that the mystery at the heart of the story could develop slowly.

The important thing is before you begin writing, think about all the different options for opening your novel and make a specific choice.

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Published on November 19, 2021 09:06

To Plot or Not to Plot

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For Writers….fusion-body .fusion-builder-column-16{width:33.3333333333% !important;margin-top : 0px;margin-bottom : 0px;}.fusion-builder-column-16 > .fusion-column-wrapper {padding-top : 0px !important;padding-right : 0px !important;margin-right : 3.84%;padding-bottom : 0px !important;padding-left : 0px !important;margin-left : 5.76%;}@media only screen and (max-width:1024px) {.fusion-body .fusion-builder-column-16{width:33.3333333333% !important;}.fusion-builder-column-16 > .fusion-column-wrapper {margin-right : 3.84%;margin-left : 5.76%;}}@media only screen and (max-width:640px) {.fusion-body .fusion-builder-column-16{width:100% !important;}.fusion-builder-column-16 > .fusion-column-wrapper {margin-right : 1.92%;margin-left : 1.92%;}}

You will often hear writers being described as either plotters – i.e. those who plot their stories out before they start writing – or pantsers, who are those that just fly by the seat of their pants. I don’t plot but I really don’t like the term ‘pantser’ and so I tend to use ‘discovery writer’ to describe myself which I think sounds much more exciting. The idea is the same, though. Basically, you discover the story along with your readers.

The truth is that most writers fall somewhere between the two extremes and what works for one person is highly unlikely to work for another. That makes me trying to give you advice on this particular topic a bit tricky, but I can tell you how I do it and you can see if any part of it chimes with how your brain works.

As I mentioned in the post on characters, I tend to start with the initial idea first and then come up with the people who would be able to tell the story. And that’s the point at which I start to write the book. I generally have a vision for the opening scene and a shadowy idea about what kind of book it’s going to be, but that is about it. I will be feeling my way.

I once heard the queen of crime, Val McDermid say that she thinks of plotting a book as going on a car journey at night. She knows where she set off from and her destination, but between those two points she can only see the road ahead as far ahead as her headlights shine.

This is exactly how I work too (although sometimes I’m not sure where my destination is.) I write the opening scene, see how my characters react and then that will lead me onto the next scene. I then come up with ideas for scenes that will allow me to show whatever I need the reader to know next, be that an example of a character’s behaviour or something to move my plot forward. I never write a scene just for the sake of it. It always has a purpose in the overall story, even if I’m not entirely sure what that purpose is when I’m writing it.

I find that I can only write about 1,500 words a day and then I start to run out of steam. After that I need to stop and give my brain until the next day to process what I’ve written and work out where the story will go next. I definitely can’t just sit at a desk and write all day as I understand authors with plotted out books can do. However, working at this rate, it takes me around three months to complete a first draft which I don’t think is bad going.

One of the advantages of not plotting is that I’m always on my toes. For me, writing a book is like figuring out a huge puzzle, and I really enjoy the challenge of that. Stephen King, also a discovery writer, says that if he doesn’t know where his stories are going then that makes it harder for his readers to guess. Obviously, I’m not about to compare myself to Stephen King, but his is an appealing idea. For example, I had no idea when I was writing An Unwanted Inheritance how I was going to resolve the plot until I got the very end when the way to tie it all up finally came to me. Interestingly, when this happens, I often discover that I have written little things that point in this direction earlier in the book without realising how useful they will later become. I consider this to be true artistic magic at work and get very excited about it, but it’s probably just the old subconscious churning away in the background.

Working without a plan is never dull. It can be frustrating and sometimes downright terrifying but it’s always exciting. For me, writing a book that has already been plotted out would lose some of the fun. I love that I never really have any idea of what will come next.

Of course, there are major disadvantages to this approach too. I have to have my book in my head pretty much all the time, even subconsciously when I sleep, to make sure that I have something to write the next day. So, even when I’m not at my desk I’m always distracted which makes it hard to concentrate on anything else.

Also, you are far more likely to get stuck or write yourself into a corner with this approach than if you have a plot to work to. Getting stuck is the most common reason for giving up on a novel so you must guard against that. A later post on getting the work done will give you tips for how to get going again if you do find yourself fresh out of ideas.

Another disadvantage is that I can’t give my editor a synopsis before I start writing – or if I do the final book is highly likely to be quite different to what I promised to write. There isn’t really a solution to this other than for everyone to trust the process, and I know that isn’t an option for everyone, but that’s how I work.

If your blood runs cold in your veins at the thought of writing without an outline, then there are masses of resources out there to help you with structure and lots of writers I know have very clear ‘beats’ and plot points that they aim for as they go. I do that instinctively and without a safety harness, but I know it isn’t for everyone.

My tip would be to try writing a novel using both techniques and see which feels more natural. Nanowrimo (National Write a Novel in a Month) which takes place every November is a fabulous way to have a go at discovery writing. The idea is that you write 50,000 words in a month by not editing as you go or even thinking that hard about what you have so far. You just keep writing into the dark and see what you end up with. It can be hard work, but there is an enormous global community all writing with you and you can find as much or as little support as you’d like. My book The Thing about Clare began life as a Nano book. (It was actually a play before that too but that’s another story.)

Alternatively, buy yourself some lovely index cards and have a go at plotting out the whole thing before you start. There are loads of great books to help you. My particular favourite is Save the Cat which is actually about how to write a screenplay but is just as applicable to a novel. And if you, like me, get so far in the plan and then discover that your brain isn’t cooperating then perhaps you are a discovery writer too!

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Published on November 19, 2021 09:01

Whose Story is It?

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Imagine you’re telling an anecdote to a friend about an entertaining argument you witnessed between two strangers in a coffee queue. The details of what happened, who said what etc, are factual, but you will recount the story your own way. Maybe you saw the faces of the other onlookers. Maybe you know a snippet of background information that changes the story’s emphasis. Maybe you exaggerate various parts for comic relief.

Now imagine how the aggressor in the argument might tell it. Perhaps this was the last in a long line of things to go wrong that morning. Perhaps they are sick of being walked over at work and so they were practising being more assertive. Maybe their partner has just left them because they are always picking fights, and this was the moment that they decided that their partner might be right and so was cathartic for them.

What about the person being picked on? What would their take on it be?

Now step back a little and imagine the story being told by the work experience girl who has just arrived on her first day.

Each of these people is going to tell the story a different way. Four people: four entirely different points of view, each coloured by their own experiences, where they were standing when the action took place and who they are telling the story to.

When you write a novel, you have to decide who is the best person to tell the story.

Often this will be the person whose story it actually is, the aggressor in our example. They are in the thick of the action and can explain everything that was going on in their head before and at the time.

But sometimes, the more interesting approach is to look at things from a different direction. Remember that the best narrator might not be the person whose story it is – think Nick Garraway in The Great Gatsby or Dr Watson in Sherlock Holmes. Both these narrators are independent observers, happily telling the reader what their more interesting pals are up to. Of course, depending on how you have created the narrator, they may be just as fascinating as the person they’re describing, but by telling the story this way the author is able to relate the action as well as passing judgement on it.

If, like me, you’re as open as a book, then you might forget that your narrators can lie – or at least manipulate the truth to suit their own purposes. This is a great way of incorporating a twist to your plot. For example, I love the opening to Girl on a Train by Paula Hawkins. To start with you think the girl is having a well-deserved G & T on the train on a Friday after a hard week at work. When she then opens a couple of cans on her way home on Monday too you begin to realise that all may not be as it seems.

Another thing to remember is that, unless you are writing as an omniscient narrator who can travel in and out of all the characters heads, your narrator needs to be where all the action is or at the very least be told what has happened. If you can’t do that then how can she tell the reader? You can’t have a key conversation taking place in the changing room at the gym if your narrator isn’t a member. Having to shoehorn them into every scene can be limiting for the story as a whole and, unless they have a reason to be everywhere, it can make for clunky writing.

My solution to this particular problem is to always write from more than one point of view. In The Last Piece three sisters have to deal with the mysterious disappearance of their mother and the arrival of a stranger into the family. By telling the story from the points of view of each sister and the mother, I was able not only to give variety to the voices but also to fill the gaps for the reader who ends up understanding the whole picture much more quickly than the poor characters do.

Having multiple narrators has other benefits too. It’s much more interesting to write for a start, as I get to vary my style depending on whose chapter it is. It also makes it easier to make the book a page-turning read because you can switch narrator just as something major is about to be revealed.

There are disadvantages too. You can’t have too many narrators, or the story may become hard to follow. The most I have had is six, but I tend to go for three or four. You also have to make sure that each character’s voice is distinctive so that the reader knows where they are. This is a general rule for writing dialogue too, but is even more important when switching points of view.

Think carefully about who will be able to tell the story in the most interesting and engaging way. When I’m choosing my narrators, I don’t always go for the obvious ones. In The Last Piece the adopted woman, a character at the very heart of the story, never gets her own voice. The reader learns everything they need to know about her through her conversations with others rather than through her own thoughts. As I mentioned above however, you do need to make sure that the character will naturally be where the action is taking place, though. So don’t go for a child if a lot of the scenes will be set in the pub.

One final thought which is also relevant here is which person point of view you will use for your character. Whilst I have seen books written in the second person, generally you will be choosing from first person ( I ) or third person ( he/she ). Both have advantages and disadvantages. A story told in the first person is very immediate, particularly if you also choose the present tense. There is no barrier between the reader and the protagonist. You see what they see and know exactly what they are thinking. That also means that you have to use the language that they would use. Most people don’t use similes or metaphors when they speak and so to drop them into a first person narrative can feel really fake. Similarly, your character is unlikely to comment on how beautiful a view is before she starts to speak so you probably can’t write that convincingly either.

If you select the third person then you are immediately creating a distance for your reader. Your narrator may be in your character’s head but they are describing their thoughts and actions in their own words and so you can make those descriptions as lyrical as you like.

Basically, as long as you write consistently you can do pretty much as you like. My book Postcards From a Stranger has narrators in both first and third person and present and past tense and its sold over a quarter of a million copies as I write this so I believe that it works. Have a play with a few scenes and see which feels most natural to your characters and your story. You will hit on what is right for your characters, style and story.

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Published on November 19, 2021 08:41

Who is Your Story About?

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For Writers….fusion-body .fusion-builder-column-10{width:33.3333333333% !important;margin-top : 0px;margin-bottom : 0px;}.fusion-builder-column-10 > .fusion-column-wrapper {padding-top : 0px !important;padding-right : 0px !important;margin-right : 3.84%;padding-bottom : 0px !important;padding-left : 0px !important;margin-left : 5.76%;}@media only screen and (max-width:1024px) {.fusion-body .fusion-builder-column-10{width:33.3333333333% !important;}.fusion-builder-column-10 > .fusion-column-wrapper {margin-right : 3.84%;margin-left : 5.76%;}}@media only screen and (max-width:640px) {.fusion-body .fusion-builder-column-10{width:100% !important;}.fusion-builder-column-10 > .fusion-column-wrapper {margin-right : 1.92%;margin-left : 1.92%;}}Who is your story about?

I have often heard authors say that the way to start a book is with the characters first. They create a character in their head and then think about what kind of scrapes that person might get themselves into.

Well, I am the other way round. I think of the idea first (see The Mythical Initial Idea) and then set about coming up with some characters who might work well with it.

So, in Where the Story Starts, I knew that the story would be about – spoiler alert! – a bigamist and I wanted the two women that he marries to be very different from one another. Obviously, an easy way to do this is to make them come from contrasting backgrounds, which I did, but it was more than that. I needed Grace, who was aware of her husband’s infidelities, to be strong and stoical enough to be able to put the needs of her children ahead of her own pain at his betrayal. Similarly, the husband was looking for something fresh when he begins a relationship with the woman who becomes the second wife, so she needed to be impetuous and spontaneous and possibly not quite as clever as Grace.

Those two women each have daughters of their own – the modern day protagonists in the story – and I needed to create women in whom the reader could clearly see their upbringing reflected in their personalities, the second generation of the character traits I had already created.
So, that is all very interesting, I hear you cry, but how do you go about doing that?

Well, it’s a lot easier to say what I don’t do. I don’t do a character profile sheet like many courses suggest that you should. I don’t spend time working out their favourite colour or what hobbies they have unless those things are pertinent to the story. I don’t work out motivations either, or what they have to lose or seek to gain. That might be more to do with the genre that I write in, but I don’t find rigidity like that helpful.

Likewise, I don’t generally know what my characters look like either. Rather, I have a shadowy sense of them, if they are tall or short, and their colouring. Sometimes they might have a clear distinguishing feature but not often.

When I start writing I know their date of birth – vital for keeping track of jumping timelines – and how they will react to the opening scene and possibly not much more than that. That sounds like not much to go on, but let’s dig into it a little bit deeper.

What do you know about someone when you know how old they are? Well, you can work out what has happened in their life and how that might alter them. For example, someone who was brought up in World War II is going to have a very different attitude to waste to a child born in the eighties and nineties when consumerism was running wild. An older person is likely to have come across a situation, or at least something similar, before which will colour their response to it. This might allow them to bring perspective, or wisdom to the scenario, but it may also have been traumatic first-time round which makes them fearful or wary when a younger, less experienced character might be much more gung ho.

Their age might also decide what their influences are – which books or films chime with them, what music they like to listen to, where they have travelled to, their politics. So, I suppose, subconsciously, just by deciding when they were born, I am answering some of the questions that I say I don’t think about before I start.
The other thing that I said I know before I start is how the characters will react to the opening situation. This is because I have created them specifically to react in the way I need for the story to begin. If, for example, as in my book The Last Piece, the mother of three adult children goes off to Greece without a word to anyone but has a history of just taking herself off on a whim, then nobody would be surprised by her actions, and I don’t have the start of a story.

However, the way I wrote the opening shows that her disappearance is hugely out of character for her, which is interesting, and also enabled me to start to demonstrate the personalities of each of her daughters as the reader sees how they react. Thus, in showing the response to this one action by all the members of her family we have the opening to an intriguing story.

After that I make sure that my characters are not led by the plot.

What you really don’t want is your reader shouting ‘That person would NEVER do that’ at your book! Once you have set your character up, you need to ensure that everything they do and say is driven entirely by their personality and not by your need to move the story from A to B.

Having said that, there is nothing wrong with having your character act out of character sometimes. We all do that from time to time, and it’s what makes people fascinating. I think, however, that you need to limit your character’s flights of fancy and to make sure that they are plausible to the reader in the context of the story as a whole.

Books about the craft of writing will tell you that your characters shouldn’t be perfect, too good or too bad etc, that they need flaws which you should build in from the outset. That may well be true, but when I write a character it is a much more organic process. If a flaw pops up, then we can examine it and see if it changes how they react to what’s going on about them, but I don’t decide what it might be before I start and so if you don’t want to do that either then that’s fine by me!

Characters in your books should be just like the people you know in real life – interesting, complicated and coloured by past experience. Your job as the writer is to make them come alive for the reader.

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Published on November 19, 2021 08:31

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