Lian Tanner's Blog, page 13

Nice things in the mail

It’s been another good week for the mail, with my author copies of the re-packaged Hidden series arriving a couple of days ago.

Aren’t the colours stunning? I’m very much looking forward to hearing what people think of them.

I’m off to Launceston later this week, to talk to 40 students from Trevallyn, Riverside  and West Launceston Primary schools, who make up a community of creative writers. Wednesday night is their end-of-year celebration, in the form of a Writers’ Cafe, and I am the guest speaker.

I was going to talk about my own beginnings as a writer, but then I thought it’d be more interesting to speak about the four most important things I’ve learned along the way. So I’ve been busy trying to work out what those four things are. I think I’ve got it now – I’ll tell you about them next week.

I’ve been on holiday for the last little while, waiting for editorial comments on the first Bodyguards book. They still haven’t come, but this week I’m getting back to serious work. More thinking about the second and third books, and also thinking about another book that has been lurking in the back of my computer for several years. I’d love to finish it – but can I write two books at once? I’ve always assumed I couldn’t, because my subconscious mind gets confused, but I’ve had a few ideas about how it might work. I shall report back.

I’ll finish with this gorgeous picture of Harry.

 

New website

I’m in the process of getting this website remade. When I first commissioned it from web designer Jin Wang, all I was thinking about was The Keepers trilogy. And the website reflects that – particularly the home page.

But now of course there’s the Keepers trilogy plus the Hidden series. And the first book in the Accidental Bodyguards series will be published next year. So I’ve been thinking for a while that I need an updated look, and I started talking to Jin about it last week.

Harry and Clara of course have their own ideas as to what the new website should look like, and most of those ideas seem to include pictures of them. Clara has been sitting just outside the cat door for the last couple of days, in case I need to take a photo of her.

I have instructed Jin to ignore any mysterious pics of cats or chickens that arrive in his inbox.

Meanwhile I’m playing with collage ideas for Bodyguards #2 and #3,

and making soap,

and getting interesting parcels in the post. This came a couple of days ago. It’s a shelf-talker – one of those things that bookshops use to draw your attention to particular books. It was made by Allen & Unwin for the new covers of the Hidden series.

We are all very excited about the new covers. They are coming out  in Australia and New Zealand on December 1st, only three and a bit weeks away!

 

The new Australian covers!

The new Australian/New Zealand covers for the Hidden series have been revealed at last, and I am very excited about them. I loved the ones Sebastian Ciaffaglione did for the first edition, so I was a bit worried about the new ones.

But they are gorgeous. Completely different in tone and colour and everything else. And so adventurous! Art work by Arden Beckwith, design by Josh Durham. What do you think?

Now I just have to work out how I can get all three onto a business card.

Waiting …

I sent the manuscript of Bodyguards to my agent, Margaret Connolly, a week and a half ago. It’s funny how this works. Right up to the moment when I sent it, I was really happy with it. Two seconds later I was chewing my nails and thinking of all the things that were wrong with it.

Margaret loved it! (Phew!)

But then of course she passed it on to my Australian publishers, Allen & Unwin, so now I’m chewing my nails all over again, waiting to hear what they think of it.

Meanwhile, to distract me a little, there are wonderful things happening with the reissue of the Hidden series in Aust/NZ. My publishers have found a new illustrator, a young woman called Arden Beckwith. And she has just recently sent the cover roughs, which are the preliminary sketches the artist does to show the publisher what they’re thinking. I love this one for Ice Breaker!

You can find a description of the process here, on the Allen & Unwin blog.

 

What to write?

Every two years, a group of people get together and present a snapshot of current Australian science fiction/fantasy, including interviews with the various authors. The last one was in 2014, and the new one has just gone up. You can find my interview here, and if you want to see some of the other people currently writing in this area, and read a whole lot of interesting interviews, click on the home page. I’m slowly working my way through them.

One of the questions was whether I saw myself as always writing for middle grade/YA, or whether I’d follow my readers as they grew older. The answer I gave was the one that was true on the day of the interview – which is not to say that it’ll be true next week.

Before Museum of Thieves took off in such an exciting way, I was writing a whole bunch of different books. Let me tell you about three of them. (Keep in mind that no one else except me has ever seen this, so it’s just between you and me, okay?)

Trollbaby was a YA verse novel. Given that I haven’t written poetry since I was ten, I’ve no idea why I thought I could write a novel in verse. As it was, I found it incredibly slow going. Here’s the beginning of the first draft:

‘So what’s the news?’ says Deb.

‘I’m dating one of Them,’ I say.

‘ You are?’ says Deb. ‘Who is he? A vamp?’

She grins. ‘I love the way they walk into class

as if they’re doing us a favour just by being there.

And that pale skin makes me shiver.

I’ve always fancied Lucas.

Though Winston is gorgeous in an evil sort of way.

What’s he like to touch, is he cold,

can you feel his heartbeat?

Has he got a heartbeat?’

‘He’s not a vamp.’

‘Oh…’ Deb’s disappointed.

Then her eyes light up again. ‘It’s one of the wereboys, isn’t it!

Oh god, who? Zack? Jake? Not Benbow?

Have you seen him—you know—do the furry thing?

Is it scary? Is it gross?

What if he forgets himself and bites you?’

‘He’s not a wereboy either.’

‘Really? Bum.

Me, I’d pick a wereboy.

They’re not as sexy as the vamps,

and Benbow gets dog-breath when he’s excited,

but at least they’re warm-blooded.’

As well as Trollbaby, there was Puppy Love, which was a trashy romance/bodice ripper aimed at adults, and another unnamed m/s which was going to be my very own vampire novel set in Tasmania. I was going to paste bits of them, too, but chickened out.

I go back and look at them every now again, and am awfully tempted to pick one of them up again. But that usually happens when I’m struggling with my current book. Whatever I’m not writing always looks easier.

How to write a villain

One of the most common questions I get is, ‘Who’s your favourite character from your own books?’ It’s a hard question to answer. I love Goldie, Bonnie, Broo, Toadspit, Petrel, Mister Smoke and Missus Slink, Krill, Fin, Sharkey, Dolph and pretty much every else as well.

It’d be much easier if people asked, ‘Who’s your favourite character to write?’ ‘The Fugleman’, I’d reply. ‘Guardian Hope. Cord. Brother Poosk. Albie. And now, in Bodyguards, Lord Rump. And whoever is behind the Harshman.’

The Fugleman, from ‘City of Lies’. This illustration, from Seb Ciaffaglione, is one of my all-time favourites.

I love writing villains. When I’m writing a villain I can indulge all the parts of myself that otherwise never get to see the light of day. I can be selfish, arrogant, cruel and nasty. I don’t have to worry about hurting people’s feelings, or fairness, or kindness, or any of the other things that usually occupy my thoughts. If I want something, I can ride straight over the top of everyone else to get it.

But …

When I’m being a villain, I have to remember not to think of myself as a villain. Instead, I tell myself that I’m just being sensible. Or that I’m working for the greater good and people will thank me in the end. Or that if I don’t do this, something much worse will happen. Or that I’m merely doing my job. Or that this is a dog-eat-dog world, and anyone who doesn’t realise that is a fool.

The glint in Lord Rump’s eyes was all too familiar. Duckling clenched her fists. ‘It’s an assassination, isn’t it. You said there’d be no more assassinations, Grandda. They’re too risky!’

‘But this one is not risky, my sweet, not for us. Because I am not the assassin. I am merely helping to set the Scheme in motion.’ He rubbed his fingertips together. ‘And being very well paid for it.’

We all tell ourselves stories about who we are and why we behave the way we do. And in our own heads, we usually put the best possible light on things. So no one is thinking, ‘I’m an evil person, and I’m doing this for evil reasons.’ They’re thinking, ‘I can fix this much better than those idiots.’ Or ‘No one offends me and gets away with it!’ Or ‘I really need this information, and if I hold this person over a shark-infested sea, I’ll get it.’

Even if they’re a psychopath, they’re still making sense in their own head. ‘Why are we wasting money putting the highway over there? Why not put it through the middle of the kindergarten? It’d cost a lot less, and if most of the kids die it’d fix the overpopulation problem.’

Find the story that the villain is telling themselves, and you’re more than halfway there.

 

 

 

A secret weapon

When I was just getting started as a writer, and had pretty much no idea what I was doing, I always had this sneaking suspicion that other writers had a secret weapon, and that if only I could find out what it was, I’d be okay.

Turned out I was right. The secret weapon was structure.

Structure’s a funny thing – it sounds serious and important, but really it’s just about keeping your reader interested. In other words, structure is all about good timing. Where’s the event that starts the story? When do you introduce a new twist? Where are the big turning points that send things in new directions? Where’s the climax, and is it big enough and unexpected enough?

The reason this is on my mind at the moment is because the first Bodyguards book is now a manuscript of 65,000 words, which is book length. But it’s not yet working as a book. The beginning is fine. The end isn’t quite there yet. The middle is a mess. And my deadline for handing this book to the publisher is October 1st.

This is when I start looking very seriously at structure.

But there’s another problem, which I have to address at the same time. My apparent villain is the Harshman, a sort of ghost made from the bones and sinews of long-dead warriors. He’s been summoned to life by the real villain, who is hidden from view, and I haven’t quite figured out what his powers are and how he can beaten. Or even if he can be beaten. If I can work that out, I think a lot of the structure will fall into place. So that’s my job for this afternoon. In between pruning the apple tree and going for a walk.

Other news: Sunker’s Deep is coming out in the US/Canada in just a little over two weeks time (August 16th). My American publishers, Feiwel & Friends, let me give away ten copies, which was fun, and there’s also a giveaway on Goodreads. And a couple of days ago I received a box of author copies in the post. Don’t they look beautiful?

Meanwhile in Australia, this series is getting new covers. The current ones are gorgeous, but it never hurts to have a series re-released. If you’re interested in how the publisher goes about choosing the new style, the artist, etc, Allen & Unwin are blogging about it. http://www.thingsmadefromletters.com/2016/07/15/diary-of-a-series-redesign-book-cover-design/

More on writing workshops

I’ve been madly preparing the school holiday writing workshops at Rosny Library for the last couple of days. I was going to do one thing then changed my mind and decided to do something else. Hope it works.

Meanwhile, I’m also going to King Island to do a couple of workshops over there. The Rosny ones are this coming Thursday, July 7th. King Island is the following Thursday, July 14th.

I’ve been to Flinders Island several times, but never to King. People say it’s pretty nice – a lot flatter than Flinders. I’m going to take an extra day to look around the island.

Will report back afterwards.

 

A play or a novel?

I was having lunch with some friends a couple of weeks ago, and they asked me how the new book was going.

It’s always a tricky question to answer, and depending on the day or the hour I might smile and say, ‘Pretty good’, or fall on the floor sobbing.

On this particular day, though, I said something like, ‘I’ve just finished rewriting the first act.’

They looked startled. ‘Is it a play?’ they said. ‘We thought it was a book.’

So I explained about the three- (or four-) act structure.

When I was in my early forties, I wrote a few plays for Terrapin Puppet Theatre, in Hobart. Several were for kids, one was for adults.

An ancient newspaper photo of me (!) with a couple of the puppets from Heroes. Unfortunately this pic doesn’t even begin to do them justice. They were made by the brilliant Greg Methe, and were stunningly beautiful.

My first play for Terrapin was Heroes, and when I started to write it I knew nothing about the craft of writing.

NOTHING.

The biggest part of nothing that I knew nothing about was structure. I had a vague idea in the back of my head that such a thing existed, but that was it. It was a mystery and I didn’t even know where to start looking for it.

Then a friend recommended a book called Making a Good Script Great, by Linda Seger, which talked about the three-act structure. Seger’s book was written for film scripts, but the ideas worked fine for puppetry, and when I started writing novels, I discovered (as many writers had done before me), that they worked there too.

This ballerina is from the adult piece, ‘Corpus Nullius’, and was also made by Greg Methe.

You see, the three-act structure is really about good timing – how to shape a novel (or a play or a film) to keep the reader (or viewer) interested. It’s about high points and low points, and how you need something to happen at the beginning (to get the story started), and some nice big turning points in the middle (to send it in unexpected directions), and something even bigger at the end, for the climax. It’s been a part of story-telling for hundreds of years, from Greek tragedy to tv movie-of-the-week.

Another exquisite puppet from ‘Corpus Nullius’ – this one a belly dancer.

Fifty years ago, this structure was really obvious in stage plays, because the curtain would come down at the end of an act, and everyone in the audience would go out and get a beer or a wine or a coffee. Stage plays don’t work like that any more, but the three-act structure is still there, tucked away inside what you see.

And it’s there in novels too. Or at least, in a lot of novels. And definitely in mine.

This is one of the things I love most about writing – that it’s a mixture of art and craft. You need both, and you can keep learning the craft side for the rest of your life, and never get bored.

 

 

Enrolment for writing workshops

Enrolments for the Tasmanian school holiday writing workshops are now open, my dears. The ones I am running in Hobart are both on Thursday July 7th at the Rosny Library – the one for 12-14 year olds  starts at 10 am, and the one for 15-17 year olds starts at 11.30 am.

You can enrol here for 12-14 year olds and here for 15-17 year olds. All workshops are free, but you do need to put your name down.

If you’re interested in the ones for younger kids, you can find Julie Hunt’s workshops here. Scroll right down to find the listing. Other workshops around Tasmania, run by various authors, can be found here.

There’s a limit in class sizes for the workshops, so get in early. Hope to see you there!

(Harry is practising his writing in anticipation.)