Sandra Gulland's Blog, page 42
August 6, 2010
The problem with fact-based fiction
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The problem with fact-based fiction is ... well ... facts. They can really mess up a good story.
I'd read that the Mortemarts, the family of Athénaïs, Madame de Montespan, lived on rue de Rosiers.
Perfect: rue des Rosiers is not far from where Claude des Oeillets, my main character, lived when she first came to Paris. It worked into the story perfectly. Their lives do become entwined; nobody knows how their relationship began, but as a novelist it helped that they were walking distance from o...
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The problem with fact-based fiction is ... well ... facts. They can really mess up a good story.
I'd read that the Mortemarts, the family of Athénaïs, Madame de Montespan, lived on rue de Rosiers.
Perfect: rue des Rosiers is not far from where Claude des Oeillets, my main character, lived when she first came to Paris. It worked into the story perfectly. Their lives do become entwined; nobody knows how their relationship began, but as a novelist it helped that they were walking distance from o...
August 3, 2010
Beginning, again and again
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Editor Dan, who I will now refer to as The Taskmaster, is taking me through the manuscript revision slowly. The first 40 pages became 100. Now I've only 20 pages to work on—the first chapters of Part II—but it feels like looking up at Mount Everest.
I keep thinking: non-fiction would be so much easier. Easier to describe the dead than to try to bring them back to life.
Once again, I'm somewhat at a loss where to begin, how to begin. One consolation of experience is that I know that once I do,...
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Editor Dan, who I will now refer to as The Taskmaster, is taking me through the manuscript revision slowly. The first 40 pages became 100. Now I've only 20 pages to work on—the first chapters of Part II—but it feels like looking up at Mount Everest.
I keep thinking: non-fiction would be so much easier. Easier to describe the dead than to try to bring them back to life.
Once again, I'm somewhat at a loss where to begin, how to begin. One consolation of experience is that I know that once I do,...
July 16, 2010
Revision: shoving the MS back into the womb
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What does a writer do when a manuscript is with an editor? Clean closets, shop, throw stuff out, look for mouse nests, tame the desktop. In short: house attack. This is arduous work, and I'm very much looking forward to getting back to writing.
Not that there isn't writing work I should be doing: research, for one, taking notes. I've yet to organize my notes from my latest research trip to Europe, for example.
But for now, something from the book pages of the Ottawa Citizen. (A wonderful book...
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What does a writer do when a manuscript is with an editor? Clean closets, shop, throw stuff out, look for mouse nests, tame the desktop. In short: house attack. This is arduous work, and I'm very much looking forward to getting back to writing.
Not that there isn't writing work I should be doing: research, for one, taking notes. I've yet to organize my notes from my latest research trip to Europe, for example.
But for now, something from the book pages of the Ottawa Citizen. (A wonderful book...
July 4, 2010
Old-fashioned keyboard + iPad: perfect
..
*****
Website: http://www.sandragulland.com/
Blog: http://sandragulland.blogspot.com/
Facebook: http://bit.ly/sgullandFacebook
Twitter: http://twitter.com/Sandra_Gulland
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*****
Website: http://www.sandragulland.com/
Blog: http://sandragulland.blogspot.com/
Facebook: http://bit.ly/sgullandFacebook
Twitter: http://twitter.com/Sandra_Gulland
Tumblr: http://sandragulland.tumblr.com/
July 3, 2010
Blowing on a dead man's embers: the process of writing historical fiction
..I've been struggling with the third draft of The Next Novel, in part because it has been taking me so long to get these first four chapters moving. It's July already!
In off hours, I've been working on a guest blog on the definition of historical fiction, and in going through my files I discovered the first stanza from a wonderful poem by Robert Graves:
In off hours, I've been working on a guest blog on the definition of historical fiction, and in going through my files I discovered the first stanza from a wonderful poem by Robert Graves:
To bring the dead to lifeI'm blowing on the emb...
Is no great magic.
Few are wholly dead:
Blow on a dead man's embers
And a live flame will start.
July 1, 2010
iPad: an indespensible research tool
..Historical Fiction author Susan Holloway Scott asked:
OK, Sandra, so now you've had the iPad for a week. Has it totally changed your life, or at least has it been as much fun as Apple promises?To answer: my iPad has quickly become an essential tool for research. Among other things, I can read and annotate PDF files and e-books on it: notes, highlights, underlined passages. I can send the annotated files to my computer (or just the annotations). These I can then put into a searchable...
June 21, 2010
Crawling through a story
..I'm still struggling with the first section of The Next Novel. Putting scenes under a microscope, I realize how much I've left unsaid — unimagined.
How exactly do they get into the city? By what route?On one level the revision process has to do with the big picture: the movement of e...
Do they need papers?
What are they wearing?
What are they seeing, experiencing, feeling?
Where will they stay the night?
How will they lock up their things?
What about the donkey! Doesn't she need food and water?
June 16, 2010
Talking to Book Clubs: Skype challenges
..I love talking to book clubs, and the internet has made virtual meets possible, through Skype. However, I find that there are often problems with Skype: the screen goes black, or freezes. Sometimes I can hear, but not see. At other times I can see, but not hear, and often there is a lag in the communication, or annoying warbling gaps. It reminds me of talking on the old one-way radios we used in the artic thirty years ago.
I presume that these problems have to do with the quality of the Net...
I presume that these problems have to do with the quality of the Net...
June 11, 2010
Digging deep: the 3rd draft
..I imagined that I could write the 3rd draft of The Next Novel this summer, but I forgot how difficult the 3rd draft can be: it digs deep. I imagine that the 4th and 5th drafts will be on the down-hill slope, but for now, just starting on the 3rd, it's all up-hill.
It's a little confusing knowing how to proceed. Dan wants me to take my time on the first section. It's only 40 pages, but it's the most important part of the novel. Everything that happens comes out of these pages.
I need a plan. B...
It's a little confusing knowing how to proceed. Dan wants me to take my time on the first section. It's only 40 pages, but it's the most important part of the novel. Everything that happens comes out of these pages.
I need a plan. B...
June 9, 2010
"Right Place, Right Time" — my father's book
..I'm terribly pleased with the book I put together (through lulu.com) of my father's wonderful stories and essays.
It's a 60-page trade paperback, and even with taxes and handling the 20 books I ordered came in at around $6 U.S. a copy. I didn't choose to make my father's book public, or to offer it for sale on-line and give it an ISBN number, etc., but all these would have been possible.
It took some fiddling to get it right (especially the cover images), but now that I have the hang of it,...
It's a 60-page trade paperback, and even with taxes and handling the 20 books I ordered came in at around $6 U.S. a copy. I didn't choose to make my father's book public, or to offer it for sale on-line and give it an ISBN number, etc., but all these would have been possible.
It took some fiddling to get it right (especially the cover images), but now that I have the hang of it,...
