Claire Scobie's Blog: Wordstruck, page 2
August 4, 2014
Wordstruck - 10 ways to finish a story
So many writers don’t succeed because they don’t finish stories. Don’t be one of them.
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As a journalist I’m used to deadlines. If I didn’t have them, I wouldn’t always finish stories. Or even start them.
When you’re working on a book or a bigger writing project you need to create your own deadlines. If you know you won’t stick to them, find someone you can be accountable to.
Here are 5 ways to be accountable
Find a friend you trust or a writing buddy or a group of writers. Tell them to give you a deadline.
Write out your goals – research suggests you’re more likely to succeed if you do so.
Be time specific with your goals – so set a realistic date to finish your story or first draft.
If you’re writing book, break down your goals. Make a commitment to write 5,000 words every month or whatever.
Email all of this to your friend / buddy / group. You are now accountable to them and if you don’t meet your goals you need a VERY good excuse. (Or you may set yourself a fine.)
This works better if there is an exchange. So if you say you’re going to finish your first chapter and your friend is an artist, she needs to have done the first sketch of her watercolour.
Here are 5 more ways to finish a story.
Apply for a writer’s residency. Every year the Writer’s House at Varuna offers a week-long fellowship for writers. To apply you need to submit the first 40 pages of your book. Of course, your goal is to get the residency but if you don’t, you’ve still polished a substantial chunk of work. The closing date is 28 August.
Apply for a grant or enter a competition. Same principle applies. Lane Cove Library is offering $2,000 for the best 3,000 word memoir story. The closing date is 27 August.
Set yourself a personal deadline just before you go on holiday. The countdown to leaving creates a pressure tunnel and can make you finish a lingering project. That’s how I submitted my Doctorate of Arts last year. Two weeks in India was my big carrot at the end.
Submit a story to a publication or journal. Obviously the ideal here is to get paid. But if it’s a fanzine, it’s more about forcing you to finish your piece.
Sign up for a writing course – face to face or online – which stipulates you have to produce work. Several years ago I signed up for an online course at Gotham Writers’ School and over 10 weeks the group had to produce 10,000 words. We workshopped these virtually. Some of those words made the final cut into my novel The Pagoda Tree.
How do you ensure you finish your stories?
July 30, 2014
Wordstruck - Make your writing a discovery
I’m lucky enough to be writing to you from Byron Bay today. I’m here for the Writers’ Festival and sitting in a café playing John Lennon’s Imagine.
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Yesterday I saw a koala out of the bedroom window of where I’m staying. Incredible to see this cuddly creature so close: a reminder that you never know what life is going to bring next…
I’ve just come from speaking on a panel Discovery: Travel, Curiosity and Wonder with the terrific author Robyn Davidson. Robyn set a new bar for travel memoir with her book Tracks about her journey across the Australian desert with four camels and a dog.
Her writing still has the power to shock, entertain and delight. She’s feisty and defiant; she’s a woman who knows her mind and whose will has helped her succeed.
As many of you know, Tracks is now a movie starring Mia Wasikowska. Robyn admitted that it’s been surreal seeing herself be played on the big screen but that the cinematic version is an ‘honest’ telling of her story. It’s also allowed a new generation of readers to re-discover her book which hasn’t been out of print since 1980.
We spoke at the School’s Day of the festival and both of us were so touched by the enthusiasm and insightful questions from our audience. There is a lot of talk that young people don’t read anymore. I asked the packed marquee and around 80 per cent raised their hands. Not only do they read, they know that you can discover new worlds when you read.
For me, every time I write something meaningful, I discover something – about myself, about the world, about my subject.
I think of writing as a spiral. The first attempt is quite superficial. You are writing on the surface. Each time you return to the writing, the spiral leads you deeper into the story. It can take time to truly know what you are writing about. Along the way there are always gifts.
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The combination of travelling and writing is so potent because both are acts of discovery. Robyn and I agreed that you can find new things out about yourself at home but that when you travel to somewhere unknown you are pushed out of your comfort zone. You are stripped; you are vulnerable. You are more open to receive new experiences.
When we write we open ourselves up to the world. Thirty years later and Robyn is living with the consequences of her book. She is still – and always will be – ‘the camel lady’.
Her story may have changed but the wisdom that she learned remains. As she writes in the last paragraph:
‘I did learn that you are as powerful and strong as you allow yourself to be, and that the most difficult part of any endeavour is taking the first step…’
So whatever is holding you back right from committing to something you know you must do, take that first step.
Do it now.
July 22, 2014
Wordstruck - Believe in your story
Who’s going to be interested in the story of my life? Who cares? I hear that a lot from aspiring writers.
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Novelists think their stories are clichéd, another Harry Potter, another Bridget Jones. Memoirists believe they have nothing to say and their lives are boring. Travel writers, well, they’re the worst. Everyone’s been everywhere these days, haven’t we? And if we haven’t, we can travel there with Google Maps.
All of that’s true. And it’s not. You need to keep believing that you have something worth sharing. How you view the world, how your thoughts connect the dots, how you make sense of it. That’s unique to you.
I’ve just been mentoring a writer who’s working on her family memoir. It’s taken her a few runs to become clear what story she is really trying to tell. Now she’s figured it out, she says, ‘It feels so cathartic. It’s like I’ve let go of things I’ve been holding on to since I was a child.’
Another friend told me that she’s been interviewing her 94-year-old mother once a week for the past few months. Her Mum talks, she records the conversations and types them up.
In the process she’s learned a lot about her Mum—a few saucy things, too—and now she’s put something together for her children, and her grandchildren.
How many of you have wished you’d asked your parents or grandparents something, but now it’s too late? This is a compelling reason to write your family story. It doesn’t have to be for publication, you might be doing it for future generations.
But a life is a BIG thing. So where to start?
Here are 10 ways to kickstart your memoir. (If you’re writing fiction, just adapt.)
Think small. Rather than focusing on the big sweeping events, find the moments that stay with you, that haunt you, that make you smile. Start there.
Make a list of 10 of these poignant moments and write two pages on each.
Try not to be too writerly about it. Write as yourself. With your words, your expressions. Find your voice.
Start with a conversation.
Or a family saying.
Or a photograph.
Or an object. The chipped glass that your father always loved. Your grandmother’s handkerchief.
Zoom in on vignettes and write them as a short scenes. Then when you’ve written 10 – 20 pieces, jigsaw them together. Is a theme emerging?
Use the saying, ‘I remember when…’ or ‘My mother always said to me…’
Look for experiences that are particular to you, but that contain a universal truth. We’ve all known heartbreak. We’ve all experienced the death of a loved one. Is there a story like that which is unique to you, but that would touch us all?
Find it. And share it.
Anyone in Byron Bay? Join me NEXT WEEK at this year’s Writers’ Festival for a Travel Writing Workshop on Wednesday 30 July. I will also be talking on two panels, Landscape of the Sacred, Friday 1 August, 1.30pm – 2.30pm and Books that Shaped Me, Saturday 2 August, 10.15am – 11.00am.
July 14, 2014
Wordstruck - Visualise your book
When I was writing and re-writing my travel memoir Last Seen in Lhasa, the author Patrick French gave me some advice.
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‘Go into a bookshop and visualise your book on the shelves. Which section would it be in? Which books would it be between? Imagine it there. Solid, real, finished.’
I’m a great believer in the power of positive thought. For sure, it can’t fix everything but it can change how you relate to something or somebody. It can empower you.
Over the years I’ve used the classic Creative Visualisation by Shakti Gawain. This is a book that started a movement. Her advice is to write affirmations about what you want in the present tense, with no negative words, and as if it is already true.
Along the lines of:
My short stories are published in fan fiction magazines three times a year.
A publisher loves my books and supports me and my successful career.
I have a brilliant agent who understands who I am and champions my writing.
You tailor them to what you want in your life. Any part of your life, not just writing.
When I went into that bookshop on Marylebone High Street and imagined my Tibet book in between Nicholas Shakespeare’s In Tasmania and Colin Thubron’s Behind the Wall, I felt a bit shy. Silly, even. I didn’t bolt. I stood there and let myself imagine. I looked around at the other customers and imagined that they were there to buy my book. Then I went back home, wrote out more affirmations, did more drafts and kept believing it would happen.
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I was reminded of this when I received an excited email from debut author, Jessica Talbot, whose first book Picaflor has just flown into the travel memoir section on Amazon.
Originally from New Zealand, Jessica followed life’s synchronous messages, ending up in Argentina. Her heartfelt story takes readers from rainy Melbourne through the jungles of Peru, the heights of Machu Picchu, ending in the crazy, lovable city of Buenos Aires where Jessica lives with her husband and young son.
Although a lover of words, Jessica doesn’t have a writing background. She makes up for it with lots of passion, even more determination and a big story to share.
I mentored her as she was developing her manuscript. I always looked forward to our Skype sessions, often unpredictable due to the dodgy Argentinian connection. She’d arrive with a cup of strong coffee and reams of paper. The book, like any other, went through several drafts and I was always impressed by how hard she worked to make her book a reality.
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Jessica first tried the conventional publishing route, before deciding to self-publish in both print and e-format. A talented artist Fern Petrie painted the original oil painting that Jessica used on the cover. As Jessica writes, ‘I wanted the nest to represent the journey… and to express the idea that we can make a home wherever we find ourselves… Even though it’s an imperfect, slightly messy nest, it’s mine!’
Writing requires talent. It also requires courage – putting yourself out there, dealing with rejection or misapprehension. And getting something published requires tenacity and self-belief.
Congratulations, Jessica! I was thrilled to hear your news – and see the final product. Do check Picaflor out and spread the word.
And whatever creation you are dreaming up… Visualise it complete. Honest. It works.
Anyone in Byron Bay? Join me at this year’s Writers’ Festival for a Travel Writing Workshop on Wednesday 30 July. I will also be talking on two panels, Landscape of the Sacred, Friday 1 August, 1.30pm – 2.30pm and Books that Shaped Me, Saturday 2 August, 10.15am – 11.00am.
July 7, 2014
Wordstruck - Do authors need a writing platform?
Last year at the Melbourne Writers’ Festival I heard Charlotte Harper, founder of the digital press Editia, saying that as soon as she receives an author’s submission she searches for their online presence. As Editia only publish virtually, if the author can’t be found on the Internet, she won’t proceed with their proposal.
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I mentioned this to one of my writing mentees who thinks she needs an author’s platform. She isn’t keen on Facebook, she doesn’t want to blog, all she wants to do is pursue her writing hobby.
My advice: be clear about why you want a platform and how much time you have to devote to it.
In her case, she needs the minimum:
• An online presence. This could be a simple Wordpress website, which is like an online brochure about you, what you write, your contact details.
• On it you include your bio, a photo, links to stories you’ve had published (if any) and a couple of stories to show your style.
• If you’re pitching to publications, you can include the first couple of paragraphs of written stories – like a teaser.
• You can also have a list of other writing sites you love, your favourite books, links to any other social media accounts.
• Ideally have a facility so people can leave a message or contact you.
• You can also have a blog.
Here’s the thing. People often think author platforms are new. They aren’t. In the past we used different ways to build a following – through traditional media, public appearances, fans wrote letters (truely, they did) and we replied.
The goal was the same: to create an audience for your writing and a potential list of buyers for your books.
Today you can say to a publisher, I have 4,000 followers on Twitter, 2,000 friends on Facebook. Publishers can measure your Klout – your social media presence – and in the States publishers and agents do that before taking on a new author.
If these fans are genuine, clearly you have an advantage. Often, though, when I see an author with 22,000 Twitter followers, I can’t believe that many of them would care enough to notice when that author tweets. Quality and loyalty are more important than quantity.
For writers seriously wanting to build a career and earn money from their writing, you do need a platform. This can be a combination of the following:
8 ways to build your author’s platform
Create a website to showcase your work. This can also be a blog page.
If you blog, be clear why you’re doing it. Who your audience is. What’s your point of difference. The clearer you are, the more focused your message.
Avoid starting a blog and then only posting twice a year. Continuity builds a loyal following.
Network – physically and virtually. Having a supportive community of other writers or aspiring writers can be the difference between failing and succeeding. Often it’s through encouragement that we finish a story or are brave enough to send it off to a competition.
Take advantage of social media. You don’t have to be on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Instagram and Linked-In. Pick one you like and stick to it. If you do have multiple accounts try using a social media platform like Hootsuite. Anyone wanting to know more, head to Walter Mason’s free Social Media for Writers Talk, 12.30 – 1.30pm, July 16 in Custom’s House, Sydney. Walter is a whizz at this stuff so follow him – and his lead!
Grow your database through your website, blog and email marketing.
Get involved with writers’ centres, submit your work to anthologies. If you’re into a niche genre then blog on fanzines and connect with other writers in the same field.
Become an expert in your area through workshops, live appearances and articles. This is important if you are seriously trying to break into the publishing industry. If you can show that you’re the go-to person on permaculture or gothic horror, it gives your book a head start.
I’m sure you’re thinking… but this all takes soooo much time. Yup. It does. So that’s why you need to be clear from the beginning about what you want and why.
An author’s platform brings all the different parts of your profile, virtual and real life, together. Juggling it, though, is a part-time job in itself.
If you’re just dabbling, stick with the writing and worry about the rest later.
THIS WEEK I’m doing a talk about The Pagoda Tree at the White Rabbit Gallery, Sydney, on Sunday July 13, 2pm – 3 pm. It’s free, so come along.
Anyone in Byron Bay? Join me at this year’s Writers’ Festival for a Travel Writing Workshop on Wednesday 30 July. I will also be talking on two panels, Landscape of the Sacred, Friday 1 August, 1.30pm – 2.30pm and Books that Shaped Me, Saturday 2 August, 10.15am – 11.00am.
June 30, 2014
Wordstruck - 10 ways to sharpen your scenes
Scenes are what make writing visual. They create a moment-by-moment experience for the reader. Here are 10 ways to make yours work harder.
Follow the screenwriter’s mantra: arrive late and leave early. This means you start the scene with the action not the lead up and you end crisply.
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Link scenes together with a narrative bridge. This is a way to run a number of short scenes together as a sequence where you have just enough narration between them to advance to the next moment.
There is no set formula on how many scenes to have per chapter. But two or three scenes, about 2-3000 words each, isn’t uncommon.
Always look for how your scenes advance the story and reach the point or mini-climax about half- to two-thirds of the way through.
Conflict is a key driver for scenes because it puts characters in relation – as well as in opposition – to each other.
Avoid the long runway: this is normally at the beginning of your story where you include lots of backstory or childhood stuff that isn’t relevant and weighs your scenes down.
Cut to the chase. Another way of putting number 6.
Be careful of unintentional red herrings If you draw attention to the pink scarf your protagonist is wearing once, then twice, then again, the reader will think you’re flagging it for a purpose.
If you’re stuck on where to begin, start with in media res: in the middle of the action.
End on a significant point in the scene to create tension or a twist or something surprising.
More on how I wrote The Pagoda Tree over the next few weeks…
I’m doing a talk about The Pagoda Tree at the White Rabbit Gallery, Sydney, on Sunday July 13, 2pm – 3 pm. It’s free, so come along.
Anyone in Byron Bay? Join me at this year’s Writers’ Festival for a Travel Writing Workshop on Wednesday 30 July. I will also be talking on two panels, Landscape of the Sacred, Friday 1 August, 1.30pm – 2.30pm and Books that Shaped Me, Saturday 2 August, 10.15am – 11.00am.
June 9, 2014
Wordstruck - In search of The Pagoda Tree: a four-part series
Over the next four weeks I’m writing for the Southerly Journal about the process I went through thinking, dreaming, researching and writing my novel, The Pagoda Tree. So instead of my usual weekly blog, here’s a shorter version of what I did and didn’t do in my own writing. I hope it’s instructive.
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For some context, my novel is set in eighteenth-century India and is largely told through the eyes of Maya, a temple dancer or devadasi, whose life is transformed by the arrival of the British.
After my first book, Last Seen in Lhasa, was published I suffered second book syndrome. As with many first-time authors, this book was a labour of love; a story I felt compelled to write.
I knew I wanted to set my next work in India and to focus on Indian women’s stories. Ever since 1997 when I lived and worked as a freelance journalist there for a year, I’ve been travelling to the sub-continent. I explored several ideas; none had the juice to sustain me.
Then I happened to read an article in the Sydney Morning Herald, ‘Prestige but a memory for last of courtesans’. It struck a chord.
This told the story of a family of devadasis from Peddapuram, in Andhra Pradesh, who were taught to dance, sing and entertain the local elite rulers. It introduced nineteen-year-old Durga and her mother, Kumari, who said how women like them were once ‘heroines, stars’.
Today, Peddapuram has a reputation for a flourishing sex industry. Without any patronage, these women have been forced to turn to prostitution to make a living and Durga, the last of her generation, suffers from HIV AIDS. As soon as I read this, I wanted to discover why and how these women – once esteemed artists, dancers and scholars – now face a life of apparent abjection.
Transition from non-ficition to fiction
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Initially I planned to write a non-fiction book, exploring the historical trajectory of this figure from a celebrated holder of knowledge to sex worker. But I didn’t want to write something that would see my subjects as ultimately doomed.
These women intrigued me because they operated between the spheres of sacredness, culture and sensuality – a common phenomenon in India but less so in Europe where sex and religion do not co-exist easily.
How history creates characters
As part of my research, I watched Michael Wood’s BBC series, The Story of India. Wood takes a journey to Thanjavur in Tamil Nadu, visiting the elevent-century Brihadeshwara or ‘Big Temple’.
As the British journalist walks through the temple courtyards, the camera pans up to an exterior wall of a shrine, inscribed with rows of Tamil writing. Wood explains that all the names and addresses of the temple staff, including 400 dancing girls who were brought there for its inauguration in 1010, are etched there. Later that year, I went to Thanjavur to see them for myself.
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As a historian before a journalist, I loved the fact that the presence of these women is still evident today: in the inscriptions and carvings, in frescoes and sculptures. I spent time wandering around the temple, a living, breathing institution where pilgrims still flock in vermillion, lemon and mandarin saris as they did centuries ago. While there, the idea for my novel began to germinate.
How to research a novel
I am used to following the breadcrumbs of an idea for a story. When I worked in India, I would hole up in a guesthouse with my battered laptop and research stories to see where they took me. Sometimes the leads turned out to be false; other times the story took on a life of its own.
But there are major differences between investigating an article and a book: the amount of stuff you need to know and how long it takes to find out. I adopted a multi-pronged approach: researching online, in books and through libraries, and the ol’ journalistic trick of following my nose.
When I was in Thanjavur I also made contact with a local reporter from The Hindu and through him, set up interviews. I met scholars, local historians, archivists and dancers. I also had tea with a prince, but more of that encounter next week.
Why fiction writers look for the gaps in history
I soon realised that there was a lack of source material about temple dancers. Colonial archives have been very successful at keeping the voices of native women out and curtailing their agency.
Gradually I made the transition – in my head to start with, and then on paper – from non-fiction to fiction. In many ways, writing Last Seen in Lhasa which draws upon fictional techniques – creating character and a story arc – prepared me for the transition. Still, it was challenging. It’s like going from playing one or two instruments to conducting an entire orchestra.
At first I clung on to what I knew. My journalist’s training and a historian’s need for facts kicked in. As I began to sink into the process, I understood that the lack of sources allowed greater historical imagining.
Then the writing process became surprisingly liberating. Fiction requires greater surrender; the unknown must become your friend. You, as the writer, need to step out of the way. Only then can the characters emerge: fleeting glimpses, a fragment, a single image on the page.
My next weekend Travel Memoir course is on June 21 & 22 at the Australian Writers’ Centre, Sydney. There are still places left.
Join me in Italy this August for a special travel writing retreat. We are offering a special discount so get in touch if you want to know more about Travel Writing in a Palace 2014.
June 2, 2014
Wordstruck - Empowering writers to keep writing
It’s always sobering when I meet a well-known journalist who once earned a decent salary tell me he’s really struggling. For many in the field, regular writing gigs have dried up and the rate per word has gone down. Or it hasn’t gone up in 5+ years.
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And then to hear a major Australian publishing house recently offered a novelist $1,000 for her advance. Yes, $1,000. Yeeks.
Or to admit to some women in business that an average Australian writer earns $11,700 from writing-related income. Many earn around $4,800. Most supplement this with other work or they keep their day job.
‘Why do it?’ They said. ‘Why would you get out of bed for that?’
Ask me during the Sydney Writers’ Festival (SWF) when I‘m flying on the wings of words and the pier is abuzz and I say, because I love it. Ask me on other days, and I wonder why, too.
We all know that publishers, media companies, journalists and writers are navigating a new world. The old model is no longer working. Or perhaps it never really has.
As successful author Joanne Fedler recently blogged, ‘It’s a shocking business model. Publishers know this, and authors have always known this.’
She continues, why spend, ‘Two years writing a book on advances that are Benjamin Button-ing their way back to point zero, and then hope like Buddha that somehow you’re going to EB James the hell out of the market?’
Like Joanne, I realise that in order to survive writers need to get cluey on the business side of things. This is alien territory for me. Budgets; systems; cash flow analysis make my eyes glaze over. But I’m determined to get across it in order to keep writing.
The mantra is more than just making money as a writer, it’s about EMPOWERING writers to feel like they can charge their worth and banish the ‘writers must live in a garret’ mentality. This only perpetuates poverty consciousness.
It’s no good for us as creators or for our industry.
At the SWF, as part of their Literary Friendship series, I did a panel with the hilarious travel writer Walter Mason. That week Linda Morrison at the Sydney Morning Herald ran a story, saying how the ‘friendship between writers can be some of the most nourishing and sustaining of a lifetime because they know your deepest fears.’
This support helps us keep going. It comes through social media, going to each others’ events and collaborating on ways we can all survive.
It’s just how we get sassy doing that. For me, this year is all about collaboration and helping each other through the down times. I’ll keep you posted on my plans.
Any ideas how you empower yourself as a writer, let me know.
Join me in Italy this August for a special travel writing retreat. We are offering a special discount so get in touch if you want to know more about Travel Writing in a Palace 2014.
My next weekend Travel Memoir course is on June 21 & 22 at the Australian Writers’ Centre, Sydney.
May 22, 2014
Wordstruck - How to work the Writers' Festival circuit
It’s literary festival season again. At the same time as Sydney Writers' Festival opens, Hay-on-Wye – UK’s biggest gathering of writers – kicks off.
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Yesterday I heard Alice Walker talk about writing and activism; today David Malouf revealed what’s at the heart of his novels.
Despite all the gloomy news about publishing and book stores closing, new literary fairs are cropping up everywhere.
Internationally you can go to festivals in Myanmar, Pakistan and Bhutan. Locally they’re springing up like mushrooms after rain.
I’ve always found these festivals a great place to learn more about the craft, connect with other writers and meet potential publishers. So whether writing is a hobby or a profession, here are some etiquette tips:
10 ways to make the most of lit fest season
Choose sessions relevant to your genre. Bring your notebook in case authors share their deepest secrets.
Think of questions through the session and be brave enough to ask at the 15-min Q&A at the end. This is your chance to ask a writer you love something meaningful to you.
Authors are generally a nice bunch. If you buy their book at the end, you can always ask a follow up question. Just don’t hog their time, especially if they have a queue at the signing table.
Bring business cards. If your manuscript is ready to go you might meet the perfect agent or editor. If you’ve got a card it shows you’re serious.
Take a friend. He or she can support you and encourage you to make that connection.
Get inspired. Drop into sessions with writers you don’t know. You often learn new stuff.
Join the conversation. If you do social media then tweet about sessions you are about to go to or events you’ve just seen and use the hashtag for the festival. i.e #SWF14 Show you care.
If you’re working on a book and you’re trying to gauge people’s interest, work out your 30-second pitch. Talk about it to people you meet. In the queue, at the cafe. Do people’s eyes glaze over or is there a spark?
Practise this pitch enough and then go to a session with publishers and editors. Here, having a friend is really handy. Your friend needs to push you to speak to that editor and pitch your idea. The editor may brush you off but not before giving you their card. Just don’t stalk anyone insanely.
Be chatty and get to know other bookish people. Network at events and meet publicists and others involved in the industry. Authors are often very accessible at festivals, so don’t miss any opportunity.
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I’ll be reporting back on some of the great sessions I’m going to this week in Sydney and next week I’m appearing at Darwin’s Wordstorm.
Join me in Italy this August for a special travel writing retreat. We are offering a special discount from next week, so get in touch if you want to know more about Travel Writing in a Palace 2014.
My next weekend Travel Memoir course is on June 21 & 22 at the Australian Writers’ Centre, Sydney.
My next 5-week Creative Writing course at the Australian Writers' Centre starts on June 03.
May 14, 2014
Wordstruck - How to build a world for your story
How believable is the world of your characters? How can you make it feel more real?
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This week I’ve been thinking about world building in preparation for my new two-day workshop, The Screenwriter’s Toolbox with a Novelist’s Craft at the Sydney Writers' Festival. I’m doing it with the wonderful screenwriter David Roach (Red Obsession, Beneath Hill 60).
Screenwriters often use the exterior world to reflect the internal reality of characters. Close attention is given to the set and direction of each scene.
In writing we can do this, too. The world of your story is much more than the landscape or location or setting. It’s also about the social world of your characters. It addresses questions of race, gender, age and class.
It’s about atmosphere and tone. You often need to layer your setting and build as you write.
It is all the things we take for granted in real life that you need to include to make your world real for your reader.
This is especially true in speculative fiction – fantasy, sci-fi – or historical fiction. Details about whether a person took a hackney carriage or a cart aren’t needed in contemporary novels. We understand it if the writer refers to a ‘Rolls’; no explanation needed.
But in ‘spec fic’ or historical fiction, readers want to immerse themselves in another time and place. This is why these novels are often very long. Too long, sometimes.
HERE ARE 8 WAYS TO RESEARCH YOUR STORY WORLD
Start online. Yes, you can begin with Wikipedia but don’t stop there. Dig deeper. Search in Google Books and under Google Scholar.
Read widely around your subject. Fiction, non-fiction, history books and memoir.
Go to libraries and do archival research. Start broad and then narrow the funnel.
Make sure you set up an index system – however basic – so you can remember where you read that useful quote when you need it later.
Compile a bibliography of books. Use the app Easybib for this.
Visit the setting if you can. Do ‘history with your feet’.
Speak to an expert. Okay, you can’t go to Planet Venus if you’re writing sci fi, but you can interview a scientist who specialises in that field.
Write as you research. This is crucial otherwise research becomes another form of procrastination.
A FINAL WORD. Whatever genre, avoid chunks of description, especially from a narrator’s point of view. Weave description into the story otherwise the reader will skim. Better still, write description from within a character’s point of view.
The Screenwriter’s Toolbox with a Novelist’s Craft workshop is sold out but join me…
For a weekend Travel Memoir course, June 21 & 22, at the Australian Writers’ Centre, Sydney.
My next 5-week Creative Writing course at the Australian Writers' Centre starts on June 03.
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