Helena Halme's Blog, page 7

How to Turn Your Life into Fiction Step 3: Plot

When you want to turn your life into fiction, one of the most important steps is to decide on the plot. “But I know my own life story,” you say. That’s true, but don’t forget that you are writing a novel. Telling a story in a novel form requires you to follow some of the rules of storytelling. The first step is to find where to start your story.

Where to start?

Once you’ve decided on what kind of a novel you are writing (see my previous post on finding the genre of your story), you need to decide where to start your tale.

Any fiction book needs a beginning and an end, plus an engaging plot. Your life may well have been exciting and unique, but you still need to follow (some of) the general rules of storytelling.

The most significant event

The best way to find what kind of story you are writing, as well as how the narrative is going unravel, i.e. what the plot is going to be, is to find the most significant event in your life. Or the most important point in the period of your life you wish to explore. (I turned my life story into a series of books, so if you have a longer story to tell, divide it into several novels.)

Think of the most important and exciting event in your life, and start thinking about how this event shaped your life.

[image error][image error]In Doris Lessing’s semi-autobiographical novel, A Proper Marriage, the significant moment is Martha’s realisation that her marriage is a terrible mistake. In the 1950s when Lessing wrote the novel, having these kinds of thoughts was quite revolutionary, especially when a small child was involved. A Proper Marriage is a tale of self-discovery, which includes coming of age, and political awakening.

Knowing the most significant event in your story will help you towards determining the plot and the genre of the book.

The Five Commandments of Storytelling

As well as finding the start of your story, you need to consider how the storyline is going to take shape. The Five Commandments of Storytelling is one useful way to chart your story. It’ll also help you determine the plot of your novel.

1. Inciting Incident

The start of the book, the significant event I spoke about above is often called The Inciting Incident. Something has to happen to the protagonist to change his world. For example, a woman who’s never been in love meets the man of her dreams when she bumps into him in a park. Perhaps she accidentally pours hot coffee over his pristine, white shirt.

2. Progressive Complications

Complications are crucial in a story, and it’s also important that the problems mount up—ie become progressive. In my example, the man of her dreams (whose shirt she ruined) is a single dad with three kids. Then she finds out his wife died and he cannot love anyone else as much. And his kids hate him dating anyone else.

3. Crisis

This is the point where our heroine is forced to act. Will she forget about this man she loves and who loves her back? There has to be something, like a job offer on the other side of the world, a discovery that the wife is alive after all, or something to force our loved-up protagonists to act.

4. Climax

This is where the character makes the final decision and acts on it. She moves away and tries to forget about our man or the wife turns out to be a cheating tramp, who, all of this time, has lived a second life with another man on a desert island in the middle of the South Seas.

5. Resolution

As well as an engaging start, it is crucial that your story has a good ending. The Resolution is where all the threads of the main plot and the side plots are brought together and the book ends. Our couple get together and marry, and the born-again wife ends up alone.

There Are No Rules

A word of warning, however. It’s very useful to look at the various aspects of the story to find the plot. But the above example is a very simplistic way of looking at the elements of a novel. I agree with Doris Lessing, who said,

There are no laws for the novel. There have never been, nor can there ever be.

Having Said That…

Even if you don’t follow the five commandments above, when writing your life story, it’s useful to know why you are putting it down to paper (or typing onto your computer). Are you righting a wrong? Or perhaps you are celebrating the life of a close family member? Do you want to send a political or ethical message to the world?

My novel based on my life, The English Heart, is simply a long love-letter to my husband. Even though it isn’t all “true”, I wanted to show him how meeting him changed my life. And how I couldn’t live without him. In The Nordic Heart series, I wanted to show how life-changing falling in love, and moving to another country to follow your heart, can be.

A Proper Marriage by Doris Lessing is a book about disillusionment, discrimination, and female empowerment. Lessing wanted to show that women are independent, intelligent and able to make a life for themselves without being tied to a man. These are big themes, and Lessing is a Nobel-winning author. There is, however, no reason why any writer shouldn’t aspire to explore important issues in their life stories.

To know why you are writing your life story will enable you to give the story a theme, “a red thread”, with a message to the reader. This will also help you to determine the plot of your story.

Over to You

[image error]I hope I’ve helped you get to grips with how to write your life story. Turning your life into fiction is easier if you can follow a few important steps. Try my recommendations here and in the previous two posts and see what kind of book you want to write. Let me know how you are getting on in the comments below!

My book, Write Your Story has more easy tips. It’s now out in ebook and paperback form. Find it here.

Next week I will talk about the timeline of your life story. If you don’t want to miss any of my future posts, sign up to my RSS Feed here.

The post How to Turn Your Life into Fiction Step 3: Plot appeared first on Helena Halme Author.

New Book Description

Publishing a new book is always exciting, but deciding on a book description is a huge landmark in the process. This is when the author puts her hand up to the world and says, “This is the story I’m writing.”

Sequel to The Island Affair

My new book is a sequel to The Island Affair, “a gripping family drama set in one of the most captivating holiday islands in Scandinavia”.

It’s the week before Christmas and Alicia, her estranged husband Liam and her ex-lover Patrick, are planning a family celebration. But their ideas of what a perfect Christmas should look like differ somewhat…

There are also a couple of new characters!

Exclusive Sneak Peek

The book isn’t quite finished yet, but I’m nearly there…

While I do battle with the writing, I thought you’d like to read the new book description. I’ve only shown this to my Readers’ Group mailing list, my Nordic Fiction Readers Facebook Group and my cover designer so far, so this is quite an exclusive sneak peek into the new novel for you!

New Book Description

Drumroll, please…

On the Nordic Åland Islands, the festive season is snowy and chilly—yet breathtakingly beautiful.

It’s time for Alicia to enjoy her first Christmas back on her beloved Islands with a new grandchild and family. There’ll be traditional dancing around the tree and sipping mulled wine in front of a cozy fire. But peace is broken by Alicia’s estranged husband, Liam, who springs an unwelcome and devastating surprise. To top it all, her ex-lover Patrick refuses to take ‘No’ for an answer and threatens to disturb the family celebration… Will Alicia find enough goodwill amongst her nearest and dearest to create the idyllic Island Christmas she’s always dreamt of? 

Meanwhile, Brit, Alicia’s best friend, returns to the Islands to lick her wounds after a particularly bloody break-up with an Italian chef. When she meets her new boss, the Captain of a Baltic cruise liner, sparks fly. Brit can’t help but fall quickly in love with Jukka, but when she finds out about his murky past, she fears her heart is about to be broken yet again. Are the rumors about Jukka true, or just typical small island gossip?

Journey to beautiful Scandinavia and join the quirky community of the Åland Islands for a Nordic Christmas you’ll never forget!

Get a Free Story!

If you’d like to be amongst the first to learn what the new novel is going to be called and see the new book cover, you can sign up to my Readers’ Group. You’ll also get a free prequel story to the new Love on the Island series, The Day We Met. Just tap the image below to sign up now!

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How to Turn Your Life into Fiction Step 2: Genre

This is the second in a series of blog posts about how to turn your life into fiction. Today’s post is about the genre of your story.

Why Me?

I’ve talked extensively about how to turn your life into fiction in blog posts and seminars. I’ve even written a book about it! Last Tuesday, I was a guest on a Twitter chat with the Alliance of Independent Authors on the subject. (Find it using the hashtag, #IndieAuthorChat)

My fiction series, The Nordic Heart, is largely based on my life story. Well, certainly the first two books in the series are. I began writing the first book, The English Heart, as a series of blog posts. I described how I met and fell head over heels in love with a Navy Officer at the British Embassy in Helsinki. Eventually, that story became my first published book.

The main inspiration for the second novel in the series, The Faithful Heart, was my diary from when I first moved to the UK.

In addition to these books, the novel I wrote during an MA in Creative Writing at Bath Spa University, Coffee and Vodka, is also based on my experiences as a young girl moving with my family from Finland to Sweden.

As you can see, I’ve used my life as an inspiration for many of my books. To me, it’s good to “write out” the most important “scenes” in your life. Writing something that you know intimately about also gives your work authenticity. Of course, you can sometimes be too close to the events and emotions. This is why it’s important to treat writing about your life as you would any creative writing project.

You are writing a story, but it just happens to be your story.

What is the story you want to tell?

In order for your readers to know what type of story they are going to find inside the covers of your book, you need to know what genre your story falls into.

It may seem obvious what the story you want to tell is. But you might be surprised how many people think they know what they want to write about, but when it comes to it, all their thoughts are jumbled up and they can’t decide where to start or how to proceed.

So I suggest you start with determining what kind of story it is you want to tell.

It’s important from the very start you know what genre your book falls into.

Romance, Drama or a Spy Thriller?

When I was writing The English Heart, I did know that central to the story was the love affair between myself and my Englishman. But there were so many other issues (plot lines) involved in the tale.

We met during the Cold War in a country friendly with the Soviet Union. He was a newly qualified Naval Officer, who’d been warned about Russian honey traps. I was engaged to be married.

Was my story going to be a romance, a drama or perhaps even a spy thriller?

I soon realized I really had no choice but to go with romance.

The romance genre, like all genres, has its own rules. The story centres on the love story, the characters and their feelings. For the most part, romance novels end happily ever after, after some major difficulties have been overcome by the protagonists. The pace of the story isn’t as fast as it is in, say, a thriller.

My story fitted perfectly for the romance genre, because, dear reader, I married him.

Why Are You Writing the Story?

I knew from the beginning that I wanted to write my story as a love letter to my husband. This was another reason why I chose romance as my genre.

In order to determine what the genre of your book is going to be, think about why you are writing the story. Or who are you writing the story for? If, for example, you want to write your life story to thank your mother, father or siblings for their role in bringing you up and making you achieve your goals in life, your story will most probably be a family drama.

If, however, your story is a struggle against all odds, with some fast-paced scenes, perhaps a police chase in a foreign country, you should think about writing your story as a thriller.

Your motivation to write helps to determine the genre of the novel.

What Do You Want to Write?

What kind of story do you want to write? Or, even, what kind of books do you enjoy reading? I’d love to write Nordic Noir thrillers, but every time I try to write one, it turns into something else. I love reading romance books too, as long as they are not too sugar-coated.

How to Turn Your Life into Fiction Step 1: Research

This is first in a series of blog posts about how to turn your life into fiction. Today I’m going to be talking about research.

Why Me?

I’ve talked extensively about how to turn your life into fiction in blog posts and seminars. I’ve even written a book about it! This coming Tuesday, I’m going to be a guest on a Twitter chat with Alliance of Independent Authors on the subject. (Find it using the hashtag, #IndieAuthorChat)

My fiction series, The Nordic Heart, is largely based on my life story. Well, certainly the first two books in the series are. I began writing the first book, The English Heart, as a series of blog posts. I described how I met and fell head over heels in love with a Navy Officer at the British Embassy in Helsinki. Eventually, that story became my first published book.

The main inspiration for the second novel in the series, The Faithful Heart, was my diary from when I first moved to the UK.

In addition to these books, the novel I wrote during an MA in Creative Writing at Bath Spa University, Coffee and Vodka, is also based on my experiences as a young girl moving with my family from Finland to Sweden.

As you can see, I’ve used my life as an inspiration for many of my books. To me, it’s good to “write out” the most important “scenes” in your life. Writing something that you know intimately about also gives your work authenticity. Of course, you can sometimes be too close to the events and emotions. This is why it’s important to treat writing about your life as you would any creative writing project.

You are writing a story, but it just happens to be your story.

Why Research Your Own Life?

I know it sounds crazy to research your own life. You know the details right? But in order to write a story, you need to get those creative juices going.  You need to get inspired. You need to dig deep into your emotions and your and the other characters’ mindset at that time.

And sometimes, you might have forgotten some vital details. Or you might ignore some interesting snipped from your life that explains the way you and the other characters in your book are feeling.

In order to make your story interesting to your readers, you need it to sound like an engaging story. And any good story needs to be researched.

Photos, letters and emails

Use photos, letters, and emails for inspiration. I was lucky that we’d kept all the letters from our long-distance relationship. They were very useful when I wrote The Nordic Heart Series. I also used old photographs to remind myself of how I felt at the time. I stuck a few chosen ones on the wall in my study for inspiration.

But don’t worry if you haven’t got personal items. Just looking at old photos in newspaper archives may jog your memory and give you inspiration. Or seeing an item in a jumble sale may bring old emotions to the surface. Anything from the relevant time will be useful to you.

Music, films and other arts

As well as images and items, music and other arts can be very evocative too. To get inspired, listen to the bands and artists of the era. Remind yourself of what films, plays, art exhibitions you saw. Or books you read at the time and how those informed your decisions and beliefs. Seeing an old film or a painting can evoke important, strong, memories.

What was it like back then?

Research the era thoroughly; you’ll be surprised how much you will have forgotten. What was everyday life like then? How does it differ from today? Did you know, for example, that Google only started its search engine in 2006? Or that only ten years ago, it was unusual to surf the net with your phone? Make sure that you become an expert in the era you are describing. Adding a few pointers about the lack of the internet, for example, if your story is set in the 80s or 90s, is a good idea.

Go professional with your research

Use sites like Wikipedia to research the year (or years) in question. This way you can use any political developments, current affairs, sports events or significant artistic happenings as a backdrop to your story. Or you can use libraries to read old newspapers and magazines.

Make sure that if there were some large weather events, such as floods, or a particularly hot summer, you include that in your story. It’s also good to have a look at what TV and other popular culture was at the forefront in people’s minds at the time. Who were the famous people newspapers wrote about? For example, if in years to come, I’d write about the year 2016, my characters would need to refer to the Brexit vote in the UK, or the election of Donald Trump as US president. These are large world events, which the majority of people know about. They will make your story authentic.

Over to you

I hope this first post in the series has helped you to start the process of writing your life story. Look out for Part 2, What’s The Story You Want to Tell? out next week!

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Book Tour: Meet Me in Cockleberry Bay by Nicola May

I’m delighted to take part in the Blog Tour for Meet Me in Cockleberry Bay by Nicola May. And on publication day to boot! This is the second book in The Cockleberry series. The first book, The Corner Shop in Cockleberry Bay made the best-sellers lists and I have no doubt that this sequel will be equally popular.

The Blurb

The cast of the runaway bestseller, The Corner Shop in Cockleberry Bay, are back – including Rosa, Josh, Mary, Jacob, Sheila, new mum Titch and, last but by no means least, Hot, the adorable dachshund.

Newly wed, and with her inherited corner shop successfully up and running, Rosa Smith seems to have all that anyone could wish for. But the course of true love never did run smooth and Rosa’s suspicions that her husband is having an affair have dire consequences.

Reaching rock bottom before she can climb back up to the top, fragile Rosa is forced to face her fears, addiction and jealousy head-on.

With a selection of meddling locals still at large, a mysterious fire and Titch’s frantic search for the real father of her sick baby, the second book in this enchanting series will take you on a further unpredictable journey of self-discovery.

The Plot

Rosa, the heroine of the two books is now married to the lovely and handsome Josh. But their happiness is marred by too much time spent apart. Josh has his job in London while Rosa attends to her corner shop in a remote Devon village. This forced separation brings the worst out in Rosa. She soothes her insecurities and jealousy caused by her tragic childhood with heavy drinking. After a particularly devastating argument, Josh leaves her, promising only to return when Rosa likes herself a bit more.  So starts Rosa’s introspection.

Helped by her friends in Cockleberry Bay, all of whom are also battling their own demons, Rosa takes a good look at herself. But the book isn’t all about Rosa and Josh. There’s Rosa’s best friend Titch, a single mother, who doesn’t know who the baby’s father is. Add to this Rosa’s fortune-telling birth mother and her former lovers (there are two), plus various local characters with the backdrop of a seemingly sleepy English seaside village, and you have the ingredients for a good beach read. There are four-legged friends too in the form of Hot, the sausage dog, plus many other furry creatures who themselves have plotlines in this funny and sad story.

My Review

Although an easy and entertaining read, Meet Me in Cockleberry Bay deals with serious issues. In real life, more happens in the wake of the happy-ever-after, but it’s not a storyline often featured in fiction. Rosa’s excessive drinking is also an interesting theme. Nicola May handles this, as well as the realization of our heroine’s self-esteem issues very well. Mental wellbeing is such a taboo subject, it’s refreshing to see it appear in a romantic comedy. For me, the pace of this sequel was slightly slower than The Corner Shop in Cockleberry Bay. I think this is due to the requirement to tell the backstory. If, however, you haven’t recently read the first book, you’ll appreciate the little reminders of the previous plot lines.

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Meet Me in Cockleberry Bay by Nicola May is a good beach read if you want a light-hearted story with a serious reality check. Just tap the image to get your copy now. (Or go here)

I received a free advance copy of Meet Me in Cockleberry Bay in exchange for an honest review.

About Nicola May

Award-winning author Nicola May lives in Ascot in Berkshire with her rescue cat Stanley. Her hobbies include watching films that involve a lot of swooning, crabbing in South Devon, eating flapjacks and enjoying a flutter on the horses. Inspired by her favourite authors Milly Johnson and Carole Matthews, Nicola writes what she describes as chick lit with a kick.

Follow Nicola May

Website – www.nicolamay.com

Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/NicolaMayAuthor

Twitter – https://twitter.com/nicolamay1

Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/author_nicola/

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Advice for New Writers: Five Stages of Writing a Novel

Are you struggling to complete the novel you started? Or want to write one but don’t know where to start? Writing a novel is a complicated and sometimes a long drawn-out process. However, it can be divided into five steps. These five stages of writing a novel can vary a little from author to author, but in my experience (after nine novels) the process doesn’t change that much.

1. An Obsession

I often describe writing a book as having a love affair. In the first stage when you are obsessed with an idea, a storyline or a complete plot, you feel nothing can go wrong. It’s incredibly similar to the first heady moments when you’ve met someone new and you are completely infatuated with them. You love everything about them, their smile, their laughter, their quirky expressions, even their smelly feet or their annoying habit of slurping down the milk with their muesli in the morning. It’s the same with a new book. You love the new plot, the new characters, the new setting.

Some people call this stage the planning phase, but to me, that seems too boring. Besides, I know many authors who do not plan anything about the novel they are going to write before they begin. All they have is an obsession with a scene, a character or even just an idea of a story. Unless you write something like historical fiction, which requires a fair amount of research, writing without a plan is fine. It can be hugely invigorating, too.

For authors who do minimal planning, the plot and the characters emerge as they write. I used to be a “pantser” like this, but now I am more of a “plotter”. I plot the story, do detailed character sketches and plan some scenes. There are writers who go further than this: they also do detailed sketches of all the scenes in the novel.

I can see the benefits of both methods of writing. (I wrote about how my writing techniques have developed in a blog post here). What is common in both instances, is the excitement you feel with the new story. You cannot wait to get going and the first words of the manuscript just fly onto the page.

2. The Bump in the Road

And then you hit a bump in the road. Somewhere in the middle of a new novel – or after a few chapters  – you get stuck with the plot. Perhaps some new scenes have crept in that really don’t work, or you notice that there’s a major hole in the storyline?  You are fed up with your characters and even the setting seems boring. All you want to do is give up.

And sometimes, that’s exactly what I do. I have several unfinished manuscripts in my virtual desk drawer. Stories that just didn’t make it past the 20-30,000 word point. Even though these stories don’t run the course, I still often think about them. One day, I will go back and make them work. To me, these unfinished manuscripts are both useful exercises in the craft of writing and a future resource that can be turned into a fully fledged novel at any point. If the story doesn’t work, let it be and start another one. Don’t forget, if writing the story bores you, it’s likely to bore your reader too. And that is the worst crime a writer can commit.

But remember, no piece of writing is a waste of time. It’s a craft and every word you put down will make you a better writer.

3. Fixing Common Problems

If, however, a few days or weeks later, the plot or the characters still haunt you – go back to the manuscript and start analyzing what’s wrong. Before giving up, it’s worth trying to fix the manuscript. Read it through carefully, trying not to touch it (you can edit the manuscript at your leisure later), and see what’s wrong. Take a step back and read what you have written as if you were someone else. Below are some issues you might consider.

Characters

Are you happy with your characters? Are their roles in the story working out and are their individual stories in line with the plot? Is every character’s own personal development clear in the story?  Kurt Vonnegut says, ‘Every character has to want something, even if it is a glass of water.’ Could you add a storyline to a character, or do you need to remove some characters?

Plot

What about the plot? Is it developing the way you imagined, or is it too complicated or, even, too simple?

Think about the story arc. Does your plot have a beginning, middle and an end, with your characters moving from misery to ecstasy? (See below.) In a simplistic form, your story should have the following structure:

Boy meets girl. They fall in love. There’s a complication, a row or an awful secret. The lovers break up. But they miss each other, so they sort out their problems and live happily ever after.

If the plot isn’t working, change it – no story is set in stone until it’s published. You are the writer, the master of this particular universe, so you can make the characters do what you want!

Charting out your story arc will help you see the novel in a new way and solve any problems with the plot. Image: Nownovel.com
Setting

What about the setting? Is the time and place exciting enough, and appropriate? Could you change the time-frame – make the story run quicker, or take longer? Perhaps you haven’t given yourself enough time to explain the setting, especially if it’s a crucial part of the story.

If your novel is set on a holiday island, for example, make sure you describe what a wonderful place it is. Or if your novel is a blood-dripping thriller, set in a violent city, it’s important that the reader gets a sense of how scary and dangerous the place is.

If, after analyzing all of these points, you just cannot get on with the writing, you may be suffering from Writer’s Block. Check this post out where I talk about how you can overcome this particular affliction.

4. Downhill Ride

The next phase – if the story runs the course – is the happiness you feel when you have been able to fix the plot, turn the characters around so that they work for the novel. You’ve got past the major arc of the story and you are literally on the downhill ride. You can lift your legs off the pedals and just let that bicycle carry you down for the rest of the book. This is when your relationship with your writing is working; you turn up in the morning, get your target words down, until you write the final sentence.

5. Editing

You’ve finished your manuscript. Jippee! Time for a glass of something nice. But, there’s still one stage of writing left: Editing.

Editing a manuscript can be even a longer process than the writing of it. Some authors revel in this, the final stage of writing a novel, while others hate it. Whichever camp you fall into, you cannot ignore this final step. Luckily there are professionals who can help you out.

There are several forms of editing. A Developmental Edit looks at the story and its structure, a Line Edit at how the story has been told, a Copy Edit at the spelling, prepositions, common expressions, word repetitions and such. Lastly, a final Proofread ensures a “clean” text without errors.

There Are No Laws for the Novel

Naturally, these five stages are not set in stone. They can also run in a loop. For example, I often stay in stage 2 and 3 for a very long time, until I have finally sorted out the problems and can just write the rest of the story. Even then I can get stuck and return to fixing issues in the book. How long you spend in sorting out problems also depends on how well you are able to draw the characters and the plot before you start writing. (If you are a “plotter”). But all authors and all novels are different, and so it should be. As Doris Lessing said,

There are no laws for the novel. There never have been, nor should there ever be.

I talk a lot more about the stages of writing a novel in my two nonfiction titles, Write Your Story and Write in Another Language. Check these books out here.

I wish you luck with your novel! Just start – remember the first draft of everything is just that, a first draft. And don’t forget that you cannot edit an empty page.

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How to Write in Another Language

Would you like to know how to write a regular blog, novel or a nonfiction title in another language?

When I tell people I’m a writer, the first thing they ask me apart from what I write (Nordic contemporary fiction), is what language I use. I graduated from a Finnish College with a Baccalaureat and went onto study economics in Hanken, a Swedish language university in Helsinki. Apart from my thesis which I wrote in Swedish, I’ve written all of my twelve books in English.

English is one of the most widely spoken, and certainly read, languages in the world, so it makes sense for me to write in English. But there are other reasons why I choose to use what technically amounts to my third language.

Unique Perspective

I’ve lived in the UK for over 35 years, so it’s natural for me to write my fiction and nonfiction in English. But in addition to this practical lifestyle reason, I also feel that using another language gives an author a richness to their work that is unique.

Research into human behaviour has shown that when we use another language, we follow a different set of moral and social norms. There is a sense of detachment when speaking and writing in a language that is not your mother tongue. As writers, we can use this disengagement to delve deeper into painful or difficult subjects. We can find new, unique ways to describe the human condition.

Language Discrimination

Using a language that is not your own mother tongue is not all good news. Especially with the spoken word, there is a common phenomenon called linguicism, a term coined in the 1980s by a Finnish linguist Tove Skutnabb-Kangas.  This phenomenon refers to linguistic discrimination against somebody based on their use of language. It can include their vocabulary, their accent, or the use of grammar.

The Importance of Grammar

When writing in another language it’s important to get the grammar right. Whether we like it or not, once a literary agent, a reader, a reviewer or a publisher know you’re not writing in your mother tongue, they will be looking for evidence of your inadequacies. This may be linguicism or language discrimination, but we have to be realistic. Readers need to hear the “foreign voice” but not be jarred by it.

The only way to arm yourself against prejudice is to turn in a clean copy of writing.

Over to You

There are many online tools we can use to improve our written word. It’s not as difficult as it used to be. There are blogs, vlogs, podcasts, online grammar tools as well as word lists and dictionaries.

As authors, we are also able to study and learn from books that have already been written. We can analyse how other writers have crafted their plots, characters and settings.

As a writer who can converse in several languages and is familiar with different cultures, you have a unique position to describe the world around you. You can gain a sense of detachment from the subject matter. And you can take your readers to another place that they may not have experienced in the same way as you, a native speaker, have.

Write in Another Language Is Out Soon!

In my forthcoming book, Write in Another Language, I talk more about the benefits of knowing several languages and cultures. I’ll also give tips on how to write in your second or third (or fourth and fifth!) language. I discuss the origins of spoken communication and touch upon language discrimination. I  interview contemporary multilingual authors, Heidi Amsinck, Freddie P Peters, Adrianne Lecter and Eivor Martinus, not forgetting to mention the most famous trilingual authors, Vladimir Nabokov and Joseph Conrad.

The Ebook is out 29 May, but you can now pre-order it here. The paperback will be out 21 June 2019.

 

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My Chernobyl Scoop

I’ve just seen the preview of the new Chernobyl series on BBC Breakfast and it took me back to my days at BBC Monitoring. I believe I was the first person to learn about the disaster here in the UK. It was my first scoop!

 

Monitoring Finnish and Swedish Radio

It was an ordinary day in 1986. I was settling down for another long, lonely stint in my small Finnish/Swedish cubicle at BBC Monitoring Service in Caversham when a news item on the Swedish radio made me prick my ears.

My job as a Language Monitor was to listen to Finnish and Swedish news bulletins. I’d select relevant items, translate them as a whole or summarize the text for the in-house news bureau. They’d either include the item to be broadcast on the BBC News Networks or add it to our monthly, printed news report.

On this late April day, the Swedish newscaster said that local scientists had noticed high levels of radiation in the air. They evacuated both of their nuclear power stations but found no leaks. When the reporter said they thought the leak was coming from Finland, I nearly fell off my seat.

Next, I heard a report on the Finnish radio station YLE that there was something coming in from the Eastern border. Then, finally, the Soviet news bureau, TASS, admitted they had a problem at Chernobyl.

Simultaneous Translation

By this stage, there was a queue of fellow reporters outside my door. They included my supervisor and guys from the newsroom, all waiting for each piece of translated radio news broadcasts from Finland and Sweden.

It was like a scene from one of those 1970s an 80s films about reporters in a newspaper office with papers being ripped off typewriters and people running everywhere.

Except I was on my own. I’d only been qualified as a monitor for 6 months and was still slow in my translation and transcription. There were only three of us in the team, and so we always worked on our own.

‘Just give it to me, don’t worry about the spelling mistakes,’ I remember one particularly keen American newsroom guy tell me when I wanted to read through what I’d typed. It was like doing a simultaneous translation, alternating with Finnish and Swedish, something which I’d never done before.

Even though BBC Monitoring never had any reporters on the ground anywhere, we were always trying to beat the other news agencies and our biggest rival was Reuters. So my scoop on Chernobyl was pure gold to the Monitoring Newsroom.

It took a few hours before my team leader had been alerted. I was glad to see her when she rushed in to help me with the flood of reports from Finland and Sweden.

I found that day exhausting but incredibly exhilarating. It was a serious matter, deadly, but I was in my element. I could have worked 24 hours straight, had my boss not sent me home after twelve hours on duty.

It was only when the Swedish Premier Olof Palme was shot dead on a Stockholm street that I got that same news reporter’s hit. But that’s another story.

Radio Moscow

On the day that the Chernobyl story broke, was also the first time I’d listened to Radio Moscow in Finnish and Swedish live. Usually, we recorded the broadcasts and listened to them days or weeks later. The Russian reporters spoke with heavily accented Finnish and Swedish so they were hellish to translate so quickly.

Those were the days before the internet!

Chernobyl And The Cold War

It’s difficult for people who’ve never lived through the Cold War to remember how secretive the Russian media was. However, it provided us at the Finnish and Swedish team a lot of work. Sometimes TASS choose one of our languages to announce some small tidbit, like the closure of some political department or other.

Even though Finland was never a Communist country, we were Russia’s Western neighbours. And as such, we were their Cold War buffer. That is why Finns, although they too had noticed the higher radiation levels coming from the Soviet Union, only came clean about it until they had the approval of the Russian authorities. I must stress, this is my theory, something I haven’t publicly shared before. There was a war going on and Finland couldn’t rock the boat.

I left BBC Monitoring Service before the Berlin Wall fell, after which the BBC disbanded the Finnish/Swedish team. It’s a job I miss terribly. I really got the news bug and learned so much about newsworthiness and writing. I also really honed my English language skills. Of course, we didn’t always have days with stories like Chernobyl and the shooting of Olof Palme. But even if there was nothing interesting happening in Finland or Sweden, there was always something kicking off in another part of the world.

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The Mother in Fiction

How do you find the mother characters in the fiction books that you read? Are they believable, loveable or not true to your own experience? In my novels, I’ve used mothers and complicated family relationships to both move the story along, and to explain the motivation and difficulties of the other characters.

Complicated Family Relationships

I’ve always been interested in complicated inter-family relationships. In many of my books, both the father and the mother characters have a significant role to play in the stories. If you’ve read The English Heart, you know that Kaisa’s father is frightening, but at the same time a supportive presence in her life. I have to admit that this character is largely based on my own father. The book is, after all, a quasi-memoir of how I met my Englishman.

Top Five Books for Easter Holidays

The Easter holidays, in my mind, are the perfect time to relax with a good book. It’s a time when you need just a plain good read, or perhaps something more spiritual. For me, an excellent book is one that I just can’t stop reading, whatever the genre or subject matter. Here, in my top five books for Easter, there are stories about illicit love, abandonment, espionage, murder and mysterious going on in a French village.

I hope you enjoy my book choices!

[image error] 1. Jubilate by Michael Arditti

If you are looking for a spiritual read for one of your books for Easter, but aren’t necessarily religious, you cannot go wrong with novels by Michael Arditti. One of his works is actually titled, Easter, but my favourite book of his is, by far, Jubilate.

A woman wakes in a Lourdes hotel room beside her lover of just two days. She has brought her brain-damaged husband on a pilgrimage to seek a miracle cure; her lover is making a TV documentary to mark the shrine’s 150th anniversary year. Setting aside personal doubts, family ties and spiritual differences, they embark on a turbulent affair from which neither they nor those around them will emerge unchanged.

This novel is a backwards tale of a passionate, beautiful, but also an illicit love affair during a pilgrimage to Lourdes. Arditti’s excellent writing carries you through the story and you cannot put this book down before you find out what happened. There is an interview with Michael Arditti at the launch of Jubilate at England’s Lane Books, where I worked as a bookseller a few years ago. You can find it here.

2. After You Left by Carol Mason [image error]

I read After You Left in a couple of days and guessed the twist at the end a bit before it was revealed (get me). Still, I thoroughly enjoyed this novel about abandonment, families and friendships across generations. I was particularly taken by the descriptions of patients with dementia because my father is suffering from the same condition.

You want to know what the worst thing is? It’s not the embarrassment, or the looks on people’s faces when I tell them what happened. It isn’t the pain of him not being there—loneliness is manageable. The worst thing is not knowing why.

When Justin walks out on Alice on their honeymoon, with no explanation apart from a cryptic note, Alice is left alone and bewildered, her life in pieces.

Then she meets Evelyn, a visitor to the gallery where she works. It’s a seemingly chance encounter, but Alice gradually learns that Evelyn has motives, and a heartbreaking story, of her own. And that story has haunting parallels with Alice’s life.

As Alice delves into the mystery of why Justin left her, the questions are obvious. But the answers may lie in the most unlikely of places…

If you like to read two stories set decades apart in one book, add After You Left to your pile of Easter Books.

3. Transcription by Kate Atkinson [image error]

In 1940, eighteen-year old Juliet Armstrong is reluctantly recruited into the world of espionage. Sent to an obscure department of MI5 tasked with monitoring the comings and goings of British Fascist sympathizers, she discovers the work to be by turns both tedious and terrifying. But after the war has ended, she presumes the events of those years have been relegated to the past for ever.

Ten years later, now a producer at the BBC, Juliet is unexpectedly confronted by figures from her past. A different war is being fought now, on a different battleground, but Juliet finds herself once more under threat. A bill of reckoning is due, and she finally begins to realize that there is no action without consequence.

I have loved all of Kate Atkinson’s books since I first read Behind the Scenes at the Museum in, well, 1995 (that dates me!). I think she is one of the best writers working today.

[image error] 4. An Empty Vessel by JJ Marsh

.JJ Marsh is known to most readers as the author of the brilliant Beatrice Stubbs European crime series, but in An Empty Vessel, JJ Marsh turns her writing skills to literary fiction.

Today’s the day Nancy Maidstone is going to hang.

In her time, she’s been a wartime evacuee, land-girl, slaughterhouse worker, supermarket assistant, Master Butcher and defendant accused of first degree murder. Now she’s a prisoner condemned to death. A first time for everything.

The case has made all the front pages. Speculation dominates every conversation from bar to barbershop to bakery. Why did she do it? How did she do it? Did she actually do it at all? Her physical appearance and demeanour in court has sparked the British public’s imagination, so everyone has an opinion on Nancy Maidstone.

The story of a life and a death, of a post-war world which never had it so good, of a society intent on a bright, shiny future, and of a woman with blood on her hands.

This is the story of Nancy Maidstone.

I am immensely excited about reading An Empty Vessel because I am a huge fan of this author. (And I do also know her). There will be a review on Goodreads, Amazon and here.

[image error] 5. The Strawberry Thief  by Joanne Harris

Who doesn’t want to escape back to the world of Chocolat? At last Joanne Harris has written a sequel, a book that’s immediately gone to the top of my to-read pile! It’s the perfect new release to enjoy as one of the books for Easter.

Vianne Rocher has settled down. Lansquenet-sous-Tannes, the place that once rejected her, has finally become her home. With Rosette, her ‘special’ child, she runs her chocolate shop in the square, talks to her friends on the river, is part of the community. Even Reynaud, the priest, has become a friend.

But when old Narcisse, the florist, dies, leaving a parcel of land to Rosette and a written confession to Reynaud, the life of the sleepy village is once more thrown into disarray.

The arrival of Narcisse’s relatives, the departure of an old friend and the opening of a mysterious new shop in the place of the florist’s across the square – one that mirrors the chocolaterie, and has a strange appeal of its own – all seem to herald some kind of change: a confrontation, a turbulence – even, perhaps, a murder…

I hope you enjoy some of these books and have a wonderful Easter filled with family, friends, love and lots and lots of chocolate!

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