How to Start a New Novel

By Candy Gourlay

My manuscript in progress has progressed.
Bone Talk is now available at all good
bookshops. Just thought I'd mention it.

Here I am, beginning again.

My manuscript in progress has progressed. It is out in the world now and all I can do is cross my fingers, keep myself whole by avoiding reviews and getting on with writing my next book.

I have written several novels now, I should know what to do when I get to the end of one and the beginning of the next. But my mind always goes blank. How do you start a new novel? How do you get the story motor up and running?

If there's anything I learned from all this, it's that I will always have much to learn about how to write the next book. It will want its own way of telling its story.

For now, it's about finding the way in.

THE WAY IN

I've gone back to scratch. Re-reading all my favourite novels and books on story structure, listening to podcasts, looking for inspiration.

And I'm not just looking for a way into writing my story. I'm looking for a way to tell my agent and my publisher about it, in a way that will excite them, get them on board for the next journey.

Meg LeFauve, co-writer of the Pixar movie, Inside Out, talks about an earlier career as a film executive, looking for scripts to pitch to her boss, the actress Jody Foster. "If you wanna pitch an idea to Jody, tell her, I wanna buy this script, you really need to tell her what is the big beautiful idea. What is the theme? What is the question this writer/director is asking? What is it about? Why do I care? If you can't tell her that there's nothing else to talk about."

Right. Well, I've got a little snippet of text I'm constantly working on alongside my manuscript – and it changes with my story as it begins to find its shape. What is my big beautiful idea? What is my story about? I'm not sure I know yet. I still have too many ideas fighting to be The One. But I know that as the book evolves, I will find out. Hopefully sooner rather than later.

I  have been synopsising and mind-mapping this story since I wrapped work on my last novel. I am now at the point where I know what will happen, I have a character, and yehey,  after some experimental writing, the character actually already has a distinctive voice (I think).

But where do I start? How do the random pieces I've already created fit together into a coherent, emotional whole? Here are some musings.


THE STORY WORLD

It is easy, when you are still building the world of your story, to be distracted by domestic detail and exposition. Why? Because you, the author, are still learning about the world of your story. Don't sweat it. Write it all in. At this early stage, you need it. But you should know better than to get too attached.

The story world for my new project is pretty epic. I have to confess I've loved researching it so much my self-awareness alarm bells are ringing. I'm definitely at risk of boring the reader with details that have not earned the right to be in my book. How do I avoid this? Character.

In The Anatomy of Story, John Truby writes:

'In good stories, the characters come first, and the writer designs the world to be an infinitely detailed manifestation of those characters.'

My favourite screenwriting vlog, Lessons from the Screenplay, explains this Truby nugget using the zombie comedy, Shaun of the Dead:





IT'S THE READER, STUPID

Sorry if you were born after 1992 and are unfamiliar with then presidential hopeful Bill Clinton's campaign slogan.

The point being, reading is all about the reader.

So ... I've got a character. I know her voice. I know what happens to her. I know what she looks like. And I've watched the Lessons from the Screenplay video. Is that enough?

No.

What I need to do now is consider how the reader will experience my hero.  Ponder where to plant the seeds that would produce the emotional highlights of the book.

What does my hero believe and how will it change?

How can I test that belief?

What are the stakes?

How can I make the hero (and therefore the reader) suffer?

'To service the story you have to be worried about your hero. If you're not worried about her there's no ticking clock,' declares Meg LeFauve. 'You have to beat the crap out of your main character. A lot of youngwriters don't want to do it. They intuitively identify with them so they keep them safe. They wrap them in cotton and everyone around them has all the problems and they are just kind of floating through. That is not a story.'

Added later: In one bruising editing experience, my editor described one of my characters as akin to someone carrying a suitcase. The suitcase was a burden, yes. Getting heavier and heavier as things happened to her. But she was passive. She was not reacting. She was not changing. It's not a story unless characters act, react and change. If you hear someone muttering "action-reaction, action-reaction" at the back of a Starbucks, that's probably me wracking my brains over a character.


KNOWING THE END

Inevitably, a book's success relies on the reader's last remembered experience of the story. It amazes me that so little seems to be written about how to end a story well, when that final chapter will dictate whether your reader puts your novel down with joy or disappointment. I've read many a fantastic book that fizzles out at the end as if the author just wanted to hand it in.

To truly begin a book well, you have to know your ending. 

Not every detail (she says to the horrified pantsers reading this blog post). But enough to plant the set ups and high stakes that will be resolved (or not) at the end of your story.

"Disappointing endings are fatal," says Anthony McCarten, screenwriter of Darkest Hour and The Theory of Everything.   "I don't embark on a movie or a project unless I know I have an ending – a good ending. If I don't find the ending, I don't do the project ... my creative life will be defined by 90 percent projects which I never knew the ending of and never made and never really explored, which might have been fine movies for other people. But (not) for me."

Additional thought: some people might take this to be: knowing what happens to the plot. More important at this beginning stage though is to know who your character is at the end of the story.

You might not know everything that is going to happen to her on the way to the end. But you should know what you are working towards. You should have an idea of how you want her to be at the end, when she has been transformed by her adventure.

If you know this, then you can design your plot and setting to achieve that end.


READY ... STEADY

I have written a first chapter.

I'm gonna add in the setting later.

I don't think I can hear the distinctive voice I thought my character had.

I'm confident this chapter will look nothing like its first self in a few month's time.

But hey, I have a chapter.

Here comes a book!

Candy Gourlay's third novel Bone Talk is set in 1899 when the United States invaded the Philippines. It has been nominated for the Carnegie Medal. Her first picture book Is It a Mermaid, illustrated by Francesca Chessa, was nominated for the Kate Greenaway Medal.  Meg LeFauve and Anthony McCarten were appearing in The Q&A with Jeff Goldsmith podcast.

How to Rewrite Your Novel To The Bitter End

By Candy Gourlay

Writing is rewriting. Rewriting is writing.



via GIPHY

My writing friends repeat this sagely as we sit complaining about the children's book industry while slurping glasses of wine.

Writing is rewriting is one of the first epiphanies a wannabe writer must have to launch her on her way.

Until you accept that the first flower of inspiration that you lay down as text will not be the final version of your opus, you are not a serious contender. I learned this the hard way in my early days of trying to get published when I excitedly posted my first drafts to publishers seconds after I typed 'The End'. Even now, I hate sending early drafts of my manuscripts to my editor, knowing my story is still cooking.

Make no mistake: everyone has a different way of climbing into a story. For what it's worth, here is mine.

THE FIRST TIME I WRITE IT

The first time I write my novel, it doesn't feel like I'm actually writing a novel. It's more like I'm posing a series of questions.

What is this story?
Why am I writing it?
What do I want to say?
How do I want to say it?
Who are my characters?
Why are they doing what they do?
What is happening? Why?

During this stage I know I can still get out. I can still say, no, I don't want to write this book. I can quit at any point and write another book. Three years ago, I tried to explain this process in a blog post:

When I start a book, I am a rabbit staring at several rabbit holes ... I dive into one rabbit hole. I go right in. Go as far as I can go. Write a few chapters. Do I want to write some more? Oh, that is an interesting thing. Shall I explore that? I keep going until I don't want to keep going. If I don't want to keep going, I climb out of the rabbit hole and dive into the next one.

And if I don't like that rabbit hole I climb into another one.

I keep doing this until I find the book I want to write. Then I write it.

This draft usually has a fantastic first chapter, because when I start thinking about a book, my first lightbulb ideas are always about how the story begins, how the hero gets launched into his adventure. (Mark ye this: you will rewrite that damn first chapter more times than any other!)

But at this stage – though I might have written some great scenes that make it to the final draft – I don't really know my characters well enough! My middle sags like a Pilates-free tummy. And my ending is cursory and forgettable.

THE SECOND TIME I WRITE IT (and the third, and the fourth etc)

“Writing and rewriting are a constant search for what it is one is saying.”  JOHN UPDIKE


Once a draft is down, then it's time to rewrite the story once more. You might love your first draft. You might hate it. You've got to rewrite it, whether you think it's good or not. It's not ready, trust me. Once is not enough.

And often, twice is not enough. Or three times. You have to write it however many times it takes.

When your spirit is flagging, think of bad reviews on Amazon or elsewhere. It will be easier to rewrite than to endure bad reviews for the rest of your book's life.

I do try to write nice words at this point. My friend Jane McLoughlin (The Crowham Martyres, At Yellow Lake) jokingly calls this 'writing the long words' – you know, metaphors, fancy words and literary sounding stuff that someone in the far future might quote.

But Structure must come before waxing lyrical. You can polish your words, your sentences, until they  shine, but if all those gorgeous bits don't add up to a coherent whole you've been moving deck chairs while the ship is sinking.

Structure is another thing a wannabe author needs to get his head around. Story structure is almost The Magic Bullet to getting published. All the published authors I know, understand – at the minimum! –  what a beginning, a middle and an end has got to do to deliver a good story.

Read all the books on story structure you can find. James Scott Bell is a good first stop, Solutions for Novelists by Sol Stein. Screenwriting gurus make fantastic reading – read Into the Woods: How Stories Work and Why We Tell Them by John Yorke; read Story: Substance, Structure, Style and the Principles of Screenwriting by Robert McKee; Save the Cat by Blake Snyder. (They take potshots at each other! Yorke on McKee's ‘the negation of the negation’: 'I have yet to meet a writer who knows quite what he means.')

 I've read loads more, but these are the books that have sparked writing epiphanies for me.

The first thing you learn from these books is: it's not about you. It's about the reader.

The second thing you learn is: these gurus agree and disagree but every decision you make about your story should be about ... your story.

Not about whether you want to rant about the treatment of single mothers. Not about whether you want to describe a life-changing experience from your childhood. Not about whether you want to teach the reader a lesson about kindness. Not about whether you want to imagine a historical event in all its glorious detail.

It's. About. The. Story.

So for me, this stage ... it takes a lot of time. Sometimes (well, oftentimes) years. Congrats to all you guys who can do this in a few months. Me, I can't seem to juggle everything at the same time. I figure out what my hero wants, only to discover that this breaks the subplot with his best friend. I finally understand why a minor character behaves the way she does, but her story becomes so interesting it threatens to outshine the main story!

And so it goes. And it (I) have to keep going until I've worked out all the things important to my story. This means:

• Writing scenes that might not make the final cut
• Really, really, really getting to know my characters
• My hero comes to life (this involves hearing voices. I knew that I was on to a good thing when while writing Tall Story I heard a voice in my head say: 'So many armpits, so little deodorant!')
• All the threads of story are written down, whether they're going to be in the final draft or not
• I know my way to the ending

THE LAST TIME I WRITE MY NOVEL

“Your eloquence should be the servant of the ideas in your head. Your rule might be this: If a sentence, no matter how excellent, does not illuminate your subject in some new and useful way, scratch it out.” KURT VONNEGUT


I've just pressed 'SEND' on my next novel. My editor is reading it now. I think it's the final draft – I'm sure there will be comments, but I don't think I'll be completely rewriting scenes, or restructuring the novel, or changing the sex of a character, or anything major like that.

I think.

Writing this draft , the final one, involves:

• Writing the words that your reader will actually see
• Writing all those lovely 'long' words
• Getting to the emotional core of my characters, of my novel
• Creating an emotional experience for the reader
• Making sure everybody in the book is alive
• Really knowing what your book is about

This particular book was difficult because  historical/anthropological  details got in the way of my really understanding my story. So I did something I had never done with my previous books.

I took out all my favourite structure books. And then I spent a month working out how my story fitted into the structures advocated by each book.

It was hard work. What I was trying to do was ask every question I needed to ask about my characters and my story to get to the end. But how was I to know what questions to ask? I trawled my beloved books for clues.

When I came upon a pithy line like 'A character's facade is an outer manifestation of an inner conflict', I turned a critical eye on my characters' inner and outer manifestations. When I came upon a piece about Freud and Ego Defence Mechanisms and steps to how the immature becomes mature (intellectualisation, repression, regression, sublimation, rationalisation, isolation, projection, denial, displacement, reaction), I tried to work out how to apply this to my character arcs. When I read 'choices make character' in Robert McKee,  I reviewed the choices my characters made, and thought carefully about what these indicated about them

Here are just two examples – Into the Woods and Saving the Cat.

---

Reading Into the Woods again, I scribbled down how my story fitted into the outline Yorke discusses, in the process understanding the scenes I still have to write, for clarity, the set-ups that are missing from my story to strengthen and deepen the outcome.

1. 'Home is threatened.' How are my protagonist's ideas about his ordinary world threatened? Will my reader sympathise?

2. 'The Protagonist suffers from some kind of flaw.' What is my Protagonist lacking? Is it clear to the reader?

3. 'The Protagonist goes on a journey.' Do we feel the cause and effect of what comes to pass? Have I set up the impetus of this?

4. 'Exactly halfway through the story, the protagonist embraces for the first time the quality he or she will need to become complete' – what he needs to finish the story – sometimes it's a truth about himself.  They know what they need to do ... but do they do it?

5. 'On the journey back' the characters face consequences. Everything gets worse. The hopes and dreams at the beginning are all betrayed or crushed.

6. The characters face 'a literal or metaphorical death'.  This is an overwhelming moment, a time to write like you're a lead guitarist playing a riff. This is the part of your story that fans will be desperate to talk about and yet have to bite their tongues so as to avoid revealing spoilers.

7. The hero is 'reborn as a new person', 'in full possession of the cure', 'home is saved'. How does it end? What is 'home'? How is it saved?

---

Blake Snyder prescribes a 'Beat Sheet' in Saving the Cat. You can visit this website to read the Beat Sheets of various movies. But here are the steps:

1. Opening Image. This must set the tone, style and mood.

2. State the Theme. What is your story about? The main character usually doesn't get it so why not get a secondary character to ask the question that states the theme. (eg. Identity: Who am I? )

3. Set Up – Snyder calls this 'the six things that need fixing' – I actually made a list! Then I checked to make sure that my set ups were in place

4. Catalyst. Something happens that sets the story in motion.

5. Debate. For clarity's sake, it's good to have the characters discuss options. What are my choices? What do I do? Should I go? Should I stay?

6. Break into Two (the 'two' being the second act). A moment of decision when the hero walks through a door of no return.

7. The B Story. Snyder calls this the 'Breather' or the 'Booster Rocket', a subplot, sometimes/often the romantic story line.

8. Fun and Games, 'the Promise of the Premise'. Snyder says these are the moments that usually appear in the movie trailer! The scenes where buddies clash, where we think, yeah, this is why I'm watching/reading this, cool stuff.

9. Midpoint. By now the stakes are raised. The hero knows he's got a problem. But can he fix it? His view of the world changes.

10. Bad Guys Close In. Or one could also say, this is the time when the good guys lose it.

11. All is Lost. The old way of thinking dies. There's a whiff of death. Note to self: is my character suffering enough, as in, MORE than the suffering he's endured before? It's gotta be bad.

12. Dark Night of the Soul. What is the worst thing that could happen to your hero?

13. Break into Three (as in the third act). Another door of no return, a moment that leads inexorably to your ending. But what is it?

14. Finale + a Final Image that mirrors your first image.

---

“Reread, rewrite, reread, rewrite. If it still doesn’t work, throw it away. It’s a nice feeling, and you don’t want to be cluttered with the corpses of poems and stories which have everything in them except the life they need.” HELEN DUNMORE


Of course I still don't know if the draft I have just sent to my editor is any good.

Someone on Facebook told me, 'My editor says she'll tell me if it's my final draft.'

I will let you know.

P.S. 8 May 2014 - Just read this piece by Jess Lourey on Classic Story Structures, if you're looking to understand story structure more,  go read it!

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Candy Gourlay is the author of Tall Story and Shine. If you liked this, you might like Candy's post The Final Draft: Looking for Satisfactions. Visit her website www.candygourlay.com

How to Eliminate Your Writer's Tics by Kathryn Evans

Kathryn Evans, tics? You betcha.

So...You have a writer's tic?
So...have I.

And they are HORRIBLY, HIDEOUSLY noticeable when I am editing...and editing...and editing.

Of course some tics are not tics, they are your writing style, or "voice" if you like. A "tic" becomes a "tic" when it happens waaaaaay too often - so much so that it looks like you are  having a laugh at your own expense.  I'm pretty sure you've spotted at least two of mine in this short introduction.

Starting sentences with So..And... But...
And these........
I also do love to use "-" instead of ",".

Diary Of A Slushpiler: In Which I Discover Amazing Plot Twist

By Jo Wyton



The day begins with wake up call number one as the cat's wet nose finds its way onto my face. Cat is shoved gracelessly to the floor. An hour later, wake up call number two provides a familiar feeling of disorientation brought on by a dream in which I finally figured out my much-needed Amazing Plot Twist. Sense of almost being able to recollect it shattered by piercing cry from the nursery as Baby telepathically realises I'm thinking about something other than honing Excellent Parenting Skills.

At eight thirty, I realise I am running late. I am due in London to meet disturbingly talented writing pals and haven't so much as entertained the notion of a shower for three days. Shove hair into ponytail in hope of fooling all of London into thinking I'm making an excellent fashion statement instead of hiding the butternut squash and pea purée lovingly mangled in by overly excited Baby last night whilst I was paying too much attention to Eastenders.

Exposition: it's about emotion not information

By Candy Gourlay

Have you written The End yet?

Nooooooo I haven't!

Despite recent pronouncements that The End is nigh, I'm still plodding along. I can see it coming, but right now, what's on my mind is EXPOSITION.

See, this book I'm writing, it's got a historical element (meaning, it's context is a real time and place). Also an anthropological element (meaning, it is set amongst a real people who didn't write down their history).

It's a tricky book to write because there's a lot of explaining to do. Nothing about the history or the characters will be easy peasy for most readers. The onus is on me to explain what it's all about. Exposition. But how do I do that without boring people?

Breaking Bad for Children's Writers

By Candy Gourlay

So today is supposed to be Teri Terry's turn at the blog but she's, like, having her nails done (see left), buying new teddy bears and appearing in the Edinburgh Festival, as you do when you're a bestselling young adult author. She asked the rest of the Slushpile team if anyone wanted to blog in her place. Of course I immediately wanted to. But, I told Teri, I knew I  really shouldn't because I was supposed to be finishing my book. So we agreed to see what happened when the week rolled round.

Sigh. Here I am. She who never knowingly does not procrastinate.

But enough about me.

Last Spring, my husband and I binged on all five seasons of the super excellent TV series Breaking Bad. It was created by American writer Vince Gilligan, who also wrote 30 episodes of the hit series of my teenagerhood The X Files, back in the 1980s.

If you haven't watched BBad and still hope to do so, then sadly for me you ought to click away from the Slushpile now. Come back when you've watched all five seasons. BBad is really good. I don't want to spoil it for ya.




'Breaking bad' basically means going bad ... which is the show's premise. Walter White, a mild-mannered-verging-on-dull Chemistry teacher discovers he's got terminal cancer and — with the help of his reluctant, foul-mouthed, failure of a former student, Jessie — uses his chemistry super powers to become a crystal meth cook.

If like me, you spend all your waking hours reading books about character arc, the premise is clear: this goodie is going to become a baddie to end all baddies.

How the series writers achieve this, how they make us love their vile characters, how they make us hunger for the next episode, is the joy of watching all five series in a compressed period of time.

Now writing a TV series is not the all-by-your-lonesome experience we children's writers have to endure. On series like Breaking Bad there are scores of writers who do all the tough work together. They brainstorm. They work out the plot. They leave no plot hole unfilled. They must have a lot of fun (she says enviously).

Back in 2013, just before the series screened its wham bang finale, the Guardian did us all the favour of publishing an excerpt from Difficult Men: From the Sopranos and The Wire to Mad Men and Breaking Bad — the part where the writing team spend an entire day working out the details of a banal plot point.

Nearly every discussion in every writers' room, Gilligan explained, boils down to one of two questions: "Where's a character's head at?" and "What happens next?" Ideas v action. Text v subtext. This, as it happened, was a "What happens next?" day.

I do a lot of 'Where's a character's head at?' and 'What happens next?' days too. But being a solo act surely couldn't possibly match the creative ability of the team of brains behind BBad.

On the wall behind Gilligan was a large corkboard. Across the top were pinned 13 index cards representing the 13 episodes of the season. In rows beneath them, more neatly printed cards ... contained detailed story points. The cards looked like a pile of leaves that had faced a stiff, left-blowing wind, clustered deep under the early episodes but gradually thinning as the as-yet-unwritten season progressed. Under 413, the final episode of the season, there was only one single, fluttering card. It read in bold, matter-of-fact Magic Marker ink, "BOOM."

When the watching was over, I was so bereft, I went off and binged on the BBad spin off,  Better Call Saul, which basically features all the loveable baddies from BBad before they broke bad. The agent Donald Maas,  in Writing the Breakout Novel, noted:

Delight your readers with your own brand of story, then continue to delight them in a similar way (only better) on a regular basis. That is the way to build an audience. It is the only way to become a brand name author.

Basically: familiarity breeds, not contempt, but success.

Better Call Saul was a different story from BBad. But it was fascinating how it snagged the loyal BBad fan in me with carefully crafted grappling hooks. It was unmistakeably a product of the same stable. It's a lesson on continuing success for any writer who has published a first successful story. (Thinking critically of course one wonders whether it will expand BBad's devoted audience or cater to the already converted? But that's a discussion for another blog post).



I watched both series with my notebook in hand, trying to pick up some writing ideas. Here's a list of the top five plotty things that caught my attention:

1. EPISODES OPEN WITH CLOSE UPS OF OBJECTS DAMAGED BY THE CHARACTERS

Broken objects as framing device. In a hospital men's room, we see a dented hand dryer. Walt is going to punch it later in the movie. But it is revealed to us before any of the action takes place. In Better Call Saul, an episode opens with a crumpled dustbin. Later, we are shown how Saul kicked it in frustration.

Note to self: how could I do this in a book?  In the medium of words, framing a chapter with such a foretelling, that object will have to be super distinctive.

2. IN BOTH BBAD AND BCS, THERE ARE KEY CHARACTERS WHO KNOW EXACTLY WHAT'S GOING ON

Walter White spends all five seasons of Breaking Bad trying to hide his nefarious activities from his wife, Skyler. But somehow, Skyler always seems to know what's really going on.  It makes Skyler a wonderful character. She is innocent. But once she knows, she is culpable. In BCS, Saul is presented as a small time con-man devoted to his accomplished big brother, Chuck, who is Mr Righteous. Chuck, like Skyler, can see through Saul's every lie. His bitter flaw is that he cannot bear his kind, con-man brother to be successful.

Note to self: It's almost a super power, isn't it? The ability to see through the subterfuge of the hero. What a fun secondary character that would be. And what about if that character were the baddie? Woah!

3. THE ONE SIDED DIALOGUE

This is dialogue in which only one character actually talks. Making plans, dreaming dreams, explaining stuff. The other character just listens. And in the face of the listener, we can see the frailty of the talking character. There is nowhere to hide. Many times in the five seasons, Walter White patiently explained to another character some devious plot or some plausible explanation to cover up a lie. And in the dead eyes of the listening character we could clearly see that a deception has not passed unnoticed. Who held the cards now?

Note to self: what a clever way to do exposition! So often, there is a need to explain that something has happened or to make sure the reader understands some important point. You see this poorly rendered in many books when two characters converse just to reveal expository points: "Superman cannot be near kryptonite ." "The alien mineral? The one that has the power to deprive him of all his powers?" The one sided dialogue on the other hand generates such an emotional charge that your reader absorbs information but is too busy feeling for the characters to notice. Expository sleight of hand. Cool!

4. THE BLIND SPOT

One of my favourite characters was Hank Schrader, an agent of the DEA (Drug Enforcement Administration) and brother-in-law to chemistry teacher-turned-meth-cook Walter White. Hank spent Breaking Bad's five seasons hunting down meth kingpin Heisenberg, Walter's handle in the drug world. But he never, never, EVER suspected his mousy brother-in-law and even enlisted Walter's help in chasing down leads. Blind spot.

Note to self: a character's blind spot creates a cat and mouse, will-he-won't he? tension. It's just delicious, like that moment in a horror b-movie when you're shouting, 'Behind you! THE MONSTER IS RIGHT BEHIND YOU!' And the characters blithely continue on. How do I plot something like this into my story? How do I make my reader sweat?

5. THE MONTAGE

Time passes. Things happen. BBad tried very hard to follow thriller writer Elmore Leonard's advice: ‘Don’t write the parts that people skip.’  (I did mention this in my last blog post, it's good advice)

The movie montage has to be the tried and true method of getting quickly through a massive bit of exposition. There are plenty in the five seasons of BBad — notably the murder montage, when Walter hires hitmen to simultaneously (and gruesomely) murder targets in several jails; and various meth-making montages — Walter and Jessie learning to work together, Walter working with a new partner in a new lab, and in one climactic episode, Jessie manufacturing meth in chains.

Note to self: Montages are not a bad way to get from one plot point to another. But they can be done very, VERY badly. Just remember that they're like guitar riffs. They've got to be the sort of thing that makes your reader, sit up, take notice, burst into applause. Because you're doing so much in such a short time, your montage have got to be better than 'And then and then and then', you've got to show off a bit, make the scene sing.

ooOoo

That's all I've got time for now. If you haven't seen Breaking Bad or Better Call Saul, I hope this has persuaded you to do so. Even if it's not the kind of show you like to watch, I can guarantee you'll learn something from the series.

It's such a struggle, enjoying movies and TV when your brain is hardwired to pay attention to plot and character technique. That's what I loved most about BBad: I was so absorbed I completely forgot to think about writing. I had to watch it again to take notes.

Till next time.

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Candy Gourlay is the author of Tall Story and Shine, books that have been nominated for prizes like the Carnegie, the Guardian Children's Fiction prize, the Blue Peter and the Waterstone's Book Award. Read her last post on Notes from the Slushpile: Getting to the End

Notes on How to Write Action

By Candy Gourlay

Greetings from the writing cave as I plod my way to a May deadline. Before we begin, may I just say this: AAAAAAARGH!

That's better.

So how do you feel about writing action? Not just the fun action like battles and fight scenes a la Jackie Chan  but all the movement that happens in a story. Characters DOING things. Getting from one place to another. Or when a character is building something, like a rocket or a time machine. Or when your character is living out his dull life and time is passing so that you can get to the part where story kicks in.

As I soldier on with my current work in progress, I constantly ask myself, why am I writing it this way? Is there a better way to get my character from A to B?

What We Authors Can Learn from Jackie Chan

By Candy Gourlay

One lazy evening, while googling Jackie Chan fight scenes (as one does), I found myself watching this video by Tony Zhou (of the Every Frame a Painting YouTube channel):



In his video, Tony points out that Hong Kong director and action hero Jackie Chan blends comedy and action in a way that Western directors do not. The film lists ways by which Jackie Chan manages to create action with a comic twist.

As I listened to Tony's pointers and watched Jackie Chan twirling gracefully through fight scene after fight scene, I found myself having little epiphanies - not about action comedy, but about writing.

Revising a Novel Has Nothing to Do With Courage

By Candy Gourlay

Last week I made this poster for guest blogger Emma Greenwood’s post Keep Calm It’s Only Novel Panic.

Marcus Sedgwick and the Giant Killer Cats

by Addy Farmer

Marcus in workshop mode

Alongside a 16 year career in publishing Marcus Sedgwick established himself as a widely-admired writer of YA fiction; he is the winner of many prizes, most notably the Branford-Boase Award for a debut novel Floodland, and the Booktrust Teenage Prize for My Swordhand is Singing. His books have been shortlisted for over thirty other awards, including the Carnegie Medal (four times), the Edgar Allan Poe Award (twice) and the Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize (four times). His latest title in the UK is Midwinterblood.

Incompetence - The Series. Episode Four - Me Competent? Really? WOW! Yay! Maybe.

by Maureen Lynas
NE Regional Advisor SCBWI

Previously on Incompetence - The Series:

Episode One- Unconscious Incompetence

Our very excited Lesser-spotted Red-faced Authors have hatched from their egg of unconscious incompetence and discovered a world in which -

they don't know what they don't know.

Please Note : If you've just read the first episode and found no reference to the Lesser-spotted Red-faced Author blame my incompetence and lack of imagination at the time.

Episode Two - Conscious Incompetence

The fledgling authors discover just how enormous their incompetence is and

they know what it is that they don't know.

Such a lot to learn!

Such small heads!

Episode Three - Happy New Conscious Competence!

They know what they know and don’t they know it! Yippee!

And now for the final episode-

Episode Four - Unconscious Competence. Me? Competent? Am I? Wow! Really?

Meet Flapper. She’s been published!

She’s flown to the land of the Greater-spotted Authors with her book in her beak, and now she wants to know -

Is she a Greater-spotted Author yet and – drum roll for big question – have the flock of Greater-spotted Authors actually achieved Stage four – unconscious competence. Do they instinctively use and apply their knowledge? Because she’s not certain she’s there yet, even though the book is out and the reviews are egg-crackingly excellent.

Does she get an answer? She does. Yes. Then she gets another and another and another until she’s reeling with the confusion of it all.

Then Clever Cluck comes forward to help with some questions of her own.

‘Can an author ever be unconsciously competent when every book is different? What type of author stands the biggest chance of being unconsciously competent? Do you have to be unconsciously competent in everything to write a good book? Was Margaret Mitchell at stage four when she wrote Gone With the Wind?’

One quick tweet and Flapper had an answer, Yahoo!

'According to Contemporary Authors, Mitchell worked steadily on Gone with the Wind from 1926 to 1934, with brief periods of "discouragement" in 1927 and 1934. In April of 1935 she gave the manuscript to Macmillan editor, Harold Latham to read and he sent her a telegram saying that her novel had great potential. It was published in 1936.'

Ten years, thinks Flapper. That doesn’t sound very unconsciously competent at all. I think she was wide awake and full of consciousness. In fact, I suspect much crossing out and redrafting.

‘Then of course there’s Harper Lee?’ says Clever Cluck.

More tweeters join in and Wikipedia’s first to answer.

'Having written several long stories, Harper Lee located an agent in November 1956. The following month at the East 50th townhouse of her friends Michael Brown and Joy Williams Brown, she received a gift of a year's wages from them with a note: "You have one year off from your job to write whatever you please. Merry Christmas." She quit her job and devoted herself to her craft. Within a year, she had a first draft. Working with J. B. Lippincott & Co. editor Tay Hohoff, she completed To Kill a Mockingbird in the summer of 1959. Published July 11, 1960.'

‘So, only four years,’ says Flapper. ‘Maybe there was a bit more competence, or maybe it was a shorter book?’

‘Have you considered some slightly more prolific authors,’ asks Clever Cluck. ‘How about Austin?’

More mad tweeting and Wikipedia is first again with his answer.

‘Jane Austin’s artistic apprenticeship lasted from her teenage years until she was about 35 years old. During this period, she experimented with various literary forms, including the epistolary novel which she tried then abandoned, and wrote and extensively revised three major novels and began a fourth. From 1811 until 1816, with the release of Sense and Sensibility (1811), Pride and Prejudice (1813), Mansfield Park (1814) and Emma (1816), she achieved success as a published writer. She wrote two additional novels, Northanger Abbey and Persuasion, both published posthumously in 1818, and began a third, which was eventually titled Sanditon.'

‘Now!’ Our Flapper is flapping! ‘There’s someone I can relate to! There’s someone who’s been through the stages of learning how to write.’

‘But,’ interrupts Clever Cluck, who’s warming to the theme now. ‘Did the books become more interesting, more engaging, have stronger characters, more complex plots, as she became more experienced? Or did Austen display a tendency towards prolific genre writing.’

‘Aha! Prolific genre writing!’ Flapper feels that she’s getting nearer some sort of answer and her feathers are fluffed. ‘Maybe this is where authors genuinely demonstrate their unconscious competence. What about Agatha Christie? How productive was she!’ This last bit was said as a statement rather than a question.

The whole flock of Greater-spotted Authors is tweeting madly now, Flapper’s still flapping and Clever Cluck's clucking.

And good old Wiki answers with – ‘Agatha Christie wrote 79 novels: 72 under her name, 1 under her second husband's last name and 6 under the name Mary Westmacott.’

Then Jeeves interrupts with a tweet of his own – ‘Christie has written over two billion books worldwide and has been translated into over 45 languages.’

Now that is impressive! thinks Flapper. She must have been unconscious at some point!

Wikipedia’s full of himself as he announces, ‘Barbara Cartland is Queen of the Unconscious Authors! Seven hundred and twenty three books! Her first works seem to have been very different to the books that most readers are familiar with. Cartland published her first novel, Jigsaw in 1923, a risqué society thriller that became a bestseller. She also began writing and producing somewhat racy plays, one of which, Blood Money (1926), was banned by the Lord Chamberlain's Office. But she soon settled down and started to produce novels that proved to be exactly what a lot of people wanted to read,' he added.

‘So, little Flapper,’ says Clever Cluck. ‘What is it these authors have become so adept at? What part of writing have they embedded in their subconscious so that they can write all of these books?’

At that moment (this is turning into a story!) a Masked Agent flew down and landed on a nearby, very conveniently placed, branch.

‘I have the answer,’ he said wisely. ‘These particular authors are unconsciously competent at the following -

They devise characters that can go from book to book.

Agatha Christie’s Poirot and Inspector Japp.

Ian Fleming’s James Bond and M.

Alexander McCall Smith’s Precious Ramotswe and Mma Makutsi.

Or

They use archetypes repeatedly.

Barabara Cartland’s brave and feisty heroine who never the less will require rescuing by the rugged, fearless, yet sensitive, hero.

They keep the structure the same.

Bond - the Hero’s Journey.

Poirot – a murder must be solved, there’ll be clues, red herrings, then a revelation.

Precious Ramotswe – a mystery must be solved, there’ll be clues, red herrings, then a revelation.

Cartland – Woman meets man A and doesn’t like him. Woman meets man B and likes him. Woman realises man B is bad news and man A is the one and only love of her life.

The premise is constant.

Bond – The world is under threat from a supremely nasty villain and Bond must save humanity.

Poirot – Someone (sometimes lots of someones) is murdered and Poirot will find out who did it.

Precious Ramotswe – Someone commits a crime and Precious will make sure they come to justice.

Cartland – Girl falls in love with the right boy.

The voice is consistent.

The author understands how to write, how to use the right tone, relevant motifs, and appropriate dialogue for time, setting and character.

The wise one nods wisely and falls asleep, leaving the flock to wonder – which one am I? And what’s left for my conscious mind to do?

And Flapper is still left with a question -

Am I going to be an author who strives to re-invent the wheel with every book, constantly battling away at my incompetence or am I going to take what I am currently unconsciously competent at and work with it? Where am I on the incompetence ladder?

And the even BIGGER question is - How incompetent are YOU!

Note from the author - I currently consider myself to be extremely consciously incompetent at maths, consciously competent at the aspects of writing that I know about, and I have no idea how much I am unconsciously incompetent at because I try not to think about it.

With thanks to Abraham Maslow for the Fours Stages of Learning.