Do not interrupt.

By Candy Gourlay

One of the notices I have on the wall above my laptop says:

DO NOT INTERRUPT!

It's not a message aimed at the writer's usual domestic distractors – pets, spouses, children, chores – but at myself.

Because the truth is, it is not the outside world but my own weak will that is the greatest barrier to good wordage.

I am not even talking about the internet, Facebook and obsessive inbox checking.

I am talking about interrupting story. My own story.

Something is happening in the story. It's compelling, exciting. The reader is transfixed. As the something happens, a character is triggered to remember something else. The Something Else is relevant to the something actually happening on stage. The Something Else explains stuff about the main something. Sometimes the Something Else triggers another something else that triggers yet another something else.

Only when all is explained does the story circle back to deliver the pay-off promised by the first something.

By that time, the reader's mind has already wandered to whether or not to put another load in the washing machine.

We novel writers do this self interrupting all the time in our first drafts, when we are still trying to figure out our stories. The interruptions are us explaining our stories to ourselves. But this sort of jumping around has no place in the final draft.

Go on, re-read the first chapter of your manuscript. Are you cutting away to explain tiny bits of background? Then you have work to do.

The screenwriting guru Robert McKee defines story structure thus:

STRUCTURE is a selection of events from the characters' life stories that is composed into a strategic sequence to arouse specific emotions and to express a specific view of life.

Admittedly, the first time I read that dense sentence – which was before I'd ever written a novel –  it compelled me to go and put another load into the washing machine.

I only appreciated McKee's meaning after I had experienced the labyrinthine problem-solving involved in novel writing.

"SELECTION OF EVENTS"

... meaning, don't include events that only serve to bore your reader.

My favourite explanation of this comes from Kathleen Duey, author of the astonishing Resurrection of Magic books. Duey says writing a scene is like shining a spotlight on a stage. The world of you story is all there, on the platform, but you, the author, chooses what the reader should know, at every single moment.

So interrupting your story is akin to the spotlight going dark on the hero and an extra four or five spotlights suddenly picking out actors on different parts of the stage, performing scenes from different parts of the story.

It is harder to avoid this than it sounds. When I was beginning to write novels, I was constantly trying to explain background, afraid that the lack of information will drive the reader away. It took nerve to accept that it is this lack that keeps the reader reading.

Says the author Pat Conroy (Prince of Tides): '... I want a book so filled with story and character that I read page after page without thinking of food or drink because a writer has possessed me, crazed me with an unappeasable thirst to know what happens next.'

But we can't help being driven to explain our story – in big, clumpy info-dumps and in tiny darting asides. The craft of writing a novel that can possess a reader, that can create that thirst to know what happens next is to know when and how to reveal this information.

"STRATEGIC SEQUENCE TO AROUSE SPECIFIC EMOTIONS"

Have you ever verbally told a story to a friends, then realised it would get a better reaction if you set it up a little bit better, and interrupted yourself saying, 'Oh wait, before I tell you that, I have to tell you this!'

This is why we interrupt ourselves.

We realise that the story would be better told – nay, better experienced by the audience – by laying more groundwork.

This is what we are doing when we interrupt a scene to cut away to some information.

But unlike a story told in conversation, we novelists don't have to interrupt ourselves. We have time to take that nugget out and put it where it belongs.

When critiquing opening chapters and I suggest to a fellow writer that cut-away information should be separated out and written up properly as a scene, the suggestion is often met with resistance.

The most common reason to resist is that the opening chapter is an explosion – it has been written specifically to hook the reader. The writer is only following advice to be found in countless places on the internet and in writing books. So if they insert a set up chapter before their exploding chapter, wouldn't they be missing the chance to hook the reader?

I think this misunderstands the idea behind hooking a reader.

What hooks the reader? Emotion.

An explosion can do it, causing fear, excitement, the desire to find out why ... but re-read your work carefully. Explosions can be humdrum too. Like the ones that come at the end of every superhero movie, the ones that you don't have to watch because you've seen it before.

So hooking the reader is about strategy. About finding the emotion that will keep him turning the pages. Sometimes, that emotion can be had without an explosion.

INTERRUPTING EMOTION

The first time you write your novel,your only strategy is getting to The End.

But once you've got it down, and you have time to examine the scenes you chose to lay down on paper, your strategy should shift from satisfying your own need to tell the story to mapping your reader's emotional experience of your book.

Revising with our reader's emotional arc in mind is a good way to weed out those tiny interruptions that we all seed into our chapters.

I wrote about it in detail back in 2016: Exposition: it's about emotion not information – in which I quote film editor Tony Zhou:

"Emotions take time ... Editors have to decide how much time to give an emotion."

Actually, Tony was talking about character emotions. But when you're revising your manuscript and strategising about how much time to give a scene on stage, spare a thought for the reader.

If you keep cutting away to fill in information, you are dampening the emotional impact of your scene.

And no, don't just cut it out. You put it in because you knew it was necessary. Now you need to craft a place for it in your narrative. This is not a nuisance but an opportunity to deepen and enrich your story.

Good luck.

---

Candy will be joining Lisa Williamson (The Art of Being Normal) and her editor Bella Pearson in a discussion of Writing Other Lives on 3 July 2018. Book your place here. Candy's third novel Bone Talk will be published in August. Find out more.

Editing Your Novel - Five Steps to Add Texture and Depth by Kathryn Evans

I'm still learning how to edit but I've nailed one thing. If you feel like your story isn't right, it probably isn't. You absolutely 100% can not skimp on editing.

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?

Getting to The End

By Candy Gourlay

Greetings from the Philippines where I am currently sitting on the verandah of a grass hut staring at this:



And wondering idly if now is the time to enjoy this:



These past months have been SO hectic what with trying to finish my manuscript while getting through a packed schedule of speaking engagements. I’ve been a very, very bad blogger. I missed my turn on the Slushpile rota last month and I didn’t even realise it until a day later!

My Slushpile colleagues have been very forgiving. After all, here on the Slushpile, we are authors first, bloggers second. I am on the home stretch of my next novel. ‘Home stretch’, you must note, does not necessarily mean I’ve almost finished.

 It means: The End is in sight.

It means: so near and yet so far.

In the author’s roller coaster quest to write a book, I am at a kind of final reckoning. You see, I have written my story several times already, explored many versions of the narrative. But this is my final draft. This is the story that my reader is actually going to read.

In this final drive to The End, I am no longer searching for my voice or bringing my character to life or figuring out plot. This final quest is not a pursuit of a story but for The Book itself.

PROPOSITION VS OUTCOME

In a screenwriting lecture, playwright David Hare said:

It’s only the great films that move towards the end so the incredibly simple rule of writing a screenplay is always to end-load it, always to write something where the outcome is more important than the proposition. All Hollywood is interested in is propositions.

The idea of Proposition vs Outcome resonates at a time when finding the Hook that will get you published has become a kind of Holy Grail for fellow authors who have yet to be discovered. For the past few years, there has been a glut of events catering to the wannabee author focusing on hook and proposition. How do you catch the eye of a publisher? How do you write a first page that will keep an agent reading? How do you come up with a Big Idea so compelling that editors clamor to publish your book?

In his lecture, Hare described how a film based on a proposition degenerates as it proceeds: ‘The first 30 minutes you are having a completely wonderful time and going, “Oh this is absolutely marvelous”’ – only to find that vitality dissipating as the film proceeds as the idea is exhausted.

I’ve been experiencing this a lot recently. Picking up a book with a compelling cover and blurb, thinking ‘What an amazing idea! I’ve got to know what happens in the story!’ only to find myself disappointed as the story thins in the telling.

I’ve picked up a book with a compelling cover and blurb only to find myself disappointed as the story thins in the telling.

With screws tightening more stringently than ever before, the publishing scene is now driven not just by editors but by accountants and marketing departments. In this scenario, a good Proposition or Hook equals a Publication Deal equals Sales equals Success.

But will your book actually get read? Do you care if it does or doesn’t?

In this sense, The End is also The Outcome.

“I avoid and never accept any movie that is a proposition.’ Hare said in his lecture. ‘I am only interested in what I call outcome movies.’ He described an outcome movie as one that gave you no reason to panic because you were confident that the outcome would be profoundly satisfying.

AM I WRITING A BOOK THAT IS ‘PROFOUNDLY SATISFYING’?

This is the question that has been keeping me up late at night, the question that
hangs over my head, like the sword of Damocles, as I write everyday.

It is not about writing to impress my way into getting published anymore. It’s about adding to my body of work as an author. It’s about installing another building block to my career. It’s about writing the book someone might fall in love with.

Ultimately though: it’s about the story.

Have I told it to the best of my ability? Have I learned what I needed to learn as a writer to give it a good chance of being read?

I have often quoted Neil Gaiman quoting his friend Gene Wolfe: ‘You never learn to write. You only learn to write the novel you're on.’ Have I learned to write this book?

The truth is, I’ve written three novels to which the answer to the profoundly satisfying question is ‘No’. No, publishers saw no spark in them. No, they weren’t written well enough. No, they weren’t ready for the reader. These sit quietly in my desk drawer, waiting for the day when I decide to take them out and reimagine them. Their time will come. But what about this novel? Have I served it well?

CHECKLIST

We like lists here on Notes from the Slushpile. It’s always helpful to have action points and tips and checklists. So here is a list of thoughts for any author who, like me, is on a quest for The End.


1. Inciting Event vs Crisis 
(If you don’t know what an inciting event or a crisis is then skip this blog post and read a few books on narrative structure.)
It’s been three years since I began writing this book full time (It's been five since i sketched out some trial chapters and a synopsis). Three years since I first penned the inciting event that launched my characters into their adventure. As I take my characters to crisis for the very last draft, it’s a good time to revisit the Inciting Event, that moment when my character first walked through the fictive door of no return. Because writing a book takes years (well, for me), it is so easy to forget the triggers that sent your hero on his journey. It’s so easy to get lost down wormholes and distractions. Now is the time to look at your story with eyes that see. And if you see something that doesn’t work? Well. You gotta fix it.

2. Have I said what I wanted to say? 
Andrew Stanton, the writer/director of many great Pixar films, said: “You should have something to say in a story”.

When I was a child in the Philippines, my teachers taught me that every story had to have a moral lesson. Interestingly, I still get ‘fan mail’ from children in the Philippines asking me, ‘What is the moral lesson of your story?’ So perhaps Filipino teachers are still asking the same questions.

Be that as it may, as authors, ‘having something to say’ lies at the heart of our storytelling. In Into the Woods, John Yorke explains:

That doesn’t always mean a message. It means truth, some value that you yourself as a storyteller believe in, and then through the course of the story are able to debate that truth. Try to prove it wrong. Test it to its limits.

The hope of course is that one has said what one wants to say with subtlety. So the drive to The End is a good time to check if you’ve been beating your reader on the head with the stick of your conviction.

3. Unexpected themes you had not originally meant to explore. 
One of the magical experiences of writing a novel is the unintentional emergence of themes. You may have decided on an overarching theme, but somehow as the story comes to life and your characters find their feet, baby themes emerge and evolve. Now is the time to pay attention to them. What are they? Did I miss them? Did I build on them? Did I neglect them?

Discovering a particularly resonant theme can mean a lot of extra work. My current work unexpectedly developed an underlying theme surrounding friendship that grew and grew to such an extent that I realised I should downgrade my previous main theme and rebuild my narrative with the friendship theme at its core. Yes. It meant an extra month of writing. But if I’m seeking Profoundly Satisfying then I have to do the work, right?

Here’s Yorke again, in a discussion of giving shape to a story:

'It is only through fiction that facts can be made instructive or even intelligible,’ said George Bernard Shaw. ‘[The] artist-poet-philosopher rescues them from the unintelligible chaos of their actual occurrence and arranges them in works of art.’ The facts change to fit the shape, hoping to capture a greater truth than the randomness of reality can provide.

4. Writing for meaning, cutting for pace. 
Many times, attending critique groups, I have found myself suggesting that an author write more – more scenes that reveal the character of the hero, more writing to clarify a scene, more dialogue to establish a character’s voice, more writing to pay out a scene, heighten the drama, unfold the reveal. The person receiving the critique inevitably protests: ‘But I thought I was writing too much! I actually cut that scene down! The word count is already way over!’

In the drive for Profoundly Satisfying, there is no editing for word count, there is only editing for meaning. And if that means you have to write more, then so be it.

But what if I’m OVER writing, cries the panicked author. Then do as the thriller writer Elmore Leonard says: ‘Don’t write the parts that people skip.’

At this stage, the story is already laid out before you, it’s the magic carpet ride you are about to offer readers. Your job is to make sure you enhance and retain the magic.

The beginning novelist will stress about whether the publisher/agent/editor will reject their story because the word count was over. She is focusing on the wrong thing. Publishers/agents/editors reject on the basis of story. So write for meaning, cut for pace. Word count? Pah! Word count is not story!

5. Looking for Joy.
The long journey to The End can be a dispiriting one. There is so much that can eat into your confidence. The rejection of new projects you are pitching. Unkind reviews of your existing work. Exhausting day jobs. Real life. Unsupportive friends and family. It is not uncommon for these knock-backs to creep into your storytelling.

So while flying towards The End, watch out for those little tell tale dips. In Write Your Novel from the Middle, James Scott Bell devotes a whole list to tips for getting joy into your writing. He recalls a Writer’s Digest column by Lawrence Block on why Stephen King has been such a successful author:

When you read Stephen King, you feel like you’re reading an author who loves writing, loves making up tales to creep us out, enjoys the very act of setting words down on paper. Because when you’re joyful in the writing, the writing is fresher and fuller. Fuller of what? Of you. And that translates to the page and becomes that thing called Voice.

END OF A JOURNEY

Writing about story structure, Yorke (can you tell that I’ve been reading Into the Woods a lot? It's so therapeutic) writes:

As protagonists journey towards completion, they learn to heal the duality in their nature, between inner and outer worlds, want and need, façade and flaw. 

My journey to writing this novel has certainly been that. I have fought and despaired and learned and grown.

Sitting here, on a Philippine island, watching the sea, away from the hustling and bustling of my daily life in London, I can see The End very clearly on the blue horizon. I just need to keep writing until I get there.

Gratuitous photo of 'black beach' (it's actually brown) where we're staying ... the volcanic island of Camiguin.

Candy Gourlay is the founding member of Notes from the Slushpile and the author of Shine and Tall Story. Her books have been listed for the Guardian Children's Prize, the Carnegie, the Waterstones, the Blue Peter and many other prizes. She loves babies, dogs, photography, gardening and drawing. She also blogs on CandyGourlay.com

On Being Edited by Maureen Lynas

I’m currently experiencing my first experience of being edited by an experienced editor (Agent Amber) and it has been an extremely interesting experience.

Note: Being edited is nothing like being critiqued.
Being edited has made my story
BIGGER, DEEPER, CLEARER, STRONGER AND FUNNIER. Thank you, Amber.

One big plus is that I now have insider knowledge on how publishers view school based stories. So I shall share one insight that had me hitting the research button.

The Ordinary World is About Context Not Setting

By Candy Gourlay

Delivering the eulogy at LJM's wake.
Photo: Amanda Navasero

I have been in the Philippines for the past couple of weeks. It was a research trip which coincided with the funeral of my first editor and mentor, Letty Jimenez Magsanoc. I was glad to arrive in time to deliver a eulogy.

I also wrote in the Philippine Daily Inquirer about her profound influence on my writing (I was one of the Inquirer's two reporters when it started as a weekly, then when it turned into a daily, I became a desk editor). When the article came out on Boxing Day, it amused me that though I haven't used my maiden name 'Quimpo' for 27 years, my former  Inquirer colleagues inserted it into my by-line: 'Candy Quimpo Gourlay'.

This visit brought me back to the world that I left behind since I became a writer of novels: a world of intense deadlines, cigarette smoke, clackety typewriters, too much coffee, and the everlasting hunt for a good angle.

The Inquirer newsroom pauses to remember LJM at a final remembrance service . I'm so glad I happened to be in the Philippines.

It occurred to me that in story terms, this was the Ordinary World that I left behind, the way Luke Skywalker left the moisture farm in Tatooine for adventure, Dorothy left behind black and white Kansas for technicolor Oz, and Harry Potter left behind the cupboard under the stairs for magical Hogwarts.

The Ordinary World is the first stage of the Hero's Journey, first articulated by Joseph Campbell in The Hero With a Thousand Faces, and later revised by Christopher Vogler, in a famous seven-page memo he wrote while working for Disney. The Ordinary World introduces the hero's world before he or she goes on an adventure.  

The hero's ordinary world is essential to the reader's understanding of the story because it provides the circumstances upon which the hero's adventure can be enjoyed and understood.

One of the reasons for my current trip to the Philippines is to visit the setting of my next novel --
an isolated community in the Cordillera mountains. I came thinking that the task at hand was to feel, to smell, to see, to make the place I'd set my novel in more believable.

The rice terraces of the Cordilleras at sunrise.

Walking through mountains carved into rice paddies. The tubes are to deliver water from mountain springs to the lower paddies.

But walking on the narrow trails surrounded by magnificent rice terraces, searching for the sacred trees that stand at the edges of old villages, speaking to people who LIVE the world, I discovered much more about my story than I bargained for.

JUST BECAUSE THE ORDINARY WORLD INVOLVES SETTING DOESN'T MEAN IT'S ABOUT GEOGRAPHY

The Ordinary World is often defined as setting ... the place where a character begins an adventure. But it would be a mistake to focus on it as a bit of geography or a bit of background information.

The Ordinary World is more than geography and backstory. The Ordinary World is context.

One cannot craft the hero's Ordinary World without knowing the fate that lies in store for your character. The tediousness of the desert planet Tatooine and the colourlessness of Kansas provide a sharp contrast to the vivid adventures that Luke Skywalker and Dorothy are about to experience. Without a feel for what these characters' lives were like before, the reader cannot appreciate the amazing change in their circumstances.

THE ORDINARY WORLD PLAYS TO THE ASPIRATIONS OF THE READER

The reader's own aspirations -- the need for adventure, the need for entertainment -- are what compel them to read on.

In The Incredibles, Mister Incredible wants to leave his dead end job. In Little Women, Jo March wants to become an author. In The Lightning Thief, Percy Jackson just wants his dad to notice him. In One Thousand and One Nights, Sheherazade tells stories just to survive.

Sheherezade tells stories to survive.

The Ordinary World grounds the reader. It is an opportunity for the reader to empathise or identify with the plight of the hero, seeing his or her own aspirations in the character's desires.

THE ORDINARY WORLD LAYS DOWN THE RULES FOR THE REST OF THE STORY 

The reader needs to know the rules of the world before the story can proceed. What the reader knows contributes to the thrill of the story's pay-off.

In The Hunger Games, the rules of the games are made clear from the very beginning. Armed with this knowledge, the reader experiences thrills and spills as Katniss Everdeen takes every opportunity to rebel against what is expected of her.

The Hunger Games is made delicious by the rules that
Katniss breaks.

It is important that the reader has clarity about the world he or she is reading about. The limitations a hero is subjected to -- eg., Superman loses his super powers when he is near Kryptonite -- create the frisson readers look for in a story.

THE ORDINARY WORLD MAKES A PROMISE THAT THE AUTHOR MUST KEEP

I recently watched a TV series that began in a most excellent fashion with amazing actors and deep characterisation.  It led me to expect a strong character-led drama. Imagine my disappointment when  the series suddenly became a complicated conspiracy-thriller.

Setting out the story's Ordinary World, the author is making a promise. This is going to be a romance. This is going to be a mystery. This is going to be an adventure story.

It is crucial that the promise is kept. If The Hunger Games turned into a comedy at the last minute, would you read on? If The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, having established its magical credentials, suddenly turned into a crime thriller, wouldn't you be a little bit disappointed?

ULTIMATELY, THE ORDINARY WORLD IS ABOUT CHARACTER

The Ordinary World isn't description. It isn't information. It isn't explanation.

What matters is how the Ordinary World defines your character before he or she sets off on an adventure.

Ultimately, the question we must ask ourselves is: am I merely explaining my character's ordinary world or is he living it?