Week Thirty-Six: Blogging A Novel Live

So Nanowrimo has finished for another year, and some people will have novels to edit, others will still be finishing, some may even have published their Nano novels already and be promoting them.

I am still finishing my Nanowrimo project, which is an ongoing thriller. Now about 10K words shy of the finishing line, plus edits and checks.

Hopefully that means it will be all ready for my agent to see in another week or so, since I'm the sort who sweeps assiduously behind me as I go along, making post-novel edits a fairly short and painless process. (Until editorial suggestions come in, that is!)

Meanwhile, I have also been doing something very new and a little scary.

DUNE, by Frank Herbert. A superb science fiction novel that was deeply influential on me as a young writer ... and also happens to feature tons of sand. Just like, ahem, Chapter One of my own first sci fi novel, THE CELL.

For the past six weeks, I have been 'blogging a novel'.

Basically, this means publishing one segment per week at roughly the same time. And because I only had just over two thousand words written when I started, it also means I've been writing it on the hoof and publishing straightaway.

An alarming prospect for a perfectionist like me!

You can find the blog here. The working title for this novel is, THE CELL. And it is clearly now a science fiction novel.

I wasn't sure at the outset if it would be science fiction. I knew it would be experimental in some way. But it's now clearly sci fi.

The first few thousand words of THE CELL are based on an uber-short story of the same name that I wrote for a 2012 Salt Publishing anthology called Stories To Read Aloud.

It's basically a character piece that I massively enjoyed writing, and I wanted to give that very rich character her own novel-length story. But I couldn't continue in the same vein for a whole novel, or didn't want to, as it was set in the world of a third century female Christian hermit living alone for years in the Egyptian desert!

The only way I could think of to turn her story into a likely commercial novel was to have a present-day character narrating alongside her with some link to the past. Slipstream, in other words. Maybe a researcher or a modern-day hermit of some kind. Which was an interesting idea, but not a story I felt compelled to tell. Hence not moving forward with that.

So five years down the line of turning this issue over in my head, I went to a talk by Catherine Fox at the RNA Conference, who discussed blogging her novels online, and how the whole process worked.

So I decided to do it myself the same way, and have started to blog the novel in weekly instalments, hoping this would force me to make a decision. And of course it did. By the third instalment, I knew what I wanted to do, and that was to write a science fiction novel. Which was, of course, startlingly different from my opening with a desert hermit ...

But I hope I've managed to make this shift in a convincing and gripping way. You decide!

Read Chapter One here.

What is it they say ... ? When in doubt, have someone walk through the door with a gun. In this case (hurriedly checks genre of novel), a ray-gun.

As far as blogging a novel goes, it's an odd situation. I am trying to publish each new 1-2 thousand word segment, which I'm loosely calling a chapter, at the weekend. So far on a Saturday morning, but that's likely to change as the weeks go on, and I get more stressed or stuck etc.

Catherine Fox said she felt two thousand words was a good length for a post, but I wasn't sure I could commit to two thousand words a week, every week, for over a year, when I have so many other books on the go. So I have opted for one thousand minimum. (Though one chapter so far has been over twice that amount, so it's pretty variable.)

Late in the week, I start thinking about what I'm going to write, and usually sit down to write the 'chapter' on a Thursday or Friday. I have to check back first, and again during the writing, to ensure good continuity in terms of tone as well as action. I try to begin and end each 'chapter' in a suitably gripping manner, to compel readers to continue reading or - if they're new to the story - to want to glance back at earlier chapters and find out what else has happened. At the moment I have two very different narrators, but may include other voices, I'm not sure.

And not being sure what's ahead is part of the fun, and the experience, of blogging a novel once a week, from scratch. When you publish a novel, it's usually been written, edited, checked, thought about almost to death, before the reader even sees the cover. When you blog a novel live, while it's still being written, everything about the usually hidden and mysterious process of constructing a novel becomes transparent and makeshift, even a little rough around the edges.

There may be changes made further down the line. Mistakes, perhaps! Wrong turns and glaring errors. I don't know.

Good grief, I have NO IDEA what happens next ... and this instalment is due out in two hours!

Of course, you could blog a novel that's already completed. But I'm not sure what the point would be. For me, this is a relatively painless way of getting a novel written that might otherwise never be given the time. And making it public like this also ensures I'm more likely to continue, as it could prove embarrassing if I give up and stop halfway.

To recap, blogging a novel as you write it is an interesting thing to do if you can spare a few hours a week, and have a project that's unlikely to be commercial. Because, let's face it, you should probably save commercial projects for selling to a publishing house or self-publishing when complete.  

The Cell is non-commercial at the moment, and an added bonus is that it may save me from the weight of current workloads by providing an escape once a week into this other, slightly crazy fictional world. And although I anticipate taking a good year, maybe a year and a half, to complete the full novel, it's worth the attempt, if only to see how long I can stick at it.

So far, the biggest problems of blogging a novel are twofold.

One, getting back into the main novel I'm working on - a thriller, currently - after spending maybe half a day fiddling with a sci fi chapter.

And two, getting people to read it. I think last week's instalment has only been read by two people. Whoever you are, thank you.

So please, do read it, make me feel better ... Here's Chapter One again.

Early days yet, granted, but I'm open to comments under the blog, and even suggestions on the story or the process. Not saying I'll incorporate suggestions, but I might do! And it's part of the nature of blogging a novel that there's a faint whiff of collaboration with the unseen reader. You are making public what is still being written, and on the hoof too, in a journalistic manner, and so are open to influence, even if only subliminal.

Which is a fun concept!

The Cell: coming weekly to a blog near you over the next 12 months or so.

Please, read, comment, share ... join in!

Week Thirty-Two: To Be Or Not To Be Edited?

I've chatted about writing again today on a new AD HOC podcast, recorded last week on Day 5 of my writing retreat in rural Devon. This is an irregular podcast about my own writing journey, usually under 10 minutes' long.

For those who like to listen to podcasts, here's the link: https://www.spreaker.com/user/janeholland/day-5-of-my-writing-retreat

During the podcast, among other things, I discuss the loneliness of writing retreats, a lack of prawn cocktail, how to strengthen a character's unlikely motivation (in this case by giving him a daughter to worry about), and most importantly perhaps, whether or not tis nobler to suffer editorial intervention or to go solo and eschew editing altogether.

Oh, I'd better cross that out. What would my editor say?

This last point is something that I change my mind about constantly. Good editors can vastly improve books and provide a superb sounding-board for writers who are not quite sure where they're going with a piece of writing. Always a wonderful thing.

But the wrong editor for you - or simply a mistaken editor - can leave you gnashing your teeth, cornered like a rabid animal and forced into some horrid - and usually pointless - confrontation over some detail which they want excised and you'd rather keep. They can also influence you even before turning in your manuscript, if you've been working with them a while: you hear their disapproving voice in your ear, and start to second-guess yourself, or self-correct, knowing you will only find that paragraph or plot development deleted by your editor if you leave it in.

Is that a good thing though? Or is it cramping our style? I ask these questions out of an impish spirit of enquiry, you understand ...

Stronger-minded writers may just tell editors to lump it in that situation. But I've always been rather careful about staying friends with mine - not that such courtesy has done me the slightest bit of good career-wise, mind you - so I tend to swallow editorial changes wherever possible and reserve my refusals for moments of absolute need.

Which means I'm often to be found shaking my head silently over notes in the margin ... and probably suffering from stress because of it.

Anyway, since becoming self-published - first as Elizabeth Moss, then Beth Good, then Victoria Lamb, and now very successfully as Jane Holland - I have learned to make do with self-editing. This mainly comes down to minor structural changes and correcting my own grammar and punctuation where necessary. I am an experienced novelist now, and have worked as a fiction editor myself, and was even brought up by a Times newspaper sub-editor, so such tasks are not beyond my skillset - and doing them myself saves me a fortune in freelance editorial fees.

But I know other writers may not have the same level of expertise, and self-editing may cost them readers. And I'm also uneasily aware that some changes - character development, for instance, or continuity errors, or even some plot holes - may not be as obvious to me as they are to another skilled reader.

Now, was she wearing a red hat when she was murdered, or a blue one? Damn ...

So I could be missing out by not going to a freelance editor, and indeed many would condemn me straight out for not doing so, without even looking at my books to see if that's justified - simply because it's not considered the Done Thing to self-publish without paying someone £300-£500 to go through your book with a red pen first. (And thereby losing most of your profit.)

However, I blow raspberries in the general direction of those entrenched enough in their views to claim NOBODY should self-edit, regardless of the exorbitant cost of getting a full-length novel edit, or of that person's skills, and point instead to the many glowing reviews across all my pen-names which suggest the opposite to be true.

In my podcast, I don't discuss that though so much as the wonderful freedom that comes from being a self-publisher: able to write precisely what I want, in whatever style I choose, knowing that nobody in the universe can force me to change a single word of my manuscript against my will. After many years of working closely and even exhaustively with editors at mainstream publishing houses, it feels a little scary at times to be walking the editorial tightrope without a net - but also incredibly liberating and empowering.

More in my AD HOC podcast.

Meanwhile, what do you think about editors and their role in a novelist's life? They can make a bad book good, a good book brilliant, but also at times make a writer want to tear their hair out in despair. Would you ever be willing to publish without one?

Week Thirty: The Suitcase of Story

While waiting to start my next novel, a thriller whose plot has not yet taken full shape, I've written a speculative screenplay. A sixty-minute screenplay for television, to be precise - the pilot episode of what would be a Victorian paranormal detective series if anyone could ever be persuaded to make it. Bizarre, ambitious, and entirely unlikely, but a set-up I've had in my story suitcase for several years now, and this was its chance to shine.

Writing in another medium after more than two dozen full length novels is an experience I thoroughly recommend. It means stepping outside your comfort zone if you're a confirmed novelist, but you don't step outside it unaccompanied. Writing a screenplay employs the same basic skillset and structural understanding you bring to a novel, it's just that everything revolves around image and nuance via dialogue, rather than prose description, and there's no way to convey internal monologue, bar intrusive subtitles, or something that takes their place - such as, in the case of Reginald Perrin thinking about his mother-in-law, the flashed image of a trotting hippo.

I was concerned at first that I would find myself flailing about in alien territory after the first few pages. Screenwriters seem to use so much off-putting technical jargon: turning point, beat, crossfade, intercut, slugline, controlling idea, pay-off. What I found though, thankfully, was that I was still able to bring the suitcase of story to writing for the screen.

It's a battered old suitcase now - I've had it since I was a child, writing absurd fantasy novels on an attic typewriter - but it has everything I need in there: beginnings, middles, ends, character building, scene structure, dialogue, story arc, and more than a few scraps of plot ideas to keep me going. It even has a false bottom where I keep emotional truths and the resonant detail.

But what's my logline, FFS?

So the thing I have learned about the difference between screenwriting and novel-writing - and please remember that I am a novice at the former - is that story is paramount, whatever the medium. Some narratives, it is true, may be easier to tell as a film, others as a novel, others as a radio or stage play, I expect. But all have this one common thread of story, above all else.

So what is 'story'?

When we were small children, someone probably sat us down and told us our first stories, either from a book or their own imaginations. If we listened, and did not pick our noses instead, we were whisked somewhere else, to a place beyond ourselves where we could suddenly see our own lives in the distance and thereby gain some strange new perspective on them. And to a large extent that is what story is: a way not merely to entertain and divert the bored self for a few hours, but to allow us to see ourselves in a fresh way, to weigh our lives against another's, our character flaws and strengths against theirs, and so perhaps find new - and better! - ways to live.

Chapter One: As soon as the blonde walked into my office, I knew she was going to be trouble ...

All stories follow a common path. They begin somewhere we can all identify with - the ordinary or common ground of an everyday existence. They develop into an adventure or quest that forces us away from the common and into the extraordinary, where every new choice is an effort and a trial, yet nonetheless we start to feel ourselves stretch for the next step up. Finally they often conclude by bringing us full circle to see how far we have come, allowing us to mourn hardships and losses, then celebrate the victories and lessons learnt along the way.

As writers, rather than dwelling too much on getting the jargon or the handshake right, we write best when we bring everything back to story. Story is about character under pressure, yes. But it's also about plot, about action and reaction, about the difficulty or sheer number of steps taken along the journey. Character shows us how each person responds to these challenges in their own unique way. It tells us which way a character will turn at the end of a scene, just as the Russian sub captain always turns to starboard in the bottom half of the hour in Hunt For Red October. So the characters we choose to follow our plot paths need to be special, to stand out as unique, or at least have the capacity to become special under duress. If not, why on earth have we chosen them?

If you're halfway through writing a novel, but your story suitcase is looking a bit threadbare, the best way to replenish it is by engaging with story via reading a book or watching a film or television drama. Sometimes a story that is very different from the one you are working on will turn out to be precisely what you need in terms of inspiration and energy. Films in particular can be useful because they are less likely to shroud story structure in other, more complex elements as prose or a television series so often do. So we may see, with sudden clarity, how to fix structural problems in a novel by grasping how a film-maker has overcome them. Equally, witnessing the complexity of character-building in a novel may lend gravitas and resonance to a few lines of dialogue in a screenplay. Mix up your mediums, have some fun with it, learn something new!

What's in your story suitcase? And what does it say about you as a writer?

Week Eleven: Good versus Evil Characters

Is Heathcliff evil?

Here's a strange thing about characters and readers. Readers tend to want main characters to be nice and to do the 'right thing', so they can identify with them while they read, and so feel nice themselves. To assure themselves that they too would do the right thing, if it came down to it. That's the theory of the main character, anyway. That as a reader you enter the skin of the narrator - usually the protagonist in today's fiction - and look out through their eyes. And if the view becomes a bit icky or disturbing or inconsistent, well, you might put that book down and tiptoe away without finishing it.

In nineteenth century fiction, writers could often get away with problematic and even downright evil main characters by telling their story via an innocent - and therefore untarnished - narrator. Wuthering Heights, for instance. But secondhand narration has gone out of fashion, along with the epistolary style - telling a story through a series of letters - and apart from bestselling gems like Bridget Jones' Diary and Diary of a Wimpy Kid, readers prefer straight narration to other ways of telling a story.

As a writer - this applies more to genre fiction than literary fiction, but is still apparent even among the literati - you are being constantly urged by editors to make your main characters nicer. To stop them sleeping with the wrong people, stealing, telling fibs, murdering their loved ones. This is not so difficult for writers who tell their stories within a fictional corridor where 'baddies' rarely do anything worse than give you a bad job reference or steal your boyfriend. But even within that limitation the concept of character morality is equally as valid as it is for a crime novel or historical drama, where you might reasonably expect the most gruesome murders, kidnappings, massacres, beheadings. The parameters change, but the reality remains: main characters must do the right thing, and do it consistently, without ambiguity.

His Dark Lady: Shakespeare's mistress

So how to cope when your story demands a morally questionable action on the part of your main character, but even as you are writing the scene you can hear your editor's polite refusal in your head, or beyond that, some reviewer's outraged objection? I have had some rather cross responses to my portrayal of Shakespeare in my Lucy Morgan trilogy, with reviewers complaining that it is 'unfair' to suggest WS slept with other people behind his wife's back - even though his sonnets and his long absence from the marital bed hardly paint a picture of fidelity. And in this case, there is something more to be said about tarnishing the reputation of a long-dead person - a national hero, no less - with scurrilous suggestions of immoral goings-on backstage that no one at this remove of time can ever possibly prove. Or not without a time machine.

But all this begs questions about our role as authors, and our responsibilities both to readers and to fiction as a whole. Should we pay lip-service to some unlikely and unspoken ideal of morality in order to avoid causing controversy, or write what we feel to be the truth in our story (fiction should represent 'truth' to the writer at least, if to nobody else) and accept that our choices may be unpopular with some readers? And if we do shrug off the limitations of morality and pursue a dangerous fictional truth, what have we achieved besides making our books uncomfortable to read and probably unsaleable?

Why not just throw up our hands and accept that what the majority of our readers want - even in a crime novel - is a consistent world with nice, unthreatening main characters, where 'bad' people are punished and right nearly always triumphs?

Well, that's the wise thing to do. We all want to be read, after all. Read and paid.

But people are complicated. And characters are people, or ought to be. Characters should be capable of possessing both good and evil, humour and horror, love and hate, and above all they should be allowed to hold conflicting opinions. To be contrary. To fall in love with two different people at the same time. To say they want one thing but actually go after something completely different. To be human. This is where publishers suppress more demanding fiction. Being experienced in the realities of selling books, they rightly know that the vast majority of readers dislike too much complexity and can handle only a small amount of contrariness. So they insist that characters should be consistent, should be strictly one thing or another, so that we can all sell books and make a reasonable living.

Consistent! 

Show me a person who is genuinely consistent, and I'll bet you it's a corpse.

Gone Girl, Gillian Flynn: an ambiguous read.

I'm still hoping that fiction - which moves like the sea in waves of fashion - will shift eventually into a place where inconsistency is the new gold standard. Where writers are praised for creating deeply ambiguous characters capable of holding two diametrically opposed beliefs simultaneously without risking the loss of internal logic. Where readers fight to be confused and manipulated and lied to. And not patronised. That may be why Gillian Flynn's 'Gone Girl' was so popular, even though many found it an uncomfortable read. Because in this age of superfast broadband and social media our view of life and morality is becoming both more simplistic and more sophisticated, more clear-cut and more ambiguous, and we are beginning to demand fiction that reflects our own uncertainties in the face of this new, constantly shifting, inherently contradictory social morality. 

QUESTION: Should fictional main characters be nicer and more consistent than real people? If so, why?