Writing process

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Back to the future

I’ve been in a slump since I sent The Realm of Silence off to the editor. I’ve written little, and what I have written, I haven’t liked.

In part, because life

I’ve been distracted by my health, a busy day job, tax accounts time, and preparation to sell our house.

I’ve a complicated mix of health issues most of which were responding nicely to treatment — but in the past month, not so much. We’re still trying to find the source of some of them, but each specialist my GP sends me to finds and fixes something in his speciality and passes over everything else. Clearly, I’m in possession of Douglas Adams’ ‘Somebody Else’s Problem’ field, at least when it comes to medical specialists.

I love my day job, which is solving problems for organisations who want to communicate, proposing and then implementing plain English solutions. But 72 hours a fortnight plus 15 hours a fortnight commute eats into my days, especially when I arrive home too tired to do anything but sleep.

In New Zealand, most people have a 31 March financial year end, inherited from the English system of settling the year’s accounts on Lady’s Day. (Link to blog). I have until end of May to report, but I’m getting my bits and pieces together. With multiple sources of author income, superannuation, and a salary, it gets complicated.

And we’re readying our house for the market. Nearly two acres with a five-bedroom, two-bathroom dwelling that includes two living areas and a double garage, plus a sleep-out. And in a popular commuter town. We have a number of little jobs to do, but we’re tackling them a bit at a time and expect to be ready to sell in the New Zealand spring.

Deadlines, deadlines, deadlines

I was a freelance journalist a long long time ago. I learnt why the word ‘dead’ is in deadline. If your article doesn’t cross the line by the time the editor says, it’s dead. The publication will go ahead without it. Do it too often, and that editor won’t buy from you again. Before you know where you are, your career is dead.

I cannot help but apply the discipline I learnt then to my current fiction career.

I currently have three looming deadlines for stories that are not yet written, including the contemporary I started — but more about that soon.

  • Short story of 3,000 words by 24 April.
  • Contemporary of 30,000 words by 15 May
  • Historical of 20,000 words by 4 June.

It is easy to counsel other people to slow down, renegotiate deadlines, withdraw from commitments, prioritise the people who are important to you and your own health. It’s much harder to apply that sage advice to myself. For one thing, keeping up a regular timetable of new releases is part of my strategy to achieve the longer-term goal of giving up the day job and writing fiction full time.

I can meet the goals on these three, and further goals over the year, if I write 1,500 to 2,000 words a day, six days a week. That’s not impossible. As long as a fair number of them are words I want to keep.

Let’s start at the very beginning

But I’m not writing, and I’ve finally figured out why. I started the contemporary in the wrong place, and I let the heroine know too much about the hero in the first pages of the story.

She’s a smart girl. She has him figured out straight up, and sympathises with his position.

No conflict, no tension, no drama, no story.

So to get them to their future through a story that will be fun to read, I need to go back to the beginning and start over.

Phew. I’m glad we’ve got that sorted!

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Character studies on WIP Wednesday

I’m back at the beginning of the process again. House of Thorns is off to the publisher, and The Realm of Silence is having line edits and a few rewrites after beta reading, and will be with the copy editor by the end of the weekend. So it is time to start again, and I have two stories waiting in the wings.

So far, I have only the sketchiest of plots. I need to write those down, and then I need to do character sketches for the main characters. As I get to know them, the plot will firm up, and I’ll be able to fill out my hero’s journey sheets, exploring their external and internal story arcs. Then I start writing the story, and let the plot reveal itself as I go.

So this week, I’m giving you a snippet of a character interview — one I did for Rosa Neatham who is the heroine of House of Thorns. How do you get to know your characters? If you write stuff down about them, or interview them, will you post a bit in the comments?

A wish or dream: I would love a place of my own; somewhere that belongs to me, and that no one
can put me out of. Somewhere I can grow a few roses, and perhaps keep a cat to sleep by the fire
and keep me company.
One thing that makes your character laugh: Many things. I do believe that my sense of the
ridiculous has saved my sanity more times than I can count. Finding the humour in things was a
game I played with my mother, and playing it still makes me feel close to her.
A fear: I am afraid, so afraid, that I will fail my father. I am afraid that Bear will not return, and that
I’ll be left to the mercies of the steward. I would rather die. I would rather sell myself to the first
man that passes. Oh, I hope Bear comes back.
Something they’d like to learn: How to attract Bear so that he wishes to bed me again. I am sure I
did something wrong the first time, but I have no idea what.
Something they’d like to forget: My wedding night. It was memorable, but not in a good way.
Something they’d never do: I would never disgrace or leave my father. Never.
A quirky habit: I have a pocket tied under my skirts into which I put my paintbrushes.
A secret: I would secretly like to know why someone would wish to be a courtesan, and how one
goes about it.

And the two stories I’m about to start?

One is a contemporary for a summertime anthology for Authors of Mainstreet. The unifying theme of the book is summertime at the beach, (which for me, in New Zealand, means December/January).

I know my heroine is an environmentalist lawyer, fighting corporates and governments on the world stage. Burnt out after her latest case, she has come home to a small community on the Wairarapa coast, to the bach (New Zealand North Island word for a holiday house; the South Island has cribs instead) she used to visit as a child. Wanting to do repairs,  she calls on a local building firm, and finds that she once faced the man they send over a courtroom.

The hero was once part of the high-powered business world. Heir to a huge family-owned company that made chemicals and medicines, he had trained as a lawyer, and fought for the continuation of his family’s privilege. His conscience pricked by a feisty lawyer, he had begun to check his facts, and his odyssey brought him here: estranged from his family, disinherited, working with his hands, and happier than he has ever been in his life.

Storms and coastal change play into it, and I can predict sparks will fly. I hope one of them will turn into a title!

The second is late eighteenth century, and is set mostly in Persia and partly in the Kopet Dag mountains between Turkmenistan and Persia. And yes, it is about James Winderfield, father to the hero of The Bluestocking and the Barbarian, and his wife Mahzad. It takes place sixteen years earlier than Bluestocking, so 1796. I’m busily researching Persia at that time, since interesting things were happening. The story is for the Bluestocking Belles Christmas anthology, which has a prodigal daughter theme.

In my story, Mahzad returns to Persia to visit her dying father, whom she last saw when he sent her off as to China on the command of his Khan, as a gift to the Chinese emperor. With James’ help, Mahzad had escaped in the mountain passes of Kopet Dag. Things are vague after that. I need to read up a lot more about Persia and surrounding nations in the time my story covers, since I think I’ll be doing a few flashbacks. James doesn’t approve of Mahzad’s trip. I know that. He doesn’t trust the Persians. And Mahzad’s English grandmother, who raised her and who helped her escape comes into it somehow.

All shall be revealed. Character sketches first.

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An end and a new beginning

Yesterday morning, I wrote the final scene of The Realm of Silence, ending with those welcome and wonderful words ‘THE END’.

Not, of course, that the task is finished. I have a first draft, with plot threads still dangling, new ideas in the second half that need to be woven back earlier into the book, passages that make outrageous leaps and others that limp like a wounded snail — meandering, slow, and purposeless. The next task is a paper read through, and the book has been printed and is sitting waiting for me. I’ll make notes as I go this first time, but I won’t map anything.

That’s next. Story analysis. I’ll open the spreadsheet with my plot lines and all the other things I need to track, and I’ll read the book again, this time writing a brief synopsis of each scene and filling in the columns across the spreadsheet. Which plots were advanced? Which characters were involved? (And what were they called? — I have a bad habit of changing people’s names in mid-stream.) What is the hero arc for each of my protagonists, and how does it match the arc I planned when I began? If I’ve changed it, is it for the better?

Are the characters true to themselves? If not, how do I fix it? What about my secondary and background characters? Are there too many? Can I remove some, or fade them into the wallpaper? Are they real people with hints of their histories and personalities?

Once I have the storylines mapped, I can see what I’ve dropped or failed to resolve, or where an earlier hint or clue would help build tension. I go back through the draft, and use the spreadsheet as my guide to scrawl all over, giving myself instructions for the rewrite.

Which is just that. A rewrite. Scenes changed, expanded or cut. New scenes added. This is the point at which I add chapter breaks, because up until now I’ve only had scenes. Each chapter needs a lure to end on and a hook to start. I don’t much worry about length. A chapter is as long as it needs to be.

At last (and by end of January, all going to plan) I have a draft for my beta readers, and off the baby goes, out into the world, ready to face the critics. I hope.

My wonderful team of beta readers will have The Realm of Silence for  February and I’ll be back working on it, making final changes in response to their comments, in March. It will still need a copy edit and a proofread after that, but I’m aiming at publication in late April.

Meanwhile, I have created a hero’s journey and character interviews for the hero and heroine of my next book, written a plot synopsis, and begun to write. I’m going to follow the same process that finally got me going on The Realm of Silence — a first cut that is mostly dialogue, then a second pass to fill in the rest of story and give me a first draft. I’m aiming at 60,000 words for House of Thorns, which is for a Marriage of Inconvenience line for Scarsdale Publishing. It’s due to them on 1 March, so the first draft needs to be done by 10 February. With 5,000 words on the page so far, I’d better get writing.

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Where to start on WIP Wednesday

When I write, I have trouble starting at the beginning, because I have to find it first. In life, all beginnings continue from an earlier story, and all ends transmute into a later story. But in fiction, we need to start each book and each chapter at the beginning. At that point in time and space where at least one of the characters we care about is revealing their story, and making it matter to us.

Dear fellow authors, share a beginning with me and the blog readers, if you would. Something from a current work in progress. The start of a chapter or perhaps the start of the whole book. Mine is from The Realm of Silence, and it is the first scene in the book. At least, it is at the moment. Anything could happen in edit.

Stamford, England

1812

Gil Rutledge sat in the small garden to the side of the Crown and Eagle, and frowned at the spread provided for him to break his fast. Grilled trout with white butter sauce, soft-boiled eggs, grilled kidney, sausages, mashed potatoes, bacon, a beef pie, two different kinds of breads (one lightly toasted), bread rolls, a selection of preserves, and a dish of stewed peaches, all cooked to perfection and none of it appealing.

Two days with his sister, Madelina, had left old guilt sitting heavy on his stomach, choking his throat and souring his digestion. And the errand he was on did not improve matters.

He cut a corner off a slice of toast and loaded it with bits of bacon and a spoonful of egg. He was too old a campaigner to allow loss of appetite to stop him from refuelling. He washed the mouthful down with a sip from his coffee. It was the one part of the meal Moffat had not trusted to the inn kitchen. His soldier-servant insisted on preparing it himself, since he knew how Gil like it.

No. Not his soldier-servant. Not any more. His valet, butler, factotum. Manservant. Yes, his manservant.

Gil raised the mug to the shade of his despised older brother. “This is the worst trick you’ve played on me yet,” he muttered. The viscount’s death had landed the estranged exile with a title he never wanted, a bankrupt estate, a sister-in-law and her two frail little daughters left to his guardianship but fled from his home, and an endless snarl of legal and financial problems. And then there were Gil’s mother and his sisters.

Lena had at least consented to see him; had assured him that she no longer blamed him for her tragedies. Her forgiveness did not absolve him. He should have found another solution; should have explained better; should have kept a closer watch.

With a sigh, he took another sip, and loaded his fork again. The sooner he managed to swallow some of this food, the sooner he could be on the road.

Beyond the fence that bordered the garden, carriages were collecting their passengers from the front of the inn. Stamford was on the Great North Road, and a hub to half of England, with roads leading in every direction. As Gil stoically soldiered his way through breakfast, he watched idly, amusing himself by imagining errands and destinations.

Until one glimpsed face had him sitting forward. Surely that was Amelia Cunningham, the goddess’s eldest daughter? No. This girl was older, almost an adult though still dressed as a schoolgirl.

He frowned, trying to work out how old little Amy must be by now. He had last seen her at the beginning of 1808, just before he was posted overseas, first to Gibraltar and then to the Peninsular wars. He remembered, because that was the day he parted with the best horse a man had ever owned. More than four years ago. The goddess had been a widow these past two years and Amy must be— what? Good Lord. She would be sixteen by now.

He craned his head, trying to see under the spreading hat that shielded the girl’s face, but she climbed into a yellow post chaise with a companion — a tall stripling boy of about the same age. And the woman who followed them was definitely not the goddess; not unless she had lost all her curves, shrunk a good six inches, dyed her golden hair black, and traded her fashionable attire for a governess’s dull and shapeless garb.

No. That was not Susan Cunningham, so the girl could not have been Amy.

The door closed, the post boy mounted, the chaise headed north, and Gil went back to his repast.

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All You Need Is Love

Today, I want to talk about love, sex, and writing romances.

I’ve been trying, in my own romances, to lead my hero and heroine in the direction of consummate love, which I’ll talk more about soon, but I’ve also been reading a few romances recently in which the couple seem to have little between them except lust, or when the success of the relationship depends on one of the pair subsuming their will to the other. That bothers me. It bothers me a lot.

Then, during the week, I was in a Facebook writers workshop event where the topic was clean romance, which meant (of course) that we talked about sex. And someone astounded me by asking how you could stop the story from being boring if there wasn’t any. (Any sex, I mean.)

And the third factor triggering this post was the conversations I’ve been in since the #metoo campaign went viral across the Internet. I’m not going to repeat any of them here, but let the following four worrying threads of argument suffice.

  1. Men do this sort of thing. You shouldn’t take it seriously.
  2. What was she wearing? Doing? Why was she there?
  3. Yes it’s bad, but not as bad as (pick the victim group of your choice).
  4. Only monsters do such things.

In other words, excuse the abusers, blame the victims, set one group of victims against another, and reject responsibility for making a change. And if we want change, then everyone of us is responsible for changing ourselves first, and then for challenging those around us.

The need for intimacy

Which brings me back to writing romances.

We’re occasionally told that sex is a basic human need. It is certainly a basic biological need, or we wouldn’t be here. But we can choose what to do with our appetites in a way that has not been observed in animals. Animals in the grip of the mating urge cannot resist it but must be physically confined. We can go and have a cold shower and a cup of tea. We are capable of crimes of lust, but also of celibacy. Animals who pair bond, as humans tend to do, are unable to pair elsewhere. We are capable of betrayal (but also of faithfulness).

So sex is a physical urge for an individual and a biological imperative for the species. But our driving need as humans is not sex, but intimacy, of which physical intimacy is just one of five aspects, and sex just a small element of that aspect. The other aspects are emotional intimacy, mental intimacy, experiential intimacy, and spiritual intimacy.

Babies denied intimacy will die. Children denied intimacy grow up wounded. Adults denied intimacy spiral into despair.

Those who think sex with strangers will fill their emptiness are doomed to disappointment. They mistake sexual intimacy for physical intimacy, and leap from there to assuming emotional intimacy. They are climbing a ladder, but it is leaning against the wrong wall.

I will never write a romance that has the couple in bed at first meeting, and from then they know they have found The One, and all the obstacles are external. Certainly, love can grow in such an unlikely seed bed. But I strongly believe that having sex before true intimacy in other aspects is more likely to be a barrier to developing a real love than to promote it. If my lovers start off in that way, their biggest obstacles to true intimacy will be internal.

The five aspects of intimacy

And I will write romances that look at couples who, in their journey towards intimacy, are progressing in all five aspects.

So what do I mean by that?

In a real romance, the hero and heroine support one another.

They are, of course, because this is a romance, physically intimate. This doesn’t necessarily mean they have sex all the time, or on the page. They express their feelings for one another by touching, hugging, holding hands, or whatever other physical expressions are appropriate to their culture. They are each aware of the other’s body, and they understand how to give pleasure each to the other. They know the shape of one another’s hands and ears. They are at ease in one another’s arms. They each know how the other will react to particular touches, and they know the taste and smell of one another.

They are emotionally intimate. They have shared their darkest and dearest secrets, their most terrible and precious memories. They are honest about their feelings, their desires, the instincts and experiences that drive them. They have bared themselves, each to the other, and have found acceptance.

They are mentally intimate. They share their thoughts and ideas. They can discuss anything with one another, not always agreeing, but always respecting and listening, and working together to agree at least an armistice on issues that might otherwise divide them.

They have experiential intimacy, which means they spend time together doing things together. They build memories. They are friends who enjoy being with one another.

And they are spiritually intimate. What that means depends on the couple. If they share a religion, they might worship and pray together. Non-believers might make time as a couple to open themselves to the awe-inspiring, because spirituality is not just for the religious.

(Some people put financial initimacy in as an extra aspect. I think it is just one more issue, about which the couple need to be honest. Like many issues, it has mental and emotional implications, so comes into both of those aspects.)

So that’s my challenge as a writer. How do I write a realistic journey that allows my characters to challenge one another, trip and fall, and pick themselves up and learn?

Respect is key

I write men and women who respect one another, and who suffer consequences when they don’t. A character who seeks to get his intimacy needs met at the expense of another is doomed to fail in my stories, and will either learn from the experience before he gets his happy ending, or will become a villain and get his just desserts.

I love fiction. Real life villains are harder to dispose of, and impossible to reform. (They may reform themselves, but that’s a different kettle of fish entirely than being saved by the love of a good woman, which is a terrible and dangerous myth.)

Consummate love is the ultimate goal

Let’s get real. I’m talking a lifelong journey. By the end of my story, all I can promise is that the hero and heroine will have made sufficient progress on all five types of intimacy for you to feel confident of their destination. Happy Ever After means the reader’s sense that even if life goes to hell in a handcart, they’ll be okay as long as they’re together.

The real achievement is consummate love, that special kind of love described in Robert Sternberg’s Triangle.

So take no substitutes. As a writer, give me characters who build one another up and create a love to last a lifetime. As a reader, measure the books you read against Sternberg’s triangle and ask yourself if this book boyfriend is worthy of the special person that you are.

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Backstory on WIP Wednesday

Backstory gives our books depth and texture. Backstory is the stuff we know about the characters and their lives that never finds its way onto the page. Some writers I know do very little backstory. Others have whole histories and landscapes that exist in their imaginations and notebooks, and that influence the story but don’t appear in it.

I lean in the second direction, not least because I find it impossible to understand a character’s motivation without understanding the influences that made her who she is.

This week, I’m inviting you to tell me a bit of the backstory of one of your characters or locations. Mine is from Lord Calne’s Christmas Story, my new Christmas novella, and is about the relationship between my hero, Philip Daventry, the new Earl of Calne, and his uncle Brigadier General Lord Henry Redepenning.

Lord Henry links the latest novella to my Golden Redepenning series.

Lord Henry Redepenning met Lord Hugo Daventry at school. Both were younger sons of earls. Both were destined for, and looking forward to, a future in the military, as officers in a cavalry regiment. They became fast friends.

In due course of time, in a London ballroom, they met Miss Susana Blanchard, older daughter of Admiral Blanchard, and both fell in love. To Society, either young man was a good match for the granddaughter of shopkeepers, though her father’s rank and their own lesser position in their families made it acceptable. They waited and watched to see if the two close friends would fall out over the maiden.

But they were to be disappointed. If Hugo’s heart was broken when Susana chose Henry, he hid it well. Indeed, the friends were closer than ever, with Susana included in their charmed circle, and Hugo assured Henry that his feelings had turned brotherly. If it had not been true at the start, it was certainly true the day he came to visit his friends and met Susana’s sister, Arabella.

Arabella was seven years Susana’s junior, and just out when she was introduced to her brother-in-law’s dearest friend, whom she had adored by report since her sister’s Season. He was everything she expected and more. Arabella’s worship-from-afar soon turned to something warmer and more personal.

Hugo found that Arabella was as lovely as her sister and three times as adventurous. Where Susana was happy to stay at home with her growing family, Arabella spoke of following the drum, her eyes sparkling with excitement. By the end of his visit, Hugo was deeply and irrevocably in love.

And so the two friends married two sisters. Henry and Susana created a haven for their five children and other family and friends, a place to be cherished and restored. Hugo and Arabella raised their son and daughter in army camps across the globe, enjoying the travel and adventure. Two very different couples, but firm friends, even to the next generation.

Nearly none of that is in the novella. But I needed it anyway.

Your turn.

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Ruminations on world-building, after an orgy of reading

As I may have mentioned, I’ve been a bit slowed recently by a shoulder injury and a repeating winter cold. The shoulder is finally responding to treatment, but being limited in the number of hours I can type has been a real nuisance. The demands of the day job have to take priority so the bills get paid, with the novellas for anthologies coming next. So I’m way behind on The Realm of Silence, and will need to really buckle down if release is not to be postponed until next year.

I’ve been reading instead of writing

On the other hand, being laid up has allowed me to voraciously reread entire series of novels by the authors who sucked me into the historical romance genre. Georgette Heyer, of course. Elizabeth Hoyt. Eloisa James. Grace Burrowes. Mary Jo Putney. Carla Kelly. Stephanie Laurens. Mary Balogh. Anne Gracie. Anna Campbell. (Others, too. That’s just off the top of my head.)

I’ve been rereading an entire series at a gulp, then another by quite a different author, just as I did five years ago when my eldest daughter loaned me the book Simply Perfect and I fell in love with the genre. (Though some of the series I’ve read in the past three months weren’t written at that time.)

This time, though, was different. This time, I was reading from the perspective of my own years of world and character building in historical romance writing.

And I know what I love!

All the authors I love provide the same things, to a greater or lesser extent. Engaging plots where I care about what happens. Well-rounded characters who seem like real people for the times, and who have something about them that makes me wish them success. Realistic and detailed background features that are true (as far as I can tell) to the history of the time and place.

Reading them the way I have, a whole series in sequence, is leading me to reexamine my own writing to see how well I’m performing in those areas.

I like my plots to surprise me

Plots? I can get a bit carried away, I think. I love a detailed and complex plot with lots of Byzantine twists and turns, with copious clues that are easy to miss and only obvious as the story draws to a close and all the bits are tied together with a bow. Expect me to keep doing this. Even in my short stories, where plots are simple, I try not to do the obvious.

I reckon good people come in lots of flavours

Characters? What I try to do is make each hero and each heroine into different people. It works the other way. Stephanie Laurens writes a brilliant Norman aristocrat: tall, stern, protective, outwardly impervious but inwardly vulnerable to the one woman on whom he sets his autocratic heart. We meet him in story after story, and have all the fun of watching her bold, unconventional, challenging heroine bring him to his knees.

Mary Jo Putney, on the other hand, peoples her books with individuals of many different stamps. Decent men and women, but formed by different influences (both nature and nurture). In the Fallen Angel series, she has one of these heroes describe himself and his friends.

“What are your friends like?” He smiled a little. “Imagine a great long wall blocking the path as far as one can see in both directions. If Nicholas came to it, he would shrug and decide he didn’t really need to go that way. Rafe would locate whoever was in charge of the wall and talk his way past it, and Lucien would find some stealthy way to go under or around without being seen.” “What about you?” His smile turned rueful. “Like a mad spring ram, I would bash my head into the wall until it fell down.”

Exactly. Four very different men, and she gave each of them a heroine alike in loyalty and love, and unlike in everything else.

So for me, that means more of the same. Each hero, each heroine, each villain, as unique as I can make them. I also want to watch that my secondary characters don’t fall into the Dickens mould. Not that there’s anything wrong with ‘enter, one cheerful landlady’ or ‘manservant for comic relief’, but I’ve got into the habit of knowing a little bit about everyone who crowds into my books, and even if surface characteristics are all I have time for on the page, something of their personality and history needs to sit beneath it.

And I need to like them in order to fully enjoy the book

And even if my readers don’t always like them and their behaviour, I need to. Many people find Aldridge unsympathetic, particularly in A Baron for Becky. And so they should. He behaved badly there and again, mostly, in Revealed in Mist (though not nearly as badly as Richport will in coming novels). Still, I know what motivates them and I hope you will forgive them by the time they reach their happily ever after.

I also have a couple of thoroughly unlikeable females to redeem. So watch this space.

Research is my catnip

Then there’s background: that weird amalgam of language usage and facts judiciously chosen to create a realistic environment for a story that could have happened only there, only then. I have read and enjoyed stories set against cardboard cutouts of historical backgrounds, when I’ve been in the mood. But they don’t sustain me. I’ve read stories with modern-thinking people in historical novels, and they irritate me exceedingly, unless they are time travel books and the people really are modern, or unless the writer gives a reason why this character is so out of step with their entire cultural milieu.

So research continues to be essential, and I agonise over detail. That doesn’t mean it is always correct—I make mistakes, usually something that seems so obviously true that I don’t check it. I’m always grateful for corrections. Indeed, reading to know what not to write is almost more important than reading for details that appear in the story. Not all research appears in the book, which is why I’ve got into the habit of posting research posts, so I can fool myself I did all that extraneous reading for a purpose.

Now your turn

So that’s what I’m trying to do. How well I emulate the writers I admire, and how much my own unique voice provides you with a different product, is for you to decide.

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Process? Was I meant to have a process?

I’ve just sent A Raging Madness off for proofreading, which clears my mental space for the other stories that are simmering on the back of the stove or still spread out across the kitchen table as raw ingredients.

Over the past three years, since I first began Farewell to Kindness, I’ve discovered I’m neither a plotter nor a pantser, but a weird amalgam. As the current state of said stories shows.

I figured I’d be a plotter. I am in my commercial writing life, starting with a carefully structured outline, complete with an assessment of audience and purpose. So before I wrote a word of Farewell, I had character interviews and questionnaires, a detailed plot outline, and acres and acres of research. Then I started writing.

It turns out that I write by watching the movie reel unroll inside my head. My characters had no idea what was going to happen, and as I soon found out, neither did I. The villain died before chapter 1. The slightly sinister neighbour turned into a major criminal. The hero wanted to seduce the heroine instead of courting her. I ended up more or less where I expected, but by a completely different pathway.

But nor am I entirely a pantser. If I try to write without at least some of that plotting work, my muse goes into a major sulk and I bog down.  Revealed in Mist suffered from that. I began a murder mystery with no idea who the villain was or how the murder happened. At some point I had to figure that out.

I am, I guess, a patterner. It isn’t so much that I make patterns, but I recognise them. Two or more disconnected facts suddenly come together in my mind, and all of a sudden I know where I’m going.

Take Concealed in Shadow, the sequel to Revealed in Mist, which is my book after next. I know Prue has been kidnapped and is in Napoleonic France, and I know David has followed her. I know that the story involves a secondary romance between a English detainee and a prisoner-of-war. I’m not sure of much else. But last night I realised that Prue will be handed over by her captors to a French spymaster, who will use her to try to force David to give up British secrets.

I’m currently reading about spy networks in England and France during the Napoleonic wars, and also about prisoners of war in each country. And something just clicked.

I don’t know precisely how my creative process works. But I know what makes it work. Research. When my mind goes blank, I start reading. Original material such as newspapers of the time, scholarly works, other fiction set against a similar background. Whatever works.

And I didn’t do this on purpose, honest, but The Realm of Silence, the next book in The Golden Redepennings also involves prisoners of war and spies, this time on the English side of the channel. And Luddites, because why not? What I was missing there was a MacGuffin, but I found one, so all is well.

Those are the main projects at the moment, but I also have three novellas (two for Christmas anthologies) and a short story on the go. And they all have plots! (But I don’t guarantee they’ll happen the way I’ve ‘planned’.)

So that’s it. That’s how I write. Someone compared it driving after dark. As long as you can see as far as your headlines reach, you can keep going. It’s a bit scarier than that. I start out not knowing what route I’m going to follow, and with only the vaguest idea of destination, and work it out on the way. I write the book so I can find out how it ends.

My friend Caroline Warfield has also posted about process.

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First words on WIP Wednesday

graveyard-wc1104wI tend to cast around for a long time till I find the start of a book—and even then, I often get it wrong, either deleting what I have in favour of a later passage, or writing something earlier that leads up to my original first chapter. As a writer, I want to start in the middle of the action, but in a place that lets me bring readers into the story quickly, without a lot of explanation. I want to avoid the acronym SDT in the margins. Show Don’t Tell. My friend and editor Mari Christie sends my drafts back with that plastered through them, but so far I’ve been able to avoid the dreaded letters in my first chapters.

So my methodology for starting a book is to write until I recognise the beginning, then second guess that decision once I’ve finished the first draft. Next month’s new release didn’t get its beginning until the final edit. The current work in progress still starts with the first words I wrote in May.

How about you? How do you begin? And does your beginning change as you work your way towards publication?

Here are the first words of A Raging Madness, the first draft I’m hoping to finish by the end of the month. As always, please post your extracts in the comments.

The funeral of the dowager Lady Melville was poorly attended—just the rector, one or two local gentry, her stepson Edwin Braxton accompanied by a man who was surely a lawyer, and a handful of villagers.

Alex Redepenning was glad he had made the effort to come out of his way when he saw the death notice. He and Captain Sir Gervase Melville had not been close, but they had been comrades: had fought together in Egypt, Italy, and the Caribbean.

Melville’s widow was not at the funeral, but Alex was surprised not to see her when he went back to the house. Over the meagre offering set out in the drawing room, he asked Melville’s half brother where she was.

“Poor Eleanor.” Braxton had a way of gnashing his teeth at the end of each phrase, as if he needed to snip the words off before he could stop chewing them.

“She has never been strong, of course, and Mother Melville’s death has quite overset her.” Braxton tapped his head significantly.

Ella? Not strong? She had been her doctor father’s assistant in situations that would drive most men into a screaming decline, and had continued working with his successor after his death. She had followed the army all her life until Melville sent her home—ostensibly for her health, but really so he could chase whores in peace, without her taking loud and potentially uncomfortable exception. Alex smiled as he remembered the effects of stew laced with a potent purge.

Melville swore Ella had been trying to poison him. She assured the commander that if she wanted him poisoned he would be dead, and perhaps the watering of his bowels was the result of a guilty conscience. The commander, conscious that Ella was the closest to a physician the company, found Ella innocent.

Perhaps it had all caught up with her. Perhaps a flaw in the mind explained why she tried to trap Alex and succeeded in trapping Melville into marriage, why she had not attended Melville’s deathbed, though Alex had sent a carriage for her.

“I had hoped to see her,” Alex said. It was not entirely a lie. He had hoped and feared in equal measure: hoped to find her old before her time and feared the same fierce pull between them he had been resisting since she was a girl too young for him to decently desire.

“I cannot think it wise,” Braxton said, shaking his head. “No, Major Redepenning. I cannot think it wise. What do you say, Rector? Would it not disturb the balance of my poor sister’s mind if she met Major Redepenning? His association with things better forgotten, you know.”

What was better forgotten? War? Or her poor excuse for a husband? Not that it mattered,  any more than it mattered that Braxton used the rank Alex no longer held. It was not Braxton’s fault Alex’s injury had forced him to sell out.

The Rector agreed that Lady Melville should not be disturbed, and Alex was off the hook. “Perhaps you will convey my deepest sympathies and my best wishes to her ladyship,” he said. “I hope you will excuse me if I take my leave. I have a long journey yet to make, and would seek my bed.”

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Building a village

renbridge-landscapeA couple of weeks ago, I wrote the arrival of my hero and heroine of A Raging Madness at the tumble-down Renwater Grange, the estate gifted to Alex by a grateful king. They woke up the next morning, went for a walk to investigate the stables, and met the husband of their temporary housekeeper. And then I got stuck.

renwater-stablesI knew where the house was; in the village of Renbridge, in the Lincolnshire dales. I’d done quite a bit of research about agriculture and horse breeding in the dales, and the type of land ownership and architecture. But who lived in Renbridge? What were their names, their characters, their habits and their interrelationships?

I realise that most of the villagers won’t have a mention in the book, and that even those who wriggle their way into the first draft might be cut in the second. But I have no idea which ones are a permanent part of the story, and—in any case—their existence, mentioned or not, is texture in the background. Who are these people?

So for the past fortnight, I’ve been writing a village. I thought you might like to see the raw results.

Renbridge village

10.2 miles from Horncastle, 6.9 miles from Louth, 8.7 miles from Alford

The church and rectory

renbridge-churchThe church is St Ninians, the living is at the gift of the King as Duke of Lancaster. The Rector is Reverend Daniel Morris, a single man, an elderly widower with no children. His housekeeper is Mrs Kelk,  wife of his handyman and general servant. He also has an all purpose maid, Aggie Nevis. Mr Morris (74),  Kelk (56), Mrs Kelk (57) (the five Kelk children are all gone — two dead as children, a boy and a girl, one married and in Alford, one in the army, and one in the US after a run in with the law). Aggie (48) never married, has been with the living longer than the others.

Mr Morris is kindly, scholastic, and sharp as a tack. Very social, has a lovely little dog that he takes walking. He is a classics scholar with a speciality in Republican Rome and takes students. One is currently living across the road with the Mullens.

The inn

renbridge-innInnkeeper is Silas Hancock (48), and his wife Betsy (46). They have grown sons and a daughter who also work at the inn. Sons are Fred (27), Sam (25) and Dick (19). Their daughter is Mattie (19). Four children died between Sam and Dick, two during a village cholera epidemic, one of smallpox, and one in an accident. Dick and Mattie are twins. Also various servants who may or may not get names. Fred manages the stables with Dick’s help. Silas is mine host. Betsy and Mattie rule the kitchen. Mattie is being courted by a farmer’s son. Inn has been in the Hancock family for generations.

The inn, church, and grange are on the Y intersection.

Cottages on the road to Alford

Mirs Rycroft lives in a substantial detached cottage.

Mirs Rycroft lives in a substantial detached cottage.

On the road to Alford between the church and the grange are three cottages, all detached. On the east of the road, next to the rectory, is the Fox house, then Widow Bycroft’s cottage, then the bridge over the Ren. On the west of the road next to the bridge is the Broadley cottage. The rest of the west is grange land.

The Fox family is large and unruly. Jeb Fox (35) is a drunkard and a lout. He does farm labour when he can get it, but most of the farmers around will only use him if they have to, as he cannot be relied on.  Pansy Fox  (28) takes in washing, cleans, and (it is rumoured) supplements her income by lifting her skirts. Fox beats her when he suspects such a thing, and so her lovers are circumspect, but she has 7 children to feed, and those are just the survivors. She has buried 4, two in the same cholera epidemic as the Hancocks.  The children are one a year, 11, 10, 9, 7, 6, 3, 1, with the dead ones fitting in the gaps. She is pregnant again. Not all of the children look like her or Fox.

The widow, Harriet Rycroft (61) lives in a house that is slightly more substantial than a cottage.  She and her maid of all work and dear friend, Jane Harper (59), came here from far away and have lived quietly in the village for 25 years.  The villagers would be surprised to know that they are retired prostitutes. They often give work to Pansy Fox, but pay her in food and clothing. Mrs Rycroft runs a dame school for the village children.

A visual reference for Renwater Grange

A visual reference for Renwater Grange

The Broadleys are both from families that have long been in the area. Jack Broadley (47) is a farm labourer, a large quiet man that will turn his hand to most things. Because work is scarce in the area and farmers can usually take their pick, it is significant that he is usually among the first chosen. Bee Broadley (Phoebe, 43) is Silas Hancock’s sister. She has been hired as temporary housekeeper at the grange, and is the first person Alex and Ella meet when they arrive. The Broadleys have one son (John, 24), who was impressed by the navy but who loves the life, and a daughter (Molly, 22) who has married a local farmer.

A row of cottages on the road to Horncastle

renbridge-row-of-cottagesOn the road to Horncastle, the grange takes up the northwest side of the road, and there is a row of three cottages on the southeast, with the Roses, Mullens, and Pecks.

Bill Rose (67) runs the village shop, with the support of his two daughters, Martha (34) and Jemima (32).  His wife died when the girls were teens. Bill’s son Willy married and moved away  years ago. Willy is horse mad, used to work in the inn stables, and took a job to be closer to horses. The innkeeper, Bill, is in failing health and Willy wants to be closer, so will apply for job as stable master. Bill has chased off any suitors for his daughters, so they are still single. They are involved in all village activities, especially church activities.

George Mullen (27) and his wife Millie (20) are newly weds. He is a farm labourer, son of farm labourers from another village closer to Alford. She is the daughter of Mr and Mrs Hewitt, who live further along the road. They can only afford the cottage because they have a gentleman boarder, a scholar who is studying with Mr Morris. He is a young man who hopes to take religious orders, which will work better if he can keep his eyes of Mattie Hancock. Peregrine Fairweather (23) is the second son of a family of comfortably situated gentry, and a nice enough young fellow.

Matthew Peck (56) and his two sisters Katie (57) and Pauline (59) live in the last cottage on the way out of the village. Matthew is a farm labourer. Katie and Pauline do piece work for a dressmaker in Hardcastle.

Cottages on the road to Louth

renbridge-smithyLeading out of the village to the east on the Louth road, the Arnotts and the Hills are on the north side in detached cottages.

Charlie Arnott  (48) is the village smith, and also the verger. His father, also Charlie (78) was both of these things before him but is now suffering from dementia. His mother Maggie (67) looks after Charlie and also helps with the house and children. Charlie is a widower, his wife having died in childbed some 10 years ago, leaving four children: Charles Jnr, who is 19 and his father’s apprentice, Becky (16), Tom (14) and Ben (12).

Nathan Hill (34) and his wife Lucy (28) live in the eastmost cottage with children Fanny (6), Jenny (4),  Ninian (2), and Lucy is heavily pregnant. Nathan is a carpenter and general handyman. Lucy spins, sews, and makes bonnets to supplement the family income.

The remaining villagers, the Woods, Farrows, Hewitts, and Dodds,  live in the row of cottages on the south side of the Louth road.

Moses Wood (46), the carter, is married to Hester (39). They have one son, Aaron, who is in the army (22). Hester is a baker at the inn.

There';; be work for bricklayers and carpenters up at the Grange

There’ll be work for bricklayers and carpenters up at the Grange

Tim Farrow (36) is a farm labourer living with his mother,  Alice Farrow (61). He was a rival for Lucy Hill’s hand and has been miserably single ever since.  Jemima Rose has hopes of him, but he hasn’t noticed.

Ted (62) and Mary (61) Hewitt are the parents of a large brood, mostly dispersed. Millie is the youngest, and recently married George Mullen.  They also have 3 sons and 2 other daughters, as well as 2 who died as children. The eldest is  Eddie, 34, an assistant stable master in Hardcastle. Mary-Kate (31) is married to one of Alex’s tenant farmers.  Suzy (27) went into service and is now assistant housekeeper for a baron near Lincoln. Twin brothers Wally and Bart (23) both live at home and are farm labourers with their father. Mary helps out at the inn.

Gabe Dodd (38) and his wife Abbie (35) live in the last cottage on the road to Louth.  They have three children, Matthew (10), Mark (7), and Luke (4).  Abbie has just discovered that she is with child again, but has not yet told anyone because she is prone to miscarriage. Gabe is a builder/bricklayer.

Five farms pay rental to Alex

renbridge-farmhouseJerry Ashton (62) and his wife Agnes (58) are Lucy Hill’s parents. They also have two sons who work the land with their father,  Frank (34) and Harry (31). Both are married, Frank to Nan (28) – two small children, 5 and 3—and Harry to Dinah (27, and Nan’s sister)—two small children, 3 and newborn.

Jonas Catchpole (43) and his wife Clara (46) live with Clara’s elderly parents (Seth 74 and Mary 71). Their one daughter is married to Rafe Bracey.  They have a live-in farm worker, Johnny Harper (32) who had hoped to marry Rachel himself.

Billy Horrell (52) is a widower with two grown sons. William (28) is single and Henry (25) recently married Molly Broadley

Rafe Bracy (33) is married to Rachel (21), the daughter of the Catchpoles. Rafe and Rachel live with Rafe’s brother Mike (35), who is a widower with two small children (7 and 3). Rafe was in the army, but returned home when his brother’s wife Mary died.

Ambrose West (39) lives with his sister Heloise (37). He is sweet on Martha Rose, and has been since they were children. Their mother was gentry who married down. She is a doddery old woman of 66, who sews by the fire and occasionally discomforts people by noticing what is going on. They hire their farm labour from the village.