Newsletter 6: Playing the Balloon Game with Your Emerging Novel.

Wendy’s Newsletter No.6 Thursday March 26   2015

Hello again. Thank you for returning to my Writing Process Newsletter.

If this is your first time, welcome. 

Writing a novel is a large exercise - occasionally a grandiose enterprise. Sometimes you may stop and say ‘A novel? What do I think I am doing, writing a novel? Why am I not writing a short story, a poem, something short?'

All writing is a very close in, nose-to-the-page enterprise. Never more so than with your novel. Here in my Newsletter I have suggested writing on and on, scribbling in your notebook and creatively transcribing onto the machine every ten or so thousand words, in the process laying a rich groundwork for your novel.

But there are times you the writer need to stand back and get some distance on this lump of writing you have made; you need to try to make out the shape that is emerging. You need to raise your eyes to the horizon. When you do this new characters will  join you on your pathway; new destinations will present themselves. You become the pathfinder, discovering new  routes buried deep in your existing narrative. These will help you find your way to the later stages of your story.

One way to achieve this is to change the way you see your story. It helps to find a way to conceive it not just as a heap of words but as a graphic entity.

One way to see it as a graphic entity is to play what we at RoomToWrite call -

The Balloon Game.

It goes like this.

·        Get a large sheet of paper or card and place it on the floor or on a large table.

·        On this piece of paper draw seven balloons randomly scattered.

Balloons on large sheet of card

·        In black marker on each balloon write a phrase describing something that already happens in your story.

For my novel Writing at the Maison Bleu at an early stage my balloon were scrawled with these phrases..

When Francine meets Aurelie on the plane.

When Francine walks through the rooms at the Maison Bleue

The view from the window

When Jo and Lolla meet in the pub

Felix and Abby in Paris.

When Kit meets his agent in a London Restaurant

The arrival of Maria Slack at the Maison Bleue

Each balloon  should contain a phrase about an event which already exists in your transcribed draft.

·        Now draw another seven empty balloons and scatter them among the existing balloons.

·        In the empty balloons brainstorm and write phrases describing possible events and happenings for your story. (Time to be a bit wild…)  What could happen? What might happen?

·        Now stand back and look at your balloon sheet with its existing and its new  events   

·        The previously empty balloons will have edged their way into your story.

·        Now take a bright coloured marker and draw arrow connections between the old balloons (already written…) and the new balloons (not yet written...); these arrows can carry the questions you ask yourself about the connections between the different elements.

If you are lucky enough to have a writing buddy who knows about your novel it can be great fun to share  brainstorming Balloon Game together

This new way of seeing can get quite messy but it raises your inspiration, brings to life your burgeoning narrative as a whole novel. During this time of ‘playing’ you begin to see your novel as a whole rather than a lot of sequential beads on a string. (And then…and then… and then …)

Game over!

You can stick this sheet on the wall and keep an eye on it  and go on, using the process of drafting and creative transcribing your novel in linear sequence just as you wrote the first part. Your novel now has some kind of future self. You will be buzzing with new possibilities so that’s good in itself.

Or you can use your Balloon Game more dynamically by drafting new sections for your novel out of linear sequence.

·        You could draft some pages about  an event which you now know now must happen towards the end that looks rather crucial. 

·        Or you could draft  some pages about what happens when two characters change their mind about each other. 

·        Or you could draft some pages about the time when the market square is flooded by a deluge.

·        Or you could write some pages about the time there is a row over a meal.

·        Or you could write some pages about what the time in the past when something terrible happened.

·        You can think about – and draft – sequences answering the questions you have posed yourself along the connecting arrows.

Remember you do not need to write these events in linear order. 

This ‘Balloon Writing’ counts as fresh inspirational writing and these freshly written pages will find their place in the novel in the latter stages, when you finally assemble your whole narrative.

In playing the Balloon Game and writing on from your Balloon Page you will add fresh life to the middle ranges of your novel which might otherwise be slumping along a bit. (And then… and then  ... and then…)

However you proceed the Balloon Game  you will keep creative play at the core of your writing. So important. 

Writing, long or short, should never be a chore or seen as self-imposed homework. It should be absorbing and colourful fun.

Find out about Francine, Joe, Lolla, Maria et al
in Writng at the Masion Bleu Here WX

NEWSLETTER 5: CREATIVE TRANSCRIPTION FOR YOUR NOVEL

Wendy’s Newsletter No.5 Thursday March 19^th  2015

5. CREATIVE TRANSCRIPTION FOR YOUR NOVEL

Hello again. Thank you for returning to my Newsletter.

If this is your first time, welcome.

Here on the Newsletter I have been advocating drafting your novel like a wild

child, by hand, quickly without pausing. I am imagining that you are giving that a try. If you give that a try and reach – say 8-10,000 words there comes a time  to transcribe your ‘story so far’.

(Of course you can wait to transcribe when you have drafted twenty, thirty, or even a hundred thousand words. Your choice.)

So now you have this rich bundle of character, narrative and event. What do you do about it?

You put that wild child in a restful corner for a moment and bring out the benevolent primary teacher who know the rules and will oversee your creative transcription so it will truly reflect the concept of your novel.

Rules? Let’s just plonk them here for convenience. 

They all require you to make choices which will be consistent throughout the document. If you make these choices for the first ten thousand words in becomes second nature as you write and you embark on your later transcriptions.

Typeface. 

Choose a plain typeface which will not shout ‘Look at me!’ to any reader. I like Calibri or Garamond. If you want a classic look, choose Times New Roman.

Spacing. At least 1.5. This may alter if you are including a different form of text and need to signal something to the reader. I did this when I was writing ‘Writing at the Maison Bleue’ because that story involved the creation of samples of writing from the six participators at the Languedoc Writing Retreat. These pieces of writing are laid out differently to help the reader know that this is a different on-page voice.

Paragraphs. Of course your first wild draft will already be in paragraphs. (Grammar and syntax are part of a writre’s instinct…)  But when you embark on your  transcription you will check that your paragraphs are doing their job – moving the story on and creating white space on the page to give the reader breathing space. In terms of layout all paragraphs should be indented except the first one in a chapter which should sit at the margin.

Chapters. How you break up your long story is down to you.  There are different fashions these days. Some writers do not use chapters at all but use white space to separate parts of the story.  

However the convention (which I use) is: new chapter new page.

You can decide whether you want to number or name your chapters.  I give my chapters working titles as I go along. E.g. Chris and Joe and the Long Swim. This first title acts as the working code for that chapter, which I can find and think about easily as I leaf through the whole manuscript.

On the very last run, when the novel is complete and all the words are in place I find that the chapter titles evolve from description to other deeper concepts. One example of this in this novel would be The Poetry of change.

Now comes the most important thing:  transcribing those vivid, original wild words that flowed onto the page as you were writing fast.

You have set your own layout and style rules so now you bring back the wild child from her corner to help the teacher with the creative business of transcription. You can relax, because the text and this strong part of the story is there inyour drafting book for you to copy onto your machine. 

So now you transcribe: correcting full stops, adjusting paragraphs, addressing the unique colour of your language and steering the meaning and significance of character and narrative as you go. You begin to notice and correct inconsistencies. You can deal with these as you go, or - I sometimes do this - type a reminder in bold red to do something about this later when you are in properly creative mode.

Note these amendments (page-number-checked) on a fresh page in the back of your drafting book. Here also you can start to list (again page-number-checked) the names, ages and physical characteristics of your characters and salient details of the physical spaces in which they move.

Now the wild child becomes her own continuity girl.

Now you can insert possibilities and question into the text as you go (again in bold red…) to free-write later when you are in proper writing mode.

Having transcribed your ten thousand words, examined them closely and noted new possibilities and developments, turn back to the front of your drafting book.

On a clean page make a list of developments that have emerged or occurred to you in the transcription process. Play the  ‘What if?’ game about things that might happen in your story.

By now you will be aching to write on. Turn to the next clean page and draft the next 10,000 words. Then transcribe.

  Do this four times and you have your novella. Do this eight times and you have your novel.

I think it is important to leave any elaborate lit-crit run-through to the very end when you will begin to notice what you do best and enhance it, and you can iron your carelessness and  repetition to make your story more telling, more transparent, more readable.

I have talked to writers who have punished their prose with a too early lit-crit appraisal and don’t get past the first three thousand words. Ever. They chew away at their wonderful work until it is unrecognisable.

Beware. Trust your long draft and allow it to go where it will and transcribe it creatively as I have suggested here.   

The organic outcome will be unique to you. It will, as if by magic link, with the imagination of your readers and forge a true literary bond.  

Happy Writing and Reading

Wendy

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My novel about writing and writers

 is now out in Kindle and Paperback,

Looking good. 

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4 WRITING PROCESS: WRITING BY HAND

Wendy’s Newsletter No. 4 Thursday March 12 2015

Hello again. Thank you for returning to my Newsletter.

If this is your first time, welcome.

Being a writer demands acts of courage, large and small, such as:

·         

Working entirely alone and sustaining your self belief

·         Writing with honesty and telling the truth

·         Tapping into strong elements of your own experience and telling some kind if truth that will relate to more generic human experiences.

·         Having faith in your vision of the world even if it doesn’t fit the genre-ridden business model of modern publishing,

·         Most of all I have discovered other small acts of courage which involve opening a new notebook and making a start on new work.  

A very common question for me and other writers when we meet writers and readers is’

How do you set about it? What is the process?

After saying very carefully that all writers evolve their own idiosyncratic method I usually admit that I write my first draft by hand.

These days this admission is met by a degree of disbelief and a kind of pity that one feels for a bag lady in the road. There is sometimes a frown. 'I would have thought computers would have been a Godsend for you! Make things easier.' Then (add in kind tone of voice) 'They're very easy to use you know,'

Well, I do know. 

I love my computer(s).They are brilliant for instant researching, for blogging and Facebooking and now Newslettering. I think I might have been a pioneer in that field.  I remember the joy of my first word-processer, an Amstrad 9512 - such a brilliant improvement after my electric typewriter and my bottles of SnoPake.  

I shudder at the thought of the state of my original manuscripts - which were accepted by publishers. Never mind. Daphne du Maurier sent her publishers scribbled hand-scripted drafts…

I do like to write in ink pen or, when pushed, a sweetly flowing gel-pen.

These days I own and make use of an office computer, a standard laptop and more recently a tablet.  So nowadays my drafts, well edited and neatly transcribed, reach the publisher in the immaculate computer-rendered form that I always recommend to all my students.

So, why, you may ask  do you not write now straight onto the screen? 

That is a non-starter for me.  I have experimented with drafting straight onto the screen and rejected is as far too rigid, too self-limiting. For me, staring at a screen neutralises the diverse energy of the creative mind. It hinders the nascent surprise of the millions of word in your head clustering around an idea, a concept, an inspiration as it leaps into the imagination in sentence form.

But as blocks and pages of screen-rafts build up on the screen, clearly they are too finished too complete, too self-referring, and insufficiently open. They have too much authority and too little vulnerability.

These blocks of print in the screen utterly lack the liquidity of blood transferred from the brain, down the arm to the ink or the gel that makes the mark on the page.

So for me, although computers are a wonderful gift for the end process, in the beginning the work must exist in a fluid, tentative state in notebook – always available for changing, imagining, creating and re-creating your story.

So, the only way for me to write the first draft of a novel is in a bound notebook (NOT loose pages, not ring bound…) with an ink or a gel pen.

Everyone has their own protocols.

But normally I write in bound hardback A4 notebooks. I only write on the right-hand side of the page, leaving the left-hand space for insertions, scribbled self-instructions and amendments. This often evolves into a kind of dialogue with myself about the story. The empty left hand page is crucial to my process.

At first it’s like writing my way up a hill, my ink-pen finding its way through a new landscape, dislodging here and there a tiny pressed petal or a strand of grass. The ink suffices, makes its mark.

In the end, like many things that have seemed hard, almost impossible, it has been easy. 

After drafting 20 thousand words of a new novel I embark on the first lot of transcription onto the computer, (It’s important to wait until there is this bank of original drafting before it gets onto a rigid screen.) Firts I write on a fresh page in my notebook all the queries and questions, changes and modifications that have emerged in the process of transcription

It is important not to be tempted into a full blown edit at this point. Leave that to the very end.

Then more ink drafting in 20,000 blocks. Then more transcription. I sometimes find that I have scenes and scraps, brainstorms and locations in other notebooks. I can blame that on my habit of writing on trains, in cafes, pubs and parks on whatever is to hand. So the transcribing of this first part of the novel can extend to time hunting down scenes out of sequence.

This is when I say to myself that EVERYTHING – whether or not I think it is really part of the novel - should go somewhere into the three notebooks 

As I follow these protocols, the contents of my three A4 notebooks, will organically emerge as an 80,000 word novel, give or take. Two A4 notebooks can emerge as a 40,000 novella. 

As I have said, it takes acts of courage to embark on a large writing project in this fashion. Trying my protocols might help you in these acts of courage:

·         Working entirely alone and sustaining your self belief

·         Writing with honesty and telling the truth

·         Tapping into strong elements of your own experience and telling some kind if truth that will relate to more generic human experiences.

·         Having faith in your vision of the world even if it doesn’t fit the genre-ridden business model of modern publishing,

For me the smallest and the largest acts of courage involve opening a new notebook and making a start on new work.

Next week – The benefits of the computer as a creative tool for self-editing.

3. Where do we find those seeds of inspiration? Those notions? Those themes?

Wendy’s Newsletter No. 3 Thursday March 5 2015A  

Hello again. Thank you for returning to my Newsletter.If this is your first time, welcome.

The unwilled creation and destruction of original ideas and creativity./The over-self-conscious writer/Writers’ Superstitions.

So! How we you begin? Where do we find those seeds of inspiration? Those notions? Those themes? Those preoccupations which will end up as a ten page story or a four hundred page novel.

Where are they? They are there inside us welded together, layered in our memory, our experience, our study, our genes and our souls ready to surface – often without us realising it - in the voice of a character, a description of a  place, or the violent  turn of an incident.

It is not always obvious. I was thinking that this truth emerges very clearly in the field of literary biography, where, years later.  the biographers link ‘the Works’ to the subconscious and conscious lives of their subjects. They often know more about their subjects’ pre-occupation than the writer’s knew themselves.

Think of the elliptical Daphne du Maurier as seen by the brilliant Margaret Forster. Consider the bold and insividual Kathleen Mansfield brought to life by the insightful Kathleen Jones.

We might think that poking into the soul of a writer might seem a bit invasive but I suppose that is the penalty of literary fame which makes all of us curious about the writer’s themes, icons and inspirations.

Those of us less eminent have no such worries but I have come to realised that anyone who has read half a dozen of my own novels will suss out a list of my inspirations an icons perhaps better than I can.

I have now realised that only on reflection,  because for me the primacy of the story holds the centre of my fiction. 

I now realise that my list would include: the autonomy of women, the unequal dynamics of the British class system, twentieth century history, and the possibility of personal transformation through education, writing and painting.

(And then there is France, always France. Deep down somewhere I always feel I lived in France in quite another time.)

I spent years writing the novels, always loving my stories and my characters as they danced across my page off into the bookshops and the libraries, I rarely thought about what was happening at a deep level. I just wrote on as my stories and characters  charged my head and powered my hand. Reviewers would sometimes spot the recurring themes but I thought that was their business.

The time I began to discover just what had been happening at that deep level was when I set about re-reading my novels to prepare for the writing write my rather unconventional literary memoir The Romancer. See it  HERE

I had always considered my stories to be very different from each other.

 I prided myself on that notion!. But, as I wrote this memoir. I discovered these  recurring preoccupations, themes and icons buried in my work They had indeed been there inside me all mixed up, layered in in memory, and grounded in my  experiences, in my studies, my genes and my soul.

I realised that all I’d had to do was to write these novels and short stories to allow the themes and preoccupations to find breath on the surface of my life.

This is clearly an unconscious or a subconscious process. If I had thought deeply about these things as I wrote I probably would never had reach page five in any story. (See my point below* about over-self-conscious writing encouraged by courses in ‘creative writing)

We come to a question:  Is writing therapeutic?

There are courses and sources on this. I choose to think differently. I do think that a lifetime of writing can have a therapeutic bi-product. It can also raise nightmares that can be very difficult for an individual to process on his or her own. But I suppose even such nightmares can be processed in the unselfconscious writing process. Perhaps that’s where the cult of misery memoirs may come from.

* A Personal Note on the Danger of over- Self-conscious Writing.

Having more than once sifted and judged major national fiction competitions I have noted a troubling tendency for writers – in their requested rationale enclosed with their entries – to go on at length about their motivation, their themes, their genre and their market, even while their fragile novels are unfinished or in process.

I can just hear earnest, well intentioned tutors hammering these points out with anxious writing students on these proliferating Creative Writing Degrees as though it were a critical analysis of the Tempest

For me this is like taking and axe to a block of wood which might just have a delicate island landscape buried within it, waiting to be written.

Writer’s Superstitions.

I have a few superstitions which keep me going as a writer. I (nearly always) write in ink-pen. I draft in perfect-bound notebooks. I play instrumental music (no voice) to create ‘white noise’ as I write. I wrap myself in a glazed tent…

I found this great article on the wonderful Brainpickings site. You might like it - see it HERE  - which outlines the extraordinarily arcane writing superstitions of some famous writers. For example ‘James Joyce wrote lying on his stomach in bed, with a large blue pencil, clad in a white coat, and composed most of Finnegans Wake with crayon pieces on cardboard…’

Do you have superstitions? Let me know and I will put them on my blog HERE: LIFETWICETASTED

In My Next Newsletter.
That precious notebooo=k: Thoughts on the notebook and the screen

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