Writing your big idea

There are lot of different approaches to writing.  My own way is to find a plot first and then characters to fit it.  That’s not quite as mechanical as it may sound.  The question I ask myself is, “What sort of person will act like this?”  Naturally, in a detective story, there has to be at least someone who isn’t what they seem and, as this is always fun, some other characters with secrets to uncover.

However, that’s not the only way, by any manner of means. I’ve just read a cracking book by my friend, Sue Jackson.  Sue’s unpublished as yet, but I hope it’s only a matter of time.  The book’s set in a science-fantasy medieval-type world but the characters are really believable and you do want to know what happens to them all.

However, even if you as a writer or reader, veer more to plot than characters, characters are key, even in the most highly-plotted book.  Not everyone can be a Jane Austen or a Tolstoy, where the whole book is the character, but just think for a moment of one of the most classic of adventure stories, The Odyssey. I chose The Odyssey because no-one, as far as I know, has ever been snooty about Homer.  Ulysses goes from adventure to adventure, taking in marvels on the way (and talking about Homer, isn’t the Simpsons’ version of The Odyssey great?)  but, despite his undoubted status, Ulysses isn’t someone you’d recognize.  Old, wise, resourceful, wily – yup;  but he isn’t Mr Darcy.

If he was a Mr Darcy, if he was drawn with the same depth, he’d just get in the way.  What he is, of course, is consistent, and that’s what a character has to be.  Otherwise, they have a cardboard quality, something that detective-story writers have to guard against.  (After all, some of the people are there to be red herrings; but they mustn’t smell too obvious!)

So what do you do, if you have a good idea that you’d love to write as a book?  Eighty to a hundred thousand words or so is a lot of typing, to say nothing of the other hundred thousand words or thereabouts that you’ll discard along the way.  How do you turn a good idea into a novel?

Some people just can;  Mark Twain never plotted anything, and Huckleberry Finn is a stunner.  I asked Sue Jackson and she, apparently, just sat down and wrote it; gosh.  I can’t resist this picture of a dragon, by the way;  Sue’s got a wonderful dragon in her book and Jack’s next adventure (out in May) is called A Hundred Thousand Dragons.



But – and this applies to a lot of people, including me – some of us can’t just sit down and write.  We need a plot, a guide, a road map. Don’t worry if you’re stuck – help is at hand!  One way of finding out how to turn your brilliant murder into a full-length book is to find out how others did it.  After all, there’s no point in re-inventing the wheel.  So take about four or five of your top favourite books, preferably in the genre you want to write, sit down with a pad of paper and analyse them.  By that, all I mean is write a précis of the various events, to see how one leads onto the other, and all sorts of details will start to come through.  For instance, why, in Mrs McGinty’s Dead by Agatha Christie, is Mrs Upward in a wheelchair?  Because if she’s in a wheelchair, she can’t run round murdering charladies.  And who does murder the charlady?  Well, it’s a gripping book, so I suggest you read it if you don’t know, but Agatha Christie knew before she began, that’s for sure!

So if you’re stuck, do a bit of homework.  You won’t, if you analyse enough books, be tempted to copy them, but it’s like having a master-class in how to put a plot together.

Blogtalk Radio Star

I was on the radio on Monday 25^th January.  Don’t rush to BBC iplayer – I haven’t made the BBC yet!  No, this was internet radio.  If you want to listen, go to www.blogtalkradio.com/murdershewrites where I have half an hour’s very pleasant conversation with Sylvia Dickey Smith, the author of the Sidra Smart mysteries.

I’m not sure how it works at Sylvia’s end, but as far as I was concerned it meant sitting at my desk in what we rather grandly call the study, drinking a very large cup of tea out of my Captain Kirk mug (to make me feel inspired!) and nattering on the phone about writing. I had to remember to tell the nearest and dearest not to turn the hot water as the gas heater in the study goes Whumph whenever a hot tap is turned and it sounds like a minor explosion.

Sylvia had asked me previously what I wanted to talk about and I thought that a full half hour on My Books to an audience who, with the best will in the world, probably hadn’t read them, was a bit much.  (The audience are meant to be so gripped by the conversation that they rush madly to their bookshop, library or Amazon to find out for themselves who this amazing writer is, chatting so urbanely on their PC.)

Soooo – let’s talk about writing, I suggested.  After all, one of the reasons for listening to programmes like this is, if you’re an unpublished writer is to find out how the lucky beggar speaking actually did it.  I know that’s what I wanted to know, anyway!  Go to writing conventions, was my advice.  There’s nothing, absolutely nothing, that takes the mystique out of the whole author thing quicker than meeting authors.  I remember, years ago, gazing at a most inoffensive women signing her books at a convention.  If she’d asked me what I was starring at, I’d have thought of something tactful to say, but what was actually going through my mind was, “Gosh, she’s so ordinary. And she writes books.  Wow.”  If you’re at a greater level of sophistication then I was then, don’t feel too superior;  getting published is so horribly hard that I thought anyone who’d actually done it must have a Superman vest and the vegetable resources of a Popeye.  If you can’t get to a convention (and they can be expensive) watch out for author talks at your local library.  If you’ve actually read the writers’ books, you’ll get a lot more out of it and there’s usually plenty of chances to talk one to one.

You can hear the full thing for yourself if you log onto Blogtalk Radio but I think I’ll come back to this theme next time.

Short Story Competition

The Mystery Women group have organized a short story competition.

To find out more, please go to  the Mystery Women web site www.mysterywomen.co.uk

The deadline for this competition is 28 February 2010.

More poetry

I’m feeling all poetical again this week.  My poem last time – okay, verse, then, if you’re being picky - caused an outbreak of poetry from Jane Finnis.  It’s in the comments to the last blog but I thought it deserved a wider audience, so here goes.

Poem, by Jane Finnis

Here’s a poem about black ice for all fans of William T McG:

Oh horrible cold black ice,
You really are not very nice.
You cause folk to slither and slide,
Which is something nobody should have to abide;
I tumbled down upon my bottom,
And cried out, “These ungritted pavements, God rot ‘em.”
Oh horrible cold black ice, at the start of two thousand and ten,
You will be remembered for a very long…(no, wait, I should have used that last year)…you will be remembered until I don’t know when.
(That’s not a proper ending. Er….got it!) As long as snow falls and verses rhyme,
You will be remembered for a very long time.

Isn’t it good? Now there’s a bit on irony about Jane, of all people, being iffy about winter.  After all, her last book in the excellent Aurelia series is “A Bitter Chill” about dark doings in Roman Yorkshire at Saturnalia.

While we’re on the subject of Romans, here’s a rather more famous poet than either Jane or me, WH Auden in Roman Wall Blues

Over the heather the wet wind blows,
I've lice in my tunic



and a cold in my nose.

The rain comes pattering out of the sky,
I'm a Wall soldier, I don't know why.

However, I must say my sympathy is with the Ancient Brits who made the perfect retort (probably a rude one) to the Romans in a song set to the tune of Men Of Harlech.

The Song of the Ancient Britons

What's the use of wearing braces
Socks and pants and shoes with laces
Other things you buy in places
Down in Saville Row.
What's the use of shirts of cotton,
Studs that always get forgotten,
Such affairs are simply rotten
Better far is woad.

Woad's the stuff to show men
Woad to scare your foemen
Boil it to a brilliant hue
Then rub it on your back and your abdomen
March up Snowdon with your woad on
Never mind if you get rained or snowed on
Never want a button sewed on-
Tailors, you be blowed.

Romans came across the channel
All dressed up in tin and flannel
Half a pint of woad per man'll
Dress us more than these.
Saxons you may waste your stitches
Building beds for bugs in breeches
We have woad to clothe us which is-
Not a nest for fleas.

Romans keep your armours
Saxons your pyjamas
Hairy coats were meant for goats
Gorillas yaks retriever dogs and llamas,
Ancient Briton never hit on
Anything as good as woad to fit on
Necks or knees or where you sit on-
Go it Ancient Bs.

Grumpy Old Winter Poem

There’s a programme on TV that I love – Grumpy Old Women. As yet more snow fell on Greater Manchester, I became a tad grumpy myself.  I mean: –

First day;  It’s Snowing!!! Happiness, snowball fights, build a snowman, go sledging. Aren’t we lucky?

Second day:  The snow’s really stuck, hasn’t it?

Third day: Gosh, aren’t we having a lot of snow?

Fourth, Fifth and subsequent days from before Christmas until now:  You can have enough of a good thing, can’t you?

And more than enough.  But snow and winter always seem to be poetic, somehow, so here goes:

January brings the snow;

Makes the toes and fingers glow.

Are we happy? I think not.

It’s snowing such an awful lot.

Why are my fingers glowing as above?

The kids have nicked my ruddy gloves

And my wellies, so with frozen feet,

I hobble down the frozen street

Ice clinking in my gin is fine,

Especially with a twist of lime

But as stuff to walk on, its not good

And my language isn’t all it could

Be, as slipping and sliding something rotten

I end up once more on my bottom

The car’s stuck in a solid drift

I’ve dug it out but it still won’t shift.

So off to Tescos we must go

To buy some salt to melt the snow

But Tescos has been caught on the hop;

There is no salt within the shop

The shelves are swept completely bare

Where once was salt is only air

I ask the lady at the till

Pray tell me, do you think there will

Be more salt? She shrugs with exquisite humour

And says that there’s a persistent rumour

That they’ll have more salt in Spring

When we don’t need it for anything,

But chips and a sprinkle on your grub.

What? Bugger this, I’m going to the pub.

Back at home and thawing fast

I turn the radio on to the blast

Of A Winter Wonderland. Was the fault mine?

That, maddened by constant repetition,

I hurled the radio to perdition.

The roads are blocked, the trains are slow

The weather’s at an all-time low:

There’s been too much snow of late

Winter’s past its sell-by date.

Top of the Pops!

I was thrilled to bits when I read Rachel Hyde's top picks for 2009 - and As If By Magic was there.  Thank you, thank you, thank you.  Don't applaud, just throw money, as the saying goes.

The other thing to mention is that I'm on Blogtalk Radio tonight.  It airs at 5PM Central Standard Time (USA) and the rather more sleepy 11PM UK time, but it's archived and it's dead easy to log on at a more social hour  and listen to a particular show.  That's at

www.blogtalkradio.com/murdershewrites

All the best for 2010 everyone!