Eat Pray and Be Positive

I was looking for an example of writing for my talk at the RNA Conference and came up with this bit from Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. Despite recommendations I was a bit sceptical I would like this book but I've liked what I've read so far. Here's an extract to show why.

They come upon me all silent and menacing like Pinkerton Detectives, and they flank me – Depression on my left, Loneliness on my right. They don’t need to show me their badges. I know these guys very well. We’ve been playing a cat-and-mouse game for years now. Though I admit that I am surprised to meet them in this elegant Italian garden at dusk. This is no place they belong.

I say to them, ‘How did you find me here? Who told you I had come to Rome?’

Depression, always the wise guy, says, ‘What – you’re not happy to see us?’

‘Go away, I tell him.

Loneliness, the more sensitive cop, says, ‘I’m sorry, ma’am. But I might have to tail you the whole time you’re travelling. It’s my assignment.’ .......

.....‘It’s not fair for you to come here,’ I tell Depression. ‘I paid you off already. I served my time back in New York.’

But he just gives me that dark smile, settles into my favourite chair, puts his feet on my table and lights a cigar, filling the place with his awful smoke. Loneliness watches and sighs, then climbs into my bed and pulls the covers over himself, fully dressed, shoes and all. He’s going to make me sleep with him again tonight, I just know it.

First of all, there's lots of pzazz here. I like the overall image, Depression and Loneliness being detectives, and the way the idea is carried throughout the rest of the piece. Each time a phrase that compounds the image eg showing their badges it adds a bit of pzazz.

And what does all that pzazz do? It takes a section - and it's several pages in the book - about a woman succumbing to a bout of deep depression and turns it into something fun to read. We're aware that this is going to be painful for her, but the reading experience is anything but. It's a really good example of how to write something negative in a positive way.

At last! I've got my finger out and have committed to running some day courses:

Writing a Novel - 31st July in Bath and 18th September in Truro

Getting a Novel Published - 1st August in Bath and 19th September in Truro

Contact me on sarah@sarahduncan.co.uk for more info...

Minding the Gap - a Preview!

Well, it's only a preview if you're reading this before 9.00 am when my talk at the Romantic Novelists Association starts. I'm going to be rambling on about various things that I think lift a manuscript from the slush pile to the must-publish-this pile, finishing with a bit about adding pzazz. Try reading this...

Jan checked her watch. ‘It’s almost time for your talk.’

I paused, muesli spoonful halfway to my mouth. ‘I thought I’d got about ten minutes.’

She raised an eyebrow. ‘We like to start on time, you know.’

It was eight fifty on a Sunday morning – eight fifty one, to be precise, and Jan liked to be precise. I’d seen her last night at the BBQ, lining up the wine glasses in a neat line. A neat line, asking to be broken. And it had been.

I sighed. But not by me. I had kept my vow to stay sober before giving my talk, although judging by the look on Jan’s face, she didn’t believe me. I put the last spoonful down, uneaten. I thought about having another, last drink of tea, but decided against that too. I didn’t want to be late, I thought, as I pushed back my chair and stood up.

‘Which room am I in?’

Jan showed no sign of being irritated, though she must have been, as she’d already told me many times before. Along with all sorts of other stuff about the conference, which I’d managed to forget, or mislay. My room at home was scattered with bits of paper as I’d decided to reorganise my entire filing system that week. It had seemed a better idea than writing a novel, which was what my agent thought I was doing. Somewhere under all the bits of paper, the conference information lay. In other words, it wasn’t with me.

Jan told me which room I was speaking in, and checked her watch again. I’m sure it was fast. Either that, or time was being squished, like electrons going round the Large Hadron Collider 574 feet under the Franco-Swiss border near Geneva.

I sighed again. We weren’t in Geneva now. We were in Greenwich.

I hope you were sighing at the sheer genius of my prose writing style. No? Well, to be fair, it was written to be a bit...well, boring. Ordinary. There's nothing wrong with it, but that doesn't meant there's something right with it. It's middle of the road. It stays in the slush pile until - that last bit about the Large Hadron Collider.

Now, that may not have been the best bit of colour in the world, but with luck you read it and got a little buzz, a little pzazz. Pzazz can be anything - a good phrase, a surprising plot twist, a neat image. But it's got to be there, minimum five per page. Pzazz is the magic ingredient in the publishing pixie dust and it's there for anyone to find.

At last! I've got my finger out and have committed to running some day courses:

Writing a Novel - 31st July in Bath and 18th September in Truro

Getting a Novel Published - 1st August in Bath and 19th September in Truro

Contact me on sarah@sarahduncan.co.uk for more info...