Make Up Lessons for Characters

My make up routine is: collect my makeup bag from my room, take it to the family bathroom where the light is best, take out the makeup, use it, put the kit back in the bag, take it back to my bedroom.  I've done it like this for years - sharing the house with a daughter has taught me that makeup left out is makeup gone for good.

But this morning I suddenly realised that she's gone*.  No more do I have to worry about theft of my eyeliner pencil, or the 'I was only borrowing it, honest' disappearence of my mascara.  I can leave my makeup all over the basin, if I want, and the only person who will disturb it will be me.  I'm not by nature tidy, but having children in the house  has taught me to be so.  Now they've gone, will I revert to my old habits?

It's a relatively small change, but one I hadn't thought through before.  I often make my characters have different habits to my own - Lu in Kissing Mr Wrong is tidy, for example - but they reflect me and my observation of detail.  Some details I just won't be aware of, like the makeup issue, until they happen to me.    

The opening to my first novel Adultery for Beginners starts just after the characters have made love, and Isabel is stuck on top of the wet patch.  I can remember workshopping the first chapter with my writing group and the wide range of reactions it received.  I had never realised quite how many solutions there were to that particular problem.  One workshopper announced that Isabel was "sluttish" for not having organised herself better.  

I fixed that in the redraft, but it made me realise how we filter everything through our own experience.  One reader's normal may be another reader's sluttish.  As writers we can't cater for everybody's experience - that leads to bland - but we need to be aware that our way isn't the only way and get our characters to reflect that. 

*Off to uni, I haven't bumped her off or anything like that, despite occasional provocation. 

Celebration Time

After the delight of the birthday party comes the hangover...How on earth do I start year 2?

Last month I started working as the Royal Literary Fund Fellow at the University of Bristol, which has been really enjoyable so far.  I'm working with students on their writing, essays mainly, but there have been a couple of dissertations and even an agent package for sending out. 

So far, about half the students have told me that they feel a fraud, that they've got into Bristol by mistake, that everyone else knows everything, that they can't write.  Half the students!  And that's just the ones who've told me.  

I think we all feel like that.  I compare myself to other writer friends and feel they've somehow got "the secret".  They write everyday, they hit their word targets, their editors and agents love them, their publicists get better interviews... They sail effortlessly over every hurdle and setback, I set the bar low and miss it.  

I spent my blogoversary giving an interview to Penwith Radio, a great community radio station in Penzance run by some dedicated guys including the lovely Lewis, who invited me onto his show, and Timothy, Dave and David.  It was great to meet them all (that's also an in-joke for Lewis) but I felt a bit of a fraud because they appeared so impressed by my paltry achievements - the City and Guilds certificate in Brick Laying and my Countdown teapot seemed top of the list.  

And then I thought, isn't it time we learned to appreciate what we've done?  It's all too easy to feel small when a writer friend gets shortlisted for a competition, or gets an agent.  We judge ourselves so harshly, and feel that everyone else finds it easy. I think we're all muddling along, all feeling like frauds.  Being sensitive and vulnerable is part of being a human, and even more so if you're creative. 

So let's celebrate our achievements.  

Let's cheer when we finish a short story, which is more than most people ever manage, even if it doesn't go on to win first prize in a competition.  Let's allow ourselves to enjoy that warm glow when someone praises our work in class and not immediately chip in with 'I know it's rubbish really'. Let's be proud when we look at some writing done a couple of years ago and realise how far we've come since.  

We're all on the same road: you, me, JK Rowling, Anne Tyler, any writer you care to mention.  Some of them may be a bit further ahead and travelling faster, but it's the same road.  And as no one creative ever feels they stop learning and developing, let's celebrate the milestones and how far we've come already along the road.

And above all, let's stop feeling we're frauds.  We're writers! Hooray!

My Birthday Blog - One Year Old Today

Well, here is is.  365 posts later, and I'm now a year old blogger.  It's been an interesting journey, and one that I'm not sure I've got the hang of yet.  

The Follower button doesn't work properly, for example, so despite blogging every day it shows up on other blogs as not having blogged for about 10 months.  The only good thing is the blog that it seems to have stopped on was called Writing about Writing about Sex, so a surprising number of people do click through to investigate.  If anyone knows how to fix this, please let me know. 

But the techie stuff aside, it's been interesting to have to think up something to say about writing in about 300-500 words every day.  Sometimes I'm bursting with ideas and have a mega list, other times I'm staring at a blank page.  A few times I've been burning to write something, but have decided it would breach confidentiality so toned it down to protect the guilty - and then decided it's too wishy washy and so deleted the lot.  

Overall it's made me realise how writing - doing, thinking, reading - is central to my life.  I don't much else, which I'm sure makes me pretty boring to most people on the planet.  Take me to the cinema, and afterwards I'm blathering on about character arc and motivation rather than whether Leonardo di Caprio is fanciable or not.  Go round an art exhibition with me, and I'm searching for narrative in the paintings.  (I have been told this is particularly annoying, but sorry, I can't help it.)

Perhaps some time over the next year I'll run out of steam, and go off and do something else.  Until then, happy writing everyone.

Rubbish is Good

I managed to startle a whole bunch of MA students yesterday by telling them to write rubbish. It wasn't what they were expecting to hear. But it was in response to a question about writer's block, and getting over the fear of the blank page. 'I look at it,' the student said. 'And I just know I'm going to write rubbish. So I don't write anything at all.'

But the worst bit of rubbishy writing on the page is worth more than the most perfect bit of prose stuck in your head. Stuff on the page can be improved, developed, tweaked,given colour and life and energy and style. Stuff in your head is - well, stuff in your head. It can't be read by anyone.

Give yourself permission to write badly. Accept you'll have to re-write - and I don't think there can be any professional writer who doesn't consider re-writing as part of their process. It's what we all do.

An agent won't read your work with more interest because it appeared fully formed on the page. An editor won't clap their hands in delight because you wrote in a linear way. A reader couldn't care less if you didn't need to use the spellchecker. A tutor's heart will sink if you present work saying you haven't rewritten because it's perfect as it is.

All that anyone cares about is the finished product. How you get there is up to you. Write rubbish, if it gets you writing. That's all that matters.

Am I Wasting My Time?

I get asked this question quite a bit. The questioner really wants to know if I think their writing is good enough to get published. How do I know? Lots of things get published that I don't think are particularly good, or interesting. Lots of things that I like, other people don't rate. Lots of books that are held up as literary 'greats' I haven't read (eg anything by James Joyce). Was Dan Brown wasting his time? I'm not a fan, and thought he'd certainly wasted mine when I read the Da Vinci Code, but lots of people think it's the best book ever. Who's right?

And time makes such a difference. I tried writing several novels in my twenties. I didn't finish them, but I bet they wouldn't have been publishable even if I'd ever managed to struggle beyond chapter 3. Now I expect whatever I write to get published. (Gosh, that sounds arrogant. I'm not saying what I write is great literature, just, it's of publishable quality.) But I think the real answer to the question "Am I wasting my time?" is another question:

Do you enjoy wasting your time in this way?

If the answer is no, then you are wasting your time. If the answer is yes, then carry on enjoying yourself - and that's never a waste of time.

The Grass is Always Greener

So, you're writing this novel, story, play, script, poem and suddenly you get the most brilliant idea for something else. It's so much more interesting than what you're working on. In fact, it could be the break-through novel, story, play, script, poem you've been looking for.

You try to ignore the idea. It dances around the edges of your consciousness. You stick your head down and go back to work on your dull, boring, current bit of writing. The new idea shimmers and sparkles, plot developments stretch out before you. You realise that your new idea is so much better than what you're working on and then you start to play around with the new idea....

Stop! Don't be seduced by new ideas. Of course it looks shiny and wonderful and exciting - it's new. You haven't got to know it. Once, the idea you're currently working on was equally exciting. Puppies and kittens are cute, but they grow up. They don't stay at that gorgeous stage forever. When they grow up, they become less immediately appealing, and the drawbacks to pet ownership become more obvious.

Every writer knows what it's like to get a new idea. It usually means you've got a bit stuck on the old idea. I find the best thing to do is write the new idea down with enough detail so I'll know what was so appealing about it, and then close the folder. The idea is safe, waiting for when you're ready for it. Because you're not ready now - you have other work to finish. And then you need to transfer the energy to the old idea and get at least a rough draft finished.

All new ideas are as cute as puppies and kittens and, unlike puppies and kittens, you can abandon them when the cuteness fades and the need to walk and feed every day starts to pall. But what you'll end up with is masses of unfinished work, and unfinished work is of no use to a writer.

6 Reasons to have Consistent Point of View

P of V, P of V, how I don't love you, P of V. Which is what some people must sing. Point of View has never been something I've struggled with, but I know that some people do. We all have blind spots - I don't see the appeal of Strictly Come Dancing, no matter how many times people tell me it's brilliant and addictive. Back to point of view.

"Jane picked up the carving knife" is from no particular point of view.

"Jane picked up the carving knife, her hands trembling" is also from no particular point of view - Jane could notice her hands were trembling and so could an observer.

"Jane picked up the carving knife, her eyes blazing," has to be from an observer's point of view because how could Jane know her eyes were blazing?

"Jane picked up the carving knife, thinking it was now or never" has to be from Jane's point of view, because only Jane can know what she is thinking.

It's really that simple. Where it gets complicated is when people like me ask that scenes are written from a consistent point of view. In other words, once we're in Jane's point of view for a particular scene, please stay in Jane's point of view, and not go into Jack's point of view, or the cat's, or anybody else's who may be hanging around.

Why bother?

1. It can confuse the reader. For example...

Miranda washed up the dishes, thinking Eleanor was incredibly lazy for not helping. Eleanor examined her fingers, admiring the expensive manicure she'd had done only yesterday. Billy was bound to fall in love with her now. Miranda slapped down the last tea cup. What a cow.

"Have you been watching Strictly Come Dancing?" she said.

Who is speaking? It could be either Eleanor or Miranda.

2. If you go backwards and forwards from one character to another, even if the reader can follow, it can feel like being at a tennis match and watching the ball going between the two players. At worst, you can feel almost seasick.

3. Even if the reader can follow easily, it takes them away from what is happening in the scene and a bit of their brain is distracted into working out something technical which should have been hidden. If their brain gets too distracted they'll put the book down and go and do something else.

4. Staying in one character's viewpoint means we feel we're in the head of that character, and if we're in their head, we're engaged with the character, the story and the writing. Which is what you want, isn't it?

5. I know that lots of best selling writers do change point of view within a scene but if you noticed then it means you came out of the story for a moment. Are you certain your story telling is so good that you can afford for a reader to come out of the writing and work out who is speaking now?

6. It's such an easy thing to spot. On a first page it shows carelessness at best, ignorance at worst. An agent or publisher may not bother to read on simply because of shifting POV. In class I have to admit it's wonderfully easy to give POV comments, and not strain the brain into coming up with something else, As a tutor, if I spend time commenting on POV - which is important for the above 5 reasons - I may not have time to get round to other comments, like getting all the easy jobs done on the To Do list and putting off the tricky stuff.

Just be consistent. If you start a scene in Jane's POV, stick with it, don't get sidetracked into Jack's (or Jill's). Write the next scene from Jack's POV if you want, and the scene after that from Jill's, but don't mix them up within a scene. Keep us in the POV character's head, and keep us reading.