I, like many considering dipping their toes in writing, visited as many web pages and YouTube links as I could find before setting off. I looked to the authors I enjoy reading and immediately got frustrated at how easy they make it look. Then I ventured further afield and widened the search to publishers and industry professionals and found one common theme across them all.
Aside from the nefarious sites that tried to take your money for advice, the single biggest take-away was to simply just get stuck in and do it. Easy huh? Nah.
Apparently my star sign, which I will leave for you to conclude, makes me a potential sufferer of daydreams and procrastination. I will gladly use this an my primary excuse which, alongside my crippling fear of failure, saw me spend far too long looking and planning my debut novel. (I will not tell you how many years) During this time I did everything I could to avoid it. I bought ‘How To” books, researched the various types of writing software my contemporaries used and joined online discussions about where to find inspiration, how to develop characters and plot lines. All tried and true techniques to prolong actually getting on with it and writing anything. I did however keep to my regime of reading every day, as encouraged by one the wiser gurus I found online and this advice alone helped me see the patterns.
I saw parallels in what I was researching and what I was reading – in real time. I began to make out not just what the author was saying, or sometimes not saying to the reader, but how it was structured. Unlike many of my favourite authors, I do not come from a writing background. No law degree, no editing or publishing in my DNA (surprise surprise!) or crime reporting or journalism in my curriculum vitae. I just love a good story. So I explored the way they used speech and how it changes between different characters, how it sought conflict and how pace works in relation to action. I needed also to learn basic punctuation and style. I chose a mix of books from my shelves and ended up more confused that I was when I started. I learned that writing styles have changed over the years and even from region to region. While they were standard in each book, the authors had their own variations in punctuation and syntax which were different from the norm. Some were even grammatically incorrect but I had never noticed. Now I am sure there are more books to buy, websites and videos to watch on why and how to get it right but I was over it. After cursing myself that I didn’t study harder in college I sat with the smartest person I know, a lovely retired school teacher (Hi Lynn!) and then had my arse handed to me. – love her.
Tired of searching the web and struggling to understand my Oxford Style Guide, I cracked on. I started by writing an introduction in a style that was ‘by the book’ and hated the rigid nature of it. I then tried to change the pace of it by removing the punctuation altogether and re-inserting it where it felt right, and finally ended up somewhere in between. No-doubt the end result will rub some readers the wrong way – but it is what it is.
Okay – Genre – Style – now I just needed a story.
Write what you know and write what you like – were two other useful take-aways from my research. Now I consider myself an expert on nothing but I know what I like to read, and that is crime fiction novels. The more action, deceit, tension the better, and a twist or two for good measure never hurt anyone. But one thing it simply must have is a proper ending, and not one that just fades into the sunset leaving you scratching your head. No suggestive ending thank you, a hint at a follow on, sure, but for goodness sake let the reader sigh – one way or the other. Whether the good guy or bad guy walks away on top, it doesn’t matter. Imagine the last book you read… When you finished the last line, what expression did you have on your face… I like a good old devious smile sneaking on there.
Okay, but as to what I know to wrote about, that was far more difficult. My knowledge of any of the top ten blockbuster topics (feel free to let me know your thoughts on top ten blockbuster story ideas) was that of a spectator, or maybe even consumer. High impact, headline grabbing themes were just that, headlines I knew about only through observation and any attempt to fake it would be transparent. As a rule, despite having my own opinions, I rarely speak out on world topics, let alone blockbuster ones. I prefer instead to learn as much about a subject as I can, before adding my two cents. Between you and me, I think many, many people should take this onboard as well.
Anyway. One thing I did have in my favour was my travels. I have been lucky enough to travel and work all over the place. From Australia, New Zealand and Asia in my youth, to Africa, America, Europe and the Middle East in more recent years. Okay, so I had some locations to draw on and a Genre nailed down, but unless I wrote an epic globe trotting adventure story it was still a hat full of loose ideas scribbled on pieces of paper. So I started from the beginning and shelved the last twenty years in the UK, and started my adventure in Brisbane, Australia.
So now I had a genre, a strong character in mind and a location and I liked all three. Next was a story and it all started with a trip to the ballet.
I remember vividly taking my daughter to the ballet when she was very young. Young enough to get concerned looks from other posh patrons – no doubt concerned that she would interrupt them with her chatter, or her fidgeting or whatever. But to her credit she sat on the edge of her seat for two hours and two acts. She loved every second and soaked it in with open mouthed amazement. Dancing all the way home on the train we talked about the performance. She raved about the costumes, the dancing, hummed the music and was clearly an instantly fan… but this is also where everything changed – a new door opened.
Our stories did not match! We watched the same ballet from start to finish but my daughter’s interpretation was completely different to mine. Okay she was six years old, and I had seen the performance before and had the programme in my hands, but her story was brilliant. Maybe even better. With no words of course, the music and movement onstage became the script and the art somehow switched from performer to audience but now subjectively, at the viewers discretion. Sure she understood when the bad guy came onstage because the music changed, (AKA Peter & the Wolf’s French horns) likewise the relationship between the ‘boyfriend and girlfriend’ but her ballet was in her schoolyard, complete with friends, games, arguments and a nasty headmistress not the Princess Swan. Did this negate the director’s intentions or reinforce it? Was the experience transferrable, like a commodity or was it a handful of magic beans, to become whatever you believed it could be? At this stage in my life I had already been working in the Arts for over a decade and considered myself at least a little knowledgeable, but this blew me away – schooled by a six year old.
Brilliant – the concept for the White Room was born.
A venue, which by design, promotes vastly different viewer based interpretations of a single piece of work. Drug induced for sure, but produced in a neutral environment without scripts, just music and movement – and your mind to complete the messages.
Now with yet another idea scribbled down and shoved into a hat, I had the makings of a story. I just needed to pull one out at a time until they made sense. I then threw every Youtube idea out the window and worked the only way I know how – I broke the story into fifty or so sections and literally stuck them on the wall. Then bullet pointed to the plot pieces I needed to accomplish in each section, with a different colour for stated, inferred and discrete reveals in each. Then got stuck in…