Category Archives: Writing

SUNDAY SCENE: NATALIE NORMANN ON HER FAVOURITE SCENE FROM SUMMER ISLAND

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When I was asked if I could write a contemporary romance set in Norway, I jumped at the opportunity. I didn’t have a story, but I knew the perfect setting.

I love islands, but I couldn’t make up my mind which one of my favourite places to use, and I ended up making my own fictional island. From that, came Summer Island with it’s quirky characters and the best part of Norwegian summers.

It was the perfect place for a romance between two people with broken hearts who think they have lost what they loved most.

Ninni Torp comes to her beloved island to heal from the biggest shock in her life, only to find there are bigger suprises in store for her.

I also had great fun dropping a big city boy in an unfamiliar environment. Jack Greene arrives from London to sell the farm he has inherited, and finds the experience more than a little strange.  Like here in this scene, where he gets into a rowing boat for the first time.

 

Jack looked at Frikk with a wary expression on his face. The dog looked back at him, ears up, tail down.

‘Are you sure he’s friendly?’

‘Are you scared of dogs?’ Ninni smiled at him.

Jack kept a watchful eye on Frikk. ‘No, not really. I’m not used to them, that’s all. We never had any pets. My brother is allergic.’

Ninni turned to Frikk. ‘Say hello to Jack, Frikk.’

The dog lifted a paw and Jack, after a moment’s hesitation, shook it. ‘That’s pretty good,’ he said and smiled.

Ninni laughed. ‘He has excellent manners. Better than most people, I think.’

She climbed into the boat, keeping it steady by standing with her legs apart. ‘Come on, Frikk, jump in.’

The dog looked at Jack, seemed to grin at him, and then jumped. Ninni grabbed him and lifted him to the front. She looked up at Jack. ‘Come on.’

Jack hesitated. ‘Are you sure that thing is safe?’

‘My word, you are a scaredy-cat. Don’t worry, if you fall while getting into the boat you can’t drown. That’s what the life jacket is for.’

She held out a hand, but Jack ignored it. Copying her, he carefully stepped into the boat, then sat down. He stretched out his hands and grabbed hold of the gunwale on both sides.

Ninni didn’t say anything. It wasn’t nice to make fun of someone sitting in a boat for the first time, no matter how hilarious he looked. He seemed so sure of himself on land and now he sat there, staring at the water as if it was going to attack him.

She sat down in the aft and pulled the cord to the engine a couple of times. It spluttered and then started.

The wind was coming from the south and the water was a bit choppy. The bow jumped on the waves and Frikk had a grand time barking at them.

Jack turned pale.

Ninni leaned forward. ‘Are you seasick?’

‘No.’ He shook his head, then turned a shade greener.

 

I can’t even express how much fun I had writing the two books in A Very Hygge Holiday: Summer Island, and the sequel Christmas Island.

SUNDAY SCENE: LIZ FENWICK ON THE HELFORD RIVER AS A SETTING FOR HER NOVELS

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I first visited the Helford River in June 1989 and it has held my heart since then. It has become my muse, or a major part of it at least. It is difficult to write about this part of Cornwall without reference to the river. It pulls you in as much as the moon pulls the tide in. My first six novels are set on both the north and the south side of the river and this coming Spring my latest novel, The Secret Shore, returns there once more, this time set in 1942. The protagonist Merry Tremayne was born on the south side on a farm just above Frenchman’s Creek. From her early explorations of the many creeks that feed the river she draws her very first map. This is the start of her life journey that many woman of her time did not and could not travel.

It was a challenge to look at the river through Merry’s eyes as I am so accustomed to viewing it through my own. But a setting only has true meaning when seen through the eyes of those viewing it. With each novel I have had to look at this familiar landscape and yet see it anew. In my debut, The Cornish House, it was fun to look at the area through the eyes of a stroppy London teenager. All Hannah could see was an empty landscape devoid of her former luxuries such as a decent latte and all she could smell was the air reeking of cow shit! Whereas Gabe in A Cornish Stranger experienced the area through the river’s sounds… the shrill cries of the wading birds at low tide and the soft wind in the Eucalyptus trees.

Merry is an Oxford geographer who doesn’t simply see fields and hills, but their structure, composition and development. She only notices their true beauty when she thinks of her mother Elise, an artist. It is Elise’s view which causes Merry’s analytical mind to stop every so often, enabling her to pause and see the elegance beyond the facts and figures.

Standing high on the plateau above the Helford, I watched the world change from the indistinct shapes of dawn to the defined ones of the day and I recalled my mother’s search for what she described as impossible light. It was the moment when the beauty was so sharp, so clear it hurt and broke into your mind and your soul giving everything new meaning. The only thing she had been able to compare it to was when she fell in love with my father. In that moment of understanding, her perception of everything changed.

When writing about landscape it’s important for me to be in my character’s mind because what the character sees also reveals her point of view. Does she pick out the light or does she notice how rundown things are? Victoria in Under A Cornish Sky sees the landscape through history and folklore whereas when Merry is on the river she experiences it quite differently.

This old canoe had provided Oliver and I with endless trips on the Helford and around its creeks while we pretended that we were travelling on the Amazon, or the Nile, or the Yangtze. The bending oaks and hollies had become far more exotic and dangerous.

The joy of writing is that with each book and each character I can take a fresh look at the landscape around me and discover something totally new. I appreciate it all the more for the experience.

 

 

www.lizfenwick.com

 

 

SUNDAY SCENE: JAN BAYNHAM ON HER FAVOURITE SCENE FROM HER NANNY’S SECRET

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My third book, ‘Her Nanny’s Secret’, is a dual timeline novel, set in wartime and the sixties in rural mid-Wales and Normandy. It involves secrets, forbidden love, loss, and hope. In the 1963 story, my main character, Annie, travels to France with Clara Pryce to whom she was nanny when she was younger. Clara’s father had been shot down over Normandy in June 1943. Now as an adult, Clara is keen to try to find out what happened to him and where he’s buried. My chosen scene in the novel is when Annie accompanies Clara to Ville de Roi, a town near where her father’s Spitfire fighter plane had been shot down. It’s her first day and I want to capture Annie’s reactions to French life, seeing it through the eyes of someone who had never been to France before.

As she and Clara approach the town, ‘the sea sparkled like a mirror in the afternoon sun’ to the left; ‘coves and inlets surprised her around each bend’ in the road. Once parked, they wander through the streets, eventually choosing a pretty crepêrie where they can have lunch.

La Belle Epoque was situated down a narrow, cobbled street branching off from the main square. Outside, tables, covered with red-and-white tablecloths, and bentwood chairs were placed along each of the two large windows. Ornamental fruit trees in brightly glazed pots separated each table.

‘Is it warm enough to sit outside, do you think?’ asked Clara.

Just being able to sit out in the fresh air to eat is a new experience for Annie. A real treat. None of the cafés in Pen-y-Rhos have outdoor seating.

They sat down and studied the menu. Annie had never seen such a choice and couldn’t decide from the images between a savoury galette filled with ham and cheese, topped with a fried egg, or, to satisfy her sweet tooth, a crêpe, oozing with cooked local apples and whipped cream.

Clara laughed at her indecision and Annie wondered if her eyes were as wide as she felt them to be.

Back home, pancakes are only eaten on Shrove Tuesday and then always with lemon juice and white sugar.

Later in the scene, they come to a central square where a group of elderly men are playing a game Annie hadn’t seen before.

‘Pétanque,’ said Clara. ‘It’s very popular in this part of France.’

They found a bench and watched the game in progress. One man threw a small white ball onto the dusty gravel, a ‘jack’ Clara called it. In turn, each player threw a larger silver coloured ball, a boule, as close to the jack as they could. The men became more animated as the game went on especially when someone’s boule knocked another’s further away from the jack.

‘Every village will have a square for pétanque. Can you see how earnestly the old men take the game? You must never disturb a player when they’re about to throw.’ Clara laughed, waving a finger.

Clara explains to her that even the smallest village in France would have a square and a town hall, a mairie. Annie can’t get over how many cafés and bars there were in one place.

Pretty window boxes adorned the upstairs windows and scarlet summer geraniums and tumbling blue lobelia gave a blaze of colour.

During the rest of her time in France, Annie is to encounter many more new experiences. In the search for Clara’s father, she could never have imagined the outcome of the visit. Keeping her secret for over twenty years is justified at last.

 

https://janbaynham.blogspot.com

 

SUNDAY SCENE: ANGELA BARTON ON HER FAVOURITE SCENE FROM SPRING BREEZE

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I love the freedom of writing fiction. I construct imaginary buildings and places, create characters, invent stories for them and decide how they’ll react to the obstacles I put in front of them. I forge their relationships, decide who they’ll fall in love with and I determine their outcome. But over the years as my writing has evolved, I like to include real events from history, real people who were alive at the time of my story, and real objects. In Spring Breeze, Irène Némirovsky and Picasso make appearances and interact with my characters, but my excerpt below is about an object.

A great deal of responsibility comes with including actual people or objects in a book. Research has to be thorough and accurate, then entwined into the storyline without sounding like a history lesson! I never enjoyed history at school. Every time I was given homework is was to learn a seemingly endless list of names and dates. I wanted dramatic stories, heroes and heroines. I wanted adventure, romance and excitement. Perhaps that’s one of the reasons I became a writer. Now I can make my own stories whilst adding a touch of realism and history to them.

My protagonist in Spring Breeze is Matilde Pascale. She used to work in an auction house before the German invasion caused its closure. Forced into working for the enemy at the Jeu de Paume museum in Paris, Matilde discovered an object she’s been asked to log; a priceless artefact from history. Imagine the scene. Matilde has been led to the basement of the Jeu de Paume museum where the Germans are storing looted valuables: jewellery, antiques, paintings, ornaments etc. It’s gloomy, lit by dim bare light bulbs, it’s eerily quiet except for the faint echoes of footfall on the floor above her, and she’s alone in the vast storage room.

 

Kneeling, Matilde placed her notepad and pen on the floor. Whatever could it be? She touched it. It felt solid. She peeled back its wrapping and saw material that had been rolled tightly. She found one end but it was too heavy to unroll. She followed a fold, running her fingers along its length and gradually teasing out the material until she had enough to fold it back. Slowly she peeled back a corner to reveal embroidery. The workmanship was exquisite, in vibrant colours and Latin inscriptions. The material felt like linen and smelt musty, like walking into an old church. Looking closely she could see that it had been sprinkled with moth powder. She unfolded a little more: a horse, a man with a sword, arrows. The figures were immediately so individual and so identifiable that her mouth fell open. Her eyes, now wide with wonder and horror, took in what lay before her on the floor.

It was the Bayeux Tapestry.

Matilde knelt reverentially before the giant roll of fabric and pulled on her gloves. She gently laid her palm against the cloth, leaned forward and smelled it. A frisson of awe forced her to close her eyes and wonder at the history this tapestry had seen. It had been associated with such bellicose men as William the Conqueror and Napoleon Bonaparte. It had survived the French Revolution in the 18th century and withstood examinations and transportations.

 

www.angelabarton.net

 

SUNDAY SCENE: CAROL THOMAS ON HER FAVOURITE SCENE FROM A SUMMER OF SECOND CHANCES

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Ava Flynn, the heroine of my novel, A Summer of Second Chances, feels the clothes donated to the charity shop she manages have seen more life than her. Yet maximum dedication is what it takes to keep her late mother’s beloved wildlife charity, All Critters Great and Small, running.

But when Ava’s first love, Henry Bramlington, returns to the village, life suddenly becomes a little too eventful. As the heir to Dappleburry House and estate, Henry, has the power to make or break the village he left behind – All Critters Great and Small included.

In the scene I am sharing, Ava is running with her spaniel, Myrtle, in the grounds of Dapplebury House. Unaware that Henry has returned, but well aware she is trespassing (especially as she was banned from the estate many years ago), Ava is releasing the tension she has felt building inside as she encounters Henry for the first time in over a decade.

 

The trees went by in a blur. The sensation was freeing. Ava was running too fast for rational thought. Too fast to think about all that she would like to say to her mum; too fast to think about the weight of burden she felt at keeping All Critters Great and Small afloat; too fast to think about the never-ending mountain of donations at the shop, and – Oh God! – too fast to do anything to avoid the man stepping out from the line of trees just feet ahead of her.

With the deft agility that came from being half a metre from the ground, and in possession of four paws, Myrtle darted out of the way, while Ava braced herself for impact. Seeing the alarm in the man’s green eyes as if she were registering the situation in slow motion, Ava slammed into him, knocking him to the ground as the breath left them both.

Shocked at the abrupt stop as much as the fall, cushioned only by the fact she had landed on top of the man, it took Ava a moment to regain her faculties. Embarrassment taking over, she cursed and began scrabbling up from the horribly awkward situation. Myrtle ran around the unexpected scene in a frenzy of excitement as Ava and the man disentangled their bodies.

Ava stood. ‘Are you crazy? What are you thinking just stepping out like that?’

Slowly getting to his feet, the man laughed, the unexpected response doing nothing to ease Ava’s anger.

‘Seriously?’ She felt the beads of sweat on her temples prickle.

‘I’m sorry—’ The man, still doubled over with his hands on his hips, sounded winded. ‘I heard a scream … and came to see if everything was all right. I had no idea you were about to come … like a banshee, hurtling along from nowhere, on what is …’

‘Private property, I know,’ Ava retorted, flailing her arms in the direction of the woods.

She inhaled in readiness to continue, but as the man stood to his full height, flicking his fringe from his eyes, and offering the hint of a smile, no words came. Instead, Ava stood transfixed – recognition slowly dawning upon her.

 

I greatly enjoyed writing all of the scenes between Henry and Ava. While this marks a new beginning for them, all does not run smoothly, especially as Henry inadvertently leaves a donation at the shop that reveals secrets with far reaching consequences for them both.

EVA GLYN’S HIDDEN CROATIA: AFTER THE MONKS LEAVE…

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As so often happens when you’re researching, I stumbled across Lopud 1483. Strange name for a monastery now turned event space and high end holiday let, but not when you discover that was the year the Franciscans started to build Gospa od Spilice, or Our Lady of the Cave.

Perched on an outcrop overlooking the main harbour on the island of Lopud, just fifteen kilometres from Dubrovnik, the monastery and its fortifications have been a landmark for generations. After the 1820s it began to crumble, the monks having decamped back to the mainland leaving a local man to open the church for anyone who wanted to pray.

It was a tiny and often forgotten slice of the monastery’s history that fascinated me originally. I was researching what happened to Dubrovnik’s Jewish community during the Second World War and discovered that some of them had been interned on Lopud for a period of about six months. This was done under the strict instructions of the German occupiers, but the soldiers guarding them were Italians who up until that point had avoided imprisoning the Jews under their jurisdiction.

What fascinated me was exactly where on the island the unfortunate Jews had been interned. There didn’t seem to be very many buildings big enough, which left me thinking about the monastery. It might have been a ruin, but it had stout fortified outer walls and in many ways was an obvious choice. So imagine my surprise when, watching a documentary about the monastery’s restoration, I saw the words ‘il duce’ painted on a wall. Italian fascists had definitely been there.

I really, really wanted to visit this beautiful place, as my characters do in the book I was writing and researching. They would have been there in 2010, quite early in the restoration programme, but I knew from experience that walking around the building and grounds would enable me to recreate it so much better for my readers.

I knew I couldn’t afford to rent this iconic property (recent guests include the Beckham family), so I emailed the general manager with the dates of my Croatian trip and kept my fingers firmly crossed. The answer was yes; they had a small gap between rentals – basically a Sunday morning – and their security officer would show me around.

First let me say that Lopud 1483 is a little slice of heaven. Its restoration took the best part of twelve years, but in 2018 it opened its doors for cultural events and private rentals. The project was masterminded by Francesca Thyssen-Bornemizsa, and it now houses her family’s extensive collection of renaissance art, furniture and artefacts.

Our guide was keen to tell us about the art, but also about the property’s history, including the physic garden and the monks’ pharmacy which have also been restored. To walk through the gardens is a wonderful sensory experience and I could have lingered there for hours, but of course I needed to find out about the Italian connection in World War Two.

Standing in the master bedroom looking at the fascist graffiti from eighty years before sent more than a shiver down my spine. The monastery had certainly been the Italians’ headquarters on the island but, as I discovered that day, not where the Jews had been interned. That dubious honour went to a hotel that had been built in the 1930s as a beacon of modernity, something I would never have found out had I not visited Lopud.

And I can always dream that the book, due out in summer 2023, is an international bestseller so I can afford to go back to Lopud 1493 and stay!

My Writing Process Rebecca Raisin

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What have you written, past and present?

I have written eighteen romance novels over a period of about ten years. At the moment I’m writing a book set in Venice and it’s been a joy exploring all the hidden gems albeit with the help of travel blogs and google images. It’s always a lot of fun to research a location to bring it to life in my stories. 

  • What are you promoting now?

My latest release, Elodie’s Library of Second Chances is about the power of stories and second chances. Elodie escapes the family media empire to take the librarian job in small town Willow Grove. She hopes to save the library but with limited funds and resources she’s fighting a losing battle. Until she stumbles upon some real-life stories that need sharing. She decides to lend people to share their stories in the hopes the community will be more accepting of those on the periphery. Everything is going well until her own past gets scrutinised and people find out she’s not who she portrayed herself to be. But don’t we all deserve a second chance? 

  • Tell us a bit about your writing process

I write the first draft fast with a brief outline to guide me. I don’t like to plot in too much detail as I prefer the characters to guide me when they come to life on the pages. In saying that, I do a full character profile for the main characters before I start. I start with their physical descriptions and then dive into what sort of person they are. Do they cry in sad movies? What kind of laugh do they have? What do they want most in the world? What are they scared of? And that gives me a wide scope to work with when it comes time to add some conflict into the story and know how they’ll react to certain situations and where to push them that little bit further. 

  • How do you structure a book?

Every book is different depending on the goal of the heroine but I usually start with a hook, a catalyst that changes her life and forces her to act. The character profile comes in handy here because I will already know what she doesn’t want, or what she fears so I will then move the plot forward by making her face those fears. I use the general idea of what is her goal? Her motivation? What conflict can I add to the mix to make her work for what she wants ahead of the resolution. I also focus on friendship as well as romance so these factor in too but for my heroines the priority is always about them finding their own way in the world. 

  • What do you find hard about writing?

Deadlines! They creep up so fast! It feels like I’ve got all the time in the world and then two minutes later the book is due. Luckily, I love editing, so once I get the first draft done, I enjoy the editing process a lot more. 

  • What do you love about writing?

The best part of writing is when a story comes together in such a way that those characters are in your heart and on your mind and you know you’ve connected to the story on a deep level. The Venice novel I’m writing now feels that way, almost as though they’re real people and not inventions of mine. It’s the best feeling when that happens! 

SUNDAY SCENE: LYNNE SHELBY ON HER FAVOURITE SCENE FROM ROME FOR THE SUMMER

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Kate Harper, the heroine of my new book, Rome For the Summer, has always loved the painting that has hung in her parents’ dining room for years, never suspecting that it is worth a fortune – until her art dealer boyfriend cheats her family out of the proceeds of the painting’s sale, leaving her devastated.

Kate discovers that, two hundred years ago, the girl in the painting, Charlotte Browne, ran off to Rome with the artist who painted her portrait. He abandoned her, but her eventual fate is unknown. Hoping to uncover the mystery of what happened to Charlotte, Kate seizes the chance of a summer job in Rome, where she strikes up a friendship with artist Jamie Taylor . . .

One of my favourite scenes in the book, takes place on Kate’s first day in the city, when Jamie takes her to see the Trevi Fountain, leading her through ‘a maze of streets’ narrow enough for her ‘to wonder how the cars parked along their length could possibly have driven down them.’ Passing apartments with flowers tumbling from their tiny balconies, restaurants with tables outside on the pavement, fruit stalls, ‘and street vendors selling anything from red roses to dubious leather handbags,’ they round a corner into bright sunlight and Kate hears the sound of rushing water . . .

‘Oh – there it is!’ I exclaimed. There in front of me was the famous Trevi Fountain, its white marble statues glowing in the late afternoon sun, water splashing down into a turquoise pool, the steps surrounding it packed with tourists, most of them holding up camera phones. It was a scene familiar to me from every movie set in Rome that I’d ever watched, and yet it took my breath away.

Writing this scene through the eyes of a character who has never visited Rome before bought back memories of my first visit to the city – my reaction on seeing sites like the Trevi Fountain, the Colosseum or the view from the Palatine Hill for the first time, was very similar to Kate’s!

The scene is also the first time Jamie, who spotted Kate sketching on the Spanish Steps earlier in the day, offers to help her improve her painting and drawing technique.

I looked again at the fountain with its statues of a man and two galloping horses set against a backdrop of a palace façade, and knew that I didn’t have the skill to capture it on paper.
‘I could never draw something like that,’ I said.
Jamie raised his eyebrows. ‘You don’t know that.’
‘Believe me, I do,’ I said. ‘I’m no good at drawing people or horses, even if they’re made of marble.’
‘I could help you draw them,’ he said, ‘if you’d like me too.’ He smiled encouragingly, and somehow, even although I felt sure he would be wasting his time, I found myself nodding my head.

Kate’s drawing of the fountain turns out a lot better than she expected, Jamie’s encouragement helping her find the confidence that she lacks to believe that she can actually draw, foreshadowing the way her summer in Rome will lead to her finding the confidence to pursue her dreams and ambitions in other areas of her life as well.

I very much enjoyed writing this scene and giving my heroine a great first day in the Eternal City. As Jamie says to her, at the end of the chapter, as they share a bottle of wine and a pizza at a pavement café: ‘Benvenuti a Roma, Kate.’

 

www.lynneshelby.com