Tag Archives: #amwriting

WRITERS ON THE ROAD: GILL THOMPSON

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Back in spring 2018, I visited Prague to research my second novel, The Child on Platform One. Known as ‘The City of a Hundred Spires,’ the capital of the Czech Republic is characterised by gothic splendour and quaint medieval charm. It’s dynamic and vibrant, a brilliant collision of past and present.

But I wasn’t just there to admire the scenery, stunning though it was. If my story was to come to life, I wanted to see for myself the locations I’d placed my characters in. First the conservatoire, a large sand-coloured building situated close to the river between two of its central bridges. My novel starts with a young girl and piano-playing prodigy, Eva, having a music lesson at this famous musical venue. But she is late – we don’t initially know why – so has to hurry home to her parents who will be anxiously awaiting her. For this reason, she takes a short cut through the old Jewish cemetery, a decision with fateful consequences. I was shown round the cemetery by a wonderful Czech guide, herself called Eva, who stood amused whilst I checked my Eva’s route through the graveyard. She agreed with me that Eva would have been able to enter and exit at different points, essential to my plan.

My next destination was even more sobering: Terezin, the old eighteenth century fortress 60 km northwest of the capital which was converted to a Jewish ghetto for the duration of the war. When I first read about this ‘holding camp,’ the hairs on the back of my neck stood up. Although they were prisoners, fed a meagre diet, and worked until they dropped, the Jewish inmates were allowed to paint, sing, dance and act in their ‘free time,’ most notably performing Verdi’s Requiem to an audience of Germans, who were unaware that the choir were singing of God’s judgement on their captors. As I was shown round the camp with its poignant gallery of portraits, reconstructions of dormitories and the terrifying crematorium, I was moved, appalled and inspired in equal measure. What came across to me most strongly was people’s capacity to use their creative talents to make meaning in the darkest of times. I hope I have brought this quality to life in my novel. It was certainly a tour I will never forget.

My final destination was the Wilson station. It was here, on platform one, that I discovered the statue of Sir Nicholas Winton, the British man who rescued 669 children from Nazi-occupied Prague before the start of World War Two. Later in my novel Eva, terrified for the safety of her child, sees her daughter Miriam safely onto one of Winton’s trains before Eva herself is sent to Terezin. It was this episode that finally provided the title for my novel: The Child on Platform One.

The novel has been published now, and I am delighted that it was also translated into Czech and sold in bookshops throughout the republic. Eva’s story will finally be shared with the people who inspired it.

The beautiful city of Prague won my heart. This is an amazing place to visit but its history is sometimes dark and terrible. I hope I have done these events justice in my novel.

 

 

 

 

 

 

EVA GLYN’S HIDDEN CROATIA: KOMIZA

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I knew, when I started to write the book that would become An Island of Secrets, that I needed to visit Komiza, but as it was during the lockdowns of 2021 it seemed like an impossible dream. Then, in the summer, everything opened up and we booked a small apartment, took our covid tests, and headed off.

It was a bit of a journey, and that’s one of the reasons the place remains low on the tourist radar, despite being the main filming location for Mamma Mia II. We flew into Split and after an overnight stay on the mainland took a ferry to Vis (the island and the town), where a taxi met us and dropped us on Komiza’s harbourfront.

This was our first lesson about the town (not a village, a town, and the inhabitants are intensely proud of that fact) – there is no vehicle access to much of it, certainly not to the narrow streets and alleys heading up the hill from and surrounding the harbour. But as we strolled along the waterfront in the late afternoon sun, past restaurants, coffee shops and an ice cream parlour, I sank into the sort of peaceful joy that only the Mediterranean gives me.

There are plenty of places to eat and drink around the waterfront, and a small supermarket if you prefer to actually self cater. A surprising amount of stock is squeezed into its narrow aisles, but it’s worth fighting to the back to the deli counter. The staff were delighted we wanted to try different local cooked meats and cheeses.

There are several tiny beaches near the central harbour, but the main one, Gusarica, is to the right as you face the sea, perhaps a five minute walk down Ribarska Ulica, the street through the old fishermen’s quarter. On either side are beautiful old stone houses, a few of them little more than tumbledown ruins just crying out to be repaired.

I swam from Gusarica’s pebbles every morning (don’t expect sand in Dalmatia); the sea warm and the backdrop stunning. Komiza is wrapped in the arms of a wide bay – thus its long and rich tradition as a fishing port – and watching the sun creep along the peninsular, making it glow golden, was incredible. Behind the beach is one of the pretty churches I feature in An Island of Secrets, with a beautiful incense-filled interior that’s well worth peeping into.

Along the harbour there are many boats offering trips to the famous blue cave on the nearby island of Bisevo and other gorgeous destinations. Alternatively, if you want something different, chat to the ladies selling them; although they’re in competition they do work together. I just wanted a trip along the coast to spec out some locations for my book and was able to negotiate a late afternoon bespoke trip for quite a reasonable price.

There are a plethora of restaurants to choose from, but we started with Konoba Koluna on the harbour – look for the red table clothes – and didn’t feel the need to go anywhere else. The staff were super-friendly and the food fresh and homely; just the way we like it. I suppose we were rather lazy, there were other places we would have liked to have tried, including Konoba BAK that specialises in peka (it was just too hot!) and Konoba Jastozera near Gusarica, which has fabulous views back across the harbour.

Admittedly Komiza is special to me because it is so central to one of my books, but if you want a quiet, traditional Mediterranean break in a warm and welcoming place then look no further.

 

 

 

WRITERS ON THE ROAD: PATSY COLLINS

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Hi! I’m Patsy Collins aka The Travelling Writer. Ten years ago I was a tour guide. That job kept me in one place but ever since being made redundant and becoming a full time writer I’ve spent a lot of time travelling – mostly in a campervan shared with my husband. We’re on the road for three months a year, so naturally I write in the van. So much so that I often refer to R’ten as the mobile writing retreat. She’s absolutely perfect for that. She’s also a pretty good photography base for Gary.

There are things about a campervan which may initially seem like disadvantages, such as limited internet access and restricted space, but are really the opposite. When we can go online it’s all too easy to ‘just quickly look that up’ and get distracted by emails, funny memes, brilliant opportunities to submit our work if we ever get it finished… If we have to go into another room to make a cup of tea, we don’t always return to the keyboard the moment the kettle has boiled. Even the limited power supply can be a plus, because it encourages me to get the words down straight away, rather than wasting battery power faffing about.

Sometimes the places we visit for Gary’s work inspire my stories. Sometimes we spend time in an area so I can write my novels and short stories ‘on location’. It’s really useful to be able to literally walk in my characters’ footsteps along the beach, up a mountain or through town. I enjoy seeing what they see, eating what they do, even sharing a few of their mishaps – my research has occasionally been more thorough than intended!

One of my six novels, Leave Nothing But Footprints, is actually set in a campervan, and that’s where it was written, even if it wasn’t always parked in the same country as Jess and Eliot took their own trip. Although the storyline is nothing like my own life, some of the small details are based on reality. I think they help make the story believable, and using them in a positive way helps me feel better about some of our mini disasters in the early days. Oh, and I might sometimes try convincing Gary to unleash his romantic side for the good of the current WIP!

Another book written entirely in R’ten is From Story Idea to Reader; an easily accessible guide to writing fiction, co written with Rosemary J Kind. We know each other well, but didn’t physically meet during the writing stage as when she was in England we were in Scotland, and when we came home she went to Switzerland. We did park the van on her drive while we worked on the promotion stuff though.

Having the van, and being able to go where we like has enabled me to deliver writing workshops and attend events which wouldn’t be practical if they couldn’t be incorporated into a working trip.

Of course the locations we visit provide distractions. We’ve parked up on beaches, in the depths of forests, at the foot of mountains, alongside rivers, in the grounds of a castle, in view of seals and otters or surrounded by wild deer … But I’ve been a writer for over twenty years now and have learned to accept the ups and downs which that entails.

If you’d like to learn more about me and my writing, then please visit patsycollins.uk where you’ll find links to all my books and lots more photos from my campervan adventures.

ELAINE SPIRES: TURNING A NOVEL INTO A STAGE PLAY

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In her second article Elaine Spires turns a novel into a stage play

In my previous article – Turning a Stage Play into a Novel – I shared my experiences of turning two of my plays into novels and of the relative ease with which this was done. Writing a play from a book (Singles’ Holiday) proved much harder.

Photo credit: Danann Breathnach

Originally I wanted to write a screenplay but knew the probabilities of getting it in front of anyone that mattered were slightly less than winning the Euromillions next Friday. And although I know lots of actors, writers and directors, I unfortunately don’t know anyone with the financial means to make such a film or TV series. Producing Singles’ Holiday for the stage, however, was much more feasible.

The book has a fairly large cast of characters, and I wanted them all to appear in the play.  This was impossible.  As interesting as their backstories were and of importance in explaining how this totally diverse group of people come to holiday together in Antigua, it couldn’t be told in two hours.  So the culling of characters began.  It felt like I was murdering my own children.

To start, I took a red pen to all the minor characters.  Then I concentrated on those remaining to move the story along and produce my first draft. I’ve always preferred writing dialogue, but writing only dialogue proved a challenge resulting in lengthy stage directions.

The draft was four hundred and two pages: totally unrealistic as it would mean a six-hour show.  Actor Nick Campbell who knew the book well, had encouraged me to write the script and wanted to produce the play sat down with me and after much foot-stamping on my part persuaded me to cut two more characters but this meant we lost a huge plot twist.

I feared this would diminish the story but I could see that he was right; it was better to concentrate on writing a play that worked rather than a faithful rehash of the book that didn’t.  There’s nothing worse than theatre that doesn’t entertain.

It turned out to be sound advice.  I realised that Singles’ Holidays is, in fact, almost three books in one and by carefully plotting the story arc and concentrating on a smaller cast it could work well.

Once the second draft was ready I got a group of actors together for a table read.  This is a vital part of the playwriting process as it’s the first time a writer sees her characters come to life and hears them speak, outside her own head, of course.  It also shows what works theatrically and what doesn’t. As this draft was over two hundred pages I already knew further editing would be necessary.  I made copious notes and worked on the script again. Cutting out two further characters and their dialogue brought us to one hundred and sixty pages.

And it was time for another table read.  A fabulous director friend Jane Gull came along and was brutally honest with me, asking,

“Whose story is it, Elaine?”

This one question (answer – Eve the tour manager’s) showed me what I needed to do: cut out anything superfluous to developing her story.

Finally, I had a one-hundred-and-thirty-page play script. Another table reading showed it worked!

And in October 2014, Singles’ Holiday had a hugely successful week’s run at the Brentwood Theatre, courtesy of Melabeau Productions.

Singles’ Holiday is now the first in the six-book Singles’ Series. The others are set in worldwide tourism destinations and continue Eve’s story.  I still think they would make great TV.  Does anyone know someone at Netflix?

 

www.elainespires.co.uk

 

 

 

 

ELAINE SPIRES: TURNING A STAGE PLAY INTO A NOVEL

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In the first of two articles Elaine Spires shares the secrets of turning a stage play into a novel

My first novel, What’s Eating Me, started life as a stage play.  It’s the story of Eileen Holloway, a struggling single parent of two teenage boys who’s holding down a demanding job while dealing with her difficult mother. Food is the drug of choice that gets her through the day until she is tricked into appearing on Barbara’s Beautiful Bodies, a reality TV show. She becomes a celebrity over night, albeit a reluctant one. Compulsive overeating is a grossly misunderstood condition and it was a story I was keen to tell.

Photo credit: Danann Breathnach

The play was a one-woman show, which I took to the Edinburgh Fringe. Although we played in a tiny venue, it had great reviews.  Afterwards, though, I just couldn’t let Eileen go. So I decided to turn her story into my first book.

As the play was a three-act soliloquy – Eileen sharing her thoughts with the audience – it seemed to me logical that the book should be written in the first person (I) as this would tell Eileen’s story in her own voice, giving it an intimacy that would have been missing in the third person (she).

A huge advantage for a writer turning a play into a novel is that the characters have already been brought to life and their voices have been heard. A great tip for writing novels, especially dialogue, is to read your words out loud to hear the characters’ voices and when converting a play this part has already been done for you.  Your characters are already 3-dimensional and alive; you’ve seen and heard them. The audience feedback i.e. where they reacted by laughing, gasping, clapping, stunned silences or – hopefully not – bored indifference is also a great indicator of what’s working and what isn’t, not just re dialogue but also plot twists and story arc.  I would recommend watching your play performed as many times as possible. You’ll be surprised that you see something different every time. Actor input also plays a helpful, vital role.

Regardless of when events and back stories appeared in the play my first step was to put them into chronological order thus giving me a time line of scenes. Then I worked on each scene, developing character/personality traits, adding or expanding on backstory thus giving not only deeper insights to the individual characters but explaining, in this case, Eileen’s reactions to them.  This I call sprinkling the glitter – where the creative process really gets to work. It’s the part where ideas often appear from nowhere that move the plot along or take it in a different direction. This, in turn, helped demonstrate the Why behind Eileen’s self-destructive behaviour. In the end, although the main events of the story occur in diary form in the novel, backstory events are revealed as and when the plot demands it, thus producing twists.  And everyone loves a twist, don’t they? Perhaps this sounds complicated but with detailed A3 sheets on the wall covered in post-it notes, it worked for me.

I thoroughly enjoyed this way of writing and so another play – Sweet Lady – became my second novel.  And this book, too, is written in first person, although quite different from What’s Eating Me.  The rest of my novels haven’t been plays but I always visualise them as such, making notes and envisaging scenes of dialogue, which I perform aloud – fortunately I live alone – before I start the proper writing of the book.

Readers often remark that my books would make great TV series. I think that’s the result of the way I plan.

 

www.elainespires.co.uk

 

 

 

 

 

How I got a Literary Agent.

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In January this year one of the most amazing things happened to me: I got a literary agent. Having an agent was always something beyond my wildest dreams, more than that, my agent is the amazing Susan Yearwood. Champagne popping time indeed.

I spent the months in the run up to Christmas researching agents and sending off submissions. I went through The Writers’ & Artists’ Yearbook with precision, choosing ten agents to send my book off to. I researched every agent heavily and Susan called to me. There are a few interviews I found in which Susan and her ethos resonated with me. I knew she was The One.  In fact, before her email asking to schedule a call with her, I had a dream she was my agent and we were being interviewed at a literary festival together.

In the end I sent my first novel off to a lot of agents and publishers. I got a lot of good feedback and a few full manuscript requests. I also got a wonderful rejection from Harper Collins, who read the entire thing and sent me four paragraphs of feedback. They even asked me to send them anything else I wrote. In the end Susan passed on my first novel, but she liked my writing enough to ask if I had anything else I could send her. Thankfully I did. I always write a first draft of a book and then get started on another one while I let the other one sit. Then I go back to it with fresh eyes, alternating my drafts. I did not think the other book was ready and had spent hundreds sending it off to a professional editing agency for feedback. By the time the feedback came back Susan had been my agent for three months! It may have been a waste of money, but I have no complaints.

Susan loved the book and took my on as a client after our phone call. I was a true pinch me moment. For anyone who wants an agent and does not have one yet I would say the following things:

  • Write a good book. Send off the first three chapters, along with a synopsis that really grabs.
  • Collate all of the writing you have done and any awards you have won. Write a paragraph about yourself that sells all you have to offer. Covering letters are important.
  • Get a copy of The Write”s and Artists’ Yearbook and research what agents work in your genre.
  • Start submitting.
  • Keep submitting.
  • Take rejection in your stride.
  • Listen to all feedback.
  • Redo your submission to suit various agents.
  • Start writing your new book.

 

Good luck!

 

WELSH WRITING WEDNESDAYS: INTRODUCING INDEPENDENT AUTHOR ALIENORA BROWNING

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Writing is, for me, like breathing: I feel oxygen-starved without it, and it has the same natural rhythms, dips and soaring highs. It is also my dominant ‘voice’ since I tend to be a listener, rather than a talker, in many situations.

I do not remember learning to write per se, but I do recall a wonderful ‘Aha!’ moment, when I was five or six, when I suddenly made the connection between the five letters which made up my nickname, its sound and the fact that it was part of me!

I wrote a play when I was eleven – and have it still, neatly written in a little blue exercise book. This was during the summer of 1969, just after my class watched the Moon Landing – and as I waited to start grammar school, having passed the 11+.

I can see that younger self, sitting in the hammock in the back garden, pen in hand, sun shining down on my hunched back, scribbling away – and feel the wave of creative excitement which lifted me up and suspended me, briefly, above the everyday world.

My now-nearly-fifty-year journal-writing habit started by accident (in the sense that I had never thought of such a way of expressing myself until then) in early January 1972.

Two days before my fourteenth birthday, a group of us from my school went to Glasbury, in Wales, for a fortnight of physical activity: climbing, canoeing, camping, gorge-walking and so forth. As part of the course, we were each given a pale green notebook – and asked to keep a diary account of our experiences.

I fell in love with this means of expression immediately – and, while most of the girls loathed having to do it every day, I relished the exercise and very much felt as if I had found my voice, as a girl and as a writer; in fact, so enamoured of it did I become that I ended up filling two green books!

I now have over a hundred volumes of the journal, currently stashed away in a safe space – and use it almost every day (though there are, inevitably, gaps over the years and decades), even writing in it whilst in labour and on the day my son was born!

The novel-writing came upon me towards the end of my time at Aberystwyth University – and early drafts of books won me an honourable mention, a third prize and a first prize in local South West Arts Writers in Progress awards.

Motherhood, marriage and full time teaching very much put the novel-writing side of things on the back burner – and it was only when I took early retirement in 2011 that I was able to complete previous books and write more.

I now have seven books published via Amazon and KDP (all available as both e-books and paperbacks) – and ideas for an eighth are bubbling excitedly away in my creative cauldron.

The truth is very simple: I absolutely love writing – and that intimate, joyous connection between mind, hand, pen and paper never fails to delight and inspire me.

 

 

THE DIARY OF A BOOK, JULY 2021

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At the end of June Jane Cable was poised to start writing The Lost Heir. Did it happen? Not a bit of it…

There were several reasons for my lack of progress, most of which I can share. We had a week or so’s holiday planned early in the month, and publication of The Missing Pieces of Us, my first title writing as Eva Glyn, was scheduled for the 21st. What I wasn’t anticipating were the scale of the structural edits for The Olive Grove, Eva’s second book.

Let me explain a little about this process. As an author you submit a final draft manuscript to the publisher, and your editor reviews it with the objective of making it better. My editor at Sapere Books does most of the work for me, so basically my input is to read, negotiate, and perhaps add a few extra tweaks. Eva is signed to a bigger publishing house (0ne More Chapter is a division of Harper Collins) and the system is entirely different.

So I received an editorial letter telling me in some detail what they would like me to do to improve the book. At this point people often ask questions along the lines of ‘don’t you mind?’. Of course I don’t mind – it is absolutely fantastic to have detailed feedback that will make the book a real joy for readers and a story that will stay with them long after they have finished it.

You lose perspective on your own book – or at least I do. Just before the submission deadline it seems common amongst authors to loath your manuscript, but even once you are over that you still need to accept that you probably can’t see the wood for the trees.

The problem was that I needed to juggle the edits not only with a full on holiday – a historical tour of Hadrian’s Wall – but also with our nephew coming to stay. This meant everything else had to be swept to one side, but my husband was magnificent, taking over all the domestic duties (he does most of them anyway as I am so useless!). And I suspect he enjoyed some ‘boy time’ with our nephew too.

So in the main I have spent a large chunk of July editing The Olive Grove and I absolutely know I have a better book, which I can’t wait for you to be able to read in September. And the last few days I’ve been running around like a headless chicken on social media, what with the launch of The Missing Pieces of Us, and The Forgotten Maid being on Netgalley ready for publication next month.

But I also had a holiday. We had intended to do a long distance walk but instead found ourselves drawn to a historical tour led by a university professor, where we would learn so much about the Romans who built and defended Hadrian’s Wall. It was a fascinating week when we went from one end of the wall to the other – and beyond it to outposts in the north. We visited all the famous sites; Vindolanda, Housesteads, and were shown around Birdoswald by Tony Wilmot, the archaeologist responsible for digging most of the fort over the years. It wasn’t only fabulous, but a break I needed to return refreshed and hit the ground running.

And as for The Lost Heir? This month I’m going to wise up and make no promises in that respect at all!