Editing and plasters

I've decided that cutting things out of a work in progress (wip) is a bit like removing a plaster - terrifying before, painful during, but rather satisfying when it's all over.

I've been hum-ing and hah-ing over the last fortnight about how to change a major plot element in my latest story. My poor plot board looked bald. A third of my main plot points disappeared, my black moment fell down a black hole and all the little bitty cards got binned or shuffled.

I decided to replace the missing plot line with an idea that my heroine had known the hero breifly before the story starts, but he doesn't recognise her. It was a bit similar to the early story and I think I needed it as a security blanket. So I wrote a flashback for chapter 3 and started editing the rest of the seven and a half chapters I'd already done.

And then I got to chapter six, and I kept thinking, "I've got too much back story", but I didn't want to lose my flashback - it sets things up really nicely for a future scene which I knew would have a big emotional pay off. I knew in my heart of hearts I didn't really need the "shared history" element and, although I really liked my flashback to when the heroine was sixteen, I got up the courage to cut the lot. And then I had to go back through the wip and remove all the bits that referred to the flashback...

But, I feel so much better now! Cutting all the dead wood has left the story lean and faster paced. And I wrote a brand new scene today!

So that is my thought for the day: never be afraid if your delete key. We often know when we should use it, but hesitate. It's just a matter of summoning up the courage and ripping...

Go on, you know you want to.

Valentine's Day

I awoke to my traditional Valentine's Day breakfast this morning. My hubby insists on getting croissants and strawberries every year. Yum.

And I got 'Pride and Prejudice' on DVD. Also yum.

I live fairly close to Groombridge Place, the location used as the Bennet family home in the film. And, lo and behold, in July 2004 when we were taking the kids on a day out we visited Groombridge where they have The Enchanted Forest in the grounds (Cowboy forts, Indian camps, Goblin villages, birds of prey etc. See the Groombridge site for more). I noticed a film crew at the front of the house, and when I discovered they were filming a new film version of P&P there I got totally over-excited!

I could have stayed all day peering at the goings on. I could see the actors from across the moat (the picture shows roughly where I spied from), but not close enough to tell who was who. It wasn't until I got home I realised I'd watched Kiera Knightly and Donald Sutherland among others.

So now, every time I watch the scene where Jane drives away from Longbourne with all her family waving goodbye to her on the steps, I can think to myself, "I was there! I watched them do that!". I'm so chuffed.

Been tagged!

I was tagged by Liz Fielding and Trish Wylie in a game of sevens:

Seven things I cannot do:
Tango.
Talk without moving my hands.
Stay dry-eyed watching films/TV.
Stay dry-eyed reading books.
Touch a slug.
Resist champagne.
Do anything respectable with fondant icing and a cake.

Seven things to do before I die:
Learn to tango.
See the pyramids.
Write a lot more books.
See my children fulfil their dreams.
Get my husband to finish decorating the bathroom (started 1999).
Visit the Italian Lakes again.
Learn to swan round the kitchen looking effortlessly sexy while producing mouth-watering food a la Nigella Lawson.

Seven things that attract me to men:
Integrity.
Long legs.
A great smile.
A great mind.
Creativity.
Sense of humour.
Being able to put up with yours truly.

Seven things I say most often:
I love you.
Bizarre!
That chair has four legs!
It’s driving me nuts!
Where did I put my keys?
“….” i.e. absolutely nothing. This often happens halfway through a sentence as I drift off into Fiona-world. Drives my husband nuts.
“No” (nominated by my oldest daughter).

Seven books or series that I love:
Tender as the Night – F. Scott Fitzgerald
Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte
I Capture the Castle – Dodie Smith
Anne of Green Gables Series
Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen (I know it’s on everybody’s list, but I really do love it!)
Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason (much better than the film.)
High Fidelity – Nick Hornby

Seven movies I can watch over and over:
Serendipity
Strictly Ballroom
Moulin Rouge
The Mummy (don’t ask me why, I just can!)
The Breakfast Club
French Kiss
Girls Just Wanna Have Fun (Incredibly cheesy teenage dance flick starring Sarah Jessica Parker and Helen Hunt. So bad it’s good).

Now I just have to tag someone else...Let's see - who hasn't already been tagged?

Crumbs! It seems everyone in the world has done it already! Give me a moment or two...

I can pin a rainbow

Oh dear, looks like my plot board is going to come in really handy in the next week or so. I need to axe a major thread in my latest story, so there will be lots of un-pinning and re-pinning.

Okay, here’s how the whole thing got started:

I often plan my story by writing the numbers 1 to 20 down a page and assigning an event to each number. It’s a rough way of working out a provisional timeline for any plot ideas I may have had. Normally the first seven or eight spaces fill up quickly, then I try and work out what the major turning points are going to be and put them roughly where I think they are going to occur. Then it’s a case of joining the dots, so to speak. What is going to take me from number 7 to number 10?

So my pink cards are my main plot points, the skeleton of the plot. So I have things like “Gaby arrives” on one and “The party” on another. Since my board isn’t long enough to put them in one column, I have two. There is space to scribble on the card If I feel the urge.

The wide, white strips are my character arcs. It helps me focus on who is feeling what when. I had them on my computer as a little block diagram, so I just printed it out, cut it up and pinned it on. The heroine’s are to the left of the pink cards and the hero’s are to the right.

My little blue cards are extra little details that have sprung to mind at a later date. It may be a plot idea e.g. “Gaby finds a video tape”, or character info “Luke is feeling jealous”, motivation and goals, or images I want to use. If I have a flash of inspiration while I’m working on another scene, I just scribble it on a scrap of card and pin it on the board, that way I don’t have to scour my notebook to find them later.

Yellow cards are to show I already have a bit of writing that will fit that point. It’s normally something I scribbled down when I was thinking ahead. It could be a sentence or two, or it could be a page or two.

The green cards round the edges are things I need to weave throughout the whole book, things that I can’t pin down to a particular scene but I need to keep reminding myself of. E.g. “build up reasons for Luke’s trust issues” or “Gaby’s relationship with her golden-boy brother”.

(Originally all my extra little cards were blue – the colour card I happened upon at the time, but after a while there were too many so I added another few colours in.)

It doesn’t sound very exciting when I write it down like this, but these little phrases are just to jog my memory. When I’m pondering over how the next scene should go, I might remember I need to add heroine POV about her family or to weave in some little details as I go that are going to make the story richer.

As I said, I’m road-testing this idea at the moment, so I will probably tweak it as I go, but it seems to help to have something to stare at and use as a visual memory bank.

Fun with stationery

This is my plot board. A little tool I am test-running to help me keep all my story threads in one place. (Not enough room inside my head - vital information always leaks out).



I’ve tried keeping snippets of dialogue and story ideas in Word documents, but they get scattered all over my computer and sometimes it’s annoying to have to keep switching windows between the wip and my ideas sheet.

So, having discovered a huge cork board in my understairs cupboard before Christmas, I thought I would make use of it. I had recently used a trial copy of a story programme for writers that let me move little squares like index cards around on a time line. I liked the idea, but got fed up with not just being able to scribble something quickly on it.

So I went back to basics. I had some old index cards in a drawer (pink – got daughters’ approval) and as I started to plot out my new story I started pinning them on the board.

I’ll elaborate on how the whole thing works in the next post. I’m always fascinated by how other writers work, so I thought this might be of interest. If you find yourself nodding off, do feel free to do so. I will not be conducting a quiz to see who is paying attention.

Seeing the wood for the trees

Hooray! I am unstuck on my current book.

Taking the anaology of a a story being a journey for the writer a little further, I feel like I was trying to scale a very steep hill on a push bike. It was a hard slog to get anywhere and all I could see in front of me was the mountainous slope. I find the only way I can get through it is to write, think, write some more, think some more - you get the idea.

Anyway, while I am not freewheeling down the hill yet, I'm on a flat stretch (a wooded area, I think). I can see the next few landmarks up ahead and it's just a case of keeping my feet turning the pedals as I pass each one. In non-Fiona speak, this means I know what's happening in my story for the next chapter or two. I may not know every little detail, but I know the main events and it's a case of joining the dots.

I always love the feeling when I look back at a scene after I've written it and think, "Ah, that's the way it happened." Before I write it, I have an outline in my head, but doing the actual writing adds colour and texture and depth.

So, back in the saddle again now. Praying fervently I don't get a puncture...

Expiry date: 6th Jan 2006?

It’s the time of year when we all like to take stock. My husband hates the idea of New Year’s Resolutions with a passion. Not that I think he disagrees with the idea of improving oneself, or setting goals. It is the idea that most resolutions are abandoned by 6th January that bothers him, the half-heartedness of it all.

Anyway, I like to think about what I would like to achieve and set some goals now and then, and 1st January is as good a day as any. So here are some of my goals for 2006:

To sell a second book.
To finish the above book (still stuck in Chapter Four).
To eat more healthily, do more exercise and generally reduce my acreage.
To harness my over-active imagination for writing alone and, therefore, stop making mountain ranges out of minor mole hills. (I hear my husband applauding loudly at this one).
To clean my oven.
To read the Bible in one year.
And last, but not least, learn to touch-type properly.

I'll let you know how many have fallen off the bottom of the list next week.

Little Zero

My four-year-old daughter announced a few days ago that her doll, which had previously been named "Dolly", had a real name.

"She's called Little Zero," my daughter said, without the hint of a smile.

"Why's that?" I asked.

Daughter gives me very matter-of-fact look, as if I don't have enough brain cells to rub together. "Because she's little and she's zero." (Zero because she is a baby and, therefore, is not one year old yet, I discover.)

I walked straight into that one, didn't I?

Anyway, this is Little Zero:

Merry Christmas, Little Zero.

Merry Christmas, everyone.

The long and winding road

Today I am trying to kick-start a story I have not touched in about a month. I’m not sure if I had a ‘block’ on it, but I definitely hit a sticky patch at chapter four.

I think of my story in terms of a journey. I know my destination. I even know my route to some extent, but what I really need to work out now is what is going to take me there. I need to find my mode of transport.

My vehicles are the scenes in each chapter. Which ones am I going to include? What small things and big things are going to happen to my characters to let me show me what they are feeling and thinking at each given moment. Which events are going to push the story in the direction I want it to go? There are so many possibilities.

This is the part of plotting I find the hardest. It often seems like I’m feeling around in the dark with just enough light for the step in front of me. I just have to keep clutching onto my map and make sure I keep putting one foot in front of the other. Eventually I will emerge from the dark wood and find I’m free-wheeling down the hill towards the final chapter.

Since the kids are running around in a pre-Christmas riot, I shall probably hole myself up in my office for an hour or two. Office, hah! I wish! My office is a rather old-fashioned school desk in the corner of my bedroom. It doesn’t even have a computer – I shall be working with pen and notepad. It does, however, have a coaster to put a cup on so I can keep myself pumped full of caffeine, and a window to stare out of while I am waiting for inspiration to strike.



Let’s hope I’m not still there at 2 am in a pool of drool with a woodgrain pattern on my cheek…

A man, a woman and a rather large puddle...

That phrase kind of sums up the opening chapter of my first book “Blind-Date Marriage” rather nicely. Who knew a puddle could be romantic?

Actually, the puddle only makes a guest appearance in the first part of the chapter and then is never heard from again. I believe it stomped to its trailer in a huff when it found out it only had a bit part. “A cameo,” I told it. “Not a bit part, a cameo.” That seemed to smooth things over somewhat.

And what of the man and the woman? Well…

Serendipity Dove is searching for a normal life – whatever that means. And top on her wish list is the perfect husband to provide her with two point four children and a cottage with roses round the door. Then she meets Jake, an intelligent, attractive accountant, and he ticks all the right boxes. Well almost all of them. She’s too busy falling in love to notice that, down in the small print, the ready-for-commitment box is glaringly empty.

The puddle insists on taking full credit—or should it be blame—for getting them together. You’ll have to read the book to find out how good a matchmaker it was…