Writing - The essential element of consistency

  

Trust  - on all sorts of levels - is a key element in the relationship between reader and writer and authorial consistency is essential for this. For example, if you have your hero aged 27 on page 11 and aged 29 on page 12, readers can't read on for the alarm bells ringing in their heads. They are suddenly concerned that you don't know much about your own characters. Similarly with memoir - you can't have people dying inconsistently. So attention to detail is vital. But how do you keep track of all that detail - birthdates, exams, Halloween, dances, travel days, significant periods. For example, you may need to make a note of how long it takes to hand-stitch a dress.

 

A few practical tools will help. You will by now be familiar with the uses to which a novelist can put notebooks, folders, wallets and sticky notes. Pinboards can provide inspirational wall-decoration festooned with visual aids such as photos (cut out of magazines or withdrawn from family albums) which may suggest the physical attributes of hero and heroine. Or you can pin-up maps, town plans, street plans or room plans - if they'll help you visualise where your hero is and how he moves around the space. You will also gather around you a reference library of everything from Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable to Roget's Thesaurus. 

But don't neglect the potential of the Spreadsheet - computer-based or otherwise. This can help you with:

·       Timeline - what happens and when in your story. Check for feasibility.

·       Chapter designation - reflecting the story arc, clarifying what's important for you in it.

·       Word Count - totting up the totals (Have you written a novel? A blockbuster or a novella . . ?)

·       A note on the Point of View character for each chapter. (Avoid unnecessary head-hopping.)

·       Locations - a list of settings (also indicating areas of required research).

So, as you see, you may find you are using far more than pen and paper or a computer to help you to write a book 

Your Life, Your Autobiography

THE SEARCH FOR IDEAS

Earlier in this series, we have looked at memories as a resource. But why stop at a memory. Would you like to work on your own Life Story? In this you are your own hero/heroine. You could find out the ‘Why’ of you. And another glittering prize – when you embark on this journey – is the production of a resource to answer all those questions your family will suddenly find they’d like an answer to – albeit long after you’ve forgotten most of what you’ve been and what you’ve done.

As a coach, I can almost hear all the unhelpful voices leaping out at you as you’re thinking about this.

Which one’s sitting in your head?
• My life’s been boring
• I was never any good at English
• I’d forget my head if it was loose – never mind recalling all those people and places
• And, where do I start?

Well, the beginning’s always a good place. Researchers such as Joseph Campbell (author of ‘The Hero with a 1000 faces’) and Christopher Booker – both of whom’ve studied human storying in depth - would agree that human beings love stories that have a beginning, a middle and an end. Well, you may not yet have reached the end but you’ll certainly already have lots of material to hand for the beginning of your book.

Here comes another wall of objections. There’s too much. And how do I write my story?

You need to:
• clarify what you want to achieve
• think about how best to do this
• organise your material
• learn to understand your material
• trust yourself.

And remember, you don’t have to do this alone. Lonely Furrow Company is there to help.

Public Lending Rights

Public Lending Rights.

Many Happy Returns to the 1979 Public Lending Right(PLR) Act. We’re celebrating a rather glorious principle this year – namely that the public should be able to borrow books freely from government- funded libraries but the creators of books - ‘lent’ by government -should have a legal right to payment for their ideas, energy and hard work.

The current situation is:
• Not only authors but also illustrators, translators, editors and photographers qualify for payment
• 1400 new authors registered last year for the February 2009 payments (part of a rising trend)
• The current loan rate runs at 5.98p
• 28 countries now have PLR systems
• The Authors’ Licensing and Collecting Society is the industry watchdog committed to ensuring payment is forthcoming to registered authors
• Registration must be completed by June 30th each year for payment to be made in the following February.

Those of you who have had books published recently and want the Library systems – in the UK or in the European Union Member States - to take them up should:
• Ask the PLR office for a registration form by telephone: 01642 604699
• Visit the website, www.plr.uk.com ,to apply for registration online.

Write a road-map for 2009!

However bad the Old Year – and for some of us 2008 was grim - New Year’s Day dawns and the spirits lift because New Year holds infinite possibility. It’s a time when we believe we can choose what we’ll write on the blank page of the year before us. We dare to hope for better.

For writers, this could mean the Year of Publication. Why should this be important enough to feature? Well, we’re not writing in a vacuum. We want someone, somewhere, to share what we put on the page and, as a result, to understand us better. That’s why we put so much effort into ploughing what can, at times, seem a lonely furrow!

But how can you make 2009 the Year of Publication?

Some writers start the New Year bristling with diaries, ‘road maps’ and post-it notes – lending a writing project the air of a military offensive. If you favour this style – and many do - your writing goals may benefit from the strong-minded application of management principles.

The SMART formula is currently popular. Begin by asking yourself:

1) Is my writing goal Specific? (What form(s) of writing do I want to work on? A novel? A radio play? The ultimate letter of complaint? )
2) How will I Measure my success? (Will I, for example, hold my published book in my hand by the second August Bank Holiday?)
3) Am I Able to produce this piece of writing? (Or do I need more training?)
4) Is this piece of writing Relevant to what I am and what I want from my life in 2009? (And does writing mesh well with my other hopes and aspirations at this time?)
5) What is my Time-line for this goal? (Deadlines work wonders for some.)


And, once you’ve shaped your 2009 writing goal, you have then consciously to commit to the process. Here the GROW model, taken from management, can act as a facilitating pattern - perhaps for a coaching session.

In this, you discover:

What is your Goal for 2009?
What is REALLY going on for you at the moment?
What OPTIONS have you?
Do you have the WILL to achieve your goal?

According to American Society of Training and Development, conscious commitment enhances your chances of success. And the probability of success, they say, ranges from 25% - if you decide to do something - to 50% if you plan how you will do it, to 95% if you ‘have a specific accountability appointment’ with an independent person. Sounds like another argument for coaching to me!

But keeping yourself on track – particularly during the long haul of writing a book - may take a little bit more magic. We all need a trick or two to overcome wobbles of confidence or energy. And some of these may be more hi-tech than others.

For instance, to inspire himself, one writer – admittedly a computer buff - created a mock-up of ‘the book’. Strongly responsive to the visual, he took special care over the choice of cover picture. And it works for him.

But, you don’t have to go to these lengths.

Take yourself to a book shop and indulge in a browse. Find the book which - in appearance, texture and smell – is closest to what you’d like your finished book to be. This is an image of your future success. You can now refer to it, giving yourself heart whenever your writing project hits the doldrums. Cherish your ‘book’. In NLP terms, anchor it.

Goal-setting may make you feel confident that 2009 will indeed be your Year of Publication. Thinking about cover pictures may sustain you through the first few weeks of the New Year. But later you may hit a seriously low patch. And - somewhere around the time when Hogmanay has paled in memory and the publication date of August Bank Holiday seems chimaeric – you may need a kick-start.

Now is the time to be bold. If you usually write articles on financial services, throw caution to the wind and write a poem. If you’ve been writing your novel through the eyes of the handsome hero, switch the viewpoint to that of an elderly aunt on a visit. Even if you don’t stay with it, the new perspective will refresh you.

Of course, you could choose not make any New Year resolutions at all - writing or otherwise. This approach has a New Age serendipity about it and seems - if nothing else - peaceful. Think of all that time, that release from pressure. . . But, there again . . .
Good luck with your project!