Avril Joy

A street I explored on my day out with Carole (see Twenty Five Years in Prison) a location I will definitely be using in my new novel.

As I arrive at mistake number six -the final mistake to beware of when writing your first novel (and subsequent novels too, of course) – I am conscious that this may all sound rather like a set of  rules or a writing formula. Of course I would never recommend either. There is so much more to writing a novel than avoiding mistakes. If it were only about mistakes – if it could all be done by a set of rules – then our persepctive would be entirely critical and negative  instead of creative and joyous. However, the pitfalls I’ve highlighted are well acknowledged and will be worth bearing in mind when you are considering your own work. I will certainly be keeping them in the forefront of my thinking as I write my new novel but I will not let them weigh me down.

So - the final mistake concerns the ending. Joseph Finder says, ‘ A great ending is second only to a great beginning in importance.‘  Not giving your book the ending it deserves can be a big mistake; although if your novel finds favour with an agent or an editor in a publishing house they may well give you the opportunity to improve it.
This happened with my first novel, The Sweet Track. When they first read it, the editors at Flambard Press drew my attention to its lack of resolution. They felt that as the novel drew to a close the conflicts that beset my characters were not sufficiently resolved; or where they were, more attention needed to be drawn to them. This was a case when tell don’t show was needed and a time for more explicit writing. 

A reader knows the end of a novel is coming simply because of the number of pages she has left to read and she needs to feel the sense of resolution building in the final chapters: the changes that have taken place, the way in which things are forever different, a glimpse of the future.

Don’t however draw it out unecessarily. An ending is rarely about tying up all the loose ends or explaining everything – although it is important for readers to feel they know in some degree what happens to the characters; once again it’s about finding a balance.

Good endings often have symmetry to the beginning. The novel ends in the place it began. I am reminded here of a novelist whose work I admire – Patrick Gale. His novel ’Rough Music’, begins and ends on the same beach.

Writing Tip - when I was re-working the ending of The Sweet Track I took a lot of books from my shelves (Rough Music was one of them) - books that I loved or admired – and looked closely at the endings, and in some cases the beginnings too. This way I was able to get a  feel for what worked best. One of the changes I made in the final pages was that instead of Lilli and Becca going out to walk across the Levels in the late afternoon, they went out at dawn. I’d discovered that dawn often featured in endings and I could see why – after all, dawn is a new beginning.

There is so much to learn by reading successful writers – look at their final chapters as I did and see what you think works and would work for your novel and Good Luck with the writing!

If your story is predicatable, you are in danger of both underestimating, and boring , your reader. This is mistake number four!

So try surprising your reader instead – if the obvious thing is to take the plot in a certain direction, you might want to consider something altogether different…

A surprise can take a variety of forms - it may be a major development, something that throws a whole new light on your main character’s situation – it may be a  discovery your protagonist makes, an action by another character that leads to revelations: any revelation of new information that is dynamite as far as your protagonist and their situation is concerned.

Joseph Finder says, ‘One way to avoid this trap (of predictability) is not to over-outline. Be spontaneous in your writing. Allow the characters and the plot to surprise you.’  I like this suggestion, probably because this is the way I write. I am not good at outlines, although I do outline at different stages as my stories progress. Really I like to keep plotting flexible and open to all possibilities.

I have probably done more outlining of plot than ever before while writing  my latest novel Bad Girl. This is probably because it has elements of the crime novel and crime novels tend to be more closely plotted.

Just as with plot so with character - although your readers will come to know and understand your characters, your characters will need to surprise your readers every now and again too.

Writing Tip - A useful way to approach this problem of predictability is to ask the question ‘What if..’  this can also be helpful if your story seems stuck. Take your story or character(and their situation) and  then ask yourself the question, ‘what if’ – now write six ways of developing your character or continuning the story, be as imaginative and loose as you can, wild even! Explore all possibilities and you may surprise yourself by finding that your story takes an entirely new and surprising turn.

‘One thing we may be certain of – people are the novel’s concern’ – Elizabeth Bowen

‘I believe that all novels…deal with character and that it is to express character… that the form of the novel… has been evolved.’ Virginia Woolf.

Without characters there are no  stories. Our characters must live in the minds of our readers. In order for this to happen they must live in our minds first and this means we need to know our characters very well – how they live and breath, what they eat, who their last text was from, what music they play, how they walk…..

Hemingway said, ‘A writer who omits things because he does not know them only makes hollow places in his writing…’ To avoid such hollow places we need to know as much about our characters as we can. We may not include everything we know in the text but it will inform our writing. So we need to imagine and invent…

Now there are a million ‘how to’ writing books out there which will give you helpful ideas/exercises for developing your characters, so I don’t intend to go into extensive detail here. There are just two things I’d like to say

• This may all seem very simple and you may think, as I did with my first novel, that I knew my characters well but it came as a big surpirse to me that this did not always come across to my editors in the reading.

             I had to do further character devlopment before the novel was published..

• Editors commented that the protagonist in my second novel, The Orchid House, was too passive – this can be another pitfall – that of the passive hero – remember the hero needs to act and advance the action, and be seen in action, and don’t forget there must be confict/tension from the start - something he wants, needs etc.

In This Year You Write Your Novel – a great book on writing, Walter Mosely (pgs 36 -37) recommends, ‘the pedestrian in fiction – Maybe your character gets up out of bed and walks across the room to the mirror. You need to see the bags under her eyes… (hear) the sound of the sheets falling to the floor…(feel) the grit beneath her bare feet…the pain in her left knee  where she twisted her ankle on a stone stairway while attending her mother’s funeral…’ 

Such pedestrian details will help the reader enter the character’s reality and believe.

Writing Tip – have your character get up out of bed and go on a journey to the bathroom – as above. Give us the pedestrian detail. It may surprise you – you may find out something you didn’t know.

 http://lifetwicetasted.blogspot.com/ - Do read Wendy Robertson’s – Making People Is Mad - Wendy says,  ’it’s crazy, isn’t it, inventing all these people who live and breathe in my imagination.’  I cannot disagree. Crazy but good.

I’d be surprised if there isn’t  a writer out there who hasn’t sucumbed to this one – mistake number two – showing off.

There  are times showing off is like chocolate or wine -simply impossible to resist. You’ve done the research, you’re captivated by what you’ve discovered so it simply has to go in the book. Whist your reader may not have the faintest interest in the dying art of Urdu Callingraphy you are determined she will know in detail how each letter is deftly carved, has its own  individual shape and curvatures – the major styles being- Arabic, Persian and Kufic – the designs many: Asloob, Tughra, Suls, Aseer, Riqa, Ghalib, Nataliq, amongst others – I could go on. Now some readers, and I am one of them, enjoy the richness and texture of this kind of detail – so it’s  a question of taste, but also of  balance. I think it might be rather like a recipe  where too much of  a special ingredient is overkill, leaving your tastebuds unable to enjoy the whole, whereas just enough is tantalisingly good. I’m sure my friend Debora http://lickedspoon.blogspot.com/ ,where you will find both gorgeous writing and recipes, could confirm.

But a note of caution on mistake number two- it is important to remember that  detail is key in writing – it is important to name places and objects, to be specific and not just let them float about in a generalised haze. It is much more powerful to give the flowers in the garden their name – ‘flowers’ is not good, ‘cornflowers and poppies,’ is. So when considering the ‘showing off’ problem don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater!

However, too much information will inevitably slow your story down and description too will slow the pace. This is a problem I wrestle with all the time. It’s important  to consider, not just  for your reader, but also because agents and publishers (readers of course) are  in my experience, very keen on pace.

Writing Tip – All of the six mistakes I will be talking about are useful to consider when writing your novel BUT there are NO recipes for writing and writing the novel you want to write and that you believe in is absolutely the BEST thing you can do.

On the subject of showing off – this is wallpaper designed, last year, by my daughter Katie who is now studying at the Royal College of Art.

 Not long ago I came across some very interesting notes on a talk given by New York author Joseph Finder. The title of his talk was “The Six Biggest Mistakes Even Bestselling Writers Make.” I liked that! I liked its inclusiveness  and I very much liked the advice he gave. It is well recognised advice and well worth repeating so I hope he will forgive me for taking his six mistakes, somewhat out of order, and putting my own spin on them -

As it’s about beginnings, let’s start with what he calls The Long Set Up

The Long Setup, as the title suggests, refers to the novel where the story takes too long to get moving – where the reader may be put off by a long preamble or a weak start and decide not to continue . Or it may be that there is a good powerful or arresting opening but that the book slows down too soon, with too much story spilled out to the reader, rather than being revealed by the action (the show don’t tell mantra referred to in my first post.)

This trap is easily fallen into, especially when you are starting out. In my experience when you start your first novel the writing is intoxicating and all consuming. This makes it difficult to think past what you write - to your audience - the reader. I will freely admit that in my first novel I gave the set -up very little consideration and some people ( but only some! ) who read The Sweet Track commented that they found it ‘hard to get into’  and that they had to ‘persevere.’  Mostly they were kind enough to say it had been worth it but no one wants a reader to put their book down after a chapter or two, especially if she is an agent or editor!

Beginnings are crucial.  Finder suggests ‘One way to avoid this is to start the story as late as possible. If necessary, you can then go back and fill in details later on.’  Many novels and short stories begin in the middle of things – they already have a history, and there should be conflict/tension of some kind for the protagonist right from the start. Ask yourself what does your protagonist want, need, wish, hope for? This will drive your story

Writing Tip – find a novel you admire, preferably a contemporary novel - look at the beginning, the first few chapters, and ask what works? Why is it good? How does it hook the reader in? How does it avoid the trap of the long set up? Where is the tension/conflict?

This is not about copying but about using your experience as a reader to inform your writing

Now look at your own novel – ask the same questions. Is the set-up working?