Tag Archives: writing tips

Writing In The Rain…

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Last night it rained for most of the night and now in the morning everything in the garden is  soaked through and spring-fresh, the colours as intense as stained glass. I love the garden at these times. Being outside in the wet reminds me of how the prisoners I once worked with longed to go for a walk in the rain.

It rained a lot in the West Country where I grew up and I like weather to be weather – let it rain, or storm or shine but not be indifferent. As a young reader fed on Thomas Hardy’s novels I loved both weather and place in my stories. So it’s perhaps no surprise that now as a writer I find place and weather inspiring, and both feature large in my writing…

The Sweet Track  is set in the unique landscape of the Somerset Levels and the city of London, the story is told in a year as the seasons turn and the summer becomes the hottest since records began.Blood Tide, my recent crime novel, is set in the northern city of Newcastle in the depths of winter.

THE ORCHID HOUSE being no exception, is set in the confines of a great garden. Inspired by a visit to Cornwall’s Lost Gardens of Heligan it charts the seasons and the gardening year. Here is something of the garden and rain as seen through the eyes of two of the main characters; Madeline and Roma

Madeline ‘stood on the terrace, beneath the umbrella of the hornbeam looking out, through the grey pencil strokes of a spring shower, over the Long Garden and towards the sea. The peonies were flowering in the borders bursting from their blind buds. Eyes of apricot and pink had spilled into flounces of thirsty blossom. She waited for them each year, anticipating the extravagance of cutting them for the table; filling glass bowls and watching a circle of petals grow like a wreath to love. Peonies belonged to the summer. Like Harry they flowered early but were cut down too soon….’

‘The rain enticed Roma from work. It was tropical in its intensity, falling as it did with the promise of sun to come and a greener garden. She stepped out into the courtyard and stood by the tulip pots letting the rain fall on her, wearing no protection until her shirt and her hair were soaked…’

When the rain stopped Roma took her camera out into the garden … ‘In the Orchard the dark wood of the trees had swollen black with rain. Their knotted arms disappeared into clouds of pink and white blossom, weighted with water and dipping into the long grass where flower cups lay stranded in a veil of Queen Anne’s lace…’

A USEFUL WRITING TIP – if you want to keep weather threaded into your novel keep a weather diary. I wrote the first draft of Blood Tide – set in a cold northern winter – during two months in the South of France but I used my weather diary, made the previous winter, of daily notes reflecting on the weather – it only takes 5-10 mins but gives you genuine observation and some great lines.

Enjoy the rain! Sing! It’s good for the garden

 

5 Key Tips For Writing Fiction –

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As a writer I am always trying to improve what I do. I want each successive book to be better– the best book yet. I believe that with every book we write we should learn something new and for me writing Blood Tide was no exception. In fact writing crime fiction taught me a lot.

When I started writing Blood Tide I hadn’t intended it to be a crime novel, but as it became clear that it was crime through and through I found myself turning to crime writers I admired for some help along the way. How had they done it so successfully I wanted to know?

In particular I looked at Henning Mankell author of the Wallander series, as I liked the understated but real characters he created, his acute sense of place and weather, and the way he was not afraid to express his social conscience.

In thinking about Mankell  I realised why I’d come to write Blood Tide in the first place –  because as I writer I enjoyed evoking place and atmosphere, creating understated characters (perhaps too understated at times) yet could never get away from my conscience especially as far as the plight of abused women was concerned. It seemed we had more than one thing in common and so with Mankell at my side (and I make no apology for using the best as models) I proceeded into the world of my Private Investigator, Danny Beck.

Here are 5 key things I learned along the way – and which I fully intend to take with me to my next novel.

  1. Less is more when it comes to describing place, weather, etc – it can all be done in a line or two – you just need to slip these lines in regularly to keep the winter/summer /city …whatever in the reader’s mind.
  2. Character is everything and although characters might be understated your protagonist  should never be passive – he/she must act.
  3. Dialogue is key to the pace of a novel  (especially if it’s crime) and needs to be authentic and sharp – readers rarely skip dialogue.
  4. A hook at the end of the chapter really cranks up the pace and keeps the reader reading
  5. As John Irving, who I’ve recently quoted says, you must write for the reader and never to amuse yourself  - so rather like character story is also everything.

Something For The Weekend?

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A big, huge thank you to all who’ve downloaded (or are about to download) BloodTide. I hope you enjoy it.

I doubt these beautiful tulips in the Botanic gardens have survived the rain...

In the north it’s rather grey and wet, not the best of weekends but I hope you have a good one, wherever you are. And if you’re writing here is a piece of top drawer advice from the author John Irving (something which took me at least two books to realise!)

‘I always try to think when I am writing of someone I do not know. The age of this unknown person is always either elderly and impatient in the way that elderly people can be impatient, or quite young, maybe too young to drive a car, 15, a difficult age, and impatient in the sense that the attention is always hopping to something else. I like to think that my principle task is to get that person’s attention and not lose it… If you turn your back on that reader and just amuse yourself, when you look back the reader will be reading another book or watching television or gone to the movies or fallen asleep.’ [ The Times Magazine 23/3/96]

Our job as writers is not to amuse ourselves. We must never forget our readers. I learned  a lot of things writing crime fiction (more of that to come) but this was probably the most important of them all.