Inspiration?

A new creative idea goes round and round in your head like a worry. Not quite like a worry, of course, because round and round with a worry is unproductive and feels bad. With a worry, the more you let it fill your mind, the more the same stuck thoughts seem to come around without solutions.

 

But as a new creative idea goes round and round, it expands and develops; it puffs up like candy floss spinning in a tub, no, solider than that, it grows paths and bridges and sometimes dead ends. It’s a gorgeous thing to have a brand-new creative idea growing in your head. You want to nurture it, to obsess about it. It pops into your mind at the oddest moments. You play with it in the moments before you sleep and when you’re not quite awake.

 

But – and it’s a big but – there’s a moment when you have to pin your New Idea down. If not, it will disappear into the ether. You’ll remember the flavour of it, but you’ll never capture the excitement. Write it down now, before it’s gone. No matter that you’re working on something completely different. No matter that you haven’t a clue what to do with your new idea, that you don’t know what it actually is.

 

Set your notes to one side. Carry on with what you’re working on. Once the notes are on the page, your head will quiet. The New Idea is silent for now.

 

One day, when you come back to your New Idea, you’ll find that pinning it down has turned it into something different. It’s a bunch of notes on a page. It’s not flying anymore. Some of the magic has worn off. You’ll need to turn it over and inspect it to see if you can find the embers of the magic. You’ll need to push them around to see if the embers will spark. And then, if they do, you’ll need hours and days and weeks of solid work to turn the Idea into something you can show other people.

 

And maybe, if you do your job well, your New Idea will catch light in the mind of your reader and the idea that went round and round in your head will fill theirs. A gift from your mind to theirs.

What’s what when it comes to editing

 

The editorial process can seem impossibly complicated to writers who are just starting to interact with the publishing world or who are thinking about self-publishing. One thing’s for sure – it’s not just a matter of handing your manuscript to a single editor and having it emerge publication-ready. There will certainly be several rounds (usually known as ‘passes’) of editing before your manuscript if ready for publication.

 

Here’s my guide to the process:

 

Developmental editing

This is the big-picture edit, where an editor (or possibly your agent or an editorial consultant you’ve approached yourself) will take a look at the whole manuscript and give you feedback on what’s working and what’s not. They’re going to be looking at your characters and their relationships, the pace of the book, whether the beginning and ending work, the themes and structures of the book. Bear in mind this could happen several times before the manuscript is ready to move on.

 

Line editing

OK, so you’ve got the story working properly, and now it’s time for an editor to scrutinise the manuscript line by line. They’ll be looking for inconsistencies, errors of fact, repetition, places where the language could be tighter. Think of it as a style and substance edit. The great thing about going through this type of edit is that in the long run it really raises your awareness of the language you use and the way you structure your work, so that you’re always upping your game with the next book you write.

 

Copy editing

A copy editor is looking for errors of spelling, syntax, punctuation and grammar. They may also be concerned with applying the publisher’s house style to your book. House style is the list of choices a publisher makes in the case of certain rules of style or spelling where there is more than one option that is accepted as correct. For example they may choose to use double quotation marks rather than single for speech or they may use serial commas for lists (sometimes called ‘Oxford commas’ because they’re required by Oxford University Press’s style guide). A line editor is quite likely to also point out some errors along the way, but they won’t be paying deliberate attention to these matters.

 

Proofreading

Proofreading is the final stage before a book goes to print. The proofreader will usually see the text and images laid out in final page form. They will check that all the corrections marked up by the copy editor have been taken in, that the copy editor hasn’t missed anything and that no further errors have been introduced. They’ll be looking at the words but also at things like the page numbering, the placing of text such as headings and captions, and checking that the fonts follow the style correctly. In some cases copyediting and proofreading may be carried out by the same editor, but this would usually be done in successive passes of the work.

 

The key to understanding the process is that it starts with the big picture and then gradually works down to the level of the smallest detail. You’re very likely to be sick of the sight of your book by the time it’s returned to you to approve and answer queries for the nth time. What a good thing there’s quite a gap between the end of the editorial process and the moment you receive finished copies of your shiny new book. Now you can love it all over again!

Header image: A few of the editing tools I keep on the shelf next to my desk.

 

Nonfiction for children – where to start

It’s been a while since I started writing a new nonfiction book for children. I’m about to start on a new one and, to be honest, I’m feeling a little rusty. So I thought I’d talk myself through the planning process in a general way and perhaps that would be useful to other people as well as to myself.

 

So, where do you start? Let’s assume you have a topic already. Either it’s something you feel there’s a need for a book on or something you’re passionate about and want to share or maybe a publisher has commissioned you to write a book on a particular topic. That last one is the way most of the nonfiction books I’ve written have come about, though this new book I’m embarking on is all my own idea.

 

So you’ve got your idea and now you need to ask yourself a series of questions. A lot of these reflect the way primary school teachers begin project work, gathering children together to find out what they know and what they want to find out.

 

What are children likely to know already?

Obviously, you’re guessing here, but looking around at TV and films and books and computer games should give you some idea what sort of basic knowledge children are likely to have. If you were going to write a book about Vikings, for example, you might assume that children may have come across the Vikings in Cressida Cowell’s books or the films of them, and so know that the Vikings lived somewhere cold and had cool ships. Of course you also have to be aware that children may ‘know’ things that aren’t true (like that Vikings had dragons).

 

In a way, this question is a bit misleading. It’s not exactly about what children know, it’s simply about the fact that they know something. You need to come to the subject as though children know nothing because of course there will be gaps in their knowledge and you can’t possibly know what they are. Perhaps it is better to ask a different question:

 

Why have they picked up this book?

What is it about the topic of the book that has made them reach for it? Will it tell them more about something they know a little bit about? Will it give them exciting things to do or make? Will it clarify a topic that can be worrying? Does it promise to reveal great secrets or thrilling facts?

 

The point is that at the outset you need to put yourself in the child’s position. Why would they pick up this book? What are they going to get out of the experience of reading it?

 

So once you’ve got that sorted out, there are some further questions to answer:

 

What are the key facts about the topic you must include in the book?

 

What is the most exciting information you must include?

 

What information would make great illustrations?

 

And of course, all the time you’re gathering and sorting information, reading serious grown-up books on the topic, looking at how other children’s writers have approached it, searching the internet and second-hand bookshops and museums for quirky nuggets of information. And once you’ve gathered all you need, then it’s time to sort it.

 

Not an easy process. With a narrative nonfiction book it’s a little easier; then you’re telling the story of something, propelled forward by the passage of time. But with an information book it’s rather harder. You need to think of it as a story anyway in that one thing should lead to next. Starting with the basics – what, when, where – generally works. Or referring to the child’s experience of whatever it is and then building out. The book will naturally go off in different directions from whatever the starting point is, but I think it’s important to bring it all back together again at the end. With a history book you can do this by talking about what is left behind, the archaeology or influence on life today. Sometimes it’s possible to look to the future of your topic – though that can date the book quickly. Or finish by bringing it back to the child reader with things they can do now they’re in possession of all this knowledge. It’s tricky, this finishing off business, but important to make a satisfying reading experience.

 

So that’s it. Best get on with it, eh?

Blank sheet

 

I’ve just finished writing something.

 

I say just, but actually it was a good week ago now that I sent it off to someone to read and drew a mental line under it. One day I may have to work on it again. (That’s a good thing, it means it’s going further along the line to publication.) Or that might be it: a dead end. Whichever is the case, just now, for me, it’s done with. Now that I’ve patted myself on the back for getting to the end (always congratulate yourself – writing a whole book is a magnificent achievement) and dealt with all the things I’ve been putting off in order to get finished, it’s time to start something new.

 

But what?

 

I have projects I’ve set to one side because I didn’t know how to proceed with them.

 

I have whole books that might need some more work or might be right for now when they weren’t right back when I wrote them.

 

I have abandoned plans and pages of notes.

 

I have ideas that have stalled because I need to do lots of research.

 

I have brand-new ideas that are still floating around in my head.

 

What to choose?

 

The answer might be to work out exactly what sort of book people would want to read, if such a thing were possible, and then write that book. It’s probably a very sensible idea, and certainly how a publisher’s marketing department would like things to be done. All the commissioned books I’ve written originate from a publishing company’s idea of what people want to read. But working out what people want to read isn’t a science, or else there would be no surprise bestsellers. All of the books I love most have a spark of originality that would never have come from the author studying the market and writing what they thought people wanted to read.

 

So I am led to the conclusion that I need to work out what I want to write for myself and just hope that it’s also what the market wants and what readers want.

 

I think I’m ready for something brand new. I’ve been polishing and snipping off loose ends for months now. I need to start to weave the threads of a new creative puzzle.

Why I love my crit group

 

I’ve done a lot of different things to support and improve my writing over the years. I’ve read books, I’ve been on courses, I’ve attended conferences, I've set myself challenges; I’ve tried different methods of organising my time, of structuring my planning, of generating ideas; I’ve worked with a mentor and had beta-readers read my work.

But the single most important thing I’ve done is to join a critique group.

I love my crit group. It’s been over a year since I’ve seen them in person and I can’t tell you how excited I am to see them again. Next month! I’m counting the days! I’m not going to go so far as to say that this is thing I’m looking forward to most about lockdown being over, but it’s right near the top.

Of course we’ve met by Zoom, which works to a certain extent, but you miss the ebb and flow of an in-person meeting. The formality of a Zoom meeting doesn’t really lend itself to the wide-ranging chat that stretches the beginnings and ends of our in-person meetings – you have to talk one at a time because it’s difficult to read each other’s cues in the way of a normal conversation. Plus most of us have already spent enough time with computers each day.

The thing about a crit group, above all, is the intimacy of it. This group of people know your work and you know theirs. You know when they’re struggling and why; you know when they’re excited about something new or because something’s going well. You present your work to them and ask, “Does this work?” and you trust their honesty and their kindness to provide you with feedback that will allow you to move forward.

How do you get to that point? It takes time. It’s always tricky when a new person enters the group. You don’t know them, they don’t know you. They’re exposing themselves, heart and soul, to a group of people who are already tight-knit. Everyone has to go gently, gently, until you begin to have an understanding of each other.

Once you’ve got that understanding, this is the group who will tell you what you’re doing wrong and you will take it from them. They will be your cheerleaders when you’re getting it right. They will understand your writing dilemmas and dreams better than your nearest and dearest because they are writers too.

And this is the group who you will be sure to thank in the acknowledgements of your book (and your Costa acceptance speech… and when the film of your book gets an Oscar…)

When does tea become high tea?

 

Some books reach you at just the right moment. They talk of things you know and love or spark ideas of things you’ll come to know and love. They contain characters and stories that are at once new and fresh and at the same time resound in your mind with a rightness that seems like familiarity. It is almost as though these books were written with you personally in mind. Henrietta’s House by Elizabeth Gouge was a book like this for me. I read it first when I was twelve or thirteen, that time when I was still gulping in all the fabulous richness of children’s books while also tipping a toe into the adult section of the library. Elizabeth Gouge was an author of a generation earlier, my mother had read her as a child, but you could find her books in libraries and second-hand shops and if you hunted there were some modern editions around. There’s a Christian focus in these books but not in the way of Victorian books. It’s woven around with myth so that it seems exotic and fascinating rather than dourly moralistic (though to be fair, there is a fair bit of lesson-learning).

 

There are only two children in Henrietta’s House and a lot of grown-ups, all with rather grow-up concerns. The two children, Henrietta and Hugh Anthony, don’t much like children, other than each other. It’s the story of Henrietta’s birthday picnic in the hills around the cathedral city of Torminster, of underground caverns and giants with their heart in paper bags, of early motor cars and dreams come true. I love the way Elizabeth Gouge threads fairy tale through the everyday, the contrast between the down-to-earth Hugh Anthony and story-loving Henrietta. But most of all I loved the house in the woods that Henrietta’s father secretly put together after long ‘what if’ discussions with her, complete with the library of the twenty books Henrietta thought every ten-year-old girl should own. Oh, and the part at the end when Henrietta is waiting at the house for everyone to turn up and they first lay out a tea party with the things they find in the kitchen and then gradually add things to turn it first into high tea and then into supper as time goes on. Oh the joy – I might have to go and read it again right now!

Thirteen ways to end a chapter

While it can be tempting to keep on writing with occasional line gaps for changes of scene and time as Terry Pratchett did in his Discworld novels, it’s not really fair to child readers (or adult readers-aloud) not to have regular chapter endings. (In fact even Terry Pratchett's children’s books are divided into chapters!) One of my 'big picture' tasks when editing a first draft is to look at how the endings of each individual chapter are working and see how the chapter endings vary as the story progresses.

The most basic rule of ending a chapter is that it must encourage the reader to carry on reading. The obvious way to do this, of course is with a cliffhanger. But ending every chapter on a cliffhanger is exhausting and monotonous. The trick is to vary between ending the chapter with:

a feeling of disorder This is could be a huge cliffhanger or just enough to signal a coming dilemma or threat.

a feeling of order This will give the reader a feeling of closure, the idea that the plot has forward momentum and things are on their way to being sorted out.

There are all sorts of ways to break that down further, but here is my own list of thirteen ways to end a chapter. Some types of ending are conducive to a feeling of disorder, some to order and some work equally well either way.

1. Obstacle: a barrier to change or forward movement is presented (disorder)

2. Question: a question is posed by a character or the narrator (disorder)

3. Choice: a choice is presented or a decision must be made (disorder)

4. Mistake: a character (or the reader) realises that a mistake has been made (disorder)

5. Disappointment: a plan goes wrong (disorder)

6. Arrival: a visitor or message or movement to a new place brings either disappointment or hope (disorder /order)

7. Departure: someone leaving or movement away from a place brings either disappointment or hope (disorder /order)

8. Revelation: a character or reader learns or understands something (disorder /order)

9. Confession: one character reveals something that will bond or separate characters (disorder /order)

10. Door: an opportunity for change or forward movement is presented  (order)

11. Plan: a plan is formed (order)

12. Hope: things appear to be going in the direction the characters desire (order )

13. Reflection: a quiet moment usually following action sequence; possibly a statement by the character or narrator about the story’s theme (order )

Searching for silence and stillness

 

My time is squeezed at the moment. From having no shape at all apart from what I imposed on it, my day is now divided up by other people’s timetables. I’m going to school every day. I’ve been a supply learning assistant for several years, but when I get asked to do it, it’s mostly too short notice and I have other things on. But just before Christmas I was asked to go and help in school when the new term started, and I thought, why not? I’m not going anywhere, nothing is happening. A week later, it was announced that the school wouldn’t reopen after Christmas. So I spent the Christmas holidays assuming that I wouldn’t be needed. But as it turns out, they do need me. The teachers aren’t coming into school, they’re doing all their teaching online, but someone needs to be there for the kids who need to come to school and one of the someones is me.

 

I thought about taking a break from my writing. After all, I have no deadlines, no one’s depending on me getting anything finished. But I had a plan and I hate to set aside a plan. So, I thought I’d try working very early each morning. I haven’t had a desk in our house for a couple of months since everyone came home, but if I got up and worked first thing, I thought I could get an hour at my old desk before it was time for its current occupant to clock in.

 

And so I got up, I fed the dogs, I made myself a cup of peppermint tea. I kept the lights dim in the kitchen; I switched on only the desk lamp in the living room. I sat at the desk with my tea and I started to edit chapter one of my rough first draft. Working first thing is not new for me. I’ve long grabbed my laptop from beside my bed, set a timer and let the words flow through my fingers for an hour. That time in the morning my brain is fluid. The ideas come and my inner critic is silent. I can write to a plan or I can write freeform. Just a little later in the day I find myself at the mercy of hunger or I find I need to tidy things away, do chores, organise things before I can settle to do creative work.

 

I knew that writing in the early morning worked for me. The question was would editing work? It’s a very different skill, after all. There’s problem-solving involved and you need that inner critic up and firing. That first morning when I turned on the desk lamp and started in on chapter one, I took it very gently. Just read it. Just comment. Don’t start with anything sweeping. And the happy answer is that yes, I can edit first thing in the morning too. It’s extraordinary. When my alarm goes off I simply sleepwalk through all the things I have to do. Ten or fifteen minutes later, I’m at the computer and I just fall straight into the manuscript, picking up where I was the day before. I hear the bin men, I hear the dogs moving around, the family getting up, but the door between me and them is shut and they don’t disturb me. I immerse myself in the words on the page, I question them, I move them about, I polish them; I find gaps and I fill them; I find waffle and I excise it. I give that manuscript my all until my timer goes off, then I shut down the computer and go and get in the shower. I don’t give the manuscript another thought until I’m at the desk the following morning.

 

I’ve been searching all through this year for physical and mental space to do my creative work in my busy, full household. I’m used to working in silence and stillness and there’s been very little of that here. But through this new turn of events I’ve found my silence and stillness. It’s a joy.