Silent Cinema Will Make You A Better Writer

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Image from The Cabinet of Dr Caligari (1920)
Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

I wrote this post back in January 2012 for Fuel Your Writing but the more I've been watching silent cinema for my PhD, the more I think the principles are still applicable. I first wrote the post following the phenomenal success of The Artist, a modern day silent film set in the late 1920s, although I've now expanded it to include a few other films. I’m a firm believer in applying film theories or techniques to writing, and it seemed an ideal time to examine five principles of silent cinema that can enrich the work of a writer.

Why would I do that? I know some might say that film and literature are separate disciplines and naturally have different requirements (for example, an establishing shot is essentially in film, but if a writer takes too long to ’set the scene’, it can make for very dull reading) but I’d argue that writers can still learn new things from different sources. Writers shouldn’t fall into the trap of assuming that only studying writing can help their work. I’m not saying that you should cut all dialogue from your work, but let’s have a look at the bigger picture…

1) Show, Don’t Tell

This is probably the king of all silent cinema techniques that the writer should use, and is arguably advice you’ve heard before. Without dialogue, the actors have to display every emotion either on their face, or through their body language. It is indeed true that a picture tells a thousand words, and we don’t need reams of exposition when faced with a faltering smile or a pouting femme fatale with her arms tightly folded across her chest. We don't need someone to tell us that Dr Caligari is a nutjob when he's depicted with a crazed stance, a wild facial expression and melodramatic gesticulations - we can see it for ourselves. Show us what’s going on with your characters, let their facial expressions and body language do the talking. We’re aware of it all the time in real life, so why not try it in your writing?

2) No Info Dumps!

It’s an attractive tendency of fiction to allow your characters to dole out back story through so-called ‘info dumps’, usually within lengthy passages of dialogue. The brevity of the silent film cue card doesn’t allow for masses of text, so key visuals are chosen instead to fill in the back story. Just as film fans were trusted to be able to understand the implications of specific shots, trust your readers to pick up on the small details and fill in the rest themselves. For example, you don’t need to waste paragraphs describing a character’s reliance on alcohol – just show them putting yet another empty bottle into a crate full of other empty bottles.

Do You Really Need Back Story?

If you’ve seen The Artist, you’ll realise that neither George Valentin nor Peppy Miller have in depth backstories. George is a successful silent film star and Peppy is a girl who comes to Hollywood looking for fame. We never learn much more than that, but nor do we need to. The performances and actions of both characters make it easy to like them and root for them, without time needing to be taken to explain how past events have coloured or shaped their present decision-making. Charlie Chaplin gave his Little Tramp very little backstory because the films were set in the 'here and now' - we didn't need to know what he did for a living before working in the factory in Modern Times because it's irrelevant. I know writers are counselled to know the entire biographies of their characters but you don’t have to communicate that to the reader – just pertinent details so we understand why they’re doing what they’re doing.

Courtesy of The Hitchcock Project

Be Inventive

In 1926, Alfred Hitchcock directed Ivor Novello in The Lodger, a gripping thriller about a serial killer loose in London. One notable scene has Novello pacing back and forth in his room while the family with whom he is lodging listen in the room below, convinced he is the twisted killer. How on earth do you communicate the sound of someone pacing if you can’t hear it? You do what Hitchcock did and film Novello pacing on sheet glass, then superimpose it over the ceiling so it looks as though we can see through the ceiling to the room above. No sound required.

It is this inventive spirit that marks the silent filmmakers as true pioneers, and also a good source of inspiration for writers. Think about what you’re trying to communicate, and how you’re going to communicate it, and ask yourself… is there a more inventive way of doing so?

Check Your Pacing

Without dialogue to puncture the silence, early films couldn’t rely on lengthy speeches or conversations to pass the time. Films had to be short due to the technical capabilities of the equipment, but few viewers would sit through a film rife with pacing problems. D W Griffith’s Birth of a Nation ran at just over three hours long, but his tendency to focus on imagery for imagery’s sake left the film feeling tedious and self-indulgent. Writers can fall into the same trap, either by rattling off reams of purple prose, or by getting bogged down in dialogue and “witty” exchanges that soon become staid. A balance between the two should always be sought, and always ensure that your pacing remains even – try passing your work to a trusted reader, and if they find some passages too fast or slow, then double check to the balance between dialogue and prose.

Do you find that cinema principles can help enrich your writing? 

What writers can take from Django Unchained

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I finally got to see Django Unchained at the weekend, a film I'd been looking forward to for a long time since a) I love Westerns, b) I like Tarantino and c) I love Leo DiCaprio. My review is over on my film blog, but I had a few thoughts about what writers could take away from the movie.

1) Do your research.

The world of Django Unchained felt very plausible, and very real. At no point did I look at anything and think it was anachronistic, although while checking things for this post, I discovered that Tarantino has included dynamite some eight years before it was invented. Still, fiction is allowed to take some liberties, as long as they're within the bounds of possibility. The costumes were fabulous, the set design had a real attention to detail that period pieces always need, and Tarantino had clearly researched the social situation of 1858. No matter whether you're setting your story in 2087 or 1887, it needs to feel real to a reader. Even futuristic pieces need research to extrapolate the likelihood of possible inventions becoming reality.

2) Don't be afraid of controversy.

Don't feel you have to court controversy - for every person who reads your work out of genuine interest, you'll have another who reads it for its reputation, and that's a Pandora's box you don't want to open as you scrabble to top each controversial outing. Having said that, don't shy away from a topic because you feel it is, or might be, controversial. Fiction will always need brave authors willing to talk about things that no one else will discuss, and if you have an original, fair, or unique take on a subject, why not try it out? Tarantino certainly did. Whether he was right or wrong to do tackle the subject of slavery using the generic conventions of both the Western and the Revenge film so is not for me to decide, but kudos to him for having the balls to raise the topic in the first place.

3) Know when to end a scene.

There were more than a few scenes where I found myself mentally screaming "CUT! FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS HOLY, CUUUUUUT!" Tarantino's often had the tendency to ramble, letting scenes go on far longer than they need to, while the additional running time does nothing to further the story (although it may increase your need to duck out to the bathroom). As a reader, if you feel that a scene is going on too long you might just skip to the next one - or worse, you might put the book down altogether. Writers need to know when to stop a scene, or cut it entirely. If it doesn't further the plot or illuminate something important, lose it. If it feels like it's running out of steam, cut and get on with it.

4) Using up your big finish too early.

It wasn't one of his biggest hits but Death Proof got it just right when the climactic set piece, that epic car chase, was at the very end of the film. Likewise the fight sequence between the Bride and O-Ren Ishii in Kill Bill Pt I. Trouble is, I felt like Django Unchained's big shoot-out was the big set piece, as opposed to the actual climactic ending...meaning that the film after said shoot-out sagged a little. That would be like Luke destroying the Death Star and spending another forty five minutes wandering around. Keep your big finish for the end.

5) Give your hero flaws...but don't make him easy to dislike.

I think my biggest problem with Django Unchained is that I warmed to King Schultz very easily, and I really liked the character, but I found it nigh on impossible to root for Django himself. If your sole presented reason for me rooting for someone is how badly they've been treated by someone else then you're not exactly presenting a rounded character. Likewise, making the guy a natural shot so he's a better gunslinger than Wyatt Earp without any practice just makes me too incredulous. His motivations were understandable, and possibly even commendable, but as a character, I just didn't like Django. I know that, in places, Django himself was playing a character in order to further his own ends, but it didn't feel like Django was stretching himself too much to play a bastard. Schultz had flaws, but they were there to make him human. By contrast, Django's flaws just made him into a cartoon character. So by all means give your protagonist flaws - after all, we don't want yet another Mary Sue - but don't make them unlikeable in the process. Even anti-heroes like Snake Plisskin are likeable.

What do you think?

Help Needed: Blogging

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I don't often talk about my day job on here, and to be honest, I'm not about to start now. However, I've been tasked with delivering a masterclass session about blogging for those foundation degree students who need to set up and produce a blog throughout their time here. I'm doing it because, being a writer with an active social media presence, I'm deemed to know what I'm talking about. OK, so a lot of my experience has come within blogging as a writer, not a designer, but the skills are transferable.

BUT. It's difficult to remember what it was like when I set up my first Blogger blog back in 2009 (first ever post is here), and a lot of what I know has been steadily accrued over that time. I've covered the likes of use of images (and copyright) and how to find blogs to follow, as well as drive traffic to your blog, but what I want to know is...

• Have you got any specific questions about blogging that you want addressed?
• What do you wish you'd known when you first got started?
• What do you worry you're doing wrong?
• What advice would you give to a new blogger?

Any answers will be helpful, just to make sure I give the students everything they need to start blogging and, more importantly, enjoy it!

Scrivener: The Verdict

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I'll say up front that this is probably going to be a slightly contentious post but...I don't think I get all the fuss about Scrivener.

After everyone told me how fantastic it was, I downloaded the trial copy. I've still got fourteen days left, but if I'm honest, I don't think I'll be purchasing the full version. I've written my last few projects, including two novels, my weekly serial The First Tale, my novella The Guns of Retribution, and countless short stories, using Word, and I really can't see any reason to deviate from my system now. Before you throw your hands up in horror or leap to the comment form to tell me I'm wrong, let me explain (and please bear in mind that there are as many different ways to write a book as there are people writing them).

Everyone told me that Scrivener's big advantage was the note card system. Sure, it's a good idea, and I can see how others might find it useful, but with regards to my work in progress, I've almost found it restrictive, and I find myself changing the content of the cards on a regular basis as I find more story that I want to write than the cards might otherwise allow. It makes for a fluid outline, at least. Instead, I write out a list of scene headings, and a brief description of each scene, in my Word document. I use the paragraph style 'heading' to highlight each scene, meaning I can whizz between them using Word's Document Map option (2007 - in 2010, it's under Navigation). Next time I write a novel, I'll probably put my notes on ACTUAL note cards.

I like the fact that Scrivener keeps all of your work in one place, but to be honest, I already had separate documents for character sheets, location sheets, story arcs and other pertinent info. OK so Scrivener keeps them all in one place but that's no different to me having a folder on my hard drive (that's backed up regularly) containing the files I need. I might need to access them individually to retrieve information but I'm pretty good at remembering things. I just haven't colour coded anything in my Scrivener project as it doesn't suit my way of working.

Scrivener likes to keep scenes separate, and this leads to an awful lot of the Blank Page Syndrome. Sure, I can flick back to the previous scene to see where I left off, but I still have to come back to an empty page. At least if I write in a single Word document, that's simply broken into scenes using headings, my page is never blank, and I never feel like I'm starting from scratch.

I should also point out that I don't just write using a single machine. Sometimes I write on my laptop, especially if I have other things I need to do in a given timeframe, such as using Photoshop etc, and that's where I keep Scrivener. But I also write on my Netbook, as well as my PC at work if I want to write on my lunchbreak. It's difficult to do that with Scrivener, unless I work from a different file and copy and paste back into Scrivener whenever I get back onto my laptop. To be honest, I've been using a Word file containing all of my work in progress so far for the past couple of weeks and I haven't even noticed that I'm not using Scrivener at all.

I've seen some writers announce, in a somewhat patronising and supercilious way, that real writers don't use Word, as if the software used somehow influences the quality of the end product. Well I'm pretty sure Jane Austen didn't use Scrivener, and it didn't do her too much harm. I know a lot of people swear by Scrivener, but I just don't think it's for me. Sure, Word has a lot of issues and it isn't perfect, but it suits my particular methods for now. And before anyone says anything, I'll be formatting my next story collection (hopefully due out by Halloween) in InDesign before conversion to e-book...

Inspiration behind Population, One

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I haven't done an 'inspiration' post for a while, so I thought I'd do one about my most recent Friday Flash, Population, One. (If you haven't read it, do so now, for there are 'spoilers' ahead!) Now, my dad happened to tell me about a photo he'd seen online for a town whose population was just one, but he couldn't remember what it was called. A Google search later and I discovered he meant Buford, in Wyoming. The photo I used for the flash is the 'town' itself, although I chose to change the name on the sign, as well as changing the names of the people concerned and the circumstances surrounding the town.

It was strange, the moment my dad told me about Buford, I instantly wondered what would happen to the number on the town sign when the sole inhabitant died. Who would change it? I think the seed of wonder was sown by an old anecdote I heard about the last man on earth being so tormented by loneliness that he threw himself off a building, only to hear a telephone ringing as he falls to his death. On top of that, I came across the first two lines to a short story by Frederic Brown, called 'Knock', which simply read "The last man on Earth sat alone in a room. There was a knock on the door." This idea of 'The Last Man' intrigued me. The population sign came from the film, Population 436. If you get the chance to watch it, do so - don't let the fact it stars Fred Durst put you off, he's actually really good.)

Originally, the stranger was just going to be a regular chap who happened to drop by and wonder the same thing, and it was only when I was reading Carlos Claren's An Illustrated History of the Horror Film and he was talking about Death Takes A Holiday from 1934, in which the Grim Reaper goes on holiday, only to find that no one can die while he's not working (this was parodied in an episode of Family Guy when Death hurts his leg and Peter has to take over his job). Thus the idea came into my head to cast Death as the stranger - I know my version of Death is usually a black-lipped young woman with a voice like buzzing flies, but I think she likes to play dress-up from time to time, and in this instance, the man in the pinstripe suit seemed a better fit.

If you take all of these seemingly disparate elements and let them marinade for a while in the unconscious, they spring forth with an idea of their own. Once the idea of the stranger as being Death popped into my head, I wrote the story in about ten minutes - previously, I'd found it too hard to put it on paper, not knowing where to start or how to end it. I think my ultimate point is that inspiration can and does come from many different places, and a writer shouldn't be afraid to expose themselves to film and non-fiction as well as novels when hunting for ideas.

In what way has inspiration suddenly struck you when writing?

15 Habits - Update

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On Wednesday, I discussed the fact that I'm starting Jeff Goins' 15 Habits for Great Writers series. Jeff's running a post every week day for three weeks, and as I said I'd do periodic updates, that's what this post is about!

Day Two (Wednesday) of the series was all about belief, and I was supposed to get up two hours early to write. As I said in my introductory post about the series, I really can't build that into my day, and I don't want to make writing something that will induce stress. A lot of writing coaches add caveats about making sacrifices and airily say "Oh just get up earlier" but that's not always possible - and it isn't helpful when they act as though you're not serious about your craft if such an endeavour won't fit into your shcedule. Sorry, but emotional blackmail is not a good motivational tool. Instead, I said I'd write for an hour - and I did. I added just over 1k words to my work in progress, which I consider to be a good achievement. I'm really pleased with the direction it's taking, although I sometimes worry it's taking on a mind of its own.

Day Three (Thursday) was all about initiative, and the challenge was to "start something you're scared of". Well I'm not a beginner writer and I have projects on the go as it is, so I took the opportunity to just add more words to my work in progress. By this point, I was beginning to wonder exactly how much use I was going to get out of the series since a lot of the tasks seem to be geared towards those who are just starting out on their writing career. Still, if it keeps me writing, then it can't be all bad. Getting the words out of my head and onto paper is the ultimate goal here.

Day Four (Friday) was all about practice, and Jeff suggested that everyone stop talking about writing, and get on with it. His suggestions were to pitch a magazine you want to write for, ask a friend (or stranger) to guest post on his/her blog, publish something on your blog you’ve never shared with anyone, or submit that book proposal. Trouble is, that's all stuff I do anyway! So I chose to just do the "get on with it" part and kept writing. The work in progress is turning out to be rather exciting.

Day Five (Monday) was all about preparation. Jeff talked about the need to actually get things out there, and get things moving. His biggest thing was "Ship something. Anything. It doesn’t matter how bad it is, just put it out there." Sadly, I disagree with him on this point. I am NOT going to put something terrible out there, just to have something available. That's the quickest and easiest way to completely destroy the fragile reputation of self-publishing - which so many people already think leads to shoddy workmanship and poor quality. So instead I shall do as the title of the post suggests and continue to prepare my work in progress. If people want to buy my work, they can choose Checkmate & Other Stories, The First Tale, or The Guns of Retribution.

Day Six (Today) was oddly about stealing. Jeff's theory is that good writers copy, and great writers steal. As he says, we're constantly borrowing from what's around us, which we mash up and regurgitate in our own fashion. So the day's task is to "give up on your pursuit of originality and genius and just find something that inspires you. Borrow from your friends and heroes and mash it all up into something that looks, feels, and sounds like you." Problem - I've been doing this long enough now that I already have my own style, and a way of working, that suits me. Can you guess how I'm going to approach the task? Yep, I'm just going to add more to the work in progress...

15 Habits of Great Writers

Tweet Sometimes it's easy to fall into the trap of saying "I'm a writer...but what now?" Well we all need to keep working on improving ourselves (see my post on continued professional development for writers) and I've decided to devote the next few weeks to working on Jeff Goins' 15 Habits of Great Writers program.

I stumbled across it through my Google Reader, and we're now onto Day Two. Day One was simply an affirmation - a chance to say "I am a writer". I know that some people have problems with admitting this, possibly believing others will think writing a frivolous waste of time, or worrying that others might dismiss their ambitions. I'm quite lucky that I've been writing for so long that it's firmly entrenched in who I am - both in terms of my sense of self, but also my 'persona'. Everyone who knows me knows I'm a writer, and I usually get introduced to other people as being a writer, so telling people what I do is quite straightforward. But here, just to benefit from the repetition...

I am a writer.

There. It's online so that makes it binding.

Day Two is all about belief - something with which I often struggle. Belief implies blind faith in something, and I'm the type of cat who appreciates empirical evidence and tangible proof. Jeff wants everyone to get up two hours early and do nothing but writing. Now, I get up at 6:30 for work, and there is no way I'm getting up at 4:30, particularly since I often don't get to sleep until well after midnight. He says "this is how you know you really believe something". Well I disagree on this point, but I WILL be building an hour of writing into my day. I can't see the point in waking myself up early to write when I know my brain won't be working yet, and I'll just stress about it if I find I can't achieve it. So I'll be making the task more achieveable by tailoring it to fit how I work.

I won't be blogging my progress on a daily basis, but I'll try to keep you updated as to how I'm getting on. Why don't you join me?

Ever decreasing word counts

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I was having a discussion on Twitter about the fact that flash fiction seems to be taking precedence over short stories, but additionally, the length of flashes themselves is also reducing, resulting in more drabbles appearing online. The big question seemed to be...why is this?

I think there are two main reasons behind the decreasing word counts of stories. The first is the perceived reduced attention span of readers. There are clearly more demands on a reader's time these days, and shorter stories are welcomed as a result. These demands range from work and home based commitments, as well as the increasing proliferation of stories online. In the days of Jane Austen or Charles Dickens, there were not only fewer authors available, there were also fewer formats for literature, and also fewer things for the leisured upper classes to do. These all combined to provide the opportunity, and the option, to read much longer stories. It's hardly a surprise that many of the books written before even the 1950s can often take longer to get started, since readers were not so inclined towards 'instant gratification' as they are now. Perhaps the demand for 'bitesize' options stems from the desire to consume fiction between activities?

The second perceived reason is that of the reduced attention span of the writers themselves. They too have more demands on their time, and when we're constantly being urged to make as much work available as possible, we can feel harassed into producing more work that is shorter in length in order to satisfy demand. Moreover, word counts are less of an issue in a purely electronic format - a reader won't pay £8 for a 30,000 paperback, but they'll happily pay £2 for a 15,000 collection of short stories. Tied into this is the possibility that we're being slowly conditioned by the format of television or film narratives to except stories to delivered in a faster format.

So what should you do? Common sense would dictate that if the market tends towards shorter stories that you should follow suit, but it's often good business practice to do something to differentiate yourself from your competitors. Therefore, if everyone else is offering shorter work, you offer longer work to satisfy the demands of the niche who still crave longer work. After all, the popularity of George R R Martin's Song of Ice and Fire series, containing truly gargantuan paperbacks, attests to the fact that people will still quite happily plow through a book with a word count well over 100,000.

As I'm odd, I worked out the word counts for my last eight Friday Flashes. They range between 121 words for Silhouette, my most recent offering, to 979 words for The Jar By The Door. Only three of the eight are less than 500 words long, and all of them are longer than 100 words. The average is 555 words per story. I'd conclude from that that I simply write to the length required by the story. Will I always do so, or will I start writing shorter stories?

Only time will tell...

Burned out and washed up?

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Hello all, remember me? Wow, this makes a change, a blog post that's not a photo prompt or a Friday flash!

I know, I know, I've been somewhat lacking when it comes to writing blog posts of late. I've been telling myself it's because I've been too busy. If I haven't been working on stuff for my teacher training course, I've been prepping for teaching sessions. If I'm not doing that, I'm writing Friday flashes, putting in some words on To Kill A Dead Man, planning the next book I'm going to write, or working on my PhD's literature review. Or, if I'm honest, I'm killing things in Azeroth on Warcraft.

It's all perfectly reasonable. I've got a lot on. But it's more than that. It seems that I get plenty of ideas for posts, and they're all entered into an 'Ideas' note I have in the Blog notebook in my Evernote app. And that's about as far as they go. Anyone who follows me on Twitter (@icypop) knows I waffle on about blog posts I think I'll write, or that I want to write...but then they never materialise. I think I have isolated the problem.

My creative drive appears to have shrunk to the size of a walnut. Therefore writing down the idea seems to satisfy that drive, and I no longer have an urge to finish writing the damned thing. Simply recording the idea was enough. It's an absolute wonder that I've even bothered to write this one! I tell myself that it's saving myself from publishing a load of crap on here but...nah.

Trouble is, the problem extends to more than just my (erratic) blog posts. It's also begun to extend to my fiction as well. I've got an Evernote notebook dedicated to Fiction, and I keep all my ideas for stories in separate notes. Right now, I've got thirty notes of ideas I'm yet to use. Sometimes it's because I'll have an idea I want to use, but then I have another idea I use instead, but the problem seems to be that once I've written the outline, I no longer have an urge to write the story itself. It's like my brain is stuck in 'summary mode'.

If I'm honest...it worries me. I see all of these blog posts and tweets about the work people are putting into their writing careers, and I feel like I'm just sitting on my hands watching the world pass me by. All the writers I know seem to be writing in every spare moment they have, while I'm finding excuses not to write.

So, I guess the question is...have I finally burned out?

Am I really a horror writer?

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Since the beginning of January, I have posted a Friday Flash for each week of 2012, which is a total of eleven stories. However, of those eleven, only three have been non-horror related (one fantasy comedy, one slice of life, and one historical). The other eight have encompassed zombies, mummies, vampires, Gothic horror, evil puppets and as-yet-unnamed creatures who wear human skins. Is anyone else as surprised by that as me?

Back in the day, I called myself a horror writer. We're talking back when I was about sixteen and didn't know any better. I read Stephen King and Clive Barker, and I wanted to write like that too. Problem was, I didn't really enjoy writing "gore". It just didn't seem to work for me very well. I stuck to my "weird fantasy" stories, writing about games of chess between celestial beings, or jewellery boxes that turned their contents into gold, and eventually put out my Checkmate & Other Stories collection, composed of those stories I'd had published online. Definitely not 'slice of life' or realistic, but not really horror either.

So time went by, and I branched out. I wrote historical stories, and ventured into steampunk, and wound up writing a pulp Western last year. I'm damned proud of The Guns of Retribution, but there's always been a little tug back towards my roots - to the extent that its sequel, To Kill A Dead Man, sees Grey O'Donnell pitted against villains of a more supernatural nature. I hardly think it's a surprise that I'd find myself back within the horror genre, considering I spend my spare time hunting ghosts, and studying haunted house films for my PhD - and that's when I'm not reading about the psychological theories that underpin the horror genre as a whole. My life is pretty well steeped in Bizarro at the moment.

Or is it something deeper? I like to think my "craft" has improved since those first stories were published back in 2008, and I'm in a better place to write horror stories that get under the skin. Perhaps spending so long writing weekly flashes, and working on longer stories or novels, has honed my idea-generating skills to the point that I feel I'm better able to work with horror. Maybe my experiences with strange events, and my research into them, has given me better insights into what ideas will work, and what won't. Or maybe the stressful nature of my life at the moment means that the stress has to come out somewhere - and it's choosing to birth weird ideas from my imagination.

Either way, I want to ask a question. My work seems to fall into two major categories, and then a whole bunch of little ones beyond that. So what would people rather see from me - horror stories, or my historical tales?

How to work on your writing when not writing

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I came across this post over on Duolit about how to turn your summer reading into summer inspiration, and a lot of it makes sense. Writers sometimes stress about not writing enough - we seem to forget that if we write with the kind of zealous enthusiasm that we think we should, then sooner or later we'll burn out. Contrary to popular belief, you can't write ALL the time. Of course, it's all too easy for the Guilt Demon to start pouring its poison in your ear if you decide to use your spare time to do something other than writing, so here are things I do to help my writing when I'm not actually writing.

Read books about writing
My absolute favourite is still Plot & Structure by James Scott Bell (which I reviewed over on Write Anything) but I'm happy to read most books about writing - I just choose to ignore or use the advice as I see fit. I subscribe to Writer's Digest, which I find both interesting and useful, and I'm currently reading Larry Brooks' Story Engineering. Whatever I'm reading, I make notes as I go, and I think about how I can apply this information to my WIP. I'm still in the planning stages for a brand new novel, and I've been doing a lot of the preparatory work using these kinds of books.

Read fiction
 It goes without saying that a writer must read. I hear people coming out with statements like "Oh I don't want to read other novels in case it affects my own work" or "I don't have time to read, I'm too busy writing." BOLLOCKS. Architects can't design buildings without looking at how other architects have approached similar briefs, and surgeons don't tend to operate on patients without keeping up to date with medical advances. You're a writer, not a hermit living in a hermetically sealed bubble. Besides, how will you know if your spectacular idea has ever been done before if you don't read? You'll never get to understand generic convention, or even the process of storytelling, if you don't read. I pretty much read whatever catches my attention, and I do so primarily to unwind, but I also like to know what other people are doing. Hey, I'm nosey.

Read non-fiction
I'd actually venture to say that I read far more non-fiction than fiction. It's not even necessarily for research purposes, although that's often a reason for picking up a particular book. Sometimes I'm just interested in a particular thing. As well as Story Engineering, I'm also reading The Amazing Story of Quantum Mechanics by physicist James Kakalios. I have no intention to write science fiction, I just find quantum theory fascinating. Anything that expands or enhances knowledge can only be a good thing - and it often goes that the spark of a story appears while reading non-fiction. It's a veritable treasure trove of ideas!

Watch films
I've sometimes read blogs about writing in which the blogger chastises would-be writers for watching films. Apparently, to them, the principles of filmmaking and the principles of writing are too far removed from one another. Cinema is "low art", considered to be tawdry mass entertainment, while writing is "high art", literature intended to elevate mankind. (These bloggers have clearly never read Stephanie Meyer) Well I thumb my nose at them because whether it's cinema or writing, it's all still storytelling. Sure, some of the conventions differ, but it's amazing how many principles can be applied to both. Of course, I am biased considering my track record in film studies academia, but it is true that I find it easier to absorb said principles if I'm watching them unfold. Plus it's a good excuse to watch a movie.

Knitting
I've talked about this before, but I figured I'd mention it again. A lot of writing blogs advocate periods of "meditation" or "contemplation" - basically, sit/stand and think about your WIP while you're doing something else. So you can unravel plot tangles while doing the washing up, or consider characterisation conundrums when you're hoovering. I mull over my WIP while I'm knitting - there's something soothing about the rhythmic nature of the craft that helps me to understand my story in a clearer way. So I get to think about my writing AND I get to make something at the same time.

What about you? What else do you do when you're not writing?

The Air of Resignation

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I'll be honest with you, I'm not really accustomed to blogging about myself as a person - I'm far more comfortable blogging about my writing career, or my ghost hunting exploits. What I do, I feel, is far more interesting than who I am. However, there are occasionally events in life that prove momentous enough to share, and I think this is one of them.

"The best thing I've written all year is by far my resignation."

On Monday, I handed in my notice. As of 6pm on 12 August, I will no longer be an administrative serf in an office-based fiefdom. Technically, considering I have been paid for my writing, I can call myself a professional writer, but I doubt I will feel comfortable applying such a label to myself. Instead, I will make the migration back to my Northern homeland from this lonely and sprawling capital city, where I'll begin a PhD in Film Studies in October. I'll be an academic!

I haven't really talked about my PhD yet, and I'm disinclined to until work gets underway, but I can say that I'll be exploring the representation of haunted spaces in contemporary horror cinema. It's quite nice that it dovetails so well with my interest in paranormal fiction, as well as my work with paranormal investigators in the north east of England (more on that in September). I've wanted to do a PhD for some years now but it was only late last year that I finally decided to get the ball rolling. After all, you can only complain about your lot in life for so long before it becomes a good idea to do something to change it.

There are also other things on the cards - there are some exciting developments that I will discuss when the time comes, and I will continue to post weekly free flash stories. I have The Guns of Retribution coming out in paperback with Pulp Press in late September (which you can already pre-order here), and I've got another e-book coming out to coincide with its release - I'm expanding and revising my Dead Man's Hand trilogy that appeared on my blog earlier in the year. There is also an intention to have a Parrots and Piracy collection done by the end of the year. I've just finished editing my Fowlis Westerby novel, and there will, in all likelihood, be more Vertigo City stories.

Still, I stand poised on the edge of a major change, and for once, I'm not wondering if I'll be able to manage, or cope. I'm wondering when exactly I can get stuck in.

You have been listening to a transmission by Icy Sedgwick. Signing off until next time...

Links a plenty - writing advice on the web

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There's an awful lot of advice online for the aspiring, intermediate or even expert writer, and it's sometimes difficult to keep up. As it's been a while since I've done a "links" post, I've decided to compile a list of some of the latest blog posts I've come across to do with writing (and yes, I did write the Fuel Your Writing post, before you say anything). As a further note, I highly recommend all of these blogs for their insightful and often just plain interesting articles.

How To Stop Your Creative Muse Walking Out And Cheating On You
A Big Creative Yes

45 More Tips For Writers, From Writers
Marelisa's Abundance Blog

10 Steps to Making Your Author's Blog A Success
A. Victoria Mixon

8 Fiddly Things You Can Do To Your Manuscript To Make Your Editor's Day
Hey, there's a dead guy in the living room

Writing Historical Fiction? How to Write a Book Set in the Past
Quips and Tips for Successful Writers

What the Fiction Editor looks for
Rachelle Gardner

10 Things To Do Before You Self Publish
Self-Publishing Resources

To Betta or not to Beta
The Kill Zone

Six Core Analogies for the Six Core Competencies
Storyfix

Your Online Press Kit
Publetariat

Self-publishing vs Traditional Publishing
Nathan Bransford

Seven Tips for Submission Success
Fuel Your Writing

And for a little bit of general silliness...

Marvel Comics Family Trees
How to be a Retronaut

Why I Write

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I keep meaning to write some kind of blog post on why I write. I normally trot out the same old schlock about how I've always written, and it's never really occurred to me not to. Stories pop into my head and I write them down. As the meerkat would say, "Simples."

However, while that is still true, I think it does go deeper than that. After all, I've always been able to run but it doesn't mean I do (I don't, as it happens. I prefer swimming and Pilates as forms of exercise. Running looks so...ungainly) Yesterday I posted the link to my story, The Sought After Smile, which had been published in the new issue of Luna Station Quarterly. The link was shared on Facebook (seriously, what did we do before social networking?) and someone posted a comment to say it had really cheered them up after a crap day. You know what I did? I smiled (and I am not an inherently cheerful person).

Do you know how ace that feels, to know that something you wrote actually helped to improve someone else's day? That a simple work of fiction could cheer someone up in just a few moments? Ah, escapism. You can't beat it. I suppose I whiled away many a lonely hour as a child, caught up in an Enid Blyton adventure or whizzing through another Roald Dahl, and if I'm completely honest, I still seek solace in books now. To my mind, if I can provide someone with a few moments away from the troubles and stresses of their existence, then that is a job well done.

Yes, it's true. I have no lofty pretensions to creating high art, to leaving a literary legacy that will see schoolchildren pore over my work 200 years from now, to winning awards or changing the world - no, I just want to entertain people. I like to think I'm more Guillermo del Toro than Michael Bay, but the intention is much the same.

Of course, that's not the ONLY reason I write. At the moment, I'm working on a Western novella, tentatively titled Guns of Retribution, about a bounty hunter named Gray O'Donnell. I've written the first draft, and I'm now polishing the rough edges before I send it to my completely awesome beta readers. I'm a natural pedant so if a plot point sticks out like a sore thumb to me, I assume it'll be a red flag to others, so I won't put anything out in front of people until all the narrative logic has been resolved. Now, for one reason and another, I've had to take a couple of breaks from redrafting, and I finally got back into it on Monday night. Re-reading the opening scene, I almost cried - it was like being back among old friends again. Sure, they're imaginary friends, but they're friends all the same.

Writing is an inherently solitary path, but in a perverse kind of way, we're never really alone. We're constantly living out adventures in our heads, chatting to people we've invented, and endlessly creating new places and things. Of course, if most people say they hear voices, they're considered insane, but writers are exempt from this particular social convention.

Good thing, too. I wouldn't dare tell Liss Hunt to shut up.

One Million is a Good Motivator

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Just before New Year, I had one of "those" conversations on Twitter which led to the formation of an idea, and the proposal of a challenge. Brian Knight, otherwise known as @TheNewAuthor, challenged me to write one million words by the end of 2011. For the mathematical fetishists among you, that works out at 83,334 words per month, 19,230 words per week, or 2740 words per day. Ouch.

It's now 16th February, and I've written a grand total of 81,274 words. That's more than I would have imagined I would have written by this point in the year, although I'm still off the target by some margin (over 48,000 words - some margin, I think you'll agree). Even more annoyingly, that would be a decent-sized novel if I'd stuck to writing just plain fiction to eat up the word count, but I didn't. Rather, that figure is made up of;

• blog posts (here, for Fuel Your Writing, Write Anything and Icy's Cultural Carnival)
• Friday flashes
• my writing journal
• work on forthcoming Tales from Vertigo City serials
• short stories
• my current WIP, a Western novella named The Guns of Retribution, and
• stream of consciousness brainstorming sessions in which I work out plot points by writing around them

Who would have thought I'd write so much? I certainly didn't. OK, so it's not as much as I would have liked to have written at this point, but having a goal like "write one million words in 365 days" is one hell of a motivator.

Speaking of which...

Someone asked me the other day what motivates me. I was somewhat flummoxed as I've never really considered myself to be a motivated person (I don't even list it as one of those generic, catch-all buzzwords you find on CVs). I just do what I do because I want to do it - I've never stopped to analyse the reasoning behind it. I guess "It seemed like a good idea at the time" or "I'm getting paid to do it" is my usual rationale. However, in the case of writing, this line of reasoning falls flat.

In putting pen to paper, I guess my biggest motivation is the act itself. I enjoy writing, and I enjoy telling stories - I always have done. It doesn't occur to me NOT to write. So why wouldn't I want to do something that I enjoy? Of course, one might ask, if one were so inclined, why I then feel compelled to share them with the world, and I, being cheeky, would no doubt reply "Because I can". In all seriousness, I put my stories up here, or submit them to anthologies, or make them available as ebooks because I want to other people to enjoy them. I know how mundane and dull existence can be, and if I can lift someone out of that for a while, even a few minutes, then I consider that a job well done. Besides, humans rationalise their world through stories, be it our personal narratives in the form of our memories, or how we connect facts in order to communicate events to one another. Sharing fictional stories is a nice way to connnect with fellow humans.

When it comes to a solitary pursuit such as writing, you need some kind of emotional motivation. Sure, the fear of missing a deadline can spur you on as you slap down sentence after sentence, and I'm sure writing because you're paid to do so also ensures you churn out thousands of words a day. However, I still think there's nothing quite like writing for the simple joy of doing so, when the imagination becomes so vocal in speaking its mind that you can't do anything but write.

Enjoy what I do and provide some escapism? Yeah, that's why I'm a writer.

The Inevitable NaNoWriMo Post

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Monday 1st November is almost upon us, which in the writing world, means just one thing. No, we writer folk don't celebrate All Saint's Day (well, some of us might). No, I mean it's almost NaNoWriMo, aka National Novel Writing Month. The name is something of a misnomer since the concept has since gone international since its American inception in 1999, but if you know a writer, you'll no doubt hear plenty of "NaNo" talk over the coming weeks. Hell, if you use Twitter, you'll no doubt consider un-following anyone who mentions it for the 8394th time.

The Internet is already crammed with posts about why people are doing NaNo, why they aren't doing NaNo, why you should do NaNo, etc. etc., and as much as I could sit here and blather on about the same, I figured I'd just give you a couple of my strategies for getting through it. If you don't have any intention of doing NaNo, then look away now...

It's not Zombigeddon
I'll let you in on a secret. NaNoWriMo is not an experience that you must "survive". This is not a zombie apocalypse or the Poseidon Adventure. You will not find yourself going on the run with Snake Plissken. It is a hard slog but it is one that should be enjoyed as opposed to endured. If you think it's going to be too hard and that you might want go "Bruce Banner" ten days in, then maybe consider not doing it. Furthermore, if writing that many words at all, let alone in one month, fills you with fear, then might I suggest crochet or origami as a hobby as opposed to writing?

Project
Before you do anything else, you're going to need to decide on your project. Why stop at a novel? By name, it might be National Novel Writing Month but you could easily use the time to write a bunch of short stories, or even a web serial which you can then divide up and start posting in December. There is no NaNo police who will hunt you down if you choose not to write a novel. (I hope - don't quote me on that) The whole point of the exercise is purely to write, and to get yourself into the habit of writing daily.

If you do choose a novel, make sure the plot is strong enough to sustain one. What might seem like a neat idea to start with might turn out to be less of a concept and more of a notion, better suited to a flash fiction or at its longest, a short story. Remember that while books can often be boiled down to a single sentence (Hobbits take Ring to Mordor, boy wizard battles evil wizard, vampire emigrates to the UK and causes hassle for the locals) there's a lot more going on in them. Have you got sub-plots?

Plan
So you've got your idea, and you think it'll be enough to support the weight of a novel. Excellent! Well done. Now you have to break it down into chunks. Why? Well I'm not saying you need to have a wall covered in Post-It notes, or an entire floor of your home dedicated to a plot map, but it might be a good idea to know roughly where the story is going to go before you start. If you don't, then your characters might run away with you, leading you down blind alleys and causing you to waste precious words on diverting but ultimately pointless excursions. Try and work out major plot landmarks ahead of time - then you can feel free to make stuff up as you go along to get the novel from point to point.

Words
50,000 words certainly sounds like a lot, and it works out as a minimum of 1,667 words per day. Writing that much used to be enough to write a complete book, but many novels nowadays are 75,000 words or more. Still, you can't expect writing novices to sit down and crank out 2,500 words a day (unless they want to) and 50,000 words seems far more attainable. Besides, you don't have to limit yourself to 50,000 words by 30 November. The whole point of NaNo is to get you writing - if you want to keep going and not finish your book until January when it will weigh in at a mighty 140,000 words, there's nothing stopping you.

Targets
I would argue that your most important strategy is to make sure you write something every day to keep the momentum going. If you only write 500 words one day, that's fine, but remember you'll need to write 2834 words the following day to stay on track. My suggestion is to aim to write more than 1667 words per day, so if you fall short of that target, you should still make your minimum word count.

Yeah yeah yeah, Icy, but I've got other stuff to be getting on with, I hear you say. Well, not to be facetious, but so did I when I wrote my first novel in 2008. I had to find time where I could. Nowhere does it say you have to write all 1667 words in one sitting. If you wrote 580 words in three bouts, you'd have written 1680 words in one day. Doesn't seem so much when you break it down, does it? If you do 500 words before breakfast, another 500 words at lunch, 500 words before dinner and 500 words before you go to bed, you've done 2000 words. As the meerkat would say, "Simples."

All you need is love
You will need a whole heap of love to get the job done. Love for your plot and your characters, in particular. If you don't love writing them, even the villains (or should I say, especially the villains), and you don't love your story, then it will feel like a chore. If that happens, don't get too despondent - maybe your story and your characters are better suited to a short story, or a novella.

Allow yourself to suckLast but not least, remember that you will not get a finished book out of NaNoWriMo. If you make it to the finish line, or go beyond the 50,000 mark and complete the novel, all you will have is a first draft. It will need a lot of polishing to get it to an acceptable state for an agent. Therefore, you may allow your writing to be utterly awful. No one need ever see this but you. So just get your head down, get writing, and have fun.

Goodreads

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After some subtle persuasion from Paul Anderson and Carrie Clevenger, I set myself up with an author profile on Goodreads. It seems odd to say that, to call myself an 'author'. I'm not sure why - I have had short fiction published sporadically online since July 2008, I have actually sold copies of my first e-book, The First Tale, and I now have a short story included in a bona fide anthology - the Chinese Whisperings Yin Book. If the definition of 'professional' is doing something and getting paid for it, then I must be a professional writer (even if it isn't my main source of income).

The very supportive Benjamin Solah was good enough to put The First Tale on Goodreads, and it's very cool to see that people are reading it. I genuinely blush when people send me tweets saying they enjoyed The First Tale - and it takes A LOT to make me blush. Yet it's so nice to know that people actually read what you do - and enjoy it. In a lot of ways, it makes the whole thing worth doing. I can't think of anything more sad than being a writer and never letting anyone read your work. I suppose I can understand the reasoning behind it - after all, if no one ever reads it then no one can ever tell you that you're no good. Besides, if you're writing for your own enjoyment and you're keeping yourself happy then it doesn't mean that you need to show it to anyone else.

Then again, writers tell stories. It's what we do. Whether we're novelists, journalists, copywriters or chroniclers, we're all telling stories. Is a story still a story if it isn't read? It's that age old philosophical question - if a tree falls in a forest and no one is there to hear it, does it still make a sound? I mean, I tell these stories for two reasons. 1) I write them because I have to (I'd go crazy from the voices in my head if I didn't write down what they said). 2) I write them because I want people to read these stories - I want to entertain people! If someone reads something I've written and can escape from the mundane drudgery of their existence for those few minutes it takes to read a flash, then I consider the whole endeavour worthwhile. If the readers learns something too, then brilliant.

The most momentous stage in setting up my profile was selecting what genres cover my style. 'Short fiction' was an obvious, if generic, term, and I felt compelled to put down 'science fiction & fantasy' as opposed to 'horror' because I feel a lot of my stuff comes under the 'speculative fiction' or 'urban fantasy' bracket, as opposed to 'horror'. I always wanted to be a horror writer, but I realised fairly early on that I was no Clive Barker or Stephen King. Indeed, an email I once received about my short piece Left convinced me of that - the author of said email told me my style reminded him of Neil Gaiman or Ray Bradbury. When I'd recovered my jaw from the floor, I realised that horror clearly wasn't my 'bag' unless it was based on reality. But more importantly, I finally nailed my colours to the mast and put down "historical fiction" as one of my genres. I really enjoy writing things that require research, so you can expect a few more historical pieces over coming weeks.

Of course, one of the many advantages of historical fiction is it covers such a wide range of topics. I can continue to write my tales about bodysnatchers, mental asylums or vengeful knights, but still continue to write steampunk (a genre characterised by its adherence to an historical 'aesthetic') and stories about pirates...

A Tidy Writer is a Productive Writer

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A few weeks back, blogger Ali Hale of Aliventures posted an entry about clutter and creativity. What, I hear you ask, is a post about tidying doing on a blog loosely dedicated to writing and other creative endeavours? Well, I've come to realise that it's difficult to be truly creative when you're drowning in a sea of your own junk.

You see, I live in a studio flat. I know, I know, I've just shattered the illusion that I've made my supervillain lair under a volcano or in an abandoned tube station (or have I? maybe this is all just fiction......no, it's true) Problem is, studio flats are notoriously short on storage space - think of me as a lonely writer in a cold London garret, if that's what butters your muffin. I admit that I'm lucky since my landlord provided two wardrobes and a small chest of drawers, but the other storage units (and copious bookcases) are my own. Without them, I'd be wading through piles of books, DVDs and electrical items every time I wanted to cross the room.

Trouble is, despite this storage, I still seem to have clutter. I'm reasonably logical so I've divided this clutter into piles, clustered around the perimeter of the room, but lately it's really been getting to me that I have so much stuff - most of which I probably don't even need. I've noticed its effect on my output, too. I find that I write more on my lunch hour because the office is tidier. There's more of a sense of order, particularly in the room where I have my lunch. I'm not distracted by piles of books or photos that I have yet to put in my album. At home, any fleeting sense of order created by dividing the piles by 'theme' or 'content' is very much undermined by the chaos of having these dratted piles of things in the first place.

I've been telling myself for months now that I will "tidy up a bit" but then I've found myself distracted by something else. I'd find myself leaving work, all fired up to go through the flat like a dose of salts, only to get home tired and cross after a hellish commute (particularly those three hour commutes when the damned tube staff decide to go on strike). I'd look at the clutter, sigh deeply, and then pull out my sketchbook and start drawing instead. I think the only thing in my flat that I managed to tidy successfully was my yarn collection, though I think practicality was a large factor behind that particular adventure. (Ever tried to detangle fine mohair yarn? My tip? Don't.)

But lately I've been getting antsy about it all, so armed with Ali's post and infused with a sense of just simply 'wanting more space', I sat back and contemplated the contents of my flat. I like to point out that there is method to my madness and that if I desperately need something, I remember exactly where it is. Trouble is, there are lots of piles of things on the floor, and I can't remember what's in most of them because the stuff isn't important enough to remember. My logic ran that if I couldn't remember what was in the pile, chances are, I didn't need it. If I had, I would have stored it either with like objects, or kept it to hand. Still, the road to hell is paved with good intentions, so I decided I needed The Battleplan.

I've divided my flat up into nine 'clutter zones', and I aim to tackle them one by one. As I clear them, my flat will therefore look tidier, providing more motivation to keep tidying, but it also makes it seem like less of a gargantuan task. I've cleared two of these, and I found myself recycling 80% of the contents, throwing away 15%, and keeping just 5%. (If you're wondering, it was all old magazines, newspaper clippings, countless coffee shop receipts or padded envelopes from things I've bought online, which I reuse when selling on eBay or Amazon) Those two spaces already seem massive, and it's such a good incentive for me to move onto the next one.

Strangely, by the time I've finished tidying, I feel fired up and ready to write again, as if removing the physical clutter in the room is enough to remove the mental clutter that blocks my motivation to write. Maybe it's the extra exercise, adding endorphins to the mix. Or maybe I'm just weird.

Icy's Guide to writing Historical Fiction

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Having read the excellent guest post by the equally excellent Carrie Clevenger over at Write Anything about writing historical fiction, I thought I might take the time to sit down, and have a bit of a chat about my own process. Lately I've been basing some flashes on local legends or historical anecdotes, and I've discovered I really enjoy doing so.

Fowlis Westerby
I first began flirting with history when I wrote my first novel, Fowlis Westerby. Fowlis himself is a ghost and therefore free from the restraints of time, but as he is originally a Cavalier, I needed to have some awareness of the English Civil War. Hazy memories of studying the Stuarts at school was clearly not enough, and I've been spending some time researching the period. Madame Blavatsky also makes an appearance, so again I delved into the history books to find out more about this fascinating figure.

Local legends and anecdotes
I've already written a post about the origins of the tale that inspired my flash about the Black Knight, but my most recent flash, The Resurrection Men, and an exclusive flash which will only appear in my forthcoming e-book, a tale named The Charterhouse Bullies, were both inspired by historical events. History can sometimes seem so dry and far removed from us. How can we connect with people and places that are long gone? Personally, I love reading historical non-fiction. Only this week, I've bought a book on Victorian social history, and another on medieval England (research for the third tale from Vertigo City). One of my passions is London history - I might be a Geordie but London is my current home, and I like to know where I'm living. Besides, London has a rich and eccentric history, and it provides ripe fodder for fictional prompts.

It starts
So how do I go about writing it? Well it usually starts with a book. I might be a film student but I do love reading. So there I am, reading about whatever has taken my fancy on that particular day, and something leaps out at me. One of two things now happens. Sometimes a story pops into my head, fully formed, that is designed solely to add a human face to an anecdote or legend. The rest of the time, the seed of an idea drops into the top soil of my mind, and I have to do a little gardening to get it to grow. By gardening, I obviously mean research, but you knew that, didn't you? Of course you did.

Research
When I say research, what is the first thing that pops into your head? If you thought, "Wikipedia", then get out of my classroom now, and don't come back until you've written "Encyclopaedia Britannica" 800 times. Wikipedia CAN be a useful source of information, but, like most things on the Internet, it is written and edited by ANYONE. Take what you find on it with a hearty dose of salt - much of it is written by experts for other experts but that won't stop some bored jackass changing the details.

Books
Instead, go to a library. Bloggers might be predicting the death of publishing but real books still exist, and they still contain an absolute wealth of knowledge. Read all you can about your chosen topic - accept what feels right, discard what doesn't. Remember that these will be mostly secondary sources and their primary sources might not be the most reliable. Even if you find primary sources, consider their original purpose and remember that they might be biased, and if they're memoirs, remember that people won't always tell you the whole story, and even if they do, the human memory is not infallible.

Media
If your historical period is after the mid-1800s, seek out photographs. Yes, some early photographs were faked, or fake merely in the sense that they are highly posed, but they'll still give you a greater clue to details, ambience and basic setting than any amount of description in a book. Photographs act as wonderful prompts anyway, but old photographs do so in a completely different way. Why not use old family photographs to write the invented histories of your ancestors? Experience media from the period in whatever way you can - Carrie also recommends listening to music from the period, but movies are also a good example. Yes, they may be sanitised, romanticised, or simply from one point of view, but what they DON'T contain often tells you more than what they DO. You can also check out paintings, engravings, or even tapestries. If you've got a local fashion or textiles museum, pay a visit - costume can tell you a lot about social convention or mobility.

Locations
If it's possible, visit locations. I write a lot in London so obviously I can pop out and see the places. Many of them no longer exist, but while the street or building itself has long since gone, there will no doubt be somewhere similar nearby. There is enough of London's strange atmosphere to soak up that I can get by on what I absorb simply walking around.

Eyewitnesses
If your piece occurs within living memory, then talk to people who were there. Again, be wary of rose-tinted spectacles or skewed memories, but you can still get plenty of details from a conversation with someone who experienced a period firsthand that you'd never get from a book. If it doesn't occur within living memory, then try and track down oral histories. There are several that deal with the Victorian period due to the sudden interest taken in the lower orders. The documentation is mind-boggling.

Immerse yourself and put it all together
Hopefully, if you immerse yourself in a period for long enough, you'll feel that little 'click' when it all comes together. Your idea will be rooted in a sense of 'reality' and your research will help bring a past time to life. This reality will breathe life into characters and places that are long gone - and hopefully you'll have a better sense of where you come from, and what has gone before. Go forth on your historical quest - and good luck.

Track Your Writing Progress

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Last week, I posted an entry about making your own motivation to write. I feel like I possibly left things hanging, as I missed out two of the Internet-based tools for helping you to write, for both keeping you motivated and keeping track of your progress. How remiss of me! So here I am, on my vacation, but still blogging to pass on what I know in the hope it may be of some use.

http://750words.com
Have you signed in to this service yet? It's very easy - I personally sign in using the Google ID I already have, although you can also sign in using Facebook, Yahoo or OpenID, as well as creating an account. The idea behind the site came from the famous notion of "morning pages" in The Artist's Way. I've never read the book, but I do know that author Julia Cameron recommends writing three pages, ideally longhand, in the morning. The idea is to purge the mind of random nonsense, to get it ready for creating. I've seen this described elsewhere as being akin to clearing the rubbish out of an attic before you can redecorate.

Well three pages equates to roughly 750 words, hence this site! You can use it for whatever you want - writing your novel in progress, keeping a journal, doing a brain dump...whatever! It saves your work as you go but beware, it won't save it beyond your current session, so if you're writing a novel, you'll need to copy and paste into Word (or similar). Personally, I use it as a brain dump of whatever is bothering me, so instead of keeping a journal or ranting at my loved ones, I let off steam and write about the things on my mind, thus clearing my brain and getting me ready for creative endeavours!

Now, I've managed to write on five days in August, and in that time, I've written 3,987 words. When you've written your 750 words (or more), you get to check out your stats for that day. Some of my most frequently used words for today's words were "because, done, first, know, people and write". Most of it was written about the present, and the primary sense used is sight! Beyond these somewhat random stats, you get a little scorecard, which is a neat little way to keep your motivation up. After all, you've written for four days straight - you don't want to break your streak, do you?

Write or Die
This is my other favourite tool. People need deadlines - it's so easy to find an excuse not to write if you think it isn't required or expected. As the About page says, "Many people find themselves unable to write consistently. I believe that this is because their reason to write is intangible. For instance, I want to write and finish a book because I want to be published and make a living as a writer. That goal is a long way away so I often find it difficult to sit down to the task of writing. Conversely, I'm in a creative writing class for which I manage to consistently write and finish projects (albeit at the last minute). I therefore draw the conclusion: A tangible consequence is more effective than an intangible reward."

If you want to use the application, just select either your word goal or time goal (handy if you only have ten minutes to spare), along with the consequences for not writing (four different modes that range from a pop up box reminder to the application actually 'un-writing' your writing) and the grace period (three options depending on how quickly you want the consequences to kick in) and away you go.

The idea is not to edit, so when you're finished writing, you have to copy and paste your text into an editor. The concept is based on doing your writing in a burst, and then editing later, at a more leisurely pace. Write or Die just wants you to get the words down - after all, you can't edit what you haven't written.

Which will you choose?
So there you go. Two tools to help you keep track of how much you write, or to make sure you keep writing! Go on, give them a go, or why don't you let me know how you've managed with either of them?