Plotting Plot

Plot is one of the few things that drives me insane! Why? Because I can never be happy with. Its got to make the story interesting, it has got to be dynamic, its got to move the reader and it has to be consistent! Looking at what I've written there's so much complexity in what I want to achieve it's hard to think of the plot on a single line, there is diversity in the sub plot. Mapping out plot diagrams can be a good way to think about what's going on and mine are layered. You've got the plot on its surface, what physically happens, 'X does Y and moves onto Z', then you've got the purpose of different characters, for example the 'skeletal man' in The Delusion Wing and plotting him out on a diagram has allowed me to get a much better picture on what he should be doing - if he wants to convince Asaros to change her behaviour, as frightening as he's suppose to be, I don't think his first stage would be fear. Now I can look on a piece of paper and see how he reacts to each plot change and how much he plays with reality. I can look specifically at Asaros' emotions and look precisely how she develops as a character and say line it up with the death god and see how they correlate and make changes based on that.

For example 
Plot: Asaros commits her crime
Asaros: Fueled by anger, but scared on the inside, she fear's what's ahead
Skeletal Man: Up to him to use her fear to convince her that she was wrong

A separate sheet I've got is called 'questions', this is to consider what questions I would like the reader to be asking, for example:
Why does Asaros think her crime will achieve anything? Why is this demon-like thing patronising her? Then I can see where these questions might be answered, I'm not even sure the 'Why is this demon-like thing patronising her?' question will be answered in book one now that I've split up the plot. After the major plot turn (which is now the end of book 1) there is a lot for Asaros to learn and she is on a journey of discovery, Asaros understanding her condition, it could perhaps be one of the major themes in book 2 as the major theme in book 1 is 'corruption', which has a nice spider gram...written using different coloured pens (not to make them pretty, it's just I prefer variance in colour for visual cues). I think book 1 would be able to stand on its own without the rest of the story, which is good in the sense that it doesn't feel incomplete, but I have been debating with myself whether the ending would stand as an ending on its own leaving the readers to use their imagination or to carry on. Perhaps it is too early to be thinking about those things.

Feeling Emotion

One of the things that gets me about writing is that I've got to sit inside of my character's head and try to understand how they feel to in some ways to try to feel the way they do. Any character you write will have a piece of you in there and when you start looking into it a character's current emotional state might mirror some part of your psyche. Asaros in some ways reflects a part of me, the part of me who is tired of watching bigoted people screw people over, see people at the top preaching ugliness hiding behind this wall of 'respectability' because it's not their word, it's the word of a higher being and many religious people I know will agree with me when I say this, "that's bullshit". The difference, however, is that she's living it and it'd be wrong of me to say I understand how she feels as I lead a much, much more comfortable lifestyle, which of course makes Asaros a difficult character to write. I have been writing some of Asaros' emotional moments as of late and given all the shit that has been thrown at her and all she's witnessed she's going to have moments where she just breaks down, after all, she's only human, even though she considers herself to be the strong martyr type.

In my original draft Asaros was this young, naive yet strong leader type taking on a revolution without much weakness, but she also wasn't that human. The considerations I had were: given her situation, will she be all that strong? She'd want to be and she'd try to be. She wants to get back at those who have her people living in fear but also those who have taken everything from her. I think actually, she'd have quite a level of vulnerability underneath her shell right from chapter 1. The other consideration is that will she really be able to lead a revolution? I think she'd like to, but she lacks the ability and the qualities and certainly after chapter 1 she doubts herself. Of course mistakes are made in order to learn, who knows? Asaros is a lot stronger when she's around the people she cares for, so there's always potential for her to change.

The Lucky Number 7

Today I have to write seven blog posts, why? Because I need to stop being facetious, I told this blogger and dear friend that 1 blog post isn't enough and of course it goes the other way and now I, like her, am cursed to write 7 blog posts today. And it's 16:45 and I've got to start cooking dinner in 45 minutes. The clock is ticking. What will I write about? I'm not quite sure, but this blog post counts as one. Remember, challenging yourself as a writer is always a good thing, it keeps you on your toes.

Blog Post Number 2: Feeling Emotion 
Blog Post Number 3: Plotting Plot
Blog Post Number 4: Challenging Yourself
Blog Post Number 5: Alternate Reality
Blog Post Number 6: Visualising A Character
Blog Post Number 7: The Word

Er...Hello

Where was that update I promised? Somewhere in the aether. I've left my little blog out of the loop and I'm back to give it some more love, not the kind of love that ends in restraining orders either.

Final notes on the Cambridge Wordfest and a few notes to do with points of inspiration. The entire 3 day weekend was an enjoyment, on the Saturday I went to the crime fiction workshop, and whilst I am not a crime writer, I found some very interesting takes on plot structure. It also inspired me to brainstorm the main theme of The Delusion Wing and I think the notes I've made are good enough for me to keep focus when editing rather than letting subplots go astray. Too many themes going at once would make the piece seem jumbled up and perhaps confuse readers. And yes, Ian McEwan was fully booked, however, I went along to the talk on Wiki Leaks from two The Guardian journalists who worked very closely with the story, who were also there to promote their book and they head interesting stories to tell, which offer an insight to difficulties and ethics of journalism, as well as the risks and how Internet publishing like WikiLeaks makes publishing data that would have most journalists facing legal trouble easy as it's a lot harder to hold somebody who's identity is anonymous to account. It is perhaps worth picking up their book.

With Cambridge Wordfest there's the seminar where they bring new authors into to talk about their newly published books. The books in question are: City of Bohane by Kevin Barry,  The Book of Lies by Mary Horlock and The Echo Chamber by Luke Williams. Each author read extracts and each piece sounded well written complete with interesting characters and strong plots to follow. City of Bohane is a piece of dystopia set in Ireland in the future in the streets of the City of Bohane following a gang. The Book of Lies is a murder story lead by a character who seems rather proud of the fact she killed someone and the author clearly has a good sense of humour, whilst it is tackling deep character issues she certainly uses her wit. The Echo Chamber focuses on the dying of the British Empire in Nigeria, but through the eyes, or should I say 'ears' of a character who's capable of hearing things other people can't. I bought copies of The City of Bohane as dystopia is right up my alley and The Book of Lies, both are signed copies.

With City of Bohane, it is encouraging to see that publishers will take on pieces of dystopia and that there might be a market for what I am writing. After the talk I started talking to people in the bar to find myself amongst MA Creative Writing students and an agent and it was interesting to meet a local agent who accepts new authors and I got to ask a few questions. At the book signing there was one table with PD James and the other with the debut writers, their events actually clashed too, I would love to have watched PD Jame's talk, but I had to make a choice. PD James looked a little lonely when I went to talk to the new writers, I would have bought one of her books and asked her to sign it and try to start a conversation, ask her a few questions about her experience as a successful writer and complement her on The Children of Men, it's an excellent piece of dystopia in my opinion, but felt kind of awkward having picked the debut writers' event over hers. "Hello PD James, I love the Children of Men and as a person who is writing dystopia it's actually quite inspiring", "So did you enjoy the talk?", "Er...I was in the other room". Plus I hate to sound over complimentary, as though I'm trying to suck up to someone, but some people you just have to call awesome, see the last part of this blog post.

Anyway as I was mostly hanging around the Cambridge Union building for the Sunday I actually felt kind of out of place. You have me, Derby University graduate, long untidy hair, cargo shorts, band t-shirt and hands in my pockets amongst folks who are better dressed, Cambridge University lecturers, MA students and what I suppose what you could call the 'literary crowd' if coining the term had much meaning, but I'm a social bloke, I am passionate and I refuse to not be myself, so I made an effort even if I didn't necessarily make a good impression and I think I probably came off as quite nervous to some folk. One guy sat with me and had a drink who just passed his MA and seemed familiar with most of the folk around. He was nice bloke, but somewhat controversial, at least one of the first things he said to me, "there's plenty of people in the world who deserve to be killed" and he then talked about the exploitation of larger businesses and the ethics of our society, whilst I see his sentiments, that if some people didn't exist then they wouldn't be able to cause others to suffer, but murder is a little extreme. We also talked about writing and philosophy, so it wasn't entirely awkward and we found common ground. Afterwards I went to a presentation on language from Robert  McCrum and Henry Hitchings, writers of The Language Wars and Globish, they talked about language change and what is coined 'Globish', which is English as the world's language and how its use world-wide has affected our language today. I've read books on language before, such as Melvyn Bragg's 'The Adventure of English' and Stephen Oppenheimer's 'The Origins of The British', as well as having David Crystal's Encyclopedia on language, which I refer to regularly. In the same presentation, there was the lecturer from Cambridge University's Anglo Saxon, Norse and Celtic department to introduce them, their MA course has been something I've been tempted by, particularly my obsession with the Norse, hence I spoke to her after the event. For me to do a course like that, I'm looking years down the line and if I'm in a sensible position to do it. But it's interesting to learn more about what options are out there nonetheless.


Anyway, that was one weekend of inspiration. Where was my other inspiration. I went to a gig in London to see a band called Kamelot who were supported by Evergrey and Amaranthe. That's the same Evergrey who wrote the album, The Inner Circle, the main piece of music that has inspired The Delusion Wing as discussed in this post. They even played the song I linked. Kamelot's usual singer, Kahn, was ill and was replaced with Fabio, the lead singer of Rhapsody of Fire and he did an amazing job, it was different, but he was special in his own way. I loved it. At the end I met Tom Englund, Evergrey's lead singer and shook the man's hand and had to tell him that he was amazing and a legend. I wanted a picture of him and I did ask, but decided meeting the guy was enough and didn't need to be a desperate fan in need of some token. It's great to be able to meet such interesting people as well as meet people who offer you that bit extra inspiration.

 Thank you,
Little Norse Prince

Cambridge Word Fest Day 1

Free WiFi on a bus, bonus! It makes the 1 hour journey go a lot faster, yes I can't live without the internet. I did end up reading a really interesting article by Hugh Grant where he bugs the bugger in interviewing an ex-News of the World journalist: Hugh Grant strikes back
It's definitely worth a read.

I got into Cambridge around 12 and went straight to buy my tickets to learn the hard way to book in advance, the History writing workshop had sold out as did Dawn French's talk. Bugger! However, the poetry workshop was still available, but that was on at 4pm meaning I had 4 hours to kill in Cambridge, if it was not being stopped by a lovely pair of Mormons it was stopping by Lush, yes I am an addict, but I bought the soap that donates money to Japan, so it wasn't all self serving and materialistic, I don't even like coconut.

Anyway, I should be talking about the day: the poetry workshop with Don Paterson, it was definitely interesting. It was cool to chat with other writers of different skill and success levels (as opposed to the student environment) as well as listening to Don answer some of their intriguing and insightful comments; I felt I learned a lot about the process of writing poetry and what it means to be a poet. Interestingly his perspective was not that poetry can be used for therapy for the writer (he says when that happens it's not poetry) but is actually therapeutic for the reader, it allows the reader to connect with their own feelings and emotions rather than have the writer dictate. At least that was one thing I took away from the workshop, amongst other things. He talked a lot about neurology and poetry, how we process information in 3 second gaps, how rhythm, rhyme and meter affect the brain, how poetry uses language and how the sounds of language make you feel, not just the words. As a person very much interested by the brain and a person who studied psychology, it offered an interesting way of looking at poetry, as well as his talk about syntax and etymology - two areas of language that chime with me.

In the end I felt as though I could write poetry, most of my stuff is crap, but actually if, say, I work on the technical side of poetry I can learn to work it as second nature, so as soon as that inspiration strikes then I've got the tools for expressing it, without corrupting it thinking, "does the rhythm work? Have I got the form right?" and thinking things I shouldn't be worried about, not at least until I start editing it.

And now on to day 2, I hope that the Ian McEwan and Sam Harris session isn't fully booked because a discussion on science a morality sounds fantastic, maybe the Wiki Leaks event too as I suspect the topic of 'free speech' will come up as well as some interesting discussion on journalism. I'll remember to take pictures, even if it's just of a building in Cambridge, pictures make a blog look pretty after all.

Finding Work

The job market in the UK is pretty poor at the moment and in a financial crisis it's the way it's going to be. There's a lot of people unemployed with so few jobs to go around and with cuts being made it means more and more people have to become unemployed. With employers really only asking for people who are experienced it becomes a lot more difficult if you're a graduate or new on the job scene, hence so many under 25s are unemployed. It can actually be a disheartened process, trying to find work, not just because of the lack of replies and those few rejections, but it's coming across jobs where you think, "fantastic! That sounds perfect!" and then there's that catch, "must have had 3 or more years experience in the industry", it's a catch-22, you need experience to get the job, but you need the job to get the experience. Heck, I come across jobs that are advertised as "London" and end up think, "central London? 45mins by train", then it turns out to not really be in London at all, but all the way on the other side, 2+ hours away. Other catches may simply be just, "must speak French". I almost got an interview for a London PR job, they were enthusiastic about my CV but the employer was worried about the commute, I sent them information about it and when they got back to me (a week later), they basically said, "sorry, we found somebody else". Then there's the mindset of, "I'll take what I can get", a job is better than no job and you can still continue to find work and build up your skill set, even do a course if need be. The trouble with that one is: are you necessarily cut out for the jobs you've applied for? Will you enjoy working there? A temporary set up isn't bad if you're not enjoying your work, as it's not forever. But in getting a job, you need to be able to sustain it and feel comfortable enough to successfully do your job.

I managed to find work in a second hand store, I've worked in retail before and I found it quite easy and enjoyed it somewhat, some customers can be awesome and that was one of the perks. But the second hand store was actually a completely different experience, you're not a 'shop assistant' you're a 'salesman' and that's a completely different mindset. It's not, "what can I do for you?" but, "what can I do to make money from this person?" Helping a customer is only good if it helps you. My job was to work as a seller on the shop floor and a buyer around the back.  All of my training was on the job and I don't think I did too badly when it came to buying. Essentially you've got to value an items based on whether you can sell it or not (if you can't, don't buy it), what condition it's in and whether it's safe (so, do electrical tests on electrical items), see what it is brand new and decide what a customer is likely to pay for that item in store. Some items will be considerable a LOT lower than retail, somebody's not going to pay £60 for a Sky Box, even though that would be seemingly a reasonable second hand price compared to brand new.

Some items require a punt because you're taking a risk, for example, if a watch has a brand name, but no sign of model it is and you research what the watch is worth and find out they range from £50 to £300 depending on model, you have to offer the lower end. It was an interesting part of the job, but I can't say I enjoyed all of it, my mindset is very much, "I should be helping customers, not exploiting them", so obviously, being a salesman isn't something I can feel passionate about, even though I was capable of doing it - one of the mistakes I made when I started was, my supervisor was about to sell a PS2 to a customer who was going to buy it just for the controller, instead I turned around and said, "I think we actually have a controller over here", turning a £29.99 sale into a £4.99 sale. My supervisor face-palmed it. I learned from that: a girl was looking to replace her iPod Nano, instead of buying the Nano, I managed to make the iPod Touch more appealing and she walked away happy with the more expensive item. Because a lot of people who go into a second hand store are desperate for money, it doesn't feel right to hand them less money than they'd get selling it elsewhere and at times I felt really uncomfortable.

Unfortunately people desperate for money need somewhere quick to acquire it and second hand stores need to stay in business. I did end up losing the job, well, I was on trial, which was extended from 1 month to 3 months because they liked me and were happy with the effort I put it. In the end they felt there were parts of the job that weren't for me and therefore I wouldn't be suitable to keep the job - they pointed out my positive traits, suggested lines of work where they'd be beneficial. E.g. my ability to analyze things in detail, they didn't need detail, they needed something quick and simple. Interestingly, they employed me knowing my skills were set for a completely different kind of job, but employed me based on my attitude, so it's at least great to know your own strengths and know that you have a positive enough attitude to impress an employer. But it does mean, as of one month ago, I've been back to looking for work and I swear there's even fewer jobs about than before. Personally I would have preferred to stick at it and work towards my own career goals with a temporary job to just support me.

So...what do I do to try and find the right job now? Well, I've got the opportunity to build myself as a writer. The Cambridge Word Fest is this weekend and it'll be nice to show my face and try to get to know some folk and pick up some advice on using my skills to benefit me in employment or finding some kind of success. I know I'll definitely be working on some short stories and articles then submitting them to publications and even try and revive myself as a storyteller, which I haven't paid attention to for almost a year. It's kind of difficult to get out there when you lack the freedom, I live in a village with no buses and one that's in the walking distance of nowhere and I don't drive, nor have the funds to learn or to fund a car. Now that summer is on the way, it'd probably be a good idea to invest in a bike.

Music and Writing

A good piece of music can fit in with a piece of writing and I find one of the things that helps me write is a great piece of music. Now, a playlist needs to be as carefully considered, you see, anything that's too catchy might have you singing along, something with a good beat might have you nodding your head and of course you music can serve as another distraction if you're not careful. I know some who can't listen to music when writing and that's fine, but for me, it's pretty much a requirement. It comes handy when the music suits the the mood for piece of writing you're creating. I mean, you can't write a depressing scene where, say, a mother holds her dying child in her hands and you're listening to something as happy as Bowling for Soup - particularly 'I'm Gay', which is a song all about being happy, maybe somebody ought there can, but I'd be torn between two emotion, "la la la! I'm so happy!" and "Oh my God, what have I done? I just killed a child with my pen, I'm so horrible!" Likewise, you don't want to be listening to the most depressing song in your library and you're writing a bit of fun, maybe two kids having the time of their life and you're on the verge of slitting your own wrists because you can't stand listening to My Chemical Romance (nor can I, to be fair), it doesn't mix.

I've found my writing playlist sometimes consists of Tarot, Therion, Evergrey and even Judas Priest. Therion has this mythological edge, particularly with albums like 'The Secret of the Runes', which is an album dedicated to the locations in Norse mythology, but also have this song called, "After the Inquisition: The Children of The Stone", it's the closing track of one of the most...interesting albums I've listened to -some of the vocals are sung by a choir of children - I can imagine myself writing about one of the darker parts of my novel, because of the title, I think it's kind of chilling, just because of the Spanish Inquisition. Tarot, I think it's more or less songs like, "The End of Everything" and "Gone", which suit some of Asaros' moods in The Delusion Wing. But I think Evergrey probably has the perfect album, particularly in writing The Delusion Wing, which is 'The Inner Circle', which is a very powerful and emotional album with fantastic vocals, and of course they're fantastic, they're Swedish and they're not Abba. The album takes on the perspective of being a part of (what I assume is) a Christian cult and takes on the themes of cult worship and uses audio clips that create the image of there being some evangelical preacher. And it ends with the track, 'When the Walls Go Down', which is very emotionally driven and we see a man at the mercy of God in some kind of emotional breakdown.As my characters basically have their mental health dragged through the dirt and in many ways are at the mercy of God and suffer in a society lead by a cultist leader, it is fantastic to write to and keeps you in the right frame of mind. Here's the video (opening track) from the album:

And get this, I've got tickets to see the band Kamelot at the end of April, who are being supported by Evergrey, so it will no doubt be an awesome experience.

So, that's Tarot, Therion and Evergrey explained, but why Judas Priest? Frankly, I don't know. I guess it's just because they're awesome to listen to, your playlist doesn't necessarily have to fit your writing, I suppose you could say my characters are...'Breaking the Law', but if Breaking the Law were the anthem for Chapter 1, I think it would just ruin the whole thing, because I'd have this image of Rob Halford kicking the door down shouting at the guards, "Breaking the law, breaking the law". It could be worse, it could be Dee Snider exploding in front of The Evangelist screaming, "I Wanna Rock!" If Twisted Sister had a cameo, horrible things would just happen, so I need to get that thought out of my head.