Timelines, Timeframes and Timetables.

This week I want to talk about surrounding your characters with their own personal timelines and placing them in a specific time and place.

Just a note, most of the examples I will be using in this post will be from my novel, which is 70,000+ words of (hopefully) well planned war literature.

For the two main characters in my novel I created timelines as a way to map their lives before the story started, so I could keep track of dates and ages for back story purposes and to hopefully avoid continuity errors. For example, I didn’t want a character to say that they went to a certain place when they were 20 and then in the second half say it happened when they were 19.

The timelines read something like this brief excerpt. (There are two separate timelines but I cross-reference them, so the births of both characters are on both lists)

Timeline L.

(Monday) 18 Aug 1890 K.E.C is born
(Sat) 7 Nov 1891 L.E.L is born
1909 A.L is born when L. is 18
4 Aug 1914 England declares war on Germany7 Nov 1914 L. turns 24
19 July 1915 start of book

and so on for most events in the book.

Another advantage of these timelines are having a definitive list of dates so that as I mentioned before I don’t forget important dates and “life events”.

Using a time frame to build a story around (a year, two years, once every year on the same day…) can be helpful to try and keep structure but I don’t rely too much on this. Having too rigid a time frame can also trip you up if you don’t plan every single month of the story line. There’s the chance you could say which month you are in and then say two months have passed and then it’s not the right month! If this makes sense. Planning, if the novel is going to be really specific about when and where things are happening is really important.

I tend to get a bit willy nilly with weeks and days so I try not to mention exact dates or days of the week, just in case I say “It was Monday. Three days had passed and tomorrow was Saturday” or something stupid like that. My novel only has three exact dates (to my knowledge) throughout the whole thing. One of them is in the first line, the other is the mention of a character’s birthday and the third is a very vague hint that it is the armistice. Because of the nature of the book and the state of mind that my main character finds himself in, I found that for half of the book it doesn’t matter what day/date it is as my character wouldn’t know or care anyway. How much or how little time passes in that section of the novel is irrelevant, but I’m sure if you squint hard enough there is some clue.

That’s all for now,

Lil

Marks

This  week I am here to talk about book marks, marks in books, books by Mark and marks by books.

I originally found this on youtube, but for various reasons, I can’t link to it right now. I shall endeavour to come back and amend this post with the link in due course.

Here goes:

1) What are you currently using as a book mark?

I’m reading three books at the moment (though it’s actually probably more than this) and these are the three bookmarks I’m using. The one on the left was free, the one in the centre from a bookshop in Hay-on-Wye (where I spent a lot of money) and the one on the right was a present.

2) Best thing ever used as a bookmark?
Probably the one in the picture above from the Richard Booth Bookshop (which I also have a tote bag from which they gave me for free after spending so much). I just like the way it looks and feels. Bit weird, I know.

3) Weirdest thing ever used as a bookmark?
Probably a tissue. Don’t worry, it was clean!

4) Do you ever annotate/highlight/write in books?
I wrote a whole blog post about this a few weeks ago, so in brief, yes sometimes, depending on what it is. I am going to do it to my uni books once they arrive.

5) Share something you’ve found written in a library book/used book/book that didn’t belong to you?
This is the best example I could find. I looked through a lot of my books and apart from names, this was the only one with anything in. This is on the first page of a biography of Alexandre Dumas.

It’s quite hard to read, but says “With all good Dumasian wishes, A. Craig Bell.” Wonderfully enough, A. Craig Bell is the author of the biography.

6) What books in your collection are by someone named Mark?
The only book I could find (in about 300) was  The Vesuvius Club by Mark Gatiss.

7) What book has made the biggest mark on your life? (figuratively?)The easy answer here would be Harry Potter, as anyone who’s read my Dear Harry post would see, but I fear that it is a bit of a cop out. Harry certainly reintroduced me to reading (not that I ever really stopped), but only a slim part of my life is now directly influenced by Harry. If we can use the term book very loosely (and I hope we can) my true, ultimate ‘book’ that has made the biggest mark on my life is Tintin , more specifically probably Tintin in Tibet or The Secret of the Unicorn and Red Rackham’s Treasure double story. As for adult books, I’d be lying if I didn’t say that Brideshead Revisited hadn’t had some effect on me. I think I have it to thank for the many books of the same era and earlier that I read now. Also, Jonathan Coe’s The Rotter’s Club for helping me read outside my comfort zone.

8) What book has made the biggest mark on you? (Literally – do you have any literary themed tattoos? If not, and if you had to get one, what would it be?)No, I don’t but let me direct you to this website, which is a gallery of literary tattoos. Some great, some not so, but still interesting. It’s been a point of thinking for me for some time. I can never settle on something I’m still going to love in twenty years. That said, I’d probably go for some sort of quote rather than a pictorial representation of a book.

9) Which book has made the biggest impact on your generation?
Harry Potter. Obvious answer, but true.

That’s all for this week! Would love my other bloggers to have a go at this too!

Lil

This week, I want to talk about recurring themes in fiction, across both singular novels and across one authors body of work.

Many authors explore various genres of fiction, others stay firmly in their comfort zone. One example I can think of is Ian McEwan. His novels span many genres and a variety of themes. Another, a personal favourite, Jonathan Coe, does the same thing. Variety is interesting, both for authors and readers. If you are going to spend several years working on a book, you don’t want to turn round and write about the exact same thing.

In turn, there are people who only write about the same thing. Staying in the same era is a commong thing that authors do. I know I certainly like to stay in the same timeframe (1900 – 1930ish) because its an era I’m interested in and am interested in exploring. I think there are so many stories to tell from that timeframe, from many different perspectives. Obviously there are stories to tell from any time and many of them, but this is my favoured one.

If a story needs to be told, it shouldn’t matter where it takes place, as long as the story is good enough. One of my favourite books, Jonathan Coe’s The Rotter’s Club, is set in the 70s/80s, against striking and social change, but it’s the story of Ben and his friends, growing up and finding their way through one problem after another that makes me go back and read the book again.

I have two recurring themes that often crop up in my work. The characters are either readers or writers or someone in the book (and it literally could be anyone) has been affected in some way by the First World War. Obviously this second point doesn’t usually occur if I’m writing something set in the modern day (rarely, but maybe I’ll talk about why that is some other time) but I think it’s OK to have a trade mark across your writing, as long as every book isn’t a carbon copy of the other.

That’s all for now,

Lil

Throwback Tuesday!

So for this week I thought I would look back on two things I have mentioned before.

First, on the 8th of January I posted a list of books that I wanted to read this year. The list below will show you how little of them I have read. Anything crossed through, I have actually read, anything in italics I have started.

By Royal Command by Charlie Higson
Finish A War of Nerves by Ben Shepherd
At least one book by P. G. Wodehouse
The Worst Journey in the World by Apsley Cherry-Garrard
The Last Expedition by Captain Robert Falcon Scott
Start Christopher Isherwood’s diaries
For The Sake of Example by Anthony Babington
At least one book by Evelyn Waugh
Re-read – if possible – Brideshead Revisited and/or The Absolutist
Finish C. S. Lewis’ Narnia series
Finish The Great War and Modern Memory by Paul Fussell
Finish T.H White’s The Once and Future King (or Sword in the Stone at least)
The Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett
One James Bond book by Ian Fleming
The Memorial by Christopher Isherwood

As you can see, it’s not going that well. I’m battling through the introduction of The Worst Journey in the World and also have a foreword to contend with before the book actually starts, but as its non fiction I feel if I don’t read these two things I may get lost in the text. According to goodreads I am 8 books behind my 50 book goal for this year. This should all change when I have to start studying books again in September, though my plans there are: read all the books once to get the general gist and try to enjoy the story then read them again to analyse them and tear them apart and start hating them…

Second thing I thought I’d bring back was WWW Wednesdays as seen in this post from December. Here goes!

• What are you currently reading?
• What did you just finish reading?
• What do you think you’ll read next?

Currently reading: As mentioned above, The Worst Journey in the World. Very slowly. Also still reading British History for Dummies and plan to start brushing up on my Shakespeare ready for September.

Finished reading: The last book I read was The Longest Journey by E. M. Forster, which unfortunately was not as good as I had hoped. Some parts were so good and the writing was amazing but then there’d be two horribly dull chapters to make me hate the book again. I also read Howard’s End is on the Landing by Susan Hill which I mentioned several weeks ago, which I really loved.

Read next: I have no idea. I want to read everything! I may start some literary diaries as they are quite easy to read in small chunks. (Not that I’ve done it before, I read Evelyn Waugh’s diaries over two days while researching an essay…) or something I don’t have to think too much about. Or perhaps something from the list above.

That’s all for now. Now, off to work on the novel…

Lil

Music makes the world go round.

Music means many things to many people. Music moves us to write or (mostly) sing, dance, paint and so on.

This week I’m a bit short on ideas so I thought I would share some of my writing music with you. YouTube links available if possible.

Top Writing Songs.

Most of these will relate to my novel and come from the playlist I made specifically for that. (Not that I listen to it much anymore…)

• Anything from the War Horse recording by Adrian Sutton and John Tams. This suite performed by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra highlights the best parts. I particularly like the sung parts of the War Horse score, because even though the story is set in a different county to my own, it captures the feel of the folky countryside perfectly.

 

• War at Home by Josh Groban. I love Josh Groban (it’s not hard to) and this song, though not an exact fit with my storyline made me think of my novel the second I heard it. There’s no official video but this audio one will do.

 

• All These Things That I’ve Done by The Killers. This is another song that remind me of my novel and especially my main character. The video is a bit weird, but don’t worry about that.

 

• Mostly anything by Mumford and Sons. I happened upon Mumford and Sons by chance and I’m so glad I did. From the videos I’ve seen of them live I don’t think much of their live performances but to listen to they are a joy. My favourite songs are The Cave, Reminder and White Blank Page. It was hard to narrow it down.

 

I also really love music from musicals, so here are some of those!

 

• Stars from Les Miserables. My favourite version of Les Mis is the Complete Symphonic Recording (not that I should have a favourite version!) and I love Stars as sung by Philip Quast. Please don’t mention Russell Crowe or I may have to claw my eyes out.

 

• Empty Chairs at Empty Tables also from Les Mis. While I liked Eddie Redmayne‘s version, Michael Ball‘s will always be my favourite.

 

• Other musicals I also like are any Disney one, Bare, Hair, American Idiot, Next to Normal, Spring Awakening and Ordinary Days. This list is nowhere near exhaustive.

Sorry this was quite short but I hope you’ve enjoyed exploring some of the music I like and that helps me write.

Lil

Serving a purpose

This week I started rewriting the first chapter of my novel.

Again.

There have been many first chapters and each time I’ve written them they get slightly better. As it goes, this newest version is my favourite. Mostly because, at last, one of my characters finally has motivation.

Finding motivation for characters that feels honest is very hard. It’s easy to make characters versions of other people, or even just versions of other characters in the book. I think the character who’s now changed, we’ll call him ’2′, was just a slightly less interesting version of my main character. 2 had no real motivation for taking the actions that he did in the book, and without the flimsy excuse I gave him would be more than ready to step into the shoes of my main character and live the life that he is.

Now, he has something holding him back, even if now it’s not something physical. Matters of conscience are a major part of the book so it’s only right that other characters find themselves battling with them too. A lot of my writing doesn’t depend on physical matters getting in the way, more about how people react to each other and the situations around them mentally.

My burst of inspiration came at work (as a lot of them do) and several scribbled notes to myself later, the motivation appeared. Implementing it into a book which is already fully formed without it is going to be interesting, but I’m always up for a challenge. The edits should be minor once I know when and where references need to be made.

As the book goes on, the characters feel as though they are becoming more rounded and have true motivations and flaws. It’s hard trying to make every character in the book different and that’s why there aren’t that many major characters in the book. There’s just not enough time to focus on everybody. Some franchises (Harry Potter…) have the advantage of several books to introduce a large cast of characters over, but because my book in so insular and the narration at times is so focused down to just the inside of the main characters mind, there isn’t time to explore every character. But on the other hand, some of them just aren’t that important.

I’m sure there’s an unwritten rule that every character must serve a purpose but there’s nothing to say we need to know them inside and out. If I had an omniscient narrator who could jump in and out of everyone’s heads, I would, but if I can’t keep track of it, will my readers?

That’s all for now,

Lil

I also should have updated my books read page too, so please check that out!

Scribbling in the Margins

After reading Susan Hill’s book Howard’s End is on the Landing: A Year of Reading from Home where she mentioned her passion for writing in books several times, it set me to thinking about writing in books. Why do we do it? Why do we NOT do it?

As I mentioned last week I have only written in two novels, one being The Moving Toyshop and the other Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man. I have two copies of Memoirs… and I read a lot of it on a train to Scotland and wanted to mark any phrase I I found particularly amusing or interesting. Having never read Sassoon’s prose before, I suppose I was documenting my first reactions to the prose works of a writer who’s poems I loved so much.

As for The Moving Toyshop, the book was almost falling apart when I bought it, so a  few pencil marks wouldn’t hurt. Only pencils, mind. I can’t stand the idea of writing in pen in books (unless it’s on the first page as a note from the giver of the book), or god forbid, highlighter, which was a particular sacrilege I witnessed several times at uni.

I own multiple copies of the same book with the intention of annotating them. I’m not sure why I can’t bring myself to annotate a book that was my only copy. I have underlined things in poetry and quotation books and in one non-fiction book that I wanted to refer back to, but for some reason I feel differently about this.

I know when I start my masters I am going to have to start making notes so that I know what I want to quote or can write thoughts that may help during essay writing. There’s only so many pages of Jane Eyre I can handle so notes will be a nessecity!

I wish I could be one of those people that cracks spines, throws books into bags without a second thought or write any thoughts into the margins but I don’t think I will be that person.

That’s all for now,

Lil

20th century brilliance.

This week we are exploring that wonderful thing – The 20th Century.

All of us on the blog have experienced the 20th century. I’d be very interested if anyone who hadn’t experienced the 20th century was reading this blog. (They’d either be VERY old or under 13…)

I’m going to use this week to explore some more of those books that escaped “favourite books” week. As most of you know, my favourite time period/era/historical timey-wimey is the Edwardian era, which started 1901, as did the 20th century. I’m not sure how many of my favourite books about this era were actually written then, but I’m sure some were.

I’m sure I could wax lyrical about every book that I own which was published before the year 2000. I spent about ten minutes staring at my many bookshelves and lifting books off them to see when they were published. I had so many options. I may do some honourable mentions at the end of this post.

First choice is Robert Graves’ autobiography Goodbye To All That. This is no typical autobiography, first written in 1929 when Graves was 33. It is more an autobiography of his earlier years and, if you couldn’t tell by the cover, the First World War. It’s hard to tell which version of the book I actually have as the copyright information reads: ‘First published 1929. Revised edition, with new Prologue and Epilogue 1957. Published in Penguin 1960. Reprinted 1961, 1963, 1965, 1966, 1967, 1969, 1970, 1971 (twice), 1972, 1973 (twice), 1975, 1976, 1977, 1979, 1980, 1981, 1982.’  I’d assume from this mine is from 1982. Who knows? I would love to know what was in the version from 1929 which Graves felt he had to take out. I have only read it once, it is only 280 something pages, but the writing is tiny. I do remember it being really very good though. Perhaps not interesting enough for everyone but certainly engrossing for me.

No list of the 20th century would be complete without Agatha Christie. Not for me, anyway. according to goodreads, I have actually only read four Agatha Christie books though I do own seven. When you read on the first page of this book that she wrote 80 crime novels and short story collections, that puts it to shame, but I don’t think I will ever enjoy one of her books at much as I did this one. And Then There Were None was first published in 1939 under a different name (google it. She wouldn’t have got away with that title these days…) This book would not benefit from any kind of plot synopsis. The less you know, the better it gets. I couldn’t work it out and when it is all revealed I couldn’t believe how it had all come together. The best of the bunch.

This next book was first published in 1946. It is one of the few books that I own that has any annotations made by me (another being an edition of Sassoon’s Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man). The things I love about this book are numerous. For a start the cover is amazing. I think the rest of the series, look very similar but are all different colours. Secondly, it’s a murder mystery, but it’s also a comedy at the same time. The thing I love about this book is the fact the characters seem aware that they are actually in a book. My favourite example of this is when one of the characters is knocked out and when he comes round this exchange happens:“Murder Stalks the University,” said Fen, “The Blood on the Mortarboard. Fen Strikes Back.”
“What’s that you’re saying?” Cadogan asked in a faint, rather gurgling voice.
“My dear fellow, are you all right? I was making up titles for Crispin.”
The characters also play games such as “Detestable Characters in Fiction” and “Unreadable Books.” I need to read more of this series to see if they’re all as good as this one.

Honourable mentions go to:War Horse by Michael Morpurgo published 1982
Fire and Hemlock by Diana Wynne Jones published 1985
Nearly anything written by Enid Blyton, Evelyn Waugh or Christopher Isherwood.

The Noble Art of Comics

This week we are exploring that many genre-d thing, the comic book. Or, graphic novel, if you prefer. I’m not sure what the difference is but I’m sure one of the others may be able to explain it.

I’ve talked about comics briefly here before, mentioning my first love, Tintin. Of course, no blog by me about comics could go past without even a passing mention. My last post is here and covers most of my (brief) thoughts on why I love the Tintin series so much. One of the best places I’ve ever visited (and I get about!) is the Herge Museum just outside Brussels. For me it was almost like a pilgrimage and the museum was full of things I’d never seen before and was set out in such an interesting way. They also handed out iPods with headsets with a guided tour and games on to do as you went round. I was far too excited and kept getting the answers wrong! The only downside was that they didn’t let you take photos.

Speaking of photos…

This is my collection of Tintin books, there are about 29 in the pile. I don’t have every album (as they are called…), but I only have three or so left to get. As much as I love Tintin, I think the books are rather expensive. I have various collectors books, such as The Complete Companion and The Art of Herge (of which I only own volume three – again because of expense).

One of my favourite Tintin books (such a hard choice to make, they are all so good) is Tintin in Tibet, which I think was also one of the first ones that I owned, having borrowed them obsessively from the library up to that point. While flicking through the book to take pictures, I feel this book may have been some reason why I became interested in polar exploration recently as you will see in the following panel…

Tibet isn’t at the pole but the similarities are there…

Moving reluctantly on from Tintin, we come to my second favourite comic book in my possession. I think the picture will do the explaining here for me if you are a frequent reader of this blog at least.

This is a great adaptation of an even greater book! I love Young Bond so unashamedly that buying this book was a no-brainer. I’ve read it three or four times and I really love the artwork. I’m open to quite a lot of different styles as long as the story is good. I just wish they’d done the other four books.

Picking a panel I really liked was so hard because I pretty much love every page. Some near the end are a bit off putting, but that’s because that’s the storyline. Another thing I love about this book are the little references, my favourite being that during the Hellebore Cup running race (which they are about to start in the panel above) the artist has given James the race number 007. I may have freaked out a little bit when I read it for the first time.

Another honourable mention goes to a small series called Green Manor, which I think is Belgian. I’m not that fond of the art style, but the storytelling is quite fun. It’s made up of lots of little murder mystery stories, framed by a man in a mental institution telling of an now disbanded club called the Green Manor.

Another honourable mention goes to The Rainbow Orchid by Garen Ewing (whose website and twitter I am quite a fan of). I was SO sceptical of this series at first because I thought it was just a British attempt at Tintin but it is so good and yes, while it has similarities to Tintin, Julius Chancer is definitely his own character.

I used to be a huge anime/manga person but I’m not so into it these days. That said, I quite like Death Note and want to get the rest of the books in that series (I only have the first three) and see some of the anime version. I have quite a few manga books and would like to get more, because it’s something I used to love.

That’s all for now,

Lil

Writing tools.

This weeks topic is all about writing equipment.

Now, I’m a bit lazy when it comes to this. I do most of my writing on my laptop because then it’s easy to keep together and I also don’t have to type it all up when I’m ready for an edit or two. I write mainly in Microsoft Word because 1) It’s what I have access to, and 2) I know how to use it. I’ve looked into specific writing programmes like Scrivner and others where the extras are things like the ability to link scenes and colour code things, but I usually keep all notes in an exercise book or other notebook.

For my novel I had four exercise books and one larger notebook. This may seem a bit over the top, but it works for me. I tried having some order with this to start with but it didn’t really work out. I just wrote things down and hoped I’ve remembered all the right bits! If I forgot to put something in, it obviously wasn’t that important!

Paper and pen wise I will literally write on anything. At the moment, a lot of my note taking is done on the back of scrap diary pages from work. I mostly write in biro because any other pen smudges if the ink is a little bit wet. I love fountain pens but it takes so much effort for me to write properly with them it’s not worth it. I can’t make a scribbled note in fountain pen.

I have quite a lot of nice notebooks (though not as many as Danni) but I can’t bring myself to write in them. I fear I will start something and it will be terrible and I’ve ruined the notebook (it has happened already with my failed childrens book). Maybe one day I will get over myself and write in one. I have one which has “the next great idea” on the front which I use as my ideas notebook, but I dread opening it to see all those ideas I don’t have time to work on!