Writing Notes

Kate Forsyth – plotting a novel

March 8, 2016 by Karen Comer 18 Comments

My current definition of intense – spending a day with Kate Forsyth while she teaches the finer points of plotting a novel. I flew to Sydney (blue skies, warm weather, gorgeous friends) for the weekend to do a writing course at the Australian Writers’ Centre. Kate was equal parts inspiration and practicality – I finished the day feeling like I had new tools for my writing and was inspired to try this new way of planning a novel.

I have completed many writing courses over the past five years but never one on planning or plotting a novel before. I have always been a got-a-vague-idea-let’s-see-where-this-goes kind of writer. And it never felt quite right but when I did try to plan out a novel I became stuck, and would just write it out, rather than plan it out. And I wondered whether I was really procrastinating by writing lists and moving scenes around … surely that wasn’t moving my story forward?

It also seemed at odds with the way I usually organise myself in life – I am a write a list kind of girl – for groceries, daily tasks, Christmas presents, etc.

I read a fantastic book on planning a book – C.S. Lakin’s The twelve key pillars of novel construction but it has taken Kate’s workshop to really understand the benefits of planning.

For a little while, I have been wondering about the connection for writers between the left and right sides of the brain, the analytical and the intuitive sides. When Kate defined the four stages of writing as daydreaming, plotting, writing and editing, I could see that both sides of the brain are equally important for writing. Obviously, you need intuition for daydreaming, and analysis for plotting and editing. I would have thought that writing relies more on intuition but Kate said that analysis is just as important because you need to make decisions on what you are writing.

There were so many other lightbulb moments:

that writing a novel is like doing a jigsaw – you start with the foundations – the corners, the edges
that all the incidents in a plot must be inextricably bound
that the pacing must quicken with shorter chapters, even shorter sentences, towards the end of the book
that planning a book is like following a recipe – you can adjust it once you have followed the recipe a few times
that if you are stuck, it means you don’t know enough about your characters or your story.

Kate gave us a ten point detailed explanation of her process for planning a book. I am going to use this on the first draft of my NaNoWriMo book – even though I have already written the first draft. There are only three weeks until the Easter school holidays but I want to apply Kate’s process in reverse before I start the second draft.

And Kate did tell us that it was ok to change your plan and that she did so frequently!

So I’m making up my mind to be an organised, planned writer, just like I am organised and planned (somewhat!) in the rest of my life. Are you a planning sort of person for most of your life’s details or just some of them? And if you are a creative type, with a flair for cooking or sketching or sewing or writing, are you organised or a free spirit with your art?

Writing workshops – Danielle Wood

September 22, 2015 by Karen Comer 4 Comments

I went to two fabulous workshops through Writers Victoria with Danielle Wood last weekend. Danielle is a Tasmanian writer – she has written a couple of collections of short stories for adults – Mothers Grimm and Rosie Little’s cautionary tales for girls – as well as an adult novel, The alphabet of light and dark and a biography, Housewife superstar, the very best of Marjorie Bligh. She has also written a trilogy for children with Heather Rose, under the pen name Angelica Banks. Finding Serendipity and A week without Tuesday are the first two books in this series for 8-12 year-olds – the third book is coming out next year.

Friday’s workshop in the Wheeler’s Centre in Little Lonsdale Street was called the Goldilocks Zone – trying to achieve the fine balance between showing and telling. Like many writers, I have heard numerous times the advice to show, not tell. As Anton Chekov said, ‘Don’t tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.’

BUT, Danielle taught us that there is a wide spectrum for showing (image-based, indirect writing) and telling (factual, direct writing) and neither one is good nor bad. It is the balance between the two, even if you err on one side or the other.

I am definitely a teller – I overwrite and in subsequent drafts, often delete that second sentence, because it says exactly what the first sentence did, just in a slightly different way. For me, it’s like trying out a few different ways to express the same thing and I need to do it in the first draft so I don’t forget it.

Danielle gave us a few writing exercises to focus separately on telling or showing, using one of our own short stories. Telling a story usually means a flat, boring sort of work while showing can leave the reader with no framework, no understanding of what the characters are actually doing. The last exercise focused on blending all the exercises together, using the best of telling and showing techniques. I was so happy with the piece I wrote around my Alice in Wonderland short story – definitely more telling but with considered, specific images to show the reader the scene. It seemed like a magic formula to me – I can still be a teller but with more evocative imagery! I also started to write a new short story – a good beginning to something worth working on. And I came up with a killer dark sentence for the beginning of another short story … no doubt I’ll be writing this one during the school holidays at the skate park …

For Sunday’s workshop, I drove down to the Mornington Pensinsula for a workshop on fairy tales. I am working on a collection of short stories for adults, loosely using motifs and symbols and stories from fairy tales as a starting point. I love the imagery of dark woods, three attempt quests, spinning wheels, straw and gold, red capes … the list goes on and on, and the ways to incorporate it into modern fiction is endless too.

I have written a short story based on Rumplestiltskin, and used that fairy tale for the writing exercises in Danielle’s class. Danielle taught us how to use our memories to write an emotional piece of work, create a mindmap to generate ideas for writing and use the architecture of fairy tales to create a structure for our writing. The strong imagery for me from Rumplestiltskin is the chaos of the straw surrounding the miller’s daughter, the impossibility of her task, and the order of the gold, spun neatly onto bobbins in the morning. My first Rumplestiltskin story was based on the idea of names but I’m planning to write at least another one now, using the idea of impossible tasks and turning chaos to order. There’s also the big theme of anxiety, of the miller’s daughter not being able to please the king … again, something to be explored these holidays while supervising kids at a park!

At the end of the class, Danielle asked us to fill in a survey about what we had written that day. She then gave each of us a personal assignment, based on the answers from our survey. I have been to many writing classes and I have never seen a presenter give individual assignments. It felt like a gift.

And then Danielle signed books for Miss 9 and me, as well as for a friend.

I drove home with fairy tale imagery floating through my head, to my own small castle with tired, happy children and a prince who had cooked roast lamb! Wonderful literary weekend!

Ten-year-old writers

September 11, 2015 by Karen Comer Leave a Comment

I spent some time last week with a ten-year-old friend who is a writer. She was generous enough to share some of her favourite books with me and brave enough to leave three of her writing notebooks for me to read.

Her notebooks reminded me of my ten-year-old self – and myself now. So many notebooks full of fragments, half-written ideas and stories.

Our conversation made me pull out some of my old diaries and notebooks – I have kept them all. (They take up a lot of room, too!) They were special to me then and still are now, because it reminds me that some dreams never die, even if they’re over thirty years old.

Thank you, Grace, for lending me your favourite books and sharing your stories, and for reminding me that writing dreams are to be cultivated, respected and worked on at any age.

August writing

August 31, 2015 by Karen Comer Leave a Comment

I thought I would hold myself accountable and put together a writing post at the end of each month. This month I have:

Rewritten two short stories for adults (retelling fairy tales) and sent them into two short story competitions – fingers crossed!
Attended three events at the Melbourne Writers’ Festival:
- Creativity and motherhood with Rachel Power and Jessica Rowe, hosted by Tracee Hutchinson
- Writing mothers with Maureen McCarthy and Rod Jones, hosted by Jane Sullivan
- Eye of the Sheep with Sofie Laguna, hosted by Jo Case.
Attended a writing class at Writers’ Victoria – Page turning power with Margie Lawson.
Daydreamed a lot about the second book in my children’s series. The protagonist is Calvin, who appeared in the first book. I didn’t plan the first book and wrote 500-750 words every day – just showed up at the page and wrote. I want to try a different approach with this book and plan it out. Just a loose plan – I think I would feel too restricted with a detailed plan for every scene.
Written lots of blog posts for my website.

September is the month to plan my second children’s novel, launch my website, and attend two writing classes – with school holidays thrown in there, too!

The importance of stories

August 1, 2015 by Karen Comer Leave a Comment

Stories are important. And your stories are important. I love both reading and writing stories, as well as hearing other people’s stories.

I’ve created this website and blog to share the books I’ve read, the stories I’m writing and ways to encourage ourselves and children to read and write and be as creative as we can.

Stories help us to communicate. Communication is one of the key tools for success both personally and professionally. We need to communicate well in order to stand up at a friend’s 21^st or 50^th and tell a funny story. We may need to deliver a eulogy – carefully chosen words to convey a sense of a dear someone’s life. A business presentation needs to be perfect in order to win the tender. Saving a marriage may need heart-laden words, with connotations of affection and love.

‘We read to know we’re not alone.’ William Nicholson, Shadowlands

Stories connect us. Let’s have more of them!