GUEST BLOG by GILLI ALLAN

Welcome to guest author Gilli Allan, with a highly useful piece of writing lore!

 Joining up the dots 

(or avoiding the boring bits)

The notion that I could write the book I wanted to read first dawned on me when I was ten.  It was my fifteen year old sister who inspired the idea when she decided to write her own Georgette Heyer style Regency romance.
 

Just a few pages long, my story was non-specifically set in the ‘olden days’. I no longer have it but retain a very clear memory.  Three women, one a teenage girl, went by boat to visit a lighthouse - the type set on a rocky crag, surrounded by sea. Don’t ask me why, they just did. 

The lighthouse was manned by three men, one a youth of sixteen.  No sooner had the visitors arrived than the weather deteriorated, trapping them there.  During the storm the youth went outside to secure the wave-tossed boat which had brought the women.  He fell on the rocks, injuring himself. From then on he had to recline on a sofa while my young heroine tended to his not very serious wounds.

At this point my imagination gave out.  I had a sense of the romance of the situation, but had no idea how to convey it.  And anyway, there was an awful lot of boring domestic stuff to be waded through about the preparation of meals, walking from one room to another, going to bed, getting up, combing hair and brushing teeth.

I continued to write ‘novels’ throughout my school days.  Many were started, none finished.  They all foundered on the same obstacle.  Though by this time I thoroughly enjoyed writing the juicy bits - the smouldering glances, the smoochy dances, the kisses and embraces - I soon ran out of steam writing the connecting passages.  And yet I felt guilty, as if it was cheating not to detail the passing of time by giving every dot and comma of my heroine’s life - her journeys back and forth on the bus, her visits to her mother, her shopping trips, her excursions to the launderette.  I believed a ‘real’ writer was somehow duty bound not only to describe his character’s adventures, but to describe the minutiae of everyday life as well.

It wasn’t until much later that it really came home to me that these descriptions of the mundane are rarely needed.  If it bores you to write a passage, it’s a fair guess that it will bore your reader.  Of course you need to set the scene. You need to convey the passing of time. You need to evoke smell, taste, touch and to create a believable world in which to set your story. But unless a minor domestic detail is crucial to the plot - in which case it is cheating not to let the reader know it - then it’s unnecessary to follow your characters’ every move from waking in the morning to pulling the duvets up to their chins at night. You can trust your reader to fill in the blanks.  Yet it’s surprising how many established authors still allow themselves to get bogged down in the trivial.

Last year I bought Stieg Larsson’s Millennium trilogy.  For the most part I enjoyed it.  It was a good yarn, but....  In ‘The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo’ I became mightily fed up with descriptions of the hero - Mikael Blomkvist - getting up in the morning, looking out of the window, having a shower, drying himself, getting dressed, walking into the kitchen to make coffee,  opening the door, going outside, sitting on the veranda, drinking the coffee...  ‘I get the picture!’ I wanted to shout at my Kindle. 

 

I admit I may be exaggerating a little to make the point, and I apologise posthumously to Stieg’s memory, but you know what I’m saying.  And the point remains valid.  You don’t need to join every dot.
 

Thank you very much, Gilli! Lovely to have you here - you are my first guest author!

Read about Gilli Allan's new book LIFE CLASS 

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B007XWFURQ

LIFE CLASS

A story about art, life, love and learning lessons

The class meets once a week to draw the human figure. For four of its members, life hasn’t lived up to expectations. All have failed to achieve what they thought they wanted in life. They gradually come to realise that it’s not just the naked model they need to study and understand. Their stories are very different, but they all have secrets they hide from the world and from themselves. By uncovering and coming to terms with the past, maybe they can move on to a different and unimagined future.

Dory says she works in the sex trade, the clean-up end. She deals with the damage sex can cause. Her job has given her a jaundiced view of men, an attitude confirmed by the disintegration of her own relationship. The time seems right to pursue what she really wants in life, if she can work out what that is. Love doesn’t figure in her view of the future – she’s always been a clear eyed realist – yet she finds herself chasing a dream.

Stefan is a single-minded loner, whose sole and overriding ambition is to make a living from his sculpture. So how the hell did he find himself facing a class of adults who want their old teacher back? Although love is an emotion he long ago closed off - it only leads to regret and shame - it creeps up on him from more than one direction. Is it time to admit that letting others into his life is not defeat?

Fran - Dory’s older sister - is a wife and a stay-at-home mother without enough to keep her occupied. On a collision course with her mid-life crisis, Fran craves the romance and excitement of her youth. An on-line flirtation with an old boyfriend becomes scarily obsessive, putting everything she really loves at risk. 

Dominic - has lived his life knowing all about sex but nothing about love. If he can only find his mother perhaps he can make sense of his past. But perhaps it is a doomed quest and it’s time to look to the future? By accepting the help and love that’s on offer here and now, he has a chance to transform his life.

http://www.gilliallan.blogspot.com/ 

http://famousfiveplus.blogspot.com/
http://britishromancefiction.blogspot.co.uk/

http://www.facebook.com/#!/profile.php?id=1182311866

twitter: @gilliallan

Along with the publication of LIFE CLASS:  http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B007XWFURQ

Gilli is running a special offer price cut, for a fortnight, on her book TORN: http://www.amazon.co.uk/TORN-ebook/dp/B004UVR81Y

 

Ottilia speaks out! My sleuth heroine makes a confession

Published on www.killercharacters.com

Killer Characters: My Besetting Sin: The musings of Ottilia Fanshawe, fresh from The Deathly Portent, second title in the Lady Fan Mystery Series by Elizabeth Bailey I must sup...

Lucky 7: From Work in Progress

I've been twitter-tagged by Jenny Haddon to do the Lucky 7 from my work in progress. First I've heard of it, but this is how it goes apparently:

 

Rules are:

1. Go to page 77 of your current MS or WIP 
2. Go to line 7
3. Copy the next 7 lines, sentences or paragraphs and post them as they’re written
4. Tag 7 more writers and let them know.

OK, so here we go: 

 

“If you are able to perceive the unwisdom of your father’s conduct, Giles, it makes even less sense for you to be following in his footsteps.”

It was too much. Giles turned on his uncle. “How am I doing so? Do you suggest I have used Tamasine as my father used Violette?”

“I am suggesting nothing of the kind.”

“As if I would do so,” he persisted, riding over Francis. “She is the most innocent creature I have ever encountered. Only a monster would take advantage of her.”

To his consternation, his uncle pounced on this, shifting to confront him. “That is precisely the point, Giles. She is as innocent as a child, for her mentality is not much above that state.”

Giles stared at him, all his just resentment emptying from his chest and leaving it hollow. He thrust down on the snaking suspicions that had more than once attacked him. He would not doubt Tamasine. He trusted her, as he trusted his own judgement.

“If you disbelieve me,’ pursued his uncle, ‘let me tell you just what occurred this morning at the Dower house.”

 First draft, incomplete but actually in state of revision and this bit happens to be the first section I revised. Who would have thought?

Blogging for others

I've been writing blogs like mad, but for other blogs as a guest. All part of my promotion campaign and fulfilling the very kind requests. Someone asked me, what do you write about? So I thought I'd pass on my ideas.

Obviously the point of doing guest blogs is to promote my upcoming release. But nobody wants to hear or read about that over and over again. It's necessary to find something that relates to the novel, but isn't a direct selling pitch. Thinking around the novel, there are always going to be points of general interest.

With historicals, it's easy enough to pick up areas of research and talk about those, which is what I've mostly done. But what if your novel is modern? Are there still points of interest you can fix on.

Think of it as you would a hook for your story. Is there something in the area of the setting? You may have had to research something about it, or about the type of buildings you're using, or the lifestyle of one of your characters. Use your research and talk around the theme, only bringing in your story where it's really relevant, and perhaps only once - twice at the most.

Is there a medical or physical problem involved with a character? Even the simplest things - an allergy, a sprained ankle - require some specifics about the problem, its treatment, how it incapacitates the character. Anything of bigger medical interest will have its own data you can plumb for your blog.

If you're doing something light, why not write about how you choose names, or how characters get their hair and eye colour, whether they arrive fully formed or appear gradually. This sort of writerly inside information is always of interest to the non-writer. Then it's easy enough to bring your current characters in and tell how they became who they are.

Thinking about it, there are endless possibilities that lead inevitably back to your novel under promotion. Covers are a good bet, and invite pics as well. Titles - fraught with interest! Readers would love to hear all the titles books didn't get called - even the bad ones. Awful howlers that got through copy edits galore. The horrible agony of getting a decent author pic. Having to rewrite half a book because you boobed.

People love to read about mistakes - it makes you human. Don't try to focus just on the good stuff. Life isn't all sweetness and light, and it warms the heart to know others are just as vulnerable as you are. On the other hand, don't play the sympathy vote with a dreadful sob story. If you're talking about the horrors of life, make it light. And then your lead character's difficulties in the current book are easily brought into play.

Remember - as a writer, you are already interesting. Talk about some aspect of your work, and you can't go wrong.

I may be at home, but I'm actually working, thank you!

OK, this is a rant. But it may resonate with some of you, and may it serve as a flag up for those of you who are dying to be full-time writers. Full time? Ha!

Without going into personal detail as to why, I can't actually shut myself away in my eyrie and refuse to respond to anything outside of it. I know other writers (or indeed others who work at home) are in similar situations. Family commitments are sometimes such and that's all there is to it. BUT.....

How come if there's one caller at the door one day, they are immediately followed by at least five more? How come one interruption of any kind seems to generate a whole raft of them? Days just dissipate so fast and you get to the end and realise nothing got done.

Then you think, ok tomorrow will be different, I'll do so and so and so first and then I'll get to the writing. Oh yeah? What makes you think sod's law is about to get changed just for you? And after three or four days of this, you're tearing your hair out.

Admittedly there are weeks when it all rolls along nicely. But lady, this ain't one of them. Don't people around here realise that I have not one, but two books to write? Plus guest blog posts for promotion; not to mention assessments I'm doing for other writers. Oh yes, they realise it in some vague way. I think non-writers have some sort of strange idea that books are just ideas that float onto the page without much input from the writer.

And when I protest, all I get is; "Oh, you'll do it. You always do." Yes, I'll do it, but they might have to cart me off in a straitjacket!

Be warned. If you're at home, you're fair game.

Promotion - amazingly works!

I've taken time out from writing book three to promote book two, which comes out beginning of April in the US and online. I've never done much of this before, but it's quite astonishing how willing bloggers are to help out. Here's what I've been doing:

Located a few appropriate blogs to begin with, followed their links to others and ended up finding a blog that lists 100 top blogs culled in various different ways. I haven't had to google anything due to finding this list. I've checked out each one, looked at their review policy and only sent to those who might have interest in my genre.

It's rather like doing the agent research when you want to get published. You've just got to take the time to find out what they are looking for, what they will look at and how they want it presented. Same with bloggers. Do what they ask and they are willing to read your email.

Once I had done a huge chunk of requests and got the responses coming back, I didn't stop. And this is key. I am trying to contact five blogs a day. I haven't kept it up every single day, but I've kept it going through the week. The result is that I now have over 20 bookings for reviews, guest posts and interviews - all over the world. And counting.

Now of course I've had to add in doing the interview questions, writing the posts and arranging for review copies to be sent out. It's very time-consuming, but extremely gratifying to find bloggers are interested enough to want to participate.

I really don't think it has much to do with my name, my book, my publisher or the fact it is the second book in the series. Like getting published, it's persistence and quantity. Keep touting for interest, keep asking, keep looking for another outlet. The more going out, the more will come in.

You just don't know who you are going to hit. One blogger was so happy to be asked because I was the first author to email her for a review, and this will be her first review.

The lesson here is, once again, never give up. Keep asking and you'll get results.

Window of opportunity

I'm writing this because there is one. Right now I've got space for doing assessments, if anyone wants one done urgently. That is, within the next couple of weeks.

These days I do a fast and effective assessment on an emailed attachment Word doc (which, for my sins, has to be earlier than Word 7 because I can't read docx annoyingly). As I read through, I put in comment balloons, so you can see exactly where the problem is in the text. Then I write an email assessment with general comments and details referring to specific comments as needed.

This system seems to be popular because it's quicker - and cheaper! Takes less time, so I can keep costs down.

If you want to take advantage of my window, email me on lizannabailey@googlemail.com

And just to keep your hopes up, here's a quote from Patrick Dennis on his Auntie Mame (which later was made into a film) - "It circulated for five years, through the halls of fifteen publishers, and finally ended up with Vanguard Press, which, as you can see, is rather deep into the alphabet." Motto: Never give up.