TIPS ON WRITING HISTORICAL FICTION -- PART I

Here are some tips about writing historical fiction, the usual caveat being that there are no golden rules – these are just things (great catch all word that – things, although thingie is even better and a personal favourite!) that worked for me.

Bear in mind, though, that these tips are based on my experiences while writing my novel, THAT BOY RED which, although set in a particular era, is not woven around concrete historical events per se. This is a character-driven episodic novel following the exploits of eleven-year-old Roderick “Red” MacRae, with historical details pertaining to the era – P.E.I. in the early 1930s – woven into the story.

1) Keep one notebook for historical research, another for your fictional notes. Meticulously record your research along with sources because you’ll forget from one draft to the next whether some detail you’ve inserted has been checked and verified.

2) You don’t need to do all your research before you start to write. At least I don’t – I can’t. It would bore me to tears to do nothing but research at the start. I find that instinctive leap and connection with character far more valuable and essential to writing fiction than getting slogged in a mire of research. For me it’s essential that the connection to character be paramount so the story sings and flows with inner truth.

3) The background and research must serve the story and not the other way around. One of the biggest flaws in historical fiction is when the reader’s attention trips over a chunk of explanatory information that the author has stuck in to inform. It always distracts from the story. When you write a story, you’re spinning a thread for the reader to follow – if there are nubs and knots that the reader notices, you stall the smooth flow of the story, break the dream that you want the reader to fall into when reading your book. A work of historical fiction should never serve to showcase historical facts. Nor should you be so vested in your research that you feel compelled to stick it in just because you’ve spent so much time digging it up.

4) One way to avoid chunks of information is to include information only when your character is thinking of it – but don’t have your character gratuitously think about something that’s a given, just to inform your readers. Don’t over-explain; trust your readers to infer what they need to.

5) Despite my caveats about not needing to do all my research up front, I found I did need to do some initial research in order to start writing THAT BOY RED with a certain degree of authority and ease. I needed to know what daily life was like for a young lad in the 1930s. If I were to write about a child getting up in the morning in the present day, I’d easily be able to create the sights, sounds, smells, textures and nuances surrounding that child. With THAT BOY RED I needed some of that basic knowledge so that when I started to write I wouldn’t stumble during the heat and flow of writing the story because of gaping holes in my understanding of the era.

6) Interviewing elders and experts was a great place for me to start my research. I grilled my father-in-law, John, and his older brother Martin, and all the other elders I could pester, with questions about the five senses from their childhood. I asked them what they’d hear first thing in the morning. Smell, touch, see, taste. I asked about the most striking images/memories in their lives pertaining to the five senses. I had to be specific – for example, I’d ask about the first sounds in the morning to fit what I needed for my story. This was a huge help in colouring and texturizing my knowledge of the era. I asked questions about daily routines and made copious notes to build my own instinctive understanding of the patterns of the daily life of my characters.

7) For me, the research tends to work parallel to the spiral of successive drafts until I reach the centre, the heart of that last draft. Sometimes you don’t know what you need to know until you write the next draft.

Tips on Writing Historical Fiction -- Part II will be posted on June 24th.

THERE’S GOLD IN THEM THAR TALES: Spinning Family Stories into Fiction

I am delighted to announce that my novel THAT BOY RED published by HarperCollins Canada, has now been released. Set in P.E.I. during the 1930s, it follows the adventures and misadventures of eleven-year-old Roderick “Red” MacRae and his large and lively family as they struggle through bad weather, plunging crop prices and more during a particularly turbulent year.

This episodic novel is my first foray into historical fiction and it was inspired by my father-in-law’s anecdotes about growing up on a P.E.I. farm during the Depression.

Family stories are like gold, but we don’t always recognize their value because they’re familiar. We often fail to appreciate the weight and charm of this rough ore, and the potential for refining and burnishing it into fiction.

Here’s how this novel started for me and one of the biggest challenges I encountered...

My father-in-law, John Gilmore, who is now deceased, lived in P.E.I. and my husband and I travelled there annually, treasuring our time on the Island and with John. Our mornings together were particularly special. In his small, brown kitchen, John would put on a pot of porridge, then he’d pull up the sides of the wooden table which he had built, so we could all sit comfortably around it. After we’d eaten, we’d linger at the table with our tea and coffee and just talk, talk and talk.

Often, this was when John would talk about his childhood – incidents both trivial and dramatic, some funny, some heart-breaking, and the general way of life back then. Being curious and sometimes frankly nosy – which I guess all writers have to be if we are to spin stories – I’d pepper him with questions. Perhaps I’d think to ask questions, as opposed to my husband, because the background wasn’t my given. In any case, pepper him I did, because I was fascinated by his anecdotes.

In part, maybe this was because my favourite books when I was growing up were the ANNE books by L.M. Montgomery, so anything about a bygone P.E.I. era carried charm.

But it wasn’t just that. John was a wonderful man, steady, deep, funny, and his anecdotes and his way of telling them reflected that. He also knew how to spin stories and jokes without getting bogged in irrelevant details; he knew how to pace it, and boy, did he know how to deliver a punch line. I wonder if people of that generation, who grew up without TV learned, almost by osmosis, the fine art of telling stories and jokes.

In any case, I loved his reminiscences about life on the farm, the bad turnip crop, the lost twenty dollar bill, the plane that landed in a neighbour’s field, and more.

One day, as I listened to him, I felt that familiar tingle inside me, the fire of story, and my mind began to trip overtime spinning fictional stories around John’s anecdotes. I felt that charge inside me that told me here was a book I wanted to write.

I thought it over carefully before discussing it with John, to be sure I did want to write this book. I never for a moment considered writing this as a biography; it's just not my forte, and anyway, sticking to bald facts can restrict the creation of a satisfying story arc. Incidents from people’s lives don’t necessarily make for good fiction or drama. I needed to feel free to make things up, to add humour and drama as needed in order to create story and meaning through fiction, because that’s what I do best. I firmly believe that I can tell a better truth through fiction than through bald facts.

It’s telling the truth through lies.

I had another reason for wanting to write this as fiction. For a story to resonate and sing, it needs characters with flaws. That’s easier to do in fiction than in biography. It’s unsettling, disrespectful even – or so I felt – digging for and then dishing the dirt on people you love. No, it had to be fiction.

So I asked John if I could use his anecdotes to craft into fiction, making things up as I needed, using fictional characters. He immediately agreed; he was pleased and even flattered that I was interested enough in his life to want to do that.

One of the biggest challenges when writing fiction inspired by stories, family or otherwise, is to create characters that are your own so you’re not harnessed to, or restrained by, the real people who may have inspired them.

I knew I had to create a main character that was inspired by, but was not, John. I had to find, unearth, chip out a character of my creation – someone I’d know inside out – so I’d feel free to weave stories through and in and around him without ever wondering at the back of my mind if John might do that. I had to be completely free to give my character flaws – all kinds of rashes, warts and tics – without being hampered by how that might reflect on John. I had to do this for all my characters, for the members of my main character’s family.

It was more of a challenge at first than I thought it would be. My ideas developed and evolved, and my research progressed so that my sense of that time period began to be coloured in with more precise detail and vision (more on that later). But as I tried to unearth, dig out and know my main character, I still found myself, at times, referring back to John’s persona, wondering what he might feel or do in a fictional incident, trying to understand him as a young lad.

I knew I hadn’t yet nailed that elusive main character, but that I had to find him in order to write this book – a character who could be himself.

So I chipped away at it. Finding the right name was crucial. I tried several before I settled on Roderick “Red” MacRae. I was aware that people might make the connection with that other red-headed P.E.I. character Anne Shirley, but my Red was not based on her. When I tried to change his name I couldn’t, because that name fit him – and by the way, no, his hair is not red!

Slowly, Red came into clearer and clearer focus. When I was finally able to name his flaws and his scratchy warts with certainty and conviction – and with the affection one feels for one’s characters – I knew that Red was real.

I’m not sure when that exact moment occurred – it was gradual and organic rather than one blinding aha! moment – it was a spiral of ongoing discovery to the heart of the character. But I knew I was there when I found myself wondering if some trivial incident I had in my head was something Red had told me about, or if I’d heard it from John.

That’s when Red became fully fleshed. That’s when he took the helm of his story.

And that is when the writing began to flow. I just love, love, love the stage when I know a character so well that all I have to do is follow him/her and write down what he/she does. This happened many times with Red; somehow he had a tendency to veer off in unexpected directions, to do things I hadn’t thought about consciously but which, after I’d written about them, were absolutely true and right, sometimes making me laugh out loud.

My next blog post will explore some of the other challenges of writing historical fiction.

WILLIAM SAFIRE'S GREAT RULES OF WRITING

I love this list -- it covers many basics!

~ Do not put statements in the negative form.
~ And don't start sentences with a conjunction.
~ If you reread your work, you will find on rereading that a
great deal of repetition can be avoided by rereading and editing.
~ Never use a long word when a diminutive one will do.
~ Unqualified superlatives are the worst of all.
~ De-accession euphemisms.
~ If any word is improper at the end of a sentence, a linking verb is.
~ Avoid trendy locutions that sound flaky.
~ Last, but not least, avoid cliches like the plague.

William Safire, "Great Rules of Writing"

THANK YOU MRS. CHAUBAL – AND ALL TEACHERS WHO READ ALOUD TO STUDENTS

In my previous post I wrote about the long circuitous road to my newest novel THAT BOY RED, and how it started with my love of a book, ANNE OF GREEN GABLES, by L.M. Montgomery.

This is how I first met Anne...

It was a hot day in late Spring, in Bombay (now called Mumbai) India. I was a student in Standard Four – Grade Four. I went to a private school, one of the best in Bombay – Cathedral and John Connon School. There was a girls school and a boys school back then, although later the schools merged and became co-ed. The girls’ uniform consisted of light cotton dresses with faint grey and white pin stripes, and a sash denoting the house (red, yellow, green or blue) to which the student belonged. I belonged to Red House, so I had a red sash.

My class was large and particularly lively and high spirited – read undisciplined – and as we grew older, we became the bane of all the teachers in school. I suspect that the unfortunate teacher who drew the short straw and was assigned our class threw herself down on the floor drumming her heels in despair and then went on to develop unexpected tics and twitches as the year progressed.

But back in Standard Four, we hadn’t yet reached the pinnacle of our potential for mischief. My teacher that year was a western woman, Mrs. Chaubal, and she had a great knack of handling us. I haven’t the faintest idea if she was British, Irish, American or Canadian. To us kids, all westerners were simply from abroad, and they all had funny accents because, of course, we spoke impeccable and unaccented English. What I do remember about Mrs. Chaubal is that she was pale skinned and freckled, had reddish hair tidily arranged in a French bun – a source of fascination to me – and she was smiling, enthusiastic, and had stocky legs and thick ankles.

One morning, Mrs. Chaubal, gathered us together in front of her desk to read to us. Perhaps she thought a morning read would calm our high spirits, or perhaps she simply wanted to share with us a book she loved.

It was that morning – squirming against the other girls on the hard vinyl floor, the overhead fan whirring our hair, with the faint school smells of disinfectant, chalk dust and sneakers wafting around us – that I first met Anne.

I was hooked from the start. Mrs. Chaubal read with great expression and energy, and she was adroit enough to skip the long descriptive passages that she thought might make us restless. Each morning, she read a part of the book, and each morning our eagerness to hear the story escalated. We were completely still and rapt as she read to us.

When the school year ended and the book didn’t, I had to find a copy of the book to finish the story. I had to find out whether Anne ever forgave Gilbert and what happened next.

I hunted the second hand book stores I frequented, and where I spent most of my pocket money, to no avail. I couldn’t find the book in the library across the road, either. Finally, I discovered it in a new book store and I unhesitatingly spent my precious pocket money on a brand new copy. I devoured the book. I was delighted to discover that there were sequels and I bought all the sequels I could lay my hot little hands on, and read them again and again.

I was an avid reader, and I used to trade books that weren’t keepers for other books to keep myself supplied with reading material. But I never dreamed of trading my Anne books. They were friends to re-visit over and over again. In one of my infrequent fits of organization, I arranged and numbered my books in order of their importance to me. ANNE OF GREEN GABLES was number one. Inside it I wrote:

The grass is green
The rose is red
This book is mine
'Til I am dead
P.S.Even after I’m dead.

I didn’t at first realize, not even after I’d read the books many times, that the world in which the books were set was a real place. I assumed that Anne’s world was entirely fictional.

I can’t remember exactly when I discovered that P.E.I., the place in which the books were set, was real. Perhaps it was when I studied Canada in a Geography class and the name Prince Edward Island leapt out at me and settled with a satisfying click against the name I’d read in the books.

But I do remember that the moment when I realized P.E.I. was real was a light bulb moment.

I decided in an exuberant burst of joyful adventure that one day I would go there. And so I did, after I graduated from university...and met my husband...and was inspired by my father-in-law’s anecdotes to write THAT BOY RED.

I don’t imagine that Mrs. Chaubal could have envisioned the far-reaching and life-changing impact she had on one small girl sitting in front of her, drinking in the words to the story she loved and shared with her students.

Perhaps you teachers who read aloud to your students don’t always get thanked. Perhaps you don’t hear about the lives you change – but be assured that you do change lives. If nothing else, you bring delight – yes, delight, the light – to your students.

Thank you, Mrs. Chaubal, where ever you are.

COMING FULL CIRCLE – THE ROAD TO RED

My latest book, a middle-grade novel THAT BOY RED (HarperCollins Canada) will be out in bookstores in mid-April. Set in Prince Edward Island during the Depression the book follows the escapades – sometimes hilarious, sometimes hair-raising – of eleven-year-old Roderick “Red” MacRae, and his coming of age through a particularly tumultuous year.

Seeing this book in print feels in a strange and satisfying way like coming full circle. Like most authors, I am repeatedly asked where I get my ideas and about the stories behind the story. Sometimes it can be difficult to remember, so organic and convoluted is the process.

But the story behind RED is a long road that winds back to my childhood.

When I was a girl growing up in India and then England, one of my favourite books was ANNE OF GREEN GABLES by L.M. Montgomery. I loved that book. I read and re-read it umpteen times, as well as its sequels, until the world in which it was set, Prince Edward Island, became as familiar to me as mine. Or perhaps more familiar in the magical way in which imagined and internal worlds can be more real than external ones.

I'm not quite sure what it was about this book that so gripped me, so worked into my inner being. Perhaps it's because Anne's world was so different from mine.

My world when I first met Anne (how I met her is another story, for my next blog post), when I first walked through the magic portal of that book, was Mumbai, a sprawling city teeming with people, hot, dusty, vibrant, a cacophony of colour and sounds.

Anne’s world was almost the polar opposite – rural, contained, peaceful, with familiar nooks and crannies, beloved fields, wild flowers, woods. I crossed roads with blaring traffic and a maidan – a field – to get to school, a field filled with people, the grass trampled by many feet. Anne walked through the woods, through Violet Vale to school. What were violets? What were mayflowers? I had hibiscus, boring, familiar old hibiscus.

I was fascinated by Anne’s cosy family life with Matthew and Marilla, the meals eaten together, the predictability and stability of chores. The satisfaction of contributing to the household. My parents, as upper middle class Indians, had an active social life and servants to do all the work. We children rarely ate dinner with our parents. (And dinner was always the evening meal; the mid-day meal always lunch.) I was wistfully envious of Anne’s chores – washing dishes seemed delightfully cosy and homey. So...pioneerish!

And I was fascinated by Anne’s climate. Oh, the magic of snow.

I’d never seen snow. My seasons consisted of hot, hotter and wet – the wet part being the monsoon, when you could count on rain every single day, and after which you could count on no rain every single day. The summers were dusty and dry, and only mad dogs and Englishmen went out in the noon day sun. And of course, children. If I went out anywhere in the summer, I’d collapse in a sweaty puddle – that’s right, sweat, no lady-like glow, never mind manly perspiration – under the fan when I got home. Anne snuggled into sweaters. I only ever wore a light cardigan on those odd winter days when the temperature dipped below hot.

The Anne books became beloved friends. They were a constant thread through my life when I moved with my family to England. And like all good friends, the books eased the longing and be-longing that such a seismic shift creates.

When I decided after graduating from University to come to Canada, the Anne books were my impetus for choosing Prince Edward Island.

It was there that I met and married my husband. It was there – during my fourteen years on the Island – that I jerked past my inertia and my fear of failure to finally embark on my dream of writing. It was there that I delighted in my first publication success – a book published by an Island press, and one that became a best-seller.

And this book, THAT BOY RED, my latest work of fiction – this book was inspired by my father-in-law’s anecdotes about growing up as a young lad in rural P.E.I. during the Depression.

I don’t think I ever dreamed or imagined when I was a girl in India – and my youthful dreams were wildly extravagant; I was not a parsimonious dreamer – that one day I’d live on the Island, marry an Islander and, inspired by my father-in-law’s anecdotes, write a book about a boy growing up on the Island, set in the era following Anne’s time.

Full circle.

Sometimes life is stranger – oh, so much neater, so much sweeter – than fiction.

A GOOD STORY IS LIKE A PERFECTLY DECORATED ROOM

Easy reading is damn hard writing. ~Nathaniel Hawthorne


When something can be read without effort, great effort has gone into its writing. ~Enrique Jardiel Poncela


True Ease in Writing comes from Art, not Chance,
As those move easiest who have learn'd to dance.~Alexander Pope, "An Essay on Criticism"


These quotes resonate deeply as I’m still obsessed with the fine-tuning of stories while I twitch and fiddle with my picture book manuscript, THE FLUTE, due out this Spring with Tradewind Books.

It seems to me that a good story is like a beautifully decorated and harmonious room.

What you don’t notice is the work that went into it.

Imagine it – an empty room. Imagine the wall colours, the furniture. The floor. Will you pick carpet or wood? Or marble? Imagine the swatches you bring home and try out in every light, the arguments with your spouse and kids, the vacillating mind about which colours and floors to pick. Imagine acquiring the right pieces of furniture, the hours and days or weeks of shopping, getting it delivered, moving the pieces around until they look just right, arranging and re-arranging, then hunting for those accessories that please your eye. Why are they so hard to find? How can it take days to hunt down the perfect candlesticks? At last you've found them. You place them here. No, perhaps there. Imagine the mess as there's stuff everywhere and nothing looks right and you wonder why you bothered to start in the first place.

Oh, but then you find the perfect rug, only now the furniture isn't quite right, so you'll have to change that and find pieces that work in the new plan. Aaaaargh. But you love the rug and it's perfect so...deep breath. Here we go. Again.

Gradually, there is a sense of order. The furniture in place. The pictures on the walls. Which ones will you hang, and where, and how high? Now you look at the whole and perhaps there are a few too many knickknacks? Perhaps you need to take a few things away?

You’ll probably leave it for a while, so you can see it with fresh eyes, perhaps even consult others whose tastes you trust – maybe an interior decorator – if you haven’t already done so.

When you’re finally done, you fill in and repaint the holes in the wall where you nailed the pictures before moving them, wipe the smudges off the walls – those damn fingerprints and pencil marks – put away the ladders and tools, vacuum up the mess, straighten the pictures, twitch the ornaments just so and curse that this fiddling process takes so long. So damn long. Finally you decide that's it, or perhaps you must stop because you had a deadline...those guests to dinner...but you must find the right coloured candles, dust, shine, polish.

Oh, if only you could stop fiddling. Just that shift of an ornament here. A teeny bit there. No, it was better before. LEAVE IT, ALREADY. It's time to say DONE.

You're exhausted. But the room looks great. Everyone says so. When the guests walk in they exclaim and admire. So harmonious, so clean. The flow of energy is just right, do you know Feng-shui? They're charmed by it all. Oh, and they just love glow of the candles.

They don't know what you put into it. The time, the energy and angst. The fights, the fatigue. The agonizing over minutiae.

No, they don't know see the work that went into it.

Sound familiar?

The Pains and Perils of Reviewing Proofs – Part V

It Ain’t Over ‘Til the Fat Lady Sings

How do I know when I’ve finished reviewing the proofs?

When the fat lady sings.

That’s me screaming when the publisher tells me it's all over, that I can't make any more changes. When they pry my hot little hands off the manuscript.

Which is all very traumatizing.

And a huge relief.

And did I say traumatizing?

And a relief?

Upon which I go and sink my face into chocolate–lots of it.

And wine–lots of it, too.

The Pains and Perils of Reviewing Proofs – Part IV

No Sentence is an Island

Ah, this is one to remember when you review your proofs. NO sentence is an Island (my apologies to John Donne.) I have, at times, fiddled endlessly with one sentence, to get it just right.

But there are several pitfalls to watch out for:

A sentence can be well-crafted, but not fit in your particular piece because it doesn’t flow from and into the sentences before or after. This can be because the sentence length is too similar to the ones around it, or because the cadence or music of the words just don't sound right. No sentence is an Island.

A sentence can be well-crafted, but that particular perfect phrasing may not be true to your character’s voice. It must reflect the character, or be consistent with the narrator's voice. No sentence is an Island.

A sentence may be well-crafted but does it inadvertently repeat words in the sentences around it? No sentence is an Island.

When reviewing proofs, or for that matter, during any stage of editing, it's important to resist the temptation to over-fix a sentence. To remember the context.

Or to employ another metaphor, remember to look at the forest, not just the trees.

The Pains and Perils of Reviewing Proofs–Part III

Over Fixing – A Common Pit-fall

One of the biggest problems I seem to have when I go through my proofs is over-correcting things.

Fiddling too much.

Often, as I read it through the proofs, I’ll change something. Something slight.

Later, when I read it over again, I'll change it back.

Then change it again.

Only to go back to the original.

If you know you’ve put in concentrated effort during all the previous stages of the work, then trust yourself, and don’t succumb to the temptation to make too many changes. Sometimes you can spoil a work by messing too much. Making the changes as elegant and slight as possible is a way of honouring your original vision.

The Pains and Perils of Reviewing Proofs – Part II

In my previous post I talked about how crucial it is to read your proofs out loud.

One of the most important reasons for this is to make sure that your dialogue rings true.

Ah, dialogue.

When you read out loud, the pace of the dialogue, the pauses, become apparent. As does the phrasing.

More than likely, you'll find some places where your dialogue doesn’t sound quite right. It’s ineffable how you know, but you just do.

Here’s a way to try and discover where the problem lies: Try reading out the dialogue simply as dialogue, as you would in a play. No “he or she saids”. No descriptions of action in-between. Just dialogue.

If you can’t tell who is saying what, you need to fix your dialogue.

If the voice sounds stilted, if it doesn’t sound natural, the way someone might actually say it--if the flow isn't right--your dialogue needs fixing.

Also, try acting out the piece to see if you can get the dialogue to reflect the thoughts and feelings of your character--to show what he/she wants to convey, as well as what she/he wants to hide. In other words, the text and the subtext.

The Pains and Perils of Reviewing Proofs – Part I

I’ve been up to my neck–no, make that my nose, or higher–in the quagmire of reviewing the proofs of my upcoming novel, THAT BOY RED (HarperCollins Canada) due to be released in April 2011.

Don't get me wrong–I’ve loved writing this book. I love the process of writing all my books. I’ve even loved re-writing this book, and working through the edits. I’ve relished spending time with these people, being in their world.

But.

But this stage is enough to make me pull out my hair–in chunks, if I had enough of it. It is PAINSTAKING this process. PAINFUL. A fragile and nerve-wracking time for any author for a number of reasons, not least because you know it’s your last chance to make changes.

And one of the grave dangers of this stage–oh, yes, dangers–isn't that you'll fail to spot minor errors, but that you that you will over fiddle and wreck what works.

Here’s the thing: each time you see your work, time has passed. You are different, so what you see and how you see is different. Sometimes you forget about the previous changes you'd made and the reasons for those changes (chances are you’re already deep into another work, or your mind is cleared of all details of this particular work because it's filled with life events).

One tip to help you catch what you need to as you review the proofs (this is helpful during any stage of the editing process) is to read the proofs out loud. I’ve mentioned this before. It helps at every stage, and this last stage is no exception, even if you’ve read your manuscript aloud many times before. Your ear catches things your eyes don’t, and you have the chance to hear (and see) how each sentence links to the ones before and after.

There can be a problem with reading out loud to yourself, though: when you don’t have an audience, the reading can stumble and stall, and trip and trick you into thinking something doesn’t work when it does. Or vice-versa.

So here are few tactics you can try to avoid the reading-aloud-to-yourself blues:

Read aloud, but slowly, as though you are reading to a class of kids.

Read aloud, but slowly and softly as though you’re reading to a kid sitting next to you on the couch.

Read standing up. When the diaphragm can take in larger quantities of air, it seems to help. If you find a part you stumble over, mark it, then try reading it again later.

Sometimes you’re stumbling because the writing needs to be fixed, but other times because you are in a hurry. I know. Because I change things back and forth and back and forth...a dizzying cycle.

My next several posts will continue to cover the pains and pitfalls of reviewing proofs–as well as how to avoid those pitfalls. I hope these suggestions will be relevant to any stage of editing.

More on Reading the Best

Here’s another way of unearthing some of the best books published, ones that will help you irrigate and fertilize your inner landscape: check out the major award winning books over the past years.


While I don’t for one moment suggest that only prize winners are worthy of reading, or that superb books don’t get overlooked for prizes, it is a reliable place to start. And it’s a great way to discover writers whose work is unique and invigorating, writers who may well become your favourites.


So here are some sites to check:


– The Governor General’s Literary Award Winners from 1936 to 2010


NOTE: Children’s Literature was not included in these awards until 1987


– The Newbury Award winners, from 1922 to present

Lately, there has been some discussion as to whether the Newbury Award winners appeal sufficiently to children, or whether they’re overly slanted to adult tastes. I happen to disagree – I find the winners consistently excellent and eminently readable. Not all award winning books go on to become best-sellers and I believe that awards should focus on the best, not just the most likely to be popular books.

– There are several children’s literature prizes in the UK and I find these winners are always of a quality, and splendid reads.

– The Costa Book Awards (formerly the Whitbread Book Awards)

– The CLIP Carnegie and Kate Greenaway Children’s Book Awards

– The Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize

Happy reading, and may you discover new treasures.

Some Book Recommendations

It's mid-way through January, and I suspect many a resolution has already been broken if not actually forgotten. At the beginning of the year, I like to think on the books I will read, anticipate the oodles of time I will have to indulge in the delight of losing myself between the pages of books. And reflect back on the books I read last year, often with some haziness because I tend not to have a very good memory -- perhaps because I prefer to read for the sheer pleasure of it, than to analyze.

About a year and a half ago, though, frustrated with my inability to remember which books I'd read -- or what they were about if I had read them -- I began to compile lists of books I'd read. I put them in two categories: ones I'd recommend and the ones I wouldn't. I wrote a brief description of each book, along with what I found particularly compelling (or not) -- which is a useful thing for a writer to do because it serves as a source of reference if I want to study a book to see how a particular situation, say point of view, or multiple narratives, was handled in a book that I deemed to be a success.

I won't go into the books I wouldn't recommend -- I don't see the point of it. I know how writers pour their hearts out into their work and it doesn't serve any purpose to include here a list of books that I thought were not well written (enough), or books that, although fairly well written, didn't delight me enough to be included in my list of recommendations.

Every writer I know reads a lot. One of the more delightful things about being a writer is that you learn through the sheer joy of reading, even when you don't know you are learning. It serves both the art and the craft of writing to simply read, read, read.

It helps, though, to read the best of writing so the subconscious mind isn't filled with reams of mediocrity. I think the mind tends to burp it up, if that is all you read.

So here is a list of just a few of the books I read recently that I'd recommend. This isn't a comprehensive list of all the books I read, let alone all of the ones on my recommended list; nor are they all recent publications. But these are books I enjoyed for a number of reasons -- some because of the brilliance of the writing, some because of the inventiveness of the plot, or striking voice, but all because they satisfied at a certain level. I haven't included the books I've already mentioned in previous blog postings. Most of these are children's books -- I read all over the place, adult fiction as well as children's fiction -- but I won't indicate which is which, because a good children's book is ageless. So, in no particular order:

Counting Stars by David Almond

Jackdaw Summer by David Almond

The Mistress of Nothing by Kate Pullinger

Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh

Alice, I Think by Susan Juby

Nation by Terry Pratchett

The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness

The Hunger Games Trilogy by Suzanne Collins

A Thousand Shades of Blue by Robin Stevenson

Cockroach by Rawi Hage

Bog Child by Siobhan Dowd

Bones of Faerie by Janni Lee Simner

Something to Hang Onto by Beverley Brenna

The Gathering by Anne Enright

I, Coriander by Sally Gardner

Saffy's Angel
Indigo's Star
Permanent Rose by Hilary McKay
Caddy Ever After
Forever Rose

The Peppermint Pig by Nina Bawden
Granny The Pag
Carrie's War

END OF YEAR REFLECTIONS -- ON REFILLING THE BURP POT

It's just another day, really, the last day of the year, and yet, because there is the ritual of changing calendars, it's an opportunity to reflect on the past year, come up with plans for the new year, and generally jerk out of the often automatic frenzied mode in which we seem to live much of the rest of the year.

So, when I think back to my writing this past year, I see all the books I was dying to write at the beginning of the year, but that I didn't get to. Yet.

Oh, if only I could be more efficient, the lament goes. If I were more efficient, my mind would pop from one idea to the next, with freshness and vigor and I'd have written more. It's inevitable, the self-flagellation. The regret.

And yet, there is the other side. That writing isn't a nine to five job. Stories take the time they take. Sometimes years of putting away before they fall into place. Several of my books have lain fallow as it were, for years, before coming to ripeness and publication.

And people write differently. The challenge is to find the way you write best, the way that works for you, and to make peace with it.

For instance, I know writers who are prolific, and they write in a way that is seemingly chaotic to me, with forays into multiple stories simultaneously.

But I can't do that. If I try and force a style of writing that isn't right for me, it's mind-splitting and ultimately, a waste of time.

For me it's important to take time to replenish the burp pot. Yup, burp pot. As in burp pot of ideas.

I sort of have this image of ideas simmering below the conscious mind, in a huge pot. And as you stir -- and often even when you don't -- ideas burp up.

That pot is filled with a stew of life experiences, the people you know, the books you've read, the things you've dreamed and done, your travels...

And sometimes, you just need to take time out to live. It all feeds that pot. Sooner or later, that mish-mash of life will burp up new ideas, fabulous ideas -- that is, fabulous to you ideas that you must write about.

So, my end of year reflection, while still tinged with regret for the books that didn't get written yet, also includes an acceptance that some stories take time, and that all the time I spent not writing was still feeding that pot.

Excuse me while I burp.

Second Draft Blues

Ah, that painful process, where the euphoria of completing that first draft is swiftly replaced with loathing, fear and disgust as you re-read your peerless manuscript and discover it ain't so peerless after all. That it's more full of holes than swiss cheese.

Stinkier than limburger cheese or rotting gorgonzola, and twice as ugly.

A word of advice: relax. Accept that this is the process. It's a long, slow spiral of many drafts before you get to the heart of the last draft.

To use another image, writing fiction is a labyrinthine process, full of dead ends, sudden turns, obstacles and wrong turnings.

You can, as I often do, waste energy berating yourself with gems like, "If I were a better writer I'd get it righter first time around!"

I don't know any writer who does get it right first time around.

It takes the maze-like twists and turns to discover and uncover the story you want to write. It is all part of the process, so relax and enjoy it. It's absolutely necessary to take those wrong turns in order to find the right ones.

Often, that first draft is just scaffolding. Necessary to tear down, but absolutely crucial to build the stunning structure you will end up with.

Enjoy.

Book Recommendation on Writing Fiction

From my posts below about debunking writing myths, it probably won't come as a surprise to hear that I haven't, by any means, read all the books ever written about the process of writing.

The best way to learn about writing, I think, is to just get on with it and write.

Oh, you need to read, of course; you learn from reading wonderful writers. That's a given.

But if you spend too much time studying writing, it can stymie your natural voice and natural skills and make you an imitator. Or trip you with too many theories and not enough practise. Or ensnare you in the convoluted business of studying writing instead of getting on with it. (I'm up on every procrastinatory technique, believe me!)

That said, here is an excellent book about the process of writing fiction. It discusses setting, character, plot, point of view, the shapes of a story, the process of editing, and much more.

I have a copy and when I get stuck over some writerly matter, this is my go-to book:

A PASSION FOR NARRATIVE by Jack Hodgins.

It is clear, insightful and comprehensive.

Debunking Some Writing Myths 3

Here's another piece of advice writing teachers tend to hand out: always do a story outline before you write.

To which I say -- maybe.

Maybe you're the kind of writer for whom this is necessary; maybe this is the kind of story with so many convoluted and intersecting plotlines that you need an outline to keep things clear in your own head.

But maybe you'll find that making a story outline destroys any interest you have in writing the story. That an outline corsets your characters and prevents them from taking on life and leading the story in a direction that you'd never, ever planned, and yet is SO right.

If you do decide to make a plan or story outline, it is crucial to understand that it is just a guide and that it must never be followed slavishly.

I've written novels for which I've never done a story outline (not on paper, anyway -- although I always have a sense in my head of the arc of the story and how the tension must build) and ones where I've done fairly detailed outlines.

When writing fantasy or mystery, I've found a general outline useful because it's a way for me to keep interweaving plots, and the motives behind all my various characters' actions straight. (Yes, if the story is to make sense, every character must have a believable motive for his/her actions.)

I've also found an outline useful as a way to try and capture the feel or atmosphere of the story once I think I have it right. Usually, I will go for a walk (many walks, actually!) to pound out ideas, and to try and move the trajectory of the story forward in my head. Then I jot down notes -- snippets of ideas and snatches of dialogue as they come to me. Once I feel that I have all the pieces, and that they fit, and I have a sense of the atmosphere and the voice of the story, I may write an outline, just for the relief of knowing I have that as a reference in case I forget a small piece of motivation, or plot detail, or some such thing.

But inevitably, I have found that once I start to write the story will go off on a trajectory that I hadn't planned -- but that is right. Well, right enough for that draft, anyway.

Some writing teachers suggest making a chapter by chapter outline. Some writers I know do this.

You have to find what works best for you. I couldn't bear to do a chapter by chapter outline because it would bore me to death to write the story. I like to discover and explore as I write and if I have every event and detail pinned down in the outline, I think I'd find it a slog to actually write the story. I'd just lose interest in it. But that's me.

To outline or not is something each writer must decide for her/himself. It may even vary from story to story.

Debunking Some Writing Myths 2

Here's a rule that writers taking courses are often told: Write about what you know.

To which I say, rubbish. Write about what you want to write about, what you're passionately curious about. Then do the necessary research. I have little interest in writing about what I know, because, well, why bother? Writing is very much a process of exploration for me and I don't have much interest in writing solely about what I know because there is no heat of the chase, nothing to discover and uncover.

Take my most recent novel THE TROUBLE WITH DILLY, for example.

It's about a girl, Dilly -- wildly imaginative, exuberant and impulsive -- who lives with her family in a large Canadian city above their family grocery and Indian food take out, and who plays hockey. I've always wanted to write about a girl who played hockey, but I don't know (or rather, didn't know) much about it. Nor did I know anyone who runs a grocery store.

So I did my research. I visited corner grocery stores in a variety of places to try and get the feel of them, to get Dilly's family store right, a sense of the layout and items they'd stock. The atmosphere and pulse.

I also spoke to family, friends and neighbours who knew about hockey, followed hockey games on TV and even went to local Pee Wee hockey game, and met up with the coach and a few girls who played in the team, to hear their stories and viewpoints. It was a huge amount of fun, and a wonderful glimpse into the hockey culture.

I also had to research Christmas customs in Hungary, immigration challenges for new immigrants, some aspects of Chinese culture, and much more.

It was all part of the fun, part of widening my view of life and expanding my horizons of interest.

I like to think this story is a quintessentially Canadian Christmas story, celebrating as it does cultural diversity and hockey.

But it would never have been written if I stuck only to what I know. For that matter, nor would most of the other books I've written.

Debunking Some Writing Myths 1

A writer starting out is often looking for a set of rules to follow -- ones that will teach him/her everything she/he has ever wanted or needed to know about writing, and that will guarantee success, fame and fortune.

And of course, there are courses and books a-plenty with lists of rules about writing.

Here's the rule with which I start all my creative writing workshops:

There are no Golden Rules.

Each writer must find and discover her/his own unique approach to writing, find out what works for her/him.

You can learn the craft of writing -- well, aspects of it, anyway -- but no one can teach you the art of writing. You learn that by writing, by trial and error and finding out what works for you.

Finding the Right Voice -- Don't Show Off

Part of good story-telling is finding the right voice to fit the story. Here's something to bear in mind: please let the language and words serve the story, not the other way around. Don't slaughter story at the altar of your writerly ego. (Oh, I know, it's tempting!)

For me, the best books are where the writer is invisible. Where I'm caught in the story, where wonderful phrases, if there are any, are absolutely integral and true to the story. Where the author isn't pirouetting around with flash phrases that stick out like a sore thumb, shrieking, "Look at me, look at me!" Or leaping about with grandiose phrases, no matter how lovely, with a cheesy, "Look, aren't I clever?"

Beautiful language can only take you so far. After a while, the reader's admiration can ebb into frustration and even downright hostility because instead of engaging with the story, the language sticks out its knobbly feet and demands attention and homage to the author. Perhaps in an attempt to divert attention from the lack of story?

So, don't show off. Let the tale flow, let the tale do its part.

This is not to say that beautiful language is not appropriate at times. But it needs to serve the story, it always needs to serve the story, not the other way around.

So...

Desert the delectable phrases

Eschew the urge to pontificate, with or without marbles in your mouth, no matter how stunning the marbles.

Say it plain.

Say it clear.