Eclectic Research

 I've said it before, and will no doubt say it again - writers have a lot in common with magpies. Snappers up of unconsidered trifles. (Shakespeare - The Winter's Tale) At the moment I am collecting a lot of random and not so random bits and bobs that is WIM not WIP (work in mind rather than work in progress. But thinking and collecting time is part of the process. )

As the current work is going to lean heavily into Dark Academia - a least. I hope it will - it's a new area for me, so it is going to be an adventure. Can I do it? I can but try. Anyway, an essential ingredient of DA is a library - and I am certainly going to have one of those. So now I am collecting bookish things. Ideas of the people who will study there, and the topics they might study are gently piling up, but what about the books themselves? I'm already wondering if I can find a place for a book with arsenic in the cover. I found out about those courtesy of a reel, I think it was a reel, I'm not well up on those things, from the Wellcome Trust library. That one is in the magpie bank. One thing I am planning to included is a chained library - or at least a chained book case, where the books are fastened in place so that they can be studied but cannot be removed. 

In the interests of research last week I visited the chained library that is attached to Hereford Cathedral. It's the oldest intact one in the world, still with original chains, rods and locks, established in 1611, but with books and manuscripts that are much older, the earliest dating from 780. The cathedral also houses a copy of the Mappa Mundi and the whole site is well worth a visit. The cathedral building is lovely, there is a popular cafe and a garden. I was intent on the books - most particularly the chain system itself which required special chains to be made by a blacksmith. I had the chance to have a good look, and talk to the guides about how the whole arrangement worked. My brain is now working happily. The system, as with all archives, was for the preservation and protection of the books. But writers all have questions. Mine is - Are the chains to protect the books from us, or us from the books? Think about that one. 

You can read more about the library and the map HERE. Admittance to the cathedral is free, but there is a charge for visiting the library and the map. 

Family Feeling.

 Biological, blended, extended, found - family is a significant ingredient in many books - so much so that it's become a trope. Books that give you warm feelings, maybe a little envy, often set in small communities, which are an attraction in themselves. 

But what if your book doesn't call for that sort of set up?

This topic came up in a recent discussion between writer friends - what do you do if family is not part of the picture, or even if it is necessary that the protagonist does not have any family - is alone in the world? (Which is the case in something I was recently working on and which I hope to go back to in due course.) 

Siblings and extended family might be optional extras, capable of being omitted - only children and small families do exist - but everyone has or has had parents. What to do about them? It is, of course, possible not to mention them either, but strangely, this often proves difficult. 

Options?  

Most obvious, and most ruthless - kill them off. Some sort of accident can be arranged - particularly if you want a nice neat clean sweep. I would guess that statistically there is a much higher mortality rate for deaths in car crashes in books than in the general population as a whole. Airplane crashes are possible, but more unusual. I must admit that when reading I find the car crash solution rather a tired one. Mindful of cliches, I decided to dispose of a set of parents in a house fire, which actually wound itself into the plot when I came to write it. I also murdered another heroine's parents in mysterious circumstances. Fictional parenthood can be a risky business. 

Natural causes is a kinder option, but can be tricky unless they are elderly enough for that to be feasible. Easier if there is only one parent - absent dad and terminally ill single mum has sadly featured in several books I have read recently, and I have used that one in a stored manuscript too. 

Alive but distant is a possibility. Estranged for a variety of reasons, either on their part or on the protagonist's. We've all read the disinherited heir or the runaway - or simply the emotionally unavailable parent with whom an adult hero or heroine now has very little in common, except the accident of birth. Those situations require explanation and might have emotional consequences, which the author may not want to explore. Which is where we circle back to that car crash. Or simple physical distance, living in a distant part of the country, or the world - retirement to Spain is another situation I have seen several times recently. 

This seems to have turned into a rather heartless post, callously killing off all these innocent family members. I'm not really like that, honestly. Except when I am. Writers are like that, when we're being writers...

IRL I was lucky. My parents are still much missed, but I know not everyone has that luck. 

But I hope that you get my point - that there are layers and decisions to writing a book that are not always foreseen or appreciated. All part of the creative process - but not necessarily what you expect when you first sit down with the hope and intention of writing a book. 

Using your words

 My latest writers' group meeting ended in a three cornered discussion on writing the dreaded synopsis. I say dreaded, because I don't recall ever meeting an author who greeted the idea with anything less. It doesn't matter if it is for a book as yet unwritten, or incomplete, or one that is finished - although both have their own unique problems. For a book that is not finished the dilemma is significantly:  'How the heck do I know what is going to happen? I'm only writing the thing.' The plot might take all sorts of turns before we reach the end. The characters might wander off in their own path, with the hapless author running along behind, waving their arms and yelling, 'You're supposed to be going that way.' (Take it from me - it never works.) 

In the case of the finished book you know what happened but there is the terrible task of shoe horning your wonderful, intricate work of art into a measly single page, single spaced, and plenty of white space, so it looks good as well as reads well. Hah! 

Authors who write novels are mostly not well adjusted to short pieces. 

In finished and unfinished there is a matter of selection - do you mention that sub plot about the brother, and the best friend - and what about the dog. (Yes, that was me, a few weeks ago.) 

I haven't done a synopsis for long time - until I did one a few weeks ago for the agent/editor round that is part of the Romantic Novelists' Association conference. It probably did me good to stretch my brain. I can't say that it will totally reflect the book that finally comes out, but it is an approximation, I hope. And no, I didn't mention the brother, or the dog. Any one reading the first few thousand words will find out about them fairly quickly.  A synopsis is all about making your words count. That three cornered discussion was interesting - the take away points - focus on the main story, make sure you reveal the ending, the agent/editor wants to know that you have a finish line in mind - OK, so it might not be quite the one you first thought of ...

The other thing that occurred to me was the using your words thing. The right choice can convey chunks of the plot without the detail. A character demanding something instead of asking or requesting says a whole lot about the situation, the relationship. the character themselves - all in one word. So, you have to weigh them and make them count, carrying as much load as they can, but without making it sound over blown, or a melodrama - which is why writing a synopsis is so damn hard!

Power of the Classics?

 As a writer I do like to get down from the Ivory Tower on occasions. Some of those occasions are meetings with other writers. Lunch or dinner may be involved. Also gossip - hey, we are human beings, and writers are nosy by nature. Whining and moaning may take place. See above, on being human. 

Also there is discussion.

Having dinner the other day talk got around to 'Watcha reading?' One friend revealed a project to read or re-read the complete works of a classic author, and the benefit this was having on her writing. 

I am not much on the classics. Read a lot of them in school, and in those days (I know, dinosaurs) you were expected to read around the set texts. Haven't done much that way since. I referred last week to abandoning a list of reading I was supposed to do for an exam and choosing the drama question instead. Now that was a completely different story. Shakespeare, the Jacobeans, Theatre of the Absurd - an awful lot of Beckett, Pinter, Osborne, Genet. and a lot of it a bit weird. And yes, it was all still pretty new then. I am that old. Thing is, I think it fed into my writing - rhythm, dialogue, silence, pauses (Thank you, Harold).  Influences do matter. With some people it is films - thriller writers often reference Film Noir classics. I gather that video games are also influencers now. Won't happen to me, but if it works ...

Writers are sponges, they soak up all sorts of things. And then they come back -  in books.