Penny Jordan's Weblog

Cirencester Workshop

I gave a brief talk at the RNA's Cirencester one day workship on Saturday 19th February. Time limitations meant that I was unable to deal as fully as I would have liked with this subject, and so, as I promised, I am posting here what I hope will be a more coherent and detailed summary of how I personally plot my novels.

In addition I am adding a tip sheet, a breakdown of how I handle 'beginnings, middles and endings' and the details of the 'book' on which we were working, for those of you who wish to use it as a means of honing your own plotting skills.

If enough peole wish to do so, it may be that we could, via my blog have a small 'plotting forum' from which we could all benefit. Please do feel free to post your comments.

Plotting the mainstream relationship novel.

Tips

Where do I get my ideas - I write relationship based books and I 'find' most of my basic plot ideas from human interest stories in the press.

However, instead of using the 'story' I have read, I simply take the part of it that catches my attention.

I then spend a great deal of mental time thinking about this core issue and what has motivated the principle character within it to act in the way he or she has, and inwardly building up their character profile.

Character profile - before I write I feel I need to know how the main character has developed and why. - To simplify this - a person who hates dogs may have been bitten by a dog as a child - but a more complex explanation could be that a bully tormented them as a child by threatening them with being bitten by a dog - if this character's fear of dogs is going to play a part in our story - we need to know first that they are afraid, and then to be curious enough about why they are afraid to go on reading in order to find out. -

we may simply write "John saw the dog cocking its leg against the lampost and instinctively he crossed the road, to avoid it."

That tells the reader that John had some reason to want to avoid the dog. (or perhaps that John has hygiene issues -maybe he's suffers from a repetitive disorder - this is where we need to get a grip and stop this potential line of thought if it is not what we want for the story - we could do this by cutting out the 'cocking its leg' phrase)

However, if we write "John saw the dog blocking the pavement in front of him and immediately hurried across the road to get away from it" - that tells the reader that John is probably afraid of dogs.

Again if we write, "John could feel the dog watching him; waiting for him, and immediately the familiar feeling of sick panic drenched him with fear induced sweat, whilst his hand went instinctively to the scar on his arm." the reader knows that John is terrified of dogs and was probably bitten by one.

But if we write "Oh John look at that gorgeous dog."
He could feel the sweat drenching him as he tried to react as he knew Suzy expected him to, but his guts felt as though someone was trying to put them through a mincing machine and the images he didn't want to have to see were flashing inside his head in a mercilness slide show that overwhelmed everything else. "

Well then we don't really know anything do we, other than that John is reacting strongly to the sight of a dog - and we are curious to know why - so curious in fact that we want to go on reading.........

Modern books are 'character driven' that is to say the action of the book is driven by the characters rather than imposed on them.

Character driven books require the use of dialogue.

Dialogue - Sarah Duncan a fellow writer and member of the RNA as well as a Creative Writing Teacher has said potently that " dialogue should be used to effect change."

ie "We've been married twenty years this year, I thought we'd do something special to celebrate. Darling are you listening to me?"
"Why should I? You never listen to me. If you did you'd know that this bloody marriage of ours is a total farce. In fact it's so much of a farce that I want out of it. "

Ways of working.

It can help to have a pin board on which you can pin -
your basic plot idea,
biogs for your characters.
relevent stuff - photos, thoughts, evocative words, etc etc.

Plot lines

Main stream novels normally have a word count of anything from 80,000 to 160,000 words. For me to reach this word count I have to develop more than one plot line - you can find an example of how I do this in my novel "Now or Never" . This is the most recent of the mainstream books I have written under the Mira banner, and was plotted exactly as I am describing here.

Secondary characters can have their own plot development within a mainstream novel just so long as they also remain necessary to the ongoing main plot. I always try, via their own individual 'plot' lines to add to the conflict and tension in the main plot

Dividing a large word count into manageable chunks.

Before I start to write my book I have a vague idea of what is going to happen, (although I like it best when the characters take over and drive their own story)

I try to break this up into three major parts

Beginning -
for me this involves setting up an impending crisis situation, introducing the characters, and showing how they interact with one another.
For the purposes of the story line we discussed at the workshop, our main male character, a highly acclaimed and successful head teacher, has been accused by a fifteen year old female student of inappropriate sexual behaviour toward her. He knows he is innocent. His wife loves him and trusts him, and in the first third of our story, we will be establishing his innocence, his interfamily relationships, how the accusation against him, effects them and specifically how it affects our secondary characters (his daugher and her journalist partner and his son, daughter in law and small granddaughter). The reader will see quickly in this first third of the book that he is innocent, but of course matters have to take their course; there is no doubt in any of our minds that he will be exonerated. We are climbing a hill toward the resolutiion of our first conflict, via small conflicts in the subsidiary relationships

We have our reader off guard and feeling safe....

And then - shockingly it comes to light that whist our teacher is innocent of this crime there is a secret in his past which he has kept from his wife.- (breach of trust)

The middle

Immediately here at the beginning of this second third we are upping the stakes, turning the direction of the tension, and giving it a new intensity - I call this the 'breakdown' third - in this third we will see our characters and their relationships put under pressure and fall apart.

The end

I reserve the final third of the book for - resolution - for me that involves the working through of both inner and outer problems and conflicts for the individuals concerned and working toward a new understading of themselves and hopefully ending with the new beginning for which all they have gone through has now equipped them.

My tip

It may help some writers to outline this process for their characters and their individual stories and turn them into a physical jigsaw - that is to say to type out lists of what will happen to each character or pair of characters - cut these up and then past them together to make a workable time frame ie if John has a row with his wife on Thursday night, and we want to leave the reader on a cliff hanger to see how it is resolved, we might start the next chapter on Friday morning but with one of our secondary characters 'Chloe hated Fridays. Fridays meant'

By doing this we can keep the readers on tenterhooks re John and Mary's emotional fight - if need be for a couple of chapters whilst we up date them on what is happening within Chloe and Rick's lives and Lucy and George's lives, before then starting a third chater which could begin, "Mary stared unseeingly at the Sunday papers. She and John still weren't speaking following Thursday night's row."

Sometimes it is also helpful to write down a list of the events/actions/goals you want to reach within a span of say 40,000 words,

ie

Start book
Introduce main characters.
End Chapter One with a cliff hanger
Bring in secondary characters.
Set up secondary charaters' potential future problems
Let readers see cracks in relationships where necessary.
Build up tension by involving characters in crises 1, 2 & 3 then allow main character to devlop a false sense of security.
Aim to finish first 40,000 words having worked toward second and most important 'bombshell' crisis at beginning of second 40,000 words.

Research - I use the nine tenths to one tenth principle with regard to research - that is to say I only allow myself to have openly identifiable and visible in a book one tenth of the research I have done.

Novels that drift sideways into travelogues, 'how to fit a new bathroom' or any other kind of 'look how much i know about this subject' voyage of self indulgence, fill readers with a sense of boredom, and despair.

As a writer you are taking your readers of an exciting journey of discovery , during which they will learn all about your characters, not the hours you have spent trawling web sites for info about every small piece of 'factual' knowledge you needed to give your work the nuts and bolts of its authenticity - of course the readers need to feel that they are in 'safe hands' and to be able to trust you to have done all the research you need to have done, but the art of really good plotting is putting the skeleton that is the firm backbone of a good plot in place so skilfully that you, the writer, can move effortlessly and easily between true fact and your own fiction. It is a very fine line - too little reseach and too much research both jolt the reader out of the magic you are trying to create to hold them into your story.

Think about how you feel as a reader - and what you look for; what makes you compulsively turn page after page as you gobble up a work of fiction.

Yes , if you are going to have someone mixing limewash as a part of the action of your book, it is important that you know exactly how limewash is made, how dangerous lime can be, what natural colouring agents can be used, how unstable it can be, etc. etc. but unless you are writing a book where the exact method and ingredients for this limewash are a vital piece of knowledge the reader will need, it can be enough for you to simply know how to do it, and to say so equally simply. ie "She loved the effect of the traditional limewash she had used to paint the exterior walls to the cottage - "(but bear in mind that traditional limewash needs to breathe and thus cannot be applied over modern paints that may have sealed the exterior wall surface) and that last comment could be taken as an example of too much information, because it makes you think about the limewash rather than the ongoing story. A better way would be to write instead "She applied a fresh coat of limewash......." - Plotting is in part thinking about he 'sense' of your novel and about focusing the readers' attention where yu want ti to be. Ambigious dialogue and statements are to be avoided (unless of course you are writing a thriller).

You, the writer are the team leader, the person who your readers will follow but you must have their confidence that you are fit to lead them.

Basic plot ideas + characters + the all important 'what if' question can take you anywhere you want to go and everywhere you need to go

The 'what if' question is to the fictional novel what the wheel is to civilisation - it empowers you, and it takes you forward into the story. It gives you the freedom to go anywhere and everywhere - it has no limitations

Basic plot + characters+ the equally important 'but why' question provides the nuts and bolts of logic and reason to hold your story together and give it a strong foundation.

You must provide at some stage a valid reason/explanation etc for the way your characters behave.

Pile on the agony/throw the Christians to the lions.

Readers love to see your characters suffer - don't even think of sparing them, instead double and then treble the agony - I can't find my book of quotations but I think it was Confucius who said -
"There is nothing so amusing as to see a friend fall from a high roof"
(I think we may safely assume that Simon Cowell could be a fan of this principle).

Now for the book -

The Cirencester Workshop Day Novel

"The Hanged Man" (the hanged man card in a tarot pack is at face value a sign if not of death then certainly of difficulties - but sometimes it is harder to live than to die and very often it is far more painful)

The basic plot for our book comes from a newspaper headline that read
"Schoolteacher found hanged"

We don't need to read the article because, for the purposes of our plotting it is not of any interest - we are going to create our own 'plot' for why our schoolteacher might want to take his own life.

'But why' would he want to? The most obvious reasons that suggest themselves to me is that he is guilty of a breach of trust - surely the greatest breach of trust from a teacher has to be improper adult behaviour of an adult toward a minor in their care? 'But why' would he do such a thing?

So - as our readers will probably think like us and because we know that there is comfort to be found in the 'obvious reason' let's opt for our teacher being accused of improper behaviour toward a fifteen year old female pupil.

By making her fifteen we've piled on some agony for him - she is underage - but we've also left a small question in the reader's mind - at fifteen some girls can be incredibly sexually aware and sexually adult - sexually but of course not emotionally.

Let's turn now to thinking a bit more about our teacher - we want to raise the stakes as high as we can so that his fall will have the maximum amount impact so,

What if - he is no mere teacher, but a head teacher
The Head Teacher of a very prestigious, but not a private school
What if he is a man who has received great public acclaim.
What if he is a great humanitarian .
And What if he has been held up in the media as an example to others
What if also his methods of teaching are so successful that others seek
to emulate him.
And What if he has extra baggage - and he has come from very humble beginnings and so may have 'something to prove'
So he is not merely a head teacher - he is a icon of a teacher.
He has even received a public award of some kind for his work.

This man has a long long way to fall off that very high roof.

Broadening the plot base
Because we are writing mainstream we need plenty of characters to interact with one another. The easiest way to do this without having to contrive meetings between them is to create a family. (Other easy ways are groups with shared interests, work colleagues, in fact anything that brings them together in a natural way)

So let's give him a wife, a daughter who has a partner, a son who is married and has a young daughter.

Opening Lines - First Impressions Count - How to award yourself double points.

Okay. Now let's think about the all important opening lines and first page - it is very important to grab the readers' attention by the end of the first page. A lesson every category writer learns early.

So why don't we start with the bombshell of our teacher giving his wife the news that he has been suspended

"I've been suspended."

what a great opening line but wait a minute, it doesn't really tell us very much does it and - it is a useful plotting device to contrast high emotional impact with mundane physical activity.


What could be more mundane than his wife unpacking her supermarket shopping whilst chatting about the minutiea of ordinary life?

But, let's just think about this - we know that our teacher is going to be proved innocent of this accusation (because we need that to break the action toward the end of the first part of the book and then to push up the tension by throwing in the 'secret from his past' in the second - But we need to ensure that the readers share our knowledge of our teacher's probity and innocence right from the start so that they don't turn against him.

So - what if we take the action a bit further back in time and set the wife in the supermarket - and what if we use dialogue to inform our readers of the teacher's current situation and to introduce his family

Then our opening lines might go something like this

"Mary, I thought it was you."
Mary tried not to betray her reluctance to engage in conversation with her neighbour as she reached hurriedly for a box of washing powder, and cursed under her breath beneath the cover of the supermaket tanoy system.
"I read the article about John in the Guardian*, praising what he's done for the education system, and saying what an innovative Head Teacher he is. Of course we all know how well thought of it he is and how much his pupils parents' feel they owe him. Reading between the lines the article even seemed to be hinting that some sort of official recognition is in the offing. A government position perhaps?" she probed archly.
When Mary refused to give her the information she was digging for, she retaliated pseudo sweetly, " Such a tremendous achievement especially for someone with his background. I hadn't realised until I read the article that you shared the same working class background, but then I suppose Oxford polished off all John's rough edges."
To Mary's relief her mobile started to ring
"I'm sorry Deena." she cut her neighbour off firmly, before turning away to say far more warmly to her daughter, as she manoevered her trolley further down the aisle.
"Chloe, darling...."
"Hi ma...where are you?"
"Waitrose,* "
Uh huh, buying the fatted calf for tomorrow's party?" she heard Chloe teasing her
Mary laughed
"It's hardly a party, just a family get together to celebrate your dad's * achievement."
"How's dad taking all the media circus fame thing?"
"Oh you know your father.* He says it's all a fuss about nothing and that he's achieved so much because he loves his job so much."
"What time do you want us there ma, only Rick's editor * has sent him off to Brussels to interview some woman who claims she's been providing a call girl service for high profile euro politicians. "
"I'd thought about four in the afternoon. I don't want Lucy to be difficult about coming because of Hannah's bedtime." Mary could feel herself tensing as she spoke her daughter-in-law's name. The birth of Lucy and George's daughter and their own granddaughter four years ago instead of bridging the gap between the two woman had actually deepened it. Lucy was a possessive wife and a possessive mother who seemed to take delight in denying Mary the pleasure of showimg her love for her son and her granddaughter.

"Ma I've got to go... I'll ring you later." Chloe interrupted her hastily .

Via this piece of dialogue we learn several pertinent facts about our main character and his family. And * hopefully subtle research info - ie The Guardian is the paper of the Education fraternity and Waitrose is the supermarket of choice of the Upper Middle Classes.

* dad as opposed to father - dad could imply the speaker was lower middle class - father could imply they were middle class.

* Rick's editor - tells us that Rick is a journalist.

We could then continue thus,

.......................

"I had a near miss in Waitrose," Mary told John as she started to unpack her supermakret shopping. "Dreadful Deena collared me and, but luckily Chloe rang me and so i was able to escape. I wonder if I should have bought another side of salmon, George loves it so much and so does - John" she protested as she saw the way he was seated at the kitchen table, staring into space, "You aren't listening to me."

"I've been suspended."

End of Page One

First third of the book

In the first third of the story we should explore the relationships within the family, establish John's innocence and the support of his legal team (could there be a hint of an extra marital romance here if we need extra story ) so that although the reader is aware of cracks within the family that cause them concern, they still share John's confidence that he will be absolved of any wrong doing - we could if we wanted to make the story 'darker' even bring in the girl accusing him and her family set up - but we must bear in mind that for every extra character/crisis we create we must ultimately find a resolution.

John btw will not commit suicide - but what if his daughter's journalist partner is indirectly the cause of it coming to light that John has a secret in his past unknown even to Mary. In the first year of his teaching
career he was involved with a student - (not underage but let's say 17to his 22) he loved her and had a sexual relationship with her, but was warned off by his head teacher and her parents and he ended the relationship because he felt it was the right thing to do. however she was pregnant at the time and he was never told.......) And what if this leads to friction in Chloe and Rick's relationship. And what if John's daughter in law uses the situation to prevent John and Mary from seeing their granddaughter and to drive a wedge between George and his parents. But why would she want to do this (provide background info) But what if George then leaves her.
....................

I have a heavy work schedule for next week and apologise if the lack of time I have had to do the above has resulted in spelling/editorial/grammatical errors. I do hope what I have posted will help all of you who attended the Workshop with your own plotting and I would love it if those of you who read this and who attended the workshop would like to play around with this story and develop it. - Please do have a go.

One final word about the RNA - I only joined the Association about six years ago, and I have found so much support and help via my co members; including a new pubisher, and an agent - But more importantly i have found soul mates and friends.

Useful other stuff

Sarah Duncan runs a Creative Writing Workshop from Bristol

Kate Walker's 12 Point Guide to Writing Romance -www.studymates.co.uk

Writing the Breakout Book - Donald Maas

www.Lachmuighan.com - a terrific web site for observing good erotic writing

www.Cata-romance.com - an excellent site for help and info re category romance writing. - specifically in the USA

www.NovelistsInc.com- anAmerican site for published novelists

The RNA

I look forward to hearing from you although i shan't have time to post again now until next Sunday.


Penny Jordan