Rewrite: Day 21. While it was still dark.

Happy Easter! It's a very special day.  The women went to the tomb - while it was still dark.  The tomb was already empty.  A good friend tweeted that early this morning.  That's what friends are for.  It is while it is dark,  while I'm in the dark,  I need reminding.  Creation cannot be held in check. It will out.  The Lord of Creation himself sets the pace.

Rewrite: Day 20. The Saturday Between.

Somebody tweeted that Holy Saturday is like the pause between the full-stop and the capital letter.  I like that. I like the idea of the pause, the space. The meaning always lies in the spaces between the words. As a writer, what I want to do most of all is to create those spaces. For others to find the meaning.

Rewrite: Day 19. A Birthday.

I managed nothing on Friday. It was Good Friday but there was little time for contemplation. We were celebrating our grandson's second birthday with family. I did look at the blog a couple of times but my mind was a complete blank. We are staying at a Premier Inn so this is my 30 minutes free wi-fi ... and it's amost up. Happy Easter! (when it comes).

Rewrite: Day 18. Ordinary Lives?

Away. Traveling. Sorry.  This is all I managed on Thursday.

Our lives are humdrum. That's why we read. We read to touch something beyond our normal experience and yet there is nothing more fascinating than other people. But, it is hard to write about ordinary lives. Ordinary lives can be boring. One such novel nearly put me off reading for life: Anglo-Saxon Attitudes. Luckily, I was reading other books at the time - mostly science fiction and stories set in exotic places.  I was 14 or 15. Most of those books I have forgotten but I remember some from that time: Silas Marner by George Elliot, Hard Times by Charles Dickens and, different this, The Inheritors by William Golding.  The first two are books about ordinary lives lived against a background of others' wickedness. Silas Marner discovers human love in place of gold. Stephen in Hard Times finds it in the muck of industrial revolution.


It is hard to write about ordinary lives.

Rewrite: Day 17. Driving the plot.

It's a driving day today, and it will be again tomorrow because I'm off to Bristol and Beaconsfield for family birthdays and Easter. Not much writing, but I'll be thinking about how many plates Broderick can keep in the air and what he needs to do to keep them spinning. 
More plates! More plates! I hear you cry. 

The problems come when the plates take on a life of their own which they tend to do, especially when they are people as they are most of the time. People cause problems. There are, it is true, 'circumstances beyond our control', 'forces of nature' and even 'Acts of God' but these need to be used sparingly. Or maybe not. It depends what sort of book you're writing. Why not let rip all the forces in heaven and earth? Could make for an interesting ride. I will be thinking as I drive.

But here's a little something I came up with yesterday. 

What Broderick did [OHJ flies in?] [OHJ meets PAS] [Aerial survey] Drove van Talked to Rachel Recalled Edinburgh Met Hashay (f/b) Made pass at Rachel Looked for Berenice Found Berenice Received news

Motive Pursue crooks Make connections Find Nighthawks Get home Assess progress Companionship Explore origin, confess Attraction Parental responsibility accidental [Job or no job]

Value Spin story Personal chemistry Problem context Link drama Fix story progress Deepen relationship Reveal backstory Conflict relationship Add complexity Show values Personal stake

It's a chapter action chart. 
The idea was to focus my attention on What Broderick Did. Does it help? I'm not sure. I made one for both Chapters 8 and 9 at the top of the chapter, scanning through the paragraphs very quickly to pick out the main events and then analysed them, crudely, for Broderick Action.
I could add a fourth column: Spinning plates.
 
I'll see. After Easter, I will revisit the idea. 

What do you think? Could be helpful? Yes... or No... ?

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Rewrite: Day 16. He came. He saw. He conquered.

Today, I sent off my short story to The Bath Short Story Competition and I crunched Chapter 9 of the novel but I'm struggling with the dominant point of view in the story, that of the protagonist, Broderick. It should be straightforward but it's not. I can't blame the paper or the pen. I can't blame the computer. The problem is in my brain. 
What did Broderick do? 
He came. He saw. He conquered. 

I went looking for help on the web and here, below, is a summary of some of what I found.  Imagine ...

Life is hard 
A crisis devastates the protagonist’s world
It is a lose-lose situation for the protagonist

The protagonist (Z) is working against the clock
Z walks into trouble
Z works against insurmountable odds 

Z is teased, tested and tempted
Z has too much to handle
Z is run ragged trying to please everyone and keep all the plates in the air
Z is moving towards pleasure and away from pain

Ultimately, up the ante.

Know what the protagonist wants but frustrate its fulfilment
Distract, interrupt and delay
Add conflict, barriers, complications and failure

(OK. I'll see what I can do.)

All this good advice, and much more, can be found at Writers Digest.
In particular,
Nine tricks to writing suspense fiction. Simon Wood. 
How to up the stakes for your main character. Victoria Lynn Schmidt.  

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The Rules. The Rules.

Apologies, but I have to get this write, right.

It is submission day. The story is complete and ready to go, bar one last spit and polish. So, what am I trying to do? These brief extracts from the rules are for my own benefit (and the comments are my own); my brain does not deal well with rules.  
These are The Rules for The Bath Short Story Award.

• Any theme or subject (OK)
• Maximum length 2,200 words (OK)
• Typed, double or 1.5 spaced (think I can deal with that) (OK)
• Plain legible font (what the heck? Times New Roman? boring) (OK)
• Each page should be numbered (Yo!) (OK)
• Each page should ... carry the title of the story (Header/Footer, right?) (OK)
• Online entries must be submitted as an email attachment (No problem ...) (Done)
• Online entries must be submitted ... in PDF format only (... hells bells! PDF?) (OK. Sussed it)
• Closing date ... is Saturday, March 30th, 2013 (Under control. OK)
  
• There is a fee of £5 for each story submitted (Oh-kay... Oke Dokie. Dosh, eh?)
• You may pay via PayPal (Yeah. Got that, done that, somewhere, sometime, somehow; I'll ask the wife) (I did. She knew. Done)
• Entries must not have been previously published (No problem-0: OK)
• Do not put your name on the pages of your story (No, no, no) (OK)
• On the entry form:
• Contact details 
• name
• address
• tel. no
• e-mail address (Yo) (Done)
• The title of the story(Yo) (Done)
• Wordcount (Yo) (Done)
• (Yo-Yo) (All done)

That's some load of rules: legible font? PDF format? PayPal? Hope that's all of them. This is seriously challenging. Good job I've got four days to complete submission. Where to begin?
Existential panic. (Arrrrrh. All done. Sent. Scary moment.)

The Bath Short Story Award: The Rules - the real rules, unexpurgated.

Ends