Category Archives: Writing insights

Suspense writing with Iris Murdoch

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The Nice and The GoodThere is a scene in The Nice And The Good by Iris Murdoch that encompasses everything you need to know about suspense writing.

Plumped 295 pages towards the end of the 1969 edition of this rather meandering novel, it involves Gunnar’s cave, “its sole entrance only above water for a short time at low tide.” Murdoch drops this line in far earlier, building on the cave’s status in “the mythology of the children.”

For 15-year-old Pierce in particular, this sea cave is a place of fascination and dread. He fears it more than the other children do, and, equally, wonders about the possibilities of this hidden space, and marvels over the chance there could be a secret safe spot in there, or whether one would inevitably be drowned.

Towards the end of the novel, his heart has been broken, he’s cross with the world, and his behaviour is becoming increasingly erratic. The cave, seems to be the answer to this – the opportunity to face the threat head on, while allowing it to prise from him the choice of life over death. Once inside, with the entrance sealed by the tide, he will be at its mercy, and that, in his current state of mind, is oddly appealing.

But even this disastrous plan doesn’t go quite to plan. No sooner is he swallowed up by the darkness than he hears splashing nearby and discovers that Mingo, the family dog, has followed him in. Then John Ducane, a friend of his mother’s, swims in to see if he can find the boy. Now three lives are at peril in a dense, cold, alien blackness of the cave, and the reader (in my case, at least), is transfixed.

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How blogging can make us more present

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Krakow chimneys cr Judy DarleyI began blogging in 2008. I’d already been working as a journalist for several years, and having recently gone freelance, was seeking to fill the slightly alarming time between assignments. After years of following briefs, making my writing meet the expectations magazine readers and editors, writing a blog felt refreshingly free. For the first time since I was a child keeping a journal, I could, to some extent, write whatever popped into my head.

But soon came the disconcerting and simultaneously exhilarating realisation I had an audience. I needed to be aware my eyes were not the only eyes one the screen.

I needed to make sure I had plenty of quality content, so I did what I’d always done. I carried a notebook. I wrote down the things that occurred to me, the sights and snippets of daily life that amused or intrigued me, and some of them formed blog posts for a section I named ‘Foraging.’

More recently, one blog down and three years into blogging at SkyLightRain.com, many of these take the form of ‘Writing Prompts’. It makes me pay attention in a way I might not otherwise, and it’s deeply satisfying.

At the same time, as I seek out creative opportunities for my readers, I grow more aware of the literary and art events taking place, the courses, festivals, calls for submissions and competitions that might benefit my own output.

In a sense, a blog is a magazine, with each post an article or feature. The beauty of the blog is that there are few costs (just the hosting and domain name to shell out for if you want a bespoke name), and therefore no advertisers to appease. You have freedom, but also copy to provide. So you keep your eyes and ears open, pay attention to what’s happening around you, both online and out in the actual world.

I once attended a talk on mindfulness in which we were advised to take note of chimneys. It’s a simple way to ensure you look up, notice the sky, and, besides, many chimneys are beautiful.

Gathering material to blog about works in the same way. I’m a habitual daydreamer – a half hour amble could pass without me seeing anything but the thoughts inside my head. Requiring myself to spot things, and think about them, ensures I’m more aware of my surroundings – not only that, but enjoying them.

Arnos Vale trees cr Judy Darley

As my mind hops from idea to idea, my eyes can dart around and draw my attention to the way sunlight flickers between branches, the discarded toy on a wall, the faint absurdity of a lone shoe nestled in the shade of a bus stop. And then my mind stops wandering and wonders – whose toy is that? Why just the one shoe? Is someone right now limping home?

The world is full of intrigue.

As a blogger you’re a modern day hunter-gatherer. The snippets you overhear, the conversations you have, the twitter feeds and other blogs you read, all contribute to making your blog, and your life, more interesting. And, I would say, all that can add up to making you a more engaged, happier person.

What’s not to like?

The power of reading aloud

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Remember Me To The Bees launch photographer Pete GettinsThis month I’ll be doing readings at events in Cardiff and Bristol, sharing flash fictions pieces inspired by art, a short story based on the life of a lady aviator, and a tale prompted by superstition and the sea.

I love doing readings – it’s always somewhat terrifying, but at no other time do you receive such an instantaneous reaction to your work. I even enjoy reading out during sessions with the writing groups I attend. Somehow speaking the words I’ve written gives them life beyond the page, which is, in part, what every written word requires in one form or another.

With works in progress, it also helps me to hear where my writing would benefit from being tightened up or amended in some way. I sometimes wonder if the neighbours are ever puzzled to overhear me reading my latest story or chapter aloud, sometimes stopping mid-sentence as some previously unnoticed clunkiness or typos come to my attention.

If a sentence trips you as you speak it, something’s generally amiss. A few tweaks can smooth out the structure and rhythm, enrich each sentence, and get it closer to the flawless piece of prose or poetry you intended to construct in the first place.

If you haven’t tried it before, I definitely recommend giving it a go, even if it’s just you alone in a forest with an audience of trees. Even better, as one of my friends does, dictate your writing pieces into a Dictaphone or similar and play it back to yourself – you may find yourself cringing, but surely that will be worth it for the enhanced end result.

How to write a short story collection

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Knit graffiti in Arnos Vale cr Judy DarleyToday’s guest post comes from writer KM Elkes and offers an insight into the art of stringing a short story collection together.

Telling people you are working on a novel is easy enough. People ‘get’ novels. Even the least reader-ish person has probably read a couple, either because they were forced to at school or because they were part of Generation Harry Potter.

But a short story collection? Not so much.

Maybe that’s because short story collections are relatively unfamiliar – not so surprising when you consider bookshops force readers into an Indiana Jones-style quest to find them. They lurk unassumingly, a diaspora spread among distant bookcases, waiting for the day when someone has the bright idea to give them a shelf of their own.

But there’s a deeper issue too – even those in the biz, writers and publishers, are sometimes ignorant of what a short story collection really is. Which makes putting one together feel like a Sisyphean task.

Think about it. There’s plenty of advice out there on what makes a good novel – how to write it, pace it, plot it, sell it. But I’ve yet to Google a go-to guide on what constitutes a fantastic collection.

Most short story writers are busy just trying to make each story the best we can. The emotional investment is quick, deep and hard, the art tricky.  It’s only when you come to the point of putting your own collection together that you realise it’s not simply a matter of polishing up your bestest, nicest stories and pressing Send.

What does a short story collection involve? What does it need?

Well, in my opinion, many of the same things that characterise a good short story – unity of purpose and theme.

I’m not talking specifically about some clunky link (hey, watchya know, they’re all characters from the same street!) but something less obvious, spider silk thin at times, but there, somehow.

Runaway by Alice MunroLook at some wonderful collections – Alice Munro’s Runaway; Cathedral by Raymond Carver; Nathan Englander’s For The Relief of Unbearable Urges; Walk the Blue Fields by Claire Keegan. Whether or not the author planned it, there is a thread that runs through these books, located in place, or in an overarching theme, in the kind of lives they tackle and in that most intangible thing: voice.

Regardless of point of view, tense, sympathetic or abhorrent characters, regardless of timeframe or timeline, great authors have a voice, a way of storytelling that leaves an imprint on their collection.

Think of George Saunders at the frayed edge of satire, or the rich gravy of Saul Bellow’s language, the wry humour of Kevin Barry and Edith Pearlman’s precise concision – all give a shape that is the author’s own.

What can those of us putting our debut collection learn from this?

Being ruthless is necessary, especially with our earlier work. Yes they might have won prizes or been shortlisted for decent competitions, but do these stories fit with our latest work, where a more individual voice is starting to form? Perhaps it’s time for that tricky chat: “Thanks guys, we had fun, but I’ve moved on. It’s not you, it’s me.”

Tough love is also needed for the stories that are up to scratch, but simply don’t fit in. That cracking three thousand worder, which someone said reminded them of Jorge Luis Borges, probably won’t fit if you are building a reputation as the Cheever of Milton Keynes.

Even then, this process throws up fresh dilemmas. How do you know when you’re done? How do you know that the next story you write won’t be the one to top out the collection, the crowning glory that will pull it all together?

This is particularly tricky for me, and, I suspect, many other short story writers because I don’t (I can’t) write with a collection in mind. Story writing for me is a weird alchemy, when character, voice, theme and tone come together through some process that has little to do with the analytical part of my brain.

So time is important, to allow things to accrete. Maybe the key to creating a short story collection is the key to all writing – keep going, get better at it, read stories by people who are better than you, learn from them, accept your failures, don’t get carried away with your successes, rinse and repeat.

Eventually you may begin to ‘feel’ a group of stories huddling together. You sense a deeper resonance coming through, common themes being explored. You think – and this is as important as anything else – of a title that makes things tick.

Good advice is hard to come by, but fresh perspectives (note the plural), might help you push to keep creating new material or re-think existing work.

All of this points towards a simple fact – creating a short story collection is also about growing up as a writer, reaching a maturity which enables you to fathom how stories hang together, the palette you work with, the themes which gnaw at you and how that is not such a ‘bad thing’.

And that’s about as much as I can tell you. For now.

Author KM ElkesAbout the author

KM Elkes is an author, journalist and travel writer. He has won the Fish Publishing flash prize, been shortlisted twice for the Bridport Prize and was one of the winners of the Aesthetica Creative Writing Award 2014. He also won the Prolitzer short story prize in 2014 and wrote a winning entry for the Labello Press International Short Story Prize 2015. His work has appeared in various anthologies and won prizes at Words With Jam, Momaya Review, Writing WM, Bath Short Story Award, Lightship Publishing and Accenti in Canada. He blogs at www.kmelkes.co.uk and tweets via @mysmalltales.

KM Elkes will be sharing more of his writing expertise at free flash fiction workshops taking place at Bristol Central Library for National Flash Fiction Day (this Saturday!), along with NFFD director Calum Kerr and prize-winning author KM Elkes. The workshops take place from 1.30-4.30pm. KM is also taking part in An Evening of Flash Fiction, from 6pm at Foyles Bookstore Bristol, along with a number of other writers, including Zoe Gilbert, Kevlin Henney, Sarah Hilary, Freya Morris, Grace Palmer, Jonathan Pinnock, and, well, me.

How to run a literary salon

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This week’s guest post comes from Grace Palmer, co-founder of Bristol literary evening Novel Nights, and answers the question, what does it take to organise and launch a successful literary event?

I’ve been running monthly Novel Nights in Bristol since 2013, and I think you need qualities of courage, energy and commitment to run a literary event.

At the start you need courage and self-belief to launch a new event, and this is almost more important than having a good idea.

Like a lot of people I’m full of good ideas; mine was to create an event where guest speakers share their writing knowledge or expertise and where writers’ work could be showcased. The idea lay dormant for a long time – organising a public event was too daunting. I decided to ‘trial’ out the event, with no expectation of success, just to see if I could. The beauty of this approach is that you can see what works and what can be improved. The first one was great fun; people loved it and I made brilliant writing contacts. It’s now a well-established Bristol literary event.

Courage, energy and organisation skills

Courage will help you continue with the event in the early days when you don’t know if you’ll even cover the cost of the speakers or venue hire, whether your audience will like it, or turn up.

You need energy, or a group of trusted friends to help you, to sustain you and the event. Running events is hard work. You need to be well organised, look after your audience, create publicity, promote the event, chat on twitter and facebook, maintain a website, book speakers and so on. Phew! It helped that I’ve got a marketing background, but I’ve also made loads of mistakes along the way.

For me, Novel Nights  is a hobby I fit in around a full-time day job and my own writing, and it can be stressful. I think you have to love what you’re doing – even if you’re running an event as a business – as your integrity will shine through. I am keener on the end result than organising but you need to do both to be successful.

Ken Elkes reading at Novel Nights in March 2015

Ken Elkes reading at Novel Nights in March 2015

Commitment to your audience

Many times I’ve thought of giving up and this is where commitment comes in, to carry on going. You also need to keep the audience at the heart of what you do, and my philosophy is to keep improving everything. Having a good venue which supports you is key, and I’d recommend that you connect on-line with your audience – if they can tweet or blog about your event they will help to build excitement and a sense of community. Eventually the event becomes bigger than the organisers.

At Novel Nights we’ve had some fantastic nights with Jane Shemilt, Alan Snow, Sarah Hilary, Anna Freeman, Nathan Filer, Cally Taylor, Sanjida O’Connell, literary agent, Juliet Pickering and, most recently, a wonderful Short Story Evening with some superb writers.

Getting good quality writers who are good in front of an audience is key to any literary event I think. Likewise with readings, it’s good to keep things tight and the quality high, to create a buzz in the room.

Good luck. Hope to see you at Novel Nights.

The next Novel Nights is Comic Writing and Social Media for writers with Nikesh Shukla, and will be at the Lansdown, Bristol, on April 16th 2015.

Grace PalmerAbout the author

Grace Palmer recently sent her first novel, The Wish Bone, off to literary agents. Meanwhile the day-job as a press officer continues; writing stories about scientific research which have been published in national media. Grace studied journalism and has a BA in literature and creative writing. She organises Novel Nights in Bristol, which supports emerging writers and showcases the work of experienced novelists.

For the love of flash fiction

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Windmill Hill City Farm textures cr Judy DarleyFlash fiction aficionado and writer Jude Higgins tells us what prompted her to launch the Bath Flash Fiction award, and how you can get involved.

I launched the Bath Flash Fiction Award in February this year, specifically for writers who, like myself, love reading and writing micro fiction and enjoy entering competitions as a spur to finishing stories. I’ve been hooked on the form since 2012, when my colleague Alex, at Writing Events Bath, and I organised a flash fiction workshop with Tania Hershman.

The Bath Short Story Award, which I have been co-running for a few years with my writing group colleagues Jane Riekemann and Anna Schlesinger, has no lower word limit, but the stories writers submit are usually near the upper limit of 2200 words. Flash fiction is flourishing worldwide and I thought it would be good to have another international award, specifically for very short stories.

A different kind of writing contest

I also wanted to try something different. Most entries for big prize competitions, which are open for around six months, pour in during the final month. Last year, in the Bath Short Story Award, more entries came in during the final two weeks than in the first four months put together! In this competition, I aim to avoid this deadline effect by doing away with the deadline altogether. Instead, the award will close at 1000 entries – no fewer, no more. This means that writers have ownership of the end date and know they must submit as soon as they are ready instead of waiting until the last minute, or they might miss the chance to submit at all. It is an interesting process from my end. Like the writers, I have no idea when the competition is going to close.

The pleasure of unpredictability

It’s been six weeks since the award opened and entries are coming in steadily from around the globe. Who knows if it will end in a great rush of entries in the next few weeks, or continue for much longer? It’s entirely unpredictable. We don’t disclose the running total on the website due to the risk that could immediately infer a deadline and encourage writers to procrastinate, which is exactly what we’re aiming to prevent. It’s exciting to be receiving such a diverse mix of stories from countries so far including, UK, US, Eire, South Africa, Australia, Mexico, Israel, Brazil, New Zealand, Singapore. I am working hard on twitter to spread the word. All genres and styles are welcomed, traditional and experimental.

The prizes and fees

The money for the first prize of £1000, the second prize of £300 and the third of £100 is here waiting and I am delighted that Annemarie Neary, an award-winning short story writer and anovelist who has recently secured a two-book deal with Hutchinson, is judging the short list. She has judged other flash fiction competitions previously and has interesting things to say about writing to a small word count in my interview with her on the website.

There are other innovations in the competition. Writers can choose from three different entry options. Standard entry is £9, but Membership at £5, payable via Paypal or credit card, gives unlimited entries for just £4. Group entry means that five or more writers from a group, a creative writing class or a band of friends can, via one person, send in entries for £6 each. All the maths is worked out on the website.

The award is constantly evolving and the website team are working on another innovation for writers, coming  soon. I’ll keep you posted on that one.

Thank you to Judy for asking me to say more about the award. If you have any queries please get in touch through the help desk on the site bathflashfictionaward.com and we would love you to follow us on twitter @bathflashaward.

About the author

Jude Higgins has an MA in Creative Writing from Bath Spa University and has won prizes and achieved success in several writing competitions, including the Frome International Writing Competition. Most recently, she was long listed in the Fish short story competition 2013 and the Fish Flash Fiction competition 2013 and in 2014; her flash fiction ‘The Lottery’, received an Honourable Mention and is now published in the Fish 2014 Winners’ Anthology. Her short story ‘The Caravan’ is in ‘Reaching Out’ an anthology published by Cinnamon Press, 2013. With her friend Alex Wilson, Jude co-founded Writing Events Bath in 2009 and organises events with authors, agents and publishers in cafes, bookshops and other venues in Bath. Jude and Alex also lead popular writing groups for beginners and experienced writers. In 2012, Jude co-founded the Bath Short Story Award with Jane Riekemann, Anna Schlesinger and Caroline Ambrose and continues to work with Jane and Anna in organising this rapidly growing yearly competition. In February this year, Jude launched The Bath Flash Fiction Award.

Semicolonic Irritation – a guide to the semicolon

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Shell semicolon cr JDarleyThere are few punctuation marks that instil more dread than the semicolon. Getting good, simple advice on how to use it can, however, be rather difficult. In this week’s guest post, Karin Stone of WM Group offers a crucial guide to the semicolon.

Many people will tell you that using the semicolon properly is ‘just a matter of feel’. Unfortunately, if you don’t have ‘the feel’ in the first place, such advice isn’t much help.

The fact is the semicolon is a very useful little tool, and one that is all too often overlooked. And, far from being a question of feel, there are clear rules governing the correct use of the semicolon.

Tips for using the semicolon

In many respects, the semicolon can be regarded as about half way between a comma and a colon. The upshot of this is that there are two things the semicolon is extremely good at: lists, and joining sentences together.

Lists: what’s the big idea?

Read the following sentence out loud:

When you go camping in winter, remember to pack your Long Johns, for extra warmth, a silver blanket, in case of emergency, a propane stove, as butane tends not to work well in the cold, and make sure there are plenty of people who know exactly where you’re going.

The sentence feels breathless – like somebody is just blurting out a load of information. Now try this version:

When you go camping in winter, remember to pack your Long Johns, for extra warmth; a silver blanket, in case of emergency; a propane stove, as butane tends not to work well in the cold; and make sure there are plenty of people who know exactly where you’re going.

Essentially, the semicolon allows you to give better instructions to the reader about what each bit of the sentence is doing. That makes it easier to read, and people will thank you for it.

You can see that each big idea is followed up by a little idea – ‘a silver blanket [big idea], in case of emergency [little idea]’. When you have a series of big ideas and little ideas, separate the big ones with a semicolon.

Joining: independence day

We’ve said it before, and no doubt we’ll say it again: one of the most important things you have to do is to engage your reader. That means encouraging them to interact with the words you’ve written. And the semicolon can play an important part here too.

Say you have two separate sentences:

The semicolon is a much under-used punctuation mark.
For some reason, people seem to be scared of it.

Joining these sentences together using a semicolon demonstrates that although the ideas are independent, they are also connected:

The semicolon is a much under-used punctuation mark; for some reason, people seem to be scared of it.

Here, we’ve got two ideas that are intimately linked. To show that the second sentence comes as an explanation or refinement of the first sentence, we join the two sentences together – using a semicolon. As a result, the nature of the relationship becomes easier for the reader to identify.

A really comma error

The biggest single mistake people make when it comes to the semicolon is not using one when they join two sentences together. An awful lot of people use a comma instead of a semicolon. They tend to ‘feel’ that there’s something wrong with what they’ve written, but can’t tell exactly what.

Consider the following example:

I used to be convinced that the semicolon was really difficult to use, now, I’m not so sure.

The key to good writing is that it makes good reading. But in the above sentence, it’s difficult at first to work out what the word ‘now’ is doing, and the sentence loses impact because it’s confusing.

I used to be convinced that the semicolon was really difficult to use; now, I’m not so sure.

Here the reader has clear directions as to what’s going on in the sentence. The word ‘now’ clearly relates to ‘I’m not so sure’, and confusion is avoided.

Sign up to free writing tip bulletins at wm-communications.com/trade-secrets.

If you’d like to share your own writing tips or journey on SkyLightRain, get in touch! Just send an email  to Judy(at)socketcreative.com.

Poetry – seen and heard

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Speaker cr Judy DarleyWritten and performed poetry are often classified as completely separate genres, but until you start to place words on a page, or step onto a stage, how do you know which one you are creating? Here Joanna Butler attempts to untangle what it is that sets written and spoken poetry apart.

It’s possible to become a poet almost by accident

First things first, not every poet starts out by making it their life’s goal to become a poet, performance or otherwise.

“Writing and performing poetry was not my life’s ambition,” Joanna Butler say. “I always loved reading and listening to poetry when I was younger, and poetry and performance were always connected in my mind because of Shakepeare. But being a poet just never crossed my mind as being a career choice.”

Joanna comments that she “seriously underestimated poetry’s seductive power over the course of a life. I got to the age of thirty-five and poetry just fell out of me. It had slowly been creeping up on me all that time.”

Joanna began by writing poetry, but felt that “it just seemed like the words wanted to get out into the world and be heard – not just stay within the pages of a book.”

Let the poetry out

Of course, there is a distinct difference between poetry being read aloud, and poetry being performed, but in either of these instances the poet makes contact with their recipients that goes unnoticed when confined to the page.

Joanna feels poetry as  “a physical impulse in my chest. A compulsion to capture something in words and share it with someone else – an aching to make a connection.”

And that’s all before the writing even happens. “It feels like something that has to get out,” she says. “Then my job is to craft it into a form that can then be given to someone else. To share moments that strike me as amazing.”

Don’t take yourself too seriously

Joanna sees herself as the audience when she’s writing poetry, as opposed to preparing to perform. “I’m more interested in how the words sound to me. I have my fantasy audience, of course, when the writing’s not going well. The audience are big, appreciative and have come specifically to hear my work. This usually allows my ego to have the free rein it wants, enables me to stop being too serious, laugh at myself and continue to play with the writing and avoid mentally stiffening up. “

Expect conflicts between the ‘writing poet’ and the ‘performing poet’

While for Joanna, the writing poet and the performance poet are both parts of her, she admits that she’s met poets who hate performers and performance poetry and performers who think poets are the dullest people on earth. Everyone has an opinion and they always will. I don’t worry about it too much. I just do what feels right to me.”

Embrace the fear

However experienced you are, getting up on stage to perform poetry can be terrifying.

“I’d worked as an actress and drama teacher so I had a personal history of performance, but you need a different kind of courage to take to the stage with something you’ve written yourself,” Joanna says. “Always the worst moments for me are when I realise I am performing after another poet whose words have just blown me away. That’s tough. There’s nothing else that makes me feel like my own work is suddenly inadequate, when half an hour before it seemed like it could stand up to anything.”

But, she adds, this fear can be useful too. “Afterwards, moments like that actually drive me forward in my own work. One of my best moments was when, six months after a reading I’d done in Bristol Central Library, I bumped into a guy who’d been in the audience. He told me he couldn’t get a couple of the poems I’d read out of his mind. He could recite some lines word for word. This was after one hearing. That was pretty special.”

Joanna ButlerAbout the author

Joanna Butler is a multi-disciplinary artist who produces poetry, prose, songs, sculptures, photographs, films and live performance. She has given poetry readings at Bristol Poetry Festival, The Poetry Cafe, Covent Garden, Bristol Folk Festival and Tate Modern. She has made spoken word recordings of her poems ‘twisted history’ and ‘Snowstorm’ with musicians Paul Nash (North Sea Navigator), Doug Bott (Angel Tech) and Ian Wood (Cubeshiner). Joanna is currently developing an inter-species performance art project with dancers and horses.

Joanna will be performing her poetry and short prose at Travel, Home & Identity on November 7th 2014. Get tickets here.

How to create outstanding characters

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Park on Park Street cr Judy DarleyWith her debut novel Someone Else’s Skin, Sarah Hilary has revealed a skill for creating characters you can really believe in. Here she shares her tip for the craft of inventing people.

Source the initial glimmers

I wait for the voice to come first. I’m with Val McDermid on this: we don’t choose our characters, they choose us. Very occasionally I’ll glimpse something in a character in a TV show, or (more rarely) in real life, which will give me the beginnings of an idea, but more usually it starts with a line of dialogue, or inner monologue.

With Marnie Rome, I wrote her first, then retro-fitted the research and fine-tuning. It was more important that she felt real to the reader than real as a police detective. But I did read a lot of first person CSI-type pieces to get a feel for how she might approach her work.

Someone Else's Skin by Sarah HilaryListen to your character

I don’t consciously devise patterns of speech. It’s character driven, always. Marnie tends to speak quite abruptly and plainly, because she doesn’t have a lot of time or patience for double-speak. But, at the same time, she can be very empathetic, especially to victims. I love writing dialogue, but I tend to do it instinctively; it’s the one part of my craft I’ve never really had to work at.

Get to know all the sides of your character

In my first drafts, Marnie tends to be angrier and tougher. She’s often on the defensive, physically and emotionally. I find I need to dig beneath that angry surface to find the layers of response needed for the reader sees her vulnerability as well as her strength, her compassion as well her determination.

Her traumatic backstory is an important part of who she is, as it drives the narrative arc of the series. Not just what she went through, but how she has coped with it in the past (by burying herself in work) and how she will cope with it in the future (by confronting what happened and what it did to her). It’s a classic rites of passage, in some ways, but it’s complicated because it’s not just Marnie’s journey. It’s Stephen’s, her foster brother’s, too. He’s both the cause of the trauma, and its potential resolution. One way or another, he’s going to lead the pair of them into new territory.

Seek out telling details (such as Marnie’s tattoos)

The tattoos are indelible proof of Marnie’s teenage rebellion, a thing that haunts her throughout the series. Few people have seen the tattoos, which is one of the reasons she acquired them (casual sex is not an option when you have writing all over intimate parts of your body). Stephen has seen the tattoos. Marnie is still learning exactly what that means.

Choose your supporting characters with care

Characters such as Noah, Ed and Stephen each bring out a different side to Marnie. Ed is the one with the hardest task, I think, as he’s trying to help her recover at the same time as respecting her privacy at the same time as being in love with her and wanting to make her happy. That’s a tough, tough gig. Noah is a little in awe of Marnie as his boss, and as an ace DI, but he’s earning her trust, which is good for both of them. Her relationship with Stephen is the most complex one, and it’s the one which will change the most over the course of the series.

In some ways, she’s at her most vulnerable when she’s with Stephen, because he has the power to keep hurting her, by reminding her of what he did and withholding the reason why he did it. Marnie knows she will be hurt, every time she goes to see him. His punishment (long-term incarceration) is her punishment, in that sense.

Likewise, for your periphery characters

For Marnie Rome, these are the women from the refuge, especially Ayana, Hope and Simone. Ed tells Marnie that these women are ‘not her kind of victim’. They ran, and hid. They had to. But Marnie comes to see the strength in the women, different in each one, and I think that helps her to put her own strength (and weakness) into perspective.

Use your settings to explore aspects of your character

In Someone Else’s Skin, the prison and the refuge are both essential for that: enclosed spaces where it’s hard to breathe, and harder to feel safe. It was interesting, also, to put Marnie into Hope’s ‘perfect home’ with its showroom furniture and its shiny surfaces, and to watch her reactions. And Ed’s flat, with its jumble of stuff and its comfy mess. Setting is great. London is an amazing backdrop to the series, and I’m looking forward to taking Marnie into Battersea Power Station in book three.

Relish the luxury of a recurring character

I found that with Marnie Rome, it gave me the great luxury of being able to uncover her secrets slowly. She’s still surprising me, which is great, as it means she’s surprising readers too.

Create compelling, believable characters

Set goals for your characters, and then put obstacles in the way of those goals. See how your characters react, physically and emotionally. Give them at least five senses, and show them experiencing the world through those senses (i.e. not just rely on dialogue and inner monologue; tell us how the world looks, sounds, smells, feels to them). Get right inside their head, and under their skin, so the reader is right there, too. Even the nasty characters. Never show your hand as the author; instead, wrap your readers up in the story and the cast, as if it’s happening to them and/or to people they know and care about. Make them wonder what happens to the characters even after they’ve stopped reading. That’s the holy grail.

About the author

Sarah Hilary lives in Bath with her husband and daughter, where she writes quirky copy for a well-loved travel publisher. She’s also worked as a bookseller, and with the Royal Navy. An award-winning short story writer, Sarah won the Cheshire Prize for Literature in 2012. SOMEONE ELSE’S SKIN is her first novel, published by Headline in the UK, Penguin in the US, and in six other countries worldwide. A second book in the series will be published in 2015. Set in London, the books feature Detective Inspector Marnie Rome, a woman with a tragic past and a unique insight into domestic violence.
NO OTHER DARKNESS, the second Marnie Rome book, will be published in spring 2015. Sarah is currently working on the third and fourth books in the series. Follow Sarah on Twitter at @Sarah_Hilary

How to write a dictionary

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DICTIONARY FOR DYLAN - DOOZIEToday’s guest post comes from award-winning poet Emily Hinshelwood, and offers details of her Dictionary for Dylan project, shares her passion for words, and invites you to get involved.

Two years before his death, Dylan Thomas said: “words are the most important things to me ever.” He commented that as a young child he had fallen in love at once. “There they were, seemingly lifeless, made only of black and white, but out of them, out of their own being, came love and terror and pity and pain. Out of them came the gusts and grunts and hiccups and heehaws of the common fun of the earth.”

Relish a literary legacy

When I was invited to be the writer in residence in one of this year’s centenary projects, The Dylan Thomas’ Pop-up Writing Shed, I knew I wanted to do something that enjoyed words and involved people in playing with them. Dylan Thomas crafted his works with such skill and dedication that this seemed to me to be a fitting tribute to a man who had lived for and loved those black and white shapes.

I also wanted to encourage people to explore their own use of language, and not to feel restricted to using words as they appear in our dictionaries. So I decided to invite people to invent entirely new words and their associated meanings. It’s something that anyone of almost any age can do – and at the end of the year I’ll be compiling the words into a Dictionary: The Dictionary for Dylan.

 

The pop-up writing shed is a replica of Dylan’s iconic shed in Laugharne where he worked for the last four years of his life. It has been faithfully re-created down to the curled pictures on the walls, the cigarette butts, the beer bottles on the desk, and his jacket on the back of the chair. And it’s on wheels!

Gorslas school with shed

Tap into the hwyl

So since February I have had my head in the shed, visiting schools and festivals, talking with people about Dylan Thomas and being witness to the birth of literally thousands of new words.

People’s eyes light up when they hear that their word will go into a dictionary. Often it is a family word that they’ve used for generations, or a word one of their children coined when they were learning to speak. Some people make an anagram their name or splice two words together, or do what Dylan did and write them backwards. There are those that give me the detailed etymology of the word, those that produce onomatopoeic words, those that give multiple definitions. And so far I have not had the same word twice!

I’m delighted with the response, the imagination and the hwyl with which people are embracing the project. (in case you were wondering, hwyl means ‘stirring feeling of emotional motivation and energy’) And it’s not restricted to people who come into the shed. We have an online form and a postcard for people to send me their words.

 

Marvel at what rolls in!

I find it fascinating the different kinds of words people invent. In primary schools they are often about superpowers and magical creatures, the world with infinite possibilities; in secondary schools there seems to be a lot of words that reflect teenage anxieties, the loss of friends, or being hurt by gossip; then there are all the situational words, eg in Hay Festival (pictured above) there were plenty of words about mud and waiting around too long for friends!

I have many, many favourites and I tweet a word of the day @dylandictionary; but just to give you an idea here’s a few:

MECHANAISSANCE the period 1860-1980 when machinery & typewriters were used. (Euan Sinclair)
BOOZEFUMBLE to botch any activity while under the influence or drink (Alan)
WELLIBRATION a happy event where everyone wears wellies (Rebecca McGrattan)
TWACKERED To be exhausted from looking after twins (Daniel McCallum)
KETTELAK When there’s not quite enough water in the kettle for all the cups of tea (Annette Edwards)
KLANGSKRUNT hatred of piped ‘music’ in cafe’s, shops and other places (Kathryn Stone)
EXPAEDIATE to win time away from your children (Randal Turner)
NOGARD someone who doubts the existence of dragons (Nuala Reid)
HONKY-PONKY the sexual activity of geese (Mike Maguire)
FRAMBOIDLED sunburnt (Peter C. Frost)
BAGSEA to secure a place by the sea (Sarah Jenkins)
GOBULUS talking endless jibberish (Sarah E Fenton)
SNOZEFELDE a favourite blanket or piece of material which aids sleep (Claire Neville)
MEMDIMION A moment when you forget a long-standing acquaintance’s name (Delyth Eirwyn)
NOXILATE to perplex someone with endless facts (Lara Gardner)
LILLENPOP a person who refuses to take life seriously (Olivia Field)
POSICULT A collective noun for optimists (Leigh Keen)

If you would like to contribute a word to the dictionary, please do send it to us via the online form at www.dylanthomasboathouse.com/dictionary-for-dylan, and keep your eyes peeled for the shed. It really is popping up all over the place!

Emily Hinshelwood at writing shed

Author bio

Emily Hinshelwood (pictured above) is a freelance writer, performer, animator and community arts facilitator. Winner of the John Tripp Award for Spoken Poetry, Emily performs her poetry in a variety of settings, from outdoor poetry walks, to the sitting rooms in IKEA, to sustainability conferences as well as traditional arts venues. Her recent poetry collection, On Becoming a Fish was inspired by a series of walks around the 186-mile Pembrokeshire coastal path and took seven years to complete. She has won many literary awards for her poems and is especially interested in engaging audiences with poetry. Emily also runs a programme of Arts and Climate change projects for the charity Awel Aman Tawe, which engages people in the issues of climate change through a variety of arts genres.