Hi Pat

Hope this arrives - have checked, all the notes seem to be there

John

THE NOVEL

1 Ask yourself why want to write it - does the story work better, does it sustain a novel?

2 Can you really do it?

3 Can you sell it? Pick an idea that is fresh so read and read novels

4 Have a well developed start, middle and end - - develop the story - different plots, different strands developing together, different characters, different viewpoints to keep the reader engaged.

5 Good idea to write the plot down in a synopsis so you have a detailed idea of where you want to go - stops your writing drifting

6 You may wish to plan it in chapters or datelines or different characters

7 If you need to write a short novel then write it because the reader will see through padding and flannel

8 The end - must be compelling or poignant - could have a twist, must pull everything together, may have an epilogue but leave no questions to be answered unless that is the point of the story

Rules of the short story

1 . The best stories are the ones that follow a fairly narrow subject line: too many plotlines and you end up with a novel

2. An effective short story often covers a very short time span. It may be one single episode that proves pivotal in the life of the character.

3. Don't have too many characters. Each new character will bring a new dimension to the story, and too many diverse dimensions dilute the theme.

4. Make every word count. If a word is not working towards putting across the story, delete it.

5 Write in a series of episodes (like small chapters)

Hi

Got into plotting last night.

Themes included: rules of writing

Ÿ You may wish to pack lots of information in, does the reader need it?

* You may not have put enough information in - you can imagine where a scene is set but have you given the reader the information?

* You may have drawn a character but do they imagine it?

* Does the story move on quickly enough?

* Be disciplined - if it is not needed chop it out

"When you're ready for the serious plotting process, choose the strongest idea. Or let it choose you. Sort through your mind, and the boxes, and bags, and drawers--and bam, the strongest idea will convince you you've chosen well."

Hi Pat

Can’t remember when you are back at class but here is the breakdown for session 2. We get stuck into plotting next week.

Creating the triangle

Good story writing depends on many things but can be boiled down to three factors, the triangle. At one corner is the narrative, a strong story, plenty of pace, a tale that enthrals the readers. At another corner is a sense of place, a strong sense of where the action is taking place. At the third corner is a sense of being, the creation of characters strong and interesting enough to carry the story. Get the triangle right and the rest flows from it. Each writer would put a different theme at the top, some come from story,

A sense of place

It is crucial if you write about a place that the reader can see it.

You have choices: do you write rich and vivid prose to paint a word picture or do you keep it minimalist - describe a tree in a park and we all see a different tree and a different park? Perhaps we only need to say it is a tree in a park? Whatever you do, do not make it too long, you do not have a lot of words to play with in a short story. If you seek to describe the setting, and the reader does need something to focus on, seek to use the following components:

1 Physical characteristics - what does it look like, any quirks which bring it to life?

2 Use your reader’s senses - what does the place smell, taste, sounds like?

3 What does it feel like to be there?

Thanks John

Contined session 1 notes

This is children's writer Neil Gaiman

“You get ideas all the time. The only difference between writers and other people is we notice when we're doing it.
You get ideas when you ask yourself simple questions. The most important of the questions is just, What if...? Another important question is, If only...And then there are the others: I wonder...and If This Goes On...and Wouldn't it be interesting if...

Those questions, and others like them, and the questions they, in their turn, pose ('Well, if cats used to rule the world, why don't they any more? And how do they feel about that?') are one of the places ideas come from.
An idea doesn't have to be a plot notion, just a place to begin creating. Plots often generate themselves when one begins to ask oneself questions about whatever the starting point is.
Sometimes an idea is a person. Sometimes it's a place. Sometimes it's an image. Often ideas come from two things coming together that haven't come together before. ('If a person bitten by a werewolf turns into a wolf what would happen if a goldfish was bitten by a werewolf?')
All fiction is a process of imagining: whatever you write, in whatever genre or medium, your task is to make things up convincingly and interestingly and new. 

Exercise 2 Are there are any ideas floating round in your head at the moment? A fragment, a face, a person, an idea, a place? 

Pat

You asked for some notes from session 1. Here goes:

In recent courses, we have looked very much at characters so this one mixes a few ideas up together - why do we write what we write and how do we make sure that our stories do the job we want of them? And it looks at plot.

The end of term work is to produce a story - the course will examine how that story goes together, what are its ingredients.

It starts with the premises that there are seven basic plots in literature and that all stories derive from them.

When I researched this, I came up with one theory that they are: overcoming the monster;

rags to riches;

the quest;

voyage and return;

comedy;

tragedy;

rebirth.

Another site came up with a series of ideas based around Man versus - Man versus the environment, Man versus technology, Man versus - you get the idea.

As for me, my stories are variances of basic themes -

the power of revenge,

the power of family,

the power of money,

the power of ambition,

the power of love,

the power of blind faith,

the power of failed society.

Exercise 1 The first question is what are your seven stories? Do you keep coming back to one theme time and time again and why?

Exercise 2 Which vehicles are you drawn towards - short story, novel, film? We will try to look at some of these as we go along.

So you know your theme, you know your genre. Next is the idea. Where does that come from?

Continued in the next note

Hi

Got your message re the CD story. Any chance you can go to your section of the Forum (down the bottom of the home page) and it will ask you to reply? You can then cut and paste your story into there, that way everyone can see it. Or go to quick add (right hand side of the front page and when it asks you to add a blog cut and paste it there)?

Just before Christmas, Inkerman Writers secured £1500 to produce CD ‘talking books’, primarily for the partially-sighted. There are two deadlines by which we need to spend the money - end of March for discs, end of April for the launch. Just been with Richard to discuss how we go forward. I have secured a deal with a local company that will allow us to produce 1000 discs for the same as it would cost us to produce the originally envisaged 500. That means we can send discs to charities involved and have some to sell for Inkerman Writers (as many as 500).

The recording will be handled by Richard and he and I have talked about two or three of our writers whose voices are particularly well suited. We will chat further about this when we next meet.

The CD will allow us eight stories if we restrict each one to 1100 words approximately (ten minutes a story). Our proposal is to choose four stories from ‘Tuesday’ and four from ‘Wednesday’. If you are not currently attending courses we will count you as from the night when you did attend.

We need to select stories by the end of January to allow for recording and post-production. Rather than run through stories in class, the idea is that you let me know which stories you think would fit in well (there is no theme). They may be on our sites (www.inkermanwriters.co.uk or this one or you may have read something you liked in our anthology, A Strawberry in Winter, or heard something in class. Or you may have a piece of your own work you wish people to see, in which case you can pass copies round at class, email them or post them on this site. When we reach the cut off point, we will add up which stories have the most recommendations.