January 2, 2025

Lorna Fergusson

Books of 2024

January 2, 2025

Lorna Fergusson

Writing Historical Fiction: wise advice at the Historical Novel Society Conference 2024

November 9, 2024

Lorna Fergusson

Writing Advice, Writers' Events, This Writing Business

Back in the spring, I reached the 17th to 19th century category shortlist of the Historical Novel Society’s First Chapters competition. It was the nudge that encouraged me to attend the HNS conference in early September. The HNS and I have history (ahem): I attended the conference in 2012 and in 2014, and was on the committee for the Oxford conference in 2016. I have history with the competitions too! I was on the shortlist for the Short Story Award in 2012 with ‘Reputation’ and won in 2014 with ‘Salt’: you can read both these stories in my ebook An Oxford Vengeance. In 2016 I was on the judging panel for that year’s short story award.

Other tempting reasons for going: the chance to meet up with friends I’d made at previous conferences and to make new ones. Plus, the location: Dartington Hall in Devon, which is set in beautiful countryside near Totnes and which has stunning gardens. I’d heard so much about it over the years and it didn’t disappoint. What did disappoint was the weather – lots of cloud and rain over the weekend, but on Monday morning , when virtually every other delegate had left, the sun came out at last and everything glowed.

The conference theme was page to screen, which is really apropos, given so many historical novels achieve fame through television and film productions. (As I write this I’m eagerly anticipating the start of the TV dramatization of Hilary Mantel’s The Mirror and the Light). There were so many talks and presentations – it was impossible to attend them all, of course. But here’s a selection:

The HNS founder Richard Lee opened the conference on Saturday 7th September before Bernard Cornwell gave the keynote. Who better to kick off the weekend’s talks, given that his novels about Sharpe and Uhtred have transferred so successfully to the screen? He was sardonic and down to earth, with a great range of anecdotes. His first piece of advice was ‘Don’t get too excited’ if an offer for your work to be filmed comes your way: he only believes that the project will actually happen ‘when the credits roll.’ And if you’re invited to write the script? ‘For Godsake, say no!’ He expressed frustration with those who don’t portray history correctly on the screen, lambasting Ridley Scott’s film Napoleon for not knowing the difference between a mortar and a howitzer and for having an officer at the battle of Waterloo scream at his men to go ‘Over the top!’ He shared anecdotes about actor Sean Bean, saying that now when he writes the Sharpe novels, it’s Sean’s voice he hears. He came across as one who certainly does not suffer fools gladly, including the French, the ‘little darlings’ who make the films and writers who claim to have writer’s block, which is something he does not believe in. He said that he has ‘never done a structure in my life … Part of the joy of sitting down to write is to see what happens.’

In a discussion of writing medieval fiction afterwards, Elizabeth Chadwick reminded us that ‘A writer is a bridge between now and then’ and Matthew Harffy, talking about the difficulty of accessing the medieval mindset, asserted that ‘Authenticity is more important than accuracy.’

Ian Mortimer, author of the very popular Time Traveller’s Guides, used his platform to disagree most vigorously with the traditional way of teaching history, with its ‘God’s eye view of the past’. He called for ‘free history’ rather than neutral, formulaic history.

Kate Quinn highlighted something every historical writer can relate to when she said ‘You run into the danger that you never finish the research.’ Ain’t that the truth (I speak from experience …)

On Saturday evening, there was a gala dinner in the incredible Great Hall which dates back to the time of Richard II, with after dinner speeches and the announcement of the overall winner of the First Chapters competition, Lenore Hart, for ‘The Alchemy of Light’. Entertainment was by the Sea Gals, who sang sea shanties with great gusto.

On Sunday, Diana Gabaldon took a very different line from Bernard Cornwell. He had advocated not getting involved with the scriptwriting, but she has very much been part of the production of the scripts for the Outlander series. She gave us insights into the process: the writers’ room, the showrunner who produces the ‘beat sheets’, the way changes are made for political, gender or race reasons. She described how, if you are not writing within a recognised genre category, you need to ‘make it as good as you can so they don’t care whether it doesn’t fit in a box’. She wrote Outlander ‘as a practice novel to learn how to write a book’, having intended to write crime. And there was common ground with Bernard Cornwell when she said ‘I don’t write in a straight line … It comes to me in pieces.’ So anyone who worries about not having their book completely mapped out in advance can relax a little.

My friend Alison Morton chaired a lively panel discussion with authors Kate Quinn and Ruth Downie, all brilliantly costumed in Roman outfits, about how ancient Rome has been portrayed on the screen. They highlighted the eternal fascination we have with Rome and how it’s all about common humanity but also about the great differences between their outlook and ours. ‘What is it about blokes with swords?’ Alison asked, before describing how she came to write her Roma Nova series, about a part of the Roman Empire surviving into the modern age – a Roman Empire ruled by women.

Jane Johnson, in her vibrant talk, proved that ‘The most authentic writing comes from the depths of your experience’ when she described how she met her husband during a dramatic and romantic adventure in the Atlas mountains while she was researching The Tenth Gift. They now live in Cornwall and location clearly feeds into and sustains her novel-writing. Like many of us, it’s when she trips over an interesting historical fact that her imagination kicks into gear. ‘One of the reasons I write is to find those secrets in our history,’ she says, while adding that ‘It’s more difficult in many ways to write about history that’s within people’s memory.’ She has had an amazing career as publisher as well as writer and worked with Peter Jackson on the Lord of the Rings films in New Zealand; she published Tolkien’s books at George Allen and Unwin and she launched the Voyager imprint which published Stephen King and George RR Martin. I’ve read several of her books and am really looking forward to reading the latest, The Black Crescent.

Finally, Scottish author Shona MacLean discussed with her agent Lisa Highton how she never intended to be a novelist at all. She was all set for an academic career, but a job move for her husband led to her living in a small town in the north east of Scotland where she became interested in its history: what she learned turned into a novel, The Redemption of Alexander Seaton. Not only have I read this novel, but I went to school in Banff for three years so I was keen to hear what she had to say! What came across strongly was her passion for the period and more than that, the locality: even when she was under pressure from her publisher, what mattered most to her was a setting she could relate to. There was also a pressure to write books in a series – this seems to be particularly the case when your story involves a crime or two! She warned of ‘the marshes of research’ but her love for the history of Scotland and her respect for ‘the spirits of the folk’ really shone. Her latest book, The Bookseller of Inverness, is a standalone (I’ve read this one too!) and is set in the aftermath of Culloden. It powerfully depicts the trauma of defeat and the risks of staying loyal to a cause that’s been lost, as well as the corruption of faith and honour that fear and oppression may bring.

I said at the start of this blogpost that a major part of the appeal of a conference is the chance to meet and talk. I was delighted to enjoy meals at the White Hart at Dartington with my friends and to meet new writers and readers. Afterwards, I joined my friend Clare Flynn, multi-published historical novelist, in a beautiful old Devon cottage (well, it had to be old!) for a brief writing retreat. I was working on revisions for my new edition of The Chase, which counts as historical these days as it is set in 1989, (the ebook is now out in this edition with a new cover - paperback to be updated very soon), plus my forthcoming book of short stories, One Morning in Provence. More about these in a future blogpost!

Interested in writing or reading historical fiction? Find out more about the HNS here.

May 28, 2024

Lorna Fergusson

Inspiration, This Writing Business, Writers' Mindset, Writing Advice

Writing retreats: how to get the balance right

May 28, 2024

Lorna Fergusson

Inspiration, This Writing Business, Writers' Mindset, Writing Advice

A month ago I returned from the third writing retreat I’ve spent in the company of the best writing friends you could imagine. In 2021 we went to an old Arts and Crafts house in Surrey. Last year, we were by the sea, in Marazion, Cornwall. This year we chose the Loire region of France.

I have loved all three retreats and I’ve come away from each with new enthusiasm, new insights, new knowledge. I think that for me, this was the best one yet.

Why was that? It was all about getting the balance right. Our first retreat was too short for the kind of deep-dive experience writers seek. A retreat is all about getting in touch with your creativity in a location where the everyday cares and distractions of normal life no longer interrupt. I came back from Surrey with a new idea but little actual writing done.

Cornwall is for me a spiritual home. I have been in love with its landscape and history for more than two decades. Maybe this got in the way during the Marazion retreat. As the group member who found and co-ordinated the property let, I was so intent on making the experience perfect for everyone else that I lost sight of what I was there to do. Once again, I came home having not been as productive as I’d intended, though I had learned a lot about publishing and marketing from the multi-published authors in our group.

If you go on a retreat, it’s important not to undervalue the non-writing time. Things go on that are intangible; they may not seem obviously practical or developmental but actually they are. When I look back at all three retreats, I can see how our friendships have deepened. How it is crucial to be with people you trust. How we root for each other, nag one another, sympathise with one another, give each other ideas and information. How we share laughter and anecdotes and strategies. How we defend one another in the context of a publishing world that can be hostile or frustrating or plain incomprehensible. We steady one another. We reach out from our little writing cells and know someone will be there to reply, cajole, soothe, giggle, share indignation, gossip, inspire.

The French trip had minor downsides. The travelling was onerous. The weather wasn’t great. But we could cope with that. There were incredible pluses: we shared an amazing gite in the Loire countryside. We spent time alone or in small groups or all together. The gite had great facilities, including not one, but two swimming pools! We went on an excursion to the beautiful château of Amboise. Those members who live in France were indefatigable in their efforts to ensure we were all comfortable and well fed. Our evenings were spent in gales of laughter as we played word games and shared mystery readings.

I went to France with a plan: I would not burden myself with notes and research and all the paraphernalia of the two major projects I am engaged in. I took my iPad and a slim notebook, that’s all. I chose to write something different, for publication this summer. I was disciplined: I went on the Amboise trip but not on two other excursions. I retired to my gorgeous peaceful room after breakfast and wrote in bursts until lunch and after lunch, knowing that the evening’s fellowship (and wine!) would be my reward for a productive day. I struggled during the first couple of days, then it all gelled. I came home with 10,000 new words for my new project. I couldn’t have been happier.

Back home it is hard to maintain the momentum, of course, but I am still plugging away. Already we are discussing where our next retreat will be …

Photos above: notebooks I made for my friends; at the Château d’Amboise; in my writing room; breakfast spread; headshot by Jean Gill

Advice if you’re going on a retreat:

Make sure you go with the right people. A retreat is about community. It’s about support and sharing, not competition. You need to feel you can trust your fellow writers and you can open up to them. Over the years, my friendships with my fellow retreaters, some of whom I met initially online, has grown ever-deeper and more invaluable to me.
It’s not all about you. It’s about listening and supporting. It’s about moving out of your own self-obsessed grumbles and resentments about writing and publishing. It’s about knowing you are not alone and neither is anyone else in the group. Knowing that you can offer fellowship, love and support to your friends is infinitely precious.
Make the most of the skills you bring. I’m an editor and writing coach. Several of us are genius marketers with experience of traditional, independent and hybrid publishing. My friend Jean Gill is a fantastic photographer and took new headshots of me for my author website!
It’s about the right choices: the length of the retreat, its location, its comfort. There is no point in not being kind to yourself. A retreat is a celebration. Choose somewhere with comfy beds and space around you, tables to write at, nature to contemplate, good food and drink. A retreat is not a penance: it is a reward for your commitment to the present and future of your writing life.
Make plans. Go to the retreat with a clear idea of what you want to accomplish. It may be that you’re not particularly interested in coming away with a massive word count, which is not a badge of honour to be waved – after all, those new words may not be the best words in the end … You may go on a retreat to edit a completed novel, brainstorm a new one or find a way of becoming unstuck. You may come home with a single sheet of paper on which is sketched out an outline or a new plot-thread – result! This is precious time you are giving yourself, so spend some time beforehand evaluating which task or aim you want to focus on. Otherwise (and I speak from experience) you will hop about from task to task and not get any of them done to your satisfaction.
Go equipped. Consider keeping it simple. I chose not to take my laptop and my files of research and outline notes this time. This freed me up. You might take only a notebook which you use in a random way, jotting ideas, single lines, whole passages down as they come to you. This is liberating. You know that when you come home you can expand and organise from these beginnings.
Decide if the internet is important and if it is, what use you are going to make of it. There’s no point spending a fortune on a trip if all you do is doom-scroll on social media. But if you have a launch coming up, posting photos of your writing life keeps your readers interested. If you’re writing a tricky scene, you may need the internet to consult sources and facts. Or, like me, you simply type xxx at any point you’re unsure about and you do the follow-up checking when you get home.
Think about how you’re going to maintain some of the momentum after your return. Not just the momentum – the spirit of the retreat. This is hard, I know, because real life comes washing back into your consciousness like a tide. Consider having a Facebook group with your friends, dedicated to the retreat and its aftermath so you can keep in touch with the people who shared the experience with you. Consider keeping a writing journal during the retreat, that you can reread to reawaken the feelings and thoughts you had while you were there.

Photos above: Amboise house; fireplace and bed in château; mural of French Resistance hero Jean Moulin in Chartres; carvings and rose window in Chartres (on way to the retreat); Château d’Amboise

To Alison, Carol, Clare, Jane, Jean and Karen - thank you so much for your friendship!

March 5, 2024

Lorna Fergusson

Guest Posts, Writing Advice

Anachronisms ‘R’ Us: Alison Morton discusses balancing accuracy and entertainment in historical fiction

March 5, 2024

Lorna Fergusson

Guest Posts, Writing Advice

I’m delighted to welcome Alison Morton back to the Fictionfire blog! Last time she visited she talked about plotting her series of thrillers and before that she talked about rejacketing her books. Now she is celebrating publishing the next in her Roma Nova series. Set in the 4th century, it is the second in a two-part Foundation story, harking back to the beginnings of Roma Nova, a country where a remnant of the Roman Empire survives, ruled by women, into the 21st century. It is an absolute tour de force of the ‘what if’ power of imagination that writers – and readers – love! Rome and its way of life is corrupted and disintegrating; as the risks grow, the central characters in Exsilium realise they must escape and make a new life for themselves. The result is an incredibly detailed and involving journey, as compelling as any tale of wagon trains heading across the prairies to California! What I love about Alison’s fiction is that you care about the people but you also learn so much – and it’s often the tiny details and references that are the most telling, whisking you back into a lost way of life and way of thinking.

Here are Alison’s thoughts on that eternal tension between being true to the past and to the needs of modern readers.

If I pick up a book set in the 14th century and I hear a character say, ‘Have you reached out to her?’, my fingers itch for a red pen. If that book is set in the 2nd century, I throw my Kindle on the floor. No Roman or Medieval speaker used the expression ‘reached out’; they spoke or talked to the other person, possibly reasoned with them, depending on the context.

Romans spoke British English, of course(!). Who hasn’t watched I Claudius or HBO’s Rome? To be serious for a moment, we don’t know how people spoke in the past. Surviving written sources show us how they wrote in certain contexts such as reporting speeches, writing travel accounts, book-keeping, recipes, laws, political appointments, even informal letters with dinner party invitations or moaning about bar bills.

In our own world and that of our parents and perhaps grandparents, we know how differently people of different ages, backgrounds, education and experience speak or spoke. Society is far less hierarchical now than it was previous times, even up to the Second World War. In Jane Austen’s time, sisters spoke in one mode to each other, a more respectful way to their parents and in a third way to servants. Comportment (or behaviour, as we now call it) reflected a person’s position in society as well as their age.

Romans were very mindful of each tiny slice of societal position and dinner invitations would be handed out, or not, according to these rules. Some slaves could be punished for the least impudent word or look while others, such as personal attendants, secretaries or hairdressers, had more leeway, but they still knew their place. When I read a scene in a recent novel where a young female slave backchatted a male head of household, I sighed. Hard though it may seem to us, if that slave had done that in reality, she would have been whipped and possibly sent out to field work or sold.

Immersing ourselves as modern writers within a historical setting with alien values and outlooks can be difficult, even upsetting, but our task must be to form a bridge for the reader between that past and our present. Our novels may convey the flavours (more likely smells) of our chosen period, the ways people acted, their appearance, the luxury or misery of their surroundings, their artisanship, coins, laws and food. However, they are still people, human beings like us. They will feel joy, hope, unhappiness, fear and pleasure as we do. How significant those feelings are in the context of their lives and how they communicate them is another question.

For the novelist, one of the best ways to show characters’ thoughts and feelings is through dialogue. Young Marcus and his buddy, Antonius, might be going off on a spree, but being adolescents, they might be worried about bunking off their lessons and their consequent punishment – probably a thorough beating. While these boys’ conversation will be informal, it will not include ‘like’ or ‘innit’ every other word, or ‘wicked’ or ‘cool’.

Roman males spoke robustly; elite males were rigorously trained in oratory as part of a demanding education, so their speech was necessarily formal especially when talking with their fellow senators. Members of the military would have used a version of ‘squaddie speak’: short, succinct dialogue with often denigrating remarks about non-Roman peoples, lumping them together as barbarians.

Roman women were brought up to be wives and mothers, learn household skills and were often given at least basic literacy and numeracy skills. They would defer to their male head of household, but, of course, like women throughout the ages, many would know how to circumvent the worst aspects of situations they disliked. Poorer women worked and their dialogue would be plain, with a smaller vocabulary and probably more world-weariness than wealthier sisters.

For the writer in any Roman period, even a time in transition such as the world of late 4th century EXSILIUM, or the Medieval period, there are more subtle traps. In 1995, Bernard Cornwell published The Winter King, the first of a trilogy about King Arthur. In the book, set in the 6th century, he mentioned snowdrops. ‘You fool!’ a correspondent wrote to him, ‘Everyone knows snowdrops were not introduced to Britain till the 12th century!’ Cornwell confessed he had not known, but reported he was amazed by how a trivial error could prompt letters of seething rage.

I recently fell headlong into a major hole when drafting EXSILIUM, but caught it in the second version of the uncorrected proof sent out to advance readers. Dozen and half-dozen are such common and harmless everyday words that I hadn’t noticed how often I’d used them to mean small groups. The main problem was that Romans didn’t have the concept of a dozen. It derives from old French dozaine or doseine meaning a collection of twelve things or units with first use c. 1300. Ironically, it’s founded on the Latin number for twelve duodecim, but its sense as a word for a group was not in use in the Roman period.

Luckily, I knew not to use minutes and seconds for short intervals of time – also not current in the Roman period – and so moments, instants, breaths and heartbeats are scattered throughout EXSILIUM. Furniture is another trap and I consigned a sofa to oblivion and replaced it with a stool.

But in a comforting way, I discovered with my writer’s eye a monumental blooper when I re-read a favourite Roman novel by A Famous Author which was set in the 2nd century AD. I had bought the book nearly twenty years ago. Our hero on horseback was stuck in traffic when approaching the gate of Rome and stood up in his stirrups to get a better view of the obstacle ahead. The problem? The Romans didn’t have stirrups until the East Romans adopted them, possibly from the Avars, in the 6th century. I smiled, then read on.

Writers go to a lot of trouble to bring the past to life!

Exsilium: exile is living death to a Roman

AD 395. In a Christian Roman Empire, the penalty for holding true to the traditional gods is execution.

Maelia Mitela, her dead husband condemned as a pagan traitor, leaving her on the brink of ruin, grieves for her son lost to the Christians and is fearful of committing to another man.

Lucius Apulius, ex-military tribune, faithful to the old gods and fixed on his memories of his wife Julia’s homeland of Noricum, will risk everything to protect his children’s future.

Galla Apulia, loyal to her father and only too aware of not being the desired son, is desperate to escape Rome after the humiliation of betrayal by her feckless husband.

For all of them, the only way to survive is exile.

Buy on Amazon here and other retailers here.

Alison Morton writes award-winning thrillers featuring tough but compassionate heroines. Her ten-book Roma Nova series is set in an imaginary European country where a remnant of the Roman Empire has survived into the 21st century and is ruled by women who face conspiracy, revolution and heartache but use a sharp line in dialogue. The latest, EXSILIUM, plunges us back to the late 4th century, to the very foundation of Roma Nova.

She blends her fascination for Ancient Rome with six years’ military service and a life of reading crime, historical and thriller fiction. On the way, she collected a BA in modern languages and an MA in history.

Alison now lives in Poitou in France, the home of Mélisende, the heroine of her two contemporary thrillers, Double Identity and Double Pursuit.

Social media links

Connect with Alison on her thriller site: https://alison-morton.com

Facebook author page: https://www.facebook.com/AlisonMortonAuthor

X/Twitter: https://twitter.com/alison_morton @alison_morton

Alison’s writing blog: https://alisonmortonauthor.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/alisonmortonauthor/

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5783095.Alison_Morton
Threads: https://www.threads.net/@alisonmortonauthor

Alison’s Amazon page: https://Author.to/AlisonMortonAmazon

Newsletter sign-up: https://www.alison-morton.com/newsletter/

January 22, 2024

Lorna Fergusson

Writers' Mindset

Writers Beware: the Dangers of 'And then', Part 2

January 22, 2024

Lorna Fergusson

Writers' Mindset

Last week I wrote about the dangers of ‘and then’ when you’re composing your story. (If you missed the post, it’s here.) This time I’m going to look at the dangers of ‘and then’ when you’re living your life as a writer. Believe me, everything I say here comes from the heart and from long experience!

As an editor and writing teacher, I live my life by the client project. A novel may come in and I allocate three weeks, a month, sometimes more, to the work. During that time it’s my job to live within that book, really. I treat it with the care and attention I would give my own work. Possibly more care and attention than I give my own work …

There are also times in the year when I swing into teaching mode. Or speaker mode. All of these activities entail blocking out time and attention for something that is totally worthwhile and usually incredibly rewarding.

Then there’s the rhythm of life itself, by the day, the week, the month and the year. We all have to accommodate ourselves to constraints: the daily chores, the taking care of others, the commute to work.

Two little words become my mantra: ‘I’ll just finish this lecture prep/assessment/edit/follow-up notes and then I’ll get back to my own work.’

Or there’s the variation saying exactly the same thing: ‘When I’ve finished the … then I’ll …‘

When you’re writing your story, ‘and then’ is all about sequence. Event follows event in your narrative and if you’re not careful it becomes a plod (see Part 1).

When you’re aiming to live the writing life ‘and then’ is all about postponement. It is an endless parade of excuses – valid ones, maybe. But ‘and thens’ can be delaying tactics, interruptions, barriers to flow and to any chance of getting intimate with the stories in your imagination and cultivating a long-term relationship with them.

Last year, task after task rose up before me like a game of Whack-a-Mole. I had simultaneous jobs going on and I never felt clear of any as I multi-tasked. Everyone agrees these days that multi-tasking can be draining and pretty inefficient, however heroic you feel!

I’m sure you recognise all this. I’m sure you also keep saying ‘and then’ and ‘When I’ve just finished x …’. I’m sure it frustrates you too and you end up with your inner critic barking at you. You feel trapped in a sequence that somehow becomes circular, like a snake swallowing its own tail.

When I reached a state of burnout in December, I took a long hard look at the way I organise my life. I’m making changes. I am now allocating, not sequencing. I am stepping on and off the travelator. I have worked out how much work I am prepared to do for others in the coming year and I have blocked that out in my calendar. When the time I am allocating is full, that’s it. I’m full. No more editorial tasks or teaching gigs. Because I have also blocked out time for my creative work. And it feels good.

If what I am saying resonates with you, take a sheet of paper and list the main time-hungry elements in your life. Take a look at what is negotiable. Take a look at how often you say yes to things you don’t want to do because, well, you’re a nice person and you don’t want to let people down. Think about how often you plan to commit to your creative work, after this, that or the other task is complete. Think about how that horizon of possibility endlessly retreats from you.

What can you say no to? What can you live without? Can you reduce your working hours even if it means reducing your income? Do you have social commitments you could cut back on? Can you ask for help with childcare on a regular basis? Can you negotiate time to yourself?

What I have learned is that we all speak about wanting time to write. But it isn’t as simple as that. We need time to think. We need time to let our imaginations breathe. Under pressure, no inspiration, no organic unfurling of magical stories is likely to happen.

I hope that in 2024 you will stop and consider every time you think or say ‘and then ...’

I hope that for you the time for creativity is NOW.

January 10, 2024

Lorna Fergusson

Writing Advice

Writers Beware: the risks of two tiny but dangerous words Part 1

January 10, 2024

Lorna Fergusson

Writing Advice

As a writing coach and editor, I find myself – as you’d expect – repeating some types of advice over and over. I’m sure you can imagine the kind of thing: show don’t tell, don’t overload your story opening, etc etc. Today I’m going to talk about two small, innocuous words.

Here’s the first: ‘and’.

Here’s the second: ‘then’.

Put them together, and you may be in trouble.

Let’s start with storytelling technique. Think of a small child, excited as heck, talking about a great day out with the family. The narrative spills out in a breathless rush: ‘We got in the car and then we got out and then we went in and then the first thing I saw was an ice-cream van and there was a man in the park and then Mummy got me an ice cream from the van and it was great. And then … and then … and then …’

Telling a story like this is true to life, of course. We experience events in a sequence of moments, one following another. The child is uttering breathy little exclamations and the enthusiasm is there. So is the desire to be all-encompassing, all-inclusive. Not a single detail is missed out.

What’s the result? How is the listener (wearing an indulgent smile on their face) feeling? Bored, maybe. Impatient. When is the good stuff coming? What are the highlights? Can we cut to them, please?

Watch out for how often you use ‘and then’. It may make sense and it may be logical to tell the story that way, but those two little words kill the thing stone dead. Why is that? They emphasize sequence, but they don’t give any sense at all of a storyline varying its pace or its focus. They don’t give a sense of highs and lows. If life is one damn thing after another, ‘andthennery’ stresses that. Before you know it you’re raising your hand to your mouth to muffle a giant yawn.

When we ask, all eagerness, ‘What happens next?’ we aren’t just talking about sequence. We’re talking about incremental steps: the next level of tension, expectation and drama. Because plots aren’t just one damn thing after another. Plots are shaped by the skill of the writer not just to be sequential but consequential. Actions breed reactions. External factors barge in and mess up the characters’ fine plans. Nothing stays the same. A plot is full of the ebb and flow of tension. It climbs from the plain up through the foothills to the high peaks of drama and resolution.

‘Andthennery’ doesn’t make us hold our breath. ‘Andthennery’ doesn’t make us see dramatic connections. Whenever you find yourself typing the word ‘and’, stop and take a look. What are you joining up here? Two moments or thoughts in the most simple of equations? ‘We went to the park and we bought an ice-cream.’ So what? Where is the plot? Where is the story?

If you add ‘then’ you’re in even worse trouble. One foot in front of the other, plodding along. This happened, then that happened, then the other happened.

Consider how to inject that dramatic interest, that sense of drama. For example, instead of ‘then’, use ‘when’. You’ll immediately create a sense of intrigue and expectation. ‘When we went to the park, I saw a strange man over by the trees who was looking at us while my Mum bought the ice cream.’

Want to know who the man was? Curious about why he is looking at the mother and child? Do you start to wonder whether the mother knows who he is? Has the mother glanced towards him with a tiny shake of her head? What is going on? What is the story here?

That’s what ‘when’ does. It opens up the possibility of consequences. It kicks off the questions in the reader’s head. And it’s not just ‘when’ that does the trick: try ‘but’, ‘however’, ‘therefore’, ‘although’ …

In Part 2 of this post I’ll be taking a look at ‘andthennery’ in a different context. Till then, happy writing!

October 16, 2022

Lorna Fergusson

Writing Advice

Writing Flashbacks: four key questions to ask yourself

October 16, 2022

Lorna Fergusson

Writing Advice

The chronology of your story affects the way the reader experiences the plot. One thorny aspect of chronology is the question of whether to use flashbacks as a way of exploring events that happened before the main timeframe of the story. It’s a technique that enables us to pop into an event in the past before returning to the main plot. Some readers and writers hate the things, seeing a flashback as a cheat or interruption, something that breaks the spell of the unfolding plot, something clunky writers use for exposition of back story when they can’t think of any other way of conveying the information.

How do you feel about writing flashbacks? Personally, I love them, but I do see the problems they can present. They can be a distraction or they can come across as lazy. They can be unwieldy. They can distract you from what is gripping you in the now of the story. They can even be more enjoyable than the main narrative so the reader doesn’t want to return to the now at all!

So here are four key questions to ask yourself when you decide to write one:

1. What is your intention with this flashback? Why are you writing it?

2. Is the flashback the only or the best way of achieving your purpose?

3. Where are you going to place the flashback? (And will you have more than one flashback or is this a one-off?)

4. How easy will it be for the reader to come back into the main storyline after the excursion into the past?

At its best, a flashback is another way of showing rather than telling. You’re highlighting how something came about or how a character experienced something which has ramifications for them in the future. You’re setting up ironies and contrasts between the then and the now. You’re revealing your character’s ‘ghosts’, the baggage they have carried into their future. You’re doing it by presenting a scene into which the reader can enter. If you write ‘Joanna could never trust anyone because when she was little her father walked out, walked away from his family to start a new life without them’, of course your reader will react with sympathy. But if you write a scene where little Joanna watches him stride down the path and she is willing him to turn round and give her that special smile of his, only he doesn’t; he keeps on going and he turns the corner …

Your reader is in the experience. They feel it.

Here’s a quick exercise:

Choose one of these story situations and the character attitudes/reactions of the character involved. Come up with a flashback from the current situation, showing a connection between that flashback and how the character has ended up in the current scenario. It’s not just about how they’ve ended up in this situation — it’s about how they go on to handle it.

1. A bank or business is about to fail. The manager is desperate to cling to his/her status and deny what is inevitably going to happen.

2. A woman learns she has been betrayed. She is resigned to it happening to her.

3. A doctor is fighting to save a life. He/she is driven, exhausted.

4. A diet and fitness guru is about to go on a binge. He/she is secretive.

Where do you think the story will go, once you return to the now? Because here’s the thing: sometimes flashbacks show you a richer story and guide you to a more complex, nuanced delivery of it than you at first imagined. So it’s best not to dismiss them out of hand.

June 25, 2022

Lorna Fergusson

Writing Advice

Hook and Anchor: two crucial aspects of writing

June 25, 2022

Lorna Fergusson

Writing Advice

Hook and Anchor: it sounds like the name of an olde-worlde pub in an English seaside town, doesn’t it? For writers, the notion of a ‘hook’ is very familiar. We know it’s crucial to grab readers and reel them in. We know that opening scenes – even opening words – can perform that crucial function.

Hooks are fun. Hooks are actually quite easy: the big explosion, the woman in a red dress arriving at the party, the secret box of letters left in a will, the old man on his death-bed deciding to confide his crime, the young lovers whose eyes meet across the room. Hooks create curiosity. They shock us, transfix us, get us involved, make us ask questions. Hooks are often part of what’s known as the inciting incident. They are the speedy creation of momentum, like the bobsleigh athletes who galvanise themselves into a run, leaping onto their sled once it has reached the required velocity.

Three cheers for hooks, then. What, though, do I mean when I mention anchors? Anchors are techniques you may not be paying enough attention to. Anchors are less showy but just as necessary. Anchors are all about keeping the reader’s attention, now that you have it. Anchors give context and substance to the whole.

You might think that an anchor is a static concept. You drop the anchor, the vessel halts and stays where you want it. But not all anchors are about stopping. They are about stabilising. There are trailing anchors which help to slow and direct the vessel. They stop it rushing off towards disaster.

What does an anchor mean when you are writing a book? I could have used other maritime terms: ballast, navigation, compass – and so on. I’ve been an editor for thirteen years now and I see many of the same problems again and again. What I am discussing here is a thinness, a vagueness, a lightness and disconnectedness which stops the reader believing or prevents them from inhabiting the world of the story.

In the quest for pace, writers often lose sight of what keeps the story anchored in the reader’s mind, so here are the ‘anchors’ you should check are there:

· It’s crucial not to infodump in the early stages of your story, but as you progress make sure enough of the background and backstory has actually made it onto the page. Do it in a filtered, light-touch way, but do it.

· Description. Again, you don’t want to include three pages of purple prose every time a character does something, but as an editor all too often I find writers have failed to realise the scene in terms of description and atmosphere, because they are so focused on pushing the narrative forward. Whole conversations take place in a restaurant where there is no mention of the room, the attentive waiters, the kind of food, the pausing to chew or wait for a glass to be filled, the buzz of other diners …

· Physical description. Judiciously chosen small details can give us a full sense of the characters. Your people are not just names and functions. A character can have a surprisingly deep voice, a mole they are conscious of and try to cover, a dodgy knee, long or stubby fingers, a heightened gag reflex, strawberry blonde hair. Let your reader see them and have a sense of their physical presence in the world.

· Locations – like description in general, watch out for being vague or generic. What house does the character live in? What kind of street is that? Lined with poplars, magnolias or jacarandas? Do the windows have nets or shutters? How far is the house from the nearest pub or shop? What’s the neighbourhood like?

· Chronology. I am ending with this one because it is so easily missed out. Your reader needs a timeline they can follow. Watch out for a lack of specificity and consistency: I see this so frequently. The reader is told a scene takes place but they can’t relate it to what has come before – is it a week or a month or a year since the last encounter those characters had? How old is that character now? Days of the week, months, even seasons are not mentioned. This often happens because the writer hasn’t constructed a timeline as their own anchor during the process. Instead they have written scene after individual scene, each one a perfect pearl of composition, but forgotten to thread them on the string of the overall chronology. Remember to use guiding words and phrases, within the narrative (‘A week later…’; ‘the first Saturday of Lent…’) and as headings at the start of chapters or sections if your novel involves a complicated chronology. Keep your reader oriented in time and space.

Let’s end with a quotation from the novelist William Boyd, interviewed in 2018:

‘It’s very difficult to write a long novel that holds your attention. It’s hard to write a 350-page story that remains compelling from start to finish. You can write beautifully, but the actual narrative spine that makes people read on to find out what happens next is very hard.’

‘Spine’ is another word we’re familiar with, as writers. We look for the structure and shape. But don’t forget those anchors too: they are the reinforcements that bolster the spine and hold it together.

March 4, 2022

Lorna Fergusson

Inspiration, The Unputdownable Writer, Writers' Mindset, Writing Advice

Creativity in Anxious Times

March 4, 2022

Lorna Fergusson

Inspiration, The Unputdownable Writer, Writers' Mindset, Writing Advice

How do you keep in touch with your creativity in times like these? Many of us already live with anxiety on a daily basis and there may be all sorts of causes for that, creating a background hum of unease. Add to that the sense of global anxiety we now live with, which has been ramped up to an extraordinary level - the pandemic, climate change and now the crisis in war-torn Ukraine - and it becomes even harder to maintain calm, confidence and positivity. We feel powerless. We feel fear, for ourselves, our loved ones, our countries, our planet.

Anxiety and creativity are not good bedfellows. You may feel inhibited or utterly drained of inspiration and excitement.

What can you do when your inner voice is saying ‘What’s the point?’

The point, very simply, is this: humans are born to be creative. Creativity is our shout against the darkness. It’s our way of reaching out. It’s our way of creating fellowship and sympathy. It’s our way of creating joy and recognition. It’s our way of defeating time. On an individual and collective level, creativity is what we’re all about.

Fine words, you may say, but how does that help me when I’m wide-eyed in the dark, terrified of the future?

Here’s how:

See creativity as your anchor, distracting you from the ‘out there’, grounding you in yourself.
Creativity is a celebration as well as a distraction. You can choose to focus on what gives you joy and reassurance, what liberates your imagination in a positive way.
Creativity is an assertion. it is a great ‘I am!’ shouted out - and if enough of us do it, it will lift us all.
Creativity is a retreat. Take your gaze off Twitter and the rolling news. Back away from doomscrolling. Sit in a peaceful place, breathe slow, remember.

How can I write when I’m too worried to write?

Keep your aspirations and intentions modest. Don’t strive too much and don’t beat yourself up if nothing much emerges.
You can use a journal as a release. You can dump your anxieties on the page and the act of offloading will help you. You can also record the things you love and value, rediscovering your perception of them. The birds still sing, after all.
You can befriend yourself in your journal. It is your shoulder to cry on, your reassurance. And even if no-one ever sees it (you may not want them to), you have given voice to the you that is truly you, to the experience that is uniquely yours.
If you feel the slightest nudge to invent, seize it. A tiny drawing, a line or two of verse, a flash fiction, a character sketch …
Explore other forms of creativity. I have learned how to make and bind my own notebooks. I have rediscovered crocheting, having not done it since I was a girl. These activities soothe me and because I am not invested in trying to win a publishing deal etcetera, I am calm. The joy lies in the process and the product for its own sake.

Dear friends, reach out. Keep sharing, donating and creating. It matters. In the end, creativity saves us. it rises, battered by circumstance - but it rises still. And it always will.

January 7, 2022

Lorna Fergusson

Guest Posts, This Writing Business, Writing Advice

How can you keep a grip on your story? Thriller writer Alison Morton shares her plotting safety-net

January 7, 2022

Lorna Fergusson

Guest Posts, This Writing Business, Writing Advice

Publishing a book is exciting. All those months and months (sometimes years) of hard slog at the keyboard have come to a point. You’ve been through several rounds of editing: your own red-pen-wielding self-edit, your critique partner’s input (mine has the instincts of a velociraptor) and the professional copy edit. You’ve commissioned a beautiful cover that conveys something intrinsic about your story to induce the potential buyer to pick it up or click on it.

And here it is. In my case my eleventh novel. By now, I have an idea of how to put my stories together. They’re thrillers, so I use the traditional structure: inciting incident, three crisis/turning points, the black moment where everything falls apart, the climax and the resolution.

I like to keep my readers on their toes, so I shoot through the standard twists and turns with curveballs, decoys and gambits, mainly because that’s the sort of thing I enjoy reading.

But there’s a bit of a problem with that…

Writing the first book of my Roma Nova series in 2012, I became so engrossed in producing the story that I inadvertently put events in the wrong sequence or found myself introducing one character to another I’d killed off three chapters before. Luckily, I had avoided that old cliché – the eleventh month pregnancy.

My heroine was going on a long journey: not just physical but personal, emotional and empowering. I desperately needed some way of tracking all these different and interwoven threads; not only the action but also its timing.

Although I was a computer geek, I rejected using a spreadsheet like Excel. I didn’t need all those columns. So I developed a grid in MS Word which tracks timeline, summarises the scenes in each chapter and where I could note down the word count for each chapter. (I rather pompously called it ‘structure analysis’ at the time and the name has stuck – sorry.)

Entering the details after each day’s writing not only kept the grid up to date, but also made me re-examine the coherence of the plot. These days, I enter the details at the beginning of the next session’s writing as it reminds me of the action and context of what has gone before.

The added bonus is that the completed grid is invaluable for reviewing, editing and revising the first draft. Plot holes jump out and poke you (figuratively) in the eye. You can then sort them out before they become embarrassing.

Is this still necessary eleven books and nine years later?

YES! In Double Pursuit, my latest, my heroine travels all over the place: Poitou, Rome, Brussels, Strasbourg, Montpellier, Tilbury and the African Sahel. She makes progress, has setbacks, has useful conversations and arguments with her lover, gathers titbits of intelligence, and works out strategies. Clues have to be laid at specific points – not so soon it spoils the story and not so late that it looks as if the villain has been ‘parachuted’ in near the end.

Thrillers, especially crime thrillers and spy stories, are necessarily convoluted, so the author needs to remember who said what to whom, or who did what to whom, and the decisions taken at one point in the story that affect another. I have a good memory, but I’m not Mr Spock from Star Trek. And you’ll be pleased to know I’m using it for my current work in progress and even halfway through I’ve been able to prevent some horrible plot holes. The velociraptor critique partner I mentioned at the beginning reports that she uses the grid religiously when writing her own novels and admits it’s saved her much embarrassment on many an occasion! I couldn’t possibly comment…

If you’d like to try it, you can find an empty grid and a sample, part-filled grid in the files area on my writing blog. Please feel free to download and use them.

Happy writing!

About Alison:

Alison Morton writes award-winning thrillers featuring tough but compassionate heroines. Her nine-book Roma Nova series is set in an imaginary European country where a remnant of the ancient Roman Empire has survived into the 21st century and is ruled by women who face conspiracy, revolution and heartache but with a sharp line in dialogue.

She blends her deep love of France with six years’ military service and a life of reading crime, historical and thriller fiction. On the way, she collected a BA in modern languages and an MA in history.

Alison now lives in Poitou in France, the home of Mélisende, the heroine of her latest two contemporary thrillers, Double Identity and Double Pursuit. Oh, and she’s writing the next Roma Nova story.

About Double Pursuit:

One dead body, two badly injured operatives and five crates of hijacked rifles.

She’s hunting arms smugglers. But who is hunting her?

In Rome, former French special forces intelligence analyst Mélisende des Pittones is frustrated by obnoxious local cops and ruthless thugs. Despite the backing of the powerful European Investigation and Regulation Service, her case is going nowhere. Then an unknown woman tries to blow her head off.

As Mel and fellow investigator Jeff McCracken attempt to get a grip on the criminal network as well as on their own unpredictable relationship, all roads point to the place she dreads – the arid and remote African Sahel – where she was once betrayed and nearly died. Can Mel conquer her fear as she races to smash the network and save her colleague’s life?

Where to buy Double Pursuit:
Amazon

Kobo: https://www.kobo.com/fr/en/ebook/double-pursuit

Apple

B&N Nook: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/double-pursuit-alison-morton/1140156361?ean=2940162379614

Books2Read: https://books2read.com/DoublePursuit

Paperback: https://www.alison-morton.com/books-2/double-pursuit/where-to-buy-double-pursuit/

Connect with Alison:

Connect with Alison on her thriller site: https://alison-morton.com

Facebook author page: https://www.facebook.com/AlisonMortonAuthor

Twitter: https://twitter.com/alison_morton @alison_morton

Alison’s writing blog: https://alisonmortonauthor.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/alisonmortonauthor/