Writing tips - Avoiding the Sagging Middle

Okay, you have an idea for your book, a really great idea, a fantastic love story! You start writing in a flush of enthusiasm and its all going well, until.....

...at some point you begin to feel that you are flagging, that the book is going nowhere, that it is (hushed whisper) boring.






Many, if not all writers get this at some point. I know a lot of authors who say it kicks in at around 30,000 words. Sometimes they have finished the whole book and looking back they find the middle is stodgy, They have introduced the characters, set up the scenes, but then everything seems to flounder.  This is the bit commonly known to writers as the Sagging Middle.  Let's face it, if you as the author don't like the book at this point, it's unlikely that your audience is going to enjoy it.

So, what can you do about it?  It is unlikely that you can cut the whole middle section out, after all, you need to get from A to B somehow! So here's a few tips that might just help.

Interview your characters. They are your creations, and if you have done your job well then they can help you a great deal at this point.  Are they saying/doing what is right for them? Are they being forced in directions they don't want to go?  Talk to them, ask them what they want to do (I know, I know, this may sound slightly crazy, but believe me, once you have created characters they can take on a life of their own and the most difficult thing can be keeping them in order. So if you have great characters, then interview them, ask them what is wrong.  They might just tell you.



Go back and check your overall plan.  Does is still make sense? Is it going in the right direction?   Often when we are writing, a book takes a turn that we had not anticipated and if we manhandle it back on track that may not be the way the story really should go. Be prepared to change it, if it feels forced or unnatural.




Read your manuscript as a reader. Be objective, if you can.
If you feel too close to it then perhaps you can put it aside for a while and then read it with fresh eyes. Remember, though, readers read for entertainment and pleasure, not for grammar or spelling or construction. If bits of the story don't excite you, take them out or re-write them. Make sure everything you put in adds value.  Are you adding too much information, is it slowing the story and detracting from the pleasure of reading?






Discuss your work with someone. Perhaps you have a critique partner/group,  or a fellow writer who is on the same wavelength. Ask them to read your work and comment.  However, be careful not to ask too many people, or you could get too many differing opinions!








Do something else! This is the one that appeals to me most often. It doesn't matter whether its ironing, washing up, walking the dog, shopping, gardening, or even watching TV.

Get away from your work in progress for a while. Allow the ideas to settle, ferment, evolve. Give yourself permission to think of something else and very likely your brain will continue to work on the problem in your subconscious.

So that's it.  I hope these ideas might help to get you over the point of that sagging middle.

Happy reading (and writing)

Melinda Hammond / Sarah Mallory


Published July 2016 - The Outcast's Redemption (Harlequin Historical)

A few thoughts on Plotting your novel.

It's spring, and a new month, so perhaps you are thinking it is time you actually started on that romantic novel you always wanted to write.  So here are a few thoughts that might help you to plan and plot your book.

For a romance and in fact for most books, characters are important, but you also need a good story to keep the readers turning the pages.  There will need to be conflict along the way and the main characters have to go on an emotional journey – they should both have changed by the end of your story, but unless your characters are going to sit in one place for the whole book you will need to put in some action and events to take the story forward.

So remember the golden rule - Thou Shalt not Bore Thy Reader.

There needs to be some risk – ask yourself what is at stake here? Is it the happiness of the main characters, or maybe the well-being of their friends and/or family. Perhaps it's an adventure so there might be physical danger.   

The main thing is the reader has to care, to believe that the risks are worth fighting for.  

In a romance you have to generate sensual and emotional tension, strong attraction, with good reasons why your characters can't get together. Duty versus desire is a common theme in royal romances and the stakes here might be very high, perhaps even the fate of a country.

So here's a few things to help you plan out your storyline.

What if and Why – ask questions

-        "what if my hero admits attraction, what if my heroine walks away, what if he misses the train, what if she decides not to go out?"

-        "why won't he say he loves her, why is she walking away," etc

Take your characters out of their comfort zone.

-        Make them struggle, readers love to see characters overcoming obstacles, the bigger the better.

-        Maybe they are in an unfamiliar/alien setting. Think of a character like  Heathcliffe, a wild, untamed spirit who is comfortable on the wild, untamed Yorkshire moors. Imagine how uncomfortable and ill at ease he might be in a "civilized" drawing room.

Spread out the excitement throughout the book.

-        Someone once described writing a novel as bit like making a fruitcake. If you just drop the fruit in one place the mixture will be over-rich in one point and the rest will be pretty bland. Mix it up, stir in the fruit (the crises) so that the reader is kept entertained and intrigued to find out what happens next.

Have a tipping point

-        Have one major crisis, one point where everything hangs in the balance – will they get together/save the world/save themselves. Build the tension and the story towards this point and then you can race towards the conclusion.

A satisfying resolution

-        It doesn't have to be a happy ending, but it must be satisfying for the reader. Tie up loose ends, leave your reader with hope, not dissatisfaction.

These are only a few brief points and any one of them could be the subject for a workshop of a couple of hours or more, but maybe they just might help you to get started on that novel.

Good luck!

Melinda Hammond /Sarah Mallory

Melinda Hammond - Four Regency Seasons out now on Kindle

Sarah Mallory - Return of the Runaway. pub Apr 2016 by Harlequin

Elizabeth Hawksley: Writing Tips # 11

Recipe: how to write that scene you’ve been putting off for ages.

Every now and then I come up against what I call the Scene of Doom. It’s a long and complicated scene which, for some reason, I’m simply dreading writing. You’d be amazed how clean and sparkling the house becomes, how the buttons I’ve failed to sew on for months are suddenly done, how tidy my study desk looks.

 

Elizabeth Hawksley

The worst example was in The Belvedere Tower. It was my ninth Elizabeth Hawksley novel and, by that time, I was much more confident about my writing. The Scene of Doom was at the end of my penultimate chapter when the important Poaching strand came to a head – if only I could write it.

 

The Belvedere Tower

This is the poaching strand situation:
My hero, Daniel, a wealthy northern businessman, has bought a run-down estate in Surrey. His gamekeeper, Uzzell, an outwardly respectable man, is secretly in cahoots with a London gang (comprising the vicious Gold Teeth and his side-kick, Moley) and selling the estate’s game on the black market. Uzzell pins the blame for the scarcity of game on the blacksmith Sam Wright, and his two sons, Phineas and Barty. Daniel has discovered the truth but he knows that Uzzell must be caught red-handed if he’s to be charged successfully.

 

A Victorian Poacher: James Hawker’s Journal

The Scene of Doom:

     1.  Place: the charcoal burner’s hut in a wood near the London Road where Uzzell  

          stores the game. Daniel and Sam hide nearby: they will deal with Uzzell. Phineas

          and Barty hide on the other side of the road to await the cart: they’ll disable the cart

          by unharnessing the horse. I hadn’t a clue how to deal with Gold Teeth and Moley.

2.      Gold Teeth and Moley arrive and Barty unhitches the cart. 

3.      Uzzell and Gold Teeth quarrel over money – Uzzell has a gun. The transfer of game
        to the cart goes ahead. Phineas coshes Moley and ties him up.

4.      Nelly, Uzzell’s fragile wife, has premonitions of disaster and sets out towards the hut.

5.      Gold Teeth realizes Moley is missing and that the cart is uncoupled. He yells.

6.      Uzzell flees into the woods and gets out his gun.

7.      Nelly lurches towards the hut.

8.      Daniel and Sam struggle with Uzzell and overpower him. The gun goes off.

9.      Gold Teeth fights Phineas and Barty. He’s captured but Barty is badly hurt.

10.    Nelly has been shot and is dying. Sam drives his sons back to the smithy, plus the
        prisoners – who will go in his cellar. Daniel stays with Mrs Uzzell.

11.    The dying Mrs Uzzell tells of a strongbox underneath the flags in her cottage. She
        dies. Loose ends are tied up.

Facing writing all this felt like climbing Everest. I didn’t even have it in order in my head. All I knew was that Daniel needed to come good and realize, finally, who was to be trusted, and he had to get involved with the fighting – he gets off with cuts and bruises and a cracked rib, but he’s shown his mettle. From now on, the villagers are on his side. For other reasons, I needed Barty to be badly hurt – but to recover.

And I was longing to write the love scene in the final chapter.

 

Horse’s harness from Self-Sufficiency by John and Sally Seymour

In desperation, I decided to write whichever scene looked easiest – which was the Mrs Uzzell leaving her cottage scene, followed by the London gang’s arrival where Barty unhitches the cart (thanks to the above picture). It was a bit like putting together a jigsaw; inevitably, the scenes had to be juggled around. Gradually, everything linked up and Everest shrank to a climbable hill.

In the last chapter, Daniel gets together with my heroine Cassandra, and the other plot strands are sorted satisfactorily. And I was able to send off the completed typescript.

 

The Gamekeeper at Home and The Amateur Poacher by Richard Jefferies

So, my advice boils down to this. Don’t be frightened of writing a scene out of sync. If it helps to unblock you, that’s all that matters. Yes, you may have to do a lot of tweaking and cutting and pasting, but at least you’ll get the scene done.

I hope it works for you.

Photographs:

Elizabeth Hawksley by Sally Greenhill

All other photographs by Elizabeth Hawksley

Elizabeth Hawksley

Writing tips #10 - to plan or not to plan.

When I started writing full-time, before I sold any books or knew much about the process of writing I bought several "how to" books and devoured the contents. Every book I read said that detailed planning was essential. I'm not including research in this post – that's something I shall do next time. Here is a list of suggestions for those just starting out on their writing careers. Sometimes, when writing a saga or series, it's essential to do a family tree as well in order to make sure your characters will fit in and there are no anomalies with their ages and birth dates.
1. Write a biography for each of the main characters. In this you put details of appearance, characteristics, age, aspirations and back story.
2. Make a list of all minor characters such as friends/family members/servants (if you write historical as I do) and give them a mini biography and make sure the names you use don't begin with the same letter as the names of the main characters.
3. Create a timeline and put any major events that actually took place so these can be slotted into your story if necessary. (This only applies to historical, obviously.)
4. Write a brief outline of what takes place in each scene/chapter and indicate from whose viewpoint it is so that you keep a balance of hero/heroine/villain.
When this is done you are ready to start writing your book. The characters should now be vivid in your mind and you will have a good idea of the direction your book will take. However, remember that this is only a guide and it doesn't have to be followed exactly. I found having this written down extremely helpful in the beginning because when you get to the "sagging middle" you can refer to your original plans to tighten things up.
Jean Fullerton, a very successful author of Victorian and East End nursing sagas for Orion, has an even more meticulous planning method. Even after eight books she still does this before she starts. On her screen she will have the equivalent of a double page spread divided into sections, in each section is a scene of about 1000 words. When I speak to her on the telephone she will often tell me she still has X number of scenes to complete – this means she always knows where the book is going and how much longer it will take her to write.
Now that I'm writing my forty-third book (seven mainstream historical and the rest Regency) I no longer need to plan for a 'single' title at all. I get an idea, think of the title, sort out the names of the main characters and I'm ready to go. I keep a notebook in which I write the names/ages/places as they occur in the book because by the time I get to the end I've often forgotten whether the butler is called Foster or Jenkins. However, I've just started writing a series which will have six books in it; although I've done no story planning I spent a couple of hours working out names/pages/partners and a title for each book. This is essential if you're writing a series as you must keep the chronology correct.
I expect that your are now wondering whether you should be planning or not before you start your book. My advice is to plan meticulously for your first couple of books but after that do whatever suits your writing style. I do recommend that you always keep a notebook with essential details of your characters. I hope these suggestions will be helpful to those still unsure which method to use. I know dozens of successful writers and I think it's probably a 50-50 split as to whether we plan or not before we start.

Fenella J Miller
To read all our posts on this subject just click on "writing tips" in the labels below.

Writing tips #9 - beginnings

Here’s the 9^th of our posts on writing tips. Today I’m talking about beginnings. The beginning of your book is very important because it needs to grab your readers’ attention. If nothing much happens for the first ten pages, your reader will lose interest and put the book down. So here are some suggestions for making the start of your book compelling.

1) Start with a life changing event.

Perhaps the heroine is about to become a governess or a housekeeper, or perhaps one of the heroine's relatives has arranged a marriage for her, or perhaps she decides to marry so that she can provide for herself and her family. All of these situations have drama and interest built into them because neither the heroine, nor the reader, knows how she is going to react to her new circumstances and this provides the reader with a reason for continuing.

In romantic fiction, it’s very important to delve into the characters’ feelings, and as life changing events involve deep and perhaps contradictory feelings, you will have plenty to explore. This will allow you, and your reader, to get to know your heroine.

Or you could open with your hero. Giving him a life-changing event will allow the reader to get to know him and important aspects of his character will be revealed by his reactions to difficult situations.

2) Start with some action.

Perhaps the heroine stumbles across a dead body, or perhaps she is running away from something and in doing so she bumps into the hero. A dramatic scene will give you plenty of opportunities to create tension between your hero and heroine. Will they trust each other? If so, why? Will they suspect each other? How will this affect their relationship?

3) Start with a dilemma

Perhaps the heroine has to decide whether to accept a proposal from a man she doesn't love, as she is poor and cannot support herself. Perhaps she has to decide whether or not to accept a job, or whether to sell her family home. Any dilemma will allow you to delve into the heroine’s personality, involving her hopes and fears, strengths and weaknesses, and this will allow your reader to empathise with her.

4) An important characteristic is revealed

Perhaps the hero or heroine does something rash that will have serious consequences for them, and bring them into conflict with their romantic counterpart

5) An unusual but important activity is revealed

Georgette Heyer uses this to brilliant effect in Faro’s Daughter, where the heroine owns a genteel gaming house. Heyer gives good, strong reasons for the unusual situation and her research is impeccable, so that all the details are accurate. The unusual situation forms an important part of the book as the gaming house sets up the main conflicts of the plot. If you’re going to use a similarly unusual opening, then it needs to form an important part of the story, but if used well it can be very compelling.

Elizabeth Hawksley: Writing Tips #8

Today, Elizabeth Hawksley is giving us some of her favourite writing tips in the eighth part of our series.

Tip for Getting a Character Unstuck

I discovered this trick quite by chance. For some reason, I just couldn’t sort out an important scene between my hero and heroine. I knew sparks were supposed to fly but it wasn’t working; it was more damp squib than fireworks.

In desperation, I decided just as an exercise to write my heroine’s diary for the same scene. Perhaps a first person viewpoint would help to free the block. At first, a stream of waffle poured out. Doggedly, I went on writing. Then, suddenly, an unexpected nugget popped up. I continued writing.

After about forty minutes of continuous writing I realized, to my surprise, that I now knew several important things about my heroine that I hadn’t known before. I’d no idea where they’d come from but, once they’d appeared, not only did they make sense, new possibilities for the scene emerged. The block was unravelling. I stopped writing, took myself off for a ‘thinking’ walk and, by the time I got home, I’d sorted it.  

Note: it’s important to write in stream of consciousness mode without trying to shape it. Eventually, your heroine herself will give you the answer.

P.S. This also works for heroes.

Elizabeth Hawksley

Looking for more writing tips? Click on "writing tips" in the label below to find more in the series.

Writing Tips #7

Today we're looking at characters again. Your characters are the most important part of your book because they are the way into the book for your reader. This handy checklist will help you to create satisfying characters.

Make sure your characters learn something by the end of the book.

Make sure the reader is rooting for them.

Make sure they have something at stake in the book - a new business they want to succeed, a character trait they want to overcome, an ambition they want to achieve etc.

Make sure they have pasts and futures, talking or thinking about hopes, fears, dreams. Make sure they do things throughout the book to help them achieve their goals.

Make sure thehero and heroine are likeable. This doesn't mean they have to be perfect, but the reader has to care about them. Make sure they have have flaws, but make them understandable flaws and also basically likeable flaws. Self pity isn't a likeable flaw, for example. Rashness is.

Make sure they react in believable ways.

Make sure you would like your hero and heroine in real life.

Make sure they try to solve their problems rather than just moaning.

Make sure we see them in a range of situations so we see a range of emotions.

Make sure they're not Too Stupid To Live. A heroine who takes her cheating boyfriend back time after time is too stupid to live, for example.

Make sure you don't have too many minor characters and make sure you don't let them run away with the book.

Make sure your hero and heroine are together in most scenes and have meaningful interactions that engage their emotions.

Amanda Grange

Writing Tips #6 – Melinda Hammond on Creating Characters

Today, Sarah Mallory shares her writing tips with us. Sarah also writes as Melinda Hammond.

If a reader is going to love your books they have to love the characters – or hate them. The point is, readers have to care about the characters and what is going to happen to them. So how do we go about creating them?  I am sure writers have many different ways of doing this, but here's a whistlestop tour of points that works for me.

Most important, know your characters before you begin.

 I use pictures to help me visualise my characters.

I print out or cut out pictures of actors, models, celebrities who look like my character and put them on a storyboard so that when I am writing the physical description I can glance across and see it. For example Jake Gyllenhaal looks the way I imagine my latest hero to look, dark and enigmatic.

Describe their appearance succinctly, today's readers don't have time for pages of information.

I know that some authors advise against beginning your character-creation with a name, because we have a lot of preconceived ideas about names.  

However, sometimes I have a name before I have anything else, e.g. for my book LUCASTA . It comes from a poem called To Lucasta, Going to the Wars and was written by Richard Lovelace in 1649. It's quite short, so here it is in full.

 

Tell me not, Sweet, I am unkind,

That from the nunnery

Of thy chaste breast and quiet mind

To wars and arms I fly.

True, a new mistress now I chase,

The first foe in the field;

And with a stronger faith embrace

A sword, a horse, a shield.

Yet this inconstancy is such

As you too shalt adore;

I could not love thee, Dear, so much,

Loved I not Honour more.

I loved the name Lucasta and couldn't believe it hadn't been used more in books, so I dreamed up a character from the name. (On another note, I also like to think that my heroes might have the same noble sentiments at the poet is expressing here).

Give every person in your book a different voice – this means knowing each one of them to a greater or lesser extent.

 I have never included a real person in one of my books, but I do draw on character traits that I observe in people. For your inner character you need to live the story through your character's thoughts, feelings and words – show don't tell. 

Describe a character through action, mannerisms, body language, speech, voice etc.  e.g. if the hero is an energetic man, he strides, paces, runs rather than walks; he jumps up from his seat if he is prone to impatience.

Drip feed the information about your character – no need to have pages of description, feed it in slowly, bit by bit, so it doesn't turn into a boring catalogue of points.

You can also give a character's whole family background quite briefly. Remember Pride & Prejudice, when Lady Catherine de Bourgh is questioning Elizabeth about her upbringing and Elizabeth tells her they had no governess:

Lady Catherine "…without a governess you must have been neglected."

Elizabeth "Compared with some families, I believe we were; but such of us as wished to learn never wanted the means.  We were always encouraged to read, and had all the masters that were necessary. Those who chose to be idle certainly might."

That explains a lot about all the Bennet sisters in only half a dozen lines.

Make the characters true to their time – don't project 21^st century values onto an 18^th century man or woman.  Okay, sometimes one has to compromise a bit, to bring modern day readers and historical characters closer together, but you can do this subtly, explain the character's viewpoint. In my recent Sarah Mallory book, A LADY FOR LORD RANDALL, my heroine Mary doesn't believe in marriage – a modern point of view, perhaps but not unknown in 1815. I explain in the book that she is the daughter of radical parents - followers of William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft. Mary also has a circle of radical friends, but outside that circle her views are frowned upon. Her beliefs would allow her to become Randall's mistress, but she is made fully aware of the disapproval all those around her and she also knows that taking such a step will jeopardise her livelihood as a teacher.

Flaws are human, so use them. Flaws work for heroes and villains.  Don't just create a great hero, make sure he has a worthy opponent, whether it's his love interest or the villain of the piece. Most character traits can be both positive and negative.  One person's love could be another's obsession

Motivation – for good or evil – needs to be clear and logical: a reader must be able to believe in what is going on, especially when the character makes a mistake: it shouldn't be out of character.

Make use of the physical setting – is your character at home in the landscape, or is it alien, does it make him/her uncomfortable? For example in Wuthering Heights, Heathcliffe's character is reflected by the wild Yorkshire moors. Imagine how different he would appear if you set him in a London salon.

How will your character react in a given situation?  Some writers say they never know what is going to happen in their story, or that they suddenly have to re-write a chapter because they realise at that point that the character would never react in that way. If you know your characters, they can even help write the book for you!

You can use books on psychology, take role models from mythology, some people use the zodiac.  It doesn't matter where you get your inspiration from, as long as you make your character a real person with hopes, fears, strengths and weaknesses.

So finally, here's a short check list you might find useful when creating your characters.

Name / nickname – remember this might well fix her/him in a time or a place. Sometimes a name will come fairly late in the writing stage, but as I have said earlier, it might be the starting point for your whole story.

Appearance -  I like to know how my characters look before I start.

Age

Background - Where does he/she come from – what period of history

Academic or a physical? Is this character brainy or sporty, or a combination of both? Does he/she act first or think first?

Introvert or extrovert

Relationships – a loner, or lots of friends

Strengths/weaknesses

So that's roughly how I create my characters, but one word of warning - if you make your characters too real they may take over the book! That's fine if they are the main characters, they will sort the plot out for you. However, if they are minor characters you may have to rein them in with the promise of a book of their own at some point. That has happened to me on several occasions. Then of course you have to write another book. And another, and another……

Of course this is only one point of view - you may find that something very different works for you. Perhaps you would like to share with us your tips for creating characters

 

Happy writing!

Melinda Hammond

www.melindahammond.com

www.sarahmallory.com

Writing Tips #5 - Nicola Cornick's Trade Secrets for Writing Regency Romance

Recently I came across an article I wrote a few years ago on my trade secrets for authors of Regency historical romance. I jotted down the ideas one day when I was critiquing a manuscript and thought it would be useful to have a list of the elements I considered important in a Regency romance. I have updated and added to it for this piece. Obviously the list isn’t totally comprehensive and it is only my opinion but I hope it gives aspiring authors some useful ideas! 

  

Start with a strong hook/story idea – think about the possibility of giving a historical twist to a contemporary situation such as speed dating. This need not be as anachronistic as it sounds. Think about a Regency ball and the amount of time that the partners can actually spend together, exchanging information and getting to know one another. It is time pressured. There are a great many contemporary situations that have strong parallels with historical ones.

If you are keen to use a “standard” Regency idea, such as the hero winning the heroine in a card

game (which Georgette Heyer used in a short story in Pistols for Two), try giving it a new twist. For example the heroine could win the hero instead.

Start the book straight into the action. On her website, award winning romance author Liz Fielding has the following advice: “A great opening to a romance sets up questions in the readers mind… Start with something happening. Get the hero and heroine on the page. Grab the reader’s attention.”

Create strong characters. You need to create a hero your readers will fall in love with and a heroine your readers will identify with. This is a whole area in itself!

Make sure that your plot is sustained throughout the story.  It is important to have a strong plot in a longer-length historical. You need to be working with an idea that can change and develop. You also need a big, convincing conflict to keep the characters apart and not something that could be resolved during one heart-to-heart conversation.

Show the way that a strong relationship develops between your characters. They need to communicate with each other during the story so that their relationship can grow. One of the mistakes that a lot of new authors can make is that they don’t allow their characters really to talk and interact at depth and this can give the impression of a relationship that is stalled for a great deal of the book, only to be resolved rather easily with the HEA ending.

It’s also important to show the characters’ motivation for their actions very clearly. And these motivations must be consistent. Even when a character is behaving “out of character” it has to be believable.  Sometimes it helps to think about motivation in the context of the “GMC” – Goal, Motivation, Conflict. What is that your characters want? What is the logical and consistent reason that your character wants this goal? What is the huge obstacle that is standing in their way?

Hooks at the end of each scene and each chapter are essential. Finish each scene on an “up” or “down” note, focussing on the hero or heroine. (Soap operas in particular use this method to keep the viewer engaged).

Background and setting can be a very powerful tool in creating the atmosphere of a historical novel. You do need to do your research but you don’t want to dump it all on the reader in the first few pages! The language of the dialogue is also subtly different from modern conversation. Love is eternal and the emotions that people feel may be universal, but the society and culture within which the relationships take place change over time. So does the way that people express their feelings. The manners and mores of a particular period have a profound effect on the key players in a story.  The Regency period is a good example of this as the rules by which society operated were codified so clearly. You can take the rules of your particular historical period and use them to your advantage. You don’t need to see them as restrictions. They are opportunities. And even if your heroines are the sort of spirited women who will break society’s rules, setting them within the confines of society and showing them kick over the traces will demonstrate the sort of strong characters that they are.

So in summary the book must have:

An atmospheric setting

 Emotional intensity

 Communication between the protagonists

 Sensual tension

 Humour (preferably)

 Witty dialogue

 A whopping big emotional wallop at the end!

Writing Tips #4: Thinking is Writing Too

Welcome to the fourth post in our series of writing tips. Today, Elizabeth Bailey offers us her top tips.

Writing is not always about sitting at the keyboard and bashing out words. You have to let ideas pop up. When they do, they need to germinate before they will start frothing enough for you to churn out a story.

A writer called Burton Rascoe once said, “What no wife of a writer can ever understand is that a writer is working when he’s staring out of the window.” How true!

Beginning writers generally operate on the basis that “work” is done when they’re actually sitting down and doing it. With writing, this is asking for a miracle and a horribly blank mind. No writer begins a story without having some idea of what it’s about.

Stories on the go have a tendency to jump around in the writer’s head when they least expect it: in the bath, in a car or train, on a walk, even while watching TV or a movie. Also, annoyingly, in bed when you're trying to sleep - ideas can start leaping about and going places. If this happens, let it run - it's all good stuff.

This is what thinking time is, and it’s all part of the writing process. It’s thinking without having to sit and decide to think. It’s that imaginative spark that is set free so it can run without effort. And it won’t happen if it’s forced at the keyboard.

So it’s worthwhile letting your imagination have free rein at any time it starts to generate ideas. In the bath, when I am relaxed, is one of my favourite times for developing stories. I can sometimes be heard talking out loud, as the characters, working out some tricky plot point.

Other people may also spark ideas, but I’d suggest sticking with a fellow writer if you want to bounce ideas off someone. They understand. Non-writers are liable to suggest outrageous plot points that don’t fit your story, or try to persuade you to incorporate elements from their lives that they feel would make a fantastic bestseller. The key thing here is that any offers of plot points need to spark the ideas in your own head, otherwise the story won’t buzz for you.

Here’s the thing, though. Memory is a wayward customer, so I would encourage you to jot down the general points, or make a digital note somewhere as soon as you can once the thinking time starts paying off. I've lost more plot points by not writing them down than I care to remember – because I can’t remember them.

I have filled several small notebooks with ideas, and occasionally I browse through them. Anything used is crossed out, so I can’t use it again. But I’ll jot names, plot points, characters, germs of an idea – anything, just so I’ve got it there when I need it. Because when I haven’t done this, I’ve always come to regret it.

Usually when the plot starts rolling like this, it hasn't got much to do with the bit of the story that’s currently being written (or even another story altogether). That doesn't matter. The important thing is to get it written down somewhere and let it sit there, because it will be growing in your writer’s head without you realising it.

When you get back to writing the story, you will find the plot points you’ve thought about start to get built into the story without any real effort on your part. You might not even have to look at the notes.

And if they don’t get used, they may well be picked up for another story later on. Ideas are never wasted.

One of my heroines is a writer who has trouble controlling her wayward imagination:

An Angel's Touch

Outspoken Verity Lambourn berates the mentor of two lost children, having no idea that the lame young man with the vibrant black eyes is the widowed Henry, Marquis of Salmesbury. When she knocks him flying in Tunbridge Wells, Verity realises she has not been able to get him out of her mind.

Tumbling towards a promising future, Verity must confront the shadows of Henry’s tragic past. Matters come to a head when the children are kidnapped, but it takes a threat to Henry himself to test the strength of Verity’s love and the truth of a gypsy’s prophecy.




Elizabeth Bailey