Blog | Alison Morton's Thrillers

Sorting out a boring paragraph…

I’m currently editing my second book, a speculative fiction thriller (see previous post). I came upon one of those paragraphs I must have written at midnight after a very busy day with irregular meals and a lot of alcohol.

It got the characters from A to B, a conversation of two lines ensued and a lot of crossing of rooms happened. It wasn’t wrong, it did the job, but…

I fiddled around with it and after a while I couldn’t wrestle it any longer. I cut it out. But I needed it to cover a linking action. So I used an old translator trick. I deconstructed it. Literally. I wrote each of the six sentences out on a separate piece of paper and worked on them individually. When I put them back together, the paragraph worked!

Hurrah!

Lesson learned: No (essential) text is unredeemable.

What if?

Ever mislaid something, convinced you’d left it on the kitchen table and then found it on the bed? Or been somewhere completely certain of having made the journey before?

One answer could be that you did and you have, but you’ve shifted a nano-interval into another reality, according to a short story I’ve been reading (Sidewinders by Ken McLeod). Perhaps you may see the repeating black cat Neo spots in The Matrix – a sign of the world about to fall in on you. In Sliding Doors with Gwyneth Paltrow and John Hannah, we watched the timeline split at a crucial moment when the tube train doors shut. Could alternate realities co-exist?

Looking at the past, history may not be as stable as we think. Goodness knows how many books there are about Hitler winning the war. My favourite is Fatherland by Robert Harris. A master of the succinct style and unsurpassed for developing tension, he guides his detective protagonist into an increasingly shocking discovery. If you haven’t – read it! Naomi Novik and her Temeraire books are set in the Napoleonic war period where the warring forces use dragons as an air force. She writes in the ‘Regency style’, and has women captains as well as men. Delightfully transgressive. And Kate Johnson’s The Untied Kingdom takes place in an England where the Industrial Revolution didn’t happen. The romantic element is strong, but the heroine, already in difficulty, plummets (literally) into a grimmer reality where she deals with injury and mistreatment, saves a world falling apart and fights for what she wants, including her man.

In the future, J D Robb’s detective Eve Dallas operates in 2057, and fascinates because the details of that world are embedded in the story and thrown into the narrative like scraps, only when necessary and in a matter-of-fact way. Nevertheless, we see a more security-conscious and menacing world, but with urban and criminal problems familiar to us now.

Speculating on the what might have been, Michael Chabon’s The Yiddish Policeman’s Union is a contrast. The world-weary detective struggles through the surreal idea of Jewish Alaska. A melancholy tone is relieved by glimpses of optimism and convoluted humour. Strong streaks of reality and universal dilemmas are woven into very rich world-building. Margaret Attwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale and Oryx and Crake unfold to show frightening dystopian societies in the near future, yet perfectly plausible in light of current political and environmental challenges.

Q: So where am I going with this?

A: Into alternatives and speculation

Like any genres, alternative and speculative fiction like the above examples have their rules.
Alternative history has a specific point of divergence from ‘standard’ history: if Hitler won the war, if Constantine hadn’t made Christianity the Roman state religion, if Cathay (China) had discovered America, and usually narrates the consequences of that change, i.e. how the world would look today if various changes occurred and what these alternate worlds would be like. I’ve read a lot where the emphasis is laid on giving detail of the world rather than having a particularly strong plot. This is history in a broad, often fascinating, sweep.

Speculative fiction is a wider arena where the author doesn’t necessarily make a conscious choice to pinpoint a specific turning point in the past, but puts forward characters and stories in their own internally consistent world with an imaginary social and cultural framework. Not necessarily defined by any particular genre, it may bring in elements from different imaginary traditions (science fiction, fantasy, horror, supernatural fiction, superhero fiction, utopian and dystopian fiction, apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction, and alternate history) rather than be pigeonholed into a tight traditional genre.

Generally (a dangerous word!), the characters’ inner thoughts, conflicts and motivation are at the forefront. Some suggest the term “speculative fiction” expresses a desire to break out of science fiction’s genre conventions into a literary and modernist direction. Perhaps it’s a push to escape the prejudice with which science fiction is often met by mainstream critics.

I couldn’t possibly comment. But you might.

The remarkable Ms Jacobs

I am thrilled to host author Anna Jacobs on my blog today. When I last looked she had 54 books published. It may, of course, have gone up while I was writing this blog post…

So how did you get started?
I’d always wanted to write, but only dabbled until Georgette Heyer, my favourite novelist of all, died. I tried to write books like hers and indeed, I had two regency romances published (now available as ebooks, Persons of Rank, The Northern Lady). However, that taught me about my own voice and my own way of telling a story, so I then became ‘Anna Jacobs’ in fact. I’m very grateful to her. She’s a good role model and a brilliant writer, still getting re-published over 30 years after her death. (Hear, hear!)

What draws you to your particular genres?
I write in two genres at the moment and have been published in two others. My current genres are historical sagas and modern relationships novels. I love history, not the political stuff but how ordinary people lived, also the history of Lancashire, where I was born, and of Western Australia, where I mainly live now.

I used to write historical romances and my out of print books are now published on Amazon Kindle – Mistress of Marymoor and Replenish the Earth are selling particularly well. I also used to write fantasy novels as Shannah Jay and they too are reissued as ebooks.

I’m endlessly fascinated by people, how they interact and how they fall in love particularly, so I write in genres that can focus on that.

You recommended Freedom’s Land when I asked fellow RNA members for their ‘book of their heart’ I found Norah a very attractive heroine in her steadfastness and dignity. Does Freedom’s Land still occupy this space or has another taken its place?

I have a few ‘special’ books. Freedom’s Land is about Western Australia in the 1920s and the soldier settlers. I loved writing it and it’s the last book my former agent read. He said, ‘How are you ever going to follow that?’ After he died I tried very hard to live up to his good opinion.

Envoy, one of my other favourites, was written under my Shannah Jay name and is a fantasy novel, set in an imaginary warring world. I wrote it to practise getting tensions and pace into stories, and wow, it certainly does that. I used to wake in the night, with ideas for new twists and turns, and the couple of times I’ve re-read it, I didn’t remember half of these and was amazed at myself.

I’m also very fond of the book that’s just about to come out The Trader’s Wife which is the start of a new series set in Singapore and Western Australia in the 1860s. Bram was a minor character in another book (Destiny’s Path) and was so vivid I just had to give him his own story. He amply repaid me! I’m now about to start writing Book 3 of this series.

To plot or not to plot? Are you a planner or do you just dive in?
I just dive in. Even if I try to plot, I get much better ideas once I know my characters, so it’s a waste of time plotting because I don’t really know my characters till I write about what they do.

What is the hardest part of the writing process for you?
The middle of the book. It’s hard to keep up the pace and tension when you’ve lost that first excitement. It comes back later in the story, of course, and during the polishing, my favourite task of all.

The other hard thing is that because I write three books a year, I keep getting interrupted to edit or proofread other stories that have been written and are in the production pipeline. Drives me mad, but has to be done.

Do you enjoy research, and how do you set about it?
I love research and I don’t ‘set about it’. I’m always doing it. I keep my eyes open for interesting books about the periods and places. As I read three books a week, I buy research books and read them in between novels. Sometimes they’re no use to me and I abandon them; other times they lead me on to a setting/plot I can use in my stories.

The trick with research is to take notes and know where to find the information when you need it again. I have a very well-developed filing system.

How do you develop your characters?
I don’t. I just think up height, hair colour and personality type – you could sum it up in one paragraph – then I start writing. After that, ‘they’ develop themselves. I write and rewrite the first three chapters until I know them pretty well, but continue to get to know them better as I see them in action i.e. as I tell their story.

What do you think an editor, or reader for that matter, is looking for in a good novel?
A good story that grips you and keeps hold of you, characters that seem real, and for historical stories, good knowledge of the period/area without stuffing the story too full of it.

Which authors have influenced or inspired you?
Georgette Heyer, CJ Cherryh, Robyn Carr, Sherryl Woods, Carola Dunn, Isaac Asimov, Rosamund Pilcher – and lots more.

How do you relax? What interests do you have other than writing?
My husband is my main other interest. I don’t write after teatime and we enjoy each other’s company in the evenings. I’m an avid reader. We both enjoy informative programmes on TV like ‘Time Team’ and antiques shows, and I like to spend time with my daughters, grandson and my friends. Oh, and we live part of the year in our main home in Australia, a few months in our English home. That’s interesting too.

Are you into social networking, and in what way do you feel it helps your career?
Drives me mad. I don’t Twitter, because I can’t see that I’d enjoy it. I don’t need entertaining – I entertain myself and others by writing stories. I’d rather do that than ‘twitter on’.

I go on Facebook a bit and am a member of several writers’ organisations and email lists. That’s enough. I have too many stories to tell

What is your latest book?
I mentioned above The Trader’s Wife which comes out in October. It’s my 55th novel. I’ve got another book coming out in October, a collection of my short stories, which have all been published in women’s magazines or elsewhere. It’s called Short and Sweet. The cover’s a bit confusing because it doesn’t look like romantic stories – but it is, I promise you.

Can you tell us something of your work in progress?
I finished a book yesterday. It was something new so I can’t talk about it until I see whether I’ve hit the target. I’m now starting to write Book 3 in The Wiltshire Girls, the last in the series, following Cherry Tree Lane, and Elm Tree Road. No. 3 is called Yew Tree Gardens.

These books are set mainly in Wiltshire and I’ve enjoyed doing the research for them. I also have modern novels set in Wiltshire, one of which came out this year Moving On. Wiltshire, in case you haven’t guessed, is where we live when we’re in England.

And finally, what advice would you give a new writer?
Write. Then read. Then write some more. Write a lot. It’s like training for the Olympics, you get there by doing it not talking about it.

Do not publish your first effort at a novel as an ebook, because you won’t have learned your craft properly by writing one book and it could embarrass you one day. Keep it to revise and polish later when your skills are more mature. I know this is an instant, I want it now, world, but honestly, writing novels is a complex craft and it takes time to learn to do it well.

Thank you, Anna, for a comprehensive interview full of diamonds and nuggets.

http://www.annajacobs.com/