Back on track

You would have thought, that tearing a thigh muscle severely, while playing football, would have given me more time to write. In reality, the opposite is true. It meant three months of severe pain only numbed occasionally by sleeping, when I could sleep. Finding a position to sleep proved difficult. While it was only a grade two tear, it felt like a grade five and the chart only goes up to grade three.

I maintained the RICE regime to try to ensure control of inflammation and pain relief.

R – Rest
I – Ice
C – Compression
E – Elevation

It worked reasonably well, but a quality (not the cheap ones) thigh strap that holds the muscles in place works better in the long run (like the pun?) Trying to jog too early sets you back a couple of weeks. I know from practical experience and from the ensuing pain.

Having long term visitors drop by also misplaced a couple of weeks, but I’m now through the other side and run out of excuses and any further procrastination. The thigh strap means I can walk and talk and therefore, sit and type. Well, not actually much typing, mostly using the dictation software and only typing for some minor editing.

This led me to change the delivery times for my novel, Chasing The Will. The delay has allowed me to review the chapter planning for the book and given me the opportunity to add a new part to the book where I’ll introduce a new character that will prove essential to the story. This new link makes it all hang together so much better, such are the advantages of taking time and looking with fresh eyes two months later.

I’ll start to post the book chapter planning later this week just after I’ve filled in a couple of blanks. Still thirty chapters and good to go.

Hey, I’m even back playing football. No sympathy required: I know I shouldn’t be playing football at my age and you don’t have to tell me every time we meet.

The blurb that sells the book.

It’s about time I shared the blurb with you. This, in a nutshell, lets you know what the story is about. You’ll find it on the inside cover of a hardback; the back page of a paperback and half way down the book’s page on Amazon.

It introduces the main characters. You’ll know what happens at the beginning of the tale and you get the general idea of what happens next. What you won’t know, is how it’s all going to pan out and how it will be brought to a close. Surely we all know the baddies don’t often get away free at the end, but this time? That’s up to the author. Oh, that’s me.

“Have you checked to see if he’s actually dead?”

When Londoner Harold Webber dies, his daughter discovers that his Will has been forged by two scammers who prey on lonely, elderly people to steal their properties and estates. The police won’t help so Webber’s daughter teams up with his lawyer to expose the scammers. Enter a young American blonde who says she was Webber’s last lover and was promised everything. Likewise a Barbadian beauty. Are they gold-diggers or is one of them telling the truth?

Write what you know

They say you should write what you know so I’ve harped back to the days when I did legal training (I was the trainer) and was involved in the Will Writing industry. Before you ask, my will is up to date and in a safe storage facility.

Writing what you know is a double-edged sword. I could write all day everyday about the legal aspects of estate planning and know exactly what I was talking about, but what if I want to write a detective or a murder mystery? I’ve never been a detective, and certainly never murdered anyone even though I confess that thought might have crossed my mind once or twice, but never seriously. Could it be that from years of watching detective and murder mysteries on television that I have actually completed my research in advance?

Do I know enough background information about how I should go about murdering someone (just in the fiction writing of course!), should I guess what actually goes through someone’s mind when taking action or should I talk to experts who have been involved in the field of murder? I’m not convinced I know enough gangland bosses or experts in assassination to carry out the last task, but it could be that calling the local police station there might be people who may be able to talk me through several experiences they have set out to seek and solve. Or should I take steps like the murderer who acts on impulse; no preparation, no planning just writing on the spur of the moment?

Quite clearly the likes of Lisa Gardner and Karin Slaughter have completed serious research to bring their fiction writing to life. You certainly feel, after reading one of their books, that they know exactly what they’re talking about. There is no reason to doubt a single line of information, that tells us how the crimes are committed and how they are solved.

Certainly if the novel is solely based on the everyday aspects of estate planning, possible audience for the book is now down considerably from the many millions who may entertain a detective or murder mystery manuscript.

As there will be some sort of detective and mystery involved in my legal estate planning novel, I had better get on the telephone to the police station, spend time searching the Internet with the help of Google and inquiring among friends if any of them know of any local assassination experts.

Thirty chapters

This part of the planning contains both the easiest part of the book and the most difficult.

The first job is to open up your chosen word processor and write the numbers one to thirty down the left hand side leaving generous spacing between each one. I’ve chosen thirty chapters as my ideal arrangement for my first draft, but I’m flexible where necessary. It might be better to add a chapter later if it suits the need as I’m writing and I find I need an extra chapter to deal with additional thoughts. Conversely, I might need to delete a chapter if I find I cover its content either earlier or later or it just shapes down to not being required – extra waffle is not a good reading signal for any bookworm. Include them at your peril.

The second task is now to briefly write down what will happen in each chapter. This part of the planning can be achieved in minutes by some people and over the course of months by others. Personally I like to go head long into it and have a first idea in an hour or so and then spend the following three or four days actually testing if the plan for the novel:

• Sounds good
• Looks good
• Makes sense
• Includes everything

I also need to give thought to the following:

• Introducing the hero
• Setting the background to the story
• Showing the problem that the central character has to overcome
• Keeping the time-line intact
• Introducing any ‘B’ story
• The point of no return
• How will the antagonist react?
• What stumbling blocks will be in the way?
• Two steps forward, one step back
• Major crisis
• Fight to the end
• Heighten the demand for the hero/antagonist clashes
• Resolution of the ‘B’ story
• Resolution of the main story

Then everything needs to put into the right order. It wouldn’t be right to confuse the reader although including a few ‘red herrings’ are wonderful fun.

Now I need to define the exact details of each character so they can interact well. Then I’ll work on the locations where events unfold.

Planning the blurb

I spent some of today getting over the busy weekend and the rest starting on the first part of planning my novel. The blurb, what they in the movies call the ‘Elevator Pitch,’ is an important part of any writing planning. If you can succinctly put into a few (or less) sentences exactly what the story is all about so that a person can grasp it all from you in just 20-40 words, then you may just have control and guidance over what your story is all about.

It’s also called a logline by some parts of the writing industry. Whatever it’s called, it contains the following:

• It’s short
• It tells you who is involved
• It informs you of their desires
• It lets you know of their conflict during the story

The connoisseurs in this field will call this same section ‘the protagonist, the goal and the antagonistic power.

Some examples:

JAWS: (the movie most of us know)
After a series of grisly shark attacks, a sheriff struggles to protect his small beach community against the bloodthirsty monster, in spite of the greedy chamber of commerce.

The movie 2012 has been out a couple of weeks: this is described as:
Never before has a date in history been so significant to so many cultures, so many religions, scientists, and governments. 2012 is an epic adventure about a global cataclysm that brings an end to the world and tells of the heroic struggle of the survivors.

For books, you tend to get space for a few more words (it’ll take you 7-10 hours to read while the movie will take you two hours to watch) thus:

CHRONIC CITY By Jonathan Lethem

Lethem’s eighth novel unfolds in an alternative-reality Manhattan. The crowded canvas includes a wantonly destructive escaped tiger (or is it a subway excavator?) prowling the streets, a cruel gray fog engulfing Wall Street, a “war free” edition of The New York Times, a character stranded on the dying International Space Station, strange and valuable vaselike objects called chaldrons, colossal cheeseburgers and some extremely potent marijuana.

Once complete the ‘blurb’ will keep you on track; to remind you what your story is about as you write it. It will also be necessary when you come to sell your manuscript to a publisher. Something that’s easy to grasp and digest, something that’s ready to go on the back page of your paperback.

Okay; must do the first few drafts of my ‘blurb’ now. I’ll let you know how it went. I might do a couple and then let it sit for a couple of days as I start working out what the story will be about, in real time detail.