This week I have a brief work in progress update for you.
Yesterday, I sent the first half of the MS off to be proofread. I am having a final read through, and when that’s done, the rest will be ready for proofing.
I’m still on track for publication on March 26th (or as soon after that date as Amazon releases the book), so there is not long to wait now.
Currently, my days are taken up with writing, re-reading, editing, and re-reading again.
The cover is ready but I must work on the back text and blurb, and the author’s notes which have proved popular in the Larkspur Series.
Once all this is done, and the book is out, I can turn my mind to The Clearwater Companion, the collection of series-related information and short stories I intend to put together for anyone who has read the entire two series. But that’s for the future. For the moment, it’s back to re-reading.
Currently, my first-in-series novel, Deviant Desire, is enjoying a book funnel promotion in their M/M Series Starters listing. There are many series-starters on the list, which you can explore from here. This gives me an excellent opportunity to talk about the first story in the Clearwater Mysteries, and to address the title of today’s blog: How To Start an M/M Romance Series.
First, have a deviant desire to write.
I’ve often been asked,
‘How did you start writing the Clearwater series?’
My answer?
By accident.
Back in 2018, I’d written a novel called ‘The Stoker Connection,’ and by doing so, unleashed within myself the deviant desire to write more mysteries based on fact, but ones that also included romance and adventure.
I’ve been a fan of ‘Dracula’ since I was 11 and begged for a copy for Christmas. (I was mad on the Hammer Horror films of the 70s and had a thing for creepy castles and what I now know as Gothic.) Dracula is written in the form of diaries and articles, journals and messages, and that makes it all the more real. So, when I set about ‘The Stoker Connection’, I wrote it in diary form, and based the story on a great big What If?
“What if you could prove that the greatest Gothic horror novel of all time was a true story?”
That was my starting point, and if you want to read how it all turned out, you can find The Stoker Connection here.
The Clearwater Mysteries
What ‘Stoker’ did was open up another What If? In this case,
‘What if Jack the Ripper had killed rent boys?’
That led to a
‘Why not?’
and then came the,
‘I can, and I will.’
Why not write a story where the villain is the famous Ripper of history? It’s an unsolved crime(s) that continues to grab the imagination of everyone, from conspiracy theorists to famous novelists, filmmakers to composers, so why not have a go? I’d read just about every book on the subject, seen the documentaries and films, and had gathered an amount of knowledge of the times and places. I’d even lived not far from Whitechapel and often walked its streets.
But… Yes, it had been done before, so I needed a different approach.
Make it a gay love story?
I’d written some classic MM Romance with ‘The Mentor of Lonemarsh House’ and other ‘Mentor’ books, and I’d dabbled with gay-to-straight mystery/romance/lore in my James Collins series, ‘The Saddling Series.’ What, then, would happen if I wrote a gay romance set in October 1888, the time the Ripper was stalking the streets of Whitechapel? The only way to answer a question like that is to set about writing one, so I did.
But…?How to make it faction?
Faction being a word for a novel where fact and fiction mix. How to make it realistic without descending into blood and gore, and how to make it dramatic? As if the original events weren’t dramatic enough. First, I thought, because it’s not going to be fact-fact, I will change Whitechapel to Greychurch, so I can create my own world. Greychurch is simply my name of the area of London, and now, eighteen books later, I rather wish I’d just called it Whitechapel, because the series has gone on to be accurate in historic detail apart from the names of a few places. Once they had appeared in ‘Deviant Desire’, it was too late to change them, so I still have Limedock for Limehouse, Westerpool for the Wirral, and St Matthew’s Park instead of Hyde Park. Hey ho! You write and learn.
But… Eighteen books by accident?
Well, yes and no. ‘Deviant Desire’ was meant to be a standalone novel, one that went into detail of the living conditions in the East End in 1888, and one that used facts as well as fiction, told a love story, and that was it. While writing it, I made references and gave nods to some of the facts from the original horrors. Astute Ripperologists may note that I have a double murder on one night, that some of the murder sites bear similarities to the originals (Mitre Square became Bishop’s Square, for example), and there are other hidden references which the avid reader might notice.
Yes, but… Eighteen books?
I’m getting there. The background to ‘Deviant Desire’ was London 1888, but what was the love story? Let’s call on another popular trend, I thought, one that some critics call cliché, and it is, a bit. Rich and poor, across-the-divide, Prince and Pauper, except, not a Prince but a viscount. In the British nobility, a viscount is less than an earl, more than a baron, but still an ancient title that often comes with much responsibility, and as much inherited wealth as debt. Of course, the other character had to be a rent boy, a ‘renter’ as he calls himself, and that’s how we ended up with the two main character’s you see on the cover. Archer Riddington, aka, the Viscount Clearwater, and Silas Hawkins, aka Billy O’Hara, the renter.
Their story starts with the line,
‘Silas Hawkins was searching for coins in an East End gutter when a man four miles distant and ten years older sealed his fate.‘
We don’t know who this man is yet, but within that line, we know Silas is poor, where we are, and that there’s going to be an age-gap element. The story continues… Silas has a best friend, a straight man with a big, er, talent, who works as a rent boy out of necessity, and who is an immigrant from Ukraine. Clearwater, meanwhile, sets his crotchety butler and his gorgeous, sexy footman the task of acquiring a renter for an interview. There are already enough ‘standards’ in the story, and I didn’t want another, i.e. the one where a rich man hires a poor man for a shag. Archer is more noble than that, and is using his new-found wealth to finance a shelter for homeless young men in the East End; rent boys, mainly. Thus, he wants to know what life is like for them and what they would want in such a shelter, and sends his staff to find someone who looks a little like a picture he drew. (There is an element of Archer wanting a fantasy to come true, and boy, does he get it.)
Yes, but…? I’m still getting there.
The story unfolds. Silas and his mate, Andrej, meet Archer. Silas immediately falls for him, and vice versa, at which point, the over-arching theme of the book begins: being gay in Victorian Britain was illegal, so everything that follows must happen away from the public eye.
So, now we have: rich and poor, nobility and renters, the East End and Knightsbridge, gay and straight, friendship and love, a 19 year old and a 29 year old, and our main cast can only love illegally. Oh, and there’s a series of murders taking place too, let’s not forget the villain of the piece. Let’s also not forget that the footman is in love with the viscount, the viscount is in love with the footman, but nothing has ever happened because, even within a nobleman’s house, relationships must not cross the threshold of the green baize door. (Upstairs and downstairs mustn’t mix.)
All these elements continue as the mystery unfolds, reaches a climax, and ends with an ending I was not entirely happy with. I was happy with it as a writer, but it left me feeling that there was something more. A longer story to tell. Characters have arced and changed, but where do they go next? What happens to the footman? Did the Ripper escape? Will he be back? Is he dead? And what am I going to do with this main cast of characters.
They’d already become so real, I knew Deviant Desire had to lead to something else.
It did, it led to 17 more novels.
At last! Yes, you see, I got there in the end.
What started as a one-off became a series, by accident, as I said. I hadn’t planned the series, so my ‘How To’ tip remains:
just get on and write it and see what happens.
It’s easy to base future stories on elements of those in the already-published earlier books, you don’t need to plan ahead. Having said that, as I worked through the series, I made notes of what I might like to see happen when the time was right, what other characters I could bring in, and what historical events I could use as fact in my fiction. Had I done all that before writing, Silas Hawkins was searching for coins… I would have found the prospect too daunting, so I am glad I just said, What if? and got on with it.
How Many Novels make up the Clearwater Series?
I mentioned 18, but that includes the follow-on series, the Larkspur Mysteries. The Larkspur novels include characters from right back in book one of Clearwater, Deviant Desire, and they even include threads that began in the prequel (which I wrote after Clearwater eight, ‘One of a Pair’, but which happens before Deviant Desire and leads into it). The two series are connected, and the five main characters, the ‘canonical five’ (you will note the Jack the Ripper reference) can be found playing parts in just about all eleven Clearwater and seven Larkspur books.
So, to answer the question, How To Start an M/M Romance Series, I’d have to answer:
Plan it, write book two before you publish book one, be passionate from the start, keep notes and a ‘bible’ for details, and keep going.
Or
Do what I did, and start one by accident.
Either way, I now have my own best seller, ‘Deviant Desire.’ Two actually, because the first in the Larkspur Series, ‘Guardians of the Poor’ is also doing well. People like a good ongoing series with characters who develop, and, I am pleased to say, that’s what you get with both the Clearwater and Larkspur mysteries.
Note: The last book of both series, ‘The Larkspur Legacy’ is due to be released around March 26th. You don’t have to have read all of the Clearwater books to enjoy the Larkspur series, it can be read separately, but you’ll get more from Larkspur if you’ve read Clearwater. You’re advised to read both series from the start and in order. You can find them all here:
It’s a sad fact that many first-time writers will say, ‘I finished writing my book last night,’ when what they mean is, they finished writing a first draft. I’ve seen it myself, when someone has sought me out, and asked me to look at their publication, proudly showing it off, cover and all, printed and bound, and in their hand, and they’ve asked for my opinion. I used to tell them what they wanted to hear, but now I say, ‘Do you want my honest opinion, or do you want me just to say, it’s lovely?’
Most of the time, when someone asks you what you think of their work, they are asking for approval. They don’t want you to say how you think it could be improved, because they think it’s already perfect.
This happened last year: I was sitting outside our local bar as I often do in the summer afternoons, and someone I vaguely know bounded up with the first copy of his book under his arm. Knowing I make a living out of writing, he asked me to tell him what I thought. Honestly? Yes, please. He was one of the genuine ones. He wanted me to pull it apart so he could take it back to the people he’d paid to publish it and get them to make changes, so I knew I could be direct. I didn’t read all of it, only had a glance through, and seeing it had been printed in a sans serif font was enough for me. But, based on what I saw, here is a list of some of the things to avoid, look out for, be wary of and do when self-publishing. As usual, these are my opinions, and other writers will have a different view.
What happens after you’ve written your first draft?
Answer: You write a second, and third, and fourth, and as many as it takes to make it perfect.
Never pay to have your book published
You don’t need to. There’s no guarantee the people you pay thousands to will keep their end of the bargain. It’s vanity publishing, and often, they only put out what you put in. If you present an unfinished manuscript, or one that needs editing, they might say they will edit, but often, they don’t. It comes out with typos and all. If someone other than you wants to publish your work, they should be paying you. It’s as simple as that.
There’s a draft in here
‘I finished writing my book!’ Translates as, ‘I’ve written a first draft, and it’s perfect. It says everything I want it to say. I’ve reread it twice and not had to change a thing…’
Alarm bells.
Nothing is ever finished the first time around. Or as Hemmingway said,
‘The first draft of anything is shit.’
Here’s my list of drafts:
1st Don’t get it right, get it written. Bash it out, put the words down, tell yourself the story, make notes on the side as you go. Scribble reminders to include XYZ, number your files in order but give them POC titles. I.e., the Larkspur Legacy currently has 49 chapter files with file names such as: 20 Meanwhile, Silas at Larkspur, and 44 In house Dalston on way. This makes it easier to nip back and make changes or check facts.
2nd Read it through chapter file by chapter file. A POC, in my terminology, is a Point Of Chapter. Each chapter should do something otherwise it’s shoe leather, a term borrowed from screenwriting, where you write a scene just to fill in time. (You and the reader wander around aimlessly.) I’m not talking descriptions and atmosphere, they are essential, but someone having a conversation for the sake of it, or a scene that doesn’t advance plot or character, or in my case, mystery, that’s shoe leather.
Also, while in what I call draft two, the first readthrough, I cut out repetition. I have this thing where I get characters to tell each other or the reader their backstory or something they know, so that when I get to those parts in draft two, I can say ‘We know this.’ I make sure it’s been covered or mentioned, and then cut it out. It’s like dropping ‘remembrals’ along the path and then kicking them out of the way when you take the same route again.
Draft 2a. At this stage, I give what I have to my beta reader (husband) to read for story consistency. Does it make sense? Anything leap out as wrong? Any repetition? Anything that made you say, What the…? That kind of thing. It’s a structure read, if you like. I’m always pleased if I overhear him sniffing back tears, or laughing aloud, or calling me names when he gets a surprise, always so encouraging.
3rd This is when, having gone from 100,000 words to 95,000 words of your draft, you know you need to cut another 5,000. Why? My story is perfect as it is. No, it’s probably not. We’re very good at defending our own work, some authors call their books their babies (eek!), but that’s not the relationship you should be having with them. You command them, not the other way around. So, “If in doubt, cut it out,” as our family doctor used to say.
Also, at this time, I perform an in-depth edit for grammar, punctuation, passive Vs active sentences, sentence length, word repetition… the technical side of the craft. To assist me, I use Pro Writing Aid, and Grammarly plug-ins, but ultimately, the style is up to you, so you can ignore their advice if you want. (I never use Microsoft’s grammar checker, and I’ve not explored their ‘editor’ yet, because I use those other tools.)
You may repeat the draft-three surgery as many times as you see fit, but let’s say you’re happy with your MS after draft three. What next?
4th Draft four, of course. Some people say you should rewrite the entire thing from scratch, and yes, if you are a masochist, you can do that. If I’m not happy with a chapter or part of, I will take it out, discard the whole 4,000 words or whatever, and completely rewrite them. If I feel one of my novels needs completely rewriting, then I will probably throw the whole lot away and write something else. Clearly, the idea I’d had didn’t work, so why flog the proverbial?
Draft four can be a rewrite or a reread, but it’s usually the time when I put all files together and read the entire MS as one. While I am doing that, I check for typos.
TIP: Put the MS into one word doc, and as soon as you see a typo, run a search and find for that typo to ensure you haven’t done it again. Repeat this process before you send it to your proof reader, to cover anything you may have added in while editing.
Bonus TIP: I have a sheet of paper on which I wrote my most common typos. Some of them look like this: Wrote/write. Mr Lord/My Lord. Form/from. Sails/Silas. Desert/Dessert?
Time to let it go
By which I mean, let it go to a professional proof reader and/or editor if you work with an editor and we all should. If only we could afford it.
While you are paying to have the MS checked for typos, incontinences, spelling errors etc., there are other things to be doing. Hiring a professional artist to produce the perfect cover. Paying for illustrations or maps, if necessary. Working on the blurb and publicity releases. Starting the publicity ball rolling. Beginning the next novel…
Then, when the MS comes back, you need to read it again to approve the proofing, and that’s your last chance to make any changes. If you do, be careful not to add back in any other errors.
Then, it’s a case of having the MS laid out, uploading it to where you’re going to sell it, getting it publicised, and sitting back waiting for the money to come rolling in. It’s unlikely it will, so start the process again with a better story, and learn from any mistakes you made while writing book one.
Then, when you present your published book to people, you can do so knowing you have at least done your best to make it as perfect as perfect can be. Hopefully, the person you show it to won’t do what I did when that chap I was talking about showed me his ‘baby.’ Scream at the sans serif font, gasp at the overuse of exclamation marks, point out the various ways he’d spelt the same word, put double line breaks between paragraphs, and used “ ” instead of ‘ ’ (Apparently, double quotes for speech is American, and single is a British thing.)
But most importantly:
Don’t be put off by honest and constructive criticism, even when it feels like someone isn’t being positive. If all you want to hear is, ‘Darling, that was wonderful,’ then you should be working in the theatre.
Something that serves as conclusive evidence or proof (as of a crime or scientific theory). In legal terms, the smoking gun is the term is most often used to describe a piece of circumstantial evidence that will lead to a person’s conviction.
Looking at other sources, we also discover that the term refers to the strongest piece of circumstantial evidence, as opposed to direct evidence, and the phrase, or one very like it, was coined by Sir Arthur Connan Doyle in the Sherlock Holmes story, The Adventure of Gloria Scott. In 1893, he used the words, smoking pistol, which was much more in keeping with his time and characters than ‘gun.’ The gun version seems to have come about in the 1970s, and may first have been used during the Watergate affair, because reports referred to one of Nixon’s tapes (June 23rd, 1972) as ‘the Smoking Gun’ tape, perhaps borrowing from Connan Doyle.
Examples of the Smoking Gun
Watch any of today’s action thriller films, and you will see examples of the smoking gun. The best ones are those which turn out to be something that’s been staring us in the face all this time, and when you realise, you say, ‘Oh, of course!’ At least, those are my favourite times, and I’m now trying to think of a classic one… The trouble is, they are also plot spoilers, so I can’t even give you an example from any of my books, in case you’ve not read them all. (And if not, why not? Lol.)
An example which is not a plot spoiler, might be: You walk into a room to find the last chocolate biscuit has been snaffled away, and your young child protesting his innocence… with chocolate all over his face. (That’s circumstantial evidence. ‘Real’ evidence would be him holding the last piece of the biscuit.)
How to use a Smoking Gun
I like to use the device as a twist, a revelation, or a key to unlock a mystery, but you have to be careful how you go about it. In one of my stories, I was aware from the start that I was going to rely on the smoking gun as the final ‘Ah ah!’ moment towards the end of the book. I had that in mind before I even began writing. Therefore, I was able to write the novel with that moment in mind, and made sure I laid the path to the smoking gun revelation with care.
Why? Because, when writing a smoking gun scene, you can’t reveal something that has never been there.
It’s like the classic error in dodgy thrillers and mystery plays, particularly those written by children to present to weary parents on a Saturday afternoon. Our hero battles the evil villain but is trapped, so he whips a magic potion from his pocket, throws it in the villain’s face, makes his escape and, ‘Curtain!’ Or, as happened in a play I once saw: The final showdown was taking place, the leading lady was about to be slaughtered in Act Two. The drawing room one afternoon in late spring, when our hero said, ‘There has to be a revolver here somewhere…’, dived into a bathroom cabinet, pulled out a gun and shot the baddie.
The message there being, always foreshadow your twists, handy escape implements and smoking guns. By the way, why were drawing room thrillers always set among chintz covered furniture in late spring? I worked on several back in the 80s, and never thought to ask. Nor did I think to ask how the character knew that particular cabinet would contain a gun, because a gun had never been mentioned. I also never found out why there was a bathroom cabinet in a drawing room.
Of course, where you want to avoid falling into the trap of ‘handy ways out of a crisis’ and ‘smoking guns that have not been foreshadowed,’ the opposite is true. There’s an old writers’ maxim that says,
‘If you’re going to show the reader a gun, you’d better damn well use it.’
Imagine if the hero, or detective, or both in one character, is halfway through an interview when he says, ‘That’s a very interesting sketch, Mr Snoot. Not everyone owns an original Da Vinci.’ How disappointed or bewildered (or both) are you going to feel when, after ploughing through the rest of the novel, you’re left wondering what the Da Vinci reference was all about?
A writer must make sure to justify prominent props, characters, and any suspicions put in the reader’s mind. Unless, that is, you are purposely intending to mislead your reader.
Some great murder mysteries to watch – look out for the ‘smoking gun’!
Something About Fish
Yes, you can mislead the reader, that’s allowed, and it’s called a red herring. However, my advice would be to make sure you don’t leave your red herrings to go off. Always tie them up, and hang them in the smokehouse, but don’t leave them there to rot. By which I mean, make sure your characters and readers know that was a red herring.
An aside. The term, red herring, may date from the late 17th century, when a publication suggested ways to train hounds to follow a scent trail. Herrings, when smoked and reddened, are particularly whiffy, and irresistible to hunting dogs. (More successful than other fish and dead cats, apparently.) The expression, as it relates to crime novels, became a widely used idiom in the 19th century, but if you try and look up exactly when, you will find many different theories. Most of them, I suspect, will be red herrings.
Back to the Smoking Gun
Apart from to offer my thoughts on this plot device, the reason I am posting this day, is because I am at the part in my current mystery where the smoking gun has just made its appearance. Actually, it’s been there since the book before, and throughout this one, as I peppered in references to it, but now, it’s just taken centre stage in the first draft. I’m not going to tell you what it is or even give you a clue, because that would spoil ‘The Larkspur Legacy’ for you. All I will say is, if you can wait until the end of March, and read the longest novel I have yet written, you will find out.
There will be an update on ‘Legacy’ in my Wednesday work in progress blog, by when, I hope, I shall be announcing that the first draft is finished.
Here’s a brief update on The Larkspur Legacy. I am now at 162,000 words of the last book in the series, first draft. I’m averaging about 3,000 words per day, and estimate I have another four chapters to go. Two of them will be the rounding off of the story, and the last two will be the rounding off of the rounding off; the epilogue. Then, I will go back to the beginning and start my read-through for consistency and story. After that will come the edit-and-read line by line and the final read or rewrite. I will, during that time, start putting together the author’s notes section, and begin thinking about the blurb and cover. Maybe a map if I can afford one.
I am still on track to have the book published by the end of March. It would be good to have it out on the 26th of that month, as that’s my birthday (and Clearwater’s birthday), and as that’s less than eight weeks away, I better get a move on. It helps that it’s currently cold and windy here on Symi, and I’m not much inclined to go walking, but doesn’t help (that it’s cold and windy) because I am more inclined to sit on the sofa under my dressing gown playing SimCity and/or Sherlock on my tablet. My office is currently at 10 degrees, and it can take a few hours to get up to a decent temperature, and sitting at the kitchen table isn’t much warmer.
So, today, I will finish the climax action sequence, because such scenes are a staple of a Larkspur novel, and hopefully, tomorrow, I will have brought the main throughline story/stories to a conclusion. At this rate, I should have the first draft finished by Sunday.
Today is a quick update on where I am with the last in the Larkspur Mystery series, ‘The Larkspur Legacy.’
There’s not much to report, but I have been getting on with things. I am now working on chapter 35, and the various threads of the story are starting to come together. I am at 123,000 words, and still have a way to go, so we are, as I thought, looking at a first draft of roughly 150,000 words, possibly more. This is the same length as ‘The Clearwater Inheritance’, which is what I wanted. The end of a series needs to tie all kinds of things together and produce a satisfying result, and I know exactly how things are going to end. I had the finale planned many months ago, and the road I am on now although maybe not the home straight, it is perhaps the final corner that will lead to the home straight.
I am into my winter routine now, which means getting up early, doing some writing work for other people for a couple of hours because I still have to pay the bills, and then taking a walk to clear that from my head and set the next part of ‘Legacy’, and then getting down to a few hours of typing. My desk is surrounded by notes, I have 101 things to check when I finally get to read through the first draft to make sure the stories tie up, and then, around midday, I take time off. It’s tempting, though, when it’s winter, sometimes cold and wet, to stay in the sitting room for the rest of the day, but I try not to. Usually, by the afternoon, I am brain-dead because I’ve been writing since five in the morning, so I like to do something else. This year, I am working on a model of ‘the Mummy’ when not writing, playing the piano, giving a piano lesson, or watching ‘The Amazing Race’, ‘The Circle’ or other TV series.
‘The Larkspur Legacy’, then, is coming together, and I definitely have a deadline for its completion. I’ve been in touch with Andjela about the cover and she’s on standby for when I am ready, and we’re still looking at the end of March for its release.
As you might know, I’m currently working on ‘The Larkspur Legacy’, the last in the Larkspur Mystery series.
If you have read ‘Starting with Secrets’, you will know that book comes before ‘Legacy’ and concerns a treasure hunt in four pieces based on the four points of a compass. In ‘Secrets’, the characters chased three out of four clues because I thought having four story-lines running simultaneously might be complicated, and now, writing ‘Legacy’ with all four stories in action, I find I was right.
It’s not the weaving of the four plots that needs careful handling and consideration, but the way the stories are told. I love a good, interwoven plot line or four, where each thread has to be tied off neatly so my story doesn’t get knotted. What I am having to be aware of is who is telling the story, and in ‘Legacy’, I have four main characters seeing the story from four points of view (POV). So, the question is, how do you handle that?
One Character POV
Many stories are told with one main character (MC) as the central character. We follow his/her path from a normal world, through a series of trials and a character-development arc, to a twist, a change, a crisis and a climax. (Use the search box for earlier posts about story and character development.) That’s the classic hero’s journey kind of storytelling, but in ‘Legacy’, I am not telling one person’s story. What I am doing, is bringing to an end a series of 17 books through a device that uses characters and information from as long ago as the Clearwater prequel, Banyak & Fecks, and taking us right up to date and the previous Larkspur mystery, ‘Starting with Secrets.’
I decided I couldn’t write a four-story epic like ‘Legacy’ with one main character involved in each one of the four through-lines, simply because no-one can be in four places at the same time. However, what I could do, was have one of my main characters ‘lead’ each storyline and write it from his point of view, keeping one protagonist (in this case, Archer, Lord Clearwater), and one antagonist who has a band of other villains under his command.
Thus, what we have are four stories woven together, all playing their part in the success or failure of one overarching story (the treasure hunt), and all coming about because of one protagonist. Easy right?
Actually, yes. I’m loving it, but I have to keep my eye on the ball, particularly when it comes to who is experiencing the story, and as I just explained, that is not one character, but four.
Five actually, or maybe it’s six…
Know Your Throughlines
Without giving anything away, I can tell you that the action plot of ‘Legacy’ looks something like this:
Overarching plot of discovering the secret and finding the treasure based on four points of the compass.
South: a team chasing down the answer to the south clue
North: a team chasing down the answer to the north clue
East: Ditto but the east clue
West: you get the picture
The villain’s story, because we need to know that side of things too
Within those six storylines, we must have the emotional side of the story, so that the reader is engaged emotionally and is not reading a Clive Cussler action-adventure story.*
So, among the six listed above, I also have:
The ‘heart’ of the story; the friendship story if you like
The tying up of previous loose ends, love stories, histories, etc.
The villain’s motivation explained
The tying up of other threads begun in earlier books in the series
Giving those that deserve it a happy ending (or not)
(* I love Clive Cussler adventure stories, btw.)
With those charted on my map that will lead me through ‘The Larkspur Legacy’, I set about writing the story… stories… while keeping everything and everyone focused on the final outcome: success for Lord Clearwater, and happiness (or not) for his band of friends, crew and academy men.
This is where, when you are writing from more than one character’s point of view, you need to remember who is seeing the story unfold.
General Narrator VS Character POV
Many authors write with their own voice as the narrator, and that’s fine. The narrator is an omnipresent observer relaying the events back to you, the reader. I always wonder, though, how this narrator knows what’s inside the characters’ heads and hearts, and I often find the telling of the emotional side of stories is muted because of this approach. That, like everything else I write here, is only my opinion.
Some authors, and I am thinking of John Steinbeck here, take on the voice of a character who lives in the world of the story but is not actually in the story. That works better for me, and I find my writing flows best when I am writing in the first person, as I do in one of the stories within ‘Legacy.’
Some of my books have taken two characters’ points of view, and others have taken more, but only now and then. ‘Banyak & Fecks’ for example, is told in four parts: Andrej, from his POV, Silas, from his, then the Andrej & Silas, and Banyak & Fecks sections which are variously from both points of view. In other books, we might find a chapter from a minor character’s point of view, as we do at the start of ‘Artful Deception’ which opens with a man called Henry Beddington, the concierge of the National Gallery. That’s fine too; we need to keep our readers informed and entertained, and if we have to change from one place to another, we might need to change from one character’s POV to another.
Beware: it’s not a good idea to have a new lead character and point of view in every single chapter or section thereof.
For ‘Legacy’, I have gone down the multi-character point-of-view narration style. It’s still my voice overall, but even though we read from a 3rd person, omnipresent narration in all but the 1st person sections, I am aware that I am describing things from a character’s POV and not my own.
Say what?
I am trying to say, when making more than one character your main character, always be aware of who that character is, and make sure his/her reactions to and observations of what happens are character appropriate. Fine, but there’s more. I also try and ensure my style of narration reflects the main character of the chapter.
Let me try and illustrate what I am saying.
Voices
Again, without giving anything away, here is how I am approaching this multi-character point-of-view style in ‘Legacy.’ Here are a few examples of how I am trying to change my narrator’s voice to reflect the attitudes of the main characters of each of my storylines. These are first-draft, unedited sections, so please forgive any clumsiness.
1)Action at Larkspur Hall is seen from Silas’ point of view, therefore the first thing we get is a cosey scene of two lovers in bed. The writing style is mostly straightforward, to reflect Silas’ character, and when writing, I find myself ‘thinking Irish.’
‘This is an outrage!’
Silas rolled over to find his lover sitting up in bed, his reading spectacles teetering on the end of his nose and his face red with rage. Archer’s knuckles were white as he gripped a newspaper, and his coffee sat steamless on the bed tray. Silas hadn’t heard Nancarrow come in, deliver the coffee and pour, nor had he woken when the butler drew the curtains revealing a grey sky…
2) Action pertaining to the ‘heart’ of the story (the good fortune of the academy men, friendship, the changes Clearwater has enabled in his men, the more emotional side of things). This is mainly seen from Dalston Blaze’s point of view, he being the first Larkspur Academy man we met in ‘Guardians of the Poor.’
The workhouse. A previous life of tedium, cold and hunger. An existence he wouldn’t wish on anyone, and yet, had it not been for a house fire and an unknowing public, he wouldn’t have been taken to the Hackney spike. There, if it hadn’t been for a kind matron and his ability to draw, he would never have met Joe, but if he hadn’t met Joe, he may not have fallen prey to Skaggot. His life had been shaped by a chain of coincidences, and the only one among them that felt inevitable was meeting Joe.
3) 1st person narrative is written by Bertie Tucker in diary form. He’s a pretty rough character underneath, been at sea since he was seven, and not greatly educated, but he’s been asked to keep a diary. In this brief section, he’s trying on clothes with an Italian sailor called Mario. The style is completely different to a) give readers a rest and a smile, and b) bring them into the action, because 1st person is more direct.
I got me boots and trousers off, and was in my drawers going through the shirts when I found one I thought might fit him. So, I turned back to hand it over and he’s standing there naked as the day he was born. Or, more like, the day he was carved out of marble, because his body (darker skin than me) showed me every single muscle.
‘What you doing naked?’ I said, and should have looked away, but being me, I couldn’t resist a gander. Just a quick one, you understand, but enough for him to see what I were doing.
‘No underwear,’ he said. ‘Lost it in a bet.’
Bloody hell. This great big peg dangling about dark as you like, and a couple of buoys you could hitch a few lobster pots to and never lose them in a storm, and… I mean, where’s a man to look?
4) The descriptive, darker side of villains. When we switch to the baddies and what they are up to, I have, as I have done before, slipped into Tripp’s mind, but in some cases, as in the example below, I have become a general narrator as if I and the reader were floating around in the fetid atmosphere of the villain’s lair.
To Tripp’s left stood the letter table, a relic of a fortunate past once lived, where industrious staff had placed the box for posting, and the deliveries from cheerful men wishing Fareham’s household a good day. Now, it was nothing but another shape in the gloom, whose usefulness had faded like the writing on the envelopes that once might have waited there. What remained was an opener. A long, steel blade which, unlike Tripp, had meaning. It was within his reach, and it would do its work with speed, but it was not work Tripp could currently allow. No matter how vile his master, he needed the earl. Perhaps, once Clearwater was dead, so could the earl be, for Tripp had nothing to live for after his revenge was done.
5) Others, and so on. Other parts of the story are seen through the eyes of other characters, such as Frank Andino, and when he’s on stage as the MC, I am aware that he’s a blunt speaker. Not only is this reflected in the dialogue, but it’s also shown in the ‘black stuff’, the narration, as if we were in his mind.
The sauntering young Greek became a confident Englishman as Frank entered the foyer, hands out of pockets, guidebook under his arm. His hat doffed to the sleepy old lady behind the counter, he mounted the stairs with grace until the turn, and then bolted the rest of the way to their room. Two open suitcases, Jimmy’s spare jacket on a hanger, Frank’s trousers off the floor, two bottles from the table, one bloody boot? Where’s the other one, malaka…? Both in the case, case shut, other case shut, quick check. All there. Fuck off out of here.
How Many Voices Tell Your Story?
To bring this to a close, I repeat: How Many Voices Tell Your Story? I answer my own question by saying, as many as it takes, but be careful. Ensure your narration fits the main character as well as your characters’ dialogue suits them, and don’t be afraid to transport your reader from one place to another at the turn of a page. However, remember your overarching through-line, your character arcs and your plot.
Hey, thiswriting thing is meant to be fun, isn’t it?
The title of this catch-up post is misleading, because I have been working on ‘The Larkspur Legacy’ for more than six weeks, and it’s not my 5th book. It is the 5th book since I started the work-in-progress blog, though, and it is my 6th post about it. So, here’s where I am with the last in the Larkspur series, ‘The Larkspur Legacy.’
Word Count
After finishing yesterday’s draft chapter, I found myself at 105,000 words. I also found myself standing on my balcony with Neil, telling him that, in my estimation, I had at least another ten chapters to write before the first draft story was out of my head. With an average chapter count of 3,000 to 4,000 words, that will take the total word count to around 150,000 words. That is the same length as ‘The Clearwater Inheritance,’ so I am happy with that. I like to give my readers a good, long and rewarding read for the last book of a series. However, my estimate doesn’t include a story that has an effect on the main story, and I’m not sure if I will be able to get that one in. If I don’t, then it will appear in ‘The Clearwater Companion’, the companion to the Clearwater and Larkspur series I am planning to compile once ‘Legacy’ is published.
Notes and books, notes and books…
What’s the Story?
If you have read ‘Starting with Secrets’, you will know that the Clearwater crew are on a mission to solve four clues in a treasure hunt that will, ultimately, unlock a great secret and offer Clearwater and his men a great reward. ‘The Larkspur Legacy’ is all about completing that hunt, but it is also about other things. There are personal stories to settle, there are villains to defeat (or not), there’s a new love story running through one of the four threads of the book, and there will be a twist that I hope no-one will see coming. Eek!
As there are four clues, so there are four stories within the book, although all are related by the overall aim of discovering the secret. This is why you will find several characters travelling to the Mediterranean, a couple travelling to Greece, a couple to another part of Europe, and some staying at Larkspur to deal with the annoyingly persistent villains set up in ‘Starting with Secrets.’ One of those threads is the one I may have to miss out on because of story length, but what happens during that small adventure isn’t as important as what’s found at the end of it, and the action can happen off-stage; as long as the answer comes back to Larkspur, where some of your favourite characters are gathering information while seeking the perfect way to be rid of the various villains. (There are four from previous books, plus a couple of new ones working for them.) Honestly, trying to keep all the pieces together is a feat in itself, but I am having great fun.
A map of the Plaka in Athens from my new, old book.
Research and a Derailment
Clearly, I was not in the Med in 1891 when the story is set, so I have had to research. The books you see today are those I picked up when in Athens recently, so that might give you a clue to one of the destinations in ‘Legacy.’ I also have to research… (No, I won’t name the place, yet) another country. This, I was doing on Monday when I got derailed.
I had set up a throughline where the characters say:
‘We will go to X, then, from there to Y we can go by train. The journey will take us two weeks…’
Having done that, I then plotted and wrote the stories happening elsewhere around that timeline. On Monday, I discovered that there were no trains between X and Y in 1891, and rather than take artistic licence, I said, ‘Bugger!’ and replotted. The journey will now take up to one month, which means that part of the overall story shifts the timeline for all other parts of the story. Always do your research, and do it thoroughly.
(Not the offending book in question)
In my defence, I was using a book advertised as published in 1890 which said the line opened two years ago, only to find out, on Monday, it was actually the 1897 edition and not the one I thought it was. This meant the railway line wasn’t opened until four years after my characters would have been on it, and you know I like to be as accurate as possible with my details.
Anyway… This isn’t getting the writing done, so that’s exactly what I am going to do now. Battle on with the next chapter while keeping copious notes about what I need to change, add, and subtract from what’s already written while taking away the number I first thought of.
I will leave you with a tiny teaser and see you on Saturday!
At the last count, The Larkspur Legacy had reached 55,000 words in draft one, and there are still several weeks of the story still to tell. The chase is definitely on, the Clearwater crew is organised, they know what they have to do and have started getting on with solving the mystery and locating the great secret. Unfortunately, the evil, anti-crew are also organised, well-financed and just as determined to achieve their own goals. It looks like everyone is evenly matched for what is going to be a monster of an end-of-series climax.
With many of my novels, I have an opening scene in mind when I start to write, and a closing one, and what happens in between is often only sketched out before I start. With this one, things are different. I know what the epilogue is to be, and I have all threads tied up in my mind and notes. What I don’t have so much are those threads before being tied up. However, knowing how things will end allows me to be creative during the parts in between while keeping myself restricted to only what is plausible to make the ending work. In other words, I have a structure, but it has taken a lot of planning, and currently, my writing/planning desk looks like this…
The atlas is there because the story sees several of the crew travelling to various places, while others remain in England to plot a downfall, keep track of where everyone is, and work on solving the mystery without actually being in the field. From left to right: the Scrabble is there to assist with anagrams, the large notebook is a plot outline of the middle of the story, keeping track of where everyone is and how long it would have taken them to get there, and the piece of paper is my ‘master sheet’ now up on the board beside my writing desk. The atlas is also there so I can visualise routes. Among the notebooks and other bits and pieces, is a compass (as mentioned in the story and in ‘Starting with Secrets’), and a small sextant.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the room, my typing table looks like this…
Scrap paper for notes, the master plan, a cypher grid, a mosquito spray and a heater I’ve not had to use so far this winter as it’s still 16 degrees at 5.30 in the morning.
It is upwards and onwards now, as the story moves from land to sea (while also staying on land, and in several countries), and where a new love story is about to begin. It might be 55,000 words in already (about a third of the way through), but there’s always time for love.
While all this is going on, don’t forget my Advent calendar quiz and your chance to win an exclusive prize. All the details are on my Facebook Page. I am going to be busy with Christmas promotions and online parties over the next couple of weeks, and I will give you all the details of where you can find me on my next Saturday blog.
This morning, while wondering what I might blog about today, I turned my attention to my collection of Clearwater notes, and a folder titled ‘Other ideas and texts.’ In it, I found the first 16 draft chapters of a book that never was. (That, by the way, was 60,000, but I decided I could do better, so I started again.) The story was titled ‘Original Part 6’, meaning I’d not yet found a name for it, but I had been playing with the idea of a novel called ‘Men of a Similar Heart’, a title I may, one day, still use. As this draft was never published, I looked at it to remind myself of the story which would have come after ‘Bitter Bloodline’ and before ‘Artful Deception.’ Sure enough, chapter one begins:
Henry Beddington had been the concierge at the National Gallery since it opened in 1865, and took great pride in the fact that, despite the large number of visitors passing through its doors each day, there had never been any trouble in his foyer. Keeping watch over the entrance from his counter on the morning of July 8th he had no reason to suspect that today would be any different.
That paragraph ended up being the opening of ‘Artful Deception’, but what came later in ‘Original Part 6’ differed wildly from the rest of the final book.
I also found two chapters where Archer and Silas take lunch at a dubious club, meet with an old friend of Archer’s who is in serious decline, and take on a new case. That idea was also shelved (though it’s quite a funny scene, so I may rehash it at another time).
Then, there were a few chapters of another version of ‘Men of a Similar Heart’ that never made it into any of the other books. In one version of the story that never was, James, by then a detective (1889) takes on a mysterious case where one man is searching for another before his missing friend ‘does something stupid.’ I have the outline of that mystery/adventure, and it’s a good plot with a few nice twists, so I might return to that one day too.
Then, I found notes for ‘Part 09’, which ended up becoming ‘Negative Exposure.’ After bringing the Jasper and Billy story to a reasonable conclusion in ‘One of a Pair’, I turned my attention to the backstory of Silas and Andrej and came up with ‘Banyak & Fecks’, so by the time I returned to the Clearwater world, other ideas had come to the fore. Much of what underpins ‘Negative Exposure’ comes from events that happened years before in ‘Banyak & Fecks’, which is why I advise reading the prequel between books eight and nine.
While going through some of these notes, wincing at some of my clunky writing (they are first drafts), and also thinking, ‘Hm, now that would be fun to resurrect’, I found a few other starts and ends of chapters I’d like to share. I am always conscious of ending a chapter in a way that leads to another unless that chapter is the first part of a longer scene. There are a few in the collection of never-used which I may well reuse elsewhere. Here is the original opening for another version of ‘Men of a Similar Heart’ that never was; the end of chapter one.
[Archer, Silas, James, Fecks and Tom are swimming in a pond near Larkspur Hall one summer, when Barnaby Nancarrow, then still a footman, comes charging over the hill. He reports that while Archer has been out, someone has broken into the Hall. Nothing has been taken, but something has been left behind.]
Barnaby had started shaking with shock, and Archer was certain it wasn’t from the exertion of running a mile from the Hall to the edge of the estate. Thomas appeared, immaculately dressed and calm, and seeing the state of his footman, stood directly in his line of sight.
‘Barnaby. You must answer His Lordship,’ he said, employing an authoritative but gentle tone. ‘You have done exactly as I would have wished, and there will be no recriminations if you speak plainly and honestly. If nothing has been taken, what has been left behind?’
Hearing his butler address him so naturally gave Barnaby strength. Being more accustomed to talking to the butler than his master, he was able to break the news to Mr Payne, and he cleared his throat before squaring his shoulders.
‘Very sorry to report, Mr Payne,’ he said, ‘but whoever it was, has left behind a corpse.’
Cue mysterious music…
Another opening chapter: In this one, set in December 1889, a new client visits James at the detective agency at Larkspur House and asks him to take on a case. The first chapter ends with:
‘Mr Wright, only you can take my case for three reasons. Firstly, it is not a matter for the police because a crime has not been committed. Secondly, it is a delicate and personal matter, and as I expect you know, the police are neitherdelicate nor personal. But, most importantly, it must be you who takes my case because it is one that can only be understood by…’ What had been a confident flow of words dried with apprehension, and Norton swallowed. His Adam’s apple rose and fell like the puck on a fairground hammer blow, and James expected to hear a bell ring.
‘Can only be understood?’ he prompted when Norton had hesitated long enough.
Norton cleared his throat and regained his composure. ‘By men like us,’ he said, and when James shook his head in bewilderment, clarified. ‘It is a case that concerns men of a similar heart.’
And that’s where the idea for the title came from.
Another file in my folder is titled ‘Another opening idea’ (I am not very original when naming files), and this time, it’s the start of a chapter and book which I set aside for later use:
[Larkspur Hall, December 11th, 1889. A letter from Mrs Baker to Thomas Payne in London.]
Dear Mr Payne,
I write for your advice because I fear for the safety of Lady Clearwater and do not wish to unduly alarm His Lordship.
Where was that leading?
(It eventually became the sub-plot of ‘Negative Exposure’ and led to the story of ‘The Clearwater Inheritance.’)
Here’s the end of chapter one of another story that never was. It’s the one I mentioned where Archer and Silas take lunch at a club and are there to meet an old friend of Archer’s, Freddie Falconbridge, who Archer has described as fit and strong, an athlete and a statue of manliness.
Silas followed, picturing Lord Falconbridge as a tall, wide wall of muscles, someone he might see smashing a hammer onto a fairground’s high striker to ring an impossibly high bell, or lifting weights in a show of physical strength before singing bawdy ballads with his manly teammates after a hellish game of football.
When he entered the room, however, the man who struggled from his chair to greet them, could not have been more different.
‘Good Lord, Freddie,’ Archer exclaimed. ‘Will you live through lunch?’
I never used the scene or the chapter ending, though Falconbridge turns up in another guise in ‘Negative Exposure’ because I liked the name.
Finally, another opening that never found an ending, though I have the plot of this story and several draft chapters. I rather liked this one because it gives us the crime to be solved as reported in a newspaper, and we all know how much I like to employ newspaper articles, letters, telegrams and such devices.
Exeter and Plymouth Gazette
Monday, November 26th, 1877
Tragedy At Sinford’s
A grim discovery was made on Friday last at Sinford’s School for Boys, Moorside. On rousing the men of Drake House, the Housemaster, Rev. D Spencer discovered a student absent from his bed, and soon after, when searching for the pupil, was confronted with a scene of great tragedy.
The body of Luc Verdier was discovered in the attic of the building hanging from a rafter by a rope fashioned into an ill-formed, but fatal noose about his neck. Verdier, we are told, was the son of a diplomat of the French Embassy and had attended Sinford’s since coming up from prep school…
And so it goes on, as could I, but I will leave you with the point of today’s blog, and that is to say to all aspiring authors, never throw anything away. If you have an idea, write it down and keep it. You can always reuse, as I have done, and even if you don’t, it’s fun to reflect on what you were thinking and where stories might have taken you. It’s also a useful exercise to look back and see how your writing has improved over time, and it will.
