I can’t stay long today because I am halfway through a climax. I mean, I am halfway through writing the climactic scene of ‘Starting with Secrets’ and don’t want to lose my impetus. This is another way of saying I haven’t had time to prepare an in-depth blog for today, or if you like, this is an excuse for laziness. Well, it’s not really, because I have been writing a lot, for my novel and for other people. I am averaging around 7,000 words per day at the moment. It’s no wonder I’ve got a bad back.
I was going to write about what makes a good story climax, and I will do that one day soon, but off the top of my head, I’d say a good climax is the pivotal point in the story, whether it’s an action one (like I am working on) or a romantic one. It’s the point when everything comes together in a section of drama that turns the plot. I use them to insert twists during or after the high-octane action, and also to insert questions marks. I.e., what happens next?
Thinking back, in the Clearwater and Larkspur series, I have set my climaxes in a variety of places and situations.
A burning warehouse
On a runaway steam train
The Royal Opera House during a performance
A disused lighthouse and a London court
At a formal dinner at a stately home
Hanging over a 1,000-foot drop down a mineshaft
At a piano
A race to meet a departing Atlantic liner
A Scottish cliff edge
A sword fight
In a church crypt
A fogu on Bodmin Moor
At a masked ball
Disused smugglers’ tunnels
The Savoy Hotel
All these places and dire situations have seen the culmination of a long and hopefully interesting mystery, and each of them has then led the main character(s) off in a different direction. They also make use of weather, daylight, nighttime and other outside and uncontrollable factors as a way of heightening the tension.
My ‘Starting with Secrets’ characters are about to do battle, there’s a race against time, a storm’s a-coming in, and by the time the climax is over, we will have seen a dramatic twist and you’ll be left hanging. Not literally, but hopefully, you’ll want to know what happens next. That won’t happen unless I get back to work, so with that, I shall carry on climaxing and see you back here on Wednesday for another work-in-progress update.
If you have read my previous blogs about how I write, you will know I am always looking up words. I don’t just mean finding an alternative word from the thesaurus, although I do that too, I mean discovering if the word I want was in use at the time I set my stories. (Currently 1888 to 1891.) Recently, I have had to change what I’ve written because some words didn’t exist back then; paperwork, acerbic, acidic, gobbledygook, for example. I also like to look up words to discover where they came from. I guess you might call me an amateur etymologist.
Imagine my excitement the other day when a visiting friend presented me with a present, a Reader’s Digest book, ‘The Origins of Words and Phrases.’ Once I have read the parts about how our language was born and developed and other interesting linguistic facts in the introduction, I will house the book on my shelves alongside my other handy reference guides ready to be used at a moment’s notice.
Talking of such books, I thought I would name a few of them today, in case you want to build up your own reference library and add to your writers’ toolkit. While I am about it, I’ll drop in random examples, and I’ll start with my latest addition, ‘The Origins of Words and Phrases.’
The Origins of Words and Phrases
A dictionary of over 3,000 of the most intriguing, amusing and surprising stories of the origin of some words.
Random example: Lunatic derives from the Latin word for moon, luna. Why? Because it was once thought that people went mad during the time of the full moon. Werewolves and British politicians are good examples.
The Oxford Dictionary of Idioms
Provides clear definitions of phrases and sayings with interesting facts and examples.
Random example: Roman holiday. An occasion on which enjoyment or profit is derived from the suffering of others. Origin; from Byron’s poem, ‘Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage’, where a dying gladiator is described as having been butchered to make a Roman holiday.
Samuel Johnson’s Dictionary
This is a great resource for finding old words, those that were in use then (1755) but which aren’t now.
Random example: Gymnospérmous (adj,) [γυμνος and σπερμα.] Having the seeds naked.
Well, I said they would be random! If you want a more up-to-date definition of this word, I managed to find this one: Gymnosperms are other types of vascular and non-vascular plants of the Kingdom Plantae, which produce seeds directly (without) bearing any flower.
Here’s another random one: Réremouse (n.s.) [hreremus, Saxon.] A bat.
An Unkindness of Ravens
A collection of collective nouns arranged in various headings. I could spend hours in this book, but here are a few fun ones:
A worship of writers. A kindle of kittens. A glaring of cats. A glozing of taverners.
Clichés Avoid them like the Plague!
This book is basically a list of our top clichés and where they came from. It doesn’t just go for the low-hanging fruit, it plays hardball, and hits the ground running. You might cry, Houston, we have a problem, but the book certainly kicks ass. When you’re writing, you might find yourself between a rock and a hard place because of not knowing if a phrase is a cliché, so this book is handy for sorting the wheat from the chaff. Yes, you might have to buy it, but then, there’s no gain without pain.
Mark Forsyth’s Ternion Set
Three books by the lexicographer, Mark Forsyth, are both informative and fun to read. I’ll never remember all the information in them, but I dip in now and then to discover the meaning of, for example, syllepsis. Syllepsis is when one word is used in two or more incongruous ways. The author gives an example of the word took being used in nine ways, and I’ll use it to give you an example of my own.
It was late, and the party was winding down, so I took my hat, my coat and my leave.
The set of three books also includes The Etymologicon, ‘A circular stroll through the hidden connections of the English language’, and The Horologicon, ‘A day’s jaunt through the lost words of the English language.’ For example: Breakfast (somehow) comes from the Greek word, ariston, therefore the study of breakfast is aristology, and if you like eating breakfast, you are an aristologist.
There, I bet you didn’t know that.
The Vulgar Tongue
This is one of my favourites, and I use it a great deal when writing characters such as Frank Andino, and the new character in the Larkspur Mysteries, Bertie Tucker. This is a collection of slang and cant from 1785. I have a PDF version of it as well as a hardback because the PDF is easier to search. When doing so, I come across words like davy for affidavit. Crank, brisk and pert are all words for a mix of gin and water. A member mug is a chamber pot (or was). Seeing as how I am fast becoming an old fogey, I can tell you that it’s actually a very noble thing to be. Fogey derives from the French word fougueux, meaning fierce or fiery, and referred to retired soldiers.
Knowing your… stuff
I have plenty of other books in my collection, from dialect dictionaries to Brewer’s Fact and Fable, and from Strunk and White’s ‘Elements of Style’ grammar guide to the more succinct Joanne Adams book on the subject, ‘Grammar. Know your shit or know you’re shit.’
The shelves also contain an Oxford English dictionary, a thesaurus, a dictionary of quotations, a rhyming dictionary, and a guide to the English language, among others, and my online reference bookmarks include a glossary of Scottish words and an Irish one. Ship rigging diagrams, men’s clothing of the late Victorian era, a dictionary of idioms, a Cornish dictionary, a Gothic glossary, there’s a whole file about prisons and another about workhouses, and then there are digital, online copies of some of the print books mentioned above.
You don’t need all of these in order to write, but the point is, if you’re writing, words are your tools and how to use them is your craft. Understanding where words came from, and exploring how the language developed is background research for the writer in the way a painter understands what colours go together.
Apart from anything else, reading about words is fun and educational.
I must leave you with that thought now, because I’ve been sitting here for ages without a break, and I need to use my member mug.
See you on Wednesday for the Work In Progress update.
October 1888, The Lamb and Compass, Limedock, London
This is not the most salubrious public house in the world. In fact, it is a haven for grimy sailors coming in from the docks after months at sea, looking for release in alcohol and whores of either sex. I am here, however, to interview Charles Tripp, a butler. We arranged the meeting several weeks past, but, as I will find out, Mr Tripp’s position has changed since our exchange of letters.
The man seems distracted. He is brooding about something, and although he is dressed in the manner of a man’s man, I can’t help but feel he is hiding dark thoughts.
Thank you for meeting with me, Mr Tripp. I would like to ask you a few questions if I may?
(As he acquiesces to my request, his mouth wrinkles into the kind of smile a trusted friend gives as he contemplates slitting your throat.)
Perhaps you could tell me your full name.
Charles Simon Tripp.
And you are the butler for Lord Clearwater of Riverside, correct?
I was.
(I sense this is the cause of the resentment apparent behind his eyes and decide not to probe. Yet.)
Can you tell me what being a butler entails?
The butler is the highest-ranking servant in the household. I am… I was responsible for the running of the house. This would include the organisation of the wine cellar, overseeing the work of the footmen at mealtimes, waiting on the master of the house, accounting for the silver and its cleaning, guarding the plate safe, and generally ensuring the house runs smoothly.
Almost a true likeness??
And how long have you been in service? Where did you start?
I entered service for the seventeenth Viscount Clearwater in eighteen thirty-six. Clearwater House had not long been built, and I was among the original staff, employed as a hall boy to fetch and carry for the older and more senior servants. By the age of seventeen, however, I had risen to the post of second footman to His Lordship, and soon after, received promotion to first footman at Larkspur Hall. On the death of my butler in sixty-five, His Lordship asked me to bypass the usual rank of under-butler and become his man. This I did willingly. On the death of His Lordship in eighteen seventy, I remained as butler for the eighteenth viscount, Mathias Riddington. On his sad passing two months ago, I retained my position.
Buttling for the current Lord Clearwater.
Until recently.
Oh? Have you retired from service?
No. I was retired from service by an ungrateful master.
(The answer is given with such a pointed stare I can feel his eyes prick the back of my own. I feel as though I am face to face with a wolf that has not eaten in days, and the slightest move on my part will give it the excuse to attack.)
I expect you have seen some great events at Larkspur Hall. Do you have a favourite time?
Butlers do not have favourites of anything, Sir. It is our job to uphold the nobleness of the household, to ensure work is carried out in a timely and quiet fashion. To ensure no speck blemishes the silver that adorns the impeccably clean crockery, and that the table is as much a credit to the Mistress as it is to her staff. Yes, there were many balls and dinners, hunting parties and Friday-to-Mondays at Larkspur Hall, and each one, to me, was a joy to serve. The joy, you see, comes from doing the job, being the best, and not letting the Master down on any front.
setting the table with the Butler stick – precision is key
You must have met many important people.
I was once addressed by the Tzar of Russia, Alexander the Third, the Peacemaker, as his country called him. Our current Prime Minister once commented on my choice of wine during a dinner; the Marquis of Salisbury was a great friend of the family, as was Disraeli. It would be crass of me to mention more, Sir, but yes, there have been many great events held at Larkspur Hall and at Clearwater House. Although smaller gatherings during the season, they were no less grand and deserved, and received the same immaculate attention.
Forgive me, Mr Tripp, I failed to ask about your family life. You came to service when young, but from where?
From my family home in North London.
And do you have brothers or sisters? Are you still in touch with them?
My family was a large but tragic one. My father was a naval man, my mother remained at home. My eldest sister died in infancy before I was born, and a second sister was dealt a similar hand. I was the first boy of five, and the only one to survive past infancy. Ours was not a well-off district, and cholera was a regular visitor. My father attempted to move us several times, but his shipman’s pay prevented it, and when he too died, there remained but my mother and myself. She put me into service, and then, through grief, passed away. I was left with no family that I knew of, working in a large house, learning a new way of life, and realising I was on my own.
Was it then that you decided you would aim for a butlership?
You ask such trite questions, Sir. (A flash of annoyance, and I’d swear his eyes glazed red for a second.) I answer them only out of duty. No. It was not then that I set my sights on being a butler. Such a desire creeps upon a man without him realising. It becomes ingrained in a servant that one must always strive to be better, and one accepts without thought that a natural progression is to be expected. Hall boy to footman and up through the ranks either in the same house, but more often, in another. Once a servant, there is nowhere to go but upwards or sideways. One would never step away from the progression to step down. It is beneath a footman, for example, to become a delivery boy, and beneath a hall boy to become a sweeper of the roads. A maid will only leave to become a wife. A housekeeper, like a butler, is married to the position. I no more decided one day to set my sights on a butlership as I set my sights on becoming destitute.
(Dare I ask the question? The man is speaking with passion, but I fear it is not passion for his job, but an angry fervour that has something to do with his earlier statement that he was Lord Clearwater’s butler, and no longer is.)
Your next question, Sir, or I will be about my business.
Apologies, I was wondering… What is your business these days?
(That, dear reader, is how to ask a question without asking it.)
I am, through no fault of my own, currently a man of my own means. On leaving… When I was unfairly dismissed from service, I was presented with a piece of irony. It is the way I describe the centrepiece Clearwater gave me as I left. It is ironic because it was the eighteenth viscount’s most treasured possession, second only to myself. I was his most treasured ornament, and in giving it to me, Clearwater threw the greatest insult. Why? Because, for me to live, I had no choice but to sell it. To sell my only reminder of my former life, my glory, a state to which, I have vowed, I will one day return. The centrepiece shall be the cause of Clearwater’s undoing. His repayment for his treatment of me, for with its sale, I have secured finance enough to see my vow to fruition, no matter what it takes.
(I fear my subject has stepped from one path to another, and I have ceased to exist. The threat of his stare is now aimed at nowhere but inside his mind, and I choose not to think on what he may be imagining. An observer’s job, however, is sometimes to probe, and I dare one last prompt.)
You have something on your mind, Mr Tripp. Is it your future?
It is, and it is a dark one. A lengthy tunnel at the end of which is a light, and only one thing can bring me to that light. As my way ahead ends in illumination, so Clearwater’s will end in a similar atonement. You see, our paths can only run parallel for a certain time. At some point they will merge and cross, and when they do, there will emerge from the embroilment only one path, either his or mine, for we two cannot both exist in this world. There can be life for only one of us.
(At this point, I detected some kind of madness within the man. A paling of the skin, a tightening of the mouth, or perhaps the glint of the eye which came with a twitch of the lips, as though a devious thought had occurred to both excite and concern him. That, and the chill shiver I suffered, told me I had probed far enough and for my own safety, it was time I retired.)
This interview was conducted not long after the events depicted in ‘Deviant Desire’ the first of the Clearwater Mysteries. If you want to begin an ongoing series that develops from the time of Jack the Ripper, through ten books and into the second series, the Larkspur Mysteries, then you can find all the novels in order on the series page: The Clearwater Mysteries.
While ‘Speaking in Silence’ is awaiting its proof reading, and while I am mapping the next book, ‘Starting with Secrets’, I thought it high time I did some more learning.
You may remember that when I started on the Larkspur Mysteries, I introduced a deaf character, Joe Tanner. To better understand him and his language, I signed up for an introduction to British Sign Language (BSL), and passed the basic course. This was useful not only for forming the character, but also for my own learning, and I learnt a little about the history of BSL, particularly that it was outlawed in Victorian times. This meant that Joe would have invented his own version of it, which he and Dalston did as they grew up in the workhouse. That was typical of what happened back then, and is the reason BSL has so many regional variations in its signs.
That was then, this is now, and I have now signed up for a course called, ‘Introduction to the Victorian Age.’ It’s a diploma course run by the Centre of Excellence. Recently, my husband passed a Sociology diploma course with them and has now embarked on a philosophy diploma. The Centre of Excellence prices its courses at reasonable amounts, has won five worldwide business awards, and all their courses are certified or accredited. Now and then, they have promotional offers, and last week, we bought three courses for €58.00, where the original price should have been €450.00. So, not a bad deal at all. If you want to know more, head to the Centre of Excellence and have a look around. It costs nothing to investigate, and you will find all kinds of courses from Earth Sciences to Animal Care.
They have 25 different writing course that might interest you.
What am I about to learn?
My course is titled an ‘Introduction to the Victorian Age’, and you might wonder why I am doing this. Having already written 16 books in my Victorian mystery series, don’t I already know about the age? Well, yes, I know some, and I do my research, but usually on specific novel-appropriate topics. For example, I read a great deal about Jack the Ripper when writing ‘Deviant Desire’, and a lot about workhouses when writing ‘Guardians of the Poor.’ I have books on my shelf that range from The Cleaveland Street Scandal to Victorian architecture, and from the Victorian country house to slumming, but I haven’t yet read much on the early part of the era, the industrial revolution and what took place before the 1880s when my books are set. The Victorian era began when Queen Victoria came to the throne in 1837 and lasted until her death in 1901. The course I am about to embark on begins with her ascendancy to the throne, Prince Albert and his death, and moves on to look at gender, society and class.
Then there is a module about the industrial revolution and the ‘rise of the factory’, followed by one that covers the labour movement, slums, urbanisation and city improvements. I will then look at crime in Victorian times (can’t wait for that!), punishment, the Whitechapel murders gets its own section (can’t wait for that either), and there is a module about science, religion and fear. Health and medicine, the Empire, the Irish famine in the 1840s are all covered too, as are the arts and culture.
As you can see, there’s a lot in it, but I don’t have to rush. Once you’re signed up for a course, you can take as long as you want to complete it, and that means months or even years, so there’s no pressure. There are marked assessments along the way (marked by qualified tutors), but no need to sit an exam. My aim is to do the modules as and when I can, and use what I learn to further improve my historical accuracy. As I also have copywriting work and two novels in the pipeline, my time is restricted, but I will do my best and I’ll keep you informed on progress as I go.
Here’s the link again in case you want to know more about the courses. Centre of Excellence.
And what of Larkspur? I mentioned I am planning the next in the Larkspur series, and I am. Speaking in Silence should be with you early in August, but I have already drafted chapter one of the next book, ‘Starting with Secrets.’ Actually, I have been making notes on the one after that too, and I’ll be updating you every Wednesday on my Work In Progress blog. My current plan is to write a two-part story to bring the Larkspur series to an end. There will, therefore, eventually be seven books in the series, though who knows? I may write more. The next one, ‘Secrets’ starts off the two-parter, and should be followed by ‘The Larkspur Legacy’, which will be similar in design to ‘The Clearwater Inheritance.’ I’ll say no more just now, and will leave it for my Wednesday WIP blog, and turn my attention to Queen Victoria.
P.S Cover reveal for Speaking in Silence is on its way later this week!
Disability Pride Month occurs in July “to listen to what the voices of disabled people have to say about their rights and what they need“.
The month was chosen to recognise that, the then President of the United States, George H.W. Bush signed the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) into law on July 26, 1990. (Wiki)
As this month is Disability Pride Month, I thought I’d write a short piece about my “disabled” character, Joe Tanner. I put the disabled in “ ” because Joe wouldn’t have seen himself as disabled. He’s deaf and has been since birth, and yes, that’s a disability, but all the same, he wouldn’t (or doesn’t) consider himself disabled.
These days, it’s difficult to write about how Joe was treated because the language of that time is now considered offensive, but we shouldn’t take offence at history, because there’s nothing we can do to change it; it is how it was. Being deaf in the late 19th century wasn’t easy, and although there had been schools for the deaf since the 18th century, they were small, private and expensive. Also, sign language was outlawed in 1880 and was discouraged as taught communication for 100 years. When Joe Tanner was born in 1871, his parents didn’t know what to make of him. Although his father was a vicar, he had a very short fuse, and Joe’s early life wasn’t pleasant. Frustrated that their son couldn’t communicate, Joe’s parents left him at the Hackney Workhouse and buggered off to America. Joe was about seven at this time, and was immediately put on the ‘idiots ward.’
This is where you mustn’t take offence to the language.
According to the glossary on Peter Higginbotham’s marvellous site www.workhouses.org:
Idiots and Imbeciles were two commonly used categories of mental subnormality.
Definitions varied over the years, but in broad terms:
Idiots, the most deficient, were unable to protect themselves against basic physical dangers.
Imbeciles, a less severely deficient group, were unable to protect themselves against moral and mental dangers.
It’s also likely that many deaf people entering a workhouse would have ended up in the hospital wards or sent to an asylum. In Joe’s case, he should have been sent to a school, which probably would have done him no good anyway, but he was lucky. Not only did he have an understanding workhouse matron, but he also met Dalston Blaze.
Here are some extracts from the chapter in ‘Guardians of the Poor’ where Dalston meets Joe for the first time. Joe was seven, Dalston six, and Mrs Lee was the workhouse matron.
The matron demanded to know what was happening, and a grubber said the boy had refused to stay on the idiots’ ward, and they were trying to get him back there. Dalston knew of the idiots’ ward, and of the one on the floor above, which was for the imbeciles, but he wasn’t allowed up there. Even if he was, he wouldn’t have gone, the noises and screaming were too frightening.
As the matron tore the grubbers down a peg, Dalston crept closer and stood facing the boy. Without knowing why, he knew that what was happening was wrong. If a boy misbehaved, he missed a meal, everyone knew that, and perhaps, he thought, this lad has been naughty. It wasn’t uncommon for the schoolteacher to whack a boy’s arse for misbehaving, but if this lad had just suffered that, he wouldn’t have been able to sit.
Mrs Lee tried to talk to him, but he balled himself tighter, and in the end, she told the grubbers to go about their business, and leave the lad alone.
Dalston, intrigued by the boy, stays with him when the staff give up, and the two start to communicate. Their language begins with drawings and moves on to finger and hand signs. In the story, Dalston (who is hearing) and Joe do what many deaf people did; they invented their own language. Although British Sign Language (BSL), as we now call it, was abandoned in schools in 1880, many deaf people continued to use it in their own groups, homes and meeting places. That’s why there are now so many regional variations in BSL.
Dalston and Joe go on to appear in all of the Larkspur Mysteries either as main characters or supporting cast, so I have been able to explore Joe’s character more as the series goes on. I thought it was important that Joe didn’t end up as a ‘feel sorry for’ character; I didn’t want him to be the one being looked after or treated in any way differently to the other characters. He’s a gay, young man in Victorian times like all the others around him, except he can’t hear. He can communicate, but not everyone can return the communication, not with sign language at any rate. However, other characters are learning some of it, they can always write things down, and none of them treats Joe as inferior. He is, after all, an excellent and natural horseman, he drives the carriages, and he studies archaeology while solving old murder cases.
With Joe, I wanted to show a disabled character in the same way as I show my others. Therefore, he’s not always fun and happiness, he has flaws, he gets frustrated, and he has a temper. He and Dalston’s first year together out of the workhouse (aged 19 and 18 by then) was not always an easy one, and like any young couple, they had relationship problems – none of which were due to Joe’s deafness. Joe’s also got a naughty sense of humour, and uses his sign language to his advantage, talking about people without them knowing what he is saying.
Book five of the Larkspur series, ‘Speaking in Silence’ also concerns a young man with a disability, though it’s not a physical one. Because of something that happened in his past, Edward Hyde has chosen not to speak more than one or two words to anyone (apart from his one friend). It’s his way of withdrawing from the world because of an incident that left him contemplating suicide. So, his disability is, you might say, an emotional one, but it is one he can be ‘cured’ of. That’s what the book is about, getting Edward’s voice back – although emotional recovery from his trauma will continue long after the story has finished.
For both these characters, Joe Tanner and Edward Hyde, I wanted to present my differently-abled characters as positive, non-victims (although Edward was) and to make them as good/bad, nice/nasty, grateful/churlish as all the others. Hopefully, they both present positive images of deaf or emotionally scarred people, and we see them do heroic things that we all wish we had the courage to do.
However readers take them, what they do in the books makes me proud, and that’s my way of wrapping up this post about my ‘disabled’ characters for Disability Pride Month.
Speaking in Silence is due out at the beginning of August
The Larkspur Series begins with ‘Guardians of the Poor’ and it’s Joe you see on the cover signing the word ‘deaf.’
We’re into week ten of the writing of this new Larkspur Mystery and I am pleased to tell you, I have only eight chapters left to edit before I can say I have a draft for my beta readers, Neil and Jenine. The MS is booked in for proofreading on the 20th of July, and I am still aiming for the end of July/start of August to have the finished novel ready for you.
My to-do list now looks like this:
Finish the fine editing
Reread for a final check
Create the blurb
Find images suitable to make a cover and open negotiations with Andjela
Proofreading
Layout
Check everything and reread
Upload to Amazon
Hope for the best
While all that is going on, you won’t be surprised to learn that I have started thinking about the next book. The next two books, actually, because I am planning a two-book finale to this series along the lines of ‘The Clearwater Inheritance.’ I am teeming with ideas, and have already outlined various scenes in my head, but I must find a way to connect them. All I can tell you right now is that I am planning to incorporate many of the characters from both Clearwater and Larkspur, have three or four storylines running at once all leading to the same end, so all will be connected, take my characters to some wild and exciting places, and tie up many threads. Some of these threads were started in Deviant Desire, and before that, Banyak & Fecks, so I have lots of rereading and remembering to do (thankfully, I keep my ‘bible’ and notebooks). There is also a special ending to consider, and all being well, you’ll be able to read the second book of the two at or by Christmas.
Watch this space.
Thank goodness for my author notebooks and ‘bible’!
Summer is well underway on our little island. Temperatures are in the low 30s but don’t stop me from working. I’m used to the temperature outside being up to 45 degrees in the middle of summer, and I spend a lot of time avoiding the great outdoors. When I do, I stay in the shade. While inside, I work at my desk with my shirt off, a towel between my arm and my mouse, and a large, noisy fan blasting at me from the side. I also do most of my work in the morning, getting up at 4.00 and working through until 11.00, then taking a break, and returning around 13.30 for another couple of hours before taking a siesta.
A summer’s view from our balcony
While all that’s going on inside, there’s a lot going on outside. As you might know, I live on Symi, an island in the Aegean not far from the larger island of Rhodes. We have day-trip boats coming in every day during the summer, sometimes up to five of them. They come from Rhodes bringing interested visitors on a day out who meander around the harbour or are herded in groups by tour guides with little flags. The backstreets can become busy down there between certain hours, and I don’t very often get down unless it’s for bank, post office or ferry business. We have a bus and taxis, but as I don’t own a car, I prefer to walk even though it’s about 400 steps down and 400 back up again. Needless to say, I don’t do that when it’s 45 degrees.
Living on a Greek island isn’t always as idyllic as you might think. Recently, our water pump was playing up, and we had to get another one installed. I should explain that we are not on a constant mains water supply. We can fill up our tank three times a week, and if it runs dry, then that’s it until the next filling-up day. Because the main water cistern beneath the house was invaded by tree roots and is unusable, we have a large plastic one on our flat roof. This holds 500 litres, and that’s usually enough for two of us, but without a pump to pump the water from the tank to where it’s needed, we’re ‘dry.’ Anyway, we had to replace the water pump this week because the old one sounded like it was about to blow, and I’d rather pre-empt a ‘dry’ spell, particularly as we had Neil’s brother visiting.
One of our local restaurants that we visited when Neil’s brother was here. The ‘Kali Strata’ offers a new, modern twist on traditional Greek dishes…and a great view!
Another thing about living here is that it’s not always convenient to travel. We were aware of this when we decided to settle here, so I’m not complaining, just pointing out what it takes to get from A to B. We and Neil’s brother have been invited to a wedding in Inverness later this year. James (the bother-in-law) lives in Vienna, so for him, it’s a train to the airport, a flight, a wedding, a couple of nights in a hotel and a flight home. For us… Well, that’s a different matter. I’ve done my research and made a spreadsheet, and the cheapest way for us to do this trip in November involves this: An overnight boat from Symi to Athens. Night at the airport hotel (very costly but the flight is an early one). Flight to Edinburgh, couple of nights there, train to Inverness, hotel, wedding, hotel, train to Edinburgh, hotel, flight to Amsterdam, flight to Athens, hotel for two nights, overnight boat home. James will be away from his home for three days, but we will be away for 12, and that’s without taking a holiday (although we are seeing grandchildren and visiting family).
This will be us in November lol
But enough rambling from me. I must get back to my fine editing of ‘Speaking in Silence’ and racking my brains for a cover idea. You can discover how the next Larkspur Novel is coming along by looking at my regular Wednesday WIP blogs.
It’s done! The first draft, that is, and we have arrived at Bodmin station at 95,000 words. Now, after a brief stop, we must make the return journey to London as we embark on the rewrites and editing.
A view of Bodmin Road Station, Cornwall in c.1895
This novel turned out to be slightly different to the others, and that made the journey an interesting one. Speaking in Silence is a mystery. It takes place in Cornwall and London, it brings in two characters who have, until now, been in the background, and it is based on a newspaper report from 1891. There, the similarities with the other Larkspur Mysteries end. Don’t worry, it still contains your favourite elements, but in a different way.
The content is darker than I’ve previously dabbled with because the protagonist is a victim. He’s also the one who hardly speaks, which presented another challenge when writing. Also, the mystery isn’t written as: This is strange, how are we going to solve this? It is written so the reader asks, ‘What are they doing?’ We know ‘they’ are up to something, and we know what they want to achieve, but, hopefully, you won’t work out what it is they are doing and how they achieve it until the end. Then, in the denouement, you’re told exactly how it happened.
I expect that makes little sense, but it will all become clear in the end, and the end of the journey, I hope, will be sometimes in July. Meanwhile, here’s an unedited taster from draft one.
Outside, foxes and owls scoured the grounds for their prey, while inside, a dim light burned in the drawing room until well past two in the morning. Figures paced before the window, apparently speaking in silence as no sound escaped the casements, and they disturbed nothing and no-one. At two fifteen, a light in an upstairs bedroom came on, and three silhouettes sat at a desk with paper and pen. Another discussion began, and one wrote while the others offered ideas. A little later, one sat in a chair while another busied himself around his head with scissors and a razor, until all three were satisfied with the results of their labours.
If that wasn’t strange enough, at the back of the house, another two men came from the kitchen and crossed the yard. At two twenty-five, they lit lamps in an ancient building that had once been a barn and set to work. There was no speaking, but there were sounds; the hissing and bubbling of liquids in jars, the clank of crucibles on iron stands, and the opening and closing of heavy books. All this took place beside a light which grew increasingly discoloured, once being orange, and then red, to glow purple just before the stable clock chimed half-past three.
Speaking In Silence JACKSON MARSH
I love this watercolour of Victoria College’s first chemistry lab, I can imagine our young men working in here
I have just written the denouement for ‘Speaking In Silence’, and it’s prompted me to talk about the subject and what I learnt from the process of writing the novel.
All my novels tie up at the end, but they don’t always come with a classic denouement. The closest I came was in ‘Unspeakable Acts’, the third Clearwater novel, where James Wright explains the villain’s motivation and method. ‘Speaking In Silence’ is slightly different to other mysteries I’ve written because it’s more of a ‘What are they doing?’ mystery for the reader, who won’t know what until the climax, and won’t know how until the last scene, the denouement.
What is a Denouement?
The word is borrowed from the French and originates in Latin, as this snippet from Etymonline tells us:
1752, from French dénouement “an untying” (of plot), from dénouer “untie” (Old French desnouer) from des- “un-, out” + nouer “to tie, knot,” from Latin nodus “a knot,” from PIE root *ned- “to bind, tie.”
[PIE = The roots of the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European language are basic parts of words that carry a lexical meaning, so-called morphemes.]
In other words, denouement means to untie a knot. In literary terms, it means the final part of a play, film, or narrative in which the strands of the plot are drawn together and matters are explained or resolved. Or, as the dictionary also states: the outcome of a situation, when something is decided or made clear.
In other-other words, it’s that bit at the end of an Agatha Christie when Poirot stands in the drawing room and tells the assembled characters who did it and how. Of course, the technique is used in all forms of literature and creative writing, and doesn’t have to pertain to a crime story. The denouement of Romeo and Juliet happens after the two main characters are dead, for example, even though we all saw how they died.
What to Consider When Writing a Denouement
The following is based on my experience. There are plenty of free writing-advice websites that will give their own views, but having just looked at a few, they are very similar to what I worked out for myself.
Keep notes as you write towards the end
First of all, as I wrote my way through the first draft of Speaking In Silence, I made a note every time a character was seen to do something with no explanation; every time I dropped in a question mark for the reader if you like. This was to make sure I didn’t leave any knots still tied at the end. I do this with every novel, and it’s a good way to avoid the trap of ‘I’ll remember that for sure’, only to say later, ‘What was it I had to remember?’
The notes also help me see if I have given too much away to the reader, and if I need to take out anything too obvious. Thinking about ‘Silence’, I’m worried the reader will catch on to what’s happening well before the end, and so the climax won’t be a surprise. (It doesn’t have to be. I’ve found readers are as happy to say, ‘I didn’t see that coming’ as they are to have proved themselves right.)
Don’t Witter on for too Long
Says he… My denouement happens in dialogue, and I’m not sure if that’s the done thing or not, but it’s what I have done. The chapter is currently 4,000 words long, but it’s not all explanation. Some of it is character thoughts, reactions and other story matters, and the explanation of how they did it comes from four characters, not one, so there is more than one voice, and more than one point of view. They are explaining themselves to Lord Clearwater, so we are in his head, and when I felt the others were being too detailed, I had him slow them down because I imagined that’s what the reader would also be thinking.
Beware Repeats
I was conscious of not repeating what the reader already knew. They would have seen X do this and that, and the idea of the denouement isn’t to go back and relive the action, it’s to explain the reason for the action. Yes, you have to place the explanation in context, but that can be done in a few words. Also, once something has been explained, there’s no need to repeat the explanation from another character’s point of view. In my scene, with four people untying the knots, I made sure they all contributed, but they only contributed something new or added a detail that cleared up another question mark.
Show Not Tell
That old chestnut again. Think about that Agatha Christie scene when Poirot has everyone in the drawing room, the dining car or wherever, and you’ll see he does a lot of talking. Now think film, and you’ll notice there are flashbacks showing the action. That’s one way of giving the explanation, but it’s a filmic one. The way to present a ‘show’ denouement is to write a scene where the action unknots the rope, rather than dialogue doing it for you. It’s not easy, and in my opinion, some stories require a dialogue explanation. If I had written the ‘how they did it’ into the action during the book, there would be no deepening mystery. If I had written the ‘how they did it’ into the climax, it would have cluttered up the pace. The only way I could make it work in ‘Silence’ was to have the four characters tell Clearwater — who knows what they have done — exactly how they did it.
Keep to the Rules
Although it’s right at the end of the book, my denouement still keeps to the rules of character arc and development, scene structure, location, description and pace. It’s not just one long dialogue of this-then-that. There is some character-created humour, we come away with the sense that a particular character has changed, and we know where we are (Clearwater’s drawing room with the footman coming and going). As well as all that, the scene ends with a great big question mark which will lead us into the next instalment. Not exactly a cliff-hanger because the reader knows the answer to the question, but the characters don’t.
Other Advice Answered
I pulled a few random tips of denouement writing off the internet. I’ve justified my ending against them.
Keep it short. Each part of my explanation is short, but there are a lot of things to explain, and that, I did on purpose.
The denouement validates the story. I always aim for this (see the end of ‘Fallen Splendour’ for my favourite story validation). The denouement validates what has changed for a character or a situation.
Convey a new normal. I have left the reader knowing a particular character will now be better off, and one will be worse off. That is their new normal.
Characters’ futures. Similar to the new normal; the conflicts have been resolved, and normalcy returns to the characters, although that normalcy might/should be changed. I’ve also put in a question mark, and the denouement is followed by a short epilogue which takes us towards the next story.
Denouement is an essential conclusion to plotted conflict, while the epilogue is an optional afterward in which the author shows readers how characters have fared after the events chronicled in the work.
In ‘Speaking In Silence’, the epilogue concerns the villain and leads us into the next story. I now have a completed first draft and can set about rewriting the whole thing and improving it, all the while, aiming towards that all important denouement.
‘Speaking in Silence’ should be ready by July, and you can keep up to date with its progress on my weekly Wednesday WIP blog.
I’ve often been asked how I come up with the titles for my novels, so today, I thought I’d look at a few and explain how they came about.
Just the other day on Self-Publishing School, Chandler Bolt wrote a piece titled ‘Book title ideas: Choosing your own & generators to use.’ In his article, he says titles are short hooks that advertise your book by using the fewest possible words, and suggests that potential readers take less than five seconds to decide whether or not to buy the book. Some things to bear in mind, he says, are to
make the title memorable,
make sure its genre-appropriate and
make it intriguing.
I agree with everything he says in his article (it’s well worth reading), and it caused me to reminisce about how I came up with some of my titles.
What Comes First, the Title or the Story?
Good question. I just experimented with a book title generator and, to be frank, wasn’t impressed. It was a basic thing where you selected an adjective and a noun, and it bunged the in front of random words. It generated things like ‘The Enchanted Pencil’, ‘The Imaginary Vase’ and ‘The Crazy Coffin‘. Okay, fun if you’re looking for inspiration and you don’t mind every book title starting with The, but it wasn’t really my style. I could have done better by opening a dictionary at random and picking the first two words I came across.
Actually, let’s try that…
The Queer Informant The Predynastic Deuterium The Putty Cushion
Now we’re just being silly. Let’s get back on track. Where in the world did ‘Deviant Desire’ come from?
Deviant Desire
Deviant Desire started out as Something Lamplight, or it might have been Something Gaslight, because I wanted a title that reflected the background of the story, Whitechapel in 1888, during the time of the Ripper murders. As I was writing the book, I thought more about the title, and suddenly ‘Deviant Desire’ popped into my head. I hadn’t read that article I just mentioned or anything like it, so this was instinctive, but the more I thought about it, the more sense it made.
Deviant Desire works on several levels. The main character, Silas Hawkins, is a renter and a trickster, so he’s a deviant. He’s also gay and so is the other MC, Lord Clearwater, so according to the lores of the time, they are both deviants. When they meet, they fall for each other, crash, bang, wallop style, so there’s your desire.
Meanwhile… The villain of the piece is killing young men as a way of laying a trap for our hero. He, the villain, has a deviant desire, not only to trap the hero, but a desire to kill, and if that’s not deviant, I don’t know what is.
Twisted Tracks
The title for the follow-on novel to Deviant Desire, Twisted Tracks, took a little longer to come up with, but it works in the same way. A villain is enticing the hero to a confrontation, and he does it with various twisted clues, including an anagram, a twisting of words into other words. Our hero and his friends follow the clues, the tracks left by the villain, and everything climaxes on a runaway steam train which, of course, runs on tracks. Until they run out…
Unspeakable Acts
The trend continues in book three of the Clearwater Mysteries with Unspeakable Acts. The trend of using succinct two-word titles, an adjective and a noun, but without ‘The’ in front of them. While thinking of this title, I wanted to continue using words that the Victorians used for gay men and their sexuality. So far, we’ve had deviant and twisted, and another common thing was to refer to gay sex as an unspeakable act. The story of book three concerns a performance at the Royal Opera House at which someone is due to make a speech, but if he does, he will be assassinated, therefore he can’t, or, in other words, his speech is unspeakable. The performance is of an opera, so the word ‘acts’ has a couple of other meanings (the division of a play, what the actors do on stage), and it all ties together with the background theme of the Clearwater collection, the dangers of being gay in Victorian times.
And more…
I could outline every single one of the 11 Clearwater titles, but it would become repetitive. In summary, though, they all have double meanings: Fallen Splendour (book 4) refers to a line from the major clue of the mystery, ‘The splendour falls on castle walls’, and also refers to someone’s downfall; Bitter Bloodline (book 5) refers to the taste of a Transylvanian wine, a blood feud, and Bram Stoker; Artful Deception (book 6) centres on an artwork and theatrical tricks, while hero and villain try to outwit and deceive each other; Negative Exposure (book 9) refers to being photographed naked, having the negatives of those photos printed and therefore exposed, and because of that, a man’s secret coming into the open, thus, also being exposed.
You’ll note that for books seven and eight, the titles differ. We’ve moved on from the use of deviant et al., and the titles are longer. Home From Nowhere (book 7) was a line that came to me when the characters were speaking. As often happens, I let them speak and, later, edit what they say. In this one, Fecker says to Jasper something like, ‘Like me, you have come from nowhere’, and later, Jasper says to Billy, ‘I feel like I’ve come home.’ Oh yes, I thought, Jasper (the MC) has come home from nowhere, and there we go.
One of a Pair(book 8) is another play on words. Jasper is one of a pair of young men falling in love, and Billy is the same as he’s the other half of the pair. There’s another meaning to the title which I can’t tell you in case you haven’t read the book, but if you do, you will realise the relevance.
Banyak & Fecks, The Clearwater Prequel
Banyak & Fecks was the first time the title came before the story. I’d been thinking about a novel detailing how these two friends met. Deviant Desire opens with them in the East End, and they are already very close by the time we meet them, so how did they get there? My husband said there should be a prequel telling us just that, and I wanted to write something more character driven rather than full-on mystery. I wanted it to be about Banyak & Fecks, as they call each other, so that had to be the title, and it is.
The Larkspur Series
Still trying to keep to the title-writing rules of catchy, intriguing and memorable while sticking to my own deviant desire for titles to have more than one meaning while being relevant to the plot, I moved into slightly different territory for the Larkspur series.
Guardians of the Poor, the title of book one, refers to the real guardians of the poor, those who oversaw, ran and were responsible for the workhouses. It also refers to the two main characters, and how they do something which improves the life of those in a workhouse; they become guardians of the poor in another sense.
Keepers of the Past keeps up the rhythm of the series titles, and refers to archaeologists and a cult member (perhaps), while Agents of the Truth completes the three-part telling of Dalston and Joe’s story. It also refers to archaeologists and men working for the Clearwater Detective Agency.
For book four in the Larkspur series, I wanted something a little more atmospheric, and I wanted to get away from the rhythm of ‘Plural Noun of the Single Noun’ of the first three books. Seeing Through Shadows gives us a verb, a preposition and a noun, so a different rhythm, while remaining succinct and a little intriguing. Do we see through shadows? Aren’t we just seeing what they are shadowing? I mean, if there’s a shadow on the wall, are we seeing the shadow or the wall? In the story, we’re not sure what we’re seeing, so that fitted rather well.
I am currently working on Speaking in Silence, which is an oxymoron, because you can’t speak without making a sound. Yes, okay, so we have sign language and writing, but that, strictly speaking, isn’t speaking. Speaking in Silence refers to those things which are left unsaid, and in the story, there are many of them. The most difficult ‘unsaid’ part of writing this novel has been keeping information from the reader; that’s the thing I am not saying; the silence if you like. The reader will find out what’s going on in the end, but I wanted to keep them in the dark for as long as possible. I hope it works. We will have to wait and see. Also in this story, there are lots of things that the characters don’t say, but in the gaps in conversations, they and we understand their meaning… It’s complicated to explain, and you’ll have to wait a couple of months before you can read it when I hope all will be revealed.
Other Titles
I’ve written more than the Clearwater and Larkspur series. You might have heard of or read The Mentor Collection, for example. They are ‘Older man mentors younger man in love, lust and a few other things’, kind of stories. The titles aren’t tricky, though again, there is a pattern. All four are ‘The Mentor of…’ somewhere, and that somewhere takes the classic form of adjective and noun. Here, the adjective suggests loneliness or isolation (reflecting the younger, lost-his-way character) and the noun is something stable, a home (representing the older character).
Thus, we have: The Mentor of…
Wild Hill Farm
Barren Moor Ridge
Lone Marsh House
Lost Wood Hall
As Wildhill Farm, Barrenmoor Ridge etc., as they are also place names.
To Finish
As usual, I am rambling on now, and I am sure you got the point some time ago. So, to finish, I thought I’d return to that random title generator and come up with some more Mentor titles. This isn’t just for fun, I also want to highlight what I believe: that the author should come up with the title, and not use one of these random word-pickers, although they might spark ideas for stories. Perhaps. How about reading…
The Mentor of the Perfect Fireplace
The Mentor of the Haunted Coffin
The Mentor of the Happy Wheelbarrow
The Students of the Windy Wind
Remember: keep the title succinct, intriguing, genre-specific and, if you can, consider the rhythm.
See you on Wednesday for more WIP news, have a great weekend and happy reading!
