Here’s my weekly update on where I am at with my latest WIP, currently with the working title of ‘471 Kingsland Road.’

Never start with a backstory

Yesterday, I worked on chapter twenty-one, which was chapter twenty-four, but I had a ‘moment’ a few days ago, and now, three chapters have gone. I was pondering away from the typing machine and wondered if I needed the first three chapters, the first of which was a short introduction. Having had a think, I decided that these chapters were all backstory and probably only me setting up the MC in my head. They’re fine as they are, and decent storytelling, but they shouldn’t be right at the start of the book. Never start with a backstory, as this delays the action. So, they have gone to the Cuts folder, and the info may come out in future books, or as an aside on the blog once the book is published.

The word count (without them) is 82,580, and I am about to embark on the climax. That, I’m guessing, will take me up to 92,000, and the denouement should bring us to 100,000, which is about what I am aiming for in the first draft.

471 Kingsland Road

That’s the working title (471 Kingsland Road), as that’s where some of the action is set, and as the main character is a London cabbie, I was tinkering with the idea of using a street name for the title. I was rereading a chapter the other day when I read something and thought, ‘That might do as a title.’ I didn’t write it down, and now, I’ve forgotten it, so it probably wasn’t that good as a title after all. Something will come. It took me several goes to get ‘Deviant Desire’, currently my bestseller, so it’s worth waiting for the right phrase to fall into place.

London Maps of 1888

Another tool in my arsenal arrived the other day via a delivery from a friend in the UK visiting Symi for her holiday. I’d ordered this book from Amazon, but thanks to Brexit, would have had to pay exorbitant postal and import rates to have it sent. My friend arrived with it on Wednesday, and it’s a boon. It’s actually a book, so it’s a boon-book, or book-boon, and it comes with some coincidences.

It’s a collection of maps of London streets in 1888, perfect for the time in which I am writing. It’s an A to Z, but not as we now know them, and it has clear printing, street names, an index and info, and as my MC, Jack Merrit, is a London cabman… Well, I couldn’t have asked for anything better. I took a couple of photos this morning, trying to highlight the area of London used in the story, and if you look closely, you may be able to see Kingsland Road and Dalston Junction. This is where I lived for about 10 years back in the day, at 471 Kingsland, actually.

Coincidences

Just as an aside, I noticed, when the book arrived, that it was published by Harry Margary of Lympne Castle, in Kent. The castle overlooks the Romney Marshes where I was born and brought up, and I used to cycle up there during my teen years. Not only that but there is a crest on the book cover, the motto of which reads, ‘Domine Dirige Nos’, which I believe, when translated, means ‘God guide us.’ My family crest (yes, apparently we have one) has the motto, ‘Domine Dirige Me’, God Guide Me.  Well, who’d have thought it?

Anyway, I must get back to chapter twenty-two now, or I will when I have been for a short walk to wake me up and set the chapter in my head. I’ll be back on Saturday with more for the Clearwater Companion, which is taking shape gradually over the course of the coming year.