More Tea Vicar? What We Include Consciously and Subconsciously

Elaine and Francesca consider those things that always crop up automatically in their writing. And a few things they’re not so good at including when they should.

Elaine: When Francesca asked me what I automatically include in my short stories and novels, I have to say my mind went totally blank.

Swallow Falls In North Wales

So the analysing of my writing started. I can tell you I don’t automatically add in the five senses. I am getting better at adding them, but it doesn’t happen automatically. Neither does adding in the weather or description. I love being near water so you would be forgiven if you thought that would be what I automatically included, but alas, that isn’t so. My settings are always urban, mainly cities with not a river or coastline in sight.

The more I think about this, the more I’m beginning to wonder why I write, or if I am actually a good writer. Thankfully, I have had over a dozen short stories published in women’s magazines to confirm I’m not too bad.

Through all this analysis, what has shocked me is that I tend to write about suppressed women striving for control of their destiny. They may have low self esteem or be running away from a situation, but they will always be thrown back into it.

My novel, Forgotten Love, is a modern romance about a married woman, a parent who wants to return to education to achieve some qualifications, but her family doesn’t take her seriously.

Victorian Saga Family Tree

In the Victorian saga I am currently writing, my main character, Emily, is striving to escape an arranged marriage; she wants to marry for love, which is against the family wishes.

Both of these stories are about family relationships, very different stories dealing with various aspects love.

So what do I automatically include in my writing? Love and romance.

@RobertsElaine11

Francesca: I posed the question, What do you include in your novel without thinking? when Elaine and I were pondering a subject for our joint blog this week. I’ve come at it from a slightly different angle and thought of specific repetitive plot and setting points.

More Tea Vicar?

For a start, I often have a fight in my novels (as well as with them!). Three out of the five include ‘fisticuffs’. Even the other two have heated arguments. Better on paper than in reality, I suppose. The first three novels also include hospital scenes (two of them as a result of the aforementioned fights). Since realising this, I’ve made sure the two recent novels comprise neither violence nor hospitals. Believe it or not, they do all contain love and romance too!

The main female characters in the first three novels possess quirky/off the wall/irritating best friends who they fall out with somewhere along the way. It’s perhaps not a coincidence that I disowned my ‘oldest bestest friend’ not long before I wrote the first novel, due to some very unpleasant and frankly unfriendly behaviour from her. The heroines in novels four and five seem to have got over it!

Exploring all possible settings

Then there are the ubiquitous kitchen scenes that appear in almost all my novels – and a good few of my short stories too. I know from writing friends that I’m not the only person with this problem. Along with these scenes go the inevitable and plentiful cups of tea and coffee. A recent critique of one of my books suggested I might want to get out of the kitchen a bit and re-set some of the scenes elsewhere. To that end I’ve made a list of all the settings in the book, along with other possible ones. Hopefully that will give me ideas when I do the re-write.

I’ve done the same with the WIP, because, unlike Elaine, I do set all my novels near water.  I don’t want to fall into a similar ‘overused setting’ trap as I’m already aware that the beach is featuring a little too often in the current novel, and possibly the last one too. 

Okay, the scene where I sit in my study and write this blog post is done. Time to head to the kitchen for a cup of tea, methinks…

@FCapaldiBurgess

What always crops up in your novels or short stories?

I Believe, I Really Do Believe…

What Elaine Roberts discovered this week is that you have to believe in yourself.

Yes, it is lovely when people give you a boost by saying how wonderful your writing is, or anything else that you are doing if it comes to that.

Francesca & I at an RNA Party

My dream, since time began, has been to write novels and anyone who reads this blog regularly will know I am a member of the Romantic Novelists Association New Writers Scheme (RNA NWS). My biggest problem is that it doesn’t take much to dent my confidence or for me to feel I’m being selfish, dedicating as much of my spare time, (did I say spare time?) as I can to my writing. Yes, I am improving but whether I will get there or not, hmm I’m not so sure. There are a whole lot of writers out there all fighting for the same publishing/agent places, but as they say, you have to be in it to win it.

My Daughter Made A Cake Of My  Romantic Novel “Forgotten Love” – As Yet Unpublished

I have reached chapter ten of the saga I am writing. That’s probably about mid point, around forty eight thousand words. It has been a steep learning curve for me because prior to this, I wrote modern contemporary romance, which is a very different kettle of fish. A saga tends to be longer than the average modern romance, at least that is what I have been told, approximately an extra thirty thousand words. Consequently, I’ve had to think more about my characters; there are three generations to consider. There’s the plot and the sub plots, are they interwoven enough. Then there is the setting and how to bring that alive? Use more description, which has always been a little alien to me.

When we live in a world of speed and shortened speech, for example text speak, it has taken me a while to get my head around it all, but I am getting there and what’s more, I believe I am getting there quicker. Please note I didn’t say better because I’m still in my first draft and I have no doubt there will be several edits to come.

I Do Believe…

I don’t mind that because at the RNA Conference a couple of weeks ago, Julie Cohen gave me and all the other writers there permission to write a rubbish (that’s not the word she used, but I’m sure you get my drift) first draft. She said it’s more important to get the story written and worry about making it book shape later. This boosted my confidence because I discovered I’m not the only one to write in layers. Until then, I thought I was a little strange, and before you all start shouting that I am, I mean in the way that I write.

This leads me right back to the beginning. Mix with other like-minded people who can help with any learning, but above all else, and no matter what, believe in yourself.

@RobertsElaine11