Category: Blog

This is where I share anything new, anything I love, anything funny…

Sentinel of the Seas

lighthouse photo

The day is waning. Along the horizon, below the slate-grey bank of cloud, the sash of fiery orange glows brighter. The light orb appears, its white-hot heat ebbing into the cool evening, like the tide receding before me.

The sun sinks further, drawing a coral path over the sea, painting the smooth wet sand with blood red tones that fade to a slumbering violet on the shaded ridges.

Reverberations echo within. The warm being is climbing the steps. Round and round. He reaches the lantern room and pauses. I feel him become small for a moment, and listen to the panting breaths. If I concentrate, I am able to breathe with him as the air grows tight and cold and the stone dissipates the day’s accumulated warmth.

The being stretches tall and moves around; touching here, polishing there. Sounds burst from him, like the tweeting of a bird.

Do not awaken the dawn. Not yet. I draw in to myself, and hear a crack from the wooden railing.

The tweeting ceases. The door opens and the being comes outside. He sniffs. The wooden rail trembles beneath his hand. “Well, my lady, this is it, huh?”

Lady?

The paint is peeling from my body and soon I will be useless, left for the birds to besmirch; the glass at first chipped, then slowly shattered as rocks are endlessly hurled by the sea. I am no lady, more a battered, disease-ridden crone.

“I’ll light ’er up then.”

I brace myself but he closes the door gently. I will miss the slam that ricochets to the ground and makes me tremble.

The next moment a stunning beam of light hits the waters. This time it’s me splashing a path over the ocean. I am queen when the king of the day sleeps.

Yet no longer; this is my last eventide as the sentinel of the seas.

The sun slips beyond the day, and darkness flows after the path of the beam, only to flee when my light chases back.

I wish for a crashing storm to mark the passing of my significance, a furious tempest; it would be a more fitting rite than the quiescence my eye beholds.

A light fog condenses just before dawn, but the ray cuts through the mist, strong, faithful. The air changes, softens. Birds awaken, and invite Aurora with their songs.

Below, the old wooden door slams shut. A shudder shakes my body; the light wavers a moment, then returns true. The warm being climbs slower today, his steps discrepant. He has lived long, but I, longer.

And now, after a century of exemplary service, my wide beacon will be extinguished, like a candle in a puff of wind.

Black greys into a muffling mist. He flicks the switch.

The world lives on, yet I am neither alive nor dead. I am nothing. Without a purpose. Invisible.

The being steps out and leans on the railing. Warmth curls around the wood. A finger of smoke lifts and snaps the freshness of the air.

“Hnh. Didn’t expect them so early.” He grinds the hot twig into the stone beneath his foot. “Come to watch the whales. That’s our job now, my lady.”

The sun lifts further. For a moment, the drops of moisture sparkle; iridescent rainbow shimmers that hover in the air until they burst, their colours coalescing into a brilliant white.

Warm beings swarm up inside. They lean on the rail, whispering, pointing. Then a squawk. “Look, a whale! There!”

My stone warms and expands; settles.

So this is who I have become.

Still sentinel of the seas.

 

 

 

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Backstory – What is it?

In the beginning photo

 

I’ve been musing over this recently, and I think a lot of confusion comes with knowing what’s backstory, and where our stories actually should begin. It’s something I am constantly struggling with – where is the start of my story?

I think I found a clue!

Our characters are people, first and foremost. Therefore they will, like all of us, have a history. But whereas we live the whole of our lives, we do not necessarily write the whole of our characters’ lives, and our readers certainly don’t. We write only a portion.

Which portion?

In the beginning photo

Usually that which sees the character go on a journey. The journey may be a literal journey – such as in The Lord of the Rings, where Frodo must travel to Mordor (by going on a literal journey he also goes on an emotional journey). The journey maybe simply an emotional journey – like the death of a loved one; or a change in the character’s status – single to married, eg.

Whatever the journey is, the start of the story is not where the journey begins but just before. We need to show the character in their normal environment, in their status quo emotional state. We need to build empathy in the reader, curiosity, and hook them into wanting to find out what happens to change their state, and whether they survive. Normal, everyday situations that show their character as it is, and hint at the changes that must come, or even an unusual situation that nudges the main character (mc) in the direction of the journey they must take.

Some people go on a life-changing journey, or trip around the world. It is vital that we know who they were, so we can understand who they have become.

airport photo

If the mc is at the airport, about to go on a life-changing holiday, then we can show an event that reveals that character as they are, before they need to change. So, if our character is reserved, sometimes gets pushed around, we can show that by having someone bump into her and not apologise. How does she react? Does she ignore what happened? If she is reserved, she may well do. As a reader we want to see her come out if that and stand up for herself and that’s what piques our curiosity. However, you can see that how she reacts now is key in understanding both who she is now, and who she must become.

Why is she reserved? Why does she not stand up for herself? These are questions then raised in the reader’s mind and they read on to find the answers. Does the reader need to know the answers now? No. And, they don’t necessarily want the answers immediately.

Having shown the mc as he/she is, we can then say that backstory is everything that has shaped the character to be who he/she is today, when the story begins.

So when will the reader want the answers?

That is the question, and it’s not easy to answer. There will be times when the character’s actions will need explaining.

 

Pride and Prejudice photo
Photo by The British Library

 

In Pride and Prejudice, Mr Darcy acts cold and arrogant – particularly towards Wickham, which angers Lizzy and cause her to resent Darcy, but we don’t find out why Darcy is cold until much later in the book. We have hints at what happened and these come from Mr Wickham himself. By this time, the reader suspects Wickham is not what he seems, but Lizzy does not. The reader wants Darcy to be the hero, Lizzy wants Wickham.

 

Pride and Prejudice photo
Photo by The British Library

 

We don’t discover the true history between him and Mr Wickham until the letter which explains much of why Darcy behaves the way he does towards Wickham.

So, we see that the reader goes on the journey with the mc, but at some point, we can see more than they can, and then comes the tension of when will the mc find out…

Darcy and Wickham’s backstories are only revealed at certain times in the book, and we certainly do not know everything about them, only the important events that have shaped them into the characters they are today.

Your important event that shaped your character might be an almighty one, like the murder of their spouse. Sometimes people choose to show these in a prologue, since they are huge and interesting and ‘hooky’, yet are still a part of the backstory to show who the character is before they must change. Perhaps the murder of their spouse sends them into a spiral of gambling and other issues. Perhaps it’s depression. What the reader wants to see is how the character gets out of this, how he conquers his demons.

The mc might be in a completely ordinary situation – like Bilbo Baggins celebrating his birthday in The Hobbit.

So what is backstory?

The events, upbringing, family issues, etc, that have shaped that character to be who they are at the start of the story. Who they are at the start of their emotional upheaval. To know where we are going, we must know where we have come from.

Also bear in mind that a novel may not start with the status quo of the mc, but of the antagonist – a murderer, for example. In Lisa Jackson’s Cold Blooded, she begins with a prologue showing the murderer hunting. This raises questions – who is he hunting and why, and why is he a murderer?

Backstory isn’t just the prerogative of the mc, either …

Who is your character at the start of the journey? What shaped their characters?

Also, if we know all of this, our characters will be far more rounded as people. It’s worth putting the time in to discover backstory, even if we don’t use it in the novel.

Just some thoughts,

Louise

 

 

 

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“We are not to do evil, that good may come,”

is a line from the Elizabeth Gaskell book ‘Ruth’. I finished it yesterday and this is the line that sticks with me.

The novel is about a young orphan girl, Ruth (working as a dressmaker’s apprentice).

ballroom photo
Photo by State Library of Queensland, Australia

 

She meets a wealthy aristocratic young man, Mr Bellingham, at a ball where she must mend rips and tears in the dresses of the the young ladies who attend. Her employer, Mrs Mason, is a tough, strict lady, and when Mrs Mason sees Ruth walking with Mr Bellingham she tells the young girl never to return. Cast-off like a cast-off, Ruth allows herself to be persuaded to go away with Mr Bellingham and is, consequently, ruined.

When Bellingham falls ill in a Welsh Inn and his mother arrives to take him home, Ruth is once more cast-off – and pregnant, but this time a Dissident Minister and his sister, Mr and Miss Benson, take pity on her and persuade her to return with them, under the guise of new widow.

Mr Benson is concerned not just with the law of the land, but also with what Jesus would do, and is persuaded by his sister to let the townsfolk believe Ruth is a widowed relation of theirs and thus the deception begins. Once the truth is out, the effects are, at first, devastating for Ruth and her son, Leonard, and the Minister wonders if they should have spoken the truth from the outset.

When politics comes to the town, and one man suggests using the weaknesses of other men to forward their own purposes, Benson says: “We are not to do evil, that good may come,”.

This stuck with me, and reminded me of that saying “You’ve got to be cruel to be kind.” I’ve never liked this saying and believe there is always a way of doing things that does not have to be cruel.

When we shrug and tell ourselves, “you’ve got to be cruel to be kind”, we are justifying the means.

Yet there is the question of the greater good. Should we agree to the bombing of a city to kill lots of militants when we know innocents will be killed?

Can cruel means ever be justified?

“We are not to do evil, that good may come,”.

Can good results ever come from evil deeds?

It’s all to easy to think the end justifies the means sometimes, but does it?

Certainly got me thinking.

Louise

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‘To Be?’ That is NOT the question…

 

to be photo

There is usually a lot of discussion on writers’ forums about the use of the verb ‘To Be’.

So often people say, “Don’t use ‘was’.” Why not? Because it’s weak. Well, it’s only a weak verb if used inappropriately. Its function as a verb in the right place is invaluable.

The verb ‘to be’ is a linking verb showing existence, or the condition of the subject (also used as an auxiliary verb when forming the passive, but I’m not going there now!!).

So we get sentences like this:

It is raining.
My mother is a pilot.
The soup is very tasty.

All of these are statements telling us how, or what, something is. Imagine those sentences in a novel.

boring photo

Awful. Unimaginative. Boring.

And this is why so many people want to avoid this verb.

But.

Look at the following as an example of how the verb can be used (scene of a murder):

“There was a thin strip of cloth leading from the belly to the pubis, like an arrow showing the way.”

Notice I didn’t write it like this:

“There was a thin strip of cloth leading from the belly to the pubis.”

In the second example we have a statement of what/how something is. In a novel, that doesn’t do much for the reader by itself. It is boring. So what that there’s a thin strip of cloth. So, we add something, a little extra to tease the reader’s imagination.

Thus,

“….like an arrow showing the way.”

This is the part that (should ) tease the reader’s imagination. An arrow? What does that mean, what does it signify? These are questions you want to raise in the reader’s mind.

Writing is about telling a story, building a picture. In Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities, his famous beginning repeats the use of ‘It was’ several times, and he intended it this way. Not only does the repetition bring rhythm to the paragraph, he is building a picture using superlatives because that is his point. When you read the paragraph, or say it aloud, the ‘it was’ fades into the background, almost like it’s not there.

And that’s what we need to do with any sentence we have using the verb ‘to be’. The verb needs to point towards something important, something that grabs the reader’s attention so that the verb itself recedes into the background.

 

The verb ‘to be’ is a telling verb. It tells the reader something. We use it in everyday speech to tell others something about ourselves, someone else, the weather… etc

“I’m so happy!” Clara bounced around the room …

If I just wrote “Clara bounced around the room” the reader would likely need something else, another clue, as to Clara’s state of being. She’s bouncing? Why? Has she been bitten?

We can tell a lot from context, but sometimes it is better to tell the reader immediately so the picture is clear.

Sometimes a tell then a show works much better than just a show.

Sometimes I read sentences and it takes me a minute or two to decipher what the author is telling me because they are showing too much and I just want to be told. Especially with emotions. Someone bites their lip. Are they nervous? Shy? Annoyed? etc. A quick tell can accomplish much, but is better when accompanied by a show. Why? Because that tell disappears. Our brains have absorbed the tell, we know what the state of something/someone is, and now we’re looking at the show.

If you use the verb ‘to be’, make sure it gets lost. Make sure it disappears into the background by what the rest of the sentence is saying.

You don’t want readers to notice words that are there or not there. You want readers to absorb the words so the story is foremost in their mind, so that questions get asked. If a reader persistently trips over words because they are not used well, or not there when they should be, or the sentence is not written in a way that the meaning is communicated instantly, you can lose the reader.

Words are our tools. Know what each word does, know what it does in relation to other words, understand context. This is what I’m learning…

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Book Musings: The Girl In The Photograph, by Kate Riordan.

I’ve been on holiday! And while on holiday without wifi I managed to catch up on some reading – and found a new author in the process. Kate Riordan.

Kate Riordan Girl in the Photograph

I must mention that the book is published in the UK under ‘The Girl in the Photograph’ and in the US and Canada as ‘Fiercombe Manor’.

I’m not usually a fan of books that flip between two different time periods, even though these two were only 1932 and 1898, but when I ‘looked inside’ on Amazon I was immediately hooked by the first couple of lines – in a Prologue no less. So much for those who declare prologues to be essentially evil. Beautifully written prose:

“Fiercombe is a place of secrets. They fret among the uppermost branches of the beech trees and brood at the cold bottom of the stream that cleaves the valley in two.”

I adore writing like this, always have. Some might say, ” How can secrets fret?”, but I’m not one of those, and anyway, by the end of the novel you understand. So I downloaded and settled in to enjoy, and was not disappointed.

I’m not going to write a summary of the novel, you can read that on Amazon, but I will say that I think the way the lives of Alice and Elizabeth are told and interwoven is beautiful. I loved the parallels drawn between the two women and found I identified a great deal with Elizabeth, who Alice gets to know through a diary and smidgens of information dropped by the housekeeper, Mrs Jelphs. I understood Elizabeth, and why she did what she did at the end.

And, another thing – I never felt annoyed when the author switched to the other woman. There are times when, in some books I have read, that the switch between pov’s or time periods has irritated me. Yes, there is such a thing as tension and keeping the reader guessing, but there’s also telling a story and using the natural curiosity of the reader to lead them into the next point of view. I thought Ms Riordan did that wonderfully.

The only thing I wanted to understand better was why Tom Stanton was attracted to Alice, but it’s quite possible I missed something in my haste to find out what happened.

This is the kind of novel I will read again, not just because I know I must have missed things, but also because this the kind of novel that leaves something with me. I’ve already downloaded Birdcage Walk. Can’t wait.

 

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