Category Archive: From the Author
March 26th, 2012
During my six weeks’ residency in The Little Blue Hut on Tankerton slopes, I’m inviting guest authors to ‘drop in’ to chat about how they write. Today’s virtual visitor is Fanny Blake, whose second novel, Women of A Dangerous Age, is out on April 26th, and we’ve been talking about creating characters.
Fanny says that when she was editor (for Penguin) she almost didn’t believe authors when they said that the ‘characters took over’, but now she finds that once they’re up and running, they often do. I agree, but it’s getting them up and running…
I think names are a good starting point (I used to get first names off the mastheads of women’s magazines until journalist friends complained, so now I scroll down lists of baby names for that era). Appearance is number one for me, too: I felt that Clover in The Empty Nesters was somewhat apologetic about her femininity simply because she was so tall, whereas Laura could be shrill and controlling because she was so short and afraid she’d be overlooked. But so far, that’s not much more than creating a cardboard cut-out.
Fanny says that her favourite character is Lou, the heroine of Women of A Dangerous Age, because’ she stands up for herself and won’t be a victim’: ’To create a convincing character, a writer should know what makes them tick – their likes and dislikes; their attitude to life; how they spend their day; what they wear; what they look like; their tastes in music, food, TV etc; their worst nightmare, their ambitions and so on. What sort of family do they come from? Where do they live? What are their needs and agendas? Writing such a detailed profile of Lou definitely helped bed her character into my mind, so I’d recommend that.
‘Secondly, before I begin a novel, I must know the journey a character is going to take ie where they will be both at the start and the end of their story and how they will change over the course of it. I may not know exactly what’s going to happen, although I will probably have an idea of some key scenes, but I do know the narrative arc. As the novel develops, so does the character as they respond to the different situations they find themselves in, but almost always within the confines I’ve set them at the beginning.’
Fanny hasn’t based Lou on any particular person (‘there’s probably a bit of me in there, but our circumstances are very different’), and she doesn’t formally research ‘character’. But she did interview people whose lives reflected Lou’s, such as a fashion editor for Lou’s early life. Fanny also ‘pored over vintage clothes’ sites and went to vintage clothes fairs’, talking to women who ran vintage clothes businesses. One agreed to read the final m/s to make sure there were no glaring errors.
When I was writing The Inheritance I similarly had to create characters who lived in a particular world: that of eventing, so I interviewed people in the horse world, took out subscriptions to magazines like Horse & Hound and read endless autobiographies of leading eventers. It’s a good way of finding out what the rhythm of a character’s day is and what their dangers and disappointments would be. But autobiographies of people who are still alive are usually ghosted and have been scrutinised to the last apostrophe by a PR machine, so I don’t think you really get much idea of character from them. The interviews are more enlightening (you get to hear the gossip that’s not allowed into the autobiographies!), but in the end, your characters come together once you’ve put in the preparatory spade work…and then they take over.
Posted in: From the Author by Nina Bell on March 26th, 2012
March 22nd, 2012
What do you wear to speak at a literary festival or a book signing? Male authors seem mostly to emerge from the Boden catalogue – open-necked shirts, blazers, leather jackets, other jackets, chinos, raspberry chinos, utility trousers, or, occasionally, jeans. Rosie Turner, chair of the British Arts Festivals Association and director of the Canterbury Festival agrees : ‘Any public performance demands an indication that the speaker has made some sort of effort – within their own style – and for men this probably only means clean hair’.
But female litfest fashion varies wildly, from the elegant designer chic of JK Rowling, Joanna Trollope and Penny Vincenzi to the frankly scruffy. I remember seeing an author at the Folkestone Literary Festival in what looked like a poncho made of Army blankets. And I was once on stage alongside a novelist in a crumpled white t-shirt, unbrushed hair, no make-up, jeans and plimsolls. Actually, she looked really cool. Beside her, the rest of us felt over-coiffed and over-accessorized. But I don’t think I could get away with it.
Having watched a number of fellow authors tugging at their hemlines, I’d say the number one Wardrobe Tip is ‘don’t wear a short, tight skirt.’ Chairs on stage are almost always too high or too low. Either way, you will be trying to stop the audience getting a flash of your knickers. And the same applies to a low cleavage at book signings, says Rosie Turner.
The other issue is that festivals tend to be in spring and autumn, when the weather ranges from snow to heat waves. I appeared at the Henley Literary Festival last October with Elizabeth Noble. She had flown in from the US with black winter outfits. The temperature soared to over 90 degrees. She looked immaculate, but later revealed she’d felt distractingly hot.
Rosie Turner thinks that audiences ‘like to invest writers with the personality of their books’ so what they wear can reflect this – such as ‘wearing a devore velvet shawl if you’re a medieval historian.’ Fashion guru Maggie Alderson is also a novelist, so I asked her for Festival style advice. Many of her novels (Cents and Sensibility, Pants on Fire, Mad About the Boy, How to Break Your Own Heart) feature sassy women with high heels on the cover, and her approach reflects this:
‘Dress as you would for a lovely lunch party or a cocktail party – be the best version of yourself,’ she advises. ‘When I do a book tour I go to Fenwicks and buy three dresses, usually in brightly coloured silk. Then I buy some ridiculously high heels from TopShop. Wearing high heels makes me stay physically aware of myself – you can’t get too relaxed, which is good because you need some adrenalin in order to perform well.’
She dresses as if expecting good weather, and takes a coat in case it turns bad, ‘and if I’m on tv I take my dress and change into it when I get there (minimising creasing)’. A really good haircut from John Frieda just beforehand, and regular blow-drying on tour completes her working wardrobe.’
Rosie Turner’s team think that looking ‘arty’ is probably better than ‘too corporate’ but she adds that ‘women beat themselves up about how they look in a way that men never would – as an arts promoter the most important thing for me is that speakers are comfortable and confident enough to deliver the performance’.
So maybe the crumpled t-shirt and unbrushed hair was the way to go. Sometimes, when I dress up to talk to groups, a friend will say:’oh, you look very much the author.’ But I never quite know whether that’s a compliment or not. Is it a polite way of saying ‘you’ve got lipstick on your teeth and a mad look in your eye?’
Posted in: From the Author by Nina Bell on March 22nd, 2012
March 14th, 2012
For the next six weeks I’ll be blogging as Writer in Residence at Creative Canterbury’s Little Blue Hut on Tankerton slopes in Whitstable. With its candy-striped beach huts and huge open skies, this part of Whitstable has a very special sense of place. So I’m going to kick off with a short series of blogs on a ‘sense of place’ in fiction. Now that we live in a world where IKEA’s Ektorp sofas can be found everywhere from a Rome apartment to a Highland cottage, is a sense of place more important than ever? I’ll be asking other authors for their tips, too.
My novel with a strongest sense of place is The Inheritance, set among the orchards and fields of Kent. From the hawthorn blossom of spring to the blackberries and rosy apples of autumn, it’s a story tied to horses, the countryside and the seasons. The biting east wind, the sound of horses’ hooves clattering across stone and the sense of isolation and menace that you get in a country storm are all integral to the story.
But I think it was easier to inject that ‘sense of place’ because I had only just moved to Kent from London, and I was excited by the differences: by being in ancient houses which had had been added onto over the centuries instead of rows of London terraces. I loved the feeling that I could almost touch the past because changes are made so slowly in the countryside. Now I have been here for eight years, I wonder if I could write about it in the same way.
As I’m blogging from a beach hut, my first guest author is Veronica Henry, whose evocative novel, ‘The Beach Hut’, is set in Devon, about several families and their beach huts. She likes to write about places ‘where I would like to be or live’ rather than where she actually does live.
‘I think it’s my job as a writer to transport people somewhere else, if only for a short while, and to paint as vivid a picture as possible with words. My husband and I once went to view a manor house that was way out of our budget, just for fun, and by the end of the viewing I had a whole plot for a novel mapped out in my head.’
Veronica says it’s often the little things that convey ‘a sense of place’ rather than the big views: ‘I can go somewhere breathtaking but be totally uninspired, and then something small will trigger an idea.’ I agree – I think one sentence on the smell of hay and linseed oil will transport the reader to the stables as quickly and effectively as a whole, long description of the stables themselves. What do you think? Do leave a comment or tweet me on @ninabellbooks.
Posted in: From the Author by Nina Bell on March 14th, 2012
February 24th, 2012
Today’s post features people with proper jobs. Mostly. Some even have offices and letterheading and…whatever a proper job in publishing has. They are agents, publishers, journalists etc in the world of publishing. They tweet their own opinions rather than any party line. They do really know what is going on, and alot of the time, they are making things happen.
The first step, of course, is to follow your own publisher, agent etc (may sound obvious, but easily overlooked). Then find out if any favourite publishers, agents or columnists are on Twitter and follow them. Some publishers just tweet about books they’re launching, but they also do giveaways and will mention writing awards, competitions and give you a general flavour of what they’re about. Jobs and internships also get tweeted.
And booky tweeps, however famous, almost always do their own tweeting – in other fields, such as sport or celebrity, ‘ghost tweeters’ may be employed, but in the world of books, most people love writing.
If you want to get published, it’s not Twitter etiquette to pitch online, but I have heard of several writers getting book deals because publishers or agents spotted them – and interacted with them – on Twitter. Eventually, (the word IS ‘eventually’) they asked to meet them. And you’ll also pick up chat about what does and doesn’t work. At its best, publishing Twitter is like being a fly on the wall of a publisher or an agent’s office. Even at worst you will still find out alot about chocolate biscuits.
So try my publishers: @Littlebrown @BtweenTheSheets, @HannahHargrave, @isobelakenhead, then onto @caroleagent, @missdaisyfrost, @publishingtalk, @alisonbav, @jonnygeller,@samatlounge,@nicolamorgan, @hprw, @danoosha, @guardianculture, @GuardianBooks, @thebookseller, @Soc_ofAuthors,@writersclub, @mybookishways,@itsabookthing. Follow your favourite bookshop – Waterstones’ branches all tweet individually, as do lots of independent bookshops (I follow @YLBookshop, @toppingsely and others)
Once again, I could mention another 80 more (and do check this week’s earlier posts for other great book-y tweeps to follow). You can also build a good ‘publishing professionals’ list by following the above, and clicking on who they follow.
Next week:A Sense of Place – how writers create it and how important is it.
Posted in: From the Author by Nina Bell on February 24th, 2012
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