The Publishing Process: Part 1: Edits by Sophie Claire

Last month I blogged about the publishing deal I’ve just signed with Hodder & Stoughton (you can read that post here), and the Novelistas have asked me to write about the publishing process. Although I had a book published before with a small independent press and a couple of short stories in anthologies, this is my first experience of working with a large traditional publisher. A lot of the process is new to me, and I’m very excited about getting input from professionals: I'm certain that my book, The Christmas Holiday, will be all the better for it. As I take you through my journey, I hope to demystify the process and show how much work goes into polishing a book before it’s ready to hit the shelves.

First up: Edits

I had heard terrifying stories about writers who were asked to completely overhaul their plots or rewrite a character, and often in less than a month, so I nervously awaited my editor's email. However, when it arrived I was relieved because there was nothing major and no structural changes. (I’m lucky that I wrote The Christmas Holiday in my own time without any deadline pressures, and my agent Megan had also been through it and suggested minor changes to improve it).

I was asked to add a couple of new scenes, but mostly, my edits were about deleting repetition and adding depth; that is, revealing little snippets of additional backstory which help explain characters’ behaviour. I was careful not to fall into the trap of adding too much: I’ve learned over the years that a couple of lines or a paragraph are usually enough.

What I didn’t expect in my edits were little comments marking the bits my editor especially liked – a passage that was particularly tense or an emotional scene she found moving. I was grateful for these, because it’s good to know what you’re doing right. So I made the edits, read through the book again, making sure it made sense (any writer knows, the smallest change can have a knock-on effect: no one wants their characters referring to an event that’s been deleted, for example) and sent the book back.

Then I waited to hear.

I had told myself I’d get straight back to writing book 5 (this one does have a deadline), but it was surprisingly difficult to concentrate until I’d heard if my edits were approved. I forced myself to sit at my desk each day, but my mind was elsewhere, worrying. Was what I’d done good enough? Should I have added more? Would my editor send me a second round of revisions? And if so, how many rounds should I expect?

After two days I couldn’t bear the waiting (I know, I really need to learn patience!) so I emailed the Novelistas asking how long does it normally take – days or weeks? ‘How long is a piece of string?’, said Trisha Ashley. Everyone agreed: it depends on the book’s schedule, your editor and their workload at the time. I knew I had to be patient.

Later that same day my editor got back to me (see? I should have been patient!) saying she was delighted with my revisions, and there were just a few tweaks left. I did these the same morning, and sent them off. The next stage would be copy-edits, which I’ll talk about next month, but for now I could get back to writing book 5.

Sophie.x

Gladfest 2018: Joanna Cannon Talk

Gladfest 2018

Two weeks ago I attended the annual literary festival known as ‘Gladfest’ at Gladstone’s Library in Hawarden, North Wales. A mix of informal chats, talks, readings, and workshops, the speakers this year included Joanna Cannon (The Trouble with Goats and Sheep), Sarah Perry (The Essex Serpent), Miranda Kaufmann (The Black Tudors) and Lucy Mangan (Bookworm: A Memoir of Childhood Reading). The festival started on Friday evening and lasted until late on Sunday afternoon.

Gladstone's Library, Hawarden

Although the festival is mainly aimed at readers, some of the authors offered tips for would-be writers. In particular, Joanna Cannon spoke at length about her working day and how she became published, and I thought readers of this blog would be interested in what she had to share. As I didn’t take written notes, I have paraphrased.

Joanna Cannon

Joanna tries to avoid giving writing advice. In fact, she jokingly said that her writing advice would be to never give writing advice! She never dreamt her books would be so successful and she finds it mind-blowing that her books have been translated and are available in countries all over the world.

She likes to write about characters that would ordinarily be overlooked in society. Her writing day starts at 3.00 am (it's deliberate! She finds she works better that way), when she walks her dog across the fields near her home and thinks about the story she’s writing. She doesn’t plan her books. She has a vague idea of what is going to happen and how the story will end. She writes about 1,000 words a day, reading back over what she has written the day before and editing it before writing something new. Rather than writing a rough first draft, she writes and polishes as she goes along. She doesn’t have a study but prefers to move from sofa to sofa around her house.

When Joanna wrote her first novel she wrote it for herself, never believing it would go on to be so successful, or that people would start analysing it – or that American publishers would want to change her words and characters to suit an American audience! When she wrote her second novel she made the mistake of wondering how others would judge her work and if readers from other countries would understand what she was trying to say, and she found this really stifled her creativity. The way she moved past that was to realise you have to write your story the way you want to write it. It has to be your story, that only you can tell. If readers like it, that's great, but she now accepts you can never please everyone all the time.

Joanna’s first book, The Trouble with Goats and Sheep, was published after she attended a writing conference. She had no idea if her writing was any good, so she entered a competition where writers had to read the first 500 words of their book aloud to a room of publishing professionals. She won, and by Monday had offers of representation from seven literary agents. A few weeks later she had a publishing contract.

Joanna admits to reading her reviews, good and bad, and says that as a writer you do have to laugh sometimes at the one star ones. For example, in her first book, set firmly in 1970s England, one of her readers had been disappointed that there was no mention of Battenberg cake. So she made sure it was in the second book, joking that she knew at least one reader would be happy!

She has the voices of the characters in her head before she starts writing and tries to find something to pull the reader into the story, to make them keep reading. As a reader, she’s a sucker for books that have a secret. Although her books have been labelled ‘uplit’ by the media, personally she enjoys reading dark, twisty thrillers. And as she tends to skip any kissing scenes, there is no kissing in any of her books!

If you'd like to listen to Joanna's talk yourself, it is available via SoundCloud here for another two weeks.

The talks by some of the other authors can also be heard on SoundCloud here.

Links:

Joanna Cannon

Gladstone’s Library

Gladfest

Photograph copyright (except book covers): Louise Marley

National Creative Writing Graduate Fair 2017 by Louise Marley

I recently attended the National Creative Writing Graduate Fair at Manchester Metropolitan University. There was an opportunity to attend panels and workshops, and pitch to a literary agent! However, it is hard to take in what is being said and make notes at the same time, so I have paraphrased!

Balancing Act:

Living and Working as a Writer

SJ Bradley (Writer)

Adam Lowe (Writer/Performer/Publisher)

AL: If getting started is difficult, try writing about anything. Or write around the subject – write about your characters, the setting, etc. Or draw a map of your location. Anything to trick yourself into writing.

SJB: It can be a challenge to get people to take you seriously as a writer. You have to be strict about your writing time. Think of it as work. Don’t let anything interfere.

AL: Switch your phone off. Have set writing times. Set boundaries.

SJB: If it helps, go somewhere to work where you can’t be interrupted – like a café. You’ll also get that ‘going to work’ feeling!

AL: Find time to think. Let things percolate. Reads books – it counts as work (films count too, if relevant). But be strict with yourself. And don’t work in the evenings, it’s unhealthy.

SJB: But don’t write yourself out!

AL: It can sometimes be helpful to leave something for the next day. Try breaking off halfway through a sentence!

AL: But it is important not to sequester yourself. It’s good to meet other writers. Bounce ideas off each other, compete with word counts, but be supportive of each other. Writers are like magpies, they love new and shiny. Meet new people. Have new experiences. It will make your writing come alive. If you don’t go beyond your own experiences the reader is never surprised and it can lead to inadvertently duplicating ideas or themes from existing books or movies.

AL: It’s easier for others to take you seriously as a writer when you are paid for your work. Don’t use the excuse that because you love your job you’re happy to work for free. Lawyers love their work too but they don’t work for nothing!

If you’re on Twitter, check out SJ Bradley’s timeline (@BradleyBooks), where you can find answers to some of the questions there wasn’t time for.

Going Digital:

New Opportunities for Writers

Kathryn Taussig (Associate Publisher: Bookouture)

Michelle Green (Writer)

Kit Caless (Co-founder/Editor: Influx Press & Co-founder: #LossLit)

Michelle Green told us about her collection of short stories, Hayling Island: Stories at Sea Level, to be published as a digital audio map in collaboration with a composer, digital artist and literary geographer. The map will link to local tidal reports and change according to the real-time time on the island. For example, a story set on one of the sand banks will be inaccessible when the tide is in!

Kit Caless talked about the digital story-telling project, LostLit, which explores the various influences of loss in literature. The LostLit Twitter write club is hosted every first Wednesday of the month between 9.00 pm and 11.00 pm, and open to all. Updates and retweets can be found on @LossLit, and hashtagged #LostLit.

Kathryn Taussig is an Associate Publisher for Bookouture, who were one of the first digital book publishers. Their challenge was to make their books more visible and to stand out from the crowd. With traditional publishing you only have one shot to get it right. Sometimes even the most promising books can fail for no apparent reason. With digital publishing there can be more individuality, and there is the opportunity to re-brand authors and try things that are different. For example, if a book cover doesn’t work it can be quickly and easily changed. Readers of ebooks are voracious and ideally they want two or three books a year from their favourite authors.

Bookouture publish mostly commercial fiction, including women’s fiction, romance, sagas, and psychological crime. They take unagented submissions, which can be made through a portal on their website. Their authors receive a higher percentage of royalties – 45% of everything they receive from the retailer.

Writing the Perfect Synopsis

Debbie Taylor (Founder & Editorial Director: Mslexia)

An elevator pitch is the character, their quest, and the obstacle preventing them getting it. Concentrate on just one character – who is the most important person in your story? – and be sure to name them!

A synopsis is the summary of characters and plot in order, not a blurb. Your submission letter explains who you are, the sample of three chapters proves you can write, but the synopsis is there to show how you plan to develop your story. A synopsis may also be used to create the blurb on the back of the book, and sent to the designer to create the cover art.

A synopsis should be between 500 and 1,500 words (but check individual guidelines). Write it in the present tense, third person, ‘omnipresent’ point of view. It should start with a summary paragraph, similar to the ‘elevator pitch’, followed by the sequence of actions that make up the plot. Summarise each character’s profile when they turn up. Who propels the story forward? Give their name, occupation, social position, and anything distinctive about their appearance or an unusual personality trait.

Related Posts:

NCW Graduate Fair 2016: Part 1: Panels & Talks by Louise Marley

NCW Graduate Fair 2016: Part 2: Pitching to Agents by Sophie Claire

How Not to Submit to a Literary Agent by Sophie Claire

Writing: Getting Serious by Louise Marley

Links:

The National Creative Writing Graduate Fair

The Manchester Writing School

Manchester Metropolitan University

Comma Press

Louise Marley is an Amazon Top 100 bestselling author and a creative writing tutor with Writing Magazine. Her latest book is Trust Me I Lie.

I Can't Write Without... by Sophie Claire

…My stash of rough paper.

I know – it's not glamorous, it's not an expensive gadget, and in this world of laptops and printers you might think it's a little peculiar and very old-fashioned.

Obviously, I have a computer and this is essential for editing and making the manuscript presentable to the rest of the world, BUT without rough paper I simply wouldn’t have a book to show in the first place.

What Do I Use It For?

• Morning pages (à la Julia Cameron). To get me into writing mode at the start of the day I write three pages of whatever's on my mind. It's a great warm-up, and also good for getting any worries off my chest so I'm then free to focus on the novel I'm writing.
• Sketching out a new scene. Everything I write begins life as rough scribbles, sometimes pared down to pure dialogue to give me the essence of the scene, and I build up from there. 
• Thinking through problems: if I’m stuck, I stop typing and go back to paper. I brainstorm solutions, or write a kind of stream of consciousness, putting down on paper any thoughts that come to mind. Anything at all. This often throws up surprising results and sometimes the solution isn’t as difficult to find as I first thought.

The stash:

It’s made up mostly of discarded printouts of my work which I’ve scribbled all over (are you surprised that I also edit by hand?), but environmentalists will be pleased to know that I also salvage from around the house any paper which can be re-used. Letters, flyers, the children’s old homework, including maths papers and sheet music. (For some reason, these especially delight me: I love to see the outlines of graphs which are beyond my understanding or the notes of silent melodies). 

It’s messy - but that's the point:

The fact that it’s not pristine sheets of paper is crucial. 

It tricks my brain into believing that what I write doesn’t matter, that I can relax and anything goes. Whatever I scribble on there can be as messy, as clichéd, as honest and as terrible as I like because it’s for my eyes only. The paper’s usedness, its tatty, second-hand rejected state encourages me to open up and just write.

The first couple of lines are usually rubbish, but then I tackle the problem, thinking around it, or getting into the head of the character who’s been enigmatic. They begin to reveal important facts, or sometimes, if they’re still holding back, I ask them questions. (I’ve been told that if I did this using my left hand to write it might be even more effective because it unlocks the right part of the brain, but I confess I’m too impatient). 

With the help of my stash of rough paper, I often unearth gems of ideas, or come up with novel solutions to plot problems. I simply couldn’t do without it.

Do you ever use paper and pen? What is essential for your writing?

Sophie.x

Her Forget-Me-Not Ex is currently 99p/$1.30 in the Kindle sale! 

It's available here.

Research On the Go - a fairy tale by Valerie-Anne Baglietto

Once upon a time...

...a woman of indeterminate age set off on a journey. This woman – with dark hair that was not entirely natural anymore, and dark eyes framed by black geeky glasses – was, and always had been, a Writer. The journey wasn’t as perilous as others she had embarked on, as it didn’t involve the M6; but the A49 proved eventful enough.

The cottage the Writer was staying in for a week had a wonderful, quirky name, yet she wouldn’t reveal it to anyone until her dying breath – or at least until it popped up in one of her novels.

The detachment of being away from home lent a fresh perspective to her research. She found herself taking lots… and lots… of photographs with her phone. (Thank goodness for WiFi and that one terabyte of cloud drive, she realised, as she made sure to back them up daily.)

Now, oddly enough, the Writer lived in a picturesque village herself. But somehow, it was easy to be blind to sights she saw regularly. The saying “familiarity breeds contempt” didn’t seem so cliched when she considered how a never-before-seen vista can spark inspiration, or a new outlook lift a story up out of the grey and into a rainbow of light.

Trying to capture the essence of a place in a photograph wasn’t easy, the Writer discovered, especially with a phone case that made the edges of certain photographs blurry and pink. But it was worthwhile and fun. Viewing the typical settings of her stories with a fresh lens meant creativity was stirred and new scenes imagined.

An old gate here (ooh, the possibilities of where it might lead!) or a pretty cottage. A crumbling, ancient gravestone remembering a tragic young life, or a war memorial marking the loss of so many others.

The Writer’s brain was never still, never silent. 

Without the infinite number of errands and chores she faced back home, it was uplifting. Only a finite number to tackle here. Such as feeding the dog. And the children. The writer might not be sitting at her desk slaving over her keyboard, but she was working, even while enjoying a break from the chains of deadlines or fitting in laundry (washing and hanging) between chapters. She was “on holiday”, and yet… she wasn’t. There was no need to feel guilty. She was free. Her mind was free. More importantly, inspiration was free – to run wild.

How fortunate Writers are these days, she thought, to be able to record their travels in pictures, storing them in albums on hard-drives or printing them out and pinning to study walls. Perhaps she would add her photographs to a Pinterest board. Or use a particular favourite as a screensaver. She would decide once she was home. There was no rush. No pressure. It was satisfying simply to be able to enjoy them and play games with the possibilities...

A whitewashed cottage for the heroine,
with flowers around the door.

A posh house - for a posh person? 
The hero's imperious mother, maybe?

'The Old Vicarage'. 
Does that mean an old vicar should live here?

An uber-modern interior for the posh house?
Interesting...

Who would want to walk along here on a dark night?
*shudders*

Every village needs a quaint church,
but just look at that impeccable lawn!
(Gardener with a strain of OCD perhaps?)

And of course, the village local.
Indispensable.

Once upon a time...

...a Writer went on a journey and finally returned home, if not with a tan (it was only the Forest of Dean, after all), then at least with a whole new village in her head.

The End

By day, Valerie-Anne Baglietto writes contemporary, grown-up fiction. By night, she clears up after her husband and three children. Occasionally she sleeps. During her career so far she has written rom-coms for Hodder & Stoughton, won the Romantic Novelists’ Association New Writer’s Award and been shortlisted in the 2015 Love Stories Awards. Valerie-Anne tweets @VABaglietto

Valerie-Anne's latest modern fairy tale for grown-ups is available from Amazon worldwide click here for more details.

Learning Storytelling Techniques from Writing Serials by Juliet Greenwood

I’ve learnt so much from writing serials. Seeing the latest serial by my alter ego, Heather Pardoe, has reminded me just how much the techniques have helped me when writing my novels.

Juliet Greenwood

The art of writing of a serial is not to be underestimated. It has to be divided into parts, with enough characters and action to keep the story moving, while each part builds to a cliffhanger to leave the reader itching for the next part to arrive. Possibly not with quite the frenzy that greeted the climax of Charles Dickens’s The Old Curiosity Shop, but as near as. No one has yet stormed my local newsagent on the day of publication, but you never know …

Juliet's latest serial in The People's Friend

You also have to keep the story moving evenly between the various sets of characters, so the reader doesn’t have time to forget or lose interest, and so keeps a vested interest in finding out all their fates. At the same time, the arc of the story must build, as in a novel, and the cliffhangers at the end of each episode need to build as well, ratcheting up the tension until you reach the final climax in the penultimate episode. 

Vanity Fair

The final episode then has to resolve the story and tie up all the ends without leaving a sense of anti-climax. A lesson in exactly how not to do this is Thackery’s Vanity Fair, which was originally written as a serial. When I re-read the novel recently, I didn’t know whether to laugh or cringe at the final ‘episode’, when the author had clearly finished the story and absolutely and totally lost interest, but had a word count to fill (even Dickens and Thackeray wrote for filthy lucre) and was waffling shamelessly.

Funnily enough, although I studied Vanity Fair as part of my Literature degree, it wasn’t until I became a writer of serials that the damp squib of that ending made sense. Because I love Becky Sharp, I’m quite glad Thackeray’s half-hearted pontificating is more in the cause of money than good old Victorian pomposity! I’m still nervous when planning the final part of each of my own serials and the endings of my novels. It’s definitely a lesson I’ve taken to heart. 

The White Camellia

Most of all, I’ve found I go back to the lessons of serial writing when I’m telling a story from two different points of view in my novels, as in The White Camellia, published by Honno Press, which is told from the viewpoints of two very different women, linked only by a family feud they need to resolve. Balancing the two viewpoints, and maintaining the reader’s vested interest equally in Bea and Sybil, was something I found a real technical challenge. It was overcoming that challenge that made me understand just how invaluable I’ve found the lessons I’d learnt while writing serials like Together We Stand.

Writing a serial, which is on a smaller scale than a novel, is definitely an excellent way to practise the techniques of writing a page-turning story with the interest balanced between the characters – and I always get a childish kick out of actually getting my story illustrated! 

If you want to try writing a serial, you need to check out the market and follow the guidelines – they know their readers and exactly what they like. Magazines like The People’s Friend will work with you on a serial they feel has potential, and are very supportive and great to work with. They also have a huge readership, so are a good way to start getting your name out there.

Useful Link 

Writing Serials for The People's Friend An excellent blog post from author Wendy Clarke, with tips on exactly what the magazine is looking for

Juliet Greenwood

Juliet is the author of three serials under the pen name ‘Heather Pardoe’, and has had three novels published by Honno Press. The first, ‘Eden’s Garden’, was a finalist for ‘The People’s Book Prize’, and the second ‘We That are Left’ was completed with the aid of a Literature Wales Writer’s Bursary. Both reached the top #5 in the UK Amazon kindle store. Her latest novel ‘The White Camellia’, is set in Edwardian Cornwall, with a crumbling mansion, a goldmine with a dark secret, and a long-running family feud. She would definitely like to turn that into a TV serial!

Juliet's Books

The White Camellia

We That Are Left

Eden's Garden

Social Media

Blog

Facebook

Twitter

Pinterest

Ask Annie: How do you plan your books?

"How do you plan your books? A kiss at 25%, sex at 50%, an argument at 75%? Or do your books grow organically?"

Organically, definitely.  From somewhere out of the depths of my imagination will come a scene, or an incident… (eg, a girl waking up in bed, naked, with a stranger and no memory of how she got there, or hiding from an embarrassing moment in a ballroom only to witness a scheming woman trying to entrap a man, and facing the moral dilemma of whether to risk more embarrassment by coming out of hiding and saving the hapless man, or staying hidden and feeling guilty for leaving him to his fate.)

From then, I imagine what led up to that moment.  And how the participants in it will deal with it going forward.  And, yes, since I write for Harlequin Mills & Boon, how I can resolve all their problems and give them a happy ending.

The scenarios that will lead to a happy ending may get worked into a synopsis, or brief outline, and filed away in one of my many notebooks.  So that if ever I run out of stories I’m burning to write, I can consult them for inspiration.

Sometimes the story flitting round in my head is so consuming I HAVE to write it down, and really come up with ways by which the poor unfortunate creature I have imagined in her pickle, can find a way to achieve a happy ever after.

The actual amount of kissing, or sexual intimacy which I write can vary immensely, since it stems very much from the characters personalities and the situations into which I have flung them.  In some stories, for example where the couple have to marry for some reason at the start, they may work through their issues with arguments alternating with make-up sex (I think of these as honeymoon books)

In others, if my heroine is a complete innocent, and the hero is trying to win her, or rescue her, then they might not even kiss with any passion until pretty near the end.  (my courtship books)  It really does depend on the characters.

So my books are a bit like Forrest Gump’s box of chocolates.  You never know what you’re going to get.  (And please, no quips about preferring hard or soft centres!)

The one thing I do need to factor in, at a certain point of the drama, is the “dark moment”.  Just as the characters seem to be finding their way to each other, there has to be an incident which will almost tear them apart, which will test the strength of their love, so that when they come through it, the happy ending feels much more emotionally satisfying than if they hadn’t had to face it.

But of course, being a romance, they will come through, in one way or another, whether it means the hero climbing in through a bedroom window with a rose tucked into his crossbelt (An Escapade and an Engagement) or simply writing the heroine a revised list (Lord Havelock's List)  (Though it’s funny how it nearly always seems to be the hero who has to do the grovelling!)

To be honest, I think that planning out my books to the extent you mentioned would feel a bit like painting by numbers.  Maybe it would be a bit easier if I could produce stories in this way, but I wouldn’t feel as if I was being so creative.  Nor would I get that sense of getting to know my characters as I write about them.  They wouldn’t become such real people to me, or, I suspect, to the reader.

Annie's next book is "The Major Meets his Match," the first of a mini-series with three heroes attempting to solve a crime.

Annie considers it one of her "courtship" books.

It is available for pre-order from Amazon.

You can read the opening on Overdrive

Ask Annie...about Regency costume.

On the first Friday of each month, Novelista Annie Burrows will be drawing a question out of the jar where we've been putting all the questions about the writing process posed by readers.

This month, the question she chose to answer is:

"Your heroines wear lovely gowns. Do you make them up, or are they based on actual Regency clothes?"

OK, well, first of all, if you’ve read any of my books, you will know that I don’t, as a rule, put in a lot of detail about this sort of thing.  This is because I think it can detract from the story, and the action going forward if you keep breaking off to spend whole paragraphs describing a room, or an outfit.  I tend to use broad brushstrokes to suggest the era, or the scene, or even the clothes, and rely on the reader to fill in the gaps with their own imagination.  So that I can concentrate on the emotional inner life of my character, and the action going forward.

BUT…part of being able to create vivid, believable Regency characters comes from being historically accurate.  I have to know all about the background even if all I’m going to do is sketch it in briefly, or it won’t ring true, and will be a far less enjoyable read.

This is particularly true of clothing.  I have to know what a Regency lady would wear, so that love scenes can play out convincingly as the hero removes her garments one by one.  I need to know what type of corset she might wear, how her stockings were held up, and whether or not she wore drawers.  Not only will this place her firmly within the historical era, but it will also say something about her social status, and her personality, too.  Silk stockings, rather than cotton, for example, or a gown that laces up at the back, rather than the front will tell the informed reader (and most readers of Regency are very knowledgeable about the customs of the age) a lot about my heroine without me having to take another couple of sentences explaining whether she is upper or lower class, wealthy or poor.

I also sometimes zoom in on an outfit a heroine is wearing to help show how she is feeling.  “The Captain’s Christmas Bride” for example, opens with the heroine’s friend struggling to do up the laces of her gown.  A short cut to telling the reader she has body issues.

In the opening section of “The Debutante’s Daring Proposal”, the heroine is conscious of her frayed gloves and her muddy boots when the hero strides onto the page looking all expensive and elegant, to emphasise the differences in their social and financial status.

As on all other topics of Regency life, I have a few favourite books that I frequently consult to give me inspiration, or to help me describe an outfit convincingly.

Another thing I’ve done is to purchase a reconstruction of a Regency costume, to see what it would feel like to move around in long skirts.  I wasn’t surprised that my movements felt a bit restricted compared to the normal jeans and t shirt which are my usual everyday wear.  Long skirts are not very practical.  By the end of the day the hem was filthy.  It seemed to suck up dirt like a hoover.  Being cotton, though, it washed very well, and came up good as new.  However, it made me realise that keeping clothes clean would indeed need the services of a maid to do the laundry and ironing.  How on earth would you have been able to keep your clothes clean without the help of servants in an age without washing machines?  Wearing light colours had to have been a symbol of status.  Lower class women would surely have chosen darker colours that didn’t need laundering every day, or changing every day at least.  So all those debutantes in their pristine white muslin gowns were probably making more of a statement than just about their youth and virginity.

           One thing that did surprise me, though, was how warm the outfit was.  Everyone assumes that

wearing light muslin or cotton gowns must have meant that the women would have felt cold.  The gown I’m wearing in the picture was actually made up of two dresses.  An underdress and an overdress.  The outfit came with a full length cotton petticoat, too.  The underdress could have been worn on its own, but I chose to put on the top one as well on this day.  Once I’d put all three layers on, I was actually too warm, so had to (shock, horror!) remove the petticoat.  I didn’t buy a corset, since I was only out in Regency garb for fun, not to go on a re-enacting event where authenticity would have been more important, but I can imagine that had I been dressed in a shift, corset, petticoat, underdress and overdress, I would have jolly well needed to make use of a fan to keep me from sweating.

 A  properly brought up Regency lady would not have ventured out of doors without a bonnet and gloves, either.  (I did buy a bonnet, but went without the gloves – shockingly fast of me!)  What with all those layers, and a hat and gloves, I felt I could have survived the most inclement weather.  Or at least, I could have done with the addition of a spencer (short jacket) or pelisse (long coat)  Don’t forget that with full length skirts, you could wear pretty much what you liked underneath and nobody would have seen it.

Thick woollen stockings and boots in winter?  Probably.

So, I do study pictures of what Regency ladies wore, and I’ve spent a day wearing a reconstruction of the type of gown a Regency lady would have worn, so that I know how she would feel in it.

So that I can leave out the descriptions of gowns with a fair amount of confidence!


(I have considered buying my husband some male Regency garb, strictly for research purposes of course, but they are far more expensive than the female attire.  Especially the hats.)




Annie's latest release is "The Debutante's Daring Proposal" in which the heroine wears a variety of costumes which are rather daring, and which cause gentlemen to look at certain parts of her anatomy rather than her face when they are speaking to her.


It is available in paperback and ebook from Amazon...
 

Ask Annie: Prologue - Or Not?

On the first Friday of each month, Novelista Annie Burrows will be drawing a question out of the jar where we've been putting all the questions about the writing process posed by readers –

This month, the question is:

Beginning/Prologues?
Where in the story to actually start the novel.

The glib answer would be to quote Lewis Carroll “Begin at the beginning…go on till you come to the end: then stop.”

But, what is the beginning?  A pivotal moment in the character’s past, which forms their character, or sends them on their quest?  The moment they are born?

Beginnings are very important.  The opening section of your story is the bit which will be available to a reader in the “browse the book” section if it is an ebook, or what a shopper in a real life shop will read to help them decide whether to buy your book.

Or not.

So it has to grab them, and make them want to find out what comes next.  You have got to make them interested in your main character, and what they are feeling, and what is happening to them.  Or they will put the book down, and buy someone else’s.

And with so many new titles becoming available every month, they have a lot of someone else’s to choose from.

So, I would say, start your story at a pivotal moment.  If you write romance (as I do) it is a good idea to start when your hero and heroine first get together, or reach some kind of turning point, so that the focus is on the developing romance right from the start.  And makes it clear to the reader that the romance is going to be front and centre all the way through.

To give you some examples, I have started some of my books with:
The moment my heroine has to jump out of the way of the hero’s curricle, which he is driving far too fast down a country lane so that she ends up in a muddy ditch. (His Cinderella Bride)

The moment when the hero first asks the heroine’s friend to dance, and, when she refuses, turns with resignation to the heroine, setting her heart a-flutter. (Captain Fawley's Innocent Bride)

The moment when the hero and heroine wake up in bed, naked, with no idea how they got there together. (In Bed With the Duke)





And the one I have just submitted to my editor opens at the point where my heroine socks my hero on the jaw.

However, when planning out a book, I don’t start imagining the story at such a dramatic point.  The story which I’m figuring out at the moment, for example, began when I imagined the heroine in a situation which rocked her world, overturned everything she’d assumed about her life, and sent her spiralling into depression. I can’t start writing it from that point.  Because it will be months before she meets the hero, and their romance starts.  And it is the story of that romance I will be telling – NOT HER LIFE STORY.

So, I am going to have to tell the reader about that crisis in her life, in little bits and pieces, as she relates it to the hero.  They will both explain why they react as they do, and behave the way they do, to each other, in conversation, as the pair get to know each other.  In other words, the reader will get to know both of them while they are getting to know each other.

It would be much, much easier to write this story in chronological order, starting with the heroine’s crisis, taking her through her depression and the beginning of her recovery, and then relate how the romance with the hero completes the process of healing completely.  But would anyone want to read it?  Would the reader have the patience to wade through all that depression, and gloom, in the hope that a dashing hero would come into my heroine’s life and help her see that life is worth living?

And more to the point, would my editor?

So, these are a few questions you could ask yourself when deciding where to start your story.
What will hook the reader?
What will give them the best idea of what kind of story it’s going to be?
And, if like me, you have a pivotal moment in the character’s life which the reader really needs to know about – what is the best way to relay that information?  In one big chunk (which is sometimes referred to disparagingly as an info-dump)
Or, in little snippets, which will entice the reader to keep on turning the pages?  (And is much, much harder to write!)

And there you have it.

If you’d like to Ask Annie anything about writing, then please contact her via the comments section on this blog, or if you’d like to remain anonymous, you can contact her via her website:
 putting Ask Annie in the subject heading.

And if she feels qualified to answer your question, you might see it become the next month’s blog post!


Annie's latest release is "The Debutante's Daring Proposal."

You can read the opening section here

You can purchase it from Amazon, Harlequin, Mills & Boon or any of your favourite etailers.