Mary Kelaher tells a gritty story about life in the cast of a family's shadow.


Mary Kelaher

You're over the first hurdle as a writer and you're finally writing consistently. Now what?

Join me as I trawl my way through all the writing tips, promotion tips and publishing tips to try and find the diamonds in the bedrock.

Girl in a field of grass

Saturday, September 09, 2006

Plotting my plot

I've decided to spend today finding ways to plot my plot.

I have so many story threads, ideas, action and reaction points, imagery to follow through on, whew the list goes on and on, that I'm finding I can't keep track of it all in my head.

I've known for some time that it would come to this. I started a notebook a few months ago and I've tried to keep as many of my ideas in it as I can. But now I have the initial idea recorded pretty thoroughly and I'm building the plot action/reactions sheets, I'm finding that I can't keep track of all the information I am gathering around the plot points, characters, imagery, theme and the list goes on and on.

The action/reaction section sheet idea I got from Evan Marshal's book have been a life saver, and the real catalyst around my recognition of the need to find a way to track everything I need to remember about the books.

I've started using index cards to note the information I need to keep track of for each scene and today I'm off to try and find a cork board large enough to fit over the windows that cover the wall at the end of my office. I don't really need to worry about blocking the light because I the wall to which my desk is parallel is also covered in glass.

Writing this book is starting to get exciting again. I've been in a bit of a slump since I did the novel in 30 days workbook in June.

While I've kept reading as much as I can about novel writing and writing in general and jotting down notes of the ideas, I've been only doing a cursory amount of work toward my novel, and to be honest it was just for show.

Just enough to keep myself convinced that I was still doing it. It coming up to 10 weeks since I finished the 30 days task and when I realized this, it became embarrassingly obvious that I haven't really made any real progress since then. It's hard to keep yourself fooled forever when you start looking at what you have achieved from a point in time. The facts have revealed that I've been a bit of a slack arse.

I've spent too much time thinking about the story instead of finding ways of getting it down. Hopefully, the index cards and cork board will help me keep track of it all and get me back on the yellow brick road.

min

Friday, September 08, 2006

Story lines and research

The thing I like most about research is the story ideas it generates.

I had initially decided that Nancy's father did sign up to join the forces in WW2 and it was a couple of years after the war when the story begins. That part of the problem between he and his wife was that she had tasted independence during the war and she liked it. She didn’t like having to go back into the role society had deemed appropriate for her and she resented it. But thinking about this story line now, it’s looking a tad cliché’.

So I started wondering how realistic it was for him to not to have signed up at all. I knew that initially men would volunteer, but I wasn't sure if there was conscription as the war progressed. So it was back to the library.

I found that there was conscription when Australia was under threat by the Japanese, but up until then it was signing up was voluntary. And during the conscription phase of the war you a man could still get out of it if you were a conscientious objector. Interestingly, officially you could still be forced to serve in the military in a non-combative role or assigned to work under civilian control, but due to the administration problems involved in managing this and because the number of men doing this were so low, it wasn’t really enforced.

A whole new story idea came from this information.

I could change the time of year my story begins. Again. But if I do change it to Anzac day it won’t fit in the Nancy having been to the show if I set the novel in Victoria. Wrong time of year. And it is important to the story lines in the second part of the book that she has recently been to the show.

But if I have the father getting out of going into military service because of a conscientious objection and having him getting called into non-combative service, it open’s up a completely different aspect to the dynamic between the mother and father.

Because of the conventions of the day around girls that get themselves pregnant out of wedlock, the story could instead begin with Nancy’s mother finding herself 5 years into a marriage with a coward and a liar.

This way the father is more complex and there would be more intensity in the conflict that sets off the argument between he and his wife that is the catalyst of the story. It also has the added bonus of making it easier for me to show more about his character quite quickly.

I really wanted to use the Royal Show in either Sydney or Melbourne because it is links in to the second part of the book. If I set the book in Sydney instead of Melbourne it is easier to establish the father’s character quickly and show the information I want to give about him rather than tell it. The Anzac motif also opens up other potential story lines in the second part of the book.

But if I use Anzac day and the show it doesn't fit in with my decision to set the story in Melbourne instead of Sydney, thus making it easier for me to research. Decisions. Decisions.

min

Thursday, September 07, 2006

Two minor characters

I have been surprised by the amount of research and thought that needs to go into what I considered to be two minor characters in my story. Nancy's mother and father (I haven't named them yet.)

They only appear briefly in the first part of the book, right at the beginning and at the end. But in trying to understand the motivations for what they did I have found that I have to develop a complete psychological profile and history for each of them. I also have to understand the times in which the lived and the psyche and the attitudes of society during that period.

All of this impacts so heavily on the psyche of Nancy and is part of what creates her character traits and what drives her. I am finding I cannot understand Nancy if I do not understanding her parents and what impacts they have had on who they are.

Two minor characters with a major impact on the story. Interesting.

min

Wednesday, September 06, 2006

The world of my characters

The first part of my novel is set in the 1940's. While I grew up around photographs and stories of the war, there is so much about the texture of that period I know little to nothing about. So it's off to the library today for more research to try and glean the smells, sights and sounds from the pages of history.

min

Tuesday, September 05, 2006

A simple question

Kathy from California asked me who the main characters of my novel were yesterday. A simple enough question, but I don’t know enough about them yet to give her an answer. We're still in the getting to know each other phase of our relationship.

You see you meet the main character, Nancy, when she is about 4 or 5 years old. The story is about her childhood and the impact of the environment in which she is raised on her character and personality. In effect, it shows how she develops the traits that you would normally use to fill in a character bio. You read the story to find out how she has become what she is. At the end, I was expecting the reader would decide who she is.

I tried to write a bio for each character before I started, but it just didn't seem to work. Fragments about the other characters started to emerge from my initial brain dump, but they didn't give me enough information about themselves to complete the detailed template for a character bio that I plan to use.

I have found that characters seem to reveal themselves naturally as I focus on other tasks such as research and developing the plot and theme, and even gardening and housework. Then real task seems to be siezing the moment when a character speaks to me and to capture what they reveal about themselves rather than forcing them into a mould into which they may not fit.

I plan to use this space as a place to record what the characters are telling me about themselves, to untangle the plot lines and to explore Nancy's world.

You are welcome to join me.

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