Story Starters

I was lucky enough to go to the launch of Liz de Jager's fantastic new book Banished last week. The dedication to her husband Mark says "thank you for asking what if". I've never been much of a "what if-er", so this got me thinking. How do my stories start?

My current story, a Victorian middle grade thriller set in London's docklands, started with a visit to an old mortuary. Sadly – or perhaps thankfully – it's no longer a mortuary, but a very knowledgeable guide took us round, gleefully telling us where the bodies were hung so as to drip dry, and other such didn't-really-want-to-know details that brought the old place to life. I could really picture the bodies all lined up ready for collection, the viewing hatch where grieving relatives stood to identify their dearly departed, and I saw the still-there beam where the body hooks went. Incidentally, the floor is sloping in that room, for obvious, if grim, reasons. So I had the setting, but what sparked the story? A throw away comment from the guide who told us that people were given a crown on the south side of the river if they brought river bodies into the mortuary, but half a crown on the north. I wondered what sort of person would do this? And what about those people who found bodies on the north bank of the Thames? Yes, they did bring them over to the south, apparently.

The last novel I wrote – The Apothecary's Apprentice – started with Whitehall Palace and Charles II. I love Restoration London. What must it have been like to go from distant Charles I, to Puritan Oliver Cromwell, and then to the flamboyant Charles II? And how could the most terrible slums be just a thirty minute walk from the Palace itself; a fifteen minute walk from the posh Strand houses? So, again, I had the setting. The characters? I started with Apothecarys' Hall, which, like the mortuary, I visited during London Open House weekend. And there I found them. The young, newly qualified apothecary and Lizzie – the only female apothecary's apprentice in London. I loved this story. It got me an honorary mention in Undiscovered Voices. But it wasn't to be. Good setting though.

No what ifs yet.

The novel before that? A fantasy that I long to go back to. It's still there, all lovely and pretty, but it was never right. And how did I get the idea? Walking through the woods at Holkham in Norfolk. Setting again. I imagined my character, Faith, walking out of the woods, almost feral, almost fae, into a normal village. I set the story in 1605, and there were plots (involving gunpowder of course), there were faeries (big Pagan ones), and there were a lot of words that didn't quite fit. But no what ifs.

I often wonder whether I should try a what if or two. But would it work? Is it me? Can I even think of any? Maybe, for me, the what ifs come later. After the first draft. Maybe I can use them to refine and define my story; to create the pitch, find the heart.

How many other writers out there are what if-ers and how many, like me, start with the sense of place? 

When Is A Writer Not A Writer?

When I started (re-started, actually) this blog, it was going to be all about writing. I was going to write about historical settings, research, the locations around London that I'd been to and written about. It was going to be all big and clever, and I was feeling ever so smug about it. Then the novel I had pinned my hopes on was ditched. Firstly by Lovely Agent (who was not so lovely for a brief moment, I can tell you) and then, after much soul searching, by me. It was definitely the right thing to do, and my research and trudging will probably come in handy one day.

And then I started blogging about being ill, which I hadn't intended to do at all. But it seemed like the right thing to do, the thing I wanted to say, and I bunged a bit of writing stuff in as well. But this is not a blog with which to purge my soul, nor is it a blog for talking about cancer all the time. Yes, it's part of me and my life, but it's not everything.

And now? Now I feel like a bit of a fraud writing the blog. I'm writing it as a writer, but at the moment I feel anything but. I have an idea for a new novel. I have a plot. I even have a sub-plot. I have characters. I have settings. I have character sketches. I have character interviews. I have a synopsis (of sorts). I have a chapter plan (ditto). But I have hardly any words. I turn the computer on, I open Scrivener, and I look at the screen. It's not blank. There are 72 words on the page. But that's it. I like this story. I like the protagonist. Yet I just can't get going. Surely writers write. So why can't I do it? Is it because I don't yet have Beckett's (aka Ben Barnes) voice? In my heart I know that by writing the damned thing, his voice will come. Did I spend too long on the ditched story, so that I can't wipe the characters from my subconscious? Was the ditched story it? Will I ever write another one?

Or maybe I should just Get On With It. If anyone has an anti-procrastination mallet, please can they come over and whack me on the head with it? It may well be just what I need.

New Beginnings and Letting Go

It seems that 2012 is the year of new things and letting go of old things. I'll let go of the chemotherapy and say hello to new hair. My lovely daughter will leave her lovely school and set off for sixth form. And I will be letting go of the novel I've been working on for years, to start work on something completely new.

Although it seems a daft thing to say, losing the novel seems the hardest. I've worked on it for so long. I know it so well. The characters are real; to me at least. The setting is so vivid. I've invested so much of me in that story. It's been a huge part of my life. How can I just ditch it, leaving my characters destitute and directionless? Because it just wasn't working. I thought it was, really I did, but it never quite came alive on the page. I feel I should bury it in the garden, give it a little ceremony, a gravestone perhaps. Only the cats would dig it up, and, anyway, it would be silly. But I loved it!

So what next? Can I ever write anything else again? Can I find a new story, new places, new characters? Will I love them as much? Will they even speak to me? I think so. Who knows? But I'm going to give it a damned good try. And I've already updated my pinboard with new pictures, so that's a start!