Gill Lee
Forum Replies Created
-
Replies
-
Ooooh, Richard, I’m with Lucia here. What more delicious way to start the memoir of a firefighter than with a memory of setting a fire! The excitement and drama for a four year old, sending the adults into a flurry. You could so easily have been an arsonist instead! it’s so interesting that as adults our memory works precisely the way you’ve shown it – a flash of a question at 14 and back to our childhoods, then forward again to where that led us. I think it must be even harder with memoir than with an imaginary story to impose order on those memories and don’t envy you this task!
Any of those individual fires you set is a whole scene and I feel your need to race through, but as a reader I really want you to slow down and show me each in detail – or at least one in detail and depth. How you felt as you lit it. Were you scared as well as excited by your power? Who noticed first? What did ‘full wrath’ look like?
‘Hold things lightly’ love it and still trying!
Hi Kate,
Loved the description of Annie’s view of herself in the world and her sense of unease you’ve conveyed here eg ‘queasy stillness’ and the idea of being unbalanaced ‘to balance me out’. Like many young people, she seems to take what she has for granted as the only reality possible and accepted her lot.
I did wonder if you should go forward into Bell House and then work back to fill in some of her background as at the moment we have one paragraph ‘showing’ and then two which ‘tell’ although they do so very well!
I loved some of the ‘voiciness’ of your writing and would love to see more of that, really capturing how Annie sees the world.
Hi Gillian
I really enjoyed the energy you’ve injected into our first impression of Simon, using the climb, the heaps of paper, the rapidity with which he gets straight to his prize in the conversation with his wife.
I was slightly confused when he looked at his screen and remembered she was in Birminham but then didn’t realise she was on a train. What did the screen tell him? Or is it just him taking time to think? (Always worried there are things with mobiles I don’t get!!)
Like Chithrupa, I love the Virgin tea bit!
I wonder whether you could break up the dialogue a bit more and use it to show a bit more character stuff? Is he doing something else as he talks to her (dialling someone else’s number on his other phone, or some other busy business).
I like that you’ve got just a hint here of the marital problems to come without being overboard about them.I like the sense we get of Anna’s patience (emphasised through the waiting, the resisting and the way she puts up with the cramping of her legs to lean forward) which makes her very empathetic. I also enjoyed how the darkness of the room is disturbed by the headlights (son?) which come like a warning and literally blind Anna. Lovely!
This may just be my taste but I’d tend to go sparer on adjectives ( deep groove, blank bare – maybe choose one or the other) and comparisons. It took me a while to get the car engine comparison to work alongside whispering – does she have the strength to make a long loud cough? And I’d tend to keep the empathy up by focusing more on Anna’s description of Margaret than on how Anna herself is feeling…
I liked the cold farmyard setting and the need to get the place warm.
Looking forward to reading more!
Such an interesting question. Yeah – I wasn’t sure which bit to choose! I’ve started the story with a focus on Mike though this goes against the ‘imprinting’ thing mentioned in Emma Darwin’s blog. In an earlier draft I started with Laura. But readers thought Mike had just left her, and I couldn’t get enough clues in that he hadn’t without Laura sounding weird or stupid! I’m now wondering whether that first Mike chapter should be a (dreaded) prologue or a chapter but it has to show him as a) an activist b) nervous and c) loving Laura. It’s only three pages long, so I’m hoping it doesn’t come as a shock when the reader then switches to Laura and doesn’t interfere with ‘imprinting’. I think it also serves as a warning to the reader to expect more of his narrative later
So, although Laura is the main character (Mike’s chapters make up about one third of the story) I haven’t started with her.I chose this bit because it gives a ‘darker’ hint to Laura, which is central to themes, character and plot. But I very much wanted the reader’s first impression of Laura to be of a more ‘normal’ character, happy, in love with Mike, slightly smug about how her life is panning out. I felt I could do that partly because the more dramatic bit about Mike comes first, so Laura’s bit can start more slowly. But I was also thinking of how I feel with Gillian Flynn’s book – where her very ‘dark’ (Is there another word to use here?) characters often start seemingly very ‘normal’ before we gradually get hints of their shadows. That’s maybe just a personal preference, but if a character is going to be very ‘off centre’ at the beginning of a novel I sometimes (not always) worry about it being a bit ‘misery lit – ish.
Keen to see how others have started theirs (and you with your woman in pain) and probably re-think everything I’ve just said!
Thanks for useful comment about proximity!
Oooh such helpful close reading, Gillian. Thank you!
The baby / child is about twelve months and that is said earlier in the scene. I’ve given the reader the age quite early in the scene as you’re right – babies shouldn’t stand on their legs but we think of children as older…
And you’re absolutely right about the father! The child (?) is holding onto the mother’s hand and toddling unsteadily towards the father who is propped on the grass. But yes it needs changed. And chubby arms – definitely
Maybe
Then his father was kneeling, beginning to stand, gathering the child by his chubby arms, and lifting him through the air with a giddying whoosh. Up and onto his shoulders. The baby’s face hesitated between a laugh and a cry.
‘Careful.’ The woman was smiling but her hand moved to her lips as she watched the guy straighten unsteadily, grass clinging to the knees of his trousers.
….etcNo. You’re not distracted or distracting but really helpful!
Character
The scene is 7 pages into Laura’s first chapter ie chapter 2Laura is in the park, and has been watching a family with a baby while pretending to read a book. She has recently discovered she is pregnant.
‘This woman was the kind of mother Laura wanted to be. Though minus the floaty dress.
Then his father reached out to the child, holding him suddenly by his thin upper arms and lifting the child through the air with a giddying whoosh, up and onto his broad shoulders. The baby’s face hesitated between a laugh and a cry.
‘Careful.’ The woman was smiling but her hand moved to her lips as the guy stood up, grass clinging to the knees of his trousers, his legs unsteady beneath his own weight and that of the child.
Before she could help it, Laura was up from the bench and moving forward, arms outstretched, to catch the child. Waiting for the fall. The scream.
But no help was needed. The man simply straightened, and the child on his shoulders chortled, head thrown back towards the sky, tugging on his father’s hair.
Laura twisted mid-step, lowered her arms self-consciously, and grabbed her bag, as if leaving the bench had been her intention all along.
Everything would be okay. She and Mike could do this between them. All women must worry about keeping their children safe. Part of the job, that’s all.’Wow, the Grenada thing must have been fascinating! Shit being made homeless – extra rubbish when you were pregnant. Wow!
‘I’m still not completely sure if I can see a peak to the narrative arc though.’ So this is obviously a worry. Will there be an opportunity to come back to this further through the course?
Hi Katie,
The other advantage about not naming the condition is that it stops anyone thinking – well I have X and it doesn’t affect me that way, as well as allowing people to relate it to a conditin they know…. On darkeness. I’m very aware it’s taken me three years to go to the dark places my character is in, and even then I’m pulling punches. You don’t want to exploit things, but you have to be real and truthful, and that’s a difficult place to go to. Can’t remember the name of the prize – but for novels which don’t include violence done to women. Well, most violence is done to women. And yes, sometimes it’s presented in an exploitative way. You’ve raised lots of ideas, Katie!
I like your idea of going with women as the baddies and marginalising the mens’ roles a bit, but whatever choice you make will be good!Okay,
Changes I’m wondering about as a result of feedback – and will really try not to make them until after the course finishes – honest!
Maybe chapter 1 should be a prologue (Aaaah!) The information has to come at the beginning so we know Mike ha a good reason for leaving and hasn’t just abandoned Laura. And to stop readers guessing his identity. And to provide a hook. But it breaks Emma’s thing about ‘imprinting’ (love the idea of a baby bird) and it breaks the chronological forward narrative of the rest of Mike’s chapters. So hmmm. Do readers always read something called a prologue with the same attention as they read chapters, is my other worry… And will the sudden switch into Mike’s narrative at chapter 15 come as too big a shock unless it’s been prepared for by chapter 1?
The ending – yes, it has to be definite Harry is brought to justice (despite the real world). I can see the reader needs that. But I can’t do a long drawn out thing. it has to follow straight on from the confrontation between Laura and Harry. Nor do I like the technique of jumping forward months and seeing him in jail or suchlike. So is it enough for Ronnie my journalist to say they have enough evidence? That for the powers that be Mike’s murder will be a convenient excuse to take Harry down?
Scribbling this down so I don’t forget….Defo sounds worth a watch. Love the tagline!
Hi Kate,
So sorry to come in late to your WIP which sounds right up my street (Note to self- make sure you’ve looked right through everyone’s posts). Two things that resonated with me a lot were the relationship of Annie’s working as a maid in the household of her father (at his wife’s initiative). Many years ago, I had a student in Mexico (where I was teaching English) who had got the maid of the house pregnant (he would be about twenty at the time). His overwhelming feeling towards her was anger, shocking to me at the time. He found it impossible to be in the house when she was around, and when the child was born, disgusted by the child’s presence. (his parents didn’t sack her for becoming pregnant, unusual at that time) So I’m wondering how things play out with Annie and her boss. Even as a fascist would he have the awareness of similar terrible conflicted feelings of my ex-student? There’s a huge richness to explore there with Harry too – guilt, love. Fascinating!
And Harry being gay at that time… I’m wondering how you deal with that and what impact it has on him. Are fellow soldiers aware of it? Are his parents?
Such a lot of different, interesting themes to deal with!
I spent two years playing around with the structure and verb tense of my dual time line novel which may bot be right yet. It is plain hard!
What helpful and thorough feedback. Thank you!
You may vaguely recognise it as a first page you very helpfully demolished for having too much backstory (spot on !) many months ago!
Mike’s background: He is politically completely naive at the start – desperate to escape from undercover in drugs, thinking he can do little damage with activists, went into policing originally thinking to do good (Mum was a victim of domestic violence). But he falls for Laura, feels a better man with her ( oh to be a man with a vulnerable woman to love!), still thinks he loves his wife but enjoys the company of the activists and their lifestyle. The police would say he has a touch of Stockholm syndrome. He’s a bit of a charming narcissist really, in my view but I think readers will like him…Harry and Laura: Laura left living with Harry when she was about twelve, two years after her own mother died. She went to live with stepsister Kat and Annie, kat’s Mum, who found out about Harry’s controlling behaviour and voyeurism sufficiently early in her relationship with him to be able to leave. Harry wasn’t a top cop when Laura lived with him, and she wouldn’t have realised he was undercover. Activist Eric does hold her father against Laura but Kat is accepted enough that her younger sister is too.
Harry marries Claire (who has a nine year old daughter of her own) in 1982 (not long before Mike disappears) and she holds a vital clue to Harry’s guilt. She divorces Harry bitterly, not long before Laura discovers Harry killed Mike. Harry is corrupt in all kinds of ways, especially using his position to abuse women and children, but to gain financially too from landholdings and privatisations threatened by activists like Eric. He wants the file is in case the powers that be move against him, and to protect him from accusations of corruption and abuse (if you take me down, Ill take you all with me, kind of thing).
The ending – yes. Gosh! Emily Randle gave me feedback on a draft about a year ago. At that stage the story ended with Mike killing himself. She pointed out the reader needed justice and the story needed a murder (duh!).
So – a year of rewriting later I’ve come up with this climax and am keen for your feedback:
Harry has had Laura followed since she restarted her search for Mike. But he doesn’t know she is aware of the file and that he killed Mike. Laura has pieced together Harry’s guilt but pretends dumb. She lies to Harry (which as a child she could never do), saying she believes Mike killed himself but will keep quiet about that for her daughter’s sake, allowing his death to remain officially an accident. She extracts from Harry evidence that can clinch his involvement. Claire, (his recently divorced wife) saw Mike at Harry’s house on the day he died. Since Claire now knows Harry abused her own daughter, Laura is confident she will help convict Harry. Ronnie, a journalist, thinks they will be able to convict Harry. Several other pieces of evidence will leave the reader, Laura and journalist Ronnie in no doubt Harry killed Mike. Is this enough? Or does a reader have to see Harry convicted. Or charged at least?The ten year reset – comes in just less than 30% of the way through. Reason for the time gap is Laura’ needs to grow as a character (parenthood), reader’s need to feel the long term effect on Laura of Mike being missing (and later of him being a spycop), her daughter needs to reaches the age Laura was when she was abused, and Claire (Harry’s new wife at the time of Mike’s murder) needs to divorce him. So it’s a mixture of plot and character reasons.
Then Laura twistily works to the horrible discovery about Mike’s identity (chapters 11 – 15)
Chapters 16 – 22) Mike’s narrative – from the start of his relationship with Laura in 1981 (he is a police spy, shock) – until he is arrested for climbing Battersea Power station (disaster – arrest means exit from his undercover job, or accept a prison sentence)
From then on, chapters come in shorter and shorter chunks of each narrative (3 chapters each, then two etc) to lead up to Laura’s final suspicions, Mike’s murder and the showdown between her and Harry.For most of Mike’s narrative the reader isn’t completely sure he’s dead. Either he killed someone else (whose body was in the lake), or the van was nothing to do with him. Even when the reader think he’s been murdered, he may have been murdered by activist Eric. His pOV chapters end with his murder. The structure for the final six chapters is borrowed / stolen from Jane Harper’s Exiles where the clues are all assembled in her protagonist’s head but then we see the murder right at the end of the novel (well, one chapter before the end).
Sorry don’t know whether any of that is clear enough…?Chapter 5 – No. Laura doesn’t discover he’s an undercover cop here – my misexplanation. Mike has spread the rumour he had a shady past selling drugs in Spain and has a debt he ran from. As an undercover cop he would plant an exit story in preparation for leaving, and this is Mike.s When he disappears, this story causes all kinds of confusion. It also adds to laura’s hesitation to go back to the police when he doesn’t turn up.
Will have to have a read at your third novel, then. ‘Scabby Queen’ and ‘This is How it ends’ also have undercover cops, but they tend to hide in novels! Always good to hear of more!
I used to live above the amusement arcade in Rye Lane (number 88, I think?). Maybe before your time? Then off Bellenden Road when it was just getting trendy. Love Peckham and still have friends there.
Oooh lots to think about there, Anja and will have a look for the Ben Elton one. No, there is no real secret about Thatcher I’m afraid – though truth was bad enough for many! The file turns out to have been a forgery – but still useful as blackmail for Harry. That part is based on a fascinating true tale of a break in at Fettes police station in Edinburgh, where I now live, and a complex cover up of sexual abuse by a leading barrister – much twistier than my novel but the inspiratation for several parts.
Yes – marketing is the issue. It’s neither a straight psychological thriller, nor a police procedural nor cosy crime. More like the like Denise Mina’s citizen detective Garnethill trilogy (popular along time ago in publishing terms). Or a shorter Stief Larsson (but without the kick-ass heroine). And the political angle is not particularly popular in UK crime books! So, yeah… Why am I writing it? It called me….
