The evolving writer

When I started this scribbling business in 2009, I sat down one morning in front of my computer and typed for ninety days.

As a professional translator, I knew I would have to edit anything I produced. I joined a writer’s group and survived the terror of reading my offering aloud for the first time and receiving comments and criticism.

Then I had to toughen up. I ordered and consumed books on writing, I swapped with other members in the writing group. Next, I put out feelers to find out how to publish. I went along to seminars, listened to talks. Basically, I put on my big girl pants and set off on my way.

How naïve I was!

My first manuscript’s heroine was established in her role, she knew her world, she had a significant other and she duly saved the day. I had built a coherent setting for her and her fellow characters. What could be wrong?

But after one writers’ group evening, the discussion confirmed a doubt which had wormed its way into my head by the back door a week or two earlier. Why had I started where I had? Why hadn’t I started at the beginning of my heroine’s story?

I explained to myself and the group that I would publish an earlier part of her story later. I had started right in the middle of the action. Wasn’t that where you were supposed to start without a lot of background at the beginning?

I had learned one lesson but not the right one

Agreed, the way to hook the reader from the first sentence, then the first paragraph and the first page, a good place to begin is in media res, a posh way of saying slap bang in the middle of the action.

However…

We should not confuse or repel readers by dumping an indigestible superabundance of assumptions on them. Some assumptions, yes, in order to create an atmosphere, but not on the scale of a Roman Saturnalia.

Neither should the story should start at absolute beginning of the heroine’s or hero’s life, unless that is a dramatic moment in itself and an essential part of the story. (But is it that essential on page one?)

Jane Austen had it dead right in Pride & Prejudice:

‘It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.’

She gives us so much in that sentence:
1. Irony – who actually acknowledges that? (Modernspeak equivalent – ‘it’s on social media so it must be true.’ Really?)
2. A new wealthy plum for the picking (Fresh meat in the ‘hood)
3. Social play about to start (Who’s going to bag him – rumour and tension all round)
4. Does he have any say in this? (Social coercion – let’s all watch the victim wriggle)

And off it goes… We don’t need to know about the Bennets’ marriage, Mr Bennet’s youth, the sisters’ adventures as children, only where they are in life now and about Mrs Bennet’s strong desire to settle them. It’s all there. On page one, her news opens the circle that will be closed on the last page.

The ideal place is the moment the trigger of their first adventure/case/ revelation/pivotal point in their life strikes

Back to my own mis-start… I saw the logic of my writing group’s opinions and of my own inner voice and took another three months to draft the first part of my heroine’s story. Several versions later, I submitted it to the Romantic Novelists’ Association New Writer’s Scheme and received terrific feedback plus a load of points to work on. In 2013, this was published as INCEPTIO, a title that actually means the beginning(!). Page one starts in the middle of the heroine’s day, but at the exact moment that triggers the cascade of events that change her life over that book and the following three books.

The boy lay in the dirt in the centre of New York’s Kew Park, blood flowing out of both his nostrils, his fine blond hair thrown out in little strands around his head. I stared at my own hand, still bunched, pain rushing to gather at the reddening knuckles. I hadn’t knocked anybody down since junior high, when Albie Jolak had tried to put his hand up my sobbing cousin’s skirt. I started to tremble. But not with fear – I was so angry. (INCEPTIO first lines)

But what of that story I wrote first – the later part of her story? The one I cut my teeth on. I dug it out of the archive, printed it out and wept. It was crap – accurate technical term. The story was basically sound and logically followed INCEPTIO but, dear gods, the words: clichés, telling, dough, fluff, gratuitous scenes, sag, cardboard characters.

So out came the machete, the cliché-o-meter was cranked up and the stomper readied. I left some sentences and even the odd paragraph untouched. New sentences, paragraphs and even chapters were added. I convinced myself it would be over before Christmas. It wasn’t, but the bulk of the honing and slicing was done by then. This infinitely improved turned into PERFIDITAS, now the third book in Carina’s strand in the Roma Nova series.

‘Captain Carina Mitela?’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Who is this?’
‘Custodes XI Station. An emergency token with your code has been handed in. We’re holding the presenter.’
Juno.
I dropped everything and headed for the tunnel connecting our headquarters to the police station.  The duty sergeant, with a typical cop’s bland expression but trying to conceal a speculative gleam in her eyes, handed me the token without a word. (PERFIDITAS first lines)

I realised that putting that first manuscript aside, I learnt so much and practised so much more

My writing rose to a different level altogether and importantly, I could see that. By the time I sent my fourth novel to my developmental editor, I felt so much more confident and knew the words were flowing so much more easily. That wonderful editor sent me back her shortest report yet, ending with, “There is so little to improve. You no longer need me.”

Wow!

Of course, I still needed a copy editor and proofreader for the final pre-publication stages, and I still sent my manuscript to my eagle-eyed critique writing partner, but I realised that I had taken off on my own wings.

Alison Morton is the author of Roma Nova thrillers –  INCEPTIO, CARINA (novella), PERFIDITAS, SUCCESSIO,  AURELIA, NEXUS (novella), INSURRECTIO  and RETALIO,  and ROMA NOVA EXTRA, a collection of short stories.  Audiobooks are available for four of the series. Double Identity, a contemporary conspiracy, starts a new series of thrillers. JULIA PRIMA,  Roma Nova story set in the late 4th century, starts the Foundation stories. The sequel, EXSILIUM, is now out.

Find out more about Roma Nova, its origins, stories and heroines and taste world the latest contemporary thriller Double Identity… Download ‘Welcome to Alison Morton’s Thriller Worlds’, a FREE eBook, as a thank you gift when you sign up to Alison’s monthly email update. As a result, you’ll be among the first to know about news and book progress before everybody else, and take part in giveaways.