Writing East Midlands

[writingeastmidlands]

The accidental novel

I’ve just finished a novel (#17 if anyone is keeping count). I didn’t mean to. Not the finishing bit, that was a given. But the novel part of that equation was not intentional. In November last year I finished the first draft of my second Caborn & Reeves novel which came in at a ridiculous 145K. I had a whole host of pieces I needed to edit, but I had an itch which needed to be scratched. A novella. A quick, fun story about statues randomly appearing in a Leicestershire field. No one knows why. No one knows what they’re for. I had an idea of the ending. It was a story which was begging me to write it, It was supposed to be quick. Thirty thousand words. Over by Christmas and then in January I’d get back to my substantial editing backlog. But I got bogged down with the day job and so I didn’t get as much writing done as I wanted. By the start of December I was on 23K but only added 2,000 during the whole month. Still, I was due to go on holiday in February and that seemed a good target to aim for. Clear the decks. Start editing when I returned from Northumberland. February was not a good month for writing: I’d only added 8,000 words by the time I was due to go away. That pushed me over my 30K target, but something weird was happening. That quick thirty thousand novella stretched and stretched. March was a complete blowout – novel/novella wise. Not a single word added. Some of that was due to the publicity requirements for my new novella: “One of the Dead.” In April and May I buckled back down and pushed through to the end. But my little 30K distraction had mushroomed into a 70K novel. Now the first draft is done, I can add it to that editing backlog which has not got any smaller during the time it’s been neglected. But I have my list of my priorities for the rest of the year. Edit! Edit! Edit! This morning I was thinking about creating a file on my laptop which pops up a message as soon as I log in: You may not create any new fiction until you have… (insert targets here!) Except. This morning. I had an idea for a story. It’s only a little thing. Just a few thousand words. I mean. What harm could that be?

[writingeastmidlands]

The book that goes wrong

This was supposed to be a quick novel. I’d already written 30K in 2021 before putting it aside, so it was really just a matter of picking it up, brushing it off, and writing the next 60,000 words. Right? I reckoned that would take me a couple of months. I started in May so I intended to be finished by July.

It didn’t quite work out that way, and now, nearly four months later than planned, I’ve eventually finished the first draft.

This is what writing the novel looked like:

So, what went wrong? How did it take me more than twice the expected time to write a book?

On one level, it doesn’t really matter. This was a speculative novel, so there was no publisher or agent wringing their hands and asking for updates. (If only!) But it’s interesting to reflect on what happened.

Firstly, and most importantly, look where I ended up! I expected to write a novel of around 90,000 words, instead it came in at just short of 150,000. Mea culpa. It’s not quite fair to say the story got away from me. But it definitely had more life than I expected. I’ve heard the first draft of a novel called the exploratory draft, and I like that. I don’t heavily plot out my novels, so there is a significant amount of finding my way, and in that 150,000 there are definitely a few wrong turnings and cul-de-sacs that will need to be cut. The second draft will be shorter!

Then there is the starting point. I stopped in 2021 because the story wasn’t working. When I came back in 2023 I was naive to think I could just bash my way through the wall and carry on. Instead I spent a couple of weeks looking at the wall, taking down sections, removing bricks, so I could then march through. One week, instead of adding words to the novel, my net output was negative.

The plan had been to write from May to June with a little room for slippage. It was a reasonably quiet period, but once that period had passed life got busier. Holidays happened. Work happened. Life happened. In my job August-October is a particularly frenetic time and during that period there were four weeks when I did not add a single word to the draft. Actually, when I excluded the disrupted weeks I averaged a word count just under 6K, which would have meant if I had kept to the expected length, I would have completed the novel by the first week of July, as planned.

So clearly, it’s not my fault.

But obviously it is. All of it.

What happens now? Well obviously I hide it in a drawer and never, ever look at it again.

More likely, I turn my attention to other projects and then return to Caborn & Reeves in about 6 months to hack it into shape. But at least this time I’ll know what I mess I’ve got myself into.

[writingeastmidlands]

Tippy, Tappy, Writing

I’ve just copy typed 1,000 words from Stephen King’s “It” to use in a writing workshop I’m running next week (16-17 July 2022, Other Worlds, Nottingham)

Yes, I know. I could just have photocopied the relevant pages. I might even have wandered into some dodgy place on the web to find a pirate copy of the book which I could then download, wipe free of all the viruses which came with it, and then copy and paste into my document. I did even consider narrating it.

But I went for good, old-fashioned, prop-the-book-open-in-front-of-you-and-get-on-with-it copy typing.  It’s not something I’d done before, I figured it was the most legal way to prepare the material, and it was genuinely the simplest way to get the text I needed for the session. (And before you howl about piracy and copying, I have one phrase: Fair Dealing) 

I used to write longhand so spent a fair amount of time typing up my own illegible scrawl. I can’t say it was an exercise I ever enjoyed, or from which I felt I derived any benefit; to the extent that a number of years ago I trained myself to write first drafts directly onto the computer and I’ve never regretted that self—bullying for a moment. Copy typing is tedious, wasteful, and unimaginative.

Except, and here’s the surprise for me, I was typing a scene I must have read ten or twenty times before (I do like “It”!) but because I had to read each sentence slowly, type it, check it, and then move onto the next line, I approached the text in a completely new way. How often can you say that about your favourite book? I had to include every punctuation mark, every capital letter, every italicised word. Within just 1,000 words I could appreciate how Stephen King created the scene, how he used different techniques to direct the reader’s emotions and build tension. In the short time it took to type up that passage I had a new relationship Stephen King’s writing. A more measured, intimate relationship.

Now, I’m not advocating you go out and type up “It” or “The Stand” to absorb Stephen King’s oeuvre in the same way serial killers have a tendency to cannibalise their victims (and I think at that point you would be breaching copyright law) although I am reminded that when Joe Hill was struggling to write what eventually became “Horns” he would type up a couple of pages from Elmore Leonard’s “The Big Bounce”, so maybe copy typing can have a place in the creative process. But as a purely unexpected bonus to preparing for the writing workshop, and as a trick to get you thinking about the mechanics of scene writing and how to dissect a scene you appreciate, it’s definitely a tool to keep in the box.

[writingeastmidlands]

Cover Reveal: Twenty Years Dead

I was going to start by claiming I can’t draw, but that’s not strictly true: I can draw, but what I produce is not recognisable to most people. My artistic efforts tend not to stray far beyond a stick man, after that it’s just …. well, embarrassing.

As a result, I am always a little overawed when I see illustrations for my books. I know it’s subjective, and maybe I shouldn’t admit this, but some of my book covers I love, and others… well, they do a job, but they don’t create the same emotional resonance. Maybe the connection comes when I get a real sense the illustrator holds a similar vision of the world I’ve created to my own. Some of that might be down to my ability to communicate the style and the tone of the story, and maybe I’ve got better at that over the years, but I think most of it is down to the skill of the artist.

In the past I’ve been burned. One particular book had a really arresting cover, but it didn’t reflect the story inside, and that was obvious from the feedback of readers who felt they’d bought the book until false pretences (“There are no zombies!” Well, no, I never promised zombies. But maybe the cover suggested them). Hopefully now I’m more confident as an author to look beyond the quality of the image to whether they image matches the story.

It’s always a relief when a publisher sends you the first draft of cover art and you feel an emotional connection, and that’s exactly the case with the cover of my forthcoming novella “Twenty Years Dead.”

The cover was published yesterday, and I have replicated it here. But what I absolutely love about the image is the tone. It’s a beautiful piece of art that sets the reader’s expectation for the story inside. 

The main point of this blog post, then, is to wallow in the gorgeous art created by Matt Seff Barnes. Please visit his website for more stunning images. 

[Don’t click this!]

[writingeastmidlands]

John Illsley: My Life in Dire Straits

We interrupt our usual programming to bring you this special message.

I don’t usually review books on this blog, but I wanted to make an exception. No, I needed to make an exception.

On the same day, I finished reading two books; one fiction, one non-fiction. One from an author with over 20 published books to their name, the other a first offering. One of those books was amongst the worst I have read, the other is in the running for my favourite book. Ever. So much so that I had to ration myself to one chapter a day to eke it out.

It’s all about making a connection, and John Illsley’s My Life in Dire Straits had a clear advantage. I was introduced to Dire Straits when I was 14 through their album Making Movies. I wore out my first cassette of Brothers in Arms and had to buy a second. I saw them live for the first time in 1988 at the Nelson Mandela concert at Wembley Stadium (I know, how did I miss the Brothers in Arms tour?) and saw them five times on their On Every Street tour (Three times in one week). I have been to more gigs featuring Mark Knopfler than any other artist. I’ve seen David Knopfler perform live. I went to John Illsley’s evening of music and memories. I just need Pick Withers to put on a show and I’ll have the badge, the poster, the stickers and the T-Shirts. So I’m biased, I recognise that.

Still, that didn’t guarantee the book would be a hit; Illsley is a bassist and a painter, that didn’t mean he could write. What comes across in the book is generous, authentic and honest. A sense of the man behind the guitar. It gave an insight into the euphoria of playing live and the personal toll of touring the world. It told the snowball of success which cannoned Dire Straits from the late seventies through the eighties and into world domination. At times it was painful and raw, no more so than when it talked about Illsley’s relationships or as it steered a delicate path through the division between the Knopfler brothers who were both friends of Illsley.

Reading about the band I love was always going to be fascinating. At times I ached over a history I was slightly too young to experience. I learned I may have played a small part in ruining their best chance of a UK No 1 single when I bought Eye of the Tiger as my first ever single and helped keep Private Investigations at No 2. (Sorry! I’m sorry, guys!)

The albums of Dire Straits are permanently on heavy rotation in my house, but the book prompted me to listen to the tracks again. I sought out the demo versions from the first album and heard different interpretations of songs I know note for note. (And I tend to agree with John, the demo version of Sultans of Swing is incredible). The book didn’t tell me anything shocking about my paramour. I didn’t discover David punching out paparazzi in Monaco, or Pick meditating for seven hours before each show. Hey, it didn’t even mention the sausage incident (and we all know that did happen!). It was gentle. It was kind. It was full of love, even when dealing with break ups.

And that’s what won my heart. I came in for the stories of my favourite band, but I left with a real respect for a great bassist and a genuinely decent human being.

I loved this book. No, I adored it. I was sad to leave the story behind, but I know I’ll pick this book up and start right back at the beginning again someday very soon.

[writingeastmidlands]

Keep your distance

I wrote a Science Fiction thriller novel a while back and sent it out to agents. The response was a resounding silence. So last year I paid to have an agent review my submission pack and provide feedback. It was a fascinating experience and I learned a lot from the discussion, and vowed to approach the novel with the new insight I’d gained. And that is what I’ve just done; starting off by reading the novel in one go.

It’s a reasonably complex story, but that doesn’t excuse the number of plot holes I found. Some are benign and easy to resolve, but others are more substantial. My “favourite” has to be the two tough guys who chase the protagonist through the first third of the book and then… disappear. They simply aren’t mentioned again. In second place is the character who was sending messages 10 hours after we later discover they’re dead. It’s not that kinda book!

Remember, this was a book I believed was ready to go out to agents and publishers. At that stage I’m usually removing the commas I added in the previous draft.

How the hell did that happen? I have 52 separate editing notes for the next draft. How did I miss so many problems?

So here’s my excuse, for what it’s worth. Writing a novel is hard. You are working on so many levels at the same time that you effectively have to hold 95,000 words in your head at once. And this coming from someone who writes down the pizza order before he leaves the house.

You’re dealing with the macro and the micro, following big plot strands while checking for typos and clunky sentences. Checking logic, following characters’ arcs. There’s a lot going on. Normally I work through a number of different drafts which look at different elements of the novel, and I guess given the complexity of this story I probably needed another two or three runs at this novel before it was truly ready to go out into the big, bad world.

Maybe I was too close to the text by the end of my last draft. I thought I knew the book well enough, but I needed a little distance to really spot the flaws. The challenge is that by the time I finish this round of edits I’ll be back in that same place: confident that I have spotted each issue, that the world logic fits together, that characters act consistently and realistically. But the first thing on my list, sort out those two guys sitting in the van.

[writingeastmidlands]

How difficult is it?

Two words: Short story

A description, but also a succinct instruction manual. So why is it so difficult for me to stick to the plan?

Short: In my head a short story is somewhere between 3,000 and 4,000 words. That’s not a hard rule, more of a guide.

Story: A narrative telling of an event or a series of inter-related events.

I struggled with my writing in 2021: I started a novella, and put it aside after 8,000 words. I started a novel, the second in a planned series, and set that aside after 70,000 words because there was something fundamentally flawed with the structure.

That wasn’t a fun moment.

I tried splitting the novel into two separate novels and then started work on the first of those. I got 36,000 words into that work before setting it aside. Are you starting to see a pattern here?

I needed to try something different. I chose a subject which fascinated me and a genre I adore. A ghost story set in an abandoned London Underground station, surely that couldn’t possibly go wrong? And yet I paused that novella shortly after I passed 7,000 words. I was beginning to fear I’d forgotten how to write, or perhaps more accurately, I’d forgotten how to keep writing. I’d lost the skill necessary to write a story through to the finish.

Which was where my short story came in. In December trawled through the notes of story ideas and fragments of sentences and paragraphs which I keep, looking for inspiration. I found an idea for a short story so I set started writing.

And reader, I finished. Except the short story I had birthed came in at 8,392 words. Still, it was the only piece of original writing I managed to complete. Flushed with success, I dipped back into my notes. 4,863 words later I finished a second short story. Still a little on the long side, and I wasn’t sure how well the story stood up on its own, but at least I’d finished. This was starting to look positive.

I returned to the font of my story ideas and went fishing again. This time it was not something I’d jotted down in the past, but a new idea based on an image of a parochial library with a couple of glass cases displaying locally discovered artefacts.

Off I went, scribbling away. At times it was like trying to drag a tractor tyre through a field of mud. Backwards. In bare feet. I pulled words like they had thorns, and laid them on the screen. A number of times I knew I needed to abandon it: I had an image but no story, characters but no life. Still I persevered. I stared at the screen. I stared through the screen.

Finally, 9,837 words later, it is finished.

It is definitely not short. I’m not convinced even charitably it could be described as a story. Really it’s a hot mess, but by the time I neared the end I finally realised what the story was supposed to be.

Maybe someday I will go back and edit it. For now, I’m just relieved I’ve been able to complete a piece of fiction, however terrible it might be. Maybe that was all I ever needed from this story: A chance to finish something.

[writingeastmidlands]

The Screaming Dead - Published

The Screaming Dead was published on Tuesday 7th February 2021 and is something of a departure for me; in terms of genre (I don’t actually know how to describe it: cosmic horror? Gothic western?) , but also the mechanics of writing.

I wrote The Screaming Dead with Peter Mark May; writer, publisher, West Ham fan,  and all-round good guy.

The Screaming Dead is not the first piece of fiction I’ve co-written.  Previously I have co-written short stories and novelettes, but this was the first novel I had collaborated on and that was an unusual experience. It’s the difference between remaining in complete control of a journey, and bickering over which way around the map should be held. Firstly; Pete came up with the idea and writing from someone else’s inspiration does feel a little like putting on their underwear and parading around in public. It feels odd and you keep expecting someone to point out that what you’re doing is wrong.

I’m not sure I ever got completely comfortable in Pete’s longjohns, and that’s probably for the best. Off-centre is a good place to be as a writer. It forces you into spaces you might not otherwise enter, and places you would rather not visit.

But more than anything else, writing with Pete was good fun. We have a similar attitude to first drafts which probably leans more towards the “let’s crank this sucker up and see where it goes,” and less on “so in Chapter seventeen we find out that…” I like to think of it as organic, rather than unplanned.

Basically, the pair of us were winging it. Looking back on some of our exchanges during the writing I am struck by how often we took delight in deliberately setting up the end of a section to leave a problem for the next person to pick up. One message from Pete which accompanied the latest version of the story simply read: “I think I’ve broken it.” He hadn’t, but more than once I sent the file over to Pete with a clear idea of what would happen next, only to find Pete had made it impossible to continue my plans when I saw what he’d done to our characters.

It forced me to write my way out of awkward scenarios, but it also pushed me to think harder. Of all the pieces I’ve written, I think The Screaming Dead is probably the one that bends the imagination the most, and that’s one of the things I love about it; from the surreal image of a steam locomotive complete with cow catcher battering a path across the sky , to flaming bodies nailed to trees in a very unusual forest, The Screaming Dead was just a gallop of a story to write.

[writingeastmidlands]

Shiny, pretty, new

Just like the origin of most of my stories, this blog is a result of the clashing of a couple of different idea.

I keep a writing schedule. I rarely keep to the schedule, but I do maintain one. It's a bit like a conveyor belt: write this novella, first edit of novel A, second edit of novel B. It's not unlike the line of planes you see waiting to land at Heathrow, stretching off into the distance.

At the moment on my particular conveyor belt I have just put down the second edit of a novel and picked up a novella for its second edit. So that's where my head is at.

At the same time, I've been aware I haven't written a short story for a long time (three years! when I checked back to my records) and haven't had a new short story published for about the same time.

And then I have an idea for a short story. I love it. It's exciting and interesting and just about slams into me that it needs to be written now! Now! Now!

This is not unusual. There's something incredible about a new story idea. It's a rush. It’s exciting; a lot more exciting than looking up whether I need a fake telephone number for this novella (I do, and Ofcom provides!) or checking out whether the name on the grave three chapters earlier is the same as the one I’ve used in the current paragraph.

For me, this is a constant tension; the attraction of the new compared to the tedium of the old. In fact, it’s probably the reason I wrote novel after novel after novel when I started out writing. Write a novel, put it away, start on the next one. It’s great fun, but is it productive? How many novels have you read where the characters’ names change from one chapter to the next? Or where the sentence construction is so mangled you want to hurl the book across the room? 

None, right?

Because those books don’t get published. Because it isn’t enough to write a story. You have to cut it and sculpt the words, the sentences, the paragraphs, the chapters. You have to work it like a lump of clay until it’s right. Or as right as you can make it.

Which means when something shiny and new comes along, occasionally you have to take a note of the idea and then drop into into the drawer alongside all the other ideas. It can join the end of the conveyor belt. Maybe one day I’ll pick it up again. It probably won’t feel quite as thrilling and urgent when I look at it in six months time. I won’t feel the same rush of creativity I did when the idea first came to me, But I will have finished editing this novella, and that’s the trade-off you have to make.

Richard Farren Barber

richardfarrenbarber.co.uk

[writingeastmidlands]

Not again!

I read a book recently. That is not in itself much of a statement, at any point in time I have read/am reading a book, but in this case the basic premise of the story was familiar.

I carry around ideas for short stories, novellas and novels. It’s like a production line, or maybe a queue, of tales patiently (and sometimes impatiently) waiting for their chance. It isn’t a fair system – a story idea might come to me and jump to the front of the queue, while others may languish in my ideas list for months or years or decades.

Yes, decades.

Some of them never reach the page because, well, because... It could be that the story just hasn’t quite come together in my head. In some cases it’s because the story seems like it will take an absolute tonne of research to pull together, and in other cases the scale of the story is frightening, and I don’t think I’m ready for it. Maybe I never will be.

Why do I mention this list now? That book I read... the concept was not a million miles away from the idea for a novel I’m been picking up and putting down on and off for the last twenty or so years. I’m not saying this is a Secret Window moment. It’s just one of those things. You read enough stories in the genre and occasionally you’re going to find an overlap.

My immediate response when this happens is to throw away the idea. I can’t use it. It’s already been done. If I were to write my novel now people would point to this other book and accuse me of copying.

Then I go and pick the metaphorical scrunched up notes out of the wastepaper bin. I’m not going to do anything with them now. I can’t. But the idea had sat on the shelf for the last few years and there’s no harm if it sits there a while longer. Anyway, within the world of fiction we’re all playing with similar tools and storylines; one haunted house can be very different to another, not every serial killer is Hannibal Lecter, there are different zombie stories, different vampire tales.

So I pack up my story once more. Place it carefully back on the shelf where I can check back on it every couple of months. And maybe in the next couple of decades I’ll take it down, brush off the dust, and see where the idea leads me.

Richard Farren Barber www.richardfarrenbarber.co.uk

[writingeastmidlands]

It is done

The first edit on my new novel – Fodder – is complete. This should be a cause for celebration, but in many ways there’s not a lot to celebrate; the original draft of the novel came in at 100,000 words, it now stands at 78,000. Before I started the edit my memory of Fodder was that it was a finished novel (albeit only the first, rough draft) but coming back to it I discovered there are huge gaps in the narrative.

But, still.. it is done.

What happens next?

Now it sits in a drawer. I’ve just checked my planning spreadsheet (I know this is sad....) and it sits in that drawer for over a year. There are other projects ahead of it in the queue, but that will mean when I next take Fodder out I’ll have forgotten most of the story and so I can look at the structure afresh.

I have to confess, I have a love/hate relationship with the first edit. At least now I’ve come to understand what I want to achieve with the time I spend elbows deep in the work – I want a story I can bear to read. Nothing more than that. I’m not looking to be swept away. I’m not looking to pat myself on the back and say what a fine piece of work I’ve created. No, all I want is a story I can pick up at a later date and read from beginning to end without stopping two or three times on every line to correct my typos and my ugly sentences and my bizarre word choices. Once I have that I can roll up my sleeves and start the job properly.

But for now it sits in a drawer and I move onto the next project. A new novella!

I have to say, I’ve been looking forward to writing this next story. It’s an idea I’ve been kicking around for a few years now, waiting for the chance to get started. That time is now. So excuse me if I seem off in a world of my own for the next six weeks. I have a story to discover.

Richard Farren Barber www.richardfarrenbarber.co.uk

[writingeastmidlands]

Don’t wanna beg

There are many aspects to writing and being published, some of which I feel more competent at than others. Some of which I get more enjoyment from than others.

I love the rush of creativity that comes with a first draft. I hate the toe-curling and painful experience of my first edit when I try to make the text at least readable.

The second edit - when I look at the structure, is great fun. Pulling the story apart, working out why it doesn’t work, and putting it back together again. After that, there is probably a diminishing return of joy with each extra edit I undertake, to the point that I get to a stage where I simply hate what I’ve written and think it’s the worst thing I have ever created. Normally I get beyond that stage, sometimes I don’t.

Publishing is also a mixed bag. I love the validation of having a short story or a novella accepted by a publisher. I won’t pretend I don’t get a thrill when I receive a royalty payment. I read reviews through my fingers like a kid watching Doctor Who.

With the publication of my novella “Perfect Darkness, Perfect Silence” I had to step up and undertake that aspect of the publication process which I find most challenging: Self-promotion.

I could play the stereotype and say it’s because it’s British and we don’t like to shout about our own achievements, and maybe there is something about that, but I don’t think that’s the whole picture. For me there’s a fear that the self in self-promotion tips over into arrogance. I’m happy to share the (good) reviews the novella received from sites such as the British Fantasy Society,  Horror Novel Reviews, Dark Musings and The Ginger Nuts of Horror. 

I change my Facebook profile picture, I blog about it, update my website, shout about it on Twitter. Basically I do everything I can think of to to let people know my book exists. And then I sit back and think “I’ve done it all, what more can I do?”

At some point, after I’ve ran through the steps I still feel like I’ve not done enough, but I can’t think of anything else to do. Maybe I could create a sandwich board and walk up and down the street hawking my book. Maybe I could take out ads. Or hand out copies on the train to anyone who looks like they might be a fan of the horror genre. (Yes, I have considered this) but in the end I rely on Facebook and Twitter and writing blog posts, and hope I haven’t annoyed everyone.

Just because I want to say... please buy my book, I think you’ll like it. And you can get it on Amazon UK or Amazon US!

[writingeastmidlands]

Origin Myths #3 –  Perfect Darkness, Perfect Silence

Sometimes the inspiration for a story can come from a single source; like Odette. On other occasions the genesis of a story is more convoluted, and Perfect Darkness, Perfect Silence is one of those. The basic premise of the story is familiar to anyone with a passing knowledge of the horror genre: a virus sweeps through the population and kills most of the people. A small group of survivors are collected together into a small community in the North-West of England (The Lake District, just don’t go looking for the specific place on any map) and begin to work together to restart civilisation. Hannah is in charge of the clean-up crew which has the responsibility for destroying the bodies of all those in the area who were killed by the plague. As the community becomes established, the fear grows that anyone new who joins them might be a carrier for the plague. So, the sources for this are many: the images of a post-apocalyptic clean-up crew is something that came to me from a line in a book by Tim Lebbon. That triggered the opening scene of a novella I started writing which was originally going to be a sequel to The Sleeping Dead. After just a few pages I put that story away – it didn’t feel like it was working. I’m not going to go into details about the scene as it could well be used in the future, but suffice to say it involved a lot of dead bodies lying around. That imagery of a post-apocalyptic world provided the basis for the job Hannah finds herself saddled with. Perfect Darkness, Perfect Silence also tips a nod to Stephen King’s The Stand, and in particular Harold Lauder’s time in Boulder. Those are the literary triggers for Perfect Darkness, Perfect Silence, but in honesty the novella owes its life more to what was happening around me. I started thinking in earnest about the novella in May 2016, when I had the opportunity to pitch a story idea to Pete Mark May at Hersham Horror. I wanted to try and do something a little different, so to start with I picked 5 story ideas, of which Perfect was one, and for each story I wrote a synopsis and the first chapter. For someone who’s more usual approach is “start at Page one and see where it goes” this was an interesting challenge. In the end, Pete selected Perfect. At that time it existed under the title “Clean Up Crew” which Pete wasn’t keen on and he asked me to consider changing the title.   As I started to write the novella, it became increasingly obvious it was a reaction to Brexit and the rabid dog-whistle politics which were dividing people into “us v them” – whoever the “us” happened to be. I had a feeling that at the moment there seemed to be a lot of effort going into trying to define groups for people to fit into, simply so there could be some people outside the group. When those two things came together Perfect Darkness, Perfect Silence was born. It came into the world very quickly – The first draft of 41,000 was written in 12 days. For me, as I say in the afterword, it’s definitely a political rant, but hopefully if someone is not interested in politics there’s still enough of a story for readers to engage with. Perfect Darkness, Perfect Silence is published by Hersham Horror and was launched at Fantasycon on 30/09/2017 You can buy it in Paperback or ebook on Amazon.

Richard Farren Barber www.richardfarrenbarber.co.uk

[writingeastmidlands]

The search item was not found!

This is the image I’m waiting for:

Because it signals the end of editing. Or at least, the end of a draft, although today it does also mean the end of editing my novella so it’s now ready to be submitted. When I’m in the throes of editing I mark up the document with square brackets filled with insight comments such as [this doesn’t work] and [what were you thinking of, Barber!]. Occasionally I will actually capture something slightly more useful. The brackets are intended to maintain the flow, so that I don’t spend an hour staring at the screen looking at a single line of text. They’re particularly useful when I need to look at a change on a bigger scale. I’ll capture any typos and word changes as I go along and mark them, and in between I’ll pick up anything about the plot or the structure that I need to change and drop them into my lovely square brackets. They’re handy little things, but I also find that towards the end of an edit, they’re the issues that remain outstanding for the longest. Sometimes a little bracketed comment can take half an hour to resolve as it means tracking back and forth over the text to make sure I’ve been consistent. (So an example in this most recent novella was the comment [Frances’ or Frances’s – check!]) When I’m struggling to stay on track I will often keep an internal countdown going. 50 square brackets to eradicate... 40... so... until I get into the single figures. And today, I’ve reached the magical milestone: The search item was not found. When I know I’ve dealt with all the points I’d picked up during my last read through. So now I get to wrap up this novella and send it out, and move onto something else. Except... I’m just going to read through those final few chapters again. Just to be sure I haven’t missed anything. And hopefully this time, there will be no need for square brackets in my notes. Richard Farren Barber www.richardfarrenbarber.co.uk

[writingeastmidlands]

But is it art?

I’m editing a novella. I know, I know… at the moment it seems like the only thing I’m doing it editing novellas, but this is a little different. This novella was written in 2014 and I’ve been picking it up and putting it down every year since. As we speak I’m on draft five and I think one more read through and we could be there. I suppose it would be worth reflecting on my process for editing; which involves paper and pencil and then Kindle. I start with a hard-copy version that gets line-edited with a pencil to make the draft readable (Seriously, my first drafts are rough!). Once I can bear to read it from beginning to end I start work on the structure of the work, taking out passages and chapters, moving scenes around. Then comes another line edit and potentially another structural edit. By now things are starting to come together. That was the stage I thought I was at with this novella in May 2017. My previous edit had been in September 2016 (After which I had then written Perfect Darkness, Perfect Silence) and so my recollection was that this novella just needed one final polish and it would be ready to send out. I had a Kindle version already created so I started to edit. The text was rougher than I recalled, but maybe the intervening nine months had affected my memory. When I got to the end I realised that the novella wasn’t finished. Far from it. The ending was going to need a lot more work. It wasn’t simply a matter of changing a couple of sentences or even paragraphs. This was a roll up the sleeves and let’s get this sorted time. So I opened up my laptop, sat there with the Kindle on the desk beside me, and started to type up the amendments I had noted. It took me less than a page to realise something was wrong. The version on my Kindle, the novella I had spent the last 10 hours editing, was not the same as the one on my laptop. My laptop had a more recent version. Now this blog post could be the opportunity to act as a salutary tale about making sure you keep track of your versions, but as I started to compare the novella on the laptop and the Kindle I noticed something interesting: the changes I had identified on the Kindle were virtually identical to the changes I had already made on the laptop. Some of that is not surprising: I picked up a few typos in the document. But most of the changes weren’t correcting errors, they were making changes to the text because I wasn’t happy with the word choice, or the flow of the language, or the pace of the story. I didn’t do a precise comparison, (I’d already wasted ten hours on this old copy!) but I would say about 80% of the changes I identified were identical. For me, this is interesting because it isn’t simply that there is a right way and a wrong way to create a sentence. There are many different choices; and yet unerringly I seem to have made the same decision. I wonder. If I set the novella aside for another year and then went back to the earlier version, would I make the same choices again in 2018? And if I did the same exercise in 2019? 2020? In amongst the changes I had identified on the Kindle there were a few changes I hadn’t previously made, which I chose to keep. The latest version of the novella is now saved, and earlier versions cast to the furthest shores of my flash drive. One last edit should hopefully be enough. A final read through to make sure everything is in the right place, the new ending works, all the typos have been picked up. And then out it goes. But seriously – keep track of your versions!

Richard Farren Barber

www.richardfarrenbarber.co.uk

[writingeastmidlands]

Don’t look back

It’s usually good advice in a horror film. In some ways, it’s good advice for writing. In particular; don’t obsess on what you’ve submitted. Don’t sit watching your email box for the acceptance (or rejections, depending on the way you deal with these things) to drop in. You have absolutely no control over these things once you’ve clicked submit, and clicking refresh isn’t going to make those responses roll in any quicker.

Makes sense, doesn’t it? Sound advice.

This week I have mostly been ignoring my sound advice. I sent my novel out to agents over the weekend so now comes the period of telling myself “I’m not waiting for a response” while I wait for a response. In my defence I’ve managed to restrict myself to checking email just a couple of times a day, which feels reasonable enough. Except for the little fact that these things are measured in weeks and months, not minutes and hours.

So I’m writing. A short story (more of that in my next blog…) and then a queue of upcoming projects including editing one novella and writing a second (and more of that in an upcoming blog, too!).

It’s about moving forward. It’s about working on something new, so that if the responses come back – gulp – negative, it doesn’t feel like the end.

Because there is no end. That’s one of the things about writing. There’s a start but there’s never an end. There’s always the next short story, novella, novel. And if this one doesn’t catch there is always the next one and the one after that. And as you write, you learn. So the next is always improved. In some ways this can feel like a war of attrition, and I’m here for the duration

Richard Farren Barber

www.richardfarrenbarber.co.uk

[writingeastmidlands]

Origin Myths #2 - Odette

I was asked to write a short story for an anthology, and because this doesn’t happen to me very often, and because I liked the theme of the anthology and I had respect for the editor, I said yes and started to think about what I might write. And then I was asked if I could make that a novella rather than a short story, and I said sure. So I dumped what I’d been working on and came back with Odette. The brief for the novel was a story set in a conflict. Initially I was going to write something set in the trenches of the first world war. I even had the outline of a story. And then while I was still mulling over exactly what I was going to write I visited the Lakeside Art Gallery which is part of the University of Nottingham. The gallery had an exhibition of photography by Lee Miller. I’d never heard of Lee Miller (I never claimed to be well educated!) but my wife had and we went in. Now, I have a strange relationship with photography which borders on awe: because obviously it isn’t art as it’s just a matter of pressing a button, and yet when you see photography done well it is stunning and transcendent. And that was my experience of viewing the Lee Miller collection. In particular I was struck by one image: a group of women who had been accused of being Nazi collaborators. For me the image held a strange tension – the anger of the crowd against the collaborators and the shaven head which was, presumably, supposed to mark the women out and also disgrace them. But that image of a shaven head also woke for me memories of the 1970s/80s punk movement when a shaven head was consider an anti-establishment mark of self expression. So Odette is a story set in a war, about people beaten traumatised by the war and each other. Odette is published in Darker Battlefields by TheEXAGERRATEDPress