Rod Duncan's Blog - Posts Tagged "writing"
Creativity and the Unconscious Mind
I have something to confess: fictional characters have conversations in my head. I also experiment by scrambling words together. I talk to myself. I spend over-long in my own chaotic imagination. And occasionally I catch glimpses of people who, objectively speaking, aren't there.
It's that last one that really got me thinking. It happens like this: I'm walking in the woods on my own. I'm lost in thought, probably exploring the lines of a story. I catch a glimpse of a person standing next to the path. It doesn't strike me as odd. I am already several paces on before I think about it directly. Then I stop, retrace my steps...
The complete article can be found here:
https://www.facebook.com/gaslitempire...
It's that last one that really got me thinking. It happens like this: I'm walking in the woods on my own. I'm lost in thought, probably exploring the lines of a story. I catch a glimpse of a person standing next to the path. It doesn't strike me as odd. I am already several paces on before I think about it directly. Then I stop, retrace my steps...
The complete article can be found here:
https://www.facebook.com/gaslitempire...
Researching Carrion Crows
Stories aren’t usually well behaved. Sometimes there are none in sight. Rarely. More often a crowd of them turn up and jostle for attention. They don’t form an orderly queue.
Right now I have the interesting experience of writing one story and having another one sitting...
The complete article can be found here:
https://www.facebook.com/gaslitempire...
Right now I have the interesting experience of writing one story and having another one sitting...
The complete article can be found here:
https://www.facebook.com/gaslitempire...
Visualising, Writing and Photography
Do you see stories in your mind’s eye? Readers have told me that they that have vivid pictures of Elizabeth Barnabus, Julia, Fabulo, Tinker and the rest. This is fascinating to me because picturing things in my head is something I’ve never been able to do.
It’s a quirk of my oddly wired brain that...
The complete article can be found here:
https://www.facebook.com/gaslitempire...
It’s a quirk of my oddly wired brain that...
The complete article can be found here:
https://www.facebook.com/gaslitempire...
Book 4 = Book 1
Q When is book 4 not book 4?
A When it is book 1 in the next series.
That, in a nutshell, has been my problem with writing Elizabeth Barnabus’s next adventure. I’ve been trying to satisfy new readers and continuing readers to an equal degree; trying to give someone who is just discovering the Gas-Lit Empire the feeling that they haven’t missed out.
It took me several months to find the answer. And then, once I’d found it, it proved difficult to write. In July I finally got it sorted. Initial feedback from my Beta readers is very promising.
Since then the writing speed has picked up. I’ve written...
The complete article can be found here:
https://www.facebook.com/gaslitempire...
A When it is book 1 in the next series.
That, in a nutshell, has been my problem with writing Elizabeth Barnabus’s next adventure. I’ve been trying to satisfy new readers and continuing readers to an equal degree; trying to give someone who is just discovering the Gas-Lit Empire the feeling that they haven’t missed out.
It took me several months to find the answer. And then, once I’d found it, it proved difficult to write. In July I finally got it sorted. Initial feedback from my Beta readers is very promising.
Since then the writing speed has picked up. I’ve written...
The complete article can be found here:
https://www.facebook.com/gaslitempire...
World Building Month
August 2016 has been a fairly intense month in my creative life. The story has moved on to a new setting. I've researched feasible technologies and designed an aesthetic for a group of people living beyond the Gas-Lit Empire. I've started to fashion a distinct culture for them and a nascent legal system - derived from a quirky piece of history that has long fascinated me...
The full article can be found here: https://www.facebook.com/gaslitempire...
The full article can be found here: https://www.facebook.com/gaslitempire...
Working Out the End
This morning I finally worked out the entire ending sequence of the novel. I already knew where the story had to get to. But in my various plans of the final act, I had statements like: 'Elizabeth figures out a clever way to....' followed by the THING which I can't tell you because it would be a massive spoiler.
This morning, sitting in the car outside a well known supermarket...
The full article can be found here: https://www.facebook.com/gaslitempire...
This morning, sitting in the car outside a well known supermarket...
The full article can be found here: https://www.facebook.com/gaslitempire...
Creating a Victorian Rookery
Whilst researching the Custodian of Marvels, I spent many hours reading about the rookeries of London and exploring the city via Google Street View. I chose the Cable Street / Cannon Street area for Elizabeth, Fabulo and the others to disappear into. But I had two problems in fixing the precise geography:
1) Significant areas of the street plan were wiped clean with the clearance of the slums.
2) There is no railway in the Gas-Lit Empire version of London, so the line to the north of Cable Street would never have been built.
I turned to maps dating from before the slums were cleared. It would have been possible to make up a fictional road layout. (It's unlikely that anyone would check up on the arrangements of now-demolished streets to make sure I had it all correct.) But having a definitive map was helpful. It made the place feel real to me. It is my conviction that if a location feels precise and vivid to the writer...
The complete article can be found here: https://www.facebook.com/gaslitempire...
1) Significant areas of the street plan were wiped clean with the clearance of the slums.
2) There is no railway in the Gas-Lit Empire version of London, so the line to the north of Cable Street would never have been built.
I turned to maps dating from before the slums were cleared. It would have been possible to make up a fictional road layout. (It's unlikely that anyone would check up on the arrangements of now-demolished streets to make sure I had it all correct.) But having a definitive map was helpful. It made the place feel real to me. It is my conviction that if a location feels precise and vivid to the writer...
The complete article can be found here: https://www.facebook.com/gaslitempire...
Winning an Award!
I won an award last night! It’s not the kind of thing that gets a mention in The Bookseller. But I couldn’t feel more honoured.
To explain, I need to rewind the clock to the early nineties. We’d been some years In Taiwan working on an environmental education project on behalf of the Baha’i community. Towards the end of my time there I began to write. A poem or two at first. Then a short story. Then I dived into the deep end and began to write a novel. I had no idea what I was doing. But the experience was exhilarating. I was back in the UK by the time I finished it.
One day, I spotted an article in the local paper, which said that there was an organization called Leicester Writers’ Club and that it was having an open evening on the coming Thursday. ‘I’ve written a novel,’ I thought. That means I am a writer. Perhaps I should go along...
The full article can be found here: https://www.facebook.com/gaslitempire...
To explain, I need to rewind the clock to the early nineties. We’d been some years In Taiwan working on an environmental education project on behalf of the Baha’i community. Towards the end of my time there I began to write. A poem or two at first. Then a short story. Then I dived into the deep end and began to write a novel. I had no idea what I was doing. But the experience was exhilarating. I was back in the UK by the time I finished it.
One day, I spotted an article in the local paper, which said that there was an organization called Leicester Writers’ Club and that it was having an open evening on the coming Thursday. ‘I’ve written a novel,’ I thought. That means I am a writer. Perhaps I should go along...
The full article can be found here: https://www.facebook.com/gaslitempire...
The Final Action Sequence
A quick status update this morning (I've just noticed it is the afternoon already. That is an indication of how deep the writing experience has been.)
I wanted to tell you that I've today reached the ending sequence of the novel - that point where all the different parties to the story become aware of each other's intentions, jolting the action into a series of conflicts of ascending intensity that will run right up to the end. The shadow boxing is over. This is the real fight.
My past experience is that this section of the novel gets written faster than anything before. All the careful construction, the laying down of story threads - all that pays off at this stage. Because, if I have done it right, everything is now set up and the action will inevitably lead to the long-planned conclusion.
That doesn't mean...
The full article can be found here: https://www.facebook.com/gaslitempire...
I wanted to tell you that I've today reached the ending sequence of the novel - that point where all the different parties to the story become aware of each other's intentions, jolting the action into a series of conflicts of ascending intensity that will run right up to the end. The shadow boxing is over. This is the real fight.
My past experience is that this section of the novel gets written faster than anything before. All the careful construction, the laying down of story threads - all that pays off at this stage. Because, if I have done it right, everything is now set up and the action will inevitably lead to the long-planned conclusion.
That doesn't mean...
The full article can be found here: https://www.facebook.com/gaslitempire...
On Reading and Writing Fictional Characters
Many reviews of the Gas-Lit Empire mention Elizabeth Barnabus. Opinions of her are overwhelmingly positive. But in those few negative assessments, it often turns out that the reviewer just couldn’t relate to her. Somehow her emotions didn’t feel genuine to them.
Regular readers of this page will know that I’m always grateful to reviewers. They’ve taken the time to read the book and express their opinions. Even negative comments are valuable. The mixed views on Elizabeth’s believability as a character remind me that each reader takes their own unique mix of meaning and experience from a text. There are as many versions of Elizabeth Barnabus as there are readers of the novels.
She is diffident when it comes to sharing her intimate feelings. Some things she wants to keep to herself. There are also times - particularly in her interactions with a certain Patent Office Agent - where we might understand more of her feelings than she does.
It is a style of narrative which invites the reader to do some detective work, to try to figure out her feelings from the things she chooses to tell us. I know it’s not a style that suits everyone. But that’s OK. My aim has always been
The full article can be found here: https://www.facebook.com/gaslitempire...
Regular readers of this page will know that I’m always grateful to reviewers. They’ve taken the time to read the book and express their opinions. Even negative comments are valuable. The mixed views on Elizabeth’s believability as a character remind me that each reader takes their own unique mix of meaning and experience from a text. There are as many versions of Elizabeth Barnabus as there are readers of the novels.
She is diffident when it comes to sharing her intimate feelings. Some things she wants to keep to herself. There are also times - particularly in her interactions with a certain Patent Office Agent - where we might understand more of her feelings than she does.
It is a style of narrative which invites the reader to do some detective work, to try to figure out her feelings from the things she chooses to tell us. I know it’s not a style that suits everyone. But that’s OK. My aim has always been
The full article can be found here: https://www.facebook.com/gaslitempire...
