S.G. MacLean's Blog
January 20, 2020
To Comment or not to Comment
I imagine writers with huge sales don't read reviews, but I think most of the rest of us do. I have friends who've won national and international awards, but who can still pretty much quote, verbatim, from unpleasant reviews on Amazon. Personally, I use my first, and by some distance worst, newspaper review as a tool with creative writing classes.
Anyway, today I read a lovely review of my 2nd Seeker book, The Black Friar. It's the kind of review that makes you feel warm inside and think what a nice person the reviewer must be. The only thing was, the reviewer gently chastised me for resurrecting a real historical character - Isaac Dorislaus - 6 years after he'd died. The explanation is fairly straightforward - Isaac Dorislaus senior, the English Commonwealth's ambassador to the Netherlands was assassinated by Royalist exiles in 1649, but his son, also named Isaac, would become an integral part of the Protectorate's intelligence service in the 1650s. This is the kind of thing that it takes a great deal more ferreting about in a variety of specialist history books than I suspect most people have time for. Initially I put a comment with a correction on the post, but instantly deleted it for fear of appearing petty or stalkerish.
I can't guarantee that I don't take the occasional liberty - usually unintentional and I try not to take big ones. Only once did I knowingly take a big liberty - I invented a kind of crocus by which I had someone poisoned. Some of the species are poisonous, but unfortunately I couldn't find one that was in bloom at the time of year I needed it to be. The logical thing would have been to change the timing of the book - but I have only thought of that right now, 12 years too late! So, I invented a crocus that would be fatally poisonous, and would bloom when I needed it to. My subterfuge was only spotted when the Italian translator of the book - The Redemption of Alexander Seaton - sent me a despairing email: she had consulted every botanical encyclopaedia known to man or woman, and could find my colchicum mortis (the crocus of death) nowhere. Oh dear. Lesson learned.
The thing is though, once your book's out there, it's out there, and if you haven't made things clear enough to the reader, then it's too late.
The business of publishers sending out ARCs has shown me another side to this though. No spoilers, but the ending of the Bear Pit has something apparently unfeasible happen. In my original script, as submitted to my publisher, this was fully explained in the final few paragraphs. My editor felt the explanation unnecessary, and that the book was stronger without it. We debated back and forth but eventually, in a late night email after several very long and tiring days completely unrelated to my writing life, I said, 'Ok, you can cut it.'
There followed for me a few months of unease over it, another worried email or so, and then when the ARC reviews came in, some readers were incredulous, about the ending and didn't hold back on their incredulity. I'm very relieved that I do read reviews, and also that I didn't respond to these particular ones, but instead got in touch with my editor almost straight away - which was fortunate, as they were going to print the next day, and the book, as finally published, has my original ending.
The moral of the story? I'm not sure there is one. Reviewers must be free to say what they feel without having authors - friendly or otherwise - breathe down their necks. Authors can learn both from positive and negative reviews, and as time goes on you do develop a thicker skin for the very few that are downright unpleasant. I think.
Anyway, today I read a lovely review of my 2nd Seeker book, The Black Friar. It's the kind of review that makes you feel warm inside and think what a nice person the reviewer must be. The only thing was, the reviewer gently chastised me for resurrecting a real historical character - Isaac Dorislaus - 6 years after he'd died. The explanation is fairly straightforward - Isaac Dorislaus senior, the English Commonwealth's ambassador to the Netherlands was assassinated by Royalist exiles in 1649, but his son, also named Isaac, would become an integral part of the Protectorate's intelligence service in the 1650s. This is the kind of thing that it takes a great deal more ferreting about in a variety of specialist history books than I suspect most people have time for. Initially I put a comment with a correction on the post, but instantly deleted it for fear of appearing petty or stalkerish.
I can't guarantee that I don't take the occasional liberty - usually unintentional and I try not to take big ones. Only once did I knowingly take a big liberty - I invented a kind of crocus by which I had someone poisoned. Some of the species are poisonous, but unfortunately I couldn't find one that was in bloom at the time of year I needed it to be. The logical thing would have been to change the timing of the book - but I have only thought of that right now, 12 years too late! So, I invented a crocus that would be fatally poisonous, and would bloom when I needed it to. My subterfuge was only spotted when the Italian translator of the book - The Redemption of Alexander Seaton - sent me a despairing email: she had consulted every botanical encyclopaedia known to man or woman, and could find my colchicum mortis (the crocus of death) nowhere. Oh dear. Lesson learned.
The thing is though, once your book's out there, it's out there, and if you haven't made things clear enough to the reader, then it's too late.
The business of publishers sending out ARCs has shown me another side to this though. No spoilers, but the ending of the Bear Pit has something apparently unfeasible happen. In my original script, as submitted to my publisher, this was fully explained in the final few paragraphs. My editor felt the explanation unnecessary, and that the book was stronger without it. We debated back and forth but eventually, in a late night email after several very long and tiring days completely unrelated to my writing life, I said, 'Ok, you can cut it.'
There followed for me a few months of unease over it, another worried email or so, and then when the ARC reviews came in, some readers were incredulous, about the ending and didn't hold back on their incredulity. I'm very relieved that I do read reviews, and also that I didn't respond to these particular ones, but instead got in touch with my editor almost straight away - which was fortunate, as they were going to print the next day, and the book, as finally published, has my original ending.
The moral of the story? I'm not sure there is one. Reviewers must be free to say what they feel without having authors - friendly or otherwise - breathe down their necks. Authors can learn both from positive and negative reviews, and as time goes on you do develop a thicker skin for the very few that are downright unpleasant. I think.
October 30, 2019
Moving On
When I wrote my first post on this blog, my plan was to use it as a kind of writing journal for myself, and to update it every two weeks. I see now that it is months since I last wrote on it.
This is primarily for 2 reasons:
1) I seem to get the closest insights into my own writing life at times when it is absolutely inconvenient to write them down or type them.
2) I have spent the last few months determinedly getting to the end of the 5th Seeker Book, 'The House of Lamentations'. The book's due out next July (2020) and my deadline was 31st October. I had had a year to write the book - my shortest deadline yet, and there were times just before the Summer when I thought I wouldn't make it, but then from July to September some invisible wand waved over me and by last week I found that I had redrafted and proof-read with 9 days to spare. Of course, there was no invisible wand - it was a case of getting my head down and doing it. I have hardly been on my bike (my favourite leisure activity) for months, scarcely a weed was pulled from the garden all summer, and my husband took over most of the cooking duties at weekends and holidays.
The book is set in Bruges in 1658, and I think what really gave me the impetus over the last few months is the fact that I was able to visit Bruges for a few days in July. Prior to that, I'd been writing as if partly blind-folded, with a palpable sense of unease that I was writing about a place I had never seen. Historical novelists, though, are always writing about places they have never seen. Even if we happen to live in the C21st incarnation of a town we are writing about in the C17th, we have to imagine our way back through the centuries to what that town might have been like then. Like Oxford and York, which feature in other Seeker books, Bruges is astonishingly well-preserved. My favourite part of the trip was probably the day we cycled along the canal path to the nearby town of Damme, which is firmly in my top 5 of 'wonderful places I have been', and features in the final, and I hope, dramatic chapter of the book.
When I am deep in the dark depths of a book, and the deadline but a distant dream, I always tell myself that when it is finished, I will weed the garden, tidy the house, see friends, get back on my bike, pay proper attention to what passes for my social media presence! What usually happens is that after 2 days (maximum), I am agitating to get back in the study and get on with the next book.
And so it is this time around, although with an added diversion. 2 days after submitting 'The House of Lamentations', I headed down to London for the CWA awards. 'Destroying Angel', the 3rd Seeker book, was on the short-list for the Historical Dagger. There was a frock, there were nice shoes, there was champagne and a sparkling dinner ( I was seated between my editor, Jane Wood, and the literary agent Patrick Walsh who turned out to be very entertaining company). What I had genuinely not expected was to win. But I did. I was so surprised and very, very happy. Evenings like that are golden times, the kind to cherish at the inevitable times when things aren't going so well.
But now back home, and to work. The study is tidier than it has ever been, the charity shop pile is packed, if not yet in the car, the leaves have been swept from the drive. The blog post is nearly written! What happens next is that I will begin work on my new project, a move away, for now, from the C17th and into the early C19th. The book - working title 'The Cromarty Circulating Library' - will be set not in faraway London, or Bruges, or even York, but in a small town at the tip of the Black Isle. It is about 20 miles away from my house, and it is not unknown for me to be able to reach it by bike. In the tidy-up of the study I found from a notebook that I've been jotting down ideas for this project for at least two and a half years. It's a bit of a leap of faith to be moving forward two centuries, but I'm very excited. Who knows how it will turn out? I don't want to abandon Damian Seeker altogether - I just feel like he and I need a bit of a break from each other. Watch this space.
P.S. To the lady who sent me a message last week (or the week before) about writing and planning and asking if I have a website (sorry, no), please try again - I was in the middle of everything when your message arrived and it seems to have disappeared!
This is primarily for 2 reasons:
1) I seem to get the closest insights into my own writing life at times when it is absolutely inconvenient to write them down or type them.
2) I have spent the last few months determinedly getting to the end of the 5th Seeker Book, 'The House of Lamentations'. The book's due out next July (2020) and my deadline was 31st October. I had had a year to write the book - my shortest deadline yet, and there were times just before the Summer when I thought I wouldn't make it, but then from July to September some invisible wand waved over me and by last week I found that I had redrafted and proof-read with 9 days to spare. Of course, there was no invisible wand - it was a case of getting my head down and doing it. I have hardly been on my bike (my favourite leisure activity) for months, scarcely a weed was pulled from the garden all summer, and my husband took over most of the cooking duties at weekends and holidays.
The book is set in Bruges in 1658, and I think what really gave me the impetus over the last few months is the fact that I was able to visit Bruges for a few days in July. Prior to that, I'd been writing as if partly blind-folded, with a palpable sense of unease that I was writing about a place I had never seen. Historical novelists, though, are always writing about places they have never seen. Even if we happen to live in the C21st incarnation of a town we are writing about in the C17th, we have to imagine our way back through the centuries to what that town might have been like then. Like Oxford and York, which feature in other Seeker books, Bruges is astonishingly well-preserved. My favourite part of the trip was probably the day we cycled along the canal path to the nearby town of Damme, which is firmly in my top 5 of 'wonderful places I have been', and features in the final, and I hope, dramatic chapter of the book.
When I am deep in the dark depths of a book, and the deadline but a distant dream, I always tell myself that when it is finished, I will weed the garden, tidy the house, see friends, get back on my bike, pay proper attention to what passes for my social media presence! What usually happens is that after 2 days (maximum), I am agitating to get back in the study and get on with the next book.
And so it is this time around, although with an added diversion. 2 days after submitting 'The House of Lamentations', I headed down to London for the CWA awards. 'Destroying Angel', the 3rd Seeker book, was on the short-list for the Historical Dagger. There was a frock, there were nice shoes, there was champagne and a sparkling dinner ( I was seated between my editor, Jane Wood, and the literary agent Patrick Walsh who turned out to be very entertaining company). What I had genuinely not expected was to win. But I did. I was so surprised and very, very happy. Evenings like that are golden times, the kind to cherish at the inevitable times when things aren't going so well.
But now back home, and to work. The study is tidier than it has ever been, the charity shop pile is packed, if not yet in the car, the leaves have been swept from the drive. The blog post is nearly written! What happens next is that I will begin work on my new project, a move away, for now, from the C17th and into the early C19th. The book - working title 'The Cromarty Circulating Library' - will be set not in faraway London, or Bruges, or even York, but in a small town at the tip of the Black Isle. It is about 20 miles away from my house, and it is not unknown for me to be able to reach it by bike. In the tidy-up of the study I found from a notebook that I've been jotting down ideas for this project for at least two and a half years. It's a bit of a leap of faith to be moving forward two centuries, but I'm very excited. Who knows how it will turn out? I don't want to abandon Damian Seeker altogether - I just feel like he and I need a bit of a break from each other. Watch this space.
P.S. To the lady who sent me a message last week (or the week before) about writing and planning and asking if I have a website (sorry, no), please try again - I was in the middle of everything when your message arrived and it seems to have disappeared!
May 14, 2019
Editing a work-in-progress
Most of the past week was spent looking again at the early chapters of the book I am currently working on - 'The Man from Bruges'.
Writers are often asked about the extent to which they plan a new book. Some hardly plan at all, but just put pen to paper or finger to keyboard and see where the story takes them. Others plan down to the final detail. I am certainly more of a planner, but the planning is fairly vague at the beginning of a novel - a synopsis, a rough chapter plan of only a few chapters, a location and a character list. I will also usually know who dies, sometimes why they die, but rarely, at the start of a book, who is going to kill them.
About 25 000 words in to The Man from Bruges I have landed in that swamp of unease that I find myself in about 1/4 to 1/3 of the way through any new book: I feel like I'm losing control of the characters and have no idea how I'm going to get to the end of the story. It's a time for discipline, honesty, and rigorous early editing. I go through each chapter again, look at the characters in it, ask myself what they're really doing here and whether they are justifying their place in the book or whether they need a lot more work. I look at the plot and ask, is this enough? Do we need another strand? Basically, starting a new book is a bit like starting a new job - you find yourself in a room full of people whose names you have only just learned. You like the look of some of them more than others, but you're not entirely sure yet what any of them do. After a few days at work, you will have a better idea of who they all are, what they do, who can be relied upon and who is a bit shifty, or shiftless. You also (and this is the plot bit) start to have a better idea of what your own job is. This week I have learned that I really like a wily old nun called Sister Janet, and I need to find more for her to do, a character called Marchmont Ellis needs a good deal more work, and that I set far too many scenes in taverns.
This type of long, hard look at what I've already written is something I always put off for longer than I should, but after which I always have a much clearer idea of my characters and story. Its what enables me to drive the story forward. At about 2/3 of the way through the first draft, I go through the process again, but this is much more a case of checking that everyone is playing the role they are supposed to be playing, and that I haven't 'dropped any stitches' in my plotting.
It's been a good week in other ways too: professionally, the highlight has been learning that the 3rd Seeker book, Destroying Angel has been longlisted for this year's CWA Historical Dagger. Everyone will have their own views on literary prizes, and ultimately, listing for such prizes is down to the faith of your publisher in putting you up for it, and the personal preference of a sometimes relatively small judging panel. However, the chief value for me is the reassurance a writer gets from realising someone thinks she is doing her job well. When you spend your days in a room by yourself, trying your best to write something entertaining and to write it well, the reassurance of being listed is invaluable.
Highlight of the week, non-professionally, was probably a Sunday afternoon walk, just me and my dog, along the shore of the Beauly Firth from Ardersier to Fort George and back. We were passed by two old men on bikes - no helmets, lycra or racing bikes - just two old men who remembered being young boys and were still, in their heart, young boys. Having access to such amenities is, again, priceless.
Currently reading Stuart Kelly's Scott-Land: The Man Who Invented a Nation This book is an utter delight, the kind that is full of lines and observations you want to share with everyone you see.
Writers are often asked about the extent to which they plan a new book. Some hardly plan at all, but just put pen to paper or finger to keyboard and see where the story takes them. Others plan down to the final detail. I am certainly more of a planner, but the planning is fairly vague at the beginning of a novel - a synopsis, a rough chapter plan of only a few chapters, a location and a character list. I will also usually know who dies, sometimes why they die, but rarely, at the start of a book, who is going to kill them.
About 25 000 words in to The Man from Bruges I have landed in that swamp of unease that I find myself in about 1/4 to 1/3 of the way through any new book: I feel like I'm losing control of the characters and have no idea how I'm going to get to the end of the story. It's a time for discipline, honesty, and rigorous early editing. I go through each chapter again, look at the characters in it, ask myself what they're really doing here and whether they are justifying their place in the book or whether they need a lot more work. I look at the plot and ask, is this enough? Do we need another strand? Basically, starting a new book is a bit like starting a new job - you find yourself in a room full of people whose names you have only just learned. You like the look of some of them more than others, but you're not entirely sure yet what any of them do. After a few days at work, you will have a better idea of who they all are, what they do, who can be relied upon and who is a bit shifty, or shiftless. You also (and this is the plot bit) start to have a better idea of what your own job is. This week I have learned that I really like a wily old nun called Sister Janet, and I need to find more for her to do, a character called Marchmont Ellis needs a good deal more work, and that I set far too many scenes in taverns.
This type of long, hard look at what I've already written is something I always put off for longer than I should, but after which I always have a much clearer idea of my characters and story. Its what enables me to drive the story forward. At about 2/3 of the way through the first draft, I go through the process again, but this is much more a case of checking that everyone is playing the role they are supposed to be playing, and that I haven't 'dropped any stitches' in my plotting.
It's been a good week in other ways too: professionally, the highlight has been learning that the 3rd Seeker book, Destroying Angel has been longlisted for this year's CWA Historical Dagger. Everyone will have their own views on literary prizes, and ultimately, listing for such prizes is down to the faith of your publisher in putting you up for it, and the personal preference of a sometimes relatively small judging panel. However, the chief value for me is the reassurance a writer gets from realising someone thinks she is doing her job well. When you spend your days in a room by yourself, trying your best to write something entertaining and to write it well, the reassurance of being listed is invaluable.
Highlight of the week, non-professionally, was probably a Sunday afternoon walk, just me and my dog, along the shore of the Beauly Firth from Ardersier to Fort George and back. We were passed by two old men on bikes - no helmets, lycra or racing bikes - just two old men who remembered being young boys and were still, in their heart, young boys. Having access to such amenities is, again, priceless.
Currently reading Stuart Kelly's Scott-Land: The Man Who Invented a Nation This book is an utter delight, the kind that is full of lines and observations you want to share with everyone you see.
May 7, 2019
Cromarty Crime and Thrillers Weekend
I'm just back from this year's Cromarty Crime and Thrillers Weekend which, for anyone who's never been, is a festival dedicated to all aspects of crime literature - fiction, non-fiction, forensics, archaeology. It takes place in a beautiful C18th Scottish town on the very tip of the Black Isle, just north of Inverness, and is always headed up by Ian Rankin, who has a home there.
Other authors this year were Lin Anderson and Lesley Kelly, along with former publisher and now literary agent, Jon Wood, who gave a workshop on getting published and finding success. Sadly, I couldn't go to that as it clashed with my own talk on the perks and problems of researching and writing historical crime fiction. (To be honest, it's all perks - how else would I get to have trips to lovely places just so I could wander round them taking notes and making up stories? What's not to like?)
Key themes that came from the talks and the full panel discussion at the end were: how to keep a character fresh in a long-running series; whether the police procedural has a future in a time of changes in policing and changes in reading tastes (the answer to both these seems to be to focus on an engaging character, because if you have an engaging character, readers will want to follow them; the degree to which luck is an element in writing success (Get Lucky, Stay Lucky is Mr R's advice). I concur, and would add that not giving up increases your chances of getting lucky - after a year and a half and twelve rejections from agents and publishers, I finally got lucky with my first book.
I can't emphasise enough what an enjoyable little festival this is, and how magical the location. I've been as a fan girl/reader as well as an author. One memorable event a few years ago was hearing Anne Cleaves speak engagingly for an hour from the dock of the perfectly preserved C18th Cromarty Courthouse.
Finding a favourite part of this year's festival is tricky - but possibly it was encountering the hapless Fintan. Fintan emerged more or less on the spot in the workshop I was leading on creating engaging characters, and had us all, almost instantly, in stitches. I predict great things for him. I have yet to come away from a workshop without wanting to know what happened in the stories that have emerged from them.
It's always good to get home after being away for work, but I felt a little sad leaving Cromarty, and have already made plans to take myself back to the house run by the Cromarty Arts Trust for a writer's retreat when I begin the book after the one I'm working on now.
Here endeth my very first blog post.
Other authors this year were Lin Anderson and Lesley Kelly, along with former publisher and now literary agent, Jon Wood, who gave a workshop on getting published and finding success. Sadly, I couldn't go to that as it clashed with my own talk on the perks and problems of researching and writing historical crime fiction. (To be honest, it's all perks - how else would I get to have trips to lovely places just so I could wander round them taking notes and making up stories? What's not to like?)
Key themes that came from the talks and the full panel discussion at the end were: how to keep a character fresh in a long-running series; whether the police procedural has a future in a time of changes in policing and changes in reading tastes (the answer to both these seems to be to focus on an engaging character, because if you have an engaging character, readers will want to follow them; the degree to which luck is an element in writing success (Get Lucky, Stay Lucky is Mr R's advice). I concur, and would add that not giving up increases your chances of getting lucky - after a year and a half and twelve rejections from agents and publishers, I finally got lucky with my first book.
I can't emphasise enough what an enjoyable little festival this is, and how magical the location. I've been as a fan girl/reader as well as an author. One memorable event a few years ago was hearing Anne Cleaves speak engagingly for an hour from the dock of the perfectly preserved C18th Cromarty Courthouse.
Finding a favourite part of this year's festival is tricky - but possibly it was encountering the hapless Fintan. Fintan emerged more or less on the spot in the workshop I was leading on creating engaging characters, and had us all, almost instantly, in stitches. I predict great things for him. I have yet to come away from a workshop without wanting to know what happened in the stories that have emerged from them.
It's always good to get home after being away for work, but I felt a little sad leaving Cromarty, and have already made plans to take myself back to the house run by the Cromarty Arts Trust for a writer's retreat when I begin the book after the one I'm working on now.
Here endeth my very first blog post.
