(#Thirty-eight: Happiness) Wuthering Nights by Summer Day: Inspired by Wuthering Heights

Chapter Thirty-eight

Happiness

Katarina had been meeting Hinton for months by the time Heath had made plans to sign the freehold title of his estate over to them. It was a regular pattern. They met at a studio space, rented out by the Art College, in Soho.

     Kat loved getting out of North London. She was used to being in central London but she particularly loved the winding cobbled streets of Soho and the West End lights.  She’d dressed up for the occasion, knowing that she and Hinton had a special dinner planned to celebrate the one year anniversary of their first meeting.

     Instead of going to Hampstead, they decided on a tiny restaurant here, beside the studio space. Hinton had something he wanted to show her that did not include a pen and paper.

     In return, Katarina had a gift she had made to give him.

     They kissed as lovers do, warm and close. It was as if they had always been like this. Although it had taken them many months to feel comfortable in each other’s company, they now trusted each other completely. Hinton took Katarina’s hand as they went to the studio together, tripping through crowds and Christmas lights of a frosty London winter.

    ‘Quick, Katarina, I want to show you something.’

    ‘Yes Hinton, I have something important to tell you also, something I’ve been saving for today.’

    Hinton looked at her in the street, as they stood still together as the crowds bustled around them. Her face shone with beauty, hope and expectation.

    Hinton had dreaded this moment - the moment he knew in his heart would eventually arrive. Everyone he had been close to, even momentarily, had abandoned him. First his own parents, whom he’d never met, then his adopted parents; even his adopted uncle had shown little interest in him beyond teaching him to fight back and be sullen and not trust another living soul. But he trusted this girl and she sensed his desperation when she said she had something important to tell him. Hinton’s face was downcast, he knew it was irrational. They’d never had an argument since the day they’d met but still the thought remained that she might be breaking up with him. After all, he needed plasma every nine hours to exist.

    ‘I…I knew you would…tire of me…you are such an amazing person but…’

    ‘Oh no, Hinton, you misunderstand…Hinton …I …love you. I think I’ve loved you since we both sounded out the word “incandescent” …you are…the most original, amazing…’

    He put his finger on her mouth, happy that the night had not been ruined, and the surprise was still before them.

   ‘Before you say anything else, you need to see this…’

    They had reached the studio, a small building, one floor up on a tiny side street in Soho.

    Hinton opened the door slowly.

    He wrapped his tie across her eyes.

    ‘Wait,’ he said.

    ‘Hinton, what are you up to?’

     ‘I’m showing you something I’ve been working on over the autumn. It’s something special…it’s my future.’

   Kate stood still in the centre of the room, an empty room with tall ceilings apart from the   painting on the easel in the middle.

   ‘Open your eyes.’

   Katarina stood in her coat, flicks of snow upon her shoulders and glanced at the tall, handsome boy with the kind eyes, then glanced back at the painting of her.

    ‘What do you think Katarina?’

    ‘It’s…amazing. I’m speechless…’

    ‘It won first prize. You won me first prize.’

    The picture that stared back at them was of a young woman’s face, an identical artist’s interpretation of the beautiful girl in the room. The haunted look in her eyes was replaced with something verging on both satisfaction and calm. If there was a word to describe the expression on Katarina’s face in the portrait, it would be love.

    ‘You are the reason I won this scholarship. I’m going abroad for the summer…’

    Kate’s face dropped…

    ‘Well, that’s wonderful… I had something for you but now…’

     Kate realized Hinton had meant more to her than she to him, for he was the one contemplating leaving.  

   Hinton took her hands in the shadow of the exquisite painting. Light beamed in from Soho streetlamps. Wind whipped up leaves on the cobbled stone. He could hear her heart and tried to stop himself from hearing her thoughts. He’d consulted a specialist who’d said by twenty-one, his needs would be fully formed. But for tonight, he was okay. Together, they were warm and safe.

    ‘It’s just that… I made something for you, but I don’t know if I should give it to you now. I mean, now that you are going…’

   Katarina sat on the forgotten lounge which had been covered in an old painter’s canvas sheet. There were splotches of blue and pink oil paint around the frayed edges of the material.

   Hinton moved towards her slowly, blood tightening in his veins. He hesitated.

   ‘That’s just it, Katarina. I don’t want to go alone. I know you shouldn’t accept me, as I am and I know it’s early to ask you this - we are young…I am…different, to say the least but…’

    Katarina looked more intently at him, not wanting to anticipate his meaning without having it spelt out before her. He wanted her to go with him… or did he?

   It was easier for him. All his life he had felt unloved until now. Hinton did not want any misunderstandings or any lack of clarity to mess things up the way love had messed up the people around him - his adopted Uncle, for example.

    ‘I… I love you. And I was wondering if you could overlook…’

    Hinton got down on one knee on the bare floors, his mouth watering with nerves, his blood tight in his veins…

    ‘I…am wondering…would you do me the honour…’

     Katarina was surprised. She had thought he’d meant her to travel with him but…this.

    ‘Yes,’ Katarina said…

    ‘I haven’t asked…’ he began.

    ‘Ask the question,’ Katarina smiled.

    ‘Katarina Spencer…I know we are young, I know we should be fearful of my…condition, but I’ve never been surer of anyone. Would you do me the honour of becoming my wife?’

   ‘Yes,’ Katarina said.

   In the shadow formed by street lamps, the young lovers kissed.

(#Thirty-nine: Wuthering Nights) Wuthering Nights by Summer Day: Inspired by Wuthering Heights

Chapter Thirty-nine

Wuthering Nights

    It was an icy winter evening in Hampstead as he spread out all of the documents that ridiculous lawyer had required of him for the transferral of property and funds. He was sure he hadn’t neglected anything. He left no notes but he knew Greta would do as he wished. She had not been forgotten either. There was an envelope for her which would be sure to allow her to live in luxury for the rest of her life. Apart from Kate, she had been the most loyal person he’d known.

    Heath dressed in his warmest black turtle neck jumper and found his boots and the coat he liked best and wore most often. He heard a tap at the window, rain mixed with the branches of the tree outside, hail trickling onto the roof, reminding him of her beautiful face and pale fingers reaching for him. 

     It was not unusual any more. The waiting, the anticipation, the brief visits that had prolonged his years. He had taken to staying out late then driving home at two in the morning.  But tonight was different, tonight she hadn’t come to him and he knew it was because it was his turn to find her. Kate was waiting for him in the dark, on the heath, in human form.

     She called to him when no one could hear, no one but him.

    ‘I’ve missed you…’ She said, ‘I told you I’d come back to you.’

    ‘Kate,’ he whispered, ‘it’s been forever…’ he said under his breath, glad she was so restless, like him, a twin soul.

(#Epilogue) From the notes of Mr Tom Bennett (lawyer) etc. Wuthering Nights by Summer Day

Epilogue

From the notes of Mr Tom Bennett (lawyer) and visitor to Hampstead Heath, London.

    In the morning, I was called to investigate the business transactions of a certain Heath Spencer and the links amongst his family which allowed him to divide his assets between three heirs. I was alarmed by news of his passing, but not surprised. The Spencers hadn’t made it public and there was no note so it had taken some years for the law to rule that he’d  died “of exposure” in the night. It was all rather strange, since his body was never found.

     Rather than try to navigate the heath on a frosty winter morning, I stopped and parked near the local pub again and decided to enjoy the ten minute walk along the winding, private road that led to the imposing exterior of Hareton Hall. I was due to visit the new owner, Hinton Spencer, a young man who was married to Katarina Hunt. They had a three year old child and were in a hurry to get the documents signed because they were due to leave for America to spend a summer painting abroad. They were taking an extended vacation and assured me they did not care to live at The Hall but did not wish to sell the place, either. It was a simple matter of the transfer of documents that I’d waited some years to finalize. Hareton Hall would then be returned to its rightful owners. 

      It was a grinding walk, starting flat and easy and heading ever so slightly up hill, and then, when the sleet and wet started, down again. I was glad I could see the imposing house in the distance.

     When I finally arrived there was not a hint of movement, save wind across ground, whipping the heather into a lavender mix in the distance. Up close, there was no sign of the housekeeper either whom I’d been led to believe still lived at Hareton Hall. There was no sign of anything. The fact that the owner had gone “missing” had led to many years of legal uncertainty.

     An elderly man, wearing gloves, who looked like he worked with animals, wandered out from the stables, as if from nowhere. He must have been close to ninety years old.

   ‘Is anyone at home?’ I asked.

   ‘Not likely,’ he replied. ‘I’ve just come from exercising the horses…’

    ‘Is the owner here?’

    ‘You could say that, many do…’ he replied enigmatically. He looked at me strangely as he walked into air.

     I wandered around to the side of the house, where the cobwebs grew and the foliage had been left wild, giving the lower floor of Hareton Hall the appearance of being covered in unruly brownish lace. There were windows and doors shut tight and locked. The garages were closed and the stables remained empty apart from one where a door had been left swinging open. The grounds themselves, once manicured, had grown wild and lush with secrets.

   The owner, I thought, the young man I sought, a Mr Hinton Spencer, must have risen early to go riding across the heath with his wife.

    Then I remembered the tales of ghouls and ghosts, the objects seen moving in windows, the people long gone that neighbours reported having seen only days ago. Someone in particular, a young woman with long dark hair who wandered the corridors and played loud music, turning on all the lights during wild, evening parties and lighting hundreds of fire -hazardous candles. I’d assumed the reports were simply jealous neighbours complaining about the noise created by the beautiful young wife, the new Mrs Spencer who’d also had the keys and the run of Hareton Hall. Since the noise always stopped at midnight, there was little anyone could do. 

    I was about to give up, admit defeat and return the copies of the papers declaring transfer of original ownership to the rightful heirs of Hareton Hall, when I saw the curtains in the upstairs window move. A young girl with long dark hair glanced down at me and smiled. I knocked loudly and waited for a long time, but still, no one answered.   

   ‘Katarina Spencer,’ I announced, calling out distinctly, although I knew Katarina would be older now and the woman at the window was barely out of her teens. The downstairs curtains waved and I thought perhaps the housekeeper might be there. I looked up again. The girl who stood at the window was beautiful, otherworldly. The image disappeared before my eyes in a mirage of dark curls, cream lace and ruby cheeks.

     I was convinced the cold, like the heat, could make you see a mirage in the mist yet I waited on the doorstep for a long time. No one answered. I was tempted to look back as I walked towards my car. For the first time in my life I didn’t need proof. I was sure the rumours I’d heard were true, though my notes had many pages missing. As I drove towards The Grange, I was certain the lovers who had once inhabited Hareton Hall, lived there still. The girl had not aged a day since she was last seen alive, more than twenty years ago.

Summer Day is the author of Pride & Princesses, a novel for young adults inspired by Pride and Prejudice and Anne Eyre, a YA novel inspired by Jane Eyre. Follow Summer Day on:

Twitter: http://twitter.com/summerdaylight  @summerdaylight
Blog: http://summerdaylight.blogspot.com/
Email: summerdaylight99@hotmail.com

HOW TO WRITE A NOVEL IN TWELVE STEPS: THE END (sort of) #Step Twelve and Beyond

HOW TO WRITE A NOVEL IN TWELVE STEPS: THE END (sort of) #Step Twelve and Beyond

·         You have a draft.

·         You’ve “fixed up that mess.”

·         Think of a working title.

·         Now go back and make the manuscript as perfect as possible.

·         Leave no room for spelling, punctuation or grammar mistakes (it’s hard, but try to omit those mistakes).

·         Refine that draft.

·         Leave it after you’ve refined it.

·         Read it again and again until you can’t bear to read it anymore.

·         Now hand it over to a trusted friend, advisor or copy editor.

CONGRATUALTIONS!!!!!!!!!

YOU DID IT!

I’m almost as proud of you as I would be if your draft were my own!

But it’s not.

It’s yours.

GO TO IT!

·         Think about publication…

·         Start your research. Google is there for a reason. Use it.

·         It might be a month (unlikely) or a year after you started… and you deserve a pat on the back…

·         You might want to think about showing the first chapters to that publishing contact (preferably a family member or if you have really good friends you could try that…) or you might try an agent or editor.

·         But that’s a whole other “How-To” Series.

·         It just is.

HOW TO WRITE A NOVEL IN TWELVE STEPS: Re-Drafting the Draft #Step ELEVEN

HOW TO WRITE A NOVEL IN TWELVE STEPS: Re-Drafting the Draft #Step ELEVEN

You might have to do this many, many times.

I can’t tell you how many times but Pride & Princesses probably had about a hundred drafts over a period of at least two years… and it’s not perfect at all… and the spelling and punctuation, because it had to please editors on two different continents, ended up being both US and UK…

(*Readers please note, I have a US draft ready to go again but I just have to get the chance to change over the file at Amazon!)

Now, by this point (at least a month or two after you started) you should have a working draft of your novel.

·         Put it aside and get on with your life.

·         Go back to it after you’ve had a complete ‘vacay’ away from both it and your laptop.

·         Then return to it after a break.

·         Have a long hard look at it.

·         Read it again.

·         Yep, you are probably going to have to re-draft that draft.

I can’t stress enough that you have to keep going over it with your eyes.

Until it’s as polished as you want it to be.

First, you are drafting for the overall story, characters etc. I’d save the ‘copy edit’ to the final drafts and if at all possible you really need someone else to do that for you. Find someone who understands more about spelling, punctuation and grammar than you do. Make sure, if you are submitting in the US it follows US standards. Remember, in the UK and Australia/NZ English (spelling and punctuation) have many subtle differences to US English (spelling and punctuation). 

Every morning (or whenever you review your draft) you will literally find words and sentences you want to change.

The bad news?

I’m not sure when this process ends.

I once had an agent who I gave my final draft of my first ‘grown up’ novel (not Pride & Princesses!) to and it was slightly “unpunctuated.”

He looked at me like I was delusional. He wondered if I’d forgotten how to punctuate my work.

But what can I say?

I was very young.

“I wrote it in a hurry,” I said. “An editor is just going to impose punctuation anyway,” I added, rather bizarrely as I grabbed my new red coat and attempted to leave his office to go to lunch with my new boyfriend.  

Not impressed? Strangely, he wasn’t either. Sometimes teenagers have more on their minds than what is at hand – even so, I’d left myself open to criticism.

Don’t do it.

It’s not worth it.

Yes, the agent laughed (he had a good sense of humour) …but he also told me to go home and punctuate the manuscript properly.

I took his point and did it.

I guess this ‘drafting & refining’ process could end if and when you bring on board an agent, editor, copy editor or publisher, but my feeling is, the process is just going to begin again. (Lucky you – but hey, by now you might have a deal which really does make you lucky – if it’s a good one!)

 So, in summary: At first draft, you should look at structure and tone. And for the subsequent drafts (up to about nine or ten) you should keep going…

·         Is your structure rock solid?

·         Is your tone what it should be?

I had a problematic character in that first novel (remember, I wrote it when I was eighteen) and a reader remarked that this character ‘seemed angry’ and that it bothered him.

I wasn’t sure what was wrong with having an ‘angry’ character, but in retrospect, it might be an idea to save the ‘angry’ character for a little further into your novel and maybe even your career.

It depends, of course, on the style and genre of your novel. If you are writing something for children, well, it might not be necessary at all. Remember, I am just giving suggestions.

·         Sometimes you get more with sugar than vinegar. You just do.

·         Sometimes you have to play tough but if you’re young, it pays to be (slightly humble). I respect that.

·         I don’t like arrogance. I don’t care how high up in the publishing world a person is, if I encounter it I avoid it.

·         There is a place for presenting an over-confident persona but I don’t think that’s necessarily the way to approach the business of publishing.

·         But it’s your call.

·         It certainly doesn’t pay to be a wilting wildflower either. People might treat you disrespectfully or dismissively (though both are really the same thing).

·         Publishing is a tricky business to navigate unless you have rock-solid contacts who introduce you at the top end of town (ie. amongst people who actually make deals). If you have to get beyond the gate keepers then you are going to need some serious skills. That said, you might also choose to go it alone but I think you should still educate yourself about the business of publishing before making an informed decision.

·         You are going to find that out the hard way, or the easy way, yourself (and by then, my advice is going to be redundant, probably!)  

·         Do your research, be quietly confident (until you are ready to shout to the rooftops) and work hard… there is no substitute for that (except maybe, connections but they are only going to get you so far, maybe through a door no more… of course, if you’ve got them… you might want to tap into them… right about now.)

·         That said, you learn very little of worth in this world without trying things for yourself. I’m not suggesting you have to try things that are bad for you to know they are bad for you.

·         But you will never understand the business of trying to get published through traditional channels (if that is what you want) without actually trying yourself. From the ground up. Now, there’s another story…

HOW TO WRITE A NOVEL IN TWELVE STEPS: Smoothing Rough Edges #Step TEN

HOW TO WRITE A NOVEL IN TWELVE STEPS: Smoothing Rough Edges #Step TEN

Here’s where you might be at by now.

You have a first draft and a lot of questions.

You have a lot of scenarios and a lot of unresolved conflict. You have a lot of ‘rough edges’.

At least I hope you do.

I’m going to describe this in music terms. To me, words are a bit like music. The best music is a lot of notes sequenced in a certain way that makes sense to the composer. They are played by the musician.

You are the writer of your novel.

Until your draft heads to the editors and copy editors (if you've worked hard and you're lucky) you are both composer and musician.

You decide what to play and how to play it.

Sentences are like a lot of notes strung together. They might sound terrible, or, after a lot of practice, they might sound beautiful.

To you, they might be something different altogether to music but this is my take on it all.

Rough Draft Exhibit A:

One of the first pages of what became “Pride & Princesses” (I say ‘one’ because there is an earlier draft) but you get the idea…

PRIDE & PRINCESSES

Chapter 1

Arrivals

    The day Mark Knightly transferred to Sunrise High from some snooty boarding school in England was the day Mouche and I began the Boy-Rating Diaries. They weren’t written in the traditional manner although they started that way. We wrote our thoughts on pink notepaper and used a feathered pen popular with countless teenage girls from previous generations. Suddenly, the secret diary became a blog that ended up as a how-to-guide to dating within the hallowed halls of our Performing Arts School. We went from social wallflowers to social winners in under a month all because our fantasy men walked the halls one surprising day in September and stopped to ask my best friend Mouche directions to  home room. ‘And not a minute too soon,’ Mouche noted, ‘I was beginning to think high school could only be fun in movies.’

    It was our junior year and from the instant we took Mark’s photo, blogged and tagged him, the meanest girls in school, Teegan, Freya, Brooke and Tory (the Princesses), sat up and started to take notice of all the great advice we shared about boys in our weekly column, The Sunrise High Newsfest. Of course, Mouche (pronounced in the French way – Moosh) never really planned to let love into the picture but that was before Mark Knightly entered our world and we hit on the idea of dating twelve different boys, one for each month.

    Mark was the first month, his friend Jet the next. Thoughts of them filled our every waking moment but that’s not what I’m meant to say and certainly not how it seemed to others at the time. Neither Mouche nor I realized that the start of the new school year would result in us both scribbling ‘I heart Mark’ and ‘I heart Jet’ in the spaces of our play scripts. But I digress…

If you are reading this, you’ll notice I made many changes between this and the page I eventually published:

PRIDE & PRINCESSES

Chapter 1

Arrivals

    The first time I saw Mark Knightly, my world changed forever.

    That morning began almost like any other. Eyes closed, under a cloud of dark hair, I tried to avoid waking up. I had trained myself to sleep through almost any noise, including the sound of the builders constructing a new house, across the road from my own.  But when the jackhammer rang out for the third time, my best friend, Mouche (pronounced Moosh), screamed. She was curled up in a cashmere blanket on the faux chaise lounge in the corner of my bedroom catching up on her beauty sleep.

     ‘Enough already...’ she said theatrically, throwing her pillow at me as a sliver of light streamed through the open curtains. ‘Another bright and shiny Los Angeles day,’ Mouche added as she flipped off the couch and flicked her blonde highlights off her face. Mouche rubbed her eyes and glanced at the framed photograph of the Statue of Liberty. She gave it to me for luck, for my birthday and because Mouche and I have wanted to live in New York City for as long as I could remember.

      ‘Never give up on the dream, Phoebe,’ Mouche said when she presented the picture to me, ‘New York is a great place to be a triple threat whereas Los Angeles is all about the movies, darling.’

      I glanced at the shifting sky and wondered how Mouche managed to look like a movie star at 8am. I threw the pillow right back at her…

    ‘You have glitter face, Mouche.’ I said as I stretched my legs, ‘and I’m running late. My mom’s plane arrives at the airport in...exactly eight minutes...I promised we’d pick her up. C’mon, we’ve got to be ready...you need to get dressed.’

Practise those sentences of your draft as you would the piano.

All those words need some cohesion.

There is no easy way to do this.

You need to spend a lot of time and effort, refining your novel – word by word, sentence by sentence.

Let me repeat - there is no easy way to write your own novel, from scratch.

I wish there was, but there isn’t.

You are either born brilliant or you have to practise. I definitely have to practise…

HOW TO WRITE A NOVEL IN TWELVE STEPS: Love your characters; love your places #Step NINE

HOW TO WRITE A NOVEL IN TWELVE STEPS: Love your characters; love your places #Step NINE

This is obvious.

And yet, it’s not.

You are going to be living with and working with, these characters. They are going to occupy your mind for a certain section of the day (& night).

I don’t care if your main characters are the meanest girls in school (In Pride & Princesses those characters are Teegan, Tory, Brooke and Freya) - you better find some love for them.

The novels I read in my formative years (i.e. teenage years) included characters, main characters even, that would now be regarded as “unsympathetic”. My favourite novel (The Outsiders) is narrated by Ponyboy Curtis – who is definitely “sympathetic” – but he also seemed real to me.

Let’s say this word again together:

“Unsympathetic.”

I really don’t like that word, but it is a categorization too often used in publishing and movies etc.

Here’s the thing. Most agents and publishers want you to have characters readers cannot only relate to – but like. 

The problem is, real life is filled with unsympathetic characters.

You have to decide what you want.

Maybe not straight away – not if this is the first draft of your first novel (everyone thinks they are autobiographical or at the very least semi-autobiographical anyway!)

Do you want to be a certain kind of writer?

Do you want to omit certain “unsympathetic” characters (and by that, I mean characters a reader or audience won’t like?) Do you want the work to serve you (i.e. make you some money) or do you want to serve your work?

Making some money up front might be a good idea. Assuming you need it, and most people do.

Money creates an opportunity for you to have freedom - theoretically. If you are lucky enough to get the opportunity to make some money from your art and someone wise wants you to make your characters “more sympathetic” in return, you could always consider it.

You should also consider the story you are telling and how to be true to it.

I once wrote a little story which was based on my college years. It contained a lot of unsympathetic characters. It contained bad language and compromising positions. It wasn’t cruel but it wasn’t nice. It was very real. The boys weren’t gentlemen and the girls didn’t behave the way society dictates smart girls should.

And boy, this hit a sore note with some people who read it. My main character was only eighteen. She was smart, she knew a lot, she had an opinion, she was blonde and she was pretty. Readers (and by readers, I mean commissioning editors and publishers) loved her… and they hated her.

They were afraid.

I was asked to make big changes.

Rather than make my characters “sympathetic” I shelved it. I was very young. At the time, it was the right thing to do.

You have to decide who your characters are going to be and what they are going to do.

A note on YA writing:

Writing for young adults is a (slightly) different animal. There should be a sense of colour and character development. But you might want to think about how you are going to develop certain characters and situations.

Writing with young teens in mind (particularly girls) makes me aware of certain values I’d like to install in my own daughter should I have one. I don’t think there is anything to be gained by my ultimately promoting a character that is behaving in a bullying way (for example) to a YA audience. I think readers know it’s wrong, but there is nothing wrong with proving that on the page. Even if, in life, it sometimes seems the bullies win.

Some more thoughts about the young adult genre:

It’s huge, we know it.

It seemed to start with JK Rowling, went on to Stephanie Meyer and carried on with Suzanne Collins (to name just a few of the notable writers out there). It really started a lot earlier, it just wasn't known as such.

That said, if Jane Austen were writing today she might be writing chic-lit or YA and she wouldn’t be surprised that because a woman was writing it, it had been categorized in a “less serious” or dismissive way… (Think Twilight). That series has sold millions of copies but for every lover there has been a backlash - even though a lot of people (mostly women) enjoyed it. Tons of guys – in particular – seem to love heavy duty sci-fi, but we don’t hear the same kind of backlash... this genre is discussed far more seriously, in the main. Of course there are parodies, but I hope you get my point. There are double standards in publishing as there are in life. At the end of the day some people want to make art, almost everyone wants to make money. It's great when the two are combined. 

One of my favourite current series (and a favourite series of many others) is The Hunger Games. This series, like Harry Potter, appeals to boys, girls and grown-ups.

It has been almost universally praised. (What did I mention about ‘you can’t please everyone?’)

But returning for a moment to the double standard in publishing. It started hundreds of years ago when the Brontes wrote to get published and had to use boy’s names…

And yet, the majority of readers (and maybe even writers now – especially unpaid ones!) are female.

Go figure… now that you know this, I’d kind of forget it. Go find some characters to love and some great stories to tell.

Note: I think Jane Austen (if she were writing today) would have allowed her female characters to be trailblazers and maybe not be ruled by what society dictates they should do… Err, is that unsympathetic?

Um… well, yes. Of course it is.

HOW TO WRITE A NOVEL IN TWELVE STEPS: The Ending (#STEP EIGHT)

HOW TO WRITE A NOVEL (STEP EIGHT: THE ENDING)

Put on those working boots and WORK, Lovelies. Remember you are no where near finished. You are only on the ROUGH DRAFT in your journey of novel-dom.

That said, sometimes it pays to think about the ending at the beginning.

Then again, I think the ending writes itself (metaphorically, of course).  

You still have to be the one to input those words.

If you’ve drafted the beginning and the middle, by now you have a strong feeling of where your novel is headed.

If you don’t, you should probably go back and elaborate until you do have a strong feeling of where it’s headed. It may be in an initial plan (ie. Phoebe and Mouche go to Paris…)

·         Your ending doesn’t have to be perfect.

·         Remember, we are just completing the draft.

I don’t know about you but my endings aren’t even close to finished – as in ‘polished’ by my first, second and third drafts, mostly. Pride & Princesses was different. The ending was very important to me because it allowed me to ‘get away’ with the light tone that covers most of the novel. I wanted to bring some resonance to the beginning, to change things. I like to be surprised when I read. That said, some of my retellings are true to the original stories (particularly Anne Eyre which is based on Jane Eyre). Retellings are meant to be just that. Anne Eyre, Wuthering Nights and Truly are ‘inspired’ by Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights and Persuasion. I’m not trying to re-invent the wheel with them, I’m just trying to re-enjoy stories I loved.  

So, here’s where we’re at:

·         The ending should complete the story

·         In some way, it should satisfy.

When I say, ‘in some way’ please note I’m not saying, ‘in all ways.’

You are NEVER going to please all the people all the time.

Well, probably never. You should aim to please yourself, in the first instance. This is very important.

I’m not saying all endings of ‘good novels’ (and this is subjective), satisfy.

Some leave many unanswered questions.

The ending of The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern (those who know me know this is one of my favourite novels on the planet!) leaves some questions. It is ‘interpretable’ by the reader – well, I thought it was.

In my opinion, an ending that asks more questions than it answers is no less of an ending than one that ties it all up in a ribbon.

If it’s the last page of the novel, people, it’s the ending!

·         Make it unique

·         Make it memorable

·         Make it speak to you (& your readers)

If you read the ending (or the final chapter) and you felt differently at the end of that last sentence than you did at the beginning of your draft - if it made you feel something, then you’ve completed your mission – the first part of it, anyway. 

That’d be great.

At this point you could show it to fresh eyes. But I wouldn’t. You may be exhausted drained and ‘over it’ already, but take a few days and re-charge. Some people are critics by nature and many people think they can write a novel – they may even start to tell you about theirs – but we’re interested in yours (and mine!)

I did something with the ending of Pride & Princesses that a few readers found ‘controversial’.

I thought twice about doing it, but in the end, the main character told that story her way - I just typed the words into my laptop. I know that sounds weird but there was almost a strange kind of alchemy in the ending of that story. I always thought of it as the completion of a tapestry. This YA, appearing so basic, has a (hidden!) complexity by the finale.

I have no way of explaining the ‘elixir’ of an ending – the novel draft has a beginning, middle and the beginning of the end. All I know is, if you’ve done that…

*CONGRATULATIONS*!

You have your first draft.

The writing of your draft, the basis of your novel, is going to be kind of a mystery wrapped around a riddle.

If you’ve done your homework (found your space, your seat, your desk, your food, your support network), educated yourself about what you want to write about, somehow found ‘inspiration’ from all the words in your mind or the sketches you draw. If you've formed some sort of comprehensible order to them, you should have a draft by now.

It’s probably taken you a few weeks (anything from one – if you literally haven’t stopped writing – to six). I would try to complete that first draft in a month – depending on the complexity. Obviously, if you are writing Anna Karenina you are not going to complete the draft that quickly!

I do my first drafts as quickly as possible. It’s just the way I work. My first drafts are usually not very good – but they are mine. You might want to take longer, but don’t take too long. This may sound weird, but you might actually lose interest in your own writing if you leave that first draft too long before the next part – refining it, again and again and again...

And that’d be terrible, really, it would. Forget about everything everyone else tells you. Who says your voice isn’t worth hearing?

Certainly not me.

*Of course, if even you think your first draft is really really terrible, if it captures your attention by just how bad it is, congratulations. You have enough taste to recognize this! You might want to call on some help, but that’s up to you. That belongs in a different series.   

For the purposes of this we are a ‘go-it-alone-or-go-home’ kind of ‘how-to-series’.

I’m not saying ‘going it alone’ is the only way to go, but if you’re broke and living in an attic… well, you might not have any choice in the matter.