What’s The Story? by Fiona Cassidy (#2)
February 6th, 2010 by Leah
Following on from her first installment back in January (Where It All Began), I now give you Fiona Cassidy’s second (of twelve) blogs we’ll be posting throughout the year!
When penning a novel an important thing to think about is the subject matter that you intend to use for your main storyline and what style of writing would best suit it. I learnt how to find my ‘voice’, as it’s commonly referred to in the literary world, through trial and error and seeing what worked and more often than not what was rejected, commented upon or encouraged!
The subject matter of the first novel I ever wrote entitled ‘Ripped Genes’ (now re-written and called Anyone for Me? and to be published in August) was adoption. It featured a young woman who embarked on a quest to find her ‘birth’ mother. This story meant a lot to me and was of significant importance as I am adopted myself and I found writing ‘my story’, so to speak, both therapeutic and cathartic. This taught me my first important lesson in the art of creating a work of fiction – write about what you know! Now, I am not suggesting that you victimise the aunt you don’t like by bringing her to a sticky end (enjoyable though it would be) or stick members of your family into convoluted love triangles (although it would probably be a good laugh) but crafting a novel from experiences you’ve had or emotions you may feel is a good idea as there is no need for any painstaking research (although I do take my hat off to those who do research their work!) Some people may not be comfortable with the idea of their readers knowing where they got their ideas from but personally I find it warming and engaging when I know that people are writing from the heart, as I was.
When developing characters it is up to you how closely they mirror ‘real life’ people. In my experience as a novelist I think you do inevitably end up putting a little bit of yourself and probably traits of other people you know into your characters – anyone who says otherwise is lying or else wanting to dodge a libel suit (I jest)!! On a more serious note, however, developing your characters is a crucial step and one which shouldn’t be rushed. Your central character is key to whether or not your novel is successful as readers need to find a certain empathy or sympathy with them or at least a common bond! I used to enjoy reading parts of what I had written to my creative writing class as the heroine strangely was five foot and not an inch more (a bit like me), had blonde hair (a bit like me) and adopted and looking for answers (a bit like…yes you get the general drift.) She also got into no end of trouble and attracted disaster from a five mile radius…hmmm.
A story must also have a start, a middle and an end and the first few sentences must be enough to grab the reader’s attention and it must end with a bang having come complete circle throughout with all loose ends tied.
I had always believed that before submitting to publishers you had to have a book completed but was surprised and amazed that this was not the case. On the advice of my tutor I purchased a copy of the Writer’s and Artist’s Yearbook (otherwise known as the bible in writing circles) and began to look for agents and publishers who would be interested in receiving a sample of the type of writing I did – women’s fiction.
And that’s when the fun really started. I wasn’t disillusioned enough to think that I would get published right away but having read the stories of some of my heroines where they told of getting ‘picked up’ almost immediately I thought that the process might have been a bit quicker. I learnt the hard way, however, that patience is indeed a virtue – the only fact that the wise man who created this statement omitted to say was that it was required mostly when waiting for agents and publishers to reply!
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