Writer's Blog: Writing a Nover - More Sub-plot Symbolism

This will be a quick run through of the remaining questions of Chapter 4 of Writing A Novel.

There are five more questions in this section.(Pages 46 & 47)

In the interest of expedience I'm going to skip over question 3. It asks about unwitting symbolic elements to the story and I don't feel I've much to say on that.

Question four is far more interesting. It gives three one line synopses of a story and then asks for thoughts on sub-plots. In brackets are the possible themes of the stories. I'm just going to look at one of them.

'An out-of-work actor impersonates a woman to get work, and becomes a soap-opera star (men are very different from women).' (P47)

Now I would say that if this is your story its probable going to be a comedy. (Though it would be interesting to see this as a serious story.) So that gives ideas of sub-plot. In this type of story the secret would be a big issue. A gay woman could fall for him, believing the disguise, or perhaps a gay man falls for him not believing the disguise - and all the while the poor out-of-actor is in love with the young casting director who may fire him if she finds out his secret.

As odd as it may sound I almost want to write that story now.

The last three questions are all about names. The name of the novel and the names of the characters. What is being emphasised here is that a different name can have a different influence on how the character is viewed. This is a personal thing. If, for instance, you were bullied for years by someone called Alex - then it is doubtful that you would name a character this. So the name of a character will never be right for everyone - just try and make sure it sounds right to you and isn't accidentally the same name as a, either fictional or real, famous person.

Writer's Blog: Masters.

Just wanted to give you all a quick update. I have been accepted on a scriptwriting masters at Glamorgan University. This is a two year part time course and I'm really looking forward to it!

Since this course is part time I should be able to work as well. I'm hoping that being at university will mean that prospective employers will know what box to put me in. A person on a master's course applying for bar work makes a certain amount of sense. Most of my work will be personal study.

I'll talk more about this after my first weekend (Friday and Saturday) of study.

Writer's Blog: Writing a Novel - Sub-plot and Symbolism

Looking again at Writing a Novel I have decided to look just at the 'Things to Try' section.

I don't know what the rules are about quoting a novel on the Internet. Yet it seems to me that mention of new laws being passed and silly legislation come up far too frequently.

So here goes...

These questions come from page 46 and 47 of the book.

The first two questions cover the main plot and sub-plot of a novel. I am working on two novels. My fantasy novel is Lord of the Rings-esk but, I believe, still quite different. So it doesn't have much in the way of sub-plots. Rather the story is all about people doing what they think is best and the consequences of their actions.

My science fiction novel does have sub-plots. Actually the issue with it at the moment is that I'm not sure what the main plot is. I have a protagonist and it is the story of her life. I have flash points - events that spur her on - but I'm not sure how to interconnect them. In case that's unclear you can't just have the big events in a vacuum. Say you're writing a novel of two people and how they became a couple. A reader may know that is ultimately what is going to happen but you have to have mundane aspects of life interspersed.

This character joins Astrofleet, essential Starfleet, and it is about her career. However she needs to be actually doing something - even though the story is about her and not the mission.

I have watched several documentaries on Royal Navy ships, which gives something of an idea, but in my universe a lot of the day-to-day work can be done by robots. So if anyone from the navy, any navy, happens to stumble onto this could you answer a question for me? Say you're home port is in Portsmouth and you're deployed to the Middle East - on that journey, aside from drills and such - what do you do? I'd imagine that whilst travelling around friendly waters there isn't that much.

One thing I'm slowly discovering about a novel is that it doesn't have to be about anything. I'm reading Looking for Alaska at the moment. Its a good book but actually not a lot happens. Its a difficult thing to explain. There are a few actual events but mostly its people smoking and drinking. The character's are clear though and the first person narrative is very helpful.

Writing is a strange thing.

Writer's Blog: Looking For Alaska

Three days ago I finished Looking for Alaska. It is written by John Green. In other words this guy.



In case you are unfamiliar John Green is one half of the Vlogbrothers . Their videos are very good but this post is supposed to be about the book.

Looking for Alaska is a excellent novel. I won't write up the blurb here because it gives too much away. It is the story of Miles Halter who goes to boarding school and meets Alaska Young. There is a definite story here but what I find interesting is most of the actual scenes are just the group of friends talking, drinking and smoking. Yet from this, and the pranks they play, we get to know the characters.

With every book I read I lean something knew. This book has showed me that a story can easily be formed by chronicling every day occurrences.

Now I'm reading Star Trek Vanguard - Summon the Thunder.

Writer's Blog: Sorting Through The Pictures

My father has been setting up backups for me recently. The website we're using is called Spideroak. In a shameless bit of self promotion if you need backups you could consider Spideroak and, if you used this link I'll get more space!

Anyway enough of that. The point of this post is that one of the things being backed up are my photos. I don't take many but have a few hundred collected over the last few years. As I've said before photos are important to a blog so I'll be using some of them for future posts.

That's all for now - more posts coming soon.

Writer's Blog: Long Time No See

Its been nearly two weeks since I last posted. I wish I could say its because I've been doing a lot but that would be a lie.

I did spend a week in Tenby and utterly failed to take any pictures! My family go to Tenby every year. Its a great place but somehow this year it wasn't quite as good.

I'm quite an intense person. I don't relax very well and am always concerned about the next thing I have to do. When I go to Tenby it is a time to relax. Its almost magical how wonderful the feeling is of being in that place and feeling that their are no troubles in you're life. This time however it didn't come.

Don't get me wrong I enjoyed the trip but the feeling of relief was never quite there. I think I know why that was. I was aware that it was another year in Tenby and nothing had changed. I kept hoping that one year we would go and I would have a job. Therefore I could afford to pay my way a lot more and really contribute to the holiday. Still I have no job. (If not a job at least a girlfriend.)

I do have a degree in Creative and Professional Writing but I've yet to find a job that specifically calls for that particular qualification. It may be that one doesn't exist. So I'll continue looking for work and working on my novel.

I'm sorry to be such a downer - I sound worse than Jack Dee - but I see to be flipfloping between being silly happy and silly sad.

There will be more stuff to come this week. I'm hoping that that will include some pictures from Birthday.2 on Saturday.

Hope you have/have had a great day.

Writer's Blog: Uncomfortable Chair

Once a fortnight I have to go into town to go to the job centre. Usually I stay in town for the rest of the day and find a place to sit and write. I don't want to have to pay to do this so I go to Cardiff Central Library. Let me tell you something...

Cardiff Central Library specialise in the most uncomfortable chairs known to humankind! These chairs are hard, inflexible, they bow inwards, and there aren't enough of them by sockets. Some of the chairs have little tables attached to them. I've tried using them and the table never quite seems to be in the right position - also these mini-tables seem only just big enough for my tiny laptop!

I have only a vague memory of the previous library. This was at a time before I discovered the wonder of books. That library wasn't pretty but it was packed full of books and proper chairs!

When I have the money I'm going to buy a really nice chair from Staples. At least it should be really nice - the one I have my eye on is around £200!

Writer's Blog: Writer's Wondering

I was walking through town the other day. There were some people on the street selling some sort of accident - 'Have you been injured on work or on the road'- type insurance. I had the strange desire to 'trip' over their sign and get the company to sue themselves!

Writer's Blog: Reviewing

Since leaving university, and before, I have considered how I can use my degree in the real world. Ideally I'd like to work for a short story magazine. However such things, and again Star Trek is my reference, may not exist any more. So while the magazine depicted in 'Far Beyond the Stars' may have existed in the 1950s I doubt such a thing would be around today.

Reviewing is something I'm looking into. Reviewing may not be a way to make money necessarily but it does mean that an author has to provide you with a copy of their book. For me as an avid reader this is a wonderful thing. Then over time I should be able to develop a name for myself. That, I think, is the important thing to learn about writing, that each time you write you are developing your trade.

Reviewing is an especially interesting form of writing. Almost anything reviewed will probably have been reviewed before. Not only will some people find a book excellent while others find the same book rubbish, but they may have these opposite opinions for precisely the same reasons.

Raymond Chandler said that writers have 'a million words of crap to get out of their system.' I must be well on my way. If you are writing keep at it and finish something. - I haven't finished my novel yet so do as I say not as I do.

Writer's Blog: Nudity and Violence in films.

For a while I've been considering posting short pieces about various random things. I don't have a specific game plan here but for today I want to discuss films.

Just a brief not before I start. I live in Wales so I know British film certification. At the moment film certificates are as follows: Universal, PG, 12A, 12, 15, 18, R18. So if I refer to a films rating this is the system I will use. If you need these terms explained there is a great page on wikipedia about it. You can see this page by clinking - BBFC.

If you use you tube then you will know that nudity is not allowed but strangely violence is. I saw this video a while ago...



... and in trying to find this video I found another which had a man stabbing a woman. This was a clip from a film, obviously, but it is still allowed on you tube. I'm not saying it shouldn't be allowed, that's not what this is about, it's just strange that it is. Strange because if someone wanted to do a vlog naked and talking about their love of kittens they wouldn't be able to.

Now this discussion can lead to a lot of silliness. I will admit their are some very attractive you tubers and I could turn this into a 'Who, on you tube, would you most like to see naked?' type thing. I'm not going to do that. I'm simply going to ask a question. Why is it that we, as a society in general, are prepared to have images of violence more accessible than just a nude image?

I'm not talking about porn, or even sex in movies, that's another kettle of fish entierly. I'm just talking about a naked person. That idea without context. Yes if naked blogging became a thing on you tube then those people would be sexualised - however that is in the mind of the viewer.

(In the same way that a father might sit and watch children's TV with his kids becasuse of the presenter's low cut top.)

I think that simply being naked should not be considered as much of a problem as it is.

Of course this may largely be an issue for the western world. In some parts of Africa the women go around topless. If there was a news story their then the presenters would be allowed to show these senses - even before the watershed. However, and admittedly this may not be true, if a female presenter decided to live amongst the tribe, for a documentary, and live like they do I imagine that the camera would have to be kept high.

This has been something of a rambling post. So in closing I just want to break it down simply. Why is it that we feel that showing our children a man getting hacked to pieces by a sword is all right, the film would probably only be a 15; but a film with innuendo, full frontal nudity but no actual sex would be an 18?

I don't have children but when I do I wonder what choices I will make in this regard. I don't believe that watching excessive violence will turn them into a violent person. I also don't believe that nudity is particularly problematic either. What do you think?