Category Archives: Writing

ELAINE SPIRES: TURNING A NOVEL INTO A STAGE PLAY

Posted on by

In her second article Elaine Spires turns a novel into a stage play

In my previous article – Turning a Stage Play into a Novel – I shared my experiences of turning two of my plays into novels and of the relative ease with which this was done. Writing a play from a book (Singles’ Holiday) proved much harder.

Photo credit: Danann Breathnach

Originally I wanted to write a screenplay but knew the probabilities of getting it in front of anyone that mattered were slightly less than winning the Euromillions next Friday. And although I know lots of actors, writers and directors, I unfortunately don’t know anyone with the financial means to make such a film or TV series. Producing Singles’ Holiday for the stage, however, was much more feasible.

The book has a fairly large cast of characters, and I wanted them all to appear in the play.  This was impossible.  As interesting as their backstories were and of importance in explaining how this totally diverse group of people come to holiday together in Antigua, it couldn’t be told in two hours.  So the culling of characters began.  It felt like I was murdering my own children.

To start, I took a red pen to all the minor characters.  Then I concentrated on those remaining to move the story along and produce my first draft. I’ve always preferred writing dialogue, but writing only dialogue proved a challenge resulting in lengthy stage directions.

The draft was four hundred and two pages: totally unrealistic as it would mean a six-hour show.  Actor Nick Campbell who knew the book well, had encouraged me to write the script and wanted to produce the play sat down with me and after much foot-stamping on my part persuaded me to cut two more characters but this meant we lost a huge plot twist.

I feared this would diminish the story but I could see that he was right; it was better to concentrate on writing a play that worked rather than a faithful rehash of the book that didn’t.  There’s nothing worse than theatre that doesn’t entertain.

It turned out to be sound advice.  I realised that Singles’ Holidays is, in fact, almost three books in one and by carefully plotting the story arc and concentrating on a smaller cast it could work well.

Once the second draft was ready I got a group of actors together for a table read.  This is a vital part of the playwriting process as it’s the first time a writer sees her characters come to life and hears them speak, outside her own head, of course.  It also shows what works theatrically and what doesn’t. As this draft was over two hundred pages I already knew further editing would be necessary.  I made copious notes and worked on the script again. Cutting out two further characters and their dialogue brought us to one hundred and sixty pages.

And it was time for another table read.  A fabulous director friend Jane Gull came along and was brutally honest with me, asking,

“Whose story is it, Elaine?”

This one question (answer – Eve the tour manager’s) showed me what I needed to do: cut out anything superfluous to developing her story.

Finally, I had a one-hundred-and-thirty-page play script. Another table reading showed it worked!

And in October 2014, Singles’ Holiday had a hugely successful week’s run at the Brentwood Theatre, courtesy of Melabeau Productions.

Singles’ Holiday is now the first in the six-book Singles’ Series. The others are set in worldwide tourism destinations and continue Eve’s story.  I still think they would make great TV.  Does anyone know someone at Netflix?

 

www.elainespires.co.uk

 

 

 

 

ELAINE SPIRES: TURNING A STAGE PLAY INTO A NOVEL

Posted on by

In the first of two articles Elaine Spires shares the secrets of turning a stage play into a novel

My first novel, What’s Eating Me, started life as a stage play.  It’s the story of Eileen Holloway, a struggling single parent of two teenage boys who’s holding down a demanding job while dealing with her difficult mother. Food is the drug of choice that gets her through the day until she is tricked into appearing on Barbara’s Beautiful Bodies, a reality TV show. She becomes a celebrity over night, albeit a reluctant one. Compulsive overeating is a grossly misunderstood condition and it was a story I was keen to tell.

Photo credit: Danann Breathnach

The play was a one-woman show, which I took to the Edinburgh Fringe. Although we played in a tiny venue, it had great reviews.  Afterwards, though, I just couldn’t let Eileen go. So I decided to turn her story into my first book.

As the play was a three-act soliloquy – Eileen sharing her thoughts with the audience – it seemed to me logical that the book should be written in the first person (I) as this would tell Eileen’s story in her own voice, giving it an intimacy that would have been missing in the third person (she).

A huge advantage for a writer turning a play into a novel is that the characters have already been brought to life and their voices have been heard. A great tip for writing novels, especially dialogue, is to read your words out loud to hear the characters’ voices and when converting a play this part has already been done for you.  Your characters are already 3-dimensional and alive; you’ve seen and heard them. The audience feedback i.e. where they reacted by laughing, gasping, clapping, stunned silences or – hopefully not – bored indifference is also a great indicator of what’s working and what isn’t, not just re dialogue but also plot twists and story arc.  I would recommend watching your play performed as many times as possible. You’ll be surprised that you see something different every time. Actor input also plays a helpful, vital role.

Regardless of when events and back stories appeared in the play my first step was to put them into chronological order thus giving me a time line of scenes. Then I worked on each scene, developing character/personality traits, adding or expanding on backstory thus giving not only deeper insights to the individual characters but explaining, in this case, Eileen’s reactions to them.  This I call sprinkling the glitter – where the creative process really gets to work. It’s the part where ideas often appear from nowhere that move the plot along or take it in a different direction. This, in turn, helped demonstrate the Why behind Eileen’s self-destructive behaviour. In the end, although the main events of the story occur in diary form in the novel, backstory events are revealed as and when the plot demands it, thus producing twists.  And everyone loves a twist, don’t they? Perhaps this sounds complicated but with detailed A3 sheets on the wall covered in post-it notes, it worked for me.

I thoroughly enjoyed this way of writing and so another play – Sweet Lady – became my second novel.  And this book, too, is written in first person, although quite different from What’s Eating Me.  The rest of my novels haven’t been plays but I always visualise them as such, making notes and envisaging scenes of dialogue, which I perform aloud – fortunately I live alone – before I start the proper writing of the book.

Readers often remark that my books would make great TV series. I think that’s the result of the way I plan.

 

www.elainespires.co.uk

 

 

 

 

 

WELSH WRITING WEDNESDAYS: INTRODUCING CRIME WRITER GAIL WILLIAMS

Posted on by

I am a writer. That thought has been with me for as long as I can remember. I am a writer.

It’s not complicated, but it’s not something I was confident to say until fairly recently. So, hello, I am GB Williams, a crime writer. I have always known that writing is what I was supposed to do, though not what I’ve always done, still it’s what I’m here to talk about, I’m here to introduce you to my writing.

The Chair is a thriller-romance set on Cader Idris, in beautiful southern Snowdonia. The heart of the story starts with a hacker taking what he shouldn’t in London, and when cyber threats turn to physical threats, he has to run as far from the internet as possible. Remembering his parents’ complaints of no signal in north Wales is what brings him to Cadre Idris. Poor driving and the resulting crash is what keeps him there and draws local vet, Branwen Jones and the local hermit, Cobb, into his world of trouble.

Having grown up in the southeast and lived more than half my life in Wales, I know both sides of this story well enough to feel I can do justice to both worlds.

There are a lot of contrasts between London and Wales. Pace of life. Freshness of the air. The wide-open spaces, or lack thereof. But there are strong similarities too. We are all humans trying to survive after all.

That drive is what takes us all though life, and we discover different things alone the way, sometimes to find what we don’t know we’re looking for, we have to change trajectory.  That’s something I did, moved from a high-pressure office job, to writing and editing, and I love it, never been happier.

Changing trajectory is what I do with the characters in The Chair.

Cobb comes to Pen-Y-Cwm after tragedy changes his life. All he wants to be is alone to avoid heartache – only meeting Branwen threatens to drag him out of such splendid isolation. Branwen is looking to leave Pen-Y-Cwm because she can’t take the isolation and heartache of being there, a pain Cobb’s presence exacerbates. Jay is looking to make a quick buck in London, but to save his life he has to run, ending up in Pen-Y-Cwm. Baron works for money, inflicting pain isn’t what he enjoys, it’s just something he’s paid to do. He goes to Pen-Y-Cwm, because that is where he’s sent. He’d happily leave Branwen and Cobb alone, but they are between him and the mark.

This disparate group of people come together for a life-threatening climax, that you’ll just have to read to find out who survives, and decide for yourself if you think they should.

 

 

The Chair

Cobb retreated to Cadre Idris for a solitary life of peace and quite. It’s a bubble that bursts when he and Branwen Jones, the local vet, find an RTA victim during a blizzard and must shelter him in Cobb’s home.

When London’s underbelly reaches Wales, they discover that modern inconveniences persist, and this isn’t the uncivilization they know nor the one they expected. Their presence throws close-knit community life into stark relief.

Forced to help hide an injured hacker from people who will kill to stop the spread of stolen information, Cobb’s not sure he’s ready to rejoin the world when that means putting another woman in the firing line. Branwen’s not sure she can face the revelation of her darkest secret.

When they face the final showdown, they will all find that a Welsh mountain is no place to hide.

 

Author’s website: https://gailbwilliams.co.uk/

 

 

 

 

How I got a Literary Agent.

Posted on by

In January this year one of the most amazing things happened to me: I got a literary agent. Having an agent was always something beyond my wildest dreams, more than that, my agent is the amazing Susan Yearwood. Champagne popping time indeed.

I spent the months in the run up to Christmas researching agents and sending off submissions. I went through The Writers’ & Artists’ Yearbook with precision, choosing ten agents to send my book off to. I researched every agent heavily and Susan called to me. There are a few interviews I found in which Susan and her ethos resonated with me. I knew she was The One.  In fact, before her email asking to schedule a call with her, I had a dream she was my agent and we were being interviewed at a literary festival together.

In the end I sent my first novel off to a lot of agents and publishers. I got a lot of good feedback and a few full manuscript requests. I also got a wonderful rejection from Harper Collins, who read the entire thing and sent me four paragraphs of feedback. They even asked me to send them anything else I wrote. In the end Susan passed on my first novel, but she liked my writing enough to ask if I had anything else I could send her. Thankfully I did. I always write a first draft of a book and then get started on another one while I let the other one sit. Then I go back to it with fresh eyes, alternating my drafts. I did not think the other book was ready and had spent hundreds sending it off to a professional editing agency for feedback. By the time the feedback came back Susan had been my agent for three months! It may have been a waste of money, but I have no complaints.

Susan loved the book and took my on as a client after our phone call. I was a true pinch me moment. For anyone who wants an agent and does not have one yet I would say the following things:

  • Write a good book. Send off the first three chapters, along with a synopsis that really grabs.
  • Collate all of the writing you have done and any awards you have won. Write a paragraph about yourself that sells all you have to offer. Covering letters are important.
  • Get a copy of The Write”s and Artists’ Yearbook and research what agents work in your genre.
  • Start submitting.
  • Keep submitting.
  • Take rejection in your stride.
  • Listen to all feedback.
  • Redo your submission to suit various agents.
  • Start writing your new book.

 

Good luck!

 

WELSH WRITING WEDNESDAYS: INTRODUCING AUTHOR AND BLOGGER JESSIE CAHALIN

Posted on by

The tranquil, ancient setting of the Wye Valley always soothes me and encourages me to let my mind wander and have always felt at home there. I was in Tintern five years ago when I realised the need to connect with my dream to write. Indeed, William Wordsworth adored this spot, and his ballad, Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey, captures the beauty of the setting we can still enjoy over two hundred years later.

These waters, rolling from their mountain-springs
With a soft inland murmur.—Once again
Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs,
That on a wild secluded scene impress
Thoughts of more deep seclusion; and connect
The landscape with the quiet of the sky.

Tintern breathed life into the fictional setting of Delfryn in my work in progress, Loving You. Delfryn is a Welsh word for pretty view and the perfect place for my characters, Pearl and Jim, to seek sanctuary from the hustle and bustle of the town. Writing about Delfryn has also been a wonderful destination, particularly during lockdown.

Jim is a car mechanic who wants to be an artist and adores to visit his sister’s farm in Delfryn. Pearl is a seamstress who wants to sing. The landscape inspires Jim to paint and is also the romantic setting for him and Pearl. Alas, life in the country will not allow Pearl to fulfil her dream to become a singer.

Pearl and Jim fall in love but both want to follow their dreams. The novel is set in the seventies because I wanted to travel back in time to the decade I was born. Exploring the seventies was not as familiar as I thought it would be and the restrictive nature of society shocked me. During my research, I reflected on how my parents had very different opportunities to me and used this to add colour to my characters. Like Jim, my late father excelled at art but was from a working class, northern family and was expected to earn a living in a trade.

Despite their experiences, my parents always encouraged me to grab opportunities, pursue my dreams and celebrate creativity. I am also so grateful I can pinpoint the time and place where I chose to change the ‘what ifs’ into a destination. Ironically, I recently discovered that my ancestors hailed from Monmouthshire in the Middle Ages, so it feels as if I have gone full circle.

I will publish Loving You, a family saga, one day and discover whether Pearl and Jim will follow their dreams and their hearts. And the beauty of writing is you can provide the characters with opportunities, but they will still decide which paths they wish to take.

 

Contacts: 

Website:     http://jessiecahalin.com/

Facebook   https://www.facebook.com/people/Jessie-Cahalin/;  https://www.facebook.com/JessieCahalinAuthor/

Twitter        @BooksInHandbag

 

 

 

 

How I Got Published By Alec Marsh

Posted on by

Alec Marsh, writer, authorWhen I was 21 I started to write a novel. It wasn’t very good. I was working as a reporter for a local paper in Cornwall and my book… was about a reporter working for a local paper in Cornwall. 

Soon I moved to London to work for the Daily Telegraph and started writing a second novel. It was about a young journalist working for a newspaper in London. 

It wasn’t very good either. 

I met a top agent at a function and asked him if he’d see it. 

‘What’s it about?’ he asked.

After several seconds of flannelling he cut in: ‘If you can’t tell me in under 11 seconds then I’m not interested.’ 

I’d been introduced to the idea of the elevator pitch. If you can’t encapsulate your idea in a nutshell, you’ve had it.

I kept writing and the rejection slips (paper in those days) kept piling up.

Then one day a friend suggested I try my hand at historical fiction. ‘You’re obsessed about the past,’ he said. And it was true.

About a year later I read The Da Vinci Code, and was hooked. 

And I thought, “I can do that.”

So I started thinking about a historical mystery that could sit at the heart of a story, and some characters that would have sticking power.

That was around 2004. Before I knew it, I had started writing what would become my first novel, Rule Britannia. And I knew I was onto something, I could feel it in my fingertips. My characters – a historian and mountaineer Ernest Drabble and his pal, a journalist named Harris – were alive. And so was the story.

With a half-written book, I started polishing and went looking for an agent. Again the rejection slips piled up (still paper).

Then one day in 2008 an email landed at about 6pm on Saturday evening from an agent. Do you have any more, he asked?

I didn’t sleep that night. Soon I’d emailed the next three chapters, then we had a meeting. After that, I had an agent and went off to finish the book – armed with the self-confidence to finish it properly, to believe in myself and the benefits of his insights.

The agent then took it to market. But it was 2009 and e-readers, Amazon and the global financial crisis was hitting hard, and – for whatever reason – my book didn’t sell. After a dozen very polite rejections from major publishers, my agent suggested I try writing a different book. Which I did. 

For five years I wrote a book set in the First World War, but Drabble and Harris were still in the back of my mind, calling to me from the binary prison of a hard drive. 

By 2015 the First World War book was finished – but so was my relationship with my agent who finally spelled it out to me when he told me this was not a book that he could sell to his clients. We were finished.

Exhausted and disappointed, I stopped knocking on doors that wouldn’t open and focused instead on my day job. Every now and then someone would ask about Drabble and Harris; I would change the subject.

Then my son Herbie was born in 2016, and his arrival rekindled my ambition. So in the small hours, I dug out Rule Britannia and reread it, shook my head at parts that hadn’t aged well, and I polished it. And I pitched it again.

After a string of rejections (emails now), I went direct to publishers, finding an independent in Cardiff, named Accent Press. 

When the owner telephoned me and told me she’d take it – and she’d want two more books after – I was standing in a corridor at work. I didn’t punch the air, but a tear might have come to my eye. It had taken 20 years and I had endured numerous disappointments but it had finally happened. Drabble and Harris would get to their readers, and I was going to have a novel out. So what’s my advice for would-be authors. Don’t give up. And as Martin Amis once told me when I asked him for advice at book-signing: keep writing. After all, what else are you going to do?

Alec Marsh is author of the Drabble & Harris novels, published by Headline Accent. The latest book, ‘Ghosts of the West’ is published in original paperback and ebook on 9 September

 

EVA GLYN ON THE INSPIRATION BEHIND THE OLIVE GROVE

Posted on by

Sometimes an idea for a book creeps into your heart and stays there. That was how The Olive Grove started for me, with a story told by our tour guide when we were on holiday in Croatia.

We were on a small-boat cruise that began in Dubrovnik and after visiting the main islands off the Dalmatian coast and some interesting places on the mainland, ended up in Trogir. And when we were on board travelling there were talks we could listen to and to make our experience complete we wanted to lap up every one.

The war in Yugoslavia was perhaps not a particularly enticing topic when the alternative was to sit on deck, watching the glistening sea ripple alongside the boat while soaking up some sun, but I remembered hearing about the war on the news at the time and was keen to know more. And then, somewhere between the dates, whys and wherefores, our guide Darko began to tell an incredible story. His own.

I suppose I had assumed Darko was Croatian, but he is in fact Bosnian and grew up in Mostar, one of the towns that was to be worst hit by the fighting. His father was a soldier in the Yugoslav army, but when everything fractured and splintered he followed his ethnicity and joined the Croatian side, having to leave his Serbian wife (and Serbia was now the enemy) at home with their sons.

I will never forget the silence in the room at the horror of what we were told. No electricity, no water, bombs raining down, queuing for food at the community organisation – life as we would all recognise it wiped out over the course of a few days in a war that would last for years. Darko’s life moved underground to the shelters, because they were the only safe place. And he was one of the lucky ones, because living in the army housing meant the shelters were purpose-built, deep and strong.

There were moments to awful to contemplate. Darko’s mother actually disappeared, as many people did during ethnic cleansing, but he was one of the few lucky ones because she actually came back. But there were moments of light too; finding a food parcel dropped by the UN and hoping it was one with chocolate inside.

These incidents and more form the kernel of The Olive Grove, but viewed through the prism of time by my proud Croatian character Damir. Orphaned during the war he was brought up by his aunt on the beautiful island of Korcula (which we visited during our trip); brought up to forget everything about his life before he came to the island. But when she dies, the past creeps back to find him.

While Darko wears his wartime past with relative ease (which is often the case when everyone around the child is having the same experiences, when the awfulness becomes a sort of normal), fictional Damir no longer can. And help comes from a surprising quarter. A middle aged English woman called Antonia who feels she has messed up her life so badly she takes a job on the island to take stock and to heal.

And that’s what The Olive Grove is really about. It’s about healing and friendship. Like Darko’s childhood memories there is sunshine and shade. And unlike them there is the most incredibly beautiful setting.

With Darko’s help over countless Zoom meetings during lockdown I have been able to create authentic Croatian characters and culture, so as well as the initial inspiration, there are many other reasons why The Olive Grove could not have been written without him. And what’s even better, we have become friends across the miles too.

How I Got Published Jenny O’Brien

Posted on by

There are many roads to publication. But as a forty-year-old with three kids of three and under, including twins and a busy job as a nurse, none of them were for me – or so I thought. Then a character popped into my mind. An earworm that wouldn’t go away. A little boy called Dai Monday. It took me a year to find the courage to pick up a pen. With no time to write at home and a busy day job, I took to carrying a notebook around in my scrub top. This notebook got filled during my 15 minute coffee breaks. Within 6 weeks I had a very poor, first draft of my first book.

Jenny O'Brien , author, writer, how I got published ,

Fast forward five years. I was still writing but with no thought of publishing until peer pressure and a bullying incident at school led me to self-publish Boy Brainy. Six more years quickly followed in tandem with a box full of rejection letters. I’m not sure how many rejections—too many to count but not so many as to blunt my determination to succeed.

It took twelve years to find a home for my writing. Twelve years when my writing improved, but also the quality of my query letters. Never underestimate the importance of a well-crafted query letter!

But, in the end, the years didn’t count for much. It was a few quirks of fate that pushed me over the finishing line. A change in genre from children’s books to romance and finally crime fiction. BookBub accepting me for a book promotion the first time I applied. One last push to secure a publisher and, finally, engineering the date of the BookBub promotion to coincide with my query letter arriving at HQ Digital, an imprint of Harper Collins.

I said at the start that there are many roads to publication. While I wouldn’t recommend mine to anyone, there are lessons to be learnt. If you are struggling to find the time to write, change how you view time. Chunk it into 15-minute sessions instead of hours. Those few minutes add up. It might mean writing in transit but that’s easily catered for with a notebook or even a mobile phone. To rephrase a well-known saying. There is always a way, but first you must find the will. My BookBub deal was a fluke, but what followed wasn’t. There’s nothing wrong with nudging luck along with a little gentle manoeuvring.

Good luck!

Jenny O’Brien is an Irish writer of the Detective Gaby Darin series published by HQ Digital.