Amazon

Day nineteen and the poop’s hit the fan.

Here’s a woman looking shocked, because that’s probably more palatable than a picture of some shit and a fan.

Image source

The poop’s hit the fan in sort of a good way (if poop hitting a fan can ever be good). But I’ve got to a take a big, deep, gulp of a breath before I go on, because:

36,851 words and part 1 of the novel is done (for now…). Feel I should be celebrating. Going to sleep instead. #nanowrimo

— Lynsey White (@LynseyAnneWhite) November 18, 2014

Last night, rather unexpectedly, part one came, splat, crash, bang to a sudden and unexpected end. (Did I mention it was unexpected?) Somebody hijacked the scene (I will say no more because: spoilers), and just plain stole another character’s Big Moment from under his nose.

And now, and now, I have no option but to move on to part two.

If you’ll allow me a teeny tiny primal scream @!*(%&£*@(!*$)£$£)%^&^*^!!!)*(£*$&% before we move on, part two has a change of voice. A change of person, or narrative mode, or whatever you prefer to call it. ‘Third person close’ is my comfort mode, where the slippers and blankie and chocolates are kept. First person (for me) is the writing equivalent of the hospital appointment I’ve got this afternoon (my second this week; how did that happen? Side note: do hospitals mind people tapping away on their laptops while they’re waiting? I am very slightly scared of medical receptionists and do not want to get told off). How could a narrative mode be a hospital appointment, I hear you ask? Because hospital appointments are niggly and worrying, and I’m just a bit niggled and worried about such an enormous change of voice.

Here’s where NaNoWriMo works its magic: if this was any other month than November, I might kick back for a couple of days… a week… a month… a decade… with my butt gently resting on The Laurels of having completed part one (and I use ‘completed’ in the ‘incomplete’ sense of the word, because I already have a list of 5 scenes I’ll have to go back and add later). But this is no ordinary month! This is National Novel Writing Month. Laurels be damned. I have got to start writing the next bit immediately, now, when the iron’s red hot and the tea’s still warm and the story is still fresh in my mind. And this is A Good Thing™ because, too often before, whilst luxuriating on my Laurels, I’ve let go of the story. *Searches for an analogy; realises she hasn’t had breakfast yet; comes up with this.* I’ve let my Story Toast go cold, and when I finally come to spread it and eat it the butter doesn’t sink in properly and the bread is slightly less crisp than a car tyre.

Top tip of the morning to ya: Don’t let a story go cold. Seriously, don’t. If you can possibly help it. *Searches for an analogy; has no idea (Freud, where are you?) why she comes up with this one.* In this respect (and this respect ONLY), a novel is like a testicle: it crawls back up when it’s cold.

But I’m being a tad dramatic (and icky). I’ve already written a chunk of part two (see here for a nouvelle-cuisine sized extract), so it isn’t as massively daunting as it might otherwise be – but it’s still a huge sea change after 36 thousand and something something words in third person. Will it irritate the hell out of readers who’ve spent 36 thousand and something something words with one character, Liddy, to discover we’re moving on? (Sort of.) Very possibly. Enormous SIGH. But the book hasn’t even been written yet, let alone read by anyone, let alone accepted by an agent, let alone bought by a publisher, let alone published – so I say to myself: FEAR NOT, write it anyway, write the book as you want it to be, and worry about the one-star reviews if and when anyone but yourself ever reads it.

Wander by Amazon’s Wolf Hall page and have a look-see at the kicking that Hilary Mantel’s Booker-winning tome receives on a regular basis, and remind yourself that you can’t ever please all the people, etc etc, so pleasing yourself is a good place to start. No? (Now I have to curtsey, doff my cap, and lightly flog myself with something made of birch for daring to write of my own paltry efforts in the same breath as mentioning Wolf Hall.)

It's just you, mate. (And 1196 other people.)

It’s just you, mate. (And 1119 other people.)

Anyone who’s ever had the pleasure of teacher training will have served up many a Praise Sandwich in their time. It goes a bit like this (do try to keep up if you can; it is tricky):

1. Say something nice.

2. Insert constructive criticisms.

3. Say something nice.

Having once had the pleasure of feedback from someone who omitted all three steps I can tell you there’s an art both to giving and receiving comments on a WIP. As the giver (unless you genuinely intend the giv-ee NEVER to write again) then, please, for the love of god – find something nice to say. It may be that you’ve seen a pile of vomit with more artistic merit, but comments such as ‘this line captured my attention’ and ‘what an interesting idea’ are noncommittal enough that you don’t look like an idiot whilst encouraging said ‘giv-ee’ to keep writing long enough to (just maybe) get a little bit better at it.

In my workshop I ask all participants to follow some simple rules when offering feedback:

1. ‘Show your working.’ (e.g. ‘This character wasn’t believable as a neurosurgeon, because on page 4 you described him as unusually clumsy’… as opposed to: ‘This sucked.’)

2. Adjust feedback according to which stage the draft is at. (A first stab? Stick to generalised comments on character, pace and structure. You might as well piss in the wind, at this stage, as tweak every sentence.)

3. Don’t be a Grammar Nazi. (By all means, mark up the draft, but few workshops can survive an hour-long diatribe on the semi-colon.)

4. Remember: it’s not your story. Be careful not to impose your own style and/or interests on another writer. (‘What I think’s missing here is an S&M scene…’)

5. If you possibly can, read it twice (the first time without comments). Apply this to your own self-editing, too.

And the rules for receiving feedback?

1. Shut up and take it!

2. That’s it. Just shut up and take it.

Have you ever seen Hilary Mantel on Amazon arguing against one of Wolf Hall‘s one-star reviews? I’m guessing that’s a no. On the rare occasions When Authors Fight Back (you can have that if you want, Channel 5) they only ever make themselves a laughing stock. (See here for some bad behaviour from the self-published author of The Greek Seaman.) Practise for your own one-star reviews (no, seriously, practise: everyone gets them) by bringing up the drawbridge. Fine, speak out if a factual error’s been made, but otherwise: stiffen that lip; turn the Biblical cheek; keep a dignified silence. The one thing you ought to be doing is this: taking notes. Hide the notes in a drawer for a week if you need to. The odds are you’ll find, when you tiptoe towards them again, that the shit-storm you thought you got caught in was (a) not as turd-filled as first it appeared, and (b) at least partially justified.

Personally I don’t think this piece has enough adverbs in it.

Here, let me just take a break to admit that you may have a fair few buffoons in your workshop. We’ve all known a reader who blunders through prose with the grace and finesse of a spec-less Mr Magoo… who wouldn’t know quality prose if it came rubber-stamped from the government’s Quality Prose Department (which, thank god, doesn’t exist). In a workshop (as on twitter) you’ll soon learn the voices worth listening to. Use your judgement. Buffoons can be safely ignored (in fact, should be). And, likewise, if someone has clearly cast only the vaguest of looks at your work (from a passing train window, say) then start pinching that salt. The two blokes, Jesse Armstrong and Sam Bain, who later wrote one of my favourite programmes, Peep Show, were both in my final-year writing class at Manchester Uni and all these years later I still have fond memories of Sam Bain’s two-word response at the foot of my story: Well done. Not as harsh, of course, as the two word-review of Spinal Tap’s Shark Sandwich, but still. Two words? Two fingers, more like.

The aforementioned team behind TV’s ‘Peep Show’. Oh, and Jesse Armstrong also co-wrote a little thing called ‘The Thick of It’. Not too shabby.

Never mind. I came top of the class and that, of course, is the salient point here. (And, while on the subject: there wasn’t much evidence, back then, of Sam Bain’s scriptwriting genius, although Jesse Armstrong produced a spectacularly horrible story called Pig Rodeo that, with hindsight, had more than the whiff of a Peep Show blueprint about it…)

Most writers, of course, are at least 64% Jealous Bastard (rising to 86% if they’re currently on an MA). If you’re sharp-tongued yourself, I suggest you brace everything for the little-known phenomenon of The Revenge Drubbing, a feature of certain, power-hungry workshops. (I’ll see your ‘incomprehensible gibberish’, madam, and raise you a ‘slightly less fun than a coma’. Touché!)

Luckily, my own experiences with Mentor Extraordinaire Michelle Spring (as part of Arts Council England’s Escalator programme) have been as far removed from buffoonery, and drubbery, and two-word reviews, as humanly possible. That doesn’t mean I haven’t been force-fed a turd sandwich or two, but my lip is so stiff now it’s practically Botoxed. The news from the frontline was good today: all the bits I like best in my book are the bits she likes too.* So, onwards! (As my late, great, phonetic-namesake Lindsay Anderson was wont to say.

*Although apparently it’s got too many breasts in it…