Meeting Kate Long

Completed some questions about character - It was useful to think about incidents that had happened to them - it led to lots of ideas about background for characters - lots of material to show what they are like - rather than tell - was a very useful exercise.

Illustrated story

I wanted to make a sound recording of my latest short story - and illustrate it - I have an ambition to launch it from a QR code - to play as a short story for people on the move - to listen to on a phone when you're out and about - with pictures if you want to look - but they add atmosphere without being key to the story - I'd like the pictures to be as if you're looking through a series of photographs - going through disjointed details of someone else's life - a bit like the central character does.

Relaunching the Button Jar

Going to promote and...

Pepys Road

Just signed up yesterday to Pepys Rd at Storythings.com.

Its a marketing devise for Citadel, a novel by --

I like the premise - you sign up - it asks where and when you were born and where you live now. The idea is that then by sending you a series of questions through email it will tell you how you fair over the next 20 years and how you end up in Pepys Rd. The question when it came though wasn't really a question. Two alternative statements were posed. Either I would be watching the Olympics this summer or I would avoid them. I was then taken to a web page - a story by the author - but it wasn't really a story - more a statement about the Queens jubilee and the Olympics being representative of luck and chance and the hand we're dealt at birth - For me this was strange to lump together the Olympics and the jubilee in this respect - As an experience it hasn't whetted my appetite yet - I have no expectations of what might happen next - and no sense of any characters, or locations or plot.

A new post

Over the summer I finally managed to complete my first draft of my novel - I have the story down and have learnt a lot about my own process.

My tendency was to get the plot down and then work almost in waves - So returning to sections and adding in details and reworking -

I've still some concerns about plot elements that still don't sit comfortably and characters that are too vaguely drawn - So back to the beginning and weave some more layers in!

Glamorous unapproachability

I've been conducting reserach into Mills and Boon - for my novel - (one character is a romantic novelist) - and came across the theory of glamorous unapproachability - which is the idea of male characters who are attractive but there is some impediment that stops the heroine getting close to them - they are not confined to Mills and Boon by any means - Darcy and Mr Rochester both spring to mind.

Station Stories

Went to see Station Stories - short plays in Picadilly station, Manchester - audience walks around in a group wearing headphones - characters come into view - but from a distance sometimes above or below or on an opposite platform -
Atmospheric - was a bit like spying on people - really liked one piece about a girl and a photo booth - at tiume you could just see her feet below the curtain and hear her voice (they were all essentially monologues)- There was only one piece - about a security guy that made you look around - and at other people in the station- which was good - the only piece that prompted curiosity about other passengers.

A couple were really just like radio pieces - you did not have to be in station for - would have liked interaction between characters - and more interaction with station or anything in it - or anyone in it - to have made it more location / time specific.