Crossing at a Walk | nichepoetryandprose

Posts Tagged ‘Crossing at a Walk’

writing a novel – pulling out the weeds

I have completed Draft Three of my novel ‘Crossing at a Walk’. The entire story is there. If I add more ‘story’ now, I will only confuse my plot and my readers. Next I have to concentrate on honing every sentence, including dealing with the oddities I allow to creep into my writing. As if I am growing a garden, I have to find and pull out the weeds.

I think these are different for every writer and writers have to learn these for themselves. For me, the culprits are:

writing in the passive voice.

using the word ‘that’. I never use ‘which’.

using adverbs, although I (quickly) drilled this one out of my system.

repeating the same word in adjacent lines or adjacent paragraphs.

using phrases like ‘she stood and … ‘, ‘I opened the door and …’ , ‘I looked at her and …’ – I sometimes tend to breathe for my characters!

using colorless words like ‘felt’, ‘drove’, ‘went’, ‘wondered’, ‘just’ and so on.

putting two spaces after every period – I learned to type on a typewriter!

I also have to do careful editing with respect to tense and person. I tell Sadie’s story in the third person and past tense. Tom speaks in the first person and present tense. I also have an angler who likes to fish just below the covered bridge and always speaks in the second person (something new I am trying).

my husband when he was a boy, fishing on the North Branch of the Rusagonis River, under the covered bridge … this covered bridge is now gone from our community

My husband is not looking forward to the completion of Draft Four. It ends with me reading him the entire novel, chapter by chapter, every evening, an hour before ‘Coronation Street’ on TV. Until we finish. Poor fellow.

Written by jane tims

April 13, 2015 at 4:00 pm

Posted in covered bridges, writing a novel

Tagged with Crossing at a Walk, editing, person, tense, writing, writing a novel, writing process, writing weeds

writing a novel – expressing the story in a single sentence

with 4 comments

Title: unknown

Working Title: ‘Crossing at a Walk’

Setting: a writers’ retreat – the renovated Landing Church, the hall and the rectory now used as a Learning Center, a Sleeping Hall and a home and base of operations for Sadie and Tom

Characters: main character Sadie, a writer; her husband Tom, a retired welder; Alexandra, a young woman who works at the retreat; other people from the community; writers participating in the first weekend of the writers’ retreat

Plot: The ongoing history of an old covered bridge keeps getting in the way of discovering the story of a woman who once lived in the community.

one of the 59 covered bridges remaining in New Brunswick

When I think about the story I want to tell in my book, I quickly get in a tangle of characters and subplots and action. All of this can be quite confusing to the writer and end up befuddling the story and taking the writing in the wrong direction.

To avoid this tangle, it is a good idea to try to express the plot and story in single sentences as soon as possible in the writing process.

The plot is the cause-and-effect relationship between events in a story.

A story is a series of events, related in their chronological order.

I am currently taking a course from Deborah Carr, an excellent writing coach (her website ‘Nature of Words’ is at http://www.natureofwords.com/). She puts it this way: a story follows the pattern of Desire, Struggle, and Resolution. Every good story is about someone who wants something, how the someone sets about achieving the goal, and the consequences of achieving the goal.

The earlier in the process I can write my story in a single sentence that includes these three elements, the less ‘wheel-spinning’ I will do.

My novel will be the story of how a young staff member at a writers’ retreat discovers the name of a woman carved on the beams of a covered bridge, sets out to discover the woman’s story by asking questions and learning the history of the bridge, and reveals truths about love and loss.

names and initials are often carved on the wood beams within a covered bridge

The story is different from the plot in that it expresses a series of actions in time. A plot expresses the logical relationship between elements of the story. The story and plot complement one another.

Before you get much further in your novel, try writing the story as a simple sentence describing Desire, Struggle, and Resolution.

Written by jane tims

March 30, 2015 at 7:14 am

Posted in covered bridges, writing a novel

Tagged with Crossing at a Walk, elements of story, novel in a single sentence, story, writing a novel, writing process

writing a novel – next in the series !

with 12 comments

Having sent my first novel ‘Open to the Skies’ (aka ‘Saving the Landing Church’) out to three publishers, I have begun my next novel in the series. I intend for the series to focus on the adventures of running a writers’ retreat. Same characters, same setting, same struggle to be a part of the community.

Title: unknown

Working Title: ‘Crossing at a Walk’

Setting: a writers’ retreat – the renovated Landing Church, the hall and the rectory now used as a Learning Center, a Sleeping Hall and a home and base of operations for Sadie and Tom

Characters: main character Sadie, a writer; her husband Tom, a retired welder; people from the community; writers participating in the first weekend of the writers’ retreat

Plot: Sadie wants the first writers’ retreat to go smoothly, but the history of an old covered bridge keeps getting in the way

My first novel was about an abandoned church. The subject of this book will be yet another feature of our built landscape, one also having a difficult time … the covered bridge. In the 1940s there were 340 covered bridges in New Brunswick. Today there are only 60.

I chuckle all the time about my ‘Saving The …’ series. Lots of buildings to save out there! However, I have no intention of sinking into the formulaic (Sadie falls in love with the … and takes steps to save the …). Instead, each story will take a unique approach to honoring the bit of built landscape it portrays!

As I have said, in New Brunswick, we have 60 remaining covered bridges. Their numbers are dwindling, the losses due to flooding, fire and vandalism. For a look at the covered bridges in New Brunswick, see the map and photos at http://www2.gnb.ca/content/gnb/en/departments/dti/bridges_ferries/content/covered_bridges.html

So how does a covered bridge get in the way of a well planned writers’ retreat?

Sadie includes a local tour during the retreat, to introduce the writers to the community and give them new experiences to write about. The covered bridge is outside the tour loop, but a couple of the writers would love to go there.
the covered bridge is part of the community’s history. Inside the bridge are the carved initials of some of the many people who have lingered there. The writers want to know ‘who was Phoebe?’ a girl whose name is carved in the bridge and imprinted on the memories of some of the members of the community.
after the retreat is over, heavy rains and flooding threaten the bridge to its very foundations. Can the bridge be saved and will Sadie be willing to take on the cause of another community icon?

Sadie … my main character … a writer and weaver … she wants the first weekend of the writers’ retreat to go smoothly … I still think she needs an afternoon at the hairdressers

Sadie’s husband Tom … a welder with a fatal case of welder’s lung … a likeable fellow, he refused to die in the first novel … I wonder what will happen to him in ‘Crossing at a Walk’?