Posts Tagged ‘novel’
continuity errors
As I do revisions of my new manuscript, I find continuity errors in the First Draft. A perfect example cropped up today.
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The story revolves around the clues contained in a shoe box of post cards. About a quarter of the way through the book, someone steals the post cards. In the next chapter, Kaye and her friend Clara make a list of the post cards and a summary of the clues. Hard to do if they don’t have the cards with them! This kind of continuity error is easy to find and correct. Switching the chapters and correcting any new continuity errors is relatively easy.
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Fixing continuity errors begins with identification.
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My main tools in this process are the “find” feature of my word processing software and a “table of chapters” that tracks the characteristics of each chapter. The table includes chapter-specific information on scenes, days/dates, setting, characters, Point of View, symbols and so on. This table is a lot of work, but it helps me over and over again during the review process.
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In my search for continuity errors, I consider:
1. days and dates: I begin every chapter and scene with a day and date. This helps the reader to understand passage of time and helps me with time-related continuity errors. For example, Katie is in Grade 10 at school. On Tuesdays, she can’t be driving around with her mom looking for clues. The table lets me check on these various characteristics of the story and the time/order when events occur.
2. symbols used in the story: mentioned once in a story, a firepit is just a firepit. Mentioned twice, it begins to resonate; it refers to earlier mentions and takes on metaphorical meaning. Mentioned three times, it is all metaphor, a reminder of family, warm memories of a cold night and gathering. When these symbols are identified in the table of chapters, I can forward search on each symbol and read the context. The progression of meaning should be steady and discernible. Ideas out of order can be identified and their order fixed.
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3. character development: sometimes continuity errors are about an out-of-order character arc. When Clara’s home suffers a break-in, she is fearful and unwilling to trust strangers. When she meets Daniel, she learns to trust again, but the progression of this change must be logical and gradual.
4. gradual changes to setting: sometimes significant changes to setting create continuity errors. For example, in my book, an old road is bulldozed. The first time it is used it is muddy, almost impassible. When cars use the road later in the story, I have to explain the change with a spell of dry weather.
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Continuity errors can creep into a story in so many small ways. Character names, hair colour, vehicle make and model, even community names … everything needs to be checked. In the revision stage, it is important to review the story with intent and focus: continuity errors are most easily identified when the writer’s brain is attentive, alert. Drowsy-minded reviews are for finding and removing adverbs!
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All this effort is needed. Readers can be ripped from the world created by a book if the heroine with curly red hair suddenly has hair that is wispy and blond. Readers can be unforgiving.
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Have you ever found an unforgettable continuity error in a book?
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All my best.
Stay home, stay safe.
Jane
Six requirements for an At-Home-Writing-Retreat
I planned to attend a writers’ retreat this week, in Saint Andrews, New Brunswick. In the end, it was cancelled – too few participants. My arthritis is having a flare-up, so perhaps it is just as well I am at home. But I refuse to miss my creative writing time. So, I will do what I have done before. I will have an at-home-writing-retreat.
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I have done this twice before, so I know what works for me.
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For this retreat I need:
1. A room in my house where I don’t usually work, with a desk and a place to relax. My guest room is clean and quiet, ready for a session each day. Actually, quiet is not necessary … years of working in a big office with lots of activity and other people have made me immune to ‘noise.’
2. Six days with no appointments or outside obligations. Since I had set aside six days for the Saint Andrews Retreat, my calendar is cooperating. I will also keep my emailing and social media time to a minimum.
3. Six days with few domestic obligations. I already have reduced expectations when it comes to domesticity! To help with the retreat I have planned easy meals and each day I will do one thing to help us keep ahead of the mess … for example, today I filled and ran the dishwasher.
4. A cooperative husband. No problem, he is always supportive!
5. Goals for the week. I am in the middle of revisions for my next book in the Kaye Eliot Mystery Series: ‘Something the Sundial Said.’ I also want to work on the map I include in all my mystery novels. By the end of the week, I want to be able to send for the Proof of the book, complete with map. I also want to create three blog posts, including two new poems.
6. Physical exercise. I do stretches and bike on my stationary cycle every day anyway. This week, I’ll spent some deliberate time walking outside, taking photos and feeding my need for nature, the basis of my creativity.
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Today is the first day of my retreat. I took a walk in the rain and some photos for Wednesday’s blog. I did 70 pages of revisions (17,000 words); this sounds like a lot but this is the final revision before the Proof (will get editing and a beta-read). This afternoon I wrote the draft of a poem and started the map for ‘Something the Sundial Said’ (I use GIMP to draw my maps). The retreat is underway!
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Here is the first draft of the map for my book. The book is set in a fictional community in Nova Scotia.
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All my best,
Jane
How Her Garden Grew
Mid-summer and my little garden is doing well. The plants are growing in planters on my deck: three parsley plants, three climbing beans, three snow peas and one cucumber. I have to ‘weed’ every day as the maple keys keep sprouting!
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With a small garden, I have lots of time to read. Right now I am reading the forth in the Lane Winslow Mysteries, set in Canada in British Columbia after WW II here. I love mysteries and now I have one of my own. ‘How Her Garden Grew’ tells the story of a mom and her kids who find a packet of old letters and follow a trail of mayhem and murder to summer’s end. This is the first in a series of three Kaye Eliot Mysteries, set in Nova Scotia in 1995.
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‘How Her Garden Grew‘ is available on-line here. Or at Westminster Books in Fredericton (you should see their new store at 88 York Street!)
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I am spending my summer (when I am not pulling maple sprouts) writing the sequel to ‘How Her Garden Grew’. It will be called ‘Something the Sundial Said’ and take readers on another cozy mystery adventure.
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Enjoy your summer reading!
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All my best,
Jane
a reading and signing of my new book ‘How Her Garden Grew’
Have you ever seen a Grinning Tun? He is the villain of my new mystery story How Her Garden Grew.
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I will be reading and signing books at our Authors Coffee House on Thursday, May 30 at 7 PM at the Holy Trinity Anglican Church in Nasonworth (1224, Highway 101). A portion of book sales will be donated to the Fredericton Hospice. There will be refreshments!
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How Her Garden Grew is available in e-book and paperback formats here and will soon be available at Westminster Books in Fredericton.
Hope to see you at the Authors Coffee House!
Jane
writing life,
This summer I have been taking a break from writing science fiction. I have my next science-fiction book Meniscus: Karst Topography ready to publish so I can take some time to think about other writing projects.
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In 1997, I wrote a long mystery novel. I thought it would be interesting to read it through and see how much my writing style has changed. It has changed a lot, as you will see below. But the story was good and I had spent a decent amount of time on characters, story arcs, and point of view, so I decided to work on the draft.
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The story is titled HHGG (big reveal later in the year) and was 162,500 words. Yikes.
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This is my first draft of an eventual cover blurb …
Kaye Eliot comes to Acadia Creek to spend a quiet summer with her two children. But instead of passing stress-free days of swimming and hiking, she finds herself embedded in mystery after mystery. A missing vagrant and a gang of thieves have the community worried. Neighbours seem determined to occupy all of Kaye’s time and energy in restoration of an old flower garden. Meanwhile, she and her kids have stumbled on a century-old legend of a treasure buried on the property, a packet of old letters and an old map of the garden. And they dig up a sinister sea shell. A sea shell who looks like a grinning skull and who will not stay where he is put. Can Kaye recover her calm or will she be victim of neighbors, vagrants, thieves and a shell called the Grinning Tun?
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the Grinning Tun (about 25 cm or 10 inches across)
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My work on the book has been on several fronts. I have ‘tweeted’ daily about my process since May 28, 2018 (@TimsJane):
- Reduce the number of words. I lost a lot of words through editing and style changes. I took out the dream sequences, all the ‘ly’ adverbs, a lot of thinking and feeling, and a raft of ‘that’s. I went from 162,561 words on April 13, 2018 to 148,999 words today on July 15, 2018. It is still a little long but a good read (in my opinion).
- I did a lot of thinking about whether to keep the setting in 1994 or modernize it to 2018. With some advice, I have decided to keep it in 1994. In fact, the story would not unfold as it does with cell phones and computers at hand. So my characters drive down to the community phone booth almost every day and look for clues in whirring reels of microfiche.
- Leaving the action in 1994 provided an opportunity to explore the culture of the 1990s. Besides the missing cell phones and computers, people collected Canadian Tire Money, waitresses smoked in restaurants and POGs were a fad among kids. In the summer of 1994, the song ‘I Swear‘ held the Canadian single charts for three weeks and the American charts for seven weeks. Six degrees of Kevin Bacon was a thing. The slang interjection ‘like’ punctuated speaking (still does).
- Part of the text is in Spanish so I asked my friend Roger Moore to help me proof-read the Spanish text.
- I spent a lot of time with my Grinning Tun … I bought him on line in 2010. The more you look at it, the more it looks like a skull.
- I spent a stupid amount of time designing a curlicue for announcing a change in sections. I am glad I did, because this new novel will include ‘Drop caps’ at the beginning of every chapter and said curlicue.
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It will take me a few more weeks to proof the draft. To do this, I order a Proof from CreateSpace and do my edits as a way of passing the time effectively on my stationary cycle. Once I have the Proof, I’ll be able to concentrate on painting the cover for HHGG. This is the rough outlay for the cover, tacked together from various photos …
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Now you know everything about HHGG except its title!
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All my best,
Jane
writing a novel – getting to know your characters
The Whisper Wind Writers’ Retreat – the setting for my novel
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Working on the drafts of a novel is like combing hair. You start at the top/beginning and comb through the words and sentences, paragraphs and chapters, over and over. Eventually the tangles comb out and the hair becomes smooth and shiny.
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I find the best way to do the ‘combing’ is to work at specific components of the story. Developing symbols within the story is one. Developing characters in the story is another.
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I have a lot of characters in my books. In ‘Open to the Skies’ there are 44 characters, major, minor and dead. This is probably too many, but it is a book about a community.
So far, in ‘Crossing at a Walk’, I have 33 characters. These include Sadie and Tom, members of the community, and the six ‘retreaters’ (the writers enjoying a weekend at the Writers’ Retreat).
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A difficulty with writing a sequel, I feel responsible for all these characters. Leaving one of them out of book #2 seems wrong to me. But by book # 25 (!) I’ll have a whole planet to contend with. So I have to make choices.
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Each of my characters has a character sketch, a background story and a story arc. As I’ve said before, I try to include three ‘bumps’ in each story line.
One of the ‘combings’ I do is to look at each character as he or she appears in the book. I want to make sure the character is consistent with respect to appearance, back story, way of speaking, relationships, and so on.
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1. Character sketch and background
As an example, let me introduce you to Ruby Milton. She is the fourth character from the left in the sketches above. She is a minor character, a constant companion to one of the major characters. Ruby is 64 and married (she was a Brunelle before she was married). She is a retired librarian and now runs a U-Pick with her husband Lars. Ruby, as a result of her name, loves all things red. She wears red and she bids on a lamp at an auction because it has a red glass finial. A quilter, she works a red patch into every quilt she makes. She was also one of the characters who opposed the sale and relocation of the Landing Church in ‘Open to the Skies’. Ruby snubs Sadie at every opportunity.
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Ruby would love my lamp with the red finial – it once belonged to my mother-in-law Mary
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It’s hard to have to keep checking on a character sketch as I write, so I prepare a chart of my characters. I keep the chart file open so I can check on it as often as I want.
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| Name | Occupation | Characteristics | Age | Vocabulary |
| Ruby Milton | Librarian; runs a U-Pick | Wears red; thin; a quilter; maiden name Brunelle; lived in community all her life | 62 | Cemetery; uses lots of contractions |
| Lars Milton | Retired Teacher; runs a U-Pick | Tall; Full head of snowy hair | 65 | Graveyard |
| Marjory Alworth | Shop owner | Nicknamed Margie; Ruby Milton’s daughter | 41 | |
| Betsy Alworth | Waitress | Ruby Milton’s grand-daughter | 24 |
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2. Story arc
Ruby occurs three times in ‘Crossing at a Walk’. She occurs because she is a friend to Pat, a major character; she runs a local U-Pick and food from the U-Pick is used at the Retreat; she represents the community’s continued interest in its landmarks. She wants to continue to use the Landing Church for her quilting group and she participates in celebrations of the history of the covered bridge. Ruby also represents the part of the community that Sadie hasn’t quite won over in her efforts to fit in.
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As I read my draft so far, I realise Ruby needs to change in some small way during the book. So, in keeping with her importance as a representative of community, I add some elements to Ruby’s story. At the auction, she won’t even acknowledge Sadie. But during the book, Sadie allows Ruby’s quilters to use the church and treats Ruby as knowledgeable about community history. By the end of the book, Ruby greets Sadie as a friend and contributes a story about her memories of the covered bridge.
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inside a covered bridge
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I keep a table of story arcs for each of my characters, to help me build the story, be consistent and make sure that I find the story for each character.
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| Name | First occurrence | Second occurrence | Third occurrence | Story |
| Ruby Milton | Ignores Sadie at auction (page 35) | Asks to use hall for quilting group (page 146) | Greets Sadie as a friend at a community gathering; tells a story about bridge (page 232) | Pat’s friend; represents community; changes her attitude about Sadie |
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Ruby is a relatively minor character in the book. However, I treat her with the same respect I give my major characters. And she gives back to me. She suggests turnings for the story. And she helps make the community I have created for these characters more realistic.
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Ruby puts a bit of red in every quilt she makes
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Copyright 2015 Jane Tims
writing a novel – searching out the symbols
When I wrote ‘Open to the Skies’, I used various ways to examine and tighten the plot. One of these was to list the various objects in the book and consider them as symbols.
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For my book ‘Crossing at a Walk’, I will use this process to help my eventual readers understand the progress of the story.
Mentioned once, an object, such as a candle, is just a candle. Mentioned twice, it becomes a symbol, and the reader remembers the first mention of the object and draws understanding from the symbolism. So a candle may be remembered for its light. If, in a subsequent mention, someone blows out the candle, this may make a comment on the idea of communication. Passing a candle from person to person suggests the passing of stories between people. The use of symbols deepens meanings and helps the plot reverberate throughout the writing.
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Symbols operate like mini sub-plots throughout the story. These mini-plots echo the main plot, and the objects change in a way that illuminates the main plot. The mini-plots also tend to occur in three ‘beats’, providing a beginning, middle and end. For example, an unlit candle becomes a useful source of light and is passed between people at a wake.
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In this round of edits, I have tried to examine the use of symbols in my novel. To do this, I built a list of the objects I have used as symbols. Then I looked for their occurrence in the novel to see if I could identify three ‘beats’ and a mini sub-plot. In some cases, I identified gaps – fixing these has helped me to solidify my overall plot.
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This is a short version of my list of some of the objects/symbols in my book. When I assembled the list, the items in red were missing and I had to fill out the story accordingly. Perhaps you can use this method to help strengthen the narrative in your own fiction.
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| Object | Symbol | Occurrence (page numbers) | Mini-plot | ||
| coyote | fear | 87 | 104 | 120 | coyotes howl in woods; they rattle some of the retreaters; Sadie considers it a failing of the retreat |
| church tower | refuge | 15 | 104 | 181 | tower is off-limits to retreaters; becomes a place to sleep in safety; a place to write a poem |
| paper maché ball and chain | servitude | 39 | 58 | 180 | Sadie is asked to provide a community service placement for Minnie, a trouble-maker; Minnie stores the ball and chain, a theatrical prop, on a library shelf during her stay; when the time is up, she destroys the ball and chain |
| rain | a barrier | 6 | 133 | 186 | rain interferes with the retreat at every turn and ends up being the source of the flood that threatens the covered bridge |
| scale model of a covered bridge | remembering | 35 | 132 | 150 | a scale model of the covered bridge is purchased at an auction; helps tell the story of a character in the novel; could become the only memento of the bridge |
| burning candles | passing stories from person to person | 58 | 140 | 188 | candles are not allowed in the old church but later become a practical source of light during a storm and a way of passing stories about the covered bridge from person to person |
| loon | communication | 21 | 169 | 182 | loon calls at retreat encourage people to talk to one another |
| stars, shooting stars | hope | 12 | 109 | 185 | stars become inspiration for an artist, encouragement for a love-interest, and an inspirational setting for a wake |
Copyright 2015 Jane Tims
writing a novel – sub-plots
In every story, sub-plots help with the story telling and contribute their own dynamic to the action, characters, and the relationships between characters.
sub-plot : a smaller, separate story strand that provides support for and adds complexity to the main plot
The courses I have taken have taught me that often subplots contain a minimum of three re-occurrences or ‘beats’ in a story. A sub-plot is introduced, more is learned and the sub-plot is resolved.
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To help me identify the subplots, I have used my ‘story board.’ I identified some key subplots and put stickers on the scenes on my ‘story board’. Here you can see the subplots ‘A’ and ‘P’.
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This mapping of subplots can help me decide if some of the story is missing. In the ‘story board’ below, sub-plot ‘P’ could be improved by a mention on Day 3 and 4 (the vertical rows of green trees indicate a day in the action). Major inclusions of the subplot P on Days 1, 5, and 8 will be my three subplot ‘beats’.
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Copyright 2015 Jane Tims
writing a novel … next (brave) step
For the past two years, I have been working on a novel. The working title of the book is ‘Saving the Landing Church’ – the actual title is ‘Open to the Skies’. For more information about the process of writing ‘Open to the Skies’, have a look at the category ‘writing a novel’. https://nichepoetryandprose.wordpress.com/2012/12/03/writing-a-novel-telling-a-story/
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The book is about a woman who falls in love with an old church and decides to save it from demolition, in spite of active resistance from members of the community.
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the setting for my novel … an old church and its hall and rectory are moved to a new location along the St. John River to create a writers’ retreat …
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After taking my book through nine drafts, numerous readings of bits with my writing groups, and a third-party edit, I have taken the next (brave) step. I am sending my novel to three publishing companies. I chose the publishers based on their dedication to Canadian authors and subjects, their willingness to read unsolicited manuscripts, and their current book lists.
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It will be a long wait. I know from past experience that I may not hear from them for six to eight months, and then it will likely be ‘no’. This is not lack of confidence or uncertainty about my skill. It is reality – most book publishers get up to a thousand submissions per year and, of course, can only choose a few of these to publish. However, on my side is the characteristic of doggedness.
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I will be sure and let you know what happens next with ‘Open to the Skies’. Meanwhile, I’ll be busy working on a sequel to the first book and, of course, on my poetry.
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Copyright 2015 Jane Tims
writing a novel – plotting the change
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Title: unknown
Working Title: Saving the Landing Church
Setting: a writers’ retreat, including an abandoned church
Characters: main character Sadie, a writer; her husband Tom; people from the community
Plot: the story of how Sadie tries to win over a community in order to preserve an abandoned church
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In writing and editing my novel, I have had to turn my attention to the plot, again and again.
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Last November, when I started to write my novel, I learned quickly – stories usually are built on the concept of change.
- the main character wants something (a need)
- The character sets about trying to fill the need and is thwarted at every turn
- In the end, they either fill the need or they don’t
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During the story, the main character must be altered in some way.
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this is my main character, Sadie … how will she be changed during the novel? She does look like she could use a hair salon …
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As my novel has progressed, I have realised that Sadie not only wants the church, she wants the church with the blessing of the community
How does Sadie change? Her understanding of the community and her attitude towards the community changes. She realises that ‘community’ is a necessary component of the church she wants so badly … without the community, the church is just a hollow building …
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To make certain my main character is changing and growing in the right direction, I’ve plotted out her understanding, her attitude and her progress with respect to the community …
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This excerpt from my writing journal will make no sense to you, but it shows that I write to make the novel and the characters progress towards an end. If I encounter something in the plot (or the subplots) that does not fit, I look at it again and rewrite or reorder events …
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If you write short or long fiction, how do you make sure the plot is always moving in the direction you intend?
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Copyright 2013 Jane Tims
nichepoetryandprose 