One of my writers’ groups had a recent discussion about how easy it is to make a novel too complicated. This is a challenge I encounter a lot.
I love worldbuilding and complex ideas. When I attended Julie Cohen’s writing retreat in France, she called me out for it: “Keep it simple, stupid!” I need to be able to describe what I’m writing in a straightforward way. Once I’ve gotten to the essence of it, I can complexify from there!
I’m doing NaNoWriMo again this year, and I’m starting something new. My first idea was one I’ve dreamed about since the pandemic, set in a beautiful, complicated world. I’ve tried to begin it a few times, but I haven’t been able to make a plot work with these characters and setting.
I hope to write that story someday. It might be one of those ideas that isn’t quite ready yet, one that I will someday gain the skills to bring to life.
But I had a second idea while brainstorming. This one’s simpler and more straightforward. I know how to describe it and make it sound interesting to listeners. I know how to structure it.
That’s the one I’m writing.
Do you tend to overcomplicate your writing, too? What do you do to keep things clear?
Here are a few principles that have helped me take my narratives back to basics.
Know what the point of your story is.
Be able to describe it in a sentence.
Know what the stakes are – and feel emotionally invested, not confused.
Pitch your story to others. See if it a) makes sense to them and b) sounds interesting.
Make sure you want to write this story. A novel is a commitment!
Lots of good writing news lately. September was my book tour to celebrate Chasing Harmony’s one-year anniversary, following shortly after its ebook release. What a whirlwind!
From August 28 to September 22, a variety of book blogs hosted guest posts, excerpts, gift card giveaways, and reviews for my YA novel. You can catch up with the tour stops here! I had fun writing about everything from the cover design process to my research and forthcoming books.
Last year, I had a short play performed in the Tower Theatre Writers’ Room showcase. I’ve stayed involved with the Writers’ Room this year, and am delighted to have a play chosen for performance in the showcase again!
It couldn’t be more different. Last year’s play was a dark, feminist Dorian Gray-meets-Faust story about art and death. This one is a comedy called An IQ Test for My Birthday, directed by Ragan Keefer:
Callie gets a surprising birthday present from her father. An appointment to take an IQ test. Upon her arrival she meets a straightlaced journalist, a hard working mum and her energetic daughter. All are here for the same thing, to pass the test for their own personal agendas. Will they pass? Will their nerves get the best of them? A play that deals with themes of family, acceptance, and pride.
The Writers’ Room Showcase this year has the theme of “Home” and features four brand-new short plays that explore the theme from different angles. They’ll be onstage from December 12-16 in London.
“Home: A place? An ideal? An emotion? Tower Theatre writers explore a range of ideas suggested by this richly evocative little word in an exciting programme of short plays. Come along and see some ground-breaking new writing!”
There’s more information on the showcase here. I hope to see some of you in the audience this winter!
My first novel, Chasing Harmony, has been out for a year now! It’s now available in ebook format as well as in paperback, which I’m excited about because it means more people can read it. It took 10 years for this strange, literary, bisexual YA coming-of-age story to find a publisher, and I’m grateful it has a good home.
My publisher, Read Furiously, has been wonderful to work with. One reason I chose them is that they donate a portion of royalties to charity, primarily literacy charities. Some of you might remember that my first foray into publication was self-publishing two poetry books as a teenager to raise money for charities… back in the pre-digital era of the early 2000s, when self-publishing meant applying for a grant, giving your files to the printer, and having them print the books out! I got extra “imperfect” copies of my first book, Tears for the World, to sell, because a hair got stuck in the printing press.
Tears for the World raised money for Farmers Helping Farmers, a Prince Edward Island-based organization which helps farmers in Kenya, while Fire in the Sky raised money for a local literacy organization. With Chasing Harmony helping a similar cause, I feel like things have come full circle.
It always makes me happy when I hear from someone who’s read Chasing Harmony, especially if they connected with the characters. I poured my heart into this story.
Read Furiously has scheduled a virtual book tour to celebrate Chasing Harmony’s anniversary, and if you’d like a review copy to feature a review, guest post, or interview on your blog, you can request one from Goddess Fish Promotions here. There will also be gift card giveaways! Stay tuned for more on the tour which is happening from August 28 – September 22!
Here are Read Furiously’s kind words on my book’s anniversary:
“Last July we introduced a wonderful young adult novel filled with music, vulnerability, and lost love. One year later, we are still haunted and inspired by Anna Stern’s search for her authentic self.
Happy one year anniversary to CHASING HARMONY by Melanie Bell. If you haven’t experienced the magic of Anna’s musical talent, or haven’t fallen in love with Liss, or danced with Ay-a in a forest kingdom, we recommend making CHASING HARMONY a must read this summer.
We have big plans to celebrate one year – stay tuned!
CHASING HARMONY is available wherever books are sold.”
Laura Keating, a fellow student from the University of New Brunswick’s Renaissance College program, is both a lovely person and a stellar writer. I read some of her work during our student days, and both of us have since been doing our best in the literary trenches. She’s carved out a niche and a name for herself in horror, and her debut novella, Agony’s Lodestone, came out in April. I couldn’t have been more excited to read it, and the book more than delivered on its premise.
To quote the publisher’s description:
Laura Keating‘s debut novella, AGONY’S LODESTONE, wraps you in its Weird, cold embrace, blending elements of Found Footage horror, fraught family drama, and a creepy-ass Canadian wilderness where time and space just won’t sit still.
-Tenebrous Press
Like me, Keating is from Atlantic Canada – more specifically, she hails from St. Andrews, New Brunswick. The region’s landscape plays a key feature in her haunting novella, with New Brunswick’s renowned “highest tides in the world” echoing through the caves in Cannon Park with a sound like cannon fire. The uncanny setting adds just the right amount of creepiness to the narrative. More on this later.
Agony’s Lodestone begins with a not entirely welcome sibling reunion. Survivalist loner Aggie has been toughing it on her own since the disappearance of her older sister, Joanne, a star swimmer. Her younger brother, Bailey, has capitalized on this disappearance with a flashy social media presence and a TV show seeking to solve its mystery. Their older brother, Alex, has devoted himself to raising a family. The three remaining siblings are all obviously grieving in their own ways, and their coping techniques rub against each other uncomfortably.
Bailey barges back into his siblings’ lives with a revelation: he’s found a videotape of Joanne. The VHS comes from security footage filmed at Cannon Park on the day Joanne left to walk their dog. The dog returned; the sister didn’t. On the tape, Joanne appears to flicker in and out of existence. And upon repeated viewing, the tape changes in terrifying ways.
The siblings, of course, must go to the park to see if they can uncover the truth behind their sister’s disappearance. Not one of them will emerge unscathed.
Keating crafts both character and setting with a deft touch. The siblings’ wounds feel fresh, and the New Brunswick wilderness is portrayed in unnerving detail, from the booming of unseen waves to the snapping of wood. The three characters find themselves trapped in the same uncanny reality that took their sister from them years ago, a place where time and space repeat themselves. They must use their wits to navigate this landscape that is never fully explained. The novella never loses sight of its emotional core, as much of the time, the siblings’ bruised hearts make their decisions for them. Creepy illustrations accentuate the story.
I’m looking forward to Laura Keating’s next book. For now, Agony’s Lodestone comes highly recommended!
What do you Google at 3 am? What’s that one odd thing you can’t stop thinking about, perhaps to the point where you have a hard time explaining to other people why it captivates you?
If you’ve ever dreamed of writing a book, one starting point is personal interest. Scratch that: personal passion, obsession, or even unhealthy devotion.
If you’re this fascinated by a topic or idea, you probably won’t get bored engaging with it for thousands of words!
And if you’re looking to build a career as a writer, you can mine your obsessions again and again. How often do you turn to a favorite author because you love the themes they delve into and the approaches they take? If you feel like you’re writing about the same things over and over again, that’s not a bug; that’s a feature!
Alternatively, it doesn’t have to be the same thing each time. It can be an obsession of the moment. Going through an insect phase? (See what I did there with the “bug” thing?) Maybe there’s a book in that. Researching cybersecurity? Ditto.
As I mentioned above, it doesn’t necessarily have to be a healthy obsession. One of the factors that inspired my novel Chasing Harmony was losing a lot of music competitions in my youth. Sometimes I’d wonder: What did the talented winners have that I didn’t? What was it like to be them?
This was one of many factors that got me interested in researching the stories and lives of musical prodigies, and eventually crafting a fictional character who shows early and astonishing musical aptitude.
So, what piques your interest? What can’t you stop thinking about? Could there be a book in that?
2022 was an intense year. I’m not sure what to expect from 2023 yet. So far, I’ve found joy in learning Spanish on Duolingo, which feels more like a game than an education, and in exploring the pebble beaches of my new home.
I’m revising my NaNoWriMo novel, working on another novel, and continuing to engage with interesting peer groups, including the NaNo group and the Tower Theatre Writers’ Room.
I set a one-word intention for myself last year: “outward.” It’s easy, as a writer and introvert, to spend my time “inward,” but I can only accomplish things in the world if I venture out into it! I didn’t do too bad a job of it, either, if I dare say so.
My mostly-speculative short story collection Dream Signs came out at the end of 2021, and I’ve heard from readers who continue to enjoy the stories. Sadly, it went out of print when the publisher went under, so I’m looking into options for re-release. A few print copies are still available online as of now.
This National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) in November, I finished a draft of a manuscript I’d been working on and started another. The power of this event lay with the peer group I found. The local WriMos did writing sprints in person and online and urged each other forward. I didn’t think I could write 50,000 words in a month – but, reader, I did it!
To cap off the year, I saw my short play The Pictures of Dora Gray performed twice! First, it was included in a scratch night at the Barons Court Theatre. Then, it was included in the Tower Theatre Writers’ Room’s December showcase, along with four other fantastic plays by members of the group. It was an emotional experience to see two casts perform something I’d written in my living room, and to witness the wonderful direction, music score, and acting that brought my play to life over the holidays.
This year, I’ll continue to put myself out there – while respecting my inward nature, too. Onward, 2023!
“I don’t want to be an offering, she thought with a new and sharp urgency. I never have, nor a prayer, either. I will be a knife in the dark or nothing, no matter the cost.”
What would you do if a god killed your sister? For Anya Astraea, the answer is clear: set out to murder him in retaliation.
I’ve enjoyed Laura E. Weymouth’s books since I read the first one, a unique portal fantasy called The Light Between Worlds. Weymouth writes historical fantasy for young adults. Her debut novel is a poignant take on Narnia and the devastating emotional consequences of growing up in another world, then being sent back to this one.
She has four books out now. Her latest is A Consuming Fire, and she was kind enough to share an ARC with me.
Reader, I loved it. There’s a consistent theme of anger across her last two novels. Women’s anger. Righteous anger. The anger of people who are overlooked, underestimated, and trampled underfoot by oppressive structures and figures who hold excess power. The anger of the small in a big world who stand up one day and declare, “Enough.”
In A Consuming Fire, a town called Weatherell is expected to periodically send a girl as a living sacrifice to appease a hostile god. These “Weatherell girls,” as they are called, must offer up what the mountain god demands, whether it’s a valued body part or a core personality trait. Protagonist Anya is intimately familiar with the lives of these sacrificial women: her mother was one of them, giving up her hands, and now her bold and adventurous twin sister, Ilva, is determined to make the journey up the mountain.
Ilva returns from the mountaintop drained of life force, and Anya watches her die. Another sacrifice is needed. But Ilva has made one last request of her sister: “Don’t let anyone else go.” And Anya, who’s long been incensed at the injustice of the system, is determined to follow that request. She sets off toward the mountain, not to offer herself to the god but to kill him.
Along the way, Anya falls in with a changeling thief and a group of others, including charming wanderers and a lovable dog, while playing a cat-and-mouse game with religious officials called the Elect who want to use her for their own ends. Everyone is hiding secrets of their own that, when revealed, will expand Anya’s understanding of her world. Ilva’s ghost remains a frequent visitor, urging her on and reminding her of her mission’s stakes. If she fails, countless girls will suffer; if she succeeds, she might spare others from suffering as her mother and sister did ever again.
A Consuming Fire carries a foreboding undertone, with deft touches such as bone charms made from dead Weatherell girls adding to the atmosphere and sense that this world is askew. Psychological insight blends with lyrical phrasing and keenly felt emotion throughout.
There are religious themes and features in this book that won’t be for everyone. After all, it is not set in a fantasy world but in an altered variant of the historical UK. But if you enjoy or don’t mind those aspects, you’ll find a lot to appreciate in the novel when it comes to the nature of power and agency.
Come join Anya on her vengeful climb up the mountain and witness how powerful a woman wronged can become!
I started NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) this November as an incentive to finish my fantasy novel, the one I’d been working on for a year and a half. At 55,000 words in, it was rolling along toward a conclusion, but it hadn’t gotten there yet. When I applied last year for a grant I didn’t receive, I listed November as a planned deadline for completing my novel draft. Without funding, I shelved some of my other project ideas, but I thought – hoped – the novel would prove doable, at least.
I’d found renewed energy for the project on my writing retreat in France this September. Our facilitator, best-selling novelist Julie Cohen, had told me the structure wasn’t working and encouraged me to restructure the whole thing. Which I did, one memorable day, with three colors of post-it notes sprawled across a bed. Those post-its now live in a notebook of mine, but it was an interesting experience to have them all over the furniture, and to think deeply about how my story needed to move forward.
Then, in October, I moved home, so not a lot of writing happened for a month. A lot of furniture shopping and adjustment happened instead. By the time November rolled around, my flat was furnished and felt more like an abode than an empty space. I was ready to come back to the novel.
Much like the writing retreat, so vivid in recent memory, I wasn’t sure how much I’d get done during NaNoWriMo. I’d done a version of it once, finishing a novella during lockdown in 2020. As proud as I felt of the novella at the time, that was 25,000 words, not 50,000 (as per the NaNo goal), and not all of them were written in November. (Although given the challenges of lockdown, I would give myself an A+ that year!) I even blogged about different ways of getting inspired for the monthly challenge, before attempting to tackle it myself.
But 50,000 words is a lot. I’d always side-eyed the challenge or thought it best suited to speedier writers than myself. I like to line edit as I go. Some writers speak of silencing the inner editor and writing a messy first draft. After doing multiple editing jobs, my “inner editor” is a professional with 10+ years of experience, so I usually find that her input makes my drafts better. Thus, I let her do her thing. But I came into this challenge believing that I wasn’t fast.
Here’s the great thing about self-awareness: it helps you navigate the world and find the right contexts. The downside is that the self you’ve invested in being aware of can change, and your understanding has to alter accordingly to keep up. Sometimes knowing your limits is a form of self-care, and sometimes it’s simply fear.
I had a relatively quiet schedule in November, allowing me to try the challenge. “I’ll finish my novel by the end of the month,” I thought, somewhat apprehensively. I suspected it would take less than the 50K to get to the end of my allotted plot.
In fact, it did. It only took 32K. I finished it on the 15th of the month.
My past self would probably read that line with goggle-eyes and ask, “How?!” The first thing I did was join the regional NaNo group. They had an online community where participants chatted and held events regularly. People seemed friendly, and it was exciting to be involved in something so intense with a whole bunch of other people, cheering each other on. There were two in-person events as well. I couldn’t make the first one, but the second, at the end of the month, was packed full of people typing furiously. The Municipal Liaisons brought stickers, an analog spreadsheet, a jar full of writing prompts, and a plastic dragon to place atop the laptop of whoever won the latest word war.
Most of our events centered around “word wars,” virtual sprints (using a tool called Sprinto on a Discord forum) where people join and compete to write the most words. I often enjoy writing in longer periods where I can focus and lose track of time, but the sprints proved useful and motivating. They provided accountability and a social aspect to the often solitary activity of writing.
Taking part in a few long writing days with the NaNo group resulted in a lot of writing. Once I finished my novel, I still had words – and half a month of time – to spare. Before NaNo, I’d planned a short story set in the same fantasy world as my novel but hadn’t had time to write it. I drafted that story – another 7,000 words. I still had more words left. I’d had a few ideas in mind for what to work on next, but I ended up starting something different and am now drafting a science fiction novel.
My highlights of the NaNo experience were meeting a group of supportive and fascinating people on the Discord (and in person), finishing my novel draft (!), hitting 50K words on the 21st, and the intrinsic reward of devoting more time and energy to writing. It’s so easy to sideline personal projects. NaNoWriMo affords recognition to the act of committing to one. It felt really nice to “win” something, even if in practice, it means that I got… a virtual badge. It’s not every day that adults have a chance to get a prize, let alone one that validates doing something you want to do.
For November Me, writing facilitated mental health. I write a little most days, and of course I write for my job, but November operated on another level. There was one day this month when I didn’t write, and it felt like a slump. I noticed that and wrote all the other days, even if the time was short and the word count was low. I also appreciated allowing myself long focus days when I didn’t push myself to get anything “more important” done. The bills and cleaning could wait until the next day.
Maybe I don’t always work as slowly as I’d believed. Maybe I really can be as productive as I imagined being… at least sometimes. My inner editor slowed down, but remained in place. I made more typos as I sped up, and then fixed them, for instance. And my hyper-focused month felt great!
I had a freelance project in late November, which pushed me to meet the word count goal more quickly once I realized it was feasible for me to meet it. I also attended opening night for my short play, which was part of a December showcase at the Tower Theatre. I kept writing small amounts of words and adding to the science fiction story as well as writing other things. I got feedback on the short story and was pleasantly surprised by how well others thought it worked despite the speed of its drafting. I also enjoyed meeting new people and hope to stay involved with the online community throughout the year.
So, I’d say NaNoWriMo was a success. I hope to do it again next year, and to maintain some of the writing habits I acquired in my daily life. I guess this old dog could learn new tricks after all!
These last couple months have been exciting ones for my short play, The Pictures of Dora Gray. I’ve seen it read by two different casts. And at the end of the month, I’ll see it performed at the Tower Theatre’s Writers’ Room showcase.
In Oscar Wilde’s classic novel, The Pictures of Dorian Gray, a young man makes a supernatural bargain to preserve his beauty. My play features a woman who decides to use her beauty as a bargaining chip. It’s about gender, art, death, and the costs of greatness.
It was a heady week in October when I met the cast of Dora Gray for the showcase and heard their first read through of the play. I’d met the director and assistant director earlier, and was confident the play was in good hands. Colin Guthrie gave a lot of thought to characters and relationships, and we collaborated on a few revisions. Then came the read-through. It was surreal to watch other people perform the words and story I wrote. I admit I cried a bit.
That same week, Dora Gray was one of three short plays performed at Barons Court Theatre’s scratch night, The Sunday Fix. I watched in real time as a director directed it and a group of actors rehearsed and acted it out. At the end of the night, the plays were performed and the audience gave feedback to the writers.
It was a fascinating process to see the play evolve, and to watch two different directors’ takes on it. Not to mention meeting some great theatre people! I can’t wait to see a fully staged production after this.
The Tower Theatre has become one of my favorite places in London. It’s that rare thing, an amateur theatre company with its own performance space. The plays are diverse and high quality, ranging from Shakespearean comedies to contemporary theatre about the Black British experience, from intimate monologue series to expansive productions like Coram Boy. I’ve been volunteering there for a year now as a front of house steward, and by now, it feels like home. This month I’m moving to Brighton, but I’ll be coming back now and again for events at the theatre.
The Tower has also gotten me back into playwriting, which I haven’t done since high school, when I wrote and acted in a Christmas play about angels because I remembered an old play about elves and thought, “I can do better!”
The theatre’s Writers’ Room, previously closed, opened up to new members recently, so I joined it. It’s a lively group of theatre nerds. Most of them are involved in multiple aspects of productions, such as directing, acting, or stage management.
The Writers’ Room put out a call for scripts for a December-themed showcase of their members’ short plays, which will take place from 29 November – 3 December. I was excited to have my short play The Pictures of Dora Gray chosen as one of five featured scripts!
The audition notice for the showcase summarized my play much more effectively than I could have, so I’ve included it here below. I enjoyed meeting the talented directorial team and look forward to meeting the actors who will bring my words to life!
Thank you to Colin Guthrie for the summary of The Pictures of Dora Gray:
“Dora Gray is a successful artist’s model, but has been less successful in getting her own art to be appreciated. Following a heart attack she makes a deal with Death – Death can take her beauty, as long as she is given mastery over painting. If it shortens her life, it is a price she is prepared to pay.
Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray showed a man who was desperate to retain his beauty and cheat the ravages of life and time. The Pictures of Dora Gray shows a woman who is prepared to forgo her beauty if it allows her to become an exceptional artist. The play explores questions about the nature of art, beauty, fame and the way women are viewed in the male-dominated art world.”
So, if you’re in London in late November or early December, come check out the Writers’ Room showcase and find out what it’s like to make a deal with Death. I’m not going to spoil everyone else’s plays, but other highlights will include a guy in a polar bear suit, and revenge on a Prime Minister. It’s sure to be a good time!
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