Writing is like a ride on the Big Wheel...

As it has been half term this past week, Nottingham City centre has again played host to a Big Wheel in the Old Market Square.

It is actually an interesting process to watch when it's being put up and again when it's taken down a couple of months later.

Looking at the big wheel going round today started me thinking, that writing and the process of writing a short story, a novel (or even an article) have a lot in common.

First the base for building upon...
Perhaps that equates to having what you need to start the process ( a notepad and pen or a computer and keyboard).

The big supporting poles come next ( the initial idea...the plot?)

Then the wheel begins to be constructed (the characters and the setting).

The viewing compartments get added next ( the dialogue and the narrative).

When the wheel is completed (the first draft) it is tested and anything that needs correcting is done (editing).

So the wheel is finally ready to run (you say goodbye to your manuscript).

In you climb and off you go until the wheel stops ( it's in the post or winging its way through the ether to that editor, agent or publisher and finally lands in their in-tray/inbox).

Then you start going again (it's being considered) and who knows whether the next time the wheel stops it may be the return envelope and you'll soon be getting off the wheel sooner than expected.
You may go round a few times and when you reach the ground for the final time you may have that acceptance you've been hoping for.

But even if it fails that time you can always try again...

And as we've been talking about the Big Wheel here is a picture...



Big Wheel
photo by Richard Bevitt



Characters and the problems they bring...

I haven't been writing this week as it's half term, plus I've been recovering from the accident I was involved in last Thursday, so pain and discomfort have pushed my characters to the back of my mind.

Every writer has their own way of creating their characters. But today, mine decided that I'd had long enough ignoring them and demanded attention.

Now I have one, Jack, in his rented cottage needing to find a document that is important to a group of people, but he's not cooperating, or he just doesn't know what he's doing!

There's Marcus in the eighteenth century patiently waiting for a rewrite...

Another is a young woman in a lift- that's all I know about her at the moment...

Then I have another unnamed couple lurking in my head. I have a few possible scenarios for them, a location where the story takes place (a picture from an item in Radio Times a few months ago) and my heroine in a half mask looking mysterious (courtesy of a magazine tidy up).

Generally my novel characters present themselves in a scene-almost a still. I may have a vague idea about one or more of them, but usually it's as if I'm looking at them through a fine net curtain.
From there I have to find out about them, for example their past and what they look like- okay that character may have dark hair from what I can see through the net, but is it black, brown or going grey with all the implications that can suggest?

Sometimes I realise that an idea I'd jotted down months- or in the case of Marcus- years ago, ties into a particular character's story.

For short stories I find it more of a problem. Something will trigger an idea and I may have one or two characters who I know belong with that idea- sometimes they are very clear, but others times they're vague and it tends to be those vague ones that don't go anywhere.
Yes, I need to know them more but I do sometimes wonder if they aren't in the wrong parts. Stories like that need more thinking time.

So next week I'll be back with Jack- one of my very clear characters- in the cottage trying to sort him out- then  I can get him to the next scene where I know what is going to happen...

So, do you have any characters who demand your attention?