Links to Look At

Here's a link to Sarah Salway's Writing Journal - in particular a post on her blog that shows how she develops her ideas in a journal, and how she chooses which are the best ideas. I love the photographs of messy writing and ideas half-formed. It's a little bit similar to what I am trying to do with this blog.

The Editing Process

Click on the picture to make it big and see my editing.

With a short piece of fiction, every single word counts. I've typed up this piece of writing, printed it out and read it through to myself, looking for words and phrases that are awkward and repetitive so I can cut them out. I've also added some more description, and made notes to myself about ideas I need to develop and descriptions I need to expand in order to give the story the atmosphere and emphasis that I want.

I'm also thinking about the layout of my story - this is part one of a story I plan to come in four parts, each part set in a different location and having a different photograph, sound or map to go with it. Each part will be round about 250 words long. This is a tight word limit so I'm going to need to be very careful that all my words are working hard.

How are you going about editing your story into the final version?

First Attempts At A Story

The very first draft of a piece of writing I did during one of the workshops in response to a first line prompt from Doreen - 'there were eighteen pairs of trainers in my back garden'. I worked in the old house at 294 Eureka Villas too, even though that wasn't the house or the garden Doreen was talking about originally.

It's too short, and I want to work in a route and more of a plot, but it's a start.

Reasearch Trip: Unexpected Magic

Even in cities, towns and beside neglected, shut up buildings there are little doorways to magical places. Routes that take you down paths towards the unexpected. Like Alice falling down the rabbit tunnel or Lucy discovering Narnia through the back of a wardrobe door, these doorways are secret and magical and appear where you'd least expect them: so close to home they are right under your nose.

I wonder where this path leads?

Research Trip: The View

These photographs and our trip over the river on the Ferry reminded me of a discussion we had in the workshop about the way the Wirral and Liverpool relate to each other. 'The best view of Liverpool is from this side' Louise said, and someone else told me that Birkenhead was for the posh people, and the city of Liverpool meant for the workers.

Here's what I saw as I stood on the rocky Esplanade at Rock Park and looked over the water to Liverpool, where I'd come from on the Ferry earlier that morning.

Research Trip: Beachcombing on the Esplanades

No buried treasure here, but lots of broken crockery, bottles and winkle shells. A deserted, windy place - but evidence of life and people everywhere - even the remains of a little bonfire.

Reasearch Trip: Waste Ground II

I wonder what Barbara at Derelict Stories would make of this view from the pub? It isn't pretty, but things don't need to be pretty to be interesting - just like stories don't need to have morals or meanings or happy endings to be worth reading.

I think I'm better at taking pictures of details rather than the bigger picture. Maybe that's because of the sort of writer I am. I need to train myself to think about structure rather than sentences and both are important.

I love the picture of the pipes running through the bit of old cement. I've been practising taking pictures a lot recently and I think I'm getting better at working my camera. This bit of cement made me think of a musical instrument of some kind.

Research Trip: Waste Ground Opposite the Pub

Jensen and his friend Rob took some really great photos of this place. I found it creepy and mysterious and I was scared to venture too far in.

Research Trip: The Admiral Pub, Rock Park

Like 294 Eureka Villas, this is another shut up and derelict building that is begging for someone to put a story in it. I think it's the fact that there's so much possibility in an empty, shut-up building. There's room for me to imagine what might have been, and what will be. It's like watching people on the train or the Ferry. They are between places and there are enough gaps for you to be able to ask questions and make up a few stories.

I wonder what stories these walls could tell if they could talk?

Research Trip: Film Footage

If you play this film you can hear a little bit of the tour-guide's speech we listened to when we were on the Ferry. It's the second time I've heard it now. They played the Ferry Cross the Mersey Song too, but I didn't catch that.

It was as cold, grey and windy as it looks. After twenty minutes or so Dot, Keith and I gave up and fled inside to sit down and warm up and Keith presented me with the gift of a Kit-Kat from the on-board cafe.

Dot told me about her days using the Ferry to commute from the Wirral to her job in the BT offices in Liverpool. Apparently the business commuters in suits and bowler hats used to walk around the top deck of the ferry to get their exercise in the morning, and she was always tempted to walk too.... just against the flow.

Research Trip: The Ferry

Wirralpedia

Wirralpedia will map the facts, fiction and folklore of the Wirral. The (mis)information relies almost entirely on the contributions of the people who make the Wirral the place it is today.

From Wirralpedia

I can't travel into The Wirral to do all of my research, so some of it is done second hand, through the net. I love the way Wirralpedia lets us know that not all of the stories on it are true ones.

I wonder if we could get our stories listed on Wirralpedia as part of the fictional history of the place we are writing about? What do you think?

This is the entry I like the best. I hope the case of the mysterious wedding dresses in Birkenhead Park ends up in my story.