To plop or to plot ...

To plop or to plot … that is the question. Well, mine anyway. I’m currently writing my next book and I’m excited and filled with hope about a new idea. My natural instinct is to launch right in, to plop myself down in the middle of a comfy chair and race into the start of the story (and eat the last of the biscuits). Such is my keenness to inhabit any new idea, to look and see what I might discover there - rather like a visit to a continental supermarket - that impatience can get the better of me.

Similarly, I’m a technical-manual-refuser. A gung ho gah-I’ll-learn-as-I-go gal. Give me a manual and my eyes will soon glaze and blur in much the same way they did at school in subjects that weren’t History or English (sincere apologies, Notre Dame Comprehensive, Sheffield). It's why I still can’t operate anything that hosts buttons and flashing lights in my house. 

Which is fine, I can live with the inability to change channels remotely. But with writing - more often than not - I find that if I do just plop into a new story without some serious plotting first, I risk officially losing the plot.

And so, for my past two novels, I’ve been purposefully increasing my pre-plotting time. I’ve found – for me anyway – it not only helps develop my story structure, but it can really boost better idea generation. More ideas help to form a tighter structure; a tighter structure often enables more ideas. 

Therefore, fresh from a summer of plotting and filling up more notebooks than Nancy Drew, here are some of the crafting exercises and activities I have employed to help me avoid too much plopping …

Plotting exercises

📗Charts: I do lots of these as I begin forming a story. They can include charting key Strands, Character Arcs, pivotal Crisis Choices, Cause & Effect.

📘Craft books: re-reading screenwriting books such as ‘Story’ and ‘Into the Woods’ – I find guides that set out the science of our craft can really help develop structure and brainstorm ideas.

📙The 3Cs: Conflict, Choices & Change. A bit of a cross-check for acts and chapters against these critical 3Cs.

📕Story analysis: In my plotting period, I tend to analyse and critique more books and films. Assessing their midpoints, climaxes, motifs, character arcs ... and reflecting on my own.

📗The Circle: I get a bit addicted to drawing circles, lots of them. I quarter them into four acts and review how my story comes full circle, how scenes might mirror one another, how characters develop over time.

📘Map of Connections: I map settings, external and internal, present, past or imagination and I chart connections between these settings and the characters’ journey arcs.

📙Layer Trifle: I layer up revelations like a trifle, with key twists until the final reveal.

📕Stage set: I often draw key scenes as if they were stage sets, examining where characters are in relation to each other and to the audience (the reader).

📗Remember the Reader: possibly the most important part of plotting. I ask myself how the reader might engage with my story. What do they expect? How can I subvert expectations? What questions do I want them to ask? How will this make them feel? 

As Kevin Costner said, almost, Plot and the ideas will come. So, these days, I’m a reformed plopper; a born-again plotter through and through. However, technical manuals? I believe I’ll continue to press my remote control like it’s run out of batteries and wait for one of my teenagers to come home.

     

      Alex Cotter’s middle-grade novel THE MERMAID CALL was published on 7 July 2022 with Nosy Crow. She has also written THE HOUSE ON THE EDGE. Find her at www.alexcotter.co.uk or on Twitter: @AlexFCotter

Working from Home - Ciaran Murtagh

Over the past few months I've come to a realisation, I work from home but I don't necessarily work at home. Trust a writer to get bogged down by semantics in 'week infinity + 1' of lock down and how typical of them to obsess over the difference between two very small words. But there is a difference and frankly it's huge.

Working from home never looked like this - who compartmentalises their own breakfast?

Now you might argue there are many more important things to worry about at this stage in the shit show currently masquerading as 2020, or perhaps it's precisely because of the times we find ourselves in that navel gazing about the difference between 'from' and 'at' seems like a useful waste of my time.

Every day for the past few months I've been heading to my shed to do my work, just like I have done for the past decade or so. I get the work done, but recently I've been finding it harder and harder, and I've been trying to figure out why. Now of course, the chaotic nature of the world - and in particular our country - at the moment doesn't help. But even putting that to one side, something's changed, and that's where those two little words come in.

Home sweet home

People often tell me that I'm very lucky to work at home. And I am. But the truth is -  I really don't. Maybe 30% of my working life is spent at home. A lot of the time I'll be working in cafes or pubs, on trains, in hotels, in libraries, the top floor of the Royal Festival Hall, in airport departure lounges, or in one memorable deadline crazed fever, a bench in the Whitgift Centre Croydon.

Scene of some of my greatest triumphs

It's easy to say I work at home. But given a choice I work anywhere but! I'm not conditioned to spend four months writing in the same place.  I like to mix it up. I thrive on the energy of busy places. I write about life and characters and people and I like to surround myself with them. It's hard to be inspired by a funny incident or something someone said when you're not interacting. I'm not made to be locked in my shed. I might long for the solitude from time to time, but in reality I want life and I want my words to be conceived in the hubbub of conversation and lives being lived.

Come back. I miss you guys... 

So that's what I've learned. My office might be at home, but I work in the bustling streets that surround me and it can't come back soon enough.

Keep Your Eye on the Road - Ciaran Murtagh

I don't have much to say this month, not because a lot hasn't happened - it has -  but because it feels like it's all been said by many people, in many ways, many times before. 

I feel like I'm in the midway through a trans Atlantic journey on some rickety old boat, no land in sight, just the knowledge that somewhere just beyond the horizon is the place I need to be. 

Days become weeks with precious little change and everybody seems to be in a holding pattern that started six weeks ago and is now getting harder to sustain. For a few weeks we could make do and scramble to regain a semblance of normality. We could work late, work early, home school, exercise with Joe Whoeverheis and keep the car on the road. Now we're six weeks in,  with no end in sight and starting to doubt the value of the car in the first place. 

It's at times like these that we have to remember why we set out in the first place. What it is we want to achieve - not in a 'I learned the lute in Covid' kind of way, in a much more profound, 'these are my values' and I hold them true regardless of the nonsense coming at me from all angles' kind of way. 

I'm taking comfort in music and - maybe because of the boat analogy, or the fact that we've just crossed some sort of Rubicon - it's The Waterboys who are really doing it for me.  This is the Sea sums up my feelings of where we are pretty well. 

You're trying to make sense

Of something that you just can't see

Trying to make sense now

And you know you once held the key

But that was the river

And this is the sea...

But as we drift out of our depth to who knows where, it's another Waterboys song that gives me hope. Keep keeping on and don't lose sight of what you hold dear. Know where you're going, be true to yourself and no matter what distractions, turbulence and nonsense lie ahead, trust that you'll get there eventually. Somehow. 

Keep the river on your right

And the highway at your shoulder

And the front line in your sights, pioneer

Censorship and Brexit - Ciaran Murtagh

On Friday the BBC re-released a sketch from Horrible Histories that apparently 'trashed Britain'.  You can watch the offending sketch here:

It was from a 2009 episode called Vile Victorians and it upset a lot of people including Piers Morgan, Andrew Neill and the Daily Mail, so it must be doing something right.

Caution - this link will take you to The Daily Mail

It piqued my interest because as a kids TV writer, it seemed strange for so many grown men - and it usually is men - to get enraged by an 11 year old sketch, which many children have enjoyed and - crucially - understood for years.

Link to some frankly ridiculous Twitter comments.

The reason for the outrage was the fact that it was unpatriotic. Factually and historically accurate, but unpatriotic because it pointed to aspects of British history, that while true, displayed Britain in an unfavourable light.

No matter that this sketch has been broadcast many times to zero protest. No matter that it's from a show called Horrible Histories -  the clue's in the name.   No matter that Horrible Histories also trashes the 'Vicious Vikings' and the 'Rotten Romans'- maybe other countries have thicker skin, or aren't in the middle of an identity crisis.

We now live in a country so past irony that The Sun can create a poster celebrating Brexit in which the fictional character Alan Partridge is apparently a Great Britain,  while his very real creator Steve Coogan is a shattered Remainer.

Also on the poster and in the Great British camp are Mr Blobby, Basil Brush and Mr Bean. As a writer for at least two of those characters - Mr Blobby writes his own material -  I think I can confidently say Mr Bean is apolitical at best and if I had to pin Basil down I'd have him a little 'Countryside Alliance-y', but then again - THEY'RE BOTH MADE UP, SO HOW WOULD I KNOW!?

Noted Great Briton and anti-EU advocate Mr Bean. Apparently.

Regardless it's obviously fine to give fictional kids TV characters British values and agendas to reinforce your political point, but don't you dare put actual facts in front of the kiddiwinks for fear of being labelled unpatriotic.  Or maybe The Sun poster is clearly a joke and I shouldn't take it so seriously, in which case... Horrible Histories! 

The only thing that's changed in the 11 years since this sketch was first broadcast is that we now live in age where we no longer have a need for experts and facts are apparently negotiable depending on your world view.  That and they got a British born Asian to introduce it. Can't have people with a darker skin tone telling us OUR - and their, but lets not worry about that -  history can we?

Another criticism levelled at the sketch is that is lacks perspective, it doesn't say anything about all the good things the Victorians and Britain did. Which is true, it doesn't, but then it's a comedy sketch for children, it makes one point and it makes it very well, it's how sketches work. You never hear of any of the perfectly healthy parrots the pet shop owner sold in the Dead Parrot sketch do you? Where's the perspective? Next you'll be telling me that 'Allo 'Allo isn't representative of life in German occupied France and not all Dublin matriarchs are men in drag.

Life in German occupied France not all bad. Apparently. 

In the scheme of things it's a silly thing to get annoyed about, but as a children's writer I find it very worrying. It points to an insidious trend. If the future of writing for children means passing some strange Daily Mail criteria for what is and isn't acceptable then we're all screwed.

Children are happy to be challenged, happy to be provoked, happy to question and happy to think for themselves. The evidence of the past few days seems to suggest that certain adults are not. We should always remind ourselves that we're writing for the children who are happy to explore different perspectives, not the grown ups who would rather we reinforce a particular world view.

On a wider note, for anybody who creates anything, if these angry, seemingly educated people feel so threatened by an 11 year old sketch about Queen Victoria on kids TV,  just imagine how they'll feel when faced with more grown up criticism on a news show. Or maybe they'll just select favourable journalists from now on.

Regardless, the shouting voices are getting louder. Post Brexit you're either with us or against us. In an age where a slightly peculiar decade old sketch in which Queen Victoria has sugar poured on her head can cause such indignant rage I worry for anybody who dares to create anything with a dissenting voice, no matter how light hearted it may be.

Ciaran Murtagh's work can currently be seen every Friday at 6pm on CBBC on Crackerjack.  Follow the link to see an unashamedly apolitical Basil Brush doing his thing. 

Writing: The Next Generation - Ciaran Murtagh

This month I was lucky enough to head up to Manchester with my family to watch an episode of Crackerjack being filmed. I've written quite a few sketches for this show and it was a real thrill to see them performed in front of a studio audience. One of the sketches featured past presenters - Stu Francis, Don MacLean, Bernie Clifton, Basil Brush and Jan Hunt. The idea of the sketch was for them to pass the baton onto new presenters Sam and Mark and it was quite moving watching these performers I had grown up with paying it forward in that way.

Stu Francis was the Crackerjack presenter I grew up with. He's partly responsible for me doing the job I do now. I never thought I'd ever end up writing for him, but this remarkable career sometimes throws up those moments. I was writing silly jokes for the man who made me appreciate the value of silly jokes in the first place.

Writers are often connected to generations past and present in a very tangible way. We spend time in schools learning from the writers of the future and we spend time with books learning from the writers of the past. There is a continuum to our craft and to our work that transcends the time and place in which it was written.

Sitting in the Crackerjack studio, 30 years later than perhaps would have been ideal for my 8 year old self, it struck me how much I had been inspired by it as a child.

It's not just the show itself though, the people making it have also paid it forward. The first bit of TV I ever wrote featured Sam and Mark, they now present the show. The first bit of TV I ever wrote was commissioned on spec by Steve Ryde, he's now executive producer of Crackerjack. He took a risk on me, gave me some of his time and expertise, and now I have a career in a business I knew nothing about a decade ago.

This week I got nominated for a writing Bafta. If Steve Ryde hadn't taken that chance, if Crackerjack hadn't made me appreciate the value of a pun, I might never have been in this position. I don't forget that, which is why it's important when someone reaches out for advice or mentorship I do my best to help. Most of our careers are a hotch potch of lucky breaks, hard work and the occasional helping hand.  It's our duty to find the time to pay it forward whenever we can.

Love and Money: Ciaran Murtagh

When I was a kid I always wrote. It was something that gave me comfort and pleasure more or less in equal measure. I enjoyed making up stories and because I enjoyed it I did it all the time. And as everybody knows, the more you do something the better you get at it, but I didn’t really care. I wrote because I wanted to.

This is not me. But it's really hard to find a picture of a redhead writing on the internet....

For years I would write in whatever spare time I had. I was a teen dad back in 1995, I was working for IBM, trying to get myself onto a university course and struggling to bring up a baby I was ill equipped to deal with. I know none of us are ever equipped to bring up a baby, but seriously…

This is IBM Warwick. It was as exciting as it looked. 

Nonetheless I found time to write. I dreamed of making it my job, of it being the one thing I had to do with my time. I worked through countless temp jobs making the cash to fund my way, keep my daughter in clothes and still I wrote.

I wrote so much that the dream happened. I wrote so much that I got good enough that people would pay me to write for them. I have no idea if I have or ever had any natural talent for writing. I am sure some people do, just not sure one of them is me. I got to be a writer because I put in the hours, because I nurtured what tiny spark I may have been given and made it big enough to be noticed. You gotta fan the flames. 

While the boy in the first picture isn't me. This is definitely me. Croydon can be a rough place. 

I’ve always had one eye on the money. Always. All my adult life I’ve had to provide for someone else. It focuses the mind. If I was ever going to give up a paid job in order to write, then that writing job needed to be paid too. The struggling artist can live on beans and Pot Noodles, his young daughter cannot.

It took some time, but finally I got paid to write an episode of Dick and Dom and that gave me the confidence and the cash – well 3 months’ worth – to ditch everything and concentrate on writing. In that 3 months I wrote my first book. For the last ten years I’ve been making a living as a writer, but…

I owe it all to these guys. And Steve Ryde their producer. 

Somewhere along the way, something changed. I found a way to make the thing I loved doing most in the world the only thing I needed to do – it should be a home run right? Wrong. Writing is now my job. It’s not my escape, my refuge or sometimes even my pleasure. It’s work.

I have no hobbies. Writing was the only hobby I ever had. Being a dad at 17 made sure of that. Now my hobby is my work and it’s not as great as I thought it would be. I have been writing for money so long, I forgot the real reason I ever started writing in the first place. The only hobby I ever had left me, or rather I left it, and now it’s my boss.

I get up every Monday and clock into my office for 8 hours. I do it five days a week. I’ve always got something to write, something I’m paid to write, but that bit of me that used to write for the sheer thrill of discovery is gone. I write to an end.

This year I made a resolution. Before I start working for everyone else, I spend an hour of the day working for me. On something I’m not obliged to write or paid to write, something I just want to write. It might not become a book or a TV programme or anything, but then why should it? It certainly never used to. I’m connecting with writing in a way I remember. And hopefully I’ll feel better about all the work I do as a consequence.

Not sure what this blog is about, but it felt good to write it, which in retrospect, is exactly the point. 

And as for the kid, she’s now 24 and somehow she’s got me to take her to see Busted on Thursday. Your parental duty is never done. You heard it here first. Happy writing.

 Busted. They mean it man. 

CHILDREN'S WRITER WANTED! by Lynne Benton

JOB OPPORTUNITY:

We, at Great New Publishing House, are looking for a children’s writer with plenty of energy to write huge series of best-selling books, ideally very similar to Harry Potter, which will keep us in clover for many years to come.

Applicants must be prepared to:

a)     Work for several weeks/months/years with no pay in order to write said books, before sending the first to us.

b)     Expect to wait several more months before we let you know what we think.

c)      Expect to be asked to rewrite said book many times, even if eventually we decide either to go with what you originally wrote, or that we don’t want it after all.

d)     Be aware that the world of publishing is changing, so we no longer hand out six-figure advances to any of our writers (unless you are already famous, preferably in another field altogether).  In fact we no longer hand out advances at all, but prefer you to wait until royalties begin to roll in.  Given that it takes, on average, 18 months to publish a book, this means you may not see any money until at least two years after your manuscript has been accepted for publication.  This is, of course, in addition to the length of time it took you to write the book in the first place.  

e)     Be also aware that when your book is published you will receive only between 5% and 10% of the cover price for each book sold (we have to pay for our swanky new offices somehow!)  Many people make the foolish assumption that you will get at least 90%!

f)       Be aware that once your first book is on the shelves, you will be expected to tour the country giving talks to schools, libraries, festivals etc., many of these for no fee whatsoever.  This is a must, in order to publicise your book, so it is ultimately for your own benefit, as we do very little publicity ourselves nowadays.  We appreciate that this will take up much of the time you need to write the next book in your series, but we will still expect you to keep to the deadline we have set for you.

g)     Realise that deadlines are for our benefit, not yours.  We expect you to deliver your manuscript promptly when requested, though we may well sit on it for a further six months before getting round to reading it.

h)    Be prepared for the fact that as soon as you have delivered your manuscript, your editor will go off on maternity leave, so your book will be handed to another editor who may not like it anyway.

i)       Be aware that the general public assume you must be a multi-millionaire on the strength of your 1, 2, 6 or 25 previously-published books.

j)       Be aware that you will be patronised by people who think “it must be easy writing for children because the books are quite short”, as well as by those who say, “I could write a book too if I only had the time.”

k)     Be also aware that you will probably be asked when you are going to write a “proper” book, ie one for adults.

l)       Be prepared to spend hours every day working on your own, probably at home.

m)  Be also prepared to discover that if you are working at home the rest of the world does not consider you are working.  Your children/spouse/neighbours may/will assume that because you are at home you are free to play/chat/answer the telephone/take delivery of parcels for yourself or a neighbour and deal with unwanted callers.

n)    If you are still keen to work for us, please submit a synopsis of no more than 500 words, giving a full outline of your intended series, complete with character list and motivations, by next Thursday at the latest.

o)     The editor’s decision is final.