{"id":704,"date":"2014-10-01T04:15:09","date_gmt":"2014-10-01T11:15:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/shaunbelcher.com\/writing\/?p=704"},"modified":"2016-06-09T10:02:04","modified_gmt":"2016-06-09T17:02:04","slug":"how-novelists-work-how-mine-dont","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shaunbelcher.com\/writing\/?p=704","title":{"rendered":"How Novelists Work..how mine don’t"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"harts\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The<\/span> first fiction session last night and a shock to the Belcher system…(unecessary elipsis there) as<\/del>I am not a practicing fiction writer. The samples (vignettes, prose poems) I offered for appraisal were three very old items that I happened to have. ( ellipsis attempted but stopped mid-dot….!)<\/p>\n

I quickly understood that writing fiction feels very different to poetry…( second uneccessary elipsis).Maura Dooley’s ‘different bus’ comment from the Seren ‘How Novelists Work’ book rang true.I took heart from a John Harvey chapter in the book where he said that he used to ‘fly off the handle and over-react’ to start with when edited but learnt to live and appreciate it and shows examples. I did not have any sulky moments and the round-table criticism was careful and appreciated. I hope I gave equally good comments back.<\/p>\n

\"dooley\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Maura Dooley Ed. How Novelists Work – Recommended
\nAMAZON<\/a><\/p>\n

Because of the time lag between the examples it is <\/span>hard to say why certain things are<\/span> at fault. The David Belbin cardinal sin of using ‘as’ I simply never been told about before so that should be easy to correct as is ‘just'(note second deliberate use of as there hopefully correctly.(Smillie removed)<\/span>\u00c2\u00a0These are basic errors that I need to learn and stamp out. Also<\/del>\u00c2\u00a0The most basic of all is a<\/span> lack of full stops but this may be a hangover from free verse poetry where frankly<\/del> I hardly ever use punctuation. The same applies to commas so I getting my ‘Oxford Guide to Style’ out and keeping by the desk at all times.\u00c2\u00a0(Smillie\u00c2\u00a0removed)<\/span><\/p>\n

Finally there is<\/span> and<\/del> perhaps a bigger worry and one that<\/span> my friend Mik Godley would<\/span> be<\/span><\/span> more than happy to see eradicated. I have spent a\u00c2\u00a0long time online and have picked up a lot of bad habits and lazy text-speak mannerisms. Short-hand thinking not good enough any more. A lot of this from pure lack of time and I do not have\u00c2\u00a0that excuse any more so self-editing and replacing missing words starts now. Even writing a ‘blog’ entry of five hundred words better than filling a text box on a social media site with garbage so I will concentrate more on entries here which acting as a reflective journal and creative diary.<\/p>\n

I have deliberately marked up mistakes in the above text in green\u00c2\u00a0or by\u00c2\u00a0strikethroughs<\/del> to remind myself to think before writing NOT afterwards which would save me a great deal of time in the future. I have spent time improving my \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcacademic\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 style and can cope with academic papers now but this a different type of fish\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6I actually hope people will read this.\u00c2\u00a0(Smillie\u00c2\u00a0removed).\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n


\nI AM\u00c2\u00a0GOING BACK TO PEN AND PAPER<\/span>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

MISTAKES<\/strong><\/p>\n

OLS= over long sentences<\/p>\n

NO full stops<\/p>\n

ellipsis overkill<\/p>\n

REDUND =redundant words\/ repetitions.<\/p>\n

AS = too many- delete<\/p>\n

JUST- just-isms.<\/p>\n

Also – not at start of sentence = redundant.<\/p>\n

Adverbs – like ‘frankly’ redundant<\/p>\n

ORIGINAL TEXTS<\/strong><\/p>\n

Here links to the original unedited fragments. I will over the rest of the week re-edit them into newer versions and post links next to original links. I doubt if any will make it off the first page in future but never say never. As David said concentrate on some new stuff and I have an idea and a title ….it is a start.<\/p>\n

One was an intro<\/del>\u00c2\u00a0introduction to a failed ‘Great British Rural Novel’ which got to<\/del>\u00c2\u00a0staggered<\/span> to ten pages in 1990 before going in the draw.
\nCrow in Barley<\/a><\/p>\n

Crow in Barley Edited<\/p>\n

The second was a strange historical snippet inspired by a true account of a landowner in Oxfordshire and his pet monkey and also inspired by<\/del> Nick Cave songs. 2003.
\nChalkfish and Monkey<\/a><\/p>\n

Chalkfish and Monkey edited<\/p>\n

The third was an aborted first draft of a non-existant Trailer Star movie or graphic novel. 2003.
\nMoon over the Downs<\/a><\/p>\n

Moon over the Downs edited<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The first fiction session last night and a shock to the Belcher system…(unecessary elipsis there) asI am not a practicing fiction writer. The samples (vignettes, prose poems) I offered for appraisal were three very old items that I happened to have. ( ellipsis attempted but stopped mid-dot….!) I quickly understood that writing fiction feels very…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[38,44,23,47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-704","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-creative-writing-m-a","category-fiction","category-short-stories","category-style"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6nhh-bm","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shaunbelcher.com\/writing\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/704","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shaunbelcher.com\/writing\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shaunbelcher.com\/writing\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shaunbelcher.com\/writing\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shaunbelcher.com\/writing\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=704"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/shaunbelcher.com\/writing\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/704\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1333,"href":"https:\/\/shaunbelcher.com\/writing\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/704\/revisions\/1333"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shaunbelcher.com\/writing\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=704"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shaunbelcher.com\/writing\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=704"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shaunbelcher.com\/writing\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=704"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}