In our Wednesday Writers’ Group, we have been refining our techniques by learning to be economical with our words. It’s so easy to slip into unnecessary repetition and belabouring our points. The 100-word challenge helps us writers to prune our words to the absolute minimum and make each word count.
In doing this exercise myself recently, I was forced to examine what facts were necessary, and how much I can rely on the readers’ intelligence to “get” the story. Often, we underestimate our readers and thus repeat and go into minute detail that bogs down the story, causing our readers to become bored and not turn the page.
So, here’s my 100-word challenge, fresh from my memoir collection. It may not be perfect, but it is 100-words.
***
[Intro: Rick, my brother, loved resurrecting car wrecks. The backyard shed became his workshop, and the local wreckers his go-to.]
The “Yota”
A fossick in the car-graveyard yielded the broken shell of a Toyota. Rick revived it. He spray-painted it green.
‘Can’t miss the frog-car,’ I’d say.
One Sunday morning, Mum and Dad needed a car to drive to church.
Without permission, they drove the roaring ‘Yota down the driveway.
I slept in.
Minutes later, the ‘Yota roared back up the drive.
Doors slammed.
Mum cussed.
I scrambled out of bed. Mum never swears.
‘What happened?’ I asked.
‘The police picked us up and defected the car,’ Dad said.
‘That’s what happens for taking the car without permission,’ I replied.
No two writers will ever write the same; unless they copy each other’s work.
As we write our history emerges. Our birthplace and early childhood lay down the roots of our language, the words we use and how we say them. Education hones our writing skills, providing the rudiments of spelling, grammar, clarity and brevity. The extent of our education is reflected in our vocabulary, knowledge and understanding.
Life, with all it’s trauma, joys, grief and love add a layer of personal experiences that shines light on, or clouds, our perceptions.
Writers of fiction take the written word further. In ignorance or awe, they craft words into edifying entertaining stories. They create worlds in time and place with characters who are as unique and exceptional as real people. The process is magical.
Style is the author’s choice that allows their personal history to shine through the story. The summation of a singular life; bent by beliefs, passions, opinions, encounters and events.
Style is a matter of establishing the mood of the story, the best tense to tell the story, what word choices capture the emotions, which character can tell the story in the most effective way.
Style can come down to sentence length, grammar and spelling. Dialogue can add history and dialect with a character’s utterances which shape their relationships and place in society.
Style can be manipulated by writers to provide rhythm and metre.
Style can be transparent and easy to read, enhancing a strong story. Dense prose may hide the story behind word smithing or complications that may entrance or offend.
Purple prose, too much of everything, isn’t recommended.
But what about the reader?
I liken literature to the composition of music.
Some composers write for the entertainment of their listeners. They want to transport the listener on waves of sound that draw out emotions and memories. Good music can bring tears, stir resolve or just provide a wonderous relaxation. Music can move people from the humdrum to the fantastic, and it is pure entertainment.
Some composers, especially those before technological devices, wrote music for players of musical instruments. Their compositions were to build skills, challenge and inspire. They incorporated complications and tests of dexterity, difficult techniques to build confidence and proficiency in fellow performers. They didn’t write for the entertainment of ordinary listeners.
But some composers both entertain listeners and challenge musicians. They achieve immortality.
But what about the reader?
As writers, like composers, we need to consider our audience. Are we writing to provide our readers with entertainment? A good story, easily read that delivers our ideas and characters simply and clearly. A bestseller, one among many, distracting, diverting and providing pleasure; for a short time.
Or are we writing to impress and challenge aspiring writers? To build the writing craft and stretch the boundaries of our fellow wordsmiths. Do we want to craft a style that may be dense and hard to read for the average reader? That needs re-reading. That stirs love or hate, or both in equal measure.
Our bushwalk included some city-slicker newchums. Crossing a wide plain between mountains, we noticed cows in the distance. They began wandering across to check us out. Newchums, trailing behind with heads down, slogging it out, were only half way across when we reached the fence.
Suddenly the newchums became aware of large creatures approaching. They walked faster; the cows came closer. Newchums trotted. So did the cows. Newchums ran. The cows, udders swinging, galloped alongside. We doubled up laughing.
Newchums, white faced and panicked, arrived safely, totally oblivious that your average dairy cows are peaceable animals. But curious as cats.
In March 2024 I wrote a blog about radically altering the plot for my novel, A Suitable Passion, so that it fit with history. I started the novel as a romance, but slavery and romance was not an easy pairing and a focus on relationships detracted from the serious theme of the novel. In a major revision, romance gave way to drama. I’m pleased to report that the book has been extensively re-written, given a new title, The Jamaican Heiress, and I’m in the process of doing editing sweeps. It should be out some time later this year.
Getting your plot to fit the history is just one small part of historical novel research. Everything was done differently two hundred years ago. They had distinctive values, governance, social rules and every small detail of life was unlike what we experience today.
An historical author has to constantly research small details. I described a scene where a maid was putting away clothes in a wardrobe in the year 1820. However, the wardrobe, as we know it, was not commonly in use then, even among the rich. It was more likely for upper class women to have gowns hung on pegs or draped over poles inside a dressing room. Clothes not in current use, were stored in boxes and chests to keep them safe from moths and insects. So, no wardrobe.
In my current work in progress the protagonists have to travel by coaches, horseback and sailing ships. I needed to know how long it took a fast-sailing ship to travel from London to Kingston Jamaica, (three – four weeks) so I could get my time lines correct. Similarly, I needed to know how long it took a horse and rider to travel fifty miles compared to a coach and four. I needed to research what people wore, the fabrics and fashion trends, how maids made up fires, newspapers, laws about slavery, who made the laws, how did they work… ad infinitum.
When I’m writing I am constantly going into Google asking questions. Aren’t we blessed these days that such information is at our fingertips instantaneously. Technology and AI have problems, but they are fabulous resources for quick information. But it pays to double check everything too. I usually look at several sources of information before accepting historical information as accurate. Not everything needs rigorous research, but it pays to have a written account of the searches I have conducted, the history books, podcasts, web-sites and other sources of information I have used to research my novel.
I also love visiting the places where I’ve set my books and in particular the museums that specialize in historical information. I’m lucky to have relatives living in London so when I visit, I usually go to the Victoria and Albert Museum. I also recently discovered the Museum of London Docklands. This museum is housed in an actual West Indies Dock warehouse. It gave me a splendid visual of how the docks operated two hundred years ago. That museum is full of replicas, original illustrations, newspaper articles and useful information. I spent several hours there and was able to buy a number of books about the West Indian slavery system. It was research gold.
Another valuable resource for my novel has been web sites. The Jamaican National Groups – Parish Histories of Jamaica (https://www.parishhistoriesofjamaica.org) is a fabulous website providing historical details, illustrations and photos of places where I have set my novel. I’m now very tempted to visit Jamaica in person it looks so interesting.
Books are another valuable reference for the historical writer. Some of these books are of general interest but others are PhD. theses that delve into the nitty gritty of a topic. I read the following books prior to starting to write my novel so I had a good overview of the actual historical period and specific information relating to slavery.
Christer Petley – White Fury – A Jamaican Slaveholder and the Age of Revolution – Oxford University Press 2018
Colleen A. Vasconcellos – Slavery, Childhood and Abolition in Jamaica 1788 – 1838 – The University of Geogia Press 2015
Mary Prince – The History of Mary Prince – A West Indian Slave – Edited by Sara Salih – Penguin Books 1831
Peter Fryer – Black People in the British Empire – Pluto Books 1988
Getting your facts and background information right is essential. But how much of it do you use when you are writing the novel? I was so captivated by the information about slavery in 1830’s it became difficult to leave the research aside. My first draft was full of historical facts, historical conversations about these facts, descriptions of conditions for slaves etc. but it swamped the story. I culled a lot in subsequent drafts realising that the reader wants a good story not a history lesson. I would estimate that I used about 10-20% of my research in the novel.
My advice based on experience is to read extensively to get the essentials of the historical era, focus on the conflicts and the settings. Then when writing your first draft research the details as you are writing. ‘Oh, I wonder how that worked?’ and look it up. But do keep a list of sources you have used.
Of course, all authors have to do research. Crime writers have to know a lot about police techniques, law, forensic procedures to name a few. Science fiction depends on a knowledge of science and astronomy. Fantasy authors may use mythology to build their worlds, and even contemporary writers do extensive research regarding locations and the numerous everyday details that have to be accurate. Family historians in particular engage into in depth, very obscure archives in order to put their research into print. It’s certainly not an area for the faint-hearted.
So, I suggest if you are a writer you will need to do research. Finding the right balance of skimming and delving deep takes time. What to leave in and what needs to give way to the storyline is a balancing act.
Photos:
Feature: 1. Hogsheads of Sugar, Antigua, 1823, by William Clark – a painting displayed at the Museum of London Docklands.
2. The Valley of the Rocks, near Lynton Devon. Original photo by L.C. Wong 2024 – This location featured in my novel A Suitable Heir.
Back in January I found out about an upcoming competition. With regular life in suspension and a bit of time on my hands I thought – “Give it a go. Why not? Nothing to lose.” One was required to write a memoir – couple of thousand words and a cash prize. Beyond the address for submission there were no more details.
But what exactly is a memoir? As a keen member of a local camera club, I’ve had photographs disqualified as “out of category” or “didn’t meet the brief”. I didn’t fancy putting time and effort into a couple of thousand words to have them peremptorily discarded in such a cavalier fashion. Obviously, memory is involved. Is it just autobiography or is there some twist I’m not aware of? Bit of research seemed to be in order.
The first dictionary I consulted (fairly simple; from my schooldays) told me it was “an autobiography; a reminder”. I had a sneaking feeling that for this writing competition there was a bit more to it than that. So, off to my great big two volume Shorter Oxford to discover that this word has been in use for centuries. Way back then, half a millennia ago, it simply meant “a note; a memorandum; a record – often an official one”.
A couple of hundred years later it had morphed into something much closer in meaning to our twenty first century perception – “a record of events or history from personal knowledge or from special sources of information”. All connected to memory and autobiography but with a bit of a twist as well in that interviewing then writing an account of someone else’s memories seemed to be in order too. Right then though I was more concerned with my own personal recollections of my own life.
My very earliest memory is of a big wooden table in the middle of a dim room. I was sitting in my highchair at one end of the table; to my left, a door standing ajar; a window next to it and beyond the verandah the gentle slope of a sunlit, golden hillside. I was aware of the rest of the house to my right, behind me and away across the table in the far wall, there was another window with, next to it, in the corner a wood stove, shrouded in shadow. However, my attention was caught by movement outside on the hillside. It was a rabbit or more probably a hare, lolloping across; stopping to nibble or look around before continuing its leisurely progress. The Easter Bunny! I was filled with immense excitement.
Now, so many, many decades later, I have no idea whether that was my own idea or whether my parents had suggested it. I was four months past my second birthday; the memory and the magic of it still clear and vivid.
My memories of a happy childhood are not at all a story continuing through the years but a series of pictures, many pictures randomly stamped on a blank canvas, like vignetted photos: crystal clear but with blurred edges. The competition? The time on my hands somehow evaporated. Life last January has also become a blur.
Have a Happy and Blessed Easter. As it is the Easter weekend and in keeping with our months of memoir, a story of my Easter break in 1986, camping in the Gammon Ranges with my father and future husband.
THE BIRTH OF “BUNYIP CHASM”—THE PAINTING
You need to loosen up with your painting,’ my art teacher said.
So, with a palette-knife, I did with my painting of Bunyip chasm.
Over the Easter break in 1986, Dad took my boyfriend (future husband) and me to the Gammon Ranges. Dad had gone there the previously with his photographer friend and he was keen to show us some of the scenic secrets these ranges held.
We bumped and rolled in Dad’s four-wheel drive Daihatsu down the track into the Gammon Ranges. We camped near Grindell’s Hut, backpackers’ accommodation. A murder-mystery from the early Twentieth Century involving the hut’s owner, spiced our discussion around the campfire that night. Then we set up a tent, for boyfriend, on the ground above the bank of the creek. I placed my bedding also above the creek under the stars. Dad opted for his “trillion-star” site underneath a river gum. No tent for him, either.
The next day Dad guided us along the Balcanoona creek bed shaded by native pines to Bunyip Chasm. After an hour or two of hobbling over rounded river stones, we arrived at a dead-end of high cliffs.
‘Come on, we better get back,’ Dad said and then started to hike back the way we came.
We trailed after Dad. Although native pine trees shaded our path, the hiking made me thirst for a waterhole in which to swim. I gazed up at the lacework of deep blue green against the sky and then, my boot caught on a rock. I stumbled. My ankle rolled and twisted.
After about ten minutes, with my ankle still swollen and sore, I hobbled after the men. We climbed down a short waterfall and at the base, I looked back. The weathered trunk of an old gum tree leaned over the stream, three saplings basked in the late-afternoon sunlight against the sienna-coloured rocks, and clear water rushed and frothed over the cascading boulders and into pond mirroring the trees and rocks above.
‘Stop! Wait!’ I called to the men.
‘We have to keep on going,’ Dad said and disappeared into the distance.
Boyfriend waited while I aimed my camera at the perfect scene and snapped several shots.
Then holding hands, we hiked along the creek leading to our campsite and Dad.
‘I’m going to paint that little waterfall,’ I said.
We walked in silence, enjoying the scenery painted just for us—the waves of pale river stones, the dappled sunlight through the pines, and a soft breeze kissing our skin.
[In memory of my father Clement David Trudinger (13-1-1928—25-8-2012)]
Feature Photo: Minor bird versus Sulphur-crested cockatoo (c) L.M. Kling 2019
Recently, our Indie Scriptorium group was invited to speak at a memoir group led by our new member, Berenice. A challenge facing writers of real life, people and experiences is how to tackle situations that are not perfect and may bring embarrassment to those mentioned in their life-stories.
So for this week, we are revisiting a post by Mary McDee who gives some advice on how to tackle those thorny issues.
“Watch your thoughts; they become words. Watch your words; they become actions. Watch your actions; they become habits. Watch your habits; they become character. Watch your character; it becomes your destiny.” — Lao-Tze
Indie Scriptorium -- Self Publishing Collective 