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Two Sections of ‘Burying Bad News’ to Read

 Here are the fruits of my labours of approximately the past six weeks — about 12,300 words in two sections. That’s about 12-15% of a whole novel by a rough estimation so I’m reasonably pleased with the amount I’ve done. The longer piece (working title ‘Bird and Baby’) is the more revised and redrafted of the two. It’s taken an awful lot of hours to produce that. The other one could probably benefit from a couple more redrafts.

Taken together, they give a reasonably good overview of the characters in the novel — the five principal characters are all featured between the two pieces. The two are fairly contemporaneous in terms of plot sequence too. I would probably divide the longer piece and use the shorter one to intercut it.  

In both I’ve tried to combine some character exposition with plot development. In ‘Bird and Baby’ I’ve also tried to reveal my character Robert Cross’s political views (I’ve actually made him a secret lefty) so I go into his opinions on things as weighty as the Iraq war. Hopefully the political exposition isn’t too tedious as I’ve brought in other characters and plot elements.

I found that this section expanded enormously as I was writing it — almost in the fabled way that writers talk about when they say characters take over. I threw in a few chance meetings to break up the scene and found that the interaction with the characters created whole new scenes I’d not anticipated. The same happened with a pair of shoes.

There’s a bit of self-reflexiveness in that there’s a fair amount that discusses writing and the English language — and there’s also a bit of a rant about getting published.

A read of the latest synopsis should hopefully give some context to these two sections.  This first (‘Bird and Baby’) comes when Sally has got to know Robert Cross (the minister) reasonably well in her subterfuge as a supposed wine-writer. She’s arranged to meet him in Oxford when he’s doing constituency business so she can hopefully try to press him on his political views. She starts the novel as a committed enemy — the references to the demonstration outside the Oxford Union and the aggressive woman are to Sally as a political agitator — she was the tormentor but is trying to keep that hidden.

Sally is also responsible for having started a rumour that Cross is having a sexual affair with Ana. This has reached the press, via her political contacts. The story is just starting to break in the second section — Wendover Station.

Spot the carefully hidden references to Nancy Sinatra and Little Richard.

Click here to read ‘Bird and Baby’ (9,024 words): Bird and Baby — v44 — featuring Sally, Robert and Ana

Click here to read ‘Wendover Station’ (3,323 words): Wendover Station v12 — featuring Frances and Declan

The letter referred to in ‘Bird and Baby’ really exists and is exactly in the place described. I referred to my own photo when I was writing about it.

Inkling Letter from Eagle and Child
Inkling Letter from Eagle and Child

Should anyone have any comments then it’s possible to add them to the end of this blog post. I can also mail Word files if anyone’s really keen to suggest any changes.

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Working on Synopses

I have a one-to-one session with Emily on Wednesday about the synopsis for my novel. The finished synopsis needs to be no more than 500 words, which is a very small number to recount the plot, introduce the main characters and establish setting. The synopsis for Wednesday can be longer than 500 words, which may be useful as Emily can then point out the fat to chop out rather than point out what’s missing.

As practice I wrote a 500 word synopsis of the novel in progress I have at the moment. It was very difficult paring it back from about 850 words and it’s probably too much basic plot summary. I’ve put it in a page as a Word document. Click here to go to it.

I’ve got so far down the road with that story that the characters, setting and most of the plot are pretty fixed, although I’d like help on a synopsis. Therefore I want to use this part of the course to develop a new idea.

I want to set my novel in a pub. This has advantages and disadvantages: I can easily introduce a diverse range of characters to the narrative but it also risks being seen as a bit mundane and it will be a challenge to construct a single narrative arc suitable for a novel when the setting is ‘soap opery’.

The novel will be set in the present, or very recent past, and will reflect some general sociological changes in society, particularly the perceived shift from collective and community leisure activities (going to the pub) to more isolated activities (watching Sky TV at home). Many pubs are struggling to survive in this climate. Nevertheless, there is no shortage of optimistic people who think their vision of a pub or restaurant will buck the change and make them a fortune. Using this scenario allows a classic ‘trapped situation’ narrative that is most often used in sitcoms but could equally be adapted for a novel, although a conclusion to the narrative will be required. To create more of a predicament for the characters I’m considering stacking the odds further against them by introducing characters who want to be the agents of their downfall. In plot terms, this would mean having characters take over a pub whose owners who are secretly engineering their failure – so that the pub can be proved to be unviable and so win planning permission to convert it to more lucrative private housing.

I also want to use the tension between city and countryside – setting Metropolitan attitudes against more traditional mores. I’m also interested in how subtle social changes filter from urban areas into rural communities.

Here’s the plot so far in an attached Word document. It’s not complete and I don’t have many names for the characters. I think I have the start and middle but I’m not sure about a satisfactory end. It’s also a badly written first draft attempt and is, at nearly 1,200 words, about three times longer than it should be (even without a conclusion). Pub Story Synopsis v3.