Words copyright 2018 by Paula Harmon. All rights belong to the author and material may not be copied without the author’s express permission. Background from Photoshop Elements 2012.
Month: February 2018
Five Photos … with Paula Harmon
Avalanche – words complete!
It’s been a wonderful experience. Here’s to the next adventure!
Finding the Plot – Venturing Out part two
What an experience my first writing collaboration has been.
We started on 19th January thinking we’d be finished by the end of March but we got carried away and the last words of just under 54k were written yesterday (10th February) at 5pm.
‘The Case of the Black Tulips’ is now closed. The protagonists are having a day off in the sun. Liz Hedgecock and I are putting our feet up having toasted each other in a virtual sense from opposite ends of the country.
We started with a series of messages and a woolly idea. I sent Liz a photograph of some notes I’d scribbled on the back of something else (see scrawl below) and she still wanted to continue. We both work on the ‘write first, research as you go along’ principle which meant that periodically one of us would disappear down a research rabbit hole and pop back up not necessarily with a rabbit but something else entirely to drop into the stew.
Our book starts in 1890 or thereabouts, so there was a lot of background detail to investigate and I’ve put some links below which may or may not be included in the book but certainly kept us entertained, amazed and sometimes shocked.
Still, our protagonists are not women who let conventions get in the way of adventure, and perhaps in a different sort of way neither did we.
I presume that script-writers etc who work together on projects usually actually tell each other what they’re planning to do next. We took another approach. We weren’t going to spoil the fun with common sense when we could have shenanigans instead.
I wrote chapter one and Liz wrote chapter two and so on. Given the pace we were writing at (at least one chapter a day each) and the fact that boring things like work and family kept getting in the way, there wasn’t a lot of time to tell the other what we were planning to do next. Consequently in chapter nine I introduced an object, planning to utilise it in chapter eleven but then Liz ‘lost’ it in chapter ten. Liz introduced a character in chapter twenty but in chapter twenty-three I… nope, not telling you any more, you’ll have to read it to find out.
If you’re wondering why there’s a photograph of people rushing about, it’s because on Tuesday 6th February, I had been writing that day’s chapter on the morning train and hadn’t quite finished it. Liz was waiting. Before I disappeared into the underground on the way to work, I sat in the concourse of Waterloo, sat on a bench outside WH Smiths, frantically wrote the last words and emailed them off. It’s been that kind of experience.
Doing it again? I really hope so. It’s been great fun and I hope readers will enjoy the end result.
The painful part (editing) is yet to come, but the characters are itching to get their sleeves rolled up and sort out another mystery. Who knows what they’ll be up against next.
I can see some more research rabbit holes opening up as I type.
Better get my notebook out.
Why were women employed in the Victorian civil service? Small fingers, brains and lower pay…
Interactive map of gas lamps still in London
What did the creation of sewing machines mean to women?
How much could you earn as a servant in a big country house in 1890?
Women’s cycling – a revolution
A Victorian list of do’s & don’t’s for women cyclists!
Lighting in the Victorian home
Put Down The Embroidery, We’re Going In
Plotting
Victorian houses
Thames at low tide
Mrs Beeton
Concourse at Waterloo
Words and photograph copyright 2018 by Paula Harmon. All rights belong to the author and material may not be copied without the author’s express permission.
Venturing Out
Often wondered how scriptwriters and comedians work on scripts together? Me too. Who gets to decide whose joke or line goes where and has an equal voice?
I think I was six years old the last time I collaborated creatively outside work.
Two of us drew a mouse. We decided to do half each. This way we could be proud of our part yet share in the glory of the overall effect. I drew a lustrous tail and beautiful furry haunches. He got the eyes and whiskers. Or maybe it was the other way round. Either way, no one could see the join (although if that mouse had ever come to life there might have been trouble).
Well that was a long time ago and I never expected to collaborate creatively outside work again.
Then I met other writers on Facebook and a strange thing happened. I started to discuss writing with people I’ve never met and share ideas which up till then were hidden in my head.
One day, during a message exchange, one of them mentioned collaboration.
Liz Hedgecock is author of a number of mysteries, many set in Victorian London. I love her stories and was flattered to be approached.
Both of us work and have families. We live a fair distance apart. A hazy plan to do something in Autumn 2017 came apart when we both decided to do NaNoWriMo in November. With the best will in the world we realised it was impossible to start something new before Christmas.
Nevertheless, we sketched out via messenger and email two unlikely Victorian female detectives: young women determined not to let the restrictions of corsets and decorum stop them from solving a crime.
We set a date to discuss the logistics on 19th January. If this all sounds very formal, it’s because we’ve never actually met in person. I shuddered at the thought of a video call, but fortunately so did Liz.
So we talked via cyberspace and plotted.
I had been nervous. What if we didn’t get on?
But it was fine. We were chatting like old friends in no time.
With a working title of The Case of The Black Tulips, our story was born.
So how are we collaborating? We decided on an approach which gives us equal input and voice. We have a character each and tell the story through ‘our’ person alone. It is like a very complex game of consequences, especially when Liz changes tack and I have to alter direction myself. Are we mad? Probably, but it is tremendous fun.
We’ve got so caught up in it that we are nearly half way through the first draft already with ideas of sequels forming. Watch this space if you like mysteries and feisty female leads because we hope to publish later this year.
I often tell people that I started writing stories because I wanted to have adventures like children in books and it was the only way to do it. I’m still writing for the same reason. My new character has found a friend and is having a wonderful adventure.
And the same is true for me.
Finding the Plot – Venturing Out part two
Put Down The Embroidery, We’re Going In
Words copyright 2018 by Paula Harmon. All rights belong to the author and material may not be copied without the author’s express permission