writing

November 19, 2019 - Lisa Manterfield Leave a Comment

Home Again: A Messy First Draft

Inspired by a student who posts his sci-fi stories online, I decided to post the messy first draft of a story I started while visiting my mum in the U.K.. I’ve been thinking about the topic of “can you ever really go home again?” for some time, and finally decided to get a story down on paper.

This opening scene still needs a lot of work. You’ll see several uses of “TK”, which is a placeholder I use for missing information, so I can keep writing and not get bogged down in details and research. This draft is messy and spotty, but I’d love to know what think. Do you want to know more about Harry? What kind of story do you think this might turn out to be? Does it feel like my other stories or does it feel different?

Opening Scene:

Harriet “Harry” Belmont was half way across the Atlantic when she realized her remarkable life was, in fact, one great big giant cock-up. As the flight attendant handed her a third glass of champagne (or was it the fourth?) and she replayed her “Deep Sleep in 20 Minutes” meditation app, also for the third time (or was it the fourth?), an image flashed in her mind. A deck of playing cards built into an elaborate pyramid, the queen of hearts pulled out and the whole thing tumbling down.

Oh stop being so dramatic, Harry, she told herself. But actually, it was true.

It had started with the job, the 3 p.m. summons to Human Resources. Harry had seen enough people shuffling through the glass lobby of TK on a Friday afternoon, their careers packed into one single cardboard box, to know what this meant. She eyed her rubber plant, the photo of TK, her cat, and the mug she’d bought from her last weekend at the coast, and knew they’d be boxed up within the hour.

“Reorg,” is what she’d expected Marianna, the HR Director to say. Or “contract renegotiations”, something buzzy and non-specific. But that’s not what she said.

“Unfortunately,” said Marianna, doing everything in her power to keep her eyes locked on Harry’s file, “we’ve had a complaint.”

“About me?”

“Yes. It was brought to us by another employ-ee.”

Harry hated the way Marianna pronounced employee, dragging out the last syllable as if she were deflating at the addition of persons in employment.

Harry ran through the details of her current project. Deliverables had been delivered, problems solved. TKs TK’d. All on schedule and under budget. She’d delivered every project she’d been contracted to do for the past five years the same way, which is why her contracts were always renewed.

“May I ask the nature of the complaint?” Harry asked, fighting to maintain control of her voice.

“The employ-ee in question reported an inter-employ-ee relationship that this person felt was inappropriate.”

Harry flinched. Tom. They’d both known their relationship would be frowned upon if they were ever found out, so they’d been careful to be discrete. They were never more than civil to one another at work, never went for drinks alone and never sat together if they went as a group. Most of their relationship had been conducted behind closed doors, at Harry’s apartment in the Marina, or at small, romantic B&Bs along the California coast. Harry allowed herself a smile at the memory of their latest escape, two nights in a cottage overlooking the rugged Mendocino coastline, a breakfast of homemade coffee cakes and savories delivered to their door each morning. And the long languid mornings making love in the high four-poster bed, Harry gripping the bed posts, her skin pressed into crisp white sheets, and Tom transporting her from a fluffy cloud of bedding to a fluffy cloud of nirvana.

But they’d been discrete, hadn’t they? They’d gone for walks in remote spots, kept their jaunts around town to a minimum, and always entered restaurants separately, scoping the tables for familiar faces. They knew the consequences of being seen together, and she was absolutely certain they hadn’t been.

Harry pursed her lips, the vision of Tom’s naked body vanishing in a puff. “This employ-ee, does he—or she (Harry was certain the tattletale was a she)—have evidence of said alleged relationship?”

Marianna straightened. “She, or he, felt strongly that such a relationship was taking place and that, if such a relationship were to happen, it might jeopardize the team and the project. You understand of course that we must take this kind of issue very seriously.”

Harry understood perfectly well. Someone had gotten wind of her relationship with Tom, someone was jealous, and had reported her to HR. It wouldn’t do to allow a relationship between a senior executive and an underling, so one of them had to go. And of course, that someone had was Harry.

“Good morning from the flight deck.” The captain’s voice came over the PA system. “We hope you had a pleasant night’s sleep.”

Harry stretched her neck, feeling a knot at her shoulder. She wasn’t sure if it was a flight-related crick or stress.

“We’ll be starting our decent into Manchester shortly. The weather on the ground is partly cloudy with a slight chance of afternoon drizzle.”

Harry peered through the tiny square of window at the landscape below. The vast ocean butted up against the crenelated coastline of the British Isles and gave way to a swath of green—rolling hills and patchwork fields, dotted with tiny villages.

Beside her, her seat mate yawned and peeled back a black sleep mask, rubbing under his eyes as if he’d just woken from the deepest sleep. “Good to be home,” he said.

“Mm,” said Harry.

“Is this home for you?”

“Sort of,” Harry said. “I’m from here originally, but I live in San Francisco now.”

“Lucky you,” he said. “Still, there’s no place like home, is there?”

Harry smiled, but she wasn’t entirely sure she agreed. “Home” was complicated these days. She lived in the city and that had been home for over a decade now. And yet, whenever she took a trip to visit her mother in Hope, the village where she’d grown up, she always told people she was going home. But Hope had not been home to Harry for a long time. She’d left at eighteen to go away to university and she hadn’t been back for more than a visit since. Nor did she ever plan to. Some people say you can’t go home again, and Harry firmly believed that was true. As soon as this trip was over, Harry would go home, to her real home, back to San Francisco, where she belonged.

“No,” Harry said. “There’s no place like home.”

July 24, 2019 - Lisa Manterfield 6 Comments

Falling in Love with My Book All Over Again

When I was eight, I had scrambled eggs for breakfast every single day for two weeks straight. By the end of that time, I was so sick of them I didn’t eat an egg of any kind again for more than twenty years.

That’s a little bit what it’s like to write a book. There comes a point in the writing process where the author just gets sick of her story and, no matter how much she once adored it, they fall out of love.

I thought about The Smallest Thing for years before I started writing it, trying to figure out how best to tell the story that was in my heart. Should it be a historical retelling (been done) or should I tell the love story of Em and Ro, but with a modern twist (great, except the real ending isn’t very happily-ever-after). It wasn’t until I started writing scenes in my notebook, exploring Em and her world, that the book solidified in my mind.

Once I committed to that idea, it took me three years to draft, revise, and finish the book ready for publication. During that time I read the book dozens of times. There are scenes I’ve probably read into triple digits. The twists in the story were no longer surprises, and there were parts I grew to loathe. At some point I was so familiar with every word in the story I was sick of it.

Falling in Love Again

But the process of producing the audiobook version of The Smallest Thing has made me fall in love with Em’s story all over again.

The audio files for the book were delivered last week. (Yes!) My job since then has been to listen to them and read along with the book to make sure everything is how I want it before the files go off for the final stages of production.

It is a very strange process to listen to someone else read the words I wrote. Even though I have read this book dozens of times, hearing the narrator Charlie Sanderson, read it, breathed new life into it.

As I mentioned in this post, Charlie is from the same part of England as me and grew up not too far from Eyam. She knowsthe characters in this book and she brought them to life in a way I couldn’t have imagined.

Take Mrs. Glover, for example. She plays a small but important role in the story. Charlie brought the perfect personality to her so that she lends a bit of comic relief, much needed as the story gets darker. I’m finding myself laughing every time Mrs. G opens her mouth.

Listen to an excerpt from Chapter One of The Smallest Thing here

I’ve also been crying, which is quite unexpected, given how well I know the story and that I have a reputation for being a bit stoic. But Charlie has found poignant scenes that touched me unexpectedly.

There’s a scene where Em walks by a small memorial for her dad’s sister, a woman Em never got to meet. Auntie Sandra disappeared on a backpacking trip as a young woman and was never found. It’s a tiny moment in the story, a bit of backstory I wrote to help explain why Em’s dad keeps such a tight rein on her … because he knows firsthand that bad things happen to good people. He’s strict, not because he’s mean, but because he’s afraid for Em. My own dad was strict in a similar way (although I didn’t appreciate that as a teen) so hearing this little moment touched me deeply and quite unexpectedly.

Writing to be Heard

I’m learning a lot about my writing from listening to it read by someone else. I’m learning that text acronyms, like IMHO and LOL, work fine of paper but do not translate to the spoken word. I’m hearing how dialogue can light up a scene—a reminder that I need to get out of my character’s head and get her talking to others.

And I’m solidifying something I’ve learned from reading books I love: that minor supporting characters, like Mrs. Glover, can be like chocolate chips in a cake—delicious, even though small, and something you look forward to encountering often.

Assuming I don’t encounter any major problems in the files (and I don’t expect to) the audiobook will be available across all outlets in mid-August.

If you’d like to get release updates and have the chance to win a copy of the audiobook, you can sign up for newsletter here.

July 11, 2019 - Lisa Manterfield Leave a Comment

Fave Read: Grace After Henry by Eithne Shortall

If you’ve read (or heard me talk about) my first novel A Strange Companion, you’ll know I do love a good grief story. I have a bit of an obsession with grief, mostly because it’s such a complex topic, and yet so universal, and I’m always interested to read the point-of-view of others. Grace After Henry, a story about the aftermath of loss, examines the question of whether a lost love one can ever be replaced.

After the sudden death of her partner, Henry, Grace is trying figure out how to go on with the life they had planned together. She’s struggling along, when Henry’s long-lost twin brother turns up on her doorstep looking at lot like a good replacement for the man she’s lost. Suddenly, “Henry” is back in her life, and Grace is pulled into the way things were…until she realizes that things aren’t the same at all, and that she’s hiding from her grief in a make-believe world.

Why I Loved It

I enjoy a book that gets real about grief, without sliding into the maudlin. Bonus points if it captures the humor that so often accompanies grief. Set in Dublin and capturing that wicked Irish sense-of-humor, Grace After Henry is a funny, poignant, and very real look at life after loss. It doesn’t linger on the sadness, but focuses instead on the way the mind works when grieving, and the stories we tell ourselves in order to cope with loss.

What I Learned as a Writer

While story is key, what really brings the world of a book to life is the cast of supporting characters. I looked forward to scenes with Grace’s outrageous parents, her no-nonsense BFF, and her cadre of fellow mourners at the city cemetery.

Read This Book If…

You enjoy a wry sense of humor (think Derry Girls, but further south) and stories populated by colorful, quirky characters.

My Rating:

June 12, 2019 - Lisa Manterfield Leave a Comment

7 Ways to Get A Novel Started

I’m just diving into the serious rubber-meets-the road work of my new novel. I don’t have a title yet, just a cast of characters, an idea I want to explore, and a vague shape of the story I want to tell. I’ve spent the past few weeks noodling ideas, jotting in notebooks, and reading research materials; now it’s time to write.

Here are some of the tools I use to get my novel from idea to words on a page.

1. Basic Research

Research is important to a novel, but it can be a deep, dark rabbit hole that gets in the way of the actual writing. As I’m assembling a novel in my mind, I try to do the bare minimum research I need to get the story moving. I don’t yet need to know what kind of shoes my character wears, but I do need to know what is happening in the world around her (in the case of my new book, a war) and some details about her life at that time. I need a basic timeline of the real world and enough facts about events that I can make sure I’m writing a story that could actually happen in that time and place.

For Dora’s story, I’ve read a few works of fiction, including some children’s books (thanks to author Pamela Toler for that tip.) I’ve read a couple for memoirs and some historical non-fiction. Supplemented by internet research and a browse through some news, film, and radio archives, I have enough to know that the story in my head will fit the real-world events of that time and place. Later, once I have a first draft done, I’ll do more detailed research to make sure I get everything right.

2. Find the Emotional Core

YA author, Nina LaCour shares her methods for getting to the emotional core of a story in her Slow Novel Lab course. When I write, I usually start with a character and build a plot around her. For this new book, I’m interested in where Dora is emotionally at the beginning of the book, and what she needs to discover about herself as she goes through this story. I don’t yet know exactly what happens in the second half of the book, or how it ends (although this is slowly starting to take shape.) I doknow what Dora (and the reader) need to understand about the world when the book is over.

That said, I’ll be writing with my fingers crossed that the rest of the story reveals itself as I move forward.

3. Uncover the Story

Lisa Cron’s Story Genius is a great tool for getting to the real meat of the story. Her exercises help me dig into my characters to really understand them and their stories. I use Lisa’s methods to get to the heart of the story, to understand why what happens in the plot will matter to my character, and why readers will care about any of it.

4. Get into the Character’s Skin

A few years ago I took a brilliant workshop at UCLA with actor/writer Leon Martell. Leon taught us how to use acting techniques to get into the heads of our characters. Dora came out of a series of exercises in that workshop. She was originally a supporting character, but she came to life for me in that class. When other class members began asking questions about her, I realized that it was her story I needed to tell. As I start to get Dora onto the page, I’ll go back to the exercises from this class to bring Dora to life.

5. Capture the Ideas

Index cards are my BFF. I’ll have hundreds of them by the time this book is done. I use them to capture ideas, to jot down scenes I know need to be in the story, and ultimately to bring a shape to the story I’m telling. I write my early drafts in a program called Scrivener, which has a digital index card system, but I still prefer to handwrite notes. That way I can spread my cards out on the floor, move them around, and get a clear visual image of how the story will hang together.

6. Map out the Plot

When it’s time to commit to an order for my cards, Jessica Brody’s Save the Cat! Writes a Novel is my go-to guide for building a compelling plot. Save the Cat! is a method of plotting out a story and developing key scenes that can be used as milestones in the long writing process. I use it to create a Beat Sheet of scenes I know must be included.

I keep my plot loose for the first draft and give myself permission to circle back and change things as the story unfolds. Save the Cat! gives me a road map while I write.

7. Place Butt in Chair

Finally, we come to the most valuable tool in my arsenal for getting a novel started. No matter what tools I use to get my story going, at some point, I need to deposit my posterior in my chair and get the writing done.

And that’s what I’m doing this week.

If you’re a writer looking for help writing or revising your own novel, please check out my book coaching and editing services on the For Writers page.

June 6, 2019 - Lisa Manterfield Leave a Comment

Fave Reads: All the Missing Girls by Megan Miranda

I love the kind of book that immediately makes me want to read it again to see all the hints and little stitches I missed the first time. This was the case when I finished All the Missing Girls, Megan Miranda’s clever, twisty psychological thriller about small town secrets and unreliable memories.

Nicolette Farrell is fored to return to her home town of Cooley Ridge a decade after she left. Her father’s health is declining fast and Nic and her brother have some decisions to make about his future. Nic left behind a lot of memories in Cooley Ridge, along with the man she thought she’d marry, and the mystery of what happened to her best friend Corinne, who disappeared one night and was never found. But days after her arrival in Cooley Ridge, another girl goes missing, and Nic must relive her nightmare all over again.

As she tries to unravel what happened to the missing girl, secrets about her family, her friends, and her former love emerge. As Nic begins to see the events surrounding Corinne’s disappearance through fresh eyes, she soon realizes she, and the residents of Cooley Ridge, know more about that night than she first acknowledged. Corinne’s killer might be closer to Nic than she knew.