Category: Jewel Under Siege

His Majesty's Secret Passion, Jewel Under Siege, Pantsing, Planning, Scrivener, Snowflake, Three Act Structure

Birth Of A Book, Part Three: Find Your Writing Style…

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By Antonio Litterio

Does your novel have a beginning, a muddle, and an end? Do you want to find out the secrets of a well-rounded, satisfying story? First, discover what kind of writer you are by answering these 3 simple questions:

1.     At the supermarket, do you:
a)     dash round grabbing the first things you see because you’ve run out of food, time, or both
 or
b)     Visit once a week at exactly the same time, with a list (and a full stomach).

2.     Fancy a holiday?
a)     Yay! When do we go? I love surprises!
or
b)     No, thanks. Every year I rent the same little cottage for two weeks in August, in a place where all the locals know me.

3.     Is your working day…
a)     A roller coaster of triumphs and disasters, with snack and/or cigarette breaks here and there to liven up the mix
or
b)     A production line of completed tasks and problem solving, and you always get ready for the next day’s work before you leave.

If you answered a) to those questions, you’re more likely to wing your way through your writing, without much forethought. Answering b) means you like the order outline and planning brings to your life. I’ve written successful novels using both methods, and each has their good and bad points.

ADVANTAGES: Just sitting down and letting the words pour out is a great way to get a first draft finished in record time. If you’re a planner who’s written their way into a cul-de-sac, letting your mind wander and writing free-form for a change can pole-vault you over your problems.

DISADVANTAGES: You don’t jump into a car without some idea of where you’re going (I hope). Winging it while writing might turn your original short story into a 100,000 word epic, which still has no end in sight. On the other hand, if you’ve planned in so much detail any suggested revisions have you reaching for the gin bottle, you’ve lost sight of the release (and enjoyment) writing can bring.

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I wrote my historical novel, Jewel Under Siege, without any formal plan. Researching a non-fiction project on the eleventh-century daredevil, Robert Curthose, I discovered 3 things:

–  Robert would make good comic relief for a serious story,
–  Not all mediaeval ladies culled florets and sighed in solars—some rolled up their sleeves and ran successful businesses, and
–  Talking rather than fighting is the best way to counter ignorance and bigotry.

I sat down and blasted my way through the first three chapters, and then wrote the last one. This was to give me an idea how my characters would get their Happy Ever After moment. Then I went back and filled in the thousands of words which were missing from the middle of the book.

With the first rough draft finished, I put the manuscript aside for a while to let it marinate (to find out why this is always a good idea, however you write, take a minute to read this).

In second and subsequent drafts of Jewel Under Siege, I tightened everything up, made sure timings agreed and all the continuity was right. By the time it was published, I’d had a whale of a time, but the whole process took me several months longer than the writing of my next release, His Majesty’s Secret Passion.

Before starting to write His Majesty’s Secret Passion,  I spent a lot of time thinking how the internal conflicts of Sara, my career-obsessed heroine, could strike sparks off hero Leo, a man who has abandoned his own career for the sake of family loyalty. Once I’d filled out a sheet of details for both Sara and Leo, I was ready to start my first draft.

Send an email with the words Character Sheet in the subject line to christinahollis(at)hotmail.co.uk, and I’ll send you a copy of the detailed form I fill in for each of my fictional characters. 

Order your copy here http://amzn.to/14udZUC!

I’ve written here about the joys and woes of the Scrivener writing package. It’s a kind of virtual filing cabinet where you collect every link, image and note you need, and produce your manuscript, all in one place. You can have hours of fun naming folders and dividing every chapter into individual scenes, complete with sidebar of notes for each one. If you use the basic Three Act Structure for your novels—I’ll be talking about that next time—writing sessions become an easy matter of opening your Scrivener project and seeing at a glance what you should be doing next.

I’m a Scrivener devotee, but I’ve also used Randy Ingermanson’s Snowflake system with success. This is a more free-form approach. You start by identifying the big idea at the heart of your novel, then gradually add layer on layer of more detail. In the same way every snowflake is built up of simple shapes, your book grows organically into a novel of many facets. I like Snowflake a lot, but Scrivener stops my desk disappearing under a sea of Post-It notes and scrappy bits of paper!

If you don’t want to use a commercial word-processing package like Scrivener or Snowflake, try making a simple “And Then” list of all the important and exciting events in your story. This way you can make sure you’ve got plenty of page-turning action, and juggle the order before you start writing.

Here’s the “And Then” list I could have used for the beginning of His Majesty’s Secret Passion‘s first chapter—

Sara—shark attack? And then…
Leo saves her, and then…
She’s embarrassed —it was a false alarm. And then…
Attraction tussles with suspicion, until…
Leo’s distracted by his jealous PA, but…
He’d rather help an injured woman than socialise, although…
Sara’s recent history makes her put up barriers, and so…
Leo takes direct action…

There’s an added benefit of this type of brief list. It makes creating a detailed synopsis easy later on, when you’ve settled on the content and order of your story.

When it comes to writing, are you a free spirit, or a planner?

2012 Olympics, Aggregation of Marginal Gains, Asha Philip, Jewel Under Siege, Lord Moynihan, Sir Dave Brailsford

Politician Speaks Perfect Sense Shock!

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http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9a/Leon_Panetta_given_tour_of_the_House_of_Lords.jpg
by Erin A. Kirk-Cuomo

In order to make our* medal haul as impressive as our sporting venues at the London 2012 Olympics, the national steering committee adopted what Team Sky’s Principal of Cycling Sir Dave Brailsford calls ‘The Aggregation of Marginal Gains’.They looked at the gold-medal winning times at previous Olympics, and Team GB’s times for the same events. The differences were so tiny I’d have put our shortfall down to bad luck on the day. According to Olympic committee member Lord Moynihan in his speech to Monmouth School last month, that’s not how it works.

You have to look at every tiny detail of what every person does, from the athlete themselves to the person in charge of bio-security. If every system runs perfectly, fit and healthy athletes will reach the track/pool/course in perfect condition. Unstressed by delays and equipped with the latest scientifically-thought out kit and equipment, they’ll be able to make the best of their perfect nutrition and training regimes to shave off the ten-thousandth of a second or centimetre which makes the difference between coming first and second.

A bit more effort, a lot more tomatoes!

The beauty of the aggregation of marginal gains is that you can apply the system to everything in life, not just sport (thank goodness). For example, I’ve grown good tomatoes for years but since hearing Lord Moynihan’s speech I’ve improved the quality of them no end by scrutinising everything I do in the greenhouse, from hygiene to pruning.

Now I’m going to bring The Aggregation of Marginal Gains to my latest release, Jewel Under Siege by releasing a paperback version to complement the ebook already on sale here. I’ll keep you updated on my progress on this blog, and you can subscribe to it by using the box on the top-right hand side of this page.

*This is egregious buddying-up on my part, as my PB for the 100 metres at school was 27.2 seconds so there’d be plenty of time for Asha Philip et al to cross the line, make the tea and cut the cake by the time I rolled in.

Creative Writing, Epublishing, Jewel Under Siege, literary agents, Society of Authors

Do You Need A Literary Agent?

christinahollis
By Antonio Litterio

The obvious answer to that question is–no.Writers have so many options open to them now, the thought of sacrificing 15% or so of your hard-won earnings to a literary agent is enough to send everybody rushing off to do it all themselves. To date, I’ve sold three million novels worldwide, hundreds of non-fiction articles and short stories to magazines–and all without an agent. 

But wait a minute. Most people fit their writing work in around their day job.If your aim is publication, once you’ve finished a book, the business of selling it must begin. Without an agent, you’ll be spending a lot of time online, checking out which publishers are buying in your genre. You’ll be reading the type of books on their lists, and targetting your submissions. If you follow my tip here and start on your next book straight away, all this research will eat into the time you should be spending on your writing. There are only so many hours in the day.  Which would you rather do – write, or spend your precious free time trawling the net in the name of research, and getting distracted all the way by pictures of cute kitties hazzing this or that(we’ve all been there)!

This is where literary agents earn their keep. They lift a lot of the non-writing stuff off your shoulders. They’ve got the inside track on current market trends, and they have ready-made networks. A lot of writers recoil from phrases like that.  This is why agents are vital. They know whose lists are closed, and who’s buying, and most important of all, exactly what those buyers are looking for. Publishers use literary agents as a shortcut. If an agent thinks your work is worth showing around, it’s already been through one roguing process. Think of it as first-stage quality control. When someone who knows the business thinks the mechanics of your work are worth forwarding, a publisher may be more inclined to check out the economics of your project. 

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Once a publisher says yes, the horse-trading starts. Most writers are loners. A certain amount of introversion goes with the job. Can you honestly say you’d feel happy negotiating the best terms for your contract, if you’ve never done it before? Professional bodies such as The Society of Authors will vet contracts for you if you’re a member, but that will take time to arrange. And if you’ve got no experience in the craft, can you really see yourself getting the best deal over publicity arrangements, tour dates, extending deadlines when necessary and sorting out foreign editions and rights? Really?

Writing is a lonely business. A good agent will be on your side. That’s a great feeling. It takes the pressure off, knowing that someone is taking care of business. It gives you the chance to get the “creative” back into your “creative writing”. 

To return to what I wrote at the beginning: yes, I might have sold three million books without the benefit of an agent. But how many more books would I have actually managed to write if I’d had an expert on hand to help me target my work and do all the drudgery, while I got on with the fun stuff?

Have you got an agent? What are your experiences?
Christina Hollis, Ebook releases, Extract, Jewel Under Siege

An Extract From My Latest Release – Jewel Under Siege

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 Cover art by Samantha Groom 

Jewel Under Siege is set in Constantinople in the early spring of 1097. The city is besieged by Crusaders, so Elena thinks she’ll be safe from strangers inside the high walls of her own garden…

“The fruit trees trained against all the walls of Elena’s garden were wreathed in blossom.  The little blue irises growing behind the arbour were almost in flower, too. They would make a pretty arrangement for Easter Day.
Her mind full of flowers, Elena was an easy target. When a figure erupted from the bushes, she was dragged out of sight in less than a heartbeat. With a hard, cold hand clamped over her mouth, there was no chance to scream. 
Fear froze her from head to foot. The man gripping her was breathing quickly, and as his wrist pressed against her cheek she felt his pulse racing. Eyes tight shut, Elena waited for something awful to happen. She couldn’t imagine what could be worse than this, but his overpowering smell of leatherwork and metal dressing was unnerving. She stood stock-still in his grasp until he managed some breathless French.
‘Keep quiet. I won’t hurt you. Understand?’
Somehow, she managed to nod. His fingers relaxed from her mouth. When she didn’t struggle or scream, he dropped his hand. His sigh said he was as glad to let go of her as she was to be free. She moved to get a better view of him, knowing she might need to identify him in future. He was a tall, youngish man, but his gaunt good looks were suffering from famine and war. Leaning heavily against the garden wall, he pressed one hand to his knee. The expression in his dark eyes was hunted and Elena saw that grabbing her had sapped most of his strength.
That gave her the courage to face him. ‘What do you want?’ she said in French.
‘Help–and everyone round here speaks Greek. I don’t.’ 
That could mean only one thing. 
‘You’ve broken in from the Crusader camp!’ Elena said in horror. ‘You’ve come here to steal! And after we were told your people were coming to Constantinople to help us!’ 
‘It’s not like that. We’re desperate. We need food. Your people are slowly killing us. We’ve been held up outside the city for months. We’re dying out there.’
Elena drew herself up to her full height. No unshaven hulk was going to come into her garden and start twisting the facts to suit himself. ‘Only because your leaders won’t promise that you will behave properly. That’s all our Emperor wants.’
‘I’m starving and injured,’ the young man burst out suddenly. ‘I need help, not an argument about politics!’
Elena stared at him. He was in a bad way, but trying not to show it. His left leg couldn’t support any weight and he was tight-lipped with pain. Leaning against the garden wall he tried to look arrogant and supercilious, but she could see he was on the point of collapse.
‘I’ve had nothing to eat for three days. I managed to get inside the city wall, but climbing over your boundary to get at the fish in your pools was too much. It was mossy and wet. I slipped.’
Elena was horrified. ‘You’ve had no food for three days? Have you had anything to drink?’
     ‘Rain. That’s all.’ He swayed unsteadily, his gaze piercing her heart. ‘Get me some food? A crust? Anything. Then I’ll go. On my honour. I’m not here to make trouble.’
Elena considered. He looked dangerous, but if she could somehow sidle further out of his reach she knew he’d never catch her again. She wondered if she could trust him, and also whether he could trust her. His clothes were sodden. They clung to his frame in a way that unsettled her. The strange feeling inside her made Elena wonder whether it was only Christian charity that made her want to help him. Mud buttered his cracked and shabby boots, while his teeth chattered in a chill breeze running in off the sea.
‘Does anyone else know you’ve come here?’ she said.
He flicked his head sideways. ‘It’s bad enough that I risked getting caught. I wasn’t going to get my friends involved as well.’
He lost the look of a desperate terrorist, reduced to snatching at innocent women. Now he was dejected, alone and injured in a foreign city. He’d given Elena a bad fright, but seeing the state he was in softened her heart. In case he was playing on her sympathy, she hardened her expression and folded her hands primly in front of her.
‘I’ll go and see what can be done for you. Stay here and don’t move.’
The young Crusader put a hand to his forehead. He couldn’t offer any resistance. Instead, in a gesture of acceptance, he pulled a knife from his belt and handed it to her, handle first.
She accepted his offering warily, and held it at arm’s length. ‘Thank you – I think…'”

I hope you enjoyed this extract from Elena and Emil’s story. You can download Jewel Under Siege here, see a full list of my published books at http://www.christinahollis.com, catch up with me on Twitter and Facebook, and if you’d like to sign up for my newsletter, drop me a line at christinahollis(at)hotmail.co.uk, replacing the (at) with @.

Constantinople, Epublishing, First Crusade, Harlequin Masquerade, inspiration, Jewel Under Siege, Tessa Shapcott

Jewel Under Siege – My New Release.

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Find out more here
I love the quote from writer Norah Ephron’s mother that everything is copy. This was brought home to me when I was researching the life of Robert Curthose for a magazine article. He was the eldest son of William the Conqueror (remember? Battle of Hastings, 1066?). As well as being a chivalrous knight, Robert was the original party guy. He was a lot of fun, but too easily swayed by his advisors. He could never have been a good ruler, and in the end both his younger brother William (Rufus) and then his youngest brother Henry (I)  got the top job  instead.

Robert’s travels took in Constantinople (modern day Istanbul), which was an amazing place. The luxurious descriptions of a city at the hub of all the great trade routes made me want to use it as the setting for a novel. People have always been resourceful in times of hardship, and I wondered how attraction would work between two people on opposing sides, caught up in a war.  My notes turned into an historical romance, Jewel Under Siege. Heroine Elena is a young widow who shelters Emil, an injured Crusader. This puts her in terrible danger, both from the authorities and from Emil’s rugged charm. The tension mounts as their attraction for each other struggles with Elena’s guilt at living a lie. Then disaster strikes – and only Emil can save the situation.

Jewel Under Siege was brought out in print by Harlequin Mills and Boon as part of their Masquerade Historical Romance Line, under my pen-name Polly Forrester. Now the on-line market has expanded, the book has been re-edited by Tessa Shapcott, given a great new cover by Samantha Groom at magicat45degrees and is now available as an ebook by clicking here.  

I love the ebook’s cover image, which you can see above. It suggests Elena’s vulnerability, as well as the exotic setting. After all the dreadful weather we’ve been struggling with here lately, the sunlight on the sea is a welcome reminder that warm weather is on the way.

I’d love to know what you think about Jewel Under Siege. If you’d like your name to be entered in  a draw to win a review copy, email me at christinahollis(at)hotmail.co.uk, replacing the word in brackets with @. To find out more about Jewel Under Siege, you can sign up for my next newsletter here.