I have an idea of the mosaic of characters, events, places and possible narrative threads that ought to get this book off the ground. Every piece of that mosaic is essential. But that doesn’t mean they’re all equally important. When you’re locked into the tunnel-vision process of putting words down on the page it’s dangerously easy to get obsessed about one small, simple issue. Allow that to happen and that single detail could hold up an entire project when, in a sane world, you’d just pass it by and mark it as something to fix later.
What we need as we begin is a set of priorities. Here are mine, and note – this is very important – they come in what some would regard as reverse order. First of all I want to know what I don’t want to do, so that I can focus on what truly matters.
These are things that can be fixed quickly and easily once the main work of a book – the manuscript itself – is complete. If I get some good insight into these issues while I’m writing, fine. If they have to wait till the final revise, or get dealt with during the post-editing process, it’s no big deal.
These can and sometimes will change, even after a book is accepted. I make a note of potential titles all the time in a little entry in my book journal. Usually the right one will become apparent during the writing process. But if it doesn’t I’m not going to lose any sleep, and I certainly won’t halt the writing process to puzzle over a few words for the cover.
Character names
Search and replace is a wonderful thing. I often try out three or four different names to see which one works best.
Transitional moments
By this I mean those bits of a book that lead from one passage to another. If I don’t know how but I’m sure what comes after this missing piece, I write that instead. Usually the transition itself becomes apparent during that process so I then go back and fill it in. Sometimes it becomes clear I don’t need much of a transition at all. It may be a single paragraph at the end of the preceding scene. Or nothing at all.
Dialogue that doesn’t work
Speech is easy to fix at a later date. It can be cut or rewritten very easily. If I were really stuck I’d just put in a note describing what the speech in particular needs to relate and then move on.
Awkward text
Does something sound rough and clumsy? So what? These are just words. When you delete them no fairies die. Graham Greene used to say that the first thing he did when he finished a book was to go back and take out all the adjectives and adverbs. He’d then read it again and insert the ones he thought necessary, then reread once more to try to get a final version. Revision is a vital part of the book-writing process, as we shall see. If something doesn’t quite gel, mark it for another look later and move on.
Here are some things I must have established in my head, even if they’re rough and hazy.
Story flow
I don’t write conventional 4/4 common time stories. The pace and the tempo vary very deliberately, from fast to reflective. But at the same time each piece needs to fit – or contrast – with what goes before and what comes next. Minor transitional moments I can set to one side. But the feel and fit are different. I find it hard to progress unless the relationship between the different elements of the mosaic is well established and there’s no accidental, awkward jar between one passage and the next.
Characters
Yes, I come to understand them better as I’m writing the book. And yes, they reveal mysteries to me that I hadn’t guessed in the beginning, when I created them. But I still have to know them to some extent from the start. They need to feel familiar, capable of being ‘seen’ in my mind’s eye, heard with real voices in my head. Without that they don’t have the promise of inner, hidden substance, something waiting to be discovered during the progress of the book, like an iceberg slowly revealing itself, not added artificially with daubs of deliberate paint masquerading as ‘characterisation’.
Locations
Again, if I can’t see them, feel them, smell them, I can’t describe them. I need to establish the canvas firmly in my head before starting to create the narrative it will one day enclose.
Key event detail
By this I mean things you can’t skip, fudge, make excuses for. At some stage all stories come to pivot on certain central facts: this happened and these were the consequences. You may not know them fully before you begin. But at some stage those events become so central they have to move front of stage. You need an inkling about what they are. These elements are the levers that will trigger and move the mechanisms of the finished story.
I’ve an idea of the kind of tale I want to write. It’s not going to be conventional crime or a thriller. It’s destined to be something that is somewhat looser in definition, mixing a few elements of the two: a mystery. This is a coming-of-age story about a decent young man taking his first few steps into the adult world and discovering it’s more complicated, and more threatening, than he could ever have imagined.
Minor items aren’t project stoppers. I can leave them and fix them even after a first or second revise. This second set are, for me, matters that have to take prominence, top priority when I’m writing. Without them I’m lost in the desert, and that’s a place no one wants to be.
I have the first act now. Charlie and the Mermaid has attained the status of ‘work in progress’. Here’s the story so far.
Charlie Harrison is a fourteen-year-old kid living alone in a rundown English seaside resort with his father, a surly and uncommunicative police officer whose wife left him years ago. Charlie’s a good kid, studious, honest, fond of swimming in the sea and athletics. One summer evening he walks down to the beach for a swim. In the shadows of the pier, a scary structure half-destroyed by fire, he sees a figure. A young girl, about his own age, standing in the water, her back to him, staring out to sea. She’s fully dressed, soaking wet and looks as if she’s about to walk into the waves. He races in and stops her. An exchange takes place. He doesn’t know if she was trying to kill herself or not. She’s pretty, she’s fascinating. He has an odd thought: she looks like a mermaid.
He talks her out on to the beach, still concerned. Then a long black American limo draws up by the road and a man in a suit gets out and barks at her to join him. The girl refuses. The man comes closer. He’s big and scary, threatening … and very odd too, staring at both of them in a controlling way. His right hand is covered in a black leather glove, so thick and heavy it seems artificial. Charlie knows something’s wrong here and stands up for her. There’s a confrontation. The car drives off. The girl, Sally, walks off without a word of thanks. All she does is turn round and say to him from some distance away, ‘Stay away from me. You don’t want trouble.’
It’s the summer holidays and Charlie’s bored. The next day he goes to the dilapidated town swimming pool, a place he never normally visits because he much prefers to swim in the sea, whatever the weather. The girl’s there, working as a lifeguard. He realises she’s a couple of years older than him. She doesn’t smile. She’s even prettier than he remembers. She doesn’t look pleased to see him. She’s running a life-saving class, showing people techniques such as mouth-to-mouth resuscitation on a dummy. Charlie takes part. There’s a bully from his class at school, and a couple of his mates. They obviously have an interest in the girl. When Charlie has his turn on the dummy the bully asks, ‘First kiss, Harrison?’ Sally looks at him sympathetically. When the others start to rib him some more she bawls them out very forcefully.
‘There,’ she says, when they’re gone. ‘We’re even.’
But they’re not. The bullies wait outside and sock him one. His nose is bleeding so Sally takes Charlie home for tea. She lives with her grandfather, Eric Whitby, an old seaside children’s entertainer, comedian, magician, ventriloquist – you name it. He’s a likeable, talkative old man with a glint in his eye. Sally is transformed around him. He’s funny, clever, observant, full of life. Eric shows him what he says is the best magic trick in the world. He clicks his fingers and flames appear at his fingertips. It’s so easy, so real it does feel like magic. Sally smiles when she sees this. Her mum’s dead. She doesn’t mention her father. Charlie thinks of the long black car and the man in the suit but doesn’t say anything.
When he leaves she sees him to the door and says again, ‘I’m trouble. Stay away from me.’
Charlie is shocked to find he’s wondering what it would be like to kiss her. And why she keeps asking him to stay away in one breath but asking him into her life with the next.
When he gets home his dad bawls him out. He’s furious. Livid and scared too, Charlie thinks. It’s all to do with the man in the black car, who’s complained to him about Charlie somehow. Who is he? Charlie asks. Only Matt Giordano, the man who owns the town. The man everyone answers to. Even the police, it seems to Charlie.
He listens to his dad for a while, telling him to steer clear of Giordano or get a good hiding. Then Charlie goes for a walk. Back down to the beach, wondering if he’ll see Sally again since it’s the evening. Charlie’s puzzled. He’s a dogged, inquisitive kid. When something sticks in his head it’s not easily dislodged. His dad is always calling him out for that.
He walks up to the pier and squeezes through the gates. No one’s supposed to go in this place and normally Charlie, the old Charlie, wouldn’t dream of doing anything he wasn’t supposed to. But he goes in this time because the old Charlie was a kid, and the new Charlie isn’t. The place burned down years ago, and whoever’s trying to reopen it seems to be running out of money. Most of it is fire-blasted, ruined. At the end is a small theatre, half-rebuilt but covered in chains and security fencing. Charlie walks there. On the outside wall, charred, only just visible, he sees a poster from years ago, before the fire. It’s a variety bill. Top of the list is a double act of children’s entertainers: Whitby and Giordano, the funniest duo this side of Blackpool. Eric Whitby, the comedian. Giordano, the straight man and – it makes a big play of this – a hypnotist too: ‘The Man Who Can Make You Do Anything’. There are pictures of the two men in suits, with top hats and props, Eric grinning, Giordano scary and with the same staring eyes Charlie’s already seen. Behind them is a beautiful woman in a showgirl’s costume with a feathered headdress. She looks very like Sally.
Something’s wrong here, he thinks. He goes back and squeezes out of the security gates. As he does so he realises he’s been seen. The American limo is there, parked in the road by the pier. The window winds down. A long arm comes out, a black leather glove on the hand. It makes the gesture of a gun being cocked then fired directly at him. The car drives off.
Charlie stands there and wonders how he feels. Frightened? A bit maybe. More than that he’s angry. Something bad is going on and it affects Sally, makes her miserable, which she doesn’t deserve. He’s got the school holidays ahead of him and nothing to fill them supposedly. He has now.