Wistman's Wood

We headed up onto Dartmoor in the spring sunshine, followed the track north from Two Bridges – and came to Wistman’s Wood.

This is an eerie place of twisted trees and moss covered boulders - high altitude oaks that almost appear to be sprouting from the rocks themselves. Even in winter, when the trees are not in leaf, the woods are green, branches festooned with mosses and lichens, ferns sprouting from the boughs, as if to give them their own set of antlers.

Local legend claims that the devil inhabits these woods, his ferocious wisht hounds lurk among the rocks and the wild hunt rides out from here across the moor, baying for the blood of sinners. Most of the time this wood is dripping wet, shrouded in drifting mist and thin rain and you could well believe these legends to be true, the devil watching from between the trees, his hounds stalking you as you move among the rocks.

But this day of spring sunshine the woods seemed a friendly place, gnarled branches stark against the blue of the sky, mossy boulders forming a carpet of hummocks and a peaty stream bubbling over the rocks in the valley below.

It is a place of weird beauty.

A place of stories.

A place to come back to in moonlight…

Meet My Muse

This is Mimsy.

Whenever I settle down to write it isn’t long before she appears beside me, looking up at me and miaowing. Then she jumps up and settles down to sleep on my knee. So I sit and write while my furry black and white knee warmer snoozes.

So is it any surprise that I’m putting her into a story?

My Writing Process

There’s a new meme doing the rounds and this is it. I was tagged by Natasha Ngan, author of the fabulous The Elites, and challenged to answer a few questions about my writing. So here goes…

1. What am I working on?

I have a new project on the go but at this stage I don’t really want to say too much about it. Suffice to say it’s another children’s book, set in a place near where I grew up, but inspired by some strange happenings near where I live now.

2. How does my work differ from others?

I think what makes my work a bit different is the fact that I come from a scientific background. Most of my stories tend towards science fiction in some form or other and I like to keep any science in them plausible. Worryingly the flooded world of Red Rock is turning out to be just a bit too plausible for comfort!

3. Why do I write what I do?

Before I settled on writing for children I dabbled with a few different genres, but then I rediscovered children’s literature through having kids of my own. It was wonderful to meet old friends and to discover some of the amazing authors who have emerged since I was a kid myself.  I knew then that this was the audience I wanted to write for.

But one thing which always frustrated me as a kid was that it was always boys having the really good adventures. That’s why I created Danni. Girls can have adventures too.

4. How does my writing process work?

I keep a notebook where I scribble down ideas as they occur to me, and every so often some of the jottings coalesce and start to grow into something bigger.

When I first started writing I used to sit down and let my characters and story lead me, but now I’m more disciplined. I start with a pitch, a few short paragraphs that summarise the main thrust of the story, what the main motivation is and how it will end. I always need to know where I’m heading. I find that this helps me keep the story focussed.

From there I build an outline, a page of so of bullet points that give me the broad structure of the story. This isn’t set in stone but evolves as I write.

And then I start scribbling. I’m one of those people who go for the dirty first draft. I get the story down and leave myself notes for the things I need to come back to. It’s a bit like forming a rough shape out of a lump of clay. Once I have this I can start to sculpt, cutting away, adding bits here and there, until I can’t see anything else to change. That’s when I know it is ready to head off out into the world.

And now it is my turn to tag someone – I tag….

Charlotte Otter

Susan Roebuck

On Endings

I’ve written and critiqued a fair number of short stories in my time and one of the things that is notoriously difficult to get right is the ending. The ending has to be strong. It has to resonate with the reader and leave an echo that lingers with them long after they have finished reading, and it has to pull everything that has gone before into perspective. Very often it is the ending that really makes a short story work, or alternatively can let it down completely.

But the need for a strong ending applies equally to longer works of fiction, and this is where I’ve been struggling with my WIP. So far I’ve written three endings, but they all feel a bit weak.

The story ended on a note of high drama and it left me exhausted. For a while I left it as it was, but as I started to get feedback from my beta readers it has become clear that I need some sort of epilogue – a final scene to bring it all together and provide closure for my traumatised MC.

I talk about endings when I run my writing workshops for kids, and we discuss the different sorts of endings you can have. I ask them about what books they have read and what sorts of ending they like. Their answers always fascinate me. So I need to make this ending just as memorable, just as powerful. Other authors manage it. I can too.

And I think I have an idea ….