well actually it is now the fifth draft manuscript, i actually wrote the first four manuscripts while completing my literature degree but now that the degree is almost at an end, i am free to go back over all those texts i’ve merely skimmed, and actually partake in some of the writing exercises
and so, because i can, i will.
without further ado, join Kate Grenville (in text below, not in flesh) and I on our journey
the writers book – a workbook for fiction writers
Chapter 1
getting started
Grenville provides all kinds of exercises and commentary on how to get off to a great start and the first exercise she details is the opening line.
how to hook the reader. each and every time i start a new draft for elysium i play with the opening line. i am yet to reach that place of happiness. here are all six different opening lines from all five drafts of elysium. the first is from draft five, i wrote it yesterday.
‘At first glance Angel Grace thought this life would be routine, much the same as the one before, she soon realised, nothing much about life could be considered routine.’ Elysium, draft five, copyright2010
‘Angel Grace has lived and died many times. At first glance she had thought this life was routine, much the same as the one before, she soon realised nothing about returning to earth could be considered routine’ Elysium, draft five copyright 2010
‘The days of the dying are long. From well before dawn till well after dusk they stretch, snapping back only once the darkness of sleep has fallen.’ Elysium, draft four copyright 2010
‘Angel lived in a perpetual bubble of waiting, waiting for the next terrible thing to happen. Which was stupid really, all the terrible things she could possibly imagine had already happened.’ Elysium, draft three copyright 2010
‘Mid stride Chelsea Dell’s mobile phone rang interrupting her rhythm, the vibrating in her pocket a distraction she didn't need’ Elysium, draft two copyright 2010
‘The gates opened on a whisper of wind, beyond which was a brilliant sunlit day.’ Elysium, draft one copyright 2010
looking back over the six it is hard to decide which is better, if i have improved at all. what each revision has done is allowed a deeper study of each character, how they are introduced into the story and what their role in may be. each revision has also helped decide where the story begins and who should tell the tale. the passages the follow each of these opening sentences have all survived the fifth draft.
the second exercise Grenville suggests is improvisation, such as free writing for 60 seconds, self portraits within the moment, starter lines such as ‘I remember’ and ‘Yesterday I’ and dream recall(Grenville, p.13). the exercise i will tackle is ‘describe a character’
Joslin Gee is 33 years old and she is the middle child in a family of three girls. Sara is older, tall and beautiful, kind and caring. Chelsea is younger, short and cute, snappy and quick tempered. Like most middle children, Joslin is neither here nor there. She is not tall or beautiful, she is not short or cute, her manner is mild and light. Joslin has a close bond with her father, Gabrielle Dell, they love to garden, in fact they run a landscaping business together. The business is well known in the small suburban circles which they live and work. Mostly upper middle class, mostly professional families much like Joslin’s family. Crest Haven is that sort of city, suburban and close knit, everybody knows everybody, as long as you come from the same side. The city is divided into north and south, if you are a northerner you mix with other northerners, if you are a southerner you stay down south. The city circle is as good a place to meet as any and it is here the two sides co-exist. Joslin avoids the city, but that is not to say she does not mix, Joslin and her husband Dan live in the east, as do her parents and her sisters. Joslin has a little old fixer upper that Dan dreams of renovating; the house is nestled amongst the hills, in a cool and quiet valley, and they live a cool and quiet life.
Joslin Gee is a central character from elysium. i have high hopes for her development as an 'every woman’. Grenville provides many more exercises; i will not detail them all although i do invite you to share one you may have attempted.
getting started is a point in the novel that is often the hardest, this point in the novel writing process however was not hard for me. i have been an avid writer and reader since childhood, i have countless journal full of teenage angst to prove it, and i had always had it in mind to write a novel or two (or twenty as the case may be).
when elysium at last leapt from my day dreaming mind and onto the page it was unfortunately due to tragic circumstance rather than a great motivation to write. i was awoken early one morning to a phone call from my sister telling me that my three year old niece, Breezy, would not wake up. this was November 2005. from that very moment our lives were turned inside out with grief, blame, guilt, love, and the whole gamut of human emotion. unbeknownst to me at the time, this was my ‘getting started’.
to begin at the beginning, as Grenville says ‘is just about the hardest place to start’ (p.2) but as it turns out for me, the start was the easiest, it happened quite naturally with the eulogy i wrote for Breezy.
the months following slipped by in the haze of grieving, i started a new journal and thought endlessly about Breezy but i did not write much. then in february 2006 my brother in-law died, aged 38 years, of an aneurism, while at work. one minute he was smiling, laughing and chatting, the next he was still and silent, never to say goodbye .
this new blow to our family finally opened the floodgates, i sat down at the computer and started writing, i paid no attention to what i was writing, i went with my gut and the words on the page took on a life of their own. i did not resurface for close to three months. in june 2006 i had draft one complete. today it is july 2010 and draft five is awaiting.
the beginning was not the hard part,
knowing when to stop is proving to be much trickier.
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