The librarians tremble when they see my family coming through the door. We haul in our bags, bursting with borrowed books, dump them down the chute, then make for the bookshelves, where we’ll strip the shelves.
The problem with borrowing so many books though, is that after a while, you run out of unread books. The library seems to take forever to get new books in. Sometimes I struggle to find books I haven’t read, books I might like to read.
Last library trip however, was a bit different. There was the usual selection of books, the usual empty bag, waiting to be filled, the usual lack of unread, interesting books. But this time, I saw a shelf of old favourites. The Billabong books by Mary Grant Bruce.
That got me thinking. How long had it been since I’d last read her series? I could hardly remember the plots now. Well, maybe it was time to reread them. I took the whole lot.
It was the same when I located Brian Jacques’ Redwall books. Pleasant memories of talking animals, big badgers, fast hares, brave mice, flooded back. I hadn’t read these books in ages either. A couple of them quickly found their way into my bag.
Later, at home once more, I opened a Billabong book and was instantly transported back in time, back to cattle drovers, horse riding, and camping. Sucked into that world, I worked my way through six of those books in a couple of days. How could I have forgotten to read these books?
With the Redwall books, my only sorrow was that I hadn’t borrowed more. Why on earth didn’t I reread books like these more often? Why hadn’t I borrowed more than two? Now I’d have to wait until next library trip to get some more.
Suddenly I’ve remembered how good these books are. Now I’m thinking, wondering what other books are lying around, read once, and then forgotten. I’m sure if I look hard enough, I’d find more books I’d loved once, more old favourites abandoned for newer, fresher books.
I’ll always be looking for new books to read, new books to become my favourites. But I won’t be forgetting my old favourites in a hurry. I wonder, which ones will I reread next?
Have you reread any old favourites recently?
I’ve never been a plotter in my writing. Working out long and detailed story plans, working out character motivation and building my world has never really enthralled me. I prefer to work spontaneously, writing whatever comes into my head and letting the story wander at will.
The only problem is, my stories have no plot, no meaning. Why would the characters do these things? I would never run off into danger unless I had to. They had no reason to. They had no reason to do anything. No, these stories had no plot. And that makes for a real problem with revising. How can you fix a story with no plot?
Obviously you can’t really, not without rewriting every single word of the story to make it into a plot. So, project after project ended up abandoned for lack of that all important thing: Plot.
There are two different camps in writing: those who use outlines, and those who don’t. Obviously I was one of those who didn’t. But that didn’t work for me. Time to try plan B: outlining.
Outlines scare me. How can you write down what’s going to happen in the story when you don’t know what the story is yet? When you haven’t met the characters? When you’ve only got a vague idea of where you want it to go?
So I skirted the outline, writing character profiles for my characters, working out their hopes, dreams, fears, backstory. And ideas started to flow. What if this person had done that? What if this event happened? What would cause someone to do this?
Hey, maybe I could write this outline after all. I typed the last word on my last character profile and opened a new document. Outline, I was going to beat you.
Ten minutes later, outline had won. I couldn’t do this. I couldn’t decide what happened in the middle. I never knew what was going to happen until I wrote it.
Another new document, and I was thrashing my problem out on screen, writing my thoughts down as I when. What would this person do? What if this happened? Why would it happen?
Slowly but surely, a story-plan appeared on screen, mixed up in aimless ramblings. This could actually work. I returned to my outline and wrote in what I had worked out. It wasn’t perfect, but it was a start.
I’m full of hope for this story. My plan tells me main points, places I need to get to in the story, reasons for people to do things, but it doesn’t tell me everything. I have room to be creative, to let the story flow.
Maybe outlines are useful. I’ll love them forever if they stop my plot from disappearing.
Do you have a problem with story plots? Do you outline? Or write by feel? How much planning do you do?
Yesterday was a very special day. Exactly 200 years ago, a great man was born, an English novelist, whose books are still widely read today, whose name is known by most people.
Charles Dickens.
I have only just become properly acquainted with Charles Dickens and his novels. I have only read four of his many novels, but I have to admit, he is a genius with words. His stories wind through many complex twists and turns, introducing hosts of memorable characters, revealing unexpected secrets, and finishing with satisfying ending.
His characters are amazing. He based many of them on real live people he knew. Even his mother wasn’t safe from his imagination. He used her as a model for ‘Mrs Nickleby. So memorable are his characters that even people who have never read his books can name a few.
He visited
My favourite of all his books I have read so far, has to be Little Dorrit, closely followed by Bleak House. Coincidentally these both have mini series adaptations.
Charles Dickens remains one of the greatest writers of all times. No one can dream up characters quite like him. No one can spend pages and pages describing a ‘London Particular’ fog and get away with it quite like him. Charles Dickens is unique among writers.
See David Perdue's Charles Dickens page for more information.
We are Shakespeare people.
The contents of our bookshelves, the DVDs in our collection, even the phrases we use in everyday life give us away. Who else has six copies of Julius Caesar just sitting around on their shelves? Who else gets excited over a new production of Hamlet? Who else quotes Shakespeare on a daily basis? Only Shakespeare people.
And, being Shakespeare people, we of course got excited when we heard about a DVD of Shakespearian master classes called Playing Shakespeare. It’s a series where Shakespearian actors go through some of the technical, parts of the scripts and act out parts of the plays to illustrate points.
It might sound a bit dull, but we found we really enjoy it. Who could fail to get the idea of putting emotion into words when the actor of Gandalf shows the different ways to do it, with often hilarious results? Who could fail to remember iambic pentameter when the actors play around with it and end up making a complete mess of the line?
There are so many things we are learning from these master classes. And it’s interesting to see what we have already learnt in our other Shakespearian studies. We’d already studied iambic pentameter before, but hearing it in action really fixed it in our minds.
There's nine episodes in this series, and we’ve only watched two. So many delightful Shakespearian things still left to learn. We’re looking forwards to the rest of this DVD.
Yes, we are Shakespeare people, with our bookshelves full of scripts, and our heads full of quotes. We’re enthusing over DVDs of Shakespearian acting classes and eyeing with pleasure a stack of Hamlet DVDs.
We are Shakespeare people, and happy to be so.
Deep down inside most bloggers, buried next to the wish to have a billion blog followers, the most page views ever and to be able to write instant hit one line posts, is the wish to receive comments. Any comment. Just something to show that there’s someone out there reading your work and liking it enough to tell you so.
I am one of this crowd, often desperate to hear from other bloggers. Was there something wrong with my last post? Is that why no one commented? Have I bored all my readers so much they’ve decided to leave?
Every comment I get is a gift. Precious because someone took the time to stop and say something, someone who only knows me through my blog. I love all my commenters, from the ones who only have time to say, ‘I loved your post,’ to the ones who write huge long comments full of personal stories and life.
I love my commenters so much that I’m dedicated to answering every single comment I receive. I always answer, and always try to say something personal to every comment. Because I appreciate my comments.
Sometimes though, I wonder about other blogger. Especially the ones who receive hundreds of comments on every post. Do they still get a thrill from receiving a comment? Do they read every single one and think, ‘Wow, these people took time to say sometime to me’?
And then, what sort of comments do people like to receive? Do people prefer to have a short one liner? Or a long personal comment showing how the post touched the commenter?
Personally, I love this second sort. It’s good to feel that something I’ve said has touched someone else. These are the best sorts of comments to answer too. You can share so much through these comments.
I suppose that’s why I write these comments too. If I can’t say something about how this post is relevant to me then I just won’t write a comment. I don’t like to leave a comment that anyone could leave. I want it to be personal. I want it to be from me.
Today I thought I’d post some commenting questions for you. I’m interested, what sort of comments do you like to get? What sort of comments do you write? Do you like bloggers to respond to your comments or aren’t you really bothered?
