Scottish Writers

1. Getting started

Where do you get ideas? Alan Spence advises you to use your senses - to watch and listen to what's around you.

Perhaps you could put these observations in a notebook. Many writers use notebooks. Often the ideas and observations in them won't be used, but they are a way of keeping the writer focused on the world around them.
Should you make a plan? That depends on how much time you have. In a timed writing piece it's a good idea to know where you're going, but if not, it's up to you.
Still, it's always a good idea, as you write, to note down any ideas that come to you about how the story might develop - before you forget them!
Should you use the first or second person in the story? This is probably the first decision you make when writing a story. Remember there are advantages to both - an intimacy with first person narration; the possibility of introducing another character's viewpoints in third person narration.
Where does the story begin? This is a really tricky question. Short Stories, like poems, have no words to waste. They show a character at a really important point in his or her life.
Here are six opening lines for stories - or the first chapter of a novel- for you to play with:

Once he had locked the car and thrown away the keys, he noticed the briefcase lying on the back shelf.
By my count it was the six hundred and fifteenth day of continuous rain.
It was the ugliest dog I had ever seen.
The room was warm but the body was cold.
I had only gone for one drink after work, so how come here I was ordering my third?
"Simon," his mother said, "even as a child of three I couldn't get him off the net."

2. Creating a character

Here are five of the ways a character can be created. The examples all come from the Scottish Writers Project books.

The author tells us about the character e.g. Her name was Mrs Scott and she was an old woman of about seventy. (The first sentence of Consider the Lilies by Iain Crichton Smith.)
The character tells us about herself. e.g. My name is Libby Lucas. Liberty. I was named Liberty the year of Bloody Sunday. (From Truth or Dare by Sara Sheridan.)
How the character speaks e.g. "Where there is no vision," Miss Brodie had assured them, "the people perish. Eunice, come and do a summersault in order that we may have comic relief." (From The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark.)
What other characters say about him. e.g. "Don't be put off by Laidlaw's manner. He tends to be an abrasive man. That's all." (From Laidlaw by William McIlvanney.)
How the character behaves. e.g. Rebus shrugged. "These things happen, sir." He fixed his eyes on Carwell's. They stared one another out. "Dismissed, Inspector," Carswell said. Rebus didn't blink until he was back in the corridor. (From Black and Blue by Ian Rankin.)

Have a leaf through a few of the project novels or one of the short story collections to find out how a character is introduced and whether the author favours one of these five characterisation techniques. Most commonly in the course of the novel a writer will employ all of these and more.

A good exercise is to choose a character and to describe him/her doing something very simple like making a cup of tea. It's also a good way to imagine the character in a particular setting.

3. Dialogue

P. G. Wodehouse said, "Always get to the dialogue as soon as possible. I always feel the thing to do is to go for speed. Nothing puts the reader off more than a great slab of prose at the start."

Why did Wodehouse believe that? Because dialogue is the best shorthand at revealing character and relationships between characters. Look at this exchange from the first page of Catherine MacPhail's novel Fugitive:

"OK, what age am I tonight, Mother?" Jack leaned back in his seat, enjoying the ride in spite of his mother's driving. He watched in amusement as she tried to get the windscreen wipers to work, and only succeeded in flashing her lights at other drivers. "Goodness, don't you think you should find out how the car works before you get a loan of it?" he said. He flicked a switch and the windscreen wipers came on immediately. He sat back again, smug. "The police will be stopping us any minute, thinking you've stolen it." " Oh, belt up!" his mother, Big Rose, said, blowing a strand of hair back from her face. " Charming way to talk to your wee boy, Jack said.

Clear, isn't it, that it's the dialogue that makes this come alive and shows the reader immediately the open relationship between Rose and Jack? Deeper into a novel, dialogue can help to reveal conflict or to move the plot along in a far more economical way than a "slab of prose" can do. Here's an extract from The Orchard on Fire by Shena Mackay where the main character, April, lets her mother know about her suspicions regarding the death of the creepy Mr Greenidge's wife:

"He killed her. He murdered her," I said at home. " Now, April. We know you're upset but I won't have that kind of talk. How can you say such things about your friend?" " When he's been so good to you." " He poisoned her. I know he did." " That's enough. Poor Mr Greenidge is heartbroken. He's a widower now so we ought to be specially kind to him, shouldn't we? You run upstairs and write him a nice letter saying how sorry you are. A letter of condolence, it's called." " If Ruby was here she'd believe me."

Wodehouse went on to say, "I think the success of every novel - if it's a novel of action - depends on the high spots. The thing to do is to say to yourself, 'Which are my big scenes?' and then get every drop of juice out of them."

In a short story too it's a good idea to ask, 'What's my big scene going to be?' - the scene where a conflict is explored, intensified or resolved or a scene where a big change happens in a relationship. In such a scene, you'll want to use the drama of dialogue to make it come alive for the reader. As I've said, the way someone speaks tells us a lot about him or her. In that way, dialogue is very revealing. Some novels and stories, written in the first person, depend for their success on creating a convincing voice; one we need to believe in from the start. Here are the opening sentences from two novels:

1. "I mind the first time I ever seen the bold Gal."

2. "The sweat his lashing oafay Sick Boy; he wis trembling."

Do you recognise them? Both are from very successful novels. What part do you think the voice they were written in plays in their appeal?

4. How to develop a story

Some writers never start writing a story or novel until they have it all mapped out on index cards from beginning to end. Others think, what's the point of setting out if I know exactly where I'm going to end up?

The metaphor of the journey is helpful. Even if you are the second type of writer, it's good to carry a map so you can have some idea of which direction you're headed

But we all get lost occasionally, or seem simply to run out of road. What then? Time to ask a few questions: there's no substitute for thought.

Are you in tune with your main character? Given what you've established about her and her situation, what likely action would she take now? See how Sara Sheridan handles this question in Truth or Dare.
Should you introduce a new character? a character who would conflict with the main character. Check out how Alan Spence manages his cast of characters in the The Magic Flute.
Speaking of conflict, do you have any in the story? I remember a novelist telling me that whenever she was stuck in a novel, she always went back to primitive motifs - the hunt, the search, the chase - and worked out how one of these might be introduced into her novel. See for yourself how some of these themes are brought alive in John Buchan's The Thirty Nine Steps and Robin Jenkins' The Cone Gatherers.
Perhaps you need to broaden the concerns of your story. Your love story, for example, might operate within the frame of a thriller, as happens in Theresa Breslin's Death or Glory Boys.
If you're seriously interested in how plot develops, read the masters of the art, such as John Buchan, Iain Banks, Philip Kerr, William McIlvanney and Ian Rankin, to see how they can hold a reader's interest by the introduction of fresh material.
Still stuck? Perhaps you should take a break. Go for a walk, listen to some music, play a game. Many stories are 'solved' by sitting in a drawer for a time and being looked at with fresh eyes

5. Beginnings and endings

One of the most difficult things about writing a story is knowing where it begins and where it ends.

Most of us at some time have had the experience of writing a story called Avalanche or Mountain Disaster and starting it so early that we've written pages and pages before we hear the first rumble of danger. Then we've got five minutes for the avalanche to take its course and for our characters to be saved. Whew!

Sometimes when we're writing, not simply adventure stories, but stories which concern complex relationships, it's even more difficult to know where to begin.

Remember P G Wodehouse's advice about focus (see Dialogue tips), where he suggests you "say to yourself, 'Which are my big scenes?' and then get every drop of juice out of them." There are times when we can be clear from the start, as Wodehouse obviously was, what the main focus of our story is going to be and our job then is to get there as early as possible. At other times, there's nothing else for it, but to write ourselves into a story, to discover what we're really interested in as we write. Then we must think of our story as a rocket. The first parts of it have blasted us into space, where we want to be, and can be jettisoned: it's the command module we really want to focus on now.

Put simply, a short story presents us with an insight into a life at a crucial or telling moment. The writer's job is to enter the life at that point. Sometimes instinct will tell the writer where the story begins, sometimes hard thought will be needed. Discussion with someone else or within a group can help focus on what matters. All else must be ruthlessly cut.

And really the same goes for ending. Whenever we feel we are losing interest in our characters, it is probably time to leave them; the crucial moment - which we have now clearly identified - has run its course.

We recognise the end of our particular concern, even if, as in Roy Butlin's story, Turning Sixteen in Shouting it Out, there is clearly so much more to come:

"It was a bright sunny afternoon when he stepped outside. At the corner, when he turned for a last look down Greek Street, he was just in time to see Chris hesitate outside a strip club and then go in. He shrugged and kept going. He'd go for a walk in Hyde Park - he might even meet Claire. Even if he didn't he would still have his whole life in front of him."

Lastly, if you are having trouble with ending, perhaps you should look back to where you began. As Euripides said, "A bad beginning makes a bad ending."

Tom Pow Scottish Writers Project Writer in Residence

Tom Pow's author page