Caron Allan Fiction

The Blue Dress

Posted by Caron Allan on July 1, 2020

Posted in: Blogs, Flash Fiction, Genres and Authors. Tagged: British detective, cosy murder, cozy mystery, creative writing, crime writer, Flash Fiction, Indie author, indie writer, murder mystery, self published, Short Stories, writers in Derbyshire, writing blog, writing technique. 2 Comments

This week I thought I’d dig out a short story I wrote a few years ago, inspired by a writing prompt from Morgen Bailey on her site. A very short story. I was really into Flash Fiction at the time, although this one was special for me and I have often been tempted to write more about this character. This story was included in a compilation of work that was briefly available (it wasn’t popular!) under the title (I think it was partly the title that killed it 🙂 ) of The Commuter’s Friend. So here it is, I hope you like it.

The Blue Dress

“They’ve found something, sir.” A young policeman addressed him through the car window. Inspector Smith heaved himself forward on the seat and got out of the car. Seemed like these days he was always tired. Time to quit, go fishing, get away from all this. He’d given them thirty-five years, they’d had enough.

“Is he still alive?” he asked the constable. He looked too young to be a copper. Looked like he should still be in the Scouts. They all did, with their degrees in Criminology or Psychology, and their fresh faces, still with acne, some of them. The constable shrugged.

“The paramedics are still working on him. It doesn’t look too good, sir.”

Inside the funeral parlour, the assistant who had raised the alarm watched as a couple of paramedics laboured over the undertaker. The scrawny white chest was bared for the use of the defibrillator. Smith turned away, the image frozen, a moment in time, imprinted on his mind—a few greying hairs in the middle of the chest, the prominent ribs supporting the pale skin.

“How did you know this wasn’t just a routine call?” The constable was at his side, and the question was a welcome distraction. As Smith responded, they turned about and headed for the rear door. “I mean, we were called out to a robbery gone wrong, and straightaway, you knew. It was like magic, sir.”

Smith halted in the doorway and looked at the youngster.

“There’s no magic in this game, son. As soon as we went into the flat upstairs, I saw the dress.”

“I saw it too, sir, but it didn’t ring any warning bells with me.”

Smith looked at him. “You didn’t find it a bit odd that an elderly bachelor should have a blue dress hanging on a mannequin in his bedroom? A blue dress that clearly dated from the 1950s, and was the size of a girl of about 12 to 14 years of age? It didn’t make you wonder if the undertaker had a secret? You didn’t find any of that at all unusual, constable?”

The constable flushed, and looked down at his feet. “Well, I suppose…”

They headed into the back garden. There was a concrete area set aside for client parking. Beyond that a tall hedge enclosed a private garden. Some men in plastic all-in-ones had dug up a small patio area surrounded by climbing roses. In any other time or place, it would have been simply a beautiful bower of contemplation. One of the men got to his feet and beckoned the police officers over. He pointed into the shallow pit.

Smith looked. A cold hand clutched momentarily at his heart. He nodded and turned away. The constable was at his elbow like an eager puppy. “Sir? Do you know who it is, sir?”

Smith nodded again. He sighed.

“Jessie Flynn. 13 years of age. Missing since 1958. The owner of that blue dress.”

***

Sorry, it’s a ridiculously long post this week. It’s a remodel of a post I did for good author friend Emma Baird back in August of 2017:

I love rewriting.

There, I’ve said it. I think I could be the only person in the history of the world who actually enjoys rewriting. In fact, I like it a lot more than writing the first draft. I hate that bit. Okay, maybe not hate. I love the thrill of writing the first 50 pages or so, when it’s all fresh and exciting, and the story begins to unfold on the page. I love, love love that.

But… sooner or later I always hit the first-draft wall. I know it’s partly because I don’t plot, so I get suddenly overwhelmed with two issues: ‘This is rubbish’ and ‘I’m lost and don’t know where I’m going’. I’m a pantser, so sue me, I hate to plot. But it makes the initial experience of writing a draft rather an emotional, rivers-deep-mountains-high kind of affair. But… rewriting, oh that is a whole new thing. I LOVE rewriting. You are free from the ‘burden’ of creating and, you can step back from your work, examine it carefully, and then you can begin to polish and tidy.

This is my favourite quote by any writer. It inspired me so much in the 80s and 90s when I knew I wanted to be a writer, but didn’t know how to be a writer. Mary Wibberley was a writer for Mills and Boon, so her book was aimed at writers of romance, and that’s why she was setting that word count of 56,000 words as an aim. For many years, as I tried to learn how to write, I would not relax and have confidence in myself until I had reached that 56,000 word point: when I reached that, I knew I could finish the book, even if it ended up being twice that length.

The point Mary was making was this: Don’t try to revise as you go. I know there are always a few people that system works for, but trust me, it’s not for most people. You get so bogged down in the detail that you never progress. You can spend your whole life perfecting chapter one and never move on.

Write the whole book, from beginning to end, always looking forwards, pressing on till you reach that glorious, astounding moment when you type: ‘The End’. If you can’t remember the names and places mentioned earlier in the story, just do what I do and put a massive X in its place. Or a note to yourself highlighted in bright yellow, so you can’t miss it as you scroll down the page. Or refer to a list of names and places you create as you go along.

It’s so much easier to revise a whole book. Like creating a sculpture, you’ve got that solid block to chip away at. You know where the story is going. You know the shape of it.

After finishing your first draft, don’t immediately start revisions. Unless you are on the clock and the deadline is almost on you, put the book away for as long as you can. This is the perfect time to write another book. Yes, really! Especially if you intend to write a series. Leave your first draft for at least a few weeks, ideally a few months, or even a year. You will need to approach it next time around with a degree of detachment to get out of writer mode and into rewriter or editor mode.

So you’re ready to start.

Read it. Don’t write anything. Don’t type, don’t tweak, fiddle, twiddle or jiggle. Just read the whole story through from beginning to end. You are trying to get an overview. Become a reader.

Then, later, go through it again but read it – as much as possible – out loud. I know that can be difficult to manage but it really will help you find some problems you otherwise will not notice. This time, make notes on how you feel about the book. Does the plot progress logically? (unless an illogical plot is essential to your story!) Do you have that sensation of tripping up as you read—a bit like when you miss a stair and think you’re falling—that’s when there’s a problem, usually a plot problem. Your spidey-senses will show it to you. Try to pinpoint what it was that made you feel like that. Put a sticky note on the page, or if you’re reading a computer file, highlight the section, or bookmark it, or make a new note in the Track Changes section.

If you’re frustrated by not being able to make changes as you spot them, or worried you might forget, again, make notes in the Track Changes feature of Word, or pencil notes in the margin, or use sticky notes if working with a paper copy. Just don’t change the body of the book yet. Hopefully after rereading the whole book, you will be able to see the strengths and weaknesses of your draft. You will see what needs to go. If not, give it to a trusted friend or writing pal to read. Ask them to be honest and not just pat you on the back. Rewriting can feel very much like ‘fixing problems’ or putting right things that are wrong. This can be quite demoralising. Don’t get into this mind set of ‘It’s no good, I’m no good’. Everyone has –or should have–a terrible first draft. Remember, you’re polishing, refining. Think of rough diamonds compared with the final polished article. You’re putting flesh on a flexible framework. It’s all good.

Save your file in its original state, then copy it and rename it. Rename as ‘final version’ or ‘second draft’ or something like that. If it goes to pot, you’ve still got your original first draft if you need it. (You won’t… but it’s like a security blanket.) Start tinkering.

Start with the easy stuff like typos, clarity, and grammar.

Then check consistency of character description and behaviour; the names and personal details of all characters; check place-names are correct and consistent throughout. Work with your timeline – is it clear when the events of the book take place. Is it dark at the right time, or have you got someone outside and seeing perfectly clearly at ten o’clock at night in winter? Weekends, summer-time, these can give characters different routines to the one for weekdays.

Then move on to point of view. With POV, consistency is everything. If you’re writing anything other than an omniscient third person viewpoint, then there will be things your characters cannot know until it is revealed to them. Make sure you’ve nailed that.

Next, check for all those words you overuse. For me, that’s words like So, And and Also. A friend of mine uses Thus in almost every paragraph… it’s really annoying. Check how often your characters do the same thing: mine are always gasping, sighing, biting their lips or tossing back their hair. They also glare a good deal. I’m rationing myself with all these overused expressions.

If you use unusual words to describe something, don’t repeat them more than once because unusual words stick in the reader’s mind and break the spell: the worst possible offence you can commit as a writer of fiction is to pull your reader out of the book and into the real world where they are a reader, not a character in your story. You want them to read your book, not remember they have laundry to do. Make less use of unusual words such as coterie or Schadenfreude, words that really stand out from the page. Find synonyms for words you need to repeat, so they seem less noticeably repeaty. (I know that’s a word, don’t nag me about it.) If you use cliches—please don’t—but if you absolutely must, do it just once, don’t repeat them.

Check hyphenation, apostrophe use, adverbs and speech tags. I don’t agree with the ‘never use adverbs, they’re evil’ approach, but do use them sparingly. (See what I did there?) Keep metaphors and especially similes to a minimum, unless writing poetry, they are also irritating, and often amount to little more than another cliche. Don’t use fussy speech tags: he responded, she retorted, they exclaimed, etc. Once in a while is fine, but to begin with, you don’t need to tag every speech, just enough so the reader can keep track of who said what. The word ‘said’, 90% of the time, is the best speech tag there is, it’s invisible, the reader ignores it.

Never, ever use the word ejaculate to mean exclaim. We don’t live in the world of the Famous Five anymore, if indeed we ever did. You just can’t do it without making your reader burst out laughing or become highly offended.

Check your tense scenes or action scenes for long, meandering sentences that slow the reader down and take forever to read, or have to be reread to try to figure out the meaning. Check slow, reflective, emotional or romantic scenes for accidentally humorous clangers, or break-neck short sentences that rush the reader too quickly through the text.

Read it again. And again. Tweak as you go, now, but remember some changes will have a knock-on effect and need to be addressed multiple times throughout the book, so don’t forget to change every instance of a word throughout the book, not just once. Be cautious with using find/replace as some words will be a syllable in a longer word. If you change his to hers, for example, using ‘replace all’, you will end up with words like machersmo instead of machismo and other similarly hilarious but disastrous typos. Now pass the draft to your close friends/beta-readers/book group, for your first round of feedback.

Then—I hate to say it—you need to do it all again. I read somewhere that if you don’t hate your book by the time it is published, you haven’t done enough work on it, and believe me I’ve come so, so close to hating a couple of my books. Your book is not ready for your editor or proofreader until you are absolutely convinced that it’s perfect. Trust me, it won’t be. But it’ll be pretty close. As an editor, there’s nothing more heartbreaking than getting a script that is little more than a first draft. It’s like seeing a neglected, unloved child. So show your baby some love.

When you make your first sale, it will feel like it was worth every minute.

***

‘She said what????’

Warning: contains coarse offensive language!

These days we aren’t as shocked as we once were when someone drops the F-bomb. I think we’ve just got used to what we usually refer to as bad language.

I’m in danger of lapsing into one of those scenes so typical of the older generation: You know them. The sort of thing that starts with an old bat saying, ‘When I was young…’ But there’s no denying it was a different world. Do you remember how the newspaper used to headline such things as ‘The Filth and The Fury’? That was when the Daily Mirror blasted the Sex Pistols for their language in 1977? Or what about the infamous December 1976 Bill Grundy interview where the interviewer goaded Johnny Rotten into using the F-word on TV ‘for only the third time in the history of British Television’. You could hear pearls being clutched for miles around. There was public outrage. Or so we are told. Middle-aged people all over the country shook their heads over the decline of social morals and called for national service to come back. I privately thought, so what? But I then was a teenager, and I think most teens probably thought the same. Does anyone remember Mary Whitehouse and her campaign to clean up Britain? She wanted to rid the country of filth. She said references to sex were ‘dirty’, and bad language was disgusting. (She was perfectly lampooned in an episode of the detective TV series, Endeavour.)

And yes, I know that naughty words are as old as the Ark. No doubt some of them sprang from that time. Can you imagine trying to herd a bunch of animals into a boat and getting poo on your foot or a slobbery tongue in your face and NOT swearing? I know I would have had a few choice words to say. Probably, ‘Stop mucking about you idiots, and get on the f-ing boat, I’m getting wet here.’

‘Well I’ll go to the foot of our stairs!’ exclaimed Marcus in surprise. ‘Oi, Marcus, what you on about?’ Burt and Harry wanted to know.

Chaucer and Shakespeare used their own versions of our modern insults and foul words, and paved the way for colourful terms to enter everyday English. These greatly enriched our approach to incidents, frustrations, injuries, and annoyances that require relief through a vigorous use of very expressive language. Because apparently, studies have shown that swearing relieves stress and enables us to cope in stressful situations. I know it helps me.

I should just add, in Britain we call it swearing. That is using bad language. Not making an oath in a court. That’s a whole different kind of swearing. No, I’m talking here about what in America, is often called cursing. But you could call it blaspheming (possibly), using expletives, foul language, or as we say in Britain ‘Effing and Blinding’, (a euphemism for saying Fuck and Bloody), the term for this is using a ‘minced oath’ or ‘minced words’ – to take a profanity and adapt it to render it less offensive. We use this in everyday speech when we say of someone ‘They don’t mince their words’, which basically means, they are extremely forthright in what they say, usually offensively so. Some examples of minced oaths: Feck, Blooming/Flipping Heck, Oh Shoot, Darn it, etc.

‘Well hush my mouth.’

While we’re discussing the differences between the US and the UK, let me just say this: Bloody was not traditionally a mild swear-word. I’ve seen blog posts and social media stuff where they ‘define’ certain English words and they always say ‘Bloody’ in England is the same as ‘Damn’ in America. That’s just not true. It used to be the third worst word you could say when I was a kid, and its use would certainly bring a very stiff penalty in terms of punishment both at home and at school. It’s not mild. Or rather, it’s only mild in comparison with the F-bomb and C-word. It used to be fairly normal to have one’s mouth washed out with soap if using these words. It would make you vomit – obviously – and was definitely a very unpleasant experience designed to make you think twice about using bad language again. Usually the threat of it was enough to make you reconsider your choice of

Tibbles had hoped his new owner would have a little more class. But no, the same old F-words morning, noon, and night.

words.

Now in my contemporary trilogy, the Friendship Can Be Murder books, there’s a fair bit of this kind of bad language. We see it in society, it’s used all around us. And it’s used as much by the well-to-do, like my ‘heroine’, Cressida Barker-Powell, as by people from other walks of life. So my contemporary books had to reflect the world they are set in, for me at least, to make the characters seem more real, more natural and believable.

But when it came to writing my 1930s murder mysteries, the Dottie Manderson mysteries, that was a whole different bag of fish. Or is that a different kettle of cats??? Because the Dottie Manderson books are far more polite, more traditional, almost qualifying for the ‘clean’ subgenre of the mystery or romance categories.

Now I know—I guess we all know—that the kind of language we hear today all around us, was not all that different back then in the 1930s. But there were several provisos: it was not ‘ladylike’ to use bad language; there was still the strong paternalistic, protective culture of ‘Ladies’ present’, which meant, guys, mind your language; and then there was a much stronger emphasis on politeness, being conventional, being acceptable and so on. Bad language in public in particular was far less common and just not socially acceptable.

‘Pardon my French.’

So in my Dottie books, I stick with tried and trusted old favourites such as ‘blast’, ‘bother’, (my mother’s favourite; Oh botheration!’), ‘Good Lord’: you couldn’t say Good God except in cases of sincere anxiety or shock as it was believed to be, ‘taking the name of the Lord in vain’. Or there are always My Goodness, and What on Earth… to fall back on. I love some of the very mild exclamations of that era, such as ‘Well I’ll eat my hat’ or ‘Well I’ll go to the foot of our stairs’ – completely meaningless and bizarre words! Only very occasionally do I permit a gentleman to say Bloody in a moment of anger. Even then, he’ll usually apologise. There is virtually no use of the now almost universal OMG, or the long form Oh My God. These days we have a relatively new popular phrase ‘Shut the front door’, which is a minced version of the surprised, often disbelieving retort, ‘Shut the fuck up’.

With the recent translations of Night and Day into French and German, there had to be some discussion about the ‘levels’ or severity of naughty words. It was quite difficult to explain some of the euphemisms we use, or to find an acceptable and era-appropriate equivalent. I also had to apologise for our use of ‘Pardon my French’ which is a term we use to apologise for using bad language. Sorry, sorry, sorry, to French-speaking people everywhere.

As always, to observe our language (bad) from the outside, was absolutely fascinating for me.

***

When I decided to take the plunge and get my first Dottie Manderson book, Night and Day, translated into German and French, I think I realised that there would be a few conversations with the lovely ladies doing the work for me about the nuances of language. Questions along the lines of do I mean huge, big, large, gross, enormous… you get the idea. There are so many words to choose from, how do you know what is the best fit? There is not one word for big, or for fat, or… There were issues around the mention of a character’s fat, swollen ankles from being on her feet all day and being an older woman. In English, the word fat can mean podgy or overweight, but it can also mean grease, oil, butter, lard…

Fortunately the people I was lucky enough to work with are experts at what they do. their English is excellent, and they are experienced in making these kind of decisions. Because it’s not enough to simply translate verbatim and hope the result is still the same story. It won’t be.

And even at the end of this process, when the translated works are ready to be ~~inflicted~~ published, there is still a bit of a question in my head as to whether these are now new works or are they the same?

So translation is not just about changing the words on the page from one language to another, there is the task of making it work in the new language, of polishing a new manuscript and ensuring it is easy to understand, that it works–that’s the only way I can think of describing it–in the new language, giving the new reader a beautiful reading experience.

There are new idioms to find, because cliches, sayings, idioms, metaphors, similes and proverbs in English don’t necessarily translate into another language and retain the original meaning. In the English book, I mention that someone inherits suits from his dead brother-in-law. ”Every cloud,’ he says.’ In Britain, and hopefully other English-speaking countries, we know that is short for the proverb ‘Every Cloud Has A Silver Lining’. But what if your language doesn’t use that saying? In the German and French versions we opted for phrases that translate as ‘After the rain comes sunshine’ – the same, but different.

Then there is the need to retain a certain amount of ‘Englishness’ or else I’ve lost one of my main USPs (unique selling points): people read my books because they are set in the 1930s and in England, or Scotland, (so far) and those things are not incidental but crucial to the ‘feel’ of the books.

For this reason, we made the decision to keep some of the original phrases and words in the new translations. For example, Detective Sergeant William Hardy is still known by that British title, and we didn’t translate his first name to Guillaume, for example, or Wilhelm. This was the same for the other characters. The places names remained the same, as did some words such as Pub, Pint (not so much as a unit of measurement but more in terms of ‘that’s my pint’) and Bobby (as a slang word for a policeman) along with a few others.

This works to add to a sense of reading a British book, just like the imagery you get in a British film or TV series where they put in quaint country villages with thatched-roof houses, red pillar boxes, red phone boxes, and red double-decker buses. It’s set-dressing and gives the reader a sense of being in a different place, being in the story. It’s the same as putting on costumes or using other props in a film, contributing to the experience, and hopefully enjoyment, of the audience.

Importantly though, I was assured that German and French readers would perfectly understand these few phrases, just as we would understand if a German character was introduced as Herr Schneider or a French person was introduced as Mademoiselle Lions. Most of us understand a few basic words, even if we are not fully fluent with another language. I bet if I said to you Neunundneunzig Luftballons you’d know exactly what I meant, even if you don’t speak German. Similarly, if I said, Du vin, Du pain, you’d easily finish that well-known phrase from our fave cheese advert of the 80s and 90s.

Most noticeably we kept the title o f the book the same as the original. That was a complicate decision, as I had anticipated changing the title to Nacht und Tag for the German (obvs) and Nuit et Jour for the French. Author Mel Parish has already asked why we–or I, I should say–made that decision. But in conversation with Stef Mills, the lady who did the German translation, this question of title cropped up, and it was one we had to really think about. The title here is taken from the title of the song written by Cole Porter and made popular in first the musical, then the film Gay Divorce from 1932 onwards.

Coming soon!

Spoiler: At the beginning of Night and Day, Dottie Manderson finds a man dying in the street, and he was murmuring this song which she recognised. Later, she has to sing to the policeman, William Hardy, the brief snatch of the song she heard. It’s not to help him with his enquiries, as she thinks; it’s just so he can listen to her voice a little bit longer. Aww. So you see, the song is key to the story, and I knew from the start it was what I wanted to call the book.

(Btw I had planned to include the whole of the verse first the dying man, then Dottie sings, printed in the story in full, but I had to remove it, because when I tried to obtain copyright approval, the amount asked was far beyond what I could afford it, so to avoid copyright infringement, I had to take out the words, which was a pity.)

But… back to the translation – so you can see that the title and reference to the song was important, but when we discussed it, Stef told me that in Germany, the phrase when used as an idiom is always said the other way around – German people don’t talk of night and day but of day and night. In Britain, we kind of use it either way round. More importantly she told me that the song title is widely known by fans of Cole Porter, but always known by the English title. Then Eden Rébora, the lady who was tackling the French version of the book, told me the same. So it seemed best to keep the title the same for all language versions. Ta-da!

Actress Loretta Young whose sweet expression launched a series!

Yes, you’ll notice I didn’t change the covers either. Some readers might remember that a few weeks ago I asked on FB for people to vote for their favourite book cover from a group of four: the existing one and three other, new ideas. As the votes were really evenly spread, with a very slight lead on the existing cover, I left the cover exactly the same. I was a bit surprised by this outcome as I’ve often wondered if the cover ‘worked’, as writers tend to obsess about everything. So it’s quite nice to know it does. People tell me they always think of Dottie as they read, as she appears on the cover. (The lovely image is just a stock photo, from Artsy Bee on Pixabay.)

So finally: The paperback versions of the French and German editions of Night and Day are already available on Amazon. And the eBook versions will be released on 25th June, but are available to pre-order right now, also from Amazon. Ultimately I would like to release the book in Polish, Spanish, Italian and maybe other languages, but at the moment, it’s just these three.

Stef and Eden are already working on book twoof the Dottie Manderson mystery series: the Mantle of God. Another title that led to lengthy discussions, but this one will be translated, as it’s not a song title or anything like that. The French will be Le Chape de Dieu, and the German, Das Gewand Gottes.

Yay!

***

At the beginning of this year, with sales doing better following the release of book 5 of my Dottie Manderson mysteries series, I decided it was a good time to branch out to non-English translations. Partly it was because of the increasing sales from other countries, and partly it was because Amazon had made some changes which made it easier to reach, in particular, readers in mainland Europe.

So I’m very proud and pleased to announce that book 1 of my 1930s mystery series (with a heavy side helping of romance) will be released in German and French on 25th June. Other languages may follow, at least I really hope so! The books are already available for Pre-order, if you or someone you know are interested.

No, before you ask, I will not be embracing languages such as Klingon, Dothraki or Valyrian. Sorry. Es tut mir leid, je me regrette, przepraszam, lo siento.

For more information and a teaser of the French version click here:

For more information and a teaser of the German version, click here:

Huge thanks for the hard work and patience of French Translator/Editor Eden Rébora.

And huge thanks too to Stef Mills, translator and editor, for all her hard work on the German version. You can find out more about Stef on her website here:

To those lovely people who have shown interest in books about a young woman from Britain in the 1930s, and all the scrapes she gets herself into: thank you so much, I really appreciate your support.

The Thing Above All Things

Posted by Caron Allan on May 21, 2020

Posted in: Blogs. 4 Comments

In life we all have stuff we love. I’m not talking about our family, our friends, our pets, obviously we love those above all else and before all else.

I’m talking about the thing that makes us get up in the morning, that keeps us up late at night, the thing we can’t wait for Monday, or Friday, or whenever we do this ‘thing’, for. I’m calling it ‘the thing above all things’, the one thing to rule them all. What is that one big thing in your life?

Some people love their garden, or their dog. Or they like to whittle driftwood into an elaborate recreation of Queen Victoria’s coronation. Some people paint, often beautifully. I do not. I can draw sunglasses. I can draw flower doodles. I can draw little row boats on a wave. That’s all I can draw. I can’t paint. I’m not even very good at colouring in, because I’m not good at following rules—or staying in the lines. I love art, I find it a constant inspiration, colour and shape inspires me always, but I cannot draw.

I used to sew but I was never very good at it, and I could always buy something far better for a lot less money than I could make it, so I felt bad about how much it cost me to make something that was never quite right. I used to knit, but ditto.

I tried to learn the violin, but I was useless, I made a noise similar to the sound you get when you turn the handle of a rusty mangle. It was bad.

I like to garden, but I get bored after a while. Also, I feel a reluctance to uproot weeds, as they’re flowers too, right? I mainly leave my garden to do what it wants, and feel very grateful to be able to enjoy the resulting chaotic beauty. I’m a slave to feeding the birds, hedgehogs and squirrels. I like bird-watching, but usually go into a daydream and forget to actually watch the birds, Or I feel like I’m getting in the way of them feeding or gathering nesting stuff. There’s quite a lot of nesting stuff in our garden. The birds have not yet had to resort to pulling fluff out of my cat.

I like to meditate, but I fall asleep in the middle and wake up with a stiff neck. I like to bake, but can’t be bothered following a recipe, and anyway recipes are just a suggestion, aren’t they, just one of a number of suggestions of how you could create a cake? I’ve got an oven that turns itself off when it feels like it, I’m guessing that’s not always the best for baking.

So I write.

I think I have always written. That’s what I tell people, anyway. I can remember writing VERY short stories on the back of envelopes and scrap bits of paper when I was really small. I created this book cover from a Weetabix or Cornflake packet when I was in junior school, so maybe 10? If I’m not writing, I’m thinking about writing, or I have just stopped writing. Or I’m trying to do something else (to make me a more rounded, more interesting person) but really, I’m just wishing I was writing.

I even got a short story out of the experience of learning to play the violin. That’s my actual violin up there at the top of the page, I never did go back to learning to play it, but I sold it for LOADS as it was quite special. You can read the short story here, if you feel like it. It’s not so much a short story as what actually happened, so technically a life writing piece.

Have you found it yet?

Your one thing? What is your be-all and end-all?

In life we sometimes think, if I were twenty years younger I’d have a go at that. Or if I had more money, more time, more energy, if I was taller, slimmer, had a better education or had done that course…I would…

*insert dream Thing here*

I say, why not now? Why is discovery and experimentation only for the young? How many years might you have ahead of you? Do you want to waste the next twenty thinking, wow, I could have done that or learned that or gone there by now. Even if you only have days, weeks, months of life left ahead of you, do you really want to spend that time looking over your shoulder at what you could have done? Don’t miss out.

Do it now. That one thing above all other things. Don’t let fear stop you. Because what’s the point of having nothing to look back on but regrets?

***

Like all stories, mysteries are told by narrators. Even mysteries told in the third person have a narrator, though the story is usually told by an omniscient narrator with a kind of ‘bird’s eye view’ of the story and its characters. But if you are reading a mystery written in the first person, the ‘I’ of the story is your narrator, and in this very intimate world of the first-person narrator, you as a reader need to be on your guard because the main mission in the life of the first-person narrator is to pull the wool over your eyes!

This is very often how the author introduces red herrings. As the reader, you get drawn into the world of the first-person narrator, he or she seems nice, they explain things to you and tell you what the other characters are like or about their secrets. They are your feet, eyes and ears as you step into the story and begin to explore the fictional world of the book.

Or maybe they are really horrid, but either way, they unfold to you the plot of the story as they see it and it all seems very plausible. You are drawn inside and it is only at the end, you realise that they missed out crucial information or disguised themselves or presented events in a rather biased manner, with the deliberate intention of thwarting your attempt to solve the mystery all by yourself.

Maybe they are seeking to divert suspicion from themselves, or even if you know what they did and how they did it, it is important for the first-person narrator that you sympathise, even condone their actions and approve their motives. They deceive you with half-truths, half-lies or even simply accidental misinterpretation. The bumbling narrator is in many ways the worst. They disarm you with their apparent incompetence, they admit to being forgetful, or unsure of their facts, and all the time—all the time—they are deliberately drawing you into a sticky web of their own creation and you cannot escape until you read the words, ‘The End’.

They might throw you off the scent by seeming to reveal some great truth. They admit to some minor sin in order to distract you from your hunt for clues. Their very openness, the revelation of their intimate thoughts, feelings and actions actually conceals greater guilt—the guilt of deception. Even worse, the author actually uses them to control your reaction to the story and how information is revealed to you. Can you believe it? So often in an apparent display of ‘fairness’, they will actually allow the narrator’s flaw to be revealed early on in the story, in the hope that you will have forgotten it by the time the story reaches its denouement. The author manipulates your sympathy, forcing you to acquit the narrator of wrongdoing as you stand in the place of the judge and jury to examine the action of the story. The author actually laughs as they write those lines that will trap you then surprise you. He he he.

Now that you know this, you are forearmed, and will be on the lookout for these artful devices.

Here below are a few noted novels with unreliable narrators: (sorry to spoil that for you…)

I also tried this with my Friendship Can Be Murder trilogy.

Agatha Christie’s infamous The Murder of Roger Ackroyd

Bret Easton Ellis’s American Psycho

Margaret Atwood’s The Blind Assassin

Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl

Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita

Ian McEwan’s Atonement

***

I couldn’t find an image featuring a red garment, so in my book, the mantle is in shades of green.

No I haven’t been to an exhibition. I have barely been out of the house for seven weeks! So I’m trawling through my old blog posts and notes to find something to ~~rehash~~ ahem, to look at from a new perspective.

Back in January 2017, I was about to start writing book 2 of the Dottie Manderson mysteries. The book was called The Mantle of God, and featured an ancient clerical vestment, a mantle, that is to say, a kind of cloak for priests. This topic had been triggered by a TV documentary I saw about Medieval English Embroidery, called Opus Anglicanum (English Work), that was on sometime over Christmas I seem to think. Anyway, a bit of research on the old interweb showed me that the V & A museum in London were holding a special exhibition, so thither went I post haste. Actually it was by Midland Trains but anyway…

I had to see it for myself. The enthusiasm of the narrator/presenter of the documentary (which I’ve forgotten the title of, and also the name of the presenter – I wish I’d made a note) made it seem so relevant, so real. Of course, life gets in the way sometimes, and in fact the exhibition was almost over so I nearly missed it but I am so glad I finally made it.

Due to it being the off-season, the number of visitors wasn’t quite as large as usual, and the organisers were happy to allow everyone to wander around and browse to their hearts’ content, and also due to the exhibition being busy but not cheek-by-jowl crowded, I was able to perch on a bench and gaze fondly at the Butler Bowden Cope, which was the main item I had come to see ‘in the flesh’, amongst many other copes, mantles, chasubles, altar cloths and more. Being a writer, of course I had come armed with notebook and pen (and bought several more in the gift shop). I was able to sit and make notes without feeling a need to hurry along and make way for others. The items were fabulous, far beyond what I had expected, and beautifully displayed. Here is a little of what I felt and noted:

‘The red velvet background was, as I expected, greatly faded away to a soft, deep pinky red although here and there it remains fresh and vibrant, and the threads of the velvet fabric were worn and even almost bare in places. As is typical, tiers of Biblical scenes and characters are interspersed by smaller tiers of angels, and twining branches form vertical barriers between sections.

‘The figures are more or less uncoloured now, but their hair still shines softly gold or silver, and here and there a vivid patch of blue cloth has retained its glorious colour. Lions peer between branches of oak, their heads realised by spirals of tiny pearls, for the main part still intact after, what, almost 700 years? 700 hundred years – I can hardly believe it.

‘Actually, I feel rather in awe. Of the creators, their skill, and even of the measure of inspiration they enjoyed, and the careful, devoted execution of the work: it all touches me, and I feel grateful, even tearful as I look at these beautiful garments and draperies. Who knows how long it will be possible to move these often fragile items and take them to other audiences? And then, when they are gone… all we will be left with will be photographs and facsimiles. Somehow it isn’t enough just to go and look, I feel a need to record my experience, to capture it for the future.’

As you can tell, I was lost in the moment. As were–I noticed–almost all the other visitors.

The cafe, too, is well worth an hour of contemplation! The stunning blue delft tiles on the walls, the lovely ceiling and windows… Entrance to the main part of the museum is, as ever, free, but the specialist exhibitions such as the Opus Anglicanum, have to be booked and paid for. But this is surely a once in a lifetime opportunity, so I certainly didn’t mind paying the price of £12. I also spent an age sitting in front of the permanent exhibition in the hall of Flemish tapestries. Absolutely beautiful – and HUGE.

When Mantle of God came out, a couple of people said that the story was far-fetched – that no one would be prepared to sacrifice their lives to protect a clerical vestment, or to hand a piece of it down through the generations, protecting it the way I suggested in my book. But I based my idea on real evidence: the presenter discussed a similar item – a mantle, that had at some point been cut into four pieces and later–much later–the pieces had been restitched to create one whole garment again.

So I felt there was every possibility that a few loyal families could between them take and hide one piece of a mantle. If the worst happened surely at least one piece of the holy relic would survive? They were taking their lives in their hands for their faith.

Remember, in those days, Britain was Catholic, Protestant, then Catholic, then Protestant again. It was so incredibly dangerous to be caught on the wrong side of the faith-fence by your enemies. Literally having a tiny fragment of a priest’s garment on your premises could mean death. Churches that had been beautifully decorated Catholic places of worship were white-washed–the paintings and murals often not discovered until hundreds of years later. If found, the ornaments and attributes of mass were destroyed, or plundered for the treasure chests of royalty. There’s a reason they had priests-holes in those big old houses.

If you are curious and want to read a wee bit of The Mantle of God: Dottie Manderson mysteries book 2, you can click here to go to that page.

***

Hi Emma, it’s great to have this chance to find out a bit more about you. Thanks for allowing yourself to be bullied in this way. Let’s jump straight in to my not very exacting interview! I’ve read most of your books, and love them, I’m not just saying that because we’re pals.

I’d advise readers who love romance to get started NOW on book 1 of the Highland Books: Highland Fling, where we meet Gaby and go with her to the perfect setting for romance: a little village in Scotland where she meets a variety of brilliant characters, and of course, the love of her life – her cat! (kidding)

Q1. What kind of books do you write?

Women’s fiction – which is a broad church, thankfully. So, I can write romantic comedies in the main, but also chick lit, young adult and I’m currently trying my hand at urban fantasy stroke paranormal romance.

Women, luckily, are very open-minded about what they read. And they tend to read voraciously. I think that gives writers so much freedom.

Q2. What were your earliest influences? What did you read as a child?

I just read. And read. Enid Blyton, Charles Dickens and a lot of Greek mythology which meant I was useful for crossword clues.

I remember loving Judy Blume. She tapped into the 80s child psyche so well. Are You There God, It’s Me, Margaret and Forever are the two books I remember the most, the latter for obvious reasons… Though I did have to figure out what the British equivalent was for the food mentioned in those books—Graham Crackers for digestives and jelly for jam.

And er… my mum had a copy of a Jackie Collins book, and a friend and I used to sneak into her bedroom and read it. Now, that was educational.

Lol I bet it was. My parents used to go through my books quite carefully to check they were suitable. I’m glad to say a few things slipped through! They didn’t realise I read their books too!

Q3. I know you’ve recently released a boxset of the three books so far in your Highland Books romantic comedy series, so what are you working on at the moment?

What can we look forward to in the future from you?

Oof. I went through this mad writing phase in the last four years and finished quite a few books. They are not yet fit to be unleashed. Re-writing and revising is the really important bit of the book process. I wish I could find a way to stop procrastinating about it. My way of dealing with rewriting is to start another story instead!

However, I’ve finished the fourth book in my Highland Books series, Highland Chances and hope to have it out by the summer. And I thought I’d fling in a final one, Highland Christmas to finish it all off.

I started a novella on Wattpad recently—A Leap of Faith, a COVID-19 lockdown love story. Not sure if that proves I’m overambitious, stupid or what.

Q4. Who are your favourite authors? What are you reading now?

I re-read my way through Barbara Pym’s books a couple of years ago, and I really enjoyed Penelope Fitzgerald’s The Bookshop. I love their observational skills, and the way they make the ‘ordinary’ so interesting. I’m a big fan of crime (cosy mysteries are such fun!) and big sagas. I’m re-reading James Mitchener’s The Source at the moment.

Special mention too, to Fiona Walker and Marion Keyes (women’s fiction experts extraordinaire). I’ve read all their books – and Marion Keyes is vastly entertaining to follow on Twitter.

Q5. What do you do when you’re not reading?

Cook. I love cooking. I don’t do anything else while doing it, but prep and cook, so it feels mindful. I walk a lot, as it’s easy exercise. Kind of fond of drinking wine too… (interestingly, you can drink and write, but you can’t drink and read!) Also, I’m very much into the 21st Century habit de jour – Netflix binge watching. What the flip did we do before Netflix?!

Q6. What is your writing process?

Boringly prosaic. A word count per day. The day job helps with that too. I get a percentage of my income through copywriting – blogs, website content, product descriptions, e-books, video scripts, etc. The usual deal is you get paid by word count, so that discipline makes writing for yourself a lot easier.

At least you’ve got a process that works for you! Emma, thanks so much for ‘popping along’, and I wish you every success with the Highland Books, and with your future projects.

To find out more about Emma and her work, please follow the links below:

Links:

Blog: https://emmabaird.com/

Wattpad: https://www.wattpad.com/user/SavvyDunn

Twitter: @EmmaCBaird

Amazon author page: Emma Baird

Emma Baird and I nervously pose just before our talk at a library in Scotland easily two years ago now.

***

I like to think I’m very organised with my writing. But I’m not. I tell myself several lies as I write: a) I know what I’m doing, b) I will remember what I was about to say when I broke off from my writing, c) I will remember where I put those crucial notes, d) I will know where I saved the various versions of my draft.

As I said, lies, all lies.

I’ve just spent about ten days trying to piece back together the draft of a novel I wrote six or seven years ago. In January I had the ‘most brilliant’ idea for it, suddenly it came to me, out of the blue, the direction to take the story in, all the background and setting, after years of pondering, fell into place and seemed so–right.

But.

It took me an hour to put all the separate chapters into one complete draft, and reading through, I realised there was a lot of material missing. I had:

No chapter 39

Or chapter 40, though I had a 40a (???)

No chapter 41

Two chapter 42s (different chapters, not an original and a copy)

No chapter 44

Two chapter 47s (again different, not an original and a copy)

And although the story ends in the middle of the action – I cannot find the ending. And for some reason, there are a lot of very short chapters in this book, so it feels like a lot to keep track of.

I always back up my works in progress (I’d advise anyone to do this) – imagine something terrible happens, your house is flooded, there’s a fire, or your computer goes up in flames… (ditto important documents and of course, photos of your babies). I back up through several methods, and whilst these are a bit haphazard, (don’t judge me!) I’m slightly more organised than I used to be. So I save my WIP onto the computer, obvs, then onto a USB stick, and then I email the Word file to myself, and I save onto ‘the cloud’, int his case, my OneDrive account. Because you never know, right?

But.

I saved all my files titles and so none of them were the same. So as I say, I’ve spent the last ten days trying to put a full draft together so I can see what I need to do with the story to make it work, and to try to make it good. This, by the way, is known as the half-baked writing system. I don’t recommend it as a process.

By the time I’d finished this on Tuesday, I was frazzled, because I’d muddled my brain trying to figure out what I already had, and what I still had missing. I had two files Windows just point blank refused to open. I had several that were basically entirely html – but with a bit of text in the middle. I’ve definitely honed my detective skills this week. I felt like I had a big uphill battle ahead of me to rewrite/replace all those missing and corrupted files. It was beginning to feel as though it just wasn’t worth the effort. I didn’t do much work on Monday/Tuesday, I was too low.

Yesterday, I started fresh, and went through everything, even the stuff I already ‘l knew’ I’d looked through. I pulled out my paper files and went through two lots of early drafts. I found my missing chapters! I went through all the back-ups of my backed up back-ups and found non-corrupted files to replace the ones I couldn’t open or that were mostly comprised of html. I still have no ending. But this morning I found a note to myself written in 2015 that says ‘Still need to do this, this and this,’ and having calmly sat and worked through everything, I realise I do have a ton of notes signposting the way I planned these missing chapters to go.

I only hope the end product will be worth it. I’m planning a new series. Did I mention that? This book will be the first of those, and I hope it will be out in the big wide world in 2021. That seems quite close now, even though we’re still only in April 2020. this has been a weird few months, hasn’t it?

To find out a bit more about this series please click here;

If you can bear to, I’ve put a couple of chapters on here, so you can have a read. The book will be called A Meeting With Murder: book 1 of the Miss Gascoigne 1960s mysteries.

Thanks for putting up with me. I hope everyone is safe and happy. Live Long and Prosper, as our childhood hero Mr Spock says. 😉

***

Caron Allan Fiction

The Blue Dress

How to rewrite a first draft

Don’t use that language with me!

Things to think about when getting a book translated

Night and Day: the Dottie Manderson mysteries are reaching out to new audiences

The Thing Above All Things

The unreliable narrator – she’s out to fool you!

Reflections on a visit to an exhibition

Catching up with romance and fantasy author Emma Baird

What larks, Pip! or How to survive a writing disaster.

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