Caron Allan Fiction

Since I’ve ‘discovered’ Pinterest, I’ve also reaffirmed my love of the idea of the capsule wardrobe. I don’t know why I love these so much, maybe it’s just that my own clothing collection is rather hit-and-miss and I often find it hard to know what to put on. Whatever the reason, I love those graphics that show you 16 or 20 items of clothing with accessories, then show you how to combine and rearrange them to create 30 or 40 outfits. I note they are often in neutral colours especially beige, which is a colour I rarely wear, and I’m guessing that the neutral palette makes it easier to put together ‘a look’.

As I work from home and have no colleagues, apart from Mabel and Malcolm, that is, I usually schlep about in scruffy tops and aged comfy jeans. I’m a bit ashamed to admit my own shortcomings, because I not only enjoy the history of costume and fashion, but when I created my 1930s mystery series, the Dottie Manderson mysteries, I decided to make my main character a mannequin in a fashion warehouse, just so I could indulge my love of clothes. I regularly mention clothing and fabrics in the stories, which some readers–especially gentlemen–Stuart Aken, I’m looking at you–have found a bit trying, to say the least. Soz, guys.

All this got me to thinking, ‘What would Dottie wear?’ Being a 1930s mystery series featuring well-to-do families in between-the-wars England, there are a lot of visits and house parties. So what would a young woman need to take with her for, say, a weekend in the country in Summer? I’m leaving out tweeds, because a) I abhor shooting and hunting and so, consequently, does Dottie, and b) no woman looks good in tweeds. I’m sorry, but it’s true. Where’s the glamour in a tweed coat and skirt? Answer: there is none.

Here we go. Oh, and by the way, I’m taking the role of Dottie’s maid Janet for this trip, so I will do the packing.

Firstly, I will be packing nightwear in the form of a negligee and matching wrap. Dottie is 20ish so there’s no way this girl will be wearing a massive up-to-the-neck-down-to-the-floor cotton nightgown, she’s not 90! The negligee will be ankle-length, and made of something soft and sheer like artificial silk or crepe-de-chine, probably in soft blues or pinks, with lace edging in cream of a deeper cream/coffee colour and narrow ribbon in a matching colour to fasten. Women’s underwear came in the form of long bloomers, to the knee or just above the knee, in either a loose and light sheer fabric with lace trim, or in close-fitting, machine-knitted cotton. There were also teddies and camisoles, worn with a sense of modern naughtiness by the younger women and viewed with maternal concern by the older. Petticoats with supporting lace or embroidered cupped bodices. Bras as we know them today were still waiting in the future, but the complete lack of support of the well-named ‘flapper’ style of the twenties was no longer fashionable. Pantyhose was still to come, so stockings were worn with a suspender (garter) belt and no doubt thrilled men then as they do now. Stockings for day-wear would be sturdier than their evening-wear counterparts. I must remember to pack some silly little slippers just to keep Dottie’s feet warm in the bedroom, and the hallway to the bathroom and back.

There will be a day outfit in the form of a day dress or suit/costume. If we are travelling light, I think we might manage with one or two, but if we have a whole car to fill, we might take three or four outfits just for a two-day trip. The style for the 1930s was fairly straight but more feminine and less plain than the very straight, quite masculine styles of the 20s. Picture a dress with a very slight flair, an A-line skirt, or perhaps quite close-fitting to the knees then flaring out, gently for a day dress and more dramatically for an evening dress when the wearer might want to dance and feel the fabric swirl out about her. The length would reach to the mid-calf for day-wear with ankle-length or floor-length for evening. Shoes had quite high heels, say three inches or so, and were often buckle-fastening or laced. With the exception of tennis shoes and gumboots, shoes would have been made of leather.

Styles were plain in execution, but with a lot of embellishment such as bows or jabottes at the neck, functional or decorative buttons on pockets, sleeves and bodices. There were variations in lapel size and shape, from deep and wide, to small and standing up straight, from squared off, to drooping downward. Belts, cuffs, shoulder tabs and waistband tabs were very ‘in’. The zip was still a few years away from general fashion use, so buttons, hooks-and-eyes, and buckles were used far more than we do today. For day-wear necklines were quite high. Fabrics would be mainly cotton, linen or wool, although man-made fibres that laundered easily such as crepe-de-chine and artificial silk for blouses or light summer dresses were popular. And of course, no lady would go out without a little clutch purse, gloves, and a hat, even in summer.

Hat boxes could accommodate two or three hats depending on size and shape, so Dottie doesn’t need to worry about wearing the same hat all weekend! I’d suggest a neat little beret for going out in the day time, or perhaps a felt cloche hat with a rakish feather, some beading or ribbons, or if the weather is very warm and sunny, I think she’ll need a wide-brimmed straw hat to keep the sun off her face.

Then obviously she will be changing for dinner, so a long evening gown is a definite must. And a girl can’t wear the same frock two evenings in a row, so perhaps I’ll take two gowns. White was a popular colour for an evening dress for a young woman, although shades of red, brown and green were also worn. Older ladies tended to favour black too, though this was not usually seen on young women due to its funereal connotation. Gowns would be flaring, long, and low-cut, or with cut-out sections in the bodice, and were made from taffeta, satin, or silk mixes: silk-satin, silk-organdie, silk-crepe. The shoulders were often bare, or the gown might be more or less backless, and rather daring. No wonder the gentlemen flocked to light a lady’s cigarette. Smoking was gaining popularity amongst the young and it was more socially acceptable for women to smoke in public. Shoes for evening wear would be strappy and often silver or gold in colour, and perfect for dancing in, but affording little protection from a partner with two left feet. In case the apologetic gentleman should ask a young lady to step out on the veranda to look at the stars, a lady would also require a wrap, and I’m sorry to say these were very often animal fur, although silks, brocades, velvets and fine wools were also worn.

I think we have everything we need for a summertime weekend in the country. As a maid, of course, I will require only my uniform, a plain dress, sensible shoes and an overcoat. My main fashion pleasure will be confined to taking care of the precious garments of my mistress. I could never hope to own such things.

Of course, I don’t wear the anorak all the time. It’s for special occasions.

***

If you do try people-watching, take care not to be too obvious

If, like me, you sometimes sit and stare at a blank page for an hour or more without writing a word then give up, you might want to give some of these tips a try. I’ve tried them all and found them useful at one time or another. Some are fairly conventional ideas for productivity, others are just things that have helped me.

Listen to music

You might listen to your usual favourites, let the would or the notes inspire you or conjure up images in your mind. If I’m really stuck, I like to try something completely new. I sit somewhere I don’t usually sit, or listen to music I don’t normally like, or something that’s new to me. I get out of my comfort zone. That’s a great way to boost creativity. When my kids were young, occasionally I used to sit in their rooms while they were at school, or listen to their music, just as a new experience to try and get the creative juices flowing. Or you might pull out something you haven’t listened to for a very long time: songs that were out when you were a kid, or maybe your parents.

Go for a walk

I know this is a commonly prescribed antidote to lack of creativity, but it does work. Go out in the pouring rain and release your inner savage, or go out and enjoy the wonders of nature, or walk along the city streets and visualise your gumshoe on the trail of a bad guy. Physical activity wakes up the body and gets the blood flowing to the brain. Even if you don’t come back from your walk full of ideas, at least you got away from your desk for a while and got some fresh air.

Eavesdrop on other peoples’ conversations

This is a great way to pick up ideas and hear dialogue ‘in action’. It’s also a great way to get punched on the nose if you’re too obvious about what you’re doing. Try not to let them see you making notes, and don’t get so absorbed in their conversation that you exclaim along with their friends. Snatches of conversation half-heard and half-remembered can provide great what-if moments. A writing tutor I had in Australia recommended mystery writers pick a person at the mall and trail them. Again, I cannot emphasise this too much, please don’t do this, it’s a terrible idea. You will get locked up or punched on the nose. (But hey, great stories, right? Do they have a self-publishing programme in prison?)

Visit a gallery or museum

I once attended a writing workshop at a museum where we were encouraged to write short pieces about some of the exhibits. These included Neolithic artefacts and a Victorian christening gown. It was not only a great idea but a memorable experience, plus really good to mingle with other writers. Go to an art gallery or a museum or country house with your trusty notebook and your camera/phone. Take a look at what lies behind the glass and imagine the people who touched, created, discovered, used or found a particular item. People those empty halls with characters: what do they say to one another? Make sketches. Write descriptions. Take photos, or buy post-cards from the gift shop.

Look through the images on Pixabay or Shutterstock or other image sites

See if anything intrigues you or inspires you to write a short story, a poem, a simple description or analyse your own feelings when you look at a picture. What does it make you think of and why? How do you feel? Check out Morgen Bailey’s story writing and poetry writing daily prompts too.

Do you collect anything? If not you, does someone close to you have a collection?

Spend some time writing about the first item in the collection and how it was acquired or obtained. Who did it belong to? What was the last item to join the collection? Why is it so important to the owner of the collection? What would happen if someone stole the collection? How would that make you feel if it was yours? How would you get it back? What would you do? How far would you go?

Sit somewhere different to your usual writing spot

This is a little bit like the music one. It’s about changing stale habits. I usually write at my desk, but sometimes I like to go out to a café or pub to write, or I could even write in a library. I could write outside if the weather is fine. In the past I have even sat in my son’s bedroom at his desk and written for hours. A change is as good as a rest, we are told, and a new ‘venue’ can help to get things flowing, and could offer a fresh perspective on your writing. You could also try using a different notebook or computer, a different pen or write at a different time of day. Try the middle of the night, or first thing in the morning. I’m right-handed, and I once wrote with my left hand for a couple of hours just to try and get inside the mind of the character, to see a different kind of script on my page, it was like reading someone else’s work.

Pick a story from your local newspaper

Write it in your own words; be an investigative journalist and try to think of a new outcome or a way of finding out more, or imagine you are interviewing someone featured in the newspaper, whether a sports’ personality or a victim of a crime. Find a new slant on the facts on the page. Or create mini-version of your own newspaper, with you writing all the features.

Go to the library

And have a rummage through the reference section or any section that interests you; poke through the periodicals and have a nosy at the noticeboard. Observe people. Listen to people. Try to see yourself from the outside, as if you were a stranger. Sit at one of the desks and read or write.

Visit a graveyard

Sounds a bit depressing, I know, but graveyard are wonderful places for atmosphere, and you know – they’re outside – so think of all the fresh air you’d be getting. Wander around and read a few headstones. Look at the style of the gravestones. Try to imagine the people buried there, the lives they lived and how they died, picture their families, their homes and workplaces. Sit in the church or graveyard for a while and try to imagine who might have sat there before you. How did they feel? Can you hear the whisper of an ancient mass? Or the sound of spirits lurking in the graveyard?

Meditate

A little relaxing meditation could release some stress and pent-up anxiety in your life, enabling you to refresh yourself mentally. Sit comfortably on the floor, with a notepad and pen in front of you, turned to a fresh page. Close your eyes. Spend a few minutes breathing deeply and slowly until you feel you could almost doze off to sleep. Then without thinking about what you are doing, take up your pen and begin writing – something, anything, just don’t try to analyse or make sense of any thoughts, but let the words pour out of your pen as if there was nothing between your brain and your notebook. Music or candles and incense sometimes help with this process. I’ve often actually fallen asleep doing this, and woken to find myself still clutching my pen and notebook, but sometimes I’ve written and written and it was as if I was watching someone else doing it. It’s cathartic and intriguing.

All of us have times when we can’t seem to write the way we want to, or maybe not at all, or the words aren’t giving our inner self the satisfaction we need. Don’t worry about it too much but allow yourself the freedom to know when you need to rest and do something else, or when you need persist, and to try to help things along.

***

We all love sirens, don’t we? They usually travel in threes, like MacBeth’s witches. When I saw MacBeth at my local theatre a few years ago, the witches’ opening speeches came out of a swirling mist in the darkness, and sitting in the front row, I jumped half out of my skin, even though I knew what to expect. From the moment the play opens with the phrase, ‘When shall we three meet again?/In thunder, lightning, or in rain?’ we have a shivering sense of it already being too late to escape.

Sirens do not always hunt in threes. Sometimes they hunt alone, like the Lorelei siren, singing irresistibly to lure sailors to their death on the rocks of the great river Rhine. Her very aloneness is her weapon. The victim, walking into her lair in confidence, feels invincible, and almost pities the siren about to devour him. I say ‘him’, as sirens are usually depicted as female, and their victims are generally male. Time for a gender swap, maybe?

The siren’s typical characteristics are: physical beauty that is often a mirage or façade to hide something hideous and unnatural. The beauty is used to seduce; song or music soothes the senses or even calls an unnatural slumber to fall upon their prey, or again, to seduce, arousing their victims with promises of love and physical fulfilment. The sirens lie in wait, endlessly patient, ready to snare the unwary, the naive, the innocent adventurer who just happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, or any guy who thinks he can take advantage of a lucky situation. As in the mesmerising scene with the sirens in the movie O Brother Where Art Thou? there is a pleasurable anticipation of what might happen. The three sirens wash their clothes in the river, the rhythmic slapping of cloth on stone and water providing the percussion for a seductive call to the watching man’s senses. He is trapped and cannot get away.

Sirens have mysterious powers, and they can bend a man to their will, no matter how good and chaste he may be, no matter how worldly-wise and ‘experienced’ in the ways of love. Maybe he’ll get ‘loved up and turned into a horny toad’, as the men in O Brother Where Art Thou fear will happen to them, but it’s a chance the unwitting victim is always, always prepared to take. Sirens are bringers of doom, of ruin. They are depicted as mercurial, evasive, changing and insubstantial, there one minute and gone the next. No victim will see their true self until his ruin is complete. No one can resist the lure of the siren when she has decided to call them.

But the siren is not the only one who owns this fatal attraction.

The innocent—pure or naive, chaste of body and mind, or merely without guile—this person is as alluring to the siren as she is to him. Evil craves purity. Wickedness pursues goodness to overtake and devour it. Monsters are always appeased—and always drawn in—by their need to consume maidens and the innocent. The dark always seeks the light, because in its own way the light has become the unknowable to those who live in darkness. The siren can never know or experience innocence, because that would mean a denial of her own essential nature—it would require purity and great sacrifice. To follow the way of the innocent is alien and impossible for the siren to achieve. She is forced by her very nature to live outside of society’s acceptance and rules, and must live by instinct alone. Thus, the innocent, completely oblivious of their power, draw the siren after them. The siren is doomed to flutter towards the candleflame of purity as a moth, and just as unable to save themselves.

Which one is the victim, which one is the hunter?

***

October extinguished itself in a rush of howling winds and driving rain and November arrived, cold as frozen iron, with hard frosts every morning and icy drafts that bit at exposed hands and faces.
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

Like a lot of Brits, and many writers, I’m a bit obsessed with the weather. I use the weather quite a lot in my writing. I might have my characters attending a funeral on a beautiful sunny day that seems the opposite of mourning. I might have weddings take place in the rain, surely not an omen for future happiness?

We are often told in writing to draw on all of our senses to bring reality and immediacy into our writing. This creates an almost tangible, believable world for our readers to step into in their imaginations.

The same is true of the weather. Painting the weather into your story works every bit as well as using sensory information: it helps you to capture a background, a stage or canvas, on which your characters can live out their lives. Weather often overlaps with sensory description – you make your reader feel the warmth of the sun on their skin, or the raindrops on their face, let them hear the thunder or feel the rising humidity or the biting of a north wind every time the cabin door opens and someone struggles to push it shut again.

The sun did not shine. It was too wet to play. So we sat in the house. All that cold, cold, wet day.
― Dr. Seuss, The Cat in the Hat

Where you are writing about a specific time of year, remember that extremes of weather can be used to move a plot forward – an unseasonably warm spring day, or a summer downpour leading to flooding. In Judith Allnatt’s book “A Mile Of River”, the events of the story unfold in Britain’s long drought of 1976, to devastating effect. I can remember snow falling in July once in the 1980s when we lived in Aldershot. Later, five years of living in Queensland – even with its reputation for being damp – made me love grey skies and rain. One of the first people we met was a cab driver from Hull who had been in Aussie for 35 years. He told us he hated the sun and longed for drizzle. So weather can also be part and parcel of who we are, and affect our outlook on life.

It was one of those perfect English autumnal days which occur more frequently in memory than in life.
― P.D. James, A Taste for Death

I’ve always wanted to use that phrase so often featured in the Peanuts cartoons: ‘It was a dark and stormy night…’ Originally used by a British writer, Edward Bulwer-Lytton in 1830, it was ridiculed from the off for its ridiculous melodrama. So I haven’t used it. But it’s so tempting! I love storms. during a storm, it’s as if anything could happen and normal rules don’t apply. Likewise we usually think of spring as bright, happy, a time or hope and rebirth…

April is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
― T.S. Eliot, The Waste Land

I have adorned a funeral with pouring rain in one book. It necessitated the use of a very large black umbrella. I always think a large black umbrella is full of possibilities for crime or romance. But sometimes, regardless of your misery and grief, the heavens refuse to open, and the sun shines, the birds sing, almost in mockery of your emotions. And this too, can produce a mood that works nicely on paper, inducing your character to take some form of action.

An unexpected change in weather can bring about a useful shift, a change in plot direction or the mood of your characters, leading to a new scene or to actions you hadn’t anticipated. Don’t forget too, the weather can be variable. In summer, it can be gloomy, cold and wet. In Britain, you might be surprised to know, we do sometimes have glorious summers. Sometimes we have mild, dry winters.

But don’t overdo it. You don’t need to update your readers on every other page unless it’s a book about climate change, or you’re engaged in rewriting Wuthering Heights. I’m sure they would all have lived happily ever after if they hadn’t lived in such a bleak and lowering spot.

But who wants to be foretold the weather? It is bad enough when it comes, without our having the misery of knowing about it beforehand.
― Jerome K. Jerome, Three Men in a Boat

***

I’m not doing a ‘proper’ blog post this week, as I’m frantically busy trying to do a final, final, final proofread of Easy Living ahead of uploading for publication on 29th March.

If you’ve read what I’ve said about it previously, you’ll know I’ve been working on this book for a long time, and it’s very special to me. I’ve made it a lot longer. The first draft was about 80,000 words, and with all the successive drafts and rewrites, that grew to 110,000, even with a lot of waffly, woolly bits being cut out. As I sat down to give the final rewrite before Christmas, the total was up to 113,000. Now, with all my tidying and polishing done, it’s up to 116,000. I can’t help it. I tried to cut it, honest. You know what it’s like. The words keep flowing.

Anyone who’s ~~daft~~ lucky enough to self-publish will know how many little typos seem to sneak through no matter how many times the manuscript has been edited and proofed. I’m still finding a few stray typos, and I’m having a last trawl through for overused words, (my main guilty words are And, So, Well and But. I also have too many gasps of surprise and a lot of anxious biting of lips. This book also features several sexy chuckles!) and culling some of my exclamation marks. I use far too many of those!!! At least six people have worked on this book, but even so, I’ve still found a couple of things to correct. I think I’ve done enough. I hope I’ve done enough. I’d like to work on it for another year or two, but really, I mustn’t. It’s always hard to let go of a book, but in this case, I feel like it’s almost there. As Nina Simone would say, ‘And I’m feeling good…’

To recover from the trauma of getting my eighth novel out there in the big wide world, Mr Caron Allan Author is whisking me off to Birmingham (UK, not Alabama) for an all-expenses paid weekend in a hotel near the city centre, so we are handy for a concert on Sunday night and breakfast at a Wetherspoons of my choice. There will be a sumptuous dinner the night before. There will be ice cream. There will be book browsing and possibly notebook purchasing. I can’t make any promises about restraint or budget-keeping.

Have a good one!

There was a time when people wore hats whenever they were out of the house. In fact, before that, they often wore them inside the house too, especially if they were women. Married women wore little frilly caps on their heads, as a mark of their status, or perhaps to show they were ‘off-limits’? You’ll have seen those in the period dramas we often enjoy on TV.

In addition, for centuries, there was a biblical requirement for women to cover their heads in church. This is still true today of various religions, both for males and females, but in everyday life hats are pretty rare. The first man to wear a top hat in London was fined for a breach of the peace, when a woman fainted from the shock of seeing this new head-wear. I’d have loved to be a fly on the wall when she was carried home in an ambulance or the arms of some burly cab-driver. What did she say when her hubster, returning from his office in the city, said, ‘So dearest, how was your day?’

This is why I felt the impact of the headline about Agatha Christie’s disappearance, when I wrote about it in a blog post a few months ago. (If you missed it, you can read that post here.) One of the bylines carried by The Surrey Times on December 4th 1926 ran, ‘Hatless and Coatless at 6am’. That said it all, because in those days, a respectable woman would no more leave the house without a hat, than without her underwear.

I mourn the passing of the hat. These days, most of us only wear a hat on a very specific kind of occasion. We can still obtain hats, but they aren’t as much fun as they once were. Department stores offer in the main, ‘Mother-of-the-bride’ type fascinators and picture hats. We have sun hats, beanies or bobble hats, we have baseball caps, and…? It’s not a big range. This is why I love writing about glamorous people living in the past. I think the 1930s would have suited me. Apart from not being able to text my nearest and dearest with such comments as ‘OMG that pill-box hat with veil and feathers is totes the biz. #needitnow’.

It’s also another reason why I love the internet – there is so much hat-porn to browse, it’s just not true. If you are interested in vintage costume and accessories, (I’m looking at you, Lin) try the sites below for a trip through what we used to wear. I’ve never possessed a toque. Or a picture hat. Or… *sigh* …so many hats, so little time. If anyone in the fashion industry is reading this, please bring back mandatory hat-wearing, I’m begging you. Meanwhile, here are a few notable hat-wearing events from my own family:

Hats for work/status

Ceremonial hats

Hats for function

Celebratory/event hats

Hats for occasions

Hats for fun/frolics – we need to bring these back!

A few sites of interest regarding costume and accessories, great for research, or just passing the time:

https://stockportoldtown.co.uk/visit/hatworks/

https://www.fashionmuseum.co.uk/

https://www.ftmlondon.org

https://www.thehouseoffoxy.com/

https://www.vam.ac.uk/collections/fashion

http://debyclark.blogspot.com/2013/04/1930s-fashion-history-inspiration-beach.html

***

Write what you know…?

Posted by Caron Allan on March 6, 2019

Posted in: A Writer's Life, Uncategorized, writing technique. Tagged: chick-lit, creative writing, crime writer, Derby writers, independent author, independent writer, indie writer, murder mystery, research fiction writing, self published, write what you know, writing technique. 1 Comment

Writing tutors, whether in books or the classroom, or by podcast, or webinar, often tell their students, ‘Write what you know.’

Personally, I think that’s some of the daftest advice ever.

First of all, how do you define ‘know’? Know in depth? Vaguely aware of? Have heard about? Worked in that field for thirty years? Know second-hand through others?

Let’s add a bit of common sense. I mean, if you’re writing a self-help book on the subject of ‘Open heart surgery for beginners’, you probably need to know your stuff. I don’t think reading a few books will be enough to make that one work. After all, lives may be at risk. Not to mention kitchen implements and the new lino.

But I’m talking–as always–about fiction writing, which is a whole other ball game. Because if you are writing fiction, you can know anything. That’s called research. You write what you come to know.

There is a whole world out there full of podcasts, webinars, YouTube movies, books in digital, audio and paper formats. There are so many search engine, something-pedias, sites and blogs. Someone will always be able to give you an answer to any question you want to ask. You can even create and download calendars for begone years. I do that for my 1930s Dottie Manderson mystery books.

For my own books, I have researched social culture, art, history, music, languages, religious beliefs, criminal forensics, icky medical stuff, popular figures, myths and legends, psychology, archaeology, literature, historical weather (yes you can do that). I’ve read old books, old newspapers, gone to museums, exhibitions and spoken all sorts of people. I’ve have drunk a serious amount of coffee and eaten siege quantities of cake, all in the name of research. ( I could write a book on coffee emporiums of the British Isles.)

Joking aside, the point is, whatever you’re writing about, you can research it. I mean, how many people who write about Vampires actually are one??? How many people who write about time travel or missions across the universe have actually been into space? If we only write about ‘what we know’, why do any of us write anything other than books about being an ordinary person in an ordinary home and job, who never does anything extraordinary apart from pay their bills on time?

So next time someone says you can’t write your book about back-packing shape-shifters in the Serengeti, tell them that’s a lie. You can write about anything.

***

Caron Allan Fiction

1930s capsule wardrobe

Tips for boosting creativity

Sirens

Blue Sky Thinking: bringing the weather in.

Last minute stuff.

Hats

Write what you know…?

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