"The antiques trade hasn't been this much fun since Lovejoy left"
Carys Llewellyn - author and reviewer

The Hugo Braithwaite Mysteries are set in the shadowy world of antiques and fine art, where villains rub shoulders with millionaires in grand country houses and seedy back streets.  Hugo Braithwaite is an antiques dealer and acknowledged authority on British watercolours, a talent which often throws him into the limelight of popular television to help sate the public’s thirst for discovering valuable family heirlooms and treasures in the attic.  On the down side, it is also a murky realm of fakes, forgeries, felony ... and the occasional murder.

Looking From All Angles

“Research, like writing, is an individual, creative process. It cannot be ‘taught’. In his quest for original material – and who does not dream of stumbling upon a cache of hitherto unknown, unpublished papers or the answer to a problem that has baffled scholars for generations? – the writer never ceases to learn.”

Ann Hoffman, Research for Writers

Many budding writers lack the confidence to take the first step into the commercial market place because they feel it is impossible to produce something completely new that no one else has ever thought of before. But as we’ve already observed : there is no such thing as a new idea. Most creative ideas have been used before, over and over again. What we are looking for are innovative ideas, so let us return to the dictionary definition to find that innovation means: To introduce alterations; to put forward novelties. To alter or change by the introduction of something new.

This is what will give our work that spark of originality. In all honesty, even the most block-busting novel is only a variation on a familiar theme rather than ground-breakingly new. For an example: in an earlier creative writing book, From An Editor’s Desk, I threw in the Polti Theory, which maintained that there were only 36 dramatic situations on which the writer of fiction can draw. By using single situations or several combinations, the basic theme of every story (long or short) ever told, written or devised can be summed up in the following list:

Supplication

Deliverance

Crime pursued by vengeance

Vengeance taken for kindred upon kindred

Pursuit

Disaster

Falling prey to cruelty or misfortune

Revolt

Daring enterprise

Abduction

The enigma

Obtaining

Enmity of kinsmen

Rivalry of kinsmen

Murderous adultery

Madness

Fatal imprudence

Involuntary crimes of love

Slaying of a kinsman unrecognised

Self-sacrifice for an ideal

Self sacrifice for kindred

All sacrificed for passion

Necessity of sacrificing loved ones

Rivalry of superior and inferior

Adultery

Crimes of love

Discovery of the dishonour of a loved one

Obstacles to love

An enemy loved

Ambition

Conflict with God

Mistaken jealousy

Erroneous judgement

Remorse

Recovery of a lost one

Loss of a loved one

Twenty years later and retired from editing creative writing magazines, I would add that most non-fiction and poetry submissions probably  fall into those categories, too.  If you don’t believe me, check out the theme of the major features or stories in any selection of magazines or newspapers and you’ll find most of them are loosely based on one or more of the above. If we remove the smokescreen of exotic locations or glamorous lifestyle, we will find that most of the plots used by our favourite writers are telling the same old stories, over and over again. The basic theme of murder, intrigue, adultery and chivalry are all there – they just have an innovative backdrop.

Colin Dexter, the creator of Inspector Morse introduced us to the esoteric world of academe by casting his novels amongst the traditions and dreamy spires of Oxford University life; while

Simon Raven did the same for Cambridge. Dick Francis came up with his own original formula set amongst the racing fraternity where wealth frequently rubs shoulders with the lower echelons of society. Jilly Cooper moved from Wimbledon Common to the equestrian set, before turning her attentions on the international orchestral and art worlds, and has since moved on to horse racing. Ellis Peters went back to medieval Britain. While in the fantasy department, Tolkien created Middle Earth and J K Rowling, Hogwort’s … and more recently Maureen Carter solves her crimes in gritty Birmingham; David Hewson stages his Nic Costa series in Rome, while Andrea Camilleri utilises his knowledge of Sicily to great effect in his highly entertaining series of novels featuring Commissario Montalbano

Nevertheless, strip away the mystery, glitz and the glamour and you’ll find that nearly every single piece of writing, fiction or non-fiction, will be loosely based on those themes given in the Polti Theory.

Rather than waste time trying to buck the system by coming up with original thought – go for an innovative approach.

The next extract from Life-Writes: Where do writers get their ideas from?

On Your Own Patch

To become a truly creative writer we have to start to notice and register the world around us from different angles and perspectives. It may be that our own particular patch has become so familiar that we no longer register what is going on there on a day-to-day basis. Make time to walk a familiar route and take notice of:

• what is growing in front gardens;

• new building developments;

• people standing at the bus stop;

• trees in the park;

• changes in shop window displays

Make a conscious effort to register these gradual changes as flowers begin to bloom; the buildings near completion; different people stand at the bus stop at certain times of the day; the trees in the

park altering their appearance through the seasons; and window displays rarely remain the same for very long.

Think about where you live now. Is it the same place where you grew up? If so, how has it changed?  For better or worse? Did you move away from your childhood or teenage stomping ground? Try to define the differences. What we need to remember, of course, is that memory is deceitful and illusionary, so what we think we can recall, may be almost as fictional as the novel we’re trying to write. How many times have you argued with an old friend or sibling over the way you both remember things from the past.

Train yourself to become more observant about the common everyday things that go on around you. Recall to mind the words of William Henry Davies’s Leisure:

“What is this life if, full of care,

We have no time to stand and stare?”

As writers, we owe it to ourselves to make time to stand and stare; even if it’s only to study the dress code, mannerisms and body language of fellow travellers on the subway, train or bus to work.

REMEMBER:  Always be on the look-out for useable ideas

Handy Hint:

Always keep a small notepad handy for jotting ‘things’

down. Ideally have a couple on the go that fit easily into a

bag or pocket. Don’t delay in making a note of snippets of

conversation, ideas for future investigation or character

sketches – we think we can recall them later but we lose

that spontaneous reaction and the ‘thing’ becomes stale.

EXTRACT FROM

LIFE-WRITES: Start an Ideas Book

In order to begin searching for the key to accessing these new ideas, we need to start on a practical level by keeping an Ideas Book. As Secret Step One tells us, there are more ideas locked away in our unconscious minds than we could ever write about in a whole lifetime. What we must discover is how they can influence our short stories, novels, poetry or non-fiction to the very best of our ability.  Instead of relying on memory, the Ideas Book should be used to record snippets of conversation, great one-liners, quotations, reference books, locations and characters.

The aim of Life-Writes is to encourage you to open your ears and eyes, to view things differently with your mind and heart. In other words, to free the inner voice so that you’re not afraid to trust your imagination and take a few risks with your writing. Become an observer and develop a willingness to see people and the world around you in a completely different light. By expanding those powers of observation, you will continuously build on the entries in your Ideas Book, which in turn will help you re-explore existing plots and themes, and generate new ones. Try to be honest but above all, do not be afraid to push against any restrictions imposed by current thinking or political correctness. No one is going to see your Ideas Book – its contents are for your eyes only.

To set the ball rolling, the first entry will be to give five examples of what you consider to be ‘things that arouse a fond memory of the past’ and here we need to reflect on why we consider them to be ‘fond memories’. The items on my list will probably be far removed from those on yours, while you will probably be completely unmoved by those ‘things’ that are important to me. What we also need to consider is the way that language has been devalued and how some words can take on a completely different emphasis when used in contemporary conversation. We are talking about perspective or viewpoint, and this is where we begin to access those ideas that are locked away in our unconscious minds. So let’s begin with …

A collection of old family photographs

Images of a life-style that can never come again because the people from that time, and who made it worth remembering, are all dead. The family home, long since demolished to make

way for a ring road. Childhood recollections of summer holidays, and family mealtimes. Pet dogs. Days at the beach. Haymaking and harvest. A childhood friend with whom we still keep in contact.

Many of these ‘fond memories’ will re-surface throughout this book because we are writing from Life, and drawing on happenings that are unique to one person. Your first collection of ‘things’ will probably prompt some rather serious thoughts but even these can be extended and expanded to encourage you to plumb the depths of your own ‘ideas’ and explore their possibilities. Keeping a record of your own ‘things’ in your own Ideas Book should eventually lead to dozens of ideas for fiction, articles or poetry but first we need to explore ways of making them exciting before turning them into submissions. On a day-to- day basis, our conscious brain registers the ‘facts’ or the most obvious impressions about a situation; for creative writing it is necessary to dig deep into the subconscious to locate the ideas that have been compressed into the brain’s equivalent of a

computerised ‘zip-file’.

Remember:  Our past is a mine of good ideas for future use.

LIFE-WRITES: Freeing the writer’s inner voice

Because Life-Writes is about drawing on submerged inner resources, it means that I’ve chosen to share many of my own private thoughts and family memories to illustrate many of the points made in the text. As a result, this has become a very personal book, because the examples, stories and anecdotes are real-life revelations, not fictional ones. Drawing on our inner reserves means that we have to be honest with ourselves about how much we are actually willing to give, or reveal, to a general readership in order to further our writing career. Where, we must ask ourselves, does reality end and creative writing begin?

The original idea for my book, Creative Pathways: Freeing the Writer’s Inner Voice, came after reading The Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon, a sort of personal journal of a lady-in-waiting at the court of the Emperor of Japan towards the end of the 10th century AD. Today, a pillow book refers to an illustrated manual of erotic advice but Sei’s book was a mixture of diary, gossip column and ‘commonplace’ book that showcased her literary observations off to perfection. History tells us that both her father and great-grandfather were both noted poets and scholars and, were Sei Shonagon alive today, she would probably be one of our leading literary lights. In this capacity, she can quite easily fill the role of ancestral spirit, or kami, of creative inner thought.

Unlike Julie Andrews’ ‘Favourite Things’ from The Sound of Music, however, the ‘things’ that Sei Shonagon commented upon were not always pleasing. Nevertheless it is her wide-ranging observations that set the pattern for some of the exercises for my creative writing workshops, combining Zen-like word-pictures and contemporary commercial writing ambition in order to free
the writer’s inner voice. The age-old categories were Sei Shonagon’s own – the ‘things’ in Creative Pathways were mine.
For example:

The Pillow Book:
Things that arouse a fond memory of the past

Dried hollyhock. 
The objects used during the Display of Dolls. 
To find a piece of deep violet or grape-coloured material that has been pressed between the pages of a
notebook.
It is a rainy day and one is feeling bored. To pass the time, one starts looking through some old papers. And then comes across the letters of a man one used to love.
Last year’s paper fan. 
Night with a clear moon.

Creative Pathways:
Things that arouse a fond memory of the past

A collection of old family photographs
Old theatre programmes
A particular piece of music
Wood smoke
The smell of hawthorn or bluebells in blossom

Here we have two collections of memories (or, from the writer’s perspective ‘ideas’) that immediately spark very clear images in the mind’s eye despite the fact that eleven centuries separate
them.
 
Make a note of your ‘things that arouse a fond memory of the past' in your Ideas Book

LIFE-WRITES: Exercise of the Intellect

“Everybody walks past a thousand story ideas every day. The good writers are the ones who see five or six of them. Most people don’t see any.” Orson Scott Card

Having dispensed with the nuts and bolts side of creative writing, we are now going to study the intuitive, imaginative and off-beat aspects. We are going to explore what I’ve called:

Creative Pathways For Writers – the 10 Secret Steps

1. There are more ideas locked away in your unconscious mind than you could ever write about in a whole lifetime – but how can they influence your creative writing. The secret is finding the key to access them.

2. There is a story (article or poem) behind everything you encounter during your daily routine in both inner and outer worlds if you have the courage to experience and explore. The secret is learning to look behind the obvious.

3. No matter how mundane and/or familiar a scene, there are countless different angles from which to view it. The secret is thinking ‘sideways’.

4. You are unique: no one can access the same experiences and memories, which means you have the ability to generate unique responses to situations. The secret is knowing how to express yourself.

5. Creative energy fuels creativity, so immerse yourself with creative images and stimulating art forms to give fresh ideas and ignite the creative flame. The secret is tapping into whatever can unleash creative energy.

6. Encourage the flow of creative energy from your unconscious mind through visualisation, meditation and relaxation. The secret is drawing energy from other sources.

7. Use your imagination when exploring other artistic mediums such as painting, sculpture, music, etc., because creativity is a state of mind. The secret is allowing other influences to stimulate the creative impulse.

8. Give your imagination free rein and open up your unconscious mind to the creative possibilities around you; if necessary do the opposite of what is considered the norm. The secret is having the strength to dream.

9. By connecting to your unconscious mind you can explore the wealth of universal memories of myth, fantasy and symbolism – but don’t be embarrassed by your ability to travel to the ‘hidden’ world. The secret is channelling your favourite childhood images.

10. Certain images or symbols open the door to the collective unconscious; try working with these mind pictures to stimulate your creativity no matter how ridiculous or outrageous at the beginning. The secret is focussing the mind on those things that will encourage creative energy.

Multiple & Simultaneous Submissions

Let’s have a word about multiple and simultaneous submissions. The only instance when it’s permissible to make multiple submissions is for poetry, when editors will often request that

writers send up to six poems at a time. Send two or three unsolicited short stories or articles in the same envelope and they will probably go straight in the bin.

The question of simultaneous submissions is a lot more complex, so let’s use an analogy before we start. Just suppose a market gardener was told that he could only sell one box of lettuce to Tesco or Wal-Mart at a time; and that these would have to be sold and eaten before he could sell another box to another supermarket chain. It wouldn’t make for good business and his stock would be well past its sell-by date by the time he could offer it elsewhere. The same applies to writers’ submissions. Some editors state quite openly that it can take between 3-6 months before they will give a decision, so what are our options?

• All submissions should be tailored-made for the appropriate market and shouldn’t automatically suit another editor’s requirements. All typescripts would need some tinkering before being sent to another editor, so simultaneous submissions are not a good idea from the writer’s point of view.

• By rule of thumb, give short stories, poems and articles a month before offering them elsewhere. Novels and nonfiction book proposals should be given between six to eight weeks before sending them off to the next publisher/agent on your list. Give them the courtesy of another six weeks to

respond.

• A ‘perhaps’ ‘later’ ‘maybe’ response is no good to a writer. Keep your options open by all means, but a piece isn’t sold until you have a formal confirmation.

The ‘no simultaneous submissions’ rule was put in place over two decades ago by publishers and editors, and has become another of those urban myths within the creative writing industry. It’s dog in the manger stuff and if you’ve been waiting for weeks, or even months, for a reply, then it’s hardly ‘simultaneous’ if you decide to submit to someone else after a reasonable delay. If your submission is accepted, do send a polite letter to any editor who’s ‘kept it on file’ and explain that the piece has now been sold. And thank them for their time. You never know when you want to submit to them again.  One response I’ve noticed that it relatively new is: “If you have a request from another agent/publisher for the full manuscript, please email us and let us know.”  In other words, we might have overlooked something good and it gives us the opportunity to steal a march on the other agent/publisher who might not realise there’s competition in the offing!

The only real no-no for simultaneous submissions is when submitting material for a writing competition. Because there is often a 3-6 month lapse between the competition being announced and the closing date, be prepared for your entry to be on-hold until after the judging process has taken place. Generally speaking, however, material entered for competition, particularly short stories, would not be the sort of fiction normally written for commercial publication, since it tends to be more adventurous and non-genre specific.

Every submission should be tailor-made for its intended market.