Janet Gogerty's Blog: Sandscript - Posts Tagged "mobile-phones"
Sandscript in Manuscript
When we stayed for a week in a cottage in a secluded cove, I was glad to discover there was no reception for mobile phones, nor was there a land line in the cottage. At the very top of the cliff, if you held your phone high in the air, you could be lucky and get reception. A peaceful place for a holiday and proof for writers that there are still settings where mobile phones cannot be used; where characters can escape without being traced or where persons in peril cannot call for help.
The plots of crime fiction, spy thrillers and romances changed for ever when mobile phones became ubiquitous. No running along dark lonely roads or knocking on strange doors to fetch help, a quick call on your mobile and an air ambulance or armed response unit could be with you in minutes. No wonder authors enjoy putting their heroes and villains in spots where there is no mobile reception.
But you can’t always trust your characters. Reading through the third draft of the third novel in my trilogy, I realised several of my leading characters, in several scenes, had casually used their mobile phones when they knew perfectly well there has never been any mobile phone reception at Holly Tree Farm. Some minor plot changes were needed for the fourth draft.
Proof reading and editing the manuscript of one’s novel is not just about lost commas, the wrong ‘their, there and they’re’ and ‘from’ turning to ‘form’ when you’re not looking. Whether you work on the computer or from a paper manuscript, continuity is just as important as on a film set. Robertson or Robinson, Thomas or Thompson, Sean or Shaun? Minor characters have no regard for accuracy and frequently change their Christian and surnames from chapter to chapter. On to the fifth draft….
But ‘Lives of Anna Alsop’ will be on Amazon Kindle soon and in the meantime you can catch up with the first two of the trilogy ‘Brief Encounters of the Third Kind’ and ‘Three Ages of Man.’
The plots of crime fiction, spy thrillers and romances changed for ever when mobile phones became ubiquitous. No running along dark lonely roads or knocking on strange doors to fetch help, a quick call on your mobile and an air ambulance or armed response unit could be with you in minutes. No wonder authors enjoy putting their heroes and villains in spots where there is no mobile reception.
But you can’t always trust your characters. Reading through the third draft of the third novel in my trilogy, I realised several of my leading characters, in several scenes, had casually used their mobile phones when they knew perfectly well there has never been any mobile phone reception at Holly Tree Farm. Some minor plot changes were needed for the fourth draft.
Proof reading and editing the manuscript of one’s novel is not just about lost commas, the wrong ‘their, there and they’re’ and ‘from’ turning to ‘form’ when you’re not looking. Whether you work on the computer or from a paper manuscript, continuity is just as important as on a film set. Robertson or Robinson, Thomas or Thompson, Sean or Shaun? Minor characters have no regard for accuracy and frequently change their Christian and surnames from chapter to chapter. On to the fifth draft….
But ‘Lives of Anna Alsop’ will be on Amazon Kindle soon and in the meantime you can catch up with the first two of the trilogy ‘Brief Encounters of the Third Kind’ and ‘Three Ages of Man.’
Sandscript at Present
There’s no time like the present, especially for authors. How long does the present last; a year, a week, a day, a second? Some novelists write in the present tense and this can work very well, but readers know the events have already happened.
My novel ‘Brief Encounters of the Third Kind' was set in the present; that was where I intended it to remain. I did not want to name a year; the characters lived in London and the 2005 bombings were still quite recent when I started writing, I did not want their story overshadowed by such a major event.
But first novels, especially long ones, take a while to write, be read by others and edited, the present was fast becoming the past. World events were turning out differently from what most of us could ever have imagined and technology was racing ahead. My characters had mobile phones, they took pictures with their phones, they Skyped and went on Facebook, a few of them had SatNav. But they did not have smart phones, tablets, I-pads Kindles etc. and the last thing I wanted them to be able to do was Google their location or look up information on the internet with their smart phone.
The novel became a trilogy. ‘Three Ages of Man’ begins before the first novel and runs parallel, ‘Lives of Anna Alsop’, published this week, opens the evening after the close of the first novel. The Brief Encounters Trilogy is set in the early years of the Twenty First Century and covers a period of nearly four years, that is all you need to know. But if you would like to know more about the three novels you can read about them here on Goodreads, or visit my website www.ccsidewriter.co.uk
My novel ‘Brief Encounters of the Third Kind' was set in the present; that was where I intended it to remain. I did not want to name a year; the characters lived in London and the 2005 bombings were still quite recent when I started writing, I did not want their story overshadowed by such a major event.
But first novels, especially long ones, take a while to write, be read by others and edited, the present was fast becoming the past. World events were turning out differently from what most of us could ever have imagined and technology was racing ahead. My characters had mobile phones, they took pictures with their phones, they Skyped and went on Facebook, a few of them had SatNav. But they did not have smart phones, tablets, I-pads Kindles etc. and the last thing I wanted them to be able to do was Google their location or look up information on the internet with their smart phone.
The novel became a trilogy. ‘Three Ages of Man’ begins before the first novel and runs parallel, ‘Lives of Anna Alsop’, published this week, opens the evening after the close of the first novel. The Brief Encounters Trilogy is set in the early years of the Twenty First Century and covers a period of nearly four years, that is all you need to know. But if you would like to know more about the three novels you can read about them here on Goodreads, or visit my website www.ccsidewriter.co.uk
Sandscript on Sand
Why would you go to the beach then sit in a wooden box, commented an Australian visitor on viewing rows of beach huts. Of course, beach hut owners hope to be sitting outside them in the sun, stepping inside only to get changed with modesty; after all, beach huts started as bathing machines wheeled down to the water. But most of them are boxes, similar in design to a cardboard box laid on its side with the flaps out. If you want a designer beach hut with style and bunk beds it will cost you as much as a house.
But our little six foot boxes have their charm. In summer the contents of the huts are spread out on the promenade, creating a home from home with tables, parasols, bottles of wine and BBQs leaving little room for passers by. Our hut is ‘upstairs’ on a narrow balcony, more private, but without much room for visitors. If everybody used their beach huts at the same time it would be chaos. With an inch between neighbours there is an etiquette of sorts; hello and remark about the weather on arrival, then allow them to return to their book or paper.
This summer the sea is further away from our hut, the beach has been replenished. In the natural order cliffs crumble and turn into sand, replacing the beach eroded by tides and currents. As soon as humans improve their access to the sea, with promenades and zig zag paths, beach erosion becomes a problem. The cliffs still crumble, but take with them houses and cliff lifts.
During the winter and spring our view of The Purbecks was obliterated with two storey portacabins and War of the Worlds mechanical aliens. Pile drivers dug down twice the height of a man, digging out old wooden groynes and implanting new ones. Then the dredgers appeared out at sea, huge pipes snaked along the beach; sand and water were pumped from the Solent.
So there was plenty of beach to sit on in the recent hot spell, but not yet smoothed by the tides; swimmers fell into the water and clambered back up steep shingle banks.
But the crowds were enjoying the summer weather with only the occasional beach prat of the day. From our beach hut we heard angry voices, was this an 'incident'? No, a man was sitting at the water’s edge, ignoring his family, his flailing, gesticulating arms the clue that we were listening in to a conversation on his mobile phone.
That wasn’t the only disturbance, the little used hut next door came to life with the family from hell. Different people each time, but we assume they are related, because there is a familiar pattern of behaviour. Children return from the sea, loud discussion ensues about what they want to eat, adult voices get louder as whining children refuse everything on offer. Then one child hits another, the prolonged crying out of all proportion to the injury received. Other beach hut residents might wish there were sharks in the Solent and the situation is not conducive to creative writing.
Read about a very different visit to the beach in a previous blog.
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show...
Visit my website for pictures of local beaches.
http://www.ccsidewriter.co.uk/chapter...
But our little six foot boxes have their charm. In summer the contents of the huts are spread out on the promenade, creating a home from home with tables, parasols, bottles of wine and BBQs leaving little room for passers by. Our hut is ‘upstairs’ on a narrow balcony, more private, but without much room for visitors. If everybody used their beach huts at the same time it would be chaos. With an inch between neighbours there is an etiquette of sorts; hello and remark about the weather on arrival, then allow them to return to their book or paper.
This summer the sea is further away from our hut, the beach has been replenished. In the natural order cliffs crumble and turn into sand, replacing the beach eroded by tides and currents. As soon as humans improve their access to the sea, with promenades and zig zag paths, beach erosion becomes a problem. The cliffs still crumble, but take with them houses and cliff lifts.
During the winter and spring our view of The Purbecks was obliterated with two storey portacabins and War of the Worlds mechanical aliens. Pile drivers dug down twice the height of a man, digging out old wooden groynes and implanting new ones. Then the dredgers appeared out at sea, huge pipes snaked along the beach; sand and water were pumped from the Solent.
So there was plenty of beach to sit on in the recent hot spell, but not yet smoothed by the tides; swimmers fell into the water and clambered back up steep shingle banks.
But the crowds were enjoying the summer weather with only the occasional beach prat of the day. From our beach hut we heard angry voices, was this an 'incident'? No, a man was sitting at the water’s edge, ignoring his family, his flailing, gesticulating arms the clue that we were listening in to a conversation on his mobile phone.
That wasn’t the only disturbance, the little used hut next door came to life with the family from hell. Different people each time, but we assume they are related, because there is a familiar pattern of behaviour. Children return from the sea, loud discussion ensues about what they want to eat, adult voices get louder as whining children refuse everything on offer. Then one child hits another, the prolonged crying out of all proportion to the injury received. Other beach hut residents might wish there were sharks in the Solent and the situation is not conducive to creative writing.
Read about a very different visit to the beach in a previous blog.
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show...
Visit my website for pictures of local beaches.
http://www.ccsidewriter.co.uk/chapter...
Sandscript
I like to write first drafts with pen and paper; at home, in busy cafes, in the garden, at our beach hut... even sitting in a sea front car park waiting for the rain to stop I get my note book out. We
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