Parole, parole...

'Parole, parole'
- Italian song by Mina & Alberto Lupo (1972; English translation: 'Words, words')

The other day someone asked me if I am writing in chronological order or if I am writing separate chapters and then put the story together later. Good question! I did chop up the whole story in chapters and determined what I want to tell in the beginning, the middle and at the end of the story. The beginning of the book is important as it has to trigger the reader to read on. And yes, I started with chapter 1, continued with chapter 2, but soon found out that I had to explain more about the relations between the protagonists in the beginning (without falling into the trap of giving too much information!).

So I added a chapter in between and chapter 2 became chapter 3. The question of my friend made me think however. The last few weeks I have been researching the making of movies. A movie is never shot in chronological order, but in all different shots and then edited in the end. As a story has more than one storyline and several themes, it is very well possible to write a storyline that will show up somewhere in the middle of the book or even at the end. From today on I will have a good look again at those different storylines and themes to see what inspires me most at this moment to start writing on. This gives me a whole new perspective again. Thank you for that question!

Last week I have been struggling with dialogues. Not so much dialogues between the grown up characters in the book. Those seem to come pretty naturally. But if your protagonist is a 7 year-old, what kind of dialogue do you give her without boring a grown up reader? It can not be something very difficult she says at that age, but it still has to add something to the story or to the character. The title of the 1970's song 'Parole, parole' refers to hollow words and phrases. Even though I want to create a sense of time, I don't just want to 'touch' news facts without knowing the essence. So I still do research... a lot. Gaining much more information and knowledge than I probably will ever use in this book, but better that than hollow words and phrases!  Love, M.

Back to Basics & Curiosity

I am stuck! All the information I have written down, gathered and processed for my book so far is in different documents in my computer. Of course I have printed those documents and sorted them, but now I am looking at piles of paper that are not making any sense to me. Believe me, I couldn't do without my MacBook, Internet or blogging anymore, but writing a book simply is an old-school art. It is like creating a mosaic. With every piece it becomes more complete. After adding the piece, the figure may look completely different and gives you a different angle from which to continue. Creating a story is also like creating a good wine. It needs time to mature in your head, time to develop.

Using the computer is great, but it is like painting a painting while you can only see 1/8 of the fore-study. You miss the overview, no matter how you organize everything in folders in your computer. Time to get back to my writing tips and books to see how to control this chaos. Best tip: visualize! So yesterday I bought some basic white carton cards to write things down in the old-fashioned way. Next step is to buy myself a big bulletin board where I can pin all these cards with information on. Preferably using all kinds of different colors to group the information. And I need to start making choices, because I don't need ALL of that information! So back to basics.

This weekend Holland has lost one of her biggest writers ever. Harry Mulish died at the age of 83. I loved to hear that Mulish was always curious, even at an older age. Wanted to know about new technologies, about new developments in the world. I believe in that kind of curiosity. I believe it keeps your spirit young even when your body grows old. Always look up that one word you don't know the definition of. Find out what the precise story is about a historical fact, even if it happened way before you were born. If you don't like social media, don't use them, but at least look up how they work and try it, just once. Children are always curious. They can keep on asking you questions. Go back to that curiosity! Always, always, always be curious! Love, M.