Category Archives: Clare Langley-Hawthorne

Ghostwriters, Co-authors and The Great Oz

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by Clare Langley-Hawthorne

The NYT’s magazine yesterday ran an article on James Patterson’s amazing empire (James Patterson Inc.) and I confess my jaw dropped when I read that he published nine original hardcovers in 2009 and plans at least that many for 2010. Of course, James Patterson doesn’t write all of these on his own – he has a stable of co-authors that work with him. Now, I am probably the only person on earth who has never actually read a James Patterson book (I know, I know…) but the sheer volume of this man’s output is astonishing. The NYT’s article states that one out of every 17 hardcover books bought in the US was written by James Patterson – and this started me wondering – is the Patterson publishing model the way of the future?

We’ve all heard of ghost-writers who help propel celebrity memoirs to bestsellerdom but we often accept this as a necessity, given the fact that the celebrity in question is usually not a writer (or even capable of being one…) – but in this case Patterson recruits other thriller writers to help expand his brand and increase his output. I’m not sure how I feel about the co-author issue – are they really ‘joint’ writers in the traditional co-authorship sense or ‘assistant authors’ helping to churn out books for another, better known, author? As I said, not having read any of Patterson’s books I can’t really comment on the difference between the books he authored alone and those he authored with another writer but I do have to wonder – does the quality of the writing suffer at all? Do readers care if the book that has James Patterson emblazoned on it wasn’t actually written by him?

From what I read in the NYT’s article, the brand and business that is James Patterson requires a team approach. Don’t get me wrong, Patterson is clearly intimately involved with every step in the publishing of his books. He does a detailed outline for each of them and provides editorial oversight and quality control over all the material – but (equally obvious) the business of James Patterson Inc. could be nowhere near as profitable (or prolific) if he had to write each of his books by himself.

Given how centralized publishing is becoming, with marketing resources concentrated almost exclusively on the few top sellers in each publishing house, it will be interesting to see how common the James Patterson model will become. Will it be the model adopted by future bestselling thriller writers? Will those authors become responsible for churning out plots and outlines for others to complete rather than actually writing the books themselves? (Will readers even care?)

So what do you think? For those of you who are Patterson fans, can you tell a difference in quality between the ones he authored alone and those he has co-authored? Has quality diminished over time as a result of his amazing level of output or not? Do you think we will increasingly see this kind of approach where bestselling authors rely on a stable of co-authors to produce a prodigious number of titles each year, thereby centralizing sales even further among the few top sellers? Or will readers eventually tire of this approach – concerned that behind the branding facade lies nothing more than the ‘great Oz’ ?

The Midnight Hour

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by Clare Langley-Hawthorne

I admire those writers who get up in the wee hours of the morning to write – I cannot even function before about 6am and even then I need breakfast, The New York Times crossword and a big cup of tea before I can even contemplate writing. Granted every morning I have the boys to get to preschool so inevitably it’s 10am before I even get started writing (and that’s on a good day). When I was writing my first novel, Consequences of Sin, I had the ‘luxury’ of being pregnant so I could spend all day writing (and most of the night since I found it almost impossible to sleep), then the twins were born and I had to try and fit revisions into naps. Suddenly I realized I wasn’t going to be able to write when the mood struck – I was going to have to write in whatever free minute I could find.

Five years later and I am still struggling to find a writing schedule to fit. Never one to be able to write late at night, I now find myself routinely writing until 11 pm (which becomes 2am when I’m trying to meet a deadline). When friends ask me how on earth I find time to write I answer that I just ‘find’ it wherever and whenever I can. I laugh when people tell me about how they prepare themselves with mood music and incense, getting themselves into ‘writing mode’…I haven’t the time to ‘prepare myself’ (for me any form of preparation has to be research) but it’s true that there is always a lead time needed before the writing starts to flow. I still find the time factor difficult to manage. When I was lawyer I billed in 6 minute increments, now I find it hard to feel as if I have achieved anything of substance unless I have had a good 1-2 hour chunk of time. It takes me at least that long to find the rhythm of my writing – but (and here’s the rub) it seems so hard to capture that length of time uninterrupted. I often find that I am just getting into the flow of things when my time (literally) is up.

So what kind of writing schedule do you maintain? How do fit your writing in? Are you someone who gets up early or stays up late? Any advice on how to become a more effective ‘writing time’ manager?

A New Challenge

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by Clare Langley-Hawthorne

I was envious when I read John’s post on Saturday about how easy he found writing a short story because I had just the opposite experience – I found it incredibly challenging. My main difficulty? Stopping myself from turning it into chapter one of a new novel.

I view a short story as having a single transformative story arc – one told in the most concise and most powerful terms possible. All fine and dandy in theory but no sooner do I start than I fall prey to an overabundance of backstory and plot complications – and these little buggers have an annoying habit of multiplying, so by the time I reach around 4,000 words I realize what I really have is, you guessed it, chapter one of a new novel. Characters have already started taking control, offering me a range of complexities that I can’t help but want to explore, the setting demands detailed description which I cannot resist providing and the story arc takes on a much grander scale that will inevitably fail as a short story.

With this particular short story (which I’m hoping will pass muster and be published in the Kill Zone collection you’ll be hearing much more about) this dilemma created both opportunities as well as challenges. I had to rise to the challenge of paring everything down so it would succeed as a short story and I realized I had the seeds for a new series set in Australia which was quite exciting (oddly enough I’ve never written anything actually set in the land I grew up in).

My first step to transforming my piece into a ‘proper’ short story was to think about structure. I focused on the four main elements I thought I needed:
  1. Establishment of setting

  2. A trigger for action

  3. A build up of suspense and conflict

  4. A critical choice

  5. Resolution

When I found I basically had all these elements (albeit muddied by too much dialogue, description and backstory!) I knew my main focus had to be on paring everything down to its essential elements. This included character, setting, as well as plot and once I started this process I also found that I could focus on what the story was really all about.

Last Friday I took my short story to my writing group for their critique and they helped me identify areas of improvement and further ‘pruning’ – hopefully I’m now close to the final product and, more importantly, I feel like I’ve grappled with a new challenge that has improved me as a writer.

I can’t say I like the short story as a medium – I am a novelist at heart – but I do appreciate the intensity and power it can bring. I may not have enjoyed the process but as compensation I do have a new (male) protagonist that intrigues me. So who knows, this particular challenge may spur me on to develop a whole new series of books!

My question for you all is what was the last challenge you tackled head-on in terms of your writing (or anything else for that matter). Did it yield any surprising results or have a silver lining? I confess for me, I didn’t love the process but in the end I think it’s made me a better writer (that or just a more delusional one!).

Embracing Change

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by Clare Langley-Hawthorne

New year! New decade! and 100 years since the date I set my first book (yes, that would be 1910)… So I’m figuring it’s probably a good time to consider embracing change – not that I’m a stick in the mud (like Winston Churchill I believe there’s nothing wrong with change so long as it’s in the right direction) but I do like to know how things turn out (which, of course, is impossible). I’m a great one for worrying about the not-so good changes (pointless I know), so this year I’m going to throw off my shackles and embrace uncertainty and change in all aspects of my life (yes, really…)
I met most of last year’s resolutions after all – I did grow my hair long (and then cut it all off in horror at what I looked like); I learned how to ride a bike (my husband bought me one for Christmas so my fate is sealed) and I did lose weight (although after eating my way through the holidays my bum is now exponentially larger…sigh). My writing resolution (put the writing first!) fell a bit by the wayside – but then with twin five-year old boys I guess what else can I expect! I completed two books and am three-quarters of the way through a third…so not too bad…(though on the publishing end of it, 2009 was bit of a dud).

I’m reminded of a quotation from Washington Irving that I think I may adopt for the year:

“There is certain relief in change, even though it be from bad to worse! As I have often found in traveling in a stagecoach, that it is often a comfort to shift one’s position, and be bruised in a new place.”

I know that 2010 is going to be year of change – and so I am going to focus my efforts on trying to adapt as best I can. I shall shift my position in the stagecoach and see how it feels:)
I have ideas for lots of new books (even I need a break from Edwardian England sometimes) and I am completing a short story as well…so maybe I’ll even foray a few more times into this medium (or maybe not…let’s see…)
So forget resolutions – let’s just accept the inevitability of change and fess up – what kind of change will you be embracing this year?

Santa List

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Ah, the holiday season…time of looniness and mayhem… Today, being my last blog post for 2009, I’m going to channel the holiday spirit and write about conspicuous consumption (of books of course!) and my family’s current wish list for Santa.

Now first up (appropriately enough) are my parents. Notoriously hard to buy for as they devour their favorite authors’ latest books as soon as they come out, they have few books still on their list so I’m going for the audio book approach: I figure I can’t go wrong with Good Omens by Neil Gaimon and Terry Pratchett (my father is a huge fan of both) or The Screwtape Letters by C.S Lewis…only problem, not sure Santa’s up on the whole ‘bureaucracy of hell’ or ‘the end is nigh’ stuff – might dampen the ho, ho, ho…but, bah humbug, that’s what they’re getting.
My twin boys are so much easier – I’ve already indoctrinated them into loving mystery books (the old fashioned, English kind, of course). Once again, Enid Blyton rules and my boys are already obsessed by the Secret Seven mystery series (seven kids, a dog named Scamper and lots of English village mysteries to solve) and are about to discover the Adventure series (four kids, a talking parrot and mysteries in exotic locations). Santa is fully up to speed on their book requirements though (sigh), Lego is still number one on their Santa list.

My husband is always a trickier proposition, book-wise. He barely has enough time to start a book let alone finish it, but I recently introduced him to a terrific Australian thriller writer, Michael Rowbotham, so I know he’ll be trying to read him over the holidays. As for his list, well I’m going for non-fiction instead with Michael Chabon’s latest, Manhood for Amateurs. I wasn’t quite ready to put his wife’s book, Bad Mother, on my Santa list (my fragile ego couldn’t cope with unwrapping it on Christmas Day…) but I’d love to read it all the same.

I have a veritable library of titles on my list for Santa…and certainly not enough time to read them all…but my top three are: AS Byatt’s Edwardian saga, The Children’s Book; Cormac McCarthy’s post apocalyptic, The Road, and Juliet Nicholson’s non-fiction account of collective mourning in the aftermath of WW1, The Great Silence.

So what books are on your Santa list??

Thanksgiving Day Bravery

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by Clare Langley-Hawthorne

Having just spent a great Thanksgiving in LA (despite the horrible traffic) I have returned re-motivated. Why? Because my friend Charysse gave me a much needed boost. In a recent work evaluation she had to list the ten people she would most want to have at a dinner party and I was one of the chosen. While this was nice and all – it was her reason for choosing me that caused a lump to form in my throat. She said she had told her boss it was because I was one of the bravest people she knew. Now I’m no courageous Clare that’s for sure – I’m terrified of heights, wimpy about woods (there’s bears out there you know) and squeamish about virtually everything – but I was, in my friend’s estimation, brave because I chose to ‘lay it all out there’ – abandoning my successful career in pursuit of a dream and risking all in the process. Her support brought tears to our eyes and it made me realize (as it was Thanksgiving after all) how thankful I am for so many things…Yes, here’s where it gets soppy (and I have to admonish my fellow Killzoners – where was the obligatory ‘what are we thankful for’ post last week?! Hey, I adopted this country for these kinds of celebrations!)

So here’s my top 5 things that I’m thankful for:

  1. My family (obviously) – you gotta love two five year old boys who manage to make it in the car to LA (and the three hour traffic jam we encountered Wednesday when we arrived) without watching even one DVD…

  2. That I still have an agent (he hasn’t abandoned me yet, at least I don’t think so…)

  3. That I still LOVE to write (despite the publishing industry’s best efforts…)

  4. That I get such great support from friends, family, fellow writers and fans so that even in the bleakest of November moods I can see a glimmer of hope.

  5. That I finally had my hair cut.

Okay, the last one may seem trivial but believe me I needed it! I’ve been growing my hair all year (see New Year’s resolution post) only to discover that (surprise, surprise) I hated it. Not only did my husband think it made me look older (yes, it’s a miracle sometimes that we’re still married) but I also never had the time to style it into any pseudo-Edwardian glory. I have to admit, as much as I might want to channel Ursula in my life, I need a maid to be able to do so…otherwise I’m just another boring old mum with her hair in a pony tail. Now, of course, post-hair cut, I’m the chic, youthful, cool mum with the gorgeous 1920’s bob:)

But enough about me…what are you thankful for?

PS: In the spirit of Thanksgiving, I’d also like to invite all killzoners to help out Basil Sands in his quest to name his blog radio show. He’s offering $25 if you suggest the name he ends up using, and for those of you who regularly read the comments you know he is hilarious (so his show is bound to be great!). You can visit his website: http://www.basilsands.com/ for more details.

Setting the Pace

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by Clare Langley-Hawthorne

I’m at the point in my current WIP where I’m checking the pacing of the story so far. I often do this when I feel that something just isn’t clicking – either the story is starting to drag or I’m in danger of losing direction – and I find pacing is often at the crux of the problem. Being the anal outliner that I am, I have a number of steps which I undertake when I need, quite literally, to go through the paces. When I finished the first draft of my first novel, Consequences of Sin, my study was plastered with butcher paper graphs of the story – with different colors for all the critical aspects of the story – mystery, character development, romance etc. and with all the highs and lows (as well as lulls) represented. It was a visual way for me to gauge how well I was pacing the story (or not!).

Pacing is a tricky thing and one, I suspect, gets easier with practice (at least I bloody well hope so!) but when the pacing gets out of whack the story either dies a long, lingering death or seems to hurtle from scene to scene without stopping for air (leaving the reader a little winded and unsatisfied at the end). Somewhere between the two, the story sings.

So this is how I try and attack the pacing issue:

  • Chapter outlines – I know, I know, only an outliner would start with this anyway, but I actually redo these midway through the first draft, emphasizing what key tensions are involved, what key plot points are revealed, and how the relationships between the characters are unfolding. This type of outlining helps me visualize if there are places in the book where nothing seems to be propelling the story forward and also where they may be spots where too much seems to be happening all at once.
  • Graphing the book: Using the classic three act structure I map out the critical conflicts and plot points in the book. Being a visual person this helps me immediately see how the contours of the story are coming along: too many troughs and I know I’m in trouble; too many peaks early on and I know it’s too much like ‘Days of our Lives’…
  • Editing for pace: Midway through the first draft I often find myself in edit mode, not necessarily for the nitty-gritty writing elements but more the big picture pacing issues: How is it flowing? Does the book feel like it’s building suspense or is it already starting to deflate?…This type of editing helps me focus attention on storyline structure as well as pacing. Many writers probably wait until the end of the first draft to undertake this but I find it helps to do this about half way through – helps me avoid getting bogged down in the saggy middle.
So how do you tackle the issue of pacing in your books? As a reader, who do you think has mastered this (for it is an art to do it well I think)? Any additional tips or pointers – because, let’s face it, I could use all the help I can get at the moment!

Where Angels Fear to Tread…The PW Top 10 List

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by Clare Langley-Hawthorne

I seriously considered entitling this post ‘Gender Blind My Arse’ but was worried it might be too…ambiguous…and I wisely held off from commenting on John’s Saturday post for fear that I might come across as some half crazed loony, or worse…a feminist…that’s right, that terrible eight letter word (I know, it’s amazing, I can count!)

But before I start pissing everyone off already, let me say that the PW top 10 list doesn’t bother me all that much. Why not? Because it’s not surprising. Because all lists are subjective. Because at least on the extended list women are (sort of) represented. So why, do you ask, am I pissed off? I’m angered by the reaction it has garnered – because it feels like we’ve been down this road so many times before and it’s always a dead-end. Reviewers will always say they were gender-blind, that they tried their very best not to be influenced by anything other than the writing itself (what lies beneath the covers, not what lies between the legs to paraphrase from John’s post). To this, groups like Sister-In-Crime will always counter by saying that gender bias is systemic in the publishing industry – from the books selected for review, the level of critical ‘gravitas’ bestowed, and in the awards handed out. As far as I’m concerned it’s a no-win situation and this is what drives me nuts – I mean, after all that we have fought for, I can’t believe we’re still having this debate.

What I don’t get is how women, who buy the overwhelming majority of novels and dominate the publishing industry (at least in terms of editors), don’t just proudly denounce all the nonsensical crap that comes up around the gender issue:

  1. Women do not write ‘small’ ‘domesticated’ books. So what if the traditional cozy doesn’t have zombie dismemberment, it can still be well-written and it can still deal with important ‘universal’ issues surrounding the human condition. Just because there’s a picture of a cat with a ball of yarn on the front does not mean the book has to be marginalized as ‘chick-mystery-lit’.

  2. Romance does not equal brainlessness or crappy writing.

  3. There are no inherent gender traits in writing. Just because I’m a woman doesn’t mean I write emotions well and action scenes badly. I may write a traditional historical mystery but that doesn’t mean that (as a woman) I couldn’t write a gruesome, psychologically disturbing book (Val McDermid, anyone?) .

  4. White men don’t write better books…

The final point seems spurious to me…but in light of PW’s list…I guess I had to say it.

Lest We Forget

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By Clare Langley-Hawthorne

We’ve had some terrific blog posts this last week and, if I hadn’t been in London, I would have commented more because there has been some great advice. Yesterday James made the observation that it takes a great deal of courage to be a writer and I think it’s a particularly difficult brand of (non-lethal…) bravery that is required – because in the world of writing the public and the personal overlap. Publishing means that your work is out for all to see (for better and for worse) and, if criticism of you work feels personal, praise feeds your dreams and ego in a way that no other job ever could.

Being in London the week before Remembrance Day has meant, however, that my own writing has been informed by the courage of those who have served and died in the service of their country. I came to London to celebrate my birthday as well as undertake some research at the Imperial War Museum. As it turned out, I have been surrounded by references and material relating to the First World War that has (serendipitously) fed into almost all my books: from my current WIP which is set against the backdrop of the outbreak of war in 1914; to the sequel to Lady Coppers and the fourth Ursula book which are both set in the midst of ‘the Great War’.
The excitement of undertaking research never fails to inspire me. At the Imperial War Museum, I was reading the diary of a female policewoman stationed at a munitions factory during the First World War and was delighted to find a special pass for her dog ‘Rip’ in the files (along with an official studio portrait of the dog!). Only this kind of hands-on research can reveal the eccentricities of the real people who help me create my characters. It seems strangely appropriate that everywhere I turn at the moment there is a reminder of Edwardian Britain. Indeed, sometimes I have to wonder – did I pick the historical period for my books or did it pick me?

Unlike my fellow bloggers I don’t have any pearls of wisdom to share, but rather a couple of questions: Have you ever felt a period, place or person resonate so acutely that you were drawn to write about it? What real people or real events inform your writing?

For me, it would seem that it is the Great War that is calling me and, especially as Remembrance Day approaches, the ghosts of the past insist that I heed the call…Lest we forget.

We the Jury…

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by Clare Langley-Hawthorne

Well, it’s gone midnight and I’ve just finished up my final proofing edits (why does this always seem to take so long?!) – I would have had them completed much earlier (yeah, right…) if I hadn’t been called up for jury duty last week. Now before you all roll your eyes in sympathy, I was actually excited about the prospect of serving on a jury. In Australia, you see, lawyers (at least when I was practising) are not allowed to serve on juries.

The thought that I was never going to get a glimpse of what it was like to be on the other side – hearing the arguments rather than making them, weighing up the evidence and actually getting to decide whether a person was guilty or not – always bugged me until I realized that now, as a US citizen, I may actually get to be on a jury (I know, it’s sad just how cool I thought this would be).
Last Wednesday was my first ever experience of the American criminal justice system (really…) and my first ever jury duty summons as a US citizen, and I have to say it was anticlimactic to say the least.

First off, I had no idea how boring it would be – or how bizarre it was to sit in court listening to people on the first ‘randomly chosen’ jury panel go over their backgrounds, while the rest of us schmucks had to wait…and wait…just in case. I found that I couldn’t turn the lawyer in me off – after each potential juror finished answering their background questionnaire, I found myself mentally deliberating on whether, and on what grounds, I would have tried to excuse them. Every time the judge (who was, I have to say, exceptionally nice as well as funny) issued instructions I also found myself saying ‘yeah, yeah…blah, blah,blah..beyond a reasonable doubt…’ before an inner voice shouted “Just get on with it!!”

As it turned out the case (should I have even ended up on the panel) was due to run through this week and since I’m heading off to London later today (yay!) on a research trip I had to be excused anyway.

So, since my first jury experience turned out to be a bit of a fizzer, I was wondering if anyone had any juicy jury stories to tell me instead. Go on, let me live vicariously…or at least provide me with some truly excruciating, bored to the eyeballs stories so I can feel vindicated.