Hi Karen (Vickers)

You’ve probably sorted this out with your editor by now but if not, Emma Darwin’s post about psychic distance https://emmadarwin.substack.com/p/psychic-distance-what-it-is-and-how

will provide the answers for both 1st person/internal narrator and 3rd person.

As a general rule (this is me, not Emma speaking) an internal narrator…

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I too have wondered if novellas are becoming more popular – or if I just happen to have read several this year. For example: the excellent Nothing Left to Fear from Hell by Alan Warner, shortlisted for The Winston Graham Historical Fiction Prize and The Highland Book Prize; the bestseller Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi; and…

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I’m signed up, Stuart! I love the illustration you’ve chosen. Very apt. Very classy.

Hi Rachel, I like this. It doesn’t seem Mills and Boon to me. It’s presumably a huge turning point in H’s life that isn’t clunkily done.

Just a few thoughts for when you come to edits: I think the physical descriptions are a little overwritten and the emotional impact seems a bit underwritten though as cds says, it’s hard to tell without a wider…

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I sympathise with you about terminology, Rose. ‘Psychic distance’ is a description I use because other people are familiar with it but to me ‘psychic’ is too vague and ambiguous to mean much. I prefer ‘narrative distance’. Narrative, as opposed to dialogue, and because a story is a narrative, is what I’m doing/trying to do. It’s what I’m…

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As Laure says, keep practising. I find it helpful to look at how favourite authors use psychic distance. Some employ a greater range than others. If you think it would help you, copy out a paragraph of a novel and mark up each sentence and/or phrase with whatever distance you think is being shown. For me, at first that was an easier way into the…

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Hi Will, I’m glad my critique is helpful. You did mention being blind in an earlier post. My instructions on how to start a new thread in the critiques forum were probably particularly unhelpful. I’m sorry for that. Perhaps a message to the Jericho admin team would be the best approach as I’m not good with tech at the best of times.

The…

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Hi Will, thanks for waiting for my reply. To start a new discussion in Peer-to-Peer Critiques go to the PTPC forum and click the orange button ‘New Discussion’. It’s on the right-hand side of the screen immediately below the photo.

Thanks for your edited post. I’ve gone through it and made some comments in square brackets. You asked me if it’s now…

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Hi Michael, the story sounds potentially interesting, with Charles using mathematical and philosophical concepts to think about the psyche and his marriage. There’s a lot of complex theory in your description and my feeling is that you need to simplify this for readers and make it clear that you’re taking one approach/argument – pi I think – as a…

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Hi Will, many thanks for asking me to look at this. Just to say I’ll return to it tomorrow. Was hoping to reply today but it’s been a long one and I’ve run out of brain power 🙂

Hi Bill, I very much like this as a scene and I think there’s some lovely writing that captures the setting, the act of drawing and Andy’s feelings. To me it feels somewhat overwritten and occasionally underwritten. I’ve given some examples in these two pars, but they’re only my opinion:

Zoe had a large drawing pad resting on her thighs. She was…

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Thank you, Joanne. I think you’re right about needing to slow the scene down. This is from early in a novel so I don’t yet want the father to have much insight into his daughter. That would pre-empt too much of the story. But I’ll think about how to give it more air.

Thank you, James.

They’re in southern England.

Title: Flying Home

Genre: Historical fiction. In 1937 Hester, 18, is about to leave school. Her parents are surprised by her good school report and want her to choose a birthday present for herself.

This scene: Hester’s father Frederick is an architect. He’s just received a commission for a large house, is developing design ideas at home in his…

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Hi Natàlia, lots of good advice here from Laure, Bridget and yourself. I know the feeling about being taken aback at how editing is sometimes viewed only or mainly as reduction.

Bridget’s point about thin characterisation is important. Thin settings are another potential problem, the scenes that seem to occur in a featureless floating space.…

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Hi Will, if you’re using Word it can be a real pain for changing font away from Times NR. I’m not techie enough to know what to do about this except to keep selecting the whole text (block the text and then press Control and A) and reselecting TNR on the font list.

I know spell and grammar checkers don’t pick up everything. They’re not always…

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Hi Will, this is an interesting question about representing thought in third-person narration. Although there is no one set technique, there’s a small number of traditional approaches. He thought/she thought/they thought is the obvious one. Simply say that your character is thinking so that the reader knows their thoughts are thoughts. Then…

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These are good questions, Rose. It would be helpful to know some answers.

The Eve White agency has some info about its readers on its website, though nothing about the process Staff | Eve White Literary Agency

Fabulous, Stuart. I love this, and the comments too!👍👍👍

Hi Fizle, I think you’ll reach the stage where you don’t have to change things. I write historical fiction and the amount of knowledge required is extensive even though quite a lot of that information probably won’t end up in the novel 🙂

By the way, as far as I’m aware, the American civil war led to big problems in Britain’s cotton mills and…

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Hi Harry, your novel sounds interesting though I think the blurb is too vague.

Have a look at the blurb for The Litten Path by James Clarke The Litten Path, James Clarke – Salt (saltpublishing.com) Does it work for you? The novel is excellent but personally I don’t think this blurb is especially engaging. However the novel could be a comp title…

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Hi Martin, the online event on 24th Oct, Ask An Agent Anything with Sam Hiyate and Kiya Evans, had helpful info about comps. Online events usually appear on Jericho after a few days or a week or so for premium members.

👍

It’s pleasing when one of my impressions chimes with the writer. Not an ego thing, just a signal that I could be nearing the right track myself with this writing lark.

I prefer #1. It’s more tense for not revealing everything up front. Gail comes alive even more strongly when her speech contrasts with the backstory. I like it.

Many thanks, Rachel. You’ve read Bill well! This may be more due to your skill as a reader than mine as a writer. I intended the cautious smile to be the touchstone though I now think something more individual would be better. Cautious smiles are fairly common in all sorts of situations. They aren’t necessarily a character trait. The cheap suit is…

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I could easily be wrong, James 🙂

Hi Rose, she definitely feels distinct. I assumed you are writing from her POV and I wanted to see more of her experiences as she was living them rather than an analysis of what was happening. But if this is the narrator’s POV probably the same thing applies? The point when the writing lost me, in both versions, is ‘These qualities …’ etc. At…

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Thanks, James. You have a good point. Looking at the excerpts afresh this morning I can see version 1 has merits.

I cut both versions down from a longer scene. I’ll have to leave them a while and see how best to rebuild the scene as a whole.

Hi James, I felt you needed to have the twinkle closely follow the paperclip so that you give a firmer portrayal of Crimpins all in one go. Don’t give the reader time to feel vague about what it means or create an impression of him that may not be the one you want.

For example you could say, ‘A partially untwisted paper clip replaced a missing…

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Hi Rose, I think “his sure-voiced manner could hold the attention of many” is the touchstone here. The mention of his sure-voiced manner also brings him alive in a way the rest of the text doesn’t so much, although the sentences are beautifully constructed. I feel you need more showing and less telling in this excerpt. I get the impression Lady…

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😀

It sounds as though her comment really does suit her. Touchstones, though, seem to me to be something more fixed. If she kept repeating a particular phrase, that might be a touchstone.

Don’t quote me. I’m not sure I’ve got this right either. 🙂

Hi Rosemary, thanks for pointing this out. It made sense to me because I know the context and the conversation which isn’t shown here but I can see how it doesn’t work in isolation.

That’s a very good thought, Jane. I’ll think of a mannerism for Bill. Thank you!

Hi Rosemary, I think this touchstone in version # 2 of Kate being suddenly alarmed under someone’s gaze is beautifully and memorably shown by the fawn and crosshairs imagery. That feels like a strong basis on which to build her character and story.

Version 1 reads very well even though it doesn’t have the touchstone. Version 2 lacks its…

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I agree about the paperclip! He hasn’t even bothered to unwind the clip fully. It’s so visual, appropriate for him and easy to remember. I wonder though if you could work in the twinkling with the paper clip. He’s not a gloomy person who thinks his glasses, and perhaps himself, aren’t worth mending. To me he appears as someone who delights in life…

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A thought about touchstones. In my novel Bill is a secondary character who is threaded all the way through. His touchstone – this personality trait – will morph as time passes and he develops. That made we wonder if I should have picked something constant about his character. However in this scene where we first meet him it’s his most relevant feature.

Many thanks, Marcus. I’m relieved the second version works!

I found this touchstone exercise had two goals: improving the writing and clarifying the touchstone. They’re obviously complementary processes but I had to separate them out a bit first.

Thanks, Ceresse. This was the touchstone I was hoping to portray. I found this a very useful exercise, trying to ensure the Bill on the page is a mirror of the Bill in my head, and in few words. It’s easy for me to forget important details when I’m trying to make a scene get from A to B.

Thanks, Anna. The first version was an early draft. I had to search back through my files to find it! For me, early drafts are like incomplete lists of info I want to include, and not necessarily in that order.

Many thanks, Tony. It’s always helps a lot to know how my sentences read to other people!

Hi Harry, I love the line about the best sex ever but does it help define Maddy in a way that makes us remember her? I mean does she often produce lines like this that will make everyone laugh? I see a regular characteristic as a touchstone if I’ve understood this exercise properly. But if her line just a one-off joke that doesn’t feel like a touchstone.

Book title: Flying Home

Genre: historical fiction

Babs (19) is in an expensive hotel bar one evening with her brother Colin. She is meeting two of Colin’s friends for the first time. This excerpt focuses on Bill, one of these friends.

Character passage #1

[Bill] … his vowels were local. ‘How d’you do?’ he said.

To make him let g…

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Hi Robin, thanks for posting this chapter. I can see this is a very tense, contemporary and relevant story. Initially I struggled at bit. The first paragraph starts with strong drama and then immediately switches to backstory, taking me away from what had promised to be interesting but was then about something else. My feeling is that paragraph…

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Hi Bridget, for me this story feels as though it starts at “The sausage stand outside the station is still open.” Before that I wondered, as I read, what the story was about. Walter’s relationship with his landlady? His love affair, if that’s what it is, with Maria? Then the sausage stand etc indicated a much stronger and different direction. The…

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I like this twist, Ceresse. I like the whole thing.

Not really relevant in this exercise I know, but I think there are edits that would strengthen the immediacy of the scene. Just my opinion.

Séamus stares [in disbelief delete] at Lillie-Burton. ‘Did you say Devereaux?’

‘Samuel Patrick Devereaux,’ Lillie-Burton confirms with a self-sat…

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