The Signature of All Things is set over the lifetime of Alma Whittaker, a woman of means in the early eighteenth century, who is obsessed with the study of moss, unlucky in love, boggled by the altruism of her adopted sister and always on the search for answers in the natural world.
Alma’s journey is wonderful, fascinating and captivating. Alma’s journey and that of her father before her takes the reader around the globe transporting them to: London, Philidelphia, Tahiti, Peru, Tenerife, Hawaii and many places in-between.
Gilbert should be praised for her superb factual research within this novel and her ability to weave it subtly into her work of fiction.
Everything about The Signature of All Things is exquisite and exotic, yet bound together in familiarity by the experience of emotions that all human beings share.
Gilbert’s writing voice is engaging, warm and at times exciting. Gibert’s description brings the readers imagination fully to life. The reader can actually imagine being there alongside their new friend Alma.
The plot is intriguing, brilliantly plotted and has lots of very clever twists. The reader wont have read such cleverly plotted novel as The Signature of All Things in a number of years (I certainly hadn’t!). The expert unravelling of the plot and twists makes readers find it tough to put the book down.
Gilbert’s pacing is suitable for the plot and The Signature of All Things has 580 pages, so is slightly longer than the average novel.
Commonwealth is a story about two families whose lives all change following a kiss. Every element of family life is covered in this compelling novel, including:
Life and death.
Childhood.
Trauma and secrets.
Relationship beginnings, middles and ends.
Love and tenderness.
Anger and regret.
In Commonwealth, Patchett’s writing style is wonderfully neutral and her perspective is perfect. Each of the characters are completely believable and develop, grow and change over the lifetime that the story is set over.
The plot is detailed and well thought out. Commonwealth is captivating, clever and intimate. It was totally absorbing from the very first word to the very last. I read Commonwealth literally in a few days, metaphorically eating and digesting the book.
In Commonwealth the chapters are overly long. Whilst the reader will understand the reason why Patchett has structured the chapters in this way, shorter chapters would have been more preferable.
Personally I was disappointed with Commonwealth’s UK book cover (pictured above). As I felt it did more to make the potential reader put the book down, rather than pick it up. So please don’t judge this brilliant story by it’s cover.
Commonwealth is a must read for anyone who likes stories about life and family life. It is available to buy on Amazon and at all good bookshops.
This is the second part in a blog post series, where I’ll be sharing some of what I’ve learned about creative writing over the last few years. The first blog post in the series was Creative Writing: Beginning.
1. Remember Your Aim
You should be writing something that entertains and is enjoyable to you and others. That’s all your creative work needs to do. It doesn’t need to be a work of literacy genius.
2. Your Writers Voice
Your writers voice is part of the art of creative writing. It will be influenced by Perspective, which I have wrote about here. It may change dramatically in different works.
Some writers try to emulate the voice of writers that they admire. This can be an interesting exercise and way to explore how those writers show their distinctive voice. To get the most out of this exercise, rather than passively read, you need to analyse how they crafted their voice.
Author Elizabeth Gilbert whom has written of many books, developed her writers voice by writing each of her books to friend or family member. Her writers voice in Big Magic, a book about living creatively, is warm, caring, passionate, engaging and captivating throughout.
Your unique writers voice will generally develop over time, with regular writing practice. The key point here is: practice.
3. Keep Going
Don’t let fear hold you back from starting, continuing or finishing a piece of creative writing. Even if, as your writing, you think it’s the worst thing ever written, keep going.
As author Anne Rice says in this video, ‘Just kick out the pages:’
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So keep writing, everyday if possible. Don’t be hard on yourself if you can’t manage everyday. Just write when you can. Whatever time you are managing to write, it’s better than not writing at all. Remember that if you keep going, eventually you’re going to finish. You’ll be bringing a new story into the world, which is wonderful.
4. Dialogue
Some rules generally apply:
Less is more.
Most people don’t talk to themselves. So don’t have characters do it.
It should be a conversation, not a monologue or full of large longwinded statements.
Don’t have a character explain to another character what happened in the last scene you wrote. It feels repetitive and tedious to the reader. One character can summarise to another character if absolutely necessary. But if the other character needs to know the details, then maybe he/she should have been in the last scene as a witness to events.
Only on rare occasions should you cut the end of dialogue, like this: –. If you do it all the time, the dialogue isn’t moving the story along and the reader will get frustrated that no character ever finishes a sentence. Plus regularly cutting the end of sentences will lose its value and significance.
Dialogue tags such as he said and she replied are useful to identify who is talking and how they are saying what they are saying. But the overall tone of the conversation should be clear from the words in the dialogue.
To improve your dialogue listen to the conversations of strangers in every public place that you visit. The dialogue you write should sound like that. It should have hooks. During the editing process, which I will write about in the next blog post in the series, it is useful to read it aloud to yourself or someone else.
5. Tense
Generally past or present tense is used. Future tense is rarely used. Once you’ve decided which tense to use, be consistent and use it throughout your creative work. Here’s an article that explains tense simply: Creative Writing – Tense.
6. Description
General fiction set in the real world needs less description than creative works set in other worlds. If your creative work is set in the past, future or another world consider: societal structures, culture, religion/belief systems, etc. Only tell the reader what they need to know.
Avoid writing cliché opportunities to describe a character or settings. One such example of a cliché opportunity is the main character standing in front of a mirror observing and describing themselves to the reader. It’s been done so many times, that it has become a cliché.
A good tip, when it comes to description is to make references. So for example, rather than writing: Jean drove off in her red car. Write: Jean drove off in her red Nissan Micra. Be aware that over time these descriptive references might date your creative work. Some descriptive references are so embedded into society that they could never date your creative work.
In my short story A Few Amazing Moments I deliberately used descriptive references to set the time in recent history that the various scenes were set in.
Perspective alters how you describe things. You can read more about perspective here. Pacing alters the amount of description a scene has. You can read more about pacing here. But the rule is: in slower scenes more description is allowed. In action or fast-paced scenes there should be less description. To much description or to little can significantly impact on your overall pacing.
7. Back-up Your Creative Work – Regularly
We’ve all heard nightmare stories about writers whom have lots their entire work because of a computer crash or computer dying on them. They either didn’t hit the save button or didn’t back-up their computer or both. I’ve lost large chunks of scenes in the past because I didn’t hit the save button often enought. I’ve also lost entire creative projects because a computer decided to die on me. So here’s the advice:
Hit the save button at the end of every paragraph.
8. Done Is Better Than Good
This advice comes from Author Elizabeth Gilbert. In her book Big Magic, which have reviewed here, she writes about the danger of perfectionism.
If you aim for your creative work to be perfect you will drive yourself insane. No matter how much time, energy, effort and work you put into a creative work it will never be perfect. So rather than striving for perfection, aim for completing your creative work to the best of your current ability.
So many creative people, leave work in their desk draws, unfinished, because they don’t feel it’s good enough. Because they are aiming for perfection. Just take a second to imagine the number of superb stories that never see the light of day, let alone get read, because the writer is aiming for perfection.
9. First Draft
Congratulations on completion of the first draft of your creative work. But for a good writer, it’s not even half finished yet. The manuscript now needs to be edited, which may include some re-writing.
In my next blog post of the series, I’ll be writing about editing (including an editing checklist), feedback and publishing options.
Mother of three and wife of John-Paul, Cecilia discovers an old envelope in the attic. Written in her husband’s hand, it says: to be opened only in the event of my death.
Curious, she opens it – and time stops.
John-Paul’s letter confesses to a terrible mistake which, if revealed, would wreck their family as well as the lives of others.
Cecilia wants to do the right thing, but right for who? If she protects her family by staying silent, the truth will worm through her heart. But if she reveals her husband’s secret, she will hurt those she loves most…
In The Husband’s Secret, you follow Cecilia, Tess and Rachel over one life-changing week. It starts with a secret, a revelation and a long standing injustice.
The Husband’s Secret is an utterly captivating, addictive and compelling read from page 1.
Moriarty initially only used surnames to give the characters a sense of reality, but as the story continues she share’s the characters thoughts. This sharing of thoughts helped the reader empathise and connect with the characters. This was a shrewd move on Moriarty’s part, as the clever and intricate plot is character driven.
The pacing is full of suspense and the reader will find themselves thinking just one more chapter before I stop.
Are you a Doctor, Nurse, Healthcare Assistant or Other Healthcare Professional? Or a Student?
Ways The Human Body Can Go Wrong covers every system of the body, what can go wrong when the body malfunctions or fails, symptoms (including why these happen) and cures/treatments available.
It includes knowledge around essential skills for Clinical Excellence such as Assessment, All Age Observational Norms, Models of Care, Communication/Handover Tips, the role of Specialities, Medication Tips, Dealing with Errors, Documentation Advice and a list of Useful Resources.
It is written in plain English, but highlights important medical terminology. It has been written at a level where someone from a non-medical background can pick it up and learn, but that it is still valuable to those with significant Clinical Experience.
My dear friend Roy decided to follow in his family’s footsteps and enlist in the Royal Navy.
I wanted to maintain our friendship, to continue to support Roy, to make him laugh and to entertain him. So I came up with the idea of sending him a weekly email on random topics.
These emails were on a variety of topics, always being entertaining, sometimes being interesting, sometimes funny and occasionally being serious.
Topics included: Jokes, Puzzles, Inspirational Quotes, Future Technology to Be Excited About, How to Fight A Shark, How to Woo A Turtle, Some of the Most Amazing Jobs in the World, Facts About Castles, Do Aliens Exist?, The Kindest Humans, A List of Cakes, 13 Weird Body Facts, 20 Super Space Facts, Ancient Egyptian Curses, 10 Weird Olympic Games, The Great Emu War of 1932, Quiz: Flags of the World, Legendary Characters from the UK and others.
My Royal Navy Friend is a copy of these emails. In total, there are 52 emails. Dispersed throughout the book are also Royal Navy facts and stories.
This workbook has been designed for anyone that is struggling with alcohol or has struggled with alcohol in the past.
It is written in a Motivational Interviewing style, one of the key therapies used to support people with alcohol issues. It has been designed using a trauma-informed approach and is strength–based.
What you will find in this book is more than just worksheets about alcohol. You’ll find all the tools someone needs to get into recovery from alcohol and stay there. It’s a therapy-based book, not an alcohol-based book.
SpellCast is a comprehensive compendium of spells, oils, charms and talismans. It is purely a book about magic, folk magic for the 21st century. The spells are ones that are tried and tested, with some that will stand the test of time.
In SpellCast you will read about the power of Instant Magic, of Banishment & Bindings, Blessings, Cleansing, Communication, Death, Employment, Finance & Money, Fertility, Friendship, Happiness & Joy, Health, Love & Relationships, Luck Magic, Protection, Transformative Magic and WishCraft.
This book will change your life. Your life will be abundant in all meanings of the word.
This book contains everything that you need to know about mental health and mental illness. Mental Health Wisdom is divided into three sections.
Understanding is section one and is all about the facts of mental health.
In section two, Empathy Through Lived Experience, the author shares his personal experience of mental illness.
Life Hacks is section three. It’s all about self-care and quick and easy ways to improve your mental health, prevent mental illness or relapse of mental illness.
Mental Health Wisdom contains everything that you need to know about mental health and mental illness.
Mental Health Wisdom is divided into three sections.
Understanding is section one and is all about the facts of mental health.
In section two, Empathy Through Lived Experience, the author shares his personal experience of mental illness.
Life Hacks is section three. It’s all about self-care and quick and easy ways to improve your mental health, prevent mental illness or relapse of mental illness.
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