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Research and Writing

4 December 2022 by villia Leave a Comment

This last week, received the hardcover copy of my “remastered” debut novel, Under the Black Sand. Flicked through it. Read chapter one and the beginning of the second chapter.

Thought I’d share this with you. Two paragraphs, but the first one sets the location. One paragraph that explains what kind of a neighbourhood it is.

How can I explain the building period, style of houses, the gardens and how the streets are not straight? I’ve been there but merely describing what I saw would be boring. Instead, I read a thesis by a university student on the designing of this part of the city. An Icelandic man went to Copenhagen in the first years of the 20th century to study medicine, but his passion was city planning. He later abandoned his profession as a doctor to design this part of the city. Taking into account, where the sun was in the sky at different times of the year, what the prevailing wind directions were, he designed a neighbourhood that would be pleasant to live in.

I can’t remember how long the thesis was, but it was tens of pages and I read it from start to finish. Translated into one paragraph in the novel. Was it a waste of time? Should I have included more of what I learned? I don’t think so. Putting in too much technical detail will distract from the story, not having a thorough understanding of the subject you’re writing about, will make your story sound hollow.

Never underestimate research. It’s one of the most fun parts of writing, it expands your understanding of the world and makes your writing more believable.

Filed Under: Blog, Novel, Writing Tagged With: black sand, novel, research, Reykjavik, writing

How do I write?

6 October 2019 by villia Leave a Comment

Someone asked what my process of writing novels was. Here is what I said. This how you manage to keep track of 60-90.000 words without getting lost.

I first come up with an idea. Why do I want to write this story. Without an idea, you won’t come very far and you’ll get lost. A novel without an idea or message won’t work, in my opinion.

Then I come up with place and time. My first two novels were Iceland, present time and Barcelona 1937. My third, still in progress, will take place in Amsterdam in 1939. Place and time is important as it dictated what kind of characters you have and how you bring your idea across to the reader.

The comes the fun part. Research. I dive into the world I’m about to create. For Blood and Rain, I read books and watched documentaries on the Spanish Civil War, for Mont Noir, I did the same for Amsterdam in the months leading up to the Second World War.

Only then do I create characters to tell the story. 

When I have the place, time and major characters in place, I use Save the Cat or similar to roughly plot the story. This helps me avoid slow or boring mid-section and tie the end to the beginning. 

Then I write the first draft. I don’t worry too much about lame dialogue or plot holes. If I see them, I make note of them and fix them in draft 2. Between draft 1 and 2, I look at what isn’t working and come up with solutions and implement those in draft 2. 

It is not uncommon to see characters go their own way and that creates plot holes as they refuse to follow the outline. Therefore, draft 2 becomes a compromise between my initial plot and where the characters want to take it. 

Draft 3 is where I polish things and tie them up. Only then do I let others read my story and give feedback. If needed, I use that to create the final and fourth draft. 

This is ideal. I try to make it happen this way but this is writing and sometimes you have to alter your strategy.

As for chapters. I let the story define those and usually split things up into chapters after I’m well into draft 2.

The software I use has enormous influence on how I work. Stories are plotted and written in Scrivener. When they’re done, I export them into Apple Pages and create a layout for the printed books. Photoshop is used for the cover. Only nag is that most eBook vendors can’t work with Pages files or Word documents exported from Pages, so I have to borrow a Windows machine for a final export. Hopefully, I’ll find a solution to that soon.

Filed Under: Writing Tagged With: characters, ebooks, paperback, plotting, research, scrivener, writing

The Loss of Democracy

1 March 2017 by villia Leave a Comment

I have used this blog almost exclusively for talking about literature and my novels. That’s what this site is for. But I have to share this with you because some things must never be silenced. I put the text below in a comment somewhere, but I don’t want to lose it in the chatter that is Facebook. It’s dark and grim, but so be it. Here goes…

We are at a watershed in history. Dangerous times. There is so much misinformation (now with an official name, alternate facts), hate speech, doublespeak, polarisation. I’m not an expert in anything, but I did something as part of a research for a current project. I read the headlines on the cover of a newspaper from 1929 to 1940. Every single day, one after another. I experienced history like they did at the time.

Alþýðublaðið 1 September 1939
Alþýðublaðið 1 September 1939

It was chilling. We all know what happened. Hindsight made it a sinister read. Going from a relatively safe (if turbulent) world towards world war. But you know what? They knew what was going on as early as 1935. Maybe earlier. War was all but certain as early as 1936 and any doubt was gone by 1937. It was the lack of action that allowed it to happen. The few voices that shouted were drowned. No one nation or man was to blame. Everyone that stood by and did nothing contributed to what would happen.

What we need now are strong voices of people that can see the dark version of the future and will do anything in their power to steer us in the other direction. It’s easier to go with the flow, even take part in the march towards the edge, but we really don’t want to go there.

I’m not predicting a war. I hope we’re not that dumb. I’m predicting the stripping of civil rights and some kind of dictatorship. Because the moment we stop believing in democracy, we lose it.

Filed Under: Politics, Thoughts Tagged With: blog, fascism, history, politics, research, social media, thoughts

Blood and Rain is (almost) here

1 February 2017 by villia Leave a Comment

It’s taken a while. It always takes a while. Writing a novel is an exercise in carefully selecting the right words. 50-100.000 of them. I could probably do it faster if I didn’t have a family and a job, but no matter. This is a milestone. It is a huge deal to write a novel. They say everyone has a story in them and if you’re lucky enough to be able to write the words, you may possibly end up with a coherent story to tell.

Doing it again is another matter altogether. Your story has been told. Now, come up with another one.

Blood and Rain - paperback
Blood and Rain – paperback

Blood and Rain was born out of two things. I wanted to see if I could do it again and I was curious about the Spanish Civil War. Like most, I knew very little about it. I knew it had happened, but little more. So I started digging. I imagined the people stuck there, in that time and place. We are all prisoners of the times we live in, but what was it like to be there at that time?

The horrors revealed themselves. The massacres, atrocities, people’s endless thirst for a good life and just society. I saw how women were embraced, how they gained equal rights, how the oppression of the church was broken back, but also how the churches were burned and priests murdered, how internal squabbles destroyed the dream of an anarchist utopia. I learned to appreciate Federico García Lorca and other characters caught up in the war. I learned about Guernica and how Spain was used as a testing ground for weapons to be used during the Second World War.

I had to create a character and put him in there.

Research is a wonderful thing. I learned about Biblia del Oso, the Bible of the Bear. The first Bible printed in Spanish, by a man that had escaped the Spanish Inquisition.

Heck, this project has inspired me to start learning the language.

Blood and Rain was a labour of love. I fell in love with Spain, Barcelona and the people of Catalonia. I hope the novel will be read and I dream of it being translated into Spanish some day.

Blood and Rain will be published on 3 March 2017.

Filed Under: Novel, Writing Tagged With: blood and rain, church, history, novel, publishing, research, war, writing

Published – happy headaches

31 May 2013 by villia Leave a Comment

Finally! After seven years in the making. Under the Black Sand has been published. It is now available on Amazon for their Kindle devices. Publishing was easy and complicated at the same time.

Under the Black Sand kindleAmazon encourages the author to price eBooks at $2.99 or higher, so I initially set that price. To my astonishment, it was listed for $6.04, twice as much as I bargained for. Let the investigations begin!

No pricing information was available on the UK site. Turns out that I can’t buy eBooks from the UK because I’m not in the UK. The US site adds all kinds of costs for non-US customers. I can buy it from Amazon Germany and France for the price I set. Somewhere around two and a half euros. Panicking, I set the price at 99 cent. I see it on Amazon DE and FR for 89 eurocent, but $3.62 in the USA.

Seems that one must buy from a store close by, something I find strange as this is an electronically distributed eBook. But hey, if those are the rules, I’ll have to live with it and create some kind of a links page here on my own blog.

Another annoyance I encountered was when I tried to have a physical book made. I wanted to use CreateSpace because that would put the book on sale on Amazon. Turns out, I need a US tax number. I am not a US citizen and don’t intend to become one. Seems like I’ll have to look into this as well. Registering with the IRS is a huge step for someone that expects to sell no more than a handful of books.

So, the book is out. It is available and that is great. But the road to global availability is not as straightforward as I’d hoped.

Come back soon, as I will post my findings as I dive deeper into this self-publishing world.

Filed Under: Novel, Writing Tagged With: black sand, how to, novel, publishing, research, writing

Discoveries

25 October 2012 by villia Leave a Comment

As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, I am humbly following the advice of a couple of readers and relocating the Under the Black Sand novel back to where it started. To Iceland. Now that the protagonist is no longer living in an unspecified city in the United Kingdom, but a very specific part of Reykjavík, I felt I needed to research the history of his part of town.

As always, the Internet is your best friend. I stumbled upon a university essay from 2008. Read if from start to finish. Learned about a book by Guðmundur Hannesson, published in 1916, and how his visions influenced the city planning of the 1920s and 30s.

1930s House in ReykjavíkHe understood that sunlight is precious in the far north. The arctic winds needed to be tackled and that aesthetics were just as important for people’s health as closed sewers. It wasn’t just about bacteria. A pleasant city would make the inhabitants happy, and therefore healthier.

His guidelines were simple. To maximise sunlight, the distance between houses should be twice the height of the surrounding buildings. Streets should be relatively short and angular to tackle the wind. Never be straight east-west or north-south, as that would create wind-tunnels in winter.

The planning went as far as deciding that living rooms and other areas used during the day should face south, while kitchens, bathrooms and bedrooms should be at the north end of the house. Houses built at the south side of the street would be right off the pavement with a sunny garden at the back. Those at the north side would have a deep garden in front of them.

It is the kind of attention to detail we hardly ever see in newer neighbourhoods.
I remember loving walking the streets built just before the war. I never knew what it was, why I loved this part of town so much. As it turns out, it is no coincidence.

Writing novels is great fun. You get to explore human emotions and their reactions to all kinds of situations. But research can also lead you to things you never expected. I’m totally loving my hobby.

Posted in novel, thoughts, writing | Tagged inspiration, novel, research, thoughts, writing

Filed Under: Novel, Thoughts, Writing Tagged With: black sand, inspiration, novel, research, thoughts, writing

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