The Sterkarm Relativity

The Sterkarm books by Susan Price

          I’ve finished summarising every scene in Sterkarm 3, in different coloured inks, with emoticons, and many notes to self.

          It has been very useful: and has made clear that the time-scale, in places, is impossible.

          I have different parties heading off in different directions to roam the soggy, midge-ridden hills while having varied adventures, before finally meeting up again… but the timing just doesn’t work.  Everything that happens to Party B just couldn’t be crammed into the time that elapses before they join Party A again.

          I have to admit that I haven’t worked out in enough detail where the places in the story are in relation to each other, how far apart, and what the terrain between them is like.  And, most importantly, how long it would take my characters to get from one place to another, do what I want them to do, and get back again.

          I have to do this for six different groups of characters, who’re all in different places, doing different things.  Trying to kill each other, mostly.

           The ‘terrain’ option on Google Maps has allowed me to hover over Sterkarm country, looking down on all the burns and waters, the fells and laws.  I could decide where to site the towers and the Time Tube.  So many streams!  It brought back memories of tramping those hills, meeting deer in the twilight.  I could hear the burns splashing down the hillsides and smell the heather; could hear skylarks and whaups as I hunched over my laptop.

          Some of my characters are riding the tough, strong, sure-footed little reiver horses – but how fast could they travel?  I’ve read that rievers could cover 40 miles in a night, but surely that was only in desperation?  Or would they, as Davy suggested, take spare horses with them?  Would 20 miles be more usual?

          The riders were ‘light cavalry’, but would have worn helmets and heavy leather ‘jakkes’ stitched with pieces of metal, and carried lances and swords.  Other equipment too: blankets, food, bows, arrows, axes.  And the country was difficult – steep slopes, boulders, scree, thickets and many streams and rivers.  Come on, Karen (aka madwippit) and Kath Roberts, those expert riders– and any other expert riders out there - what’s your opinion?  (And Kath - wow! I like your website's new look!)

         Another party’s on foot.  If they were all fit, strong men, I could use the yomping experience of my ex-army acquaintance, but some of my characters are ill, or unfit - and they’re not all suitably dressed for scrambling over border hills either.  (One is dressed like a 16th century lady, in clothes that would hamper you walking across a room. I should add, this character is a 16th century lady. I've no doubt the rievers had their cross-dressers, but that's for another book.) My guess is that, under the circumstances, they’d be lucky to cover much more than six or seven miles in a day, if that. Walking that country is hard work.

          So, can I cut some of the events?  I’ve read through them with a hard eye, while asking those damning questions: Is this scene introducing or developing a character?  Is it introducing or developing something important to the plot?  Is it necessary?  Even so, it’s hard to see what I can lose.  Maybe I just need a good editor.

          Can I reduce events by combining  them?  Kill two Sterkarms with one arrow, so to speak.  I’ve already divided the parties differently, so one character doesn’t have to go to and fro so much.

          Time, distance, speed - I’m beginning to see what Einstein was on about.

          Davy, unable to put his cup down because of my sketch maps scribbled in coloured inks, my laptop open on a satellite scene of empty moors, my index cards and beat-sheets, said, “I dunno why you’re doing all this, getting yourself all of a fash.  You can bet other writers don’t bother.”

          Tell him, people, tell him.

          And to get you in the Border reiver mood, here's the wonderful June Tabor, from her album An Echo of Hooves -           

And here's Blott:

I Want To Write!

          On Saturday, the floor of my bedroom collapsed and tipped me and the bed sidelong – I saw the mattress rising up above me, pointing at the ceiling, as I slid down into the hole.

          I’d been lying peacefully in bed, awake, but eyes closed, planning my day.  I opened my eyes to begin it – and the world turned upside down.

          I clutched wildly at the mattress as the bed reversed and tipped up the other way.  Then it whirled in circles like a carousel before wallowing sickeningly, like a small boat in a rough sea, leaving me sicker than I’ve ever felt when on a boat.

          By this time I’d realised that the bed wasn’t actually moving.  I was enjoying my first experience of vertigo.

          The fun continued when I sat up.  The whole room folded into origami and flipped and flopped about until I didn’t know which way was Norwich, and fell over on the bed like a rag doll.

          My renegade left ear had upped its game again.

          My right ear you’d like.  It’s a modest, respectable ear that does all that’s required of it without feeling the need to draw attention to itself.  In the whole of my life I doubt I’ve spent as much as an hour thinking of my right ear, or even being aware of it.  Qualities I appreciate in an ear.

          I feel now that I haven’t appreciated it enough – have even mistreated it by having holes punched through it and inserting metalware.

          But not for my left ear a life of blameless obscurity.  It wasn’t going to settle for being ignored while hands and feet, and mouth and hair – useless hair! – got all the attention.  So, about twenty years ago, it turned on me.

          At first, it was merely irritating.  It would feel as if someone was pressing their thumb against the outside of the ear.  For hours.  Annoying, but easily ignored.

          So the ear upped the ante.  Imagine a tiny balloon being blown up inside your ear-canal, so it pressed lightly on all sides.  Not painful, but a bit more than annoying.  It would make me shake my head and rub at my ear, as if whatever it was could be dislodged.

          Imagine that balloon being steadily inflated, so the pressure grow and grows.  At some point it passes beyond annoying and becomes painful. And then more painful, and more. The ear wins.  It has my complete attention.  It’s impossible to think about anything else.

          Still it plays games.  Years go by without the slightest trouble.  More years pass without it ever going beyond the ‘annoying.’  Still, the slightest grumble from it has me instantly on edge because it can accelerate faster than a Ferrari, from tiny grumble to howling at the moon in minutes.  It can then continue for a fortnight, or stop after five minutes.  I never know which.  And now I’m always going to be waiting for the world to start spinning as well.

         So there’s been no work done on the Sterkarms this week.  Not much done at all.  It’s very frustrating, because I don’t feel too bad until I try to do something – when I rapidly become sick and dizzy and have to give up.  ‘So you’re forced to lie on the sofa and watch old films,’ said my brother unsympathetically.  And I have.

          But I want to write!

So What Do You Do In Schools Anyway?

In full story-telling flow: 'Fee-Fi-Fo-Fum!'

          A friend asked me this the other day.  It’s not the first time I’ve been asked it.  My friends seem deeply puzzled by the amount of time I spend in schools.

          I can understand, I suppose.  After all, unlike many other writers, I’ve never been a teacher.  I have no qualifications.  I know lots of little bits of odd things, but I can’t claim to be an expert in any one subject.

          My partner, Davy, who phoned while I was writing this blog, insists that I put in here that my education came from ‘voracious reading’ (his words.)  He insists that I add this, with his usual relentless Scottish persistence, in case people think that I’m "thick and only managed to write a book by a fluke. You shouldn’t keep telling people you’re unqualified, you should stop that now."

          Sixty-odd books, Davy?  Some fluke.  But now, when he reads this (and he will read it, just to check, I ken the cheukster) here is his correction, [almost] as dictated over the phone.

          Despite being thick and flukish, I’m always telling friends that I’m off to some school in Yorkshire, or South Wales, or Scotland.  I’ve even been into schools in Germany, where one boy asked me breathlessly (in beautiful English) whether I’d met the Queen.  He and his classmates gasped with shock when I replied, “No: and I don’t want to. I think Britain should be a Republic.”  Seeing astonished expressions on all sides, I added, “Not everybody in Britain adores the monarchy.”

Soon to be available for download

          The head thanked me later, saying that was exactly why he wanted British visitors – to counter the impression of Britain that his pupils received from television and magazines. (The ever protective and vigilant Davy doesn’t like this part either.  He thinks I’ll lose my monarchist readership: as if I ever had one.  Honestly, love the man, but if I listened to him, I’d never open my mouth or write a word. And when Davy reads this, he will cry – his constant refrain – ‘Suzzie, you never do as you’re told, Suzzie!’)

         Countering impressions received… That’s pretty much the answer to my friends’ question.  As a writer in school, I – and other writers, such as my SAS friends – are giant teaching aids. There are thousands of children who’ve never given much thought to where books come from, or who think they’re only written by – well, by people like the Queen, perhaps: distant, rich people with private educations and plummy accents. And then I turn up – an ordinary woman, with a Black Country accent, and read from the books I’ve written.

Tales of the Underworld on Amazon

          It makes writing a book suddenly seem like something ordinary people can do - something that living people you can talk to can do.  I tell them about the slum I was born in, and the council estate I was raised on, the comprehensive I attended.

          I tell stories, which I love – and because I read an exciting story aloud from one of my own books – well, suddenly, books are exciting and worth investigating.

          And that’s what writers are doing in schools near you.

          Here, you'll find SAS members, including me, reading from their books.  And I daresay one or two might two might pop up in the comments.

          Blott's come down from the roof....

 

A Sterkarm Valentine

TUESDAY FEBRARY 14^TH.  I was working at the University yesterday, and was shattered when I got home – was in bed before 10pm.

          Today, having opened Valentine’s card, got on with cleaning the house for an hour – then blog-trotted, signed RLF contracts and got them packed up, answered cries for blogging help from an Author Electric – that sort of stuff.

          Have nevertheless been having some thoughts about the book in the initial planning stage.  Am thinking about going back to an earlier idea and changing the sex of a couple of characters.  This counts as progress in book-planning, because there is no forward and backward or up or down – any directions goes so long as it works for the story: under, over, through, sideways.  It doesn’t matter.
          (Having called this post 'A Sterkarm Valentine' in an idle moment, I'm now wondering quite what a Sterkarm Valentine might be... A heart on a dagger, as at the end of ''Tis Pity She's A Whore'?  Or maybe the capful of fresh mushrooms left for Andrea to find, as in a deleted scene from one of the earlier books?)

WEDNESDAY 15^th.  A disrupted day.  I planned to spend some time scanning pages for my next e-books, and then to get on with the Sterkarm rewrite. However, I was just about to start scanning when I was interrupted by a phone-call – my partner asking me for advice on how to use his computer.  I had scarcely returned to my own computer when the phone rang again – not my partner this time, but a friend of my aunt’s, worried that she couldn’t get through to her by phone. So I had to rush out of the house to check that my aunt was okay – which she was, thankfully, but since I was out of the house, I thought I might as well do the shopping I’d intended to do later.

The e-book I'm also working on.

So by the time I got home and finished the scanning, it was well into the afternoon.  I did jot some notes on the ‘next big thing’ book – but just as I was about to start on the Sterkarms, I got another call from my partner, asking for my help in rewriting a letter for a campaign he’s involved with. So I went over, and now it’s 11pm. So to bed.

FRIDAY 17^TH.  Did spend yesterday making notes on the Sterkarm rewrite. Am finding lots of places where I need to make a note reminding me to include something that will be needed later in the plot.  You know the sort of thing – if an axe is needed for some vital plot point in chapter 15, make sure the axe is mentioned when they’re loading the pack-ponies in chapter 10.  And make sure it’s clear that an axe was a bit of kit usually carried – otherwise, when the axe is suddenly produced, in Chapter 15, when it’s needed, it’ll seem that you’re pulling rabbits out of hats.

          Am also doing deep thinking about the story spread out on the kitchen table.  Have not only changed the sex of two characters – which has interesting effects on the rest of the story – but have reduced a pair of characters to one.  I always tend to people my plots with too many characters initially.  It seems like a good idea to start with, but then I have to find something for them all to do, and can’t.  So I start whittling them down.

          Late on Friday evening, I did some more work on the Sterkarm rewrite.  Am beginning to have baleful thoughts about a main character.

          Tomorrow, unless it’s blowing a tempest, I intend to leave work and go for a walk on the Clent hills.
          No Blott this week, I'm afraid - he's out on the tiles.

Taming the Sterkarms

My small household gods watch over the plot

          Monday 6^th Feb
 I continue to work on two books at once, trying to plot one, and rewrite the other.

          My kitchen table is still covered with index cards, scribbled in blue ink.  Almost every time I go into the kitchen, I stop and read over the cards.  Sometimes I change the postion of one, or scribble another.

'Odin's Voice' by Susan Price

          I’ve decided that I don’t like the ending I had roughly plotted out.  It’s too close to the original idea I had, too predictable, too ‘left-side-of-the-brain editorial’.  It’s also too close to the ending of my ‘Odin’s Voice’ trilogy.  That left-brain editor obviously thought: well it worked once!  It’ll do again.  No! Not good enough.  So I’ve moved that final row of cards aside, to make space for something new.  Don’t know what yet, though I’ve jotted some notes.

          I’ve got that feeling I’ve had before – I daresay many will recognise it – that feeling that there’s something, some new idea, struggling just behind my forehead.  Haven’t got any clear idea of what it is, just that it’s there, and if I pretend I haven’t noticed, it will eventually come right to the front of my head, and I can catch it.

          I’ve also been reading Sterkarm 3 on the kindle and making rough notes in different colours.  At the suggestion of some commentators on this blog, I’ve added a dog and been very pleased with the result – except that I’ll have to rewrite the end of Sterkarm Kiss – but hey, I’ve got the rights back now, I can do what I like with it.

          I’ve also found a sub-plot that I might or might not keep or develop.  Shall have to see how the rest goes on.

          Tuesday 7^th Feb.  I’m deep into the rougher reaches of the Sterkarm first draft now, scribbling away with my coloured pens – often several colours in one sentence as the different characters meet.  It’s useful to have Per May in green and Per Changeling in red – wish I could do that in the finished novel.  It would be less head-nipping.

          I’ve found a romantic sub-plot which stops short, and which I’m going to have to fix, but I don’t know how.  I’m only mapping as yet.

          I have 22 sheets of scribbled paper, and don’t know how I’m going to see the whole thing at once.  Maybe I’ll sellotape them all together into a long strip.  I suspect that I included too much detail and it’s got a bit out of hand – literally.  Maybe I’ll make a big paper curtain and hang it on my wall – and stand on my kitchen steps to study it.

          Wednesday 8^th  I was doing my University stint and too busy to get any writing done.  And Thursday 9^th vanished in domestic and admin chores.  Friday 10^th is another University day, despite the fact that I didn’t go in because of the ice and snow.  I got students to send me their stuff by email.  So, no writing of my own.

           But next week I’m only at University for one day, Monday – so obviously, I’ll have both books sorted by the end of the week!

          And meanwhile, work on e-books continues.  This is the cover for my eighth, Christopher Uptake.  It isn't available yet - I'm still adding notes and hyperlinks - but I hope it will be soon



And here, as ever, is Blott -