My guest today is Jane Riddell
Jane is an Edinburgh-based writer, editor and
photographer. Her work includes short stories, life writing and contemporary
novels, which she qualifies as "quiet fiction". In addition to
writing and blogging, Jane runs an editing agency, Choice Words Editing.
Her
recently published debut novel is Daughters of the Lake, a contemporary drama about a family reunion which doesn’t go as
planned.
Madalena invites her four adult
children to Switzerland to help her celebrate her hotel’s 40th anniversary,
not knowing that there are secrets and tensions amongst them. What is meant to be a happy occasion turns
out to be a stormy one.
1- Jane, could you define quiet fiction?
I’d
never heard of ‘quiet fiction’ until a
tutor suggested my writing fitted this description. If you ‘google’ the term, you don’t really
find anything. Realistic fiction, on the
other hand, is more widely-used and is defined as a story about real people
experiencing situations that could really happen. I have concluded that the two terms have
similar meanings.
2 - Why did you choose overseas
locations for your novels?
I
love to travel, and choosing other countries as a setting allows me to spend an
afternoon in the mountains and lakes of Switzerland, or the beach and hillside
villages of southern France, when those around me are enduring yet another wet,
blustery Edinburgh afternoon. The
location for Daughters of the Lake, I think, was
inspired by Anita Brookner’s Hotel du
Lac. After finishing another novel,
I decided that lakes and mountains would be my next setting. Shortly after I spent several days in Brunnen,
on Lake Luzern in Switzerland, and -
more slowly than I would have expected -
realised this was the idea setting for Daughters of the Lake. I began writing the novel immediately.
3 - When and why did you start
writing seriously?
I had been writing as a
hobby for many years, but was never caught up enough in it to work on something
for more than a couple of hours at a time. During most of these years I had
a paid job. When we decided to move to France, things
changed. I was unlikely to be able to work there because of my limited
French, and reckoned that I would probably spend more time writing.
Several months before we left Edinburgh, during a Saturday afternoon at the
gym, I found myself on the treadmill, listening to Martha Reeves and the
Vandellas singing Dancing in the Street, and thinking: I’ll have a
go at becoming a serious writer. Perhaps I
was inspired by the music that afternoon, perhaps the desire to make writing
more important simply crept up on me.
Maybe I felt that the newness of another country would make my writing
more pivotal to my existence.
When we arrived in
France, I discovered I could write for longer chunks of time, and became quite
productive in terms of finishing pieces of work, rewriting short stories and
starting work on a new novel.
4
- What do
you think are the basic ingredients of a story?
A believable
plot, realistic characters, a well-described setting and good dialogue. For me, too, how the story is told greatly
affects my pleasure in it: not too much explanation, the right balance of action,
reflection and dialogue, leaving the reader space to draw their own
conclusions.
5
- What are your writing strengths and
weaknesses?
Feedback
suggests I have the ability to describe a setting in a way that pulls readers
in. I have never thought I could do
that, not compared to other authors, for example, Anita Shreve, whose
descriptions of severe winters on the east coast of the US are wonderful. I think dialogue is one of my strengths. I’ve read copious technical books about
writing and always been particularly interested in sections about
dialogue. When I did my Masters in
Creative Writing, I learned about the use of subtext as a way of adding
richness and tension to conversations.
Although I haven’t quite got to grips with this technique yet, I do try
to deploy it in my writing.
As
for weaknesses - I don’t have particularly good imagination, and I find endings
difficult. It’s so tempting to tie
everything up neatly but that’s just too convenient and not realistic. I also have to work hard at not rushing
through a scene, giving the reader time to absorb it, and not to include too
much banal domestic detail. I’m sure
there other areas worthy of improvement, but these are the ones that
immediately spring to mind.
6
- What elements do you consider essential
for a character to be believable?
Not
too perfect, not too villainous. I think
there has to be consistency of behaviour, or at least a consistent
inconsistency, if this makes sense.
It’s important, too, to convey or at least hint at depth of personality.
7 - Do you have a routine for your
writing?
Definitely
not. Since living in France I’ve adapted
to a mid-Atlantic time zone with afternoon mornings, and evening
afternoons. Not a good idea, on balance,
but with no pressure to do so, it’s hard to change. I tend to do some writing or promoting my
work every day, but there’s little rhyme or reason to what and when this might
be. Fortunately, I have no desire to be
the kind of writer who knocks out a book every year and as I rarely have
deadlines imposed on me – sometimes with editing work I am given a date - I
don’t completely buy the ‘routine’ bit.
That said, I met a delightful person this week, who works full time and
has already completed seven books this year, and if I’m being honest, I realise
that if I did have a routine, I would probably be more productive.
8
- How long does it take you to complete a
novel?
It
varies. Daughters of the Lake took just under four years, but it underwent various
drafts. I first submitted it to agents less
than a year after starting it, believing it was ready and, understandably, got
nowhere. Then when we returned from
France to the UK and I started studying for my Masters, at the lecturer’s
advice, I reluctantly put it aside until I’d finished the course. When I picked it up again, I realised it
required substantial revising, and this took two and half years. My current novel, Chergui’s Child, has been on the go, off and on, for 12 years!
9 - If you could go to any part of
the world to write a novel, where would you choose to go?
Nepal,
perhaps, or Kashmir. I spent a week in
Nepal and it was magical. As for the
purply grey light of Srinagar - I will never forget that. I think either of these places would be
inspirational, or perhaps a tea plantation in Darjeeling.
10
- What type of reading inspires you to write?
Probably the
same sort of thing that I write – quiet fiction. Authors such as Anita Shreve, Anita
Brookner, and Ian McEwan have influenced me – for their beautiful use of
language, the depths of their characterisation, and their ability to describe
locations. I am not so interested in
genre writing, although as I currently watch a lot of police procedurals on
telly, it’s occurred to me I might enjoy reading them, and perhaps one day,
trying to write one….
11 - What are
you working on now?
I’m
rewriting Chergui’s Child. Like Daughters of the Lake, CC did the round of agents while we were living in France, and didn’t
get very far. As I still strongly
believed in its storyline, I returned to it just over a year ago. The structure of the telling has changed
significantly, and I’ve been editing it for a while now.
12 - What do you do when the going gets tough?
I’ve experienced two episodes of writer’s block so far. The first was after I finished my
Masters. It was a difficult year
academically and there was some unpleasantness. I emerged from it bloody - if unbowed - and a bit stuck. This period coincided with an elderly
relative having a massive stroke. I
think the combination of the Masters’ experience and the distress of my aunt’s
condition resulted in a stuckness. I
would look at Daughters of the Lake and
think: so what? Who cares?
What I did was spend the next five or six months blogging hard to keep
my writing muscle exercised, and made notes about how to write from various
‘how to’ books. At this time I’d begun working
with a mentor, who was gently encouraging and gave me constructive feedback
about my writing. Gradually the energy
returned, and the rest, as the saying goes, is history.
I’m stuck
again, this time with Chergui’s Child. This might partly be due to having received
some positive reviews of Daughters of the Lake and an anxiety about CC not living up to possible readers’ expectations. Or it might be because there’s a fundamental
problem I have to sort out with CC. At
the moment, therefore, I’m spending more time promoting WE - directly and indirectly - than writing
CC.
13 - Your photos are very evocative. Do you
use them to inspire your writing?
I think I do,
but indirectly. I take loads of photos
when abroad and the fact that I’m so keen to display them on my author’s
website, suggests that there’s a connection – certainly with my identity. I don’t kid myself that I’m anything like a
professional in my technique, but my tendency to view scenery through the eyes
of a lens, is strong. I think my photos
are often in my head, i.e. I can think about them when I’m not actually viewing
them. And so they inspire me. Certainly when living in France and
surrounded by the most beautiful mountains and national parks, I wrote
prolifically.
14 - How does your editing work affect your
writing?
I find that
mixing my own creative writing with other people’s writing, whether it’s
fiction or non-fiction, works well. The
commonalities of both are the need for precision, logical flow and eliminating
unnecessary words. When I’m struggling
to connect with my own creativity, it’s a pleasure, and a relief, to be working
on someone else’ s writing and not to have to be imaginative. But when I’ve been doing this for a while, it
feels positive to return to my writing.
The more I
edit, the more I see the need for further editing of my own work. If I were to look back at Daughters of the Lake now, about 18 months after
finishing it, I’m sure I’d find scope for further revision.
Jane Riddell's website
http://www.quietfiction.com/
and her Blog
Papillon:Inconsequential thoughts
http://www.blogger.com-janelilly.blogspot.co.uk/
