Can you help me find a story?

This post has “spoilers” for a children’s story.  So if you are bothered about that kind of thing, don’t read ahead!

One of my favourite stories from when I was little went something like this:

There was a ghost who had a real sweet tooth.  The ghost ate a lot of sweets and for reasons which I entirely forget, ended up being chased by a policeman. 

To escape, the ghost climbed a ladder to the sky.  It turned out that the sky was made of lovely blue glass, and because the ghost was light he could run across it.  The policeman was too heavy and so fell through the glass. (I think the fall caused the policeman to swallow his whistle, but I’m not sure on that part.)

The ghost found that the stars were made of sugar and so ran about eating the stars.  As he runs about he leaves muddy footprints on the blue glass that is the sky, and the clouds have to follow him about cleaning them up.  That’s why the clouds are white, but then go grey as they get muddy and have to wring themselves out (causing rain) to clean themselves.

I think it was in a book of bedtime stories, but I no longer have the book, or if I do, I’ve misplaced it.  I wondered if anyone recognises the story and can tell me where it’s from and who wrote it?  I seem to be the only person who remembers this one, but I thought it would be fun to see if I could rediscover it with the help of all you fine people on the world wide web!

Goodnight!

The Book vs The Movie

If you haven’t read/seen The Lord of the Rings, go read/watch it now.  Honestly, how have you not at least seen the movies, even if you haven’t read the books?  Go on.  I’ll wait.

Here is a song,

About reading a book,

I’ve given you a warning,

Not to look,

If you haven’t read it,

And italics you skip,

Just be aware,

Plot spoilers may be slipped.

Ok.

Many years ago, I read The Lord of the Rings trilogy.  Then they made some movies based on the books.  I saw the movies.  I liked them.  Since then, I’ve watched them a few times.

This year when I was looking for my next book to read, I came across The Fellowship of the Ring again, and thought “I wonder if I remember it, or only remember the movie version of the story?”

(I already remembered some things, such as the unnecessary change to Faramir’s character which annoyed me and anyone else that I spoke to that had read the books, but exactly how different are the movies?)

I’m half way through The Two Towers now, and I’ve been surprised at some of the things that I didn’t realise or remember had been changed.

One example is Gandalf.  When travelling south in the movie, Gimli insists that they should go through Moria to avoid the gap of Rohan.  Gandalf doesn’t want to, instead attempting to take them over the mountain Caradhras, but they have to turn back because of a storm that Saruman is shown to be whipping up.

In the book, Gandalf is the one that wants to go through Moria; it is Aragorn that doesn’t and insists that they try the mountain road.  They are defeated by the malice of the storm of the mountain itself, Saruman doesn’t conjure it.  When they return down the path Gandalf is glad to go into Moria.

There are a few changes like that dotted around, but it doesn’t annoy me.  For the most part, any changes that the films made I understand why they made.  In a film you have to get the character across quickly, and move the action forward due to being on limited time. 

Another example is if they had included Rohan’s ride towards Isengard.  In the book King Théoden intends to meet Sarurman in open battle, but after the second day of riding Gandalf tells the King to go to Helm’s Deep instead because they are outnumbered.

If that had been done on screen everyone would have been “huh?  Why bother riding that way at all?  It didn’t move the plot forward, and we could have spent screentime on X instead.”

Whereas in the book the time (and word count) is there to explain the reasoning and the thoughts that go along with the actions; it makes sense.

In the end I noticed that it doesn’t matter if a character does something differently, as long as it is consistent within their character.  In the book Gandalf gives his advice based on what he knows to be safer paths; he knows Caradhras is treacherous and his wisdom tells them that to sneak through Moria is a better way.  He gathers information on the way to Isengard and makes the call that to rendezvous at Helm’s Deep is the better option.  In the films the same is true; he knows of the danger of Moria, and so chooses the (safer?) path of Caradhras.  He knows that the horse lords would get trapped in Helm’s Deep, and so advises them to ride out.

Different actions, but the same character; the wise advisor.

That’s why Faramir’s decisions in the movie were disliked, whereas Gandalf’s changes went unnoticed.  Faramir wouldn’t have made those choices based on what we knew the character to be like.

It’s interesting to see that in some circumstances we can believe a character will make an opposite choice and accept it.  So when writing a story if you get stuck and think “what should they do next?” try out the opposite choice.  It might not work (like if you have a nun character who is debating whether to use the medicine or the power of prayer to heal someone, and then try out having them stab the person.  That’s just daft.) but you might find a route that you didn’t think of which works just as well.

Merry Christmas!

The last blog post of the year.  It’s both scary and exciting looking forward to what 2013 will bring.

I don’t think I could have imagined being able to hold my first book in paperback form when I started this path.  I partly still can’t.  Every time I pick it up I go “Wow, it looks like a real book!”

Of course the Kindle is what started it all, and if you are one of those lucky people getting one for Christmas, please do check out the first story of The Eye of the Beholder for free!

I want to say thanks to everyone who has supported me on this crazy career path so far.  I hope you enjoy the fantasy novel as much as you’ve enjoyed the sci fi stories!  The word count currently stands at 31539, plus a lot more world history and drawings of maps in other documents.  It’s really beginning to flesh out!  As a teaser for things to come, here is a preview of part of the world!

Finally I wish you all a Merry Christmas, and (whether you celebrate Christmas or not), I wish you happiness and hope for a peaceful and prosperous new year!

All images copywright Sarah Cosgrove 2012

It’s National Novel Writing month.

There’s an official site for it and everything.  The idea is that between the dates of the 1^st and 30^th of November, you write a 50,000 word (or more) novel.

I considered signing up, but one of the rules is that you can’t have started your Novel before November.  I did start typing before then, so I’d either have to start again (which seems a little silly) or write another novel at the same time as this one.  That would be possible; but I also have a little Christmas project on the go, (coming to you in December!) and I don’t want to start getting spread too thinly.

So I’m setting myself my own challenge; to finish the first draft of my novel by the end of November.

Will I make it?  Only time will tell.  But I’m going to try to be honest about my progress, so here’s my first update:  currently I’m sitting at 15,518 words.  Not that far in; but I do have a note book full of story notes, characters, places and plots, which took a good while to put together.

So it’s a race, and winter is coming…

Nom nom bread.

It’s been two weeks since the book launch, and it’s had its first reviews! :) Quite a few people are in the process of reading it too, and I’m looking forward to hearing their verdicts. In the meantime, I’m ready to start my next project. This one is going to be a fantasy novel. I do have more sci-fi stories to tell, but for now it’s time to put away the lasers and crack out the swords.

The hardest thing about starting a story is getting those first few pages down. It’s daunting to look at the blank page and think of tackling the entire word count all in one go. I like to have some structure before I start typing, and the best way I have found to do this is with good old pen and paper. It’s a tip that I picked up from an interview with Tim Schafer – just write everything down. I have a pad and I put all of my ideas into it. I highlight what I like, cross out what I don’t, and sometimes a coherent story appears. It can be difficult to do this. I guess most people would have the same feeling of not wanting to “ruin the page” by putting down something that you don’t think will make it into the final draft. But it helps to clear it out of your head anyway.

I’m feeling the onset of autumn this week. Really the weather has been autumnal all summer here, but today it was really dark when I woke up, giving that feeling of the sun not having yet risen. This has caused me to go on a baking spree. I had my first attempt at making wholemeal bread, which didn’t turn out too badly, considering I misunderstood one of the instructions. (It is pretty dense.) I’ll try again soon.

It’s actually one of my favourite parts of fantasy stories. What kind of bread do they have? The type of bread gives you so much information about the world and the character. When they are on the road, are they eating coarse black bread, soft white loaves, or magical sweet lembas? A city lined with vendors selling spiced flatbreads will give you a different feeling altogether than a row of shops selling rolls. (Batches!) I automatically have respect for a character that can bake their own bread and it comes out light and fluffy, because that’s hard to do! They must have practiced quite a bit to get the technique down.

 So whatever happens to the characters in my next story, you can bet that bread will feature somewhere.