What happens next? - Plotting and Planning

Okay, so you've got this amazing idea for a book and you dive right in and write until you run out of go. Then what?

You put it in a metaphorical drawer (usually a file on your computer) and forget about it? You leave it open on the desktop and worry about it? You come back to it each day, but don't write more than a few lines? You start to add to it, but it flounders because you aren't really sure where it's going? All writers have this problem - the story that's going nowhere. The story that's long on idea, but short on execution. You move on to the next idea. You might repeat yourself in an endless cycle of false starts. I know I have.

These days though, I finish everything I write - good, bad or indifferent - because finishing something allows me to move on properly.

Here's how I write now. I get a good idea, or at least what I think is a good idea, and I immediately pose it as a 'what if' question. For The Finish it was 'what if an 18th century prostitute woke to find a dead man in her bed?'

Then I think how will this look as the start of a book? What is she doing? Where is she doing it?

Next up I go straight to the end. What's happened by the end of the book? Has she survived? Has the situation resolved itself? If so, how?

Having envisaged the opening scene and the end scene, I decide which characters will aid her progress and which will cause problems. In Kitty's case it's fairly simple - without giving you the end, I need her to survive because she features in three more books. However, the situation is dire, with the possibility of hanging, if she is brought to trial and found guilty of murder. She lives in a brothel so we have the madam, Mother Shadbolt, and various other prostitutes. We also have a number of clients and the 'bully' on the door. A detective story is plot driven, as the character moves from one set of clues to the next. By its very nature it also requires twists and turns. A good 'who dun it' shouldn't give up the actual murderer easily. It should make the reader think.

All this said, any story can follow this kind of development plan. From beginning to end and join up the points inbetween.

Some people can write straight through, from idea to actuality. That's how I work, but I can only do it because, having been trained in scriptwriting for film, I've internalised the process and format. Some people need to map it all out. I would say, for safety's sake make lots of notes and plan, plan, plan.

Here's some bullet points to help you plot.

1. Have a great hook and make sure it's in the first five pages.
2. Establish the character's goal in the first quarter of the book.
3. Establish all the major characters in the first quarter of the book.
4. Know how your book is going to end.
5. Know what it is that will happen at the end of the first quarter that will propel the character forward into resolving the matter at hand.
6. Chart out the important points of the story on a timeline, taking caring to consider rising action.
7. Know what it is that will happen at the end of the third quarter that will begin to work towards the end of the story.
8. At the end, tie up all the loose ends - explain red herrings

Find The Finish here

Who is Kitty Ives?

Kitty Ives is the heroine of the Venus Squared series of books, the first of which is The Finish. In this article I discuss her family background and what brought her to work as a prostitute in London's notorious Covent Garden.

She was christened Katherine Ives, but her father preferred to call her Kitty. She was born in the ancient county of Norfolk, in East Anglia to a farmer and his wife, Joseph and Elizabeth Ives. They had two children, Sophie, born in 1744 and Kitty, born in 1746.

Joseph wasn't a particularly wealthy man, but he loved his family and provided for them as best he could until his middle daughter, Sophie, fell in love with a neighbouring farmer's son. Sadly, this young man was found dead, having been most foully stabbed. Sophie was accused of the murder, but although she was found not guilty, local opinion went against her and she was set upon by a mob, whilst walking from Church. She was dragged through the streets and suffered a thousand cuts and bruises. Sadly, Sophie fell into a decline and died from blood poisoning, brought on by the mistreatment of her wounds.

Quite naturally, the rest of the family were distraught, not least Joseph, the patriarch. He was the next to die, having had an attack of apoplexy. Today we would call it a stroke. This left Kitty's mother, Elizabeth, with something of a dilemma. She had never taken much part in the day-to-day running of the farm. She now had to take up the reigns herself, but in doing so she failed quite miserably to manage the finances and very quickly fell into debt. First the livestock was sold, then individual parcels of land, and eventually the farm house itself. Forced into rented accommodation and living on slender means, Elizabeth Ives found her Kitty employment as a maid in London. Kitty was put on a coach and sent on her way, but once at the coaching inn in London, she was waylaid by an older woman called Mother Shadbolt, who offered to look after her needs and see her safely accompanied to her employer's house.

On the journey across the city Mother Shadbolt fell ill and asked Kitty if she would mind stopping off at her house on the corner of Covent Garden and Russell Street. This of course, was the brothel. Once she stepped over the threshold Kitty was seduced by tales of fine clothes, parties and  riches beyond her ken. Thus, did our heroine fall from grace in quick time.

Kitty was only sixteen years old and had no more desire than to dress in the latest fashion and catch the eye of a handsome beau, and so she was soon persuaded to throw off her employer and remain with Mother Shadbolt, where she was promised her pick of suitors. At first, Kitty was showered with gifts and beautiful gowns and jewellery, but as time wore on and she tired off the life of easy seduction, she tried to leave the brothel and strike out alone, only to find that the clothes she wore were not gifts at all, the jewellery was all paste and she had not a penny to her name.

Now came a time of despondency for Kitty. She fell in with a riotous crowd and ended up being transported to America for the crime of theft. All this is discussed further in The Finish.

You can read all about Kitty's exploits in The Finish and in the subsequent volumes, The Surety, The Debt and The Trade. Collectively, they are called Venus Squared.

What about location - Covent Garden

Kitty Ives, the main character in The Finish, lives in Covent Garden, which still exists today in pretty much the same state that it did back in the 18th century, save that in the middle now, there's what is called the Floral Market, and some of the buildings have been rebuilt, albeit on the same footprint.

Here, I take a look at Covent Garden then and now in this series of photographs and prints.

Covent Garden - Hogarth - It's often shown the other way round. Prints were copied and reprinted many times and the image flipped. The writing above the door on the left reads correctly, and if you compare the present day photograph below, you can see that the church and the building on the right are still in situ. Also, check out that square column on the church's portico. See above there it is? Now look at the photo I took. Yes, there's that square column. Hogarth had a good eye for detail. Btw, you can visit Hogarth's house for free in Chiswick.  I'll be paying it a visit soon to report back.

Here's another take on this, below. 

Here you can see the arches of the Piazza to the West of James Street

And here's those same arches today.

The arches below are those on the east side of James Street, in the Great Piazza.

And below, the same today, although now rebuilt.

At the end of this row of arches is an entrance to the Opera House, although in the 18th century this corner of the Piazza would have had the entrances to both the Bedford Head Coffee House on the right, and on the left the Shakespeare's Head Tavern. The Covent Garden Theatre, as the Opera House was called, was situated behind these establishments. There may have been a entrance here to the theatre too, but it would have been nothing more than a door. Well, in fact, that's all it is today.

 Here' then you can see Covent Garden from the east, looking West to the Church. King Street runs off the north side of Covent Garden and to the south side is Henrietta Street. 

Here's the Church today. The 'entrance' is actually just a blank. There's no door there and there never was. The door is at the rear, in the churchyard. 

The actual entrance to the Church in Covent Garden. It's accessed through this quaint alley from King Street. Just to confuse visitors to London, The Covent Garden Church is called St. Paul's, like the cathedral about a mile to the east.

On the corner of Henrietta Street was the Unicorn Tavern, where Kitty attends a coroner's inquest. Below is the building today - rebuilt as a Nat West Bank.

Here's the Floral Hall in the centre of the square. It wasn't here in the 18th century, but it was occupied by a large number of wooden shacks, of which one was called the 'Finish', so  named because it was the last place to close, in the early hours of the morning. The square building in the centre of the pic shows the location of the 'Finish'. In the pic above you can also see down the east side of the square. The little Piazza, on the far right of this pic, burned down in March 1769, so this is all rebuilt.

Opposite the 'Finish' was the brothel run by a Mother Gould. It was over a distiller's by the name of John Bradley. In my book, Mother Gould has been renamed Mother Shadbolt, but John Bradley and the distillery are one and the same. This is it today.

We've already seen the picture below, but this is now a blown up portion of it, which shows the little Piazza as it would have been before the fire.

Continuing into the corner of the Little Piazza, in the 18th century we would find the alley way to the privies, which also connected Charles Street with Covent Garden. Next to the alley was the Bedford Arms tavern.

Today, the London Transport Museum occupy this space in the corner, but there are still toilets here in what was then Tavistock Court.

Part two of this photographic tour of Covent Garden here

Part three is here

The Finish is part one of a four part series called Venus Squared. Set in 1769, it tells the story of Kitty Ives, a prostitute, forced to solve a murder for fear of swinging from the gallows.

What does a book mean to you?

Forget kindle. I mean, don't forget it, but for now, put it out of your mind.

Real books happen on paper, with hard covers, preferably leather-bound. They have ragged edges and, often, a musty smell to them. They occupy library shelves, but not just in any old library. Oh no. They live in big old libraries that have tall shelves and windows with slanting light where dust dances in the rarified air. In a library such as this you will be treated to a magical thing. You will come across buried treasure. You will be transported to other worlds. Sometimes, it happens under the covers at night with a torch in one hand and a book in the other. Sometimes you can be on the noisiest of trains and yet, remarkably, you are lost in another time. Do tablet readers do that? Do they really give you that feeling that you've come across something very special? I don't think so, and yet, we are stuck with them now. Woe betide the demise of the real book.

Today I found the London Bookbinding company and I thought, wow, I wish I could do bookbinding. I wish I could leave this internet fiction of a world behind and get real again. I wish traditional publishing wasn't such a closed shop and we were living in earlier times, where books were physical entities that felt solid in our hands and engendered a sense of wonder.

Of course, you can take courses in bookbinding and there are quite a few companies in London, where I live, that will teach you this old art. Trouble is, it all costs a lot of money. How wonderful though, to have a real live leather-bound book that you've written in your hands. Wouldn't that be worth all the hard work? Wouldn't people want to buy a real solid, fantastic book like this? Of course, it would have to have a fabulous story inside it, and impeccable editing. You cannot splurge out on creating something like this and not have a brilliant story to tell.

Crowdfunding anyone?

Angela Elliott's 18th century tale of Kitty Ives, Covent Garden whore and crime fighter is out now. Sadly, from Amazon etc...

What's in a cover?

 I designed the first cover The Finish ever had. It was just so that I could get it out on Authonomy and You Write On. Once I'd found a publisher I stopped using it because the image of the woman was a stock photo and, although I bought the licence for a paltry sum, it is being used elsewhere.

 

 The second cover, below, was what the publisher's designer came up with. I deemed it crap. A second design was offered to me, it was so lousy I can't even find a copy of it anywhere.

 After this disaster, I said I would give it another go myself. I started offering up design ideas thus:

 I knew what I wanted it to look like: a little bit ragged round the edges. Covent Garden, silhouettes, a bit Musketeer-like. My publisher said he liked the idea, but it wasn't quite right. I played around some more, going ever so slightly over the top a bit with this one.

It was good, but a bit too classical. There followed several more with women on the front. This was one of them.

I then went totally crazy and tried this out for size.

You have to admit, it's a bit lurid thriller, rather than historical crime.

After my publishers said, yes, I like all of them, but they aren't quite right, I thought I would just put the elements I liked from each of the ideas together. This is what I came up with, and what we used in the end.

Hey ho, I went and did a cover for each of the four books in the series, all along the same lines as this one.

As you can see, it has the idea of the woman on it, plus the map in the background - a bit of the ragged 'fire' remains to frame it, and I put a frieze of 18th century fashionable ladies across the bottom. The image of the women are each by the same artist and are way out of copyright, being from the 18th century as in the public domain. The type was a free to download and free to use font called Aquiline Two. I built the covers in photoshop. The background is the same in each, but with a colour change.

Following the decision to use these covers, I produced them in different sizes to suit the requirements of the different digital stores.

How come I could do this myself? Well, because my first job was as a layout and pasteup artist, way back before we used computers to do it, and because I had done a Fine Art degree and still dabble.

So, what do you do if you've written your opus and need a cover?

If you are self-published, or even indie published, you probably have more control that if you are trade published. That's because with a traditional publisher, they are holding the purse strings, and thus, have control. With Indie and self-publishing you get to say what you want, how you want, and when you want. You might have to shell out a couple of hundred bucks (over here in Blighty we say a couple of hundred quid), or you might get it for free.

One thing though, whether you get it designed by a friend, do it yourself, or employ a designer, you'll want it to look professional.

Yes you will.

Oh boy, and I see so many covers that are just don't come up to the mark. Is yours one of them?

First off, you need to check out covers that you really like. What is it that floats your boat about them? Is it the image, the font, the colourway, or the overall layout?

Secondly, what is the theme of your book and what do you want your cover to convey?

Thirdly, is you idea for a cover in keeping with the genre? Oh yes, go look. Each genre has a specific type of cover - and within, that genre even, there are other styles of cover. It's highly technical.

Once you've got an idea, start to play around with it. Even if you are employing a designer, you should be able to mix up the ideas.

Photoshop and Illustrator are a godsend because they make everything a lot easier. Beware though of making your cover look overly slick - some cgi images are too good and people forget about using gaussian blur to really punch out the type. They rely on an embossed font and that isn't always what you want if you want to look professional.

Add into that, the need for more than just the title and author's name. It's good to have a testimonial on the cover. Maybe a 'from the author of', or some such thing. Perhaps the publisher's imprint. Really go look at covers and decide what you like about them.

Failing all that, I'm here if you need me. For a fee. Lol. It's negotiable.

Read The Finish here
www.angelaelliottbooks.com

A woman has three choices

Covent Garden, long a centre for hedonistic pleasure, is a dirty melting pot of whores and harridans, aristocrats and artisans, actors and drunks. It is 1769 and these are violent times. Prostitute, Kitty Ives, takes a man to her bed and wakes to find him dead atop her. Fearing the gallows, so begins Kitty's quest to uncover the identity of the murderer. Will she be successful? Or will she be convicted of a murder she did not commit?

The idea for the series came from a play I'd written called Scratching Fanny of Cock Lane. Scratching Fanny was a 'real' ghost, and Cock Lane a real street near Smithfield. In the early 1760s Dr. Samuel Johnson was called to investigate the ghostly goings on. It was reported in James Boswell's Life of Johnson. 

I've written about the history of the Theatre Royal Drury Lane from the 16th century through to the present day. I've also written  about the 5th Marquis of Hastings, which was set in the mid 19th century, called The Pocket Venus, and I have also penned scripts about Alex Smith, who one of the Bounty mutineers. This was set at the beginning of the 19th century  and called The Last Mutineer. All were for TV/film. My book Some Strange Scent of Death was set in 1900, and the Cock Lane play, mentioned above, in 1763.

I chose the 1760s after studying the period carefully, and coming to a conclusion about the state of crime and prostitution in Covent Garden at that time.  It was an exciting period. The Fielding Brothers had established the first detective service in the Bow Street Runners. The Seven-Years War had just ended. There were riots in London over the influx of French silk workers. America was about to become a nation. Secret Gentlemen's Clubs abounded. Ben Franklin and others had made electrical experiments. Grave robbing was common-place. Captain Cook had just sailed for Tahiti to observe the Transit of Venus. King George III had ascended the throne, and more women wrote and published novels than did men.

 

Amazon UK    Amazon USA    Apple ibooks   Google Play  Kobo

18th Century Sex Toys - 6 ways

A number of 18th century sex toys, and similar items, have come to light in recent years. Here's a selection of the most interesting.

1. Polish Dildo unearthed in 18th century toilet

Found by an archealogist in Gdansk, Poland, whilst digging out an 18th century toilet, this dildo is made of leather, filled with bristles and has a wooden tip.
Read more

2. Essex girls prefer....

Sold at an auction in Essex in 2010 and described in the catalogue as "An extraordinary and exceptionally rare 'Travel Godermiche' being a pair of wooden phallus contained within a fitted kid leather covered Treen case with strap fleurs-de-lys decoration, one phallus 10 inches and with testicles and the other 11 inches and without testicles."
Read more

3. Ivory dildo

This magnificent article can be seen in the Science Museum, London. It is complete with plunger that simulates ejaculation. In 2012 it was part of an exhibition at the Wellcome Museum to explore items that make us superhuman.
Read more 
  

4. Beggar's Benison Prick Glass

 This novelty drinking glass is thought to be from around 1730 and was used by an erotic gentleman's club in Anstruther, Scotland.
Read more

5. The Condom

No collection of sex toys would be complete without including a condom - not exactly a toy, but very necessary, given the prevalence of syphilis in the 18th century.
Read more

6. Prostitutes

The ultimate sex toy, of course, was the prostitute. Mrs Phillips ran a sex shop in Half Moon Street, just off Covent Garden. Here, prostitutes and their clientèle could obtain every item above and more besides.
Read more 

If this has whet your appetite for more 18th century sexual titillation feel free to share, pin or general like elsewhere. 


Buy, The Finish, the first in the Venus Squared series of novels about an 18th century Covent Garden prostitute on Amazon, Kobo,  ibooks and Google Play

Venus Squared - latest pin

A Very British Murder

The author of The Finish is pleased to have found A Very British Murder on the BBC by the inimitable Lucy Worsley, but so sad that it is no longer available to view. Although I missed it, both the first time round, and as a repeat in March, thankfully dear Lucy has written a book on the same subject, which I will have to go straight out and buy.

What it was to be a woman in the 18th century

There have been times in my life when I have wished I had never been born female - not in a transgender way - but insofar as it has always seemed that men have the better deal. Despite the fact that women have more freedom in all aspects of life than ever before, men still don't appear to suffer the same societal pressures as women. The media certainly propounds the belief that women should look young, pretty, slim - all the time. Wear stylish clothes, have perfect make-up and hairstyle - all the time. Have a perfect home, stylishly decorated and furnished. Attract a man with cash, and aspire to a certain lifestyle. Achieve success in your career, have children, and juggle your family responsiblities.

No woman is perfect, but that doesn't stop us trying to be so.

Imagine then, that you are female and born in the 18th century. Society is patriarchal and misogynistic. Men run the government, the army, and all business.  If you choose to marry, not only must you adhere to all the society mores we have now vis a vis appearance etc.. (save the bit about a career) you have no vote, and are 'owned' by first your father and then your husband. When your father dies any inheritance you might come into passes straight to your husband. You simply have no money of your own. Interestingly, if your husband dies then you gain control over your finances until such time as you remarry, which is often why fairly well-to-do women chose to remain widows. This only works if you have no adult son. In this case, he inherits from his father and you are beholden to him. You must at all times defer to either father or husband, and later your son. 

You will probably have many children and have no recourse to the kind of care we now take for granted. You will give birth at home, in great pain. Like as not your child will not survive to five, let alone adulthood. If you are poor you will be treated like a drudge and have to work  like the proverbial devil to keep a roof over your head and food in your children's bellies or face destitution. The poor law existed to give certain assistance but only to dissuade you to make a claim on the parish and certainly not to help you survive.  You will have little or no education, but there is at least a chance that you will have married for love. 

If, on the other hand, you are rich, you will squander money on frivolity, but at least you will be able to read and write. Like as not you will have married to seal the fate of a family dynasty. Whether rich or poor you may be well treated or badly beaten by your husband. (Nothing new there then.)

There are two other options: you go into service and become a domestic servant, or you become a prostitute. Either way, you are doomed to live a hard life and suffer an early death.  As a servant you will be obedient, subservient, humble and hard-working. As a prostitute you will answer to your pimp or bawd, hand over most of your earnings to them and suffer disease and multiple abortions/births/miscarriages. A few prostitutes became noted courtesans. A few were either kept by their beaus as a mistress, or they married them. Almost all had syphilis or gonorrhoea. 

The only good thing about being a prostitute at this time was that if you were a fairly astute business woman you might be able to gain financial independence. You might be able to live a relatively comfortable 'old age'. At least the enlightenment had fairly free views on sex. One must maintain decorum, but behind this facade, anything goes. 

What then of our heroine Kitty Ives? Where does she fit in all this? Well, she comes from formerly well-to-do farming family in Norfolk.  When her father dies her mother has no income and cannot manage the farm on her own. Kitty comes to London to seek her fortune and is immediately preyed upon by Mother Shadbolt, who promises her an easy life of it, with clothes and balls and all the things a young girl might want from life. Of course what happens is that she is prostituted to pay for the things Mother Shadbolt supplies: the room Kitty occupies, the food she eats, and the clothes on her back. This then was the life of a prostitute. It has to be said, it still goes on to this day. Women enslaved into prostitution. 

For Kitty, the only way out is to meet a rich benefactor, or die. To find out what happens to her, you have to read The Finish - go to the website, and sign up for the newsletter. Be in at the start of The Finish.

Eye Candy

In the 18th and 19th Centuries lovers exchanged miniature eye paintings as tokens of their affections, such as that in the V&A. They were usually created by using watercolour on ivory. The interesting thing is that, whilst the lover could identify their beloved by the look in their eyes, anyone else coming across the painting would be unable to tell who it was. Or, at least, that was the theory. Here at The Finish we have created our own 'lover's eye'.

A new Video

Just trying out Animoto to create videos for The Finish my 18th century murder story. Not perfect, but a good start.


The Finish by Angela Elliott