Rule breaking in fiction - how to write
the book you want to read!
By Gillian Hamer
By Gillian Hamer
Thanks to Gillian Hamer for this guest post
The journey to get my novel, The Charter, into print has been a long
and rocky road. It wasn’t until I felt confident enough to approach agents that
I realised I’d committed quite a few cardinal sins in writing the story I
wanted to write, all about a shipwreck off the coast of Anglesey, which has
long fascinated me.
Apparently, in publishing, there are
rules; a lot of rules. And one of the most fundamental rules in ensuring the success
or failure of your novel is ‘though shalt not cross genres’.
I didn’t know this when I wrote The Charter almost five years ago. In
fact, I didn’t know much about the world of publishing. I simply wrote a story
I’d had in my head for 20 years, crossing modern-day crime fiction with a hint
of paranormal and a dollop of historical backdrop.
It’s all to do with marketing, so I’m
told; the fact that readers like order. If they like crime, they want to read
crime. If they like historical fiction, they only read that. Personally, I
think that’s a load of tosh. I love books that have an element of surprise, which
leave you confused (in a good way) and breathless as the story unravels. I
think of Sarah Waters’ The Little
Stranger as a good example. Those who have read it will surely agree with
me that they reached the end not entirely sure of what they’d just read – but
adoring it all the same.
Now, I’m no Sarah Waters, of course, but
that must surely point to there being a market of cross-genre books, or novels
that don’t quite fit the mould. You’d think? But, no! Although the story, or
perhaps my writing, gained the interest of two agents and went through numerous
rewrites – removing ghosts, adding ghosts, removing ghosts – it became clear,
when my current agent gave it the thumbs down, that my book had come to the end
of its journey down the traditional publishing highway.
So, if I wanted to see The Charter in print, I had to go down
the independent publishing route. Last year, I decided to do just that, and formed
Triskele Books with two other talented authors in a similar position to my own.
Why did I bother?
I’ve had close connections with the island
of Anglesey, off the North Wales coast, all my life. It’s a place that
fascinates and never fails to thrill me. You cannot take a drive around
Anglesey without passing a Neolithic burial chamber along the side of the road.
Even the Druids based themselves there, creating a centre of excellence on the
island.
For as many years as I can remember, when driving
along the A5025 coastal road, traversing the eastern side of the island, I can
recall hearing the story of the victims of the Royal Charter ship every time I passed Llanallgo Church. The majority of the victims were buried in the cemetery
of this church and it features heavily in my book.
I also remember new reports and articles
over the years when excited divers allegedly found Australian gold off Point
Lynas, where the ship had hit the rocks. I even have a vivid memory of metal
detecting as a child with a family friend, who lived on the island, somewhere
on Red Wharf Bay. He convinced me that the shiny pennies I kept digging up were
treasure from the Royal Charter.
Years later, I discovered that my friend had been the source of the hoard.
I think when a person, topic or legend has
fascinated you all your life, any story that you can create, as a writer, around
its existence will always mean a lot to you. So, if I could bring the legend of
the shipwreck to a greater audience and also write about a part of the country
I loved, then it was a no-brainer for me.
And, if it meant breaking a multitude of
publishing rules and regulations along the way then it was just too bad!
Book blurb
Sarah Morton hopes that discovering the truth about the 1859 wreck
of the Royal Charter will silence the
demons of her past. But, tormented by visions and threats on her life, Sarah
fears the ship may claim her as its final victim.
Biography
Born in the industrial Midlands, Gillian’s heart has always
yearned for the pull of the ocean and the wilds of North Wales. A company director, Gillian has been writing as a hobby all of
her life, but after taking a creative writing course a decade ago, she decided
to take her writing to another level and sought representation. She has
completed six full-length novels, split between straight crime and her mix of
paranormal thrillers.
Gillian is also a regular columnist for literary magazine
Words with Jam, and in that role she has
been lucky enough to interview a cross-section of authors, from Ann Cleeves to
Michael Morpurgo.
Gillian splits her time between Birmingham and a remote cottage on
Anglesey, where she spends far too much time dreaming of being the next Agatha
Christie, and can be found walking her Jack Russell, Maysie, on deserted
beaches. In her spare time she is a regular theatre-goer, avid reader and curious
traveller!
Her novel, The Charter,
was launched in June 2012, under Triskele Books, an author’s collective set up
by Gillian and a group of fellow writers. Her straight crime novels are
represented by Shelley Powers of the Shelley Powers Literary Agency.
Links
Website: www.gillianhamer.com
Publisher: www.triskelebooks.com
Twitter: @Gill1H or @triskelebooks
Facebook: Gillian Hamer or Triskele Books
It's unfortunate that you wasted so much time contending with the sometimes-rigid and blinkered people who dominate the traditional print industry. Your story gives me encouragement to bypass them from the start and self-publish right away. Our responsibility is to our readers, and not to some self-important intermediary. Congratulations on having gone the micropublishing route. On a negative note, thanks to buggy code at my blog host, Wordpress,i am not able to sign this comment using my Wordpress credentials, and that bothers me, but it's not your fault.
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