{"id":2046,"date":"2014-05-04T18:34:23","date_gmt":"2014-05-05T01:34:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lindacollison.com\/?p=2046"},"modified":"2014-05-04T18:35:41","modified_gmt":"2014-05-05T01:35:41","slug":"margaret-skea-writing-book-series","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/madhatdesign.com\/newsite\/margaret-skea-writing-book-series\/","title":{"rendered":"Margaret Skea on writing the second book of a series"},"content":{"rendered":"

I met Margaret Skea at the 2012 Historical Novel Society Conference in London and have been following her debut historical novel, Turn of the Tide<\/em>, with great interest.\u00a0 She’s giving us a candid glimpse today of what it was like for her to write the second<\/em> novel in her promising series about dueling families in troubled 16th century Scotland.\u00a0 Writing a sequel is definitely not a bed of roses, even for an award-winning author. \u00a0 — Linda Collison<\/p>\n

\u00a0Margaret Skea<\/p>\n

\"margaretskea_1352206042_11\"\u00a0 I can still remember the moment I first saw a print copy of Turn of the Tide<\/em> – complete in almost every<\/p>\n

respect \u2013 cover, ISBN and so on, except that it was one of six copies of the unedited manuscript rushed<\/p>\n

out for a promised TV interview that didn\u2019t happen. I\u2019ve kept those six copies in the hope that maybe<\/p>\n

one day they might be worth something\u2026<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

But if that is ever to be anything more than a pipe dream I need to get the next book written and the<\/p>\n

next, and the next. And just at this moment finishing Book 2, which has the working title A House <\/em><\/p>\n

Divided<\/em>, seems about as arduous as climbing Mount Everest.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I\u2019ve heard it said that an author\u2019s second novel is the hardest one to write. I certainly hope that\u2019s true or<\/p>\n

the series I fondly dreamed of when I first started on this journey may never materialize.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

To backtrack a little \u2013 Turn of the Tide<\/em> didn\u2019t exactly come easy either. The first draft began life with<\/p>\n

an historical person as the main character. After about a year, as I was beginning to think that the end<\/p>\n

was in sight, I took my precious \u2018baby\u2019 to a residential writing course. I arrived with 70,000 words<\/p>\n

and came home with 3,000 and a new, fictional main character, Munro, who rode into my head on his<\/p>\n

horse Sweet Briar. Almost immediately I knew what the final scene would be, but no idea how I was<\/p>\n

going to get there. Fortunately Munro had, and from that point on he took charge and the story flowed.<\/p>\n

Occasionally he would go AWOL and I\u2019d take some time out and write a short story or two, and when<\/p>\n

he reappeared it was always with some new idea for the plot. Between us we wrote the new first draft,<\/p>\n

taking about a year and then the real fun began.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I discovered that it\u2019s actually the editing that I most enjoy, the challenge of honing and polishing and<\/p>\n

cutting away the slack. The published novel is 102,000 words, but when I first typed \u2018The End\u2019 the<\/p>\n

manuscript ran to 127,000. I didn\u2019t trim 25,000 words in one go of course, and indeed cutting the word<\/p>\n

count was never an aim, but rather an unexpected by-product of the editing process. For me macro-<\/p>\n

editing involves looking for plot holes and points where the story sags, while micro-editing deals with<\/p>\n

the language, the grammar, the (dreaded) punctuation, and finally the unnecessary words, the fillers<\/p>\n

that add nothing to the meaning, words like \u2018just\u2019 or \u2018then\u2019. I shocked myself when the final edit,<\/p>\n

cutting one or two words at a time, reduced the word count by a massive 5,000.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In writing Turn of the Tide<\/em> I only had myself (and Munro) to please, and I\u2019m still amazed and delighted<\/p>\n

that not only did it get picked up by a publisher, but the response from readers has been really positive.<\/p>\n

And that is half the problem. For now, as I write the sequel, I find myself wondering will readers like<\/p>\n

what I\u2019m doing with the characters, or will I write something that most people won\u2019t be happy with,<\/p>\n

like Jo not marrying Laurie in Little Women<\/em>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I\u2019m outside my comfort zone in terms of the plot also, for I\u2019m not sure if the current opening is the<\/p>\n

right place to start, nor exactly how it will end. This is where positive feedback can itself be a problem.<\/p>\n

So many people found the ending of Turn of the Tide powerful and unexpected, that I worry I won\u2019t be<\/p>\n

able to write an equally good ending second time round.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

And then there\u2019s the research. Mostly in Turn of the Tide<\/em> I wrote from my existing knowledge of the<\/p>\n

period, this time I wanted to spread my wings a little. No problem there as I love research – and it\u2019s<\/p>\n

the perfect, and easy to justify displacement activity when writing itself is hard. Except that I have<\/p>\n

searched exhaustively for information on a particular event and come up with a blank. Now if the<\/p>\n

specific information doesn\u2019t exist that\u2019s fine \u2013 I can then write from the general, but if it does and I just<\/p>\n

don\u2019t find it I run the risk of someone later telling me I got it wrong. Of course we can\u2019t always get<\/p>\n

everything right, but it\u2019s important to me that I try.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Hardest of all is the time that I waste when I know I should just get on with the writing. If I could be<\/p>\n

sufficiently disciplined to turn off the internet for most of the day\u2026 If I could resist the temptation to<\/p>\n

go back over what I\u2019ve already written and leave the editing until I have a finished draft\u2026 If I didn\u2019t<\/p>\n

watch re-runs of 1970s TV\u2026<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Before Turn of the Tide<\/em> was published my writing was a wee hobby, but now my family and friends<\/p>\n

take it seriously and are prepared to give me the time and space to write. So I owe it to them and to<\/p>\n

myself and dare I say it, to the many folk out there who say they want to know what has happened to<\/p>\n

the Munros, to get on with it.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

If the second novel is the hardest, roll on Book 3!<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

The People’s Book Award will soon be announced, and Skea’s Turn of the Tide<\/em> is a popular contestant.\u00a0 Click here<\/a> to read more about it what voting readers are saying about this author’s debut novel.\u00a0 Check out her author Facebook page<\/a> and her blog on her website<\/a><\/p>\n

About the author:<\/p>\n

\"Portrait\"Margaret Skea grew up in Ulster at the height of the ‘Troubles’, but now lives with her husband in the<\/p>\n

Scottish Borders. An interest in Scotland’s turbulent history, and in particular the 16th century, combined with PhD<\/p>\n

research into the Ulster-Scots vernacular, led to the writing of Turn of the Tide, which was the<\/p>\n

Historical Fiction Winner in the 2011 Harper Collins \/ Alan Titchmarsh People’s Novelist Competition.<\/p>\n

An Hawthornden Fellow and award winning short story writer – her recent credits include, Overall<\/p>\n

Winner Neil Gunn 2011, Chrysalis Prize 2010, and Winchester Short Story Prize 2009. Third in the<\/p>\n

Rubery Book Award Short Story Competition 2013, a finalist in the Historical Novel Society Short<\/p>\n

Story Competition 2012, shortlisted in the Mslexia Short Story Competition 2012 and previously<\/p>\n

long-listed for the Matthew Pritchard Award, Fish Short Story and Fish One Page Prize, she has been<\/p>\n

published in a range of magazines and anthologies in Britain and the USA.<\/p>\n

She has also flown a Tiger Moth (under supervision) and would love the opportunity to do it again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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