Corkboard

It might seem a little strange, outdated even, but I like to build my stories on a good old-fashioned corkboard. I use post-it notes to develop my what-if situation into a structure that includes all the elements of my story.

I have tried apps to replace my board, like Scrivener, but I always come back to the physical corkboard. It might be my version of a security blanket, or a soccer player wearing the same underpants for each match — I am not really sure.

Creating My Board

I have a desktop easel with a cork board mounted on it. The board is divided into the following columns:

  • Characters — As the story grows, so the list of characters grows with it. (See Characters).
  • Events — As possible events come to mind, I write out a post-it and add them to the board. I don’t add them in any order. When I think an event might have some weight I use a different colour.
  • Notes — Anything that comes to mind as I develop the story.
  • Themes — I don’t write with a theme in mind. If a theme presents itself while I build my board, I add it.

Ordering Scenes

When my board is covered with about 120 post-its, I start to think about the order of the events, or, the story structure. Up to this point in my process, the possible events have just been my brainstorming of what I think the story needs: how it might progress. Now, I begin to add structure to it, as well as start to consider the elements of a story arc.

The following are the things I consider while ordering the scenes on my board:

Context — The setting — or time and place — and the context of a story. The context is normal life before the action begins. For Harry Potter it is living with his aunt and uncle, for Boccone (TAM), it is being drummed out of the regiment he loves. For Rachel, it is graduating from the academy in Glynco as valedictorian.

Catalyst — This is often referred to as a trigger or inciting incident. I call it catalyst so it fits into my c-list (doing what I accused others of in the introduction). For Bilbo Baggins it was Gandalf scratching his rune on the front door of Bagend, for Boccone it was the colonel giving him an undercover assignment. For Rachel, it was being sent to Naples in 1979.

Cast — Perhaps the most obvious ingredient of a story is its cast. Without a group of characters, there can be no story. I develop a cast simultaneously with the rest of the story arc. 

Conflict — A story is driven by conflict. Whether internal conflict — such as Rachel’s self-esteem issues in TAM — or external conflict — such as Boccone’s battle with the Scortese — it is what keeps a reader turning the pages. As I order my board I look for areas of conflict.

Causality — Having studied Amazon reviews, the thing modern readers dislike the most is coincidental occurrences. Take The Killing Floor: Jack Reacher, a loner out in the boondocks of rural USA is arrested for murder, the victim of which just happens to be his brother, a man he hasn’t seen or spoken to for years. A very lame deus ex machina picked up on by the accurate reviews posted to Amazon. I don’t think it’s by accident that the Jack Reacher movies skipped the first book. 

Choice — The characters in a story need to make choices, which then cause events to happen. In The Hobbit, Bilbo chose to follow the dwarfs, which led him toward the Lonely Mountain. In The Lord of the Rings, Gandalf chose to visit Saruman, which led to Frodo being exposed to The Nazgul. Frodo spent the most part of The Fellowship of the Ring trying to decide on a choice, which — when made — signalled the end of the first book. Character choice is linked to causality, the choices made lead to events requiring further choices, and so on.

Climax — The point in the story of the highest stress that resolves the main conflict. The climax is present for the main plot and any subplots that might exist. In The Lord of The Rings, it is Frodo throwing the ring into the lava. In The Alcoholic Mercenary, a subplot climax is a confrontation between Rachel and her ex in her hotel room.

I don’t wait for my corkboard to be completed and reordered before I start to write. For instance, when plotting TAM, I already knew the murder scene in Baia, the characters, the setting, the when and where, so wrote it immediately. In my current WIP, Hammer, I wrote the opening scene in Gauis Suetonius Paulinus’s command tent in East Wales, where Agricola and Paulinus were discussing the invasion of Wales before I started my corkboard.

This is the first instance when I am brutal with my babies, cutting anything that doesn’t fit.

I don’t order the contents of the board based on conventional story arc theory, but rather keep an eye on the various elements and where they might be represented. When I come across something that represents an element of the story, I label a green post-it and slap it on the board.

When the reordering phase is complete, my corkboard should have several green post-its with all the elements of story arc theory covered. If there are any missing, then I need to rethink something.

With the board full of post-its in the right order and with all the elements of a story, I then move to a Spreadsheet.

Rachel Arrives in Naples

Do what you like with it, bitch. A hissed statement punctuated by vibration. Everything rattling making her teeth hurt.

Your call, butt munch. What?

Jake laughed. You think I give a crap, ma’am? Ma’am?

She felt confused. Something did not fit. Dream. Dream. You chose your career over your husband. Ma’am? Career over me. I was always better than you. She saw his face in a kaleidoscope of dotted lights as he uttered his nonsense. Ma’am?

‘We’re here, ma’am. Italy. Herc’s about to touch down. Capodichino. Ass end of nowhere.’

Rachel opened her eyes. The vibration had felt like a dream, but it was real, causing her teeth to chatter. Four huge propellers whistling and buzzing like a swarm of gigantic bees.

‘We’ll be on the deck in ten,’ the sergeant said, before retreating and leaving her to compose herself and boy did she need composing. It all seemed so unreal. The transition from office worker to field agent left her dizzy.

Twenty minutes after waking, Rachel stopped at the top of the ramp and dropped her kitbag. A shimmering heat haze turned the terminal building into a floating palace. A wall of heat seemed to be rejecting her arrival. She could smell it as well as feel it. Joined with the paraffin stink of aviation fuel, it caught her in the back of the throat. The heat also seemed to be muting the usual noise of a military airbase. She didn’t know if it was even possible for sound to be dampened in that way. Maybe it was too hot to work, and the personnel were hiding somewhere.

‘See Naples and then die,’ she repeated the saying someone had thrown out in the Officer’s Club during her leaving presentation. Considered it a gag, apparently. Feeling the heat, she thought maybe she had died, and this was Hell.

She thought the British poet, Keats, coined the saying. Someone like that. He died around here if she remembered her high school Eng Lit. But, died from what? The heat? Did heat kill Keats? Sunstroke? Could she even get sunstroke without any visible sun, the smog being so dense?

‘Terminal’s straight ahead, ma’am,’ the sergeant said, nodding for emphasis.

Rachel looked at him in his uniform whites, sure he’d been in blues when they took off from the States, all those lifetimes before. She wanted to snap and tell him she wasn’t blind. Instead, she nodded back, hefted her kit and walked down the ramp.

When she hit the concrete apron, she could feel the heat through the soles of her flats. It’s May, her mind screamed at her. She was New York State — a small city called Poughkeepsie — Northern Hemisphere. Such heat in May was unheard of.

With a sigh, she looked at the terminal building. Welcome to Capodichino appeared to be belly dancing in the haze. She could see the volcano brooding over it and was surprised by its vicinity. She felt she could touch it by stretching out a hand. The shimmering appeared exaggerated above the peak, just her imagination, she knew.

Not that there was a peak. It was more of a broken tooth. Rachel had looked it up after Hubble dismissed her. The volcano blew its top into oblivion the same century Christ hit the hay in his manger. The vaporized rock and earth smothered the Roman settlements on or near the slopes, Pompeii being the most famous. There were others. Damned if she could remember their names. Damned if she cared. Two thousand years. Who would care except old men smoking corn cobs, when their heads weren’t buried in the dirt looking for a lost past?

‘Can I take your bag, ma’am?’ a dapper — judging by his accent — Bostonian asked. NIS, for sure. His badge was hanging from his belt above khaki chinos. His hands were on his hips, making the sweat stains in the pits of his blue short-sleeved shirt noticeable. White would have been a better choice.

‘You are?’

‘Junior Field Agent Robbs, ma’am. I’m your welcome-buddy.’

‘Welcome-buddy,’ she said, raising her eyebrows to make it into a question.

‘Gotta show you the ropes. Get you settled in the Officers’ Club on base. Answer any questions. Bring you to the admiral’s office in the A and M.’

Rachel nodded. ‘Answer all my questions. Here’s one. What’s with all the Alitalia planes on the apron? Isn’t Capodichino a military base?’

‘It is. Military share the runway with commercials. Gets real hectic in the summer with the holiday flights.’

‘Summer? You tellin’ me this ain’t summer?’

‘No, ma’am. Officially spring. You’ll know when it’s summer. Gets up to a hundred, hundred and five. The real bitch though is the humidity. Seen relative at seventy… even eighty percent. You can see the droplets in the air. Gives new meaning to duck butter.’

‘Eighty percent?’ Rachel knew she wasn’t doing much of a job hiding her scepticism.

‘Yes, ma’am. As God’s my witness. The only thing to do is sit still and neck an ice-cold.’

‘I bet. We gonna stand here all day shootin’ the breeze, Robbs?’

‘No, ma’am.’

Rachel smiled as his face flushed. She threw her kitbag at him and said, ‘Lead on MacDuff,’ shaking her head at his confused look.

She expected him to make for the terminal and passport control, but he headed in the direction of the tower.

‘Jeep’s in the lot beside the tower,’ he explained. ‘Air Force and Navy have personnel on base. Weather guys and gals mostly. Our flyboys are over in Foggia. Eyeties don’t want us cramping their style.’

‘Don’t I need to do immigration?’

‘Naw. There’s some forms to fill. You can do that at your leisure. I’ll help. You’ll need to put your sidearm in the gunbox in back. Against regs to carry it off base.’

By the time they reached the car park beside the tower, Rachel could feel drops running down her sides and moisture soaking her blouse by her lower back. She couldn’t be sure if the wetness was hers or the humidity Robbs told her was visible in the air.

‘Okay, Robbs. Let’s hit the road.’

Riding shotgun through the mad traffic of Naples caused Rachel’s heart to palpitate. She thought the New Yorkers were bad drivers. They were nothing compared to the drivers in the city of Naples. Were they even in the city? She thought not. They seemed to be on some sort of highway. Her musings were cut short when the Jeep rounded a bend. She caught her breath at the sight of Naples, laid out before them, like one of those models architects build.

‘So, this is what Keats meant,’ she said.

‘Ma’am?’

‘Nothing, Robbs. How long until we get to the Officers’ Club.’

‘Not long. We should be there by quarter after.’

True to his word, they were in the club with Rachel checked in by half-past. ‘You wait here,’ she said.

‘Wait? I’m not following, ma’am.’

‘I’ll be fifteen minutes, then you can bring me to meet the admiral.’

‘Don’t you want a few hours to get over your flight?’

‘Do I look like a slacker to you, JFA Robbs?’

‘No, ma’am.’

‘And don’t call me ma’am. I’m not your mother.’

‘No, ma’am.’

‘Look, Robbs, you’re obviously troubled by it. Just call me Welsh, and we’ll get along like a doozy.’

Book Review – After Gairech ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I got lost in a book

Can a man be avenged when a country is at war?

I have to admit I know next to nothing about Irish mythology. I was hoping that I would be taken on a journey of discovery when I read this book, and I am pleased to report that that is exactly what happened.

I really liked the writing style, and the short chapters made this novel feel like an incredibly fast read. The story itself comes across as very real in the telling, and although there were a few times when I needed to stop and go back to the character list at the front of the book, it was a book that I found vastly entertaining.

I thought the depiction of Queen Medb was fabulous. She is both feared and respected. This powerful warrior queen often leaves the main characters perplexed – did she do it, did she not? What scheme is hers and what is not?! I also thought the depiction of Conall the renowned warrior, was also brilliantly written.

I thought this novel was amazing. If you like historical fiction set in the ancient/pagan past, then this novel will be right up your street.

Prolog — Part 2

The thrill of the sea spray, the wind, the bouncing and jostling of the Zodiac always excited him. He could think of nothing he would prefer at three in the morning. Stefano had the compass and kept waving directions when he veered, pushed off course by an unforgiving sea.

The chop got worse as Capri receded. There was no protection from the wind, but he loved it. He was captain, so he had the wheel. And what a wheel. What speed. He had no idea what knots were but knew he would be doing over thirty klicks an hour with an open throttle. On the sea, that was a fantastic feeling.

Stefano started to wave. Beni eased back on the throttle. He, too, could see the beam of light lancing from a point at sea where no land could be. The freighter. As soon as they were gently rocking in the waves, he lifted his torch and flashed a response. It was a game. Buttagazzo had told him the Guardia could do nothing. They were outside Italian waters. The threat would be when they were returning.

Beni didn’t think there was much threat, even when they were returning. This was his fourth trip, and he’d seen nothing of the sbirri or the Guardia. It was as if they didn’t care. They had billions of lire’s worth of hi-tech boating resting idly in the port of Miseno. Sure, he’d heard the engines booming across the bay. Anyone who lived around Baia had listened to those engines. They shook buildings and made teeth rattle. Beni had never seen one.

The freighter had a loading door in the hull. After they pulled up alongside, it didn’t take long to load the crates. Ten minutes and he was again feeling the thrill of pure power. The bow lifting out of the waves like some monstrous creature from the deep, one of the spooky black and white ones from the American films he’d snuck in to see.

They’d made it into the gap between Capri and the coast when Stefano started to wave frantically like he was signalling an aeroplane with a paddle. Beni eased off the throttle and let the Zodiac come to a rest, swaying gently in the wash.

‘What’s up?’

‘Can’t you hear it?’ Stefano frowned at him.

Cupping his ear, Beni listened. Finally, he could hear a muted roar over the other noises. It was growing. ‘What’s that?’

‘That’s the Guardia interceptor. They’re coming for us.’

‘What are we going to do?’ Beni asked.

‘We’ll have to run for it. Hope they miss us.’

‘Are they likely to?’

‘No idea. Only one way to find out,’ Stefano said, his glum look a sure indication of what he thought their chances might be.

They found out quickly.

As they raced out from their cover, the interceptor was frowning at them with a glaring white light. Splashes of water in front of the Zodiac were followed by a booming dub, dub, dub, and a mechanical voice ordering them to heave to. There was no arguing with the guns, which would tear the Zodiac into plastic strips and its crew into shark food. Beni turned the engine off and waited calmly.

He knew he had nothing to fear.

Before long, a Zodiac like theirs came into view. It was smaller, and Beni guessed it had been launched off the interceptor. There were Guardia in it, pointing guns at them. ‘Get your hands up.’

It was less than ten minutes before they were pulling themselves up the ladder into the Guardia’s boat. Beni was impressed. He couldn’t ignore the beauty of its hard lines and massive engines, throbbing right into his guts, making his teeth ache. He threw his leg over the side to find a man standing on deck wearing chinos and a summer jacket.

‘Where’s your uniform?’ he asked before he could stop himself.

‘Not Guardia. I’m a detective. Pozzuoli Serious Crimes. Just observing here.’

‘What. Like watching the boat crew?’

‘What’s your name, guaglio?’ the man asked, the accent causing Beni to frown.

‘You a local?’ Most sbirri he dealt with were not from around Napoli.

‘Baia born and bred. Why’d you ask?’

‘No reason. Just most of the sbirri and Guardia are from up north. Seems us locals ain’t to be trusted.’

‘Yeah, I guess. Anyway, what’s your name, kid?’

‘Beni di Cuma.’

The cop smiled and nodded, making like he was on Beni’s side. He grinned. The idiot thought he would be swayed by false friendship because they were paisan; thought they would be best buddies. He didn’t need any buddies in the cops. He had his sbirro in Pozzuoli, who was working for the Secret Service. The Secret Service would have the power to keep him out of La Casa.

‘This’ll warm you up,’ the cop offered his hipflask. Beni took a swig before handing it to Stefano.

‘Who’d you work for, Beni?’ he asked. ‘My guess is the Buttagazzi crew,’ he said.

Beni shrugged and turned to look at Capri, quickly receding as they headed into port. He thought the cop would know. He thought they all knew. Did they not talk to each other? He supposed he shouldn’t be surprised. All the different types of cops Naples had, and they all thought they were better. The Gatti Neri, the Guardia, the sbirri, all thought the others should bow to them. Never mind the Secret Service, who were chosen by God himself.