The End of a Story

I have now finished Clara’s Story. It is running at 103,000 words.  All my novels seem to come out at that length these days – until the publisher’s editor’s had their say. I’ve edited it eighteen times, including giving it a final copy edit. I made myself concentrate on the words one sentence at a time and stopped myself worrying about anything else at this stage. I suddenly saw the text in a new light. Was this the way my readers were going to experience it?

    

I’ve also added a glossary though it is not as long as the one on The House on Schellberg Street. To some extent both books cover the same ground anyway. I’ve added a section on Fact and Fiction. Again it’s considerably shorter than in the first book. Have I leant from my editor?  Much of this particular topic is covered by the website.

So, what now? Well, I’m 3,000 words into Girl in a Smart Uniform. This is the story of the house and the special class from Gisela’s point of view. Gisela is the fictional leader of the BDM girls and the probable cause of many of the problems that the special class face. I have to make her a rounded character and give her a reason for being the way she is. Already the story is taking on life of its own.

I’m not going to blog about this one quite so much though I shall write the odd post if anything of interest occurs and link it to the web site. I’m certainly not going to create a separate blog for it.

This novel explores, amongst other things, what the girl’s movement meant to young women at the time. The whole process is still very much about exploring history through fiction.