Our latest blog-vlog deals with a bit of retrospect. Looking over our first book, after having gained more education on writing, how many rules did we break? And what changes would we make to Lust & Liberty if we had our time again…?

I chucked a post up on my socials the other day with a relatively simple caption. Concerning how I could look over my past work and realise how many rules I broke before doing a Masters in Creative Writing and Publishing. For years up until that point, I was always a believer that there are no rules in writing. And, indeed, a few followers told me that the rules are there to be broken. All the same, it left me wondering… if I had my time again, what changes would I make to Lust & Liberty?

The video below, and the blog post that follows, explores that question further.

REMOVE ADVERBS

This is something I have refused to believe in the past. Having grown up reading the likes of J. K. Rowling, who uses adverbs quite liberally in her work, I was given to understand that this was normal practice. And then I read Stephen King’s On Writing and realised that that is not the case at all. When I first heard about this rule, I was torn between thinking it was just a well-established author being pretentious, and believing that it made sense. Obviously not enough to avoid phrases in Lust & Liberty like “returned caustically.”

If I were to completely redraft the first Berylford Scandal, I would take some of the gratuitous adverbs out.

REDUCE FONT SIZE AND MARGINS

NOT Reduce SPACING and Margins as in the video — this was a mistake, and it was too late to amend it. The font size in the paperback version, despite being 12pt in fact, looks HUGE. It is single-spaced, 12pt size, and yet there is room for about 13 or 14 lines per page. It looks ridiculous in hindsight, and I made doubly sure to make the margins narrower and knock the font size down to 10pt for the sequel. That looks like a natural size for a book. It would also bring the 500-odd page count down considerably. Which in turn, makes for cheaper printing costs.

EXPAND SOME STORYLINES

If we’re bringing that page count down, why not take the opportunity to expand certain storylines? I cut out a lot of subplots when I was fine-tuning Lust & Liberty, and others ended up diluted. Such as that between Mrs Haffisidge and her nephew-in-law Luke Warwick. I also felt like Mrs Urmstone, intended to be a deuteragonist of the entire story, was given a lot less to do in the end. In both cases, I would seek to expand.

IMPROVE CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT

While we’re on the track of major characters, feedback has suggested that the main anti-heroine, Lady Vyrrington, doesn’t undergo much development. Fair point — she doesn’t have so much a character arc as much as a full circle. She begins the story grieved and, spoiler alert, she ends the story grieved. Her character is much changed by the end, and only accelerates leading up to the events of the second book. However, I don’t think it was as clearly pronounced in Lust & Liberty as it could have been. So I would go over that, if I had my time again.

WHERE CAN I BUY LUST & LIBERTY?

You can buy my first novel, The Berylford Scandals: Lust & Liberty, from Amazon in paperback or on Kindle by clicking here.

Do you agree (or disagree)? Why not let me know in the comments? For more author news and views, my Facebook and Instagram pages are here.

“One for the scholars”, a phrase that will appear in Sin & Secrecy, is in fact a passing tribute to a group of old friends of mine, many of whom are pictured here.

As I do my last wave of final checks on the new book, I’ve been taking the time to chuck in a few hidden extras. A little bit of fun for those who know what to look for…

People like stories with messages behind them. I personally enjoy ones that aren’t necessarily there to teach a lesson or to represent the author’s inner feelings (we had a few examples of those in a post earlier in the month), but instead offer subtle allusions and homages to other work, or have inside jokes for the analytical readers to smoke out.

The upcoming second instalment to The Berylford Scandals series – Sin & Secrecy – has a couple of such Easter Eggs in it, including use of the phrase, “One for the scholars” – a little tribute to some very good old friends of mine, to whom the book is dedicated. In addition, I have drawn intentional parallels between the family of Abel Stirkwhistle and my own – in that Abel has one sister and nine first cousins, same as me (though I like to think we’re a lot nicer bunch of people!) I’ve also thrown in a couple of subtle references to Bleak House, A Christmas Carol, Shakespeare’s Richard III and Poe’s The Raven – if you plan on buying the book, I’d love to see if you can find them!

There are very few deliberate allusions to speak of in Lust & Liberty beyond the full name of the main setting – Berylford St. Barbara, and its pub, The St. Barbara’s Arms. These, of course, are passing tribute to my grandmother. A little homage to one of my favourite short stories, The Snow Child by Angela Carter makes its way in there, and scenes towards the end and the fate of the one of the characters is partly inspired by Puccini’s opera Tosca.

But surely I’m not the only one who does this. Of course not! Here are a few allusions, inside jokes and Easter Eggs that made their way into some famous works of literature.

1. Lewis Carroll’s Last Tribute to Alice

At the end of Through the Looking-Glass, the sequel to Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll included an acrostic poem entitled A boat beneath a starry sky. The acrostic spells out Alice Pleasance Liddell, the girl after whom Carroll’s Alice was named. Carroll’s relationship with Liddell, whom he knew when she was a child, is the subject of some mystery and controversy – a lot of which considers the idea that Carroll had a paedophilic infatuation to Alice and her sisters. The Liddell family’s friendship with Carroll did come to an end in 1863 and the reasons for the rift have been left unexplained. One for the scholars, I think…

2. Tolkien’s Special Title Page

J.R.R. Tolkien was a great lover of words and language as is fairly common knowledge. Hence the numerous ones he constructed himself for his Middle Earth legendarium. But the languages and the writing systems he designed offer more than the authentic feel of being transported to another world. They also made their way into a little Easter Egg on the original title page of The Fellowship of the Ring. Some hardcore fans made it their business to know what the pretty writing actually says, and translated it as follows: “The Lord of the Rings translated from the Red Book of Westmarch by John Ronald Reuel Tolkien. Herein is set forth the history of the War of the Ring and the Return of the King as seen by the Hobbits.”

3. It Leads to Misery

Any Stephen King fans out there? Eagle-eyed ones among you might have sniffed out the link between two of his most famous stories — It, published in 1986, and Misery, which came out the following year. One of the children tormented by Pennywise in It just happens to be the next-door neighbour to the family of Paul Sheldon, the unfortunate protagonist of Misery. 

4. The Recurring Cruttwell

Evelyn Waugh’s work often featured characters named Cruttwell – never the exact same one, though they are always absurd or dishonest. And this is a scathing back-handed tribute to his old tutor at Hertford College, Oxford — C.R.M.F. Cruttwell. The characters continued to appear in Waugh’s work until the real-life Cruttwell’s late-life mental illness and subsequent death.

Kingsley Amis did a similar thing with his work, in which featured characters called Caton. They were named after Amis’ publisher R.A. Caton, and again this was done as more of a mild revenge than as a compliment. Amis believed that his first book of poetry, which Caton published, was not promoted properly. The character Caton in Amis’ 1966 novel The Anti-Death League dies in the novel, and the name does not appear thereafter.

Got any other examples of allusions, Easter Eggs and inside jokes you’ve found in your favourite books? Why not let me know in the comments? For more author news and views, my Facebook, Twitter and Instagram pages are here.