Writing a novel (7) – Making a scene

For many years (at least twenty), I wanted to write a novel but didn’t know how to go about it. It seemed such a massive undertaking. There were so many things to think about – setting, characters, character development, point of view, plot, theme – and they needed to be combined in an impactful, satisfying way. It felt unwieldy. Overwhelming. Impossible.

Eventually, when my standard excuse of ‘I don’t have enough life experience to say anything’ became less credible, I began to read ‘how-to’ books about novel writing and, slowly, things became clearer. It was about structure. Not just beginning, middle and end, or even chapter by chapter, it was scene by scene.

A scene is a unit, a building block. In a scene, characters do something, talk about something or reflect on something which results in a change – a character’s opinion or feelings alter, a decision is made, a goal is reached, a clue is found, a problem appears, the stakes are raised, the tension is heightened. A scene shows or reveals something about the characters and leaves the reader with a question: what now? how will they react to that? how are they going to resolve that? how are they going to get out of that? The aim, of course, is to move the story forward and draw the reader in.

That’s the theory, anyway.

In practice, this means looking at the rather flimsy outline I’ve sketched out for my fourth novel in the Hanazawa Information Services series and dividing each section (beginning, middle, end) into plot points. Then, I break down the plot points into scenes (I’ll sort out the chapters, which may contain one or several scenes, later).

For each scene, I figure out what will happen and the outcome that I want, for example, by the end of this scene Sam will have had a phone conversation with Cooper, they’ll discuss Yuna’s departure from Tokyo and Sam will feel unsettled. Once I’ve got the outcome(s) sorted, I think about the setting and action for the scene. Where is Sam when he gets the phone call, what time of day is it, and what is he doing before and during the call? How could the setting and action either echo or contrast with the dialogue? What else could happen before or during the call to add to Sam’s uneasy state of mind? When/How will the scene end? I make a brief note of my ideas so I don’t forget my train of thought. However, it’s surprising how often other ideas present themselves as I’m writing.

For the first draft of the novel, I don’t spend much time tinkering with a scene once I’ve written it. If there’s anything I want to add (perhaps alluding to a future plot point) or am not sure about, I write it in square brackets so I can go back to it later.  

The rhythm of scenes is also something to consider. If one scene is full of action, conflict and/or emotional turmoil, do I want to keep the dramatic tension going in the next scene, or is it a chance for the characters to catch their breaths, reflect and come to terms with what has happened? Consecutive action scenes can be exhausting for the reader, but too much contemplation might slow things down to the point of sluggishness. Balance is the key, and the challenge.

I still find writing a novel difficult to manage – I can’t keep everything in my head at once, so I draw lots of diagrams and write a lot of notes (and I’ll do lots of editing) – but thinking about the story as a series of scenes makes it feel possible.

Novel word count to date: 12,949 words

Writing a novel (6) – Building a love tree (developing relationships in a novel series)

Coronation Street Love Tree (1995) – copyright @Granada Television Ltd

I’ve always been drawn to reading novel series, especially mystery and crime series. Each novel has a murder, problem or puzzle that the main character works through, often at the same time as dealing with personal concerns. The main character usually, but not always, develops and changes over time as a result of their work and changing relationships.

Which brings me to Captain Kirk’s girlfriends. Even at a young age watching re-runs of the original three seasons of the programme, I used to wonder what happened to them. In one programme, Captain James T. Kirk would be kissing an intergalactic beauty, and in the next programme she’d be completely forgotten, and he’d be making the stars shine with another. I like to imagine all of Kirk’s lovers gathering on some far-off planet, comparing notes and plotting his downfall. My point is that even as a child, the idea of a main character not having developing relationships didn’t ring true (even in a fictional, science fiction programme). Life and love are messier than that.

Inter-stellar relationships might be different, you could be galaxies or dimensions apart, but in a small town or even a city setting, exes (ex-girlfriends, ex-husbands, etc.) don’t normally just disappear from your life even when you want them to. You bump into them, hear news about them, talk about them, get random correspondence from them (as an example, I was recently contacted by someone I’d dated for two weeks nearly two decades ago. I remembered that he’d ending the brief relationship by text because he felt his mother wouldn’t have approved of me. I never knew what to make of that. Anyway, he wanted to say hi, see how I was doing and suggested meeting up at some point in the future. It was the first time I’d laughed hard for quite a while).

Relationships matter. They grow, deepen, change, fade and fail. And I’m not just talking about romance. There are bonds with family and friends, connections with colleagues and the cashier at the supermarket who always asks how you are and seems to mean it. We remember who has supported us, been a friend in need (one of my favourite stories as a child was ‘Androcles and the Lion’), and we also remember the digs and slights, and the disappointments.

As a reader/viewer and writer, I’ve always been interested in how these relationship peaks and valleys play out over time.  Perhaps this interest stems from being raised on ‘Coronation Street’, a soap opera set in a working-class street in Manchester, which happens to be the longest running soap opera in the world (since December 1960, if you’re interested). During the last couple of years, which have been pretty tough with intermittent bright spots, my comfort watch has been Classic Coronation Street, episodes originally aired twenty years ago when I was living overseas. What I like about the programme is, in part, that it’s been running so long and many of the characters have been part of the series for decades, so you can trace past relationships (during a recent clear-out, I came across a 1995 Coronation Street magazine that had a wonderful ‘Who’s had whom love tree’ diagram – see photo – copyright @1995 Granada Television Ltd.) and literally grow up with the characters. But what I like most about the programme, especially the older episodes, are the writing and characterisation. The script is often clever and very funny, and, between the gossip, biting sarcasm (bring back Ena Sharples and Blanche Hunt), shouting and tears, there’s real warmth and tenderness that I haven’t found in other soap operas.

How do ‘Star Trek’ and ‘Coronation Street’ relate to my writing? Firstly, I wanted to create a fictional, (non-murder) mystery series in which the characters develop, struggle with juggling professional and personal concerns, develop through their work and relationships, meet someone in the first book and perhaps see them again in the third or fourth (I love when fictional worlds collide, for example, when Robert B. Parker’s Sunny Randall dates Jesse Stone), start and end relationships and have regrets. I wanted there to be humour and emotion as well as mystery. In this novel, the fourth in the Hanazawa Information Services series, Sam Hanazawa has left Tokyo behind, so there is physical distance between him and his colleagues, some of whom are family. In the third novel, he almost began a romantic relationship, but the Japanese visa system got in the way. Do I want him to pursue the relationship, rekindle an old relationship (there’s the pushy, Canadian journalist he dated in books one and two), meet someone new or decide that romance isn’t a priority? What would be true to his character as I’ve written it, how would any personal relationship intertwine with the mystery plot, and what would make the most interesting story? This is what I’m mulling over.

Novel word count to date: 6,317 words

Some recommended crime/mystery series that juggle professional and personal issues:

• Robert B. Parker’s three series, focussing on private detectives Spenser and Sunny Randall and police chief Jesse Stone;
• Ann Cleeves’ Shetland series (Detective Jimmy Perez);
• Denzil Meyrick’s DCI Daley thrillers;
• Michael Connelly’s Harry Bosch series;
• William Kent Krueger’s Cork O’Connor series;
• Dana Stabenow’s Kate Shugak books.

Writing a novel (5) – First Words

I’ve read lots of advice about writing the first paragraphs of a novel. Orient the reader – show them where and when the story is set. Establish the tone and style of the novel so the reader knows roughly what to expect, i.e. this novel is going to be humorous, historical, mysterious, political, psychological, a thriller, an epistolary romance set in nineteenth-century Iceland, a humorous romance set in twenty-third-century space, a detective novel set in Japan, and so forth. Hook the reader with a mystery or crime to be solved, a situation to be resolved or a question to be answered. Introduce the main character(s). And, of course, get the story going. That’s a lot to cover in a paragraph or two.

Then, there’s the list of things to avoid. Don’t confuse the reader by beginning with an unattributed line of dialogue (confused reader: ‘who said that? where am I? what’s happening?’). Avoid trite openings, for example, the main character waking up or looking in a mirror and describing themselves. Don’t shovel in lots of backstory (something I’m prone to doing) because you want the reader to understand everything about the character NOW. And don’t spend the first few pages with the main character mulling. Make them do something. And, of course, remember that writing rules are there to be broken.

Having all those dos and don’ts circling in my head is a quick way to get stuck. Instead, I tell myself not to worry about the first paragraphs as I’m bound to rewrite them. Just start, write something, anything, and keep going. Usually, it’s only when I’ve finished writing a novel that I know how it should begin. I’ve read that it’s satisfying for the reader if the opening scene of the novel and the final scene mirror each other in some way, to show how the main character has come almost full circle and the changes that have taken place externally (in their hometown, job, relationship status, etc.), and internally (emotionally).

Sometimes, just for fun, I try to write the worst first paragraph I can think of, e.g. ‘Sam Hanazawa, thirty years old and a reluctant private detective, looked in the bathroom mirror and debated whether his broad features were more like his father’s (the father who hadn’t spoken to Sam since he’d given up on a business career in order to become an itinerant fruit picker) or his great-uncle’s (the great uncle who had founded Hanazawa Information Services and had always supported him).’ And so on. It can help in getting the creative muscles working and thinking about what I do want to write.

Basically, when writing first paragraphs, I try to get as close to the inciting event, the beginning of everything else, as I can, to show the main character’s current normality before his world changes or falls apart.

So far, I’ve had several tries at first paragraphs for my fourth Hanazawa Information Series novel:

(1)

Sam had a picture of the perfect small town in his head. It would be south facing, ideally located on the Inland Sea or Pacific Ocean, with lots of clear, sunny days. The town would be large enough to have the basic amenities – a supermarket (or preferably a fresh food market), a post office, some form of health care, a choice of places to eat and drink, a bus or train station. These amenities would be surrounded by wide swathes of productive land growing rice, fruit, or perhaps tea. Around the farmed land would be gentle, forested hills, rising up to protect the small, peaceful town.

Nishihama wasn’t perfect. It was on the small side. Fewer than 8,000 people. It was north-facing, towards the Sea of Japan, with a climate of extremes – sweltering in summer and masses of snow in winter.

[I’m trying to contrast Sam’s dream with his current reality. However, it’s not a dynamic way to begin]

(2)

Sam liked his new routine. After finishing whatever renovation work he was doing that day (he did investigative work, his paid work, in the mornings and, if pushed, in the evenings), he’d go home (funny how much the small house felt like home), change his clothes (sawdust got everywhere), take a moment to look out of the top front window and take in the view, the tall band of black pine trees and the sea beyond, and feel glad all over again that he was here and not still living out of Cooper’s spare room in Tokyo, then grab his backpack, throw in his wallet, phone, towel and washbag and cycle to the public bath house. Afterwards, depending on how tired he felt, he’d get something quick and filling at the Station Café or head to the Harbour View Café and Bar for some food, beer and conversation. He was usually in bed and asleep by half past ten, eleven at the latest. He slept like a black pine log.

[I’m trying to establish Sam’s daily life and show his happiness with it. I’m not sure about the information in brackets (annoying?) and, again, perhaps not sufficiently dynamic]

(3)

Sam diluted the tung oil with about a third of white spirits – it was the fourth coat – stirred the mixture, then worked it into the kitchen worktop using a cloth and firm, circular strokes. He’d keep adding and rubbing until the cedar worktop couldn’t absorb any more. At that point, he’d leave it to dry, again, and get back to fixing and re-papering the many shoji. And when the worktops had had a few more coats, and the sliding doors were finished, he’d move on to adding splashback tiles behind the sink. And when this house was completed, he and the rest of the Nishihama Akiya Renovation Project team would move on to the next one.

There were four, abandoned houses in the row. He was currently living in the first one. Rent-free. Although he was paying the household bills. And volunteering his limited skills to the renovation work. And helping set up the English version of the Nishihama Akiya Renovation Project website. He was the project’s guinea pig. His role was to give feedback to the project co-ordinators, who would feedback to the local government, on moving to Nishihama and living in a renovated house. Like almost all small, rural towns in Japan, the population of Nishihama, currently 7,987, had been falling for decades. To stem and hopefully reverse the trend, the local government was trying to attract young couples and families to the area. Renovating akiya, abandoned homes, and renting them out at a subsidised rate to incomers, was a first step.  

[Sam is at least doing something, and there’s some background to explain where he is and what he’s doing, but perhaps too much background]

I have some ideas about how to begin the novel, but I’m not stopping to rewrite the opening paragraphs. My goal is to keep going and get the characters in motion.

Novel word count to date: 4,320 words

Writing a novel (4) – Here be dragons … and a supermarket

As a young reader, I loved novels which began with a map. J. R. R. Tolkien’s ‘The Hobbit’ and the books in Arthur Ransome’s ‘Swallows and Amazons’ series immediately spring to mind. The map set the scene for a great adventure and was something to refer back to when the story got complicated. It might have been factual or fanciful, a quick sketch or full of details. It didn’t matter. Somehow, a map made the story feel more real.

A map I drew for my novel ‘In Wildness’. The fictional, Cumbrian town of Blackside later became Sterrwater Cross.

As a writer, I haven’t yet included maps in my novels, but I always draw one, or several, to help situate myself in the street, town or area I’m writing about. Using a real location is easier in some ways. Everything is already there – names, places and histories. To visualise a specific spot or to figure out how a character would travel from one place to another, all I have to do is look on Google Maps. In the first three novels of my Hanazawa Information Services series, the main setting was Greater Tokyo, but I had a few things to figure out, including where the company office would be located and what the neighbourhood would be like. I decided on the Kanda district of Tokyo as a general location for the office, studied a map of the area for ideas, drew a fictional city block and then wrote about it. This is my description of the office location in ‘Way of the Mikan’:

The four-storey building, the site of Hanazawa Information Services, looked much the same. Still grey and still bland. Joe had selected the location for its anonymity and convenience. Awajicho Station was the nearest, but the office was also within easy walking distance of stations at Kanda, Akihabara and Shin-Ochanomizu and less than a mile north-east of Tokyo Station. The area didn’t have a specific character. It was largely commercial with apartment buildings slotted between or above the shops and offices. Within the surrounding block were an estate agent’s, a Chinese language school, an izakaya, a three-star hotel and a shop selling hand-dyed, indigo clothing from Tokushima Prefecture.

A rough sketch of Nishihama, fictional setting of my fourth Hanazawa Information Services novel.

Using a fictional location in a novel means starting from scratch. Everything has to be placed and named. Histories have to be created. But sketching out an imaginary location can open up the story to new possibilities. While I’m drawing the rivers that flow through the fictional town of Nishihama on the Japan Sea coast, the setting for the fourth book, I’m also thinking about the many rivers I’ve seen in Japan, the straight ones lined with concrete, the few that have been ‘unimproved’, and the birds that lived on and next to them. And I’m thinking about where Sam, the main character, will be living in relation to the town, what kind of view he’ll have and what his neighbours will be like. It’s a smallish town. How will he get around? I’m also thinking about where my other characters will live and where they’ll go to within the story, for example, the local supermarket, senior high school, community centre, restaurants and bars and the public bath house. I add detail to the map. As I draw, and often re-draw, thoughts, connections and stories develop. The physical act of drawing seems both to clarify my thinking and inspire new ideas.

While writing my novel ‘Whileaway Island’, a story that follows a young, British woman from London to a privately owned island close to the Great Barrier Reef, I had the idea of representing her emotional journey – starting point, progress, detours and difficulties, destination – in map form. In the end, I didn’t include it in the novel, but drawing it helped me think about the character’s story in a different way.

My map of Nishihama isn’t complete. I’ll fill in more details as I write them.

Writing a novel (3) – Getting above my station and going for it

Print of the Greengates Pottery, Tunstall, North Staffordshire, circa 1780 – (Source: https://www.thepotteries.org/works/tunstall/greengates.htm)

I can name my characters and give them backstories, goals and obstacles. I can plan my novel in detail, think about themes, how to build tension and raise stakes, devise plot twists and a satisfying ending. I can write a novel. I know I can because I’ve done it before. My biggest stumbling block when I’m about to start writing a new novel is not whether I can do it, but why I’m doing it at all.

There are thousands of books, hundreds of thousands, published each year in the UK. Why would I want to add one more? But is it the publishing of a book that matters or the writing of it? A friend used to say that it was all about the process. At the time, I didn’t agree. Yes, sure, the process, the doing of it, is important, but getting a novel published, noticed and read has to be important, too. Doesn’t it? I still want my work to be read, and hopefully enjoyed (an increase in sales would be nice), but I’ve come closer to agreeing with my friend. The process, the daily practice of thinking, writing and re-writing, the focus and challenge of it, the mind holiday of immersing myself completely in a fictional world, is fulfilling in itself. I feel better when I do it. So, I should do it. Right?

But the voices in my head continue … Who are you to think you can write? Why would anyone want to read what you write? You’re getting above your station, giving yourself airs and graces, trying to be someone that you’re not. You’re nothing special. Stick to what you know, then you won’t cause trouble and you won’t be disappointed.

It’s easy to be cowed by such thoughts. My ancestors almost all came from Staffordshire, living in and around the Potteries. They were coal miners, coachmen, sheep farmers, machine fitters, painters of pottery, barbers, watchmakers, munitions workers, market stall traders and secretaries. Many of them read a lot, but none of them, as far as I know, were writers. And yet, why shouldn’t they have been? Everyone has their own lived experience of the world, has an imagination and stories to tell. Perhaps they didn’t have the time or energy to write. Perhaps nobody encouraged them to do so.

I wasn’t encouraged to write. I enjoyed creative writing at school, and even got my story of Toad of Toad Hall going paragliding (it didn’t end well) read out in class, but no one ever said writing was something you could be serious about, that you could do as a career. I wanted to work outside and travel, so the careers counsellor recommended landscape gardening and/or joining the Army. So, where did I get the notion that I could and should write from? I can only think that my inspiration came from reading. I like all sorts of books, but as a pre-teen and early teen I was drawn to novels with (head)strong, female characters, girls and women who struggled to achieve their goals and, in general, succeeded. One of the first books I remember reading from the adult side of our local library was ‘All the Rivers Run’ by Nancy Cato. It had everything – history, adventure, romance (although that wasn’t interesting to me then) and a great character in Delie (Philadelphia) Gordon. I was also particularly drawn to novels from the United States, which is perhaps why the notion of class as a barrier to pursuing goals/dreams didn’t really occur to me. Or perhaps I was attracted to such novels because of the freedom they expressed.

I attended a comprehensive school. Of my class of thirty-one students only two (including me) continued to the sixth form. I was the first in my family, in my family’s history, to go to university. And I wouldn’t have done that if I hadn’t got a full local council grant. I studied for an American Studies degree (‘what kind of job is that going to get you?’), took courses in history and literature, geography and film studies, mixed with people who hadn’t gone to comprehensive schools, realised for the first time I was ‘northern’, spent a year at the University of Kansas and dreaded the time when the studying would end and I’d have to settle down and get a ‘real’ job. I got around this problem to some extent by going to teach English in Japan.

But, returning to the matter of those voices in my head, when they jeer at me, I channel the strength of the many fictional characters I’ve admired (and of my hard-working forebears) and say, ‘Why not me? Why shouldn’t I write? I have stories I want to tell that others might enjoy. And if that means I’m getting above my station, whatever bogus, antiquated, undemocratic station that’s supposed to be, then so be it.’

And then I write.

Writing a novel (2): Who’s in?

For me, one of the most enjoyable parts of planning a novel, as opposed to the work of writing it, is creating and developing characters.

There are so many questions to ask about a new character – what’s their background (family and upbringing, friends, enemies, education, jobs)? what do they look like? how do they speak, and move? what’s their fashion sense like? what are their quirks? do they have any hobbies? what interests and drives them? Within the fictional world of the novel, what are their goals and what’s at stake for them? And, most importantly, are they needed in the novel at all? Having too many characters can be confusing for the reader, so a useful tip I picked up, from I don’t remember where, is to think carefully about what each character adds to the plot. If a character can be left out without affecting the plot, or if their role can be carried out by one of the other characters, then leave them out.

As mentioned in my previous post, I’m writing (will be writing) the fourth instalment in a private detective series set in contemporary Japan. I have a group of established/reoccurring characters, the employees of Hanazawa Information Services, but each novel covers several investigations that involve a fairly wide cast of characters. The only way I can keep track of them is to make a list for each novel. It’s also a way of remembering their names, so I don’t duplicate them.

I spend a lot of time, perhaps too much time, thinking about the name of each character. The name has to fit – their personality, their social and cultural background, and the time period. And it has to look and sound right. In my novel ‘In Wildness’, I imagined a young, female character as tall and slight, a little gangly and awkward. I wanted a name from nature that looked and sounded like a young tree, a sapling – slender but strong. I chose ‘Silvi’.

But, of course, people don’t usually choose their own names, unless it’s a nickname, so I try to think about the fictional parents of the fictional character – what would they have thought about when naming their child? Would they have gone for a family name? Or a name that represented a quality the child should have – strength, courage, beauty? Or would they have chosen the name of a film, music or soap opera star they liked? Would they have wanted their child to have a name that stood out or blended in? When I asked my mother why she’d given me such a common name (there were five Debbies in my year at school), she said she’d wanted me and my three siblings to have ‘ordinary’ names as, in her experience, children with unusual names often got teased. After leaving home to start university, I introduced myself as Deborah.

Another tip I picked up is to make each character’s name as distinctive as possible, for example, avoiding names that begin with the same letter or sound similar. My characters in the Hanazawa Information Services series are a mix of Japanese and non-Japanese. In Japan, people are most often referred to by their family name, so I need to think carefully about both first names and surnames. Unlike British surnames, which are often based on occupations or are patronyms (names derived from a paternal ancestor’s personal name, for example, MacDonald; Davidson; Fitzgerald). Japanese family names are generally (but not always) geographical, for example, Nishida (west rice field); Ueda (upper rice field). And, of course, Japanese names may sound the same but be written with different kanji characters with different meanings. In short, there’s a lot to consider when choosing fictional, Japanese names.

In this fourth book, I’m introducing a new, female character, but I’ve found it difficult to decide on her name. Do I want something that’s easy to pronounce or sounds similar to a Western name? The character is going to be a practical, no-nonsense sort of person. At first, I was thinking about short and somewhat sharp names, like Miki, Mako or Aki. But I’m drawn to softer sounding names that feel nice to say and have a meaning which could contrast with her character (or show her deeper character). I was considering Mizuki (beautiful moon); Nagisa (seashore); Asami (morning beauty) or Azumi (beautiful apricot). For the moment, I’m calling her Natsumi (beautiful summer), just because it’s a name I like.

Thinking about names is fun, and a great way of procrastinating, but I also need to think about the character development of the main characters. Change is a constant in life, and adapting to change affects people, to a greater or lesser extent. Sam Hanazawa, the reluctant private detective, has finally left the big city and is chasing his ‘green dream’ (of living and working in a small, rural town), but there will be major changes at work, family dramas and a sort of girlfriend to consider. Also, he’ll have a case, or possibly cases, to try and solve (I like to weave several cases into the story, but this time I may focus on one, complex case). And investigating in a small town where neighbours maybe suspects is different to the anonymity of a large city. How will he cope with all that and how will it change him? Will he be more determined to achieve his dreams, decide to put them on hold or give up on them entirely? I need to review and probably revise my plan.

Writing a novel (1) – Where do I start?

Where do I start?

Sometimes, it’s a character. Or it could be a particular place. Or a situation to deal with or get out of. It starts with something, an image, a headline, an article, a job ad, something that sparks a thought. And then slowly, sometimes very slowly, I add to that thought until a larger, more detailed picture emerges.

This time I’m not starting from scratch. I’m writing the fourth instalment in a private detective series. I know the main characters, the employees of Hanazawa Information Services, although I’ll be adding to them. And I know the setting, Japan, although I’ll be moving the action from Tokyo to a rural area in the west of the country. But I still need a plot, a mystery, or series of mysteries. I begin to play around with ideas – what if? – and themes.

In the first novel in the series, ‘Way of the Mikan’, I began with a character, a failed salaryman, someone who’d literally walked away from his career to live a nomadic life as a fruit picker. Then, I wondered, what if this nature loving man reluctantly becomes a private investigator in Tokyo? How would he deal with that? How would his family and friends deal with his return? Would he be a successful investigator? And so on. The theme of that novel was ‘identity’ – who am I? what kind of person do I want to be? In the second novel, ‘Yuzu Sour’, the theme was ‘happiness’. The main characters and the cases revolved around notions of being happy and the ingredients for a good life. In ‘Kanda River Blues’, the third instalment, the overarching theme was honesty, in terms of being true to yourself and others. At the end of the third novel, the main character, Sam Hanazawa, is ready to leave Tokyo, but where will he go?

And so, I started to gather my ideas for the fourth novel.

And then I stalled.

A family situation absorbed much of my time and energy. Set against the realities of illness and, eventually, end of life care, writing fiction seemed irrelevant. Superfluous (although, with hindsight, having a focus, a fictional place to escape to, would have probably helped).

Six months on, it’s hard to get the creative wheels turning again. They feel rusty and clunky. I don’t know if it’s worth trying. But what have I got to lose? And writing has always made me feel better, more balanced. So, I ease myself in with a short story. I made the long list for the Margery Allingham Short Mystery Competition a couple of years ago and want to try again. I start with an idea, something related to my family history, and tell myself just to write one sentence, then a paragraph. The creative wheels scrape and groan but start to move.

With the short story finished and submitted, I let my mind wander towards Japan. I imagine Sam Hanazawa living in a small town, on the Japan Sea coast. He’s helping a friend renovate vacant houses (akiya) in the town, and then …, then he’s drawn into a local case, a missing schoolgirl.

But I need much more than that, to add lots of flesh to the fine bones. I have written a novel without a plan, but when writing mysteries I find I need to plot in detail, to add hints here and clues there, to build tension and craft twists and turns. I start to map out the story, the opening scene, the inciting event, the point of no return (my planning method is a blend of Randy Ingermanson’s Snowflake Method, Blake Snyder’s ‘Save the Cat!’, K. M. Weiland’s ‘Outlining your Novel’ and the many other fiction writing books I’ve read).

Once I have an outline, a still sketchy outline, I focus on when the story will be happening. I like the idea of winter along the Japan Sea coast – swirling snow, long baths and evenings under the kotatsu – but that doesn’t fit with the planned return of a character. It will have to be spring to summer. So, next, I check the calendar for 2016 and make a copy of the relevant months. I add the national holidays, check the dates of Obon (a festival dedicated to remembering and honouring one’s ancestors) and remember that the dates of Obon are different in Tokyo and western Japan. The plot revolves around a senior high school student, so I check and add the dates for school semesters.

Looking at the calendar helps me think about seasonal elements that could be included and that might add to the plot. I read more about the Sanin region, the area I want to write about, and come across an article about cleaning rivers to boost the growth of baikamo (Ranunculus nipponicus var. submersus), a member of the buttercup family that only grows in shallow, clear water. I check when the flowers will bloom and add that information. Perhaps Sam can be involved in helping to clear a local river. Perhaps the riverbanks and/or estuary might be a protected area for birds (Sam is an avid birdwatcher). The ideas are beginning to flow.

I’m almost ready to write.

Potted Gardens – containers of daily wildness

An excerpt from my nonfiction ebook ‘Japan – notes on nature and place‘, available via Amazon.

I came to Japan and brought my cultural assumptions with me. I presumed, for example, that it was impossible to cycle and hold an umbrella at the same time. I soon realized that this was feasible, if not necessarily advisable. I also assumed that houses, detached, semi-detached, even terraced, would have their own patches of green. Home and garden – they were a set. The (British) garden, encircled by a wall, fence or hedge, was the space between the home (private space) and ‘out there’ (public space).

Living in a Japanese city, the largest city, my notions of gardens, what and where they are, have been modified. In this eastern part of the Tokyo Metropolis, ‘traditional’ gardens – ordered assemblies of regularly and precisely pruned trees and bushes, a ground cover of rocks, moss and gravel, with perhaps a small water feature added – do exist, but they are few; possible remnants of larger properties and a more affluent past. Surrounded by high walls, these are, in my mind, ‘secret gardens’, not designed or intended for public view.

And then there are the potted gardens.

When does a collection of outdoor potted plants become a garden? When the pots number more than two, ten, twenty? When the collection is three-pots deep and impedes access to the house? When the plants grow out of the pots, scale walls and become a cooling curtain? When the pots cover shelves, crowd balconies, spill over the borders of the home, spread along the street and colonize the roadside? (The opulent, creamy petals of a child-sized yucca draw my eye. Potted and placed on rough, no-person’s land, it’s an outlier of the ‘garden’ across the footpath).

It would never occur to me and, in terms of Japanese social mores, should never occur to me, to move or, heaven forbid, take a pot. The potted gardens are public yet private, planted and tended, to a greater or lesser degree, by one person and form part of the daily environment of others.

In a city where horizontal space is limited and costly, it’s usual for houses to fully inhabit their plots. With small gaps between homes, room enough for a scampering cat, or perhaps two rats running side by side, there is no space for a garden. Yet, are these packs of pots – primroses and petunias, azaleas and zinnias, large, showy hibiscus and small, defensive cacti – less than a garden? They provide colour, textural variety and a pleasing focus for passers-by. Butterflies and other insects depend on them; birds feed from and around them (a Large-billed crow stabs deep into a large, street-side pot and sends out a deep ‘caw’: beware, be aware). These vessels of vitality make nature part of the everyday. They express creativity and personality and offer the potted gardener some breathing room, a respite from paid work and/or domestic duties. For the young and not so young, for those tired of television and texting, exhausted by electronic entertainment that keeps us dazed, disconnected from nature, there is a pot waiting to be filled, a seed to be planted. Take these thousands, millions, of pots away and what would be left? Too many straight lines. Too much grey. Not enough life.

Tokyo has always been a city of pots. Before biophilia became a word, before gardening was heralded as a form of therapy, before the existence of Tokyo Tower and expressways, even before the invention of neon, and long before Edo became Tokyo, there were potted gardens. The potted gardens of the future may be beautiful and edible, increasing food self-sufficiency and decreasing ecological footprints. They may become more numerous, an integral feature of any plan for a livable city that emphasizes the well-being of all. Contained yet wild, potted gardens are part of Tokyo – past, present and future.

Way of the Mikan – novel excerpt

Here is an excerpt from my new novel ‘Way of the Mikan‘. I hope you enjoy it!

Chapter 46 – Don’t mention parasites

Sam (Osamu) Hanazawa, nature lover and temporary private investigator, is working undercover at a speed-dating event in Ebisu, Tokyo, together with his colleague Yuna.

The young, female assistant invited the seven men to move up to the second floor. There, they were given a number from one to seven and asked to take a seat at the appropriate table. Sam was number seven, at the far end of the room. That suited him fine. He’d have a good view of everyone. Then, a different woman came into the room. She looked more glamourous than her photos. Her hair had been dyed light brown and was drawn back into an elegant twist. She wore a form-fitting, black dress and gold accessories. Sam knew her age, but the skilful make-up helped to make her look younger. It was Arima-san.

The assistant went over the few rules of the evening with the men: switch off phones, use first names only for anonymity, be polite and try to engage with the other person even if there wasn’t an immediate attraction.

Sam was so focussed on Arima-san that he hardly noticed the other women as they walked in. Only when a woman sat opposite him did he give her a second glance. She looked worried. And young. Her black hair was cut in a short, sharp bob with a long fringe that accentuated her large eyes. Her white blouse was dotted with small, pink hearts.

‘Welcome, everyone, to this Tokyo True Romance event,’ Arima-san announced. ‘I hope you have a wonderful evening and leave with love in your heart.’

She hit the gong to begin the first fast date.

‘Hi, I’m Ryosuke,’ Sam said.

‘I’m Kana.’

‘Nice to meet you, Kana.’

‘Nice to meet you, too.’

Sam could feel the seconds slipping away. He felt the pressure to be interesting but couldn’t think of anything entertaining to say. ‘Do you have any hobbies?’

Kana smiled politely. ‘I like meeting my friends and trying out new restaurants.’

Sam wasn’t sure if meeting friends constituted a hobby, but at least she didn’t say she loved shopping. ‘What’s your favourite kind of food?’

Kana pressed a finger to her shiny, pink lips and made a noise to show that she was thinking. The gesture seemed contrived. ‘Italian.’

‘Why?’

‘Well, I like pizza and pasta. And I love tiramisu.’

Sam waited a second, but there was no reciprocal question.

He tried again. ‘Do you like animals?’

‘I love koala bears. I went to Australia and had a photo taken with a koala bear. It was so cute.’

Sam wasn’t sure whether she was describing the koala or the photograph. Perhaps both. Again, he waited for Kana to ask a question and, again, she just looked at him expectantly.

‘I like birds,’ he said.

That produced a reaction. A negative one. ‘Birds? Birds are dirty.’

He nodded slowly. ‘I suppose they are, in a sense. They can carry a lot of parasites.’

Kana’s shiny lips curled in disgust. Perhaps mentioning parasites hadn’t been the best idea.

‘Have you been to Italy?’ Sam asked, desperately trying to dig himself out of the parasitic hole he’d dug. ‘You said you liked Italian food, so I thought you might have visited … the country.’ His voice trailed off.

Kana stared at him, her expression one of cool disdain. He began to sweat while his mouth went dry. He wanted a drink. Several drinks. In quick succession. He didn’t want Kana to like him, but he hadn’t expected to repulse her.

Sam swallowed, considered standing up and walking away, then remembered he had a job to do. Well, if Kana didn’t want to engage with him, he’d talk to himself. ‘I’ve travelled quite a lot. I’ve been to Italy, but I haven’t been to Australia. I’d love to go. They have some amazing birds there. I’d love to see a galah. It’s a type of cockatoo but it’s pale pink. People think galahs aren’t intelligent. That’s what Australians call people who aren’t very intelligent. Galahs. But cockatoos are smart birds. In fact, they’re one of the smartest birds in the world. They can speak and imitate lots of sounds. …’

When Arima-san finally hit the gong. Sam almost collapsed with relief. He had never heard a nicer sound. Kana must have thought the same. Immediately, she got up and moved to table six without uttering another word.

Don’t mention parasites, Sam reminded himself, as the woman from table one sat opposite him.

Megumi was older and more talkative than Kana. She had many hobbies, including embroidery, macramé, weaving and knitting and, with only the smallest amount of encouragement, was happy to talk about them in detail. Talking about crafts made Sam think of Shizuka. He wondered what she was doing at that moment, whether she was out on a date and if she’d ever develop her interests in arts and crafts. She certainly had a talent for making things. It would be a shame to waste that talent. Such thoughts were only interrupted by the sound of the gong. Both he and Megumi were shocked by the noise.

At least she said goodbye, Sam thought.

The next woman, Tamika, was … nice. She smiled often and easily. Her looks weren’t immediately arresting but he quickly warmed to her.

‘What do you do?’

‘I work in marketing.’

‘Do you like it?’

She smiled. ‘Most of the time. How about you? What do you do?’

‘I work for an education consultancy.’

A slight frown. ‘And what does that entail?’

‘Whatever our clients ask for.’

The smile returned. ‘And do you like it?’

‘Most of the time.’

They both smiled. 

‘I like that I get to travel overseas a lot,’ Sam added.

Tamika’s face lit up.

Sam found out that Tamika liked to travel, both overseas and within Japan. They discussed their favourite places, where they’d been and where they’d like to go. The conversation felt unforced. On a normal speed dating evening, Sam would have marked Tamika’s box and hoped that she’d mark his. But the evening was far from normal. And finding out his true identity and the real reasons for being there would more than likely have put her off.

Next, thankfully, was Yuna. The tables were spaced far enough apart that they couldn’t hear the next pair well or be overheard clearly. They could speak normally, although Sam tried not to look too relaxed as he entertained Yuna with the horrors of his first speed date.

‘She thought I was repellent,’ he said, bringing his sorry tale to an end.

Yuna stifled a laugh. ‘She simply wasn’t a bird-lover.’

‘You can say that again.’ Sam suddenly became aware of the minutes passing. ‘So, did you speak to Arima-san at all?’

Yuna’s manner changed. She’d switched to work mode. ‘Arima-san said hello when I first arrived, but that was it. She was busy plying everyone with champagne.’

‘I thought the women only got one free drink.’

‘We did. And it was tiny. But Arima-san was encouraging us to relax and “have fun with extra bubbles”.’ Yuna rolled her eyes to emphasise her sarcasm.

‘I’m guessing the extra bubbles came with an extra price,’ Sam said.

‘Naturally.’

‘Apart from Arima-san being a smart businesswoman, did you form any impressions of her, in terms of how to approach her?’

Yuna shook her head. ‘Not really. But I’d say not to underestimate her.’

Sam moved closer. ‘Why do you say that?’

Yuna pursed her lips, glanced around the room, then sighed. ‘I don’t know exactly. It was just a feeling.’ She moved her gaze back to him. ‘She seems like an actress who could play many parts. Do you know what I mean?’

Sam nodded. He knew what she meant. To be a successful scammer, Arima-san had to be a good actress. And she had to be clever. He needed to be careful.

‘So,’ he said, ‘how are your dates going?’

‘I’m glad they’re only five minutes long,’ Yuna said wryly.

‘Have you met Rasmus yet?’

‘No.’

‘You’re in for a treat.’

‘I can’t wait.’ Yuna’s expression became serious. ‘How do you want to handle things afterwards?’

‘As soon as things are wrapped up, I’ll talk to Arima-san. Can you distract the assistant if necessary?’

‘Of course.’

The gong sounded.

As Yuna got up to leave, she leaned towards him and whispered, ‘Good luck.’

‘You, too.’

He watched her go with some regret. Talking to Yuna had been his best date so far.

‘Hanazawa-san?’

Sam looked across the table. His luck had just run out.

‘Murder in Japan’ – a fictional journey

Some twenty years ago, I wrote a short feature for the JET Alumni Association (UK) magazine about murder mystery novels set in Japan. I still think these books are well worth reading, so here is an updated version of that article.

MURDER IN JAPAN

Want to learn more about Japan but don’t want to wade through dry textbooks? Interested more in wheredunnit than whodunnit? If your idea of mystery novels involves women in tweed declaring ‘It was the vicar in the parlour with the toasting fork!’, then the growing number of mystery writers who set their stories in Japan will banish such images for ever, and entertain and perhaps enlighten along the way.

The year is 1689. In Edo (Tokyo), the bakufu (military government) rules the highly organised and stratified society of Japan. Foreign influence is out and absolute allegiance to the Shogun is in. Conflict is the essence of any novel and Ichiro Sano, the protagonist of Laura Joh Rowland’s novels, in his role as Senior Police Commander and, later, Most Honourable Investigator to the Shogun, is torn between the pursuit of truth and his duty to the Shogun (and friends and family). Within the series (currently, 18 books), Rowland recreates a time and place that still infuses Japanese society today. ‘Shinju’ and ‘Bundori’ see Sano contending with murders in Edo, falling for a female ninja and falling afoul of the Shogun’s Chamberlain. ‘The Way of the Traitor’ follows Sano to Nagasaki and a murder involving the hairy, foreign devils, the Dutch traders. ‘The Concubine’s Tattoo’ and ‘The Samurai’s Wife’ depict the challenges and surprises of marriage to a less than orthodox woman and Sano’s continuing struggle for justice wherever that may take him. Just as you know Bruce Willis will always win, though bruised and battered, to make the world safe for fellow Americans, you know Ichiro Sano will succeed in his search for truth, but it is the price of his struggles that keeps you reading.  

Jumping forward three centuries, Superintendent Tetsuo Otani, the gruff, middle-aged ‘hero’ of James Melville’s thirteen novels pursues justice in the complex and bureaucratic world of the Kobe police force. Superintendent Otani is no sword-wielding warrior, but his investigations, and those of his colleagues, provide an insightful read for anyone wishing to know more about Japan, specifically, the people and places of Hyogo Prefecture. Roy Peter Martin, who wrote under the pseudonym of James Melville, used his experiences of working in education development and diplomacy in Japan to pack his novels full of cultural detail.

The amateur sleuth is a major character in mystery writing and also appears in the novels of Guy Stanley and Sujata Massey.

Araki is the investigative journalist/dogged sleuth anti-hero of Guy Stanley’s novels, ‘A Death in Tokyo’, ‘The Ivory Seal’ ‘Reiko’ and ‘Yen’. An excessive consumer of alcohol and cigarettes, the scruffy 38-year-old, once a shining light of Tokyo University, has, due to deteriorating personal circumstances, been forced to work for a popular (read gossip) weekly magazine. Araki’s desire for truth and a good story lead him into conflict with his employers and clashes with organised criminals, international terrorists and various other evildoers. For pure entertainment and an understanding of crime, big business and politics in Japan, Stanley’s work is a must.

English-born Sujata Massey worked as a journalist in the U.S. and a private English teacher in and around Tokyo before turning to fiction writing. In Massey’s Rei Shimura novels, starting with ‘The Salaryman’s Wife’ (which won the Agatha Award for Best First Novel in 1997), the murder mystery is a means of exploring tensions between East and West, traditional and modern culture, and personal desire and familial duty. Rei Shimura is the 27-year-old, Japanese American heroine of the novels, which follow her progress from unfulfilled English teacher to amateur sleuth/antiques dealer. Although the people around Rei die with alarming frequency, the stories provide a rare female perspective on life, love and friendship in modern Tokyo.

Whatever your reasons for reading, I hope the suggestions above may inspire you to delve into the fictional world of murder in Japan.