Sssh! Do You Want To Know A Secret?
Recently, I watched the aptly titled drama, The Secret, on ITV. Set amid a devout Baptist community in Northern Ireland in the early Nineties, the story is based on a true story about an adulterous affair that went horribly wrong. Rather than reveal the outcomes in case some of you want to watch the series, HERE is a link to find out more. 

My first novel centres around one big family secret. Everyone has managed to keep it from my main character, Clara, for eighteen years until she overhears her aunt spilling the beans to someone at her nephew's christening. Her reaction to what she has found out takes her to another decade in history and to a foreign country. There are other secrets of forbidden love and Black Market in the story, too. 

I'm now planning novel number two and there's a secret at the heart of my new story. It's got me thinking about what kinds of secrets lie deeply buried in families.Some can be small and insignificant whilst others can have heartbreaking results when they are divulged. Most families have secrets but it's the kind and importance of those secrets that vary. Some of the best novels I've read centre around deeply held secrets. The secret can relate to issues such as infidelity, mental illness, crime, abuse, premarital pregnancy, sexuality, alcoholism...the list goes on. It seems that the darker the secret the deeper it's hidden. Any topic that a family member thinks may cause anxiety may become a family secret. Secrets that were shocking in one era may be perfectly acceptable in another. 


At a recent meeting of my critique group, I took along the mind-map/plan of novel number 2 which is another dual narrative and partly set in Greece. I presented the initial plot and asked for suggestions for other possible family secrets that would be unravelled by the main character, Lexi, in her quest for the truth about her birth father. Here are some of the what if?s my writing buddies came up with:

• What if her real father 'accidentally' killed her grandfather and so was not in a position to marry her mother, Elin?
• What if Costas is her father but Elin is not her real mother but a woman who gave birth to a still-born baby and stole Lexi?
• What if Costas is not Lexi's father but his brother had a secret affair with Elin and Lexi was the result?
• What if the mother of the two Greek brothers has a dark secret of her own and Costas is not her son?

It was interesting to see how people came up with different scenarios and by relating their 'stories', it gave me plenty to think about. I won't tell you what I've decided or even if I'll use any of their suggestions......it's a secret! 

What secrets do you find the most fascinating or compelling to read about? What book that has a dark secret at its heart would you recommend?

Look out for The Unravelling by Thorne Moore which is due to be published on July 21st by Honno. Isn't that a brilliant title? I can't wait to read it.

'Middle-aged Karen is suddenly reminded of an incident from her childhood and just as suddenly finding Serena Whinn becomes an obsession. As she tracks down her playmates from Marsh Green Junior School. Karen finds herself on a journey into a land of secrets and lies.'  

Thank you for reading. You may also follow me on Twitter @JanBayLit and on my Jan Baynham Writer Facebook page.

Octavo's Book Cafe and Wine Bar

On Saturday I attended the official opening and launch of Octavo's Book Cafe and Wine Bar in Cardiff Bay. Independent publisher, Accent Press has opened the book cafe on the ground floor of an old Victorian hotel on West Bute Street where Accent Press's new self-publishing company, Octavo, is located. I arrived in good time to see best selling author, Katie Fforde to do the honours and cut the ribbon.

The occasion was well attended and the buzz seemed to last all day. Chatting to writer friends, we were all in agreement that the cafe would be an ideal meeting place where we'd be surrounded by books. Some of the walls were covered in 'book' wallpaper and displayed literary quotations such as 'Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body.' The book shop is well stocked with a wide range of genres including plenty of titles for the younger readers.


Hazel Cushion, founder and managing director of Accent Press, has said she was inspired to create a place where people can 'relax, browse and shop' that offers 'good food, coffee, wine and books.' From what I saw on Saturday, it certainly does that. The coffee was excellent and the food delicious. Once we'd ordered at the bar, even the table numbers came in the form of 'books'! 

The book shop will promote and sell Accent Press authors' work and it was good to meet some of these writers on Saturday. There will be writing workshops and book groups as well as attracting new custom for the Octavo publishing service. It is intended to host a range of  events including 'writer-in-residence' days. 

Before she left, Katie held an interesting and informative Question and Answer session where she was asked about her prolific writing career.

I would definitely recommend a visit to Octavo's Book shop. Do you have something similar where you live? Where do you meet up with writer friends? 

Thank you for reading. You may also follow me on Twitter @Jan BayLit and on my Jan Baynham Writer Facebook page.

Judging Books By Covers

Would you choose a book wrapped in brown paper with just a few general words of guidance written on the front? Out of choice, I know I wouldn't. For me, the cover of a book plays a very important part in persuading me to read a novel. I usually like to make up my own mind about what characters look like in detail when I'm reading but the mood of a story can be suggested by colours and the atmosphere suggested  in an image.

Here is a photo of my main character in the novel I've sent to NWS for a critique. I googled 'beautiful Sicilian girl' and this image is the one I think most closely matches how I picture her. The hair, eyes and face are all as I see my eighteen year old heroine looking as she travels to Sicily in search of her Italian father. This is for my eyes only; I wouldn't want to influence anyone else with this image as another reader will see a different girl's face in his or her mind's eye. 



Black and white images create different effects. When my ghost story 'The Journey Home' appeared on Alfie Dog Fiction, I'd changed the accompanying photograph from colour to monochrome to create a more spooky feel. 




On the other hand, 'Meet Me By The Jacaranda Tree', a short story set on the beautiful island of Madeira, needed vibrant colour. 

If you would like to read these and my other short stories please click HERE




I'm always very excited when cover reveals are shared prior to publication. One of the most striking covers that suggests the very essence of the book is the one for 'Ghostbird' by Carol Lovekin. I interviewed Carol as part of her blog tour back in March. See Carol's interview HERE . That cover would certainly have persuaded me to pick up the book and buy it and the story was everything that the cover promised.


Recently, Juliet Greenwood revealed hers for her forthcoming book, 'The White Camellia' due to be published by Honno in September. Having enjoyed Juliet's previous two novels, I'm looking forward to reading this story set in 1909. There's something fascinating about the image. Although the young woman's face is clearly visible, it's the emotions and thoughts behind the image that I want to find out more about by reading the book. I wonder if she's feeling sad and why. Who is she thinking about?

On Susanna Bavin's blog  this week, author Linda Huber shares her personal writing rules. One was to 'Find a Great Cover Designer'. Linda switched to self-publishing and makes the point: It's so hard to get noticed amongst the millions of books out there, and it doesn't help if your book cover disappears in the middle of the others. I found fabulous covers for my first two self-published books and as they were pre-made, they didn't cost the earth.  

I love the depth and range of the blues in this cover and already I'm wondering about how a butterfly figures in the story. Perhaps it's symbolic in some way. 

Whilst browsing Facebook on Thursday, I noticed author Rosie Thomas was offering a signed copy of her novel 'Daughter of the House' to each of the first five people to send their addresses to her. I wasted no time and I was one of them! It arrived in the post the next day. :-) The book was published on May 19th by Harper Collins UK as a paperback. I'm never early for anything so I can't believe that for once I was on the ball! As a big fan of Rosie's writing, I can't wait to start reading it. And it has an amazing cover, don't you think?

How important do you think book cover designs are? Have you ever bought a book just because you liked the cover? I'd love to hear what you think. Thanks. :-)

Thank you for reading. You may also follow me on Twitter @JanBayLit and on Jan Baynham Writer Facebook page.

Llandeilo Book Fair

I spent last Saturday at Llandeilo Book Fair, surrounded by talented writers.The fair was organised by Carmarthenshire author, Christoph Fischer, whose idea 'was to showcase some great authors and to share some of the super books being written in Wales including a wide range of genres, from historical fiction, literary books, thrillers, fantasy, Sci-Fi and children's books - there will be something for everyone.' And there certainly was!


It was great to meet up with friends and be introduced to new ones. There was a buzz about the whole day and you couldn't help be enthused by the writers when discussing their books. 

It was good to hear about forthcoming publications, too, especially from authors whose previous novels I've loved. Thorne Moore's books, A Time for Silence and Motherlove are both excellent reads and I can't wait to read her new book, The Unravelling, due to be published by Honno on July 21st.


There were talks, readings and workshops offered through out the day. The first one I attended was 'The Tudor Image' by Judith Arnopp. Judith is the author of six Tudor novels and three set in medieval times. We looked at paintings of Tudor monarchs and considered the images they were intending to portray. The private selves were well hidden behind expressionless faces which acted as masks. As a historical author, Judith has to see beyond the blank portraits, enter the characters' heads and imagine their thoughts and emotions. 

Next, I went to children's author, Sharon Tregenza's workshop. It was for children but I had a great time!  We chose a picture of an animal and then asked questions about it. From our answers, we wrote a story. The little girl on my table had some very imaginative ideas and one child who was about eleven wrote the whole of her story in rhyme! Everyone was given a bag of goodies including a copy of Sharon's first book Tarantula Tide which won the Kelpies Prize and The Heart of Hawick Award. Her second book The Shiver Stone is published by Firefly Press.

It was good to meet up with author friend, Judith Barrow, again. Those of you who read my blog know I'm a big fan of her family sagas that form the Patterns Trilogy. Judith's lively workshop was about building characters in short stories and novels. The handouts will prove useful when we create those killer characters! Thanks, Judith. We also looked at how using dialogue can make a character become more rounded and come alive for the reader. We chose a scenario about which to write and shared our characters with the group. For more about Judith's last book, Living In The Shadows, you may read the interview with her on my blog on 15th July 2015.

Wendy Steele's talk on 'Fantasy and Magical Realism' was fascinating and something completely new for me. Wendy talked about how she sees fantasy as 'taking the humdrum and seeing it and showing it through new eyes.' She creates magical, mythical creatures in a realistic world. You will find her books HERE.

One of the highlights of the day was listening to Carole Lovekin read from her wonderful book, Ghostbird. Having read the book recently, the chapter was still fresh in my mind but hearing it again read by the author, the person who created the character of Cadi and her ghost sister, seemed to make the words come alive still further. For more about Carol's book, you may read the interview with her on my blog on the 20th March.


Last but not least, I caught up with Julie McGowan. I first met Julie at one of her writing workshops at Penarth Book Festival last year. At Llandeilo, she read from her novel Don't Pass Me By. It's set in WWII, a period in history which I find interesting and one that is the backdrop for one of the narratives in my own novel. 

Have you attended a book fair or literary event lately? If, so, please share your thoughts with us. Hay Festival 2016  is coming up at the end of the month. Will you be there? What have you booked?

Thank you for reading. You may also follow me on Twitter @JanBayLit and my Jan Baynham Writer Facebook page.

Query, Synopsis and Sample
As you know, my blog is about my writing journey. I've been ambling along, a few short story successes here and there and a finished first draft of a novel under my belt. In my last post, I reported that I was re-checking the edits ready to send my novel to my friend who'd offered to act as a Beta reader. Then on Friday, my journey speeded up. What happened? 

It was another #PitchCB day on Twitter and I did what I've done for the last few months prepared a tweet pitching my novel. If you haven't heard of it, #Pitch CB is an initiative by the agents at Curtis Brown where unpublished novelists may pitch the idea of their novels in 144 characters or less including the hashtag, #PitchCB. You are to pitch once only and over the course of the day, agents will read every pitch. If they 'like' yours, you may then submit a sample of your novel. Imagine how excited I was that one of the agents, Rebecca Ritchie, liked my Tweet! I had to tell someone so I messaged my friend, Sue, from Writing Group.

And then the panic set in! I checked the website and in order to submit, I needed to send a query letter, a 3000 word synopsis and the first 10,000 words of my novel. I'd never written a query letter and it was Sue to the rescue again. She's in the process of submitting her novel to agents and publishers and recommended an article in the February edition of Writing Magazine. In it, James McCreet looks at a sample cover letter to an agent and considers the best way to proceed. By having a sample letter to scrutinise, I found it helpful then to sort my own thoughts out. He is realistic when he reminds the reader how competitive the whole writing business is. '...your aim is to give (the agent) everything they need as clearly and concisely as possible. If they like the letter, they will; look at the synopsis...'

It was then on to the synopsis. I'd written a one page synopsis before so having up to 3000 words to write one for Curtis Brown should have been easier, shouldn't it? In fact, I thought it was harder and I didn't use up all the words allowed. Perhaps, the difference was that this time it was for real. Before, I'd written it more as an exercise and this was the first time it would be scrutinised by an agent. Writing Magazine continued with its 'Submission Under the Microscope' series and James McCreet looked at writing a synopsis in the March edition. I also found an excellent post 'How to Snag a Publisher First Time With Your Synopsis' on Sacha Black's Writing Blog. In it, she recommends a book by Nicola Morgan entitled simply 'How to Write a Great Synopsis'. My main difficulty was how to present a synopsis for a dual-narrative story. I started by writing a synopsis for each story but that didn't work as I found I was repeating myself. In the end, I included the main stages of the story, where there was conflict for the characters and how that conflict was resolved. It was important to show how the events in the 1947 story impinged on the 1965 story and I hope I achieved that at the end. It was too late for this submission, but today I have downloaded Nicola Morgan's book on my Kindle. Two sections in particular sound as if they will be a great help:

• How to organise a non linear book into a synopsis
• How to write a synopsis of a book from multiple view points

The final part of the submission was the sample from the beginning of the novel. I checked and re-checked, cut more words that seemed unnecessary and generally sharpened the writing - or so I hoped!

Everything took a long time but so it should. I wanted to give this first ever submission my best shot and yet respond quickly to show my enthusiasm. Have I done enough? I am under no illusion that I will be one of very many submitting after a #PitchCB Friday. The odds are very much stacked against Rebecca asking for my full manuscript in view of so much competition. So what have I got out it all?

• Condensing the essence of your book into 144 characters is an excellent discipline. It makes you think about what it's really about. In Sacha's blog, she talks about writing a one sentence 25 word pitch.
• The query letter made me identify my target readers and other authors who have influenced me. Also, it was important to include enough in the letter for an agent to want to read the sample and synopsis.
• Writing the synopsis gave me the most trouble due to the reasons I've given. I know I have to learn much more about writing a synopsis for the structure of my book. Most synopses need to be one side of A4 so Sacha's recommendation that 'synopses are short and sweet' is something I'll have to remember!

This weekend has certainly been a learning curve for me as a writer and I can only benefit from the experience. 

Thank you for reading. Have you written a pitch for your novel in 144 characters or 25 words? Have you any tips for writing cover letters and synopses? I'd love it if you left a comment. Thanks. :-)

You may also follow me on Twitter @JanBayLit and on my Jan Baynham Facebook page

Finding Clues

Tom's delight at finding his first ever 'geocache'!

There was no blog post from me last week. Our grandsons stayed on for an extended holiday after Easter and we spent a week out and about in the lovely weather. One of the things we did was go geocaching in the nearby woods. 
'Geocaching is an activity or pastime in which an item, or a container holding a number of items, is hidden at a particular location for GPS users to find by means of coordinates posted on the Internet.'
I've always loved Treasure Hunts. I have fond childhood memories of ones organised by the local Motor Club with my parents, but geocaching was a completely new activity for me. We just needed to upload the free App on the phone, remember to take a pen, don our wellies and we were away. Ten year old Thomas was in charge of the phone and we had a great time following the directions through the trees. It took a long time. We looked at the map again and again, knowing we were in the right spot, and re-read the clues. But we found nothing. We met another family who'd given up. Perhaps, the box had been removed? But Tom wouldn't give in. "It's only 2 metres away," he said. Bingo! It was still there and we'd found our first geocache thanks to one young boy's resilience. We duly signed our names with the date and returned the box to its hiding place. Here is a link to find out more about geocaching:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1YTqitVK-Ts

Day 2 Isaac found this one.

We're hooked on it now. We went to another forest the next day and found those clues more easily. Geocaches may be found anywhere in the world.

Later in the week, we looked for more clues in the form of a family favourite board-game. The boys were particularly good at finding 'Who dunnit' when we played 'Cluedo'. They ticked off the rooms , weapons and characters until they came up with the name of the murderer. 

The house was quiet when they left and I got back to some writing. Thinking back over the week made me consider how writers drop clues in their writing. Crime writers do this all the time. But what about other genres of writing? 

My story The Curse of the Turquoise Pool is included in the recently published anthology by Swansea's Writing Circle. In it, I drop clues about the identity of the young girl, Mari. Rhys notices some things that are strange about the girl and they only make sense by the end of the story. 
Garage 54 and others

Dropping clues is sometimes called foreshadowing. If you drop too many hints, the reader may lose interest, having anticipated the scene or action before it happens. Too few, and the reader will wonder where on earth that action, feeling or event has come from. A very concise explanation of foreshadowing appears on Cassandra Clare's Blog where she recommends dialogue as one of the best ways to drop clues. 'A casually dropped comment by a character, a mention of an anecdote that seems related to something else, all those can be used to foreshadow and drop clues.'

Another useful blog post on foreshadowing is this one by Connie Dunn. She likens successful clue-dropping to the 'breadcrumb effect' when tiny crumbs of information are dropped leaving a trail of hints throughout the story. They help the readers follow the thread of the story and keep turning the pages.

My novel is almost ready to go to my first Beta reader and I'm nervous. Very nervous. What if she doesn't want to keep turning the pages? Have I dropped enough clues? Are there parts that don't tie up? Teresa is an avid reader of a wide range of genres and I've asked her to be totally honest. I'd like her to tell me if and where she found her interest wandering, if there enough suspense, whether what happened rings true. And lots of other things... Wish me luck!

Have you any tips for dropping clues to keep a reader turning the pages?
What do you ask of a Beta reader? 

Thank you for reading the blog. I'd love it if you'd leave a comment. Thank you. :-)

You may follow me on Twitter @JanBayLit  and on my Jan Baynham Writer Facebook page.

And The Winner Is...
A big thank you to those of you who commented on the interview with Carol Lovekin about the publication of her new book, 'Ghostbird', last week. Carol has had a busy week appearing on various blogs and she enjoyed a very successful launch of the book at Waterstones in Aberystwyth on Thursday.

The draw closed at midnight last night and all your names were written on separate pieces of paper, folded carefully into four and placed in a hat. 

With the help of my two grandsons, Thomas and Isaac, I can now announce that the winner of a copy of 'Ghostbird' is Maria.

Congratulations, Maria!

If you could now DM me with your email address and contact details, I will forward these to Honno Press who has kindly donated the give-away. I'm sure you will love your prize.




I'd like to wish you all a very Happy Easter. I'm just off to organise the family Easter egg hunt in the garden. The trouble is I'll most likely forget where I've hidden some of them - it happens every year!