Author: Mallee Stanley

First draft precious ideas

First draft precious ideas

I’m not a plotter, but I think about my story for a long time knowing the key moments before I begin to write. I know what’s going to happen at the end even though when I get there that might change. So how do I get those ideas that make up the major part of the story if I haven’t plotted the entire manuscript?

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Kim Fay’s—The Map of Lost Memories *****

Kim Fay’s—The Map of Lost Memories *****

Irene, an unscrupulous treasure hunter teams up with Simone, a drug addict with an abusive husband at the request of Mr Simms to plunder Cambodia’s lost scrolls. From Shanghai, they take a boat immediately after the murder of Simone’s husband, but by the time they reach Saigon and Irene has revealed all the information about the scrolls’ location, she discovers Simone is teaming up with Louis and has her own plans once she gets her hands of the copper scrolls.

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Barbara Erskine’s—Lady of Hay

Barbara Erskine’s—Lady of Hay

Jo’s editor approves a series of articles that Jo intends to research and write for Women in Action. One is about hypnosis and regression that she is sure she’ll disprove. Jo interviews Dr Bennet, a well-known hypnotist and agrees to be hypnotised. Instead of believing she can’t go under, Jo finds herself as Matilda, a woman who lived in Wales 800 year ago. She becomes obsessed with Matilda’s life and finds these regressions begin to take over her life.

What is it that connects her so deeply to Matilda’s life and her association with King John? And how are some of the men she knows in the present bound to this long-ago era?

Have you noticed anything about many well-established authors?

Have you noticed anything about many well-established authors?

I have. And I often find it frustrating, but it’s not the author’s fault. Let’s take Kate Moreton as an example. If you’ve read her first, The House at Riverton where Grace worked as a servant for the Hartford family back in the 1920s when a suicide occurred in their mansion, I’m sure you were as riveted as I was to this mystery. Then came The Forgotten Garden that is one of my favourites of Moreton’s where a child arrives on the Australian docks unclaimed and doesn’t even know her name. A childless couple adopt her. Only some sixty years later does she try to unravel her past and work out how she ended up in Australia from England. My other favourite was Secret Keeper where Dorothy’s daughter Laurel witnesses her mother kill a man she’s never seen before, and she has no idea why.

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