Writing Resolutions

Every new year I go through the same debate: should I or should I not make some resolutions? My general feeling is that to 'resolve' to do anything puts far too much pressure on me to 'pass' or 'fail'. So instead, I like to call it goal setting. But isn't it just the same thing and do I really have to do it?

Part of me wants to say: no, I don’t have to do it – I resolve never to make a resolution again! But another part of me, which at times feels wiser but at others simply obsessed, knows that I operate best when I place down some markers. This is in all areas of my life. Do I want to remain the same or do I want to change?

I’m sure there are some areas of yourself that you quite like and don’t want to change; others that you would like to, and still others that you simply must for the sake of everyone concerned. On a personal level, I know that I need to work more on my patience. I seem to have very little of it with my daughter at the moment. I know that I cannot change her but I can change myself. I can’t do it on my own of course, but as patience is listed as a fruit of the Spirit, I’m committing to ‘work’ on this with God this year. I’m not off to a very good start as today is her first day back at school and we had a tiff as she dragged her feet this morning. Oh dear.

But back to writing. Like most of you I should imagine, I feel discouraged when a book or script proposal is rejected; or the ‘big break’ I was hoping for seems as elusive as ever. It’s at times like this that I need to look back on some of my past goals. Last year I set myself 10 writing goals. Seven of them have been achieved. That’s not bad going and I need to force myself to look at what I have achieved rather than what I haven’t.

I will be setting some new goals for this year over the next couple of days. Perhaps you are doing the same. If so, here are some things to consider:

1. Before setting new goals, prayerfully go over last year’s goals and thank God for what He has already done for you.
2. Ask Him to guide you in this year’s goal-setting.
3. Break down your year into chunks: what do you want to achieve by Easter, the end of summer, etc.?
4. Make sure the majority of your goals are in your power to achieve. Do you have the technical ability to achieve them? Do you have the time available to achieve them? Is the final decision for or against, in your control? For instance, ‘getting a big publishing deal’ is not in your power; writing the best manuscript you can then sending it off to publishers is.
5. Write down some goals that are impossible in your own strength. This seems like a contradiction of the previous point, but if you only restrict your goals to what you know you can do, you won’t leave room for God.

Finally, delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the Lord; trust in him and he will do this. (Ps 37:4-5)

Happy New Year!

Fiona Veitch Smith’s apartheid thriller, The Peace Garden, is now available on Kindle. Her latest children’s book, David and the Kingmaker , is available in shops in the UK but may be ordered from anywhere in the world through the Crafty Publishing website.

Jots and Tittles

Ten years ago this week, my first children’s book, Donovon’s Rainbow, was published. The publisher distributed the book to all of their Vineyard Bookshops worldwide. However, if I wanted it in other bookshops, I was responsible for the distribution. So I duly got on the phone and started doing the rounds.

I got in touch with a bookshop attached to a large church in Cape Town. They requested a review copy. When I phoned them a week later to ask if they wanted to order it, they tersely told me that they would not stock anything that was unbiblical. Shocked, I asked what they meant. Donovon is the fictionalised ‘back story’ of the dove who finds dry land for Noah. Although my starting point was the bible story the rest of the tale was obviously made up. I mean, it wasn’t as if the dove kept a journal of his travels to pass on to future generations.

But this was not acceptable to the managers of this shop. According to them I was ‘distorting the bible’ and leading people into deception. A specific example they cited was that in my story Donovon, who at first refuses to get onto the Ark because he doesn’t approve of the Creator’s plan to destroy the earth, is rescued from the waves after crying out for help. He says that he’s sorry and begs for a second chance. Noah then sends Terence the Tiger overboard to rescue Donovon. This was the ultimate sin, according to these managers, because the door of the Ark should have been firmly closed and no one given a second chance. This, in their opinion, is what happens to us when we die and we have not made a ‘decision for Christ’ beforehand.

Now, as I come from a Baptist background, I understood the theology behind what they were saying. However, did it really matter in this case? Couldn’t they look beyond those details and see the greater truth of the story? Apparently not. I can’t tell you how upset I was at being labelled a heretic. (Little did I know at the time I would have to get used to it!). After a bucket-load of tears and agonised prayers, I was no clearer as to why it had all happened.

That evening I received a phone call from a woman who ran a ministry to adults who had been sexually abused as children. She said she was calling to tell me that my little book had ‘set someone free’. In the story there is a Bird of Paradise called Pumla who is kept in a cage in the depths of the Ark. The evil Ronald Raven tries to convince Donovon that this is evidence that the Creator and his captain Noah are not trying to save them but to imprison them all. However, what Donovon doesn’t notice is that the door to Pumla’s cage is open and she remains there by choice because she is too scared to fly.

My friend, a Christian, read this story to her support group that afternoon. One woman was so touched that she had a massive emotional and spiritual breakthrough and, in my friend’s words, was ‘set free’. I asked my friend where she held her support group. You could have knocked me down with a feather when she named the very church to which the bookshop that had condemned me as a heretic that very morning was attached.



How much freedom writers should have in interpreting bible stories is a controversial issue. I’m coming up against it again with my new series of picture books based on the childhood of King David. But whether I am really a heretic or this is just a matter of jots and tittles, I know one thing: the truth will set people free.

Formerly a journalist, Fiona Veitch Smith is a writer of books, theatre plays and screenplays. Her first adult novel, The Peace Garden, is a romantic thriller set in England and South Africa. It is available as an e-book. Her Young David children’s picture book series is available online from her website and in selected bookshops in the UK. She also writes devotional material for CWR. She is a member of the British Society of Authors and her full list of published books, including ghostwritten works, can be seen here. She lives with her husband, daughter and two dogs in Newcastle upon Tyne where she lectures in media and scriptwriting at the local universities.

Will your book make a good film?

by Fiona Veitch Smith

With the recent high-profile release of the film version of John La Carré’s Tinker Tailor, Soldier, Spy (Pan, 1974) it got me thinking about what type of books make good films and what you need to consider if you would like your book adapted to screen.

1. Is your book a classic or a bestseller?

Film producers like adapting classic books because a) they are usually out of copyright and b) they have a fervent following which will guarantee bums on seats. They also like modern bestsellers because of the guaranteed audience base and the ability to piggy-back on existing book marketing. Consider for instance The Golden Compass (the adaptation of the first in Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials series).

2. Does your book have a commercially viable niche audience?

Smaller independent producers might take a chance on books with a niche or ‘cult’ following. I ghost-wrote the true-life story of Elizabeth Robertson Campbell (The Choice, Bridge Logos, 2007) and it is now being pitched to film producers on the basis of it selling well in a certain market and dealing with universal themes of love and betrayal that go down well with cinema audiences. I am also in discussions with a producer to adapt an award-winning novel I edited for the South African market. This film might not make it to Hollywood, but may do well enough in a niche market to make it worth the producer’s while.

3. Is your story the right ‘size’ for a film?

The first adaptation of Tinker, Tailor was for BBC television in 1977. It was an almost word-for-word rendition and took seven hours. Ben Hur (Lew Wallace, 1880) was adapted into nearly four hours of screen-time and Spartacus (initially self-published by Howard Fast in 1951) was just over three hours. But a lot was still cut out. Nowadays, it is rare to have a film over two hours. Only the final book in the Harry Potter series was split across two films. The other six were significantly condensed to squeeze into two hours. The question is: will your book’s story still hold up if it is cut? You may have to go the other way and expand parts of your plot. This is often the case in children’s books that struggle to stretch to 90-minute screen-time. The 2010 adaptation of Roald Dahl’s The Fantastic Mr Fox is a case in point.

4. Is your book written in three ‘acts’?

Most mainstream films are based on what is known as ‘classical three-act structure’. This is a theory of story construction first codified by Aristotle in the 4th Century BC. It is sometimes still used in theatre, frequently in ‘genre’ novels and extensively in Hollywood-style films. I don’t have the space to go into it here, but check out this link for more info http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dramatic_structure. If your book is already written in three-act structure it will adapt more easily to screen than if it isn’t. But beware, a book in three parts does not automatically mean you’ve used three-act structure. My soon-to-be-released e-book The Peace Garden is written in three-parts, but does not fully utilise three-act structure. An adaptation would likely expand on the middle section and change the POV from Natalie to Gladwin (his story arc does have a three-act structure while hers doesn’t).

5. Are you prepared for the screenwriter to deviate from your original story?

Novels and films are different media and need to be treated differently. If you are not prepared for changes to be made to your story to suit the new medium, you should not consider having your book adapted. Once you have signed away your adaptation rights, you will give the screenwriter and director creative control. The producers of the film will make the final decision about how many changes they believe the audience will accept, not the author.

Fiona Veitch Smith writes fiction and lectures in writing for stage and screen at Northumbria University. She writes picture books for children and suspense novels for young adults and adults. She also writes non-fiction and devotional material as well as scripts for the stage and screen. She lectures in writing for the media and scriptwriting. She runs a writing advice site www.thecraftywriter.com

Prolific Fiona Veitch Smith Talks to Donna Fletcher Crow

Fiona, welcome to International Christian Fiction Writers. Since I’m an American who publishes in England and you’re an Englishwoman who publishes in South Africa I think we’re a perfect team for a blog with an international theme. Tell us about yourself.

Thanks for inviting me Donna! I love working with people from other cultures – reminds me that my little part of the world and my way of doing things are just one part of God’s diversity. Yes I’m English. I live in Newcastle upon Tyne. But I grew up in South Africa during the 80s and 90s. I went to high school and university there.

My working life was spent in Cape Town, first with a performing arts team under YWAM then as a newspaper journalist. I published my first book there with Vineyard International Publishing – Donovon’s Rainbow (2001). I came back to the UK with my South African husband in tow in 2002. Since then I’ve worked as a freelance magazine journalist and editor as well as running my own editorial consultancy, The Crafty Writer www.thecraftywriter.com

In 2005 I started a MA in creative writing majoring in prose and script. It was a tough time as I was still breastfeeding my eight-month-old daughter during the first term and I would have to rush home from class literally bursting! But I digress …

After doing the MA doors have opened for me in theatre and film. I’ve had a stage play produced called Pig Stew (a black comedy with a touch of cannibalism) and a short film called Enemy Lines (a modern twist on the Good Samaritan about a British soldier coming home from Iraq). If anyone would like to see the film it’s on the IMDB website http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1396466/ Pig Stew won the People’s Play Award in the UK and Enemy Lines has been screened at film festivals around the world.

I’m now working on another play about the first woman Olympic marathon runner which I hope will be produced next summer and a documentary about the descendents of the Gypsy Royal Family of Northumberland. www.gypsyroyals.com

I’m still on the lower rungs of the ladder as a scriptwriter and am not expecting any BAFTA’s, Oscars or Toni’s to head my way, but I enjoy it and that’s the main thing. It also gives me an opportunity to tell stories in different media. I’m primarily a storyteller and for me, the different media offer different challenges. One story will be better suited to a play, another to film, and still another, a book.

I’m currently writing the true life story of a boy soldier from the Congo called Child of War. It will be published by Monarch (your publisher in the UK, Donna!) early next year. The interesting thing though is that I am collaborating with a screenwriter (Craig Galbraith from Drawbridge Productions in Cape Town) who is simultaneously writing the story for film. We have one body of material (the transcripts from interviews with the subject, Yookie Budia) but our approach to the story is very different. We’ve been bouncing ideas off each other and grappling with some of the challenges of the different media. For instance, the transcript works well in terms of ‘plot points’ but has very little in terms of background and context. Craig can just fill a lot of that in with visuals, but I’ve had to source additional material because in the book it needs to be described in words, not pictures.

So you write, and teach, in all genres. That’s an amazing scope.

Yes I do. I used to lead workshops in creative writing and non-fiction writing at the Centre for Lifelong Learning, Sunderland University. Now I lecture journalism at Newcastle University and scriptwriting for theatre and film just down the road at Northumbria University. Don’t worry, they’re all part-time contracts and I still find time to write and spend time with the family (apart from some manic months in April / May when I never stop marking!)

I enjoy writing and teaching in different media, but I’m aware too that I’m in danger of becoming a jack of all trades, master of none. I was bemoaning this to God the other day. I said ‘Oh God, if I’d only followed one path I’d be much further down it.’ And I thought I heard him say in response (I wrote it down in my journal) ‘But my child, you have followed one path, you’ve followed me.’ That brought tears to my eyes. Because in the end that’s what matters – following where God leads you. And if it leads to success in terms of money and markets, so be it. But if those things don’t come, being with God on the journey and sharing his love with the many people you meet on the way, is far more important. But again, I digress!

It sounds like your focus in fiction has been in children’s literature. Tell us about Myro the Microlight What a fun title!

Myro has been a great deal of fun. I was commissioned by a new publisher, Nick Rose Ltd, in 2006 to ghostwrite a series of children’s picture books about a little microlight called Myro who lives in Australia. I have written twelve so far and six have been published www.myro.com Now Myro is being animated and Nick and I are currently working on the adaptation scripts which for me has been a delight because I love the challenge of working cross media. Myro the Musical is also in the pipeline and I’ve been helping out with the libretto for the show.

I love writing for children. I’ve had a number of short stories published in Aquila Children’s Magazine and even adapted one of them for TV. The pilot script made it all the way to the inner sanctum of the BBC but in the end did not get the green light. So near yet so far. Sigh. And now you’re gearing up to publish a new children’s series David and the Hairy Beast? Yes, I’m very excited about that. It’s through my new company Crafty Publishing

(www.craftypublishing.com). The pilot title is David and the Hairy Beast about the boy King David. It’s the first in a series of six. We hope to bring the second title David and the Kingmaker out for the Christmas market. It’s a hard slog getting it into bookshops as people can be mistrustful of self-publishers (for often very good reasons) but we’re making progress. When I say ‘we’ I’m doing this with my wonderful web-savvy husband, Rodney Smith and design partner, Amy Barnes.

And I understand you also have a young adults' novel and an adult novel in the pipeline. What can you tell us about them? We got acquainted through an online discussion of suspense and thrillers so does that mean these new novels will have an element of suspense?

It does sound like I’m doing an awful lot, doesn’t it? But it’s not as bad as it seems. The young adult novel and the adult novel were written a few years ago. I didn’t do anything with them at the time because I was too busy with some theatre and film projects. But now that I have a bit of space, I’m looking to get them published. The adult novel is called The Peace Garden http://www.craftypublishing.com/the-peace-garden/ and we will be experimenting with it as our first e-book title through Crafty Publishing. And yes, it’s a suspense! [And by the way, thanks for the advice you’ve given me in helping to clarify the marketing niche, Donna.]

If I may be permitted (as they say in my part of the world: shy bairns get nowt), here’s the blurb: ‘When Natalie Porter starts investigating plant theft in a suburban cul-de-sac, she never dreams it will lead her on a terrifying journey from the gardens of England to the townships of Apartheid South Africa; and a far darker secret than the whereabouts of a missing azalea.’

The teen novel is called Deadline and is a reporter sleuth. I’m submitting it to a crime writing competition this autumn but if it doesn’t get anywhere with that I’m planning on publishing it through Crafty Publishing.

And then there’s a historical mystery set in 1st century Palestine. I’m hoping to resurrect it and will submit to a mainstream publisher in the first instance, but I’ll keep that one under my hat for now.

What else would you like our readers to know about you and your work, Fiona?

Oh I think your readers will have had more than enough of me by now, Donna!

Where can people find you and your books online?

I can be contacted through my website www.thecraftywriter.com

I have another website which is a repository of ‘old’ articles previously published in print magazines www.veitchsmith.com

For more on the David books and Crafty Publishing visit www.craftypublishing.com

Donovon’s Rainbow and the Myro the Microlight series can be bought through Amazon or other online retailers. http://www.amazon.co.uk/Myro-Arrives-Australia-Smallest-Plane/dp/1907972005/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1313580548&sr=1-1

I also write devotional material for CWR: Inspiring Women Every Day http://www.cwr.org.uk/store/p-870-iinspiring-women-every-dayi-perpetual-calendar-ndashbrshared-moments.aspx

Oh, and I ghostwrote The Choice by Elizabeth Robertson Campbell (now being turned into a film) http://www.bridgelogos.com/products/thechoice.htm