Writing is like a box of chocolates by Annie Try

Yes really! Well, for me it is an exciting selection box. I pick and choose where to start. I think of the climax to the plot and write the pivotal chapter before the story arc is properly thought through.  I write odd bits
every now and again that pop into my mind, like selecting my favourite to taste and enjoy.

The following snippet may go somewhere around chapter eighteen and is in the voice of Adelle, a young lady who is trying to tackle her total fixation with the colour blue:

‘I began to realise what I suppose I always knew, but refused to acknowledge: blue is not enough on its own. The colour of a broad celestial sky is enhanced and deepened by a floating soft white cloud. My granny’s pale sapphire needs its setting of a diamanté circle and silver chain to be worn as a treasured, beautiful reminder of her surrounding love of me as her precious jewel. And that single blue ribbon, taken from my three-year old clenched hand when I lost my friend seems to be nothing on its own. Perhaps it needs to be woven into my own dark hair like the memories of her warmth running through my life.’

It’s a bit soft and gushy, so is probably a heart shaped chocolate with a caramel centre.  At the moment it would suit my WiP, Red Cabbage Blue, but as I am about to do a major rewrite or even begin again I may have to try a different recipe.  I want more edge to this novel so these sentiments could be presented as harder and more brittle, like a toffee crunch.

Red Cabbage Blue is all about loss,  yearning and a quest to find the truth.  I want to entwine a taste of the gospel in there somewhere, to be discovered by those who want to see.

In a way, all my novels are parables of the redemption. Does that mean they all have happy endings with every strand and dilemma sorted? Definitely not, but they will contain change, a new beginning and a growth of hope which more truly reflect a person’s experience when turning to Christ.

But I must confess to being strongly influenced by Luke 15 where it is recorded that the greatest storyteller of all time told three short stories to illustrate the rich rejoicing when that which is lost has been found. He used main characters like a shepherd, a widow and a loving father - characters chosen to relate to his audience.

My friend becomes so involved with her fictional characters that she finds herself praying for them. We laughed when she told our writing group but it’s not far off what I do. I pray that in my characters there is something that will be noticed by the reader, be picked, selected or merely observed that will help them come to a place where there will be great rejoicing because once they were lost but now they are found.

So maybe reading can be like a box of chocolates, too.

Annie Try is the pen-name of Angela Hobday, Chair of ACW.  She is the author of three novels - the first written mainly for young adults, Losing Face. Her most recent thought-provoking novels, Out of Silence and Trying to Fly, are both Dr Mike Lewis Stories published by Instant Apostle in 2017.