Writing Tips - 4

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My Background:
I’m an Author.
I have five full novels, an anthology of short stories and a collection of seven short stories published, plus a number of stories and articles published in magazines and one multi-author anthology. UK US
I work as a professional Editor for a small Indie Publishing House.
I have a few years’ experience in publishing.
I was Editor in Chief of a large online magazine (approx. 100,000 hits per month at its peak).
My second novel, Cruel and Unusual was entered for The Orange Prize For Fiction in 2012.
I’ve written screenplays for movies and at least one of my stories has been made into a film.
I have a page on IMDB.

I've been asked for the links to my books. If you click the green text in the background blurb above, you'll get to the links.

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Pictures either with permission or from Google free to use image search

Writing a book is easy...

I can tell you how I write a book. I can tell you how other people write their books, that’s easy, it’s researchable – anyone can find that information. I think the reason you’re reading this is because you want to learn how YOU write a book.

I’m going to try to help you with that.

One tip I find invaluable - and I see a lot of newbies falling foul of it - READ everything you are preparing to comment on. It's no good reading just the first line, then flicking down through the post because you can't be bothered to read, barely taking time to note the pictures of course, because they always have something to do with the text, and then assuming you know what's been written because that's how you would have written it. It doesn't work and you'll get found out. Trust me.

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Writing the First Draft

There’s NO rule about writing that you cannot bend or even break – as long as you know the rule, understand it and know exactly what works in the breaking of it. (When I read that back to myself, it sounded like Captain Jack Sparrow was giving me advice on writing).

File:William Penn - The First Draft of the Frame of Government

Sort of in a similar vein to the start of this post - Writing a book is easy…

“There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed”
-Ernest Hemingway

I’m not sure I’ve ever gone that far, but there certainly have been sleepless nights and sessions of sitting there pulling out my hair because something is just NOT right! and I didn’t know how to fix it – or even what it was that needed fixing.

As Stephen King says, (paraphrasing) “The first draft is telling yourself the story.”

Give yourself free rein to write just about anything.

Of course, I don’t mean for you to sabotage yourself and write a load of utter rubbish as it comes into your head, that won’t get you anywhere when you’re setting out to write that novel.

Not how your first page should look

On the first draft, you’ll discover new characters (or amend established ones that you believed were perfect). The plot will go off at a tangent and in directions you’d not thought of before.

The outline will be so wobbly it’ll resemble a murdered jellyfish. Don’t be afraid to let the outlines go and create new ones. No Rules, remember?

Do as you like, create a magical place where your rules are the only ones that work. Fish swim in air, animals speak to their humans – yeah, I know it’s all been done before, but go on, you have permission to do all this in your first draft.

Write fast, jot down ideas and worry about linking them together later. PUSH yourself!

Write that book, get those ideas out of the cobwebby depths of your imagination, remember stories from your past and put them down on paper.

USE EVERYTHING! - memories, experiences, dreams, other people’s anecdotes (no, do NOT plagiarise! Use the stories you’ve been told and make them your own).

Perfect is NOT a necessity at this point, getting words onto paper is!

At some point, you’ll sit back and realise you have a (very) rough draft of a book. An embryo of a story and now you have something you can work with!

Time to celebrate

Put the book down and step away from the book.

I’m not even joking.

Go and have a break. Take time off from THE BOOK!

Leave it, you don’t need to do anything with it, it won’t run away, the words will not melt off the pages. Give your brain a rest.

Yeah, do that!

When you finally feel like going back to it (at least a full day later, I hope), you need to start thinking about the Rewrite.

This is compulsory. It’s an important part of the writing process and only YOU can do it.

Please, for *place the deity of your choice here’s sake, do NOT think, “That’s done and dusted, now, where’s that Editor?” Or worse still, putting it straight up on Amazon with all the bells, whistles and streamers you can lay your hands on to announce your book release.

If you can allow yourself time to let the book ferment and mature, do that. Give it a few weeks – a few months is better.

That way your brain has stopped taking possession of it and has finally allowed itself to let go. It will no longer read what you’ve written and think, “I wrote that! It’s perfect!” and so you’ll see things you missed before.

Now’s the time to pull on this big-boy/girl panties and man/woman up. You’ve got to be tough for the sake of your book, your story and your writing career. You have to be HARSH!

Ask questions of the book.

Are your characters believable? Likeable? Loathe-able?

Are the settings, scenarios, plots and storylines convincing?

Is it a fun/scary/romantic enough read?

What about the pace? In my first book, I had a lovely reply from an Agent – It’s too fast, I got through it too quickly, it was too moreish – the advice to slow it down so the reader could catch breath made sense and the advice was invaluable.

For the First Rewrite (yes, there will be more than one) pull the story into shape, read it over and see where it falls flat/down/over and make it stand on its own two feet.

Then put it away again and wait for your brain to percolate enough to do it all over again.

See? This is EASY… /sarc

This was part of the passage I had to slow down. I’ll have to try to find the first draft so I can show you the differences. For now, here’s something I’ve posted before… I still like this part. I hope you do too.

Her composure was shaken, she was almost startled into a run at the slightest sound – perhaps a dry leaf skittering across concrete - only preventing panic by sheer force of will. She was glancing behind ever more frequently and knew that her demeanour had altered. She tried to shake herself out of the anxiety and to do that she stood with her back to one of the massive ancient brick archways which made up the viaduct that ran high above the town. It was further down the line of the same railway system that she had walked under a few minutes before. There was nowhere for anyone to conceal themselves and that realisation gave her back some of the confidence that she had lost.

After the mental shake-down, she managed to keep her footfalls even and confident - the woman knew the value of appearance. More often than not, a person that walked tall and in an assertive manner would be passed over in favour of an easier victim.

Tonight however, there were no others to be passed over for. If there was to be a victim in this place, then there was only one choice.

She paused again when she approached the side of The Swan pub. There was only a wide-open car park separating her from the alleyway leading to where she had left her car earlier. She stood at the side of the building taking one last look around; making as sure as she could that no one was following. Only thirty metres left to the alley, which was another twenty metres of high walls on both sides – a very isolated alley and in retrospect, another bad choice - only at the other end would she reach the safety of her vehicle. She muttered to herself. "I should have let someone drive me around. Sod that! I shouldn't have parked down here in the first place!"

The watcher smiled as he heard her mumbling to herself. He was almost close enough to smell her fear. His anticipation swelled and he had to concentrate to regulate his breathing.

He assessed the woman he had chosen. She was bundled up in a large overcoat against the late night chill, but he could tell that she was slim. She had flat boots on and she was of average height. Her hair was red - the colour of autumn leaves – and was braided tight in one plait, though the length of it was hidden, tucked into her coat. Her hands were encased in black leather gloves and she was carrying a workbag. She had an air of confidence about her, but he thought that perhaps the skill had been learned rather than something that was natural to her, if only because he could tell that she was wary of the alley she approached. He thought to himself “and well she might be wary” and allowed himself a broader smile.

He didn’t know why he had chosen this one; he never delved too deep into the whys and wherefores. Although he had noticed her because she had not followed everyone else, she had gone a different way. Curiosity made him follow her he supposed – that and the fact that she was alone.

He had first thought that he had her when she encountered the locked gate on the stairway, but he had been both disappointed and yet delighted when she had clambered over it. He liked a woman with a bit of spirit. He also liked to watch their panic grow when they realise that they were being followed, it added to his excitement.

She moved on again, through the deserted car park. She noticed a lone car - perhaps left by its conscientious driver who had had a drink and left it until the morning. The cynic in her thought otherwise, in a perfect world maybe he had, but more likely, he was too drunk to remember where he had left it.

The open space of the car park gave her a sense of security that she knew would desert her as she approached the alley. There was nowhere to hide in the area surrounding the pub and so she knew he was not so close behind her.

As the distance to the walled passageway was eaten up by her self-assured strides, she started to slow down as though she was trying to delay getting there. Again she hesitated. At the mouth of the alley, she leaned forward just a little as if trying to see around the bend in the middle. Her bag was grasped in one hand and as she leaned forward, it swung against her leg. She looked down as if she had only just noticed it was there. Then as though deciding that she should make a move before she could scare the living daylights out of herself, she entered the mouth of the narrow and enclosed walkway.

The stalker forced himself to be patient as he waited until she had entered the alley, then he moved - fast and silent - around the perimeter wall. He scaled yet higher walls with ease, running across the tops of them, moving with the agility of a cat to get ahead of her. He had the advantages of surprise and shock and he intended to use them both to maximum effect. His hands flexed as he waited in his chosen position just ahead of his victim, listening for her footfalls.

More tomorrow.