THE ELEPHANT IN THE WRITING ROOM

First Find Your Machete.

2012-01-27T17:19:00.000Z

Editing is a process. A progression. Youcan't do it all at once. At least I can’t. I can’t be faffing around withmissing speech marks and typos while I'm trying to make sense of character A’smuddled motivations. Or excise those repetitions. So you do it in stages.Clear, progressive stages. Otherwise it can all get too much and we do ithalf-heartedly. (You've only got to read a lot of self-published novels to seethe end result.)

Let's face it. However much we all lovewriting (or rather being writers) theactual editing can stink. I'm now on the last mile of that editing journey andI'm drained. At the moment, I'm doing the fine tuning before I get out mymicroscope and scalpel. I have a headache. My eyes are blurred. My jaw is tenseand I'm grinding my teeth. I need a stiff (very stiff) drink and it's only fouro'clock.

This is bad. But it has to be faced.There's no point writing what you consider is a wonderful story with characterseveryone will fall in love with if you can’t be bothered to make it as perfectas it can be.

Of course, I can hear you all saying. Eggs.Grandmother. Suck. But you'd be surprised how many novice writers think they knowhow to edit—and also make a song and dance of it as well and so think they must be on the right track. They fiddle and they tinker but never get down and dirty. That'snot to say that fiddling and tinkering don't have their place. But they come atthe very, very end of the process.

So, here is how I see editing. It’s using aprogression of tools, each getting smaller and more precise. Don’t follow my method slavishly because there are many perfectly valid ways to do any job. This iswhat works for me after many years of getting it wrong.

But what IS essential is that you take yourtime. What's the rush? I am well aware I should have started writing forpublication much, much earlier in my life than I did. But that's irrelevant here. The point is, I am where I am. I can't turn the clock back or envy those young things now riding the top of the best-seller charts. It's not their fault. (Besides, envy has wrecked many a life.) So why should I hurry? What differencewill it make for me in the grand scheme of things? And if you're in the luckyposition to be in your twenties, thirties, forties or even fifties, time'swinged chariot has barely left the station.

So what's the very first you do when you'vefinally got that first draft down? Well, you put it away for as long as you canand forget about it. In an ideal world, you’d wait at least six months. But wedon't. So I would suggest an absolute minimum of two weeks, preferably spent well awayfrom your desk—maybe even the other side of the world.

Then, go into the shed, garage or ferret under you bed and find your trusty machete. No, not a needle or a scalpel. Not even a sharp knife. Not yet. A machete. Good. Let us begin.

Sorry. You'll have to wait for my next post. I have a novel to finish, you know.

Winter Interlude

2012-01-15T15:50:00.002Z

My manuscript is now printed out and composting for the second time. It awaits what I hope will be the final round of editing. This will include checking that all the chapter endings either make readers want to turn the page or make some sort of satisfying conclusion but that leads the story forwards. I also want to check that every scene also moves things forward in some way; that the dialogue doesn't waffle on too long once the point has been made or a character is revealed. Then finally, there's the housekeeping again, such as repeated words, typos and misplaced punctuation.

In the meantime, I'm not even peeking at it. I'm stepping away from it. It's not going anywhere without me so I shall leave it for another week. In the meantime, I'm tidying out kitchen cupboards and wondering why I have three jars of Marmite (open) and four assorted marmalades (open) and no jam. Standards have definitely been slipping.

I have also been out and about around the village every day instead of chaining myself to my desk. Today was perfect for walking--no wind, the usual gloopy mud frozen solid, although the sun failed to shine.

So follow me on this short circular tour in the frost.

Walk south along the main road and then turn right up Gill Lane and cross the bridge where the North Dale Beck joins the River Seven.

Turn right again at the White Horse Farm Inn along the road to Thorgill...

...where you will see Rosedale Abbey down in the valley.

Follow the lane left past Sevenford House Bed and Breakfast. (This Victorian house is the former rectory.)

Just past Sevenford House turn right by the lone tree and follow the footpath (part of which is an old paved trod) down through the field (no sheep today) ...

...across the footbridge back over the Seven...

..and through the campsite. In the summer the river is full of children swinging across the river on the rope you can see in the centre of the picture. (The river isn't deep here unless in times of heavy rain.)

Take the narrow path out of the camp-site and cross Milk Street towards The Church of St Mary and St Lawrence...

At the junction of paths in the churchyard, take the left one and follow it through the gate back onto the main road. Turn right and back into the village...

...where it crosses the North Dale Beck disappears under a row of cottages...

...turn left up Heygate Bank, past The Milburn Arms Hotel (sadly empty but not for much longer, we hope) and ...

...and back home. (That's our camper-van in the car-park.)

Next time, I talk about the necessity for extreme ruthlessness when editing. It's not a job for wimps.

Two more great additions to my collection

2012-01-12T20:07:00.001Z

I came across the following book my accident. That is to say, I was reading the books pages of last Saturday's Financial Times. (My husband buys it. I don't read the financial stuff but it does have excellent arts coverage.) Anyway, I stumbled across a brief review of a book I hadn't heard of before and would have passed me by completely. Although having said that, I am now hearing about it all over the place, especially as it's currently the BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week with daily broadcasts. Within five minutes of reading the review, I was reading it on my Kindle. Never have I been so pleased with an impulse buy.

Despite of what I think is a God-awful cover, it is a gem. It's a series of essays (don't let that put you off) about the magic and power of reading written by some wonderful people as Michael Rosen, Zadie Smith, Jeanette Winterson,. Mark Haddon and others. It makes a great case for reading, not as a tool of education, where it is all too often ghetto-ised and therefore ignored by the vast majority of the population, but as a way of enriching the mind and the soul. It briefly touches on the digital age but is not so much about physical books, although it pleads the absolute necessity of free libraries, but what reading does and what it could do if not treated as 'literature' apart from and 'above' everyday minds and life.

Despite its inclusive message and the fact I devoured it, I can't see it making much impact because it's preaching to the converted. It will only be picked up by people who are committed readers anyway, which is both sad and self-defeating. And if it is found lying around by someone who is not already a committed reader, then its bossy shouting cover is more likely to annoy rather than entice. However, given its passion and the fact that one inspiring essay describes the positive benefits of 'read out loud' groups within hospitals, prisons and care-homes, I think a copy should be sent to every MP. Then again, I doubt that any of them would bother to read it.

My second book is not about reading but writing. Although this blog is more about how to write better rather than how to get published, the two things are closely entwined. You probably know all about Nicola Morgan's soon-to-be published Write a Great Synopsis (WAGs for short) but perhaps you haven't so I offer no apologies. I shall be a port of call shortly on Nicola's forthcoming WAGS blog tour so will not go on at length about it now, except to say that if you've ever struggled to write a compelling synopsis (come on, be honest) then this is a must-read. Available at a reasonable price on Amazon Kindle from next week (£1 until the end of January!), you'd be a fool not to buy it. You will anyway, won't you? It's short and sweet and cheaper than a cappuccino.

The Coward's Tale

2012-01-07T11:37:00.002Z

It's not often I stick my neck out. Especially on the internet. The back-lash can be pretty unpleasant. However, I broke my own rule towards the end of last year by tweeting that if Vanessa Gebbie's The Coward's Tale didn't win an award (Booker, Costa etc) in 2012 then I would leave the planet. It didn't get much of a reaction at the time except from Vanessa herself who, in her typical self-deprecating way, told me to start building my rocket.

Undeterred and unashamed, I am repeating it here. Okay, I hear you say: you're a fan of her writing so you would say that anyway. (And indeed I have blogged about her work many times before, including here and again here.) This is all true as is the fact that I remain hugely proud to have 'discovered' her huge talent years ago when I was submissions editor for QWF. But before you turn away from what you think is "another author puffs fellow author" what you don't know is that before I read the novel I was very very wary indeed. For a start, I wasn't sure whether this doyenne of the short story could hack it as a novelist. I also have to admit I found her story collection, Storm Warning, although brilliantly written a little too bleak for my tastes, although having said that, I did read it at a low ebb in my life. I am also a cynical person and am always suspicious of anything on which praises are heaped.

So I started reading A Coward's Tale with a certain trepidation. Uh-oh... present tense; a gloomy Welsh village, a tramp and a rather unattractive boy (both respectively self-confessed coward and cry-baby.) But I read on and by the second page I was totally captivated. Slowly but surely, Vanessa adds layer after layer to create a story of humour, pathos and not a little bit of myth and magic. This novel grows and grows.

The town is dominated by a statue of a miner who commemorates a pit disaster many years before that no-one can remember, except the tramp, Ianto Evans who tells his strange tales for the price of a toffee and sweet coffee to the people queuing outside the cinema. Every tale tells the story of how the disaster affected the lives of the people, their children and their children's children.

To me, the very best novels are those that work on so many levels and the more you think about the characters, the themes, the colours and shapes that an author builds up, the deeper and wider the world created in that book grows. It's what I have called The Tardis Effect, in which the inside is infinitely more vast than what is seen on the outside. Within this novel is a tale of redemption where Ianto is a Christ-like figure. He carries the burden for the disaster. he is both light and darkness. He is the scapegoat, shunned by others and standing alone . It is surely not a coincidence that the pit, a dark and forbidding place is called Kindly Light. This a story of darkness into light; a collection of myths in which magical things happen such as a simple soul who was a born twice and catches a huge fish that has eluded the best fishermen; the man who carves feathers out of wood but cannot make them as light as real feathers--until, well, he does; the man who likes to walk in a straight line; the librarian who was brought up to hate books; the baker who throws bread away in the river. The events are unplaceable in time, although to me it feels like the 1950s or 1960s. But it doesn't matter a jot.

If that makes it sound heavy, I apologise. The Coward's Tale is novel brimming with humour. Vanessa is adept at looking at peoples faults and foibles and wants to know what made them that way. She is not judgemental. She does not write about good people or bad people. To her, people are endlessly fascinating even in their cruelties and follies and every one of us deserves our stories to be told. The best novelists are humanitarians and Vanessa is one to her fingertips.

And I haven't begun to talk about the writing--which is usually what I bang on about. I was sighing with envy. Here's just one small sample in which you'll find what I mean when I write my blog posts about the importance of the writing when seeking publication. This where we learn how the woodwork teacher grew to love wood:

The boy Icarus learned to crawl among the sawdust and the curls of wood under the plane bench in the workshop, and he learned to love in the very same place. First, he loved the softness and the scent of the sawdust, he loved it for its colours, how they flickered away from the colours of the sawn wood. he grew, and saw how mahogany unreds itself, how beech whitens in its own dust. he learned how walnut and apple smell of their own fruits. How oak lifts its ribs in the pews and chairs of the chapel, and how beech wood feels as soft as the fine powder his mam used on Sundays."

These are simple words, used effectively with an eye for close detail. Did you spot unreds itself? It's bold without calling undue attention to itself. It's just perfect. The lilting cadence of Welsh is caught in the English which has made others liken her writing here to Dylan Thomas, me included, but on reflection, Vanessa's tone is more modulated and warm rather than mocking.

A Coward's Tale is one of those novels you want to read again and again. And don't take my word for it. Take a look at this and this. And when in the Financial Times, A N Wilson names it his novel of 2011 then it's worth noting and I quote: an extraordinarily lyrical, moving, funny evocation of a Welsh mining town and its inhabitants as seen through the eyes of “the coward”, who witnessed the collapse of the Kindly Light pit. A poet’s novel, really..

So I shall say it again. If A Cowards' Tale does not win a major literary award in 2012, then I'm leaving the planet for we are surely doomed.

It's that time of the year...

2011-12-29T17:35:00.001Z

...when we reflect on the past year and talk about all the wonderful things we hope to do next year. So here goes but don't worry: I won't be making any new year resolutions, apart from the one to eat less and exercise more but then I make that one every morning.

So how was 2011? Those of you who follow my blog (thank you, thank you) will know that it started at a very low point for me. In 2010 I was in hospital twice and over Christmas my lovely, lovely dad's health deteriorated and he passed away in January. Talk about being kicked when I was already down. Anyway, the first past of the year was spent crawling my way back up to the light, which was not a lot of fun but at last I feel I have finally got there, thanks to my GP and support from friends and family. One of the side-effects of my depression was that I could no longer write with any sense of pleasure or competence. So I decided not to try for several months. Eventually I slowly, slowly picked up the threads of my latest manuscript and plodded on, limping at first, until by October I was moving again. I am now on the final edits and hope to have it ready for submission by February. I am a slow writer by nature but the progress on this particular manuscript has been glacial. (Note to any editor or agent who may happen to be reading this--hollow laugh--I do not normally work this slowly.)

Any highs? Of course. The York Writers Conference was great although I was not on top form and you do need stamina for such events. It was nevertheless fabulous to meet up with friends and meet so many new and lovely people including, and in no particular order: Jane Smith, Nicola Morgan, Joanna Cannon, Sarah Callejo, Alison Morton, Emma Darwin and the fearsomely fantastic Carole Blake. (Apologies if I've missed anyone out. York University was heaving with writers and writerly people and I'm hopeless with names.)

As seen in a recent post here, I have been dismayed by the number of writers who have chosen to rush into self-publishing their work on Kindle. I won't go through it all again. I may be a dinosaur but I have always resisted joining any club that will accept anyone. I am worried about the state of book buying, selling and writing at the moment but I am enough of an optimist to believe it's not all going down the pan.

So, not exactly a vintage year. But I survived. And I'm writing again so I end the year on a positive note and am looking forward to 2012 and the formidable challenge of finding an agent and publisher. I'll keep you posted.

Happy New Year!

Christmas Cards

2011-12-14T11:01:00.000Z

I've finally decided not to send any cards this year. Instead, I shall be supporting The Children's Book Tree at Blackwell's in Edinburgh. Thanks to Nicola Morgan for alerting me to this wonderful project here. If you can, please please do join me and do your bit. Thank you.

PS. This was Home Sweet Home last Christmas. Mercifully, we are, as yet, snow free.

The Kindle Rush

2011-12-09T12:02:00.000Z

Don't get me wrong. I'm not against Kindle. I own one for goodness sake and, while it might take a long time or even forever to lose that thrill of the texture, aroma and sight of a 'proper' book, I am in awe of the way I just click on buy and there before me, in less than a minute, the words are downloaded onto my sleek, slim Kindle. I even stroke it from time to time (sad person that I am) but it has its advantages and disadvantages and I have yet to fall in love with it.

But this post is not about the Kindle as a reading devise. It's about Kindle as an easy way to download that manuscript those stupid agents and publishers have rejected. 'I'll show 'em,' you say. 'I'll sell shed-loads of copies because I know my book and believe in it and know how to sell and market it. They'll be sorry.'

Maybe they will. After all, there are plenty of authors who have become famous for doing just that. We've all read about them. But that doesn't make it a sensible option for the majority. Notice as well, I am not talking about publishers who download their author's books on Kindle as well as in paper from or those e-publishers who work like traditional publishers in that they don't publish anything that comes their way, edit scrupulously and market judiciously. Nor do I include authors such as Nicola Morgan who has a wealth of writing and publishing experience behind her and knows exactly what she's doing. And more importantly, knows about the writing and publishing worlds backwards and more to the point, writes brilliantly. (Holds that last thought. I'll refer to it later.)

No. I'm talking about the frustrated, disillusioned and probably stubborn writer. We writers all rail about rejection. It goes with the territory like a tendency towards alcoholism. But rejection has its advantages. You may have been unlucky and targeted the wrong manuscript at the wrong agent or the agent just doesn't 'get' you, but by and large it means that your manuscript is not yet good enough to be published. That's a tough lump of gristle for any aspiring writer to chew on. It sticks in the throat. After all, a novel takes a huge amount of time to write and you're damned if it's going to languish. Well now it no longer has to. At one time you might have--and still can for that matter--pay a 'publisher' to publish it for you, the upshot being it will sink without trace and you may end up out of pocket.

That happens less and less these days and particularly so when you can create an e-book, usually but not exclusively on Kindle and for nothing. Easy-peasy, lemon-squeezy. No snarky agent, no editor telling you that that scene must go, that section stream-lined and speeded up and that character altered.

Freedom! Power to the People!

But with freedom and power come dangers. What happens to that manuscript now it's out there, published, albeit electronically, and for instant sale? Usually, it's nothing. You friends and family may download it, although some might expect to be able to read it for free. Friends will tell you it's great. You may well get local press coverage or appear on local radio. After all, in the eye of the general public, you're as much as published author as Lee Child, Barbara Erskine or Salman Rushdie et al. Then there's always the dream that sales will pick up and suddenly everyone will be beating a path to your door. Yes, it happens. But taken as a whole the chances of that are as remote as winning millions on the lottery. Yes, it happens but it's statistics that matter. For every single winner of lottery mega-millions there are millions who win nothing at all, week after week. So you might as well forget that.

What usually happens is that your Kindle masterpiece will languish in exactly the same way it would have languished under your bed or on your hard-drive. Worse still, it's highly unlikely you'll be able to dust it off, rewrite it and resubmit when you've improved your skills.It's published. It's dead in the water.

You see, if you are really dedicated to being the best writer you can be, you'll strive hard and continue to hone your skills and learn everything you can about the world of writing and publishing, in the same way that even the most gifted sportsman or woman will continue to train even after he or she has won that top prize; that gold medal. Far too many people who are today downloading their work onto Kindle or other e-reading system it is an easy, quick-fix solution.

And, as we know quick-fix solutions are prone to failure. You build a chest of drawers. You don't know how to fashion a dove-tail joint. Who cares? You stick it together with super-glue. It looks okay but it will soon start to rock and wobble or even fall apart. And those who know these things will instantly tell it's shoddy. The same goes with writing. You won't have taught yourself more skills and you might end up even more disillusioned and frustrated than you were before.

That's why I won't go down that route. Writing is as much about development as anything worth doing. I look back at my early published work and cringe. (I cringe even more when I think of the rubbish that mercifully remains unpublished.) And I want my work to be assessed by the most ferocious critics. I want to find an agent who will help me find the right publisher and I want an editor who will work long and hard with me to add that final polish before it goes out alone into the big bad world.

Hope against Hope Kindle bargain!

2011-11-27T20:21:00.000Z

Please bear with me for this blatant self-promotion but Hope Against Hope is now available here for a few weeks only at the ridiculous price of 92p!

Books for giving

2011-11-26T13:55:00.000Z

It's getting to that time of the year when you're frantically scrabbling around for suitable books to give as presents, here are three I recommend.

Why Willows Weep is published by The Woodland Trust and is a beautifully presented anthology of short pieces by acclaimed writers as various as Richard Mabey, Philippa Gregory and Ali Smith, to name but three all to do with trees. With fine illustrations by Leanne Shapton, this is a great gift for tree lovers, which I am sure includes all of us. You can buy it from retailers and Amazon but I recommend you buy it direct from the Trust. Thank you.

The Coward's Tale. Regular readers of this blog will know that Vanessa Gebbie came to my attention many years ago when I used to read the submissions to QWF magazine. One day, a couple of short short stories landed on my desk and immediately I knew that here was a fresh, new talent. I have watched her inevitable progress with a fond eye. I will review it later as I am still in the middle of reading it but have no fear. Vanessa's writing is always highly readable, fresh. full of delicious small detail and a great deal of humanity. If you love the language of Dylan Thomas (as I do) you will love this novel.

And finally for anyone who doesn't also read Nicola Morgan's excellent blog (and if not why not?) may I remind you that her much-praised 2002 YA novel Mondays are Red will be re-issued this Monday on Kindle e-reader? Even if, like me, you long since stopped being a young adult (heavens, my children are older than young adults), it's still a stunning read.

And yes, the latter two are written by writers I dare to call friends. But that doesn't mean they're not brilliant. Okay?

I have read many excellent novels this year, by debut authors as well as established ones, but at the moment my brain is all sludge so I am unable to dredge up specific titles at present, apart from these three which I am currently reading. (Does anyone one else have about 4 books on the go concurrently?)

That 'Sofa Moment'

2011-11-16T16:43:00.000Z

First of all, I owe lots of you an apology. This morning I found 14 comments waiting my 'approval'. Which I just have done. They were all just fine. I wasn't ignoring you on purpose.

I am no expert on how to be published but over the years new writers ask me either directly or post heart-felt pleas on writers' forums asking what on earth they have to do to get an agent or editor to look twice at their manuscript over which they slaved for years. And what most are looking for is a kind of mathematical formula. Do X plus Y and take away C and Bingo! A perfect manuscript that will be snapped up. I know I make suggestions here as to how writers can improve aspects of their writing, but it's still not that simple.

I still maintain, that whilst the key idea, the plot, characterisation, narrative pace, dialogue and Uncle Tom Cobley and All are important components, there has to be something else, that je ne said quoi, a kind of alchemy that changes a sharp-eyed, seen-it-all-before agent into a reader who can't put that book down.This is what I call the sofa moment when the agent puts down red pen (metaphorical or otherwise) and leaves his or her desk and relaxes on the sofa and reads for pleasure.

And that's the moment all agents are looking for and what makes the difference between a yes and a no. And it can be done but it takes a lot of effort and practice.

But don't take my word for it. Here's an account from a writer of how the agent came to offer a contract in his own words.

Imagine a long, narrow office in a Bloomsbury house. One wall is decorated with books from chest height upwards; 'decorated' because each book is presented to display its cover, not its spine, creating a gallery of books that the agent has successfully sold into publication. Below this kaleidoscope of cover art, there are stacks of papers filling the shelves. The stacks are neatly ordered, but reach toppling height on each shelf, and the shelves stretch to the window. This, he explains, is his slush pile. A methodology is at work; each pile has been reviewed and categorised. No, no, maybe - read again when time allows. On his desk is a new pile, tall enough to hide the coffee pot so we peer amiably at each other across the morning's delivery of aspirations. Fifty to sixty per week, every week, arrive this way, so he needs to form a rapid judgment about each.

So why, I ask, more than slightly humbled by the paper mountains around us, is it me sitting here rather than one of those?

Some of his answer I already knew. Some was a surprise.

Apparently my manuscript fits into a proven genre that is fashionable and growing. People are buying the kind of material I write. I didn't know that, I just wrote the story that was fighting to land on the page, so that part was luck. The concept, as described in my submission letter, was intriguing. But most importantly, he said "I'd been reading it for some time before I realised I hadn't moved a muscle except to turn the page." That did wonders for my ego, of course, but he reminded me that it had taken one failed novel (2 years), and then. for this manuscript. it was draft, rewrite, rewrite, external review, and rewrite (another 2 years) to get to this point. Success this far is built on a mountain of failure.

"Too many people," he said, "give up too soon. They underestimate the graft needed to win into mainstream publishing. They collect a few rejections, don't learn enough from them, and put their book on Amazon for a few sales at 99p. Sometimes that's a waste."

That's one writer's take on it, And here's my tip. Put in the work, write and learn and keep writing and learning. Work through the disappointment and the failures, work harder, fail better and keep going. But it's not about gimmicks or luck (well perhaps a pinch.) In the end it's all about the deep desire and perseverance to keep writing and improving. The more you write and learn, the luckier you get.

Harry Bingham only wants answers but finds himself threatened.

2011-11-10T11:22:00.000Z

Whilst my blog concentrates more on writing than how to be published, I couldn't stand by and let this pass.

In case you don't already know. Harry Bingham, writer and all-round good egg and founder of The Writers' Workhop has contacted the BWA (Brit Writers' Awards) and asked some very polite and simple questions. For his pains he has been sent a solicitor's letter asking him to remove all mention of BWA from his site.(Many of the comments were positive; none of them were libellous.)

This is what he has to say. Please read it.

My friend, Jane Smith, who has also asked similar and polite questions on her blog is also in receipt of a similar letter. This is not acceptable. Please, BWA, answer the questions rather than issue threatening letters. That's all that's required. If you have nothing to hide, why the fuss? I am more than willing to hear what you have to say.

Please pass on if you have not already done so: on Twitter, Facebook, your own blogs by word of mouth. The more we spread the news, the better. We writers demand truth and clarity.

Thank you.

Good News! Unknowns DO get picked from the slushpile

2011-11-06T13:14:00.000Z

I'm sure that you, like me, hear a lot of the following whenever writers get together, either in cyberspace or face to face. Agents, particularly the big boys and girls, are not interested in writers who are just writers. It's a closed shop. They don't read submissions. They only pay attention to you if you're: famous (or rather infamous) already whether you can write or not; young, good-looking (which for females means blonde and busty) or have lead a fascinated life ie you've climbed Everest blindfold and with your hands tied behind your back or you used to fight sharks, or failing that you had a miserable childhood. If you're an ordinary person whose only talent is writing, forget it...

It's not true.

Whilst it's true that agents are looking for manuscripts that will become books that sell, they care more about the writing than anything else (unless you're Katie Price but, as we know, she and writing are mutually incompatible and beyond irony.)

To prove my theory, I would like to introduce you to Geoffrey Guiver who has just got himself a contract with an agent. And not just any agent but Ian Drury of Sheil Land Associates, no less. So how did he do it? Well, not by diving naked into a tank of piranha fish but by...but let him tell his own story. Geoffrey has been kind enough to visit my blog and subject himself to an interrogation.

But first a little about his manuscript. Initially entitled Saxon it is now SWANMAIDEN. And here is a brief description to whet your appetite.

Geoffrey's novel SWANMAIDEN is a supernatural mystery in a similar vein to Kate Mosse’s Sepulchre or Peter Ackroyd’s First Light. The action is set in the present day, in an ancient landscape, and leads the reader to believe that there are more factors in play than could be explained by science. The novel weaves Saxon legend and animalistic imagery into the story of a young archaeologist who becomes obsessed with the excavation of a peat-preserved, Saxon warrior. Her preternatural understanding of the Saxon and his wife is dismissed as romantic imagination until present-day events around her start to echo the ancient, bloody past.

I’m hooked and I hope you are, too. I've tied Geoffrey to a chair and am shining a bright light on him. Let the interrogation begin...

S Roughly how long did it take to write the manuscript?

G Two years, including rewrites. There were lots of those.

S Did you show it to any readers or any professional critiquing service along the way? What are your views on this? Did it make a difference or was it merely a confidence booster? (I'm playing devil's advocate here.)

G I had a lot of support. In addition to friends and family, the Litopia online forum really helped me pull it into shape. I had plenty of constructive feedback on the excerpts that I posted, and four online friends offered to read the whole book. That was a massive help.

I also bought one professional critique, after a rejection this March that really hurt. I'd been introduced to an agent by a published author at a conference, where the agent also saw me win the conference prize for a short story. He asked for the ms but still turned me down. That stung, so I paid for a critique by TheWriters' Workshop. It was expensive, but well worth the money. Their editor, Debi Alper, gave me some excellent advice as well as encouragement, which triggered another rewrite. With her permission I quoted her report in the final, successful submission round; comments such as '[a chapter] ranks among some of the best writing that I've seen and literally took my breath away’ must have helped me climb the slush pile. I think Debi's critique was fundamental in guiding me towards a book of publishable quality.

S Did it end up totally different from the way you first envisaged it?

G It was a richer, more complex book, but the concept did not change significantly. The beginning and end were pretty much as originally plotted, but the body diverged from the plan as I discovered nuances and wove in twists. The characters became more three dimensional as they became real in my own mind, but that's what writing's all about, isn't it?

S What did the process of writing and editing teach you?

G How much there is to learn, and how much I still have to learn.

S How about your moods as you wrote. Highs? Lows? Did you juts treat it as a job to be done? Did it ever become a slog?

G The hardest part was the first 30,000 words of the first draft, when it felt like brushing water uphill. After that, it acquired a life of its own. Even the knock-backs and criticism were easy in comparison because each time, once I'd licked my wounds, I saw how to make the book better.

S Do you have a writing regime?

G I’m very undisciplined. I try to put a solid 2-3 hours in the morning, when I'm fresh and productive. After that it can either flow, when I'm on a roll, or grind to a halt. When I'm stuck I spend a lot of time dreaming, inhabiting the world I'm trying to create. I have some great thinking places, particularly an arbour in the garden when it's not too cold. There's no internet access out there, so fewer distractions. The need to earn a living can intrude, so the writing regime goes out of the window when fee-earning work comes along.

S How many agents did you submit to before you got the thumbs up?

G With hindsight, I started submitting SWANMAIDEN before it was ready. I submitted earlier drafts to 10 agents. In late September, after the last rewrite, I submitted to 5 more. Ian Drury of Sheil Land requested the full manuscript 12 days later, and offered representation 6 days after that.

S How many other manuscripts have you completed languishing at the back of the wardrobe or in the depths of your hard drive?

G One full novel. That was burdened with autobiographical baggage and had more points of view than the House of Commons, so I can now see why it wasn't accepted. It was a good learning exercise and I'll probably re-use bits in future books, so it won't be wasted effort.

S Thank you, Geoffrey, for agreeing to be grilled.

G It's a great pleasure to be part of your blog. Many thanks for inviting me!

Finally, here is an extract from SWANMAIDEN. You can find it on Geoffrey’s blog or, if you don’t want to leave my blog right this minute, I've pasted it here with Geoffrey’s permission. I hope you’ll agree that what attracts agents above everything else is the quality of the writing. I don’t know about you but I can’t wait to read the published book. Watch this space. I will follow its progress to publication and keep you posted.

The mind can do a lot of thinking in its final moments.  Some strange corner of Fergus’s brain had time to know that the stag in the middle of the road was magnificent.  Shaggy-maned and bearing its antlers with all the poise of a medieval jousting helm, the beast had been staring downhill with its nose into the wind as if the last gust had carried the sound of a distant call.  At the first thump and shudder of the brakes it turned its head towards them, and did not move.  It merely glared at them over its shoulder so that the grizzled, moisture-matted pelt folded into its neck like the stole of an ancient king.

That same part of Fergus’s mind, the bit that wasn’t panicking and bracing his body for impact, wondered at the infinitesimal detail of the scene.  A light fog snorting from a greying muzzle.  Foliage, crystal sharp in the autumn patchwork of yellow-and-black, leaf-and-bark.  The vibrations in a raindrop on the windscreen as the ABS shuddered beneath them and they side-slipped over wet leaves with almost no check to their speed. On the edge of his vision the antlers turned to watch them glide past, but Fergus’s focus had switched from the stag to the edge of the road and the drop beyond.

His first reaction was panic.  The second was rejection.  This isn’t happening, this isn’t real.  But the verge still flicked them nose-up into the air in a detonation of wheels and suspension, making the CD skip as they launched.  Reality was a momentary hiccup in a digital scream.  Weightless behind a whining engine, he stared horrified at the canopy of an oak tree that loomed in front of them as the nose of the car started to drop.  He sensed Kate’s arms pushing away from the wheel as if to force herself backwards through her seat, but he didn’t see her face.  His eyes were locked on the trunk of the oak, a massive pillar of the woods that rushed at the centre of the bonnet.  It filled the windscreen beyond wipers that counted them down to oblivion with their metronome beat.  Three, two, one…

His final reaction was acceptance.  Just before they hit, Fergus knew that the moment was real, that this was the instant of his extinction.  And with that knowledge came two heartbeats of calm in which a great sadness pulled him to the ground, a sadness so profound it was beyond weeping.

Essential Reading

2011-11-02T12:37:00.001Z

If your're not already an avid follower of the Crabbit Old Bat herself, Ms Nicola Morgan (and if not, why not?) AND you're currently writing a novel like the rest of the world's population--7 billion and counting--or so it seems, then you must catch this.

Well you wouldn't want your manuscript to be classed as eel vomit, would you?

Showing and Telling

2011-10-26T22:21:00.000+01:00

If there's one topic that's rammed down the throats of writers, especially new writers as if they're force-fed ducks, is to show and not tell. It all sounds so simple. Don't tell us that Jack is rich; show us how he lays a crisp fifty-pound-note in the church collection plate. Don't tell us he liked to make sure people know how rich he is but show it by having him say to the sidesman holding the plate, 'I never carry small-change.'

The problem is that sometimes the alternative to, say, telling readers that Peter overslept and that put him in a bad mood during the all-important meeting at work by showing can end up with something like this:

Peter woke up and automatically checked his clock. 'Oh no,' he groaned. 'How did that happen?' He stumbled out of bed and into the shower. In his rush he dropped his bottle of shampoo on his foot. Hurrying to dress, a button flew of his shirt. He threw it on the bed, muttering, only realising he hadn't another clean one so he would have to make do. The late train was crowed and he didn't have time to buy himself an espresso at the station By the time he got to the office, he was in a bad temper.

Apart from increasing the word count, all this does is stretch the telling out into tedious and dull waffle. Far better to write Peter overslept that morning. He arrived at the meeting craving caffeine, struggling to hide a missing shirt button and proving as successful in subduing his tangled hair as he was his mood.

Trust readers to fill in the gaps.

Whilst showing can offer more opportunities to engage readers, there is absolutely nothing wrong with telling. And don't let anyone try and persuade you otherwise. And don't pay any attention to those who always tell you not to do something! Telling is essential for bridging passages where there is no need for scene-setting or character-painting. The art of writing fiction is knowing where to tell and where to show and why. It's a fine balance and easy to overdo one at the expense of the other.

But that's enough from me. If you what to read a more detailed and better expressed account you can't do better than read this. There's a lot of misinformation out there in cyberspace. Emma Darwin can never be accused of that.

Not another book about writing.

2011-10-11T20:23:00.000+01:00

I can't help myself. I'm a sucker for any book about writing; There is a huge range of them out there to pick and choose from. There are guides to loosening one's imagination, to express hidden emotions to (please excuse the cliche) to think outside the box. I love interviews with published writers about how they approach their craft. Some painstakingly take one through the basic elements of fiction-writing, such as characterisation and dialogue. At the other end are guides with a strictly commercial head on them about how to get published and read the small print of a contract.

I have a small library of them. (That makes it sound impressive. In fact, they're scattered, dog-eared and stained all over the house: on my desk, piled on the floor by my desk, on my bedside table, by the loo and in the kitchen in case inspiration strikes when I'm burning the soup.) Some become Bibles, the books I refer to again and again when I need a boost or get my head round a concept that once again escapes me. A few are read once and never looked at again usually because I couldn't get on with the writer or what he or she was trying to say to me. Many are good for dipping in and out of from time to time to remind myself of what I'm supposed to be doing. There's always something new to learn, a nugget of information that suddenly makes sense after years of not. Often I struggle with a particular aspect of writing that hasn't bothered me before or I want to rabbit on about a particular topic on this blog and like to check what wiser heads than mine have to say about it.

And guess what? Only yesterday, I chanced upon another. (But be warned I have to make it clear that this is not newly-published, merely a new edition with a different cover. I somehow missed the first edition that was published some time ago. Only this time I did something I've never done before. I bought it in Kindle format. I read a review in Mslexia and within minutes I'd paid for and downloaded it. (How scary is that?) I don't actually own a Kindle yet but I do use the facility to buy (or get for free) a download for my PC. It's not ideal because I can only read when I'm at my desk but I'm hoping I can transfer them all to the real McCoy in due course.

So what makes this book different from all the others?

1. The author is a brilliant writer. Kate Grenville blew me away with The Idea of Perfection and didn't disappoint with her historical novels, The Secret River and The Lieutenant.

2. It contains extracts from many Australian writers with full analyses. My knowledge of Australian writing is woefully poor and I am looking forward to being introduced to a whole new world of fiction.

3. Each chapter ends with exercises that look as if they're actually useful.

On the negative side, the chapter on publication is based on the Australian market which isn't much help to me, nor is it, as I said above, a new book. Some of it covers topics I feel I know already but, then again, she writes in such a refreshing way, it's well worth revisiting them from a new perspective. And because I'm a sucker for books about writing. Did I say that before?

So, as they say on The X Factor, it's a yes from me.

If I've whetted your appetite, you can check it out here.

Next post will be about that old chestnut: showing versus telling. And guess what? You can do both.

Back to Basics and Eating our Grandmas

2011-10-04T21:56:00.000+01:00

Although it still feels summer-ish there's a definite back to the classroom whiff in the air. I've had a good summer with plenty of excellent short breaks. Not that I totally stopped working, you understand. I was reading and reporting on a batch of novel manuscripts which kept me pretty busy. Now they're done and dusted, it's time to take stock.

What struck me was how the same old problems kept rearing their ugly heads; the usual suspects, such as repetition, clunky dialogue and showing and not telling. What I wasn't prepared for was the lack of a certain type of comma, so much so that I'm thinking of creating a new charity called Save The Vocative Comma. Has a certain ring to it, don't you think? Perhaps not.

Anyway, you don't find these little fellows in office reports or essays and perhaps children no longer write fiction at school. Whatever the reason, as I waded through novels manuscripts this summer I was struck by how often sentences like these cropped up:

Come here Jack. I love your dress Mary. It's a lovely day isn't it? Come and say hello to Peter Susan.

The joky way to explain its use is:

I'm probably showing my age when I bemoan the fact that schools no longer teach grammar and syntax but I don't think it's old-fashioned for those of us for whom writing for publication is our profession or our goal, to be interested in how language works. You don't need to be a Latin scholar to learn why there's a difference between your and you're, I or me, we and us, it's and its etc. If we learned the basics, there would never be any confusion or wild guesses. The same goes for where to put those pesky apostrophes market traders seem to have so much trouble with.

And while I'm having a moan there's something else I want to get off my chest: the unnecessary fog of confusion that surrounds the use of capital letters. For instance, is it Dad or dad, Mum or mum? The answer is that it depends on its function in the sentence.

When writing about somebody's father (or mother, uncle, aunt, grandfather etc) the first letter is always in lower case. It's only capitalised when it's used as a name, which, as we all know, is a proper noun and takes a capital letter. So:

Jenny told her dad she didn't like his tie.

Jenny said, 'I don't like your tie, Dad.'

Did you spot the vocative comma there as well?

Does any of this matter? Is it worth getting my knickers in a twist over? There are more important things to worry about. But this blog isn't about how to eradicate hunger, poverty war and pestilence. Believe me, I would if I could. It's about writing. But surely, you say, as long as people know what you mean it doesn't matter how you spell things or whether you bother with silly little things such as commas or apostrophes? I think it does. If a job's worth doing, it's worth doing well.

But it's more than that. It's all about people having confidence and faith in you as a writer. One of the essentials of fiction is the ability to suspend disbelief. It's a kind of magic trick. Only, readers can't be tricked if they're constantly reminded of the mechanics. (Remember the moment when the 'mechanics' of the Wizard of Oz was revealed behind the curtain?)

And if readers are critical, what about agents and editors? It may be unfair but if they read a manuscript that's littered with basic errors, they're going to think, rightly or wrongly, that you have no idea what you're doing it's going to make them think twice about taking you on.

This isn't to say that if you've written a story that's a stunner in every other way, punctuation or grammar errors will prevent your manuscript being accepted. Of course not. No submitted manuscript is ever totally clear of errors. But too many and too many elementary mistakes and you're in danger of harming your chances of an agent getting past the first few pages. You wouldn't turn up at a crucial job interview in a smelly T-shirt and without having brushed your teeth, would you? (Another vocative comma, by the way.) Give yourself a fighting chance.

Learning to write right is not difficult, If you missed out for any reason (and it probably wasn't your fault) it's never too late. Buy a grammar or punctuation guide. (Be careful of the internet; there's plenty of misinformation out there.) Mastering or mugging up on the basics will give you more confidence in your writing.

By the way, that cartoon is wrong. The second sentence should actually read Let's eat, Grandma. So there. (Once a pedant, always a pedant.)

I've noticed I seem to have lost a lot of readers lately? Am I too bossy? Maybe it's time my elephant and I went off for a long walk.

Away again...

2011-09-24T13:27:00.001+01:00

We're back after a busy week. We've just touched base to catch up on food shopping and the washing before we set off again on Tuesday--this time for no reason other than a bit of R & R by the sea. (Just north of Whitley Bay, Northumberland.) Here are a couple of shots taken when we were there last year.

Normal service will, I promise, be resumed as soon as possible when I shall continue to tackle the most common reasons why novel manuscripts are rejected. And a rant about the vocative comma. If you don't know what that is, then have a Google in the meantime. Its misuse drives me wild and it's so simple to get right.

See you next week

2011-09-13T16:30:00.000+01:00

We're off tomorrow in our trusty camper van to stay around the civilised waters of Henley on Thames so that Jon can take part in the Henley Challenge Long-Distance Triathlon. Rather him than me. (click on this link if you're interested.) I intend to catch up on reading and writing and deciding what's next for this blog.

See you sometime after the 20th September. Meanwhile how about thinking of the questions you're burning to ask about the most likely obstacles stopping an agent or editor from saying yes. It'll save me a job.

Fighting the flab

2011-09-03T15:58:00.000+01:00

How big should your novel be?

I don't want to get bogged down on this as different genres tolerate different sizes. It also depends on both publisher and the author. (Note how each Harry Potter novel was fatter than the last.) Fantasy--which often run to three volumes (I blame Prof Tolkien)-- and historical sagas tolerate a fatter word-count. Then again, the thick tome you pick up in the bookshop may in fact be a cracking read; the pages turn quickly and pleasurably. Whereas that slim, elegant volume may be written in dense prose that reading it is akin to wading through custard. (Not that I've ever tried.) I remember once wailing to an editor that I found it hard to write a novel of less than 100,000 words. She said that although I 'wrote long, I read quick.' Ungrammatical it may have been but I understood what she meant. I write historical fiction in which I aim for no more than 120,000 words but I long to write something lean and spare in under 80,000. (I have been a size 16 for decades which, although is not too bad considering I'm quite tall, I would love to be size 12, but it ain't gonna happen. Not now.) In other words we have to accept what kind of writer we are and what we're writing.

Having said that, I have yet to read an unpublished manuscript that couldn't have been improved considerably by being pared down considerably. As I keep saying, there's nothing wrong with first drafts being flabby. It's inevitable as you get everything you want to say in the novel down on paper. It's great to find that you've written a full length novel of say, 95,000 words with a beginning a middle and an end, full of strong characters and a compelling plot. Pour yourself a big glass of champagne or something stronger. That's quite an achievement, believe me. Most people find writing a short thank you letter to great-aunt Maud for her hand-knitted socks a slog. Come to think of it, I still do.

Don't start editing immediately. You'll be eager to do so and set out with gusto to make sure Jane doesn't morph into Joan or Dave ends up in Winchester and not Manchester, seeking out those missing quotation marks and finding and replacing those words you can't help over-using such as just and really. Don't. Leave those until later.

Most flab I find in manuscript I crit is down to repetitions. I read one a while back where a 40 year old women with three teen-aged children finds out she's pregnant. Let's call her Rita. She is happy enough in herself to be pregnant because she's a maternal woman with a stable happy marriage but she's worried that her husband won't want another mouth to feed and the children will find it gross and embarrassing. She also had just decided to branch out in a new career. It's coming to terms with her pregnancy that forms the core of the novel. So far, so good. Only on every page we get Rita worrying about the same things over and over again. It's not that she doesn't do anything. She does and the story moves forward, albeit at a snail's pace. The ting is that before she does or says everything the writer has to remind us how worried she is and even more annoying, why. Every time she talks to her son she imagines what his reaction will be, every time she sees her lovely daughter cooing to her new boyfriend on her mobile, she worries what the boyfriend will think when he trips over a houseful of toys and a pram in the hall etc etc. It was as if the writer is afraid the reader might forget This Very Important Problem.

I know I've mentioned this before but repetition is the curse of too many manuscripts. Don't be too heavy handed so that readers haven't a clue what the problem is. Keep it clear and sharp. I reckon on average you can shed several thousand words this way that can be replaced by something different, even a sub-plot to give the end result more texture and depth.

Another are of flabbiness is that scenes go on for too long. Once a scene has done its job: pin-pointed a change in circumstances, dropped another spanner in the works or introduced another piece of vital information, move on. Don't dwell on it to Make Sure We Get the Point.

The reason doctors bang on to their patients about losing weight is not the current media obessession with skinniness. (That's another matter entirely.) It's because, the more excess fat a person carries , the more medical problems will ensure--from joint pain to high blood pressure. And whilst I hate bony androgynous girls, too much fat is not attractive too look at. Although I don't want to push the metaphor too far, a manuscript that is light on its feet, lithe and subtle is far more readable and therefore more likely to be published. Tough but true.

I'm now beginning to repeat myself, which shows how easy it is to do, especially when we want to make a point. Job done. I'm off.

Talking

2011-08-17T11:09:00.001+01:00

About this time last year, I wrote a post about short story writing that touched on dialogue. You might like to take another look at it here. (Scroll down the page a bit). What I said then also applies to novels. Because a novel is much longer than any short story, it figures that there's going to be a lot more dialogue for your readers to plough through. So make it worth their while.

I am one of the lucky ones, I suppose. Not only do I enjoy writing dialogue, I think I can do it reasonably well. But if you struggle, here are a few things to think about when editing. I've said before (I think) that first draft is allowed to be crappy. Just get it written down. Only then can you go back and polish and polish it until it gleams. The same goes for dialogue with knobs on. Sometimes in my first draft I get to a place where there has to be a longish chunk of dialogue. Rather than slowing right down to 'get it right' and get bogged down in details I will type myself a note in capitals (EXPAND) maybe with a line about what the conversation is about and what it leads to (because all conversations in fiction must lead somewhere and not go round in circles unless going round in circles is relevant to the novel's theme and characterisation.) Then I move on getting the bare bones of the narrative down. (As you can see I am what is known as a pantster. I make it up as I go along.) Only later do I go back to it and actually write it.

The main reason I do this is because, writing dialogue involves a lot of technique and that can get in the way if you're in that first flush of free crativity--which is what a first draft should be. How a line of speech is written as much as what's being said makes a lot of difference to how it is perceived by the reader. How the words within quotes and the tags* and beats* (see below) are arranged is partly a matter of personal preference but also which more closely conveys the tone and sense of what you're trying to achieve. For example, placing the meat of the sentence at the very end of the line of both spoken word and any tags or beats just before the full stop gives it more prominence than if you dwindle away by adding whispered Sally as she sank to the floor. Then again that dying fall may be totally appropriate. It depends.

In last August's post, I said that dialogue in fiction is not the same as real-life conversation but it has to sound like it. It is sleight of hand (in the same way, I suppose, that painters recreate three dimensions on a flat piece of board or canvas.) Far too often, I read dialogue in manuscripts that is clunky, wooden and totally unconvincing and this is usually due to the fact the writer is trying to recreate the trivia and inconsequentiality of real conversation by adding ums and aahs and lots of hellos and goodbyes and conveying information in an unnatural way.

I think it's worth repeating the 3 functions of dialogue in fiction I mentioned before:

1. Provides relevant information.

2. Reveal character.

3. Move the narrative forward.

Last time, I concentrated on how to give information in dialogue in a more natural way. I touched on character revelation but not in detail. So I thought I'd do that now I have more space. Everybody sounds different, even people with the same aboveground, upbringing and education. After all, how can I instantly identify which one of my two sons is speaking to me on the telephone? They went to the same school, lived in the same house for nigh on 20 years. I'm not so much talking here about the sound of their voices. But what you can (and must) do is give your characters an individual voice by the words they choose, the shortness of length of their sentences etc. If you're doing your job properly your readers should be able to tell who's speaking most of the time even without tags. In far too many manuscripts I read, all the characters sound the same. Not only that but they express themselves using exactly the same vocabulary and syntax as the writer in non-dialogue passages. If you do this, not only are you missing out on opportunities to bring your characters to life, you're risking drowning the readers in tedium. Repetition and an even tone and pace, page after page, is the surest way to send your readers to sleep. Dialogue should be an opportunity to sharpen readers' senses.

Which brings us onto tags. And immediately we enter a raging debate. New writers know that their writing has to have variety rather than repetition. (I've just said as much, haven't I?) So what better way than to come up with a wide variety of dialogue tags. After all, said, is such a dull flat word, isn't it? Better to use expressive words such as yelled, screamed, pronounced, raged and even worse words that have nothing to do with speaking words.

'You're in real trouble, boy,' the cop laughed is wrong because laughing is not talking. You can laugh through words but you can't actually laugh words. (However, The cop laughed. 'You're in real trouble, boy.' is perfectly all right.) 'I hate you,' she mouthed. No she didn't. She said it - or maybe even shouted it, but don't try to be creative with tags. Just don't. Why not? Because I said so. Oh okay. Because it sounds horrible and because it tells editors and agents your writing is not of a publishable standard. The reason that dialogue tags are best kept as simple as possible is that they are part of the underlying structure of fiction, the scaffolding, such as commas and quotation marks, the corset that shapes the garment on top. They should be as invisible as possible. Fancy dialogue tags are as unfortunate as a visible knicker line.

A good way of avoiding tags altogether is the judicial use of what are called beats: that little bit of action that breaks up the spoken word, that allow for the pauses between speeches. Another problem with some fiction I read is that characters speak for too long and never seem to pause for breath. Here are a few uses of beats.

'I think...' Nigel poured more wine into her glass. 'You need to get drunk.'
Or, Stella glanced at her watch. 'I must dash, I'll phone you tomorrow.'

When writing dialogue, don't be a one-trick pony. Too much of one thing, whether it's beats or tags or no tags at all, becomes tedious. Use them wisely. How do you know it you've got it right? Read it out loud and listen to how it sounds. If it jars in any way, it needs to be changed.

And while I'm here, a final word about adverbs. You know what I mean: she said consolingly, he said attentively, she shouted aggressively. First of all, there is nothing wrong with using adverbs. Websites and books that tell you never to use them are as sad as they are stupid. All I ask of you is that you don't overdo them and ask yourself if you can find a single verb that conveys your meaning precisely without the need for a qualifying adverb. If you have written the actual words spoken in such a way as to show the manner in which they've spoken, they're by and large not needed. It's tautology. 'Get out before I kill you!' he shouted threateningly. The words and the way they're said can't be construed as anything other than threatening. You readers get it, okay? Don't bludgeon them over the head with a blunt instrument.

Over-elaborate dialogue tags, using adverbs indiscriminately instead of seeking stronger verbs, characters speaking like wooden puppets with visible strings all conspire together to assist your manuscript into an agent's waste bin.

Listen very carefully...

2011-08-03T22:20:00.000+01:00

...I will say this only once.

I've had my head down recently, reading through my first draft to establish what I need to do to start to bring it up to scratch. (Which is incidentally why I have been neglecting this blog.) I've only just come up for air.

One thing immediately struck me. I repeat myself a lot. For example. One of my main characters has very unusual white-blonde hair which she wears in a single thick plait down her back. Fine. Only it's there in almost every scene until I'm ready to hack it off with a pair of very sharp garden shears. The problem is not the hair itself. It's right for that character--but the fact I felt I had to keep reminding readers about it--every other paragraph or so it seemed--in case they might forget this one feature that showed she was an imposing figure and not afraid to stand out in the crowd.

Okay, you say. That's what editing's for. Indeed. However, I have lost count in recent months of the number of manuscripts I have read that are supposedly ready for submission where the writer has to keep reminding me of something important. Let's say that Caroline is severely allergic to cats, Mary gets car sick or that Susan is terrified that the man she is about to marry will find out she had an abortion when she was fifteen and may not be able to have another child. Such things may be important plot or character points. However, readers are generally an intelligent bunch; neither slow on the uptake nor suffering from short-term amnesia. If, in the right place early on in the narrative you show us in some way (usually by recounting something that happened to her in the past) that every time a cat walks into the room Caroline goes into anaphylactic shock, not only will readers not forget, their hearts will start to pound when four chapters later she accepts a lift in a car with someone's pet moggie is asleep in a basket on the back-seat.

The same goes for all emotions and character traits. Don't keep on telling us Nancy flies into a rage in highly-charged situations just because you worry readers will forget. If you have already shown her totally overreaction when her neighbour comes round to point out her car is blocking his drive, they will remember and they wait with bated breath in the crucial scene when she is wrongly arrested for assault for her to fly into a rage at the police station and make things worse for herself. The more you rub in her character flaw, the more you irritate your reader. And if you are an unpublished writer, replace readers with agents or editors. They are only too happy to reject a writer who thinks they are too dim to Get.The. Point.

There are two reasons why this happens in early drafts. Firstly, a writer is finding her way and needs to keep reminding herself until she feels confident in what she's doing and secondly, because writing is a slow process. It takes months (well it does me) to complete a full first draft. Reading is a far more rapid process. Readers can get through any book--apart from a War & Peace-length epic in a week or less. And believe me, repetitions will pile up with more frequency than jams on the motorway or that irritating Meerkat in TV ad breaks.

The remedy? I'll come to that.

There is another kind of repetition unpublished manuscripts are prone to and that's repetitions within single paragraphs. We writers often get fixed on a word or phrase and can't let it go.

Caroline fretted all week before the party that Harry's old school friend would have a cat. He said he didn't think he had but wasn't sure. He promised to ask him but knowing Harry, he'd forget. But she had a dread she'd go into anaphylactic shock the moment she walked in the door. She kept adrenalin in her fridge at home in case she went into anaphylactic shock. She'd better take it with her just in case. But then, Harry's friend wouldn't know what do do were she to go into anaphylactic shock. With any luck he'd phone for an ambulance but that might well be too late. She'd have to tell Harry she couldn't go. She knew he's be disappointed but if their relationship was to continue, he'd have to understand that living with the ever present danger of anaphylactic shock was something he'd have to get used to.

Are you screaming yet? You think I exaggerate. I do not. Well, just a little bit.

In order to avoid the divide between writing a novel and reading one, you must at some time during the editing process read the whole thing as quickly as you can without stopping. And when you've finally produced a coherent manuscript, then then read it again. Aloud. It's tedious and it'll drive you crazy (at least your nearest and dearest will be ready to certify you) but it makes all the difference. Judging from many a manuscript I read, few people can do this or else they'd not end up with a manuscript marred by repetition, clunky sentences, wooden dialogue and unfortunate word juxtapositions. Most well-established writers do this as a matter of course. (I know for a fact that award-winning historical novelist,Elizabeth Chadwick does because she said so on Twitter so it must be right.)

Don't repeat yourself. Unless you have a habit of eating raw onions. And then you can't help it. But it's still not attractive.

It was Ninety Years Ago Today...

2011-07-27T21:58:00.001+01:00

...when two Canadian scientists. Fred Banting and Charles Best first isolated insulin and understood its function.

Here's a brief summary.

Has this anything to do with writing? Well sort of because had I been born before that I would not have lived beyond my 25th birthday. And I wouldn't be writing this blog.

So let's hear it for Banting and Best!

Write to be Published

2011-07-04T17:47:00.000+01:00

Some time ago I promised Nicola I'd post a review of Write to be Published. So here it is. Please note that she did not twist my arm or ply me with strong drink (I wish) or even chocolate to do so. I am totally incorruptible.

I am the most qualified person in the world to review this book. I must own every single book that has ever been issued on how to write and how to be published. These range from the 'bare your soul' school of writing to the 'how to make millions even if you have no idea how to string a coherent sentence together'. Flippancy aside, most fall sensibly within the middle of this spectrum, although some are more memorable and useful than others. I count usefulness in direct proportion to the number of times I reread one of these books and either find something new or am reminded of something I'd forgotten or hadn't fully understood the first time I read it.

I can tell that Nicola's book is very useful indeed. I am currently in the throes of my second novel. I've lost count of which draft I'm on. (Yes, the one I've been wrestling with forever. Don't ask.) So I am nowhere near ready to write the dreaded synopsis or covering letter or even think about approaching an agent, although I have an idea of which lucky individuals I intend to target. (I'm warning them well in advance. They may wish to leave the country.) But when I am, I will have WTBP at my elbow with passages underlined and comments in the margins. Nicola kindly includes blank pages at the end for notes but I will probably only use these to doodle rude pictures of Jane Smith.

The pages I am reading closely for the second time right now (having read the whole book quickly in one go the day I received it) are those to do with the actually writing process. This is both to make sure I am on the right track with my WIP and to help me compose my thoughts for my Hard Truths blog posts.

In fact, I don't know why I'm bothering. Section Three: Written in the Right Way says it all. This single section alone comprises over 90 vital pages covering everything from beginnings, middles and ends, narrative thrust, pace, to point of view,voice and all places in between. Other sections are (1) Before the Writing, (2) The Right Book, (4) Submitting in the Right Way plus an excellent list of writers' resources and those blank pages. It might have been a good idea to include an index for lazy people like me, but I can live with that as the List of Contents is pretty comprehensive.

Whenever I read manuscripts sent to me for my appraisal, I am continually staggered how some writers fail to grasp these essentials (and I'm mainly talking here of the writing) before they pack them off to unsuspecting agents. This may shock you but I feel enormous sympathy for agents. I read a lot of crap because I'm paid to do so. They are not. Which is why they more often than not toss manuscript after manuscript into the overflowing bin after glancing at the first paragraph if that, before their brains atrophy.

There is no excuse to submit poorly thought-out or executed work. Having said that, this isn't due so much to arrogance or ignorance on their part than the lack of ability to judge their own writing. They may think their point of view is sound or the narrative follows a clear arc when it does nothing of the sort. I know I did or at least I thought I could get away with not having quite mastered the necessary skills.

Wrong.

Have I learned anything from reading this section in particular and the book in general? Absolutely. I knew some ot it but Nicola expresses it in such a clear jargon-free way that she is able to put what, in my case, is a jumble of incoherent thoughts and emotions about writing into clear and precise terms. For instance, her idea that a chapter is one breath from intake to exhalation is spot on. I would never have thought of it like that. I have gone back through my chapters and can see why some of them are not as good as I thought they were but didn't know why. They were not a complete breath and therefore unsatisfying. If I have learned nothing else, I know it will make a huge difference to my writing.

Voice is probably the trickiest aspect of writing to understand and get right. Nicola has helped me galvanise my thoughts. In fact, there is no word, sentence, paragraph or section in WTBP I would dispute. She may be a Crabbit Old Bat (and long may she remain so) but WTBP is shot through with wit and delicious self-deprecation.

If you're thinking of starting a novel, half-way through or uttering blood-curdling profanities as you struggle with that synopsis or even girding your loins to submit to some unsuspecting agent or publisher, Write to Be Published is THE book for you.

Every writer's home should have one, or two, or three because, you know, you can never have enough of a good thing.

Brick by brick. Stone by stone.

2011-06-30T11:06:00.000+01:00

In the beginning was the Word.

No, I'm not going all biblical on you. I'm going back to basics. Writing is a very clever trick. But, this isn't the time to start analyzing the alchemy that turns black squiggles on a page into some thing that can make us cry or laugh, amaze us or shock us, keep us turning those pages well beyond bedtime.

But you can't do any of that without words. (At least, not in books, e or otherwise, you can't.) To render it into its most primitive form, writing compelling fiction is about the way you arrange words into sentences and paragraphs that makes the difference between base metal and gold.

Imagine a novel is a building project. It can be anything from a functional wall to a mighty cathedral. You may already have detailed plans. Maybe not for the wall to stop the neighbours dogs digging up your garden but you need to know whether you want bricks or stone, concrete or whatever. how much you need, what colour, texture and style. (In other words, genre. See previous post.) What turns that plan into reality is making sure those right bricks or stones are arranged the right way. Arrange them incorrectly. not only may they look a mess, they may well fall over when someone leans against it. This is where gramnmar, punctuation and correct spelling come in. Get that wrong and the structure is weakened. A good builder knows when to break the rules and which ones must not be broken.

A writer has to know how to use his raw materials. Words.

In writing, every word counts. It has a job to do--in fact, more than one most of the time. It has to pull its weight. No slacking allowed. But let's not over-stretch the building analogy. When you begin to write that novel, you will usually en up with a first draft that's weak and flabby.Have you ever seen one of these tents (<<<) that look like a very well-known camper-van? That's your first draft. From a distance it looks good enough and people may even admire it. It keeps out the rain. It may even be free of draughts. But it ain't going nowhere.

It's the second and subsequent drafts where every word has to stand before the judge and justify not only its inclusion and position. It's a cruel process and many will die in the process. But it has to be done.

So that's enough of mangling my metaphors.

I read many unpublished manuscripts. These are not first drafts but the final manuscript their writers consider polished and edited within an inch of their lives. Only they're not. I could now post extracts of such manuscripts but that would not only be unethical and cruel, it would be pointless. Flabby, lazy, dull writing teaches us nothing. What does educate is reading good writing. And let's be controversial here. I know a lot of crud is published (and I'm not talking about the worst of self-publishing) but believe me, even the most cruddy crud is better than the the majority of unpublished manuscripts. And yes, I'm making a generalisation so don't argue.

And please don't think I'm in favour of language that reads like the writer swallowed a thesaurus. Good writing is clean, clear, precise and sharp.

Where was I? Oh yes. Read widely and read well and when you do, from time to time take time to step back and analyse a paragraph or two to understand how a piece of good writing works. Don't turn it into schoolwork. Having to read dull worthy old-fashioned novels almost single-handedly turned me into a book-hater. But if you're a writer you will want to do it. I count my blessings everyday that I put that behind me and studied Eng Lit at university.

Here are a couple of extracts from a scene in the novel I'm currently reading.* I am only on chapter six which is from where they are taken. In is 1927. Frankie, a rich young woman show Michael, a poor young artist the gift she has bought for him.

The first extract is pure description; until the very end:

Then suddenly they were blinking in bright, white light in a dazzling whitewashed room. It was empty except for a wooden chair. The windows reached to the corniced ceiling and were pinned across with muslin so there was no view outside, only whiteness. Above the marble fireplace higher than Frankie's head was a vast misted mirror and there were others on the walls. The reflections curved away, green-tinged as if there were glass rooms filled with water on every side. They might not be inside a house in Fitzroy Street but in a nowhere place of hundreds of transparent rooms, and in each one a sunburned young man - blue shirt and paint-stained trousers - stood beside a woman in a loose yellow dress with a sunhat in her hand.

.../....

Frankie held Michael's hand and dropped the key into it. In the mirrors, ranks of small neat women dropped keys into the palms of ranks of rough-haired young men.

'It's for you,' she said.

I have read this passage a dozen times and each time I marvel. It isn't difficult to read. No word exceeds two syllables. We don't have to run to fetch a dictionary. What it says is simple and yet, the more one looks, the more it says. It is clear without telling us that she is in love with him although a little later on we learn he does not love her and that although he is pleased with her gift, he can't help feeling he is being patronised.

The right words in the right place is what gives fiction its authority and truth. Had I been reading it without thinking about this blog I would not have noticed the words as words in the same way that I wouldn't necessarily notice each individual brick in a building. But if the bricks are the right bricks and do their job, they become by and large invisible. But I would know I was looking at fine building in the same way as I can always tell a building is shoddy without necessarily knowing exactly why.

Good writing has that authority. Readers will have faith in it. So always aim to write the best you can. And that begins with the words.

* The German Boy by Patricia Wastvedt

Hard Truth: Know what you're writing

2011-06-19T13:30:00.001+01:00

The other day, on one of the many forums I visit from time to time where new and mainly unpublished writers gather, a new member introduced himself. He said he wanted to find an agent who would read his query instead of rejecting it. (Don't we all?)

Anyway, he said his manuscript was non fiction and a narrative, reading like a novel--sort of. From what he went on to say I gathered it's about how God helped him.

What stuck me about this post was that, apart from all the other clueless comments, was that he had no idea what he's written. He's locked himself away without any concept of the world of books and writing. You see, it just isn't good enough to write something that you feel you need to write and then expect it to be published. (And then berate agents who reject it.) You have to know exactly what kind of a book you're writing. I assume he's written an autobiography or memoir. Nowhere does he mention how he writes or which writers he might compare himself with.

But, I hear you ask? Writers write and everything else is the job of agents and publishers. Well, no. Don't groan but there are rules (or rather guidelines) about what is expected within a certain genre. These rules govern word length, narrative arc, style of writing and characters. They guide readers as to the journey they are to take when they start reading. Again many unpublished writers complain bitterly about this (I know I did) but put yourself in an agent's shoes. His or her job (amongst many others) is to find the right publisher's editor to take the manuscript forward to publication. And for that s/he needs to know exactly which editors to target. And that's just the beginning. As I keep banging on, this blog is not about the publishing process but about the writing so let's leave it there.

But my book is original, I hear you say. It's a bit historical, with a bit of fantasy thrown in; oh and there's a crime to solve and a love story. It defies categorization. I don't want my writing pigeon-holed. That's narrow-minded. I am an artist.

I hear what you're saying and I have some sympathy but writing for publication is also a business. It is not a pure art form. Knowing your genre is vital. I'm not saying you can't be original or cross over a bit but you have to be able to describe your novel in a very short sentence and more importantly, know which readers it will appeal to. And that's why you have to know its genre.

Take food as an analogy. What we eat can be roughly divided into categories: Meat, Fish, Dairy, Bread/Rice/Pasta, Fruit & Veg. Within each category further divisions can be made. At one end of the spectrum of Veg is asparagus and the other, cabbage. Same with Meat. It can be a sirloin steak or belly pork, veal or burgers. So is it with writing genres. Within each one, there is a broad spectrum but you have to know exactly where you fit.

So how do you know whether what you write will suit its genre? You read as many currently published novels in your chosen genre, that's how. You learn what the essentials are and where you can deviate without annoying or baffling readers. (And before you ask, literary fiction is a genre. Literary fiction has its own distinct readership and has its own 'rules'.)

So, as we have established, genres contain a spectrum of sub-genres. I write historical fiction. However, I don't write about important or real historical characters. (As do Elizabeth Chadwick and Philippa Gregory for example.) I don't include crime although crimes can occur. My characters are ordinary people living at a certain point in history. Because I always include a love story, I categorize myself as a writer of historical romances. However, the love story, while important, is not the heart of my novels. Mine follow the journey of a young woman over several years. She has to learn about herself to enable her to grow and develop. She makes mistakes but she is not stupid. By the end she is more aware of who she is and what she wants from life. She does not behave out of her time. Historical context is paramount but not obtrusive. I am drawn to the 19th century and the early 20th century and read a lot of non-fiction and biographies to get a feel for the periods in question. I like to think that readers of Sally Beaumann and Katherine MacMahon will like my writing, although my voice is not their voice. Every writer needs to develop their own voice.

In order to know who I am 'competing' against, I read contemporary novels in my genre. I have to know what the trends are, not to follow them blindly, but to be aware. I am currently reading novels about the aftermath of Word War One. Not to copy them but to know how other people handle it. There's no point me writing a novel about a girl with one leg in Ashby-de-la-Zouch in the nineteen thirties when a book with a similar heroine is a bestseller. I usually choose Yorkshire as my setting so I also need to read books set in the county in any period.

Many writers are infuriated by agents who say they're looking for something different but then seem to only buy the same old thing. It's not quite as simple as that. What we write has to be a recognisable genre but within that genre must bring something that is fresh and new. We know it when we pick up a book and start reading. And so do agents and more so.

So what is it that makes the difference? To pinch Nicola Morgan's line, it's submitting the right book at the right time to the right agent. All very true. But first and foremost the writing has to be tip-top--within its genre.

It's still all about the writing.

Why oh why?

2011-06-08T17:21:00.000+01:00

I'm about to go off again for a few days but before I do I need to vent my spleen. I know this blog is about writing and not publishing but please, please, dear fellow writers. You have a brain. Use it. (I know my regular readers do but you never know who might chance across this post.)

Somebody started following me on Twitter. I checked his profile and decided he seemed a nice kind of English guy. His profile told me he was about to be published and he was over the moon. Good for him, I thought and clicked to follow him. And then I checked his blog. Enthusiasm and delight spilled out from it. (As well as chapters--oh dear. Not very good. He couldn't believe he was about to be what he'd always dreamed of. A published author! And he waxed lyrical about how supportive and wonderful his publisher has been. I went all warm and fuzzy inside.

Until...

That's when I felt sick. The name of his publisher? You guessed it. Publish America. Aaaargh!

Does this poor man live in a cave? He has access to the internet for goodness sake! The link I found in two seconds is only one of the dire warnings out there about these hideous sharks and slugs. I found myself in a hideous quandary. Should I have told him and burst his bubble or should I let him find out for himself? I did nothing apart from unfollow him. After all, he may be happy wading in his own ignorance. I only hope to God he didn't shell out any money.

What would you have done?

I was blogging the other day about when I used to read all short story submissions to QWF magazine. Lo and behold this morning, I received a submission in the post re-directed by the people who bought our old house three years ago. QWF ceased publication well before that and has not been listed in the various writing handbooks since then. Fortunately she had an email address so I could tell her why her story was going straight in the bin.

The writer of this story (unsuitable, of course) has a brain, apparently. She tells me she has an MA. So why is she submitting to a magazine of which she can't possibly have read a recent issue and use a guide that's way out of date.

Writers. Please, please, pretty please, do your research. Check the facts, question and learn from those who know before you shoot yourself in the foot. Sometimes with the most horrible outcome.

The Hard Truth

2011-06-05T11:22:00.001+01:00

When I was a submissions editor for the much lamented QWF magazine* way back before I had grey hair, I pretty soon accumulated my own personal slushpile. (And boy, did I curse those writers who'd sent their stories in plastic folders which caused the tottering heap to slid across the carpet of my spare room to be played with by the cat and the feet of any child who entered. But that's another story.)

Besides, I'm not here to talk about how to submit or how publishing works. I refer you to Morgan and Smith for that. (Other excellent blogs are available.)

I like to write about writing.

I worked out that on average out of 100 submissions I could only take 10 (that's 1 in 10 if you are, like me, arithmetically challenged; in other words 90% rejection rate.) Even then those had to go on to my editor, Joanne Derrick for her approval before they were published. And she could easily reject 5 out of those 10. And that's for a small press magazine that only published women. So now you might begin to believe that agents' slushpiles are no myth.

It's true to say I got my unfair share of complete and utter drivel, scribbles in green ink and many from writers who hadn't bothered to read the magaizne or even the guidelines, but these were only a small proportion. Most of the stories were readable but generally pretty dull, barely edited, poor in vocabulary and lacked anything that made me want to pick them up again. These days, I still read short stories, both literary and commercial and give opinions but more and more I read and appraise full or partial novel manuscripts. And I still find the same problems which are the lack of root-and-branch editing and the standard of the actual writing.

There are many reasons for rejection but I'm not here to talk about those. Buy Nicola Morgan's excellent new book Write to be Published instead. I shall post a review here very soon. Read it and learn. Read what top agents say, too. They know and do not deserve the ignorant abuse that is regularly flung their way.

The one thing I do know about is writing fiction. I'm not saying I am the best writer in the universe, God forbid. I'm not being modest when I say I am no more than a competent writer. In fact, I think my skills as an editor are better than my skills as a writer. (I know. I know. Those who can, do and those who can't, teach. But many people who are brilliant at what they do cannot teach it. Teaching requires a whole different set of skills.) Looking back on my life, I wish I had pursued a career in publishing. Too late now so all I can do is plough my lonely little furrow.

Success in anything is a combination of many things and is often about being in the right place at the write time.

BUT, luck and/or knowing the right people is not sufficient.

It's all about the writing. That's why my blog is called what it is. Writing is the elephant in the writing room. Very few unpublished/new/oft-rejected writers think about writing. They complain about editors and agents. They complain about all the rubbish that gets published; the say the old publishing ways are dead. But they rarely say their writing is not up to scratch.

So (finally getting to the point) I am about to launch a series of posts about writing--or more to the point about rewriting because that is what sorts the writing sheep from the goats...

This series of posts (all numbered and labelled The Hard Truth) will look at the basic writing mistakes that prevent a manuscript from catching an agent's eye or sustaining their interest. And let me tell you. A good agent can tell if a manuscript is worth pursuing often by the first line, even by the first paragraph and certainly by the first 20 or so pages. So don't accused them of not bnothering to read your wonderful manuscript. They probably didn't. And do you know what? It's not their fault but yours.

*The spirit of QWF lives again in The Yellow Room Magazine.

Cut off (reprise)

2011-05-14T09:42:00.001+01:00

But this time by choice. We're off in our trusty camper van for a week. Nowhere exotic. Jon will be checking out the venues for a couple of triathlons in Oxfordshire and then Nottingham he hopes to compete in later in the year and I'll be writing, reading, eating and sleeping. (probably in reverse order.) I shall be taking the opportunity to plan a series of future blog posts about the common mistakes that render manuscripts (mainly novel-length) less attractive to agents and editors. The first will be how to teach yourself to be objective.

I shall only have limited access to the internet as only a few camp-sites have wifi (or don't charge a fortune for the privilege.)_I have a dongle but often we're staying where the phone signal is unreliable as well.

In the meantime, I shall leave you under the watchful eye of my Great-Grandmother, Sarah Jane Bond nee Southwell.

Cut Off

2011-05-07T16:22:00.000+01:00

As you may know, I live in the back of beyond. There's no mobile phone signal for miles around and the broadband connection is well, shall we say, slow. Despite this, I rely on my connection to the internet not only to keep in touch with friends and family but for my writing. I need to know what's going on and more and more these days, I rely on it for sending and receiving work and for submissions. All the work on Hope against Hope from submission and editing (apart from the final proof-check) was done on-line.

So when a freak lightning strike a couple of weeks ago melted my router (not to mention frightening the bejaysus out of me) I was effectively cut off from the world. Getting a new router proved less straightforward than it should have been. We live 10 miles from the nearest computer shop. (One man operation. Doesn't open Thursdays or at the weekend) so it was ordered on-line from someone else's PC. Unfortunately, this all happened at a time of multiple bank holidays. Then, when it finally arrived, it proved to be a dud (I spent an hour on the phone to a very nice young man somewhere over the pond and believe me, neither of us could understand the other's accent. So we decided to go with the local shop only to find it didn't have the right sort and had to order in another which turned out to be £20 more than if we'd ordered it on-line.

Apart from the wailing and gnashing of teeth, all was quiet. Very, very quiet. Pin-drop silent. I was effectively cut off from the writing world for 2 weeks. No Twitter. Boo-hoo. In some ways this was just what I needed. I got a lot more of my novel in progress done. But I missed the evening wind-downs. I also rely on the internet these days to check those small niggling facts as I go along so I have a lot of highlighted bits to sort out. I went for a lot more walks and the weather was fab and I slaughtered an army of weeds. But, I had no-one to talk to who shared my interests or understands the ups and downs of being a writer. (Pig and sheep-rearing, silage making, yes.) When I wrote a whole new scene I was proud of, there was no-one I could crow to. When I needed someone who understood my problems with plot and motivation, who was even interested? I missed my blog and I missed you all. I was lonely. Okay. I may be a sad case and should get out more but it made me realise how much the internet has become an necessary part of our lives in a very short space of time.

This is not my being precious here. When I first started writing. I had a manual typewriter and all submissions and communication with agents and editors was done by post. People wrote letters to each other--with stamps. I remember when a national postal strike some years ago made life very difficult for all writers, especially being paid. But now, if you have no internet connection, no PayPal or other money transfer system and are not prepared to engage in some sort of digital networking you are effectively out of the loop.

I am so happy to be back.

Finally. I took this snap a few yards up our lane. Spot the human being...

The Road Ahead

2011-04-23T12:13:00.000+01:00

I don't much like talking about myself even on my own blog. But having 'confessed' my latest bout of depression, it's only right I briefly report on my progress, especially as so many of you have been so helpful in your support and encouragement.

So, here goes. I feel a whole lot better, but as my lovely GP reminds me, I'm not out of the woods yet. I didn't suddenly wake up one morning, fling back the duvet, leap out of bed and find the world a wonderful place. But I believe him when he says it am well on the road to recovery.

Of course this bout of exceptionally fine weather helps enormously. It's far easier to be optimistic when the sun is blazing in a bowl of bluebell sky, the birds are chirruping and tiny lambs on jelly legs are bleating. The swallows are back and I heard a cuckoo this morning. However, I want to make it clear that my mood, whatever you call it, is not so superficial that it can be 'cured' in a flash by a bit of warm sunshine. It isn't that simple. Most of the time I hide myself away because smiling bonhomie still overwhelms me. I live in a area popular with tourists and this being the Easter weekend, the village is heaving with cars and ice-cream lickers. Not that I wish them any ill. Most local businesses need the hordes to stay afloat. Having said that, I tend not to venture out until the day-visitors have gone home taking their yappy dogs and children with them and those staying for a while are in the pubs and I can have the village, whilst not all to myself, at least peaceful and calm.

What pleases me the most is that I am writing again. I've yet to rediscover that wild rush of creativity which, although it didn't happen all that often, helped me believe I was 'a writer'. I have returned to the novel I've been writing for what seems like forever. A month ago, feeling full of failure and believing I would never write anything again, I abandoned the turgid mess I'd sunk into and couldn't see any way of stepping out of. The York Festival of Writing gave me that initial shove. But, no. I didn't immediately start scribbling the moment I got home. (I was far too exhausted for one thing.)

But after a few days, I'm did what everyone tells you not to. Although it's by no means finished, I went right back to the beginning of my manuscript and began to edit. Not meticulously. That would be a total waste of time and effort, but enough to remove the dross and iron out the deep kinks and wrinkles. I have almost finished that process and I now feel ready to continue to the end and get that first draft done (or tenth.I can't remember. I've lost count) and then the real, pleasurable, editing can begin. I'm pleased that it now has more shape, sharper characterisation and a purpose and I know where it's going at long last. I don't like my title very much but that can wait.

But the bottom line is, I am looking forward. Full stop. And that's not something I could have said a month ago.

*The photo is of our lane where the steepness levels out a little, just after the cattle grid and out onto the open moor. Half an hour later you are in Whitby.I'm not sure those sheep are going to make it which is a shame or they won't get their Botham's cakes and biscuits.

The Other Side of the Coin.

2011-04-20T12:50:00.000+01:00

Following on from my previous post, and in the interests of balance, here are a couple of links on thr same topic. First is a reply from Kate Nash of Myrmidon (my publisher, as it happens) in reply to Lynn Mitchell's moan about Amazon. Also, here, in case you haven't seen them, are Nicola Morgan's thoughts on small publishers.

Having done that, I don't wish to discuss the topic much more as this blog is supposed to be more about writing than publishing. However I will say this.

Whilst I understand that small publishers should think long and hard about how they can actively help themselves to achieve their goals rather than complain about the way the 'system' does them no favours (in the same way writers are always exhorted to do) I see nothing wrong in showing my support for those small presses that appeal to me, whether their business model is flawed or not. I will continue to buy and recommend books from Salt, not because they have problems, but because I like the kind of fiction they publish. The same goes for Linen Press and other I haven't mentioned.

I buy fiction here, there and everywhere. I also shop at Sainsbury's because I feel comfortable with the way they do things but I also buy from Morrisons because it's cheaper and also much nearer. Then again, I also like to browse local markets or expensive specialist shops as and when the moods takes me and when I have some spare cash. The same rule applies to books. There is no 'one size fits all' model as far as I'm concerned. If some publishers' books look a bit 'amateur' or cost more, even if the standard is a little less than perfect, that doesn't mean that they don't deserve to be in business at all or can't have a moan from time to time. (Remember I'm talking about mainstream publishers here and not those who make their money out of writers and don't work their socks off to market and distribute their books. I do make that distinction.) There has to be enthusiastic people working on the margins in order to keep the whole publishing business exciting, a bit edgy, vibrant and evolving. Most will fail (I'm not starry-eyed) but some will improve, evolve and prosper.

Next time, it's back to what concerns me the most. Writing.

The Linen Press

2011-04-08T10:12:00.000+01:00

We all love Amazon, right? It's quick, convenient and cheap. But there's always a trade-off. And the people who suffer in this system are the small presses. So I urge you to read this article on the Guardian blog written by Lynn Mitchell of The Linen Press.

The thing is, it won't cost you hardly any more buying direct than ordering from Amazon but it will make a whole lot of difference to a small publisher.

You may recall I reviewed some of her titles here last year. And I'm going to do the same this year. Linen Press books are written by women and are not only well written and look stunning. Lynn takes pains to ensure the production values are as high as the standard of writing.

So watch this space for my reviews! And please browse The Linen Press's website and see what takes your fancy.

I particularly love the rhyme and assonance in these three titles. I can't wait to read them.

It's been a funny old week

2011-04-02T21:29:00.000+01:00

This time last week I was embroiled in the 2011 Festival of Writing at York University. It was great fun but I honestly couldn't manage more than one such event a year. The best bit was not so much the 'official' stuff but meeting some great Twitter people (I refuse to use the word tweeps!) and putting faces to the names, although, when I got back I realised just how many people I failed to speak to. This was totally accidental.

Unlike a select few, I did not get snapped up by an agent. Notwithstanding my abject failure to do so (joke!), my One to Ones were a total delight and both the agent and the ‘book doctor’ I’d chosen found the same fault in my manuscript which was helpful,

So what did I learn? That the percentage of mss accepted is lower than ever; the world of publishing is going through a challenging phase and that no-one knows exactly how it will progress but the tone was inspirational rather than off-putting because challenge is always exhilarating. I am cross with myself for not having made the absolute most of it but the huge amount of people and the noise overwhelmed me at moments and I had to retreat into solitude and sleep. (Losing an hour didn't help, although the geese seemed a little less noisy than last year but that could have been because my room was further away from the lake.)

Many people have already blogged about the experience; too many to link to here but I'm sure if you seek, Google will find.

I was both exhausted and elated when I returned on the Sunday but a very early night helped. On Monday I shoved all my weekend clothes into the washing-machine and returned to my novel draft, setting to with enthusiasm after ignoring it for weeks. It was a false dawn. Tuesday would have been my Dad's ninetieth birthday; only he didn’t quite make it. Then it was my turn on the Thursday. The two days difference was always special for us. When I lived at home, our cards were always on display together and we often shared the same big cake! Double celebrations were doubly enjoyable. So last week, although friends and family were their usual lovely generous selves, the emptiness was hard to bear. I've never minded getting older before nor attached any importance to those meaningless milestone birthdays with a zero on the end. Until now. It's illogical and idiotic, especially as in most ways I feel no different from when I was 30, 40 or 50 and yet...and yet, without Dad, it's hurting.

As I said, a funny old week.

First Step Back on That Ladder

2011-03-24T11:37:00.000Z

The 2011 York Festival of Writing starts tomorrow! And I shall be there. I went last year and had such a great time (read about my experience here) that as soon as bookings opened for this year I signed up. Things were very different for me then. Hope against Hope had been published that very day and I arrived on site late but already fizzing. And then an agent at a top agency showed a smidgeon of interest in my novel in progress...

What a difference a year makes. The finished manuscript I promised the aforementioned agent is still languishing, only two-thirds written on my hard-drive. Not good. Not good at all. I wasted a brilliant opportunity.

So why on earth am I going again?

Good question. The most obvious one is that I've already paid and it would be silly not to turn up. Secondly, this time a lot of people will be there who I am so looking forward to saying hello to. Last year I knew hardly anyone else there but went away buzzing (if exhausted). And I am hoping all the inspirational workshops and another round of one to ones will jump-start my flat battery.

Although I am going as a punter, I will be present at the Myrmidon/Ed Handyside workshop and possibly even as a member of the newly published writers' panel. So, if you're coming along, too, please accost me and say hello...and maybe even buy a copy of Hope against Hope which I will be happy to sign for you. (Well, it was worth a try.)

Not drowning, but waving

2011-03-20T13:29:00.000Z

My goodness me. I still haven't picked myself off the floor. I can't believe just how many wonderful, encouraging comments my last blog post received, both here and on Twitter. (Incidentally, I'm @SallyZig if you'd like to follow me.)

Thank you all so very much, especially those who don't know me at all and are never likely to meet me. I can't tell you how much you've all helped me. But, if I had to pick one response out it's that from the wonderful Stephanie Butland. She had a tussle with breast cancer and blogs about it. (a book is on the way, too). This is what she wrote in response to my 'confession'. I can't tell you how much her understanding both moved and amazed me. Please read it, if you haven't already. And follow her on Twitter. (@bahtocancer) And buy her book when it's published.

Another funny thing about depression is that although many people suffer, it isn't easy to share because one of its many evils is that it isolates people in their own little bubble. I've been taking a lot of walks now that spring is close and the daffodils are in bud here. Although I appreciate the ribbon of birdsong, the bleating of sheep, the smoke lifting from the patches of controlled heather burning on a distant ridge, pheasants darting out of the hedgerows, the faint chug of a tractor and the way snatches of conversation fling themselves across the valley as if the speakers are standing right behind me, it all feels as if it's behind a glass wall, from a parallel universe or, more prosaically, as if I'm watching a television documentary. Very strange and unnerving.

Many of you referred to my bravery. It's very kind of you and I'm touched, but, no, I don't think so. I'm not saying this out of false modesty. If I have any emotion after I published that post, it's one of relief. No more pretending. No more trying to convince people that I will finish the novel I'm currently working on any time soon. But I will finish is. Oh yes I will. But I don't know when.

Being Positive about Depression

2011-03-11T14:33:00.002Z

I know I'm running a risk here of losing friends and alienating people but it's time I was honest. After trying to gee myself up recently in recent posts, it nay be clear to some of you that I have once again tumbled into the deep pit of depression and am struggling to get out of it. (I've been there before but not for many years.)

Depression is a funny old illness--and yes, it is an illness as real as flu or measles. For those of you who are reading this and are rolling your eyes and thinking I should get over myself, count my blessings and stop moping, then I can only tell you that no day goes by without my telling myself that at least once. I may be depressed but I'm not stupid. However, if you do think that, then count yourself very blessed that you have never ever experienced that God-awful bleak greyness that sucks the pleasure and meaning out of everything and deadens emotion. Imagine that you woke up one morning and couldn't smell flowers, taste the sweetness of ripe strawberries, see the colours in a rainbow or hear or understand laughter. Just think what it would be like when the words printed in your favourite book were just black marks on the page and no longer carried you into another world. It's like living in a vacuum where everything is happening outside and you're stuck there wondering what the hell hit you.

Some people, notably Winston Churchill, have likened depression to a black dog. To me, that's too positive and concrete an analogy. To me, depression is mould that creeps into everything and taints it. It's when everything you have loved and enjoyed becomes as tasteless as cardboard and as grey as an old dishcloth. And not only that. That's how you look to the others around you; your friends and family. You become that cardboard, that slightly wiffy dishcloth. You're a pain in the neck. You mope about, move slowly. People avoid you - and I don't blame them.

And what's more, when you have depression you know all this; you know you should compare yourself with people in real pain and distress throughout the world and.Get-Over-Yourself. So you feel guilty; you hate yourself, you close in on yourself. You avoid others because you're embarrassed. Pull your socks up? If only. You've lost the knack. You forget how you ever lived a normal life.

It is said that depression and being a writer go hand in glove and that many writers write better because of it. To me, this is complete and utter tosh. Not that writers are not prone to depression perhaps more than the general population. There have been studies. But that depression is not only inevitable for a writer (patent nonsense) but that it aids creativity. Hah!

Maybe it does for some or if you suffer from bipolar disorder, the 'manic' phase can be a time of wonderful creativity: But not me. I don't have that. I have read much conflicting opinion on the internet but this excellent piece most closely resembles how I feel.

And you know the worst thing? I can't write at the moment. Okay, I'm writing this or rather it's taken me a week to do it. And I haven't been able to write any fiction for the past three months or so--although, as I will explain later, I can just begin to see a chink of light somewhere in the far distance. But for now, not only will the words not come, those that do are pedestrian, dull and inadequate. I have lost the art of writing imaginatively or 'outside the box.' I don't mean airy-fairy stuff, I'm referring to that leap of the creative imagination that can weaves magic from the most simple words. (Read the winning entries in Nicola Morgan's recent competition to see what I mean. I could do it once but not now and I'm grieving.)

For the want of a better expression I am forced to say I am suffering from 'Writer's Block.' (or Blighter's Rock as Russel Hoban called it and which I much prefer for its sheer silliness.) I know. I know. Bernard Cornwell famously said that there's no such thing as Nurse's Block so why do people claim to suffer from Writer's Block? To him, it's another way of saying you're not a writer. (Find that interview here.) Well, I'm sorry, Mr Cornwell, I find that both silly and offensive. He is creating parallels between two quite different concepts. It sounds sharp, witty and clever but if you analyse it, it's anything but.

Anyway, as I said above, I am slowly lifting myself to the surface (and I am consulting a doctor by the way and in no way feel suicidal, so have no fears for me., please. And I am taking medication and going out for walks.)

Only there is still a stigma about depression and something may people suffer silently and don't want to admit to because it's viewed by many as a sign of weakness, spinelessness and selfishness. I may well suffer from all three but not as a result of my depression. If only it were that easy.

Until further notice...

2011-02-11T13:31:00.000Z

...this blog is taking a rest.

Unfortunately, the kick in the pants didn't work so I have decided, instead of trying to force my brain to do what it is currently totally incapable of, to switch it off totally.

Normal service, I hope, will be resumed as soon as possible. Have fun.

Hope against Hope is now available on Kindle!

2011-02-05T13:33:00.002Z

Hooray!

You can download it here.

A Kick up the Backside

2011-01-21T17:25:00.001Z

That's what I need.

Let's face it. This blog has stalled. I still have loads to say (opinionated, me?) and I have plenty of observations on the process of writing in general. So while you wait for me to get my brain into gear (I'm waiting, too) I'm at long last posting the flash story I picked out from among those some of you were brave enough to send me at the end of last year your flash story to read and appraise. I have picked my 'winner'. Thank you, Christopher, for being so patient and thank you to everyone who sent me their flash stories. Having said that, I was, I have to say, disappointed how few of you gave it a go. Which got me thinking. Whose fault was that?

Mine, dear readers, all mine. The elephant has become lazy and unfocused and this blog is drifting. High time to have a rethink.

The short story course has finally run out of steam, mainly, if I'm honest because my own short-story writing is still languishing in the doldrums. What right have I to preach chapter and verse when I'm no longer writing them? Mind you, I have stirred myself sufficiently to enter one short story competition (Mslexia) so far this year, but frankly, my dears, that's just not good enough.

So my new, revamped blog, whilst still pontificating on all matters to do with the process of writing (rather than publishing, although the two are joined at the hip) and will still post book reviews and all sorts of rag-tag stuff, I mainly intend to use it to keep myself on the straight and narrow. And writing fiction. So, every time I begin a new short story in the future, I will report it here and then talk about its progress, its successes or more likely failures. Now that story might be a commercial story for a woman's magazine, a literary outlet or a competition because I am not totally committed to any particular form of writing. And I get so bored writing the same sort of thing all the time. There's nothing like a bit of womag to lighten up those writing muscles that can get so weighed down by all things literary.

I am also going to use it to report my progress on the novel I'm currently writing. I seem to have been doing so forever and I thought if I used this blog to report where I am at regular intervals, it will keep me motivated. And one or two people may be interested. Who knows?

So, let's try, eh? More of the same but different. And more dynamic. And I shall also give the place a bit of spit and polish.

In the meantime, here's Christopher's flash story which he has kindly given me permission to post. Incidentally, that that doesn't mean it's up for grabs for anyone else to use, copy, pinch, plagiarise. The copyright is his.

Why did I choose it? I like it first and foremost because it's simply and clearly written. It hit me between the eyes. No fancy tricks or a writer trying to impress. Firslty, It demonstrates the most important element all fiction should incorporate, but especially a piece of very short fiction which doesn't have the space to enlarge or elaborate. It's what I have coined The Tardis Effect. (By which there is more to a story than the actual words on the page. This is neither astrophysics nor science fiction but that the story expands as the reader engages his or her mind with it.) Too many stores, especially the shorter ones can leave one feeling so what? A good story should linger with the reader. It should ask questions and not necessarily provide the answers but then again, must not confuse or obfuscate. The reader fills the gaps from his or her own emotions, thoughts and memories. Therefore the story is no longer belongs to the writer alone but to every reader who reads it. My idea of what's happening within a story may not be exactly the same as yours--but that to me is the beauty of good fiction. It lives beyond the page.

THE JOB

by Christopher Broadbent

I was working late at night in my office when I sensed a presence. I looked up and there she was. I was surprised but not surprised. That was how she was.

I quickly opened the top drawer of my desk and took out the envelope of money. I didn’t bother to ask her how things had gone. People like her don’t appreciate feedback as I found out the first time I hired her. Her icy stare and the deadly silence when I suggested how to do the job, made that quite clear.

I stood up and handed her the envelope. She unzipped her leather jacket and stuck it in the inside pocket without checking it. We both knew I wouldn’t dare cheat her.

Then she stuck out her hand.

As I shook it, I could not resist saying, "If you ever have to kill me, make it quick and painless, ok."

There was no visible reaction from her, but I thought I felt a small squeeze as she let go of my hand.

PS on Creative Writing Courses

2011-01-11T12:10:00.000Z

The debate continues on Fiction Bitch. Meanwhile you may like to take a look at this. To me, Robert McCrum's article is somewhat woolly in thought and fact but the comments are well worth reading. Join the debate!

What is the Point of Creative Writing?

2011-01-06T11:34:00.001Z

If you've ever found yourself pondering the whys and wherefores of Creative Writing courses, then why not pop along to Fiction Bitch, the blog of Elizabeth Baines? She is currently hosting a series of guest posts by writers involved in the Faber Academy creative writing courses and we are all invited to get involved with the debate.

I'm not sure where I, as a writer, stand on this. I wobble and waver. I have a foot in both camps, I suppose. I don't believe you can teach anyone to write who doesn't have an innate feel for the written word but I do maintain that a well-constructed course and inspirational teachers can help those who wish it and are able to do so to develop and nurture their abilities. After all, one doesn't raise an eyebrow when talented musicians spend their formative years at a music school such as the Royal Academy of Music, nor artists, sculptors, architects etc. So why not writers? Then again, I wonder whether we're in danger of creating only one kind of writer and writing and ignoring the mavericks and the go-it-alones that every artistic endeavour should embrace. There are plenty of stunning writers who have never set foot in a creative writing class but, increasingly, more and more have. The jury is still out.

So I am following the discussions with huge interest and may well add my two-pennyworth along the way. I have put up a link to Elizabeth's blog on the column on the right of my blog. You can also follow any discussion on Twitter #whywrite.

New Year, Same Old

2011-01-02T21:35:00.000Z

Although I don't make New Year Resolutions. I have to admit that every year I can't wait to put Christmas behind me (which, to be honest, I only ever enjoyed when I was a child or when my boys were young enough to believe the magic) and gaze longingly at the brand new year stretching before me as an opportunity to ditch all my bad habits, which, I suspect, are exactly the same as everyone else's (get off my backside and do something instead of thinking about it, lose weight, do more exercise, be kinder to myself and others etc).

But then, of course, by January 10th if not before, I'm doing all the things I promised I would never do and before I know it, the brand new year is old and haggard and ending exactly like all the others in doom, gloom and failure.

So I was fascinated to read a feature in The Guardian yesterday which explains why New Year Resolutions are doomed to failure. Makes sense to me.

But, but...

I'm going to finish writing the first full draft of that damn novel by the end of February. And if I don't, you have my full permission to shoot me.

Th Elephant is dancing!

2010-12-17T15:57:00.002Z

After what has been a mixed year, I can't tell you how thrilled I was to hear yesterday that Hope against Hope is one of the 20 novels long-listed in the Pure Passion 2011 Award organised by the wonderful Romantic Novelists' Association.

You can read the list here.

Check out the names of so many brilliant authors. I am humbled to be named alongside them. It came a complete bolt out of the blue. Someone tweeted the link and I opened it not dreaming to find my name down at the bottom. (One of the disadvantages of my surname.) I love Twitter because I found out well before my publisher was sent the 'official' confirmation. I always assumed that I would be informed before the list went public. Not that I'm complaining, mind you.

Even if I don't get any further in the competition--and with such talent there alongside little old me--I can't even begin to imagine I will--I am, as they say, over the moon. I am grateful to Magnificent Myrmidon for publishing it in the first place but for entering it in the competition. They and Beautiful Books are the only independent publishers on the list. Beautiful Books also has the distinction of their author, Tom Gamble, being the lone male amongst the ladies.

All in all, I'm sure you'll allow me a teeny-tiny pirouette.

A big cheer, please, for Vanessa Gebbie...

2010-12-17T12:04:00.003Z

...who has just secured a publishing deal with Bloomsbury for her novel, The Coward's Tale. Publication is set for November 2011. I always love it when good things happen to my writing friends, especially those whose talents I spotted long before. Vanessa's good news has a special relevance to me.

It must have been at least ten years ago when I used to read all submissions to the late QWF magazine. Anyone who has ever had to wade through heaps of manuscripts, whether they're editors, agents or competition judges, soon come to realise that although a few are mad and bad, most are competent, but lack anything that makes them memorable. However,you pluck each one from that pile as if it's a rare orchid. (There's no point doing the job if you don't feel that little bubble of excitement as you start to read. And every editor or agent does, you know.) And you know you've found that are gems when you stop reading like an editor and find yourself reading like a reader. (I often think I'm in the wrong job because I find editing someone else's work far more pleasurable than writing my own. But that's by the by.)

To get back to the point, one day I read two very short stories submitted by someone called Vanessa Gebbie. I'd never come across flash fiction before then--indeed, didn't know what it was, but what I did know was that both stories were like jewels; a whole worlds of emotion wrapped in a moment. The writing was precise, neither dull or flowery; every word chosen with care. Here was a writer who knew exactly what she was doing and took pride in it. I think she was only at the beginning of her great writing journey then. I immediately emailed her that I had no hesitation in forwarding both to Jo Good (as she was then), the editor for her final say-so. Of course, she agreed with me.

As time passed, I watched as Vanessa gained confidence, progressing from small writing successes to major wins in the most prestigious UK and Ireland's short story competitions (such as Fish Bridport, Daily Telegraph) and beyond. Since then she has published two short story collections (Words from a Glass Bubble and Storm Warning. (I shall be reviewing the latter at the beginning of 2011.) She has also edited one of the best books about the art and craft of short story-writing: Short Circuit. Non of this was luck. She learned her craft the hard way through gruelling writing boot-camps and she has alos found time to teach the disadvantaged to find their writing voices. You can read my interview with Vanessa about Short Circuit here.

Those of you who follow this blog will also know how Vanessa kindly gave her permission for me to publish the title story of her first collection: Words from A Glass Bubble and to use it as a master-class in short story writing. See this, this and this.

However, no success comes without setbacks and heartbreak (and be very wary of those who deny this) and Vanessa has had to cope with more than most. It was hugely painful for her when she fell prey to a persistent and unrepentant plagiarist. (I will not repeat the whole sorry saga here but I'm sure many of you will remember what a traumatic time it was for her professionally as well as personally.) It also meant that she had to completely rewrite a great deal of the manuscript that became The Coward's Tale, which, as anyone who writes will know, must have been soul-destroying. But she didn't go under. She buckled down and did it. So hr success is even more deserved.

Vanessa is an inspiration to those who believe the publishing world is a closed shop to all but celebrities and those with a 'platform'. (I hate that word!) She is testament to the happy fact that even in these days of cash-strapped publishers and the wailing and gnashing of teeth that traditional publishing is doomed: - that talent, a commitment to the writing process, hard work and a determination is within all of our grasps--if we want it enough.

Congratulations, Vanessa!

Vanessa's website (with a link to her blog) is here.

End of Year Round-up

2010-12-04T15:09:00.003Z

2010 was a funny old year for me. I sit here as I did at the beginning of the year hemmed in by snow, all roads going nowhere. My writing life, whilst not as deep in the doldrums as it was earlier, is still going nowhere fast. I am finding writing my current novel very slow going. It's not that I'm blocked exactly. It's just that to render it anywhere near publishable is going to take far longer than I ever imagined. And sometimes I wonder whether it's worth the bother. Then again, I have been doubly encouraged in the past few days. Firstly, I listened to acclaimed novelist Robert Harris on Desert Island Discs saying that it took him three years to write the follow-up to Fatherland and how looking back to that novel, he didn't know how on earth he had managed it. Far be it from me to liken myself to his talent, at least it made me realise such feelings are not mine alone, especially when I hear daily of the successes of other writer friends and acquaintances. (Sometimes, Twitter is not good for my self-esteem!) Then I read this on Emma Darwin's blog and was encouraged to realised that perhaps the current state of my novel is not irredeemable and that I have been despairing of the ugly scaffolding rather than looking at the novel underneath. Perhaps.

So, although aware of the task ahead, I think I can fix it. Also, I now know what I want to write about next. As yet it is only a vague idea hovering around the back of my head. It will need a lot of research and will probably involve my usual hard labour of 'write followed by delete' but I am confident it's do-able. I have found my carrot that will keep me trotting on when the current work is draging its feet.

In between its snowy bookends, this year has been a very much a swing-boat of very high highs and very low lows. The major high was the publication of Hope Against Hope and all the pleasures and excitement of launch day, book-signings and press coverage. Although never a limelight seeker, (I prefer to lurk in shadows and observe) I enjoyed the novelty of being the centre of attention even if it was for a nano-second. Because, of course, the euphoria doesn't last long and you begin to realise that having a novel published is not the end of the journey but merely the beginning of an even harder one.

At around the same time I attended The York Writing Festival. I had a great time and it was a great boost and I am about to book next year's event. Hope to see you there!

The downs have mainly been due to more than my fair share of ill-health that necessitated two bouts of hospitalization. These episodes and the long recoveries afterwards didn't help my writing output on bit and for those who might pass me off as a lost cause, let me emphasise that I am determined to make 2011 the year when it ALL goes well. I'm hoping for steady even progress. I intend to build up a stock of short stories and enter as many competitions as I can. (I did it once so why not again?) I may even find myself an agent! (The Holy Grail.) I don't go for new year resolutions but if I did, they would be mine for 2011.

But before I salute the coming year, first here's a small selection of the many books I have enjoyed reading this year. One the whole I have found all my reading pleasurable--partly because I choose with care. Even so, there were several turkeys, which I shall not mention.

I mentioned in a blog post earlier this year how Elizabeth Chadwick's To Defy a King kept me sane during my most recent hospital stay. I believe it's out in paperback soon. Please check it out. Other books I would recommend are Nicola Morgan's Wasted, a thought-provoking YA title which explores the nature of chance and of making the right decisions without being heavy or moralistic. Up for several awards, it deserves to win every single one of them. Although I am not as a rule a reader of Science Fiction, I did enjoy The Nemesis List by R J Frith. Rather than dwell on all the geeky stuff many SF readers expect, it is an exploration of what it is to be human in a future world awash with suspicion and paranoia.

It has become very clear that Salt Publishing is quickly establishing itself as the most innovative and productive publisher of new writing. I have yet to read anything on their list that isn't excellent. Long may it continue. Having said that, the collection that impressed me the most this year is Polly Samson's Perfect Lives. If I have any regrets in my life it is that I will never, in a million years and however hard I try, be able to reach the perfection of her prose, which, like Mozart's music, appears to have been produced without effort.I say appears because the doing is never so.

The most stunning novel of my reading year was Joseph O'Connor's Ghost Light. It reads like the very best of James Joyce, lyrical and a distillation of the essence of Ireland. Sad and moving, yet life-affirming, every word is a delight.

As for non-fiction, I have recently been bowled over by an unassuming little volume: The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating by Elizabeth Tova Bailey. When hit by a nasty virus and confined to bed for a considerable time, weak and barely able to move, the author observes the life of a snail in a terrarium at her bedside. But this is more than a study of the life-cycle and habits of Neohelix Albolabris, and more a study of illness, time and space and patience. The writing is exquisite but highly readable and if you're looking for the perfect Christmas stocking-filler, this is it.

Christmas is hurtling towards me so may I be the first to wish you all the best one ever and I hope you'll join me for what I am planning to be a productive 2011.

Don't just COPY; get it RIGHT.

2010-11-19T11:52:00.003Z

If you, like me, follow Jane Smith's inestimable blog How Publishing Really Works, you will know she has designated today as the one we all get our heads round the complicated subject of copyright--especially with regard to the Internet, where, on first glance, it seems that everything is there for the picking.

I have no great insight or knowledge of this subject so please, if you haven't already done so, go and read today's post and others she's written on the subject. And while you're at it, trot over to Nicola Morgan's place for another clear and well-informed piece. (Don't forget to come back here, though. I'll make some coffee while I wait for you.)

I have to say that I have never wittingly 'stolen' someone else's work to use on my blog. I have published other people's short stories on this blog but I have made sure I first contacted the author and asked for permission to do so beforehand. It's only courtesy. If they say no, then I will not do it. I am not in a position to offer payment if requested so will bow out gracefully. But if you are writing a book and have the backing of your publisher then if you are going to quote at length from anything someone else has written or photographed or painted or whatever, then your publisher should sort out any payment due. Make sure if you quote even the shortest phrase from anyone else's hard work on your blog, you cite the source and direct your readers to it.

Just because something appears on the internet and is available at the click of a mouse, does not mean it's yours to take. Think of a supermarket or any store for that matter around which you can wander, browse, study, inspect and even pick up and feel. That's allowed. But to pick something up and carry it out without bothering to pay then you will face the consequences. There are laws in place to stop you. And so there are with copyright.

And have you aver heard of The Statute of Anne? I hadn't either until I read this: it is the text of a speech given recently by James Murdoch about copyright in the digital age to the Stationers Company.

You may get away with it (not all thieves get caught) but that doesn't make it right. Ignorance of the law is no defence, as we know. Think of the CooksSource train wreck. (again see Jane's blog for a full account.) That happened because one editor doesn't understand copyright. She thought that because she put the author's name on it that made it okay. Wrong.

Writers are not money-grubbing meanies but fair's fair. We love to see our work being read by as many people as possible but that doesn't mean we are happy for all our hard work to be usurped. It's not fair and it's not right. Right?

Stuck on the Hard Shoulder

2010-11-13T12:39:00.006Z

Having said that I was giving up writing for a while, I hadn't realised how difficult that was going to be. If you're a writer--and anyone who's reading this will probably feel the same way--your can't stop writing. I have been trying to get the novel I'm writing into some sort of shape. (If you've ever tried to give a feisty cat a tablet, then you'll get the picture.) But I have stepped back a bit and not put myself under any pressure. If the words come, then fine, but if they don't, I get up and walk away and do something else. And don't beat myself up about it.

It's not easy, though. If, like me, you dip in and out of Twitter and follow lots of writers, it's easy to get the impression that everyone else is storming ahead, writing thousands of words a day (especially if they're Nano writers), having hilarious launch parties, being accepted for publication, or gaining agents. Of course, I know that people only tend to tweet when they have something to crow about (mixed metaphor alert) but it makes me feel as if I'm stranded on the hard shoulder. checking my watch every ten seconds, wondering whether that blasted AA man man will arrive before I freeze to death or die of hunger and glowering at everyone else zooming past at the rate of knots, no doubt jeering at me. Does anyone else ever feel like this?

Anyway, as I said, I have tried not to let these things bother me. Quality, not quantity I chant even though it's through gritted teeth. But there's one good thing about this bleak hard shoulder. I've been spending my time doing a lot of reading and it's given me a chance to re-acquaint myself with short stories. I have also made the decision not to review books here any longer--or at least not give detailed reviews of books people have asked me to. (So no free copies please. It puts me under pressure.) I am absolutely hopeless gushing about a book I don't absolutely adore. I know personally how devastating even a lukewarm review can be for any writer or how shallow an all-singing, all-dancing can seem to others, so I won't. In future I will only review books I have bought and only those that I really think worth mentioning.

Not only have I read some cracking collections recently, there seems to have been a resurgence of interest in the form lately. The prestigious BBC National Short Story Awards 2010 has just announced its short-list. Each one will be broadcast on successful days next week on BBC Radio 4 (Afternoons at 3.30pm. Check listings.) I recommend that anyone at all interested in writing short stories should have their ears glued to the radio.

And here are two short story collections that have filled me with delight over the past week. They are Polly Samson's Perfect Lives and Susannah Rickards' Hot Kitchen Snow. Both have reminded me of where a short story can take you. Also I have (only today) got my copy of Tom Vowler's The Method and am so looking forward to reading it based on all the favourable comments I've heard. (And do check out Salt Publishing's website. There are plenty of short story goodies on it.)

Having read Polly Samson's and then Susannah Rickard's stories, I can feel the beginnings of that itch to write again that I might just have to scratch before the month is up...which is a neat way to remind you to visit Emma Darwin's This Itch of Writing blog and read two fascinating posts in which the aforementioned Susannah Rickards offers insight into writing for short-story competitions. Essential reading for anyone who has been following my short story tutorials.

Finally, finally, it's not to late to send me a flash fiction story. (See this.) I promise to offer you brief comments in return. I don't charge but I don't massage egos either so it's at your own risk. I have received a few but am happy to have some more. Please email them to thewritingelephant.googlemail.com.

Happy reading.

PS Speaking of Nanowrimo...

2010-11-01T09:59:00.000Z

...I couldn't resist showing you this. So funny and yet so true!

And many thanks to Sarah Duncan from whose blog I nicked it!

Taking a Break

2010-10-31T21:16:00.000Z

November is the month where writers everywhere sign up for Nanowrimo. Twitter is awash at the moment with writers psyching themselves up for the Herculean task ahead. I wish them luck.

I like being perverse so have decided that the time has come. I have made up my mind. I propose to write nothing in November.No novel, no short stories, no book reviews, no blog. I may not even tweet

I need a rest. I am stale and the batteries are flat. Duracell Bunny I am not. Now this, I know, is Not What Writers Are Supposed To Do. Writers get better by writing. Writers need to connect with other writers. Well, not me. Not this month.

It's been a funny old year for me so far. There have been big highs. Well one big high: publication of Hope against Hope (Have you bought your copy yet?) and a fab launch party and all that jazz but now the party's over. Second high was that I met a lovely agent who showed a spark of interest but who surely must have, by now, long since written me off. (Plenty more little fish in the writing pool.) And the lows? Two emergency admissions to hospital and all that goes with it, followed by a growing sense of unease as my current work in progress inexorably dug its own grave.

So. This is where I am now. Hence my decision. I am going to spend this month avoiding the W word. Because I'm worth it.

Short Story Tutorial 7

2010-10-16T21:10:00.005+01:00

WOMAGS, COMPS AND FLASHES

No, not a new rock trio but my feeble attempt at a snappy title for this seventh post in which yours truly whizzes at great speed through writing for commercial women's magazines, writing for short story competitions and writing flash fiction. Hold on to your hats!

Writing for commercial women's magazines

I am not an expert on this market, although I have published several in my time, so I will only make the following recommendations.

a) Don't even think about it if you think it's a quick and easy way to make money or you can tell their editors a thing or two about proper short-story writing. Never, ever patronise readers or think you know more than magazine editors. It's a highly competitive market and not as easy as it looks, believe me. It's actually much tougher than it looks.

b) Although most magazines will provide guidelines for writers, they are no substitute for actually reading the magazines. Regularly buy, yes buy, magazines. Read the stories closely and carefully. If a subject matter isn't there--something dark or frightening or whatever, it doesn't mean the editors are crying out for it. It means they don't want it. Don't be a cheapskate and rely on magazines that have been hanging around your doctor's waiting room for years either. Check such for such things as sentence structure and length, the typical mc and vocabulary used. Learn to tell the difference between each magazine's requirements and the average age of its readers. Look at the ads, the recipes, the problem pages, the features. They all tell you who reads it.

c) Keep up-to-date with the very best blog on the subject--which is THIS ONE! It has links to magazines that publish fiction and their guidelines and all the latest info about what's happening in the world of womag (as it's affectionately known.) It's essential reading.

d) get hold of a copy of How to Write and Sell Short Stories by one of the stars of womag fiction, Della Galton, and also Sophie King's excellent How to Write Short Stories for Magazines.

Writing short stories for competitions

Now, I am a bit of an expert on this, even though I haven't entered too many recently. I have entered loads over the years from the prestigious to the obscure and have won quite a few. I'm a great believer in them. They gave me confidence when I first started writing. I began with 'small' competitions, those organised by small-press magazines or by writers' groups and gradually gained enough confidence and expertise to try the bigger ones. Mind you, most still elude me--come on Bridport. Give a girl a break!

The beauty of such competitions is that, on the whole, there is no restriction on subject matter. The only restriction is length. Having said that, do make sure you’re entering the kind of story that fits the competition’s ethos. For example, if the story is organized by a publisher of avant-garde literary fiction, they may not say so, but the last thing they want is a sweet boy-meets-girl romance or a tale told by a pet rabbit. By the same token, if a woman’s magazine organizes a competition, then don’t send in your bleak dystopian tale set at the end of the world as we know it.

You can get some idea of what kind of stories a competition is looking for from their website, the people organizing it and the judges. They won't necessarily tell you in so many words but teach yourself to read between the lines. If the competition publishes a winners’ anthology, it’s always good idea to buy last year's. If you hate/don’t understand the stories or think the overall standard is poor or just not your sort of thing, then don’t enter. It's a waste of your time and theirs.

And now question everybody seems to ask these days. (This didn’t seem to happen a few years ago.) Why should I have to pay an entry fee? After all, we are told never to pay to be published. Doesn’t that mean that most short-story competitions are a rip-off?

The simple answer is no. They aren’t. That’s not to say that some competitions aren't dubious. (Never enter one where even if you win you’re expected to buy several copies of any anthology. That’s vanity publishing.) Then again, paying for a copy of the winners’ anthology is absolutely legitimate—unless your story is featured among the prize-winners. In that case you should be entitled to least one free copy.

So why pay to enter? Firstly because most competitions are run on a shoe-string and out of the money all entrants pay will often come the prize money—unless there’s a sponsor, administration and publicity costs and a small fee for those who read and judge stories. Entry fees range usually from £2 to £15 these days, although many are free.

Make sure, though that the prize money is reasonable when compared with the entry fee. Don’t enter a competition where the prize pot is very small and the entry fee extremely high. I leave it to you to judge what you consider reasonable.

How do you find out about writing competitions? Esy! The wonderful Sally Quilford does all the hard work for you.

Even with all the info Sally Q provides, you must always check the relevant website for each competition carefully before entering and make sure you know what they want and that you’re happy with it all. Once you’ve decided to enter, please, please, please, read the rules. I know we all hate rules, but even if you don’t agree with them, why spoil your chances before anyone’s even had a chance to read your story? You’ll only have wasted your entry fee.

Competitions are a great way to get into writing to a deadline and following strict instructions. They help keep you flexible and open to new ideas and generally being professional about your writing.

And remember, do not enter the same story into more than one on-going competition. Keep detailed records of the closing date and when results are announced. If your story fails to win or be short-listed, then take another look at it, smarten it up and earmark for another one. Entering competitions is no different from submitting for publication. Be professional and organised--and as prolific as you can be.

Good luck!

Flash Fiction.

So…what exactly is Flash Fiction? Like many things, it all depends. However, one thing is certain, flash fiction is short. Wikipedia defines it as follows:

Flash fiction is a style of fictional literature or fiction of extreme brevity. There is no widely accepted definition of the length of the category. Some self-described markets for flash fiction impose caps as low as 300, while others consider stories as long as 1000 words to be flash fiction.

In fact, the article itself is not bad as a general introduction to the genre.But it doesn't tell you how to go about writing one or define what makes a good flash fiction story.

I am not in any way an expert. In fact, I’m not well-practised enough to do it well. (Doesn’t write womag, hasn’t regularly entered short-story competitions for years and now admits to not being any good at flash fiction…why the heck am I writing this blog post?)

But I do have my opinions. To me, a flash fiction story must have a beginning, a middle and an end, even if it’s less than 100 words long. That doesn’t mean everything has to be tied up neatly at the end, it just has to leave readers satisfied aesthetically. Because there are fewer words to play with, every one has to earn its place. There's no room for fuzzy thought or vague vocabulary. Plot is something that plays little part but the story still has to show movement or change from beginning to end. This is, of course true of all writing, but even more essential, the shorter the story is. (It works like a bikini; the smaller it is, the more the flab will show.)

Flash fiction, to me, packs the same punch as poetry. It’s a small jewel that glitters, a sharp, salted canapé that whets the appetite. If the format appeals, then I suggest you read as much of it as you can by the best writers around. I would recommend Tania Hershman's short fiction. Several well-respected short-story competitions now run flash fiction competitions as well as ones fro the more usual length short stories. (For example, The Bridport Prize and Biscuit Publishing.) There are others, of course.

So, does anyone fancy having a go at writing a flash fiction story? If you do, please send your stories of less than 300 words, including title, to thewritingelephant at googlemail dot com. I promise I will try and comment personally by email on all of them may well put one or two on this blog in due course.

Next session. What do I mean when I talk about the elements of good short fiction? Surely that's only subjective?

For the Love of Moo by Karla Smith

2010-10-02T18:28:00.002+01:00

You may recall that at the end of the last short story session (no. 6) I asked anyone who felt so inclined to send me a complete short story of less than 1,000 words for me to look at. I said I would try and give everyone who did so some feedback. I didn't promise because I wasn't sure how many I'd get. As it happens, less than a dozen of you took me up on the offer. Now, either this was because most of you aren't yet aware how generous an offer it was--a free appraisal is as rare as hen's teeth--or because only a handful of you think my opinion is worth having. Probably the latter. Never mind. It's too late now. The offer is closed!

Nor was it ever intended as a competition. The stories all had their merits and their styles so varied it would have been unfair, but I have to say that for me, one stood head and shoulders above the others. So I asked the writer if I could publish it here. And she graciously agreed, knowing full well that it counts as free publication. See what you think.

Why do I like it so much? Firstly, the text is perfectly presented and free of errors; secondly the narrative voice is spot-on; thirdly, the writing is sharply visual with great imagery. This is a writer who knows how to put words together effectively. I love the quiet humour and the way that strong emotions lie just beneath the surface. Anyway, that's my opinion.

So here it is. I can only apologize that Blogger has messed up the formatting--unlike the attachment I was sent.

FOR THE LOVE OF MOO by Karla Smith

“Hey! Tom!”

That’s Moo’s voice. I brake hard, my heart giving a joyful little flip, along with my bicycle. Passing my front wheel, head first, I’m reminded of two things. That my back brake wants fixing, pronto, and that there’s no fool like a middle-aged one.

Through the base of the hedge where I’ve landed, I can see Moo. Far below me, at the bottom of a sloping meadow, looking up at the lane and shielding her eyes from the sun. Wondering, no doubt, why my cap’s disappeared from the skyline.

Scrambling to my feet, I wave reassuringly over the hedge. Up she comes. Six feet tall and broad with it, moving with the unlikely grace of a surfacing whale, taking a fallen tree in her stride, and vaulting the gate onto the lane like a Russian gymnast. Or two Russian gymnasts, maybe. Zipped inside one outsized navy blue boiler suit, sharing the chest area with their top halves, and filling a trouser leg each.

“You a bit early today, Tom, or am I late?” she asks, barely blowing. Working the steep banks of her Welsh hill farm, she’s fitter at fifty than many women half her age.

For a minute, I can’t speak. When Moo took that log, the heads of the gymnasts nodded in glorious unison.

“’Bout my usual time, I think,” I manage at last. It’s not true though. I’ve pedalled like buggery for the first half of my post round, so’s to have longer at Moo’s, for my tea break. Not that she knows that, of course.

I watch her now, adjusting her faded, felt beret after her run. Tugging it downwards, so that it sits on her head like an onion. Even down to the little stalk of material on top, and her long hair, tumbling downwards, like crinkly, pale grey roots. “You OK today, Moo?”

“I’d be all right if I could see,” she says, whipping off her specs and spitting on their picture-window lenses. Things must be bad. I’ve not seen her clean them before, in the six months or so that she’s been here. Normally, she just knuckles a porthole in the grime and carries on. Still, it’s a rare glimpse of her fine eyes and I savour it.

“Been having a go at moving that bogged-down tractor of mine,” she adds, spreading spitty gunge with the sleeve of her boiler suit and peering at it, like a promising specimen on a slide. “But it sort of blew up, and threw boiling oil all over me.”

She looks at me, dark brown eyes dancing, luscious lips twitching with humour. I can’t share the joke, though. This fag-end-in-the-firework box approach of hers to jobs worries me to death.

“You shouldn’t go doing these things, Moo, all the way out here on your own. I could’ve easily come and helped you after work.”

“Thanks, but it’s a grim job. I couldn’t ask it of you, really.”

Actually, she could ask me to do the butterfly in a slurry pit and all I’d ask would be how many lengths. But I say nothing; watching regretfully as the greasy glasses go back on. Blurring her beautiful, twinkling eyes, like gauze over the stars.

“All set now Moo?”

She nods, easily keeping pace with my bike as we follow the winding mountain lane towards her place. Basking in her nearness, I try to impress her by riding no handed, pretending to search in my sack for her mail. As if it wasn’t right here on top. Carefully sorted for her, first thing this morning, and secured with my best rubber band.

In the yard, I hand her the bundle of mail, including a scarlet, handwritten envelope, addressed to Miss Muriel Mack, and postmarked London. A masculine hand, if I’m not mistaken.

“A real red letter day, eh Moo?” I say, pointing to the rich splash of colour, banded against the buff of a couple of bills and an off white circular from the Min. of Ag. I keep my tone light, but that letters worries me.

“Been waiting for that one, have you, Moo?”

She looks up, surprised, starting to walk towards her cluttered, comfy cottage. “Not specially. Why do you ask?”

Abandoning the bike, I trot after her. “Well, just lately, you’ve been rushing to meet me, every morning. Flagging me down, even, out on the road, like today. When people are that pleased to see me, they’re generally hoping for something important, in their mail.”

At the door to the house, Moo pauses, shoving her hands awkwardly into her pockets, and rocking backwards on the heels of her sturdy boots.

“The letter is important, Tom, it’s from my brother,” she says, finally, drawing her glasses away from her face and smiling down at me. “But I haven’t been rushing to meet you because of the post.”

“No?”

“No.”

Meeting her sparkling, dark brown eyes, my heart gives another of those joyful little flips. And then another, and another …

While you're waiting...

2010-09-25T11:57:00.000+01:00

...for me to pull my finger out and write a new blog entry, please cast you eyes over this. It's brill. Thank you, M D Lachlan. Whilst it's true Dan Brown sells, I would rather be known as an author write with style than make millions and be called a bad stylist. How about you?

Barter Books

2010-09-11T17:53:00.001+01:00

I've just come back from a few days away in Northumberland. It's true what they say about the county being England's best kept secret: stunning (and empty) countryside, fantastic beaches and fascinating market towns abound, one of which is Alnwick (pronounced Annick for those not of these shores.) Harry Potter fans will recognise the castle (also featured in other films) but bibliophiles like me will ignore all that and make a beeline for Barter Books.

Housed in the old railway station, it is a dream for second-hand book browsers. Not only is it bigger than most such shops but there's a cafe which means you could spend all day there--and believe me, I was tempted. Unlike the usual musty poky corners (which I also love, incidentally) Barter Books is hospitable and comfortable--plenty of squashy sofas even though it is clearly a bustling business. Despite its age and contents, it doesn't carry too much of that old books aroma, although many of the books are foxed. Another delight is the huge mural which depicts a gathering of famous writers past and present. I particularly enjoyed seeing Virginia Woolf chatting away to Jane Austen--and Alan Bennett seated a little detached from the crowd, watching. Oscar Wilde was, of course, holding court. I'm not sure whether I liked the small toy trains whizzing about above the shelves but they proved a popular attraction to many. Anyway, I bought a modest ten books (ranging from those green Virago Classics, a couple of Helen Dunmore's back catalogue, a book on the wool industry in medieval England, another about medieval women writers--both research for my next novel in the pipeline.) and promised myself to return as soon as possible.

Incidentally, it was at Barter Books that the, now famous, government Keep Calm and Carry On poster was discovered a few years ago. This was never issued but was intended to be displayed if Hitler had invaded Britain. It's the old-fashioned, stoical, Captain Mainwaring style sentiments that appeals today.

Finally, normal blogging will resume asap. I haven't forgotten my short-story sessions and I have several books I'd like to review plus lots more observations about writing and publishing. But until then, well, just...

This has nothing to do with writing or reading...

2010-08-26T18:53:00.000+01:00

...but I love where I live and wanted to boast.
No wonder I don't write as much as I should.

Updated list of UK and Ireland magazines that publish short fiction (et al)

2010-08-25T10:44:00.000+01:00

Tania Hershman has updated her list. Well worth a serious look. And don't dismiss the non-paying markets. It's getting your writing out there that's equally as important.

Time, methinks, for a bit of a rant

2010-08-20T12:17:00.000+01:00

This blog has been rather too good-natured over the past few months. This may have something to do with having survived yet another round with ill-health and relishing having come out the other side more or less intact; or maybe I'm becoming complacent because I live in such a lovely part of the country where there's room to breathe. It also may be because my first novel was published in April and I've not dared upset a soul in case I lose a potential customer! (Cynical, moi? Surely not.)

But the days are noticeably beginning to shorten and even though it's still shirt-sleeves weather, callow summer is melting into the honeyed maturity of autumn--at least up here in the north of England. Mists and mellow fruitfulness and all that. The blackberries are ripening in the hedgerows, the house-martins are getting twitchy on the wires and soon I will be picking plums and apples again (even though I still have a freezerful of them.)

So, despite the mellowness of the season, like the house-martins, I, too, am feeling twitchy and tetchy. The thing is, I am getting more and more disheartened by the fact that so many of the writing blogs I read concern themselves with how to write that perfect synopsis, how to attract the attention of an agent with that wing-ding query letter, how to be uber-professional and write the right book for the right market and how to sell yourself big time. (And let's leave aside all the moans and groans and collective angst about the end of publishing as we know it and the fact that no-one will ever want to read books in print any more let alone find a shop to buy them in.)

I'm not saying that these topics are not important. Of course they are and I would be the first in line to criticise (and roll my eyes at) any writer who says 'I write what I write and couldn't care less about anyone else. I refuse to straight-jacket myself or dumb down to please a money-grubbing publisher.' But times are harder than ever and agents and publishers have to eat. Nor do I believe that anyone who has written a novel 'deserves' to be published just because it takes time and effort and all their friends think they should be published. After all, it's their choice. Getting one's novel published is not a path to fame and fortune. Unfortunately, the select minority for whom it is engender unreasonable expectations. The only people who pander to such dreams are vanity publishers and the less said about them the better.

....I'm getting to the point. Please bear with me...

I named this blog The Elephant in The Writing Room for a reason. Is it only me who sees that there's something fundamental to any writing success that no-one, neither industry professionals nor writers themselves seem to mention? It's big, it's obvious and yet it's ignored. I visit plenty of writing blogs, attend conferences and online forums where writers get together to discuss aspects of the business. I have found the majority of heated discussions and debates are on the topics I mentioned above; how to write that synopsis that will wow all agents, whether all adverbs should be banished from a manuscript; whether one is likely to scupper one's chances of acceptance if one uses the present tense? Is Courier more acceptable than Times New Roman or what if I use Arial? Why can't I submit in single-spaced lines to save on paper and postage? And what about if I email it? Was my manuscript rejected because it was right-justified or because there were two tiny typos on the first page? The questions and discussions go on and on and on...

It's not that I think such questions shouldn't be asked, especially by beginners; but when it comes to whether a manuscript captures an agent's imagination from the moment he or she starts reading, such matters are largely irrelevant. It's true that an agent will not be happy if a script is stuffed full of spelling or grammatical errors or set in single-spaced lines which are tiring on the eye but these things will only be a reason for rejection IF the writing itself is not up to scratch. If the writing has that indefinable quality that turns a super-critical agent who is always looking for reasons to react into an avid and excited reader then he or she will be more likely to disregard mistakes.

What is relevant and what makes an agent prick up his or her ears is the quality of the writing. All right, all right, I can hear you all shouting. What about Dan Brown, what about Stephanie Meyer, not to mention all that celebrity garbage?

The trouble with sweeping statements is that the detail is lost. Quality writing does not mean university-educated and cultured writing that can only be appreciated if you have a PhD in English Literature. Dan Brown and Stephanie Meyer may not be the best prose stylists in the world, but they both have a strong connection with their own particular readership and the quality of their writing is far better (ie it ticks all the right boxes) than others who write for the same readerships. And as for the Katie Prices of this world, well, what can I say? It's a whole different ball-game and cannot be compared with the majority. If I appear in Waterstone's I might, if I'm lucky, attract a handful of people and sell a few copies. She will attract huge crowds and sell hundreds of copies of books to people who are not, as a rule, book-buyers. Why? Because great swathes oif the public rightly or wrongly are obsessed with celebrities--there wouldn't be all those magazines in the shops if they didn't. Why shouldn't publishers jump on the bandwaggon? It doesn't mean others agents and editors they stop looking for quality from everyone else. Just because some people in publishing have stars in their eyes, doesn't mean they all have.

So what do I mean by quality? That's the problem. It means so many different things to different people. I mean writing that leaps off the page, that isn't dull, repetitive, clunky and ordinary. And let's not beat about the bush. Too many people seeking publication write pedestrian and dull prose because they do not understand the music of language. They understand about characters and plot; they want to know what agents want now but they do not bother with how to choose and arrange the words, phrases, sentences and paragraphs so they are in harmony, so that they create a symphonic whole, so that they take readers somewhere else from where they are. Don't get me wrong. I'm not advocating airy-fairy over-literary self-indulgence because it looks and sounds pretty. That's equally as bad--if not worse. It's about making a connection between the writer and the reader. And that takes an ability with words.

Some of us are born with it in the same way that some people can pick up a pencil and with a few deft strokes capture the personality in a friend's face. We can't all be born lucky but we can work at it. Afer all, a top musician needs talent but he also has to practise his or her scales over and over again. The same goes for Olympic gold medallists. Talent is nothing without hard work. I can never write exactly what I intend to. It's only ever a shadow of what hovers in my brain. My writing muscles more often than not let me down but I practise. I try, I struggle, I strive but I'm never satisfied. I don't think I have the innate talent. I am a Salieri to other people's Mozart. If you've seen Amadeus (m,y favourite movie, incidentally) you'll know what I mean. And like Salieri, I can, however, recognise 'it' when I see it even when it's not my preferred style of reading. And so can agents and editors. Yes, they make mistakes. Everyone has a tone-deaf day when they're tired or jaded or distracted.

Also, quality writing is rarer than you might think, so if you're attracting the attention of agents who reply with real regret but still reject your work, then you're almost there. Too many who think they deserve publication fail to see the beam in their own eye and blame the speck in the agent's. If you're not getting anywhere at all after years of trying--and it can take years even for real talent to be recognised--take a look at yourt writing and see what needs fixing--and then fix it. Don't ignore the elephant and don't find irrelevant reasons for your failures.

Short Story Tutorial 6

2010-08-13T16:12:00.004+01:00

NOW YOU'RE TALKING

Dialogue, voice and style

I’ve been rereading the earlier sessions and I’m concerned I’ve strayed away from short story writing in particular and have ended up discussing fiction writing in general. Whilst there is much in common, a short story, as I said at the beginning, is not a condensed novel. If a novel is a full four or five course meal with all the trimmings, then a short-story is what the French, I believe, call an amuse-gueule, something to tickle the palate and delight, but not fill one up. So, don’t forget that whilst much I suggest applies to both types of fiction the writing must always be tighter in short stories. The tighter the better. The lack of space makes anything fleshy and flabby glaringly obvious. There’s no room for long introductions, convoluted metaphors, mega flashbacks or multiple characters. Adjectives or adverbs must be employed with caution. Dialogue needs particular attention.

But first a word about word-count. Lots of writers balk at the idea of adhering to one. I have some sympathy with this view. After all, a short-story should be as long as the story needs, no more and no less. And arbitrary restrictions have no place in art. However, if you are writing short stories for commercial magazines or for short-story competitions, then a strict adherence to the limit is essential, for reasons I'll go into in my next session.

Having said that, I find the idea of a strict word-count liberating rather than an imposition. I’ll explain.

My usual method when starting to write a new short story is to only have a vague idea of the length I’m aiming for. I will write that first draft and finish it when I feel I have reached its natural end. It's only then I hit the word count button. Years of practice often means that when I do, I am pleasantly surprised by how close I am to the count. But I am always over the limit to a certain extent. So I have to prune. Some writers are daunted when they discover that a story that shouldn’t exceed two thousand words is actually well over three thousand.or more, even after several drafts. This doesn’t bother me at all. I see it as a challenge. It never ceases to amaze me how easy it is to shed words, firstly by cutting out anything that, even if it’s great writing (!) isn’t absolutely vital and secondly by finding ways to say things more succinctly, especially in dialogue, where I find less is more.

People ask me whether I’m worried I’ll throw out the baby with the bathwater. No. This is because before I start any ruthless editing, I copy and paste the over-long draft twice and create two new files. One I will edit ruthlessly to fit in with the word count I'm aiming for and the other I will leave at its original length, flabby bits and all. So, if I find I’ve cut something I want to reinstate, I can always paste it back in. (Oh the wonders of technology!) Sometimes I end up with the same story written in several different lengths.

Editing to me is the fun bit of writing. It’s very rarely that I enjoy putting up completely new words on the screen. I find it a slog on the whole. My first drafts are execrable, stuffed full of dull vocabulary and clichés galore. It’s the process of cutting, refining and shaping I love.

Then again, we are all different. This is how I do it. It may not work for you. Don’t feel you’re doing anything wrong if you work in a completely different way.

Dialogue

So, do short stories have to contain dialogue? Of course not. Or rather, it depends. If your aim is to have stories published in women’s magazines or other popular outlets, then yes. It’s a must. Literary fiction is more flexible and by and large you can do as you please or what feels right fore the story, in the same way that you decide whether to write it in the past or present tense, first, second or third person. You need to know what market you’re aiming for and what the usual requirements are.

Let’s assume for a moment that we’re writing the more commercial type of short fiction and we need dialogue. It’s said that such a short story should be about 50% dialogue. This isn’t set it stone but it’s a useful pointer. As in novels but even more so in short stories, dialogue in fiction is not the same as dialogue in real life. It should sound as near as spit to real dialogue but it’s something actually quite different. Conversation in real life is used mostly to oil the wheels of society. In order to rub along with others on this crowded planet, we have to constantly greet, bid farewell, ask after other's welfare, thank, apologise, commiserate, praise and comfort. Much of it is bland and platitudinous. In fiction, this is a no-no. Never think your dialogue will sound natural if you sprinkle it with loads of hellos, goodbyes, mustn't grumbles and you're welcomes. It won't.

Dialogue in fiction serves three main functions only and it should be doing all three all the time. It is doubly important to bear this in mind when writing short fiction because you only have limited space so make sure it’s earning its keep.

1. It provides information.

2. It reveals character.

3. It moves the narrative forward.

Experts often tell you to eavesdrop on others' conversations to get a feel for natural dialogue. This is a good idea as far as it goes. You may get some cracking one-liners. You may hear some fascinating characters and ideas to start one off. But what you won't get is good dialogue. Real conversation rambles, repeats itself, stops, starts and drifts into space. Fictional dialogue, especially in short fiction, has to be meaningful and succinct. It must move. It must never hold up the action or be included just for the sake of it.

Keep dialogue short and sweet. Don't be tempted to let your characters ramble on even if they are rambling-on sort of people. In real conversation we all pause, search for the right word, get confused, mix sounds up or use meaningless expressions such as, like, you know, er and um to give us time to think. Don't be tempted to copy this. Convey hesitation in a more subtle way. A full stop, for instance, makes your readers pause, as does a little bit of 'business' as comedians call it.

“I can't,” said the plumber as he pulled a crumpled envelope from his pocket. "Fix them pipes. Now, like." He reached behind his ear and plucked a pencil stub. “’Appen I'll come next week."

I hope you can see my plumber as a friendly, if not entirely competent, Yorkshireman. Which brings us on to dialect. In the past, novelists often rendered whole speeches in phonetics to mimic a dialect. This is less acceptable now--indeed taboo unless you want to irritate or bore your readers to death. We are all more aware of different voices through television and films. It’s also patronizing and slows your story to a laborious crawl as your reader struggles. Use the odd telling word, but don't overdo it.

In your eagerness to give readers information, never be tempted to write dialogue like this:

"My older sister, Amanda, is getting married next month," said John one morning at the breakfast table.

"This is her third marriage, isn't it?" asked his wife, Susan.

“Yes, it is. But it’s not her fault that her first husband, Chris, ran off with that barmaid nor that her second, Geoff, had no get up and go. Or that Ian helped himself to the profits of her company, 'Fashion Focus' to pay his gambling debts. She had no option but to divorce all three.”

"Of course it’s her fault. She’s a bad judge of character,’ said Sue. ‘Let’s refuse.”

“We can’t. You can’t have forgotten how upset she got when our younger brother Richard booked a weekend away in Budapest for the same date as her wedding to Ian in 2001.”

“It seems to me,” said Sue, “that you daren’t cross her because she owns her own highly profitable fashion business and we’re struggling to pay the mortgage.”

The writer clearly has information to tell the readers, but John and Sue already know exactly who Amanda is and what she does don’t have to tell each other. I agree this is deliberately awful but it’s not far removed from other seriously intended manuscripts I’ve read. So let's do it again.

John nodded towards the envelope leaning against the coffee pot. "Is that Amanda's invitation?"

Sue pulled a face. "Your rich, big sister is fast becoming a serial bride.”

"Plenty of people get married more than once."

"True, but not four times. Let's not go.”

John reached for a slice of toast. I can't say no. You know what she’s like.”

‘Indeed, I do.” Sue passed him his coffee. "You're scared of her.”

"Don't be ridiculous."

"She commands and you obey. Are you hoping she’ll pay off our mortgage if we bow and scrape?”

"Drop it, Sue. She’s not like that at all. She likes her family around her, that’s all."

“If you say so but if I have to listen one more time to her singing the praises of Armani and Yves St Laurent, I shall scream. Don't drop crumbs on the paper. I've not read it yet.”

Okay, it’s not perfect but it still gives us the information the story needs and omits what it doesn't and I hope it gives a flavour of the tensions in Sue and John's marriage without having to spell everything out.

If you're unsure whether you dialogue sounds natural, read it aloud to yourself. Finally, ask yourself whether it shows character, particularly character in action and moves the narrative forward. If not, change it or cut it. Keep it short. Keep it meaningful and above all, keep it interesting.

Unity of Tone

Here’s a description of Sandra on a Mediterranean beach. The sun blazed. The sand was hot. Sandra applied her sun-tan lotion and lay back to sun-bathe. It gives us the facts, but it could do so much more. A good trick I’ve learned is to make use of relevant imagery.

Sandra is on a fierce diet and is obsessed with food. After five minutes simmering in the salted sea, ten minutes light grilling on the sand, her lips sprinkled with salt, her skin oiled in sun lotion, Sandra felt as crisp and delicious as a plate full of Greek anchovies.

Sandra is having a steamy affair with a local waiter. Sandra lay dreaming on the warm bed of sand, wrapped in a sensuous lick of sun-lotion. The sun was Carlos, its heat his bronzed body lowering itself on her, the sea-breeze his fingers ruffling her hair. The salt on her lips was his kiss after the plateful of grilled anchovies they’d shared thr night before.

You can use this idea to give a strong sense of your character. If Darren is a bit of an oily creep, surround him with oily imagery. Make him slide into rooms, shine in the sun, slip through the heroine’s hands. If Marian is an elusive enigmatic woman, create imagery that suggests she might be a mermaid, a fish, a darting kigfisher or a breath of wind. There’s no need to over-do it. Your readers may not pick up every nuance (although they probably will), but it will help you to know how to describe her movements and appearance. It will make her consistent and therefore more real. If your story is about darkness and misery, then remember to keep the imagery dark too. There’s no room for sunny days or bright light unless you want to add contrast. Happy stories need sunshine and a lightness of tone. Don’t make jokes or create puns when your story is about serious subjects. Keep everything within context.

What is meant by Style?

In this context I mean style in sense of ‘panache’ or sparkle. A stylish writer has that indefinable quality which distinguishes the okay from the brilliant. It’s to do with all the things I’ve mentioned in these sessions, such as using appropriate imagery, creating character and maintaining unity of tone and effective dialogue. It’s all that and more. It's a flexibility and familiarity with words and how to use them to their best advantage in the same way that a great sculptor can use his chisel or a painter his brushes and colour combination. Whilst in many cases, it's an inbuilt talent, style can be attained by practise, by reading others and learning how to do it.

So finally, take a look Look at this snippet from The Wind in the Willows. Ratty has just stowed a picnic hamper in his boat ready for a picnic.

`What’s inside it?’ asked the Mole, wriggling with curiosity.

`There’s cold chicken inside it, ` replied the Rat briefly; `coldtonguecoldhamcoldbeefpickledgherkinssaladfrenchrollscresssandwidgespottedmeatgingerbeerlemonadesodawater---`

Did you spot the avoidance of the adverb in `wriggling with curiosity` and at the same time the way it gives us a visual image? But what about `briefly`? Yes, it’s an adverb, but just look at what Kenneth Grahame does with it. He follows it with the exact opposite. And how clever and original he is to condense it all into one long word, thus creating excitement, speed and excess in one go. That’s style!

Exercise

Anyone feel they’re up to the challenge of writing a complete short story and sending it to me? Let’s aim for no more than 1,000 words. Less if you prefer I will read them all but I can’t promise I’ll reply be able to reply personally with comments, although I’ll try. The usual email address is thewritingelephant at gmail dot com.

Session 7 will look at commercial stories and short story competitions as well as flash fiction.

(I apologise for the formatting gremlins sitting in the middle of this post. I don't know how it happened but once done I couldn't fix it.)

To Defy a King: Elizabeth Chadwick

2010-07-31T16:50:00.003+01:00

I've been a bit poorly lately. (If anything called E-coli winks in your direction, then run very fast.) I'm now on the mend although not able to do much more than try to eat and sleep. (I've gone off coffee, though. How cruel is that?)

Anyway, while I was languishing in my hospital bed wired up to various bug-blasting antibiotics, the only thing I could do was read. And even then not at my usual rate, feeling as I did like an old dirty sock, but slowly and measuredly--probably no more than a couple of pages at a time. In such circumstances I need a novel that will sustain me, be pacey enough to want to read on when I can, and yet with enough richness of detail on every page to hold my interest as I slowly read.

How lucky I was to have Elizabeth's Chadwick's To Defy a King to hand. This is the latest in her accounts of the great families of Marshall and Bigod. This one concentrates on Mahelt, William Marshall's beloved older daughter. She is betrothed at an early age to Hugh, the elder son of Roger Bigod who is considerably older than she. After the betrothal, she comes to live with her new family, mainly at Framlingham Castle in Suffolk. Mahelt is homesick at first, misses her wonderful father and find it hard to settle in a household ruled by an earl of much sterner stuff. Her rebellious ways almost bring disaster down on them all but she is lucky in her husband who, whilst anxious to curb her over-enthusiasms, understands her fears and frustration. Slowly and hesitantly, theirs matures into a good marriage, despite the best efforts of King John and war to destroy it.

I have always admired Elizabeth's novels. Her research is meticulous and her knowledge extensive. She has made early thirteenth-century England her own. She is writer who does everything good historical fiction should do. The politics is all there. (If you've never understood the significance of the Magna Carta you will when you read her novels.) There are battles, cruelty and bloodshed if that is what historical fiction means to you, but to me Elizabeth truly excels in two main areas so very few other writers can achieve.

I've visted numerous castles and read the guide books but have always struggled to understand how it must have felt living in a castle with its farms, its kitchens, its stables. How do you set about making an embroidered wall-hanging? How did the women cope with their wimples and their silks? How did they wash their hair? What did they use? How did they keep clean? How did the children play? What did they eat? It never seemed real and always felt like play-acting. In fact, far too much (poor) historical fiction seems to be modern people prancing about in fancy dress. Not with this author. Oh no. Here, although Mahelt rages against her impotence, she belongs in her thirteenth -century skin. In Elizabeth Chadwick's novels. this world is 'normal', ordinary and functional. It's a world I can believe in. It makes sense.

Secondly, this novel in particular is stuffed full of little touches of humanity that lift these people from the page. When Hugh's half-brother, William Longespee, because he doesn't understand toddlers, and out of fascination, keeps prodding Hugh's second son--just walking--in the stomach so that he repeatedly falls plonk onto his bottom, Hugh is enraged by what he sees as needless cruelty and bars from his home and they remain estranged for many years. There are numerous wonderful little moments like this, not just with the children but in the relationship between old Roger Bigod, who cannot bring himself to visit his wife on her death bed, not because he doesn't love her, but because he loves her too desperately. I cried in several places and cheered when Mahelt gives King John something to remember! This kind of deft human touch is what lifts Elizabeth Chadwick's writing above the rest and it just gets better and better with every new novel.

Finally, I'll be back with the next instalment of my short-story course very soon. Sorry for the delay.

The Tapestry of Love: Rosy Thornton

2010-07-17T12:20:00.000+01:00

I have to admit (with some regret, it must be said) that Rosy and I did not get off to a promising start She knows that I wasn't a huge fan of her earlier novels. Not that there was anything at all wrong with them; Rosy always writes intelligently and fluently but they just weren't my cup of tea. (Not to mention the fact I was going through a bit of a pretentious phase at the time.) Later on, we got to know each other much better on a writer's forum even though I remember one early clash of opinions about the dreaded adverb which we joke about now!

I knew she was writing a novel quite different in tone from her earlier, lighter romances, a novel that I felt would appeal to me in its setting and its themes. And when my copy arrived I began to read the first paragraph and found I couldn't stop...

The Tapestry of Love is a love story but not a conventional one and while there is a 'will-they-won't-they' frisson about one enigmatic character, this is not really the point. Catherine Parkstone is at that familiar time in many women's lives when her marriage has ended, her children are now leading independent lives and her much-loved mother is now living in twilit dementia in a nursing home. She decides to leave her conventional life in England for the Cevennes, a little-known upland region in South Eastern France. She has a talent with needle and thread, especially with needlepoint, and plans to set up a soft-furnishing business. There's a big difference, however, between experiencing a beautiful landscape as a holiday-maker and living there through all weathers and seasons and trying to earn a living. (There's an awful lot of rain in this novel!) However, slowly but surely, her English home-counties sensibilities are absorbed into the slow rhythms of her new life and she becomes a part of the timeless yet slowly changing land and its people. She is contrasted with her younger sister, Bryony, who reflects the more conventional 'Brit in France' attitude and with her daughter's frustrating but funny experience as a jobbing journalist.

This is a quiet, deeply-experienced novel. There is grief, sadness and regret but also joy in Catherine's growing appreciation of her place in the landscape, its tastes, smells, sounds and its traditions. And there's also humour, from Catherine's exasperations with French bureaucracy to the eccentricities of some of the locals. But this is no Peter-Mayle-type English patronisation of the 'funny French'. There is warmth and understanding of the lifestyle. The evocative descriptions of autumn rain in the woods, the unfurling trees in spring, the drone of bees, the making of honey, the heart-stopping glimpse of a wild boar and her family, the invigorating, yet exhausting slog driving sheep up to their summer grazing, all reveal a novelist at the height of her powers.

This is not a novel for readers seeking excitement or grande passion. It's too subtle and deeply-felt for that and a joy from start to finish. Having seen Rosy's talent for fiction develop over the years, I feel she has now reached a maturity that augurs well for her future novels. I am converted.

Short Story tutorial 5

2010-07-09T12:43:00.000+01:00

WORDS, WORDS, WORDS.

Before I launch forth, I’d like to thank all of you who have emailed me at thewritingelephant at googlemail dot com to say such nice things about this occasional series of short story tutorials. I am also highly impressed by the examples of your writing you have been generous enough to send me. I’m sorry I am unable to comment individually on each one. It’s absolutely fine to catch up and send me examples of earlier exercises. Again, I am unable to use them but rest assured I read them all.

I will have a word or two about the last exercise—the one about handling flashback—later on. But first of all, back to this session.

All crafts have their tools and gizmos. The painter has paint, brushes, canvas, paper etc; the tailor has cloth, thread, needles. The carpenter uses a variety of wood for different products, saws, nails, hammers – you get the picture. The skilled artisan also needs training and experience to handle these tools to create the most perfect end-product.

The writer has his tools too – and I’m not talking here about the keyboard or pens and paper. The tools I want to talk about are words. Words are the components of all writing, not just fiction, and it is which ones you choose and the way you arrange them that creates a new story that is different from any story that has ever been written before.

We can count our lucky stars that we are writing in English. I haven’t the time or space here to write about the history of the English language, but it tells a fascinating story. (I recommend Mother Tongue by Bill Bryson as a light introduction.) Because of that history, the English language has more words to play with than any other language and the nuances can be subtle. Whichever word you choose will make sense but may add totally different thoughts and emotions, colours and textures. Words come trailing their own clouds of allusion.

Beware of resorting to flowery, over elaborate words when simple ones will do far better. So it’s usually far better to use start instead of commence, try and not endeavour, go instead of proceed. English always has a fancy word as well as a plain word that means the same thing. (It’s Anglo-Saxon versus the Latinate/Norman French, if you’re interested.) Having said that, when it comes to writing fiction, such a style can be useful when used in dialogue because they will instantly show someone’s character.

One pompous character might say: due to my unexpected intake of alcoholic beverage I endeavoured to proceed in an orderly fashion. However, when I commenced I did not succeed. Put simply, he’s saying. I drank too much so I fell over. A rather old-fashioned ‘posh’ older man might say: I was a little tipsy, old boy, and the old legs wouldn’t do as they were told. A younger person is more likely to say: I was legless/slaughtered/wasted last night, depending on current jargon.

The written word, especially fiction, should be as harmonious as poetry or music. Make sure you’re not tone deaf.

So, avoid fancy words for the sake of it but remember that some specialist knowledge is essential if you’re writing a story requiring professional knowledge: an A&E department, a police station, on board a sailing ship. You may think you can get away with being woolly but I can guarantee at least one reader will know more than you. However stunning your plot and characterization, if the words are wrong, the reader will immediately lose confidence in you.

A word here about writing about ‘what you know’. People often misinterpret this statement. There’s no reason you can’t write about places or situations you’ve never experienced. After all, a 21^st century computer programmer will go through the same pain and grief if she gives birth to a still-born child as a 17^th century Russian peasant. The setting, morals and medical practices will be different,and can be researched, but as long as you make sure the emotions are conveyed sincerely you will give your story authority.

If you don’t want to write the kind of fiction that needs research and are merely looking for the right word that keeps eluding you, then a thesaurus may be helpful. I use the word, ‘helpful’ advisedly. It may give you some fresh ideas but don’t rely on it. Some of the words listed in such books are pretty dubious, often archaic. Don’t be tempted to use a word simply because it’s unusual. And never, ever show off. You’re an entertainer, not a teacher. Put yourself above your readers and you’ll lose them.

It goes without saying that a writer chooses the best word to convey the exact meaning of what he/she wants to say. But don’t forget that words have a sound and a rhythm too. Although short stories are not necessarily meant to be read aloud, even a silent reader will pick up on the sound and rhythm of a word and the way it interacts with those around it. If you’re describing a marching band, you will of course use all those onomatopoeic words like the crash of the cymbals, the bang of the drum, the blast of the trumpet, you will also use words with short syllables to give the marching rhythm, cluster consonants together (alliteration) to create the trill of the brass, the piping of the flutes. If on the other hand you wish to describe a peaceful lake at sundown, you will use long vowel sounds, soft syllables and words with rolling syllables – the lullaby of the shifting grasses and the shuffling of the wind on the surface. The soft sigh of the sea on the sand. If then you wish to introduce something frightening that breaks into this picture of calm, then revert to sharp, harsh sounds – a power boat ripped the surface of the lake.

Short sentences speed up narrative. Long sentences slow things down. Be aware of this when putting a story together. Always look for variety in sentence length. Not for its own sake – there must be reason for chances in pace - but mainly for the sake of your readers. Monotony is a sure way to turn them off. As always, be subtle in your effects and make sure they’re all intentional. You might mean to be deadly serious with the line: his kiss was bliss but she had misgivings about his sincerity, but the unintentional rhyme will make people smile.

If you love writing, you should love words for their colours, textures, moods and emotions. Don’t be so tied up in telling your story that you forget to take full advantage of the riches they provide, but then again, don’t use words just because you like them. They have to belong. If they don’t, strike them out. This is what is meant by ‘kill your darlings’ or Samuel Johnson’s exhortation to strike out anything you’ve written that you particularly like. In other words, beware of self-indulgence. If you’re writing for yourself only, then all well and good. If you want to be read, you forget your readers at your peril.

· Those ‘dreaded' adjectives and adverbs

It would seem logical, would it not, if we want to make our written language richer, we should use vibrant, descriptive words? And what make better describing words than adjectives and adverbs?

When it comes to ‘creative writing’ (a term I hate, incidentally), more tosh is written about the rights and wrongs of adverbs, in particular, than anything else. There are no rules. If an adverb is needed, then don’t feel, you have to avoid it just because the ‘rules’ say you must. But be aware that used lazily they can be cringe-worthy. To me the sentence The sun blazed in a cloudless sky- is more immediate and meaningful than the hot sun blazed dazzlingly from the intensely blue cloudless sky.

She walked quickly is better expressed by she sprinted, marched, ran, galloped (there are plenty to choose from) depending on the mood she’s in and the feeling you want to convey.

To make your story more vibrant and colourful without resorting to a clutter of qualifiers, then look to the nouns and verbs themselves – and perhaps use imagery – as long as you keep it simple such as ‘The sun scorched the blue cloth spread above her.’

Which brings us neatly on to:

· Imagery and how to avoid cliché

Imagery is a wonderful way of describing anything in a new and inventive way. Imagery is essential to the fiction writer. It’s something I always look out for. Its absence tells me that the writer has no imagination. An original use of imagery is what distinguishes a good from an indifferent writer.

Similes liken one thing to another. (Her smile was as cold as ice). Metaphors go one stage further and say something is something else. (Her smile was ice.) Of course, imagery is not meant to be taken literally. (Incidentally, never use the word ‘literally’ when using imagery or you end up with sentences like, ‘he literally exploded with rage’ which would be amazing to behold. )

Imagery is essential in creating mood and emotion. If your story is about how a woman overcomes her fears, then use fearful imagery. Describe things in terms of darkness, shadows, locked rooms and dark, long passages. When she begins to overcome her fears describe her surroundings by introducing bright, soft things. Imagery makes a reader feel what you are writing. It helps create that essential bond. Always be on the look out for a striking image wherever you are whatever you’re doing. If a man’s shout in the street sounds like an ambulance siren, jot it down in your notebook. When rivers chatter constantly and sound like two teenage girls swapping boyfriend gossip, write it down. You may not use it immediately but by flicking through your notebook you will never be short of ideas.

Again, don’t be over elaborate in your imagery and don’t keep it up for too long. Elaborate imagery can become pretentious and over-prolonged comparisons become awkward and strained. You also run the risk of mixing your metaphors. (This is great for comic effects but don’t be funny unintentionally.)

Also, don’t fall into the trap of cliché. Clichés, such as good as gold, high as a kite, minefield (meaning fraught with danger) black as ink etc all began as original imagery. They were good and because they were good they have been flogged to death (another cliché). Too many of these expressions we’ve all heard so many times before – a level playing field, a bottomless pit - make your writing seem bland and lazy. The writer seems to be sleeping as s/he writes and, believe me, the reader will know it. A good image will draw a reader more deeply into your story; too many clichés and s/he’ll sleepwalk through it or think you’re taking her/him for a fool. Clichés are the frozen pizzas, the convenience food of the writer’s kitchen. Try to rustle up something different; that creates a shock. Take a character who finds herself barefoot in the snow. (Now isn’t the time to go into why.) You could say, ‘the snow froze her toes.’ Or how about, `The snow burned her toes`? This will cause your readers to pause for all the right reasons.

· Using all the senses

There was once a wonderful TV advertisement issued by the Scottish Tourist Board that showed various images of the country with a voiceover that said—can’t remember the exact order: ‘See it. Hear it. Taste it. Touch it. Smell it. Live it.’ It’s worth remembering. Us all the senses and your writing will come to life. It’s easy to describe everything by sight but a lot can be learned by the way things sound, feel and taste. It may have become a cliché to say that one can taste fear but think about tasting the skin of the person you love. How does the skin of a child taste different from that of an elderly person? People talk of smelling trouble. What do they mean? What do you think trouble smells like? Can you hear danger coming or think of ways you can see it. What colour is it? When describing a sun-lit valley or a dark seashore cave, think of all what all your senses can pick up. If you have a person in the scene to do all the tasting, hearing, touching etc for you, so much the better.

· Exercises:

Visualise a room. It could be a living-room, a kitchen, garage, office – whatever.

a) Write a paragraph to describe that room objectively and blandly. How many windows; the type of furniture, ornaments if any, lighting etc.

b) Now describe the same room in a cheerful way. Don’t alter the fixtures and fittings in any way. Use imagery and language to change the mood.

c)Describe that same room in a gloomy way.

d) Make that same room seem tense and threatening, as if something horrible is about to happen.

You should end up with 4 completely different descriptions. Don’t cheat and introduce things like a skull on the wall for the creepy version and forget to mention it in the happy description. It must be the same room.

(Hint: try using a character to be your eyes. It will be more vivid. Project his or her emotions on to the same objects)

Finally back to the exercises I set last session. I had a good mix of smooth transitions when either using flashbacks or bridging two sequences set at different periods in time. They all had their merits but I felt the following example handled the transition from present to past back to present the most smoothly and with no apparent effort—at least not to the reader. It also provided us with information about the character as well as moving the narrative forward. It was exactly what I was looking for. So well done, Karla!

He threw another log on the fire and closed his eyes. There was something about camping, he thought, that brought out the real slob in him.
Even as a youngster, on that first weekend away with the Scouts, he’d managed, for a while, to avoid any form of exertion. Appointing himself chief fire-watcher had been an inspiration. There he sat, in splendid isolation, on his upturned bucket, chucking the odd branch into the flames, and watching the other boys buzzing around, like brainless worker bees, putting up tents, and bringing him more wood. The Scout leader had cottoned on, of course, in the end, chivvying him into taking part, and joining in the proper spirit of the thing. But it had been great, being idle, while it lasted.
There was no one to chivvy him today, though. Out here in the woods, he could be as lazy as he damn well liked. Lonely, admittedly, but blissfully lazy.

Next session I'm looking at dialogue and what I mean by style.

Middlesbrough Literary Festival

2010-07-04T11:34:00.000+01:00

My first 'event' is fast approaching!

I shall be talking about my novel Hope against Hope at 2pm on Tuesday 6th July at the Central Library, Middlesbrough as part of their 2010 Literary Festival. (Click the link and then click 'Author Talks.')

If you live anywhere near or are around the area please come along and ask lots of impertinent questions and also come and say hello afterwards. After all, I'd look very silly talking to myself.

Now, I suppose I'd better decide what to wear and what to say.

The de Lacy Inheritance by Elizabeth Ashworth

2010-07-02T13:38:00.002+01:00

Here's a treat for any fans of what I call 'proper' historical fiction

The de Lacy Inheritance is set in England at a time when King Richard 1 is away fighting the crusades. Richard Fitzeustace, elder son of the family, had to return to his family home, Halton Castle on the banks of the Mersey, having contracted leprosy in the Holy Land. As such he is an outcast from family and church. Even though he is the elder son he cannot inherit his estates.

Although it is thought that he will make his way to a nearby leper house, he actually travels to Cliderhou (present day Clitheroe, Lancashire) where he has a message to give to his kinsman, Sir Robert de Lacy. His grandmother has asked him to secure his family's claim to inherit the de Lacy estate after Sir Robert's death.

Richard has a younger brother and a sister: Roger, a harsh and cruel man is currently fighting the crusades but Richard worries that when he returns he will force their sister, Johanna, into an unwelcome marriage. A feisty and compulsive tomboy, Johanna (pictured on the cover in typical stubborn stance) has no intention of being married to anyone not of her choosing, thank you very much, so flees from Halton to Cliderhou. There she is reunited with Richard who is living as hermit beneath the castle's walls. But Robert de Lacy is dying; others claim inheritance and neither Johanna nor Richard are safe.

I thoroughly enjoyed this novel; fast-paced with engaging characters, it held my interest right until the end. Elizabeth is first and foremost a local historian having amassed a great deal of knowledge about Lancashire and published books on the subject. This shines through the novel without bogging us down in facts. (My mark of an assured historical novelist) I certainly learned a lot I never knew before which is why I enjoy reading historical fiction. It's a wonderfully painless way to learn history.

If you enjoy reading Elizabeth Chadwick, you'll love Elizabeth Ashworth.

But enough of me. I asked Elizabeth whether she would visit my blog and tell us how she came to write The de Lacy Inheritance.

"Where do you get your ideas from? That’s what people always ask me. Sometimes it’s hard to answer. I tend to look blank and then say ‘Well, they just occur to me’. But whilst many of my short stories have just occurred to me, I can tell you exactly where the inspiration for my first novel The de Lacy Inheritance came from.

I was putting together a non-fiction book called Tales of Old Lancashire for Countryside Books and one of the old stories that I found was a brief mention of a hermit who had lived in a cave under Clitheroe Castle. Further research revealed that people said he had been a member of the de Lacy family who was shunned because he was a leper. I was fascinated. I wrote a short account for the book, but the story of Richard FitzEustace would not leave me alone and before long I was compelled to find out more and write his story in full. I needed to get to know this man who had fought on crusade with Richard the Lionheart and who had lost everything – home, family and fortune – because of it.
When you go back a thousand years events are not always well recorded and that can be a good as well as a bad thing. Lack of finite detail gave me the opportunity to fictionalise what facts were available without being too restricted by them, but known facts had to be worked into the story – that and all the detail that I had to research about how people lived and what they ate. Although I’ve always enjoyed reading historical fiction this was my first attempt at writing it and I was terrified of making a fool of myself, which I almost did by giving people pockets in the first draft and then realising that there were no such thing as pockets until much later – people used pouches attached to their belt.

Much of the book is set in and around Clitheroe Castle in Lancashire which belonged to the de Lacy family. They were the Norman overlords of much of the north of England and although the family rose to be one of the most influential at court in the 14th century, the deaths of two male heirs and the execution of Thomas of Lancaster who was the husband of Alicia de Lacy meant that the family more or less disappeared. And that’s another fascinating story that I’m working on at the moment.

I also wanted to explore the attitudes of people towards disease. In medieval times illness was often viewed as a punishment for sin and I began to wonder what sins Richard had committed, or thought that he had committed, to deserve such a fate, and what he believed he could do to redeem himself. The other aspect of the book was how Richard’s exclusion from the family affected his brother and sisters. I found that there was a connection between the de Lacys and another well known Lancashire family the Towneleys of Burnley and further investigation showed me how that link was achieved, which is where Johanna – that’s her on the cover – comes into the story.

One reviewer has said: ‘The heady mix of love, religion, superstition, greed and power make it a fascinating read.’ And I think that sums up the themes very well. You can read the first chapter on my website: www.elizabethashworth.com and there’s a growing archive about the de Lacy family and a slide show of some of the settings for the novel on my blog:

Finally, thanks to Sally for letting me come and chat on her blog. It’s good to have such generous support from other authors."

The pleasure is all mine, Elzabeth! The de Lacy Inheritance is available to buy in Waterstone's and on Amazon.

Tania Hershman on BBC Radio 4

2010-06-28T11:31:00.003+01:00

I reviewed Tania's great short story collection The White Road on my old book blog. I'm thrilled to see that some of these stories plus plenty of brand spanking new ones are to be broadcast on BBC Radio 4's short story slot this week (29 June-2nd July) at 3.30pm, Tuesday to Thursday (and available for 7 days afterwards on BBC i-player.)

For those of you following my short story course this is compulsory homework (okay; not compulsory but highly recommended.) And for everyone else, just marvel and enjoy. I know I will.

Oops, forgot to add that these are very short stories; flash fiction at its best so you get a feast. I believe it's the first time the BBC have featured the form.

Short story tutorial 4

2010-06-17T10:43:00.003+01:00

Panic postponed. I still have my PC--for the time being. The operation had to be re-scheduled as the surgeon (Barry) is too busy with other more important patients at the moment. So we stumble on for another week, which gives me time to post the next (rather long--sorry) session.

But first of all, many thanks for the comments both on the blog (and to thewritingelephant at googlemail,com). Keep them coming! And if I were offering prizes for the person who spotted the Greek myth that inspired my story, The Last Resort, then the splendid, shiny trophy would go to Dan Holloway for spotting that Tom's desertion of Adrienne and her subsequent dalliance with Milo was based on part of the tale of Theseus and Ariadne. After she had led him safely through the labyrinth to slay the Minotaur, they sailed away together. He then abandoned her on the island of Naxos (and went on to further adventures) where, bereft and distraught, she fell into the arms of Bacchus, the god of wine. Dan also had some very good points to make about the story and made me see some things, I hadn't noticed! So, thank you, Dan.

So onto session 4:

NARRATIVE

Narrative isn’t the same as plot—although, of course, they are symbiotic twins. Plot is how the actions of the character dictate the way the story-line develops. Narrative is about the actual writing. It’s the way you construct the story. This sounds simple and in a way it should be. As the King of Hearts said to the White Rabbit, "Begin at the beginning and go on till you come to the end: then stop."

When you write your very first draft of any new story this is exactly what you should do. You let the creative side of your brain guide your hand. What you end up with will be very rough around the edges and will certainly need shaping up. It will probably be pretty awful. But it probably is the right sort of shape. Don’t expect it to be perfect. Look upon it as a boulder of clay which you will go on to shape into something meaningful. You can’t polish thin air.

And the first thing to work on will be those beginnings, middles and ends, forming them into a coherent and meaningful shape. If this sounds too simplistic (short story writing by numbers), try looking at them another way. Exposition, Development, Conclusion. This three-part structure is a natural way of story-telling and you’ll find it in anything from Shakespeare's tragedies to pub jokes. It is universal and above all, it suits the short story well.

• Beginnings

Long gone are the days when a short story could begin in a leisurely way, describing the setting in detail and the past history of the main character. We are all in too much of a hurry these days and we are more sophisticated in our ability to enter into new worlds, thanks mainly to the cinema and TV. Today, a writer must introduce his main character, set up the scene and problem and also draw in readers immediately. If the first paragraph or even sentence doesn't grab them, they'll put the book or magazine down, turn the page, switch on the TV, go out to the gym. Grab them and they'll keep reading. This is what is called the "hook".

Here are a six opening sentences from stories taken at random from ‘The Penguin Book of New American Voices’ 1994.

Too hot to sleep so I walked down to the Third Avenue 7-11 for a creamsicle and the company of a graveyard shift cashier.

The girl's scalp looked as though it had been singed by fire - strands of thatchy red hair snaked away from her face, then settled against her skin, pasted there by sweat and sunscreen and the blown grit and dust of travel.

When they finally reach the dunes, Jann, the photographer, opens a silver umbrella.

I was driving to Las Vegas to tell my sister that I'd had Mother's respirator unplugged.

"You could be my dad."

Despite the diversity of styles and subject matter, all these openings intrigue and invite further reading. However, it's relatively easy to write a stunning first line--although you'd be surprised by how many unpublished writers don't. The hard part is to keep it up. There's nothing worse than a great opening line which then fizzles out as the writer lumbers around and fails to sustain the impetus. What you must never do-- and again, many unpublished writers do this - is to follow the stunning line by immediately drifting into flashback or back-story. Here's an extreme example:

“Jack paid for his cigarettes, stuffed the packet into his back pocket, turned round and came face to face with a gorilla. He knew he never should have gone to that all-night garage. Wasn't Thelma always nagging him to give up smoking? But, as he said to her, it wasn't easy to give up a habit he'd had since he was sixteen. Both his parents had been heavy smokers. In fact his mother had died of lung cancer and his Dad suffered heart problems. They had encouraged him then because no-one knew then that smoking was harmful. He remembered very clearly the morning of his seventeenth birthday when he found that engraved silver lighter on his bed. Still used it.” etc.

But, I can hear you screaming (or yawning), what about that gorilla? In other words, get on with it. If Jack's smoking habits are relevant, then feed them in as and when it's necessary to mention them. But do it sparingly, not in huge indigestible chunks and if possible, avoid using flashbacks. More about that later.

Beginnings needn't be spectacular. They can be low-key. They can be what you like. But they must pose small questions in the reader's mind. People are naturally curious. Play on that. Having asked the question, the story must go on to answer it. In other words, it must be an integral part of the story. There's no need to explain everything straight away. Leave something in reserve. This helps create narrative tension. Not restricted to the thriller or mystery story, it’s what keeps readers reading once you've hooked them. As Chekhov says if there's a loaded gun in the first paragraph, you better make sure it’s fired later. This is called ‘sowing the seeds’ and I’ll talk about this later, too.

Always try and mention (by name if possible) your main character within the first few lines. Don't, however, name a character who has no part to play in the subsequent story. Always remember that readers beginning a story are like new-born ducklings. They will latch on to the first person they see and cling to that person. They will be distressed if they’re dragged away by someone else.

I have found in my many years reading short story submissions is that most begin in the wrong place—which is usually way too early. This is fine when you’re writing that first draft—you’re easing yourself into your story. That's allowed--but don't forget to deal with it in subsequent drafts. In fact, it’s essential. When you write that crucial first draft you may well open with the scene where Lorna has a row with Jack, decides it's the final straw, walks out on him and then drives to the next town, pulls into a motel and gets talking to the man behind the desk. You give a blow by blow account of the row. You probably describe her feelings as she drives through the night. It may well be the best bit of writing you've ever done. However, if the story only really gets underway when she meets that psychopath, or new and intriguing lover, or the fasther-figure who teaches her about herself--whatever, then the row with Jack and the journey only hold up the story. Begin when she arrives at her destination and fill in any background (if you must) later on. But, beware the hasty but laboured Info Dump. Feed it in in dribs and drabs where it doesn’t block the view.

Here’s my new beginning.

The man didn't look up as Lorna came through the door, let alone notice she had neither suitcase nor coat. A cheap TV comedy show spilled out from behind a half-open door. He flicked through a tattered copy of ‘Big Girls'.

Here I've tried to ask questions. Who is Lorna? Why is she there? In fact, where is she? Why hasn't she got a coat and a suitcase? What sort of place is it where the man behind the desk reads a pornographic magazine and doesn’t care who sees? The basic questions should always be: what's going on? Remember, though, that if your readers ask this question it’s because they are intrigued, not because you’ve totally baffled them. You need to hold them.You may have to rewrite your beginning many times until it's right. This isn't a waste of time. It's crucial.

Always begin as near as possible to the meat of the story as possible. If you need to fill in some background, do it succinctly. In summary, the first paragraph of a short story should (but remember a master-craftsman can get away with anything):

1. Introduce your main character.

2. Begin as close to the central problem/conflict as possible.

3. Set the place and time.

4. Hook the reader.

5. Keep moving forward.

• Middles

In novels, the central conflict/problem can be mixed in with others, all of which help illuminate the main plot or provide a breathing space. If you were to draw a line profile of the narrative it would resemble a range of mountains each with their peaks and valleys. This rarely works in a short story. Don't clutter it up with sub-plots and too many characters. It’s a good idea to keep the narrative line clear and keep it rising inexorably until it reaches that ‘pivotal point, I mentioned in the last session—the moment of change; the spot where things change.

The middle of a short story can so often turn into a muddle without a bit of planning. (Again, don't over plan, although a simple framework will help keep you on track.)

Take a critical look at a good TV drama - even a good comedy. It's always written in scenes. Adopt this style when writing short stories. Don’t have too many and make sure one follows naturally from another. This doesn’t mean that time has to be sequential; don’t write a ‘this happened, then that happened’ tedious, type of story - but make the action in the next scene follow on from what has happened in the one before. If for instance, Jeff goes too far in a drunken rage and breaks his girlfriend’s arm, then the next scene could be when he’s on trial for grievous bodily harm. It could be six months or even a year later but if it’s important and it leads naturally from the previous scene, then it will carry that forward momentum. You don’t have to show everything in between – the ambulance journey to A&E, the police investigation, the guilt, the sense of self-loathing etc.

Let's assume you need to write a story of a certain length, say 2,ooo words. (Although I believe a story dictates its own length, most stories—especially those published in commercial magazines or competitions—require a strict word limit.) Divide it roughly into three. So, if you find you haven’t really ‘got into the story after 1,000 words, then you need to stop and have a rethink. And if your opening section is fine but you’re still in media res and you’ve already reached 1970 words, then again the brakes as well as the machete need to be applied.

This kind of very crude guide, however you wish to use it, is essential for maintaining a tight narrative structure. Beginnings and ends should always be shorter and the main scene must always carry most of the story. By using a rough plan, you can't possibly get bogged down. But don’t let it rule the narrative. Don't be tempted either to link your scenes with long bridging passages to get from one scene to another. You don’t need to show people opening and closing doors, getting on the bus (unless they're an integral part of the story) as they move from one place to another.

When you're writing the middle section of a story, make sure that you maintain the same tone as you began with. It's so easy to begin writing crisp witty one-liners and then getting slower and more reflective as you write on. Make sure language and images match the tone of the story. (I'll go into this in detail in the next session.) I call this narrative integrity. Everything you include must fit together.

So, if you find your lesser characters are becoming more important to you or more and more scenes seem to pop up out of nowhere and you've already written 6,000 words then perhaps you're writing a novel. Stop and rethink. If all you want to say is done in less than 1,000 words, then maybe it's a tiny jewel—I’ll talk about flash fiction in a later session. Then again, you may find you've skimped on some of the things we've mentioned in previous sessions. It's all a matter of getting the balance right. The middle of the story must contain the meat, but it must never be stodgy. And please, don't get too bogged down with word-counting. Although your PC has the facility to count sections and complete documents and you can use it to your advantage, don't let it rule your story or you'll end up writing by numbers.

New writers often find themselves beginning a story in one style and find themselves writing a completely different story in the middle. If you start a story in the voice of a cynical down-town detective, then you have to keep this voice up. There’s nothing worse than, having tired of his world-weariness, he suddenly begins to wax lyrical about the ducks on the lake or the fluffy clouds in the sky. Of course characters should develop, but if you want your Sam Spade to learn that life is not cheap and tawdry all thre time then you must show how these changes occur—usually by interaction with other people. Everything is possible if you follow things through carefully and make the whole story 'match,' (although contrast can be a great narrative tool.)
• Flashbacks

Sometimes you will find yourself needing to refer back to past events. Rather than telling these in tedious reportese—known in the trade as an Info Dump—you can dramatize past events in a flashback sequence. But beware! Flashback should only be used sparingly in short fiction and introduced carefully. If you find your flashback sequences are getting too long and taking over the story, perhaps you should rethink and make that the meat of your story and forget the bread that surrounds it. For example, if you want to write about Simon who’s a depressed City lawyer and you need to explain a bit about his early childhood in Ashby-de-la-Zouch to help understand his character and then you find that his parents’ early struggles there are more interesting, leave Simon for another story. Any story that is overburdened by flashback is unwieldy and unbalanced and therefore unsatisfactory.

If you still need that flashback sequence to explain the current situation of your characters, whether it be set a day, a week or many years before, enter it smoothly and clearly, say what you have to say and then smoothly and quickly move back into the present. Nothing confuses readers more than a flashback that’s not clearly sign-posted. They don’t know where they are. I’ve used the word, ‘sign-post’. By this I mean some trigger or indication that you’re about to move into flashback, such as:

The smell of freshly baked biscuits took me back to Grandma’s kitchen in Yorkshire. I must have been very young because I remember having to wobble on tip-toes to peer into the oven and gaze on a tray of cherry cookies or almond shortcake miraculously turning from gooey dough to melt-in-the-mouth perfection.

“Can I have one, Gran?”

“Course you can, pet. But wait until they’ve cooled or you’ll burn your mouth.”

I never listened and that summer my mouth was permanently sore.

Some writers worry about the correct verb tense to use in flashback. Strictly speaking, if you’re writing the story in the simple past tense, (he went) then anything that happens further back in time should be in the pluperfect (he had gone). However, this construction is heavy and awkward if over-used. (As is the ‘he would go’ and ‘it would be’ construction to denote a repeated action in the past.) So, if you feel you need to use ‘had’, only do it once or twice at most before going back to the simple past. Notice how in the first example I don’t use it at all. You can use it at the end of the flashback sequence to indicate that you’re now heading back out of flashback:

Biscuits never tasted as good now as they had then. I put her money back in her purse and left the bakery. I was already late for my meeting…

I can’t emphasize enough that flashback should only be used when it provides necessary detail, atmosphere or tension. If it adds nothing, then don’t do it and especially don’t do it the moment you’ve begun a short story. That is a common beginners' mistake.

Narrative Tension

This is necessary in order to avoid that sagging feeling that can often occur in the middle of a story. Sag happens because the forward momentum is lost. Readers’ attention begins to wander. The writer repeats him or herself and the story rolls around aimlessly.

So, how do we keep things moving forward?

Never explain too much but feed your readers’ curiosity. There is a delicate balance to create. You don’t want to confuse the issue by not saying who people are but you don’t want to do this kind of thing:

Henry’s was jealous of his elder brother, Jack, who was married to Eloise and was the father of two fine sons, John and Liam, both now studying law at Oxford. Henry thought it grossly unfair that his Dad had given Jack the family’s lucrative carpentry business in his will and given him a measly few thousand quid. So he was stuck as a car mechanic. He should have contested the will. He couldn’t be bothered at the time. Now he might just do that.

This not only holds up the action but it treats the readers as if they haven’t the intelligence to work things out for themselves. Remember the advice to show and not tell? Bring it into play in such cases too. Instead of writing out a family tree and history, add snippets of information into your scenes. Dialogue gets the facts over – but don’t be too heavy-handed. Again, it’s a question of balance.

Henry scowled at the full glass. “Business must be good, big brother. Double malt and two sons living the life of Riley among Oxford's Gleaming Spires?”

Jack grinned. “Good. It’s good. Everyone wants hand-made furniture these days. Not seen you for a while. I was only saying to Eloise the other day how we never see you.”

“I have to work all the hours I can. Fixing cars doesn’t pay well. I haven’t the luxury of the family business to support me.”

“Still getting to you, isn’t it, Dad’s will? You know there’s always a job for you here.”

“I don’t want your charity.”

“It’s not charity. I could do with some help. The lads won’t want to work here when they’ve got their degrees. John wants to go to the Bar and Liam has his eyes on politics. Might be prime minister, one day.” He grinned again.

Henry was tempted to punch him so he turned away. But then a thought struck him and he turned back.

“I could contest the will, you know.”

“Is that a threat?”

The information is all there and it’s stronger too. We can see the tension between the two brothers and have all the family dynamics at our fingertips. It also leads us forward into action in the future. Will Henry contest the will? Will he punch his brother? Will Jack stop being a smug bastard? Always leave something in abeyance, something to look forward to. Your readers will hang on in there. It’s all part of human curiosity.

Another way of increasing tension is to include ‘plants’—Chekhov’s gun on the wall. These are objects, suggestions or action which may play an important part in the development of the story. They can make action seem more believable as well as providing atmosphere. For example, if you mention that it was a very hot and dry summer and it hadn’t rained for three months, then when a forest fire breaks out in the final scene or your main character goes crazy and shoots his neighbour, then these events will have a cause and therefore a basis in reality. If you mention briefly that someone’s house has a broken window, then it could mean that the rain gets in on a stormy night and ruins either a night of passion or an important document or could provide a means of illegal entry.

Remember, however, if you do add such a feature, it needs to be there for a reason. The broken window could be a descriptive device to show the reader that someone’s house is dilapidated or that the occupant is given to smashing glass when he’s drunk but make it work harder. Give it another job to do. A short story needs to be compact so everything, every word, action and description, has to earn its place. Don’t let such opportunities go to waste. Also, if you put a gun into your heroine’s handbag, then it either has to be fired somewhere in the story or discovered by someone. Don’t plant intriguing items and then not use them. The reader will feel cheated. If used carefully the plant is one of the most useful tools at a writer’s disposal to create a sense of tension and forward movement.

Another way to keep the pages turning is to withhold information. There’s no need to explain everything as it occurs, especially near the beginning. If Pauline cringes every time her uncle enters the room, don’t say why immediately. Only later you can show that he used to abuse her or threatened her for some reason or other. The readers will want to know why and keep reading. But do make sure that it is shown. Don’t leave things unsaid that should be said. That will only frustrate the reader. It’s all a question of getting the balance right. And that’s something that can only come with practice.

• Ends

One day when you are writing a story you will find it arrives at a natural and satisfying conclusion without any effort. Relish that moment because it is very rare indeed. Speaking personally, I find endings the hardest things to write. I change them over and over again. Beginnings have all sorts of possibilities, middles can be fun to write, but to create that satisfying ending can be fraught with difficulties. Make it too neat and slick and the reader is unconvinced. Make it too dramatic and it can turn into melodrama. (I always think the ending of Hamlet is a case in point. To me, the body count is far too high.) Try and be subtle and you will be accused of vagueness. Give it a happy ending and you’ll be accused of writing a fairy-tale. Give it a miserable ending and some readers will be upset.

The aim is to provide an ending that is natural, thought-provoking and leaves the reader satisfied that the ending is the right one. Or to be more blunt, the reader must feel that the time spent reading your story wasn’t wasted. Endings are also a matter of personal taste. I prefer to write ones that doesn’t neatly tie up the ends so that readers will ponder the possibilities and come to their own conclusions. I allow the curtain to fall on my characters but assume that their lives will continue.

I suppose what I’m trying to say is that I can’t tell you how to create a good ending. It’s something you will only know when it’s done. But what I can tell you is how not to end a story.

1. Don’t parcel everything up to tightly. Don’t explain what happens to you characters as they did in novels of the past. You know the sort of thing. X married Y and B went on to become a famous pop-star and A ended up in jail. His son emigrated to South America and ran a farm. It’s too controlling and it leaves nothing to the readers’ imagination.

2. Don’t whatever you do end by saying it was all a dream. It worked for Alice. (Because that was then.) It won’t work now.

3. Don’t rely on lottery wins, rich uncles or legacies from little old ladies your character once helped or any other convenient co-incidence to solve your characters’ problems, nor allow plain crashes, falling trees, earthquakes or hurricanes to destroy your bad guys either. Yes, I know these things happen in real life but fiction isn’t real life. The point about fiction is that it has form and order. That’s why we read it. That’s not to say you can’t kill off someone in a flood or accident but do make sure it fits naturally into the story, is well set-up and isn’t tagged on. I once read a story (unpublished) about a hypochondriac who was convinced she had a brain tumour. The whole story relied on her fears and all the things she had read about the condition. She eventually plucked up the courage to go for a brain scan. The results gave her the all-clear. Stepping out of the clinic full of the joys of spring she was run over by a speeding car. It may point a moral – live life – but it irritated the hell out of me.

4. Don’t end by moralizing. (see above). Don’t use proverbs. When you character is hauled off to jail, don’t say. ‘Pride goes before a fall’ or ‘He got his just desserts.’ You’re not writing a sermon. You can use these themes to build a story around but please credit your readers with some intelligence. And don’t end with a joke, unless your story has been comic throughout.

5. Twist endings are best avoided unless the story has been created especially for that market. Unless they’re very clever, they are irritating. With a good twist story (like the adult stories by Roald Dahl, for example) the readers’ response should be, ‘why didn’t I see that coming?’ not ‘that was a waste of time.’ It takes a very special writer to pull it off. I, among many, am not that kind of writer. But I don’t ever try and write them. Learn your own limitations as well as your strengths.

• Exercises

Not compulsory! But do have a go if you feel like it and email them to me at thewritingelephant at googlemail.com

1. Use the following sentence to introduce a flashback. ‘He threw another log on the fire and closed his eyes.’ Write one paragraph only in flashback and then return to the present. See how smoothly and naturally you can do it. You may like to try several different ways.

2. Write a short scene in which a couple has a row and one of them walks out. Begin the next scene a year later. Maybe they meet again by chance or there’s only one of them in his or her new life. Use your skill to make the cut follow on seamlessly and show what might have happened in between without a great chunk of narrative about what happened in between.

3. If you can, get hold of a copy of Raymond Carver’s story: They’re not Your Husband.

See how Carver keeps the story moving, and says so much in such a spare, non-telling way. But remember, Carver is a short-story writing genius—so don’t beat yourself up if you can’t do it as well as he can. But we can all try...

Next session I'll talk about Language and Style.

Poorly PC

2010-06-16T11:51:00.000+01:00

This is just to let any of you who might be eagerly awaiting the next short-story session or wanting to read my priceless words of wisdom (dream on, Sally) that my PC is waiting for the ambulance to arrive (aka Barry, my lovely PC technician and all-round wizard, and his van) to whisk it away into intensive care. It's been wheezing and stalling and being t-e-r-r-i-b-l-y s-l-o-w lately so Barry had prescribed a thorough check up and some intensive care. It may have a virus or a bug or Parkinson's. Who knows? Then again, it is getting a bit long in the tooth. Maybe, I will have to make that fateful decision to say goodbye...

So until it's repaired or I have a replacement--less than a week, I promise, I'll be up and running again. Meanwhile, I must have a ballpoint somewhere around that actually works...

If you're following my short story tutorials...

2010-06-09T10:36:00.001+01:00

(or even if you're not) you may like to catch up with This Itch of Writing, Emma Darwin's exceedingly good blog where she is currently taking us through the processes of writing a short story for radio. It's both entertaining and informative and you can catch the second episode here where you'll also find a link to the first episode. Even if you've never contemplated writing a short story to be broadcast, all the basics apply so it's still well worth reading. Mind you, Emma is always worth reading.