There’s a lot of things that can stop you writing. Sometimes it’s real life, which can’t usually be helped; if the dog wants your laptop as a toy and your screen’s now decorated with bite marks, that does put a crimp in your ability to type. But sometimes the show-stoppers are either in your head, or in your writing. Here’s five more things that might be stopping your story in its tracks, and some suggestions to overcome them. I’ve got a blank page… You don’t know how to start. You don’t know what the first line should be. You don’t even know if the idea’s worth writing. Flash fiction! Write a story in six words. A hundred words. Three hundred words. Write a paragraph about an image, something you spotted in the street, the eighth line from the book nearest you. Prompts – as a starting point, try Reddit’s r/writingprompts. There’s a whole archive of them, even if you don’t want to put anything on the site. Start in the middle. Write that one scene that set the idea off; write that one snippet of conversation; tell us something about your character. Write the fifth chapter. Write the ending. Get something on the page and then go back to the beginning. My plot is wonky Distill it down to the basics: Get Ring, Take Ring To Mordor, Save The World. You can then expand a little – how are they doing all of those things? What’s stopping them, what’s helping them, what’s the outcome? This can sometimes help to focus on what the actual problem is, and shows where the holes are. Get an outside perspective. It often really helps to get someone else’s ideas; they’ll come up with things you haven’t even considered, and even if you don’t use… read more →
Or, why the bad guy doesn’t think he’s bad. [NB. I’m using “he”, but please take this as non-gender and -species specific; Evil Masterminds of Doom can be anyone or anything, after all.] So, your villain. He wants to Take Over The World, Kill Everyone, Create An Army of The Undead, or *insert plot here*. Ok, that’s great! Gives the hero something to fight against. But he wants to do all that simply because…he’s Evil? Really? That’s it? There are no true Bad Guys If history has shown anything, it’s that the bad guys don’t think they’re bad. The only difference between The Evil Dictator Who Destroyed The World and The Benevolent Ruler Who Brought Us Peace is what stories get told and what people believe. There’s always motivations and drivers behind the worst of actions; we might judge them as insane or warped, but very few things are ever done on a whim. What’s their background? Real motivations make for exceptionally awesome villains. Yes, you can have base motives – revenge, or lust, or desire for power – but give them some background. Why do they hate big-footed dwarves so much? How did they get hold of the technology to create sharks with frickin’ lasers on their heads? Why do their minions trust them? And didn’t someone notice that Maniacal Laugh sooner? Tie into the bigger world The idea of rationality behind evil feeds into worldbuilding, too. Where’s the money coming from to buy all those Mechanised Soldiers Of Doom? Is the Super Baddy actually a good enough leader to keep hold of power once he’s gained it? What do you do to stop the Undead Hordes from getting bored once you’ve conquered wherever it is? And if you Kill All Humans, won’t it get a bit boring around… read more →
When you send a submission, different publishers ask for different things. However, it will usually be at least the first 10,000 words, which should be your first 3-5 chapters. This is what the editor will read and what they will use to decide if your book is any good, and then decide if they want to read the rest of it. And it’s not just the editor; later on, the reader will do exactly the same thing. Ever flicked through the first chapter in a bookshop or read it on Amazon? What made you want to continue and buy the book? What made you put it down and move on? It’d be your impression from the first chapter or two. Basically, the start of your book is pretty freakin’ important for giving a first impression. Have a think about the first five chapters of your book. Have a think about any critique you’ve received. And if you’ve ever uttered any of these phrases or you think they might apply to you, please take a long, hard look at your work… “It gets better later…” I can and will stop reading. If you haven’t hooked my attention in the first five chapters, then you’ve lost me. The same goes with the longer view; if you don’t grab me with the first book, why am I going to read until Book 5 of your series when the ‘real’ action starts? You need to get me interested now. “This is just the prologue…” So why are you starting here? Start with the action! Start with the story! Tell me the parts you find fascinating! When you become a millionaire best-seller you can always do a “pre-story” novel or novella or something, but for now – get to the interesting bits. “Oh, you’ve got… read more →
There’s a lot of things that can stop you writing. Sometimes it’s real life, which can’t usually be helped; if the cat decides to spill a glass of water on your laptop, that does put a crimp in your ability to type. But sometimes the show-stoppers are either in your head, or in your writing. Here’s five things that your head might be telling you, and some suggestions to overcome them. I’m not good enough. That brilliant writer that you want to be like? The one with best-selling novels? Or even just the last piece you read on Tumblr, the snippet of something on Facebook? You’re thinking that you’re not as good as them, you can’t do it, what’s the point of trying… Stop for a moment, and consider how long they’ve likely been writing. How long have they had to practise, and to hone their craft? Writing is a skill like any other; it can be learned and it can be improved. How many drafts and tears and moments of doubt has that best-selling novel gone through? How many edits and revisions? You aren’t that good. Not yet. But you won’t ever be that good unless you start practising. Try. Experiment. Play. And practise, practise, practise. Everyone’s going to hate it Ugh, the invisible audience. I think this is possibly the voice that I hate most; the feeling that whatever you do, someone is going to criticise – and it’s usually yourself! I’ve got a couple of ways round this. Write for yourself. Yell back at the voices; pretend no-one else will ever see it, that it’s only for you. Or, if you’re the most critical, write for a friend who’ll forgive the errors and just wants to read your story. Things like #2BitTues and #1LineWed on Twitter; they’re… read more →
So, for the second post on “giving your writing to the outside world“, we’re looking at how to take feedback. Feedback is one of the most important parts of writing, and one of the hardest things to find and to accept. Your work is personal; it’s your talent, your soul, that goes into something…and then to hand it over to someone else and ask them to point out the flaws? Eeek! But you can’t write in a vacuum; you need other points of view. Your work is better for having outside opinions, and your writing will improve. If nothing else, you need readers – your work is going to be read at some point! It’s better to have the comments while you’re still able to change things than after it’s been published and you see the comments on Amazon… So, some things to remember when you’re looking through feedback: Not every reader is right for you and your work Some people don’t like a certain genre or style; some people simply don’t give the kind of feedback you need; and some people unfortunately see “critique” as “criticism”, and therefore tend to be very negative. It’s ok to pick and choose who reads your work. Be specific about what you want If you only want to know about the plot, let your reader know. If you’re planning on re-writing huge sections, say. If you consider the writing finished and just want a proofread, tell them. You’ll get more out of it, and you’ll avoid frustrating your reader when they’re reading something you’ve already planning on changing, or definitely don’t want to change. They are not attacking you! They are trying to improve your work. Critique is a learning experience, and is aiming to tell you both what you’re doing well and what… read more →
For the next two posts in this series, we’re going to have a look at how the outside world reacts to your writing – and, more importantly, how you react to that. There’s two parts; this one is focusing on taking rejection, and the second will focus on how to take critique and feedback. So, you’ve written something. It’s awesome! Now you want to get it out into the world. So, you submit it to a writing competition, an agent, a publisher, an anthology… And it gets rejected. Let’s face it, this frickin’ sucks. You wrote something amazing, and they hate it? Nooooo! So what’s the best way to deal with it? Everyone gets rejected The most famous writers have stories of the piles of rejection letters they’ve received, and I suspect that every single publishing house has rejected someone who’s later gone on to be famous. You’re not alone. It’s ok to feel bad Grab some ice cream and have an evening off to wallow. You work’s awful and everyone hates it! They just didn’t understand it! You’ll never get published! And then get back up, and get on with it. Rejections suck, but even best-selling authors get them. Have a pity party, and then dust yourself off and keep going. Treat it as a learning experience Take a long, hard look at your work. Was it simply that the publisher didn’t think it fitted, or could you actually have submitted something better? What needs improvement? If they’ve given you feedback, take time to consider it. But… Don’t argue It’s really hard to fight the urge to defend your work, particularly if you’ve been given feedback, but it really doesn’t help! If your work has been rejected, there is nothing you can say that will change the reviewer’s mind. Take the… read more →
I’ll start with a disclaimer and some credentials; I’m involved in the submissions and editing process for Grimbold Books, my publisher. It’s a small indie press, which in many ways is wonderful – anyone involved get to do a bit of everything! But it’s really made me realise that when I first started submitting writing to publishers, I had absolutely no idea of the process that goes on once your writing has hit the submissions inbox. Surely they just…read it? And then publish it? Well, yes…sort of. But it’s a bit more complicated than that. So, before you do any of this, go and read 5 Questions to Ask Before Submitting a Short Story. It applies to novels, too! Stage 1: Submission Read the subs guidelines! I know they’re annoying and it’s a pain to have to format (I submit too, so I have a lot of sympathy for the never-ending task of re-formatting things) but it really does make reading easier. And on the same note, please send the amount asked. If the guidelines wants 10,000 words, a little under or over is fine…but don’t send your entire manuscript. Having a synopsis is nice; it gives us some idea of how the story unfolds. We often won’t have time to read the entire thing, so the first 30 pages and a synopsis is excellent. Tell us something about you; you don’t have to seem quirky, but just some insight into who you are is nice. However, your work will speak for itself, so if (like me) you’re fairly self-conscious when it comes to showing off, you won’t miss out by not giving a huge bio. And lastly (again) – read the guidelines! You want to make the publisher’s job as easy as possible – and that means sending what… read more →
I used to get pretty confused by the random terminology that publishers and writers use to describe the editing process. What’s the different between an edit and a copy-edit? Do I really need all of these stages? What on earth is everyone on about? Step 1: Writing the book This is Draft 1 to Draft “I lost count”, and then Edit Version 1 to infinity…and you’ve written the ending! It’s done! Now what? Step 2: Alpha read When you’re ready, you hand it over to someone (either a friend or an editor) to have a first read. This is usually the plot holes, “does this make sense?” and “is my story any good?” This can be a complete change of plot, or entire sections deleted; or this can be smaller details, where you’ve got most of it right already. The story might go back to draft versions at this point, or may go on to the next stage… Step 3: Beta read This is the character motivation, minor plot holes, small details; where the gun got left in the house yet is suddenly to hand; you forgot to mention that the hero has any skills at animal-taming yet is suddenly amazing at it; they’re in completely the wrong sector of space to have seen that star formation; and why on earth is he talking to her? He hates her! This is where the story and plot are ok, with no major holes, but there might be some smaller flaws. That said…I’ve had stories at the beta-read stage that have needed chunks added or even complete re-writes! Every reader brings something different, and you might find that even when a story is finished…it’s not. So these two stages can be interchangeable, but you’ll usually find things have a flow; your first… read more →
Have you ever toyed around with the idea of submitting your short story to a publication, but felt too overwhelmed or uncertain to actually send in your manuscript? Creating a strategy for myself based on the five questions below helped me prepare one of my short stories (which I’ll lovingly refer to by the alias of Fantasy Story #1) and ready myself for the submission process. First, I had to ask myself: I. Have I made my story the best it can be? The rest of this post continues under the assumption that you have already gone through the steps to thoroughly edit your short story. Whether you’ve hired a freelance editor, consulted with your beta readers, or participated in your critique group, make sure that you’ve got at least one other pair of eyes to look over your story. Even if the thought of having your work critiqued isn’t exactly fun, you’ll be thankful later on for the chance to improve your story before you start sending it out. When I was preparing Fantasy Story #1, I submitted my draft to a writer’s critique group that I had joined a few months prior after doing some self-editing to my manuscript. I received valuable feedback from around 6 other members of the group, which I then reconciled and used to improve my draft. Specifically, my critique group caught a plot hole that I was able to fix in my second round of editing. II. Have I created a solid organizational system? Before moving onto the next step and looking for markets to submit your work, I would recommend creating a system for recording details of the stories that you plan to submit and information on the publications you are interested in. I’ve experimented with a some submissions tracking software, but… read more →
One of the worst feelings for any writer is staring at a blank page, yet it’s a task I found myself doing more often than I would have liked, especially the first page of every new chapter. My problem wasn’t lack of ideas, or motivation. My problem was I didn’t use a detailed outline. I did have an outline. Sort of. Somewhere, lost in a pile of notes you’ll find a loose sheet of paper with one or two words for each chapter (well . . . at least ten chapters) and a story are sketched out on the other side of the paper, usually accompanied by coffee stains. Because that works for me. All writers fall into two categories, either you’re an outline writer or an organic writer. I’ve also seen them called plotters and pants writers, and George R.R. Martin refers to them as architects and gardeners. Discussing the pros and cons of both might take all day, but in short, an outline writer plans their stories, with meticulous detail, while an organic writer plops their characters on a blank page and allows the story to develop freely. An outline writer rarely keeps the page of any chapter or scene empty for long. I’m an organic writer though, which means I end up staring at a lot of blank pages. I might know what big event needs to happen in the scene, but the details are floating around in the air waiting for me to pull them out. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing. My characters love the potential in that emptiness. Sometimes they love it so much, they have a hard time moving. I’ve spent many mornings writing the first couple paragraphs of a scene, only to delete them and start all over again. Twenty times… read more →