Does Conventional Publishing Deserve to Survive? II

Editing and Gate Keeping yesterday. Today I'm looking at Marketing and Career Sustainability

3. Marketing

All authors are told to use social media - FaceBook, Twitter, blogs etc. So you could argue that the publishers have already opted out of marketing. But, social media aside, they have most of the other outlets sewn up. It's very hard for an outsider to get coverage in a magazine or newspaper or at a literary festival.

It's also hard for an outsider to get into supermarkets. You might argue that with e publishing you don't need to be in supermarkets. Maybe so, but they're where the bulk of books get bought. Sell in the supermarkets and you hit the best seller lists, even if you're a complete unknown. Lots of people - and we're talking tens of thousands - read your book and (hopefully) spread the word. It's hard to build word of mouth if you start from a relatively low number of sales in the first place.

The other plus point for the publishers is they have a team of dedicated press officers and marketing staff who love their jobs. If I'd wanted to go into marketing, I'd have done that after university. I didn't. I might be able to sustain enthusiasm for one, maybe two books, but I don't think it's in me to carry on marketing beyond that. Which leads me to...

4. Career Sustainability

Once upon a time, publishers nurtured authors. They accepted that an author might take time to develop as a writer, and that not all of an author's books would be as good as each other. They were prepared to keep the faith and give authors advances that enabled them to write. The mid list was the staple of all publishers, selling consistently albeit not brilliantly. Well, that went some years ago - along with the Net Book Agreement. It's particularly bad in Mid List Land at the moment as publishers concentrate their resources on the big brand names and new debuts they can sell as the next big thing.

I think quite a few authors are looking at e publishing because they realise that publishers aren't interested in sustainability any more for the mid list. If your sales graph isn't going upwards then you're out. That's a tough policy, and I think it's going to backfire long term. But then, as a mid list author, I would say that.

***

So, does conventional publishing deserve to survive? That depends. They've been careless with some assets, such as editors and the good will of authors. They've devolved some chunks of what they're supposed to do onto agents and authors. But they still control a large part of the book market and will continue to do so for the next few years at least whether they deserve to or not.

Overall, if I were a new author, I'd be looking for the print deal before I considered e publishing. As a mid list author, I'm still primarily interested in print, but I'm keeping a close eye on e publishing developments. I don't think my position will change next week, or next month. But the month after that...? Who knows?

NEW!!! I've finally got round to organising some course dates....

How to WRITE a Novel: London 3rd May/Birmingham 7th May/

Oxford 8th May/Exeter 21st May/Bath 12th June

How to SELL a Novel: London 24th May/Exeter 4th June/

Bath 3rd July Details are on my website

Does Conventional Publishing Deserve to Survive? I

At the RNA Novel of the Year Awards party I asked my editor - who is very senior in the Headline chain of command - why publishers were letting on-line retailers such as Amazon present themselves as goodies and the publishers as baddies when it would be easy for the Big Six publishers to mount a campaign of their own demonstrating the reverse. She agreed that publishers were being slow to show what they added to the publishing process.

So, what do they add? And can it be done by someone else - the author, or their agent, for example?

1. Editing

There are two sorts of editing and they often get mixed up. A copy editor will check for mistakes such as typos, grammatical errors and repetitions. They'll also point out mistakes like the heroine's eyes being blue on p36 but brown on p85. Publishing houses usually employ freelances for copy editors, so that's an option open to any one - author, agent, whoever.

But there's another sort of editor, who is usually an employee of the publishing company. This editor - usually a commissioning editor - looks at the bigger picture. They tell you if your main character is getting irritating, or if the middle section is going on for too long, or if you need more here. They don't copy edit. It's wonderful to work with a good editor: they enhance and strengthen your story and make you the best writer you can be. It's a real skill, and one that should be appreciated by all writers.

This sort of editing is, frankly, hard to get. The closest is the services offered by a book doctor. I used a book doctor for the first draft of my first book. It cost about £250, and about two pages of the seven page report were specific to my book. When I did the finished version (90% had changed) I got 15 pages of notes from my editor about the book - and that was after she'd bought it. I think that was the first of about four exchanges. My current editor also sends pages of notes, and we talk things through over the phone. Sometimes it's about small stuff, other times it's major. And the great thing is, all the time you're talking, you know that their sole interest is in making the book as good as it can be; there isn't a meter running.

Real editing is a skill that appears to have been undervalued by a lot of senior people in the publishing world so they have only themselves to blame if people outside publishing are hardly aware of the difference between a commissioning editor and a copy editor. One of the reasons cited by Amanda Hocking for accepting a print deal was she realised she needed better editing. She'd employed freelance editors on all her books, but the results were "shitty" - her word. I suspect she'd been using copy editors, rather than commissioning editors or book doctors.

2. Gate keeping

Yeah, yeah, I know this is contentious. But there is a lot of bad writing out there. I've read some of it. A friend told me recently that in his first year in publishing he read over 2,000 manuscripts that had come in from the slush pile. Only one was worth publishing. Another friend told me that a lot appeared as if the author had started on p1, got to The End and then never gone back to check over what they'd written, just bunged it in the post.

Watch any talent show, such as the X Factor or Britain's Got Talent. There are some really good people out there, and there are some horrors. Those are the ones we see on the TV because they make the best television, but what about all those thousands of people queuing up we don't see. They're the good but not star quality, the better than average, the middle ranks, the OKs. They're probably the best in their immediate circle, but can't compete on a national stage. A friend told me about being a brilliant runner at school. He won everything locally. Then he went up to county level and discovered he was average.

Not everything that gets published is great, but it's usually effective - and better than what didn't get chosen. It has to be said that over the past ten years, publishers have devolved a lot of the gate keeping process onto agents. That may turn out to have been a mistake if Joe Konrath is to be believed.

Part II tomorrow - Marketing and Career Sustainability

NEW!!! I've finally got round to organising some course dates....

How to WRITE a Novel: London 3rd May/Birmingham 7th May/

Oxford 8th May/Exeter 21st May/Bath 12th June

How to SELL a Novel: London 24th May/Exeter 4th June/

Bath 3rd July Details are on my website

10 Truths about E Publishing

E publishing has had an interesting couple of weeks recently. First there's been widespread coverage of self-publisher Amanda Hocking making a million on Kindle, then the Joe Konrath/Barry Eisler interview, where Barry Eisler reveals that he turned down a $500,000 deal with a publisher so he could self-publish, then the news has come out that Amanda Hocking has signed a $2,000,000 4-book deal with a publisher (by coincidence, the same publisher Eisler turned down. They're also my US publisher, though sadly they've never offered ME that sort of money.).

It seems to me there are some basic truths....

1. What one person wants from writing a book is not the same as another person. You may want kudos, she may want money, he may want validation. That's true whether you're talking about conventional publishing or e-publishing. Once you know what you really, deep down, want from your writing, it's easier to choose your route.

2. A lot of discussion around e-publishing has money at the centre.

3. A lot of the discussion around e-publishing that doesn't have money at the centre has control as the big issue.

4. And the third big area of discussion around e-publishing is the potential downfall of conventional publishing, especially the Big Six, which is often seen as a good thing. No one seems to talk about the rising power of the retailers - Amazon, Google, Apple et al - and the level of discounts they demand.

5. There's not much discussion about poor writing and how much of it there is out there.

6. Some people will get lucky with e-publishing, just as they do with conventional publishing, when other people won't. The quality of their writing may have little to do with their success or otherwise, although the genre probably will, as some genres of writing are already doing better in e-book format than others.

7. There seems to be a belief that there is a "right" price for an e-book. But no one can agree what it is.

8. Pricing is currently all important in getting an e-book into the Top 100 on Kindle, and if you're not in the Top 100 your sales are significantly reduced. Stephen Leather has written a blogpost about how he played around with pricing over Christmas.

9. You have to sell a lot of books at 99p or 99c to make anything like a living wage after the retailer has taken their cut, which may be as much as 70%.

10. What is true about e-publishing now will not be true in a year's time. It probably won't be true in 6 months time. Or even next week.

I'm not sure what's going to happen over the next couple of years, what I'm going to do and where I'm going to end up. I really want to be writing, rather than marketing, or publishing. And in that I think I'm like most authors.

NEW!!! I've finally got round to organising some course dates....

How to WRITE a Novel: London 3rd May/Birmingham 7th May/

Oxford 8th May/Exeter 21st May/Bath 12th June

How to SELL a Novel: London 24th May/Exeter 4th June/

Bath 3rd July Details are on my website

Research Is Fun, But That Doesn't Mean You Should Do It

I swear it hadn't occurred to me to try looking up Wintergreen Life Savers until Debs and Karen suggested it on Thursday. So I Googled and immediately discovered that they're called Wint-O-Green, and were introduced in 1918, the second flavour of Life Saver after the original Pep-O-Mint developed in 1912. Each one has 15 calories, but tragically you can't get them here, only in the US. They're manufactured by Wrigley, which in turn is owned by Mars and...

Yes, I lost twenty five minutes of my life getting my teeth into a nice bit of superfluous research.

That's the trouble with research. It's seductive, but it's a time waster. You really should be writing, but you convince yourself that research is work as you happily fossick about in the sea of information that is the Internet.

Don't. Don't do ANY research until you've finished the first draft and are more or less happy with the story line and structure. At that point you'll know what you actually need to know. It's no good going to Paris and researching all that (although it might be jolly good fun) unless you know for certain your characters will go to Paris. And even then, the things you research might be the wrong ones. For A Single to Rome I went to Rome three times on research trips, and I'd been a student there, but there were still a few things that I'd missed that had to be researched on line. And there were lots of places that I did research (restaurants, bars...) that weren't needed in the final draft.

What you do instead is make it up. You take a leap of faith that the right answer WILL be there when you need it, and just write what you'd like to happen. Then, when you know what the perfect situation is and that you're going to keep that scene in, you go back and research it. Because you know exactly what you need, the research is quick and simple - and you've got the writing done instead of getting stuck in the research process.

NEW!!! I've finally got round to organising some course dates....

How to WRITE a Novel: London 3rd May/Birmingham 7th May/

Oxford 8th May/Exeter 21st May/Bath 12th June

How to SELL a Novel: London 24th May/Exeter 4th June/

Bath 3rd July Details are on my website

La-a and Other Character Names to Avoid

There's a story doing the rounds about a child called La-a. This is apparently pronounced Ladasha. It's like the scene in LA Story when Steve Martin meets Sarah Jessica Parker and she tells him her name. 'Sandy!' he exclaims with pleasure, explaining that he's fed up with people with daft first names. At which point she says it's capital S, a, n, capital D, i.

1. Top of the list of character names to avoid is weirdly spelt ones.

2. Tricky to pronounce ones comes next. I always struggle with Macon in The Accidental Tourist by Anne Tyler. Is it May-con or Mack-on? I was told authoritatively that Macon was an American city pronounced May-con, so it had to be that, but my American students struggle with it also. I realised after one class full of "Mack-on, I mean May-con"s we had finished the session by discussing 'him'.

3. At least Macon is short. Rumpelstiltskin is fine for a short fairy story, but imagine a whole novel featuring him. Worse, imagine typing out Rumpelstiltskin hundreds of times.

4. But sometimes a character needs a long name, in which case it's a good idea to abbreviate it. I once knew a woman called Anastasia Rodrigues. She called herself Birdie, which was charming. Rumpelstiltskin calling himself Rumpy would be less so.

5. Then there are silly names. I have met a child called Courtney Salmon, whose parents knew the pun and still went ahead with it, and there's always the boy called Sue but on the whole, silly names are to be avoided.

6. Inappropriate names. Names are often era specific and class related. There aren't many working class Ruperts, or upper class Chardonnays. My grandmother was called Maud, her sisters were Edith and Ethel, her brothers Harold and Claude, none of which are names you hear much now.

7. Which leads on to similar names. I'd advise against having Maud and Claude in the same piece of writing, and I speak as one who discovered the hard way that having characters called Jenny, George, John and Justine was a recipe for confusion.

8. For practical, writerly considerations I'd avoid names that don't pluralise easily - Tolkein ran into this problem with the party at the beginning of Lord of the Rings: when more than one member of the Proudfoot family were in the same room, did they become Proudfeet?

9. Then there are names ending with s - Davies, Thomas, Jones - unless you are very confident of your ability to use apostrophes and extra s's correctly.

Why does it matter? Because you want the reader to be absorbed into your fictional world. Anything that pulls them out of that world, even if it's only for a second or two as they ponder your punctuation, is to be avoided if you possibly can.

NEW!!! I've finally got round to organising some course dates....

How to WRITE a Novel: London 3rd May/Birmingham 7th May/

Oxford 8th May/Exeter 21st May/Bath 12th June

How to SELL a Novel: London 24th May/Exeter 4th June/

Bath 3rd July Details are on my website

I'm a Stylish Blogger

Pauline Barclay has nominated me for a Stylish Blogger award, and a few weeks ago Jen Black nominated me as One Fine Blogger. Thank you both very much, and in fulfilment of my nomination, here are 7 things you didn't know about me.

1. My secret desire is for some Wintergreen Life Savers. Someone gave me a packet about twenty years ago, and I've never had them since, but the wonderfulness of them lives on in my memory.
2. When I eat, I eat each foodstuff in turn rather than having a little of everything on each forkful.
3. I've decided to use up every single cosmetic sample I've ever had from Boots. It's taking years.
4. Everyone thinks I'm very organised and efficient but I know I'm not.
5. I talk back to the television.
6. I'm a sleep walker.
7. My favourite furnishing colour is green, but I never, ever wear it.

And now to pass on the awards...well, this is a tricky one as I don't really follow any particular blog, but just dip in and out of them. But in the spirit of things let me nominate...

Julie Cohen
Kate Harrison
Help! I Need a Publisher
The Elephant in the Writing Room
How Publishing Really Works

NEW!!! I've finally got round to organising some course dates....

How to WRITE a Novel: London 3rd May/Birmingham 7th May/

Oxford 8th May/Exeter 21st May/Bath 12th June

How to SELL a Novel: London 24th May/Exeter 4th June/

Bath 3rd July Details are on my website

The 10 Minute Difference - Why Films Are Not Like Prose

I use films as references a lot, mainly because I think people are more likely to have seen the same films as me, rather than read the same books so the examples will have wider resonance. But there's one area which you shouldn't take films as your 'how to' guide, and that's the beginning.

Think about how you choose to see a film. You look at the cover. You look at the reviews. You may see some carefully chosen clips. And then you decide to watch it. You buy cinema tickets or the DVD.

Compare with a novel. You look at the cover. You look at the reviews. Then, if you're in the bookshop, you look at the first page and start reading. If you like it, you then buy it. In other words, you can test the product before you invest your money in it.

When you get round to watching the film, you're going to give it at least ten minutes before deciding if it's any good or not. So the film maker has about ten minutes to do any story set up before your attention is going to wander. The novel or story, in contrast, has to earn your attention right from the start or you won't be investing in it. The storytelling must begin on page 1.

NEW!!! I've finally got round to organising some course dates....

How to WRITE a Novel: London 3rd May/Birmingham 7th May/

Oxford 8th May/Exeter 21st May/Bath 12th June

How to SELL a Novel: London 24th May/Exeter 4th June/

Bath 3rd July Details are on my website

Working Too Hard for Character Sympathy

Writing about Liam Neeson in Taken has told me at least one thing: that he is adored by many. That blog post wrote about the devices employed by the scriptwriters to make him sympathetic. It worked. But by the end it had worked too well, and even the wondrous Liam appeared, well, a bit of a sap.

He goes through hell and back to save his daughter. Battered, bruised, he gets her home and she promptly goes off with her mother and her stepfather, waving bye bye to her rescuer. Liam's sole return for all the effort is to give her an amazing, treat which she does at least bother (just) to say thank you for. I can't have been the only person watching who thought he'd have been better off leaving her to her fate.

So, his daughter is a selfish bimbo. What does that make the character? No one acknowledges his actions, and he gets no reward. Now, you could argue that a father's selfless love doesn't think to ask for a reward but being a doormat is not a shining example of parenthood. If all he wants is 'to make his daughter happy', then that's as wet as a Miss World contestant simpering about World Peace. Even Liam can't retrieve his character from being wetter than the Atlantic.

Maybe you're thinking, that's Liam in Taken. It's nothing to do with MY characters. But I have read many stories which start with a character being put upon. Their partner doesn't appreciate them. Their boss doesn't appreciate them. Their children/parents/friends/pets don't appreciate them. But still the character carries on, cheerfully putting up with being dumped on and only occasionally sighing wistfully.

A few pages down the line they will turn and then the story will get going - but by then it will be Too Late. If the reader gets that far, they'll be so fed up with the Poor Little Me character they'll be rooting for the boss/partner/child/dog.

Do you know anyone with Poor Little Me tendencies in real life? I do. I feel guilty because although I know I ought to be sympathetic to them and their woes, I actually feel like giving them a good shake and telling them to get some backbone. The same in fiction. We're supposed to admire the selfless, instead we really want to give them a slap. No wonder we love reading about baddies.

NEW!!! I've finally got round to organising some course dates....

How to WRITE a Novel: London 3rd May/Birmingham 7th May/

Oxford 8th May/Exeter 21st May/Bath 12th June

How to SELL a Novel: London 24th May/Exeter 4th June/

Bath 3rd July Details are on my website

6 Choices To Make Before Choosing an Agent

'Huh, I should be so lucky as to choose an agent,' you're probably thinking. But you DO choose them - you choose who you're going to send your package out to.

1. Do they publish my sort of book?

It may sound obvious but all agents report being sent work in genres they don't represent. Check them out first - look in a directory such as The Writer's Handbook, check out their website or research their clients.

2. Do I want editing?

Most agents will have worked at publishing companies before going over to the dark side. They will have either worked in editorial or rights, sales, marketing. A former editor may be unable to resist the urge to edit your work which, depending on your point of view, may be a good thing. On the other hand, you might prefer the sort of agent who settles down happily with a stack of miniscule-print contracts and enjoys quibbling over percentage points, in which case a background in rights would be good.

3. Big or small?

Do you want to be a big fish in a little pond? In which case you want a small agency. Your agent's income will be directly linked to yours, so they've got extra reason to sell your books (and generally be nice to you!). A big agency may make you feel they're too busy dealing with their star authors to have time for you. The number of authors each agent represents is also relevant - see also 6.

But a small agency may not have as much clout as a large agency, and are more likely to specialise. They won't have separate departments dealing with children's writing, television/film, journalism, non-fiction and so on. Neither will they have offices around the world. This doesn't have to be a deal breaker because smaller agencies usually have agreements with to bring in the expertise when needed, but if you know you want to write, for example, both adult and children's fiction, you need an agent who either does both, or is with an agency where there are separate departments - or is relaxed with you having multiple agents.

4. Could I have a business relationship with this person?

Call me pathetic but I was terrified of my acting agent, and top of my wish list when I started approaching agents was not to be frightened by my agent. Some literary agents I have met are scary... On the other hand, some relish the formidable qualities of their agent - my friend Jane Wenham Jones calls her agent The Fearsome One. I've met her, and she is, but Jane is made of sterner stuff than me.

Please note that the question was not Do we get on? Your agent may well become a friend but fundamentally it's about business.

5. How old are they?

Not an ageist question really. Young agents are enthusiastic and keen to make their mark, but they may not have either the contacts in publishing or the experience. On the other hand, they may be actively looking for clients. Older agents have shedloads of experience and contacts - and existing clients who need looking after so they're not actively looking for new clients. I've heard it said that you should look for a younger agent so your careers can develop alongside each other.

6. What about the money?

No reputable agent should ask you for money up front. Full stop. No choice to make here - if any agent suggests payment for reading fees or some such, run a mile.

But you may be bothered about commission. Don't be. The difference is likely to be small in reality. I'd prefer they took 15% or even 20% and got me a great deal rather than faff around with saving 5% and going with the agent who only wanted 10%. My agent told me she represented fewer clients, so she could give them more individual attention which was why she charged 15%.

Think about these areas before you start sending out or you'll end up like an author I know who had an offer from an agent, and then got cold feet about them. Don't waste your time or theirs and do your research right at the beginning of the process.

NEW!!! I've finally got round to organising some course dates....

How to WRITE a Novel: London 3rd May/Birmingham 7th May/

Oxford 8th May/Exeter 21st May/Bath 12th June

How to SELL a Novel: London 24th May/Exeter 4th June/

Bath 3rd July Details are on my website

Beware Autonomous Body Parts

"She was looking for the perfect kitchen table when her eyes fell on the Ikea Sniksig."

"His lips curled into a smile."

"Her legs had walked twenty miles that day."

Oh, those autonomous body parts. The trouble is, they sound so plausible when you write them, so risible when someone else reads them. "Did she pick up her eyes and put them back in?" they say. "And where was the rest of her body? Back home, reading a book by the fire I expect."

Eyes cause particular problems, forever dropping onto things or even flashing across rooms, conjuring up images of ocular streakers. Substitute 'gaze' if you must - her gaze dropped, his gaze flashed across the room - or use a verb - she stared at the floor, he glanced across the room. With the other body parts, it's better to use an active verb for the whole character - he smiled, she'd walked twenty miles that day.

It may seem a small point but, let's face it, you want readers to laugh at your intentional funny bits not the unintentional ones. The only autonomous body part allowed in fiction should be the grin on the face of the Cheshire Cat.

NEW!!! I've finally got round to organising some course dates....

How to WRITE a Novel: London 3rd May/Birmingham 7th May/

Oxford 8th May/Exeter 21st May/Bath 12th June

How to SELL a Novel: London 24th May/Exeter 4th June/

Bath 3rd July Details are on my website

What Impression Are You Giving?

I once fell in love with a dress. It was bright blue and beaded all over. In retrospect, it was the sort of dress drag queens wear, but I thought it was sophisticated and glamorous and, above all, grown up - I must have been about 19. I wanted it, despite the mega price tag that I really couldn't afford.

I brought my friend Alison along to see what she thought. I paraded in the dress in front of her, watching for her opinion. She didn't look convinced. 'It's the sort of dress that everyone will look at the dress and not you,' she said eventually. 'And I'm not sure about the colour...'

I didn't buy the dress.

We all need friends like Alison, especially when you're sending out letters and synopses to agents. Friends like Alison are kind, but firm. They don't let you make an idiot of yourself. You're all wrapped up in dreams of what might be, and they persuade you to take a realistic look at yourself. I've told friends in the past that their agent letters are creating the impression that they are:

Pompous. Nit-picking. Hell to work with. Litigious. Needy. Demanding. Hysterical. Bonkers.

Now, I know that my friends aren't any of those things (except possibly the bonkers bit), but that's the impression they're giving and none of those qualities are desirable in a writer. In fact, they're all turn-offs. I look at the first letter I wrote and I can see that none of the agents I sent it to probably bothered to read beyond the first paragraph, because it created such a ghastly impression of me. (Oh, the shame, I'm blushing just thinking about it.)

So before you waste time, energy and money sending out, ask a friend to tell you what impression you're giving. Honestly.

NEW!!! I've finally got round to organising some course dates....

How to WRITE a Novel: London 3rd May/Birmingham 7th May/

Oxford 8th May/Exeter 21st May/Bath 12th June

How to SELL a Novel: London 24th May/Exeter 4th June/

Bath 3rd July Details are on my website

Detail Is Everything In Description

My Friday class were brilliant last week. I was blown away by their response to the exercise and I think we all were amazed at the quality of writing that came out. So, what was the exercise that had produced this fabulous work?

It was very simple. They 'sketched' each other, using words not lines. I had them in groups of three and they did 5 minutes on each of the others - A drew B for 5 minutes, then C. Meanwhile, B was drawing A, then C, and at the same time C was drawing B then A. Strict instructions were given not to make personal comments that might offend (who would think that colour suited them, what a big nose, are those spots?) and concentrate on the detail of what they were observing. I wanted to them really look, in a way that we usually don't.

And the results were terrific pieces of observation. People examined the fall of a scarf and the fastening of boots, the weave of a lacy collar and a tiny, almost imperceptible, line of purple woven into the fabric of a smart jacket. Light caught earrings, gold chains rested on collar bones, a line of crochet edged a cardigan like the crenellations on the Great Wall of China.

The sitters often expressed amazement - they'd not noticed, or had forgotten, the detail about their clothing - and the rest of us listened intently, fascinated by the writing and the depth of the detail.

It confirmed to me that if you're going to describe anything, the generic is a waste of space. All detail should be specific and detailed, and the more depth there is, the more interesting and believable it will be.

NEW!!! I've finally got round to organising some course dates....

How to WRITE a Novel: London 3rd May/Birmingham 7th May/

Oxford 8th May/Exeter 21st May/Bath 12th June

How to SELL a Novel: London 24th May/Exeter 4th June/

Bath 3rd July Details are on my website

Getting Reader Sympathy for Characters

I watched Taken at the weekend, and good fun it was too, merrily playing with just about every cliche there is. I felt they'd done a check list to make the main character, played by Liam Neeson, sympathetic...

- He loves his daughter and we generally like family-oriented people.

- He is being brave although his daughter lives with her mother and her new husband - we like him because he's being stoical about his situation.

- He had to work extra hours to get his daughter the present she wanted for her birthday - hardworking, self-sacrificing...

- The step father is loaded - Liam isn't rich, just like us.

- When his daughter is kidnapped, he turns out to have buckets of useful skills, gadgets and handy friends in high places...well, from time to time, don't we all wish we had vastly superior skills and could zap people who got in our way?

- He's only trying to save his daughter; if the baddies had handed her back as he politely asked, he wouldn't have needed to kill them.

- All the baddies were foreign - them versus us. They all smoked, too, so what else did they expect?

There are certain qualities we all think are desirable, like being respectful and kind to those under us. A character who is snotty to the waitress is a character who we will never like. Ditto one who kicks the dog. We can admire a character who steals diamond necklaces, but never one who steals from the charity box.

We like people who are brave - but don't make a fuss about it. Modesty and self-deprecation are attractive. Loyalty is also very important - many a novel has been about a conflict of loyalties and how the main character can resolve that conflict.

We like people who DO stuff, people who make things happen. And we like it when they have special talents. We like people who are like us, but better. Liam, in other words.

NEW!!! I've finally got round to organising some course dates....

How to WRITE a Novel: London 3rd May/Birmingham 7th May/

Oxford 8th May/Exeter 21st May/Bath 12th June

How to SELL a Novel: London 24th May/Exeter 4th June/

Bath 3rd July Details are on my website

Does Reading Other Writers Influence Your Voice?

The poet I mentioned in my last post did justify her non-reading position. She was worried, she said, about another poet influencing her voice.

It's a common fear, but one that is ungrounded. If you go to any writing class or circle and hear people reading their work, it's utterly clear that their 'voice' is there, fair and square. Our writing styles are set in our own personality. They're in the way we speak, the vocabulary we use, the things we choose to write about. We can no more lose them than getting a Rachel hair cut would suddenly make me look like Jennifer Anniston.

Try looking at it from the opposite angle. Rory Bremner, Roni Ancona, Jon Culshaw et al are paid vast sums of money to imitate celebrities. And how often do they manage it? We recognise who they're trying to be, but you don't for a minute actually believe that the impressionist is that person. They are always, noticeably, themselves first, the celebrity second.

Ditto parodists. We laugh because the imitation is good, but it's rare that we think we're actually reading Dickens or Austen or whoever. So if the very very best can't lose their voice in another writer's style when they're trying exceptionally hard to do so, why do you think your voice will get lost?

I remember going to a workshop, long before I was published, and being asked to write a piece in the style of Carol Shields. I dutifully did this - rather well, I thought, if I'm honest. But the teacher shook her head at all our efforts, including mine. None of us could 'do' Carol Shields, we were all too busy being ourselves even when we were trying our hardest to be someone else.

I must admit I don't read my genre when I'm writing, but that's because I'll get envious/depressed that they write well or have a good story idea, or furious/depressed because it's badly written and yet it still got published. Either way, it's not good for my writing to be sitting in front of the laptop in a state of envy/depression/fury. And I do have a residual fear I might inadvertently nick a good phrase and pop it into my own work.

But losing my voice? No, never. It simply won't happen. Read on.

NEW!!! I've finally got round to organising some course dates....

How to WRITE a Novel: London 3rd May/Birmingham 7th May/

Oxford 8th May/Exeter 21st May/Bath 12th June

How to SELL a Novel: London 24th May/Exeter 4th June/

Bath 3rd July Details are on my website

Why Writers Should Also Be Readers

So there I was, thinking about what to blog today and not coming up with anything inspired when someone told me that they wrote poetry, but never read poetry. They must have registered the expression on my face because they then giggled and said they liked poetry, just never read it.

Which did make me wonder, if they never read it, how they knew they liked it? Or did they just like their own? Which is an understandable position to take I suppose. I've had students in the past who say they want to write a novel, but don't have time to read them. I've even once been told by a would-be writer that they don't see the point of novels - not that that was going to stop them from writing their own and making a million (as one does).

But...how do you think Austen, Dickens, Conrad, Tolstoy (add any author whose work you enjoy who was writing pre WWI) learned their craft? There weren't creative writing classes to go to, or creative writing books. They learned from reading. And from the theatre and hearing story tellers, but primarily from their own reading.

You should read extensively in the area that you wish to write. If you read westerns, that's what you should be writing. There's no point in wishfully dreaming about winning the Booker with your novel if your internal compass is pointing to romantic fiction. By reading within your area you get an instinctive grasp on the rules. That way you can choose to break them. You'll also know when you've genuinely got a new idea, or where your idea fits into the market.

Reading hot wires your brain first to recognise good writing, and then to write it yourself. Ask around and you won't find many published novelists who aren't readers. Reading is the breathing in, and writing is the breathing out. The two go together.

And besides, if you don't read other people, how can you expect anyone to read you?

PS I'll write about voice/influence in the next post.

NEW!!! I've finally got round to organising some course dates....

How to WRITE a Novel: London 3rd May/Birmingham 7th May/

Oxford 8th May/Exeter 21st May/Bath 12th June

How to SELL a Novel: London 24th May/Exeter 4th June/

Bath 3rd July Details are on my website

If At First You Don't Succeed...

I had an call from a friend. She was drinking champagne with her publisher, the contract in front of her, waiting for her signature. In the back ground her agent was smiling as she surveyed the scene.

What's special about this scenario is that a month ago all that was in place was a manuscript. A manuscript that had been turned down several times, what's more. And one of the rejection letters from an agent had said that she thought it was unpublishable. To make it even more special, the author was on my MA course with me. For the past ten years she's hung on to her writing. Two books have been written and done the rounds but to no avail. This one, the third, has hit gold. I couldn't be more pleased for her.

What makes Person A persist when Person B gives up? I wish I knew - I'd bottle it and make my fortune! What I do know is that if you give up you have no chance of success. As the ad goes, you've got to be in it to win it.

NEW!!! I've finally got round to organising some course dates....

How to WRITE a Novel: London 3rd May/Birmingham 7th May/

Oxford 8th May/Exeter 21st May/Bath 12th June

How to SELL a Novel: London 24th May/Exeter 4th June/

Bath 3rd July Details are on my website

Lists and Things

There's something wonderfully personal about lists. Not To Do lists, although they are probably more revealing of character than I'd like to think (speaking as someone who has been known to add things she's already done just for the pleasure of crossing them off the list), but lists of our likes and dislikes.

Lists feature heavily in The Pillow Book by Sei Shonagon. Written around AD 995, they are a collection of her writings about life in the Imperial Court of the Heian Dynasty Japan. Here are some of her lists:

Embarrassing Things:

A man whom one loves gets drunk and keeps repeating himself.

To have spoken about someone not knowing that he could overhear.

Parents, convinced that their ugly child is adorable, pet him and repeat the things he has said, imitating his voice.

A man recites his own poems (not especially good ones) and tells one about the praise they have received - most embarrassing.

Lying awake at night, one says something to one's companion, who simply goes on sleeping.

In the presence of a skilled musician, someone plays a zither just for his own pleasure and without tuning it.

Squalid things:

The back of a piece of embroidery.

The inside of a cat's ear.

A swarm of mice, who still have no fur, when they come wriggling out of their nest.

The seams of a fur robe that has not yet been lined.

Things that make one's heart beat faster:

Sparrows feeding their young.

To pass a place where babies are playing.

To see a gentleman stop his carriage before one's gate and instruct his attendants to announce his arrival.

It is night and one is expecting a visitor. Suddenly one is startled by the sound of rain-drops, which the wind blows against the shutters.

Another list maker was Mary MacLane of Butte, Montana at the turn of the 19th/20th centuries. On March 8th, 1901, she wrote a list of

Irritating Things:

the kind of people who call a woman's figure her "shape"

hips that wobble as one walks

persons with fishy eyes

tight garters

insipid sweet wine

men who wear moustaches

unripe bananas

wax flowers off a wedding cake

fools who tell me what I "want" to do

some paintings of the old masters which I am unable to appreciate

people who don't wash their hair often enough

a bed that sinks in the middle

These lists reveal characters vivid enough to reach out across hundreds and thousands of years. Characters with opinions and likes and dislikes. Characters we want to read about because no one wants to read about wishy washy people without anything to say for themselves. Try making some lists for some of your characters, and see how strong their opinions are.

NEW!!! I've finally got round to organising some course dates....

How to WRITE a Novel: London 3rd May/Birmingham 7th May/

Oxford 8th May/Exeter 21st May/Bath 12th June

How to SELL a Novel: London 24th May/Exeter 4th June/

Bath 3rd July Details are on my website

How Much Vomiting is Going Too Far?

AJ asked : When writing light hearted or romcom style fiction, how does one ensure the light hearted/fun element doesn't get drowned by the conflict/grimly high stakes? Or equally, the issues don't get undermined by frivolity.

In an early version of Another Woman's Husband, Becca the main character has her darkest moment and ends up getting drunk and vomiting in a car park. It's a humiliating experience for her. My editor vetoed it as being too sordid.

The same editor didn't turn a hair when, in Nice Girls Do, Anna after a very heavy night out is also sick. I think the difference is in the tone. I can't give an example of the Becca bit, because I dramatically changed the story line and lost the vomiting, but this is Anna...

"She tottered to the bathroom and washed as quickly as her poor coordination allowed. The skin on her face felt heavy and seemed to have dropped two inches. It was a curious mix of red overlying grey. She bunged some foundation on top. Dracula's bride stared back at her. She looked down and saw I survived Clare's hen party! emblazoned across her chest. She wasn't convinced."

There's quite a bit more but I think - hope, anyway - that the tone is quite perky. There's no question that Anna is going down to the darkest depths - she's hungover, yes, but is taking it in her stride. Becca, on the other hand, was upset and humiliated.

And I think that's partly where the answer lies. How does the character react to the grimness in question? Are they self-aware? Anna knows she had too much the night before and accepts her physical state the next morning. Becca was just miserable.

Marion Keyes has shown that you can go to some dark places within chick lit so long as the character, and the reader, doesn't have their noses rubbed in it. And of course, are we rooting for the characters? If so, we'll forgive them anything.

NEW!!! I've finally got round to organising some course dates....

How to WRITE a Novel: London 3rd May/Birmingham 7th May/

Oxford 8th May/Exeter 21st May/Bath 12th June

How to SELL a Novel: London 24th May/Exeter 4th June/

Bath 3rd July Details are on my website

In Trepidation I Go to the Awards...

I've been trying to ban thoughts of the RNA Novel of the Year 2011 Awards Party from my brain for the last few weeks. Actually, that's not true. It's been since the long list was announced, way before Christmas. All through January I've not been thinking about it. All through February I've not been thinking about it even harder.

And now here it is. March 7th 2011. Champagne and canapes galore apparently - which I won't be able to enjoy because I'll be sick with nerves. I've allowed myself to practice a good loser face. Wistful? Nonchalant? Unconcerned? I'm not sure which is best. Green with envy? No, not that. Besides, I genuinely think I won't win. The rest of the short list is crammed with marvellous writers and fabulous novels. One of them will win. (My money's on Elizabeth Chadwick, not least because To Defy a King has the most gorgeous cover.)

Where I have won is by joining the Romantic Novelists Association in the first place, nearly ten years ago. Then I was in possession of a manuscript and a fistful of rejections. Since joining, all along the road to publication the RNA has been there from meeting my agent at an RNA party, to now and being short listed for their main award. It's been great and, because I don't expect that I'll get the chance on the night, I'd like to say a big thank you to the RNA. May you carry on supporting writers for ever.

NEW!!! I've finally got round to organising some course dates....

How to WRITE a Novel: London 3rd May/Birmingham 7th May/

Oxford 8th May/Exeter 21st May/Bath 12th June

How to SELL a Novel: London 24th May/Exeter 4th June/

Bath 3rd July Details are on my website

Reality and Conflict

Last week I was interviewed for a magazine feature about the terrible incident a few years when my daughter was mugged and hit in the face by a baseball bat. It had been shocking at the time, but the overall experience had been pretty positive as she - and I - discovered that in a crisis she'd kept her head and had reacted both sensibly and bravely. A bad thing had happened, but it revealed she possessed some tremendous character traits and boosted her confidence.

I was desperately proud of the way she behaved during and after the incident and was very happy to talk to the magazine about it (and promote the current novel at the same time). About five minutes into the interview the journalist stopped. 'Your relationship with your daughter was good before?' Oh yes, I agreed. She sighed. It wasn't a good sign. She explained that she'd thought there had been serious problems between us, and the mugging had brought us together. Instead we were obviously a normal, affectionate family and normal people weren't news, unless really dreadful things happened to them. This didn't count.

So that was that. I didn't mind. After all, I could see that we were normal, and the mugging, while horrible at the time, hadn't been disastrous for us - if anything the opposite. There was no conflict for the journalist to write about, no triumph over disaster. What had seemed a big event in my life, and certainly in my daughter's, was not worth writing about.

Story telling is all about conflict and the bigger the conflict, the bigger the story. Then there's what's at stake. Again, the bigger the stakes, the bigger the story. Be bold with your conflicts. Make the stakes as high as you can. Make the dilemmas impossible to resolve. Make your fiction bigger and bolder, more complicated and more dramatic.

I'm glad my real life drama was too small for the magazine. Let's face it, in reality it's better that way.

NEW!!! I've finally got round to organising some course dates....

How to WRITE a Novel: London 3rd May/Birmingham 7th May/

Oxford 8th May/Exeter 21st May/Bath 12th June

How to SELL a Novel: London 24th May/Exeter 4th June/

Bath 3rd July Details are on my website

Ban Baddies from Your Writing

I'm re-reading Anne Tyler's The Accidental Tourist at the moment, and remembering why I love it so much. She's a terrific writer and I learn so much from her. One of the lessons from this book I've been trying hard to apply to my more recent novels is: no baddies.

Baddies are people who go around in black hats. We know they're baddies because everyone hisses and boos when they enter. Baddies are fine in panto, but they don't have a place in most novels because they're one dimensional. They are defined by their badness, but nobody in real life thinks they're bad. I expect even the most appalling murderers feel they have justification for their actions.

In fact, if we understand and sympathise with a character, we can cheerfully accept their justifications for doing dreadful things. In The Talented Mr Ripley, Tom Ripley murders Dickie Greenleaf, then Freddie, and we're happy because we've taken on Tom's world view that he really has no alternative but to bump them off.

But Anne Tyler doesn't have baddies at all. Instead she has ordinary people who are in conflict with each other. In The Accidental Tourist, Macon and Sarah are recovering from the death of their child. They are both grieving, in their own ways. The trouble is, those ways are in conflict with each other. Sarah is trying to cope by talking about Ethan, Macon is trying to cope by systematising his life and not talking. Neither of these approaches are wrong, they're just different and the difference leads to conflict.

When I started writing my opposing characters were a bit one dimensional: they were defined by their 'badness' alone. Now I try to make my opposing characters good people, just ones who want different things from my main character. There will still be conflict, but the characters will (I hope) be more real and understandable.

NEW!!! I've finally got round to organising some course dates....

How to WRITE a Novel: London 3rd May/Birmingham 7th May/

Oxford 8th May/Exeter 21st May/Bath 12th June

How to SELL a Novel: London 24th May/Exeter 4th June/

Bath 3rd July Details are on my website

Not Knowing What You're Writing

At the weekend I met up with Liz Kessler, author of the series about mermaid Emily Windsnap, aimed at the 8+ age group. We chatted away about books and boats, and writing and living in Cornwall and at one point she asked if I'd ever thought about writing something other than what I was writing.

I said yes, in that I'd thought of shifting ground slightly, and I have a non-fiction book idea lurking around my mind, but essentially what I write is what I write. 'There's no point writing anything that doesn't come from the heart."

She agreed with me. Books had to come from the heart. She added that often she didn't know what she was writing about until well after she'd finished writing the story. Sometimes, she'd even had to have what the book had really been about explained to her by an outsider.

I nodded in agreement. I can now see patterns in my books - themes, concerns, reactions - that are about me, the writer, but there is no way I realised they were there at the time of writing. It sounds weird, but I suppose it's to be expected if you write from the heart.

Alan Bennett, in Writing Home, says this: "One seldom sits down knowing exactly what one wants to say, the knowing very often coming out of the saying. 'One draws,' says Lichtenberg, 'from the well of language many a thought one does not have.' A writer does not always know what he or she knows, and writing is a way of finding out."

I see it with students. They start with fixed ideas about what they're going to write, and then surprise themselves with what emerges on the page. Write from the heart, not the head, and surprise yourself - and that'll be worth reading.

NEW!!! I've finally got round to organising some course dates....

How to WRITE a Novel: London 3rd May/Birmingham 7th May/

Oxford 8th May/Exeter 21st May/Bath 12th June

How to SELL a Novel: London 24th May/Exeter 4th June/

Bath 3rd July Details are on my website

Variety is the Spice of Dialogue

Recently I was looking at some student work and while the dialogue seemed realistic, it also appeared clunky. Then I realised: it was the spacing of the attributions. They invariably came at the end so it went something like this...

"Blah blah blah. Blah blah. Blah blah blah," A said.

"Blah blah. Blah. Blah blah," B said.

"Blah blah blah blah blah. Blah blah," A said.

"Blah. Blah blah. Blah blah blah blah blah," B said.

"Blah," A said.

"Blah blah blah blah blah. Blah blah blah," B said.

And here it is with the attributions moved around:

"Blah blah blah,' A said. 'Blah blah. Blah blah blah."

"Blah blah. Blah," B said. "Blah blah."

"Blah blah blah blah blah. Blah blah," A said.

"Blah," B said. "Blah blah. Blah blah blah blah blah."

"Blah."

B said, "Blah blah blah blah blah. Blah blah blah."

Just moving the attributions around make it look more attractive to read. (It's blah blah to help you see more clearly. Nothing to do with lacking inspiration for sample dialogue.) I've also omitted one of the attributions, because it should be clear who is talking on line 5.

I could have played around with action:

"Blah blah blah.' A sipped the hot tea. 'Blah blah. Blah blah blah."

"Blah blah. Blah." B spilt sugar all over the table. "Blah blah."

"Blah blah blah blah blah. Blah blah." A carefully wiped the sugar grains into a napkin.

"Blah." B flung the sugar spoon into the saucer. "Blah blah. Blah blah blah blah blah."

"Blah."

B began to cry. "Blah blah blah blah blah. Blah blah blah."

Not an attribution in sight, but the actions make it clear who is doing the speaking. Whatever method you use, remember to vary the format: actions, plus attributions, plus changing speech rhythms make for interesting dialogue, even when what's being said is, frankly, a bit blah.

NEW!!! I've finally got round to organising some course dates....

How to WRITE a Novel: London 3rd May/Birmingham 7th May/

Oxford 8th May/Exeter 21st May/Bath 12th June

How to SELL a Novel: London 24th May/Exeter 4th June/

Bath 3rd July Details are on my website