Good Choices are Essential for Compelling Stories

Recently I was discussing the first draft of a novel. The climax came when the main character was torn between a job presentation - her boss claimed she would let everyone at work down if she didn't make it in that day - and her baby's health. Now, call me irresponsible, but there aren't many circumstances when I'd put my work ahead of a very ill child and none of them seemed applicable here.

I'm prepared to accept that, had I read the whole novel rather than a synopsis, I would have been swept away by the main character's dilemma, but in general compelling stories feature characters making difficult choices. The choices need to be proper ones, and the more evenly weighted they are, the more compelling your story.

Does Superman save Lois Lane, or the world? Does he follow his head, or his heart? Will Lizzie accept the repulsive Mr Collins and save her family fortune? Or turn him down and risk penury? Frodo could return to his beloved Shire and leave the ring at Elrond's house. Pip could give up his snobbish aspirations of being a gentleman and go back to Joe Gargery's forge and marry Biddy. Would you shop your child to the police? Or would you burn everything that linked them with the crime?

The more compelling the arguments are on both sides, the more compelling your story.

Writing the Other Man

If you write relationship books as I do, at some point you come to the Other Man Problem. The other man is the person who the main character either is going out with now, or thinks she wants to go out with, when by the end of the story she's going to end up with someone else entirely.

He is a difficult proposition. If he is too attractive, the reader won't understand why the main character ditches him to go out with the true hero. If he is too unattractive, the main character will look like an idiot for staying with him when he's obviously not the one for her.

I read one book where the author had tried too hard to make the Other Man undesirable. He called his girlfriend, the main character, Sweetums. Well, it was obvious she was going to have to ditch him, but the penny didn't drop for her for at least three hundred pages. That meant I lost sympathy for her. Another author tried to subtly make the Other Man unsuitable by having him giving the wrong gift to the main character, but only achieved in making the main character look grasping and ungrateful.

I think the best way is to write an Other Man who is attractive and has no obvious giveaway flaws, but who shows by his actions that he's the wrong man: he lets the main character down in some way, he reveals one of her personal secrets, he tries to take control, he has some questionable views. In other words, there is something that is a deal-breaker about him. If he reveals his flaws through his actions it means he can reveal them quite late on in the story, which is more satisfying for the reader and doesn't make the main character look stupid for thinking that he could be Mr Right.

But it's hard. Everyone has their personal quirks - I know my Other Men tend to be alpha male types, which is often Mr Right in other books. Out there, there may be readers who are baffled at the choices my main characters make or else berating me for making it so obvious who the main character is going to end up with. All I can do is be as aware as I can and make the Other Man as attractive as possible, while not outshining Mr Right-for-her.

How to Use a Scene Check List

A scene check list can be a useful tool. I sometimes use a scene check before I start writing, to inspire the actual writing. Other times I use it when I've got stuck on a scene; completing the list usually gets me going again. And then I sometimes use it when I've written the scene and want to check I've got everything I need in the scene.

This is mine...

Setting:

Time, season, temperature, weather, lighting.

Location. Things to see. Props. (ie things characters could use, a chair, a mug, a spoon)

Atmosphere.

Senses:

Sight. Sound. Smell. Taste. Touch

Symbols and images.

The past: recent (usually, a reference to the previous scene), distant past, memories.

The future: soon (usually a reference to the next scene), events to come.

Characters: Internal - Attitude. Relationships. Feelings. Concerns. Wants. External - clothes, hair, shoes, props.

Dialogue: Subjects. Things not mentioned (ie subtext).

Information (ie things the reader needs to know).

Actions: What happens?

Scene ending (ie does it make reader want to read next scene?)

I go through the list checking that I've included every element in my scene. It sounds a bit mechanical but it's a good way of making sure that you're covering the scene properly.

Writing Time-Sucks

I'm a champion procrastinator. I can happily spend days on writing related business without actually doing any writing. Apart from writing blogposts about procrastination, my top time-sucks are...

Social media

Twitter and Facebook are great for putting you in touch with other people, other writers. Publishers tell their authors to go out there and get involved in social media. Unpublished writers are advised to build platforms through social media so when they do get published they have a ready-made readership.

I love Twitter, though I find Facebook less compelling. But I can spend hours on both, following up links, reading blogs, staying ahead of any publishing gossip. It feels like work - it IS work, given my publisher told me I should be doing it. But it is work that should be rationed. Last year I blogged every day without fail, this year I'm trying doing weekdays only.

Checking emails all the time

It is death to a writer to have the device turned on that pings whenever an email turns up in your inbox. You will never get anything done. Turn it off now!

Phone calls

Have you ever been in a shop with a query when someone phones and the assistant immediately answers the caller's query before yours. And you took the trouble to come in! Why do we feel compelled to answer the phone? I don't know, I just know I am. I now write with the phone nearby so if a window replacement company phones I can answer, and disengage in a couple of seconds. The only problem with this approach is that friends and family ring and if I answer I get sucked into a long call. The only solution is to let the answer machine answer for you.

Television

I don't watch much television in the evening, it's day time television that's my problem. Bargain Hunt at lunchtime, Countdown in the afternoon. On good days they are my reward for writing. On bad days they console me. Either way, they take up an hour of my day. I actually think that's quite modest for most people and hey, you've got to have some downtime.

Games

I love the Times crossword and Sudoko, the harder the better. I think I like them because I get so absorbed in the puzzles all else zips out of my brain. This includes writing a novel. For that reason I don't buy a daily newspaper at the moment for the sole reason that I don't want to get sucked in and lose hours of my life over a square of newsprint.

Thinking

I love thinking about writing. I can wake up and spend at least an hour mulling over the latest book or thinking up potential blog posts. I could delude myself that this mulling time is an essential part of my writing process, but the truth is I get on much better I start writing first thing. You do need thinking time, but it's best saved for other occasions like exercising, commuting or doing domestic chores.

Family

The chances are that your family is hugely disruptive to your writing. They interrupt writing time with questions "I won't be long, I just wanted to ask you..." or kindnesses "I thought you'd like a cup of tea and a biscuit." They want to go out now, or eat a meal now so you have to stop what you're writing and do whatever it is they want. If they are young they have an inexorable timetable of school runs and homework all of which comes just as you're writing the most important scene.

Domestic stuff

Things have to be pretty bad with the writing for this to be my procrastination of choice. Unless it involves spending serious money, like playing fantasy houses or dream kitchens, in which case it becomes more interesting. But I can honestly say that I have never chosen to do ironing, hoovering or dusting instead of writing.

The scary thing is, this is already one of my longest blog posts, and I could go on - but instead I shall go and do some proper writing.

What's Stopping You From Writing?

Sometimes writer's block is more serious than the usual reluctance to get going. What's stopping you from writing?

1. Fear of not living up to expectations.

This affects published writers - will my next book be as good? - and the unpublished - I've talked about my book for so long, it'll never be as good as everyone expects. I think you have to ask yourself what the alternative is to not writing a book. What would happen if you walked away from it? Sometimes looking at the alternative makes you less afraid of failure, whether it's because actually, the alternative isn't so bad or because you realise that all you really really want to do is write.

2. Fear of the internal editor

A lot of us have an internal editor who sits on our shoulder and tells us what we're doing is worthless rubbish. Sometimes the voice of the internal editor may be that of a former teacher or a parent. Try to visualise your internal editor. Then tell them to go away. Explain that you're busy writing and part of the process of writing is to write rubbish because we can edit it later. Writers often call the first draft the dirty draft. Accepting that your first (second, third...) draft is going to be rubbish is part of the writing process.

3. Fear of Rejection

This is a pretty obvious one. No one likes getting rejected. No one looks for it. And sometimes it hurts so much that we'd rather not expose ourselves to the risk that we might get rejected. So we don't write. That means our dreams of being a writer are safe. But...if we don't write, we're not writers.

Edison said in an interview: "after we had conducted thousands of experiments on a certain project without solving the problem, one of my associates, after we had conducted the crowning experiment and it had proved a failure, expressed discouragement and disgust over our having failed to find out anything. I cheerily assured him that we had learned something. For we had learned for a certainty that the thing couldn't be done that way, and that we could have to try some other way."

Think of writing as statistics. There are X number of publishers out there. At least one of them will publish you, but it may not be obvious which one. So you have to send out to lots of them before you get the right one - but, each time you get rejected, you're closer to finding the right one for you.

4. Fear of Success

A friend of mine confessed that she doesn't send her work out because she feels she couldn't cope if it was accepted - they'd demand another book for starters. So you're back to the fear of demands being made of you, and the fear of expectations. In fact, you don't have to write another book, you may well be offered a one book deal. But the one thing you can guarantee is that if you don't write it and send it out, you'll be offered nothing at all.

5. Wrong time, wrong place

I made lots of attempts at writing a novel and short stories in my 20s. None of them worked. In hindsight, I don't think I had anything that I really wanted to say. Later, when I started writing again some fifteen years later, the words flowed. This time I had things to say and was prepared to learn how to say them.

I've had times since when I've been completely unproductive as a writer. They're always associated with other things going on in my life such as the time I took on a job I loathed or my father's sudden illness and death. There's nothing you can do about this except trust that time will bring back the desire to write. Be kind to yourself.

5 Ways to Beat Writer's Block

These techniques are good if you need a bit of a kick start to get going.

1. Write for ten minutes about anything. Use an egg timer to time yourself if you like, but you'll probably get more written if you don't - getting going is usually the problem, not keeping going.

2. Give yourself permission to write rubbish. Brilliant writing in your head is worth less than the grottiest bit of writing on the page. Remember, you can always make it better later - that's what editing is for.

3. Don't write chronologically. If you're getting stuck on a particular scene then jump to a scene you do fancy writing. There are no extra points for writing in a particular order, all that matters is the finished product.

4. Close your eyes and visualise the scene. Think of the details - the location, the weather, the people. Then describe the scene, using the 5 senses. Hopefully you'll get started and then keep going. And if you can't keep going, then you've got some useful description that you'll probably be able to use anyway.

5. Team up with a friend and arrange to swap word counts on a daily or weekly basis. Even better, be part of a group where you have to announce your word count. It's amazing how the prospect of confessing to not having written will inspire you.

Most of the time getting over writer's block is a question of overcoming inertia; once you get going you can't stop writing. I'll look at more serious blocks tomorrow.

Publishing Money Flows in One Direction Only

Yet another story of another writer being scammed surfaced on Twitter last night. The writer had found it hard to get a publisher but had eventually found a literary agent. Full of delight they signed a contract and waited. The literary agent kept needing top-ups of money (I wasn't 100% certain why from the post). In the end, nothing had happened and the writer took the literary agent to a small claims court. However, the contract was very much in the agent's favour and the case was dismissed. The writer lost their money.

Please - publishing money flows in one direction only, from the publisher, through the literary agent if you have one and then on to you. A literary agent may have some expenses - in the past I've paid for copies of my books to be sent to co-agents and potential publishers abroad, I've paid bank transfer fees and once I paid for a copy of a manuscript to be couriered to a publisher. These expenses have been deducted from my earnings, as has my agent's commission. I have NEVER given my agent (or my publisher) any money.

A literary agent does not ask for fees up front. They might suggest you need additional editing. Some agents will do this as part of their service to clients, others may suggest you get some freelance editorial help, but they would never insist you use one particular editorial service. The money flows in one direction only.

It's one of the reasons it's so hard to get a literary editor or publisher. The agent is going to invest considerable amounts of time and money in a new writer, without any guarantee that a publishing deal will follow. That money may be thrown away. A publisher can't guarantee that they will sell enough books to make a profit after all the costs of printing and marketing are included - a surprisingly high number of books make considerable losses.

You want to be represented the literary agent who is so confident that they'll sell your book that they'll take the risk. You want to be published by the publisher who loves your book so much they can't believe that the public won't love it too. These people won't charge you money to be involved with your book because they believe in it.

The money flows one way only, from them to you. Any agent or publisher who charges you money is suspect.