Week Forty-Seven: Experimenting with Unusual Story Ideas

Sometimes you get an idea for a story set-up that doesn't fit what's selling out there, or you know most publishers would pull a face if presented with the idea. Yet you can't get it out of your head.

Amazon UK

That's what happened to me when I came up with my idea for the Stella Penhaligon mysteries.

Stella Penhaligon is an astrologer who helps the police with their enquiries.

As someone with a background in astrology, this was a fun idea for me. I could use all my knowledge and skill with astrology (basically my hobby for the past few decades!) and merge it with my knowledge and skill as a novelist (my job, in other words). 

The merger was a dream come true for me.

The only fly in the ointment was that my idea didn't fit with the kind of books I'd already been writing under my Jane Holland - very straight, hard-edged contemporary psychological thrillers. And I suspected that most publishers would have a hard time with an astrologer as a main character helping the police.

To add to this, I'd never before written a story with a police officer as a main character!

Yet I knew I wanted two main characters in this series - Stella, the astrologer, and DS Jack Church, the local officer with whom she has most contact.

Finally, I was aware of a need to make money as a novelist, which means not wasting time on books that might never get published. But also that self-published books provide a small amount of money to keep me ticking over from month to month, while book contracts can take anything up to six months to produce any income from the point of acceptance by a publisher, sometimes longer.

I approached my agent and we discussed this. I suggested that I self-publish a short series of novellas about these characters, and see how readers took to them. Thankfully, she agreed. (Coz she's amazing!!)

And so I sat down and wrote the first novella. It's called UNDER AN EVIL STAR. (See below for US link.)

The series is set in Cornwall, where I live, which feels like a suitably spooky, gothic region for a crime novella involving astrology.

A severed head is found by the police. Stella's father, a local vicar, is missing. She casts a chart to find him and falls under suspicion when the severed head turns out to be his ... But who would kill a vicar and why?

I put the novella on pre-order, and had a few sales come in at once. Not so shabby! So I made a space in my writing schedule and wrote a second and third novella, THE TENTH HOUSE MURDERS and THE PART OF DEATH. I then put all three on sale at Amazon.

All are now out on sale. Early days yet, but after a sluggish start, I changed the covers and sales have become more promising. I will need to leave it a while to get an overall sales picture, but if it seems worth doing, I may write a full-length Stella Penhaligon mystery in the next year or so, and see if any publishers would like to acquire it for a series.

Sometimes, you need to take a punt on an unusual idea, and hope it works out. Some ideas flop. Others need some massaging to succeed. What you need for them as a writer is CONFIDENCE and TIME. Be bold and write it, regardless of your fears that it won't succeed. Stay true to your vision and see it through to the end, never abandon the project partway through.

You can't tell if an idea is 'bad' until you've finished it, and that's a simple truth most newer writers don't get. Most writers have a tendency to panic, jump off too soon, and start afresh with a different idea. A "better" idea, or so they tell themselves. But they are likely to get scared again with this new idea and repeat the cycle.

Until you've gone the distance with a story and reached the end, you can't be sure if it was working or not. Because you can't see the pattern clearly when you're too close to the loom. Keep weaving, steadily and confidently, and not listening to internal or external voices, and when it's done, step back for a better look.

Only time will tell whether it was worth my while making these three novellas. Meanwhile, new readers are finding them every day. Will you be one?

UNDER AN EVIL STAR: AMAZON UK

UNDER AN EVIL STAR: AMAZON US

Week Thirty-Nine: Pitching Novels at the London Book Fair

So this week was the London Book Fair at Olympia, Kensington. I went along, as I usually do these days, met my agent, talked to my editors, went to several parties, chatted with fellow authors and a few publishers I may work with in future. And now my feet are throbbing and I'm laid up in bed with post-Fair flu.

But it was all worth it. Honest.

London Book Fair 2017

At the LBF, you will find thousands of publishers, editors, agents, and yes, even authors, from all over the world, and all under one roof for three days of buzz and excitement about books. Plus associated book-trade businesses and bodies, including bigger names like the Society of Authors, the Bookseller, etc. Then there's the Ivy Club, which hosts a special pop-up for the fair, with individual booths boasting luxurious leather sofas and armchairs, where all the top London agents do their deals. (Including my own agent, of course, dahling!)

All the fun of the fair, in other words, in one massive exhibition hall with free books and handouts on almost every corner!

Never traditionally an author-friendly event, the LBF has become increasingly more open to authors in recent years. There is the large Author HQ hub, for starters, an entire corner of the fair devoted to all things author. Amazon's KDP self-publishing company seems to sponsor much of this activity, and their team will happily talk to anyone who strolls up and asks about self or indie publishing. At Author HQ, you can hear writers talking to a large audience about their self-publishing successes, or even editors and agents disclosing what they're currently looking for ('A great story with strong characters,' is invariably the unhelpful answer). There's another area at the fair dedicated to children's publishing too, with talks that go on all day, also featuring writers and editors etc.

As an unpublished author, or if you're looking for representation, you can pitch to individual agents - possibly editors too - in the Author Hub if you book up a pitch slot well in advance. There's more about this on the London Book Fair website.

There are frequent launches and even publisher parties that sometimes allow you to drift in univited, especially if it's a smaller indie publisher. See what's on at the LBF website or look out for 'party here 6pm' notices. You can also hook up with fellow authors for a chat about trends and, ahem, any new gossip. Some of them may even stand you a coffee ... Thanks, Alison!

I often meet up with fabulous author Alison Morton at LBF for a good old book natter. This year we shared a table and a chat with John Jackson too, who's just landed a contract with Crooked Cat Books. Thanks to Anita Chapman for the pic!

If you're already published, and/or represented, the fair is a great place to meet your editor(s) and agent, and discuss the year before and the year ahead. You should ask them for a meeting slot a couple of months before the fair - which is an early spring event, usually April, though it was in March this year, which everyone agreed gave it a very different, slightly under-prepared feel.

NB

Everything I am about to say is my individual opinion, based on my own experience, which is fairly considerable but limited to certain areas of publishing. It's not gospel. Caveat lector.

Prepare well for this meeting. You may only get ten minutes, or up to half an hour if you're lucky, to pitch possibly several projects in a convincing manner. Wednesday is a good day for an appointment. Tuesday, everyone is getting settled in. Thursday, everyone is tired, especially by the afternoon, and may already be thinking about heading home, rather than listening to your pitch.

Don't over-dress for the occasion. You're not going for a modelling job or to seduce (not physically, anyway). But do wear something clean and smart-casual.

Writers can get away with a scruffy look as 'creatives' but generally only if they're men. Sexist, I know, but you could reduce your chances of a sale if you turn up looking like a bag lady. I rarely wear make-up but always slap some on for the LBF. I also dye my hair to remove a few grey hairs - only a few though, honest. I'm still practically a teenager. This year I wore black leggings and a black top on the first day - pretty low-key - but coupled it with a new suede jacket and a glitzy necklace. To meet my agent and editors at the Ivy Club, I wore black boots and a bright, slightly kookie, knee-length skirt with again, a plain black top.

Slightly crazed, but not actively terrifying. One hopes.

Dressing like you belong in an industry is the first step to getting into it. So while it may feel a bit superficial, do consider your look and what it says about you. And never drench yourself in perfume or body spray beforehand. It can make people uncomfortable and they'll soon want you to go away!

For the pitch itself, much will depend on your relationship with the person you're pitching to, and also your track record. Old hands in a longterm relationship with an agent/editor may be able to get away with very little by way of a pitch ('It's a Christmas romcom,' was one of my briefest pitches this year, which got a nod) while if you're newer to the business, or transitioning from one genre/publisher to another, you will almost certainly need to go into greater detail.

In some cases, the discussion may even become thorny and require delicate navigation to avoid looking like a total noob. Be prepared to answer difficult (often unanswerable, in my opinion) questions like, 'Who do you see as the readership for that book?' or 'What's its USP?' (Unique Selling Point).

This is my latest book: a domestic noir psychological thriller, in a nutshell. (Not literally in a nutshell. That would be weird.) 

Avoid answering, 'Blimey, I dunno,' to the first (even though it's probably an honest response) as you need to at least pretend to have considered such a question. 'Young professionals' would be better, or even something tighter like 'college-educated women between 18 and 60.' For the USP, if you're at a total loss, you could always try something equally buzzwordy, like 'Oh, it's a high concept premise.' Naturally, this won't wash well if it's, for instance, a gentle romantic novel where nothing unexpected happens.

So think about USP and readerships and longterm strategies and market placement (where your book might fit alongside other similar books) and also author branding. But don't get fixated on them. The story is still everything.

Author branding is where the publisher puts you in a box, composed neatly of whatever novels you normally write, and heaven help you if you decide you want to make a hole in that box later, escape and write something different. Branding will suit some writers better than others. But publishers do love branding their authors - ouch! - and if you can approach a hungry-for-series editor with a new series/brand idea that fits the current market, especially if it has a high concept USP, you're almost certain to get a yes.

For an example of a brilliantly constructed author brand, look at Alison Morton's 6-book Roma Nova series, starting with INCEPTIO.

Almost certain. Not a guarantee. Because there are no guarantees anymore. Not even with so-called 'safe' books that seem to fit the market perfectly.

In these troubled economic times, with the book trade shifting constantly under our feet, book people have become nervous types who want to hang onto their jobs. If your great new idea makes a loss, they're the first ones to suffer. So they're always looking for sure ground, for safe choices, for reasons to say no. Not reasons to say yes. Go into every pitch meeting with that caveat in mind.

Prepare, but don't look over-prepared. Don't clutch a synopsis sheet in your sweaty fist - or worse, a laminated sheet or something in a protective plastic wallet - and stare down at it while stammering out the printed words. Be relaxed, be natural, take a breath. Smile.

In film and television, pitching is a thirty-second art at entry level: fast, slick and honed. Bang, bang, bang ... and out. Things are gradually moving in that direction in fiction land too, but we're not there yet, thank goodness. Old habits die hard. Novelists pitching to agents and editors may not bother with much small talk anymore, under sheer pressure of time, but 'Hello, how are you?' for instance, is still incorporated into most pitching strategies.

For your actual pitch, first know the market as well as any author possibly can. As above, 'It's a Christmas romcom,' pins an idea down to a niche genre and even a seasonal market. Perfect. Details come only after you've laid that groundwork in the listener's head. If you've done good research, you might even suggest a publisher. 'It's a dwarves and sorcerers epic; Tor might be interested.'

If it's literary fiction, look confident and pitch that as a genre. 'It's commercial lit fic' won't necessarily turn them off (even if it's not likely to be commercial, pretend that it is and hope they accept that at face value; honesty is not always the best policy when pitching!). Some big lit fic books can make massive sales these days, especially if they are issue-based. Everyone loves a big issue they can get weepy over. (Not me personally. But then, I'm 'ard as nails.) All the same, your chances of a yes to lit fic will improve if you can throw some recent bestselling buzz-names in there: 'It's on similar ground to Jessie Burton/Joanna Cannon/Emma Healey' should make their ears prick up. Note the recent bit. Everything has to be new, new, new in publishing. Don't tell them it's like a Catherine Cookson novel, or they'll already be looking over your shoulder at the next person in the queue.

Be as specific as possible. 'It's a Christmas animal fiction feel-good novel for adults ...'

Once you have their attention with some firm market placement, pitch the story itself, starting with character. Character is vital to a pitch. Total lack of a plot will get you a no almost every time, of course. But if your character sounds intriguing, an interested agent/editor may try to help you improve the plot rather than give a flat no to a character description that's hooked them.

Beware of too much detail though. Details will bog you down and you'll lose sight of that USP.

'It's about this mother who ...' (Try to be emotive with your nouns: 'mother' or 'wife' will work better than 'It's about this woman.' I know, I know, what can I say?) Work in two or three key characters, quick as possible, and then tell the listener why they should care about them. Jobs can be useful shortcuts to building a character if all else fails. 'It's about this mother/wife/zoo keeper's assistant who's dying of [incurable disease/condition] and she wants someone to [look after her elephants etc.] when she's gone.'

Pressure is always a good way to make a pitch sound saleable. Unity of time, as Aristotle knew, gives even a mediocre plot that extra edge. 'There's this astronaut stranded on Jupiter and he only has fifteen hours to save all of mankind.' Make sure you turn the screw hard though. 'Unfortunately, he has to sacrifice his wife and baby son in order to save the world.' Who could resist that?

Which brings me to my next caveat.

Make sure you're pitching the right story to the right person. The editor who wants the Christmas romcom is unlikely to want the Jupiter astronaut story. An easy-going agent might take both, but most agents will be looking to steer you down a branded path if possible. One or two related genres only. Be aware of that when going in with five different book pitches all in different genres. You could look like a no-hoper without realising it.

'If this Western pitch doesn't work out, maybe they'll like my idea for a sci fi 7-book series set inside a black hole. Or my paranormal trilogy set in Basingstoke.'

Especially when approaching an agent for the first time, try to look like you work in one discrete area by only preparing pitches that fit that genre. Romance OR historicals OR crime, or subsets of these. Not all of them. At least for now. You can bamboozle them with something different once you've hooked them. Alternatively, if an agent says at the end, 'Is there anything else you'd like to write/you're working on?' that could be a signal they like you as a person/writer, but not the genre or ideas you've been pitching. Then you could say, 'Actually, yes, I'm also interested in giant alien bug attacks.'

Despite all these games and ploys, the best book pitches are natural and fit organically into the flow of the discussion. They should come across as more a conversation than a pitch, an easy give-and-take. Tell the story of the book, if you like, but keep it short and animated. If they interrupt a pitch to ask questions, so much the better. Don't answer briefly, with impatience, and then go doggedly back to your pitch. Let the pitch develop into an organic conversation. If their eyes glaze over at any point, move on quickly to your next idea.

And make sure you have a second idea. And a third, and even a fourth, if necessary. You may only need - or have time - to pitch one. So make it your best idea, the one you've prepared most for. But don't be surprised if they prefer the final, slightly desperate pitch you pull out of thin air at the last second, maybe something you thought up on the way to the meeting or that fell out of your mouth unexpectedly when you started talking.

The Borough Book Bash, held every month, is a London pub-based event open to anyone interested in publishing. Great place to network after LBF with up-and-coming editors and book folk, and also to get new Twitter followers, ahem!

Book people like pitching authors to be prepared and in control of their material. But they love raw. They love passion and edge and sheer buzz. They're always looking for that new thing, that big thing, that shimmering book just out of sight ...

So make sure you keep at least one back-up, half-formed, slightly crazy idea in your noddle. Not on paper, never on paper. And whizz that idea out if you think it's gone badly, and the agent is politely opening their mouth to say, 'Well, it was lovely to meet you ...'

If things go well, you may not need that crazy back-up idea. But it's there, just in case.
 
Most importantly, if pitching to someone you may work with over a number of years, make sure you can get on with that person. Hard to judge in a ten minute meeting, I know. But trust your gut. They'll be trusting their guts on the other side of the table. So if they say no, they may be doing both of you a favour. You need to find the person who clicks with you and your writing, so you can both make it a longterm working relationship, not a one or two-book deal.

Get an email address and hand over a card if you like, but the important thing is to make a real connection. That other stuff can come later.

Good luck!

Oh, and bring water and snacks. There are places to eat and drink at the book fair, but they're often very busy, and are also very expensive. And if you're female, watch out for those long queues for the loo, especially around lunchtime. Take something to read while you wait!

Week Twenty-Three: The Rehabilitation Of Lost Novels

If there's one thing most novelists have in abundance, it's failed or unwanted novels in the bottom drawer. And perhaps most of them deserve to be there, products of a mind not yet attuned to the rigorous demands of plot, structure, narrative.

But among those lost manuscripts, there may be the occasional gem. Something worth retrieving from that bottom drawer, dusting off, polishing, and resetting in a more publishable context.

Here follows the story of how my latest new release, MIRANDA, came into existence.

Thirteen years ago, I gave birth to twin boys, and immediately began to write a novel. It sounds strange, but I felt released by their birth like a sprinter by the starting pistol. You might think breastfeeding and caring for newborns twins should have kept me too busy to write. But at the time, I had not written for some years. I had been wandering in a creative desert, afraid of failure but thirsting for inspiration, and suddenly being granted that inspiration was like stumbling across an oasis.

So I jumped straight in and slurped up all the water!

Besides, these were not my first children, and in a way, the twins proved relatively easy to care for in those muddled early days after a birth. I had a loving partner who was only too happy to do his share, and two older girls for baby-minding, and the twins shared a cot and seemed to keep each other company, which meant fewer needy wakings between night feeds. So perhaps my situation was a little easier than most mothers of twins.

I had agreed to manage nights alone - as breast-feeding is a hard job to share! - so I bought a baby monitor and set up a temporary study for myself. Because within days of the birth, I had been blessed with an idea for a story. A story about the generations, about handing things on to your children. Not just possessions, but genetic material, memories, looks, personality, even secrets. The book had to be written, it would not be still. So I started to write, mostly at night, and kept an ear open for the babies over the monitor.

"Never resist when inspiration strikes, but get it down as quickly as possible."

Wasn't I tired? Well, oddly enough, no. I felt light as a bird in those first months after the birth. I felt as if I had slept all through that long, dragging twin pregnancy, and now I had been released from my burden and was floating!

I have never needed much sleep, and having to breastfeed twins gave me the perfect excuse to stay awake all night, then cat-nap during the day. It was a glorious experience, and I look back on that time as one of enhanced creativity, where I was totally alert and aware, and everything just flowed ... after years of stagnancy.

My partner's mother visited us during that period, and scolded me for being so self-indulgent as to be writing a novel when I should be concentrating on my newborns. Her disapproval was tangible. Mothers should not be writers, was her opinion. But I paid no attention. Babies don't know what you're doing when they're asleep. So I kept writing.

The book took six weeks to write. It wasn't a long novel, only 70,000 words. I initially called it THE BLOOD ARK, thinking about genetics, and after some tweaks, I sent out the first three chapters to a few agents, as my former agent had retired. None of them were interested. I had committed the cardinal sin of stepping away from my 'chosen' genre. My debut novel - about women in sport, marketed as chick-lit - had bombed, and this was a very different book. This was literary fiction, and there was no getting around that.

Easily disheartened, I put the novel away without any more attempts to place it. I decided it must be flawed beyond redemption if three or four agents had turned it down. (Yes, I was very naive.)

Being a bit deranged, I had got pregnant again when the twins were only six months old, and the new pregnancy and two house moves in quick succession were consuming my energy. Soon after that, I started writing erotic fiction to help pay the bills, and forgot all about THE BLOOD ARK. My literary novel in the bottom drawer. The book that had to be written, but would probably never be published.

"I can fix this book ... I just need more experience."

Enter Kindle Direct Publishing and the brave new world of self-publishing. And my own independent publishing venture that sprang out of that, Thimblerig Books.

I had long intended to resurrect my literary novel. But my memory of it was of a deeply flawed book that would need masses of rewrites and also be hard to place, having been written over a decade ago. Then this summer, I had a rush of blood, opened the ancient file, and started to read.

The book was a lot better than I remembered. Having written many novels since putting this one away, I saw at once how the structural issues - that had seemed insurmountable when I abandoned it in the early noughties - could be fixed with a few rigorous tweaks. I set to work, and after only a few weeks, the book was ready for copy-editing.

The biggest change, for me, was the title. It had been THE BLOOD ARK in my head since its inception. But now, with a stronger grasp of the market, I saw how that sounded too much like a thriller and would fail to reach the right readership. I toyed with various fashionable alternatives - titles with the words GIRL or WOMAN are very popular right now, as are curious phrases, like ALL THE LIGHT WE CANNOT SEE or ME BEFORE YOU. But in the end, I decided on something very simple. And more in keeping with the original inspiration for the story.

So I present to you MIRANDA, the novel of my postpartum insomnia, taken down, dusted off, tweaked and retweaked, edited and repackaged thirteen years on.

MIRANDA: on sale now at Amazon

No abandoned novel is ever entirely lost to the world. It can be neglected and forgotten, but you never know when it may resurface in your consciousness. So if you have any novels languishing in that bottom drawer, why not take them out and read them again? Take notes, be generous to yourself, look at them structurally above all else - structure is usually where you'll find the most serious flaws in an abandoned novel - and consider, from your position of greater experience, how they could be fixed.

Rewrite in sections, trying to avoid any major changes that will alter or over-write the DNA of your original idea. Novels, it seems to me, come to us with their themes intact. (Even if we don't recognise that at the time.) So when we rewrite in any major way, we risk destroying that thematic integrity. Too massive a change can 'corrupt' the original idea, to borrow a word from computing, and the book will always be flawed after that, however much we struggle to fix it.

Unfortunately, if the original concept was flawed, and only major rewrites that change the book's thematic structure can hope to fix it, you may be better off giving up and starting a new project instead. Some books are beyond redemption. (Often because of botched rewrites in the past, before you were experienced enough to understand what you were doing, or perhaps because of bad advice.) But it may be worth trying again later, because the more books you write, the more experienced you become as a novelist, and the greater the distance you are putting between yourself and any earlier, failed novels. You may also become either famous enough to make it financially worthwhile to brush off old material and resubmit, or poor enough to make it imperative that you find new books to flog.

So the convergence of these three factors is usually required before a writer can successfully mine for lost gold:

EXPERIENCE - Writing is a craft, and the better the craftsperson, the better the artifact. So no attempt at writing a novel is wasted, as you are learning all the time you are failing.

DISTANCE - Think of Henry James and his 'figure in the carpet' analogy. The closer you are to a failed work of fiction, the less likely you are to see the pattern clearly. Step back a few years, or even a decade, and what needs fixing may suddenly spring out at you.

NECESSITY - It's damn hard work, fixing a flawed novel. Only people with great need or too much time on their hands are likely to manage it without failing again. And no good novelist has too much time on their hands ...

In the end, only you can know for sure whether your abandoned novel is worth saving from that dusty bottom drawer. But if it is, rejoice. For there is no satisfaction like the rehabilitation of a long-lost story.

MIRANDA is published by Thimblerig Books on Friday August 21st 2015.

QUESTION: Do you have any old unpublished novels you want to resurrect and rehabilitate?

Week Twelve: The Company of Writers

RNA Conference 2014. Yes, that's me in the foreground. Photo by Anita Chapman.

My apologies for the late posting of this blog. I recently returned from a long weekend at the annual conference of the Romantic Novelists Association and have been recovering. Since the conference is what's uppermost in my mind right now, my blog post this week will be about the key reasons for novelists to attend a writers' conference, plus some associated thoughts.

Richard Lee (Waterstones, at podium) and Matt Bates (WHS Travel) talk sales to a packed lecture theatre, RNA Conference 2014

Conference-going can be exhausting. It does not have to be, you can always duck out and spend a few hours alone in your room, or go for a walk or drive to clear your head. But I spend so much of my life locked in a small room with my thoughts, I prefer to suffer exhaustion and not waste a moment of the conference experience napping or walking. When I am not much older, I suspect slipping away to my room will become a necessary part of staying the course, because it is genuinely tiring to get up early, go to bed late, move relentlessly from one session to coffee break to another session, chat with fellow writers, and perhaps attend the odd kitchen party, all for two to three days in a row. But for now, I'm still pushing through the pain barrier to make the most of my time there, albeit with a rictus grin on my face ...

So here are the chief reasons why a writer, especially one new to the industry and hoping to be published in the future, should attend a writers' conference. At a conference, we can:

• Swop horror stories about writing and publishing
• Allow ourselves fresh hope
• Develop a feel for the market
• Take the opportunity to show our work to agents and editors
• Bare our souls
• Drink deep
• Take (and compare) notes
• Learn from experts
• Give presentations and share our knowledge
• Become part of a community

Coffee time chat with fellow authors, RNA Conference 2014

At this year's RNA conference there was much talk of 'the death of the midlist', i.e. the increasing erosion of those writers and titles which are not expected to sell mega bucketloads, but normally sell a reasonable amount, and so get published but do not enjoy the kind of massive promotional push from their publishers that a writer such as Stephen King or Philippa Gregory might expect. (Ironically the kind of writers who desperately need that push are the ones who rarely get it, the financial risk being considered too steep.) Advances for midlisters are dwindling along with their sales, and publishers are dropping huge swathes of midlist authors in favour of brand-new faces or top-notch commercial hits. This cull is not about talent or market fit. It's simply about money and there not being enough of it to go round. So the new and the sure-fire get it instead of the cannon fodder.

There is no easy answer to this dwindling of earnings. Some writers have called for publishers to pay their authors larger percentages as royalties, and there is a case for this; the 8-10% we traditionally enjoy on paperback retail sales was fine back in the days before the collapse of the Net Book Agreement, when discounted sales were not permitted and most successful writers made a good living. Now though, with piracy and supermarket discounts and multi-media competition working against us, and our much-beleaguered books selling in far smaller numbers at knock-down prices, that meagre 10% barely allows us to earn out our advances - if we got one at all. Digital royalties are improving and approaching 30-40% in most places now, but of course digital prices are even lower. So we lose out both ways.

A drinks reception sponsored by Kindle Direct Publishing: some famous faces here ...

Conferences are places where the open discussion of such problems can happen in a wide arena packed with industry die-hards and newbies alike, some traditionally published, some self-published, some unpublished but ever-hopeful of success. But success has become a moveable feast. Success for writers used to be six-figure contracts and all the trimmings: book launches, posh dinners with agents, international tours. Now, for the midlist at least - the stalwart foot soldiers of publishing - it has become about selling enough to stay in work, even selling enough to stay alive. And it feels as though nearly everyone below superstar level is suffering, even those who seemed unassailable ten years ago.

So a conference not only gives us a chance to talk to our heroes and press our latest manuscript into the hands of agents and editors, it also allows us to discuss these industry failings en masse, and hopefully suggest remedies to each other.

Not that the remedy to publishing's current sickness lies in our hands alone. But we can suggest ways to continue making money from our art, to diversify, to seek new outlets for our writing, perhaps to leap into the wind and become publishers ourselves. And even though the outlook is bleak, there is still the solace of the company of other writers, other creative souls trapped in the same impasse, passing the bottle at some late night party in student accommodation ... just like the old days.

QUESTION: do you attend writers' conferences, and what do you hope to gain from them? Has attendance at a conference ever improved your writing and forwarded your career?

Week Seven: Learn To Love Your Synopsis

I've been writing a new synopsis this week, so this topic is of acute interest to me. The discussion that follows is an amalgam of several I have written before on the art of writing a synopsis.

What Is A Synopsis? 

Generally speaking, a synopsis is a short document, sometimes one page, maybe 2-3, in which you briefly describe your main characters and the chief action of your story. Leave out anyone and anything non-essential. It's not a blurb - i.e. cover copy. That merely sets out a scenario without giving you the end result. In the synopsis you must tell the reader not only how it starts, but how it ends. And you're in trouble if you don't actually know by now.

 

This is a selling document, so write and present it professionally. Check your spelling and punctuation. Try to sound sane. This may be your only chance to showcase your writing skills to a busy agent or editor.

Whatever you do, keep the synopsis easy to read and check that, even if the book is dark, it never feels depressing or dull. If you enjoyed writing your book, let it show in the synopsis. Let your story shine.

Be a great synopsis writer: it's never too soon to start taking your work seriously.

 

What's the Point of a Synopsis?

Writers hate the synopsis. It interferes with the old illusion that writing fiction is a mysterious creative process, handed to us by a lyre-playing Muse, to be messed with at our peril. It makes our writing feel like a grubby commercial venture.

But you have to tell agents and publishers what's in it for them, just as a blurb tells the reader what to expect inside the covers of a book. Though a synopsis is more than an extended blurb. It has to achieve a number of goals. First, and most importantly, it should tell the person reading it what happens in the book. Note, not what the book is about, per se, but what happens and in what order.

Produce professional-looking synopses

Don't Include Everything

That's trickier than it sounds. Good novels often have sub-plots that weave through the main plot. So should we mention those or leave them out? If they have a genuine bearing on the main plot, they need to be in the synopsis. If not, then we can safely leave them out.

Some synopses are only a page long. With two to three pages, you can afford to mention the milk-maid's dalliance with the master, which provokes the son to leave home and join the army, which makes the wife hate the husband - and the freckle-faced milk-maid - when her beloved boy is subsequently killed in action. Otherwise, just start with the granddaughter packing her bags years later ...

Only mention these subsidiary details in passing. A few words should suffice.

Basically, a synopsis should sketch out the plot, location and main characters without going into too much detail. It should convey genre, where appropriate. Best not to open though with 'This is a funny book.' Keep the slick one-liners for the 3-minute pitch.

But Always Tell Them How It Ends

One common thing writers feel instinctively when describing their stories in advance is that they shouldn't reveal the ending. 'I won't tell you what happens after that ... but it's very exciting.' We don't do that in the synopsis. It's a non-fictional document. It's like packaging. It should tell the buyer what's inside, and how many grams of fat, and is that saturated or Omega-3?

In the synopsis, we tell the editor precisely what happens at the end, and why. Yes, even if it's going to spoil it for them.

Be A Little Imperfect

Having said all that, the synopsis must be a flexible document above all else. It should be constructed like a house in an earthquake zone, to move subtly with changes of mind and heart. It should not resist such changes and tumble down, killing your protagonists in their beds. Agents and publishers have an infuriating tendency to ask for changes. Sometimes they ask for them at the start of the writing process and sometimes halfway through. (Or later, when the book is actually finished.) You will need to be open to those changes, and not have your story so tightly bound together that no daylight can be admitted between plot points.

So the ideal synopsis is a little imperfect: it should err on the side of being too lightly written, kept flexible, with gaps - rather than holes - left for the editor's input, and neither too pithy nor over-ornate. A synopsis should always suggest rather than state baldly.

Keep things flexible

A Collaborative Document

Never forget that your synopsis will become, in many cases, a collaborative document. Writing a novel isn't quite like writing a screenplay, but by the end of the process, a number of different experts - often with clashing views on how a novel or even a synopsis should be written - will have stuck their fingers in the pie of your story and cheerfully wiggled them about. So be prepared for interference and try to view it as helpful in most cases. By the end, you may no longer recognise the novel you intended to write. C'est la vie!

Not Written On Loo Roll

Sadly, the days of the writer as an eccentric genius who goes off into a hotel room for ninety days and emerges with a ground-breaking novel written on a roll of perforated paper are long gone.

The synopsis has become unavoidable for most people, and can be one of the banes of a writer's life. But it represents the key to the first gate of the contract, beyond which a writer may not pass without permission. This may not be ideal for every writer, and there is a strong case for rebellion. But while the people who pay our wages continue to say we have to produce them, it might be wiser simply to capitulate.

QUESTION: do you love or hate writing a synopsis, and have you got any tips on how to do it?