Week Forty-Six: Fiction in the Age of Coronavirus

We live in unprecedented, rather than interesting, times. In a few short weeks, ordinary life has become, well, extraordinary. Not to mention frightening. We have no idea what will happen next. Worst of all, some of us may die, or have loved ones who will die, a grim new reality made clear to us by politicians and news bulletins alike.

As writers, and especially perhaps as genre writers, we are accustomed to presenting the everyday and mundane in our novels, as an anchor for the otherwise outlandish world of our plots. As part of our skill set, we construct an accepted - and acceptable - fictional version of 'reality' as our characters know it and as our particular genres demand.

But what should we do when that 'everyday reality' has shifted sideways - almost overnight - and is now far from anything we have ever known in our lifetimes? When our realistic characters are now more likely to be in lockdown for anything up to half a year, and therefore unable to commit or investigate murders during that time frame, to meet friends or loiter in cafes, go to concert halls and theatres, travel anywhere beyond the end of their garden path - if they're lucky enough to have one - have sex, or fall in love? When apocalypse has actually become a thing?

We are at least used to the solitary life as writers. Self-isolating holds fewer terrors and issues for us than most other people working from home, I should imagine.

But as writers we are faced with a choice, it seems to me.

We stick our literary fingers in our ears - 'la la la' - and pretend we still live in that Other World, the one we inhabited roughly three weeks ago, and write characters who fit that lifestyle, despite the fact that it's becoming harder to envisage going out for a latte or booking a flight to Greece or dropping a book off at the library or sticking a knife between the vicar's shoulder blades ...

Or we accept that the world has changed, and therefore set our books in a speculative future world, when (hopefully) the coronavirus crisis has passed but is definitely still a thing. A world where characters may well be happy to murder each other - perhaps more so than ever! - but police are less well-equipped to investigate because of reduced numbers or shaky infrastructure, when sleek, Armani-clad executive heroes are few and far between because even the biggest companies have lost billions, and friends are less ready to shake hands or air-kiss on meeting, or new lovers to fall into bed together (just in case the infection is still around), and the world is financially on its knees.

 One of my writer friends said recently that it was becoming harder and harder, as she wrote her current novel, to remember what used to be normal everyday behaviour in a normal everyday world. Because that life and that world are both rapidly slipping away from our memories ... We are already adjusting to our new reality. Soon, even the most insistent coronavirus denier will find it hard to depict our world before the plague with any confidence, nor will readers believe in their now unrealistic reality.

And yes, what about reading fiction?

It seemed at first that people were eager to reach for plague fiction, for disaster and apocalypse novels, out of a ghoulish desire to mock this new reality with previous fictional versions of it.

But actually, it seems to me that people want to read about apocalypse because they are experiencing it first-hand, and instinctively need a fiction that reflects their strange and uncertain new reality.

Of course, as the horror continues, that urge may change. People may grow weary of finding reality in their fiction, and will turn to fantasy instead. Even though that 'fantasy' may simply be a contemporary book set before the virus, in the comforting pre-2020 world they remember ...

I think we ignore coronavirus at our peril as writers. (Though agents and publishers may well ask us to, fearing the saleability of any genre fiction that flirts too closely with reality.) Even historical writers may find themselves instinctively choosing plague periods for their next novels. Of course, we may all have pre-corona novels in hand, and can't suddenly introduce global death and disaster partway through a light-hearted romance or a chilling murder mystery, even though that is exactly what has happened to all of us, out here in Corona Land.

All of our lives have been INTERRUPTED by the virus and nothing will ever be the same again. How could it be?

We won't all come out from self-isolation or lockdown in four to six months and find life continues as usual. The virus may slow, but it won't disappear completely. And by then, many things we once took for granted - food chains, coffee shops, street vendors, household names, even global transport infrastructure - may have been irreparably damaged by a long income freeze or simply gone bust in the meantime. And some publishers and bookstores may even be on that list ...

I don't have any answers, I'm afraid. I only have questions.

But when we've finished writing our current books, do we continue in the same vein, as virus 'deniers' in fiction terms at least, on the grounds that most people, terrified by what is happening around them, must inevitably want to read about a world BEFORE the virus, because they find that lost reality easier and more comforting to experience?

Or do we start to write books set in the real world, in the post-virus world, where our characters and their choices reflect our own uncertainties in the age of coronavirus?

P.S. My latest publication is UNDER AN EVIL STAR (oh, a prediction!!) out last month, first in a new crime thriller series.

Only 99p/99c for the ebook.

Please consider buying if you'd like to support my writing. Thank you.

Under An Evil Star on Amazon UK

 

Under An Evil Star on Amazon com (USA)

Week Forty-Five: Making Use of Fabulous HOW TO WRITE Resources!

Sometimes, even experienced writers need to take an overview of their writing, research how to move between genres, or just take a breather and look at how other writers build their careers.

For new writers, learning how to do things professionally, or getting hints and tips that prompt fresh writing or help them shift up a gear career-wise, can make the difference between finishing and giving up, or getting a book ready for publication. (See below for a list of fab 'how-to-write' research books, all ON PROMO right now!)

I am a bestselling author who writes in several different genres and publishes with some of our so-called 'Big 5' UK publishers. Yet I frequently consult 'how to' books, and in some cases would never sit down to plan a new book without checking some of my favourite 'how to' manuals.

My mother, Charlotte Lamb, published over 170 novels during her 30-year writing career and was a global million bestseller. She absolutely adored 'how-to-write' books and bought every one that she found on sale. She had a whole bookcase devoted to those books near her desk in her study.

My mother was adamant that good writers never stop learning. She loved sitting down in her spare time to study such manuals and make notes, even for genres she didn't write in. And she passed that obsession on to me ... :)

As for me, I not only write bestselling fiction, but also 'how-to-write' books!

In fact, I have several Writing Prompt books available for Thrillers, Romances, Poetry, and How To Write A Novel In A Month.

Look, my 'how-to-write' book is only 99p this week!

 

Best of all, one of my top-selling 'how-to-write' books is on a 99p promo right now, along with some fellow writers with their own writing books, all at reduced prices!

My 99p book is '21 Ways To Write A Commercial Novel' and is based on this very blog, containing huge amounts of writing tips, plus various industry anecdotes about being a professional writer - not just from me, but also from a range of other novelists. 

Bursting with up-to-date information and entertaining anecdotes from the world of writing and publishing, this guide also features helpful comments on writing from both new and established writers, including Rowan Coleman, Katie Fforde, Judy Astley, Lesley Cookman, Nuala Ni Chonchuir, Alison Morton, Elizabeth Moss and many, many others.

A goldmine of advice for writers from an author of over thirty commercial novels under various pen-names, including an award-winning novel, WITCHSTRUCK, and a UK number one Kindle bestseller, GIRL NUMBER ONE.

Why not check out some of these fab 'how-to-write' or publishing industry books below, all on promotion this week?

Or see this wonderful 'how-to-write' page from Rhoda Baxter, displaying all these titles with covers and Buy Now buttons.

Nina Harrington - How to Write Short Romance	https://www.amazon.co.uk/Write-Short-Romance-Kindle-Books-ebook/dp/B00UDP3XBU	B00UDP3XBU
Liz Fielding - Little Book of Writing Romance	https://www.amazon.co.uk/Fieldings-Little-Book-Writing-Romance-ebook/dp/B006YQCE5I/	B006YQCE5I
Kate Harrison - Pitch Power	https://www.amazon.co.uk/Pitch-Power-discover-makes-irresistible-ebook/dp/B081HDC6F3/	B081HDC6F3
Liam Livings - Marketing the Romance	https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B07DW9R6GJ/	B07DW9R6GJ
Jane Holland - 21 ways to write a novel	https://www.amazon.co.uk/21-Ways-Write-Commercial-Novel-ebook/dp/B00TRPN8I0/	B00TRPN8I0
R Baxter and J Lovering - How to write Rom Com	https://www.amazon.co.uk/Write-Romantic-Comedy-Rhoda-Baxter-ebook/dp/B07RL6YR7W/	B07RL6YR7W

Guest Post: Chris Hill sings the Song of the Sea God

Today we have another guest writer on 52 Ways To Write A Novel - Chris Hill, author of SONG OF THE SEA GOD and THE PICK-UP ARTIST.

Lovely to have you here, Chris. 

First off, could you tell us a little bit about yourself and your background?

Thanks for having me along today, Jane, it’s a real pleasure to be here! I live in Gloucestershire and I’m married with two towering teenage sons and a Cockerpoo called Murphy. I spent a lot of years as a journalist working on regional newspapers in the UK - I started as a reporter and finished as an editor. Now I work in PR for a children’s charity called WellChild who provide nurses for seriously ill children so they can be cared for in the family home rather than hospital. I’ve always written fiction, I started with short stories and improved over time, winning a few awards including the Bridport Prize. Later, I progressed to writing novels.

What are your ambitions for your writing career and which writers inspire you? 

I’d like to write a book I feel entirely proud of, something I think is the best thing I could possibly write. I doubt it will ever happen. Most things I write I just try to make the least bad they can be. My books are all different from each other, which I know makes no sense commercially but it pleases me. All authors inspire me - all of them, good ones, bad ones, self-published, small press, big publisher. I think writing books and stories is a tremendous thing for people to be doing, we hold a mirror up to society, we are its conscience and its soul. That’s no small thing to be involved in.

What have you written and/or are writing at the moment?

I’ve had two books published so far. Song of the Sea God (Skylight Press 2012) which is literary fiction, a kind of creepy fairytale about a man who comes to a small island off the coast of Northern England and convinces the locals he is a god. And The Pick-Up Artist (Magic Oxygen Publishing 2015) which is an off-beat rom com about a young man’s hopeless attempts to find love with the help of  PUA movement who claim to be able to use psychological techniques to attract the opposite sex.

I have another one done, a crime novel based on my years as a reporter. It’s sitting in a drawer waiting for me to dust it off and find a publisher. There’s also a short story collection I’d like to find a home for. And I’m currently working on a new novel which feels like it’s going to be a sort of thriller. Most of what I write can be appended with the word ‘quirky’ for which I feel equally cursed and blessed.

How much research do you do?

It depends on the book I think. For Song of the Sea God I had to do all sorts of reading around ancient myths and religions, for The Pick-Up Artist I learned about the rather murky world of the PUA movement. For the crime book I’d lived it as a crime reporter over a number of years but I did a fair bit of fact checking on technical details.

When did you decide to become a writer, and why do you write? 

I’ve been writing fiction pretty much since I learned to write I suppose. Scraps at first in notebooks, then proper stories and later novels. I don’t know why I write except I feel compelled to. I don’t necessarily enjoy it that much, it can be a chore, though I do feel better during periods when I am doing it. Less fidgety, more at peace with myself.

Do you write full-time or part-time?

I’ve always worked full time and I have a family so I’m one of those people who write around the day. That’s probably one reason why it takes me so long to finish anything. I quite like it this way though, I don’t think I’d change it even if I could. 

Do you have a special time of day when you like to write or a special place where you feel most creative or hard-working?

I carry a notebook around in my man-bag and scribble in it in all sorts of places - on the bus often. But I also need to sit down in front of the laptop in the evening a few times a week and work in that more organised and focussed manner.

Are you a plotter? Do you tend to work to an outline or synopsis, or are you a 'pantser', someone you prefers to see where an idea takes you?

I have a kind of middle way. I do some planning at the outset and more as I go along. I like to know where I am going to end up from the start but I don’t have a complete roadmap of the entire journey. We all find our own way of working of course but for me this feels like having my cake and eating it.

How long on average does it take you to write a book?

It takes me about two years in all, one for the first draft, one for rewrites, and I procrastinate a lot before I even get started. I don’t suppose I will ever be particularly prolific!

Do you ever get writer’s block?

Not as such, though I do take a long time to get started and then a long time to write anything to the level where I am satisfied with it. I do envy writers who talk about having crashed out a book in just a few months.

Ha, I'd better not rub it in then that I wrote my last 100,000 word novel in 9 weeks. Do you read much - I know I find it hard to make time for reading these days - and if so who are your favourite authors? Is your drug of choice fiction or non-fiction? Any particular kind?

I’m always reading, I don’t think I could trust a writer who didn’t read. It’s mostly fiction though I go through non-fiction periods too. I read literary fiction mostly but I have read books in most genres too I suppose, over time. My first love was the work of the American novelists of the last half of the 20th century - now recently deceased. People like Updike, Heller, Vonnegut, Bellow. They combined fabulous writing, great narrative voices and amazing plots and characters. But since then I’ve spread my interests fairly widely.

For your own reading, do you prefer ebooks or 'proper' books? (Personally, I love an improper book.)

It’s dead trees all the way for me. I do have a Kindle and have read books on it but for all kinds of reasons: emotional, physical, nostalgic, sensory, I prefer a book made of paper. There was a report recently in the media about the decline in ebooks and the resurgence of print ones. I’m sure there’s room for both but I don’t see print disappearing when it comes to books. Newspapers are a different matter. 

What are you reading at present?

The last three books I’ve read have been A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers, The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath and I’m half way through American Gods by Neil Gaiman. All wonderful books in their own way and an eclectic selection as always.

Tell us about your book covers and how they came about, and do you think that the cover plays an important part in the buying process? 

I suppose it must be important though personally I don’t think I have ever bought a book because of the cover. I work with my publishers on them. Small press publishers tend to be quite collaborative so I’ve enjoyed the process. We’ve discussed ideas, I’ve shown them covers I like and so on. With Song of the Sea God I even gave them photos I liked which were taken by a friend of mine on Walney Island where the book is set, and one of those ended up on the cover.

How do you market your books, and do you have any advice for other authors on how to market their books?

I do PR and marketing for my day job so it’s a bit of a busman’s holiday for me, that side of things. I enjoy social media and blogging. I don’t think there’s a magic bullet; awareness grows over time. At my last book launch, my eldest son was with me. After about the fifth person had come up to me like an old friend because they knew me online, my lad said: “Wow dad, you might not be famous, but you are Twitter famous.”

What part of your writing time do you devote to marketing your book, and is there any marketing technique you've personally used that had a strong impact on your sales figures? (We all want to know this!)

I’m doing less at the moment as I’m between books - I get on it a lot more when I have a new one out but I always try to be classy and not bang people over the head with my ‘product’. That’s a big turnoff for all of us, isn’t it? I don’t think you can beat physically standing in front of people at events and talking to readers. I do that when I can.

I quite enjoy clouting people over the head with my books. Thanks for coming along to chat to us today, Chris. How can readers discover more about you and your work?

My website

https://www.chrishillauthor. co.uk/

Facebook

https://www.facebook.com/ chris.hill.3726

Twitter

https://twitter.com/ChilledCH

Song of the Sea God

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Song- Sea-God-Chris-Hill/dp/ 1908011556

The Pick-Up Artist

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Pick- Up-Artist-about-Dating- Digital/dp/1910094161

Guest Post: Su Bristow on the writing of SEALSKIN

This week, novelist Su Bristow shares with us the mechanics and mystery behind the writing of her debut novel, SEALSKIN.

SEALSKIN: Amazon UK

SEALSKIN

What happens when magic collides with reality?

Donald is a young fisherman, eking out a lonely living on the west coast of Scotland. One night he witnesses something miraculous ... and makes a terrible mistake. His action changes lives - not only his own, but those of his family and the entire tightly knit community in which they live. Can he ever atone for the wrong he has done, and can love grow when its foundation is violence?

Based on the legend of the selkies - seals who can transform into people - Sealskin is a magical story, evoking the harsh beauty of the landscape, the resilience of its people, both human and animal, and the triumph of hope over fear and prejudice. Rich with myth and magic, Sealskin is, nonetheless, a very human story, as relevant to our world as to the timeless place in which it is set. And it is, quite simply, unforgettable.

Su Bristow: Hi Jane, and thank you for the invitation to write a guest post for 52 Ways To Write A Novel.

My debut novel, Sealskin, came out in February this year, published by Orenda Books. Does that qualify me to talk about how to write a novel? Of course not! All I can do is tell you how I wrote this one. The process will certainly be different next time; for a start, Sealskin took years to write. I don’t think I’ll ever match your speed, but it won’t take quite so long the second time around. I’ve learned – I hope! – a thing or two along the way.

But I do have a day job, so writing happens when other things don’t. And a lot of the process, for me at least, happens when I’m not sitting at the computer. Bits of plot fall into place, characters develop, and whole passages of dialogue unroll themselves while I’m walking, or gardening, or driving; anything that doesn’t need full concentration. The actual word count doesn’t tell anything like the whole story.

That’s true for most people who write, of course, but I gather it’s quite unusual not to have blizzards of post-it notes around your desk, or time-line diagrams, lists of characters and so forth. All of that was inside my head until I actually came to write it down. Is it more or less efficient that way? Well, I did try writing notes now and then, but I never looked at them again, so they were pretty much redundant.

Author of SEALSKIN: Su Bristow

However, Sealskin is a retelling of a legend, so the basic structure of the story was already there. I knew how it started and how it ended; my job was to colour in the picture, add some twists and turns, and make sense of the huge moral anomaly at the heart of the story. For those who haven’t come across it before, the story comes from the west coast of Scotland, and it tells how a young fisherman witnessed a marvel one moonlit night: nine seals came ashore, took off their skins and became young women, dancing naked on the beach. He hid one of the skins, so that one of the selkies – as they are called – could not go back to the sea, and he ‘took her home to be his wife’.

And there’s the problem. Is this really a sweet, sad, romantic tale? It’s usually told that way, but the selkie woman has no choice, and certainly does not consent. She mourns for her lost life, and when the chance comes to return to the sea, she does not hesitate, even though, by then, she has human children whom she has to leave behind. As a younger woman, I might have told it as another example of how women can be used by men, tricked into servitude for sex, domestic labour and childbearing. But these days I’m more interested in how people find their way through the traumas that life deals out, and how getting it wrong at first can teach us, if we’re willing, how to get it right for ourselves and for others. After all, I’ve spent most of my working life helping people to do just that.

So I decided to tell the story from the point of view of Donald, the young fisherman. How did he come to do this dreadful thing? And if he came to regret it and tried to make amends, how would that work? I told it in deep third, so that we are always inside his head.  That was partly because Donald himself – at least at first – has trouble seeing things from other people’s point of view, but also because I wanted to follow his emotional and spiritual journey as he slowly, painfully, begins to grow up through his love for Mairhi and his desire to atone for his crime. There is no omniscient narrator: we see the way people change through Donald’s own eyes, and through what they say and what they do. And as Mairhi herself never speaks – or at least not in words – we have only her actions to give us clues to her inner life. Like Donald, we have to learn to interpret what we see and experience. Showing, not telling, was definitely the name of the game.

I won’t say too much about the twists and sub-plots in the novel, for those who haven’t read it yet. But as I arranged it into the short chapters that some people have commented on, I had in mind the action of waves on the shore: most of them small, only changing things a little, and from time to time a bigger, more dramatic one, that leaves the landscape different and sometimes almost unrecognisable. Each wave brings something, and takes something away. Land and sea are joined in an eternal dance. They can’t be united, but there is mutual dependence. That’s one of the major themes of Sealskin, played out through all of the characters in the book.

Thanks for those insights, Su! 

I very much enjoyed reading Sealskin, and can see why it has capitvated so many readers. 

Don't get concerned about your way of working though. Some novels I've written have required complex timelines on whiteboards - mostly multiple point-of-view historicals - while other novels, like the psychological thriller I finished writing today, had nothing down on paper except a 2-page synopsis from which I strayed quite far at times. The notes happened in my head. 

So it may be down to the book in hand. Not necessarily a process we choose, or one which is good or bad, or more problematic than any other, for instance, but a response to the task we set ourselves when we write the first line of a new novel.

Best of luck with your next project! - Jane

SELECTED PRAISE FOR SEALSKIN 

‘An extraordinary book: original, vivid, tender and atmospheric. Su Bristow’s writing is fluid and flawless, and this is a story so deeply immersive that you emerge at the end, gasping for air’ - Iona Grey

‘An evocative story, told with skill and beauty, that held me spellbound until the very last page’ - Amanda Jennings

‘Sealskin is the most exquisite tale of love, forgiveness and magic. Inspired by the legends of the selkies, this gorgeous novel is a dark fairy tale, an ode to traditional storytelling, a tribute to the stories we loved hearing as children. But be warned – this is no happy-ever-after tale. The language is just glorious, poetic and rich but precise. And her characters – oh, they will remain in your heart long after you’ve closed the last page. Mairhi – especially since she never really “speaks” – is a beautiful mystery, but one who haunted me when I was between chapters. If this is her first, then I can’t wait to read whatever Su Bristow bestows upon the literary world next’ - Louise Beech

Buy Sealsin on Amazon here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Sealskin-Su-Bristow-ebook/dp/B01MSUB9W6

 

   

Week Thirty-Seven: Six Steps To Writing A Page-Turner

This week sees the publication of my second psychological thriller, LOCK THE DOOR.

Amazon UK: LOCK THE DOOR (only 99p)

Early readers have very kindly described this new novel as 'Simply compelling' (Andy Martin, crime writing expert and critic) and 'Exhilarating ... heart-pounding' (Rachel's Random Reads) as well as variously complimenting its 'pacing', 'momentum' and 'urgency'. 

So I thought I'd write a 'how to' post on creating that all-important quality in a thriller, that of being unputdownable or a page-turner. And to keep it simple, as I could waffle on forever on this topic, I'm restricting it to six steps.

Step One - Write action/reaction-only at the planning stage

If you're not a planner, you might as well stop reading now. My advice will be lost on you, and that's fine. But for planners, the outline or synopsis is where you will make your first errors in terms in creating a page-turner. So don't plot a story that starts before the main action.

For instance, young mum Jane is sitting in her house one day when her grandmotherly neighbour knocks and asks her round for tea and fresh-baked scones. They discuss knitting, and then Jane leaves to pick up her kids from school. Later, her husband bursts in and discloses that he has just inadvertently killed their neighbour's husband and hidden him in a wheelie bin. STOP. Go back and start the story with the husband bursting in ...

Readers are sophisticated. They can join up even invisible dots! So a couple of sentences about the delicious whiff of her neighbour's excellent scones  - perhaps the unfortunate woman is seen baking them as Jane and her careless husband hurry past her house with a curiously overladen wheelie bin - would be sufficient backstory/character revelation here.

When planning, think hard about pace and impact. Don't draft in backstory. Write in blocks of action and reaction instead. Start running and keep running, in other words. Otherwise your reader may put down the book at a quiet moment and go off for a scone, and perhaps never come back.

Her husband stuffed the old man's lifeless body back inside the wheelie bin and slammed the lid shut just as the patrol car rounded the corner ...

Step Two - Use dialogue to leapfrog or break up prose description, and impart info

Prose description can be very important for setting a scene. But you need far less of it than you perhaps realise, at least if you want to write a page-turner. A whole paragraph - or three - on how lovely the sparkling sea looks in summer, and you may have just lost your place on the bestseller list. Snip it down to a sentence here, then another later on. The same applies to character description or identifying and describing a new location. Yes, you need these. But make it a few bold pencil strokes, not a leisurely watercolour.

Maybe the book is all about atmosphere and local colour though. You need those descriptions to augment the sinister feel of the physical backdrop. One way to deal with that is to interleave descriptions with bursts of dialogue. This breaks them up for the rapidly moving eye of the reader, and increases reading pace without stinting on local colour. Most writers end up doing this naturally. But sometimes you get weary and can't see how to avoid the weight of description.

If your character is alone, maybe exploring an environment or locked in a room, you can bring in a line or more of dialogue from earlier and repeat it in italics, with some reaction perhaps. That's your narrative character 'remembering' a previous conversation. A bit cheesy, maybe. But again, it can break up the paragraphs and make the pages turn faster. Or have a phone ring. 'Hello?' etc. Or a text message arrive. Anything to increase interaction.

Whatever you do, don't TELL the reader plot information in a prose paragraph. Always use dialogue to impart new plot information or discuss events if you possibly can - even if this means making them WAIT until the next chapter. (Tip: another way to keep the pages turning is to sneakily withhold vital information, or dripfeed it over a number of chapters.)

Step Three - Use short sentences in your prose. No, even shorter than that.

Verbose sentences stuffed with meandering clauses and pretentious semi-colons are strictly for literary fiction and those who feel a prize nomination coming on. You want to write popular, page-turning, mass market fiction, you have to use short, eyecatching sentences. Especially if they feel highly informal and don't involve verbs. You may even need to resort to italics (or even capital letters) on very special occasions, but I wouldn't recommend going too far down the ornate route, as that can rapidly become tiring for the reader.

Like this?

NO.

This.

Step Four - On a similar note, avoid being too formal in your phrasing

To help people turn the pages in large numbers, you need to get their confidence en masse that you can tell a story that will please, intrigue, excite and engage them. See above.

But this isn't just about the mechanics of writing shorter sentences. It's about using verbs to catapult an action off the page. It's about not being afraid to be casual in your references and phrasing. It's about using abbreviations like 'I'm' and 'can't' as the norm, not simply in dialogue but within prose paragraphs too.

The majority of your readers are also television watchers and film-goers. They tweet and share on Facebook. They text each other in informal ways. They communicate via email, both at home and work. You need to sound like you're one of them. Or they'll reject you.

'Cup of tea, love?' Mrs Crumbles asked the intruder as he lumbered towards her tea trolley, swinging a blood-stained axe ... She always had been a little shortsighted.

Step Five - Keep Your Main Characters In Crisis

Characters that are not in a state of crisis can be lovely. But they're not always terribly engaging for readers, especially if you're aiming for suspense. In real terms, this means making sure there are no scenes in your novel that do not need to be there in order to advance the story in some quantifiable way. No aimless, character development chats over tea. See step one above.

Or incorporate the chats, if you must, but squeeze them in alongside plot developments. Have the chat in a car screaming at top speed toward a developing crime scene. Have the chat with one character dangling another character out of a window.

Okay, I'm pushing the envelope here. But seriously, check that scene is required. Otherwise you run the risk of boring the reader.

Step Six - Keep Asking Questions

A book needs to ask a question that will intrigue the reader enough to keep reading. This can - and probably should! - happen from as early as the first sentence, or at least paragraph. I don't mean it has to be a literal question. Sometimes an intriguing first line will ask a question simply by virtue of an intriguing premise or implied backstory. 'I write this sitting in the kitchen sink.' (I Capture The Castle, Dodie Smith) Why on earth the kitchen sink? Wouldn't a desk or chair be more comfortable? So immediately you're asking questions about what kind of narrator would kick off their story in such an informal way, and yet in a curiously formal, almost stylised manner. Themes or ideas can ask questions too, not just quirky narrators. 'It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.' (A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens.) How can these two apparently contradictory statements be true simultaneously, we ask? And so we read on, curious to find out ...

The best page-turners often start with a huge, impenetrable question, and don't answer it with any degree of truth or accuracy until the final chapter. That takes massive skill, as the reader still needs a series of smaller questions along the way, or semi-answers, to keep them reading through to the big reveal. Good luck!

But maybe you have to answer that first question on the first page, or at the end of Chapter One. What then? Well, then, you ask another question. Preferably at the very end of the chapter. The reader frowns, and turns over. What the hell, they think?

Then they reach the end of Chapter Two, and blimey, there's another question. The heroine is clinging by her perfectly manicured nails to the edge of a cliff, with the waves washing to and fro hundreds of feet below. The reader pauses, glances at the clock, then reads on, sure there's no way the character can survive this time ...

The main thing with a page-turner is to stop the reader feeling able to stop reading and put down the book. It's cruel sometimes, but they'll thank you for it. Everyone loves a page-turner!

So ask a big question at the start, and try not to answer it until the end of the book. Until the very last page, if you can get away with it. And keep asking smaller questions all the way through. Even ending a chapter with something ostensibly tiny and insignificant like, 'The telephone began to ring ...' will make a reader turn over. Why would they do that? To find out who is calling, of course. Then you just have to make sure it's an interesting, plot-moving call, and lo, they are hooked again!

So there you are, friends. Six simple steps to writing a page-turner. Go to it!

My latest page-turner is LOCK THE DOOR: Amazon UK, Amazon US

Week Thirty-Six: Blogging A Novel Live

So Nanowrimo has finished for another year, and some people will have novels to edit, others will still be finishing, some may even have published their Nano novels already and be promoting them.

I am still finishing my Nanowrimo project, which is an ongoing thriller. Now about 10K words shy of the finishing line, plus edits and checks.

Hopefully that means it will be all ready for my agent to see in another week or so, since I'm the sort who sweeps assiduously behind me as I go along, making post-novel edits a fairly short and painless process. (Until editorial suggestions come in, that is!)

Meanwhile, I have also been doing something very new and a little scary.

DUNE, by Frank Herbert. A superb science fiction novel that was deeply influential on me as a young writer ... and also happens to feature tons of sand. Just like, ahem, Chapter One of my own first sci fi novel, THE CELL.

For the past six weeks, I have been 'blogging a novel'.

Basically, this means publishing one segment per week at roughly the same time. And because I only had just over two thousand words written when I started, it also means I've been writing it on the hoof and publishing straightaway.

An alarming prospect for a perfectionist like me!

You can find the blog here. The working title for this novel is, THE CELL. And it is clearly now a science fiction novel.

I wasn't sure at the outset if it would be science fiction. I knew it would be experimental in some way. But it's now clearly sci fi.

The first few thousand words of THE CELL are based on an uber-short story of the same name that I wrote for a 2012 Salt Publishing anthology called Stories To Read Aloud.

It's basically a character piece that I massively enjoyed writing, and I wanted to give that very rich character her own novel-length story. But I couldn't continue in the same vein for a whole novel, or didn't want to, as it was set in the world of a third century female Christian hermit living alone for years in the Egyptian desert!

The only way I could think of to turn her story into a likely commercial novel was to have a present-day character narrating alongside her with some link to the past. Slipstream, in other words. Maybe a researcher or a modern-day hermit of some kind. Which was an interesting idea, but not a story I felt compelled to tell. Hence not moving forward with that.

So five years down the line of turning this issue over in my head, I went to a talk by Catherine Fox at the RNA Conference, who discussed blogging her novels online, and how the whole process worked.

So I decided to do it myself the same way, and have started to blog the novel in weekly instalments, hoping this would force me to make a decision. And of course it did. By the third instalment, I knew what I wanted to do, and that was to write a science fiction novel. Which was, of course, startlingly different from my opening with a desert hermit ...

But I hope I've managed to make this shift in a convincing and gripping way. You decide!

Read Chapter One here.

What is it they say ... ? When in doubt, have someone walk through the door with a gun. In this case (hurriedly checks genre of novel), a ray-gun.

As far as blogging a novel goes, it's an odd situation. I am trying to publish each new 1-2 thousand word segment, which I'm loosely calling a chapter, at the weekend. So far on a Saturday morning, but that's likely to change as the weeks go on, and I get more stressed or stuck etc.

Catherine Fox said she felt two thousand words was a good length for a post, but I wasn't sure I could commit to two thousand words a week, every week, for over a year, when I have so many other books on the go. So I have opted for one thousand minimum. (Though one chapter so far has been over twice that amount, so it's pretty variable.)

Late in the week, I start thinking about what I'm going to write, and usually sit down to write the 'chapter' on a Thursday or Friday. I have to check back first, and again during the writing, to ensure good continuity in terms of tone as well as action. I try to begin and end each 'chapter' in a suitably gripping manner, to compel readers to continue reading or - if they're new to the story - to want to glance back at earlier chapters and find out what else has happened. At the moment I have two very different narrators, but may include other voices, I'm not sure.

And not being sure what's ahead is part of the fun, and the experience, of blogging a novel once a week, from scratch. When you publish a novel, it's usually been written, edited, checked, thought about almost to death, before the reader even sees the cover. When you blog a novel live, while it's still being written, everything about the usually hidden and mysterious process of constructing a novel becomes transparent and makeshift, even a little rough around the edges.

There may be changes made further down the line. Mistakes, perhaps! Wrong turns and glaring errors. I don't know.

Good grief, I have NO IDEA what happens next ... and this instalment is due out in two hours!

Of course, you could blog a novel that's already completed. But I'm not sure what the point would be. For me, this is a relatively painless way of getting a novel written that might otherwise never be given the time. And making it public like this also ensures I'm more likely to continue, as it could prove embarrassing if I give up and stop halfway.

To recap, blogging a novel as you write it is an interesting thing to do if you can spare a few hours a week, and have a project that's unlikely to be commercial. Because, let's face it, you should probably save commercial projects for selling to a publishing house or self-publishing when complete.  

The Cell is non-commercial at the moment, and an added bonus is that it may save me from the weight of current workloads by providing an escape once a week into this other, slightly crazy fictional world. And although I anticipate taking a good year, maybe a year and a half, to complete the full novel, it's worth the attempt, if only to see how long I can stick at it.

So far, the biggest problems of blogging a novel are twofold.

One, getting back into the main novel I'm working on - a thriller, currently - after spending maybe half a day fiddling with a sci fi chapter.

And two, getting people to read it. I think last week's instalment has only been read by two people. Whoever you are, thank you.

So please, do read it, make me feel better ... Here's Chapter One again.

Early days yet, granted, but I'm open to comments under the blog, and even suggestions on the story or the process. Not saying I'll incorporate suggestions, but I might do! And it's part of the nature of blogging a novel that there's a faint whiff of collaboration with the unseen reader. You are making public what is still being written, and on the hoof too, in a journalistic manner, and so are open to influence, even if only subliminal.

Which is a fun concept!

The Cell: coming weekly to a blog near you over the next 12 months or so.

Please, read, comment, share ... join in!

Week Twenty-Nine: Five Resolutions For Writers

So we're well into 2016, and most of us will have turned our eyes away from the holidays and towards our writing schedule for this year by now.

These are not so much resolutions for me personally as they are thoughts and ambitions for writing and writers in general. I put them together to remind myself of the priorities we face as writers, and also to stop me from slouching.

RESOLUTION ONE: Know Your Destination

We too often start projects in a rush of enthusiasm without any clear indication of where they will end up. This can be an exciting and provocative choice; it can also lead us down blind alleys in creative terms. Some projects do not have the legs, or some fatal flaw lurks at their heart, and we know the market simply isn't there for such an idea, or not as told in those terms. We are writers, yes, which means we should work from our creative hearts, not to someone else's brief. But that is not carte blanche to write any old nonsense that excites us for five minutes but can't be sustained over the life of a novel.

Novels are long-haul jobs, they are hard work. Make sure you know your destination, or at least have some end point mapped out, before you set off through chapter one.

Can't wait to get home and start my new novel. Not sure what it will be about, but I have the perfect opening ...

RESOLUTION TWO: Finish What You Start

This is similar to Resolution One, except that was about knowing your destination - this is about actually reaching it. If you don't finish your writing projects, if you abandon them partway through because they turned out to be blind alleys (see above), you are teaching yourself to fail.

Don't teach yourself to fail. If it sucks, why did you start it in the first place? (Again, see above.) But okay, now that you know it sucks, finish it anyway. That way, you can at least try to fix it afterwards. You can't fix an unfinished novel, because a novel is a whole entity and its success depends on that sense of balance, on that wholeness.

An unfinished novel is like a bucket with no bottom, or a half-built house. No good to anyone.


RESOLUTION THREE: Keep Re-Examining Your Vision

Writers change and so do their visions. Make sure you are not hanging onto some outdated version of the world in which you are one kind of writer, when actually you have become someone quite different.

Sometimes people ask you to do something that sounds impressive or difficult - maybe they're offering to pay you handsomely, or to write something outside your comfort zone - and that doesn't fit your vision of yourself as a writer. So you turn them down.

Who are you kidding? Maybe once upon a time staying true to your vision was a noble idea. But we're in a global recession and someone has offered you work. So maybe it doesn't fit that lofty vision you had when you started out - you know, the one where you accepted the Booker Prize, and people shook your hand in the street, or tweeted that your novel saved their lives.

Visions like that are a distraction to the real job of being a writer. You have a bank balance. If you can't do the work they're offering, for whatever reason, fine, turn them down. But if it's just because you're not that kind of writer, get over yourself. We're all that kind of writer. Some of us are just pretending otherwise.

I, oh I, wrestling with creation, the word, the writtenness of it all, oh ...

RESOLUTION FOUR: Write As Often As You Can

Everyone says this, and that's because it's important. Maybe you have a demanding day job, maybe you have writer's block, maybe you're sick, maybe whatever. You should still try hard to write little and often. Because the ability to write is like a muscle - you can lose it if you don't exercise it.

I hate writing exercises, personally. I never do them. But if I'm 'between novels' and still want to write, I do the novelist's equivalent to doodling. I get out a notebook or grab a scrap of paper, an old envelope, whatever, and sketch out a plot. Characters. Timelines. Quotes in my head. Snippets of dialogue. And sometimes those ideas grow into stories, into novels, into a series.

Every novel begins with a single word. So write it. Then another one. Then another one.

Have you read a book recently? A book that excited you and made you want to put pen to paper yourself?

RESOLUTION FIVE: Keep Reading, Keep Being Influenced

Once you're a reasonably successful novelist, the very thing that got you there in the first place - i.e. reading and books etc. - is ironically the thing you don't have time to do. Now you have deadlines and proofs and edits and synopses and actual novels to write, and no space for reading stories by other people. Sometimes you don't even have the inclination to do it either. Maybe you are frightened a new important novel will 'pollute' your vision (see Resolution Three), or that you might feel beaten-down by a rival's success, or the force of their language, or their seemingly endless army of fans.

But influence can be a powerful tool. Professional jealousy can open your head up like a tin can and remind you of the wonders inside it. And if you can't face reading your peers in a certain genre, then read other genres or engage with stories via another medium, like film or television, or even art.

The story is what matters. Keep opening yourself up to story and to character, and you will keep replenishing your bucket. (You know, the one without the hole in it. The one you dip into the well each day before you begin to write.)

Good luck!

Cathie Hartigan asks: What Kind of Novel Are You Writing?

I'm thrilled to have my friend and fellow author Cathie Hartigan from Creative Writing Matters as my guest on the 52 Ways blog today. Creative Writing tutor, novelist, talented musician, and an administrator of the Exeter Novel prize, Cathie has many strings to her bow. And as you can see, she is going to lead us through the thought processes and research that led her to write her fascinating debut novel SECRET OF THE SONG.

SECRET OF THE SONG was released on October 6th and has garnered much critical praise. I have read the novel myself and can highly recommend it: a rich but delicately woven time-slip, it will transport you to a complex, musical world you may never wish to leave.  



 Cathie writes:

So you have a great idea of what your novel will be about, and are keen to get going, but before you start tapping, there is a crucial question you must ask yourself. What sort of novel am I writing? Make your decision carefully and base it on the sort of writing you can do, rather than the writing you wish you could do.

I’ve always written contemporary women’s fiction. My most successful short stories have been told in the first person, via characters with strong, individual voices. I love writing about relationships between families, friends and lovers, I’m curious, keen on puzzles and I find Italy, singing and a sense of humour irresistible.

So what sort of novel would I write?

Two separate incidents provided me with the idea for my novel, Secret of the Song.

The first arose at a choir practice when we were asked to sing a piece of music by the Italian Renaissance composer, Carlo Gesualdo. Who was he? I had no idea. The music was really difficult and I don’t think we even made to the end of the piece. There were murmurs of disapproval about Don Gesualdo though, so I decided to look him up.

It transpired that Carlo Gesualdo was a bad man. In fact, two centuries before Byron, he was much madder and badder and decidedly dangerous. Plus, whereas Byron was a lord, Carlo Gesualdo was a Neapolitan prince. Gesualdo’s story, and that of his lovely wife, Maria and her dashing lover, Duke Fabrizio was equal to anything the Tudor court in England could muster at that time.

But the retelling of an incident already documented isn’t a story; it’s an account.

Then, coincidentally, I heard a programme on the radio, during which musicians and neurological experts discussed the power of ‘ear worms’, those maddening tunes that go round in your head for days. Was Gesualdo mad because of his music, I wondered? More significantly, could his music send the musicians who performed it mad?

Here was a story. I would write a contemporary mystery about a singer haunted by the song she was singing. Yes, that was it. 

But during further research, I read the witness statement of a servant, and felt hugely sympathetic towards the poor girl caught up in such a dreadful situation. With only a little imagining, her voice was in my head. Yes, she must be heard.

So I had two heroines: one in contemporary Exeter, and one in Renaissance Naples.  I felt there was only one sort of novel that would do the story justice. Secret of the Song is a time-slip mystery. The decision to write the dual narrative as alternating chapters proved challenging, but it also kept both plot lines moving forward at a good pace.

My top tip?

Remember that every reflection, every look back, brings the plot to a dead stop. Ask yourself whether it is necessary, and what is lost if you leave it out. 

Cathie Hartigan

When a song by the mad composer, Carlo Gesualdo, is discovered in Exeter Museum, trouble descends on the group asked to sing it. Lisa is full of enthusiasm at first, but she soon becomes convinced the song is cursed. Can Lisa find out what mystery lies behind the discordant harmonies? Will she solve the song’s secret before her relationship with Jon breaks for good and harm befalls them all?

 

In Renaissance Naples, young Silvia Albana is seamstress and close confidant of Don Gesualdo’s wife. When Donna Maria begins an affair, Silvia knows that death is the only outcome. But who exactly will die?

And where is Silvia’s own lover? Why is he not there to help her?
 

As a big fan of the work of Barbara Erskine, I was delighted to discover a new Time-slip author whose first novel is a delight. I’m sure Cathie Hartigan has a great future.
Margaret James - Writing Magazine 

Explore SECRET OF THE SONG on Amazon UK