Words on a Page

When Missing Words  was published, I thought I could sit back and let the marketing folks do their business, watching the reviews roll in and the sales figures mount. I quickly learned, however, that's no longer the way things work in the publishing world. If you've been taken on by an independent publisher with a small marketing team and an even smaller budget, you'll already know how difficult it is to get your books noticed.  Within a short time of publication, I'd spent my advance - and more - on Facebook ads and ads in print magazines, doing book giveaways, and speaking to librarians and booksellers on two continents. But it's never been clear to me whether that effort and expense resulted in actual sales.  The situation is even more precarious for authors who've gone down hybrid or self-publishing routes because even more of the burden of promotion falls on their shoulders. Yes, there are indeed self-published authors who have had very impressive sales - b...

If you've attended the Winchester Writers' Conference in the past, you'll know what a fabulous opportunity it presented to make face-to-face connections with agents, publishers and other writers, as well as opportunities to learn more about the craft of writing and how to get your work noticed. While the conference has now been taken over by the good folks at I Am in Print , and has been redubbed the I Am Writing Festival , it offers people the same chance to build their knowledge of the industry and make those valuable connections. I'm excited to be taking part in the inaugural year of the new Festival, working alongside novelist and short story writer Helen Salsbury as we lead a workshop on writing literary fiction. Space is limited, so we encourage people to sign up asap. And do check out all of the other workshops, discussions and events as well. To check out the full programme, click HERE . To book tickets for our workshop on writing Literary Fiction, click HERE ....

I’ve recently been contacted by a former student, asking if I’d like to read the novel he was getting ready to submit to an agent. As I’ve been going through the process of finding an agent myself and frequently call upon the support and advice of my own writing community I wanted to offer him a bit of encouragement. And so I said yes. This situation has happened plenty of times before so I have no excuse. I should have known better. Normally, things pan out like this: The budding novelist (either student, former student, or friend who has a story to tell) will ask me to ‘glance over’ their project. They’re excited that they’ve completed their short story or novel and they want to share it with someone who can appreciate it for what it is – a soon to be discovered masterpiece. Then, the moment I open their document or turn to the first page my editing instincts kick in.  Things generally go downhill from there. Ten or twelve years ago, a neighbour gave me the...

A number of months ago I read an article which was critical of the advice we often give to Creative Writing students in which we encourage them to begin their stories in the thick of action, or in medias res.  The argument goes that writers must capture the reader’s interest right at the beginning by ‘hooking them in’ so they feel compelled to continue reading.  Often this ‘hook’ is achieved through the creation of intrigue, something or someone which is obviously out of place or which otherwise encourages the reader to ask questions.  At other times it involves a piece of high drama and the reader is dropped straight into a piece of unfolding action.  At the same time that we encourage students to work on their hooks, we tend to shoo them away from using too much description at the beginning of a story.  Readers’ attention spans have shortened, we say, and if a writer doesn’t grab reader’s interest in the first couple of paragraphs – or in the case o...

My copies of Award Winning Tales have just arrived in the post this morning, and I'm very pleased to see that my story 'The Difference Between Cowboys and Clowns' has made it into print.  The story was a finalist in the  NYCMidnight Short Story Challenge  a couple of years ago, a competition I can't recommend highly enough.  In the challenge, participants are divided into groups, and each group is given a writing genre and a topic which must feature in the story. In the initial round of the competition, participants are given one week in which to complete a story of 2500 words. That year, my genre was 'Romantic Comedy' and my subject 'Rainbow'. Goodness, I thought, as I received my instructions (by email at midnight, NYC time). Having a severe disinclination towards 'romance' (it's a long story - don't ask), I was less than thrilled with the genre I'd been given. And as for rainbows (deep sigh), although I really do appreciate the...

Two years ago I wrote my first novel in thirty painful days, following Chris Baty's NaNoWriMo model. It was a dystopian story about a world in which a seemingly benign state deftly removes those of its citizens which it deems to be the unproductive – the disabled, the ill, and the elderly. It has all been done before, of course, but I like to think that my story added something new to the genre, a contemporary comment about ruling a society through fear and the way in which religion can be used to either keep people in check or stir them into action. I like to think that there is a germ of something really quite good hiding within that 50,000 words, and one day I'll go back and salvage what I can and build it into something great. Baty's book, No Plot? No Problem: A Low-stress, High-velocity Guide to Writing a Novel in 30 Days, chivvies participants along with a combination of good-natured pep talks of the you-can-do-it variety and stern advice on overcoming 'w...