It’s my day for finding free ebooks. Strunk & White’s ‘The Elements of Style’ is a widely recommended guide to writing clear and correct English.
It’s available for free on several websites, but Project Gutenberg offers the widest choice of file types:
http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/37134
In researching the likes and dislikes of a literary agent this evening, I found an interview with her in which she recommended that prospective clients should consider the shape of their story.
She recommended that they watch this video clip, which features Kurt Vonnegut and an appreciative audience:
This short clip brings up a series of videos with famous authors – not that I’m trying to distract you.
I was looking through the articles on books in the Guardian newspaper, finding this interesting piece in the archive about writers and vanity, written by Julian Baggini, a British philosopher.
http://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2015/feb/25/writers-vain-egotism-julian-baggini
(some great stories on writing beneath this article, and do read the comments section)
One of the first pieces of advice that I’d give to anyone considering writing a book, is to develop a hide as thick as a rhinoceros. Everyone thinks that they’ve got a book inside them, but nobody considers what will happen when the book is released into the wild!
Being an author is setting yourself up as a target for criticism and rejection. These brickbats will come from complete strangers, friends, family, readers, publishers, book-sellers and critics. That’s if they say anything at all, for being completely ignored is the usual fate of a freshly published book. This is why writers welcome adverse criticism, as at least it means that someone has noticed you.
Ego and self-confidence aren’t the same thing. We have to believe that we can write a story, or it simply won’t exist. As Rumi observed:
Being over-egotistical is a sure way of suffocating any talent that one may have. Talent needs cold and clear objectivity to be honed until it’s sharp and bright.
How do you deal with self-confidence, ego, arrogance, hubris, self-belief and vanity?
This article from the New York Times is worth a read. Even established authors suffer setbacks and get the blues, so if you’re just starting out difficulties can grow out of all proportion.
I constantly remind myself that if it doesn’t come naturally, then leave it. There’s little value in forcing something into being—things take on the flavour of their creator’s mood.
Setting a writing project aside for a while, and tackling something different, some poetry or a short story might free up the log jam in your mind + you’ll get a kick out of seeing a new piece of work flow freely from your imagination. There’s more than one way down the river of creativity.
I’ve been struck how many cliched images there are around to represent different professions. I’ve worked as a teacher and as a milkman, and it’s still common for these jobs to be represented by dated stereotypes.
Teachers are usually spectacle wearers, standing in front of a blackboard—t’s not unusual for them to be wearing mortar boards and even gown, at least in clip art. Milkmen invariably have a work coat and a damned silly peaked cap and are toting a wire cage bottle carrier. I ran my milk-round in the 1980s, rarely used the carrier, preferring to use the pockets of my coat to hold bottles, and I never saw the caps which milkmen still wear in commercials and advertisements.
(not me!)
I can just recall some teachers wearing mortar boards and their graduation caps at my grammar school in the 1960s, but it was a posh sort of place and the regalia was reserved for official ceremonies.
(Also, not me!)
Writers are often symbolised by being hunched over typewriters. I last used a typewriter in 1995, and I wondered how many authors still do their writing on one.
Even the tangle-haired model on the cover of this ebook How to be a Writer in the E-Age, is about to peck her typewriter with her forefinger.
A new writers’ group has started to counter bias against older debut authors. As a sage if not entirely wise writer of 65, I welcome this development.
There have been some notable famous authors who started out late, including Penelope Fitzgerald, Mary Wesley, Henry Miller, George Elliot, Richard Adams, Raymond Chandler, Alex Haley, Charles Bukowski and Annie Proulx.
Prime Readers may be of interest to mature writers:
http://publishingperspectives.com/2015/07/uk-group-to-fight-bias-against-older-debut-authors/
It’s long annoyed me that so much attention is given to those under 40 when it comes to prizes, bursaries and competitions. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for encouraging young talent and it’s in my bones to pass on knowledge, but there comes a time in life when you start to feel like you’re invisible. A debut author of any age needs support, encouragement and recognition.
Anyone can write at any age. Mary Wesley is a shining example of someone who started out late, with her breakout novel The Camomile Lawn published when she was 72. Her last novel came when she was 85, and she was a very frisky woman: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Wesley
After devoting most of 2014 to writing my first novel The Perfect Murderer, and having a few nightmares as a result of the gruesome research, I’ve planning to write something lighter and funnier next—a modern comedy of sexual manners, perhaps.
I was wondering how much I should include my own dating experiences over the last twenty-five years, which is about as long as I’ve been using online dating agencies. I’m no heart-breaking Lothario, and have had some happy relationships (and several troubled liaisons), making several close and long-term friends along the way. I’ve found it moving to see lonely hearts trying to begin again in their forties, fifties and sixties following unexpected bereavement or divorce.
I fretted a bit about a kinky sex activity that I’d put into my first Cornish Detective as a bit of light relief (no pun intended), thinking that the reader would associate me with this strange deviancy. I’m not the only writer who has been troubled by such concerns, as this article shows, where a young, Indian female author found people casting aspersions about her virginity—because that’s what her heroine was trying to lose:
Have any of you encountered any tricky situations, as a result of what you wrote?
Personally, I’m thick-skinned when it comes to what readers might think about anything I’ve written that could apply to me. To adapt something that Eleanor Roosevelt said about being made to feel inferior, I cleave to the notion that ‘ No one can make you feel embarrassed without your permission.’
On the other hand, I’m very circumspect in revealing any personal stories that people have told me about their lives. That would be manipulative and cruel.
Some writers have used their novels to wreak revenge on people, but the closest I’ve come is stealing a few unusual names and characteristics from folk I knew decades ago.
How about you? The pen is mightier than the sword, after all….
After doing masses of work getting my books ready to self-publish, considering things like the book cover design, formatting, blurb, plot line, characterisation, etc, etc, I’ve become adept at these structural components. I’ve read many experts’ advice on what a book needs to succeed, but all of such well-meaning tips don’t take into account how readers actually choose books.
I’ve been keeping an eye on how I select consumer goods, and why I reject them too. I tend to buy books on eBay, AbeBooks or Amazon, using cheap price and free postage as an imperative. Were I to be borrowing them from my local library, I might consider the weight of them too, choosing a paperback over a hardback – as I have to carry them home.
My decision on what to read is based on several things, including a liking of the author’s work, a good review and subject matter that interests me, which I’ll skim-read off the back of the book. I may admire the cover art, or not, but it doesn’t influence me greatly. I never read the opening of a book or sample passages from further in, to see if I like the style.
There definitely is an old boy network when it comes to reviews. It’s easy to check how an author who says something favourable about a new book, which is quoted on the cover, is signed to the same publisher. True Story: In 1977 I was working as a dispatch rider on a motorcycle in London. I’d trained as a librarian but decided that I wanted something with more variety and excitement, so donned my leathers. I was delivering packages for an art design studio at the time, which involved visiting magazine publishers, printers and publishers. Many of these documents would be transmitted over the internet these days, but at that time having a hard copy was vital. I was waiting for an executive to come out of a meeting to sign for a package, cooling my riding boot heels in a swanky publisher one day, when I recognised a celebrity sitting opposite me. It was a well-known lawyer and political adviser Lord Goodman, who regularly appeared on political discussion shows and in the newspapers – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arnold_Goodman,_Baron_Goodman
A publisher’s assistant went over to him, requesting that he sign-off that he recommended a new book, a guide to the law for a beginner. The Baron glanced at the book, declaring that he hadn’t read it, upon which the flunky stage-whispered that this writer had provided the blurb for his Lordship’s last book. “Do you happen to know if he even read it?” asked Lord Goodman. The assistant shook his head uncertainly while taking the signature. Lord Goodman noticed that I’d witnessed this hypocritical transaction, shrugging his shoulders in a dismissive ‘what-can-I-do-it’s-how-things-work’ way.
that’s how the system works, I thought, a little less naive than I’d been a few minutes before. All together now – it’s not what you know, but who you know that counts.
After overhearing a couple of readers talking to two librarians, saying that they chose what to read mainly be the title of a book, I’ve given more weight in my mind to coming up with catchy titles for my work, but I’ve never selected a book in this way. Again, I might admire the elegance and intrigue of a clever title, such as James Lee Burke’s In the Electric Mist with Confederate Dead but it’s not an overriding factor.
I prefer American and Scandinavian crime thrillers, over those based in the U.K. I’m not sure why. Perhaps it’s something to do with liking the unfamiliar and wanting to get away from the plodding familiarity of British cop stories. I’m also more likely to choose a literary style novel about relationships that’s set in a foreign land.
How do you choose what to read?
The length of a manuscript influences whether it will be published traditionally. This is particularly true for new authors. I made a beginner’s mistake by not considering this when I wrote my first novel The Perfect Murderer. If I’d seen any advice about how long genre novels should be, my brain glossed over the figures.
I wasn’t consciously aiming for any particular length, for though I had a rough structure for the storyline I write in an organic way, allowing the action to evolve through what the characters would do in the circumstances. Sometimes they did things that I hadn’t anticipated, but it felt right to stay true to their natures.
I had a brief frisson of achievement when I passed the 100,000-word count, anticipating that I’d be finished at about 130,000 words. I was correct, though after reading through the manuscript several times, then leaving it alone for a week, a nagging feeling arose that it felt distinctly unfinished.
This was mainly because there were so many questions left unanswered, to do with the fates of my two killers and their victims. I’ve read thousands of cop stories, mysteries and thrillers in the last fifty years, and it’s always rather bothered me when I find myself thinking “but what happened to?” at the end of a story. There can be good reasons for leaving things unresolved, of course, such as the planned reappearance of a character in a sequel. Sometimes vagueness is a result of savage editing or even forgetfulness. Raymond Chandler forgot to identify who’d killed a character in The Big Sleep.
The end of my novel felt snapped-off, full of rough edges, so I smoothed things off by writing an afterword, explaining what became of the corpses of my goodies, innocents and baddies. I also set my lead detective up for a sequel, while not ruling out that the serial killer hadn’t perished and could return. This took my manuscript up to 160,000 words.
My beta-reader, who’s just finished reading the novel, loved that I’d written an afterword and that there was a feeling of optimism after what had been a rather harrowing tale. But the length of my novel is a no-no for a first thriller by an unknown author, as the guideline is 80,000 to 100,000, with most published first books being at the lower end of those figures. Other genres vary in what is expected for a word count, with science-fiction and fantasy novels the longest at up to 150,000 words, followed by historical at 100,000+ and bringing up the rear are westerns, which can be as short as 45,000 words.
I expect that we’ve all read novels much longer than this. I forced myself through the 1,267,069 words of Marcel Proust’s A La Rechcherche Du Temps Perdu, as a teenager – I didn’t have a social life! The last 69 words were the best… I’ve since read many other long novels by Thomas Wolfe, Iris Murdoch, John Irving, Victor Hugo and Tolstoy, enjoying them all. Sometimes it takes that long to narrate a story, and also there’s a challenge to the reader to last the course. Hence the phrase “I like a nice long read.”
2015 turned into the year of the long novel. After the success of Donna Tartt’s The Goldfinch at 784 pages and Eleanor Catton’s The Luminaries at 864 pages, which became the longest novel to win the Booker Prize, several other novelists have cracked the 1,000 page barrier.
http://www.vulture.com/2015/05/year-of-the-very-long-novel.html
I decided not to rewrite my novel, as taking an editorial chainsaw to it to halve its length would have been a travesty. I don’t expect a literary agent, or publisher with an open submission policy, to take the risk of publishing something that long by an unknown author, but that’s OK. One needs to be an established and successful writer to have long novels accepted. It’s amazing to me that J.K. Rowling got away with such lengthy books, particularly as they were aimed at young readers who supposedly have limited attention spans. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix was 896 pages and 257,045 words! Something tells me that her publisher didn’t want to edit the goose that was laying so many golden eggs…
Instead, I wrote a prequel to The Perfect Murderer, called Who Kills A Nudist? which introduced my detective and forensic pathologist characters. This second first novel was a comparative doddle, by limiting it to 80,000 words, and I’ve got the enthralling sequel all lined up to publish afterwards – hurrah!
How long are your novels?
Have any of you experienced similar problems of conforming to what is expected for word counts? Or have you had the opposite problem of feeling like you’re padding the narrative out to reach a nice size?
I must admit that I’ve had the wicked thought of doing this with a couple of my novellas, which are about 30,000 words long.
The title of this thread isn’t meant to imply that any readers of this blog have pen names which conceal their true gender. Rather, I’m referring to creating the fictional thoughts of a character in the first person, though a second or third person viewpoint could require adopting a different way of expressing their behaviour if they’re of the opposite gender.
I’ve written twenty short stories and novellas, five novels and about 500 poems and song lyrics. Five of the stories are seen through the eyes of my female protagonist, and there are multiple viewpoints too, including those of women. I try to avoid any of my characters behaving in stereotypical ways that are meant to show their gender – men who can’t cook, women who don’t know how to top-up the oil of their car engine, that sort of thing. I dislike this hackneyed and sexist shorthand, which is lazy, demeaning and doesn’t work anyway.
I think that I’ve done OK in representing my female characters well, and my beta-readers who are all women, have commented that they found them believable. I may have an advantage from my upbringing, which was primarily in female company – sisters, mother, aunts and grandmothers. I’ve also worked in jobs that are dominated by women – teaching, librarianship and counselling. I have eight close friends, and seven of them are women. From all of this, I may have picked up on female attitudes, strengths, worries and, for want of a catch-all term, traits, better than some male writers.
I can’t say that I noticed inhabiting my female character’s persona affected me greatly, though it certainly altered novelist Elizabeth Day’s writing and behaviour when she penned a novel, Paradise City, that has an alpha-male as the protagonist.
I’m not trying to start a war between the sexes with this post. I’m tempted to have one of the characters in my next Cornish Detective novel be transitioning from one sex to the other, which would certainly throw open different points of view.
I avoid writing anything sexist, unless it’s to show some flaw in a character, but there’s a lot of casual reverse sexism in advertising and even in the routines of supposedly politically correct comedians. I saw a book advertised recently, by Bridget Christie, which is called A Book For Her and which has the tag line beneath the title *And for him, if he can read
http://www.bridgetchristie.co.uk/
Imagine the outrage that cover would cause had the book been written by a male comedian, and the disparaging remark was made about women being illiterate….