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Freelance writing from home: boredom and prevarication
I was recently asked to contribute to the Freelancers' website, www.freelanceuk.co.uk. The editor there asked me a series of questions about the trials of working from home. Was it boring? How do you keep enthusiasm shining through your writing? Why don't you just go down the pub? etc etc.
Here is my reply, and here is the full article on never going back
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Google damages small writing businesses
Computers are supposed to be predictable and methodical. Given the same starting conditions, results should be identical. So just what is Google up to with its ranking algorithm?
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Eight strategies to earn money from blogging
The wisdom of the crowd determines the favourite in the Derby, the most entertaining singer in X-factor and the next resident of no. 10. So what can the sentiments of bloggers teach us about making money from blogs? Presenting a selection of mould-smashing quotes on how to make money by milking the blogging cow:
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Improving your query letters and pitches
The Evil Editor's blog, will give you palpitations if you're in the process of sending publishers or agents query letters. Humourously cynical, the naughty ed takes apart submitted queries and adds comments. Very, very entertaining, and also, somewhat, educational. Whether there is a real editor lurking behind the online persona is anyone's guess.
But this is the type of useful information you get:
Just tell us who we care about and why, what their problem is, and what they do about it. You should be able to do this in fewer paragraphs.
A synopsis is not imporant
The synopsis is feared like a leper at a wedding, but is its importance overrated?
At a recent writing seminar held in the stunning Devonshire surroundings of Dartington Hall, I heard something fabulous. It didn't creep into my consciousness immediately. I went home, did some more writing, edited my "The Savoy" synopsis for the 10 millionth time, and then slowly I realised how that small bit of information could change my life.
When should you give up writing?
Are six edit sweeps and two major re-writes enough to convince you to give up!
Make blogging pay
A writer can't live on thin air alone, so why not use your talents to make money on the Internet?
Okay, so it's a pipe dream, maybe, but with the world going digital, and print media about to take its place along side such innovations as the kanga-shoe and the Sinclair C5, I'm running a grand experiment to see if blogging - that's the lovely word du-jour for a regularly updated website - can make money.
Cutting redundant words
A simple edit will tighten you manuscript and add a veneer of professionalism to your work.
What is wrong with the following sentence - apart from being a cliche?
It's a matter of fact.
Nothing? Well, it can be written as
It's a factual matter...
cutting out a word and increasing clarity. Not convinced? Here're some more examples.
Hijacking aircraft to sell books
Authors perform all sorts of unnatural acts when trying to promote their books, but how far would you go?
Crims seem to have a good deal when it comes to making their books hit the best seller list. Think Jeffrey Archer, Mr Nice, Oscar Wilde to name a few notorious characters whose books have done well because of the dubious activities they've been involved with.
I'm not American, but this seems to hit the mood:
Ninety-eight percent of the adults in this country are decent, hard-working, honest Americans. It's the other lousy two percent that get all the publicity.
Gaining publicity is a perpetual problem for authors, whether self-published or on traditional contracts.
"It is not very likely a publishing company will help my book get the exposure it needs to generate maximum sales. I will be forced to do some innovating marketing to reach an audience, and then keep them for the next book, and the one after that and the next one and so on," says Rick Bylina, who is currently working on a fifty page book-marketing plan. Almost a novel in itself.
Bylina says, "The only rule: writers write! Everything else is a guideline," and clearly means writing in it's broadest sense: to include business plans and marketing strategies.
There is general acceptance that writing is becoming more about marketing than it is about writing. We are seeing the rise of the sales-author.
"Those of us who can't, or won't, market, might as well write in our journals, because no one else besides us is going to see our writing," says Cassandra Barnes author of the paranormal romance, Jenny's Legacy.
Barnes hates cold-calling in order to sell her writing, "All the promotion is agony. I simply cannot, and will not, make cold calls all over the place," she says.
Writing is a solitary experience. Many authors like the isolation and time to be with their own thoughts, to fertilise creativity and explore ideas. Promoting, and particularly hard-selling, goes against the grain. Is the book industry really saying, "If you can't sell, you shouldn't write"?
It seems so, but the reality is, there are far more authors than willing publicists and though much good work will remain unseen, writers must deal with the world the way it is.
Hateful!
Manuscript love is a vanity you cannot afford
Leaving your work to gather dust helps the faults shine through.
Love is blind goes the old saying, and when you're busy writing and editing a manuscript there can be no doubt you are in love. In love with your clever word choice, your sentence construction and your sneaky plotting; you love your own writing...
Well you should do. If you don't, it's doubtful you'll cook-up enough enthusiasm to make anybody else enjoy the literary meal.
But there is a nasty, evil side effect. When you love your work, you are apt to forgive it it's sins and overlook the imperfections in its smile. When it comes to writing books, Love, really is blind.
Luckily, there is a solution to the problem. Stick the manuscript in the draw and forget about it for as long as you can, before subsequent drafts. Let it gather dust, let your perspective evolve and sure enough, when you revisit you'll see all the warts and blemishes your love-struck eyes missed during the writing.
Golden nuggets keep focus tight
A brand of blurb, called a nugget statement, keeps an author's attention where it matters: on the story.
If you write thrillers and you can't distill your story into 30 words or less then you are probably doing something wrong, goes the accepted wisdom.
I'm inclined to agree. Have you ever read a blurb on the back cover that was more than a couple of paragraphs? Could the publisher countenance a blurb that continued on the inside? Of course not, it would be commercial suicide.
And so, one of the first things to put together for a new idea, is the nugget statement. A thirty word (or so) synopsis of the story giving the main character, the antagonist and the barriers that must be overcome for a successful outcome (or not).
Unlike a full synopsis, there is no need to detail all the plot twists or even the ending.
Here is a nugget statement for Predicting Timothy Jarvik
A successful Lawyer obsesses over a joke fortune-telling given during a drunken game. Terrified it may come true, he attempts to block the predictions, but his actions cause the very events he struggles to avoid. When he loses his career, his wealth and then his wife, obsession turns to desperation, and he seeks revenge on the messenger: his best friend.
The point of all this is to make sure, during the writing, that any straying from the original idea is with full knowledge of what is happening, and, when the writing is over, it serves as a book-marketing paragraph - a teaser, if you like.
Brutal honesty builds character
When cooking-up the slime and goo of your character's personality, it's a good idea to rattle your own skeletons from their cosy sleep in the cupboard.
It's grim inside my head. It has to be, otherwise I can't write about despicable murder, brutal beatings, or golden showers - I'm not saying I partake in such activities, of course, but the possibility exists somewhere deep in my horrible brain.
Watching the news is great for adding detail to grim goings-on (and of course, the internet), but there's no better place to do your research than in the twilight zone of your own head.
This is why novelists (of both the would-be and expert types) bang-on tirelessly about "write what you know." It doesn't mean have all your characters work in the dull accountancy firm you spent the last 10 years of your life trying to escape, it means take all those difficult, embarrassing experiences and lay them bare for your readers.
Be honest - even if your mum might read it. I know I'm doing it right when I feel churned up inside and cringe at the thought of somebody I know drawing comparisons.
Yet, we all have dodgy thoughts (don't we) putting them down on paper is no crime.
Injecting tension: take lessons from Jackanory
It's not a drug you can buy from the chemist; more's the pity. But creating tension is the first rule of getting readers to keep the book open into the small hours.
Every chapter of a Dan Brown novel ends with a cliff hanger. Here are a few from Angels and Demons:
Then... she read it again.
A moment later, she was dashing in horror across the floor. 'Robert! Robert!'...the guard spun and faced them, arms crossed and large sidearm visible on his hip.
Perfect, Langdon thought. Just bloody perfect.Mortati was starting to fear it might be a long evening after all.
He had no idea.
This last example even breaks the hallowed Point-of-View rule that gets rammed down your throat at every writing group and in all the Internet forums: how, can Mortati know that he has "no idea?" He can't, it is the author butting in with an omen of what is to follow. It's a "No No"; naughty Mr Brown.
But what the example does show is classic story telling. It is an attempt to get the reader worried, tense and intrigued, and it works.
Now I personally think Brown overdoes his cliffhanger endings, and if he is to be believed, he puts them in only because he has a short attention span and can't think of anything else to write. ""I don't like reading off the screen. I have a very short attention span and I write short chapters for that reason," he said to the high court during the ongoing copyright case where he has been accused of plagiarising The holy blood and the holy grail.
They do get a bit wearing, particularly in Digital Fortress, and once you have read a few of his books you realise it's just an authorial device: a con.
None the less, it is interesting to see how the reader's tension level is kept high through the use of short scenes and wait-until-tomorrow chapter endings. He's very good at what he does, as the sales record shows.
Jackanory, boom boom!
Literary agent gives advice for free
Some are good, some are crap, but the 99 commented synopses at Miss Snark, the literary agent, are nothing if not excellent. And it's not everyday you can take something for nothing from an agent.
This is the sort of information you can't buy. A collection of synopses marked up by a literary agent for every writer to take a gander at and compare with their own efforts. You can't help but come away with a host of ideas and revisions.
But don't take my word for it, go and have a look for yourself and use the previous list to navigate.
Synopsis of A Sleeping Feast
Stories of a skinned-alive phantom haunting a village in rural Northumberland are ridiculous,
even to journalist ALEX REED working for strange phenomena magazine.
But when a decayed body is uncovered by receding flood waters, rumour suggests a link with the nearby research enclosure. Alex smells scandal and a chance to prove he's more than a sensationalist hack.
Read the full synopsis here
Mechanical edit tightens manuscripts
Writers are told to edit, edit, edit as if repeating the word somehow makes a manuscript fall into shape. But knowing what to edit is a difficult skill, taking years to learn. Here is a mechanism to help focus the mind.
I don't recall where I first learnt this editing method, but it has been extraordinarily useful for my non-fiction (where word-count is king) and uncovers the essence in every woolly paragraph of my fiction.
Using a word processor - the technique is impossible using long hand - edit each paragraph so that it is one line shorter - the word processor nudges all following paragraphs up to take up the space. To achieve the result, you will remove unnecessary words and/or sentences.
It sounds stupid, at first. But I urge you to try it. It gives a mechanistic reason to kill your darlings - how I hate that phrase, but we all know what it means - delete unnecessary adverbs, and restructure complex sentences to use fewer words.
After the chapter has been edited, try the process again. You can apply it as many times as you like, by taking each paragraph and deleting words/sentences until it is one line less.
Each iteration of the process tightens the manuscript - it really does work like magic. The only danger is, after a few iterations, your enthusiasm may let you cut into the meat. It's a danger I've never encountered, though.
Law courts help to sell books?
The extent to which an author can derive a story from existing works is being tested in the English courts this week, but what's the motive behind the action?
At stake is the right to use another's ideas in your own fiction, and potentially, since there are only 36 dramatic situations (according to the ancient Greeks) the chances of ever being able to write a novel without infringing another's copyright are zero.
The plaintiffs argue that Dan Brown's work The Da Vinci Code copied "the whole architecture" of the original book. Under English Law ideas cannot be copyrighted, only the expression of an idea is protected. That means the choice and order of the actual words, not just the concept of the sentences.
Therefore, unless Brown copied entire sections of Michael Baigent's and Richard Leigh's 1982 book The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail, it seems impossible for the courts to rule in the plaintiff's favour.
And thank heavens for that. But I have to wonder why the case has gone so far. Could it be the money involved? A small chance of a very big sum is worth the punt, and since Brown's success has also meant additional sales for the plaintiffs, they must have a few quid to fire on a long-shot legal crusade and the potential bullseye damages.
But maybe, it's just a publicity stunt. Perhaps having the original book associated with Da Vinci Code and splashed across newspapers and websites was all the justification needed and supposed plagiarism just a smokescreen. The case is certain to increase sales - of both books. I've even considered buying the original on the basis of the new exposure.
Could publicists really be so cynical? Of course. How much does it take to start a court case? Precious little in a no-lose situation.
William Knight
I am a dad of two - a boy and a girl - a husband, a shelf-putter-upper, toilet cleaner, driver, cook, fire lighter, sometime bill-of-chippenham and there was something I forgot... mmm... I write stuff.
In fact, I write for a living, mostly as a journalist specialising in science, technology and the business use of computers (see my publicity site) but actually I'd also like to get my novels published and spend at least part of my time earning a crust as a thriller writer.
It's not always been this way. As an engineering graduate I fully expected to enrol at acting school as a post-grad but simply didn't get round to it. A different calling - that of rock guitarist - got in the way until my, then, partner pointed out I wasn't actually making any money and was living off home-grown mushrooms and liquorice rizzlas.
There followed a mostly-dull career writing software and engaging in IT consultancy culminating in a few trips around the world, bumping into my future wife in a sleazy student bar in Newcastle and a mental crisis when I realised I'd hit my thirties without so much as publishing a limerick in the Maidenhead advertiser - home town btw.
And so I began the long road to professional writerdom, which is currently in the freelance writing phase while I punt my three completed thrillers to anybody who'll stay sober long enough to listen. It's not as well paid as IT consultancy, or just about anything else, but feeding the soul is more important than filling the bank - or so my editors keep telling me!
If you're here and you're a writer, please get in touch via the comments. If you're a magazine editor, please send me some commissions. If you're a publisher or an agent please get in touch with that three book deal you're just desperate to give away to an experienced writer with three commercial thrillers already written and a hatful of ideas ready to go.
Manchester canal is perfect for murder
A grim industrial backdrop and a pig-iron bridge across a black canal is the place of Neil Brandon's demise.
I've been looking for a suitably grim place to have one of my A sleeping feast characters horribly murdered, and I found it in Manchester's Timperly district.
I used to work in the area - at a miserable 1960s building where the strip lights shined 24/7 and the people failed to even wish each other happy new year - so I know enough to place this minor character in the area and have him meet his death on a clear night in early March.
Neil didn’t see the blow coming, and the fist landed in his abdomen crushing the wind out of him and causing him to double over. He released a loud groan and fell to the ground. An explosive cough ripped through his throat and pulled contents of his stomach with it. Acid burnt the back of his mouth, replacing the comforting residue of beer, and he spewed a torrent of steaming alcohol onto the pavement. Vomit spilled from his mouth and splashed over his attackers' boots and trousers.
When I study it, it's remarkable, to me at least, how little of a location is needed in the writing to get the scene painted in the readers mind (see reference to Higgins in my last post). And yet I feel much more comfortable having visited a site and taken a few photographs.
As for the canal side, all I use is:
They passed the parked van and took a steep footpath down and to the left.
“What do you want?” Neil coughed up more vomit. He mumbled through the frothing liquid.
“Shut up and keep moving, fat boy. We’re gonna see how you like being experimented on, you shit.”
They came to a towpath. Bushes and trees lined up along their left and a delicate smell of still canal-water hovered between the branches.
Mmm... maybe I'll add a little more scene detail now I've got the place firmly fixed in my head.
Novels
Useful Links
- Make blogging pay
A grand experiment to test the monetary credentials of blogging for cash - Miss Snark, the literary agent
She's cutting and witty, but her insights reveal the thinking of a literary agent. - The Internet Writing Workshop
Extremely helpful list based workshop. A somewhat American bent, but you can't have everything!
Recent Posts
- Freelance writing from home: boredom and prevarication
- Google damages small writing businesses
- Eight strategies to earn money from blogging
- Improving your query letters and pitches
- A synopsis is not imporant
- When should you give up writing?
- Make blogging pay
- Cutting redundant words
- Hijacking aircraft to sell books
