Category Archives: Tips on Writing

How Writers Write: Neil Williamson

How Writers Write is monthly series of guest posts where established writers invite you into their workspaces, reveal their work habits and share their experience.

The series started last month with Keith Brooke.  This month it’s BSFA award nominee Neil WIlliamson’s turn…

How would you describe yourself?

waterstones readingI’m not fond of trying to describe myself. Other people are usually so much better at it, even (especially) when they don’t agree. I’m a writer and a musician. If pushed to define musician I’d go with piano player, cabaret performer and songwriter. If pushed to define writer I’d tend towards fantasist, but with plenty of science fiction and a little supernatural horror on the side, as well as a stubborn streak of what we used to call slipstream back in the day. I like having the whole genre paintbox to play with.

What do you use to write?

papernotesA pocket notebook for notes on the go. And my trusty wee Asus netbook for the actual writing. On the netbook it’s Word for short stories and Scrivener for novels. Word has always caught a lot of flak, but it does the job perfectly well. Scrivener I like for long works, but I only use a certain amount of its features because the netbook’s screen is tiny.
Short stories are written into a pre-formatted template, with any story notes kept in the same file until the end. Novels, obviously being larger, require a bunch of different files: character notes, plot outlines, timelines, snagging lists of bits that need to be added at some point but not right now. These can be in Scrivener or separate doc files, text files, spreadsheets, emails, whatever’s at hand.

For later on in the process, I’m still a fan of the print-out-and-scribble school of editing. Scrawled margin notes, emphatically scored out paragraphs, whooshy connecting lines. It’s all so much more colourful and dramatic than Word or Scrivener editing tools. Additionally, though, it allows me to second guess the changes I was so confident of a few days ago before I commit to them.

Recently, I went even more hands on by resorting to printing out all of my plot points and cutting them up and physically rearranging them in front of me. What can I say, you go with what works, don’t you?

When do you write?

pintlaptopI have a regime that fits my writing in around my day job, home life and other creative pursuits. I had to establish one because there are so many things going on that nothing would get done otherwise. So, on weekdays I leave early and write for an hour before going into the office. Then at lunchtime I pop out and steal another hour. That adds up to ten hours a week. Weekday evenings I usually do not write: when I’ve not got a gig or a rehearsal, I usually don’t have the mental energy for it anyway, and I actually enjoy spending time with my bidey-in too. On Saturdays and Sundays, though, I try to spend three to four hours getting a good chunk of work done. So most weeks I’m doing 20-25 hours of writing. Which I don’t think is too bad.

Where do you write?

tealaptopThe weekday session take place in one of the many popular chain coffee establishments. These places seem to be purpose built for writers. Chair, table, power, wifi, selection of beverages, occasional moral support from interested serving staff. What else do you need? Somewhat obtusely, it’s my habit to drink copious amounts of tea in these sessions. This is for two very important reasons: it takes far less time for baristas to prepare which means more time for writing…and I fricking love tea.

The weekend sessions can be in a variety of local places. There are a few good cafes in our community, and there’s one in particular in which I’ve become part of the furniture. To change it up, I occasionally opt for the craft beer pub across the road instead, because…hell, craft beer? I got into the habit of using outside venues because our upstairs neighbours used to be pretty noisy, but we’ve new neighbours now, so I’ve recently “moved back in” as it were. I still find it easier to write outside of the house though, partially because the café environment is what I’m used to. It’s the office, it’s where the work gets done. And it doesn’t have a TV.

I am prone to distraction, though, so one vital ingredient is isolation music. I’ve got a Spotify playlist consisting mostly of film soundtracks that does the job very nicely.

How do you write?

Handwritten notesThis is something I don’t often really think about or analyse to be honest. With short stories, I have ideas, and note them down and when I have enough notes I…just go for it. That sounds insultingly simple, doesn’t it? Partly that’s because I’ve been a short story writer for many years, and have got used to creating on that scale, so the process is something that just happens now.

Novel writing is relatively new to me (I’m finishing my second one right now), and the process is similar except that for novels there are more notes. Many more notes. One of the things I found interesting (both frustratingly and rewardingly so) about writing The Moon King was that the deeper I got into writing the novel, the more ideas about the way the world worked suggested themselves. I went through several iterations where the plot changed quite substantially because I’d written myself deep enough to understand more about the world and the characters. I kept snagging lists of notes of stuff I needed to go back and change on the next draft. Sometimes these were tiny changes, sometime they were big. It seems like an inefficient approach, but the point is that I couldn’t have sat down and thought it all out in one go. I needed to write the place, to live there with the characters to discover these things. So far Queen Of Clouds has been the same. The longer I spend in it, the deeper I go, the richer the world gets, and the more times I have to go back and ripple it all through the story…sometimes changing the story itself pretty substantively. Hopefully it makes for a better book at the end, but it’s a slow process. Who knows, maybe I’ll get better at it once I’ve been writing novels as long as I have short stories.

In terms of drafting and redrafting, I used to be an inveterate polisher. Every word, line, paragraph had to be at least good before I could move on. Now I just don’t have time for that. Getting the story down is much more important. If I can’t think of the right adjective I’ll throw three in that are roughly in the ballpark and sort it later. I’m not sure about a detail or a character name or a piece of action, I’ll leave a gap and write myself a wee note to fix it in the next draft.

I don’t work to a daily word count, but I do give myself deadlines. That seems to work pretty well.

Questions of style. First Person, Third person, present tense, past?

Whatever suits the story. I’ve used all of those in the past (and why did you leave out second person?). I personally tend to avoid omniscient viewpoint. It can be done brilliantly, but also very badly, and I’ve no great facility with it, so I leave it well alone.

How many redrafts? – How many readers? – How easy is it to let go?

Redrafts – depends on the story. Some stories are pretty much good to go right away. Others never quite feel right and I can tinker with them for years before finding a way to make them work. I mentioned that novel writing, for me, seems to be a process of discovery through redrafting, but I’ve not done enough of those to know whether it takes two, or five or ten drafts before a book is generally right.

Readers – I’m very fortunate to be a member of the Glasgow SF Writers Circle, an excellent and longstanding peer critique group. I’ve also got some wonderful writer friends who I drag into service from time to time, but try not to abuse their generosity.

Letting go – I’m a pretty honest appraiser of my own work. I know when, even if it’s not perfect, it’s at least good enough to do the job I want it to. And I know when, even if people enjoy it, it’s still lacking something. I’m honestly not a perfectionist, but my internal quality controller has high standards.

What are you working on at the moment?

QOC sampleThe second novel, Queen Of Clouds, is finally in the finishing stages. I’ve done all I can with it. Mined all I can from its depths. I’m just lining the words up for hopefully the last time (for now) and then we’ll see what my agent makes of it. And after that we’ll have a chat about what’s next on the novel front. I’ve an idea for a series of short adventure fantasies that I’d like to get into, but we’ll see.

Other than that, I’ve got a near future science fiction novella about surveillance states part-completed and a whole load of ideas for short stories. One of the things I’d like to do this year is go back and try my hand at horror again. I made my first sale to Black Static magazine recently with a supernatural tale called The Secret Language Of Stamps, and I’ve got a few more darkish ideas in production too.

That’s the thing about being a writer. You’re never short of ideas.

More Information

Neil Williamson’s Website: http://www.neilwilliamson.org.uk

How Writers Write: Keith Brooke

Following the interested generated by my posts on How To Write, I thought it might be interesting to see how other writers produce their work.

How Writers Write is monthly series of guest posts where established writers invite you into their workspaces, reveal their work habits and share their experience.

First up is the incredibly talented Keith Brooke:

How would you describe yourself?

How would I describe myself? I write, I edit, I design. I work in lots of different fields, under a variety of pen-names. Much to my (now-retired) agent’s frustration, I flit about between all these things, with little in the way of a coherent career plan. And I love it.

What do you use to write?

Story Notes
First Draft

Everyone raves about Scrivener so I keep thinking I should give it a go. I’ve even gone as far as buying a copy when it was on sale a couple of months ago. I’ve opened it, and followed a tutorial; I’ve played with creating my own templates to suit the way I work. And then I’ve gone back to Word and text files. It just suits me, particularly now that I have two monitors, so I can have lots of files open and visible at the same time.

I tend to keep notes of ideas on my phone, then transfer them to text files or Word docs every so often. When I’m in the thick of a draft, I’ll usually have a notes file on my phone just for that project, as ideas come at the most unhelpful of times. I’ll also have a Word file for that project’s notes: a short overview; notes on characters, settings and anything else that’s relevant (maybe some scientific aspect, or politics, or history). I’ll also have a more detailed outline to work from, which is very much a work in progress, modified as I go on and the real story emerges. And then there’s the actual draft itself: just one Word document, regardless of how long the story will be. That sounds awfully efficient and well-organised of me, and I guess to an extent it is: an approach refined over three decades of writing.

When do you write?

kblaptopBack when I had a day job I trained myself to write at any opportunity. The first draft of The Accord was written in coffee shops, bars, at an airport, at friends’ houses, in the back of a car, in lunchbreaks at work, and probably other places that I forget now. If I could grab even as little as ten minutes, I could get a few more paragraphs down; more importantly, it meant that the next time I had a more substantial writing session the story was fresh in my head so I could hit the ground running.

I left my day job last year and now it’s more a matter of juggling different projects: as well as writing under various pen-names, I edit, run the infinity plus publishing company, and do various other design and publishing activities. One consequence of this is that each day tends to be a different mix, and it’s rare that I get a day just to write. I do, however, get more frequent and longer writing sessions than I used to manage, which is lovely.

I try hard to keep my writing and publishing activities to normal working hours, so that I get evenings and weekends for other things. It’s flexible, though: sometimes real life intrudes during the week (that’s happening a lot right now), and sometimes writing commitments mean I get up early (sometimes I’ll start at 5 or 6 in the morning) or keep working into the evenings and weekends. I do manage to keep a pretty good balance, though.

Where do you write?

nopower

The Accord was probably an extreme example of writing wherever and whenever I get the opportunity. I do sometimes take my old Netbook away on trips and write on planes, in hotel rooms, etc. Now that I write and edit full-time, though, my habits are a lot more regular. Or rather, they were, and they will be; they just aren’t at the moment.

How it used to be… Up until January, I’d set up office at one end of our dining room table, with a desktop PC, two big monitors and a comfy office chair (I started out just using one of the dining chairs, but that played havoc with my back).

How it will be… We’re in the process of converting the dining room into a work area. My wife Debbie needs cake-decorating space (https://www.facebook.com/brookesbakes), so she’ll have a work area for that on one side of the room, and I’ll have a proper desk on the other side of the room.

At the moment… It’s a building site. We’ve knocked down walls and had plastering done, we’re re-doing the kitchen at the same time, and the place is complete chaos. I’m spending a lot of my time doing all the jobs we’re not paying other people to do: emptying cupboards, moving furniture, decorating… And my work? I’m on a cranky old laptop that runs slow and often not at all, with old software and nothing where I want it (I’ve been spoilt by the shiny new desktop PC!). At the moment I tend to work on one of the living room sofas, wrecking my back again (or maybe that’s down to all the lifting – a writing life doesn’t prepare you for all that physical stuff).

How do you write?

First Draft
Memento Notes

I can work in distracting, noisy places, but I don’t choose to have music or TV on when that’s within my control. I usually have ‘net access, but that can be a big distraction, so sometimes I just switch the wireless off for half an hour or so.

My working outlines are a lot more skimpy than they were in the early days – a confidence thing, as much as anything else. As a minimum my outline will have a few key points: opening, ending, and some landmarks along the way.

I’ve taught writing to postgraduate level, and I always make the point that I’m never going to teach people the way to write; it’s all about helping them find their own way to write. Having said that, there are some basic rules that tend to help most people. Foremost among these is that once you have words down on the page you have something to work with: bad writing can usually be fixed, but polishing that fabulous idea while it’s still in your head doesn’t really get you anywhere.

So I write. Often fast, just to get those words down. And often, even when I think I’m writing rubbish, when I come back to edit I see that it’s okay: there’s always something I can work with, at least. I’m disappointed if I don’t hit 2000 words on a writing day, and my peak, fuelled by caffeine, deadlines and desperation, has been more than 10,000. Some people may see that as hacking it out – how can the quality possibly be there, when you write so fast? I see it as honed technique: when I’m working like that, I’m capturing the big picture and writing with a lot of energy and momentum; the rewriting brings refinement and adjustment until I’ve hit the right balance. But if there’s one rule of writing, then for me it’s Get Those Words Down.

Questions of style. First Person, Third person, present tense, past?

pcYes, to all of those. Whatever suits the story. The Accord is my most complex in terms of viewpoint, as it’s told from first person present and past tense, third person present and past, second person present, past and future tense, and then various hybrids of multiple first and third person devised to portray the viewpoint of multiple characters and character-fragments sharing the same brain. It sounds complicated and for the first half of the first draft I didn’t even understand it myself, I just wrote each scene as seemed appropriate; and then, one day away from the computer, it all mad sense to me, the rationale for the different viewpoints and the drift for some characters from an intimate inside-the-head viewpoint to a distanced, more reportage perspective.

Viewpoint and style aren’t things I really sweat over before starting. They usually emerge while an idea is developing, so that by the time I sit down to start a draft the storytelling voice and approach are clearly established in my head. Sometimes elements of style emerge as I start to write (an angry voice, a consciously smooth style, etc), and when that happens it’s just a matter of going back and fixing the early pages – as long as you have those words down, you can fix that later, when the first draft is done

How many redrafts? – How many readers? – How easy is it to let go?

Edit Notes
Edit Notes

Back when I printed actual drafts, each piece would have at least three printings. I’d print the first draft and then edit it longhand until it was barely legible. Then I’d type in the changes, print a clean copy and repeat as necessary.

Nowadays I rarely print anything, so my drafts are far less easy to distinguish. I’ll often edit the early stages of a story to ease myself into writing new material for the day, so the early parts of a novel might be the equivalent of second or third draft even before the overall draft is complete.

After all the revisions, it’s off to my trusty first reader, Eric Brown. We’ve swapped drafts for something like 25 years – a trusted first reader is one of the most valuable tools in a writer’s kit, and Eric is a very good tool. I should probably rephrase that… Neither of us pulls punches when critiquing each other’s work, and we’re both prepared to ignore crits that we don’t agree with. Generally, I’ll act on about 75% of the things Eric spots; then I’ll probably mull over much of the remaining crits, wondering how he missed the point so badly. Then I’ll come back to the draft and probably act on those remaining crits, too, once I see that he’s right.

What are you working on at the moment?

kdpsales

I’ve been doing lots of work for infinity plus recently, with Garry Kilworth’s fabulous historical novel The Iron Wire published recently – this one tells the story of the men who constructed the first telegraph line across the heart of Australia in the 1870s. And Eric’s collection of ten short stories, Deep Future – it’s great to be publishing some of his books these days. My own most recent novel is the big epic fantasy, Riding the Serpent’s Back , a widescreen story of a civilisation’s end days.

More Information

Keith Brooke’s Website: http://www.keithbrooke.co.uk/

InfinityPlus: http://www.infinityplus.co.uk/

How Long does it Take to Write a Novel?

The answer? Fifteen days, twenty hours and fifty five minutes.

I know that because I finished Dream Paris yesterday and I’ve been clocking the time I spent working on the novel.

The time includes the writing of the first draft of the novel and three redrafts: first redraft, the second following feedback from my wife and a third following feedback from other readers. The novel is now with my editor awaiting his feedback and will probably undergo at least two further redrafts.

I’ve not counted time spent planning the novel or the notes I made prior to embarking on the writing. As some of the ideas, scenes and dialog that appear in the novel have been collected over several years, it was difficult to measure this.

Some statistics you might find interesting:

I started on the 18th February, 2014 at 9:58am
I finished on the 20th February, 2015 at 3:00pm exactly

If I’d been writing an 8 hour day the novel would have taken around 48 days to complete.

The book is almost exactly 100 000 words as it stands, given that it took just short of 381 hours to write that gives an average word rate of a rather pitiful 262 words an hour. Given that the first draft took around half the total time to complete, that makes the word rate a more respectable 524 words an hour. As I normally average around 850 words an hour, the missing words are partially accounted for by the fact that I cut around 60 000 words from the novel due to mistakes, changing my mind or no good reason.

If you’re interested how I collected this data, well, have I mentioned Emacs? I recorded the time taken using org-mode. You can find out more by reading this post on My Emacs Writing Setup.

PLR – Have you signed up?

I just received my PLR statement for this year. If you’re wondering what the PLR is, then read this, taken from the PLR website:

Public Lending Right (PLR) is the right for authors to receive payment for the loans of their books by public libraries.

I’m a huge fan of the PLR and not only for the obvious reason that they send me money each year, but also for the fact they are so good at their job.

I first found out about them a few years ago when one of their operatives phoned me up to say she’d noticed I hadn’t registered with them and was due some money if I did so. Since then they have operated with quiet efficiency, paying my money directly into my bank each February without fail. They’ve also got an excellent website – nothing fancy, it just works.

If you’re a published writer and you’ve not signed up yet, you could be losing money. Where does it come from? Well, again, as it says on the website:

Under the PLR system in the UK, payment is made from government funds to authors, illustrators and other contributors whose books are borrowed from public libraries. Payments are made annually on the basis of loans data collected from a sample of public libraries in the UK. The Irish Public Lending Remuneration (PLR) system covers all libraries in the Republic of Ireland and operates in a similar way.

To qualify for payment, applicants must apply to register their books.

It takes less than ten minutes. There’s absolutely no reason not to sign up.

There’s a nice end note to all this, too. Many top selling authors waive their PLR payments, allowing them to go back into the pot to help out other writers.

PLR, they really do bring a ray of sunshine into these dark January days.

Six Ways to Stay Sane as a Writer

  1. Don’t place too high a value on your reviews (there’ll always be good and bad ones).
  2. Don’t place too high a value on your Amazon Sales Position (no matter how high it is, it will go down eventually).
  3. When it comes to you writing, the only people whose opinions really matter are your editor and those you’ve chosen to be your alpha and beta readers. (And you should really listen to them!)
  4. Remember that you got into this to be a writer. If you’re writing, you’re doing what you wanted to do (and what you have to do).
  5. Always be working on your next story (that way you won’t feel so bad if the last one is rejected).
  6. Remember that being a writer is only part of who you are. You’re also a wife/husband/partner/mother/father/son/daughter/friend/colleague…  (in fact, you spend more of your time being those things).

See Also

Engage the Reader: Bring a Scene to Life

I’ve just returned from a few days in Paris where I’ve been finishing off the first draft of my next novel, Dream Paris.

Did I have to finish the book in Paris? Well, there’s no denying it was an enjoyable experience: walking down the boulevards in the unseasonable autumn sun; stopping at a cafe to drink a Leffe and watch the world go by; taking my time over coffee in a restaurant at the end of a meal…

But was it really necessary to go to Paris? I think so. It gave me the opportunity to take lots of photos to use as reference images. But more importantly, It gave me the opportunity to use my note book. I’ve written about this before (and I’ll mention it again in the future), there’s nothing like capturing a scene live. One of my favourite definitions of a novelist comes from Sol Stein: a novelist is someone who communicates emotion.

I’m not a photographer, I can’t capture the emotion in a scene with a camera, all I can do is to take snapshots. I do like to think that I can capture a scene in words, however, and this has to be done live. You’re capturing your emotional reaction to the scene, or the imagined reaction of your characters. Failing to realise this is a mistake that many beginners make: a simple description of the scene before you is not good writing, no matter how detailed that description, no matter how many fancy words you use.

In a story, the scene you are describing should be there to communicate some emotion: tension, happiness, fear, excitement. You can recreate this emotion at your desk or in the coffee shop, but if you are moved by what you see before you then remember this: it’s not the play of sun on the leaves that you are trying to record.

Capture those emotions there and then.

It’s Time to Think Big Again: How to Develop as an Artist

There’s a tendency nowadays to view simple as good, to regard the stripped down as authentic. In music we’re still seeing a reaction to the 1970’s, to the overblown theatricals of prog rock, to the tendency to “big” sound in classical orchestras. Well, that was forty years ago today, and things have gone too far.

This was illustrated in an article I read today about the singer songwriter Ed Sheeran.

Last week, IoW boss John Giddings caused controversy when he said that the industry wasn’t nurturing enough newer acts to rise to the role of headliner, and that the pool of more established legacy acts that could be called on to top the bill was forever diminishing – adding that Ed Sheeran was ‘boring’ and that if he’s the future, ‘we’re all screwed’.

If I read the article correctly, John Giddings problem was Ed Sheeran’s habit of playing solo concerts, just him and a guitar.

I don’t know enough about Ed Sheeran to have an opinion on whether he’s boring or not, but John Giddings may have a point about the solos. I’m getting tired of hearing minimalistic sets on acoustic instruments. To my mind, stripped down instrumentation all too often reveals a failure of the imagination. Why? Because arranging is difficult. Writing many parts is harder than just writing for voice and guitar. Thinking of something original to do with a larger sound palette is hard, full stop. Yes, all too often a bigher band can also be used to hide a lack of content, but that’s not an excuse to try something new.

You might disagree with the above. I’m sure some of you have your fingers poised on the keys, ready to type what about JS Bach? What about Chopin? Well, good point. And if Ed Sheeran’s playing in his live act involves him adding to the range of guitar techniques due to his extended arpeggiations, if he is using the instrument to provide a counterpoint that highlights the inner harmonies of his music in unusual fashions, if what he’s doing is pushing back the boundaries then fair enough. Actually, better than fair enough. Hats off to the artist, we can all learn something from him.

But if he’s just singing along to the chords, then, no, that’s not enough, not anymore. I’ve heard enough of those sort of acts, I want something different. (I should add at this point I listened to Ed Sheeran whilst typing this. I was rather impressed, and I didn’t think him boring. I haven’t heard his live act, though.)

That doesn’t detract from my main point, though. If you want to develop as an artist., yes. keep it simple to start with. But there has to come a time when you do something more exciting, when you try to work on a larger scale. You’ve got to take the journey before you can return to your roots.

You’ve got to get out into the world and experiment before you bring it all back home.

Six Ways that Being Published Won’t Change Your Life

  1. It won’t make you rich.*
  2. Your non-writing friends won’t think any differently of you.
  3. Nor will your writing friends
  4. The urge to write will not diminish
  5. Nor the urge to be published (again).
  6. It won’t provide any answers to the other problems in your life

However, it will validate you as a writer. To yourself, at least.

* Really, it won’t. Well, it’s so unlikely that it will you shouldn’t make it part of your life plans. Treat it as a happy bonus if it does.

See Also

My Advice Remains the Same

I learned the craft of writing through short stories.  When beginner writers ask me for advice, I always recommend they try the same.  There are a lot of reasons for this:  every tale completed means more practice at writing beginnings, middles and ends; you can experiment; you’re getting feedback more frequently…  Best of all, you’re leaving each story behind and starting a new one.  You’re always trying something new.

I don’t know how often I’ve said this.  I do know that my advice is rarely taken.  Fair enough, you choose which advice you take. but even so, I have wondered why more people don’t start with short stories…

And then, following a conversation the other day, it finally occurred to me why.

Because every short story completed opens up the possibility of another rejection.

Because rejection is painful.

Because writing a story means putting your heart and soul out there with the risk that no one is interested.   Writing a story exposes you to the world.  Devastating if the world isn’t interested.

It’s far safer to write a novel. The rejections are a long way in the future.  You can mess around with a novel indefinitely, endlessly perfecting it, dreaming of the time that its picked up, that it becomes a best seller.  One short story does not make you a writer, but with a successful novel you can miss out the wannabe stage and go straight to the top of the tree.

Good luck to you if that happens, and I’d be really interested to hear how you did it. But otherwise, my advice remains the same.  Write short stories

Six Things to do When You’ve Finished a Story

  • Put it away for a few weeks. That way you can come back to it with a fresh mind
  • Ask yourself Can I delete the first paragraph? The answer is usually yes
  • Ask yourself Is the ending really as strong as is could be? The answer is usually no
  • Read the story through out loud. It’s amazing the things you’ll pick up that you wouldn’t have seen on a read through.
  • For the same reason – if you have the time and the patience – key the story in again
  • Lastly: submit the story to a market. You can’t hang on to it forever…

See Also