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Insider tip
"Imagining how a story might work on stage can inform the dramatic action of your novel. Looking to see how the dialogue and subtext might develop and reveal a character can help you to reveal the characters in your narratives." » Read more from Derek Neale, OU Lecturer in Creative Writing
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The accidental writer
Filed under: Competitions and Offers, Getting Published
This month I find myself behind on a deadline that I agreed to nearly two years ago.
Finishing a manuscript can be a daunting task – especially when you are 30,000 words short as I am and it is not fiction but non-fiction. Not to say that writing is ever easy but when you are dependent on facts rather than imagination, the word count meter can seem Read more
Making the most of summer
Filed under: Festivals and Events, Writing Advice
I’m in the midst of organising the second annual Summer Writing Institute for BQFP, the publishing company where I work. This year we are expanding to five tracks: fiction, personal essay, poetry and for the first time, Arabic language workshops in fiction and essay as well.
It’s our last event before the summer and also the perhaps the one I’m most excited about because of how much Read more
Rule 4: Quality not quantity
Filed under: Writing Advice
This is the fourth of my pieces on setting up a writers’ group. We have already covered what type of writers’ group you’d like to join (Rule 1), setting your group’s goals (Rule 2) and learning from others (Rule 3). In this final post in this series, we’ll take a look at how to deal with slow patches in participation.
A few weeks ago, we held the last of our Doha Writers’ Workshop meetings before the summer holidays. It was a talk by a poet who lived in the community. She was vibrant and shared from her heart. There were Read more
Rule 3: Learn from others
Filed under: Writing Advice
This is the third in a series of posts about writing groups:
Discovering what type of writers’ group you’d like to be part of (Rule 1) and setting your goals (Rule 2) will help your meetings be productive, rather than excuses for gathering and commiserating about the state of the world, one’s parking tickets, or intentions to write the next bestseller.
Learn from others…
A writers’ group can also be a wonderful two-way platform where Read more
Rule 2: Establish your goals
Filed under: Writing Advice
Many of you had lots to say on the subject of writing groups and how to find readers in response to my founding rule number one: every writer needs readers.
This month we’ll focus on rule number two, which many of you have already hinted at: establish the writing group’s goals Read more
Every writer needs readers
Filed under: Writing Advice
I’ve just spent four hours with 13 other writers, immersing ourselves in a workshop that involved ‘prompt writing’: exercises that you get entirely fresh, no preparation, and with a time limit.
The goal is to generate as much material as possible – first draft writing – and the emphasis is on the act of generation, rather than grammar, spelling, or the tasks that come with revision.
This is the fifth such session I’ve organised for the writers’ workshop I run. Despite it being the first day of the weekend (here in the Middle East) we left more energised than when we straggled in at 2pm.
After the 15 or so minutes of writing (or typing) as fast as you can, you have the opportunity to share your work out loud. The electricity felt as Read more
The truth about book fairs
Filed under: Festivals and Events
What many authors don’t realise is how critical marketing is to the success of their title once they’ve overcome the hurdle of getting an agent, finished the stellar content, and got the book on the shelf.
Store placement and promotional work are key to sales. Many publishers now want an author to have a ‘platform’ or personal marketing strategy of how they can get the title picked up by book clubs, reviewed on Amazon and recommended to Read more
Check your ego at the door (if you want to be published)
Filed under: Getting Published
If the writing of a work isn’t hard enough and if you are like most authors, you’ll want to get your manuscript published.
This second goal can be equally – and in many cases – more challenging, particularly as the internet and self-publishing have democratised the way writers send their words out into the world. Yet many still prefer traditional print outlets for their work – international distribution via trade paperback, for example.
For my next few posts I will talk about the process of getting an agent and then the lesser known steps of selling rights to your work in different markets and languages.
For now: the age old mission of finding an agent. There are many Read more
When your writing lacks life
Filed under: Writing Advice
While reading a friend’s manuscript, I realised it suffered from the same problem as several previous drafts of my novel: the writing was dead.
I don’t mean that it wasn’t grammatically correct or it didn’t evoke some spontaneous laughter. Rather the writer behind the words on the page was distant. As a reader I couldn’t sense her emotions; the story never went beyond the safe boundaries of expression. To put it another way, there was nothing at stake for the writer – she wasn’t taking any risks. And therefore I as a reader was likely to put the manuscript down.
How does material end up lifeless? Read more
It won’t write itself
Filed under: Authors and Books, Writing Advice
The minute I finish the fifth and final revision of my novel, I get up, stretch the kinks out of my shoulders, and feel a rush that is close to indescribable.
This has been a lengthy journey after all. I started in 2006 at a summer writing school when one of my characters came into focus so sharply he demanded to be written. Over the course of the week his antagonist, also his first love, came into view. They were talking to each other about why their relationship had failed. Before I knew it, I had a story – the anatomy of a break-up – and two characters as real and vivid as anything I would want to read.
Completing my novel has been a long road – three years in the making, with seven months of putting the entire thing to one side. I was doing all the right things, sharing chapters with other writers in my local writers’ group, and yet didn’t seem to be Read more
Buy the 2011 Yearbook
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On camera: Jon McGregor
"Being longlisted for the Booker Prize changed everything - it was the launchpad for my writing career." Click to view our video with novelist Jon McGregor »
On camera: Justin Cartwright
"Just write... If you're any good you may not know it, but certainly someone else will." Click to view our video with novelist Justin Cartwright »
On camera: Julie Myerson
The novelist and journalist Julie Myerson on how she got that all-important first publishing deal. Click here to view our video exclusive »