Tag Archives: how to write a book

Has your holiday been cancelled?

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If your plans for a holiday have fallen foul of the recent travel warnings or flight disruptions, it is a perfect opportunity to put into action all those projects you have been putting off.

You could write a book, compose a song or learn something new. So don’t despair there are plenty of enjoyable ways to occupy yourself without interacting with strangers or flying off to a different country.

Stay at home and learn

If you have always had a burning ambition to learn a different language, play the guitar, or write a book, now is your chance. With a broadband connection or a CD player, you can do all of these and more.

There is a multitude of online resources to help you fill your time in isolation, and some of them are free. With music available for lead, bass or even Ukulele, you can emulate Peggy Lee Radiohead or Oasis. All you need is patience and some equipment.

If you want to learn a language in preparation for when life returns to normal, then the world is your oyster, and it won’t cost a penny. From beginner, intermediate or conversational level, you can learn a little or a lot depending on your mood. It might not make you proficient, but it will give you an excellent start.

Duolingo is a free resource which is easy to use and good fun. OpenCulture can help you learn the most popular languages French, Spanish, Italian, and the harder ones like Mandarin and Russian. Even obscure ones like Icelandic and Gaelic.

My Writing Process – Georgia Hill

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Huge thanks to Jane Cable for inviting me! I write romance – romcoms and historical. I live on the Dorset coast with my two beloved dogs (a sprocker and a delinquent cockapoo puppy) my husband (also beloved but not at all delinquent) and a ghost called Zoe. I love Jane Austen, elephants and Strictly Come Dancing. I’m also a complete museum geek and find inspiration for my writing from the folklore and history of the many places in which I’ve lived.

I’ve worked in the theatre, for a charity and as a teacher and educational consultant before finally acknowledging that making up things was what I really wanted to do. I’ve been very happily living in a fictional world ever since.

My writing

I began writing professionally in 2009, have had 6 novels published, a volume of short stories and have also written short stories for magazines. 

My writing process

I used to walk the dogs, then write throughout the day. Nowadays I find being glued to a screen for too long makes my eyes gritty and my shoulders stiff. I’m far more likely to write for an hour, put some washing in, write some more, make a cup of tea – you get the picture. I’m always thinking about the work in progress, so even when I’m not at the keyboard, I’m wondering about my characters. They become very real. There’s a certain amount of promo on social media to fit in too. Luckily I enjoy that.

Planner or ‘pantser’?

I’m a convert to planning – reluctantly! Using Post-its, I brainstorm the story, working backwards from the end listing the main plot points. Those are written up into bullet points as a crib sheet. This guides me through the story and avoids the ‘what was going to happen next?’ issue. However, characters often take on a life of their own and the crib sheet has to be rewritten as it’s scribbled over so much. If I’m writing one of my dual narratives, I have to plan out more carefully and often end up writing a chapter by chapter synopsis to help me keep track. Helps with the edits too.

Word count?

I keep a tally on the crib sheet when writing the very ‘dirty’ first draft. I tend to write that quickly and usually add about 20,000 words during the second draft so I usually know where I’m going.

Structure?

I have the three act structure in mind and occasionally have even been known to apply it! Instinct guides me more.

What’s hard about writing?

I love writing the first draft. It’s very rough and, as I’m not a skilled typist, has lots of strange typos and very little punctuation. I’m strong on dialogue so the first draft is often little more than that – with ADD DETAIL written in lots of places for the second! I love telling myself the story, which is why I’m a reluctant planner – I like to see where the characters are going to take me. Once their story is told, I lose interest and have to force myself to do the next round of edits – that’s when, for me, the hard work begins.

My advice to other writers

Keep abreast of social media, especially Twitter; you can pick up current trends, tips and useful features. Develop a writing community but choose your writing pals wisely and build up trust; they can be your most valued supporters. Read widely and often. Take a notebook absolutely everywhere. Do your research. And develop a very thick skin!

Links

www.georgiahill.co.uk

Facebook georgiahillauthor

Twitter @georgiawrites

Instagram @georgiahill5681

 

Best Endeavours Technical Best: Jane Cable On What Happens After You Sign That Digital Publishing Contract

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Jane Cable, publishing, writingBEST ENDEAVOURS

Jane Cable’s blog about what happens once that digital publishing deal is in the bag continues.

TECHNICAL BEST

I feel as though I know every word of The Seahorse Summer off by heart. And that can’t be a good thing. My real battle with editing over a short period of time is coming to the manuscript fresh and able to concentrate on what’s actually on the page, not what I think is there.

It’s just as well I’m on the last lap now, the technical points which are often overlooked. None of them rocket science but mistakes which are all too easy to make and not so simple to spot: a ‘by’ for a ‘my’; a missing indefinite article; and the multiple perils (for me at least) of punctuating dialogue. Yes, I could leave that to the proof reader but I’d like to submit a manuscript which is as perfect as possible.

I have another task for this week too. Quite some months ago I was asked to judge the Autumn Writing competition for one of the better writing groups. The subject matter – A Ghost Story – poetry or prose – and now the entries are sitting in my inbox. To be honest they will be a welcome distraction.

Best Endeavours Technical Best: Jane Cable On What Happens After You Sign That Digital Publishing Contract writing, amwriting, publishing

Most helpfully the group’s website gives a critique guide which can double as a framework when editing your own manuscript and for anyone embarking on the process I thought it would be useful to summarise:

Plot
Is the plot believable? Is it too fast or too slow? Too simple or too complex?

Characters
Too many characters or too few? Are they real people, or flat cutouts? Is it easy to confuse one with another?

Setting
Too many locations or too few? Too much description or too little?

Dialogue
Too much or too little? Do the characters have different voices? Are their words believable?

Viewpoint
Do we stay in one viewpoint, or change? Does the chosen viewpoint work?

Ending
Is the ending too sudden or too slow? Does it follow logically from the story? Does it leave the reader satisfied?

Technical Points
Are there errors in grammar, spelling, layout or punctuation? Are there factual mistakes?

Having some sort of structure helps you to step back from your own work and see it more as others do. Not an easy task, by any means, but an essential part of the writing process. If you don’t belong to a writers’ group you may well have completed your manuscript in glorious isolation. If you aren’t against a deadline, put it down for a few weeks, read something else, get out into the real world for a while so you come back to it fresh.

At the very least, pick up a few ghost stories and settle down with a cup of tea to enjoy them.

Jane Cable is the author of two independently published romantic suspense novels, The Cheesemaker’s House and The Faerie Tree, and a sporadic contributor to Frost. The Seahorse Summer tells the tale of how two American soldiers born sixty years apart help forty-something Marie Johnson to rebuild her shattered confidence and find new love. Discover more at www.janecable.com.