Writing - Now, hold on!

‘Don’t hold on to poor work. If it was bad when it went in the drawer it will be just as bad when it comes out.’ – Jeanette Winterson

This is sound advice – up to a point. It may be poor in the quality of the writing, but the ideas written down, the concept, the actual plot may be workable after a suitable gestation period.

The title of this blog is taken from an article I had published in The Writer magazine in the 1970s.  In that piece I stated, ‘Never desert a story!’ I was referring to rejected stories, and advocated putting them on ice; keep them, don’t discard them.

I’ll quote from the piece here: ‘Seven years ago I wrote an unusual quite uncommercial story. It didn’t have a hope. But I liked the style, even though none of the editors I tried seemed to share my view. Last year I slanted it at a particular magazine and it was swept up eagerly. All in all, I probably altered one-tenth of the story – and, more important, the layout and style remained unchanged.’

Another story was rejected by the same magazine twice; I let it lie, gathering dust for a couple of years, then dusted it off and revised it with greater hindsight and experience and it was accepted.

Moral: Contradict Jeanette Winterson, if you feel like it.

Jeanette Winterson is the author of the phenomenally successful book Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit (1985) which was filmed for TV in 1990. Her latest book is The Daylight Gate (2012).

Writing – new review

My book Write a Western in 30 Days has picked up seven 5-star and one 4-star reviews on Amazon UK.  The latest reads, in part:

‘Good advice for all types of writing. Although this book focuses on writing westerns it is useful for all types of novel writing. Whether I could write a novel in such a short time remains to be seen, but the tools to do it are there in the book.’

So, thank you ‘Big A’ from England.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Write-Western-30-Days-bullet-points/dp/1780995911/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1428845583&sr=1-1&keywords=nik+Morton

http://www.amazon.com/Write-Western-30-Days-Bullet-Points-ebook/dp/B00D6E3T6O/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1428832391&sr=1-1&keywords=Nik+Morton

There are nine 5-star and two 4-star reviews for the book on Amazon COM.

 

 

Writing - As long as it gets (2)

Yesterday, we looked at the problem of not having ‘enough’ words for a given novel, and how to rectify this without simply inserting padding.

Some writers have the opposite problem, however – they write, write and write until their tome is well beyond the usually accepted 100,000 words. There’s nothing wrong with this – a good number of debut novels have exceeded this word-count. But you’re bucking against the standard requirement of publishers and agents by writing such a thick novel, thereby lessening your chance of acceptance.

If you see your book growing to huge proportions, then you might like to take a look at this blog I posted in 2014:

http://nik-writealot.blogspot.com.es/2014/04/writing-tip-its-too-long.html

 

 

Good luck!

 

My book Write a Western in 30 Days has picked up a good selection of reviews, and many of the reviewers on Amazon sites state that it's useful for writers of any genre, not only westerns.

 

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Write-Western-30-Days-bullet-points/dp/1780995911/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1428845583&sr=1-1&keywords=nik+Morton

 

http://www.amazon.com/Write-Western-30-Days-Bullet-Points-ebook/dp/B00D6E3T6O/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1428832391&sr=1-1&keywords=Nik+Morton

 

 

Writing - As long as it gets (1)

There’s an axiom that goes: a novel is as long as it takes for the story to be told. And that’s very true.

Naturally, there are a few conditionals attached: has the story been told adequately, so that the reader doesn’t get lost anywhere along the way? Have the characters justified their existence in the story? Is there a beginning, a middle and an end?

Sometimes, the writer needs to write sufficient words to meet the criteria of a publisher – or even the expectations of their readership. Too short, and they all feel robbed; too long, and there’s the risk of creating a soggy middle that bogs down the reader.

No easy choices.

 

If you’re getting to the stage in your manuscript when you feel it doesn’t have enough words; and you'll know this, instinctively, then you need to ask yourself some searching questions. Here are a few, not exclusive:

Can the reader 'see' the scene?

Is there scope for the odd red herring or misdirection?

Is there scope to add a minor sub-plot?

Are all the characters adequately described, doing enough, justifying their existence in the story?

The temptation is to add padding – this temptation should be resisted. Don't go in for padding with dialogue that doesn't move the story forward.

Don't make scenes longer per se; give them more depth, more drama, more description, perhaps.

I’ve discussed this dilemma in an earlier blog, here:

http://nik-writealot.blogspot.com.es/2014/04/writing-tip-its-too-short.html

Writing – Chapter headings

There’s no requirement to label your chapters. Simply use plain numbers or Chapter 1, 2, 3 etc., or variations.

However, I like to use titles, and often play with words. My first western’s Chapter One was entitled Rue the Lash – which was a play on the old western film star Lash LaRue. Sad, I know, but maybe a few old hands made the connection. Anyway, a whip did figure in the chapter.

You don’t have to have a Prologue; and even if you do have one, you don’t have to have an Epilogue. Some writers – and readers! – don’t bother with prologues. I try to use the Prologue and Epilogue to bookend the tale; in my book Old Guns (2012), The Prologue is Penitentiary, the place where the story begins; and the Epilogue is called Penitent, and it ends in the penitentiary. The hook worn by Corbin Molina, the hero in The $300 Man (2009), is significant. It serves as a deadly weapon and saves him more than once. He’s not less of a man, but more of a man with it. The title of the Prologue is ‘The Hook’, which in filmic terms means, the hook to pull the reader in, which it tends to do. And the symbolism runs full circle to the Epilogue, entitled ‘El Gancho’, which is Spanish for ‘the hook’, a nickname the Mexicans have given Molina. And of course Malinda, his true love, plays on the words, to state that she’s hooked – in love.

            And in that latter book, Chapter One’s title, Heaven’s Gateway is the name of a bordello. An apt name, from the male perspective, I imagine. Other titles – Behind every good man – a phrase I revised to “you’ll find a bad woman”. Lean Pickings – I was tempted to call it Slim Pickings, another play on words, but desisted in deference to the western actor, Slim Pickens. And The Pen is Mightier doesn’t need elaboration – and it proved thus, since Corbin stabbed a villain in his eye with a pen.

            Don’t fret over chapter headings, either. Use them if you’re inclined – but it’s best to wait till the book is finished and after you’ve decided how to break up the story into chapters.

Certainly, you don’t have to plan what happens in each chapter – just let the story flow. But you do need to have a map to your destination, even if it’s a bit rough around the edges.

That map is the plot-plan.

- Write a Western in 30 Days (pp 70/71)

[The above guidance can be applied to any genre fiction, of course! The main thing is, have fun with your titles, it can become an additional reading experience for your readers.]

 

Amazon UK

 

Amazon COM