Category Archives: Notes on Publishing

Masterclasses for 2024

by Andrew | Leave a comment

In January I am starting live monthly masterclasses on Zoom. They are designed for writers who want to explore craft and process in writing while learning more about the business and culture of publishing.

Masterclasses will run live on Zoom for 90 minutes. They will include discussion on that month’s topics plus a brief writing exercise and a session of Q&A.

Every masterclass unit will also come with homework, e.g., brief preparatory readings as well as a writing exercise or two. This will be emailed to you a week before we meet on Zoom, and will be optional – you don’t need to have completed these activities to take part in the Zoom class.

Each unit will also come with a workbook that will be made available after the Zoom class. It will include notes on craft, resources, and reading suggestions, and most importantly will give you writing experiments and ideas to try out in your own work. The after-class mailing will also include any further recommendations that might arise from our class discussion.

Classes are live, so recordings will not be available if you can’t make them at their scheduled times.

The topics of the first three masterclasses are: beginnings; voice; character.

Future masterclasses for 2024 will cover: setting and situation; story and plot; point of view and narration; showing and telling; structure and form; genre and readership; endings. A prose style intensive in the summer will look at: parts of speech; sentences and paragraphs; voice and style.

I’m also hoping to run pop-up Zoom workshops on topics such as tarot and writing, the Four Elements practice, and specific genres or techniques. I might run a workshop focused on specific pieces of writing and feedback later in the year too. More on all that anon.

You can drop into individual stand-alone classes, or you can take them in sequence across the year as a comprehensive foundation in the basic tools of good writing. Think of it as a craft course for an MFA or MA in writing – you might like to sign up for some of these classes as a supplement to the DIY MA in creative writing.

The emphasis of the masterclasses is very much on craft, though January’s unit on Beginnings will pay attention to matters of process too: getting started or restarted, and maintaining a writing practice. I’m a great advocate of drafting as well as exploratory practices such as Field Work. Later classes will draw more explicitly on my experience in publishing, e.g., when we talk about genre and readership. (Note: I use the word readership rather than market.)

To pace things, I’ll probably focus each Zoom class on maybe half a dozen key tips or takeaways, though the workbooks will offer resources that will let you take things deeper at your own pace.

Beginning as well as experienced writers are welcome. I find a mix in most of the classes I now teach, and I am always a big believer in cultivating Beginner’s Mind to keep writing fresh and authentic.

I’ve been teaching online in some form or other for twenty years – Naropa’s low-residency MFA was one of the pioneers in online learning. My teaching style is informal and enthusiastic, and I welcome questions. I want to be able to help writers wherever they are in their writing, empowering them with what they need to know: questioning myths, overcoming doubts, guiding writers to understanding. I’m particularly interested in cultivating intuitive methods in writing, and my classes often bring in contemplative practices, tarot, or other approaches that take us beyond the page.

Like many teachers I feel that reading is one of the best ways to grow your instincts in writing, and I often do some close reading in my classes, or invite writers to root around their own bookshelves. I frequently use Annie Proulx’s long short story Brokeback Mountain, as it contains a novel’s worth of story while being short enough to be read in one sitting by anyone coming to a workshop, and it covers so much that’s relevant to discussions of craft: character, setting, scene, structure, prose style – basically, everything. There will be plenty of other literary references too: bestsellers, prizewinners, fan favourites, cult classics, works across genres and forms.

Also in 2024: I plan to continue my discussions of craft and publishing on Substack. As a result, I’m not sure how frequently I shall be blogging here. I’m no longer sure about blogging! Interaction has rarely been as lively as Instagram or Twitter/X (though I’m not at all active on Twitter/X any longer, and I fear my Twitter self never really came to life anyway).

Substack has potential; I worry about information overload, with lots of writers writing about writing(!). But too that denotes serious intent, and community, plus a number of people I know are active there. And I was thrilled to pieces that George Saunders chose to discuss The Child by Bobbie Louise Hawkins for his Story Club on Substack this year. The interaction really enlightened me to the possibility for engagement on Substack.

Hope to see some of you there – or on Zoom! More information on the classes can be found here. Meanwhile, I’ll be maintaining this website, not least as a home for all of these writing experiments.

How Not To Get A Book Deal But Write The Book You Want (FREE version!)

by Andrew | 8 Comments

I still can’t get over the fact of a literary agency charging £649 for a daylong course called How To Get A Book Deal. We all have to earn a crust, but I thought literary agents did that by taking a commission for selling author’s books.

There are some very good courses run by agents and publishers (and writers and editors and writing teachers too …). And there are also plenty of festivals and writing conferences where writers can pay to hear the advice of industry professionals and sometimes even pitch to them – hey, we live under the system of global capital, right? And until the Revolution comes the exchange of money is often the foundation for the use of other people’s time and expertise, okay?!

But £649 is a lot of money to shell out for a day. I trust the pastries will be first-class!

So, for FREE, I’ll let you into a secret.

The way you get a book deal is to write a book someone else wants to read.

It’s as simple as that. And if lots of people want to read it, you could be very successful commercially.

I am not being facetious! I really do think there is great value in grasping the clarity of these facts. Too much can be overegged and overpromised in the world of creative writing, and promises made are rash ones. No one can really predict what a publisher will acquire, or whether a book will sell once it is published.

Stop grasping – just write a good book. If you want to be published, it really comes down to the simple matter of writing something that readers want to read. And it doesn’t even have to be a good book: look in a bookshop!

But, too, what is a good book? Taste matters as much as technique, and we know there’s no accounting for it.

However: it does help to develop your craft and technique, and also to gain inspiration in establishing an effective creative process. And though there are many excellent resources out there that you can pay for, there are also many that are FREE. Here are some of the ones I recommend most frequently.

On intention
Carmen Maria Machado, On Writing and the Business of Writing: a powerful essay on the intersections of art and commerce, grounded in real-life examples. If you are serious about getting published, this is required reading.
Alexander Chee, How To Unlearn Everything: written to address that contentious topic of writing ‘the other’, this essay in fact goes to the heart of three of the most important things in writing and publishing: your purpose in writing; your chosen narrative style; and understanding your readers. All writers should read it.

On creative practice
Charlotte Wood and Alison Manning on the Writer’s Life: a series of podcast interviews, with plenty of practical guidance on matters ranging from finding focus and discipline to working with feedback. There are so many podcasts on writing and books, but I’d certainly make room for this one.

On understanding how craft powers your story
Lincoln Michel, On The Many Different Engines That Power A Short Story: or novel or memoir or any narrative form. And while you are there, I highly recommend you sign up for the LitHub Daily – plenty of excellent craft essays and reviews and matters book-related.

On the intersections of plot and character, and how they connect with readers
Parul Seghal, The Case Against The Trauma Plot: lots of food for thought here for how stories are presented as tidy fictions – or messy ones. Valuable reading.

On developing a narrative style
Tell Me A Story and A Book Is Not A Film: blog posts of my own about narration, showing and telling, and knowing who or what is telling your story.
Emma Darwin, Psychic Distance: What It Is And How To Use It: I tend to use the term narrative distance, which I feel is more accurate for relating both interior and exterior modes of storytelling; whatever the language, understanding this concept can really empower your storytelling. And there is a whole textbook’s worth of writing advice in Emma’s excellent Tool-Kit.

On story types
Ronald Tobias, 20 Master Plots: a checklist for the 20 types of story is made available for free by the publisher – really handy for marshalling your narrative content and shaping it into a story. The book it’s based on is a good investment for writers too.

On story structure
Michael Hauge, The 5 Key Turning Points Of All Successful Screenplays: okay, a book is not a film (see above), but it helps to develop an understanding of ways to pace and plot your action. I often suggest that writers watch a favourite movie and look for those key developments in the story such as the Point of No Return and the Major Setback.

On prose style and voice
Chuck Palahniuk, Thought Verbs: a niche matter, but choosing the best verbs to power your sentences is imperative. Lots of other useful craft essays on the LitReactor site too.
Constance Hale, Sorting Out Grammar, Syntax, Usage & Style: there are lots of other resources on Constance Hale’s site too, and her book Sin and Syntax is *the* book on style, grammar and usage I always recommend: practical, witty, and breezy.

On publishing
Margaret Atwood, The Rocky Road To Paper Heaven: a pithy overview of the path from writing a book to getting it out in the world.
Jane Friedman’s Writing Advice Archive: should answer most questions about the business of publishing. Jane Friedman is a good one to follow.

On being realistic
Michael Neff, Why Do Passionate Writers Fail To Publish?: fierce but necessary! I disagree with a few points, e.g., that you must publish short fiction before submitting a novel, but a lot of sound advice here.
Editor’s Rejection Bullets: insights from the world of publishing.

On making yourself comfortable with uncertainty
Masterclass, John Keats’ Theory of Negative Capability in Writing: or cultivating the habit of being ‘in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason’. Masterclass has a lot of free articles on other topics too.

On returning to the page
National Writing Project, Thirty Days Of Lockdown Writing: because we don’t want you spending *too* much time doing the reading, a month of daily prompts, many inspired by that guru of writing practice, Natalie Goldberg.

All of that advice: for FREE!

If I were doing this next week, I might have different suggestions. And ideas for podcasts and YouTubes could form entire other posts. Lots out there! Feel free to suggest in comments below.

And if you are really keen, and don’t mind shelling out on a few textbooks or going to the library: here is my DIY MA in Creative Writing. FREE. But you might want to find classmates or writing partners for that.

And there are lots other resources and writing experiments on this site, of course. FREE!

*

I’m right now not blogging as frequently; call this a special edition for the spring equinox, and maybe I’ll try to do something quarterly. But you can also find me on Twitter, and especially on Instagram.

NB: Revised 28 July to include Carmen Maria Machado’s essential essay.

Character Questionnaire: Writing Experiment No. 70

by Andrew | 2 Comments

On Saturday I led a masterclass on Character and Setting in conjunction with Kellie Jackson of Words Away. It’s the latest in our series of classes intended as a practical, DIY alternative to the craft seminars of an MA/MFA in creative writing. Here is Kellie’s account of the day.

We discussed Olive Kitteridge and Tom Ripley and Ennis Del Mar, and Bridget Jones and that other Singleton, Mary Ann from Tales of the City. We talked about types (heroes, mentors, shapeshifters), and primary identities, and desires and inner conflicts.

We drew cartoon sketches of characters, and maps for them to be placed in. I think there is a great value in bringing nonverbal forms of expression into our writing practice, not least in keeping a check on overthinking. I’m always looking for ways in which writers can develop their writerly intuition, sparking surprises and digging deeper with their characters – their yearnings, their contradictions, their secrets. Which might include some of our own, and some of those of people we know, and some we made up entirely.

As usual: a lot to fit in! And we had a good laugh or two, which is perhaps the most important thing of all. A further bonus came from listening to Christina Macphail of Agatha Christie Limited talking about her career in rights, export sales, and licensing. There were a lot of Agatha Christie fans in the room, and I have already been prompted to return to The Mysterious Mr Quin, which I suspect I might get more from as an adult. An excellent and engaging talk, shedding light on important parts of the publishing business – thanks, Christina! And thanks also to Kellie Jackson for helping organise the day. Some snaps from the day are below.

One fun exercise was creating a collaborative character questionnaire.

Answering questions about a character’s outer identity and inner world is a common exercise in creative writing. There is, of course, a risk that assembling a character out of such details can lead to cookie-cutter writing that gets caught up in representing the facts assembled on a checklist at the expense of telling a story. The result, if we are not careful, is writing cluttered with detail but lacking in heart and momentum. We considered, for example, that cliché of someone looking in the mirror in the first pages of a book as a way of establishing a character, focusing on obvious traits that pin that character down but somehow seem a bit flat or predictable as a depiction.

A conversation about a white lab coat concluded that we in fact need very little description to bring a character to life: the Principle of Sufficiency. We also discussed the importance of defining characters through their speech (dialogue, subtext) and their actions (their plottings) and their perceptions (point of view).

All the same, creating Character Files (and Setting Files) can be productive work in assembling our stories: building a mood board or a scrapbook, saving pics on Pinterest, taking walks in the personality of your character and seeing the world as they do, thinking about who and why and what and how and where and when they are. See, for example, the Character Questionnaire as well as a version of the popular Proust Questionnaire shared by Gotham Writers.

Below is a version of the questionnaire I created, along with other questions generously shared by Saturday’s class; I tasked them particularly on asking questions that probed characters’ miscellaneous particularities and oddities. Such prompts are intended as exercises for exploring your character’s depths and potential, but some of the writing that’s spurred may in fact lead its way into your book.

Give yourself an hour (a good chunk of time), and devote yourself to working through your answers to these questions for your character. Then come back and fill in the gaps you might not have answered immediately. And then do the questionnaire again for other characters. And so on … And do feel free to update at a later date, as your story shifts in its drafting.

Also: please feel free to add questions of your own in the Comments below. Thanks in advance!

Also thanks to everyone who came on Saturday, and made it such an enjoyable day. Our next workshop, Crafting Your Prose, is on Saturday 30 March at London Bridge Hive. There are just a couple of spaces left.

 

Character Questionnaire

Consider the following questions for your characters, not only in the context of their background and history, but also within the timeframe of your story – and beyond.

Outer world

  • What is your character’s name?
  • Does your character have other names, pseudonyms, or nicknames?
  • Describe their appearance: hair, eyes, height, weight, distinguishing features.
  • What is their state of health?
  • What is their family background? And current family?
  • What is their marital/romantic status?
  • What was their social class growing up? And during the course of the book?
  • What is their primary identity/category/type: occupation, gender, sexuality, class, age, religion, race, ethnicity, nationality, region, language, other? (Primary = defining the storyline.)
  • What are any secondary identities/categories that important in defining them?
  • How might your character contradict any types they belong to?
  • What is your character’s dramatic role or function in the story?
  • What problem does your character face within the story?
  • And what question does your character pose to the reader?

 

Inner world

  • What is your character’s personality type? (Outgoing, introvert, obsessive, laid back, etc.)
  • What does your character yearn for?
  • What secrets does your character keep, and from whom?
  • What are your characters’ flaws?
  • What mistakes or poor choices has your character made?
  • What risks has your character taken?
  • What wounds does your character carry?
  • What does your character fear?
  • What are your character’s phobias?
  • What are your character’s prejudices?
  • What are your character’s pathologies? Consider: OCD, anxiety, neurosis, narcissistic, sociopathic, mental health, gossipy, inability to take criticism, etc.
  • What are your character’s spiritual or religious practices?
  • What are your character’s politics?
  • What makes your character angry?
  • What brings your character greatest happiness? And how easy is this?
  • What are your character’s passions?
  • What memories continue to shape your character? (Personal as well as cultural/collective.)

 

Misc. behaviours, habits, tastes, oddities (which often reflect both inner and outer worlds)

  • What are your character’s repeated actions? Routines? Tics? Mannerisms? Catchphrases?
  • Does your character have a pet?
  • What is the best gift your character ever received? Ever gave?
  • What direction is your character moving in?
  • What is your character’s favourite … food? … book? … hobbies? … sports? Etc.
  • What is your character’s spirit animal? Their nemesis animal (an animal that represents a character flaw or weakness, e.g., squirrel = scattered and a hoarder)?
  • How does your character sleep?
  • What does your character keep or dispose of when decluttering?

 

Additional questions from Words Away masterclass, 26 January 2019

  • In a stressful situation, would your character be most likely to (a) pray, (b) swear, (c) cry, (d) other?
  • What is their favourite holiday destination?
  • What smell takes your character back to being a child?
  • What is your character’s preferred mode of transport and why?
  • Any tattoos or piercings? What? Where? When? Why? Do they smoke/did they? What? Where? When? Why?
  • How does your character feel about kissing?
  • What is the biggest source of shame for your character and have they ever told anyone about it?
  • Is your character subconsciously trying to impress/gain respect/[insert motivation] their father or their mother? How does this cause/drive conflict in your story?
  • How does your character respond to an unexpected extravagant gift?
  • What action that your character has taken would they change, and what would they do instead?
  • Who was your character in his/her most recent former lifetime?
  • What does your character need/desire and what’s stopping her from getting it?
  • What is your character’s secret fantasy?
  • If your character was a song, which song would it be and why?
  • How does your character act when getting changed at a public swimming pool?
  • How does he/she relax? (I.e., what do they like to do for downtime?)
  • If your character had only two hours to live, who would they spend it with, where, and why?
  • [Insert your own questions below, and invite your friends for their questions too.]

 

 

Spring 2019 Masterclasses: Character & Setting, Prose Style

by Andrew | 1 Comment

After a successful masterclass on the Craft of Voice at the end of November, Kellie Jackson of Words Away and I are continuing this series, which began with Plotting in September, with two more masterclasses for the spring term:

Crafting Character & Setting

Crafting Your Prose

Character and setting are the foundations of our narrative content, and on 26 January we shall be exploring ways in which they can be brought to life in ways that propel our stories forward. And the masterclass devoted to prose style on 30 March will look not only at important aspects of grammar and usage (verbs! nouns! the evils of fronted adverbials!), but also explore ways to refine and adapt our voices in writing for a variety of purposes and effects.

More info including booking details at the links above. I have listed provisional schedules for the day as well as some suggestions of readings we might use to bring to life our discussions about craft; we usually email delegates a few weeks in advance with further reading recommendations as well as any other preparations for the class. We shall make time for some short writing exercises in class too, and you’ll also be given handouts and resources so that you can continue your lessons and explorations in craft at home afterwards.

And each day will close with an informal Q&A with an industry professional. This is designed to demystify the publishing industry, and offer practical insights into the business, giving you chance to ask your own questions. Our guest speaker on 26 January is Christina Macphail of Agatha Christie Limited, who has a great range and depth of experience in selling books and rights in both adult and children’s publishing – intellectual properties she has sold include many much-loved characters, so it will be interesting to place our creative conversations about character and world-building into this wider commercial context.

The last masterclass filled up in about ten days, and we had a long waiting list, so if you are interested I suggest you book in advance. We hope to continue with a couple of other classes in the summer term, and should there be interest to repeat this sequence in 2019/2020 too.

The Craft of Revising, 23 June 2018

by Andrew | 2 Comments

I really enjoyed Saturday’s workshop on The Craft of Revising – a lovely group of writers came along, and we left energised and enthusiastic to return to writing projects, seeing them in new ways and ready to try out fresh things with them.

We talked about Buddhism and drag queens and different types of editing, and taste and technique, and intention. We asked ourselves what genres we are writing in, and how our books might be positioned to readers by publishers. We thought about our characters and their yearnings, and discussed how specific slants or perspectives on our material can not only create a stronger focus for our stories but also lift their telling. I stressed the importance of not only verbs but also paginating your manuscripts, and we sought gifts and questions in each other’s writing. We talked about shitty first drafts, and I suggested lots of practical tips for self-editing and looking at your work in a fresh light. We also discussed working with feedback.

A serious aim for the day: the idea of listening to your writing. Listen by reading it aloud, listen by hearing it read aloud, and most of all listen with your eyes: hear what’s there on the page or the screen. Let your material make itself known.

We were lucky to have novelist Michelle Lovric come along to give an inspiring talk on tackling ambitious and challenging projects, and also provide useful and most intelligent guidance on creating voices for your narrators.

I think it’s important that the publishing business is demystified for writers, and we ended the day with a Q&A with Lennie Goodings, Chair of Virago Press, who gave many practical insights into the work of editors and what happens within a publishing house: when to stop editing, being an advocate for your authors with your colleagues, the importance of good booksellers. Lennie brought further inspiration with her good humour and absolute passion for books and writers.

Given I was the only man in the room, it also seemed relevant to touch on the subject of gender in the crowd at creative writing events. Do women writers like coming to workshops, while men writers prefer to attend masterclasses?! Or maybe they just go it alone?! ‘Discuss …’

As usually happens when energetic writers get together, we had far more content to share than we had time to cover. (I want a time-turner!) Everyone in the group had skills and expertise of their own, and there’s so much to learn from each other.

Follow-up notes are being emailed, and lots of handouts were provided (unpaginated … but they are individual, one-page handouts … though please please add page numbers to your own manuscripts!).

Kellie and I hope to run further workshops-slash-masterclasses in the autumn on voice and plotting (dates to come, maybe along with some men?!), and I am planning other workshops in other places too. Do register your interest by contacting me or Kellie.

Thanks to Kellie for a wonderful day, and to Michelle and Lennie for their generosity in joining in, and to everyone for coming.

* Interview on The Craft of Revising

* A post on feedback

* A post on being declined (aka rejection!)

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Listen to your writing!

Thanks to Kellie and Rebecca for photos.