From the comments, I notice that some people seem to object to the idea of lists of tips and advice. In which case, either: lighten up (none of this is gospel, and as in all things creative some things will contradict themselves). Or: bugger off and write your own book then, and keep your damage to yourself.
From Matt Haig’s list, I particularly note several things: choosing agents wisely (should like to know the story there …); the need for editors (yes!); the idea there are now more gates for the gatekeepers to manage; and also:
Beauty breeds beauty, truth triggers truth. The cure for writer’s block is therefore to read.
The Three Guys One Book comments included one of my favourite points:
I was at the Writers’ Workshop Getting Published day as a book doctor on Saturday. I met a number of writers to give them feedback on sample material for their proposed submissions to agents, and I also led a workshop on voice, in which I talked about the value of the natural speaking voice. It was a lot of fun, as it always is when you get to meet writers directly. And as ever the Writers’ Workshop people were fun and well organised and direct in addressing the needs of writers: thanks to Harry, Laura, Nikki, Deborah, Lydia, John, and everyone else involved, and it was great to meet the other book doctors again or for the first time.
Here are a few notes to follow up, including some of the resources mentioned during the day.
The workshop * To start, we discussed the idea of trusting the natural speaking VOICE as a vehicle for your writing, and considered how TONE in writing particularly concerns itself with introducing an emotional quality.
* We looked at some examples of professional writing for the structures and patterns we often use in business or academic contexts (e.g., an objective tone; lots of subordinating clauses). Such voices often lack personality, and intentionally. But in fiction or more creative forms, a neutral voice can feel colourless, and fiction can start to feel cluttered by certain forms of syntax that let us pack in or even bury information when we need it. Yet very often, these have become the ways we write – our natural way of writing.
* By contrast, thinking about the NATURAL SPEAKING VOICE (and thinking and remembering voice), we read a selection from Joe Brainard’s ‘I Remember’, and wrote our own versions and then read them aloud. This form is natural and easy to use, and it is notable how it relies on simple sentence structures (okay, we’re going to introduce sentence variety later). It also has the strength of instinctively focusing our writing on concrete and specific words, especially nouns and verbs (adjectives and adverbs are so rarely needed, even if they do add a certain something).
* I read aloud the opening from Zoe Heller’s Notes on a Scandal, and noted not only its gossipy quality, but how every sentence in that first paragraph is directed towards the idea of STORYTELLING or NARRATION. (And what is gossip, if not storytelling?!) We also noted that the voice and tone here belong to a specific PERSONA (in this case, judgemental and even bitchy), and this can enrich the CHARACTERISATION in our work (this being the persona, not the bitchiness – though maybe that too!).
* We also looked at and listened to Jamaica Kincaid’s ‘Girl’ as an example of writing that takes a particular tone, again a judgemental one. I wish I’d had a bit more time to discuss tone, so I’ll mention it briefly here: there are specific ways we can vary the tone in terms of not only form (e.g., word choices, using different parts of speech, sentence lengths, modes of address), but also content (the narrative ingredients selected for observation and inclusion).
Something I did not mention in the workshop was this great statement on simplicity in writing from William Zinsser’s On Writing Well:
the secret of good writing is to strip every sentence to its cleanest components. Every word that serves no function, every long word that could be a short word, every adverb that carries the same meaning that’s already in the verb, every passive construction that leaves the reader unsure of who is doing what—these are the thousand and one adulterants that weaken the strength of a sentence.
That might sound a bit extreme, especially if you’re working in a more literary mode. But this emphasis on simplicity – the simplicity found in the natural speaking voice – is perhaps one of the best foundations for most good writing.
Book doctoring It was interesting that the writer whose voice I thought most striking and fresh from her submission turned out not to be a native speaker of English. Which perhaps accounted for the number of slips in spelling! But even those sorts of slips just go to show that a good voice shines through anyway. And also that there are differing definitions of perfection – after all, we need to keep some work for the copyeditors. Anyway, I’d never have guessed she was not a native English speaker; a particular name, in fact, made me think she was an English woman of a certain age, and that was what I was expecting. Wow. To do that in a language you weren’t born into; puts most of us native English speakers to shame.
In addition, this writer comes from a part of the world that might bring a fresh perspective to an established genre, and I encouraged her to think about introducing more of that into the writing too. Good luck to her!
Some of the things that came up in other samples: writing that packs too much in too soon; various other issues of pacing; developing a narrative focus, and letting unfolding action tell the story; overwriting, especially overexplaining (fiction can suggest, be allusive); using point of view to give a story an edge; prose style needing more life, texture, and colour (specific and concrete imagery often add a spike of energy, as do well-selected verbs and nouns).
It’s also a good idea to know your genre, and what might be expected of it – everything from conventions you can use, to trends, to word lengths. This knowledge can grow your own instinct in writing. It’s worth paying a visit to a larger or specialist bookshop, maybe during the morning when you might be able to chat with a bookseller about trends and popular writers. Pick up some recommended books, if you have not read them already, and sample them for what you can bring to your own work.
And beyond the writing, writers often need to think about the profile and platform that might help an agent or publisher promote your work. Even in fiction. In fact, personal experience can often inform the writing in good, instinctive ways, lending it depth and authority. Though of course we must always allow for flights of fancy and imagination, too.
Finally, don’t forget that publishing is something of a lottery. I tend to think that the best books eventually find a home, though whether they sell once published is another matter. And of course some not so great books get published and become roaring successes – but that is usually because they connect with something or other among a readership. What is that thing in your writing that might connect?
Recommended reading Regardless of the genre you’re working in, these are some of the most useful books on writing. And yes, you probably can gain from doing a bit of studying of this sort, either on your own or in a creative writing class. Understanding techniques in writing will just add depth to your work.
Sin and Syntax, by Constance Hale Steering the Craft, by Ursula Le Guin The Making of a Story, by Alice LaPlante How to Write, by Harry Bingham On Writing, by Stephen King The Art of Fiction, by John Gardner The Writer’s Journey, by Christopher Vogler 20 Master Plots, by Ronald Tobias
I just read a very useful article with lots of practical tips: ‘How To Avoid The Self-Published Look’.
To that I add:
* If you are printing a book the traditional way, choose good, quality paper. Don’t go for bright, whiter-than-white photocopier paper, else your book will look as if it’s just come off a photocopier. Ask for paper samples, or even show your printer or paper supplier the sort of paper you like from a book whose production you admire. Better paper might be more expensive, but it will look more professional, for sure; maybe you’ll just have to charge a little more for it, or print a few less? But it’s probably better than having lots of brighter-than-white copies lurking unsold in boxes in your garage. Make your book something that people want to possess.
* A good cover. A very good cover. Outsource it, if need be. Make your book beautiful, desirable. (Some publishers could pay heed to that too. Make your book look something more than a full-page advertisement in a magazine sold at the checkout in the supermarket.)
* Understand the differences between structural editing, copyediting, and proofreading, and introduce these as separate editorial stages in your production process.
* At some point, make sure that other sets of eyes read the book. You’ll never catch everything yourself.
And oops, I see that I go against the grain on this site in at times ‘improperly’ capitalising the first letter of every word in titles, including articles, conjunctions, and shorter prepositions. I follow that style in print, but for some reason I’ve found myself using initial caps online; it just looks tidier? Not least given that in email and other online contexts we don’t always italicise titles. Well, that’s my logic/excuse. Someday, maybe I’ll go all OCD on this site and change that, perhaps. Or maybe not. Ow, one of those editor dilemmas to keep us awake at night.
What a privilege it is to be part of an industry that is, by and large, free of prejudice. Our industry is based on the telling of stories. These stories should help and inspire people, and I believe they will.
It was another lifetime, another century, but I wanted to note (and thank) my colleagues at Little, Brown UK (now part of Hachette too) for being so strong and supportive of all the gay-themed books I edited and published when I worked there. It did not really have to get much better there, because it was already pretty good to start with, and wasn’t really an issue: these were books with readers, and we published them, and sold them, and people read them. And then that makes a difference, we hope, in the world. It’s all a publisher could wish for.
So all credit to everyone at Little, Brown UK back then and now, as well as all those authors, agents, and other publishers, for being so no-nonsense, and being part of making that difference.
It Gets Better, And Better. (Today is my twenty-year anniversary of meeting my own husband. Yes, I’m going to say that rather than civil partner. That Gets Better too.)
Among the many angles in the coverage of last week’s US election, the story that fascinated me the most was ‘Ballot Design With Todd Oldham’ from the New York Times. The experts say maybe millions of votes have been lost over the years because of poor ballot design. And I had no idea that the Florida ballots with the hanging chads were such a MESS (I love their comparison!). Wow, typography is THAT important. I still find it horrifying that the world’s superpower’s voting systems are so inconsistent; surely this is too important for such variation to be permitted in things such as voting machines (paper vs electronic), in the ballot design? If this happened in the developing world, the righteous West would be crying outrage. I’m all for decentralisation, but this is chaos. Makeover time!
Which we are told is necessary to balance out the ever increasing powers of Amazon. Which doesn’t pay much tax either. I have found myself shopping at Amazon less and less this year. Okay, I might have to(?!) do my ebook of short stories there, and I am sure could save on various titles I might instead buy, e.g., at the Open Book in Richmond. But at what price: my soul, for a couple of tight-fisted quid, and crappier royalties to the writers? In you have any doubts, just watch the BBC coverage of the parliamentary grilling of the man from Amazon (he say no).
Just happened to watch The Young Apprentice candidates create cookbooks last week. Fun to see a primetime take on publishing, and I thought the kids did well (among the squabbling – some of the young women were notably obnoxious). The funniest moment for me was when the Waterstone’s buyer got so defensive about a seventeen-year-old saying their customers were middle-class. Out of the mouths of babes. But also: if you want to publish, learn to spell, or at least find someone who can.
Talking of, an oldie I recently came across: Sarah Churchwell asks in the Independentwhy British students can’t write like Americans. Duh, because they’re not taught how to?! Just saying. Sarah, I share your outrage. A North American correspondent points out that Americans can’t write either. Well, you can’t make it learn, but you can at least take a horse to water.
Finally, the Believer interview with Maurice Sendak is super. His cranky comments about the death of publishing and the evil of ebooks were taken out of context all over. Read at the source; any curmudgeonliness must be experienced in the larger space of that rich, intelligent, funny voice.
