AUTHOR’S NOTE

This book has been constructed upon the foundations of its successful previous edition. The publishing and media industries are changing rapidly, and this expanded book (more than twice as long as the original) brings the subject up to date and encompasses additional themes based on topics raised by the hundreds of readers who contacted me in recent years with questions about their own writing. Thank you to everyone who took the trouble to email me with feedback and ideas, and I hope this new work will help the next generation of creative-minded people to become the writers they want to be.

CONTENTS

Cover

Title Page

Copyright Page

Author’s Note

Foreword

LET’S BEGIN

PREPARATION FOR BEING A WRITER

TOOLS OF THE TRADE

TYPING SKILLS

BACKUPS

SHOULD YOU GIVE UP THE DAY JOB?

THINK LIKE A WRITER

DRESS LIKE A WRITER

IS IT GLAMOROUS?

PRACTICALITIES OF BEING A WRITER

FIND THE BEST PLACE TO WRITE

IS IT IMPORTANT TO HAVE A SPECTACULAR VIEW WHEN YOU WRITE?

HOW TO FIND TIME TO BE A WRITER

WRITE EVERY DAY

WHAT HAPPENS IN A TYPICAL WRITING SESSION?

COUNTING WORDS

SETTING A TARGET WORD COUNT FOR EACH DAY

DEALING WITH IDEAS THAT HIT YOU MID-SENTENCE

KEEPING NOTES

BE AN EXPERT

DEVELOP A VOICE

LANGUAGE, GRAMMAR AND PUNCTUATION

VOCABULARY

KEEP IT INTERESTING

THE SECRET OF WRITING LIKE A PROFESSIONAL

START BY WRITING RUBBISH

WHAT CONSTITUTES A NEW DRAFT?

WHAT TO DO BETWEEN DRAFTS

HOW TO FEEL GOOD ABOUT CUTTING THOUSANDS OF WORDS

HOW DO YOU KNOW WHEN A WRITING PROJECT IS FINISHED?

INSPIRATION – AND HOW TO WRITE WITHOUT IT

FINDING INSPIRATION

EXPLORING WHAT– IFS’ IN YOUR WRITING

THE SECRETS OF WRITING WITHOUT INSPIRATION

WRITER’S BLOCK

HOW NOT TO GIVE UP

BOOST YOUR CREATIVITY WITH TECHNOLOGICAL WIZARDRY

USING WRITING SOFTWARE FOR PLOTTING AND STORYBOARDING

USING WRITING SOFTWARE FOR LAYOUT AND TECHNICAL FORMATTING

IMPROVING DESCRIPTIVE REALISM WITH GOOGLE STREET VIEW

PORTABILITY OF COMPUTING EQUIPMENT

INSTANT ACCESS TO A DICTIONARY AND A THESAURUS FROM WITHIN A WORD PROCESSOR

USING FREE RESEARCH RESOURCES AT PROJECT GUTENBERG

RESEARCHING FACTS ONLINE

RESEARCHING THE COMMERCIAL VIABILITY OF YOUR PROJECT BEFORE YOU START

BLOGGING

TWITTER AND OTHER SOCIAL MEDIA

ONLINE WRITING EVENTS

TECHNICALITIES OF WRITING

BASICS OF WRITING A NOVEL

BASICS OF WRITING SHORT STORIES

BASICS OF WRITING FLASH FICTION

BASICS OF WRITING NON-FICTION

BASICS OF WRITING FOR CINEMA

BASICS OF WRITING FOR TELEVISION

BASICS OF WRITING FOR RADIO

BASICS OF WRITING FOR THE STAGE

BASICS OF WRITING BOOKS FOR CHILDREN

BASICS OF WRITING POETRY

BASICS OF WRITING COMEDY

BASICS OF WRITING FOR ANIMATION

BASICS OF WRITING FOR VIDEO GAMES

BASICS OF JOURNALISM

BASICS OF COPYWRITING

BASICS OF GHOSTWRITING

BROADENING YOUR LITERARY HORIZONS

GETTING PUBLISHED

PUBLISHING IS A BUSINESS

LOGLINES, SYNOPSES, TREATMENTS AND SAMPLES

HOW TO SUBMIT YOUR MANUSCRIPT

RESEARCH YOUR MARKET

NETWORKING

EXPLOITING INDUSTRY CONTACTS

WRITING COMPETITIONS

DIY METHODS OF PUBLISHING

THE NEGATIVE STUFF

COPYRIGHT, AGENTS, CONTRACTS AND ROYALTIES

THE NEXT STEP

DEFINITIONS

USEFUL WEBSITES AND SOFTWARE

FOREWORD

‘A writer is a person for whom writing is more
difficult than it is for other people.’
Thomas Mann

I am many things. I’m a husband. A pedestrian. A consumer. A son. A graduate. A driver. A viewer. A Cicestrian (look it up). A publisher. A rubbish marathon runner. A pain in the neck. But I don’t usually define myself by those labels. I call myself a writer. That isn’t to say that I spend the majority of my time engaged in that pursuit. It’s not unknown for me to scribble for fewer hours in a day than I squander under the hypnotic glow of the television, but on official forms I describe myself as a writer, not a couch potato.

What does it mean to be a writer? A storyteller, perhaps? A literary exhibitionist? A recorder of the human experience? It sounds rather splendid and noble, but it isn’t how I regard myself. My chosen trade surrounds me with frustration and torment.

It’s a peculiar calling. I quietly yearn for a life free of the shackles of my creative streak. My somewhat tragic fantasy is to be able to spend a day doing nothing and not suffer the inevitable remorse that feels like lead in my stomach. But whenever a whole day passes without any words making it from my head to my word processor, the shame becomes entrenched. It’s exasperating. Maddening.

I’ve called myself a writer since Lady Di haircuts and leg warmers were the height of fashion, although I haven’t actually been a writer during every one of those intervening years. Some years would go by with no creative output at all. Others would see plays, books, songs, sitcoms, or other literary products taking shape. Some went nowhere other than the filing cabinet (and later, the virtual filing cabinet of the computer); others saw publication, production or recording. By age 15 I had a folder crammed full of ideas for books, plays and films that I wanted to write, and almost thirty years later I still have that folder and I still haven’t had time to work on them. It doesn’t really matter now: I think the time for topical satires about Thatcher’s Britain and sketches written for Frankie Howerd may have passed. But the failure to complete the unrealistic mountain of ideas for writing projects I had in my youth is yet another source of irrational regret.

For those fortunate enough not to be afflicted by this curse of creativity it’s probably hard to conceive what it feels like. Try to imagine you’re a teenager about to go to bed having failed to tackle your school homework, and you know the teacher’s going to make you regret your laziness the next day. It feels a bit like that. Conversely, at the end of a productive literary day an endorphin rush floods me in a tsunami of satisfaction. There’s no greater sensation than knowing a writing project has taken a giant leap towards completion. That’s the positive force that motivates me to write.

Being a writer is emotionally tough. It’s a self-punishing existence demanding anti-social hours and rarely paying a return that bears any relation to the eons spent perfecting the craft. So why did I become a writer? A moment to ponder the horror of what it would mean for me to be anything else should answer that. When I worked in a yogurt factory I had to quit within a week because the rubber gloves made the skin of my hands peel off. When I was a pizza waiter I made Basil Fawlty look competent. When I was a book sales representative I used to spend more money buying all the irresistible new publications in Waterstones than I made from selling them. I’m just not cut out to be anything other than a writer.

Fortunately I happen to be extremely skilled at sitting on a chair. I hardly ever fall off. I also have a basic competence at the task of rearranging words that I find lying around in the dictionary, not to mention the ability to press clearly labelled buttons on a keyboard. I was born for this role. But, of course, it wasn’t that easy. Nurturing a book from idea to completion can take years. Developing the literary skills to make it publishable can take decades. When I look up at my bookcase and see my own books filling an entire shelf, I thank my younger self for having had the courage to build something for my future. The results of a day’s literary labours will still be visible long after a day I squandered lounging around unproductively has been forgotten. I sense a timeline stretching ahead of me, like a conveyor belt into the future. Writing is like putting a gift on that conveyor belt, knowing that it will help my future self.

If you dream of one day putting ‘writer’ on official paperwork, the effort starts now. Write something each day for the benefit of your future self. Make yourself proud. Anyone can be a writer if they want to, but to make the transition from being a ‘waitress who writes’ to plain ‘writer’ requires a commitment to work with the person you are now and the person you’re going to become. There’s no switch, no magic wand that can transform you instantly. You need to accept the downside of this vocation: the quotidian guilt that accompanies failure to make as much progress as you would like. But only by embracing that pain can you reward yourself in later life with the fruits of your endeavours. And in truth, it’s the guilt that we feel when we don’t write that defines us as writers more strongly than the words that we actually do write. If it doesn’t bother you that you’ve written nothing all week, I would question whether you really are going to be a writer. If you’re frustrated by your recent lack of creative progress, excellent. We can work together on this. Read on: this book is for you.

LET’S BEGIN

To become a writer it’s not enough just to write. Everyone does that. Emails, texts, Facebook posts, letters of complaint to the local newspaper – but those people don’t want to be writers. You do. You have to become something different. Something special. You have to learn not only how to write, but how to destroy sentences that you’ve lovingly crafted. You’ll need to delete paragraphs, throw away chapters, or even whole books or scripts. Being a writer is not about writing. It’s about rewriting. Improving. Starting again. Polishing. Honing your skill. Learning from those who are better than you. Recognising your own mistakes and weaknesses. Developing critical judgement. Some rather unpleasantly describe the requisite skills as the ability to ‘murder your babies’. It’s a horrible phrase, but there’s no denying that self-editing can be an unsavoury experience. I prefer a more positive way of looking at it: being a writer means accepting nothing less than a joyous symphony of perfectly arranged words.

I just need to purge you of any misconceptions and ideals early on because they won’t help you in the long run. Do you really think your first full screenplay will tempt someone to make it into a film? Is your first completed novel good enough to be published? I know as a writer that your instinctive reaction is to say ‘Of course it’s good enough’. After the thousands of hours you’ve put into writing it, how could it not be? Everything I’ve ever written has always seemed perfect to me. At first. With the perspective and objectivity of passing time, I always come back to a project with fresh eyes and see its faults. Nothing is ever as perfect as it seems when you write the first draft. Even if it’s the tenth draft of your first book, it’s unlikely to be as good as the tenth draft of your second book.

Improvement as a writer is not optional – it’s unavoidable. It means what you write first is not as good, literate, marketable, enjoyable, readable or satisfyingly huggable as your second project. The stories you proudly wrote at school are laughably bad in the adult world. You got better, and you’ll keep getting better. If you put in the hours, you’ll eventually reach the point at which your writing can be considered to be of a professional standard. You will have found your ‘voice’. You will have matured in the way you create sentences and structure the flow of ideas. And you’ll understand why your early works are best left on your computer hard drive, unread. You’ll also realise that those abandoned projects were essential steps in reaching the giddy literary heights that you now occupy. Don’t regret the time spent on lengthy writing projects that no one reads. They helped to get you where you are now. But that’s all they will ever be.

To become the writer you want to be there’s something else you’ll need: inspiration. Ideas. Creative juices. Again, everyone has ideas. We writers don’t have the monopoly on inspiration. But it’s up to us to do something with the random thoughts that lodge themselves in our heads from time to time. More importantly, we have to develop the ability to find inspiration when it seems lacking. We have to put ourselves into the right physical environment and a suitable frame of mind to permit our brains to fill with gushing waterfalls of ideas. I’ll explain how to achieve all of those things in this book. I will also show how it’s possible and even desirable to write without waiting for inspiration to descend upon you, lights flashing, angels singing with stories handed to you from the cosmos on a silver plate. Because I know that such events can be tricky to concoct and can’t always be guaranteed.

This book is for all writers, in all genres, but most of the examples apply to book writers because they form the biggest single group. The pain we all experience in trying to put words on the page is the same whatever the genre, however. This book presupposes only that you want to be a writer. No previous experience is necessary. I’ll take you through all aspects of what it takes to be a professional writer in the publishing and media industries today. There are some harsh truths exposed in this book and many myths will be shattered. The reality of writing is not what many people believe it to be. Some of these chapters may surprise or disappoint you.

Read this book before embarking on a career as a writer. Use it to inspire you to achieve high standards, greatness and professionalism. Without those you have nothing. With them you can conquer the literary world.

The Success Pyramid

The community of writers who can command a living wage from their work is very small. That’s the community you want to join. How many people are knocking on the doors looking for space in that community just like you?

The top group consists of the superstar authors, the lucky and talented few who have made it rich through their writing. This group includes J. K. Rowling, Stephen King, Bill Bryson and anyone else who has managed to turn their name into a saleable brand that can command high advances.

The second group from the top is a little larger, and consists of all those writers who are able to earn enough from their writing not to need to do any other work. Most of them are not at all famous or glamorous, just jobbing authors who scrape enough successes to pay the mortgage and feed the dog.

The third group from the top consists of writers who earn some money from writing, but not enough to be able to write full-time. They might have had one or two books published with moderate success, or they might sell the odd article or television script. Many are happy where they are, though some would prefer to move up a level so they could earn enough from writing to be able to tell their bosses where to stick their jobs.

And the giant group at the bottom is everyone else. The many millions who have yet to earn any money from writing and who dream of finding a shortcut straight to the top of the pyramid. Little do they realise that there’s only one difference between them and the fortunate people higher up who earn money from writing. It’s a difference that is easily remedied. I’ll reveal that difference later in this book.

TOOLS OF THE TRADE

Let’s start with the basics. A writer needs to communicate their thoughts into written words, and there are four main methods of achieving this:

Writing longhand with a pen and paper

Produce a draft using a pen and paper, then type it onto a word processor. This has an inherent advantage of forcing you to review and rewrite your initial efforts, so the first version to appear on your computer is actually a second draft. The pen is not an alternative to a computer; it’s just an additional step that some writers prefer.

If you write longhand, don’t skimp on the pen and paper. You’ll be scribbling hundreds or even thousands of words a day as a writer so it’s vital to choose a pen that is comfortable to hold and that can get the ink quickly enough onto the paper to enable you to write at full speed when the ideas are flowing.

Choose a notebook that makes your writing feel special. Look in the stationery shop for a notebook that inspires you. There are blank notebooks that look like bound hardback books, or you may be more inspired by spiral-bound journalists’ pads. But don’t fall into the trap of buying a notebook that is so beautiful you feel that to write anything inside it would spoil it. The real beauty will come from your words, your doodles, your notes. This notebook will be your first draft, not your final draft, so don’t be afraid to explore your creativity even if half of what you write ends up in a literary dead-end and never makes it onto the typed version.

Typing directly into a computer

Any computer on the market today is more than adequate for word-processing work. Word processing is the least demanding of all major computer applications, so the only relevant factor in choosing a computer to write with is whether you want a laptop or a desktop.

If your writing base is at home and in a private, consistently quiet area, a desktop computer will be best. They’re available with larger screens: I have dual screens, and one of them is turned to a portrait position, giving me the ability to see up to 1,500 words of my book at a time when I’m writing. But if you want the flexibility to write in other locations, a laptop will give you that freedom. Battery life varies, but most will give three to six hours of power before warning you to save and close your work before they shut down. If there’s mains power available you can run the laptop from that, and in some long-haul airline cabins you can even plug your laptop in to the seat for in-flight power.

Laptops have less space for keyboards, so the keys are smaller and closer together. This isn’t a problem for typing once you get used to it. In fact, the reduced distance your fingers have to cover can actually speed up typing. The only difficulty comes when switching from a laptop keyboard to a desktop keyboard and adjusting to the change.

Tablets such as the iPad have virtual keyboards which are not ideal as your primary method of input unless you are extremely patient or nimble of finger, although I’ve seen many would-be wordsmiths tapping determinedly at their tablets in coffee houses, and on planes and trains. It’s plainly a keyboard skill that can be mastered. The iPhone and other smartphones also have word-processing functionality, but the virtual keyboard is so small that the speed and reliability (hitting the right key every time is beyond the ability of my chubby digits) of input make it suitable for occasional use only.

Using dictation software

If you prefer talking to typing, why not give dictation software a try? It will transcribe your voice into text in a word-processing document. In theory this is a great idea, giving all of us the opportunity to write like Dame Barbara Cartland used to do, laid back on a chaise longue dictating masterpieces without ever having to type. I met the famously pink-bedecked Barbara Cartland at a book launch party a couple of years before she died. Our conversation was problematic to say the least: she was too deaf to hear me and her voice was too soft for me to hear her. Quite how her dictation secretary used to cope, I’ve no idea. The problem with dictation software is actually very similar to that of trying to converse with a deaf ninety-six-year-old surrounded by noisy, drunk publishers. The words get misinterpreted, and the resultant prose can be gibberish. But it’s possible to train the software to get used to your voice, and eventually you should get to the stage where the computer can truly be said to ‘understand’ you. Give it a go if you think it will help you to write. I tried it briefly, but if someone else is within earshot it seems strange to be talking to your computer (although shouting at it in frustration is not generally regarded as being out of the ordinary).

Using a typewriter

If you view the process of typing your work on a typewriter as the equivalent of writing longhand, then fine. Type it once on paper then type it again into a computer. If you think that typing on a typewriter will generate the final product, you’re wrong. That isn’t how the publishing and media industries work these days. Everything has to be processed through a computer, and if you can only supply your writing on photocopied sheets then you’re adding unnecessary costs for the publisher because if they want to accept your work someone will have to re-key every word of it. Scanning using optical character recognition software is a possibility for them, but it’s slow and unreliable and will add mistakes to your work. Typewritten work will only be tolerated from established authors (usually of a very senior age).

TYPING SKILLS

Are you one of those writers who object to using a computer on the grounds that they don’t know how to type? Really? You mean you’re incapable of looking at a printed letter on a button and pressing it? I don’t know how to type, and I’ve probably typed over three million words onto computers. Of course, typing the first book was slow. I had to look at what my fingers were doing. I took no typing lessons. I just used one finger on one hand and one finger on the other, and roughly divided the keyboard between them. Typing the second book was a little quicker. Occasionally I could take my eyes off the keyboard and still hit the right key. That was a nice feeling, but I couldn’t rely on it. I started using two fingers from each hand on the next few books to speed things up a little. Several books later came the revelation that I wasn’t looking at the keyboard any more. I never noticed the moment of transition, but somehow I reached a point at which I only needed to look at the screen while my four typing fingers managed to hit all the right keys. I think I now use about three fingers on each hand for typing, but my fingers move so fast I can’t really tell. One thing’s certain: I can type a lot faster than I can write with a pen and I only look at the keyboard to find the punctuation keys.

Fast typing generates errors, known in the business as ‘typos’. They are a normal part of writing and can be easily fixed during later rewrites. The first draft of this book contained plenty of typos, but they only took a short time to fix using my computer. Imagine if I’d typed the book on a typewriter: to insert a few words into one paragraph on a typewriter used to require typing out the entire page again. With the two or three mistakes per page that were present in the first draft of this book I’d have had to retype the whole thing, which would be like rebuilding a house just because a bulb had blown. At least with the computer I can make repairs to individual words and the rest of the paragraph layout adjusts accordingly.

“ If my doctor told me I had only six minutes to live, I wouldn’t brood. I’d type a little faster.”

ISAAC ASIMOV

BACKUPS

There’s nothing more frustrating than typing into your computer a page of exquisite text that you’re convinced is going to make you the next Thomas Hardy, only to find that it all disappears into the ether the moment your neighbour’s DIY project causes a blackout in the street. Don’t trust technology. Don’t even trust paper. Floods and fires do happen (sadly not often at the same time). Back up everything you write every day. Hard disks fail. USB memory sticks disappear like biros. Files can get corrupted. Save after every paragraph you type into a computer – otherwise you could lose pages of work if there’s a power cut (unless you’re working on a laptop).

In addition to the manual kinds of backup, subscribe to a ‘cloud’ storage service. I have several of these – there’s one that comes as part of my anti-virus software, another that I pay for specifically, and another that helps my iPhone talk to my desktop. I also recently began using Dropbox, which copies my documents onto all of my devices as well as storing them up in the sky somewhere. The service is free up to a certain amount of data (it’s more than sufficient for text documents) and has proved to be so reliable for me that I no longer email files to myself or bother using memory sticks to transfer my work. Visit www.stewartferris.com for links to Dropbox and other backup solutions. You can’t have too many of these things. Belt and braces, as it’s known. Your work is precious and deserves the best protection you can find.

“ Writing is not a job description.
A great deal of it is luck.”

MARGARET ATWOOD

SHOULD YOU GIVE UP THE DAY JOB?

You’re all set up as a writer now, so go ahead. Resign. In a week or two you’ll get an advance for your sample chapter that pays off the mortgage and buys you a holiday home in the south of France, right?

Wrong. Firstly, an unknown writer won’t get an advance for a sample chapter². How does the publisher know you can continue writing at that quality until the end of the book? How do they know your rip-roaring story won’t fizzle out in a few chapters? The best-case scenario would be an encouraging letter or email saying they like the sample and would be happy to look at the finished book when it’s ready. No commitment. No money. Months later, when you’ve finished the book and sent it to them, you will then have to wait weeks for a reply. Sometimes months. If they make an offer to publish, you still won’t see any of that advance until the contract is signed, and even then you’ll only receive a portion of it (the rest is reserved for when the book is published, probably 18 months later).

So your payment might be as much as two years away, and that’s if you’re fortunate enough to get an offer from the first publisher you send it to. Will that royalty advance change your life? Enormous advances hit the headlines, so understandably that’s what you think you’ll get. But 99 per cent of publishing deals don’t involve huge sums of cash. An average advance in the industry is unlikely to buy you a new sofa let alone a new house. The dilution of the publishing world that followed the dramatic success of eBooks and the ease and affordability of digital self-publishing has resulted in even lower advances as publishers attempt to shield themselves from competition that seems to grow exponentially. You’ll still be able to buy a sofa with your advance, but these days it’s likely to be from the charity shop.

The cynical side of me would therefore say that the best way to make a living as a writer is to get another job (or keep the one you have already). But I know it doesn’t have to be that way. There has to be room for dreams and ambitions. You write because you have the imagination and creativity to make something out of nothing. If you have the power to perform such alchemy, the ability to monetise your output must be within your grasp. Just don’t do anything to harm your original source of income until you have proven that not only can you replace it with cash derived from writing but that you can do so consistently.