How I Write. Lesson 8

Lessons 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7,

I have been asked in replies on my blogs, in chat and in person. I've been asked to give tutorials and teach people how to write. I've thought about it, I've considered it and now I've started it.

I'm not sure I can teach YOU how to write like I do, but I can tell you how I developed my own style and maybe, hopefully, that will help you develop yours.

These are my books. It took two years to write my first book - and another nine years to publish it.

My Amazon.co.uk page

Google (free use) images and Pixabay

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Basic advice on writing 2

What’s next…? Oh yes… after The Idea comes The Plot.

You know how I keep saying ‘There are no rules’ – well, here come the rules…

• Major life challenge early in the story – one that isn’t resolved until the end, keeping readers turning those pages.

• Tension increasing – the character (and therefore, the readers) have to believe everything hinges on this.

• If a piece (or even a whole chapter) isn’t part of advancing the tension and drama, it has to be dropped – we take no passengers on this trip, EVERYONE (every chapter) works their passage over.

You’ve gotta be ruthless with this. Your characters and your readers are depending on you!

For your plot to work, you have to have credible and likeable (or hateable) characters – or at least one, anyway.

The motivation has to be clear and compelling, otherwise… meh, what’s the point, what’s the hurry?

Not only does the motivation have to be urgent and vital to your character, it has to be plausible too.

The guy’s girlfriend is dying from a brain tumour and he’s the only one that can save her.

They’re trapped in a garage with no lighting (only the sporadic flickering strobe-light from the old disco kit he stored there) and he has a rusty chisel set his grandad left him – but the operation is urgent! It must be done NOW! And by your hero… with no experience of surgery, only a little bit of woodworking knowledge… it’ll be ok… won’t it?

Yeah… right… not even the A Team could pull that lot off.

I’ve said it before, go and ‘people-watch’ – no, I’m afraid it’s highly unlikely that you’ll see people in imminent and terrible danger and be able to watch how they cope – for a start, why are you watching, why aren’t you helping?

But you can see how they interact with each other. You can see the mother and her baby, how tender she looks at him/her – or how pissed-off she is when it spits up on her best, and only, clean jacket. EVERYTHING is useful.

Watch, remember, use it.

Your protagonist (main character) has to be compelling. There has to be a reason you and therefore, your readers, want to follow him/her. That character can’t be just ‘meh’ or your story will be, too.

In Gone With The Wind, Scarlett’s main drive is personal to start with. She wants a great marriage and wants to get her own mansion with servants and all the trappings. It’s All About Scarlett - but that changes and because her motivation turns from selfish to selfless (or close-to), we’re compelled to follow her.

The basic motivation stays put, even if the details change. The goalposts moved but she still has them in her sights.

She finds she can perform unspeakable and unthinkable acts of utter bravery in order to keep her family from harm and danger. She will go to any lengths, even killing a man to achieve that.

You’ve got to find your own Scarlett, and Rhett and the rest and make your own story as compelling.

Yeah… it’s THAT easy… and THAT difficult.

As you’re writing, you can’t just settle for the mundanity of everyday life or your reader may as well go and do their housework.

Keep your protagonist off-balance, chuck another piece of adversity into the mix at every turn (or at least, every chapter) and you’ll keep your readers hooked too. Housework? Who cares about housework, this guy is OFF THE HOOK! but your readers are firmly On the Hook!

As I mentioned before, keep the tension by (paradoxically) loosening that chain every so often, only to jerk his feet from under him when he’s not expecting it.

Your story needs to keep moving because once you lose your reader, the story is dead. The reader’s attention is what gives the story ‘life’.

You can take Game of Thrones as an example, but for less experienced writers, I’d try to trim it down a little. George RR Martin has loads of characters – he’s an accomplished and well-experienced writer – but I’d recommend you stick to a few to start with. Work on your Epic Fantasy after you’ve achieved a little success first.

George RR Martin keeps everyone on their toes – strong, favoured characters die suddenly, and weaker characters grow stronger in their wake (like trees falling in a forest, for their place to be taken by five saplings, but at the end, “There can be only one!”… sorry… channelling my inner Highlander there…)

My point is that he uses death and mayhem to keep the reader hooked. Unless you’re good at inventing ways of leading people to their demise, leave it til the end.

Oh yeah, he has access to dragons... do YOU have access to dragons? No? Shame...

Like the Romans, readers will get bored with another character popping his clogs. Oh, that one was dismembered – again? Just like what’cha’ma’call’im was?

Death has to become more horrific, more gory, intense, inventive, otherwise the audience will become bored.

For your first novel/story, I would suggest one protagonist (hero), one antagonist (bad guy / villain) and a handful of supporting cast so YOU can keep a handle on them, as well as your reader.

To be fair to your reader, if there’s going to be a plot-twist at the end, the clues really do have to be there at the beginning or your reader will feel cheated (quite right too) and they will hate you for it (and not in a good way).

For example, if someone dies in the beginning and you’ve shown his death and you’ve gone through the motions of figuring out who has been causing all the problems for your protagonist throughout the book and then it’s –

It was ME all along! I wasn’t really dead, I’m a vampire! I did it all!

You’d be like… WTF I didn’t even realise this was a vampire novel!

Don’t do that. It’s cheap and nasty and it’s cheating!

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As she emerged from the alley, between a tiny souvenir pottery shop and an artist supplies shop, she checked behind her once more. The sound had not been repeated but she had the feeling that the source was still there. She did not feel at ease. She stood in the middle of the pavement, listening hard. She was only a few yards from where she would have been if she had followed the crowds and all she could hear was the noise of the people, an indistinct mumble of voices, just a few hundred yards from where she stood.

As she moved further away from the market place, the crowd’s noise was again diminished. Just fifty metres more and the streets were deserted and silent, any noise engulfed by the massive brick structure which carried trains far over the streets of the town, the final traces of the night’s work had all but vanished. She should be calm by now; instead she was back on the knife-edge.

In light of recent events – a spate of vicious attacks on women - walking alone at this time of night, she realised, could have been a mistake. She knew the risks she took, but she had always weighed them up and found them acceptable - until now, when she knew that she was being followed.

There had been no more suspicious noises but she knew. This could be the time that she had stretched her luck too far; this could well be her last mistake.

Her composure was shaken, she was almost startled into a run at the slightest sound – perhaps a dry leaf skittering across concrete - only preventing panic by sheer force of will. She was glancing behind ever more frequently and knew that her demeanour had altered. She tried to shake herself out of the anxiety and to do that she stood with her back to one of the massive ancient brick archways which made up the viaduct that ran high above the town. It was further down the line of the same railway system that she had walked under a few minutes before. There was nowhere for anyone to conceal themselves and that realisation gave her back some of the confidence that she had lost.

After the mental shake-down, she managed to keep her footfalls even and confident - the woman knew the value of appearance.

More often than not, a person that walked tall and in an assertive manner would be passed over in favour of an easier victim.

Tonight however, there were no others to be passed over for. If there was to be a victim in this place, then there was only one choice.

She paused again when she approached the side of The Swan pub. There was only a wide-open car park separating her from the alleyway leading to where she had left her car earlier. She stood at the side of the building taking one last look around; making as sure as she could that no one was following. Only thirty metres left to the alley, which was another twenty metres of high walls on both sides – a very isolated alley and in retrospect, another bad choice - only at the other end would she reach the safety of her vehicle.

She muttered to herself. "I should have let someone drive me around. Sod that! I shouldn't have parked down here in the first place!"

The watcher smiled as he heard her mumbling to herself. He was almost close enough to smell her fear. His anticipation swelled and he had to concentrate to regulate his breathing.

He assessed the woman he had chosen. She was bundled up in a large overcoat against the late night chill, but he could tell that she was slim. She had flat boots on and she was of average height. Her hair was red - the colour of autumn leaves – and was braided tight in one plait, though the length of it was hidden, tucked into her coat. Her hands were encased in black leather gloves and she was carrying a workbag.

She had an air of confidence about her, but he thought that perhaps the skill had been learned rather than something that was natural to her, if only because he could tell that she was wary of the alley she approached. He thought to himself “and well she might be wary” and allowed himself a broader smile.

He didn’t know why he had chosen this one; he never delved too deep into the whys and wherefores. Although he had noticed her because she had not followed everyone else, she had gone a different way. Curiosity made him follow her he supposed – that and the fact that she was alone.

He had first thought that he had her when she encountered the locked gate on the stairway, but he had been both disappointed and yet delighted when she had clambered over it. He liked a woman with a bit of spirit. He also liked to watch their panic grow when they realise that they were being followed, it added to his excitement.