How I write. Lesson 3

Lesson 1

Lesson 2

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

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Where to start our story?

This was the original start to my story.

Hazel walking into the wood, approaching the boundary. Her dog is missing yes, that has a bit of a hook if you’re an animal lover.

I’d written quite a bit to this story before I sat and thought about it.

I didn’t want this to be ‘another historical’ piece. I wanted a more contemporary book, one that would fit in well with the others in its genre, yet have enough punch to stand out.

So I started again.

This time, ‘she’ is at the closed doors of a club – close to 3am. It’s late, the punters (customers) have gone and she posed a question for herself. She points out some of the down-sides to her work. She’s obviously not entirely happy with her job.

She stood with her back to the closed doors of the club; it was very late, almost three in the morning. The last punters of the evening had been persuaded to leave through those same doors less than twenty minutes before her. She asked herself, not for the first time; why did she work here of all places? Her feet hurt and she was forever on a knife-edge, waiting for the next incident to go off. Her weekends were never her own and her sleep patterns were shot to pieces and that was after only a month of working at the night-club.

So, shall we follow her or not?

Let’s read a little further, just to see where she’s going and what she does…

As she looked around, she saw that a prominent police presence was very obvious in the hope that by being there they could prevent the majority of fracas. Paramedics were also in abundance, in case the preventative measure was not enough. The two groups of professionals were the only visibly sober people in the vicinity and they were vastly outnumbered by drunken civilians.

Does this look interesting or not?

She’s in the middle of a busy night, probably the weekend, definitely the possibility of trouble and danger. She’s alone but she doesn’t seem concerned – why?

She knew that the market place of this medium sized town would be bustling with late-night revellers, queuing for a late night snack at the burger vans, waiting for the Night Bus or a taxi or just walking home. The weekend started a few hours ago for most of these people and they seemed intent on making the most of it.

Are we getting more curious or do we want to close the book and move on?

The people she’s surrounded by are party-goers and probably most (if not all) are drunk.

The sky was crystal clear, sprinkled with stars and accompanied by the luminous glow of the full moon, giving a stark, sharp feel to objects and shadows alike. The streets were filthy and littered with debris from the multitude of fast food outlets which flanked the clubs and pubs. She decided as she gazed up at the moon that she didn’t want to have to mingle with the drunks when she was sober. She had had enough of them for one evening and so on impulse she went against going the shortest route to her car and took the road less travelled.

Most of us have been under that sky in similar circumstances. It’s late, cold, dark and the moon makes everything look different to the daytime.

Filthy streets, littered pavements, drunk people and she was the only one sober.

This is one of the streets my character took that night...

The decision to move off the usual, beaten path is a risky decision to take. As they say, no great story starts with a salad – going down the same route night after night, knowing what the end result will be (boredom) doesn’t give a good start to a story.

Within four paragraphs we’ve learned the character is female, she’s sober, she doesn’t like her job, the place is full of drunks and it could be dangerous. It’s night, cold and she’s just made a decision to walk alone, down a (probably) deserted path.

Do you feel she’s safe?

There’s good start – is this woman safe?

Do you care?

Not yet… maybe…

Are you curious to see if anything happens?

That curiosity is enough to entice your audience, but then it’s your job to grab them by the collar and lead them further in. You have to make that curiosity develop from ‘I wonder’ to ‘I’ve really got to see what happens next!’

What kind of story do you want to write?

It’s not enough that you just want to write because you think it looks like a cool thing to do. You have to need to get that story down, write it out and you have to want to read it once it’s written.

“I’d love to be a writer.”

So write something.

“I don’t know where to start.”

I understand that but until you have something written down, no one can help you.

Well actually, that’s not entirely true…

Here’s an exercise for you.

I’ll give you the first line and you come up with a story. There’s no wrong answer to this.

Either write the story on your blog, and post the link as a comment to this blog post or post directly under this in a reply.

All you have to do is think up a situation, a character (maybe more, I’ll leave that to you) and what happens to that character when they are placed in that situation?

Here’s the first line:

Once Upon A Time, there was…