Lesson 1

Lesson 2

Lesson 3

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

When you write, you are telling a story with the benefit of being able to go back and change things, add things and remove things without losing the flow of the story because you will change it before it is ‘heard’.

This is called ‘editing’ and it benefits your story, your characters and your writing skill. Practice makes perfect and the editor is a writer’s friend, but it really is ‘Tough-Love’ if they have any kind of skill.

Don’t get into the mind-set that your editor hates you. She/he doesn’t. She/he has almost as much invested in your book as you do. Her/his name on a book that is sub-par will mean she/he doesn’t get the right exposure and may miss other work because of it.

Instead, think of the relationship as beneficial to you in more than one way. Your book is getting better and your skill at writing will get better too, if you see what is recommended and you learn from every recommendation.

Word getting around that an Editor did a horrible job on the latest release will spread faster than wildfire, believe me. And it can ruin not only a book and an author’s reputation, but also the editor’s.

That’s not to say the editor will always be right…

In my Wolf series, my editor wanted to change every ‘Wolf’ to ‘wolf’ but I didn’t want that, it fitted that the ‘Wolf’ species thought of themselves worthy of capitalisation. The same with Full Moon – in a way, the Wolves worship the Full Moon, and like Christmas, it deserved capitalisation.

Your story, your rules!

But I’m getting ahead of myself…

You’ve actually got to have a book written in order for it to be edited.

I suggest writing your story and then, if you have the luxury of time, put it away for a week, a month – 3 months. That way, when you come to look at it again, you will see it with the benefit of ‘fresh eyes’ and you will see things you didn’t see before.

Try to write your story as true to yourself as you can. I suppose that’s another way of saying ‘Write what you know’. Yet, that’s not necessarily a hard and fast rule. Get to know your characters inside-out so, no matter what situation he or she is in, you will know exactly how they will react.

For example, if your character is scared of spiders, even if he is in the presence of the love of his life and they are being attacked by spiders, he’ll not be able to:

TA-DAA! Put on his superhero cape and leap to the rescue…

He just won’t. He’ll be paralysed by his over-riding fear. So put a different danger before them, unless you want the twist of his love saving the day.

If it helps to plot your story, do that.

If you can just sit and write the story as it comes to you, without knowing where it’s going to lead, do that.

The rule is only this:

It’s YOUR story. YOU write it. YOU enjoy it.

Further down the line, when you’re a famous author with a publishing deal, you’ll get lots of restraints and restrictions placed on you – yep, all true! There may be a clause put into your contract that you deliver at least one book per year.

No bother? Are you sure? Tell me that when the deadline’s looming and you’ve got half a chapter of nothing and less than a week to write the rest.

That’s pressure. Don’t wish for it until you’ve enjoyed the pleasure of just writing your story, your way.

Back to writing then.

A cue for a story may come from anywhere – literally. I’ve just been to my physio and we’ve been chatting. We talked about films, childhood, politics and we generally put the world to rights. We also talked about how to get started on a story.

It all boils down to two words:

WHAT

and

IF

What if this happened rather than that…

What if we did this today…

What would happen if…

All great starters for a story.

Once you have a story, don’t worry whether it’s a ‘short story’ or an ‘epic novel’ – just write it. I keep saying this, but you can’t edit a blank page, there has to be something there.

What if the world came to an end tomorrow and you knew it was going to happen? What would you to today?

What if you came across a pile of treasure on your walk with the dog? What would you do, how would you let anyone know? WOULD you let anyone know?

Then, once your story gets going…

Read your story – a LOT – if you get bored as you’re creating it, just think about how that will come across to your readers.

You love this baby you’re creating, it’s your job to love it. But, if there are things that niggle at you, irritate and nag at you, then you must take a look to see why. Unless those items are supposed to niggle and irritate, you need to change them because you have a high tolerance for the worst bits in your writing, but your reader does not.

If something bothers, nags or irritates, they will be off, they don’t owe you anything.