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Tips for your own writing
The basics
My advice
My top ten tips for would-be fantasy
writers
My favourite books about writing
The basics
(If you really would like to know the basics of publishing, read
this section first, otherwise skip to My advice)
What does a writer do?
A writer is self-employed. Even if they have other day jobs, when
writers write for publication - particularly when they write full-length
fiction - they do it in their own time and usually in their own
homes. They do not work on a publisher’s payroll so the
way they make a living from writing is to make a financial deal
with a publisher, sealed by a contract.
Every time a book is sold, a writer gets a fraction of the price
paid. If it is sold at the full marked price on the book, it will
be a percentage of that price, usually up to 10% (halve this if
it is a picture book, because the illustrator gets half). These
payments are called royalties.
But hardly any books are now sold at the full price. You get
books discounted on the Internet, in book clubs, in supermarkets
and in big bookshop chains. That discount – and it may be
huge from publisher to bookseller, 80% or higher to the big players
– takes a huge bite out of authors’ earnings. A sale
to a book club of 1000s of copies may mean that the author makes
less than a British penny – a few cents – on each
copy.
In the writer’s contract, there will be an agreement to
pay an advance, which means an advance payment on royalties. This
is usually paid in thirds – a third on signature, a third
on delivery and a third on publication, which should be no later
than a year and a half after delivery.
So far this has all been about money but that’s so that
you can see:
a/ that writers can’t just write what they, or you, want
and get it to be published
b/ it’s very hard these days to make a living as a writer,
unless your books hit the big time.
A writer has an idea for a book. If she is an established published
author she may be able to get a contract with a publisher on the
basis of an outline and a sample chapter. If she is just starting
out, she will need to write the whole thing before submitting.
While there are some courses that might be useful (Arvon, Ty
Newydd etc in the UK) there is no qualification you can get that
will mean you are able or qualified to write a book. I recommend
to everyone, regardless of age or gender, the magazine Mslexia.
It is absolutely brilliant and even much-published writers love
it.
What does an agent do?
An agent places books for publication, negotiates the terms of
the contract with the publisher, sends the writer royalty payments
and statements, deals with queries and disputes and generally
supplies support, enthusiasm and praise. For this they take a
percentage of your earnings – 10-15% in the UK, higher in
the US.
If you and your agent don’t get along or you are scared
of her, get a new one. Get an agent before trying to get a publisher.
Most publishers will look at a manuscript more seriously if it
comes from an agent. Many of them no longer read unsolicited manuscripts
(the slushpile).
You can find agents listed in the A & C Black yearbooks listed
under Favourite Books. That will tell you their addresses and
what kinds of books they take.
What does a publisher do?
A publisher takes the financial risk on a book. They pay the writer
money, some of it in advance, because they believe that they can
sell copies of the book. Since they have to pay the printer to
produce the books and the salaries of all the editors, marketing,
sales and publicity staff, rights managers, secretaries, reps
(the people who take samples of the books round to bookshops),
they have a lot of expenses and need to be sure that each book
they publish will make money.
They are frequently wrong about this.
I’ve listed a lot of the people who work in a publishing
house but the editor is the most important to the writer. They
have to love the idea of your book because they are the ones who
take it to a meeting and convince everyone else that it is a great
book and will make back the money they pay out in advance and
a lot more.
They should read your book, get back to you in reasonable time
and comment on it and ask for changes. It is the editor’s
responsibility to make clear what changes are needed. You don’t
have to accept them all but be reasonable.
Remember that all people in publishing and all literary agents
are on a monthly salary, paid straight into their bank. They never
have to wait six weeks or more for a payment to go through. The
people in the accounting departments of publishers don’t
know you the way your editor does and sometimes it seems as if
they don’t realise you have to eat, pay rent or mortgage
and feed your cats, let alone keep yourself in computer consumables
and clothes that don’t fall to bits.
Alternatives to conventional publishing are probably the way
of the future and my description will be out-dated before long.
Desk-top publishing, print-on-demand, electronic formats –
all these are cheaper and easier than ever before. So you chances
of being published will be higher, though your chances of making
money at it probably lower, though these have never been high
anyway.
Vanity publishing, where you pay a company to produce privately
what looks like a commercially published book, is not advised.
Let me say this another way – NEVER PAY ANYONE TO PUBLISH
YOUR BOOK!
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My advice
Readers often write to me asking for tips for their own writing
and it’s hard to give good advice in cyberspace. Really
you can’t advise someone you don’t know about writing
you haven’t read.
And much as I would like to, I can’t offer to read what
you have written and give you a critique. Most readers who contact
me for this purpose have started to write sometimes quite long
fantasies. I’m assuming it’s fantasy you are interested
in, even though I don’t consider the Stravaganza books to
be exactly that. My editor describes them as “literary fiction
with a fantasy element.”
So here is my advice, to be taken with a large pinch of Cybersalt,
since I don’t know you or your style:
- Read a lot. This advice may sound superfluous but you’d
be surprised. I mean really read, all genres, all periods and
re-read too. Don’t be like the person who wrote and told
me that one of my books almost made his top ten but thought
I should be pleased because he had read “140 books!”
Read thousands; read in bed, on the bus, in the loo, under the
desk at school. Get in trouble for reading too much. Make adults
say things like “you’ll ruin your eyes.” Or
“You should get out into the fresh air.”
It’s only by saturating yourself
in story – and everything I say here applies basically
to fiction – that you learn how story works. And talk
to your friends about it. Even if your own friends don’t
read you can meet like-minded people on the Internet and talk
about your favourite books. Be careful, of course. Read the
warning on the Stravaganza fan forum (http://stravagante.proboards30.com)
- Write a lot. Don’t worry about publication, or anything
else. Just write and see what happens. It might turn into a
story; it might not. Write because it would hurt if you didn’t.
- Find yourself a writing buddy, whether someone you know or
someone you can trust on the Internet. Exchange what you have
written and comment on each other’s work in progress and
knotty problems.
- If it’s fantasy you like, try fanfiction. Type the name
of your favourite author + fanfiction into Google and see what
comes up. It’s good practice and you will meet other like-minded
people. There’s a Stravaganza strand on www.fanfiction.net
now.
- Throw a lot away. Don’t be afraid to reject your early
efforts; they won’t be wasted. When you first write, you
tend to imitate your favourite writers and you might need to
write all that Tolkien or Pullman out of your system. You need
to find your own voice but you won’t know how to discover
it without writing. But think of this as your apprenticeship.
If you were a carpenter, you might keep the first ill-made stool
you ever attempted but only for sentimental reasons; you probably
wouldn’t want to show it to anyone, least of all someone
who needed a stool.
- And when I say, “throw it away,” it doesn’t
have to be literal. I mean, “forget about it.” One
day you might unearth something you wrote, see some merit in
a character or phrase and be started off on a new track.
- If you put “Writing fantasy” into Google, you
get over seven and a half million results. This should tell
you something. There are lots of people out there wanting to
do it and don’t let newspaper stories about Christopher
Paolini getting his first book accepted at the age of fifteen
for shedloads of money give you a false impression of how difficult
it is.
Here is my advice distilled into ten points:
- Decide whether what you are writing is for teenagers or adults.
If you are a teenager yourself, it’s likely that will
be your readership too.
- Practise on your friends and on the Internet.
- Write fan fiction; it will get other writers’ voices
out of your head.
- If you can count the number of books you have read, you haven’t
read enough.
- Don’t ask me for ideas; if you haven’t any ideas,
you are not a writer.
- Don’t ask me to read your MS. If I did, I wouldn’t
have time to write my books.
- Imagine reading what you have written in ten years’
time; will you be embarrassed?
- Forget about being published until you are at least in your
20s (forget, in particular, Christopher Paolini and Flavia Bujor).
- Read the A & C Black Writers’ and Artists’
Yearbook (or the children’s one – see Favourite
books) till you know it inside out.
- Try to get an agent before approaching a publisher.
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My top ten rules for would-be fantasy
writers
- Beautiful people can be very boring.
- Distinguish between an identifier and an annoying verbal or
behavioural tic.
- People without flaws can be very boring.
- Don’t build in merchandising opportunities.
- Don’t use linguistic inversions or, if you must, use
them VERY sparingly.
- You are not an estate agent or fashion retailer. Don’t
describe houses and clothes as if you were.
- On no account ever let a plot hinge on a birthmark.
- Don’t get carried away by names.
- Remember- your readers will have read the same books as you.
- A series of exciting events is not a plot.
These are all pretty negative but they reflect what people get
wrong when they start out. Have a go anyway and then put your
work down and read it a week later as a reader not a writer.
And the very best of luck to all of you.
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My favourite books about writing
The
Children’s Writers’ and Artists’ Yearbook
This is updated every year in August and published by A &
C Black at £12.99. There is an adults’ version too.
Mslexia magazine (www.mslexia.co.uk)
Screenwriting
Updated
by Linda Aronson (Silman-James Press, USA)
From
Pitch to Publication
by Carole Blake (Macmillan)
Marketing
your Book: an Author's Guide
by Alison Baverstock
(A&C Black)
The
Seven Basic Plots
by Christopher Booker (Continuum)
The
Internet: A Writer's Guide
by Jane Dorner (A&C
Black)
How
to Write for Children and get Published
by Louise Jordan (Piatkus)
Story
by Robert McKee (Methuen)
The
Dictionary of Imaginary Places
by Alberto Manguel & Gianni Guadalupi (Bloomsbury)
How
to Write Science Fiction
and Fantasy
by Orson Scott Card (Writer’s Digest Books)
The
Tough Guide to Fantasy Land
by Diana Wynne Jones (Vista)
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