Two contrasting holiday reads by Clare Hawkins

The prospect of several long train journeys, with preparedness for possible delays, sent us out in search of some reading material. By coincidence, my own choice ‘Shy Creatures’ by Claire Chambers and my husband’s ‘Hope: A Tragedy’ by Shalom Auslander both contain characters who are in hiding from the world. 

However, the two novels, which we read avidly, could not have been more different in tone, style, structure and genre.

William in ‘Shy Creatures’ is imprisoned by his unworldly and misguided aunts, in an attempt to protect him from what they imagine will be the dire consequences of his contact with society. The reasons for this are revealed gradually in the reverse chronological story of his life from childhood. His story is interconnected with the viewpoint of Helen one of the two therapists, who are also lovers, responsible for his treatment in a mental hospital after he is found as a damaged adult. Themes of childhood innocence, families and trust are explored in the context of the 1960s setting. For readers like us who were brought up in that period, the social attitudes and values of the time are a reminder of how much has changed. The presentation of childhood longing, loneliness and disappointment I found most powerful and poignant and I was glad that the story for most of the characters offered hope of something positive in their lives.

y contrast, the notion of hope is an excruciating experience for Kugel, the ‘hero’ of ‘Hope: a Tragedy’. The hilariously miserabilist Kugel is tortured by doubt, fear and the pressure of family obligations and guilt, as he searches for the meaning of life and a fitting epitaph for his gravestone. His discovery of an ancient hidden occupant in the attic of his newly purchased old farmhouse, sets him on a course of disastrous decisions with painful and outrageous consequences. His expressions of despair, religious conflict and his existential crises are mostly highly comedic. However, there are also so some uncomfortable and revealing truths in Kugel’s reflections on contemporary western societies. 

Train delays are not so tedious if one can escape into an absorbing book!

New life for past novels?

With a publishing contract pending for one of my recent novels, I’ve been wondering what to do with old ones, written years ago. They mostly ‘did the rounds’ of rejection by agents and publishers, to an embarrassing degree, and are now committed to dusty drawers and forgotten files. I recognise that these novels probably demonstrated the faults and shortcomings listed as reasons for rejection by literary agents and individuals. For example, Gary Smailes: 'What to do if your novel was rejected' website here provides a comprehensive account of reasons for rejection, as well as a step-by-step strategy for moving on from this. Jericho Writers also has plenty of advice here. However, I haven’t found much about what writers could do with novels that haven’t made it to publication but might still be a good read.

When one or two of my novels started attracting agent interest and were longlisted and short-listed for competitions, I thought there might be hope of publication. Looking back at two in particular, I considered that they might still be worth a read, in spite of their failure to make it to the marketplace. I love telling stories and devising plots and my main motivation for seeking publication was to provide readers with entertainment, perhaps an element of escapism and a little insight into particular historical periods and events.

With this in mind, I decided to offer my novel TheBookbinder’s Daughter freely on my website. It was produced after much research, multiple drafts and edits, expert input and was short-listed for the Historical Novel Society International Award in 2013. Now as it gathers dust, I have nothing to lose and hope that others might enjoy the story. And perhaps readers might help me discover the reasons it was continuously rejected. Please let me know!

http://www.clarehawkins.co.uk/

 

Reading Refresher - FutureLearn

When it comes to reading I am rather slow, both mechanically and intellectually. I am often conscious of reading in a superficial and non-analytical way, although clearly there is a difference between reading for pleasure, entertainment and relaxation and reading as an active process of discovery, enlightenment and challenge. Writers need to be readers and I recently felt in need of some kind of ‘refresher’. So I followed one of the free courses offered by FutureLearn, called How to Read a Novel, https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/how-to-read-a-novel#section-overview

at which a few of my friends laughed and commented. ‘Don’t you know how to do that already!’

What attracted me to the course was the fact that it involved no cost, was online and allowed participants to do as much or as little as they pleased. Also, and more importantly it featured four novels and two writers I had never heard of, but which were shortlisted for the James Tait Black fiction prize 2017: C. E. Morgan’s The Sport of Kings, Garth Greenwell’s What Belongs to You, Eimear McBride’s The Lesser Bohemians, and Jo Baker’s A Country Road, A Tree. These were books I would never have chosen to read, (ranging as they did from a large American ‘saga’ type novel, to an erotic gay work) but guided by the excellent presentations by the course leader (Dr Alex Lawrie, University of Edinburgh), short articles and interviews with the writers, I was able to appreciate, if not to like, the particular qualities of each book.

The course took a fairly standard approach to the study of fiction, by considering the elements of plot, characterisation, dialogue and setting, but I liked being reminded of these basic ingredients and found the extracts used to elucidate them revealing. Whatever else the books did for other readers, for me they provoked a response and triggered some important questioning around the use of the certain techniques in fictional writing. Participants (from anywhere in the world) were invited to comment and answer questions at certain points in the course. Some of these offered very useful insights too. Overall, I found this course a refreshing and stimulating experience and I was also motivated to experiment with different techniques in my own writing.

Promoting your work

Promoting your printed book.

If you're going to self-publish, then you're going to have to think about your own marketing and distribution. If you've self published a hard copy, perhaps as print on demand, then you're going to have to consider issues such as storage (even on print on demand you still need to be able to provide inspection copies), who you're going to get to stock it, and how you're going to reach them. If you have an obliging local independent bookseller you may be given a launch, and this will enable you to get your name out there and make some sales. But quite how you reach further than that is simply down to how much time and effort you're prepared to put into travelling and approaching other booksellers. Don't expect Waterstones or WH Smith's to bite your hand off and pile them up in their doorway. Publishers pay booksellers a lot of money to push their books under the noses of potential buyers, and you're not going to be in that game.

Using Social Media

If you've published an e-book, then you'll probably have heard or read about the power of social marketing, such as Twitter and Facebook. Well, as far as I know, I've sold one book through Twitter. And if you're a Twitter user, you'll probably already be aware of the amount of publicity that some writers try and generate to publicise their books, banging out tweet after tweet, bombarding you with endless tales of how wonderful and exciting their book is. Well, it might be. But have you read it? No. So what makes you think anyone is going to read yours? The same goes for Facebook. This is because blatant advertising is just annoying.


So just how do you make social media work for you? Well, the first answer is, with difficulty. The second is, with a lot of effort. And the time to start making that effort is actually before you publish your book.


Now, to be honest, I'm not really very good at this myself. However, I thought I'd share with you some things that have worked for me, and some things that could work if I put more into it.


The first thing you need to do is start chatting. Join a number of forums (or fora, I should probably say). These can be forums of writers (though to be honest, these are less likely to get you readers, because everyone there is on the same mission). Do you have any other interests? Photography? Knitting? Car maintenance? The forum that got me the most readers initially is one I've been chatting on for years, so I have a relationship of sorts with the other people on it. That gave me a couple of hundred potential readers. Not enough, but a good start. And that forum is nothing at all to do with writing, though I did discover that there are a couple of other writers on there. But the thing is, you have to give before you get. And on that site I've both given and received advice on all sorts of things, from what sort of towels to put in a holiday let, to how to optimise your website visibility. Even the copy I sold through Twitter happened because I began a conversation with someone because I noticed he lived in a very attractive place. I wasn't initially looking to sell him my book.


And that's the next thing, get a blog, a website, an author page on Facebook, on Google+. It doesn't matter if you haven't got all of them, but you need a web presence of some sort. When I was developing my website to advertise my holiday property I got myself on to all sorts of lists. And you can do the same for your book. At the end of this post I'll list some of the sites you can look at that will give you some coverage. One of the things I've done is write articles for an e-magazine called e-zine articles. At the end of the articles you can add your 'signature', which will include reference to your published work. Two of my articles have then been syndicated across a wide range of e-magazines. I don't know how much good it's done me – unfortunately there's no way of measuring – but it keeps putting my name in front of people.


Get your book reviewed. This is probably one of the most useful things you can do. There are a number of review sites (I haven't actually done this yet) who will review your book. The downside is, of course, that they may give you a bad review. The other downside is that they get an enormous number of requests for reviews so it can be months before they get round to you. Some sites will do it more quickly for payment. Others will do it for an exchange review. Either way it's worth pursuing some of these sites.


Something else you can do is get on other people's blogs. Begin by writing comments. Then offer to do a blog post. But it has to be something useful that you're offering. For instance, you could offer to do a review, either of the blog owner's book or of a book that's recently been published. Or offer to write on a subject related to the main theme of the blog. If you have a blog or a website, invite others to do a guest spot. Even if they don't host you in return they'll tell their readers about their guest spot on your blog, and some of them will then find out about you.


Join Goodreads. This works in a rather complex way, and I'm still feeling my way round it. It's really a site for readers, not writers, but by definition a writer needs readers! You need to do a lot of reviewing of published work before your own book starts to get noticed, but a lot of people have done very well from it. If nothing else you'll read some good recommendations for your own reading pleasure. At the bottom I give a couple of links to information that should help you understand how to use it as a writer.


Give stuff away. Don't expect the rewards to be always immediate or direct. For instance, I gave away a short story for an anthology of crime stories relating to the publishing industry. As a result, not only will my name be before readers of that anthology, with links to my novel on Amazon, but an unexpected return was that I was then interviewed for a blog with a very wide readership. See the link here: http://maggiethom.wordpress.com/the-write-to-read/


Enter competitions. Even if you don't win, some competitions publish all entries, and they'll allow you to provide a link to either your blog, your Facebook page, or even directly to the means of purchasing your book.


The main message I'm giving here is that your marketing has to be subtle, but unrelenting and you need to use a range of techniques. Simply telling people that you've written this fantastic book won't get you very far. You also need to give something away first, and take the time to develop a relationship with your potential readers. Unless you have thousands of friends who're all just champing at the bit to read your work. Or you're already famous for something else. If your name's Jamie Oliver or Kirstie Allsopp, you have a blueprint to sell loads of copies, but otherwise……


Something I haven't got round to trying yet, but I intend to, is to read some extracts of your book to You Tube. You could even serialise it that way if you wanted. Or just read some short stories. Don't forget to include a link to any published work.


Printed or other conventional forms of marketing.

Don't forget more traditional forms of promoting your work. A review in the local paper can sometimes be the start of something bigger. If your local paper has a book review section, send a hard copy (if you have one) to the editor of that page. If you don't have a hard copy, will one of your friends write a review for you? Editors are busy people, and sometimes they're grateful for a press release to fill up an empty slot. Sometimes they don't want it themselves but will pass it on. As a result of one press release that didn't get published I was recently interviewed by the features editor of another paper with a much wider circulation, because the first recipient passed it on.


What about local radio? My local radio runs a series on local women of interest, and I was not only interviewed for that section, but invited to read extracts from the novel as well.



Whatever you decide, you will need to find the time and effort to really work at it. I wish you the very best of luck.


List of useful promotional sites:

www.goodreads.com
And two sites to introduce you to using Goodreads:
http://www.thecreativepenn.com/2013/09/03/goodreads-for-authors-patrick-brown/ http://www.amazon.com/Goodreads-Authors-Promote-Your-Books-ebook/dp/B00BKE039I/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&sr=&qid= (I've just bought this)

If you're interested in writing articles:
http://ezinearticles.com/ (and here are links to a couple of my articles on there to give you an idea how it works. http://ezinearticles.com/?Editing-Your-Novel-Part-2---Character&id=7826799 and http://ezinearticles.com/?Editing-Your-Novel-Part-3:-How-to-Show,-Rather-Than-Tell&id=7929107)

A site where writers help promote other writers: http://worldliterarycafe.com/content/readers-get-connected

And a list of free sites to promote your work: http://www.mediabistro.com/galleycat/free-ebook-promotion_b52130

Going round in circles

Are you a writer? Is there any particular way in which you like to kick-start your novels (or short stories)? I'm not sure if I always start the same way. Sometimes it's with an incident that then grows into a longer story. Sometimes it's with the victim, and sometimes I start by thinking of the perpetrator first. Certainly that's what I'm doing in my second novel, Washed in the Blood.

But I asked established crime writer, Margot Kinberg, to talk to us about her methods. Here's what she said.

Will it Go Round in Circles?*

Thanks so much for inviting me to guest-post – I’m honoured. One of the challenges writers face is taking all of those creative ideas that always seem to pop up at either 2 am, or in the middle of a traffic jam, and putting them into some kind of coherent story.  Every writer handles this differently, so I can only share the way I go about it. But here’s how the process works for me.

I write crime fiction, so in my stories, there’s invariably at least one murder, and at least one murder victim. And that’s where I always start. Who’s the victim? What is that person like?  I’ve gotten inspiration from many places for the kind of person who would make a good victim. There really is no set pattern there, at least for me. But once I decide on who the victim is, then I get to work on setting up the story.

One way to look at the way I do things is a set of circles. First, of course, there’s the smallest circle around the victim. What is her or his personality? What is that person’s background?  What about that person might drive someone to murder?  Once I know the victim a little, it’s time for the next circle: the victim’s close friends, family and so on.

In that second circle is where you often find the suspects in a murder mystery, so that’s where I start adding in people who may have something to gain by killing the victim. In one of my stories, for instance, my victim has something valuable that one suspect wants. Another suspect feels threatened by something the victim knows. Another is obsessed with the victim. Well, you get the idea. This is also the place where one can add in another circle for the people the victim comes into occasional contact with – sort of an ‘outer circle’ of people. Those are people who can give an interesting perspective on the victim and certainly could be suspects.

Then I add another circle, separate from the victim’s – the sleuth’s circle. After all, it’s hard to do a crime novel if nobody tries to solve the crime. My sleuth is Joel Williams, a former cop, now a university professor of criminal justice. He has his own circle, including his wife, his contacts at the police department, his university colleagues, his students, and so on. Those circles are important (at least to me) because my sleuth is not a cop or PI. So he doesn’t have any official reason to be investigating anything. And nobody is required to tell him anything. That means that one of his circles has to overlap with one of the victim’s circles.

Let me give an example. In one of my stories, my sleuth is working on a research project with two colleagues. In the process of that research they uncover a ‘cold case’ that leads to a not-so-cold murder. In this case, that research circle overlaps with one of the first victim’s circles. That step, as I say, is perhaps less of a critical issue for police procedurals or PI novels, where the sleuth is supposed to investigate. That’s what cops and PIs are paid to do.

Once I have my circles set up, I outline the action in the story. I add in things such as where things happen, how exactly Joel Williams gets involved, and who has critical information for the case. With that rough structure in place, it’s time for the details.

One thing I like about this approach is that it allows for flexibility. It lets the writer put in as many or as few characters as needed. The story can take place at any time, in any place, and feature just about any kind of victim. So there’s a lot of ‘wiggle room.’

I also like the way the circles encourage me to add character development and sub-plots. As I look at each circle I see opportunities to sketch in things such as people’s home lives, minor characters and the other details that make a story (hopefully!) more interesting.

Circles don’t work for everyone of course. More than anything else I believe that each writer has to find her or his own way to frame ideas and get those ideas written. But as for me? Yeah, I go around in circles. ;-)

Many thanks again for hosting me!! Please feel free to get in contact with me (margotkinberg(at)gmail(dot)com) if you want to connect.

*NOTE: The title of this post is the title of a Billy Preston song, co-written with Bruce Fisher.

Margot Kinberg is the author of the Joel Williams mystery series. She blogs at http://margotkinberg.wordpress.com

Guest Spot: What an editor can offer, by E.V. Seymour

Congratulations! You’ve written your novel. In the process you’ve expended blood, sweat and tears and enough energy to power the Grid for a month. Your other half has read it and so have your friends. They all declare it a brilliant creation, so much so that you think you should simply send it out to a few chosen agents, sit back and wait for the phone to ring. What could possibly go wrong? Answer: quite a lot.

The problem is one of objectivity. Naturally, those who care about you and want you to succeed are going to pull their punches. (They’ve seen you sweat for the past year or so, remember.) For example, are they honestly going to point out that your main character is a weed; your story has the pace of a sick snail; your police procedure/research is, ahem, ‘unresearched,’ or your climactic scene lacks conflict and tension? Of course not! The more discerning of your mates may say something like: ‘I really loved that scene in the nightclub/in the empty house/in the burning building.’ They might even be bold enough to say: ‘I’m not sure I got why X did Y.’ Even if they pinpoint a problem, they are unlikely to be able to help you fix it. This is where people like me come in.

It’s extremely rare for a novel to tick all the boxes without a little intervention. The mundane truth is that editors encounter the same flaws time and time again. Simply put, my job involves identifying weak areas, flagging these up and offering suggestions for improvement. Weak areas can range from poor spelling and grammar, and repetition of the same word in a paragraph – I’ve twice suggested literacy courses – poor plot structure where the narrative is skimmed and scenes aren’t fully dramatised – a series of company meetings doesn’t constitute a story – to main protagonists who couldn’t cross the road without help, let alone sort out a bad guy. My pet hate is split point of view. I once encountered four different viewpoints in a single paragraph. It was the literary equivalent of watching a doubles match of ping-pong.

My skills don’t simply lie in picking up on these little idiosyncrasies. Somehow, I have to get the message across in the kindest manner possible. I find humour helps and I really endeavour to tailor the report to the individual. Psychology plays an important role. I want to inspire not crush and it’s sometimes hard to tell a writer, who has rightly set such store by his or her work, that certain elements are not working as well as they might. Occasionally, I’ll receive a piece of work and quickly realise that crime fiction isn’t really the genre that best showcases a writer’s talent. Suggesting to a wannabe crime author that their strengths lie in writing historical fiction can be a delicate business. I’ve noticed recently that constructive criticism is especially difficult to get across to clients who have had sparkling careers in other fields. Once or twice, I’ve been on the business end of a writer’s wrath, which is unpleasant for me, but a disaster for him or her. Believe it or not, and in common with a good agent, editors are batting for the writer. As a published writer myself, I know only too well what it’s like to receive rejection. I understand how damaging it can be to one’s self-esteem, how it eats away, if you let it. With this in mind, how can I not be on your side?

Crime fiction is one of the most competitive genres. With the seismic changes in the publishing industry over the past ten years, it’s harder than ever to break in. Cutting to the chase, it can cost in terms of time, mental stamina, occasionally relationships, and money. And here’s the rub.

In times of recession it may seem madness to spend your hard earned cash on professional advice. The alternative is to risk rejection from a dozen or more agents and have your confidence shattered; or self-publish, receive poor sales and rubbish reviews from armchair critics and, erm… have your confidence shattered! Too often writers seek help after the proverbial horse has careered out onto the road and hit a bus. Why put yourself through the misery when, with a little tweaking, rewriting and polishing, you can produce a piece of work of which you can be justly proud?

One final point: there are a lot of rookie outfits offering ‘professional expertise’. It pays to check these out and discover exactly what you are going to get for your money. Find out whether an editorial consultancy has a close relationship with agents. Will that editorial consultancy scout and recommend? In the past two years, I’ve seen three of my ‘babies’ obtain representation. As someone who once used the services of an editorial consultancy a decade ago, I can say, hand on heart, that it was the best decision I ever made. Soon afterwards, I obtained an agent.

E.V. Seymour is the author of five published novels. Under a closely guarded pseudonym, her sixth novel is published in August 2013 with Cutting Edge Press.
Find her novels at:
E.V. Seymour

Ready for publication? Part 2. The Feedback

In the last post we were waiting for my debut novel to come back from my editor. Was I going to be dancing round the house, reading bits of the report out to anyone who'd listen? Or was I going to be completely crushed?

Well neither, as it happens, but it wasn't altogether comfortable reading. There were twenty-eight pages of where I'd gone wrong. And the thing was, I could see that the editor was right. I recognised what she was saying. She wasn't telling me the book was terrible. In fact quite a bit of what she said was complimentary. But she certainly didn't pull any punches in the places where she felt I needed to tighten up the dialogue, places where the plot was falling flat, additional scenes I really ought to write, scenes I didn't need. And that, basically, my main character was a wimp!

The novel needed a lot of work. But was I downhearted? Well, yes, if you want to know the truth. But I'm a bit of a sticker, and besides, I was starting to see where I could make improvements. And the editor was very helpful: I sent a couple of revised scenes to her for comments and she made more observations and suggestions. Then having rewritten it almost from scratch, two of my writers' group members had a go at it. This didn't result in a re-write, but it certainly pointed out some careless mistakes and some more tightening up of dialogue and action.

And then guess what, I bit the cash bullet again. I paid for another critique. There was a 20% discount for a second read, but as the novel was now fifteen thousand words longer, it didn't really work out much cheaper. I chose to go with the same editor as before, because I felt we had developed an understanding of where my novel was going. And this time I got about twenty pages of notes. But at least now the changes were minor, and there were more positive comments. One excellent suggestion she made was to re-write a particular scene from the point of view of a different character. So I tried this, and she was right, it worked really well.

Of course, I didn't do absolutely everything my editor suggested. I'm not a sheep, after all, and in the end it's my novel. But her advice and recommendations were invaluable, and enabled me to create a much stronger story and with a much more credible main character.

Another good suggestion she made was to read it aloud to myself, all the way through. So a packet of Strepsils later I could now see how often my characters began dialogue with 'Well' (even though I'd known this and thought I'd eradicated it already) and the fact that the police discussed a partial thumbprint five times. Five times. Please!

So if you're reading this and you're in a similar position, don't try and go it alone. Don't be abashed at asking for help. Read the acknowledgements bit in a lot of novels and you might wonder how much the author actually contributed. Get the best advice you can, and that probably means paying for it some way or another. It might mean you undertake a serious creative writing course, such as a degree or an MA, like Sue. Or get yourself onto an Apprenticeship scheme like Clare. Or, like me, work with a professional editor you feel is on your wavelength. And if you can, find a group of writers with some experience to help you stay on the straight and narrow. If there isn't anything near you, join an on-line critique group such as Word Cloud or Authonomy. If you like crime you could join my Google+ group Creative Crime Writers. Post your stories or reviews on there and join the community.Creative Crime Writers



The other thing you need to do is read, read, read, especially, but not exclusively, in your chosen genre. It's only by studying others that you learn what works and what doesn't.

Altogether my book went through at least seven re-writes, probably more. It was at this stage I began the wearisome process of submitting to agents. And you know the rest. That's where we came in.



Next time I'll talk about getting your book ready for e-publishing.

Ready for publication? by Paula

One thing that this novel-writing enterprise has taught me is that I don't handle rejection well! It's no good telling me that Black Beauty was rejected nine times and Harry Potter, seven. Or that Ian Rankin had to write eight books before he acquired a name for himself. And I just read in the Afterword to one of Simon Kernick's novels that he had three hundred standard rejections before he finally got a two-book deal. He was certainly determined! But good for him; he now has several best-sellers to his credit.On top of this there's all the waiting time. Waiting for this agent or that publisher to decide whether or not your precious manuscript is for them. Of course, what you should be doing during this time is writing the next one. Only it's hard to type while you're biting your nails down to the quick. 
    So after four rejections (I know,  I know, I'm a wimp, have no persistence, no backbone etc. etc....) I decided to go it alone and publish my debut novel, Hangman's Wood, on Amazon and various other e-publishing sites. 

    Now, I'm not so arrogant that I think every word I write is a pearl beyond price. In fact I know quite well it's not. And I'm not above taking advice and acting on it. Quite the reverse, I value candid feedback, even when it hurts. So if you're interested in how I got to the point where I felt ready for publication, I'd better tell you first that I spent quite a bit of money, as well as effort. It took a lot of soul searching. I'd attended a writers' conference where I met several other writers in my situation, many of whom were considering using a professional editing agency. And these agencies, if they're any good, aren't cheap. And when you've no experience of using a service, you don't really know what to expect, and you can't help worrying that you may be throwing good money after bad. It really does take a leap of faith to decide to spend that sort of cash, especially when you don't really know what you're going to get for it. But anyway, against the advice of all my non-writing friends, I did it. I paid the money (about £400) and sat back and waited anxiously for the feedback. Of course, what you really want to hear is: This novel is fabulous. It's completely ready for publication. Or even: All this work needs is a little tweaking here and there. Because you've already spent ages polishing it, haven't you? It isn't your first draft, after all. Well, in your dreams. 
    Next post I'll write about what really happens!