Nigel Jay Cooper's Blog, page 6
December 23, 2015
3 things I learnt writing my first novel
It’s been a whilesince I’ve been at the start of a new novel. I’d forgotten what a rollercoaster it is and how daunting that blank slate can be – and how exciting.
I’m a few chapters into The Possessing Things now and I’mdaunted, nervous, excited anxious and every other fluctuating emotion I can think of.
On Saturday, I had a‘what is wrong with me, why are you doing this to yourself’ moment that lasted about 4 hours… and by that I meantputting myself...
3 things I learned writing my first novel
It’s been a while since I’ve been at the start of a new novel. I’d forgotten what a rollercoaster it is and how daunting that blank slate can be – and how exciting.
I’m a few chapters into The Possessing Things now and I’m daunted, nervous, excited anxious and every other fluctuating emotion I can think of.
On Saturday, I had a ‘what is wrong with me, why are you doing this to yourself’ moment that lasted about 4 hours… and by that I meant putting myself through the emotional turmoil of writing another book (not just myself, my poor family, bless them – see also ‘things a writer’s spouse partner says #1)
However, I’m hoping what I’ve learned writing my first novel will with make things a little easier this time around.
The Possessing Things is already an entirely different book than the one I started writing – the same thing happened with Beat The Rain, too – but this time, I’m (hopefully) a little wiser.
Here’s three things I learned from writing my first novel:
1. Plan your novel structure (and keep it up to date)
I had no plan or structure when I wrote Beat The Rain and while there is a lot to be said for letting the story evolve as you write, it meant when I made structural changes, it was a nightmare task to go back and retrofit it, especially if I changed something significant about a character or plot (which I did a lot).
This time around, I’ve got a four act structure already planned, I know plot turning points, the mid point, the end and the main structural skeleton that binds the entire novel together.
I’ve written a one-line description of each chapter and I know the main character arcs, all before I’ve written a word.
2. Minor characters bring your novel to life
Minor characters are vital, they are the meat that fleshes our the bones of your story. At first, when writing Beat The Rain, I thought they were incidental, but I soon realised I needed to invest as much time in developing a character who only appeared on a few pages as I did my main characters.
The minor characters bring your main protagonists to life, they help define them by their difference and by how they affect and change them.
Minor characters facilitate the plot every bit as much as your minor plot points.
Also, in some ways, I loved writing the minor characters even more than the main protagonists. There might be an entire novel in Imogen from Beat The Rain, she’s so deliciously dislikable.
3. Subplots are vital
The little things matter every bit as much as the big ones in a novel. If your main structure is your skeleton, your characters are the flesh, then your subplots are the muscle and sinew, allowing movement and change.
Subplots change things more subtly for the characters and actually make the larger story arcs possible. Subplots lead the characters in the direction they need to go so the big things can happen.
Lessons learned
Planning in advance is a big change for me. The pre-Beat The Rain me would have thought planning anything in advance was stifling creativity, but now I think the opposite.
I’ve significantly changed the entire main plot for The Possessing Things in the past week, and I’ve adjusted my plan to suit. If anything, it’s allowing me to be more creative, because I can see more clearly what I’m trying to do as a whole.
That said, I haven’t changed completely. I haven’t planned a single subplot. I am going to let those happen as I write… my feeling is, they arise because I need my characters to get from point A to point B… as long as I have a clear idea of the to main plot point I need a character to get to, I enjoy seeing how the story facilitates that as I write.
We’ll see how it pans out – I’m going to do my best to enjoy the process (not easy, I’m naturally anxious). Wish me luck 
December 6, 2015
Go for 80 rejections like Marlon James
I nearly gave up on finding a publisher for my debut novel Beat The Rain after only 8 rejections from Literary Agents and no rejections from any publishers.
I’d been so excited about finishing my novel that initially I rushed to get it out there. My covering email wasn’t right, my synopsis wasn’t right and the manuscript still needed some fine tuning. But I wanted approval from an agent or a publisher, so I couldn’t and wouldn’t waste any more time. (Yeah, I know, I’d slap me around the face too if I could time travel).
Predictably, this didn’t go well. I chose 8 literary fiction agents, all high profile, all extremely unlikely to even look at a submission from an unknown, debut novelist with no profile. Why didn’t I recognise this? Why wasn’t I looking for agents and publishers who wanted to work with debut novelists and were taking submissions?
Self sabotage or dreaming of being ‘the one’
To be honest, I don’t know. Maybe I was deliberately sabotaging myself, proving to myself that my manuscript definitely wasn’t worthy, just to feed the little insecurity gremlin in my stomach.
Or maybe I just had the dream of being ‘the one’… you know, the rare or even mythical (outside of marketing spin) unknown author that catches the eye of the major agents and publishers by virtue of their manuscript alone.
Either way, it was a stupid strategy. Over the space of 3 months, I was rejected by all 8 agents. Intellectually, I understood the odds of getting read and picked up from a cold approach to agents with a debut novel. But emotionally it still hurt, not least because most were standard, non-personal rejections.
I wasn’t even good enough to get a personal response.
If you try not to fail, you can’t try to succeed
For a few months after that, I retreated back into myself, convinced the novel I’d written wasn’t publishable. The website I had created for Beat The Rain lay dormant and I didn’t send off any manuscript submissions for another couple of months.
Then two things happened. A designer friend of mine had agreed to design a book cover for Beat The Rain, for free, she just wanted to help. When she sent through her final version of the book cover, I absolutely loved it and it reinvigorated me a little.
Then Marlon James was announced as the Man Booker Prize winner for 2015 with A Brief History of Seven Killings and the next day, my partner sent me a very simple, very short email:
“Marlon James got nearly 80 rejections. You might want to go for a few more than 8.”
The best advice I’ve ever been given
It was the best advice I’ve ever been given. The next day I rewrote my synopsis. I gathered reviews and quotes from people who had read the manuscript and rewrote my covering letter accordingly. I included more of my personal and professional credentials and crucially, for me, I researched the publishers I wanted and stopped approaching leading agents with full author lists.
I chose 8 publishers who specialised in literary fiction and were actively interested in working with debut novelists and sent off my next round of submissions.
Getting a publisher
Within 3 days, I had the first asking for my full manuscript. Within two weeks, another two publishers had expressed an interest. Even the rejections I got back were personal – they’d actually read the samples and enjoyed them, but didn’t feel they were right for their lists.
Within a month, I had signed with John Hunt Publishing – their approach feels very 21st century and fits who I am and how I want to do things.
To be honest, none of it feels real at all – I still have moments every day where I do a double take. I have a publishing deal.
A lifelong dream is about to become a reality. And all because Marlon James got 78 rejections and went on to win the Man Booker Prize.
Things a writer’s spouse/partner says #1
You read a lot about the life of a writer and author online. So this series is for their long suffering partners, acknowledging what they put up with
October 5, 2014
Stop making excuses, you have got time to write
Ever since I was a boy, I’ve dreamed of being a novelist. I ground my parents down until they bought me an electric typewriter when I was about 11 years old so I could write a rip off Hardy Boys adventure yarn on it. Utter rubbish, I’m sure, and luckily no copies survive to tell the tale.
When I was about 15, I convinced my mother to buy me one of those writing courses that were always advertised in the newspaper in the late 1980s. It was a dist...
Does ‘real life’ rob you of your dreams?
Ever since I was a boy, I’ve dreamed of being a novelist. I ground my parents down until they bought me an electric typewriter when I was about 11 years old so I could write a rip off Hardy Boys adventure yarn on it. Utter rubbish, I’m sure, and luckily no copies survive to tell the tale.
When I was about 15, I convinced my mother to buy me one of those writing courses that were always advertised in the newspaper in the late 1980s. It was a distance learning type thing – they sent you a load of books and set you writing exercises and you wrote them and got feedback on it. Needless to say, I was a 15 year old boy who had also discovered alcohol so I never did a single exercise. My mother has never let me forget the fact I got her to pay for this, only to put the books in a wardrobe and forget about it forever more.
Still, the writing urge was always there. I did a Creative Writing dissertation as part of my English Literature degree, then took a Creative Writing MA, always determined that I’d be a published novelist.
When should you give up on your dreams?
Then life happened. I needed a career, so set a business up with my partner. We got a dog and had two children. I started a novel, I even went away for a few ‘writer weekends’ to work on it, but in reality, I didn’t commit to it. It wasn’t really ‘living’ inside my mind, more pottering along with gout and a bad limp.
Then I blinked and woke up as a 40 year old man who still hadn’t written the book he’d always promised he’d write.
Turning 40 hit me hard, not because I cared about my age but because it signified the dream I’d given up on. A dream I hadn’t even acknowledged I’d sidelined until my 40th loomed like a shade crooking a bony finger at me.
At first, I made the usual excuses: work gets in the way, I have two children, I’m too busy, my fingers have fallen off. All nonsense. The reality, when I admitted it to myself, was hard to swallow. Nothing and nobody had robbed me of my dream. The reason I wasn’t a published author was because I hadn’t actually finished a novel. The reason I hadn’t finished my novel was that I’d created a list of excuses as long as my arm preventing me from finishing my novel. And around the Mobiüs strip I went.
Achieve the impossible
Once I dispensed with my compelling, convincing and bogus list of things to blame, I realised that actually, I’d just silently given up on my novelist dreams to focus on ‘real life’, whatever that was. Because somehow, ‘real life’ was tangible and being a novelist was something that happened to other people. For me, my creative writing had almost become like a dirty secret I had to bury and hide from the world because I was embarrassed I hadn’t achieved it. Worse still, I’d stopped trying.
So I made myself a promise: either I’d stop feeling sorry for myself that I wasn’t a published author and give up the dream, or I’d actually commit to finishing the novel I’d started writing more than a decade ago.
As soon as the ultimatum was set, I had no option. It took about 10 months from that point to get a finished first draft, juggling business and children and relationship and ‘real life’.
But here’s the thing: it was possible. Most things are if you want them enough.
