Adam Croft's Blog, page 11

The pros and cons of dashing through your first draft

There are, naturally, lots of ways to go about writing the first draft of a novel, but there do seem to be two distinct schools of thought on the matter. First there is the school of thought that says you should just push through the first draft as quickly as you can, because it’s afterwards that the real work starts. Then there is the other thought that you should take your time over it, get to know your story before you plough in and don’t scrimp on quality just because it’s a first run through.

So what should it be? What are the pros and cons of dashing through your first draft?

One of the big pros of blitzing your way through that initial draft has to be that it gets the blasted thing done sooner. It might not be perfect – it might not really be that good at all – but there will be something there for you to work with, and you can relax for a short while, knowing that you’ve at least got the bare bones of your story there on the page.

There’s also the fact that if there does turn out to be a massive problem with your story that will basically require you to start all over again, it’s always nice to know sooner rather than later. It also helps you to get the story straight in your head, so even if you are in for months of major rewrites after the end of draft one, at least you’ll have a better idea of where you’re going and what you’re trying to do.

On the other hand, the ‘con’ school of thought suggests that you should have a good idea of where you’re going with the story in the first place, and that it’s worth taking your time over the draft so you can get it right first time around. There’s a chance that when dashing for the finish line, you end up with nothing so much as a big, long, irrelevant ramble. You’re less likely to have to start the thing again if you’ve carefully thought it through while writing the first draft.

Which is it to be? There is clearly a need to strike a balance here, but like so much else with writing, the issue is not clear cut. What are your thoughts? Do you favour writing the first draft as fast as you can, or do you like a more measured approach to the whole affair?

8 tips for writing a blurb

The blurb is often one of the last things we do when putting the finishing touches on our novels, but we should never forget just how important they are. Along with the cover design, the blurb is one of the very first things a reader sees of your book, and it can often sway their decision over whether or not to buy the book.

With this in mind, here are some top tips for writing a blurb.

Make it relevant. You don’t have long to grab a reader’s attention and persuade them to buy, so make sure you get all your salient points in. Don’t waffle.
Make it brief. See above. You need to give the reader enough that they feel they can make an informed decision over whether or not they’ll enjoy the book, but not so much they don’t bother to read through it properly in the first place.
Make it easy to read. This doesn’t just mean in terms of the content – it refers to the look of the blurb as well. Take care over your font and spacing.
Ask someone to write one for you. You don’t have to use what they come up with, but this can be a good exercise to see which points of your book they choose to include in their blurb.
Give the readers some information about the plot. If the story revolves around a key event, mention it. But don’t give too much away.
Highlight your main characters. You don’t need a full cast list in your blurb but a mention for your main characters makes sense.
Include the setting to give the blurb some context and a sense of place.
Leave the reader wanting more. Finish the blurb with a question or a suggestion of mystery to make readers want to carry on and find out more.

What are your tips for writing a blurb for your book?

4 more reasons to self-publish

These days, self-publishing is much better respected than it used to be. It’s now seen as a viable, positive option for authors looking to publish their work, and the list of reasons for writers to give it a go continues to grow.

For instance…

Use it to build momentum

One good thing about self-publishing is that, as the author, you get to choose what books you publish, and how often you publish them. This means that if you want to build momentum by releasing two or three books in short succession of each other, you can. This is in contrast to the often more constrictive traditional publishing.

And, of course, it also means that if you don’t want to publish anything for a while, there’s nothing forcing you to do that either.

Find out what success means for you

Self-publishing is also a good option if you want to try different things and explore new ideas. You can find out about different kinds of success – it’s not all just about hitting number 1 on Amazon (although that is lovely), but also about pushing the boundaries of your writing without worrying about what your publisher’s going to say.

Challenge the norms

A point often raised by authors who publish their work the traditional way – even by authors who are passionate supports of traditional publishing – is that writers are often forced to accept book covers and marketing decisions for their work that they aren’t entirely happy with. The forcing of pink covers onto lots of “women’s fiction”, for instance, no matter how incongruous they are to what’s actually inside.

This is not the case in self-publishing; you get to choose how you want to present your own book based on its content, and are in control over all of the marketing decisions. After all, even authors who go down the traditional route usually have to do the bulk of their own marketing. You might as well have a book that you’re completely happy with.

Put together your perfect publishing team

One of the arguments people often make in favour of traditional publishing is that the whole thing is already set up for you – you don’t have to worry about finding editors or cover designers or someone to worry about things like rights. This is great in theory, but the downside to a ready-made team is that it might not be all that well tailored to you.

By contrast, even though it might involve some work to find a group of people you’re happy with, in self-publishing, you decide who’s on the team. It might take a bit of time to find your winning formula, but being able to choose your own editor and designer is great.

What do you think?

10 ways to plan your novel

Planning a novel is an oddly controversial issue. Everyone has their favourite way of doing it, and while most people agree that planning is generally a good thing, no one can quite agree on how much of it to do or the best way to go about it. There are probably as many planning methods as there are writers in the world, but I’ve pulled together some of the main options to show just how much variety there is out there.

The key point method. This one is pretty straightforward. It basically involves determining the key points of your story and making sure you’ve got a note of them to refer back to, and can be quite a useful method if you like a bit of structure but don’t want to be too constrained by your plan.
To misuse a project management term, find the critical path. This is, essentially, the vital sequence of events that the success of your plot depends on. There can be subplots included in your plan, but the focus is one the main critical plan that provides the backbone of the story.
Work backwards from the ending. If you know how you want the story to end, you can (in theory) then work backwards to work out where the story should start.
The bookend approach. This seems to be quite a common one – decide how you want the story to start and finish and then start writing. You can sort out the middle bit as you’re going along.
Plan around a key event. Plenty of stories start from one key image, and that key image can come at any point in the book. Working around that particular event can give you a focus that you can use to anchor your plan.
The sectional approach. If you’re a fan of detailed planning, you might like this approach or a variation of it. Plan your book in broad terms, and then break it down to plan in more detail. For instance, what happens in each act? What happens in each chapter? In each scene?
Notecards – lots of them, with varying levels of detail.
Go artistic. There’s nothing that says your plan has to involve words at all if you don’t want it to. Why not create a collage or mood board that represents different bits of the story? It might not be great for sorting out the nitty gritty bit could be great for giving you a feel for the story.
Write a synopsis. Don’t wait until you’re trying to sell your finished novel before you write a synopsis of the plot – do it before you’ve even started to give yourself an idea of the key points to focus on and a sense of the potential finished product in your mind.
Blurt the story onto the page. It might not be the most structured form of planning ever but for some people, simply having a bash at writing the story without plotting it out first is the best method there is.

3 goals for writers

Despite the fact that we love writing, I think it’s fair to say that a lot of us often spend more time talking or reading about writing than actually getting on and doing it. I dread to think of the millions of words that might have been written were it not for the temptation to browse the internet for hours on end, reading lots about the art of writing but never quite getting around to putting the theory into practice.

With this in mind, here are three goals for writers that I think are worth adhering to.

Just write

An obvious one, yes, but considering how much time writers waste on procrastination, one that is worth stating. Do whatever you have to do to so you can write. Find a block of time, sit down, and just do it.

Sitting down to write in the first place is often the hardest bit – we often have so many demands on our time that it’s easy to neglect the one thing that we really want to do. It is, however, worth it. Don’t worry too much about what you’re writing to begin with; just get on with it, even if you can only manage to snatch ten minutes here or there to do it.

Try different things

Something that many writers do is get stuck into a particular vein of writing. Sometimes this is great – if you’ve got a good thing going, it makes sense to keep going with it (as long as it’s still good, of course). However, we could often benefit from trying something new.

After all, you never know what you might end up with if you try something that’s completely new to you. You could hit the writing jackpot.

Be proud of your writing style

Something that can keep us from getting as much writing done as we’d like is the worry that our writing style isn’t that great. This can be a hard one to get over, especially if you’re just in the process of learning your craft, but it’s important that you write like you. There’s no need to write like anyone else. We all have our own voice and while it might take some time to get it right, once you do, you’ll be glad you stuck to your own writing style.

Everything you ever wanted or: the importance of desire in crime fiction

No, no that kind of desire. Sorry.

So much of fiction – all fiction, really, not just crime fiction – is based around the desires of our characters. The things that they want or don’t want, the things that they do to achieve what they want, what they do if they don’t get what they want. It’s an issue we can’t ignore – particularly in crime fiction where what characters want often leads to a life or death situation.

Here are some of the key questions to consider when thinking about the issue of desire in crime fiction:

What is it that your character wants? Is it something tangible or something more abstract?
Why do they want it? In crime fiction, this often manifests itself as motive. In the case of the antagonist, for instance, it often centres around the issue of why they have committed the crimes that they have.
What will they do to get what they want? Again, this is a potent one in crime fiction, and it’s something that forms a key part of the plot.
How will they respond to obstacles that are placed in their way?
How do their desires affect their relationships with other characters? In crime fiction, the interaction between protagonist and antagonist is one of the important ones to consider, although other characters should definitely not be overlooked.
How will it drive the plot?

There are many different threads to this issue of desire, not least because every character you write about will come with their own wants and motives. The great thing about it is that getting it right helps to create the complexity, intricacy and richness of story that makes crime fiction so popular.

Writing – should you put all your eggs in one basket?

Writing is an unpredictable business. There is often no telling where the next big success is going to come from. There’s often no telling whether that great book you’ve just self-published will sell any copies at all, let alone bring the success you’d love.

This leads us to weigh up our options in order to find the best chance of making a success of our writing. There are, broadly speaking, two main paths to choose between. One is to put all of your literary eggs in one basket and focus on a single project. The other is to have, as it were, many baskets, all with a single egg in, in the hope that one of them will find purchase.

So which should it be? There are obvious benefits to both options. A big plus of focusing on one thing at a time and taking your time over it is that it should have a beneficial impact on the quality of your finished work. You’ll also be heavily invested in the finished outcome and so will be keen to do whatever you can to make a success of it once it’s published.

That said, what if it isn’t a success? Of course, you’ll still have learnt a lot from the experience and hopefully will have found it rewarding, but if you’re hoping to make a living from your writing, that’ll only get you so far. This is where the multiple-projects-on-the-go approach can be useful.

As well as giving you lots of different chances for success, trying lots of different things can also lead to you trying things with your writing that you never would have thought of. It can lead you down exciting avenues and, if all goes well, you could end up with multiple successful ventures. You have to be careful, however, to weigh up issues such as quality, the amount of time you can afford to spend on each thing, and whether you have enough ideas to sustain this approach over a long period of time.

It seems, then, that this issue is like so many others in writing. What works for some won’t work for others, and it’s all about finding the balance that works for you. Above all, it’s about being passionate about what you do and giving your writing the best possible chance to shine.

What do you think?

9 tips for writing crime fiction

Crime fiction is one of readers’ favourite genres, and with so many great crime novels out there, writers always need to look for ways to up their game. If you’re new to writing in the genre, where should you start? Here are some tips to give you some ideas and things to think about when writing great crime fiction.

Set it in a distinctive place. Whether they’re set in a dark, brooding city or a pretty, small English village, most of the very best crime novels have distinctive sense of place.
Edit like crazy. This applies to all genres, but it is especially important in crime fiction where plots are often complicated and need to be right. Only keep what’s necessary for your story – everything else can go.
Learn how to plan. Whether you like extensive plans or prefer the minimalist approach, find out what works for you and go with it.
Give your characters depth – including the villains. Remember that all of your characters are the main characters in their own lives. This means that they shouldn’t be two-dimensional cardboard cut-out types that do things just because they’re convenient for the plot, but rather should be multi-faceted and the driving force of the plot.
Start and end with the characters. You might have an idea for a plot you want to explore, but don’t forget that it’s the characters that move it forward. They’re where the interest lies – in all fiction, not just crime fiction.
Watch the news, read the papers. Real life events can be a good source of ideas and inspiration for crime fiction. It’s not just the crime stories either; almost any news story could have the seed of an idea that could be useful for a crime novel.
Keep some information back. Mystery and suspense are vital for crime fiction, so don’t tell your readers everything at once.
Get your research right. You don’t want to overwhelm readers by regurgitating everything you’ve learned through your research, but equally you don’t want the story to end up implausible because you’ve not checked your facts properly. It’s important to get the balance right.
Let the readers do some work; they like to feel as though they’re one step ahead, and there’s no need to tell them absolutely everything when they’re perfectly capable of working things out for themselves. But surprise them too – part of the beauty of crime fiction is letting the readers think they’ve worked it all out, and then pulling the rug from under them.

What do you think?

10 quick tips for creating fantastic characters

Characters are crucial in fiction. Without top notch characters, even the most interesting plot will fall flat because there will be nothing to drive it or generate the interest in the first place. Creating fantastic characters often takes time, but it is always worth the effort. Here are some quick tips to get you started – and feel free to add your own thoughts and tips for creating characters in the comments below.

1)      Write your character’s diary. Think how they’d react to things and keep a journal for that character.

2)      Give them a distinctive dialogue style. How do they speak? What kind of words do they use? What are their speech patterns like?

3)      Focus on their personality. While it’s all very well knowing that your character is tall, with dark hair and dark eyes, it doesn’t really tell us much about what they’re like. Think about who they are as a person.

4)      Make them plausible. It’s fine to give your characters exceptional or unusual qualities, but they still need to be plausible so that readers can believe in them.

5)      Make them interesting. No one wants to read a book about characters so dull that the paper the story is printed on has more life in it.

6)      Draw from real life. Don’t create a carbon copy of someone you know, but look for other people’s interesting mannerisms and expressions that might work well for your character.

7)      Try the method approach. Actors sometimes inhabit a role they’re playing – you could try something similar and live the life of your character for a day (within reason, naturally).

8)      Be ruthless in editing them. In real life, a lot of what people do and say is superfluous waffle. Be wary of this in fiction – everything they do should contribute something to the story.

9)      Give them a backstory – even if you don’t write all of it. Knowing where your character has been will help to give them depth. You don’t have to spill out their entire life history onto the page, but a sense of context and of them having a past is useful.

10)  Learn them as you write them. It’s hard to get characters right first time, so give them time to develop as you write. You can always go back and change things later if they evolve in a way you weren’t expecting.

Independent publishing – the inclusive option

One of the criticisms often levelled at independent publishing is that it lets anyone who fancies it publish a book – the idea being that this has a negative impact on the quality of work published. This has always seemed slightly strange to me. OK, not every self-published book is a work of dazzling brilliance, but then neither are all traditionally-published efforts. And independent publishing is much more inclusive than the traditional option, which is part of its beauty.

There are some benefits to the exclusivity of traditional publishing – there is a lot of expertise in the industry, (usually) an assurance of quality, and a certain standing for authors who go down that route. However, this model also leads to a lot of very good writers being overlooked, whereas in independent publishing, they’d have their chance to shine.

Simply put, there is room for everyone in independent publishing. This doesn’t just apply to writers. It also applies to readers, who are able to access a much wider range of books from a much wider range of authors as a result. And we can’t forget the other people who work in publishing – it also includes professional editors, designers, proofreaders, publishers and so on. Part of the criticism of independent publishing is that it turns the publishing process into a one-man-band affair – not so. There’s space for everyone, including those who have previously been involved with the traditional side of the business.

This is part of what makes it so great; as well as being inclusive, it is about bringing together people who have skill, expertise and passion, and using those things to create the best books and the best reading experience possible. The only thing it really cuts out is the gatekeeper of traditional publishing that says what can and can’t be published – instead, everything and everyone gets a chance.

The fact that anyone who wants to get involved with independent publishing can get involved is by no means a bad thing. It’s one of the industry’s strengths.

What do you think?