Adam Croft's Blog, page 18

5 reasons planning is the writer’s friend

As fun as it is to plough straight in and see what happens with your novel, there is a lot to be said for planning in advance. With this in mind, here are some of the best reasons why planning is the writer’s friend.

Your main job is to tell the story. It helps if you know in advance exactly what story you’re trying to tell.
Planning helps to develop structure. A good story can be lost in a wishy-washy structure, which is often the result of failing to properly plan. Planning teaches us how to put together a well-structured story that will be interesting to read.
It helps in that horrendous ‘middle bit’ of the first draft. It’s a common thing for writers to hit something of a wall about halfway through the first draft of a novel and, without a plan, the temptation to give up can be immense. With a plan, however, you will at least have something to help guide you through the murky times and onto something better.
It’s useful for editing. If you’re in the middle of editing and something doesn’t make sense, it’s massively useful to have something to refer back to so you can see how your plan matches the reality of your book.
It lets you see the story’s evolution. Your plan might change as you’re going along, or you might suddenly diverge from it halfway through, but it will still serve as a useful reminder of where your story started and what your intentions were when you started out.

4 reasons for the independent publishing boom

Independent publishing is something that more and more writers are turning to. As well as all of the benefits of independent publishing for authors – more control, the ability to write what you want – it’s also worth looking at some of the underlying reasons for the independent publishing boom. Please let me know what you think and add your own suggestions in the comments.

Writers have access to the tools of the trade. In ye olden days, if you wanted to publish a book, you needed a printing press and the support of a traditional publisher to get the book to market. Now, this is no longer the case. Writers can do the vast majority of a publisher’s work themselves, usually for a fraction of the cost – making a very good business case for a change in working practices.
Traditional publishers aren’t providing the best results. Even if you get a traditional publishing deal these days, as an author you’ll still be doing much of the work you’d be doing as an independent publisher, generally for a much smaller cut of the royalties. Authors are taking a calculated decision and deciding that independent publishing often trumps the support of an established publishing company.
Traditional publishers aren’t adapting to technology quickly enough. I think one of the big factors for a surge in independent publishers is that authors have been ahead of traditional publishers in terms of technology and changes to the book industry. Authors have been exploiting opportunities more effectively and as a result are able to offer a better platform – and prices – for readers on their own.
Writers and readers want more choice. I think over the past decade or so, writers and readers alike have been waking up to the fact that it’s a trifle unfair for a handful of people in the publishing industry to decide what people get to write and read. Independent publishing goes a long way to removing constraints on choice.

Is there a good time to write a book?

It’s something I think many of us search (or at least wish) for as writers – that perfect, elusive time to write a book.

I’m sure we all know that, deep down, there is not really any such thing as the perfect time to write a book, but it’s a myth that sticks around. However, waiting for the ‘perfect’ time to start often means not starting at all. If every single writer waited for optimum conditions before putting pen to paper, nothing would get written at all.

In reality, we just have to write when we can, as often as we can. This often means writing at mad times of the day or night, scribbling a few lines in between work and dinner, going out and going to bed. It means writing while the kids are having an argument downstairs and desperately trying to cram a few hundred words in around that massive work deadline.

This can make the reality of writing seem something of a chore – something that’s difficult. I think there is, however, a better, nicer way of looking at it. And that is: the best time to write a book is when you want to write a book.

After all, if you didn’t want to write a book, would you really bother getting up at half five in the morning to fit in a few paragraphs before work? If you didn’t want to write a book, would you really make the effort to write when you’ve got so much going on in your life and so many deadlines to meet on a weekly basis?

We write because we want to. It might not be perfect and it could often definitely be easier, but it’s still something we do because we want to. And really, what time to write a book could be better than that?

What are your self-publishing expectations?

Consciously or not, our expectations have an influence on a huge amount of our writing career. We might tell ourselves that we have no expectations going in, that we are self-publishing our books just to see what will happen, but there is generally a part of us – even if only a tiny part – that is hoping we will be successful; that our hopes and expectations will prove to be correct.

Expectations can cover a whole range of things, from the genre of book you intend to write to the sales you hope to achieve. When we’re sitting at home dreaming about what might happen to our writing careers, it can be easy to allow ourselves to get a bit carried away and for our dreams to start to take the more concrete form of an expectation.

There is nothing wrong with this, of course. If you have big goals for your writing, it might well give you the boost you need to put the work in to achieve those goals. However, especially when we are starting out in self-publishing, it’s worth taking a step back and checking that our expectations are based in reality.

For example, when you hear people talking about self-publishing, you can often get the sense that it isn’t that hard to do. In some ways, it really isn’t that hard to do. In other ways, however, it really is. Taking the time to do your research and learn how it all works is not important just for giving you the skills you need to do the job, but also in terms of managing your expectations – how much time it will take you to publish a book, what you are able to do yourself and what you will need to learn first.

Issues such as this are why it is so important to develop a plan for your self-publishing career. You plan might change; in fact, it’s likely that it will, as this is an industry that’s changing fast and we always need to be ready to try new things and adapt to change quickly. However, a plan that includes not just your hopes for your writing career but also a defined means of what you’re going to do to achieve that matters.

It also gives us a way to measure our expectations in practical terms; if, for instance, your expectation/goal for one month was to sell 10 copies of your book a day but you’ve fallen short of it, you’ll be able to look back and see where you might have gone wrong, as well as being able to see what more you need to do to achieve those goals.

Did you have any expectations about self-publishing when you first started out?

The main roles of the self-publisher

One of the interesting things about independent publishing is that it cuts the publishing business down to just the essentials: the only people who are completely crucial to it are the writer and the reader.

This is a great thing – it takes out a lot of the bureaucracy from the process and brings writers and readers closer together. It also means that the writer has to take on more roles than they used to. After all, the number of people involved in getting a book from the writer to the reader might have been dramatically reduced, but the work of getting it there still exists.

If we went into all the different things an independent publisher has to do to get a book to market, we’d be here for quite a while, but I think we can break the job down into three key roles: author, publisher and promoter.

In some ways, it’s something of a linear process. The author writes a cracking book. The publisher then publishes the book. The promoter then promotes it. Then (hopefully) the reader enters the scene, sees the marketing, buys the book, and prompts the author to write another one.

However, these roles can also all be going on at the same time – as independent publishers, we know that it’s important to start our marketing before we’ve published the book, and as authors, we know that we have to write the next one no matter what else might be going on around us.

This can add to the pressure on writers, but I think it can also be a good thing. Taking on multiple roles allows us to gain a greater depth of knowledge about the self-publishing business and, crucially, about what readers are looking for. Working across the different roles in the business allows us to react to things, rather than waiting for someone else to react for us. It allows us to create more of a joined-up self-publishing process that, with any luck, flows seamlessly together as all of the control and momentum is ours.

There is no doubt that self-publishing is a challenge, and the multiple roles required of authors can be tricky to navigate – bringing in professional help can be usually useful. However, it also has plenty of benefits for writers and readers alike, and is definitely more than worth mastering.

 

Which is better – the book or the e-book?

There is no getting away from the fact that the e-book is here to stay. It is increasingly popular, but many people still cling on to the printed book and refuse to even consider the notion of buying an e-reader. So in a debate that often arouses such passions, who is right? Which is better – the book or the e-book?

They both have their strengths. The benefits of the printed book include the fact it has so many years of history behind that can often bring out an emotional response in people – it’s something we like to hold on to, both literally and figuratively. The printed book also doesn’t require people to make an investment in a new bit of technology before they can use it. Many of them also have rather nice covers and look impressive on your shelves.

E-books have plenty of benefits of their own, too. For instance, they help to save paper by displaying books on a screen instead. All of your books as easily accessible as they are stored on one device. When you buy a new book online, you can access it almost instantly rather than having to wait for it to make its way to you through the post. E-books are also convenient for publishers, especially self-publishers, and allow us to create new and enhanced reading experiences thanks to the increasing range of technology at our fingertips.

Books and e-books both have plenty of things going for them, but I think that in the debate over which one is better, a crucial point gets lost. They are both part of the evolution of stories. The story is the main thing: it has evolved from the spoken word to cave art to the written word to printed books to e-books. It is something that is always evolving, that we are finding new ways of expressing, but the underlying thing remains the same: the most important thing is the story.

We all have our preferred ways of reading or viewing stories, but as long as the story is told well, in the right way and grabs our attention, that is surely the main thing. Long may it continue, no matter how books might evolve in the future.

9 grammar errors that can wreck your writing

I’m sure most people reading this will already be familiar with the need to get your grammar right in your writing. It is, however, often all too easy to miss mistakes that can go on to have a significant impact on how a reader views your book.

It isn’t hard to see how it might happen: when you’re writing the first draft of your novel, you’re not worrying too much about whether every single comma is in the right place. Your main goal is getting to the end. And then, later, in the editing process, small errors can easily be overlooked as you tackle the larger issues of plot and character.

Of course, grammar and spelling mishaps should be picked up in the proofreading stage, but it’s a fact of life that they still slip through the net from time to time. Still, it’s worth doing everything we can to avoid getting things wrong, so with this in mind let’s take a look at some common grammar errors that can detract from your writing.

They’re/their/there

I think this one appears on just about every single list of ‘the worst ever grammar mistakes’ in existence, and it does so because it’s a mistake many writers make. A brief guide:

They’re means they are.
Their is to do with other people, as in ‘their hair needs washing’ or ‘their parents are on holiday.’
There is for things like ‘the table is over there’ and ‘there is nothing like a cup of tea.’

Have/of

Writing ‘should of’ instead of ‘should have’ is a basic mistake and needs to be banished immediately.

Literally in the wrong place

Ah, the conundrum over the word ‘literally’. It’s too often used when what the writer really means is ‘figuratively’.

Apostrophe catastrophe

Apostrophes where they aren’t needed (apple’s and pear’s on shop signs, for instance) or missing where they are needed (Simons instead of Simon’s or the students books instead of the students’ books) are a common mistake, and getting them wrong can easily change the meaning of what you’re trying to say.

Affect/effect

Affect is generally used a verb. Effect is generally used as a noun. ‘X affects people differently’ is different to saying ‘the effect of X differs from person to person’.

The rogue comma

Commas where they aren’t needed. Commas used at what appear to be arbitrary points in a sentence. Commas where there should be a semicolon (quite a common one, this). They’re one of the most widely used punctuation marks; as writers, we should know how they work.

Fewer/less

As a general rule of thumb for this one – fewer is generally to do with numbers, while less is to do with other stuff. For example, ‘we have fewer examples of success since we changed the business’ and ‘the business has been less successful since we made the changes.’

Since/because

It’s not unusual for writers to use these two as largely interchangeable, but there is a difference. The word ‘since’ is generally to do with things relating to time, such as: ‘Since my 30th birthday, I’ve finally felt like more of a grown up.’ The word ‘because’ is more to do with reasoning, such as: ‘I feel like more of a grown up because I’m 30 now.’

Dis/uninterested

This can apply to other words too, such as dis- and unengaged. In the case of disinterested, it means that someone doesn’t really have a stake in something. For instance: ‘the gambler was disinterested about the race as he hadn’t placed a bet on it.’ Meanwhile, uninterested is more to do with a lack of interest overall: ‘the man was uninterested in the race; he didn’t like gambling or horseracing.’

What other grammar errors wind you up?

5 tips for writing the end of your novel

We all know the advice for writing the start of a novel – making it compelling, make sure you have a hook, make sure you get straight down to it without waffling on for ages first. But what about the end of your novel?

Here are some tips for making sure the end of your novel packs a proper punch.

Know when the story ends – and end it there. Just like you shouldn’t ramble for ages at the start of a novel before getting into the story, so you shouldn’t ramble for ages after the story has finished.
Make sure it’s satisfying. Sounds obvious, but a damp squib of an ending never goes down well, particularly if it’s glaringly obvious.
Get rid of loose ends. Either make sure all of your loose ends and subplots are tied up by the end of the main story or, if you’re struggling to do this, it might be time to go back through and evaluate their purpose in the first place.
Have an ending in mind from the beginning. Your plan might change as you go along, but having an idea of how you want to end your story from the very beginning can be useful – it gives you direction and, hopefully, an ending that suits the story you’ve written.
See what you can cut. Write your ending, then look at what you can cut. If you took out the last sentence, would it still work? What about the last paragraph?

What are your tips for writing a brilliant ending for your novel?

4 reasons to write a crime fiction series

We all love to read a good crime fiction series, right? There are plenty of reasons to write one too. Here are a few of the best.

Develop stories across books

It might not be the best idea in the world to write a series that you can only read from the beginning, particularly if you’re hoping to find new readers with each book, but a series where books contain nods to other books and things develop as you go along could be great. For example, you could develop a relationship between two characters, or introduce a threat in one book (a detective’s job in the balance, for instance) that isn’t resolved until a later book.

Readers like them

This has to be one of the very best reasons to write a crime fiction series: readers like them. This means it makes good business sense. There is a certain comfort in being able to read something about characters and world you’re familiar with, no matter how grisly your particular brand of crime fiction might be, making the genre popular with readers. Some of the bestselling authors in the world write a series of crime novels.

Develop a theme

A series of novels also gives you the opportunity to develop a particular theme or explore different issues through a particular point of view or place in time. In some ways, this is a practical consideration – it’s arguably easier when you don’t have to create a whole new fictional world every time you want to write a book – but it can also provide an interesting, unique way of looking at things, giving you the chance to explore a wide range of issues.

Learn your style and strengths

It’s important to play to your strengths as a writer, and a crime fiction series gives you the chance to do that while also giving you room to grow as an author. You can work out how you like to write and create your own recognisable style – important for an author’s brand, as well as allowing you to do what you do best.

7 ways to find more writing time

We’d all love to have more writing time, so here are some tips and things you can try to get more time in the day for that all-important writing. Feel free to add your own suggestions in the comments.

Give up TV. Let’s face it, most of the time we’re not watching a well-crafted, exquisitely written television drama that will teach us something about the art of storytelling and human endeavour. Most of the time, we’re watching trash. Turn it off and get writing
Get up earlier. Don’t hit the snooze button six times before dragging yourself out of bed for work. Get straight up and straight down to writing. Even fifteen minutes will make a big difference to your progress.
Don’t procrastinate. A general point, yes, but an important one. Procrastination can be anything from messing around on Twitter to ironing clothes that really don’t need ironing. Recruit someone you know to be your own personal Procrastination Police Officer and cut it out
Use your commute. Rather than staring out of the bus window or having a small nap on the train on the way to/from work, get out your notebook and write. Or, if you get travel sick, think about what you’re going to write later (and write it down as soon as you can).
Look at the websites you visit regularly. Identify the three (or more) most useless, time-wasting websites you visit. Don’t visit them anymore. Write instead.
Don’t go out to the shops. Shop online. It’s quicker and you’ll already be at the computer when you’re done, which means – guess what? – you’re in the perfect place to write.
Arrive at meetings/appointments early. Take a notebook with you. Be productive while you’re waiting.