Louise Dean's Blog, page 6

AJ Pearce on Making Characters Feel Real

AJ Pearce is the Sunday Times bestselling author of Dear Mrs Bird and Yours Cheerfully, both part of The Emmy Lake Chronicles series. AJ’s novels have been published in more than twenty countries and she is a British Book Awards and Royal Society of Literature Sir Christopher Bland Prize nominee. We're also thrilled that AJ is the sponsor of The AJ Pearce Scholarship on The Octopus Scheme, our scholarship program here at The Novelry.

From the Desk of AJ Pearce.

Writing characters and getting to know them is one of my favourite parts of working on a novel. It’s where I start, where I go back to if I get stuck, and where I know I can have fun.

The better I know my characters, the more real they feel and the easier it is to write for them. Dialogue flows more naturally, their actions feel authentic and push the story forward, and if the storyline does get sticky I know it’s because I’m not writing something good enough for my characters to want to engage.

So, how do you get them to this point?

Find out what matters
Spend time with them
When appearances matter
Exploring back story
Adding meaning to characters' surroundings
Owning something real

I hope you might find some of the following thoughts interesting, and if new to you, perhaps worth giving a go.

 

1. Find out what matters

Finding out what really matters to my characters is at the centre of everything they (and I) do.

What or who do they love? What are their triggers, their vulnerabilities, the things they believe in or cherish the most? If I know that, then I can try to write a story that means something to them, and by extension hopefully to my reader.

A while ago I wrote 50,000 words of a novel, increasingly struggling with it until I realised that what I had thought would mean the world to my main character, just didn’t.

Heart in mouth, I stepped away from my laptop and spent a day talking to myself about what and who mattered to her. I looked back at some scenes and saw that one in particular had been easier to write than the others. When I looked at that, I realised I’d been focussing on the wrong thing. I switched to what I knew she was passionate about, and a new and far better storyline fell into place.

The thing was, I hadn’t been listening to her. I should have known better! I’ve spent years working with this character as part of a series and I know her really well. When I went back to what I know means the most to her, things made sense. I knew then, I could write her novel.

What or who do they love? What are their triggers, their vulnerabilities, the things they believe in or cherish the most? 
AJ Pearce

2. Spend time with them

There’s never a quick fix here. Just like meeting someone in real life, it takes time to know them. Yes, you can nail down hair colour and their favourite food on the first ‘date’, but unless you’re really lucky, it takes time to see the real them.

I use the mundane parts of my day – housework, travelling, walking – any time I’m alone and don’t have to think about what I’m doing. Then I can just let myself daydream. If you don’t get much time to yourself, the time between hitting the pillow and falling asleep, or even for five minutes when you wake up, can be great for this, too.

Allow yourself to escape the real world and give your character something to do. Play with a piece of plot and see how they handle it. Don’t put any pressure on yourself to write it down. Even if you forget the details, their attitude and gut responses will stay with you.

You’re just getting to know each other.

The antagonist in my first book is Henrietta Bird – a formidable advice columnist who doesn’t really like people. I had great fun one morning, walking my dog and making up her one-sentence opinions on each of the last ten British Prime Ministers.

Did it have anything to do with the story? No. Did it make me laugh? Absolutely! More to the point, when I wrote her dialogue I knew Mrs Bird’s voice. I’d heard her crush a Head of State in a few words – it was easy to imagine how she would speak to her staff.

Writing novels is incredibly hard. We all deserve to take the pressure off when we can, and just play. Get your characters to cheer you up, or let them stir up how much you loathe them. Then it’s in your head when you need it.

 

3. When appearances matter

I rarely go into long descriptions about what people look like. I’ll try to set an impression, but once again, I include one or two things that matter to them.

As well as painting a picture, add something that you know matters to the character and I bet it will help direct how they behave.  I’m not too bothered if a character is six feet two with green eyes, but if being six feet two makes them miserable, or they hate that their eyes are the spitting image of their dad’s, then for me, that’s worth putting in.

Clarence the postboy in Dear Mrs Bird is fifteen and in the throes of a paralysing crush. He’s five feet ten with unpredictable skin, and his voice can cover three octaves in as many words. I don’t think I mention much else about his appearance, but these are the things that matter to him and make him the person he currently is. One day he’ll have grown out of them and while they will have shaped him, I’ll find something more that he can hold dear.

I rarely go into long descriptions about what people look like. I’ll try to set an impression, but once again, I include one or two things that matter to them. 
AJ Pearce

4. Exploring backstories

This is another area where the pressure is off and you can have some fun. I enjoy that it’s just me making up stuff and getting to know the characters. I don’t write any of it down – just like I don’t make notes on people I meet in real life. (That would be weird). You can trust that the details that make an impression will stay with you.

For the heroine of my series The Emmy Lake Chronicles I needed to know why she is driven to support the women who write into the magazine she works at, and why she thinks she is qualified to help. Emmy is only twenty-two in the novel so I spent a long time thinking about her family history – understanding why her parents are the people they are, and how that has affected her.

I wanted influences that would form the basis of Em’s strong belief that everyone has the right to be heard, together with her confidence to think she can help them. To get that, I picked her father from solid, upper-middle-class stock, while her mother is from a far more politically motivated, bohemian family. Once I had that, I had a foundation for why and how she is who she is.

Digging deep into Emmy’s family helped me get to know and understand her. It also gave me several other characters almost without me actually noticing I’d done the work. I definitely recommend that!

 

5. Adding meaning to characters’ surroundings

One of my favourite characters to write – Mr Collins – is a senior editor who works in a dark, untidy office. It’s rammed full of papers, books and spilled ink which obviously gives an immediate impression of the sort of person he is.

More interesting though, is that there’s a half-empty bottle of brandy on his bookshelf. It’s a hint to his back story and it matters enormously to him. It’s also something he won’t talk about, so I don’t either. I leave other characters in the novel (as well as the reader) to make their own assumptions. One day they may become close enough to him to find out. But not yet.

You don’t have to explain everything – in real life most of the time we don’t know everything about the people around us. Sometimes making characters feel real is helped more by what we don’t know about them, than what we do.

You don’t have to explain everything – in real life most of the time we don’t know everything about the people around us.
AJ Pearce

6. Owning something real

There’s a risk that this may make me sound a bit odd, but actually owning something that belongs to a character in my novel is often a tangible way to make them feel more real to me.

I have a pair of vintage 1940s shoes that Emmy wears in Dear Mrs Bird. She walks through the rubble of The Blitz in them, and having worn them, I know they are entirely practical for the job. I also have a silver notebook and card case that she uses in my current WIP. As soon as I saw them online I knew which character would have given them to her and what it said about them as much as her. It may not even make the final draft, but it’s part of my understanding.

If you don’t want your house full of imaginary people’s belongings (which is probably the saner approach), photos also do the job well. I wanted something to represent the arrogant Mr Terry in Yours Cheerfully so searched online for a period ashtray to put on his desk. I spotted an expensive, ostentatious, art deco Rolls Royce ashtray which was spot on. He no more owns a Rolls Royce than I do, but it was perfect for showing how he would try to associate himself with wealth and success. I don’t have to tell the reader that Emmy thinks he’s an idiot – through that object he’s doing it all for himself.

If you haven’t already tried some of the ideas above, I hope they may be useful. It’s not a must-have checklist, and for me there are no set timeframes or rules, but they’re in the toolbox when I need them, or if I’m stuck on a train or can’t get to sleep.

Occasionally, I get lucky and ‘see’ a more minor character straight away, and of course, they all continue to develop as I’m writing the book. But certainly for the main characters, I love spending time with them off the page, knowing that time is always well spent.

Sometimes I have conversations with readers which, if overheard, probably sound as if we’re talking about people who are real. When that happens I can almost hear the characters joining in with us in my head. After all the time I’ve spent with them, that’s the best thing of all.

 Apply for a fully-funded scholarship place on our Novel Course kindly co-sponsored by AJ Pearce. Full details about The Octopus Scheme is on our Scholarships page.

AJ Pearce joins us for a live session with our members on May 2nd at 6 pm UTC. With membership at The Novelry you'll enjoy a varied calendar of guest Q&As, writing classes and workshops. Membership is included with our famous creative writing courses. Sign up now to finish the book you've always wanted to write.

Explore the website to choose the course and payment plan that works for you, or book a free call to meet one of our award-winning author tutors.

The Octopus Scheme

We're delighted to announce our scholarship program The Octopus Scheme, an initiative to nurture writing talent from under-represented or disadvantaged backgrounds. This includes, but is not limited to, writers from a low-income background, primary carers, ex-offenders, writers with a disability, writers of colour and writers from the LGBTQIA+ community.

Applicants will be offered a fully-funded place on our Ninety Day Novel Course, including dedicated author coaching, jointly sponsored by The Novelry and a guest author. 

We would like to thank our wonderful and generous author sponsors: Sophie Kinsella, Rachel Joyce, Tess Gerritsen, Lesley Kara, Kendare Blake, Ajay Chowdhury, Clare Mackintosh and AJ Pearce.

Apply here by May 31st 2022.

Madeleine Milburn on 2022 Publishing Trends

Madeleine Milburn is the literary agent responsible for discovering some of the highest-selling and award-wining contemporary authors who consistently hit the bestseller lists in the New York Times, The Sunday Times and The Globe and Mail. These authors include the No.1 New York Times bestselling author Nita Prose (The Maid), Costa Book Award winner and multi-million copy bestseller Gail Honeyman (Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine), Ashley Audrain (The Push), Elizabeth Macneal (The Doll Factory) and Fiona Barton (The Widow). The Novelry is proud to partner with the Madeleine Milburn Literary Agency.

From the desk of Madeleine Milburn.

The past two years have had an undeniable impact on the publishing industry. Global turbulence in so many areas of our lives has influenced trends on all sides of the industry, from agencies, to publishers, to bookshops.

The future feels more uncertain than ever, and we are all looking for ways to overcome – or at least handle – that uncertainty. Thrillers feel like a great space within which to explore our deepest fears and our resilience, and inclusion and mental wellbeing are two topics on everyone’s minds.

Cosy crime

The cosy crime genre has seen a marked increase in popularity over the past few years, and this shows no signs of slowing. Cosy crime novels, which take place in familiar yet intriguing settings, have charmed readers with their quirky and loveable characters. I think people particularly appreciate the satisfying endings, which offer an alternative to the feelings of uncertainty that have characterised recent times.

The whirlwind successes of our very own Nita Prose’s The Maid and many other comparable titles are testament to this popularity. These books have consistently featured on international bestseller lists since their publication, and The Maid is set to be adapted into a film by Universal Studios, starring Florence Pugh.

High-octane thrillers

On the other end of the crime spectrum, however, I am seeing a real demand for heart-racing, high-octane thrillers that are impossible to put down and keep you up at night.

New and upcoming thrillers from our agency’s brand name authors such as C.L. Taylor (The Guilty Couple), Mark Edwards (No Place to Run), C.J. Tudor (The Drift), Caroline Mitchell (The Village) and Fiona Barton (Local Gone Missing), were snapped up by publishers and producers alike. We have also had an exciting influx of newer voices in the thriller and suspense genre: Stephanie Wrobel (This Might Hurt), Robin Morgan-Bentley (The Guest House) and Jack Jordan (Do No Harm), publishing this year to rave reviews.

Escapism

There is no denying that the term ‘escapism’ has been used liberally in the two years since the pandemic started, however I believe this is justified. During times of crisis, uplifting stories with thought-provoking themes truly hold the power to transform minds.

With the overwhelming success of shows like Bridgerton, the Regency era has been a particularly fruitful focal point, whisking readers away to a more whimsical time and place. Sophie Irwin’s debut A Lady’s Guide to Fortune-Hunting, which publishes this May, is a perfect example of this thirst for thrilling romance set against the highly visual backdrop of the 19th century. 

During times of crisis, uplifting stories with thought-provoking themes truly hold the power to transform minds.
Madeleine Milburn

Contemporary escapist fiction about the power of relationships and community is also high up on the wish lists of publishers and agents. We are lucky enough to represent several such authors, including Beth Morrey (Em and Me), Radhika Sanghani (30 Things I Love About Myself), Clare Pooley (Iona Iverson’s Rules for Commuting – publishing as The People on Platform 5 in the UK) and Freya Sampson (The Girl on the 88 Bus), whose feel-good yet emotive prose has been resonating with both readers and publishers this year.

Contemporary escapist fiction about the power of relationships and community is also high up on the wish lists of publishers and agents.
Madeleine Milburn

Diverse voices

Recent years have also prompted a reckoning in how publishing approaches diversity. Rather than empty, tokenistic gestures, companies are committing to the long-overdue need to diversify the industry, both in terms of staff intake and literary output. There has been a huge appetite for books that span cultures, tales from the diaspora, and underrepresented voices – both from readers who belong to minority communities, as well as those with a desire to educate themselves.

Fiction (including our recent releases Black Cake by Charmaine Wilkerson and Wahala by Nikki May) has offered readers the chance to explore unique stories from the perspectives of characters in the diaspora, and how their cultures clash and harmonise with those in the US and UK. However, non-fiction is also seeing a lot of traction. Katherine May’s beautiful and deeply personal memoirs The Electricity of Every Living Thing and Wintering, which touch on her experience of being diagnosed with autism as an adult, shows the increased awareness and representation of neurodiversity in literature.

While diversity should never be considered a mere trend, it is wonderful to see the publishing industry finally begin to give talented underrepresented voices the attention they deserve.

While diversity should never be considered a mere trend, it is wonderful to see the publishing industry finally begin to give talented underrepresented voices the attention they deserve.
Madeleine Milburn

What's harder to sell

I am sensing less demand for the overly distressing. After two years of tragic loss, readers have turned to their bookshelves to escape the hardships of pandemic life. For this reason, manuscripts with gratuitous death or hopelessness are unlikely to receive much commercial attention. Anything dark ought to be buoyed up through humour, shocking twists, or a pertinent psychological insight into our own experiences.

 

With our thanks to Madeleine. Madeline Milburn Literary Agency are one of our literary agency partners to whom we are delighted to submit the work of our wonderful creative writing course graduates.

Madeleine Milburn joins us for a live session on April 25th at 6 pm UTC.

With membership at The Novelry you'll enjoy a varied calendar of guest Q&As, writing classes and workshops. Membership is included with our famous creative writing courses. Sign up now to finish the book you've always wanted to write.

Explore the website to choose the course and payment plan that works for you, or book a free call to meet one of our award-winning author tutors.

Clare Mackintosh on Coping with Failure

With more than two million copies of her books sold worldwide, Clare Mackintosh is the multi-award-winning author of Sunday Times number 1 bestsellers I Let You Go, I See You and Let Me Lie, as well as bestsellers After the End and Hostage. Clare’s books have been published in more than forty countries. 

From the desk of Clare Mackintosh.

So much is made of the struggle to get a debut novel published; of the agency rejections with which we could paper our walls, and the emails from editors that say this isn’t for me. And it is a struggle. We fail and we fail, and then we fail again, and then – hopefully – we succeed.

But this post isn’t about those failures, important though they are. It’s about the failures that come afterwards. After you’ve snagged your agent, after you’ve secured a book deal. What then?

But this post isn’t about those failures, important though they are. It’s about the failures that come afterwards.
Clare Mackintosh

I didn’t struggle to find a literary agent. An introduction was made, and she liked my book, and that was that. I’d made it, I thought. The end goal! The aim of so many unpublished writers! But, just as writing The End on the final page of your first draft is simply a signifier of harder work to come, so getting an agent is just the beginning.

I Let You Go was rejected by multiple editors. The magic wasn’t there for me, said one. I don’t think either the writing or the hook is strong enough to make it stand out, said another. It was, thought one editor, a slightly awkward mesh of police procedure and female suspense. However, as we all know, it only takes one yes, and that yes resulted in a million sales and translation rights in more than forty territories.

When I look back at the years since I Let You Go sold, I see more failures than successes. That’s not to say that I don’t celebrate the great times – I continue to enjoy an incredible career – but I promise you those times look very different from my side of the desk.

I wrote my ‘difficult second book’ and found it not just difficult, but impossible. It wasn’t as good as I Let You Go, and the options were brutal: publish a poor imitation of my debut, or hit delete and start over. I chose the latter. Thus my second published book became I See You and – as is so often the way when we reject the first idea we think of, in favour of something harder to grasp – it was infinitely stronger.

I was halfway through my third novel when I recognised the signs: the pricking across my neck, like someone was standing behind me, peering over my shoulder. The premise wasn’t good enough. Writing can be polished, characters fleshed out, plotting tightened… but the premise? The premise is everything, and mine was weak. I jettisoned six months’ work without wasting another moment.

I was halfway through my third novel when I recognised the signs: the pricking across my neck, like someone was standing behind me, peering over my shoulder. The premise wasn’t good enough.
Clare Mackintosh

The pattern repeated itself between After the End and Hostage, with an entire first draft of a novel no one will ever read. On that occasion, the premise was strong – brilliant, even – but the execution didn’t work, and I couldn’t fathom how to lift it. Some time after I’d set it to one side, current affairs made the story so politically sensitive, I knew I’d never be able to return to it.

I’ve lost count of the stories I’ve thrown away. The novels I’ve planned in intricate detail, then never written; the dozens of drafts that languish on my computer.

After almost ten years of writing full-time, I have come to understand that failing is part of my process. That I will write ten words for every one that makes it into print, and that rejection – by myself, my agent or my editor – is simply part of the propulsion I need in order to grasp the idea that will work. Don’t get me wrong, it doesn’t hurt any less – I still sob with frustration over months of wasted work – but it is what it is. Each failure takes me closer to my next goal.

How to cope with failure

If you’re struggling with failure, I have some advice for you:

Reframe failure as practice. A difficult training run, for the marathon you’ve yet to complete; a dozen practice bakes, for the cake that’ll win a prize; the endless rehearsals before curtain-up.
Consider other people’s failures. There is something deeply comforting about hearing successful people talk about their setbacks. One of my favourite podcasts on this subject is Write-Off, with Francesca Steele.
Don’t fight a failure. If I’d published that second book of mine, it would have been poorly reviewed. Sales would have dipped. Would I have got a second publishing deal? A third? Listen to your instincts – and to trusted people around you – and know when to abandon a project.
Never give up. This might sound like it contradicts the previous point, but it doesn’t. Try again – but try differently. Try better. You can do it. 

Clare Mackintosh joins us for a live session on April 4th at 6 pm UTC. With membership at The Novelry you'll enjoy a varied calendar of guest Q&As, writing classes and workshops. Membership is included with our famous creative writing courses. Sign up now to finish the book you've always wanted to write.

Explore the website to choose the course and payment plan that works for you, or book a free call to meet one of our award-winning author tutors.

Writing Competitions

From the desk of Tash Barsby.

Should I be entering my novel into writing competitions and prizes?

‘It’s not about winning, it’s the taking part that counts’ – how many times did you hear that growing up? And yet, it’s true – often the experience of entering a competition can reap greater rewards than securing a place on the podium.

Entering your work for a prize takes courage; you’re putting yourself, and the creation to which you have no doubt spent hours of time dedicating yourself, out into the world and you have no control over what happens once it’s out there. Is it me, or does that sound like… publishing a novel? 

I turned to the trusty team of author tutors at The Novelry for their thoughts on entering writing competitions, and was struck by the various reasons given for (but mainly, for not) submitting. A common thread was interrogating the motive for entering in the first place, and this is something I’d recommend any writer considering submitting to a competition should do.

Are you submitting because of the chance to get feedback? To make early industry connections? For potential prize money? Are you looking for validation?

All of these are completely legitimate reasons but being honest with yourself about why you’re putting yourself forward will help you deal with the (potential) rejection that might come.

How will you feel if you don’t win?

If you aren’t someone who deals well with rejection (*shy wave*) then maybe competitions aren’t the right avenue for you to be getting feedback on your work. Consider, too, what stage you’re at with your writing – there’s a reason why here at The Novelry we don’t recommend sharing your writing when you’re at first draft stage.

A competition is also an unknown scenario – you have no control over what happens once you’ve hit send. While this is true of any type of submission, whether for a prize, competition or to your dream literary agent, as one of our tutors pointed out, submitting to agents does come with a degree of control. You research and curate the agents you think will like your work, based on their stated interests or other authors on their lists, and so eliminate the potential bias that comes with submitting your romance novel to someone who lives for political thrillers.

Because remember: not winning a competition does not mean you're a bad writer. All it means is that on this one specific day, a specific person decided they preferred what someone else had written. That does not mean no one will ever prefer your work. Even the most beloved bestselling writers get 1* reviews.

There are some benefits.

A prize win can hook an agent’s interest. Being placed in a competition, particularly a well-regarded prize, can be a great way to ‘jazz up’ your writing CV, though it’s not a requirement – no agent or editor worth their salt is going to discard your novel because it hasn’t won, or been shortlisted, for a prize. The novel manuscript is always the most crucial part of any query package.

From a craft perspective, entering a competition can be a productive process, because it will make you review your work in a different light – you know your work is going to be read by strangers, which forces you to consider it with a third party in mind. As we often say – a first draft is for you, the second draft (and third, fourth etc) is for your reader. Polishing up a competition entry with a new reader in mind is no bad thing.

It’s also great for shifting your mindset. Getting your novel ready for a writing competition is a step towards seeing your novel as one among many. This is only ever a good thing! (Think about walking into a bookshop and being confronted with shelves upon shelves of beautiful books! Your novel will be one among many.) When drafting, the writer is often (and quite rightly) solipsistic; your novel is the only story in the world that matters, you think about it upon waking and dreaming... but putting it amid a competitive field reveals the unvarnished truth: you may love your story, but you might not have given readers a reason (yet) to love it, too.

There are hundreds of competitions and prizes out there – always read through the fine print carefully to confirm eligibility and to check the terms and conditions around copyright before applying.

Writing Competitions 2022

Bath Novel Award

An international prize for emerging novelists, open worldwide. £3000 prize money, with manuscript feedback and literary agent introductions for those on the shortlist. The entry fee is £29 per novel, with sponsored places available for writers on a low income.

The Bridport Prize

With prizes for novels, flash fiction, short stories and poetry, The Bridport is one of the most prestigious. For the Peggy Chapman-Andrew First Novel Award, they ask for 5,000-8,000 words plus a 300-word synopsis. The novel does not have to be finished, though if you’re shortlisted, you’ll need to submit 30,000 words. £1,500 prize money with mentoring and literary agent introductions. The entry fee is £20 per novel.

The Lucy Cavendish Prize

All shortlisted entrants receive a valuable half-hour one-to-one consultation with competition sponsors PFD (subject to not already having an agent) who will give editorial feedback and discuss the marketability of the work submitted. In addition, the 2022 winner will receive a cash prize of £1,500.

SI Leeds Prize

The SI Leeds Literary Prize is an award for unpublished fiction by UK-based Black and Asian women, aged 18 and above. There are cash prizes for 1st, 2nd and 3rd place, and the opportunity for a manuscript assessment through The Literary Consultancy. Shortlisted entrants are supported through the Prize Plus programme of writer development.

The Page Turner Awards

Consisting of five awards, including the Young Writers Award for writers aged between 18 and 25, the Writing Mentorship Award for an uncompleted manuscript, and the Writing Award for unpublished, completed manuscripts, a panel of literary agents and publishers will choose a winner in each category in September. Entry fee £30.

First Pages Prize

Open to un-agented writers worldwide, the FIRST PAGES PRIZE invites you to enter your first five pages (1250 words) of a longer work of fiction or creative nonfiction. The winners receive a cash award (1st – $2,000, 2nd – $1,500, 3rd – $1000, 4th – $750, 5th – $750 in US dollars), a tailored edit up to the first 100 pages to support the completion of their full manuscript (must be completed before end of prize year) and a consultation with an agent via Zoom.

CWA Debut Dagger

The Debut Dagger is a competition for the opening of a crime novel by a writer who isn’t represented by an agent by the time the competition closes, and who has never had a traditional contract for any novel of any length, or who has never self-published any novel of any length in the last 5 years. Entries from shortlisted writers are sent to UK literary agents and publishers. Every year, authors find representation this way.

Future Worlds Prize

Founded by Ben Aaronovitch in conjunction with publisher Gollancz, this prize aims to find the best new talent for writers of colour in the fantasy and science fiction genres. The winner receives a prize of £4,000, while a runner-up gets a prize of £2,000. All those shortlisted, as well as the runner-up and winner, will receive mentoring from the prize’s publishing partners.

Mslexia Writing Competitions

Two annual poetry competitions (for single poem and poetry pamphlet), two annual short fiction competitions (for short story and flash fiction), two biennial novel competitions (for adult novels and novels for children and young adults), and one biennial memoir competition. There is a sponsored entry scheme for low-income women. As well as generous cheques, the prizes include publication, career mentoring, manuscript feedback, pitching workshops, and personal introductions to agents and editors.

Costa Short Story Prize

The Short Story Award winner receives £3,500, with the authors in second and third place receiving £1,000 and £500 respectively.

Bristol Short Story Prize

An annual international writing competition open to all published and unpublished, UK and non-UK-based writers. 1st prize is £1000, 2nd prize is £500, 3rd prize is £250. Twenty stories will be shortlisted and published in the next volume of the Bristol Short Story Prize Anthology, which is circulated to agents. The remaining shortlistees receive £100. The entry fee is £9, though there are 250 free online entry places available.

Claire Douglas on How to Know When an Idea is 'The One'

Claire Douglas won the Marie Claire Debut Novel Award with her first novel, The Sisters, which was followed by Local Girl Missing, Last Seen Alive, Do Not Disturb, Then She Vanishes and Just Like the Other Girls. Her latest novel, The Couple at No 9, was a Sunday Times top 3 bestseller and a Kindle number 1.

From the desk of Claire Douglas.

How do you know when an idea is 'the one'?

As a book-per-year author and currently writing my ninth thriller, I constantly have to come up with ideas I’m ready to run with. But how do you know when that idea is strong enough to be turned into a 90,000-word novel? 

I found this particularly tricky when I first started out.

I was an unpublished author who had spent two years writing (and rewriting) a rom-com about twins. It was very nearly ready to send out to literary agents – but then one day in 2013, as I was driving home from the school pick-up, I had a brainwave for a psychological thriller, also about twins. The first line and the subsequent paragraph popped into my head, fully formed, and I was terrified I’d forget it when I got home. I rushed into the house to capture the first chapter and I realised, as I furiously typed, that I felt more excited about this dark, twisted story than the full-length novel I’d spent two years working on.

I realised, as I furiously typed, that I felt more excited about this dark, twisted story than the full-length novel I’d spent two years working on.
Claire Douglas

Then came decision time – my friend sent me details of a writing competition Marie Claire magazine were holding with HarperCollins. The prize was an introduction to a literary agent and a publishing contract – a dream-come-true prize for me and something I had been wanting for so many years. (I had many rejection letters in my desk drawer at home to prove it.)

The competition required the first three chapters of a contemporary novel with a two-page synopsis. I had my full manuscript that was polished and rewritten to within an inch of its life, but now I had this other idea – the thriller that I had only just started writing. And I didn’t know which one to send. I told myself I should send the rom-com because I had finished it and I had only just started writing this other one, which still felt messy and incomplete. But the rom-com didn’t excite me in the same way my new idea did. So I decided to swiftly write the extra two chapters of the psychological thriller, honed the synopsis, and sent that instead, just in time to meet the deadline.

I didn’t hear back from the competition for several months and simply forgot about it; after all, I’d entered numerous writing competitions in the past and had never gotten anywhere. When they contacted me and told me I had won, I couldn’t believe it. That book became The Sisters, my debut novel, and my way into publishing.

I’ll never know what would have happened if I had sent my other novel instead.

But, of course, there is always the dreaded fear that I’ll never think of another idea again.

My best piece of advice for this would be to make a note every time you come up with an idea either in a notebook or, as I do, in a Word file. When an idea strikes I always write it down so that I don’t forget, then I can mull them over in more detail when the time comes to think about what I’m going to write next. Some ideas might only be strong enough for a short story like The Text. Others I’ve discounted because they might be too similar to other published books, or just didn't feel exciting to me when I returned to them.

I get most of my ideas from reading crime pieces in newspapers or magazines. I was a journalist before I became a writer, mostly covering local stories that could be turned into true-life features for women’s magazines, and this experience has sparked many of my ideas.

My latest book, The Couple At No 9, is about Saffy and Tom, who find two bodies buried in their garden while building a kitchen extension. This was inspired by a story I covered about a young couple in Winchester who were excavating their basement to install a kitchen when they found a skeleton. That skeleton turned out to be hundreds of years old, but it triggered the idea for a thriller. Then I let my imagination take me further, adding another layer: what if the house Saffy and Tom were renovating actually used to belong to her grandmother, Rose? And what if the murders had taken place thirty years before, when Rose lived there? And what if Rose couldn’t remember much about that time because she’s in a nursing home with dementia?

For me the four main ingredients I need before I can start believing my idea is ‘The One’ are:

What is the hook?
Who are the characters?
What is the twist?
Where is it set?

I don’t really plan my thrillers – I’d definitely be in the 'pantser' category! – but as long as I have intensively thought about the four points above, I find it’s enough to carry me through the 90–100k words needed.

If, after I’ve thought about all these elements, the idea is enough to excite me, then I’ll run with it. There is only one of my books – an early one – where I felt I didn’t listen to what my instincts were telling me, and even though the novel was published, I was distracted while writing it because another, better, idea (that went on to be the next book) kept pushing into my sub-conscious, and I couldn’t wait to write that one. As a result, I wasn’t quite as passionate about what I was writing and it was more of a chore to get down the words.

If you have a few different ideas and you’re not sure which one to run with, think about the following:

Will this idea interest you enough to sit down every day and write?
Has it got characters and/or a setting you enjoy writing about?
Do the hook and plot excite you?

If it’s a yes to the above, then it's ‘The One’.

Claire Douglas joins us for a live session on March 21st at 6 pm UTC. With membership at The Novelry you'll enjoy a varied calendar of guest Q&As, writing classes and workshops. Membership is included with our famous creative writing courses. Sign up now to finish the book you've always wanted to write.

Explore the website to choose the course and payment plan that works for you, or book a free call to meet one of our award-winning author tutors.

The Firestarter 2022

Every year, The Firestarter provides an exciting festival of talent at The Novelry.

Our members dare to share the all-important opening to their novel or memoirs in our online workshop for the reading pleasure of almost eight hundred writers (who are, of course, the most avid readers).

Each and every member gets a vote to choose the winner from the array of books-in-waiting based on a very simple test: which story would you want to read more of, most, and soonest?

Previous winners have been: Kathy Brewis, Cate Guthleben, Walter Smith, and Anna Verena Brandt.

The Firestarter in 2022 is sponsored by one of our formidable literary agency partners, Mushens Entertainment, home to Richard Osman and many more literary luminaries including Abigail Dean, Jessie Burton and our own Katie Khan.

The winner will be invited to submit their work when it's ready to Mushens Entertainment. They will also receive a cash prize of £150 or $200 to use to fuel their writing habit as they choose (coffee, coffee, and more coffee!).

Our team of authors and editors have been reading the entries with glee, and we have been dazzled by cracking concepts, startling sentences, devilish dilemmas, and the wit, wisdom and mischief which abound in these stories. You wondrous bunch!

Please do not feel badly if you are not this year's winner, folks.  Many of us (ahem) do many, many drafts to achieve the standard we're after, and many of the entries have been through the ringer at The Novelry. You can make it. But you have to see it, to write it. We can't banish good writing from our sight so as to kid ourselves that for some reason our early efforts are genius. As Ajay Chowdhury reminded us in his blog recently, it's all about revision. So, muscle up and make it better. We will always help you with ideas to fix problems, and we'll be with you all the way to help you write beautiful stories, boldly told.

This has been a stand-out year for the quality of your work. Well done to all! We don't have space to include every entry here, but we couldn't resist plucking out a few gems:

Jane Mansour's FILTERED. A recent winner of the Eve White Literary Agency Twitter pitch competition, the set-up delivers on this premise and left us wanting to read more. There are moments of such keen observation in the details, we're envious! It hooked us with its confident and arresting first line: Nothing could save the afternoon. We are straightaway on Katya’s side as she reluctantly joins the baby shower, in this assured and relatable opener. As Katya’s predicament escalates, we’re treated to smart observation and quick humour. 
Ruth Husain's 93% STARDUST sets up an extraordinary speculative novel with its affecting opening: We held your soul in love as your memories dripped out. When we released you upwards, joy erupted in your chest.
The opening to THE SOUL LOTTERY by Verity McLellan is surprising, original and so generous to its reader. Bo is a stand out character and the story is full of heart from the get-go. Bo wanted to see the real details, the shadowy, deep ones, the ones that creep in the dark. The details that dance when imaginations are switched on.
Amy Sandiford's prologue for THE BIRD KEEPER ends with an absolute smasher of a line: The time has come to assemble my lover.
Confident and true to its title, BRAVERY AND OTHER LIES by Angela Marin kicks off with aplomb: Juliet Winters did exactly what, in her estimation, any other unlikable person would do. She made it clear she was unlikable from the start. 
A dangerous love affair in occupied France leaves a lifetime of guilt in its wake in THE WRONGDOING by Carol Williams. We are plunged quickly into the heart of the matter. The butcher appears on the street in a blood-stained apron to deliver his news to the grumbling crowd. ‘There’s nothing left!’ He folds his blackboard, smudging the chalked prices. She hurries over to her bicycle before anyone can beg her to share the meat. She doesn’t notice the soldier on his own by the railings until it’s too late.
They used to burn witches at Launceston Castle. Thus begins GILGORRYAN by Viv Frances. We were captivated with the Daphne du Maurier-esque atmosphere and subtle menace of her story: Tolby is no longer the subject of discussions in coffee shops or in columns of type, and someone, somewhere, has already written an obituary. It will sparkle, just as he does, with accolades and witty comments. A life written in black and white; a different life to the one I see, full of colour, humour and love.
The opening lines from Shylashri Shankar's BLOOD CASTE unfold so naturally, a confident, take-the-reader-by-the-hand opening which is also just so intriguing: When Soob first saw the body, he thought it was a child or a dog. In the sooty light of dusk, he'd glimpsed something wriggling on the rock ledge in the middle of the Musi River, leashed by streamers of green algae and ribbon weed. Shylashri plunges straight into the story in impressive fashion, deftly conveying both character, theme and setting. We loved the detail of the police officer as a naturalist, and with Soob’s mission clearly stated, I’m rooting for him to succeed: The British and the rich nawabs had a stable of protectors; the whole apparatus worked for them. But the poor only had him, Soob.
Ragan Rhyne's opening sentence for THE MURDER OF HESTIA BOURGEOIS had us hooked at hello! Everyone has their breaking point.
THE LACEMAKER OF VENICE by Anouska Huggins brilliantly establishes a character with just a few words: She avoids looking at passers-by, hopes they will not notice her. We love the vibrancy of the writing and originality of description: She tries to imagine her scrubbed chair, the seat worn smooth. The stuffed roll of satin on her knee. The Lagoon lapping. Women chattering like gulls as threads flow: loop, catch, pull; loop, catch, pull.
Ordinarily, cows wouldn’t be Florrie’s problem begins Caroline Davies' warm-hearted and humorous novel THE UNFINISHED BUSINESS OF FLORRIE FAIRWEATHER which reminds us of Joanna Cannon's much-loved novels.
There’s so much world-building and mystery involved in John Goodman’s opening line to THE SEVENTH TENET: I’ve broken the Seventh Tenet, and that means death. It establishes the stakes, the main thrust of the story and an immediate mystery to be solved: what is the Seventh Tenet and why does it mean death?
The beautifully depicted luscious detail of THE BASTARD by Courtney Palmbush left us wanting more. Courtney has a Hilary Mantel-like knack of bringing a long-distant period to vivid life. Robert, Duke of Normandy, was changed. A dream did it, or whatever it was he saw the night the skald sang in his hall. She’s also brilliant at describing the confusion of a child trying to navigate an adult world. The night before the last time he is with his father, William dreams that a bear with an eagle’s head is prowling outside the walls, waiting to peck him into gobbets.
We loved the luminous detail in Fraer Stevenson’s wonderful DARK HORSE: Diana smudged the charcoal lines, her hand moving swiftly until the outline of the shadow horse was blended with the sharp-eyed crows surrounding it.
For a pacy first sentence for younger readers, try this from Martin Gooch's WHIRLED WORLD: A baby! A basket! A doorstep!
Mark Lyons’ opening line for THE CHRYSANTHEMUM SWORD reminded us of Le Guin’s A Wizard of Earthsea and promises mystery and wonder: In a vast, wild sea, ruled over by the Dragon King, Ryūjin, and under the watchful eye of the sun goddess, Amaterasu, lies a string of magical islands, strewn carelessly over the waves like millet. seed.
Monica Balt's THE SHADOW IN THE TREE is packed with sensational sentences. There are echoes of Jean Rhys’ brilliant and unsettling Wide Sargasso Sea here. I smile at Mathilda. She does not smile back. Her eyes bristle and snag. The last thing I see before sleep claims me is Laverne, a ghostly figure in the chair, staring at me through the net. We were struck by the rich, evocative prose that somehow manages to be both lush and sinister. The sense of a journey’s end (or just the beginning) makes for a truly immersive opener: The drumming grows louder, overpowering the cicadas as Jonas drives us up a path that snakes its way through a tunnel of trees. With every bump, the carriage lanterns sway, illuminating leafy branches reaching towards the carriage like outstretched hands.
We loved the opening to Prudence Nasse's SEDUCTION IN SUMMER and   how the reader is immediately drawn to mischievous Ivy. ‘I’m not sure why,' said Ivy, shrugging her shoulder with a slight smirk. 'I think I’m rather fabulous.' There's a Jane Austen tone to the ironic barbs and asides in this first chapter, and any historical romance reader would be enjoying this backseat journey to the beautiful Hackett-Wood. 
Sarah Martin's opening lines for THE NIGHT PARROT had us transfixed. The young woman held her breath. The bird, appearing to look in her direction, stood still as if it had seen her, and blinked one eye. The reader is frozen there looking through the lens of the camera with Marie, tense with anticipation, and Sarah navigates the tension and suspense of this opening chapter so deftly. 
Justine Gilbert sets up a tense page-turning crime story with SOMEBODY ELSE'S LIFE with compelling characterisation and a superbly vivid setting: A crime. A crisis. A reason for his blood pressure to shoot up. They’ll both need a strong morning cup. She drizzles olive oil inside a piece of focaccia and wraps it in a paper serviette.
Verity McLellan has that most incredible and rare gift of middle-grade writing which is to make the combination of fun, adventure, imagination and complex themes seem completely effortless. The voice of Bo is so delightful in the opening chapter to THE SOUL LOTTERY: with the perfect main character balance of quirky and relatable, which makes readers of all ages desperate to see what happens to him next. 
Jennifer Stein's opening lines to RAQUEL GOLDEN TAKES FLIGHT are such a brilliantly punchy way to get a reader hooked: It had to be a good omen: I breezed through security without the TSA detecting my vibrator. Yes please, the reader feels like the character's already their best friend! The storytelling is completely compelling thanks to the sassy, confiding tones of Raquel Golden. Her insecurities are laid bare from the off – as is her wry humour: Fortunately, for modern neurotics like myself, cognitive-behavioural therapy and meds could at least take the edge off, if not cure, a crippling fear of flying. A couple of cosmopolitans tossed back at the airport bar couldn’t hurt, either. When a narrator feels like good company, you know you've struck gold(en). 
Stephen Woodward's MASKS is Stephen King-like in the ability to invent a legend that feels like it exists: All kids had heard about The Doctor - he was a classic Urban Myth, like Bigfoot or the Loch Ness Monster - but Pete seemed more obsessed than most. In his eyes, The Doctor was a superhero, with one mission in life - to liberate kids from the tyranny of the mask.
Saima Ismail's ambitious CHRONICLES OF QAF-THE MESSIAH, THE MONSTER, AND THE ANDROID begins: The clamor of monsoon rain clutters Rushdie’s mind. He tosses and turns in bed as his wife snores beside him, oblivious. He turns away from her, and his mind drifts to the love of his life. Saima's work thrilled us with its brilliant world-building: Waves of Samandar-e-Azli, the Endless Sea, rise and play as the salty breeze lifts the jasmine musk from the wavering bushes.
We were so impressed by the elegant prose in THAT HAPPY FAMILY by Veronica Birch, the clever set-up of family dynamics, and the brilliantly sparky dialogue: 
'This isn't a fuss. This is just a party.' 
'With a marquee?' 
'It's only a gazebo, really. And people will need the shade. It's going to be hot today.' 
'Old people, you mean? Well, make sure you save a seat for me.' 
'Don't! You're not old.' She pulled him closer. 
'I'm sixty fucking five, darling.' 
We really enjoyed Natalie Poulson’s LET IT BE FOR THIS, the voice both fluid and controlled: A bead of sweat rolled between her breasts as Éloïse rose to light the lamps. She longed to open the window and feel the breath of spring across her skin. She’d been too long in this stifling room. An opening chapter that’s intimate and quietly spellbinding.
There's something tender yet momentous to Trisha Smith's THE SHAPE OF BELONGING that creates a lasting impression on the reader: In a forgotten part of Africa, two women hid, gently held by the warm earth and protected only by a canopy of mealie plants, while one put her lips close to the stomach of the other and sang to camouflage the echoes of war from reaching a new life. For a brief moment there was silence, then a loud explosion ripped through the night shaking the ground and my family home disappeared in flames.
Misia Smith's The HAUNTING OF ANNIE BIRD opens with an unsettling scene of ghostly tenderness: We creep like ink on wet paper through her softly moonlit room. It reads like a Shirley Jackson with such poised prose:  Rosemary and lavender, woody and wild, lean across the path, releasing their scent every time the postman scuffs by, on his way to the yellow front door.
In ADAM’S AT THE WINDOW, Don Royster’s account of a young boy’s first experiments in creativity is a joy to read. The prose is tender and delicate, with a beautiful sense of observation:
An electric charge shot up his leg through his chest and shoulders and down his arm and onto the canvas. His hand quit shaking as a long blue stroke became a branch of a tree, reaching for the sky. His grandfather released the boy’s hand. The hand reached for another brush and swathed it with green and swiped the brush across the canvas. Leaves dripped from the branch.
“Follow the brush,” Peter urged Adam. “It will lead you to the place where you are to go.”
Brooke Nolan's DARK ARCHIPELAGO has an arresting opening with a brave and singular vision that combines absurdist humour with vivid prose to create something really original: Rain hits Labia Majoropolis in chunks. The harbour is all chop and hurl. Along the brim: a dark clutch of edge and slab, houses like looming diamonds, the last one lit up.
The opening lines of MY LIFE OF CRIME by Sam Hudson had us smiling, charmed by the voice of the young narrator, Cal: I have stolen a cat. Calm down. No animals will be hurt in the telling of this story. It’s currently very relaxed in my arms, flat against my chest, a paw on each shoulder. This is helping because I’m running. Running for my life. But when the first chapter flips from humour to poignancy, we're completely involved in this story, wanting the best for our kid hero – and wanting to read on. 

AND NOW...

In third place this year is Saima Ismail with CHRONICLES OF QAF-THE MESSIAH, THE MONSTER, AND THE ANDROID.

In second place, joint runners-up this year, are Viv Frances with GILGORRYAN and Sam Hudson with MY LIFE OF CRIME.

Well done and congratulations to you!

Honourable mentions to those securing numerous votes must go to: Angela Marin, Misia Smith, Ruth Husain, Caroline Davies, Anouska Huggins and Brooke Nolan.

The winner is Monica Balt with THE SHADOW IN THE TREE.

When a woman goes to live with her handsome, charismatic husband on his jungle plantation, she discovers he is a monster and her very life is at stake. 

Set in the early 1900s, wealthy physician, Sir George Bennett commits suicide having lost all his money on gold-prospecting, and his death throws his family into debt and exposes them to blackmail. Adolphus Muir, a charismatic stranger, proposes marriage to the late doctor's daughter Mabel and she accepts. Mabel is a biracial ‘throwback’ (a Guyanese/West Indian term for a dark-skinned person born into a passing-for-white family). The married couple set up home in Adolphus’s sugar plantation, Goed Leven, in the jungle of British Guiana. Adolphus is frequently absent. Mabel must deal with a difficult pregnancy, the extreme jungle environment and the hostility of the female household staff. Her unease and isolation are compounded by strange noises at night, the superstitions of the maid who claims that the grotesque silk cotton tree (‘jumbie tree’) on the plantation is haunted by the spirit of the sadistic founder of Goed Leven, Pieter De Veer, and the tower is haunted by the ghost of his pregnant daughter-in-law. Mabel takes chloral hydrate (a hallucinogen) to sleep. One night, she runs out to the tree because she heard it call her. Adolphus brings her back to the house and admits that De Veer is his ancestor, and Adolphus and his family, his descendants, are victims of a generational curse.

Our huge congratulations to an incredibly deserving winner. Monica is at work on the second draft of her richly drawn, gripping novel and we look forward to presenting it soon to our friends at Mushens Entertainment.

Last words.

We know how hard you work. We're all writers writing too, so we know that the price of success is a few drafts sometimes. If we weren't a little bit hard on ourselves from time to time, we'd never get our writing to where we want it to be. So, if you didn't win, dust yourself off, and join us this evening for the start of our new mini-course in advanced creative writing: The Six Week Story at 6 pm UTC; and pop into our Sunday Evening Team Chat at 8 pm, too.

We believe in you and we are here to help you get your amazing stories into the hands of lucky readers. Happy writing, always.

Louise x

Top Twenty Children's Fiction Books

From the desk of Polly Ho-Yen.

What's your favourite children's book?

The best letter I’ve received about my own novels reads: ‘I’d been waiting for my favourite book to come and now I’ve found it.’ It still feels a bit ‘pinch-yourself-Polly’ that my story connected with a young reader in this way, but what I love about these words is how the letter writer put it: waiting for a favourite book, knowing it’s going to come, and being open to its discovery. 

That impulse of searching out a book that feels almost perfect, a reading experience that sweeps you away so entirely it feels life-changing, is heady stuff. I remember it well from my childhood; now in my late thirties, I still have the drive, although these days I realize it’s never about just one book. I like to think of it as a collection, a library I carry with me that is as much a map to my past as it is to my future. Every book you read shapes you as a writer. The ones you love, the ones which irritate you, the ones you want to pass on to your best friend straight away, the ones you keep rereading, the ones you forget; they all leave a mark and help you discover what you do and don’t want to write. But certainly the ones you view as becoming a favourite, the ones you don’t forget, the ones your mind yearns to slip into… They bear special importance. Touching base with your library of favourites can help you make sense of your writing and what you want to do in your own story.

I like to think of it as a collection, a library I carry with me that is as much a map to my past as it is to my future. Every book you read shapes you as a writer.
Polly Ho-Yen

I’m going to attempt to document what I view as my top twenty children’s books. They are all books that have personally inspired me, but most importantly, they are the books I really enjoyed reading. I was swept up by them, spat out by them, couldn’t stop turning the pages of them. 

I’ll go through the books not in any order of hierarchy but chronologically, from when I first read them. Revisiting these titles and their impact upon me feels very much like a loose biography of my life! And while I meander along my bookshelves, I’ll be asking myself the same question for each book I’ve selected: why this one? What about this made such an impression on me? And how did the author do it?

The Hundred and One Dalmatians  by Dodie Smith
A Dog So Small  by Philippa Pearce
The Diddakoi  by Rumer Godden
Quirky Tails  by Paul Jennings 
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban  by J.K. Rowling
His Dark Materials  by Philip Pullman
The Tulip Touch  by Anne Fine
The Illustrated Mum  by Jacqueline Wilson
How I Live Now  by Meg Rosoff
Skellig  by David Almond
Coraline  by Neil Gaiman
The Unforgotten Coat  by Frank Cottrell Boyce
The Weight of Water  by Sarah Crossan
The London Eye Mystery  by Siobhan Dowd
A Monster Calls  by Patrick Ness, from an original idea by Siobhan Dowd
The Last Wild  by Piers Torday
Phoenix  by SF Said
Rooftoppers  by Katherine Rundell
Storm: The Smashing Afterlife of Frances Ripley  by Nicola Skinner
Onyeka and the Academy of the Sun  by Tolá Okogwu

There are some big hitters here, titles that you’ll know, mixed up with a few that might be new to you. It feels quite exposing sharing this list because these are truly the books that made me.

 

1. The Hundred and One Dalmatians by Dodie Smith

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve read this. I was given a copy as a birthday gift from my uncle and I remember feeling distinctly put out I’d been given a book as a present. A book! Of all things! Come on! But one night I picked it up, turned the pages and since then I’ve been on countless adventures with Pongo and Missis to rescue their puppies from Cruella De Vil’s Hell Hall. Because this is a romping adventure and that’s what I love about it.

It’s a high-stakes, by-the-skin-of-your-puppies story. But it’s also got warmth and heart by the bucketload. There’s a scene where a starving Pongo and Missis are fed hot buttered toast by an elderly spaniel in a country house which is just balm for the soul. And another where the puppies go to sleep on the hassocks in a church, believing them to be puppy beds made especially for them. I think that Dodie Smith got the balance just right between adventure and tenderness, and cemented my delight in reading a well-placed food scene. Let’s have a moment to remember that it’s dogs who are telling the story; the tale (ahem) is their own. It’s a leap of the imagination and got me hooked on the sheer possibility in stories for children early on.

 

2. A Dog So Small by Philippa Pearce

Another book gifted to me as a kid, this time from my mum when I was a touch more open to receiving books, was A Dog So Small. I took one glance at the cover and decided straight away it was not for me. I put it to one side until one afternoon, bored and with nothing to do, I picked it up and embarked on another years-long re-reading marathon. 

The main character, Ben, desperately wants a dog but it’s not possible for his family for many reasons. Instead, he starts imagining he has one: a tiny chihuahua he names Chiquitito. He becomes more and more closed off from the world imagining Chiquitito until at the end, he is jolted back to real life and comes to appreciate the fragile joy, and pain, of being in the present. This is a very short book but the sensitive character of Ben is so well-drawn; his flights into his imagination felt as vivid as my own. I think perhaps this is what worked for me: Philippa Pearce’s brilliant portrayal of what it’s like to be a child. I completely empathised with Ben, in both his yearning for a dog and how he got himself lost in his wild imagination.

 

3. The Diddakoi by Rumer Godden 

I first knew The Diddakoi when my teacher read it aloud to us every Friday afternoon as a treat. I loved it so much I requested it as a Christmas present – which, when looking back at my memories of the last two titles, seems more than a little surprising. Why this book? Every single character is so fantastically captured – strong Kizzy who is our feisty protagonist; every single adult we meet (honestly, every single one); the bully Prue.

Scenes from this book feel as real to me as my own memories – one that’s truly engraved is the miniature vardo caravan Miss Brooke and the Admiral surprise Kizzy with. They makeover the garden so the caravan is in its own mini orchard and Miss Brooke sews apples onto trees because they wouldn’t be fruiting at that time of the year. They do it out of love, so Kizzy will have a space of her own. I think this book impacted me so much because of the way love and kindness is expressed between the characters. Another terrific one for food: Gran’s cake in the pan, Miss Brooke’s teas, the spread at the Admiral’s. I’m salivating, now. 

 

4. Quirky Tails by Paul Jennings 

Bought with pocket money from a school magazine, I only chose this title because an older girl I admired on my school bus told me it looked good. I’m easily led but it turned out well because this collection of short stories was my favourite thing on the planet for a good few years.

Paul Jennings’ writing is astoundingly imaginative and fun, and these stories are a delight. They take such unexpected twists and are so inventive, I think you feel freer from reading any one of them. I felt very heartened when I recommended the book to my dad and he loved the writing too. I remember us talking about which stories we liked best and how they surprised us with the turns they took. My dad is the first person I share my writing with now and I believe the seed for this comes from our back and forth about Paul Jennings’ work.

 

5. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J.K. Rowling

Warning - this contains plot spoilers.

My dad brought this along on a family holiday thinking we should try it because it was such a mega hit – though it was for children, even adults were reading it! (At the time I’d never heard of it.) It was the first holiday we’d gone on as a family without my older sister. I, a sulky teenager, was feeling incredibly lonely without her. I settled down to read, not expecting too much; after all, I wasn’t a kid. But I read Azkaban in one sitting, refusing to leave my bedroom, and the next day forced my parents to take me to a bookshop to get the two books that preceded it.

I have been along for the Potter ride ever since, even queuing up at midnight, in my twenties, to get a first copy of The Deathly Hallows. But Azkaban will always be my favourite. Is this just because it was the first I read and I was bowled over by the intricacy of the world-building? Is it because it was presented to me at a moment when I needed a fantastical escape? Perhaps so, but I still maintain it’s the best for its glorious interweaving of past and present. The twists of the plot feel so solid to me – the old rat Scabbers was the wizard who betrayed Harry’s parents… a brilliant and dramatic reveal. I loved how Hermione’s prowess as a witch saves the day and the time-travelling magic she employs. And I was moved by the bittersweet ending; the tantalizing moment when Harry believes he has the chance of a happy home with his godfather before it all comes crashing down. It’s magnificently done and reading it that first time transformed my days, and ultimately made me feel less lonesome.

 

6. His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman

I completely adore the His Dark Materials trilogy. I read it throughout my teens and even wrote my dissertation at university about it. (Which didn’t diminish my fondness for it!)

The journey and adventure of Lyra and Will is breathtaking. The world-building is both captivating and believable; the way Pullman expands on the real world to build his fantasy has just the right touch for me. He gave me child protagonists with plenty of complexity and spark, and a tender exploration of love that feels a little tied up for me with the boy I first loved. This is another I return to over and over, especially on a bleak day when I want to escape my world; as in the story, he gives you a door to another land.

 

7. The Tulip Touch by Anne Fine

The person who was to become my best friend gave me this book when we met at university. It’s so good, they told me. I don’t think they even lingered on the fact that it was for children. Aha! Someone who liked books like I did – for the joy of reading a good story. And what a story.

This is sparingly told but the elegance and simmering tension throughout make for a page-turning read. I adore the setting in a grand hotel which creates a cosy yet claustrophobic backdrop for young Natalie’s friendship with Tulip. Natalie’s first attracted to Tulip because of her wicked sense of fun and originality, but as her behaviour becomes more and more unsettling, Natalie tries to break away with disastrous consequences. I’m happy to say that my best friend is not a Tulip although she’s captivated me as much as this title, and I reread this book to this day.  

 

8. The Illustrated Mum  by Jacqueline Wilson 

A gift back to my best friend. The reason I gave this to her and why I’m including it here is because, for me, it’s one of those ‘the world goes quiet’ reads. As I became a proper adult and my world got filled with more and more concerns (‘what exactly am I going to do with my life?’) I found the fully immersive reading experiences lessened compared to when I was a child. Those quiet afternoons when I’d stumble upon a book and lose myself in it were less frequent, which made books that personally struck me stand out all the more.

There are some dark themes in this book. One of the characters has a mental breakdown and though this is handled sensitively and with warmth, it’s a shock to read. It works in this story because you’re so drawn into the main character’s world, her perspective and understanding of it. This title made me fall in love with a well-told first-person narrative – especially a ten-year-old with their own experience of life.

 

9. How I Live Now  by Meg Rosoff

This should really live in Young Adult land but it made such a big impression on my middle-grade writing that it would feel just plain wrong not to mention it. For me this one is all about the voice – from the first sentence, I adored Meg Rosoff’s style and was completely pulled into this apocalyptic-esque story. Like His Dark Materials, this book is like a door opening, which sowed the seed in me to create a different brand of apocalyptic stories.

 

10. Skellig by David Almond 

I was late to this book and bought it in a second-hand bookshop with the person who was to become my husband when he recommended I might enjoy it. We’d just moved in together and it was a warm springtime. We read a lot together in those days; after work, we’d head to our local park in Peckham with a picnic blanket and biscuits (biscuits are essential) to lie on the grass and read. I was having more thoughts that I wanted to write myself, and the energy and beauty of Skellig made me feel even more empowered to do so.

There is something timeless about David Almond’s writing and as I started thinking of ideas for a story for children, I would turn Skellig’s pages, hoping the magic of Almond’s words would rub off on me.

 

11. Coraline by Neil Gaiman

I grinned to myself while reading this book because, despite its sinister plot, I couldn’t help but feel Neil Gaiman had had a really good time writing this. 

It’s an elegantly simple story, yet so terrifying; I’ve never looked at buttons in the same way again. I read this just as I was seriously thinking about getting going with my own story and I remember feeling a little buoyed by the fact that Coraline was something like thirty thousand words long, published recently and really good. If I could write a thousand words a day, I’d be finished in a month. That felt doable. I started writing. 

(Note: it took me longer than a month. And I couldn’t write a story as succinctly as Gaiman. But it got me started…)

 

12. The Unforgotten Coat by Frank Cottrell Boyce 

This was another I read while I was working on my debut, while also teaching a Year One class. I notice I’m leaning towards a lot of the same words to describe these favourite stories of mine: simple, powerful, moving. The Unforgotten Coat is all of these. 

It tells the story of two refugee brothers from Mongolia who arrive in a school in Liverpool. The novel was based on Cottrell Boyce’s meeting with a Mongolian girl called Misheel when he was doing a school visit. When she was taken in the night by the immigration authorities to be deported, her classmates were most troubled by the fact she had left her coat behind because they knew how cold it would be in Mongolia. 

I knew I wanted the children I was working with at my school to be able to see themselves in my stories and again, I kept my copy of The Unforgotten Coat close as a talisman and guide. 

 

13. The Weight of Water by Sarah Crossan 

This one may be placed in YA territory, but I was bowled over by the inventiveness and – here it comes again – the power and simplicity of this book. (Sorry.) I took it out from a library in the little Cornish seaside town of St. Ives after I’d just had a phone call with an agent offering representation for Boy in the Tower. I’d had to walk the narrow streets of St. Ives to get reception and after I’d hung up the phone, a little shaky and disbelieving, I had a strong urge to be near children’s books. Finding myself near the library, I ducked in and started plucking a pile from the shelves. I’m thankful that The Weight of Water was there for the borrowing that day.

Crossan inventively tells the story of twelve-year-old Kasienka and her mother as they depart their native Poland, in verse. The spaces in between the brief spare verse make for a poignant and moving read that made me feel both lost in the reading and excited about what I might write next.

 

14. The London Eye Mystery by Siobhan Dowd 

This is one of the best mystery stories around for children, full stop. I love the voice of Ted and the tight turns of the mystery. I think it’s pretty faultless and I return to it time and time again for lessons in mystery writing and character. Sadly, Dowd died from breast cancer only one year after her debut novel A Swift Pure Cry was published, in the same year The London Eye Mystery came out. Right up to her death, she was writing prolifically and brilliantly; that felt like a good message to receive.

 

15. A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness, from an original idea by Siobhan Dowd 

"She had the characters, a premise, and a beginning. What she didn't have, unfortunately, was time."
Patrick Ness, in the Author's Note to A Monster Calls

I was excited to see this collaboration, though sad for the reason behind it, and I bought a copy from the bookshop in St. Ives. It was a thing of beauty with illustrations by Jim Kay – which felt like they broke the mould of what an illustrated book could be. I read it in one big rush on Porthmeor Beach while my husband surfed and waves crashed in front of me. When my husband came out of the water, he found me with tears pouring down my face, clutching the book and demanding he read it.

This story is about Conor, whose mother is very ill. He’s been plagued by unsettling dreams since she became unwell, until one night, the dream is no longer a dream and there’s a visitor at his window. The power of this story, I believe, is that it brings you closer to what is truly important. It’s stunning. 

 

16. The Last Wild  by Piers Torday 

I’d been seeing The Last Wild everywhere. It was the year before my first book would be published and I wanted to read something current while having my second book wobble. As I devoured the pages, I had the same kind of pang when I was reading The Hundred and One Dalmatians: this was an adventure that could go in any direction.

There’s a speaking cockroach before we get to the end of the second chapter, we’re in a world living in quarantine because of red-eye, a deadly virus that has killed all the animals except pests… I was hooked. And it gave me that little push I needed: write a gripping story. 

 

17. Phoenix  by SF Said 

SF Said wrote Phoenix entirely in a library in Haringey, London, and by his admission, quite slowly. It took him seven years. I first met SF at the Haringey Book Awards which Phoenix won and I couldn’t wait to read my signed copy. It’s an incredible book, a fantastically imaginative and wondrous story about a boy called Lucky who discovers the power of a star inside him.

This review of Phoenix from a young reader struck me: ‘The lesson I learnt from Phoenix is that you should be confident and positive: always believe in yourself because in the end you can be successful if you persevere.’ Alongside my enjoyment of Phoenix, I’m also impressed with how SF Said approaches his writing, how he holds the space for his stories to grow and reminds us all of the mastery of persistence.

 

18. Rooftoppers by Katherine Rundell

Ah, this is glorious! I wasn’t sure where to start with Katherine Rundell’s work as I’d heard good things about all of her books; working as a library assistant in Bristol Central Library, I saw Rooftoppers on the shelf during one quiet lunchtime. We’d just moved to Bristol and I was enjoying the perks of working at a public library – surrounded by books, no late fines – and I’d come home every day with another handful in my rucksack. It was an impossible amount to read and so I could only get through the books that truly held my attention. When I settled down with Rooftoppers, every part of my body relaxed with a ‘yes please and thank you very much’.

It opens with a baby discovered floating in a cello case after a shipwreck, and continues in what I would learn to be Katherine Rundell’s trademark witty, warm and generous style. A cracker of a story. 

 

19. Storm: The Smashing Afterlife of Frances Ripley  by Nicola Skinner

Reading Storm felt like guzzling down a load of sweets with none of the tummy or toothache. It’s so sparky, original, brilliantly executed and very, very funny – even though it begins with the narrator and her family tragically dying. Part of me likes it so much because Nicola Skinner can write books that I know I would never be able to. I simply don’t have the pizazz and it’s such a terrific and welcome experience to step into her characters’ worlds.

 

20. Onyeka and the Academy of the Sun by Tolá Okogwu

 Just a few weeks ago I was wildly lucky to get my hands on an advance copy of Onyeka. It’s a thrilling story and combines all the things I love about children’s fiction: brilliant characters, a huge amount of heart, a pacy adventure. Pitched as Black Panther meets Percy Jackson, this first-in-a-series introduces middle-grade superhero Onyeka, a British-Nigerian girl who learns that her Afro hair has psychokinetic powers. I raced through it and felt just as I had all those years ago, after stumbling upon The Hundred and One Dalmatians: that all I wanted was to pick it up again and start rereading.

 

As I’ve worked my way through my choices, I’m struck by how many people I’ve included who gave or recommended books to me, and then of course the authors themselves. The books feel like the 'mycorrhizae' connecting us all. Author, reader, recommender.

I’m struck by how, when we share a book we love with someone, it’s like saying: here I am, this is a bit of me.

So, from me to you, this is me and I welcome you to consider what is in your personal library. What are your top twenty children’s books? I’ll keep sharing and I’ll continue to wait for more favourite stories to come. They’re out there. I only have to wait … and read.  

 Polly Ho-Yen is a children's fiction author and a tutor on our famous online writing courses which offer personal writer coaching. Sign up now to finish the book you've always wanted to write.

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How to Write Dialogue in Fiction

From the desk of Katie Khan.

Have you ever read a book with a fantastic story, only to wish the dialogue was – well, a little better written? ‘The characters all sounded the same.’ ‘Nobody talks like that.’ Writing dialogue is an art-form, but thankfully there are some tried-and-tested methods and techniques you can use right now to improve the speech in your novel.

Writing good dialogue is art as well as craft.
Stephen King

There’s a popular myth that dialogue in fiction must sound natural, ‘like how people talk in real life’. There are key elements you should listen out for in how people speak in the real world – flow, syntax, regional colloquialisms. But good fictional dialogue is crafted to sound entirely natural in a made-up place, in a well-plotted story, said by imaginary characters. It is crafted to move drama on. This means it must obey the rules of the world in which it’s spoken – and not necessarily in our world. Have you noticed on television nobody says hello or goodbye when using the phone? It seems a bit rude, doesn’t it – and yet we don’t need it. We all know in real life you would greet a caller, but in heavily minuted scripts for television where every second counts, we don’t need the throat-clearings of expected social niceties. Get to the point, keep it moving, and don’t waste words. The same is true when writing a novel.

Reading any piece of writing aloud is an acid test, particularly when it comes to dialogue. There were writers I’d always admired who suddenly rang false when I spoke their words in our living room.
Anne Tyler

How to write good dialogue:

Give each character their own agenda
Avoid exposition dumps
Leave dialogue left unsaid (subtext)
Use contractions
Differentiate character voices
Don’t overwrite accents and patois
Don’t overuse names
Clip your speech
Use clean dialogue tags
Go easy on adverbs
Get to the dialogue as soon as you can 

Let’s look first at what I call the character psychology of dialogue, and then the prose techniques for writing good dialogue.

Give each character their own agenda

The day I started writing better dialogue was the day I realised every person brings their own agenda to a conversation. Consider us, you and me, right now: I’m a published author who worked for a decade in the film industry (a very dialogue-heavy medium), imparting some tips I’ve picked up on how to write better dialogue. I’ve got a mental bullet list of points I wish to make. And you, in turn, might have your own observations and your own tips you’d like to share with me. Or you might wish to heavily disagree with me. If we were speaking together in person, the conversation would be led by me, making my points, with your interjections because you also want to make your points, and the conversation might descend, if you heavily disagree with my advice, into a bit of a tussle (as some of the best conversations do) or even into a power play. We both have our own agenda, and that's ideal. That's drama.

What we DON'T want to see in fictional conversation is a ‘ping-pong ball of dialogue’ being passed between characters.

‘Hello,’ she said. ‘How are you?’
‘I’m fine. How are you?’
‘Good, thanks, very good. Isn’t it nice weather today?’
He smiled. ‘Oh yes, lovely. Now, I have something I need to ask you, Jessica…’

At what point did you fall asleep? I did at ‘fine’. Not only is this boring dialogue (nothing is happening), it’s also exceptionally dull when characters answer everything the other person asks, passing the metaphorical ping-pong ball between them. There’s a reason why this type of linear, back-and-forth rhythm lulls us to sleep: it’s predictable. It holds no surprises. There’s no reason to sit up and take notice.

Inject a little zhuzh into your dialogue by interrupting the ping-pong flow. Cut yeses and noes at the beginning of replies, use non-sequiturs (which we all do in natural conversation), and have characters ignore some of the questions laid out for them by the other person, because each character is bringing their own agenda to the conversation.

‘Hello,’ Jessica said, as he approached her table in the middle of the restaurant. ‘How are you?’
‘How long have you been sleeping with my wife?’

Ooh, now you’re talking.

Avoid exposition dumps

Nothing teaches you as much about writing dialogue as listening to it.
Judy Blume

Be honest with yourself, the writer, about whether a character is saying something they would actually say to another character in your novel, or whether they’re saying it for the sake of the reader.

Exposition delivered in dialogue kills dialogue dead.

‘Remember when we went to this lake as kids, and raced each other to the opposite side, and your mum was waiting for us on the shore and looked so angry that we turned around and swam back the other way. My swimsuit was blue and yours was red, we were out of breath and…’

I mean, I suppose someone might recount an entire memory like that... But for me, a lengthy anecdote starting ‘Remember when…’ indicates to me that the writer wants to tell the reader. Because the characters were both there. They know. And people with shared experiences who know each other well use shorthand. So, if they were by the lake, they could simply say: 

‘This place makes me think about that race.’
They both laughed softly. ‘Mum was soooo mad.’
‘I won, though.’
Yeah,’ he said, turning to her. ‘You always did.’

Saying less says more. How characters interact with each other – the amount of shorthand they use – is quite revealing about their relationship. 'Your red swimsuit.’ No clues, no context. Doesn’t this say so much more than the lengthy anecdote? Is it a nice memory, a sad memory, or a longing? Who knows? The reader can infer whichever they wish!

When we hear people talking to each other quite intimately, it’s human instinct to lean in. To eavesdrop. To wonder what’s being left unsaid. So make sure you’re not writing out a ton of exposition in dialogue for the sake of the reader, and instead write dialogue for the benefit of the character who is hearing it.

Leave dialogue left unsaid (subtext)

Good fiction is as much about what's on the page as what it inspires in the reader’s mind. Leave dialogue left unsaid.

A character confronted by something terrible and upsetting, such as the death of a parent, who responds simply with ‘thank you’ – it makes my heart bleed for them. No wailing. No self-flagellation. Because what are they not saying? How deep is that emotional iceberg? The reader will have an inkling.

Likewise, a character who is simmering with rage, who says something short and tight rather than letting rip with their true feelings, makes for a fascinating character study. This would be the best time to deploy an 'I'm fine.'

It’s what is left unsaid that frequently gives characters emotional dimension.

Use contractions

Depending where and in which era your novel is set, you’ll most likely want to contract your dialogue. ‘I am’ to ‘I’m’, ‘I will’ to ‘I’ll’, and so on. Using contractions softens the delivery and makes it sound less formal and stiff. This is how English speakers, on the whole, speak! We’re mostly a colloquial bunch!

Older generations might not use quite as many contractions, so that’s a good way to differentiate people of various ages in your novel. And of course, if you’re writing historical fiction, you’ll want to observe the conventions of the decade – but my caveat here would be to bear in mind your reader is reading the novel in the 2020s. Don’t go crazy on your thees and thous.

Differentiate character voices

People from different countries often speak the same words but in a different order. Can you vary the syntax of a phrase to indicate the characters’ different backgrounds?

I like to ponder what two characters might call the same thing: a living room versus a lounge, a sofa versus a (not so common anymore) settee. This is all impacted by where they grew up (in the UK: north or south?), their social class (a peculiarly British obsession), their parents and childhood, and more. Knowing your characters well should illuminate the words they would use.

Don’t overwrite accents and patois

Watch out fo’ addin’ a whol’ heap o’ abbreviations t’ indicate an accent in yo’ dialogue. These are distracting as hell and have the undesired effect of drawing attention to the falseness of the speech, rather than making it feel authentic. Anyone who’s read the multi-million selling Where the Crawdads Sing might have arched a brow at the way Jumpin’s dialogue was written in this style.

Instead, look for a distinctive word or turn of phrase that people from that particular region say, and use it sparingly. This means no peppering the speech of your Scottish character with ‘wee’ this and ‘wee’ that! Find something distinctive – in my novel, a Glaswegian character refers to a person he believes is an idiot as ‘a zoomer’ – and, honestly, I wouldn’t explain or translate it. Just move on: the rest of the sentence, paragraph or scene should provide the context.

George Pelecanos, who wrote extensively on the award-winning TV programme The Wire, discussed back in 2009 how the writers on the cult classic show specifically didn’t over-explain the dialogue or language featured in the Baltimore police procedural. ‘We wrote it so audiences would have to work at it!’ he said in an interview with The Independent. ‘We were not going to compromise in making it immediately accessible for everyone.’ That might sound scary – accessibility is good, after all – but remember the human instinct to ‘lean in’ when we hear people talking in shorthand… We’re nosy. We want to know. And readers want to be immersed in a world, especially a world we’re not familiar with.

Don’t overuse names

In real life, we don’t say each other’s names repeatedly throughout a conversation ('hi Paula', 'thanks Paula', 'alright then, Paula') – and people who do that are quite ingratiating! (My estate agent does it all the time!) We know who they're talking to without having to say their name over and over, and so do they – cut repetitions where you can.

When it's fine to repeat a name is when a character meets another for the first time. There’s a reason ‘The names Bond. James Bond’ is so iconic: it’s a human habit to only grasp someone’s full name after two goes. ‘Do you mean Jim? Jim Hopkins from the bakery?’ Listen to how people talk to each other and mimic some of the natural flow and thought patterns. 

Clip your speech

We all know the adage about scene writing: ‘get in late, get out early.’ The same is true for dialogue.

Remember, nobody needs literary throat-clearings and social niceties. Hellos and goodbyes: dispensed with. Any words you can cut, do. The reason ‘textspeak’ became popular with the advent of mobile phones is because we generally like to use as few words as possible. Humans are lazy.

My personal watch-out in dialogue is the word ‘that’. I don’t know what it is: perhaps a British school education drilled into us the need for the word ‘that’ as we drew conclusions in essays and science experiments? Not only do I chop the word ‘that’ from wherever I can in the narrative, I fervently snip it from every single place it appears in dialogue. Listen to how people talk. Say it aloud. We rarely say ‘that’! It creates a stilted rhythm.

Use clean dialogue tags

You can’t talk about writing good dialogue without talking about dialogue tags. When reading early drafts, I’m sometimes distracted by the writer’s use of ‘she screamed’, ‘she yelled’, ‘she whispered’, ‘she mumbled’ and so on. They come thick and fast, and boy, do they detract from what the character is saying. 

It’s classic advice, but true. Use ‘said’. The repetition of ‘said’ doesn’t register for readers, it disappears. Use all others only sparingly. (In adult fiction, I mean once a chapter or less! Very sparing!) 

When the words of dialogue are well-chosen, the reader should be able to infer how they are delivered. ‘I hate you’ carries its own weight, doesn’t it? No need to shout, scream or yell it in the dialogue tag. 

Don’t go overboard in avoiding ‘said’. Basically, ‘said’ is the default for dialogue, and a good thing, too; it’s an invisible word that doesn’t draw attention to itself.
Diana Gabaldon

Put a dialogue tag in the place where you would naturally take a breath, where a speaker would pause for emphasis, and don’t break up the flow of words or attributives that need to stay together to make sense.

Sometimes you don’t need a dialogue tag at all; you can break up chunks of dialogue with a character action, for example sitting down or looking up, so we know it’s them when they next speak. And in well-written exchanges, with differentiated character voices, it should be relatively easy to follow who’s speaking with a few sections with no attributions at all. Throw in a dialogue tag when you’ve had a couple of back-and-forths, so the reader knows who’s who, and drop them again until the next ‘she said’.

Go easy on adverbs

A word, here, about adverbs – she said, softly. Did you catch that in my example above about the race across the lake? Did the fact they laughed ‘softly’ make you cringe? Some readers despise adverbs; how many your readers can tolerate is mostly defined by your genre. We tend to see more adverbs in commercial thrillers and romance, children's and YA; less in upmarket and literary fiction. But just as the use of ‘shouted’, ‘yelled’ and ‘screamed’ can become redundant if the words of dialogue indicate the delivery, an adverb, too, is often unnecessary – she shouted, loudly.

The best time to deploy an adverb is when the manner in which the character is delivering the line is surprising. Thus, in the middle of a loud argument:

‘I hate you,’ she said, quietly.

Much more menacing!

And finally…

Get to the dialogue as soon as you can

Nothing makes me more claustrophobic at the beginning of a novel than an interior scene or uninterrupted monologue inside a character’s head which goes on for pages on end. I start chomping at the bit for some action: an external voice to break through the inner monologue. Where does the first character speak in your novel? On page one? Two? Or… page three or beyond?

Always get to the dialogue as soon as possible. I always feel the thing to go for is speed. Nothing puts the reader off more than a big slab of prose at the start.
P.G. Wodehouse

I’d like to end with an addendum to Stephen King's quote right at the very top of this piece. Yes, good dialogue is an art form, for which some writers have a natural gift. But I want to assure you it can also be crafted. Writing great dialogue is a skill that can be learned. So have fun with it, watch films with fantastic dialogue and pop the lines you love into your phone notes; eavesdrop in cafes and out on walks; copy out sections of dialogue by your favourite novelists and try to break down why it flows so well.

Fictional dialogue isn’t real life, but when it works inside your story world, it sure sounds like it is.

Happy writing,
Katie 

 Katie Khan is an author tutor on our famous online writing courses which offer personal writer coaching. Sign up now to finish the book you've always wanted to write.

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Ajay Chowdhury on Rewriting

Ajay Chowdhury is the award-winning author of crime thrillers The Waiter and The Cook. As well as being a novelist, Ajay is a theatre director and tech entrepreneur who founded Shazam and Seatwave. Members of The Novelry can enjoy a Live Q&A with Ajay Chowdhury on Monday 7th March.

From the desk of Ajay Chowdhury.

The Only Kind of Writing is Rewriting

As I write this, I’m just about to send my publisher the final edit of The Cook, the sequel to my debut crime novel The Waiter, and I've been warned it will now go for typesetting so I can’t make any more changes. I take this news with a mixture of relief and trepidation – relief because I can finally give the book up after having worked on it for over a year, and trepidation because I have to finally give it up. As my finger hovers over the ‘send’ button, I wonder whether I should give it a last read – what if I get a brilliant idea and don’t get a chance to put it in? Will I regret that forever?

No. I ignore that voice in my head and press send. With the whoosh of my Mac it’s gone.

I hadn’t thought much about Hemingway’s quote about rewriting when I wrote The Waiter. I’d been lucky enough to win the Harvill Secker/Bloody Scotland award for a debut crime novel and blithely plunged in, bringing to life the idea of a failed detective from Kolkata becoming a waiter in Brick Lane which I’d had for over a decade. I sent off my first draft thinking that was it, I was done and could move on. Maybe my editor would come back correcting a few typos but I was happy with the book. What more could be done to it?

I couldn’t have been more wrong.

I realised I was just at the foothills of the mountain, not at the peak. And rewriting was far harder than writing.
Ajay Chowdhury

My brilliant editor sent back pages and pages of comments and it was only then that I realised I was just at the foothills of the mountain, not at the peak. And rewriting was far harder than writing.

It was four ‘Ps’ – plot, pace, place and person – which were my biggest learnings.

Plot

First, I had to kill my darlings in the service of plot (‘Loved the ten-page description of the post-mortem, but does it really move the plot forward? Maybe you could just say the victim was killed by a blow to the head and that would be enough’).

Pace

Then I had to really tighten the story to bring in pace (‘You really don’t have to describe everything Kamil does during the day, the reader will take it for granted that he had a shower’).

Place

I had to bring the place to the fore (‘The restaurant is such a brilliant locale, bring it to life’).

Person

And finally, most importantly, make the personalities real (‘It may be a thriller, but the reader has to really identify with Kamil and Anjoli’).

Many, many rewrites later, the book was finally ready and seeing it on a bookshop shelf was a magical moment.

When I started The Cook, I spent time focusing on the four 'Ps' and discovered it became easier the second time around. If you keep them in the forefront of your mind for every chapter, the rewriting becomes far less onerous. Perhaps one day I can add a fifth P – poetry – to make the book really sing, but for now I am happy with the four.

But the word ‘easier’ in the paragraph above is doing a lot of heavy lifting. I’m currently working on the next book in the series – The Detective – and it’s all about getting the ideas on the page without worrying about anything else. Just get a few thousand words a day done. Forget the foothills; I can barely see the mountain through the clouds of conflicting ideas bouncing around inside my head.

Perhaps the hardest bit is not the rewriting after all – it is transforming typing into writing. Do that, and the rest will follow.

 

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