Andrew Pyper
Read a lot, of course. Read everything, and without a plan in your head. Read what makes you feel like you wished you had written it.
Other than this, if I had to boil my kernels of advice down to the most important piece, it would be to think about your story in advance before beginning it. Challenge the idea, pitch it to friends, find ways to make it pop, inject it with steroids of excitement. This will not only make your story better, but will make you more excited to write it. Make sure that it is the story you HAVE to tell. It has to have that urgency, that sense of necessity. If that is not happening, think of another story.
Finally, do not submit anything before it is the absolute best you can make it. Revise and revise again. Ask for honest opinions from those who read it. Do not let the urge to send something in trump the job of doing your best. Because despite what anyone says, you only get one first read. Oh, and...good luck!
Other than this, if I had to boil my kernels of advice down to the most important piece, it would be to think about your story in advance before beginning it. Challenge the idea, pitch it to friends, find ways to make it pop, inject it with steroids of excitement. This will not only make your story better, but will make you more excited to write it. Make sure that it is the story you HAVE to tell. It has to have that urgency, that sense of necessity. If that is not happening, think of another story.
Finally, do not submit anything before it is the absolute best you can make it. Revise and revise again. Ask for honest opinions from those who read it. Do not let the urge to send something in trump the job of doing your best. Because despite what anyone says, you only get one first read. Oh, and...good luck!
More Answered Questions
Lynn Cecil
asked
Andrew Pyper:
Your books make me feel like I’m viewing the world through lenses that expose the unseen, the darkness secreted inside of people, lying dormant, waiting hungrily in cellars, and I find myself literally feeling pulse-elevated scared. Do you ever find yourself frightened or haunted by your own writing, by what you are creating, or do you feel in control, knowing you are manipulating the darkness, adjusting the lenses?
Tanya Kurland
asked
Andrew Pyper:
Cant wait to read your new book! Loved The Demonologist! While I consider myself a horror n sci-fi book nerd, my guilty pleasures are Sophia Kinsella "Shopaholics" series. I have to read at least one or two of these per year just to give myself a good laugh. so my question is to you what is your guilty pleasure read or authors? Be honest now
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