Writing is a contradictory pursuit.

On the one hand writing is something you usually do alone, but the whole point is for the result to be enjoyed by other people.

Many writers love nothing more than to squirrel themselves away in their broom closet, or whatever other space they’ve managed to protect for themselves away from the demands of family and work, but an isolated writer is like a plant without water.

In my experience, most new writers are very reluctant to join a writing critique group, which I believe is borne of fear.

Fear of rejection, fear of failure, fear of exposure. But I believe it’s really important for writers to overcome this fear if they are ever going to grow into professional, saleable authors.

So, here are my five reasons you absolutely have to join a writing group

Invaluable critique

The number one reason I go to a writers’ group is for critique. It’s impossible to see the flaws in your own writing, so you need others to point them out to you. Friends and family are notoriously rubbish at this, whereas other writers will have the skills that can identify weaknesses and areas for improvement that can take your writing to the next level.

Going to a group means that you will get a range of opinions, which will often be conflicting, which in itsellf is extra useful for assessing what in the critiquers comments if their personal peeve and what is a definite issue with your writing. 

For example, if half the group tell you to cut the last line and the other half tell you it’s their favourite part, then you need to use your own judgement. However, if they unanimously tell you your punctuation sucks, it’s time to buy a grammar book.

Learn from other writers

There’s a hallowed old saying: If you want to be a writer, read.

By joining a writing group you will read the work of other aspiring writers, and by analysing their work you will learn more about what works and what doesn’t. 

 

Get a motivation boost

It’s a common outcome of spending a few hours in the company of other writers that you’ll come out raring to rush home and back to the keyboard. 

Being with other writers, talking about writing, sharing writing experiences, it all serves to bring up feelings of excitement and enthusiasm and get the blood flowing.

Also, another writer's ideas may send you off on a tangent you didn't expect, or you may read someone's piece and think: "I could do better than that..." and be spurred on to writing for competitive ends.

Move out of your comfort zone

I mentioned above that the main reason people avoid writing critique groups is fear.

While writing feels like a fairly safe pursuit for shy, sensitive people, if you’re serious about getting anywhere, it’s anything but.

When you’re just starting out it takes a pretty thick skin to bounce back from all the inevitable rejection letters. The more impersonal they are, the more personal it feels.

And if you persevere long enough to actually become published, then the negative reviews will start coming through – and don’t think you’ll be exempt - from Rowling to King to Shakespeare, there will always be someone who hates what you do.

So it’s wise to start building up that resilience nice and early, as well as learning that sometimes the negative comments are the most valuable ones for learning.

Soak up the support and encouragement

Despite the point above, good writers’ critique groups are not snake pits at all. They are filled with kind, sensitive people (and a handful of loonies... you know who you are) who will give you support and encouragement – essential when you’re dealing with all those rejection letters I mentioned earlier.

I have made some of my best friends in my writing group and have been boosted into believing in myself again when the doubts started to gather on the horizon.

So, if you’re not already going to a writing critique group, get out there!

Note – this article is based on what Lajos Egri calls ‘the premise’ in his book, The Art of Dramatic Writing. If you want to read about it in more depth, buy his book.

The first thing to be clear about is that having a moral guideline or assertion does not necessarily have to be about being ‘good’. After all one, person’s good is another person’s evil, and even bad guys think they’re the good guys. The fact that we all have different views about what is good and right how the world should be run is what makes life interesting (that and Netflix).

What’s important is that it’s a moral assertion that you, as the writer, feel strongly about, even if not everyone agrees with you.

So, what makes a good moral assertion? It should be short, and it should be active.

Here is a few good ones:

• Pride leads to loneliness
• Generosity leads to poverty
• Logic conquers mysticism

As you can see they are short, in that they contain only one brief, straightforward assertion and they contain an active verb.

Here some example of not so useful moral assertions:

•  Life is wonderful
•  Slavery is wrong

These are short, yes, but they are not active, they are only static statements, rather than having a sense of forward movement. 

• Frugality can lead to wealth but only in monetary terms, while generosity leads to a loving family, which is the greater reward

The above guideline is way too complicated. That’s not to say that you can’t cover all that stuff in your novel, but the moral assertion should be a hook that can snag you in an instant. Not something that needs you to hold several ideas in your head at the same time.

You need never state your moral guideline of course, and readers may never consciously know it’s there, but having it in your mind will give your novel a sense of consistency and wholeness that it may lack if you just meander around ideas and plots.

Here’s an interesting task for you to never get round to:

Have a look at some of your favourite novels and see if you can work out what the moral assertion is.

This short writing exercise is based on one suggested by Margaret Geraghty in her excellent book – The five-minute Writer, which we highly recommend.

Sometimes the hardest thing about being a writer is just knuckling down and writing. And many writers live in fear of the dreaded blank page.

Writing exercises can help get the juices flowing and will also help hone your writing skills, preparing them for when you want to apply them to short stories, novels, or whatever else it is you write.

Writing about rituals

Rituals are not just all about religion and festivals, we all have all kinds of rituals in everyday life, many of which we’re probably completely unaware of – until they become interrupted and we find ourselves feeling unsettled or irritable.

When we read stories, the worlds and characters described on the page are not built entirely by the words that are supplied by the author, we use our life experience so far to fill out the details. If this didn’t happen, then authors would need to write reams of words in order to build an entire character or setting. As it is, they can use a few broad brushstrokes and know that the reader will apply stereotypes and personal life experience to fill in the rest.

We can use rituals to the same effect, by describing a common ritual that somebody might be familiar with, such as morning ablutions or making a first cup of coffee. It might be gathering all the things required for a yoga class or a dog walk, or preparing for a short or long trip.

The way in which the character carries out a common ritual will provide the reader with impressions of their character, as well as tone and atmosphere of the scene.

For example:

Janice bounds out of bed and splashes refreshing ice cold water on her face. She hums as she brushes her teeth and sweeps a bit of light make-up on, before heading downstairs for a crunchy breakfast of muesli and bananas with skimmed milk.

Nicole drags herself out of bed and swears at the perpetually flickering bare bathroom light bulb that she still hasn’t got round to fixing. She grimaces at herself in the mirror, squeezing spots of blood out of her gums. There’s no time for breakfast, as usual, so she slams the door behind her, stomach grumbling as she jogs down the road, not noticing the stain on the leg of her jeans.

A short writing exercise about rituals:

Think about the rituals you do in your life – this can be anything you do regularly, you don’t have to feel spiritual about it, or particularly attached, it’s just something routine. It may have a calming effect, but it may not. Write for fifteen minutes about your ritual. 

Try to write with specific detail, but there’s no need to over describe. For example, rather than saying ‘the dog lead’ say ‘the steel choker chain’ but don’t write 500 words when 300 will do.

The traditional moleskine notebook has probably largely been replaced by a smartphone app by now, but whatever your media, authors usually love to take notes from every day life and make lists of all kinds of details that may come in handy.

It’s hard to grab inspiration out of the air at the exact moment you need it, so it’s good to get into the habit of making lists that you can refer to and drop into at other times, such as when you need inspiration to make a character or location unique, or when you want a kernel of an idea for a story.

Making lists also helps develop your powers of observation, a vital skill for any writer.

Here are some things you might want to make lists of:

·         Ways that people walk

·         Speech tics and tendencies

·         Hairstyles

·         Types of houses

·         What people have on their living room walls

·         Shapes of clouds

·         Local birds

·         The types of shops that cluster together

·         What’s in people’s fridges

·         Nice words

·         Interesting names

·         Habits

·         What people have in their pockets

·         Children’s toys

·         Types of shoes

·         Types of handbag / briefcase

·         Styles of uniform

·         Local plants

·         Allergies

That should be enough to get you started!

Please let us know if you can think of any other lists we can add to our list of lists!

For more articles about creative writing and novel writing, visit The Novel Factory website.

Pace is a really important aspect of a good novel, and you need to have the skills to put on the brakes or put the pedal to the metal, as appropriate.

In this article we’re going to have a look at slowing the pace in your novel, but you might also want to see Head Scenes and Tail Scenes, which is highly relevant to this topic.

 

Why would you want to slow the pace in your novel?

 

You might think that slowing down the pace sounds like a bad idea – slow = boring, right? Well, it’s not quite as simple as that. Here are some reasons you might want to slow it down.

Contrast

Interest comes from contrast – if you ate Peking Duck every day, then plain toast would seem like an exotic alternative eventually. In music, songs have alternate slow and fast sections to emphasise each one – three fast sections in a row have nowhere near as much impact as a fast section sandwiched inbetween two slow ones. 

Time to take a breather

If your novel is high octane, fast-paced relentlessly, all the way through, then readers will get excitement fatigue and will either feel too exhausted to keep reading or will simply shut off and become desensitized to the action, no matter how highly it escalates. By having slower, calm wind downs inbetween the action, you give them (and your protagonist) a chance to regroup, straighten out, then hunker down for the next conflict.

Atmosphere, tension and suspense

By slowing down the tension you can add layers of atmosphere, tension and suspense. Readers will be on the edge of their seat as you keep them hanging, knowing something is going to happen… any… minute…

Okay, so how do we control pace in a novel?

Length

This is the most subtle way to slow pace without interrupting the story. Simple things such as longer sentences with sub-clauses, and longer paragraphs, all serve to make the pace more leisurely.

Character Introspection

While the character is lost in reverie, there isn’t much action happening, and it gives an opportunity for reflection and consideration of how to proceed, ensuring the reader believes the character is behaving realistically (by which we mean in character, not necessarily sensibly), as they understand the motivations.

Flashbacks

New writers often play fast and loose with flashbacks, thinking it’s a great way to get in backstory or explain the motivations of their characters. But flashbacks should be handled with care, as they completely shatter the forward momentum of the story. Used carefully, they can help with controlling pace, but beware of throwing your reader out of your story-world, when you’ve just spent however long getting them immersed.

If you enjoyed this post, then you should probably check out the Novel Factory. 

All stories need conflict – it is their life blood. Without conflict, you have no story, full stop.

Before we go on, it’s important to note that conflict isn’t the same as challenge, such as a big fist fight. A serious lifetime addict not having a cigarette when pregnant is more of a conflict than a martial arts expert beating up twenty baddies.

In this article we’re going to explore four potential areas of conflict: Inner, relationship, organisation and external.

Inner Conflict

Based on the conflicting desires of the protagonist.

For example, Annette wants revenge for her brother’s murder, but the murderer is her own father, who takes care of her vulnerable mother. The conflict comes between the desire for revenge / the familial love for her father / the wish to protect her mother.

The protagonist ostensibly has full control over inner conflict as it is solely up to them to make the decision.

Relationship Conflict

Based on the opposing desires of individual characters.

For example, Betty wants to go out with Carl, but Carl fancies Darren, and Darren wants to marry Annette to get hold of her mother’s fortune.

The protagonist has some control over relationship conflict, though how much depends on their situation and strength of character.

Organisation Conflict

Based on the conflict with organisations in the wider world. A common one is the police or EvilCorp, but it could be a school, boss, publisher etc. It’s usually characterised by a David and Goliath type relationship, and ruthless, faceless opponent.

For example, Emma wants to publicise the fact that EvilCorp is dumping poisoness waste in the water and the local children are being afflicted with horrible diseases that the parents can’t afford to treat and EvilCorp puts publicity, lawyers and hardmen in her way.

The protagonist has a small amount of control over how they can navigate the towering obstacles thrown in their path and force the hand of the organisation.

External Conflict

Based on conflict with random, uncontrollable factors. Such as weather, freak natural phenomenon,

computer malfunction, accidents etc. These are usually better used as incidental factors or to assist with initial story set up, rather than as main story conflicts, because there is so little control, it can feel a bit hopeless or arbitrary – and it’s hard to get real passionate hate for a mindless things that have no emotions or desires themselves.

For example, Freddy wants to get to the hospital where his wife is having his baby, when a freak snowstorm closes all the roads.

The protagonist has no control over how external conflicts play out.

Summary of conflict

Now you’ve read about four different areas of conflict, think about how you use them in your story. Are they all present? Could you make your story stronger by introducing more of them?

For more articles about creative writing and novel writing, visit The Novel Factory website.

If you already know all about nanorimo and are lookingfor a guide to success, then you might be interested in this article.

Let’s start at the beginning – what is nanowrimo?

Nanowrimo stands for National Novel Writing Month. These days, the ‘national’ bit is a bit defunct, as it’s really an international endeavour. There is an official organisation that run it and they have a website, which you can easily find by Googling ‘nanowrimo’.

However, there’s nothing to say that you actually have to sign up to the website to take part, you can do so completely in the privacy of your own computer.

The basic principle is that you write the first draft of a novel – all within the month of November. You are not allowed to have written any of it in advance (although it’s is highly recommended to have a plan sketched out – The Novel Factory software is perfect for this) and you have to write 50,000 words. That works out at just under 2000 words per day (they didn’t even have the good grace to pick a month with one extra day – still, I suppose it could have been February).

The advantage of ‘officially’ signing up and submitting your work to the Nanowrimo community, is that you may get more motivation by seeing what other people are doing, and getting instant feedback. Also, I think you get a kind of digital certificate if you complete it – if you’re into that kind of thing.

However, the slight risk is that some places are  funny about work that has been published anywhere else, including on a website – so that’s just something to keep in mind if you’re intending to take the work further.

What nanowrimo is

The point of nanowrimo is to get writing.

The main problem for most people that want to be writers is that they don’t get their bum on the seat and the words coming out. This may be an issue of finding the time (saying you don’t have time is not a reason, it’s an excuse, and if you don’t like me saying that, then you won’t like me saying this either – if ‘no time’ is your excuse, then you’re not a writer, and probably never will be), feeling uncertain or embarrassed, not knowing where to start, or being precious about the work.

Nanowrimo is a great way to get over some of those obstacles. There is no time to overplan, procrastinate or be precious. Just dump any old rubbish on the page. Writing crap is a necessary part of the process on the way to writing something decent, and Nanowrimo shoves you out onto the path.

Knowing that thousands of other people are doing it at the same time is also highly motivational.

What Nanowrimo isn’t

I am always very careful to say that Nanowrimo is about writing a ‘first draft’ not about writing a ‘novel’. That’s because a first draft is so far from a finished novel, they barely look related. There is no way you can get a finished novel out in one month, and a good rule of thumb is that however long the first draft took – refining it into something even barely passable will take about twice as long again. At the very least.

Anecdotally, publishers and literary agents groan when it comes round to Nanowrimo time, because in the following months, they are inundated with rubbish first drafts that are being called submission ready manuscripts (as a side note, this is useful to know for choosing when to submit your novel – i.e. not in December).

Using the nanowrimo concept to suit you

There is no law to say that you can’t apply the principle of having a fairly hefty challenge to suit your needs, if writing a first draft doesn’t happen to be the thing for you.

For example, if you already have a first draft, you could use the month to force yourself to get the second draft completed – although this is a lot harder to judge – 50,000 words is a very clear goal that can be broken down into discrete parts. But having said that, you could break down a second draft into two chapters per week, for example.

Another alternative works for short story writers, which is to write 30 stories in 30 days. You don’t have to write one a day, exactly, but it gives you a very clear guide as to whether you’re ahead or behind and the average rate you have to keep up.

Bring to mind someone you have strong feelings for, someone you’re indifferent to and someone you hate. Try to think of what kind of circumstances could swap those positions around.


For example, you’re out for dinner with your spouse (loved one, hopefully) when they tell you that they’ve been cheating on you – with the waiter (who you were indifferent to, but now hate). Your overbearing boss (hated one) happens to be in the same restaurant and comes over, whisking you away and comforting you with brandy and kind words. Huddled on their sofa under blankets, you notice for the first time that your boss actually has the most beautiful sparkling eyes, and seems to have the exact same love of jazz as you…

Now you try.

For more articles about creative writing and novel writing, visit The Novel Factory website.

When we have emotions, they are accompanied by a range of mental and physical feelings. As authors, we should try to explore all the feelings (even the bad ones) in order to inform our writing and ensure it really reflects reality as closely as possible.

By becoming skilled at translating our own feelings into words that our characters experience, they feel more genuine and real.

Analysing and naming feelings

The first stage is to try to identify each feeling and emotion as exactly as possible.

At a most basic level, you could say that each feeling is good, bad, or neutral. But of course, each of these types can be split into many different variations of emotion, which don’t all sit on a flat sliding scale.

For example, under good we might have: happiness, joy, delight, relaxation, contentment, excitement and anticipation.

Under bad, we might have: sadness, anger, frustration, impatience, depression, discontent, irritation and rage.

Try to label your feelings as accurately as you can as a first stage of identifying the range of emotions and their tones.

Investigating the feeling tone

Once you have started identifying the vast range of emotions in your palette, you can start to look at them more closely in order to notice the tone and physical feelings associated with them. The more you do this the better you get at it and the more detail you notice, which you can then use to inform your writing.

Here are some examples:

Anger

 

Anger is energetic and speedy. It’s hot and explosive and doesn’t pause for thought. It makes you feel tense

and hot. Your heart and breath speed up to feed the energy usage. It often comes with a tightness in the chest.

Next time you’re angry, try to step out of the anger for a moment and experience it as if you were your own character. How would you describe the feeling to a reader? Which part of your body can you feel the strongest? How does it feel?

Delight

Delight is a particular facet of happiness that has an innocent, childlike quality to it. It is usually caused by outside stimulus and leaves us feeling light and buoyant. Our faces feel relaxed and ready to smile and our lungs fill with delicious air. We can feel giddy and lost in the moment and sometimes we might feel like the barriers between us and the rest of the world are not as thick and certain as they usually are.

Next time you feel delighted, try to identify the sensations in your body and mind that make up such a feeling. Notice how your relationship to the world around you changes.

Emptiness

Emptiness is a dark, grey feeling which is hollow and heavy at the same time. We lack energy, and everything seems pointless. Our limbs feel thick and clumsy. Sometimes we may feel unsteady, ungrounded. Our minds feel fuzzy, our thoughts trying to move through thick liquid. Emptiness often feels like it will last forever.

Next time you feel emptiness, try to analyse what makes it ‘emptiness’ and also how the feeling evolves. What immediately preceded the feeling of emptiness – did it come on suddenly or gradually? What happens as the feeling leaves?

Summary

By getting to know our own emotions and feelings and how the sensations affect us both physically and mentally, we expand our toolbox and prose writing depth and range. Bring your characters to life with descriptions of their feelings that really resonate with the reader, because they have their basis in real experience.

All good novels contain a few important building blocks, so it’s a good idea to make sure your novel has all of them.

The major story elements that you really need to get a grip on from before you write the first sentence are:

•       Character
•       Situation
•       Objective
•   Opponent
•     Disaster

Now let’s look at each of these in a little more detail.

Character

Most novels start with an idea of a main character, or protagonist. You can have more than one major character, but you should try to be clear who your main protagonist is. They must be someone who can take action and who we follow the progress of in a linear fashion, even if they aren’t in every scene. They should develop in some way, emotionally, spiritually or morally.

Situation

Your story can’t take place in a void – or if it does, then I guess your situation is ‘being in a void’. The situation includes the location, time period and other aspects like technological level, culture, important historical factors, etc.

Objective

Your main characters has to have a goal. A lot of new writers miss this point, and don’t know why their writing fails to be compelling. Your protagonist will have small scene goals to keep the story trotting along, but they should also have an over-arching story-goal, something major. They don’t necessarily have to achieve this goal at the end, but they have to really want it – as if their life depended on it – which it often will.

Opponent

Hero walks up to stone, pulls out sword, becomes King. The end. Doesn’t make for much of a yarn, does it? That’s why you need opponents, to cause conflict, to give your hero something to strive against and to give your reader the reason to keep reading. Opponents can be baddies, armies, movie executives, nasty bosses, aliens, the police, forces of nature, or even parents. Anything that can get in the protagonist’s way.

Disaster

Throughout your story the stakes and tension should be increasingly rising, with each situation more terrible then the last, and you want to end with a huge bang, not with a whimper. So your story must have a disaster to end with. It may have explosions, shooting, crowds, shouting, car speeding to get to the airport before it’s too late… it really depends on the kind of story you’re writing. But it had better be BIG and EXCITING.

Summary

Does your story have all of the major story elements? If not, it might be worth having a think about those that are missing and seeing how they will enhance and improve your novel.

If you enjoyed this article, you might want to check out our novel writing software. Designed by writers for writers. 

It has recently come to my attention that there are some new writers out there that aren’t sure how they should be formatting their manuscripts.

So this post is going to be dedicated to explaining the basic nuts and bolt of fiction formatting – basically how the text is laid out.

It’s important to stress that we are referring to fiction formatting, because formatting for fact based essays follows a different set of rules.

So, here we go:

Font

There is no standard font that you have to use, but as a general rule, if you’re writing for print, you should use a ‘serif’ font, and if you’re writing for a digital medium then you should use a ‘sans-serif’ font.

Serif fonts are ones with little tails and flicks at the end of the letters (such as Times New Roman or Georgia) and Sans Serif fonts are those without (such as Arial and Verdana).

This is because the font affects the readability of text, and for reasons too technical to go into, that is the way that works best.

Personally, I like to use Courier New, which looks like what comes out of a typewriter, because it just looks more writerly.

Also, don’t make the font too small – it’s not just painful for people whose eyesight isn’t perfect, it’s uncomfortable for people with 20/20 too.

Paragraph

Don’t leave line breaks (vertical space) between paragraphs. They should be snug above and below each other, with the exact same amount of space as there is between lines of the same paragraph.

Indents

New paragraphs should be indented by about a finger’s width – except the first one of a chapter  (I know, who comes up with this stuff? But that’s the way it is buster, so get used to it).

Line spacing

Use 1.5 or double line spacing. Otherwise the text ends up looking too dense and people’s eyes get lost while trying to read it.

Column width

This is more relevant for digital publishing, but make sure your columns aren’t too wide. Newspapers use narrow columns because they are easier to read. If the eye is forced to travel too far from left to right, then it loses its place and ends up skipping lines or rereading the same one twice.

Read about time and weather and how they relate to theme and variations in your novel here. 

Feedback is useful. It can help you highlight areas for improvement and can be encouraging, identifying your strengths.

So, it’s a good idea to get your friends and family to read your work, right?

Well, actually no.

It’s fine to get your friends and family to read your manuscript if all you want is to be told how wonderful and amazing it is (depending on how kind your friends and family are…). If that’s your goal then go on ahead and show them.

But as a writer, what you should really be craving is useful critique of your work. Incisive comments regarding character, pace, plot and drive that will help you improve, sentence by sentence, word by word.

Your loved ones are extremely unlikely to be able to supply you with this sort of input.

This is not their fault, it’s simply that in the vast majority of cases, your friends and family will not be professional or experienced writers (if they are, then you are probably the exception to this rule), and in most cases won’t have an interest in words any further than reading magazines and novels.

This means that the insights they can give about your work will be limited to ‘I liked it’ and ‘I didn’t like it’.

And not only are these comments  not particularly constructive, but they may not even be honest. I mean, is your mum really going to tell you she doesn’t like your writing? Probably not. And if your best mate says they don’t like it, it could just be because they like beach romance and you’re writing hardcore sci-fi.

So, if you really want someone to read your work, make it other writers, and make sure you read their work in return.