HOW TO WRITE A NOVEL IN TWELVE STEPS: Re-Drafting the Draft #Step ELEVEN

HOW TO WRITE A NOVEL IN TWELVE STEPS: Re-Drafting the Draft #Step ELEVEN

You might have to do this many, many times.

I can’t tell you how many times but Pride & Princesses probably had about a hundred drafts over a period of at least two years… and it’s not perfect at all… and the spelling and punctuation, because it had to please editors on two different continents, ended up being both US and UK…

(*Readers please note, I have a US draft ready to go again but I just have to get the chance to change over the file at Amazon!)

Now, by this point (at least a month or two after you started) you should have a working draft of your novel.

·         Put it aside and get on with your life.

·         Go back to it after you’ve had a complete ‘vacay’ away from both it and your laptop.

·         Then return to it after a break.

·         Have a long hard look at it.

·         Read it again.

·         Yep, you are probably going to have to re-draft that draft.

I can’t stress enough that you have to keep going over it with your eyes.

Until it’s as polished as you want it to be.

First, you are drafting for the overall story, characters etc. I’d save the ‘copy edit’ to the final drafts and if at all possible you really need someone else to do that for you. Find someone who understands more about spelling, punctuation and grammar than you do. Make sure, if you are submitting in the US it follows US standards. Remember, in the UK and Australia/NZ English (spelling and punctuation) have many subtle differences to US English (spelling and punctuation). 

Every morning (or whenever you review your draft) you will literally find words and sentences you want to change.

The bad news?

I’m not sure when this process ends.

I once had an agent who I gave my final draft of my first ‘grown up’ novel (not Pride & Princesses!) to and it was slightly “unpunctuated.”

He looked at me like I was delusional. He wondered if I’d forgotten how to punctuate my work.

But what can I say?

I was very young.

“I wrote it in a hurry,” I said. “An editor is just going to impose punctuation anyway,” I added, rather bizarrely as I grabbed my new red coat and attempted to leave his office to go to lunch with my new boyfriend.  

Not impressed? Strangely, he wasn’t either. Sometimes teenagers have more on their minds than what is at hand – even so, I’d left myself open to criticism.

Don’t do it.

It’s not worth it.

Yes, the agent laughed (he had a good sense of humour) …but he also told me to go home and punctuate the manuscript properly.

I took his point and did it.

I guess this ‘drafting & refining’ process could end if and when you bring on board an agent, editor, copy editor or publisher, but my feeling is, the process is just going to begin again. (Lucky you – but hey, by now you might have a deal which really does make you lucky – if it’s a good one!)

 So, in summary: At first draft, you should look at structure and tone. And for the subsequent drafts (up to about nine or ten) you should keep going…

·         Is your structure rock solid?

·         Is your tone what it should be?

I had a problematic character in that first novel (remember, I wrote it when I was eighteen) and a reader remarked that this character ‘seemed angry’ and that it bothered him.

I wasn’t sure what was wrong with having an ‘angry’ character, but in retrospect, it might be an idea to save the ‘angry’ character for a little further into your novel and maybe even your career.

It depends, of course, on the style and genre of your novel. If you are writing something for children, well, it might not be necessary at all. Remember, I am just giving suggestions.

·         Sometimes you get more with sugar than vinegar. You just do.

·         Sometimes you have to play tough but if you’re young, it pays to be (slightly humble). I respect that.

·         I don’t like arrogance. I don’t care how high up in the publishing world a person is, if I encounter it I avoid it.

·         There is a place for presenting an over-confident persona but I don’t think that’s necessarily the way to approach the business of publishing.

·         But it’s your call.

·         It certainly doesn’t pay to be a wilting wildflower either. People might treat you disrespectfully or dismissively (though both are really the same thing).

·         Publishing is a tricky business to navigate unless you have rock-solid contacts who introduce you at the top end of town (ie. amongst people who actually make deals). If you have to get beyond the gate keepers then you are going to need some serious skills. That said, you might also choose to go it alone but I think you should still educate yourself about the business of publishing before making an informed decision.

·         You are going to find that out the hard way, or the easy way, yourself (and by then, my advice is going to be redundant, probably!)  

·         Do your research, be quietly confident (until you are ready to shout to the rooftops) and work hard… there is no substitute for that (except maybe, connections but they are only going to get you so far, maybe through a door no more… of course, if you’ve got them… you might want to tap into them… right about now.)

·         That said, you learn very little of worth in this world without trying things for yourself. I’m not suggesting you have to try things that are bad for you to know they are bad for you.

·         But you will never understand the business of trying to get published through traditional channels (if that is what you want) without actually trying yourself. From the ground up. Now, there’s another story…

HOW TO WRITE A NOVEL IN TWELVE STEPS: Smoothing Rough Edges #Step TEN

HOW TO WRITE A NOVEL IN TWELVE STEPS: Smoothing Rough Edges #Step TEN

Here’s where you might be at by now.

You have a first draft and a lot of questions.

You have a lot of scenarios and a lot of unresolved conflict. You have a lot of ‘rough edges’.

At least I hope you do.

I’m going to describe this in music terms. To me, words are a bit like music. The best music is a lot of notes sequenced in a certain way that makes sense to the composer. They are played by the musician.

You are the writer of your novel.

Until your draft heads to the editors and copy editors (if you've worked hard and you're lucky) you are both composer and musician.

You decide what to play and how to play it.

Sentences are like a lot of notes strung together. They might sound terrible, or, after a lot of practice, they might sound beautiful.

To you, they might be something different altogether to music but this is my take on it all.

Rough Draft Exhibit A:

One of the first pages of what became “Pride & Princesses” (I say ‘one’ because there is an earlier draft) but you get the idea…

PRIDE & PRINCESSES

Chapter 1

Arrivals

    The day Mark Knightly transferred to Sunrise High from some snooty boarding school in England was the day Mouche and I began the Boy-Rating Diaries. They weren’t written in the traditional manner although they started that way. We wrote our thoughts on pink notepaper and used a feathered pen popular with countless teenage girls from previous generations. Suddenly, the secret diary became a blog that ended up as a how-to-guide to dating within the hallowed halls of our Performing Arts School. We went from social wallflowers to social winners in under a month all because our fantasy men walked the halls one surprising day in September and stopped to ask my best friend Mouche directions to  home room. ‘And not a minute too soon,’ Mouche noted, ‘I was beginning to think high school could only be fun in movies.’

    It was our junior year and from the instant we took Mark’s photo, blogged and tagged him, the meanest girls in school, Teegan, Freya, Brooke and Tory (the Princesses), sat up and started to take notice of all the great advice we shared about boys in our weekly column, The Sunrise High Newsfest. Of course, Mouche (pronounced in the French way – Moosh) never really planned to let love into the picture but that was before Mark Knightly entered our world and we hit on the idea of dating twelve different boys, one for each month.

    Mark was the first month, his friend Jet the next. Thoughts of them filled our every waking moment but that’s not what I’m meant to say and certainly not how it seemed to others at the time. Neither Mouche nor I realized that the start of the new school year would result in us both scribbling ‘I heart Mark’ and ‘I heart Jet’ in the spaces of our play scripts. But I digress…

If you are reading this, you’ll notice I made many changes between this and the page I eventually published:

PRIDE & PRINCESSES

Chapter 1

Arrivals

    The first time I saw Mark Knightly, my world changed forever.

    That morning began almost like any other. Eyes closed, under a cloud of dark hair, I tried to avoid waking up. I had trained myself to sleep through almost any noise, including the sound of the builders constructing a new house, across the road from my own.  But when the jackhammer rang out for the third time, my best friend, Mouche (pronounced Moosh), screamed. She was curled up in a cashmere blanket on the faux chaise lounge in the corner of my bedroom catching up on her beauty sleep.

     ‘Enough already...’ she said theatrically, throwing her pillow at me as a sliver of light streamed through the open curtains. ‘Another bright and shiny Los Angeles day,’ Mouche added as she flipped off the couch and flicked her blonde highlights off her face. Mouche rubbed her eyes and glanced at the framed photograph of the Statue of Liberty. She gave it to me for luck, for my birthday and because Mouche and I have wanted to live in New York City for as long as I could remember.

      ‘Never give up on the dream, Phoebe,’ Mouche said when she presented the picture to me, ‘New York is a great place to be a triple threat whereas Los Angeles is all about the movies, darling.’

      I glanced at the shifting sky and wondered how Mouche managed to look like a movie star at 8am. I threw the pillow right back at her…

    ‘You have glitter face, Mouche.’ I said as I stretched my legs, ‘and I’m running late. My mom’s plane arrives at the airport in...exactly eight minutes...I promised we’d pick her up. C’mon, we’ve got to be ready...you need to get dressed.’

Practise those sentences of your draft as you would the piano.

All those words need some cohesion.

There is no easy way to do this.

You need to spend a lot of time and effort, refining your novel – word by word, sentence by sentence.

Let me repeat - there is no easy way to write your own novel, from scratch.

I wish there was, but there isn’t.

You are either born brilliant or you have to practise. I definitely have to practise…

HOW TO WRITE A NOVEL IN TWELVE STEPS: Love your characters; love your places #Step NINE

HOW TO WRITE A NOVEL IN TWELVE STEPS: Love your characters; love your places #Step NINE

This is obvious.

And yet, it’s not.

You are going to be living with and working with, these characters. They are going to occupy your mind for a certain section of the day (& night).

I don’t care if your main characters are the meanest girls in school (In Pride & Princesses those characters are Teegan, Tory, Brooke and Freya) - you better find some love for them.

The novels I read in my formative years (i.e. teenage years) included characters, main characters even, that would now be regarded as “unsympathetic”. My favourite novel (The Outsiders) is narrated by Ponyboy Curtis – who is definitely “sympathetic” – but he also seemed real to me.

Let’s say this word again together:

“Unsympathetic.”

I really don’t like that word, but it is a categorization too often used in publishing and movies etc.

Here’s the thing. Most agents and publishers want you to have characters readers cannot only relate to – but like. 

The problem is, real life is filled with unsympathetic characters.

You have to decide what you want.

Maybe not straight away – not if this is the first draft of your first novel (everyone thinks they are autobiographical or at the very least semi-autobiographical anyway!)

Do you want to be a certain kind of writer?

Do you want to omit certain “unsympathetic” characters (and by that, I mean characters a reader or audience won’t like?) Do you want the work to serve you (i.e. make you some money) or do you want to serve your work?

Making some money up front might be a good idea. Assuming you need it, and most people do.

Money creates an opportunity for you to have freedom - theoretically. If you are lucky enough to get the opportunity to make some money from your art and someone wise wants you to make your characters “more sympathetic” in return, you could always consider it.

You should also consider the story you are telling and how to be true to it.

I once wrote a little story which was based on my college years. It contained a lot of unsympathetic characters. It contained bad language and compromising positions. It wasn’t cruel but it wasn’t nice. It was very real. The boys weren’t gentlemen and the girls didn’t behave the way society dictates smart girls should.

And boy, this hit a sore note with some people who read it. My main character was only eighteen. She was smart, she knew a lot, she had an opinion, she was blonde and she was pretty. Readers (and by readers, I mean commissioning editors and publishers) loved her… and they hated her.

They were afraid.

I was asked to make big changes.

Rather than make my characters “sympathetic” I shelved it. I was very young. At the time, it was the right thing to do.

You have to decide who your characters are going to be and what they are going to do.

A note on YA writing:

Writing for young adults is a (slightly) different animal. There should be a sense of colour and character development. But you might want to think about how you are going to develop certain characters and situations.

Writing with young teens in mind (particularly girls) makes me aware of certain values I’d like to install in my own daughter should I have one. I don’t think there is anything to be gained by my ultimately promoting a character that is behaving in a bullying way (for example) to a YA audience. I think readers know it’s wrong, but there is nothing wrong with proving that on the page. Even if, in life, it sometimes seems the bullies win.

Some more thoughts about the young adult genre:

It’s huge, we know it.

It seemed to start with JK Rowling, went on to Stephanie Meyer and carried on with Suzanne Collins (to name just a few of the notable writers out there). It really started a lot earlier, it just wasn't known as such.

That said, if Jane Austen were writing today she might be writing chic-lit or YA and she wouldn’t be surprised that because a woman was writing it, it had been categorized in a “less serious” or dismissive way… (Think Twilight). That series has sold millions of copies but for every lover there has been a backlash - even though a lot of people (mostly women) enjoyed it. Tons of guys – in particular – seem to love heavy duty sci-fi, but we don’t hear the same kind of backlash... this genre is discussed far more seriously, in the main. Of course there are parodies, but I hope you get my point. There are double standards in publishing as there are in life. At the end of the day some people want to make art, almost everyone wants to make money. It's great when the two are combined. 

One of my favourite current series (and a favourite series of many others) is The Hunger Games. This series, like Harry Potter, appeals to boys, girls and grown-ups.

It has been almost universally praised. (What did I mention about ‘you can’t please everyone?’)

But returning for a moment to the double standard in publishing. It started hundreds of years ago when the Brontes wrote to get published and had to use boy’s names…

And yet, the majority of readers (and maybe even writers now – especially unpaid ones!) are female.

Go figure… now that you know this, I’d kind of forget it. Go find some characters to love and some great stories to tell.

Note: I think Jane Austen (if she were writing today) would have allowed her female characters to be trailblazers and maybe not be ruled by what society dictates they should do… Err, is that unsympathetic?

Um… well, yes. Of course it is.

HOW TO WRITE A NOVEL IN TWELVE STEPS: The Ending (#STEP EIGHT)

HOW TO WRITE A NOVEL (STEP EIGHT: THE ENDING)

Put on those working boots and WORK, Lovelies. Remember you are no where near finished. You are only on the ROUGH DRAFT in your journey of novel-dom.

That said, sometimes it pays to think about the ending at the beginning.

Then again, I think the ending writes itself (metaphorically, of course).  

You still have to be the one to input those words.

If you’ve drafted the beginning and the middle, by now you have a strong feeling of where your novel is headed.

If you don’t, you should probably go back and elaborate until you do have a strong feeling of where it’s headed. It may be in an initial plan (ie. Phoebe and Mouche go to Paris…)

·         Your ending doesn’t have to be perfect.

·         Remember, we are just completing the draft.

I don’t know about you but my endings aren’t even close to finished – as in ‘polished’ by my first, second and third drafts, mostly. Pride & Princesses was different. The ending was very important to me because it allowed me to ‘get away’ with the light tone that covers most of the novel. I wanted to bring some resonance to the beginning, to change things. I like to be surprised when I read. That said, some of my retellings are true to the original stories (particularly Anne Eyre which is based on Jane Eyre). Retellings are meant to be just that. Anne Eyre, Wuthering Nights and Truly are ‘inspired’ by Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights and Persuasion. I’m not trying to re-invent the wheel with them, I’m just trying to re-enjoy stories I loved.  

So, here’s where we’re at:

·         The ending should complete the story

·         In some way, it should satisfy.

When I say, ‘in some way’ please note I’m not saying, ‘in all ways.’

You are NEVER going to please all the people all the time.

Well, probably never. You should aim to please yourself, in the first instance. This is very important.

I’m not saying all endings of ‘good novels’ (and this is subjective), satisfy.

Some leave many unanswered questions.

The ending of The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern (those who know me know this is one of my favourite novels on the planet!) leaves some questions. It is ‘interpretable’ by the reader – well, I thought it was.

In my opinion, an ending that asks more questions than it answers is no less of an ending than one that ties it all up in a ribbon.

If it’s the last page of the novel, people, it’s the ending!

·         Make it unique

·         Make it memorable

·         Make it speak to you (& your readers)

If you read the ending (or the final chapter) and you felt differently at the end of that last sentence than you did at the beginning of your draft - if it made you feel something, then you’ve completed your mission – the first part of it, anyway. 

That’d be great.

At this point you could show it to fresh eyes. But I wouldn’t. You may be exhausted drained and ‘over it’ already, but take a few days and re-charge. Some people are critics by nature and many people think they can write a novel – they may even start to tell you about theirs – but we’re interested in yours (and mine!)

I did something with the ending of Pride & Princesses that a few readers found ‘controversial’.

I thought twice about doing it, but in the end, the main character told that story her way - I just typed the words into my laptop. I know that sounds weird but there was almost a strange kind of alchemy in the ending of that story. I always thought of it as the completion of a tapestry. This YA, appearing so basic, has a (hidden!) complexity by the finale.

I have no way of explaining the ‘elixir’ of an ending – the novel draft has a beginning, middle and the beginning of the end. All I know is, if you’ve done that…

*CONGRATULATIONS*!

You have your first draft.

The writing of your draft, the basis of your novel, is going to be kind of a mystery wrapped around a riddle.

If you’ve done your homework (found your space, your seat, your desk, your food, your support network), educated yourself about what you want to write about, somehow found ‘inspiration’ from all the words in your mind or the sketches you draw. If you've formed some sort of comprehensible order to them, you should have a draft by now.

It’s probably taken you a few weeks (anything from one – if you literally haven’t stopped writing – to six). I would try to complete that first draft in a month – depending on the complexity. Obviously, if you are writing Anna Karenina you are not going to complete the draft that quickly!

I do my first drafts as quickly as possible. It’s just the way I work. My first drafts are usually not very good – but they are mine. You might want to take longer, but don’t take too long. This may sound weird, but you might actually lose interest in your own writing if you leave that first draft too long before the next part – refining it, again and again and again...

And that’d be terrible, really, it would. Forget about everything everyone else tells you. Who says your voice isn’t worth hearing?

Certainly not me.

*Of course, if even you think your first draft is really really terrible, if it captures your attention by just how bad it is, congratulations. You have enough taste to recognize this! You might want to call on some help, but that’s up to you. That belongs in a different series.   

For the purposes of this we are a ‘go-it-alone-or-go-home’ kind of ‘how-to-series’.

I’m not saying ‘going it alone’ is the only way to go, but if you’re broke and living in an attic… well, you might not have any choice in the matter.

HOW TO WRITE A NOVEL IN TWELVE STEPS: The Middle (#SEVEN)

HOW TO WRITE A NOVEL: STEP SEVEN (THE MIDDLE)

There is a reason this picture looks a little bit... unfinished. It needs a person to flesh out that prom dress!

I’ve been dreading writing this part. For starters – if you've reached the middle – we have to make certain assumptions.

First of all, that your rough draft is GOING somewhere. That it has a point. (Of course, you assume it includes spelling, punctuation, style, grammar and structure that is all going to be refined… but that’s okay).

Let’s say, for our purposes – the beginning, middle and end each take up a third of the total length of your novel.

Pride & Princesses was over three hundred pages, so that’s a hundred-ish pages for each section.

Yours might be much shorter or longer. There are no hard and fast rules (not really – but you should check out the average lengths of novels in your genre).

What I need to say about the middle is this:

·         It might be messy – you really have to clean it up – find some structure and give your words a purpose.

·         Warning: the ‘purpose’ isn’t ‘filler’, the purpose has a point. The chapters that elaborate on the beginning must be leading somewhere.

·         The middle leads on from the beginning and should be just as structured.

·         The middle should add detail to your descriptions

·         Develop the narrative

·         Lead on from the establishing chapters at the start and head the reader towards a great ending.

·         The middle needs to build momentum.

·         It absolutely must make the reader want to read on. 

The part I remember most about the middle of Pride & Princesses is the scene at the dance which is pivotal. Interestingly, it falls almost exactly in the middle of the manuscript. At the Sunrise High school dance the two main characters, best friends Phoebe and Mouche, overhear snooty Mark and his best friend Jet talking about them:

   Beneath the drone of the music, a quite audible conversation could be heard.

   Jet started it.

   ‘I think this is the best school dance I’ve ever been to,’ he observed.

   ‘As far as I can tell, it’s the only school dance you’ve ever been to...’ Mark replied.

   ‘Well, I’ll do anything to impress Mouche - she’s totally hot. But I don’t understand why you’re not dancing.’

   ‘Perhaps it has something to do with you monopolizing the only hot girl in the entire room.’

   ‘Are you serious? The women of Sunrise High are known for their...special qualities. Why don’t you get together with her friend?

   ‘What, you think she’s hot?

   ‘Sure, have you seen her in rehearsal? She’s smokin’...’

   ‘You hooked up with the only girl in the room I would describe as ‘smokin’. To be honest, I just don’t find her friend that attractive...’

    I spluttered into my punch as Mark said this. I was standing right behind him but he didn’t seem to realize and I have to admit, though his comments were hurtful, they were truly compelling...

In this chapter, the story takes a turn. True natures are revealed, characters are exposed. It also shows that the two teenage girls are going to take charge of the ‘romance’ (by leaving the dance with Joel) and it pays a nod to Jane Austen – establishing that Mark and Phoebe are a little bit like Darcy and Elizabeth – just as conflicted, just as ‘in love’ and just as much hindered by both pride and prejudice. 

Now, Go to it, people!

Draft your middle – give it as much time, effort and attention as you did the beginning. Make your characters live, give them problems to solve…. Plan how to solve them…

HOW TO WRITE A NOVEL IN TWELVE STEPS: The Beginning... (#Six continued)

HOW TO WRITE A NOVEL IN TWELVE STEPS (#Six B… continued)

STEP SIX: Part B (THE BEGINNING - continued…) *up to here*

More needs to be said about the beginning, but we’ll stick to a summary:

If you are working within a genre, the beginning of your novel should:

·         Capture the reader's immediate attention

·         Give the reader a sense of place

·         Give the reader a sense of time

·         Introduce the reader (probably) to the main character or characters

·         Establish the voice and tone of your novel ie. Give the reader a sense of how you are going to write and keep writing your story. 

Think about it this way. When you pick up your e-reader, when you go to the store or the library, if you are a ‘serious’ reader or just a ‘mmm… I’m not sure if I really want to read this…’ type of reader, you are going to make your mind up within the first page, the first paragraph, the first sentence (and that’s assuming you get beyond the cover or title). This is all before we focus on the quality of your writing (which is subjective, of course)…

Now, if you are a serious writer and still want to go the route of agent querying, you better make that first page un-put-down-able. I’m not kidding. Your entire novel is going to be judged on that first page. What I mean by this is, no one will read the second if the first doesn’t make them really, really want to… NO PRESSURE. Now, knowing all of that, you really have to relax into it and write like no one is looking. Pretend that maybe no one except you is ever going to read your work and remember, we’re still on the first page of your first draft.

Just make sure it makes some sense and keep the above dot points in mind.  Elaborate on them and you should have your first chapter. Keep working on it until you have a ‘working draft’ of the first chapters. A draft should have a beginning, middle and end.

I say this, but in my first novel (a grown up one) I remember going over and over those first three chapters before I’d written an entire draft. I wanted them to be perfect but this was not a ‘genre’ novel and it was almost a decade ago, before e-publishing became a serious industry and I knew I had to get through agents before my words would have a hope of seeing the light of day.

I still think you have to make the first part of your novel pretty stunning NMW (No Matter What). But, save some goodies for the ending. I mean, your ending just has to Kick A (you guys know what that means!)

Now:

In Pride & Princesses, I introduced the place – a made-up community (not too far from Bel Air). I chose that place because the area was familiar to me.

I also wanted a ‘fantasy world’ – a world where no one could say, “oh, that detail doesn’t exist in that place etc.” Also, I wanted the story to read (a little bit) like a teenage fairy tale and a (tiny) bit like a modern Austen-ization (but really only one scene – the scene of the school dance could even relate to Pride & Prejudice).

Time: This is tricky, or it might be easy. You could be as obvious as you like. In Wuthering NIghts (a teen vampire version of Wuthering Heights), I simply write the year the events took place on the first page.

Pride & Princesses is different. It’s kinda retro… Only readers who actually read the entire novel are going to pick that (for the most part) the novel is set at least a decade before the moment it was written. Readers who’ve read P&P are going to understand what I mean by this…. But for those who haven’t – the final chapter (or part of it) is narrated by a grown-up Phoebe (which carries over into the companion novel I’ve just finished, Popular.) 

Characters: I chose to focus on two main characters (best friends Phoebe and Mouche), their single mom families and the new boys who arrive in town… Sounds simple? It is – these are characters I felt I knew. You should find characters you know too.

Voice: This has to be entirely yours, lovelies, just like this is entirely mine. I could never tell you how to develop one – it’s… well, it’s yours. Lena Dunham for example (creator of Girls), has a strong ‘voice’ – it’s the thing I remember most from her television show. You might love her take on life and relationships, or you might not, but it is her voice.  As this is mine, as yours is yours. Find your writing ‘voice’, keep it and don’t let anyone take it away from you.

HOW TO WRITE A NOVEL IN TWELVE STEPS: A Good Beginning (#Six)

STEP SIX: A GOOD BEGINNING

For the sake of this process, I’m going to refer to my own first YA novel: Pride & Princesses in this section.

Genre: Teen romance novel/ Young Adult

Synopsis: When two best friends invent a dating game that includes a group of mean girls (known as The Princesses)  and the hot new guys in school, their lives change forever.

When I do refer to it, please know I am not holding it up as a standard. I am aware it is imperfect. It is, however, uniquely mine. I so enjoyed the process of writing it, I want to share some of that process with you.

I’m also going to mention writers whose work I have been privileged to read.

First up, Your beginning has to grab the reader’s attention.

• In Pride & Princesses I had an image in my mind of a game I used to play at school with some friends. It was funny. It was kind of an acting game.
• I also thought of the consequences of a life-changing moment.
• Unbeknownst to the reader, Phoebe’s life-changing moment is meeting her future husband. Not to sound too dramatic but what seems like a throw-away line:
• “The first time I saw Mark Knightly, my world changed forever…”
• Actually has resonance.

With your novel, find that image, find that moment and try to write a sentence that readers are going to remember.

• I remember the first sentences of all my favourite novels.
• Who remembers this one?
•  “When I stepped out into the bright sunlight form the darkness of the movie house…”

It’s from The Outsiders by SE Hinton… If you’re a teenager and you haven’t read it, well, I think you should. 

HOW TO WRITE A NOVEL IN TWELVE STEPS: Getting An Education (#Five)

STEP FIVE: GETTING AN EDUCATION

(This should probably be placed earlier, along with my notes about food!)

There are no hard and fast rules regarding education, yet there are many.

• For starters, if you want to write novels, you should be able to read and write – well. I know, you didn’t need me to tell you that, and yet…
• Of course, at some point in the process (like, at the end…) you might want to hire editors etc. but it pays to know what you are doing with words on the page before anyone else becomes involved.
• Most people need to learn about words and grammar etc. via formal education.
• This is so obvious as to not need repeating. And yet, it’s not true.
• And yet, it is.
• Some amazing people who do not communicate in the traditional way have dictated novels (okay, I’m not giving examples but there are some).
• Some amazing people who are illiterate or semi-illiterate have dictated novels (okay, I’m not going to name names but there are some).
• Some fab celebrity bios are written by ‘behind the scenes’ writers (not all, but some). Some of these peeps are being paid for their ‘story’ not their writing. Their stories are dictated by them. Their ‘life experience’ is, in the main, unusual; so unusual that it demands attention and publishing houses are eager to find these people.

If your ‘story’ hasn’t ‘happened’ yet and you are not famous you are going to be starting off by yourself.

You need to get a grip.

On a pen… and a piece of paper… or a computer… or an iPhone... you get the idea.

• You need to educate yourself.

That may mean excelling at school or it may not.

• It definitely means doing some research that wasn’t available just a decade ago.
• Now you can surf the net for just about everything you need. You should do some research if you want to get published (more on that later). Trust me, you won't regret it.
• You might be teaching yourself on the job or learning from home. You might be enrolled in school or college. You might have so much life experience that it all adds up to some serious ‘education’ but whatever you do, and whatever circumstances you find yourself in – you need to be educated about the world around you and the things you want to talk and write about.

So, an education of some description is a must.

I’m not going to be a snob about it. At the end of the day people are educated in different ways.

• In this day and age, formal education, is, in the main, looked upon favourably, often as a privilege. Many people think it is a must. It is the one thing that no one else can take away from you and for that it must be praised.
• But just remember Mark Zuckerberg. He invented FB and he dropped out of Harvard. That is an exceptional story, obviously. Many people would suggest he was a born internet genius.  
• It is a truth universally acknowledged that many high school and university drop outs have been hugely successful in life.
• But then, they are highly educated in their areas of expertise. Maybe that’s the moral of the story.
• My advice: get an education however you think suits you. 
• Pieces of paper are great. 
• So is life experience.  
• There is no substitute for the second one. 
• The first can never be taken away from you... (nor can the second!).