In my last post I mentioned that a big part of my writing life has consisted of attending writing conferences, groups, talks, and workshops. Over the years I absorbed hints and tips and learned a lot about ‘the rules of writing.’

If you are serious about getting published, or sending your work out into the world, my advice to you is to take your time perfecting your craft.

You don’t always have to know what you’re doing for a good story to take shape as I think natural talent and instinct have a big part to play when letting a story unfold. But it can all get a bit messy if you don’t have a fundamental knowledge of the rules which lie beneath it all; like structure, pacing, dialogue, and character development. If you develop confidence in all of these areas I firmly believe this will help you actually complete that book you maybe keep starting, and never quite finish.

If you want to start submitting stories to journals, magazines, competitions, or books to agents and publishers, then you also have to pay attention to submission formatting rules and perfect your grammar. This is where structured writing groups in particular can be really helpful as there’s usually a good mix of experienced writers in attendance who will happily share their knowledge.

To prepare this post I looked through old USB sticks (tip: if you encrypt your USBs make sure you know where you’re saved the passwords!!), emails and notebooks, looking for advice I had noted down from experienced writers over the years. Here’s some highlights I want to share with you:

Structure and Pace:

Alexandra Sokoloff delivered one of the best workshops I’ve ever attended at the Scottish Association of Writers Conference back in 2015. Before writing novels, she wrote for the screen, and gave us an insight into her ‘Screenwriting Tricks for Authors’ which you can read about fully in her book and you can see a summary outline on her website/blog: Alexandra Sokoloff | Bestselling Author. I loved the way she showed us how our novels could be aligned to a three-act screenplay type structure, highlighting in particular the importance of climaxes throughout to keep readers turning the pages, and ramp up tension/conflict.

A summary of Act 1 (this is on her website so not giving away too much here): Meet the character, show the reader their ordinary world, give hints of their inner/outer desire, give them a problem and a call to adventure, and then add in a climax. She then went on to describe the components of Act 1 and 2.

At the York Writers Festival back in 2013 Julie Cohen delivered a fantastic workshop on the importance of pace:

• To keep a novel going you need conflict
• You need to create atmosphere, emotion and show character development
• Nothing should be wasted; each scene should have two or more purposes
• Functions (purposes) = Move the Plot forward, Move the Subplot forward
• Similar to Alexandra’s workshop she mentions Conflict as Hooks – end each scene/chapter with a hook so your reader doesn’t want to put the book down

Emotion:
During workshops on Characters’ emotions- A tip: Sometimes we tend to stick in the safe ‘middle ground’, not going deep enough

Dialogue – use it to reveal more about your character. The way characters talk to one another can tell you a lot about their relationship and how they feel in situations.

Tips on all key things from an agent:
Julia Churchill, one of the biggest UK Children’s Book agents offered Twitter followers the chance to join an hour long zoom workshop (This was back in 2022 when Twitter existed and was a useful platform for writers!) I also heard Julia talk on a panel at the York Writers Festival and she sounded very professional and knowledgeable. She was one of the first agents to request a full read of my YA mystery Follow Me, but decided ultimately it was too dark for her.

• Characters: A good character needs to come to life.  What do they want and why? And how do they achieve this? Give them a dilemma – a huge stakes thing. What is at stake? Think through the stakes of your story. It needs to have clarity. Character really matters to invest the reader. Think about your favourite character – what makes them special? She gave as an example Charlie, in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – it was his integrity that mattered.
• Setting – Think about incredible, vivid, sense of place settings. Setting can add a lot to the story.  
• Theme – You want to leave the reader with something. A feeling. A message. She gave examples of books which had at the heart ‘being true to oneself’
• Voice – This plays into a part of you at whatever age the book is targeted at. As a nine-year-old – the sense of magic, warmth, and adventure you want to feel. Teens – takes you back to sense of angst etc. Agents are always looking for authors with a ‘voice’  

Show, Don’t Tell

What does it mean? I talked about this at a workshop with Greenock Writers last year.

If you do too much ‘telling’ in a story it can slow it down, and keep the reader too removed from the action/emotion. ‘Showing’ helps your story come alive. A mix of showing and telling is okay but you need to engage the reader and help them see the story unfold in some way.

Some examples: (From Reedsy and the Writing Pro)

Telling: Michael was afraid of the dark.

Showing: As his mother switched off the light and left the room, Michael tensed. He huddled under the covers, gripped the sheets, and held his breath as the wind brushed past the curtain. 

Telling: When Mary failed her test, she was embarrassed.

Showing: When Mary saw the big red F on her work, her cheeks flushed. She crumpled the test and hid it in her desk, hoping no one noticed.

Telling: The forest is scary.

Showing: The forest is full of staring eyes. The branches look like gnarled hands, reaching out to grab me. Leaves crunch under my feet as I try to find my way home. The air smells like mildew and decay.

My tip:

Read lots, and read widely. You can learn a lot about the craft of writing simply by reading a well-written book or story. Pay attention to the structure, pacing, characters. Why do you love it? Why do you want to keep reading?

Find writers who have broken the rules; books with weird punctuation and strange structures, because once you develop confidence, you can then break the rules and be a bit experimental and creative with your style. When I read Jack Kerouac’s On the Road in my twenties, I found it quite difficult to read but I liked that his stream of consciousness style, with erratic punctuation, was carefree and raw, and it made me realise I was being too ‘self-conscious’ in my writing.

If I am too conscious of trying to write a story, it’s not working. It’s not until I have that feeling of being lost in the story and letting the characters and a subconscious part of my brain take over that I know things are clicking into place.

So follow the rules, learn your craft, but then let go, and just write!

On my next post I’ll share some favourite books which focus on Learning your Craft

#