Tag Archives: creative-writing

Learn your craft (blog post 2 of series)

Posted on by vgemmell

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!

SAW conference photos

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

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Happy 2025

Posted on by vgemmell

I was lucky enough to extend my festive holiday this year and flew off to sunny skies just as my office was re-opening. A dose of sunshine and relaxation was the perfect way to recharge and have space to reflect on my writing and what I want to achieve in 2025.

I often find when I’m away from everyday life the creative and ‘ideas’ side of my brain really wakes up. I even managed to ‘type’ a short story in my phone while I was sitting out on my balcony in the sun. Having space to think properly also allowed me to reflect on how I could use my blog here in a bit more of a consistent and creative way.

A lot of young people (and adults!) I come into contact with who have an interest in writing are yet to find supportive communities, and don’t know where to start when delving into the world of writing.

Often when I do school or community workshops I’m asked questions around the practical side of writing, as well as my own experiences and how I have approached things.  I realised there is a lot I could write about on here, starting with where my writing journey began, and all of the different experiences and creative projects/competitions/workshops I have found to be helpful along the way.

I am no expert by any means within the industry, or a big success, but what I’ve had are real experiences – mostly good, sometimes deflating- over a large period of my life, a lot of which I was lucky enough to be introduced to thanks to being immersed in a supportive writing community (which started with a supportive writing Mum).

Over the years I’ve submitted short stories to competitions/journals, and then started to pitch books to a range of agents/publishers, met with them face to face, made it to publication then changed course so had to go back out on submission; had zoom pitches, a chat with an editor when I made the final seven in a big competition. I’ve faced numerous rejections, been ghosted, and most recently delved into independent publishing. I’ve attended writing festivals/workshops/talks/retreats, absorbed advice from top authors, agents, publishers and other writers of all levels of experience.

After my first book was released I started to deliver creative writing workshops and talks in schools, libraries, community venues, small book festivals, rooms to an audience of three… Adjudicated competitions for writing groups, bigger conferences (and even adapted my workshop to an online version during an unexpected lockdown!). I’ve organised in-person and online book launches, written press releases, been interviewed for a magazine and over the phone by a journalist.

I’ve kept my creative momentum going by setting myself numerous silly and engaging creative challenges over the years, which is good to remind myself about, as often when writing starts to feel too serious/stressful it’s good to take some time out to remember how to be creative. I know a massive challenge of any creative is staying motivated.

That was a bit of a brain dump list but introduces some themes I hope to focus on.

I remember reading once that writing should be treated like an apprenticeship; that it’s a journey of learning. I started my ‘apprenticeship’ way back in primary school and I am still very much learning. Every new writing project I start, I want to be better.

This year I hope to start a new type of writing project, and plan to go back out on submission again to try to secure an agent, which I am sure will bring a whole lot of new experiences and learning.

You can get all of my posts into your email inbox if you subscribe (on my homepage).

I plan to give honest insights into the behind the scenes of what a writing life for me has looked like so far (and new experiences going forward), with links to any interesting groups or writing related sites/comps I come across.

The first post will be going live next week.

Wishing you lots of success in your own writing this year, and just a reminder it’s okay not to feel dynamic in January. If you are still Wintering, take that time to relax and recharge!

Wintering

Posted on by vgemmell

A quote caught my attention recently on LinkedIn where a writer referenced Laura Strom (who is part of a Regenerative Leadership group) where she described ‘Wintering’ : ‘Wintering and resting are timeless practices that invite us to slow down, reconnect with inner nature, and tap into the depths of our creative cauldron. In a world that glorifies constant productivity and ceaseless activity, intentional rest becomes an act of rebellion, a means to disrupt the status quo. It is through rest that we challenge the notion that our worth is solely defined by our achievements and productivity.’ I’m aware author Katherine May has also penned a book called Wintering (which I’ve never read, have you? ) and I suspect from reading the blurb, it will follow a similar philosophy to the quote above.

As soon as we hit Autumn, and the days shorten, my body goes into a bit of hibernation mode. After I launched my latest book in August my automatic thoughts turned to ‘hurry up and get on with the next project’ but this is the first time for a while I have yet to actually start the next project and I’m giving myself permission to take a bit of a break. I have plenty of ideas zooming around my head which are often making it onto paper in scribbled note form. The ideas form two very different projects, which I think is a big reason why I am stalling as I can’t decide which to focus on and get on with! But I also do feel like I need a bit of a break.

I’m tired of logging into social media and wondering what to post. And I also haven’t posted on here in a while. I’ve got a day off today so decided it was time to log in to get some words down! I get so much fatigue from talking to people all day long in my day job I just crave a bit of silence sometimes from words and thoughts and often shy away from updating my social media feeds because I can’t even begin to think about how to be ‘engaging’. I’m sure I’m not alone in this, but when I see other writers I follow post regularly about all the exciting things they are achieving I always think I should do better.

But then this line from the quote really resonated: ‘challenge the notion that our worth is solely defined by our achievements and productivity’

In the writing world sometimes I think we forget to post about the joy of just creating a wonderful character, or celebrating the days where we have crafted a bewitching line of narrative, or written a scene that suddenly comes together in a seamless way that makes you doubt you even wrote it… Even that sounds like focusing too much on productivity, but it’s the magical feeling of being swept up in words that keeps me returning to projects, or starting new projects, even if I’m feeling a bit tired and fatigued. Because I know how much enjoyment it brings me, when I’m in the middle of writing a book or a story that starts to come alive and almost wants to write itself. And during the days it doesn’t; that’s okay too. The words will always come.

The good thing about the darker evenings is the feeling that it is okay to want to stay indoors and curl up with a good book or good film/TV series and not think about doing too much else. I’ve been on a bit of a reading slump this year so I feel like I need to give myself permission to slow down and enjoy soaking up other peoples’ stories for a while, before I start my next one….

And actually I have been enjoying other peoples’ stories the past few weeks as I was asked to judge a short story competition for Greenock Writers’ group. I’ll be returning there this evening (after doing a talk there back in September). I’m very much looking forward to reading out my results, and hopefully meeting the winners. It was a very welcoming, enthusiastic group and it always reminds me that another aspect of the writing world I really enjoy is meeting up with other writers, and talking about writing!

Happy November, and here’s to giving ourselves permission over the next few months for some ‘Wintering’