Category: Writing your Book

Blog, Writing your Book

You Can Write! Part Three

christinahollis

Decisions, Decisions

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In Part One of this series, I talked about where to find inspiration. Part Two explained about the three writing talents you already have.

Now you’ve got an idea in mind and have learned you’ve got all the ingredients to bring your story to life, you’ll need  a few technical terms.

If your dream is to be published, it’s best to assume that once you’ve written a book in one particular style of story (“genre”) , your readers will want more of the same. You can change genre between books—I wrote six successful historical novels before switching to contemporary fiction— but when you first start writing it’s best to concentrate on working within a single genre.

There are as many genres within literature as there are authors. I write Romance.  That covers a huge range of fiction from sweet to torrid, boy-meets-girl to same sex love via werewolves, shape-shifters and everything in between.  The influential Romance Writers of America requires romance novels to contain two basic elements: a central love story, and an emotionally satisfying and optimistic ending. Within those boundaries, there are all sorts of sub-genres. Here’s a brief run-down of the RWA’s latest guidelines:

Contemporary romance: can be set at any time from 1950 to the present day
Erotic Romance: incudes often explicit sexual interaction which couldn’t be removed without damaging the storyline. May overlap with other subgenres, such as historical or paranormal etc)

LADY_RASCAL
Find out more at Lady Rascal

Historical Romance: novels set before 1950. One of the most popular sub-genres within this category is the Regency Romance, which is why the publisher who re-issued one of my earliest works, Lady Rascal was keen to add the label to the Amazon details. Madeleine and Philip’s story is actually set slightly earlier—right at the end of the eighteenth century.
Paranormal romance: deals in fantasy worlds, the paranormal, or contains elements of science fiction as an integral part of the plot.
Romance with religious or spiritual elements: ‘may be set in the context of any religious or spiritual belief system of any culture’. Those beliefs should be an intrinsic part of the love story, and form part of the character growth and relationship development of the central characters.
Romantic Suspense: contains elements of suspense, mystery or thriller writing.
Young Adult romance: reflects young adult life as part of the plot.

Each of the categories above can be divided still further by their enthusiasts into sub-genres such as gay timeslips or erotic paranormal.

Readers need to know what to expect when they see your name on a book. If you decide to change genre further on in your writing career, it might be easier to use a pen name. The famous American novelist Nora Roberts uses several. For instance, she writes mainstream romance under that name, but uses the pseudonym JD Robb when she writes romantic suspense. She understands her loyal readers. They prefer to know what sort of story they’re getting, so they choose books with Nora’s appropriate name on the cover.

Placeholder ImageReaders know what they like, and may not be keen on change. Whether you write crime or romance, fantasy or literary fiction, learn all you can about the terms and conventions (“tropes”) you’ll need to use. Marriage of Convenience, Secret Baby and Friends to Lovers are three popular tropes within romance. Lots of background reading within your chosen genre will help with this. If you can use and talk about the terms like a professional, then you’ll be treated like one.

Think carefully about why you are drawn to write in one genre more than another.  Make sure it’s really the right one for you. You may be writing within it for a long time! Unless the words you write come from your heart, your work will lack sincerity. Study the type of writing that’s popular with the audience you’re aiming to please. Read reviews. You’ll soon discover what readers like, and how their favourite authors work. Join Goodreads, and find out where else your target readership gets together online to discuss the books they enjoy.  Investigating measurement services like Google Analytics and Quantcast will help you in your search.

Blog, Writing your Book

You Can Write! Part Two

christinahollis

macbook-925387_1280If someone tells you they can teach you to write, run a mile. If they ask you for money to teach you to write, run two miles. Keep your cash in your pocket. You have all the talent you need to write, although to begin with your three biggest writing talents may be a bit rusty. All you need is imagination, observation and determination. You probably already use those talents every day, and every one of them can be built up and improved.

The most important of your three talents is imagination. Once we leave school and don’t need to think up excuses for not doing our homework, our imagination pretty much goes onto the back-burner. Get back into the fantasy habit. Those precious few moments before you drop off to sleep at night are made for letting your mind wander. For the sake of relaxation, don’t make your thoughts too plot-heavy! As I said last time, keep a notebook and pen next to your bed so you can jot down ideas in the middle of the night. You might think you’ll remember them when you wake, but the chances are you won’t.

Observation is the second skill you need to work on. Train yourself to notice details. Watch and listen all the time. Readers are fascinated by the little things that inspire, intrigue or infuriate everyone. Does every snail shell coil the same way? Find out. How can you put into words the special quality of summer air before a storm? Try. Snippets like these will make your readers say “Wow! I never noticed that before, but you’re right!”

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Coming soon—follow me on Facebook for updates

If you see something interesting while you’re out and about, take pictures with your phone or tablet. Add a descriptive title, and upload them to your Instagram or Tumblr account. When I was working in Bristol on Struggle and Suffrage—Women’s Lives, I took loads of photographs to help with my research. Some of them were later chosen by my editors to appear in the finished book. It goes to show that you never know when something will come in useful!

The third of your special talents is determination. You’ve got to stick with your writing project right to the end. The journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step, and it’s exactly the same with writing. Excitement at writing or typing the words Chapter One gets you started. Enthusiasm for your story will push you on a long way. Elation at reaching the fifty-thousand word mark will spur you on toward the finishing line.  It’s not those milestones that are the problem. It’s the tricky slack water between those points where you’ll need all your determination to see you through.

Have you started writing yet? How far have you got?

Blog, Writing your Book

You Can Write! Part One

christinahollis

WRITING_pencil-918449_1920Stop dreaming, and start believing. You can write that book you’ve been thinking about for so long. It’ll be your chance to pass on your thoughts to family, friends and maybe even the wider world.

It doesn’t matter how much, or how little, writing you’ve done in the past. Everyone, from J.K Rowling to Snoopy,  starts with a clean sheet at the beginning of every project.

Blank pages can be scary, but I’ll show you how to get around that problem. It was the least of my worries when I started my writing career. When I decided to write my first book, I didn’t have a computer (I bought one with my first royalty cheque). I wrote longhand, then typed up my notes on a borrowed laptop.

At that time, I didn’t have any contacts or friends in the writing world, either. Breaking into the charmed circle of people who wrote felt like an impossible task. There were loads of reviews of high-brow literature in the newspapers, on TV and radio, but it was hard to find any information on writing for fun and personal satisfaction.

When you start out as a writer, you need details at your fingertips. Over the next few weeks I’ll be passing on all the hints and tips I’ve gathered during my career as a prize-winning, multi-million selling author.

Writing is a great hobby. It’s never been easier to see your name in print, and who knows— you may even make some money!

My books are on sale all over the world, and my work has been translated into more than twenty different languages. I’ve learned a lot on my way to becoming an author. Now I’m passing that information on to you. Follow this blog to discover the whole story.

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Find Out More At http://mybook.to/HisMajestysSecret

INSPIRATION!

Once you start writing, your only problem will be knowing when to stop. When I talk to groups about my work, the one question guaranteed to turn up in the question-and-answer session at the end is “where do you get your ideas?”  That’s easy— everywhere!

Local newspapers and online media are always rich sources of ideas. Clip, or cut and paste ideas, and keep them catalogued in a file (real or virtual). You never know when some snippet might come in useful. Check lists of anniversaries—there’s always something quirky to discover.

When you’re a writer, you can never be fed up or bored for long.   I wrote His Majesty’s Secret Passion when I was so sick of an endless, gloomy winter that I wanted to escape to somewhere hot, sunny and romantic. His Majesty’s Secret Passion let me do that, and I had the pleasure of seeing my story come to life in print, too!

Listen in on conversations during your crowded commute (carefully, of course) to find inspiration. Make discreet notes on your phone, or carry a notebook with you.

Talk to people. There’s one thing everyone is an expert in, and that’s themselves. Ask your parents and grandparents for their memories. Life has changed out of all recognition in only a dozen years or so. Don’t let their memories vanish. With their permission, make a recording of their thoughts. You can type it up later, as I used to, or investigate a transcription system like Dragon Dictate. You’ll be creating perfect first-hand sources of research. Even if you don’t fancy yourself as an historical novelist, your archive could help others in the future.

Always keep a notepad by your bed, to capture those thoughts that wake you up in the middle of the night (you’ll never remember them otherwise. Trust me. I’ve been there).

Now it’s over to you—what are you going to write about?

Creative Writing, NaNoWriMo 2016, Raymond Chandler, Roadblock, Writing your Book

Writing Your Book, Part Six—Beating The Curse Of The Saggy Middle….

christinahollis

This week marks the half-way point for everyone trying to write a novel in a month by taking part in NaNoWriMo 2016. Writing any book at any time is hard work, but around about now momentum slows. Authors hit a roadblock.  We slump against it, and so does our work. The Great British Bake-Off suffers the curse of the soggy bottom.  Writers live in fear of their manuscript having a saggy middle. Here are three ways to beat the block…


Bogart and Bacall in Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep

Blast Your Way Through


Raymond Chandler wrote his best-selling crime fiction at high speed. He was a master of the all-action, snappy story. He said his specific method for beating any block in the type of book he wrote was to have a man come through a door with a gun in his hand. I’m not suggesting you take Chandler literally, but throwing something unexpected into your fictional mix can kick-start your writing when you’re stuck. How would your major character react if they lost everything in a fire? Let them swing into action during a local disaster, or a national emergency. Remember, your fictional people aren’t only brought to life by the insights you give readers into their thoughts and actions. The way they interact with others shows us more facets of their characters.

It’s a thought…

Tunnel Underneath


If you’ve read Part Five of Writing Your Book (you can find it here), you’ll know I’m a great believer in the power of dirty drafting. Let your ideas tumble out and capture them in a fast and furious stream of consciousness. There’ll be plenty of time to work on the finer points of your story in later drafts, but when you’re stuck at the mid-point of your story, try burying some treasure among your major characters. Dig down into the core of their being. Give them a phobia, a cause that’s dear to their hearts, an unusual hobby, or a tragic past. Forget about beating your word-count for an hour or so, and give yourself the freedom to have fun planting clues. Your iron-jawed Alpha male may never be blackmailed over his secret love for flower-arranging* in your final draft, but it would explain his appreciation of structural integrity and design.

*like many a samurai general, as your feral hero can explain with relish to his arch-enemy and potential blackmailer…

Go Over, Or Swerve

Warning: This method is an out-and-out cheat, so it’s only to be used in your first draft, when you’re really stuck. 

Abandon your work at the point where you’re flagging, and type the words With one bound (s)he was free in centred, 20-point bold text. Then move straight on to whichever future scene in your story takes your fancy. You’ll be inspired, and the words will flow again. By the time you’ve finished your first draft and started going through your manuscript a second time, your subconscious will have collected your later ideas at the roadblock, ready for some remedial work. 

Whatever you do, don’t sell your readers short by using this third device  or anything like it in your final manuscript. They’ll be burning your book and flaming you alive online before you can say “…and she woke up to find it was all a dream…”!


dialogue, Dirty Draft, NaNoWriMo, Pomodoro Technique, Writing your Book

Writing Your Book, Part Five—Getting Down And Dirty…

christinahollis
One of my three top tips in Part One of Writing Your Book is to create a “dirty” draft. This involves dashing off the first version of your book as fast as you can. 

If your writing time is limited, concentrate your creative energy on getting words down, rather than building images in your readers’ minds. The fun of doing that comes later, when you refine and polish your completed story.

Adapt the Pomodoro technique to help you squeeze every second out of your writing time. That is, set a kitchen timer for thirty minutes, write as fast as you can until the alarm goes off, then take a ten-minute break.

Don’t worry about adding details of your characters’ appearance, or your story’s setting at this stage. You’ll be going back over your work to add this later, along with research details, and spelling, grammar and punctuation checks. 

Getting your thoughts down in words in a high speed stream has some great advantages. You see real progress, fast. There’s nothing like a rapidly growing word count to feed your enthusiasm. Making a note of your daily word count is a real incentive to beat that figure the next time you sit down to write. If you’re taking part in NaNoWriMo, feeding that figure into the community makes you part of the successful process.
http://mybook.to/HeartOfAHostage
“Let me have this one night with you, to remember…”
or http://bit.ly/2euCc60 (US)

The feeling of satisfaction is amazing. When you forge ahead, trying to do as much as you can in the shortest possible time, you carve straight through those nasty briar patches marked doubt and delay threatening to block the path of every writer. Think of an icebreaker ploughing through the Southern Ocean. Keep your head down, and keep going.

You’re never lost for words. It’s impossible to edit a blank page, but once you get something down in black and white, you can go back and develop your work by adding colour, detail and shades of meaning. Conflict drives the best stories, and its most reliable power source is dialogue between great characters. Put their emotions and arguments down into conversation. You can worry about the scenery later. 

The line of dialogue; …let me have this one night with you, to remember… popped into my head as I woke up one morning. I built the story of Heart Of A Hostage around it by imagining how that conversation started, and how it would end. By writing that out as fast as I could, I made a commitment to write the book which has become one of my favourites.