 A while ago, in this very blog, I made an offer to review books for other authors. It was intended as an act of solidarity to undermine the leaches that are preying on the writing community by offering dubious quality services in exchange for even more dubious quality benefits - and all at a price. I should have thought it through a little bit more. It isn’t the work involved. If I was worried about that I would never have made the offer in the first place. No, it is that there are so very many poorly written books out there and when you make an offer to review books you have to read them first. The problem is quantity versus quality. There are more people writing books today than ever before. When Covid struck (and a recession earlier in the century), writing a book would seem like good way to generate a new income. The cost of entry into the market is as low as the price of a pencil and a notepad, though a computer of some sort makes life much easier. The truth is that very few authors make enough money to live on, but very few of these new authors would actually know that.  When satellite, cable and free to air digital TV came along I made a personal prediction that the quantity it offered would come at the cost of quality. It is a prediction that came true. While there are good quality programmes on some channels, once you get away from the big name providers you are into a world of repeats, reality TV and pseudo reality. Most of it fits neatly under the heading of "junk TV". The same applies to writing. Quantity comes at the expense of quality. Anyone who can write 80,000 words (it is frequently a lot less) can click on the “upload” button on Amazon, Smashwords, Kobo, Lulu et al and hey presto, they’re a published author. Now, don’t get me wrong. I have read a lot of very good books by Indie authors and those published by small, online publishing houses. I’ve even reviewed some of them in this blog. They deserve better than the publishing industry gives, simply because the big publishers, hand in glove with literary agents, have such a strangle hold on the industry, which means that the majority of authors never have a fighting chance of hitting the big time.  No, the problem is that so many people think that they can write a book when, really, they can’t. Before I go any further, I’m not going to mention any authors or book titles by name. It isn’t fair that I damage their prospects for sales by bad mouthing them in a blog. I’m not a big believer in karma, but I also don’t want to run the risk of retaliation. Let's face it, when it comes to sabotage, these authors have done such a great job themselves. I’m not talking about the “nearly” books that a half decent editor could help the author to lick into shape. The underlying talent in those books shines through and as an author myself I’m willing to tolerate the sentences that don’t quite come across as well as they might, the bit of dialogue that is a little bit clunky or the loose end in the plot that isn’t quite tidied away. All authors know we would write those books differently, but the point is that they aren’t our books, so the author has the right to tell their story the way they want.  What I’m talking about is the book that should never have been written in the first place. The “it seemed like a good idea at the time” books that had no chance of ever making it to a satisfactory ending. These are the books filled with characters that are so badly written that to describe them as one dimensional is to ascribe one dimension too many. The books so lacking in emotion that you would think that the world was filled with emotionless robots rather than with real people. It is the latter which bothers me the most. Readers engage with characters they care about. They will want to read about them. They will want to turn the page to find out if they succeed or fail, love or lose, live or die. Readers care about them because they can identify with them and they identify with them because they understand them. So why couldn’t I identify with any of the characters in these poor novels? Basically it was because the authors told me so little about the characters. Oh, we get plenty of physical descriptions, to be sure. I was also given plenty of plot to read about, some of which was inventive, but much of which had been done before. To make me want to read on, I needed something to care about, and wasn’t given it. I ended up questioning my reason for reading the books. Why should I care about these characters? I don’t know them; I feel nothing for them.  OK, they may be dangling above a fiery pit, just about to get burnt to a crisp, but do I care? Not really. The authors gave me no reason to care. They are just names on a bit of paper (or letters on the screen of an e-reader). They mean nothing to me because the authors haven’t told me anything about them to make me care. Like the guy on the left, they're just a caricature. When I think back over all the books I have ever read that I really enjoyed, the common factor is that they had strong protagonists. I don’t mean strong in the “wading through fire to rescue the damsel in distress” type of strong. I mean emotionally strong. Their authors made me feel every pang of emotion that you would expect a real person to feel. This is what worries me about the authors who are writing such poor books. Are they not people too? Do they not love? Do they not feel fear? Do they not feel happy or sad? To read their books you would think that the answer was a resounding “no”. If someone can’t write about emotions then I would suggest that they shouldn’t be an author, because to be an author you have to live with emotion every time you sit down to write. I don’t know about other authors, but when I stop writing at the end of the day I sometimes feel as though I’ve been through an emotional mangle; crushed and wrung out. If I can’t make myself laugh or cry then how am I ever going to make my readers laugh or cry? If I can’t make myself worry about what will happen to my characters, how can I expect my readers to worry about them?  Another problem that I have encountered in recent books is a lack of drama. Drama comes from conflict and if there isn’t any conflict in the story there will never be a story worth reading. Even romantic stories have a conflict at their heart. It is the conflict that prevents the romantically entwined characters from being happy together, at least not until they have resolved the conflict so that they can live happily ever after.
This means that the characters must have something meaningful happen to them early in the story. Something that will expose their emotional state and tell me who they are, deep down inside. I have to say that some of the books I refer to have garnered 5 star reviews on Amazon and Goodreads, which is rather worrying. Either the readers who posted those reviews are less critical than me, or the reviews aren’t genuine. I am well aware that not every reader will enjoy every book to the same degree. One person’s 5 star read may be another reader’s 4 or even 3 star. But I can’t believe that 20 or 30 people gave 5 stars to the book I would struggle to award 1 star. It defies logic. I think the problem for some authors is the market testing of their books. They ask friends or family to read them, rather than asking for criticism from somebody independent. However well-read friends and family may be, at heart they want to be seen to be supportive of the author, so they say nice things about the book even if it hasn’t got many redeeming features. Consequently, the author gets a false sense of the real quality of their work and they publish based on that. They may get away with it once and sell a few copies, but no one will be returning to read the sequel. In the meantime, if you have written a book that you think is better than the ones I have talked about above, I’d be happy to review it for you. I really, really would like to be able to post a 4 or 5 star review for someone. And if you think I’m an arrogant know-it-all who wouldn’t recognise a good book if it jumped up and bit me on the nose, then you can say as much when you read one of my books and post a review of it. You can find out more about my books by clicking on the “Books” tab at the top of this page. If you have enjoyed this blog, or found it informative, then be sure not to miss the next edition. Sign up for our newsletter by clicking the button below. We'll even send you a free ebook if you do.
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 How long should a book be if the author wants it to sell? I had better state up front that I’m not going to attempt to actually provide a definitive answer to the question I have posed. I’m entering into what might be regarded as a philosophical discussion on the subject and any views I express are merely opinions. But it is quite an important question because the answers, right or wrong, may strongly influence whether or not a reader actually purchases a book. If you use Google to try to find the answer you’ll get various opinions. But, generally, a novel is expected to be between 80,000 and 120,000 words. This is based on hard copy books, of course. Less than 80,000 words and it’s going to look pretty malnourished sitting on the bookshelf in W H Smiths (or Barnes and Noble) alongside its fatter neighbours. Size gives an impression of value for money, even if it is no guarantee of quality of writing.  Once you get over 120,000 words, however, the publisher has a different problem. Paper costs money and profits will be reduced if publishers have to spend more money on paper but still have to charge the same price for the book in order to remain competitive. Most books sell at the same retail price regardless of size; about £18.99 (call it $20) for a hardback book and £9.99 for a paperback. Those prices are for bestselling authors, of course. Kindle books can run from 99p right through to marginally less than the price of a paperback, depending on how famous the author is. There is also a psychological factor. A thick book looks challenging. Maybe it’s so thick because the author has used a lot of big words. Maybe it will take too long to read and I’ll get bored with it. Maybe it’s so long because it’s very complex and I don’t want to spend a lot of time unravelling a complicated plot. Who knows what people might think when faced with a thick book!  While it would be nice to think that readers buy books solely based on the quality of the writing there has to be other factors involved. It can be the only explanation for some of the dross that makes it into best seller lists alongside much better written books and why some very good books never make it. For example, let’s say that a new author publishes their very first book. None of the reading public will ever have seen the author’s name before and can’t have read any of the author’s work, so how will they decide whether or not to buy the book? There is no doubt that marketing plays a big part in this. If the author is published by a major publishing house the publisher will put a lot of money into getting the name of the book out there in front of the reading public. Adverts have to be paid for; review copies have to be sent to newspapers, magazines, radio and TV stations etc. Authors are sent on book signing tours etc.  Best selling "author" Katie Price Based on the marketing blurb, readers may take a chance and shell out some of their hard earned, but in effect they are buying the publisher, not the book. And it works; Katie Price has sold a lot of very poor-quality books. Well, her ghost writers have anyway; she just gets the lion’s share of the royalties. But that doesn’t account for why some books released by smaller publishing houses, or even self-published books, also make it into best seller lists despite the minuscule amount of money spent on marketing them. The readers’ decision won’t be based on the quality of the author’s writing because, with a first book, they can’t have read any previous work on which to base that decision. It is also unlikely to be based solely on the few pages that Amazon allows the potential buyer to read using their “look inside” feature. As both a reader and an editor I know that a promising first few pages doesn’t necessarily lead to 300 good pages. Many authors, even quite well-established ones, are unable to maintain their writing quality for that long and some start to stumble after just 20 or 30 pages. By 50 pages I’ve already binned the book and gone looking for something better written.  Some Indie authors will already be aware of this phenomenon. Having submitted an extract as per an agent’s submission guidelines, they get a request for the full MS. They are elated, naturally, but then brought down to Earth with a bump when the full MS gets rejected. Learn from that – because what the agent is effectively saying is that you couldn’t maintain a consistent quality of writing for a full-length book. So, if the decision isn’t going to be based on the quality of the writing, what is it going to be based on? You would think that price might have something to do with the decision, but it doesn’t appear to do so. When it comes to the price of books we live in a strange world. A pint of beer costs around £4 and a large glass of wine (is there any other sort?) over £5. A self-published e-book, however, will retail for anywhere between 99p and £5 depending on the author’s knowledge of pricing strategies and their vanity. Now, which is going to last longer and offers more potential for enjoyment, the pint of beer/glass of wine or the book?  Well, let me put it this way. In my experience, after 6 months I find it easier to recall a good book (or even a bad book) than I do to recall the qualities of a specific pint of beer or a specific glass of wine. There is another factor involved here as well. If I really enjoy a book, I may go back a few months or years later and read the same book a second time. I’ve read Lord Of The Rings far more times than is healthy for a grown man. But I can’t go back and enjoy the same pint of beer or glass of wine again, not for free anyway – I have to buy another one and, thanks to inflation, it will cost more. So, if people won’t shell out the paltry sum of 99p to read an author’s first book what other factors are there?  Leo Tolstoy I go back to my argument about the word count. Is the reader truly getting value for money, or will they feel intimidated by the “thickness” of it? War and Peace is about 590,000 words long. When Tolstoy first had it published it was released in 4 volumes and a 2 part epilogue. If you want to buy a modern copy it would be more likely to be published as a single volume. In value for money terms you would think that it would be flying off the bookshelves, but it isn’t. Why not? It’s an acknowledged masterpiece after all. Well, perhaps people feel intimidated by its size. Let’s look at a more modestly sized classic, also by Tolstoy: Anna Karenina. Not many sales for that these days though it is perhaps one of the greatest romantic stories ever told. Length? 350,000 words. Hardly lightweight. Remember, I am also talking about e-books here, where you can’t “see” or feel the thickness of the book.  But you can. Because Amazon helpfully tells you, as part of their product description, how many pages long the book is As a guide, 80,000 words gives you a paperback book of about 290 pages, so 120,000 words would be about 435, big enough to qualify as a “blockbuster” in the Arthur Hailey mould. The sort of book that will not only last you for a whole holiday, but also for the cancellation of your flight due to a volcanic eruption and a 24 hour rail strike when you get back to the UK. The Kindle version of Arthur Hailey’s “Hotel” is actually 485 pages long. Perhaps that’s why he rarely features in the best seller lists any more. That and the fact that he died in 2004.  The sad truth is that the attention span of some readers isn’t that great. They’ll read 300 pages but 301 will defeat them. That presents the author with something of a problem. Do you disregard those readers and concentrate on those that will stay the course, in which case you are placing an artificial ceiling on your sales volume.
Or do you take another course of action? Maybe you do what many authors are doing these days and write your books as a series; telling the story in 300 page chunks. You wouldn’t be the first: remember Tolstoy and War and Peace? It’s now common practice and one I have adopted for 2 separate series I have written. There can be no doubt that the margins for success for the new author are very narrow and seemingly quite arbitrary. It therefore makes sense, to me at least, not to do anything that might put the potential reader off buying a book and that includes thinking about exactly how long the book should be. Let’s face it, the average story could be told on a single page of A4, yet we expect a bit more than that. So the book should be neither too short (poor value for money) nor too long (too “weighty”). For me that means between 80 and 90,000 words. It’s entirely up to other authors where they draw their lines. If you have enjoyed this blog, or found it informative, be sure not to miss an edition by signing up for our newsletter. Just click the button below. And if you do - we'll send you a free ebook of your choice (from those we publish, not from the entirety of the publishing world). This week we have turned our blog page over to one of our authors - and a golfing nut - Robert Cubitt to take a lighter look at his favourite game.  As a bit of relief from the seemingly endless politics and talk of war, this week’s blog is for the golfers amongst you, but I hope that non-golfers will also enjoy it. My thanks to all my fellow golfers who have unwittingly contributed to this page with their comments and jokes, on and off the golf course. Not all of them were meant to be funny, but so many of them were. A husband and wife, both golfers, were discussing the future when the wife said “If I died, would you marry again?” “Well, my dear, a man gets lonely so I might. But I could never find another like you,.” “You wouldn’t let her wear my clothes, would you?” “Of course not, my love." “You wouldn’t let here wear my jewellery, would you?” “Of course not, my dear.” “And you wouldn’t let her use my golf clubs would you?” “They’d be no good to her; she’s left handed.  They stood at the altar, waiting to be married. The bride-to-be looked down and saw a set of golf clubs beside her new husband's feet. "What on earth are you doing with those golf clubs?" she whispered. "Well," he said, "this won't take all afternoon will it?" I don't say my golf game is bad, but if I grew tomatoes, they'd come up sliced. I was playing so badly that I decided to throw my golf clubs in the lake – and missed. “How was your golf game?” “Oh. You know, hit and miss!”  Golf, bloody golf! Golf is what you take up when sex becomes too demanding. Golf is the ultimate triumph of hope over expectation. Don't buy a putter until you've had a chance to throw it. Never try to keep more than 300 separate thoughts in your mind during your swing. When your shot has to carry over a water hazard, you can either hit one more club or two more balls. If you're afraid a full shot might reach the green while the foursome ahead of you is still putting out, you have two options: you can immediately shank a lay-up or you can wait until the green is clear and top a ball halfway there. No matter how bad you are playing, it is always possible to play worse  The less skilled the player, the more likely he is to share his ideas about the golf swing. The inevitable result of any golf lesson is the instant elimination of the one critical unconscious motion that allowed you to compensate for all of your many other faults. A golf match is a test of your skill against your opponents' luck. Counting on your opponent to inform you when he breaks a rule is like expecting him to make fun of his own haircut. The shortest distance between any two points on a golf course is a straight line that passes directly through the centre of a very large tree. You can hit a two acre fairway 10% of the time and a two inch branch 90% of the time.  If you really want to get better at golf, go back and take it up at a much earlier age. Since bad shots come in groups of three, a fourth bad shot is actually the beginning of the next group of three. The Pro's say you should take a divot the size, shape thickness of a dollar bill. Mine are the size, shape thickness of a rugby ball. When you look up, causing an awful shot, you will always look down again at exactly the moment when you ought to start watching the ball if you ever want to see it again. Every time a golfer makes a birdie, he must subsequently make two triple bogeys to restore the fundamental equilibrium of the universe. To calculate the speed of a player's downswing, multiply the speed of his back-swing by his handicap; ie. back-swing 20 mph, handicap 15, downswing = 300 mph. Hazards attract; fairways repel. If playing a "provisional ball" always results in a shot that is far better than the original, why don't golfers play their provisional ball first?  The ball you can see in the rough from 50 yards away is not yours. If there is a ball on the fringe and a ball in the bunker, your ball is the one in the bunker. If both balls are in the bunker, yours is the one in the footprint It's easier to get up at 6:00 a.m. to play golf than at 10:00 a.m. to mow the lawn. A good drive on the 18th hole has stopped many a golfer from giving up the game. Golf is the perfect thing to do on Sunday because you always end up having to pray a lot. Golf balls are like eggs. They're white. They're sold by the dozen. And you need to buy fresh ones each week. If your opponent has trouble remembering whether he shot a six or a seven, he probably shot an eight (or worse). It takes longer to learn to be a good golfer than it does to become a brain surgeon. On the other hand, you don't get to ride around on a golf cart, drink beer, eat hot dogs and fart if you are performing brain surgery.  When practicing your putting on your living room carpet always remember that the ball will break towards furniture but away from walls. You have just missed a fairway that’s fifty yards wide, so what makes you think you’re going to be able to hit your ball through a gap in the trees that’s less than a yard wide? 10 Things in Golf That Sound Dirty...... 1. Look at the size of his putter. 2. Oh shit, my shaft’s all bent. 3. You really whacked the hell out of that sucker. 4. After 18 holes I can barely walk. 5. My hands are so sweaty I can't get a good grip. 6. Lift your head and spread your legs. 7. You have a nice stroke, but your follow through leaves a lot to be desired. 8. Just turn your back and drop it. 9. Hold up, I've got to wash my balls. 10. Damn, I missed the hole again.  Caddies are the unsung heroes of golf. They have the golfing knowledge of an encyclopaedia, the patience of a Saint and the wit of Oscar Wilde. Golfer: "I think I'm going to drown myself in the lake." Caddy: "Do you think you can keep your head down that long?" Golfer: "I'd move heaven and earth to break 100 on this course." Caddy: "Try heaven, you've already moved most of the earth." Golfer: "Do you think my game is improving?" Caddy: "Yes sir, you miss the ball much closer now." Golfer: "Do you think I can get there with a 5 iron?" Caddy: "Eventually." Golfer: "You've got to be the worst caddy in the world." Caddy: "I don't think so sir. That would be too much of a coincidence."  Golfer: "Please stop checking your watch all the time. It's too much of a distraction." Caddy: "It's not a watch - it's a compass." Golfer: "How do you like my game?" Caddy: "Very good sir, but personally, I prefer golf." Golfer: "Do you think it's a sin to play on Sunday? Caddy: "The way you play, sir, it's a sin on any day." Golfer: "This is the worst course I've ever played on." Caddy: "This isn't the golf course. We left that an hour ago."  Golfer: "That can't be my ball, it's too old."
Caddy: "It's been a long time since we teed off, sir." Golfer: “I don’t think my game could get any worse.” Caddy: “Give it time, sir, give it time.” Golfer: “Can you give me any suggestions?” Caddy: “Have you considered taking up fishing?” Robert Cubitt has taken another irreverent look into the golfing world with his book “The A To Z Of (Amateur) Golf" and some of the illustrations from that book have been included in this blog. To find out more about the book, just click on the cover image. If you have enjoyed this blog and want to be sure not to miss the next edition, why not sign-up to our newsletter? We promise not to spam you and we'll even give you a free ebook for signing up. Just click the button below. Once again we are featuring blogs by guest bloggers on a wide range of subjects related to reading and writing. All the opinions expressed are those of the blogger and are not endorsed by Selfishgenie Publishing. Enjoy!  One of the questions most writers get asked is “where do you get your ideas from?”. While it’s a predictable enough question, It’s also one that’s easily answered. Ideas are all around us, we just have to look and listen and then let our imaginations take over. One of my earlier books was “The Girl I Left Behind Me”. The title came first. It’s the last line of the chorus to a traditional song and was used in the soundtrack of three John Ford westerns about the US Cavalry, titled Fort Apache, She Wore A Yellow Ribbon and Rio Grande. For some reason the tune popped into my head one day and I couldn’t shift it. But then it occurred to me that it would make a great title for a book. I quickly Googled it to make sure no one else had had the same idea (they appeared not to have) and then put it into my list of book ideas and let it ferment for a few weeks.  It’s the fermentation that is important here. I had a title but no idea what to do with it, so I let my unconscious mind work on it. I also looked up the origins of the song and found that it was traditional, probably 17th or 18th century British or Irish and had been popular with both sides during the American Civil War. Its rhythm makes it very suitable as a marching song which is why it has come down to us via a military route. Letting that information ferment alongside the title eventually gave me the idea of writing a story set in modern times about two young men who are born just a few streets apart but who go off to war to fight on opposite sides and who leave their "girls" behind them. The story is as much about the two women as it is about the men. I won’t give any more away, just in case you want to read it, but I’m sure you can see that once I had the basics mapped out, writing the story became something that was achievable. Not only that, but one of the characters I created for the book went on to feature in a sequel.  I have an ever-lengthening list of ideas for books that may, or may not, eventually see the light of day and they have come to me by a number of routes. They say that everyone has a book inside of them. American author Jodi Picoult added the rider “the problem is winkling it out” while British writer Christopher Hitchens is credited with adding “and that’s where it should stay”. But it is true. Everyone has a story that can be told, even if they aren’t able to tell it themselves. The problem Hitchens alludes to is making the story interesting enough to make people want to read it, which is the author’s job. For the author the only task in relation to coming up with new book ideas is to keep their eyes and ears open and the story ideas will come. At the moment I’m helping a fellow aspiring author by providing feedback on a book she is writing. I can’t give away the subject as that would be a breach of confidence, but the idea for it is straight off the front pages of the daily newspapers. She was so touched by what she was reading that the idea of not writing a story about it was probably more bizarre than the idea of writing it.  Does that mean that anyone can write a book? Technically yes. If you can write your name you can write a book. However, there is no doubt that some people have an aptitude for it and some don’t. Thanks to the capability to self-publish books that’s available through the digital revolution there are many books that I’ve read in recent years that really shouldn’t have been written, at least not by the people that wrote them. They are living proof of Christopher Hitchens’ corollary. But that doesn’t mean that someone with more aptitude couldn’t write a very good book using the same plot and characters. Do all my ideas become books? Most certainly not. The length of a novel may vary, but generally falls between 80,000 and 120,000 words. I have taken some ideas and barely made it to 10,000 words before I’ve run out of steam. That tells me that, for me, the story just hasn’t got any legs and there’s no point in wasting any more time with it. Of course I don’t delete it. I may have some sudden inspiration that will take it off in a completely new direction, but for the time being it goes into the file marked “not quite as good an idea as I thought”.  As for suggesting your own book ideas to authors, please don’t. It’s not that they aren’t good ideas, it’s that there are legal implications. Most big-name authors will tell you that at some point they have received letters or emails claiming that the idea for a book was stolen because they (the letter writer) once said or wrote down some of the words that are used in the book. The writer of the letter or email then goes on to try to claim money for suggesting the idea or, even worse, for plagiarism. Terry Pratchett’s agent told me that he received an email threatening legal action from someone who had once suggested, in another email, that Terry Pratchett set one of his books in Australia. The threatening email arrived shortly after the publication of The Last Continent in 2008, where Pratchett sets the story in the country of Fourecks on his imaginary Discworld. Fourecks bore a passing resemblance to the country we call Australia. That was enough for the loony who wrote the email. And that’s why authors would prefer it if you didn’t suggest ideas for books. It’s nothing personal. By the way, if that has given you an idea for making some easy money - forget it! Lawyers are expensive, they are happy to take your case because, win or lose, they will still get paid and proving plagiarism is a very difficult thing to do. If you don't believe me, just ask Sami Okri. So I took my idea that I had pitched to Terry Pratchett’s agent and wrote the book myself. It’s called The Inconvenience Store and is available (here comes the plug) on Amazon.  How did I come up with the idea? Easy. I had just been to a convenience store to buy something that they didn’t have on their shelves. When I asked the manager why they didn’t sell it (it was a common enough item) he told me that people often asked for that item, but they didn’t stock it because there was no demand for it. The manager was a totally irony free zone. My response to the manager about his store being more inconvenient than convenient gave me the title for my book and the rest, as they say, is history. So, where is your next book idea coming from? It could be closer than you think. Would you like to be a guest blogger for Selfishgenie Publishing? Just email us and tell us your idea for your blog. The email address can be found on our "Contact" page. If you enjoyed this blog, or found it interesting, be sure not to miss future posts by signing up for our newsletter. We'll even send you a free ebook if you do. Just click the button below.
For the next few weeks we are featuring blogs by guest bloggers on a wide range of subjects related to reading and writing. All the opinions expressed are those of the blogger and are not endorsed by Selfishgenie Publishing. Enjoy!  The circus is in town and a wizened little man goes into the big top during rehearsals and approaches the ringmaster. “I’ve got an act and I want to join the circus.” “Ok” says the ring master. “Show me what you’ve got.” So the man goes into the ring and climbs the tent pole all the way to the top. When he gets there he lets go and stretches out his arms and starts to flap them. He then proceeds to fly round the inside of the big top, doing loop the loops and barrel rolls, swooping and soaring, all the time flapping his arms for all he’s worth. After five minutes he settles gently onto the ground in front of the ringmaster once more. “What do you think?” The little man asks. “Is that it? You do bird impressions?” Boom boom. My apologies to the long running TV series M*A*S*H for stealing that joke. But did you laugh at it? If nothing else, it does show you how up to date my TV viewing is these days.  The reason I ask is that comedy in the written word is very hard to do. What one person finds amusing will pass over another person’s head and may be misinterpreted completely. Stand-up comedians spend hours practicing in front of test audiences above pubs and in tiny comedy clubs making sure their material works before they unleash it on their target audience, whether it is in a larger comedy club, at The Edinburgh Fringe or in the 02 arena. A writer doesn’t have that luxury. If he gets it wrong then it could cost him his audience forever. It’s a one-shot deal. The writer may have an editor that may question the suitability of a joke, its comic value, its relevance to the plot and so on. What appeared hilarious when being written in the solitude of the author’s kitchen may fall as flat as a pancake when it reaches the editor’s desk. So what does the writer do? Do they trust to their instinct and go for the laughs, or do they play safe and keep the story serious? Is there room for both?  Another problem is that it’s tough to sustain comedy over a long period. A stage comedian works at a rate of two or three laughs a minute. Story telling comedians may string a joke out for three or four minutes before getting to the punchline. So how many jokes does the writer need to put into a story to give it that humorous feel? Is it one per page? One every thousand words? One per chapter? Let’s say it’s the latter. My books generally run out at about 25 chapters. Some have more and some less. At the rate of one significant joke per chapter the sums are easy enough. 25 jokes for a stand-up comedian, therefore, is about ten minutes worth of material. Perhaps half the duration of a comedy club slot. That’s a lot of jokes and every one of them has to hit the mark. Of course, not all the humour in a book has to be in the form of joke. Some of it can be situational. The writer gets a lot of leeway in this area, painting pictures of absurd characters or giving them funny things to do or say. The writer can make his characters do silly things. He can make them stupid to the point of imbecility. He can make them accident prone. He can make them pompous or self-important. But he still has to maintain the humour for over 80,000 words (that’s about the acceptable minimum length for a novel these days). That’s a lot of jokes to have to write. Name one well known writer who is noted mainly for the humour in his novels. Difficult, isn’t it? There are plenty who write short pieces for newspapers and magazines. The now defunct Punch magazine was known for them. But ask them to extend that to a full-blown novel and you would start to see the panic in their eyes.  There have been some, of course. Terry Pratchett managed to achieve this in many of his works, but not all of them by any means. The late Keith Waterhouse wrote Billy Liar and I’ve already mentioned M*A*S*H, which made three outings as books for Richard Hooker (real name H. Richard Hornberger). Twelve others in the franchise were ghost written by William E Butterworth and were less critically acclaimed because of it. But when we talk about humorous writing we are often talking about satirical works or parodies, rather than books that are intended solely to be funny. I’ve read a few books recently which, according to their “blurbs” on Amazon, were laugh a minute works. I have to say that they generally failed to make me laugh. The jokes often descended into slapstick and that is a visual media, or it became very juvenile in nature, which is not the sort of comedy that will appeal to an adult reader. More often the jokes were non-existent. So, as someone who likes to introduce a lighter note into my books, that makes me a little bit nervous. What if my readers don’t get the jokes?  I’ve hedged my bets a bit by not claiming that my books are funny. That way at least I’ll be managing expectations. But that is a double-edged sword. A lot of the time we laugh at jokes because we know they’re jokes and we’re waiting for the punch line. If they were told in a more serious tone of voice with no comedic preamble, would we automatically laugh? Maybe, but maybe not. Like most people I have preferences when it comes to comedy. I laugh at some comedians more readily than I will laugh at others. We all know that humour is a very personal thing, as evidenced by the joke I started with. Some people will have laughed and others won’t. That makes life difficult for an author, because they need to appeal to their entire readership, not just to the few people who will understand their humour. So, humour in a novel is fraught with difficulty, for both the writer and the reader. All I can say is that if you find yourself laughing at my books then the jokes were intended. If you don’t laugh then the book is a serious work of fiction and therefore not the place for me to start telling jokes. Either way I hope you enjoy them. Would you like to be a guest blogger for Selfishgenie? Just email us with your idea for a blog. The address is on our "Contact" page. Did you enjoy this blog, or find it interesting? To be sure of not missing an edition, just sign up to our newsletter. We'll even send you a free eBook for doing it. Just click the button below.
For the next few weeks we are featuring blogs by guest bloggers on a wide range of subjects related to reading and writing. All the opinions expressed are those of the blogger and are not endorsed by Selfishgenie Publishing. Enjoy!  It was one of those conversations that only happen in pubs when drink has been taken. They usually don’t make sense the next day and are quickly forgotten. Well, usually they’re quickly forgotten. The subject was fantasy fiction. You know the sort of thing: wizards, orcs, elves, dragons, enchanted swords etc. My friend said he didn’t read that sort of book because he wasn’t able to suspend his disbelief. I was duty bound to argue against him because… well, because we were in a pub and that’s what blokes do when they’ve had a pint or two. But then, afterwards, I thought about it a little bit more. Why would it not be possible to suspend disbelief and read fantasy fiction?  We suspend our disbelief every day of the week over some matter or other, particularly when it comes to the sorts of thing politicians say. So what’s so hard about suspending one’s disbelief over a story that is to be found on the fiction shelves? No one is saying its true (well a few deranged people maybe, but I’m not going to count them). All we fantasy fans are saying is that it’s an escape from the real world and into another. The stories are as valid as they are in any other genre. Indeed, they can be found in genres other than fantasy. They usually take the form of a battle of good against evil, during which quests are undertaken or duties carried out. Honour is high on the agenda, as is bravery, selfless devotion and many other altruistic character traits. Perhaps this is what’s wrong. Perhaps these things are so lacking in our modern world that some people can’t believe that they might exist in any world. There is an old tradition of fantasy fiction, of course, though it isn’t always recognised as such. First, we go all the way back to the Ancient Greeks and Homer’s epic stories in the Iliad and the Odyssey. These may be based on some factual events, but they also contain a lot of fantasy.  Then we have Arthurian legend. Now, on the surface we have a story about men battling against evil, which forms the core of many a good novel. But we also have a wizard (Merlin), a witch (Morgana), a magical sword in a stone (Excalibur), a mysterious lady in a lake (Viviane or Nimue) and so on. In its basic form it’s no more fantastic than Tolkien. After that we get to the legend of Robin Hood. There is no evidence that he ever existed and what few historical bits of evidence that suggest someone resembling him did exist, don’t portray a picture of the hero of the medieval peasants that robbed from the rich to give to the poor, but a petty criminal who robbed from anyone and kept the loot for himself. OK, more of a legend than a fantasy, but one we buy into. There may be no dragons or orcs, but they’ve been replaced by the Sheriff of Nottingham and his men. We mustn’t forget the Daddy of them all William Shakespeare. In his plays we have a ghost in Hamlet, another one in Macbeth along with three witches, in The Tempest we have a fairy and some sort of troll (Caliban) and of course A Midsummer Night’s Dream which is littered with fairies and in which Bottom is given a pair of donkey’s ears, as though that were normal.  Charles Dickens isn’t averse to using ghosts if it suits his purpose, as he shows in A Christmas Carol, while Bram Stoker gave us Dracula and Mary Shelley provided us with Dr Frankenstein’s hand-built monster. None of these books or plays were aimed specifically at children, which is where my friend thinks the target audience for most fantasy fiction lies. Ghosts, vampires and monsters may be seen as belonging to the horror genre, but they appear in fantasy as well. Now, I’m probably going to upset a few diehard fans here, but I’m going to suggest that the great British Hero James Bond is no more believable as a character than Bilbo Baggins. What is my justification? I hear you ask (I have good hearing). Let’s look at the evidence. Cars that turn into submarines, wristwatches that contain lengths of garrotte wire, cars with ejector seats and so on and so forth. But that’s all boy’s own gadgetry and no more of a fantasy than a sword that glows blue when there are orcs around. At the time when Ian Fleming wrote the stories, the technology for those gadgets didn’t exist, but that didn’t stop him fantasising about them.  But the real fantasy is Bond himself. A suave, debonair killer who’s also a babe magnet and can get into a fight with half a dozen Kung Fu masters and walk away leaving them in a crumpled heap. He’s been shot so many times he must resemble a colander. He’s fallen from trains, planes and ski slopes. While Ian Fleming and the writers who continued the franchise never claimed magical powers for Bond, does this not require just as much suspension of disbelief as it does to read about Gandalf? Bond may not have “One Ring to rule them all (etc)”, but that was because Q never quite got round to finishing it (But just wait for the next movie – you read it here first).  There is, of course, another literary genre that is just as fantastical and requires just as much suspension of disbelief. I mean Sci-Fi. People who will gladly suspend disbelief to accept the premise of strange creatures inhabiting worlds far from our own are sometimes reluctant to do the same for stories containing wizards and dragons. Why? Science does suggest that life may exist on other planets. Indeed, it’s been said that it would be a strange universe if life didn’t exist on other planets. However, science has no idea what form it may take and what its capabilities might be. This is the space that the sci-fi writer inhabits, if you’ll pardon the pun. The space where anything is possible providing the author doesn’t actually ignore the laws of physics. But sci-fi writers do that all the time as well. Time travel, warp speed, sub space, hyperspace, dilithium crystals. Do these sound familiar? Which ones are made up and which does science accept as being possible? No I don’t know either. Dilithium does exist, you can Google it, but can you use it to power a space ship? So, where’s the difference between fantasy and sci-fi? Why is one believable to my friend but the other not? So where do you stand on this issue? Do you read fantasy novels? If not, can you tell me why you don’t? Just comment below. Would you like to be a guest blogger for Selfishgenie? Just email us at our general enquires address, which can be found on our Contact page and tell us what your blog would be about. If you enjoyed this blog, or found it interesting, then be sure not to miss future editions by signing up to our newsletter. We'll even send you a free eBook when you do. Just click the button.
 Pricing your book – is it an art or a science? I’m not asking you to pick a side; I’m only offering an opinion. Take it or leave it, but before you make up your mind, you have to understand two things. First of all, there is the economics of pricing. Then there is the psychological aspects of pricing; what assumptions do people make when they see a price tag on a product? Let’s start with the economics of pricing. If you are a big publishing house, there is a lot you have to pay for before the product (book) goes on sale. First off there are the publishing rights for the book – what the author wants for selling his or her soul to Mammon. Many new authors won’t get that, they’ll just be offered royalties based on sales. But a bestselling author can charge a hefty fee up front for giving a publisher exclusive rights to their next book - or even several books.  Then there is the cost of editing and proof reading in order to get the book into the best possible version of itself. Add to that cover design, printing and distribution and the publisher has already invested a considerable amount of money that must be recouped. Then there is the cost of marketing, because nobody is going to buy a book if they don’t know it exists. Finally, there are all the “back office” costs that must be recouped: HR, accounting, IT, rent, utilities, etc. What are known as “overheads” but without which no business functions efficiently. Put that all together and there is a lot of money to be recovered and publishers want their money back quickly, because they have shareholders who want a dividend at the end of the year. Consequently, publishers price high because they know that once a book has been out for a while, people lose interest in it because there are other, newer titles coming out all the time, so they must cover their costs and generate a profit in the shortest possible time.  All that marketing is aimed at getting the book into the best-seller list as quickly as possible, so that sales gain some “momentum”. Readers are more likely to buy a book if they think that a lot of other readers have already bought it and that is what the best-sellers list tell them. And there was you, thinking that the best-seller list followed sales, when they are really leading them. So, when you see a book with a list price of, perhaps, £20 ($22) for a hardback, £13 for a paperback and maybe £12 for the Kindle version, all that stuff is what you are actually paying for – not the words on the page. The author will probably receive less than 10% of the sale price for each book and their agent takes a cut of that, reducing it further (are you still sure you want to be published by a big publishing house?). But you are an “Indie” author. You don’t have all those costs to meet before your book goes on sale and you don’t have to recover them quickly in order to satisfy shareholders. You can charge what you like. Therefore £5 for a Kindle version and maybe £8.99 for a paperback doesn’t seem unreasonable. You aren’t greedy – so as long as you make some money from your book, you are happy. Well, you may need to rethink that a little bit. You really need to market your book if you want it to sell and if you want to sell more than a handful of copies, you may need to spend some money on marketing. That means pitching your price at a level that will allow you to cover the marketing cost. Either that, or you will have to settle for a smaller slice of the cake.  But what about the psychology of pricing? What does the reader infer from the price at which you sell your “product”? Unsurprisingly, there have been books written on the subject. I’m not going to name any as I haven’t read them, so I don’t know if they are any good. But if you are interested, Google “Psychology of book pricing” and they’ll show up in the results. But I did find this blog by Thomas Umstattd Jnr, written in 2020. For a start, Umstattd reminds us that price is so important that it has been included as one of the “P”s of the marketing mix. That means it has to be taken seriously as a subject in its own right.  But the real issue on book pricing is what the reader compares the price to. Let’s imagine that it takes 10 hours to read a book. What else could the reader do for 10 hours, and how much would that cost? That is the comparison that readers make when they buy a product. They mentally say to themselves “If I spend my money on this, would it give me as much fun as spending my money on something else?” This is called “anchoring”. They anchor the price they are willing to pay to read your book against the cost of another type of entertainment (or another product) and form an opinion on how good a bargain it is by comparison. If they are browsing books on Amazon or in a bookshop, you are already halfway to winning the sale, but there is still a choice to be made – your book or someone else’s. That suggests that the lower the price you set, the better comparison and the more books you will sell.  But, of course, the anchor point is only part of the story. Because you have to tell your readers that, whatever comparison they are mentally making, your book is going to represent better value. You have to guide them into making that decision because, otherwise, they may conclude the opposite and not buy your book. Umstattd describes a number of ways you can use your marketing ‘copy’ to influence readers into perceiving that your book represents good value for money. I won’t repeat them here but, intuitively they seem to be good suggestions. But readers don’t just want something to read, they want to read a “good” book; in other words, they want quality. The price should indicate to the reader that they are getting that. It means that setting a low price isn’t always a good strategy.  But at the same time, readers will want someone else to tell them that your book is good, so the reviews have to justify the price. If you are only getting 3 star (or lower) reviews, then you can’t charge a premium price for your book because readers won’t believe they are getting “quality” because other readers are saying they aren’t. If you aren’t getting any reviews at all, then you are really in trouble. And if the reader is paying a higher price for the book thinking it is a quality product, then the content has to match the price. It goes without saying that the story has to be excellent. It also has to be well edited, free from typos and grammatical errors and the cover design has to be more than just the basic offerings chosen from the KDP menu. If they aren’t getting that interior quality, the chances of selling other books to the same reader are slim. There is a way of making money by setting a low price and that is to write a lot of books. There are readers who will accept a loss of quality (even in the storytelling) in return for a cheap read. Making 10p a copy on 5,000 book sales is more profitable than making £1 per copy on 100 sales. And you get the bonus of there probably being more reviews posted about the books.  But that is a decision that you have to make for yourself. But you don’t have to make it blind. If you have beta readers, one of the questions you can ask them is how much they would have been prepared to pay on Amazon to read the book if they’d had to purchase it. You will get a range of responses, but you can average them out to give you an indicative price. This blog, on the AuthorImprints website, also takes a look at how to price your books and offers some indicators. One thing seems clear, if you are just starting out, selling your book cheaply in order to generate reviews seems to be a recommended strategy. Once your books gain in popularity and gains positive reviews, you can always increase the price to improve your royalties.  Then there is the 99p (99c) “special”. KDP allows you to reduce the price of your book for up to 5 days, providing it is subscribed to KindleUnlimited. That can be used, in conjunction with advertising, to generate sales because people are more inclined to say “why not give it a try?” at that price.
This is especially good if you write a series of books. By heavily discounting the price of Book 1 of the series, people are more likely to by Book 2, 3 etc if they enjoy it. And you have nothing to lose, because if your book isn’t selling then reducing the price makes no difference because 100% of nothing is still nothing. And, finally, there is the “freebie”. I’m not talking about giving your life’s work away for free, just letting people have a taster of what they could get if they buy your life’s work. The freebie is usually a prequel or other introduction to the main series of books. Giving it away for free is a way of generating interest in the main series. But be warned: the freebie must be of at least the same quality as the full book, because even if people are getting it for free, they will still be judging you as an author and you can’t risk that judgement coming back negative. But if the reader likes your freebie, they may buy the book and give it a try. I can say from personal experience that I have bought books off the back of free ones. If you have enjoyed this blog or found it informative (hopefully both) and want to be sure not to miss the next edition, just sign up for our newsletter by clicking the button below. And we’ll even send you a free book for doing it.  In a recent blog I made a statement to the effect that there were only 7 basic plots for books. It appears that I was right. Experts think that there are seven basic plots for books. I would throw in an 8th, but I’ll get to that later. The idea was developed by someone called Christopher Booker, who carried out research across a wide selection of books and then published his results in a book (what else) entitled “The Seven Basic Plots: Why We tell Stories”, published in 2004. This was no passing fancy. It took him 34 years to write. Amongst his other credits is that he was one of the founders of Private Eye magazine. He has nothing to do with the Man-Booker Prize which is awarded for literature.  As well as the 7 basic plots, Booker came up with the idea of the meta plot, that is the basic structure which the majority of books follow. This breaks down into four distinct phases. Phase one is the call to action, in which the protagonist is drawn into the adventure to come. Some go willingly, like James Bond, while others, like both Bilbo and Frodo Baggins, go less willingly. Phase two is the frustration stage, where the protagonist struggles against the forces arrayed against him (or her) in order to resolve the problems he is faced with and win the day. During this stage they discover their weaknesses, which they must overcome and also, usually, unexpected strengths. In the nightmare phase all hope is lost and all seems to be doomed. The protagonist may come close to death and is certainly in despair, though quite how this works for plot type 5 (see below) I’m not sure. Finally, we reach the resolution stage, where the protagonist, against all odds, wins the day and earns the title of hero. Again I’m not so sure that this works for plot type 6 (also see below). It doesn’t matter how many other characters there are in the book, it is with the protagonist that the reader’s thoughts and emotions ride. If he or she doesn’t succeed, then the story doesn’t succeed. Even if the protagonist dies at the end, their death must be a sacrifice to gain their success. Do you recognise those four phases from the books you read or write? I must admit that I find it hard to think of any book that doesn’t conform to that pattern So, what are the 7 basic plots that Booker identified?  Plot 1. Overcoming the monster. This might be a real monster, such as the Minotaur favoured in Ancient Greek literature, or it may be a figurative one: Big Business, Corrupt Government, Rogue CIA agent, etc. A lot of Greek literature focuses on battling monsters, but it has stood the test of time. H G Wells used it in War Of The Worlds and Michael Crichton in Jurassic Park. The ‘monster’ is also present in stories such as George Orwell’s 1984 and the Jason Bourne and Jack Reacher books. Just because it doesn’t have horns or a tail it doesn’t prevent it being a monster. Plot type 1 is, of course, a staple of the horror story genre: Frankenstein, Dracula, Halloween, Friday The Thirteenth. However, I used it in my World War II series, Carter’s Commandos, where the monster is the Nazi regime in Germany.  Plot 2. Rags to riches. The most obvious (for me) examples are Dicken’s Great Expectations. Aladdin, The Prince And The Pauper etc. First of all the protagonist comes into great wealth before losing it all and then having their fortunes restored after they have learnt a significant lesson. There is usually a moral to the story, especially around hubris and not abandoning one's real self.  Plot 3. The quest. This is much loved by the writers of fantasy novels and I used it in my Sci-Fi series. With the search for the magic sword, or whatever, also comes personal growth. The protagonist never comes out of a quest unchanged in some way. Its origins are as distant as Homer’s Iliad and progress through history with A Pilgrim’s Progress, Lord Of The Rings, Watership Down, etc.  Plot 4. Voyage and Return. Similar, in some ways, to the quest, the protagonist must leave his home in order to achieve something and, again, returns changed in some way. One of oldest versions of this is Homer’s Odyssey, but perhaps the best known of these is the Lord Of The Rings prequel The Hobbit. Other examples include Gulliver’s Travels and The Wizard of Oz. It is the principal feature of this genre that the protagonist isn’t (necessarily) financially enriched by the journey, but is spiritually enriched.  Plot 5. Comedy. Is this really a plot in its own right, I wonder? Comedy can be inserted into almost any plot, even a tragedy if it’s handled correctly. That’s why we refer to “black comedies”. The protagonist is usually a light, cheerful character to whom life frequently hands the dirty end of the stick: a good person to whom bad things happen. However, they stumble along and emerge triumphant at the end, often through luck rather than judgement. Mr Bean or any Norman Wisdom film provides examples.  Plot 6. Tragedy. In Ancient Greek theatre this was the partner of comedy as the Greeks only did two types of theatre. Again, I would dispute this being a plot in its own right. Most stories can include a tragedy or two. The protagonist either has a major character flaw which they are unable to identify in themselves or they commit an act for personal gain which has unforeseen consequences and which spirals out of control. Either way it doesn’t end happily. There are many stories that fit this genre: King Lear, Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth, Bonnie and Clyde, Anna Karenina. This isn’t so popular in modern fiction and film as the public prefers a happy ending, so nowadays the inherent tragedy turns to success in the final chapter. While it was always normal for the protagonist to die at the end of a tragedy it is far more normal, now, for them to live. Not only will they live, they will also get the girl (or boy).  Plot 7. Rebirth. This is the plot for any story in which a villain or an unlikeable character ends up as the hero. It involves the protagonist going through an experience that changes them radically in some way, making them a “new” person. There can also be an element of this in some of the other plots, particularly 3 and 4. Here we find A Christmas Carol (not my alternative version), Beauty And The Beast and Despicable Me. Now we come to my additional plot, Plot 8: Romance. Boy meets girl, boy loses girl for some reason (OK, girl can also lose boy), boy and girl either struggle to get back together, or fight against the inevitable attraction, and finally get back together again at the end of the book (and, of course, there are LGBTQ+ equivalents). This is the territory of Mills and Boon and Barbara Cartland, but has been used by many other authors. In which other genre would Pride And Prejudice fit?  Now, here is the challenge. Can you think of any book that doesn’t fit into one of those 7 (or 8) categories? I have tried and I can’t think of any. If you are an author, have you ever written a book that doesn’t fit into any one of those categories? Would you ever try? An interesting thought is that we might each be living our lives in one of those ways. In other words there are only 8 life stories. That sounds a bit scary, as we all consider ourselves to be unique in some way. However, much as that idea both scares and appeals to me, I have no evidence to back it up so I’ll leave it there. What is of considerable interest to me is this idea of change. The majority of the plot lines described require some form of change to be undergone, in order for there to be a happy ending. This is where the story and real life part company. As a species we aren’t good at changing. If we were we wouldn’t keep repeating the mistakes of the past that lead us into all sorts of messes, up to and including war.  This is where the author often views life through rose tinted spectacles. Their protagonist always undergoes the change, however reluctantly, whatever it is and grows with the experience. In real life this so rarely happens. I’m not saying that it doesn’t happen, because some people really do undergo change, though not always for the better. But for most of us life goes on the same day after day as we curse our bad luck rather than changing our behaviour as a result of experience. So, if there are only 7 (or 8) basic plots for books, why do we keep buying books? After all, once we have read one book from each plot type we have read them all, haven’t we? Well, this is where the skill of the author comes in. He or she makes us believe that their story is both unique and original. "It is the author that makes the difference." Firstly, they will mix and match the plot types to give variation to them. As I suggest above, a quest can also be a journey, and frequently is. Sling in a romance and a bit of personal growth and you tick the boxes of another two types. However, that still limits the number of stories available (Just over 40,000 by my calculation). Yet literally millions of books have been written. It is the author that makes the difference. The skilful author makes you believe, through his or her mix of character and plot, that their story is unique. All the great authors have done this. It is called “finding one’s voice”, in other words saying something different. It is hard to say which authors will find their voice and which will never be heard, because this is down to the reader to judge. But what is clear is that if the reader wishes to find a new voice to listen to they won’t find it by reading what everyone else is reading. A new voice can only come from a new author. If you have enjoyed this blog or found it informative, why not be sure not to miss future editions. Just sign up for our newsletter - and you can get a FREE ebook as well. Just click the button.  In last week’s blog I featured questions that should never be asked of an author. I received some comments that I was being a trifle sarcastic, harsh even, as people were simply being curious. So, to restore some balance, here are some questions, with my answers, that I don’t mind being asked. I must stress that these are my opinions and other authors may answer these questions differently. When it comes to writing, there are few hard and fast rules, there is only what works for the writer.  1. What is the major challenge for you as an author? Coming up with a fresh approach to a story. Since Homer wrote the Odyssey just about every story there is to tell has been told many times over, so for the modern author there is little they can do except find a new way to tell an old story. There are really only 7 plots for stories, and even then there are similarities and cross overs, so each author has to take one of those seven plots and find a new angle. Perhaps the best modern example is the Harry Potter books by J K Rowling. Stories about wizards are nothing new (Merlin, Gandalf), neither are stories of boarding schools (Billy Bunter, Mallory Towers), but a story about a boarding school for wizards, that was something new. 2. How do you work out your plots? The truth is that I don’t really know. I have an idea for a story and then I start to write. What happens is often as much of a surprise for me as it is, I hope, for the reader. Of course, I have a general idea of where the book is going to end up, but not much of an idea of how it will get there. My Magi sci-fi series is essentially a quest. But quests that go straight from A to B aren’t very interesting. Imagine if Frodo Baggins and Sam Gamgee had gone straight from the Shire to Mount Doom, it would have been a pretty dull story and you would never have heard of J R R Tolkein. So they have many adventures along the way and meet many other characters. The same applies in my Magi series. Each of the nine books is a story in its own right before An Kohli, my protagonist, can complete her quest. If she didn’t it wouldn’t be a series of books, it would be just one very short book. Sometimes I will create a situation and not know why. I don’t worry about it at the time, because I can always edit it out if I don’t need it or it doesn’t work, but I often surprise myself there as well. In “The Warriors: The Girl I Left Behind Me” I introduced a character called Sergeant Major Smith, whose negligence leads to the death of a soldier on a rifle range. I didn’t know why I had done it, but it worked as far as it went. Later in the book, however, I wanted to set up another tragedy and found that I had unwittingly created the character who would enable the tragedy to come about. So, my plots often surprise me as much as they surprise everyone else.  3. How do you create your characters? It’s a bit like building a house. I start with the foundations and work my way up to the roof, before decorating and laying the carpets. The first thing I decide is what sort of a character they are. I don’t like wholly good or wholly bad characters, so I tend to think of them in shades of grey. In The Magi I created a character called Den Gau. He is a bit of a coward, but when the chips are down he surprises himself and everyone else by stepping up to the mark. These are the sorts of characters I find interesting and I hope readers do as well. Next I usually write down a physical description: gender, height, build, hair colour, physical appearance, style of dress etc. That gives me a framework on which to hang everything else. In writing sci-fi this can be fun, because I can let my imagination run wild. Then I need to understand what motivates the character. One of the things I dislike about much modern fiction is that the antagonist, the baddy, is usually such a one dimensional figure in terms of their motivation. We are supposed to believe that they are bad just because we are told that they are bad. I don’t believe that people are born bad, so I have to understand what made them that way. To portray all bankers as being greedy, for example, is as shallow as a puddle in the summertime, so I need to know what made my greedy banker so greedy. After that I will start to layer on some character traits, kindness or cruelty, bravery or cowardice, pride or humility. As with motivation, it isn’t one size fits all. These are polar opposites on discrete axes and most people sit somewhere in between, so it is up to me where along these axes each character sits. For my character of An Kohli I have given her a very strong code of ethics, but if she stuck rigidly to them I wouldn’t be able to make some of the plot work, so I have to let her bend her own rules from time to time. But how far can I let her do that before she fails to be believable as an ethical character? Not everything I have described will make it onto the page, but I have to understand it all if I’m to create believable characters and this is especially true if they are recurring characters in a series of books, because readers who follow the series will expect the characters to remain consistent in their behaviour. We would never accept it of James Bond, for example, if he suddenly started to take bribes to walk away.  4. Are there any fiction genres you won’t attempt to write? The sorts of books I enjoy writing are the same as I enjoy reading. I’m very much action adventure oriented, so that is what I write. I may locate my stories in outer space, but they are still essentially action adventures. I won’t, therefore, try to write romantic fiction. There is nothing wrong with it as a genre, but I don’t read it and I don’t think I would be good at writing it. The same applies to erotica. Most erotica is actually pretty boring and I’m not sure why it sells so well. For me it sits in the same zone as voyeurism, but without the risk of being arrested for being a peeping tom. I wouldn’t write a western for the simple reason that there is a lot of specialist knowledge required to write it well. Most western fans know their subject inside out and they will spot a faker at a hundred paces. I am a lover of historical fiction but the demands of research for that are considerable. I discovered this when I set out to write a biography of my father’s war service. However, once I had done the research for that, I found I had enough material for a whole series of books set during World War II.  5. How do you go about editing your books? Any mother will tell you that there is no such thing as an ugly baby and writers feel much the same about their books. To go back and try to judge a book for oneself after taking between 3 to 6 months to write it is very difficult, but it must be done. Any author who is struggling to find a publisher is probably struggling because they haven’t been critical enough in their editing. I start with the simple things: typos, spelling, punctuation and grammar. I won’t get everything right even then. You can spot a self-published book from a hundred miles because it will be littered with simple errors that the author failed to spot. The next step is to take each scene of the book and try to assess whether it really works. This is the difficult part, because self-criticism is so hard. Some authors go the other way and slash and burn their manuscripts, practically destroying the book and having to go back and pretty much re-write the whole story. To avoid this, I do an initial critical edit of each chapter after I complete it, so I’m not wasting lots of time. There are two critical elements I try to eradicate. The first is “show vs tell”. Think of this as the difference between watching a football match live and listening to a match summary from Chris Kamara. In “show” the author paints a picture of what is happening within the story, so that the reader can visualise it. But with “tell” the author is merely presenting a report of what happened. It is the most common criticism levelled against first time authors and again, self-published authors suffer the most from the affliction. "it is essential to get an independent person to read the book " My final edit is always of dialogue. I try to write conversations the way people actually speak, because that is going to be the most authentic, so it is important to play those conversations back in my head, to make sure I have achieved that goal. I sometimes find that I have gone off on long lectures, which isn’t something that is allowed to happen in real life because the listener usually interrupts or falls asleep. There is an exception to that. My Carter’s Commando novels often feature military briefings and these provide a way of providing a lot of background material behind the historical context of the story I am telling. However, real life briefings rarely contain so much detail. They focus more on what is going to happen, rather than what has gone before. After that the manuscript goes off to my publisher for more editing. That is much more revealing as it is a fresh pair of eyes that is interpreting what has been written. So, if someone can’t take criticism, it’s best for them not to become a writer. If you want to self-publish then it is essential to get an independent person (or better still – people) to read the book and provide honest feedback before publication. Friends and family aren’t a good choice, because they want to be kind, which is no help at all.  6. What do you think about bad reviews? If you can’t take criticism, then it’s best not to read reviews because they aren’t all going to be good. And our friends the internet trolls aren’t above leaving terrible reviews for books they have never read. Not everyone will enjoy a book and if someone doesn’t enjoy it then their opinion is as valid as those that did enjoy it. Some bad reviews can be very helpful. If several people are saying the same thing it is worth paying attention and trying to fix the problem. The worst reviews are those that don’t tell the author anything. Saying “I hated this book” isn’t helpful, but saying “I hated this book because….” can be. If you are a reader and you enjoy a book, please do submit a review. Sharing your pleasure helps the author. It doesn’t have to be fancy; a simple “I enjoyed this book” is as good as a 500 word essay. If you enjoy the food at a particular restaurant you tell your friends, don’t you? So why not tell your friends about books you have enjoyed?  7. What advice would you give someone who wants to become an author? Don’t do it for the money. You are likely to end up poor. Hundreds of thousands of footballers play in the amateur leagues, but only a couple of hundred footballers get paid thousands of pounds a week to play in the Premier League. The same applies to authors. About 99% of authors, even those published by the big publishing houses, earn less than the national average wage. Each year a couple of new names hit the big time, but they are a tiny fraction of the total number of people who write books. So if you love writing by all means become a writer, but do it for the love of it. Anything else is a bonus. Secondly, don’t assume that because people say nice things about your books it means you are a good writer. Friends and family don’t want to hurt your feelings, so they say nice things. The only real way to find out if you are talented is to get your books read by strangers. They will tell you the truth, and sometimes the truth hurts.  There are a lot of sharks in the publishing world trying to make money off the backs of authors, so:
(1) Don’t pay publishers to publish you; they are supposed to pay you from your sales. (2) Don’t pay people to publicise your book. If your publisher isn’t doing that for you, what is he (or she) doing to earn their share of the income? Especially don’t pay those people who just Tweet your book title. They don’t produce sales. (3) There are some things worth paying for: (a) a professional critique of your work and (b) a good cover design, but look for references before committing yourself. Finally, just because your books don’t sell it doesn’t mean that your books aren’t good. Publishing is a very crowded marketplace, well over a million new books are published every year. It takes a lot to get noticed and some people never will be, no matter how good their books are. So, once again, do it for the love of it. If you have enjoyed this blog, ot found it informative, be sure not to miss any future posts by signing up for our newsletter. you can even get a FREE ebook just for doing it. Click the button below to find out how.  I have to thank Hannah Heath and Sue Falagade Lick whose blogs I have pillaged to find some of these questions, but they served only to remind me that I, too, have been asked them. I have added a few of my own and, of course, the answers are all mine. Q1. Are you still writing? There are many ways of answering this, most of which will be sarcastic. If I say I am a writer, or an author, then the answer will remain “yes” until I tell you that I am no longer a writer or an author. Q2. Is your new book out yet? My new book is always out, until I have a new new book, then the old new book becomes the previous book.  Q3. Where do you get your ideas? I find them in my breakfast cereal (sarcasm). Story ideas are all around us, all the time. What a writer has to do is pay attention to the world and find a way of turning the mundane into something interesting. Q4. Do you ever want to go shopping/to the beach/out to breakfast/(insert other distractions)? No. I’m too busy writing. Unless you want a game of golf. Q5. How about tomorrow? Still busy writing (unless you want to play golf). I’ll have time for diversions when I’m no longer a writer (or golfer).  Q6. What do you do all day? Oh please! Q7. Would you collaborate with me on this idea I have for a book? Do you mean “Give up the work I know I can earn money from to work for you speculatively for free for 6 months and then give you half the royalties on whatever comes out the other end”? I think I’ll pass. Pay me and I’ll think about it. Q8. How much money do you earn from writing? How much money do you make from what you do? You show me your bank statement and I’ll show you mine. But here’s a clue: I drive a 6 year old Hyundai and when I go on holiday I fly on budget airlines. 99% of all authors are like me (only the model of car varies). Q9. Can I get a free copy of your book? Yes, if you ask your local library to buy a copy and put it on their shelves, then you can borrow it for free. I do this for a living, not as charitable work. But I’ll sign your copy for free if you buy one. Q10. So, like, you're going to be the next Lee Child? I would like to say yes because he is a good writer, but the truth is I’m going to be me. I may be influenced by other authors, but the presentation will always be mine. Q11. You write sci-fi? Why don't you write something real? Sci Fi is just the vehicle I use to tell my stories. It allows the reader to see issues from another perspective. Imagine if you were an alien and arrived on Earth, what would you make of some of the things we do to each other and to our planet? What would you think of the way we might treat you? By the way, I don’t just write sci-fi. I have also written a fantasy, a political thriller, three action adventures, a 7 book series set during World War II and a parody of a Charles Dickens book.  Q12. How do you fill your time? (This answer may be accompanied by physical violence, so please stand well back) I sit painting my nails. What do you think I do all day? Have you ever tried to write a thousand words that are interesting to read and which keep the reader sufficiently engaged so as to want to read the next thousand? Q13. So which character is you? It’s the hero, isn’t it. It’s a thinly disguised autobiography, isn’t it? No it isn’t. That’s not how it works. Each major character is made up of a set of character traits that allows them to function within the environment that I create for them. If they are good it is because I make them good and if they are bad it is because I make them bad. Q14. So which character is me? The one that dies horribly in Chapter 1. Sorry, did I say that out loud? Please refer to Q13. I may borrow some character traits from people I know, but none of the characters are wholly one person or another. If I do base characters on real people’s character traits then they are usually mixed and matched to suit the story.  Q15. Writers are really weird. You know most of them go crazy? That's not strictly a questions but I'll answer it anyway. There is no such things as normal, so there is also no such thing as weird, other than in the purely subjective sense. As for going crazy, it’s only by writing that I actually stay sane. Sorry, does me holding this knife make you feel nervous? Q16. How do you go about writing a story? I have an idea, I sit in front of my PC and I start to write. It’s easy. I may change the idea as I go along, or I may stick with it. I may scrap the whole thing and go back to square one. There are no rules. It’s one of the reasons I enjoy writing. Q17. Can anyone be a writer? Yes, but if you are asking these sorts of questions, it probably means you aren’t cut out for it. Q18. Do you ever suffer from writer’s block? Writer’s block affects many writers at some time, but there are ways of dealing with it. My own way is to take some time off writing and return to it refreshed, or when some new idea drives me back to the keyboard. There are also numerous other tricks that can be used, such as using “writing prompts” to get the words flowing, then diverting the flow back towards my work in progress. Q19. Would I like your books? (Variations include “would your books appeal to me?”) I don’t know. Why don’t you buy one and find out? It will cost you less than the price of two pints of beer and will keep you occupied for much, much longer. Q20. Would I have read anything by you? I don’t know. Look at the covers of your books; if my name is on any of them then, yes, you have read something by me. Q21. Will you put me in one of your books? Yes. Then I’ll kill you in the most horrible manner I can think of, then I’ll resurrect you so that I can kill you again.  Q21. How do you come up with the names for your characters.
Telephone directories. Except in my sci-fi novels. There the character names are created from a sort of Scrabble approach. Q22. When will you give up writing? When I’m dead or when I run out of ideas for stories, whichever is the sooner. If you have enjoyed this blog, or found it informative, be sure not to miss future editions by signing up to our newsletter. You will even get a FREE ebook just for signing. Click the button below. |
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