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A few weeks ago I was told an absolutely incredible story. One of those stories that makes you immediately want to go out and tell it to everyone you know.

Which, over the next few days, I did!

The Story

The person who told me this incredible story heard it from her friend, who had in turn heard it from someone. A couple were engaged to be married in the summer, in the wonderful Alnwick Castle in Northumberland, England. (For those of you who don’t know, Alnwick Castle is Hogwarts). They had picked the date, everything was booked, and they couldn’t wait to be married.

One day, the couple received a phone call from Alnick Castle, asking them whether they wouldn’t mind changing the date, as there was someone else who wanted to hire the castle on the same day. The couple, understandably, refused. Invitations had already been sent out, everything was already organised for that date. Changing now would mean a lot of upheaval and stress, not something you want on the run up to your wedding.

The next day, Alnick Castle called again. They offered to pay for the couple’s wedding reception if they agreed to change dates. A generous offer, sure, but again the couple refused.

Another day passed, and another phone call came. This time, the couple were offered their whole honeymoon payed for, on top of the original offer of the reception. The couple were incredibly flattered, of course, but again they refused, a little more hesitantly this time.

There was yet another phone call. Alnick Castle explained that the other people were adamant to have Alnwick Castle on the date in question, and so they made a final offer to persuade the couple to change the date.

They offered to pay off their mortgage.

You guessed it, the couple finally gave in. Wouldn’t you?!

The Explanation

Who would be willing to pay for all of this, just to get a specific date?

Yes, the Beckhams, that’s who. David and Victoria wanted to throw a Harry Potter-themed party for their children at Hogwarts Alnwick Castle, and they had to have that date. And when you’re the Beckhams, you can pay other people’s mortgages to get the date you want.

The Kicker

Sorry to disappoint you all, but the story is completely false.

As amazed and excited as I was when I first heard the story, and believed it, I was disappointed but also intrigued by it when I discovered that it wasn’t true. After all, it’s so unbelievable, why had I been so quick to accept that the story was true? I got really excited about telling others the story, relished in their reactions of disbelief, and watched as they, like me, got excited about it and spread the story to others.

The Lesson

What I think we can take from this story, and why I wanted to write about it here, is that I think writers can learn a lot from this tale. It is an almost perfect example of a well-crafted tale, and my hat goes off to whoever originated this story that has spread so much and caught people’s imaginations. The incredible nature of what happens in the story, of celebrity excess and wealth, and of the dream situation of having your wedding reception, honeymoon and mortgage paid for, make the story relatable, exciting and shareable.

“Fiction is the truth inside a lie.” – Stephen King

This wonderful quote from King neatly sums up why this story is so well written. It is a fictional tale, created upon a total lie, but it is so well-crafted and well-realised that it is a story that completely takes us away, it makes us want it to be true, and it makes us want to tell other people.

So, the lesson?

If you want to write really great stories, you better get really good at lying. Learn to lie so well that your lies become true.

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Did you hear this story? Are they any other incredible stories which you have heard that turned out to be made up? Please share your thoughts in the comments below!

Images courtesy of Wikipedia and TopNews.in.

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With the phenomenal success of The Artist, a modern day silent film set in the late 1920s, it seemed only right that silent cinema begins to be rediscovered by the contemporary creative community. I’m a firm believer in applying film theories or techniques to writing, and it seemed an ideal time to examine five principles of silent cinema that can enrich the work of a writer.

Why would I do that? I know some might say that film and literature are separate disciplines and naturally have different requirements (for example, an establishing shot is essentially in film, but if a writer takes too long to ’set the scene’, it can make for very dull reading) but I’d argue that writers can still learn new things from different sources. Writers shouldn’t fall into the trap of assuming that only studying writing can help their work. I’m not saying that you should cut all dialogue from your work, but let’s have a look at the bigger picture…

Show, Don’t Tell

This is probably the king of all silent cinema techniques that the writer should use, and is arguably advice you’ve heard before. Without dialogue, the actors have to display every emotion either on their face, or through their body language. It is indeed true that a picture tells a thousand words, and we don’t need reams of exposition when faced with a faltering smile or a pouting femme fatale with her arms tightly folded across her chest. Show us what’s going on with your characters, let their facial expressions and body language do the talking. We’re aware of it all the time in real life, so why not try it in your writing?

No Info Dumps!

It’s an attractive tendency of fiction to allow your characters to dole out back story through so-called ‘info dumps’, usually within lengthy passages of dialogue. The brevity of the silent film cue card doesn’t allow for masses of text, so key visuals are chosen instead to fill in the back story. Just as film fans were trusted to be able to understand the implications of specific shots, trust your readers to pick up on the small details and fill in the rest themselves. For example, you don’t need to waste paragraphs describing a character’s reliance on alcohol – just show them putting yet another empty bottle into a crate full of other empty bottles.

Do You Really Need Back Story?

If you’ve seen The Artist, you’ll realise that neither George Valentin nor Peppy Miller have in depth backstories. George is a successful silent film star and Peppy is a girl who comes to Hollywood looking for fame. We never learn much more than that, but nor do we need to. The performances and actions of both characters make it easy to like them and root for them, without time needing to be taken to explain how past events have coloured or shaped their present decision-making. I know writers are counselled to know the entire biographies of their characters but you don’t have to communicate that to the reader – just pertinent details so we understand why they’re doing what they’re doing.

Be Inventive

In 1926, Alfred Hitchcock directed Ivor Novello in The Lodger, a gripping thriller about a serial killer loose in London. One notable scene has Novello pacing back and forth in his room while the family with whom he is lodging listen in the room below. How on earth do you communicate the sound of someone pacing if you can’t hear it? You do what Hitchcock did and film Novello pacing on sheet glass, then superimpose it over the ceiling so it looks as though we can see through the ceiling to the room above.

It is this inventive spirit that marks the silent filmmakers as true pioneers, and also a good source of inspiration for writers. Think about what you’re trying to communicate, and how you’re going to communicate it, and ask yourself… is there a more inventive way of doing so?

Check Your Pacing

Without dialogue to puncture the silence, early films couldn’t rely on lengthy speeches or conversations to pass the time. Films had to be short due to the technical capabilities of the equipment, but few viewers would sit through a film rife with pacing problems. D W Griffith’s Birth of a Nation ran at just over three hours long, but his tendency to focus on imagery for imagery’s sake left the film feeling tedious and self-indulgent. Writers can fall into the same trap, either by rattling off reams of purple prose, or by getting bogged down in dialogue and “witty” exchanges that soon become staid. A balance between the two should always be sought, and always ensure that your pacing remains even – try passing your work to a trusted reader, and if they find some passages too fast or slow, then double check to the balance between dialogue and prose.

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Do you find that cinema principles can help enrich your writing? Please share your thoughts and comments below!

Images courtesy of Awards Daily and The Hitchcock Project.

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If you’ve ever read anything about writing, chances are that at some stage you’ll have encountered the maxim that you should ‘write what you know’. It’s at this point that some writers will throw up their hands and declare that nothing interesting ever happens to them, so what can they possibly write about? It can also lead you into dangerous territory if you decide to turn real events into fiction – if you don’t disguise your characters well enough, it can land you in hot water with the real life protagonists if they don’t come out of the fiction in a positive light. So how on earth can you navigate this treacherous terrain and write about what you know without upsetting, or boring, anyone?

I’ll let you into a secret.

Writing what you know is not as black-and-white as it first appears. If you’re a receptionist in a busy office, you don’t have to write about the drudgery of admin. If you’re a mechanic, you don’t need to set all of your stories in a garage. What you can do is transpose situations in which you find yourself into fictional settings, regardless of genre!

Take those characters and situations and put them in a different context. Use events from your life as the basis of events for your characters. We’ve all been to weddings and office functions, and we’ve all had a first day at school or in a new job – those are experiences you know but, more importantly, they’re experiences a reader can relate to.

Deeper Implications of ‘Write What You Know’

Don’t take it so literally – I’m pretty sure Tolkien didn’t have to go to Middle Earth, and JK Rowling never went to Hogwarts! The fundamental fact is that what you know is humanity, and how the world works, and human nature is fundamentally the same. While we all have different drives, desire, fears and goals, we have the same basic needs. The setting is just window dressing – as in the first two points, the characters need to be believable, even if they aren’t based in our reality.

Put Everyday People into Unusual Situations

Maybe you see the same people on your daily commute, and you’ve invented back stories for them. You could write a story about bored commuters, with the themes of apathy and ennui in the modern city, but that’s too obvious. Think sideways – those characters could be downtrodden victims of an oppressive state in a post-apocalyptic dystopian tale, or maybe they’re robotic workers in a science fiction adventure.

Maybe you went to a wedding recently, but you don’t want to write about an average twenty-first century wedding. That wedding might have taken place in the sixteenth century, or perhaps it took place in a fantasy setting, attended by warriors and elven priests.

Use Yourself as Your Protagonist

One of the stumbling blocks a lot of new writers face is that of characterisation. Lead characters can appear as composites of well-known characters, or they appear as ‘Mary Sue’ characters, those figures that are too good to be true. A good example of a Mary Sue character would be Twilight’s Bella – instantly popular at a new school, inexplicably attractive to all males and possessed of a special ability that grants her immunity from vampire powers. That makes for a dull character.

However, if you use yourself as a basis, you can include character flaws you might not admit to in real life, and you can base your character’s reactions to an event on how you would react in the same position. The character will be more believable because it’s based on a real person – you.

Use a Hobby to Inform Your Writing

If you’re an amateur artist, or you have a passion for 1940s social history, then use them to inform your writing. Lawyers tend to write legal thrillers and medical professionals are more likely to write scientific dramas than chick lit but it doesn’t have to stop at your profession. Interesting or unusual hobbies can be a goldmine of ideas, and if it’s something you know well, then yes, you are writing what you know. If you give your character the same unusual hobby, they’re more likely to stick in a reader’s mind than a character who likes watching TV or chatting over dinner.

Location. Location. Location.

It’s true that a lot of fiction is set in major or famous locations – consider the number of books set in LA, New York, London or even Paris. Even if you’ve never been, you probably know enough from movies to be able to write something set in a generic New York neighbourhood, or involving London’s West End.

How boring.

Why not use an area you know well instead? Perhaps you were raised in a small village, or you currently live in a quirky, bohemian neighbourhood. You can change the names if you want and turn the location into something more inventive, or maybe you want to make the place famous. Other people who live in or know the area will read your story due to the local interest, and those unfamiliar with the place will get a good feel for it – and may even want to visit. Even if you hate the place and expose it warts and all, you’re still writing what you know – which means writing with conviction.

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What about you? What do you understand by the phrase ‘write what you know’, and do you do so yourself? Please share your thoughts in the comments below!

Images courtesy of Matthias Rhomberg and WriteByNight.net.

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God is in the details, or so they say. The more I read, the more I find this to be especially true in writing. If you want to write a convincing, engaging story that lives and breathes, then make the details count. They may only be little things, but they make a huge difference.

Writing = Telepathy

“Look – here’s a table covered with a red cloth. On it is a cage the size of a small fish aquarium. In the cage is a white rabbit with a pink nose and pink-rimmed eyes. In its front paws is a carrot-stub on which it is contentedly munching. On its back, clearly marked in blue ink, is the numeral 8.”

The above passage is from Stephen King’s On Writing, where he describes writing as telepathy. And, y’know, I think I agree with him. Okay, what you see in your mind when you read that passage won’t be e-x-a-c-t-l-y the same as what King sees, or what I see, but you certainly see the table, red cloth, cage, rabbit and especially that number 8. He sent them to you, and you saw them. The specific details, such as any lace or otherwise on the cloth, or the exact dimensions of the cage, are irrelevant. You got the key things. And that one detail that stands out, bold and true, is that strange number 8. When you read that sentence, you can’t not see the blue 8.

Take one strong, bold detail, and put it into your writing, and you will be in no doubt that the telepathy between you and your reader will work.

Too Much?

Putting a few key details like this in your writing is much better than trying to cram in as much as possible. I’m thinking particularly about description here. It is far to easy to think that you must fill your world with every single little piece of description and detail, but it can get tedious, pointless and boring very quick, and will turn your reader away. Particularly in our digital world today, where you really are vying for attention with lots of other distractions and attractions. Back in the Victorian era, writers like Dickens did fill his writing with pages of description. But, a) he was writing at a different time, and b) he was a bit of a genius.

Another exception I would put here, and a great example of clever (over)use of detail, would be Bret Easton Ellis in his book American Psycho. The protagonist Patrick Bateman describes every little detail he sees – particularly of clothes, grooming products and business cards, and while it grates on some readers, I think they actually bring the novel to life as they are part of the very essence of the story, focused as it is on a vacuous, appearance-obsessed world.

Ground The Words

Sometimes, you might have a character talking for quite a long time. This in itself isn’t necessarily a bad thing – they might be telling a story to another character, perhaps. Also, it is often far better to reveal the story through dialogue, following the old adage of “show, don’t tell”. The problem, however, with having a character talking a lot is that the reader may begin to lose sense of actually where the character is, and where the story is taking place. Obviously, you don’t want this – but a single piece of detail, of an action, can make all the difference.

Take George R.R. Martin’s epic and brilliant A Song of Ice and Fire. I’m currently reading the third book in the series, A Storm of Swords, where at one point a character is telling an old folk tale to her group of travellers as they walk through the mountains of the North. There is obviously a lot of dialogue here, but read her response to a question below to see what Martin does:

“She was,” said Meera, hopping over a stone, “but there were others fairer still. One was the wife of the dragon prince, who’d brought a dozen lady companions to attend her. The knights all begged them for favors to tie about their lances.”

By dropping in this simple action amidst the dialogue, Martin grounds his character’s words in the scene, retaining the sense of place for the reader as Meera tells her story.

The Senses

The best way to make sure you focus on the details in your story, to bring the world and your characters to life, is to write with the 5 senses – Taste, Touch, Sound, Sight and Smell – in mind. As a follow-up from this article, I am going to write a series of five posts looking at each of the senses in turn, discussing how you can use them in your own stories to make them come alive. Look out for them over the coming weeks!

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I hope this article has helped you look at the details of your own story. Please share your thoughts, and perhaps some of your favourite examples of clever detail in stories, in the comments section below!

Images courtesy of Trey Ratcliff and Guiri Reyes.

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Merry Christmas to all of our readers! We hope you had a great holiday, but if you’ve struggled to fit in your writing, Icy Sedgwick has some tips on getting back into the routine.

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No matter how good your intentions, sticking to a well-honed writing routine over Christmas is virtually impossible. Putting aside all of the time commitments involved in buying and wrapping presents, visiting friends and family, and preparing all that food, even if you do manage to sneak in some writing time, you’ll no doubt be met with cries of “Oh you’re not writing, are you? But it’s Christmas.”

Writers are lucky in that their chosen line of work is not only fun, it also offers a high degree of escapism, but sadly, many non-writers still think we’re chained to our laptops.

Of course, the problem you face after any interruption to a routine is finding a way back into it. Christmas offers a particularly large interruption due to the length of time it seems to last, and the fact that you’ll be trying to get back into other routines, not just those involving writing. Still, it must be done, so here are five suggestions of things you can do to get back into the swing of things!

Write ANYTHING for Ten Minutes

Yes, this one is fairly self-explanatory. Choose anything as a prompt, or just simply write about what you got for Christmas. It doesn’t matter what you’re writing, just make sure it’s constant for ten minutes. Don’t worry about what you’re writing, just write without pauses. Use a timer, or a website like Write or Die to keep you on track. It’s amazing how much simply writing to get the words out will get you back into the habit of writing.

Use a Current Project As a Prompt

If you’re in the middle of a longer project, try writing a flash or short story about a character other than the protagonist. If you don’t have something on the go, write about a character from a story you’ve already finished.

Use Movies to Inspire You

Chances are, you may have watched some great movies over the Christmas period. Write a missing scene, prologue or ending from a movie of your choice. Prose is fine, though if you want to write it in screenplay format that could keep you on your toes! It’s always beneficial to try writing in a different form to the one you’re used to.

Revisit Old Ideas

If you keep a notebook (and you should), flick through and browse those ideas you’ve jotted down in the past years. If none of them strike you as being good fodder for a flash, short story or even a novel, then choose a sentence at random and those that as a prompt for a story, poem or even a blog post.

Let the World Inspire You

Re-read something you’ve actually finished. Remember why you wrote it, and how much you enjoyed finishing it. Go for a walk and let your brain absorb everything around you – you might even do this just before you go out to check out the sales. Get back to your writing area feeling refreshed and ready to write!

Make sure you make a concerted effort to get back into your writing routine, but don’t push yourself too hard or your brain will rebel against you. Try one (or all, if you’re feeling brave) of these suggestions and see how it goes. 2012 is almost upon us and it would be a good way to establish a routine for the coming year if you got back into one now!

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How are you planning to start your 2012 writing with a bang? Please share you thoughts in the comments section below!

Image courtesy of Tamara Polajnar.

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In the spirit of Christmas, Robert Smedley looks at the ghosts of Past, Present and Future, who haunt all writers just like they did poor Ebenezer Scrooge.

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Traditionally, Christmas is the time of year for a good ghost story. Perhaps the most famous and enduring one is ‘A Christmas Carol’ by Charles Dickens. In this novel, old miser Ebenezer Scrooge had his spirits three, Past, Present, and Future, but so do writers. Three ‘ghosts’ of equal importance that you must know if you’re to be a better writer. Just think of me as your Jacob Marley, telling you that if you have any inclination to be a writer of any sort, these are the three things that will haunt you most…

The Ghost of Writing Past

Everything you’ve written, good and bad; all the words that have dried on the page; all the mistakes and triumphs, and all the lessons you’ve learned: The Ghost of Writing Past is completely of your creation and it is entirely unique. In other words, it is Experience. It’s an ally who will only become more and more important as you continue your writing career, so you need to understand it, otherwise it will become a detriment to you rather than a boon.

What does that involve? Well it can be easy to focus too much on one aspect of your experience, and that can lead you down the wrong path. Focus on your mistakes and rejections and you’ll rapidly drown in your own pity and talk yourself out of being a writer. Concentrate on your successes and you’ll become an insufferable big-head who overestimates their talent.

Both are damaging, so the trick is to use the see-saw principle: for every thing you think you’re bad at, think of one thing you’re good at. So the publisher you sent your manuscript to rejected you? At least you were proactive enough to send your manuscript to them in the first place. You’re not great at writing action? Maybe you’re good at writing dialogue. It’ll also help you identify your weaker areas, which you can work on when the second phantasm approaches…

The Ghost of Writing Present

This ghost represents everything you’re working on right now, and the importance of continually writing and trying to improve. In other words, the Ghost of Writing Present is the avatar of Dedication. And dedication is difficult. There are a thousand important things that can pull your from your course; family, work, friends, the dog needing its ear medicine, and a million unimportant things that’ll also challenge your best attention. But dedication can’t be faked, and if you’re serious about writing, whether as a therapeutic past time or a planned career, you’ll find a way – really, you will – to fit some writing time into your day, even if it’s just ten minutes.

Ten minutes can be great. Ten minutes can be the ‘hole in one’ swing. In ten minutes you can write down that perfect sentence or dream up that twisty plot device. Never underestimate the good you can do in ten minutes. If your dedication affords you more time than that, then fantastic – make sure to use it wisely.

You don’t have to use the time to write either, so long as you use it for something that will help with your writing; get together with another writer to sound off ideas and critique each other, go to a book/poetry reading, read a good article on writing. Just do something to get you enthused about writing and get the words from brain to page. Don’t bother making a writing timetable or anything that plans your writing further than a day ahead because I guarantee that within two weeks something will have come along to upset the precision of your plan. Seize whatever time you can, and think of what you can do in the moment you have to spare, because you never know what the Future will bring…

The Ghost of Writing Future

Perhaps the most frightening spectre of all, because it asks of you all the questions you’re probably avoiding answering, including:

• Why are you writing?
• Where you want to be in a year? Five years?
• Where do you want your work to be?

Be brave enough to face the Spirit of the Future, answer those questions honestly and realistically, and you’ll be able to make a plan to become a better writer. The best way to do this is to actually write your goals down on a piece of paper, then stick that piece of paper somewhere you can see it, if not all the time then at least from time to time. Above your writing space, on the fridge, on a t-shirt your significant other can wear… whatever, just put it in eyesight. If you’re just writing for fun and have no plan, then that’s fine and the Ghost of Writing Future holds no fear over you. But if you’re serious about getting published, then write that goal down, and follow it with the ways you can set about achieving it. Planning is the only way to chase the scary spook of the future away, and with a clear destination in your head you’ll have something extra to fuel your writing.

So now you know these spirits better, and that they weren’t so mysterious all along. Experience, Dedication, Planning. That’s all they are. I trust you to have the talent already. You’ll be haunted by these spirits from time to time, but don’t fear it when you are – worrying about those three things is a sign that you’re a passionate and dedicated writer. If you weren’t then you wouldn’t pay them the slightest attention. So embrace them, deal with them, and use them to become better.

And above all, have a very Merry Christmas!

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Have you recognised these ghosts haunting your writing? How have you dealt with them? Please share your thoughts in the comments below.

Images courtesy of the author.

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With just two days to go in NaNoWriMo 2011, JD and Jenn share their thoughts on the experience, before getting their heads down for the finish line.

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JD Sees the Finish Line on the Horizon

Hello there! It is the final stretch and we will soon reach the finish. So start finalizing your stories and make haste if you’re a bit behind! For now never give up on yourself because if you do you’re just going to be outpaced in the race. Keep your fingers moving for the final days of the NaNoWriMo competition!

I have been wondering how I should end or if the beginning is too sweet and simple so this has been a very long stretch of confusion and fright among what my story will be like to others. As this is my first year of NaNoWriMo I’m hoping nothing will go wrong, but something may anyway. But you just have to go with it. My computer could explode for all I know so have a great time and don’t lose sight of your goal!

Jenn Sees a New Day Rising

As JD wrote, here we are, in the home stretch. I hope your month overflowed with creative moments and bursts of literary inspiration! I really did not feel that this was my year until the very end. Every sentence was like pulling teeth, every day was drudgery. My inner editor haunted every paragraph and I am pretty sure I still don’t have anything legitimately resembling a plot.

Towards the end, things are finally beginning to fall into place and I may actually make it to the finish line. This year wasn’t really about the novel writing though, now that I think on it. This was about sharing the adventure with JD. It is about his story, about the kid that told his friends every November that his mom is writing this month so “keep quiet” or “let’s play somewhere other than my house”. That kid, this year, told his friends that he is the one writing the novel.

Your Story

Again, I really hope your November was so much better than mine was. As we roll into the finish line, if you hit 50K or not, what it’s really about is your story, not just the one you are putting on paper/screen, but the one you lived this wild month. Congratulations NaNo heroes!

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Have you made it to your goal yet, or are you panicking now? Good luck for all those writers scribbling furiously over the next two days!

Image courtesy of NaNoWriMo.

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The Old Tortoise is Slowing Down

Here we are in the final stretch! I hope everyone is doing much better than I am. With Thanksgiving this Thursday and busy weekends, I will have to do some mad dashes to make it to the finish line. Fortunately, I am not a fan of Black Friday, so I will be using the day to type ‘til I drop. A few years back I tried for 100K in the month of November, I hope to call upon that energy now.

Writing Around Life

There have been good days and bad, and there have been distractions. A lot of you will be familiar with “life” getting in the way of your writing. In the past couple years I have had access to a friend’s cabin in Northern Arizona, which would have been nice to get away from distractions, but it did not work out this year. So, how is your story treating you? Where have you found a haven to hide? Or, are you in a mad dash trying to find time and inspiration between work, school, and family obligations?

I want to thank my writing students for displaying amazing skill and dedication through this adventure; all of them inspire me; helping them to succeed means as much to me as getting to the finish line myself. Write on until the end my friends!
Now please excuse me, I have some serious writing to do! Yikes!

The Hare Charges on!

We are in the final week of writing and time is scrambling around. “What should we do next, does this seem right?” these questions come up more frequently as you want it to be better than your writer buddies. We could be on third base hoping for the batter not to fail to make it to home but don’t really know what could actually happen.

You may find that your characters are either talking more in code or just not talking very much at all. But all you can do now is keep your head straight and get your writing in gear for the final week remaining. Have fun and don’t lose sight of your goal!

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So, as you enter the last week of NaNoWriMo, how are you feeling? Please share with us how your progress is going in the comments section below!

Image courtesy of NaNoWriMo.org.

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Last month, Robert Smedley took us through the interesting world of copyright and public domain. Today, he returns to the subject of public domain characters, and why you may (or may not) want to write about them…

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I’ve an idea for a book. In it, The Time Traveller from H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine accidentally saves Macbeth from death by landing his contraption right on Macduff. He and Macbeth then travel forward in time to Seventies Los Angeles, where Macbeth joins the LAPD and teams up with Frankenstein’s Monster (who’s been sitting in the evidence cupboard for a century) to solve crimes in their Buick and battle the cryogenically frozen corpse of Professor Moriarty.

I’d call it, ‘Mac n’ Monster’, and it’d be perfectly legal to write, publish and even make a mediocre movie out of. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the wonderful world of public domain characters. The question I have for you is, would you use them?

The Toys in the Toy Box

Last month I wrote about how public domain characters were basically a writer’s toy box. You can use them, I can use them, we can even make money out of them, and many people enjoy reading them.

So if that’s the case, why isn’t the market saturated with stories featuring Cinderella or Sir Lancelot? Public Domain characters (PDCs) are often popular, yet publishers seems reticent about them. Done right, using PDCs can be very popular (it’s how Jasper Fforde makes his living, and Alan Moore’s League of Extraordinary Gentlemen is one of the 20th century’s great graphic novels), but it’s not easy to ‘do right’, and there’s the immense danger that a story can just read like bad fan-fic. And no one wants to read, let alone pay for, bad fan-fic.

To the cynics it can also look like you’re simply cashing in on another author’s hard work and making a quick buck.

Why Should You Use PDCs?

There are, though, a number of pros to using PDCs; the largest being audience familiarity. Anthony Horowitz has just released the new and 100% official Sherlock Holmes novel The House of Silk and millions of pre-existent Sherlock fans are going to read it. They already know and love the character, and they’re interested to read more of his adventures.

The same could be said for a novel about Captain Nemo or Count Dracula. If you write about them, before you’ve finished your first sentence, you know that there’s already a fan-base who’ll be interested in how you finish that sentence. That’s quite a good feeling. It’s also a stupefyingly daunting feeling – enough to freeze the fingers on the keys and stop the blood to the brain. Hell hath no fury like a fan scorned. God forbid you take a beloved character and do them a disservice with a bad story or bad writing. You’ll be run straight out of Authortown.

Audience familiarity works for you the author in another way too, as there’s a cultural shorthand that comes with famous characters. We already know who Count Dracula is, so you don’t have to spend time giving us the 4-1-1 on him. That’s no excuse for lazy writing, but it does take a bit of pressure off you.

Golden Rule: Have a Good Reason

Regardless of your audience, there’s got to be a good reason for using a PDC than just Hey look, I’ve got so-and-so in my book! Wacky or what!’. You can’t just take someone and hammer them in. You have to think about the potential of that character, of whether there is anything new or meaningful you can add to their history and the shared public consciousness of that character. Otherwise you may as well invent your own character.

Some are more ripe for exploration and expansion than others. Sherlock Holmes is one but you can’t have him yet. Dracula though? With Twilight giving bloodsuckers everywhere a bad name he’s needed more than ever. The Time Traveller or Phileas Fogg, two adventurers of very different sorts, are also capable of sustaining more than their original story. In fact, imagine if those two met – Fogg, the ultimate adherent of punctuality, meeting the man who has nothing but time. Hollywood, steal this pitch!

Know When a Character’s Story is Finished

Some PDCs, by the nature of their original story, are ‘closed off’. They are ‘completed’ by the end of their story and not in need of anything further adding to them. Scrooge is one of these kind of characters, so is Captain Ahab, because the books they feature in are themselves the stories of those men; of how they fall victim to their own flaws, and are fundamentally changed by them. It’s impossible and unnecessary to add anything to their stories (unless, in the case of Scrooge, you add Muppets). I suppose you could do a Captain Ahab prequel where he’s mildly peeved at a dolphin, but, well… I think I just proved my point.

So, Worth It?

So far we’ve assumed that we can write a competent story about a public domain character, which is quite a lofty assumption. History and high expectations ride on the backs of many a PDC. I love Sherlock Holmes but I know for a fact I couldn’t write a good Sherlock Holmes story. Often part of what makes us a fan of a character is how the author writes them, and authors have a special parental understanding of their creations that’s impossible for another writer to truly fully grasp. The best we can do is copy it based upon what we’ve already read of that character. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.

Is it worth it in the end? That’s up to you and your dedication.

But here comes what, for many, will be the knockout punch. Why write about a character that already exists when you can create your own and have that satisfaction? A character you can call your own and who, most importantly, will be protected under your copyright. No one else can write a story about your character, but the world and his wife can write one about, say, Frankenstein.

So, Public Domain Characters are a double-edged sword. Ready to play with, but never truly yours to own; easy to write, hard to write well. But it is possible for authors to write other author’s creations, so if you’re thinking about it then don’t be afraid. Just make sure it’s not a police procedural with a Shakespearean character and a monster.

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Have you ever considered using public domain characters? Do you prefer creating your own? Please share your thoughts in the comments below!

Images courtesy of Jonathan_W Borders and Maaike Verwijs.

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So, we’ve reached the midway point of November, which means the midway point of NaNoWriMo! This week, Jenn and her son JD discuss the benefits of getting out and meeting other writers, instead of locking yourself away to write.

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Connecting with Writers

Jenn

JD and I are keeping fair pace with our word count. We decided to reward our achievements with an outing. We visited the Glendale Public Library for a write-in lead by Pheonix ML (Municipal Liaison – volunteers who organize NaNo groups in their hometowns) Angela. Angela has lots of games and prizes for the troops! JD and I each won a pack of candy for most words in ten minutes. She introduced us to another word count game where we drew popsicle sticks to decide how many words to write in fifteen minutes. JD will tell you how he did on that one too. I am pretty sure the words I wrote in the word-sprint exercises will need heavy editing, but it was a blast.

I intend to implement the popsicle sticks at the next writing group in my studio. It was a nice change of pace to be among writers other than those I am familiar with and I really think JD needed to see how other NaNoWriMo participants were handling the challenge. It may have been a bit awkward considering all of the write-in attendees were female and college-age and up! I hope to make it to at least one more write-in before the month is out so JD has another chance to see a more varied demographic. I had a blast with the ladies though, thank you! It was interesting to hear all the different story ideas.

I really want to use this article to thank all of the MLs out there in NaNoLand too. Angela is a great example. She was welcoming, prepared, enthusiastic and imaginative. I hope all areas have MLs the live up to the standard Angela set. Thank you for the awesome NaNoWriMo stickers, the creative prizes and treating all the writers, of all ages and levels with respect. Thank you Angela and all MLs!

Discovering Write-Ins

JD

Hello all and many! I’ve discovered my first write-in at a library front consisting of six people involved and a splendid time it was! There were two sorts of “games” that involved speed-writing, which were fantastic considering I won both by hand and I have no access to a laptop! The first part was how many words you could write in ten minutes which I scored 213. The second game was you pick a stick of difficulty, green was easy, yellow was mid range, so forth; I picked green, a target of 375 words in fifteen minutes – I wrote 393!

Libraries are great places to pour out emotion into your writing, to sit with the books all around staring at you and to feel around in the silence for the words. It was a great time and I would recommend it for anyone who is struggling to get through you writing.

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How are you all getting on with your NaNoWriMo novels this year? Please let us know what you are writing, and how you’re getting on, in the comments below!

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To complete her three-part series on the various parts of a story, Icy Sedgwick finishes off, unsurprisingly, with Endings.

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You’ve started writing at a furious rate, leaving behind that “difficult” Beginning, and you’ve navigated the treacherous waters of “The Middle“. You know that it’s coming, and that this is what you’ve been writing towards, yet actually coming to The End can be incredibly hard. You’ve spent your entire short story or novel with your cast of characters, you’ve put them through hell, and now it’s time for your big finale. The only problem is… it falls flat. Or worse – you don’t even get there. Hopefully these suggestions will help you keep those fingers on those keys, and get you across the finishing line.

Does Your Story “End” More Than Once?

I can’t count the number of times I’ve gone to see a film, got to the ending, prepared to leave, and then discovered there are a handful of scenes left to play out. I’ve read scores of novels that do the same thing. Sometimes stories can feel like they’ve come to an end, only for the story to continue until it comes to another ending, only to continue again. The problem here is that a writer either didn’t really know what the ending of their story would be before they got to it, or they didn’t know how to approach the ending when they finally reached it. Readers will be able to tell if you fumble around, hoping the story will end itself. Even if you’re a die hard “pantser”, make sure you know your ending in advance, and when you reach it, commit to it.

Does Your Ending Fizzle Out?

Sometimes we’ve put so much effort into the beginning and the middle that we’ve run out of steam by the time we get to the end. Writers can sometimes either rush the ending, so that it’s all over in the space of a couple of paragraphs, or the ending fizzles out like a wet firework. Remember, the beginning and the middle must set up the ending, and all of the action you’ve set into motion throughout the story MUST reach a climax. That would be like Jane Austen cutting the last three chapters of Pride & Prejudice and simply adding a footnote to say Elizabeth gets her man, or film fans seeing the destruction of the Death Star taking place in just three minutes of footage. You’ve put in all that work setting up the story, so make sure the pay off is worth it.

Do You Have Too Many Loose Ends?

Unless you’re planning to write a series, you need to make sure that your loose ends are either tied off, or explained away, before the ending of the story. The last thing you want is a reader getting to the end and saying “That’s all very well, but what about X?” They’ll feel cheated if you’ve left things dangling, and it leads to a reading experience that provides little narrative satisfaction. Even if you are writing a series, it’s often best to tie up the story-specific loose ends in such a way that the reader feels satisfied, but things are still left open for another story. So if your hero defeats a villain, but the villain’s sister escapes, ready to wreak havoc in the next story, make sure the plot involving the hero and the villain is completely resolved by the end of the story, and that readers know the sister has escaped, and that she hasn’t simply vanished from the story.

Is Your Ending Plausible?

Another problem you can have is an ending that doesn’t feel right. Your final act may see your character having a major epiphany, and turning their life around, but if we haven’t seen the build up throughout the beginning and the middle, we won’t buy into the character’s sudden change of heart. Likewise, avoid endings in which the day is only saved through some miraculous event that has not been seen at all throughout the story. To use Star Wars again, that would be like watching Luke do nothing but farm work, and then suddenly have him discover he’s an ace pilot in the last twenty minutes. We believe that Luke can do it because we’ve seen him building up to it throughout the film. Make sure your ending is plausible in the same way. It might be totally implausible compared to real life, but if it makes sense in the universe of the story, then that’s what your readers will believe.

Does The Ending You’ve Written End The Story You Started?

It might sound like a bizarre question, but I can’t recall the number of times I’ve read a story or watched a film where the ending was brilliant, but it didn’t actually end the story I’d started reading or watching, as if the writer got bored halfway through and completely changed tack, but forgot to go back and alter the beginning accordingly. It might sound like I’m stating the obvious, but sometimes you really do need to remind yourself just what your story is about before you can finish it. I really don’t subscribe to the theory that you need to just keep writing until you finish before you read what you’ve written – I often find that re-reading what I’ve written is enough to refresh the story, and remind me just what it was I wanted to say. If you forget, it’s too easy to wander off the track, and deviate along unnecessary tangents. There’s nothing worse than an ending that has nothing to do with the rest of the story.

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What about you? What other methods do you have for making sure your stories go out in style?

Images courtesy of Ynon Lan, sarahpolk and Jan-McS.

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Today, Robert Smedley gives us a primer on copyright and public domain, and how they affect writers. He promises to make it fun.

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Come with me now on a journey through time, space, and copyright law. Don’t worry, it won’t be dull. I promise. No, really. I promise. This isn’t an article about the ins and outs of copyright law – this is just a few simple, very basic, facts; the sort of things all writers should know. We begin in the future…

Sherlock Holmes Escapes Copyright

2022 AD, is a year when you’ll likely start to see an increase in the number of new Sherlock Holmes stories published by authors who aren’t Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Why? Because 2022 is when Holmes fully leaves copyright and enters the public domain, which means that anyone – you, me, anyone – can use him in their books. He joins such figures as Captain Nemo, Ebenezer Scrooge, Dracula, Hercules, and Cinderella. You may think Holmes is already in the public sphere. Well yes and no. You see, Holmes is a maddeningly grey area for copyright lawyers. All but one of his stories are now public domain. Whether that one story still under copyright means the character is under copyright, no one is quite sure. All anyone knows is that come 2022, the Great Detective will be fully jettisoned from the safety of author-ownership, and thousands of writers want to get their hands on him. Why have they had to wait this long to get to write about Holmes? Well for that we need to go back to 1886 and to Berne, Switzerland, for the founding of the Berne Convention, and copyright law as we know it…

The Birth of Copyright

Instigated by Les Miserables author Victor Hugo, the Berne Convention formalised copyright laws and guaranteed the right of you, the author, over your work. And it’s still in place, now covering 164 countries. So whether you’re in the US the UK or Uruguay, you’re seen as the owner of your writing and it can’t be exploited or copied without your prior consent, no matter which of those 164 countries it goes to. On top of that, there are half a dozen other separate laws and acts protecting your work, plus the individual laws of your country. So sleep soundly, your characters are safe. Thanks Victor Hugo!

It’s Easier Than You Think…

A lot of first-time writers get antsy about copyrighting their story and characters. They needn’t be. As soon as you express your idea, whether by writing it down or recording it or putting on it on in the form of a puppet theatre and videotaping it, it’s protected by copyright. You don’t need to apply for copyright. You don’t even need to put a © after you title. I wish I’d known that when I first started out. It would have saved me a lot of time and ©s. If you really want to protect your work, get a photocopy or save it on a USB, then post it to yourself. The postal stamp will be proof of date of your idea. Just don’t open the envelope.

Copyright only covers the way the idea is expressed, not the idea itself. You know how Avatar is basically Pocahontas? Well that’s the perfect example of the difference between idea and expression. Both have the same ideas, but both present them differently. You can copy the idea (ie: people meeting an alien culture), but not the expression (wheelchair-bound marine meeting big blue people). No lawsuits for you, crafty James Cameron!

Thanks to the Berne Convention and others, your work is protected across the globe: it can’t be copied, distributed or performed without your consent. You are the sole owner of the copyright. You also have ‘moral rights’, which protect an author’s works as an expression of their personality. Basically it stops someone coming along and changing your book to make you look like a nutcase.

How long do these lovely benefits last? The length of author copyright is the duration of the author’s life, plus 50-75 years after their death. So your protagonist and their plot is untouchable long after you’re just a footnote in someone else’s life. After that, they fall, Dante-esque into the public domain… Dum dum duuuum!

Public Domain – Go Nuts!

I may have accidentally put into your head the idea that the public domain is like a kids’ toy box of free-to-use characters. If I have, then good. There’s no catch; the intellectual property rights of characters and their stories have expired and they’re anyones to use and write about. Only occasionally will you find a character who has strings attached, like Winnie the Pooh or Peter Pan, but they’re rare special cases. It’s always best to check, and that can generally be accomplished with a quick Google.

There’s not much else to say about the public domain, except for the big fact that you can’t copyright a public domain character. Marvel Comics have been producing Thor comics for 50 years now. And if you want to write your own comic/book/puppet theatre show about Thor there’s not a damn thing they can do to stop you (unless you copy their design of Thor or stories etc.), because public domain characters are just that: public. I can write and publish a book about Captain Nemo and you can do the same and so can everyone else in the world. He’s ours now. So is his story. Everything from his Nautilus to his motives, right down to the life preservers. Yours and mine. Whether there’s any profit to be had in writing about him or other public domain dwellers is a different story entirely, and one for another day…

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So that’s it. Everything you need to know if you’re an author starting out. I’m no copyright expert, so if there’s something you feel has been missed and would like to add, or if you’ve a question, then please get in touch in the comments.

Images courtesy of genvessel and Jim Linwood.

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Following on from her article on Beginnings, Icy Sedgwick helps us to continue our stories and retain our readers’ interest.

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So you’ve gotten over the first hurdle, and actually started your story. You’ve got your first few scenes down, and things are going well. You may have a vague idea of the ending, you may know exactly what will happen, or you might be making the whole thing up as you go along. No matter what your method, what should you do to make sure you actually get to the ending? What can you do to ensure the middle keeps people reading?

Resist the Flashback

If you’re writing a very long story, or a novel, the temptation is there to use a lot of back story to explain the events of the story, or the motivations of the character. It’s understandable that what a person has been through in their past will inform their future but try to make sure that you don’t dump swathes of back story into the narrative, either in the form of flashbacks or just simple exposition. Every time you take the reader out of the present, it slows down the story, so try to pepper your back story throughout the narrative so the pacing doesn’t get bogged down. Readers really don’t need everything spelled out – they’ll be able to piece back story together themselves from a few carefully-placed fragments.

Who is Doing What?

The more characters and sub-plots you have, the easier it becomes to forget who is doing what, why or when. The moment thathappens, it’s easy to either write yourself down a blind alley, or leave too many loose ends throughout the narrative. You can certainly catch these during editing but it’ll make the whole process smoother, and keep the narrative tighter, if you keep track of your sub-plots and characters to make sure they’re all doing their job. Using a program like Scrivener or yWriter can really help with this.

Write With a Purpose

Even if you’re not entirely sure how things will end, try to write each scene towards something. If you simply keep writing in the hope that a story will emerge, the meandering plot will slow down the pacing and a reader will stop reading. If you have an outline then make sure you stick to it. Whenever you lose sight of your purpose, it will be too obvious to a reader that you didn’t know what you were doing.

Cut, Cut, Cut!

If you feel that you’re not making much headway, resist the urge to pad out the narrative until you get to the parts that you want to write. If the scenes are really that boring or awkward to write, then perhaps they’re unnecessary. Cut them out! If the narrative reads smoothly without them, then the reader will never notice their absence. If cutting them completely seems anathema, then highlight them, or cut them and save them in a separate file. You can always rewrite and insert them later.

Avoid “Middle Child” Syndrome

Beginnings are exciting because everything is new, and everything is building up. Endings are also exciting because everything is coming together for a grand finale. Middles, by contrast, can seem dull and lacklustre. Avoid thinking of them as the means to an end – the middle is where the plot gets interesting, where the real action happens. Without the middle, there is no story! So get stuck in, get your hands dirty, and really get to grips with the meat of your story.

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What about you? What other tips do you have for ensuring you keep writing throughout the middle stage? In two weeks time, Icy will be back with the final article in this series; how to finish your story in style!

Image courtesy of Oskar Widerberg and Literature & Latte.

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In today’s article, Eric Kuentz gives us advice on creating well-rounded and interesting characters, by writing ourselves into them.

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Just Like Everyone Else

You are universal. Your life is universal. Your life happens just like everyone else’s. Your feelings are just like mine. Well, not exactly like mine, that’s what makes us individuals; but your ‘happy’ is very similar to my ‘happy’. The things that happen to you, happen to us all… just from a different perspective. We all have pleasure, we all have pain, we all relate emotionally to similar events or stimuli.

This is the basis for writing a relatable character.

Noted psychologist, Carl Jung, postulated the idea of archetypes, “innate universal psychic dispositions that form the substrate from which the basic symbols or representations of unconscious experience emerge.” Basically, there are types of characters and events that we can all immediately recognize and relate to. This was an extension of his theory of the collective unconscious, universal ideas that we are all born inherently knowing and recognizing. They are universally recognizable because we all experience these traits similarly, across cultures and across time.

Harnessing the Universal

If you haven’t yet seen “George Lucas in Love”, I highly recommend it. It is probably the best 9 minutes you will spend on a film about writing. Following the process of a young college student desperate to find an idea for his thesis film, a budding George Lucas, as played by Martin Hynes, learns that the best characters and situations are based on real life.

Which of us hasn’t been that struggling young writer at the daunting blank page? Who hasn’t sought the muse out of desperation or deadline? What writer hasn’t struggled to find how to make a character feel more… relatable?

Charlie Kaufman experienced this when he wrote “Adaptation”. While adapting a novel into a screenplay, Kaufman experienced a heavy case of writer’s block. He ended up writing a film about a writer trying to adapt a novel into a screenplay. Not only that, but he wrote himself in as the writer… twice: once as Charlie Kaufman, the struggling writer, and once as his twin brother, Donald (who is ironically also given a writing credit on the film despite being completely fictitious). Life imitates art imitating life imitating art.

But drawing on that personal struggle worked, and earned both Kaufmans (yes, even the fictitious Donald) an Oscar nomination.

“Write What You Know”

Shakespeare famously wrote that “all the world’s a stage and all the men and women merely players.” What he was referencing was that each of us plays a character in life.

Turn the mirror on yourself, and your writing.

This character that we play is no different than a character that we may write. There is a back-story in our history and our memories; there are quirks and personality traits; there are goals and ambitions for the future. You are a perfect example of a character. So how do you go about using that as inspiration?

Let’s say I’m writing a story about a deranged madman with a predilection for explosives and a police detective trying to stop him. I certainly have no police training, I know very little about explosives other than they blow up, and I would hope that I don’t meet the criteria to be considered a deranged madman… though some of my friends might disagree. How am I to write this story?

For those detailed elements of the story I will need to do some research. However, the madman’s disgust with society and his obsessive tendencies I can draw from my own life. While I may not be predisposed to explosives, I can draw on my minor OCD tendencies for his explosive fixation. I am not an angry or deranged person, but I have felt the sting of disappointment at times, be it from a bad breakup or not getting the job I really wanted, and I can imagine what it would be like to be stuck feeling that pain all the time.

Boil It Down

Self-inventory in this manner acts as a crucible in which to boil down elements of our life, isolating them and concentrating them to their purest form. Using that concentrated element as a trait for a character makes them universally understandable.

All good stories are filled with extreme versions of humanity: heroics are larger than everyday good deeds, and villainy is the downside of society taken to the Nth degree. When we read a story we often relate these larger-than-life events to occurrences in our own life, this makes them relatable. As a writer we must reverse that process. Magnifying the events and traits that make up your life, boiling them down to a concentrated, basic form makes them pure, makes them relatable, and makes your life – in general terms – just like mine. We are the same, you and I. In these general terms I can relate to you, and you can relate to me. We are universal.

“You are unique… just like everyone else.”

The wise words of Margaret Mead. Remember them, and they will help your writing.

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How have you used yourself in your writing? Do your characters reflect the person you are? Please share your thoughts in the comments below!

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In this post, the first of a series of three articles, Icy Sedgwick takes us through arguably the most important part of your story: the beginning.

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“Let’s start at the very beginning, what a very good place to start!” – Maria von Trapp

If you browse any writing blog or manual long enough, you’ll come across a section on beginnings. There are even entire books dedicated to nothing but the beginnings of novels. You’ll no doubt be told that the opening to a story is the most important thing you’ll write, since it’s the beginning that determines whether or not a reader will keep reading. Don’t get me wrong, that’s very true, but it’s also possible to tie yourself into such a Gordian knot that you end up never writing the story because you’re not sure exactly where you should start. Trust me though – beginnings really don’t need to be all that scary.

Here are five ways you can tackle beginnings, and get cracking!

Just start writing and hope for the best

Don’t forget, there’s nothing stopping you editing your story when you’re finished, so if you write your story and find you started in the wrong place, you’re perfectly entitled to change it. No one need ever know! If you’ve started your story about an alien priest and a shapeshifting badger going on a road trip through time, and things don’t get interesting until they leave the seventeenth century inn, then cut the scene inside the inn, and save the information gleaned from their discussion for later. Start where the going gets good.

Write out an outline and decide at which point the story really starts

I often use this method. Say I come up with an idea and it seems like there are several possible routes it can take before it becomes a story. I focus on the idea in its simplest form, and then write a list of bulletpoints of those things I want to include in the story that seems to best tell this boiled-down idea. When you’ve got the story elements laid out you can see what will work and what won’t – and often where the best starting point is. Sometimes I’ll have thought I was going to start a story at point A, but once I see the story skeleton laid out, I might realise I’d be better off starting at point B.

Write a paragraph as a sort of ‘back story’ that you can delete when you’re done

One of the problems writers can often have is that they have a wealth of back story and they’re desperate to share it with their readers. It’s difficult to believe but it really isn’t necessary for a reader to know everything you know about the characters and their world. They only need enough to make the story plausible. If you really don’t feel you can sit on your back story long enough to dispense a drop at a time throughout the story, then write an opening paragraph of nothing but back story. Remember to drip-feed this information as you go along, but when you’re finished, you’ll probably find you can delete the opening paragraph, and the story still makes sense. Your readers will thank you.

Write several beginnings

Writers often forget that writing is not like a maths exam – you don’t get extra marks for showing your working out. No one need even know what your first attempts at a story look like – you get to decide when it’s ready for public consumption. That in mind, if you’re really not sure where to start, then trying writing three or four different beginnings. If they lead to completely different stories, great. Otherwise, pick the strongest and stick with that. You can always use the discarded beginnings to generate totally different stories in future. You can always get a trusted friend or beta reader to look them over, and offer an opinion as to the strongest opening.

Read the opening lines of your favourite books

Writers can’t ever hope to write successfully unless they also read a lot. Choose a handful of titles, perhaps by your favourite author or in your favourite series, and take a look at the opening paragraph. Maybe just look at the first line. What has the writer done to hook you into the story? Without slavishly copying the author’s style, can you use a similar device for your own work? Sometimes reading something that isn’t your own is enough to refresh you and revive your interest in your idea. Besides, these are opening lines that cut the mustard with a bona fide publisher or editor. You can learn a lot from them.

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What about you? What other tips do you have for ensuring you get off to a flying start? And stayed tuned in two weeks time for Icy’s article on ‘Middles’!

Image courtesy of Ed.