What a story needs to do

It has to sell the book. It has to cover the cost of production, make a pro rata contribution to the overheads and make some money for the publisher and the writer so that they can live.

How does it do this? I’ve thought about this in the context of my own recent reading and I’ve concluded:

It must include a good balance of the following ingredients.

1.      The right pace – fast, yes, but not so fast that we lose track

2.      Human interest

3.      Tension

4.      Believable characters

5.      Characters you bite your nails for

6.      Rounded characters

7.      An author who understands the setting well

8.      The right length

9.      Something to make the reader think

10.  Something to intrigue the reader

11.  Beautifully crafted prose

12.  A sense of time

13.  A sense of place

14.  A huge problem to be solved

15.  A satisfactory resolution

16.  Some fun

17.  Some more serious moments

18.  A touch of intrigue – even if the work is not a thriller

19.  A touch of mystery - even if the work is not a fantasy

20.  And this one must always be there - something to make first the publisher and then the reader fall in love with the book.

Of course, all of these can be quite subjective and this is what makes the writer’s job quite difficult. But worth pursuing?       

Who is the first scene for actually?

One of the greatest signs that we are dealing with an experienced, professional writer is that there is no unnecessary first scene. The real writer knows where the story actually starts.

The three examples below are from my own work. I’m wiser now but still see new writers doing this.

Story of a watercolour

One of my novels originally starts off with a young girl putting the final touches to a watercolour. She is anxious to get this off in the post as it’s part of a letter to her former classmates. Now, that letter does become important later and her classmates do admire her skill but more importantly she disappears shortly after posting that letter. It’s crucial to introduce the first step towards that disappearance on the first page.

A fabulous breakfast

As my protagonist sets out on her adventure, she and her family enjoy a sumptuous breakfast. She feels car sick later and because they have to stop the adventure begins. A one-line flashback to the breakfast is enough. The reader actually doesn’t need to know the details of the breakfast. So,  I got rid of the breakfast. The book has since been published.

A dramatic argument

A couple quarrel. Possibly partly because of this but more likely because of bad weather and bad driving by a third party, the protagonist is killed in a car crash. The rest of the story takes place in his after-world.  Again, it is better to start with the crash itself and then refer to the argument. The argument still has a point as it means that he needs to resolve things form beyond the grave. However, the reader doesn’t need the details. This book is now published.

Why we write these scenes

It was actually still important to write these scenes. It allowed me to get to know the characters really well. But just as with any other writerly research, you don’t need to overwhelm your reader with these details. Just write with the knowledge that th research has given you.

What to do with the killed darlings

Yes, these are certainly darlings that need killing. Often we’re rather pleased with them and have put everything that we know about our craft into these snippets. Keep them anyway, for the good writing they contain.

My watercolour example is turning into a piece of flash fiction – one that tells a very similar story to the whole book. The breakfast will become a piece of flash life-writing. The argument can also become a flash story.

The novel containing the watercolour scene will be supported by a web site once it is published. I’ve written a lot of the copy already and am including “deleted scenes” – there are a few others as well.

Another parallel with the film industry

You probably know how much work goes into a film script before it is made into a film – and much of that work happens after the script is accepted and before they start making the film. Even so, frequently the first couple of pages and even a couple of scenes are left out. We literally “cut to the chase”.

A note of warning

It is important to get this right. Put your manuscript away for a few days before you send it out into the world. Make sure you’re not filling the limited word count in the few chapters you’re invited to submit with those darlings that need killing.    

       

Author bios

I have talked about this before though I mean something a little different this time. Last time I was talking about the bio that authors send with submissions. That type of bio gives us some insight into the authors. Are they already published? How experienced are they in the world?  What are they like as people? The bio I’m talking about here is for the reader.

Tight writing

The bio must be as well written as the rest of the piece. Certainly it should be written tightly and shouldn’t be too expansive.

In proportion

As a reader and as a publisher I get irritated when I read a 250 word piece of flash fiction accompanied by a 100 bio. A Tweet-sized bio might be more appropriate.

What the publisher asks for

As always provide exactly what has been asked for. If the word limit is 50, don’t write 100. 55 or 45 might be all right.

What to write

Try to give the essence of who you are as a writer and the specifics of why you have written this particular text.

Jokes

These often make me cringe except, perhaps, when a humorous book is produced. It almost seems as if the writer doesn’t have enough to say about themselves.

New Writers

These writers may not have a glamorous list of publications and awards. However, they can still give some insight into their writing lives. This may be to do with how, why and where they write and how they came to write this particular piece.

Other places for biographical data

Longer bios are often included in books and that is fine. One reads them when one has the time and at that point they are always inserting.

Interviews and blogs can supply more detail. Jokes are fine here – as long as they don’t take up too much of the text.

Piers Anthony, in his Incarnations of Immortality series, always included the sort of text that most writers these days would put on a blog. He gives an account of what happened as he wrote the story and of his creative process.

I’m concerned about all of this, I suppose, because currently I’m ploughing through just under 800 author bios for an article I’m writing. Those bios are there to give readers a quick insight into an author they might read. Most of them are very well written. A few are extremely irritating.

I do enjoy reading the longer extracts of biographical information such as those mentioned above. I’m always curious about writing process and about what makes a writer. However, I prefer to read these when I have time.  At other times I just want a quick snapshot of the author and a confirmation of their credentials.               

      

Poor formatting in e-books by bigger houses

With some distress recently I read a Kindle version of a novel written by a writer I know and respect. It was published not by one of the Big Five, but by a medium-sized press that was commercial enough to charge over £3.00 for an e-book, the paperback equivalent of which retails for £6.99. So, we’re not talking a self-published book being all but given away at 99p. I actually appreciate publishers who charge a decent amount:  it shows respect for their writers and the IT people who have spent a long time developing the technology.  However, this particular example shows little respect for the reader.

Surprisingly, actually, the 99p self-published book more often than not has less formatting mistakes than  those texts supplied by the big houses. Possibly this is because these books are published only in this format so the “publisher” has taken the time to do the job properly.

So, what exactly was wrong with this book?

Well, it was formatted web-style – rather like what you’re reading now. It didn’t feel like a book because there were no indents.  The text was blocked, but the blocking hadn’t “taken” everywhere, so there were some disturbing gaps at the end of lines.  These took you out of the film in your head and reminded you that you were looking at words on a page.  

A couple of chapters had a heading followed by a blank page.

I noticed a couple of issues that a copy editor should have picked up. I’m sure I only noticed them because the poor formatting made me conscious of the words on the page.  An “its” should have been “it’s”. There was some unexpected capitalisation at the beginning of some words. 

Why does this happen?

We know “kindling” can be tricky.  You can check your book in three different formats and it will look fine. Then when it’s actually out there things you’ve not been able to see creep in.

But guess what? It actually only take a few minutes to take the book down, correct it and load it back up. It’s not like correcting a print run. We notice the odd post-e-publication blip and fix it as soon as it’s pointed out.

Too many bigger publishers simply upload the same file they used for the print version. No, you need to do a little more work than this – especially if you want to charge almost as much for the e-book as for a hard copy.

How should we react to this poor formatting?

My first instinct was to put a 1 or 2 * review on Amazon. But I didn’t want to damage the author. I have instead written to the publisher and pointed this out. I’m tempted to claim a refund as I’ve been sold an inferior product. I’m bracing myself to contact the author and say that she needs to take the publisher to task. If we could all go for zero tolerance on this we might get better formatted books.           

          

Check out your publisher - don't speculate

The greatest thing about being a publisher is that … you publish books. You also see some great writing. There are some other things that we have to do that are less pleasant. One activity is somewhat tedious, often very rewarding and occasionally heart-breaking.

Checking presence on the Internet

Yes, it’s that narcissistic activity: Googling yourself or a particular book. You’ll often find a great review or a pleasing sales ranking. Sometimes you’ll find a mediocre review and a more modest sales ranking. And occasionally you’ll find a very poor review with maybe one star and worse still, it may appear to have been written by a  troll. In the greater scheme of things, the latter isn’t actually all that worrying. There are bound to be some poor reviews occasionally and frankly, personally, if I see a one star review I’m likely to buy the book – it won’t disappoint. In fact it’s highly likely to be better than one would expect from one star – especially if there is a troll element. This was probably someone with a personal grudge.  

Perhaps a more believable review may have a negative effect on a book. Not always though. One book I really enjoyed was Melvin Burgess’ Doing It. I only read it because I was curious about what had upset Anne Fine so much in her famous Guardian review.

Negative speculation

Sadly, I’ve come across this twice this week. There’d been a call for submissions by a small press company I know. Some writers speculated about how reliable this company would be. They appeared to have done their homework. However, they’d made a ghastly mistake about one of the team in that they’d said that one editor had “no experience of the publishing industry”. This was absolutely not true. The person in question had decided to set up on their own after being disillusioned by the big five.

The other example was about one of my own projects. Again, the folks had done their homework and had misinterpreted some of the facts they’d established. They’d found one name associated with three projects. Yes, we use the same web-master who had secured the sites and domain names for us.

Okay, there are crooks out there. But actually, not many. As I am also a writer I’ve worked with fifteen publishers, all sizes. Only one has really let me down. The one who has sold the most of my work actually started operating out of a small industrial estate near Bristol. They first published me in 2001 and I’m still getting royalty cheques.

A world of book-lovers

Publishing books is not big business. Not even for Bloomsbury post JKR. Yes, they have a huge turnover. But put their business acumen into virtually any other business – maybe not farming – and they’d make even more. Even amongst the big successful publishers with grand offices in London there is, perhaps, before all else, a love of books. Thank goodness.

That is what keeps us all going.

I’ve not yet been proved wrong. Even the publisher who let me down did it more out of incompetence than out of any maliciousness.  

I’ve just come back from Hay and this was clearer than ever there again.

What I would say to all writers

Yes, of course, it is important to be sure that your publisher is the general article. I’d encourage you simply to ask. If they don’t reply or don’t give you a satisfactory answer – move on.             

Some near misses – some novels we almost accepted

I’ve been reading some scripts recently that I’ve ultimately decided to reject even though they had a lot going for them. If you recognise yourself in any of the following or know you have done something very similar please believe that our “good” rejection is absolutely sincere. We mean it.  We would like to see more of your work in future. And do take note of the comments we made.

These are some reactions to sample chapters and a synopsis. I didn’t go as far as seeing the whole script.     

Too Nancy Drew / Agatha Christie or not enough so

This was a slightly old-fashioned whodunit reminiscent of the Nancy Drew mysteries. Two sisters find out who the murderer is and who stole the jewels.  There are some wonderfully mysterious scenes where the reader is partly let into the secret and we watch someone who is up to no good doing we’re not quite sure what, where or why. It’s almost a spoof but not quite because the actual story is really about the reconciliation between the two girls so it becomes firmly a young adult Bildungsroman. Yet the imitation of Agatha Christie is very strong. This novel can’t quite make its mind up. Would Agatha Christie or Nancy Drew still sell?

Not quite the right age group

This one was very tightly written. This seems to be a very experienced writer. The cover letter informed us the author had edited the work fifteen times and expected he would have to do more. The prose really worked. The characters were well formed and the opening chapters were engaging. It’s just that the protagonist was too old for our young adult readers. It was more new adult. We don’t do that at the moment. We may do in twelve months’ time. It would be selfish to hang on to this. We really do sincerely hope that it will still be available if and when we try out the new genre.

Terrible formatting

This was a rather brilliant time-slip novel where the main character, now aged over thirty meets his younger self. It was well written and the character was convincing. Yet the presentation was totally unprofessional. This writer would be hard work. They clearly could not follow instructions and it’s likely that they would be totally ignorant about the publishing world. The work would have to be more than just a bit brilliant for us to take it on despite these problems.  

Arrogant and ignorant cover letter

We really would have liked to see more about the girl who realises she is a lesbian. Dramatically, and cleverly, most of the plot hangs around a kiss between too girls. The section we saw was very well written and the characters were very well drawn. However, we were put off the writer by the content of her cover letter. She admitted to editing the text in one certain way because someone had told her too. There was an implication that if there we something wrong with the text it was somebody else’s fault. No. You must own your work. Yes, you must be open-minded enough to listen if we suggest change. But you must own the change as well. Often it’s case of finding a third way. We tell you your text isn’t working.  Often our suggestion is pretty dumb. You then come up with something that is better than what we suggested and what you first thought of. Sometimes this means that bit gets so good the other bits look dumb. Then you’ve got your work cut out.

This writer then went on to say that her work did something that other young adult books don’t do. That’s a pretty sweeping claim, actually. We could quote several examples  - including some we’ve published.    

Do we have a Prima Donna here? Do we want to work with one?                

Voice didn’t match age group

This was an extremely well written excerpt. The synopsis promised a really good story and even this was well written suggesting a high degree of professionalism. Unfortunately the narrative voice sounded as if it was speaking to a junior-school aged child. Yet the content of the story was young adult enough.

In this case we’d suggest a major re-write and ask to see it again. That’s a lot of work for the author but I don’t think anyone would publish this text as it stands now. Even we can’t guarantee anything until we have seen the new version.

That’s part of being a writer.

I really do mean it when I say these came extremely close. These writers must carry on trying.