April 30, 2017 @ 9:29 PM

Seven sensible steps to success as a writer
Step 4 (continued) Managing the research

It’s one thing to accumulate a vast amount of research. The trick for the writer is to know what to do with it, and how to access the material easily as and when you need it for the next stage of the book.

It may be the former public servant in me, but those who read the first half dozen posts in this series will know I take a rather bureaucratic approach to my filing system. The research papers and photographs I keep in large subject files, divided into reasonably comprehensive and labelled sub-sections.

When it comes to the writing, each chapter has its own folder with copies of the material, photos, drafts and references to use during the.........

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April 28, 2017 @ 11:38 PM

Seven sensible steps to success as a writer
Step 4 (Continued). ‘Historical Faction’

In all of my historically-based writing (the ‘biographical novels’ as I call them, though others sometimes use the term 'faction'), I’ve never knowingly altered a fact to suit my story.

For me, the story must change to suit the known facts – although I certainly have to make many (I hope logical) assumptions where the record is silent.

 

There’s not much refuge to be found for the storyteller – as opposed to the historian – in the phrase ‘we don’t know what happened next.’ Still I always point out the main assumptions in the Endnotes.

This emphasises the .........

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April 28, 2017 @ 11:22 PM

Seven sensible steps to success as a writer
Step 4. Researching your topic

The idea and the style may be terrific. But unless the writer also has a solid understanding of the subject, the book can still end up a shambles.

Hence the importance, before putting the first word on the page or screen, of researching your topic thoroughly. It's true of fiction and even more so, in my case, of literary non-fiction.

If a reader tosses your book away with the remark that ‘This writer doesn’t know what he (or she) is talking about’, you’ve wasted your time. The whole edifice you've elaborately constructed with fine words and profound thoughts will start to fall to the ground in the mind of your reader.

One .........

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April 20, 2017 @ 12:54 PM

Seven sensible steps to success as a writer


Step 3 (continued): Using your own voice

The most important lesson to emerge from any exercise at reworking a passage from a favourite author, is the realisation that you must do so using your own voice. Your own words. Your own similes. Your own interpretation of the essential idea. Mere copying is pointless for any serious writer.

To be sure there are few original ideas in literature (though they seem to occur quite regularly in contemporary science). What matters is the form, content and expression of the thought – which is what makes it particular to each individual author. As it is, of course, the basis of the copyright laws.

It's also true, as I said earlier, that .........

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April 4, 2017 @ 4:25 AM

Seven sensible steps to success as a writer


#22 Step 3 (continued): Voices from the past...

Not long ago a friend sent a favourite passage from Charles Dickens' "Barnaby Rudge", which observes how human passions so often reflect the wildness of nature ... 'man, lashed into madness with the roaring winds and boiling waters...'

The paragraph is a lengthy one, with many subordinate clauses and heightened language – typical of Romantic 'sturm und drang', though writers and artists of every period have drawn on the metaphor. And I spent an instructive hour or two thinking how I might approach the same passage were I writing it for myself.

It's a useful exercise for a number of reasons. It .........

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April 4, 2017 @ 4:13 AM

Seven sensible steps to success as a writer #21


Step 3 (Continued): Punctuation…

 

Those grammatical thickets, full of untamed commas, apostrophes and other beasts of punctuation, are hazardous places that every writer must enter if we’re to master them. The trouble is there are few paths to guide you safely to their correct usage – though there are plenty to show where you’ve gone wrong.

We’ve all seen those signs outside fruit shops selling apples and orange’s. No need for an apostrophe there to indicate a plural. But what about the plural of a proper noun ending in 's'? Is it the Joneses? Or Jones’? And what about the possessive of a book belonging to Mr Jones? .........

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