Confused about
self-publishing?
YPS are the one-stop-shop
for self-publishers
Copy-editing & proofreading
Full book design service
Printing & binding
Promotion & marketing
Book distribution
Commission-free online bookshop
eBook production & distribution
Free & friendly advice
Cup of tea and a chat!
Recommended by the
Writers’ & Artists’ Yearbook
York Publishing Services Ltd
tel. 01904 431213
enquiries@yps-publishing.co.uk
www.yps-publishing.co.uk
WELCOME
CONTENTS
ON THE COVER
4 Writing competitions: The way to
win – Part one Advice on making your
entries stand out for the right reasons
8
Technology for writers: Robots write on
The impact of AI for writers
12 Creative writing: Writing festive fiction
How to write a winter wonderland that
readers will fall in love with
14 Creative writing: The rhythm of writing
What does the act of writing mean,
and why do we do it?
16 Star interview: Notably normal
Philippa Gregory talks about changing
the narrative on women’s history
20 Creative writing: Reframing relatable
romance Writing romance from a
queer perspective
38 Free-range writing: Writer’s advent
calendar Themed festive writing
exercises
INTERVIEWS AND PROFILES
26 My path to publication: Tracy Fells The
debut author only got into print when
she made space for herself
28 Shelf life: Sarra Manning The journalist
turned author of romcoms and YA
novels picks five books
41 My writing day: Femi Kayode
The crime author and screenwriter
52 Author profile: Daniel Hurst The
psychological thriller writer
CREATIVE WRITING WORKSHOPS
22 Creative writing building blocks:
Beyond convention The relationship
between creativity and the expectations
of readers and publishers
24 Under the microscope The opening of
a reader’s writing critiqued
40 Writers’ circles: Myths and legends Use
folk myths and local legends to inspire
new writing
42 Poetry workshop: The poetry of music
The content expresses its subject in a
musical poem
44 Fiction focus: Family values
The potential for mining your family
tree in fiction
46 Masterclass: In dreams Using
48 Writing for children: The rules of
magic Create the logic that will ensure
magic enchants young readers
50 Fantastic realms: New year, new
approach Think about experimenting
with your storytelling in 2024
COMMUNITY AND COMPETITIONS
27 Novel ideas
30 Get the write idea Exercises about
small things that make a difference
32 Readers’ letters/The world of writing
34 In the spotlight: Subscribers’ creative
writing
36 Subscribers’ news: WM writers’
success stories
72 Open short story winners: Journey
74 Subscriber-only short story winners:
Machine
76 Competition launches
78 Under the covers: Time for a palatecleanse? Gillian Harvey wonders if
writing in a new genre would refresh
her creativity
INSIDE THE INDUSTRY
54 The business of writing: The relaxed
writer The art of being a relaxed writer
56 Research tips: Case study method
How to do in-depth research on cases
within a specific context
57 Behind the tape: Expert advice to get
the details right in your crime writing
58 Ask a literary consultant: How long
should my novel be? Answers to a
common question that doesn’t have a
simple answer
59 Get published You’ve read the
advice, now get into print! Up-todate submissions calls, publishing
opportunities and writing competitions
65 Going to market
69 Travel writing know-how
71 From the other side of the desk:
Alien invasion Measures to protect
the human creative element in the
face of AI
Cover images: _veiksme_/AdobeStock
Published by Warners Group Publications plc West Street, Bourne, Lincs PE10 9PH
Main office: 01778 391188 Subscriptions: 01778 392 482 Advertising: 0113 200 2925
Publisher: Collette Lloyd, email: collette.lloyd@warnersgroup.co.uk Content editor: Tina Jackson,
email: tjackson@warnersgroup.co.uk Senior designer: Nathan Ward, email: nathanw@warnersgroup.co.uk
Designer: Mary Ward, email: maryw@warnersgroup.co.uk Marketing: Collette Lloyd, email: collette.
lloyd@warnersgroup.co.uk Advertising sales manager: Mark Dean, email:mark.dean@warnersgroup.co.uk
Subscriptions: writingmagazine@warnersgroup.co.uk Typeset by: Warners Group Publications plc, West
Street, Bourne, Lincs PE10 9PH Printed by: Warners (Midlands) plc, The Maltings, Manor Lane, Bourne, Lincs
PE10 9PH Distribution: Nikki Munton, email: nikkim@warnersgroup.co.uk, tel: 01778 391171 Warners Group
Publications plc,West Street, Bourne, Lincs PE10 9PH
16
different perceptions and points of
view in your fiction
Tina Jackson
Welcome to the final issue of
Content Editor
2023! We hope you’ve had a
wonderful writing year, and our Christmas wish for
you is that 2024 will bring you nearer to achieving
everything you wish for yourself as a writer. We’ll
be there to help, advise and inspire your writing in
every way we can, and we’re looking forward to the
first issue of 2024, which will include the brand
new Writers’ Handbook and Competition Guide 2024.
It will help you plan writing competition entries,
courses, festivals and more (subscribe to Writing
Magazine by 11 December and guarantee your copy,
see page 7 for our latest offer).
With this in mind, in this month’s magazine we’re
launching the first of a two-parter on how to win
writing competitions, packed with tips from a very
experienced judge, Esther Chilton, on how to make
your entries stand out for all the right reasons. Don’t
miss it, and the chance to get ahead of the game
with your comp entries!
This month we’re also taking a deep dive into one
of the year’s biggest gamechangers for creatives – the
impact of AI on writing. There’s also a wonderful,
thoughtful piece on the importance of the act
of writing, an interview with the great Philippa
Gregory on reframing women’s history, joyful articles
on writing queer and Christmas romances and an
advent calendar of festive writing prompts to keep
your writer’s brain ticking over until your next issue
of WM!
Merry Christmas, happy writing, and we’ll look
forward to seeing you in 2024!
LING
BESTSEL
MAGAZINE
WRITING
THE GIFT OF
GIVE YOURSELF
WRITING
WINNING
WIN
£60,064
WORDS
writing
How to win
s
competition
IN WRITING
PRIZES
RECLAIMING
WOMEN’S
HISTORY
Festive fiction
on
Philippa Gregory
Women
writing Normal
Top tips for sparkling
seasonal stories
calendar
Creative advent
for writers
WRITING FOR CHILDREN
ROBOT
WRITING
and what
AI for writers
it means for you
writing
The rhythm of
The rules
of magic
the
How to create
logic that makes
magic work
Never miss an
issue of Writing
Magazine
Queer romance
SUBSCRIBE NOW see p7
GET THE WM DIGITAL EDITION
Direct to your device
ORDER A COPY DIRECT, with free postage
https://writ.rs/wmissues
SIGN UP FOR OUR REGULAR NEWSLETTERS
at http://writ.rs/signupnow
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be
reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted,
in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior
permission of Warners Group Publications plc.
© Copyright Warners Group Publications plc. ISSN 0964-9166
Whilst every care is taken of material submitted to the editor
for publication, no responsibility can be accepted for loss or
damage. Email submissions preferred.
Warners Group Publications plc are not able to investigate
the products or services provided by the advertisers in
Writing Magazine nor to make recommendations about
them. Warners Group Publications plc cannot act as a
licensing or accreditation authority, but will investigate
complaints against advertisers.
JANUARY 2024
3
TO
WIN
PART ONE
Winning a writing
competition is a standout
achievement for any
writer – and it can be
a springboard to other
success. So how can you
improve your chances
of a win? In the first of a
two-part series, Esther
Chilton offers advice on
making your entries stand
out for all the right reasons
T
here’s something special
about short story
competitions. They’re
great fun to enter and if
you’re named as a prize
winner, there’s no feeling quite like it.
Many competitions have cash prizes
and, of course, there’s the prestige
that’s associated with a competition
4
JANUARY 2024
win. It’s something to put at the top
of your writing CV and it can lead to
other work. It was winning a Writing
Magazine competition that first gave
me faith in my writing ability and the
confidence to send my work out.
The majority of competitions also
publish the winning entries in one
form or another. Seeing your story
www.writers-online.co.uk
published and your name alongside it
gives you such a buzz.
But how do you ensure your entry
makes the shortlist? What will the
judge be looking for? As well as
winning competitions, I have also had
the pleasure of being a short story
judge, so over this two-part series
I’m going to give you an insight into
WRITING COMPETITIONS
what’s required to elevate an entry onto
the shortlist and beyond.
Short story competitions can attract
hundreds of entries, so a judge has a
lot of stories to read. For yours to stand
out from all the others, it has to make
them sit up and take notice.
Think outside the box
As Mark Twain said, ‘There is no such
thing as a new idea.’ Building on this,
many an author has argued that all
stories have been done before. And yet
a competition judge wants something
original, so how does that work?
Chances are, whatever competition
you enter, the judge will have seen
it all before. For example, romance,
where a couple run off into the sunset
together; school stories, with a bully
getting their comeuppance; dystopian
worlds featuring a hero/heroine who
saves humanity; twist endings, where
the main protagonist turns out to be
a ghost or a cat/dog; tales of writers
who have lost their muse only to find
it by the finish and crime stories where
the villain is caught by the end, or gets
away scot-free.
Yes, some of these are clichéd, but
that doesn’t mean they can’t make
entertaining stories worthy of doing well
in a competition. Let’s take the genre of
a fairy tale and the well-known one of
Little Red Riding Hood. Lots of versions
have been told over the years, but could
you could make it your own? Little Red
Riding Hood doesn’t have to be a little
girl. She could be older, or a boy, for
example. The wolf doesn’t have to be
an animal, but could be a person. The
grandmother can be another member
of the family. Or someone else entirely.
We may not recognise the link to the
fairy tale to start with, but you can lay
out clues for your reader as the story
unfolds. You could change its genre to
anything – from romance to sci-fi.
As a judge, I always look forward to
seeing how a writer has handled a story
and how they have given me something
different. Let’s look at another example,
this time in the ghost genre. I’ve read
hundreds of spooky stories where
the protagonist realises they’re being
haunted and has to help the ghost
pass on, or where it’s revealed at the
end that it’s the other way round. So
I know what’s coming. Why not have
a ghost who’s not very good at being
scary? Perhaps they’re the one who is
frightened. Or the ghost could be that
of a famous person from history. Who
would they choose to haunt and why?
Does the ghost have to be a person?
Could an object be doing the haunting?
Taking a subject and turning it on its
head is not only great fun to write, but
it may well catch the judge’s eye.
When you’re brainstorming an idea
for your short story, especially if you’re
writing it from a prompt, say one of the
Writing Magazine competitions, don’t
take the first few ideas on your list.
Those first few are likely to be similar to
ideas other writers have come up with.
Dig deeper and let your imagination go,
and see where it takes you.
Unusual viewpoint
An entry featuring an unexpected
viewpoint always captures the judge’s
attention. Most stories are told from a
first-person or third-person viewpoint.
But what about the second-person?
This viewpoint isn’t easy to write, but it
can make for an exceptionally powerful
story. It makes the reader feel as if they
are being addressed personally. For
example: You know you shouldn’t take it,
but you can’t help it. Just one more. Then
you’ll stop. Honest. You almost believe
yourself. Do this for an entire story, and
the judge can’t help but be completely
absorbed in the tale.
Stories seen through the eyes of a
child can be particularly effective.
How about a little girl coping with
her mother’s mental breakdown? This
tugs at the heart-strings straight away.
Perhaps the girl helps her mother come
through it. Another narrator could be
a young teenager battling to cope with
their sexuality and be accepted.
A tale from the villain’s side of things
will give it a different spin. Giving us
an insight into their behaviour and
motivations as we move through the
story might make us understand and
empathise with them. They may be
evil at the start, but they could have
changed by the end. Maybe it’s the hero
www.writers-online.co.uk
of the piece that ends up turning to the
dark side and the villain who turns out
to be the ‘good guy’.
Does the owner of the viewpoint have
to be living in the true sense of the
word? What about an object? I’ve read
a story where the POV character was
a musical instrument and in another,
they were a throne. Both were so welldrawn, I believed in them as characters.
Jot down anything that comes to
mind and have a play around with your
POV character.
Give us a laugh
As a short story judge, I read many
powerful, moving, heartrending stories,
some of which have brought me to
tears. Many I read, though, are full of
misery and woe. They’re often wellwritten, but if I’m reading entry after
entry in this vein, it can drag me down.
So when I come across one which
makes me smile or has a lighter side, it
comes as a welcome relief. It means the
entry immediately stands out.
Nonetheless, be careful of forcing the
humour; it must feel natural and be
relevant to the story. It’s easy to find
yourself adding exclamation marks to
the funny bits. The odd one is fine,
but too many and they detract from
the writing and will, in fact, lessen the
impact of the humour.
Read previous winning entries
Whenever you’re entering a
competition, if you have the
opportunity to read stories which
have won before, do. It gives you an
insight into what the judge is looking
for. When I first started competition
writing, I targeted those held by
Writing Magazine. My stories didn’t
come anywhere, but I kept reading
the winning entries to get a feel for
the subject matter, style, language, etc,
that was clearly required if mine was
to stand any chance of doing well.
Obviously, I couldn’t write something
the same, but it really helped me to get
a feel for what makes a prize-winning
tale. It also made me a much better
writer, and I started to find myself
appearing on the shortlist and then
winning a few of the competitions.
JANUARY 2024
5
Check the rules
Before you start writing, always read
the rules. It can seem a pain as some
competitions have a great long list of
do’s and don’ts. But they all need to be
adhered to. Otherwise, you can find
yourself disqualified straight away, just
because you’ve missed something small
in the rules.
One of the competitions I used to
judge was for stories between 1,000 –
3,000 words. Yet, I would often receive
entries for under 1,000 words, while
others came in at over 3,000 words,
sometimes by a long way. Sadly, they
had to be disqualified without even
being read.
Other rules might relate to how
your work should be set out, or that
an entry must be the unpublished
work of the writer. In the case of the
latter, if it’s discovered your entry has
already appeared in a magazine, or
competition anthology, your story will
be disqualified.
As well as taking care to read the rules
before you start writing, take another
look before you send your work off.
You may think you’ve remembered the
rules, but it’s often the case that days
or weeks have passed since you began
your story and when you finished it.
So it’s easy to miss something in your
eagerness to enter the competition.
Nothing compares with the thrill of
winning your first competition. Your
entry has stood out amongst possibly
hundreds of others. The judge picked
your story. Hopefully these tips will
help you on your way to win.
In part two, we’ll take a look at how
important it is to get the opening spot
on, and to create credible characters.
The impact of dialogue on your story
will also be covered and the role tension
and obstacles play. Even if your tale
dazzles all the way through, the ending
can bring everything crashing down
so it’s vital you get it right. And do
mistakes matter? Will the judge mind if
your dialogue or punctuation isn’t quite
right, or you’ve missed a few words out?
It’s something we’ll explore further.
WHERE TO START
If you haven’t entered a writing
competition before, think about
starting small and building up.
You’ll find competitions with a
variety of prizes, ranging from £10
cash for the top spot or a book
token, to an eye-catching first
prize of £1,000. The bigger the
prize money, the more entrants
there are likely to be and you will
be up against stiff competition.
Some only offer publication of your
story if you win. But a win is a win,
whatever the competition.
6
JANUARY 2024
www.writers-online.co.uk
‘TREAT YOURSELF OR A
FRIEND THIS CHRISTMAS’
Subscribe and
receive Writers’
& Artists’
Yearbook
2024
BOOK
WORTH
£30!
THREE EASY WAYS TO SUBSCRIBE:
Complete the form and send back to us via FREEPOST
Claim online: writ.rs/subscribe
Or call our team on: 01778 392482
SUBSCRIPTION FORM
Yes, I would like to subscribe to Writing Magazine plus, receive Writers and
Artist Yearbook 2024
£11.99 A QUARTER ON DIRECT DEBIT
Please complete the order form (photocopies accepted) and return to our simple
freepost address: Writing Magazine FREEPOST: WARNERSGROUP (WM)
Instructions to your Bank or Building Society to pay by Direct Debit.
Name(s) of Account Holder(s) ............................................................................................
My details:
Sort Code ............................................................................................................................
Title ............... Forename ....................Surname ...................................
Account Number ................................................................................................................
Address ..................................................................................................
................................................................................................................
N
e ere
e
er
s
Postcode ................................................................................................
er i e ser
If you wish to receive direct mail from the publisher please tick here ❏
If you wish to receive direct mail from selected third parties please tick here
❏
er
9 3 0 8 9 5
s
i i
ieties
t
e t
ire t e it str ti s
r s e t es
t
N
N
N
N
e se
Writers News ire t e its r
t e
t et i e i t is i str ti s e t t t e s e
r s ss re
ire t e it
r tee
erst
t t t is i str ti
re i wit Writers News
i s
et i s wi e
e e tr i
t
i i s iet
t e
sse
❏Yes, I would like to sign up for the free Writing Magazine monthly e-newsletter
Email ......................................................................................................
I’m happy to receive special offers via email from: ❏ Warners Group Publications plc ❏ Selected third parties
Telephone (Inc. Area Code) ..........................................................................
I’m happy to receive special offers via telephone from: ❏ Warners Group Publications plc ❏ Selected third parties
For information on how your personal data is processed, secured and your rights, our
Privacy Policy can be viewed here-warners.gr/privacy or available in hard copy on request.
Your order will be processed in accordance with our Terms of Sale which can be viewed
here-warners.gr/termssale or available in hard copy on request.
i
t re s
te
12 month minimum subscription term applies
SUBSCRIBE BY CHEQUE OR CREDIT CARD plus, receive Writers and Artist
Yearbook 2024
1 YEAR (12 issues)
£49.50 (UK)
£62 (Europe)
£73 (Rest of World)
I would like to pay by Cheque (made payable to Warners Group Publications)
Please debit my Visa / Mastercard / Maestro
CARD NUMBER ..................................................................................................................
VALID FROM .................................................................... EXPIRY ................................................................
ISSUE No ............SECURITY NUMBER ................
SIGNATURE ..................................................................... DATE ....................................................................
ROBOTS WRITE ON
ChatGPT and AI have created worrying issues for writers throughout 2023.
Gary Dalkin considers the impact of AI and looks at potential future
developments and how they could effect the world of writing.
very day we hear that AI is causing a
revolution in some aspect of writing or
publishing. Here is just a small selection
of recent headlines: ‘Zadie Smith,
Stephen King and Rachel Cusk’s pirated
works used to train AI’ (Guardian); ‘The author
embracing AI to help write novels – and why he’s
not worried about it taking his job’ (Sky News);
‘Fiction Analytics Site Prosecraft Shut Down After
Backlash’ (Gizmodo)…
What’s clear is that AI is moving so rapidly that
you would have to read several articles about it every
day to keep up. The problem is twofold – what is
happening, and what might be about to happen
– the latter because this is a technology as much
speculated about as it is understood — and that is
even by experts working in the field.
Unknown quantities
The truth is that no one knows how AI might
change not just writing and publishing, but the
world, both because we don’t know just what the
technology might be capable of – it is developing
exponentially and people are constantly finding
innovative new things to do with it – and what its
limitations might be.
Equally, we don’t know the extent to which
individuals and societies will accept AI into their
lives, or how they might push back to limit its
impact. And with everything changing so rapidly
the result is a new frontier, one where what is
technologically possible, what the law says is legal,
8
JANUARY 2024
www.writers-online.co.uk
and what companies large and small can get away
with all converge in surprising and chaotic ways.
Take Prosecraft, which probably closed down
before you knew it existed. Prosecraft was a website
run by an American writer and entrepreneur called
Benji Smith. He said that his site was, ‘dedicated
to the linguistic analysis of literature, including
more than 25,000 books by thousands of different
authors.’ When, following a backlash in August,
Smith took Prosecraft offline, he wrote a blog post
explaining that he originally created the site to help
himself work out how many words there typically
are in different genres of fiction. From there he
moved on to analysing novels to produce statistical
breakdowns of thousands of titles. He gave the
example of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, which
apparently has 26,814 words, a ‘vividness’ score of
83.93% and uses passive voice 8.08% of the time
— by Prosecraft’s metrics. The problem was, Smith
had not only used long out of copyright classics like
Alice, but also thousands of very much in copyright
works by living authors. Smith argued his use of
the texts was protected under the principle of ‘fair
use’ and said he never made any money out of
Prosecraft, arguing that he was a victim caught-up
in the writing world’s backlash against AI.
Smith’s case may be an innocent example of
a relatively small-scale operation to provide
algorithmically derived statistics about books by
feeding authors’ work into a computer, but it is
just a matter of degree from there to training even
more powerful computers not just to produce data
T E C H N O L O GY F O R W R I T E R S
about already existing books, but to use those books as the
raw material to train artificial intelligences to write.
Copy, paste, pirate
Which brings us to the likes of ChatGPT and its various
rivals. The problem with all of these systems, from Google’s
Bard to less well-known products such as Sudowrite
and Writesonic (which are almost all based on GPT, the
technology underlying ChatGPT) is that plagiarism is
baked into the business model. Which is to say that these
AIs couldn’t do what they do without being trained on vast
quantities of books by professional writers, their work being
taken and scanned and analysed without their knowledge
or consent to develop new technology the very purpose
of which is to replace writers. In other words, the work
of countless writers is being taken without their consent
in order to develop technology which is a direct rival to
human authors.
Writing in the Atlantic, Alex Reisner reported that he
had been able to obtain a copy of a dataset used by Meta
to train LLaMA (an AI). This dataset contained over
170,000 pirated books, ‘the majority published in the
last 20 years’. The dataset was known as Books3, and has
also been used to train Bloomberg’s BloombergGPT and
EleutherAI’s GPT-J. This vast trove contains digital texts
by authors including Sarah Silverman, Richard Kadrey,
Christopher Golden, Michael Pollan, Rebecca Solnit, Jon
Krakauer, James Patterson, Stephen King, George Saunders,
Zadie Smith and thousands more. All taken without their
knowledge or permission.
Books3, Reisner discovered, is part of an even larger
dataset known as The Pile, which contains not just books,
but other digital texts, including such diverse material as
documents from the European Parliament and Wikipedia
to subtitles scraped from YouTube videos. Analysing
The Pile, Reisner found over 30,000 books published by
Penguin Random House, 14,000 from HarperCollins,
and 7,000 from Macmillan. There were seven novels by
Jonathan Frazen, 33 by Margaret Atwood, and 102 by L.
Ron Hubbard (the founder of Scientology and a prolific
pulp writer). Reisner wasn’t able to learn what Books1
contains, but suspects it is the Project Gutenberg database
of around 70,000 out-of-copyright books, while Books2 is
thought to consist of pirated digital libraries going by such
names as Bibliotik, Library Genesis and Z-Library, which,
if you know where to look, are available to download using
BitTorrent.
“They will never stop me from
writing. I will continue to
generate stupid, silly stories,
even after technology has
made me completely obsolete.
If there’s one edge I have over
AI, it’s this irrationality, this
need to create something that
has no right or reason to exist.
I know it makes no sense. I’m
starting to think it might also
be what makes me human.”
www.writers-online.co.uk
JANUARY 2024
9
Will writers become obsolete?
Until recently authors just had to worry about
their books being pirated, though someone
illegally downloading an ebook didn’t necessarily
mean a lost sale. Most people who pirate ebooks
wouldn’t buy a legitimate edition if they couldn’t
get the book for free. Using pirated books to train
machines to potentially replace writers is a whole
order of magnitude more concerning.
Simon Rich is an American screenwriter who
recently co-edited the book I Am Code: An Artificial
Intelligence Speaks, by the AI code-davinci-002.
Rich also wrote an article for Time and the title
alone – ‘I’m a Screenwriter. These AI Jokes Give
Me Nightmares’ – should be enough to give you
nightmares. In this article he observed that while
the limitations of AIs like ChatGPT are well
known, there are other AIs which are much more
advanced. He wrote that what people don’t realise
is that ChatGPT ‘sucks on purpose. OpenAI spent
a ton of time and money training ChatGPT to be
as predictable, conformist, and non-threatening as
possible.’
Which is intriguing, because when I spoke
to Rachel Armstrong, Professor of Regenerative
Architecture, KU Leuven, as well as the author of the
science fiction novels Invisible Ecologies, Origamy and
Soul Chasers, she offered the opinion that: ‘Writing
alongside AI will become as commonplace as using
spell-check today. Most times it will enhance the
natural flow of our writing, but occasionally, its
quirks will frustrate us, and we’ll find ways to disable
it. We’ll regard AI as a writing companion and
sometimes wonder what it’s thinking, but we will
largely be blind to its biases, just as we are to our
own, as it will be trained and shaped by us.’
Rich goes on to note that thanks to a friend at
OpenAI (the Microsoft-backed company which
develops GPT), he has been able to use another AI
called code-davinci-002 which predates ChatGPT
but which is far superior and can even produce
jokes which are funny. He gives these examples of
fake, Onion-style headlines: ‘Experts Warn that War
in Ukraine Could Become Even More Boring’ and
‘Budget of New Batman Movie Swells to $200M as
Director Insists on Using Real Batman.’ Admit it –
at least one of those made you laugh. Rich concludes
that, based on what he has seen at Open AI, ‘I think
it’s only a matter of time before AI will be able to
beat any writer in a blind creative taste test. I’d peg it
at about five years.’
Back to Professor Armstrong: ‘From a reader’s
standpoint, AI-assisted writing will exude a sense
of mildness and predictability and we’ll long for
something dirtier, grittier with far more semantic
10
JANUARY 2024
www.writers-online.co.uk
and grammatic danger. I personally can’t wait for
a non-AI literary resurgence, where writers will
embrace techniques, like cut-up, to forge ambiguous
juxtapositions that AI struggles to decipher – a true
punk-like pushback against the AI norm.’
And here is a key point. However good AI
becomes at synthesising text that gives the sense of
being crafted by a human being, people will always
want to read writing that reflects – and therefore
has valuable insight into – true human experience.
No matter how good at faking it, a computer does
not have the experience of what it is to be human,
and by definition it never can. It seems inevitable
that AI will take over the function of writing, for
example, routine corporate prose. As Rich says, ‘It’s
a great corporate tool and it would make a terrible
staff writer.’ But equally, writers will resist, as we
have seen happen with the WGA (Writers Guild of
America) strike in the USA. Indeed, it is likely that
human written works will carry a logo to vouch for
their organic authenticity. Several such schemes are
already in development. And as Rich concludes: ‘…
they will never stop me from writing. I will continue
to generate stupid, silly stories, even after technology
has made me completely obsolete. If there’s one edge
I have over AI, it’s this irrationality, this need to
create something that has no right or reason to exist.
I know it makes no sense. I’m starting to think it
might also be what makes me human.’
Problems... and solutions
And yet… there are reasons for optimism. While
subscribers can now get access to a more naturalistic
AI text system, ChatGPT4, and websites like How
To Geek advise on how to get AI to produce ‘more
humanized text’, Professor Gary Marcus, co-founder
of the Center for the Advancement of Trustworthy
AI, recently wrote that generative AI has, ‘many
serious, unsolved problems’, and that it ‘probably
isn’t going to have the impact people seem to be
expecting’. He suggested that it could be a mistake
to think that ‘generative AI will be world-changing’.
Drawing comparisons with past technologies that
have failed to live up to their promise (or hype),
for example, airships, he writes, ‘Fast-scaling
technologies don’t invariably fulfil their promise’ and
that ‘the whole generative AI field, at least at current
valuations, could come to a fairly swift end’.
And then there is another aspect to consider.
What happens is not just a matter of what is
technologically possible, but on what we, as societies,
decide to accept. Technology is one half of an
equation with the law sitting on the opposite side
of the scales. So, for example, in June the Guardian
ran a story headlined: ‘Two US lawyers fined for
T E C H N O L O GY F O R W R I T E R S
submitting fake court citations from ChatGPT.’ That
though, was down to the lawyers’ ignorance in thinking
that ChatGPT could be trusted. As I wrote for Writing
Magazine back in the April issue, AI systems are prone to
‘hallucinating’, or to put it in plain English, making stuff up
– one of the potentially unsolvable problems Gary Marcus
alludes to.
More seriously, writers (and other creatives) are starting
to bring legal suits around the world for their work being
used to train AI systems without their consent. But most
significantly of all, 18 August may come to be seen as a
turning point. On that date in the US, a federal judge
upheld a finding from the U.S. Copyright Office that art
created by AI is not open to protection, that copyright only
applies to work created by human beings. The obvious
significance is that if something can’t be copyright then
anyone else can legally reproduce it, and what publisher
will invest time, money and effort in a book knowing
anyone else can legally have a version for sale online within
hours of publication?
At the moment the above judgement only applies in
the US – and doubtless will be challenged – but if the
US decides that AI works have no legal protection then
effectively that will apply worldwide, certainly throughout
the English-speaking world. The US is by far the biggest
market for English-language works, and no British or
Australian or Canadian publisher is going to bother with a
book which anyone can freely republish in the United States.
U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell found that: ‘Human
authorship is a bedrock requirement’ for copyright. That
US copyright law ‘protects only works of human creation’
and that: ‘In the absence of any human involvement in the
creation of the work, the clear and straightforward answer
is the one given by the Register: No.’ There is nothing
ambivalent about this. The law of the United States has
realised the vital importance of the human element in
creative work and has come down firmly on the side of
protecting it.
Progress marches on
Nevertheless, change continues apace. ChatGPT is now
available as an Android app and has been integrated into
Microsoft’s Bing search engine. It has also been updated
with voice functions and giving it the ability to ‘see’.
Amusingly, when you sign into the Android app the
first screen you see warns: ‘ChatGPT can be inaccurate:
ChatGPT may provide inaccurate information about
people, places or facts’. In the wake of ‘alternative facts’,
‘inaccurate information’ is the new information.
Meanwhile the EU has passed The Digital Services Act,
imposing much stricter regulation on major technology
companies, which they define as any platform with more
than 45 million users. The new law regulates, among other
things, how big companies use the data they have access to.
In response Facebook recently added a page to their help
section headed ‘Generative AI data subject rights’ which
introduces an option ‘to delete any personal information
from third parties used for generative AI’.
In September, in an effort to combat a torrent of
AI-generated books, Amazon limited users from uploading
more than three titles a day using its KDP (Kindle Direct
Publishing) publishing system. It must be noted that not
all publishing applications of AI are bad – in September, in
collaboration with Microsoft and MIT, Project Gutenberg
made 5,000 out-of-copyright books available as audiobooks
‘read’ by synthetic speech and using AI.
More recently WGA won its battle with the Hollywood
Studios over the use of AI to write or provide source
material for screenplays, and The Atlantic continued their
investigation into which books were being used to train AI
programmes, including creating a search engine to search
the Books3 database. You can find this at full-stack-searchprod.vercel.app. Enter your name to see if your work has
been misappropriated. In a few minutes I found one book
I edited and many more by authors whose work I have
edited. Finally, the Author’s Guild launched a class action
suit against Open A.I. on behalf of 17 writers including John
Grisham, Jodi Picoult, David Baldacci, George R.R. Martin
and Jonathan Franzen over its use of their work to train GPT
3.5 and 4. Lines are being drawn, with these most recent
developments indicating that positive change is coming,
and that while the outcomes are far from certain, works
created by human beings will continue to be valued over
AI-generated ‘content’.
FURTHER READING
• Benji Smith, ‘Taking Down Prosecraft.io’: https://writ.
rs/takingdownprosecraft
• Alex Reisner, ‘Revealed: The Authors Whose Pirated
Books Are Powering Generative AI’: https://writ.rs/
reisnerrevealed
• Simon Rich, ‘I’m a Screenwriter. These AI Jokes Give
Me Nightmares’: https://writ.rs/aijokenightmares
• Gary Marcus, ‘What If Generative A.I. Turned Out to be
a Dud?’: https://bit.ly/aidud
• Facebook Generative AI data subject rights page:
https://writ.rs/FBaidatarights
• How to Geek, ‘How to Humanize ChatGPT Text:
www.howtogeek.com/how-to-humanize-chatgpt-text/
www.writers-online.co.uk
JANUARY 2024
11
s
l
e
e
f
e
h
t
l
Al
WRITING
FESTIVE
FICTION
Christmas romances are perenially
popular with readers – so how do you
write a winter wonderland that readers
will fall in love with? Author
Jenny Bayliss offers her top tips.
ver the last few years, the market for
festive romance novels has grown
exponentially. This isn’t really a
surprise, when the world feels like it’s
going to hell in a handbasket it’s small
wonder that we reach for something comforting.
Bringing the festive feels
Holiday romance requires the same ingredients as
any other kind of fiction; an engaging plot line and
strong characters that your reader can relate to and
root for. But with a festive romance you will also be
required to bring your holiday twinkle and sprinkle
it liberally. The aesthetics and ambience of the
season should almost become their own character.
In the same way that if you were writing for
Halloween you’d likely throw in some cobwebs and
dark shadows to build the atmosphere, with a festive
novel you are creating a feeling of comfort and
hopefulness. Engage your senses, taste the mulled
wine, smell the cinnamon, feel the soft weave of the
blanket, and hear the crackle of the fire. It doesn’t
have to be twee, but it needs to create a mood that
places your reader firmly in the festive zone.
Do your homework
You can’t write it until you read it. Wide reading in
the genre that you intend to write for is crucial for
12
JANUARY 2024
www.writers-online.co.uk
understanding your readership and
the market in any category, and
festive romance is no different.
Take your pick
If you have been labouring under the misconception
that all festive romances are the same, think again;
the subgenres in this field are many and varied.
There’s the Hallmark Movie style, low on peril,
big on joy and baking. Or the increasingly popular
‘spicy’ festive romances that offer all the sparkle
of the above but with sexy scenes which bring
more heat to your cheeks than the merry fire in
your hearth. There’s the ‘just happens to be set at
Christmas’ romance, the ‘none of this would have
happened without Christmas’ romance, the urbancontemporary, the historical bodice ripper, or the
witty fast paced romcom; the world is your bauble
in terms of choice.
Festive romance for all!
Don’t change your writing style to fit someone else’s
idea of what a festive romance should be, it won’t
feel authentic, and your readers will know. Take the
genre and make it your own. If you are a writer who
adores the season to be jolly but have found yourself
hitherto underrepresented in holiday romance, now
is your time to shine. We are beginning to see more
WRITING FESTIVE FICTION
representation and inclusivity within this space but
there is still a long way to go until everyone can see
themselves in books.
It isn’t only Christmas which can deliver on those
festive feels we crave. Hannukah romances such as The
Matzah Ball by Jean Meltzer provide holiday vibes
aplenty, and secular romances celebrating the season of
winter itself bring their own brand of whimsical magic.
So long as you imbue your writing with a sense of
warmth and goodwill to all, your conviviality will shine
through whatever the name of the holiday.
The holiday rules
A satisfying, happy ending is a must. Your festive
romance reader arrives with certain expectations
and if everybody dies horribly at the end of your
book then you’ve basically ruined Christmas. It
doesn’t have to be all snowflakes and candy canes,
but generally a reader chooses a festive romance to
enhance their holiday joy, so don’t be a party pooper.
That said, don’t be afraid to tackle difficult subjects
within the book, problems don’t cease simply
because the fairy lights are turned on, but be sure to
provide a good resolution.
In any story, your protagonist must go on a personal
journey and emerge transformed and this is especially
important in a festive romance. Think of it as the
Scrooge effect, at the end of the book your heroine
must be changed for the better.
Mix it up
Festive romance need not be prescriptive. Thanks
largely to Charles Dickens, a little suspension of
reality is perfectly acceptable in a holiday romance;
ghosts, time travel, magic bookshops and bakeries,
and life swaps are all fair game for the festive writer.
Take advantage of this liberality to exaggerate
and have fun with classic tropes such as enemies to
lovers, fake dating, or grinch vs wassailer.
However, keep your protagonist’s flaws firmly
grounded in the real world. They might well have
a holiday home in Santa’s Village but that doesn’t
mean they aren’t commitment-phobes or struggling
to let go of an old heartbreak, it’s your character’s
human imperfections which will make them
relatable to your reader.
Above all, let yourself be swept up in the
possibilities that festive romance offers, stamp it
with your own style and write the kind of book
that you would like to read.
A December to Remember by Jenny Bayliss is
published in paperback by Pan, £8.99. Also
available in ebook and audio.
www.writers-online.co.uk
JANUARY 2024
13
What does the act of writing mean,
what is its importance, and why do
we do it? Its rhythms shape us, says
award-winning author and essayist,
editor and professor of European
literature Ben Hutchinson
e live entirely […] by the imposition
of a narrative line upon disparate
images’. Joan Didion, as ever, has
a point. Our moods, our identity
and self-esteem, all depend on our
constantly shifting responses to external stimuli, to the many
micro-aggressions of the everyday. The news can make me feel
sad or exhilarated, friends can make me feel empowered or
emasculated. It depends on how I read them. It depends on
my narrative line.
Yet what Didion actually writes – my coy ellipsis gives
the game away – is that we live entirely, especially if we are
writers, by the imposition of a narrative line. Prisoners of our
perspectives, we are the editors of existence, giving rhythm
and cadence, rise and fall, to the parameters of our life
sentence. Perhaps we just need to think about life as though
we were writing it.
Can we also think about writing as though we were living
it? What does it mean to give existential importance to the act
of writing, not just to its product? All writers have to answer
this in their own way, but for me it comes down to rhythm –
to finding the rhythm of a text, as of life, and moving with it.
The best way of not falling off a bucking bronco (I assume) is
to buck with it.
Perhaps this sense of rhythm comes from my earliest interest
in poetry. Momentum dictates meaning: one syllable solicits
another, one sentence succeeds another in an ever-increasing
string of meaning. Writing is like a conjuring act, a rope
trick with language: we climb up the words as we type them,
14
JANUARY 2024
convincing ourselves of their tautness and tension for fear
that they will go slack and let us fall. Life, too, is like this
rope trick, as we scramble to hold on to our fragile sense of
purpose. Intuition is as important as cognition, perhaps more
so; T.S. Eliot’s claim that we feel poetry before we understand
it might sound like so much mysticism, but it comes down to
this ear for rhythm. Rhythm is the body language of language,
and we are always reading it.
My top tip, then, for any writer of any sort, is to find
your rhythm. Partly this is a matter of that staple of creative
writing courses, ‘voice’: what makes you sound like you (and
no one else)? But voice is also a matter of lexis and diction, of
grammar and mood, whereas rhythm is really about the sound
of your sentences – and thus about the relationship between
their form and their content. How does your writing embody
what it is saying?
Any writing worth its talk reflects on this question.
Copywriting and advertising do it all the time, indeed it
is their secret: ‘every little helps’. Punchy words convey
punchy sentiment; memorable phrases stick in the memory.
Insinuating meaning is better, in many ways, than insisting on
it. To adapt the oldest cliché of all: show, don’t yell.
Rhythm can also be a matter of surprise, the switch and
bait of expectation. I’ve done it here a couple of times already:
the reader anticipates a proverb or saying, only to be pulled
in a different direction. The mind is undermined. That this is
more than merely playful points to an issue at the heart of the
dialogue between reader and writer. Who is in charge?
We all want to feel, when we begin reading something,
www.writers-online.co.uk
© Matt Wilson
THE
RHYTHM
OF WRITING
C R E AT I V E W R I T I N G
that we are in safe hands. That dawning sense of relief as
we read the first few paragraphs – that this will be worth
our time, that we won’t be wasting our energy on lazy or
incoherent writing – is always welcome (and all too rare,
at least as a university professor). But we also want to be in
surprising hands: we want to be taken somewhere new, given
renewed meaning. Trust, in other words – in precisely these
words – is the currency of literature.
Its exchange rate fluctuates with our flow. Another word
for rhythm is pace, and the best writers know how to vary
it. We can identify pace at three main levels: the sentence,
the paragraph, and the book as a whole. Get them right, and
everything else follows.
The sentence, first, knows many variants, from staccato
Hemingway to stylish Proust. The syntax depends on the
sentiment. Do you want to be brusque and straightforward?
Or baroque and serpentine, provisional and self-questioning,
circling back on your own memories with an army of
adjectives? If the standard editorial advice veers to the former
– don’t use the passive voice, simplify the syntax – the best
writers know how to vary the pace, mixing shorter sentences
with longer clauses, dosing full stops with semi-colons. In the
words of Samuel Beckett: every truth has its stopcock.
This is especially true at the level of paragraphs. Pedestrian
prose merely accumulates, placing one flat sentence in front
of another like a cartoon train laying its tracks as it goes. Or
it mixes metaphors awkwardly, like this shift from walking
on foot to travelling in a train. Propulsive prose, on the
other hand, generates its own momentum, moving with the
meaning. My own tendency, I notice, is to begin with a punch
and conclude with a pinch – to return, after stretching my legs
through a succession of longer sentences, to something shorter
and pithy. Every good paragraph needs closure.
Scaled up to a book (or story) as a whole, pacing is what
retains the reader’s attention. This can be at the level of plot
– we all want to know who did it – or argument, content
or form. For anything longer than a few pages, variations
in intensity are both inevitable and indispensable, which is
why long poems are notoriously difficult to sustain. Having
buttonholed the reader and piqued their interest, we are
well advised to let them breathe for a bit, to give them some
reading space. No one wants to be talked at all the time.
None of this, of course, addresses the point of writing in the
first place. I can’t really help you there – we all have to answer
this for ourselves – but my own justification is something close
to that of Kafka (substituting writing for reading): ‘I think
we ought to read only the kind of books that wound and stab
us. If the book we’re reading doesn’t wake us up with a blow
on the head, what are we reading it for? […] We need the
books that affect us like a disaster, that grieve us deeply, like
the death of someone we loved more than ourselves, like being
banished into forests far from anyone, like a suicide. A book
must be the axe for the frozen sea inside us.’
A recipe for easy reading this is not. What it is, though, is
a love letter, among the darkest ever written, to the power
of literature. Reading and writing are professions of faith in
the possibility of purpose: why else do we turn to books if
not to broaden our sense of the capacities of life? In their
very existence, in the very energy involved in writing them,
all writing is life-affirming, even that that would seek to
deny or denigrate life, to banish us into forests far from
anyone. The most nihilistic of works is still a creative act,
powered by purpose.
Writing – drafting, reading, deleting and redrafting –
transcends the prison of the present. It places us, and paces us,
not just in time, but out of time. Writing consists of words,
and words construct meaning. Beyond their utilitarian value,
beyond even their relationship to each other, words are worlds
in miniature, windows onto our common past, our contested
present, our uncertain future. With sufficient scrutiny, even
random adjectives – luminous, sheepish, incandescent – can
become one-word poems, flush with their own agenda. Repeat
them often enough and they begin to resonate; hold them up
to the light and they begin to shine. Their sound, their shape,
their un/stressed syllables: whole histories of meaning shimmer
through them, through etymologies both physical and
metaphysical. Words, to paraphrase Milton’s iconic oxymoron,
make absence visible. They conjure up something that isn’t
there, they whisper sweet somethings into our avid ears.
Reading and writing teach us to be attentive to this absent
presence, to the rhythm of our lives.
We can all learn to be more attentive to this rhythm, in
our literature if not in our lives. Listening to our writing is as
important as reading it; prose does not have to be purple to
be poetic. The reason I value the act of writing more than its
outcome – which amounts, in the end, to the ‘death mask of
its conception’, in the words of Walter Benjamin – is that it
gives me direction and meaning, pacing out my purpose as I
type. This is also why – second top tip! – I am always writing
something, however modest, since I am always seeking some
form of meaning, however meagre. Who isn’t?
Ten Lessons on the Meaning of Life by Ben Hutchinson is
published by 4th Estate (£12.99)
www.writers-online.co.uk
JANUARY 2024
15
Philippa Gregory’s latest book is a passion project that turns women’s history on its
head. She talks to Tina Jackson about Normal Women, writer’s wrath and how the Bayeux
Tapestry’s embroidered misogyny set her on the trail.
hether fact or fiction,
every story needs an
inciting incident. For
Philippa Gregory, in the
case of Normal Women:
900 Years of Making History, it
was the realisation that there were
more penises (93) than women (5)
embroidered on the Bayeux Tapestry.
‘There are five,’ says the renowned
author in some indignation. Her
new book of historical non-fiction
re-claiming women’s lives – a passion
project that has taken almost a decade
to complete – begins with the Norman
Conquest in 1066. ‘One is mourning
the death of her husband. Four women
are being touched or sexually abused
– one is running away from a burning
building with her child. That’s literally
where we start. It was embroidered by
the women of England and if that’s
what the Normans commanded it tells
you everything about how the Normans
saw themselves and women.’
Lively, angry, informed and
fascinating, Normal Women turns the
accepted narrative that only occasionally
have women throughout history stepped
into ‘notable’ or
‘exceptional’ roles
on its head. The
seeds of it were
sown when the
historian and
author of historical
fiction was writing
her Tudor novels,
which include the
16
JANUARY 2024
global bestseller, The Other Boleyn Girl.
‘I was really struck by writing the
Tudor series, people would say, how did
you find this extraordinary woman?’ she
describes. ‘And then I’d find another.
The daughter or a sister… and the
penny dropped, it’s not that you look for
women’s history through the historical
writing we have, it’s that if you look for
them you will find them. Doing things.
You look into it, there were women
brickmakers, master brickmakers. It sort
of crept up on me, to be honest. If you
look for them,’ Philippa repeats, ‘you
find them.’
And she has. Normal Women is a
900-page tome (‘A big beast!,’ laughs
its author) packed with startling
histories not of the rich and famous,
but of ordinary women living lives that,
centuries later, are full of surprises for the
21st-century reader.
‘Every time I did any research I had
a “good lord” moment,’ says Philippa.
‘Women got equal pay in 1348, after the
Black Death, and never got it again. The
population had halved and there were
vacancies, this extraordinary opportunity
for all working women – and then this
deliberate pushback by the government
who introduced that single women
couldn’t work for themselves, they had
to work for an employer. Disasters and
opportunities. It’s when it’s disruptive. In
the Civil War women formed regiments
and became fighting soldiers, and
assessors of properties. Opportunities
open up for women whenever society
is shaken up. And then when you want
www.writers-online.co.uk
it to get back to normal, for a man to
have opportunities, you bring in the
breadwinner wage.’
What Philippa wanted was any
woman reading this to pick it up and
say, this is a normal woman. ‘The
title initially was, A Brief History of
Normal Women, as a joke! I want to say
anything a woman does is normal, by
virtue of her doing it.
‘The extraordinary women were a
whole world,’ continues Philippa. ‘All
sorts of women working in all sorts of
trades, religions, all sorts of things.’
She made the decision to begin her
epic history in 1066. ‘I thought, I
ought to start looking at the women
who are in the shadows. And I thought
when shall I start? 1066 – the Norman
conquest. And finish when women are
recognised as equal with men in the
church of England. That might not
mean much to women now but for
medieval women that would have been
a huge, huge moment.’
She began writing almost as soon as
she began researching, always with the
intention not to draw attention to the
‘extraordinary’, but to affirm the point
that women’s lives have always been
fuller and more engaged with the society
they lived in than conventional history
has allowed. ‘It was terribly important
to me that I didn’t let myself get caught
up in the extraordinary stories. I tell
how the story is an example of what is
happening to everyone – it’s wonderful
to be able to say there were women
doing this… and this woman here,
S TA R I N T E R V I E W
‘It’s radical in the sense that
it’s mostly about working class
people – radical in the best sense.
It is a complete change to how we
normally tell the national history,
it’s not told about the rulers, the
important men. It’s the stories of the
unimportant women.’
there’s more. Here’s her name. Women
as examples of normal women’s lives –
I want them to be in the context of the
women’s history.’
The book reframes historical women’s
lives in a radical way. ‘It’s radical in the
sense that it’s mostly about working
class people – radical in the best sense,’
says Philippa. ‘It is a complete change
to how we normally tell the national
history, it’s not told about the rulers,
the important men. It’s the stories of
the unimportant women.’
Normal Women inverts the notion that
a woman doing something noteworthy
must be exceptional.
‘From the Greeks, as soon as people
are writing, they try to define the nature
of women,’ says Philippa. ‘Every male
philosopher – and what none of them
understand is that there are so many of
us, and normal is what any of us say it
is. If you look at what we think of as
extraordinary – for example, a woman
who joins the Navy, and sails around
the world – we say she’s extraordinary.
And I’m saying these achievements are
normal. One of the problems of writing
women’s history is that, every time
someone does something, we take her
out of history, from the others working
in that area who then don’t get noticed.’
Along the way, the reader of Normal
Women will be open-mouthed at
reading the systematic injustices
that women have been faced with
throughout nine centuries.
‘I think I experience writer’s wrath,’
says Philippa. ‘Some of these things are
outrageous and current comparisons
between then and today make it clear
that we’ve not achieved equality in
many areas.’
What has made her most angry?
‘Rape statistics,’ Philippa says firmly.
‘In Elizabethan times the statistics
for prosecuting rapists was 20% of
every case brought to court. Today we
successfully prosecute 2%. Less than
two. Basically, we have decriminalised
rape. We don’t take them to court, we
don’t convict them when we get them
into court. In the Elizabethan era there
was a greater will to protect women than
there is today.’
Philippa first started writing historical
fiction around
1986. ‘I’d finished
my PhD by then
– so I’ve never
written historical
fiction except as a
historian. It’s been
an education! If
you love history
and novels, you’re
going to be drawn
to books. When
I first started
writing historical
www.writers-online.co.uk
fiction it was
an absolute
marriage of my love of history
and fiction.’
She feels that the process of writing
her fictional histories were leading her
in the direction of what would become
Normal Women.
‘Without understanding it, I was
finding women who had extraordinary
lives or were present at extraordinary
events, and telling their stories. They were
extraordinary women and I increased
their outstanding quality by telling them
in a fictional biography. With this book I
reverse the process. Mary Boleyn would
be a great example of a normal woman –
she got into prominence through sleeping
with the king, and ended her days as a
completely normal woman. By focusing
on the court period of her life I made her
look extraordinary.’
Mary Boleyn drew Philippa into
writing about the Tudor court. ‘After her
there was Catherine of Aragon because
I couldn’t have written Mary Boleyn
without loving Catherine of Aragon.
It wasn’t that I wanted to write about
royals, but one lead me on to another.’
Philippa’s most recent series, Tidelands,
is a departure from her royal stories:
it tells the intergenerational story of a
family with the humblest of origins.
‘With Tidelands, I wanted to write
about the rise of a family who came
from where most of us come from,
peasant stock and mud, and it took me
back to Normal Women,’ says Philippa.
‘I think they absolutely developed
alongside each other. I am more aware
of the limitations and the economic
opportunities open to women.
JANUARY 2024
17
S TA R I N T E R V I E W
‘In the early medieval period, women
enjoyed a lot of personal freedom because
we hadn’t yet invented the idea of
ladylike behaviour – there was a general
acceptance that women were noisy,
rude, good at making money, working
in hospitality and the food business.
There were women in the marketplace,
in positions of authority and other trades,
sexually active, causing trouble, liked to get
drunk and party.’
Ordinary people’s lives are so much more valuable than any
number of fairytale stories about princesses.’
Philippa says she went about researching and writing her
exhaustive history ‘one bite at a time’.
‘There’s been fantastic work and I am eternally grateful to
historians from the 1950s onwards,’ she says. ‘But they tend
to write about women in a particular history – for instance
medieval, or a particular point in history i.e. the suffragettes.
So it’s a question of putting the detailed work in the context
of the other work as well. I read a lot of secondary sources so
I read their books and put them together. The biggest pulling
together was going through time, starting from 1066.’
Themes emerged through the writing process. ‘Violence
against women, friendship, love and sex, intimacy with other
women – these are constant and change through the times. I
chose to be quite fluid about it, so women getting the vote is
not even a dream until the 19th century.’
Why did Philippa feel that this was her particular project?
‘To be very practical about it, you couldn’t write this if you
worked as an academic or at university because you’d be a
specialist in your area,’ she says. ‘You need a historian who isn’t
a specialist, a feminist, probably a woman – and someone who
can do something for ten years without knowing if you’ll ever
sell it. And someone with the ambition to write a book this big
on such an important topic, and not be daunted.’
She threw herself into it. ‘I take so much pleasure in the
research and the writing that I commenced it as a hobby and
didn’t see it as work until the editing.’
She doesn’t necessarily recommend that writers combine
historical fiction and non-fiction. ‘I wouldn’t offer it as a
blanket recommendation because it’s very demanding. I
wouldn’t recommend it unless you have a specific specialist
historical background. Writing historical fiction you can learn
on the job – the details and context of your story. But nonfiction, that is the story. It’s very demanding.’
Now Normal Women is out in the world, Philippa’s looking
18
JANUARY 2024
forward to the stories she’s yet to tell. ‘I miss the imaginative
process of fiction when I’m writing non-fiction. For much of
this I was writing Tidelands – I’d sneak off and write fiction!
Writing fiction is a real joy to me and I think I’ll always love
it. I can’t wait to get back to fiction. I’ve been obsessed doing
this, I’ve gone tooth and nail into it. But I think it’s been
radicalising – I really have a sense of women’s place in the
history – I’ve always seen women in their historical context, a
17th-century woman is nothing like a 21st-century woman.
But that’s really increased for me. And the story of women
isn’t just love and marriage, it’s working life, a spiritual life.’
Which historical period did she most enjoy writing about?
‘I think the early medieval period,’ says Philippa. ‘Women
enjoyed a lot of personal freedom because we hadn’t yet
invented the idea of ladylike behaviour – there was a general
acceptance that women were noisy, rude, good at making
money, working in hospitality and the food business. There
were women in the marketplace, in positions of authority
and other trades, sexually active, causing trouble, liked to
get drunk and party. Dominant in sports – races were set
up for and run by women. It was a society with a lot of
opportunities for women. And scholarly women in the
nunneries – women could live with other scholars.’
Living and breathing women’s histories, Philippa has no
wish to be transported to another era. ‘People say to me,
where would you be reincarnated? They always think I’d say
Elizabethan and I say, no period before 1960, when we had
the vote, the pill and your
own money.’
Normal Women:
900 Years of Making
History by Philippa
Gregory is published by
HarperCollins, £25
www.writers-online.co.uk
Oxford Writing Mentors
2024 Tuscany Writing Course
25th May – 1st June / 1st June – 8th June
Residential course in one of Tuscany’s most romantic castles
Tutors include Rebecca Abrams, Lucasta Miller,
Kate Kennedy and Tony Gray
For more details and to reserve your place, visit:
https://www.oxfordwritingmentors.com/writing-retreat
Call for Entries
Next Generation Short Story Awards
A Not-for-Profit Awards Program for Authors of
Short Stories
Offering Cash Prizes,
Gold Medals and Other
Benefits for Winners in
25+ categories
Brought to you by
Next Generation Indie
Book Awards
www.ShortStoryAwards.com
Debz Hobbs-Wyatt
Editing, Critiquing &
Mentoring Services
Award-winning Short Story Writer
& Published Novelist
Full manuscript appraisals
(critique) – short stories,
novels, memoirs.
Copy editing, Proofreading &
Mentoring Bubbles.
Debz helps writers of all levels.
Take your writing to the next
level – realise your potential…
www.debzhobbs-wyatt.co.uk
writer@debzhobbs-wyatt.co.uk
To advertise
here contact
Mark Dean
07503707023
WANT TO PUBLISH ON AMAZON
IN 6 WEEKS?
Proofreading, Editing &
Full Self-publishing Services
www.michelleemerson.co.uk
t: 07887 685922
e: michelle@michelleemerson.co.uk
Casale di Clio:
Writers’, Artists’ & Study
Retreat in Tuscan Apennines.
Rooms in cosy house in
scenic rural hamlet:
wood-stoves, stunning views;
library, garden, terrace;
woodland & mountain walks.
Year-round – come for a Slow
Christmas or New Year Getaway!
www.musaclio.com
Let me take care of publishing
so you have more time to write
MAXIMISE THE POWER
AND POTENTIAL OF
YOUR MANUSCRIPT
Kate Potts, PhD. Professional editor, mentor,
author and creative writing lecturer.
Manuscript assessment, in-depth
developmental editing and more for fiction,
nonfiction and poetry manuscripts.
Editor@katepotts.net
www.katepotts.net/editing
ROMANCE
Romantic novelist CA Castle looks at writing romance from a queer
perspective, and offers his top tips for writers wanting to write rainbow
romances that honour their lived experience
n idea for a novel can start in any which way:
a hooky concept that excites you; a landscape
or setting that inspires you; a theme or conceit
you want to explore and see working in
action. When I first set out to write my novel,
I didn’t have a fully-fleshed out idea of what the novel was.
Instead, I had a set of ambitions, and as with any project, it
is helpful to make your ambitions clear from the start. This
will help you move more quickly in a forward direction.
My novel, The Manor House Governess, follows Brontë
Ellis, who after years of lingering at St. Mary’s all-boys
boarding school, is offered a live-in tutor’s position at a
manor house in Cambridgeshire. Arriving there, he is
welcomed by all – Mr Edwards, his employer, and his
precocious pupil Ada – except for Darcy, the eldest son, who
seems uncomfortable by Bron’s presence and confidence in
his gender presentation. But Bron lives his life through the
period novels and adaptations he so adores, and he cannot
help but feel drawn to this man who, for all intents and
purposes, should be his love interest . . .
Using my novel as the example, here were my initial set
of ambitions:
20
JANUARY 2024
• I wanted to be led, and influenced, by the Classics and
their filmic counterparts – that would always sit at the
heart of the project.
• I wanted to write a queer story set in the present day but
which very much felt like a period classic.
• I wanted to draw on my favourite stories: Jane Eyre,
Pride and Prejudice and more – and, as a result,
I knew there would be some degree of romance
involved – this is integral to the plots which my book
so heavily relies upon.
This, of course, meant that there were already a set of
rules, structures, and source materials that I needed to
balance when constructing my stories. With a focus on
the romance, I predicted that my two main characters
would likely start off on the wrong foot. I could even
guess that one might be traditionally more fortunate
than the other in the looks department. These are tropes
that we rely upon and re-tool again and again to suit our
narrative. So, another key thing to establish when writing
your romance is which tropes you want to employ,
interrogate, and comment upon. To make anew.
www.writers-online.co.uk
C R E AT I V E W R I T I N G
T H I N G S T O T H I N K A B O U T:
• What are the tropes that I as a reader have enjoyed
in my favourite books?
• What is the typical structure of an enemies to lovers
romance? A forced proximity romance? A mistaken
identity or a forbidden love story?
• How can I play around with this already established
trope and structure?
• How might I critique this trope?
Of course there is no one way to write a queer romance,
just as there is no one way to write any romance. For me,
writing this particular narrative was a way through which
I could explore how I, as an androgynous person, venture
through the world, and some of the prejudices I have
come across even by those who have been interested in me
romantically. So when it came to writing the romance on the
page, I wanted to balance two things:
• A need to critique and refashion the problematic male
love interests that my character, Bron, is so enamored by.
• An honest reflection on the types of romantic interactions
that I as a queer person have experienced.
A piece of advice I often give is to write about what you know,
and I believe this is a sure way to write a story that is true to
who you are and not merely fitting the mould of what others
might expect from a romance. It is far too easy to fall into the
trap of writing what we have already seen working!
So when it came to reflecting on some real life interactions
that I wanted to work into my story, these are some of the
things I knew: that you can’t help who you feel attracted to;
that you might be so desperate for love that you lean upon
whoever’s available to you at any one time, even if they’re
not right; that the path to love is not smooth-sailing; that
everyone comes with baggage heavy or light; and that you
might end up bearing the weight of some of it.
Writing the romance between my two main characters
wasn’t always easy. It wasn’t always that romantic. I wanted
it to be true to the points aforementioned. With my main
protagonist, I wanted to reflect a character fully confident in
his gender identity, but who comes under scrutiny even by
those who seem to be romantically interested in him. With
my love interest, I wanted to explore the feelings of a man
who has had quite a different experience to the proud and
feminine protagonist; who has struggled with fully accepting
his queer identity; who pressures himself into fitting into the
box which we, as a society, continue to press men into; who
cannot understand why someone would want to make life
harder than it needs to be. I wanted my character’s struggles
to feel complex and real – especially given the classic and
archaic lens through which we meet them.
The Manor House Governess by C.A.
Castle is published by Black & White
Publishing (£8.99)
TOP TIPS for writing
yo u r o w n r o m a n t i c
characters and
encounters
• Work out what you want to say or
explore through their interactions. Is a
fun tête-à-tête, or a difficult conversation
between two characters speaking to a
wider truth?
• Have fun, or gain closure, and influence
the way things go in a way that is true to
your overall ambition.
• Remember that as long as you stay true
to your intentions, you can’t go wrong.
www.writers-online.co.uk
JANUARY 2024
21
Author and tutor Ian Ayris reflects on the relationship between creativity
and the expectations of readers and publishers, and how writers need to
take both into consideration as they begin to assemble their stories
I
n this series on the Building Blocks of Creative Writing,
we have spent time looking at the Foundation Blocks –
the attitudes towards writing underpinning everything
else – perseverance, courage, trusting your intuition,
writing with a sense of wonder etc. These are all hidden
from the reader. They are below ground, so to speak. In
the last couple of issues we have looked at ideas and the
imagination – the mortar that holds all the Blocks together.
It is time, now, to take a tentative look at the central
Building Blocks of Creative Writing – STRUCTURE,
DESCRIPTION, DIALOGUE, VOICE, CHARACTER,
EDITING and all the smaller Blocks that make them up.
My head tells me these Building Blocks are the cornerstones
of Creative Writing, yet something inside me screams
REMEMBER – THERE ARE NO ABSOLUTES!!! And that
voice inside, is always the one to listen to.
Especially when it screams.
And yes, it’s true. There are no absolutes in writing. Only
conventions. I’d forgotten that. Just for a moment. Too much
coffee. No absolutes, but conventions, there certainly are.
A convention is generally defined as the way something is
usually done. That very phrase sounds like anathema to any
creative person and perhaps should make every one of us
shudder a little. But we will not rail against it. We will not
seek to bring the institution of conventionality to its knees
and destroy it. We will seek to understand it. And through
understanding it, we will seek to remake it in our own image.
The important thing about conventions is that they lead to
expectations. In terms of the Building Blocks of Creative
Writing, conventions come from publishers, derived and from
the expectations of their readers.
Aside from the genre-specific expectations and conventions
– of which there are many – readers expect writing to be
presented in a certain way – words, sentences, punctuation,
paragraphs, etc. They expect stories to be told in a certain way beginning, middle, end, etc. And most importantly, if you want
to be published, conventions are the fundamental principles
22
JANUARY 2024
of a publisher’s submission guidelines. Submission guidelines
are the hoops through which a publisher requires you to jump.
And they are their hoops – take them or leave them. Mess with
them at your peril. Some publishers, to be fair, offer much
more wriggle room than others.
More on this stuff much later in this series.
Until then, a couple of real-life examples: I was once asked
to write a crime fiction story with a writer friend of mine for
a national women’s magazine. Now, my stuff tends to be very
visceral, often confrontational, sweary, bleak and violent. That’s
just how it is. Fun for all the family. The submission guidelines
for this particular magazine were that the story contain no
swearing, no violence and must have a happy ending. These
were the hoops – hoops based entirely on the expectations of
the readers of the magazine. My initial response was to say no.
But I’d realised by then in what I laughingly called my writing
career that saying yes had become an incredibly powerful
principle. It had led to things I could never have imagined.
Good things. Saying no was shutting a door. And I’d done
that all my life. So I said yes. The story was published, and
the whole experience not only challenged me as a writer but
became a really informative experience in terms of an exercise in
meeting the expectations of a market.
Another example was when I sent a short story of mine
blindly to People’s Friend – purely on the basis that I saw
a copy of that venerable magazine at my nan’s house and
noticed they published short stories. Turns out visceral,
sweary, violent, confrontation and bleak aren’t what their
readers are looking for.
So conventions matter. They matter because they fulfil the
expectations of publishers and readers.
Please forgive me, therefore, if I sound like an adherent to
conventions when we work through the Building Blocks of
Creative Writing. Conventions are merely a necessary evil. Evil
might be too strong a word – but, you know what I mean.
An important point: if you are writing purely for yourself,
you can do whatever you want. Conventions are whatever
www.writers-online.co.uk
C R E AT I V E W R I T I N G B U I L D I N G B L O C K S
you want them to be. Expectations are purely whatever you set
yourself. If publication is your aim, however, one of the central
conventions you have to adhere to is word count. Literally, the
amount of words you can use to tell your story. And you will
generally have no flexibility in this number.
There are many varied gradations of length dictated by
word count. The following is a list of approximate word
counts for each:
SHORT SHORT FICTION
• Flash fiction – 500 to 1,500
• Micro fiction – 50 to 500
• And less – 100 word, 6 word challenge
SHORT STORIES
• Short story – 1,500 to 5,000
• Long short story – 5,000 to 10,000
LONG FICTION
• Novelette – 7,500 to 20,000
• Novella – 20,000 to 40,000
• Short novel – 40,000 to 60,000
• Novel – 60,000 to 80,000
• Long novel – 80,000 and above
Once you have an initial idea of the parameters within which
you are working, it is time to look at how you are going to go
about it – taking each Building Block in turn and seeing what it
can offer.
So let’s take a look at what we’ve got.
The Building Blocks of Creative Writing – STRUCTURE,
DESCRIPTION, DIALOGUE, POINT OF VIEW, VOICE,
CHARACTERS, and all the rest – are like a Lego set (other
building blocky things are available). To begin with, having a
picture to copy and instructions to follow is indispensable. It
is how we learn the properties of each Block and what each
can offer. We need to know what each looks like, what their
function is, their relationship to the other Blocks, and most of
all, the possibilities inherent within each one. Once you know
each building Block at this level you will no longer be bound by
them. They will be yours to command.
As writers we often begin by unconsciously writing in the
style of writers we love – often we even write in the style of
whichever author we are reading at any given time. Imitation
is an invaluable part in the development of any writer. In time,
however, returning to our box of Lego, we learn which Blocks
fit better with others. Sometimes, we want to create something
other people will be impressed with. Often, our striving for
originality, however, will see us trying to fit Blocks into other
Blocks where there are simply no connections and, no matter
how much we try and squeeze and push and manipulate, all
we end up with is a pile of Blocks on the floor and sore fingers.
When we walk away, chiding ourselves for even thinking we
could be original, we will no doubt step barefoot on one of these
Blocks and scream at our own inadequacy. We will clear them
up, put them back in the box and hide them away for a time.
But we will be destined to step on one we missed at some point
in the future and rage at our inadequacy once more.
But the time after that, or maybe even the time after that,
when we step on another one we missed we will pick that Block
up, we will study it, turn it over in our fingers and for reasons
we don’t understand we will hold it up to our ear and listen to
it. And it will tell us we are a writer, and we’ll find ourselves
closing that brick gently in our hand and reaching for that box
once more.
There will be times when life makes no sense, when you are
not in a place to make sense of anything, but somehow just
opening the box of Building Blocks, picking up a handful and
letting them slide through your fingers and listening to the
sound they make as they hit the others in the box or picking up
a single brick and examining it as if it was a lost treasure, seeing
it with eyes of wonder, will suddenly make the whole world
make sense. You look at another Block, then another. You will
start fitting them together with no concept of a shape or an end.
You will be bound by the conventional way of putting the
Blocks together no more. You will be creating in the true sense of
the word.
Okay, so we’re going to take this slow. Very slow. It is the only
way – working from the outside in. Let’s return to our box of
Building Blocks and see what we’ve got.
The first Building Block we will be looking at is the one
labelled STRUCTURE. And it’s a big one.
What do we mean by STRUCTURE when we talk about
Creative Writing?
When we speak of STRUCTURE we are speaking about the
framework upon which the story hangs. The compositional
principles or elements involved in the process of creating a
format for your ideas. In short, STRUCTURE is how you tell
your story.
STRUCTURE conventionally has a Beginning, a Middle
and an End. There is a Main Character who has to achieve
something – a Goal. There are obstacles to achieving that
Goal, and sometimes an underlying Theme or Issue. How the
character gets from the Beginning to the End is the Plot (Plot is
different to Story – something we will get into later). In terms of
mechanics, a story is written from a particular Point of View and
in a particular Tense and it takes place somewhere – the Setting.
As you can see, the STRUCTURE is fundamental to the telling
of a story. We will cover all of these aforementioned aspects that
make up the Building Block of STRUCTURE in detail in the
next few issues.
So we finally got there. The Building Blocks of Creative
Writing are before us. We have tipped the box out. They are
all over the floor, mixed up and without visible connection
or purpose.
But that is okay. That is just how it should be.
For it is our job to pick up the pieces, to tell the world stories
that give meaning to what it is to be human.
We are writers.
That is what we do.
So let’s go . . .
www.writers-online.co.uk
JANUARY 2024
23
Ready to have the first 300 words of
your manuscript critiqued? Contact
tjackson@warnersgroup.co.uk for details
Aysha House’s journey towards creating
an inspiring book has been years in
the making. A transformative trip to
Seville played a central role in shaping
her creative aspirations, and during lockdown
she finally embarked on the journey of putting
ideas onto paper. Her spiritual exploration took an
impactful turn when she embraced Christianity years
ago. Her faith opened her eyes to the world of the
biblical lands from New Testament times. The idea
of time travel began to take root in her mind – the
notion of journeying back two millennia to the era
of Christ, linked with the prospect of venturing
forward into the year 3000 AD.
Your
writing
critiqued
James McCreet applies a
forensic micro-critique to the
beginning of a reader’s manuscript
(Ophelia)
To see and travel back to a time and to a place of such
historical significance,1 was a wonder to even contemplate.2
To experience touch, smell,3 to visualise and wonder at the
most debated,4 praised, prayed and worshipped place for
over 2000 years.5 This is the Holy Land.6
The air was cool, the wind touched with such
gracefulness,7 lightly lifting strands of hair away from
my face.8 The night sky was illuminated by bright white,
dazzling stars dotted about on a canvas of black.9 Giving
a sense of mystery and elegance,10 yet at the same time an
element of enchantment.11 Fear started to set in.12 I could
feel my heart pounding,13 sweat started to build on my
chest and travel upwards to my face.14 Where the hell was
I!!15 My eyes started to blur16 and spidery lines came and
1
The sentence begins problematically,
due partly to illogical order. Don’t you
have to travel back before you can see
it? Beginning with the infinitive (to see)
then following it with two further ‘to’
prepositions makes it all very unwieldy.
We have to read 17 words before arriving
at the verb (‘was’) that will start to make
sense of the sentence. The comma is
unnecessary. It could be phrased much
more clearly (see the rewrite).
2
Here’s the fourth ‘to’ in one
sentence. I’m no stickler when it
comes to split infinitives, but this would
sound better as ‘even to contemplate’.
This first sentence is designed to
impress upon the reader the magnitude
of the proposition, but the sense of
wonder has largely been lost in the
convolutions of grammar.
3
I’m not against repeating phrases in
successive sentences. It can be an
effective technique, but we’ve already
24
JANUARY 2024
went as I tried to adjust properly to my surroundings.17
The silhouette of old buildings lay ahead before me in the
distance. Block-like shapes of all irregular sizes.18 It took a
while to focus,19 as all I could see was a shining light that
became the dominance of everything around me.20 It was so
bright that I had to keep diverting my eyes away from it.21
Every time I managed to glance at it,22 I couldn’t make out if
it was a figure? A reflection?23 Or even an angel lighting the
area ahead of me.24 In a brief amount of time25 the brightness
of the sky26 and the day-like appearance around me, instantly
changed to the darkness of night.27 The bright moon then
took CenterStage28 and became my main focus.29 I looked
as the clouds glided across the moon,30 it shone so brightly
through the clouds and illuminated the irregularities of each
cloud, making it truly mystical and captivating.31
overdone the amount of ‘to’.
4
The sentence is breaking down.
It’s one thing to omit the expected
‘and’ between ‘touch’ and ‘smell’, but
continuing with another infinitive
statement after a comma strains the syntax
and makes it difficult to piece the clauses
together. Is it really the ‘most debated’?
5
A place can be praised, but is the
place itself actually worshipped – or
rather certain sites there? Is ‘prayed’ an
adjective? I accept that not all sentences
have to be grammatical in order to
create certain effects, but this looks like a
mistake because there are others.
6
7
It’s all been past tense until this line.
Why the change?
The first paragraph is speculative/
figurative but it turns out to have
been literal. We have actually travelled
back in time. That’s not a huge issue, but
www.writers-online.co.uk
the comma after ‘cool’ is. It should be a
full stop. I’m also perturbed by the wind
touching. Caressing? Stroking?
8
9
Maybe it’s just me imagining a hairy
face revealed by the wind’s touch.
It’s a generic and clichéd description
of the night sky. Can we describe the
awe-inspiring and ageless constellations
as ‘dotted about’? Do stars ‘illuminate’
the sky? Or do they account for about
one per cent of its light? Do they
genuinely dazzle in the way the sun does?
10
Another non-grammatical
sentence. Telling the reader that it’s
mysterious doesn’t make it so – you need
to suggest why. Also, how is the night
sky ‘elegant’?
11
The sentence attempts to set up
a contrast but seems to say the
vaguely same thing: it’s mysterious but
enchanting?
UNDER THE MICROSCOPE
12
An abrupt change that goes against
everything stated thus far. A new
paragraph would make more sense.
13
Another cliché. A comma can’t
be used to separate two separate
sentences.
Ancient temples? ‘Ahead’ and ‘before me’
are essentially the same thing, but what is ‘in
the distance’? On the horizon? A few yards
away? If it’s all irregular blocks, it could
equally be Manhattan or Dhaka. This is
difficult to visualise.
‘ahead’ (where the buildings are) if the
light is ‘everything around’?
25
A third of a second? Fourteen
seconds? How should the reader
understand this?
14
19
20
26
27
15
Double exclamation marks are not
acceptable outside of text messaging.
And didn’t we establish at the start that
we’re in the Holy Land?
21
If the light is all dominating and
everywhere, where does one look to
divert (should it be ‘avert’?) the eyes? Isn’t
it more a question of closing them?
28
16
17
22
29
30
This doesn’t make sense on multiple
levels. Does sweat start in one place
and then move? Why would it move to the
face if there wasn’t a ferocious updraft? We
know what you’re trying to say, but it’s not
working.
Why? I guess it could be an effect of
the time travel.
‘Spidery’ in what sense? Pale like
a spider’s web? Scribbly like bad
handwriting? How should the reader
visualise this (the danger of using generic
adjectives)? What are the surroundings
exactly? We’ve been given no information.
18
This is imprecise. What kind of
buildings? Mosques? Churches?
In summary
There are many problems with this piece,
but it’s apprentice writing. We all have to
start somewhere and learn the skills that
make us better. I used to write like this.
I suppose we all did at some stage. The
question is how to fix it.
First: punctuation. There are a
few sentences that aren’t sentences.
Commas are used as full stops and
clauses blend into each other. This
makes things difficult for the reader.
A simple book about punctuation will
help hugely.
Second: narrative logic. What are
we trying to say? What is the reader
looking at? It’s necessary to be precise
and clear. The first paragraph tells
Evidently, but it all seemed so clear
in the first paragraph.
This is manifestly untrue. You’ve
just described buildings so the light
is not ‘all’ you can see. I’m not sure what
‘became the dominance’ means.
Does one ‘glance’ at an all
dominating, surrounding light? It’s
not a defined point of focus.
23
How could a figure be
everywhere as ambient light? A
figure has a shape. A reflection would
have to reflect from something else,
but what?
24
An angel presumably has a
distinctive shape. How is this
us we’re in the Holy Land (Israel?
Syria? Egypt? Jordan? Palestine?) but
the narrator is lost in the next. ‘In
the distance’ is vague. So is ‘a brief
moment’. Is something formless and
everywhere or a thing you can look at
and focus on? If the reader can’t figure
this out from the text, they will stop
reading very quickly.
Part of precise writing is having a
wide and adaptable vocabulary. That
means no clichés. English has more
words that many other languages
(around twice as many as Spanish, for
example), so we have many options to
select exactly the right meaning, sound
or association.
The brightness of the night sky?
It was night when we started. This
needs to be better explained. We
also have a conflict between ‘instantly’ and
‘a brief amount of time’. Which is it?
There was previously no mention
of the moon. Why is ‘CentreStage’
one word and capitalised? Is it a brand
name?
Why? And why not previously?
There were no clouds before.
Again, a comma can’t be used as a
full stop.
31
How? You can tell us it’s mystical,
but it seems you’re saying it’s
merely attractive. Where’s the mystery
exactly? Previously, the stars alone were
illuminating the sky.
It takes time to develop a voice and
to hear natural rhythms in your prose.
That first sentence has a profusion of
‘to’ and is quite convoluted. The goal
is to think about where you want the
reader to focus and to organise the
order of words so that they most clearly
and effectively express what the reader
should think, feel or understand. If
we notice the grammar, something has
gone wrong (unless this is show-off
literature, in which case clever phrasing
is part of the appeal.)
Don’t be disheartened. It’s brave
to share work publicly to help other
people learn. Keep going and you’ll
get there.
Read James McCreet’s suggested rewrite:
www.writers-online.co.uk/how-to-write/under-the-microscope-mccredited/
www.writers-online.co.uk
JANUARY 2024
25
M Y PAT H T O P U B L I C AT I O N
TRACY
FELLS
As her collection of feminist fairy tales is
published, the debut author describes how she
only achieved her lifetime ambition to be in print
when she made space for herself
f I drew a map of my path to publication it would
have numerous dead ends, and resemble a river delta
with meandering streams, all feeding into one big
channel. I’ve been writing short fiction for thirteen
years and it’s taken that long to navigate my scarily
diverse story streams, many individually published online or
in anthologies and magazines, into a single collection.
Like many writers, my dream to be published started
early, at primary school, when my stories were read out
to the class. That dream continued into my teens, when I
penned some really dreadful poetry, though my ambition to
‘become a writer’ waned during my animal-loving ‘I want
to be a vet’ stage. I had to work hard for my A-Level grades
but was never destined for veterinary college, and chose the
next-best subject: Zoology.
From my working-class family, I was the first to go to uni,
but none of them really understood why. A tutor rolled his
eyes when I shared my writing ambitions, so I kept quiet
about the spy thriller I’d completed (hand-written and
still in a drawer) during term-time when I should’ve been
writing up experiments. Unsurprisingly, I didn’t get a first
and found myself in a tough employment market (mid
1980s) without a clue about my future, other than I didn’t
want to join a graduate training scheme in accountancy.
Twenty-four years later and I barely had time for reading,
let alone writing. With a life-science background I’d fallen
into the pharmaceutical industry, eventually working in
clinical research and managing global teams. My career had
taken off; I was happily married with a teenage son. All
thoughts of creative pursuits were buried beneath a teetering
pile of responsibilities, including long hours, extensive travel
and the stresses of corporate life. I’d lost sight of my dreams,
and myself. I was unhappy, unhealthy and not much fun to
be around.
Something had to change … me! I left my full-time career
to become a full-time mum, and house manager (because I
needed to manage something), while my husband returned
to his career in engineering. It was his suggestion to pursue
the dream, or as he put it: ‘you wanted to write, now get on
26
JANUARY 2024
with it’. No more excuses; I bought a laptop, printer and
desk, because I wanted to feel like a proper writer and then
got on with it.
It hadn’t really been about ‘time’, it was head-space I
needed. Instead of thinking about work issues (24/7) my
head flooded with story ideas. I discovered Writing Magazine
and instantly took out a subscription, which I still have. I
also bought piles of short story collections and magazines for
background research. Reading Angela Carter’s The Bloody
Chamber collection of gothic tales was an epiphany. These
were the stories I wanted to write. I’d found my tribe, I
was a magical realist! Later I discovered flash fiction, and its
wonderfully supportive community, gaining success (and
importantly, publication credits) with both short and flash
stories. After several years I was selling stories to the women’s
magazine market and winning prizes; I could call myself a
professional writer. Feeling at the top of my game, I focussed
on entering the big competitions and submitting to top
literary journals, then … I hit the rejection wall, over and
over again. Was my writing career just a flash-in-the-pan?
With my son at university, I went back to college for a twoyear MA in Creative Writing. Here, sharing and reviewing
work with other students, I learned a valuable lesson – I’m
an impatient writer who submits too early. This was the first
time I’d had feedback on work-in-progress; receiving in-depth
critiques was tough. Hearing how my, supposedly, finished
stories weren’t even close to being submission-ready shocked
my confidence. At home, or in my car, I cried.
But I listened, digested the feedback (okay, reluctantly)
and revised my work. It made all the difference, because a
story I’d shared with my workshop group went onto become
a Regional Winner (Canada and Europe) for the prestigious
Commonwealth Short Story Prize. I won £2,500 along with
an amazing trip to Singapore for the prize giving ceremony.
My next goal was to publish an entire collection. On
the advice of a publisher (who suggested my writing had
commercial appeal) I approached literary agents, but despite
being called in several times, I was told the collection ‘lacked
a coherent theme’. Once again, I was subbing too early
www.writers-online.co.uk
Isabelle Kenyon
Managing director, Fly
On The Wall Press
Fast-forward to 2022, my portfolio of short fiction had
grown with more publication credits and new stories
too. There was an open window for a small indie press
with an excellent reputation and a commitment to
sustainability. I’d enjoyed one of their anthologies, full of
magical realism and uncanny stories … Had I found my
collection’s forever home?
My path to publication has a happy ending, as Isabelle
Kenyon (managing director, and my editor) at Fly On
The Wall Press wanted to publish my debut short story
collection, The Naming of Moths. From her first friendly
email acknowledging receipt, and later a Zoom call, I
knew Isabelle was a rare find; she’s dynamic, committed
to quality and understands marketing. I hope this isn’t
the end of the path, as I love my writing career and am
now working on a dark, characterful crime mystery
novel, which I’ll submit when I know it’s really ready.
As soon as I read Tracy’s collection, I felt I could ‘settle
in’ comfortably to the stories: here was an accomplished
storyteller. She exhibits a rare talent for crafting stories that
are both darkly sensual and hauntingly beautiful. I loved the
blurred lines between reality and fantasy, which allow the
stories to be both transportive, and relatable. It also allows her
space to explore darker themes, such as postnatal depression,
domestic abuse and sexual exploitation. I also love that Tracy
is brave enough to create characters who are deeply flawed,
and she displays these flaws – not all characters need to be
likeable to be believable or, indeed, to hold power over a
reader. As a kind of modern retelling of Angela Carter’s gothic
storytelling tradition, I saw these stories as continuing a form
of oral storytelling, with a feminist, magical slant – girls eat
chocolate-turned wolves, sisters turn brothers into hares. In
the more realism-based stories, we find loss, resilience and
the power of friendship. Overall, it was the authenticity
and emotional resonance of her stories that compelled us to
publish The Naming of Moths. Tracy’s understanding of the
human condition and her ability to craft narratives that linger
long after reading make this collection a truly remarkable and
personal addition to our catalogue. It certainly felt that, after
all of Tracy Fells’ years of writing and winning various short
fiction prizes, it was time for her debut collection!
The Naming of Moths by Tracy Fells is published by
Fly On The Wall Press (£10.99)
Tracy’s top tips
1. Enter competitions.
2. Learn patience. Don’t rush to submit.
3. Seek feedback (from writers you respect and
trust), and act upon it!
Novel Ideas
Bath bombs
Lynne Hackles finds ideas come when writers are soaking in the tub
‘Where do you get your ideas from?’ is probably the question
most writers are asked. A while ago I asked a wide selection
of writers a similar question. Similar because it had only one
word missing.
My question was: ‘Where do you get your ideas?’
The answers varied from whilst gardening to when taking
a walk, but the most popular of all was, ‘In the bath.’ That
may be because it’s one of the best places to relax and be
alone behind a locked door.
I should have come up with another question after those
responses. ‘Do you remember those ideas when you stop
weeding/get home or get dried and dressed?’
Many writers keep a record on their phones or in
notebooks. That’s fine if you’re in the garden or ambling
along a footpath in the countryside, but who takes their
phone into the bath with them?
Another subject I have covered several times over the years
is the use of notebooks. I have one on my desk, one next
to the bed, one in the living room and one in my handbag.
This is because (shock, horror) I do not own a phone. I’ve
never felt the need, though I did buy a secondhand one just
over twenty years ago and didn’t replace it once it had died.
It was a pay-as-you go and £10 would usually last me for
a year, or even longer. Friends knew that if they wanted to
contact me, they could email.
Combine those ideas that come to so many of us whilst
in the bath with the phone and notebook subject and you
might discover, like me, that you need a notebook in the
bathroom, together with a towel close by so that you can dry
your hands and make notes without having to get out from
the suds. And, if you agree, the good thing is you can go out
and buy yet another notebook.
www.writers-online.co.uk
JANUARY 2024
27
©Ellie Smith
SARRA MANNING
The journalist turned author of romcoms and YA novels
picks the five books that most inspired her own writing
My latest novel, The Man
Of Her Dreams, is about a
woman with a rich inner life
who manifests her dream
boyfriend. Then one day
he literally turns up on her
doorstep. Or does he? Vaguely
inspired by Harvey, the James
Stewart film, it was the germ
of an idea that languished in
the back of my ideas folder for over a decade,
until it suddenly took on proper shape and a
sub plot and supporting characters.
I’m about to start writing a new novel,
a big, sexy tearjerker, exploring some big
themes but also some romcom tropes that
I’ll have fun writing including the always
popular ‘There’s only one bed!’ This is
the most exciting part of the process for
me; percolating an idea for months, even
years, until all the vignettes and snatches of
dialogue and bits of back story coalesce into
a halfway cohesive shape. At this stage, it’s
going to be the best book I’ve ever written.
The One. This is also the stage when I
remind myself of the Iris Murdoch quote:
‘Every novel is the wreck of a perfect idea.’
But no matter how I dream up my novels,
they’re always written in the same way and
in the same place. I have to sit at my desk,
in my study, at my laptop. No coffee shops
or sprawling on the sofa for me. No music
either, just pure silence, unless you count the
symphony of drills, angle grinders and effing
and jeffing from the street outside where the
houses nearest to me always seem to have the
builders in.
I’m definitely not a morning person
and I’m also a very ‘bursty’ writer. In the
28
JANUARY 2024
afternoon, usually very late in the afternoon,
I set my phone stopwatch for 25 minutes (the
Pomodoro Technique has been a game changer
for someone as fond of procrastinating as I
am) and settle down to write my daily 2,500
words a day, which usually takes me four lots
of twenty five minutes. Then I’m tapped out
for the day. Although if I’m on deadline and
behind schedule, I will plough on until I can’t
see or think straight.
I work from a really detailed outline, usually
running to more than ten thousand words,
and I aim to write my first draft as quickly
as I can, usually in about eight weeks. This
is because even with the outline, it isn’t until
I have a (not very great) first draft, that I
understand what my book is really about,
rather than what I thought it was about.
Every time! This is why my writing mantra is
don’t get it right, get it written.
I do a lot of heavy lifting in my second draft;
rewriting and structural changes until the true
story finally emerges. Then I do a quick and
dirty third draft, where I sprinkle on the magic
dust and add patina; and it’s only after this that
I deliver to my agent and my editor. Until then
no one else has seen it.
I always deliver with the understanding that
this is not a definitive work. Rather I can’t
see beyond it now and I need some expert
guidance and hope that the editorial letter will
be both kind and constructive.
Despite doing this for twenty years and with
over thirty novels published, writing doesn’t
get any easier. On the contrary! But I still love
the magic that happens on a good writing
day, when the words bend to my will and I’m
immersed in the fictional world I’ve created.
There’s nothing else like it.
www.writers-online.co.uk
Ballet Shoes
by Noel Streatfeild
Of all the books I loved
as a child, most of
them revolving around
boarding school, ballet
and horses, Ballet Shoes
is the one I come back
to. The one that I still
reread. The one that
is so hardwired into
my DNA that every
time I go to the V&A
on Cromwell Road, I
always think about the
Fossil Sisters saving the
penny and walking.
How when I wish
someone good luck I
hold my thumbs as the
Fossils did when any of
them had an audition
and how I used to call
my dog Betsy Pretty
Toes in honour of Posy
Fossil. Ballet Shoes
was the first book I
read that created a
world that, as a reader,
I wanted to live in,
something that I’m
always mindful of when
I’m writing a novel.
A Room Of One’s Own
Vanity Fair
by Virginia Woolf
I first read A Room Of One’s Own
at university and it revealed to
me a world where women’s voices
had been hidden for so long.
It was something I hadn’t even
considered before but it was a real
aha! moment. This is also the book
that made me realise that I could
be a writer. Even if I didn’t have a room of my own
and £5,000 a year (or the modern day equivalent!) to
live on, A Room Of One’s Own made being a writer
feel like something I could achieve, when up until
that point I’d believed that people like me didn’t get
to be writers (I was the first person in my family to
do A levels then go to university.) When I bought my
flat twenty years ago, deposit paid with money I’d
earned from writing (I had a staff job on Just Seventeen
magazine and was also writing YA novels) and had a
room of my own just to write in, I really felt as if I’d
come full circle.
by WM Thackeray
When I read Vanity Fair at
university to impress a boy, I
thought it was too long, too
boring, too waffly. Fast forward
thirty years and I lied and said it
was my favourite book when a
publisher asked me if I’d be up
for writing a modern day adaptation. During the
six (yes, six!) weeks I had to write The Rise And Fall
Of Becky Sharp, I had such unexpected fun rereading
Vanity Fair, channelling Thackeray’s sly and knowing
humour and especially in creating a contemporary
Becky Sharp. As a writer of commercial women’s
fiction, I know only too well the tyranny of readers
who seem to be obsessed with heroines who are
relatable and likeable. Whereas Becky Sharp who
comes from nothing and through her own ambition,
guts and absolute lack of any kind of conscience,
acquires wealth and status, is completely brazen and
unapologetic and I love her for it. Since then, I’ve
stopped worrying about the three star and below
reviewers and keep my heroines spiky and flawed.
Fabulous Nobodies
by Lee Tulloch
Subtitled a novel about a girl who’s
in love with her clothes, Fabulous
Nobodies, which I first picked up
in Edgware library in 1992 during
my lost years between university
and getting a proper, full-time
job, was so ahead of its time that
it never properly arrived. It’s the
story of a girl called Reality Nirvana, all of her friends
call her Really, who’s a door whore at a New York
club and has a closet full of dresses that talk to her.
At the time I read it, I recognised that world (though
I wouldn’t visit NYC for another five years) and now
it’s a love letter to a New York which no longer exists.
When it wasn’t out of print, I always had spare copies
to give to new friends. On the surface, it’s a joyous
frothy book concerned with joyous, frothy things but
beneath the glitter is a story about the people that
we pretend to be when we’re lost and looking for
somewhere to belong. Fabulous Nobodies really showed
me how to write lightly about deeper truths.
Rachel’s Holiday
by Marian Keyes
Back in 2007 when I was
struggling with edits on my
first adult novel, Unsticky,
and a difficult heroine who
even I didn’t like, my editor
recommended that I read
Rachel’s Holiday. For anyone
who hasn’t read it, and I implore
you to rectify that state of affairs
immediately, the eponymous Rachel is checked into
rehab for a drug habit that she swears she doesn’t
have. Rachel is deluded, devious, self-destructive
and my god, how I rooted for her. Despite the
challenging subject matter of the novel, Marian
Keyes wrote with such a colloquial, easy grace that
it was like having the story narrated by one of my
closest, funniest, wisest friends. Rachel’s Holiday made
me re-evaluate everything I thought I knew about
writing women’s fiction and romance.
www.writers-online.co.uk
JANUARY 2024
29
GET THE WRITE IDEA
Get the
write idea
Write about small things that make a difference in these
creative writing exercises to try right now
Photo by NordWood Themes on Unsplash
HOT
DRINK
GIFT
HABITS
Photo by Drew Beamer on Unsplash
Write about habitual behaviour.
What are the habits: Good? Bad?
The kind of thing that shapes a day’s
routine? What kind of effect do they
have on the person’s lifestyle?
What might happen when a
person decides to change their habit?
Are they in control of their habits?
Draw up a list of habits that your
chosen character has, and create
a passage of writing that includes
these habits and their influence.
Then, write a passage about
what happens when your character
departs from or gives up a habit.
30
JANUARY 2024
attached to a particular hot drink. Does
it suggest a particular person, or a time
and place, or a significant moment?
Or:
• Create a storyline where a hot
drink either says something pertinent
about a character, or creates a plot
development.
Photo by Osman Rana on Unsplash
Photo by Kostiantyn Li on Unsplash
Write about assembling the
perfect gift for someone.
Who is the gift for?
What’s the reason for giving it?
Will it be sent, or given in
person?
What will it consist of? Where
will the gift be sourced? How
will the giver assemble the
contents? What stories will be
attached to the item/items in
the gift?
How will the gift be received?
Write in any style or form for
15 minutes.
Brew up a new piece of creative
writing.
What kind of feelings could a hot
drink evoke? When could it make a
difference in a narrative, or mark a
turning point for someone?
In writing, either:
• Explore memories or associations
www.writers-online.co.uk
OUT IN
THE
RAIN
Convey being out and about in a
downpour.
Who is caught in the rain?
What is their physical
experience of it? How does the
weather affect their environment?
Are they prepared for it? Has it
caught them unawares?
What changes does it make to
their character and mood?
Does it force them to adjust or
alter any plans?
How might the rain add to or
create a mood and/or storyline in
a piece of writing?
Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash
ERROR
MESSAGE
Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash
FIND
Create a sequence of events.
Imagine someone receiving an error
message. Perhaps on a computer or other
electronic device that they use habitually.
What effect does the message have?
What are its implications?
What does it prevent the person doing?
Can it be fixed? Or not?
What could happen as a result?
No matter how far-fetched, plot out
a scenario where an error message has
consequences.
Write about an unexpected discovery
What is the find? Is it an object? If so, what is it? What are the
circumstances of it being discovered? What part does the element of
chance have to play?
Is the find something other than an object or article? If so, how
would you describe it?
What gives the find its significance?
What is the effect of the find on the person who finds it? Is anyone
else involved in any way?
What might the consequences of the find be?
Write a passage of prose or poetry interpreting the theme in the way
that most suggests itself to you.
Photo by Santa Barbara on Unsplash
Photo by Jed Afdan on Unsplash
REPEAT
Explore someone or something that
repeats or recurs.
The element that repeats might be
a person, an object, a word, an idea, a
situation... how will you interpret it,
and what significance will the repeat
element have on the viewpoint character
in your writing?
Decide what your repeating element
will be and how it will influence the
direction of a new piece of writing.
Write for 15 minutes.
MISTAKE
Write about the consequences of a mistake.
What form does the mistake take, and how is it made?
Who has made it? What did they intend to do, or were supposed to do?
What are the consequences of the mistake?
In what way might the mistake act as a catalyst for something to happen
that creates a storyline?
Write about the mistake and what it led to for 15 minutes.
G e t m o r e p r o m p t s e v e r y d ay w i t h T h e W r i t e r ’ s
A p p, ava i l a b l e f o r A p p l e a n d A n d r o i d d e v i c e s
www.writers-online.co.uk
JANUARY 2024
31
The world of writing
What goes through a writer’s brain?
Readers’ letters and dispatches from the wide world of writing
S TA R L E T T E R
POLISHING THE CRAFT
Ian Ayris suggests ‘you can write anywhere with anything on anything’
(Creative writing building blocks, WM Sep). Emboldened by reading that, I
joined the weekly Crafternoon in our Village Hall.
Some people bring knitting or needlework, some paint or draw. One
woman’s husband sets up her easel so that she can work on her paintings of
steam engines; he polishes small metal machine parts and chats to his friend
who is making model buildings. How could I fit in?
I set down my tablet and rhyming dictionary, then nervously asked whether
anyone would like me to write something. Someone said, ‘Write a poem
an
about this jumper I’m knitting.’ I asked a few questions, then tackled it like
!
Success
client.
first
my
to
it
exam. At the end of the afternoon I emailed
Since then, I’ve been asked for a children’s story, and produced one of 800
words; another time I wrote a biographical rhyming acrostic on someone’s
name. A story set in the Falklands in 1982 and 1983 meant homework for
’.
several days. It ended up 3,000 words long, and my client said it was ‘superb
their
lves,
themse
I earmarked today for research. I talked to people about
work and tried to learn the vocabulary of their crafts. ‘150 grit emery cloth’
was a novel word combination to me. In addition, I have written something:
this letter.
Writing on demand is challenging, but very rewarding. I now know I don’t
have to wait for inspiration to strike.
But thank you, Writing Magazine, for so many inspirational articles.
SUSAN PERKINS
Bedale, North Yorkshire
The star letter each month earns a copy of the Writers’ &
Artists’ Yearbook 2023, courtesy of Bloomsbury. Write to
letters@writersnews.co.uk.
Washington Irving
famously noted that,
‘Christmas is the
season for kindling
the fire of hospitality’.
Just try not to set fire
to your Kindle.
‘One can never have
enough socks,’ said
Dumbledore. ‘Another
Christmas has come and
gone and I didn’t get a
single pair. People will insist
on giving me books.’
J.K Rowling, Harry Potter
and the Philosopher’s Stone
MICROSCOPE UNDER THE LENS
Reading James McCreet’s critique in Under the
Microscope in the December issue, one sentence
stayed with me, and I understood his wisdom.
James wrote, ‘the attention is more on the
pleasure of writing than on communicating a
scene to the reader.’
I can be self-indulgent when I write and lose
sight of the purpose. It’s only when I read the
work back several weeks later that I recognise
this and am grateful to have saved myself the
embarrassment of sharing it with a wider audience.
Chris Belton
Essex
32
JANUARY 2024
I wonder if other aspiring novelists use James McCreet’s chosen piece
in Under the Microscope to learn the art for themselves, then try and
apply it to their own writing ?
Lately I have been reading his chosen 300 words and writing down
my own idea of how to improve the work. When I feel confident
that I’ve done enough I compare my thoughts with James’s criticism,
and sometimes take much pleasure when I realize that I have picked
up on exactly the same thoughts as the expert. As for the things I’ve
missed, it becomes a learning curve that makes me more determined
to try and do better next month. Since pitting my wits against the
master in this way, I feel my writing has become more succinct.
Kay Jenkins
South Wales
www.writers-online.co.uk
COMMUNITY
‘You don’t
start out writing good stuff.
You start out writing crap and
thinking it’s good stuff, and then
gradually you get better at it.
That’s why I say one of the most
valuable traits is persistence.’
— Hugo & Nebula Awardwinning science
fiction author,
Octavia E. Butler
WORD OF THE YEAR
A STATIONERY START
A quote from Times writer, Sathnam Sanghera, ‘A career
in writing is just a fetish for stationery that has got out of
hand’, amused me and rings so true, and I wonder for how
many others?
As a child and growing up, I walked past Woolworths’ front
counters of cosmetics, jewellery and sweets to browse in WH
Smith, collecting a large assortment of stationery-related items,
exercise books, notebooks, pens and pencils. Of course, once
home, the pristine white pages just begged to be written on –
and so it began.
I still haunt WH Smith and my writing muscle is flexed
as much from the clean pages of a new writing book as from
other inspirations. I have to add that a ‘new page’ on the
computer sadly does not have the same effect.
ANNE WILSON
Morpeth, Northumberland
Collins Dictionary has picked AI as the ‘Word of
the Year’. David Shariatmadari, author of Don’t
Believe A Word: From Myths to Misunderstandings
— How Language Really Works, explains the
dictionary’s choice like this: ‘The revolutionary
AI-powered language model burst into the public
consciousness in late 2022, wowing us with its
ability to mimic natural human speech. It could
do much more than that, actually – need copy for
a presentation tomorrow morning? No problem.
A recipe for dinner using only what you’ve got left
in the cupboard? Done. And while people were
understandably fascinated, they also started to get
a bit anxious. If computers were suddenly experts
in that most human of domains, language, what
next? Cue an explosion of debate, scrutiny, and
prediction, and more than enough justification for
Collins’ 2023 Word of the Year.’
Making up the shortlist were: bazball, canon
event, debanking, de-influencing, greedflation,
nepo baby, semaglutide, ultra-processed, and
ULEZ. How many of those do you know, or
have even heard of? Find out what they mean
and why they were chosen at https://blog.
collinsdictionary.com/language-lovers/theacceleration-of-ai-and-other-2023-trends/
What a pleasure reading Phyllida Shrimpton’s article (WM Nov), on novel
writing when older with so many valid observations.
I have lectured, written and published all my life. In my twenties, I decided
that one day, I would accept the challenge and write a novel.
A lifelong sufferer from chronic relapsing indolence, I was 75, verging on
the geriatric, when I started. It took a year to write, and longer to edit. Now
at the age of 81, my health and life expectancy, have declined. If I want to
see it in print, it is too late for agents or publishers.
However, Anroth the Druid is a story told by a storyteller about the last
Celtic Kingdom of Northumbria, perfect for an audio novel, which I have
now recorded.
My daughter is a social media consultant, her husband a film editor. We
have had great fun working together. But far more important, having written
in old age, I leave behind something much more intimate than the written
word; the love, the laughter, the passion and the pauses, in a voice.
Release is planned for the new year, in the meantime, you can follow us on
Instagram: @mfburkeauthor
MICHAEL BURKE
Gateshead, Newcastle
www.writers-online.co.uk
ME ON A PAGE
If I had to earn money to feed
my family, like any other tool,
a circular saw to cut timber, or
paint stripper to clean off old
paint, I would use AI to produce
short stories and novels, but that
is not why I write. I want my
words to laugh and giggle with
me; to feel melancholy; to cry
in pain. I want my writing to be
me on a page; to feel the sun on
its back; hear the patter of the
raindrops; let the lightening flash
across the paragraphs. In any
case, it isn’t AI that creates the
stories, but whoever programmed
the software. I do not want to
be nothing more than their
reflection.
DAVID G. DALTON
Faringdon, Oxfordshire
JANUARY 2024
33
IN THE
SPOTLIGHT:
YOUR WRITING
DARK SIDE
Spooky season evidently offered creative inspiration aplenty for the WM writers, who responded to the call for
writing in November’s crime-themed issue on the theme of ‘Dark Side’ with our fullest mailbox yet. The poetry
and prose sent in demonstrated darkness in many guises, with unafraid work that explored the shadier aspects
of human existence with nuance and verve. The theme may have been dark, but what a pleasure it has been to
read the submissions, which interpreted the darkness with imagination, originality and some exceedingly fine
writing. Chosing the two exceptional pieces that we now present to you was always going to be a tough task,
but Lesley Mason and Leanne Simmons both sent in darkly glittering diamonds and we’re thrilled to include
them on these pages. TJ
POETRY
Noir (After Nick Triplow) By Lesley Mason
There is a darkness
where we all lie bleeding
and a starless night
that asks us to stand
and walk away
from all that we’ve left
of our bodily fluids
upon the melting snows.
The patterns of the streets
feel different in the rain;
what stays broken gets washed
away, sluiced down drains
and what gets fixed
forever bears the scars
of innocence blood-stained.
Street lights fracture
the amber and diamonds
beneath our careworn soles
and the dark tidal waters
seep through our consciences
raising the wrecks we’d thought
forever buried beyond the flats.
There is the darkness
where all lies await their keening
and sleepless nights
that ask us to stand
and walk away.
34
JANUARY 2024
WE WANT
YOUR WRITING
(and we’ll pay you for it!)
Each month in WM, we feature creative writing by our
subscribers. Selected pieces will be published in WM and we pay
£50 for prose and £25 for poetry, and provide a mini-critique
explaining what made the pieces stand out to us.
This month, inspired by Ben Hutchinson’s thought-provoking
piece on the importance of writing (p14), we’d like your
submissions on the theme of: Why I Write. The pieces can be
fiction, non-fiction or poetry, but should in some way address why
writing matters.
Submit prose up to 500 words and poetry up to 40 lines to
wmsubmissions@warnersgroup.co.uk. Include your subscriber
number.
The closing date is 31 December.
• This stunning poem by Lesley Mason was the first piece we received,
and it set the bar exceedingly high. This is entirely memorable writing
that fearlessly acknowledges the loneliness and isolation of noir as it
twists the psychic horror at its heart into a kind of stark, fractured
beauty. As Nick Triplow pointed out in his piece in the November issue,
noir demands that its writer look into the darkness and understand
how it changes the people whose lives it touches. In this poem, Noir,
Lesley expresses all of that: urban grit and the unrelenting pain of
broken lives, wrapped up in a tender, terrible understanding.
www.writers-online.co.uk
WRITING LIFE
PROSE
You Can Be Brutal With Roses By Leanne Simmons
A promise is a promise.
She believed in ghosts. They gathered in her as we
waited and watched the trees turn yellow. When leaves
fell and swirled at the doorstep, two men set up the
hospital bed at the garden end of the living room, their
eyes and voices low. Mother’s watchful eye – watchful
heart – gently directing.
I grew used to its metallic wheeze. Was almost soothed
by it. But she was restless. Fluttered like a bird, her
hand landing on mine briefly before flitting off to tuck
or untuck a sheet, straighten the coverlet or replenish
the cup of water I could no longer sip. I hated her pain
harder than my own. She couldn’t settle. Fussed about
the temperature in the room, opened the French door
enough to let the garden in – breathy morning mist,
glint of dew on the pyracantha berries – only to close it
moments later, while the chant of a nearby train faded
into the distance.
Release comes slow, like careful footsteps. A steady
letting go. Shadows on her forehead darkened and
my eyes grew heavy, gazing past her at the wall, busy
with family photographs in cloudy frames. A crumple
of paper prescription bags lined the window ledge,
squashed amongst spider and snake plants. Then the feel
of her face up close. Eyes darting like a cornered rat’s.
It was too much to ask. Burdened by her promise, her
age-thick fingers kneaded the patchwork cushion she’d
stitched together with memories. I knew she couldn’t do
it. My eyes closed and my heart broke like her promise.
She stayed with me that blowy afternoon, as the day
folded into evening, into night, and my body went cold.
Held her head in her hands on the bottom stair while
men with plain faces zipped up the bag and wheeled my
remains over the threshold and into the hearse, beneath
a flat black sky crowded with quiet constellations.
Lowering the coffin into the clag, she wept (I’d have
been happy, scattered under the peonies where I used
to play) and a October robin sang, busying itself in the
hawthorn. She wanted somewhere to be, to remember
me, a sign, so I rippled through the beech trees that
erupted between the gravestones, kissed her face, soft
with bewilderment, the way she looked when listening
to difficult music she couldn’t quite fathom.
Ghosts travel light. We find our way back. Along
ribbons of road, slick from a downpour. Above towns
and cities, buoyed by a rush of clouds. Through fields in
a gathering, water-grey haze.
Orange dawn. I found her amongst the roses, morning
bleeding into the sky, a strangle of dead-heads clustered
in a basket hooked over her elbow. Her dusty eyes
shadowed by a mustard-coloured sou’wester casting a
queasy glow on the high points of her spidery face.
“You can be brutal with roses,” she said. “Snip right
down to the next pair of leaves. They’ll come back.”
A promise is a promise.
Release.
• The exceptional writing – layered, haunted,
elliptical, allusive – of Leanne Simmons’ ‘You Can
Be Brutal With Roses’ immediately set it apart. So
did the devastating delicacy of its exploration of a
truly dark theme – the death of an adult child before
its parent. Set within a limbo-like liminal space
where life and death are beautifully blurred, and
existence is a force of love and belief that outlives a
physical body, and told through the perspective of
the departed spirit, Leanne’s bold creative choices are
delivered with writing of a memorable lyric intensity.
Highly commended
Terry Baldock; Antony Crossley; Fay Dickinson; Joyce Evers; Dee Gordon;
Georgia Griffiths; Lucinda Hart; Alison Hennessy; Isabelle Hichens; Sue
Hoffman; Deborah Hugill; Katie Kent; Tom Powell; Clare Reeve; Matt
Roberts; Christina Swingler; Kate Twitchen.
www.writers-online.co.uk
Next month,
look out for the pieces
we’ve selected from the
submissions call in the
December issue on the
theme of ‘Unreliable
Narrator’.
JANUARY 2024
35
Subscribers’
news
To feature in Subscribers’
News contact:
tjackson@warnersgroup.co.uk
HELL
ON EARTH
I am excited to share the details of my
next novel, The Summer and the May,
writes subscriber Lucinda Hart.
It’s my fourth to be published, and
my third with Vulpine Press. This book
is special to me because I wrote the
first draft when I was 16. Over the
years it has had many edits and
improvements, and bears little
resemblance to that early work.
The Summer and the May is a
standalone folk horror set in SW
Cornwall (where I grew up and still
live). Helston Flora Day celebrates
the victory of the Archangel Michael
over the Devil, and the legend is
retold every year in a mumming play
called the Hal an Tow. Long ago St
Michael fought Lucifer and banished
him to Hell, sealing the entrance
with a giant stone. That stone gives the town of Helston its name,
and allegedly lies somewhere beneath the Angel Hotel.
I chose to move the gateway to Hell a few miles away to where
the cliffs are beaten and eroded by the waves. Deep below the sea
and the rocks, Lucifer is stirring.
A young girl visiting Cornwall becomes enchanted by a beautiful
man she meets on the cliffs. As her obsession grows and her behaviour
becomes more erratic, her friends fall away from her, and she is left
alone and afraid when the two ancient adversaries battle once more in
the skies over Cornwall.
My two other novels with Vulpine are family dramas set
in Cornwall, dealing with the everyday upheavals of family,
romance, motherhood, illness, death and so on. There are two
more of these to come in the near future. But if you fancy
something more Wicker Man do try The Summer and the May.
Find me on Facebook as Lucinda Hart Author and let me know
what you think.
36
JANUARY 2024
www.writers-online.co.uk
Magic
ingredients
I was never much good
at taking advice, writes
subscriber John Phelps.
Apart from not reading
other people’s works
enough and failing to
heed all directives to
plot properly, I have
eschewed the view that
it is vital to be clear
about what my chosen
genre is.
The advice I received
at a talk I attended
recently was: ‘If you
don’t spell out the
fact that your book
is crime, romance,
fantasy, historical or
belonging to some
other specific category, no
one will be interested in buying the book.’
At the moment, my big hope is that
collections of short stories are somehow
different and that, in this context, ‘eclectic’
is not a dirty word.
My latest book, A Kind Of Magic,
contains twenty-four short stories that vary
greatly in both theme and length.
The collection begins with an off-beat
romance … if it can be called a romance
… and includes a multiplicity of themes
that include crime, fantasy, sport, more
romance, a bit of satire and a few attempts
to be humorous. In other words, the
collection is eclectic.
In my defence, I must point out that,
at the age of 81, I have been around a
bit and been able to draw on an array of
experiences. Or, to put it another way, I
like to think that A Kind Of Magic contains
something for everyone.
It can be bought at bookshops such as
Waterstones and W H Smith or directly
through the publisher, Matador. Further
information is obtainable via Google.
COMMUNITY
Swansea and District
Writers’ Circle
It’s often said that in order to be a better writer it’s important to
surround yourself with other writers, and where better to start than here,
at Swansea and District Writers’ Circle? writes Rhydderch Wilson.
This eclectic and close-knit bunch of novelists, short story writers,
poets, playwrights, script-writers and others would like to invite you
to join us. All we ask is that you share our passion for the art and
craft of all things writing-related.
Established in 1954, our ranks have included everything from
bestselling authors, award-winning poets and professional editors to selfpublishers, memoir writers and those who write just for the joy of it. We
gather monthly to listen to a guest speaker and exchange news, tips and
advice. In addition, there is a poetry group and a feedback group that
get together once a month, and we meet up regularly for informal gettogethers and meals out.
Interested? For more info visit us online at www.swanseawriters.co.uk
or email secretary@swanseawriters.co.uk.
See you soon!
THE STUFF OF DREAMS
Before Covid, I had dabbled in various
forms of writing – collaborative playwriting and song-writing for local festivals,
and factual articles for national and
local magazines related to my own niche
interests, writes subscriber Suzanne Stewart.
Come lockdown, I was determined to
finish a YA novel I’d begun which was set
in Bronze Age Britain and called Rowan
The Dreamweaver. I acquired beta readers
to whom I forwarded a chapter at a time
– very good for making sure each one
ended on an intriguing note.
They gave me a lot of helpful feedback,
including the view that they thought
the story should be able to find a
publisher. However, I was so desperate
to feel I was going to produce something concrete from this
difficult time, I decided to self-publish with the help of a
local agency (Silverwood Books). An artistic young relation
produced a fabulous cover design! The first print run came
out in December 2021, and responses have been very
gratifying, a few of which are visible on my author Facebook
page, set up for me by an IT-literate daughter, facebook.
com/rowanthedreamweaver.
I sold getting on for 200 books directly at community
events, becoming an unofficial writer-in-residence at my
local leisure centre, which I thoroughly
enjoyed. I’m now focusing on writing
book two in the trilogy, rather than
direct sales, but the book can still be
bought online, as print or ebook, from
my agency Silverwood, and other online
book retailers.
Retailing the novel has been quite
a learning curve for me. For example,
I saw it as alternative history, but
everyone related to it as fantasy fiction:
this was a positive, because it is really a
book for all ages above primary school,
and people relate to this because that’s
like the Harry Potter series, or the
Narnian chronicles. I also didn’t realise
booksellers could pick up a book and
advertise it online without letting the author know until I
phoned Writing Magazine last summer regarding an online
Zoom course, and a helpful member of staff said, ‘Oh, I
see Waterstones is advertising your book’ – I thought it
must be a mistake until she started reading me the blurb!
My novel was also picked up by music publishers, which
my publishing assistant said had never happened with their
other authors: but music does come into all fiction I write,
and even my surname for it, Stewart, is the surname of a
grandma who was a singer!
www.writers-online.co.uk
JANUARY 2024
37
F R EE
RANGE
writing
ADVENT CALENDAR
Give yourself the Christmas gift of new writing in these
themed festive exercises from Jenny Alexander
ecember is Advent, an
important part of the Christian
calendar and in modern times,
a secular celebration too, as
children of all faiths and none
count down the days by opening the
little doors on their advent calendars.
Behind each door in your twelve-day
free-range writing advent is a little treat
of writing. Open one each day to give
yourself a breather from the Christmas
chaos and feel the benefits of a daily
writing practice, or binge them like a
naughty child, scoffing all the chocs.
There’s really only one rule: stick to
the timings.
1. Memoir
Think about things you used to do
in the run-up to Christmas at various
times in your life, such as making
decorations or going out carol singing,
filling your children’s stockings,
cooking a Christmas dinner. Choose
one and write about it for five minutes.
Finish with a reflection – looking back,
how do you feel about it now?
2. Fiction
Somebody hates Christmas. Who?
Why? Make some notes on this
character and their backstory. Feel the
way that getting to know them and
their situation sparks story ideas – what
might happen that could change the
way they feel? Take five minutes.
3. Non-fiction
Review a Christmas film you love
38
JANUARY 2024
or hate. Give your reasons. Take five
minutes.
4. Poetry
Write a Christmas haiku, a three-line
poem with five syllables in the first
line, seven in the second and five in
the third. Take five minutes, play with
different versions, use all the time.
5. Memoir
Think about objects you associate with
Christmas, now and in the past. Choose
one. Close your eyes and picture it, as
the focal point in a whole scene on the
front of a Christmas card. Describe the
card as you imagine it, the image and
the message inside. Who would you
send it to? Take five minutes.
6. Fiction
Imagine a moment in a Christmas
celebration – a church Christingle, a
family gathering, an office party, a school
nativity play. Take your time; use all your
senses. Describe the setting – not the
story, just the place where the story is
unfolding. Write for five minutes.
7. Non-fiction
This is a research task, research being
one of the joys of writing non-fiction.
Look up advent traditions from around
the world – besides advent wreaths,
candles and calendars you might
stumble upon skating Santas, talking
pets and who knows what else? Then
write for two minutes, reflecting on the
experience of discovering new things.
www.writers-online.co.uk
8. Poetry
Write a cheesy poem for a personalised
Christmas card for a sweetheart or
spouse, a family member or even a
special friend – you know the kind
of thing. Make it emotional. Make it
rhyme. Take five minutes to do this.
9. Memoir
Cast your mind back to outings or
events that you’ve enjoyed in the runup to Christmas, such as a panto or
school play, a carol concert or poetry
reading, a visit to Santa or a Christmas
Eve dinner at the local pub. Choose
one and write about it for five minutes.
What happened? Who was there? How
do you feel now, remembering?
10. Fiction
You can find a story by placing a
character in a situation and seeing
what happens. The situation in
this story is someone is travelling
somewhere for Christmas. Who?
And where are they? For example, in
an airport, on a train, driving alone
or with somebody else, or walking.
Where are they going? What are their
hopes and fears for when they arrive?
Don’t tell the story, just describe the
character and the situation for five
minutes, noticing how ideas about
what might happen next start coming
to you.
11. Non-fiction
Create an affirmation for your writing
life as a Christmas gift to yourself.
Affirmations express something you aspire to as if
you have already achieved it. Start, ‘Right now…’
What are your writing ambitions for yourself? For
example, ‘Right now, I am a published novelist’,
‘Right now, I am a competition winner’, ‘Right
now, I have filled a whole journal, writing every
day.’ Enjoy imagining. As Einstein said, ‘What is
now real was once imagined.’ If you can’t imagine
yourself doing something, you will never achieve it.
12. Poetry
This poem is like an advent calendar for someone
you love, alive or dead, a numbered list of little
Christmas gifts – a favourite sweet treat, an
experience you shared, a book, a garment, a place you
know that they will like. Create a sense of the person
through your choice of gifts, and let the poem express
something of the relationship between you. Take as
long as you like.
WRITERS' SUMMER SCHOOL
DIAMOND JUBILEE
10th
1
0th -16th
-16th A
August
ugust 2
2024
024
Residential,
R
esidential, A
All-Inclusive
ll-Inclusive
hort
Courses
Workshops
Sh
ort C
ourses / W
orkshops
Guest
G
uest S
Speakers
peakers
1:1
1
:1 S
Sessions
essions
Sp
pecialist
ecialist C
Courses
ourses
Ev
vening
ening E
Entertainment
ntertainment
Early
Bird
Price
£799
E
arly B
ird P
rice £
799
until
31
Jan
2024)
((until
u
ntil 3
1J
an 2
024)
Booking
B
ooking f
for
or F
Friends
riends o
of
fS
Swanwick
wanwick - 1 D
Dec
ec 2
2023
023
General
G
eneral b
booking
ooking o
opens
pens - 1 J
Jan
an 2
2024
024
Supported
S
upported P
Places
laces a
and
nd
““TopWrite”
TopWrite”
T
opWrite” A
Assisted
ssisted P
Places
laces S
Scheme
cheme f
for
or y
young
oung w
writers
riters a
available
vailable
All held at a beautiful location in the stunning Derbyshire
countryside
www.swanwickwritersschool.org.uk
www.swanwickwritersschool.org.uk
www.writers-online.co.uk
JANUARY 2024
39
WRITERS’ CIRCLES
MYTHS & LEGENDS
Use folk myths and local legends to inspire new writing
in these group exercises from Julie Phillips
here are many fascinating and
unusual myths and legends
associated with the UK and
across the world. From the
Loch Ness Monster, Big
Foot to the mystery of the Bermuda
Triangle, there is plenty for the group
to tap into and use a legend or two to
inspire their writing.
Ghosts and ghouls
Wherever your group meet, there is
bound to be a good ghost story or two,
so ask the group to do some research.
If they can’t find any, make them up.
What are the specific details about the
ghost? Do they frequent a certain place
or are they found in different locations?
What times of day or night are they
seen and who has seen them? Is there
anyone in the area who has seen the
ghost(s)? What is it that the ghost wants?
Are they searching for their lost love, or
something long lost that was important
to them? Do they seek revenge or
forgiveness, and what does it say in eyewitness reports? Maybe someone in the
group has seen the ghost(s). If the group
are making one up, what elements of the
locality did they use to make the ghost
seem authentic? What are the features of
most local ghost stories that are similar?
Why do the group think this is? What
is it that makes ghost stories, myths and
legends so appealing and last over years
and centuries?
Write two pieces. The first should be
from the viewpoint of the eye witness
and the second from the viewpoint of
the ghost. Does the eye witness know
they are speaking to a ghost, and does
40
JANUARY 2024
the ghost realise they are a ghost? What
would they talk about and do they have
any common ground? What does the
ghost want from the encounter and
how does the eye witness feel once they
realise it’s a ghost? Was the ghost known
to the eye witness in life or are they
strangers? How do they communicate
with each other? Why did the ghost
appear to this particular person?
There are a lot of possibilities here so
encourage the group to explore as many
different scenarios as possible.
Famous sons and daughters
Find information on a local person, alive
or dead, who has made a big impact on
the local area. They could have set up
a charity or be a community volunteer,
a shop owner who raises money for
a local cause or someone who built
a landmark. It could be historical or
more recent. Write a few notes down
about that person to share with the
group and discuss how that information
might make a good basis of a novel or
non-fiction piece. The family life and
difficulties of a local business figure or
builder could throw up some irresistible
inspiration as long as the details and
names are changed sufficiently that the
person, if still alive, can’t be identified.
Monster mash
Take two mythical beasts, join them
together and make them into a character.
Come up with an appropriate name for
this beast and its characteristics. What
does it look like and sound like? Is it a
sentient being and how intelligent is it?
Where does it live and is there more than
www.writers-online.co.uk
one of them? What is its purpose and
what does it want? Write a piece where
the new beast has to do something it
really doesn’t want to do, or comes
into contact with humans when it
doesn’t want them to know it exists.
What happens? How do they react to
each other?
Famed for …?
The place where you live might
be well known for something, for
example, Ironbridge and the Industrial
Revolution, or cheese making in the
Cheddar Gorge. Either go with what it
is already associated with, or come up
with a different association – the more
interesting and creative the better. How
did the area become known for it and
who started it and why? Write a piece
from the viewpoint of the inventor
or entrepreneur who started it all.
What were their thoughts and feelings
at the time? How did they deal with
uncertainty and setbacks? Was there any
opposition? Why were people against
it? Write a scene, from opposing sides,
where the conflict occurs.
Using your local area and the myths
and legends connected to it are excellent
ways to inspire writing. Tapping into
local knowledge is great research that
might lead to a short story, the basis
of a novel or poem, or a non-fiction
piece. Challenge the group to come up
with more than one idea for a couple
of genres. When you meet again, read
some of the ideas out and see if anyone
can get their piece based on that activity
published.
M Y W R I T I N G D AY
FEMI
KAYODE
The crime author and screenwriter tells
Lynne Hackles why early starts and planning
ground his writing process
emi Kayode has always had a day job, for as long
as he’s been writing.
‘Even in university, I studied during the day
and wrote plays at night,’ he says. ‘So, in a way,
I’ve always been structured regarding how I
make time for writing. I try to be in bed by 9pm and set
my alarm for 3:30 am. To be fully present in the writing
process, and declutter my mind from the stress of working
in advertising, I need at least six hours sleep. Less than five
makes for a very cranky me, and very lacklustre writing.
‘Before getting out of bed, I check my Facebook page
and WhatsApp messages, trying to limit myself to forty
minutes, then it’s out of bed, make coffee, take my
multivitamins, walk around the house and get to my laptop
by 4:30. There’s a magical hour when I’m reminded why I
love writing and why it’s the best job in the world. I keep
pounding at the keyboard and boom, it happens. The
Muse arrives and I’m on top of the world.
‘I generally aim for at least 90 minutes of writing but on
a good day, have done two hours, then I walk about 6 km.
Walking clears my head and I record my thoughts on what
I’ve written or what I will write the next day.
‘Weekends tend to be random. If there’s a deadline, I
power through day and night. If not, I rest on Saturdays
and use Sundays to prepare for my day job. This is my
at-home routine. However, I write best when I take a long
weekend off to an Airbnb or hotel. During solo writing
retreats, I am extremely productive, working day and night
and catching naps of an hour or two in bursts and I once
managed a record 32,000 words. When writer friends pull
this stunt, they call it “Pulling A Femi Kayode”.
‘A different mind space is needed to write a novel,
and another for screenplays. When writing a novel, I
watch films. When writing a screenplay, I read novels. I
prefer novel writing because of the independence. With
screenplays you’re part of a huge machine and your “voice”
tends to get lost after tons of notes and reverts. Writing a
novel is more solitary and when you’re blessed with brilliant
editors whose sole aim is to help you write your best work,
it can be a much more fulfilling experience than writing
a screenplay. But writing for the screen pays much better
than writing a novel. This makes up for the downsides.
‘My second novel, Gaslight, is the sequel to the first,
Lightseekers. It’s a continuation of the Philip Taiwo Series
where an investigative psychologist pursues the why of a
crime rather than the who. He’s been brought in to find
out why the pastor of a megachurch is being accused of
murdering his wife. There’s no body, and the pastor claims
the wife takes personal retreats (no prize for guessing where
that came from!) and will return anytime soon, but the
police do not believe this. It’s a heartbreaking tale of faith,
self doubt, restoration and of course, gaslighting.
‘When it comes to research I prefer more organic like
interviewing, watching documentaries and maybe visiting
the setting I am writing about. I love content experts
because they can save you a lot of browsing time. As soon
as I settle on a theme or an idea, the first thing I do is look
for an expert in that field, even before writing a word. I
also include these experts in my Beta Readers’ Group.
‘Because of my training in TV screenwriting, I start a
book by writing my plot points but am aware that a lot
will change. The two things that don’t change are the
beginning and the end. For every chapter, I ask myself –
what is the goal of this scene/chapter? Who owns it? What
is revealed? And how will it end?
‘By the middle of the book, I tend to forget all the
outline and just write. By then I’m more comfortable with
the story and am generally sure where I am going with it.
I believe we all plan our writing. We just do it in different
ways. Some do all their planning in their brains, others jot
down, some talk to friends, others attend workshops. Some
also do it faster than others. Especially more experienced
ones. But we all plan. Trust me.’
WRITING PLACE
‘My favourite writing spot is the family dining table. It
should be called a work table as it’s used for homework, my
wife’s work, everything else but eating! I live in Namibia
and the landscape is gorgeous. From the table I get to
see the rolling hills of Auasblick. My sons insist they can
tell how well my work is going from the sound of my
keyboard during the night. When I go off to write, my
only specification is a bed and a writing desk. I call this my
starving artist mode! I even refuse housekeeping service
throughout my stay.’
www.writers-online.co.uk
JANUARY 2024
41
The
poetry
of music
Alison Chisholm is impressed with the musicality of a
poem where the content expresses its subject
oetry and music are sister arts. Both rely on
sound and rhythm to communicate their
message. Both have the ability to calm, to
disturb, to frighten, to anger, or to spread joy.
Because of the closeness of this relationship,
it’s easy to see why many poets use music as a theme for
their writing.
Peter Sutton lives in Malvern, Worcestershire, where
Sir Edward Elgar made his home from 1891 to 1899,
and where some of his best-loved music was composed,
including the Enigma Variations and Serenade for Strings.
The inspiration of Elgar country prompted Peter to write
a play in 2007 to mark the 150th anniversary of the
composer’s birth. Elgar and Alice, starring Gerald Harper,
toured briefly and was warmly received, but it also
provided its author with a lot of material that could be
used in poetry, of which Listen is just one example.
The poet points out: ‘Although the poem does not quote
directly from the play, the opening lines are in the spirit of
a passage in which Elgar tries to explain to his wife Alice
what music is and how it moves him. He begins: Music isn’t
just sounds, Al. It’s tone, rhythm and pattern…’
Listen is a glorious celebration of the magic of music,
relished through the magic of poetry. It’s a list poem,
with the title’s imperative moving into the nature of the
sounds, and then exhorting readers to experience the
42
JANUARY 2024
synaesthesia of tasting music and feeling it through their
body. It ends with a coming together of instruments
through time and space, culminating in a splendid
description of music’s magic as vital, tribal, bracing, tragic.
The piece is neatly crafted into two ten-line stanzas,
with eight lines using pairs of alternating rhyme sounds
and with a rhyming couplet to finish. It is strongly
metrical, with trochaic tetrameter used throughout, the
metre of Longfellow’s The Song of Hiawatha. This pattern
reverses the more usual iambic foot, so that its first
syllable is stressed and second unstressed, and there are
just four feet in a line.
Peter describes the writing process that produced Listen,
explaining that when he was working on poems inspired
by music in general and his Elgar play in particular, the
title and first line of Listen introduced themselves as a
thought captured and stored in a computer file he titles
Poems to Write. It was while developing this train of
thought that the four elements of the completed poem
suggested themselves as Listen, Taste, Feel (Touch), and
Sound or Musical Instruments. The idea of producing four
stanzas changed, and the four areas to be addressed were
condensed into two stanzas.
With such a dominant metrical form, it’s surprising to
learn from Peter that, ‘Originally, the poem was in free
verse, though already containing alliteration and internal
www.writers-online.co.uk
POETRY WORKSHOP
rhymes. To create these, I made much use of a thesaurus.’ usually think of slant rhyme as the mainstay of free verse,
He adds: ‘I would not claim that to be hard work, but it
holding the sounds together where there is little or no full
was certainly time-consuming.’
rhyme. Listen demonstrates how slant rhyme elements
The change from free verse to a more formal
can support and enhance a rhymed poem, too. The use
presentation corresponds with the poet’s altered
of repetition, consonance, full consonance and assonance
preferences. ‘As time goes on, I find myself less
adds to the effect of rhyme. Read the poem aloud to see
satisfied with poems that do not have regular rhythm
just how well it works.
and/or rhyme. In hunting for words that meet that
Two phrases in the second stanza are particularly
requirement, I often discover what I really meant
arresting. Its opening words urge readers to Listen with
to say, and this can change the direction of a poem
your skin, your lips. Skin is the clothing that surrounds and
fundamentally. If I am still not
protects every organ of the body.
satisfied, then I give up and
The very mention of it in this
start again.’ This highlights
context hints at the parallel of
the subtleties of vocabulary
music enveloping us. The lips are
choice. Finding the perfect
organs of communication, taking
And you’ll feel the music throbbing,
word is not useful only for
in food and drink and breath, and
soaring, dipping, swelling, sighing,
slotting into the rhyme
kissing – vital functions. So music
and the voices breaking, sobbing,
scheme and metre. When
is elevated from art to an essential
roaring, reeling, cringing, crying,
an altered word shifts the
component of human life.
sounds long silent now returning.
poem’s direction, it can reveal
In the stanza’s sixth line, we
Taste them on your tongue like honey,
something new not just for
read the apparently simple phrase
melting, moiling, yielding, yearning,
the reader but as a bonus for
whose message is at the heart of
spicy, tangy, dulcet, sunny,
the poet.
the poem; making friends across
lady’s bedstraw, saxifrage,
Look at the selections in the
the ages. Music is timeless, and
sloe and sorrel, speedwell, sage.
lists of the first stanza. The
the delight in it links us with
verbs within the first four lines
fellow humans at the moment of
Listen with your skin, your lips,
all fit the meaning. To describe
composition and forever after.
listen with your heels and toes,
the sounds of the music, we
Peter describes how he
follow with your spine, your hips,
are given the expected dipping
worked on Listen. ‘The problem
where the panic piper goes,
and swelling, while the sighing
throughout was deciding whether
round the houses, round the neighbours’,
puts music firmly into the
the poem was finished. Until I
making friends across the ages,
experience of the human voice.
realised that any doubt on that
brass and strings and fifes and tabors,
When the idea of the voice is
score meant that it was not. I have
brash guitars on makeshift stages:
explored, sobbing and roaring
lost count of the versions of this
listen to the music’s magic,
are obvious, but we need to
poem.’ These versions arrived and
vital, tribal, bracing, tragic.
think about reeling and cringing
were tweaked over six or seven
a little more. To repeat: all of
years. It’s no coincidence that the
these fit … but some introduce
beautifully crafted result is a very
an element of surprise. There’s
special piece of writing.
an attractive additional touch with the full rhyme of
soaring / roaring placed at the start of the lines, and
double alliteration in the fourth line, so that the sound
effects created are tightened and neatened.
At the end of this stanza we have another list that
includes the expected and the surprising, with some
delightful tie-ins. Having introduced the suggestion of
honey, Peter brings in the honey-coloured and scented
lady’s bedstraw. There’s another example of double
alliteration with melting, moiling, yielding, yearning.
The last line bristles with s sounds, and gives not only
sibilance, with its onomatopoeic whispering effect, but
also the wordplay of sloe / speedwell.
As well as the wealth of alliteration, there are multiple
examples of slant rhyme all through the poem. We
LISTEN
www.writers-online.co.uk
FICTION FOCUS
Are you wondering about using your family’s history in your writing?
Margaret James considers the potential for mining your family tree in fiction
e have only to glance at television
programme schedules to realise that
whatever our ancestors did – good,
bad, heart-warmingly memorable, or
maybe so hideously embarrassing that
their actions might be best forgotten by their presentday descendants – could also be of interest to people
outside our family circles.
What if nobody in your own family has ever been
famous or notorious?
This is very unlikely to matter. Novelists should
always be ready to consider the potential of all kinds of
storytelling material, and families often prove to be the
happiest of hunting grounds for inspiration.
As the daughter of an inveterate hoarder, I’m lucky to
have access to my own family’s letters, documents and
photographs, which proved invaluable while researching
the background for my historical novels set during the
first half of the twentieth century.
Novelist Juliet Greenwood also writes fiction set in the
early twentieth century. ‘But I’ve only recently gained
the confidence to use my own family’s history in my
novels: in The Shakespeare Sisters series, and in my standalone Last Train from Paris,’ she explains.
‘I loved writing The Shakespeare Sisters, for which I
returned to the landscape of my childhood near Stratfordupon-Avon, with its traditional village communities and
family memories of village choirs, long before TV and
social media took hold. I also enjoyed following how
such communities survived, and were changed by, the
experience of living through the Second World War.
‘My latest novel Last Train from Paris features a story
I’ve long wished to tell. It was originally inspired by my
mother’s escape from France as a seventeen-year-old on
the day the war broke out, when her ferry across the
Channel was stalked by a German submarine.
44
JANUARY 2024
‘I’ve always been haunted by the stories I heard from
my mother’s French friends and relatives, people who
experienced the terror of fleeing with little more than
they could carry, while being strafed by bullets from
enemy planes. While I was writing Last Train from
Paris, these two elements suddenly came together in
unexpected ways in my tale of two women, one in
France and the other in Cornwall, doing all they could
to protect twin baby girls during the war and then, in
the aftermath, to reunite them.
‘Of course, my novel doesn’t exactly mirror my family’s
own experiences. My mum (who was exchanging letters
with her boyfriend, later to become my dad, all the
time she was in France), most definitely did not return
home with a French baby! My story is more a bringingtogether of the emotions I picked up on as a child, along
with my reading of the history of civilians caught up in
the Blitz in the UK and the occupation in France.
‘The outbreak of war in Ukraine, happening
within weeks of starting to write my novel, meant
my storytelling became painfully real. I found myself
watching the kinds of events I was writing about
unfolding in front of my eyes on the news and in social
media and, for a while, I found it too painful to carry
on. I was afraid I was exploiting other human beings’
horror just for entertainment.
‘But then I realised these stories need to be told.
Also, in the past, women have so often been portrayed
as simply the victims of war, rather than the ultimate
survivors, working together to keep their families and
those around them safe in the most impossible of
circumstances.
‘As I’ve grown older, and as I’ve watched families
fleeing Ukraine, I’ve realised that my mother taught me
to understand the truth about war, and also about its
emotional impact on the future, even when the actual
www.writers-online.co.uk
Five quick
questions
events have been forgotten.
‘As I wrote Last Train from Paris, I learned not
to be intimidated by my own family history. I
didn’t feel obliged to stick to the precise events and
characters. It’s the remembered emotional reactions
and experiences that are the truth at the heart of
any story, and stories have to take their own way.’
Cate Green, who was featured in the Five Quick
Questions column in September 2023, was also
inspired by a relative’s life story to write her debut
novel The Curious Kidnapping of Nora W.
Cate’s mother-in-law Norma Celemenski was
born in 1925 in what would later become Nazioccupied Poland. As a teenager, she was deported
to Auschwitz. ‘Like my Nora in the novel,
Norma Celemenski was resilient, determined and
stubborn,’ writes Cate in her Author’s Note. ‘It was
her resilience and spirit that gave me the idea of
writing about a survivor, a woman who might take
a personal revenge against the perpetrators of the
Holocaust by becoming the oldest person in the
history of the world.
‘Nora W is a novel about survivors of war and
injustice, and about their lives as ordinary people
with an extraordinary past.’
So now, thinking about Juliet’s and Cate’s
inspiration for their work, I hope you do not feel
that in order to be of interest to readers, your own
reality-based central characters need to have been
celebrities of any kind?
Maybe you could dig out those photograph
albums, read or re-read those letters, journals or
diaries, and – above all – talk to the older members
of your families, and record their memories, while
you still have the chance?
Finally, as you complete your first draft, maybe ask
yourself: do I need to let any members of my family
read (and maybe comment on) my family-historyinspired story before anyone else gets to see it?
Perhaps you do?
NOW TRY THIS
• What pivotal event in your own family’s
history could inspire a compelling story with an
intriguing beginning, a well-sustained middle,
and a satisfying end?
• What fascinating question(s) could you ask (and
of course answer) in the course of this story?
with D E White
1. When and where did your journey as an author begin?
I started writing when I worked as cabin crew for British
Airways, on long night flights across the Atlantic. I would
scribble down a few story ideas during my break. After my first
baby was born, I began to write more seriously, and was selected
for a Curtis Brown New Beginnings workshop in London.
2. What is (or has been) your proudest moment as a writer?
I have just finished book twenty!
So many other moments: signing with my agent, with my
publishers, and seeing the books acquire such a wonderful
following.
I suppose, out of everything for which I have to be grateful,
I am proudest of having the courage to send my books out on
submission sixteen years ago. It’s such a tough step for all of us.
3. Who or what is your greatest inspiration?
My books focus on strong female characters. My friends and
family are brilliant inspiration. I have also found so many
friends within the book community. We inspire each other,
celebrate, and commiserate when the rocky publishing road
trips us up along the way!
4. What is coming up next for you, fiction-wise?
It’s going to be a busy 2024. You Know Her is out this month
and is a psychological thriller set in my hometown of Brighton,
focusing on the darker side of fame. Book five in my longrunning Detective Dove Milson series is out in February. I
really enjoy writing a series, but it can be so freeing to return to
my psychological thriller roots and coax those slightly different
ideas on to the page.
5. What is your top tip for writers still on the journey
towards publication?
Ideally, we would all write (and work!) for love and money,
thus feeding our hearts and also keeping our landlords happy
by paying the rent on time. In the real world, this rarely
happens, so I would say aim high, shoot for those stars, but
keep writing because you enjoy it, and genuinely love getting
those words down.
JANUARY 2024
45
TO READ THE STORY
www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/09/23/bad-dreams-3
In dreams
Helen Walters looks at the effects created by using
different perceptions and points of view in your fiction,
illustrated with a short story by Tessa Hadley
wo months ago, we
discussed the potential
pitfalls of including
dreams in your stories.
This month we have a
story, ‘Bad Dreams’ by Tessa Hadley,
which demonstrates an innovative use
of a dream sequence that really works.
It’s not a cop out, it’s a passage that
genuinely adds an additional layer of
meaning to the story. As always, you
will get the most out of this masterclass
if you read the story for yourself (www.
newyorker.com/magazine/2013/09/23/
bad-dreams-3), and if you enjoy this
story, you might enjoy the other
stories in Tessa Hadley’s collection, also
entitled Bad Dreams.
In an interview with The New
Yorker, Tessa Hadley explains that
the story is based on an experience
from her childhood when she had a
similar dream to the child in the story.
So, it is based on a real event, albeit
an experience that was a dream and
therefore not actually real. Are you with
me so far?
Whilst examining this story we will
discuss the balance between things
that can be categorised as ‘reality’
and things that can be categorised as
‘unreality’. As you read the story look
out for some terms on either side of
46
JANUARY 2024
that divide. Reality is typified by words
like: solid; pragmatism; presence;
substantial; right; clarity; truth.
Unreality is signified by: art; dreams;
fiction; incantation; memory; absence;
interpretation; reflection.
The story starts with a very tight
focus on a child in her bedroom as
she awakens from a dream. As she
moves from unreality to reality, this
passage gives us some insights on the
nature of dreams.
Initially, we are told that the dream
seemed real in the sense that she was
sure that something had ‘happened’
while she was asleep. The dream felt
like it came from outside of her, and
she forgets that she is ‘author’ of her
own dreams and therefore must have
created it herself.
One of the things that makes the use
of dreams in this story unusual and
innovative is that the dream is triggered
by a book (Swallows and Amazons) that
the child was reading before she fell
asleep. So, the writer is combining two
sorts of unreality – dreams and fiction –
in the narrative.
The characters in the book feel solid
to the child, as solid as the book itself
which lies against her leg. But this
supposed reality also raises questions,
because one of the disturbing aspects of
www.writers-online.co.uk
the dream is that it includes an epilogue
to the book in which the characters
come to a sticky end. An epilogue
which only exists in her dream.
Can you read when you’re dreaming?
Or do you find that every time your
dream features written materials the
actual words blur and become impossible
to pin down when you try to look
at them? Apparently, there are good
scientific reasons for this. Look also at
the description of how the child ‘sees’
words written on the darkness in front
of her eyes. These are issues that go to
how the human mind processes reality
and unreality, and the difference between
waking consciousness and dreams.
The child, having woken, moves
from her bedroom to other parts of her
parents’ house. Although she is now
awake, some elements of her experience
remain dreamlike. Again, we have a
contrast between reality, underlined
by the pragmatism suggested by her
mother’s sewing materials, and unreality
with the reference to Liberty Lawn
sounding like an incantation.
Notice how the meaning of her father’s
written words is described as being
accessible through her fingertips, and
that her father’s words are also written
about a book – Leviathan – in this case
not fiction, but political treatise.
MASTERCLASS
Note also how the girl describes her
parents as being more present in their
absence than when they are actually
there. And that things in the room
seem more substantial than she herself
does. This thought seems to tip her into
behaving in a disruptive way, tipping
furniture over.
At this point we switch to her
mother’s point of view. And in switching
point of view, we are of course moving
to a different perception of reality.
While we are in the mother’s point
of view, we are offered some more
illustrations of different manifestations
of reality. We hear that sometimes
her small son has lapses of reality in
which he seems not to recognise her.
She also notes that she experiences
reality differently from her husband,
feeling that as he sleeps beside her, he is
somewhere she can’t follow. Then, at the
end of this section of the story, we see
her regarding her reflection in the mirror
and perceiving herself as a ‘phantom’ in
a baby-doll nightdress.
Then we are presented with a situation
where interpretation and reality diverge.
Mother sees the chaos caused by
her daughter in the living room and
immediately assumes that it was caused
by her husband in a fit of temper the
night before. Notice how she refers to the
‘truth’ she’s always known and having a
clarity about the future. Of course, the
reader knows she is wrong about this, but
she clearly thinks she is right.
In this story, one of the things at the
centre of the truth/reality and untruth/
unreality tension is point of view.
Significantly, we are missing the father’s
point of view. And at the end of the story,
he is blissfully ignorant of the night’s
events. He doesn’t know what happened,
because he didn’t see it. And he isn’t
going to find out, because both mother
and daughter have decided they are never
going to tell. The reader is left wondering
what will happen next as they all move
forward in their different realities.
Telling the truth
It is often said that, in life, there are
three sides to every story. Yours, mine
and the truth. The same applies to
fiction. There are at least three sides
to every story, Character A’s side,
Character B’s side and the truth – or,
at least, the truth as far as it exists
within the fiction of the story. The
more character’s points of view you are
working with in your story, the more
angles on the truth there are.
Fiction is like a jigsaw where lots
of different pieces have to be put
together to show the complete picture.
All your point of view characters will
have something to add to the story.
And the way you incorporate that
information depends on a few factors.
• Are you writing in first person
or third?
In first person, your character
experiences the story through their
own eyes in a very immediate way. As
a result the reader, is reading the story
as though they are experiencing it for
themself. This helps make your writing
feel intimate, authentic and engaging.
Third person adds a layer of distance,
unless you are aiming for a very close
third person perspective, which can
feel as intimate as first. But it allows
more flexibility and objectivity, and it
increases the range of perspective you
can bring to the story.
Whether in first person or third,
having more than one point of view
character allows multiple perspectives
which will allow you to build up
your jigsaw picture. Or, to go with a
slightly different metaphor, to turn
the kaleidoscope and create a different
picture. Alternatively, you could
choose an omniscient (all-knowing)
narrator, to deliver the truth of your
story from a number of perspectives.
• How reliable is your narrator?
To what extent is your narrator reliable?
An unreliable narrator is likely to offer
unreality, untruths and obfuscation. A
reliable narrator is more likely to offer
reality, truth and clarity.
No narrator is totally reliable,
but some are more unreliable than
others. Some unreliable narrators are
deliberately twisting the truth whilst
others are simply delivering the truth
www.writers-online.co.uk
in the way they know best, but with
limitations due to their state of mind
or level of perception. Whereabouts on
this spectrum your character sits, will
impact on how ‘true’ your narrative is.
• How much are you as the author
going to reveal?
Another factor in how your reader will
experience the truth of your story is what
you, as the author, choose to reveal.
In any piece of fiction there will be
a disparity between what the author
knows, what the POV character(s)
and/or narrator knows, and what
the reader knows. This is important
because withholding information
from the reader is one of the writing
techniques that builds tension and
suspense. It keeps the reader guessing
and therefore turning the pages.
The author has all the available
information. Whether they have that
at the start of the writing process, or
not until the end, depends on whether
the author is the sort of writer who
likes to thoroughly plan their work or
whether they are more of a ‘make it up
as you go along’ kind of person.
Regardless of the author’s process,
there will likely be information
they know about their character
which is part of their deep back
story, and which the reader doesn’t
need to know and would bog down
the pace of the story. The author
may also know exactly what their
character looks like. They may even
have a photo of them ripped from
a magazine or found online for
inspiration. But that doesn’t mean
they need to share that information
in detail with the reader, unless it’s
relevant. There are things the writer
needs to know about the character
in order to write about them
confidently, but the reader doesn’t
necessarily need to know at all.
The job of the writer is to use the
decisions about perspective that we’ve
discussed above, in order to present
the right information to the reader in
the right way and at the right time.
That is how the writer shares the truth
of their fiction with the reader.
JANUARY 2024
47
The rules of
If you’re writing fantasy, it’s worth making an effort to create the logic that will ensure your magic enchants
young readers. Amy Sparkes sets out a checklist for you to follow
F
antasy is one of the
most popular genres in
children’s fiction. It offers
pure escapism from a
troubled world, boundless
imagination, and a safer place than
reality to explore dark and difficult
issues. Although the genre is extremely
competitive, it is also very much on
the wishlists of publishers and agents
because they know the potentially
huge commercial value of books
within this genre.
When you’re writing a fantastical
or magical story, it is important to
consider how you are going to use the
magic, and how it is going to work.
Even though it is something literally
out of this world, it all needs to
makes perfect sense. Anything which
is confusing, half-baked or which the
author doesn’t really quite understand
will always stand out. To avoid putting
yourself in that situation, here are
some tips.
48
JANUARY 2024
GIVE MAGIC STRUCTURE
• LIMITATIONS
Giving your magic some kind of
framework to work within can
help keep it under control, and
ensure it serves the story instead of
overpowering it. Think about what
the limitations are of the magic in
your storyworld. It’s important that
not every problem can be solved
with magic, otherwise this can have a
negative effect on story – conflicts can
run the risk of becoming too easily
resolved. As well as allowing story to
breathe, giving magic limits can also
help it feel more believable. If the
magic begins to feel unrealistic and
over the top, even within the context
of its world, then the storytelling
begins to fall apart.
QUESTIONS TO ASK ABOUT
LIMITATIONS:
• What can the magic not do?
• How do the limitations on the
magic make life a little harder for your
protagonist throughout the story?
• Do you have enough conflicts along
the way which cannot be solved – or at
least, easily solved – by magic alone?
• RULES
When thinking about the limitations
you need to impose on the magic in
your story, consider the rules. Creating
rules will help with the consistency
of the world-building and ensure the
magic doesn’t get out of control.
QUESTIONS TO ASK ABOUT RULES:
• Do you, as the writer, understand
what the rules of magic are?
• Have you made it clear to your
reader what these rules are? (As far as
they need to know).
• Have you brought in this
understanding as soon as appropriate
within the story to help your reader
understand implications on story?
• How, when, why and how does
WRITING FOR CHILDREN
your magic work?
• Have you given your magic too many
possibilities to feel believable?
• Does it make sense?
• LOGIC
It is worth really ensuring that
everything about your fantasy novel
feels logical, not just the magical rules
themselves. Sometimes our enthusiasm
to ‘make magic’ creates story strands
which feel implausible, or perhaps a
little bit too convenient.
In magical or fantastical stories,
the reader has to suspend disbelief.
But if we do not provide a logical (if
fantastical!) explanation behind the
story, or a satisfying structure to back
up the story, or just stretch it all a little
too far... it will all come crashing down.
Yet if we safeguard all this, by
addressing areas where logic may
seem weak or implausible, or the
reader may feel uncomfortable with
what we are asking them to go along
with, then we can prevent this worldcrashing from happening.
QUESTIONS TO ASK ABOUT LOGIC:
• How does the magic exist? Has it
entered suddenly into our world?
• Or has the magic always been there?
Is it ‘normal’? Is it something everyone
knows about?
• If it enters into our world, why is it
the protagonist who discovers it?
• Does the inciting incident feel
believable?
• If the story is set in our world, and it
has always been there, why have other
people not discovered this magic before?
• Can this magic realistically be kept
secret? (If secrecy is required).
• Does magic solve problems instead of
the protagonist?
• Does the magic ever feel a bit
‘convenient’? Does something magical
ever turn up out of nowhere without
much explanation before or after?
• CONSIDER MAGICAL
CHARACTERS
Sometimes characters are magical
themselves and can directly or indirectly
wield magic. If this is the case with
your story, it’s important to make sure
that the concept and the understanding
of their magical powers is well thought
through. It doesn’t mean you have to
go into great detail on how exactly the
magic is wielded. If you are writing
magic realism (where magic is normal
and part of everyday life), a detailed
explanation will likely jar in the text, as
your protagonist will already be aware
of this. However, as long as you have
thought through the details, then it
should come across as confident and
believable in the text.
QUESTIONS TO ASK ABOUT
CHARACTERS AND MAGICAL
POWERS:
• Does everyone have magical powers?
• Is it a standard ‘power’ or are there
levels of expertise?
• Is it a talent, a learned process, or innate?
• What are the rules or opinions
within society of using or wielding this
kind of power?
• What happens if people abuse this
power – are there consequences?
• Can people lose this power?
• If not everyone possesses equal
quantities or strengths of this power, how
is the difference in power ‘levels’ perceived
in the society of your storyworld?
• ANTAGONIST
Your protagonist may possess magical
powers themselves or have access to
magic through a companion character
or artefact they have acquired. However
magical power works in your world, it
is usually helpful if your protagonist
has less power than your antagonist. An
antagonist who keeps the upper hand
through most of the story is going to
feel more believable. It will also generate
more conflict and push your protagonist
to make increasingly desperate, bold or
interesting choices. All good for story!
As before, giving your antagonist
limitations in the power they can wield is
also helpful. Otherwise, the reader might
question why they don’t just overcome
your protagonist simply and quickly.
An alternative could be providing clear
reasons why your antagonist does NOT
want to completely overcome your
protagonist, despite having the magical
competencies and strength to do so.
QUESTIONS TO ASK ABOUT
ANTAGONISTS:
• How is the antagonist more powerful
than the protagonist?
• Why is this the case, and is this
logical?
• If your antagonist is more powerful,
why are they unable to defeat your
protagonist quickly?
• And is this logical?
• If they are able to defeat your
protagonist quickly but are
withholding, what is the antagonist’s
motivation for this? Does it feel
believable?
DON’T LET MAGIC OVERSHADOW
STORY
It’s fun to play with magic, but
sometimes we can have a little bit too
much fun! Magic should always serve
the story rather than be the centrepiece
itself, otherwise the book may seem
spectacular... but unsatisying.
This doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy
creating magic and featuring it throughout
the book, obviously. It just means you may
have to keep it on a bit of a tight rein and
clearly understand its purpose in the story.
QUESTIONS TO ASK ABOUT
MAGIC AND STORY:
• Does the magic in this part of the
story help develop story further?
• Does it enable a character to be
explored in more depth?
• Does it further our understanding of
the storyworld or the magic?
• Does it cause further trouble or
conflict for the protagonist?
• Would the story work just as well
without magic in this part of the story?
• Does it distract the reader from the
main narrative drive too much?
• Is the reader being bombarded with
new magical things without purpose?
• Is too much time being spent
exploring the magic rather than moving
on the story?
There is a lot to consider, but it is
worth investing the time and making
your fantasy story work effectively.
Analyse your magic, make it work
tighter, and you will reap the rewards in
your writing. Good luck!
JANUARY 2024
FA N TA S T I C R E A L M S
NEW YEAR,
new approach
Want to explore new frontiers in your genre fiction, and give a fresh twist to
horror, sci-fi and fantasy stories? Alex Davis encourages you to think
about experimenting with your storytelling in 2024
he New Year is always a time for us to reflect on
where we are, where we are going and of course
a chance to start with a clean slate each January.
As you read this, 2023 will very nearly be in the
rear-view mirror, and you may already be giving
some thought to those New Year’s Resolutions that are going
to push you in the right direction in 2024.
Perhaps hanging that fresh calendar on the year is an
excuse to try something fresh with your storytelling – and
in this article we’re going to explore some ways you can look
to break out of old habits and try some new approaches to
writing in 2024.
Epistolary storytelling
This is something I’ve always been a fan of in fiction, though
some writers are a little wary of it. Employing epistolary
elements means that you have items or documents in your
writing that are ‘in-world’. An epistle refers to a letter in
particular, but in this case it does not need to be a letter
(though of course it could be). You might also give some
thought to text messages, emails, social media posts, newspaper
reports, or indeed anything else that you can think of!
These sorts of things can be great for adding an alternative
approach to a piece, showing more of what is going on in
the world around our characters, creating a further sense of
realism and believability for your story or indeed allowing
you a way to show what people beyond your central
protagonist are feeling without having to explore them in
lengthy narrative sections.
• QUICK TASK: Imagine one character in your story
writing a letter to another. What would it say, and
how would you capture the character’s voice and the
relationship between the two individuals in that letter?
50
JANUARY 2024
Playing with chronology
It seems to be a current trend for more and more books
to tinker with time itself, eschewing the traditional, linear
means of storytelling for an approach that sees characters
and events jumping through time. This can serve a wide
range of purposes, and of course take many forms – you
could present a story in a dual or even triple timeline, with
a number of linked plotlines playing out that all impact one
another – something we have been seeing a good amount
in Gothic fiction of late for one. You may be telling a single
story around a single character and cutting from one phase
of life to another, allowing you to unravel the story in a more
interesting and dynamic way.
Using this sort of approach can allow you to pace your
story in a very different way – for example one thread of the
story may contain more drama and tension while the other
unravels more slowly. It may enable you to build mystery
and hints in one storyline that eventually pay off in another.
It can be a great attention-getter for a reader, immediately
capturing their attention and keeping them guessing as the
timeline progresses in that non-linear fashion.
• QUICK TASK: Pick a random scene from any point in a
story and write it as though it is the first chapter. Does it work
where it is or not? What might be the benefit of you starting
there as compared to the chronological opening point? How
would placing it at the start affect how the rest of the story
would be told? If you don’t like it at the start it can always go
into the story later on as per your original plan!
Second person
When discussing the perspective we tell our stories from, we
only tend to reel off two possibilities – first person (telling
the story from a character’s POV) or third person (telling
www.writers-online.co.uk
FA N TA S T I C R E A L M S
the story from a neutral and omniscient POV). Those two
are certainly the most familiar, but it does leave a somewhat
forgotten third option in using second person – telling
the story using ‘you’, as though the reader is the character
themselves. As someone who grew up in the age of Fighting
Fantasy and Choose Your Own Adventure, it was always a
thrill to place myself in the role of the heroic lead – and
readers of a similar vintage might feel a similar nostalgia!
As much as second person is often a key component in
interactive fiction, it can also be used in more traditional
fiction – perhaps not as something done in large chunks, and
even more rarely is it deployed throughout a full novel. But
doing this in sections can be highly compelling for a reader,
who can no longer divorce themselves from the action of
the story or see themselves as an observer. By using ‘you’,
the audience finds themselves feeling close to things in what
might be an uncomfortable way.
• QUICK TASK: Select a scene in one of your stories that
you feel has strong tension or emotion within it – something
you would consider dramatic physically or psychologically.
Rewrite this in the second person, placing your reader in
the role of the lead. You may have to make more significant
changes than switching ‘he, ‘she’ or ‘they’ to ‘you’! How
does the scene read differently, and has the switch worked to
make things less ‘at a distance’ for the reader?
will have found helpful that might have surprised you – so
why not experiment with your own fiction in the same way?
Here’s a few ideas that you might wish to employ to bring
something fresh to the table:
• Could you only use a limited number of words in each
sentence?
• Could you allow yourself only a limited number of letters
per word, setting yourself a maximum (or a minimum)?
• Could you not use a certain letter for the duration of a
chapter, or even longer?
• Could you write a scene or a chapter without using one of
the senses at all – taking out sound, sight or smell entirely
could be an unexpected twist for sure! You might consider
writing a story set entirely in the dark.
• Could you write a whole story without any dialogue at all?
And would an audience go along with it?
I’m not going to lie – sometimes you give these things
a go and they fall flat, but that is of course the nature of
experimentation. If there are some flops along the way,
they will hopefully be alleviated by those times they come
together beautifully!
• QUICK TASK: Take the finale of a short story you have
already written and switch it from past or present tense to
future. How do you feel different about it presented this
way? Does it still work as a conclusion, and is it something
you might wish to use again?
The New Year is always a great time to consider what’s next
in life and to think about breaking out of old habits – and
we can of course find ourselves lapsing into particular writing
habits over time, sometimes without realising it. So taking the
opportunity to push yourself beyond that and try something
different can only be a positive as a writer – even if it doesn’t
always work, by expanding your skillset and your writing
mindset you are bound to open up more possibilities in the
longer term.
But before we wrap up I do want to sound a slight note of
caution – I’m all for writers experimenting, and many writers
have made a fine career of going beyond what other authors
may be willing to do. With that said, there is a chance that
experimentation can slip into gimmickry – simply doing
something different for the sake of it in a desperate attempt
to stand out. It’s important to remember that not every
story needs to be experimental, nor is every story going to
benefit from the approaches above. But I hope that in taking
on these quick tasks there will be lessons to be learned,
whether those particular challenges yield something useful
for you or not. It may show you where you want or need to
experiment, or it may serve to show the places where that
sort of boundary-breaking is not really going to work.
Find out the means of trying new things that you personally
find effective and look for the opportunities to employ them
that seem natural and fitting – crowbarring them in is always
liable to backfire on you as a writer and damage the story.
Artificial limitations
While this might sound like a strange one, many a writing
exercise is born out of the idea of giving authors artificial
restrictions on what they can do as a writer. No doubt you
have done a task along these lines at some stage that you
Alex Davis has taught over the last five years at both
undergraduate and MA level. You can follow him on
Twitter at @AlexDavis1981 and see his forthcoming
literature events at https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/o/alex-davisevents-17318878423
Future tense
While I’m on the topic of ‘lesser-used third options’, let’s
spare a little time for future tense. Again, the vast majority
of stories will use either past tense (describing plot events
that have already happened) or present tense (describing
plot events as they unfold, happening ‘live’ as we read). But
there is another angle you will sometimes see – that of future
tense, describing events that have yet to happen. Rather than
‘he was’ or ‘he is’, we need to write ‘he will be’ or ‘he will’ to
show that things here have yet to play out.
As per second person, this might be something that you
would tend to use in small doses, but it can certainly have
its place. You could use it as visions or dreams, or perhaps
even predictions of the future. You could use it as part of a
broader play with chronology as described above – and it
would likely be possible to tell a very good short story using
the device throughout.
www.writers-online.co.uk
JANUARY 2024
51
AUTHOR PROFILE
Daniel Hurst
Margaret James talks to the psychological thriller writer about plotting,
planning, and unusual things happening to ordinary people
t’s always interesting to learn about how writers actually
become writers.
As a result of nature or of nurture? By accident or by
design? Do they come from families (or even dynasties)
of playwrights, novelists and/or other creative people?
Or are they the first to make it into print?
‘If you’d asked me this question a year ago, I’d have said
I was the only writer in my family,’ says bestselling novelist
Daniel Hurst, a prolific author of psychological thrillers.
‘But my father has recently written his first book, and has
shown me many story notes he’s made over the years. This
tells me I have clearly inherited some kind of writing gene
from him! I was always writing as a child, although I can’t
say any of those early stories are worth reading.’
Does Daniel write stand-alone novels or series?
‘I tend to write stand-alone books, but my novel The
Doctor’s Mistress is the final part of a trilogy,’ he says. ‘Last
year The Doctor’s Wife, the first book in the series, topped
the chart in the UK Kindle store, which was a pleasant
surprise for me. Luckily, I had plenty of material to add
to my original story, and it was great fun to explore the
characters further.’
As Daniel’s career has developed, have his working
methods changed and, if so, how?
‘When I first started writing novels, I always used to jump
straight into the story, because planning never seemed to
be as much fun as actually writing,’ he says. ‘I’d come up
with a title, then try to make up a story. When I wrote The
Woman at the Door, for example, all I had was the title, and
I wrote what came to me as I tried to answer the questions
in that title. Who is the woman? What does she want?
Whose door is she at? How will the people she is visiting
respond to her arrival?
‘Once I started working with publishers, however, they
wanted to see outlines before I put pen to paper, so I
became more of a planner, and that’s how I work nowadays.
‘My genre is the psychological thriller, which is all about
unusual things happening to normal people, basically asking
readers: how would you react if this happened to you? What
if you caught your partner cheating? What if you were
framed for murder? Asking questions like that can instantly
spawn a story idea and, once I have the seed of an idea, my
imagination runs riot.’
Does Daniel have any particular favourites among his
characters?
‘Fern, the title character in The Doctor’s Wife, has been
a fun one to write,’ he says. ‘She started off as a betrayed
52
JANUARY 2024
housewife seeking revenge on her cheating partner, but
things escalated quite quickly, and it was great fun trying to
strike a balance between keeping her likeable and turning
her into a villain.
‘My favourite characters to write are the ones who turn
out to have much more going on beneath the surface than
first meets the eye. So, by the end of the story, readers may
feel a little conflicted about whether or not they should
have been on the protagonist’s side.
‘I find writing female characters comes more naturally
to me. I guess that’s why I write psychological thrillers as
opposed to more traditionally masculine action thrillers.
Because I write such strong female characters, I have had a
few readers ask me if I am secretly a female author pretending
to be male. But I have assured them this is not the case.
‘As for new directions, I have no immediate plans, but I have
notebooks and notes on my phone that are full of all sorts of
ideas in all genres. No matter what the genre, a new idea is
always exciting, and gets my imagination whirring away.
‘I try to write in the mornings, and then I’m flexible
about either carrying on into the afternoon, or having
some leisure time with my wife and daughter. If the sun is
shining (although that doesn’t often happen in the North
of England) it’s nice to get out, particularly in summer.
But I’m very much a night owl, and occasionally I will stay
up late and write into the evening, which is actually my
favourite time to write because it’s quieter. It also reminds
me of the time a few years ago when I was writing around
my nine-to-five job. So now, if I’m sitting at my computer
at 10pm, I think back to those earlier days, and smile to
myself because all those late nights have somehow paid off.
‘My non-writing life underwent a big change last year
because our daughter was born. So dad duties now take up
a lot of my time, which I love because my daughter always
keeps me on my toes. Being an author allows for a lot of
flexibility. So, thankfully, juggling family life with my writing
has not been too problematic.
‘I’m aware that sitting down at a desk for too long isn’t
the healthiest thing to do. So I go for walks every day (with
the pram, of course) and I also play tennis two or three
times a week. I’m a huge sports fan. So, if I’m not playing
it, I’m watching it.
‘My favourite authors within my genre of psychological
thriller are Adele Parks, Louise Candlish and Gillian
McAllister, although sadly I don’t read as many
psychological thrillers as I used to simply because I find
it hard to switch my brain off after writing them all day!
www.writers-online.co.uk
DANIEL’S TOP TIPS
Away from that, I have read all
of Ben Mezrich’s books and I
love how he puts a fictionalised
spin on real-life events. He’s
usually my go-to author if I
need a pool-side holiday read,
and one day I’d love to be
that kind of writer – one who
researches a real-life event, gets
close to the people it happened
to, and then writes all about it
in a fast-paced, fictionalised way.
I also have a bookcase full of
sports autobiographies, which I
delve into when I want a break
from fiction.’
• The biggest tool you need to be a writer is perseverance. If you never give up,
then you will always stand a chance of achieving your writing goals.
• These days, there are so many ways to be an author, and self-promotion is a big
tool that perhaps wasn’t available as easily to writers in the past. By creating
your own newsletter, you can communicate directly with anybody who enjoys
your stories, which is a brilliant way to build a loyal fan-base and speak to them
more personally, rather than relying on a publisher or a PR guru to do it for you.
• Remember, if you have a real passion for storytelling, there are plenty of people
who would love to read your tales.
• If you ever worry about coming up with story ideas, think how many people there
are in the world. Each person has their own story. That means there are eight billion
potential stories to be told. So you have no excuse to run out of ideas!
SIGN UP FOR OUR FREE ENEWSLETTER
for all the latest news and inspiration
Get all of the latest news
from the writing world
Information of new
competitions and
publishing opportunities
Stay creative with our
how-to-write articles,
exercises and expert tips
Be the first to know
about special offers and
discounts
Register today at:
https://writ.rs/signupnow
T
Simon Whaley chats to book industry expert Mark Leslie Lefebvre
about the art of being a relaxed writer
he start of a new year is a great
time for setting our writing
goals for the coming months.
Perhaps 2024 will be the
year you finally get that book written.
Then what? Do you self-publish or seek
a traditional publisher? Perhaps you
should start a mailing list or learn how
to master Facebook Ads? Then there’s
the admin of registering for PLR and
ALCS and, if self-publishing, setting
up with the British Library for Legal
Deposit . . . the list goes on.
The business of writing can feel
overwhelming at times. The word
should is often bandied about. You
should be on social media. You should
be advertising on Amazon. You should
be publishing wide. And while there
are some aspects of the business of
writing that can’t be avoided, such as
maintaining financial records to keep
the tax inspector happy, it’s also worth
remembering that our writing business
is exactly that – our writing business
and nobody else’s.
Mark Leslie Lefebvre (https://
markleslie.ca/) is a Canadian author
who’s written over twenty books. His
publishing experience includes being
President of the Canadian Booksellers
Association, director of author relations
and self-publishing for Rakuten
Kobo, as well as director of business
development for Draft2Digital. He
knows how stressful being a writer can
be. He also knows that it doesn’t have
to be this way.
54
JANUARY 2024
Two years ago, Mark co-wrote The
Relaxed Author with Joanna Penn. The
idea originally came about during one
of Joanna’s popular podcast episodes.
‘We’d made a passing reference to
the stress that authors constantly find
themselves under,’ explains Mark, ‘and
we quickly shared how we each tried to
remain relaxed despite all that intense
pressure. Then we made a joke that we
should co-author a book on that topic.
Over the following week, Joanna kept
getting comments from her listeners
that they wished such a book existed,
because they definitely needed one.
‘But then, Joanna and I realised that
we needed one as well. Despite the way
we continually tried to relax, or take a
deep breath, we found ourselves caught
back on that treadmill.’
Stress-free small steps
There is so much information available
about being a writer that it can quickly
become overwhelming. It’s only natural
to feel swamped because there’s so
much we feel we ought to be doing
to develop our writing business. This
makes it difficult to identify the next
step, or hone in on what is most
important for us.
Mark suggests relaxed writers take a
three Ps approach.
‘I’ve long told authors that Patience,
Practice, and Persistence are three of the
keys to a long-term writing career. And
that holds true whether an author takes
the traditional publishing, the selfwww.writers-online.co.uk
publishing, or some combination of the
two routes. Writing, as most authors
already know, is not a quick-and-easy
thing. It can take years, and plenty of
blood, sweat, and tears.’
‘First, be patient,’ Mark recommends.
‘Realise there’s no way you’ll be able
to absorb it all. And that’s okay. It’s
important to learn and to listen to more
than one perspective, as perspectives in
the industry can be varied. If you talk
to five different people, you’ll likely get
at least three different bits of advice on
a single matter.’
Next comes practice, and the best
way to do that is to break steps down
into manageable chunks. Mark reminds
us that we don’t have to do everything
at once.
‘For example, looking at publishing
an ebook means having to figure out
Amazon Kindle, Barnes & Noble Nook,
Apple Books, Rakuten Kobo, Google
Books, and Smashwords, to name just
the six largest retailers. It’s okay to not
understand all of them at first. Start by
learning just one platform first to make
it a bit simpler and more manageable.
Then, once you understand one,
investigate another platform.’
While some writers upload to all
these different platforms individually,
that’s not necessarily right for everyone.
Again, take the relaxed approach and
do what’s right for you at this time. As
self-published authors, we can change
the way we do things whenever the
time is right.
THE BUSINESS OF WRITING
With Mark’s experience as director of
business development for Draft2Digital,
it’s not surprising that he recommends
using the distributor to push ebooks to
the various platforms. However, he still
takes a relaxed approach to this.
‘I often advise going direct to one or
two places, and then using a distributor
for the rest. That way, you don’t have
to manage six or more different logins,
which, in itself, can be overwhelming.’
His co-author, Joanna Penn, often
comments on her podcasts that this is
what she does. She uploads her ebooks
to the platforms she wants direct
control over and uses Draft2Digital to
distribute her ebooks elsewhere. It’s her
business, and that’s how she maintains a
sense of control over distribution.
Finally, Mark’s third P is for
persistence, and that often means
experimenting, and failing, until you
find the way that works best for you.
‘The key is that there’s not one way
of doing anything, so fretting about the
right way versus the wrong way won’t
help. There’s only the right way and the
wrong way for you. You’ll only figure
that out over time as you experiment.
You will make mistakes. We all do. That’s
okay. But the great thing is, we can learn
from our mistakes, and we can adapt and
change our approach. It is, after all, not a
sprint, but more of a marathon.’
Should slip-ups
The problem with doing what we think
we should be doing means we often
end up making more mistakes. Taking
a slower, more relaxed approach to
our writing business means we’re more
likely to remember the basics.
‘One of the most common mistakes
authors make,’ says Mark, ‘is they
begin to market their books without
first ensuring that they completely
understand who their book is for. To
use a recent example, many jumped
into TikTok because they heard that
you “had to” to sell books. But selling
books starts with knowing who your
book is for.’
‘Consider the reader,’ he continues.
‘What problem does your book solve
for them? With non-fiction, it’s easy.
A book like The Relaxed Author is for
writers; and in particular writers who
might be feeling overwhelmed with not
just having to write books, but figure
out what to do with those books, along
with all the business and marketing to
do when they self-publish. Even though
Romance is the single best-selling
ebook category, and has been, by far,
for more than a dozen years, it would
be a waste of time for Joanna and I to
market The Relaxed Author to readers
who only read romance. It doesn’t
matter how many books they buy and
read, the book is not for them.’
Future fears
An awful lot has changed in the writing
world in the last twenty years. And
sometimes the constant change puts
additional pressure on us. Often, it is the
early adopters to new formats, platforms,
or practices who benefit most, which
puts an additional pressure on the rest of
us to learn and jump onboard.
However, when a polarising issue, like
Artificial Intelligence, comes along, it can
add further stress to our writing business.
Again, Mark’s advice, particularly with
AI, is to slow down, consider everything,
and put things into perspective.
‘Often, seeing things in black and
white versus the various shades of grey
can provide a tremendous amount
of stress and unnecessary angst. At
every single stage in the evolution of
publishing, technology has consistently
offered more opportunity than
ever before to authors. Authors are
very likely already using AI in their
daily lives without ever realising it,
such as the grammar-checking that
is automatically built into most
email services and word processing
documents. It saves me and you time,
and is something we’ve both leveraged
to help us.
‘So, take a breath. Have a look at
what’s available. Listen to people
who understand and have adapted
it. And see if there’s some nugget of
usefulness that you might find helpful
on your own journey. But it’s also
okay if you look at it and say, “No,
that’s not for me.”’
www.writers-online.co.uk
Relaxing recommendations
‘The key message I want authors to
understand is that we all get stressed
out,’ says Mark. ‘Even though I
co-authored this book with Joanna, I
consistently find myself getting stressed
and freaked out about the smallest
thing. It’s because we’re human. We
make mistakes. We forget to follow
our own advice. But we can also learn,
adapt, and evolve.
‘I remind myself to take a deep
breath, and consider how anything
that is stressing me out might factor
into the long-term goals and plans
I have for my overall writing career.
It’s that long-term perspective
that often helps me calm down
and realise that the small thing
I’m facing right now, which seems
insurmountable, might actually just
be a stressful moment. In time, that
too will soon pass.’
Ultimately, being a relaxed writer is
about having a clear idea of what we
want to achieve with our writing. That
way, we’ll know whether we’re on the
right path.
Mark makes one final point for us to
consider. ‘It’s important for authors to
always remember that there’s no one
path. There’s no one right thing to do.
You can and you will make mistakes.
But you can always change the route,
change the plan, and adjust the path
that you’re taking.’
There’s no escaping the fact that
being a published writer in any
format means we’re in the business
of writing. But as we head into a
new year with new goals and dreams,
perhaps now is the time to think
about taking a more relaxed approach
to our writing business.
BUSINESS DIRECTORY
MARK’S RELAXATION TIP
‘Hang in there, and keep your head
up. It’s not only good for your
posture, and your mental well-being,
but it helps you see much further
down the road, and the potential
that always exists on that horizon.’
JANUARY 2024
55
RESEARCH TIPS
CASE
STUDY
METHOD
Learn how to do in-depth research on cases within a
specific context with advice from Tarja Moles
he case study method involves gathering
and presenting detailed information about
a ‘case’. This case could be an individual, a
group, an organisation or an event. Unlike
research methods that focus on uncovering
universal or generalisable truths, the case study method
focuses on exploring, describing and analysing cases within
their specific contexts.
You might not have come across the term ‘case study
method’ before, but if you’ve ever delved beyond the
surface details in order to learn more about a person or a
community, you’ve essentially already applied this method.
Here are some pointers for how to go about researching
individuals with the help of the case study framework.
The aim
Researching a case allows you not only to dig deep, but
also to have a sharp focus. This means that it’s an ideal
approach for studying people – either for the purpose of
biographical writing or basing your fictional character(s)
on thorough research.
The primary goal of the case study method is to gain an
in-depth understanding of the person in hand. As you’re
planning your research and conducting your background
reading, by all means start by getting answers to the basic
research questions of ‘who’, ‘what’, ‘where’ and ‘when’.
Once you’ve grasped the overall picture, move on to the
more interesting areas – this is to say, the questions of
‘how’ and ‘why’.
Find out how the person thinks, feels and behaves
in relation to their family, friends, social groups, local
community and society at large. Then explore what
their reasons might be for such thoughts, emotions and
behaviours. Figure out what the cultural norms, moral
code and community values mean to them. Uncover their
56
JANUARY 2024
ideals, biases, motives and life philosophy.
When you’re able to shed light on these kinds of aspects,
you start to understand the person from their own
viewpoint. It is through this depth of understanding that
you’re able to start breathing life into your writing, be
able to describe your real-life or fictional character in an
engaging way, and draw your readers in.
Research techniques
There are various techniques that you can employ in
order to get into the mindset of another person. For
example, you could use informal and formal interviews;
direct observation; participant observation (ie observing
people while being actively part of a group they belong
to); reading people’s diaries and other personal records;
inviting them to write self-reports; examining photos,
videos, memorabilia and other artefacts; and finding out
what other people have said about them, for example, in
obituaries, local newspaper articles or other media.
It’s best to combine as many different techniques as
possible because this will help you build a more rounded
picture of the person. Having said this, each case is
different and the feasibility of using different techniques
may vary greatly. For instance, if you’re researching a
deceased individual, it’s obviously not possible to arrange
interviews with them directly or engage in observation.
Although this may seem a drawback, it may not
necessarily be so: if you’re able to access their old diaries,
letters and other documents, these can reveal a lot about
their private life. In fact, sometimes you can find out more
intimate details in diaries and letters than if you were to
arrange interviews.
As you’re researching people’s private matters, pay
attention to ethical considerations. Be sensitive and
respectful, communicate in advance how you’re planning
www.writers-online.co.uk
to use the information you’re gathering, and
always ask for people’s informed consent.
Complementary reading
To be able to look at the world through someone
else’s eyes, it can be helpful to study the broader
societal context in which they have grown up
and lived. This is particularly important if you’re
researching an historical figure or someone living
in another culture.
Reading relevant books and journal articles
can provide vital insights into the contextual
constraints and freedoms that have shaped the
subject’s experiences. Furthermore, understanding
the context can help you interpret the more
personal information accurately.
Reliability of information
Critics have raised concerns about the reliability
of data collected by the case study method. It’s
true that much of the information uncovered
is subjective and, therefore, not necessarily
factually accurate. After all, memories are fallible,
people’s biases colour their narratives and some
individuals even tell blatant lies.
However, it’s important to note that the
primary aim of this method is not to gather
factual data per se, but to delve into an
individual’s subjective world. This means that
factually incorrect information is not necessarily
a problem: even data that are far removed
from reality can provide valuable insights into
an individual’s perspectives, thoughts, feelings
and behaviours. No doubt, the various Donald
Trump biographers have embraced this notion.
Of course, you need to be aware of the
potential errors and you need to be able
to determine where the line between fact
and fiction lies. When you know this, you
can use the information you have gathered
appropriately and communicate your findings
to your readers in a way that they also
understand which pieces of information are
subjective and which are objective.
The case study method offers a thoroughly
fascinating approach to research as it allows you
to view the world through different perspectives.
Enjoy your journey!
Behind the tape
Expert advice to get the details
right in your crime fiction from
serving police officer Lisa Cutts
If you have a
query for Lisa, please
send it by email to
lisacuttsenquiries@
gmail.com
arrested on suspicion of sexually abusing an under-aged
Q Agirl.manHeisoffers
to name others involved in an abuse ring.
Would the man be transferred from the local police station to the
nearest prison or regional headquarters whilst awaiting interview by
the CPS/prosecutor? How soon after being transferred would he be
interviewed, and a decision made?
Michael Chambers
A
Neither the CPS nor a prosecutor would interview him about
it – it would be the police. If you can make the evidence look
a little uncertain in your novel, such as times or facts appear to be
sketchy, the chances are that he would be interviewed and bailed
pending further inquiries, both relating to him and the allegations
he’s made.
If he were to be interviewed at the police station, charged and
remanded, he would go to prison and await trial. The police can
visit him in prison and interview him there, although they need
permission to take recording equipment into the prison. For a formal
interview, it’s more likely they would take him to a police station.
is murdered – the crime remains unsolved (actually for
Q Asomewoman
years). At which point, if ever, would jewellery the victim
was wearing (which might have fingerprint or DNA implications) be
passed on to a family member (the beneficiary in her will)?
Patrick Forsyth
A so wasn’t worn at the time of the attack. Even so, it would be
The jewellery would be returned if it wasn’t deemed evidential,
fingerprinted and photographed by the Scenes of Crime Investigators.
If it was considered evidential, before its return to the next of kin,
it should be sent to the lab for DNA extraction, perhaps particles
of skin or small dried blood flakes are present in the design/stone
settings. Dusting for prints can jeopardise DNA opportunities so the
order of forensic capture would need to be considered.
Once that was done, there would be some sort of assessment
carried out by the Senior Investigating Officer regarding its return,
but ultimately it would be hers or his decision to justify later on.
If you’d like to learn more about the
case study method, Writing@CSU has a
great guide at https://writ.rs/csm. It gives
an overview of the method and provides a
list of further sources.
Lisa Cutts is a crime fiction author and retired detective sergeant, having spent most
of her career within the Serious Crime Department. She has returned to work as an
Investigating Officer on historic crimes. Her novels are published by Myriad and Simon
and Schuster.
A S K A L I T E R A RY C O N S U LTA N T
How long should my novel be?
Monica Chakraverty of Cornerstones Literary Consultancy tackles a
common question that doesn’t have a simple answer
T
his is a question I’m often asked, and it’s certainly not
the same answer as how long a piece of string is! So,
how long should your book actually be?
If we work backwards, from a production department point
of view, a book of approximately 100,000 words will come in
somewhere between 300 to 400 pages, largely depending on
type size and page style. This is plenty for a typical author’s book,
particularly a debut one. I’d suggest that 80,000 words up works
well, occasionally stretching to 120,000 words on rare occasions.
Shorter texts are less daunting for an agent to submit rather than
a block of manuscript so aim to make your publication path easier.
There’s an implication that a standard book length should have a
tighter handle on pacing, with pages turning faster and the reader
more readily drawn in. The tension line of a book is its beating
heart and it’s frustrating for an agent when the book sweeps along at
the outset, only to stall in later pages as the pulse is lost.
In turn, an overlong novel often indicates to a publisher that
there’s potentially extensive editing work to be done by them.
Longer books are more expensive to produce and are harder
to sell in, so it increases their risk. A publisher needs to create
a profit and loss sheet on a book before they can green-light a
project and offer a book contract – it’s a business like any other.
If there are additional costs due to editorial time and paper costs,
with potentially fewer sales due to a daunting doorstop of a
book, the numbers simply don’t add up.
Books do have different thresholds according to genre, so
speculative or historical fiction could more comfortably sit near
the 120,000 mark, or longer if need be. Literary fiction can head
in the other direction, with 60,000 words still offering a feeling
of fundamental worth to the publisher and reader, with an
implication that the text is highly developed.
Children’s fiction is a different game and alters with age
so that books for younger children can begin with 20,000
words, heading into an approximately 50,000-word limit for
middle-grade fiction for those aged 9-12 years old. Young adult
literature, which has had so much recent success, can head up
from there into the 80,000-word range.
Yes, there are exceptions to every genre but these are generally
rare. We recently chatted with an agent who went out with two
simultaneous submissions for adult commercial fiction: one was
32,000 words long and the other 200,000 words long – quite a
contrast. She strongly felt that both books were perfect as they were
and she was right, successfully placing both of them with publishers.
More commonly, issues over length tend to highlight that
pacing is an issue, be it too long or too short. Overwriting, in
particular, can be an issue for many authors, especially those
who are developing their voice. They might find it hard trusting
that their words hit the mark or can struggle to express their
ideas clearly, using complex language that detracts from the flow
of the book. Successful writing contains a clarity of thought
58
JANUARY 2024
that enables the writer to connect with the reader for maximum
impact, allowing the story, characters and setting to shine
through rather than becoming obscured.
A professional edit of an overlong novel can reveal a number
of issues that are resolved with skilful cutting, which can be
transformational. Pace and tension are tightened to refine the
story and strengthen the flow; inner voice can be secured,
along with eliminating repetition, overlong descriptions and
superfluous information.
In terms of content, it’s important for an author to prioritise
the key themes in the book; is everything of equal importance
and does everything need to be included? Allow your reader to
piece together information you delicately work through your
text and shun excess scenes and information, revealing instead
what’s needed to keep that tension pulsing. Be brave as you cut
back on the superfluous, keeping a backup copy of your novel
just in case you change your mind.
Work intuitively, from the heart, keeping secrets for as long
as possible so the reader is compelled to read on. In this way,
a reader will readily connect with your words and, with a firm
handle on length, your novel will have increased its chances of
commercial publication.
CORNERSTONES
LITERARY CONSULTANCY
Are you thinking about submitting to the trade?
Do you want to learn the art of self-editing?
“Thank you [...] for developing such a
challenging and rewarding course. I have been
searching for four years for this level of
excellence!”
– EYN course alumna
Based on the #1 bestselling book ON EDITING, our
Edit Your Novel online course is designed to help
you perfect your submissions package whilst
equipping you with all the tools you need to
become a confident editor.
www.writers-online.co.uk
Next course begins: 19 September 2022
Open for applications now!
+44 (0) 1308 897374
www.cornerstones.co.uk
GET PUBLISHED
You’ve read the advice – now get into print! Find the most up-to-date calls for
submissions, writing competitions to enter and publishing opportunities to suit
you and your writing in our easy-to-navigate news pages
NEW PUBLISHING STREAM
By Gary Dalkin
Crystal Clear Books is a new British independent publisher based in Weymouth,
Dorset, which specialises in inspirational non-fiction and fiction in the mind-bodyspirit, well-being, health, and healing genres.
Founder Linda Parkinson-Hardman says that the company’s aim is to seek out those
voices weaving a different story from the current mechanistic view of our world. With
over 20 years publishing experience, Linda is seeking works that look beyond the
obvious into the heart of what it means to be human, that enlighten, entertain, and
inform, and which give insight into living from a spiritual and holistic perspective.
The company seeks to ‘support new and emerging British writers’ and accepts
un-agented and agented authors. Books should be innovative with something
interesting to say about the world and share an uplifting and positive message centred
around a well-developed concept.
Currently Crystal Clear Books is only accepting submissions from UK authors.
They are particularly looking for fiction, poetry and non-fiction, including, but
not limited to: mind-body-spirit; health and healing; spirituality; ecology; personal
development; metaphysics.
Email your submission to linda@lindaph.me (you can also send enquiries to this
address). Include ‘Crystal Clear Books Submission’ in the subject line. Include a query
letter in the body of the email with full contact details, the title of your book, a singleline pitch, a three-paragraph synopsis, the genre, a 150-word author bio and a list of
your social media accounts/websites/mailing lists if you have any.
Add three sample chapters as a single attachment Word or PDF attachment,
double-spaced in a standard 12pt font. All pages should be numbered and have the
title and your name in the header or footer.
Payment is a 50/50 royalty split. Books may be published in print and/or digital
formats. Response time is around 12 weeks. Full guidelines: https://crystalclearbooks.
co.uk/submissions/ FAQs: https://crystalclearbooks.co.uk/faq/
Postal address: 43 Malthouse Meadow, Weymouth, DT3 4NS
WANTING WELSH YA
By Gary Dalkin
Welsh publisher Graffeg, which publishes beautifully designed illustrated books, is launching a
new imprint in 2024 focusing on Middle Grade titles in English with uniquely Welsh content.
The company is keen to develop Wales as an important literary setting for children’s
books, and plans to identify high-quality titles (both fiction and creative non-fiction) either
set in Wales or involving characters from Wales, and which are preferably written by authors
with strong connections to Wales.
‘Middle Grade is one of the most crowded areas of publishing’, says Graffeg’s publishing
director, Matthew Howard, ‘and there are already some tremendous books out there for
readers in the 7-12 age group. But what we’d like to do is establish Wales as the true home
of good writing and great storytelling, a place that children can see every day in the very
best books they read.’
Assisting Graffeg will be an expert panel representing key areas such as retail, education
and academia. The company also has support from the Books Council of Wales. Their aim
is to publish around 12 titles a year.
If you have a book you think might be suitable, use the submission form at https://
graffeg.com/pages/submissions. You will need to provide a synopsis of up to 500 words,
an outline of the book and target audience, the approximate word count and a list of
chapters or sections, describe something of your experience which led you to write the
book, and then upload the complete manuscript.
You can send enquires via the form at https://graffeg.com/pages/contact or email
croeso@graffeg.com. Phone: Llanelli: 01554 824 000 or Cardiff: 02922 404 971. Postal
address: Graffeg Limited, 24 Stradey Park Business Centre, Mwrwg Road, Llangennech,
Llanelli, SA14 8YP, Wales, United Kingdom.
www.writers-online.co.uk
60 Anthology opportunities
Have you got a suitable story for these calls?
60 Development opportunities
A brand-new bursary for Black British Caribbean
writers
61 Fiction competitions
Win prizes for flash and crime stories
61 Novel competitions
Big prizes for writers of full-length fiction
61 Non-fiction competitions
Contests for memoir, essays, arts journalism
and more
63 Writing for children competitions
Two big regional prizes to be won
63 Script opportunities
Chances to get your work staged
64 Non-fiction opportunities
Non-fic markets from finance to freedom
65 Going to market
66 Poetry competitions
A bumper crop of contests for you to enter
68 Small press opportunities
Indie presses on the lookout for new work
68 Humour submissions
Is your wit a good fit for this call?
69 Travel writing know-how
69 General news
The latest from the book world
JANUARY 2024
59
WRITERS’ NEWS
ANTHOLOGY OPPORTUNITIES
PDR LINDSAY-SALMON
The Fiction Desk
Arithmophobia:
An Anthology of
Mathematical Horror
The Fiction Desk publishes anthologies of new short
fiction and features ‘a diverse range of established awardwinning authors and newcomers,’ and leans towards
‘general’ or ‘literary’ fiction.
Currently submissions are invited for short stories for
the ‘general’ category anthology which runs during every
submission period. It includes the range of styles and
genres that feature in all of their anthologies.
The Fiction Desk also invites stories for the annual
ghost story anthology. All types of story are welcome,
but The Fiction Desk prefers ‘psychological chills and
unexplained mysteries rather than in-your-face gore.’
Submit stories between 1,000 and 10,000 words, preferred
lengths 2,000 and 7,000 words.
Payment is £25 per thousand words plus two
complimentary paperback copies. The Writer’s Award of
£100 is given for ‘the best story in each volume, as judged
by the contributors.’
The deadline is 31 January.
Website: https://www.thefictiondesk.com
Polymath Press seeks stories for a new horror anthology,
Arithmophobia: An Anthology of Mathematical Horror edited by
Robert Lewis, of horror stories with a mathematical theme.
Stories must have ‘some kind of mathematical content’ with
the mathematical ideas clearly featured in the story. Submit
stories, 3,000 to 15,000 words.
Payment: US$0.01 per word plus a paperback copy for first
rights. Deadline: 31 December.
Website: https://polymathpress.com
Chicken Soup Anthologies
great weather
for MEDIA Press
Chicken Soup Anthologies’ current call is for the annual
‘December Holiday Season’ Anthology. Submit stories
about the entire December holiday season, including
‘Thanksgiving, Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, and New
Year’s festivities too.’
Submit stories and poems online. Use a first person POV
and remember that stories must be fact not fiction.
Payment is US$200 plus 10 copies for first rights.
The deadline is 30 April.
Website: www.chickensoup.com/story-submissions/
possible-book-topics/
The editorial team want international submissions for their
new anthology. There is no theme, but ‘great weather for
MEDIA editors focus on the unpredictable, the fearless, the
bright, the dark, and the innovative.’ Think experimental.
Submit one prose/creative nonfiction piece, no more than
2,500 words. Payment is a copy for first serial rights.
The deadline is 15 January.
Website: www.greatweatherformedia.com
DEVELOPMENT OPPORTUNITIES
The Joy Brandon Bursary 2024
The bursary, funded by award-winning author Sara Collins, is for
Black British Caribbean students of creative writing at ICE.
The new Joy Brandon Bursary will offer financial assistance to a
student embarking on a part-time, two-year Master of Studies in
either creative writing or writing for performance at the University
of Cambridge Institute of Continuing Education.
The bursary will cover 80% of the fees. ICE is matching Sara’s
donation which means that two bursaries will be available.
Sara Collins, the author of The Confessions of Frannie Langton,
was a student at ICE, graduating in 2016. ‘The MSt in Creative
Writing at ICE was the first door I opened towards becoming a
novelist,’ said Sara. ‘Since I graduated, I’ve been thinking about
doing what I can to give back.’
Applications from Black British Caribbean writers are open
until 17 January.
Website: www.ice.cam.ac.uk/bursary-application
60
JANUARY 2024
www.writers-online.co.uk
FICTION COMPETITIONS
Fish Flash Fiction Prize 2024
Farnham
Flash Fiction
Competition
2024
The competition for 500word stories has a first
prize of £100.
The Farnham Flash Fiction
Competition from Farnham
Literary Festival 2024 is
inviting entries of original,
unpublished flash fiction up to
500 words.
There are prizes of £199
and £25, and a special prize of
£25 for the best flash fiction
featuring Farnham.
The entry fee is £5 per flash
fiction.
The closing date is 1
February.
Website: www.
flashfiction500.com/
The Glencairn
Glass Crime
Short Story
Competition
2023
The Glencairn Glass Crime
Short Story Competition is an
international contest inviting
entries of original, unpublished
crime fiction under 2,000 words
on the theme ‘A Crime Story Set
in Scotland’. The competition is
being run by Glencairn Glass in
association with Bloody Scotland
and Scottish Field.
The winner will receive £1,000
and the runner up, £500. Both
winners will also receive a set of
bespoke engraved Glencairn glasses.
The winning entry will be published
in Scottish Field and online.
The closing date is 31
December.
Website: https://whiskyglass.
com/crime-short-storycompetition/
The Fish Flash Fiction Prize is inviting entries of original,
unpublished stories in 300 words or less.
The prizes are €1,000, €300 and an online writing
course. The top ten entries will be published in the Fish
Anthology 2024. The judge is Michelle Elvy.
The fee is €14 for the first and €9 for any subsequent entries.
The closing date is 28 February.
Website: www.fishpublishing.com/competition/flashfiction-contest/
New Writers Flash Fiction
Competition 2024
New Writers is inviting entries for its Flash Fiction
Competition, which is for short fiction on any theme up
to 300 words.
The first prize is £1,000, and there are second and third
prizes of £300 and £200. The three winning entries will be
published on the New Writers website. The head judge is
Stephanie Carty.
Any writer may enter. All entries must be original and
unpublished.
There is an entry fee of £8 for one flash fiction, £15
for two and £22 for three. £1 from each entry will be
donated to First Story, the creative writing charity for
young people. A limited number of free entries are
available for low-income writers.
The closing date is 31 January 2024.
Website: https://newwriters.org.uk/flash-fictioncompetition/
NOVEL COMPETITIONS
The Lucy Cavendish
Fiction Prize 2024
Now in its 14th year, the major prize for
undiscovered female writers is inviting entries.
The Lucy Cavendish Fiction Prize is given
annually for novel manuscripts by unpublished,
unagented women writers from the UK and
Ireland that combine literary merit with
unputdownability. Novels may be literary fiction
or fiction in any genre, and may be for adults,
young adults or children.
The winner will receive £1,500. All shortlisted writers will receive a
one-to-one meeting with an agent at the Prize’s sponsor, Peters Fraser +
Dunlop where they will be given feedback on their entry.
Novel manuscripts may be finished or unfinished. To enter, send the
first 40-50 pages and a synopsis of three to five pages.
The entry fee is £12. Only one entry is permitted per person.
The closing date is 9 February.
Website: www.lucy.cam.ac.uk/fictionprize
The Plaza Crime First
Chapters Prize 2024
Win a £1,500 first prize for the opening of a
crime novel up to 5,000 words.
The Plaza Crime First Chapters Prize is
inviting entries of the beginning of an original,
unpublished or self/indie published crime
fiction manuscript in any crime sub-genre.
There is a first prize of £1,500 and second and third prizes of
£300 and £100. The winner will also receive feedback from the
judge, crime writer David Mark. Winners will be published in
Plaza Anthology 2.
To enter, send the first 5,000 words and a synposis.
The entry fee is £20 for the first entry and £10 for any
subsequent entries.
The closing date is 31 January.
Website: https://theplazaprizes.com/competition/the-plazacrime-first-chapters-prize/
www.writers-online.co.uk
JANUARY 2024
61
WRITERS’ NEWS
NON-FICTION COMPETITIONS
Fish Short Memoir Prize 2024
The Observer/Anthony
Burgess Prize for Arts
Journalism 2024
Win a £3,000 first prize for new writing on
the arts.
The Observer/Anthony Burgess Prize for
Arts Journalism is an annual competition for
arts reviewers.
The first prize is £3,000 and publication in
the Observer. Two runners up each get £500.
To enter, send an original, unpublished 800word review of new work in the arts (ie, work
produced since 1 January 2023). Subjects
might include an album, book, concert,
exhibition, film, play, live stream, social media
entertainment, TV show, or any other artform
or cultural activity that offers the opportunity
to write a lively, thoughtful piece.
The entry fee is £10. There is a free-entry
scheme for writers on low incomes.
The closing date is 29 February.
Website: www.anthonyburgess.org/
observeranthony-burgess-prize-artsjournalism/
Win a first prize of €1,000 in the annual contest from Fish
Publishing.
To enter, send original, unpublished short memoirs up to
4,000 words. Memoirs may be written in any form or style.
The winner will receive €1,000. Two runners-up will receive
an online writing course and €300. The best ten memoirs will be published in the
Fish Anthology 2024. This year’s judge is Sean Lusk.
The entry fee is €18.
The closing date is 31 January.
Website: www.fishpublishing.com/competition/short-memoir-contest/
The Plaza Memoir:
First Chapters Prize 2024
The Plaza Memoir: First Chapters Prize is for the first chapters of original,
unpublished or indie-published life writing.
The first prize is £1,500. The winning memoir will be published in an
anthology and the writer will receive a one-to-one tutorial and detailed feedback
from judge Nicole Treska. There are second and third prizes of £300 and £100.
To enter, send the opening chapters up to 5,000 words and a 300-word
synopsis of the memoir.
The entry fee is £20.
The closing date is 31 January.
Website: https://theplazaprizes.com/competition/the-plaza-memoir-firstchapters-prize/
The Leah Leneman
Essay Prize 2023
The Nature Chronicles
Prize 2023/24
Win a £10,000 first prize in the biennial international
contest for contemporary nature writing.
The Nature Chronicles Prize is given for essaylength, non-fiction nature writing that responds
to the world we live in and if necessary, challenges
established notions of nature writing. The prize is a
memorial to nature writer Prudence Scott, who died
in 2019. Her trust sponsors the prize.
The winner will receive £10,000 and five runners
up will each win £1,000. All winning entries will be
published in an anthology.
To enter, submit original, unpublished nonfiction prose on any aspect of what the writer
considers to be nature writing, between 2,000
and 8,000 words. Essays, diaries and extracts from
unpublished books may all be submitted.
The entry fee is £15 per submission, which
includes a copy of the resulting anthology.
The closing date is 15 January.
Website: https://naturechroniclesprize.com/
62
JANUARY 2024
The competition from Women’s History Scotland is
for essays on an aspect of women’s or gender history.
To be eligible to enter, writers should either
be resident in Scotland or enrolled at a Scottish
university, or enter a piece focused on Scottish history. The competition was
established in 2002 in honour of Leah Leneman, a leading historian of women in
Scotland.
Essays should be between 8,000 and 10,000 words, and may be focused on any
aspect of women’s or gender history. Entries may be undergraduate, postgraduate or
independent research.
The winner will receive £200.
The closing date is 18 December.
Website: https://womenshistoryscotland.org/projects-and-activities/whs-essay-prize/
My Writing Journey Winter 2023
Enter your best writing tip in the free-entry
competition to win a prize worth £100.
The My Writing Journey contest from
The Writers College is for original 600word writing advice pieces on the theme:
‘The best writing tip I ever received’.
The winner will receive $200 NZ (£100 and blog and newsletter publication.
Entry is free.
The closing date is 31 December.
Website: www.writerscollegeblog.com/my-writing-journey-competition/
www.writers-online.co.uk
WRITING FOR CHILDREN COMPETITIONS
The Kelpies Prize
for Writing 2024
Hachette Children’s
Novel Awards 2024
The Awards for debut
writers are part of the 2024
Northern Writers Awards
from New Writing North.
The Hachette Children’s
Novel Awards are for debut
authors of full-length
middle-grade children’s fiction and early teen fiction.
Writers entering the Awards must be debut authors
resident in the North of England.
Two winners will each be awarded £3,000 and a
programme of mentoring activities.
To submit, send the opening of the novel
(between 3,000 and 6,000 words) and a synposis.
Entry is free.
The closing date is 4 January.
Website: https://newwritingnorth.com/
This year’s competition is the 20th
anniversary of the contest for new
children’s writing accessible to children
living in Scotland.
The winner will receive £500,
nine months of mentoring, and
consideration for a publishing
contract with Floris Books.
Entries may be fiction or nonfiction, and should be either a
picture book aimed at readers
between 3 and 6, an early-reader
chapter book for 6-8 year olds, a
novel for 8-11 year olds or 11/13
year olds, or a non-fiction book for
any of those age groups.
To submit, send either the first
five chapters or the entire picture
book, a one-page synopsis or
summary of the book, and a short
piece of writing for children between
1,000 and 3,000 words that begins:
‘Suddenly there was an enormous
bang. What on earth was that?’
To be eligible to submit, writers
must be based in Scotland.
Entry is free. Each writer may
submit only one entry.
The closing date is 29 February
2024.
Website: https://discoverkelpies.
co.uk/kelpies-prizes/
SCRIPT OPPORTUNITIES
Scripts against intolerance
Develop your
Sohaya Visions and Mukul & Ghetto Tigers have got together again for the RAFTA (Rise
Fanaticism Through The Arts) Scriptwriting Competition, writes Jenny Roche.
playwrighting Against
Writers must be over the age of 18 years to enter and scripts should be original pieces of
work that are not being submitted elsewhere for production. Script submitted for the 2021
career
competition are not eligible.
Submit a script of 25-35 pages which is suitable for a one-hour production. There are no
Unsolicited full length playscripts are
welcomed by London’s off-West End
Finborough Theatre, which is interested
in both playwrights and plays, writes
Jenny Roche.
If a play is selected for further
dramaturgy they have a writers’
development programme to help train
writers in stagecraft and to develop their
unique theatrical voices. The Theatre also
has the Finborough Forum, which is an
invitation only group of theatre creatives
who meet monthly for a Q&A with guest
speakers and to socialise with other theatre
practitioners.
Although playwrights of all ages around
the world are invited to submit their
scripts, only plays written in English, Scots
or Scots Gaelic will be considered.
There is no restriction on subject or
themes for submissions and amongst a list
of particular interests are music theatre and,
unusual for a small 50-seat theatre, plays
with large casts.
Submit your play as a PDF document.
Include a short synopsis and a one page
CV or summary of your background and
writing experience.
Submit one play only per year by email
with your play title in the subject line to:
literaryteam@finborough.co.uk.
restrictions on style or any historical, future or regional context so long as it fulfils RAFTA’s aims
‘to tackle extremism, intolerance and xenophobia’.
The winner will receive £500, paid in two instalments after being contracted to develop their
work, and their play will be produced for the stage. Five runners-up will have their plays read
out during rehearsed script readings. Winners must agree to work with the production team and
commit to occasional mutually agreed days for script feedback and development. Rehearsals are
likely to be in London.
Scripts should be emailed with a cover letter of a maximum 200 words saying why your script is
suitable for RAFTA. Email to both sohayavisions@gmail.com and mukul_tigers@yahoo.co.uk
The deadline for submissions is 20 January.
Website: www.sohayavisions.com/rafta2023
Royal Court scripts
London’s Royal Court Theatre has a commitment to find and support new playwrights
and rather than offer feedback on submissions their Literary Office is looking for an
opportunity to ‘spot your ambition, theatricality and unique perspective on the world’,
writes Jenny Roche.
Submit a full-length theatre play of a minimum 50 pages, or 25-30 pages for a
monologue, as a PDF or Word document of a maximum 10MB. What is wanted are plays
‘that ask bold questions about the way we live now’.
Eligible submissions are forwarded to a script reader who will write a report which will be
considered by the literary department. Writers will then be notified as to whether their play
will be taken no further or will be given feedback to help develop either the script or the
applicant’s writing. Plays may however be given a second read, which may lead to various
opportunities including plays being developed for commission or production.
Submit one play only by email to: literary@royalcourttheatre.com
Check out the website for full playscript submission details and for links to writing
exercises and blogs: https://royalcourttheatre.com/script-submissions/
www.writers-online.co.uk
JANUARY 2024
63
WRITERS’ NEWS
NON-FICTION OPPORTUNITIES
Art market
insights
By Gary Dalkin
The Abundant Artist is a US web
platform founded in 2009 by artist
Cory Huff dedicated to giving
artists the knowledge they need
to make a good living from their
creative work, and particularly,
to sell it online. The website has
a community of over 30,000
registered members, and the site’s
blog receives over 200,000 visitors
per month.
The editors are looking for
original, previously unpublished
posts from either professional
artists or people who work in some
aspect of the art industry. They are
currently particularly interested
in pitches for posts about: What’s
working in art sales right now?;
stories of artists successfully
transitioning from offline to digital
sales; how to sell art on Instagram
– specific, unique takes, going
beyond the basics; getting the
best out of newer platforms like
Clubhouse, TikTok, or exploring
recently introduced features on
older social media; stories about
artists doing remarkable things in
their marketing and sales; pieces on
how to sell online art courses. They
say that their most popular posts
tend to be guides to particular
platforms or about specific ways of
selling art.
Examples of popular posts include:
‘How to Write a Killer Sales Page for
Your Artist Website’; ‘How to Prepare
for an Art Show’; ‘Writing an Artist’s
Statement That Doesn’t Suck’; and a
breakdown of how one artist made
$50,000 selling art on Facebook. Not
wanted are general articles, reviews or
opinion pieces about the art world or
profiles or interviews with particular
artists unless they focus on the
commercial aspect of the business.
Payment is $150-$300 per post.
Make sure to read the blog at
https://theabundantartist.com/
blog/ and the full guidelines at
https://theabundantartist.com/
write-for-us/ then use the form on
the same page to make your pitch.
64
JANUARY 2024
Human rights issues
Aiming to show human rights issues in the UK from the point of view of the
people and communities directly affected, the Inspired Choices series is produced
by Each Other, a UK charity using ‘independent journalism, storytelling and
filmmaking to put the human into human rights’, writes Jenny Roche.
The charity was recently awarded a grant to continue producing the series,
which consists of opinion pieces of 400-800 words which highlight an issue and
show actions that need to be taken to address it. Writers from a wide range of
backgrounds and life experiences are invited to pitch ideas for content. Aspiring
and young writers looking to get into the media are particularly welcome.
You must be based in the UK to submit and you should first pitch an idea of a
maximum 300 words. This does not need to be detailed and does not need to be
about ‘reactive breaking news’. Long-lasting relevance is preferred. It does need to
be a story of your own personal experience and to be backed up by the evidence of
independent research.
Payment for published pieces was £100 but this may depend on continued
funding. Check website for further details. Early career and aspiring writers will
however be given detailed feedback to help with honing and developing their craft.
Submit your idea by email with ‘Pitch: Inspired Source’ in the subject line to:
editorial@eachother.org.uk.
Website: https://eachother.org.uk/how-to-pitch-to-us/
Divine write
By Gary Dalkin
Power for Living is a free weekly US print publication produced by the major
Christian publisher David Cook, with stories that offer encouragement, insights, or
a new perspective on how a personal relationship with God impacts every aspect of
life, including relationships, careers, health, parenting (or grandparenting), finances,
overcoming fears or challenges, and pursuing personal growth.
Each eight page issue includes one feature article and several shorter pieces; a
column, devotional, or poem that portrays the power of God in daily life. Pieces
must reflect (or at least cannot contradict) a biblical perspective and worldview. The
readership is primarily aged 50 and older.
The editorial team are currently looking for feature articles between 1,200-1,500
words. These should be first or third person stories that portray the power of God
in someone’s life. They might describe a dramatic out-of-the-ordinary experience, or
divine intervention or insight in the midst of everyday circumstances. They must be
about real experiences of real people. Payment is $375 US. Columns are also required
on the same subjects, but may be lighter in tone and up to a maximum of 750 words.
Payment, $150.
Also required: Devotionals. Word count: 400 words. Include a relevant Bible
verse. Payment, $100. Poetry. Maximum 20 lines. Payment, $50. No essays, reviews,
biographies, sermons or opinion pieces.
The editors work 12-18 months ahead of publication, so are considering multiple
issues at once, and are always on the lookout for well-written seasonal pieces related
to US holidays and special days including Christmas, Thanksgiving, Veteran’s Day,
Memorial Day, and Independence Day.
Follow the full guidelines at: https://davidccook.org/submissions-and-writerguidelines/ then send your submission or pitch to powerforliving@davidcook.com.
You can see the full range of the sort of material the David Cook publishes (in 150
languages, distributed to 120 countries worldwide) at https://davidccook.org/books/
www.writers-online.co.uk
Long views for Long Now
By Gary Dalkin
The Long Now Foundation is a San Francisco-based nonprofit organisation
co-founded by the ambient musician and composer Brian Eno to foster long-term
thinking and responsibility. They seek to encourage imagination at the timescale
of civilization – the next and last 10,000 years – a duration they consider to be
‘the long now’. The editorial team for the Long Now website is accepting pitches
for ‘Ideas’, a ‘living archive of long-term thinking’. Wanted are essays, reported
features, interviews, book reviews, shorter articles, fiction and poetry.
The editors note that there is wisdom and clarity to be gained from taking the
long view. By this they mean, at minimum, decades, but ideally, millennia. They key
questions Long Now Ideas stories address are, how did we (meaning ‘civilization’) get
to now, and where might we go from here? Stories should apply this civilizational lens
to inspire, educate, and surprise across a variety of subjects and disciplines: climate
change and the environment; the preservation of knowledge; the rise and fall of
civilizations; the longevity of institutions; biotechnology and artificial intelligence; the
history of science and technology; architecture, design and urbanism; the nature of
time; space travel; globalization; migration; economics; governance; maintenance; and
infrastructure (both physical and intellectual).
Submissions are welcome for the following sections: Reported, argumentdriven essays (1,200-3,000 words). Recent example: ‘Are We Ready to Normalize
Depopulation?’ Long-form reported narrative Features (1,200-3,000 words):
Recent example, ‘How We Might Secure Our (Digital) Data So That It Survives for
Generations.’ Conversations: (2,000-3,000 word) interviews with thinkers, artists
and makers whose projects and ideas foster long-term thinking and responsibility.
Recent example: An interview with Hal Hershfield about his book, Your Future Self.
Short-form science journalism, news and history. Articles (500-1,200 words) about
the latest long-term thinking: Recent example, a report on new research about
Stonehenge. Science fiction stories: Imaginative speculations at the timescale of
civilization. Stories that take unexpected angles on the future and the past, honing
in on details that emerge from a longer view (1,000-4,000 words). Poems that
engage with long-term thinking and time. No restrictions on form or length. (You
may submit up to four poems at once.)
Send pitches to ideas@longnow.org. For fiction and poetry attach your
submission as a file to your email. Essential to follow the full guidelines at https://
longnow.org/ideas/pitch-guide/.
Payment ranges from $25 US per poem to $300-$600 for interviews, reviews,
short-form journalism and news articles to a minimum of $600 for features and
essays. Response time aims for three weeks.
Before pitching or submitting explore at https://longnow.org/ideas/ where every
article ever published by the site is available to read for free.
Follow on Facebook: www.facebook.com/longnow/
X/Twitter: @longnow
Money, honey
If you can write first-person finance stories where mind, heart and money meet
then the Junei website would like to hear from you, writes Jenny Roche.
Example stories might be ‘the thrill of the first sale, the insomnia inducing
debt or the pressure to fend for your family’. It is emphasised that you need to be
real and honest about the facts of money, no matter whether that be a failure or
something that has been learnt.
The fundamental principles of writing for this site are that stories have first
person intimacy, satisfy a reader’s curiosity and have a lot of detail about the
amounts of money involved.
Stories should be 800-1,000 words long. Payment rates are £120 per story with
‘additional details to be mutually agreed upon during the commissioning stage’.
Pitch your idea for a story by emailing a short paragraph of the story, and if you
are a journalist/writer 2-3 examples of your writing, in the body of the email.
Details: Email: hello@wearejunei.com; Website: https://wearejunei.com/
share-story.
www.writers-online.co.uk
The awkward
stage
It is important to judge
follow-up time, says
Patrick Forsyth
First write then pitch. Or sometimes
pitch and then write. The sequence
may vary but pitching is a prime
activity for many writers. Doing it
can be awkward but following it up
can be even more awkward. Not every
pitch is even acknowledged, much
less agreed. That is how it is, we need
to accept it and let it prompt us to
do more. As Oliver Miller said: When
a person says I’ll think about it and let
you know – you know. As I say, it can
be a difficult stage.
It may be best handled by
dividing your pitches into two
categories: first those to people
you know and maybe have been
published by, and others with whom
you have had no prior contact.
Editors are busy people and
certainly those you do not know
are under no obligation to reply to
speculative pitches (realistically it is
no different from you tossing things
from your morning post straight in
the bin). However, some will reply,
and others may put something you
send aside to consider.
A follow up reminder is worth
sending and with email only takes
a few seconds and costs nothing. It
may be useful to add a new thought
about what you suggested – but keep
it brief. Judge how long you leave
it carefully, too long and any slight
interest your initial contact prompted
will have evaporated, too soon and
it may be viewed as annoying or
inappropriately pushy.
Chase those you know but do
always chase. If the idea was worth
putting out there in the first place it
is worth pursuing and can produce
useful feedback – or, better still,
commissions.
JANUARY 2024
65
GET PUBLISHED
G O I N G TO M A R K E T
WRITERS’ NEWS
POETRY COMPETITIONS
WoLF Poetry Competition 2024
Now in its seventh year, the contest from Wolverhampton Literature
Festival is inviting entries.
The WoLF Poetry Competition is an international open contest for
poetry on any theme.
Enter original, unpublished poems up to 40 lines.
There are first and second prizes of £400 and £150, and three third
prizes of £25. An additional £50 prize will be awarded to the writer of
the best poem by a writer living in a WV postcode. This year’s judge is
Romalyn Ante.
The entry fee is £4 for one poem and £10 for three.
The closing date is 31 December.
Website: https://pandemonialists.co.uk/wolf-poetry-comp-2024/
For full details see the website.
The Edward Thomas Fellowship
Poetry Competition 2024
The Edward Thomas Fellowship is inviting entries for the Edward
Cawston Thomas Prize.
Enter original, unpublished poems on any subject, no longer than
40 lines.
The winner will receive £150. There are two runner-up prizes of
£75 and up to six highly commended prizes of £25. Winners will be
invited to read at the AGM in Hampshire in March. The judge is
poet Jane Draycott.
The entry fee is £3 per poem. Writers may enter up to three poems.
The closing date is 7 January.
Website: https://edward-thomas-fellowship.org.uk/
Tower Poetry Competition 2024
This year’s prize for young poets has the theme of ‘Mirror’ and a first prize of £5,000.
The competition is for poets between 16 and 19 in full or part-time education.
The prizes are £5,000, £3,000 and £1,500. Ten runners up will each win £500.
The judges are Will Harris, Jane Yeh and Mishtooni Bose.
Enter poems up to 48 lines on the competition theme.
Entry is free. Each entrant may submit one poem.
The closing date is 23 February.
Website: www.chch.ox.ac.uk/tower-poetry/enter-tower-poetry-competition
Shepton Snowdrops
2024 Poetry Competition
The theme of this year’s contest is ‘Nature Unbound’.
The 2024 Shepton Snowdrops Poetry Competition will be judged by
nature poet Wendy Pratt. There are prizes in three categories:
• 18 and over: £300
• 12 to 17: £100
• 11 and under: £50
Enter original, unpublished poems in any form, no longer than 30 lines.
In the adult category, entry is £4 per poem, and entrants may submit
up to five poems. The young poet categories are free to enter, and
entrants may submit one poem.
The Shepton Mallet Snowdrop Project includes the 2024 Snowdrop
Festival between 12 and 18 February 2024.
The closing date is 7 January.
Website: www.sheptonsnowdrops.org.uk
66
JANUARY 2024
www.writers-online.co.uk
Sabine Baring-Gould Poetry
Competition 2024
The competition is in honour
of the centenary of the writer’s
death in 1924. There are two
categories for entry. One is for
poems based on any aspect of
Sabine Baring-Gould’s life or
writing, ie his book of Fairy Tales
or collection of folk music. The
other is for poems that include
a reference to any of the novels
he wrote featuring Devon or
Cornwall.
There is a prize of £50 in each
category.
The entry fee is £5 for one poem and £2 for any
subsequent entries.
The closing date is 31 January.
Website: https://writ.rs/sabine
GET PUBLISHED
The Teignmouth Poetry
Festival Competition 2024
Win a £600 first prize in
the open contest that will be
judged by Malika Booker.
The Teignmouth Poetry
Festival Competition is an
annual international prize
for original, unpublished
poems on any subject, up to
40 lines.
In addition to the £600
first prize, there are second
and third prizes of £300
and £200. The top three
commended poets will each
win £25.
All entries with a Devon postcode are automatically entered
in the Graham Burchell Award for Devon Poets, which will be
judged by Graeme Ryan and has prizes of £200, £100 and £50.
The top three commended poets will each win £25.
The entry fee is £5.50 for one poem and £3.50 for any
subsequent entries online, and £5 for one and £3 for each
additional for postal entries.
The closing date is 31 January 2024.
Website: www.poetryteignmouth.com/competition-2024.html
The Kent & Sussex Poetry
Society Open Poetry
Competition 2024
The Kent & Sussex Poetry Society is inviting entries of
original, unpublished poems in any style and on any
subject, up to 40 lines.
The first prize is £1,000, and there are second and third
prizes of £300 and £100. Four runners up will each receive
£50. This year’s judge is Kathryn Gray.
The entry fee is £5 per poem, or £4 each for three or
more poems.
The closing date is 31 January 2024.
Website: https://kentandsussexpoetry.com/
Wales Poetry
Award 2023
Magma 2023/2024
Poetry Competition
Entries are invited in two separate categories for short
poems and longer poems.
The annual poetry contest from Magma poetry journal is
inviting entries. The categories are:
• The Judge’s Prize for poems between 11 and 50 lines.
This year’s judge is Raymond Antrobus.
• The Editors’ Prize for poems up to 10 lines.
In each category there is a first prize of £1,000, a
second prize of £300 and a third prize of £150. All six
winning poems will be published in Magma. Winning and
commended poets will be invited to read their poems at a
Magma competition event in spring 2024.
The entry fee is £5 for the first poem, £4 for the second
and £3.50 for the third and any subsequent poem.
The closing date is 31 January.
Website: https://magmapoetry.com/magma-2023-24poetry-competition/
The Wales Poetry Award from
Poetry Wales magazine invites
entries of single poems from
writers wordwide.
The first prize is £500 and a
residential course or retreat at
Literature Wales’ Ty Newydd
Writing Centre, a Seren book bundle and publication in Poetry
Wales. The second and third prizes are £100 and £50 plus a
Seren bundle and publication. There will be ten further highly
commended prizes. The judge is Denise Saul.
Enter original, unpublished poems up to 70 lines. Writers
may submit up to five poems.
The entry fee is £5 per poem. Entry is free for writers from
low-income backgrounds.
The closing date is 5 February.
Website: https://poetrywales.co.uk/
walespoetryaward2023/
The Plaza Poetry Prize 2024
Win a first prize of £1,000 in the competition for poems
in any form.
Enter poetry up to 60 lines.
There are prizes of £1,000, £300 and £100, and the ten
shortlisted poems will be published in The Plaza Prizes
Anthology 2. The judge is Tim Liardet.
The entry fee is £12 for the first entry, and £6 for any
subsequent entries.
The closing date is 29 February.
Website: https://theplazaprizes.com/competition/
the-plaza-poetry-prize-60-lines/
www.writers-online.co.uk
JANUARY 2024
67
WRITERS’ NEWS
SMALL PRESS OPPORTUNITIES
PDR LINDSAY-SALMON
THAYER
Hiraeth Publishing
THAYER is an independent press operating out of New York City’s
East Village. It runs a coffee house/shop meeting place for readers and
authors, publishes a biennial magazine of short fiction, poetry, and
photography, and now publishes novels.
Submit short fiction, poetry, photography, and novels. Rights and
royalties are discussed with the contract.
Website: www.thayer.press
Hiraeth Publishing is an indie small press producing the best in
speculative fiction: science fiction, fantasy, horror, paranormal, ‘anything
out of the ordinary.’ The team publishes novels, novellas, chapbooks,
colouring books, anthologies, collections, even short stories, and is open
to submissions of novels, 70,000 to 110,000 words, novellas, 17,500
to 40,000 words, collections of stories, at least 40,000 words and
collections of poems, at least 40 pages. For novels submit a 500-word
synopsis and the first ten pages of the novel. For novellas please submit
a 200 word synopsis and the entire novella. Query first for poetry and
short-story collections.
The current anthology, Here There Be Dragons is needing subs of
prose and poetry.
With a deadline of 1 January, or when filled, submit dragon-themed
stories 3,000 to 6,000 words and poetry, 10 to 24 lines. Response time is
‘reasonable.’
Payment for books: royalties. Anthology payments: stories, 8 UScents
a word for the first 3,000 words and 3 UScents/word thereafter. Poetry,
US$1.00/line and art, US$30/piece, US$300 for a cover.
Website: www.hiraethsffh.com
Sapphire Books Publishing
Sapphire Books Publishing calls itself ‘the gem in lesbian publishing.’
It publishes fiction, non-fiction and biographical lesbian literary works
of art and welcomes high-quality unsolicited manuscripts by lesbian
authors. On the current wish list is romance, mystery/intrigue with
romantic elements and young adult books. No poetry or short stories.
Novels should be at least 50,000 words. The team prefer stories
with a HEA ending. Include a story summary, with ending, under
750 words.
Rights and royalties are discussed with the contract.
Website: www.sapphirebooks.com
Thinking Ink Press
Thinking Ink Press is a small press based in the San Francisco Bay Area
that publishes ‘traditional books and also limited edition small-format
books and postcards.’
Currently open for submissions, editor Keiko O’Leary wants poems
or flash stories for postcards. Story length is 100 to 300 words and
poetry length is 30 lines or fewer. She also wants standalone stories,
500 to 1,500 words, with strong narrative arcs for the Instant Books.
For the 4-page flexagon (A flexagon is a flat piece of paper that can be
folded and twisted to reveal hidden surfaces), stories or poems need
to be divided into four pages and read as a loop, with no enforced
beginning or end. Simultaneous submissions and reprints are okay.
Email submissions for Keiko with Keiko’s Calls in the subject line.
The book team publishes ‘children’s health, writing inspiration,
diverse science fiction, flash fiction and poetry, and short story
collections and anthologies’ and is currently open to submissions for
the Neurodiversiverse science fiction anthology of short stories, flash
fiction, poetry, and art exploring encounters between neurodivergent
people and aliens. Queries for non-fiction books of writing advice/
inspiration/reference books, and full-length fiction, short story
collections, and anthology pitches are also accepted.
Submit queries by email.
Rights and royalties are discussed with the contract.
Website: www.thinkinginkpress.com
The Horror Tree
The Horror Tree is not so much a small press, more a resource for
genre and speculative fiction publishers and authors. Whilst publishing
anthologies themselves, they also create a cache of ‘all of the latest horror
anthologies and publishers that are taking paying submissions.’ The
current anthology the HT team will publish is Trembling With Fear.
Submit short stories, no more than 1,500 words and drabbles of exactly
100 words. They publish online weekly, then as print once a year. Check
the themes and calls for ‘serials and unholy trinities;’ details at the website.
Submit speculative fiction, horror, dark S.F. and fantasy, and more.
Theme stories are no more than 2,500 words. Valentine’s stories should be
sent by 31 January, Summer horror holidays by the end of July, Halloween
stories 13 October and the Christmas horror tales by 7 December.
Payment is US$5.
Website: https://horrortree.com/
Roundabout Press
Roundabout Press is a small, American independent press that wants
‘writing that breaks with tradition and challenges the status quo.’ Always
open for fiction manuscripts, the team are seeking ‘literary excellence.’
Submit by post the first 20 pages, a one- or two-page query letter and a
self-addressed, stamped envelope.
Rights and royalties are discussed with the contract.
Website: www.roundaboutpress.com
HUMOUR SUBMISSIONS
Witty writing wanted
Humorous stories with ‘wit, word play,
absurdity and inspired nonsense’ are
invited for Witcraft, which is published
online weekly, writes Jenny Roche. Stories
which are gratuitously offensive, snarky
diatribe, fake news or based on current
68
JANUARY 2024
political satire are not wanted. For more
information on the kind of humour
wanted, check out the website.
Stories should be 200-1,000 words long.
No payment is made for contributions
although you will gain a publication credit
www.writers-online.co.uk
to your name.
Email your piece as an attachment. In the
body of the email include a brief bio and any
site or social links.
Details: Email: submit@witcraft.org;
Website: https://witcraft.org/
W
O W-H O
the writer to consider not just what is visible in front of them but
also what is recalled from the past and going beyond that: what
about history, myths, and geological, deep, time?
One implication of this is imagination. Often travel writing is
seen as straightforward reportage, but some of it, certainly that
intended to paint a dramatic picture, can be fueled by imagination.
Thinking about and imagining how a landscape came to be, both
in terms of geological time and something like recent erosion, may
enhance your present view. As may thinking about any people,
myths or legends associated with it, its simple history and its future
history – what will it look like in a hundred, or a thousand years?
All may change and enhance your perception of it and influence
what you write.
Other things mentioned in this column, not least the events
and encounters with people that occur as you visit somewhere, are
important and may predominate, but if you want to maximise your
descriptive powers, taking a leaf out of the landscape writers’ book
can be useful. It is the blend of all this that creates a good piece –
something that combines vision with more, not just the other senses,
but deeper thinking, imagination and perhaps also investigation.
GENERAL NEWS
World Fantasy
Awards winners
The winners of the World
Fantasy Awards for 2022
were announced at the World
Fantasy Convention in Kansas
City at the end of October.
Best Novel, Saint Death’s
Daughter, C.S.E. Cooney
(Solaris); Best Novella,
Pomegranates, Priya Sharma
(Absinthe); Best Short
Fiction, ‘Incident at Bear
Creek Lodge’, Tananarive
Due (published in Other Terrors: An Inclusive Anthology);
Best Anthology, Africa Risen: A New Era of Speculative
Fiction, edited by Sheree Renée Thomas, Oghenechovwe
Donald Ekpeki, Zelda Knight (Tordotcom); Best
Collection, All Nightmare Long, Tim Lebbon (PS
Publishing); Special Award – Professional, Matt Ottley,
for The Tree of Ecstasy and Unbearable Sadness (Dirt Lane);
Special Award – Non-Professional, Michael Kelly, for
Undertow Publications. Peter Crowther of the UK’s PS
Publishing was honoured with a Lifetime Achievement
Award, as was the American editor John R. Douglas, who
died in August. GD
Royal retreat
Stephen King is moving
from his famous house
at 47 W. Broadway,
Bangor, Maine, where
he and his wife Tabitha
have lived since 1979.
The 4,952 square feet
property, from the
front gate of which is
decorated with images
of bats and spider webs,
will become a repository
for the King archives
(Tabitha is a novelist
too), while the property
next door, which is
currently a guest house and is also owned by the Kings, is being
transformed into a writers’ retreat. Up to five writers will be able
to stay at a time.
The Kings will now divide their time between their summer
home in Center Lovell, which is also in Maine, and their
winter home, in Casey Key, Florida. A version of Bangor
renamed Derry has featured in many of King’s works, first being
mentioned in the 1981 short story, ‘The Bird and the Album’,
before providing the setting for Insomnia, Dreamcatcher, and
most famously, It. GD
www.writers-online.co.uk
JANUARY 2024
69
GET PUBLISHED
A
TR
G
T
ravel writing spans a wide range. A focus on a journey, on a
place or with a light shone on one individual detail. Always
what is recorded is somewhere, though the geography may
vary from an urban scene to, say, a wide-open desert.
Often the landscape is an important part. We want to show
readers what a place was like, what it felt like to be there and often
what went on while we were there (or thinking about or recalling it)
– the events, the people and more.
A certain kind of writing is known as landscape writing. Here
the focus is primarily on the surroundings, in a literary manner
that some may regard as overstated. The geographer Doreen Massey
says: ‘landscape is provocation, prompting speculation about various
temporalities: it is a space formed by geological time and inhabited
in human times.’ There are lessons here for travel writers.
The first is the classic advice to use all the senses and particularly
to go beyond what you can see. I recently reviewed a piece I had
written about an eastern street market and rapidly concluded that it
was too close to exclusively visual; more about the sounds and the
smells improved it. So far so obvious (even if this is difficult to keep
in mind). Another lesson from landscape writers digs deeper, urging
IN
Landscape writing can help travel writers make the most of
description, says Patrick Forsyth
N
K
Wide horizons,
deep dig
L W RI
E
T
V
IF in print
The classic US science fiction magazine Worlds of IF, which originally
ran for 175 issues from April 1955 to 1974 (titled If – Worlds of Science
Fiction in its early years), is being relaunched in February by Starship
Sloan Publishing, writes Gary Dalkin.
Justin Sloane is editor in chief and publisher, and Jean-Paul L. Garnier
of Space Cowboy Books is deputy editor in chief. The inaugural issue
will be available in print and as free downloadable PDF, and promises
to include works from multiple generations of SFF authors, artists,
and poets. The editors plan to continue the magazine’s tradition of
experimenting with new forms and styles of SF and showcasing new
authors. No submission details were available at the time of writing, but
visit https://starshipsloane.com/worlds-of-if-science-fiction-april1955-free-webzine-reissue-new-bonus-content/ for updates, and to
read a digital version, including a story by Philip K. Dick, of the very
first issue of the magazine.
Write a
pocket novel
Flash of
frogs
Original flash fiction of a
maximum 1,000 words is invited for Flash Frog, an online
magazine first published in January 2021, writes Jenny
Roche. ‘We like our stories like we like dart frogs,’ says
Editor in Chief Eric Scott Tryson, ‘small, brightly coloured
and deadly to the touch’.
Once a story is accepted for publication, an original
piece of artwork will be created for it.
Submit one story only and email this with a third person
bio of a maximum 100 words in the body of the email.
Payment for published work is $25 payable via PayPal.
Details: Email: flashfroglitmag@gmail.com; Website:
https://flash-frog.com/
Blood exchange
The People’s Friend magazine is a well
established and popular magazine
which also publishes larger-print
Pocket Novels, writes Jenny Roche.
They are aimed to appeal to
readers of the magazine and popular
genres are romance, cosy crime,
mystery, drama and family stories. All may be set in the past or present
day and anywhere in the world. The UK is popular although with
readers in Australia, New Zealand and Canada these areas are popular
too. Bad language or over-intimacy are not wanted. It is advised you
read a few of the novels or the magazine before submitting.
Larger-print Pocket Novels have a word count of 37,000-39,000
words and payment for published novels is £300, payable on acceptance.
Authors retain all copyright to their work.
Initially email a brief synopsis (eg one side of A4 paper) of your
proposed Pocket Novel to Tracy Steel at: tsteel@dcthomson.co.uk.
Fiction editor Lucy Crichton has a regular blog which gives lots
of news and information for anybody wanting to write for The
People’s Friend or Pocket Novels: https://www.thepeoplesfriend.
co.uk/2023/09/28/fiction-eds-blog-pocket-novels-qa/
The Blood Project is a US non-profit educational website
dedicated to advancing knowledge about the blood’s
connection to human health, disease, and therapeutics,
writes Gary Dalkin. The editors are currently seeking
pitches from freelance writers and welcome pitches
from anywhere in the world. These can range from case
studies, FAQs, essays, poems or creative writing. The only
requirement is that your proposed piece touches on blood
in ways that further understanding of its place in medicine
and society.
Creative approaches are encouraged, and work should
be written with minimal jargon and be comprehensible
to educated non-physicians. Find out more about
submissions at www.thebloodproject.com/submitto-tbp/ then download the PDF guidelines for essays,
creative writing and poems.
You can send enquiries to www.thebloodproject.
com/contact-us/ Pitches should be sent to either the
project’s founder, Dr Bill Aird, MD by emailing waird@
thebloodproject.com or Editor-in-Chief Charles Bardes
at Clbardes@med.cornell.edu. Payment is 50 cents US
per word.
BOOK COMPETITIONS
The Next Generation
Indie Book Awards 2024
The international awards programme for indie authors and
independent publishers is inviting entries.
The Next Generation Indie Book Awards have more than 80
entry categories, and offer $100 cash prizes in each.
The first-placed winner in fiction and non-fiction is $1,500. The
70
JANUARY 2024
second and third prizes are $750 and $500.
The 2024 entry fee is $75 per title for the first category entered,
and $60 for each additional category.
The closing date is 14 February.
Website: www.indiebookawards.com/
www.writers-online.co.uk
GET PUBLISHED
GET PUBLISHED
CREATIVE WRITING OPPORTUNITIES
From the
OTHE R SIDE
OF THE DESK
ALIEN INVASION
As AI makes inroads into the publishing industry, literary agent Piers Blofeld
proposes measures to protect the human creative element
t was a laconic New York publisher
who, on a business trip to the States
a couple of years ago leant back
and remarked, ‘it’s a publishing
meeting, no one gets to leave until
everyone is unhappy.’
I was reminded of their words reading
Katy Loftus’ excellent piece for the
Bookseller in which she reviews her
decision to leave the world of corporate
publishing a year ago and asks if it still
seems like the right decision. Spoiler
alert, it does.
I have commented quite regularly
on how publishing isn’t very good at
looking after authors or its editorial
staff. There are all sorts of structural
reasons for this, but one I have never
really touched on is that there is an
inherent tension in the role of editor
that will always lead to a degree of
conflict with the business people who
run publishers.
Editors are almost without exception
passionate about what they do. You
have to be, the job combines high
stress with low pay: no one’s favourite
combination. But it gets worse. The
very best editors, the ones who love
their jobs the most, may be employed
by publishers but the people they are
really working for are authors.
Their bosses know this and they
kind of hate them for it. Or to put it
another way, there is a permanent cloud
of suspicion over them and it is a big
part of the reason why they are so keen
to set sales, marketing and publicity in
oversight roles. The idea that ‘everyone
has to buy into the book’ is really
another way of saying ‘we don’t trust
editors not to go feral.’
Historically this was all just part of
the fun: part of the eccentric loveability
of publishing. AI changes all of that.
Penguin Random House made two
seemingly unrelated announcements last
week. One was that they are making a
raft of redundancies, the other that they
have already started to incorporate AI
into their decision-making process. I’m
not suggesting the two are explicitly
linked, but it’s hard not to wonder if
they aren’t twin harbingers of the future.
From a business perspective a
publisher is a manufacturer of written
(and illustrated) entertainment
products. Provided that product is
popular they have no inherent interest
in where it comes from. Indeed
authors and the editorial staff required
to service them are time consuming
and expensive and for the first time in
the history of the industry are (almost)
no longer essential.
Publishers have long fantasized about
generating more ‘content’ in-house and
cutting out agents and authors: it’s an
obvious way of growing their margins.
It never really works, but AI does hold
out that prospect as never before. AI
is not very good at sequencing events
at length, but over a few pages it’s
astonishingly proficient and it really
is not very hard to imagine some
commercial genres being ‘written’ in
house by an editor and a team of AI
inputters, with all copyright and all
benefits being the publisher’s and the
publisher’s alone.
The most basic business logic dictates
that this is a desirable outcome for
them, despite whatever bromides they
say in public about respecting authors
and creativity. The lie to that is given
in the way that there is such ubiquitous
www.writers-online.co.uk
willingness to blur lines about
authorship when it comes to ghostwritten books. Publishers love to sell a
brand because then the brand does all
the heavy lifting for them.
At the moment the only real fly in
the ointment for them is that copyright
laws do not yet protect the work of
machines. But the lobbying process for
that has started…
So, what is to be done? Well, the
first thing to say is that if in the end
the consumer does not care if books
are written by machines then it doesn’t
really matter what we think. But just as
people do care about the ethics of food
production (say) so, probably more so,
does it matter that human culture is
produced by, err, humans?
I propose a ‘Campaign for Real
Authors’ (sorry CAMRA) which
would have two objectives. The first
is that any book which is not wholly
the work of the human named on
the jacket be clearly labelled so
that consumers are able to make an
informed choice.
Secondly that we need to
immediately start to lobby for a
global conference to redraft the Berne
Convention for the Protection of
Literary and Artistic Work to exclude
for ever the work of machines because
if that is allowed all creative activity
will be in service to ‘brands’ and
the future of writing will be as wage
slaves servicing the content creation
departments of global corporations.
But it’s no good me calling for it.
The only people who have any real
power in this – because they are the
people who have power over publishers
– are the big authors.
JANUARY 2024
71
WINNER
LAST SATURDAY NIGHT
BY LYNDA GREEN
A motley career including clerical,
catering and craft work behind her,
Lynda now drives a cab in the South
West. She has taken many odd people
to their destinations, but never a
wolf. She writes short stories on
many subjects, often with a surreal
element as real life does not always
charm her. She has been published
but never won a major competition,
so is delighted with this win. She’s an
avid reader, a passionate cook and a
moderate allotmenteer.
ou meet all sorts when you
drive a taxi for a living. I
drove a wolf to Newquay
last Saturday night. Not
that I knew he was a wolf.
I thought he was simply a well dressed,
taciturn stranger; after Harry rang to
warn me, I thought he could be the
escaped felon from Dartmoor. It was
only on my way back from Newquay
that wolf entered my head, you’ll see
why. And before you scratch your head
and wonder how I could have not
realized, picture this, a dark night, me
parked at the back of the taxi rank, well
not even the back, beyond back, on the
double yellows, where the last street
light can’t quite reach. He must have
come out from the old people’s flats
across the road, or up from the little car
pack further round.
I had just tuned into Radio 3
thinking how many cabs were in
front of me, when the back door was
flung open and this guy jumps in and
growls ‘Newquay’. Well, I was grateful
someone was getting in, that I wouldn’t
have to stop start my way to the front
of the rank. It was ten minutes past
midnight, those of our patrons who
think it’s beyond the pale to have to pay
72
JANUARY 2024
double time after midnight had quaffed
their last pints and been delivered to
their respective homes, swaying gently
and swearing loudly, whilst trying to get
in their front doors. In the stillness of
the night you can hear them.
So, anyway, last Saturday, this man
growled Newquay and I half turned
and said, you know it’s after twelve
and double time and he just grunted,
which, at that time of night and after
a session on the town, many of our
customers do; to be honest some do it
twenty four seven.
The half turn afforded me a quick
look at him, but all I’d taken in was the
long black coat, the upturned lapels, the
trilby jammed on a biggish head and the
Sahara-coloured suede gloves. It was only
a glance after all, and my expectations
have never included wolf. Would yours?
What I thought was, wow. I’ve always
been a sucker for a snazzy dresser; age
has not diminished my appreciation of
the finely dressed male.
After tailing an irritating police car
through town for a couple of miles, it
was doing twenty seven miles an hour,
for spite one can only assume, I did
wonder if my passenger had a bad case
of halitosis or whether he’d stepped in
something. I wound the window down
a couple of inches.
At the lights, behind the police car, I
radio’d in, “Rank to Newquay.”
“Good night?” I said conversationally
to my passenger, waiting for the lights
to change.
He must have dozed off, because I
felt him start.
“Goodnight,” he said, and put
his hand on the door handle. “How
much?”
“What, no, no, we’re not there yet.”
I did wonder what planet he was on,
couldn’t he tell the difference between
the dull glow of Mcdonald’s at the traffic
lights and the neons of Newquay?
Course, I didn’t say this, and all I
got was a low growl as he settled back
in his seat.
You’d think I might have wondered
www.writers-online.co.uk
a bit then wouldn’t you, what with
the growl, the strange smell and his
disorientation, you’ll think I’m thick,
but you know, in my town, some of our
customers are monosyllabic and not too
sweet smelling, and they don’t always
know where they are, especially after a
skinful at the White Hart, or a lock-in
at the King’s Head.
The police car and I parted company
as the lights glowed green and I picked
up speed when I got on the bypass. I
gave myself thirty minutes tops to get
to Newquay.
Then my phone rang. It was Harry, one
of our drivers. Harry looks out for me,
reckons women shouldn’t work nights
and if they do then they need someone
to keep an eye out for them, Harry is my
self-appointed personal minder.
“You’re on loud speaker,” I said.
“Ok,” he said, “Shirl, your sister says
hello, I’ve just dropped her off.”
That’s our code for ring me soon as
you can.
He sounded concerned.
We drove on in silence. Harry’s
tone had worried me, I looked in my
mirror, the guy had his head sunk into
his chest. I could see he probably had
a beard, but at a glance that was all.
Apart from a faintly canine odour, there
was nothing to suggest lupus.
I kept driving; there wasn’t much on
the road. A fox ran out in front of me
but I managed to slow down. I heard a
whine from the back seat and looking
over, saw him twitch a bit. So, we were
both jumpy.
A few minutes later, I looked in the
mirror. My passenger seemed to be
sleeping so I phoned Harry quickly
who said that there was a rumour that
someone had escaped from Dartmoor
and could be heading for Newquay, he
was known to have family there.
“You don’t think that’s who you’ve got
on board, do you?” he asked.
“No, I don’t know.”
“Stay calm, keep the radio on, I’m
sure it’s ok. Did you get the money
up front?”
WM OPEN SHORT STORY COMPETITION: JOURNEY
“Oh shit,” I said, which is not a code
personal and usually means something
has been pointed out to you which you
should know and have overlooked.
Then I dropped the phone because
I was tapped on the shoulder. I almost
shot out of my skin.
“Could you stop for a minute,
please.” It was higher than a growl but
lower than the average man.
“What, here?” I croaked.
We were in the middle of nowhere,
in a dip. I looked in my mirror, a feral
glint danced across it like the Northern
Lights. A shiver crawled up my spine
and threatened the follicles at the nape
of my neck.
“Just stop the car.”
‘Oh God,’ I thought, it was black out
there, not even moonlight, the sort of
night you could get murdered.
I realised then that fear, real fear,
tastes of blood, like your cheeks are
haemorrhaging. I tried to appear calm,
and pulled over. Maybe he needed to
relieve himself. I wondered whether to
just leave him there, but he hadn’t done
anything wrong, being hairy wasn’t a
crime, nor was halitosis, though I was
beginning to think it should be, and
then there was the question of the
money. So I sat there and watched him
push his way through a low hedge. I
could see the outline of a bungalow or
barn on the horizon.
I decided I’d give him five minutes,
it was twelve thirty three. Keep calm,
I told myself. Twelve thirty eight.
Twelve forty, ok I was off, he’d probably
done a runner, probably lived in that
bungalow, and I wasn’t about to follow
him up there, not on this dark night,
not for any amount of money. Then
he stumbled out of the hedge and fell
heavily into the back seat.
“Sorry,” he sort of slurped.
My heart was pounding as we pulled
up outside the Black Cat night club.
The meter said £71
“Just give me fifty,” I said.
I watched him take out a pigskin
wallet and count three twenties. He
folded them over in the way you do
when you don’t want change and
passed them to me. He was still
wearing the gloves.
The lights of Newquay were behind
me when I remembered Harry. I pulled
over again.
“It’s me, I’m on the way back, no
trouble, he was a bit weird though.”
“Well, it wasn’t the escaped guy,”
said Harry, “they’ve picked him up at
Bodmin. Glad you’re ok anyway.”
I wasn’t going to admit I’d wondered
if I was going to be murdered. I was
calming down now.
I was just climbing out of the
same dip where we’d stopped when
something flapped on the road in front
of me and then plastered itself onto my
windscreen. I couldn’t see a thing and
had to stop the car. Next thing, blue
flashing light heading towards me, car
breaking, heavy footfall, door yanked
open, torch, bright torch.
“Are you alright madam?”
“No, I mean yes, Officer, I think so,
I had to stop, couldn’t see in front of
me.”
His partner peeled a wrap or a cloak,
something in fabric, off my windscreen.
“As long as you’re ok. We are just on
the way over to Newquay.”
They melted away, ashen features in
the blue neon. But even that steely hue
couldn’t disguise the colour of the swirl
of fabric draped over the officer’s arm,
it was red, red as a Southwest sunset.
That was my lightbulb moment, the
odour, the hairy silhouette, the flashing
eyes in the mirror. I shivered and
wondered if I should run over to the
uniforms and share my suspicions.
But how can you say you think you’ve
just dropped a wolf in Newquay? I’d
be in their car on the way to a nice
safe cell, don’t you think? I looked in
the back of my cab, it was as it should
be, no wiry hair on the seat, no mud
on the floor, although, there was
something, it was just visible, nearly
under the seat. I couldn’t reach it, and
thought it was probably a pen or a roll
up. Whatever it was, it could wait.
When I reached home I decided to
call it a day, and told Harry.
What I didn’t tell him was that I had
found something in the cab that closely
resembled the remains of a finger, a
little finger, perhaps a child’s.
RUNNER UP AND SHORTLISTED
The runner up in WM’s Journey Short Story Competition
Also shortlisted were: Terry Baldock, Evesham, Worcs; Sandi
was Alexis Cunningham, Peterborough, Cambs.
Johnson, Scunthorpe, North Lincolnshire; Paul Mantell,
You can read her story at: www.writers-online.co.uk/
Wem, Shropshire; Damien McKeating, Newcastle-under-
writing-competitions/showcase/
Lyme, Staffordshire; Chris Morris, Dundee; Sharon Treganza,
Box, Corsham.
www.writers-online.co.uk
JANUARY 2024
73
MACHINE SHORT STORY WINNER
BY NIKA JELENDORF
Nika moved from Zagreb through
Berlin to London, where she now
lives with her partner and their
growing number of cats. In her
job, she listens to the narratives
people tell about themselves, and
in her free time, she reads the ones
they put on paper. This is her first
published work.
RUNNER UP AND SHORTLISTED
The runner up in WM’s Machine Short Story Competition is
John Moralees, Washington, Tyne and Wear. You can read his story
at www.writers-online.co.uk/writing-competitions/showcase/
Also shortlisted were: Dominic Bell, Hull; Lucy Brighton,
Barnsley, South Yorkshire; Alana Beth Davies, Swansea; Melanie
Francis, Harrow, Middlesex; Christine Griffin, Hucclecote,
Gloucester; Deborah Hugill, Northallerton, North Yorkshire; Rob
Molan, Edinburgh; M Stewart Smith, Burley, Leeds; Sharon S
Summervale, Bridgwater, Somerset; Sarah Turner; Rayleigh,
Essex; Gill Wilson, Norwich.
74
JANUARY 2024
www.writers-online.co.uk
They came into the forest one after another,
some of them men in suits and some boys with
dead eyes. A procession of them, each parking
their own machine behind another. They left
the cars looking out of place, like a row of shoes
arranged in the middle of a road. The last one
who came drove a Renault Dauphine to the end
of a line. It was an elegant, rounded, powder
blue car with silver bumpers. The front had a
small crest with a crown relief in it. The man
who abandoned the vehicle should have been a
boy. He locked the car and walked back to the
base, where he would get on a boat and return
to where he came from. The premature lines on
his face spoke of his reasons, but the forest didn’t
know how to read them and wouldn’t have
cared even if she could.
For a little while, the forest ignored the
cars. Animals circled them, knowing the cars
didn’t belong. The machines were unmovable,
soldiers standing at attention, waiting for
a hand to guide them. The fourth time it
rained that summer, a fox was passing nearby.
Having just eaten a frog, the fox was pleased
with herself and wanted to enjoy that feeling
instead of getting her fur wet. She crawled
underneath the Dauphine and took a nap,
cosy and dry. The rain fell gently around
them. Clusters of mushrooms enjoyed the
soaking, calling for their peers to come out of
the ground and join them. For this afternoon,
the Dauphine was content.
After this, the forest started to eat the vehicles.
She was slow at first. Specks of moss were the
first to lay their claim, growing where the rubber
seals met the bodies of the cars. Weeds started
germinating in the front and rear cowls under
the windshields, taking nourishment from the
piles of rotting leaves accumulating there.
The men who left the cars picked a hidden
spot, but eventually, someone stumbled
onto it. The first to come was a couple who
were delightfully shocked. They wandered
through the metal maze, enjoying each other’s
amazement and trying the doors until they
found an unlocked Citroën they disappeared
into. They emerged half an hour later looking
sombre and didn’t return, and there were no
SUBSCRIBER-ONLY SHORT STORY WINNER
weeks ago. The air was escaping the tires,
making the cars sink into the forest floor,
sometimes at an angle, as some tires were
older than others. The paint started to
flake away like sad confetti.
The next human to visit was a man
who inspected every car slowly and
methodically. This one did return, in a car
of his own and with a toolbox and started
taking parts away. From the Dauphine, he
took the crest with the crown, the radio,
the stick shift, and the motor, leaving the
car feeling naked and uneasy. He went for
the steering wheel too, but he noticed it
was cracked and smudged in places, so he
let it be and left the doors open. The man
came for three days in a row, and then he
never came again. But soon after him, a
spider saw the wheel and decided it was a
great place to build a web. He abandoned
it when it became evident that not many
insects wandered into the machine, but
by that point, the car began to realise that
being inhabited was no longer her role.
Slowly the cars began to rot. Covering
them in moss and rust, the forest had
painted their outlines in colours that suited
her better. The Dauphine went much
quicker than her sisters in arms. The edges
of her were the first to go. The joints
between the doors and the frame, the front
and back hood, and the arches above the
wheels became serrated like a breadknife.
The rot spread quickly, and the front
hood, weakened by the man who stole her
crown, popped open. She yawned wide
and ate the rain, leaves and dandelion fluff
that fell into her mouth.
Some of the cars fought back against the
forest. They dripped iridescent poison on
the earth, killing plants, weeds, and insects.
They infected their surroundings with
chips of paint, which dissolved into heavy
metals. They shed rubber dandruff from
their tires, letting it spread out on the wind
and reach far beyond their resting spots,
killing birds and fish. They dropped broken
windscreen wipers, sunroofs, and bumpers
on the ground, destroying anthills. And
front windshield of the Dauphine. A small
circle spread across it, mirroring the spider
web underneath it. It burst almost a year
later in the middle of the day. The glass
exploded inwards over the moss-covered
top dashboard, glistening like diamonds on
a velvet bag.
The Dauphine wasn’t always alone.
The spider had left quickly, but field mice
moved in at some point, thrilled to nibble
on the leather seats and snuggle in the
stuffing. They dug labyrinths inside the
car, where many generations of their family
slept, mated, and were born until the rot
forced them to move out and abandon
her for a more hospitable home. By now,
lichen stretched out over the Dauphine,
making her look like a dried-out mermaid,
powder blue peeking out from under ash
green. The forest liked that look.
Some seasons later, a forgetful squirrel
buried an acorn underneath the Dauphine.
The acorn was lucky – the hood stood
open at just the right angle, giving it a
balance of shade and sun, letting the
water drip but never soak the earth. The
acorn grew. At first, it was a sprout, but it
endured, then it was a sapling, and still, it
grew until it became a real tree, proud and
secure in its standing. It knew it was going
to outgrow the car. The tangled branches
slowly started pulling the Dauphine apart.
First, it bent the bodywork, weakening
every joint. The back left door gave way
and fell off, even though neither the car
nor the forest would have expected it to be
the first to go. As the tree pushed out, the
Dauphine pushed back in. The hood was
thin and had teeth carved into it by the
rust. It bit into the tree. But the rest of her
couldn’t fight much longer. Over the years,
the tree shot up, and the hood rose with
it. People were coming more often, mostly
hikers and adventure hunters, oohing and
aahing at the scene.
All around the Dauphine, the others
were defeated by the forest too. Most of
them had long lost their shape and colours.
They were now smaller, painted the
www.writers-online.co.uk
more like mounds than cars. The forest
took some casualties, but she was winning.
And then different people started to
appear. Photographers with multiple lenses,
clicking. People with placards, yelling into
their phones. The occasional person in a
suit, frowning into a camera. Decades after
the machines were left in the forest, people
were paying attention to them again.
Finally, two people arrived, an older man
with a face like a tree bark and a woman
with a clip chart. The man walked around
touching the cars, and the woman kept
making notes. They started at the opposite
end from where the Dauphine was parked,
so her spot was the last they came to. The
man walked around her in a circle, once
to the left and once to the right. Then he
turned to the woman.
“Shit, man, this won’t work unless I fell
the tree” he said.
“Can you get the motor out?” she asked.
The man bent closer to the tree and
put his fingers against the bark, pushing
as if he expected it to give way under
his fingers.
“It’s in the back” he said, and nodded,
to whom it was unclear. He popped
open the back hood with a crowbar
and looked at the empty space where a
motor once existed. The woman looked
over his shoulder.
“Leave it then? The paint is almost gone
anyway.” She said, and they walked away.
The man returned later with many
others and vans full of screwdrivers,
hammers, chainsaws, and chisels. They
walked around, attacking the cars,
shouting at each other from across the
forest. One of them brought a speaker
and played music even though most of
them wore headphones. The noise was
deafening. It took them a few days, but
they cut, chopped, and sawed, and soon,
the forest looked just like any other forest,
for the most part.
As the new vehicles left carrying away
parts of the old ones, the tree that was part
Dauphine waited for the night to fall.
JANUARY 2024
75
COMPETITION LAUNCHES
https://www.writers-online.co.uk/writing-competitions
Writing Competitions, Writing Magazine,
Warners Group Publications Ltd, West Street, Bourne, Lincs PE10 9PH
£250
TO BE
WON
OPEN: 500 WORDS
This month’s challenge is to tell
a complete story within a tight
word count. Stories are welcome
in any style and any genre - but
not a word over 500!
The prizes are £200 and £50, and
we’ll publish the winning entries
in the July 2024 issue, and online.
Entry fee: £7.50/£6 subscribers
Closing date: 15 February
REF CODE: WRO/
Jan24/500words
WIN!
£775
S
IN CASH PRIZE
& PUBLICATION
£150
TO BE
WON
SUBSCRIBER-ONLY:
MAKE A DIFFEREN
CE
Enter fiction or crea
tive
nonfiction with a na
rrative
where someone is in
some
way an agent for po
sitive
change – on a person
al basis
or even on a global
scale.
The prizes are £100
and £25,
and we’ll publish th
e winning
entry in the July 2024
issue,
and both winners on
line.
Closing date: 15 Febr
uary
REF CODE: WRO/Jan
24/
Makeadifference
ST I L L T I M E TO E N T E R
OPEN: OPEN FIRE
POETRY: CAUTIONARY TALES
Enter fireside stories between
1,500 and 1,700 words.
Prizes: £200 and £50
Entry fee: £7.50/£6 subscribers
Closing date: 15 January
Ref code: WRO/WRO/DEC23/OPENFIRE
Enter poems warning about the dangers
of bad behaviour up to 40 lines.
Prizes: £100 and £50
Entry fee: £7.50/£6 subscribers
Closing date: 15 January
Ref code: WRO/WRO/DEC23/
CAUTIONARY
How to enter
Competition Rules
Competition Entry
Competition Entry
I am enclosing my entry for the .......................................
I am enclosing my entry for the .......................................
1 Eligibility
All entries must be the original and unpublished work of the
entrant, and not currently submitted for publication nor for any other
competition or award. Each entry must be accompanied by an entry
form, printed here (photocopies are acceptable), unless stated.
Open Competitions are open to any writer, who can submit as
many entries as they choose. Entry fees are £7.50, £6 for subscribers.
Subscriber-only Competitions are open only to subscribers of
Writing Magazine. Entry is free but you can only submit one entry
per competition.
......................................................... .............................
.................................................. .....................................
Ref code .....................................and agree to be bound
by the competition rules
Ref code ................................................ and agree to be
bound by the competition rules
TITLE.......................................................................................
TITLE.......................................................................................
FORENAME ............................................................................
FORENAME ............................................................................
SURNAME ..............................................................................
SURNAME ..............................................................................
ADDRESS................................................................................
ADDRESS................................................................................
2 Entry Fees
Cheques or postal orders should be payable to Warners Group
Publications or you can pay by credit card (see form).
................................................................................................
................................................................................................
................................................................................................
................................................................................................
3 Manuscripts
Short stories: Entries must be typed in double spacing on single
sides of A4 paper with a front page stating your name, address, phone
number and email address, your story title, word count and the name
of the competition. Entries will be returned if accompanied by sae.
Electronic entries should be a single doc, docx, txt, rtf or pdf file with
the contact details, etc, on p1, and your story commencing on the
second page.
Poetry manuscripts: Entries must be typed in single spacing with
double spacing between stanzas on single sides of A4. Entrant’s name,
address, telephone number and email address must be typed on a
separate A4 sheet. Entries to poetry competitions cannot be returned.
Electronic entries should be a single doc, docx, txt, rtf, odt or pdf file
with the contact details, etc, on p1, and your poem on the second page.
All manuscripts: Receipt of entries will be acknowledged if
accompanied by a suitably worded stamped and addressed postcard.
Entrants retain copyright in their manuscripts. You are advised not to
send the only copy of your manuscript. Enclose an sae if you want your
manuscript to be returned.
POSTCODE .............................................................................
POSTCODE .............................................................................
EMAIL.....................................................................................
EMAIL.....................................................................................
I’m happy to receive special offers via email from Warners Group Publications plc
I’m happy to receive special offers via email from Warners Group Publications plc
TELEPHONE (INC. AREA CODE) ....................................................
TELEPHONE (INC. AREA CODE) ....................................................
Tick here if you wish to receive our
FREE monthly e-newsletter
ENTRY FEE (please tick one)
Tick here if you wish to receive our
FREE monthly e-newsletter
ENTRY FEE (please tick one)
£7.50
£6 for subscribers
Free entry (subscriber only competition)
£7.50
£6 for subscribers
Free entry (subscriber only competition)
I enclose my entry fee (cheques/postal order payable to Warners Group
I enclose my entry fee (cheques/postal order payable to Warners Group
Publications) OR I wish to pay my entry fee by:
Publications) OR I wish to pay my entry fee by:
Visa
Mastercard
Visa
Mastercard
CARD NUMBER .....................................................................
CARD NUMBER .....................................................................
4 Competition Judging
Competition judges will be appointed by Writing Magazine and the
judges’ decision will be final with no correspondence being entered into.
VALID FROM.......................... EXPIRY DATE ........................
VALID FROM.......................... EXPIRY DATE ........................
SECURITY NUMBER ...............................................................
SECURITY NUMBER ...............................................................
5 Notification
Winners will be notified within three months of closing date after
which date unplaced entries may be submitted elsewhere. Winning
entries may not be submitted elsewhere for twelve months after that
date without permission of Writing Magazine who retain the right to
publish winning entries in any form during those twelve months.
CARDHOLDER NAME ...........................................................
CARDHOLDER NAME ...........................................................
SIGNATURE ............................................................................
SIGNATURE ............................................................................
DATE ......................................................................................
DATE ......................................................................................
www.writers-online.co.uk
JANUARY 2024
77
UNDER THE COVERS
Time for a
?
e
s
n
a
e
l
c
e
t
a
l
a
p
Wondering if writing in a new genre would refresh her creativity is not,
repeat not, a way of avoiding her edits, says Gillian Harvey
uess what? Today I plan to write a thriller.
Or at least I plan to plan a thriller with
the intention of writing it over the next
few days.
It’s not what I should be doing. I’ve just
received edits back for The Bordeaux Book Club from my
editor. It’s due for publication sometime next year and I have
three weeks to work on it before sending it back. So what I
should be doing is re-reading and tweaking and perfecting
that manuscript so I can meet that deadline.
Or if I’m not editing, I probably should be doing
something from my ‘To Do’ list – such as work out some
sort of social media strategy, or (if desperate) dusting. (Side
note: my to-do list currently has 60 undone tasks on it. I
read recently that if you have more than three tasks on your
to-do list, you don’t really have a to-do list, but I digress).
So, back to the thriller. In my defence, I’m not talking a
novel here. Just a little teeny short story. What’s a couple of
thousand words between friends?
I got the idea for trying something left-field when reading
an interview with a writer known for her darker books,
who also pens the occasional ‘rom-com’ on the side under
a fluffier pen-name. She sees writing these as the ultimate
palate-cleanse – a way of resetting her brain before returning
to the dark side with fresh eyes.
It made me wonder whether she finds it easy to go from
one genre to another. Does it require a phenomenal effort
to turn her prose from dark to light, and back again? Does
she find herself describing the hero leaning in for a kiss in
a rom-com finale only to discover she’s turned her heroine
into a demon? Does she describe her protagonist opening
the door to a long-deserted and potentially haunted house,
only to find it decked out in pastel colours and chalkpainted pine?
Or can she put all elements of one genre aside and focus
completely on the job in hand?
How difficult is it? How closely related are the two genres
and the skills required to write in them? I was left with so
many questions, I had to abandon the WIP altogether for
78
JANUARY 2024
the day (OK, so I’m struggling with it, but honestly, I wasn’t
looking for an excuse to do that. Promise).
Many writers I speak to have a genre they prefer to write
in, or that they’re now known for. But most of us have
written in or had a go at other genres over the years – and
I’m no exception. My very first novel was of a haunting – so
scary that my readership (or to be more precise, my younger
sister) found it difficult to sleep after reading.
It didn’t get published, so I moved on to the next. I
decided to steer towards the humorous partly as a result
of life experience (I stopped reading crime and thriller
books altogether a few years back because I found the 10
o’clock news/my Facebook feed quite horrifying enough).
My humorous debut secured me my agent, and a publisher
signed me up for more of the same.
I really enjoy writing my current novels. But that doesn’t
mean I never wonder ‘what if ’? What kind of thriller might
I write? What might happen if I tap into my ‘dark side’? And
do I really want to find out?
Who knows? I might find a new string to my bow, a new
direction. I might decide eventually to write a whole novel in
this new genre – become a Gill of two trades.
Alternatively, this could mean days of frustration, writer’s
block, trying and failing as I realise I’m just not up to the
job. It could lead to a substandard story and rejection by
the magazine, and maybe even remonstrations from my
readership (most likely once again, my long-suffering,
sleepless sister).
But even so, I’m determined that it won’t be time wasted.
Having now written six novels in the uplit genre, back-toback, the palette cleanse should – at the very least – make
way for new ideas, a fresh perspective once I return to my
comfort zone.
Just as a little lemon sorbet, a slice of apple or (according
to a quick Google search) a lovely bit of pickled ginger serve
as a great way to clear the mouth of residual tastes to make
way for something new and delicious.
Then I’ll get on with my edits in time for my deadline.
Honest.
www.writers-online.co.uk
Dive into the depths of
fear with our spine-chilling
horror webinars!
Learn from our spooky expert Alex Davis in his interactive sessions about Horror!
Writing Magazine has a frightening
duo which will be a pulse pounder
for various writers at different
levels to improve their work.
From the most cursed creatures,
to witch tales and rituals, Alex will
be exploring ways to put together
your own nightmarish creations to
keep readers awake.
SUBSCRIBERS - £20
NON SUBSCRIBERS - £25
You can join us from the comfort
of your own home and access all
benefits of learning from our
horror expert!
Check out the full programme at
https://www.writers-online.co.uk/webinars
and get yourself signed up to give your spooky
writing the edge of your seat effect.
How To
Make
The Most
Out Of Your
Writing
Your writing can offer you a second income, extra spending
money or it can even give you a full-time career. It’s your
choice. But whatever your writing ambitions, we have a
course that will help you to achieve them.
That’s because our first-class online creative writing courses
contain all you need to know to become a successful,
published writer. You are shown how to develop your writing
style, present your manuscripts, contact editors, find markets
and HOW TO SELL YOUR WORK.
Our courses are ideal for beginners. No previous experience or
special background is required to enrol. Many others have been
successful after training with us. If they can do it – so can you!
Our courses will also help more experienced writers to explore
new avenues and genres.
Throughout your course you will be tutored by a professional
writer, who will offer constructive feedback on your marked
assignments. In addition, you can count on the support of our
dedicated Student Services team who will do all they can to
ensure that you get the most out of your studies.
When you enrol, your full course is available online so you can
get started straight away. No waiting.
So, if you would like to learn how to earn from writing, send
for a free prospectus. Visit our website or call our freephone
number TODAY!
FREE CALL
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
0800 389 7360
Quote:
EE124
COURSE FEATURES
Courses From Professional Writers
Constructive Help From Expert Tutors
Tutor-Marked Assignments
Experience Student Advisors For Support
Flexible Study Programme
Online Access To Your Course
Online Writers' Community to Meet Other Writers
How To Present Your Work Like a Pro
How To Contact Editors & Publishers
How To Sell Your Writing
Optional Zoom Lessons & Study Sessions Included
15-Day Trial Period
Course fees range from £289 - £489 with Easy Pay Terrms available.
Writers
Bureau
35
Years of
Success
www.facebook.com/thewritersbureau
Members of NAWE
www.writersbureau.com
Please quote ad ref: EE124
"I signed up for the Comprehensive Creative Writing
course in December 2020 as a Christmas present to
myself and I started the first module in January 2021.
I have had eight pieces published: three paid earning
£1080 and a star letter where I won a £250 hotel
voucher."
Annmarie Munro
“I have been very fortunate in having my debut
novel THE SECRET OF ELEPHANTS published on
1st September 2022 by Lake Union Publishers. I was
offered a five-figure advance for each of the two
books. I am currently completing my second book
which will hopefully be published in December
2023.”
Vasundra Tailor
WB's Mini-Mentoring
Receive feedback on a short piece of your writing - up to 2000 words of
prose or up to 60 lines of poetry. Here's how it works:
• You send us your work by email and we send it to a WB tutor.
• The tutor sends you their feedback.
• You reflect on their comments and make amendments to your work
as you see fit. You then send it back to the tutor.
• The tutor goes through your work again and returns it to you.
• You then arrange a half-hour one-to-one Zoom session
together to discuss your work and for you to ask any questions.
This service is £75
https://bit.ly/wbmmen