What Better Way To End The Working Week?

What better way to end a week of work, heavy on the editing (all awesome stuff, I should add) than with this splendid review of Freaks! from the equally splendid Sam over at the splendid Bookchase. 

I especially loved this bit:

“Freaks is a book about relationships – relationships between husbands and wives, lovers, potential lovers, friends, students, and parents and their children – all kinds of relationships.  Some of the super powers described in Freaks will surprise you because you might already have one or two of them yourself.  For certain, you know someone who has them, and you just might have had some of them used against you.

 
This one is fun, but there is more here than initially meets the eye.  My fellow freaks are sure to enjoy it.”
Thanks Sam. And here’s wishing a lovely bank holiday weekend to you all, whether you’re freaks or not. (I do hope you are…)

Short Story Tips

I’ve been spending more and more time, of late, working with people who’ve enrolled on my online short fiction course, which I’ve been enjoying an awful lot. So, as it’s been a while since I posted anything about how to write, I thought I’d pop this up again, my top tips for writing good short fiction. Loads of people seemed to find it useful the previous couple of times I’ve mentioned it here, and I hope that that’s the case again.

So here they are:

 

Short Story and Flash Fiction Tips

Here are my tips for anyone wanting to write a good short story or piece of flash fiction:

• Start where the story starts, not before. If I was telling you about a fantastic hotel room I’d stayed in I wouldn’t start by telling you about booking the tickets to get there (unless the story was about booking the tickets and ended in the room).
• Take out everything, every word, every sentence, every character that isn’t absolutely necessary.

  • Similarly, only use the right words. Sometimes people do just ’sit’. Or ‘run’.
  • Make sure your characters are believable. What they do, or the situations they find themselves in, may be unlikely and fantastical but the way they react to them has to be something that readers will believe.

• Be suspicious of anything you think is clever. The story comes first, the story’s what people should notice, not the writer.

  • Write for you, but spare a thought for the reader too.
  • Don’t overdo it. Big words are fine if they’re the right ones. Same with descriptions.

• Say what you want to say in the simplest, and most effective, way possible. In other words: get to the point.

  • Aim to be brilliant.
  • Don’t expect it to be easy. Or quick. Be prepared to work hard.
  • Don’t be afraid of rewriting. In fact, embrace it; it will make your stories better.
  • Don’t expect to get it right the first time. You have total control of what can be changed. (I often find also that if a story wants or needs to be changed, then it’ll let you know.)
  • Trust your instincts. If you suspect something’s not working then it probably isn’ t.
  • Don’t be afraid of putting a story away for a while. Sometimes stories, and your head, need space.

• Don’t be afraid of failure. Nothing’s wasted. It’s better to try something new and fail (and perhaps learn something) than to play safe all the time.
• Most importantly: BE BRAVE. You have an imagination, use it. Write the story you want to write, write what you think’s good and interesting, even if that means not sticking with the norm. Different, if done well, can be brilliant.

• And read the greats. See how they do things. See why they’re the greats.

I am Still Alive, Promise

Hello all. Sorry for being quiet here for the last couple of weeks but, to be completely honest with you, I’ve not had anything worthwhile to say. And I’ve learned from experience that when that’s the case it’s probably best to not say anything at all.

So, I’ve been being quiet. I’ve been turning thirty-one (a huge thanks to all the very lovely people who’ve wished me a happy birthday). I’ve been writing. And I’ve been reading. And that, the birthday bit aside, is really what I think writers are best at.

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This, from The Paris Review, I thought was cool though and worth sharing.

And this is a picture of my notebook. It’s closed so that means I’ve finished for the day.