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skills for prose fiction and imaginative writing

skills for prose fiction and imaginative writing

skills for prose fiction and imaginative writing

Writer’s Market UK

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where and how to sell what you write

The best-selling guide to marketing your writing so far is The Writers’ and Artists’ Yearbook, with The Writer’s Handbook a close second. But there’s always room for competition in an open market – and Writer’s Market UK is competition writ large. It’s a huge, 1,000 page compendium of advice, resources, and detailed information on how writers can locate markets and get their work into print. The format for these books is now fairly standardised.

Writer's Market UK They have feature articles written by well-known authors giving advice on breaking into print. These are surrounded by listings of publishers, magazines, literary agents, and broadcast outlets. Then come specialized resources such as prizes and competitions, bursaries and fellowships, writers groups, and web sites.

The usefulness of this information relies on its being accurate, up-to-date, and annotated to explain the nuances and differences between one source and the next. In other words, the compilers need to know what they’re talking about. This book scores well on all counts, and the editor Caroline Taggart has done a good job.

For instance, the feature articles are precisely the sort of advice that aspirant writers are most likely to want and need. How to tackle the various genres of fiction writing: the short story, children’s writing, crime, and the novel. What agents and publishers are looking for – and how to approach them. Writing for radio, the Web, newspapers and magazines are all covered well,

There are essays on how books are designed, financed, and marketed, plus why you should know about contracts and legal issues. There are articles on the odd but very profitable field of ghost writing, and when you have made lots of money how to deal with agents, and how to promote your work once it’s published.

There are huge listings of bursaries, prizes, competitions, writers’ foundations, and all sorts of support to help the struggling want-to-be. And testing it out for being up to date, I found all sorts of on line resources for would-be writers: magazines, forums, self-help groups, web sites full of resources, writing software, plus competitions and prizes.

Given the differences in page and font sizes, it’s difficult to do a direct quantitative comparison with its two main rivals, but having looked through all three recently, I’d say that this gives the other two a very good run for their money.

© Roy Johnson 2003

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Caroline Taggart (ed), Writer’s Market UK, London: David & Charles, issued annually, pp.976, ISBN: 0715332856

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Writers’ and Artists’ Yearbook

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best-selling guide to publishers, agents, and outlets

If you’ve just finished producing your masterpiece, this writer’s yearbook will help you to bring it to the marketplace. It’s a well-established reference guide for writers, journalists, photographers, and other people in the creative arts. The heart of the book is its amazingly comprehensive listings. It offers full contact details of publishers, agents, and institutions who deal with writers and creative arts people. The lists cover the UK and US, as well as other English-speaking countries.

Writers & Artists YearbookIn recent years, short essays have been added to each section offering advice to would-be writers and media workers. Pay attention to these: they’re written by professionals with experience and a proven track record. The information they offer will repay the price of the book ten times over. They cover fiction and poetry; drama scripts for TV, radio, theatre, and film; graphic illustration and design; plus photography and music. The other features which make it useful are general information on publishing methods, copyright and libel, income tax and allowances, and a particularly useful list of annual competitions and their prizes.

Bonus items seem to be added with each edition – such as a list of the highest earning books of the previous year, specialist literary agents, how to prepare and submit a manuscript, and even (if the worst comes to the worst) how to claim social security benefits. The latest edition also includes sections on e-publishing, ghostwriting, distribution, adaptation, and digital imaging.

Additions to the latest edition include: Self-publishing; How to publicise your book; How to get an agent’s attention: Getting cartoons published; Blogging; Crime writing; and Can you recommend an agent?

Like many other reference books, it represents very good value for money in terms of bulk information – but more importantly it’s information which is reliable, up-to-date, and difficult to locate elsewhere.

If you have any serious intention of entering the commercial market as a writer or someone working in one of the other creative arts – then this is a book which you will need sooner or later. It’s no wonder that it sits near the top of the Amazon ratings all the year round.

© Roy Johnson 2012

Writers' and Artists' Yearbook   Buy the book at Amazon UK

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Writers’ & Artists’ Yearbook, London: A & C Black (issued annually) pp.816, ISBN: 1408192195

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Writers’ Questions and Answers

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practical self-help manual and resources guide for writers

Writers who wish to publish their work are often baffled by some of the mysteries of the publishing process itself. How can you get the attention of a publisher? Do you need an agent? How much can you expect to get paid? Should you submit an outline – or the complete work? Gordon Wells’ book Writers’ Questions and Answers provides responses to these queries, and raises lots more questions lots more which are frequently asked by people trying to get a foothold in the world of published writing.

Writers' Questions and AnswersThe press always seems to have stories of first-time authors who have been paid a five or six-figure advance for their first novel. But those who have tried to do the same thing know that it’s a far more common experience to be dealing with rejection slips. How do you break into this seemingly charmed world?

Well, these guidance notes certainly tell you how to learn from rejection – and what to do about it. The advice is all practical, realistic, and based on the clear-eyed realisation that if you wish to succeed in this extremely competitive world – you need to know how it works.

Wells tackles all the most frequently asked questions – Who is the best person to approach with your masterpiece? Does vanity publishing work? What makes a best-seller? What if somebody poaches your ideas? Which publishers pay best?

If you want to move beyond the comforts of your local writers’ circle into the world of commercial publishing, you should read what he has to say. Keep dreams of success in mind by all means, but take the trouble to learn how professional writers actually work.

© Roy Johnson 2002

Writers' Questions and Answers   Buy the book at Amazon UK

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Gordon Wells, Writers’ Questions and Answers, London: Allison & Busby, 2001, pp.143, ISBN: 0749005319

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Writing for Television

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interviews with successful writers for television

Writing for television and writing for the cinema are no longer the same thing. New systems of network and cable scheduling have produced what are called ‘long-form television narratives’. These are programmes that run for thirteen (or more) episodes. Each programme is a single whole story – but it is split into separate self-contained units, each one of which will have its own story ‘arc’. That is, each episode is a drama in itself, with a beginning, middle, and end. As one successful screenwriter observes:

The best of television is like a novel. You have episodes like chapters, you can grow the characters, and there is scope to the stories

Writing for Television

The interviews in this fascinating collection are with professional American television writers, but the practices they describe spill into British and even pan-European enterprises – all driven by very similar commercial imperatives. The majority of programmes (‘shows’ in US parlance) produced in these new formats are written by teams working in what’s called a ‘writers’ room’ – a group of scriptwriters working under the direction of a ‘showrunner’ – someone who decides on the look and feel of the finished programme.

The writers discuss all the major recent successful programmes – Sex and the City, Sopranos, The Wire, Breaking Bad, Mad Men, and Boardwalk Empire, and if some of the shows are not so well known you can watch them on YouTube, as I did Tina Fey’s hit 30Rock.

The strength of these new TV formats is that they are exploring new methods of delivery for fiction via visual presentation. They also provide scope for the development of character in considerable depth, in the same way as is common in good novels. The weakness is that some of these ‘shows’ are not much more than soap operas or vehicles for quick-fire quips (see Two Broke Girls).

One other feature worth observing is that many of these programs present the lives of young people who are preoccupied with ‘dating’, flat-sharing, friendships, and lifestyle choices that are the concerns of normal people in their early twenties. But they are acted on screen by people in their 40s and 50s. This presents a credibility challenge to any critical viewer – and strangely enough the phenomenon is so widespread it is almost undetectable, having become the norm.

This studio and writers’ room format has some bizarre and counter-intuitive ‘unwritten rules’. One is that ‘wives don’t cheat’, another is ‘no crime in the ghetto’. In other words, any leading married female character must not be depicted committing adultery – though it is perfectly acceptable for her husband to do so. And even though statistics show that the majority of crimes committed by ethnic minorities (for which, read African-Americans) are against people from the same ethnic group, the studios think that ratings will be lost if such scenes are written into episodes.

The interviews reveal differences in practice between studios in New York and in Los Angeles. Almost all the original writing goes on in California – but an increasing number of shows are actually filmed in New York, because the state offers tax breaks for works shot within its boundaries.

The writers have several things in common – the most notable being that none of them want to work in the cinema. A writer can invest time and creative effort in generating a script, but feature-length films are so colossally expensive to produce, many of them end up not being made at all. One of the interviewees bemoans the fact that a feature film script she has written and had accepted was still being sent back for re-writing after four years. These television writers prefer the faster-paced world and more immediate results of Network and cable television.

The rewards can be enormous – with salaries rising to (Writers Guild minimum) $3,500 per week. But be prepared to work long hours. These people are working under immense pressure to write, edit, produce, and film for thirteen episodes per season, working with co-writers, showrunners, actors, and technicians. Eighty hour weeks are considered normal. And if this all seems very USA-centric, take heart. These well-paid writers have enormous respect for English productions such as The Office, Downton Abbey, and Broadchurch.

And if all this seems way beyond the reach of some aspiring script-writer trapped in a suburban box room without even the fare to travel to Los Angeles, there is a very encouraging chapter on writing for Web TV. Susan Miller outlines the whole process of creating short films using hand-held video cameras and editing the results into a series that runs on the Internet. Have a look at Anyone But Me and The L Word to see examples.

© Roy Johnson 2016

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Christina Kallas, Inside the Writers’ Room: Conversations with American TV Writers, Basingstoke: Palgrave-Macmillan, 2014, pp.184, ISBN: 1137338105

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Writing for the Screen

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guidance manual for authors in cinema and television

Writing for the Screen is a guidance manual that combines practical and theoretical advice for would-be writers aiming for success in the cinema or television – though such aspirants would do well to add Youtube and laptop productions to their list of potential delivery platforms.

Although both writing for the screen and writing for print publications largely involve sitting in front of a keyboard generating text, there are huge differences between the two activities. A print writer (journalist or novelist) works alone, has virtually no costs other than time, and generally expects to be the sole proprietor of the finished product. A screenwriter on the other hand is forced to work as part of a team, is likely to incur lavish costs, and will more than likely be replaced as ‘author’ by the director when the credits roll on opening night.

Writing for the Screen

That is probably the single most important lesson that runs through all the chapters of this very successful book. The aspiring screenwriter must be prepared to recognise that soap operas, docudramas, comedy shows, feature films, and even TV shorts are productions, in which the writer is only one member of the creative whole.

The successful screenwriter is somebody who realises that a screenplay is only the rough blueprint for a work that other people will eventually create. The producer, the director, and maybe even the script editor all have higher status and can change the writer’s work to suit the ultimate purpose of the project.

The writer should also bear in mind that having chosen a large or small screen as the medium by which a story is to be transmitted – the visual element takes precedence over all else. It does not matter how subtle or witty the dialogue or commentary is, it will be the pictures which have greatest impact on the viewer. (That’s why directors get higher rating.)

This guide goes through the whole creative process step by step. It begins with writing a pitch, an outline, and a treatment. These are condensed accounts of what you have in mind, but each one has a different purpose. They include a selling document, a summary of the plot, and a step outline giving the bare bones of each scene.

All of these documents (including the script itself) need to be presented according to the conventions of the medium in professional format. Fortunately for beginners, software is now available at Celtx (free), and Final Draft (paid) which will arrange the formatting. You simply add the words.

There’s a very enthusiastic defence of genre which the authors argue is a strengthening factor to any screen production – because it offers structure, plot, tone, character, and even objects that are recognisable to viewers. Whilst this might seem to produce cinematic clichés, there is also an exploration of alternative forms of narrative – such as reverse chronology (Memento and Groundhog Day) multiple protagonists, and parallel narratives (Stephen Daldry’s magnificent film The Hours).

The underlying argument of the guide is that the finished product must offer visual pleasure – which is not to be confused with special effects and CGI manipulations – although there is a spirited analysis of the Jason Bourne trilogy. The authors argue that its car chases and explosions are more than cheap sensationalism a la James Bond, because they are closely tied to the psychological complexity and terror
endured by the protagonist as he is being threatened by the CIA.

The main emphasis of the advice offered in this manual is on the over-riding importance of structure:

The main writing currency in fiction is prose style, whereas the main currency in screenplays is structure. This means teaching is approached differently: for fiction, free-standing writing exercises are offered, focusing on language, metaphor, voice and description; screenwriting deals with acts, step outlines, cards and character arcs

There are practical exercises for generating these skills, and solid advice from the world of professional cinema and television explaining the separate roles in production teams, the opportunities open for beginners, and the differences between commercial practices in American and British film making .

© Roy Johnson 2016

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Craig Batty and Zara Waldeback, Writing for the Screen, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008, pp.201, ISBN: 0230550754

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Writing in Action

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Tutorial for creative writing

This is a practical writing guide aimed at students of creative writing. It covers poetry, the short story, theatre, and ‘persuasive writing’ of the kind which appears in essays and reports. Paul Mills starts with the practicalities of sentence construction – which lead immediately into grammatical issues of subjects, verbs, objects, punctuation, and then cliches. The next section of Writing in Action is a stroll through autobiographical writing, where he analyses a number of extracts quoted at length – some from professional writers, others by people learning to master the genre. On poetry he covers form, rhyme pattern and stress, as well as free verse.

Writing in ActionA chapter on prose discusses the subtle differences between anecdote and the short story. This leads to a consideration of point of view and the big differences between first and third person narratives. He also deals with character, suspense, and atmosphere.

Writing for the theatre is divided into what he calls ‘personal’, ‘issues’, and ‘experimental’ theatre. He describes plays by Harold Pinter and Peter Brook, and discusses the issue of physical movement on stage – but this section offers very little in the way of practical advice.

The last section deals with ‘persuasive’ writing. The academic essay is given very short shrift, but he does slightly better with journalistic articles on issues of current relevance.

This is a largely descriptive guide. It outlines the issues and characteristics of different forms of writing, and makes suggestions for further exercises. I can imagine it being a useful set text for a creative writing class.

© Roy Johnson 2001

Writing in Action   Buy the book at Amazon UK

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Paul Mills, Writing in Action, London: Routledge, 1996, pp.224, ISBN: 0415119898

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Writing Short Stories

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creative theory and practical writing techniques

Can creative writing actually be taught? There is some debate about this question, but the number of university departments devoted to the subject is expanding so rapidly, many people must believe it’s possible. And why not? After all, we believe that the skills of painting, music, and architecture can be taught, don’t we. Ailsa Cox teaches creative writing, and this book is her version of an academic seminar – analysing the details of stories, then suggesting exercises which students (or readers) might complete to develop their own ability in writing short stories

writing short stories She kicks off with a good shot at defining the short story. How short is short? How long can a story be before it becomes a novella or a short novel? There are no simple answers to these questions. As soon as you think of an answer, you’ll realise there are exceptions. But she explains what most stories have in common. She sets out a series of chapters which explore various types of short story: the suspenseful narrative, the fantasy, the comic yarn, and so on. Her approach is to explain the genre, outline its rules so far as they might exist, then look in detail at examples from masters of the short story, from Edgar Allen Poe to contemporary writers such as Stephen King and even her own work.

She deals with the plotless story – the ‘epiphany’ as deployed by James Joyce in ‘The Dead’ and Katherine Mansfield in ‘Bliss’. Actually, she skids around quite a bit from one genre to another – from the tall tale, to the horror story, and back again via the anecdote – but there are lots of examples enthusiastically presented in such a way that I imagine they will appeal to the aspirant writers at whom the book is aimed.

She’s very keen on fantasy and science fiction, so Kafka’s ‘Metamorphosis’ and Jorge Luis Borges’ ‘Tlon Uqbar, Orbis Tertius’ are given close scrutiny, alongside stories by H.G.Wells and William Gibson. Each chapter ends with a series of practical exercises. These are designed to provide ideas and prompts for the would-be writer – to start the imaginative pump working.

She makes a reasonable case for considering the higher journalism as a form of creative writing, and rightly points out that some of the best reportage can be considered as short stories if seen in a different light (or published somewhere other than in newspapers). She’s not so convincing on her claims for erotic fiction, but fortunately she redeems herself by a sensitive reading of Chekhov’s ‘The Lady with the Little Dog’.

The book ends with several useful lists of resources for writers: magazines in print and online which accept short stories; prizes for short story writers; and organisations and databases – though for the ultimate list of resources readers will still need to consult The Writers’ and Artists’ Yearbook or The Writer’s Handbook.

© Roy Johnson 2005

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Ailsa Cox, Writing Short Stories, London: Routledge, 2005, pp.197, ISBN: 0415303877

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