Virtual reality

So, you’ve recruited your characters, you know them intimately and even have an inkling of where they’re heading – but don’t get so carried away with the drama that you forget about the setting in which it unfolds. You can’t cast John Gielgud as King Lear, usher him onto a pink plastic stage set and expect people not to snigger.

Your characters – no matter how existential they are – need a world around them (even the characters of Waiting for Godot have a tree and a crossroad). Readers expect nothing else. Think of your favourite literary heroes (or vilains) and I’ll bet their surroundings pop up with them. Marlow on his Congo steamer surrounded by the dark forest; Winston Smith amidst the antique junk of the store as he waits for Julia, or deep in the bowels of the Minstry, in Room 101. Characters need to be tied down in a place and time, given context, if they are to become believable in the eyes of a reader.

We are instinctively nosy creatures; we want to know how other people live, what secrets lie hidden in their cupboard. Fiction lets you look around characters’ homes without their knowing. What you see isn’t put on for the cameras – smiles, neatness, colour – it’s them in their natural habitat, warts and all. You can pry into every nook, peer into every cranny, poke under every floorboard, without anybody ever realising you’ve been there.

A reader’s relationship with your literary world is tentative: not enough reminders of where they are and they will drift back to their own place and time; too many and the effect will be ruined, snapping them back to reality quicker than a slap on the face. The trick is to tread lightly, stay subtle. If you’re planning to start off along the lines of ‘It was a dark and stormy night in New York’, don’t leave it there. OK, we all know what New York looks like, but our mental picture is general, imprecise, and boring because of it. We don’t know what New York looks like to your character, the details that are important to him, which he notices first.

It’s not enough to assume that readers will conjure up the world around your character based on an initial statement. If you don’t keep laying on subtle reminders, the mental image they have will soon grow fuzzy and unappealing. Start with the small details, the ones that matter most. Think about the first things you notice when you arrive at a new location: the smell of lavender, the way the ivy clings to the graffiti-strewn walls, the cold air on your cheeks, the sounds of a car engine turning over. You don’t necessarily notice the grand picture first off, and your characters probably won’t either.

So when setting the scene, start by describing the details that mean something to your characters, the small points they might notice above all else – aim to capture a character’s emotional engagement with his surroundings. That way, not only will the scene stay fresh and vibrant in the reader’s mind, it will also reveal more about your characters and the way they view the world.

Of course, there’s only so much detail a person can take in at any given point. If you’re writing in the first person, or the third-person limited, you need to restrain your creative urge when describing a fictional world: unless your character is obsessive, it’s doubtful whether they’d notice the fluff under the couch, the number of pennies in the jar or how many glittering pendants are dangling from the chintzy lampshade. Even if you’re taking a wider narrative scope, limit how much descriptive information you provide. The aim is to make the setting personal and realistic, not to imitate a scene of crime report. Take D. H. Lawrence’s advice and look for the objects that are alive, which resonate with energy, which are special, which are used.

The good, the bad and the ugly

Submitting your work is like dropping your kids off for their first day at school. You don’t know whether they are going to be bullied, rejected or become best friends with everybody and make a real impression. Be prepared for all eventualities.

OK, let’s defy Wild West tradition and start off with the ugly – and it doesn’t get much uglier than this. Rejection. It’s the word that no writer ever wants to hear, but inevitably will at some point in their career. Unless you are extremely lucky, you’ll have to learn to cope with rejection. It isn’t easy: during the abyss of time between submitting a piece of work and hearing an editior’s response you can’t help but build up your level of anticipation. And if the response comes back negative it can crush your confidence and make you want to throw everything you’ve ever written in the fire.

Don’t give in. I know it can feel like the end of the world – I used to hide myself away in my room for days on end debating various forms of revenge against the offending editor. Put it behind you and try again, with a different editor. Contrary to popular opinion, editors want to open an envelope and be delighted by what’s inside, they want to find material worth publishing – they’re not out to try and crush your self-confidence by rejecting your work.

Rejection can take many forms. More often than not, you’ll get a printed compliments slip with nothing written on it. This is the easiest response for an editor but the most frustrating response for a writer – what did they think? Was it not even worth an acknowledgement? Don’t get too wound up, editors are busy and sometimes they simply don’t have the time (or are too badly organised!) to respond.

Sometimes the printed slip comes back with some scribbled comments. These might be complimentary: ‘good but not quite right for this publication’; promising: ‘please send something else’; critical: ‘good overall but you haven’t quite pinned down the characters’; or just plain derogatory. I won’t give an example of the latter, but they do occasionally happen. If you do get a grumpy response, just try to ignore it (the editor’s probably got haemorrhoids from sitting down all day) and move on.

If an editor sees real promise in your work he may take the time to write a more detailed analysis of this decision. Don’t take this as an insult and bin the comments, or get on your high horse and write a scathing letter back justifying your work. It’s an editor’s way of encouraging you to look at certain elements of your writing in order to improve your chances of publication. Take a few days to cool down, then look at what he’s saying: it may not be relevant, but he might just be pointing out a weakness you’ve completely overlooked. Editors don’t often make good writers, but they do know what sells and what doesn’t. Paying attention to their comments will give you a great advantage next time you submit.

If your work runs the gauntlet and makes it from the slush pile, through the juniors or freelancers who’ll read it first, and past the senior editor who’ll try and sell your book and ‘you’ the writer to the big cheeses, then you’ll get a phone call – quite possibly the best phone call of your life – where an offer is made to publish your book. They might not say this directly, but they will most probably want to meet you to talk about possible changes and to get a feel for how promotable you are as a writer. Once the legal and financial blurb is out of the way, you’ll probably have to wait up to eighteen months before you can visit Borders and start drooling over your book on the shelf. It may seem a long wait, but this gives the marketing department time to work their magic and allows the book to be released at the most opportune moment.

Buy one, get everything else free

Having a clear idea of where your work is heading is all well and good, but remember: readers don’t like a giveaway, so keep them guessing by plotting cleverly. Getting the reader to turn page after page is the most important concern for a writer, and the best way to arrest their attention is by raising questions and delaying the answers. If you pose an intriguing enough question at the beginning of a piece of writing a reader will charge through a thousand pages or more to find out what happens – just look at The Lord of the Rings.

Plot, especially in a novel, is like a treasure map. As a writer, you’re guaranteeing to a reader that the instructions you give them will lead them through the dark forest to the golden doubloons at the end – it’s a guarantee that you’re sending them in the right direction, and that whatever lies at the end is worth the trip. If the map you provide doesn’t meet these two requirements, the readers will lose their way, and you’ll lose their trust.

But it’s a little more complicated than this. Readers aren’t just looking for a final payoff – they don’t want freebies. If people were after a quick resolution, all stories would be two pages long; a beginning, then straight away a conclusion. Or readers would skip to the last page of a novel as soon as they’d finished the first. The map you provide has to be one that takes the reader on a number of adventures, that builds up their suspense and relives it bit by bit on the journey to the end. Readers like to be teased. They want to get to the end of a novel (how many times have you cursed yourself for not being able to read fast enough to find out what happens at the end of a book?) but they also want to feel they’ve got something from the whole experience, not just the resolution.

In order to create tension in a plot, to keep readers turning those pages, you need to ask questions and hold back the answers. In most texts, the initiating event poses the big question: readers want to know how a character is going to react, and what the outcome will be. If the uncertainty you create at the beginning of the book is exciting enough, they’ll keep reading until they get to the end, until the question is resolved.

For some, though, the thought of slogging through an entire novel for a final resolution is daunting, so keep up the tension by posing smaller questions in each chapter. Remember, each problem or obstacle you pose for a character is a question raised – every challenge you set a character creates an uncertainty in the reader: will they make it out of this one? Keep your readers hooked by holding back the answer, and posing another question as soon as the previous one is resolved. You can do this at the start of the chapter, or you can end chapters with a cliffhanger, but either way the reader is propelled forwards by their need to find out what happens next. Many thriller writers have got this down to a fine art.

Whether you’re creating a plot from an outline, or leaving it to the actions of your characters, you should be aiming to show how life is a great deal more complicated than a simple story. And in order to do this, you don’t just want to be showing events themselves, you need to focus on how they shape your characters. Plot is a journey, sometimes physically but always emotionally and psychologically. Central characters need to change in the course of a plot: when they arrive at point B they can be anywhere – happier, sadder, richer, poorer, deader – as long as they are not still at point A. Somewhere between each uncertainty and each resolution, your characters change, they evolve. Without this change, for better or for worse, readers will find it hard to empathise with your characters.

Poetry

With poetry, finding your voice and getting it down on paper can seem an impossible task. You may be working with the medium in order to express yourself, to explore hidden facets of your personality. All well and good. But if you can’t learn to shape this torrential subject matter it’ll probably end up as nonsense, not verse. I bet you want to leap right in and write something that outshines The Waste Land, but take your time, breathe deeply and learn to play a little before you start to get serious.

Chances are that when you start writing poetry you stick to your own rhythm. Expressing yourself can be hard enough without having to do so to the beat of somebody else’s drum. There’s nothing wrong with this: if you know the rhythm of your voice, then you can write powerful poetry with a structure all of your own. But there’s a fine line between a poem and a ramble, and if you don’t pay attention to your poem’s structure, it’s in danger of becoming like one of my mum’s cakes: so loose it falls apart. It may appear easier to express yourself without the limitations of a traditional structure, but this attitude can be deceiving. Left to ponder shape, how can you pin down exactly what it is you’re feeling, precisely which elements of your turbulent inner voice to capture on paper? Writing to a traditional form may seem restrictive, but it can actually free your mind by creating a structure for you. When you don’t have to worry about structure, you can devote more of your creative energy to playing with content.

Too many people try to write a beautifully crafted epic poem on their first go. It’s like waking up one morning and deciding you’re going to win Olympic gold in judo, although the only tussle you’ve ever had is trying to wrestle open your Pop Tarts. As a poet, you need to become more aware of the fascinating and surprising powers of language to awaken long-lost ideas and memories, and the best way to do this is to start small.

Look at the fragments of ideas and phrases in your notebook and play with them. Don’t try and craft a masterpiece just yet, simply start scribbling, write without thinking and see where it leads. Automatic writing, as it’s often called, doesn’t have to make sense – in fact, the more arbitrary your subject the better the results. The idea is to open up your unconscious mind, which is such an important part of writing poetry, and to practise using this vast resource of feeling and emotion. By starting small, by tuning your mental antennae for unexpected resonances, moods and memories, poems will begin to shape themselves in no time.

If you’re having trouble finding inspiration for your poems, or can’t seem to knock them into shape, the answer may lie in imitation. Think of it as a kind of flattery. Philip Larkin, for example, claimed that when he started out he always had a copy of Yeats on his kitchen table next to his open notebook. Try imitating a poet you’ve always admired. Don’t blatantly transplant lines from famous poems into your work, but do take a close look at a poem that really moves you and try working out why.

Next, try writing one of your own that has a similar structure, rhythm or theme. Using models is an excellent way to practise probing into the depths of your creativity and to gain a comprehensive feel for language and form. Just remember that imitation alone won’t make you a great poet. Think of it as riding on the shoulders of a mentor: they can only carry you so far, then you have to make your own way. If you carry on using other poems as models, you’ll never be able to get your own unique voice on the page.

Feeling the rhythm

Life is full of natural rhythms – just try walking to an irregular beat and you’ll be falling over yourself in no time. You don’t have to write sonnets to get rhythm into your poetry, just keep your ears open to nature’s pulse.

If you’re like the vast majority of poets out there, you probably started writing without thinking too hard about metre. You may have vague recollections of ‘iambic pentameter’ from school but you may not quite recall what counting syllables has to do with self-expression. You certainly don’t need to write trochees or spondees in order to craft good poetry, but finding your own rhythm is a vital step to making your work your own, and stopping it resembling your dad on the dance floor.

Knowing how to use rhythm in poetry doesn’t require a degree. In fact, all you have to do is look at everyday speech. Take the heading above, for instance: ‘a section that describes pentameter’. It’s made up of ten alternating strong and weak syllables. This is actually an iambic pentameter: one of the most commonly used metrical systems in poetry, adopted by such luminaries as Milton and Wordsworth. You don’t have to speak like Shakespeare in order to write in iambic pentameter – your language can be modern and natural and still be set to that pace – but the rhythm helps order the words, working to make them more fluent, and give them more impact, than those without structure. Some academics make metre sound like a science, but nobody actually reads poetry in this fractured, halting way. In fact, it’s best, for now, to forget about metre (as something a poet imposes on their words) and start thinking about rhythm – the musical movement and flow of speech.

If the word rhythm makes you think of steel drums and samba, great! It’s all about movement, music, freedom; what Robert Frost calls the ‘abstract vitality of our speech’. Try to listen to the way people talk without actually hearing what they’re saying. Don’t focus on the words, tune in to the stresses, the intonation (the rise and fall of pitch) and the voice quality.

Make that your task for this week: go out and listen to the music and rhythm of language. Listen to people on the bus, in the pub, on television, listen to yourself. But hear the noise, not the words – tune the meaning out (a great technique to learn for next time you have an argument with a loved one). We’re lucky in that English is a language in which strong and weak stresses alternate in a fairly evenly distributed way. Next time you’re writing, try and convey these patterns onto the page as honestly as possible: you’ll probably find a rhythm emerging. The most important thing is to always go with your instincts: if your heart breaks rhythm you see a doctor, if your footsteps fall out of sync you fall over, if a line doesn’t feel like it’s got a natural rhythm, you change it.

In short, it doesn’t matter if you go traditional and strike up an iambic pose, or break out and listen to the natural rhythms of everyday speech – you have to have an underlying beat of some sort. Even free verse, with no discernible metre, has rhythm. Writing poetry without rhythm, says Frost, is like ‘playing tennis with the net down’. Experiment with different kinds of metre, but don’t just rebel against it because you feel it might be restrictive: remember, one of the primary principles of poetry is organisation. Keep playing until you find your own balance between the underlying order of metre and the natural rhythm of spoken language. Once you’ve found this rhythm, your lines will always have energy and life.

How to harness personal experiences

I’ll bet when Proust was dipping his pastries in his tea that morning the last thing he expected was his whole life to flash before his eyes. Yet this goes to show just how many memories there are in each of us, a vast tidal wave of experience that could break at any time and flood back into our present consciousness. These memories – these stories – are what give us the power to write realistically and evocatively. The key is learning how to harness them.

How are you supposed to recapture events or conversations that now exist only in the murky depths of your mind? I don’t know about you, but my memory is hopeless. I find it hard to remember what I was doing last week, let alone last year (and unfortunately this has nothing to do with alcohol). But my memory, or more precisely my history, is the foundation of who I am. When Wordsworth said that the child was the father of the man, he was emphasising that the sum of your past experience, including your childhood, is what makes you uniquely you.

I compensate for my fuzzy mind by keeping diaries. They’re nothing special. Most entries are random observations from events or meetings rather than detailed accounts of treasured moments. These scraps of text only mention the odd scent, like Charlie Red on a date, or a tune, like ‘Abide With Me’ from a funeral. But I don’t need any more than that to remember the event. The senses are the key to unlocking your memories. How many times has a taste or smell dragged you back to a precise moment in your past, often so unexpectedly that you have to gasp for breath? Powerful fiction is based on thoughtful use of all of the senses and the emotional memories they evoke.

Powerful flashbacks or ‘memory transplants’ are an essential part of writing, and can be miracle cures for a text that is lacking in emotional or descriptive depth. Of course a piece of writing that only features your memories is autobiography, and won’t always interest a reader, but they will enable you to paint a much more vivid picture of your characters and their setting.

Your memories enable to you to construct an image that is unique to you, that resonates with your own history, even if ostensibly the plot you’re working on seems a million miles away. This attention to detail, this engagement with elements from your past, can be transplanted from your mind to that of your characters, creating a much stronger illusion of real people. Incorporating the memorable sights, smells, tastes, sounds and touches that mean so much to you will create a tangible atmosphere in your work, one that might feel like a real memory to everybody that reads it, as well as to you. Building memories into writing is a key to writing powerfully, it is why something that isn’t real can have the strength of something that is.

It’s always fascinating to look at what the mind remembers when asked to do so spontaneously. What about your five senses: which seems most important? Visual, most likely, but what other sensory reminders come into play? And how do you express your emotional experience of an event? Look for the strings of associations in your mind that help memories flood back to the present. When they do, make notes, capture the salient details, and allow your mind to follow along the path the memories lead: where were you, what were you doing, how were you feeling? Expand and write a little about yourself and the people you knew back then. What’s changed? These ‘oh yeah, I’d forgotten about that!’ moments are the details that can be inserted into your work to make it that much more convincing.

Succeeding with first-person narrative

If you’re looking for an intense and surprising narrative viewpoint, try the first person. Anybody or anything you like can be telling the story – the trick is to avoid ‘I’ becoming ‘you’. The first-person viewpoint is all about the ‘I’, the character’s sight, their frame of mind, their limited understanding of themselves and the world around them. Think of the difference in effect between ‘he thrusts in the knife, feeling her skin rip’ and ‘I thrust in the knife, feeling her skin rip’. The ‘I’ narrator speaks from a privileged position: he or she (or even it) inhabits the world of your text, and is part and parcel of what goes on within. Events therefore have more power to spill off the page and into the reader’s consciousness.

But there are some restrictions to this point of view. How do you describe your character without risking cliché by having her look in a mirror? Also, everything in the text has to be something known by the narrator, and told through her unique narrative style. She can’t see what’s coming, she can’t see what’s happening in another room, she can’t tell what other people are thinking, and she doesn’t know the truth about everything that has happened (four excellent reasons why this viewpoint is often used in detective fiction).

Moreover, first-person narrators aren’t always reliable: how often have you embellished a story to boost somebody’s opinion of you? First-person narrators telling somebody else’s story (think Heart of Darkness) are at even more of a disadvantage. Work out before you start writing exactly what your narrator knows, and how much of what she says should be considered the truth.

We all tell stories from a first-person viewpoint – how many times do you use the word ‘I’ in a sentence? Because of this, it’s easy to see the first person as the most immediate and accessible form in which to write. This way, all of your experiences and knowledge can be drawn upon demand, and little is lost in the translation to a third person. The first-person narrator also inspires a kind of intimacy that is absent from the more detached third-person alternative. The narrator is speaking from the heart, confessing to you, sharing an experience.

But this complicity between the author and the narrator can often be the downfall of both. Because the ‘I’ is so familiar, the character using it can quickly lose her own identity and become merged with yours. Instead of forming rounded, autonomous characters, you risk simply creating extensions of yourself, each with the same form of speech, the same opinions, the same personality. If your characters are missing the spark that makes them appear unique – if a reader can tell that you’re blatantly speaking through them – then nobody is going to be interested in their progress for more than a few pages.

Keeping your characters alive and independent in the first person can be extremely difficult. The trick to succeeding is to ensure that you know each player intimately – their pasts, their dreams, their fears, their pet hates, their political opinions, everything about them – so that they don’t risk becoming literary versions of yourself. They are as much a separate construct as a third-person character. The weaker the character appears in your own head, the less chance he has of staying afloat in the seething mass of ideas and images that is your text.

How to write dialogue

Publishers loathe characters what don't speak proper (and so do readers). Believable dialogue is the first step to a believable world, and is a great way to get to know who your characters really are. Getting this right may make the difference that helps you to get published.
Dialogue can seem deceptively easy. After all, it's just a selection of people speaking to one another, right? If you look at some of Hemingway's early short fiction you can see how effective a dialogue-based story can be. There is very little actual action, just a great deal of talking. Cormac McCarthy also uses dialogue brilliantly. But try to write a similar piece and you may run into difficulties making the speech realistic and relevant.

The secret of writing effective dialogue in your fiction is not to emulate real speech, but to give the impression of real speech. Think about the last conversation you had. It may have seemed short but imagine having to transcribe it onto the page. Chances are it would seem ridiculously long-winded, tautological and quite boring to a reader, especially one who doesn't know you. Ironically this 'real speech' would appear artificial in a work of fiction because the conventions for writing dialogue are different to those that govern everyday conversation. It may seem odd at first, but keep your dialogue short and to the point, and don't hold back when you're editing. The more you prune (even if it seems unusually to the point) the smoother the ride.

Real speech is forever punctuated by hesitations, interruptions, circumlocutions, evasions and the odd sneezing fit. These attributes can come in handy for plot and characterisation ('Well,' he hesitated, looking away and sneezing uncontrollably, 'I didn't steal them') but don't include them in every piece of dialogue. Readers look for the meaning in every interaction, every spoken word, so only include interruptions when they mean something. Although nobody speaks perfectly all the time dialogue full of wheezes, pauses and fumblings won't win any admirers..

How many times have you said something and meant something else, or mumbled a few words that you hoped would mean so much more? Very often, real speech only hints at the powerful undercurrents of meaning that lie beneath, and when writing it's vital to get these subtexts right if you want to convey psychological depth and realism. A married woman screaming 'I'm sick of this house. I want to move on,' could obliquely be asking for a divorce, not just complaining about the décor.

Has anyone ever said to you 'It's not what you said, it's the way you said it'? While it's easy to change the tone or style of your speech in real life it's impossible to do so on paper without a few clues. If a woman says to a man 'I love you', it can be difficult to ascertain exactly how she feels. You can often clarify the dialogue by adding an action: '"I love you," she said, tenderly squeezing his hand.' Or you can completely change the meaning: '"I love you," she hissed, glancing warily at the knife.' Physical actions like these can help ground the speech in the scene, making it appear more realistic, and can also be used to help develop your characters.

Speech doesn't always have to be out loud. While direct speech (i.e. spoken audibly from one character to another) is highly effective, indirect (or reported) speech can also work: 'She told Jamie she loved him, and that she always would.' Alternatively, interior monologues can be used to convey unspoken speech: '"I love you," she thought, "I only wish I could tell you."' Interior speech can be extremely useful, providing a glimpse into the character's true state of mind, but use it with caution. Too much and readers may think you're being lazy.

Try this tip to improve your dialogue. Record two or more people in conversation, in any situation, and then transcribe it. Next, rewrite the dialogue as though for your own story, editing it and adding action and attributive verbs. Look at what changes you make, and how much you need to prune, before it looks ‘realistic’ on the page.

How to write a plot

Fiction without a plot is like a race-tuned Ferrari with no wheels. Ignore it and your characters aren't going anywhere: and neither are your readers.
One of the difficulties is trying to work out exactly what 'plot' is. It's more than just the story you're working with. E. M. Forster puts it better than we ever could: ‘ “The king died and then the queen died" is a story. "The king died and then the queen died of grief" is a plot. The time sequence is preserved, but the sense of causality overshadows it.’ You don't just want a list of events and happenings, you need to include the links between them, the causal chain of events, decisions, responses and repercussions. A good plot is like a chain: only as strong as its weakest link. Without the connections and interactions, it's just a hunk of junk.

You can't really appreciate the unique qualities of a specific plot until you become aware of how alike novels are in terms of the basic stories and structures they use. It may not seem like it at first glance but almost all novels use the classical narrative structure employing a beginning, a middle and an end. In Forster's terms again: 'The queen died, no-one knew why, until it was discovered it was through grief at the death of the king.' Beginning (death), middle (investigation), and end (revelation). Unlike the story, which simply ends without taking the time to answer all the niggling questions, the plot gives an explanation, completes the links, makes it whole and, more importantly, unique. The story you're thinking of using may very well have been used before, but a good plot is the key to making it your own.

Many writers hate plotting out their work but it’s part of the discipline needed to be a good writer. It's always best to plot out events, even if it's just an outline; in other words, decide how you are going to tell your story step by step. It doesn't matter if you sketch this out roughly in your head, or fill a shelf of notepads with every single detail: without this map you stand a very good chance of getting lost.

We’re not suggesting you create a straitjacket for your characters. As ever your characters have to be the driving force behind your fiction, and no matter how well you delineate your plot they must be allowed freedom to act, grow and develop naturally. When plotting focus on your characters' feelings, emotions, reactions and thoughts as much as on outside events. Don't just write 'character x raced to character y's rescue'. Fill in the blanks, add notes about how the characters feel, what their fears and reservations are, whether they think they have the strength to rescue character y. This way your plot line will develop more naturally, and you won't be tempted to steamroll past all of the important character depths when actually writing.

If you do decide to go for a generic plot, then think of ways to twist and subvert it. Readers will be expecting things to happen in a certain way, and by creating characters that do things differently, or by playing with a reader's expectations, you can create riveting surprises. By paying close attention to your characters and their inner drives you can allow a plot to evolve that feels much more organic than one simply driven by events. Don't worry about learning your story by heart, just get to know your characters. Know their motives, know their passions, and a plot will form.

Try this great tip. When plotting, draw diagrams on your walls, pin up photographs, make charts, draw maps. These visual aids can help you keep track of an entire plot, no matter how complex, showing you how characters and their relationships are developing. Use these charts to show what emotional state your characters are in, what they’ve achieved, how they look on life. This way you can keep a track on how believable your characters are becoming.

Creating characters

Can you visualise your characters? Of course you can. So what do they carry in their pockets? How do they dance to their favourite song when nobody else is looking? What's their most treasured item of clothing? What kind of expression do they pull when faced with something that terrifies them?
Not so sure now? Whether you are writing poetry, prose or drama you must be able to visualise your characters clearly (not like that fuzzy memory of Aunt Mildred that hovers in the dusty corner of your mind). You need a portrait of a lady ... or a gentleman, or a child, or a retired traffic warden, or any character that will appear in your writing. These portraits are what make literature sink or swim. If readers can't see a realistic person within a character they won't engage with her. And for those of you who want to get stuck into stream of consciousness or fantastical narratives remember that you need to learn how to create realistic characters before you can bend the rules. Even Picasso was a master of the life drawing before he embarked on cubism.

Creating characters with a realistic depth of feeling and a believable, three-dimensional existence on the page is extremely difficult. It's like playing God. We conjure these 'people' from nothing and give them life, tell them what to wear, how to act. But like any good deity we also have to give them free will, otherwise they can appear staged, or lifeless. But there are tricks to making this complicated process much easier.

When you start to create a character keep the phrase 'you are what you own' to the forefront of your mind. Of course we are all more than the sum of our possessions, but the items that people wear or carry with them can reveal a great deal about who they are, and can be used to subtly convey information about them in your writing. Think about somebody dear to you; picture him or her in your mind. What does he carry in his pockets (or her handbag) at all times? An inhaler, a lucky rubber band, a photograph of a child, a pocket watch, a knife, the ear of an enemy killed in battle (unlikely, but you may have some odd friends)?

When we remember people we don't always recall snippets of information like this, but these tiny details are vital for creating a character that leaps off the page into the reader's consciousness. A character's possessions and clothes are an extension of their personality; by paying close attention to which of these details you reveal you can control how readers see and engage with your characters.

A person's items can reveal an element of their personality that is not directly evident: maybe an old lady is carrying the knife. They might give insights into a character's hidden emotional depths, for example, a young man who gives no clues as to how he is feeling could panic at the thought of losing a pocket watch given to him by his father. Or they can create a sense of mystery or surprise that adds to a character's depth. Take the photograph of the child: is she still alive; was she kidnapped/killed/abducted by aliens? Even when the details aren't directly relevant to the plot, being able to fine-tune the image of your characters on the page will allow them to emerge as individuals, not merely clusters of words.

If you're having trouble visualising a new character try this great trick. Write a list of twenty objects she might carry or wear. Don't think too deeply about this, just write down whatever comes to mind. Next, write a series of short sketches describing exactly how your character came by these items. Try to describe what the item means to her, and how she would feel if she lost it. You may never use these character sketches, but we guarantee they will give you (and your reader) a clearer sense of who your character is.

Is there any point in writers' groups?

Most publishers are aware of the fact that writing can be a lonely activity and the best of them try to provide some friendly advice. But let's be honest, most of the time writers sit alone, drinking coffee and watching the rest of the world interacting or frowning at the blank page muttering to themselves. Or maybe that's just our authors.
Working in isolation means that it's often hard to see your work objectively. There's only one real cure, and it can seem absolutely terrifying: joining a writers' group.

The thought of showing your work to a group of people, especially fellow writers, can be terrifying but every person there is in the same boat as you, and equally nervous about the process. The relief of getting to know like-minded writers with the same fears and neuroses as you have can be euphoric.

Why workshops? We can't see our writing the way another person would read it, and, as tough as it sounds, we need feedback from other people to make sure it works. Joining a workshop is difficult because it's an admission that perhaps our writing needs improvement. But workshops can make us view our work in a new light, provide us with original ideas and find more powerful ways of saying what we want to say. If you find the right workshop each session will make you more aware of your potential, more confident in your work; it will give you a better understanding of the process of writing, and of the techniques other people use for success; and it will leave you feeling exhilarated and impatient to write more. Plus, it will inspire you to write: you can't bring your material to a meeting until you've written it. There's every chance that actively engaging in a workshop will help you to get published.

Which workshops? Take your time to find the right environment, and don't be afraid to try more than one group. There are many groups and courses available for writers: ranging from groups that meet informally to postgraduate courses offering an intensive series of exercises and feedback sessions. If you're thinking of joining a group take some time to work out what you're looking for. Most groups look at several pieces of work a week, usually by different writers, whoever's got something new, the aim being to help a piece of work evolve and grow. Other workshops set exercises to help improve a writer's grip of technique and expression. A good workshop will always feel co-operative not competitive: you are all there to find out how to write successfully, and if you don't work at it as a group you'll all falter.

For academic courses, visit the websites of colleges and universities. Adult education colleges also often offer workshops. Contact your regional arts association for a list of writers' groups in your area open to newcomers or ask local people if they know of any good groups. If all of the above fails, start your own group with any writers you know.

Writers' groups demand that you learn to accept constructive criticism: there's no point attending if you don't want to hear other people's opinions. Listen carefully to what people are saying, don't try to argue or contradict, just write it down. Criticism in workshops should always acknowledge the integrity and value of the writing it's aimed at. It shouldn't pick at the flaws, it should point out how the good parts of a piece of writing are weakened by less desirable elements. Criticism should also always be specific; if it's too general, the critic risks giving the impression that it's a writer or his ability to write that is being rejected. Learn to let your work go, to acknowledge the divide between you and your writing, if you want to make the most out of criticism. Be aware that people will interpret your work differently from how you intended, and that this might not necessarily be their fault, or even a bad thing.

Getting ideas

So, you've cleared your desk, opened your notebook and are ready to write. But suddenly your mind is devoid of inspiration and you begin to panic. What on earth are you going to write about? While there is more to being a writer than just a good idea, without an inspirational seed for your novel, screenplay or poem you are like a knight in armour with no monster to slay and no sweetheart to rescue. One of the biggest problems even experienced writers face is confronting a blank page with a blank mind. But ideas are everywhere, you just need to learn how to spot them.
For many of us, ideas are a lot like buses. You wait ages for one to come along and when it finally does it breaks down. Then, when you're walking seven miles home in the rain three more flash past you even though they're empty and drench you from the gutter. (Buses haven't been good to me.) Of course you may be one of the lucky ones, and already be nurturing the seed of an idea. But for the majority of writers, it's a difficult truth that it takes more than motivation alone to produce a masterpiece.

If you have been inspired, don't ignore it. A great many writers turn away the ideas that flit around in the back of their head because the idea may not fit in with the image they want to present, or because they would like to write something more 'literary'. If you do this you may be passing up a good thing. Don't ignore that persistent tug; go with it and see where it leads.

The ideas that flutter in the half-light of our conscious mind are those that make us think, that make us laugh, or cry, or scream. (Otherwise you would have forgotten them long ago.) These ideas may be nothing more than a scene, a single character, perhaps something as small as a phrase. Or they might be an entire plot line, an epic journey that you have been mentally planning for years. But whether large or small, these threads are important to you, and because of this you can weave them into a work of art.

Some writers we have worked with have passed up these faint cries for attention and then gone on to pen strained and sterile work because the ideas they eventually work with don't engage them. Chances are the ideas you already possess, even if they are barely visible, have a personal significance. If you give them a chance, you will be able to draw on a wealth of personal emotion and experience in order to produce a literary work that truly connects with its readers.

Here's a great tip if you're stuck for something to write about. Open your eyes and look around you. There is material everywhere. Read old diaries or browse through your notebooks. Read newspapers and magazines for fascinating stories. Sit in a café and gaze out of the window. Listen to conversations, invent stories for the people who walk past and write them down. It may take a while, but if you pay attention to the world around you, then inspiration will come. The trick is not to go looking for the idea of a lifetime. Sit back, relax, soak up your surroundings, listen to the scraps of thought that flutter through your brain and before you know it you'll be running round the block screaming 'Eureka!'. At least when they let you out of hospital you'll have something to write about.

A technique for dealing with abstractions in your writing

Here at Infinite Authors we're often asked how you know if an idea is suitable for a poem. Any idea, however faint, that gets you excited, that touches a nerve, or evokes an emotional response can be the spark of inspiration. The trick is to fan that spark with enough strength to create a fire without flapping so much you blow it out. The biggest pitfall is going for the big topics, such as love, death, time, nature and God, without sufficient preparation. All poets tackle some of these subjects at some point - it's why poetry exists, and it would be unusual if you didn't want to at least try to explain through verse the reason you became a high priest in the Society of Waco. But in order to capture the essence of these abstract phrases you need to know how to keep it personal.

When you try to write about love, for instance, you're always in danger of obscurity and repetition. The word love isn't tied to anything specific, it's different for each and every person and nobody can pin down exactly what it feels like. The more abstract and high-flown the phrase, the less precise and evocative it will be. Try to avoid abstract terms altogether in your writing - it's difficult to empathise with a vague impression.

Try this. Make two lists, the first containing locations (a bathroom, a garage, a church) and the second containing abstract terms (love, anger, madness). Randomly pick a word from each list to make an abstract location, say 'the bathroom of madness'. Now write a short poem or prose piece describing the place, without using any abstract words (even the one you picked). The idea is to convey the feel of a place using the evidence of your senses and the truth of your own experience and not have to rely on meaningless, shadowy abstraction.

You can write about an abstraction without referring to it directly with subtle, personal hints rather than a slap in the face. Instead of using a poem to tell your reader about a terrifying experience, show them. In other words, don't use the word terrified (a reader's eyes will brush over it, it means nothing to them in the context of your poem), but try to convey the experience of being terrified - how you felt, what you were thinking. Everybody has been terrified at some point in their life, and if you evoke the way you were affected by the experience you can attract a reader's empathy.

I'm not necessarily talking about metaphors here: to write a poem about an old man visiting a cemetery might involve a headstone as a metaphor for the inevitability of death. This is a fairly obvious symbolic link. Instead, the same old man may be looking through his dead wife's wardrobe for things he can donate to charity and come across a tatty pair of shoes she wore forty years ago. The shoes aren't a direct metaphor, but they embody the sadness he feels at her passing. Through the object you can evoke a powerful, terrifying feeling of loss; the painful flood of returning memories; the distant abstract made flesh and soul. This is how powerful writing is born.

Lose your blinkers

Here's a great creative writing tip that we as publishers have passed on to many of our authors. It's about recording detail and it doesn't matter whether you're writing a novel that you're hoping to get published, or self publishing a business book or an encyclopedia of Bulgarian beetroot jokes.

Most of us claim to be observant, but are we? Can you accurately describe the house across the street without looking? Try it now! How about the woman who works in the local Co-op? The route you follow to visit a loved one? Our brains automatically ignore anything that isn't immediately relevant so we become blind to the all-important details. I was shocked the other day when I couldn't remember the colour of my daughter's rabbit, and she's had it for nearly ten years. I look at the rabbit every day but I don't see it properly because I don't like it.

Don't take the world for granted. Look at things you wouldn't normally look at and see them in a new light. Notice the candle burning through the dirty window across the street, the scuffed and long-forgotten wedding ring embedded in the fat, purple finger of the woman in the shop, the graffiti that says 'love sucks' that you pass on the way to your loved one. There are stories everywhere if only you'll look. Your job as a writer is to look for the detail that brings your own story to light. Learning to see the little things will give your work depth as well as fresh ideas, interesting locations and vibrant characters.

Buy a notebook, a small one that will fit in your pocket or your handbag. When you see a detail that resonates with your work jot it down. Write down snatches of conversation, interesting news reports, random interchanges. Draw pictures of a car that one of your characters might own or clothes in shop windows that would make the perfect outfit for one of your characters. Make notes everywhere you go; be the annoying sod who's so busy scribbling that you bump into the Big Issue bloke. Your notebook will become a scrapbook of apparent trifles that might just be vital. Scraps can bring your work to life.

There's a limit of course. It's good to be a detective but don't overplay your part. The average reader doesn't give a toss how many bricks make up your neighbour's wall, or how many times the lady in the wine shop hiccups before she gets your scotch into a bag, or the type of asphalt on your loved one's drive (unless, of course, your loved one is buried in it). You want just the details that will give colour to your characters and their world.

Get published in style!

If there's one thing publishers complain loudly about (rest assured there isn't just one) it's wannabe authors writing in a style that simply doesn't suit them and expecting to get published. The writing style you choose says an awful lot about you. Don't be shy and don't be false, just act naturally: like your sense of dress, your writing style should be personal and unique to you. 

You can't ignore the fact that literary texts are made up of words, and the choice of which words to use and why - style - is a fundamental issue facing any writer. You can say the same thing in countless different ways, so the way you decide to do it is a vitally important clue to the reader. It's like deciding what to wear when you step outside - you want your clothes to say something about you to whoever you're meeting. You don't wear a revolving bow tie when you visit your bank manager do you? (OK, I do actually, it's worth trying when you've nothing left to lose.) 

Your writing style should reflect your personality. How else can it be authentic? You might embark on a piece of writing using the language of your neighbourhood, or your childhood, a style of speaking that's extremely familiar to you and highly colloquial on the page. You might be aiming for something more sophisticated, mixing a higher register of speech in with your familiar vocal patterns. Or you may be trying a completely different style, one as far removed from everyday speech as possible using language you've picked up from books or research. 

It's up to you what style you want to use, but try to stay true to yourself. If you try to write in a style that you're not comfortable with simply because you want to create a more literary effect you risk sounding false. That doesn't mean you shouldn't play around with new registers - try every style imaginable: humble, simple, rude, posh, learned, scientific, nonsense, arcane - but if you start including words that really don't fit in with your style, or feel you're straining to keep up a certain tone of voice, pause and evaluate what message or mood you're trying to convey.

One good way to find your natural style is to read your work aloud. You don't have to read it to anybody, just walk around reading to yourself. Listen for any discomfort in the language, any words that don't sound right, any cliches you didn't spot when writing. And listen to the shape of it, how well it rolls off the tongue, how well each line works and whether they combine to make a well rounded whole. You may feel a little silly talking to yourself, but it's worth it. If it sounds right it's probably your authentic voice.

Quite a few writers try to elevate the style to impress a lover/professor/parent. But more often than not it comes across as artificial: this isn't the writer speaking honestly, it's literary window dressing. Drop the act, and just be yourself. Believe me. It's tough enough to get published even with an authentic voice!

The trick to succeeding is quite simply to stop trying so hard. Don't try to be different, don't try to be clever. If you're reaching for your thesaurus every five minutes and trying to fit in words like prelapsarian you'll lose your reader very quickly. As Flaubert said, 'Style is life! It is the very lifeblood of thought!'