Authors Electric

Ocean surface wave. Jon Sullivan. I read a few ‘how-to write’ books when younger but as I remember, they concentrated mostly on how to lay out your book and how best to approach publishers. Apart from that, they directed you back to good writers with the instruction to pay attention to the way, for instance, dialogue was used to tell the story and reinforce character. These peeled back the Art a little, so you could take a look at the hidden art. Some things I’ve seen lately differ from this in that they seem to be trying to provide a formula or recipe for writing a story or novel. Write so many words, make chapters so long, put in so much description, add a certain mix of characters… O.C.E.A.N, for instance. It stands for:—  Openness — Conscientiousness — Extraversion — Agreeableness — Neuroticism  It began as a a tool used by psychologists to assess patients but has been co-opted by writers to help them build and understand character. Each of these qualities...

Has our lovely summer really drawn to a windy end? Can we not hope for a few more surprised, hot days before we dig out the thermal vests and furry slippers? What have you done this summer? Me? I’ve spent a lot of it thinking. What a glorious way to spend one’s time: reflecting. Not only on the work in progress, the cricket scores, the Brexit shambles - but everything in between. From the outside, nothing has changed, but I feel enriched by the hours of silent thought. But, while I’m revelling in all this thinking, I’m not selling books. There are no Facebook smiles for posting, ‘I’m living in my head for a while, and I’m very happy there.’ Stepping on from that, there are not Facebook emojis for, ‘I want to go away and think about this, and then maybe decide for myself’, nor , ‘This is complicated, I’m going to read more about the subject and come back to you.’ Nor, ‘please can give me more evidence.’ I’m fighting a soundbite world. We are repeatedly asked to sign thi...

As you know, I'm taking a few months to discuss the best self - published books I've come across. When I started this project, I was afraid that I would be forced to look at only or mostly fantasy and science fiction due to my process of relying on advertisements on social media to find self-published works (as I've mentioned before, one of the hardest things about selling self-published books is that it is incredibly hard to get people to find your work). A few weeks ago, however, I found out that my office neighbor had literally just self-published his first novel, so I asked to read it. My first joy was to discover that it was not a fantasy or science fiction novel. My second, was discovering that it was perfect for me to review for this blog series. 4. Murder Creek  by Matthew Boedy Set in the late 1990's, Boedy's novel tells the story of Wayne Michael Mathis, soon to be the last man to die in Georgia's electric chair, and his quest to find redem...

Real book, real author! We writers spend so much of our time chatting and promoting ourselves online, it's easy to forget there is a real world out there, one of real people and real bookshops. This was very much in my mind a couple of weekends ago when I was up in Scotland for a festival in my home town which was great fun and a marvellous opportunity to connect with friends old and new.  Since I had a few hours 'spare' between checking out of my friendly air bnb and catching my flight home from Edinburgh airport, I thought I should build on my face-to-face experiences with a bit of salesmanship of the door-to-door kind.  In good company in the Fox Talbot Museum at Lacock Abbey My latest book, In the Blink of an Eye , is set mainly in Fife and Edinburgh, by the way,so  a call to B&M bookshops was on the cards; especially niche outlets where I thought the book would sit well and some of whom I, or publishers Linen Press, had already contacte...

Like many writers, I have a cat living with me. At least, she lives with me when she feels like it... which means when it's feeding time, or when she's had enough of being wet and cold and fancies a warmer place to sleep. Her name is Jasmine, by the way, and I saved her from having to move out of her territory when my neighbours got a new puppy and needed to re-home their cat and her unexpected kittens. They, in turn, had found Jasmine as a skinny stray hiding under a parked car and had no idea she was pregnant until the night she gave birth under their son's bed... so she's been 'saved' at least twice in her life so far. Seven more lives to go, then. And you're still reading this! Which proves that saving cats must be deeply buried somewhere in our psyche as a Decent Thing To Do, and brings me to my book recommendation for this month. Save the Cat! is a book about screenwriting by Blake Snyder, who has written successfully for Hollywood so ...

To Music (An Die Musik ,) by Franz von Schober, set by Schubert You, noble Art, in how many grey hours, When life's mad tumult wraps around me, Have you kindled my heart to warm love, Have you transported me into a better world, Transported into a better world! Often has a sigh flowing out from your harp, A sweet, divine harmony from you Unlocked to me the heaven of better times, You, noble Art, I thank you for it, You, noble Art, I thank you! It’s a bit clunky and sounds much better in the original German, but it gives a flavour of what music may mean. I’m writing this still on a high from days of the glorious stuff, after one of the great joys of our year, the Purbeck International Chamber Music Festival. It’s brilliant! It started this year with three concerts in three venues in one day, beginning with Schubert’s Winterreise - sung by a mezzo, which is unusual, I think. She was absolutely wonderful. We were giv...

I am just coming to the end of the editing marathon for my next crime novel In Her Defence , and nervously awaiting final corrections and comments. As always the section that has been poured over and fretted upon is that first chapter. Yes, the end matters almost as much, but I am very aware, to the point of near paranoia, of the need to start with a hook. Those opening few pages are all important, and increasingly so when so many potential readers will be using the ‘look inside’ feature on Amazon to sample your wares.   So what constitutes the opening hook? The first page? Two pages? Three? Taking a quick glance at Kindle books the Amazon Look Inside function varies on how much of a taster you are allowed and depends on the quantity of prelims, but three to five pages of story available to read seems to be the average. When a page is around 300 words on average it’s a scary prospect to realise that the decision to read my many months of work will be judged by the firs...